68 
hold and drew like an ox from the first, and has 
helped with the farm work right along from that time. 
We have not depended on him as one of the team, 
but have put him in whenever he needed the exer¬ 
cise, or when we had an extra heavy load to haul, 
for he. and tire big mare certainly do move things 
when they settle down to lift. 
By working the horse, I have proven to s<$me. of the 
farmers of this section that big horses of the- right, 
conformation are better than little horses for farm 
work. For instance, they drilled in an acre of oats in 
40 minutes hitched to a nine-hole drill, and the way 
they handle a sulky plow or the corn harvester makes 
these tools seem like playthings. I cut all of my 
corn with this team, and several people riding past, 
inquired the kind of harvester I was using. They 
were surprised to see a pair of horses cutting corn 
14 feet tall, and without apparent effort. 
In spite of the bad reputation that lie got last year, 
he has been bred to 42 mares this year, and so far 
as I can fjnd out, at least 35 of them are with foal. 
The three colts from him are all good ones, two of 
them especially so, although the dams were all of 
rather the “road” type. This year he has been bred 
to some good mares, but not so many as there were 
of the other kind. Good mares of the draft type are 
scarce, and it will be some time before we get enough 
half breeds to make a good showing. 
One very peculiar thing that I have noticed this 
year is the fact that only three mares owned by the 
company have been bred to the horse, excepting my 
own. One member, when asked why this was so, 
said that he thought it was because the stockholders 
had become so thoroughly disgusted with the whole 
thing that they avoided thinking about it as much as 
possible, and have been cured of their desire to raise 
colts. This is deplorable, for it seems that we have 
knocked in the head the thing we wished to promote. 
How much better it would have been if we had 
formed our own company, and gone out and bought 
an equally good horse for half the money, and. at the 
same time, been clear of the pernicious influence of 
the horse peddlers. J. grant morse. 
New York. 
A DISCUSSION OF LIME. 
The past 20 years the farmers in Delaware have used 
very little lime. ' I am going to begin its use on my farms 
there. I find three kinds offered for agricultural purposes. 
1. The kind my father used on these same farms— 
burnt, slaked, coming by vessel in bulk, hauled onto the 
field in wagons and spread by shovel. 
2. A ground stone lime. 
3. Hydrated lime. 
I write to know which of these in your experience or 
judgment, ought to be best or cheapest for me? No. 1 
acts speedily I know, but it is a nasty job for the ten¬ 
ant and is liable to be considerably blown about If a 
windy day. My father had it put on a clover (turned 
under) sod, after spreading manure on top of sod, then 
harrowed in. Sometimes it came in lumps, stone lime 
it was called. I suppose burnt, but not slaked; hauled 
on the land and put in piles, equidistant and left for 
sun and rain to slake it. No. 2 I know nothing about 
and have wondered what it is and whether it could 
amount to anything of value. Is this No. 3 merely No. 
1 with excess of water? I have no experience with it. 
New Jersey. 
Of the three kinds of lime you mention No. 1 is evi¬ 
dently slaked lime. Limestone as it comes from the 
soil, more or less impure, contains lime and carbonic 
acid. When it is burned thoroughly in a kiln the 
carbonic acid is driven off as a gas and lumps of lime 
are left. This is variously known as “lump,” “caus¬ 
tic,” or stone lime. It freely combines with water, 
which process is called “slaking.” Water-slaked is 
when water is poured over the lump lime. Air-slaked 
means that the lime takes enough moisture out of the 
air to bring about this slaking—the effect of which 
is to crumble the lump lime into a powder. Farmers 
sometimes buy the lump lime and put it in little piles 
evenly over the field. These slake or crumble and 
are then easily spread. No. 2 is the raw limestone 
crushed or ground about as fine as granulated sugar, 
without burning. This is easier to handle than the 
slaked lime, but slower in its action. No. 3 is an¬ 
other way of handling the lump or caustic lime. In 
this case the lumps are ground fine and this powder 
is driven through tubes so as to be subject to a fine 
spray of water. This gives a thorough water 
slaking and lime is then sifted to a very fine con¬ 
dition. This hydrated lime is easier to handle 
than the slaked lime and is very effective. It is 
considerably more expensive than the others. The 
ground limestone is easy to handle, and if you can 
buy it near by and save freight it will prove eco¬ 
nomical. You should use at least twice as much of 
the ground limesone as of the slaked lime—one ton 
of the slaked or two tons of the limestone per acre. 
The limestone is economical when the freight haul is 
short, but for a long haul the price per pound of lime 
delivered at the farm is usually cheaper in the slaked 
lime. A lime drill will make the job of applying 
easier. The proper way to use lime is to spread it 
after plowing and harrow in. 
THE RURAL, NKW-YORKKK 
THE GAME LAW AND LONG ISLAND. 
I have been annoyed by deer coming on my farm, 
destroying young fruit trees, vegetables and other things. 
Can you inform me as to whether I can collect damages 
from the country? I intend destroying the deer if the 
county does not make good, even if I go to jail for it. 
They have been feeding on our property for the past Id 
years; this year they are so much worse that I cannot 
stand it any longer. SAMUEL hope. 
Long Island. 
Under our beautiful “conservation” laws the Legis¬ 
lature has never provided an “open” season for Suf¬ 
folk Co. Thus there is no season during which you 
can kill these deer without being liable to arrest. The 
only thing we can do is to try to get the Legislature 
to provide an open season—during which these deer 
may be killed. In order to do this we must have evi¬ 
dence to show that the deer have become numerous 
enough to do considerable damage. If Long Island 
farmers will provide such evidence we will try to 
induce the Legislature to act. The thing for Mr. 
Hope to do now is to submit a bill of damage with 
such proof as he can get to the State Board of Claims 
at Albany. This Board was formerly the old Court 
of Claims, and it has the authority to award dam¬ 
ages in such cases. Under “penalties” the conserva¬ 
tion laws provide the following. The exception noted 
refers to water fowl: 
376. Penalties. A person who violates or fails to per¬ 
form any duty imposed by any of the provisions of this 
part is. except as provided in section two hundred and 
eleven, guilty of a misdemeanor, and is liable to a penalty 
of sixty dollars and an additional penalty of twenty-five 
dollars'for each fish, bird, or quadruped or part of fish, 
bird or quadruped bought, sold, offered for sale, taken, 
possessed, transported or had in possession for trans¬ 
portation in violation thereof. 
If Mr. Hope should try to defend his property in 
Suffolk Co. by killing the trespassing deer he would 
be liable as above. 
NATURE’S FIRELESS COOKER. 
The “fireless cooker,” which is a practical applica¬ 
tion of insulated heat, has become enormously popu¬ 
lar. It affords fuel economy combined with economy 
of labor, and wherever gas is used it is especially 
necessary, since it gives long, slow cooking with the 
minimum of gas consumption. One of our corre¬ 
spondents told us how she provided the men ditching 
in a distant field with a hot dinner by loading the 
fircless cooker into the wagon with the rest of the 
tools, with meat, vegetables and pudding all ready for 
them when they knocked off work at noon. There 
is much comfort, too, in the use of the “fireless" 
when the stove is busy with wash boiler or preserv¬ 
ing kettle. 
However, the Maori housekeepers in the geyser 
region 150 miles southeast of Auckland, New Zealand, 
have a fireless cooker always at hand. No need for 
them to build a fire; a box or a basket or a bag, 
depending on what they are preparing, is all that is 
necessary. They sink the receptacle in the hot, 
moist mud over a steam hole, making an admirable 
oven. Besides cooking their meals, the women do 
their washing in these baby volcanoes. 
The government of New Zealand controls all the 
geyser region, with the wonderful health-producing 
springs, and maintains hotels and sanatoriums at the 
various spas. The springs are declared to possess 
the most wonderful healing qualities in the world, and 
the charges fixed for their use are moderate. 
In the photograph, Fig. 21, the three Maori women 
are waiting for their meat and potatoes to cook. 
They are hospitable people and invariably invite 
strangers to dine with them. Although they are 
warmly clad, they go barefoot, as the ground is ex¬ 
tremely warm from the subterranean heat. It will be 
observed that the woman holding the baby is smoking 
a pipe, the entire race being inveterate users of to¬ 
bacco. _ 
THE VILLAGE FACTORY. 
No other industrial movement of the past 50 years 
has perhaps worked such detriment to rural com¬ 
munities as has the concentration of practically 
all manufacturing industries in the large towns. 
The perfection of machinery has in large measure 
displaced hand work, and the modern system of sub¬ 
division of labor, giving to each workman but a small 
share in the making of a complete article, has necessi¬ 
tated the grouping under one roof of many hands. 
The need of the shipping facilities made by the con¬ 
vergence of numerous lines of railways has also drawn 
manufacturers together at central points. Altogether, 
the movement has been an irresistible one, and though 
its evils are becoming more and more apparent, it is 
difficult to suggest a remedy. Not only has the coun¬ 
try suffered through drainage of its young blood into 
the town, drawn thither by promised financial rewards 
greater than agriculture can offer, but the level of 
social welfare throughout the nation has inevitably 
been lowered. It seems to be a natural law that 
wherever men are herded together, and individuality 
is swallowed up in the mass, there comes both a moral 
January 18. 
and physical deterioration that would in time, if un¬ 
disturbed by outside influences, result in common de¬ 
struction. On the other hand, men are social beings, 
and can accomplish their best only through union of 
effort, and when too widely scattered they lose the 
power coming from association with their fellows and 
community of interests. 
A solution of many of the problems confronting 
both city and country would seem to be possible in 
sending back into the hills the industries taken from 
them. Something would be lost in convenience, and 
the cost of manufacture and transportation would be 
increased, but the gain in social welfare of the labor¬ 
ers would be beyond measure, while deserted country 
homes would again fill up and fields overgrown by 
bramble and brier would once more feel the keen 
edge of the plowshare. It would be difficult to esti¬ 
mate the value to the farmer of a market at his own 
door, instead of separated from him by a hundred 
miles or more of steel, along which are stretched out 
many hands to dip into each bag and crate, until a 
bushel at the farm becomes less than two pecks in the 
market, and a pound dwindles to six ounces. 
That such distribution of manufacturing is not im¬ 
possible is shown by the occasional location of a 
thriving industry in a country village. In the writer’s 
home village among the hills of southern New York 
a few local capitalists joined hands with a manufac¬ 
turer of gloves a few years ago, and an old building 
was converted into a shop. Through good manage¬ 
ment the business has increased until it now employs 
150 men and women and distributes weekly nearly one 
thousand dollars in wages. Another building by the 
pond was once the shop where the farmers of the 
valley brought their wool to be carded and spun; 
now, with others, it shelters 30 employees, who make 
blankets and add a combined wage of two hundred 
dollars weekly to the money in circulation. Nowhere 
do these small, but permanent, factories show then- 
worth to the community more than in the farms about 
the village. Mortgages have been lifted, buildings 
painted, silos erected and homes paid for with money 
earned here by the young people from the farms. 
Often a young man and his wife have gone together 
into the shops, and, while keeping their home, have 
earned the ready money needed to put it upon a self- 
sustaining basis, after which they gave place to others. 
Could the history of these industries be repeated in a 
considerable portion of the hamlets of our country, 
what a social revolution would take place, and how 
much would be added, not only to the lives of men 
at the forge and women at the looms, but to those 
who must feed these workers while watching their 
own sons and daughters join the ever-enlarging stream 
flowing from field to factory. m. b. dean. 
“BUILDING UP” SOIL WITHOUT MANURE. 
In reference to apple pomace, can you give the average 
value per ton of this stuff and would it be worth as 
much ton for ton as barn manure? I can get about 30 
tons free but would have to draw it three miles. 1 
have about 70 acres of run-out land. I am too far from 
the city to draw manure, which costs $1 for a one-horsi* 
load in the city. Is it possible to build up the land by 
the exclusive use of green crops turned under? Here 
is the rotation I expect to practice, five-year rotation on 
each unit of 14 acres: first year legumes turned under; 
second year corn; third year clover, feed out to stock: 
fourth year clover to turn under: fifth year, potatoes 
or other root crops. This will give me each year 14 
acres of corn. 14 acres clover and 14 acres potatoes, or 
root crops. The legumes I should pasture to hogs. The 
manures made on place will be used on three to five 
acres to be used for truck, such as lettuce, cabbage, beets, 
radish, celery, sweet corn, etc. The soil is a sandy loam 
and run-out. Will this method bring back fertility with¬ 
out an ounce of city manure? M. li. 
Rhode Island. 
From its analysis the apple pomace contains as 
much (or more) plant food as stable manure. It will 
not give equal results, however, since the pomace is 
sour, and its plant food is not very available. If used 
freely we should use lime with it, and it would be 
better to compost it and let it decay before using. 
With this extra work required we do not consider it 
worth in cash as much as manure. 
Yes, you can bring up that soil by what we have 
called the “chemicals and clover” system. This means 
using a high-grade fertilizer freely and plowing un¬ 
der the farm manure supply and all wastes of crops— 
like stubble, vines and stalks. You should keep the 
soil constantly covered with some living crop, espe¬ 
cially after truck, corn or potatoes, or any other 
where the soil would naturally be left bare through 
Fall and Winter. This soil can be built up in this 
way without buying stable manure. It will pay you 
tc use lime at least once in this rotation—probably 
when seeding to grass and clover—and we should use 
most of the fertilizers on the potato crop. The main 
object of this plan is to stuff that light soil with alt 
possible green crop growth, and start rapid decay. 
The cause of the high cost of living goes straight back 
to the soil. The tariff is not responsible, nor the trusts, 
nor the middleman. These are mere incidents. High 
cost of living is a polite phrase for famine. Famine, 
since the days before history began, has and had its origin 
in the land. 
