191 2. 
THIS RURAL NEW-YORKER 
A56 
ONE YEAR OF THAT “HORSE COMPANY.” 
How It Came Out. 
Last Spring we told how a ‘-horse company" was formed 
in Madison Co., N. Y. There have been a number of re¬ 
quests to know the outcome, and so here it is: 
The annual meeting of the Hamilton Belgian Horse 
Association was held January 2, 1912, and the business 
of the year was closed up. So far everything has been 
on the debtor side. One of the members was hired to 
keep the horse for a year at $1 per day. A harness 
was bought for $30, and there was a bill of $4 for 
printing, and with some other small expenses, brought 
the expenses of the year up to a round $400, which 
was $33Rj for each member. The first note does not 
mature until May 1, when each signer must pay $82j^ 
more, as one-third of the cost of the horse, and inter¬ 
est, making the total expense for each member $116. 
During the year the horse was bred to 13 mares. 
How many of these will have colts we do not know; 
but we are very sure that not over 10 are with foal 
The service fee was $20, so it is possible that there 
will be $200 to divide, or $16^ for each man. This 
will leave each member in the hole for $100. This is 
a rather bad prospect when we remem¬ 
ber that the selling agent assured ns 
that the horse would pay for himself as 
fast as the notes became due. We must 
also remember that our company was 
organized under the direction of the sell¬ 
ing company, Mr. Axford of the selling 
company, acting as the chairman of the 
meeting which organized our company, 
and that the keeper of the horse was 
promised the management of the horse 
as an inducement for him to take a 
share, and help to induce others to join. 
So our failure to make good is charge¬ 
able directly to the selling company, and 
not to the buying company. 
We must admit that we were bitten 
good and hard; but the company was 
made up of pretty good material just 
the same. Every man has taken his 
medicine, and settled up his share. And 
now we must lodk forward to the next 
year. What were the causes of our 
failure, or rather the failure of the 
horse to do what the agent said he 
would do? In the first place, the horse 
cost twice what such a horse can be 
bought for by an individual. It is easy 
to see that any investment might pay at 
a normal valuation; but would not pay 
if the stock were watered at the rate of 
100 per cent. In the second place, the 
horse was mismanaged. It might be that 
$1 per day could be spent in feeding and 
caring for such a horse, but it is very 
certain that it was not done in this case. 
A horse rigged out in a bungling har¬ 
ness, and hitched to an old milk wagon 
does not show off to the best advantage, 
or inspire people to pay $20 for his ser¬ 
vice. But worst of all, the horse was not 
got out very often even with the milk 
wagon, but stood for days in idleness. 
In the third place, the service fee was 
too high for the community where he is 
owned. I believe that the service of this 
horse is well worth $20, but the trouble 
is there are so few farmers who will 
agree with me. The average farmer is 
not a breeder of purebred stock, and has 
not made a study of the laws of breed¬ 
ing. He does not know that a purebred animal will 
usually stamp his characteristics strongly upon his off¬ 
spring, and that when the blood is mixed it loses its 
force. For example, one may raise a splendid colt 
from a purebred horse and a mongrel mare. The colt 
may be as big as his sire. He may look as good as 
his sire, and I will go further and say that he may 
have more vim and energy than his sire, but he is of 
mixed blood ! His sire—if a draft horse—has been 
1*-ed and fed and deleveloped to have short heavy 
legs, a thickset heavy body, a short back, and a broad 
chest. His dam may have some trotting blood—de¬ 
veloped for quick action, and the exact reverse of the 
draft horse. She also may have a little Morgan, a 
little mustang, and nobody knows what all. As I have 
said before, this colt may look as good as his draft 
sire, because the sire was pure and his blood ruled 
over the mixed blood of the dam. This colt may look 
so well that his owner may keep him entire. He cost 
but little to get, and he is put up at a fee of $10. The 
farmers forget about that stream of mongrel blood in 
his veins, and see only the grand external individual. 
They breed their mongrel mares to him and get scrub 
colts, and denounce all draft stallions ever after. This 
is the situation we are up against. We will try t'o 
overcome the prejudice against draft stallions caused 
by half-blood sires. We will also meet the farmers 
half way, and make our service fee but $15 until the 
colts come to prove the worth of the sire. 
The member who kept the horse a year for $365 has 
evidently cleaned up for his $200 share, but this mem¬ 
ber was the only one in the company that was satis¬ 
fied with the deal. The others thought that they had 
been holding the bag for nothing. It was thought 
best the keeper of the horse in the future should have 
a deeper interest in the horse than to collect a dollar 
3 day, and make himself as little trouble as possible. 
So it was suggested that some one take the horse for 
one-half that he could make from him. This seemed 
to be a very good plan for the company, as they would 
be sure of stopping the bill for keep, and also fairly 
sure of the horse bringing in at least something to¬ 
wards paying the notes in the future. This plan was 
finally adopted, and one of the members took the horse 
A BUNCH OF AYRSHIRE CATTLE. Fig. 48. 
on these terms. We are hopeful that the horse will 
yet do much good in bringing up the quality of the 
farm horses in this section, but how much cheaper 
and more satisfactorily this could have been done if 
we had gone directly to some reliable importer and 
bought our horse and managed him in a businesslike 
manner from the start. j. grant morse. 
Madison Co., N. Y. 
THE EMPRESS TREE. 
The tree shown in Fig. 42, first page, Paulownia 
imperialis, belongs to the same family as the Catalpa, 
and is a native of China and Japan. It was named 
after Anna Paulowna. Princess of the Netherlands, 
and daughter of the Emperor of Russia, and well de¬ 
serves the title of Empress tree for its noble habit of 
growth. Its stout spreading branches form a round 
head, the large heart-shaped leaves, densely produced, 
are five to eight inches long, and the flowers, produced 
in spikes 10 inches long, recall the Gloxinia or the 
foxglove in general appearance; they are bluish lilac 
and fragrant. The Paulownia is not as hardy as the 
Catalpa, and in this latitude the young shoots are liable 
to be killed by frost the first Winter, but if protected 
for this season they usually require no further atten¬ 
tion afterwards. One of our friends in Chicago found 
that it killed down every Winter in his exposed situa¬ 
tion, but the roots lived, and as the young shoots 
started up each year and made a bush-like mass of 
tropical verdure be cansidcred it is well worth growing, 
though he had no flowers, and little chance of seeing 
it in tree form. The leaves on these young shoots are 
very large, sometimes a foot or more long; their great 
size is shown in Fig. 42. We have seen some fine 
specimens on Staten Island, and in northern New Jer¬ 
sey, though in the latter case the flower buds are fre¬ 
quently winter-killed, preventing blooming. The 
1 aulownia thrives best in a deep light loam and a 
sheltered situation, and once well established is a 
beautiful sight with its showy bloom and handsome 
foliage. In the warmer parts of the United States it 
attains a height of 40 feet in 25 years. We believe it 
grows very well in California. Where it flowers free¬ 
ly the large seed pods may be considered unsightly 
by the hypercritical, but the familiar 
Catalpa is open to the same objection. 
California has such a wide range of 
choice that growers there may discard 
some things we are glad to use; they 
have a beautiful blue flowered tree in 
the Jacaranda, which we cannot grow 
here. 
GOOD POULTRY FIXTURES. 
The pictures show some of the build¬ 
ings at Mountain Ash Farm, Columbia 
Co., N. Y. Fig. 45 shows where the 
chickens are started in the cement in¬ 
cubator cellar. The walls are one foot 
thick, as can be seen at the entrance 
doorway. The temperature is the same 
all through the hatch, which is one of 
the principle things to have them hatch 
well. The room above is a brooder 
room where the little chicks are put 
until the weather is warm enough to 
put them out on the ground. We have 
six 240-egg incubators in our cellar. 
Fig. 46 shows one of‘the rat and mouse- 
proof feed houses, it being built on 
posts with inverted granite pans on the 
posts, so the rats and mice cannot get 
in. and at the right of this picture shows 
one of the largest poultry houses; it is 
60 feet long and is divided into three 
rooms, or pens. Fig. 43 shows a neat 
little poultry house used for one of our 
breeding pens. This is built on the post 
foundation also, so the rats cannot get 
in and get a good share of feed from 
the dry-feed hoppers which we use alto¬ 
gether for all our hens. The Black 
Minorcas are out in front getting their 
noon-day lunch. e. j. 
FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN 
STARLING. 
Concerning recent note on the Euro¬ 
pean starling, perhaps the last word has 
yet to be spoken. When about 60 years 
ago two pairs of rabbits were turned 
loose in Australia no one would have 
foretold that at this time over 25,000,000 
skins a year would be shipped, with 
surely as many more or perhaps even a 
far greater number killed by poison, 
besides millions of dollars invested in rabbit fences, 
and at times millions of dollars in value of sheep 
lost because in drought they succumb in the compe¬ 
tition with rabbits. If the starling finds somewhere 
on this continent just conditions that suit him, some 
day in the future something like the following quoted 
from “Quiet Days in Spain,” by C. B. Luffman, pub¬ 
lished in 1910, may be said of California, or possibly 
of the New York grape region. The author de¬ 
scribes life on a hacienda devoted to raising muscatel 
raisins near Malaga: 
“Dogs and goats are very fond of grapes and are 
only kept off them by rural guards; but the greatest 
enemy of all is the starling. This bird flies over 
from Africa in such millions as literally to darken 
the earth. Whenever they camp for the night they 
leave a desert; every particle of fruit, leaf, tender 
shoot and piece of soft bark vanishes. As the say¬ 
ing is, ‘Many crops spell various fortunes; one crop 
of starlings spells ruin.’ The blowing of a Southern 
wind and the sound of wings in the air produces 
panic, men’s faces blanch with terror. In despair, 
bells are rung, guns fired, torches lighted, and don¬ 
keys, mules and horses are galloped up and down 
and round about to scare ‘los bichos’—the beasts— 
as they are termed.” Well, the starlings are here 
and beyond extermination. c. l. mann. 
GROVE OF PECANS ON LIGHT PINE LAND. Fig. 47. 
