452 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 10 
where they remained nearly a year. They were then 
left in one corner of the bin without any covering 
two years longer. It was then found that six out of 
the 20 varieties had been injured by insects. The 
shrinkage of the 14 which were weighed varied from 
nothing up to nearly five percent, the average shrink¬ 
age being about 2)4 per cent. The report states that 
the wheat experimented with was thrashed out of 
the shock after standing in the field during, at least 
four weeks of fair drying weather. The average loss 
from shrinkage in this experiment at the price named 
amounts to about two cents on a bushel. This ex¬ 
periment does not, of course, take account of shrink¬ 
age from injury by insects or vermin, neither does it 
take into account the cost of storing. 
Ohio State University. thomas f. hunt. 
LIME HAS BROUGHT THE SOIL TO TIME. 
SWEETENED THE CUP FOR CLOVER AND TIMOTHT. 
We in this county believe that it has been truthfully 
said that fa-mers can use pitchforks more weeks and 
months in the year than any other county in the 
United States. Were it not for our good grass, Cat¬ 
taraugus would be one of the most miserable counties 
in New York State. But of late years, for some cause, 
our meadows and pasture have become, in many in¬ 
stances, a failure. We have failed in getting our 
meadows and pastures to grow clover and Timothy as 
in years gone by. We prepare our land the best we 
know how, manure and fertilize all we can afford, and 
sow more seed than we did years ago. The clover and 
Timothy germinate and make a start, but as the 
months pass along, the seeding becomes thin, and as 
the year comes around, the clover and Timothy have 
become minus for anything like a meadow. We can 
plainly see the effect, and we try to console our¬ 
selves by a cause. Sometimes we attribute it to the 
drought, at other times to the frost, then again, the 
season was not right some way. 
But now some of our experiment stations have in¬ 
vestigated and experimented with different soils, and 
tell us that the reason we fail in getting our seeding 
to grow and become a meadow is that our soil has 
become sour. There has developed an acid in our 
soil that is detrimental to the growth of clover and 
Timothy. Now, to the credit of The R. N.-Y., kindly 
assisted by Chas. O. Flagg, director of the Rhode Island 
Experiment Station, we were furnished a class of 
reading which tells us how to test our soils, and what 
to use to overcome this acidity. We had the faith to 
try the experiment, it being done with our common 
stone lime. We sowed broadcast on our land air- 
slaked lime, and thoroughly cultivated it into the 
soil. Our land is what would be called gravelly 
loam, dark yellow soil, with many smooth, flat stones 
intermixed. The land has been thoroughly tilled, 
and for the past 15 years has been either liberally 
manured, or from 200 to 300 pounds of fertilizer 
per acre applied. We could grow on most of the land 
a fair crop of grain, mostly oats. 
In 1896, I purchased a car-load of air-slaked lime, 
30 tons, spread the most of it on 16 acres, plowed the 
previous fall, sowed about one bushel of oats, three- 
fourths bushel of barley and one-half bushel Canada 
peas per acre, and seeded with 12 quarts of Timothy 
and clover seed per acre, half and half. As to the 
grain, it was a good crop. The straw was good length 
and stiff, the heads well filled, but the main thing I 
was after was clover, and I have it. There is not 
just a uniform mass of clover over the whole field on 
account of incompetent help in spreading the lime ; 
but as a whole field, it’s a tine show for a meadow. I 
have to-day cut Timothy and clover from one rod 
square which weighed 191 pounds. The Timothy is 
not headed, few clover heads are to be seen, and it is 
still growing very frost. On the east side of the field, 
I lacked lime to cover about one-half acre. The land 
was cultivated all alike and fertilizsd 300 pounds to 
the acre. Where there was no lime, at the opening 
of spring, not a spire was to be seen. Right from the 
start of the lime, the contrast is very marked. 
Through the middle of three acres, we left a few 
paces unlimed except what the wind blew when 
being spread, and perhaps a little harrowed through 
it by cultivating. It’s no meadow. I have now 
limed all the unlimed parts, and seeded to clover. 
Some portions of the south end of the field were not 
properly limed, and the contrast is apparent. There 
is, on three acres out of the sixteen, more actual 
cattle food standing on the ground to-day, June 17, 
than there has been in any five years since I have 
owned the farm—28 years. 
Another very marked and striking difference is 
that, where the lime was evenly put on and plenty of 
it, no sorrel is to be seen. On the other hand, where 
the lime was unevenly spread, the sorrel is quite 
visible. Now, the land above described was culti¬ 
vated, fertilized, and last fall, a light dressing of 
barnyard manure was spread on the limedand un¬ 
limed all alike, not to exceed ten two-horse loads to 
the acre, and the marked result is that, where limed, 
there is a large growth of Timothy and clover; where 
there was no lime, there is no meadow. I now feel 
safe in saying that it is a fact that the lime has 
changed the condition of the soil, that gave the plants 
a better chance to grow. This land has long been in 
cultivation, perhaps more than 50 years, and with 
this test, I am led to believe that it had become sour. 
By testing the soil with the blue litmus paper before 
applying the lime, and taking soil from different 
parts of the field, the blue would turn red and stay 
red. Now, where the lime was mixed in the soil one 
year ago, the blue paper will not stay red, but will 
turn back quite blue. Last March, we took a sample 
of soil each from the limed and unlimed, five feet 
apart; the unlimed stayed red, the limed showed a 
prominent shade back to blue. 
Every farmer, I believe, should post himself to test 
his soils, and where the blue litmus paper stays a de¬ 
cided red, I believe it is time to stop spending time 
and money trying to make a meadow of the land, 
until it has been sweetened with lime. o. h. smith. 
SOME MAKESHIFTS OF THE FLOOD. 
HOW THEY LIVED DURING THE DELUGE. 
A few weeks ago, the great “ Father of Waters” 
jumped out of his bed and swept over the surrounding 
country in a flood of water. Very likely, The R. N.-Y. 
readers, whose homes are on safe, dry ground, will be 
interested in knowing how we lived during the 
“deluge.” During a trouble like this, the man who 
possesses a bit of forethought and inventive talent, 
fares far better than his less fortunately endowed 
neighbor. On hundreds of plantations, the pressure 
of the water rising rapidly under cabins and out¬ 
houses, and even large dwellings, lifted them off their 
pillars and whirled them away like bits of bark. The 
owner of another place, realizing that this must be 
the inevitable fate of his own property if something 
were not quickly done to avert danger, hurried over 
his entire plantation and ripped out several planks in 
every floor. The water was thus admitted to the 
house through the aperture, and the pressure trans¬ 
ferred to the top of the flooring, the result being that 
the houses stood firmly on their pillars during the 
entire overflow. 
This same man made it possible for his family, 
laborers and stock to continue living in these houses, 
by means of the following simple constructions : A 
lot of floating rails from fences were caught, and of 
these pens were built—log-cabin fashion—in every 
house over the apertures in the floors, and the planks 
from the aperture laid upon the pens to form a plat¬ 
form ; no nails were used, and as the water rose daily 
in the houses, other rails were added to the pen to 
elevate the platform sufficiently. Stoves and furni¬ 
ture were hoisted on barrels or anything at hand. 
Where brick was to be had, the bottoms of the broad, 
open fireplaces in most of the houses were built up 
above the water; but very few bricks were available, 
and the difficulty was obviated by building in the 
fireplaces a pen like the one above described, of logs 
and short rails, with old pieces of iron and boards 
forming a place on top whereon to make a fire for 
warmth and cooking purposes, the boards having to 
be replaced by others when they burned through. In 
many of these houses the water reached such height 
that the false hearths were within half a foot of the 
throat of the chimney, allowing only shallow cooking 
vessels to be used, and the poor women had trials and 
tribulations equal to Job’s, living and cooking for 
weeks in this cramped, wretched manner. 
In many instances where dwelling houses were 
near the breaks in the individual levees along sloughs 
and bayous, the inmates of the dwellings who had 
congratulated themselves on having provided their 
houses with pillars high enough to put their floors 
above the water mark, were horrified on finding 
themselves confronted with a danger for which they 
were wholly unprepared. The water, tearing with 
furious current through the breaks in these small 
levees, washed the dirt from under the pillars so 
swiftly as to put the house in imminent danger of 
crashing over. In several such cases, one man saved 
his own house as well as his neighbors, by construct¬ 
ing before the break a kind of fender in the follow¬ 
ing manner : Two lines of stout stakes were driven 
in the ground, the lines starting from the two front 
corner pillars of the house and meeting about 40 feet 
from the front steps. Planks were nailed along these 
stakes, and thus the angle they formed in the path of 
the on-rushing current, divided and carried it off in 
two directions, leading away from the sides of the 
house instead of directly under it. 
In instances where no plank could be had, pickets 
and boards were ripped off the fences and made to 
form the same kind of fender, by driving one end far 
enough in the ground to hold firmly. When boards 
and pickets were too scarce to allow placing them 
close together in the line, they were put several 
inches apart, and though the water wash ed through 
the openings to some extent, the whole served prac¬ 
tically to change the direction of the current and 
saved the house. 
Some kind of a boat was an absolute necessity for 
every householder, and thousands of people who had 
neither lumber nor money to buy it, were obliged to 
take planks from the ceilings and galleries of their 
houses and make of them what they called “bateaus.” 
which were, in fact, nothing but shallow boxes, six 
or eight feet long by three or four wide, and six or 
eight inches deep. The cracks were calked with cot¬ 
ton or rags, and smeared over with tar or mud to 
keep them from leaking. On these sorry crafts, these 
unfortunate people were forced to depend as a means 
to get to the stores for their scant food supply, and 
to move about from cabin to henhouse and stable in 
the care of their stock. Many white people as well 
as the poor negroes, were forced to share their one 
and two-roomed houses with their cow, horse, chickens 
and pigs, as stables seldom have any but dirt floors 
in this country, and it was a choice of taking the ani¬ 
mals in the house or seeing them drown before their 
eyes. The suffering of the poor animals was intense, 
standing in cramped rooms and on platforms, and 
thousands of cattle and horses had absolutely noth¬ 
ing to eat but the bundles of leaves and switches 
which their poor masters each day cut from trees in 
the woods and brought back in the crazy little boats. 
Several parties who had growing gardens, dug up 
their plants on hearing of the first breaks in the river 
levee, and before the water reached them that night, 
had nailed a plank around one side of the back gal¬ 
lery and thrown upon the floor of the gallery several 
inches of earth. In this the vegetables were planted ; 
each of the largest plants was put into a hastily made 
paper box, then set in the earth. In this way, a 
greater part of the garden was saved, and as soon as 
the water was well off the ground, the bottoms of 
the boxes were removed and the plants set back in 
their places in the garden. Thus these few people 
are able to exhibit well-grown garden plants a few 
days after the water has disappeared, where all around 
them, others are just beginning to sow seed. So much 
for energy and perseverance. 
But alas, energy and perseverance avail little, in 
trying to save the orchards. They invariably succumb 
to several weeks of standing water, and when the 
farmer who lost a fine orchard in 1890, sees the one 
he subsequently planted destroyed in like manner in 
1897, just as it was coming well into bearing, he has lit¬ 
tle heart, and is not very likely to go forth and plant 
another to be killed in the next overflow that comes. 
The peach—that best of all fruit trees—is always 
the first to wilt and die. Indeed, about the only 
fruit tree that seems able to endure three or four 
weeks of standing water is the plum, ordinary hardy 
varieties. It would seem, therefore, that the only 
means by which the overflowed regions of the South 
can hope to grow peaches hereafter, is the method of 
grafting the peach on the plum. I have been informed 
that this is possible, but have not yet had an oppor¬ 
tunity to see it tested. Surely, if this is a fact [It 
is.— Eds j, those who have tried the experiment suc¬ 
cessfully would confer a great boon on this suffering 
section of the country, by giving their experience on 
the subject to the people, through the medium of the 
farm papers that reach them. m. lane griffin. 
Mississippi. _ 
The Farmers’ Club. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of 
the writer to insure attention. Before asking a question please 
see whether it is not answered in our advertising columns. Ask 
only a few questions at one time. Put questions on a separate 
piece of paper.l 
STARTING GRASS IN A WOOD. 
HOW TO DO IT 1 WHAT GRASS ? 
I have about 20 to 30 acres of thin woods that afford very poor 
pasture. The timber is mostly White oak, Sugar maple, etc., ex¬ 
cept about 10 acres of creek bottom which is elm, Hackberry, 
Burr oak, etc. What can I sow on it to make it good pasture, 
with or without underbrushing ? I had thought of sowing 
Timothy this fall, and Red clover in spring, but have read much 
of the good qualities of Blue grass. When is the best time to sow 
the last, and will it do well in this latitude—northwestern Ohio, 
Paulding County ? Would grass seed catch in this woods without 
plowing or harrowing ? What method shall 1 pursue ? The land 
is not underdrained, but has good natural drainage. J. a. b. 
Melrose, Ohio. 
None of the good perennial pasture grasses will 
grow well in a grove. They cannot endure to be 
shaded, either by trees or broad-leaved weeds, or 
even by dead leaves. Kentucky Blue grass, which, 
no doubt, is native and common in Paulding County, 
is a choice pasture grass, but must have open air and 
sunshine. Orchard grass grows very well under trees, 
as in orchards, whence its name, and is very enduiing 
and very quick to present new blades after being 
eaten or mowed off. While young and tender, it is 
freely grazed by cattle, but if allowed to run up to 
