856 
after a little delay they served a notice from the dis¬ 
trict attorney; but again both parties did not cut nor 
destroy weeds. In October last I engaged an attorney, 
who started legal proceeding for me. The case was 
called at civil court on Jan. 23, 1024. The farms ad¬ 
join each other, mine on the east. Ten of my wit¬ 
nesses testified that they had seen the tufts of hair 
start from the neighbor’s farm, and be carried by the 
air towards, on and across my farm. Some of those 
tufts they examined and found ripe seeds. Should this 
not be sufficient proof? Here our opposing attorney 
moved to have the case non-suited, on the belief that 
the birds may have carried the seeds on my farm ; they 
may spread by roots, and perhaps from another farm. 
The judge sustained this motion. 
I have been on the farm all of my life, am a lover of 
song and insectivorous birds, and hence am every Sum-! 
mer examining birds’ nests, and have not found such J 
stuff used. It would retain the moisture too long. As 
soon as my farmer finds a new patch he does not cul¬ 
tivate that any more, so it cannot spread from one 
patch or field to another, because I am, during the fast- 
growing season, working on them. There is no other 
than this farm within a radius of two miles around 
mine where seeds of these weeds ripen. As my attorney 
consented to a voluntary non-suit, I may soon reopen 
the case. Popular opinion is greatly against thie» de¬ 
cision. JAMES A. YEAGER. 
Pennsylvania. 
Farming Without Live Stock 
An article on page 777, “Running a Farm Without 
Live Stock,” interested me very much. My farm is 11 
acres and no etock. We grow small fruit, and my prob¬ 
lem is manure. I am four miles from city, and the ex¬ 
pense of drawing manure is great. Will you explain 
more fully exact formula and how to mix chemical fer¬ 
tilizers to my advantage? mrs. f. s. 
Broome Co., N. Y. 
EEPING UP FERTILITY.—There is no ques¬ 
tion about the possibility of keeping up the 
fertility of the land through the use of lime, chem¬ 
icals and organic matter from green manure. We 
must all admit that a small quantity of manure used 
h'om time to time when the green crops are plowed 
under will help, for this manure supplies certain 
bacteria which are needed in good soils. It is not 
necessary, however, as was formerly imagined, to 
depend entirely upon manure in order to maintain 
the fertility of land. It is a serious question as to 
whether it pays to buy the separate chemicals and 
ntxake a mixture at home. On a large scale, where 
one is handling good-sized fields, it is often profit¬ 
able to do this home mixing. Where small quan¬ 
tities of fertilizer are used, say less than five or six 
tons, it is usually better business to buy one of the 
ipany standard mixtures offered for sale. They can 
generally be bought so as to cover almost any for¬ 
mula desired, and by figuring the cost of the sepa¬ 
rate chemicals and the best figures on the manufac¬ 
tured goods it will usually be found a better prop¬ 
osition to buy the standard goods when small quali¬ 
ties are required. 
CHEMICAL COMBINATIONS.—A simple mix¬ 
ture which would provide for almost any crop would 
he one part (by weight) of nitrate of soda, one part 
of dried blood or tankage, three parts of acid phos¬ 
phate, and one part of muriate of potash. That 
would be quite satisfactory. More elaborate mix¬ 
tures could, of course, be given, but generally speak¬ 
ing it is better to take some standard formula 
which does not require too much complication in its 
preparation. Such a mixture used on fruit and veg¬ 
etables will give a fair growth, and if the soil can 
be kept constantly covered with some growing crop, 
and this crop plowed under with a fair application 
of lime, good results may generally be obtained. 
There are dozens of combinations, both of chemicals 
and cover crops, and many different ways of using 
them, but as a general proposition it is entirely pos¬ 
sible to keep up a high degree of fertility on most of 
our land with only a small quantity of manure. 
BREAKING AWAY FROM DAIRYING.—We 
have many questions from dairymen who want to 
know if it will pay them to sell their herd and go to 
raising grain, potatoes and fruit, depending on fer¬ 
tilizers and green crops to keep up the land. That 
is not a question which can be answered offhand. 
The character of the former will have to be consid¬ 
ered. Some men are natural dairymen, and they will 
always do better when they have a herd of cows 
around them. Some of these natural dairymen will 
find it almost impossible to adapt themselves to the 
new business of raising fruit or truck. We should 
not advise such a man to break away entirely from 
dairying. He should work into a few side lines and 
study them carefully, and the best use of chemicals 
that he could make at the beginning will be to add 
40 lbs. of acid phosphate to every good-sized load of 
manure. In that way you can study the effect of 
the chemicals and develop their use. There are 
others, however, who do not take naturally to keep¬ 
ing and milking cows. They have a herd largely 
because there has always been a herd of cattle on 
their farm, and their finances are such that they 
must have constant cash income. Some of these 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
men would be better off if they sold their cows and 
worked into potatoes, grain, fruit, or other crops 
which experience told them would pay. These things 
being so, it is difficult to advise definitely about the, 
matter. We think, however, that every farmer 
should make a study of his case, and try experi¬ 
ments with chemicals in raising some side lines to 
see if it will pay him to work out of the dairy. 
Thinning the Woodchuck Crop 
W E never have had so many calls for a wood¬ 
chuck cure as we are having this year. How¬ 
ever the wet season may affect other crops, there is 
likely to be an overproduction of woodchucks. Our 
mails are well filled with complaints about them. 
; What is the surest way of killing them? 
! The surest thing we have found is to put a good 
rifle in the hands of some boy or man who knows 
how to use it and let him lie in ambush for Mr. 
Woodchuck. The best time is early in the morning 
or late in the afternoon, when these animals come 
out for feed. A patient man who knows how to use 
Gertrude Smalley of Putnam Co., N. Y T . With her 
surroundings she might well be called “The Woman 
in White.” 
a gun can shoot many of them in this way, and that 
is the surest method of thinning them out. Steel 
traps are recommended, but they are not sure. 
• Two kinds of poison gas are suggested. Bisul¬ 
phide of carbon will kill the woodchucks if you can 
get the fumes promptly down into the holes. The 
woodchuck is a cunning animal, and will often bur¬ 
row into the sand below ground to escape .these 
fumes, or he will have two or three openings to his 
den, and thus get out to fresh air. The old-time 
way of handling the bisulphide was to wrap cotton 
batting around a stone, saturate it with the chemical 
and then push the stone as far as possible down into 
the hole, covering the mouth with a sod or blanket. 
This has killed some woodchucks, but it is not by 
any means a sure thing. A newer method is to put 
the bisulphide on a rag and push it down into the 
hole. Then thrust a torch down close to the rag 
and explode the chemical, being careful not to 
breathe the fumes. 
Another plan recently suggested is to put the bi¬ 
sulphide into a bottle with a wide mouth. Push in 
paper above the chemical and then pour in a quan¬ 
tity of gunpowder. Connect a fuse with this gun¬ 
powder, running it up through the mouth of the 
bottle and long enough to reach outside of the hole, 
then ignite the fuse and cover the mouth of the hole 
with a sod. The fuse will burn down to the gun¬ 
powder and explode it, thus driving the bisulphide 
all through the burrow. This is said to give far 
better satisfaction than other plans of using the 
chemical. 
The Department of Agriculture at Washington has 
June 7, 1924 
found that hydrocyanic-acid gas can be used for kilt¬ 
ing rats and woodchucks. We printed the following 
statement last year about using this dangerous gas. 
It is repeated here, with an added caution to those 
who undertake to try it. The gas is exceedingly 
dangerous, and should not be used by careless people 
under any circumstances. It will, however, prove 
effective in the hands of those who will use it prop¬ 
erly. 
For rat burrows, half a teaspoonful, or about 30 
drops of water should first be put into a small glass 
vial, or wide-mouthed small bottle; a medicine dropper 
is well suited for this purpose. Half this amount, or 
about 15 drops, of sulphuric acid should then be added. 
Hold the vial directly over the entrance to the burrow 
and drop into the dilute acid 10 to 15 grains of sodium 
cyanide (a piece about the size of a navy bean). Allow 
the vial to slip down into the burrow, and immediately, 
with sod or moist earth, seal the entrance of the burrow 
and of any adjoining burrows from which the gas is 
seen emerging. 
For woodchuck burrows the same directions apply, but 
from three to four times as much ingredients should be 
used as for rats, or about an ounce of water, one-half 
ounce of sulphuric acid, and about one-tenth ounce of 
sodium cyanide. Tin cans may be used instead of bot¬ 
tles, in which case it is well to pour the water and sul¬ 
phuric acid into the can and then place it well down 
into the burrow. The sodium cyanide is then added and 
the entrance quickly closed, taking care that no dirt 
falls into the open can. For other deep-burrowing ani¬ 
mals the same directions are applicable, the amount of 
the ingredients used being in proportion to the size and 
extent of the burrows. 
Caution.—The danger attending the careless use of 
hydrocyanic-acid gas cannot be over-emphasized. Hy¬ 
drocyanic-acid gas is fatal to human beings when 
breathed in quantity, and sodium cyanide and sulphuric 
acid are also very poisonous. The sodium cyanide, 
while in a dry state, may be handled without danger if 
there be no wound in the hand. Care must be taken in 
handling the sulphuric acid to avoid burning the skin 
and clothing. The acid should always be poured into 
the water, as it may be spattered if the operation is re¬ 
versed. 
Thickening Stand of Alfalfa 
I have a four-acre field which was manured and coat¬ 
ed with burned lime about three years ago. Last 
Spring Alfalfa was seeded to the wheat with a grass 
seed drill. The wheat stubble was thick with weeds, 
which were allowed to stand over the Winter. This 
Spring the Alfalfa has come up thick on about 25 per 
cent of the land, and in places stands 16 in. In places 
it is thin, and in some spots there is nothing but a mat 
of trash. I feel much encouraged, as I expected a total 
failure. Will you advise me how this should be handled 
from now on ? w. H. s. 
Pennsylvania. 
N those spots on your field where there is no 
Alfalfa, but the ground is covered with “a mat of 
trash,” as you describe it, it would be advisable to 
prepare a new seedbed by turning in under this 
weedy trash before weed seeds are produced. The 
ground should then be frequently harrowed and re¬ 
seeded during the Summer. Next year, especially 
after the first cutting is made, this re-seeded area 
could be handled just the same as the x-emainder of 
the field which shows a successful stand. 
If there are places that are very thin but have 
some Alfalfa plants well established, it might be ad¬ 
visable to thicken it up; however, if yoxi have on 
the avei-age one good sti’ong plant per square foot 
you may consider it a profitable stand, as the plants 
will broaden out and send out more stems, provided, 
of coui*se, the Kentucky Blue gi’ass and weeds do not 
come in and crowd out the Alfalfa. If you decide to 
thicken these thin parts'it would be well to haimow 
the ground right after the first cutting of Alfalfa is 
taken off. Such harrowing will clean out grasses 
and weeds, but will not damage the Alfalfa plants, 
because of their great root system. Watch the 
moisture conditions befoi'e seeding; be sure there is 
sufficient moisture in the ground to start germina¬ 
tion and growth. 
Be careful when later cutting this portion of the 
field where you have endeavoi-ed to thicken the stand 
by additional seedings in the established stand. You 
should set the mower bar high for the first few cut¬ 
tings so as not to clip the young seedlings too close 
to the gi’ound. I have seen many cases where the re¬ 
seeding in the old field started off very successfully, 
but failed, due to the close clipping of the young 
seedlings. In no case should yoxx cut late. I would 
not try to get three cuttings this year, as the third 
cutting might desti’oy the seedlings produced from 
the seed sown this Summer. a. l. b. 
Tiie Tuskegee Industrial Institute at Tuskegee, Ala., 
is a college where colored youths are taught farming 
and other industrial occupations—and well taught. 
There are a number of these young men available for 
farm work this year. They ought to make good helpers. 
