794 
The  RURAL.  NEW-YORKER 
June  2.  1923 
Uncle 
Farm  Business 
Office 
AND  SELLING  CROrS.— 
'a son,  as  usual,  it  has  been 
to  raise  crops  than  to  sell 
The  part  that  goes  to  mar- 
lie  part  that  brings  whatever 
ity  comes  to  the  farm  or.  for 
that  matter,  to  the  rest  of  the  country.  The  market 
end  is  a  great  problem  and  a  host  of  pther  business 
questions  are  joined  to  it.  Here  is  where  a  well- 
known  branch  of  the  Department  ,of  Agriculture 
steps  in.  TTncle  Sam’s  business  office  is  called  the 
Bureau  of  Agricultural  Economics.  It  is  made  up 
of  the  old  divisions  of  Crops,  Markets  and  Farm 
Management;  the  combination  allows  the  work  to 
be  carried  along  more  smoothly  and  probably  tends 
to  accomplish  somewhat*more  with  the  money  spent. 
ASK  WASHINGTON', — Here  are  some  of  the 
things  the  farm  business  bureau  tries  to  find  out  for 
the  farmers.  If  you  wish  to  know  more,  ask  Wash¬ 
ington :  How  to  organize;  how  to  grade  and  put  up 
products;  how  to  follow  the  markets:  how  to  sell; 
what  is  the  crop  situation;  how  about  the  outlook 
in  foreign  markets.  There  are  many  kinds  of  in¬ 
vestigations  going  on  in  farm  values,  labor,  manage¬ 
ment,  rents,  taxation,  credits,  mortgages,  tariff,  legal 
questions,  standards  of  living,  and  other  matters, 
all  related  to  the  farmers’  interests  and  described  in 
a  number  of  bulletins  which  may  be  had  on  request. 
Find  out  what  they  are;  ask  for  a  list  of  the  Bureau 
publications.  Not  every  farmer  cares  to  go  into 
these  general  subjects  for  himself,  but  sooner  or 
later  he  will  get  the  substance  of  them  through  the 
Grange  and  club  meetings,  the  institute  lectures  and 
the  agent  of  the  County  Bureau. 
MARKET  NEWS. — The  free  market  reports  show 
the  actual  price  range  all  over  the  country,  and  how 
much  more  stuff  is  coming.  Placing  the  markets 
side  by  side  a  shipper  can  see  how  things  are  going, 
and  can  reckon  about  what  his  own  produce  should 
sell  for.  Next  thing  is  to  sell  at  the  right  time  and 
place,  and  here  the  market  reports  will  help  some¬ 
what  as  the  farmer  becomes  used  to  comparing  mar¬ 
kets.  of  course  the  dealer  gets  the  reports,  too,  and 
is  helped  to  sell,  but  that  helps  to  move  the  crop. 
Anyhow,  there  is  no  longer  any  great  mystery  and 
bluffing  about  the  situation.  The  farmer  can  know 
as  much  as  the  dealer. 
the  WIRELESS. — The  radio  service  sprang  up 
overnight.  The  first,  thing  heard  of  it  a  few  Western 
sections  were  getting  concerts,  speeches  and  Chicago 
prices  in  the  farm  homes  up  in  the  mountains  far 
away  from  railroads,  with  not  even  telephone  lines 
available.  It,  appealed  to  the  imagination.  The 
’way,  ’way  back  farm,  for  a  few  minutes  at  least, 
had  been  moved  closer  to  the  city  than  most  of  the 
city  homes.  The  movement  -spread  like  magic,  and 
now  millions  of  country  people  are  receiving  con¬ 
densed  reports  of  the  day’s  market.  Reports  are 
broadcast  almost  everywhere,  and  those  who  have 
no  radio 'set  may  read  the  reports  on  store  bulletins 
or  in  the  local  paper,  or  get  them  by  telephone  from 
the  nearest  receiver;  only  the  main  facts,  of  course, 
but  the  situation  is  far  different  from  the  time  when 
the  local  buyer  used  to  tell  the  farmer  that  grain 
was  going  down,  while  the  feed  store  man  told  him 
it  was  going  up,  and  there  was  no  way  to  know 
which  was  right. 
NEW  PROBLEMS.  —  Some  new  problems  have 
come  along,  and  old  ones  are  looming  up  again  since 
the  war,  which  makes  it  needful  for  the  farmer  and 
his  advisers  to  dig  into  the  marketing,. subject  as 
never  before  in  recent  times.  Rapid  ups  and  downs 
in  price  | level,  greater  cost  of  raising  and  selling, 
higher  freights,  higher  charges  by  middlemen,  un¬ 
settled  foreign  demand,  lessened  immigration,  ne\A 
developments  in  co-operation,  all  need  a  lot  of  study 
and  thought,  with  all  the  facts  together,  before  they 
can  be  handled  right.  Any  farmer  can  put  ques¬ 
tions  that  no  man  can  answer,  and  can  ask  help 
that  no  government  can  supply,  but  the  folks  at 
Washington  seem  to  be  doing  their  best  to  meet 
reasonable  expectations,  and  probably  they  are  bet¬ 
ter  equipped  to  do  it.  than  any  other  people.  They 
are  our  hired  men  and  the  best  we  have  been  able 
to  find.  Let’s  all  work  together.  g.  b.  f. 
Reforming  An  Old  Pasture 
At  this  season  of  the  year  we  have  many  ques¬ 
tions  very  much  like  the  following : 
Some  person  has  a  small  piece  of  ground,  Dom 
one  to  three  acres,  which  has  been  out  of  culti¬ 
vation  for  a  long  time,  and  is  covered  with  weeds, 
moss  and  a  small  amount  of  inferior  grass.  It  does 
not  give  any  amount  of  feed  in  its  present  condi¬ 
tion,  and  grows  up  so  thick  with  weeds  that  it  be¬ 
comes  an  eyesore.  These  people  want  to  know  if 
they  cannot  have  this  land  plowed  and  make  it  pro¬ 
duce  a  large  crop  of  some  kind  of  feed.  They  seem 
to  think  that  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  plow  the  land 
The  Backyard  Gardener  Up  Front 
THE  backyard  gardener  has  come  to  be  a  perma¬ 
nent  institution  in  most  of  our  towns  and  cities. 
A  picture  of  one  of  them  ( R.  1*.  Parker  of  Chicago  ) 
is  shown  at  Fig.  310,  also  a  corner  of  his  “farm.” 
This  is  what  he  says  about  it : 
Fig. "310  is  a  snapshot  to  prove  that  “it  can  be  done” 
in  the  city  as  well  as  in  ihe  country — tomato  vines  0 
feet  high  and  tomatoes  up  to  2  lbs.  in  weight  on  my 
.">0x1 50  ft.  I  have  besides  an  eight-room  house  and 
garage,  two  cherry  trees,  three  apple  trees,  four  kinds 
of  currants,  six  kinds  of  grapes,  an  asparagus  bed,  32 
peony  bushes,  besides  plenty  of  space  for  more  than  all 
the  garden  truck  than  we  can  eat;  and  flowers  bloom 
from  snow  until  snow. 
Intensive  farming?  Yes,  but  I  feel  better  and  have 
a  lot  of  fun  as  well  as  good  eats.  I  have  no  quarrel 
with  the  golfers,  but  if  they  would  try  a  little  intensive 
farming  they  would  find  that  it  can  be  done,  and  life 
is  just  that  much  more  worth  the  living.  Raised  in 
Central  New  YTork  on  a  farm.  I’m  not  sorry  that  I  have 
carried  the  farm  to  the  city,  and  I  read  your  paper  with 
as  much  interest  as  ever.  R.  P.  Parker. 
Some  of  these  backyard  farmers  make  every 
square  inch  of  soil  count,  and  the  crops  they  grow 
are  remarkable.  If  every  farmer  made  bis  acres 
perform  the  way  these  men  handle  their  square 
yards — but  that  would  be  like  the  way  some  of  these 
poultry  boomers  figure.  If  one  ben  lays  250  eggs  a 
year  and  the  average  price  is  six  cents  an  egg.  10 
men  each  keeping  5,000  hens  will  own  the  entire 
country  in  one  generation. 
and  fit  it.  throw  in  the  seed,  then  sit  by  while  the 
crop  grows  and  makes  a  large  quantity  of  hay  or 
grain.  In  many  cases  such  idle  ground  can  be  made 
quite  useful,  but  no  one  ever  did  it  without  plenty 
of  hard  work  and  considerable  expense  for  lime, 
fertilizer  and  seed.  Such  land  is  generally  sour, 
full  of  roots  and  well  filled  with  white  grubs.  It  is 
practically  impossible  to  make  it  produce  properly 
without  a  good  dressing  of  lime  and  a  considerable 
use  of  manure  and  fertilizer.  Anyone  who  starts 
in  to  reform  such  land  without  realizing  the  truth 
of  that  statement  will  certainly  come  to  grief.  If 
we  wanted  to  make  such  old  soil  productive  we 
should  have  it  plowed  as  soon  as  possible  and  hire 
someone  who  would  do  a  good  job,  plowing  deep, 
and  turning  the  furrows  so  as  to. hide  the  weeds 
and  grass  completely.  Then  we  should  put  on  lime¬ 
stone  at  the  rate  of  one  ton  to  the  acre,  or  burned 
lime,  1.200  lbs.  to  the  acre.  Have  this  thoroughly 
worked  into  the  ground.  We  would  not  use  such  a 
tool  as  a  spring-tooth,  as  it  would  rip  up  too  much 
of  the  old  sod,  but  have  the  land  well  stirred  with 
a  peg-tooth  harrow  or  an  Acme. 
We  should  put  about  one-third  of  the  land  into 
Japanese  millet  broadcast,  using  about  20  lbs.  of 
seed  to  the  acre,  and  at  least  at  the  rate  of  350  lbs. 
of  some  high-grade  fertilizer.  We  should  put  an¬ 
other  third  of  the  land  into  fodder  corn.  That 
means  corn  thickly  seeded  in  drills  or  furrows  3  feet 
apart.  The  other  third  we  should  put  into  some 
large  growing  variety  of  Soy  bean,  using  at  the  rate 
of  400  lbs.  of  good  fertilizer  on  both  beans  and  corn. 
We  should  have  these  crops  thoroughly  cultivated 
five  or  six  times  during  the  season,  and  at  the  last 
cultivation  (about  the  middle  of  August)  we  should 
seed  rye  and  Alsike  clover  right  among  the  corn 
and  beans,  and  have  them  worked  in  with  a  light 
cultivator.  If  stock  is  kept  through  the  Summer  the 
grain,  corn,  beans  and  millet  can  be  cut  from  time 
to  time  to  feed  the  stock.  The  rest  we  should  cut 
and  hold  for  Winter  fodder.  In  most  cases  the  peo¬ 
ple  who  have  such  a  piece  of  land  have  one  or  two 
cows  and  some  hens.  As  soon  as  the  millet  is  fit  for 
hay  we  should  cut  it,  take  it  off  the  ground,  have 
the  land  plowed  again,  and  seed  to  a  combination  of 
buckwheat  and  Alsike  clover.  The  buckwheat  may 
be  harvested  at  the  proper  time  and  put  under  cover, 
or  it  may  he  left  in  the  field  with  the  liens  turned 
in  to  pick  the  buckwheat  themselves.  Next  Spring 
the  rye  and  Alsike  clover  will  come  on  and  give  a 
new  crop  of  fodder,  or  they  can  be  turned  under  and 
other  crops  planted  to  good  advantage.  That  is  the 
way  in  which  many  of  these  old  pasture  and  worn- 
out  fields  have  been  started  back  into  prosperity. 
It  will  be  nonsense  to  try  to  develop  such  ground 
without  the  use  of  lime  and  fertilizer. 
Suitable  Cover  Crop  for  a  Vineyard 
What  is  the  best  thing  to  use  as  a  cover  crop  in  a 
vineyard?  Is  there  any  value  in  buckwheat  for  this 
use?  ‘  M.  w.  F. 
Braucbport,  N.  Y. 
SEVERAL  years’  trials  with  many  green  manure 
crops  for  the  vineyard  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  golden  millet,  all  things  considered,  is  most 
desirable.  As  this  is  a  non-legume  nothing  is  gained 
that  was  not  already  in  the  soil,  but  this  crop  each 
season  indicates  from  its  growth  that  it  is  taking 
up  soil  nitrates  applied  early  in  the  season  which 
in  an  open  soil  might  be  lost  to  the  vine  after  it  lias 
completed  its  leaf  and  shoot  growth  in  late  Summer. 
This  millet  germinates  well  and  makes  a  quick 
growth,  so  that  by  the  close  of  the  season  it  lias, 
under  ordinary  conditions,  reached  a  height  of  two 
or  more  feet.  If  the  vineyard  is  not  subject  to  wash¬ 
ing  the  millet  can  be  turned  to  good  advantage  in 
the  Fall,  but  even  when  left  until  Spring  the  ground 
is  literally  covered  with  a  layer  of  straw  that  can 
be  readily  covered  by  the  plow. 
Golden  millet  is  one  of  the  most  economical  crops 
to  seed,  as  three  pecks  per  acre  are  sufficient  to  give 
a  very  thick  stand.  In  1922  it  cost  but  98  cents  to 
seed  an  acre  of  vineyard  with  millet.  Some  objec¬ 
tion  has  been  made  that  a  high  stand  of  this  crop 
might  make  harvesting  disagreeable  for  the  pickers, 
but  this  difficulty  has  been  overcome  by  going 
through  tlie  rows  with  a  lump  crusher  or  a  stone 
boat  just  previous  to  picking  those  rows.  The  millet 
is  flattened  to  the  ground,  and  instead  of  being 
objectionable  it  serves  to  furnish  better  footing 
under  wet  and  muddy  conditions. 
Buckwheat  and  other  crops  probably  possess 
value  when  turned  down  in  the  vineyard,  but  it  is 
very  difficult  to  measure  their  good.  f.  e.  g. 
We  understand  that  Michigan  has  a  law  which 
makes  it  au  offense  for  a  man  to  cut  down  a  road 
tree  without  State  permission. 
Honey  bees  may  now  be  imported  from  Canada — 
and  no  one  will  be  “stung.” 
