760 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 21, 
good crops. The Alfalfa did equally as well during 
the Summer of 1908. Every farmer will recall that 
here in Connecticut the Summers of 1907 and 1908 
were very dry, and yet I cut one large crop and two 
small crops from my Alfalfa field, estimating not 
less than four tons to the acre. Last Fall there 
appeared to "be a good deal of grass in the Alfalfa, 
so that early this Spring I put a Cutaway harrow 
on part of it, and gave it a severe cutting, going 
over it both ways at right angles and then diagon¬ 
ally. The result has been to improve that portion 
of the field where it received this treatment, demon¬ 
strating conclusively, to my mind, that where grass 
and foreign matter grow with the Alfalfa a good 
application of the Cutaway harrow early in the 
Spring will improve the condition. Last Fall I 
sowed about 10 acres of Alfalfa, which came up 
well and yielded at the first cutting this Spring 
about two tons to the acre. At the present time 
(August 3), it stands from eight to 10 inches high, 
and will yield about one ton to the acre. 
After an experience of some eight years I have 
no hesitation in saying that I believe Alfalfa can 
be grown in Connecticut; that it can be profitably 
grown, and that it should receive the attention of 
all our farmers. I want others to learn from my 
failures and mistakes, but I advise every farmer in 
Connecticut to try a little piece of Alfalfa, and I 
would urge upon him the following rules: First, 
the land should *be well drained, as Alfalfa will not 
live where water stands on the surface of the soil 
for any considerable length of -time. Second, the 
land should have a thorough application of lime— 
not less than one ton of good, fresh-burned lime, or 
two tons of air-slaked lime, to the acre. Third, the 
land should be rich and mellow, as free as possible 
from weed seeds; therefore plow early, and at least 
once a week, before seeding, go over the land thor¬ 
oughly with a Cutaway harrow. Fourth, bacteria 
should be applied from a field of growing Alfalfa, not 
less than 500 pounds to the acre; apply the'bacteria at 
the same time, or about the same time, that the seed 
is sown. Fifth, the lime should be applied at least 
30 days before the bacteria and seed, and should be 
well worked into the soil. Sixth, Alfalfa in Con¬ 
necticut should be sown -between the middle of Au¬ 
gust and the first of September. By carefully ob¬ 
serving these rules I believe there are thousands of 
acres of land in Connecticut at this time which can 
be made to blossom as the rose. I have sown Al¬ 
fa 1 fa in the Spring with beardless barley, and also 
with oats (both to be cut green for hay), as a 
catch crop; but I have had a good deal better re¬ 
sults by sowing my Alfalfa during August. I know 
from' experience that Alfalfa can be raised here in 
Connecticut—it fc the cheapest forage crop we can 
produce, and I want to see a lot of our waste land 
earning something. chas. m, jarvis. 
♦ 
Effect of Inoculating Alfalfa. 
The experience with Alfalfa on an Illinois farm, 
as indicated by the accompanying picture, Fig. 431, 
should encourage those farmers who have sowed it 
and failed to get a good stand to “try, try again.” 
On a 14-acre field of wheat a hundred pounds of 
Alfalfa seed was sown in the early Spring of 1908. 
The field had also previously been seeded to Tim¬ 
othy, and quite a volunteer crop of Medium Red 
clover was to be expected, as clover had been grown 
on the field in previous years. Now, for the inter¬ 
esting part: On most of the field the growth of 
A'falfa is rather feeble, as indicated by sample 
marked “uninoculated,” and is nearly lost among 
the Timothy and clover. In one corner of the field, 
however, is a rectangular patch of perhaps a quar¬ 
ter of an acre, upon which the growth of Alfalfa 
from the very start was strong and vigorous, and 
the Timothy and clover are lost among the Alfalfa, 
which has taken complete possession, and is like the 
'sample marked inoculated in 1873. Moreover, the 
roots of the plants in the inoculated part of the fie’d 
are covered with nodules, while none can be found 
on the roots in the uninoculated part. 
For some time no reason could be assigned for 
the difference in the growth of the Alfalfa, until it 
was remembered that in the early seventies the 
writer’s father sowed Alfalfa, or, as it was then 
called Lucerne clover, on the part of the field in 
question, and which was not a very 'successful crop, 
being plowed up after a couple of years. Still ap¬ 
pearances indicate that, although the crop at that 
time was practically a failure, the soil was inocu¬ 
lated, so that future crops of Alfalfa can be suc¬ 
cessfully grown. J. h. b. 
Illinois. 
Think of it—two Massachusetts men are reported fined 
$50 each for filing the teeth of their own horses. They 
were found guilty of “practicing medicine without a 
license.” 
NOTES FROM A VIRGINIA FARM. 
Wonderful Possibilities and Dogs. 
Some months ago I was writing to you for in¬ 
formation in regard to compressed air as a power 
for spraying. After some investigation I decided 
to buy a set of tanks of 100 gallons capacity, and an 
air compressor. It is the best outfit for spraying 
that I have ever seen. I have not used it a long 
time, but so far it works excellently, and there is 
so little to get out of fix that I do not see why 
it should not last for year. What I need now is 
two sets of the tanks. A boy can drive them to the 
orchard and back to loading station, and two men 
could keep the nozzles going nearly all of the time. 
We pump up air tank to about 175 pounds; that will 
run out the 100 gallons of mixture, and will leave 
about 75 pounds pressure in tank when you return 
to station; therefore, it never takes as long to pump 
up the tank after first time. We have an elevated 
platform for making mixture, and while tank is 
being filled with air the liquid is running into other 
tank. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to load. I run com¬ 
pressor with water power, which is a great advantage 
in this form of spraying outfit. Some of the or¬ 
chards are three-quarters of a mile from the cen¬ 
tral station, and this is a great disadvantage, we 
spend so much time on the road. We have lots of 
water in this section, and there is no trouble to get 
water on a p’atform suitable for loading wagons in 
any of the orchards. A steam engine, with a good- 
sized boiler, might be advantageous, as steam could 
be used for cooking the lime and sulphur, and we 
could get power from the engine to run compressor. 
I have a water power that is of the greatest con¬ 
venience. It is a turbine wheel, and gives 10 or 12 
horse power; in dry season not so much. We run a 
gristmill, large stones that make the best meal in 
the world; we can also have whole wheat flour, and 
buckwheat flour. We run a sawmill, planer and 
matcher; a shingle saw, lathe and grindstone, as 
well as the air compressor. I am contemplating a 
generator for lights, power, etc., and expect to have 
DISTRIBUTOR FOR CAUSTIC LIME. Fig. 430. 
one before a great while. The motor would be fine 
for sawing wood, cutting feed, silage, etc. I put up 
a silo last Summer; only bought cement for founda¬ 
tion and rods for hoops. We sawed the staves and 
a man on the farm put it up. He had never seen 
a silo in his life. The silage keeps fine and all 
sorts of stock enjoyed it. I have recently built a 
house, a picture of which I enclose (Fig. 432). We 
burnt the brick, cut the timber in the mountain, 
sawed and worked it on the place. We bought very 
little, except doors and windows, and hardware. 
We have water in the kitchen, a boiler and bath¬ 
room; water comes in by gravity. We have had very 
little troub'e except one cold Sunday morning, the 
water front in range blew up. and things were lively 
for a few minutes. 
This is a large farm; we have too much land to 
work well. In former days there were a great many 
negroes on it, but now they have all disappeared, and 
gone to the towns. There is only one left, and he 
says that he is four-thirds Indian. A great deal of 
the land is worked by tenants. These mountain 
people have large families; one of my men sits down 
to the table every day with 12, all his own, and some 
of the others are not far behind. We have a public 
school, as well as a chapel, on the farm. Counting 
babies, I have about 90 people on the place, and we 
can generally get plenty of labor, such as it is. We 
work long days at this season. One of my men 
came in some time ago at 15 minutes to seven and 
asked if he could get off for the rest of the day; 
he had been up at four getting the horses up to feed. 
We live 10 miles from a railroad. Some of my men 
have never been on a train in their lives. 
I have some nice Pippins this season, and hope to 
be able to put up a box against Vermont, the 
West or any other p'ace. The crop in this section 
is not up to an average. I want to tell you about 
a fine squirrel dog owned by one of my men. When¬ 
ever Bill hears his dog bark he is certain of a 
squirrel. Some time ago he heard his dog bark over 
on the side of the mountains, and, expecting to get 
a nice squirrel for his supper, he picked up his gun 
and set out. On reaching the spot, what was his 
disgust' to find that his dog, who never told a lie, 
had treed a large rattlesnake. He did not wish to 
waste his lead on the snake, but decided, as it was 
unusually large, to shoot off his head. The snake 
had 15 rattles and a button. Bill brought the snake 
down to show him to me, and, as I had made, some 
study of the diet of rattlesnakes, I cut him open to 
see what he had had for his dinner. Bill was very 
much delighted to find out that after all his faith¬ 
ful dog had not lied, for the rattlesnake had swal¬ 
lowed a full-grown squirrel. Another of my men 
was on the mountain not long since, and hearing 
quite a racket above him he looked up and saw, com¬ 
ing down, what he afterwards made out to be a 
very large blacksnake and a rabbit. They were so 
mixed up that he could not tell which was on top. 
As they came near him the snake managed to extri¬ 
cate himself from the rabbit, and climbed a bush; 
the rabbit stood up on her hind legs and attempted 
to reach the snake. At this point, the man put an 
end to the battle by dispatching the snake with a 
stick. He found that the snake had numerous punc¬ 
tures in his back that had been made by the rab¬ 
bit. SAMUEL S. GUERRANT. 
Franklin Co., Va. 
MAKING A GARDEN SOIL. 
I have a garden of one and one-third acre which has 
been used for a garden for a number of years. I wish 
to take one-third of it at a time and handle it for one 
or two years in such form as would put it in the most 
perfect condition to be used for a garden for a few years; 
then I would tmke another third and so on. I do not 
care to take any crops from it during the one or two 
years but wish simply to put it in the best condition 
for a garden. j. e. p. 
Pennsylvania. 
What you want to do is to stuff this soil with 
vegetable matter and prevent it from getting sour. 
This means plowing under green crops and using- 
lime. We shou’d begin at once, and have the third 
of the garden plowed and seeded with half a bushel 
of rye and four pounds of Crimson clover seed. 
Then let it alone until Spring. When the rye is 
about three feet high, have it plowed under. In a 
case of this sort we should cut the rye first and let 
it wilt for a day on the ground, and then plow it 
under, raking it into the furrow behind the plow. 
Then scatter 600 pounds of lime in the furrows and 
harrow or rake it well into the soil. Then, in May, 
make drills or furrows 2^2 feet apart and plant in 
rows cow peas. Give them good culture and the 
last time you go through sow a peck of buckwheat 
and five pounds of Crimson clover among the cow 
peas, and even with the cultivator. Then let the 
field alone until the following Spring, and plow un¬ 
der all that is left. Plow deep, fit the soil well and 
you have a garden soil. In this way you can keep 
the garden going indefinitely. You can, if you like, 
plow under the cow peas, and sow some other crop, 
but the plan given above will do the business. 
INSTITUTE LECTURES AND PLANT FOOD. 
Speaking about institute lecturers, the following ques¬ 
tion was asked of one recently but the man who asked it 
is still waiting for his answer. This is the question: 
“On good soil, with a good seed bed, which is the more 
profitable for top-dressing, a ton of bone at $30 or a ton 
of a high-grade commercial manure at $56? It seems 
perhaps a silly question, yet local conditions are such as 
to make it a decidedly practical one. Now, why could 
he not answer it? Incidentally, will you? H. w. k. 
Connecticut. 
We cannot possibly answer the question with¬ 
out asking one or two more. We know that a ton 
of average bone will contain about 60 pounds of 
nitrogen and 500 pounds of phosphoric acid. Now, 
what is the ana'ysis of your high-grade fertilizer? 
How much potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen do 
the manufacturers guarantee? You will see that the 
only way to make a fair comparison of value is to 
know how much plant food there is in the mixture. 
Give us the analysis and we will figure it for you. 
As the question was put no man could answer it ac¬ 
curately. If you want a guess, we should say that 
the high-grade fertilizer, in spite of its price, would 
pay better. This is because the bone contains no 
potash, and that element is greatly needed in all 
top-dressings. Again, the nitrogen in the bone is 
not quickly available, and would not give quick re¬ 
sults the first year. To make grass grow you need 
nitrates —the most available form of nitrogen. The 
bone has none of this, while probably the high- 
grade mixture has most of its nitrogen in that form. 
We would not use bone alone as a top-dressing, un¬ 
less we knew the soil contained plenty of potash and 
also available nitrogen. You will see from this that 
no one can answer your question offhand without 
further information. A speaker might make a bluff 
or guess at it and gain a record for wisdom, but if 
he does he should not be on the institute force. If 
you asked us that question at an institute we should 
say frankly that we could not tell without knowing 
the analysis of the fertilizer. Given that, we should 
ask 10 minutes to figure on it, and then compare the 
two statements of plant food side by side with the 
prices of other materials. We should say beware 
of the institute speaker who knows it all, or can 
give a snap answer to anything. 
