310 
Planter Profits 
A FTER you have spent weeks behind the 
plow, the disk, and the harrow—after 
^ your fields have been worked down to a 
perfect seed bed—then comes the time to make 
planter profits. Big yields are largely the result 
of perfect planting—every hill in its place and 
every hill a full hill. Year after year the profits 
of good planting follow 
International and C B & Q 
Corn Planters 
They plant accurately and evenly whether set for 
checking, drilling or power drop. Without stopping 
the team the variable clutch can be set to plant 2, 3, 
or 4 kernels to the hill. Edge, flat, and full hill 
plates interchange in the same hopper. The automatic 
markers require no attention. Valve mechanism is so 
carefully fitted and so accurately timed that missing 
and stringing are entirely eliminated. 
The tongue adjustment for leveling the boots 
insures an even cross check. Fertilizer attachments 
always available. 
This year, pocket the profits of good planting by 
using an International or C B &z Q Corn Planter. 
See your McCormick-Deering dealer and 
write for our catalog 
International Harvester Company 
CHICAGO 
OF AMERICA 
(incorporated) 
USA 
93 Branch Hottses and 15,000 Dealera in the United States 
METCALFS QUAUTY SEEDS 
Red Clover 
Per Bushel 
of 60 Lbs. 
Metcalf’s Recleaned, Medium.$16.00 
Metcalf’s Recleaned, Mammoth 
(Genuine). 16.50 
Indiana Grown 
Alfalfa 
Per Bushel 
of 60 Lbs. 
Metcalf’s Recleaned. 
Grimm Alfalfa, Certified . 
Domestic Grown 
.$15.00 
. 30.00 
Alsike 
Per Bushel 
of 60 Lbs. 
Metcalf’s Recleaned.. 
.$13.00 
Sweet Clover 
' Per Bushel 
of 60 Lbs. 
Metcalf’s Recleaned 
som. Scarified.... 
White 
Blos- 
. $9.50 
Timothy 
Metcalf’s Recleaned. 
Timothy & Alsike Mixed 
Metcalf's Recleaned. 
20% Alsike 
Miscellaneous 
Red Top, Heavy Seed. 
Best Orchard Grass. 
Fancy Kentucky Blue Grass. 
Canada Blue Grass. 
Sudan Grass. 
Winter Hairy Vetch. 
All Bags Free. Freight prepaid on 200-11). shipments, or over. 
Per Bushel 
of 45 Lbs. 
$4.00 
Per Bushel 
of 45 Lbs. 
$4.50 
Per Lb. 
. .26 
. .21 
. .35 
. .28 
. 25 
. .20 
Our ambition is to see how cheap we can sell the best SEED obtainable. 
B. F. METCALF & SON, Inc., 216-216i West Genesee St., Syracuse, N. Y. 
ALONEV Guaranteed TREES 
VINES, BERRIES, ROSES, SHRUBS 
Maloney Trees are guaranteed true to name 
and free from disease by the largest nursery 
growers in New York State. For 39 years we 
have beep in business here in Dansville and 
today are able to ship you direct better trees 
than ever before because we are constantly 
studying to improve our methods. 
We recognize our responsibility to the fruit grower and 
we have this Spring issued a novel Catalog that tells the 
things you ought to know about our business. Write 
for your free copy. No order is too big or too small for 
us to handle personally. 
Send today for Free Catalog 
We Prepay Transportation Charges on All Orders over $7.50 
MALONEY BROS. NURSERY CO.. Inc., 64 Main Street, Dansville, N. Y. 
We re responsible; look tip our rating Dansville Pioneer Nurseries 
American Agriculturist, April 7,'l,923 
As I View Long Island 
Where Farmers Do Things Differently 
I T was a good many 
years ago — so long 
ago that the incidents and impressions 
are becoming pretty indistinct in my 
memory—that I first went out on Long 
Island for Farm Institute work, and, 
from time to time during the interven¬ 
ing years, I have 
had the opportu¬ 
nity to see and 
study the agri¬ 
culture of this 
entirely unique 
section of our 
State, and just in 
early March I 
went again. Now, 
I do not want to 
slander the I s - 
land. I have been 
over it from end 
to end, and from 
side to s i d e , by 
train and auto- 
mobile, but it 
seems to me that 
about half of it 
is scrub oak and 
scrub pine, of which every acre looks 
exactly like every other acre. It is 
strange, it seems almost unbelievable, 
that within 30 miles of the giant city 
and in a region which has been settled 
almost from the earliest years of this 
country, deer still run wild. Prob¬ 
ably Suffolk County has more continu¬ 
ous area of woodland than any section 
of our State outside of the Adirondacks. 
Made by a Glacier 
T he geologists say that the island 
represents about the most southerly 
advance of the ice sheet during the gla¬ 
cial epoch. The backbone of the island 
is really a terminal moraine—a deposit 
of sand and grav¬ 
el ground up by 
the ice and re¬ 
worked by wave- 
action in the At¬ 
lantic. Much of 
this gravel is so 
coarse and has so 
little available 
fertility and such 
slight water- 
holding capacity 
that it is almost 
valueless for ag¬ 
ricultural p u r - 
poses. Parts of 
the region are 
made up of grav¬ 
el so coarse and 
open that the 
rain sinks down 
through it in¬ 
stead of running 
off, and hence 
there are no per¬ 
manent streams. 
Much of the is¬ 
land carries a 
low, scrubby for- 
est growth, 
mostly oak and 
pine. In it there 
are clearings 
with clusters of shabby little houses 
where a class of strange and hardy 
denizens make their homes. 
The most distinctive and profitable 
use of these pine-barren areas is to 
“put them out for sucker-bait.” It 
seems to be a highly developed form of 
obtaining money under false pretense, 
and yet, upon the whole, it is within the 
law.' In brief, the procedure is to ac¬ 
quire a tract of land—where it is or 
what it is good for doesn’t matter—pro¬ 
ceed to organize a development project, 
cut some “avenues” through the pine 
brush, in some cases even going so far 
as to lay a little shoddy concrete side¬ 
walk, and then proceed to sell'building 
lots to any sucker that can be induced 
to bite. 'There may be a forlorn shack 
or two somewhere within sight. 
Where Land Sharks Thrive 
I N the city office of the pi’oject these 
wildernesses will be represented by 
beautiful maps with romantically 
named avenues and glowing literature 
setting forth the advantages of every 
man owning his own villa and sitting 
under his own- vine and fig tree while 
his brow is fanned by the pine-scented 
and health-bringing breezes of the island 
land. The buyers are 
suckers indeed. Some¬ 
times the promoters run free excur¬ 
sions with free entertainment thrown 
in as a special indi^cement to decoy 
the suckers in large numbers. The 
whole business is either funny or pa¬ 
thetic, according to how you look at it. 
Of course, it is only the initial pay¬ 
ment that they are interested in. 
I am told that a very large part of 
the county court business in Suffolk 
County is the sale of these holdings for 
back taxes, and in many cases it is im¬ 
possible to obtain any offer for the 
property. It is an interesting commen¬ 
tary upon the helplessness of some city 
men when they come to deal with rural 
things, and it is also a question if our 
laws ought not to give some sort of pro¬ 
tection for these babes in the woods 
who are simply the prey of unscrupu¬ 
lous sharpers. 
Changes Taking Place Rapidly 
O F course, in a region lying close to a 
great city like New York, where real 
estate is very active, sweeping changes 
are taking place. There are parts of 
the island where land values, even in 
big acreage, are very high. This is 
true of the fashionable locations such 
as the Wheatly Hills, the water front 
on the South Shore and the Shinne- 
cock Hills. 
Many of us will remember in our old 
school history the statement that Man¬ 
hattan Island was once purchased for 
the equivalent of $24.00. Well, I was 
told that a big part of the Shinnecock 
Hills was once bartered for a yoke of 
steers. I might add that from a strictly 
agricultural standpoint, the man who 
swapped away the steers got “stuck.” 
Now it is said that a syndicate has 
taken over a part 
of them for six 
hundred t h o u- 
sand dollars. 
Somehow — I 
cannot tell why— 
these low, round¬ 
ed hills are total¬ 
ly different from 
the rest of the is¬ 
land, and have a 
strange, restful 
beauty all their 
own. I don’t 
wonder that rich 
men like to crown 
them with won¬ 
derful homes. 
There is one 
natural feature 
of the island so 
unusual that it 
constitutes one 
of the riddles of 
geology. Some 20 
miles east of 
Brooklyn and 
covering an area 
some five or six 
miles square is 
an almost per- 
f e c 11 y level re¬ 
gion known as 
Hempstead Plains. The interesting 
feature is that it is entirely treeless 
and covered with a tough sod. A con¬ 
dition like this is so unusual outside 
of the Mississippi Valley that it has 
been accounted for in various ways. 
One theory was that the land had been 
cleared, possibly by Indians or by. white 
men, so long ago that the very mem¬ 
ory of it has been forgotten. 
Still a Problem 
EN who have studied the Plains in 
the light of geology and botany are 
agreed that this is an area that “was 
captured by the grasses at the close 
of the glacial epoch, and they have 
held it so tenaceously that tree growth 
has never been able to establish itself.” 
Of course, this is nothing more than 
occurred on hundreds of thousands of 
square miles in the prairie states, but 
then one does hot expect natural prairie 
on the Atlantic Coast. The Plains have 
a surface soil that is dark in color and 
looks fertile, but (they tell me it is not. 
The subsoil is coarse, open gravel, and 
their agricultural value is low. 
Now, I do not wish to convey the 
idea that Long Island is only a strip of 
sand and gravel and scrub wqodland. 
By J. VAN WAGENEN,JR. 
J. VAN WAGENEN, JR. 
AS THE UP-STATER SEES IT 
T his is the first of two articles by 
Mr. Van Wagenen on Long Island, 
its agriculture and its people. Mr. Van 
Wagenen has visited Long Island many 
times and has had the opportunity to 
view practically every representative 
feature of the Island. The agriculture 
of Long Island is radically different 
than that of any other part of New 
York State. Its farmers take more of 
a gambler’s chance than the average 
farmer. When their crops are ready, 
they have to sell whether the market 
is good or not, for few if any of their 
crops can be held for a better price. 
It is a simple matter of trusting to 
Providence. They handle perishable 
products, produced on high-priced land 
with purchased food. Although the up- 
stater’s farm income is not as great, 
it is more certain than that of the 
Long Islander who either makes big 
money or loses heavily. Mr. Van 
Wagenen’s second article on Long Is¬ 
land will deal with some of its people. 
