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A— 4 
THE RURAL NEW-VORKEH 
on the market, only spindly stringy sprouts from 
poorly-fed beds are to be found. But when some 
progressive gardener invades the market with thick, 
tender shoots neatly bunched, he finds the demand 
rapidly growing from year to year, and his patrons 
are willing to pay well for this toothsome luxury of 
the table. Here is an opportunity for the man of the 
general farm, whose complaint is that he cannot make 
money. The question of soil is not a serious one, 
for there is hardly a field that may not be tamed 
with humus and fertilizer and good culture. Mr. 
Husing prefers to grow the “grass” on a large acreage, 
deriving a moderate profit from each acre. Some of 
our successful growers pursue more highly intensified 
methods, growing gre_en grass without ridging, and 
with rows but four feet apart. Some of these, with 
good markets, derive a gross income of as much as 
$700 from a single acre, and this year after year. 
But to do this, the best of care must be given the 
bed and every condition must be right. 
_ PAUL WORK. 
LIME NEEDED FOR CLOVER. 
On page 153 R. H. Price, Virginia, gives some 
advice and a word of caution in respect to his ex¬ 
perience in growing clover without a nurse crop, and 
asks cause of failure. I suspect very much that lime 
was needed, and possibly more humus was necessary. 
Anyway, my experience has proved to my own satis¬ 
faction that lime is all-important where required. 
In May, 1907, T plowed an old sod and worked until 
August 5, when I inoculated from an old Alfalfa 
field, then limed and sowed without a nurse crop. 
Neighbors said no use to try to grow it, as others 
had failed, and that my land was too flat anyway. 
However, in November stand was a foot high and the 
following year I cut two good crops. In May, 
1909, another heavy crop was turned under, and 
potash and ground bone at the rate of 500 pounds per 
acre applied; then tomatoes planted, which gave an 
estimated yield of 700 bushels per acre. 
I attribute this big crop to the Alfalfa, for prev¬ 
iously this land was poor, so acting on this example 
that my soil needed lime, I applied to another rather 
poor piece about 1J4 ton per acre during the Winter, 
and seeded Red clover with oats in Spring. This 
clover is a good stand, made a fine growth in spite 
of a dry Summer, and promises a heavy crop. My 
neighbor over the fence on land richer than mine 
sowed oats and clover identically as myself, only he 
omitted the lime, and his clover has failed entirely. 
Now I wish to say that I have followed the teachings 
of The R. N.-Y., and tender my thanks for the good 
results obtained, and believe when clover or Alfalfa 
fails for no apparent reason, lime or inoculated soil, 
or both, combined with good soil and proper drainage, 
should make it grow. But I might say that far too 
many people expect results from land too poor. On 
my father’s farm, always in high fertility, good farm¬ 
ing always secured heavy crops, and when I bought 
a very poor place, I was taught some very striking 
and worthy lessons between the value of rich and 
poor land in regard to its producing capacity. So I 
think that farmers often err in assuming their land 
to be good enough to produce certain crops, when 
in fact plant food only is required. In this locality 
good land produces from 75 to 125 bushels of flint 
corn (ears) per acre, and flourishing clover should 
follow, provided other conditions were favorable. 
Ontario, Canada. harper secord. 
UTILIZING THE MAPLE ORCHARD. 
From the Standpoint of the Small Sugar Maker. 
A man who has on his farm 200 good large Sugar 
maples, located so that they are easily reached by 
team, and makes no use of them except to replenish 
his woodpile, is leaving undeveloped one of the re¬ 
sources of his farm which, if it does not make much 
difference with his income, will nevertheless be a 
source of much pleasure to his family especially if 
there are boys. As a boy I do not remember when 
I did not look forward to “sugaring.” The first warm 
days of March set the fever raging, and it seemed 
the time never would come. But when the day really 
did come, a nice warm sunshiny one, when there 
was no doubt but that Winter had loosened its hold, 
when the blood coursed wildly through the veins of 
a boy at the mere joy of living, and when the blood 
began to course through the veins of the Sugar maple, 
too, my happiness was almost complete. And when 
a day or two later the first gathering of sap was 
boiled and I was eating my fill of syrup and sugar 
on snow, my happiness was entirely complete. Back 
in those days I do not recall a like joyful anticipation 
of the beginning of any other farm operation—surely 
not of the hoeing time as we used to have it then, 
of haying, or of dragging the bull rake through the 
grain fields. For this reason I am glad to write about 
sugar making in the hope that some man will give 
his bo 3 r s a chance to have the fun that I have had. 
At the outset I wish to disclaim being a profes¬ 
sional sugar maker. I write simply from the stand¬ 
point of the small maker who derives a small revenue 
but much fun from the business, and the large makers 
who tap their thousands of trees will probably find 
my methods crude and old-fashioned. The first thing 
the prospective sugar maker should prepare is a good 
sugar house, in which to boil the sapi. If possible 
it should be located near a bank upon which a drive 
may be easily built, so that the sap will flow from 
the gathering barrel into a holder in the sugar house 
located at a height sufficient to enable it again to 
flow into the evaporator as it is needed. The house 
should be large enough to provide room for the stor¬ 
age tank and the arch, and allow space to move about 
the latter easily. It should be well ventilated at the 
roof so that the steam may readily escape. The 
arch should be built of brick, several courses being 
best in order to keep in as much heat as possible. 
The chimney should be at least 3 2 feet high in order 
to give good draft and a good set of grates should 
be used in the fire box. Makers of evaporators will 
give directions regarding details of arch for their par¬ 
ticular device. 
In this day it is not wise in buying a new outfit to 
purchase anything but an evaporator. A small one 
may be purchased quite reasonably for a small sugar 
works, and since they are more economical cf wood 
and make a better quality of syrup than the old- 
fashioned pan, the prospective sugar maker would do 
well to buy one. Buckets and spouts are next in 
order. Buckets of good quality, tin or galvanized 
iron, are the only ones which will be profitable through 
a long series of years. The different varieties of 
spouts are too numerous to mention. We have found 
one made of heavy galvanized iron, conical in shape, 
to give good satisfaction. The conical shape enables 
one to use a 5^-inch bit for the first boring and then 
when the season advances the spout may be removed, 
the hole freshened by reaming out with a 14-inch drill, 
and the spout driven in a little deeper. 
Now, having our apparatus complete let us go 
into the woods with our outfit on a nice warm day in 
March, when we are quite sure that the long stretches 
of cold weather are over for the year. We will first 
put the evaporator on the arch to heat water for 
washing the buckets, gathering tank, and all the 
articles with which the sap comes in contact. These 
all should be carefully washed and sterilized with hot 
water, because the warm days of the latter part of 
the previous season may have left germs upon the 
utensils which will cause trouble later if they are 
not killed outright with boiling water. This opera¬ 
tion completed, the tapping may begin. Three men 
may work to best advantage, but in the small orchard 
the number is not necessary. But suppose we have 
three. One man will scatter the buckets through the 
woods. Another man will bore a hole slightly in¬ 
clined downwards about l l / 2 inch deep into the tree, 
preferably on the south or east side. If the trees 
are very large more than one hole may be bored. 
One of our Vermonters hung 32 buckets to a large 
maple, but only a very few men would have the nerve 
to do that. The third man drives in the spout firmly 
with a hammer and hangs up the bucket. The drip- 
drip of the sap will make sw T eet music to him who' is 
looking forward to the sweet odor of boiling sap 
and'to the still sweeter taste of new syrup. Tf we 
have chosen our time wisely for tapping probably by 
the next afternoon the gathering sled may be started. 
As soon as there is enough in the receiving tank at 
the sugar house the evaporator should be started, 
because the sooner the sap is boiled the better will 
be the quality of the product. 
Modern evaporators are constructed so that the 
boiling sap travels by a devious path from one end 
of the apparatus to the other. The sap entering at 
one end has had its water evaporated by the time 
it reaches the other end. so that the resulting product 
is nearly syrup. Common sap will boil at a tem¬ 
perature a little above 232 degrees F., but as the 
water is evaporated the boiling point rises, until we 
have syrup which will weigh 11 pounds to the gal¬ 
lon boiling at 219 degrees F. This fact gives us 
a very easy way to tell when the syrup is ready to 
come off. Immerse a syrup thermometer in the boil¬ 
ing syrup at the rear of the evaporator and when 
the thermometer registers 219 degrees take off the 
batch of syrup. Great care should be taken to have 
the syrup of just the right thickness if it is to be sold 
as such. If it is too thin it will sour in warm 
weather, and if it is too thick sugar crystals will 
separate out. The syrup should be strained carefully 
through a heavy felt strainer in order to separate out 
the “niter.” The syrup is now ready for the griddle 
cakes or for the cans if we wish to keep it. If 
we wish to go further and make sugar cakes or tub 
sugar, we must boil the syrup more. This is usually 
done in a common flat-bottomed pan. The one we 
use is about 3 ]/ 2 feet square, and the boiling is done 
February 26, 
on the kitchen range. Our thermometer will tell us 
when we have boiled the syrup down enough; 238 
degrees F. is usually the point for tub sugar and 
245 degrees F. for cake sugar. Maple sugar making 
is no easy road to wealth. The 200-trec man will 
do well to average 500 pounds of sugar a year, or its 
equivalent of 65 gallons of syrup. But although the 
money value may not be large it is a fine thing always 
to have in store an article so delicious. And take my 
word for it, there is fun in the making. • 
Vermont. _ e. s. brigham. 
ANOTHER FIGHTER FOR PARCELS POST. 
Here is another hold-up game of the American Ex¬ 
press Co., who have been serving the people of the 
town of Winterport. Me. This town is the largest 
in the county of Waldo, and only exceeded in popula¬ 
tion by the city of Belfast. They have taken the ex¬ 
press office out of the town and have all express for 
Winterport come to Bucksport Center, Me. This new 
office is across the Penobscot Riv-er in another town as 
well as another county. To get a package one has to 
pay 30 cents to cross the ferry, walk up a hill one- 
quarter mile, the grade of which is one foot in five, to 
the Maine Central depot, return, walk down the hill, 
pay 30 cents ferriage to get back to Winterport. This 
is an outrage and imposition on the public, for this is 
the Winter port of the Eastern Steamship Co., two sail¬ 
ings a week of the new turbine steamer Belfast, also 
the Bangor and Aroostook R. R. passes through the 
town and has a depot in Winterport. I am an advo¬ 
cate for parcels post. l. m. t. 
R. N.-Y.—Of course you are. We welcome you to a 
place in the regular army. The militia do not fight as 
well as the regulars, because they lack the training and 
confidence which actual warfare gives. Our friend 
knows what war means, because the express companies 
have hit him in the pocket book. We want 10,000 just 
such “regulars.” They would help regulate Congress. 
A reader says he has a new melon which he has 
selected for some years. He says: 
I know tliere are plenty of melons and of new varieties 
too, but I most certainly have them all skinned. 
This .man thinks he should receive something 
for his time and trouble the same as a man who in¬ 
vents a new hoe or a new safety pin. He wants 
to know how he can get money out of this melon. 
We wish we could tell him. Men like Burbank, who 
have made a reputation for originating new varieties 
can usually sell their productions to seedsmen at a 
fair price. The name sells the seed or plant. People 
take chances on its value. A new man—that is, one 
unknown to the seed trade—must convince the public 
that he has a good thing before he can sell. Fakes 
and frauds attempt to do this by making extravagant 
statements, but an honorable man cannot use their 
methods. We fear that the cost of introducing a 
single new variety directly to the public would be 
more than the sales would amount to. This brings 
up the old thought of injustice to the plant breeder 
as compared with the inventor. The latter can ob¬ 
tain a patent for a new device, and thus secure a 
monopoly in its sale, while after his seeds or plants 
are once distributed and propagated the plant breeder 
loses control. _ 
Should anyone doubt that farmers are not in¬ 
terested in common school education, he has only 
to talk with some of them at any farmers’ meeting. 
These men who work with their hands know clearly 
what their children ought to be taught. During, 
the past month we have listened to some of the 
wisest suggestions along this line. At the Rochester 
fruit meeting Mr. T. H. King expressed his views 
about as follows: 
I live in a section where fruit growing is the main in¬ 
dustry. I believe that when a child finishes the country 
school or higher school he should know how to bud and 
graft, and how to distinguish at least 10 varieties of 
fruit trees as two-year-olds. 
No one will be likely to say that such information 
would not be of vastly greater value than most of 
the matter now taught in these schools. When asked 
how many of the children could now do these things 
Mr. King said: “Not one!” As to qualified teachers 
for such work he made this suggestion: “It might 
be found necesarv to appoint new school officers. 
Let some successful farmer go about from school to 
school and teach the things I have mentioned with 
gardens or specimens at each school. All sections 
are not adapted to fruit growing, but similar es¬ 
sential things could be developed in potato sections, 
dairy sections or where grass, grain or gardening 
are most prominent.” We give this suggestion as 
evidence of what the real farmers want. They provide 
the children and feel that they should have much 
to say about what those children should be taught 
Modern ‘‘education” is getting to be a sort of con¬ 
test. with parents beginning to realize what their 
children need on one side, and the educators on the 
other with their theories about what children ought 
to have. 
