1318 
izer for sale you will be obliged to guarantee a cer¬ 
tain analysis, and you must know just what you are 
doing. Such lien manure will probably be very uni¬ 
form in quality when dried and ground line. You 
should have samples taken fairly and analyzed by 
the experiment station, so as to know just what 
you are doing. Very likely if the manure is made 
uniformly dry and fine you can sell it to some fer¬ 
tilizer manufacturer who would use it in his mix¬ 
tures . It would be bought on the basis of its an¬ 
alysis. Or, knowing just what it contains you can 
add various chemicals to suit the trade. This re¬ 
quires some knowledge of chemistry, and the plant 
food need of crops, and probably you would do bet¬ 
ter to make a good sample of dry manure and sell 
it for what it is, or perhaps add some acid phos¬ 
phate and offer it as a corn fertilizer. 
In the Eastern States most of these hen manure 
mixtures are used on garden crops or potato and 
fruit. In one case that we know of the following 
mixture gave surprising results on potatoes: 1000 
pounds dried hen manure, GOO pounds acid phos¬ 
phate, 300 pounds muriate of potash, 100 pounds 
nitrate of soda. This was used on good soil, and 
the returns were far better than would be expected 
from the actual analysis. Probably in the West a 
simpler mixture would pay better, and it will be 
impossible now to buy the potash. As a corn fertil¬ 
izer 1400 pounds of the dry manure and GOO pounds 
of acid phosphate would be useful on medium soil, 
or 1200 pounds of dry manure and 800 of the phos¬ 
phate could be used. We believe there is some 
money in such a business. You will have to plan 
and think out the best method of drying. Be sure 
of the analysis of the dry manure before you offer 
it for sale, and try only simple mixtures of phos¬ 
phate or ground bone at first. 
The Baled Hay Crop. 
F IG. 49G shows a scene quite common in many 
of the hay-growing districts of the East. The 
l ay is baled on the farm, and hauled as shown in 
the picture to the railroad for shipment. The hay 
crop is a favorite one in many localities, although 
it is hard on the soil, unless the land is well kept 
up by the use of stable manure or chemical fertil¬ 
izers. We often hear from scientists who argue 
that hay should never be sold away from the farm, 
yet they tell only half the story. Ilay is a good 
crop for the farmer who is short of help, but long 
on good hay land. One man with hired help dur¬ 
ing the season can take care of a large crop of hay. 
Hie hay is an absolute necessity for feeding town 
and city horses, and some one must raise it. As 
for wearing out the land, it is true that continuous 
cropping of hay will prove exhausting, but there 
is a way of producing large crops of hay year after 
year, selling it all from the farm, and still keeping 
up the fertility of the land. This means the use of 
annual applications of high grade fertilizer, and 
there are thousands of cases where this kind of 
farming is carried on with a good deal of success. 
The meadows must be thoroughly well seeded to 
begin with, kept sweet with lime, and well enriched 
each year with fertilizers. The live stock farmers 
of course argue that everything that is grown 
on the farm should be fed on the farm, but there 
might be amendments to that proposition worth con¬ 
sidering. If a man can use .$5 worth of chemical 
fertilizer and raise $12 worth of hay, he may be 
doing a better business than to feed that hay out 
at home and sell the live stock at a low figure. 
There will always be hay farmers and always a 
demand for high-class hay. 
Some Deserted Farms in New York. 
F OR a time, the deserted farms of New York 
formed the text of many an agricultural ser¬ 
mon ; then it was vehemently denied that there were 
any really deserted farms; some might be unoccu¬ 
pied, but there were few, if any, whose fields were 
uncropped, uncut or unpastured and whose buildings 
were finally given over to owls and decaj 7 . That 
there are farms fully meriting the term deserted, 
however, and within the sound of the whistle of the 
Black Diamond Express, the writer recently learned 
while on a trip into Schuyler and Tompkins coun¬ 
ties. The verb “are" will soon have to be changed 
to were, for the tide of home-seekers setting east¬ 
ward and northward will soon overflow the old 
hills of New York, and the vacant places will again 
be filled. 
This trip was taken for the purpose of chasing 
some deserted farms, if there were such, to their 
lair, and it was successful. More than one farm 
with its buildings tumbling down, though boarded 
up, and fields becoming overgrown with “white- 
grass” and weeds was seen. Though taxes are still 
THR RURAL NEW-YORKER 
paid upon these farms and they will not be given 
away, as homes they are deserted. These are hill 
farms: they were cleared by the lumbermen of the 
preceding generation. The crop that tempted men 
into these hills was timber; when that was har¬ 
vested, stumps were pulled and clearings dotted the 
hillsides. Eastern agriculture waned, however, and 
the young men of the hills left their homes for the 
work and money to be had in town. Old people 
were left, but, as they passed away, there was no 
one left to till the fields and keep the buildings in 
repair. Gradually, many of these farms became 
deserted. 
Here and there stands an emi ty church, testify¬ 
ing to a community life which once existed. Its 
rotting steps are half hidden by weeds, and no bell 
ever tolls from the steeple. Good district schools 
are still maintained, for, no matter how few the 
children, the State will not permit a total neglect of 
education. None of these farms lies more than from 
six to eight miles from thriving villages, and the 
country roads are good, but six miles in the country 
may spell isolation. Few American families will 
long endure the loneliness of the hills unless com¬ 
pelled by circumstances to do so. Telephone wires 
stretch over the hills and rural delivery leaves 
mail at the gate; the world is within calling dis¬ 
tance if not at the door. The soil is capable of 
raising abundant crops, but it is a long haul to 
market. Small dairies are kept and on some roads 
a cream-gathering route is established. Most of 
the food used is produced on the farms and fresh 
meat must be; it is eight miles to beefsteak. 
These hill farms, with buildings which range 
from good to useless, may be purchased at from $8 
to $20 per acre. Move them 10 miles and they 
would bring four times as much. The people are 
in the valleys, and the hill farms cannot go to the 
valleys. But, in some sections, a new people are 
coming in. Leaking roofs are being repaired to 
cover a generation of towheads who will some day 
make the wilderness blossom. Finns from the cop¬ 
per mines of the West are learning that a shelter 
and a few acres can be purchased here with their 
slender savings, and homes established on a basis 
of hope for future independence and freedom. 
m. b. n. 
The True Agricultural Education. 
HAVE read Dean Galloway’s article, page 123S, 
with great care. I liked it. Also the editorial 
comment on it and the quotation from the Farm 
Bureau Journal, page 1248. And I liked it. I have 
protested the employment of very nice college youths 
as farm bureau instructors under the Smith-Lever 
bill on the score of efficiency. Nothing shows more 
how essentially cheap and low farming is held as 
a science and practice than this. City or village boys 
after four years of class-room drill in agriculture, 
are turned loose to show dairymen how to dairy; 
orchardmen how to grow fruit; market gardeners 
how to garden, etc., etc. Of all the confounded 
cheek, nothing beats this! If we took boys who 
have had four years of plumbing, carpentry, inason- 
ry, architecture, bridge-building, in some manual 
training schools, gave them a certificate, paid them 
high salaries and turned them loose to show the 
plumbers how to plumb; the carpenters how to 
carpenter; the masons how to build; the bridge- 
builders how to build, wouldn’t it tickle your funny 
bone? Wouldn’t it tickle the funny bone of plumb¬ 
ers, carpenters, masons? And yet we farmers and 
orchard men are to take it seriously when it comes 
to the most fundamental of all callings—tilling the 
earth. 
A woman went to Paderewski, the great piano 
player. “I would like to take 12 piano lessons from 
you. I don’t care about playing myself, but I am 
anxious to teach.” Some stunt that! In piano or 
farming! 
I have no faith in the Smith-Lever bill as long 
as its purely administrative features are solely in 
the hands of academic men. The Smith-Lever bill has 
splendid potentialities. But it is destined not to 
reach them as long as its academic authorities shall 
say to one youth: “You are eligible. You are 
equipped. The certificate of graduation pronounces 
such.” 
It will fail as long as the Smith-Lever academic 
authorities shall say to another, no matter how thor¬ 
ough his farm knowledge, his training, his exper¬ 
ience : “We can’t use you. You are hopelessly out 
of it. You have no certificate from an agricultural 
college.” 
Such academic snobbery is un-American. It is 
not in accord with our ideas of liberty. We have 
fought for a less principle than that in government 
and in religion. Worst of all, it defeats the very 
plan and purpose of agricultural extension help. 
November G, 1013. 
The Smith-Lever law will shake hands with its in¬ 
tentions when: 
(1) The administrative features shall include out 
of door farmers along with indoor agricultural pro¬ 
fessors. 
(2) When the door of extension service and teach¬ 
ing shall be open to him who knows and knows how 
to tell simply and clearly what has come to him 
cut of doors. A locked door to experience is a bad 
fault. 
(3) When, besides the sheepskin certificate, and 
the glib repetition of what has been heard in class¬ 
rooms of indoor agriculture, there shall be three, 
four, six years of experience added and required. 
If in this time, the coming instructor has to get his 
living out of the soil, meet his own fertilizer bills, 
lug a mortgage, and some of the other felicities of 
farming, we shall welcome him as a helper, besides 
listening to him as a teacher. 
Massachusetts. nouxs h. buckshorn. 
Stacked Pea Vines at a Canning Factery. 
T HE picture at Fig. 477 shows a big stack of pea 
vines near a large canning factory in Western 
New York. As the vines are thrashed they are 
worked out in this way and left in large stacks, 
well stamped down as they are built up. In the 
Spring each farmer receives his percentage amount 
of the stack, and it is said to be good feed for cat¬ 
tle. This is different from the plan followed in 
some cases of putting pea vines into a silo, and 
feeding out the silage during the Winter. The 
stacked vines kept in the open air make a form 
ef hay which gives fair satisfaction for feeding. In 
some cases we are told these stacks heat consider¬ 
ably, but when thoroughly stamped down to keep 
out the air there is little trouble. The pea-canning 
business has become a great industry in certain 
parts of New York State. The crop is considered 
a good one by many farmers, as it gives them a 
cash income, and when properly grown the peas 
leave the ground in good condition, and do not take 
as much out of the soil as grain would do. Many 
of us can well remember when many of these can¬ 
ning wastes were left to decay, and not thought 
worth handling. Now the refuse from all sorts of 
canning factories is carefully saved, and even the 
pomace from cider mills has been found well worth 
hauling and feeding. Only a few years ago no one 
would have thought of saving the pulp from beet 
factories. Now its handling and sale has become a 
great industry, and we are sure that within the next 
dozen years all such waste as pomace from the cider 
mill will be handled so as to find a profitable sab* 
for them. 
The Plight of the Borrower. 
Will you give your opinion on the following trans¬ 
action? On Nov. 14, 1913, we borrowed $1,000 from 
the mortgage company, giving a deed of trust which 
gave them the power to close us out in 20 days in 
case we failed to make any of the payments on the 
dates named. We took the money for five years with 
the privilege of paying part or all of the principal on 
any regular interest paying date. The interest was to 
be eight per cent per annum. On drawing up the 
papers they required us to sign 10 coupon notes, five 
for $60 and five for $20. They then explained that 
the notes for $20 were their commission. At the end 
of the first year we paid off the debt, giving them $1080, 
they giving us a receipt for the payment. They ex¬ 
plained they would have the papers and turn them over 
in a few days, which they failed to do and did not until 
we threatened legal action to compel them to do so. 
As we did not have any insurance on the house, but 
did on the barn for $1,000, they held us up for $10 
to buy insurance on the house. They did not return us 
the policy or the $10. They returned us the trust 
deed and four coupon notes at six per cent, with the 
abstract and insurance policy on the barn, but the 
four two per cent coupon notes for $20 each they did 
not. I inclose their card, which further explains their 
methods. Do the laws of Missouri give them this $80 
after we have paid off the original debt with aH of 
of the accrued interest? G. M. M. 
Missouri. 
T is quite hard to tell what sort of a transaction 
the people have put through here without an ex¬ 
amination of the papers, but it bears all the ear¬ 
marks of usury. They should have returned the 
policy of insurance, if unexpired, on the house. 
Probably they never took out insurance, but pocket¬ 
ed the $10. If G. M. M. has his papers back prob¬ 
ably the best thing to do is let this interest demand 
go, and if they sue, get a lawyer and let him defend 
it on the ground of usury. It might be a little 
safer to see a lawyer first. We cannot work out 
anything but usury on these notes coming due now. 
He cannot recover on his action if it is found to be 
usury. Parties may agree in writing for interest 
iiot exceeding eight per cent, in Missouri. We should 
pay no more on those notes till we were made to 
and we should keep their notices and not go near 
them. This is but a mild sample of the way people 
who need money are held up as a highwayman holds 
his victim. m. d. 
