■Che RURAL NEW-YORKER 
93P 
Farmers and f;he War 
Wheat and Feed in England 
No. VII. 
The English farm papers are interest¬ 
ing now, as they seem to reflect the 
thought of British farmers after 'Oree 
years of war. 
Wheat Growing. —^The British gov¬ 
ernment insists that 3,000,000 acres of 
land must be put into wheat for the next 
harvest. Inspectors are going about 
looking the farms over and deciding what 
fields are to be seeded. Most of the new 
English land to be brought into crop is 
now in grass—old sod of lawn or park 
or pasture. The English people produce 
very little Indian corn, and so they can¬ 
not follow the rotation which i- most 
common here. In this country such sod 
land would be planted in corn first and 
followed in wheat. In England such sod 
usually goes into potatoes or roots, while 
wheat is grown on “arable” or cropped 
land. In some cases the government or¬ 
ders wheat lands to be planted and put 
into wheat again. This is against the 
usual English rule, and many farm leases 
contain a clause which provides a pen¬ 
alty for such cropping. Where a farmer 
has signed such a lease and is ordered to 
break it by following wheat with wheat, 
the government agrees to protect him. 
Heavy Production. —^The English pa¬ 
pers state that in Australia there are 
150,000,000 bushels of wheat wasting for 
lack of ships to carry it to England. In 
the early days of the war frantic efforts 
were made to induce Australian farmers 
to increase the wheat yield. They re¬ 
sponded and grew the wheat, bul most of 
the-surplus now remains on banc’ through 
lack of shiiiping. Every day no v brings 
to the English government new evidence 
of the fe .rfi;! national mistake of permit¬ 
ting Enf ish agriculture to decay, or to 
change i t)m producing brerd and meat 
to producing merely milk, fruit or vege¬ 
tables. Now they are trying to undo in 
25 months the mistakes of 25 years. 
Tliej' have at lea.st hit upon the remedy— 
which is to assure the wheat grower 
that for the next six years at least, he 
will know that his grain brings a high 
price. After guaranteeing this high 
price the government intends to go fur¬ 
ther, and practically compel farmers to 
grow wheat. Farmers have been as¬ 
sured that no more expert farm labor¬ 
ers will be taken for the army—provided 
they remain on the farm. During Imr- 
vest and seeding, farm laborers now in 
the army will be sent home to help at 
farm work. In fact the English govern¬ 
ment has been frightened into the truth 
about the farmer’s rclaGon to the state. 
This country does not yet anderstand it, 
since it has not felt the shock. Every 
T'l English “silage” consists of fr< h 
cn'. damp clover or gra.ss put into i 
sta.;.v and pressed down! Little lud: r 
co'-n or maize is grown except for gr-.,. 
fodder and there is quite an argumm; 
on whether it pays better to try to make 
dried hay or put the wet gi-ast. iat > steel s. 
There is a picture of twe men coring a 
hole down into the stack to let off tha 
gas from what they call “ga;” hay. 
h<ome ame ago we read ot a case where 
some of this “gay” hay was p’t in a 
barn and began to heat. The farmer i.an 
a pipe into it, connected with a steam 
engine and forced steam all through it. 
He claimed this gave fine feed. In a vet 
season and with shortage of labor m iny 
of these silage stacks are being ,nit up. 
The stuff is often slimy and moh'y, )ut 
i-s fed with dry straw. 
Grain Rurstitutes. —In Germany 
the chemists have succeeded in making 
crude forms of foodstuffs from stra- • and 
wastes, and they have careful plan; for 
saving house Avastes. The English d<. not 
seem to have worked such things out, 
but they are trying new kinds of cattle 
feed. Experin ent.s are being made with 
potato tops or vines, both as green feed 
and silage. I‘ is said they give good 
results. Acorns are being ground and 
fed with oats ar d corn, and great use is 
being made of horse-chestnuts. Rome 
farmers soak them in lime water. 'This 
takes out most of the bitter taste and 
they are then dried and crushed. In 
other cas'^s they are partly crushed a.ul 
soaked i i water over night. Then they 
are boi -d for half an hour, the water 
poured off and the raash dried and ground. 
Gne pound of this meal was worth about 
20 ounces of oats, and all farm animals 
except piys ate it well. As compared 
with Germ.ans the English farmers seem 
slower to turn from old methods and 
habits of farming. It seems that through 
government authority it is easier to com- 
])el the Germans to do as they are told. 
ir. w. c. 
Nux Vomica for Hawks 
Having seen some i':ems in The IL 
Tl.-\. in reglard to nux vomica and 
hawks, I Avill send along my bit. Along 
in the later OOs when I was a youngster, 
the hawks^ did considerable damage some 
years. When they would get too bad, 
my mother and neighbors would feed mix 
vomica to their chicks for a few days 
and the hawks would quit coming. The 
solution as given by my mother and 
others was that nux vomica was p''’son 
to any fowl or animal hatched or i . r:i 
Avith their eyes closed, Avliile it Avould 
not injure any fowl or animal hatched or 
born Avith their eyes open. HaAvks, dogs 
and cats belong to the former class, Avhile 
chicks belong to the latter. I reiTKinber 
once a neighbor’s dog got toe fanidiar 
around our hens’ nests. Mother gave 
him a dose and he did not come around 
rny more. Another time a cat caught 
some young chicks. She gave it a dose 
and the cat never came back. I’he scien¬ 
tists can test this if they have to be 
shown. Personally I have never made 
a tost, but am curious to know if sucli 
are facts. j. s. 
St. I’etersburg, Fla. 
Misleading Remedie# 
German torpedo which has sunk a grain 
ship has jolted .Tohn Bull right in the 
stomach, and that is a prominent and .sen¬ 
sitive mark. England must have 3,000,- 
000 acres in Avheat, and the land, the. 
labor, the capital and spirit Avill be found 
to init the great work over. 
The After Effect. —The English peo¬ 
ple Avill never forget their present ex¬ 
perience, aftd Avill nev-r oe again caught 
Avith such a shortage of bread. We have 
little thought that the ncAV land now 
being 'ploAved and cultivated will ever 
again go back i’.to parks and hiAvins. 
English farmers are to bC protected in 
their high wheat prices by a higher and 
stronger margi i than any tariff ever yet 
devised. Wb.it will happen after peace 
comes in suen an event as the folloAving ? 
The Engli.®h government has guaranteed 
to pay, kc us say $2 a bushel for Eng¬ 
lish-grown wheat, and also a high rate 
for Colonia. vvheat. The grain crop in 
America, Buss*." and South America is 
so large that unctv normal supply and 
demand a bushel of wheat should be 
Avorth one dollar. What Avill happen to 
our wheat Avhen it reaches the English 
market? It seems that Ave must expect 
very much larger English wheat crops 
permanently in the future and guaranteed 
high prices for some years after the Avar. 
In this country the present plan is to 
guarantee a price of .$2 per bushel dur¬ 
ing the war. The pinch will come after 
the war, with the increased area and pre¬ 
ferred prices to English farmers. 
English Cattle Foods. —There is 
much talk in the English farm papers 
about silage. An American reading it 
all might imagine it referred to our own 
s.ystem, yet he finds no advertisements of , 
silos. Tlrnre are ricks and presses and ' 
portable sheds advertised, but no silos. 
In a late number of The R. iN -Y., un¬ 
der the heading of “Birds and Cherides,” 
two bird lovers tell C. E. 'I.\ (page .370), 
to plant mulberry trees and the “birds 
Avill not bother the cherries .vhen the 
trees get to bearing.” To these answers 
The R. N.-Y. very properly asks, “What 
is to be, done Avliilo tlie mulberries are 
groAving?” ' Then api)ears the folloAving 
oyer the initials of “C. W. B., New 
Y'ork”: “A simple and effective remedy 
for i)rotecting fruit from bird.s is to sus¬ 
pend pieces- of shingles with Avrapping 
tAviue. The lightest breeze will cau.se the 
shingle to spin around. Attack one or 
two smkir pieces of bright-colored strips 
of cloth or ribbons and you will Iiave a 
scarecrow that will be in motion most of 
the time ,and no birds w-ill venture near.” 
Last Fall I purchased half a dozen of 
six different kinds of st’*awberries, said 
to be the “cream” of all t.'^e strawberries 
up to date, the same being potted plants 
and costly. They wintered well and sent 
out great stalks loaded with the largest 
berries. They are uoav beginning to 
ripen, and the birds go along and take a 
mouthful out of the red as soon as they 
begin to turn. Being of a believing na¬ 
ture, and “swearing” by The R. N.-Y., I 
put this “simple and effective remedy” 
to the test. The shingles spun around, 
the colored strips waved in a frantic 
manner, Avhile .some bright pieces of tin 
clanked, rattled and jingled on other 
shingles near by. The first day the birds 
were scarce, the next d.-iy I found a few 
choice berries bitten, and on the third 
morning, as I lacked from the windoAV, 
one of these fruit-lovnig birds sat on the 
pole right on the twine that suspended 
the spinning shingle, while his mate was 
taking her morning repast as usual. I 
have a good gun, but to shoot this pair 
of robins would subject me to fine. 
What can I do? g. m. Doolittle. 
^ Vest Pocket Kodak, 
It i.s rr>:: lotony, no., bullets that our soldier boys dread. 
No fear, w^tl the time lomes, they will uphold bravely the 
traditions tl at are dear v ^ every loyal American heart. But 
in the training camps and during the months of forced in¬ 
action there s“e going to be some tedious, home-sick days 
—days the Kc lak can make more cheerful. 
Pictures cf comrades snd camp life, pictures of the 
thousand and o: e things that can be photographed without 
endangering rny military ye met wiU interest them, and will 
doubly interest the f.r.ie.nd£ at home. Tens of thousands of 
brave lads in t! e camps and trenches of France are keeping 
their own Kod k story f the war—a story that will always 
' be intense to them beca ise it is history from their view-point. 
[• And when peace comes it will make more vivid, more real 
their story of their war as they tell it again and again to mother 
and sister and wife and little ones. 
The nation has a big job on its hands. It’s only a 
little part, perhaps, but a genuine part of that job to keep 
up the cheerfulness of camp life, to keep tight the bonds 
between camp and home. Pictures from home to the crwnp 
and from camp to the home can do their part. 
There’s room for a little Vest Pocket Kodak in every 
soldier’s and sailor’s kit. The expense is small, six dollars. 
The cheerfulness it may bring is great. They are on sale 
by Kodak dealers everywhere. 
KASTMAN KODAK CO., 387 State St., ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
■ 
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It is saving a team and a man for thousands cf 
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