434 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 16, 
will eat up clean. Never give him more than three 
quarts of milk at a time, no matter what his age. 
More calves are spoiled by too much milk than too 
little, provided the other foods are properly furnished. 
This treatment should be continued for six months, 
and then the milk should be discontinued, and silage 
and roots substituted. He should have plenty of 
room to exercise, with good air and lots of sunshine, 
but never, as you value your calf, turn him out to 
grass until he is one year old. How often have we 
seen the fine healthy calf turned out to pasture, with 
the result that he began to scour, became pot-bellied, 
hair became rough, and turned toward the head, and 
our verdict was “stunted.” At a year old, when the 
pasture is good, the calf can then be safely and prop¬ 
erly turned to grass, and becomes a beautiful animal. 
So that there shall be no doubt as to results of 
my practice, I will give the returns for my four years 
among the purebreds upon this little farm. As a 
foundation herd I purchased 10 purebred cows of full 
age and a yearling bull, paying $1,600 for the lot. 
For three years I have sold on an average $.100 worth 
of bulls. I sold no heifers, and tested officially every 
animal as fast as she freshened for milk and butter 
records. This season I began to sell females, and 
since 'Otetober 1, 1907, I have sold purebreds to the 
extent of $2,450 and still retain 12 of my best record 
cows and about 20 calves, yearlings and young stock, 
worth at the very lowest estimate $3,000. This takes 
no account of the milk sold from this herd during 
these years, nor of two animals which went wrong 
and were killed for beef. Again I ask, does it pay to 
handle the purebred? The same arguments and 
reasoning which I have used in favor of purebred 
cattle will apply with equal force to every other 
animal raised upon the farm, whether sheep, swine, 
poultry, horses or any other animal in which the best 
development and highest perfection is desired. The 
purebred represents to us the effort, the thought and 
the experience of a thousand years of farming and 
stock breeding, and we can to-day secure the result as 
a finished product with comparatively little effort on 
our part. The pride which comes from owning 
beautiful specimens, the dignity which it adds to our 
honorable calling, and the satisfaction which comes 
from successful effort, all beckon us toward the 
beautiful purebred. John m’lennan. 
PASTURAGE ON CORN STUBBLE. 
In the Wilna Farmers’ Club, of which I am a member, 
there arose a proposition like this: A member had 12 acres 
of corn stubble from last year and wanted to get the best 
pasture he could off it this season, as he was short of 
pasture. What should he plant? l. h. h. 
Maryland. 
When I was lecturing at the Pennsylvania institutes 
in the lower part of York County, in January and 
February, not a great many miles north of the in¬ 
quirer, I was pleased to note that every cornfield of last 
PLAN OF TRAINING RASPBERRIES AND BLACKBER 
RIES. Fig. 1S7. 
season was covered with a fine growth of Crimson 
clover, and on these fields there is now a pasture 
worth more than anything you can now put on the 
land. If your club member’s cornfield had been 
treated in this way he would now have had just such 
a pasture, and when the clover failed he could sow 
cow peas and in a little while have had as good pas¬ 
ture as ever. If it is practicable to divide the field 
into two parts I would advise him to sow at once 
oats at rate of three or four bushels per acre on both 
parts. Then as soon as the oats are tall enough let 
him pasture one part till eaten down. Then turn on 
the other and at once break the first part and sow 
in cow peas, and by the time the second field of oats 
is eaten the peas will be large enough to pasture. 
Cow peas, pastured before blooming and seeding, will 
make a renewed growth when cattle are taken off for 
a while. Then he can sow peas on the second part 
and have them ready to turn on when the first section 
is eaten down, and by the time that part is eaten down, 
the first section will be getting renewed, and so on, 
for I have pastured peas down three times in a sea¬ 
son before they gave up. Then hereafter always 
sow Crimson clover among the corn at last cultiva¬ 
tion, whether for pasture or not, for you can turn 
the clover down for potatoes profitably, or can follow 
it with peas for hay, and have the land in the Fall in 
finest possible condition for wheat. W. F. massey. 
THE APPLE QUESTION. 
I send you by mail six apples from the barrel of 
New York Baldwins referred to in former letter. 
They were shipped here about February 10 to a man 
named Harrison, and sold here at from $2.50 to $3.50 
per barrel. I do not know if Mr. Harrison knew 
before he got thS shipment how they were packed, 
but I will say for Mr. Harrison that he told me and 
also others who bought that the large apples were 
at the ends and the small ones in the middle, and 
he also had a barrel half empty, showing how they 
were in the center of barrel, so you can see that the 
seller tried to be honest, while the packer did not. 
I will give you below the exact mark on the end of 
barrel. 
I suggest that you send them to the Hope Farm 
man and ask him to bake them for his Sunday dinner, 
and let us know through your columns if they were 
nice and juicy. c. o. 
Woodstock, Ill. 
R. N.-Y.—The six apples weighed, altogether, 7^4 
ounces. The Hope Farm man has plenty of Russets 
left, and even the stock looked askance at this fruit. 
We have submitted this letter to a number of New 
York growers and buyers, among others S. C. Bowen, 
of Medina, who comments as follows: 
There is no trade-mark that distinguishes the grade 
of apples, excepting as each individual shall make 
for his own convenience and guidance. My judgment 
is that the XXX stands for strictly No. 1 grade, and 
that the F. M. C. as initials of the shipper, and not 
of the packer; this sometimes is the case. As a 
rule in the season of shipping apples, that is the Fall 
portion of it, very few farmers ship, and when they 
do, they are pretty sure to know they are all right. 
The cheat in this case is, beyond a question, by the 
packer and grower, and F. M. C. stands for the ship¬ 
per, who bought them in good shape. One fraudulent 
way of packing is in making one or two courses with 
extra fine stock, and a peck or half bushel of equal 
grade next to the facing, even if the remainder of 
the barrel is poor, though it may be quite uniform 
through. There are others who intentionally will 
make both of the ends of the barrel good, and put 
cider apples in the middle; of course a small per¬ 
centage of farmers’ packing is of this kind, but just 
enough to create suspicion and discredit the average 
character of western New York apples. It is more 
likely to come by small growers. To illustrate, last 
Fall a farmer, whom I knew to be perfectly reliable, 
brought a barrel of quinces from a neighbor to me, 
and sold them for a certain price; on taking the 
barrel out, I opened both ends and found quinces, 
but digging down a little, I discovered a lot of Kieffer 
pears. Not being satisfied with this inspection, I 
was led to go into the middle of the barrel, where 
I found half a bushel of over-ripe windfall Fall 
apples. Time and again small growers of peaches 
will commit the same trick in packing peaches. Now 
I say to you that my spunk is up, and if I live and am 
in good health another season there will be a cam¬ 
paign in regard to packing, and then when the Legis¬ 
lature meets the ball will be opened for an act that 
will meet the situation. When the times comes, you 
and the other agricultural papers will have an occa¬ 
sion to present the necessity of such an act; there 
perhaps never has been a time when there could be 
harmony between dealer and grower, until now, and 
the farmer, as never before, has had to take his 
own medicine. Nearly one-half of the apples in 
western New York were carried by farmers, and they, 
as well as the dealers, are satisfied that something 
should be done to reach a unity of action between 
grower and dealer on packing methods that shall be 
effective. I have had dealings with farmers for 60 
years, and there has been too much of an importance 
attached to the sovefeignty of the agriculturist. If 
the lesson of the past season will bring both parties 
to see that growers and dealers are but one of the 
same party in production, then the losses will not 
have occurred .in vain. I think you are altogether 
too modest in toning down this unpardonable habit 
of committing the flagrant fraud, by using the term 
“adulteration.” I trust that the coming season will 
work out something in the way of grading fruit, that 
will be advantageous to grower, dealer and consumer, 
and I am sure in that effort we can all depend upon 
The R. N.-Y. to be a host. s. c. bovven. 
Let the Growers Be Heard. 
Since seeing those “choice New York Baldwins” on 
paper, and reading the article concerning the same, 
1 am moved to add my mite in defence of the farmer, 
who it seems to me gets more than his share of the 
blame. My sympathy is with the consumer, who pays 
the price of a No. 1 barrel of apples and gets such 
poor stuff, only fit for cider or the drier, when they 
certainly brought a remunerative price last Fall, but 
I am also sorry for the producer, who, nine times out 
of ten, is credited with this miserable packing. Of 
all the thousands of Orleans county apples placed on 
the market last season, not more than one-fourth 
were packed by the producer; the larger number 
being sold by the barrel as they came from the tree, 
to be packed and put upon the market by the dealer, 
who furnished a stencil and required the farmer to 
place his name upon each barrel “to facilitate hand¬ 
ling the apples at the storehouse.” After learning 
liow they were packed I refused to place my name 
tipon any more of them. When No. 1 apples brought 
the price they did there was no excuse whatever for 
placing driers where they were never intended to be, 
and it is a shame and disgrace to do so. I sincerely 
hope the meeting at Rochester will bring forth re¬ 
sults satisfactory to both consumer and producer, but 
until such time let the blame rest where it should. 
All honor to The R. N.-Y. for the stand it takes in all 
matters where principle is at stake. By all means 
“make the papers fit.” j. a. b. 
Albion, N. Y. 
CONTRACT NURSERY STOCK. 
A few years ago several nursery firms reaped a 
rich harvest by selling trees on contract. They 
claimed to have new and valuable varieties which 
could not be obtained elsewhere. The price was high, 
and several payments were to be made—the first one 
being usually more than the trees were worth. After 
the trees were planted the agent agreed to come and 
prune them free of cost, and the company agreed to 
take part of the first crop as part payment. We 
BLACKBERRIES YIELDING 500 BUSHELS AN ACRE. 
Fig. 188. 
shall never know how many thousands of dollars 
have been taken from farmers by working this plaus¬ 
ible game. The varieties were generally inferior and 
were usually pulled out or grafted when they came 
in bearing. There has not been so much of this lately, 
but a similar plan has been worked by agents of the 
Northwestern Nursery Co. of Michigan. We have 
one contract made with a Wisconsin man in 1905. 
There were 103 trees of apple, plum, pear and cherry 
delivered—mostly of standard varieties. The farmer 
actually paid $50 for the trees—the agent agreeing 
to replace dead trees and do the pruning. Since the 
middle of 1906 no one has been near the trees to 
prune them, and the company will pay no attention to 
letters. We learned that the proprietor of the nur¬ 
sery had moved to a place in northern Michigan, but 
he pays no attention to our letters. This contract 
game is an old one, and we have yet to find a case 
where a farmer made anything by signing such a 
paper for high-priced trees. It is just like a straight, 
open invitation to throw your money away to pass by 
the old reliable nursery men for those oily strangers. 
