668 
THE KUKAL NEW-YORKER 
July 11, 
FARMERS’ CLUB 
[Every query mnst be accompanied by the name 
and adores* of the writer to insure attention. Be¬ 
fore asking a question, please see whether it is not 
answered in our advertising columns. Ask only 
a few questions at one time. Put questions on a 
separate piece of paper.] 
KEEP THEM AT HOME! 
The following members of the New York 
Senate voted against Governor Hughes in 
his efforts to remove the Superintendent 
of Insurance. Some of them have done so 
twice—others are backsliders. Aii have 
proved tinworthy in a fair test. All are in 
districts where the votes of farmers can 
defeat them. It should be the duty of 
every farmer to blacklist them and keep 
them away from Albany. Vote them out ! 
.TOTHAM P. AI.LDS.Norwich, N. Y. 
S PERCY HOOKER.LeRoy, N. Y. 
JOHN RAINES .Canandaigua, N. Y. 
SANFORD W. SMITH.Chatham, N. Y. 
HORACE WHITE .Syracuse. N. Y. 
BEN.T. M. WILCOX.Auburn, N. Y. 
JOSEPH ACKUOYD .Utica, N. Y. 
FRANK M BOYCE... East Schodack, N. Y. 
FRANCIS II. GATES...Chittenango, N. Y. 
WM. W. WEMI’LE.Schenectady, N. Y. 
WM. T. O’NEIL.St. Regis Falls. N. Y. 
OWEN CASSIDY .Watkins, N. Y. 
Preserving Fence Posts. 
J. li. M., South Haven, Mich .—In 1904 
your paper printed an article relative to 
experiment on treatment of posts in vine¬ 
yard, same being made by Rhode Island 
College in 1903. Have you learned whether 
all these posts still give service, or 
whether some have already proven less dur¬ 
able than others? 
Ans. —At the present date all of the 
posts used in the experiment are still 
in use. Those treated with carbolineum 
have remained in the best condition, 
nearly all of these still showing a shell 
of the outside surface, and in many 
cases this appears to be quite firm. 
Those charred and the ones treated with 
coal tar rank next, with very little choice 
between them. In the case of the un¬ 
treated posts all of the last year’s 
growth of wood has decayed. In the 
others this growth has decayed in 
many cases, although more or less of a 
shell still remains upon the outside. 
There seems to be very little choice 
between those treated with pine tar, 
lime, or copperas and lime. As to the 
posts which were set top end down 
and those with the bottom end down, 
there is no difference to be detected. 
Aside from the lot treated with carbo- 
lineum, the indications seems to point 
that perhaps a deeper charring of the 
posts would have given the best re¬ 
sults. G. E. ADAMS. 
R. I. Station. 
A Cement Silo. 
T. J. 1>. (No A ft (tress ).—I have a con¬ 
crete silo 15 feet in diameter up 12 feet, 
15-ineh wall so far. I want to carry up 20 
feet higher, but less thickness. What thick¬ 
ness of wall to be surely safe, and how 
many barrels of Portland cement will it 
require? Cement was never so cheap be¬ 
fore, and it seems to be best of all materials 
for silo. 
Ans. —If this were my silo I should 
cut the thickness down to six inches, 
and continue so to the top. It would 
need a little iron for reinforcement, but 
that would be much better than to carry 
up such a heavy wall. A one-fourth inch 
steel rod laid in the concrete around the 
silo forms this reinforcement, one for 
about each foot in height. These need 
not be welded hoops, but just any 
length rods with hooks bent on each 
end and lapped together. It would be 
hard to give amount of cement needed, 
as writer does not mention what pro¬ 
portion cement he is adding to his sand 
or gravel. A six-inch wall on a 15- 
foot silo 20 feet high would require 
about 20 yards of concrete, and such 
an amount of concrete mixed one part 
cement to six parts gravel would re¬ 
quire about one barrel of cement to 
each yard of concrete. You need have 
no fear of a six-inch wall; it is plenty 
strong enough, and I should have only 
specified a six-inch wall all the way up 
from the ground with a good founda¬ 
tion under it. R. c. A. 
Killing Woodchucks. 
Several Readers. —How can l kill wood¬ 
chucks? TkZy are damaging my mowing 
fields. 
Ans. —A good marksman with a rifle 
will clean them out if he is patient 
enough to wait for them. Early in the 
morning and about five o'clock in the 
afternoon are the best times. It is said 
that the “chucks” are fond of salt, so 
that if arsenic is mixed with it and the 
mixture put near their holes it will be 
eaten. Another plan is thus described 
by a reader: 
Wishing to grow four acres of cabbages, 
and knowing that if was essential to de¬ 
stroy the woodchucks inhabiting about 20 
holes in and around tlie edges of the field, 
I purchased one pint of bisulphide of car¬ 
bon for 25 cents. Securing some old rags 
and string I made up a couple of dozen of 
little balls of cloth an inch or more in 
diameter. Saturating a ball with a table¬ 
spoonful of the fluid, I would roll the ball 
into the hole as far as possible, then 
shoveled dirt and sod over the exit or 
exits, as the case might be. as quickly as 1 
could. In a couple of hours the work was 
completed, and every woodchuck was dead; 
at least every hole remained unopened the 
rest of the season, and my cabbage, grown 
from seed, were unmolested. I used to 
trap and shoot woodchucks once, but these 
methods are too slow and uncertain, if a 
person’s time is worth anything. 
Bridgewater, Mass. a. e. b. 
Fly-Breeding Manure. 
What can I use to scatter over a manure 
pile to lessen the fly-producing power 
without hurting the value as manure? 
Concord Jet., Mass. r. E. L. 
We do not know of anything. Lime is 
usually recommended but this sets free 
ammonia. The common house fly breeds in 
manure. The best way is to keep the 
manure out of reach of the flies. If it 
can be hauled away and plowed under fre¬ 
quently or kept in a screened shed you will 
have fewer flies. In some cases where 
only a small amount of manure is made, j 
it is wheeled to a shed protected by fine 
wire screens at the windows and doors. 
The flies cannot get in to lay their eggs 
and the effect is very evident. Lime 
dusted over the droppings will help destroy 
the eggs, but as stated this means a loss 
of ammonia. __ 
Alfalfa Notes. — I went to the sale 
of a farm east of Syracuse a short 
time ago, 114 acres, with good buildings, 
\ l / 2 mile from depot, school and 
church. It sold for $7.25 per acre. 
Most of the land will produce good 
crops of Alfalfa, and the rest is good 
pasture land. I would rather have that 
114 acres than 1,000 in Texas. My first 
piece of Alfalfa had winter-killed in 
places, so we plowed (pulled) it over 
and put in corn, and with the ideal 
weather we are having you can see the 
corn grow. I put on strong, home- 
mixed phosphate, and the Alfalfa had 
changed the nature of the soil from 
hard tough clay into land that looks 
and works entirely different from what 
it did before it raised the Alfafa. 
CLARK ALLIS. 
R. N.-Y.—No doubt about what Al¬ 
falfa will do for the soil. 
Fire Extinguishers. —I note with 
interest your comment on dry powder 
fire extinguishers on page 530, and can 
only say “don’t”. The chief difficulty 
with the dry powder extinguishers is 
the fact that they must be absolutely 
dry to give beneficial results, for as j 
soon as the powder is at all moist, it j 
sticks together in one mass. I would 
say further that the three-gallon chem¬ 
ical hand fire extinguishers pre the best 
to be had of this kind, especially those 
which have been approved by the Un¬ 
derwriters Laboratories, Inc., of Chi¬ 
cago. Each one of these extinguishers 
has the approval label upon it and the 
entire history of each can be obtained 
any time by simply sending the number 
to the above address. The mutual com¬ 
panies of this State grant a reduction 
on farm property of five cents in the 
rate for one approved chemical ex¬ 
tinguisher, and for each additional ex¬ 
tinguisher, not exceeding two, a reduc¬ 
tion of 2/ cents each. But for the 
dry powder extinguishers, never! 
Massachusetts. c. F. bowers. 
She (sentimentally) : “Do you re¬ 
member, William, the last time we went 
rowing like this?” “You bet! I was 
twenty years stronger, you were sixty 
pounds lighter, and the day was fifteen 
degrees cooler.”—Life. 1 
CROWS AND CORN. 
Wo have kept the crows off our corn 
ground during the last three years by put¬ 
ting newspapers on the ground, placing a 
stone or clod of earth 'on them to keep 
the wind from blowing them away. We 
place the papers six or eight rods apart 
each way over the whole field. By placing 
the papers in the row one can cultivate 
the corn one way and the papers not 
be in the way. A few years since we had 
crows mean enough to pull potato plants. 
They nearly ruined a small patch for me. 
Luzerne Co., Pa. p. SUTTON. 
R. N.-Y.—Perhaps these papers contained 
an article by some agriculturist telling of 
the great service done by crows. The black 
rascals decided to “make good.” 
I see by The R. N.-Y. the crows have 
lieen pretty hard on that dent corn. I 
think if you had stretched two or three 
small ropes or heavy Iwinc across the field 
it would have saved it ; at least I have 
tried it several times and it has been a 
success. M. M. B. 
Ohio. 
R. N.-Y.—We are satisfied this would 
have only made a pleasant game for our 
New Jersey crows. They have never been 
so hold before. 
Yes, I can sympathize very heartily with 
you in tlie loss of your seed corn, for 
the crows have destroyed over half our 
corn this year, and have done it in spite of 
careful tarring. We had begun to feel 
quite superior and patronizing toward the | 
people who told of their losses from crows, 
feeling, if we didn't say, that if anybody 
was not willing to take the trouble to 
tar his seed, lie had no right to com¬ 
plain. but we feel more humble now. I 
ascribe it largely to the very great increase 
in the number of crows, which made them 
hungrier and bolder than usual. One of 
my neighbors told me that he counted over 
a thousand on one field of mine. He may 
have exaggerated, hut if he did there were 
enough to do so much damage, that I do 
not look at my cornfields any oft oner than 
I can help. h. w. heaton. 
Rhode Island. 
THE ENORMOUS YIELD of 50.000 quarts of 
* Strawberries now growing by my system on 
one acre. Send for CH \ KT. 
KEVITT'S PLANT FARM, Athenia, N. J. 
PCI CDV a,, d CABBAGE PLANTS only 
UtLl.llI $1.00 t.» $1.as per I.OOO. Price 
list free. SLAY MAKER & SON, Dover, Del. 
PABBAGE PLANTS— All Seasons, Premium 
Flat Dutch and , -mi rehead: $1.00 per 1.000. 
BASIL PERRY, Cool Spring, Dei. 
CAR QA| C—Crimson Clover Seed. $X50 to $4.50 
I wit whuu bushel: Cow Peas, $2.50 to $;i 00. 
JOSEPH E. HOLLAND, Milford, Delaware. 
| f newer kinds of strawberries that 
] have been tested at our trial 
grounds as well as the best of the 
I older sorts are fullv described in 
I! 
DREER’S 
Mid-Summer Catalogue 
Also the best varieties of Celery, 
Cabbage Plants, etc. 
A most complete list of the Best 
Hardy Perennial Seeds for summer 
sowing. 
Also vegetable and farm seed for 
summer and fall sowing. Select list 
of seasonable Decorative and Flower¬ 
ing plants. 
Write for a cop;/ and kindly 
mention this magazine—FREE. 
HENRY a. DREER, PHILADELPHIA 
ALFALFA 
Northern grown, fully 90 per cent pure, guaranteed 
free from Dodder and Trefoil. All Government 
tested. To-day's reduced price only $11.75 per hush. 
Write for catalog on farm and field seeds, and free 
instructions on growing Alfalfa. 
J. E. WING & BROS. SEED CO., Box 223, Mechanicsburg. Ohio 
CALIFORNIA PRIVET 
Shade Trees, Spruce and Arbor Vitas Hedging. 
Cherry Trees a Specialty. Tubes ami Plants by 
Mail Postpaid will save you express costs. Send for 
our Catalogue, (It is Free), it will tell you the rest. 
JOS. H. BLACK. SON & CO., hightstown, N. J. 
WE MAIL OUR CATALOGUE FREE. 
Peach, Apple 
6 Pear Buds 
VISIT 
O v e r one 
thousand 
acres in cul¬ 
tivation. 
PCI CDV PLANTS— Strong, stocky plants. 
vkLLIi I Raised in rows on rich ground and 
hoed like onions. All rows are thinnedl>y hand to 
give tile plants an average of 4 square incites of 
space eacli over the whole field. $1 per 1,000, $9 per 
10.000, 500 70c. Golden Self HleachinglFrencli Seed), 
White Plume, Winter Queen, Golden Heart, Giant 
Pascal. Cabbage plants. F.W.Rochelle,Chester,N.J. 
Harrison’s Nurseries,Berlin,Maryland 
pci CRY PLANTS— White Plume, Giant Pascal 
bl-Ll.ll I gud Winter Queen. $1.25 per 1000; 5000 for 
$5. Prein. 1.. F. Dutch, Surohead and Dauishbail 
Cabbage, $1 per 1000. Attt. Giant Cauliflower, li.V. per 
100; $3 per 1000. Caleb Boggs A- Sok, Clieswoid.Del. 
r ADD APE IllflnilO Destroyed by Dusting with 
UADDAut WUnmO HAMMOND’S SLUG SHOT 
So used for 28 years. Sold by All Seed Dealers. 
For pamphlets worth having write B. HAMMOND, Fishkill-on-Hudson, New York. 
Climax Ensilage Cutter 
Simplest, cheapest and most perfect working of all ensilage 
machines. Cuts and elevates at one operation, with no litter 
or waste. No other style of cutter compares with the 
Inward Shearing Cut 
of knives and the Climax is the only cutter that has 
it. Don’t be caught by bare claims of superiority 
without proof. Read the record of the Fair and 
other Conipetitive Tests. We are always anxious to 
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the Imyer to take the best. It you want to be sure of the best, ask 
for the competitive test. Send for free catalog. 
WARSAW-WILKIWSON CO., SO Highland Ava,, Warsaw, N. V. A 
The Complete 
Machine 
Cuts and Elevates 
7 to 25 Tons an Horn* 
$250.00 For a Prize Story 
The Rural New-Yorker offers $250.00 for the best story of 
AMERICAN FARM LIFE 
of about 50,000 words, submitted bv September 15, 1908. We 
want a strong, wholesome story depicting the highest ideals of farm 
life. We invite the competition of the fiction writers of the world 
with or without experience. These stories will be judged solely on 
their merits by judges who will have no knowledge of the authors 
of the manuscript. We prefer to have the copy in typewriting 
though this will not be necessary. Send full name and address on 
separate sheet accompanying the manuscript. Manuscripts not 
winning prize will be paid for separately or returned for which 
postage should be sent. This competition is open freely to all who 
may desire to compete, without charge or consideration of any kind. 
Prospective contestants need not be subscribers for The Rural 
New-Yorker in order to be entitled to compete for the prizes 
offered. Address copy to 
PRIZE STORY DEPARTMENT, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 409 PEARL ST., NEW YORK. 
