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Oleo ” In a Dairy District 
Who Is to Blame? 
TO, I am not a disgruntled dairyman, but a 
school-teacher; in other words, a consumer. I 
want you to understand this before you frame the 
thought in your mind. I have been very interested 
in the editorials in the good old R. N.-Y. regarding 
oleo. the farmers’ friend (?). and thought I would 
do a little investigating on the subject. We live in 
the center of the county which boasts the most 
registered Holsteins of any place in the world. This 
is a village of about 700 inhabitants, and the vil¬ 
la Erers and farmers talk dairying morning, noon and 
night, perhaps in their sleep—that I don’t know. 
Dairying is not only the business, but the very life 
of the section. 
While in one of the village stores I saw a dairy 
farmer ordering his week’s supply of groceries, and 
I saw a goodly supply of oleo arranged on the 
counter with the other goods. After his departure 
I approached the storekeeper and asked how much 
of the stuff (referring to the oleo) he sold yearly. 
He laughed and replied : “It’s a trade secret, but we 
don’t make any effort to sell it. We try to sell 
butter.” “Well, how much oleo do you sell in pro¬ 
portion to the amount of butter you 
sell?” I asked. “One-third,” was the 
prompt reply. 
This set me to thinking, and I con¬ 
tinued my little investigation. The 
next storekeeper I questioned allowed 
the percentage was between one-third 
and one-fourth as much oleo sold as 
pure butter. This seemed impossible in 
a real dairy section, with much of the 
trade coming from the dairy farmer 
himself. 
I next approached a butcher who 
sold oleo, but did not sell butter. In 
answer to my question as to the amount 
of oleo he sold during the year, he 
stated : “Seven thousand five hundred 
pounds, taken from actual figures, I 
sell one-fourth of the total amount sold 
in the village.” 
Think of it—7.500 pounds of the stuff 
sold by one butcher in a dairying sec¬ 
tion, yea, in an innermost stronghold 
of the dairy section! And 30.000 pounds 
in one year in a village of 700 and on 
the neighboring dairy farms. Fifteen 
tons of oleo! My head whirled as I 
thought of the mountains of stuff dis¬ 
appearing here. 
“What proportion of the oleo is sold 
to farmers?” I asked. “Nearly half” 
was the prompt reply. 
I did some deep thinking on the way 
home. Why the low price of milk, why 
a surplus, why too many cows, whose 
fault? When one-half of 15 tons of 
oleo goes directly into the dairy farm¬ 
ers’ home in one small locality in a 
single year, who is to blame for—well, 
a good many ills that are now blamed 
on the League, and the profiteer, and 
the middleman? Why has oleo gained 
its prominence? Through extensive 
and intensive advertising. At the New 
York State Fair one could see booth 
after booth where a lick of oleo on a wafer could 
be secured free of charge. Why not combat the 
menace by the same methods? Through the farmers’ 
organizations the nutritive value of real butter can 
be displayed, and through the Farm Bureau Kens 
the farmers can be kept constantly informed of the 
menace of the oleo. The R. N.-Y. certainly is doing 
its share now. 
Don’t blame the storekeeper who sells it. He sells 
what people want. Put it up to the farmer himself. 
Use oleo and kill the cow. 
At a recent lodge meeting one of the “eats” com¬ 
mittee informed me that four different men had 
approached him and asked him to buy oleo instead 
of the poor butter we were getting now. He bought 
the oleo. and everyone ate the sandwiches, and even 
though over one-half of the members present were 
farmers, and dairy farmers at that, not a voice was 
raised in protest. 
Put on the coat if it fits. Mr. Farmer. Clean house 
at home first: then begin on the community. Then 
all the farmers will see how soon the “city folks” 
fall in line. Change the prevailing custom so that 
we shall hear, instead of so many cars of oleo a week 
being shipped into the local markets, it’s just so many 
cars more of first-class, good.wholesome butter, made 
from milk from the farmer’s cow. x. e. d. 
Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Silo and Tractor in Pennsylvania 
M R. CARL C. PFEILSTICKER Of Venango Co., 
Pa., sends us pictures of his silo and tractor 
to show how the new farming is working into his 
section. He says of the silo : 
“This silo was built by us in 1915, and we feel 
quite proud of it. as it has given us entire satisfac¬ 
tion in every way. We feed 20 cows daily during 
the Winter. It has a capacity of 128 tons, is 14x40 
ft. We have never had it more than three-quarters 
full, as it requires a lot of corn to fill it. We would 
certainly not like to go back to the old way of feed¬ 
ing dry corn fodder, and would like to see a silo on 
evei’y farm.” 
We hope the time will come when every farm with 
live stock will have its silo. That will be necessary 
in the future. 
On this Pennsylvania farm the tractor is used for 
many purposes. The picture shows it at work in 
the harvest field. 
“This shows our tractor cutting oats. This tractor 
has helped us out greatly during the past three years 
of labor shortage. We have used it for plowing, 
disking, harvesting and hauling hay and manure. It 
ffVie Farm Tractor Cutting Oats. Fig. 1/2 
A Good Winter Job. Fig. J t 3 
works well except where the ground is too soft and 
wet. We also ran a thrashing machine with it last 
Fall.” _ 
Evergreen Wind-breaks in Ohio 
I desire to set out an apple orchard of about 250 trees 
this Spring, and wish to inquire the advisability of 
planting a wind-break. The land has a gentle slope to 
the east, high ground surrounded by open country, 
where the wind has full sweep; the river, with a fringe 
of trees, about 50 rods to the west. There will be 25 
rows of trees running north and south. 10 trees in a 
row. • Prevailing winds in Spring from west and north¬ 
west. W ould it be practicable to plant a wind-break 
along the west and the entire north, or only part way 
on the north? What would you advise to plant, and 
how closely? c. E. L. 
Worthington, O. 
ADVANTAGES OF WIND-BREAK.—As only 
xl evergreens planted in a single or double-row 
wind-break afford much protection during seasons of 
the year when cold winds prevail, it is to be pre¬ 
sumed that this type of wind-break is that to which 
our correspondent refers. The writer has had oc¬ 
casion to do Winter work in an orchard margined 
along its western side by a wind-break of white and 
Scotch pine, and discovered that such work as prun¬ 
ing could be quite comfortably done on the rows of 
fruit trees more closely paralleling the leeward side 
of the wind-break, while farther over in the center of 
the same orchard, at the same time, beyond the 
effective influence of the closely planted rows of 
105 
evergreens, the wind was much too chilling for such 
work to be done. 
PROTECTION AND LAND CONTOUR.—The dis¬ 
tance that an evergreen wind-break is effective on 
its leeward side depends not alone upon its height 
and density, but upon the character of the land that 
it is supposed to protect. With prevailing winds 
from the west and northwest, ground sloping sharply 
toward the east will be under the protective influence 
considerably farther from th western border of the 
area than will level ground. Groufid that slopes up¬ 
ward toward the east will bo protected but a very 
short distance from the wind-break. Where the sur¬ 
face is comparatively level we should expect the pro¬ 
tective screen to be effective to any great extent only 
to a distance a few times greater than the height of 
the trees composing it—depending largely on the 
force and direction of the wind. 
EVERGREENS IN THE LANDSCAPE.—Person-, 
ally, the writer is much in favor of the generous 
planting of evergreens for wind-breaks, but not for 
this purpose alone. The. beauty in serving to 
brighten a Winter landsca, « a feature of their 
"\alue by no means inconsid e. Moreover, ever¬ 
greens are always attractive as nesting places for our 
songbirds which, since spraying of or¬ 
chards is absolutely necessary, are 
driven thereby from their nesting 
sites in the fruit trees. This is, in¬ 
deed, a point well worthy of consid¬ 
eration. At our own small country 
home we have many evergreens which 
are annually well patronized by many 
species of songbirds during the period 
of nesting and rearing their young. 
In traveling over Ohio one may see 
a number of examples of magnificent 
evergreen wind-breaks, usually of 
Norway spruce; but by no means as 
many as there should be. 
SUITABLE VARIETIES.—On well- 
drained upland soils of a light or sandy 
character, white pine is very beautiful 
for wind-break, screen or group plant¬ 
ing. but, being so flexible in branches 
and so fine in foliage, is not as resis¬ 
tant to strong winds as are Austrian 
and Scotch and Ponderosa pines. Mbre- 
over, the latter three forms are better 
adapted to the usually heavier, moist 
soils oftlie level portions of Central and 
Western Ohio. White or Concolor fir, 
and Douglas fir, are beautiful, but usu¬ 
ally somewhat more difficult to get 
started in unfavorable locations for 
evergreens than are Austrian and 
Scotch pine. 
PLAN ITNG. —• Evergreens may be 
planted in single rows with the trees 
8 ft. apart; but more effective service 
may be had by planting double rows 
8 or 10 ft. apart, with the trees 8 ft. 
apart in the rows, and the trees of one 
row standing opposite the spaces be¬ 
tween the trees of the other row. If 
Norway spruce be used as evergreen 
wind-breaks (and it is excellent) it is 
a good plan to plant a belt of four or 
more rows in which the trees are 
spaced about 4 ft. apart in either direc¬ 
tion. As soon as the growth has so far progressed 
that the young spruces will serve as Christmas trees, 
and before they begin to crowd seriously, alternate 
trees may be removed and sold. Thus may there 
be realized returns sufficient to repay well the cost 
of the whole enterprise, while the wind-break is de¬ 
veloping for the particular purpose for which it was 
planted. From these remarks C. E. L. will be able 
to decide whether he should plant the screen the full 
width and length of his orchard at the west and 
north sides. It is not a case of necessity, but, from 
the writer’s viewpoint, would be well worth while 
in a number of ways. It is to be hoped that the time 
is coming when evergreens may be used in great 
numbers for the many purposes for which they are 
suited, throughout all our farming sections. 
Ohio Experiment Station. f. h. ballou. 
Substituting Chemicals for Cows 
(Continued from page 104) 
It is natural for meadow land kept in continuous 
grass to grow sour, and the lime will help keep it 
sweet and in good condition. We assume that you 
will seed the usual mixture of Timothy and clover 
with perhaps Red-top and Alsike. It will be possible 
to keep up the meadows permanently by plowing and 
reseeding every three or four years. We will tell 
how this has been done by others in another article. 
