1134 
in the results obtained from different combinations 
of fertilizers, limes, etc., that the writer had several 
pictures taken of the experiment, and The R. N.-Y. 
of January 8, 1910, printed an account of this soil 
test, with two or three pictures showing the varia¬ 
tions obtained. The picture on page 1135 shows this 
original test. The picture on first page shows the 
Alfalfa sown in accordance with this test. This field 
of Alfalfa proved so satisfactory that the farm has 
now about 35 acres in Alfalfa. 
During thfc season of 1912 about 80 to 90 tons of 
Alfalfa have been cut from approximately 25 acres 
of land. This makes a crop of over three tons per 
acre, and compares most favorably with the average 
tonnage of hay per acre raised in the United States, 
which is 1.33. In 1910, the total acreage in hay in 
the United States was 45,691,000 and the production 
in tons was 60,978,000. If the same number of acres 
could be put into Alfalfa at the above rate, it would 
increase the tonnage by 80,000,000 and the value by 
$ 1 , 200 , 000 , 000 . 
The reader will see from the pictures the results 
obtained from the original plan of pot experiments 
made in March 28, 1910. He will see later the pictures 
of Alfalfa raised on the farm during the seasons of 
1911 and 1912. Although the conception of this plan 
was entirely theoretical, the results are now plain 
to anyone, and can be seen at the writer’s farm, where 
25 to 35 acres of Alfalfa are now grown in con¬ 
formity with the above experiment. In 1911, from 
about 10 to 12 acres, we were able to secure 35 to 
40 tons of Alfalfa in one of the driest seasons in 
the last 20 years. In 1912, from about 25 acres were 
cut 80 to 90 tons of cured Alfalfa. On a part of this 
acreage we were able to get four cuttings of hay. 
This was only done, however, where the Alfalfa 
was to be plowed under the next Spring, to be planted 
to corn or potatoes. 
The most important advantage in this experiment 
is that it is inexpensive and, as far as we can judge, 
positive in its practical results. If we could all im¬ 
prove our crops by such inexpensive and quick-acting 
experiments, it would mean millions to the farmers of 
this country. If, therefore, the school teacher in the 
farming district would only take advantage of such 
an experiment to teach the embryo farmers in his 
class the value of such soil testing, the future of the 
farmer in this country would certainly be brighter. 
One school at Sparks, Baltimore County, Maryland, 
under the guidance of Professor Crocheron, has in¬ 
augurated such a system and the results there have 
been marvelous. If we could only multiply such re¬ 
sults by the hundreds of thousands pf schools over 
this country, we should hear very little of the high 
cost of living so far as it is related to farm produc¬ 
tion. We hope to see the day when each country 
school will be an experiment station on a small scale. 
Under the teacher’s directions children could make 
the baskets and do most of the work. The average 
farmer thinks that he has no time for such theo¬ 
retical work. We can make no great advances in 
this fight for modern farm improvement and practical 
scientific methods except through the youth of our 
country. What the Montessori system is doing for 
the child, such a method in our country schools can 
do for the young farmer. richard haughton. 
COST OF UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP. 
Has the United States Government any more right to 
take $5 from me, without giving anything in return, than 
any other concern? I wanted to become a citizen of 
the United States, as I was brought to this country when 
five years old. I am now 27 years old. so I took out 
my first papers in February, 1908; then in May, 1910, 
I declared my intention and went before the examining 
committee, with two witnesses, and in May, 1911, I was 
to go before the court. This was in Brooklyn, New York. 
In April, 1911, I bought this farm in Connecticut, so I 
went down to see the naturalization clerk, and he told me 
the minute I moved out of New York I forfeited my 
right to become a citizen in New York. As I wanted to 
become a citizen of the United States, and not of New 
York alone, have they any right to take my money 
without giving me a transfer iuto the State I moved? 
F. w. s. 
I called on the Government Naturalization Bureau. 
I saw a copy of his papers and went over the matter 
with the clerk in charge. His admission to citizen¬ 
ship was denied because of not being present when his 
case was called in May, 1911. The clerk in New York 
could not give him a transfer, as the law now stands. 
His first papers are all right, and he will not lose 
the fees of $4 that he paid for them. The Govern¬ 
ment does not get the fee. But he will need to make 
out a new declaration at the Superior Court of Mid¬ 
dlesex County, at Middletown, Conn. He could go 
to the Federal Court in New Haven, but the court at 
Middletown will be nearer and answer the purpose. 
The Superior Court will receive his declaration, and 
now that lie has resided in Connecticut for a year he 
can become a citizen in about 90 days. It will cost 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
him another dollar for his new declaration papers. 
The court will get a copy of his first papers from the 
Naturalization Bureau in Washington. By moving he 
loses only his $1 paid for declaration and the delay 
in time. He could not have voted in Connecticut until 
a year after leaving New York had he waited in New 
York a month till he could have received naturaliza¬ 
tion papers there. f. n. c. 
THE WEALTHY APPLE. 
Every year we have calls for a picture of a Wealthy 
apple tree, largely because this variety is so freely 
advised for use as a “filler” in planting mixed or¬ 
chards. The Wealthy makes a good filler, because its 
thin and rather close-growing head is less likely to 
interfere with the permanent trees than some other 
kinds. The picture at Fig. 467 shows a Wealthy 
tree set in 1909 by Dr. G. M. Twitchell, of Maine. 
This tree stands 13 feet high, with a spread of 13 feet. 
Dr. Twitched sends us the following note. Do not 
get the idea that it is an ordinary thing for Wealthy 
trees to make such growth. This record is far above 
the average. 
“I am sending you herewith photo of tree set 1909, 
in edge of my garden. It is one of a row of remark¬ 
able trees, having all made phenomenal growth, hardy 
and healthy. I am sending it to you that you may 
show your readers what Maine offers the orchardist. 
Surely Oregon can do no better. I am also sending 
WEALTHY APPLE TREE IN MAINE Fig. 467. 
you one Wealthy apple, picked from tree set in 1909 
and reset in 1910. It is one of 175 on the tree, 22 
being left to mature fully. Best of ad, the tree has 
made a wood growth of two feet this year.” 
A PRODUCTIVE ILLINOIS ACRE. 
My nearest neighbor is a painter by trade, follow¬ 
ing regularly his profession and living in town. His 
gardening and trucking is purely incidental and in no 
sense an occupation, but attended to at odd times as 
occasion offers. The land worked by him is some 
outlying lots about one-fourth mile from his resi¬ 
dence, and is exactly one and one-seventh acres of 
old pasture, rich, typical black prairie soil. He has 
an industrious wife and four children, three of whom 
are boys who work a little and eat a good deal. He 
has one horse used in his general business, and occa¬ 
sionally on this land in question. There is no attempt 
at fancy or scientific display, but plain industrious 
work at odd times. The results of this desultory 
industry were as follows: Strawberries sold, $95; 
onions, 170 bushels sold at $1 per bushel; corn, 15 
bushels; cabbage, 1,000 heads, not yet gathered; car¬ 
rots and beets, 1,500 pounds; potatoes, 30 bushels; 
18 shocks of corn fodder. Of the above the potatoes 
and such other articles as needed will be used in the 
family, and beets, carrots and corn fodder used for 
cow and horse feed. 
In addition to the above two rows of dwarf Lima 
beans 250 feet long and bearing enormously were 
consumed by the family, as well as such other of the 
products as needed. A conservative estimate warrants 
the assertion that the cash value of the products of 
this one and one-seventh acre to be $375, worked at 
odd intervals and upon the hereabouts familiar Illi¬ 
nois corn belt soil. The writer is personally familiar 
with the case and has verified all facts herein stated. 
Illinois. ______ L. B. CROOKER. 
Even the TJ. S. Government is troubled by hunters and 
“sports.” It has been found necessary to “post” the 
recent reservation in Virginia: “This has been found 
necessary owing to the fact that certain irresponsible 
persons have been hunting, chestnuting, chc:‘~y picking, 
etc., and have torn down fences, injured trees, and other¬ 
wise committed acts that were not desirable.” 
November 9, 
HOW THE GAME LAWS WORK. 
A Sample of Jersey Justice. 
On page 1052 you say: “The farmers should, one 
and all, combine and post their land, every farmer, 
large and small, so that the sports will have no chance 
to hunt except on the public domain.” One would 
think from this that “posting” worked automatically. 
I live within two miles of our county court house, 
and post my land every year, but the gunners swarm 
over it just the same. They fire into henyards, they 
root under porches, they tear the siding off barns, 
they set fires. Last year they shot and killed a rabbit 
under my house, and very nearly shot a child. Re¬ 
monstrated with, they load the farmer with curses 
and abuse, or threaten to blow his head off. 
Enforce the law? How? Can a farmer describe 
people he does not recognize? Can he drag half a 
dozen armed ruffians before a justice? Can he hire 
a special policeman for every field? And if, by ex¬ 
traordinary luck, he succeeds in getting an offender 
before the authorities, he (the offender) is pretty 
sure to be turned loose on the plea that he is “a poor 
man.” I would be most thankful for sound advice 
from The R. N.-Y. c. e. d. p. 
New Brunswick, N. J. 
R. N.-Y.—Our advice was to New York subscribers, 
but it is a good thing to extend the discussion. We 
have asked the prosecuting attorney of Middlesex Co., 
N. J., how this man can protect his property. 
What They Do In Alabama. 
A reader in Alabama gives us the following statement of 
game law workings in that State: 
If an animal worries you or your stock, it is ex¬ 
pected that you put a quietus on it. Our game laws 
protect about the same creatures that those of other sec¬ 
tions do, but no one ever gets in trouble for protecting 
his property from injury, and if he did by chance get 
hauled up (which is not likely) he would appeal to a 
jury and would get off clean, for, strange as it may 
seem, the jurymen around here are very ignorant as 
to the law, their ancient conception of justice still 
being a fixed quantity, and when it comes to a case of 
law or justice, law usually gets the hot end of it. 
I once served on a jury with 11 other ignoramuses, 
and the judge charged that we bring a verdict of 
conviction, that no other verdict would answer. Well, 
us 12 poor fools couldn’t see it that way, figuring 
we were to decide the question by the evi¬ 
dence, and the judge was largely a useless ornament, 
and if he could decide the matter there was no use 
in our being worried, so we just brought in a verdict 
“Not guilty,” and his honor went ’way up in the air 
and started to read us a lecture. When he stopped 
for breath the foreman told him that we took an. 
oath to decide by the evidence, and neither he nor 
the other 11 men were going to commit perjury for 
him or any other man, and naturally had not con¬ 
sidered his wishes one way or the other when decid¬ 
ing the case on its merits. His honor shut up like a 
clam and didn’t even dare to mention contempt of 
court. 
Our game laws, as regards hunting and a man’s 
rights to keep people off his farm or woodland or 
swamp, are self-acting. You do not have to post your 
land or give notice to keep out. It is up to the hunter 
all the way through. You can hunt in your own 
voting precinct, but if you go outside of it you must 
procure a hunter’s license for the county. If you go 
out of the county you have to secure a State license 
to hunt in any county in the State or you will get 
jerked up and fined for hunting without a license. If 
you want to hunt on a man’s land you have to secure 
his written permission to do so. He does not have 
to arrest you or run you off; he turns it over to the 
constable in his precinct, and he sends after the 
hunter without the permission to hunt on the land. 
This law is not enforced to any extent, unless hunters 
are a nuisance or are destroying birds the owners of 
the land wish to protect. The farmers do hot object 
to a decent person who acts properly hunting on their 
property, but they have him in good shape if he an¬ 
noys them. 
The real cause for this law was, in a great part of 
the State negroes and some whites would go in a man's 
hog pasture, or if he owned unfenced land of large 
extent and turned his stock and hogs out there, would 
hang around and shoot or catch and kill his hogs or 
goats. The same lazy class would hunt and get a few 
’coons, ’possums, or any other wild game to supply 
their needs for meat and so avoid working. It made 
it hard to get farm labor, and almost impossible to 
raise hogs, so to correct the trouble the law was 
passed making it necessary to get written permission 
to hunt on a man’s property. With this weapon the 
pot-hunter and shiftless negro and white could be 
locked up without trouble if caught on your premises 
with a gun in their possession, and they know it. 
Sifting the matter down, the law was not primarily 
framed to protect game, but to protect the land j 
owner. 
