'The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1727 
Dairying, Possibilities on 
< 
W HILE attending tin* Suffolk County potato 
tour hold by the County Farm Bureau a 
group of up-State potato growers had an oppor¬ 
tunity to meet the larger “table stock” growers of 
the Sunrise County, and exchange agricultural wis¬ 
dom. Now it is a well-established fact that no real 
up-State farmer can long resist the inclination to 
talk about cows, and accordingly as they stood in 
groups on the Oriflin House steps at Rivcrhead at 
the close of the first day’s trip, the question came 
up. Two Cortland Comity men were talking to 
farmers from the “Classed Isle.” 
“Your potatoes are the best ever, your corn is 
’way ahead of ours, and I saw some good mows of 
hay and stacks of grain, hut what is the matter with 
your cows? I saw only three herds in the day’s run. 
and two of them were mixed blood.” 
“You see.” said the Long Islander, “we specialize 
pretty closely in a few crops, and 1 guess the cow 
has been driven out of the level part of the Island." 
; What price do you get for milk?” asked Cortland. 
not interfere so much with potatoes?" asked the 
up-State man. 
“There are two reasons,” said the Long Islander, 
“the time of our season’s work and our local mar¬ 
kets. Wo begin plowing for potatoes early in March, 
and rush to got them planted before May 1. which 
is our deadline for planting. Then comes ridging, 
harrowing and corn planting, after which comes 
cultivation, and we sprayed 14 times. Digging lasts 
until into November, and by the time the crop is 
stored or marketed we have our fertilizer to store 
and our new seed to unload, leaving a short two 
months of Winter instead of five or six, as some of 
you have. Our best market is during the Summer, 
when all of the shore towns fill up with Summer 
visitors. T guess most of us work so hard getting 
the potato crop planted, cultivated, sprayed and 
harvested that wo lack the interest to do much with 
cows. Our land is worth $300 an acre, and help 
costs us $101) a month for regular help, or $5 for 
transient labor to hoe. They all want, short days 
Long, Island 
and we might make more to let the cows go- and 
specialize more closely in potatoes. We don’t raise 
as many potatoes ns many of our neighbors, but 
raise some Luce's Favorite for seed to sell you to 
fill your silo. By using more manure and crop 
rotations we keep up' our humus supply and cut 
down our expenses.” 
Mr. Morgan Topping of the Bridgehampton neigh¬ 
borhood was then introduced as a potato specialist. 
He said: 
“I would like to keep more cows for the manure, 
hut cannot afford the time to milk them in Summer. 
The hoys and I raise 100 acres of potatoes, and if 
we kept a lot of cows it might delay us in planting, 
or get in the way of spraying when it is a struggle 
to keep ahead of blight. 1 raise 25 or 30 acres of 
corn, some good wheat and hay, which I would like 
to food into manure in the Winter it’ T could get rid 
of the animals in the Summer. If we could get 
them, we would like to feed steers in the Winter and 
pasture them on Mon tank Point in Summer. The 
Guernsey Bull Bijon'x Priiio of Oukhiirxl. Oieucd by "The Orchard*," hit eh field I'd., Coin). Fig . '55H 
“Why. those who have any t<> sell get about 15 
cents a quart." 
"Yes,” said Cortland, "you have your ideas of 
profit so high that you will not take 15 cents, when 
we can break even or better at seven or eight.” 
"It seems to me," said the other up-State man, 
"that you ought to make milk as cheap as we do. 
Ion raise better corn than wo do. two months longer 
growing season, mild Winters and a heavy rain¬ 
fall. Oats thrive here, and you can raise grass if 
you try. You have the best of markets and an ideal 
dairy climate." 
"The way you put it.” said the Long Islander, "it 
does look ns if we were passing up a long chance, 
hut we used to keep more cows, and in the SO’s Long 
Idand was a big factor in the milk and Imttor mar- 
lie; of New York City, while now the milk trains 
iairy the milk out into the island from the city. 1 
v‘|,| nso the real reason for our going out of cows 
L not that they paid less, but that potatoes paid 
1,1,1 An hour id’ work spent on potatoes pays 
111 >‘e than the same time spent on cows,” 
Why not make Winter milk, so that the work will 
and work on “daylight saving” time, which doesn’t 
help any at milking time. Most of your up-State 
farms have good hill pastures, which give plenty of 
grass, but are hard to plow. These feed your cows 
from May to October, while we have to seed down 
potato fields which will rent for $20 to $30 an acre. 
Then, too, if we seed down a field we must use lime 
to get clover. You think of clover as a blessing, but 
we have learned that where clover grows well pota¬ 
toes are likely to be scabby. So to turn it around, 
we avoid lime for fear of potato scab. This keeps 
clover out and the grass thin, which in time makes 
poor pasture and high-priced hay.” 
“Here is a man who keeps cows: ask him.” said 
the Long Islander, as he introduced Mr. Dhuon of 
Southampton. 
“Yes, we keep cows. We think it helps to keep 
up the fertility of the soil so that we can raise 
enough potatoes to make some money to pay for 
keeping the cows. By retailing milk in Southampton 
wo get ItH) cents of the consumer’s dollar.” 
"Does it pay?” 
“Well, not especially. Our potatoes pay better, 
Point Avill carry 2,000 head, but is hardly used at 
all, only a small portion being fenced. As it is. we 
are not sure that if we get the cattle and feed them 
we could soil them again to auy advantage, so I 
milk two or three cows in the Winter and feed the 
same number of young stock. In Summer rite young 
stock pasture on the Point, and 1 rent all but one 
cow to an Easthampton milkman." 
“How do you maintain humus?" 
"I buy no manure, but use an extra 5oo pounds 
of fertilizer to give the cover crop a big push. With 
a ton and a quarter of high-grade fertilizer per acre 
even potato and corn roots make a lot <>t’ humus, and 
the green vve does the rest." u. t-\ button. 
Insurance of Farm Crops 
A NUMBER of our readers have been interested 
it> reports of insurance for the potato crop. 
Several of them want to know if they can insure 
their next year’s crop at once. We have obtained a 
statement from the insurance company which did 
most of this work last year. They *-ell us that most 
