662 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 1, 
looks now as though our season would he shortened 
one-half, and that we will fall below our usual standard 
in quality. So -you will see that we are not as sure of 
our remedy for blight, as we would have been last 
year had you made your inquiry then. We have never 
raised melons two years running on the same ground. 
And now we feel—1 won't say know—that if our mel¬ 
ons had been planted on a good clover sod we would 
not have had our present trouble, as before this we 
have noticed a great difference in liability to disease 
between clover sod and old ground side by side, the 
vines on the former holding much better than on the 
latter. We feel very modest in offering any remedy 
for blight at this date, but we shall try next year a rich 
clover sod; get the best Osage seed we can buy; spray 
with Bordeaux every 10 days, and hope to get a fair 
crop free from blight, which will mean that our melons 
will be A. l in quality. holmes Bros. 
Michigan. _ 
A QUARTER-CENTURY HIRED MAN. 
There has been so much said about the hired man re¬ 
cently that 1 cannot keep still any longer. I have been 
a hired man for nearly 25 years, with the exception of 
about five years. I have driven oxen on the sidchills 
in the mountains of Kentucky, worked a year in the 
mines, clerked in a store and post office, and the rest 
of the time at different branches of farming, and am 
still a hired man, but would not change places with 
any city man that 1 know of for either independence or 
the money side of it. As a rule. 1 have had good board, 
room and other privileges, and was always treated as a 
member of the family wherever 1 have worked. But 
you cannot treat every man that way. as 1 have found 
- by experience. 1 have boarded more or less of the lie']) 
that works under me, and have had very little trouble 
with help, considering the source I have had to rely 
on to obtain it. 1 believe that farm help to-day is paid 
better than any other class of labor, and as A. C. F. 
says, they are not expected to work any more hours 
than the same class would in the city. There are lots 
of farmers to-day who only expect a man to work 10 
hours and do chores probably one-half or three-quar¬ 
ters of an hour morning and night, and that time would 
be spent on a car or going to and from work in the 
city. Wages here are $50 per month, with board and 
laundry. o. j. burley. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. 
LIME; WHAT DOES THE SOIL NEED? 
Here are a few questions that are puzzling me somewhat: 
Which of the small grain crops, if any. have a tendency to 
sour the ground the most, oats, buckwheat, wheat, rye or 
barley? I have a farm of red shale land with a very 
heavy hard clay subsoil, but which I can shovel out to a 
depth of 2 % or three feet without the use of a pick, and 
which when cleared 1(1 or 18 years ago. cut enormously 
heavy clover. What is the reason it will not grow now, 
and howbest go at it to make it succeed? This ground has 
been mowed, and all the hay hauled away and no manure 
put back, and in addition pastured in the Fall, and the 
cattle driven a mile or more away to be milked and kept 
all night. I am not over stocked with money, so any 
expensive way will not suit, and 1 live on top of a mountain. 
Emporium, Pa. c. k. l. 
The crop which would be less likely to sour the land, 
provided it is cut and removed, would be the one which 
contains a large amount of lime, magnesia, potassium 
and sodium. However, the differences between the 
plants mentioned arc probably not great enough to 
amount to very much in actual practice. If the crops 
were plowed under, the one giving the largest yield of 
dry matter and the smallest amount of mineral constit¬ 
uents would be the one most likely to sour the land. 
If I thought these differences were of sufficient impor¬ 
tance to justify it, I should have, looked up the analyses 
of the crops and should have attempted to make some 
suggestions. Unfortunately, however, the analysis of a 
crop is so largely affected by the soil upon which it is 
grown that any statement concerning this matter would 
have very little value unless one should secure an¬ 
alyses of crops grown upon the same land the same 
season and under the same conditions. 
C. E. L. will find that (he barley and wheat will be 
more affected by a lack of carbonate of lime in the soil 
than the buckwheat, oats or rye. The oats will also be 
more affected, probablv than the buckwheat and rye, 
and the buckwheat more than the rye. In other words, 
of all the plants named, the rve will seem to thrive 
best where there is a deficiency of carbonate of lime 
and where the soil gives a red reaction with blue litmus 
paper. Probably the best thing for the inquirer to do is 
to secure a few pounds each of slaked lime, high-grade 
sulphate of potash and acid phosphate. This should be 
applied at the following rates per acre; slaked lime, one 
to two tons; high grade sulphate of potash, 400 pounds; 
acid phosphate, 600 pounds. My suggestion would be 
to take plots of land, which need not be larger than 
10 x 20 feet each. To one add lime at the rate men¬ 
tioned, to another add high-grade sulphate of potash, 
and to another add acid phosphate. To still another 
plot add both the potash salt and the acid phosphate, 
and finally to another add both of the materials just 
mentioned, together with lime. The land should first be 
plowed, then all the materials mentioned should be 
thoroughly harrowed or cultivated into the soil. My 
suggestion would be to prepare the land within a few 
weeks, sowing Winter wheat or Winter rye as desired, 
and at the same time grass seed if it is desired to test 
grass, and then next Spring sow, if possible upon a 
light, fresh-fall of snow, the clover seed. In this way 
one can obtain a test with wheat, also with clover and 
grass. 
Very likely C. E. L.’s trouble may be due to a lack 
of lime, potash or phosphoric acid, and no one unfa¬ 
miliar with the particular location can prophesy before¬ 
hand which it may be. These experiments ought to an¬ 
swer the questions and enable him to know how to 
It LOOM OF IRIS JAPONICA. Fig. 275. 
See Ruralisms, Page »>(><!. 
proceed next Summer to put his land in condition to 
produce satisfactory crops, unless the difficulty with the 
clover may be caused by some disease. If he tries the 
tests and they answer his questions, I trust he will let 
your readers know what the result is. A letter just 
at hand from one of my own correspondents in Nor¬ 
folk, Mass., gives me the pleasing information that as a 
result of some similar tests he is producing such crops 
of clover that he has to have a man follow the mowing 
machine to throw back the clover before the next swath 
can be cut. This is upon land where he formerly could 
not grow clover successfully. In this particular in¬ 
stance the chief trouble was a lack of carbonate of lime, 
and the results obtained were in consequence of my 
CAIl DOOR SHOWING BRACING. Fig. 276. 
recommendations, after having tested the soil with blue 
litmus paper and with ammonia water. 
R. 1. Exp. Station. H. j. wheeler. 
FARM FORESTRY. 
Forestry must be quite largely a farm problem in the 
.future. The comparatively high cost of lumber makes 
imperative a systematic growing of those woods most 
useful. The East has large areas almost valueless for 
any other purpose. They will grow pine, spruce and 
poplar very rapidly. The poplar is much less valuable, 
but it comes in as a volunteer crop after the burning 
of the pine and spruce lands. The spruce, on account 
of its special fitness for paper-making, is valuable, and 
its growth on these lands should be encouraged. A 
drive recently through some of these lands reinforced 
my conviction that not only the individual but the Slate 
should take hold of this question. Perhaps it is a 
State rather than an individual problem. New York 
has felt keenly the necessity for purchase and protec¬ 
tion of forest lands, and has therefore purchased and 
held large tracts. Under the Constitution, however, the 
timber cannot be made available. This is altogether a 
miserly and non-progressive attitude. True forestry- 
harvests the crop as fast as maturity is reached as a 
fixed source of income. As well buy land and allow 
the grass crop to rot and return to the soil. Those not 
familiar with tree growth do not realize how rapidly 
the coniferous trees grow. I am familiar with a tract 
of land cut over 20 years ago, leaving trees five inches 
in diameter that now return a greater tonnage than it 
did the first cutting. Another tract cut over in 1807 
down to nine inches gave 7J4 cords spruce pulp to the 
acre in 1903, being cut to five inches, valued at $2.50 
per cord on the stump. Some poplar lands gave a net 
value of four cords of pulp after 13 years’ growth. 
If these trees were to be set from 25 to 40 years would 
be necessary to secure a profitable cutting. To be sure, 
the American idea of quick returns has educated us 
away from such speculation, but the fact remains that 
we are bound to give tree growing more attention. 
__ H. *E. COOK. 
ONE SETTLEMENT OF LABOR QUESTION. 
I thought that I would write you and tell my way 
of - solving the labor question to my own satisfaction 
while the talk was going on. In the first place, I may 
say that T am a bachelor, and until adoption of the 
present method, had been hiring a cook to come and 
cook for me and mv men. I hired my men by the 
month at about $22 per month, common unskilled labor, 
but since that was not satisfactory 1 adopted this 
method of work, and have found it perfectly satis¬ 
factory. In 1800 I decided that I was not doing things 
right, so I looked around and found a family of five 
brothers and a sister, Germans, all the men specialists 
in certain lines of work, and the sister an excellent 
cook. I engaged them all at $800 per year for the 
men, and let them hire their sister to cook for them ; 
then I went over and boarded with them, in one of 
the houses on the place, they giving me my board for 
the rent of the house they lived in. 1 set one of the 
men at raising grain for the stock and taking care of 
the pigs; two more at taking care of the horses and 
sheep, and raising corn and vegetables for the farm; 
the last two cared for the horses. I raise the chick¬ 
ens, and tend to the business end of the concern. 
I made a clear profit off this skilled labor of $600 a 
year, while under the pld plan I made about one 
hundred, and had to direct them in all they did. My 
plan is, therefore, you sec to employ strictly skilled 
labor and pay them well. a stockman. 
Wisconsin. 
R. N.-Y.—Are there any more such families to be 
found? _ 
A GOOD CROP OF WHEAT. 
If I had things the way I would like to to raise the" 
largest possible wheat crop I would say, have wheat 
follow oats; have the oat stubble ground covered with 
a coat of barnyard manure, not too heavy; plow shal¬ 
low as early in August as it is possible to do so. 
Roll the ground well as fast as one can get it plowed 
unless the season is very showery, which will go a 
long way toward compacting a good seed bed and 
save horse flesh. As soon as the ground is settled 
I start in with Cutaway harrow and cross and re¬ 
cross until the ground appears solid below; then use 
the spring harrow or smoothing harrow to pulverize 
the surface. By this time it will be September 6 to 
8. After the first rain in September start to sow. 
If it does not come until September 15 wait for it, 
unless the ground has plenty of moisture from pre¬ 
vious rains. Use 48 quarts good clean seed from some 
other soil (change the seed when possible) ; this will 
give as good results as more. The wheat plant will 
stool out or die down to suit the amount of wheat 
plant food the soil contains. Then use 300 pounds of 
complete high-grade bone basis fertilizer showing a 
high percentage of phosphoric acid derived from bone 
meal. If your ground is well drained naturally or 
artificially, and your soil has any of the wheat grow¬ 
ing qualities, you should have a good sod before 
Winter sets in This will give you a good wheat 
crop nine out of 1() years. The only trouble to follow 
will be unavoidable; that is, a March snow to conic 
and go away suddenly. w. F. G. 
Adams Co.. P a. 
A GOOD WHEAT CROP.—In growing the largest pos¬ 
sible crop of wheat, I would prefer a clover sod plowed and 
put in corn, and the corn ’.veil worked: afler the corn. 1 
would plow the cornstalks under in the latter part of May 
or first of June, allowing the Summer grass to come up, 
and pasturing it with sheep or cattle. Cover the - ground in 
July with barnyard manure and plow grass and manure 
under in the forepart of August. Thoroughly harrow and 
cultivate the ground until ready to sow. The time of sow¬ 
ing would vary according to the season, but ordinarily sow 
from September S to 15, sowing about 114 bushel per acre. 
Lima, Ind- J- s. 
