January 12, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER* 
18 
what milk was needed from the baby’s jar for the 
day's supply, I put the rest in a cupboard and forgot it. 
The next morning I saw it and thought as it had turned 
to clabber f would use it for tny breakfast. To my sur¬ 
prise it was not only not clabber, but was actually sweet. 
New milk that was milked into ordinarily clean buckets 
was sour in 12 hours, when set in water after milking, 
hut milk that was milked into a vessel with no invisible 
dirt was sweet after 24 hours after being placed in a 
warm cupboard. 
Invisible dirt also affects the man who has no babies 
to feed, but sells butter. In to day’s paper the range of 
prices for butter is given from 17 to .‘52 cents a pound, 
and a great part of this difference is made by flavor. 
Flavor is now found to be largely a matter of bacteria, 
and bacteria is but another name for invisible dirt. So 
it will pay any of us who handle the products of the 
cow to look out for invisible dirt. P. it. CROSBY. 
Maryland. _ 
CARE OF PASTURED SHEEP. 
I have about three acres of gram* land, and wish to keep 
It eaten down by sheep, will you ntate what number of 
sheep the place will support? a. h. 
Rahway, N. J. 
T am not sure which is the main object, to eat the 
grass and keep it down or to sustain the sheep. In 
the former case, of course, more might be kept than if 
the good condition of the sheep was the end sought. 
Then, too, it will depend on the condition of the grass 
land, the season, and the sort of sheep kept. If it is 
good, productive land, seeded with a variety of pasture 
grasses, each coming on in the season, it may keep 
twice the sheep it would if the land is poor or the 
grass Timothy or clover. Again, a large sheep, such as 
the Hampshire or Oxford, would need at least a third 
more pasture than a Merino. If the sheep are ewes 
with lambs, that would mean twice the number of 
mouths to feed by the end of the season. With these 
limitations—and 1 realize they are many, and prevent 
an answer on hard and fast lines—1 would say that 
with ordinary pasture and average sheep 1 would not 
attempt to keep over 15. If they have lambs by their 
side, I would say 10. Even if the main idea is to keep 
the grass down it is not pleasant, to put it mildly, to 
have a lot of thin bleating sheep about. If a fence 
could be run through the center and the sheep shifted 
each week, more could be kept, and they would do 
better than if allowed to roam over the whole field all 
the time. If the idea is to keep as many sheep as pos¬ 
sible in the area, give each one a pint of wheat bran 
and a gill of oil cake meal daily. This will also 
rapidly build up the land. Or sow a half acre of 
Dwarf Early rape, where the sheep can run on it, and 
it will sustain twice as many sheep as twice that area 
in pasture. edward van alstyne. 
A DOUBLE-BARREL DRAIN. 
The conditions are these: A marsh (marked by the 
dotted curved line at west side of diagram, Fig. 12) gets 
the surface water from enough territory to cause a pond 
covering an acre or more of ground in time of freshets. 
A former owner of the place tried to empty this pond 
through an eight-inch sewer pipe by starting at the top 
of the ground near the open ditch (the ditch was not 
there then, but we are putting one there) and gradually 
deepening to between two and three feet, which depth 
was maintained regardless of ups and downs of the 
surface of the ground to the circle II, which is a blind 
well. This eight-inch pipe failed to empty the pond 
in time to save the crops. In the diagram A is line 
fence, B open ditch, C driveway, D house, E barn, 
F highway, 11 blind well. The numbers are lateral 
drains. We have taken up the old pipe and cut the 
ditch flown to an even grade with an added depth of 
a foot or more, taking us to a depth of five feet in many 
places, and wide enough to take a six-inch tile besides 
the old eight-inch pipe. This double bore will be laid 
until all the eight-inch pipe is used, and then the plan 
is to bring them into the blind well and take the water 
the rest of the way through a 10-inch tile which we 
find (by squaring the diameter) will just equal the 
accumulative capacity of the six and eight-inch bore. 
How do we know that this double bore will remove 
the water fast enough to prevent the forming of a 
pond? I never promised that; I only promised that 
neither bore would become choked. We will nearly double 
the capacity of the old drain by adding the six-inch 
pipe and getting them over a foot deeper with a true 
grade. This greater depth will also enable us to do a 
more thorough job in underdraining the marsh, which 
has a tough clay bottom fo'r our double bore to rest 
on. while the old pipe with its laterals (marked x) 
of horseshoe tile lay in the soft muck above. These 
three choked laterals are being taken up, and will be 
put down where they can do business. The short open 
ditch at the head of the drain is to receive surface 
water for the double-barrel drain and to trap mud that 
would otherwise have to travel through with the water. 
The nine lateral drains numbered in diagram are a 
part of the new plan to tap low basins or to cut off 
ooze from higher ground. J. v. v. s. 
A MODEL SCH00LH0USE. 
We show in this issue an exterior view and inside 
plan (Figs. 10 and 11) of a building erected at Cor¬ 
nell University as a model for a country school house. 
A correspondent sends us the following note about it: 
"This little building is not the gate lodge to a country 
estate, or a ‘bungalow’ in a similar location, but the 
model schoolhouse recently built at Cornell University, 
adjoining the Agricultural College. It is a two-room 
structure with the outer walls covered with rough-cast 
TIIE MODEL SCHOOLHOUSE AT CORNELL. FiO. It. 
plaster and furnished with plenty of windows. The 
interior is finished in southern pine, and the walls 
papered with green cartridge paper. It has the school 
room on the north side looking out on the garden, 
and a play or work room with a bay window on the 
south, where plants can be kept and studied. Its 
practical use will be for the campus children, and as 
an object lesson of what might be built in many rural 
districts of the State. It is heated by a small furnace 
and the rough cost was about $1,800. The leading 
thought in the construction of this building was that 
it would serve as an illustration of what might be 
done, and so impress those students who will return to 
their homes, and it is hoped take an intelligent part 
in future local public affairs.” 
BOGUS SEEDLING PECAN TREES. 
It Is reported to us tlmt In some cases nursery frauds 
have put bogus pecan trees on the market. Seedling trees 
are cut and permitted to sprout so ns to look as if they 
were budded. Have you known this to be done, and do 
you think the same trick could be successfully played with 
apple, peach or plum? 
I knew that thing was largely done in Florida a few 
years ago. I have never heard of the trick being played 
by unscrupulous nursemnen with apples, peaches or 
other deciduous fruits, and I do not really believe it 
has ever been attempted, or could be made to pay on 
an extended scale. But nut trees are so hard to bud 
or graft that unscrupulous fellows might be tempted to 
work the same game on walnuts and chestnuts. 
Connecticut. j. h. half.. 
I he game you refer to can be worked on people who 
know nothing of the methods of budding and grafting. 
The game has been worked to a considerable extent in 
pecan trees, but 1 think it improbable that it has been 
practiced in apples, peaches and plums. On account 
of the good prices that have been prevailing for budded 
pecan trees, the temptation to defraud has been very 
great. Persons who have given matters of this kind 
a little attention are not likely to he deceived by 
spurious budded pecans. The resemblance to the gen¬ 
uine is very slight. s. w. peek. 
Georgia. 
We have heard it stated that pecans were cut back 
and allowed to grow out again, and sold as budded 
pecans. We have never seen any trees of this kind. 
We presume that a game of this kind could be worked 
on farmers, and those who were not experts in detect¬ 
ing such things as that. We have never heard of it 
being done on peach, plum, apple or other fruit trees. 
It might be possible to handle fruit trees, as you sug¬ 
gest, by cutting back and allowing the bud to grow, and 
having it pass as a budded tree, but we do not think 
anyone but a novice would be deceived. 
Georgia. c. h. miller & son. 
I have heard rumors that pecan trees had been 
treated in the manner suggested, but during a nursery 
experience of 25 years 1 never saw any such trees. As 
the pecan is difficult to bud or graft successfully there 
might be some inducement to the unscrupulous to 
practice such a plan. Probably the game has been 
worked, as there are rascals in the nursery business, 
just as there are in every other line. I have never 
heard of peach, plum, apple or other trees being treated 
in this manner, and have no idea it is ever practiced, 
as such trees are so easily grown by the usual budding 
process there would be no inducement for anyone to 
attempt such a game with this class of stock. 
Georgia. chas. t. smith. 
Whenever the budded and the natural stock are very 
similar in appearance, as in sweet cherry budded on 
Mazzard seedlings—quinces on Angicr stock or 
peaches, and the leaves have fallen, even an experienced 
man may have difficulty in separating the “wheat from 
the taros.” We are not familiar with the growth of. 
pecans. With the above sorts it would be a simple 
matter to cut back and grow naturals, closely simu¬ 
lating budded stock. However, we do not believe any 
nurseryman would do this intentionally, even if un¬ 
scrupulous. as the labor and expense of so doing is 
nearly as great as in budding. No doubt on all above 
species these false trees creep in frequently in spite of 
closest watching, and if perchance a bud stick is cut 
from one of these trees, the trees resulting therefrom 
will lose many of their natural characteristics and be 
even more difficult to determine as naturals. In apple, 
pear and plum the natural stock and budded trees differ 
so greatly in type, that deception is hardly possible. 
New York. frank e. rupert. 
We receive many letters concerning the manipula¬ 
tion of seedlings so as to resemble “worked” stock, 
and have seen the fraud perpetrated upon unsuspecting 
purchasers. The cases coming under my personal ob¬ 
servation have all been pecans, but I do not doubt 
that other trees may be sold by bogus agents in the 
same way- only the temptation is greater with pecans 
—as they sell for $1 and up. The usual way is to cut 
the small seedling off just above the bud, This bud 
grows, and one year afterward is sold as a budded 
tree. To a casual observer it looks like a budded tree. 
Sometimes the knife is run around the small stock, 
just deep enough to make a wound, and this makes it 
more difficult to detect, as the wound left by making 
a “ring bud” is just like it. One must look very care¬ 
fully to see whether the work is genuine or not. In 
one community in Louisiana one of these fraudulent 
agents sold over $800 worth of pecan trees in one sea¬ 
son that were nothing but seedlings, cut off close to 
the ground above the bud,and as the purchasers were 
unsuspecting, they were accepted as “worked” or bud¬ 
ded trees. He obtained as much as $2 per tree for 
these. While I have not seen nor heard of the peach, 
plum, pear or apple being handled this way, I presume 
that it is possible to do so. r. h. burnette. 
Louisiana Experiment Station. 
