880 
THE RURAI> NEW-YORKER 
September 17, 
Hope Farm Notes 
Wanted, Legs! —Among many other 
calls for help I have the following: 
I am a cripple and cannot walk well, but 
I want to start in the Doultry business. 
I know how to take care of bens, but of 
course I cannot chase them or wait on 
them. I want a boy about 12 years old to 
act as legs for me. I will work him and 
keep him. If you know of any such 12- 
year-old boy send him along. a. c. l. 
1 do not know of any such boy. Some 
of our people seem tc think that I keep 
a supply of boys on hand. I do not, and 
frankly speaking, if I had a dozen to 
peddle out I should want to know a 
whole lot about this man or any other 
before I sent him on. I had some ex¬ 
perience in playing the part of legs and 
various other members of the body when 
1 was a boy. I regret to say that some 
people think a boy’s legs are made of 
steel. They fear the steel may rust, so 
they get all the work they can out of it 
very early. In theory such a plan as 
this man suggests would be ideal for an 
orphan boy, but theories do not always 
practice well. Having had experience, 
and having also watched the game for a 
great many years, I do not now boil over 
with enthusiasm when a man wants a 
child for the work he can get out of 
him. That child ought to be something 
of a heart-warmer as well as a laborer. 
As for taking a small child to bring up 
the only real motive that is worth while 
is that of helping the child. I am afraid 
I cannot furnish a pair of legs for this 
man. Helping to provide a little thing 
that might be some trouble to him would 
be more in my line. My advice would 
be to find some stout young man who 
would make a partner. 
Save the Nitrates.—I have talked 
nitrates until no doubt the •subject is a 
nuisance to many, but here is one more 
shot at it. Our rains have started after 
the long drought, and now the organic 
matter in the soil will be rapidly broken 
up. That means the rapid formation of 
nitrates. These will now be made so 
rapidly that in some rich soils 25 to 30 
pounds of nitrogen to the acre will be 
made into the most soluble form. This 
is equal to nearly three tons of rich ma¬ 
nure, or nearly 200 pounds of nitrate of 
soda. Now what would you think of 
yourself if you deliberately threw into 
the river 40 tons or more of manure, or 
two tons of nitrate of soda? That is 
just what you are in danger of doing 
this Fall when you leave 20 acres of good 
soil bare—without any living crop on it! 
You may be sure that if those nitrates 
are formed in your bare soil they will be 
washed out of it unless some crop like 
vetch or clover or grain is growing on 
it. These living crops will take the ni¬ 
trogen and hold it for you. With us 
rye is now about the only thing we can 
sow with hope of getting it through. 
Wheat might answer, but rye gives a 
larger and stronger growth, and can be 
put in on rough ground, or with very 
slight preparation. At present prices of 
grain and straw rye is a very useful crop 
anywhere in the East. We shall sow it 
on every foot of bare ground. I hope 
you will not let a square foot of your 
cultivated land go bare through the 
Winter. A piece of old sod may well 
be plowed in the Fall and left through 
the Winter in the rough, but on culti¬ 
vated land I should always plan to sow 
some cover crop. 
Fall Strawberry Planting. —The 
long drought made it impossible to han¬ 
dle our strawberries as I wanted to. We 
have now had a rain* and this has sprout¬ 
ed out more runners and given a good 
supply. That acre of potatoes planted 
in hills is being dug. As soon as it is 
clear the field will be plowed and well 
fitted. The worst of the stones will be 
picked up, the surface made fine, and 
strawberry plants set 2feet each way 
all over it—provided we have plants 
enough left after filling our orders. An 
acre set in this way calls for about 7,000 
plants. I am more and more convinced 
that this is plenty close enough for hills. 
Of course no one expects that these 
September-planted berries will give a 
crop next year. Some of the plants 
might produce a few berries, but the 
crop will not be worth considering. The 
reason for this Fall planting is that such 
plants can get a fair start and become 
well rooted in the soil. They will even 
send out a few runners this Fall. In the 
Spring the field will be planted all ready 
to make a start. You save labor by do¬ 
ing it now, for as a rule Spring work 
crowds harder than Fall. These are 
about the only good reasons I have for 
Fall planting. You get a crop of pota¬ 
toes or corn or something else this year, 
and then start your berries with a fair 
growth ahead of next Spring. 
Alfalfa.— The following letter is writ¬ 
ten from a farm some five miles north 
of mine: 
Permit me to give my mite of Alfalfa ex¬ 
perience to your weekly Alfalfa sermons. 
As reported to you three years ago, my first 
seeding of 3% acres came well through 
the first Winter, 1907 to 1908. Another 
field adjoining this, 1% acre, was, after 
careful preparation and inoculation, seeded 
about August 10, 1908. This field looked 
rather poor the following Spring, but an 
application of 650 pounds of potash and 
bone improved it very much, and it is as 
good now as the field adjoining. A top¬ 
dressing of 500 pounds of this fertilizer has 
been applied early every Spring to the en¬ 
tire plot, and I believe it pays. We drew 
from these two fields in 1908—3% acres— 
11 tons of good well-cured Alfalfa hay. In 
15109, five acres, 24 tons. In 1910, so far 
in two cuttings, 20 tons and a good third 
one to come yet, which looks like five tons 
more. The first cutting this year was so 
heavy that two men were kept very busy 
to clear a way for the mowing machine. The 
first crop is about one-third Orchard grass 
and Timothy, and two-thirds Alfalfa, while 
the second and third cuttings are pure Al¬ 
falfa. After the third cutting the plants 
start right out again and keep growing 
until frost sets in. Last Fall we left a 
growth of 18 inches on the field, which 
was the means of holding the snow on the 
ground. What this Alfalfa has done for 
me, with 30 horses to feed, is a very 
pleasant subject to think and talk about. 
Your advice has been in a gi’cat measure 
responsible for the success of this under¬ 
taking, and 1 sincerely hope that you will 
keep up your Alfalfa agitation until there 
is at least an Alfalfa field on every intelli¬ 
gently worked farm, where it is possible to 
grow it. HERMAN H. LCCKE. 
New York. 
You see what these men all say after 
they once get a real look at Alfalfa. A 
few years ago I met Mr. Lucke at the 
New York State Fair. He went to Syra¬ 
cuse to see some of these famous Al¬ 
falfa fields, that he might have a stand¬ 
ard to work for. You see, he has made 
good, and like all the rest he wants the 
Alfalfa sermons continued. They will 
be. With us the Alfalfa problem is a 
little different. Pretty much all our farm 
will be covered with trees. It would be 
a mistake, I believe, to broadcast Al¬ 
falfa in a young orchard—that is, if you 
valued the trees. We are, therefore, try¬ 
ing the experiment of drilling the 
Alfalfa about as you would fodder corn, 
so as to give it thorough culture. We 
plow the land and put on lime, then har¬ 
row down fine and sow the Alfalfa in 
double drills, using a hand seed drill. 
Then soil from the old Alfalfa field is 
scattered along the drills. I hope this 
plan will work, for it seems the best way 
we can think of to grow Alfalfa and 
trees together. h. w. C. 
Hairy Vetch for Indiana. 
M., Indiana .—IIow does Hairy vetch 
stand Winter in Central Indiana and what 
soil does it require, cutting for hay or fer¬ 
tilizer? I have some poor ground where 
clover will not stand through Winter, freez¬ 
ing out. 
Ans. —From my experience on a 
heavy loam soil, I do not feel like rec¬ 
ommending vetch generally. I have no 
doubt that on sandy soil in a region 
where there is a solid Winter and con¬ 
siderable snowfall Hairy vetch is a very 
desirable crop. Hairy vetch is a very 
rare crop in this State. I have never 
seen it anywhere. I am satisfied from 
my own observations that if it will live 
through the Winter with a good stand 
it is a desirable soil-improving plant, 
but with our type of Winters I consider 
it somewhat uncertain. Rye, or rye and 
vetch, is practically our only green Win¬ 
ter cover crop. Cow peas and Soy beans 
can be sown in July and allowed to re¬ 
main on the ground as a cover crop with 
good results. I believe that Sweet 
clover is a coming crop on lands where 
other clovers do not succeed well. I 
have not been able to demonstrate this 
theory as yet. I would not advise the 
use of vetch on such poor land as M. 
mentions. We have had a very large 
number of letters asking for just such 
information as M. asks for. An article 
appeared some time ago in “Successful 
Farming,” by Mr. Smith, which seems 
to have been widely read. I do not 
know anything of the conditions under 
which he worked, and can only give the 
results of our own experiments on our 
Station farm; which have been going 
on for about five years. Our experiments 
were begun with the idea of demonstrat¬ 
ing the practicability of rye a"nd vetch 
as an early Spring soiling crop, and not 
with the idea of demonstrating its soil¬ 
improving qualities. The growth of 
vetch was never hardly sufficient to make 
a showing along t..at line. I have sown 
vetch in corn with little success. 
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