RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1417 
Garden and Poultry 
Notes from a Maryland Garden 
While muskrat will be a new food 
product in many parts of the country, 
it has long been a regular game here on 
the Eastern Shore of Maryland. We con¬ 
sider them far ahead of rabbit meat or 
even squirrel. The large salt marshes 
here are regularly leased by trappers, 
whose main product is the fur. and the 
carcasses are prepared and sold by the 
dealers in game, fish and oysters. They 
are either baked w'hole or made into a 
stew, and in this last form I prefer them. 
I have seen the meat served on steam¬ 
boats and called on the menu card dia¬ 
mond-back terrapin. And prepared in the 
same way as the diamond-back they come 
nearest in flavor to that costly reptile. 
“When does Sweet clover cease to be a 
weed?” I w’o<ild say when it gets so far 
as where cow peas do not make the 
grow’th they do down here. Here we 
can do more with these annuals than 
with any biennial plant. Hence we do 
not need the Sweet clover, and it is solely 
a weed on the roadsides and ditch banks. 
A weed is a plant grow’ing where not sown 
and not wanted. It will inoculate soil 
for Alfalfa, but unfortunately it will 
persist with the Alfalfa. With Soy beans 
and cow peas and velvet beans in Summer 
and Crimson clover as a Winter cover 
we really have no place for Melilotus or 
any other biennial plant. This locality 
is about as 'far north as any of the 
earliest velvet beans will mature seed, 
and wuth their enormous growth of vines 
there is hardly any crop that will give 
us humus faster, and which takes such 
a small quantity of seed per acre. 
I was out with otir county agent a 
few days ago weighing up the crops of 
the corn club boys, and T noticed, as I 
have noticed many times before, that in 
a .season of abundant moisture and large 
growth there is always a tendency to 
over-estimate the crop, and in a dry 
season the reverse is true. The Irish 
potato crop too is not turning out as 
heavily as hoped for. Though it was 
after the middle of November there were 
many fields undug, and I saw in some 
that were being dug a very light crop. 
In many cases this was due to too late 
planting. The late crop down here will 
usually be all right if planted before the 
middle of July, but this year there were 
many fields not planted till August, and 
but for the fact that the tops were not 
- killed last of October these fields would 
have made hardly anything. We have 
been reading of the great crop of Irish 
potatoes, but now we begin to hear of 
the disasters. I hear from ^Michigan 
great damage from the hard freeze of 
October 25 there, in which the soil froze 
three inches deep on undug potatoes, and 
the estimate is for 50 per cent crop. 
On our local maket I can buy Irish 
pot.atoes for 25 cents a pock. This is 
entirely too low as compared with other 
products, and the cost of production, and 
I feel sure that there will be an advance. 
But when I am asked for the prospect for 
the early crop next Spring I am afraid to 
guess. Only two days ago a North Caro¬ 
lina correspondent wrote that he intends 
to plant extensively of early Irish pota¬ 
toes, and wants my advice as to the prom¬ 
ise for profit. I do not believe that the 
standard vegetables consumed by the mass 
oif the people can fall very low while the 
laborers are well employed at good wages. 
While the crop of “potatoes may be large, 
taking the country all over, the demand 
must be larger than usual because of a 
more general consumption and a greater 
use of potatoes in bread-making, and not¬ 
withstanding their bulk in proportion to 
food value, I believe that it will be found 
necessary to ship some abroad. These 
conditions will tend to make the potato 
crop bring a fair price. Then there are 
some things that may operate against too 
early a crop from the South. The great 
profits they made last Spring will induce 
a great many to plant potatoes next 
Spring in hope of like profit, and these 
tempoi'ary speculative planters seldom 
produce the highest grade, and a rush 
of inferior products will have the effect 
of depressing the market. Last Spring 
there were no old potatoes to compete 
with the early crop. Next Spring people 
will not pay a high price for new.pota¬ 
toes when they can get plenty of old 
potatoes cheaper. While it is still too 
early to venture any estimate on the 
market next Summer, I feel sure that 
while there will hardly be any disastrous 
slump in prices there can be nothing 
comparable with the conditions last year 
when early potatoes from North Carolina 
sold for $11.50 a barrel. I would rather 
suppo.se that there will be but fair returns 
for skilled growers and none of a profit¬ 
able character for the speculative planters. 
W. F. MASSEY. 
Potatoes for Poultry 
I have a large flock of White Leghorn 
hens, and have been feeding them small 
potatoes and potato parings boiled and 
mixed with bran and meal. I have been 
told that hens should not be fed potatoes, 
as there is so much starch in them. Is 
this statement accurate? j. w. i,. 
New York. 
Potatoes are good food for hens if not 
fed to excess. Like all starchy foods, 
they are fattening rather than stimulat¬ 
ing to production of eggs, and should be 
balanced by other foods higher in prote'n. 
It didn’t just happen that meat and po¬ 
tatoes came to be placed upon our tables 
together. They were found to complement 
each other, the protein of one balancing 
A Totem Tree in Cayuga Co., N. Y. Fig. 666 
the starch of the other, and, though we 
may not have known it, we were balanc¬ 
ing our ration by consulting our palates. 
The bran with which you mix the boiled 
potatoes adds needed protein, but the 
cornmeal is also starchy and should not 
be fed with potatoes unless the object is 
to fatten the animals to which it is given, 
_ M. B. D. 
Dust in Poultry House 
Would fowls continually working in a 
heavy dust be checked in amount of eggs 
laid ; also would it be injurious to them ? 
We have a dirt floor covered with about 
six inches of straw, and at feeding time 
you can hardly see from one pen to the 
other, the dust is so thick. If it is in¬ 
jurious, how would you advise us to rem¬ 
edy it? Our scratch and mash are same 
as used at laying contests, and fed accord¬ 
ingly. N. Y. N. j. 
New York. 
I have never known of any ill effects 
from dust in a poultry house, though it is 
true that certain fungus diseases may be 
spread by using litter that is moldy and 
infected by disease producing organisms; 
“clean” dust, however, is harmless, so far 
as I know. The habit of hens is to dust 
themselves pretty thoroughly when they 
have the opportunity and the clouds of 
dust frequently surrounding them do not 
seem to contribute anything but enjoy¬ 
ment and the lessening of the numbers of 
vermin tormenting them. I should avoid, 
however, the use of old, musty or moldy 
litter in the pens. M. b. d. 
Geese Stay Out Nights 
AMliat causes our geese to go to the 
creek nights? They stay around all day 
and about 6 p. m. march to the creek and 
don’t .show up until 8 o’clock next morn¬ 
ing. -w. G. F. 
Elkton, Md. 
Your geese are dcu'btless following the 
cu.stom_oif their wild ancestors that spent 
their nights on or near water for protec¬ 
tion from enemies. Domesticated Cana¬ 
dian geese, but a few generations from 
wild birds, will always go to water at 
night unless prevented, and will float on 
the surface or rest on the shore where 
it is easy to slide into the W'ater on ap¬ 
proach of danger. w. n. ir. 
Don’t Drive Home 
an Empty Wagon 
One farmer wrote us in July: “Our 
farmers have been told they will have to 
do without fertilizers because of scar¬ 
city ,—we are not going to do without, 
and I want your prices/^ 
He didn’t propose to drive home an 
empty wagon. 
To ensure a supply of plant food for the 
farmers in the war emergency, the whole ferti¬ 
lizer industry has been and is now using every 
resource. 
There is a shortage of freight cars in which 
to move phosphate rock from the South as well 
as fertilizers to the farmers; a shortage of ships 
to bring nitrate of soda from Chile; a shortage 
of burlap for bags; a shortage of ships to bring 
Spanish pyrites for manufacturing sulphuric acid. 
The Fertilizer Associations comprising 95 9^ of 
the manufacturers of the country, maintain head¬ 
quarters at Washington, co-operating with the 
Government to solve the problems confronting 
the industry that supplies the plant food which 
produces the country’s foodstuffs. 
To name all the manufacturers who have 
rendered service to the Government in this 
splendid spirit would be to print a directory of 
the trade. 
The fertilizer situation changes daily in some detail or 
other. Farmers therefore should keep in touch with our 
nearest local agents, and order their fertilizers early. It is 
likely to be a long time before the price of any fertilizer or 
other commodity will come down. 
Order now to ensure delivery. Don’t drive 
home an empty wagon. 
If we have no agent in your town, we want one. Write us for 
agent's name or ask for on agency yourself. It is paying 50,000 others. 
Why not you? 
HotrroMAfa 
READ THIS BOOK 
No matter how many other books about ferti¬ 
lizer you have read, read this one. It is a new and 
different book. There isn’t any advice in it for one 
thing. Probably you have about all the advice you 
need already. This is just a common sense book. 
You will read it and say: “That’s so! Why 
haven’t I thought of that before. ’’ If you are using 
fertilizers you are probably making money with 
them, but are you making enough? How do you 
know? By making little changes here and there, as you some¬ 
times shift your farm labor and teams, perhaps you can make 
more. This book may help you. It costs nothing. 
SEND THIS COUPON 
Send me “How to Make Money with Fertilisers.” I expect to 
use . tons of fertilizer this season. u. x.-y. 1 
My Name . . 
My Post Office Address . 
My County ... Staie . 
My Crops for 1918 . 
T*’ American Agricultural Chemical Co. 
SECRETARY’S OFFICE 
2 Rector Street, New York, N. Y. 
W» skip from 60 difformt centers east of the Mississippi. This means 
good service for you wherever you live. 
