1242 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
December 14, 
fined not more than one hundred dollars and costs. 
If the disinfection is not done the inspector must 
do it, and the expense charged against the owner, in 
effect, a bill for services rendered. If this is not paid 
within 30 days the bill is turned over to the county 
authorities to collect. This collection is made by 
adding the sum to the amount of taxes against the 
property and if not paid can be collected as any other 
unpaid taxes. 
The inspector has the right to destroy any trans¬ 
portable materials such as fruits, packages, etc., if 
the owner has failed to disinfect within a specified 
time. If the owner objects to any of these proceed¬ 
ings he has the right to appeal to the commissioner 
who must decide the case impartially, and his decision 
is final. The law gives the inspector free access to 
any and all plaq.es in his district where pests are pres¬ 
ent. This provision enables him to disregard such 
signs as “Private Property—Keep Out” or “No Tres¬ 
passing,” and, of course, this is necessary if the law 
is to be of any value. 
Now as to the working of the law. In the three 
years of my residence in Washington I have heard 
of only one instance where a shipment of fruit, and 
that a small one, has been destroyed because of dis¬ 
ease. The inspectors, while they have the power to 
destroy shipments, or spray orchards and charge the 
expense to the owner in taxes, rarely will go to that 
extreme. In the case of nearly worthless fruit going 
into the market, it usually sells at a very low figure 
which can readily be used by the inspector as an 
argument to clean up. In the case of the infested 
orchard, the inspector usually will notify the owner 
of the presence of the trouble, tell him how to get 
rid of the disease or insect, and often will help in, 
or do the major part of the necessary pruning and 
spraying work. This is not usually charged up to 
the owner, but is used as an example of what ought 
to be done and what can be done. The results are 
usually convincing to the owner, and his orchard 
immediately becomes a good example to show to the 
rest of the neighborhood what up-to-date methods 
will do. This part of the inspector’s work is provided 
for in the clause which states that he must “foster 
and promote the fruit interests.” 
I have talked with a number of the inspectors, and 
they practically agree that in an aggravated case they 
would not hesitate to go to the limit of their powers, 
but that as a general working plan more can be done 
along the line of opening the eyes of the fruit growers 
to the need and value of better practices by the 
methods cited above. They agree that more can be 
done in this friendly way than possibly could be 
done by enforcing the law to the letter and making 
a whole community more or less antagonistic to 
them personally. 
So this particular law, although it provides for 
drastic measures, also provides for the educational 
work, and in my estimation the latter part is by far 
the more important outside of nursery inspection. 
In some well developed fruit districts, as in the 
Yakima Valley, the inspector does not greatly need 
to search throughout the district to find and eradicate 
pests, for the growers are ahead of him, as they know 
it means the difference between good returns or a 
possible loss. So the inspector there, and his deputies, 
use all their time in the nursery inspection which is 
“another story.” In other districts those who are 
trying to do things in the right way often will come 
to the inspector for advice or will take specimens to 
him to find out if it may be harmful and, if so, how 
to combat the pest. So a spirit of cooperation is 
established between growers and the inspector if he 
approaches them in the friendly way. It is another 
case of the difference between sugar and vinegar. 
The inspectors have done and are doing a great deal 
of good and a similar law, without any question, 
would be valuable in any fruit growing region. 
Washington. w. g. brierley. 
THE JEFFERSON COUNTY FARM BUREAU. 
Part II. 
As suggested in the first article the possibilities 
in connection with Timothy hay improvement work 
in the country are very great. The Timothy im¬ 
provement work is aside from the regular market 
hay growing work which has for its basis the use 
of fertilizers and heavier seedings. The Farm Bureau 
is performing an important function in the matter of 
securing laborers for farmers and jobs on farms for 
men who desire work. This office is performed free 
of charge to either party. The work will be broadened 
another year. 
SOME FEATURES OF WINTER WORK.— 
Realizing that the Winter is a good time to prepare 
for the Summer’s work the Bureau is planning and 
has under way several features that are attracting at¬ 
tention and promise to become of great importance to 
this kind of work, as they are intended to stimulate 
interest as well as be instructive and entertaining. 
The county expert is frequently called to speak and 
give demonstrations before the Granges, of which 
there are 33 in the country. Twelve of these Granges 
have been visited and in many instances these Granges 
will undertake to carry on some particular line of 
work as a Grange feature. In cooperation with the 
extension department of the State college the Bureau 
expects to arrange for a Winter extension school to 
be held at some place in the county. At this school 
the farmers may attend the lectures and demonstra¬ 
tions, daily returning to their homes on the evening 
trains. The value and nature of the extension schools 
are too well known to require explanation here. In 
cooperation with the farmers’ institutes the Bureau 
is arranging with the director for permission to in¬ 
augurate some demonstrations and object lessons ; n 
connection with the institute meetings in the county 
in order that the institutes may be made as practical 
as possible. The Bureau also expects to put into 
operation the “follow -up” system in connection with 
these institutes whereby those farmers who express an 
interest in any principle presented by the lecturers 
will be recorded and pledged to undertake to prac¬ 
tice some of these principles on their farms the fol¬ 
lowing season. In this work the county expert will 
follow up the farmer and help him to put into prac¬ 
tice on his farm some of the principles he learns at 
the institutes. 
Jefferson County has over 6,000 dairy cows, of 
which not over 600 are being tested. Practically 
TIIE AMERICAN HOOKWORM AND EGG, 
Muck enlarged. At M and F the male and female worms are 
shown natural size. Fig. 51ti. 
nothing is being done to improve these cows. In 
cooperation with the State Department of Agricul¬ 
ture more cow testing associations will be attempted. 
The possibilities in connection with this line of work 
alone are immense. Among many other lines that the 
Bureau is undertaking and expects to take an active 
part in we have field demonstrations with improved 
cultural practices; working with the county fair as¬ 
sociations to institute educational features in connec¬ 
tion with the fairs; assisting in promoting agricultural 
courses in the country schools; forming farm boys’ 
agricultural clubs; encouraging cooperative buying 
and selling exchanges among the farmers; and in 
every way possible helping to promote the agricultural 
welfare in the country. The above brief outline of 
some of the activities and lines of work carried on 
by the Jefferson County Farm Bureau are aside from 
the more important work—namely, that of giving the 
farmers direct and timely advice and assistance on 
numerous agricultural matters on.their farms.' 
There is a vast amount of necessary and valuable 
work that county agricultural experts may and should 
do. It cannot be all accomplished at once but it is 
time the work was started. In an average county of 
from three to five thousand farmers it is going to be 
practically impossible for one man to spread himself 
over the territory and do individual work. There 
must be object lessons inaugurated that may be seen 
and comprehended by hundreds of farmers. The 
farmers must be met in groups, for until each dis 
trict man has a much smaller territory he cannot hope 
to make personal visits of value to more than fifteen 
hundred farmers in any one year. f. e. robertson. 
FOREST AND FIELD. 
SIDEHILL LAND.—To prevent severe washing and 
deep gullies in the roads through his hillside forest 
after hauling out his larger timber, James Berlin 
placed logs obliquely across them, with earth em¬ 
bankments on the upper side, to turn the rivulets 
aside, that the water might spread and sink into the 
thick layer of leaves and leaf-mold soil of the ad¬ 
jacent forest of the highland. This is a reserve for 
a time of drought, after the floods of Spring and 
early Summer, to trickle slowly down and irrigate 
his fields of the lower slope. 
THE SOIL ANCHOR.—While many large stumps 
remained in his fields there was no danger there 
might be serious movements of soil, in masses, to 
lower altitudes in times of excessive saturation, or 
when frosts remained below plowing depth, after the 
surface was thawed and water-soaked by melting 
snow and ice in his wood lot above. But after 20 
years of cultivation most of the stumps were gone 
from natural decay, or they had been shattered with 
dynamite and removed. Few shade trees had been 
permitted to grow in the fields, where their roots 
might anchor the friable soil of the surface to the 
firmer stratum beneath, and several slides of the 
surface from the steeper places taught Mr. Berlin to 
plant some fruit and nut trees at intervals to guard 
against repetition of such disasters. The rows of 
hickory, chestnut, butternut and apple trees that he 
set out for that purpose are also a source of profit. 
The trees are so far apart that agriculture is inter¬ 
fered with but little, and yield fruit abundantly in 
the rich, moist soil of the hillside. It is thoroughly 
irrigated and fertilized by the seepage from the soil 
reservoir that is protected and renewed from year to 
year by the 20-acre wood lot on the hill above the 
fields. From a distance these trees appear like sen¬ 
tinels guarding the growing crops and marking time 
by their shadows. 
PREVENTS WASHING.—The cleared land is 80 
rods long and extends up the slope 60 rods from the 
stream to the forest that adorns the hill top and 
rough, steep slope below it, 40 rods wide. This 
cleared land is divided into strips of grass, eight or, 
10 rods wide, that alternate with plowed strips for 
the crops to complete the rotation of potatoes, grain 
and hay in his system of agriculture. These strips 
of grass bind the soil to the firm earth below the 
plowing depth, and are of great utility in avoiding 
gullies from the collected drainage over wide plowed 
spaces. The little streams that flow over the plowed 
land are checked and distributed by the grass strip 
below it, and usually sink beneath the sod at its 
upper edge. The water slowly moves downward, 
beneath its protecting roof that bars evaporation, to 
stimulate growth of crops long after rain that mois¬ 
tens the surface has been used by plants or evapo¬ 
rated in the more direct rays of the sun on the 
surface. Damaging floods in fields or streams are 
merely water that escapes before it has been used 
or retained for use after the wet period is ended. The 
forest is nature’s conservator of such water. 
THE SUGAR BUSH.—A natural grove of maples, 
containing about 100 large trees and many of 
smaller size, is reserved by Mr. Berlin from the 
woodman’s ax for the sap season in early Spring. 
A dozen days in March or early April will be well 
directed .to tap the trees, gather and evaporate the 
sap for a hundred gallons of syrup and many cakes 
of sugar, that add substantial benefits and profits to 
his wood lot. When the sugar making, wood cutting 
and all other forest work is ended and the flooding 
from melting snow and ice is over each Spring, Mr. 
Berlin seeds all broken places and roads that are 
bare with a mixture of Timothy, Orchard grass and 
White clover seed to protect his forest further from 
the effects of floodings from heavy rains in Summer, 
and to furnish pasture for his cattle during the hot 
months, when they are permitted to range the tree- 
covered area, where the dense shade protects from 
the blazing sun, and is so gratefully sought by them. 
J. C. FRENCH. 
Having been a subscriber to your valuable paper for 
several years, and noticing how you perform miraculous 
stunts in the way of bringing things to pass. I am goinv 
to ask a favor of you. 
That is the way a West Virginia reader began his 
letter. As it happened his request was easy. We 
do not like this reputation for performing “miracur 
lous stunts,” for we know perfectly well that The 
R. N.-Y. can do nothing of the sort. All we can do is 
what our readers give us the power to do. We merely 
help direct that power. A fake or rogue would pay 
no attention to us personally—no more than he would 
to several millions of other men. When, however, 
this same fake or rogue gets it into his head that we 
are the point of a battering ram in the hands of 
150,000 farmers he puts on his spectacles and is all 
attention at once. We take pride and pleasure in 
playing the part of ram-point. There is no miracle 
about it, and the power and credit belongs to our 
readers. * 
Do you think it possible for a city-bred man, 43 years 
of age, with no knowledge of land and its requirements, 
to go to the country witli $2,000 and a 40-acre farm, 
free from debt, and get a living for a family of four? 
I have aspirations for chickens, pigs, one cow and a 
horse, witli garden for home use, and have had no experi¬ 
ence in caring for either. I suppose that is why I 
hesitate. There is nothing more sickening to me than a 
timid man, and yet I fear it is this timidity that makes 
me hesitate to risk all to gain all. This $2,000 looms 
large to me and I hesitate to venture it all, then fail, 
then come back. -The frost has gathered about my ears’ 
and this next move must be the final one. There is no 
future if this fails. , M - F - 
That is a fair sample of many letters from “back- 
to-the-landers.” Now would you like to take the re¬ 
sponsibility of advising such a man? Would you 
play the part of angel or of the other character if 
this problem were put squarely up to you? We know 
what it means for a stranger to help decide the future 
of a man’s home, and we would not offer definite ad¬ 
vice without knowing all about the man and the farm. 
