1298 
Iht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
Farmers’ Week At Storrs 
Poultry, Dairying, Hogs and Bees 
Part II. 
Farmers’ Day. —The big day of the 
week was Wednesday, known as “Farm¬ 
ers’ Day.” President Butterfield of Am¬ 
herst, Mass., and Prof. Baker of the Ex¬ 
tension Department, gave a very interest¬ 
ing account of the war work in agricul¬ 
ture with the expeditionary forces in 
France. President Butterfield spoke also 
of the need of a world-wide policy and 
program as relates to the future world’s 
food supply. lie spoke of the danger of 
over-production of foodstuffs within a few 
years, as an outgrowth of national and 
State stimulus of production. Over-pro¬ 
duction, he said, might be worse than 
any evils resulting from high prices. He 
said that the first great need of agri¬ 
culture was the ratification of the peace 
treaty in its present form and without 
reseiwations. This he felt was necessary, 
not because the treaty was perfect, but 
that we might regain our equilibrium and 
settle down to a world-wide policy of de¬ 
velopment that would mean real progress. 
The need of world co-operation as well as 
local co-operation in marketing was the 
gist of an earnest plea by Prof. Guy 
Smith, formerly of the Connecticut Col¬ 
lege, but who has just gone to Pennsyl¬ 
vania to head the State Bureau of Mar¬ 
kets. He said he felt that the big prob¬ 
lem lying before farmers today was that 
of co-operation, and especially co-oper¬ 
ative marketing. Prof. Smith has done 
good work in stimulating organized mar¬ 
keting in Connecticut and he will be 
very much missed from that State. 
Dairying Looking Brighter. —Con¬ 
necticut dairying has passed through a 
period of depression during the recent 
world war. Prices of livestock were ab¬ 
normally high, purchased feed has ad¬ 
vanced in price three or four times over 
what it was four years ago. The dairy¬ 
men, however, are beginning to take on 
more optimism, they are finding it 
possible to produce more of the feed 
needed by their herds right on the 
farm. They are finding it practicable to 
rear more and better cows. The Connecti¬ 
cut Dairymen’s Association has always 
been active in promoting interest in dairy¬ 
ing, and this activity was as pronounced 
as ever at Farmers’ Week. The slogan 
of the Association is “better cows, more 
clover, better corn.” Special emphasis 
was placed this year on the need of more 
efficient dairy animals. Prof. White said 
that many farm management surveys 
made in Connecticut had shown that cows 
giving less than 5.000 lbs. of milk were 
kept at a loss. Next to good cows, it was 
said, the big problem of today was to 
produce more of the protein needed by 
the herd, directly on the farm. This can 
be done not only by growing more clover 
and Alfalfa, but also by growing grasses 
and grains with a higher protein con¬ 
tent than those commonly grown. 
Beef for Rough Lands. —Probably no 
line of livestock work at the college is 
attracting more attention than that done 
by Prof. Garrigus, with a view of stimu¬ 
lating interest in beef cattle and sheep. 
Beef cattle had generally disappeared 
from Connecticut, and yet a renewed in¬ 
terest is being aroused. Prof. Garrigus 
now goes to Chicago or Kansas City every 
year to buy beef cattle, and he always 
has a commission to buy for others. Then 
too. in buying steers he aims to combine 
beef qualities with good mating as to 
color and size. This attempt to buy ani¬ 
mals that will match up well always 
creates a laugh on the part of his West¬ 
ern friends, for they cannot conceive of 
the use of cattle for work purposes. 
Nevertheless the college and many Con¬ 
necticut farmers are still finding cattle 
economical beasts of burden, for they can 
do many lines of work on the rough hills 
better than horses. The visitors at the 
college were especially interested in the 
high-class group of Herefords that Prof. 
Garrigus had brought together. 
The Lazy Hog. —“What’s time to a 
hog?” is a slogan that applies in modern 
times in feeding. hogs in Connecticut. 
The thought has prevailed that to make 
money on hogs in the East it was neces¬ 
sary to feed heavily of nutritious grain 
feeds in close confinement. Today we 
are slowly getting away from that idea. 
Western grains cannot be depended upon 
largely for profit in feeding swine. We 
are too far from the base of supply. To¬ 
day the best feeders are letting hogs pick 
up their own food mainly. They have the 
time, and the waste of energy is small 
compared to the cheaper cost of feeding. 
Rape, oats and peas, Soy beans and even 
Alfalfa are grown as forage for hogs, to be 
pastured down at a cheaper cost than 
grain feeding. Even the hogging off of 
corn has its advantages on cheap lands, 
because the early feeding of this corn 
allows getting the hogs off to market be¬ 
fore the Western stocks come in freely. 
In this way higher prices are secured. 
The new Swine Breeders’ Association is 
active, and its most notable work is in 
increasing the use of forage crops, and 
the. introduction of better stock. Con¬ 
tagious diseases are the most serious 
obstacle in breeding and rearing hogs, 
but these are gradually being controlled 
by the methods advocated by the college 
and the most up-to-date breeders. 
Sweets of the Hive. —Perhaps the 
most prosperous and active industry in 
the farming line for the past few years 
has been that of the bee-keeper. The 
shortage of sugar and the attempt to 
find useful substitutes has called special 
attention to honey. There is perhaps no 
industry fraught with greater uncertainty, 
and yet this very feature makes it a most 
profitable industry when studied in detail 
and followed up with real skill and stead¬ 
fastness. Heavy losses resulted in the 
open-yard system of housing the Winter 
of 1917 and 1918, while those who housed 
with care brought their bees through 
safely and reaped a rich harvest the fol¬ 
lowing Summer and Fall. As in all other 
kinds of live stock produced on the farm 
the great criterion is to build up more 
vigorous stock. This, it was said, could 
be done by introducing pedigree queens 
and by keeping disease out of the colony. 
The Connecticut Beekeepers’ Association 
is a new organization, and yet its ac- 
A large field of celery equipped with 
waterproof blanching paper is show’ll in 
the photograph, which was made on 
the muck land of Dr. B. E. St. John, of 
Wayne County, N. Y. This method has 
many advantages over boarding in that 
the paper is easier to place and is less 
tivities are well organized for effective 
work. 
The College Equipment and Or¬ 
ganization. —Few colleges in the East 
have made a greater grow’tli either in 
material equipment or in number and 
quality of the faculty than the institution 
at Storrs. Ten to twenty years ago this 
institution was passing through troublous 
times. Its opponents were active and its 
internal strifes were numerous, but to¬ 
day all this has changed. ' The people, 
both rural and urban, are now generally 
backing up the institution. By a skilful 
system of management President Beach 
has organized and developed the various 
departments and co-ordinated their work 
in a masterly manner. There was a time 
wdien many of the best friends of the 
college advocated its removal to a more 
central point of the State. Today this 
is rarely heard of. The location is beau¬ 
tiful and healthful, and the general use of 
the automobile has brought the institution 
within a tw r o or three hours run of nearly 
all points in the State. The strictly rural 
surroundings keep the students’ minds in 
close touch with nature, with rural af¬ 
fairs and with rural life. We doubt if 
any institution in the East offers, to those 
desiring training for agricultural leader¬ 
ship, greater opportunities than can be 
found at the Connecticut Agricultural 
College at Storrs. c. s. piielps. 
Countrywide Produce Situation 
VALUES OF FALL CROPS BEGIN TO SHAPE 
THEMSELVES. FRUIT IS HIGH. 
Apples are very interesting just now, 
because this is the time when prices are 
indicated to some extent for the remainder 
of the season. This indication is afforded 
both by the range of prices of the early 
varieties and by the advance sales of the 
later kinds. Records of advance sales 
suggest at least the opinion of experienced 
apple buyers. If the price is a consider¬ 
able advance above that which could be 
obtained for early kinds, immediate de¬ 
livery, the transaction shows confidence 
in an upward course of the market. In 
the same way advance sales below the 
market would suggest expectation of a 
decline. These early sales of Winter 
apples are not always a close indication 
of what is to happen. Some years the 
majority of the professional buyers are 
caught with purchases too heavy to be 
sold at a profit, because the yield was 
larger than was anticipated, or something 
happens to interfere with the demand. 
Such was the case in 1916, when the 
sugar shortage and the export situation 
hampered the disposal of the crop. 
APPLE BUYERS CONFIDENT. 
Reports of advance sales of late bar¬ 
reled apples range from $4 to $9, accord¬ 
ing to location, variety and grade. These 
are sales for Nos. 1 and 2 together, usually 
including barrel and box and delivered at 
the local freight station. Sales lately 
made in Pennsylvania and Maryland 
range from $5 for ordinary Ben Davis 
to $6 to $7.50 for York Imperial and $8 
to $9 for fancy kinds, like Jonathan. 
Quite a number of orchards in Pennsyl¬ 
vania appear to have been sold at $6 per 
barrel, all varieties, orchard run. Sales 
in New England and New York State 
seem to have been somewhat lower than 
in the South and West, owing perhaps 
to considerable prevalence of scab and 
other defects. Sales of Baldwin and 
Greening in New Hampshire. Maine and 
New York ranged $4.50 to $5.50, but the 
market in these sections is not at all 
settled, very few sales being reported. 
Quite a difference will no doubt appear 
between bulk sales and package sales, 
owing to scarcity and high prices of bar¬ 
rels and boxes. Barrels in the East range 
around 70c each for new stock and Bos¬ 
ton quotes boxes, standard market, 
expensive than the boards. It comes in 
rolls, and at distances of about one yard 
supporting wires are thrust into the soil. 
The paper is of substantial construction 
and with care in applying and removing 
may be used for more than one season. 
A. II. PULVER. 
at 20c, while Western apple boxes 
in the producing sections are 24c, 
all these prices being about double 
those prevailing before the war. Early 
apples are bringing fairly good prices in 
Eastern markets, at $3 to $5 per barrel, 
including a good deal of inferior stock. 
Southern markets offer considerable fairly 
good stock in Southern cities, and prices 
range as high as $5 to $9 per barrel. All 
desirable fruit is high. Western pears 
bring $4 to $5 per 40-lb. box for best lots, 
and peaches are $3 to $4 per bushel for 
the best, although during the past two 
weeks some markets have been badly de¬ 
moralized, owing to much soft, overripe 
stock, which had to be cleaned out as low 
as $1 to $2 per bushel. The present ap¬ 
ple crop is the lightest in the past five 
years, and there is every indication that 
prices will be high, especially for the 
smooth, unblemished, fancy stock. 
COURSE OF THE POTATO SEASON. 
Potato nrices tend to decline this sea¬ 
son, owing to increasing supplies. Ship¬ 
ments usually reach height somewhere be¬ 
tween the last of September and the last 
of October, depending upon the condition 
of the market and the maturity of the 
crop. As potatoes sometimes comprise 
nearly one-lialf of the total shipments of 
carlot produce, the height of the potato 
shipping movement is usually at the 
same time as that of the movement in 
general produce. Last year the heaviest 
week came about the first of October, 
when nearly 20.000 cars of produce were 
shipped, of which more than one-third 
were potatoes. Prices usually reach bot¬ 
tom for potatoes at or soon after the time 
of heaviest shipment, and then tend to 
recover for the month or two preceding 
Thanksgiving and Christmas. After that 
the course of the market depends upon 
the weather and conditions of transporta¬ 
tion. Winter markets are always more 
or less irregular and afford opportunities 
for nearby, owners to sell at better than 
average prices. Potatoes in Eastern ship¬ 
ping sections are netting growers from $2 
to $3 per 100 lbs. The level is still a 
little higher than it was a year ago. when 
the range was about $2.50 in producing 
sections and about $3 in Eastern city mar- 
September c. 1919 
kets. This year Easteim markets arpurnl 
the first of September average about $3.25 
per 100 lbs. While markets were weak 
all through the past month, the decline is 
no more than might be expected with 
shipments increasing rapidly every week. 
The crop outlook is not quite so favorable 
as at first. Drought injury in the Middle 
West and Northern sections seems to be 
very serious and there are scattered re¬ 
ports of blight in the East. 
CABBAGE AND ONIONS WERE ACTIVE. 
The cabbage crop will soon begin to 
move actively. Acreage is lighter than 
last year, but the yield seems to be fairly 
good, except in sections where drought 
checked development. The only large crop 
so far appearing on the market is from 
Colorado, where growers seem to be net¬ 
ting $20 per ton, while distant consuming 
markets are quoting from two to three 
times that price for wholesale lots put up 
in crates. Yields of onions appear dis¬ 
appointing in the Middle West, owing to 
bad weather and thrips. Prices have 
been declining steadily the past three or 
four weeks, ranging generally from $3 to 
$4 per 100 lbs. in wholesale lots. At 
this season a large part of the shipments 
come from California, Eastern shipping 
sections having not yet acquired so 
heavily. o. p. 
As we are in the region of abandoned 
farms, everything about conditions in 
other parts of New England and New 
York is read with interest. From eight to 
IS or twenty years ago Vermont was 
trying the experiment of centralized 
schools, and as people who regarded their 
children as gifts from God, to be trained 
carefully in the way of right and good 
citizenship, did not like to have their chil¬ 
dren at six years of age gone from home 
from daylight till after dusk during the 
Fall and Winter montlis. they sold their 
farms for what they would bring, or per¬ 
haps sold their stock except a pair of 
horses and went teaming, and purchased 
a little commercial fertilizer and raised 
their own vegetables and cut their own 
hay to feed their team and to sell. Then 
of course there were elderly people to 
drop out, and no one wishes to go to a 
farm when a school was three to six miles 
away. If the directors thought best the 
children were boarded in town and usual¬ 
ly allowed to run wild when not in school. 
Is there anyone who cannot imagine the 
result? After some of the young people 
had made strides on the wrong road and 
the people were nearly all centralized 
from the farm, the wise ones awoke to 
what they had done, and new boards of 
school directors began to re-establish dis¬ 
trict school if five or six pupils were 
found in a district, and also said they 
would re-establish schools if families with 
children would go on a farm. But it is 
easier to hitch to the corner of a building 
and pull it down than to rebuild the de¬ 
bris. Many of these farms had small 
pines and spruces started in the pastures 
and were bought as an investment. 
These farms today still have grass in 
the mowing which the farmers in town 
would be glad to buy ns it stands, espe¬ 
cially in seasons of a short hay crop, but 
the address of the owner many times is 
very hard to obtain. The town clerk mav 
know where the last tax check came from 
and the former address. One farm of 30 
or 40 acres of mowing was uncut because 
the owner had bargained the place but 
the papers were not passed. We tried to 
hire the land again this year and the renlv 
was the same. 
Another man owns perhaps 200 acres 
of meadow’ land, besides the timbered 
land, and no grass was cut on it last year. 
The owner’s home address is known! but 
as his business takes him away much of 
the time, his secretary leaves the business 
connected with this property until he re¬ 
turns home, and then it is too late to cut 
the grass. 
■ Last Winter hay of 
$20 to $25 a ton,' and 
draw it several miles, 
know where hay can be 
teams until the'new crop can be cut, un¬ 
less baled hay is shipped in. Of course 
after the grass is uncut for a year or two 
weeds of various kinds creep in faster! 
and the hay is not as valuable when the 
last year’s crop is raked in. 
The pastures are growing to brush, not 
timber, but afford excellent hiding places 
for an increasing number of bobcats or 
lynx cats, foxes, etc., to prey upon the 
poultry of those who remain. Sportsmen 
say the reason deer are not as numerous 
is because bears are more numerous, and 
certainly the footprints and workings of 
bears are growing more frequent, and 
sheep raising would be a precarious ven¬ 
ture unless one corraled the sheep at 
night. 
Now, before expending vast sums for 
draining swamps and for irrigation, could 
not some way be found so that these 
lands could be hired and the grass and 
in some cases apples for the jelly mills 
be salvaged to do some good somewhere? 
These farms are getting seeded, too, with 
orange hawkweed, and, although two or 
more acres of it is a most brilliant flower 
bed, the seeds are blown into the pastures 
of the farmers, where about the only rem¬ 
edy on the rocky hillsides is salting or 
pulling. In the meadows it can be killed 
by cultivation, but hay with much hawk- 
weed is ruinous to horses, according to 
the experience of people here; it causes a 
bad cough and heaves and shortens their 
lives if fed long. It does not seem to in¬ 
jure cattle. mbs. w. 
Windham Co., Vt. 
fair quality was 
farmers have to 
Some do not 
obtained for the 
