846 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 17, 
lazy man has.no opportunity in agriculture or fruit grow¬ 
ing. This mulch method is within the reach of a 
man with moderate means, or a man who, from one 
reason or another, cannot do the hardest physical labor. 
It is also within the reach, for example, of a woman 
left with no property save a rough farm. With her 
children, willing to work, and a fair amount of capital 
SHIPPING CASES FOR MILK AND CREAM. Fig. 301. 
with which to buy trees and a spraying outfit and simi¬ 
lar tools, such a woman, can, by carefully following 
this method, develop an excellent orchard, not of large 
overgrown trees, but of stocky low-dow T n fellows with¬ 
in the reach of the nozzle, and capable of producing 
first-class fruit. In fact, I think this mulch method on 
rough land will be one of the ways in which the small 
family or the man with moderate means will be able 
to keep up with the big fellows, who, unconsciously, 
are crowding the little fellows out of the race. 
Mulch Talk from J. H. Hale. 
As is well known Mr. Hale believes In the most thorough 
and persistent cultivation of orchards. After reading the 
above paper he says: 
I think it is the most sensible presentation to the 
case that you or anyone else ever made, and you get 
right down to facts when you say it is a small haystack 
that is required around each tree to do the trick sat¬ 
isfactorily. Now the trouble on most uphill, rocky 
farms is going to be to get the material to make that 
small haystack. There is hardly a farm in the eastern 
country that can scratch up material enough of that 
kind to make the ‘‘year’s bedding” for the cattle, horses 
and pigs, although, of course, there is a lot of rougher 
material than ordinary bedding that can used for the 
mulching. You would find it a pretty serious business 
proposition on the average hill farm. I am more in¬ 
clined towards culture than ever before, although I can 
agree that in rare instances the mulch scheme could be 
worked out satisfactorily. Just now we are picking 
stones and getting ready to subdue more thoroughly 
with the plow that rough hill lot that I thought two 
years ago might be handled by a sort of cross between 
a grub hoe and the mulch system. We are having to 
move a good many thousand tons of stones to be able 
to beat the situation, but 1 am sure in the end I can 
make it more profitable than to attempt to mulch it. 
j. H. HALE. 
A CISTERN FOR AN ICEHOUSE. 
We have a cistern back of our barn that is not used for 
water, and I was thinking of filling it with ice tills Winter 
(if we have any). In dimensions the cistern is 12 feet 
in diameter and 10 feet deep. w. B. g. 
It is very doubtful if W. B. G. can use his cistern 
for an effective icehouse. In the first place, an ice¬ 
house must be well drained, so that all of the water 
formed from the melting ice is drawn off as rapidly 
as formed. If it is allowed to accumulate about the 
ice, through its ready convection currents, it conveys 
the heat rapidly from the bottom and sides to the 
ice, causing it to melt’much more rapidly than a cor¬ 
responding circulation of air would be able to do; hence 
unless the cistern is located with its bottom in well- 
drained gravel or sand so that provision can be made 
for conveying the water away, lack of drainage would 
prevent its use as an icehouse. In the second place, 
while the temperature of the ground forming the walls 
of the cistern never becomes as high as the tempera¬ 
ture of the air in the daytime above ground, it never¬ 
theless has a uniform temperature, day and night, 
rising steadily from a temperature early in the season 
considerably above that of the ice to one which may 
be as high as 70 degrees by the middle of Summer, 
and unless the ice is insulated from this wall by some 
non-conductor, it would melt more rapidly than it 
would in an icehouse of ordinary construction above 
ground, and as the volume of ice which could be stored 
in the cistern would be relatively small at best, unless 
protected by insulating from the bottom and walls it 
would melt long before the end of the season. From 
the rapidity with which the frost goes out of the 
ground in the Spring, even when it has frozen deeply 
during the Winter, it will be readily understood that 
even were such a cistern left open until past the middle 
of Winter, so that its bottom and walls could become 
frozen to a depth of say two or three feet, this ground 
would certainly be all thawed out long before the mid¬ 
dle of June of an ordinary season. If, therefore, W. 
B. G. can secure sufficient drainage, and wishes to store 
ice in his cistern, it would be best to provide a bottom 
of poles, or 2x4s or brush, covered with a layer of 
straw or hay to insulate the ice from the bottom, and 
then to pack the ice as compactly as possible, but leav¬ 
ing a space of not less than eight inches around the 
sides for sawdust or finely-cut cornstalks or straw, to 
act as an insulator, shielding the ice from the ground. 
But such insulation will necessarily reduce the amount 
of ice which can be put in, to a circle not much more than 
10 feet in diameter and permitting a depth of scarcely 
eight feet as a maximum.' Sheltering the surface of 
the ground about the cistern with a layer of straw 
would make the melting a little slower. 
As much is being said of late regarding hollow- 
walled concrete construction for farm buildings a word 
here regarding its adaptability to icehouse construction 
may not be out of place. Where the hollow concrete 
blocks are used, forming single or double air spaces, 
the power to reduce the conduction of heat into the 
interior is very much less than that of a well-con¬ 
structed wall of wood with dead-air spaces. The con¬ 
crete itself is a good conductor, and the hollow spaces 
are surrounded by so much concrete that the conduc¬ 
tion through’ this must necessarily be relatively much 
more rapid than through the wood structure. The 
advantage of concrete in icehouse construction is con¬ 
fined entirely to two features: first, it is indestructible, 
and second, it may be made so impervious to air that 
the effect of wind suction and wind pressure, in carry¬ 
ing warm air to the ice, is reduced to a minimum. 
A GOOD MILK-SHIPPING CASE. Fig. 362. 
If, therefore, it is desired to use concrete in icehouse 
construction, provision must be made for relatively 
better insulation between the ice and the wall, by mak¬ 
ing the layer of sawdust or its equivalent thicker than 
would be required in a well-constructed all-wood house. 
The use of concrete as a foundation and lining for an 
icehouse would make them much more durable struc¬ 
tures than as now built, because the concrete used as 
a lining would make the walls impervious to air, and 
would protect the wood from decay, while a cheaper 
construction to secure insulation outside might be 
adopted. It must be remembered that the construction 
of icehouses for keeping the small amounts required 
for individual farms requires relatively much better 
insulation than is necessitated where immense masses 
are stored in one body, as is the case in commercial 
houses. F - H - KIN G. 
WHERE THEY BURN STABLE MANURE. 
Wonderful stories are told of the strength of the 
soil in Western Canada. One report states that on 
a Manitoba farm one 38-acre field averaged 144 bushels 
per acre. A Canadian reader tells us about this farm: 
Ten. years ago tills man homesteaded this farm, 1G0 
acres, for $10. Now it is worth $16 per acre. This man’s 
wheat went 38 bushels per acre, and without manure; in 
fact, the farmers in this county draw their manure out and 
burn if. They claim it makes the straw so heavy it falls down 
and will not load. The writer saw a section that pro¬ 
duced 11 crops of wheat and four crops of oats, and the 
last crop of wheat went 43 bushels to the acre; and the 
manure was all burned on this man’s farm. h. t. l. 
Some of us who live on soil that was poor to begin 
with and has been under cultivation for a century 
would consider burning manure about the worst farm 
practice imaginable. Yet it may be a wise thing to do 
under some conditions. This Canadian soil is so rich 
that it has more nitrogen than the largest crops require. 
To add more nitrogen in the form of manure would 
give the result which we notice when grass “lodges,” 
corn runs all to stalk, or potatoes to vine. A ton of 
average manure thoroughly burned gives about 160 
pounds of ash, which yields 13 pounds of potash, 14 
of lime and five of phosphoric acid. Of course the 
nitrogen is lost in the burning. These minerals are 
just what is needed to “balance” the extra nitrogen in 
the soil. On thin and poor soils this manure burning 
would be worse than nonsense, yet we can see that 
on rich soils it may be better to add the mineral ele¬ 
ments in the manure without the nitrogen. Using the 
ash from one ton of manure is like using 25 pounds of 
muriate of potash and 35 pounds of acid phosphate, 
without nitrogen. This would be good practice when 
using large quantities of manure on average soil. The 
minerals, and especially the potash, “balance” the manure 
—that is, overcome the effects of too much nitrogen. 
WHITE GRUBS AND POTATOES. 
We had four acres of late potatoes, one-half in sod 
ground, and the other half in corn land. Soil is very rich 
in tills section, but I think that our land has been neglected. 
We put 700 pounds of fertilizer to the acre throughout. 
Potatoes that came out of the corn ground were eaten by 
the white worm and regular ground worm, so badly that 
we had to cull out one-third of bad potatoes, and on the 
sod ground not so bad. In what way can we overcome this con¬ 
dition for potatoes next year, and what amount, of fertilizer 
to use? We used no stable manure on this four acres, as 
we were handicapped, only have one horse. We thought 
of using lime on this land this Fall and putting in rye, 
turning down in the Spring. g. v. a. 
Pennsylvania. 
I am surprised that the potatoes grown in the corn 
ground were more infested by insects than those in sod 
land, as the latter is the natural breeding ground for 
the insects. There is no practicable or efficient method 
of getting at underground-working insects by the ap¬ 
plication of any materials to the soil in practicable 
quantities. About all that can be done is to discourage 
the pests by thorough cultivation. I think it is a good 
plan thoroughly to disturb the soil in the Fall, but it 
would be better to leave it bare without any crop and 
begin early in the Spring, and thoroughly stir it up 
again before putting in any crop. I can suggest noth¬ 
ing better for overcoming the insect pests mentioned. 
M. V. SLINGERLAND. 
The land may be treated from two points of view; 
one is for the production of potatoes, the other is from 
the viewpoint of improving the land, which seems to 
be deficient in producing power. No better practice 
could be followed from the latter point of view than 
manuring'and a rotation of crops. The grubs would 
also go out by this method. Since, however, manure 
is lacking, the next best method is to grow such crops 
as will enable the inquirer to put on cover crops dur¬ 
ing the Winter for turning under in the Spring. Rye 
and rye and vetch are excellent crops for this purpose. 
Buckwheat is also an excellent crop, either to plow 
under or to precede potatoes. If this land is somewhat 
heavy or of a clayey nature no doubt lime would be 
excellent for it. About one ton per acre is an average 
application for such land. The lime, however, would 
be worked thoroughly into the soil before the potatoes. 
Of course under-drainage is also a means of improving 
the land, but upon this question I can give no advice, 
as I do not know enough of the nature of the soil. A 
fertilizer consisting of about 160 pounds of muriate of 
COMFORT ON A COOL DAY. Fig. 363. 
potash, 360 pounds acid phosphate and 120 pounds ni¬ 
trate of soda or dried blood applied at the rate of 800 
to 1,000 pounds per acre is good for potatoes, but the 
use of fertilizers alone on potato lands year after year 
is not conducive to the permanent improvement of the 
land. As Prof. Slingerland has suggested, late Fall 
plowing for the purpose of breaking up the Winter 
abodes of the grubs is the best method for treating 
this pest. JOHN W. GILMORE. 
