1896 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
639 
built with the grain bin off in a small two-story L, 
and the cows kept in a one-story building. The sav¬ 
ing in the cost of building a big hay mow will be 
immense. 
Mr. Francisco has not changed his feeding ration 
of grain, or his manner of feeding it since our last 
report. The grain mixture is still 200 pounds best 
corn meal, 100 pounds malt sprouts, and 100 pounds of 
bran. This is wet up 12 hours before feeding, so that 
it forms a soft mush. This mixture has always given 
a milk of good quality and very satisfactory flavor. 
Mr. F. says that he does not care to experiment with 
cheaper grain combinations. This one is satisfactory, 
and produces milk of standard composition. When 
asked if he tried to produce a very rich milk ; Mr. F. 
said that he does not care for over four 
per cent of fat, and 13 % to 14 per cent 
total solids. Such milk is more satisfac¬ 
tory for his trade than if it contained 
more fat. 
One thing we noticed about the dairy 
house was the great use that is being 
made of live steam in cleaning utensils. 
After washing and rinsing, the glass 
bottles are put into a stout chest and 
steamed for 15 minutes. Before each 
milking, the cans and pails are all 
steamed, and the milk cooler is thor¬ 
oughly scalded in every part by forcing 
a jet of live steam all over it. There is 
nothing more cleansing than steam, be¬ 
cause it is driven into every crack and 
crevice—places that could hardly be 
reached by water and cloth. 
and fall cabbage for melons and turnips, with excel¬ 
lent success. All this time, I kept one or two wagons 
running daily, selling at retail all the smaller vege¬ 
tables found in a first-class garden.” 
1 ‘ Do you not grow small fruits, too ? ” 
“ Yes, a few years ago, I started growing straw¬ 
berries, and afterwards, raspberries. I have now sev¬ 
eral acres of each, besides 5,000 vines of the latest in¬ 
troductions in grapes. I set out strawberries in 
August when sufficient rain comes, or as soon after 
as possible. Set at that season on highly-fertilized 
soil, very nearly a full crop is gathered the following 
spring. After bearing another year, they are plowed 
under. Most of the crop is sold in Pine Bluff. I take 
great pride in the berries, and give them perfect cul¬ 
MARKET GARDENING IN ARKANSAS 
ADVANTAGES OF GOOD CLIMATE AND 
CHEAP FERTILIZERS. 
Most of our readers ^have, doubtless, 
heard about the market garden business 
as it is conducted at the South. With 
an early spring, and a long, pleasant 
autumn, the southern gardener is able 
to obtain large crops and to keep his land 
covered with growing plants for nine 
mouths of the year. The trouble with most of 
the southern growers is that they are so far away 
from the northern markets, that the cost of trans¬ 
portation eats up nearly all the profit. Their 
vegetables and fruits being so long on the journey, 
must be ranked as second-class when they reach the 
North, as it was necessary to pick them before they 
were fully ripe, so that they might 
ripen on the way. 
While, of course, the South does not 
offer the attractions in nearby mar¬ 
kets that are found in the large man¬ 
ufacturing towns of the North, here 
and there you will find men in the 
southern States who have developed a 
nice business right at home in supply¬ 
ing fruits and vegetables to the people 
in their home town. Mr. W. T. Simp¬ 
son is located near Pine Bluff, Ark., 
and as he has been trying this plan 
of developing the home market, per¬ 
haps a bit of his experience will be 
useful to some of our southern read¬ 
ers. When asked how he started, Mr. 
S. said : 
“I started about 10 years ago with 
three special crops—Potatoes, melons, 
turnips—as I could grow all three of 
these crops on the same ground the 
same year.” 
“ How did you manage to do that ? ” 
“ I began by planting an early potato, 
heavily fertilized with cotton seed meal 
and cottcn-hull ashes. As soon as the 
potatoes were large enough to sell in 
the local market, every third row of po¬ 
tatoes was dug and sold. Watermelons 
were planted in this row at once, every 
six feet, and one plant left to the hill. 
The imelons were cultivated until the 
other two rows of potatoes were matured, when they 
were dug and the middles thoroughly cultivated. 
When planted so late, melons came into market in 
September after the glut was over, and invariably 
brought a good price. After the melons were sold, 
the soil was at once broken and harrowed, and tur¬ 
nips sown in 18 inch drills, fertilized with cotton-hull 
ashes, at the rate of 800 pounds to the acre.” 
“ Did this pay ? ” 
“ Yes, very well until so many others went into it 
that competition in melons and turnips became so 
close that other crops were necessary. The way to 
avoid competition is to get out of the rush into new 
methods or crops. The competition is all in the rear 
rank. I can now frequently substitute sweet potatoes 
pared an acre of my best land in September, and after 
fertilizing with a ton each of cotton seed meal and 
cotton-hull ashes, and 20 two-horse loads of stable 
manure all broadcast, I drilled in 10 pounds of Bar- 
letta onion seed in 18-inch hills. The venture proved 
an entire success, as the planting of onions here in 
the fall had never been attempted before. On April 
9, I had onions from that planting that were from 
three to four inches in diameter. Having no com¬ 
petition. they sold like hot cakes, at a fancy price. 
All were sold m the green state, and over $500 were 
realized from the onions alone. A crop of the vineless 
sweet potatoes followed this crop, which made a yield 
of nearly 400 bushels. Taken together, it was the 
most satisfactory venture I ever made on one acre.” 
Mr. Simpson makes use of hotbeds, 
having 400 x 10 feet under glass heated 
by steam. After the winter season is 
over, he often beds from 500 to 600 bush¬ 
els of sweet potatoes for plants, both for 
his own use and for sale. His own crop 
of sweet potatoes will average 3,000 
bushels each year, and these are about 
the only products of the farm that are 
sent to distant markets. Mr. Simpson’s 
place is four miles from town, but he is 
in touch with all parts of the city by 
telephone. Frequently, during the busy 
berry season, orders accumulate after 
the departure of the regular wagons, 
that an extra wagon is sent in to supply 
some customer that is running short on 
berries or other article that he supplies. 
We expect to have more to say later 
about glass gardening at the South, as 
Mr. Simpson manages it. It seems to us 
that there are points in his experience 
that may well be studied by gardeners 
everywhere. 
CORN FROM 18-YEAR-OLD SEED. Fig. 201. See Ruralisms, Page 642. 
tivation. The berry pickers have orders to leave all 
soft and faulty berries in the field, and the top and 
bottom of the packages are all the same.” 
“ What can you say about varieties ? ” 
“Michel’s Early, Bubach, Haverland, Beder Wood 
and Gandy are used for the main crop of strawberries, 
but I have all the new varieties in a plot with the old 
THE FANNY APPLE. Half Size. Fig. 202. See Ruralisms, Page 642. 
ones, so that the characteristics of each can be care¬ 
fully noted. The Tubbs, Win. Belt, and Brandywine 
are three that are very promising here. In raspberries,* 
I have Kansas, Palmer and Mammoth Cluster for 
blackcaps, and Cuthbert, Miller, Loudon and Royal 
Church for red, Shaffer and Columbian for purple. 
The Columbian is not in bearing yet, except one plant 
which yielded, this spring, one year from the tip, 15 
pint boxes of berries, and I regard it as an acquisition 
for this climate, as the canes seem to be exempt from 
the destructive sunscald during hot summer.” 
“ What other crops have paid best?” 
“I have done well with onions. Through previous 
experiments, I learned that the Barletta onion would 
go through the winters in the open ground. I pre- 
BUTTERMAKING ON THE FARM. 
RATIONS AND THEIR EFFECT. 
The question of rations and nutritive 
ratios has been written and talked about 
for a dozen years, until it seems as 
though there was nothing more to be said. Just how 
much truth there may be in the idea of working 
out a ration to an exact standard, no one knows. 
The Germans, who lead the world in this, as they 
do in all exact agricultural science, have settled 
upon a standard of 1:5.4 as the proper ration for a cow 
giving milk. But in this country of big corn crops, 
protein is relatively dearer as compared 
with carbohydrates and fat, than in Ger¬ 
many. The work of the Wisconsin Ex¬ 
periment Station makes it seem pretty 
sure that our most practical American 
ration is one much wider than this. 
One thing is certain—that we find 
men achieving very good, if not excel¬ 
lent, results on very widely different 
rations. For example, some Southern 
cow keepers have fed a ration in which 
there was so much cotton-seed meal, 
with cotton-seed hulls for roughage, as 
to make a nutritive ratio of only 1:3, 
while enthusiastic silo men have fed a 
ration containing very little else, mak¬ 
ing a ratio as wide as 1:11. We have, 
perhaps, no careful experiments along 
this line, but we know that the above 
rations have been fed for some time 
without any very apparent effects upon 
the health and production of the cows. 
Evidently, it won’t do to be too sure 
where we stand in this matter. 
At the Michigan Station, last winter, 
they turned a cow loose in a pen, where 
were boxes containing various kinds of 
foods, from which she could help her¬ 
self at will. The amount she ate of 
each was determined, and it was found 
that she ate almost a theoretically cor¬ 
rect ration. This may have been the 
wonderful result of instinct on the part 
of the cow, or quite as likely, it may have been 
purely accidental. 
Everything considered as to the relative proportion 
of protein, carbohydrates and fat, in the present state 
of our knowledge, it will not be best to depart too 
far from a ratio of 1:6, although our personal con¬ 
venience, especial cheapness of some kinds of food, 
and like reasons, may make advisable pretty wide de¬ 
partures from this ; whichever direction we go, we 
shall find ourselves in pretty good company. The 
phenomenal butter yields have, generally, been 
obtained on rather narrow rations, while, on the 
other hand, there are good physiological reasons for 
thinking that the narrow rations may be a greater 
tax upon the assimilative system of the cow. 
