4L2 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 10, 
TAKING CARE OF PEANUTS. 
I have just read the suggestions of K. 
A. L., page 1351, on caring for peanuts, 
and as I have been and still am a peanut 
farmer in a small way I wish to say 
that while the method he describes might 
do where only a very small quantity is 
grown, it would be impossible where they 
are grown in large quantities, and I feel 
sure would not be the best even for a 
very small crop. All through the peanut 
belt, after loosening the plants by run¬ 
ning under them with a small plow hav¬ 
ing a sharp shear but no mold board, the 
plants are shaken free from dirt and 
thrown in small piles; about a good 
forkful in a pile. Then at suitable dis¬ 
tances along the rows of piles, stakes 
about six feet high are set in holes 
punched with a crowbar. Cleats are 
nailed across the stakes eight or 10 inches 
from the ground, and the peanuts are 
shocked around the stakes with the nuts 
next to the pole and the tops out. These 
shocks are topped out with grass to shed 
the rains, and are allowed to stand until 
both viues and nuts are thoroughly cured, 
which will usually be in about three 
weeks; although if the shocks are prop¬ 
erly built they may, and often do stand 
for three months without injury. 
The large kinds of nuts such as are 
sold from peanut stands in the cities must 
be thrashed from the vines by a special 
machine called a peanut picker, but the 
little Spanish peanuts may be thrashed 
with an ordinary grain thrasher equipped 
with a special cylinder having a slower 
motion and fewer teeth than the one 
used in thrashing grains. On the large 
farms where often several hundred acres 
are grown, a machine somewhat like a 
potato digger is used for lifting the 
plants from the soil and shaking out the 
dirt. The vines after the nuts are 
thrashed make a hay almost equal to Al¬ 
falfa. Where one only raises a few pea¬ 
nuts for home use they may of course 
be -picked from the vines by hand after 
being cured in shocks as described above, 
but be sure to give the vines to the fam¬ 
ily cow and note the increase in milk. 
jonN B. LEWIS. 
Brunswick County, Ya. 
HUSKING CORN WITH MACHINE. 
We have husked corn by machine for 
the last 10 years. There are two methods 
followed in husking. The first is to em¬ 
ploy a large machine and change work 
with the neighbors as in thrashing. 
These machines husk from 1,000 to 1,200 
bushels of ears of corn per day, or 500 
to 600 bushels of shelled corn, and charge 
five cents per bushel for machine and 
three hands to run it, the farmer paying 
for all other help. The second plan is 
for a farmer, or two or three together, 
to own a small machine and gasoline 
engine and do their own husking. This 
is probably the cheapest way, as two 
men can go to the field and load a cou¬ 
ple of wagons, drive in and husk without 
other help. The fodder is always 
cut or.shredded, and put into mows, and 
so well do we like this for feed that we 
sometimes shred the bundle fodder from 
the hand husking. Ilusking with a ma¬ 
chine is no cheaper than husking by 
hand if we can get the help to do it that 
way. The advantages are the rapidity 
with which the work is done, and the 
advantage of having the shredded fodder 
put in mow in less than half the space, 
and often on top of hay mows, where 
putting bundle fodder would be very hard 
work. For feeding in mangers it is a 
much more convenient feed, and whatever 
is not eaten is one of the best possible 
absorbents as bedding for the stock and 
leaves the manure in very much better 
shape for handling than with long stalks 
to try the patience of the farm help. 
While stock will not eat all the fodder 
when shredded, as some claim, it will 
feed farther than the same fodder not 
shredded. As to its keeping qualities, 
the corn should not be husked until the 
fodder is well cured, in central Ohio usu¬ 
ally not before the first of November; 
then if care is taken not to husk when 
there is rain or snow on the shocks, there 
should be no trouble. Keep the mow 
level instead of allowing it to form a 
larger heap at end of blower, and roll 
down the sides. When it seems desirable 
to husk before the fodder is in good con¬ 
dition . placing alternate layers of straw 
and fodder is the right thing. We have 
done this a number of times, keeping the 
fodder nicely and making the straw more 
palatable by absorbing some of the juices 
of the fodder. Our plan is to husk by 
hand until we think the fodder is safe, 
and then finish with the machine. Quite 
cold weather is all right for machine husk¬ 
ing, as there is plenty of exorcise in 
hauling and feeding to the machine. If 
the corn is cut by hand we do not tie 
in bundles, but with one man on a fiat- 
topped hay-rack and another to hand to 
him a load is soon put on. Beginning 
at one end of rack fill as high as you 
want the load, so that the loader may 
stand on floor of rack until load is nearly 
all on. He then stands on floor of rack 
and hands to the man at the machine. 
I do not hesitate to say that machine 
husking is all right, iiobatio markley. 
Ohio. 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
I would suggest to Mr. Gleason (page 
1374) that no agricultural college claims 
to send out experienced farmers, but 
young men prepared to profit more rapid- j 
ly by experience on the farm than they 
would without the scientific education. 
No medical college turns out a physician j 
full-fledged; he needs the hospital prac¬ 
tice, and the lawyer graduate will not 
get important cases till lie has proved his 
ability. Education for any profession 
is simply fitting a man to find out what 
he should know, to know where to get 
it in every difficulty. Much of the ex¬ 
perience of the uneducated practical man 
is useless from his erroneous interpreta¬ 
tion of facts in his experience. He sees 
cheat heading out in his Winter grain, 
and accepts the popular idea that the 
wheat has turned t> cheat, while the edu¬ 
cated man who has made a study of plant 
life knows that the cheat came from cheat 
seed. The college graduate is rid of all 
the old superstitions, and when he goes 
on the farm to acquire the practical 
experience, he will continue to be a stu¬ 
dent, and will not stand still or run in 
the old ruts. The farmer with the edu¬ 
cated son has a fine chance to make a 
good farmer to follow him. if lie and th ' 
son have good common sense. That man 
on page 1375, who has struggled with 
that piece of muck laud without success, 
is a good example of tlie experienced man 
without the training the college educa 
tion would have given him, for the col¬ 
lege graduate would have known at once 
that the needs of that land after drain¬ 
age, were lime and potash, and not sta¬ 
ble manure. 
The Dasiieex. —I grew some of these 
the past Summer, but unfortunately they 
were planted in a dry sandy soil, and 
the weather was hot and dry, so that the 
crop did not amount to much in size of 
tubers. But I have more than I planted, 
and will try to give them a better place 
the coming Spring. The only difference I 
can see between them and the common 
Caladium esculentum is that their root¬ 
lets are white, while those of the Cala- 
dium are pink. In top growth they look 
exactly alike, and the tubers of the Cala- 
dium (Colocasia) grow larger here than 
those of the dasheen, and both are prob¬ 
ably good eating. w. F. massey. 
Peat for Fuel. 
How do the Vermont people burn muck 
from a swamp? I have four acres, and 1 
would like to know more about it fjr 
fuel. J. D. 
Eastport, Me. 
The Vermont Experiment Station at 
Burlington has issued a bulletin on muck 
and peat, which will tell you all about 
it. In former years a few Vermont farm-1 
ers used peat as fuel, but this use was 
never very large. 
depend largely on how the crop is planted. 
Every skipped hill is a loss in time, fertilizer 
and soil. Every double wastes valuable seed. 
It means $5 to §50 per acre extra profit if all hills 
are planted, one piece in each. That is why 
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DIBBLE’S Farm Seed 
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