1911. 
THE RU RAt NEW-YORKER 
59 
A GASOLINE HIRED MAN. 
I have seen several letters in regard to the use of 
gasoline engines on farms. Fig. 23 shows a rig I 
have made to stack hay. I have a 35-foot pole with 
two strong back guys, and a wire in front to keep it 
steady, and lean this over toward the stack. The 
horse fork is rigged to a pulley on top of the pole, 
and the rope runs down the pole to a block at the 
bottom, and thence to a drum on the truck on which 
vr ■ 
V 
\ 
THE GASOLINE HIRED MAN. Fig. 23. 
the engine is carried. This drum has a large pulley 
on the shaft, and a sliding box controlled by a lever 
which allows the pulley to be pressed against a stop 
and held in any position, or pressed by reversing 
the lever against a smaller pulley or a shaft, having 
a pulley belted to the engine, which may be running 
all the time to transmit the power to the drum to 
wind up the rope and hoist the hay. By this means 
a stack 25 feet high or more can be built, and much 
more quickly than by a horse. The drum when re 
leased in a vertical position, runs itself, letting the 
fork down quickly, or when up at the top can be 
held there by a simple motion of the lever forward, or 
can be hoisted by a pull of the lever backward. I 
have a six horse-power engine. It can be placed any¬ 
where easily while on the truck. With it we cut wood, 
cut feed, hoist hay in and out of the barn or stack, 
and grind feed, press straw, etc. I find it a great 
saving of time and horse. The rig is homemade and 
gives perfect satisfaction. h. q. howe. 
Ontario Co., N. Y. 
THE COUNTRY STOREKEEPER’S SIDE OF 
PARCELS POST. 
We hear much about the parcels post nowadays, 
and from the daily papers we learn that the "interests" 
are taking notice and are organizing to "protect” the 
country store; at least that's what they claim. Now 
I don’t believe the movement is sincere or that the 
store is in any danger. Other reasons may cause the 
country merchant to modify or change some detail 
of his business, for readjustment is going on all the 
time in society, industry and trade, and we all abide 
by changes whether we like it or whether we get hurt 
or not. I remember when the trolley car came to 
this town the public stable, with its depot carriage 
service, was put out of business. It was a real hard¬ 
ship to the proprietor, obliged in middle life to seek 
other means of earning a living, and no one moved 
to abandon the trolley project to protect the stable¬ 
man. Twenty-five years ago a florist was doing a 
small business with one greenhouse on a side street. 
In those days people would walk a mile or drive five 
miles to trade with him, but they won’t now. To 
be sure he was not enterprising enough to move into 
town and do more business than ever, so when the 
trolley came he went under, and no sympathy was 
wasted. 
I have heard the argument, and seen it in print too, 
that the citizen is under moral obligation to trade 
with the local merchant, no matter if he could save 
money elsewhere. There is some force in that logic. 
Let’s talk it over. Take myself, for instance. From 
youth to middle age I was a mechanic in a small local 
factory. Twenty-five years ago competition caused 
the small concern to go out of business, and I was 
out of a. job. So were 20 others. Some owned places, 
all were good citizens, paid their taxes and per¬ 
formed their civic duties equally with the storekeeper 
and all the rest. Something like this must have hap¬ 
pened in a thousand places, and yet there was no 
nation-wide movement to protect those who suffered 
by it. Every important invention has caused hard¬ 
ship to many people and yet the world has accepted 
4he improvement joyously and will accept the parcels 
post even if it should become certain that some peo¬ 
ple will get hurt. I was unwilling to move to the 
large manufacturing town to work at my trade. So 
I still live on the place where I was born a good 
while ago, a one-man, one-horse, one-cow farm. I 
draw interest on my savings as a mechanic to pay 
taxes. I draw on the principal in time of sickness 
or hard luck. I sell cordwood enough to buy coal 
for the furnace, but for the most part try to live off 
the place. Now for the point I want to make con¬ 
cerning (not against) the local store. I had 10 bushels 
of potatoes to spare. Having a monumental distaste 
for peddling my only market was the store, so I 
asked the price. "Twenty-five cents a peck—90 cents 
a bushel.’ "1 don t want to buy, I have some to 
sell. “Give you 65 cents—that’s what they cost us 
from Boston.” If I were talking about the “con¬ 
sumer’s dollar” I needn’t go far for a text, but I 
haven’t any fault to find with the merchant’s attitude 
concerning potatoes. Why should he pay me any 
more than he can buy for elsewhere, and why should 
I pay him more for groceries than I can get them for 
from Boston? His obligation to me equals my obli¬ 
gation to him, and that is nothing at all. No friend¬ 
ship in trade is an old proverb; no sentiment either. 
Right here some one will ask if I do not find it con¬ 
venient to buy many things locally, and what would 
I do if the store should close. Why, some com¬ 
petitor would knock at my door within 24 hours 
soliciting my small patronage! I recall that some one 
writing to The R. N.-Y. on the parcels post quite a 
while ago predicted the decline of farm values if it 
should prevail. He even quotes an actual occurrence 
where a prospective customer declined to buy because 
there was no store nearby. I can easily believe that, 
but what of it? If a store went out and values 
dropped, what of it? Does some one lose? So did 
the stableman when the trolley came in. Undeserved 
THE DOUGLAS PEAR. Fig. 24. 
misfortune is the common lot of mortals. The steam¬ 
roller doesn't turn out for the ant crossing the road, 
though the ant was there first and had vested rights. 
If the parcels post is in the interest of the great 
majority, it must not turn out for the few. Besides, 
it is not certain yet that anyone would get hurt. 
As for the dweller in back places finding it dif¬ 
ficult to get supplies, that is part of the price that he 
pays for his isolation. There are advantages offset 
by disadvantages everywhere, even in cities. Some 
choose one set of advantages and some another. It 
depends on personal taste and some other things. My 
friends about town think it must be awful -to live two 
miles from the depot and a mile from a yeast-cake. 
I listen to their tales of woe, note the hoodlumism on 
the lighted street, and thank my stars that I live 
out on the edge of the woods, even beyond the electric 
service and public water system, but I want the parcels 
post. “And there ye are,” says Martin Dooley to Mr. 
Hennessey. u. s. 
Massachusetts. 
R. N.-Y.—Do not forget how farmers throughout 
the entire East lost half the value of their farms 
through the Government’s booming of western land. 
Do not depend upon a growth of sorrel as a sure test 
for sour soil. The test with litmus paper beats it. 
Ax English lawsuit which was begun 562 years ago was 
recently resumed in the Court of Chancery according to 
the London Express. It relates to the right to hold a 
market in the town of Stowmarket, Essex, the Abbot of 
St. Osyth claiming that Richard de Maundeville had 
obtained a grant to hold a market there in 
lo48. The case was adjourned because the defendant had 
to go the wars in France, and is now resumed to settle 
some technical legal point. 
THE DOUGLAS PEAR. 
I send you a sample of the Douglas pear. I had 
some not quite as large October 14 to be sampled by 
grocers and fruit men; they were loud in praise of 
its quality, saying it was better than the best Bartlett, 
and some that it was as good as the Seckel. From 
two trees with two-year-old tops I picked one-half 
bushel. It is inclined to overbear and make the fruit 
smaller. It is a seedling of Kieffer crossed with 
Duchesse d’Angouleme. Its late ripening makes it 
come in at a good time, after peaches are gone. If 
the tree keeps up the same habits as here the past 10 
years, since it began fruiting, it will change fruit grow¬ 
ing, as no fruit at this time is in market that is 
really good. a. h. griesa. 
Douglas Co., Kan. 
R- N.-Y.—Fig. 24 shows an excellent picture of this 
pear, natural size. The quality was exceedingly good, 
flesh tender, juicy and melting, flavor rich and sweet. 
It is a handsome pear, and its general excellence seems 
to promise a great future both for home and market 
use. 
LIME VS. BARNYARD MANURE. 
It is advisable to use lime iu connection with barn¬ 
yard manure? Has the lime the power to evaporate some 
of the useful elements in the manure, such as nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid and potash? Would it be advisable 
either to use lime the preceding or the following year 
after manuring? IIow much fresh burnt stone lime can 
safely be used per acre? The soil under consideration 
is a sandy loam, well drained and in need of lime. The 
manure turned under in the Fall, and the field left in 
the rough. The lime to be spread iu the Spring and 
well worked in the soil before planting. s. n. s. 
Pennsylvania. 
Burned lime and manure should not be mixed above 
ground. Ground limestone will not injure the manure, 
but burned lime will act chemically to set free am¬ 
monia in the form of gas. For this reason burned 
lime should not be mixed with organic manures above 
ground. When lime and manure are mixed in the soil 
the ammonia is set free, but will be largely held by 
the soil so that plants can use it. The lime will have 
no injurious effect upon potash. It acts on the soil to 
some extent to make potash available. With phosphoric 
acid the lime unites with soluble phosphate to make it 
Uss available but does no great damage to it usually. 
It would depend upon the soil and the crop whether 
to use lime a year before or a year after manure. The 
manure usually acts to sweeten the soil, though not 
as much as the lime. From choice we should use 
lime if possible when seeding down to wheat or grass, 
rather than with corn. Certainly not with potatoes. 
It is quite a common rotation to use the manure on 
corn and follow with potatoes, and then wheat or oats 
and grass. In such case we should want to use the 
lime after potatoes. All the way from half a ton to 
three tons of burned lime per acre have been used, de- 
MUMMIED PEACHES HARBORING BROWN ROT. Fig. 25 
pending on the condition of the soil and the crop. 
Alfalfa or clover, etc., need most, as do the cold and 
sour clays. For such soil as you mention one ton 
should give good results. The plan of plowing manure 
in Fall and using lime in Spring will work, though on 
our own farm we do not like Fall plowing. We would 
rather have some live crop growing. 
