174 
‘Tht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 2, 1924 
A Ton of Fork to a Litter. — We 
have had quite a little to say about the 
“ton to a litter contest” in Ohio. The 
plan of that contest is to try to make one 
single litter from a sow produce one ton 
of pork in six months. There are sev¬ 
eral cases reported from Ohio where this 
has been done, and now a New York boy, 
William Brahm of Canandaigua, gets 
into the ton list. He says that on 
April 6, a grade Chester White sow far¬ 
rowed 12 pigs. One of these was killed 
by the sow and Mr. Brahm started the 
other 11 on a “ton to a litter” contest 
of his own. He says they received a 
limited amount of skim-milk, and all the 
feed that lie bought was 200 lbs. of 
wheat- middlings to start them off. Later 
they were given a ration of ground oats, 
barley and corn. Later this was changed 
to ground barley and ear corn. They 
ran to water, and in an Alfalfa pasture 
all Summer. On October 6, or exactly 
six months from the start, the 11 pigs 
weighed exactly 2,120 lbs., the heaviest 
weighed 205 lbs. and the lightest 180 lbs. 
That is a good record and shows what 
can be done with good stock, good feed 
and a good manager back of the job. 
Wandering Fowls. —This matter of 
the wandering chicken is doing much to 
make trouble between neighbors. One 
would think that at this season of the 
year, it would not make much difference 
cutting. When the writer was a little 
boy he lived with an old farmer who 
bought a piece of land on which there 
was some pine and oak. These trees were 
cut off and hauled to the sawmill. The 
land was cleared and then left to grow 
up into brush and scrub oak, as it would. 
After the trees were cut off the old 
gentleman would sit and grieve to think 
that he had nothing but poor barren 
land to leave behind him. We now know, 
that if instead of stopping to grieve about 
it, the man and boy had spent a reason¬ 
able time on that land planting seed or 
transplanting trees of pine and spruce, 
the field would now, after all these years, 
be giving an income large enough to sup¬ 
port a fair-sized family. Thousands of 
acres on the Atlantic coast never should 
have been cleared originally, and with 
the timber cut off they are now prac¬ 
tically worthless. Planted in trees with 
a reasonable knowledge of forestry, this 
land will come back in value and at the 
end of 25 years, be the most valuable 
part of the farm. 
Feeding Value of Beans. —Several 
of our people have asked the feeding 
value of beans. It seems to depend not 
only upon the kind of stock but upon the 
locality. Naturally a comparison will 
be made with prices of other feed, and 
this will vary with the locality. One of 
our people got values running all the 
way from $1.75 to $2.25 per 100 lbs. for 
ground beans. He finally sold at $40 a 
ton. He says he had some of the beans 
ground, but none of his stock, either 
horse, hen or cow, would eat them. When 
the ground beans were mixed with four 
parts feed and well salted, most of the 
stock would eat it, but he said that one 
horse, even now, will not touch the 
The Mapes Formula & Peruvian Guano Co. 
Use The Mapes Famous 
FERTILIZERS 
Quality Producers 
I ere we have a brace of young stock—both 
« Krvfli r rhie ’PAmiSVlVftllifl. DOV 
■will irifllit 
whether the flock of chickens came over 
the fence or not, as there would be noth¬ 
ing in particular for the chickens to in¬ 
jure. Yet there seems to be a good deal 
of trouble about it still. In one case re¬ 
ported . to us, a farmer had a nice flock 
of Black Jersey Giants, many of them 
were capons. At the end of the season 
he let them out for a range. He noticed 
that many of them went over in. the 
neighbor’s farm, and being a man who 
wanted to do the right thing, he went to 
the neighbor and asked him if he had 
any objection. The neighbor said, “No, 
let them run, they do no harm,” and so 
these birds ranged about and made them¬ 
selves at home on the neighbor’s place. 
When the time came for gathering the 
chickens up and disposing of them, it 
was found that some 25 or 30 were miss¬ 
ing. The neighbor had evidently helped 
himself to the flock, and without doubt 
he had had a good supply of fried chicken 
during the season. This is a new phase 
of the matter. Men have shot wander- 
ins- chickens in this way, women have 
called each other names over the back 
fence, and Tnen have pulled otf their 
coats, making, full preparations for a bat¬ 
tle over the wandering hen, but this 
neighbor certainly has evolved a new 
scheme. Let the hens come, he says, they 
are welcome—and so they are, for when 
he gets ready to have a chicken dinner 
he' goes out and catches one of these wan¬ 
derers, and that is the last seen of her. 
It is a great scheme if you look at it in 
that way, but it. is anything but a joke 
to the man who has spent his money 
(i mf i n raising the birds. 
Farm Forestry. —It is surprising how 
many'farmers, especially in the hill coun¬ 
tries of New York and New England are 
planning a little experiment in forestry. 
Many of them have already planted some 
little acreage to pine and spruce and 
others will follow. They are going at it 
conservatively, well realizing that it will 
be 25 or 30 years before they can hope 
to secure cash returns for their labor. 
They are looking to the future however, 
and many of them have children who will 
come of age and need funds at just about 
the time when these trees are ready for 
well-bred and both well-fed on vitamines! 
great farmer some day. 
ground beans. We have found that 
cooked beans fed to hogs make a very 
acceptable feed, and we should like to 
know what actual experience our read¬ 
ers have bad in feeding Soy beans either 
cooked or ground. Does it require spec¬ 
ial feeding to get the stock to eat them 
readily? 
Dissolving Nitrate of Soda. —Does 
it pay to dissolve nitrate of soda in wa¬ 
ter before, using it in the garden? We 
have that question from many readers. 
Personally we -do not think it does, and 
we would not spend the time trying to 
dissolve the nitrates. We think that 
this chemical scattered along the hills 
or drills S in. or 1 ft. away from the 
plant, and worked into the soil with rake 
or hoe, will dissolve rapidly enough to 
feed any garden plant. Some people 
like to dissolve it on the theory that they 
are getting better results, but we doubt 
if there is any advantage. 
Location of Mail Boxes. —We have 
a good deal of complaint about mail boxes 
on rural routes. The Post Office Depart¬ 
ment insists that the mail boxes must be 
put so as to make it safe and conven¬ 
ient for the rural carrier. In a number 
of cases they have ordered our readers 
to set up their boxes on the property of 
a neighbor. Our people undertake to do 
this, and in doing it, get into trouble 
with the neighbor, who refuses to permit 
the box to stand on his property. One 
of our readers in Pennsylvania .was or¬ 
dered to change his box in this way and 
refused to do so. In support of his stand, 
he found a report from the First Assist¬ 
ant Postmaster General, that while it 
was desirable that all boxes, as far as 
possible, should be placed on the car¬ 
rier’s right-hand side of the road, the 
postal authorities had no legal right or 
jurisdiction over the roads and could 
not force suc-h a placing. Apparently 
the only right they have is to protect 
mail matter while in the care of the 
Post Office Department regardless of 
where the mail may be. The local post¬ 
master at the point from which the car¬ 
rier starts appears to have general charge 
of all such matters. An appeal can be 
made to the Washington Post Office De¬ 
partment, but unless that is done and 
upheld it is evident that the local. post- 
naster can do about as he pleases in the 
lelivery of the mail. 
©P & A Photo 
The Bark Wilhelmine, unloading at Jersey City a cargo of Peruvian 
Guano for the Mapes Company. The Wilhelmine has recently 
brought us one of the largest and finest cargoes of Peruvian 
Guano we have ever imported. It is from the Chincha Islands, 
justly the most famous of all the Peruvian Guano deposits. 
Send for Price List and Descriptive Circular 
The Mapes Formula & Peruvian Guano Co. 
143 Liberty St., New York City, N. Y. 
Hartford Branch: - 239 State Street, Hartford, Conn. 
From the Mail Bag 
QUALITY ALWAYS BRINGS TOP PRICE 
The Standard for Half a Century 
BASIS—BONE AND GUANO 
Availability Without Acidity 
Choicest and Most Varied Forms of Plant Food 
