mo. 
THE' RURAL- NEW-YORKER 
0215 
CULTURE OF THE SOY BEAN. 
Practical Statement of “Do” and “Don’t.” 
Part II. 
Prepare the ground thoroughly. A better seed bed 
is required than for corn. Plant in 36-inch drills from 
eight to 12 beans per lineal foot, and cover them not 
deeper than two inches nor less than one inch. After 
planting use the weeder or spike harrow with the 
teetji turned well back until the beans have nearly all 
sprouted but are not yet up to the surface. The young 
Soy bean shoots are very tender and easily damaged; 
therefore, see that your harrow or weeder does not 
break them. If the surface of the ground becomes 
baked or crusty before the beans are up. they may 
never push their way through. Use the weeder, but use 
it with judgment. When the young plants clearly define 
the rows begin your cultivation. If the seed bed has 
been well prepared, give shallow cultivation only. If 
it has been somewhat neglected, the first cultivation 
may be deep, but after that merely preserve a shallow 
though very fine earth mulch. How many times do I 
cultivate? I don’t know. T should advise the least 
possible cultivation that will preserve an ideal earth 
mulch. This may mean a great many cultivations—it 
may mean but one. When you cannot run the cultiva¬ 
tors between the rows without breaking the plants con¬ 
siderably, stop cultivating. 
Soy beans make an ideal soiling crop. 
They are excellent fed green, as hay, or 
as grain. The Massachusetts, Ohio and 
New Jersey experiment stations strongly 
recommend them as silage when corn 
forms more than half the silage mixture. 
They may be fed to cattle, sheep, horses 
and hogs in any of the above forms— 
though, of course, silage is not recom¬ 
mended for horses or hogs except in very 
limitcd quantities. In feeding the beans 
as grain, remember that they are richer 
than oil meal and somewhat more laxa¬ 
tive. Use them as you would oil meal. 
The hay corresponds to Alfalfa hay. It 
also has a laxative effect. ' One of the 
most noticeable characteristics is its pal¬ 
atableness. All farm animals seem to 
prefer it to any other plant. Cattle will 
let the freshly-cut corn or Alfalfa lie till 
all the Soy beans arc gone when the 
three are fed at the same time. Green 
Soy beans seem more nearly to replace 
grain with dairy cows than any other 
roughage. We are told that hogs in 
pens do not make gains on soiling crops 
alone. They do when soiled with Soy 
beans. 
Although I prize Soy bean hay highly, 
I do not intend ever again to grow them 
for that purpose. Too much labor is en¬ 
tailed, and it is usually harvested in Sep¬ 
tember, a month of rains and uncertain 
weather. If you are minded to try it. 
cut when the bean pods are well formed 
and developed and before the leaves show 
signs of withering. This will usually be 
about two or three weeks after the maxi¬ 
mum height has been reached. Cure- as 
you would clover or Alfalfa hay, but 
take greater pains not to break off the 
tender leaves in which lie the greatest 
feeding value. When harvesting for the 
grain, wait till most of the leaves have 
fallen and the pods become somewhat dry. The beans 
should be solid and hard. Wait till there has been a 
heavy dew and the vines and pods are leathery, then reap 
with a binder and put in cocks at once. Do not run the 
binder after the dew has been dried away, for then the 
beans are easily shelled from the brittle pods. A 
cloudy day is better than a sunny one. After curing a 
few days, I usually spread sheets in the hay rigging 
and by gathering together the corners hoist them with 
a light block and tackle to the loft. When saving the 
seed 1 usually thrash with a Hail by hand. I am told 
that by removing some of the beaters a thrashing ma¬ 
chine does good work. When feeding as grain, do not 
thrash, but feed the sheaves to the cattle and hogs 
and let them do the work for you. Not enough will be 
wasted to pay for the thrashing. 1 think animals relish 
the beans more this way. Finally, don’t forget the 
chickens. If they have free range about the barn and 
manure, pit, they will get every bean that escapes the 
other stock. When housed for the Winter, occasionally 
throw them a sheaf. It will prove a treat for them,— 
thoroughly evidenced by their industrious scratching 
and pecking. 
Now for a few “don’ts.” Don’t try Soy beans as a 
“plow under” crop. Crops are turned under to obtain 
humus. If you have no humus. Soy beans will not pay. 
Cow peas arc better, or buckwheat, or rye, or Crimson 
clover. Don’t sow broadcast. A cultivated crop returns 
a much greater net profit. Don’t use much commercial 
fertilizer unless it be a little phosphoric acid in some 
soluble form. If you have humus you will not need it. 
I have experimentally tried 1,000 pounds per acre of 
a three, eight and six mixture, and also lesser amounts. 
Sometimes not the slightest results were noticeable. 
Never has a heavy application paid me, but I should 
favor 210 to 300 pounds of basic slag per acre. Manure 
will produce results because it adds humus. Finally, 
don’t forget to lime and lime well. This is paramount. 
I have sown the beans broadcast in New York State on 
a loam soil with manure. Also in Maryland on both a 
clay and a sandy-loam river bottom with commercial 
fertilizer. The stand was hardly 20 inches tall and did 
not pay. I have planted in rows and given good culti¬ 
vation on a new soil low in humus. The result was 
better but not satisfactory. 
Last Summer in a field that had grown a rather poor 
crop of potatoes the year before and had had a cover 
crop of rye turned under in the Spring, I grew 30 
bushels of thrashed and cleaned beans per acre. There 
was no manure or commercial fertilizer used, but the 
soil was well supplied with humus and had an applica¬ 
tion of five tons of lime per acre. And this soil was 
underlaid by a shelving rock within eight or 10 inches 
of the surface. It was the driest season we had had in 
a long time. It is an extreme case, but it shows what 
humus and lime will do. It might occur that a good 
crop of Soy beans is grown and for some reason it 
seems wise to turn them under. This can be done with 
full assurance of the benefit to the succeeding crop. I 
grew potatoes one year in a field on part of which was 
grown the preceding season a fair crop of Soy beans. 
These were turned under. Another part had been top- 
dressed with manure. The yield from the Soy bean 
portion was nearly double that of the manured part. 
The quality of potatoes was good in each. In a word, 
Soy beans are to be used on a farm to help balance 
other more carbonaceous crops and to maintain fer¬ 
tility. They cannot be used profitably in building up 
* 
a depleted soil. Others may have succeeded in growing 
good profitable crops of Soy beans on land low in 
humus with the aid of commercial fertilizer, but I 
have had only failure. 
The real province of the Soy bean is to assist in the 
marketing of other crops. Supposing a dairy cow is 
fed 40 pounds of corn silage and 10 pound? of Alfalfa 
hay as roughage. To balance this, six to eight pounds 
of grain, largely composed of expensive protein concen¬ 
trates. is normally purchased. If corn (two parts) 
and Soy bean tone part) silage is used in place of 
straight corn silage, the grain element may be reduced 
to two pounds of corn or corn and cob meal, which is 
cheaply grown on the farm. Five pounds of grain 
worth eight cents per day per cow is saved or nearly 
$300 a year on a herd of 10 cows. The saving is greater 
than the net profit made by many herds with the pres¬ 
ent high prices of grain. There is but little compara¬ 
tive expense in growing three more acres for the silo. 
To express it differently, you will get gross $100 for 
each acre. That sounds unbelievably rosy, does it not? 
Yet the calculation is right I think. 
Soy bean meal has a higher feeding value than oil 
meal. A bushel of 60 pounds of Soy beans is worth to 
me $1.20 to feed hogs, sheep or cattle in limited ciuan- 
tities with other grain. If you obtain 25 bushels per 
acre, that means $30 for the grain and then you have 
the straw besides. Finally the land is left in better 
heart than if any other grain crop had been removed. 
For though Soy beans are not the best crop to build 
up a depleted soil, it is equally true that it is not an 
exhaustive crop. Soy beans fit in any rotation. Plant 
them after any crop you wish. It seems to make little 
difference. Plant as soon as the soil is warm,—when 
you would for corn. Plant in a soil not deficient in 
humus and that is well drained. Use an abundance of 
lime. Give good tillage. • If you do these things you 
will be a friend of the Soy bean ever afterwards. 
HENRY W. HEALY. 
FARMING ON SHARES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 
For about four years I have farmed on shares. The 
farm is 78 acres in extent, and all under 
cultivation except a meadow, from which 
we usually take two crops of hay yearly. 
Our crops were hay, corn, oats, wheat and 
rye as our regular crops. I was to have 
half of the wheat and rye and two-thirds 
of the corn and oats. When sowing I 
had to give the same proportion. One- 
half acre I had for myself for raising po¬ 
tatoes for my own use, but sometimes I 
had a good deal to spare, which I sold 
as my property. The road tax I had to 
pay, all of which I usually “earned off’’ 
on the road. The other taxes I had to pay 
the half. Of the fertilizer bill I had to pay 
the half. We usually sowed about 200 to 
300 pounds per acre to wheat and rye. Of 
course, I owned all the stock and tools and 
implements. Hay I usually fed all, but 
sometimes I sold a few loads, of which 
I got the half. I had a dairy of about nine 
cows, and these I had in the fields to pas¬ 
ture, and from this and the 150 hens or 
thereabouts we got most of our money. 
In most cases it is usually the half of 
everything; that is, the tenant gets half 
of all the grain and the landlord gets the 
other half, and so with the taxes, except 
the road tax, are mostly paid by the ten¬ 
ant, as he is expected to work on the road, 
but not absolutely. Of course, this renting 
on shares did not suit me long, so I got 
it for cash rent at the end of the year. In 
my case I got it rather cheap, $150, and all 
the taxes, as the landlord was my father. 
The reason I like it better for rent is be¬ 
cause then I can raise more potatoes and 
use a rotation that suits me, which is 
clover, corn, potatoes and wheat, and this 
way I have been farming now about six 
years. 
Now, as to farming on shares, when 
tenant owns no stock. There are usually 
two ways; the one mostly carried on 
here is that the landlord endorses his 
note to buy farm stock. In such a case an agreement 
is made so that the tenant cannot dispose of any 
stock, or remove it from the farm till it is paid, or a 
certain part of it, without the consent of the landlord. 
It is also agreed that the landlord cannot take the 
stock from the tenant unawares or without a reason¬ 
able cause, so that the tenant may feel that he is safe 
as long as he conducts himself reasonably. Such an 
agreement is usually made for a year; sometimes it is 
extended or renewed, and sometimes not. Some 
tenants make money and some do not. Last year 
we had a great drought; got only one-tenth of a crop 
of corn and potatoes, and this was a very hard year 
on such tenants, but I have one in mind now, and 
he claims he made $100. When he saw that he had 
no corn and potatoes, etc., he began to do hauling 
on the road for town people and helped himself that 
way. “Where there is a will there is a way.” An¬ 
other way of farming on shares where tenant has no 
money and no stock is that the landlord furnishes all 
the stock and the tenant gets a third of all the pro¬ 
duce and pays a third of the taxes. He gets a third 
of the dairy products and pays a third of the feed 
which is purchased. Such a course is safest'for a 
tenant, as lie cannot lose anything. General farming 
is the rule here in this part of the State. Of course, 
my specialty is potatoes, and all are drifting more or 
less towards specialization. c. R. B. 
Bethlehem Co., Pa. 
AN OHIO FI I GIT SCHOOL BUILDING. Fig. 257. 
PULLING UP A FALLEN APPLE TREE. Fig. 258.. 
