1909. 
THE R URAL NEW-YOREER 
611 
BROOKLYN WATER SUPPLY AND FARMERS 
Can you give me the method whereby the city of Brook¬ 
lyn obtains its water supply? The city of New Britain 
now controls part, and is asking for power to control the 
entire watershed of the town of Burlington. The town Is 
very much opposed to it. We feel that a city should 
exhaust its own resources before asking for power to 
take from a town the water which the Creator designed 
for the use of its own inhabitants. a. a. m. 
Hartford. Conti. 
formed. But, although I have found and used one 
or two successfully, it was not until within the last 
year that there came to my knowledge one which 
answered all the requirements. This method, which 
for various reasons I have called the “slip-graft,” 
is used in the South in crown-grafting Citrus trees, 
and also in some, at least, of the nurseries of Penn¬ 
sylvania for general purposes. The advantages which 
the slip - graft possesses over the cleft-graft are 
greater than hoped for. First, no splitting of the 
“stub” is required; secondly, the base of the scion 
is prepared by a single cut instead of two; thirdly, 
the healing of the wound is assured by the ability 
to insert a larger number of scions; fourthly, the 
expense of covering the wound with wax is reduced 
to the minimum; fifthly, the number of tools re¬ 
quired is reduced to two—the saw and the knife— 
or one-half the number used in making a cleft. 
IN A JERSEY WOMAN’S GARDEN. Fig. 217. 
culture, at 23 Park Row. The man was a painter 
by trade, and knew nothing about farming, but he 
is willing to work, and is learning to handle horses, 
to plow and cultivate, and is doing all kinds of work 
fairly well. It takes time and patience to teach such 
men, but many of them will make good farm help. 
We have another family, American, also obtained 
through the Department. He left the farm several 
years ago—has been driving a milk wagon, had to 
get up at 12 o’clock at night and work until 3 o’clock 
the next day, receiving but $9 a week to support a 
family of wife and two children. He is an intelli¬ 
gent man, a member of the Grange, and says the 
farm is a much better place on which to work and 
live. His wife was a city girl, but she is as happy 
as her husband and children are to get away from 
the hard and pinched living of the. city. The Dutch 
woman is very useful on the farm in helping in the 
grafting of trees, and will pick fruit and help in 
packing, and in many ways. The children of both 
families can add to their earnings by picking fruit. 
If farmers would fix -up their old empty tenant 
houses that are going to decay they could fill them 
with good families and get far better help than many 
of them are now getting in the men they hire 
for only a few months. They must provide work 
for men by the year. Farmers can make but little 
money running their business but eight months out 
of the year. If a bank or a factory should shut 
down at the end of eight months and throw its 
employees out for four months it would soon go 
out of business. Every farm should raise its own 
horses, should have far more poultry, and sell eggs 
in the Winter, when they are always high in price; 
more cattle should be raised. More than half of the 
cows are not worth the food they consume, and a 
good business could be done raising extra good, 
high-yielding cows that would pay, in hard times, 
of high-priced grain and low prices for milk, as well 
as in better times. But all of this requires in the 
farmer a man of brains; he must be a good business 
man, alert, studying every side of his business and 
saving every leak and loss, which, on many farms, 
cut out annually any possible profits. Farmers 
should spend more time on their farm accounts and 
keep a daily record of all farm work, that they may 
know more about their farm and their business. At 
Orchard Farm I have kept such a record for over 
30 years, which has required less than 10 minutes 
every evening, and without such a record and sys¬ 
tem of keeping accounts, business would be done in 
a very blind and unsatisfactory way. When farming 
is done in a more business-like manner there will he 
less difficulty in getting good men from the city to 
return to farm work. george t. powell. 
New York. 
The city of New York maintains driven well 
stations in the County of Nassau which are erected 
upon property which belonged formerly to the city 
of Brooklyn, and to which the city of New York 
succeeded on the first day of January, 1908. The 
functions which these pumping stations perform are 
to supply the Borough of Brooklyn with water. 
Shortly after consolidation many claims were filed 
with the Comptroller by farmers in the counties of 
Queens and Nassau, demanding damages for the 
abstraction of water which, it was claimed, depre¬ 
ciated the moisture conditions, making farms’useless 
for the successful growth of market-garden vegeta¬ 
bles. Some of these claims were settled by the Comp¬ 
troller on the theory that the ground water on the 
plaintiffs’ farms was lowered through the operation 
of the pumping station. During the past two years, 
however, the Comptroller has refused to adjust or 
compromise any of these claims. An investigation 
which occupied nearly two years’ work in the field, 
made by engineers employed by the Department of 
Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, discloses the fact 
that the city of New York is taking water only from 
lands owned and controlled by itself. 
In litigation recently tried before Justice Dickey, 
sitting in the Equity Division of the Supreme Court 
for the County of Kings, seven actions involving 
claims which amounted to $150,000 were adjudicated 
in favor of the city of New York. The evidence 
which was adduced upon the trial of these actions 
proved that a certain maximum line of influence is 
marked by the operations of the pumping stations. 
Beyond this line water cannot be reached, even though 
the pumps are operated at their maximum capacity. 
The theory upon which the farmers predicated their 
losses, Mr. Justice Dickey said, was wholly fanciful. 
He attributed the depreciation of crops quite as 
much to a lack of rainfall, improper cultivation of 
the soil and the destruction of crops by insects, as 
to any influence which the pumping stations could 
have had, even if we were to assume that the opera¬ 
tions of the same reached the underground waters 
in the plaintiffs’ farms. 
Investigation of soil physicists, who were employed 
in the litigation before Justice Dickey as expert wit¬ 
nesses on behalf of the city of New York, showed 
that the texture of soils in Long Island farms had 
to be known and understood before it could be 
scientifically determined whether the presence of a 
water table was of any appreciable value to the devel¬ 
opment of plant life. It was found, after the most 
careful chemical analysis, that the sizes of sand in 
the farms of the various plaintiffs were of such di¬ 
ameters that it made no difference how much water 
the stations of the city pumped; if the original water 
table was lower than 4)4 feet from the top soil, the 
development of the crops could not be 
injured except through reasons as¬ 
signed by Justice Dickey in his final 
determination. 
'i et a large number of claims for al¬ 
leged damages to farm lands by the 
draining off of water through the ope¬ 
ration of city pumping stations and in¬ 
filtration plants have been filed with 
the Comptroller, the claims filed during 
the year 1908 amounting to $816,488.66. 
It may reasonably be assumed that there 
is no more merit to these claims than 
to those acted upon adversely by Jus¬ 
tice Dickey. h. a, metz. 
Comptroller of New York. 
The method of making a slip-graft is as follows: 
First, cut off the branch to be grafted in the same 
manner as for a cleft-gratt, and make smooth the 
rough surface of the wound with the knife. Sec¬ 
ondly, while making the scion of the usual length 
of from two to four inches, prepare its base by 
making a single, straight cut about an inch long, 
diagonally across the twig, in such a position as will 
bring the middle of the cut opposite a bud. Next, 
the insertion of the scion is begun by separating the 
bark from the wood with the point of the knife 
enough to permit the entrance of the point of the 
scion and is finished by pushing the scion down be¬ 
tween bark and wood (with the cut surface against 
the latter) until the bud and entire cut surface 
is inclosed. Insert from two to four or more 
scions in the same manner, according to the 
size of the stub. Complete the operation by cov¬ 
ering the top of the stub and from one-half inch 
to an inch of the bark all around the outside with 
METHOD OF GRAFTING. 
The commonly used cleft-graft has 
several serious faults. First, the necessary splitting 
of the “stub,” which opens the way for rot and decay, 
invites weakness and, consequently, short life of the 
ultimate union. Secondly, the healing of wounds in 
the cases of the larger “stubs” is not sufficiently 
assured, because of the limited number of scions 
u hich can be inserted. 1 hirdly, the size of the wound 
in any case is large, and. consequently, expensive to 
cover with wax. Fourthly, the number of tools re¬ 
quired in the operation is excessive, and causes^ great 
loss of time, not to say anything of patience and 
temper. 
hor a number of years the writer has been look- 
nig lor a method which, while avoiding these faults, 
would yet be at least as simple and as easily per¬ 
F.GYPTIAN FARM LARO&ERS FITTING THE SOIL. Fig. 218. 
grafting wax. In order to use this, form of graft 
(a “bark-grafting" method) it is evident that it is 
necessary for the bark and wood to separate more 
or less readily. The best time to perform the opera¬ 
tion is just as early as this can be accomplished. Fig. 
15 shows scion, 1, stub, 2, and mode of insertion, 3. 
Pennsylvania. T. p. pillsbury. 
THE CITY MAN ON THE FARM. 
At “Orchard Farm” we frequently have men from 
the city who come to learn to do various kinds of 
work. Some are apt and learn quickly, others are 
slow and do not readily adapt themselves to farm 
work. We have at present a Hollander and his 
family, obtained through the Department of Agri¬ 
A STATEMENT OF THE MILK PROBLEM. 
I am a new subscriber to The R. N.-Y. because 
I found it was working for the interests of the 
farmer. The farmers furnishing milk to the New 
York markets hardly get a living price for their milk. 
Evenywith the high price of feed the Borden com¬ 
pany cut their milk one-half cent last Winter from 
the Winter before, and this Summer one-fourth cent 
from last Summer. None of the farmers 
have heard anything about their cutting 
their selling price in anything. The 
Borden’s price curtails the wholesale 
price on milk in a good many places, 
independent if the Borden company; 
gives the dealers an excuse to get their 
milk cheaper and increase their profits. 
The farmers have no one to organize 
them so they can stand up for their 
rights. The Borden’s price for this 
Summer averages about 2)4 cents per 
quart for six months, and about four 
cents last Winter, and these prices 
more cr less, influence the New York 
Milk Exchange prices. In places in Con¬ 
necticut, Rhode Island and Massachu¬ 
setts, where farmers are organized, they 
are getting 4j4 cents for eight months 
and 3)4. cents for four months, the dealers gathering 
the milk. When the farmers take the milk to the 
dealers the farmers get one-half cent more. How 
can the farmers have up-to-date buildings for their 
stock and make a living, not to say anything about 
something for “a rainy day” at New York milk 
prices? Perhaps a few can, but most of them cannot. 
The exactions of city health boards are adding to 
expenses. _ H. B. betts. 
During the eight months ending March 1 this country 
imported $7,840.889 worth of cotton. Of this $6,229,219 
worth came from Egypt. This Egyptian cotton is a 
peculiar staple needed in manufacturing but not largely 
grown at the South. Experiments are being conducted at 
tlie Arizona Station which indicate that this kind of cotton 
can be grown in our southwest territory. 
