140 
quartette, is a white freestone peach, ripening a week 
before Elberta. It. 1 O 0 , is prolific. The tree is more 
spreading than Elberta, but not so much so as 
Greensboro. The blossoms are medium-sized. The 
buds are slightly more hardy than Elberta. The 
quality of Belle is excellent, although a little sweet 
for some palates. Belle was originated at the same 
time as Elberta and came from a pit of the same tree- 
as Elberta. The pollen parent is believed to have 
been either Early Crawford or Oldmixon. 
Problems of New England Agriculture 
Part II. 
GOOD ROADS.—Generally speaking, good roads 
radiate out of Bost all parts of New England—* 
especially north. These take care of the great Sum¬ 
mer tourist travel, from which a large item of in¬ 
come accrues. Trunk line roads, valuable as they 
are, are not so important to farmers as the local 
roads linking farms with adjacent villages and mar¬ 
kets. Real macadam is expensive to build. A good 
country road, however, is one that provides a stone 
base for drainage, and a stone or gravel crown for 
wear. Such a road can be built with considerable 
economy, a serviceable road that keeps one out of 
the mud. Given a little local enthusiasm, many a 
piece of road like this has been built to some extent 
by voluntary labor. Few things mean more to the 
average farm than' e ood road to town. Two great 
needs exist in this connection: a comprehensive 
State policy of building, and an invigorating of local 
public sentiment in the country itself. It is not 
enough to elect a township highway commissioner 
and then “pass' the buck” exclusively to him. The 
supply of rock is certainly ample; there is great 
opportunity in many places to crush some of it and 
improve bad roads, and some of the labor and team¬ 
work required might often be voluntary labor if such 
is necessary. 
BETTER BUILDINGS.—It might be rash to 
question the New England farm buildings, product, 
as they are, of generations of careful builders who 
knew also what they wanted. Most of the buildings 
now in use. however, e old. They were built before 
the days of farm machinery or of modern household 
appliances. It is folly to advocate much changing 
of old buildings. Consideration of modern conditions 
should be given, however, by men who are building 
new barns or houses. There is in many new barns 
the tendency to repeat the mistakes of past genera¬ 
tions. One such mistake is the “barn cellar,” over 
which the cows are stabled, and into which the 
manure is pitched all Winter and generally all Sum¬ 
mer. This is excellent for the manure, but very. ])ad. 
for the cows and the barn. Modern ideas of .sani¬ 
tation certainly forbid the manure cellar, handy 
though it is. Another mistake is the long barn .with’ 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
toward solving their own problems if they go about 
it in a united way. As an individual, the iarmer is 
simply lost and swallowed up. One thing which 
organization should do in the hear future is to" 
present the farmer’s standpoint to the consumers of 
city and town. The Grange, N. E. M. P. A. and 
other organizations should get together and buy a 
substantial interest in one of the important Boston 
daily newspapers. There is no '■her way for people 
in the large cities to know about the farmer’s case 
except for him to tell them in their own papers. The 
time will come when farmers will rid it necessary 
to control an important daily pape in cities like 
Boston and New York. New England _armers could 
do this in the near future, and it should be done. 
BUSINESS FARMING.—The farm in inis part of 
the country is a homestead. Ten genera Lons of men 
Working by hand on these homesteads must be at 
least partially forgotten by the present owner, who 
>A U x. 1 
Finishing tlic Corn Busker's Job. Fig. 30 
would assume the modern conception of farming as 
a business proposition. The business farmer is just 
beginning to appear in New England. His day is 
yet to come. One process that must continue for a 
time is the. readjustment of farm areas, to throw 
larger units of tillable-land into the hands of each 
operator. Twenty-five acres of crop land are not 
enough to make for a business and livable income. 
This" process started 40 years ago. Mbst of the 
“abandoned” farms of the region are simply cases 
where two farms have been combined under one 
operator and one house abandoned. Some of the 
farms of Civil War days were mistakes; these are 
now growing up to pine trees. New England has 
had plenty of farmers. Since the reorganization of 
agriculture bn a machinery basis fewer farmers and 
larger tillable area per man have everywhere re¬ 
driveway lengthwise through the middle. This uses suited in greater prosperity. This process must con- 
up too much space. It was all right when all hay 
and grain was pitched off the wagon by hand, into 
the mows, but nowadays it is elevated by horse-fork 
and can be placed anywhere. The long barn is good, 
but the drive should be across the width of the barn. 
not lengthwise. The old hillside type of “overshot”’ 
• ■ 
barn is no longer needed, either. Yet new barns are 
tinue for quite a time yet before this region will 
have reached the general level. The amount of 
capital invested per farm is considerably smaller 
here than farther west. Most of this difference is 
due to lower land values, though part of the dif¬ 
ference is in smaller equipment. Receipts and ex¬ 
penses per farm both range rather high with a dairy 
frequently seen where the builder has gone to ?on- enterprise. Grain and labor bills cut into the milk 
* ’ 
siderable trouble to make a small hillside up. against 
the barn where one did not happen to be handy to 
drive in from. With the horse-fork and track it is 
no longer necessary to drive into the barn at! the 
very top. There are many points of good arrange¬ 
ment in dairy barns and stables which New England 
builders are continuing to overlook in new barns. 
The careful planning of a barn means everything to 
the men coming after, who are likely to spend their 
lives working n it. The same is true of houses, 
wherein the labor and lives of women a re. concerned. 
It is questionable whether the old manner of build- 
mg house, barns and stables all in a connected block 
is good. The only advantage is in doing chores 
through the Winter. Against that are the disad¬ 
vantages of very bad sanitation, unpleasant odors, 
risk of lire, etc. It is noteworthy that the men who 
rebuild following a lire never connect the house and 
barns. This custom of connected buildings is one 
local to this part of the East, and on the whole is 
not desirable. 
ORGANIZATION.-—The Grange is fairly strong— 
though in some localities it is rather a paper 
strength. The Farm Bureau is a growing organiza¬ 
tion : still, it has no great fundamental strength as 
yet. The New England Milk Producers’ Association 
gives promise of becoming powerful. It is already 
a considerable factor in the dairy situation. This 
latter organization is really one of self-defense. The 
farmers of New England, as elsewhere, can do a lot 
checks, however, until the labor income Is small. 
The annual grain bill is staggering on these farms. 
Just how this feed problem may best be met is not 
easy to say. Probably better crop rotation and more 
legumes lie near the heart of the solution. 
ONE THING. NEEDFUL.—Back of New England 
rural prosperity, of the present generation at least, 
'-stands the price of milk. If the farmers are able to 
say that milk shall be 1 sold fpr a livable profit, agri¬ 
culture will improve. Lacking this, the great in¬ 
dustrial population of this .region will simply have 
to get its food farther West and South. If Nature 
had done her part, we might easily have a replica 
of Holland's intensive dairy farming along our north¬ 
east coast. As iUstands, the handicap is heavy, and 
there is little to suggest the Dutch system. The 
problems of the New England farmer are both those 
of unkind environment and of readjustment. lie 
must ultimately strike a balance between lTis handi¬ 
caps and the advantage that comes of being within 
six hours’ haul by train of some of the world’s 
greatest markets. a. b. g. 
January 24, 1920 
size from one to 15 acres, surrounded by knolls 
formed of gravel. The precipitation drains into the 
hollows, and in the Spring and Fall there is usually 
water standing over the sunken areas. Muck has 
been formed, and could be used if it were not for 
the flooding, which keeps the soil cold, so that plant¬ 
ing is retarded. Several farmers attempted to dig 
down through the muck and on through the layers 
of clay marl lying underneath, thinking that by 
puncturing the floor an outlet could be obtained. 
This was finally given up as a hopeless task. As 
the surrounding land is from 15 to 20 feet above 
the muck, a very expensive ditch would have to be 
dug to drain the area by means of an open ditch. 
Finally J. H. Broad, an enterprising farmer, be¬ 
gan c -. erimenting, and opposite the lowest level 
ct muck lie dug a large basin or hole in the gravel 
at the edge of the pocket. The gravel was loose, 
being composed of a large assortment of different 
: ized stones and very little fine material. From this 
pit or basin a ditch was dug into the muck and 
filled with gravel from the hole. This was done in 
the all, and the next Spring the entire flood, which 
<rm ,lly stood over the land, was carried away 
through the gravel. A fair-sized stream drained 
through tl e outlet, and the land was made available 
for planting. Last Fall another pit was dug on the 
opposite side of the depression, in order to drain the 
land more quickly. The muck has been available 
for planting since this new drainage scheme was 
devised, and next season will be planted to celery 
and onions. t. h. townsend. 
New York. 
Draining Muck Land 
CAME upon a novel method of draining muck 
land which may prove of value in other places 
under the same conditions. In this vicinity there are 
a great many “pockets” with no outlet, ranging in 
I 
Tap or Branch Root Alfalfa 
Tue It. N.-Y. has stated several times that it nre- 
fers the surface or branch-rooted varieties of Alfalfa 
rather than the kinds which make a single deep tap¬ 
root. The tap-rooted kinds are very satisfactory here 
in the Central West, and I prefer them. What l’easons 
can you give for using the branch-rooted varieties? 
Indiana. j. n. shirley. 
D IFFERENT CONDITIONS.—There are several 
good reasons which we have worked out on 
the Atlantic coast, where the conditions are very 
different from those in the Central West. Much of 
the Atlantic slope is not naturally suited to Alfalfa. 
The hard, drying winds off the ocean are very try¬ 
ing on vegetation. We have had fence posts and 
young peach trees lifted completely out of the ground 
by the alternating heave and settle of a bare soil 
under these cold winds followed by the warm sun¬ 
shine. It is the usual complaint among our people 
that a good share of the ordinary tap-rooted Alfalfa 
is lifted out of the soil, while we have rarely, if 
ever, had Grimm or Cossack lifted out in the same 
way. In fact, it would be practically impossible to 
pull a plant of Cossack out after it had once become 
fully established. With us Cossack and Grimm not 
only throw out these big side roots, but they also 
throw’down big tap-roots, which we are sure go 
as far into the ground as the tap-root of the old- 
fashioned Alfalfa. There can be no question about 
this, for we have dug these roots up repeatedly and 
pictured them in The R. N.-Y. It. is true, of course, 
that the tap-roots bring up plant food from below, 
and Cossack and Grimm can do that as well as the 
old-fashioned Alfalfa ever could do. 
THE SEARCH FOR PLANT FOOD.—In addition, 
the big- branching surface roots run out into the 
upper ; oil. In our country, at least, a greater part 
of the available plant food is in the upper foot of 
the soil, and that is where these branching rooted 
Alfalfas do a large part of their feeding. We know 
that Cossack, Semipalatinsk and Grimm stay in 
our soil longer and surer, and give us a steadier 
crop than the old-fashioned Alfalfa ever did, and it 
is good evidence when you find that many of our 
Eastern people, after trying both kinds, are coming 
to use the branch-rooted varieties. They surely 
would not do it and pay the higher price if it did 
not pay. Still another reason for advising the use 
of Cossack or Grimm is that the leaves are finer 
and smaller, and the stems are rather more deli¬ 
cate, so that we think they give a little better qual¬ 
ity of hay. Add to this the fact that Cossack seems 
to have something of the quality of Alsike clover, 
which enables it to thrive on a soil that is some¬ 
what acid, and we have another reason for its use. 
We have no doubt that you have found the tap- 
rooted varieties very satisfactory in the Central 
West, but you should recognize the fact that our 
conditions here in the East are entirely different 
from yours, and that, therefore, positive statements 
regarding the behavior based on your conditions may 
not be entirely wise or fair. As a matter of fact, 
we believe that in many of our Eastern situations, 
with the soil and conditions as we find them, Alsike 
clover and Soy beans will pay very much better than 
Alfalfa. 
