1302 
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December 6, 
[lope Farm Notes 
We hare not had in a dozen years such 
peculiar Fall weather. There have been 
only a few light frosts, with frequent 
rains. The ground is soft and muddy, 
and late in November the air was as 
balmy as early May. A great season this 
for the cover crops—we never had a bet¬ 
ter one. By Thanksgiving Crimson clover 
stood three to four inches high, thick and 
green. It is something to be thankful for 
to see this clover and the mat of rye and 
vetch growing in our tough soil. It 
means a clear present of the equivalent of 
10 tons of good manure per acre. A 
good many farmers in our neighborhood 
are Fall-plowing so as to get the work 
out of the way. I have no argument or 
objection, but I would not let a plow start 
in my cover crops until the next Spring. 
We need that green stuff in the soil more 
than we need Fall plowing. 
Another curious result of this soft Fall 
is our carrot crop. Last Spring we seed¬ 
ed an acre of mangels. The stand was 
poor. You may blame the seedsman or 
yourself for such results. The first is 
most convenient—the latter often nearer 
the truth. At any rate, some of our rows 
were very thin. About the middle of July 
we tried the experiment of drilling car¬ 
rot seed in the missing places. I did not 
expect much from it, but this open Fall 
has given the carrot crop its chance, and 
some of the roots were two inches thick 
by Thanksgiving. No use claiming this 
can be done any season, for it cannot, but 
in this peculiar Fall the carrots had time 
to grow, and will more than make up for 
the loss of mangels. 
The wet Fall has nearly ruined coi'n 
fodder. Here we have the best possible 
argument for a silo. If this fodder had 
been cut up for silage in late October it 
would now be as safe and satisfactory as 
the peaches and pears that were put into 
jars in September. Standing out in the 
almost continuous rains the corn fodder 
has lost its pleasant smell and taste. The 
stock eat it sparingly, but do not like it. 
Some of it is better than the rest, but it 
will be inferior feed at best. There will 
be a feeding loss of at least 40 per cent, 
while as silage 10 per cent loss would be 
unusual. The grain, too, is poor and we 
would not care to sell much seed corn, for 
I fear it will fail. 
I find that some feeders who have poor 
corn fodder will use condiments to make 
the stuff “taste better.” Molasses seems 
to be the favorite “taster.” You can buy 
it as a thick “black-strap,” which is di¬ 
luted in water and sprinkled over the 
cut fodder. It also comes in dry form— 
the molasses mixed with fine moss or 
ground peanut shells or dust and screen¬ 
ings and then dried. Some of these “mo¬ 
lasses feeds” contain weed seed and trash, 
others are just what they claim to be— 
molasses in a clean and harmless “car¬ 
rier.” I do not believe it will pay a 
Northern feeder to feed molasses as he 
would grain, but where the fodder is 
poor I think some form of molasses as a 
condiment will pay well. It certainly is 
a fine thing to give an old horse. You 
can see the result in the gloss on his 
skin. 
This open Fall is bad for farm storage 
of apples. The fruit is not keeping well, 
and those who expected to hold a supply 
in ordinary farm cellars are likely to lose. 
We rushed our own crop off early without 
great loss. Of course this means com¬ 
petition with the great supply which must 
be marketed before freezing weather 
comes, yet in a season like this it is the 
wiser plan. The way to avoid competi¬ 
tion is to put up a regular fruit storage 
house where the temperature may be held 
under exact control. Then store your ap¬ 
ples right from the tree and leave them 
until the price suits. That, I think, is 
what we must come to if we ever expect 
to handle our fruit for the best market. 
The new things are coming. Right in our 
neighborhood fruit-growers are now able 
to hire auto trucks, which will run up 
here and whisk away a load of baskets 
or barrels to New York or the smaller 
cities. 
It may not be generally known that 
“Hope Farm” has entered a pen of 
“hens”—mostly ordinary birds—in the 
ne.w egg-laying contest at Storrs, Conn. 
The rains and dark days have prevented 
taking a good photograph thus far. As 
soon as we can get one I will show these 
“birds” and tell how they were selected, 
and also what we hope to show. Thus 
far I must say that these birds have not 
covered themselves with glory or reduced 
the high cost of eggs, but the Hope Farm 
folks are very fine waiters, with abund¬ 
ant patience. I am sure the story of 
these “mongrel” hens will be interesting 
when we get their picture. 
I wish to know about the ash of Vir¬ 
ginia splint coal. Would the ash of this 
coal after being sifted so as to remove all 
coarse ashes be desirable to put upon a 
clay ground? What benefit would I de¬ 
rive from the use of this ash? w. H. 
There is little if any actual plant food 
in coal ashes. People often reason that 
because wood ashes contain lime, potash 
and phosphoric acid, coal ashes must do 
the same. Coal is a very different fuel, 
and there is practically nothing of what 
we call plant food in it. Yet the fine coal 
ashes have a mechanical effect upon both 
open sands and dry, compact clays, which 
will often make their use profitable. 
These ashes act somewhat like a paste 
to hold the open soils together, while in 
the compact clays they have the opposite 
effect of opening the soil. We should put 
them on the clay ground, harrowing in as 
we used lime. 
Our home is a suburban one of few 
acres, growing only mangel beets, cab¬ 
bage and some corn to feed hens, etc.; 
buy all our hay at present and have 
some corn fodder also on hand. I have 
a chance to buy two eight-months-old 
heifers reasonably. My idea is to raise 
both, then sell one, keeping the other for 
our own use. We have no cow now. 
These calves have been fed skim-milk up 
to date, also hay and fodder. What 
would be best and most profitable for me 
to feed until Spring, when I intend to 
pasture both until Fall on neighbor’s 
range, costing $5 to $7 each. d. w. 
New York. 
I should look up the mothers of those 
heifers and see what they are and what 
they have done. It is a poor plan ever to 
buy a heifer out of an infex-ior cow. It 
will not pay. If the cows are good, as 
times are now I think the heifers will 
prove a good investment. As you are 
near Syracuse you would better buy Al¬ 
falfa hay for rough fodder, and feed it 
with your stalks and mangels. I doubt 
if it will pay to mix up a “balanced ra¬ 
tion” of many grains for these two 
calves. I should feed one-tliird each 
crushed oats, wheat bran and cornmeal— 
say three to four pounds per day, with 
bulky fodder like stalks or Alfalfa to fill 
them out. 
A man calling himself II. M. Whiting, 
proprietor of the Whiting Nurseries, is 
canvassing this district with some won¬ 
derful new varieties of fruit. He has 
taken a lot of ordex-s, running as high hs 
$150 each. He called upon me to-day, but 
I did not bite. If my memory serves me 
right a man named AVhiting has received 
considerable attention from your “Pub¬ 
lisher’s Desk.” Do you think he is the 
same man? If he is, what is the best 
thing for those men who have ordei*ed 
trees to do? He has got a lot of my 
neighbors, one of them a subscriber to 
The R. N.-Y. J. w. m’m. 
Your memory is an excellent servant. 
Tiie R. N.-Y. has shown up Mr. Whiting 
and his works again and again. He is no 
worse than hundreds of other gull con¬ 
veyors, but he is a true type, and so we 
use him as an example. Whiting is prob¬ 
ably the most plausible dispenser of horti¬ 
cultural guff who ever took the road. 
Other tree agents will read this and per¬ 
haps feel jealous, but if I were a “sport” 
I would be willing to bet that Whiting 
will convince a blind man that he can tell 
the difference between black and white 
quicker and more thoroughly than any 
other agent in America. Ilis long suit is 
a fairy tale about several wonderful new 
varieties of fruits. Whiting is no fool, 
and he does not tell you that his peaches 
grow a coat of wool like a sheep, or that 
plums are grafted on acorn sprouts. Leave 
that to clumsy imitators of “plant wiz¬ 
ards.” Whiting knows just whore to stop 
in his song of praise without sounding a 
discord. He offers the finest varieties 
and the finest trees ever known, and be¬ 
fore you know it you have agreed to buy 
them at about twice their value. We 
chased him up and found that the won¬ 
derful new varieties he was offering were 
usually not suited to the locality. They 
would give but inferior results on their 
record elsewhere. As for price, the best 
nurserymen we could find offered to dupli¬ 
cate Whiting’s offer of trees for 40 per 
cent or a little more of his prices. Thus 
we regarded it as a hold-up game. It 
seemed to be deception as regards those 
wonderful varieties, and an extortionate 
price for the goods. In Orleans County, 
N. Y., Whiting’s customers united to re¬ 
sist payment. Year after year Whiting 
seeks new pastures, and if his fruits were 
as strong a variety as his nerve they 
surely would make wood at least. It 
would seem as if no reader of The It. 
N.-Y. has any fair excuse for signing a 
contract with Whiting, for we have told 
the story again and again. These farm¬ 
ers should get together and compare notes 
on just what Whiting tokl them and what 
he said about the stock. Submit all these 
facts to a good lawyer, and see if you 
have a ease of fraud or misrepresentation, 
which you must have in order to break a 
contract. Act together and do it right 
away. h. w. c. 
Surstitutes For Oats. —Most farm¬ 
ers believe that in order to raise a good 
colt it is necessary to feed oats. Some¬ 
how we have all come to the belief that 
the oat is the grain of growth, both for 
children and young animals. It has fol¬ 
lowed therefore that in some cases farm¬ 
ers have spent more for this grain than 
they should. As oats are often high in 
price, too high in fact for profitable feed¬ 
ing, the Kansas Experiment Station has 
been testing a combination of corn, bran 
and oil meal, for colt feeding. This 
combination consisted of 70% corn, 25% 
bran, and 5% of the oil meal figured by 
weight. A pound of this mixture contains 
the same digestible elements as a pound 
of oats. Ten colts were fed on the com¬ 
bination, and 10 were fed on the oats, 
with a result that at the end of nine 
months the colts that had no oats at all 
Ever considered the 
danger of using a flimsy 
silo ladder? Orthe annoy¬ 
ance of doors that stick? Or 
the loss in feeding value of 
silage from a cheap silo ? 
Or the risk from storms ? 
Better investigate the 
Harder with its ladder of 
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H. G. 
Sulphate of Potash 
for 
Home Mixing 
Fertilizers 
WILCOX FERTILIZER CO. 
Manufacturers of Wilcox Fertilizer 
“Fertilizers that Fertilize” 
MYSTIC CONNECTICUT 
are in better condition than those which 
had this grain, and they also made a lit¬ 
tle better gain. The figures certainly 
show that the oats are not absolutely 
necessai*y in feeding young stock, and 
where figuring will show that this com¬ 
bination of grain is cheaper per pound 
or ton than clear oats, it will pay to use 
the combination. 
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