The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
955 
number of years. Early in the season they are 
equipped with coal-burning brooder stoves for early 
broods. When the chicks are large enough the 
stoves are removed and roosts and drop boards put 
in. After the cockerels are taken away, nests are 
put in for pullets, and these pullets remain in the 
house until sold or moved to breeeding houses, some 
remaining as layers until the house is again needed 
for early chicks. prince t. wood, m. d. 
The Demand for Woodchuck Meat 
I notice in your market reports a price given for 
woodchuck meat at the Johnson City. N. Y., public 
market. Now who eats such meat? It must be that 
Europeans of some sort are responsible for this demand. 
One can hardly imagine an American of ordinary tastes 
eating such food. I would like to know about this, not 
only for economic but the social side of the case. 
J. B. S. 
E are not all alike; some like one thing and 
some another. Eve liked apples but Adam 
did not. but soon did. [Who has ever proved that 
the forbidden fruit was an apple? It might well 
have been a well ripened McIntosh, but where is the 
proof?] So it has been down through the long cen¬ 
turies; tastes have always differed. Some love 
duck eggs and others would not eat one on a bet. 
Some love eels (fish) and some say that they are 
nothing but a snake in disguise. A skunk is the 
farm, the market had him for sale. This letter 
must be brief, but I want to say that this very day, 
June 12, I asked some of our producers about their 
woodchuck business, and several told me that they 
had orders for from one to three for Saturday’s 
market. 
Whether you agree with me or not, I want to 
say that I believe there is not a cleaner animal liv¬ 
ing, and one that feeds on the very cleanest of vege¬ 
tables and clover. Compare it with an ordinary pig. 
if you please. Please remember that our nearby 
farmers sell all of their own produce and our shoe¬ 
makers and city people generally buy all that they 
produce. No middlemen; no middlemen needed. 
j. s. patterson, Market Master. 
Raw Phosphate and Clover 
[We have had several articles on the so-called Hop¬ 
kins system of keeping up the fertility of the land in 
the Central West. This plan was worked out by the 
late Prof. C. G. Hopkins of the Illinois Agricultural 
College to meet the needs of grain and stock farmers. 
It was based on the theory that many or most of the 
grain farms were deficient in phosphorus and organic 
matter. The first lack was due to the fact that for 
many years grain and live stock had been produced on 
the land and shipped away—thus removing large 
amounts of phosphorus—while none of that substance 
had been brought back as manure. In many cases grain 
crops had been produced year after year, thus giving 
the land no chance to “rest” or accumulate organic 
different parts of the fields. Where the field was 
treated a prospect of IS to 25 bushels to the acre is 
the estimate, but where the untreated strips are, 
the wheat looks so sick that the seed would not be 
got back. This wheat was sown on Soy bean soil, 
and the ground had been limed the Spring before, 
four tons to the acre. 
We put some corn on clover ground, about 20 
bushels, average, is the difference. The same method 
was also carried out in this cornfield as the method 
above. We have a 20-acre field of clover, the finest 
ever grown in or seen in this country. The pre¬ 
ceding crops were first Soy beans, then wheat, and 
phosphate, and in the Spring seeded to clover. This 
ground also was limed, four tons. From above state¬ 
ments the following conclusion was drawn: The rea¬ 
son for the failure of Prof. Hopkins’ theory, claimed 
by some people, was and is that they do not go about 
it in a systematic and instructed manner. 
Jefferson Co., Ill. wm, l. kiefeb. 
A Trade in Stove Wood 
It seems that prohibitive transportation charges are 
all that prevent the people of New York City from hav¬ 
ing available vast quantities of firewood barely a hun¬ 
dred miles from them. Will you tell me if means to re¬ 
move the prohibition have been discussed? I am new 
at this business and do not know what has already been 
demonstrated or otherwise determined; but at the 
888 
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i' IHnS 111 
Here is a battery of cultivating tools employed in a great fruit orchard at Sodus, Wayne Co.. N. Y. This may be called fruit growing on a factory scale. Twenty years 
ago such work would all have been done by horse power in many smaller orchards. The increased use of the tractor, with tools that are fitted to it, is making a wonderful 
difference in food production, so that fewer human hands are needed to produce the world’s food. And this promises to go on to still further economy of labor. 
most despised animal on earth, but their meat is 
delicious, but how are you going to convince a per¬ 
son of that fact, one who has never eaten any of 
their meat? Just so with the coon and many other 
animals and fowls, which some like and others do 
not. 
Now, I am writing from a market master’s stand¬ 
point ; one who tries to see that other people have 
on a market just what they want, and that does not 
mean that everybody wants woodchuck, for they do 
not, but there are some who do. When we opened 
a public market in these shoe towns, Johnson City 
and Endicott, we made up our minds good and 
strong that we would succeed, and that is just what 
we have done for over seven years. One of our lead¬ 
ing ideas was, that a public market should supply 
everything that everybody wanted, so far as possible, 
and almost the first day a splendidly dressed lady 
with an elegant car drove to our market and came 
to the market master and asked: “Have you any 
■dressed woodchucks?” to which we replied that we 
did not think we had, for we did not know up to 
that time that people ate them. However, the next 
day we told a farmer about the inquiry, and he said 
he believed that he would dress a few, and bring 
them to market, which he did, and sold them all 
(six). 
Well, we made up our minds that if people wanted 
“chucks” they should have them, so as we have a 
large blackboard at one end of our mammoth build¬ 
ings, giving the names of all produce and the prices 
for that market day, we added “woodchucks, dressed, 
30 cents per pound,” and they began to come in. 
Every time a farmer could get his eye on one on his 
matter. Added to this was the fact that much of the 
land was sour, so that it would not produce good crops 
of clover. Prof. Hopkins reasoned that the land was 
not deficient in potash. By using large quantities of 
limestone he planned to make clover grow well. This 
would supply the needed nitrogen, and to produce the 
phosphorus he advised the use of ground, raw phos¬ 
phate rock in the manure, or spread and plowed under 
with the clover. This, he claimed, would improve and 
maintain the soil and enable the farmers to produce 
wheat, corn and live stock without need of purchasing 
mixed or manufactured fertilizers. It was to be a case 
of making the soil provide its own needed nitrogen, and 
manufacture its own available phosphate. The full ex¬ 
periments with this system were interrupted by the 
death of Prof. Hopkins, but a number of farmers have 
continued the practice on their own farms. We have 
been interested to learn whether the plan has given 
satisfaction. Could it be used to advantage in some of 
our Eastern farms?] 
HE rock phosphate proposition advocated by 
Prof. Hopkins is a success in Southern Illinois, 
when handled the exact way prescribed. But some 
are failing in the use of rock phosphate. The rea¬ 
sons are numerous. The ground is too sour to grow 
legumes. There is no humus in the soil, and it is 
sometimes not put on right. 
Southern Illinois needs the following treatment: 
First, lime in tonnage according to acidity; then a 
legume should be grown; then the phosphate turned 
under with the green legume crop. Then any crop ro¬ 
tation will work, after the phosphate has had some 
t>me to work with a leguminous plant and sweet soil. 
There are many, many acres in Southern Illinois, 
and also on two experiment fields where this method 
has proved a success. The experiment fields are at 
West Salem and Ewing. We have at present on our 
farm wheat treated with rock phosphate. We pur¬ 
posely left out the phosphate in some small strips in 
present writing it seems to me that those people want 
it, we have it to sell, and there is no good reason why 
we should not deal together, in firewood, if we want 
to. A conference between the city firewood dealers, rail¬ 
road officers and farmers ought to result in an arrange¬ 
ment for it. I should think. Perhaps motor trucks 
could be used to solve the problem. We have hundreds 
of acres of forest around here which have been afire. 
The trees are not killed, but are damaged so that they 
will never make lumber.. We would be glad to cut that 
wood and load it on cars cheap. make a. foote. 
Sullivan Co., N. Y. 
HIS is a good subject to take up. We shall be 
glad to hear from any of our people who have 
handled stove wood in any quantities. Our own 
opinion is that great cities like New York are not 
very satisfactory as a market for firewood. During 
the war, when a fuel famine was threatened, we 
tried to encourage an extra sale of this wood, but 
there was little actual demand. Most of the heat¬ 
ing plants in this city are arranged for the use of 
oil or coal, and except for a limited demand for fire¬ 
place wood, it would be difficult to increase the de¬ 
mand for this fuel. We think the better market for 
it would be in the smaller cities and large towns 
away from the big cities. Many people who live 
in these smaller places still have wood stoves, and 
there is usually considerable demand for fireplace 
wood. Under ordinary circumstances in the city, 
firewood cannot compete with coal as a fuel. It is 
too bulky, burns up rapidly and is difficult to handle 
and store. There is a good demand for wood kindling, 
but as a regular fuel firewood stands at a disadvant¬ 
age in the big towns. Few of our country readers 
realize how many of the fiats and small apartments 
are heated by oil, gas or electricity, all delivered as 
needed from some central station. We should think 
