NOV. 8 
758 THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
FARMERS’ CLUB—DISCUSSION. 
Terrv Talks Back. 
T. B. Terry, Summit County, Ohio.— 
I want to thank President Chamberlain 
for his article in The Rural on page 644, 
particularly because he has brought out so 
clearly and neatly the possibilities of even 
alittle farm. He shows Rural readers a 
number of ways in which I could make 
“big money” on my farm “ without dis¬ 
turbing the old specialty.” He is correct. 
Were I to give up all literary work and 
turn my undivided attention to running 
my farm to its utmost capacity as nearly 
as I could, I might soon be able to start a 
b-nk (“ hyperbole !”). I am more than 
pleased to hear so high an authority back 
me, and urge our farmers to take their 
sons as partners and run the old farm to a 
higher state of productiveness instead of 
helping them to buy more land. 
Last fall in giving some figures in The 
Rural, showing the income from my farm, 
as well as what we spent, etc., I re¬ 
marked : “ And the farm is not run 
to half its full capacity either.” The 
article was copied into the Farm Jour¬ 
nal and brought me letters literally 
by the dozen (not “hyperbole” this time). 
The actual results obtained most of the 
writers found hard to swallow; but when 
they came to the statement that my farm 
was not run to half its full capacity, almost 
to a man they accused me, not of “ hyper¬ 
bole” (“polite” for exaggeration); but 
many of them used a shorter and more for¬ 
cible word. For all this, I believe I told 
the truth. 
I do not care a snap for the income from 
literary work, because I know that I could 
do just as well if I put all my time and 
strength on the farm, instead of about one- 
half, as at present. I have had experience 
enough, so that there is no guess-work 
about this. I know it. 
Pres- ident Chamberlain has given readers 
of The Rural New-Yorker a history of 
the three periods of my farming, in a very 
correct manner ; but there is one point on 
which I can not quite agree with him, and 
as silence would give consent, I feel it my 
duty to speak out. If I had my farm life 
to live over, embracing just the same three 
periods which Mr. C. speaks of, after the 
experience I have now had with berries, I 
would certainly raise all that we could use 
in our family. Mr. C. is correct in saying 
that during the second period, from a 
purely business stand point, I could better 
afford to buy them than to grow them. 
But one cannot buy the choicest varieties 
fully ripened on the vines and coming in 
constant succession, and, alas! not one 
farmer in ten would buy any worth speak¬ 
ing of. I bought in those days, as I thought, 
pretty freely ; but not half as many as we 
now use. 
Mr. C. says : “ In the first period, if he 
had grown and used berries and other lux¬ 
uries as he does now, he would not have 
paid the debt, or grubbed the stumps and 
stones, or laid the tiles.” True, as a whole. 
Indulgence in a piano, Brussels carpets, 
anthracite coal for heating, a canopy-top 
carriage, etc., etc., then, would certainly 
have been my financial ruin. They were 
beyond my means and would have cost 
much money and led to other extrav¬ 
agances. But, Mr. Chamberlain, my great 
president friend, who loves berries as well 
as I do, and knows their health-giving 
value to a farmer’s family, and the nature 
of farmers, which prevents them from us¬ 
ing freely what they do not produce, why 
couldn’t you have left the one little item 
of “ berries ” out of that sentence ? Why 
not throw your great influence in favor of 
farmers growing this one luxury naturally 
pertaining to their calling, even if they are 
just starting, or haven’t money in the 
bank, knowing that if they do not grow 
them they will not, a? a rule, have them ? 
In the first part of my farm life I did not 
know how to grow berries. After a little 
experience, i see that it can be done so as 
not to take much time. If living the first 
(or second) period of my farming life over, 
I would not think of growing any to sell, 
or of trying to do my best, as I have done 
for the past few years. I would put out 
enough of them in long rows, far enough 
apart for easy horse culture, with head¬ 
lands on which to turn at the ends and 
take reasonable care of them. I would 
grow them even if I thought it might take 
me a year longer to get out of debt and fix 
up my farm. But it is silly “hyperbole” 
to think this would be the case. Twenty 
rods of ground tended mostly with a horse 
would have well supplied our family then. 
Why throw aside such an easily obtained 
and heali hful luxury to get ready to live in 
the far future a little bit sooner ? Why 
not live a little as one goes along ? How I 
used to crave and long for strawberries in 
that first period of my farming when June 
came around ! But to buy was out of the 
question; there were too many ways in 
which money must go. As. Mr. C. says, I 
thought then I was doing what was best. 
I was often urged to grow some berries, 
but was obstinate in my opinion that I 
could not afford to do so, and did not study 
into the matter to see how easily it could 
be done, and the advantages from it. I 
honestly believe now (no “hyperbole” this 
time, Mr. C.) that the expense of growing a 
family supply on my farm is more than 
met by the increased vim and ambition put 
into myself alone by my three weeks of 
strawberry eating. The berries are just 
what man needs at that time, as God knew 
when He made them. And buying them, 
even if we could do it freely, isn’t hardly 
satisfactory enough. I want to see. them 
grow and watch them begin to ripen before 
and after a day’s work, and I want my 
children to do the same. How they and 
the good wife enjoy hunting for the first 
dishful. All of life doesn’t consist in 
grubbing stumps or paying debts, though 
I fear I made nearly all of it just that in 
my younger days. Some go to the other 
extreme. 
Now, friends, I have no plants to sell. If 
I am wrong in my present views I am at 
least disinterestedly so. I didn’t even go 
into berry growing to make a “ new line of 
letters ” possible: I’m not so hard pushed 
for subjects to write about. No, I made a 
mistake in my early life, and, Mr. Cham¬ 
berlain, honest confession is good for the 
soul where one finds that he is wrong. I 
hope every man before deciding that I am 
wrong now will consult with his wife. 
President Chamberlain among the rest. 
Currant Cuttings. 
T. Topper, Barrytown, N. Y.— I find in 
the Farmers’ Club of a late issue of The 
R. N.-Y., a reply to D, A. as to the best 
way to make currant cuttings. Within 
the last 25 years I have made some thou¬ 
sands of cuttings of both red and white 
currants, and last autumn I had the 
pleasure of looking at a row of trees that 
had been put in as cuttings 25 years ago, 
and which are fruiting every year. All of 
them had mean stems, six or eight inches 
from the ground, the head forming an in¬ 
verted (?) umbrella. I have young plants 
one year old that were put in in the same 
way. Here is my method : I select strong, 
well ripened wood, no less than 18 inches 
long : with a well sharpened knife I cut 
the thick end just below the last bud; take 
all the buds off (beginning at the bottom), 
until the fourth from the top is reached ; 
lay the cutting down and proceed with the 
rest. When all are done, with a piece of 
matting or string I tie them in the middle 
and at the bottom ; dig a hole a foot deep, 
put a handful of sand in it; stand the 
cuttings on the sand; half fill the hole 
with more sand ; give it a watering and fill 
up with soil. In the spring one will be re¬ 
warded with a bundle of beautiful callused 
cuttings, ready for the nursery rows. 
Never mind covering them. 
Death In the Silo; Cutter Knives. 
John Gould, Portage County, Ohio.— 
The death of the Niles (Michigan) gentle¬ 
man from carbonic acid gas that had settled 
to the bottom of an empty bin—see The 
R. N.-Y. page 712—is as The Rural 
says, “ no sound argument against 
silos, or the system of ensilage,” but 
it does suggest that there is no reason 
why a silo should be unventilated, or why 
the air in it sbould not be always pure and 
free from any danger. There is never an 
hour from first to last in which a caudle or 
lantern will not burn freely on the surface 
of my ensilage, when it is being put in or 
fed out. In filling we keep adding to the 
section doors of the silo as the ensilage in¬ 
creases in depth, and in feeding it out, the 
top of these section doors being taken off as 
fast as the lowering of the ensilage demands, 
there is always a draft of fresh sir coming in 
at the door on a level with the ensilage and 
the air in the silo is always all right. One 
winter some strange cats took up their 
abode for a while in the barn, and it was a 
usual thing in the morning to find them 
all in the silo sleeping on the warm ensilage. 
If Prof. Wing will put section doors into 
his silo and then on the outside set up a 
narrowed half-box chute against the silo in 
front of these doors, he can throw down 
the ensilage quite as well, and avoid the 
disagreeable job of cutting a narrow pit 
from the top of the ensilage to the bottom. 
The editorial note (page 712) about sharp 
ensilage cutter knives is all right; but I 
would suggest that we should sharpen them 
on the shaft instead of removing them. 
When knives are very frequently removed 
it is nearly impossible to keep them from 
getting loose, and a smashed up machine, 
an “ edged knife” or some delay is sure to 
ensue, any of which costs money w hen one 
has three or four teams, and a half dozen 
men on the pay roll. My machine has been 
in use four years, and the knives have not 
been taken off in that time. We sharpen 
them by using a large, flat file—extra hard 
—filing on the under edges. After eight 
loads have been cut we stop a moment, the 
knives are filed to an edge, and away we go. 
By filing somewhat lengthwise of the edge, 
and keeping the file nearly horizontal, a 
rounding edge is avoided, and the knife is 
kept sharp, and by filing on the underside 
the front of the knife is always up to the 
shear plate, and a clean cut is always se¬ 
cured with the greatest economy of power. 
“The distributors” to my silos worked 
like a charm during the past season, and 
made the work in the pits very easy. Two 
scantlings were laid across the top of the 
silo, three feet apart. On these we laid a 
few short boards 3)4 feet long, so as to 
make a square platform of that size. We 
placed this under the end of the carrier when 
the stream of ensilage fell directly upon it. 
This quickly formed a pyramid, and then 
the cut ensilage went, with a slanting fall, 
to the bottom of the pit, where it was very 
nearly evenly distributed. Now and then 
it was forked up against the walls, and a 
little treading was done. The actual time 
spent in the pit was not over two hours per 
day, until the silos were nearly full where 
more time had, of necessity to be devoted 
to inside work, as the oblique fall of the 
silage was naturally less, as it fell a shorter 
distance. 
Chemical Fertilizers Will Answer. 
D. C. Lewis, Middlesex County, N. J. 
—There are in a late Rural, two articles I 
desire to refer to. Mr. E. P. Root, of Mon¬ 
roe County, N. Y., says there is nothing 
like stable manure, and while insisting 
that we must maintain the fertility of our 
soils, proceeds to inform us how this is to 
be accomplished. Again, W. G. Waring, 
of Blair County, Pa., makes suggestions 
as to the ways and means of doing the 
same thing. Can farmers in the Eastern 
and Middle States keep up the fertility of 
their soils by the use of stable manure 
made at home or purchased elsewhere ? The 
quantity is certainly insufficient for that 
purpose. Now what else can be done to 
keep up the fertility of our farms ? I say 
use chemical fertilizers, and if necessary 
use those alone, and, further, I believe this 
can be done at a profit. Mr. Root thinks 
we can still feed cattle, and thus add to 
our supplies of yard manure, at as good a 
profit as can be got from growing wheat at 
80 cents per bushel—its price in the past 
few years. The purchasing prices of steers 
to be wintered over and fed and fattened 
for market, have been so near the selling 
prices that we have had to give up the 
business. I believe, however, that we can 
soon feed cattle in the winter at a profit, 
and again, with us wheat is not selling at 
SO cents per bushel, but at $1.10. 
I find that Mr. Waring has but little 
faith in maintaining the fertility of our soils 
by the application of commercial manures, 
and I would inquire if our phosphoric acid 
and potash are carried out of our soils in 
any way except by plant growth. I believe 
that analyses of waters passing out through 
our under-drains fail to show the presence 
of either phosphoric acid or potash. I 
believe the nitrogen of such fertilizers may 
be carried off; but the same would be the 
case with nitrogen from yard manure. Do 
we really need stable or yard manure to 
keep up the fertility of our farms ? If all 
our corn-stalks and straw are returned to 
the soil with all the manure we can make 
on our farms, supplemented with the 
stubble, grass roots and such other matter 
as may accumulate on our fields, I believe 
we can keep up their fertility and enrich 
our soils by the aid of commercial fertilizers; 
and this belief is based upon an experience 
of many years, and, besides, I can see all 
about me farms that are being enriched by 
the use of chemical manures almost exclu¬ 
sively, aided only by such yard manure as 
can be utilized on the farm with small 
stocks of cattle, horses, etc. 
Kansas Crops and Mortgages. 
J. B., Parsons, Kansas.— Our crops are 
generally housed and we are able to ascer¬ 
tain the character of them. With the ex¬ 
ception of wheat, oats, apples, turnips, and 
castor beans they are poor. Corn, our great 
staple, runs from five to ten bushels to the 
acre; but when we come to handle every 
ear, it is too plain that it is next to worth¬ 
less. Most of it is mouldy or nubbins, and 
it is thin on the ground where it happens 
to be better than the average in quality. 
It Is surprising that, in presence of these 
pitiful crops, the cancelling of farm mort¬ 
gages sbould continue. There are three 
cancellations in this county against two 
that are recorded. This payment of debts 
in the presence of a wide-spread failure of 
some of the products of the farm appears 
somewhat strange. It can be accounted 
for only by the sale of hoarded crops. 
Strong men—farmers and capitalists—have 
realized on corn three times the amount of 
its cost, having bought it at 15 cents and sold 
it at 40. The apple crops during the past 15 
years have become of great importance. 
The orchards are now full of high, wide 
trees, and those whose fruit was thinned in 
May now show a good quantity of big 
apples. These are shipped from here every 
day to all the towns north and west. 
A Fair Butter Test. 
Major Campbell Brown, Maury Coun¬ 
ty, Tenn. —I think the only fair way is to 
work the butter, weigh it and weigh in the 
salt, set aside any fixed period (for all breeds) 
from 10 to 24 hours, then thoroughly rework 
the butter before finally weighing it, and be 
sure that it is in good marketable condition 
when weighed. What we want to make is 
butter ready for market. 
Rich Barons: Under this caption the 
Journal of Commerce favors its readers 
with one of those thoughtful and impar¬ 
tial editorials for which it is famous. 
There is no reason why we should all 
turn pessimists to be found in the fact that 
we have now in this country, and are likely 
to have for many years to come, a tariff 
which many of us do not approve. 
Neither happiness nor worth is as often 
found in the palace as in the cottage. 
Health, peace and sweet contentment are 
not dependent on a large estate, and are 
oftenest found in a humbler station. The 
owner of the soil is not insured a joyous 
life, and the laborer who tills it for wages 
all too meager for his comfortable support, 
may still find in his cup a score of blessings 
denied to his employer. Costly attire will 
not remedy the heartache ; rich vestments 
hide more gnawing cankers than are found 
under garments of serge; and the fever 
thirst of unsatisfied desire is oftener on lips 
that are used to words of command than on 
those which utter only the humbler suppli¬ 
cations. In plain terms, if society could be 
permanently divided into two great classes, 
and only the very rich and the very poor 
dwelt together, with no middle rank be¬ 
tween them, he would be a bold man who 
would cast in his lot with the former in 
the hope of securing thereby the greater 
good. There are few servitors of any of 
the millionaires whose names are household 
words among us who do not enjoy more of 
all that brings peace and comfort to heart 
and home than their wealthy masters. 
And one thought more. There will not 
be in our time a class permanently wealthy, 
from which all laboring aspirants seeking 
to rise from a lower sphere are forever de¬ 
barred. Those who read of the condition 
of foreign society forget that the law alone 
ties up the great estates in the families 
who inherit them from generation to gener¬ 
ation. In this country there can be no 
such entailing of estates, and no man can 
bequeath hispropery to descend in a line of 
heirs after him, each inheritor having only 
the use of it. This limit is made by the 
laws of all the States in the Union. If 
large properties are not squandered they 
are cut up by division as the circle of 
kindred enlarges. The rule is that the in¬ 
heritor of wealth, having no ambition to 
be excited in the struggle for a livelihood, 
will take his ease, or dissipate his fortune, 
so that in one or two generations it passes 
into other hands. In a few cases, as with 
the Astors and Vanderbilts, the receivers 
of the bulk of the property have been able, 
prudent men, and the estates have been 
mainly kept in the family ; but the natural 
law will prevail sooner or later,and the man 
who has not made his fortune will be 
found unable to keep it. The millions will 
not rise higher for each succeeding heir. 
The pile will topple over very soon in some 
weak hands that will ere long lose all they 
possessed aud be held out for charity, 
while the accumulated wealth is swept 
away into other channels. 
Country Gentleman: “ The only thing 
that beats a' good wife is a bad husband.” 
