1905. 
5i9 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A PENNSYLVANIA FARMER ON LIME. 
I have used lime for agricultural purposes for 25 
years, always with good results; often the increase in 
the first crop more than pays for the lime. Any farm 
that has been under cultivation for many years will be 
greatly benefited by the judicious use of lime. An ex¬ 
ample or two will illustrate. Meeting an old acquaint¬ 
ance in August, some years ago, I asked: “Are you 
through haying?” “I guess so,” was his reply; “some 
of it was so poor I cut it for the looks, but will not 
draw it in.” I then asked: “How many acres did you 
mow, and how much hay did you get?” He replied 
60 acres, and got 28 tons. I said: “You foolish man; 
how many acres do you intend to seed with oats next 
Spring?” He said 10 acres. After advising him to get 
a car of lime to use with as much stable manure as he 
could spare from his other crops, we parted. I met 
him again some years later (in August) and asked: 
“Are you through haying?” “Finished last week,” he 
replied. “How many acres did you mow, and how 
much hay did you get?” “Mowed 30 acres, and my 
barns wouldn’t hold it.” 
Another illustration: A neighbor of mine fertilized 
his farm excessively with stable manure for many 
years, when it became so sour and filled with vegetable 
matter that a good crop could not be grown. Studying 
the situation, he asked me which I would recommend, 
phosphate or lime. I said lime, by all means. 
This advice he followed, and now cuts enor¬ 
mous crops of hay of the finest quality. 
I claim four things for lime: It neutralizes 
the acidity of the soil and sweetens it. It 
attacks all vegetable matter with which it 
comes in contact, decomposes it and fits it for 
plant food. Lime enters into the composition 
of all vegetable growth, especially grain and 
hay. Lime is warming to the soil. The best 
time to use lime is when seeding, either with 
oats, rye, barley or grass seed alone; either 
Spring or Fall seeding. At first I used lump 
lime, putting one-ha"'bushel in a pile at regular 
distances, upon ground previously plowed, and 
covered with earth; left it a few days to slake, 
then spread, but found some lumps would not 
slake, while others would granulate to the size 
of rice. I now put a load (a ton or more) in 
a place; draw water and put on it, pulling it 
apart so the water can penetrate it. It takes 
about 60 gallons of water to slake a ton of 
lime. In this way it all or nearly all slakes, 
and in much less time, and will be more like 
flour; the finer it is and the more thoroughly 
it is mixed with the soil the better the results. 
Reload and spread on the ground previously 
plowed. Use some stable manure if you have 
it; harrow thoroughly and seed; finish with 
bush and roller. 
I prefer the wood-burnt lime screenings from 
the Glens Falls region in New York to the 
coal-burnt lime from Pennsylvania or New 
Jersey; it costs more per ton, but is stronger. 
I slake the screenings the same way that I do 
the lump lime. Lime should not be used as a 
top-dressing, as it is so strong it burns the 
tender plants and defeats our object. One 
application of lime can be used by itself with¬ 
out manure if we do not have it, and have 
good results. This gives a man who has a 
run-down farm and no manure a chance to 
get a start, but do not sell what you raise; 
return it in some shape to the soil. The next rotation 
use stable manure (the more the better) with the lime. 
For the first application of lime use 1(4 ton wood-burned 
lime or two tons Pennsylvania or New Jersey lime to 
the acre. The next rotation, five or seven years later, 
one ton will be sufficient, with as much stable manure 
as you can get. 
A ton of quicklime, after being slaked, will weigh 
about 2,600 pounds; it is better to buy the quicklime 
and add the water than to pay for the increased weight. 
My method of rotation is, first year, hoed crops, sowed 
corn, millet, etc., with stable manure on them all; sec¬ 
ond year, use the lime when seeding down. I sow 16 
quarts Timothy seed to the acre, usually with a cover 
crop, as oats. I sow all Timothy, as I make a specialty 
of Timothy hay for market. I return this to the farm 
by buying stable manure. I usually mow five years. 
When I came here I could not get three-fourths ton of 
hay to the acre; now my average is 1(4 ton per acre 
for all I mow. I sometimes want to get a piece of sod 
ground into gia.s again immediately. I then plow, use 
stable manure and lime, seed to grass at once; this can 
be done either Fall or Spring. I never fail to get a 
good “catch” by this method. My advice is to use some 
lime on all the old farms. It must not be imagined, 
however, that the use of lime renders fertilizing material 
unnecessary, but never mix it with acid phosphate. 
Susquehanna Co., Pa. m. o. rounds. 
SHORT STORIES. 
INCUBATOR IN BEEHIVE.—Seeing your explana¬ 
tion concerning hatching eggs in a beehive, I want to 
just say a few words. Hatching eggs in a beehive is 
an impossibility if only the heat generated from the bee 
is used, as the temperature of a cluster of bees is 98 
degrees F., and the bee queen’s eggs are hatched and 
brood kept at about that temperature. Eggs kept above 
frames of brood in a beehive would be a few degrees 
below that, and about 103 degrees are necessary for 
hatching hens’ eggs. The old man who was sick might 
have been used as an incubator, provided his fever had 
been 103, but if his temperature was normal (98(4) he 
undoubtedly could not be used as a successful incubator. 
Illinois. J. E. JOHNSON. 
HARVESTING RASPBERRIES BY MACHIN¬ 
ERY.—I have been in this business more or less for 
12 years, and I always gather my blackcaps with har¬ 
vesters, as I think it is much cheaper. The frame is 
perhaps not far from four feet long and about two feet 
wide (I do not speak for sure, as my harvesters are all 
on my other farm at present). They have handles and 
a frame around the cloth so as to hold the berries. I 
have two kinds of harvesters; one is the Horton (the 
one I like best). If you have careful workers they will 
waste no more berries than by the hand pickers. A 
great many berries are raised around in this section, and 
nearly all are gathered in this way. I have had four 
tons of dried berries, although at present have not as 
large an acreage as then, but will have in a couple of 
years. You know where so many berries are raised all 
could not get hand pickers enough, and to send away 
they would have to be boarded and would be expensive. 
I sometimes have my first year-old bushes picked by 
hand, but not very often. I pay good, steady, careful 
workers $1.50 per day and board and lodge them, but 
they help about my chores on the farm night and morn¬ 
ing. A great many get help for $1 or $1.25, but I prefer 
to have good help if I pay more; I think it is cheaper. 
I am well satisfied with this way and shall pick mine 
with harvesters. They have a sort of paddle and a 
hook perhaps a foot and a half long that they bring 
the bushes just above the harvester with, and a very 
light tap with the paddle will cause the ripe berries to 
fall off. If hit too hard too many red ones come off, 
and are not as salable; it takes some experience to hit 
just right. EUGENE PADDOCK. 
WORKING FOR ALFALFA.—I am trying three 
acres of Alfalfa again. I plowed the ground early in 
Spring, and worked it every few days until two weeks 
since, or about the time I saw that advice in “Hope 
Farm Notes,” and that rather discouraged me. But 
having my ground in such fine shape, seed purchased 
(66 pounds, 22 pounds per acre), I concluded to try it. 
I sowed it both ways with a Cyclone seeder, and ran 
the weeder over it. I also sowed some soil from my 
mother’s Alfalfa field in Maryland, and just as we fin¬ 
ished we had one of the most violent rainstorms 1 wit¬ 
nessed for many a day. The rain fell in torrents, and 
washed the fields in a sickening manner, and then fol¬ 
lowed up next day with a very high wind. While be¬ 
tween the wind, hot sun and my neglecting to follow 
with weeder again, Alfalfa is having a pretty hard time 
of it, in places it is as thick as it can stand, in others 
scarcely any at all. But I shall let it go and have that 
piece of ground inoculated with the bacteria which be¬ 
longs to the plant. b. r. b. 
Waynesboro, Pa. 
RENTING MACHINERY.—In reply to a question 
about renting or hiring farm machinery, the custom 
here has been to pay a certain sum per acre for the use 
of various kinds of farm implements, such as mowers, 
harvesters, corn binders, listers, press drills, seeders, 
etc., the price usually depending on the cost of the ma¬ 
chine and wear of same. a. m. 
STACKING CORN FODDER.—On page 425 inquiry 
is made about long fodder stacks. We have always 
made such stacks by first laying three heavy rails or 
poles eight or nine feet apart, and then placing other 
rails at right angles, allowing them to extend 18 or 20 
inches on the outside, and 18 inches apart. This 
makes a floor which holds the fodder from the 
ground and prevents freezing fast and 
spoiling the bottom of the stack. We begin 
the stack by laying three or four bundles to¬ 
gether, lengthwise, in the middle of the stack 
the entire length in order to raise the middle; 
then begin to lay crosswise in regular courses 
on each side, butts out, till the entire width 
of the frame is filled. The number of courses 
will depend on the length of fodder and width 
of frame. Bundles are usually lapped to the 
band. Repeat, without laying any bundles the 
long way, till the stack is the desired height, al¬ 
ways keeping the middle high, so that the stalks 
will have some outward pitch like a roof. In 
order to raise the center place bundles heads 
to butts alternately, in the center row. After 
the stack is as high as you wish raise the center 
for the roof by placing bundles lengthwise as 
at the beginning and draw in each course as 
much as possible till a single row of bundles 
will cover each side, then take well-tied, good- 
sized bundles, divide them evei%, and set them 
astride the top. 1 his makes the comb, and if 
the work has been well done the fodder will 
save as well as if it were put in a barn. In 
order to make the bundles easy to get out 
always begin to stack at the end opposite the 
one from which you wish to feed; then they 
will not be bound by bundles of the same row. 
Easton, Pa. j. f. e. 
AN EXPERIENCE WITH DYNAMITE. 
A little over a year ago I employed a man 
to deepen a well by boring with a two-inch 
auger. He brought with him two sticks of 
dynamite and two caps. When he quit work 
for the evening he put them in an open box in 
the wagon shed. I moved the dynamite to a 
safer place, but did not know about or see the 
caps. Before he had occasion to move the 
dynamite there was a hard wind that moved 
things about a good deal, so that when he came 
to move it he could not find the caps, and sup¬ 
posed that the paper they were wrapped in had 
been carried out of place by the wind. In the meantime 
I found a nice, strong sucking pig dead in the wagon 
shed, where the box was in which the dynamite and 
caps were placed. The pig’s nose was crushed, as 
though it had been stepped on by a horse, but I could 
not understand how a horse could do it, and if he did, 
why the pig should be killed instantly. When I learned 
that the caps were lost I did some careful hunting about 
the shed to try to find them, but to no avail. It was 
with considerable fear that we worked about the shed; 
a person stepping on a cap, or dropping something on 
it, or a horse stepping on it, might explode it. In case 
of explosion by stepping on it a crippled foot would be 
the probable result. A few days after the man quit his 
experiments in the well I found another pig dead in 
the shed with its nose crushed like the first one. This 
second loss explained what became of the caps. Each 
pig had found one and tried to bite it, the explosion 
crushing the nose and causing instant death. This try¬ 
ing to get water in a cheap way was increased in cost 
about one-half by the loss of the pigs. Still I was glad 
to be certain that the caps were accounted for. Work¬ 
men often become entirely too careless in handling 
explosives. The frequent accidents in large cities show 
that ordinances regarding explosives are persistently 
ignored. John m. jamison. 
Ohio. 
WELL-GROWN SPIRAEA (ARUNCUS ASTILBOIDES). Fig. 219. 
See Ruralisms, Page 522. 
