1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
647 
STUPID AND INDIFFERENT BIRDS. 
When we purchased our farm a pair of barn swal¬ 
lows had possession, and while they were a nuisance, 
we did not disturb them, until about three years ago, 
when they returned from the South accompanied by five 
other pairs. They at once began the construction of 
nests, and flying in and out constantly they kept the 
carriages, robes, hay, etc., plastered with droppings and 
badly soiling the washings as well as the windows. It 
was impossible to do anything about ejecting them until 
after haying when we stretched poultry netting across 
the rear scaffold, and before I reached the floor they 
were flying through the meshes. Then we hung some 
old flags over the wire which bothered them somewhat 
until they found a hole in one of the flags, which they 
at once utilized. Repairing this, they soon found en¬ 
trance where a flag did not lie closely against the hay 
at one fide. Then they began at other parts of the 
mow, and I had to fill every opening to keep them 
out. We had to open the upper windows while un¬ 
loading the hay and they soon discovered this fact, 
and were soon singing merrily away to notify us we 
were not yet rid of them. After the windows were 
closed, it certainly is not exaggeration to say they 
would fly hundred of times into the barn every day, as 
far as the flags and out again for many days, until 
four pairs became discouraged and went elsewhere to 
build their nests. The following Spring they returned, 
rested from their Winter’s vacation, and the six pairs 
again commenced nest construction. Nailing a piece of 
iron on to a long pole every time I went into the mow 
I tore down all. the work they had accomplished. For 
a long time this did not make the slightest difference. 
Occasionally they would vary the location, but the fact 
that the material deposited disappeared several times 
a day did not deter them from replacing it in the same 
spot. Then we tried keeping the barn door closed, and 
they immediately began building over the kitchen 
windows. If in meantime the door was opened, 
however, they would at once carry the mud 
into the barn and to the windows when the door 
was again closed, thus keeping two sets of nests 
under construction at the same time, though I 
swept the window casings clean freciuently. Of 
course we could not keep the door closed, and 
it took weeks of constant destruction of the 
nests before four pairs decided to leave, and I 
prevented the others from building, once finding 
the eggs upon the floor. This year the two pairs 
again returned, and this time succeeded in get¬ 
ting a nest built in an inaccessible place and 
hatching a litter before I located them. To the 
destruction of this nest and the young they paid 
not the slightest attention. We have heard the 
robins and song sparrows cry for days when 
some cat had taken their young, but these swal¬ 
lows just commenced to build again a few feet 
away, and as nearly as we could tell, there were 
four birds working on the same nest without a 
sound to indicate that they had lost their progeny. 
This seemed to us very remarkable, and we would like 
to know if there are any other birds capable of mani¬ 
festing such persistence, stupidity and indifference. 
Maine. — F - c< c * 
MAKING SORGHUM SYRUP. 
Last year C. E. B. asked The R. N.-Y. for some 
instructions in making sorghum syrup. Perhaps I may 
assist by giving some experience of my own. It has 
simplicity, cheapness and speed to its credit, and also 
quality second to none. I refer to the “yellow clay fil¬ 
tering process.” I suppose common yellow clay is plen¬ 
tiful in Vermont, and as the inquirer is able to boil with 
steam nothing is lacking to make the finest quality of 
syrup. Get a “self-skimming evaporator,”, of not less 
than 150 gallons capacity of syrup per day of 12 hours; 
galvanized bottom. Make two juice vats to hold at 
least 10 barrels each, with one faucet four inches above 
bottom and another halfway to top of vat. Set them 
high enough so that sap will flow into front end of evap¬ 
orator. Put one bushel basket full of common yellow 
clay into each vat, and fill with juice, stirring thoroughly. 
All sediment will settle to bottom of vat, and juice will 
flow from faucet as clear as water in 10 minutes. After 
draining vat by the faacets into the evaporator, wash out 
vat with water and refill as before. Drain off second 
vat while refilling first one. Never let sap stand in vat 
over night. Evaporator should have at least three divi¬ 
sions with a little floodgate to each to keep separate 
raw juice, half boiled juice and syrup in finishing pan. 
Stir syrup in finishing pan constantly; use a new broom 
if nothing better is at hand, and likely there will not 
be. When, by holding up broom over pan the hot syrup 
will “rope” down 12 or 14 inches without breaking, it is 
boiled enough and! can be let out of back corner of pan 
into a trough, or better a tin coil through a barrel of cold 
water. As syrup flows out. let sap flow in through flood¬ 
gate. No hand skimming is necessary. 
A horizontal roll mill is much easier to feed, and will 
pay big interest on first cost. Capacity will depend on 
speed of rolls and amount of power available. I would 
not suppose pomace to be of much value as feed, for the 
reason that the sugar content is nearly all extracted, 
and fermentation would be too great in silo, making it 
too sour. Syrup factory here (using 3,000 acres of cane 
annually) cuts stalks in inch lengths and cooks them in a 
steam tank with lime and sulphur treatment, then evap¬ 
orates the water, but their syrup is not first class. “Clay 
filtering” is so easy, so cheap and simple, and success so 
sure, as I know from experience, that to try it is simply 
to wonder how we ever ate the old-fashioned green, rank 
tasting sorghum our “uncles” used to make. 
Bourbon Co., Kan. geo. PURDY. 
METHODS OF WHEAT CULTURE. 
TILLAGE.—Of first importance is thorough and 
deep plowing, which must be followed with repeated 
trips with the harrow. It is high time that the motto 
of a harrow inventor be known on all our farms: 
“Tillage is manure.” A mellow seedbed well drained 
and smoothed assists the grain to get a rootage that 
prevents the Winter frosts from displacing it and 
causing death to the young plant. After drilling the 
ground should be rolled. 
ROTATION.—While sod ground that is plowed two 
months before time for seeding, and is harrowed often 
enough to keep down all growths, is well adapted to a 
good wheat crop, still we have to consider a wise rota¬ 
tion for the good of the land, as well as to supply our 
needs, and for our section the most successful plan is 
to break up sod for corn, follow with oats and as soon 
as the oat crop is off the ground plow for Fall wheat. 
In years gone by it was well enough to sow any time 
before frosts prevented tillage, but now we must have 
wheat drilled by September 1, in order to get sufficient 
growth before Winter to make the plant live. Climate 
APPLE PACKING TABLE. FiG. 270. 
and conditions of soil change, and with these changes 
this requirement must be met, or a poor crop will result. 
FERTILIZATION.—The soil should receive about 
20 loads of well-rotted stable manure before the har¬ 
rowing is done. With the drilling of wheat 200 pounds 
of 3-4-2 commercial fertilizer should be applied, and if 
there is any tendency towards acidity in the soil the ap¬ 
plication of refuse lime from the kilns will well repay 
the cost, and all wood ashes that can be applied will not 
only give a return in wheat, but will show their value in 
the crops of grass which should follow. 
SEEDING TO GRASS.—Unquestionably the above 
treatment gives the best possible seedbed for the germi¬ 
nation of grass and clover seed that we can get, and we 
prefer to seed at time of drilling wheat, also to go over 
the ground in March with another sowing of grass seed. 
The wheat nurses the young grass plants, and the fol¬ 
lowing year is very sure to show up a meadow of grass 
in abundance, but for the good of the hay mow in 
subsequent years the grass must only be cut once the 
first year, otherwise a crop of weeds will spring up that 
would have been choked out by the Fall clover. 
Pennsylvania. 0- w - 
If I had things just to suit me, in order to raise the 
largest crop of wheat I would plow under, to the depth 
of about six inches, the last crop of a two-year-old 
clover field in late August or early September, letting 
it lie until the following Spring. 1 hen as soon as the 
ground was in condition fit to work I would thoroughly 
harrow it with a spring-tooth, followed by a smoothing 
harrow, until the ground was level and well pulverized 
to the depth of three or four inches. I would then sow 
the grain with a drill set to sow not less than two inches 
deep and follow with a roller to compact the soil, and 
a light smoothing harrow to loosen the surface. After 
the plants had reached the height of two or three 
inches I would cultivate with the weeder or a light 
smoothing harrow with the teeth set slightly back; I 
would then go away trusting Providence for the rest 
and expect to harvest a bountiful crop. 
Wisconsin. K - w - lew 13 - 
CANNON TO PREVENT HAILSTORMS. 
We find the following note in the Wayne Co. (Pa.) 
Herald. The comment from Prof. F. H. King will in¬ 
terest many readers. 
Hailstorms hereafter will keep shy of the tobacco fields 
owned by Gurdon. II. Pumpely at Walton, N. Y., as he is 
having four cannon cast, each weighing 400 pounds, with 
which he intends to disperse the next hail cloud which 
hangs around his tobacco field. The method has been, used 
in many parts of the world with good effect. 
There has been a considerable amount of experi¬ 
mental work done in Europe, particularly in Italy, on 
the prevention of destructive hailstorms by cannonad¬ 
ing at the time they are in progress, and it is believed 
by leaders in this line of experimentation that some 
effective results have been obtained. Hailstones owe 
their origin to rapidly ascending currents of moist air 
which rise to such a height that the raindrops they carry 
are frozen, and the large size of hailstones which some¬ 
times occur is held to be the result of the same hail¬ 
stone being repeatedly carried to a great height by the 
rapidly ascending currents, as the result of being thrown 
outside of the rising column and falling out to be again 
drawn into it repeatedly until layer by layer of water 
and ice accumulate, making the stone finally too heavy 
to be again carried up, and it falls to the earth. It is 
the theory of the advocates of cannonading' that a 
strong explosion in the atmosphere directed toward a 
hail cloud, may have a sufficient disturbing effect to de¬ 
stroy the ascending current which is the cause of the 
hailstorm, and thus prevent injurious effects. Notwith¬ 
standing all of the claims which have been made, it 
must be conceded that, in strictness, there is in 
reality no evidence collected at the present time 
which can be held as indicating that cannonad¬ 
ing, in any form in which it has been tried, ma¬ 
terially disturbs the convection currents which con¬ 
stitute hailstorms, and it seems to the writer, and 
we think to most others who have given thought to 
the subject, that it would be very remarkable in¬ 
deed that so small a disturbance in the atmosphere 
as can be produced by even the heaviest cannon 
could maintain an intensity at all commensurate 
with that which must obtain in the hailstorm 
cloud after having traversed the long distance 
intervening between it and the cannon. 
It is a very easy matter for a mind which is 
not critical as to what is and what is not evi¬ 
dence to be convinced that the cannonading has 
produced the desired effect when in reality no 
effect whatever has resulted. This grows out of 
the fact that it is not possible to predict before¬ 
hand whether or not a hailstorm is to occur in 
a given locality, or what its intensity may be; 
out of the fact that they are always very local 
in their destructive areas and that they vary 
greatly in intensity in different portions of even 
the limited local areas; and out of the fact 
that years may intervene after a destructive hail¬ 
storm on a given farm or portion of a farm before 
another strikes the same area, although every Sum¬ 
mer destructive hailstorms may have passed it on 
one side or the other, and at no great distance. These 
being the facts, it is clear that a man who has for¬ 
tified his vineyard with cannon may feel convinced 
from the threatening aspect of the sky that a destruc¬ 
tive hailstorm is imminent and discharge his pieces at 
what he regards as the critical moment, and if no de¬ 
structive hailstorm touches his vineyard, while some¬ 
where in his approximate neighborhood, on any side, 
no matter what, and either before or after he fires his 
cannon, a destructive hailstorm does occur, he may feel 
assured, in his own mind, that he has in reality averted 
a hailstorm, and that he has been well paid for his out¬ 
lay, in that he has saved from destruction a crop of 
grapes or tobacco worth many times the expense he has 
been put to. F - H - KING> 
DEATH TO “LIVE-FOREVER.”—In regard to getting 
rid of live-forever, there is a disease which is surely 
fatal. I have proved it on my farm, and have seen it used 
by my neighbors in every case with complete success. In 
meadow land it takes several years; on plowed land it 
works quicker. In either case the result is the same. 
Would I set out the diseased plants or scatter them through 
the infested premises? I am not an expert, hut should 
take as much care of the plants as possible, set them out 
close to my best patch of live-forever, in the shade; and 
water them if necessary, any way to make it grow. If 
you once get it started you can go about other work and 
know your live-forever is doomed. t. m. predmore. 
New York. 
THE PECAN CROP.—A Brownwood, Tex., correspondent 
of the Galveston News says: “The indications are that 
Brown County will harvest a very large crop of pecans this 
year. In speaking with one of the largest dealers of pecans 
in the State he stated to your correspondent that the trees 
were well loaded and there was undoubtedly going to be a 
large number of pecans marketed here this year. Lots of 
things might happen to the crop between now and gathering 
time, but the prospects could hardly he better for a good 
crop than now. Brownwood ships many cars of pecans 
each vear, and is known far and wide as a pecan center. 
The Pecan Rayon, from which the city receives her water, 
received the name it. has because there are so many pecan 
trees along its banks. Besides this, almost every stream in 
the county has large numbers of the trees along its banks. 
