1911-. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
FARM HELP FOR KANSAS. 
Prospects For Securing Work. 
Last Spring, while in- a large city in the State of New 
York, I heard of a number of men who claimed to be work¬ 
ing for Kansas wheat growers who were employing all 
classes of inexperienced help to harvest the crop in the 
wheat belt, from Kansas northward. They were offering 
.$3.50 to $5.50 per day to young men who never did any¬ 
thing harder than keep books, and were to put them at 
manual labor. In some cases I know transportation 
charges were advanced. I was personally acquainted with 
some who hired out, but since I have never been fortunate 
enough to interview them I am unable to find out whether 
any money was advanced to these men for securing em¬ 
ployment or not. I wish to know whether help is really 
so scarce in the wheat belt during harvesting time that 
every lom, Dick and Harry can secure employment at 
such fabulous wages, or is there some scheme to get men 
to go and then pay them low wages which one would be 
compelled to accept by signing contracts. If men are em¬ 
ployed there could you tell me where to apply in the 
Spring to secure employment, as I intend to go there next 
Spring on a visit to friends if I could secure work. 
Connecticut. s> A 
As to young men coming to get jobs in Kansas and 
their being paid exorbitant wages, there is more or 
less truth in the statement, but such a condition 
applies only to certain circumstances and for a very 
limited time. In wheat harvest, which may last for 
three or four weeks, and begins from June 10 to 20, 
the farmers pay from $2.50 to $4 per day, with board. 
Many young men from eastern colleges come here 
at that season, and as a rule they make excellent 
harvest hands; but, of course, in the general scramble 
for hands a great many quite worthless fellows are 
liable to be gathered up 
and on arrival here are 
found, from one cause 
or another, unsuited for 
the work. I doubt if 
many of the fellows who 
are soliciting men in the 
East for this work have 
any authority to do so 
unless it is from rail¬ 
road companies who de¬ 
sire the traffic the trans¬ 
portation of these men 
back and forth would 
make. 
As a matter of fact, 
parties wanting work of 
any kind in Kansas do 
not need to obtain their 
information from irre¬ 
sponsible strangers. The 
State has an official, Mr. 
Charles Harris, Director 
of the State Free Em¬ 
ployment Bureau at To¬ 
peka, who has this whole 
business in hand, for 
which no charge is made, 
and those who communi¬ 
cate with him or transact 
their business through 
him can be sent directly 
and without delay to em¬ 
ployers who are ready to 
set them at once to 
work. But employers do not pay any railroad fare, 
and the railroads give no reduced rates to anyone. 
1 he law fixes the fare in Kansas at two cents per 
mile, and there are no rebates and no free passes. 
The harvest begins earliest in the southern coun¬ 
ties of the State, and those who go there at the 
beginning and gradually work toward and into Ne¬ 
braska have employment for several weeks. While 
Kansas at harvest time needs many hands and pays 
and feeds them well, they are expected to give in re¬ 
turn a lot of hard and wearisome "work in days that 
are long and very warm, and if any fellow in the East 
thinks by coming here he will strike a soft snap yield¬ 
ing a fortune in a single season, to be spent later in 
riotous living in an Eastern city, he is likely to be 
disappointed. But if he has the right stuff in him an 
excursion to the great wheat fields of the Middle West 
may prove an invaluable and broadening experience 
worth even more than the considerable shekels he 
can gather to himself in the meantime. It should be 
understood that such wages as are mentioned above 
are only paid in harvest, and have no relation to wages 
paid at other seasons and for other work. 
F. D. COBURN. 
grow wheat, corn, oats and hay. I have about 70 
acres of sandy soil that is adapted to potato growing. 
Nine acres of potatoes last year produced 1,125 
bushels. We did not have rain enough when they 
were setting. I had three acres of muck ground that 
produced 725 bushels, making 1,S50 bushels on 12 
acres. I contracted my potatoes early in the season 
to haul right from the field to car for 50 cents per 
bushel. Last year I raised 1,450 bushels on seven 
acres. There is a large muck swamp west of my' 
place; they have it drained and are raising thousands 
of bushels of potatoes. 
I use medium size potatoes for seed. I treat seed 
for scab. I made a tank to hold 15 bushels, made 
one end sloping so I can take potatoes out with a 
vegetable fork. I use corrosive sublimate and water, 
enough to cover potatoes; leave in about two hours; 
set a crate on tank and fill with fork. They are left 
in crates and hauled to field to plant. We plant with 
planter; one man feeds the potatoes in the machine, 
which cuts each potato in four pieces, drops them 15 
inches apart and covers them. I prefer a clover sod 
for potatoes. W e harrow the ground once or twice 
before they come up, according to condition of ground. 
I used the weeder both ways until quite large, which 
is a good tool for potatoes or corn. I cultivate as 
often as necessary until tops are full grown. I spray 
three or four times with Bordeaux and arsenate of 
lead paste. The sprayer covers five rows and three 
sprays on each row. We spray for blight and bugs. 
Bugs were not bad last year. I use a digger with four 
horses, eight or ten men, and load a car in two days. 
its value is due, has grown as high as 100 acres of it 
in one season, and claims an average gain on all his 
soils of 50 per cent. In the Winter of 1907 an ice 
gorge covered one of his fields with ice which lay 
there for a long time, but the vetch was in no way 
harmed. j. H . haynes. 
Carroll Co., Ind. 
SPRAYING AN INDIANA POTATO FIELD. Fig. 34 . 
The buildings shown in picture, Fig. 34, belong to 
my neighbor across the road, who also grows potatoes. 
I like to grow potatoes, but the price has been a 
little uncertain for the last two years. I did not keep 
account of the cost of production, but am satisfied 
with results. T . c . KISER . 
DeKalb Co., Ind. 
A SHORT POTATO STORY. 
My father moved to this country in 1S48. I was 
eight months old, and have lived nearly all my life 
on this farm. This was a very heavily timbered coun¬ 
try; land was then worth $1.25 per acre, now it is 
worth $125 per acre. The soil is mostly clay, but 
produces well when tiled and handled right. Farmers 
TRY A VETCH EXPERIMENT. 
That vetch may be well tested we suggest the fol¬ 
lowing experiment: Let oats be sown on well-pre¬ 
pared soil in the Spring, and after these are harvested 
let the land be well disked so as to have it loose and 
moist when the time comes to sow the vetch. In 
August or early September drill in 30 or 40 pounds 
of vetch seed per acre, the vetch to be left unpastured, 
and in the Spring of 1912 plowed under and corn or 
potatoes planted. Or if preferred plant corn and then 
in August drill in the vetch, which is to be treated as 
above. The difficulty is in plowing the cornstalks 
under in the Spring. To make this easy they should 
be broken to the ground while frozen, and then with 
rolling cutter the whole mass can be turned under. 
W e intend doing both this year. If only five acres is 
used in the experiment a fair test can be had. We 
feel safe in saying 100 per cent can be gained in 
yields, regardless of soils or previous crops, by con¬ 
tinuing its use. It has been tested here for five years 
on some of the very poorest clay and sand soils, and 
on river bottom land, with great yields on all of them. 
This was not in small plots, but in fields of 12, 31 and 
50 acres each. Mr. Smith, to whom this discovery of 
APPLES IN A NEW ENGLAND CELLAR. 
Could you advise the writer, who has just started in 
with a 400-tree orchard, what the possibilities are, for 
the storing of his apples for later selling on his own 
premises under the following conditions. I have a barn 
40x80, which usually is tilled with hay in the Winter. 
Could the cellar he made to store aonles into the freez¬ 
ing weather, and what care would have to be taken in 
reference to the temperature? My man does not live on the 
piemises, but about half a mile away. What quantity of 
fruit would I have to handle in order to make it profit¬ 
able for me to invest in the necessary equipment, to keep 
a storage for my apple's up into December and January? 
Do the apples have to be resorted? How are they stored, 
in barrels or in a bin? Is there any covering that could 
be put over apples to prevent them from freezing in a 
building without heat? Do apples keep better in a bin 
or in barrels? L D 
New Hampshire. 
In relation to the storing and handling of apples 
so much depends upon the man behind the apple that 
unless one could thoroughly understand the local con¬ 
ditions perhaps an intelligent answer might be hard 
to give. But to take up the questions in order, there 
are a number of fruit cellars under barns used by 
apple growers here, where apples may be kept the 
entire W inter and come out in very good condition 
in the Spring, and are especially valuable for the 
handling of fruit to be 
sold early, viz., before 
New Yea r’s. They 
should be sheathefl with 
matched boards over 
head and the walls filled 
with concrete or mortar, 
the more exposed the 
thicker the walls, as a 
barn which sits high 
above ground has a 
colder cellar than where 
it is more near the level 
of the ground. In re¬ 
gard to temperature, the 
cellar should be opened 
cool nights and closed in 
all warm weather, and 
not allowed to warm up 
so as to sweat the fruit. 
The temperature should 
be kept as near the 
freezing point as possi¬ 
ble. So much depends 
upon the quality of tl;e 
fruit stored and local 
markets that an intelli¬ 
gent answer is hard to 
give. Here very many 
windfalls can be stored 
and sold later at a profit 
both in the Boston and 
local markets. Resort¬ 
ing will depend entirely 
on the quality of the 
fruit and how soon it is sold. Strictly No. 1 apples 
can be kept into January and sold without repacking, 
yet as apple picking time is a very busy season the 
apples can simply be sorted and then repacked to 
good advantage when sold. I prefer barrels for 
storing, as the fruit is much more easily handled 
when ready to repack or sell, yet they will keep 
either way if cellar is fairly moist and cool. I would 
much prefer to put in bins in a rush or shortage of 
barrels than to turn upon the ground unless they 
were to be immediately packed. I would cover es¬ 
pecially if in bins, and cover with anything which 
will keep out the cold. Of course apples should be 
covered so as to be kept clean whatever other cov¬ 
ering may later be used. If the air is very dry 
apples shrink more in bins than barrels, and being 
more exposed to the air do not always come out as 
bright as in clean barrels. Although a fruit cellar 
of this kind may not be the best that can be built, 
yet if lighted well enough to w r ork in and only at 
those times, or kept dark when not used, I think it 
would be a paying investment when one had 400 bear¬ 
ing trees or even less. If a good packing room can 
be included this would also be an improvement, yet 
these are matters for each individual to decide for 
himself. Of course the way a man wishes to handle 
the selling of his fruit, whether right from the trees, 
or later when he has more time to handle it and per¬ 
haps a better market, is the controlling factor in 
deciding how much he can afford to invest in storage 
facilities. h. o. mead. 
Massachusetts. 
