1914. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
948 
THE ART OF HAY-MAKING. 
Working to Advantage. 
AKE hay while the sun shines” is a good 
adage, but, like many other such say¬ 
ings, does not contain all the truth or 
lead to the very best practice. I want to present 
a few facts which have a hearing on the subject 
of hay-making. King says the amount of water 
evaporated through the leaves of the plant and 
necessary to produce one pound of dry matter in 
the crop is from 270 pounds in corn to 570 pounds 
in clover. If these figures are trustworthy, then a 
two-ton per acre clover crop has evaporated through 
its leaves 2,304,000 pounds, or 270,480 gallons of 
water. The crop has been grown in 00 days, and if 
we grant, for the sake of argument, that the use 
of water was equal in all stages of its growth, we 
have a daily evaporation of 38,400 pounds, or 4,608 
gallons. This is more than two times the total 
weight of the green crop. If the power of the 
clover plant to discharge water could he preserved, 
three or four hours of sunshine would fit the green¬ 
est. heaviest clover for the mow. This 
everything at the stQre. A country store sells 
gloves, eggs, rope, flour, bananas, candy, steplad- 
ders, mowing machines, and the proprietor feels a 
sort of responsibility to have his goods all satis¬ 
factory. lie sends for broken pieces of machinery 
for you, gets about anything one orders, from a 
white mouse to a white elephant. The middleman, 
so much criticized, slandered, vilified, etc., really is 
a man of great business ability, and gets often a 
scant living, for rent and interest on mortgage and 
taxes are large consumers of that 65 cents. 
The man living on interest from mortgages is the 
one to rail about; some turn their mortgages every 
year so as to get as high as 25 per cent. The divi¬ 
dend getters of the railroads are clamoring for 
more. The owner notices every change in a rise 
in value to put on more rent, and the interest 
neither slumbers nor sleeps, hut keeps steadily at it 
24 hours a day and seven days a week. The mort¬ 
gagee replaces the loan as often as he can for a 
consideration, having a broker to share a bonus 
with, and an attorney to search a title, which has 
been so well searched that it’s as well known as 
LIVE STOCK WITH ORCHARDING. 
I N connection with our orchard interests we are plan¬ 
ning to go into the dairy business for the purpose, 
largely, of manufacturing fertilizing for the fruit 
trees. We are not able to buy manure at all, so 
that if our herd of cows only pays expense of itself 
and gives us manure for profit we will consider it 
profitable. Our plan is to feed the whole year and 
save all manure, both liquid and heavy matter, using 
only a building for the exercise of the cows and where 
nothing of value can'be lost. I)o you think that a plan 
of this sort can be carried out to advantage or is 
it visionary? We have now over 30.000 fruit trees 
growing, and we are planning to plant about 5,000 
more each year until we get our 800 acres well planted. 
The matter of fertilizing is the one hardest to solve. 
This plan I am working on I thought would not only 
solve that, but would give employment to the men we 
must keep during the Winter, saving some expense in 
that way. We can clear new land for hay ground 
and for corn for the silo. I thought this could be 
rotated with Alfalfa, clover and corn, so as to keep 
the ground right. a. a. l. 
Traverse Bay, Mich. 
Send to the experiment stations at East Lansing, 
Mich.; Madison. Wis.; Minneapolis. Minn.: Ames, 
Iowa, and Wooster, Ohio, for barn plans and bulle¬ 
tins on silo building and care and feeding of cattle. 
This plan of keeping live stock to 
large amount of water is given off 
mainly through numerous minute 
openings in the under side of the 
leaves, very little of it from the stem 
or stalk. 
Again transpiration is much more 
rapid during the daytime than at 
night; in fact, may he almost totally 
checked in rainy weather or on dewy 
nights. The fact that plants acquire 
water during the night and lose it 
during the day is shown by the wilt¬ 
ing and rolling of the corn leaves on 
hot. dry days, and their regaining 
freshness and turgidity during the 
night. 
What of our common haying prac¬ 
tice in the light of these facts? It is 
a common practice to mow in the 
morning, when the crop has the most 
water in it. The leaves, subject to the 
tierce heat of noonday, quickly wither 
and lose their power of exhaling 
moisture from the stems, and the crop 
must lie in the burning heat for hours 
while the moisture is slowly dried 
from the woody stalks. This makes 
the leaves so dry and brittle that they 
shatter off in handling, and the value 
of the crop is greatly impaired. 
Now, suppose the mowing he done 
in the afternoon. The crop contains 
much less water, and the leaves, un¬ 
burned by the noonday sun, retain 
their freshness and power to exhale 
moisture, and the hay is really mak¬ 
ing faster during the late afternoon 
than at midday when it seemed to he 
drying so rapidly. Grass cut in the 
afternoon will not get dry enough to 
he blackened by the dew, and once 
stirring the following morning with 
tedder will let the air through it 
and dry it so it. can he taken up with 
the loader or wind rowed before the 
leaves become dry and brittle in the 
scorching midday sun. There is a 
vast difference between air-dried and 
sun-burned hay. Many farmers burn 
the life out of their hay, and then 
wonder why their stock do not do 
well when they have all the hay they 
can eat. Much nutriment has been lost. 
Many farmers with small acreage want to cure 
their hay in the cock. This method makes good 
hay, hut it involves much extra work. Hay made 
as above outlined, by afternoon mowing and air 
drying, retains the nutritious leaves and preserves 
its flavor and goodness wtihout extra handling. 
While modern haying tools have greatly expedited 
and cheapened the heavy work of haying, they have 
not relieved the farmer from thoughtful planning 
of his work if he is to secure the best results. A 
good crop gains value through intelligent handling. 
Ohio. F. I,. ALLEN. 
A BATCH OF TOMATOES. WELL STAKED. Fig. 303. 
conditions—not all. On most large 
orchards cover crops and chemicals 
are used to maintain fertility. Crops 
like rye, vetch, peas or clover are 
plowed under each year with the use 
of lime. On stony land such treat¬ 
ment will usually carry the orchard 
on to bearing age. After that some 
plant food—chiefly potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid—will be needed. In some 
parts of Michigan wood ashes can be 
bought cheaply. This will give a good 
supply of potash. In some sections it 
is possible to buy waste bones at a 
fair price. These can he crushed in 
a bone mill and used with the wood 
ashes and with the cover crops, pro¬ 
viding the cheapest food for the or¬ 
chard. 
Where live stock is kept we find 
usually a herd of dairy cows, a flock 
of sheep or a bunch of beef cattle. 
The dairy cows require most capital 
and most care. Milking and handling 
the milk will interfere with the or¬ 
chard work. In order to keep up the 
herd you must keep a large number of 
young stock or buy fresh cows at a 
high figure. Dairying is a business by 
itself, and you will have to put in an 
expensive outfit and hire spme high- 
priced men if you keep cows enough 
to eat up all your feed. The more 
common plan on large orchards is to 
buy sheep and steers in the Fall, fat¬ 
ten them through the Winter, and 
sell in Spring or Summer. This will 
provide a large amount of manure for 
the orchard, give Winter work for the 
men. yet not interfere with orchard 
work in Summer. On your large 
place, unless you have some special 
market for dairy goods, this feeding 
sheep and steers with cover crops will 
probably be better than dairying. 
GIVE THE STOREKEEPER A SHOW. 
I T may be that the consumer of the actual food 
stuffs pays $1. of which the actual grower gets 
but 35 cents; and it may be occasionally a 
reasonable thing to do to have only the parcel 
postage stamp between the one and the other, but 
occasionally, not often, I pay as a matter of con¬ 
venience willingly a profit to a grocer who pays 
rent, or interest and taxes, because I can get 
It. I. REDS AT THE THORNDALE EGG-LAYING CONTEST. Fig. 394. 
New York on the map. Don't scold the grocer too 
hard; he has his worries and expenditures. The 
loafer living on an income is the absorber of 60 of 
the 65 cents. It is easy to overlook the other side of 
the middleman’s business, which may not be a rosy 
one. 
A housekeeper cannot easily write to Java for 
coffee, to Guiana for pepper, to Brazil for nuts, and 
Greenland for walrus shoe strings, and the mails 
would be overflooded with small packages. The 
distributing points are best, and the corner grocery. 
The fancy-goods shop next to it is even better to 
patronize than a department store requiring a 
half day's journey. elbf.rt wakeman. 
Maryland. 
Ax expert primer tells of this side of his work : “I am 
making about 70 cents per tree, and prune about eight 
trees per hour, so I don’t have much rest for my right 
arm. All the cutting is done with hand slu rs (I have 
used the saw three times in two weeks), so you can 
judge the condition of the trees.” Let’s all go to “Sum¬ 
mer pruning. This is only one side of it, for not one 
man in 1.000 could earn such wages. 
THE PICTURES. 
FLORIDA STRAWBERRIES.—The 
picture at Fig. 392 shows the way 
strawberries are packed in Florida for 
Northern shipment. This photograph 
was taken at Elmer, in that State. 
These berries have a long, hard journey 
and the expense of packing, icing and transporta¬ 
tion is considerable. It is therefore necessary to 
have them packed firmly so that they will make a 
solid bed in the box. and not shake about too 
much. When we see these berries taken out of the 
ice crate in this city it seems a wonder sometimes 
that they could make the long journey as they do. 
They must be handled with great skill at the start 
in order to carry them through. 
EGG-LAYTNG “REDS.” — The picture on this 
page. Fig. .394, shows two pullets entered in the 
Thorndale laying contest by Allen Jenkins of Vir¬ 
ginia. This gives a good idea of the correct egg 
shape for Rhode Island Reds. These pullets are 
leading in the contest, and have made an excellent 
record, and are bred for egg pedigree. In addition 
to being excellent layers, they would also rank as 
show birds, and would probably score at least 92 
points in the show ring. We hope to obtain from 
time to time good pictures of the leading pens in 
these contests, with a fair idea of their score, so 
that a reasonable comparison can be made. 
STAKED TOMATOES.—A good method of stak¬ 
ing tomatoes is shown at Fig. 393, this page. It is 
possible for any one to grow this crop after this 
plan, if proper pains are taken to select strong 
plants to. begin with, and have the soil rich and 
strong. Thorough culture must be given, and prop¬ 
er pruning of the vine, so as to keep the lower 
limbs off the ground, and induce the vine to make 
a strong upward growth. 
