368 
TOO MUCH LIME IN THIS SOIL. 
In nearly every issue of The R. N.-Y. there is 
some inquiry about the use of lime and how to 
get it into the soil in the right form. I want to 
know how to get lime or the effects of lime out of 
the soil. I have a field of sandy loam that, as long 
as I can remember, when seeded to clover grew 
very little except sorrel, but always grew the 
finest quality of potatoes. Six years ago I 
spread about one ton of fine lime on each 
acre of the field except one-half acre on the 
east side, which had no lime on it. I planted 
to cabbage, had an extra good crop; next 
Spring plowed and seeded to oats and clover. I 
had a very heavy crop of oats and clover; all lodged 
except on east side, where there was no lime used, 
where there was nothing much but sorrel. That 
Winter I covered field with manure and planted 
potatoes about June 1; used about 700 pounds 
high-grade potato fertilizer per acre. The yield 
of potatoes was extra good, but potatoes were all 
scabby except on east side, where no lime was used, 
where they were very fine. 
I disked the field the next Spring and sowed to 
oats and seeded with clover. The oats lodged so 
badly they did not yield much grain, but never 
saw a heavier growth of straw. I cut the clover 
the next Summer and it was all lodged except on 
east side of field, where no lime was used. When 
second crop of clover was in full bloom, about August 
15, I plowed it under very shallow, rolled down 
hard and sowed rye. I had a very rank growth 
of rye and plowed it under deep just as heads began 
to show, thinking that two green crops plowed 
under would kill potato, scab in ground. I selected 
clean seed and planted potatoes with a machine, 
using 800 pounds high-grade potato fertilizer per 
acre. The potatoes came up about perfect. I used 
weeder before they came up, and kept them very 
clean and dug less than 50 bushels per acre. The 
potatoes were all very scabby, except on east side 
side of field, where no lime was used. That field 
always before yielded from 125 to 250 bushels per 
acre when planted to potatoes. 
I have three fields of about seven acres each, of 
sandy loam, and I want to plow deep; plant potatoes* 
fertilize heavily, and the next Spring disk field, 
sow oats and seed to clover, which would give me 
about seven acres clover, seven of potatoes and seven 
of oats each year. In theory it seems to work out 
all right to raise the three crops with once plowing, 
as I know I can grow better oats and get a much 
better catch of clover by disking well-fertilized potato 
ground in Spring than I can by plowing my sandy 
loam. I want to know how to get that potato scab 
out of my soil. How long will it take and what 
crops will the scab affect beside potatoes? What 
crops will kill it the quickest? If I get the scab 
out will it still grow heavy clover as it has since 
the lime was put on the fields? I would like to 
grow both clover and potatoes on that field, but I 
want all The R. N.-Y. family to go very carefully 
when putting lime on ground where they want to 
grow potatoes, as I have raised two crops on field 
that had lime on it, and was obliged to sell for 20 
cents less per bushel than I got for potatoes on 
same field on the east side where no lime was used. 
Alton, N. Y. u. G. a. 
R. X.-Y.—We shall welcome opinions from readers. 
This experience proves several things we have long 
urged about lime. It will help fit the soil for clover, 
and it will increase the scab on potatoes. You can 
probably improve the clover by using potash and 
phosphoric acid alone. Usually that gives a heavier 
and stiffer straw. From our experience you made 
a mistake in using manure for potatoes on that 
limed soil. The manure is alkaline and except in 
a naturally sour soil it is likely to increase the 
scab. Your soil was alkaline naturally and the man¬ 
ure added to its condition. Did you soak the potato 
seed? The seed may look clean and yet carry scab 
enough to spoil the crop if the soil is alkaline. Soak¬ 
ing in formalin will kill the scab germs.. Did you 
roll and pack the rye down hard after plowing it 
under? If not, this may partly account for your 
poor yield. We have seen fields left with such 
a green crop unpacked that dried out so that the 
clover and rye did not decay and thus form acid in 
the soil. You could “get the lime out of the soil” 
by broadcasting common salt. Chloride of lime 
would be formed which would easily drain out of 
the soil. To a less extent this would follow the 
use of muriate of potash. You should not use the 
common salt on the potato crop. On this soil we 
should use an acid fertilizer. If planting by hand 
sow acid phosphate and muriate of potash in the 
drill with nitrate of soda for nitrogen. Soak the 
seed potatoes and after they are cut dust them 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
thickly with powdered sulphur. If you use a planter 
keep the seed hopper well supplied with the sulphur. 
The scab will not affect the other crops you grow. 
The lime will help the oats and clover and the 
sulphur and acid fertilizer will give clean potatoes. 
HEN MANURE AND MUCK. 
On page 224, H. H. A. asks about the best way 
to prepare and use hen manure. The reply given 
is, no doubt, scientific and proper, but many of us 
small farmers want to know how to make the best 
use of what we have at hand, without calling on 
the dealers in fertilizers or chemicals. During the 
Winter I clean the droppings from the boards when 
they are not frozen down, pack in barrels or boxes 
and mix in sifted coal ashes enough to take up the 
moisture, and pound down each lot with a wooden 
block to prevent heating. In one house I made 
a pen under the boards and throw the droppings on 
the ground with the ashes in a solid pile. If the 
hens scratch it open, so the odor is detected in 
the house, I put on more ashes. In Spring these 
accumulations are moist and easily worked over, 
and my ideal method would be to mix one barrel 
of this with about three barrels of fine, dry muck 
which had lain out one season and frozen one 
Winter. Thoroughly mixed in this way the mass 
might be used the same as stable manure. That is 
the way I treated sheep manure when bleats 
were more numerous than barks. Not having the 
muck, I use the leaves which the hens have made 
fine in the scratching sheds during the Winter, and 
a little loam from the field. For use in drills 
where planting is to be done, it will pay to sift any 
material to mix with the hen manure by shoveling 
it on a screen of chicken wire tacked to a frame 
and set on a slant. No matter how it is prepared, 
it is better to cover it with soil, so the seed or 
roots of plants will not come in contact with it 
• • » , , 
until some of its power has been distributed. I 
have had good results from spreading the mixture 
as it comes from the barrels on the furrows, and 
working it. in with harrow. The coarser material 
taken out by screening, and the straw from floors 
of pens will contain enough of the droppings to 
make a strong fertilizer, and can be put in piles 
until it decays, or plowed in at once for corn or 
potatoes. I have grown nice potatoes on hen manure. 
In regard to the use of muck I will say that 
there is a wide variation in the quality of the 
article from different situations. Muck at the head 
of a pond where the water passes freely through 
it and makes that part of the pond look like coffee, 
is not much better than sawdust, and its chief value 
is as an absorbent. On the other extreme, muck 
in a wooded swamp where the wash from the hills 
comes down with a rush and trickles away slowly, 
leaving the fine sediment, has much fertilizing value. 
I know I am sending this message where it will be 
picked up and read by men who go by analysis, and 
will say muck is poor stuff, but I have used it mixed 
with lime and salt, according to directions in Dana’s 
Muck Manual, and used it for corn, and found it 
nearly equal to farmyard manure. If all farmers 
who can secure a supply of muck would use enough 
to absorb all the surplus liquid excrement from 
their stock, horses, cattle or pigs, they could rpake 
three cords of manure where they now get but 
one, and the value would be even load for load. 
This is not theorizing; I dug with my own hands 
and used from three to five cords of muck a year 
for several years, and found that the improved 
mechanical condition of the manure, making it easier 
to handle and spread, would nearly pay for the labor 
beside the saving of liquid manure, o. rr. leavitt. 
FRUIT IN HENYARD. 
All poultry men would like to keep their poultry 
in orchards; in fact, it is necessary for the best 
results during the hot Summer months to have 
plenty of shade where the hens range. So the ques¬ 
tion arises, what varieties of fruit succeed best 
in the henyards? Years ago we read that we 
should plant plum trees in the henyards, and the 
hens would eat the curculio. Only a month ago a 
well-known apple grower told me we would have 
to look out if we kept our hens in the apple or 
chard; we would get too much ammonia. In all out 
experience we have found but one variety of fruit 
that we can’t grow profitably in the hen ranges. The 
peach makes such a rank growth that the wood and 
fruit buds will not stand our Winters when the 
hens are kept in the peach orchards. Five or six 
years ago, a section of our old apple orchard was 
so severely injured by the cold weather that we 
thought we would lose a number of the fine old 
Baldwins, but we built a henhouse large enough 
to accommodate 200 hens in that section of the or- 
April 3, 
chard, and gave them the contract to save the trees, 
and in two years those- trees were back at work 
yielding profitable crops. If anyone should wish 
to crowd their hens on small yards then they should 
change them every year and cultivate the yard and 
seed it to clover underneath the trees, but if a 
large range is used and some sections become bare 
under the trees, then we mulch with any trash, weeds 
straw, cornstalks, etc., that we can get. Almost 
any variety of fruit will be injured if the hens 
are allowed to roost in the trees all Summer, and 
if the houses get foul with vermin the hens will 
be driven out and compelled to roost in the trees. 
The houses should be kept wide open, all windows 
removed in the hot Summer and then they are cool 
and we have no trouble to keep the hens from 
roosting in the fruit trees, and apples, pears, plums, 
cherries and quinces can be grown profitably in 
the henyards. fuoyd q. white. 
A LITTLE FARM IN MONTANA. 
You wish to get the truth from some of us west¬ 
ern men and this leads me to send you the follow¬ 
ing statement of seven years’ sales on a five-acre 
lot of surplus produce mostly direct to consumer: 
Family of five adult persons and eight children have 
eaten all the produce they could eat first, before 
surplus found its way to market. Average for seven 
years has been $495. A sample year follows: The 
crops are gradually changing from vegetables to 
small and large fruits. This year apples fetched $164 
and we have plenty in cellar right now. 
To be exact: Original cost of lot, two miles 
from town, $1,000. In 1902, $140.— Raw land, grad¬ 
ing to be done; very little, if any, irrigation made, 
and not enough water. 1903, $360.— Conditions im¬ 
proving. 1901, $980.— At their best sales from small 
fruits and vegetables, trees being planted. 1905, 
$419.— Small fruits and vegetables. 1906, $550.— 
1907, $550) 1908, $467.— Asparagus, early and 
apples late saved me; ditches washed out by 
floods; lost berry crop; irrigation water very 
scarce. I have not worked much on lot my¬ 
self in last four years, the wife and family 
looking after it and wife selling and spending the 
money herself. Women wanting to find work at home 
please take notice. All the spare time I had, of 
course, I helped them all I could and directed things. 
The following table gives my way of bookkeeping. 
1907 . 
1 . o 
2 2 
C ri 
5 2 
^ g- 
> 
Apples. 
Hay. 
Blackberry. 
U 
o 
& 
a 
to 
03 
cs 
Cur. G. B. 
>. 
O 
X. F 
rt * 
p h 
2 E 
< 
k. 
4. 
U 
c 
n 
o3 
Other 
Fruits. 
Total. 
1 II 
5.00 
Feb . 
Mch 17.75 . 
Ap’ 1 37 17 
5.00 
1.10 
24.15 
Mav. 
.... 
27.35 
21.30 
152.33 
115.23 
57.92 
30.50 
2.85 
76.45 
550.25 
,1’np 
6.25 
61.88 
July.80 
Auk . 4.98 
Sept . 7.75 
Oct . 14.30 
25.00 
7.50 
2.85 
19.a5 
— 
60.20 
2i.87 
6.00 16.17 
46.95 
84.50 
38.05 
3.88 
3.40 
1.25 
3.00 
8.70 
Dec. .50 20.00 
60.52 47.83 
1 
3.1.00 
36.00 
38.04 131.45 
41.93 
3.40 
43.U5 
68.13 19,0 
Missoula, Mont. H. c. b. c. 
A TEXAN ON SPINELESS CACTUS. 
As I have seen several articles in your paper about 
the spineless cactus, and think you are taking the 
right stand about same, will tell you the experience 
I had with it. In 1893 and 1894 we had a severe 
drought here, and the cattle were dying by the 
thousands, so that cattlemen had to feed cactus (not 
the spineless) by burning off the thorns and cut¬ 
ting the cactus to pieces with machines driven by 
horse power. At the ranch I was working at the 
time there were engaged about 40 men day and night 
feeding cactus to cattle. It so happened that there 
was a spineless cactus growing in the front yard 
of the ranch house about 10 feet high and eight 
feet wide. The manager of the ranch thought it 
would be a good idea to plant some, and by cutting 
same to pieces I planted two acres of them. They 
grew well and in 1894 we had an immense crop 
and turned the cattle loose on same. But what was 
our surprise when they would not eat them, and 
they never did learn to eat them. Where the orig¬ 
inal plant came from I do not know, but it did 
not come from Mr. Burbank. I do know, too, that 
Mr. Burbank or the company that is selling spine¬ 
less cactus never will sell any south of San An¬ 
tonio, as the same can be had for the asking. Mex¬ 
icans will eat the young leaves (or whatever you 
call them), in Spring of the cactus with spines, and 
in Summer the fruit, but I have never seen them 
eat any of the spineless. I think what a Mexican 
and cattle won’t eat is not worth eating, a. b. 
Corpus Christi, Texas. 
