7G4 
miles. The haul from Texico to Roswell was over 
another railroad. Of course, the shipper complained, 
and finally the following correction was made: 
Yosso to Ft. Sumner, 26 miles, at 18c. $36.00 
Ft. Sumner to Roswell, 126 miles, at 17c. 34.00 
Total . $70.00 
» 
Later on a through rate of 15 cents between Yesso 
and Roswell was made, so that the charges are $30 
and the railroad has asked the Commission for au¬ 
thority to refund $184 to the shipper. But for the 
Commission they would have had the whole thing. 
The heavy rates charged at first are mileage class rates 
for short hauls of a few miles, while the final 15- 
cent rate is what is known as a “commodity” rate. 
It would have cost less than the first awful charge 
to haul the wool by wagon from one point to the 
other. We shall see as we go on with other cases 
the extortionate charges which Western shippers 
have to meet, and how powerless they would be in 
case there was no appeal to the Commission. One of 
the hardest problems the Commission has to solve is 
what is a reasonable rate. Shall it be measured by the 
cost of the service, the value of the service, value of 
the article carried, or the difference in value of the 
article between the point of shipment and the place 
of sale? This last is often called “What the traffic 
will bear,” and out of this has grown the famous 
railroad phrase, “all the traffic ivill bear.” Where 
there is no competition and no restraint that is just 
about what the carriers will take. 
SUGGESTIONS FOR FARMERS’ INSTITUTES. 
Divorce the principal institute workers from their 
side lines; that is, let them make it their business. I 
believe the main institute workers ought to be hired 
by the year. Outside of institute season they should 
be employed in experimental work, carried on at dif¬ 
ferent points throughout the State under the guidance 
of the two experiment stations. They should be in 
touch with all the experiments carried on in this 
State, and should encourage such work, whether it is 
being done by the stations, Experimenters’ League or 
private individuals. They should visit all farming 
sections in the State; familiarize themselves with the 
problems that baffle some, and actually see, not hear 
about, the way others have worked out these same 
problems. Why not give some attention to farm 
mechanics? I am told some experiment stations have 
a multitude of notes as to the draft of farm ma¬ 
chinery, etc., but for some reason do not publish. 
Possibly some instruction might advantageously be 
given as to the marketing end of the farmer’s work; 
methods employed in various places; inspections at 
various markets, etc. Such methods would not only 
round out and increase the ability of the institute 
worker, but would greatly extend the influence of the 
experiment stations and benefit agriculture generally. 
It is not how many fair institutes we can have, but 
how many good ones, and we can’t have these su¬ 
perior ones without superior men. 
Seneca, N. Y. frank e. rupert. 
What change would I make in the farmers’ insti¬ 
tutes? Well, the first thing would be to cut out the 
educational department; they use up about one-fifth 
of the time of the institute trying to get the people 
interested in the rural schools. We used to be inter¬ 
ested .in the schools, when we managed them, and 
they were a success in those days, but since control 
has been taken away from the people, interest has 
ceased, and the schools are surely a failure under the 
present system. The department has two weeks of 
teachers’ institutes in Delaware County at a cost of 
about $6,000 to the taxpayer, and that ought to be 
sufficient, without infringing on the farmers’ time of 
one or two days at farmers’ institute. In second 
place, I would not hold the institute at the same 
place each year, but give other localities a chance to 
learn. e. e. stebbins. 
East Meredith, N. Y. 
You ask does the farmers’ institute pay. I say, yes, 
but cannot we do better? My observation is that the 
farmer has derived great benefit from the lectures, 
especially when delivered by men of practical expe¬ 
rience. We want practice in farming, not theory. 
Sometimes a man will advance a theory that does 
not prove practical, and then he is classed as dis¬ 
honest, when it is merely a case of inexperience. 
Our State cannot do too much for the education of 
the farmer, and while the institute is all right, I 
again ask, cannot we do better ? Suppose our State 
should enlarge its educational work by sending rep¬ 
resentatives into different sections of the State to di¬ 
rect the work on certain farms along the line in 
which they are engaged. Place a man in the dairy 
section, and have hyn go from farm to farm; show 
them how to feed, or better still, rent a farm and give 
a practical test, so that all in that section can ob¬ 
serve. The same in the fruit or potato district. In 
THE RURAE NEW-YORKER 
some sections every class of experiment could be 
carried on on the same farm. This is a theory, and 
may be wrong, but all practical things must spring 
from theory, and then be tested. This might be 
found wanting. At least, give the farmer all the 
education you can. We need it. M. R. shaver. 
Ransomville, N. Y. 
The farm institutes are a good deal of a farce. 
The real farmers hardly know they occur. The at¬ 
tendance is nine-tenths town people. The farmer 
needs protection much more than he needs instruc¬ 
tion. As a rule they know now much more than 
they can put in practice. Our most successful farm¬ 
ers are those who commenced as farm hands, work¬ 
ing by the month for some years before going in 
business for themselves. Many such have purchased 
and paid for good farms. These smile when the in¬ 
stitute is mentioned in their hearing. The farmers 
who are interested in the institutes are mostly those 
who are farmers only because hey have failed to be 
anything else; joy farmers and mollycoddles mostly. 
Slate Hill, N. Y. samuel decker. 
THE PROBLEMS OF THE CHEAP LANDS. 
The Need of Lime. 
Part III. 
The next step after thorough drainage, in the re¬ 
clamation of most of our cheap lands, is an appli¬ 
cation of lime. We are just beginning to wake up 
to the importance of the functions which lime per¬ 
forms in our soils, and the deficiency of this ele¬ 
ment. The old and generally accepted saying that 
“a lime soil is a rich soil,” admits of the corollary 
that a soil deficient in lime is a poor soil. Hil- 
gard says that lime is a dominant factor in produc¬ 
tion, for “In general we find that lower percentages 
of potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen are ade¬ 
quate, when a large proportion of lime carbonate is 
present.” In speaking of the character of vegeta¬ 
tion the same writer says: “It appears that the 
change of vegetation from walnut and hickory (good 
soil trees) to the short-leaved pine (poor soil tree) 
bears no visible relation to the increase or de¬ 
crease of potash or phosphoric acid, but is plainly 
governed mainly by the amount of lime present. 
We are surely coming to a large and general use of 
lime on the non-calcareous (non-limestone) forma¬ 
tions of our country, and the sooner we acquaint 
ourselves with the facts concerning its use, and get 
in line with advanced practices, the better it will 
be for our farms and our pocketbooks. 
LIME AS A PLANT FOOD—We have been taught 
that lime is not a fertilizer; that, although it is one 
of the essentials of plant growth, just as much as 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid or potash, there is usually 
enough of it in every , so : l to supply the require¬ 
ments of our crops, and that where it is needed at 
all, it is as a “corrective.” In this connection it is 
a significant fact that the crops that require the 
largest amount of lime—such as clover, Alfalfa, etc., 
are the first to fail on our non-calcareous soils, and 
that these are the crops most benefited by an appli¬ 
cation of lime. When we consider that it is the most 
soluble of our soil constituents, and that many soils 
derived from limestone containing 90 per cent and 
over of carbonate of lime, have, through the wash 
of ages, been reduced to a fraction of one per cent 
of this material, when we think that the Mississippi 
annually carries 70,000,000 tons of dissolved carbonate 
of lime and magnesia into the sea, we may the more 
readily appreciate the fact that we have possibly 
come -to the time when we must replenish the stock 
of lime in our non-calcareous soils. Lime added to a 
heavy clay has the effect of loosening it, and render¬ 
ing it more friable. A simple experiment will il¬ 
lustrate this effect. If from a lump of plastic clay 
a mud ball is made and allowed to dry, it will be¬ 
come almost as hard as stone. If to another similar 
ball a small quantity (one per cent) of caustic lime be 
added, it will be observed at once that it has lost 
much of its stickiness, and when dried will readily 
crumble. Of course one per cent is an excessive ap¬ 
plication for field practice, but a beneficial effect is 
distinctly noticeable after an application of one ton 
per acre. Some go so far as to assert that the en¬ 
tire benefit derived from liming is due to its physi¬ 
cal effect upon the soil. 
LIME CORRECTS ACIDITY.—This is a subject 
surrounded with a degree of mystery. It is recog¬ 
nized that soils which bear the characteristic sour 
vegetation (sedges, rushes, sorrel, etc.), and give an 
acid reaction to the litmus paper test, are unprofitable. 
Yet recent experiments seem to show that their 
failure to grow clover, and the more profitable 
grasses, is not due to the amount of acid in the 
soil, but to other conditions, which are unfriendly 
to these crops. Possibly it. is due to a lack of bac¬ 
terial activity in these soils, Hilgard says: The 
August 14, 
conditions under which these bacteria can act are 
quite definite, in that * * * * there must be 
present a base (or its carbonate) with which the 
acids formed by oxidation may immediately unite. 
In an acid medium (“sour” soils) nitrification 
promptly ceases; as it does also whenever the amount 
of base present has been fully neutralized.” Lime 
and magnesia have been shown to be the best bases 
to use for this purpose. Director Thorne, of the 
Ohio Experiment Station, recently told the writer 
that in the examination of soil treated with lime 
they had found the bacteria clustered about and at¬ 
tached to the minute particles of lime carbonate, 
showing that they were in need of the lime. Lime 
is a powerful chemical reagent, and it is not strange 
that its introduction into a body so chemically com¬ 
plex as a fertile soil should produce various and 
surprising changes. There arc certain chemical com¬ 
pounds in our soils containing potash, and others con¬ 
taining phosphorus, that are broken down by lime, 
the lime, as it were, pushing out the pota-sh and 
phosphorus, and taking t heir places in the com¬ 
pounds. In the report of a certain set of experi¬ 
ments conducted by the Pennsylvania Experiment 
Station, it is stated that “Liming was in all cases fol¬ 
lowed by increased availability of the potash, some¬ 
times to nearly 50 per cent of the original amount 
available,” and “a similar increase in available phos¬ 
phoric acid occurred in all but one soil.” Hilgard, 
in speaking of the cotton soils of the Southern 
States, says that 0.1 per cent of phosphoric acid soluble 
in strong acids, with a fair supply of lime, secures a 
fair productiveness for eight to fifteen years, but 
with a deficiency of lime, 0.2 per cent of phosphoric 
acid is required to produce the same result. 
F. L. ALLEN. 
BARLEY AS A SECOND CROP. 
Although we are commanded not to covet any¬ 
thing that is our neighbor’s, I could never help 
being a little envious of the Hope Farm man and 
others who live in those favored regions where 
Crimson clover solves the cover crop and nitrogen 
problems. Having each year about 20 acres left 
bare in late July and early August by the removal 
of early potatoes and string beans, it would be a 
great boon if we could occupy the land with some 
quick-growing legume which would prevent loss 
of plant food and at the same time furnish nitrogen 
to the soil and forage for the stock. But one trial 
of Crimson clover convinced me that this was not 
for us. Little growth was made in the Fall, and not 
a single plant survived the Winter. For some time 
we sowed millet after the removal of the bean and 
potato crops, but favorable weather was required to 
get a good stand, and the first frost ended the 
growth of the plants. Taken one year with an¬ 
other in our latitude late-sown millet was too un¬ 
certain to warrant the expense of seeding. 
Last year, however, we tried a few acres of bar¬ 
ley, and with such good success that I believe this 
to be the best second crop we can use for our 
conditions. August 1 a two-acre field from which 
a crop of string beans had been removed was sown 
to barley. The land was fitted with the disk har¬ 
rows, about two bushels of barley sown per acre, 
the land disked again and then leveled down. A 
very severe drought was experienced, making the 
conditions of growth very unfavorable throughout 
the entire growing period. Notwithstanding this, we 
estimated that this field, cut about October L 
yielded fully a ton of field-cured barley hay per 
acre. Another field, sown August 15, and cut the 
last of October, yielded about the same. In both 
cases heads were well formed, but there was no 
filling of the kernels. Before the late-sown field 
was cut there were several frosts, which froze the 
ground quite hard, but this seemed not to injure 
the barley in the least. Some difficulty was expe¬ 
rienced in curing the hay in late October, because 
of the cool weather, and great pains should be taken 
to get the hay as dry as possible before storing 
large quantities in a mow. In order to satisfy myself 
as to the value of barley hay for feeding, I kept 
some until midwinter, when most of our cows were 
in full flow and doing their best. We substituted 
barley hay for the mixed clover and Timothy which 
we had been using in our ration, and our records 
show that the cows did equally as well. 
In more favorable seasons it would probably be 
possible to get much larger yields of barley hay on 
good land than we obtained in 1908, but the crop 
we obtained paid a good profit, besides furnishing 
a crop to occupy the land, which would have been 
bare during a long period. Barley, of course, does 
not gather nitrogen as does Crimson clover, but it 
locks up the soluble nitrates which are formed dur¬ 
ing the hot weather, and prevents their wastage by 
leaching in the Fall and Winter. If the barley hay 
is fed to stock and the manure carefully saved and 
returned to the soil there is in the end a decided 
gain. For us in the North, I believe barley is a val¬ 
uable second crop for sowing up to August 15. 
After that Winter rye may be sown, and a crop of 
rye hay be obtained by June 1 the next year. It is 
surely sound business policy to keep something grow¬ 
ing on the land. e. s. brigham. 
Vermont. 
