10413 
August 29, 
eral rule we feed tlie cornstalks to the silage cutter 
tassel end first. The only exception to this rule is 
when the men in the field make a mistake and load 
the wagon the wrong way. 
FILLING.—The place where we put the best man 
in the outfit is in the silo. One good active man can 
usually handle the distribution and packing of the 
silage properly, hut he must be good and active, 
otherwise another man is put in to help handle this 
end of the filling. We have a distributor fixed at the 
end of the blower tube. With this distributor the 
silage can he directed to any part of the silo. With 
the best distributor, however, there is a tendency 
for the heavier portions of the corn to pile up to¬ 
gether while the lighter portions are blown to one 
side. Were this corn not forked over properly and 
mixed the silage would be of uneven quality and 
would settle unevenly. The way we do things in our 
circle each man’s corn is all cut and put in the silo 
at the one operation. We never go to the same farm 
twice in the season. As all who have silos know, 
however, the silage will settle several feet after the 
first filling and that much storage capacity is wast¬ 
ed. Where one has twin silos this difficulty may be 
overcome to a certain extent by shifting the blower 
back to the first silo after the second one has been 
filled. Most, of us, however, myself among the num¬ 
ber, have only one silo. I have gotten around the 
difficulty by building a cheap wooden top on my 
cement silo, extending to a height of six feet above 
the cement. This top is cheaply constructed without 
any attempt to make it airtight. The corn is filled 
in right to the top of the superstructure, and in a 
few days it has settled down within the hounds of 
the cement silo. To prevent the surface of the silage 
from decaying I soak the corn with a solution of 
common salt and water, almost concentrated. Fol¬ 
lowing this method there is practically no decay. 
STAVE SILOS.—I have had no experience with 
the stave silo, but some of my neighbors have and 
consider them very satisfactory. One point on which 
they lay great stress is in watching the silo care¬ 
fully after it has been filled. Silage is apt to heat 
or sweat and thus expand the staves. Unless the 
hoops are loosened slightly at this time they may 
burst. Particular attention should be given to the 
hoops at the bottom of the silo. I like the cement 
silo mighty well and will build another one this Fall. 
The main point I would emphasize about our silo 
filling plans is the co-operative methods of supply¬ 
ing the labor. It is best not to change around among 
different neighbors each year. Work in groups year 
after year and the work will go much more smoothly. 
Illinois. H. c. w. 
BIG STORIES WHITTLED DOWN. 
HAT is there in the raising of Dahlias? Is all 
true that is told in the Country Gentleman 
of recent date? Seems to me if it were 
every one would be in it. H. N. F. 
The possibilities of making easy money in a short 
time, and apparently unlimited quantities, were 
outlined in the Country Gentleman in a recent is¬ 
sue by Maurice Fuld. who advises farmers very 
strongly to plant Cannas. Gladioli. Dahlias, etc.. 
by the acre, and watch them grow into money so 
fast that in one instance he dare not compute the 
acre value of the crop. Too bad he did not figure 
this out, as the figures he does give are interesting, 
as they range in returns from $5,000 per acre to 
$10,000 on Gladioli, and $5,000 to $6,000 per acre 
on Dahlias. We find the kernel of the nut in this 
statement: “In all these instances the purchasing 
of the initial stock is practically tin* total invest¬ 
ment necessary, for all these varieties increase 
rapidly. Occasionally there are additional expenses 
for labor and fertilizer.” 
Mr. Fuld is interested in a company supplying 
the initial stock. Take Gladioli as an instance. It 
is advised to plant 250,000 i>er acre. Figure this 
out and compute how much hand weeding would be 
necessary, and any farmer knows that oc<*asional 
labor bill is not going to be a small item, as they 
must he planted first thing in Spring and kept free 
from weeds till frost. It is possible to sell the cut 
blooms for $20 per 1,000 and sometimes more, hut 
last season many of the variety America shipped 
from here did not bring as much as the bulbs cost, 
and we sold through our regular merchants, who 
have a large trade and are able to dispose of 
flowers when the farmer, who is not a regular 
shipper, would probably not be able to dispose of 
any, unless by working up a trade in a nearby 
town or village, and even this would likely prove 
difficult, as most small town residents have gardens 
of their own and do not purchase many flowers. 
Mention is also made of each large bulb having 
25 or more small ones that attain marketable size 
rapidly and are ready for sale third season. In our 
T HK KUKAL NBVV-YORKaK 
soil very few of these small bulbs ever mature. 
Another quotation follows: “The lowest wholesale 
price quoted on this variety (America) to-day is 
$20 per 1.000 bulbs, so that the root crop alone 
is worth $5,000 per acre." This leaves the reader 
ARMY WORM ON OAT STUBBLE. Fig. 148. 
under the impression that you buy a bulb in 
Spring, plant it. grow a flower and sell it, and later 
have a bulb to sell at what you paid for the bulb 
in Spring. The old root makes one large conn 
ready to dig just before frost, which you must store 
for next season's planting, so you have no bulbs to 
sell the first season nor the second, unless you are 
fortunate in getting a good growth from the small 
cluster of cormels attached to each large one: but 
these small cormels require two seasons’ growth 
and attention before they will flower, and the past 
Winter salesmen from Holland were travelling the 
country over selling America at just a trifle over 
half the figure Mr. Fuld states as the lowest whole¬ 
sale price. Suppose an individual farmer had a 
few thousand surplus bulbs to sell. Would not the 
expense of selling in the face of this strong foreign 
competition add quite an item to the expense of 
growing? 
The Dahlia is another flower held out as a veri¬ 
table Aladdin's lamp, that only needs to be planted 
and the genie will bring us fabulous riches. In lo¬ 
cations where the soil is warm and sandy the Dah¬ 
lia grows very well, and is a crop that gives a fair 
ARMY WORM ON CORNSTALK. Fig. 44!>. 
return for the money and labor invested. There 
are large quantities grown in southern New Jersey 
and shipped from there in large quantities to the 
large cities each season. Where the soil is heavy 
and of a clay nature the newer and expensive 
varieties make very few flowers. The plants are 
subject to leaf spot disease, and in a dry season 
nearly all leaves fall off. The tarnished plant-bug 
also punctures the heads, which checks the growth, 
causing a lot of short stems to start out so late 
that the flowers do not mature before frost. Some 
of these troubles could probably be overcome by 
spraying and irrigating, but the tarnished plant- 
bug apparently cannot be successfully combated. 
Some commercial growers here have only the small 
increase of bulbs or roots to offset their invest¬ 
ment and have quit the business, as our soil is 
heavy and the Dahlia will not bloom enough to pay 
for work put on same. The market for Dahlias in 
the large cities after the first few weeks becomes 
very badly glutted, and many thousands that are 
shipped in do not find a purchaser. 
It is unfortunate indeed that such roseate visions 
of easily earned wealth are apparently endorsed by 
one of our widely circulated horticultural papers, 
as everyone who tills the soil knows there is no 
crop that we can put in the ground that does not 
require constant care and attention. 
Lancaster Co., Pa. elmer j. weaver. 
VERBAL CONTRACT FOR LIME. 
A BURNS and sells lime. B lias an orchard of four 
acres in a good sod. using the mulch system. A 
comes to B in November, 1013, to see if he can 
sell B some lime. I’> tells A if he could get some 
one to plow and fit the ground for seeding in the Spring 
for oats and grass he would buy some lime. A agrees 
to do all the work at a given price per day. and to de¬ 
liver the lime at a certain price per ton. B tells A to 
go ahead and do the work, feeling satisfied that A would 
do as he agreed. A plows B’s orchard in December, 
Ifll.'i. and delivers the lime in January. 1011. and lets 
it lie for slaking three weeks. B goes to A and re¬ 
quests A to distribute the lime and harrow the land, 
as B has told A lie wanted it harrowed three times be¬ 
fore seeding. A tells B there is plentv of time and to 
be in no hurry. B requests A at four different times to 
complete the job. Finally. A tells B that he is unable 
to finish the job. claiming short of help and horses in 
foal, and advises B to get others to complete work, 
which B did without success. A sends his bill for lime 
and B refuses to pay before A completes his agreement 
(plowing had been paid for). A sues B for lime. B 
enters an offset claim for damages, for loss of oat crop 
and bad condition of land being left in open furrows 
since December, 1013. up to date. A gets judgment 
against B for price of lime. B’s offset claim is set 
aside. Amount involved $28. Would you have appealed 
in such a case? I have paid it. j. m. v. 
This is another instance where the rights of the 
parties could better have been preserved by a writ¬ 
ten contract instead of a verbal agreement. By no 
means are all written contracts void of ambiguity, 
but where the intentions of the parties are written 
down and agreed upon between them, there is less 
danger later of a misunderstanding. In your case 
A’s version of the contract was interpreted by the 
court as the true one, and he was given the judg¬ 
ment. and we think you did the wise thing in not 
appealing e case. It seems to be a case of an in¬ 
terpretation of the terms of the agreement between 
A and B, and without any writing to help the court 
must du its best in finding out what that agreement 
"' as - M. n. 
NOVA SCOTIA APPLE FIGURES. 
N addition to keeping records of individual tree yields, 
it. is useful to know liow different varieties of apples 
are affected when frost has cut down the general 
crop. Nova Scotia in 11)0!) had about 700,000 bar¬ 
rels: (frost) 1910, 100.000 barrels; 1911, 1,500,000 bar¬ 
rels; 1912, 750,000 barrels; (frost) 1913, 450,000 bar¬ 
rels. My yearly crops of certain varieties were: 
Year. 
Spy. 
O ra¬ 
ven- 
stein. 
Stark. 
King. 
Bn Id- 
\\ in. 
Ben 
Davis. 
1908 
36 
147 
114 
114 
62 
126 
19011. 
57 
119 
147 
168 
04 
131 
1910. 
65 
99 
99 
20 
49 
98 
1911 . 
4 4 
240 
205 
207 
88 
229 
1912. 
107 
403 
403 
175 
82 
257 
1913. 
55 
79 
97 
125 
76 
150 
Total . 
397 
1087 
1065 
815 
411 
991 
Taking the 
year 1911 
as 100*. 
85# 
75* 
85?; 
65 £ 
77* 
71* 
The percentage of fruit for each year on same basis 
runs: 
Year. 
Spy. 
Gra¬ 
ven- 
stein. 
Stark. 
King. 
Bald¬ 
win. 
Ben 
Davis. 
1908 . 
46* 
01 f i. 
55* 
55* 
59* 
55* 
1909 . 
74 
49 
71 
81 
72 
57 
1910 (frost) .. 
84 
4! 
48 
12 
55 
42 
1911 . 
100 
100 
100 
loo 
100 
300 
1912. 
138 
167 
196 
84 
93 
112 
65 
J913 (frost) .. 
71 
31 
47 
60 
86 
A v e r a g e 
yearly set 
85* 
75* 
86* 
65* 
77* 
71* 
The only feature which may occasion a little trouble 
is that the 196 barrels of Stark in 1912 included about 
20 to 30 barrels off young trees. The soil is light, sandy 
loam. 
The United Fruit Company, Ltd., of Nova Scotia, is 
sending a special sales agent to South America. 
Nova Scotia. John BUC1IANAN. 
