1 lOii 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 
than, when they began growing this crop. Longmont, 
Colorado is now noted for its industry of canning 
peas. Mr. Empson of that place started in a few 
years ago in a small way, and the development of the 
industry reads like a romance. Preceding the canning 
industry at Longmont, Alfalfa and grain were the 
principal crops. At that time comparatively little 
Alfalfa was grown. The wheat yield at that time 
became reduced to from 15 to 20 bushels per acre. 
After the canning industry reached proportions where 
the land was rotated with peas, the wheat yield 
increased to such an extent that Prof. Cottrell of this 
institution saw fit to take notes as to the yield in 
that district. This was in 1907. He found upon 
investigation that the wheat yield had risen so- that 
the lowest in the district was 50 bushels per acre on 
a 160-acre field, with a maximum yield of 78 bushels 
on a 40-acre field. Of course this was a particularly 
good year, but the fact remains that the average yield 
each year is now two or three times what it was 
previous to growing peas. The past two years the 
Greeley district and the Loveland district have taken 
up the industry, and each has a canning factory. This 
year one of the most reliable men in the district told 
me that his gross income per acre in his pea field was 
$60, with a cost of $10 or $12. This, with the im¬ 
provement of the soil which must follow, looks to me 
like a proposition worth thinking about. 
Colorado. , e. r. bennett. 
R. N.-Y.—Peas, like clover and Alfalfa, take nitro¬ 
gen out of the air. When the peas are fed to hogs 
on the ground there is a gain in nitrogen, and the 
hogs give the soil “good culture.” On many soils the 
first element of plant food to run short is available 
nitrogen. A crop of peas or clover will provide this, 
and the result is a great crop. This power of the peas 
to help the soil is one reason why we like to sow 
Canada peas with the oats as a Spring forage crop. 
When this combination is cut and cured for hay we 
get more fodder and leave the soil better than if 
the oats were seeded alone. We are often asked if 
clover can be seeded with the oats and peas, so as 
to be sure of a “catch.” Mr. J. Grant Morse writes 
this: 
We find that the peas and oats can be safely sown 
with the grass seed in the Spring, provided the ground 
is not too rich, and not too many peas and oats are 
sown. I think it is preferable to top-dress the seeding 
in the early Fall, just as soon as the crop of peas and 
oats is removed. Of course, if tlie ground is too rich 
and the crop is too thick, it will go down and smother 
the young grass. A good many farmers around here 
raise peas for the canning factory. The peas are cut 
with a mowing machine, and taken, vines and all. to 
the factory. These men say that they get the best seeding 
from sowing with the peas that are cut early in July, 
for the young grass gets such a fine start before frost. 
THAT SUBSTITUTED TREE CASE. 
At the Mercy of a Nurseryman. 
We have twice referred to a case of nursery tree 
substitution which was brought into court. A peach 
grower ordered 3,500 peach trees from a nurseryman, 
signing a printed order which contained the following 
in small type: 
“Any stock which does not prove to be true to name 
as labelled is to be replaced free or purchase price 
refunded, and all stock to be delivered in a thrifty 
and healthy condition 
When the trees came in bearing it was found that 
over 2,700 of them were not true to name as follows: 
Varieties. N 
Oldmixon . 
Susquehanna . 
Bed Cheek Mclocoton. 
Late Crawford. 
Beer’s Smock. 
Elberta . 
3,500 763 
A few of these substituted trees were “naturals,” 
never having been budded at all. Others were Early 
Crawford and Captain Eads. 
The nurseryman was sued for $13,000 damages, and 
the farmer’s lawyer, after proving the substitution, 
started in to prove damages for loss of time and de¬ 
crease in value of land. The trial judge stopped this 
testimony and excluded it. He finally ruled as 
rdered. 
No. delivered. 
Loss. 
500 
0 
500 
500 
0 
500 
500 
57 
443 
1.000 
139 
861 
500 
87 
413 
500 
480 
20 
3,500 
763 
2.737 
follows: 
“Under the language of the contract the measure 
of damage or the recovery is limited to the purchase 
price of the trees. I ivill direct a verdict for the 
plaintiff for $ 236 . 38 .” 
He thus decided that the disclaimer printed above 
held good, and that all the nursery firm was required 
to do was to replace the trees at cost! 
The case was appealed, and Appellate Division of 
the Supreme Court has reversed this decision unani¬ 
mously. The following quotation from the opinion 
by Mr. Justice Miller gives the reasons for this re¬ 
versal : 
The question presented is purely one of construction. 
We are to discover the intention of the parties from the 
words of the contract, and any uncertainty or ambiguity 
is to be resolved in favor of the plaintiff. It is par- 
ficularlv just to apply that rule to contracts obtained, 
as wo all’ know this class of contracts usually are ob¬ 
tained. An agent secures an order, and then submits to 
(he purchaser a printed contract which the latter signs 
withou*- < rilical. often no doubt without any, examina¬ 
tion. To ibis case, the vendee could not know until after 
he had made a large investment whether the vendor had 
performed its contract, while the latter had no excuse 
whatever for not performing. It knew with what va¬ 
rieties the young trees were budded, if at all. and it had 
only to see that they were properly labeled. Of course, 
in a large nursery, mistakes might occur. . . .It 
was to be expected, therefore, that out of a large order 
of 3,500 trees of six different varieties there would be 
some trees which did not conform to the label. In this 
case, there was a total failure to deliver three of the 
kinds ordered, a practical failure to deliver two other 
kinds, and a substantial delivery only of one kind. 500 
out of 3,500 ordered. Was that the kind of breach which 
the above quoted stipulation was intended to provide for, 
or did the parties have in mind substantial performance 
of the contract with such mistakes and omissions as 
were likely, if not bound, to occur? I think the language 
used may he construed to apply to the latter supposition.. 
Otherwise the plaintiff contracted to place himself at" 
the mercy of the defendant, and ihc courts will not adopt 
a construction having that effect unless compelled to do 
so by the language used. . . . But, as already pointed 
out, the defendant can, by taking proper pains, sub¬ 
stantially deliver what it sells: and it may safely be 
affirmed that no man in his senses would purchase 3,500 
peach trees and agree that he would be content with the 
return of the purchase price if it should turn out, after 
three or four years of culture, that they were substan¬ 
tially all worthless and not what he ordered. It is 
pertinent to observe, as the learned counsel for the ap¬ 
pellant points out. that the failure to deliver the thing 
sold is a breach of the contract, not merely a breach of 
warranty collateral to it. ... I think the stipula¬ 
tion in question should be construed as referring only to 
such mistakes and omissions as were within the eontem- 
plation of the parties, and to be subject to the condition 
precedent, that the defendant should at least substantially 
perform its contract . . . substantial performance is 
an implied condition precedent and need not be expressed. 
. . . The language “any stock which does not prove 
true to name” may well be construed to mean any stock 
out of the delivery contemplaied. i. e., a substantial de¬ 
livery of the stock ordered. Indeed, tin 1 stipulation is 
so phrased as to make an ordinary layman think that 
it was intended for his benefit, that, whereas he could 
only expect or require substantial performance of such a 
contract, vet the vendor agreed to correct or make good 
by refunding the purchase price any mistake, however 
trivial. Verv likely few intending purchasers of nursery 
stock would knowingly sign contracts which unmistakably 
limited the damages for a practical failure of performance 
to the purchase price: and if the courts are to suffer the 
unwary to be caught by contracts prepared and submitted as 
this was. it should be only when they have their own 
carelessness to blame, i. e., when the language of the 
contract is unmistakable. 
NITROGEN TAKEN FROM THE AIR. 
Cyanamide or Nitrolime. 
Last week we described one new process of taking 
nitrogen out of the air as plant food. From its nature 
and habits nitrogen is the most interesting as well as 
the most expensive of the elements needed to feed 
our plants. We plan to go over the various forms 
in which nitrogen is found, and try to explain their 
uses and value. Pure nitrogen is an elusive gas— 
that is, always trying to escape into the air. It is 
this character which gives most of the force to ex¬ 
plosives. As shown last week, what we call the 
air is a mechanical mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. 
All the nitrogen in the soil or in organic compounds— 
such as plants or animals—came originally out of the 
air. and this nitrogen was changed in form by uniting 
with other substances before plants could use it. 
We have seen how the electrical discharge of a thun¬ 
derstorm may, to a slight extent, change the mechani¬ 
cal mixture of nitrogen and oxygen in the air to a 
chemical one. The process described last week may 
be called an imitation of a lightning flash. Here is 
another description of the process—taken from the 
“Boston Herald 
We enter first the oven house, a large building con¬ 
taining three large electrical furnaces and all the ma¬ 
chines and apparatus for controlling them. A tremen¬ 
dous current of several hundred kilowatts and an electro 
motive force of from three to five thousand volts enters 
each oven and there, by means of powerful electro mag¬ 
nets, forms an arc whose flame is fully a yard in diameter. 
This really makes a big arc lamp, with a magnet placed 
at right angles to the flame to draw it out. Air, ordinary 
atmospheric air, is blown through this great arc lamp 
bv means of electric fans, and in the heat of the flame, 
computed at 2.500° to 3,000° centigrade (from 4,500° to 
5,400° Fahrenheit), its nitrogen is oxidized, burned. The 
oxide of nitrogen so produced is the gas which is at the 
base of the whole process. It is the main product on 
which the rest of the works operates. The current which 
supplies the great arc lamps is carried in through copper 
electrodes, or terminals, similar to those we see in the 
arc lamps of the street. These copper electrodes are about 
three-fourths of an inch in diameter, are hollow and are 
kept from melting bv a stream of cold water which flows 
through them all the time. The water is hot when it 
leaves the electrodes after passing but a short distance 
at considerable pressure. The flame roars like a herd of 
lions, but comparatively little sound is heard, as the 
ovens are thick walled with iron and fire-proof stone. 
The gas produced in the ovens by the passage of air 
through the flame has a temperature of 7,000° centi¬ 
grade (12,000° Fahrenheit). This heat is utilized in 
the plant by sending the gas from the ovens through 
large conduits into the firebox, so to speak, of a battery 
of boilers. These in turn furnish all the steam and 
hot water needed in the works. 
As we saw last week, this nitrogen, when combined 
with lime, gives a substance containing about 13 per 
cent. 
Another German process turns out a substance 
known as “cyanamide.” Those who have examined 
a plant for making acetylene gas know that calcium 
carbide is used in water. It was found that this car¬ 
bide at moderate temperatures will combine with 
nitrogen gas. In the manufacture the crushed carbide 
is heated in iron tubes and the nitrogen, obtained, 
by passing air over red-hot copper, is driven through 
the tube. The result is a substance containing 20 
per cent of free lime. It is a very light and fine dark- 
gray dust, disagreeable to handle alone. Experiments 
have shown it equal to sulphate of ammonia. In some 
soils it gives better results than the sulphates, owing 
to the large amount of lime it contains. When first 
put on the soil it gives off gases which injure the 
germinating seeds. When applied alone it should lie 
used a week at least before the seeds are sown. In 
some cases the “cyanamide” is mixed with acid phos¬ 
phate before using. This makes it easier to handle, 
and overcomes the poisonous features. These two 
new methods of taking nitrogen direct from the air 
will in time add to the market supply and nrobably 
affect the price. At present not enough of the “cyana- 
mide” or nitrate of lime are made to make much 
difference. Let us next take up sulphate of ammonia, 
nitrate of soda and other forms of nitrogen which 
we buy or obtain on our farms. 
CORN FODDER VS. CORN STOVER. 
The traveler coming down the Atlantic coast country 
through the Delaware-Maryland Peninsula at this 
time of the year finds in the upper part of Delaware 
all the corn cut and shocked, but as he gets further 
south he finds less and less of tin's cutting and shock¬ 
ing, but these fields like the picture Fig. 594, where 
the blades below the ear have been stripped by hand 
and bound in bundles, and the tops cut, and generally 
the whole stacked in large stacks about the field. 
The Northern farmer wonders why this practice, 
which to him seems so laborious, should be followed. 
Doubtless the practice grew out of the neglect of the 
grasses, and little hay being made, the farmer needs 
to save in the best condition the forage from the corn 
plant. There is no doubt that the fodder saved in 
this way is far better as feed than the cut-down stover. 
But to save the fodder in the best condition the leaves 
are stripped and the tops cut before the leaves have 
finished doing what they would for the maturity of 
the corn grain. It has been shown by repeated ex¬ 
periments at the Southern stations that cutting the 
tops and stripping the lower leaves from the corn cuts 
the corn crop just about to the value of the fodder 
saved, as compared with cutting at the ground and 
shocking to cure. The adherents of the Southern 
practice are perfectly willing to lose the grain for the 
sake of the well-cured fodder, and the ease with which 
the corn can be gathered from the standing stalks by 
men walking through the fields and keeping warm, 
instead of freezing over a corn shock, and in fact can 
hardly be convinced that there is any loss of corn. 
In the South Atlantic coast region in North Carolina 
and southward, there is a real and substantial reason 
for the topping and stripping. The humid climate 
makes it difficult to cure the cut-down corn in good 
condition. A very intelligent Scotch farmer who has 
settled in North Carolina wrote me some time ago 
that he was puzzled over his corn crop. He would like 
to follow the practice of cutting down the corn and 
curing in shocks, but he finds that corn treated in that 
way in his humid climate will rot three years out of 
five. So far as the actual labor is concerned, I would 
rather strip blades and cut tops than to cut and shock 
the whole corn plant, and I speak from experience, 
for I have done both. Cutting and shocking corn and 
tying the tops of the shocks as they should be, is hard 
work. There is no doubt of the superiority of the 
feed saved by stripping and topping over that made 
from the whole stover, and the stalks and husks can 
be cut and hauled in after the corn is gathered, and 
the stock allowed to eat what they will of the shucks 
while the rest goes into the absorption of the manure 
liquids. But where a really good and intelligent 
farmer finds that he loses his corn three years out of 
five when cut and shocked, we cann t blame him for 
leaving the stalks standing for the sun and W inter to 
cure the corn properly. On the uplands away from the 
coast there is not the same danger of the corn rotting 
when shocked. In every section we find that there are 
practices that have grown out of climatic conditions, 
and it will not do to tell farmers that their methods 
are all wrong, because they do not agree with the 
methods we have been accustomed to. I believe that 
the stripped blades and tops are worth more as feed 
than the whole cut-down stover, for argue as we may 
about the amount of feed in the stover, little of the 
stalk below the ear is ever eaten, even when shredded. 
If, as experiments seem to show, there is corn enough 
lost by the topping and stripping to amount to the 
value of the forage saved, it would seem that this 
method is labor thrown away, and that the farmer 
should not be under the necessity of saving the fodder, 
but should have plenty of hay, and then get what he 
can out of the corn stover. Tf I was farming in the 
humid coast country of Eastern North Carolina and 
southward, or even in southeast Virginia, I would let 
the corn stand till fully mature and would then cut 
and shock it, getting poorer forage, but better able 
to cure the corn, and would endeavor to have so much 
pea-vine hay and other forage that I would not be 
dependent upon the corn fodder. 
I have tried to show that there are evidently two 
sides to this fodder question. Here the majority of 
the farmers adhere to the stripping and topping 
method, but I have noticed that those who have got 
into cutting down their corn and curing in shocks, 
are better farmers, and are improving their lands 
faster than those who adhere to the old method. The 
great advantage is in clearing the field for the sowing 
of Fall grain crops. It would be well for some of 
the Southern stations to take up this matter and in¬ 
vestigate thoroughly the difference, not only in the 
corn crop, but in the labor involved in both methods, 
and the respective feeding value of the forage obtained 
by both practices. T believe the results would sur¬ 
prise many who are disposed to condemn the Southern 
farmer. w. F. MASSEY. 
Maryland. 
