446 
TTHE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
a week we added a bit of meat scrap to the. bread- 
and-milk and bran diet, and later some cornmeal. 
Gradually the bread was left out, so in a month 
they ate soft mash, of milk, cornmeal, bran, a little 
gluten meal or oatmeal. A little fine charcoal, with 
line grit occasionally, was given. How they grew! 
When three weeks old they weighed 1/ 2 pound; gain¬ 
ing nearly one-half pound per week until they were 
eight weeks old and ready to sell. Chicks at 10 
weeks old weighed \y 2 pound and brought 25 cents 
per pound, and the care of incubators and brooders, 
with some losses made the contrast considerable. 
Probably four pounds of feathers were gathered 
from the early sales. 
With enclosed yards they are easily managed; 
three-foot chicken fence would be sufficient to en¬ 
close large ducks, while chicks are difficult to keep 
in bounds. Ducks never scratch—and on the whole 
are a profitable side issue on a small farm. As an 
investment the first 30 sold paid. We hope to have 
all sold this year by the last of July. If we were 
nearer market we might try for late ones. Fortu¬ 
nately we had milk, and the cost of feed the first 
three weeks was small; after that they are hearty 
feeders; estimated cost five cents per week last 
five weeks, each duck. When six weeks old they 
will eat wheat and whole corn as night ration. They 
are interesting, and a flock of 50 is a pretty sight. 
The lad took a picture of the flock when about that 
size, Fig. 187. 
THE BOY’S SHARE.—Was it worth while for 
our lad? We think it was. He learned to care for 
them, to consider the cost, and the skill necessary to 
make a success of the undertaking. He had a personal 
interest in it, and understood the gain on an invest¬ 
ment, and wise use of money. When he was 10 years 
of age we gave him a colony of bees—the first 
swarm that year—with a modern movable frame 
hive. He was to purchase all supplies thereafter and re¬ 
ceive all profits. Such interest as he evinced! Every 
scrap of bee information was greedily devoured, and 
such courage in handling them was developed as 
would delight anyone to see. A bee journal was 
studied faithfully, and now he is a successful young 
bee-man, having three fine colonies—and quite an 
income from them. These interests help to make 
life on a farm seem desirable. So many times the 
“boy’s Jersey calf” is “father’s cow,” that a sense of 
unfairness and injustice takes all hope and interest 
from the boy’s heart, and his great desire is to 
leave the farm. There should be everything brought 
forward to create a love for it, that is possible. 
These two years of life on the farm have been a 
fine opportunity for development of physical and 
mental power, a most excellent preparation for 
high school and college. Our son has learned the 
practical side of all the various problems of a small 
fruit and poultry farm. He has learned how to lay 
out and set an orchard; trim, prune, graft, bud, 
spray and care for fruit; the care of his bees, the 
care of poultry, pigs and dairy cattle, besides the 
scientific cultivation of mixed farming, selection of 
fertilizers, etc. He was able to enter the senior class 
in high school this year by reason of home study 
during the Winter evenings, and by the end of fourth 
month was Xo. 1 in the class. His alert brain was 
able to enter into the work with real enjoyment and 
energetic study. He lost nothing by the two years 
at home, and gained much in bodily vigor and men¬ 
tal ability. He invested in a bicycle, which, when 
roads are good, brings him often home from school. 
11 is plans include many improvements about the 
home, when the term is over. He is not anxious to 
leave the farm. His interests are there; but he 
realizes that a farmer should be educated to be suc¬ 
cessful—in the best sense. M. P. a. 
“Brightside,” Pa. 
AN ALABAMA BOY’S GEESE. 
An Appreciation of Purebred Embdens. 
The three geese shown in Fig. 186 are purebred 
Embdens, and are the property of our 13-year-old 
boy, who is seen feeding them corn from a cup. 
They are marvels of perfection, in his eyes, and he 
says they come next to his father and myself in 
his affections. They are two years old, and we 
brought them with us from central Ohio a year ago. 
This country seems to agree with them, as it does 
with all our poultry (also ourselves). Their small 
owner gave them very sedate names when they first 
came into this sinful world, regardless of sex or 
propensities, viz., Eben, Moses and David. They 
certainly should be very well-behaved with such im¬ 
pressive titles, but this fact does not prevent them 
giving anything that crosses them a sharp “tweak” 
with their strong bills. This breed of geese lays 
very large eggs, which usually hatch well: and they 
are so large, their plumage so snowy, and carriage 
so majestic that they attract a great deal of attention. 
If kept dry and free from lice when young, they 
are very easily raised, and with good pasture and 
plenty of drinking water, they will get their own 
living after the first four to six weeks. These three 
were raised by hand, and when they were small 
their owner would gather them up every night, or 
when a shower came up in the daytime, and put them 
on the porch in a little box with straw in the bot¬ 
tom, and a bit of carpet over the top; there they 
were warm, dry, safe and contented. 
Baldwin Co., Ala. mrs. g. h. fuller. 
PLOWING AN ALFALFA SOD. 
I have succeeded in raising Alfalfa for six years, long 
enough to fall in love with it, but I want to know what 
kind of a plow to use in plowing Alfalfa sod. I lime and 
manure the land and get good crops, mowing every year, 
but. now my first piece, nix years old, must be plowed up 
and reseeded, because *the Blue grass has crept in and is 
putting the clover out of business. I don’t wish to raise 
any other crop, but I wish to kill that Blue grass so 
dead that it will never appear again. I wish to harrow 
and disk that ground weekly or daily during the hot dry 
Summer days until it is perfectly clean, and reseed it so 
heavily that nothing else can grow. Can the Alfalfa be 
sown too thick? I do not care for the expense of the 
best seed but want a perfect stand this time, to last 
more than six years, if I am willing to feed it. In The 
I t. N.-Y. a writer telling of potato raising in Greeley, Col., 
says they mow Alfalfa two years, then the third, when it 
is growing in full vigor and the roots as tough as a piece 
of rawhide, they plow it under and plant potatoes again. 
I don't expect to go to Colorado but 1 would give some¬ 
thing to see that done. I see on page 314 you say seeding 
should be done in Spring, except in New England or ex¬ 
treme South, which would be better done in Fall. Again 
you say if he plowed the young seeding in the Spring 
deeply he would not kill all the Alfalfa plants. That is 
about what will happen when I plow an older piece, but 
is that the way to reseed, with a lot of the old plants half 
or altogether alive? j. CORNELL. 
Middlesex Co., N. .T. 
The questions raised by J. Cornell are perti¬ 
nent ones. When we first began plowing up old 
Alfalfa meadows, we lived in constant dread of the 
yearly plowing. The roots on Woodlawn Farm 
DETAILS OF FIGURE-FOUR TRAP. 
became larger than a man’s thumb, and were certainly 
tough. A Colorado friend told us liow to fix our 
plows for plowing Alfalfa, and we now have no 
difficulty whatever. Two things are necessary. To 
have sharp plowshares (we have two for each plow 
and sepd one to a blacksmith each day) ; and sec¬ 
ond, and still more important, to have a small knife 
placed on the bottom of the landside and exactly 
opposite the rear point of the share. This knife 
should be V-shaped, the point of the V going for¬ 
ward, about three inches long and \'/ 2 or two inches 
wide. Any blacksmith can make one and fasten it 
on. A small place must be chiseled out of the bot¬ 
tom of the landside to allow this knife to set in 
and prevent the plow’s jumping. Then the knife 
is bent up on the inside of the landside and fas¬ 
tened on with a plow bolt. You will understand that 
this knife lies flat in the furrow and cuts about two 
inches on the next furrow. Its main value, how¬ 
ever, is to hold the plow steady. Before we used 
it, it required strong and very active men to hold a 
plow in any kind of shape, but now we have plows 
regulated so that anyone can handle them and can 
easily do just as good work on Alfalfa sod as on 
any other kind of sod. We put in not less than three 
1,500-pound horses to pull this plow, and if' possi¬ 
ble, we plow the sod during the Winter when the 
roots are not quite as tough as they are in the 
Spring. Howeve-, if we cannot plow hi the Winter, 
we do so just as soon as the frost is out of the 
ground in the Spring, and if for any reason it is 
necessary to defer plowing until the plants have 
started to grow, you might as well wait until an¬ 
other year, as it is practically impossible to break 
Alfalfa sod after the plants have grown two or three 
inches. 
Mr. Cornell should experience no serious difficulty 
in killing the Blue grass. Our meadows usually 
become somewhat filled with this plant by the time 
April 24, 
we are ready to plow them. One or two years 
cropping with corn or other tillable crops will cer¬ 
tainly kill Blue grass, and then the field may be 
re-seeded to Alfalfa. It is possible, we think, to seed 
too heavily in this country for the greatest amount 
of feed. We think that the plants when crowded 
will not root as deeply as they will when they are 
just right. Twenty pounds seed per acre gives us 
as many plants as we wish, and probably would 
give him as much. If he lives in a limestone coun¬ 
try he can count on the Blue grass working in in 
time, no matter what be does, but if he will disk 
the Alfalfa occasionally, and if he will never pasture 
it, he can readily keep an Alfalfa meadow in good 
condition for eight or 10 years. 
Referring to Spring and Fall seeding, the writer 
should have stated that the Fall seeding seems to 
succeed better in all of the Atlantic States instead 
of the New England States alone. • The effect of 
the Fall rains in these States is one reason for better 
success in the Fall. In the Southern States crab 
grass bothers in the Spring, so that it is almost 
imperative to seed in the Fall. In regard to the 
old plants coining after they are plowed, if they do 
the same for Mr. Cornell as they do for us. about 
May 1 his plowed field will look very much like a 
meadow yet, and probably his neighbors will laugh 
at it. Sometimes the plants actually bother a little 
when we make the first two cultivations of our corn, 
but after the first two cultivations are over, there 
is no further trouble, as the Alfalfa will not thrive 
when being tramped and cultivated, and by the mid¬ 
dle of the Summer the plants will practically dis¬ 
appear, and any crop that is planted on Alfalfa sod 
thrives so splendidly on account of the stored-up 
nitrogen that it finds in the soil that the trifling in¬ 
convenience earlier in the season is promptly for¬ 
gotten. 
Regarding sowing down a stand of Alfalfa that 
lias just been plowed up, it is possible that I was 
somewhat in error in advising people immediately to 
re-sow, at least in one way, because the required 
cultivation with a plowed crop might remove Blue 
grass or weeds that might be growing in with the 
Alfalfa, but I have recommended this plan largely 
because most people experience difficulty in getting 
quite as thick a stand as they wish, and knowing 
that many of the old plants will be left over, we 
thought really the cheapest way for them would be 
immediately to re-seed. I think that this would 
not apply so well wh>we there was Blue grass mixed 
in with the Alfalfa; that it would be better to have 
a cultivated crop for one year in order to kill the 
Blue grass, and I would advise Mr. Cornell to plant 
corn or potatoes, or whatever he wishes for at least 
cue year on his field, and then re-seed to Alfalfa. 
Ohio. CHAS. B. WING. 
THE TRUTH ABOUT FLORIDA. 
It may be asked why we want the real truth about 
1 iorida and other States. The following letter from 
one of our readers will show one reason: 
I am one of The R. X.-Y.'s large family of subscribers, 
and feel that in addressing you as friends I am only giv¬ 
ing expression to the kindly and helpful spirit that per¬ 
vades each issue of the Rural. We (mother and I) think 
we would like to go to a warmer climate, as the Winters 
here seem trying, and one has to shovel so many dollars 
into the furnace to keep warm. Where can we go? 
Mother is well along in years, and feels the cold weather. 
We have thought of Virginia, hut nearly everybody seems 
to be selling out there, i think I have had offers of a 
hundred thousand of acres that, were for sale in all parts 
of the State. We cannot come to any conclusion as to 
where we would like to go, for there are so many dif¬ 
ferent opinions regarding soil and climate. We have read 
a number of accounts of conditions in Florida. 1 find a 
good many say it is the ‘‘only climate on earth." I get 
a sense also that it is intensely hot in Summer. Could 
a northerner who had lived among our northern hills 
and mountains endure the Summers there, say in the cen¬ 
tral part where the soil seems to he better? We do not 
feel like “migrating,” hut hope we may find a place having 
a mild and healthful climate 12 months in a year. IIow 
would it he in the Carolinas or Georgia? I think I hear 
some one say “Better get a tieket for the Garden of Eden." 
Yet it seems that one ought to be able to find what we are 
looking for in such a broad land as ours. Our idea is to 
locate on a farm where wei can raise what we need and 
have something for sale. If far enough north would have 
a lien of sheep, two or three cows, pigs and some grain 
suitable to the locality. P . 
Now this man is like thousands of others. He 
can find real estate agents by the dozen to sing the 
praises of any section, but where can he find some 
one to tell the plain truth? The R. N.-Y. has no 
interest in “booming” any State or section. Except 
lor the Winter climate this man’s present home suits 
him. He doesn’t want a place that is all climate— 
and nothing else—but he wants to know both light 
and shade. It does not require a moment’s thought 
to show how important it is to know the truth about 
any strange section. It requires strong character 
to stand up and admit the defects in what you have 
to sell. 
