1907. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
A TALK ON INVESTMENTS 
Will you request your law contributor to state his views 
on investments, and therein oblige me? J. L. m. 
Albion, Mich 
Not an easy task. Avoid all stocks and bonds except 
municipal securities. Mining stock usually is little better 
than waste paper. Leave stock in business corporations 
to those who can take a controlling interest in them; 
otherwise you are at the mercy of the unwise and dis¬ 
honest managers. Do not take notes unless made by re¬ 
sponsible parties, and then insist that the wife joins. A 
note becomes outlawed in New York after six years, un¬ 
less some payment is made on it. Chattel mortgages are 
good security, as they convey title to the goods, but they 
must be filed and renewed each year. The law favors 
the lender here, as it is very easy for the mortgagor to 
move off with the goods. First mortgages on improved 
real property where the value is increasing are among 
the most secure and satisfactory investments available. 
Look to the present and prospective value, rental value, 
taxes, desirability, character of buildings and of soil. 
Consider wbat it will be worth to you if you took it at 
foreclosure. Can the borrower make good? 
Real estate is usually the best and most secure in¬ 
vestment, as it cannot be lost, stolen or destroyed, and 
can usually be sold to advantage. Buy property only in 
a section that is growing and likely to have a steady de¬ 
velopment. Consider title, location, healthfulness, roads, 
improvements, rental value, taxes, material of build¬ 
ings, class of neighbors and character of the soil. Be¬ 
fore buying visit all the neighbors with a view of getting 
the values in that section; ask the advice of old resi¬ 
dents. Buy near home, where you can watch it; oversee 
center. I had occasion soon after to do some team¬ 
ing, and I felt sorry for my horses to see how much 
harder they had to work on account of that man’s 
ignorance or stupidity. I think I could have had a 
“heart to heart” talk with him about them that he 
probably would have remembered. The road is abso¬ 
lutely ruined for this season. Now, as to the road 
machine on such a road as I have described. The 
point should never enter the ground, but be operated in 
the same manner as the hone. It will then do as good 
or better work, for there will be places where you 
need greater pressure than you do at others. You are 
then in position to apply it. At the points A A, after 
the road is once in shape, they should never be soft¬ 
ened if possible. The road machine will shave those 
down to the proper shape after being pushed up by 
the wheels, as no other tool can do, except with far 
more labor. This is not the only road in our vicinity 
that has received such treatment, and there are others 
that are just as indignant about the matter as myself. 
_ A. R. 
TIMOTHY WITH ALFALFA. 
I note that you say in Hope Farm Notes that ex¬ 
perience says put a little Timothy with Alfalfa to 
guard against failure. I have been giving this Alfalfa 
651 
that came from seed in the manure; it helped out the 
yield of hay, but next year, if the Alfalfa should be 
allowed to stand, I shall expect the Timothy to.be the 
stronger of the two. Experience of others, as well as 
my own, leads me to the emphatic conclusion that to 
grow Alfalfa in its best state, we must give it the land 
to itself, and ap*-' 1 - ourselves diligently to keep every 
other plant or weed out of it. 
Ross County, Ohio. John m. jamison. 
RE-SEEDING AN OLD MEADOW. 
I have recently bought some farms in Monroe County, 
Pennsylvania, very much run down. In cutting hay from 
a real old-fashioned meadow, the upper part, where there 
were some ruins of an old barn, the grass was quite good, 
but the lower part was very thin ; huckleberry bushes had 
grown up in the grass, also the wild pink roses. I want 
to get it productive at the shortest notice. How shall I 
go about it? Should a meadow be plowed? Up in Orange 
County, New York, where my boyhood was passed, I re¬ 
member the farmers cutting meadows year after year of 
heavy grass, but I do not remember whether they fertilized 
the meadow or not. b. w. j. 
A grass meadow cannot be kept productive without 
top-dressing with good fertilizer or manure. Prob¬ 
ably the upper part of this meadow will respond to 
fertilizing. We would broadcast next Spring 600 
pounds or more of a good grass mixture. The lower 
part will have to be reseeded in order to obtain good 
grass. You ought to have started at this in July. 
Grub out the bushes and cut the briers and burn the 
whole thing over. Under ordinary circumstances we 
would not advise burning, but this field is so weedy 
that we would burn it. You must thoroughly kill out 
A FIELD OF ALFALFA AT THE NEW JERSEY EXPERIMENT STATION FARM’. Fig. 323. 
improvements and keep in touch with the conditions. 
Improve your home place so as to increase comfort, con¬ 
venience and productiveness. Have an eye to the effect 
of this on the family, as often the young long for an¬ 
other line of work because home is not homelike. Dol¬ 
lars stand for a small fraction of what is worth while. 
Improve the condition and usefulness of the children. 
Do not venture into fields you know not of, nor listen to 
tales of the borrower; investigate for yourself; even if 
he is honest his judgment is colored and his views 
prej udiced. 
Life insurance in strong companies is wise, especially 
for the head of the family. Set your bulldog on the 
man who suggests sending money away to remote con¬ 
cerns on any claim or security. It is very easy for stran¬ 
gers to use warm colors, hand out gilded promises and 
dangle Standard Oil dividends; they want your money. 
Lastly, always consult your banker and all your con¬ 
servative friends, as they may guard you against a losing 
suit. _ 
THE SHAPE OF A ROAD. 
For a number of years I have been at work on a 
piece of road along my farm, and two years ago had 
just completed it to my satisfaction—a width of track 
fully 20 feet, sufficiently crowning to carry off the 
water and no place but what two loaded wagons could 
meet and pass with ease. This Spring along comes our 
new road commissioner, and at the points marked 
A A in diagram, cuts a furrow four to six inches 
deep, and heaps that dirt into the center, in such a 
manner that two horses cannot walk upon it, but will 
keep shoving first one and then the other from the 
business for seven years, I may almost say, my undi¬ 
vided attention. I have sought information regarding 
the plant from about every available source within my 
reach. Quite a good deal of experience can be had 
by talking with men within a few miles of my farm. 
We have learned that to grow wheat, corn, or rye, 
Timothy or clover, we succeed best when a single 
crop has the land to itself. We start Timothy and 
clover with wheat, but I have never heard a farmer 
say that doing this was any advantage to the wheat. 
If weather conditions are unfavorable, the clover and 
Timothy are apt to fail, because they are the weaker 
plants. Alfalfa and Timothy may be a good combina¬ 
tion under certain conditions, and so may Alfalfa and 
Blue grass, when wanted for pasture, on land that can 
only be used for pasture, because too rough for hay¬ 
making machinery to be worked over it. I am a 
staunch friend of Blue grass, but I much prefer to have 
it across the fence from the Alfalfa hayfield, rather 
than mixed with the Alfalfa. Alfalfa, to thrive best, 
must have the land to itself. Tt will not crowd out 
Timothy or Blue grass. When they are tried together 
it will be found that the Timothy and Blue grass be¬ 
come stronger, and the Alfalfa gradually gives way. 
There is a reason for this. The Alfalfa constantly de¬ 
posits nitrogen in the soil, and this is the life of the 
Timothy and Blue grass,, and they feed on it to the 
detriment of the Alfalfa. A neighbor had a thin stand 
of Alfalfa and sowed Timothy to thicken it up. Not 
long ago he said the Timothy had crowded out the 
Alfalfa. Last year I hauled manure from town sta¬ 
bles to top-dress my Alfalfa field. When I cut my 
first crop this year there was quite a crop of Timothy 
the old sod if you expect a permanent meadow, fer 
if you let this old sod go unsubdued the weeds and 
foul stuff will crowd out the meadow grass. You 
can use a Cutaway harrow or plow weighted down, 
with three good mules or horses to haul it, and tear 
that sod up, going first one way and then the other, 
until the old sod is killed out. With hot, dry weather 
this constant stirring and tossing the soil will bring 
the grass roots up to the surface, where they will be 
killed. Or you may plow and then work with a spring- 
tooth until the sod is killed out. Another, quicker way 
is to plow deep, turning the sod completely over, so 
that the grass is out of sight. Then, instead of turn¬ 
ing up the sod to be killed out, use a heavy roller and 
crush the furrows down hard. Then, with a shallow 
working tool, like the Acme, make the upper surface 
(which is the bottom of the upturned furrow) as fine 
as possible. The former plan of killing out the old 
sod instead of burying it makes a better seed bed and 
a more permanent meadow, but costs more and takes 
longer. You should seed early in September. We 
would use at least 14 quarts of Timothy and six of 
Red-top seed per acre. This is far more than most 
farmers use, but for a permanent meadow on old sod 
there should be a heavy seeding. If the litmus paper 
test, which we have often given, indicates an acid 
soil, use lime. At any rate, use 400 pounds per acre 
of a good fertilizer when seeding, and add 250 pounds 
more in the Spring. We would add four quarts of Red 
clover seed in the Spring. With this start and an¬ 
nual dressings of fertilizer, you ought to cut such a 
meadow profitably eight or ten years. Of course condi¬ 
tions vary with location, treatment and stock carried. 
