626 
T FT IS RURAL NEW-YORKER 
who formerly kept beef animals, gave them up for 
milk producers. Further, as the cost of living in¬ 
creased, in the corn belt the farmers felt that they 
could make more money on their high-priced lands 
by discontinuing feeding stock, and selling grain, and 
acted accordingly. Thus the stock of beef cattle 
naturally diminished. 
The profit to be made on a thing or substance, de¬ 
pends on a variety of conditions. So far as farming 
is concerned, the cost of labor and the value of the 
land are two very vital factors. It has been thought 
by many men within 500 miles of Chicago, that they 
could not profitably feed fat cattle on land worth 
$100 to $ 200 , .with prices on finished steers as low as 
they were much of the time. Now, of course, the 
price of beef is very good, and there is more of 
promise of profit under existing conditions. 1 have, 
however, felt that on certain cheap lands in the East, 
including Ohio in this territory, that beef production 
should be possible with a fair margin of profit to 
follow. Two things seem to me very essential, how¬ 
ever, in this connection. Assuming the land to be 
cheap, say $50 per acre or less, then it must be fairly 
well suited for corn production, or should produce 
grass easily and abundantly. 
It has been repeatedly demonstrated, now for some 
years, that silage can be fed with a greater degree of 
profit than almost any other food that can be pro¬ 
duced on the farm. For many years its merit for 
dairy cattle has been acknowledged, but now in recent 
years, extensive experiments by some of our stations 
have shown that it is most valuable in economical 
beef production. The pound of dry matter secured 
from corn silage costs less than that produced in 
any other way. If, therefore, a heavy yield of corn 
is secured, and converted into silage, it will materially 
assist in reducing the cost of beef production. 
On the cheap lands of the East, where grass is 
easily grown, the opportunities to produce beef at 
low cost seems to me attractive. The writer knows 
of hill farms in Ohio* and Pennsylvania, where Ken¬ 
tucky Blue grass is the main source of food for the 
farm stock. These lands range in value, from say 
$30 to $65 per acre. Blue grass grows luxuriantly. 
The custom here is to feed cattle on this grass both 
Summer and Winter. Pastures for Winter use are 
not grazed in Summer, but are held over for Winter 
feeding only. In some cases the stockman feeds a 
limited amount of grain in Winter, but in other cases 
none at all. Many cattle fattened on grass have found 
their way into the Eastern markets, and have returned 
a good profit. This type of beef production calls for 
a minimum of labor and concentrated feed. On the 
Atlantic coast, if in the snow section in Winter, then, 
of course, such a .method is impossible. The feeding 
of cattle and sheep on Winter pasture, is, however, 
piacticed in other sections of the United States, and 
is the common method in the Cheviot hills of Scot¬ 
land and some other sections of Great Britain. There 
is a vast amount of cheap land in the South, also, 
where feed can be produced most abundantly and 
cheaply. 
Ordinarily, however, it seems impossible for the 
Eastern farmers to produce beef for profit, if he is 
to shelter his cattle in Winter, and is to purchase 
most of his feed. Yet I have wondered that more 
men did not feed beef cattle or mutton sheep on 
some of the .farms of New York, West Virginia, 
Pennsylvania and Ohio, when the conditions were at 
hand for a reasonably abundant yield of crops. Per¬ 
haps the exodus from the farm explains this more 
than anything else. It actually is pathetic to go 
through some sections of the eastern agricultural dis¬ 
tricts, and see the lack of men and the absence of 
agricultural vitality. Last December I spent one day 
driving about through a region in the East that in 
its day had been a noted live stock section. The land 
is there, and I saw ample evidence of its productivity. 
There were well-made farmhouses and barns in every 
direction. Some of these were vacant. What that 
section needs is metf—thinking men—and that to-day 
is more often the fatal lack than anything else. One 
thing is certain, we have plenty of land east of the 
Mississippi that will furnish a good living and a profit 
to the men who will occupy and work them. Not 
only that, but an army of land owners stand ready 
to-day to help the man who is willing to help him¬ 
self. The difficulty is in finding the men who want 
the chance. c. s. plumb. 
It seems that Alfalfa is sometimes used as a cover crop 
—seeded in late Summer and plowed under the following 
Spring. Rye and Crimson clover will serve us better. 
According to recent investigations by the Department 
of Agriculture, in 1911 this country put into cold storage 
fresh beef, mutton, pork, butter and eggs to a total value 
of $138,000,000. In this total the eggs stored amounted 
to $04,000,000. 
A CEMENT-BLOCK SILO. 
The accompanying picture, Fig. 205, represents a 
silo recently erected on a dairy farm in Cortland 
County, New York. The size of the silo is 20x42j4 
feet. It is made by the accumulation of 3,000 cement 
blocks, the cost of laying being five cents a block. 
In the construction of the blocks, the material cost 
five cents and the labor of making was another five. 
The owner of the farm, Mr. Hathway, said that under 
favorable conditions some of this expense can be 
saved, as, for instance, the cost of material if at 
hand without much hauling would be less than the 
cost to him. He has figured all expenses, even those 
of his own labor and his teams at their value, and 
nothing has been thrown in. The roof of this silo is 
expensive, and cost him fully $250. The ventilator 
cost $45. There is nothing cheap about the silo. 
He thinks that a farmer who wishes to economize in 
cost might be better satisfied by building a silo of 
cement by the use of forms and solid walls without 
the use of blocks. Particularly is this so where a 
builder can be found who has the forms and the 
experience, and can guarantee the expense before¬ 
hand. This silo is of attractive appearance, is dur¬ 
able and desirable, and Mr. Hathway does not regret 
its erection. Were he to build another he would do 
about as he did this time, only he thinks that he 
A SILO OF CEMENT BLOCKS. Fig. 205. 
would build a little higher yet. The 20 feet diameter 
is the right size for a herd of 60 cows. If one has 
a smaller dairy he should have a silo of less diameter. 
The capacity of the silo is 300 tons. It was filled 
much above the top, and it settled to six feet below 
the top. It was filled again and finally it was filled 
sufficiently to stay filled. By a close examination of 
the picture it will lie seen that there is a little stain 
near the bottom. It is not thought that such will be 
the case in most years, as the corn was a little im¬ 
mature this season. More than that, it is affirmed 
that a coating of waterglass will prevent such dif¬ 
ficulty, but it has not been tried out on this silo yet. 
Some say that a cement lining painted on will prevent 
leakage, but Mr. Hathway doubts this. H. L. L. 
SOIL UNDERLAID WITH HARDPAN. 
On page 378 there appeared an able article by F. 
S. Allen, of Ohio, on “Selecting a Farm.” The advice, 
as a whole, is of a practical nature. On one point, 
Mr. Allen’s experience and that of the writer seem 
to have been different, however; and that is in regard 
to “hardpan” soils. Since drainage has been proven 
to be both a practical and profitable investment in 
this section of Western New York, lands that had 
previously been too wet for successful agricultural 
purposes because of a dense clay hardpan subsoil are 
the soils that are sought after by the careful investor; 
and since this fact has been demonstrated, the farms 
that formerly were held at a low value are being 
purchased at a greatly advanced figure, the subsoil 
being impervious and thereby preventing leaching, and, 
by its ability to retain the water an exceptional length 
of time, preventing exhaustive cropping. 
Preceding generations had neglected to employ those 
agencies for rendering such lands profitable for 
cultivation, and a little sour pasturage was about all 
they returned. That state of things has allowed the 
present generation to “reap where others strewed” 
and the results in crop returns on such lands have 
May 3, 
been very marked. The writer could show Mr. Allen 
hundreds of acres of the class of land referred to 
that have been reclaimed by drainage, the expense 
of which has been returned many times over, and, 
in many instances, by the first crop, even where the 
expense of drainage was $38 per acre. As the work 
is being done now, just as effectually, at from $20 
to $25 an acre, such lands are far preferable to soils 
that do not need drainage, because such soils have 
been easier to crop, and have yielded each year from 
their store of humus, and consequently contain far 
less than do these wet soils where it has been an¬ 
nually accumulating for centuries perhaps only await¬ 
ing the application by man of the key of underdrain¬ 
age to yield up its treasures. Wet lands underlaid 
with hardpan are not at present begging purchasers, 
in this locality at least, and the only acres of this 
kind that the “back-to-the-lander” could obtain cheap 
would be in some place where the outlet for drainage 
was poor. Formerly the farm that contained much 
wet land was undesirable. At present it is at a 
premium. , henry e. cox. 
FERTILITY OF TENANT FARMS. 
Throughout Northern Europe the question of main¬ 
taining the fertility of the land has become a great 
problem. In Holland and Belgium a considerable part of 
the farm land is occupied by tenants, most of whom 
pay a cash rent. In this country the ordinary tenant 
system is death to the land. One might just as well 
expect his farm to commit suicide as to turn it over 
to the average tenant on the ordinary lease. A tenant, 
in order to make his living, must get all he can out of 
the soil. There is no inducement for him to leave 
the land better or more productive than when he 
took it. Should this same system prevail in Northern 
Europe, the land would soon become a desert. Thus 
landlords pay particular attention to the lease, and 
strive in every way to prevent what they call misuse 
of the land. Certain definite agreements are put into 
such a lease. As a rule the tenant is prohibited from 
selling straw, hay and manure. He is obliged to keep 
a certain number of cattle, a certain number of 
horses, and he is limited to the production of certain 
crops. Most tenants are forbidden to cut hay twice 
a year, except in the case of Alfalfa, and a system of 
manuring and the use of fertilizers is definitely stated. 
As a general rule the tenant is not permitted to break 
pasture land without permission, or change the crop 
rotation of the farm. There are also clauses which 
prohibit the tenant from pasturing hogs unless they 
have rings in their noses, while in other cases the 
tenant is obliged to keep a certain number of hogs at 
work upon the manure. Particular pains are taken 
to protect the farm in the last year of the tenant’s 
lease, for then it might be possible under such a 
system as we have in this country to whip a large 
proportion of the fertility out of the land. For ex¬ 
ample, some of the people who rent land for gardening 
purposes know that by using nitrate of soda freely 
during the last year they can get a tremendous crop 
out of the soil and leave it much poorer as the result. 
I 11 such cases the nitrate acts as a stimulant or whip, 
pushes the crop along so that it takes large quantities 
of potash and phosphoric acid from the soil. Know¬ 
ing this, the landlords of Northern Europe prohibit 
the use of nitrate alone, particularly during the last 
year of the lease. They know that if the tenant 
were permitted to use it, he could leave it in much 
poorer shape than when he took it. The basis of 
improvement in that country is to keep the soil well 
filled with organic matter, and then supply a well 
balanced fertilizer containing all forms of plant food. 
It would be impossible to maintain the productive 
power of such land through live stock keeping alone. 
Chemical fertilizers in proper forms and proportions 
are necessary in order to hold the soil to its work. 
ALASKA GAME LAWS. 
There seems to be no end to the fool game laws. 
You would hardly expect to find them in Alaska, yet 
the Governor of that territory is obliged to point out 
the fool character of some of the regulations. For 
example, the moose is protected and so is the brown 
bear. Yet this bear destroys large numbers of young 
moose, and through its protection causes the destruc¬ 
tion of a much more valuable animal. Here is the 
fool part as pointed out by Gov. Clarke: 
An intimation of the present incongruous condition is 
given when it is stated that brown bears are denominated 
as game, and are protected by the game regulations, whi. 
black bears are regarded as fur-bearing animals, subject 
to the regulations administered by the Bureau of Fish¬ 
eries. Yet the workings of nature are such that of the 
same litter some bears are black and others are browD. 
That is almost equal to some of the laws in New 
York State. It beats all what sports and hunters 
can do to the law when you give them a chance! 
