586 
SEPT. 6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
FARMERS’ CLUB—DISCUSSION. 
Why He Has “To Buy His Butter.” 
T. B. Terry, Summit County, Ohio.— 
J. B. L., on page 386, says: “ In a recent 
Rural Mr. Terry tells us that he keeps a 
cow and still has to buy all his own butter. 
* * * She is not much of a cow if she com¬ 
pels her owner to pay $50 a year for butter. 
* * * I have a Jersey that will give in her 
flush 15 quarts per day of rich milk. * * * 
Her skim-milk is good to drink too.” 
It is not on account of the cow being a 
poor one, friend L,, that Terry “ has to buy 
all his butter.” She happens to be an extra¬ 
good butter cow. The neighbors have 
raised her heifer calves for several years on 
this account. Her cream would make that 
$50 worth of butter, with 50 or 100 pounds to 
spare. But you know, L., that a man can¬ 
not eat his cream and have it too—don’t 
you ? For three weeks we had strawberries 
and cream at every meal—not a little sauce- 
dishful; for they were just as free as water. 
Then for the next three weeks we had any 
amount of choice raspberries—Cuthberts, 
Turners, Shaffers, Palmers, Hilborns, 
Greggs, etc. None of the cream from our 
cow went to waste during these six 
weeks. Now, we have just begun on the 
blackberry season. I suppose we used for 
canning and all 15 to 20 bushels of straw¬ 
berries, and about 15 bushels of raspberries, 
and shall use as many blackberries. We 
might have sold them all at from $3 to $4 
a bushel, and made butter from the cream, 
and drank the skim-milk; but it is not our 
way. We do not find farming such a close 
business that we must live on skim-milk 
and deny ourselves the luxuries that natur¬ 
ally belong to our calling. But, friend L., 
if we could not use the cream I should ob¬ 
ject to having my wife and daughters fuss 
with making butter in such a small way. 
If they want to do more than their regular 
work of taking care of the home, I can cer¬ 
tainly provide work that pays better and 
that is not nearly so monotonous. I have 
arranged my out-door work to avoid mo¬ 
notonous drudgery; would not I be a fine 
man to leave my women-folks to go 
through all the motions pertaining to the 
dairy business, daily, for some 10 months in 
the year, with the milk from one cow ? 
No, no, there is no specialty farming out. 
side with mixed farming indoors on this 
farm. Terry “ has to buy his butter” be¬ 
cause he drinks new milk, eats cream, and 
has not forgotten what he promised the 
minister when he went into partnership 
with a certain young lady. 
I might give you one illustration of how 
I make the work of my family pay, on a job 
that can be done and got through with. I 
do not want you to think they are above 
work by any means. We had nearly a half¬ 
acre of strawberries this year. We set them 
out in the spring of 1889. It was a family 
picnic. I took up the plants and my wife, 
sitting in a chair, trimmed them, and the 
young folks set them out in the drills I had 
made with the potato planter. The job was 
soon done. At odd spells through the 
season my son and our regular help took 
the best of care of the bed. It really cost 
us nothing in money spent; but when it 
came to picking time this year, for about 
three weeks some hard work had to be 
done. The girls stuck to it though, like 
leeches. I hired two or three good hands 
to help them. This put extra work on my 
partner in the house. My son with one or 
two men did the farm work. I did the 
marketing. Well, it was soon over, and 
though we used about $50 worth in the 
house, we sold for cash $237 worth. The 
$37 would more than pay for the extra help. 
What we ate and put up were pay enough 
for the use of the land and what the hired 
man did, so there were about $200 for the 
family work—four times what the butter 
costs. But that money will not go for but¬ 
ter. Not much. When we got through 
I just handed $50 to each of my daughters 
and the same to my son, to be used just as 
they pleased. Then the other $50 was 
quietly put into my partner’s private pocket 
book. Where did my share come in J Well, 
if you had been here to see me eat berries 
you would know. But, seriously, this was 
only the one-hundredth part of my farm. 
It would be mighty small if I could not turn 
over the net income from that to the young 
folks, when there were 99-100 left. 
Now do you wonder that I would feel 
like scolding if I saw my wife or daughters 
patching up old 16-cent bags, or darning 
badly-worn socks, or making rag carpet ? 
I like to do something that pays, and get 
through, and then live, and I know no 
reason why the daughters of Eve should 
not now, as far as possible, come on to the 
same platform. But, alas 1 many farmers 
do not think so. One of the best compli¬ 
ments the writer ever received came in this 
way: He attended an institute in a certain 
town and among other things talked to the 
audience about lessening the burdens of 
the farmers’ wives. The next winter he 
was assigned by the State Board to go to 
that place again. They wrote the Secretary 
that they did not want him. Friend Bon¬ 
ham did not know why, but I did. They 
had remembered my talk for a whole year. 
Wasn’t that a compliment for a preacher ? 
Now, friends, times are rapidly changing. 
See to it that while you are being benefited 
by these changes your wife does not go on 
in the old way. It is not intentional 
cruelty that makes the merest drudges of 
some farmers’ wives ; it is simply thought¬ 
lessness. 
I know I ought not to tell what 
roused me up at the institute above men¬ 
tioned ; but hoping it may do some good I 
will. A leading, well-to-do farmer took 
me home with him. In the morning he 
and the hired men and three or four small 
children sat down with me to a breakfast 
which the wife had prepared alone. I 
wondered much at her absence. After we 
were through eating it was all explained. 
She came in from the barn with two pails 
of milk 1 Some of my readers will not be 
surprised that the coat held up before that 
audience that day fitted as closely, al¬ 
though, I trust, kindly, without any un¬ 
necessary pinches, as God had given the 
speaker ability to fit it. Now this friend 
was a good man. It was the custom of the 
neighborhood to keep two or three cows 
and let the wives, who often had even too 
much else to do, drudge out enough to pay 
for the groceries. The farmers thereabouts 
perhaps had never thought that there 
could be a better way. Reader, does this 
talk hit you in the least ? Sit down for an 
hour and honestly consider the question. 
You do not want your dear wife to join the 
army of overworked women who have 
prematurely gone to their long rest. 
Purifying Water; Poisoning Wood¬ 
chucks. 
E. W. Sears, Hamilton County, O.— 
The question asked by R. P. M., on page 
465, in regard to purifying water in a cis¬ 
tern has been answered for me by the use 
of a chain pump. I found that with all the 
care we could exercise it was next to im¬ 
possible to keep the water in our cistern 
pure while using a wooaen pump, and on 
the recommendation of a friend I put in a 
chain one, and find the water purer after 
over a year’s use of the pump without 
cleaning the cistern, than it would have been 
after two months’ use of a wooden or iron 
pump. The action of the chain in aerating 
the water is, I believe, the cause of the 
change. Since this chain pump has been in 
use several of our neighbors have pur¬ 
chased what is known as the “ bucket 
pump,” and it has proved even more satis¬ 
factory than the chain pump, as it needs no 
tubing in which the water can stand. By 
way of experiment one of these “ pumps ” 
was placed in a cistern In which the water 
was totally unfit for use, and in a week’s 
time, by pumping a few bucketfuls each 
day, the change for the better was simply 
wonderful. 
J. M. D., on page 498, advises the use of 
strychnine for killing gophers. I have 
found the same plan very effective in get¬ 
ting rid of woodchucks. Poison enough 
potatoes, apples, or ears of sweet corn to 
make a good feed for all that may inhabit 
one den ; put them as far in, away from the 
mouth of the hole, as possible; close the 
hole securely with earth or stones, so that 
the pests will get hungry before digging 
out, and the work is done. 
The Sort of Teachers We Need. 
Dr. G. G. Groff, Lewisburg, Pa.—I 
have just been talking with a school direc¬ 
tor of Chester County, Pa., and he has been 
giving me an interesting account of the 
sound, practical work of a teacher in his 
township. A year or more ago, the Con¬ 
gressmen of the district advertised a com¬ 
petitive examination to fill a vacancy in 
the United States Naval Academy at An¬ 
napolis. My friend, the director, advised 
two of the boys in the highest class in his 
village school to attend this examination, 
which would occur the next day, thus giv¬ 
ing them no time to “review ” or “ cram.” 
They went to the examination, at which 
there were about 30 young men, of whom 
five or six passed the examination. Of 
these, numbers one and three were from 
the village school. Now, the teacher of 
these boys is a woman of 30 years’ experi¬ 
ence ; she teaches for a livelihood; she 
teaches because she loves the work. She 
has been in the township where she now is, 
to my knowledge, for 20, possibly for 80 
years. She has a permanent position. 
With her, teaching is a profession. She is 
practical. Young men and women are 
found every winter In her school, while in 
many others such students are conspicuous 
by their absence. I can only urge upon 
directors and school committee-men the ne¬ 
cessity of securing, whenever possible, 
such teachers as this lady. And at this 
time, I would urge upon teachers and 
patrons the desirability of having in the 
school-house during the coming winter, a 
debating school, or lyceum. It gives the 
young people an opportunity of practicing 
public speaking, a now much neglected 
part of general education, and, besides, it 
promotes that social intercourse which is so 
desirable in all rural districts. By all 
means try to have a well-managed debating 
school this winter. 
Mulching Berries. 
J. A. Pearce, Grand Rapids, Mich.—I 
have never,tried straw or hay as a mulch 
except in the form of long manure, which 
1 did not find so desirable as good cultiva¬ 
tion in preventing the raspberries from 
drying up. This year I did not try it, but 
last fall I put mounds of mold around 
some peach trees to prevent root-freezing, 
and in hoeing about the trees in the latter 
part of July, I noticed that the ground was 
dried down very much farther under the 
mulch than around the trees not mulched, 
but cultivated. I never grow any crop 
between the berries except sometimes a 
row of beans the first year. 
Salt In the Silo. 
Charles R. Beach, Walworth, Wis.— 
I have never used salt in the silo. I think 
the use of it on silage in any considerable 
quantity would make it too laxative and 
accordingly, injurious, and the use of salt 
would lower the temperature of the silage 
and so prevent, in a measure, one of the ob¬ 
jects aimed at, namely : The development 
of heat to destroy the germs of fermenta¬ 
tion and to expel the air from the silage as 
it settles in the pit. I may be wrong, but 
I do not, as yet, agree with those who claim 
that silage needs no tramping or weighting. 
As we are putting in more matured corn 
than formerly, it follows as a matter of 
course that the stalks will contain less 
water, and therefore more air, and will be 
lighter and will not settle by their own 
weight as rapidly or as compactly as 
greener corn, and therefore the more need 
of stamping and weighting which I shall 
practice until I have more light. 
Broad-Leaved Potatoes and Blight. 
On page 546 a correspondent asked this 
question : “ Do potatoes with broad leaves 
resist heat and blight less than those with 
small foliage ?” The following notes in 
reply are at hand : 
NO MANIFEST REASON FOR IT. 
Byron D. Halsted, New Jersey Ex¬ 
periment Station.— The question is an 
interesting one, and this is not the first 
time it has been brought to my notice. An 
answer to be of much value, should be for¬ 
warded on a thorough microscopic exami¬ 
nation of the leaves of various sorts. If a 
broad leaf is a thick leaf I should think 
that it might resist the heat better than a 
smaller and thinner one. As far as 
the blight is concerned—meaning the 
attack of the fungus Macrosporium solani 
—there is no manifest reason why one 
kind should be less influenced than another. 
If a large leaf means greater vigor, then 
the small leaf might be the more suscept¬ 
ible to the inroads of the blight. I have 
observed no difference in this regard in 
the same variety. When we compare 
leaves of different varieties, then we intro¬ 
duce a factor that is probably of more 
consequence than leaf variation, and the 
observations are of no great value. Yester¬ 
day I went across a large field of potatoes 
of various sorts : all were blighted, but not 
all sorts equally. There is a difference in 
varieties, but whether there is a constant 
difference in favor of a large or small leaf 
1 cannot say. There seem to be leaves of 
nearly all dimensions upon a single plant, 
and usually if one blights they are nearly 
all injured. 
COLOR IS A BETTER INDICATION. 
George W. P. Jerrard, Caribou, Me. 
—I have not noticed that large-leaved 
varieties of the potato are less hardy than 
those with small leaves. In fact, I can call 
to mind more strong, healthy growers with 
large than with small leaves. I would 
base my judgment more on the color than 
the size of the leaves. I have never found 
varieties with very light-green foliage so 
well able to withstand a hard season as 
those with dark-green leaves. 
BROAD-LEAVED VARIETIES SUCCUMB FIRST. 
J. C. Vaughan, Chicago, III.—My ob¬ 
servation has shown that in a droughty 
season potatoes with broad leaves curl 
more and succumb to heat more quickly 
than do those with small leaves. The 
larger ones, naturally, would show the 
effect more on account of their size; but I 
have concluded that potatoes with small 
foliage resist drought better than the 
large-leaved kinds. In a season when blight 
is prevalent, all potatoes, regardless of the 
size of the leaves, have suffered equally, 
and I think small-leaved varieties have no 
immunity as far as resisting disease is con¬ 
cerned. 
IN FAVOR OF LARGE-LEAVED VARIETIES. 
Clarence M. Weed, Ohio Experiment 
Station. —From my observation I should 
say that there is very little difference, but 
if there is any, it is in favor of the large 
leaved varieties. We have a field contain¬ 
ing 88 varieties and there was only a short 
difference in the time of succumbing to 
blight this year, though two or three va¬ 
rieties with large, thick leaves were the 
last to fall. I repeated our spraying with 
Bordeaux Mixture to prevent potato blight 
this year, and the field now indicates that 
the treatment has been of decided benefit. 
The sprayed rows are green and growing, 
while the adjacent uifsprayed ones are fast 
yielding to the blight. 
MORE IN THE CHARACTER OF TnE STEMS. 
F. Lamson Scribner, Tennessee Ex¬ 
periment Station.— This question is en¬ 
tirely new to me. Neither from correspond, 
ence nor observation have I ever before been 
led to consider it. If the stems and foliage 
of the large-leaved varieties are more juicy 
or succulent than those with small leaves, 
then I should say that they would be more 
sensitive to blight (understanding by this 
the Phytophthora or Peronospora) and 
heat; otherwise I should say that there 
would be no difference. The question is a 
practical one, It is one which is likely to 
stand open for some time, however. The 
nature or character of the plants, as indi¬ 
cated above, would determine, I think, their 
susceptibility to blight and heat, and not 
their extent of foliage. 
A LISTENER’S NOTES. 
“Dodging the Question.”— There are a 
great many good men in this country 
whose honest opinion would t e expressed 
by the following note from one of our most 
careful correspondents. He was asked to 
discuss the tariff question, not from the 
standpoint of a Democrat or a Republican, 
but as a farmer: 
“ I am not competent to discuss the tariff 
question. I have a vague idea that our 
country and people are so rich in resources 
that in the end we would be just about as 
well off if we proclaimed “ absolutely free 
trade,” but I vote the Republican ticket— 
perhaps for what the party has done. I 
think that combinations of labor and 
capital are both usually injurious, and 
should be controlled. It is a time of peace 
and all are producing. When war or famine 
comes to a part of the world, the other part 
are financial gainers thereby. We will, 
most of us, have enough to eat and wear, 
and, after all, contentment may be better 
than riches. I dodge the question 1” 
“Germs” in Milk.—The R. N.-Y. has 
had a good deal to say about the plan of 
adding water to milk to assist a rapid 
creaming. The article by Prof. Ladd, on 
page 527, gave a clear account of the matter. 
This was one side ; nothing was said about 
any possible danger in adding water to the 
milk. On page 514, however, T. B. Terry 
told us what Dr. Detmers, of Ohio thought 
of the milkman who made use of the “ iron¬ 
tailed cow.” Such a man, he said, would 
be sure to use water filled with germs of 
disease, and even if he did use pure water, 
the few germs contained in it “ would mul¬ 
tiply with fearful rapidity in the much bet¬ 
ter feeding ground, the milk.” Now, comes 
the following letter from a man in Ohio, 
which may be considered a natural result 
of what these scientific folks have been 
telling us: 
“ I have been much interested in the dis¬ 
cussion as to how to raise all the cream, 
without ice, and also in the same connec¬ 
tion inT. B. Terry’s report of Dr.Detmers’s 
opinion of the man who waters milk, and 1 
would like the discussion carried farther 
and also to have a few questions answered. 1. 
In view of Dr. Detmers’s opinion, is it safe 
for the average dairyman to dilute the 
milk with water for creaming, as he can¬ 
not know to a certainty that the water is 
absolutely pure? 2. If water that is “pure 
enough to drink with impunity ” is used, 
