1896 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 7i9 
these beds until the middle of April, when the open- 
ground lettuce comes on. The beds are then used for 
sprouting sweet potatoes, or are planted to cucum¬ 
bers, which are a paying crop if the striped bug can 
be kept at bay. A part of these beds are used for 
starting cabbage, cauliflower, tomato plants, and all 
plants generally started in hotbeds in the North. I 
think that the business of winter gardening in the 
South is more profitable than in the North, and the 
amount of artificial heat required won’t average half 
so much or half so long as there. But we must have 
it at times, during most years ; about one year in ten, 
a crop of lettuce or cabbage will go through the win¬ 
ter all right, but it won’t do to depend on. 
w. T. SIMPSON. 
ARE METAL WAGON WHEELS PROFITABLE? 
This is an age of change and improvement. What answered the 
purpose a few years ago, in many cases, doesn’t fill the bill now, 
owing to something better being adopted. This refers, not only 
to the mechanical world outside the farm, but to the farm as well. 
Broad-tire wagons are rapidly supplanting the narrow tires on 
the farm, and manufacturers, a few years ago, conceived the 
idea of making broad-tire wheels entirely of metal, and have ad¬ 
vertised them freely in The R. N.-Y. and other papers. I would 
like to ask the readers who are using them if they are a success, 
and can stand the wear and tear to which an ordinary wheel is 
subjected on farms, particularly rough ones. I write this because 
I have a near neighbor who bought a set, and he was highly 
pleased with them when he got them a year or two ago; but now, 
both fore wheels have collapsed, one hind wheel is out of repair, 
and the owner is sick of his bargain. What do The R. N.-Y. 
readers say about it ? m. h. c. Gardner. 
Orange County, N. Y. 
Buy Only on a Guarantee. 
Metal wheels have been but little used for hauling 
loads in this locality. I know of only two sets in use. 
The parties having them tell me that they are very 
much pleased with them, and after about one year’s 
use, they show no signs of giving out. My own ex¬ 
perience is limited to their use on potato plant¬ 
ers. The spring of 1895, I bought a planter made 
in New Jersey, with metal wheels. Two persons 
were required to ride upon the machine when 
operating it. One of the wheels doubled soon 
after I commenced using it. This was straight¬ 
ened back, and did service the rest of the season, 
although the track it made was pretty crooked. 
Having sold the planter, this season, I decided 
to try one made in Illinois; it also had metal 
wheels, and carried two persons when planting. 
They have stood up all right, but 1 notice that 
the rims or tires, which are four inches wide and 
rather thin, are quite badly bent, especially near 
the edges, caused, probably, by driving over 
stones. I judge that they would not be long lived 
if they were much used on rough roads. Used 
only upon the farm, they would, probably, last 
as long as the rest of the machine. 
But I would not condemn all metal wheels be¬ 
cause a few sets have given out, any more than I 
would stop using horses because there are a few 
ugly, bad dispositioned ones. It would not be 
just because a few sets or a single make has 
proved a failure, that all should be classed as 
frauds. Some of the manufacturers of the 
present day are running a mad race with 
their competitors, aiming to produce an article 
that they can sell a little cheaper, regardless of proper 
construction and the material used, if it only sells, 
and the purchaser does the experimenting. If I 
needed a set of wheels (and I would if l did not al¬ 
ready have a wagon with wide tires), I should give 
my preference to the metal ones, provided that I 
could find a manufacturer willing to warrant them 
for a reasonable length of time ; in my case, that 
would be five years. Let them take the chances on 
their products, not the farmer. L. D. gale. 
Chautauqua County, N. Y. 
An Opinion From Indiana. 
I have used a set of metal wagon wheels nearly a 
year. Some neighbors have been using them two 
years. Our ground is not rough or rocky. My wheels 
are 26 and 28 inches. Such wheels are very handy for 
a farm truck, they are so low. This is, however, a 
fault on rough or muddy roads. The tires are four- 
inch tread. In deep mud, these low wheels push the 
mud up ahead of them and will not rise over it. But 
one has no business going on to fields when muddy. 
Of course we all know that a small wheel lifts harder 
over a large obstruction like a stone or a woodchuck 
hole. My man says that they seem to “ hit every 
stone along the road.” For both farm use and road 
hauling, the ordinary 3%-inch tread wooden wheel is 
better than these small ones. I have a neighbor 
whose wheels are 34 and 36 inches, and he likes them 
very much ; but he is not a hard user of a wagon. 
Our log haulers won’t even try them ; they say that 
they “ won’t bear nothin’ ”. I have never seen a 
large iron wheel that I thought would bear 1,000 feet 
of logs, as these log men often haul. I know of one 
wagon that 100 bushels of wheat dished the wrong 
way, but didn’t break it. I do not know one out of 
six farmers near here who would part with his truck 
wagon. But we put the iron wheels on our old 
wagons, and keep a wooden wheel wagon for the 
roads and similar purposes. e. h. collins. 
A Kansas Man Discusses Wheels. 
There are two classes of metal wheels—the ones 
built on scientific principles, and the ones that are 
built solely to gull the farmer. Any metal wheel 
that has the spokes attached rigidly in a straight line 
in the hub, and riveted to the tire, is of the latter 
class. Any metal wheel with removable thimbles, 
and spokes hooked into steel disks around the thimble 
in two rows, or bracing fashion, will stand rough 
usage, as it is made to expand or contract as the tem¬ 
perature may be. For farm work, the latter wheels 
are much better than wooden wheels. For road work, 
the wooden wheels are, perhaps, the better, but the 
wider ones would not injure the road so much. The 
Farmer’s Handy Wagon Company make the best metal 
wheel I have seen, and their wooden-wheel wagon 
with six-inch tires, is the handiest thing out. 
CLARENCE J. NORTON. 
Not Satisfactory on Hill Farms. 
I bought a set of metal wheels two years ago ; they 
were warranted for one year. Inside of a year, two 
of them broke down. I returned them to the maker, 
and received new wheels for them, after a long delay. 
One of the new wheels was so small in the hub that 
it broke the thimble skein on my wagon, and I have 
sent all over the United States to find one (boxing), 
that would fit, and been unable to find it. Now the 
new ones have broken down. They break the spokes 
off at the hub, and get loose in the tire. I am greatly 
pleased with low wheels and wide tires for farm 
wagons. I have had a new wagon made with wheels 
STRAWBERRIES PICKED IN OCTOBER. Fig. 235. 
Half Natural Size. See Discussion, Page 722. 
of the same size as the metal wheels and tires of the 
same width, and use the tires from the metal wheels 
for the new wheels. The tires were worth about 
$2.50, but cost $30. This is my experience with metal 
wheels. franklin moore. 
Sullivan County, N. Y. 
“A GOOD CROP OF GRASS.” 
Some weeks ago, we gave an account of the large 
grass crop grown by Mr. Geo. M. Clark of Connecticut. 
On July 8, I saw seven-eighths of an acre of this grass 
which was then standing. The day following (July 
9), this field was cut. On September 15, or 67 days 
later, the second crop was cut. Mr. Clark sent me the 
product of one square foot which was cut and dried 
by the stove. It contains 373 spires of grass, and 
weighed, when sent, ounces. The longest Timo¬ 
thy in the package was three feet. There was a fair 
sprinkling of clover in it, and I noticed that the Red- 
top in this second growth was not so well developed 
as the Timothy. It seemed like a remarkable growth 
for grass to make in 67 days of second growth. Mr. 
Clark says that the total second crop from this seven- 
eighths of an acre weighed 6,665 pounds as it was put 
into the barn. The two crops of this year’s cutting 
weighed eight tons and 1,145 pounds. This is the 
fourteenth crop that has been taken from the field— 
seven first crops and seven crops of rowen, and the 
two crops of each year have exceeded eight tons ! 
That is a remarkable showing. It will pay to turn 
back and read over Mr. Clark’s method of preparing 
the soil for the grass crop. 
It will be remembered that Mr. Clark uses a small 
quantity of clover seed with the Red-top and Timothy. 
When asked when the clover usually make3 its 
first appearance, he said : 
“ As to the first appearance of clover after sowing, 
that depends on the stand of Timothy and Red-top. 
The clover appeared in the field from which I cut 
that second-crop sample sent you, the fifth year, a 
little more the sixth and about the same the seventh 
as in the sixth. On another section of the field of 
four acres, the first appearance of the clover was in 
this, the sixth year. I wish only to add that, if the 
Timothy and Red-top stand were so poor that clover 
would appear the first or second year, I should 
immediately tear up and re-seed.” 
In a recent letter, Mr. Clark gives this experience 
with sorrel in his grass land : 
“There was a section of my grass field sown last 
September in which quite an amount of sorrel ap¬ 
peared ; it was on the four-acre section which was 
not so thoroughly cultivated. You will recollect that 
section was somewhat bunchy, and on some of it 
between the bunches filled in with sorrel, so much so, 
in some instances, that, at first, the sorrel seemed to 
cover the ground ; but later, the Red-top and Timothy 
took possession. As soon as I cut the first crop, I 
sowed on 600 pounds of air-slaked lime. Three weeks 
later, my crop of sorrel was all dead, and the field is 
now free from sorrel. 
“ I wish to add further, that one reason why I tore 
this field up and re-seeded it, was that sorrel was 
altogether too plentiful, started first, with the use of 
Peruvian guano ; for five years, I fought that sorrel 
without avail. An adjoining section gave me some 
trouble. The sorrel in that field started with the use 
of a preparation of fish. I tried a ton of fine lime to 
the acre on this old grass field, covering the old 
growth of sorrel, and while the lime appears to injure 
its rise and progress, there is too much as yet to suit. 
From these experiments, I concluded that, if sorrel 
is taken when young and treated to fine lime, 
it will end it. An adjoining landholder said 
that yard manure would soon kill sorrel; he tried 
it thoroughly, and found his field as red as a fox.” 
H. w. c. 
SWAMP LANDS AND THEIR RECLAM A TI0N. 
Part II. 
As mentioned in Part I., many of the swamp 
lands of Michigan lie but little below the level 
of the surrounding country, and are above the 
water-bearing strata, hence they are seldom, if 
ever, fed by springs. They are simply basins 
havijg an impervious subsoil which holds the 
surface water which falls or drains into them. 
Some were once lakes and ponds which have 
gradually filled up with decaying vegetable 
matter. We have plenty of them now in all 
stages of the process. Sometimes the surface 
of a lake has grown over with vegetation, mak¬ 
ing a soil several feet thick under which the 
water still remains, furnishing the conditions 
from which are caused the “ sink holes” which 
have caused so much trouble and expense in 
building railroads and highways over them. 
Others were caused by the leaves damming the 
water courses, thus flooding the surrounding coun¬ 
try. There are hundreds of old beaver dams within 
a day’s ride of my residence, and it is wonderful to 
what an extent they have modified the topography of 
the country. I think that it is safe to say that, in the 
township in which I reside, there are 1,000 acres of 
swamp land made so by the work of beavers. Every 
natural water course had its series of dams, in conse¬ 
quence of which we have a series of swamps or 
marshes, each one level of itself, and at a different 
level from its neighbor, like the steps of an immense 
stairway. 
It is a little remarkable that there is, almost with¬ 
out exception, a natural outlet from these basins 
where the water has, evidently, flowed at some time, 
even though the water surface in the basin is now far 
below the outlet. In general, these natural outlets 
may be utilized for the purpose of drainage. Some 
of our swamps have several different outlets, any 
or all of which may be used. In many of the 
smaller swamps, the water surface has receded so 
much below the natural outlet, that it is impractic¬ 
able to use that outlet directly. In such cases, the 
drainage, if effected at all, must be either by raising 
the water mechanically so that it will flow away in 
the outlet, or else the water must be let out at the 
bottom. The first may always be done and is simply 
a question of expense, whether it will pay or not. 
The second plan may or may not work, depending on 
the character of the ground. If it will work at all, it 
is not, usually, very expensive. In those cases where 
sub-drainage or vertical drainage is practicable, the 
conditions are these : We find that the water is held 
in the basin by an impervious stratum of some kind, 
usually clay, underneath which is a pervious stratum, 
