1911 - 
DUST METHOD OF SPRAYING. 
Advantages Over Liquids in Missouri. 
In a recent issue of The R. N.-Y. I noticed a letter 
by Senator H. M. Dunlap, of Illinois, on orchard 
spraying, etc. Like most of the Illinois apple growers, 
the Senator seems to be a liquid sprayer, for he 
doesn’t say anything about the so-called dust process. 
Here in Missouri quite a number of the larger growers 
have in later years resorted to the latter method for 
fighting fungi and insect troubles because it is cheaper, 
more easily done, and equally as efficient. On my or¬ 
chards, of about 1,000 acres, I am using both the liquid 
and dust process, and so far have found very little if 
any difference in results. This season I have been 
compelled to use the dust entirely after the trees 
bloomed, for we have had so much rain which made 
the ground, especially on plowed areas, so soft that it 
was impossible, and still is impossible, to get through 
the orchards with the liquid spray. Senator Dunlap 
having mentioned the ingredients used in his liquid 
process, I will give you the formula I use in making 
the dust. For a carrier which takes the place of water 
I use hydrated lime, and the difference in favor of 
the latter, aside from its being very light to haul, while 
water is very heavy, is that lime in itself is an ex¬ 
cellent fungicide and insecticide, while 
water has no value whatever, except as 
a conveyor and distributor of the ma¬ 
terials which are of value. As a fungi¬ 
cide as well as insecticide, I have found 
the following formula most satisfactory 
in my orchards: To 100 pounds hy¬ 
drated lime I use six pounds of flour of 
sulphur, three pounds powdered blue 
vitriol and three pounds powdered 
arsenate of lead or Paris green. The 
lime and arsenate of lead having been 
ground exceedingly fine, are ready to 
mix with the other materials without 
any additional preparation, but the 
blue vitriol and sulphur I prefer to run 
through a very fine sieve before mix¬ 
ing. I make the application with five 
hand-power machines, three men to 
each wagon, and aim to do the work as 
near as possible when the atmosphere 
is damp or dew on the foliage. Next 
season I expect to equip my orchards 
with four first-class gasoline power dust 
machines so that I can get over them as 
rapidly as possible and as often as may 
appear necessary. I am no crank on the 
dust process or on the liquid process as 
some growers and professional men are; 
I believe both are good, but the fact 
that I can apply dust so much easier, 
quicker and cheaper, and believing it to 
be equally as good, inclines me in its 
favor. 
The apples in this section have about 
all passed the blossoming period and are 
setting well. The bloom on the Ben 
Davis trees was not as heavy as usual, 
and from all I can learn there will be 
no bumper crop of that variety this 
year in the so-called Ben Davis belt. I 
hope this will afford a crumb of com¬ 
fort to the small army of epicurean 
cranks who every now and then take a 
delight, apparently, in abusing this highly popular and 
most profitable commercial apple here in the Middle 
West. LOUIS ERB. 
THE STUDENT LABOR PROBLEM. 
A Statement From Dr. L. H. Bailey. 
There has been much discussion in the journals 
in the past two or three years touching the problem 
of student labor. There seems to be some complaint 
that students from the colleges of agriculture do not 
give satisfaction when they work on farms. On the 
other hand, there are farmers who have derived much 
satisfaction from student labor. The probability is 
that the same student would not give equal satis¬ 
faction with two classes of employers. I am con¬ 
vinced that there is a general misunderstanding of 
the student labor problem, and I propose to make 
some suggestions toward setting the matter right. 
THE FUNCTION OF A COLLEGE OF AGRI- 
CULTURE. — It is commonly charged that a 
college of agriculture teaches a student the 
theory rather than the practice. The necessary 
purpose of a college of agriculture is to teach the 
theory, or the underlying reasons. This is the 
purpose of all colleges. There is no other way 
whereby a person can get the theory quickly and 
systematically. All good progress depends on a 
\TELR RURAL NEW-YORKER 
clear conception of the fundamental facts and the 
theory. One must know the character of the soil, 
its chemical constitution, its physical relations, its 
germ life, and the principles that underlie its manage 
ment. One must have a rational conception of the 
processes in plant physiology, in animal nutrition, and 
in the general practices of crop and animal production. 
He must have a grasp of the principles of mechanics 
as they are applied in farming implements and ma¬ 
chinery. If he is to be a citizen as well as a farmer, 
he must have a basis for judgment on educational, 
social and economic questions. 
The whole basis of the progress of industrial edu¬ 
cation is the contention that the scientific, mechanical, 
agricultural, and similar subjects may be as effective 
means of training a man’s mind as are the older or 
traditional subjects, provided they are equally well 
taught. Of course, a student should have hand prac¬ 
tice in his college life. This practice is primarily for 
the purpose of training him to see and to understand 
the principles that are involved, and to fix in his mind 
the subject-matter of lectures, books and classes. It 
cannot be said that the ordinary class-work or the 
practice-work is the more important, since both are 
essential. One is the complement of the other. The 
practice is the laboratory-work of the college. This 
laboratory-work may be performed in a room with 
soils or machines or plants or test-tubes or milk, or 
it may be performed with these or similar materials 
in the fields themselves. 
It is the commonest notion that a student should be 
trained to be a business farmer by working on the 
college farm. This is a fallacy, and for three reasons. 
In the first place, a college farm is not a nornlal farm. 
It is obliged to do a great many things that a farmer’s 
fa rm never does. It must grow a great variety of 
crops and keep a great range of stock merely for 
illustration and exhibition; the teams must be avail¬ 
able for class study and for showing visitors about 
the place, and for doing many other things that are 
not farming; the place must be kept polished in every 
part whether it is financially profitable to keep it in 
this condition or not. The college farm must grow 
such a variety of things and engage in so many en¬ 
terprises that it cartnot be organized as a whole into 
a commercial or “practical” scheme. It must grow 
much material for class study rather than for market, 
Such a farm exists for other purposes, (l) as a 
laboratory, (2) as a demonstration-ground, and (3) 
as an area on which experiments may be made. In 
the second placce, it is a physical impossibility to 
teach any number of students all the operations of 
even ordinary farming. Suppose that an institution 
has 200 students (and this is now a small number for 
623 
many colleges of agriculture) and it purposes to 
train every one of these students in the art of plowing. 
I take it that the student really cannot learn to plow 
unless he has at least an acre of ground; and any 
farmer knows that a beginner cannot become a good 
plowman till he has plowed many acres. This requires 
200 acres of land at the outset. Let any farmer own¬ 
ing 200 or 300 acres of land endeavor to teach 200 
students how to plow: would he be able to do any 
farming? If in addition to teaching these students 
how to plow, it were designed to teach them to run 
a grain drill, to become skillful with a weeder, a 
sulky cultivator, a one-horse cultivator, not to mention 
the common hand-tools, the farmer would find himself 
still further submerged. It would be impossible for 
him to bring the students and the crops together at 
the right time. If an institution had ten or a dozen 
students and a good farm of 200 or 300 acres, and 
if these students were on the farm the whole year, 
it might be able to teach them the practical operations 
of farming; but it would be a good deal better and 
much cheaper to put them on the farms of good 
practical farmers. In the third place, a student cannot 
afford to go to college for the purpose of learning 
things that he ought to learn on his own farm, or on 
the farm of some other person. It is too expensive; 
it takes too much time. He would 
better be devoting himself to his studies 
and his laboratory practice. 
The college should train the student 
in the handicraft and the manual skill 
of those operations that are integral 
parts of his regular educationl work, 
and these are the operations that are 
least likely to be vvell taught on a r?al 
farm. Such work as the running ot 
gasoline and steam engines, rope-tyimq 
making butter and cheese, testing soil-, 
picking and packing chickens, sorting 
and grading apples, breeding plants, 
feeding animals, judging cattle and 
crops, running incubators, shearing 
sheep, laying drains, spraying, grafting, 
pruning, planning buildings, laying out 
fields, testing cows, and the like, may 
very well be taught in an institution; 
they are taught not because they are. 
“practical,” but because they are items 
in an educational programme; but all 
these together do not make up training 
in running a farm, but are only parts 
or pieces of forward farm processes. 
I wish to enlarge on the physical im¬ 
possibility of giving students an all¬ 
round practical training in agricultural 
subjects. I have asked a good many 
farmers what kinds of practical work 
the student should be taught in a college 
of agriculture. Every farmer has given 
me a different list. The fruit-grower 
will recommend training in a different 
line of subjects from the stock-grower, 
the greenhouse man, the truck-gardener, 
the dairyman, or the general farmer. 
The kinds of work that are needed on 
any one farm run into the hundreds; 
when these are multiplied by all the 
different kinds of farms, they run into 
the thousands. It is, of course, alsolutelv 
impossible for any one institution to pro¬ 
vide training in all these different lines; and yet many 
persons seem to expect that a graduate of a college of 
agriculture should be ready at once to take up any kind 
of manual and practical work that may be presented to 
him and to do it better than persons who have had 
practice all their lives. Colleges of agriculture are 
constantly widening the range of subjects in which 
practical hand work is given, and this tendency will 
greatly increase; but even so, it will be impossible 
for any college of agriculture ever to compass the 
whole field of manual training in the arts of agricul¬ 
ture, and it should not be asked to do so. 
Dean, N. Y., Agricultural College. L. H. bailey. 
(To be continued.) 
Every year we have some 50 questions about 
“stringy” milk—usually from people who keep one 
or two cows. The milk after standing a few hours 
begins to grow slimy and fills up with lumps or 
strings. People say that their pans and pails are 
“clean,” and they usually charge the cow or her feed 
with the trouble. As a rule the cow has nothing to do 
with it. The slime is caused by a germ which lives 
in the stable filth or in the pails and pans. In some 
cases where pails are cleaned with warm water this 
germ is not killed, but simply has a refreshing bath. 
It is found in cracks or seams in the tin, and the worst 
place for it is in the strainer. In many homes a cloth 
strainer is used and rinsed after using in warm water. 
The remedy for this trouble is to boil all pans, pails 
and strainers—everything that the milk touches. The 
barn should be kept clean. 
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HANDLING STRAW IN OREGON. Fig. 215. 
TRIO OF ANGUS CATTLE. Fig. 216. 
