5906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
473 
IRONASE 
POTATO MACHINERY 
Improves the quality aiul yield of the crop and cuts the cost 
of production. 
The Iron Age Four Row Sprayer. No potato grower can afford 
to be without it. No more losses from bugs or blight. Applies 
spray rapidly, effectively and economically. Has orchard attach¬ 
ment. Automatic pump and dasher. Thoroughly adjustable. 
The Iron Age Potato Digger gets nil the potatoes 
and injures none. Easily operated as a low- 
down digger by two horses. Elevator and 
shaker attachment for use with weedy crops. 
Our New Iron Aire Rook describes ami illustrates 
our full line of labor-saving implements. Seeders, Wheel 
Hoes,Cultivators, Horse Hoes, Fertilizer Distributors, Potato 
Planters, Biding Cultivators, etc. Free on application. 
BATEMAN MFC. CO., Box 102 Crenloch, N.J. 
TILE DRAINED LAND IS MORE PRODUCTIVE 
F.arliest anil easiest worked. 
Carries off surplus water; 
admits air to the soil.* In¬ 
creases the value. Acres of swampy land reclaimed and made fertile. 
Jackson's Houml Drain Tile meets every requirement. We also make Sewer 
Pipe, Red and Fire Brick, Chimney Tops, Encaustic Side Walk Tile, etc. Writa 
for what you waist and prices. JOHN H. JACKSON, 76 Third Are., Albany, N.Y. 
GREEN MOUNTAIN SILAGE 
IS ALL GOOD 
Grafton , Mass., April 21, iqos. 
After one of the coldest and most trying winters known in this 
section for many years, we are feeding at this date from the Green 
Mountain Silo, the sweetest and best silage I ever saw. 
Not only did the silo stand the extreme cold weather perfectly, but 
the silage is all good right up to the staves; no waste around the sides 
or at the doors. This appeals strongly to me, as I have had a very un 
fortunate experience with two square silos. —George D. Leavens. 
Agents wanted in unassigned territory. Write lor free Silo Booklet H 
STODDARD MFC. CO., RUTLAND, VT. 
AVERAGE LENGTH PER LB. 
10 BALLS INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY’S TWINE - SOS %>FT 
How LONG is Your Pound of Binder Twine? 
CHEMICALS AND WORN-OUT SOIL. 
WILL SUCH FERTILIZERS FERTILIZE? 
The Plain Story of a Practical Farmer. 
Part VI. 
A Big Subject. — In approaching a sub¬ 
ject of such profound importance as that 
of chemical fertilizers, one is impressed 
with its magnificent proportions. To ob¬ 
tain the best results from their use a 
lerson ought to possess some knowledge 
of chemistry, at least so far as it relates 
to agriculture, and the growing of crops. 
A reasonably fair conception of botany 
would be a great help in many ways, not to 
mention bacteria, whose names are 
legion. The man who can tell us how 
crops feed and how crops grow is seldom 
met with outside a limited circle who 
have become so familiar with their chosen 
profession that it does not seem to occur 
to them but what every other tiller of the 
soil is just as familiar as they with the 
problems that perhaps will never be 
solved by the multitude. Without wish¬ 
ing to be considered uncharitable, nor 
even critical, nevertheless the scientific 
utterances of some men I have read are 
about as helpful to the rank and file as 
Mike Kieltie’s attempt 'to civilize the 
western horse he bought. 
Mike is a neighbor of mine, a good decent 
Irishman by the way, who never asks you 
for a chew of your tobacco, and minds his 
own business generally, hut Mike had to 
have another horse this Spring, so he 
bought one from a dealer in western stock. 
He had not been long in possession of him 
before he found that the horse—a very 
nervous animal—would shy at almost any¬ 
thing. Thereupon Mike arranged a plan with 
(he help of Ills boy Johnny effectually to 
cure the horse, as Mike expressed it from 
being scared at the “stame cars," the 
"trolleys,” the “ought-to-go-devils.” “Now,” 
he said to the boy, “do you squat yourself" 
down here behind the coal shanty, and I’ll 
go with the horse to the hack end of the 
alley, and I’ll get upon his hack, so I will, 
and when I come wid him forninst the coal 
shanty you’ll jump out, so you will, like a 
strake of lightnln’, and you’ll open your 
mouth and you’ll let a great boo-ooli out 
of you.” Johnny mastered his lesson pretty 
well and when iris father and the horse 
came along, as though shot from a gun, 
Johnny, with a skill that would have done 
credit to a trained acrobat, projected him¬ 
self into the middle of the alley and gave 
vent to a yell that would have shamed a 
Comanche Indian. The next breath the 
parties drew, the scene had changed, the 
horse was nowhere to be seen, but Mike 
was there, doubled up against the fence 
with a dislocated shoulder. The boy, nearly 
dead with fright, called out, “Are yez kilt. 
Father?” “Arrah, ye spalpeen av a crayther, 
shure ye had a right to know, av ye knowed 
anything, that that was altogether too big 
av a boo-ooh for a horse av that size.” 
Lack of Confidence.— It seems to be 
a fact, if my experience is any criterion, 
that there is nothing in their line that 
arouses the prejudice of the average 
farmer as to advocate the extensive use 
of chemical fertilizers. Son\£ of them 
have told me, the great lack of uniform 
action was what they objected to, an¬ 
other said that their objection was the 
lack of any action at all; still others 
I have met, and these last form a very 
numerous class, willingly concede the 
benefits to be derived from the intelligent 
use of honest chemicals, but they say the 
great difficulty is to know just what to 
get. When they apply stable manure they 
say they always see the evidence of its 
usefulness, but that is not always the 
case with fertilizers, and then invariably 
comes the question, how shall we know 
when we are getting what our crops need, 
or even what we pay for? The most that 
any man can hope to accomplish in a 
newspaper article of this kind, is to ad¬ 
vise or suggest along the line of general 
principles, from the fact that owing to 
soils and circumstances every farm fur¬ 
nishes a problem peculiar to itself, and 
sometimes this could be said of every 
separate field. 
Effect of Manure. —Our long ac¬ 
quaintance with stable manure as a 
source of plant food has to some extent 
made 11 s familiar with its workings in the 
soil. We have discovered that the bene¬ 
ficial effects are not all due to the plant 
food contained therein, but its gradual 
decomposition in the soil adds very large¬ 
ly to the stock of dark-colored earth to 
which chemists have given the name of 
humus, and this humus has the faculty 
of absorbing and retaining large quanti¬ 
ties of water in time of abundant rainfall, 
and restoring it to the growing crop in 
time of very dry weather, as was illus¬ 
trated by the crop of cow peas preceding 
the potatoes. Humus has another very 
important office to perform. Prof. I. P. 
Roberts is authority for the statement 
that in the average of 34 cases of soil 
analysis there was found more than 25,000 
pounds of plant food in the first eight 
inches of a fairly good class of soils, but 
the discovery was also made that this 
plant food, while seemingly in inexhaust¬ 
ible supply, was mostly inert, and conse¬ 
quently of little value. Here is a hint to 
those who think a chemical analysis of 
their soils would be a panacea for all 
their troubles by revealing to them the 
particular needs of their soil. From the 
standpoint of the chemist many of those 
soils in question contained practically un¬ 
limited stores of plant food, but they 
were unavailable to grow crops because 
locked up with insoluble combinations. 
Functions of Humus.— Now one of 
the important functions of humus in the 
soil is to develop an acid called carbonic 
acid, and carbonic acid possesses the val¬ 
uable faculty of spurring up those inert 
and sluggish compounds, and so energiz¬ 
ing them that they can be assimilated by 
the growing crops, and just at this junc¬ 
ture is where a nice dose of caustic lime 
is often helpful. Let me see if my refer¬ 
ence to the action of carbonic acid in 
the soil can be made any clearer by an 
illustration. You have in your house a 
barrel of most excellent flour. The good 
wife sets the sponge in the usual way. 
but she does not quite like the looks of 
it. She kneads it, however, and manipu¬ 
lates it in the most orthodox manner but 
suddenly she is reminded that she had 
forgotten to put any yeast in. When 
this fact is remembered it is no longer 
any mystery why the sponge remained 
so soggy, but once the leaven has been 
introduced, in a comparatively short time 
an astonishing transformation takes place. 
I am not aware that the process in¬ 
volved, added in any way to quantity of 
nutritive matter; the question would 
seem to resolve itself into one of palata- 
bility and assimilation, but the humus, 
this decaying vegetable matter, the action 
of which I have been trying to explain, 
can be obtained from growing crops 
if wanted, and the crops themselves 
can be grown with chemicals. A 
few days ago I met an acquaintance 
riding a load of hay to market. In an¬ 
swer to my question he said he had just 
an even ton, 2,000 pounds. The hay was 
very attractive in appearance, and un¬ 
consciously I fell to asking myself some 
questions as to the genesis of that load 
of hay, where did it come from; what 
did it contain of value to the soil; did its 
removal leave the soil any less produc¬ 
tive than it was before; what are the 
constituent elements of that load of hay, 
anyway? I continued to ask myself at 
what cost could those elements be re¬ 
stored to the soil, in what forms would 
we find them, and what would we ask for 
if we went into the open market to buy 
the goods? I think these questions will 
be applicable to our subject. 
M. GARRAHAN. 
TYlDthat question ever occur to you while 
^ laying in your supply of twine for harvest? 
Makes a good deal of difference. 
"A pound’s a pound the world around,” it is 
said. But that rule does not measure the 
length, strength or quality of binder twine. 
And these are important to you. 
The answer depends upon whose binder 
twine you buy. 
Of course competing sellers can make all 
kinds of assertions. It’s not bald assertions 
you want, but proof as shown by actual tests. 
Now here is one test that has been carefully 
made—and what is better, one you can make 
yourself without any trouble. 
Five hundred feet is considered the stand¬ 
ard for length, of sisal and standard twines. 
When your twine runs below this you are not 
getting what you are paying for. 
Ten balls each of the International Harvest¬ 
er Company’s regular Standard twine, and ten 
balls each of three competitors’ standards 
were tested. 
The above illustration shows that competi¬ 
tors’ twines run from 467 2-10 feet to as low as 
452 3-10feet to the pound—while International 
runs above 503 feet to the pound. 
There’s a great difference in pounds, as you 
will observe. 
Means a great difference in price also. The In¬ 
ternational Harvester Company twine is the 
least expensive twine, as you can figure at a 
glance. Frequently so called “cheap" twine is 
offered at a reduction of a quarter of a cent a 
pound. 
Accepting present prices as a basis for figur¬ 
ing, and considering ^ne-quarter cent differ¬ 
ence, the so-called “cheap” twine will cost 
one-half cent more per pound than the Inter¬ 
national Harvester Company twine. 
In these tests there is a difference of 51,5 
feet to the pound in favor of the Internatinal 
Harvester Company twine. 
You’d be glad to buy 46 to 51 feet of binder 
twine for a quarter of a cent wouldn’t you? 
That is the amount more that you get by pay¬ 
ing the extra quarter of a cent for the Interna¬ 
tional. 
Which is the inexpensive twine? 
As to strength ; 
These tests showed that while International 
Harvester Company twine averaged 59 and 9-10 
pounds one competitor’s barely reached the 
standard (50 pounds) and the other two fell be¬ 
low from 2 and 7-10 to 4 and 4T0 pounds. 
It is easy to see which twine is the longest, 
which the strongest and which is the least 
expensive. 
If you want to get a dollar’s worth of twine 
for a dollar, then buy International Harvester 
Company twine: either Champion, Deering, 
McCormick, Milwaukee, Osborne, Plano or 
International brands. 
For prices on International Harvester Com¬ 
pany twine—sisal, standard, manila or pure 
manila—see the local agent. 
INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY OF AMERICA 
(INCORMORATCOI 
CHICAGO. U. S. A. 
I Want to Send You 
It tells all about 
Split Hickory 
Vehicles, how 
they are made, 
what they are 
made of — how we 
devote one large 
building exclu¬ 
sively to making 
our Split Hickory 
Special Top 
Buggy. 
How, by sepa¬ 
rating this buggy 
II. c. Phelps from our general 
President Ohio Carriage Mfg. Co.| Hne, we are able to 
minimize the cost 
of production, economize in handling, and 
how you get the benefit of this saving. 
I want to explain to you how we carry, 
ready for finish, all sizes and varieties of 
wheels, springs, bodies, axles, tops, in fact, 
every part of a vehicle; so that we can build 
you, to your order, any vehicle that you 
want, just as you want it and ship It 
promptly. 
My Vehicle and Harness Catalogue 
I want to explain our liberal Thirty-Day 
Free Trial Plan—to tell you of our legal bind¬ 
ing Two-Year Guarantee—how we will ship 
you any vehicle that you want, letting you 
carefully and thoroughly examine it, ride in 
It thirty days, give it any test you can, com¬ 
pare it with goods that retail dealers ask 50 
per cent more for, and if it is not, in every 
way satisfactory, it costs you nothing. 
I will sell you a good Top Buggy for S35.00, 
guaranteed two years, and ship anywhere 
on Thirty Days’ Absolute Free Trial. 
We make Top Buggies all the way from 
535.00 up to our famous 550.00 SPLIT 
HICKORY SPECIAL TOP BUGGY —a 
better buggy than you can buy anywhere at 
retail for 575.00 and more—a good first-class 
family Surrey for 565.00, Runabouts, Driving 
Wagons, Phaetons, Stanhopes, Spring 
Wagons, Pony Vehicles, Carts and over fifty 
different styles of Harness. 
Let me send you this big, free. 180-page 
Vehicle and Plarness Catalogue. Compare 
my prices with others. If I can’t save you 
money, don’t buy from me. It will cost you 
but a penny for a postal and will save you 
many dollars. 
I have had years of experience building 
vehicles for the Consumer. I can help you 
make a satisfactory selection, if you will 
tell me just what 
kind of a vehicle 80 Days’ 
you want. My»er-^£wg8 HI Free 
vices and experiencu^^y> Rm Trial, 
are at your commund.\\ 2 Yeurs’ 
Write me now—today. \ HU Duuruu- 
Don’t put it off. _ @ajo tee. 
The catalogue 
will como„ 
to you by/ 
return 
mail, 
postage 
prepaid. 
H. C. PHELPS, President 
THE OHIO CARRIAGE MFC. CO. 
Station 299 , Cincinnati, Ohio. 
