778 
Vht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 17, 1921 
as “Chemicals and Clover;’ 1 We found successful 
farms where only enough stock was kept to do the 
farm work. Chemical fertilizers were used, and a 
rotation of corn, potatoes, wheat and two years of 
grass ‘was followed. Everything was sold except 
cornstalks and straw, these being rotted in the barn¬ 
yard and hauled out on the sod as manure', plowed 
under for corn. Later a few cows were kept to save 
the feeding value of the cornstalks. Subsequent 
changes have resulted in giving up the corn crop en¬ 
tirely and growing Alfalfa, to he sold as hay. Since 
the introduction of tractors, horse power has been 
largely given up. All this has meant farming with¬ 
out manure, and the plan is being worked out on 
thousands of successful farms. No one should think 
of paying $5 a ton for stable manure as plant food. 
It has value as an inoculant and for providing hu¬ 
mus. The manure contains certain bacteria which 
work to break down organic matter in the soil, and 
we think a small amount of such manure will help 
when the chief dependence is made on green crops 
and chemicals. Aside from that it is entirely pos¬ 
sible to run a successful farm without manure. It 
is the most expensive form of plant food one can 
buy, and many a man on a stock farm, in order to 
tigure out a bare living or small profit, has been 
obliged to take most of his pay in manure for the 
next crop. This might not be true on a New York 
dairy farm, but it is true in some or many sections, 
and the wise farmer is he who can think out the real 
distinction between for such sections. 
Need of Clover or Alfalfa for Sheep 
Is it possible to feed sheep and lambs successfully 
■without Alfalfa—just Timothy and clover? It seems 
impossible to grow Alfalfa in our section. What do you 
call a good sheep pen? What are good books on the 
subject? n. M. i). 
EARS ago we wintered sheep on Red clover or 
Alsike. Either will give entirely satisfactory 
results. Their disadvantage lies in their compara¬ 
tive yield, Medium clover about one-half, and Alsike 
not over one-tliird the quantity of Alfalfa. If I re¬ 
member correctly, neither has quite as high a per¬ 
centage of digestible nutrients as Alfalfa. Any 
leguminous hay will serve. We fed up the pods and 
straw from 20 acres of beans this last Winter. I 
doubt if you would be well pleased with results from 
carbonaceous hays, such as Timothy, Blue grass or 
Red-top, or any of the fine grasses which grow on 
the hills. Those are better used for pastures. One 
old Englishman fattens his lambs in a slialy hill 
field where the principal feed is a fine wiry grass, 
qnd little of it. They seem to take on flesh faster 
than on bush clover aftermath. If you tried to win¬ 
ter on “fine” hay I am afraid the purchased feed 
required to balance the ration would cut a big hole 
ip the profits. 
I do not understand why it is impracticable to 
grow Alfalfa in your country. The advantages are 
so great that a pretty strenuous effort is justified. 
Think of the economy of land, practically a balanced 
ration, and the labor question, not all your haying at 
once. We cut it three times, sometimes four. Last 
Fall I saw a field of it in cock in November. 
I suppose your main crop is milk. Alfalfa and 
Arrangement of Lambing Pens. Fig. 282 
silage will produce more milk to the acre than any 
other combination in the world. It will not grow in 
a mud hole, and it will not grown on a rock. Aside 
from those two reservations, I believe it can be 
grown almost anywhere in our climate. I should be 
very. glad to know why you feel that you cannot 
grow it. 
Lambing pens are made of two panels 4 ft. long, 
and, for our tame Shropshire.?, 30 in. high, hinged in 
the middle and hooked together. The panels should 
be solid boards. Any light rough lumber will do. If 
you make them of slats the lambs crawl out and the 
ewes quarrel and fret. Hook one in a corner, the 
next one to it and to the wall. If they are not too 
high you caji step over them and attend to the occu¬ 
pants. One pen to five ewes will serve, but usually we 
have empty horse stalls and all the alley-ways in 
use during lambing, and a perplexed farmer wonder¬ 
ing where he can put any more. If you had enough 
you could divide the whole basement up into little 
pens without encroaching on the amount of floor 
space per ewe outside of them. 
No harm comes to a ewe from shearing before 
lambing if she is handled carefully. The shearers 
prefer to do it then, as the ewes are quieter. We 
shear at about the break of the 'Winter, in March, 
as the fleeces are heaviest after the long Winter 
sweat. When the days begin to be pleasant the 
sheep are out a good deal, and the wool dries out 
and gets lighter, I think. As far as length of staple 
goes, it keeps on growing, and we shear it the next 
year. 
Our sheep are turned out now during the day, and 
on about half feed in the barn. We took them up 
about Dec. 15. That leaves us only about 120 days 
of barn care; one ton of hay to four ewes, or 12 to 
an acre of Alfalfa. 
You will find a good deal of information in “Prac¬ 
tical Sheep Husbandry,” by Coffey; “ Sheep Farm¬ 
ing in America,” Wing, and “Feeds and Feeding,” 
Henry & Morrison. h. r. s. 
Bluff Point, N. Y. 
Recovery of School Lands 
T HE following statement comes from a rural 
school district in New York. It is typical of 
other cases where nearby farmers have encroached 
upon the school grounds for farming purposes. In 
the case mentioned, the people at one side of the 
school ground have, each year, plowed a little more 
over their line, and thus have taken a considerable 
tract of the school land. They have now gone over 
nearly two rods of what was originally the sehool- 
This is a genuine dairymaid (the real article) from 
Oswego Co., N. Y., with her favorite cow. Do you 
notice the black spot on the cow’s side? We see on it 
the profile of a woman’s face—looking toward the dairy¬ 
maid ! Remarkable what pictures and figures are printed 
on the flanks of Holstein cattle! 
yard, there being no fence between the two proper¬ 
ties. This land is cultivated usually in potatoes, 
and the people who have taken this land begin to 
assume that they own it, driving the school children 
out and threatening them when they attempt to 
play on this ground. Last year at the annual school 
meeting, the people voted to have the trustee em¬ 
ploy a surveyor and thus locate the line definitely. 
Having done that he was to have a fence put up so 
as to stop this encroachment on the school land. 
For some reason the trustee never did as he was 
directed, and the farmers are evidently planning to 
take a little more of the land this year. It often 
happens that new families will move into the dis¬ 
trict, rather ill-natured and aggressive, carrying 
things with a high hand, so that people do not like 
to interfere with them. The matter has now gone 
to the point where the people of the district want 
to have the case settled and regain their land and 
they want to know what it is best to do. Someone 
told them that the old fence having been gone more 
than 20 years, this farmer or tenant has secured 
a legal possession of the ground, so that the school 
has lost its property. That is the question that they 
want to have settled, and if they have lost the land 
through adverse possession, what must they do in 
order to get the land back as they had it originally? 
This question comes up not infrequently in connec¬ 
tion with school property and we have asked our 
lawyer to make a fair statement covering this case. 
Adverse possession may lie obtained by a person 
claiming title not founded upon a written instru¬ 
ment or a judgment or decree where the land has 
been actually cultivated or improved by the occupant 
or those under whom he claims for more than 20 
years, and if that possession lias been actual and 
continued under a claim of title exclusive of any 
other rights. 
It is not every case where a neighbor gradually 
encroaches upon the lands of another, even though 
that encroachment continues for 20 years, that ad¬ 
verse possession is obtained. The burden of proof 
is always on the person asserting the adverse pos¬ 
session. In other words, the presumption that the 
occupation of the premises by another person is in¬ 
subordination to the legal title. Adverse possession 
to constitute a bar to the legal title must be actual 
and hostile and not a mere trespass, it must be in¬ 
consistent with the claim of others. 
In considering acts of adverse character reference 
should be had to the character of the land and the 
use to which it is ordinarily applied; for the pur¬ 
pose of ascertaining with what mind it was so pos¬ 
sessed on the one side and such possession was per¬ 
mitted on the other. 
The Court of Appeals in 1879 said in reference to 
adverse possession claimed against public property: 
“It seems to he the settled law that the long con¬ 
tinuance of such encroachment, although for more 
than 20 years, cannot destroy the public’s right to 
take away the authority of the public officers to re¬ 
move and abate them.” 
It seems, therefore, that the public cannot be 
barred by neglect of public officials to protect their 
rights, and the neglect of the officers of the school 
in question, cannot be held to have barred the school 
from its rights in the school property. 
We would suggest that if the old line can be de¬ 
termined the school, at its annual meeting, provide 
for the building and the maintenance of a fence 
on that line, and that if the line cannot be ascer¬ 
tained, that a surveyor be employed to determine 
that line. 
Making a Casement Raintight 
I have had the front porch of my house enclosed with 
casement sashes. The center sashes in each section 
swing inwardly on hinges. The carpenter has made 
every effort to adjust the molding at the porch rail so 
as to prevent the rain from oozing in. but has not been 
successful. Could you suggest a method whereby the 
water would be precluded from seeping under the 
'sashes? The permanent sashes are, of course, water¬ 
tight ; the trouble presents itself only as to the sashes 
that serve as openings. Some carpenters contend that 
only sashes opening outside, i. e., swinging outwardly, 
can be made watertight. I want the sashes to swing 
inwardly. J. E. A. 
Lynbrook, N. Y. 
T HE accompanying sketch will suggest to you a 
method of overcoming this trouble. The lower 
outside edge of the sash is rabbetted out as indicat¬ 
ed, and a piece of metal (galvanized iron) bent to 
the form of an angle iron, nailed along the top of 
the porch rail for the sash to shut against. This 
acts as a stop to prevent the water from working 
back along the porch rail, while the overhanging 
Diagram of Casement That Sheds Rain. Fig. 285 
upper edge of the rabbett carries the drip from the 
sash outside of the metal strip. A piece of triangu¬ 
lar wood molding can be used in place of the metal 
if desired, the important features being to make a 
watertight joint between the strip and the porch 
rail, and to have the sash overhang so that the drip 
is led outside rather than in. r. h. s. 
