454 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 2, 
rying wood and the commonest kind of labor they 
were a help, economical and thrifty; they soon got 
over that, became merchants, gardeners and hop grow¬ 
ers. Now white men do for them what they used to 
do for the whites. Poor (indeed) hands with stock 
of all kinds, but hogs; 1 do not believe they would 
relieve the situation. Now we have Japanese, in some 
ways far ahead of Chinese; intelligent handlers of 
stock, adopting American' methods, apt scholars (may¬ 
be too apt), still a source of danger, rapidly learning 
our ways they become competitors, and their ways of 
living are such that the American cannot compete with 
them. They have at this time hundreds of acres of the 
best (small fruit) land rented at higher prices than 
local growers can afford to pay, sell their product at 
prices that prohibit local men from staying in it, each 
year* seeing a larger area in their hands. Industrious, 
frugal, hard livers and workers these newcomers make 
it a hard problem. > o. j. judd. 
Oregon. 
Bad Reputation in California. 
As T have known the Chinese all my life 1 would 
like to give you my views. 1 live in California; came 
to this country when a year old, and have seen the 
Chinese as miners before any fruit raising was done 
here, and since have seen them as renters and laborers, 
I have owned a small orchard for 10 years; up to a 
year ago was employed in other business, and gave but 
little attention to fruit raising. I had some orchard 
on the place, and at times have let my fruit rot in 
preference to renting to or employing Chinese or Jap¬ 
anese. Any man who will allow either nationality to 
live near his home must expect his children to be¬ 
come what these coolies are, simply beasts. As cold¬ 
blooded murderers, committers of unspeakable crimes 
against nature, and opium fiends their like cannot be 
found. Our Digger Indian is a prince compared to 
them. Their shacks are every one without exception 
opium dens. As every morphine fiend seeks converts, 
so every Chinaman seeks to make converts to opium, 
and 1 dare say 10 per cent of the youth of California 
are opium fiends, and later morphine fiends. As to 
work, they demand here $l.. r )0 a day for labor, and a 
white man will work for the same wages and can do 
more hard work, and will do it better. This is where 
both find themselves. White labor is hired for $1 per 
day with board, the Chinese are never hired that way. 
I can furnish you names of prominent fruit growers 
in this section who will substantiate all I say, and will 
tell you that they have quit Asiatic labor for good. 
As renters they have hurt California more than any 
other cause, as they will not put up an honest pack, 
and some houses will not take their fruit if they can 
get enough outside to fill orders. o. T. w. 
Placer Co., Cal. 
A Plain Statement from Washington. 
1 was raised in California nearly 40 years ago, and 
have been around the Chinamen all my life, and I find 
nothing good about them except that they are pretty 
fair workers First, they would rather or really almost 
always work in gangs; second, they almost always 
carry a very strenuous and ill-smelling odor around 
with them; third, wherever they locate, whether on a 
ranch, in a city, or on railroad work, whether by ones, 
twos or in gangs, their shanty immediately becomes 
an opium or China gin den. Every few days the 
Chinaman will become “’heap sick” (too much opium), 
and then ever so often they have got to go for a week 
to some city and have a good time with their coun¬ 
trymen. They stay with the work better than white 
men, but as a rule they would rather work in gangs. 
To my own personal knowledge, during the hard 
times in California in 1894-95-96. they would not work 
for less than $1.25 a day on the ranches, and board 
themselves, where the white men would work for 50 
cents a day and found—a difference in favor of the 
Chinaman of 40 to 50 cents a day. clear money. At 
the present time here, Clvna cooks charge $35 to $40 
in private residences, and but very few of them are 
working at that, for Japanese are taking their places 
at $10 to $30, according to their capability. The 
Chinaman will not eat American goods, plain or cooked, 
except the cooks (understand that there are excep¬ 
tions to all rules), unless he cannot get his own kind 
of foods, and even at that they have their goods 
shipped by the sack or box, so as always to have a 
supply on hand. They are all pretty good smokers and 
are pretty hard on the chicken houses, for they are 
fond of chicken. About the chief thing of their foods 
that is raised by Americans here, is the porker, and 
some flour, although so far they do not use it gen¬ 
erally. There are a few men in this western country 
who want Chinese, and they are the ones who hire 
them in gangs, but the rest of the men. farmers and 
merchants, do not care to have them around 
I am speaking from my own personal experience with 
them, for I have worked alongside of them and also 
hired them. If some of you eastern people could only 
see the interior of some of the Chinese laundries here, 
and get one whiff of the odor in them, you would 
never want to hire any Chinese. If any of these small 
farmers think that they will better themselves by run¬ 
ning in hordes of these Chinamen, then all 1 can say 
is that they will be running themselves out of house 
and homes, and playing right into the hands of corpor¬ 
ations and trusts. You said in a iccent issue that it 
must have been a “coolie” whom that man was writ¬ 
ing about, when he described the Chinamen in Snn 
Franci-co. I have lived among Chinamen all my life, 
and 1 know not the difference between a “coolie” and 
a Chinaman, because “coolie” is only the nickname for 
Fit UTS OF THE GARDEN. Fui. 183. 
the “Chink” out here, except perhaps' in the last year 
the Koreans who have come over here are called 
coolies. It makes no difference what the East might 
do to get Chinese into this country, you will always 
find the West one solid unit against them, notwith¬ 
standing what the newspaper reports might be. or the 
howl that they are making to try to stir up a boycott in 
China, for that is all a skin game, pure and simple, 
namely, that some corporations have gone over there 
and are now skinning the Chinese for all they are 
worth, and the Chinese don’t want to be skinned alive, 
so the moneyed men are yelling “boycott.” The West 
will do its share to keep out the Chinese, so ask your 
eastern brothers to get their heads together and form 
some plan to keep the labor when they get it. 
Washington. s. m. howe. 
PASTURE IN THE BARN . 
The “Soiling" System of Feeding Cattle. 
The New Jersey Experiment Station at New Bruns¬ 
wick makes a feature of practical dairying. A herd of 
nearly 50 animals is kept and sanitary milk is sold in 
the city. Prof. Voorhees started some years ago to 
“THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. Fig. 184. 
demonstrate the possibilities of feeding dairy cattle on 
green fodder. This method is called “soiling,” and it 
has been worked out with great success—since it has 
been possible to keep accurate records of all crops. For 
example, we can learn from these records what a ton 
of silage or a ton of oats and peas has cost at any time 
during the past 10 years, or just when each crop was 
seeded and when it was ready for feeding. 
We never had so many questions from people who 
ask liow they can keep a fair herd of dairy cattle on a 
small area. The hired help question is partly responsible 
for this, and so is the growing plan of stopping culti¬ 
vation on the rougher parts of the farm, and crowding 
the level portions harder. The demand for high-class 
milk is increasing. Many old farms in the East are 
changing hands. The new owners will put the hill lands 
into orchards and crowd the level portions hard with 
such crops as will yield an abundance of fodder and 
manure. All these things made it seem advisable to 
give more attention to the “soiling” system. Conse¬ 
quently I visited New Brunswick on May 7, and looked 
over the forage crops on the college farm. T expect to 
follow them through the season with such notes on cul¬ 
ture and handling as seem instructive. 
The farm is naturally strong soil, lying nearly level. 
There are no fences. The green fodder is cut every 
day and hauled to the cows, which spend most of their 
time in the barn, being let out for exercise in a small 
yard. The cows are kept for milk production, there 
being besides graded stock good specimens of Guernsey, 
Ayrshire and Holstein. Prof. Voorhees has made 
some useful experiments in crossing a good Guernsey 
bull on mixed dairy cows. The plan of the farm is to 
provide a succession of green crops from the earliest 
rye until frost kills the latest barley or corn, or ends 
the fourth cutting of Alfalfa. In addition to this, a crop 
of corn is grown large enough to provide silage for 250 
days or more, while the surplus of Alfalfa, oats and 
peas, cow peas, etc., is made into hay for feeding with 
the silage. So thoroughly was this organized and worked 
out that last year rye feeding began on May 1, while 
the fourth cutting of Alfalfa lasted until October 15. 
The dry weather held the crops back, and for the two 
weeks between July 15 and 29 corn silage was fed, but 
on every other day for 153 days there was a full supply 
of green forage. To be exact, 16 acres of land were so 
carefully and systematically cropped that they yielded 
in this period 197 tons of green fodder, or an average 
of over 12 tons per acre. The average cost of this 
green fodder was $1.93 per ton. Under this system of 
feeding the cows responded about as cattle do on full 
pasture. 
In order that we may understand just how this sys¬ 
tem works out. the following record from last year’s 
report is printed. This shows when the different crops 
were seeded and when they were ready to cut: 
Crop. When Seeded When Cut and Fed 
Rye.Sept. 9-10.May 1. May 9 
Rye.October 1-3.... May 10-17 
Rye.October 10-11*. . .May 18-21 
Wheat and vetch. Sept. 9.May 22, .Tune 2 
Wheat.. October 5-6.... June3-6 
Alfalfa (first cutting). June 7-10 
Oats and peas.April 3.June 12-20 
Oats and peas.April 19..Tune 21-29 
Oats and peas.April 22.June 30, July 4 
Oats and vetch.April 28-30.July 5-7 
Oats and vetch..May 13-14.July 8-11 
Alfalfa (third cutting).... July 12-14 
Corn silage. July 15-29 
Barnyard millet.May 4-5.July 30. Aug. 3 
Corn fodder.May 8.Aug. 4-10 
Corn fodder.'May 10-11.Aug. 11-31 
Cow peas.June 10.....Sept. 1-6 
Cow peas and 
Kaffir corn..Tunel9.Sept. 7-10 
Cow peas.June 15.Sept. 11-12 
Corn. May 10-15.Sept. 12-24 
Cow peas.June 15.Sept. 25-29 
Cow peas.Inly 12.Sept. 30. Oct. 7 
Corn fodder.July 19.Oct. 8-13 
Alfalfa (fourth cutting). .. Oct. 14-15 
This table shows that with the exception of the two 
weeks between July 15 and 29 there was always some 
green fodder to cut. The cows could not eat it all, and 
the balance of each crop was cut and cured as hay or 
bedding. All the second crop of Alfalfa was made into 
ha}', and considerable of the cow peas and oats and oats 
and peas. As we shall see later, this hay, fed with 
silage made a full ration without grain. 
On May 7 of this year, when I visited the farm, the 
first of the rye was being fed. The plan is to cut with 
a mower enough for a day’s feeding, and haul to the 
barn, where it is fed to the cattle. Of course this makes 
hard and constant work for somebody, especially dis¬ 
agreeable on wet days. As will be seen by the table, 
last year rye lasted 20 days. The different seedings gave 
a little difference in maturing. The first cutting was 
made when the rye was quite short, and feeding was 
continued as long as the cattle would eat it readily. As 
is well known, rye hardens rapidly after making its full 
head. Wheat matures more slowly, and remains tender 
later in the season. The wheat at the college farm is 
making a rapid growth, and will be ready to follow the 
rye. Last year Winter vetch was sowed with part of 
the wheat, and gave an early crop, but I do not under¬ 
stand that it has been used again. The oats and peas 
are growing well this year, and the Alfalfa is very prom¬ 
ising. There is a fine stand of Crimson clover on last 
year’s corn ground. You will notice in the table that 
no mention is made of Crimson clover. It failed last 
year, being killed out by the hard Winter. This year 
it will give considerable forage during the latter part of 
May. At the time of my visit most of the ground given 
to silage corn had been plowed, the last of it then being 
turned over. Crimson clover is seeded in the corn at 
the last cultivation, and the teams were turning under 
a thick mat of this clover, preparing for corn planting 
again. As soon as the first cutting of rye is fed out the 
stubble will be manured and plowed, and corn planted 
for silage or fodder. In August either rye once more 
or Crimson clover will be seeded in the corn for next 
Spring’s feeding. Thus the soil is kept constantly cov¬ 
ered with some living crop. With this statement of 
what the college farm is producing, I hope to follow 
the various crops through the season, telling how they 
are handled, what they produce and how they fill out 
the season. h, w, c, 
