564 
course necessary to plant life. The green matter in 
the leaves is very largely iron, and there are in 
, ur swamps great deposits of bog iron ore resulting 
from the decay of ancient vegetation, and this bog 
.ire was formerly used in the making of iron in this 
section of the country. But there is no lack of iron 
in any of our cultivated soils. It makes the clay red 
or yellow, and so long as plants make green leaves 
it is evident that they are getting plenty of iron, 
and the supply is so inexhaustible in the soil that 
I cannot see the need for adding iron in a metallic 
form, which would he a very long time in getting 
into a form that would he of any use to plants. I 
have planted a great many trees, both fruit trees 
and ornamental, and have had them grow as well 
as any without old iron in the holes. Hence I re¬ 
gard the practice as perfectly useless. Some drive 
nails into the trunks of trees, with a notion that the 
iron will be taken into the sap. But trees do not 
take in anything except through the feeding root 
hairs in the soil, and there are many people who 
imagine that the circulation in trees is something 
like the circulation of blood in animals, while it has 
no resemblance to this. There is an old notion that 
the sap rises in the Spring and goes down in the 
Fall, while there is no such thing. In the Spring 
there is a rush of water from the roots laden with 
dissolved plant food, but this is not sap till it comes 
into the -green leaves and the true salt is elaborated 
with materials from soil and air, and then this elab¬ 
orated sap is carried wherever growth is going on 
and new cells are forming, whether that is up in the 
top of the tree or behind the root cap on the root 
fibres in the ground. Some years ago the editor of 
a daily paper had a letter from a subscriber saying 
Unit he found the water in his spring that Fall rose 
just before a rain, and he wanted to know the rea¬ 
son. Of course it was simply the release of atmos¬ 
pheric pressure before the rain, just as the mercuiy 
tills the cup of a barometer. But that wise editor 
knew better. He said in his paper that at that time 
of the year the sap was running out of the tree roots 
and that made the spring to rise. T tried to explain 
the matter in the paper, but was met on the street 
by intelligent men asking if it was really true, as 
they had always learned that sap rose in Spring and 
went down in the Fall, and they were surprised 
when I told them that it was not true, and that tree 
roots do not leak‘water, though they may exhale 
carbon dioxide. Old superstitions are rather hard 
to overcome. w. f. massey. 
Ma ryland. 
QUESTIONS ABOUT FERTILIZERS AND 
SOILS. 
Sheep and Cow Manure on Potatoes. 
I had two fields of potatoes the past season. On 
one field I applied cow manure and phosphate, an¬ 
alysis 2-S-10. and on the other manure taken from 
sheep shed and also the same amount of 2-S-10 
hosphate. The field I applied the sheep manure on 1 
cceived a much poorer crop than the other, and my 
i mp was badly infested with the old-fashioned scab. 
What was the trouble? ^ n - T - J - 
Ellenburgh Center, X. . 
There might bo several reasons. Were the two 
fields exactly alike? One may be naturally better 
potato soil than the other. As for the scab, one 
field may have been in potatoes last year or the year 
before, and the germs may have been in the soil. 
Sheep manure, like horse manure, is "warm ; that 
is it ferments quickly and dries out rapidly. A pile 
of such manure will “firefang" while the cooler and 
moister cow manure would show little change. The 
sheep manure would ferment quickly in Ihe soil and 
make it somewhat alkaline, like lime. This is the 
condition most favorable for scab. In a dry season 
(be sheep manure like horse manure would dry out 
uic-kly and not hold moisture in the soil as well as 
the cow manure would. 
Substitutes for Manure. 
] r FIND many people in the country, without stock, 
I experience the trouble which has proved my great- 
[ est obstacle to commercial gardening and flower 
u growing— difficulty in obtaining manure. Commer- 
fertilizer year after year is unsatisfactory, while 
limited space precludes green fertilizer. Would a mix¬ 
ture of straw with commercial fertilizer as a broadcast 
be good? w * G ' N ‘ 
Pennsylvania. 
What is the stable manure you would buy? Most¬ 
ly wet straw more or less decayed. Mixed with the 
straw is partly digested hay and grain. If you could 
cut up the straw, keep it in a wet place and let it 
decay you would, with your chemicals, have a very 
good substitute for manure. By watching every 
chance and sowing rye or turnips or clover when¬ 
ever a late crop is taken out you can have green 
crops to plow under, and these, with lime, will keep 
the soil open. The wet and decayed straw will make 
a g 00 d substitute, but will not quite equal the ma¬ 
nure. Xo doubt manure contains some bacteria not 
visually found in rotted straw or hay. With chemi¬ 
THE RURAL IS EC W ‘ - V O K’ K K K 
February 
cals added, however, you can. by using this straw, 
keep up your soil. 
Drying Out Hen Manure. 
I WISH to know the best way to keep hen manure 
from heating after being stored in a shed. I have 
400 hens from which I keep all the droppings by 
having dropping boards under the roosts, but after 
1 collect the droppings and place them in shed to keep 
until next Summer when I wish to use them on my 
growing crops, after pulverizing them with the thrash¬ 
ing machine, they will heat, which 1 think partly spoils 
them. w * E - 
Mt. Bethel, Pa. 
It is not fair to say that the heating “spoils” the 
Some of the ammonia is lost, but not 
hen manure. 
De 
\/Sleampipe c oyer. rrety/ic 
'■ from boiler J down if necessary 
Coyer. Height 
A 
Water 
Seal 
.Water 
\i\Secl io 
Keep 
sleom 
from 
/blowing 
out 
Vat For Steaming Corn. Fig. 60. 
all, and of course the potash and the phosphoric 
acid remain. The manure will not heat or ferment 
if it can be kept fully dry. In order to do this an 
abundance of drying material must be used. Plaster, 
raw phosphate rock or dry road dust will dry out 
the manure. The usual trouble is that not enough 
of this drying is used under the perches from day 
to day. When it is scraped off and stored some of 
the chunks are damp inside, and when broken up in 
the machine they ferment. More of the drying ma- 
„. , • , . , Wire screen mesh 
<fhm Kin. deep to keep slightly smaller 
corn f rom railing off. than mosquito 
Boarcf about Cm. wide 
by length of stove 
r 
Top of Stove 
Home Corn Drier. 
Fig. 61. 
terial used under the perches will overcome this, or 
a quantity of land plaster scattered through the 
crushed manure in Spring will help. 
Peas and Oats for Early Green Manure. 
I HAVE a two-acre tract that was in late potatoes 
two years ago. It produced a heavy crop of excellent 
potatoes. The land is Sandy and ideal for potatoes. 
This last year this field was in truck crops. It was 
heavily manured in the Spring, and some commercial 
fertilizer was used. It yielded a big crop again. This 
vear I want to put this lot in late potatoes again, as 
I am short of other good potato land. I have been 
thinking of plowing this land early and sowing a crop 
on it to plow under for a green manure crop. What 
kind of a crop would you advise me to sow? Would 
oats be a good crop, or would cow peas or Canada field 
peas be better, or a mixture of both peas and oats? 
How many bushels of cow peas or Canada field peas per 
Beans In a Western X. Y. Field. Fig. 62. 
acre would be sufficient, or if a mixture of peas and 
oats, how much of each? My idea is to get the heaviest 
growth possible to plow under for a green manure. 
Bellevue, O. . , s - 11 • , 
Your plan of stuffing that soil with organic mat¬ 
ter for the potato crop is excellent. The best crop 
for early sowing is oats and Canada peas. Do not 
make the mistake of sowing cow peas so early. The 
cow peas should not be seeded before corn-planting 
time, but the Canada peas may be used whenever the 
soil can be worked in Spring. We use one bushel 
of Canada peas and three bushels of oats per acre. 
Plow this crop under in June and you will have 
a good foundation for a potato crop. 
The Value of Sea Mud. 
W E have a long shallow stretch of beach, covered 
to a depth of several inches with mud brought 
down by a very small stream from a black, 
loamy marsh. This mud is of course washed 
over by the tide, but is free from pebbles or shells. 
What i's its probable value as fertilizer? IIow will its 
treatment differ from that of ordinary muck? Will it 
absorb anything from the salt water, besides salt? Will 
the effect of this be beneficial to crops or otherwise? 
If it should be treated with lime, how much should 
be used? IIow much lime is used with ordinary muck? 
Grant, Wash. R. R. w. 
We find the following analysis of mud of various 
kinds. Stable manure is used for comparison: 
rOUNDS IN ONE TON. 
Nitrogen 
Phos. Acid 
Potash 
Stable manure. 
10 
6 
12 
Mud. 
7 
7 
0 
Mussel mud (dry)... 
15 
7 
0 
Salt marsh mud. 
5 
2 
o 
Pond bottom. 
5 
1 
9 
Our judgment is that the mud you mention is 
about equal to the salt marsli mud, with perhaps 
half as much as stable manure. There is less or¬ 
ganic matter than muck contains and it is probably 
lacking in lime. We have seen such mud used on 
grass land, with lime, so it gave fair results, but It 
would be better to compost it with muck or stable 
manure and lime before using. If you could make 
a compost heap built up half mud and half muck, 
with 100 pounds of lime to the ton. with a little 
manure mixed as a “starter” you would have a 
fair substitute for manure. 
BARLEY, RYE AND VETCH. 
W OULD it be practicable, in this locality, the 
heart of the Catskill Mountains (Greene Co.) 
to sow a mixture of rye, Winter vetch 
and barley as a cover crop to be plowed down 
the following Spring? If the barley should make a 
good growth, would it smother out the rye and vetch? 
The land was plowed in August, 1913, and sowed to 
rye August 28 with no manure, and rye was plowed 
down about June 1, 1914. and planted to fodder corn, 
using 2-S-10 fertilizer at the rate of 1000 pounds per 
acre. The land was very poor but gave a crop of rye 
as high as the horses’ shoulders, and a good yield of 
corn. Immediately after filling the silo the ground was 
plowed and sowed to rye again, but it has not done 
very well on account of the dry Fall. We expect to 
turn down the rye again, and replant to corn, using 
900 to 1000 pounds 4-10-3 fertilizer per acre, and at 
the last cultivation, in July, I had thought of sowing a 
mixture of rye, vetch and barley, the barley to act as a 
covering and mulch to protect the rye through the per¬ 
iods of bare ground, and from freezing and thaws. I 
want to plow the green mass down in 1916, and manure 
and seed with oats or Spring rye. using 1000 pounds 
lime per acre. Do you think this management will 
prove detrimental to the soil and could I improve on 
the idea? R. J. D. 
Lexington, X. Y. 
From our experience in Xorthern New Jersey we 
could not improve on this plan. Barley should be 
used more as a cover .crop with rye. The two grains 
go well together, as the barley makes a heavy Fall 
crop and mats down after killing frosts, protecting 
the rye through the Winter. With us the rye gives 
a better growth when thus protected by barley. 
You can hardly expect the vetch to make much 
growth unless you inoculate it when seeding. We 
have not been able to do much with it the first sea¬ 
son unless soil or bacteria are used. After two or 
three crops on the same soil it will do better. Go 
ahead with this plan. It will fill your soil with 
organic matter at low cost. 
DEFENDING PROPERTY. 
I FIX!) the following in a recent issue of the'Troy 
Record: 
Albany. Dec. 19.—A man has a right to defend him¬ 
self in his own home even if in so doing he kills his 
assailant, the Court of Appeals decided yesterday. The 
decision was rendered in reversing the judgment of 
convicting Xewton Tomlins, who shot and killed his 
sou at their home in Stony Creek, Rockland County, in 
1913. The court held that “it is not now and never 
has been the law that a man assailed in his own dwell¬ 
ing is bound to retreat. If assailed there he may stand 
his ground, and resist the attack. He is under no duty 
to take to the fields and highways, a fugitive from his 
own house.” 
In the lower court the judge ruled that no man 
has a right to resort to force and violence even when 
in danger or without means of escape. Now does 
the definition of the word “house” include barn, 
henhouse, cornerib, workshop or carriage house? 
Is the act of stealing chickens or other property 
from a building in the night-time an attack on 
the owner of the property? Is a person whose 
property is being stolen in the night, obliged to per¬ 
mit the thief to go peaceably with or without the 
property taken? Does the meaning of the word 
“house” as used in the opinion cover the whole farm, 
orchards, vineyards and henhouse, or does it mean 
the habitation where the owner eats and sleeps? 
New York. m. h. d. 
