222 
•Ph RURAL NEW.YORKER 
February 12, 1921 
1200% profit from 
this man’s garden 
He was a “tired” business man. The 
garden measured 20 x 25 feet. From a 
$1.15 worth of pure-bred seeds he got 
$14.50 worth of vegetables incomparably 
superior in freshness, flavor and tenderness 
to the tough, stringy kind his wife used to 
buy at exorbitant prices. 
Where else can you make 1200% profit 
—with extra dividends in good health? 
And it does make a man poke out his chest 
when he does a little extra to keep old 
- H. C. L. off its lofty perch. 
“Pure-bred seeds” means Ferry's seeds, 
of course—the kind that professional and 
amateur gardeners have preferred for sixty 
years. Ferry’s pure-bred Seeds come from 
seed families which for many generations 
have produced vegetables of fine flavor and 
tenderness or flowers of supreme color, 
vigor and size. 
The parent plants arc selected from acres 
of plants and judged by rigid standards. 
Their progeny are tested for vitality, com¬ 
pared point by point with their parents’ 
good qualities. Those that pass the tests 
are sold as Ferry’s pure-bred Seeds—at 10c 
per paper. 
D. M. FERRY & CO., Detroit, Mich, 
(and Windsor, Ontario) 
mix the chemicals with the limestone. On 
wet land the limestone will help some¬ 
what by sweetening the soil, but it can¬ 
not be expected to give be«t results except 
in well-drained land. Linseed oil is 
used for cattle lice. It is painted or 
scrubbed into the thick hairs along the 
neck and head and over the back and 
shoulders. Keep the cattle out of the 
sunshine for a day after putting in the 
oil. 
Timely Garden Notes 
As usual at this sea.son-of the year, we 
find people spreading stable manure on 
their lawns. No doubt the manure will 
help the grass grow, and some other 
things, too ; the main thing that pest of 
manured lawns, the chiekweed. I have 
found that the best thing to use on the 
lawn in the way of fertilizer is raw bone 
meal. During the Winter, when burning 
a wood fire, 1 use some of the ashes as 
a top-dressing. These furnish a large 
percentage of lime in a very nice form, 
and also potash and a slight percentage 
of phosphoric acid. My lawns thus keep 
free from weeds. Then, too. I (see people 
allowing the grass to grow too long before 
mowing, and the heavy cutting has to be 
raked off. I never rake off the cut grass, 
but cut as soon as it is needed, and the 
I cut grass soon disappears, and is con¬ 
stantly adding a mulch for the grass, so 
‘that the lawn is protected during a severe 
drought without watering. As a rule, 
the watering of lawns does little good 
ui.'ess the water is allowed to be sprayed 
I for hours. Then when the water is sup¬ 
plied through the city meters it costs. I 
have not watered my grass for several 
years, and yet it keeps as good as the 
lawns around me where sprinklers are 
used. The cut grass has been let remain 
where it fell for more than a dozen years, 
and there is a soft bed of old mulch that 
makes the lawn springy to the tread. 
Another habit of people, who fail to 
realize how plants grow, is to pile manure 
around the trunks of their trees. They 
might just as well hang a bag of oats out 
of reach of a horse and tell him to help 
himself. The feeding roots of a tree are 
the microscopic root hairs just, back of the 
tips of the myriad of rootlets spread in 
the soil. The old main roots merely serve 
to carry the food from these to the tree. 
{These feeding rootlets are out where the 
limbs drip and beyond, and that i.s the 
place to manure the tree, not around the 
trunk. 
It will soon be planting time for early 
things. Therefore get the garden cleaned 
of all rubbish. In many gardens there 
{arc dead plants of eggplants, bush beans 
and tomatoes, and I have seen flower beds 
with dead plants of scarlet sage. All this 
refuse should be cleaned up and used ro 
start the new compost pile. I never rake 
up the tree leaves in the Fall, for they 
drift into the wire fences, and make a 
Winter protection for many things. So 
far we have had only slfght crusts of 
frozen soil which usually has thawed out 
during the day. In one corner great 
plants of the old small-flowered Gannas 
were left to die, as I had more than I 
needed. The leaves have drifted a foot 
deep over them, and the soil has never 
been frozen, and if now is the tyi>e of 
what we may still have in the way of 
Winter, these roots will be perfectly 
sound in Spring. Along the west side of 
another wire fence there is a bed of 
Princess of Wales violets, and there, too, 
I have allowed the leaves to remain. In 
another spot they have mulched the 
ground where the nasturtiums grew last 
Summer, and I hope to get some volun¬ 
teer seedlings there in the Spring that 
will come into bloom earlier than the 
Spring seedlings. Then they are pro¬ 
tecting some Darwin tulips. This morn¬ 
ing the mercury at sunrise marked 21 
above zero, but by 10 a. m. I had no dif¬ 
ficulty in digging salsify, as the crust 
was already softened by the bright sun¬ 
shine. My daughter-in-law came yester¬ 
day (January 24) from New York, leav¬ 
ing there at 12 noon, and said that if 
snowed thickly all the way from Phila¬ 
delphia. Here there had hardly been a 
cloud in the sky, and we have reached 
January 25 with no snow at all. We 
are apt to have more or less snow earlier 
than this. Only 150 miles south of a 
snowstorm, and hardly a cloud in the 
sky. It will doubtless freeze again to¬ 
night. for the wind is from the north¬ 
west. but the south wind generally wins 
in the end of every three days’ frost. 
w. F. M. 
Corn Without Fertilizer 
I have bought a new piece of property, 
of which I would like to put in about six 
acres of corn (two sweet, four field). 
This ground has not been worked for 
three years. It is covered with grass, 
weeds and clover. The ground is part 
loam and part sand. I would like to 
know whether I can plow this sod and 
give a coat of lime and plant without 
using fertilizer. I do not want to buy 
any more fertilizer than I can help at 
the present prices. Will the lime bring 
out the necessary elements to produce 
a good erop of corn ? r. o. 
New York. 
It is doubtful if you will be satisfied 
with the corn yield from lime alone. 
While the old sod will give up some plant 
food, it will pay to use a good fertilizer 
in the hill. We never have been able to 
get satisfactory results from lime alone 
iu such old sod. A fertilizer strong in 
phosphorus used in the hill when the 
corn is about three inches high will pay. 
Contract for Rural School 
Will some of your readers give their 
experience in contracting the children of 
a district school to receive instruction, 
particularly as regards expense? Some 
would look favorably on the plan if it 
meant a decrease in expense of the school, 
where children are few, and the i-oads 
good, the distance from center to center 
of the district not being over 3% to four 
miles. “ A. R. 
CONTENTS 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, FEB. 12, 1921 
FARM TOPICS 
Will the Chemist Compete with Farmers? 
219. 220 
Reconsideration of the Fertilizer Problem.. 220 
Remarks About a Cover Crop. 220 
What About the Danish Potatoes. 221 
Homemade Burned Oyster Shell. 221 
Use of Disk or Turning Plow. 225 
Early Cabbage in Orange Co., N. Y. 226 
Cotton and Peanut Farms. 226 
Coming Farmers’ Meetings. 228 
Cultivating Peas . 232 
Hope Farm Notes. 238 
Peanut Growers Use Parcel Post. 241 
The Ever-Widening Chasm. 241 
A Note from Southern California. 241 
The Spirit of the East. 241 
A Hudson Valley Farm Bureau. 241 
A Level Farm for Me. 252 
Co-operative Farming . 252 
Oxen for Farm Work. 252 
LIVE STOCK AND DAIRY 
Buying Cattle Feeds Co-operatively.... 220 
Live Stock Census. 228 
Coming Live Stock Sales. 228 
Hides and Shoe Leather. 241 
Pasture and Barn Notes. 244 
Molasses Feed for Cows. 244 
Ration for Cows and Young Stock. 244 
Cheap Canadian Milk. 251 
Feeding a Calf.... 251 
Dairy Ration . 251 
Improving Dairy Ration.251 
Ration for Cows and Hogs; Burning Straw.. 251 
Butter with Strong Flavor. 251 
Value of Shredded Fodder. 254 
Ration for Holsteins. 254 
Milk Records . 254 
Too Much Poor Butter. 254 
A Few Dairy Notes. 254 
Ailing Dogs . 256 
Lice: Worms .256 
Leaking Teats . 256 
Distemper . 256 
Garget. 256 
THE HENYARD 
Frozen Wattles; Grinding Meat for Hens... 259 
Roup . 259 
New Methods in Lighting Poultry House.... 259 
Feeding One Hundred Pullets. 260 
Management of Laying Birds. 260 
Trap-nesting Ducks . 260 
Prevention of Chicken Pox. 260 
HORTICULTURE 
Culture of Muskmelons. 227 
Notes from a Maryland Garden. 237 
Campbell Grape . 239 
Golden Delicious Apple . 239 
Ornamental Hedge for Kansas. 239 
Pomegranates . 239 
WOMAN AND HOME 
From Day to Day. 242 
Some Objections to the Hot School Lunch.. 242 
A Bed Ticking Rug and Some Useful Hints 
242, 243 
The Rural Patterns. 243 
Gathering Boxwood in Old Virginia. 243 
Old-time Cookery . 243 
Short Cuts . 243 
Seed Cookies . 243 
MISCELLANEOUS 
Water for House and Bam. 
A Primer of Economics—Part X... 
A Case of Damages. 
Who Pays for Broken Glass. 
The Wife’s Share. 
Septic Tank in Cellar. 
Svphon Sentic Tank. 
Chemical Toilet ... 
Fitting Pipe . 
Ventilating a Storage Cellar. 
Editorials . 
A Consumer on the Food Situation. 
The Six-wheeled Truck. 
Tools to Use with a Light Tractor. 
Draining Through Neighbor’s Land 
Removing Manure from Farm. 
Debt of Life Tenant. 
Qualification for Jury Duty. 
Water Pipes on Highway. 
Right to Cross Property. 
Do Mice Climb Iron Pipe. 
More About the Porcupine. 
A Sociable Goose. 
"A Friend to the Weasel”. 
Parrot Picks Out Feathers. 
Have You Made Your Will. 
Ideas of a Western Man. 
Power for Milking Machine. 
Water-supply Problem . 
Cracked Circular Saw. 
Crack in Cement Tank. 
Electric Lighting Coil. 
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