1014. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
0OS 
COVER CROP QUESTIONS. 
Value of Crimson Clover. 
D OES it pay to sow Crimson clover for 
cover crop if it freezes out. or has 
no time to grow in Spring before 
plowing? Should I sow rye and clover 
in my corn if I want to plow early for 
potatoes? E. ii. 
Maryland. 
Yes, we should sow Crimson clover in 
your latitude whether it was thrown out 
during the Winter or not. Our experi¬ 
ence is that after 60 days of growth the 
clover will more than pay for the labor 
and seed, even though it is completely 
killed during the Winter. In your lati¬ 
tude there should be four months of 
growing season at least during the Fall, 
and you would gain a good profit on a 
growth of clover seed before Winter set 
in. _ 
Preventing Soil Acidity. 
H OW keep land from getting sour or 
acid? Some argue plowing green 
cover crops down should not be 
done for this reason. Would it be better 
to cut cover crop and dry it before turn¬ 
ing under? Is this practical? E. H. 
Any soil which contains a fair quan¬ 
tity of organic matter will become sour 
more or less slowly, and the use of lime 
at fair intervals is the best treatment for 
such soils. We know of a number of 
cases where farmers cut the cover crop 
with a mowing machine and let it dry 
into hay before plowing it under. This 
prevents some of the trouble from sour¬ 
ing, but it is not the best way to handle 
these crops. We think that the process 
of fermentation which these green crops 
go through in the soil is of benefit, and 
we consider it more practical and cheaper 
in the end to plow the green crops direct¬ 
ly under and pack the soil firmly and 
use lime frequently enough to prevent the 
soil from becoming too sour. 
Pitting Land for Wheat. 
I HAVE several acres of oats. I shall 
plow it as soon as grain is harvested 
to seed to wheat in Fall. Should the 
land lie idle in hot Summer to settle, or 
would it be better to sow to buckwheat 
and Cow-horn turnips to get more humus 
in soil? Would plowing down this crop 
a week or two before seeding injure 
wheat crop? e. ii. 
Personally we would not let that land 
stand idle. As soon as possible after har¬ 
vesting the oats we should plow or har¬ 
row this land and seed to the buckwheat 
and turnips, and plow this crop under 
before fitting the ground for wheat. We 
think the humus added to the soil in this 
way would more than pay the cost of the 
plowing and seeding, and leave the soil 
in better shape for the wheat than if it 
were left idle through the Summer. It 
would be an economy to use a dressing of 
lime or limestone. Before putting in the 
wheat, we should plow this cover crop 
under and then roll or pack down firmly. 
Then harrow the upper soil as carefully 
as possible and make a good seed bed for 
the wheat. 
Two Methods of Strawberry Culture. 
M ANY different systems and ideas of 
the same exist in different sections 
where strawberries are grown. The 
Massachusetts Fruit Growers held a field 
meeting June 17 at Mr. Gardner’s place 
on the Marshfield hills, and two entire¬ 
ly different systems side by side are prac¬ 
ticed right there. Mr. Gardner, having 
about 10 acres of beds on his place, in¬ 
cluding bearing beds and those set for 
next year’s crops, uses one system, while 
his neighbor just below growing about 
four acres uses another. I believe both 
are very practical, good common sense 
systems, and will briefly go over them. 
Mr. Gardner as the rule plants pota¬ 
toes this year on the land he intends to 
set strawberries on next year, and uses 
a heavy dressing of stable manure and 
oue ton of high-grade fertilizer per acre 
on this crop. The following Spring one- 
half ton of fertilizer is put on the land 
and the strawberry plants set. Neces¬ 
sary cultivation of course follows, and in 
the Fall Mr. Gardner takes his first crop 
off in the form of pot-grown plants which 
are sold in wholesale lots to the seeds¬ 
men, largely in Boston. The first and 
strongest runners are all used for this 
purpose, and the later runners are 
trained into matted rows of about three 
feet in width, perhaps more. A narrow 
path separates this from the next bed. 
These runners are not allowed to grow 
too thick in the beds, being placed so the 
sun can get at the berries. Under this 
system he gets two crops, one of plants 
and the other of berries. By this sys¬ 
tem he sacrifices his berries to a cer¬ 
tain extent for the pot plants, but as 
these are his leader, and the berries a 
second consideration, the system works out 
in his case all right. lie grows good 
berries, but of course not as good as he 
could from the first runners were they 
used to crop from. lie fertilizes bis 
bearing beds by using one ton per acre 
of special strawberry fertilizer put broad¬ 
cast over the mulch early in the Spring, 
often during a late snowfall or early 
Spring rain. 
The neighbor grows for berries only, 
and sets his plants in early Spring in 
rather narrow rows and trains the run¬ 
ners as he wishes them to grow. After 
these are well rooted he takes out the 
mother plants entirely, leaving a narrow 
path about the width of a hoe blade here. 
This leaves the beds in narrow rows of 
12 to 20 inches in width, which are 
very handy to pick, without too much 
arm stretching. Every other path is 
used by the picker and is made wide 
enough to move in comfortably and pick 
from the beds on both sides. The plants 
in the beds are spaced about right to let 
in plenty of light to ripen up the berries 
properly. This man does not aim to 
grow too large a berry, believing the me¬ 
dium-sized berry that grows naturally 
without too much forcing stands up bet¬ 
ter after reaching the market, and also 
holds its place better, and his customers 
in Boston back him up in these claims. 
He grows Marshall only, and gets a bear¬ 
ing season of three to four weeks. 
Now comes the exceptional part of the 
story. This man has about four acres 
of land, and has grown only strawberries 
on this for about 18 years, and uses noth¬ 
ing but commercial fertilizer, no stable 
manure, and less than one ton per acre 
as the rule, worked in between the rows 
a short time before the crop is ready to 
pick. This year’s bed of two acres is 
plowed in after picking is over, to gather 
with the mulch between the rows, and 
this is the only fertilization beside the 
commercial fertilizer used the next year 
on the crop that the land received. The 
following Spring the new crop of plants 
is set. A mighty good crop of good ber¬ 
ries of even size is being picked this 
year, and these beds of two acres of level 
or slightly sloping land on a high eleva¬ 
tion are a sight worth seeing, and will 
long linger in memory. Strawberries are 
the main crop, in fact about the only crop 
grown in that section, and the growers 
are experts in their line. Pickers are 
mostly Portuguese men and large boys, 
who are paid by the day in many cases, 
the wages being $1.75 per day. Two 
cents per box is paid for box picking. 
Massachusetts. a. e. p. 
MAIL BAG. 
Arsenic on Grass. 
I S it safe to cut grass covered with ar¬ 
senate of lead? The town sprayed 
the elms, also my grass for a con¬ 
siderable distance in. as the wind was 
quite strong and did not improve it. 
Massachusetts. j. w. b. 
Generally speaking and with ordinary 
spraying, such grass could safely be made 
into hay. It seems that in this case 
more spray than usual was used, and 
there would be a question about it. We 
would send a fair sample of the grass to 
the experiment station at Amherst and 
obtain a scientific opinion. No one could 
be sure without examining such grass. 
Mixing Chemicals With Lime. • 
I HAVE a piece of land sown to buck¬ 
wheat to plow under. Would it be 
all right when sowing lime to mix 
nitrate of soda, dried blood, potash and 
phosphoric acid with lime, and sow all 
with lime spreader? Which is better, 
hydrated lime or ground rock, for mixing 
this? o. H. c. 
New York. 
No, we would not mix fertilizer with 
lime or ground limestone. Better put the 
lime on alone and harrow in well, and 
then apply the chemicals separately. 
Exploding Dynamite With Battery. 
G II. S., page 8.°>2. inquires regard- 
, ing gas engine battery to fire dy¬ 
namite. We have done it many 
times, and have never had a miss, using 
four dry cells without the spark coil being 
in the circuit. If a number of holes are 
to be fired at one charge, we have con¬ 
nected the caps parallel and also added 
several extra batteries, four being suffi¬ 
cient for one or two charges. An easy 
method of determining just how many 
charges a given number of cells will fire, 
is to connect as many plain caps together 
parallel as you wish to fire, and add till 
you get results. ei.mek j. weaver. 
Pennsylvania. 
What Became of the Middleman ? 
I HAVE just read with great interest 
"Why Boys Leave the Farm,” page 
810. Mr. Green said some very good 
things in his article. Before I was 
through with my chores this morning I 
concluded to ask a question of you or 
your readers. 
About that middleman, what are you 
going to do with him after he is elimin¬ 
ated? Or do you not care what becomes 
of him? True, the farmer being one of 
those who produce all that is desirable 
and good for man should get more out 
of that “35-cent dollar.” But my heart 
goes out to that poor fellow called the 
middleman (I have been one of them). 
Now if he has only a small capital and 
pays rent, which he usually does, he has 
no easy row to hoe, it being on the 
contrary a long one and rocky. But to 
the question, what are you going to do 
with the middleman, after he has been 
compelled to move on? Will some of 
your readers answer this question? Or 
perhaps Mr. Green will, if not, call on 
your humble servant and he will try. 
I am interested in the boys myself, as I 
have several of them. 
Washington. b. d. swartwood. 
Recent Experiment Station Bulletins, 
U 4 TTIC Dust and Treasures,” issued 
J\_ as Bulletin No. 7 in the Rural 
Life Series from the College of 
Agriculture at Ithaca, N. Y., is an ap¬ 
peal to farmers’ wives to search for and 
preserve valuable historical material in 
the way of papers or objects that may 
have been tucked away in old attics and 
be in danger of destruction at the annual 
house cleanings. Its illustrations and 
descriptions are interesting, and sugges¬ 
tive of other treasures which intelligent 
search might bring to light. 
“Porto Rican Bee Keeping,” which may 
be obtained as Bulletin No. 15 from the 
Superintendent of Documents, Govern¬ 
ment Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 
will interest those bee keepers who 
sometimes long for green fields far 
away. It is a description of the indus¬ 
try in Porto Itico by the superintendent in 
charge of the bee culture investigations of 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
“The Tennessee Wooden Hoop Silo,” is 
the title of Bulletin No. 105 from the 
University of Tennessee at Knoxville. It 
illustrates and describes the construction 
of what is said to be the cheapest and one 
of the most satisfactory types of home 
made silos; costing from $60 to $100 ac¬ 
cording to size and quality of material 
used. 
“Some Diseases of Nursery Stock,” Cir¬ 
cular 65, from the New Jersey Experi¬ 
ment Station at New Brunswick, de¬ 
scribes, with excellent illustrations, some 
of the common fruit tree diseases, such 
as crown gall, hairy root, fire blight, ap¬ 
ple and pear scab, peach yellows, little 
peach, etc. Circular 61 from the same 
Station is devoted to crown gall and 
hairy root alone. Grain smuts, their 
cause and treatment, are discussed in 
Circular 66. 
The San Jose scale, Oyster-shell bark 
louse and Scurfy bark louse in Ohio are 
treated of in Circular No. 116 from the 
Agricultural Experiment Station at 
Wooster. Maps showing their distribu¬ 
tion in the State are given and the recog¬ 
nized remedial measures are described. 
Circular No. 110 from the same station 
discusses Orchard bark beetles and pin¬ 
hole borers, while Circular No. 112 is 
devoted to the Seventeen-year locust. 
“Forage Crops” is the title of Bulletin 
269 from the Ohio Station and “Forest 
Conditions in Ohio” are described in Bul¬ 
letin 251. Both are profusely illustrated 
and may be obtained by addressing the 
Experiment Station at Wooster. O. 
Orchardists will be interested in the 
third report of “A Comparison of Tillage 
and Sod Mulch in an Apple Orchard” 
from the Experiment Station at Geneva, 
N. Y. This report by Prof. U. P. He¬ 
drick embodies a vigorous condemnation 
of sod in apple orchards. 
Other bulletins from the same station 
are “The Cabbage Maggot”; No. 882; 
“A Test of Commercial Fertilizers for 
Grapes,” No. 381; and “Analyses of Ma¬ 
terials Sold as Insecticides and Fungi¬ 
cides,” No. 381. M. B. D. 
(S 
Save $4 to $8 per Acre 
Seed and Fodder 
3 
On Clover, Alfalfa, Flax, Vetch, Peas, 
Timothy, short grain, etc. A rake 
or tedder will knock off and waste 
the seed and leaves. You save all 
that waste by equipping your mower 
with the 
THORNBURGH 
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Deposits crop to side, out of way of mower and 
team on next round. Leaves crop In either loose, 
hollow bunches or In windrows: heads and leaves 
In center, stems,which hold the sap, sticking out 
to dry quick, 
Saves the seed and leaves and half the labor. 
Saves making extra trips over the field with 
dump-rake, side-delivery rake and tedder. 
Cures Quicker—No Bleaching—Costs Littleand 
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IRON AGE diggers 
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Wheels, 32 or 28 inch. Elevator, 22 or 
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Ask your dealer about them and 
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M’F'G TO. 
Box 102D 
Grenloch, N. J. 
The New GREENWOOD LIME 
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