1456 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
peach fillers, not only because of the difficulty at 
spraying season and the crowding of the permanent 
trees, but also because of the comparative uncertain¬ 
ty of the peach crop. lie states that if he were 
planting again he would set out the peaches in 
<iie block, 25 feet apart (the trees make a rank 
growth on his strong soil) ; and the apples in an¬ 
other, using apple fillers of an early bearing va¬ 
riety. One five-year block is planted so, with Rome 
and Stayman, 30x30 feet as permanent trees, and 
Wealthy and Williams as fillers, so that trees are 
15 feet apart. 
Clean cultivation with a cover crop is the system 
used in the orchards. The land is plowed as early 
as practicable with a two-bottom gang plow; and 
from then until the middle of July, is kept almost 
constantly stirred. A riding spring-tooth harrow 
and a spading harrow are found invaluable for this 
purpose and so efficiently is the work done that 
hardly a weed appears, while the soil is in excellent 
condition. This year Mr. Smith is testing the vir¬ 
tues of rye, rye and Crimson clover, and vetch and 
Crimson clover, as cover crops, with the idea of 
selecting the best for bis conditions. No inocula¬ 
tion for legumes appears necessary. 
In spraying, commercial lime-sulphur and the 
self-boiled preparation give the best results, in ac¬ 
cordance with the-spray calendar adopted by the 
New Jersey Experiment Station. This year Mr. 
Smith thinned his fruit, in spite of the gloomy pre¬ 
dictions of some of his neighbors, and was fully 
satisfied with the results, when he received a pre¬ 
mium for bis peaches in the New York market. 
Mr. Smith uses the half bushel swing-bail picking 
basket for both apples and peaches, and carts the 
latter to his cold storage plant and packing house in 
the same baskets. Here a mechanical sorter is 
used to grade the peaches, which does the work 
cheaper, better, faster, and with less injury to the 
fiuit than is usually the case where the fruit is 
band-sorted. The commission men handling Mr. 
Smith's fruit bear out the statement. Except for 
an insignificant local trade, the fruit is packed in 
Georgia carriers. As the railroad service is poor, 
a large auto truck from New Brunswick makes 
nightly trips to New York with the crates, during 
the growing season—a means of transportation very 
successful indeed. Most of the fruit is handled 
by one firm of commission merchants. 
Apples are hauled into the packing house in the 
picking baskets, and, in the case of Summer apples, 
sorted by hand and shipped to New York. Winter 
apples are run over the grader to take out the 
small ones, and stored in open barrels in the farm 
cold stoi-age plant, described on page 1264 of The 
R. N.-Y. They are sorted up and shipped off dur¬ 
ing the Winter, or sold locally, without resorting, 
late in the season, when they are sure to bring good 
prices. 
There is a strong demand for Mr. Smith’s fruit 
in the New York market. When asked the reason 
for this, he replied: “My fruit is of good quality, 
honestly packed, and honestly labelled. When a 
buyer gets such a package, he is sure to ask for 
that brand again. Honesty is the keynote of suc¬ 
cess in the fruit business.” 
Last .Summer’s experiences, when several com¬ 
mission men were clamoring for Smith peaches, and 
securing an advance upon the market price for 
them, justified the truth of Mr. Smith’s statement. 
K. I.. SCHA 1{RING-IIAUSEN. 
A Great Crop of Mangels. 
FEW years ago I read in Tiie R. N.-Y., an ar¬ 
ticle by Mr. John McLennan, on raising man¬ 
gels, and their desirability as stock food. It has 
always been my belief that roots of any kind have 
a higher feeding (not food) value than they are 
credited with, so when T read Mr. McLennan’s article 
I resolved if it could be done by me to raise a good 
crop of beets. In 1913 we raised on seven-eighths of 
an acre 500 bushels; in 1914, through mistakes, none. 
This year, to show you how near we came to doing 
il, T am sending you two specimens, one red and one 
yellow. We measured two plots in different parts of 
the field 10x22 feet each, making a trifle more than 
one-hundreth of an acre, topped and weighed with¬ 
out tops beets on these plots, and got 19S0 pounds. 
We had 2 % acres in all this year. 
How Were They Grown ? 
In the first place we rent, paying $1200 per year 
for 136 acres of land with only fair buildings, and 
try to crop it to the best of our ability. The field 
where they were grown, 10.7 acres, is a clayey loam. 
It was an orchard years ago, but all the apple trees 
were gone before we moved here three years ago; it 
had not been plowed for 50 years* My predecessor 
kept SO or 90 cows here for 20 years and used this 
field for a night lot. We kept 90 to 100 cows and used 
it the same way in 1913. The field is nearly oblong 
in shape with a gate in one corner opening into the 
barnyard. In 1914 we plowed it and put it in corn 
three feet nine inches apart in hills, with pumpkins 
in between, and had a good crop of both. After the 
corn was husked we sowed rye by hand on the stub¬ 
ble, and disked it in, but that was in November, and 
the rye made but little growth. 
Last Spring we selected 2% acres next to the 
barnyard, manured it just before plowing with eight 
or 10 tons barnyard manure per acre; plowed it 
about 15th of April seven inches deep, drilled in 500 
pounds acid rock and 500 pounds bone per acre, 
rolled and harrowed it until it was like a garden. 
If potash had been a normal price we would have 
used some of that. We put 10 pounds of seed per 
acre with a garden drill about April 20. That was 
nearly twice as much seed as some advise, but we 
wanted a good stand. Tbe yellow ones are Yellow 
Giant Eckendorf, the red, Long Improved Red. We 
also sowed some Detroit Dark Red, as we had been 
told they had a higher feed value; they may have, 
but they reduced the total of our crop. 
As soon as we saw the first beets peep through 
the ground we ran a weeder over the field, follow¬ 
ing closely with a wheel hoe twice, next a diamond- 
tooth cultivator. We hand-hoed and thinned them 
when from four to six inches high, and cultivated 
them with a horse till the leaves nearly met in the 
middles. I have noted that truckers plant beets as 
one of their earliest crops, and believe we should 
plant early, so as to be cultivating with a horse 
when the big varieties of Summer weeds come along. 
While our patch was very even not all was as good 
as the spot we weighed, but one acre of it was, and 
that acre was next to the gate where the cows stood 
waiting to get in. My predecessor had used a 
scraper for several years and hauled the droppings 
with a good amount of top soil off. Now for a ques¬ 
tion; what made the beets best at this point? Was 
it the large amount of nitrogen accumulated from 
the droppings? Or did we, by reason of some top 
soil being removed turn up something with the plow 
that the . beets needed? Another help was a man 
working for me who took as much interest in the 
crop as I did myself. w. e. gormax. 
Delaware Co., Pa. 
R. N.-Y r .—A picture of this yellow mangel is 
shown at Fig. 548. The tape line shows the com¬ 
parative size. This root weighs 23 pounds . Two of 
them would make more than a daily allowance 
for a cow. No wonder Mr. Gorman can keep 90 to 
100 cows on his farm with such a crop of roots. 
Just figure out what an acre of such mangels means 
in the way of stock food. And the crop was well 
fed. It had to be in order to give any such yield! 
That old sod as a night pasture had accumulated 
great stores of plant food. The corn “tamed” it or 
put it in good shape for the roots, and the manure 
and chemicals provided the food. Some of these 
Western experts who seem to think it is a crime to 
use chemicals ought to see that here is a case where 
such fertilizing pays. Root crops require large quan¬ 
tities of potash. They respond to that element 
quickly. That, we think, is the chief reason why 
« 
the mangels were best where those cows had been 
kept for some years. The liquids are rich in pot¬ 
ash. They were absorbed by the soil and worked 
in deep. While scraping off the top soil removed 
much plant food, a good share of the potash was 
left and this, we think, rather than the nitrogen, 
pushed the crop along. 
Plowing Green Rye for Corn. 
I would like the opinion of some of your best author¬ 
ities whether rye plowed down Spring of 1915 would 
be of any use to a corn crop the same season, as it 
has been an exceptionally moist and muggy season. 
Ohio. F. w. K. 
E would like a discussion of this matter. In 
our own case rye plowed in tbe Spring and 
properly handled with the addition of lime always 
shows a benefit in a corn crop. We advocate the 
use of rye as a cover crop for this reason. The lime 
we think is a great help if not a necessity, although 
we would not use a heavy application of lime on 
corn. We have had a number of complaints from 
farmers who used rye. They claim that it “poisons” 
tbe land and spoils the corn.crop. In nine cases out 
of 10 these results came from the practice of simply 
plowing the rye under, lightly harrowing on top, 
and planting corn. Such practice would be quite 
sure to injure the corn crop. The loose and open 
rye left under ground will start strong fermenta¬ 
tion and sour the ground thoroughly. Then the air 
works in and dries out the soil so that the corn crop 
suffers from lack of moisture. This failure is at¬ 
tributed to poison in the soil, when it is really the 
result of wrong handling. Whenever rye is plowed 
December 11, 101.”. 
under, it should be properly packed and firmed solid, 
crushing the mass of green rye down as closely as 
possible. Then the top of the soil should be fitted 
and if possible 500 or 600 pounds of lime worked in. 
Handled in this way our experience is that rye has 
proved very satisfactory. We should like the opin¬ 
ion of our readers in regard to this matter. 
College Graduate and Farm Management. 
I T sometimes seems to us as though many of the 
graduates of our agricultural colleges think they 
are qualified to play something of the part of Sam¬ 
uel Slater. Very few of our younger people know 
anything about this useful man. After the Revolu¬ 
tionary War England did all that she possibly could 
to prevent this country from establishing manufac¬ 
tures. She had intended that America should re¬ 
main a colony—furnishing cotton, food and a great 
market for English goods. She meant to retain the 
market, at least, by making it impossible for Amer¬ 
icans to import and establish machinery for making 
cloth. Parliament decreed that any one who packed 
or carried to a ship for export any machine or tool 
or even a model used in cloth manufacturing, should 
be punished by a fine of $2,500 and one year’s im¬ 
prisonment. These laws were enforced so vigilant¬ 
ly that it was impossible to obtain machinery. 
Americans either tried to smuggle in models or 
invent machines of their own. Samuel Slater was 
an expert English mill worker. By accident lie 
learned from an American paper the great need of 
machinery here. lie quietly perfected his knowledge 
of factory building and in 1789 brought to this 
country one of the most precious cargoes that ever 
crossed the ocean. He could not bring plans or 
models, but packed away in his brain on the films 
of memory were complete pictures in all details of 
the latest English machinery. In this country Sla¬ 
ter built, largely with his own hands, complete ma¬ 
chinery for cloth making and made America free to 
build up a great industry. Now as we have said 
it seems as if some of our college graduates im¬ 
agine that they are agricultural Slaters, carrying 
mighty and important secrets in their brains. As 
a rule these young men are city born and bred. 
They cannot have that sympathy and instinct for 
country life which can only come to one through 
a childhood and early manhood on a farm. These 
men attend an agricultural college and graduate 
with class honors, for they are might and grasp 
their class room work quickly. When they finish 
at college they are ready to “manage” a farm or 
an estate and it is at this time that they are will¬ 
ing to play the part of Samuel Slater to agricul¬ 
ture. These men are for the most part clean and 
bright, ambitious and well trained in technical 
farming, but they are not Slaters and cannot be ex¬ 
pected to do his constructive work. He was able to 
do what he did for American manufacturing because 
he worked for long and toilsome years as a com¬ 
mon laborer, and in that way learned the spirit or 
working soul of the machines. No man can hope to 
do such constructive work through the labor of his 
brain alone. His hands must know the touch of 
the soil and of tools. The young men who under¬ 
take to manage practical farms with class-room 
training alone will soon find their place, but there 
is genuine danger to agricultural education if these 
laboratory men, without sympathy for farmers or 
real knowledge of farm work, are selected to teach 
“agriculture.” These young college men need to 
understand that no one can carry the message of 
Samuel Slater in his brain until his fingers have 
written the impression of the work there. No man 
should pretend to be an agricultural expert until he 
knows from experience what hard farm work is. 
The college gown is all right but there should be 
overalls beneath it. 
Government Auctions. 
The U. S. Government has in a small way taken up 
the auction business in disposing of some of its farm 
products. The Government conducts a business of 
breeding fur animals in Alaska, and recently it had 
over 600 skins to sell. These were put up at auction in 
St. Louis, the sale being conducted by a fur company. 
The sale netted $61,214.50 to the Government, and was 
called a successful business enterprise. Again the Gov¬ 
ernment has been conducting a horse-breeding experi¬ 
ment in Colorado. Each year they pick out certain 
animals not needed for their experiment, and offer them 
for sale. They are offered at auction and sold to the 
highest bidder, this method being recognized as fair to 
all, as it is open, straight, and gives all a fair oppor¬ 
tunity to buy the horses. This is the best method for 
the Government to follow. Very likely, however, fol¬ 
lowing the history of the New York auctions, dealers 
in horses or furs will find fault with this proposition, 
yet it is the fairest way of handling sales of this 
kind. 
