1901 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
579 
SHORT BITS OF FARM PRACTICE. 
Practical Experience Boiled Down. 
FERTILIZER ON GRASS.—We like to put a top- 
dressing of commercial fertilizer on the newly-seed¬ 
ed pieces, or those giving a good crop of Timothy, 
right after haying. It helps to bring a nice crop of 
rowen, and the crop for the ensuing year is pretty 
well insured, whether the season is wet or dry. We 
use a formula about as follows, putting on 500 to 800 
pounds per acre: 300 pounds nitrate of soda, 400 
imunds muriate of potash, 800 pounds dissolved S. C. 
rock, and 500 pounds tankage or cotton-seed meal. If 
there are any rains after haying, and there usually 
are, this will get right to work, and after the rowen is 
cut an aftermath will come up that is a great Winter 
protedtion. We try not to leave any bare fields for 
the Winter winds and snow to carry off all the fine 
best soil, but if too late for a crop put on rye. It 
often will furnish good pasture feed even when sown 
late, and prevents soil washing. 
EXTRA POTATO BEETLES.—Every year we hear 
'the same old story that Potaito bugs are worse than 
ever before, but somehow we believe it this year. 
We have seven acres, and have used already 24 
pounds of Paris-green, and some of the potatoes 
need going over again now. This potato season is 
something of an enigma; varieties that are usually 
mature about July 15 are now (August 7) in blossom 
and have been blossoming for a month. Potatoes 
have set, but seem to grow very slowly. Vines are 
luxuriant and would seem to promise full crop, yet 
it is not there, and we don’t know 
when it will be. It makes one rather 
tired nert to have potatoes to sell, but 
rather have to buy when they are 
wholesaling at ?1.75 per bushel. No 
such price known here before, but it 
has been fully thait for two weeks. A 
few have dug potatoes, but we have 
yet to find one who has a fair yield. 
SELLING BLUEBERRIES.—One of 
our retail milkmen gets $150 to $200 
every season from his pasture lot that 
doesn’t pass through the cow as grass 
and come out milk. His pasture has 
a large number of blueberry (some¬ 
times called billberry) bushes which, 
as the land is well fertilized by the 
cows, bear every year a fine crop of 
good-sized berries. He takes one or 
two crates every day on the milk 
wagon, and readily disposes of them 
at an average price of 10 cents per 
quart. This does not take over a half 
hour extra per day, and as the season 
lasts from four to eight weeks quite 
an income is secured. One man will 
pick from one to two bushels per day, 
and as they come in after haying, they 
are a profitable crop that requires no 
care and no outlay. 
CABBAGE PLANTS.—In the Spring 
we set out two lots of cabbage plants, 
mostly the same varieties, one lot 
from a local greenhouse, fine-looking 
plants taken right from the house to 
the ground, and set out on an ideal 
day, which at once began to grow. A 
few days later the other lot came 75 
miles by express, was not promptly 
delivered, so there was a day’s delay 
in setting. They were the meanest 
plants we ever saw, had been grown too thickly, and 
had long twisted spindle shanks. We hated co set 
them out and were tempted to write the sender a let¬ 
ter that we should hope would give him the blues. 
They were cold-frame plants, and were slow in start¬ 
ing, but they left the greenhouse plants, and we are 
selling a lot of extra fine cabbage from them. From 
the first lot hardly a head has as yet become salable. 
We can hardly account for it, but are glad we didn’t 
write that letter. A lot of spindly cauliflower plants 
from Maryland that we were tempted to throw away 
grew finely, and good heads are now forming. 
POOR HAY.—In a town only a few miles from here 
it is quite a common custom not to begin haying un¬ 
til the latter part of July and the first of August. The 
reason is that they can then get their extra help at 
from 50 to 75 cents per day cheaper. If the weather 
isn’t good, and it often is not through August, you 
find them haying into September. Another advantage 
of this late haying is that it can be cut and put in 
the barn the same day, no tedder required, and it 
saves any labor of cocking and opening again. This 
isn’t a fanciful sketch; it is truth. These men have 
never studied feeding cows for profitable results, 
nothing of protein or profitable dair}' feeds. They 
keep cows and haying is one of the dreaded incidents 
that must be got through with as cheaply as possible. 
No silos in town. They are not making any money. 
and never can, and t'heir farms are growing poorer 
every year. The boys leave them just as soon as they 
can, because there’s no money and no pleasure in 
this style of farming. They are set in their ways, 
and it would take quite an earthquake to get them 
out of the ruts they are in. Talk about cutting hay 
in June, and they would laugh at you, and say that 
there wouldn’t be any to cut then. It’s about so, for 
they pastured the meadows so late in the Pall and 
early Winter, and forgot to put any manure on them, 
that the grass doesn’t get very far by June. The 
farms are going down in value yearly, and it is rath¬ 
er a discouraging outlook. Cities need their college 
settlements, but towns like this are equally in need 
of an up-to-date dairyman who will run a farm on 
right principle, and make money out of it. You will 
find them laughing at first, but gradually you will 
find them copying his methods, and a different style 
of farming will ensue. ii. o. m. 
OCTAGONAL BARNS ARE NOT PRACTICAL. 
I wish to build a barn in the near fuiure, and have 
part of the frame material on hand, but lumber has 
risen greatly in price the last few years, hence I have 
thought of using a plank frame instead of the old 
style heavy frame. My barn as planned was to be 
42x60 feet, and 20 feet high at the eaves. Barns in 
ithis region are now built high, as it increases the 
storage capacity greatly. A barn of that height will 
hold double the amount of dry forage that the old 
style 12 to 14-foot barn held, and with the hay un¬ 
loading appliances now in use the necessity of ele- 
THE ERYNGIDM OR SEA HOLLY. Fig. 25.5. See Page 582 
vating the hay to that height is no hindrance. Thus 
the high barn is economical in space and also in cost, 
as it requires no more roof and foundation than a 
low barn, and yet has so much greater space, and 
the cost of the two last named items is of importance. 
These frames then are set upon basement frames and 
we have the whole basement for stabling live stock. 
At present the silos are being built here, and I have 
given some consideration to the project of building 
an octagonal barn, with a tub silo in the center, feed¬ 
ing alley next to that, and the live-s»tock stalls next, 
the animals thus facing the silo. I should want the 
barn to have a basement to be used for the live stock, 
and to have a drive floor above for hauling in and 
unloading hay, grain and stover, and also for cutting 
silage. I should expect to build silo 25 to 30 feet high. 
I have no definite plans, and want information as to 
whether the scheme is practicable. The matter 
summed up in a simple question is this: Is it prac¬ 
ticable to build an octagonal barn with silo in center 
with stalls in basement around silo, drive floor above, 
the frame of plank? j. b. m. 
Grantsville, Md. 
RKPI.Y BY .JOHN I,. SIIAWVEB. 
Your correspondent is correct in desiring a barn of 
good height, and 20 feet above basement is all right. 
1 would prefer 40x64 to 42x60, as we would thus find 
four spans of 10 feet each in basement and four spans 
of 16 feet each in superstructure. Though octagonal 
and circular barns make a good appearance, and en¬ 
close slightly more space than the rectangular barn, 
yet much of this space is useless, because of angles, 
and for the same reason there is quite a good deal of 
waste in cutting the material. In constructing the 
second floor alone there is a waste of several hundred 
feet of timber. Besides that, I would not place a silo 
inside the barn at all, but build it at one end or side, 
entirely separate from the barn, to avoid much of tlie 
odor from the silage, which becomes obnoxious inside 
the barn. The inquirer can use the plank system on 
an octagonal barn very advantageously, but I believe 
that if he investigates the matter well he will never 
build that shape. I know of several who have built 
octagonal barns who say that they would not do so 
again, and some who have built their second barns 
rectangular. The round and the octagonal barns are 
much better for the eye and the imagination than 
they are for the pocketbook or the farmer’s con¬ 
venience. 
HEAVY GRASS IN CONNECTICUT. 
You ask in a recent issue of The R. N.-Y. for re¬ 
ports from those who have tried the “Clark method’’ 
of grass seeding. I have read for some time about 
this method, but never tried it until last season (1900) 
and then I was not able to give the land the many 
repealted harrowings and cross-harrowings thought 
necessary by Mr. Clark, neither did I have one-half 
dozen or more implements that are manufactured by 
Mr. Clark to do what I did on .it. True, I had the 
Cutaway harrow, but not another of 
the Clark tools. My land Is a heavy 
clay loam, lies sloping towards the 
west mostly, and this five-acre piece, 
which I seeded on September 1, 1900, 
has been in grass for five or six years. 
It had been mown every year, some¬ 
times once and in its earlier seeding 
twice if weather was damp enough to 
produce a second crop, until it had 
nothing on it in 1900 but daisies. We 
covered two acres of this piece with 
barnyard manure and plowed it in, 
after the daisies began to bud, letting 
the land lie without cropping. 'After 
haying was completed we harrowed 
this two acres with the Cutaway har¬ 
row repeatedly until very mellow. 
Three acres lying beside the two al¬ 
ready plowed were plowed after Au¬ 
gust 1, 1900, and these were also work¬ 
ed with the Cutaway harrow many 
times, how many I do not know, but 
much more than I ever did any other 
piece in my life; in fact, we worked 
that five acres so mellow that it was 
practically dust. Then we put 5:0 
pounds of Mapes corn manure on the 
three acres plowed after August 1, dis¬ 
tributing it with a Missouri drill even¬ 
ly. August 31 it was reharrowed again 
with the Cutaway harrow, and Septem¬ 
ber 1 it was sown and rolled in with a 
roller. I used a bushel of seed per 
acre, 14 quarts Timothy, 14 cleaned 
Red-top and four Mammoth clover. In 
a night or two we had a very fair 
shower, and the seed came up and 
looked like a lawn. The continued dry 
weather of the Fall of 1900 was not 
conducive to its benefit, and* it pined 
and died out somewhat, but this Spring we had rain 
galore, and it took on new life and looked fine. About 
May 1 we sowed 200 pounds per acre (on the whole 
five acres) of corn manure. The hay is now in our 
barn, but has not been weighed. Some time this 
coming Winter it will be sold, and then it will be 
weighed. I had 14 large loads of hay on the five acres 
and I guess about 20 tons. When it is weighed I will 
let you know the amount. I made one mistake in 
seeding, that was in not going over our land after 
the last harrowing with the Cutaway harrow, with a 
smoothing harrow or a weeder. The seed lodged in 
the hollows made by the Cutaway harrow teeth, and 
the lot looked as if the grass seed had been put in 
with a drill. The next time I do this kind of a job 
I shall take my Success weeder (and it is a grand 
success by the way) and harrow the land both ways, 
thus distributing and mixing the seed evenly all 
through the land, and then roll it. 
Connecticut. newton osborn. 
R. N.-Y.—Two years ago we described Mr. Osborn’s 
farm and methods of fertilizing. He has been in the 
habit, we think, of seeding to grass with grain, fol¬ 
lowing much the same rotation as that of Mr. D. C. 
liewis, in New Jersey. This experience shows what 
can be done with “cutting across the rotation’’ on an 
old meadow. Mr. Clark does not claim that his tools 
are absolutely necessary to produce a good yield of 
grass, but we think he is right in saying that some 
form of digging harrow is heeded. 
