3CJS13 
so much feed. Chickens, like people, are largely 
creatures of habit, and will soon cease to worry un¬ 
duly over being trapped if the nests are looked after 
with reasonable frequency. If this cannot be done, 
better leave trap-nesting to some one who can do so. 
Now as to the dry-mash proposition. I have read 
a good many articles on dry-mash feeding, but I do 
not now recall one wherein the author advocated sub¬ 
stituting the dry mash for scratch feed. It seems 
to me that L. R. P. is laboring under a misapprehen¬ 
sion as to how the dry mash is to be used. Most 
people who make any pretense at special feeding for 
egg production use a wet mash, many going so far 
as to cook it, or at least steam it, in Winter. The dry 
mash is a substitute for this wet mash, and if there 
is anything at all to be said about artificiality I 
should say that the wet mash is the more artificial 
of the two. The fowls never get hold of either while 
in the wild or natural state. Those who have adopted 
the dry mash after trying both claim that they get just 
as good results with a whole lot less labor. From a 
commercial standpoint labor-saving devices arc not 
prompted by laziness, but by the perfectly legitimate 
desire to get larger returns from a given amount of 
labor. The adoption of a feeding system that saves 
more than half the time required for feeding permits 
either the enlargement of the flock or the diverting 
of one’s time to other forms of remunerative labor. 
The physiological principle which makes practicable 
the dry-mash or hopper system of feeding is very 
simple. In fact I suppose its extreme simplicity is 
the reason why I have never seen it mentioned in 
print. It rests on the law that variety is necessary 
to palatability. If there is grain in the litter and 
grass in the run a hen won't go to the hopper and 
stuff her crop with dry mash any more than L. R. P. 
will go to the cupboard and fill up on dry bread to 
save himself the trouble of going out to dig potatoes 
and kill a chicken for dinner. Since the hopper feed 
is that which by itself is least palatable of all that 
are used, there is no danger that the fowls will eat it 
to the exclusion of that for which they must scratch 
and dig, unless the keeper is so foolish as to give 
them nothing but what is in the hopper. While speak¬ 
ing of scratching it should be remembered that it is 
possible to give a hen too much exercise, just as it 
is possible to overwork a man. The only excuse for 
exercising a hen is to keep her in first-class physical 
condition. Any surplus beyond this means the useless 
expenditure of food and energy that ought to be used 
in egg production. It isn't at all necessary to make a 
h&n run her legs off looking for food. Of course 
providing the correct amount of exercise is a matter 
of judgment and common sense, two things without 
which the poultryman cannot hope to succeed. In 
the breeding pen it is safest to err on the side of over 
exercise, while in the commercial egg flock it may be 
more economical to err on the other side. The man 
who departs very far from the path in either way 
will lose money. 
I agree with L. R. P. in what he says about brooder- 
raised chicks in so far as it applies to artificially 
heated brooders. After due experiment it was found 
best to eliminate artificial heating from breeding and 
laying houses, and now the question seems to be 
settled for the brooders in the same way. We are 
using both hens and the Philo brooders in which the 
only heat is that furnished by the chicks themselves. 
This is our second season with these brooders, and 
the little fellows seem to be as strong and lusty as 
one could wish. Under these conditions I do not 
believe that the vitality will go down, although I can 
tell better after longer use. I know that for us the 
chicks are better than in the artificially heated brood¬ 
ers, and the expense of operation much less. 
Ohio. _ W. BLAIR CLARK. 
HOW TO HANDLE THE ORCHARD. 
I send a photograph (see Fig. 587), of a section of 
my peach orchard of 1,000 trees. The trees shown 
in the picture are very large, two-year-old trees set 
this last Spring. Between the rows I have strawber¬ 
ries, Kevitt system, which, as you will see, show up 
finely. This picture was taken about the first of Oc¬ 
tober. I would like some suggestions as to the man¬ 
agement of this orchard. The trees are on hilly land 
in Southern Indiana, exposed to the Winter winds. 
Would you advise staking the trees or mounding the 
earth up around them for Winter protection? In a 
part of the orchard there are old trees that yield 
some fruit, and young trees set between them 
and it is the intention to remove the old trees in a 
year or two. Would you suggest removing them 
now? The old trees are pruned very close and do 
not crowd the young trees very much. I contemplate 
setting one row of raspberries between each two rows 
of trees in the Spring where I have no strawberries. 
What do you think of this plan, and what varieties 
would you suggest? I prefer the red berry, as it is 
more profitable in this section. The land is good 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
peach land, but not strong. Would it be better to try 
to fertilize and build up the land, and thus feed 
the trees, by a system of rotation of soiling crops, 
such as cow peas, sown as early in the season as 
possible, and then turned under and followed by Crim¬ 
son clover or rye for Winter protection, than to try 
to raise raspberries and strawberries between the 
trees? If the small fruits are to be raised between 
the trees, how would you suggest fertilizing and 
building up the land? Perhaps your readers could 
give advice on this subject. g. g. s. 
New Albany, Ind. 
R. N.-Y.—We submit this letter and picture for a 
discussion by fruit growers. We should mound the 
trees at once by throwing several spadefuls of earth 
around the base, so as to make mound about 15 inches 
high. If the winds are very strong and the soil open 
we should drive a short stake by each tree and tie 
firmly. The mound will keep off vermin and the 
stake prevent whirling and boring a hole in the 
ground at the base. We should cut back the old trees 
closely, and keep them fruiting until they interfere 
with the young ones. The question of growing other 
crops between rows of trees depends on conditions. 
We have them planted both ways, and have decided 
that on a reasonably large place we would not mix. 
From choice we would grow the peach trees by 
themselves—let them have all the ground and try to 
improve the soil by fertilizing and filling it with veg¬ 
etable matter. Your olan of “building up the soil” 
by fertilizing and working in cover crops will give 
you a far better peach orchard in the end than trying 
to grow raspberries and strawberries between the 
trees. The best soil for peaches is rarely best for 
most varieties of strawberries anyway. Unless 
crowded for room we would let the trees have all 
the ground and raise strawberries by themselves on 
different soil. With small areas it is sometimes wise 
to crowd crops together. We have peach trees, rasp¬ 
berries, currants and strawberries growing close to¬ 
gether. While they all produce fruit not one kind 
grows as large a crop as when cultivated by itself. 
In New Jersey such a hillside as that pictured would 
be likely to wash and gully badly. We have over¬ 
come this by leaving strips of unplowed sod between 
the rows, cultivating close to the trees, or by alter¬ 
nately leaving every other middle or space between 
rows in sod. while the next one is cultivated. The 
one plowed this year will be in sod next, and so on. 
In this way the rush of water down hill is stopped 
and spread out, so that no gullies are made. 
NITROGEN DIRECT FROM THE AIR. 
/ have read in several papers about some new 
process of extracting nitrogen directly from the air. 
Is this a “fakeor can such things be done except 
by clover and similar plants? 
It is not at all a “fake.” A few years ago it was 
said that the leguminous plants possessed the “trade 
secret” of taking nitrogen from the air. Since then 
several processes for taking this nitrogen in shape for 
fertilizing have been devised. The following extract 
from the newr book on fertilizers by Dr. A. D. Hall 
gives one way of doing it. 
More recently a working process has been devised by 
Berkeland, and is running on a commercial scale at 
Notodden in Norway. In the Berkeland-Eyde process an 
alternating current at about 5,000 volts is set to form an 
arc between U-shaped copper electrodes, which are hollow 
and kept cool by a current of water within. The elec¬ 
trodes are placed equatorially between the poles of a 
powerful electro-magnet, which has the effect of causing 
the arc to spread out into a broad flat flame. Though 
the temperature of the arc-flame is calculated to he 2.000 
degrees C., >t is not particularly luminous; it may be 
looked at directly from a yard’s distance. 
Through the furnace in which this special arc is gener¬ 
ated about 15,000 litres of air are blown per minute at 
gentle pressure, and the issuing air contains about one 
per cent, nitric oxide and is at: a temperature of 000 
degrees to 700 degrees C. It is cooled and then passes 
into two oxidising chambers, where the combination of the 
nitric oxide with the oxygen of the uncombined air 
takes place, after which it passes into a series of five 
condensing towers. Down the fourth tower, which is 
filled with broken quartz, water trickles and picks up 
enough of the nitrous gases to become five per cent nitric 
acM at the bottom; this is pumped up and trickles down 
the third tower, the process being repeated until the 
liquid leaving the bottom of the first tower contains 50 
per cent of nitric acid. In the fifth and last tower the 
absorbing liquid is milk of lime, and the resulting mixture 
of solution of calcium nitrite, and nitrite is treated with 
enough of the previously-formed nitric acid to convert it 
wholly into nitrite, the nitrous fumes evolved being led 
back into the oxidising chambers. The product is then 
concentrated until it solidifies as a material containing 
about 13 per cent of nitrogen, or 75 per cent of pure 
calcium nitrate. 
As most people who have studied the subject know, 
the atmosphere or “air” is composed of a mixture 
of the gases nitrogen and oxygen. This is a mechani¬ 
cal mixture. Plants cannot use the nitrogen until it 
makes a chemical combination with oxygen or some 
other element. The air contains small quantities of 
this chemical nitrogen, a little of it being washed out 
and brought to the soil in rain and snow. From 
December IS, 
F.gnlish experiments at Rothamsted it was figured that 
annually about five pounds of such nitrogen is brought 
down to one acre. This would equal the amount in 
half a ton of manure. This form of nitrogen in the 
air comes from the decay of organic matter. When 
such material decays the nitrogen goes into the form 
of a gas, and will rise into the air unless it is sur¬ 
rounded by soil or something that will hold it. The 
round of life consists in taking this chemical nitrogen 
out of the air and building up organic or living bodies 
with it, and then having these decay and give up their 
nitrogen, to be used again and again. Strong electric 
discharges will effect a chemical combination between 
nitrogen and oxygen, and so will an intense heat. 
A part of this nitrogen washed out of the air is 
formed by the action of thunderstorms. The greater 
part of it. however, is taken from the air and offered 
to the clover and smaller plants by little bacteria 
which work on the roots. The process given above 
may be described as an imitation lightning flash 
harnessed and directed so that the nitrogen can be 
caught. There is still another process which we shall 
describe later. _ 
GRAFTING SEEDLING APPLE TREES. 
T read with interest your excellent article on grafting 
seedling stock (page 1021), and having had 35 years’ 
experience at grafting and trimming fruit trees I ven¬ 
ture to add a few suggestions to those already given. 
When the trees are set I would cut off a part of the 
top. I would wait until the trees were thoroughly 
established, and making good growth before grafting; 
there is nothing to be gained by grafting a tree one- 
half or three-quarters inch in diameter. Such trees 
must have time to mature before they will bear fruit, 
and in many cases the grafting may well be deferred 
for a year or two. Cut the top off except to leave a 
small limb or two below the graft. The leaves are the 
lungs of the tree, and the grafts may or may not fur¬ 
nish enough breathing apparatus. I have seen trees 
killed by cutting the top all off when grafted. Leave 
one or two small limbs below the grafts; cut them off 
the next Spring, and in the mean time if they are 
taking too much sap from the grafts pinch off the top 
buds. I would not cut off one of the grafts until the 
stub was nearly grown over, as the graft will take the 
sap up that side of the stub, and not leave a dead spot 
there. 
Do not allow your grafts to make too much growth 
the first year. I have grown them nearly six feet the 
first season. Go over your grafts in August and if 
they are two feet long pinch off the top bud. Your 
graft will then harden, and will not winter-kill. I 
have never had a graft winter-kill where this was 
done. Those trees will do their very best if left to 
grow right where they stand. With us the Yellow 
Transparent is very hardy when grafted on seedling 
stock, usually bearing the second or third j'ear from 
grafting. It inclines to set too full, and would last 
longer and the fruit would be larger and finer if 
thinned one-half. I have seen young trees bear one 
great crop of apples, then die, that might have been 
saved if two-thirds of the fruit had been picked off 
when small. j. d. s. 
Delaware Co., N. Y. 
“WORN-OUT” LANDS. 
We frequently meet men who say that much of our 
Eastern farm land is “worn out,” and cannot be made 
to produce large crops again. This is a short-sighted 
and narrow view. It would be easy to disprove it by 
taking such men to some of the farms where the most 
intelligent farming has been used—either with live 
stock or with fertilizers. If the doubters still said that 
a few years would see the ruin of those farms they 
could find a stronger answer in the history of Euro¬ 
pean agriculture. In Secretary Wilson’s last report 
we are told of some investigations into the history 
of old soils in Europe. 
These records indicate that in the middle of the six¬ 
teenth century, or, roughly speaking, three to four hundred! 
years ago, the soils of central and northern Europe were 
producing on the average about as much wheat as the 
soils of the United States are producing at the present 
time. These European soils have Ijeen occupied lor ag¬ 
ricultural purposes for at least a thousand years, during 
most of which period the country wuts more densely popu¬ 
lated than the United States is at the present time. So 
far as records are obtainable, they indicate that as a 
result of increasing population and more intensive and 
more intelligent methods of soil control, and in spite of 
their longer occupation, the average yield per acre has 
increased, until to the case of northern Europe the soils 
tire now producing about two or two and one-half times 
as much per acre as the newer soils of the United States 
are producing. 
Thus after 1,000 years of steady cultivation these 
soils are more productive than ever before. What 
shall we say then of men who argue that land can he 
“worn out” in a single century or less? Let any man 
go and see the soil on Mr. Lewis’s New Jersey farm, 
or that of Mr. Fagan in Connecticut, and he would 
see the folly of this “worn out” argument. The fact 
is that all this depressing talk about ruined soil has 
made possible some of the greatest bargains in farm 
land that the world has ever known. The prejudice 
and lack of faith of one man will cut down the selling 
price of the land, so that some broader and more cour¬ 
ageous man may improve it and double its value. 
