1913. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
771 
THE RYE CROP IN MICHIGAN. 
A Hardy Crop for Orchard Humus. 
Looking at llie map of Lower Michigan we see on 
the northwest an aTm of the Great Lake extending 
southward into the land for more than 20 miles, and 
if the map is large enough we see that this arm. 
Grand Traverse Bay, is bisected by a narrow penin¬ 
sula. This strip of land reaching out into the waters 
of the bay is IS miles long and has an average width 
of three miles. The great geologic activities that 
formed it left it rough and more or less hilly, and 
strewn with rocks and stones. The white men of 
less than a century ago found it mostly covered 
with forests of beech and maple, and to-day many 
crumbling stumps, often five feet in diameter, bear 
witness to the forest giants which once 
grew there, but have now gone to the 
great lumber mills and furniture fac¬ 
tories of the State. 
We have often heard that “hard¬ 
wood soil makes good orchard soil," 
and now this long narrow finger of 
land pointing ever to the blue waters 
of Lake Michigan also points the way 
to success for many fruit growers. The 
entire peninsula might now be consid¬ 
ered one great orchard. Apples, sweet 
and sour cherries, pears, peaches, and 
plums, are raised in abundance, and of 
flavor not excelled elsewhere. Being 
practically surrounded by a great nat¬ 
ural warm water heating plant, disas¬ 
trous frosts are almost unknown. The 
soil is for the most part light, much of 
it is full of stones, but it seems to have a 
natural limy quality, and responds read¬ 
ily to the slightest encouragement in 
the way of cultivation and fertilization. 
Lacking room for large pasturage 
and hay fields it is not a dairying region, hence our 
great problem is the securing of organic matter to 
feed to the soil, and we rely to a large extent upon 
rye to turn under. Vetch is used by some, but not 
so generally yet as is rye. It would be hard to say 
what variety of rye is used, for if each farmer has 
not a little seed plot of his own he can buy seed 
from a neighbor, a few of whom make a business of 
raising seed to supply the local demand. 
Rye is so hardy and so persistent that it can re¬ 
ceive very inconsiderate treatment and still amply 
reward the farmer. The time for sowing comes 
usually at such a busy season that the seed bed is 
likely to receive no more care than is absolutely 
necessary. When sown in the orchard it is broad¬ 
cast about one bushel to the acre after the last 
going over with a spring-tooth drag— 
in August—then the drag or a spike- 
tooth harrow follows the sower to 
cover the seed. That is all till the fol¬ 
lowing Spring; when the rye is not 
more than six or eight inches high it 
is turned under. 
The picture, Fig. 272, shows a small 
patch sown for seed for the next year’s 
planting. This was about one-half 
acre on which early potatoes for family 
use and some other garden vegetables 
had been grown, and a rush of work 
had caused us to neglect it so that a 
heavy crop of “fox-tail" had sprung 
up. One day in September this was 
plowed in the forenoon, gone over with 
a spring-tooth drag north and south, 
about half a bushel of seed scattered 
and then again the spring-tootli went 
over it, this time going east and west. 
A week later we left the farm for the 
Winter, and when we returned the fol¬ 
lowing June (1912) we found the rye over our 
heads, with its own heads plump and full. From 
this thinly sown plot we derived a little more than 
hi bushels of fine seed which we sowed as soon as 
possible on the young orchards. It was growing 
finely when snow came, and in the Spring we shall 
plow under about the width of three furrows each 
side of the three-year-ohl trees, and leave the grain 
between the rows to furnish seed for next Fall's 
sowing, and it should be sufficient to cover all the 
orchards as well as the cornfield. The straw is used 
lor bedding, so it is eventually returned to the soil 
again, mingled with the stable manure. We hear 
occasionally of farmers who force their stock to eat 
d as roughage, but an animal must be near to starv¬ 
ing before he will eat rye straw as a general thing. 
1 he R. N.-Y. has explained the reasons for, and the 
advantage of this form of cover crop too often for 
me to repeat it here. a. a. s. 
Old Mission, Mich. 
HOMEMADE CEMENT MIXER. 
Utility at Small Expense. 
A very serviceable concrete mixer can be made at 
home at no great expense, if you can secure suitable 
wheels. You may use the large gear wheels from 
an old horse power, and the smaller one which goes 
with it may be taken from a grain binder. The 
essential point is to have two cog wheels that mesh 
together, one of them several times as large as the 
other. The larger one may have the cogs on the 
outside or inside. The tub or barrel to hold the 
concrete may be made of inch lumber and lined 
with sheet iron, or one can get a hogshead that 
would answer. If desired this mixer may be run by 
two sprocket wheels and a chain. If the barrel is 
A MICHIGAN SEED RYE CROP. Fig. 272. 
made it should be 3*4 feet high and three feet in 
diameter. The bottom should be fast, but the cover 
should be loose and held in place by a long latch 
and two short ones, which catch under the hooks 
fastened to the sides of the barrel. These are 
L-shaped and bolted on. The barrel can have the 
bearings bolted onto it, or they may hang on a shaft 
of two-inch or three-inch pipe. The gear wheel must 
he fastened securely onto one side of the barrel with 
wedge-shaped pieces between them, so as to turn it 
over. On the other side the shaft should be hollow 
so as to let the pipe in for the water. A half-inch 
pipe is large enough, but three-fourths may be used. 
It is connected to a large pail or five-gallon tank 
hung on the side of the frame, and should have a 
globe valve. The frame can be 2 x 6 hardwood and 
CUTTING OUT THE MILKING MIDDLEMAN. Fig. 
consist of two uprights with a crossbar at the top 
and bottom, also two pieces at right angles to the 
bottom ones, to hold the frame erect. There should 
be a short upright one to hold the tight and loose 
pulleys. The smaller gear wheels should be mounted 
on a two-inch shaft IS to 20 inches long, which 
should carry a tight and loose pulley 20 inches in 
diameter. These can be bought or made at home of 
iron with wooden spokes, or of two thicknesses of 
plank bolted together. There should be a device to 
shift the belt from one pulley to the other. There 
should be a braking device so that the tub can be 
turned over, dumped by the engine, and stopped 
when wanted. A gasoline engine of 2V, horse-power 
run the mixer shown in the picture, joiin vpton. 
New York. _ 
All world records for 12-hour automobile driving 
were recently broken in England, a 15-30 horse-power 
motor covering 914 miles 640 yards within this time. 
This was at the rate of 76.20 miles an hour. 
ONE PUBLIC MARKET A FAILURE. 
An Experience in Illinois. 
Less than two years ago a public market was 
opened in Decatur, our county seat, a city of 35,000. 
About two weeks ago it was closed by order of the 
authorities, who pronounced it a failure. The ob¬ 
ject in opening the market was to bring pro¬ 
ducer and consumer closer together. The reason 
for closing was because the producer failed to pro¬ 
duce and the consumer failed to consume in the way 
that was expected. Perhaps the greater amount of 
blame belongs to the producer. A lack of interest 
on the part of farmers and truckers resulted in the 
market being very poorly supplied; and though at 
first there appeared a disposition on the part of the 
people to patronize the stalls, as the 
stuff offered grew less and less in 
quantity, their interest in the enter¬ 
prise seemed to decrease in the same 
proportion. 
But there are other reasons just as 
weighty as the one given. Those who 
took produce to the market asked the 
same price that regular dealers were 
charging. In many cases—perhaps in 
the majority of cases—what they of¬ 
fered for sale did not present as at¬ 
tractive an appearance as that dis¬ 
played in the regular business houses. 
Grocers and meat dealers vie with each 
other in their efforts to make attractive 
displays, and the conveniences at hand 
give them an advantage over the man 
who is obliged to sell from a rude 
stall under a shed. The market from 
the first was open to dealers as well as 
regular producers, and frequently these 
dealers would be the only ones who 
had anything to sell. Many people re¬ 
garded it as an injustice to regular business men to 
allow these men to conduct business on one of the 
principal streets of the city, with so little expense 
to themselves for rent, the nominal sum charged for 
the use of a stall being no expense worth considering. 
Again, the regular dealers throughout the city de¬ 
liver all goods sold. It is easy for the housewife 
to step to the telephone and place her order, and she 
knows she will receive the best the market affords. 
To take a basket and go to the public market and 
make her own selection, and then carry her pur¬ 
chases home, or go to the expense of hiring someone 
to do it for her, was something entirely new to most 
of them, and there never seemed enough novelty 
about it to make it become popular. 
But there is still another reason. Farmers in 
this part of the country are not truck¬ 
ers, or gardeners, or fruit growers. 
Many of them do not raise enough po¬ 
tatoes for their own use. They all 
make some garden, and plant potatoes, 
and make some effort to raise fruit; 
but the care of the regular farm crops 
absorbs about all their attention, and 
they usually find, as the season ad¬ 
vances, that something must be neglect¬ 
ed, and they don’t intend that it shall 
be the corn, oats, wheat or hay. So 
they have but little to sell aside from 
the regular farm crops. Instead of 
butchering a hog or steer, and retail¬ 
ing the meat, they sell to the stock 
buyers on foot. Every town of a few 
hundred inhabitants has its stock 
buyer, who purchases from the farmer 
his cattle and hogs and ships to the 
large city markets, usually Chicago or 
Indianapolis. It seems that the gard¬ 
eners and fruit growers in the vicinity 
of Decatur preferred to sell from house to house, or 
through the grocers, as they gave the public market 
but little support In fact, most of the stuff, outside 
of what was offered by dealers, came from a con¬ 
siderable distance, often as far as IS or 20 miles. 
The enterprise was pronounced a failure, and per¬ 
haps the combination of reasons given above explains 
why it was so. j. c. nicholls. 
Macon Co., Ill. 
Now comes the advice to use a strong lime-sulpliur 
wash for borers. The suggestion is to boil one pound 
of lime and two pounds sulphur in one gallon of 
water and swab it around the base of the peach tree 
once per month in June, July, August and September. 
It is worth trying, but we think the knife will still 
be needed on some trees. 
The prophet usually has no honer, and usual “hon¬ 
orary job” has no profit. 
