442 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 1, 
part of a field on this account and, of course, when he 
is kept from his work he is punished and loses inter¬ 
est in his work. If the bulldog sees strange cattle in 
his yard or garden what is his duty? Very plain, but a 
word to the game warden and he will be sent where 
game wardens never will go. 
When any of the family go out in the evening about 
the farm the dogs have been taught to go with them as 
an escort. Only a few evenings ago the ladies started 
to go to the neighbors for a few minutes pleasant chat. 
They came hurrying back in a panic and the dogs were 
frantic. The next morning we went over the ground 
and found that less than five rods from the door they 
had startled a herd of deer and that the deer had 
evidently made a stand, for we found tracks where they 
had stood and stamped until one fore foot had made a 
print six inches deeper than the other. Were the girls 
safe ? 
And so it goes. I can give you incident after incident 
and loss after loss that we have endured. Take hold 
and air this imposition on the farmers and we will be 
your debtors here and hereafter. Here because it will 
save our pockets. Hereafter because we won’t be say¬ 
ing so many bad words. e. o. beebe. 
Hampden Co., Mass. 
FACTS ABOUT THE KIEFFER PEAR. 
The reports that growers are refusing to plant Kieffer 
pear and Concord grapes is not true in a general way. 
No doubt it is often so locally, especially the Kieffer. 
As far as New Jersey is concerned there will no doubt 
be more Kieffers cut down than planted the coming sea¬ 
son, and this is as it should be, as many of the trees 
that are past 15 years old have been neglected and 
allowed to overbear, and the consequence is that the 
fruit is abominably poor. Still, farmers persist in put¬ 
ting this miserable trash on the market. Could this be 
totally eliminated from our markets for a few years, 
and only first-class Kieffers offered I am satisfied that 
there would be created a good demand for Kieffer, as 
when well grown on warm sandy soils and properly 
handled the Kieffer is first-class both as a cooking and 
(when picked early and well ripened) eating pear; but 
when overloaded and poorly grown it is about as miser¬ 
able fruit as we grow. My advice to all in the Kieffer 
belt is to plant Kieffers if soil and conditions are right; 
light sandy soil is best of all, and in a thoroughly ex¬ 
posed position where there is a free circulation of 
air, a remedy for that so-called rust. Cultivate well 
and prune severely until your trees are six or seven 
years old, when they will be large enough and have 
root system enough to carry and bring out a crop of 
fruit that will surprise many growers who allow their 
trees to begin to bear at three or four years, and by the 
time the tree is old enough to give good crops it is 
old and exhausted. I never allow my trees to give a 
full crop of fruit until I have a tree able to carry it 
and produce three or four bushels of fruit; this I do 
by thorough pruning. Keep it growing strong and it 
will not set much fruit before it is six or seven years 
old. I know some object to this method, but from 
an extensive experience for over 20 years I know the 
principle is right. My advice is if you have old trees or 
those exhausted by improper treatment, cut them down 
and start a new orchard on the principles now advo¬ 
cated, and you will be pleased with the results. By my 
method I never fail to have annual crops of good fruit 
for at least 10 years. Under ordinary conditions and 
treatment the Kieffer has outlived its time of profit at 
15 years; by my method trees are good for 20 years 
and sometimes more. Just as soon as it will not give 
good fruit it would better be cut down. As to Concord 
grapes I think they are planted as largely as for many 
years past and as far as my experience goes we have 
nothing of its season to supersede it. chas. black. 
Mercer Co., N. J. 
WORK ON AN IOWA FARM . 
I have never used any ashes or fertilizers, have used 
only what manure I get from 40 head of cattle, six 
horses and 70 hogs, sow a good deal of clover and Tim¬ 
othy, practice a four-year rotation, potatoes, corn, oats, 
grass. The item for feed is for bran, shorts, oil meal 
and corn, mostly for bran and shorts. I usually grow 
what corn I need. I try to have a sod to plow for 
corn and potatoes, but sometimes have to plant potatoes 
on ground that grew corn the year before. For potatoes 
I disk the ground once before it is plowed, and, if it is 
sod, twice after, drag until it is in good shape; then 
plant with a machine that cuts, drops and covers the 
seed. I have tried three different machines, but like 
this the best. I drag three times, use the weeder about 
twice, and a two-horse eight-shovel cultivator twice. 
Spray three times with four-row sprayer; use a 4-4 
solution; some years the spraying does not seem to 
be a success. I shall try a 5-5 mixture this year. I 
never hill mv potatoes. I use a Hoover digger, bushel 
boxes to pick up in and a low wide tire wagon to haul 
them on; usually pile them in the field until ready to 
sell, which is in the Fall. I sell most of them to parties 
in Chicago, Kansas City and the Southwest. My yield 
is from 150 to 250 bushels to the acre. The varieties 
mostly grown are the R. N. Y. and Carman. The sweet 
corn I grow, is Stowell’s Evergreen and is sold to the 
canning factories and farmers for seed. My wife and 
girls start in the Spring with 50 hens and come out in 
the Fall with about 150 chickens. We eat and sell a 
good many eggs. I keep about 60 stands of bees, and I 
ONE OF COSGROVE’S WYANDOTTES. Fig. 207. 
like this part of my work very much; sell my honey in 
our local markets, getting on an average 12^2 cents for 
comb and eight cents for extracted. The berries I now 
grow are strawberries. I used to grow raspberries and 
blackberries, but they were not a success with me, espe¬ 
cially the latter, which would winter-kill. Strawberries 
do well here. I have grown over 50 varieties, but my 
money makers are the Warfield and Senator Dunlap. 
I grow them so that about 24 berries fill a box; they 
are dark red clear through and that is the kind of 
berry wanted around here. Sample is a good late berry, 
but hard to fertilize. I sell ail of my berries in our 
JEALOUSY IN FEATHERS. Fig. 20S. 
local town and receive on an average 11 cents a box 
by the crate, and get back about half of the empty 
crates. The berries are all sorted and my No. 1 boxes 
are stamped with my name. My berries are grown on 
black sand and clay loarn; the ground is well plowed, 
disked, dragged and planked; then the plants are set 
two feet apart in the row and the rows are three feet 
eight inches from center to center; the plants are kept 
from four to six inches apart. I use a one-horse culti¬ 
vator and good sharp hoes to tend them. I grow my 
own plants. I use cane pomace to mulch with; it is 
cut at the cane mill into pieces about two inches long 
A REST FOR TEAM AND DRIVER. Fig. 209. 
and makes a good mulch, as there is but little weed 
seed in it. My yield of berries is about 4,000 quarts to 
the acre of No. 1 and 500 quarts of No. 2. The berries 
are sorted as they are picked, and are sold the same day. 
Most of the picking is done by my own family. I 
usually hire about four pickers, pay from 1 J /2 to two 
cents a box; grow about l l / 2 acre; have the best results 
from newly-set beds. The reason I selected potatoes, 
seed corn, bees and. berries as a sort of a side issue to 
my regular farming is because it is something that 
everybody is not in. They are looked upon by some 
as small things, but they helped very much to lift the 
$4,000 mortgage that was once on my farm. When I 
began growing berries about 12 years ago I sold straw¬ 
berries for $3.60 a crate and bought 25 bushels of 
shelled corn with the same abount of money. That man 
who sold me the corn is still renting a farm and not 
bothering himself with growing berries. My sweet corn 
seed brings about $2.25 a bushel. H. R. brown. 
COAL TAR ON SHINGLES. 
I asked one of our neighbors about his experience in 
the use of coal tar on shingles, and he told me that 
in 1869 he shingled his barn with spruce shingles, first 
dipping them in coal tar. The shingles were removed 
in 1903; they were perfectly sound, but had split so 
badly the roof was leaking. Had they been pine they 
would have lasted at least ten years longer. Before 
the staging was removed a coating of tar was applied, 
also another coat about 15 years later. “It was the 
worst job I ever undertook,” he said. “The sun lying 
on the black tar was almost unbearable. It peeled the 
skin from our hands and faces, and we were compelled 
to wear cloth masks with eye holes. It covered our 
clothing, sticking it to the tar and tearing it when we 
moved. I would not use it again, the discomfort in 
applying it was so great.” F. c. curtis. 
Maine. 
A correspondent asks concerning the use of coal tar 
on shingles. I will give him my experience: In the 
Winter of 1866 and 1867 we cut some large pine trees 
that branched out and made limbs too crooked to saw 
into boards, and we drew the limbs and some trees that 
were too small to saw into boards to a mill and had 
them sawed into shingles. Then we sorted them over, 
taking out those that had the least sap in them, and 
would lie pretty clear to the weather and dried them, 
and in the Spring dipped them into boiling coal tar and 
let them drip what they would, throwing them into a 
pile where they lay till the first of July, when we laid 
them on a barn roof 75 feet long. In the Spring of 
1900 the barn was burned, and there had never been 
anything done to the roof since the shingles were laid. 
It would, however, soon have needed repairs. Ten years 
after the shingles were laid the dew would drop from 
the eaves of the barn in the mornings. It was not a 
very pleasant job to lay the shingles, as the tar was 
not all dried into them. It is great economy to tar 
them, as they will last twice as long and the moss will 
not grow on them. If first quality shingles were laid 
they should be painted over with tar once in eight 
years, and then they would last a lifetime. c. F. k. 
YELLOW TREFOIL AS A FORAGE CROP. 
Readers In Kentucky ask about the value of Yellow tre¬ 
foil for stock feeding, and for improving the soil. In 
some parts of the State we are told that this crop is being 
quite largely sown in place of the clovers, as it Is thought 
it will grow on very poor soil. Is it worth growing where 
clover or cow peas will thrive? The question was re¬ 
ferred to Prof. Garman of the Kentucky Station, who an¬ 
swers as follows: 
We have experimented with the plant in our forage 
plots for a good many years, and find no difficulty in 
growing it there, though it produces so little forage as 
co-moared with Red clover and White clover that we 
cannot recommend it for this section of Kentucky. It 
is a member of the clover family, developing nodules 
on the roots, and so is calculated to improve soil. It i3 
fair forage also, and in European countries is valued as 
grazing for sheep. We have some soils in the mountain 
counties upon which it is calculated to grow, and where 
the more productive and valuable clovers will not thrive. 
I should feel disposed to recommend it for trial on the 
foothills of eastern Kentucky. Where such plants as 
cow peas and Red clover can be grown, trefoil is not 
calculated to be valuable. I observed in a letter recent¬ 
ly received from Williamstown that there is some un¬ 
certainty as to whether Yellow Sweet clover, Melilotus 
officinalis, is the same as trefoil. The sweet clovers 
are very different plants; both of them grow in Ken¬ 
tucky and both of them do well on clayey ground. 
They are nitrogen fixers. It has been my experience 
that stock does not like the forage and will eat almost 
anything else. Trefoil (Medicago lupulina) grows 
more like White clover, but is even slighter in growth, 
and has a vellow head of blossoms. The seeds are 
sometimes imported into this country to be used as an 
adulterant of Red clover seeds, to which they bear some 
resemblance. With clover seed, the plant has been scat¬ 
tered through this and other Middle States, and is fre- 
uently to be seen growing in meadows and pastures. I 
should say of it that it may have a value on the hilly 
land in the mountain counties. I regard Red clover 
and cow peas as very much more valuable, and as these 
can be grown on the level land of Blue-grass Kentucky, 
and in the western part of the State, I see no reason 
why farmers should make use of trefoil instead of 
them. H. GARMAN. 
