1028 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
feed per acre of corn. Slow-maturing varieties of 
silage corn produce great masses of green material, 
out make rather a sour silage, in which you rarely 
find a kernel of grain. The only varieties that put 
real grain into the silo—grain that shows in every 
handful of silage examined as you feed it months 
later—are varieties that mature more quickly and 
yield a somewhat smaller amount of green matter 
per acre. 
The question then in which the dairyman is inter¬ 
ested when the value of different varieties of silage 
corn is considered, is the proportion of grain to green 
aterinl. We must not sacrifice everything to bulk 
and weight, as many farmers feel like doing when 
they are filling the silo in the Fall, and we nmst not 
sacrifice everything to grain, as many dairymen are 
tempted to do when looking over their Winter bills 
for bought feed. What is wanted is a fair propor¬ 
tion between the two elements of grain and weight, 
so as to produce the largest amount of the best 
quality of silage from every acre of corn. Mr. Ellis 
gives Mount Hope Holden Glow corn credit for pro¬ 
ducing 12 tons of silage per acre. His weights, as he 
explains, are only approximate, for he had no plat¬ 
form scales, and weighed selected samples taken 
from blocks 10 feet square. Most persons who have 
tried Mount Hope Golden Glow estimate its produc¬ 
tion at about 15 tons of silage per acre. Even a 
casual examination of this silage, however, shows 
how it differs in quality from silage made up of 
slow-maturing plants which produce a great weight 
of green matter, for silage from Mount Hope corn 
is full of grain. This corn took the State prize of 
$300 in 1918 for largest yield of grain on an acre of 
land in a cornfield of five acres or over. At that 
time the State inspectors credited us with a yield of 
90.24 bushels of shelled, kiln-dried grain per acre. 
I think it is fair to estimate the grain in silage from 
this corn as 10 per cent of the total, so a dairyman 
feeding 50 pounds of our silage is feeding eight 
pounds of grain in the silage. The grain is just as 
real in the silage as it would be in a feed bin, and it 
is much less expendv . 
It is our experience in feeding this silage that we 
can maintain mill: fl< with half the grain feeding 
—in some cases with even a third of the grain feed¬ 
ing—that is necessary when a silage of green stalks 
without ears is not used. We have very little exact 
knowledge on the subject of silage. Indeed, in the 
light of modern knowledge the whole subject of 
agriculture is new. The colleges and experiment 
stations are doing very valuable work, but we need 
also more farmers like Mr. Ellis to give us the re¬ 
sults of their practical experiences. There must be 
many farmers who have studied the question of the 
effect of different qualities of silage upon the milk 
flow and the grain bill. If any of your readers have 
figures on this subject I hope they will make them 
known. nelson a. Roberts. 
Massachusetts. 
The Troubles of the City Farmer 
GENERAL COMPLAINT.—“City Farmer.” page 
720. is not alone in having troubles arising from 
the farm labor situation. Every farmer who em¬ 
ploys or desires to employ labor will tell you that it 
is difficult to secure competent help. But with the 
practical farmer it is to a great extent a matter of 
dollars and cents. Even if he can obtain good help 
the cost is so great that it requires pretty good man¬ 
agement to make a profit. With “City Farmer” the 
case is different. He does not expect his farm to 
pay a profit in money. It is a luxury, and he is 
willing to pay the price. But even so, he cannot find 
a man who will try to be worth his wages. In his 
city business he has been able to secure a body of 
employes who execute their duties with efficiency. 
On his farm lie is unable to do so. In a way his 
situation, so far as the farm is concerned, is not so 
different from that of the practical farmer. We all 
find it difficult to secure competent labor chiefly for 
the reason that that kind of labor has either gone 
to the city or gone into business for itself. But there 
are a few considerations which may apply to a case 
of this kind. 
THE CITY FARMER’S NEEDS.—In the first 
place. “City Farmer” wants a man who is indus¬ 
trious. a man who is conscientious, who has execu¬ 
tive ability and who has a practical knowledge of 
farming. He needs a real. live, wideawake man. I 
do not know how much he would be willing to jiay 
such a man. neither do T know how much he has to 
pay men of similar ability in his city business, but 
I will venture a guess that the city man has the 
better end of it. However, it is evident that “City 
Farmer’s” manager and helpers have advantages 
over the ordinary farm helper, and it would seem 
that such a place ought to be attractive and draw at 
least a little better than average quality of help. 
NO BUSINESS PROPOSITION.—In the first 
place, the thing isn’t a business proposition. Two 
men ought to find it “dead easy” to run such a farm 
and raise good crops and cows and pigs and have 
plenty of eggs and poultry. T know plenty of men 
who are farming more land and keeping more stock 
without any help except what their wives and maybe 
the small boys can give. Their crops are fairly good, 
their pigs not runts, nor do the cows go dry before 
their time. And they make their own garden and 
drive their own car. Doubtless these men work 
much harder and perhaps for less compensation than 
“City Farmer’s” manager. Yet it is not likely that 
one of these hard-working, practical farmers would 
take a “play job.” The real, live man does not want 
anything but a man-size job. I have had hired men 
who would work just as faithfully alone in a back 
lot as if I were present, but if 1 had given them a 
sharp knife and a pine stick and told them to sit by 
the road and whittle shavings, they would probably 
have quit before night. A man likes to feel that the 
work he does is worthy of his efforts. And when a 
man sees himself part of an outfit that ought to run 
400 acres, and only 50 to work on. he thinks it is a 
joke. The ambitious, conscientious man looks for a 
real job, and the loafer looks for a chance to get out 
of sight. It is my opinion that if “City Farmer” will 
fire all but his manager and gardener and tell them 
to get busy he will get more real results than he 
does now. 
BEING THE BOSS.—Then there is another factor, 
Field of Sorghum Showing Height. Fig. 289 
a trait of human nature, that makes it difficult to get 
a good manager for a city man’s farm, and that is 
the fact that most men who are really capable of 
managing a farm prefer to manage their own farms. 
There is a certain satisfaction in feeling that you 
are the boss; that you may do this, or that, or if you 
please, go to town or to a picnic. Of course, it isn’t 
always expedient to do just the things that are most 
pleasing, but if you are interested in your work you 
will probably want to do the things that should be 
done, and the knowledge that you may do as you 
please makes you feel sort of independent. Then, if 
you are running your own business you can make 
plans for the future, work up to an ideal, in a way, 
and if the weather or accidents or sickness or the 
like knocks your plans all in the head this year, why, 
there is another year coming which will quite likely 
bring better fortune. If you are simply running a 
rich man’s plaything, you will, if you are earnest and 
ambitious, take some pleasure in work well done, 
but. after all. it isn’t getting you anywhere. 
ANOTHER SIDE.—On the other hand, if hard 
work doesn’t agree with you. and you hate to tackle 
responsibility, bare-handed, and perhaps in addition, 
you have taken a college course, and are chock full 
of knowledge and theory, and accustomed to steam 
heat and electric lights and other luxuries, maybe a 
position as “manager of a gentleman’s estate” will 
look more attractive than digging your living out of 
an unwilling soil. But if the “gentleman’s estate” is 
to be very productive it will require considerable 
bona-fide digging. The point I wish to make is this: 
June 5, 1020 
The really energetic, competent farmer doesn’t want 
a “play” job, while it does attract the man who is 
looking for something easy. 
THE SOCIAL SIDE.—Another point which I be¬ 
lieve tends to keep good men away from such posi¬ 
tions is the fact that all the help on a rich man’s 
farm are socially inferior to the owner. This cornu 
tion may be considerably emphasized, or very little, 
according to the temperament of the individuals con¬ 
cerned. but the fact remains that the employes are 
in a way personal servants, and of a lower caste, so¬ 
cially. than the employer. In the factory or office 
this condition has very little influence, because after 
work hours the various grades of employes go each 
to their own environment, and see nothing of each 
other till work begins again. Then there are many 
other things which may cause dissatisfaction, such 
P3 an over-officious employer, impractical plans and 
methods on the part of the employer, and probably, 
in some cases, a failure to appreciate honest efforts. 
These are a few of the reasons which occur to me 
why a live, wideawake man might not care to work 
for a city farmer. When you get down to the root 
of the matter, men who are capable of managing a 
farm and who are open to employment are a mighty 
scarce article, and they are so much in demand that 
they can choose their position and set their own 
price. CHESTER L. MILLS. 
Allegany Co., N. Y. 
Value of Standing Grass 
Will you please tell me what would be a fair price, 
both to the buyer and the seller, for grass, cut, to he 
put into hay? The buyer to cut and cure and deliver 
his own hay. Considering the labor situation as it is. 
with the high rate of wages and the inability to secure 
proper help at the proper time, and the danger which 
this might eutail to the hay crop, what would be a fair 
price, per ton, for the cured product? c. c. 
Massachusetts. 
BOUT the only way to handle such a question 
is to agree upon a proportionate price for the 
standing grass as compared with the local price for 
hay. In our own locality, in Northern New Jersey, 
considerable of this standing grass is cut. The 
general plan is to consider grass in the field worth 
one-tliird of the cured hay in the mow. That is, 
supposing hay to be worth $30 per ton. and supposing 
a field will cut two tons of hay. the hay in the barn 
would be worth $<!0. and $20 would be considered a 
fair cash price to pay for the standing grass. It is 
considered that the buyer is entitled to two-thirds 
of the final price, in consideration of the weather 
risk he runs, the labor charge and all other expenses. 
The difficulty in figuring on this basis is to make an 
exact estimate of the yield of any given piece of 
grass. Some farmers are very expert in figuring 
such yields, but the average man takes considerable 
chance in figuring out results. In some cases the hay 
is weighed as it comes into the barn, but as a rule 
there are no convenient scales for doing this, and 
usually the buyer and seller get together and make 
a fair estimate. At first thought it would seem that 
one-third of the final price is not enough for grass, 
but long experience in our country shows that taking 
a risk of bad weather, this proportion of the price 
is fair. As for figuring a fair price for a ton of hay, 
that has now come to be entirely a local matter, de¬ 
pending on the local price, car shortage, condition of 
roads and other causes. For instance, hay sells at 
retail in our local market at $50 per ton. while many 
of our readers 100 miles away cannot get $20. and 
even at that price cannot bale through labor shortage 
or ship for lack of cars. The only thing you can do 
in such cases is to figure on the average selling price 
in your own neighborhood. 
The Useful Weeder 
N many of our Eastern farms we notice our old 
friend the weeder back at work. For some 
years this steel imitation of human fingers and liens 
claws has been laid away in the shed. We have now 
come to an age of attempted imitation of the hired 
man, and the weeder helps out. Its stiff, scratchy 
fingers tear up weeds, scratch the soil into a fine 
“mulch” and level the field after furrowing or mark¬ 
ing. We are using it on the corn this year with 
good effect. Our corn is planted in checks made by 
working a deep marker both ways. This puts the 
corn in deep hills lightly covered. As the corn 
sprouts we drop the fertilizer and then scratch over 
with the weeder. The scratching and dancing steel 
fingers level off the hills, mix in the fertilizer and 
hide the rows so that the crows find it harder to dis¬ 
cover the hills and pull out the corn. Some farmers 
prefer a light, spike-tooth harrow for this work, but 
with us the weeder does better work. It seems good 
to see an old friend back in the cornfield. 
