1014 
7ht  RURAL.  NEW-YORKER 
August  4,  1923 
the  ground  in  curing  it  is  evident  that  the  product 
would  he  superior. 
1H)W  IK  IT  DONE? — With  these  considerations 
in  mind  Mr.  M'ason  and  Mr.  Helmer  have  spent 
many  years  in  trying  to  work  out  the  problem  and 
have  now  devised  a  practical  process.  The  green 
Alfalfa  is  taken  directly  from  the  mower  to  the 
evaporator.  Briefly  stated,  the  plan  consists  of  a 
loading  device  fitted  to  a  mower  winch  cuts  a  wide 
swath.  This  device  gathers  the  green  crop  from 
the  cutter-bar  directly  into  wagons  which  run  with 
a  hopper  bottom  and  move  through  the  field  by  the 
side  of  the  mower.  When  a  wagon  is  filled  in  this 
way  it  is  driven  to  the  curing  plant.  There  the 
green  grass  is  fed  mechanically  on  to  a  long  belt 
or  conveyor.  This  passes  slowly  through  a  drying 
chamber,  and  requires  about  32  minutes  to  pass 
through.  It,  requires  about  20  minutes,  depending 
upon  length  of  haul,  from  actual  cutting  until  the 
hay  is  turned  owt  at  the  end  of  the  drying  chamber 
completely  evaporated.  At  present,  coal  is  used 
for  fuel — the  heated  air  being  forced  through  the 
hay  as  it  passes  along  by  means  of  large  blower  fans. 
FACTORY  HAY-MAKING. — The  capacity  of  this 
device  is  said  to  be  large  and  the  process  is  con¬ 
tinuous.  It  could  be  run  through  the  day  or  just 
as  fast  as  the  green  Alfalfa  can  he  drawn  to  the 
drying  chamber.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  seems  to 
be  an  application  of  factory  methods  to  the  farm. 
Five  men  are  required  to  handle  the  apparatus. 
There  are  three  in  the  field  crew  to  cut  and  load 
the  grass  and  two  operating  at  the  plant;  the  work 
of  the  latter  being  practically  automatic.  This,  of 
course  is  a  great  labor  saving  over  the  sun-curing 
method.  While  this  process  is  working  effectively 
on  Mr.  Mason’s  farm  it  has  not  yet  been  introduced 
commercially.  We  think  there  are  great  possi¬ 
bilities  in  it,  especially  on  large  farms  and  in  sec¬ 
tions  where  Alfalfa  or  clover  can  be  grown,  yet 
where  the  weather  is  such  that  hay-making  becomes 
a  burden.  This  is  one  of  the  things  which  we  must 
account,  for  in  the  future,  and  evidently  one  of  the 
great  developments  which  in  the  future  will  make 
farming  more  of  a  factory  business  than  at  present. 
Skyscrapers  and  Their  Population 
|  Most,  of  our  people  live  in  what  is  known  as  the 
“open  country,”  with  plenty  of  elbow  room  and  a 
chance  to  move  around.  It  will  be  hard  for  some  of 
them  to  realize  how  closely  working  people  are  packed 
in  some  of  the  great  buildings  in  this  city.  In  order 
to  show  something  of  this  we  have  obtained  the  fol¬ 
lowing  figures.] 
HE  ground  area  occupied  by  the  Woolworth 
Building  amounts  to  about  29,500  square  feet. 
Although  a  recent  canvass  has  not  been  made,  it  is 
estimated  that  the  total  business  population  of  the 
building  would  be  about  1 2,000  people. 
The  ground  area  covered  by  the  'Singer  Building 
contains  27.273  square  feet.  The  census  of  the  build¬ 
ing,  taken  November  1,  1922,  showed  1,071  men.  and 
052  women,  a  total  of  2,323,  as  employed  or  doing 
business  in  the  building. 
The  ground  covered  by  the  Metropolitan  Building 
is  100,375  squre  feet,  and  its  business  population 
is  8,023. 
The  area  of  the  National  City  Bank  Building  in¬ 
side  55  Wall  street  building  lines  is  approximately 
30,900  square  feet.  There  are  approximately  2.500 
people  employed  in  this  building. 
The  Equitable  Building  occupies  the  entire  block 
bounded  by  Broadway,  Nassau,  Pine  and  Cedar 
streets,  containing  approximately  50,000  square  feet. 
The  building  is  40  stories  high  and  is  connected  by 
passageway  underground  with  the  Wall  Street  Sta¬ 
tion  of  the  Subway.  It  has  its  own  fire  and  police 
departments;  .also  self-contained  power  and  lighting 
plant.  The  building  has  63  elevators;  employs  500 
people  and  contains  1,225,000  rentable  feet,  and  pays 
to  the  city  of  New  York  approximately  $900,000 
taxes  yearly. 
The  Equitable  Building  in  New  York  is  the  largest 
office  building  in  the  world.  Now  and  then,  the  er¬ 
roneous  statement  is  made  that  the  General  Motors 
Building  in  Detroit  is  the  largest  building  in  the 
world.  But  that  is  not  so.  The  General  Motors 
Building,  however,  does  cover  a  larger  plot  of 
ground,  but  that  building  contains  only  20,000,000 
cubic  feet,  whereas  the  Equitable  Building  contains 
25,000,000  cubic  feet.  In  other  words,  the  Equitable 
Building  is  25  per  cent  larger  than  the  General 
Motors  Building. 
There  are  approximately  13,000  people  employed 
by  the  tenants  of  the  building.  There  are  approx¬ 
imately  90,000  people  carried  daily  on  the  elevators, 
and  it  is  estimated  that  about  200.000  people  pass 
to  and  fro  through  the  con-idors  every  day. 
Let  us  try  to  understand  what  this  means.  The 
ground  space  of  this  building  represents  about  one 
and  one-tenth  of  an  acre  of  land — but.  little  more 
than  a  garden  spot  on  most  farms.  There  are  13.000 
people  who  make  their  living  on  this  spot.  Count¬ 
ing  heads  of  families  as  representing  the  usual  num- 
ber  of  dependents,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  40,000  peo¬ 
ple  depend  for  their  living  on  wages  paid  out  on  this 
acre.  As  we  see,  about  200.000  people  pass  to  and 
fro  through  this  building.  A  few  comparative  figures 
will  show  what  this  means. 
In  all  of  the  United  States  there  are  but  32  cities 
with  a  population  greater  than  200,000.  The  entire 
A  colony  brooder  house  on  a  large  California  poultry 
farm.  We  might  call  it  a  chick  nursery. 
State  of  Nevada,  with  310,690  square  miles,  has  a 
population  of  only  77,407 ;  Wyoming  with  97,914 
square  miles,  has  a  total  population  of  194,402.  In 
10  days  there  will  pass  through  this  single  building 
twice  as  many  people  as  are  found  in  the  State  of 
Vermont.  The  population  of  Albany  Co.,  N.  Y.,  in¬ 
cluding  the  city,  is  1S6,106.  Take  the  stretch  of 
land  through  Central  New  York  with  its  population 
by  counties,  Tioga,  24.212;  Delaware,  42,744;  Sul¬ 
livan.  33,163;  Chenango,  34.969;  Schuyler,  13,098; 
Maryland  team,  winners  of  the  junior  dairy  cattle  judg¬ 
ing  contest  at  the  National  Dairy  Show  at  St.  Paul. 
Minn.,  last  October,  and  winners  of  the  international 
judging  contest  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  England,  July 
11.  Left  to  right :  Hubert  Snodgrass,  Charles  F.  Cush¬ 
ing  and  Richard  Wills.  All  17  years  of  age;  from 
Harford  County,  Maryland.  The  team  which  won  the 
contest  in  England  last  year  and  brought  the  gold  cup 
to  America  for  the  first  time  was  composed  of  boys 
from  Cecil  County,  Maryland,  who  had  previously  won 
the  national  live  stock  judging  contest  at  the  South¬ 
eastern  Fair  at  Atlanta.  The  team  which  went  abroad 
this  year  was  trained  by  County  Agent  B.  B.  Derrick 
of  Harford  County,  and  his  assistant,  George  R.  Stuntz. 
Mr.  Derrick  and  P.  W.  Chichester,  assistant  State  boys’ 
club  agent  for  the  University  of  Maryland  Extension 
Service,  accompanied  the  team. 
Otsego.  46,200 — there  are  fewer  people  in  all  this 
territory  than  the  crowds  which  surge  through  the 
gates  of  this  acre-field  on  Manhattan  Island  each 
day. 
Washing  on  Western  Soils 
GREAT  PROBLEM. — This  country  is  con¬ 
fronted  with  great  problems  of  various  kinds. 
It  would  seem  that  they  have  increased  since  the 
Great  War.  but  if  I  were  asked  to  name  what  I 
consider  the  greatest  problem  of  agriculture,  it 
would  be  one  that  we  have  always  had  with  us;  it 
is  the  washing  away  of  the  soil.  The  worst  thing 
about  it  is  that  there  seems  to  be  comparatively 
little  remedy.  We  have  the  problems  of  keeping 
up  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  of  drainage,  of  fighting 
various  insects  that  destroy  or  injure  our  crops ;  the 
problem  of  pi-ice,  that  of  cutting  down  the  altogether 
too  wide  margin  between  what  the  producer  gets  and 
the  consumer  pays;  the  problem  of  fair  transpor¬ 
tation  rates,  of  taxes,  and  good  government  in  gen¬ 
eral.  All  these  problems  we  can  in  a  way  get  at, 
and  may  hope  to  bring  about  improvements.  But 
the  problem  of  the  washing  away  of  the  soil  seems 
to  me  to  be  almost  hopeless.  I  suppose  that  those 
living  outside  the  prairie  section  of  our  country  may 
be  surprised  at  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  that  con¬ 
fronts  us  here. 
CHANGING  CONDITIONS— It  is  true  that  in  Illi¬ 
nois  the  greater  portion  of  the  land  is  so  level  that 
it  does  not  suffer  much  from  erosion.  Indeed,  when 
1  came  to  this  State  over  40  years  ago  the  great 
trouble  with  this  land  was  that  it  would  drown  out 
if  the  season  was  wet  in  the  Spring  as  it  usually 
was.  The  water  would  stand  between  the  corn  rows, 
the  hot  sun  would  come  out,  the  corn  would  turn 
yellow  and  be  a  practical  failure.  One  woman  who 
lived  oil  this  flat  land  used  to  say  that  every  drop 
of  rain  seemed  to  fall  on  her  heart.  But  times 
have  changed;  a  great  deal  of  this  flat  land  has 
been  tiled  and  the  land  has  gotten  drier  in  general. 
EROSION  ON  TIMBER  SOIL.— But  all  the  tim¬ 
ber  soil  of  the  prairie  States  is  subject  to  serious 
erosion.  Roughly  speaking  I  should  say  that  this 
comprised  something  like  one-fourth  of  the  whole. 
There  is  a  tremendous  power  in  water.  For  one 
thing  it  is  heavy,  as  we  learn  when  w-e  carry  a  pail 
of  it.  The  rain  comes  in  floods — much  faster  than 
the  soil  can  absorb  it;  it  seeks  the  lower  levels  and 
carries  away  some  of  the  best  soil  with  it.  No 
wonder  we  have  the  fertile  bottom  lands  along  all 
our  rivers.  Some  day  the  Mississippi  and  other 
rivers  entering  the  Gulf  are  going  to  fill  it  full  with 
the  soil  washed  from  the  farms  above.  It  will  not 
be  in  my  day,  and  it  may  take  thousands  of  years, 
but  it  is  going  to  be.  I  have  known  farms  to  be 
put  practically  beyond  further  cultivation  by  one 
great  rain.  I  knew  a  man  who  was  born  and  raised 
in  Kentucky.  He  left  there  when  a  young  man  and 
never  went  back  till  he  was  an  old  man.  He  could 
hardly  believe  his  eyes;  he  told  me  that  the  soil  of 
that  section  was  practically  gone. 
CONTROL  MEASURES.— What  can  be  done  to 
remedy  this  great  evil?  Something,  but  really  not 
very  much.  Of  course  all  this  washy  land  should 
be  kept  in  grass,  but  it  is  not  and  cannot  be  done. 
A  part  of  the  farm  must  be  cultivated.  The  level 
portion  is  often  fenced  off  into  small  fields,  but  this 
takes  lots  of  fence,  and  has  other  disadvantages. 
Where  this  washy  land  lies  next  to  the  prairie  it  can 
be  managed  by  cultivating  the  level  and  keeping 
the  other  for  pasture.  I  don't  say  but  what  some¬ 
thing  can  be  done  with  the  gullies  by  building  dams, 
or  by  filling  them  up  with  brush  or  straw.  But  it 
is  my  observation  that  one  is  likely  to  be  beaten  in 
the  end.  If  water  cannot  go  in  one  place  it  is 
likely  to  find  another.  I  lately  read  of  experiments 
being  made  by  terracing.  I  have  no  faith  what¬ 
ever  in  any  such  remedy.  It  seems  a  shame  that 
this  land  washes  the  way  it  does,  for  otherwise  it 
would  be  in  some  respects  the  best  land  we  have. 
It  is  the  only  land  for  fruit.  There  would  be  no 
trouble  if  only  the  rains  came  gently  and  not  in  such 
terrific  floods.  Last  Spring  was  the  worst  I  ever 
saw.  It  commenced  to  rain  the  last  of  February 
and  kept  it  up  till  about  the  middle  of  May.  No 
farming  could  be  done,  and  the  roads  were  quag¬ 
mires  with  no  bottom.  Then  it  turned  very  dry. 
This  kind  of  a  year  is  getting  to  be  typical.  All 
farmers  ought  to  go  to  heaven  when  they  die. 
A  DRAINAGE  QUESTION.— In  conclusion  I  want 
to  state  a  problem  that  is  worrying  me  and  possibly 
some  reader  may  be  able  to  offer  suggestions  that 
will  be  helpful.  I  have  a  run  that  goes  across  a 
pasture  for  40  rods.  It  used  to  be  not  more  than 
2  ft.  deep,  and  the  stock  had  no  difficulty  in  step¬ 
ping  across  it.  But  more  water  was  drained  into 
it  from  above,  and  the  last  two  or  three  years  it 
has  washed  out  till  it  is  now  6  ft.  deep  and  about 
10  ft.  across  at  the  top.  Water  sometimes  comes 
down  that  would  fill  a  2  or  3  ft.  tile.  Now  by  build¬ 
ing  four  or  five  dams  I  could  fill  up  this  run, 
provided  I  could  manage  the  water.  If  it  ran  over 
the  dams  holes  Avould  be  gouged  out.  If  it  did  not 
run  over  it  would  cut  a  channel  around.  I  see  no 
way  out  of  it  except  at  a  very  great  expense.  If 
anyone  has  solved  a  similar  problem  I  would  like 
to  know  of  his  method.  o.  J.  B. 
Illionis. 
