1896 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
195 
by these experiments.” [See editorial page.— Eds.] 
We have made no experiments on the relative value 
of phosphates which touch this point. We are study¬ 
ing the relative availability of different forms of 
nitrogenous matter, as you will see from our forth¬ 
coming report. I consider it very probable, in view 
of these experiments, that much of the observed value 
of bone as a fertilizer lies in the nitrogen. Yet these 
conclusions as to phosphoric acid contradict the ex¬ 
perience of practical men. Connecticut Ex. Station 
WHAT THEY SAY? 
Irrigation Ideas Wanted. —The mode of irriga¬ 
tion recommended by Prof. W. J. Green in The R. 
N.-Y. of February 19, and described by Prof. Goff in 
the Wisconsin Station Report for 1894, would hardly 
be practicable here in the East on account of the 
unevenness of the ground upon most of the farms. I 
am about to build an irrigation plant. It consists of 
a 300-barrel tank of 25 feet elevation, a steam pump¬ 
ing engine to fill it, and the required amount of 11^- 
incli iron flow pipe to carry the water to the four or five 
main points ; farther than this, it will be carried by 
branches of l-inch pipes to be laid on the surface near 
or among the crops to be watered. These will be tapped 
at convenient distances by hose cocks, using %-inch 
rubber hose held by pin-spray nozzles stuck at proper 
distances, and changed when necessary. The small 
pipes are to be laid down among growing crops when 
water is found necessary, and taken up at the end of 
the season. I shall have a stop-valve in each main 
pipe at the connection with the tank, in case of any 
changes or repairs while in use. If R. 
N.-Y. readers would give their experi¬ 
ence with irrigation, or even their 
theories, I think that they would in¬ 
terest many. M. L. BELL. 
Rockland County, N. Y. 
A Trade Mark on Eggs !—I have had 
some experience in stamping my name 
on eggs for market. One large commis¬ 
sion dealer objected to the stamp, be¬ 
cause he said that, in case I did not sup¬ 
ply him with enough, he could not sub¬ 
stitute others for mine and supply his 
trade without the customer objecting ! 
In selling them at the local stores, I 
found it a disadvantage to stamp my 
name on without the date, as at times 
when the local dealer happened to have 
a surplus, knowing that by stamping my 
name upon them I had guaranteed their 
freshness, he would set them back out of 
sight and hold them until he had cleaned 
out his others, thus allowing mine to be¬ 
come more or less stale. Another objec¬ 
tion was by the dealer that some custom¬ 
ers would insist upon picking out my 
eggs if he mixed them with others ! An¬ 
other objection, I think, that dealers 
have, is that they can not mix cheap 
eggs with them and sell them all at the 
top price as many do ; then if customers 
find some poor ones with them, they 
blame the ‘‘farmer” for selling rotten 
eggs 1 After selling more or less for 
several years at the local stores, 1 found that, when I 
started out to retail them myself, my eggs had a repu¬ 
tation, even among some who could not read the name, 
but knew my “ mark” when they saw it on my eggs, and 
this was quite a factor in helping me to a good trade. 
Now as to selling some one’s else stamped eggs with 
mine ; I have not had enough to supply all my trade 
this winter, and have bought a good many from 
neighbors to keep along until I could have a plenty. 
At times I have had eggs from five or six at a time ; in 
case I had trouble from poor eggs, as I have several 
times, I could have traced the trouble to its source 
much more easily had each one stamped his eggs 
with his name or some mark. In fact, I have, in 
several cases, marked each one’s with a pencil so as to 
keep them from being mixed up promiscuously, until 
I could surely locate the trouble. At first thought, one 
might think it a useless bother to stencil his name 
upon eggs that are sold directly to customers ; but I 
find in practice that it is a very good thing, as cus¬ 
tomers sometimes get out and buy a few at the store, 
or of some other peddler, and if mine are mixed with 
them, the stencil saves their reputation, no matter 
how bad company they get mixed up in. K. A. p. 
Dudley, Mass. 
Origin of Lankford Apple. —In regard to the name 
and origin of the Lankford apple, I am glad to say 
that such an acquisition as the Lankford apple among 
fruits originated in my native State and county. It 
was a chance seedling found by a colored man while 
clearing new ground. He took it up, planted it in his 
yard, and when it was five years old, it bore a peach- 
basketful of extra fine fruit. When the quality of 
the fruit was made known through our county, the 
grafts were controlled by a nurseryman, and the trees 
were sold through Maryland and Delaware at $1 apiece. 
I have had it in bearing four years, and claim four 
special points in favor of the Lankford apple: 1, the 
tree is a rapid grower; 2, extra early bearing quali¬ 
ties ; 3, extra flavor as an eating apple ; 4, its wouder- 
ful keeping qualities. I have had them in perfect 
condition when the Crescent strawberry was ripe. 
Still Pond, Md. h. L. c. 
An Experience With Pot Hunters. —I have a very 
large pasture, and when I first came here, I used to 
take dry stock to pasture, laying in the snug little 
sum of from $100 to $115 a season. My pasture is a 
great place for snipe, woodcock aud quail. The result 
is that about all summer, hunters are shooting birds 
in it; when they are not, the dogs come on their own 
account, and, if they don’t find the birds, they take 
the cows. Three have been killed, and pay i*eceived 
of the county for only one. The result is that I get 
no stock to pasture ; the business is ruined entirely, 
and I get no damages at all. I had a small flock of 
young ducks, and the dogs not only killed them, but 
ate them as well. I could get no damages, they said, 
unless I pi’oduced the ducks the dogs killed. No use 
to post the land ; the hunters use the signs for targets. 
What shall we do about it ? F. N. F. 
Newburyport, Mass. 
RAW POTATOES FOR MILCH COWS. 
Here is my experience in feeding raw potatoes the 
past winter. I have had five new milch cows from 
which we have been making butter, with five that 
are springers. I tried feeding the small potatoes last 
November and December. I fed the 10 cows three 
bushels per day at two feeds, morniug and night, 
with five pounds of corn and oats ground together, 
and five pounds of winter wheat bran. 
The first bad results were in churning the cream 
from the milk produced by the potatoes. It required 
from two to three hours to churn the cream, and when 
we did get the butter, it was in granules from the 
size of a walnut down to the size of pin heads, and it 
was almost an impossibility to gather it in shape to 
work the salt into it. The good wife threw down the 
butter ladle, and said that if l didn’t stop feeding 
potatoes, I would have to work the butter, for she 
couldn’t get it in shape to pack. It was so hard that 
it was impossible to spread it on one’s bread. One 
morning, I thought that I would get it soft enough to 
spread, so I put it on the stove to warm ; the outside 
melted, and the center stood up good and firm, while 
a part was in the bottom of the dish in a liquid state. 
I stopped feeding potatoes at once, and the next 
churning was a great deal easier to churn and get in 
good shape, while the second churning came in about 
15 minutes, and the butter was very good. I kept up 
the same grain ration, did not increase it in the least, 
and we had two pounds of butter from the same 
amount of cream. 
We account for that by the waste that went into 
the buttermilk, and a good deal of butter that was 
not gathered with the other and passed off in the 
water in which we washed the butter. About two 
weeks ago, we quit milking the springers at night, 
milking them in the morning only. I thought that, 
perhaps, it would not do any harm to feed those five 
a light ration of potatoes ; but I had to quit, as the 
same old difficulty returned. 
I don’t know where the trouble lies, unless it is in 
the large amount of starch in the potatoes. The ex¬ 
periment stations tell us that potatoes contain 78 per 
cent of water, and I have come to the conclusion that 
I will water my cattle at the trough after this. For 
my part, I wouldn’t haul or handle potatoes for feed¬ 
ing to cattle, if they were given to me. 
It has paid fully 50 per cent to put my cut corn 
stover in the passageway, wet it down and leave it 
for 24 hours, and let it warm up a little. I have win¬ 
tered 15 head on the corn stalks that grew on 8% 
acres, from November last till now, and have enough 
to last until the middle of April. I feed Pea-bean 
straw fora noon ration. The cattle are looking fine ; 
and I have learned enough about feeding this winter 
almost to pay for one season's drought. m. a. g. 
Genesee County, N. Y. 
POULTRY IN A CALIFORNIA ORCHARD. 
PLUM TREES AND PLUMP BIRDS. 
Here is something new in the way of poultry keep¬ 
ing, and it comes all the way from California. We are 
indebted to the Pacific Rural Press for the idea. Mr. 
J. W. Osburn, of Orange, Cal., has a large plum 
orchard of young trees, planted 23 feet apart each 
way. That orchard needed two things—cultivation 
and feeding. Mr. O. is a poultryman, and it occurred 
to him that Mrs. Hen would make a good harrow and 
a good wet nurse for those trees. If he turned 1,000 
hens into the orchard to labor at random, some of the 
trees would be neglected just as they 
would be if he hitched a dozen horses to 
cultivators and turned them loose to cul¬ 
tivate wherever they saw fit. The only 
way to make Mrs. Hen do the rough 
work, is to tie her down to it; so he de¬ 
cided to put the hens into 28 houses so 
made that they can be pulled along from 
place to place. 
The general arrangement of the houses 
is shown at Fig. 63. The front of the 
house proper is covered with wire net¬ 
ting—with the back roofed over for pro¬ 
tection in stormy days. In this the hens 
scratch and play, a quantity of straw 
being kept there for them constantly. 
Back of this is a small shed for roosting 
and laying. This is open at the front, 
but has a rolling curtain which may be 
easily dropped down as protection in 
cold or stormy weather. Back of this 
house and built around at the side, are 
narrow runs covered with wire netting. 
The bottom frames of these houses are 
stoutly made and firmly joined together. 
As will be seen in the picture, the whole 
thing is provided with wooden shoes or 
runners for hauling the houses ahead. 
A wooden track runs along the entire 
front of the houses and off to where the 
food is kept. There is a turn around at 
the corner so that it is an easy matter to 
load up with grain or water and pass 
rapidly along the entire front, dealing 
out the portion for each house. We understand that 
these hens are fed almost entirely on dry grain. As a 
rule, not over 15 hens are kept in each house. The 
part of the house covered with wire netting is kept 
filled with straw, into which the grain is thrown for 
feeding. The ground under the roosts is spaded up 
every third day in wet weather and every week in 
dry seasons. In the wire runs, just back of the roost¬ 
ing house, horse manure is thrown for the hens to 
work over. The result of all this is that the straw, 
manure and hen droppings are all thoroughly worked 
into the soil. After this has been thoroughly done, 
the tracks are taken up and carried ahead a distance 
equal to the length of the houses. Then the houses 
are slowly pulled ahead, one at a time, between the 
rows, so that they rest on new ground. The track is 
laid in front of them, and the whole process of feeding 
and scratching in manure and straw is repeated. And 
so, through the season, the hens work on, laying their 
eggs and feeding and cultivating the trees. It is stated 
that two men and a horse will move 28 houses and 
tracks in one day, besides caring for 1,000 other hens. 
This system is the exact reverse of Mapes’s “ Hens 
by the Acre” scheme, and it seems a little singular 
that this intensive method of poultry keeping should 
come from such as extensive country as California ! 
Northern or Southern Strawberry Plants. —Is 
there any difference in the vigor of northern or 
southern-grown strawberry plants ? Three years ago, 
I received plants from Ohio and New York which 
grew vigorously and made many plants ; last spring, 
I set fine-looking plants of the same varieties from 
Maryland, andjthey made few sickly-looking plants 
Pennsylvania. A. G. w 
Strawberry 
ORIOLE STRAWBERRY. Fig. 64. 
See Catalogue Reviews. Page 200. 
