■» 
1913. 
U'HE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
61 
Bone and Hen Manure. 
G. K., Bartlesville, Pa .—I am keeping 
about 325 head of poultry, the droppings 
of which I am saving for fertilizing pur- 
. poses. I can get about 200 pounds of 
green bone per week, which I cut in a 
bone cutter for poultry food. This amount 
of bone is too much for my flock, and I 
would like your advice in using the re¬ 
mainder with the hen manure and chemi¬ 
cals to make a good fertilizer for corn, 
potatoes and grass. 1 spread the hen 
droppings in a thin layer in a dry place, 
and add anthracite ashes to prevent escape 
of ammonia. Could I add the cut bones 
to the above, and about how much chemi¬ 
cals would I need to make a good fertili¬ 
zer for above crops? I pay 50 cents per 
100 pounds for the bone. I can buy dry 
bone for 80 cents per 100. Would it pay 
me to put in a small mill to grind the 
bone for my own use? 
Ans. —The sifted coal ashes will dry¬ 
out the- manure and keep it fairly well. 
For the surplus cut bone land plaster 
or gypsum will be better. Scatter this 
freely over the cut bone and when it is 
thoroughly dry mix it with the dry ma¬ 
nure. To 100 pounds of manure you 
might well use 25 pounds of cut bone. 
This mixture, however, will not give a 
complete fertilizing mixture for your 
crops. You still need potash. The bone 
supplies no potash and the hen manure 
is deficient in it. Use 10 pounds mu¬ 
riate of potash to 100 pounds of dry 
manure. It will pay you to buy dry 
bones at $16 per ton, but it is doubtful 
if a small mill will handle them satis¬ 
factorily. Crushed bone would go well • 
with the hen manure, but strong power 
is required to crush the bone properly. 
pears that a total of over a billion and 
a quarter of gold was actually in the 
United States Treasury the day the 
transfer was made from one treasurer 
to another. 
By the way, it is interesting to note 
the fact that not one cent was lost in 
the count of money. Even the two- 
thirds of a cent was located and counted. 
This item of two-thirds of a cent is the 
figure on some old Tennessee bonds 
held by the Government which were 
long ago defaulted, but are still held by 
Uncle Sam, who never allows anyone, 
even a State, to forget an obligation. 
One other question asked by your cor¬ 
respondent. “What is the amount of 
gold deposited by the Government in 
banks due on demand?” The amount 
of money in banks, National deposi¬ 
taries, the day I called at the Treasury 
was a little over 34 millions. This is 
not gold necessarily, but money subject 
to check. The amount of Government 
monies in banks varies from day to day. 
Occasionally large amounts have been 
deposited to prevent panics, but that is 
another interesting subject. 
The amount of cash in the Treasury 
varies from day to day, and the amounts 
in the three funds to which reference 
has been made also vary. The Secre¬ 
tary of the Treasury issues a daily state¬ 
ment at the close of each day’s business, 
a copy of which can be secured by any¬ 
one on request. f. n. clark. 
The Skunk at Law. 
Money in the U. S. Treasury. 
D. B. C.j Mound City, Mo .—-Will you 
publish amount of gold in U. S. treasury, 
and amount they have on deposit in banks, 
that is due on demand? I see in state¬ 
ment that there was only .$2,190,000 trans¬ 
ferred from McClung to Thompson. Where 
is the gold guarantee fund? 
Ans.—A t the U. S. Treasury I was 
permitted to copy the following receipt: 
United States Treasury, Washington, D. C. 
November 22, 1912. 
Received from Lee McClung, retiring 
’Treasurer of the United States, Govern¬ 
ment Funds and Securities amounting to 
$1,590,285,908.57 2-3, for which receipts 
in triplicate have been given, as follows: 
U. S. Notes . $1,191,955.00 
Gold Certificates . 3,345,030.00 
Silver Certificates . .. 4,010,739.00 
United States Cur¬ 
rency in process of 
redemption . 039,989.00 
National Bank Notes 
in process of re¬ 
demption . 22,818,690.39 
Gold Coin . 2,195.546.00 
Standard Silver Dollars 165,727.824.00 
Subsidiary Silver Coin 905.820.01 
Minor Coin . 10,120.10 
Total Cash . $191,847,719.50 
Treasury Transfer Ac¬ 
count . $109,030,237.42 
U. S. Paper Cur¬ 
rency in reserve... 379,884,500.00 
Incomplete Gold Cer¬ 
tiorates, Series, 1900 870,000.00 
Bonds and other se¬ 
curities held in treas¬ 
ury . 
Grand Total _$1,590,285,908.57 2-3 
Signed, carmi Thompson. 
This is a very interesting receipt and 
was made in triplicate- in order that the 
new and retiring treasurer could each 
have a copy and there should be one 
for permanent record in the U. S. Treas¬ 
ury. 
It will be noted that the cash trans¬ 
ferred was $191,847,719.50. This is called 
the General Fund. The gold in this 
fund was $2,195,546, and is the figure to 
which your correspondent refers and 
perhaps wonders why our Uncle Sam 
has so little gold in his pocket when we 
are on a gold basis. Our uncle is like 
most of his nephews; he carries very 
little gold with him, although his cash 
is very much larger. In this instance 
the gold was only about two millions 
and the other cash about 190 millions. 
But he has plenty of gold in the Treas¬ 
ury. Note the item of “U. S. paper cur¬ 
rency in reserve,” $379,884,500. This 
amount of the once familiar money, 
“greenbacks” and “Treasury notes” of 
1890, is held in the Treasury in a “re¬ 
serve fund” and gold coin of $100,000,000 
and gold bullion of $50,000,000, a total 
of $150,000,000, held to “redeem” this 
paper money whenever presented to the 
Treasury for redemption. 
There is still a third fund in the 
Treasury called the Trust Fund. Gold 
and silver arc stacked up in the Treas¬ 
ury vaults, held for the redemption of 
the notes and certificates for which they 
are respectively pledged as follows: 
“Gold coin, $867,487,363; bullion, $209.- 
115,806—$1,076,603,169 for gold certifi¬ 
cates outstanding. Silver dollars, $490,- 
255,000, for silver certificates outstand¬ 
ing. Silver dollars of 1890, $2,800,000. 
for Treasury notes.” This $1,569,658,169 
is the basis of our gold and silver paper 
money in general circulation. It will 
be noted that in this fund there was 
over one billion of gold. It thus ap- 
The sublime selfishness of the farmer 
shown in his attitude toward our gahie 
laws, is certainly wonderful, and those 
laws designed to protect the innocent skunk 
seem to strike him as particularly obnox¬ 
ious. Now what is the trivial matter of a 
few chickens or the loss of a few dozen 
eggs as compared with the pleasure af¬ 
forded the fashionable woman of our day, 
by the possession of a set of genuine skunk 
furs? True, there are many other furs as 
beautiful, as warm and as durable, but from 
Paris, maybe, comes the word that the 
skunk is to be worn, and the American 
woman of fashion proceeds to purchase 
skunk furs at a very high price, although 
other kinds of furs may be had at a much 
lower figure, without a murmur. 
In contrast to her unselfish, sacrificing 
obedience to the dictates of fashion, stands 
the farmer, who objects to the State in 
which he lives, and to whose support he 
pays taxes, appropriating his farm or parts 
of his farm for breeding places for the 
noble skunk. And, too, notwithstanding the 
leniency of the law in allowing the farmer 
to kill without a license or even a civil 
service examination any skunk, regardless 
of rank, that becomes a nuisance, or may 
be caught destroying property. And he 
may kill said skunk in almost any manner 
which may strike his fancy; beat him on 
the head with a pole taken from the hen 
roost, choke him with the bare hands, 
shoot him, or saturate the tail with a so¬ 
lution of common table salt, and take him 
alive, in which case chastisement may be 
administered at the leisure of the farmer. 
And all of these great privileges the farmer 
does not seem able to appreciate. 
Why there should be any misunderstand¬ 
ing. as there apparently is, as to the mean¬ 
ing of the law, I cannot understand. Some 
points are not quite clear to me (I being a 
farmer), but to the man of intelligence it 
should be very simple. As 1 understand 
the law the skunk who shall be caught com¬ 
mitting nuisance or destroying propertv, or 
doing damage, etc., etc., may be killed at 
any time, but the animal must not be found 
in your possession out of season, nor the 
carcass nor the skin nor any part of afore¬ 
said skuuk, the same having been taken 
out of season. What would be more sim¬ 
ple when on going to your hen roost in 
the morning and finding a skunk, than to 
carefully close the door, run and get a 
neighbor to act as witness; then you and 
the neighbor lay low until the animal had 
killed a few chickens. You would now have 
proof of damage, also evidence of destruc¬ 
tion of property, then request the neighbor 
to kill the animal while you finish the 
chores. Quito likely the neighbor will re¬ 
fuse, in which case you may do the deed. 
Then you may submit the clothes you have 
on as evidence of nuisance on the part of 
the skunk. You may now bury the re¬ 
mains, but remember this, for this is tDe 
most important point, you must not be 
caught with the skunk in your possession. 
Mark the burial place carefully, for if the 
season opens in a reasonable time, I see 
no reason why you should not dig him up 
and remove the pelt. It is not evidence 
of good citizenship to hold our laws up to 
ridicule, but so long as we have men in 
our legislature who are too thick-headed to 
see a joke, we must expect that it will be 
done. a. J. hill. 
Schoharie Co., N. Y. 
More About Poison Ivy. 
The section of New Jersey in which my 
farm is located must have been the orig¬ 
inal home of poison ivy, if one judged by 
the way it flourishes there. When I first 
bought this farm three years ago, nearly 
every fence post on the farm was so over¬ 
grown with poison ivy that the vines ac¬ 
tually held up the old rails, hut with three 
years’ work, there is not a poison ivy vine 
above ground. Some of the workmen were 
very badly poisoned in cleaning out the 
fences and I myself got one bad case of 
poison. This was the time when I learned 
of the best remedy I have ever come across 
and it was given me by the local doctor, 
lie sent me to the country store and had 
me buy some spirits of niter, which I car¬ 
ried about with me in a bottle, and when 
the itching commenced, I would applv the 
niter. This quickly allayed the itching. 
This overcame the desire for scratching and 
soon the poison passed away. The remedy 
is so simple and so easy to apply that 1 
would like all the readers of your paper 
to know about it. t. m. c. 
is the best 
you, because 
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The unequalled convenience of the Mitchell 
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All Mitchell 1913 cars have left drive and center control; 
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144 in. 
132 in. 
120 in. 
$2,500 
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Racine, Wisconsin 
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New York City, N. Y. 
