670 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May ll» 1918 
General Farm Topics 
Farmers in the Legislature 
I have noted for some time in The R. 
N.-Y. the advice to the farmers of New 
York State to elect 50 farmers as mem¬ 
bers of the next Legislature, the object 
being, of course, to put through some 
legislation occasionally that will give 
farmers a fairer show in the battle of 
life. Here in the little State of Connec¬ 
ticut, in our last session, 1917—our Leg¬ 
islature sits only once in two years— 
there were 80 farmers in the House and 
two in the Senate. The total repre¬ 
sentation is 248 members in the House, 
35 in the Senate. In 1907, when I was 
a member, there were 88 farmer mem¬ 
bers in the House. 
But even with this proportionate Tei>- 
resentation we did not find it any too 
easy to put through legi.slation favoring 
the farmer. There was a bill to double 
the bounty on foxes; that is, to double 
the amount paid by the State for killing 
them. It was referred to the Fish and 
Game Committee; they reported unfa¬ 
vorably. I was a poultryman and had 
suffered serious loss by foxes. Mr. Allen 
of Ledyard, a brother member of the 
House, had lost $500 worth of turkeys the 
previous season by foxes. I made a 10- 
minute speech in favor of the bill (hope¬ 
lessly, because the report of the committee 
is nearly always carried) ; one or two 
others said a few words for and against; 
then the vote was taken, and I was sur¬ 
prised and delighted to find that I had 
won by 88 to 74, against the committee's 
report, and the whole House applauded 
when the vote was announced. By vote 
it was immediately sent to the Senate 
for action. There it was killed ; there were 
not farmers enough in the Senate, and 
one of the officers of the Senate was a 
dealer in fox skins; he was perfectly 
willing that the foxes should live on the 
farmers’ poultry, so he could make a few 
dollars on fox skins. 
You are right; get farmers into the 
Legislature. Several times in 1997, old 
fanners, whom no one thought could 
“talk,” got up and made speeches that 
thrilled the House. geo. a. cosgrove. 
the stack should be kept covered in some 
way so that you will have dry straw for 
litter. Any kind of a cover that can be 
lowered as stack is lowered is good. We 
generally have from 500 to 800 hens on 
large general farm and feed a good share 
of their home-grown grain in the sheaf, 
and try to plan to have all grain we are 
to thrash stacked within range of the 
hens, and not a grain is lost at thrashing 
time. The hens have the run of a large 
young apple orchard, and all the Summer 
and Pall, as long as the weather is good, 
we scatter gi*ain in straw by the wagon¬ 
load through the orchard and the hens 
make a better job than any machine 
and at much less expen.se. 
If grain can be sown where the poultry 
can be turned in to do the harvesting, so 
much the better. A clean job can be guar¬ 
anteed. 
I am more and more convinced each 
year that where cattle are to be fed the 
most economical grain is in the silo. 
Grow a variety of corn that fully matures 
in your locality, plant it thin enough to 
ear well, and most of the gi’ain your cat¬ 
tle are going to need is grown, harvested, 
and ready to feed when the silo is filled, 
with very little more expense than if you 
had grown a lot of immature, earless corn, 
which provides nothing more than succu¬ 
lence. MERRITT M. CEARK. 
Fairfield Co., Conn. 
More Grain in New England 
'I'he Eastern farmer and poultryman 
must raise more of his own grain or go 
out of busine.ss. But he must remember 
that with the scarcity and increased cost 
of labor and machinery his home-grown 
grain is going to cost much more than a 
couple of years ago. We increased our 
gi*ain acreage considerably last year, and 
are planning on still moi'c grain this sea¬ 
son. Along with tin; need for raising 
more grain on the farm is the need for 
growing more clover and other legumes, 
which means a shorter rotation into which 
grain growing will tit nicely. But in all 
this agitation for increased food supply 
and more grain on Ea.stern farms, let us 
keep our heads and gi’ow grains that .suc¬ 
ceed in our sections, and not experiment 
with grain not suited to our soils and cli¬ 
mate. The call so urgent last Spring 
and this for the Eastern fanner to sow 
Spring wheat is folly, a.s it means in most 
cases not only the waste of good seed 
wheat, but the farmer’s time, labor and 
use of his land, as Spring wheat is prac¬ 
tically a failure in all this section. As 
fine Winter wheat can be grown here as 
anywhere, but we must remember that 
(•omparatively little of our soil is suited 
to wheat, and that on most of our land 
the hardier rye will give much better re¬ 
sults. 
In many places the difficulty of secur¬ 
ing thrashing machines has been a great 
drawback to the raising of the small 
grains. With a good-sized flock of poul¬ 
try a lot of grain can be fed in the straw, 
and the expense of thrashing saved. Of 
couse, it is not wise to store too large 
quantities of grain in .sheaf in barns for 
too long a time on account of damage 
from rats and mice. Vermin will damage 
stacked grain very little, and if stacked 
where it can be thrown out to the hens a 
lot of handling will be saved. Get the 
top of stack off so that hens can get on it 
to work nicely and they will do the rest. 
If the grain is to be used inside the houses 
Recruits for the “ Elstates ” 
I have read in the columns of the daily 
papers of late that our wealthy women 
are organizing the women who are will¬ 
ing and have the time, to send to the 
farmers who will be short of help this 
year on account of the draft. I would 
suggest that these wealthy women who 
employ anywhere from four to 12 extra 
men on their estates in the Summer, to 
work around the lawns, trees, among the 
flowers, etc., and last year, and I suppose 
again this yeai% on their war farms 
(which were a decided failure in this com¬ 
munity), woiild distribute these men 
among the faimiers and engage the women 
they are now organizing upon their own 
estates. For the work on these wealthy 
e.states is lighter and under more favor¬ 
able conditions than are found on the 
ordinary or even the first-class farms, 
while the men released would render bet¬ 
ter service to the farmers who are the 
real feeders of oiu* nation. I think in this 
way there would be fewer backaches, 
bruised fingers, tears and disappointments 
of the farm among our would-be farmer¬ 
ettes. V. R. SCOREY. 
Long Island. 
R. N.-Y.—A good thing for the women 
oi’ganizers to consider. Most of the fancy 
work on these estate.s can hardly come 
under the head of “war necessities.” The 
lawns might well go to grass for one 
year. 
Beans Between Corn Rows 
Can the navy bean, or pea bean, be 
grown between corn rows drilled in at 
last cultivation of com? I have gi-own 
nice crops of cow peas that way, but 
have never known anyone to try the pea 
bean between corn rows. I hope to grow 
a crop of pea beans this year, and have 
not the barn room for storing them. 
Could I let them stand in field until dead 
ripe and thrash them fi-om field without 
danger of beans heating if put in five or 
10-bushel bins? If the beans will make a 
crop in between corn rows, which will be 
four feet, I am thinking of following this 
plan to get a cover crop, beans and corn. 
Let me know if you think it will work 
with any success. I have a five-hoe, one- 
horse drill and am thinking of using the 
middle hoe for beans and the other four 
for Hairy vetch, which will give a nice 
cover crop. I could use cow peas instead 
of beans, but vines are so rank I am 
afraid they would shade the vetch too 
much. j. B. B. 
Maryland. 
There are a number of reasons why 
this proposition would not prove to be 
either practical or profitable, allowing 
that the .season and weather conditions 
are better in Maryland than in New 
York State, being located farther south 
where longer seasons between frosts 
ought to prevail. Still, planting the beans 
after the last cultivation of the corn 
would bring the planting around the 
latter part of .Inly, and we often go 
through the corn with shallow cultitration 
later still. The pea or navy bean is a 
90-day crop in a general way. This 
would bring the harvesting of the beans 
about November 1. At this time of the 
year we are not apt to have weather con¬ 
ditions favorable for curing the beans. 
Again, even with the corn rows four feet 
apart, the beans would be too much 
shaded to amount to much, and then 
with the additional vetch growing there 
would bo entu’ely too great an amount 
of competition for plant food by all 
these different root systems occupying the 
same area of soil. It would in my opin¬ 
ion be much wiser to plant the corn in 
rows about .38 or 40 inches apart, spacing 
the plants in the row from 14 to 16 inches 
apart as nearly as possible, if the crop is 
intended for husking, while if for silage 
planting very much closer in the row. 
This will then also allow of .sowing the 
rape as a cover crop. The space in the 
field gained by placing the corn rows 
closer could be planted to beans in rows 
28 inches apart with full assui’ance of a 
crop. If beans are planted between the 
coim rows, they wmuld have to be har¬ 
vested and removed before cutting up 
the corn, or they would be entirely in 
the way. If beaus are left to stand until 
entirely dry and hai'd before harvesting 
they will keep all right in bins a.s sug¬ 
gested, but I want to emphasize this 
point: Thrashing beans direct from the 
field is a big gamble as sea.sons run. It 
is much safer either to stack or store in 
a barn as fast as they are thoroughly 
dry. In stacking it is well to have a 
stack-cover handy to keep the stack 
covered until it is completed, and well 
topped out with coarse hay or straw. In 
stacking there must be an air space be¬ 
neath. the whole stack, to allow of cir¬ 
culation. n. E. cox. 
More Crow Bait 
The true way of getting rid of him has 
not been given yet, in all that has been 
told. One writer had the way, all but 
the best way, to apply. I have had con¬ 
siderable loss here in Kentucky, which is 
a great State for crows. This is the 
best known remedy: Get some strych¬ 
nine and put in a can of white com, say 
one pint or quart; it does not take very 
much of the medicine. Now pour on hot 
water and let stand .36 or 48 hours. Now' 
go out in the open field and drop .some 
white cobs where you put out the corn, 
and down come the crows to pick it up. 
Then you will have crows dropping all 
over your neighborhood. Some will think 
that some disease has taken hold of the 
crow family. This has beaten all other 
remedies, and I expect to apply it as soon 
as I plant corn. e. r. wieson. 
Kentucky. 
First Broker: What do you usually 
give your waiter? Second Ditto: Oh, 
if he serves me well I give him a tip of 
a quarter; if badly I give him a tip on 
stocks.—Boston Transcript. 
Beat the Straw 
¥ 
Just As You Would Do By Hand 
With a Pitchfork 
T ake the short cut to effect 
thorough separation. Do 
not wait for the grain to drop 
out, but BEAT IT OUT with 
The Big Cylinder 
The Man Behind the 
Gun and the 
Beating Shakers 
the way to get all the grain 
quickly and without waste. 
Join hands with the national 
movement and save all your 
grain. Handle more jobs and 
bigger jobs and make more 
money for yourself. 
The Red River Special saves 
enough more of the farmer’s time 
and grain to pay his thresh bill. 
If you want a thresher for your 
own use, learn about our “Jun¬ 
ior” Red River Special. 
Write for circulars. 
Nichois & Shepard Co. 
In Continuous Business Since t84S 
Builders Exclusively of Red River Spe¬ 
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Steam and Oil-Gaa Traction Enprines. 
Battle Creek Michigan 
Standard Fruit Books 
Successful Fruit Culture. Maynard... .$1.00 
The Nursery Book. Bailey. 1.60 
American Fruit Culturist. Thomas_2.60 
Citrus Fruits. Hume.2.60 
California Fruits. Wickson. 3.00 
Dwarf Fruit Trees. Waugh.60 
Plums and Plum Culture. Waugh. 1.60 
Fruit Ranching in British Columbia. 
Bealby . 1.60 
Farm and Garden Rule Book .2.00 
Live Stock — Poultry 
Types and Breeds of Farm Animals. 
Plumb .$2.00 
Poultry Feeding and Management. 
Dryden . 1.60 
Swine in America. Coburn. 2.60 
Diseases of Animals, Mayo. 1.76 
Principles of Breeding. Davenport.2.50 
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