718 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
more a matter of liking than of breeds. If one sells 
in the open market the choice is of less importance, as 
the weight of the large breeds will offset the extra 
price received for white eggs. In my case, white eggs 
are of no benefit, as I sell the brown for the same 
price. As far as the contest is concerned, I stand as 
I did at the beginning. I have 10 hens and one roos¬ 
ter of each breed, therefore I have the same capital 
invested, as the hens are fully as good as last Spring, 
for tiie one reason they were not crowded in the least, 
as I was not seeking a large egg record, but eggs for 
hatching.” W. j. dougan. 
We have left out all estimate of the manure from 
these hens and young stock. Mr. Dougan says the 
young stock alone gave 2,250 pounds of manure, which 
would be worth about $17 for plant food. Certainly 
the manure will be worth more than the time spent 
in caring for the stock. We figure on a cash basis 
entirely. We might easily figure in another way by 
estimating the laying pullets left on March 1 at $2 
each instead of their value at meat prices. Many of 
these birds were worth $3 or more. Our agreement 
was to charge just what the eggs sold for and what 
the birds would bring as meat, and we have done so. 
We realize that these figures show that these 10 Leg¬ 
horns averaged a net profit of $10.91 each, and we 
doubt if any of our poultry men will call the figures 
of production extravagant. The retail prices for eggs 
is high, but the results of hatching and breeding are 
below the average. The prices for live chickens are 
average. 
We have been asked how much grain and other 
food the 10 hens and 1 rooster consumed. Here are 
the figures: 
PURCHASED FOOD FOR 11 WYAXDOTTES. 
321 pounds cracked corn 
82 pounds wheat screenings 
68 % pounds mixed food ground 
GO pounds beef scraps 
9 pounds grit 
21 pounds oyster shells 
77 pounds bran 
148 pounds oats 
Both lots had weed grass and other green food in 
addition. 
PURCHASED FOOD FOR 11 I.EGHORNS. 
31414 pounds cracked coru 
80% pounds wheat screenings 
7-1 % pounds mixed feed 
39 pounds beef scraps 
3 pounds grit 
24 Vi pounds oyster shells 
G8 pounds bran 
147 Vi pounds .oats 
We are greatly obliged to Mr. Dougan for carrying 
this experiment through. It requires great care and 
patience to keep the figures accurately, and we have 
not seen anything just like them elsewhere. Our good 
friend, the “Business lien,’’ is evidently able to take 
good care of her reputation if you give her half a 
chance. We invite a criticism of this contest and its 
results. Let us also have suggestions for a more com¬ 
plete contest either between flocks of hens or between 
different classes of farm stock. We would like to 
organize a contest between groups of $100—that is, 
$100 invested in cattle, hogs, sheep, swine or poultry. 
HAY CROPS FOR OLD AGE. 
I am now just 70, and left entirely without help except 
my good wife. Hired help is about out of the question ; 
I have not the strength to handle a dairy, so I have sold 
all stock except a good family horse. But we like our 
home and are both too well and active to remain idle, so 
we shall have a few sheep and some hens. But how to 
handle this grassland is the question. This is a clay loam 
and with our late Springs, hay and potatoes are about 
all we can raise. Potato raising involves too much care 
and too much hiring help. I should like to try raising 
hay with commercial fertilizers. But I have 10 acres of 
land that was mismanaged last year. It was plowed up 
the Fall before, with the intention of planting potatoes in 
the Spring, but the man who was to do it failed, and all 
I did was to seed it thinly to oats (1% bushels to the 
acre). It gave fairly good oat fodder, but nothing more 
was done to it. Now about two-thirds of it shows quite 
thrifty quack (witch) grass and the rest is bare. The 
Spring is very late, the ground is clay loam and some¬ 
what rolling. The low parts could probably not be plowed 
till June 6-10. How shall 1 manage such a piece of land 
to get it into grass again? That quack could probably 
be cut about July. How would it be to plow it about July 
and then sow buckwheat and plow that under in October, 
and then seed down? If so, when should the fertilizer be 
used with the buckwheat or with the grass seed, or with 
both, and how much and what kind? I want to get aloDg 
with the minimum of farm work, but keep the land up 
and improve its fertility. It is now rather run down, 
though naturally the best grass land I ever saw. 
Maine. p. h. 
If you had the proper help and power the best way 
would be to plow the land in June and work it 
through the Summer 10 times or more with disk 
or spring-tooth—then seed to grass in late August 
with fertilizers. As you are situated we think the 
plan you suggest a good one. Cut the quack grass 
and cure it for fodder. Then if possible use at least 
1,500 pounds of burnt lime per acre well harrowed 
in and seed the buckwheat. Plow this under at 
the time for grass seeding and put in the grass 
seed. Octcober would be too late for a good seed¬ 
ing with us. Use at least 15 pounds of Timothy 
and ten of Red-top seed per acre. The mixed hay 
is better in quality, and while it may not bring 
quite so much there will be more of it one season 
with another. We should use 500 pounds or more 
per acre of a high-grade grass fertilizer at time of 
grass seeding, and annual applications of about the 
same amount. Handled in this way such soil ought to 
continue to yield fair hay crops for 10 years, and 
do it at a profit. Considering the labor required 
to handle hay it is one of the best crops for such 
conditions as are outlined in this case. 
SAWDUST IN THE MANURE. 
For the past three years I have bought the manure at 
a barn where 10 or 11 horses were kept, paying them §25 
for the manure that was made in a year. I have paid 
them each time in advance. As the barn where I get 
the manure is about five miles from the farm. I often 
wonder whether it pays to draw it so far when much 
of it has to be got out of the way when ft is very neces¬ 
sary to be doing other work. The roads have been almost 
impassable this Spring, so I allowed quite a pile to accum¬ 
ulate at the end of the year, but the latter part of March 
I paid for the manure again until April 1, 1913. They 
had never used anything but rye straw for bedding in 
the stable since I bought the manure, but yesterday I 
went there to see whether the manure was getting in their 
way or not. and to my surprise they have been using 
sawduts for bedding, and shoving a large quantity out on 
that manure. I don't believe it would pay me to draw 
manure that has a lot of sawdust in it, such a long 
distance if it were given to me; besides it is paid for a 
year, and a lot of good manure covered up. What would 
you do in a case like this? m. f. 
New York. 
You have had a good bargain in this manure thus 
far. We assume that you made no definite contract, 
and that you are under no obligation to take the 
manure away; also that there is no agreement as to 
A MAINE JACK AND HIS BURDEN. Fig. 27G. 
what bedding shall be used. If this is so they have 
your $25, and it is for you to decide whether the 
manure is worth hauling or not. The actual plant 
food in the manure from 10 horses could hardly be 
bought for $175. Will it pay to haul the sawdust? 
Fresh sawdust should not be used in large quantities. 
It contains an acid which is injurious to most soils. 
When well rotted or neutralized with lime the saw¬ 
dust will make a fair material for supplying humus. 
When used in the stable to absorb the liquids and 
well soaked, the sawdust will not usually prove in¬ 
jurious, or when mixed with manure in a compost 
and well fermented or thoroughly limed. It contains 
but little actual plant food. We would not care to 
haul this sawdust manure and plow it directly into 
the ground. We would use it as a mulch in an apple 
orchard, scattering lime over it. If the manure were 
to be worked into the ground we should pile it for 
at least six months before using it, scattering burnt 
lime through the pile as made up and covering it 
with soil. It will then ferment and the sawdust will 
be sweetened and fit for use. We have reports of 
cases where such sawdust in large quantities has 
injured soils, but if composted and limed as here 
mentioned it can be used in safety. You will have 
to decide whether it will pay you to take this extra 
work. 
SPREADING LIME WITH A BROOM. 
The question of using lime on our land is being 
agitated more and more at the present time. Farmers 
who have never used it before are buying in small 
quantities, from two to five tons. Unless one pos¬ 
sesses a fertilizer drill the work of putting it on 
becomes a problem. Of course throwing it on by 
hand is out of the question, as its caustic nature 
would soon put one’s hand out of commission, to say 
nothing of the discomfort it would cause to the 
respiratory organs. I have devised a plan for spread¬ 
ing it which is simple and effective. Put about 10 
bags in a lumber wagon, have a man to drive the 
June 22, 
team, remove the tail board, dump out one bag at a 
time in the back of the wagon then after having 
tied a large-sized handkerchief over nose and mouth 
in order to keep dust from the lungs, take a common 
house broom and sweep out the lime a little at time 
first on the left then on the right and straight behind 
In this way a 10-foot wide strip can be covered as 
fast as the team can walk. A ton an hour can be 
put out by this means. c. r. T. 
Ulster Co., N. Y. 
DO CANNING OUTFITS PAY ? 
Could a farmer who is properly located in a fruit¬ 
growing section, with good transportation facilities, 
build up a profitable canning industry, starting with 
an outfit costing not over $500? Peas, corn, berries, 
cherries, plums and pears would be raised on the 
place, and apples could be put up during the Winter. 
Perhaps baked beans also, and if one had a good- 
sized poultry plant why not also can the poultry that 
has to be disposed of each year ? If prices for fresh 
fruit were not satisfactory, home canning would take 
care of it all. e. l. m. 
Aitkin, Minn. 
R. N.-Y.—We want this question answered by ex¬ 
perienced canners. There are many such in the coun¬ 
try, and their experience is worth while. We can get 
plenty of advice from people who are interested in the 
sale of canning outfits, or who think they know what 
a man ought to do. What this man needs right now 
is the experience—either success or failure—of farm¬ 
ers who have really filled the cans. 
MEASURING HAY FOR WEIGHT. 
Measuring hay in the mow is largely guesswork, 
as much depends on the size and shape of mow, the 
time when the grass was cut, and the nature of the 
soil; also the kind of grass, time since seeding, season, 
etc. The year 1870 was undoubtedly the driest that 
Connecticut has seen in the last half century. Some 
hay grown on old meadows with a hardpan sub¬ 
soil, cut in late August, stored in a mow 12 feet in 
height, weighed out at 491 feet for a ton in May, 1871. 
Some Timothy grown in 1880 on a north exposure, 
Wettish land, heavily fertilized with ground bone, 
cut early and stored over stabling, filled to the ridge, 
470 feet. I have considered that the best hay for 
a working team I ever bought, and gave the bone 
the credit. The seasons of 1881, 1882 and 1883, 1 
bought the hay on a farm in an adjoining town. The 
land had a western exposure, clay bottom, meadows 
long seeded, mow narrow. First year, 520 feet; 
second year, dryer, 535; third year, 529 feet. Also 
in 1882 I bought some hay from the lower half of a 
large mow, grass grown on wet land, fourth year 
from seeding mostly Timothy cut in 1880, therefore 
two years old, weighed out at 450 feet. 
Another mow that was sold from a place that came 
into our possession in 1908 grass grown 1907, some on 
light gravelly soil, some on hill land with clay sub¬ 
soil, land having been used for market crops for a 
number of years, and receiving only commercial 
fertilizers, grass cut at odd times from July 1 to 
October and indifferently made, stored in a mow 
16x28x16 feet. It was sold to a livery man for 15 
tons. His man when moving it weighed it, and re¬ 
ported about nine and one-fourth tons, which would 
call for over 750 feet for a ton. The best way is to 
weigh unless you are willing to take a chance. The 
above are a few examples of many I could cite, but 
enough to show the folly of trying to establish a 
hard and fast rule. george l. Gordon. 
Conn. 
MULES' IN MAINE.—Mule raising is the latest ad¬ 
dition to the industries of Somerset County, Maine. 
Although its introduction may be traced to an acci¬ 
dent, the results to date are very satisfactory, and 
the outlook for the future bright. Some four or five 
years ago a western mare was imported here that 
proved to be in foal to a jack. When the little mule 
was weaned, the Somerset man bought her as much 
for a novelty as anything else. The mule grew splen¬ 
didly, and after reaching the age of two years proved 
so very useful about the farm that her owner wanted 
a mate. Before he was able to find one, he became 
so thoroughly convinced of the utility of mules for 
Maine farms, that he went out to Ohio and bought the 
jack whose picture is shown herewith. The animal is 
a mighty clever little fellow, is getting good foals, and 
thus far has proved to be a mighty good investment. 
Somerset County, Me. c. m. gallup. 
The Florists’ Exchange reports the death of a child in 
Oregon from eating the berries of the Virginia creeper, 
Anipelopsis quinquefolia, which had not previously been 
regarded as poisonous, though the bark, sometimes used 
cautiously in medicine, appears to possess poisonous prop¬ 
erties. 
