472 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 1L 
/1s\VECpIfcP^j 
"LESS STEM." 
A few weeks ago, we overheard a dia¬ 
logue between a Long Island market 
gardener and two strangers. The gar¬ 
dener had a large field of peas. The 
later varieties, like Telephone and 
Champion, were in rows, quite wide 
apart, with vines sprawling all over the 
ground. The strangers knew little 
about growing peas except as they grew 
a few rows in the garden where it paid 
to stick brush for the vines to run on. 
far away from our work—we don’t get 
close enough to it. How it does open 
our eyes some day to find that some one 
else has devised a scheme for saving the 
money and force we have been feeding 
to that great vine ! He has beaten us 
because he knew a thing or two that 
we didn’t comprehend. 
Enough said about that! How is one 
to learn how to cut down the big vine ? 
Let us be frank about it, and say that, if 
our gardening friend had made a study 
of The R. N.-Y., he would have known 
about this dwarf pea that can outwork 
the giant. That’s the point exactly ! 
You don’t want us to sit here and brag 
about our own paper. Let this Rhode 
They began to argue with the gardener 
to show him that it would pay to put 
wire netting along all those rows, and 
train the vines over it. They could 
easily prove that the vines would yield 
double the crop if trained up—away 
from the ground. Then they showed 
how easy it would be to stretch the wire 
netting, and roll it up at the end of the 
season, while the cash outlay for net¬ 
ting enough to cover an acre would be 
only $150, and it would last, at least, 
five years. Thus, according to this good 
logic, by an outlay of $50 per year, the 
crop could be increased by, at least, 
$100 ! 
But the gardener shook his head and 
couldn’t see it. It might pay, but all 
the habits and traditions of pea culture 
were against it, and that outlay of $150 
was altogether too much. He knew the 
pea vines were too large for the amount 
of pods they produced, but it would cost 
too much to give this heavy growth a 
full chance to develop. 
Now these men had not considered 
another way out of this trouble—viz., 
that of cutting off some of that useless 
vine. What’s the use of growing a vine 
four or five feet long when a vine a foot 
or j 8 inches long will produce more than 
half as many peas? Another gardener 
took a variety like Nott’s Excelsior, and 
planted the rows close together. The 
vines grew but little over a foot high, 
but they were loaded with pods, and 
produced far more to the acre than the 
long-legged kinds that needed three or 
four feet of ground to sprawl in. In¬ 
stead of trying to spread out that great 
vine to its fullest length, the smarter 
men cut the vine down to, at least, one- 
fourth its size, raised more peas to the 
acre, and had more peace while doing it. 
Who would spend $150 to coax up a lot 
of useless vines when smart dwarfs stood 
all ready to save that money ? 
Now there is a useful lesson to many 
farmers in that incident. Many of us 
are paying too much for useless stem or 
standing room. A man might have a 
herd of immense great cows in his barn. 
He figures things out and finds that he 
must increase his yearly output of butter 
in order to make the farm pay. The 
barn is crowded now. Shall he go to 
the expense of building a new barn to 
accommodate more of those big cows ? 
Some one comes along and tells him that 
if h© will enlarge his barn so as to give 
every cow a big box stall, the cows will 
surely give more milk, and it certainly 
looks reasonable. Along comes another 
man and says, “ What do you keep those 
great big elephants for, anyway ? These 
monstrous great heads and legs and 
tails and flanks don’t help make butter ! 
What’s the use of keeping a 1,200-pound 
cow when one weighing 750 pounds will 
make more butter ? Breed down these 
great elephants by using a good Jersey 
or Guernsey bull!” Our friend would 
find that, by breeding blood instead of 
beef into his herd, and cutting off their 
horns, he could so reduce the size of his 
cows that his old barn would hold 
enough of them nearly to double his old- 
time butter yield. 
We might go on and give numberless 
illustrations to show this point up. We 
get the idea of doing business on a big 
vine, and it takes all we can earn to keep 
that great vine growing. We are too 
Island man have a chance : 
I do not take the paper, but father does, and 
since we have had it, the other papers receive a 
wide berth until I have thoroughly read it. s. b. s. 
A “wide berth” is too much like the big 
vine on the pea. The R. N.-Y. likes to 
crowd in close, and make every foot 
count. We want to crowd into your 
neighbor’s family. What are your terms 
for helping us get there? That’s busi¬ 
ness ! Let’s have your answer ! 
CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE. 
Crimson Clover in Mississippi.—I tried Crimson 
clover this vear ; sowed two acres September 4 
1895. The ground was plowed, harrowed, seed 
sown and harrowed again ; in two days we 
had a shower, and it came up finely. Then it 
kept dry for a long tune, and I expected every 
plant to die, but several lived through. I sowed 
four acres October 10 ; two acres had oats on it 
which were mowed and raked, then sowed to 
peas, and the peas turned under with a three- 
horse plow, and harrowed like the first piece. 
The other two acres were plowed and harrowed 
both ways, seed sown and covered with a plank 
drag lapped like weather boarding, which left a 
bed of dust on tot), It was some time before we 
had rain. I had a good stand on the last two 
pieces, and I thought it made a very good growth 
for the land, which was all poor. It was the first 
I ever saw in bloom, and it, certainly, makes a 
pretty flower garden. I think that it will do well 
on good ground, or that which is fertilized. My 
land is a sandy loam, with a clay subsoil. 
w. o. P. 
Crimson Clover in Ohio. —Here is the result of 
my experiment with Crimson clover, on a small 
scale : The seed was sown the middle of August, 
on sod ground plowed early in spring and fre¬ 
quently harrowed. The soil is a rich, sandy loam. 
It did not suffer from the frost, although a worse 
winter for heaving out I never saw. It started to 
Ifti.ocdtancou.s' gulmtising. 
f if expected in the family how 
' ma- ^ J I lovingly the parents plan 
' > together for its future well- 
fare. They sometimes even forecast its 
education and career. Does this seem 
too early to anticipate while the child is 
yet unborn? It isn’t. The child’s des¬ 
tiny has already been partly mapped out 
by Nature according to the disposition 
and habits of the parents. The best plan 
a mother can make for the future happi¬ 
ness of her unborn child is to maintain 
her own cheerfulness and health while 
her child’s undeveloped being is still a 
part of hers. Her health at this critical 
period is of tremendous consequence to 
the little one’s whole future existence. 
Every prospective mother will find direct 
nourishment, comfort and sustaining 
strength, in Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Pre¬ 
scription. It will maintain her vitality 
both bodily and mental; shorten the peri¬ 
od of confinement and make labor easy and 
almost painless. It imparts strength and 
elasticity to the organs concerned in par¬ 
turition, invests the mother with recuper¬ 
ative energy against any after period of 
weakness and depression, and aids in the 
secretion of healthy nourishment for the 
child. It is the unfailing cure of all “ fe¬ 
male weaknesses.” 
Dear Doctor —Your “ Favorite Prescription,” is 
the best medicine to take before confinement 
that can be found. It proved so with me. I 
never suffered so little with any of my children 
as I did with my last, and she is the healthiest we 
have. When I began your treatment I could.not 
stand on my feet long enough to wash my dishes 
without suffering almost death ; now I do all my 
housework, washing, cooking, sewing, and every¬ 
thing for my family. 
yaiRS.);^ 
JIApAsGu 
Oakley, Overton Co., Tcnn. 
grow early in spring, and was over a foot high 
May 1, when it began to blossom. A single plant 
taken up May 20, had 53 stalks and 63 blossoms. 
The length of the stalks was 29 inches ; length of 
root, 10 inches. It was allowed to go to seed, and 
every blossom had its full seed. I fail to see from 
this experiment why Crimson clover should not 
prove a success in this part of Ohio. E. b. c. 
Some Crimson Clover Experience. —Not long 
since, I read an article written by one of the asso¬ 
ciate editors of one of the leading agricultural 
papers, in which he said that, in his opinion, 
Crimson clover would not succeed in north lati¬ 
tude 41 degrees. As it was The R. N.-Y. that in¬ 
fluenced me to give it a trial, I give you the re¬ 
sults of my trials. August 8, 1895, I sowed clover 
on 10 acres of vineyard, about 5*4 quarts to the 
acre, and harrowed it in. The season being very 
dry, it did not get a heavy growth in the fall, but 
most of it lived through the winter. This spring, 
it grew nicely, and was plowed under about May 
18, some of it being over two feet high. This I 
consider a complete success; but I plowed nine 
acres of clover sod, fitted it well, and sowed about 
15 pounds of clover seed to the acre, and, instead 
of harrowing it in, I rolled about one-half the 
piece, and was stopped by a heavy rain storm 
which I thought would cover the seed sufficiently. 
The result of this was a total failure. The rain 
sprouted the seed very quickly, and the hot sum 
killed it; therefore, I conclude that rolling is not 
the proper way to cover the seed. I shall, this 
year, sow Crimson clover on 30 acres of vineyard, 
and also on some more sod ground. I think that, 
for this latitude (42 degrees), it ought to be sown 
July 15 to August 1, and one must not expect it to 
do well on poor soil. Our soil varies, some of it 
being gravel, and some a clay loam. The past 
winter was more severe than common; the mer¬ 
cury reached 12 degrees below zero. o. e. p. 
North East, Pa. 
McKean County, Pa. —Two weeks ago, the hay 
crop looked very thin, owing to the continuous 
dry weather; but, during the past two weeks, we 
have had an abundance of rain, and it has in-, 
creased the hay one-half. Oats look fine. I drilled 
750 pounds of bone meal with nine bushels of oats, 
and one can almost see them grow. Last year, 
we had no fruit, not even wild blackberries, 
owing to hard frosts and dry weather; this year 
we have an abundance of apples and all fruits 
that grow here w. w. k. 
Don’t Depend on Grass. —These dry years are 
teaching one lesson, that is, that we have relied 
altogether too much on grass meadows and pas¬ 
tures for keeping our stock. On very fertile and 
moist soils, such as are found in England and 
in spots of the mountains of North Carolina, 
grass may well be made the staple food of ani¬ 
mals both summer and winter. In semi-arid re¬ 
gions, as all the Middle and Western States are 
liable to become on short notice, it is out of the 
question to try to get the most profits from any 
system of grass growing. By grass, I do not 
mean to include corn, or the sorghums or oats. 
Here, in central Ohio, we once had the “ Blue 
grass era.” Large areas were kept perpetually 
in Blue grass, which was pastured by cattle and 
sheep. It was fairly profitable when the compe¬ 
tition of the great ranges was not so severe; but 
now the pastures are, one by one, being plowed 
and made into farming lands. 
As to the very sma'l return of profit of some of 
the old pastures in contrast with other forage 
plants, I see from my window a two-acre field of 
rape that has not been above ground one month, 
yet is nearly two feet tall, covering the field com¬ 
pletely ; 12 large Dorset lambs graze on it, and I 
cut it for the cows, yet it does not seem to be 
touched. Just over the fence, is a strip of the 
original Blue grass that has not been grazed or 
mowed for three years; yet it would not average 
one foot high, and taking the season through, the 
rape would return 10 times the amount of food 
that the Blue grass would. This may be an ex¬ 
ceptional case as the land is loose and black, not 
perfectly adapted to pasture grasses, but the 
home of rape. 
Last year, I had a yet more striking illustration 
of the advantage of cultivation. A bottom pas¬ 
ture that was noted for its small return, was 
plowed and planted to corn, and although the 
DON’T POT YOUR PLANTS! 
but use RICHARDS’ TRANSPLANTERS instead, as it is a much 
better and cheaper way. Send postal for circular telling all about it. 
Price of complete set of six Transplanters, one Excavator, and one 
Ejector, $2.50. Extra Transplanters, 20 cents each. Agents Wanted. 
F. RICHARDS, Freeport, N. Y. 
— i TTfr FAMOUS — rasnv 
QUINNIPIAC FERTILIZERS 
Are universally used with wonderful results. They are great wheat 
producers. Before ordering your fertilizers for fall use, inquire for 
the Quinnipiac. If not sold in your town, write us direct. 
branch OFFICES: THE QUINNIPIAC COMPANY, 
Rochester N Y 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 27 William. Street , New York City 
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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, New York. 
