52 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
JAN 25 
me that published estimates of the cost of 
farm products are quite commonly put too 
high. If labor and other expenses charged 
against the farm are to be set down at 
prices which show a profit on every item, 
then it is not reasonable to expect much 
profit on the final result. Wages, seed, 
horse-feed, board of men, use of tools, in¬ 
terest and rent, are often charged against 
a crop by the papers at an advance over a 
fair valuation, which easily runs the crop 
in debt, and which may be partially respon¬ 
sible forthe parrot’s conclusion that “ farm¬ 
in’ don’t pay.” 
Montana, page 695: Referring to the 
remark quoted that only those should go to 
Montana who want homes and are not able 
to buy them, I would ask if these should not 
be the last class to go to a new country ? 
If a four years’ residence there qualifies one 
to answer that question, I should say, em¬ 
phatically : “ Yes.” If such people would 
only rustle and economize where they are 
as they would have to do in a new settle¬ 
ment, they would in most cases save time 
in gaining a home, and would escape the 
hardships, privations and risks, which are 
inevitable to the poor in pioneer life. 
Do Seeds Run Out ?—Prof. Sanborn is 
probably right in holding that seeds do not 
run out—page 695. At any rate my exper¬ 
ience with Early Ohio Potatoes points that 
way. I began with planting one peck of 
that variety in ’79, and harvested 27 
bushels. The next year I raised 1,800 
bushels on six acres. I have grown them, 
now, continually for 11 years without 
change, and for the last seven years on the 
same ground and this season got a yield 
of 325 bushels per acre on a nine-acre field. 
The ground was carefully measured and 
the potatoes were weighed. 
A Refuge from Potato Bugs.—To 
escape potato beetles or to find seed pota¬ 
toes uninjured by arsenical poisons it is not 
necessary to go outside of the United 
States: eastern Kansas is, in these re¬ 
spects, as hapily situated as eastern Can¬ 
ada. (Page 697.) The Colorado potato 
bugs have done no damage in this part of 
Kansas (Wyandotte County) since I came 
here—in ’76—though they have each year 
been present in small but decreasing 
numbers. This season I have seen but 
four specimens in my patch ot 200 acres. 
Edwardsville, Kansas. 
NOTES ON NO. 2076, NOVEMBER 9, 
1889. 
A FARMER’S GIRL. 
In taking up this number the first thing 
I see is a picture of a lovely La Marque 
Rose on the house of James Shinn. Every 
time I look at it I very nearly break one of 
the commandments which says : “ Thou 
shalt not covet.” We have running over 
our portico a red rose which is 17 years old. 
It blooms in clusters once a year, and some¬ 
times there will be seven different shades 
of red on the one vine. 
In H. S. W.’s article he expresses his be¬ 
lief that if the farmers would take more 
papers with which to interest the boys, 
more of them would stay on the farm. I 
think this very good reasoning and if all 
farmers were like my father they would 
take more papers. One hears so many farm¬ 
ers say : “I can’t afford to take a paper.” 
Father says : “I can’t afford to do without 
one.” At present he is taking nine. We 
think a paper is one of the things that pays 
for itself. Father’s plan for interesting 
his boys and girls (there are 10 of us) besides 
furnishing us with good reading matter, is 
to give each of us who is old enough a 
share in the farm, and there are five of us 
over 15 years of age. One, a boy, is at col¬ 
lege. - The other four of us who are with 
father and mother, are alj able to work and 
so we organize a partnership of six under 
these conditions—and I want you to note 
how liberal father is. Father furnishes 
the farm, tools, cows, horses, sheep and, in 
fact, everything that is to be found on a 
good farm. We all get our board, clothes 
and everything we want from the products 
sold, and what is left is equally divided 
among us six. 
In this way each one has his or her special 
work to do and we generally do it so that 
it will bring the most profit. My sister 
makes the bread and does the cooking and 
other house-work assisted by mother. 
I do the dairy work and make the butter 
from eight cows, take care of the calves, 
and am what you might call a “chore 
girl” about the house; that is, I have no- 
regular work about the house to do, as my 
work is in the milk-house. One of the boys 
takes care of the hogs, carries the milk 
from the barn to the milk-house as soon as 
the buckets are filled, so that it will not 
become tainted. He then strains it through 
a thin cloth into the cans, sets the cans in 
the water, and by that time we milkers 
have the other buckets full and ready to 
strain. Our buckets have strainers at¬ 
tached to them so it is not much trouble to 
strain out of them through a cloth. The 
other boy, who is the oldest, works with 
the team and helps mother and me milk. 
There is much talk in the papers about the 
women folks milking ; but for my part I 
would sooner milk a pretty, little Jersey 
cow than do anything else, so as mother is 
like myself we generally make the men 
folks get out of the stable when milking¬ 
time comes around. All I want them to 
do is to feed the cows well and keep the 
stables well cleaned. Father looks after 
the sheep, feeds the cows, and looks after 
things generally. When work is pressing 
we hire a hand. 
In this way each one of us knows just 
how much everything we get costs, and 
what everything that is sold urings, and 
we keep a strict book account, with father 
as banker, and myself as book-keeper. At 
the end of the year we settle up and the 
surplus money is equally divided, and as 
we each have a bank account we pretty 
generally know what a dollar is worth. 
Father believes in giving his children good 
chances, and if none of us is inclined to 
stay on the farm we do not leave it hating 
the very sight of it, with visions floating be¬ 
fore our eyes of “ hard work and poor pay,” 
as many of the farmers’ sons and daughters 
do who leave the farm. 
Speaking of farmers combining to buy 
tools, reminds me that father and three of 
his neighbors bought a corn-crusher be¬ 
tween them. The sum each paid was very 
small, and it saves all four of them the 
trouble of hauling their corn a distance of 
10 miles to get it crushed. 
I read with interest the reports of a few 
dairymen in regard to the effect different 
feeds have on the color of butter. I do not 
like the expression C. M. Lusk uses when 
he says that ground buckwheat made 
white butter of an inferior quality similar 
to winter butter. Some people have the 
notion that one can’t make yellow butter 
in the winter time; but our butter is as 
yellow in the winter as it is in the summer. 
We simply feed good clover hay, fodder, 
bran, ground corn, beets and a little 
cotton-seed meal. I think it is about time 
farmers should stop making white butter. 
We have made butter for three years and 
only once during this time have we had 
white butter, and that once was when, 
through carelessness, the cows hadn’t any¬ 
thing to eat but straw and bran for a day, 
and the cream saved that day turned out a 
white, sticky butter, similar, I suppose, to 
the kind Mr. Lusk referred to. This is the 
kind of butter people make who let their 
cows run to the straw-stack and take care 
of themselves. 
Speaking about sheep, father likes noth¬ 
ing better than turnips to feed his sheep, 
giving turnips along with plenty of grain, 
so as to keep the animals in good order 
during the winter. 
About “ Marketing Crops,” father does 
like J. W. D., and feeds all the corn, hay, 
fodder, etc., raised on the place. Oats he 
considers not worth raising in this part of 
the country. He always has early spring 
pigs that he keeps through the summer on 
a field of clover, giving them all the skim- 
milk from the milk-house. They also have 
the run of the orchard, and in the latter 
part of summer, when clover begins to fail, 
he feeds bran and shorts, mixed with milk, 
and then gives plenty or corn to get them 
in good order. These pigs he sells on foot 
to the river men who raise plenty of corn, 
and they finish fattening them. Father 
has had pigs that dressed 200 pounds when 
five months old. We always keep two to 
four hogs for our own use. These with the 
addition of 650 pounds of beef, dressed,, 
make all the meat that we use. 
About selling butter: We do not sell 
our butter to a store, but deliver it to reg¬ 
ular customers at 25 cents per pound, the 
year ’round. This is a good price for these 
parts. This summer, butter got as low as 
six cents a pound ; but butter that brought 
such a price wasn’t as good as good grease 
or butter-milk cheese. By the way, I 
would like to know if any of the Rural 
readers make butter like a family I know 
of. They save strippings and cream and 
when they are sour pour them into a stone 
churn. They get the mixture as warm as 
can be, and as they have a fire-place, when 
they are ready to churn, they rake a large 
pile of hot coals out on the hearth, set the 
churn on these and go to work churning. 
Consequently when they are through they 
have a churn full of white butter, and 
nothing is left but whey. If dairymen who 
keep no hogs would make butter in this 
way, it would answer the question: 
“ What shall we do with the butter-milk ?” 
I hope, however, that none of the RURAL 
readers make butter in this way; I know 
that if they only read the Rural carefully 
they would know better. Butter made in 
this way is worth no more than six cents 
per pound. 
If I were F. H. S. 1 would raise less and 
do without hiring so much farm help. 
After all Mr. Greeley says about the 
men’s shoes and clothes costing more than 
women’s, one can hardly get a man to 
think so. It takes so little for a woman to 
look nice and neat, and yet it is this neat¬ 
ness that the men think expensive. But it 
is not so. A woman can economize and 
make over her dresses and they will look 
nice twice as long as men’s will. Whoever 
heard tell of a man wearing clothes with a 
patch on them without thinking that he 
looked awful ? Now a woman can patch 
her dress, fix some pretty trimming over 
the place and the dress will look none the 
worse. 
Like N. M. H., of Rose, N. Y., we prefer 
the Davis Swing Churn. It is so easily 
kept clean, and where there are plenty of 
children on the farm they can very easily 
do the churning. My brother, aged 10, as¬ 
sisted by his sister who is younger, does all 
our churning, but we never churn enough 
cream at a time to make more than eight 
or 10 pounds of butter. 
Those who delight in making over their 
old dresses will find very interesting read¬ 
ing in the sketches of how to make their 
dresses over, but maybe some of the read¬ 
ers are like me: I have no more dresses to 
make over, having made all of mine over 
earlier in the season, whereas, if I had only 
waited until this number of the Rural had 
come, I could have made many improve¬ 
ments. 
Who would have thought that such 
pretty ornaments could be made out of 
such common things as gourds, but I was 
in ecstasy over these pretty designs given 
in the Rural, until I happened to think 
that all my gourds had been killed by 
frost; but I will save this number and next 
year I will try to have some gourds. 
Scioto County, Ohio. 
NOTES ON NO. 2074, OCTOBER 26. 
B. F. JOHNSON. 
There is a great deal of character and 
expression in the figures and faces in the 
cartoon by Mr. Berghaus on the first page. 
Note the face of the young farmer who 
has left his team in the field, and is listen¬ 
ing to the seductive tramp who is begging 
his vote and influence, and also the couple 
of well-dressed gentlemen standing in front 
at the caucus. But the condition of the 
stock is rather better than one finds it 
on the premises of the farmer who gives a 
considerable portion of his time to politics. 
Fruit trees (page 706) do well on both 
heavy and light soils, provided there is no 
deficiency of moisture and no stagnant 
water. Witness the success of the Albe¬ 
marle Pippins on the eastern slopes of the 
Blue Ridge, where there are numerous 
springs bursting out and the orchards are 
bathed in fogs nearly every day in the hot 
months. Consult the location of the 
(Continued on Page 57.) 
£axm (Ltmumij. 
PIG TROUGHS. 
BT L. D. SNOOK. 
Most farmers seem to think that any 
kind of a trough is good enough for a hog 
to drink from. Be that as it may every¬ 
body knows that as soon as any liquid is 
turned in the trough all the hogs in the in¬ 
closure crowd about the spout to obtain the 
first taste, the weaker ones being obliged 
to wait until the bottom of the trough is 
flooded ere they can quench their thirst or 
appease their hunger. All this crowding 
and unequal feeding are regulated by 
the simple appliance shown in Fig. 22. 
A trough, A is located beside a fence or 
division in the pen, a board G, about a foot 
and a half wide is hinged to the portion at 
B. When feeding is to be done pull on the 
handle C when the position indicated by 
the dotted lines is assumed ; you can then 
pour in the swill or coarser feed and dis¬ 
tribute it evenly in the trough. The handle 
C is released and the occupants simultan¬ 
eously commence eating. The plan shown 
of Fig. 23, is intended to prevent crowding. 
SI LL 
Fig. 22. 
The top of the trough is divided in separate 
apartments by cleats as shown. They 
should be made of hard wood with rounded 
edges and firmly nailed not more than one 
foot apart. The plan shown at Fig. 22 
while more expensive is well worth the ex¬ 
tra outlay. 
Yates County, N. Y. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
fEvery query must be accompanied by the 
name and address of the writer to insure atten¬ 
tion. Before asking a question, please see if it 
is not answered in our advertising columns. 
Ask only a few questions at one time. Put 
questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
RAISING MUSHROOMS. 
D.W., Tanghannock Falls, N.Y.—l. Iam 
engaged in raising early lambs, and keep 
the temperature at from 50 to 60 degrees 
Fahr. Could I raise mushrooms with such 
a temperature ? 2. Is it necessary that 
horse manure should be free from straw ? 3. 
Could beds be built on shelves over the sheep 
and how should they be built? 4. Could 
the mushrooms be expressed from here to 
New York in good condition and where 
could they be sold ? 5. The soil here is 
gravel and muck ; would it do for mixing 
with manure for covering a bed ? Can the 
same beds be used more than once ? 
Ans.— 1. Yes. 2. No. Straw that has 
been used in bedding and Las been well 
wetted under the horses’ feet in the stable 
is a desirable addition to the droppings. 
3. Yes, but the shelves should be high 
enough from the ground so as to be above 
the reach of the sheep, say five to six feet 
above the ground. Build them alongside 
of the wall, two to three feet wide, braced 
from beneath, and with a 10 inch-wide 
board in front, as shown at Figs. 24, 25. 4. 
Yes. They ca n be sent in ch eap baskets each 
holding one to three pounds, and packed 
snugly in light, wooden boxes. You 
could make arrangements with some of 
theleading fruit stores or consign them 
to a commission merchant. Archdeacon 
& Company, No. 85 Barclay Street, 
are the commission merchants who 
handle most of the mushrooms. 5. Not 
