wii- 
CHEMICALS FOR THE HAY CROP. 
I firmly believe that the best and most permanent 
results in fertilizing the hay crop are produced by 
lightly top-dressing meadows with fresh stable manure 
in which shavings or other fine litter has been used 
for bedding. Of course, there must be a good stand 
of hay plants to fertilize. It will not pay to fertilize 
weeds. In addition to the immediate stimulation 
caused by the leaching of soluble plant food into the 
soil where the grass roots are spread out, there is 
the effect of the mulch around the grass plants and 
the gradual decay of the fibrous portions of the 
manure into humus. The saving of moisture and 
the slow addition of plant food after the hay crop is 
cut will go a long way toward insuring a crop of hay 
on the same field the season following) 
I know a hard-headed farmer in Ohio who bought 
a manure spreader a few years ago and began the 
practice of top-dressing his meadows. At first he 
spread 12 loads per acre on land naturally adapted to 
grass. The result was a growth of Timothy so 
abundant that it lodged badly. He profited by that 
experience, and next year used just half the former 
amount of manure, or six loads of manure per acre. 
I saw the next crop when he was cutting it. Some 
portions of the field were lodged, but most of it stood 
up as thick as grass ought to stand. I 
tried wading through it, and found it a 
tiresome job, so abundant was the 
growth. This farmer knows that when 
he plows up his meadow for corn he will 
be likely to get a good crop of corn 
without using very much manure or fer¬ 
tilizer on the corn. I know there are 
farmers who do not have available suit¬ 
able manure for top-dressing their 
meadows. The wisest thing for them to 
do in order to get the most profitable 
yields, is to use commercial fertilizers 
of the best grades. On natural grass 
lands available nitrogen is the most im¬ 
portant element to apply. Some phos¬ 
phorus and potash combined with the 
nitrogen are usually profitable. 
Bulletin 261 of the Cornell University 
Agricultural Experiment Station gives 
the results obtained with fertilizers for 
Timothy hay on the clay loam soil of the 
University Farm. For general practice 
a mixture of 200 pounds nitrate of soda, 
100 pounds acid phosphate, and 50 
pounds muriate of potash per acre is 
suggested. I saw this tried out in prac¬ 
tice last year on a meadow which was 
seeded with rye in the Autumn of 1905. 
As no hay was cut from it in 1906, the 
year when the rye was harvested, we can 
say that the field had yielded three con¬ 
secutive crops before it was fertilized. 
As this field was in the hands of a renter 
during these three years, no fertilizer 
of any kind was applied to it, but I 
should call it the most fertile field on 
this farm. It was easily the best looking 
field of Timothy hay in the neighbor¬ 
hood in the season of 1909, an unusually 
poor season in this locality- As there 
was a good stand of plants on the field 
in the Spring of 1910, some fertilizer was 
purchased rather late and applied April 
27, after the grass had begun to grow. 
The fertilizer was made up according to the rule 
given above and mixed on the barn floor. The ma¬ 
terials cost $40 per ton and the formula was approxi¬ 
mately nine per cent nitrogen, four per cent phosphoric 
acid, and seven per cent potash. As the fertilizer was 
applied with a mechanical distributer which measures 
it by bulk and not by weight, somewhat less than 350 
pounds per acre but a trifle more than 300 pounds 
were applied. The growth of the hay crop on this 
field was a splendid sight. If there had been a heavy 
rain after July 1 it certainly would have lodged. It 
was cut and harvested in just about the best stage of 
maturity, and I took my photograph, Fig. 207, on the 
day when it was drawn from the field. A close look 
at the piles of hay shows it to be a little bit coarse, 
but that would be no detriment to the price where 
sold to a hay buyer. The yield was 3 1-6 tqns per 
acre, and the market price at that time was $12 per ton 
for new hay. The fertilizer cost about $6 per acre, 
so it would be quite fair to say that the returns per 
acre above cost of fertilizer were $32. From this we 
should deduct the cost of mixing and applying fer¬ 
tilizer and the cost of harvesting the hay, which would 
vary with circumstances. After paying cash rental a 
neat profit is left; I prefer to let the reader say how 
much. 
The important consideration is, how long can this 
practice.be maintained on the same field with profit? 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
Not so long as where the top-dressing used is stable 
manure, but in a rotation where one coat of manure 
can be applied to the old meadow just before plowing 
it up. I should say that two or three years of chemical 
fertilizing on a good stand of grass ought to be quite 
profitable under New York State conditions. Exces¬ 
sive use of chemicals without the aid of decaying 
vegetation is likely to fail after a few years. 
Tompkins Co., N. Y. edward R. minns. 
HAY MAKING IN ILLINOIS. 
Lightening Labor With Modern Machinery. 
The western farmer never does any work by hand 
that he can do with machinery. The immense imple¬ 
ment factories located in this and other States of the 
Mississippi Valley bear witness to this fact. The 
amount of farm machinery that is absorbed by the 
trade every year is stupendous. Much that is bought 
is to replace what is wornout—in many cases rusted 
out, as the average western farmer is notoriously 
careless about housing his implements. Much thought 
and a great deal of inventive skill has been expended 
in the manufacture of hay-making machinery, and 
every device intended either to lighten the labor or 
facilitate the work has been readily adopted by the 
farmer as soon as its utility was proven. The kind 
of outfit a man needs depends on the manner in which 
he expects to store his crop. Most of the hay in this 
section is put away in the barn, though some who 
make a business of baling and shipping stack in the 
field. Those who store in the barn use a rake car¬ 
ried on two wheels which is coupled to the rear end 
of a wagon, and which gathers up the hay from the 
swath or windrow and elevates it to the wagon, where 
two men receive it and properly distribute it until the 
load is made up. A third man drives, and four horses 
are required to draw the outfit. When the load is 
complete, one team is taken from the wagon and the 
remaining two horses draw the load to the barn, while 
the rake is attached to another wagon in waiting. The 
extra team is kept in the field to help with the loading. 
With a quarter or half mile drive, three wagons are 
necessary to keep the rake busy. A load can be put 
on in about 15 minutes, and it can be unloaded and 
mowed away in about 10 minutes. Tn the unloading 
process a fork is used, which is forced down into 
the hay, and then elevated and run back into the barn 
by means of a horse hitched to the rope. A small boy, 
or sometimes a girl, directs the horse, and about four 
forkfuls take the load. From 25 to 35 tons a day can 
be put away in the barn when everything goes smooth¬ 
ly. Seven men and a boy and eight horses are required 
to keep things moving. 
In stacking in the field, what are called bull rakes 
603 
are used to draw the hay to the stack. These are about 
16 feet long, with a horse hitched to each end, and 
they take up the hay from the swath or windrow and 
drag it to the stack, where the teeth of a derrick grab 
it, and it is swung up over and dropped down on the 
stack. Two men do the stacking, while a third man, 
or a good-sized boy, operates the derrick. Two men 
or boys handle the rakes, and this outfit of two men 
and three boys, with five or six horses, can stack 40 
or 50 tons of hay in a day. 
Occasionally hay is baled right from the swath or 
windrow. In this case it is drawn to the baler by 
means of the bull rakes, and the baler is moved about 
the field as found necessary to facilitate the work of 
getting the hay to it. Right here in the corn belt more 
clover hay is put up than Timothy at this time. The 
great crop is corn, and all the land possible is devoted 
to that grain. Other crops are grown largely as prep¬ 
aratory to the corn crop. Oats or wheat are seeded 
to clover. A crop of hay is taken from the field the 
second year, and if the second crop of clover contains 
seed, this is saved, and the next year the ground is 
put in corn. Most of the hay is fed on the farm. 
After the corn crop is gathered in November the 
horses and cattle are turned into the stalks, and they 
get their living there for a month or two. The 
remainder of the Winter they have oat straw and 
clover hay for roughness, though, of 
course, most farmers make some Tim¬ 
othy hay. More Timothy is grown in 
the southern part of Illinois than in the 
central part of the State, j. c. nichols. 
Macon Co., Ill. 
AN EXPERIENCE WITH VETCH. 
I find on page 491 directions by C. W. 
Prescott for growing seed for Winter 
vetch. His plan would no doubt produce 
seed quite abundantly, but it would be 
considerable work to brush any large 
area for producing seed. The seed can 
be produced readily by sowing with 
Winter rye. In 1908 I sowed rye and 
vetch on about 1J4 acre where I had 
grown potatoes. The seed was sown 
September 21. The growth and yield of 
both rye and vetch was good—more than 
30 bushels per acre. I used about one 
peck of vetch per acre, and somewhere 
near 1 Y\ bushel of rye. The trouble 
came when I wanted to separate the 
vetch from the rye after thrashing. I 
could not do it, and used most of the 
mixed seed for sowing cover crops, sold 
some, and fed some. I think the propor¬ 
tion of vetch to rye in product may have 
been about one to five or near that. In 
1910 I allowed about one-half acre sowed 
from the mixed seed to ripen for seed. 
The proportion of vetch was too great 
for best results, as it completely 
swamped the rye, and I think the yield 
less than would have been if only about 
half as much vetch had been sown. The 
early blooms failed to seed. When the 
product was thrashed the vetch was near 
half the product. I do not remember 
how many bushels there were, but the 
yield was quite good and was used for 
seeding cover crops. I have some; over 
half an.acre, sown from this mixed seed 
now growing, which I intend to let ripen to seed for 
use in sowing cover crops. I wish I could.find some 
variety of grain or grass which makes a growth.suffi¬ 
cient to hold up the vetch, which can be sown in 
Autumn with vetch, and the seeds of which, if pro¬ 
duced, are so small, or so large, that they may be 
screened from vetch seed. Such a plan would be a 
great help in producing vetch seed. Can some of the 
R. N.-Y. family tell of such a plant? M. morse. 
Massachusetts. 
Up to the advent of the Mexican Cotton boll-weevil In 
the State,_ little was done by our people in the matter of 
grading live stock, being content with cotton and its 
proceeds to pay for everything. Things have now changed, 
however, and the increase of live stock of different breeds 
and varieties in the State has been almost phenomenal. 
That statement is made by Prof. Dalrymple of the 
Louisiana Station. The history of the world's progress 
is, in one respect, the story of a series of calamities. 
It may not be considered a high compliment to human 
intelligence, but most men are driven to progress by 
misfortune. A failure for which they may not be 
responsible forces them out of a rut or out of some 
old settled notion. This gives them larger oppor¬ 
tunity which they would not otherwise have noticed. 
It may be an insect, a flood, a slow change of climate, 
or a' change in political or social conditions which 
upsets the old, time-worn habit of doing things, but 
that is the way some of the great world’s changes 
have been brought about. 
HAY CROP FED BY CHEMICALS. Fig. 207. 
EXTERIOR OF THE FORTY-DAY HOUSE. Fig. 208. 
