February 26, 1921 
312 
there is no chance for lief ter work. Now if the 
pupils of those two schools could he divided up so 
that one could have the first four grades and the 
other the older pupils, there would he some excel¬ 
lent work done by those teachers. I don’t believe 
the transportation of those children would be such 
a dreadful thing as some think it would. 
DESIRABLE CHANGES.—Here area few changes 
1 think the rural people would like to see go into 
effect: 
1 . The rural teachers graded according to their 
ubilitp to tench a rural school, and their class plainly 
marked on their certificates. 
2. A scale of wages adopted to conform with the 
classification of the teacher. This would put the 
poor teacher where she belonged, and it would also 
be a great protection to a district that really wanted 
a good teacher and was willing to pay the price. 
The classification of the teacher to be deter¬ 
mined by actual work in school rather than by writ¬ 
ten examination. 
4 . The time-honored position of school trustee 
a* it now stands abolished and something like a 
school committee substituted, the majority of the 
members to bo parents ot children attending school. 
U often happens that a man will be elected trustee 
who has no interest in school affairs other than the 
tax list. With such a man as trustee a teacher often 
has fairly to beg for a box of chalk. 
5. The wages of teachers increased by law to a 
point where a good teacher will be willing to staj 
in a rural community. 
«i. People are going 1" demand that polities be 
kept out of the school business. 1 think that the 
chief reason why the township system, (which, by 
the way, had some excellent features), failed was 
just because the control of the whole thing was put 
into the wrong hands. For a man who scarcely knew 
a blackboard from a hale of hay to hold his job, and 
for no other reason than that he was a politician of 
the “stand-pat” variety, was good reason for ’the 
people to demand a change. 
The rural people can do a great deal to help in 
this movement for better schools, Rcmemboi that, 
the whole machinery of the State has been set in 
motion. There is a real desire on the part of those 
in charge to give the best in the way of schools to 
the rural children. Meetings are to be held in all 
parts of the State to find out from the people them¬ 
selves just what is wanted. It will he the duty of 
everyone to attend those meetings and take part in 
the discussions. Think things over carefully and do 
not turn an idea down with a hang just because it 
happens to he new—and remember this: 
our schools are not what they should lie. 
We need help to put them into good running order. 
Voir is our opportunity for getting that help. 
St. Lawrence Co., N. Y. H - s - 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
T HEItE are some points brought out in Mr. Bart¬ 
lett’s letter which are very good, and which 
voice the sentiment of many farmers. Let us go into, 
the matter a little further. A ton of manure carries 
from 400 to 3,000 lbs. of organic matter, in which 
there are S to 32 lbs. of nitrogen, 4 to S lbs. of phos¬ 
phoric acid and S to 35 lbs. of potash. A horse or 
cow produces from 8 to 30 tons of manure per year, 
in which there is from three to four tons of organic 
plant, food the manure supply is. and how out of pro¬ 
portion its composition is in comparison to the an¬ 
alysis of crops. It is this continuous cropping of 
soil, to which only 40 per cent of the plant food re¬ 
moved is returned in manure, and that out of propor-' 
lion to the plant food removed, which depletes soils 
and ultimately spells failure. Evidence is abundant, 
and such practice is to he discouraged. 
Now we will .grant that if barnyard manure is sup¬ 
plemented with sufficient organic matter and chem¬ 
ical fertilizer to return an amount equal to or greater 
than that removed that the system could not lie im¬ 
proved. But there are hundreds of dairy farms 
which do not produce a profit sufficient to purchase 
the required plant food to supplement the manure. 
It is to these farms that we refer when we say “get 
rid of the cows which you are keeping just for the 
manure” and plow your clover right under, and by 
the use of lime and proper chemicals grow cash 
crops. We only have to look around us to see hun¬ 
dreds of farms maintained this way. and it is too 
bad that more are not doing the same thing. Mon¬ 
mouth County, New Jersey, was once one of the 
poorest agricultural counties in the East, and now it. 
is one of the richest. Plowing in rye and Crimson 
clover and using chemicals has done the trick. They 
tell me there is only one cow for every two farmers, 
and they quarrel over which one shall have to keep 
the cow. 
Yes, the belief that one must keep animals to main¬ 
tain soil fertility is a fallacy. The country is full of 
evidence. K - R - smith. 
Oswego Co., N. Y. 
A Massachusetts Lobster Trap . Fig. 126 
matter. In other words, if all the manure is care¬ 
fully saved, only about 40 per cent of the feed con¬ 
sumed by animals is regained in manure.* Prof. E. (). 
Fippin, formerly of the Department of Soils at Cor¬ 
nell. states in his bulletin that “if all the manure 
fioni all the stock in the State were saved it would 
he sufficient for. an application of only 10 tons of 
organic matter per acre in 30 years.” Taking this 
statement as a basis for consideration, this would 
mean one ton of organic matter per acre per year, or 
21 lbs. of nitrogen. 3d. lbs. of phosphoric acid and .50 
lbs. of potash. Now lot us see what is removed per 
year per acre by various crops: 
<Top and Yield 
Mixed hay. 5,000 lbs- 
< Vbbage,'tons . 
Potatoes. 200 bn. 
Wheat. 25 bn.. .’5.000 lbs. straw 5!) 
Oats. 00 bn.. 55.200 lbs. straw.. 55 
Corn, TO bn., 5,000 lbs. straw. . 105 
From this, one gets some idea of how limited in 
I’ll OR. 
Nitrogen 
Acid 
Potash 
. . 70 
IS 
( i 
. . 200 
70 
270 
. . 46 
21 
74 
iiw 50 
24 
551 
Oil 
*>*> 
62 
305 
42 
300 
More About the Fertilizer Problem 
i*n naee 3537 vou printed an article entitled "The 
Fertilize'” Bag (’bases ,be Cows Away.” The question 
arose in my mind whether it was good business or not 
to allow it to do so entirely. The article seems to be 
based on the fact that the farmers m the writers 
ioealitv have changed from dairy fanning to potato 
••■rowing, and are more prosperous, and 1 am glad, mi 
thev work harder for their dollar than most people 
This problem can be figured out mathematically, but 1 
Cannot find quite all the necessary analyses among my 
literature, but hope some one who lias the material aniii 
undertake to solve the problem. ... . . 
There is one important fact that is not taken into 
account. That is in feeding stock the animal removes 
only about one-fourth of the fertilizing elements, pro¬ 
vided all the excrements are carefully saved and re¬ 
turned to the land. In other words, a ton of bay in the 
barn worth $20. after being fed tq stock and the manure 
applied to the land, is equal to $3.) worth ol lertilizer, 
cot counting the humus. The same rule applies to every 
hundred of grain purchased and ted. as well as timt 
raised on the farm. The cow requires carbohydrates 
and fats, which have no value as fertilizer 1 bey also 
require protein or nitrogen compounds, which have a 
value as fertilizer, but they do not by any moans remove 
all rbe nitrogen compounds from the feed, lo the value 
of the manure add the income from the dairy, and you 
have the credit side of the sheet. Add the labor m dol¬ 
lar* and cents of growing and harvesting crops, caring 
for stock, feed purchased, cost of returning the manure 
1 .) the land, fair rate of interest on capital invested in 
live stock, and you have the debtor’s sheet. 
Now wo need another set. of books tor a potato tuini 
for comparison. Fertilizer you must have, but to be 
fair you can only buy a quantify equal in value to the 
manure received from tin* dairy. Add t<i this eost ot pio- 
dneing and harvesting the crop grown ; this is the debtor s 
Credit side is money value of the crop.. Now 1 
believe that having these figures and comparing them 
Mr. Smith will find that he has been buying two or 
three times as many dollars’ worth of fertilizer as was 
applied to his land while engaged in dairying; therefore 
he ought to got biggor returns and increase the value of 
his land. .Probably his dairy would have paid better if 
he had bought some fertilizer and lime. If you depend 
too much on the fertilizer man he may get. you by the 
neck the same as the coal man has. 1 think I would 
prefer to rotate crops, combining both systems, and not 
advertise the fertilizer man’s business: 1 resides, be has 
not been able to give you any potash for some time. 
There may have been a big leak in the manure piles, 
as three-fourths of all the potash in animal excrements 
is iu the liquids. f. g. hah i lkti . 
Massachusetts. 
.4 I?initanian Feasant Woman With Her Knitting 
Fig, J27 
Lobster Traps for Colorado 
Would you give me the name of someone from whom 
1 could get an illustration of a lobster trap? I thought 
1 might use the same principle to construct traps to 
catch crawfish, which arc a nuisance in my lakes. I 
have had two boys catching them with liver, and they 
often caught a washtub full a day. but would prefer the 
traps, as I want to get rid of them this Spring il pos¬ 
sible. L ' F * T •• 
('olorado. 
R Y.-Y.—It is rather a singlar thing that a person 
. in Colorado should he interested iu a trap or 
“pot” used on the New England coast. It shows 
how widely our readers are scattered and how they 
depend on each other for help. Fig. 126 shows a lob¬ 
ster trap as used on the Massachusetts coast. It is 
not exactly like the traps commonly used, as the fish¬ 
net opening is usually at the end instead of at the 
side. It gives an idea of the way lobsters are caught. 
A “bait,” usually consisting of decaying fish, is lmng 
inside the trap. The lobsters work about until they 
find the concave fish-net opening, through which they 
cnler. They are seldom able to find the opening 
through which to escape. These traps are weighted 
and lowered down into the water with long ropes 
attached at the top to a wooden buoy which floats on 
the surface and marks the trap. These traps are 
usually arranged in rows or “lanes —each lobster- 
man having his own color, which protects him, much 
the same as a brand protects a 'Western cattle man, 
Steam Ditchers in New York 
During the war many power ditching machines 
were purchased, the idea being to increase agricul¬ 
tural productions. Among the rest 3.°, ditchers were 
bought by the State, my understanding being that 
the cost was about $40,000. With the war over it 
became a question what to do with these. In three 
years these machines have been operated on 600 
farms in 16 counties of the State. East year they 
were rented out to Farm Bureau associations, 
they to pay maintenance and operation of them, 
and to pay to the State 10 cents a rod in addition. 
These machines are pretty good yet, we ure told, 
and can he repaired somewhat and made useful. 
All are now in good running prder. The college 
co-operates in laying out Ihe drainage, and the 
■Farms and Markets Department has a general caie 
and oversight of the machines; 425'miles of drain¬ 
age have been laid with these in three yeais and 
11.124 acres have been drained. 
In making estimates of values accrued, it was 
estimated that dairy lands were worth $555 an acre 
before draining and $75 after; crop lands $50 and 
*$125; fruit and truck lands $75 and $200. On this 
basis it was found that the increased value of the 
lands amounted to $1,040,065. There seems to he 
considerable interest in drainage in many sections. 
One of the recommendations of the committee on 
production is for increased drainage, and increased 
areas of unimproved lands are not favored. New 
York has opportunities for a much greater produc¬ 
tion as quickly as demand for foods will warrant 
•>/'••'(■. H - n r. 
