11 ©8 
scarce, for I like my trade nearly as well as the 
farm. I tried also a hot-water heated brooder house, 
but that got full of rats, and it was quite a job to 
dig out six inches of soil and replace it with fresh 
earth. This year I found the fireless brooder and 
yards 4x16 feet, that I could move daily on clean 
grass, quite a success, but my chickens were not 
hatched till the weather was warm in May. For 
chickens earlier hatched, say middle of March, I 
would keep them on a wooden floor covered with 
dry earth for the first 10 days, and then on the earth 
floor in a building till four weeks old, then get them 
outdoors in the 4x16 coops or runs. Chickens kept 
on wooden floors over 10 days or two weeks have 
leg weakness with me, or have died of some disease 
that showed no evidence; I have found apparently 
strong healthy chickens with crops full dead in twos 
and threes of a bunch erf 50 every morning for two 
weeks or so. 
To learn a trade thoroughly takes years of experi¬ 
ence and study", and to be a success as a farmer or 
trucker you have to know more than any other 
trade that I know of, and a beginner ought to keep 
that fact in his mind and not be led by some of the 
stories that are told of so much profit in some system 
of chicken raising or crop raising. I have seen men 
rise in the shops to be foremen through sheer bluff, 
but you cannot bluff Dame Nature. Also, you make 
a mistake to-day in the shops or office that will help 
you to better things to-morrow, but you have to wait 
a year on the farm, and then if it was not very 
serious you will most likely forget it. The practice 
of having a place for everything and everything in 
its place is a very good practice on the farm, and a 
practice T have not learned yet thoroughly. It is a 
different matter to find a tool on your bench than on 
the fields. I have lost a great deal of time hunting 
a hoe that should have been hung up in the tool 
house instead of being left in the cabbage patch when 
I was called to dinner. I have certainly had a struggle 
for my farm, but it is worth it, and I have never re¬ 
gretted it. R. THOMAS. 
New Jersey". 
ALFALFA NOTES FROM MONTANA. 
In regard to disking, your correspondent from 
Ohio, on page 1090, speaks of disking incidentally, 
but highly recommends the narrow-toothed spring 
harrow. I destroyed probably 40 acres of young 
Alfalfa last Spring by disking it, not thinking that 
the stand was up to standard, yet which came out 
fine as could be desired where not disked. I have 
never favored disking anything but very" old Alfalfa, 
that with tough and large crowns, the narrow-toothed 
spring drag, as suggested by your Ohio correspondent, 
being my preference. Speaking of Alfalfa seed, it is 
difficult to believe some of the schemes indulged in 
by some of even the reputable seed houses. For 
instance, a near neighbor of mine here, who took 
first prize on his bushel of Alfalfa seed at the Corn 
Exposition at Omaha last year, sold a certain seed 
house his crop some three years ago, yet they still 
advertise his seed for sale. In speaking with a 
neighbor, who is a large Alfalfa seed grower, he 
mentioned that he has of late years narrowed down 
to only eight pounds of local seed. I use between 
eight and 10 pounds, using a drill. We find that 
unless a moist, firm seed bed is obtained, a poor 
stand may be expected. Every means possible is used 
. to obtain such conditions, even irrigating before seed¬ 
ing, then slightly harrowing, then seeding. Very 
few if any will irrigate to germinate seed, our land 
crusting badly. This crust is not troublesome where 
cultivation is permissible afterwards. Two pests 
especially should be guarded against in buying 
Alfalfa seed; these are dodder and Sweet clover; 
seed purchased should be guaranteed free" of these. 
Another noted authority and dealer in Alfalfa seed 
advertises “Northern grown seed,” yet when one of 
the firm was in this valley four years ago was amazed 
when informed that our seed commanded 12J/2 to 14 
cents per pound as it came from the thrashing ma¬ 
chine, and stated that he had just come from a small 
station in Kansas where he could purchase the best 
of seed for seven cents. This year Eastern buyers 
were on the ground and paid from 15 to 18 cents per 
pound for seed, this valley shipping out over $50,000 
worth of seed. A serious mistake is being made by 
our people in confining their attention to seed pro¬ 
duction entirely. A prominent business man of 
Chinook (Chouteau County) and still in this valley, 
stated to the writer lately that the valley would be 
far better off financially if not a single pound of 
seed was shipped; that if hay instead was harvested 
and fed upon the farms to milch cows, beef or mutton, 
far greater returns would result. In this I believe he 
is nearly correct, at least the seed output should be 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
of minor consideration. Illustrating this last point, 
while at Chinook a few days ago, I took supper with 
an old neighbor who has a fine farm adjoining my 
own there. This man, two years ago, having an 
abundance of Alfalfa hay, with a very limited market, 
went to Wisconsin and purchased 30 head of very 
high-grade dairy cows, built a fine barn and fully 
equipped it for practical dairying, and marketed the 
product through a fine co-operative local creamery, 
and was very enthusiastic for a year or more. I 
asked him concerning this herd while taking supper 
with him. He stated that he had disposed of the 
herd. Asked for the reason, he explained that he 
could not afford to feed $16 Alfalfa hay. It is true 
that at present Alfalfa hay is selling at that, and 
even higher figures, yet we are not certain that these 
prices will last, in fact we are almost certain that 
they will not, and that they are almost entirely due 
to abnormal local climatic conditions this year. I, 
too, am selling another kind of hay at $20, and 
usually have several hundred tons yearly to sell, yet 
$11 would be about the average for a period of five 
years, and Alfalfa would hardly range $8. 
I do not believe that there is another branch of 
agriculture that year in and rear out, with a first- 
class equipment of cows and implements, will stand 
high prices in competition with a well-conducted 
dairy farm. You of the East have an abundance of 
carbohydrates, and a scarcity of protein food products. 
This condition is reversed in the West, especially in 
Montana. It is easily possible here to pick up cows 
and feed that will give with our markets a revenue 
of $10 per head per month, this for ordinary cows, 
and to do this for eight or nine months. The great 
TWO WEST VIRGINIA COLTS. Fig. 515. 
trouble is to obtain good, painstaking men to handle 
the herd as it should be handled. I could tell many 
stories of friends and neighbors of their results with 
Alfalfa, some earning as high as $140 per acre from 
seed; this, too, on land which would find difficulty 
in selling at $40. Lohr Bros., near here, harvested 
$60 per acre of seed at 17 cents per pound this year 
on 80 acres, besides cutting an aftermath of 130 tons 
of the finest kind of short ha)", worth at least $15 
per ton. Several neighbors did fully as well, yet our 
land finds difficulty in finding buyers at $40. Most 
land owners realize that they possess too much land 
for best results. W. M. Wooldridge. 
Montana. 
CEMENT AND COAL TAR MIXTURE. 
Several questions have been asked about mixing coal tar 
products with cement for making an imitation asphalt for 
roofing or making walls or floors of buildings. The fol¬ 
lowing statement is made by Dr. L. W. Pago, director 
of the Office of Public Roads, Department of Agriculture : 
A little over a year ago I found out that mixtures 
of refined coal tar and Portland cement, and water- 
gas tar and cement and any of the petroleum oils 
mixed readily with wet Portland cement, the bitumin¬ 
ous material emulsifying and disseminating evenly 
throughout the body of the cement. The set is de¬ 
layed about two hours in such mixtures, which is a 
distinct advantage. As non-volatile oil is more 
available, I have been carrying on a large series of 
experiments ever since, and contemplate announcing 
the results of my work within the next month or two. 
I obtained as high as 2,400 pounds pressure to the 
square inch with a 15 per cent oil-sand-cement 
mortar, after six months. Concrete resulting from 
mixtures of oil is singularly waterproof, and is the 
only waterproof concrete that I have ever seen. I 
constructed about 400 feet of road with this material 
in the Borough of Richmond in New York City, and 
December 31, 
another section of street in Washington, as well as 
two bridge surfaces in New Jersey, all being laid 
during last May. Recently I constructed a 105-foot 
vault in the Treasury Department of the same ma¬ 
terial, and have just completed a large size water 
tank in my laboratory here, using very large size 
rock aggregate for the thickness of the tank, and 
it is not leaking a drop. 
Although I have been unable to make any experi¬ 
ments, I can see no reason why cement-oil mortar 
cannot be used for the construction of farm build¬ 
ings, including roofs, by simply stretching metal lath¬ 
ing and having an ordinary plasterer place it on. ✓ 
It might further interest you to know that I have 
also found that bitumens mix readily with plaster 
of paris and ordinary lime water, making it equally 
waterproof with a cement mixture. This should be 
even more valuable to the farmer than the cement-oil 
mixture, on account of "its cheapness. It seems to 
me such construction would compete with wood, and 
give a fireproof, waterproof and dampproof building. 
THE PROPOSED CORN CONTEST. 
A Western Grower Ready 
I have given your proposition for a corn contest 
between eastern and western farmers some thought. 
Our methods are so much different that I do not see 
just how a contest of that kind can be managed so 
as to give results that would prove much. Land is 
high here, too high; two 80-acre pieces without 
buildings and one 80-acre piece with cheap buildings 
sold to different parties for $125 an acre within the 
last six weeks. The farthest piece is one-half mile 
from my farm and two and one-half miles from 
town. That part of it would not matter in a com¬ 
parative contest, but very seldom will you see a corn¬ 
field as small as 10 acres, to say nothing of one or 
two. From what I have seen of eastern farming I 
would expect them to win on a small patch of corn, 
for where I grew to manhood in western New York 
there were small pieces on almost any farm that were 
very rich, some naturally and some from other causes. 
There was only a small percentage on any farm in 
that locality (Steuben County) that would profitably 
grow corn, but the high corner of an old sheep pas¬ 
ture would grow corn to equal anywhere. Here every 
acre of the well-fanned lands will grow corn. On 
any but the rough lands along streams the difference 
in crop is determined more by the farmer than the 
land. 
1 should be glad to take part in a contest of the 
kind you discuss, not expecting to have any chance 
of winning, but I have found that any contest makes 
us (all hands) more watchful, and that is where im¬ 
provement comes in. This year we had a 25-acre 
field, a Blue grass sod plowed up this Spring, that 
on account of the severe drought we stopped culti¬ 
vating when we got twice over. The ears were 
shortened by drought, but we weighed several strips 
at husking time, and the lowest went 70 bushels 
to the acre, and we figured the whole field would 
make that much of dry corn. We had another field 
that got considerably more work and only made 
around 40 bushels, so you can see that the net profit 
on a bushel of corn or a field of corn is determined, 
with us, at least, by the man and local conditions. 
Whether we could reduce the net cost by using com¬ 
mercial fertilizers is not known, for they are not 
used. We cannot do it with barnyard manure plowed 
under, for it is almost sure to dry out the ground 
and spoil the crop. We have to put our manure on 
pastures and meadows, and let the corn gat it 
second hand. jerome smith. 
Adams Co., Iowa. 
r N.-Y.—We hope to hear from other western 
farmers about this. The details can be arranged later. 
Our suggestion in brief is to leave contestants fiee 
to select any soil they like, also any variety that suits 
them, and to use any amount of manure or fertilizer 
they 'see fit. The yield is to be determined in crib- 
dry shelled corn, after the rules adopted by the New 
England Corn Show, and the contest decided on the 
basis of value for grain and fodder at market prices. 
WEST VIRGINIA COLTS.—The colts shown at 
Fig. 515 are owned by N. M. Riggs of Marshall Co., 
W. Va., who raised them. They are chestnut sorrels 
of Morgan blood. At the time this picture was taken 
they were about four months old. They are half- 
sisters—the grandmother being a full blood Morgan. 
At weaning time $160 was refused for these colts. 
Good horses are very high in that section, bringing 
$200 to $225 generally, better ones $300; that is, a 
draft horse of about 1,500 pounds sold for that; 
teams bring $500. It is the same all over, as anyone 
can find out by trying to buy a good horse. These 
colts are beauties, and will make a fine farm team 
as they grow up. 
