1009. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
673 
MARKER AND HARROW POLE. 
On page 514 is a description of a one- 
man marker. I use what I call the 
stake system. It does away with line, 
notched board and marker. Measure 
from fence in line for first row of 
trees, and set three laths in line, or 
more if the field is not level. Measure 
at right angles to this line for the rest 
of the rows, and set lath in line in each 
row. As soon as third row of lath are 
placed have a man with team plow out 
a double furrow, i. e., turn one each 
way, then reset lath in furrow, in line 
where trees are to be, but put the lath 
between where the trees will be set. Af¬ 
ter the furrows are plowed, supposing 
furrows are north and south, set the 
lath at right angles to this line to de¬ 
termine the rows east and west between 
the furrows, and you have a line both 
ways in field. 
Lath are to remain until all trees are 
planted. The man digging the holes 
with shovel can sight through both 
ways and have nothing to bother. When 
planting go by the lath entirely, and 
not by the trees to avoid running the 
row crooked. Men with careful work 
can plant as straight as with a line, and 
quicker. Two men will set lath in line 
faster than a man can plow furrows. 
I also give a description of a device 
to enable a man to work a spring-tooth 
harrow close up under trees and not 
have it rub the limbs of the trees. A 
good stout plank eight or 10 feet long 
with a strong pole attached in center 
and strongly braced, holes bored in 
each end of plank to accommodate put¬ 
ting harrow farther out under the trees, 
will let the harrow work close to trees 
and the team can be kept away from 
limbs. Using pole with neck yoke 
makes the harrow draw steady ahead, 
and not have that walking motion. 
Trumansburg, N. Y. reader. 
The Culture of Sunflowers. 
G. A. S., Bristol Station, Wis .—How much 
sunflower seed can be raised to the acre? 
How is it planted, and is there a machine 
to get the seed out ? I have a friend in 
Chicago who claims lie lias an offer of 
five cents per pound for all the seed he can 
furnish for the next five years. He also* 
said a man told him it was a poor crop 
that would not net .$100 per acre. 
Ans.— We have heard these stories 
about sunflower culture before. We 
have chased some of them down, but 
never found anything except the shad¬ 
ow. The substance is usually off in 
the next county. If anyone is grow¬ 
ing sunflowers as a profitable crop, and 
can tell how to do it, we are in the 
market for his information. We do 
not mean a small patch or a small 
quantity seeded with corn, but “a poor 
crop that would not net $100 an acre.” 
We have 10 acres waiting for such a 
crop! 
Value of Wood Ashes. 
II. B., Nova Scotia .— I have a chance to 
get ashes from a paper mill where spruce 
is used for fuel. Will it pay to haul them 
two miles? 
Ans.— Are the ashes exposed to the 
weather or under cover? If there is 
any large quantity of them and a price 
is charged we should take a fair sam¬ 
ple and have it analyzed. Soft wood 
when burned will generally yield less 
ash and less potash than hard wood. 
Chestnut will give about as much potash 
as pine or spruce, while ash or White 
oak yields nearly twice as much. Old 
trees generally give less ashes than 
young ones. Also young trees give less 
ash and less potash during Spring and 
early Summer than later. To show 
how ashes vary in composition the Con¬ 
necticut Station analyzed samples from 
stock offered for sale in that State and 
found all the way from three to eight 
per cent of potash. One thing which 
affects the quality of ashes is the 
amount of sand found in them. This 
sand is not changed in burning. As Dr. 
Jenkins states, a cord of hickory wood 
weighs about 3500 pounds. The ashes 
from it will weigh only 70 pounds. Yet 
if the wood carried three-tenths of one 
per cent of sand all this would appear 
in the ash and represent 15 per cent of 
it. Dr. Jenkins gives the analyses of 29 
samples of ashes from household fires 
—that is, stoves in which ordinary stove 
wood such as is found on farms, was 
burned. The potash runs all the way 
from about five per cent to over nine 
per cent. In commercial ashes sold in 
Connecticut—that is, “Canada” ashes 
offered for sale—the ashes ran from 
three per cent to eight per cent of pot¬ 
ash—the average being 4.62 per cent. 
Growing Potatoes in Georgia. 
B. B., Milledgeville, Ga .—I contemplate 
planting one acre to Irish potatoes this 
Summer. The land is rather low-lying, has 
been partially underdrained, and that sys¬ 
tem will be completed, as necessary. It is 
sandy loam underlaid with stiff clay. It 
grew cotton last year; now has a crop of 
cow peas growdng broadcast. Peas will be 
cut for hay about July 1. Shall I put on 
about two or three tons of air-slaked lime 
per acre? Or will the lime injure the po¬ 
tatoes? I shall apply 700 or 800 pounds 
commercial fertilizer rich in potash. I no¬ 
tice the pea plants are dying from some 
cause. This is quite unusual here at this 
season. They have been sown about one 
month and have four or five leaves on 
them. 
Ans. —As soon as the peas are mown 
the stubble should be deeply plowed, 
and prepared for the potatoes. Fer¬ 
tilizer with a mixture of 500 pounds 
of acid phosphate, 50 pounds of muri¬ 
ate of Dotash and 50 pounds of nitrato 
of soda per acre. Plant in deep fur¬ 
rows and cover the potatoes very lightly 
at first, working the soil to them as they 
grow and then cultivating perfectly 
level and shallow to retain moisture. 
Hilling is all right for early potatoes, 
but the late ones are grown during hot 
and often dry weather, and should be 
deep in the ground and cultivated very 
shallow and level, so that the moisture 
will be prevented from evaporating. 
Two or three tons of lime will be more 
lime than I would ever apply at once 
for any purpose. A ton per acre once 
in five or six years is better than more 
applied at long intervals, and this ap¬ 
plication I would make in connection 
with a legume crop. No, do not apply 
lime on the potatoes, as it will make 
conditions favorable to the scab fungus. 
Possibly you may have the wilt disease 
in the peas, or perhaps it is lack of 
plant food. Peas should always have 
some acid phosphate and potash, for 
you cannot get these from the air as you 
can nitrogen, and the legume crops are 
greedy consumers of these plant foods. 
I have named the minimum fertilizer 
for the potatoes, but have no objection 
to your increasing the amount to 700 
pounds acid phosphate and 100 muriate 
of potash per acre. w. f. massey. 
Unoccupied Farms and Women. —Of all 
the questions that have come to me relative 
to unoccupied farms in Now York State, 
the hardest is one from another part of my 
own State : “Can a woman with three chil¬ 
dren, two of them boys of 17 and 19, 
respectively, purchase oue of these farms, 
with but a small amount to pay down, and 
hope to work out the balance in course 
of time?’’ There are those who can do it, 
and there are a good many others who 
couldn’t. A good deal would depend upon 
the boys, whether they take the right kind 
of interest, and how thoroughly and 
economically they can manage the work. 
Of course, there is small use in trying to 
run a farm without a horse or two, and 
some cows or hens for money producers. 
Then it is not every man who would care 
to sell a farm and take toward its payment 
the last dollar a woman has of her own 
when the possible chances for failure are 
abundant. Many would have conscientious 
scruples and others those of a business 
nature. This is a case where mistakes are 
hardly allowable. May I suggest that a 
small farm may be rented for a year or per¬ 
haps, 1 jotter, the boys may hire out to some 
good farmer, boarding with their mother, 
she keeping house, keeping poultry, doing 
sewing, or whatever may seem best? Then 
it would be possible to select the farm to 
better advantage, and after establishing 
confidence a more equitable bargain may be 
made and with less risk. h. n. lyon. 
Chenango Co., N. Y. 
HOW TO MAKE 
100% PROFIT 
FROM YOUR PEA AND BEAN CROP 
Pea and Bean Seed is worth from $2.00 
to $3.00 per bushel. DO YOU SAVE IT? 
If you don’t you must, in order to get 100$ profit 
from your crop. 
At such a price per bushel the seed is too valuable to use 
as feed. — Too valuable to attempt to thresh with a 
regular grain thresher, that will split one-third to one- 
half of the $2 to $3 seed. 
To get all the profit, you must be able to take every 
seed from the vines and pods and to produce it in a 
whole, clean, marketable condition, the 
OWENS 
Pea& Bean Threshers 
are designed and built especially for this purpose. 
We ship them to Pea and Bean Growers under 
a bona fide binding guarantee, that they will thresh 
any and all kinds of Peas and Beans directly 
from the vines, without splitting the seed. 
We have a proposition to make, if you are a 
grower of Peas and Beans, a proposition that 
you ought to hear about and that you cannot 
fail to be interested in. It is the most liberal 
and fair proposition that ever a manufacturer 
made, so it is worth your while to write us 
—-but do it soon—today if you can. 
sr- 
r^ 1 * 
dqublc \U 
CYLINDER v7\V 
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on PEA and BEAN CULTURE 
Information furnished by 
the best authorities in the 
country, gives splendid il¬ 
lustrations and a thoro de¬ 
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Thresher. 
Send for a copy today 
J. L. OWENS CO. 
683 Superior Street 
MINNEAPOLIS, 
MINN. 
Hurry-Up Marking* 
Two modern implements for fast, clean work. 
Clean Sweep Loader Goes from swath to windrow work, or vice versa, without 
Elevating Carrier. Loader detached without men getting off load. It^fcAsup the 
hay and lifts it onto the wagon without threshing or pounding. Hay is not broken 
or wadded and rolled. It gets all the hay. whether thick or thin and whether 
the meadow is rolling and uneven or level, but it leaves the manure and 
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best of all rakes. Really ted¬ 
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and better than either alone. Rakes clean and needs no dump¬ 
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SANDWICH MFC. CO. 
Sandwich Side Delivery Rake 
157 Main St. 
Sandwich, Ill. 
SjflS 
\ 1 |TN7 
and Ra/ce. 
FARMER’S WATERPROOF OR 
PLAIN CANVAS COVERS 
for Stacks, Implements, etc. 
[ Hay Caps, Plant Bed Cloth, 
Tents, etc. Circulars, Samples, 
HENRY DERBY, 49 Warren St., New York. 
JEP O n T DE2 
HAY CARRIER 
Has wide open mouth and 
swinging fork pulley. Kills 
hay mow full to the roof. Is 
without exception best hay 
carrier in the U. S. Send 
for illustrated booklet of 
PORTICK’S Up-To-Date Hay Tools. 
J. E. PORTER CO., Ottawa, III. 
This Dain Delivery Rake A To Hay Ue 
Because, it air cures the hay preserving the rich juices. 
Such hay is sweeter, better color, worth more to feed 
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