1042 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 2, 1924 
packing with ice at least 15 men would be needed. 
There has been over-production, The dairymen con¬ 
tributing to the supply of various cities are con¬ 
vinced that the milk supply should be maintained 
with half the cows that are kept at the present 
time. This would mean the elimination of the 
boarder cow. 
OVERDOING ROADSIDE MARKETS.—In an¬ 
other direction there is a tendency toward overdoing 
a good thing. The highways are becoming crowded 
with roadside markets. Sections of the main high¬ 
way between Buffalo and Cleveland average five 
equipped roadside markets and filling stations to the 
mile. If the number of farmers tending a table now 
and then were counted, the number would include 
practically every place along this highway. Many 
of these places are so nicely appointed that they 
represent the investment of a farm. In many places 
are to be seen markets which cost as much as .$2,000 
to build. There is carried a stock of candies, fruits, 
cigars, gas and oils which reaches many hundred 
dollars. These originally were kept by farmers, and 
are the outgrowth of a pleasant shady lawn and 
table from which berries and fruits were sold. Many 
of these have passed out of the hands of the original 
owners, and here fruits brought from across the con¬ 
tinent are sold to tourists. The R. N.-Y.’s suggestion 
that these markets should be licensed and restricted 
is entirely wise. The sane thing in markets would 
be a co-operative roadside market attended by cer¬ 
tain persons, and handling on a co-operative basis 
the products of the farmers round about. This would 
relieve persons who otherwise would be idle the 
larger part of each day, and enable them to do other 
work. 
THE TOURING CROWD.—As one watches the 
cars go by on the main-traveled highways one won¬ 
ders if there is anyone left at home to carry on af¬ 
fairs. The cars from the Far West are becoming 
more numerous as the season advances. The roads 
are lined with hikers wandering from city to city, 
trying to avoid work, or vaguely looking after a job. 
As many as a dozen able-bodied men may be counted 
any day along a mile stretch of these main highways. 
Cars from California are more numerous than ever 
before. Some of these Californians say the farmer 
and fruit grower in that State is hard hit, the lack 
of rain, the lack of snow in the mountains, and again 
the continued drought are having their effect. Some 
declare California is broke, and this not only comes 
from people returning from the Far West, but even 
Californians themselves are glum about conditions. 
Some declare the slaughter of 100,000 animals as the 
result of foot and mouth disease is simply graft on 
the part of State and Federal veterinarians; others 
declare that California’s live stock industry is bled 
white to save that of the nation. The lure of the 
West has but little attraction for the young farmer 
who has had opportunity to exchange first-hand con¬ 
versation Avitli tourists Avho have experienced West¬ 
ern conditions. One is inclined to agree that Horace 
Greeley should have altered his “Go West” to “Stay 
right at home on the old farm and build up and con¬ 
solidate your own community.”. observer. 
“A Little Farm Well Tilled” 
[We hear much about the dark and dismal side of 
farming from people who are located on large farms, in 
debt, or with poor credit, and often with poor equip¬ 
ment. Here is a more cheerful story from a man with 
two acres, every foot occupied. There are many like 
him.] 
START IN POULTRY.—I am Avriting you in re¬ 
gard to P. P., Connecticut, page 882, about 
“back to the land.” He has worked hard as a baker 
and should be able to take it easiei*, rather than 
starting harder on a 300-acre dairy farm, with 75 
head. Such a farm is great to own, but the overhead 
expense is too great for a man out of a baker shop, 
in comparison to the profit in it. Here is what I 
have done: During the Avar my father bought tAVO 
acres 4 y 2 miles from Hempstead, L. I„ in easy riding 
distance from NeAV York for automobilists, and start¬ 
ed with 400 pullets and 200 hens. On those he 
cleared $2,000 above feed expense, which gave him 
about $40 a Aveek to live and pay taxes, etc. The 
farm cost $5,600, Avitli 10-room house, barn; no poul¬ 
try house. We built a 70-ft. house and used the 
barn for our 000 birds. After the Armistice was 
signed, in March, my father passed away, leaving 
my mothef and I. Since then I carry about 1,000 
birds, say 600 pullets and 400 hens, and make a nice 
living out of them. 
EGGS ONLY. — I buy my chicks from a reliable 
place each year, saving the investment in incubator 
and my labor in caring for it, and only specialize in 
table eggs. Had my father lived Ave could have sold 
$500 AA’orth of vegetables to my Summer customers 
without any effort, but being alone I raise only for 
our own table on a patch about 25 by 75 ft., which 
gives three times more than Ave use, so we give our 
surplus to friends and use the remainder as green 
food for the poultry. I never let the birds out of the 
building, and believe in not too much room. I put 
250 to 300 in a building 30x16 ft., using five perches 
on the drop boards and, as usual, always have vis¬ 
itors say “They’re too croAvded,” but I keep it clean 
and get as many eggs in percentage as my neighbor¬ 
ing poultryman with 600 in a 100-ft. house. 
AN ECONOMICAL START.—My advice to P. P. 
is, don’t spend more than $5,000 for the place; don’t 
buy more than two acres, using one for house, garage 
and poultry-house, lawn and trees, and the other 
for a garden. Plant everything possible and get $500 
from that acre. Buy 500 or 600 pullets and about 
200 hens the first year, and Avork up a route in a 
good town in the Fall. Use lights, but not too heav¬ 
ily. Figuring very Ioav, the flock should turn in 
$1,200 profit at least, which should support the fam¬ 
ily the first year, considei'ing he has his OAvn garden. 
Then the next year he can buy more pullets, or else 
buy baby chicks if he thinks he can manage it. 
WORK FOR ONE MAN.—I find that 1,000 birds, 
A Raspberry Girl of New York 
grass to cut, a large garden, eggs to sell, care of 
car and minor jobs on this two-acre patch are enough 
for one man to do; also, as the birds fall off in pro¬ 
duction I kill some, selling them from $1 to $1.25 
per bird, privately, thus getting more than market 
price for my goods, and yet giving the consumer a 
better and more reasonable chick than from the 
butcher. c. v. garrison, jr. 
Nature Brings Waste Land Back 
OIL RECUPERATION. —Every observant person 
must be impressed Avith the recuperative powers 
of soil. When land is left neglected after being 
cropped to a finish, nature takes a hand in the game 
and proceeds to bring the soil back. We have all 
seen cases of this. The weeds, coarse grass, shrubs 
and young trees will take from the soil plant food 
which cultivated crops cannot assimilate. Then 
later when these rough crops are ploAved into the 
ground and lime is applied, or Avhere f hey are burned 
on the land Avith the ashes worked into the. soil, a 
reasonable crop can then be pi'oduced on the very 
land Avhieh failed but a few years before. We have 
just seen a notable illustration of the way nature 
provides for soil and attempts to bring it back to 
fertility. 
A USELESS BOAT.—A few years ago, looking 
from the Avindow of a railroad car, Ave noticed work¬ 
men building what seemed to be a large ship right in 
the middle of a cultivated field. A little stream ran 
through the field several hundred feet aAvay. but 
there seemed no possible chance for floating such a 
vessel as these Avorkmen Avere putting together. At 
first thought it seemed the most ridiculous and use¬ 
less labor in which human beings could engage. In 
Prescott’s “History of Mexico” we are told of a 
group of men who in traveling over the mountains 
found the remains of a large boat on the mountain¬ 
side, far above any possible lake or river. They 
thought at first that this must be evidence that, at 
one time, that entire country Avas covered with 
Avater. but investigation proved that it AA r as one of 
the boats built by Cortez in his attempts to capture 
the City of Mexico. As all know, his first attempt 
failed. He Avas driven out by the natives with great 
humiliation and loss. After a year or tivo he came 
back and determined to attack the city from the 
lake. A number of large boats were prepared over 
the mountains at some little distance from the lake. 
These Avere made in parts so that they could be put 
together later, and thousands of Indians were forced 
to carry these parts of the boats up the mountains, 
over the hills and down on the other side to the lake. 
Evidently the boat which these modern travelers 
found was one of these old vessels which had been 
abandoned on the march. 
A MAN-MADE LAKE. —These carpenters engaged 
in building a large vessel right in a cultivated field 
without any possible lake in sight, seemed to us en¬ 
gaged in perhaps the most useless labor Ave ever 
heard of, yet later a strong dam Ava<s thrown across 
the brook and there came a heavy fall of rain. Al¬ 
most before Ave knew it a pond Avas formed out of 
the Avater backed up by this dam, and within three 
months the vessel which Ave thought so useless was 
safely floating on a good-sized lake. It was intended 
as a reservoir to catch and hold the Avater running 
down out of our hills so that it might be filtered 
and sent on to the thirsty millions avIio live at the 
mouth of the Hudson. This great vessel safely 
floated about on this inland lake, and great engines 
and pumps Avere put at work to pump out mud and 
subsoil from the bottom of the pond. That is the 
modern way of digging a great hole in the ground. 
Formerly that dirt Avould all have been shoveled 
into a Avagon and hauled away, load after load, but 
this modern method of pumping out water and dirt 
together, and thus cleaning out the pond, has super¬ 
seded the older and slower method. 
A FIELD OF SUBSOIL. —Almost before Ave knew 
it a lake covering thousands of acres had been 
pumped out in this Avay to a considerable depth. The 
mud from the bottom of the pond AA’as pumped 
through a great pipe over an embankment and 
spread out over level land. One field in particular 
had always given a good crop of grass. The sour 
subsoil from the bottom of this lake was poured 
over it in the form of mud, until a layer several feet 
thick AA-as spread over the meadow. This sour and 
apparently worthless soil killed out the grass, and 
for years it stood there, a mass of mud in rain and 
hai'd. colorless brick, in time of dry weather. We all 
concluded that the productive power of the soil had 
been destroyed, for what could ever groiv out of 
that mud and brick formation? Slowly, however, as 
the years went by, weeds and grass began to appear 
in little clumps here and there, and there Avere evi¬ 
dently seeds in this soil which had not been de¬ 
stroyed by the water. No doubt the birds brought 
other seeds, and the wind blew them from other 
fields. At any rate, year after year, the green growth 
became thicker and thicker, until this year Ave Avei'e 
astonished to find a growth of coarse heavy grass 
more than tAA’o feet high over the entire soil. 
IMPROVING THE SOIL.—Now this is being 
plowed under, and it fills the hard soil with organic 
matter. Lime has been applied, Avith a quantity of 
phosphoric acid, and a corn crop is actually flour¬ 
ishing on this land, which a few years ago was 
looked upon as absolutely Avortbless for farm pur¬ 
poses. It is a striking illustration of the way in 
Avhieh apparently worthless land may be brought 
back into productive soil by the addition of organic 
matter and lime, and best of all is the fact that the 
land proceeds to do it itself Avithout great aid from 
man. 
Campaign Against Poison Ivy 
It seems to me that any financially able philan¬ 
thropist, or some inventive genius, or discerning chemist, 
would earn world-wide gratitude for a successful effort 
to produce a comparatively inexpensive compound that 
would eradicate poison ivy. This vile, pernicious weed 
is fast over-running the earth, one reason being that 
most people are deterred from fighting it because of its 
baneful effects on those who touch it, and with most 
people its poisonous effects are so very noxious that 
they simply leave it. alone in sheer self-defense. 
Of course, kerosene or salt will keep it down, pro¬ 
vided' either is applied in liberal quantities, but this is 
too expensive for any continued successful warfare of 
extermination. Something less expensive is needed. 
AV. J. DOTY. 
T is true that poison ivy is spreading all over the 
Eastern States. Much of it is found in pastures 
or neglected fields, Avhere little or no clearing is ever 
done. Without doubt the pest is gaining ground, 
and has become a menace to those who are not im¬ 
mune to it. Any campaign against it conducted by 
individual effort will not be likely to succeed. There 
will haA 7 e to be concerted, action, and perhaps some 
form of law in order to make headAvay against this 
nuisance. 
