i89o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
73 
(Coenjinljm', 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
(Continued from Page 67.) 
weeks at a time without even a frost at 
night. Wheat is a beautiful sight; it is so 
green, covering the ground on most fields. 
This is a clay country and the roads for the 
last six weeks have been almost impassa¬ 
ble. Prices of farm products are very low 
with no prospect of betterment at present 
—beef, cents ; pork, four cents; wheat, 
78 cents ; corn, old, 45 cents ; oats, 20 cents. 
D. A. c. 
Tennessee. 
Northville, Cumberland County, Janu¬ 
ary 11.—We are having the warmest winter 
ever known here : there has been no frost. 
Grass is growing as well as in spring. 
Buds are bursting on the trees, and winter 
wheat is so far advanced that the farmers 
fear it will be ruined if a cold spell should 
come next month. Peach and plum trees 
are in full bloom. Flowers in the woods 
look as if summer had come. H. H. G. 
Vermont. 
Georgia, Franklin County, December 20. 
—My best paying crop for the year ’89 was 
potatoes. My land is naturally dry and of 
a limestone formation—a gravelly loam, 
which produces potatoes of the best quality 
and a fair yield. They are not much sub¬ 
ject to rot, and prices in this vicinity are 
usually good, and have been especially so 
this year. My mode of cultivation is after 
the ground is plowed to take a Clark’s 
Cutaway harrow and thoroughly 
pulverize the soil, and then with 
an Aspinwall potato planter dis¬ 
tribute the pieces 17 inches apart 
in the row. The pieces are cut from 
good-sized potatoes and have two 
eyes each, and at the same time 
the fertilizer attachment distrib¬ 
utes about 400 pounds of fertilizer 
to the acre. After the potatoes 
have been planted about a week, I 
go over them with a butterfly 
smoothing harrow, harrowing the 
ground thoroughly and following 
with the same tool once or twice 
more until the plants are high en¬ 
ough so that I can follow the rows 
with a cultivator. The Higganum 
and Planet Jr., are the imple¬ 
ments I use. The cultivators are 
used as often as once a week until 
the tops are too large. They are 
run shallow except at the first 
cultivation which is deep, and I 
make but slight ridges. Most of 
my potatoes were dug with a 
Pruyn potato-digger manufactur¬ 
ed at Hoosick Falls, N. Y., which 
does good work; so there will be 
no more hand digging for me. 
My land yielded, on an average, 
per acre 150 bushels of merchant¬ 
able potatoes and but few small 
ones. They sold at from 50 cents to 
75 cents a bushel, or, on an aver¬ 
age, the whole crop sold for 55 cents per 
bushel, making the sales per acre over SO 
dollars. If it had not been for the blight in 
the fore part of August I should have had 
a large yield. One field was plowed in the 
fall of 1888, a heavy crop of clover having 
been turned under. This field gave me the 
best yield. One field of a heavy Timothy 
sod was plowed just before planting and 
one field of clover sod at the same time; 
both yielded about alike, but not as much 
as the one plowed the fall before; but my 
surprise was greatest with regard to a field 
in which I had planted corn last year, man¬ 
uring the land with 20 two-horse loads of 
stable manure and plowing in as much 
more this season, but not using any com¬ 
mercial fertilizer. This field yielded the 
least per acre and the potatoes were poorer 
in quality than any that I raised, besides 
rotting considerably. With a good clover 
sod and a good growth of clover on it 
plowed under in the fall, and perhaps the 
use of a little commercial fertilizer applied 
when planting, with good seed from large- 
yielding varieties and with extra good til¬ 
lage, I can raise potatoes at a good profit. 
I shall add to my tools the Universal 
Weeder. My future course of rotation will 
be, after potatoes, barley seeded with clover; 
then I shall mow the clover the year 
after, sow barley iu June and leave it to de¬ 
cay on the ground, and then plow in the 
second crop in the fall for potatoes the 
next year. M. c. 
Virginia. 
Uprervillk, Fauquier County.—On 
closing farming operations each year, my 
books by double entry are likewise closed, 
and in this way I know to a certainty 
whence “ cometh the profits.” I find that 
for the past year—1889—my best paying 
crop, or product, is corn, then follows as 
named, hay, colts and calves, wheat, hogs 
and beef cattle. We raise colts and calves 
which at three years of age sell at profit¬ 
able figures. You will recognize this as 
mixed farming, yet I do not follow any ro¬ 
tation of crops, or any rotation of cultiva¬ 
tion by fields. My system leads me to cul¬ 
tivate sufficiently to keep the land well set 
in Blue Grass sod and Timothy and clover. 
In the line of wheat and corn, deducting 
that used for bread, the balance of 
both products is placed upon the market 
and the straw and fodder with some corn, 
and also hay, are fed to farm stock. Upon a 
careful calculation based upon the produc¬ 
tions of a number of years, I find that it re¬ 
quires the raising of 10 bushels of wheat 
per acre to cover in full all expense of the 
crop from a sowing of bushel of wheat 
and 250 pounds of commercial fertilizer to 
the acre. All above the 10 bushels per acre, 
is net profit. Yet another profit in wheat 
culture lies in the fact of the soil being 
placed in a better condition for the well set¬ 
ting and seeding of grass. Cattle (stockers) 
from Southwest Virginia we buy in the 
fall. They are fed through the following 
winter on fodder, straw and generally corn, 
turned on grass the latter part of April 
and are ready for market any time after 
July following the fall purchase. However, 
the prices for beef cattle this season left 
little margin for net profit and this fall, 
stockers are so scarce and held at such high 
figures that I have concluded for the year 
1890, not to handle any purchased cattle. 
Wisconsin. 
LANEY, Shawano County, December 28. 
—A patch of green peas gave the best re¬ 
turns for my labor. The yield was 30 bush¬ 
els to the acre and they are worth about 60c. 
a bushel. This will give more money than 
can be realized from any other crop that I 
have raised the past season. I think it will 
pay to increase this crop for next year; for, 
in the first place, peas pay as well as any 
other crop and there is not much risk in 
growing them, and instead of requiring the 
best ground, as wheat does, peas will leave 
the soil in good condition for winter wheat 
or any other crop. This has been my ex¬ 
perience for several years. Among pro¬ 
ducts of a more concentrated form sheep 
and hogs pay best, in the order named. I 
have been an interested reader of the Rural 
for more than two years, and consequently 
I hope to make the farm pay better.in the 
future. N. N. 
fftvm Copies. 
UNLEACHED MANURE. 
The R. N.-Y. has had a good deal to say 
about the bulletin on manures issued by 
the Cornell Experiment Station. This is a 
subject that will stand any amount of dis¬ 
cussion. TheR. N.-Y.’s remarks and illus¬ 
tration, see Fig. 28, are induced by the fol¬ 
lowing note: 
“stop it.” 
The R. N.-Y. for January 18, referring to 
the waste of manure says : “ stop it!” The 
next thing in order is to tell the readers 
THE COVERED BARN-YARD OF THE CORNELL ^UNIVERSITY BARN. From Bulletin' No. 13. I Fig. 28. ” 
For reasons which may be gathered from 
the before named, I have decided upon 
raising the following crops and products 
for the year 1890—viz.; wheat, corn, oats, 
hay, hogs, and young stock (colts, calves, 
etc.,) and the renting out of my extra pas¬ 
turage. With the exception of the last few 
years, the largest profits on the farm have 
been from the marketing of beef cattle, and 
hence you easily perceive the necessity of 
raising such crops as will furnish the re¬ 
quisite feed to keep stockers through the 
winter. The corn crop having given me 
better profits than any of the other crops, 
I intend next season to bestow extra care 
on that crop. I shall use commercial fer¬ 
tilizers with the coru planter in the row, 
and after the corn is above ground, I shall 
use a home-made preparation on each hill, 
following this with thorough cultivation 
for the season. I find that less acreage in 
cultivation and a bestowal of extra care 
with proper tillage always gives the larg¬ 
est returns. 
Perhaps I should not omit the horses and 
cows, the large vegetable garden, the extra 
large fruit orchard and the paying poultry 
yard. These are the useful, the ornamen¬ 
tal, the indispensable, and the always ac¬ 
ceptable—the sinews and stepping stones 
for the production of the greater food for 
the millions. Their value and their profits 
are known and are permanent and cannot 
be too highly estimated. The intelligent, 
thoughtful, energetic, active farmer never 
undervalues these and with a well balanced 
judgment, makes the farm p* b. s. h\ 
how to “ stop it.” The problem is not only 
how to save the manure, but also how to 
make the best plant food from the manure 
saved. To do this the liquids and solids 
must be so mixed that when put on the 
land, the roots of each plant to be fed, can 
have access to the ingredients of each. 
The best results can never be reached by 
saving the liquids and solids separately. 
Neither are complete plant foods used 
separately. 
There is another matter to be taken into 
consideration in connection with this ques¬ 
tion—the decomposition of the rock forma¬ 
tion of the earth is the starting point of the 
fertility of the earth. This process of de¬ 
composition is Nature’s way of growing and 
ripening plant food. When the food is ripe, 
the plants can use it and thrive on it. 
It is supposed that there is in all our gar¬ 
den and field soils much unripe and unde¬ 
veloped plant food. Progressive agriculture 
requires us to pay attention to the ripening 
and drawing of plant food from the soil—as 
the clover rotationists are doing—as well as 
to the application of plant food to the soil. 
Some of our best practical farmers claim 
that stable manure mixed with the soil de¬ 
velops or ripens much more plant food 
from the soil thau chemical fertilizers do, 
and therefore that the practical value ot an 
application of stable manure for a term of 
five years is higher than its chemical value; 
the chemist gives it no credit for its devel 
oping capacity. 
My plan for saving all the manure, for 
making the very best quality of plant food 
and for getting the full benefit of «the de¬ 
veloping capacity of the manure, is this: 
our cows stand over a water-tight basement 
cellar. Doors are on the south-east side ; 
a space 10 feet in width, next to these, is 
covered by a shed connecting with the barn 
and low enough to allow windows over 
the shed roof, to light the cow stable; the 
tie-up for the cows is over the middle of 
the cellar. The back section 10 feet wide 
is used as a store-room for field soil, and is 
filled by dumping from a drive-way in 
front of the cows. 
Our source of supply of absorbents is the 
surface soil of our cultivated fields. We 
often gather it after a crop of potatoes, fod¬ 
der corn, oats or barley, or in the spring 
before planting corn. We gather the dry 
soil in the ridges with a scraper, having 
sides six feet long, six inches wide, two 
inches thick, five feet apart in front, 15 
inches in the rear, and we shovel from 
the ridges into carts. In the cellar by 
putting a bank of soil on each side of a 
space five feet wide and directly under 
the liquid droppings from the cows, a mix¬ 
ing trough is formed: three inches in 
depth of the soil are spread on the bottom, 
and about twice a week the solid manure is 
spread, and then soil enough is thrown over 
it to hold all that falls before the time to 
spread again. When the manure gets to 
be two or three feet deep in the trough it is 
thrown into the section next to the doors 
and is ready for use. 
As the manure in the trough lies in thin 
layers of soil and solid manure, by begin¬ 
ning at one end, standing on the bottom of 
the cellar and working at the face of the 
pile, it becomes so well mixed that each 
forkfull as it is thrown into the cart, will 
contain very nearly its 
right proportion of solid 
and liquid ingredients 
and thus make first-class 
plant food. I think there 
is no way in which we 
can get so much from the 
liquid as by having it 
fall upon the best soil 
we can get, and then the 
best way to use this sat¬ 
urated soil is to mix it 
with its right proportion 
of solid manure. 
A. w. p. 
Asylum Station, Mass. 
The picture at Fig. 28 
shows the barn vard u=ed 
at Cornell University. 
Into this yard r or room, 
horse manure is t hrow n 
from above, while cow 
manure is wheeled in 
from the 'side. Both are 
spread evenly and both 
are" mixed with absorb¬ 
ents of some' sort to re¬ 
tain the liquid. The 
tramping of the animals 
packs" the whole mass 
firmly. The temperature 
in this'vard or room sel¬ 
dom falls"below the freez¬ 
ing point. There is no 
better way of retaining r the "value of 
manure than by'keeping'it'housed”where 
liquids and solids may be^held'together. 
The R. N.-Y. is trying this plan of using 
good soil as an absorbent."’ 7 The" harnvard 
on the'New Jersey farm, was, as we have 
stated built on a hillside so that’’at* every 
heavy ain-storm a brown stream trickled 
away from the'yard to the brook."*We"had 
the yard dug out in the shape of'a soup 
dish—down to’hard clay." r As.the 'manure 
has been thrown into'the'yard, from r time 
to time, we have hauled loads of good soil 
from a" low, damp place and scattered it 
through the manure. No water runs away 
from the yard without first trickling 
through a heap of this soil. As soon as 
possible we" shall build a temporary roof 
over the yard. 
Womans Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
N OWADAYS every woman who is 
shopping or going about has to carry 
a bag for her purse and handkerchief, es¬ 
pecially since a pocket is the exception 
rather than the rule. Leather bags of all 
sorts and sizes, either to carry in the hand 
or to suspend from the girdle, may be seen 
