* 1774 
—The produce was consigned to a selected list of 10 
of the best commission houses in New York, two in 
Wallabout Market, Brooklyn, and four in Newark. 
Returns were reported each day and, besides being 
posted on a bulletin board in the association’s central 
office at Beverly station, were telephoned to each 
member. The shipments were not combined, but each 
member shipped to any commission house he selected 
from the association’s approved list. In this way there 
was keen competition among the various commis¬ 
sion merchants to return the highest prices, and 
many houses sent representatives to the section to 
co-operate with the growers. This plan of market¬ 
ing worked to the mutual satisfaction of the growers 
and commission men as well. 
INTELLIGENT HANDLING—The entire work 
of handling the association’s shipments on the special 
train was done by four paid men with some helpers 
at loading stations. During the past season the 
members had no paid manager, but the entire busi¬ 
ness was run by the officers of the association. The 
members were under no obligations to ship all their 
produce on the special train, and could send any 
quantity to Philadelphia or other markets as they 
desired. There were but few days when the amount 
of produce shipped did not pay for the train, and 
often during the season the receipts were far greater 
than the expenses. A peculiar feature about the 
workings of this organization was an agreement 
with the commission men selected, that they would 
rebate 2 per cent of the 10 per cent, commission 
charge in order to cover the salaries of the men em¬ 
ployed by the association for handling the train at 
the loading stations and among the growers. By 
this arrangement, together with the funds obtained 
by the charge on each package, this organization 
was made self-supporting. According to the by-laws 
of the association, 40 per cent of any surplus is to go 
into the treasury for future operations, while the 
balance is to be divided between the members ac¬ 
cording to the business done by each. 
EXTENSIVE BUSINESS.—The members of the 
Association are enthusiastic over the success of the 
co-operation project during the past season as It 1* 
estimated that the business handled amounted to 
$1,000,000. Already they are making extensive 
preparations and plans for next year, including the 
building of a pre-cooling plant, the establishment of 
standard uniform grades for all products, and the 
employment of a permanent manager. The mem¬ 
bers are proud of the fact that this association is 
the only organization of this type in the country 
which charters a special train to market the products 
of its members exclusively. The organization owes 
much of its success to the splendid co-operation 
given it by the Beverly National Bank. Mr. Jones, 
cashier of the bank, is treasurer of the association, 
and the service afforded by the bank has meant a 
great deal to its members. The advice and assistance 
of Mr. A. L. Clark, chief of the State Bureau of 
Markets, has been of great value in organizing the 
members and in conferences with the railroad au¬ 
thorities. The members realize that success has re¬ 
sulted from their combined efforts, well directed, 
and they are confident that co-operation based on 
sound business principles can do much for them in 
the future. L . G . GILLAM . 
A Thin Stand of Alfalfa 
FFECT OF PLOWING.—Recently I met an In¬ 
dianapolis man who says he owns a farm in 
Kansas that had 10 acres of thin Alfalfa on it 
when he bought the farm, and his tenant plowed it 
up and sowed wheat. I asked if this didn’t make 
the Alfalfa thicker, and he said, “Yes, the Alfalfa 
came up so thick it smothered the wheat out and I 
had no wheat.” This proves a theory of mine that 
spots or stripes can be re-planted where “skips” are 
made in seeding Alfalfa. I find that Alfalfa 
branches will take root at the “joints” on the stems, 
much as a raspberry cane will do, if covered in the 
soil. Of course, it is better not to try to sow too 
wide a “through” and not have these skips, but it is 
an impossibility, almost, to re-seed them unless 
transplanting is resorted to, as the shading of older 
plants on either side will kill the younger ones. I 
think a good plan is to plow a furrow, drop the 
plants a foot or two apart in the furrow and cover 
them with a plow, which possibly would better be 
a large shovel or potato plow; but a common break¬ 
ing plow will answer the purpose if the ground is in 
good condition and crumbles nicely. I imagine a 
good way to get plants to use, either for this “re¬ 
planting” or to plant Alfalfa in rows to cultivate, 
would be to break deeply, for corn, an old Alfalfa 
sod into which Blue grass had intruded, as it does, 
in three to five years. The Alfalfa roots will stick 
up nicely over this upturned sod, and they can be 
Tit RURAL NEW-YORKER 
easily pulled out soon after the breaking (and 
should be, before drying out too much), and thrown 
into a wagon and planted, as mentioned above, in 
rows to be cultivated. I am convinced that more 
hay can be secured in this way than from the thick 
seeding of 15 or 20 lbs. per acre that most farmers 
practice, or I should say, have practiced, before 
they gave up raising Alfalfa as a “bad job.” The 
plants that are buried in the ground will change 
their stems to roots, and will send up crowns in pro¬ 
fusion, and they don’t need to be planted very closely 
on this account. 
POPULAR ERRORS.—Many, many farmers, like 
the one mentioned at the beginning of -this article, 
think their Alfalfa is too thin, when really, it is too 
thick. Alfalfa grows no thinner than does Red 
clover; but the farmer is “humbugged” by the clover, 
March Heeded Alfalfa with 38-inch Double Tap-root 
Fig. 581 
as it “lops” down on the ground and covers up the 
naked rings around the plants, while Alfalfa stands 
upright and exposes them. It is a sad mistake that 
farmers have been formerly advised to sow 20 or 25 
lbs. of Alfalfa seed per acre; and the mistake is 
not properly corrected today, when they are advised 
by agricultural men to sow 12 or 15 lbs. per acre. 
They are “gradually coming to it,” like the Irish¬ 
man that cut off one inch of the dog’s tail every day, 
not wanting to cut it all off at once; but a little 
thought will show that these men, as well as the 
Irishman, are wrong. Uncle Sam says: “Counts 
in old Alfalfa fields show stands of from one to six 
plants to the square foot, with equal yields from all." 
This same authority says: “Twenty pounds of Al¬ 
falfa seed per acre, puts 100 seeds to the square 
foot,” and, strange it seems to me, this same Uncle 
Sam recommends that 20 lbs, per acre be used. I 
suppose Uncle Sam uses the “Regulation-cultivation- 
all-Summer-sow-it-just before a drought-comes” plan, 
and doesn’t expect every seed to germinate. It is well 
that they don’t all germinate, for only one to six of 
the 100 seeds per square foot can live on that much 
ground. I would suggest that Uncle Sam try Jack 
Frost seeding, and let the freezing and thawing and 
Winter’s rains soften the hard hulls of one-fourth 
of this 20 lbs. of Alfalfa seed per acre, and see if he 
doesn’t have better results from using the Spring 
and early Summer rains than he has had by doing so 
much work to kill weeds and to conserve the rainfall 
after it has passed, and drought and hot, scorching 
sunshine have come to keep the Alfalfa from ger¬ 
minating, or to kill it after it has germinated, and 
to retard its root growth so much that the first 
Winter will “spew the plant out of the ground.” 
STRONG ROOT SYSTEM.—This late seeding, 
and thick seeding, are both bad, and are to blame 
for many failures with Alfalfa. I often hear farm¬ 
ers say: “Alfalfa won’t grow on wet land; my Al¬ 
falfa froze out the first Winter.” T am sending a 
picture. Fig. 581, showing a March, 1019. seeded 
Alfalfa plant with a double tap root 38 inches long. 
.1 dug this plant out of hard, clay ground and the 
December 0, 1919 
yardstick shows these roots to be 38 inches long, 
not counting the “wobbles” it had to make in forcing 
itself down through the hard clay. Does this plant 
look as though it would be “spewed out” this 
Winter? This land is not under-drained, neither is 
it rolling enough to shed water very well. The 
picture was taken November 6, 1919. The other two 
plants were pulled up at the same time the one was 
dug up (November 5, 1919), but much of their roots 
was broken off, of course. 
WEEDS IN ALFALFA.—I know it is generally 
said: “Alfalfa ground should be plowed deep, early 
in Spring, and cultivated each week or 10 days to 
kill all the weeds and to make a solid seed bed, and 
the seed should be sown in July or August.” Now, 
let’s look at this instruction. Did you ever know 
all the weeds to be killed? I never did. It is said: 
“Weeds, like the poor, you will have with you al¬ 
ways,” and it doesn’t pay to waste time and moisture 
until the two driest months of the whole year before 
sowing the seed. I refer to July and August. They 
were dry this year, if I remember rightly, and I 
would be surprised and pleased to have any farmer, 
or agricultural experiment station man, exhibit a 
plant that will equal or half-way approach those I 
show in the picture, and I will state that my March, 
1919, seeded Alfalfa has been mown three times this, 
the first year of seeding, and it would be mown the 
fourth time if we had nice Indian Summer in No¬ 
vember, 1919. I kill the weeds, but I “wait until 
the harvest,” as the Bible says, and I watch the 
new shoots or new lungs at base of plants, and as 
soon as they are well started and about ready to be 
used as lungs by the plants, I cut Alfalfa, weeds 
and all, close to the ground. This kills the weeds 
and the new Alfalfa growth keeps them killed, or 
prevents other weed seeds from germinating. Don’t 
you think this beats all that plowing and cultivat¬ 
ing? Don’t you think “honeycombed” oat stubble, 
corn stubble, wheat stubble, potato, tomato or bean 
ground is as “solid” as any seedbed that you can 
make by rolling, dragging, harrowing, etc.? The tap 
root of Alfalfa wants something to go into. If the 
carpenter drives a nail into an auger hole, it doesn't 
do much good; neither does the Alfalfa root do very 
well if it strikes an air pocket or a bunch of corn¬ 
stalks, or straw, weeds, etc., “turned under deep” in 
early Spring, no matter how much effort has been 
made to make it solid again. I am sure it is better 
to keep the seed bed solid while you have it so, and 
it is better to use the rain as it falls than to try 
to retain the moisture as it goes into the hot air of 
July or August drought. It is better to have Al¬ 
falfa roots as long as your arm at the beginning of 
Winter than to have them only a few inches long 
at that time. j. n. shirley. 
Indiana. 
Ground Limestone on Sod 
A recent note from the Ohi* Experiment Station told 
of good results in using acid phosphate and ground lime¬ 
stone on old pastures. The application of lime to this 
old pasture sod increased the growth of the better 
grasses, and of course added to the value of the pasture. 
We have had but a very moderate success when spread¬ 
ing lime on top of the sod without working it into the 
soil in some way. So we wrote Dr. Thorne, asking about 
this point. His answer follows: 
T HE item which you quote from our weekly press 
bulletin is based upon eye observation only. For 
a number of years we have been using ground lime¬ 
stone on our pastures on the hill farm at Carpenter, 
Meigs County of this State, with the result that 
while we are not able to state definitely just how 
much the limestone has increased the pastures, the 
fact that there was a decided increase has been so 
evident that we have adopted the plan of liming 
pastures regularly, using ordinary finely ground raw 
limestone. 
Of course, we believe that the limestone is more 
effective when stirred into the soil, and we advise 
that method all the time, trying to discourage our 
farmers who want to spread the lime on sod land or 
stubble before plowing it, but our hill pastures can¬ 
not be plowed, and there is choice between liming on 
the grass and not liming at all. Our work on that 
farm has indicated, however, that in connection with 
liming or fertilizing there must be reseeding occa¬ 
sionally. CHAS. E. THORNE. 
The Line Fence Problem 
E VERY day brings us new questions about trouble 
over a line fence. In all seriousness we may 
say that the line fence is about the most offensive 
fixture on the farm. Niue out of 10 of these ques¬ 
tions are fully answered in the article on page 1572. 
That gives a fair statement of the New York laws. 
Please read that over 
will give all 
persona 
