Wx RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1575 
know; probably about 75 lbs. What we do with this 
about equals throwing it away. Would this quantity 
justify me in making special arrangements for drying 
this and grinding for fertilizer? If so, kindly advise 
how to do it, what sort of building, etc. I understand 
it is kept by putting down a gathering of manure and 
spreading enough 16 per cent acid phosphate to hold 
ammonia. IIow much would that be? w. u. M. 
Virginia. 
T HIS! question comes up again and again. Some¬ 
times new subscribers ask it; in other cases our 
old readers ask us to re-write former articles. It 
The Baby Elephant Champion Apple Eater 
The Blind Girls Help Reduce the Surplus 
Playing the Apple-on-the-striny Game 
is an important matter, and well worth attention. 
It will certainly pay to take care of the droppings 
from 3,000 birds. Such droppings will represent 
several hundred dollars worth of chemicals, and if 
the droppings are properly handled they will be 
about as effective as any possible fertilizer. Hen 
manure is valued chiefly for the ammonia which it 
contains. This ammonia is in a form which may 
easily be lost unless care is taken to preserve it. As 
is well known, the most available forms of nitrogen 
in manure are found in the liquid. In the large ani¬ 
mals the liquids are produced separately from the 
solids, but in the hen the two are voided together, 
and this will largely account for the extra value of 
droppings is to dry them as rapidly as possible and 
keep them thoroughly dry through the Winter. In 
some cases it is more convenient to clean the hen¬ 
house regularly and carry the droppings immedi¬ 
ately to the field or garden and spread them over the 
ground. Generally, however, it is more profitable to 
keep them through the Winter thoroughly dry and 
then mix them with the proper chemicals. 
First of all we should use some dry material on 
the boards under the perches. Land 
plaster, otherwise known as gypsum or 
sulphate of lime, is very good for this 
purpose. It dries the manure quickly 
and is somewhat effective in retaining 
the ammonia. Acid phosphate is fre¬ 
quently used for this purpose. There 
has been some complaint of sore feet in 
the hens when this phosphate was 
freely used. Dry road dust, taken up 
when the roads are perfectly dry, and 
stored under cover, is good. Sifted 
coal ashes are also used, but wood 
ashes should never be used for this 
purpose. We have known of cases where 
‘■floats” or finely ground phosphate 
rock has been used to advantage. 
Some of these materials should be scat¬ 
tered under the perches once a day, 
and the manure scraped up as fre¬ 
quently as possible. It may be kept 
over Winter in a large heap under 
cover if desired, but we find that it 
keeps better when stored in barrels or 
boxes so as to give a good circulation 
of air around it. The point is to keep 
it perfectly dry through the Winter. 
After that is done, in the Spring, the 
manure will be found in hard, dry 
lumps or chunks. In order to get the 
best out of the manure, these chunks 
should be crushed as line as conveni¬ 
ent. There are special grinding mills 
made for doing this work, or the 
chunks may be smashed by putting 
them on a concrete floor and beating 
them with a heavy stick or hammer. 
Many farmers smash them as well as 
they can in this way, and then run the 
manure through a wire screen, crush¬ 
ing the larger lumps the second time. 
Having made the manure as fine as 
possible, it can be used alone, or more 
effectively by mixing it with.chemicals. 
A mixture of 7 lbs., by weight, to 3 lbs. 
of acid phosphate will make a good 
fertilizer for grain and similar crops. 
If a more active fertilizer is required, 
used on grass or as a quick stimulant 
for any crop, 1 lb. of nitrogen added 
to the 10 lbs. of manure and phosphate 
will ho effective. Some gardeners who 
want a thoroughly balanced fertilizer 
can add 1 lb. of muriate of potash to 
the 7 lbs. of manure, 3 lbs. of phos¬ 
phate and 1 lb. of nitrate. This will 
make a good mixture for all kinds of 
garden crops or for truck farming. Of 
course, all this requires considerable 
work, but where one is raising garden 
crops or potatoes, the mixing of the 
chemicals will pay. For ordinary grain 
and similar crops, the simple mixture 
of manure and phosphate will give sat¬ 
isfaction. It is of course much easier 
simply to shovel out the manure, haul 
it direct to the ground and scatter it, 
but the combination of manure with 
chemicals will surely pay, if one lias a 
garden or desires to raise truck farm¬ 
ing crops. In several cases poultry- 
men are using this manure to make a 
fertilizer mixture which they offer for 
sale. Such mixtures give good results for fruit and 
garden crops, and add quite a little to the Income 
from poultry. At your figures there would be not 
far from 15 tons of dried manure a year. With the 
chemicals added this would bring at least $500 if 
put on sale. 
Thebe is some renewed interest in the growing of 
.T. H. Hale peaches since the chief reason for its failure 
has been shown. The flower is imperfect. There must 
be some strong flowers of other varieties near it. Prof. 
Blake of New Jersey says the tree of .T. II. Hale is 
naturally weak, and he thinks the fine qualities of this 
variety will be best carried on by seedlings. Others 
believe it will “come back” when properly mated. 
W. F. Allen suggests Hiley as the proper pollenizer. 
In Michigan, South Haven or Kalamazoo did well. 
at a little distance. "Whether the horse's struggles 
to get up annoyed the bees, or whether they objected 
to her color, or whether by some subtle sense they 
recognized her dying condition and were angered by 
it I do not know. Perhaps her thrashing jarred the 
hives and the bees flew at first thing seen. H. r. s. 
An Education in Apple Eating 
T HE pictures on this page show 
some of the things attempted in 
New York during “National Apple 
Week” in the campaign to encourage 
apple eating. The fruit was donated 
by the International Apple Shippers’ 
Association. The American baseball 
players came back from Europe with 
the report that it will hardly be pos¬ 
sible to interest adults on the other 
side in our great national game. 
Grown-up people are too fixed in their 
habits to take up new sports. The way 
to put baseball over in Europe is to 
begin with the children in school and 
train them into “fans” from the begin¬ 
ning. 
There was an a pple-on-th e-string 
much the same with apple eating. 
Nearly everyone likes to eat a good 
apple, but few adults have the habit 
so firmly fixed that they are unhappy 
unless they can have three good-sized 
apples a day. That is the limit we 
are striving for in order to provide a 
market for all our fruit. We must 
look to the school children to provide 
this future market. Comfort them now 
with apples and they will pick up the 
habit. The pictures show some of the 
things that happened during “Apple 
Week” in New York. 
There was an apple-on-the string 
contest at the Boys’ Club, Avenue A 
and East 10th St. As we see, the ap¬ 
ples were hung on strings and the boys 
proceeded to gnaw them, without using 
the hands. This was like an agreeable 
acid long drawn out. Several hundred 
youngsters, all the way from Arme¬ 
nians to Swedes, “bit into the air” in 
their struggles for a morsel of apple, 
and every 'bite will be good for a bar¬ 
rel of apples some time in the future. 
Another picture shows a group of 
blind girls on the roof of the “Light¬ 
house” in East 50th St. These blind 
girls earn their livelihood at this place, 
and a box of apples was supplied for 
their recreation hour. Here are more 
apple eaters of the future. And what may be called 
the big guns or heavy artillery of apple eating may 
be seen in the other picture. This baby elephant at 
the Zoo came close to being the champion apple eater 
of the city, and got through the performance with¬ 
out any colic. Yes, indeed, the future of the apple 
market lies in the hands or mouths of the younger 
generation. Give them all the apples they can eat. 
Chicken Manure and Chemicals 
We keep something over 3,000 layers, and droppings 
boards are cleaned every morning except Sunday. I 
judge about 200 lbs. of droppings are taken off every 
day : that is, wet; what it would weigh dry I do not 
Softening Bones for Fertilizer 
On page 1535 is a question about bones for fertilizer.. 
I think I can say something helpful. Take box right 
size, put in 4 in. wood ashes, moisten 
them well to wet through, I think. I’ut 
on layer of bones, then 4 in. wood ashes, 
moisten them. In six or eight weeks 
bones are so soft one could pull them to 
pieces with fingers. o. e. kingsbuby. 
New Hampshire. 
T HIS plan has been tried by a good 
many farmers. The softer bones 
are well broken up in this way, but the 
harder bones, like the legs and shoul¬ 
ders ahd heads, are not greatly im¬ 
proved. Those hard bones should be 
broken up with a heavy sledge, if pos¬ 
sible. before putting them in the ashes. 
Really there is no easy way of prepar¬ 
ing these hard bones short of grinding 
or the use of acid. Liquid manure is 
better than water for wetting the 
ashes. Mixing the broken bones with 
inoculated sulphur and soil is more 
effective than the wet ashes treatment. 
