1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
329 
CHEMICALS AND WORN-OUT SOIL. 
WILL SUCH FERTILIZERS FERTILIZE ? 
The Plain Story of a Practical Farmer. 
Part III. 
Starting Clover. —From childhood I 
had been accustomed to hear the expres¬ 
sion used, "If we can only get a good crop 
of clover to grow, then we can grow any¬ 
thing we want to.” Therefore it seemed 
to me the proper thing was to plant some 
of the best portions of the farm with corn 
and potatoes, intending to Summer-fallow 
the rest as far as we could find time, sow 
it with rye in the Fall and seed to clover 
in the Spring. Then when we got the 
clover started, 1 thought, we could grow 
anything we wanted to. Just in what way 
the clover crop benefited the soil, or suc¬ 
ceeding crops, was far from being clear 
at the time, but since those days the 
schoolmaster has been abroad in the land, 
and he has given me to understand that 
of the many things that go to make plant 
life and growth there are only three abso¬ 
lutely essential—possibly four ; lime may 
be a help sometimes. These substances are 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. I 
hope to dwell at greater length on these 
points later on in “The Story of a Load 
of Flay,” but for the present it will be suf¬ 
ficient to say that the first mentioned of 
these substances—nitrogen—is what men 
depend upon to grow crops that make 
foliage, like cabbage, grass, etc., and this 
substance the schoolmaster said occupied 
about four-fifths of the air we breathe. 
Now it does seem foolish to repeat for 
the thousandth time that the clover is only 
one of a large family of plants that have 
the rare faculty of entrapping this elusive 
substance from the atmosphere, and re¬ 
taining it in the ground for the benefit 
of future crops, and inasmuch as this ele¬ 
ment, nitrogen, in a well-balanced ferti¬ 
lizer costs nearly one-half of the whole, or 
in other words, about as much as all the 
rest, it can be readily seen that the clover 
crop is very important for renovating pur¬ 
poses alone. 
Trying the Legumes. —These state¬ 
ments have been repeated so often that to 
the large majority of the readers of this 
paper their remention will seem uncalled 
for, but let the large number of R. N.-Y. 
readers who compose the graduating class 
remember that these talks are intended 
mainly for the primary grade. I threw 
aw'ay a nice lot of good clover seed before 
I discovered that the ground was so poor 
that clover wouldn’t catch, and sometimes 
it would catch a little and couldn’t keep 
its hold; that is, it would take a start and 
a little spell of dry weather coming on, it 
would die off. To learn for myself the 
availability of different crops for reno¬ 
vating purposes I sowed alternate strips 
with different plants of the clover family, 
cow peas, vetch. Soy beans, lupins, beg¬ 
gar-weed, and finally discarded all of them 
except the cow pea. The Winter vetch 
is, in connection with a field of Crimson 
clover when in bloom, a royal sight, one 
worth going miles to see, but for economic 
purposes it may become on grain-growing 
farms a positive nuisance by reason of the 
fact that it always seems to mature 
enough seed to overstock itself, and the 
seed being somewhere about the size and 
shape of cockle, few persons could tell the 
difference by the appearance, and with an 
ordinary fanning mdl it seems impossible 
to remove them. 
The First Crop. —The possibilities and 
the needs of this poverty-stricken farm 
were revealed to me almost by accident in 
the first crop we tried to grow for money. 
A measured acre was taken of perhaps 
the best-appearing part of the place, and 
from around the barn twenty-odd loads of 
discolored straw, cornstalks, etc., wert 
gathered and spread on this acre and 
plowed under quite early in tlie season. 
The surface was gone over about once a 
week till July 1. We sowed half a ton of 
complete fertilizer and planted with 5,000 
late cabbage. The sight of that cabbage 
patch during the Fall was quite refreshing. 
1 sold it in the field for $160, put the 
money in my pocket and went off by my¬ 
self to conjure up a plan to grow a lot of 
vegetable matter to grow more cabbage 
and stuff. There was one field of four 
acres that seemed to offer an excellent 
opportunity for experiment in that direc¬ 
tion, and also for the removal of a large 
number of great bowlders that seemed a 
constant menace to civilization, at least 
so far as I could judge from the numerous 
explosions that seemed to come from the 
ne ghborhood of the man who did the 
plowing. I had often heard farmers say 
that if all the stones were taken from the 
field the field in question would forever 
after remain unproductive. From the fact 
that this field was so fully occupied as a 
stone quarry it was impossible to keep the 
plow in the ground more than half of the 
time it seemed no great loss. I deter¬ 
mined to concentrate a couple of weeks’ 
time that Fall after other work was out of 
the way and clean it up as far as we went. 
As there were only about six or eight 
acres of rough ground on the whole farm 
I felt as though I could afford to be thor¬ 
ough. I wanted to grow something an¬ 
other Summer to be turned under for po¬ 
tatoes the following season. I was quite 
exact in the expense account with that 
particular field, because 1 foresaw it was 
going to be a big job. and had grave 
doubts as to the outcome. The figures 
are before me as I write, taken at the time 
from day to day. 
Taming the Field. —The first and most 
important operation was to remove the 
large stones or bowlders, some of them 
afterward making 20 good-sized loads, and 
they were quite plentiful during the latter 
part of Summer. As opportunity pre¬ 
sented I went over the ground, taking a 
man w th me and a whole lot of stakes to 
locate the stones just sticking their heads 
above the surface. Many of tnem were 
as far above as they were below. After 
we had located all we could find the next 
operation consisted in digging down by 
the side to find the bottom, then tunnel ng 
under to get the explosive as near the 
middle as possible. One has to have some 
idea of the size of the rock and h’ow 
much it is hemmed in, so as to get a 
clearer conception of its powers of re¬ 
sistance to enable a person properly to 
judge the amount of explosive needed. If 
too much is used picking up the pieces 
afterward may seem like small business; 
if there is not enough put under the 
bowlder may be simply jarred and the 
ground beneath so broken up that it be¬ 
comes too loose to hold another charge. 
We placed 20 sticks under some of those 
stones. Was it only my imagination or 
did I really see a grim smile of triumph 
steal over the face of the plowman as 
those great stones went sailing skyward? 
M. GARRAHAN. 
Moth Balls for Striped Bug. —Plant 
cucumbers, squash and melons in the hills 
in circles, six to eight inches in diametr. 
As soon as the plants appear put in the 
circle or center of the hill a clam shell, or 
piece of broken crockery, or anything to 
keep the balls from the ground. In 
each hill put five or six moth halls. They 
will last about three weeks; then renew. 
It is easy, cheap, sure; try them. e. a. d. 
West Orange, N. .1. 
Unloading IIay. —We have used slings 
successfully two years. Our opening is eight 
feet, from beam to point in rafters, and seven 
feet wide. Our slings are for 13-foot rack. 
We use same track and car that we used with 
fork, but it requires an extra pulley made 
especially for that purpose. I think nearly 
all companies that make hay tools can furnish 
pulleys. It also takes more rope than does 
a fork. We have discarded our fork, as we 
use slings for hay, oats, sheaves and corn¬ 
stalks. In heavy material we use four slings, 
in other stuff we use three. Slings require 
same space as forks. e. o. k. 
Nassau, N. Y. 
If you understand Modern Methods and 
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