1913. 
THE RURAE NEW-YORKER 
641 
Give the Animals Room. 
The Hope Farm Man’s plan about 
keeping hogs in the orchard is all right, 
as I can speak from experience, having 
kept pigs in the orchard in a similar 
way for the past three years, but I find 
that it is best to ring older hogs before 
putting them next to the trees, as they 
will root much deeper and injure many 
roots which the younger pigs would not 
reach. Such plans as these seem to me 
to be steps in the right direction, get¬ 
ting the excrements of farm animals out 
on the soil where it will do some good. 
I see so much fertility about chicken 
coops and hogpens going to waste, only 
producing filth'and disease, that I some¬ 
times wish all the farm buildings could 
be moved occasionally to newer and 
more sanitary ground, and the old sites 
left to produce grass. m. a. w. 
Pennsylvania. 
Clam Shells for Lime. 
I have a place in Maine. The soil re¬ 
quires lime, and I am so situated that for 
the hauling I may have all the clam and 
mussel shells that I want. Would these 
disintegrate if applied to the land within a 
reasonable length of time, and so take the 
place of prepared lime? J. s. h. 
No, the entire shells would be too slow 
in giving up their lime. If they could 
be crushed in a lime mill or burned thor¬ 
oughly they would answer. 
Coal Ashes in Hen Manure. 
Our western Kentucky soft coal con¬ 
tains sulphur, iron and slate, and clinkers 
In stoves and furnaces. Would the sifted 
ashes be good to use on dropping boards 
to preserve hen manure for Spring use? 
Would such ashes, leached or unleached, 
be injurious or beneficial to stiff clay soil, 
or the plants, young fruit trees, small 
fruits, strawberries, grapes, etc.? k. 
Kentucky. 
Such coal ashes make a good material 
to sift over the hen manure or for a 
“dust bath” in the henhouse. Put enough 
ashes on to keep the manure dry. The coal 
ashes alone have little or no fertilizing 
value. They will do no harm, and may 
if well sifted lighten up the stiff soil. 
Bones Around Fruit Trees. 
I have a lot of bones from this Winter’s 
butchering. Most of them the meat has 
been cooked off. Would there be any 
harm in placing them in the holes made 
to plant young apple and peach trees this 
spring? j. f. p. 
Otisville, Pa. 
No—and very little good either. These 
bones will remain in the soil for years, 
very slowly used by the trees if at all. 
If you could pack these bones in layers 
of wood ashes and keep the mass wet for 
about three months they would be softened 
so that they could be smashed with an 
ax or heavy spade. Then they would be 
far more available as plant food. 
Preparing for Strawberries. 
Would you advise me to plant straw¬ 
berries on a piece of land that grew a fine 
crop of rutabagas last Fall? The soil is a 
rich loam that was well manured and not 
a weed was allowed to go to seed. If so, 
just how would you fertilize it this Spring 
before setting the plants. b. g. 
Massachusetts. 
Yes, this should make a fair place for 
strawberries. We should use two-thirds of 
the fertilizer intended for the crop at the 
time of setting the plants. Put it on a 
strip about two feet wide along the rows 
where the plants are to stand. Work it 
thoroughly in with a cultivator before set¬ 
ting. Use the other third of the fertilizer 
in late August worked in along the rows. 
Summer Cover Crop. 
I have five acres of light soil planted 
to corn in 1912. After corn was taken off 
rye was sown. I used 1500 pounds fish 
and potash per acre for corn and rye. I 
wish to use a cover crop and plow \mder 
in October, 1913. Seed must be sown soon. 
What shall I use and how much per acre? 
I expect to cut rye for fodder in June; 
as stated before I wish to plow under in 
October, 1913, for corn in 1914. f. e. a. 
Connecticut. 
We should cut the rye for fodder in early 
June, then plow or disk and sow six pecks 
of buckwheat and 12 pounds of Crimson 
clover per acre. This can be plowed under 
in the Fall for rye seedling once more. 
There are several other crops possible, but 
buckwheat and clover will give a large 
growth to put under. 
Crops for Plowing Under. 
In your answer on page 3S9 “Crops to 
Plow Under,” how much lime (ground 
raw lime) could you use? Could you you 
use barn manure before sowing oats 
and peas, or before seeding Timothy and 
clover? Would you cut oats and peas, 
before plowing same under, or plow them 
under as they stand? How much oats and 
Canada field peas per acre for seeding 
would you advise? m. j. w. 
Rochester, N. Y. 
We should use at least 3,000 pounds per 
acre of the ground limestone, or half as 
much slaked lime. Our plan would be to 
plow under the manure early—before sow¬ 
ing the oats and peas. With a chain 
ahead of the plow it is usually possible 
to plow the oats and peas as they stand. 
If labor is not pressing it would pay to 
cut the oats and peas and chop them up 
with a disk or cutaway before plowing 
under. We use five pecks of peas and 2 % 
bushels of oats per acre. 
Metal Shingles. 
Is it a practical thing to use steel or 
iron shingles over old wooden shingles? 
Can the water from such roofs be used in 
cisterns? I intend to shingle this Sum¬ 
mer and would like a little advise on metal 
shingles as to durability, storm resistance, 
etc. E. H. H. 
New York. 
Metal shingles may be used over old 
wooden shingles, although there may be 
some little difficulty in putting them on. 
Usually they are either galvanized or cop¬ 
per coated, so as to prevent rusting, and 
then the water from such roof is perfectly 
good for cisterns. Use the same care as 
you would with wooden shingles. That is, 
let the first washings from the roof run 
to waste until the water comes clear and 
then send that into the cistern. If the 
metal shingles are kept from rusting they 
will last a long time. After the coating 
wears off they will have to be painted 
frequently. For a perfect wearing roof 
there is nothing that can beat copper, which 
does not rust. R. p. c. 
Want to Know. 
Will some of the readers give their uses 
of cameras on the farm, and also what 
kind to get for about $5? Can a boy ex 
pect a reasonable amount of success -with 
a $5 camera ? What size is best, not larger 
than 4x5? e. g. s. 
East Greenville, Pa. 
R. N.-Y.—That is a good question to 
draw out experience. 
SUNDRY ITEMS. 
How I Read The R. N.-Y.—Right 
straight through from first page to last, 
and aim to finish by the time the new one 
comes, which is usually on 'Friday. 
Seasons in the Ozarks.— They are vari¬ 
able enough to be interesting, but on the 
whole are mild and pleasant. Winter tem¬ 
perature seldom below zero, the hottest in 
Summer about 95°, with' an average for 
the year of about 68°. 
Meat Sca«cit-y.— Many a contributor to 
farm papers views the meat problem 
with alarm. Since a large majority of 
earth’s people live practically on grains 
and vegetables, the minority need not starve 
if all the meat animals in the world were 
eliminated. True, we like ham, fat chicken, 
and beefsteak now and then, while the city 
laborer thinks he must have plenty of good 
meat, but we find the facts are that the 
ricee-ating nations are our superiors in 
strength and endurance, while vegetarians 
have generally excelled meat eaters in tests 
of strength. 
“Idaho Potatoes.”— On page 220 we 
spoke of an Idaho potato bought in Chi¬ 
cago. The R. N.-Y. seems to go every¬ 
where. A reader in Idaho saw the item 
and sent it to the coeur d’Alene Journal. 
This is the way they account for this “bad 
one” : 
“Mr. Nick Rodius, one of the enterprising 
and successful farmers of the Meadow 
Brook district has handed the Journal a 
clipping taken from The Rural New 
Yorker, one of the oldest and most promi¬ 
nent agricultural journals in the country. 
The editor of the New-Yorker evidently 
got hold of a bad one by mistake, and not 
a northern Idaho potato at that, or. per¬ 
haps, some of those eastern fellows are 
using Idaho’s reputation to palm off then- 
inferior articles on an unsuspecting public. 
Chicago people are up to all the tricks of 
the trade, as we happen to know. 
Poisoning Moles.— For the benefit of 
those that are pestered with ground moles 
in their gardens, will give a sure cure. 
Cut fresh beef into small cubes and roll 
in powdered arsenate of lead. I have tried 
it and they never come back; not the same 
ones at least. e. h. s. 
Blackened Vinegar. —On page 385 I 
find an inquiry is made about black or dis¬ 
colored vinegar. I had the same experi¬ 
ence myself some years ago, and I found 
by putting milk in it it became clear. Let 
the inquirer take a quart fruit jar and fill 
with the black vinegar and add a table¬ 
spoonful of sweet milk and stir it and let 
stand over night and see the change. 
Pennsylvania. j. j. d. 
Power from Water.— Regarding Mr. W. 
T. Cox’s note on page 284, it should be 
sufficient to know that water is not an 
explosive, in the sense that we usually 
regard this word, and only becomes so by 
the application of heat from some exterior 
source, and to do this efficiently has been 
the aim of inventors ever since steam was 
used. w. j. m. 
Ohio. 
First Principles of Feeding Farm 
Animals : by Chas. W. Burkett: 336 pages; 
136 illustrations; published by The Orange 
Judd Co. Prof. Burkett has had extensive 
experience in this matter as a teacher of 
animal nutrition and a practical feeder of 
live stock. The book will be interesting to 
the general farmer as well as the special¬ 
ist in stock feeding. For sale by The 
Rural New-Yorker; price $1.50 net. 
The Y’oung Farmer : Some Things He 
Should Know; by Thomas F. Hunt; 280 
pages; published by The Orange Judd Co. 
In this book Prof. Hunt has discussed 
some of the subjects most interesting to 
beginners in farming. The following chap¬ 
ter titles give an idea of the scope of the 
book : Means of Acquiring Land ; Where to 
Locate ; Size of Farm ; Equipment; Rota¬ 
tion of Crops; Intensive Farming; Animal 
Husbandry; Marketing. For sale by The 
Rural New-Yorker ; price $1.50 net. 
THE TIME FOR CORN PLANTING IS AT HAND 
USE HIAPE S COR N MANURE 
You will remember that in the great Corn Contest of The American Agriculturist, open to the entire 
country, the largest crop grown by fertilizers alone, 213 bushels shelled Corn, was grown with Mapes Corn 
Manure, 800 pounds to the acre. 
FIFTY YEARS’ UNPARALLELED RECORD, BOTH IN THE FIELD AND WITH THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS 
THE MAPES MANURES 
ABSOLUTELY CHOICEST OF MATERIALS. SEASONING. AND BEST METHODS OF MANUFACTURE 
AVAILABILITY WITHOUT ACIDITY NO ROCK OR ACID PHOSPHATES USED 
IN THE FIELD 
The record of The Mapes Manures in the field is too well known among onr thousands of customers and friends, and with us we are glad to say the terms are practically 
interchangeable, as most of our good old customers have become our friends to require more than a reference to it. 
WITH THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS 
We are equally proud of our Record with the Stations. There may at times have been an occasional chance analysis which was not quite what we would have liked to 
have seen, and not as we believe fairly representative of our goods, but with the grand average we have no fault to find. 
This is in spite of the fact that Station methods and valuations from the very nature of the case must be broadly general to apply to the general average of the class of 
goods examined, and can therefore never be expected to do entire justice to the user of particularly choice materials and unusual methods of manufacture. 
From the Annual Report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, FERTILIZERS, 1912: 
,, . , • -WES FORMULA AND PERUVIAN GUANO CO.’S fifteen brands all fully meet their guarantees, with the exception of No. 553, in which a deficiency of 0.37 per cent of 
I otash is fully offset by an overruu of 0.7 per cent. Nitrogen.” 
So strong a statement is not and could not be made of any firm which had an equal or greater number of brands. 
From Annual Bulletin No. 143, December, 1912, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station. Inspection of Commercial Fertilizers: 
(It publishes a table giving summary of results of analysis of complete fertilizers as compared with manufacturers’ guarantees). 
“ MAPES FORMULA AND PERUVIAN GUANO CO. Number of brands analyzed, 18; number equal to guarantee in commercial value, 18.” 
That is, every one of The Mapes Brands are found to be equal to their [guarantee in commercial value, and of no other company having an equal or a greater number of 
orancis can this be said. 
, . , It publishes another table bearing on the Nitrogen in the different brands analyzed. The Mapes F. & P. G. Co. show 90.264 as their percentage Activity of Total Nitrogen, 
v men is the essential point. No other concern having an equal number or greater number of brands analyzed has anything like so’high a percentage Activity of Total Nitrogen. 
offered foi^sal neCeSSaiy t0 saj ’ tliat The Mapes Manures have always been, and will always continue to be, while under the same management, far above the average of fertilizers 
. P' speaking of this management, it is certainly interesting that not only have the Mapeses continued successively in the business for three generations, grandfather, father 
s ? n ' “fit the Lanes, who have been associated with the Mapeses from the start, follow the same identical record in the business, grandfather, father and son, successively, and 
Monf, can our friends and customers have a better guarantee than this family management that everything has been done and w.ill continue to be done to make the Mapes 
iiaiiures as good as the present knowledge of fertilizer science permits for the crops for which they are intended. 
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THE MAPES FORMULA & PERUVIAN GUANO COMPANY, 143 Liberty St., New York 
