224 
hearted way, but corn and wheat planting were 
fortunate to return the seed. We who live over in 
the chocolate red lands of the same county used to 
make a few dollars out of season down in the sand 
ridge district every year by buying out some starved- 
out “hopeful” for .$5 per acre or thereabouts. Then 
we watched for another “hopeful” and sold to him 
at $7.50. It was really great sport about 15 years 
ago. until a man came along from North Carolina 
or South or California or somewhere, and under¬ 
stood one of us to say $27.50 instead of $7.50, and 
before we could correct him he had bought the farm. 
The day of our small investment and quick sure 
profit passed, but the same land was what Johnson 
wanted. 
A DUBIOUS PROPOSITION.—Now consider how 
we were compelled to look at Johnson's application, 
first a $1,000 Federal farm loan and next a $1,500 
second mortgage on 60 acres of land which one of 
our loan committee .had once owned for less than 
$400. Of course bright tobacco had come in since 
the $400 price and the price had advanced, but the 
land was just as thin as in the old days. Passing 
over the long arguments pro and con. we finally 
allowed the loan and floated the second paper, and 
by the way, we have never made a charge for getting 
a second lien carried. 
BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS. — Johnson took 
possession of his farm on January 1. 1910. Soon 
after oecuri’ed the first real ill luck that had come 
to him since he came to Prince Edward. The whole 
family had the “flu.” Mrs. Johnson was less ill 
than the rest, and was nurse, housekeeper and stock 
feeder for several weeks. After their recovery 
Johnson started clearing land and building tobacco 
barns. He cleared six acres and built two excellent 
four-room barns. He employed some labor last year 
in land clearing, barn building and working tobacco. 
The labor bill is $225 for the year. Last year’s crops 
were poor on account of the unusual heavy rains in 
July, but the statement of assets and liabilities to 
follow will show that Johnson doesn’t quit for a 
little matter of rainfall, lie used to make four 
curings of tobacco in a rented barn, but his own. 
being better constructed, has made five curings this 
year He made 4.200 lbs. of tobacco last year, and 
of that he sold half at- average of 97 cents. The 
balance of the crop will do as well or better. I 
stopped at Johnson’s house the other morning to see 
if our loan security was being depreciated, and while 
there made up a bookkeeping system for him 1o fol¬ 
low. and as illustration for him of one of the balance 
checks drew up a statement of assets and liabilities 
of his own account. The items other than those of 
actual cash or fixed value were taken in at con¬ 
servative estimates, and are not quite the real cash 
value as I see them: 
Cash on hand (actual bank balance). 
Two Liberty Bonds (par value). 
Live stock . 
Farming implements. ••••• 
Farm and appurtenances (was offered fol¬ 
lowing in cash).. 
Household goods... 
Unsold tobacco crop. 
Feed, fodder and food supplies. 
$1,569.09 
200.00 
1,000.00 
200.00 
6.000.00 
500.00 
2.000.00 
600.C0 
Liabilities— 
Federal farm loan... 
Second mortgage . 
Interest to Jan 1, 1920... 
$12,069.09 
$1,000.00 
1.500.00 
120.00 
$2,620.00 
Net worth . $9,449.09 
Let us be liberal and call his net worth $50 when 
he came here, which leaves a profit of $9,400 for 
four years’ work. 
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE.—Johnson’s 
plans for the future are being worked out. He is 
liming a considerable acreage for Alfalfa next year. 
He is getting an additional acreage, which he will 
build up for a corn, grain and clover rotation, will 
build a tenant house and three more tobacco barns, 
add to his herd of cattle and hogs. Now Johnson’s 
case is similar to a number of our second lien cases, 
and was selected as I happened to have the figures 
to offer as proof. I believe that at least two others 
would show a better statement than his. Do you 
believe that our Federal farm loan of $1,000 on this 
farm is a safe, conservative and sound basis for the 
issuance of a $1,000 farm loan bond? And also 
are we justified in urging people with money to 
invest to take second paper behind the Federal farm 
l oan ? ROY MATHEWSON, 
Prince Edward County N. F. L. A. 
A Woman’s Sheep 
I AM sending a picture of a friend (Fig. 51) who 
can raise sheep better than some men. She raised 
a Shropshire lamb on a bottle. The next year that one 
had two ewe lambs. The following year each one of 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
the three had a lamb. Two years ago she sold $17 
worth of wool from the first three ewes. The pic¬ 
ture shows the first sheep and her last year’s lamb, 
with the woman, who thinks, like the Pennsylvania 
reader, about the six-hour day and five-day week, 
that there are no such easy times on a farm for men 
or women. m. a. s. 
A Small Ohio Flock of Sheep 
M Y last sheep statement appeared in the issue of 
February S, 1919, page 244. in that statement 
I predicted that prospect for the coming year looked 
good; better than any year in the last five, since we 
have had a small flock of sheep. My prediction turned 
out right, and below is the outcome. I started into the 
Winter of 1918-19 with 17 head of bred ewes, all 
grade Shropshires but one. They were bred to an 
aged registered Hampshire ram. He was an old ram, 
but a good one. I like the mating of an aged ram 
on young ewes. It usually brings strong, vigorous 
lambs. One of these 17 ewes died in early March, 
the other 16 raised to maturity 23 lambs. One of the 
above 16 ewes raised a pair of twins until old enough 
to look out for themselves, and then died, so we lost 
Doublcd-icorlicd Grimes Golden . One Year's Growth. 
I'iy. 52 
February 7, 1920 
well enough alone. My success will depend a good 
deal on the kind of weather we have when the lambs 
come. The advantage of raising early lambs is that 
they can be sold earlier at better prices, but they will 
cost something extra in feeding them grain until 
grass comes. They ought ot be sold in June. July or 
August. The lambs that I sold this year at 13c per 
lb. on October 7 I was offered 15c per lb. for June 20, 
but of course they were not nearly so heavy then 
and would not have brought as much money. If our 
February lamb business does not turn out well we 
will go back again to the Marc-h-April lambs. 
Huron Co., O. samvel heymann. 
A Machine for Loading Manure 
I read your appeal for some knowledge of a manure- 
loader. This may be of some use to you. Last Sum¬ 
mer I was in South Dakota for several weeks, and there 
saw a great labor-saving machine for handling manure. 
The farmer had several old straw-stack bottoms that 
he wanted to spread out on the fields. His implement 
dealer suggested this machine would save both time and 
labor. Two men and a team drew a “scraper” much 
like a dirt scraper with forks on the front. They went 1 
over these straw-stack bottom and filled it. then dumped 
it on a platform. This platform was raised and the 
contents slid over in a spreader on about the same 
principle as a hay stacker. One team was used to draw 
the manure on the wagon. It took three serapersful 
for a platform load, and three platform loads to fill a 
spreader. With three teams we could draw as many 
as 90 loads in 10 hours. james m. black. 
New Jersey. 
On page 40 H. F. Perry asks for an easy method of 
handling hard-packed manure. It seems his trouble is 
that he has allowed his cattle to run loose in a shed 
and has supplied them with a liberal amount of corn¬ 
stalks and coarse straw for bedding, which the cattle 
have tramped into the manure and packed so solidly 
that he finds it a difficult matter to remove the material 
from the shed. I have several times been up against a 
problem of this kind. Once I solved it by using a 
tolerably sharp ax and cutting the manure into squares 
of a convenient size to handle with a fork. I had at 
that time an old-fashioned broadax. such as was used 
by carpenters in hewing out timbers and planks when 
such work was done chiefly by hand. This made short 
work of the job. In default of a tool of this kind, an 
ordinary chopping ax would show some results. An¬ 
other time I made numerous holes with an iron bar. 
dropped a pint of shelled corn into each hole and turned 
a lot of hungry shotes into the shed. In rooting for that 
corn those shotes made that manure pile as loose and 
mellow as could be desired. On another occasion I used 
a plow equipped with a rolling coulter. The team was 
attached to the plow by means of a long rope. Two 
men would carry the plow to the farther end of the shed 
while the third managed the horses, backing them when 
necessary. In the absence of a rolling coulter, an up¬ 
right or knife coulter would answer nearly as well, if 
sharp. 
I have seen a horse fork of the grapple type in 
successful operation in loading light, strawy manure, 
but. as a rule. I believe that an able-bodied man equipped 
with a good manure fork furnishes the best solution of 
this problem. Even could a machine be devised which 
would do the work. I doubt if the saving would be suf¬ 
ficient to pay the cost of the machine and its installa¬ 
tion. though in some instances where it was not prac¬ 
ticable to drive near the manure pile, a litter carrier, 
such as is used in stables, often gives good results. 
Vermont. . c. o. ormsbee. 
just two sheep during the year. Nine wether lambs 
and the smallest ewe lamb were sold on October 7: 
the other 13 ewe lambs have been kept for breeders. 
The valuation of my flock and the cost of keep for 
the year is as follows: 
17 ewes at $12.50 each...... 
Use of ram. 
Grain . 
Extra pasture . 
Winter’s roughage . 
Miscellaneous expenses 
$212.50 
5.00 
14.00 
S.10 
25.00 
5.00 
Total investment 
$269.60 
INCOME 
14114 lbs. wool at 62c per lb. 
10 lambs sold._. 
13 best ewe lambs kept. 
$87.73 
130.00 
169.00 
Total gross income. $386.(3 
This is an average income of $22.72 per head for 
the 17 ewes. The above income is $127 more than 
the value of the sheep and cost of keep for the year, 
or 143 <per cent of their cost. The 16 ewes also 
raised 143% of lambs. This is the best showing I 
have made in five years. Everything started cut last 
year to work well. I never fed less grain or had a 
shorter period confinement for the sheep. They 
were not kept up in the yard until January 3. and 
did not receive any grain until February 2. and on 
April 13 eight or 10 of the ewes, with the oldest 
lambs, were turned out to grass. The above 13 ewe 
lambs that I valued at $13 apiece would now bring 
me $16.50 to $17 each if I wanted to sell them for fat 
lambs, and they have been practically raised without 
grain. Just yesterday (January 7) 'my sheep were 
out grazing in the stalk field, and unless this snow¬ 
storm covers all of the feed they will go out again. 
For this coming year I am not so sure of results. 
I changed my breeding season. My lambs have been 
coming the latter part of March and early April. 
That is a splendid time to have them come for North¬ 
ern Ohio. I bred this year to have the lambs come 
in February. I want to try early lambs. Perhaps I 
have made a mistake and would better have left 
Double-worked Apple Grafting 
I AM enclosing photograph of the double-worked 
Grimes Golden apple of one year's growth (see 
Fig. 52). Almost every Winter I do a little indoor 
or bench grafting. The past Winter it occurred to 
me that it would be possible to double-work all at 
one time. The usual practice is to graft a variety 
resistant to collar-rot on a seedling stock. This 
graft is planted in the Spring, then some time during 
the Summer or early Fall it is budded to Grimes or 
other yellow variety. The following Spring this bud 
is thrown into growth, thus taking two years to get 
a one-year whip. I secured some very nice one-year 
No. 1 seedlings. To these I grafted a five or six- 
inch scion of Delicious, carefully cutting out the 
three or four buds: to the top of the Delicious I 
grafted one of Grimes Golden of about same length 
(three buds). 
The bottom graft is set below level of ground, and 
requires no more attention. The upper graft, being 
above ground, the string will not rot. so one has to 
notice, and when it begins to "strangle” the string 
must be cut. Also I think it a good idea to paint 
the top graft with paraffin or a thin grafting wax 
to prevent its drying out too much. 
In ordinary bench grafting I usually have a per¬ 
centage of 90 to 95 to grow: on the double-working 
about 65 to start. With more care and attention I 
think 75 to SO might be attained, but even at 50 
per cent it seems to me a better proposition than 
waiting two years. Besides, the other plan takes 
two operations, the budding coming at a very busy 
time of year, and when one counts out the slips it 
might not show a much greater per cent of success, 
not to mention the extra year’s time. Below the 
arrows in picture is seedling, between the arrows is 
Delicious, above is Grimes. The broom is to show 
relative size, which it fails to do, as the camera cut 
nearly two feet off top of tree. John h. 
Arkansas. 
