361 
American Agriculturist, November 24 , 1023 
A. A. Readers Wrote This Page 
Farm Business, The Church Situation and Fire Hazards Come Under Discussion 
I WAS very much interested in your 
leading article on the editorial page 
of one of your recent issues. I think we 
apple men of New York State, without 
exception, are taking great interest in 
trying to put this over our Eastern 
apples, as you say in your article. One 
of the fruit trade papers is trying to 
throw cold water on the auction place. 
The “Producer News” of March 17, on 
the front page, has one of the nastiest 
articles it has ever been my misfortune 
to read. 
Of course, the Western boxmen do 
a great deal of advertising when we 
do now. This practically accounts for 
their writing as they did. They try to 
stir up trouble between Eastern and 
Western interests, saying we were go¬ 
ing to try and shut out Western apples 
from the New York markets, a thing 
that is so utterly ridiculous that it 
hardly seems worth denying. 
It was my good fortune to spend 
some time this summer going through 
the orchards of Hood River, Wa- 
kima, and Wanataker, and after 
showing me through their orchards 
they would invariably ask we, “What 
do you think of it?” My answer 
would be, “You have a wonderful prop¬ 
osition now if you were only located 
where I am, within five hours of New 
York by motor truck. Your conditions 
would be ideal then.” I think the people 
of New York are making up more to the 
difference in flavor of the apples of 
the two sections this winter than ever 
before; take, for instance, the McIn¬ 
tosh. The trader is taking them out 
of boxes and putting them in barrels. 
Box McIntosh are practically not 
wanted.— A. Rohons, Washingtonville, 
New York. 
REMEDY IS A GOOD PASTOR 
Everyone seems to agree that the 
country church is not measuring up 
to its responsibility, but everyone 
seems al&o to inquire “What is the 
remedy?” From my observation, I 
have come to the conclusion that part 
of the remedy lays with the clergy 
itself. While not depreciating the min¬ 
istry as a very high calling—there is 
none higher—yet young men enter the 
ministry without a thorough and care¬ 
ful preparation for it. Young men get 
a vision of being called to the ministry, 
and on the enthusiasm launch into it 
unprepared. Our commercial life is 
becoming more and more specialized, 
and young men to-day must be experts 
in the varied lines of business to suc¬ 
ceed. I fear many preachers are work¬ 
ing under the delusion of being called 
to preach Christ, when perhaps they 
were called to plow corn. The ministry 
to-day must be as much specialized as 
business, and unless they are the coun¬ 
try church suffers. 
Are Country Churches Training 
Schools for the Ministry? 
The country church seems to be the 
training school for entrants to the min¬ 
istry. Oftentimes, without preparation, 
a young man begins preaching, hoping 
at the same time to prepare himself by 
reading a course of study, and after 
a time, if he makes good, to be pro¬ 
moted to a more responsible ministry. 
Under conditions in the country church 
as they are, it is perhaps a good place 
to begin—at the bottom, it would be 
said in business. Assuming that the 
young minister makes good, the city 
church is his goal, and I firmly believe 
that the city church draws its best min¬ 
isters from the ones who began in the 
country church. Ministers, like men 
in business life, have a worthy ambi¬ 
tion of reaching the top, but country 
clfurch work should be attractive 
enough to keep them there. 
Compensation is Insufficient 
Again, the compensation to the coun¬ 
try minister is not sufficient to keep him 
according to present-day standards of 
living. The plasterer, bricklayer, car¬ 
penter, etc., all receive remuneration 
above that of the minister, and the 
margin of difference between their re¬ 
spective compensation is too wide. All 
are builders—the tradesmen of the ma¬ 
terial and the minister of things spir¬ 
itual—but there should be an equaliza¬ 
tion. The country church can afford 
higher salaries to its minister, and be¬ 
cause the trades and business life have 
higher salaries( the ministry is not 
attracting the best young men. 
I still believe in the church as the 
redemptive factor of our social and 
industrial life, especially in the coun¬ 
try, and I believe also that country 
people are still responsive to appeals 
that reach them, but they must be 
sought after, compelled to come in, but 
after coming into the church, given ap¬ 
plied principles of Christianity—-not 
theory. To sum the whole situation up, 
the crux of the matter lays in a wide¬ 
awake, efficient, enthusiastic and pre¬ 
pared ministry.—I. L. Miller, Bells- 
ville, Md. _____ 
PUT THE FARM TOOLS UNDER 
COVER 
W. H. HARRISON 
I hope you good people are not like 
some of my friends, allowing your ma¬ 
chinery to serve as shelter for your 
hogs, or as roosts for your chickens. 
A friend called at a neighbor’s place 
the other day and this was just what 
was happening. All farming imple¬ 
ments are now quite expensive, due to 
scarcity of steel. They were expen¬ 
sive enough before the war, but more 
so now. Don’t see why they have to 
do this when their customers allow 
their implements to rust and rot to 
pieces so they do not last nearly as 
long as they should. 
Our so-called farmers ought to look 
after' this matter. Machinery costs too 
much for us to be careless about taking 
proper care of it. Sun, rain, and wind 
will take off the paint and put on a 
nice coat of rust, and this always 
means the beginning of the end of that 
particular machine. 
The other day my hired man was 
caught taking a couple of bolts out of 
one implement, which was not in use, 
to repair another. “Not on your life,” 
said I, putting one implement out of 
commission to get another repaired or 
fixed is a wrong method, to my notion, 
because I’ve found that when this is 
done the parts are seldom replaced and 
the other machine goes to pieces. So 
take my advice, which is from experi¬ 
ence, after you’re through with a ma¬ 
chine for the season or time, see that 
it is put under shelter, oil and grease 
the metal parts and arrange to give the 
woodwork a coat of paint when the 
days are such that work cannot be 
done outside. You will then be amply 
repaid for the little time and trouble 
required. _ 
PRECAUTION WITH LANTERN 
WARNER E. FARVER 
The number of farm buildings, par¬ 
ticularly barns, that are burned as the 
result of overturned lanterns, is a great 
deal larger than many seem to realize. 
And this will continue to be so until 
we learn to handle the lantern with 
care around the barns and other build¬ 
ings. This means that the only safe 
place for the lantern about the build¬ 
ings is either in the hand or suspended 
overhead. We may size up the very best 
lanterns and we will find that none are 
anything better than a fire trap unless 
handled with the utmost precaution. 
Average lanterns are of light weight, 
yet their particular construction makes 
them considerably top-heavy and easily 
turned over. Cats, dogs, or other 
means, even live stock, may be respon¬ 
sible for the overturned lantern and 
the building in ashes. We have seen 
lanterns set where if upset there would 
have been instant fire with no chance 
of extinguishing it. The least dis¬ 
turbance around a lantern thus placed 
will throw it out of balance and pro¬ 
duce a fire in an instant. 
In our barn we have found the only 
safe place to be overhead. We suspend 
the lantern from hooks on wires strung 
through the stables and feeding room. 
There are various ways of suspending 
them, but I prefer the wires with hooks 
fastened to them, and the hooks placed 
so that they can be slid from place to 
place. We have the wires strung over¬ 
head in the horse stable to the rear of 
the horses, and this is fine when clean¬ 
ing and harnessing the horses. We 
have another wire in the stable where 
the cows are in the stanchions, and as 
a cow is milked the lantern can be slid 
on to the next on the hook on the wire. 
In tne feeding room we have another, 
and this makes it safe and convenient 
while feeding. 
These overhead wires should be of 
about No. 10 or 11 wire, with hooks 
made of the same wire. A few fencing- 
staples are all that is required to sus¬ 
pend the wires overhead. I once heard 
of a farmer who had a barn destroyed 
by fire as a result of an overturned 
lantern. He decided that the lanterns 
were made with flat bottoms for conve¬ 
nience in filling only, and had his lan¬ 
terns all fitted with a cone-shaped muz¬ 
zle fitted to the bottom, so that his 
hands could not set them down any¬ 
where. 
It is no excuse to set lanterns any¬ 
where simply because we can. Use a 
little head work and save your build¬ 
ings from ruin. As a rule, too, many 
of us forget that the handle of the 
lantern is made for hanging it up, as 
well as for carrying. It is a good plan 
to play safe. Better be safe than sorry. 
WHY CLOVER FAILS 
R. I. WEIGLEY 
Can you raise clover? If you can’t 
you can blame any one of the following 
reasons: Doves, game birds, sour soil, 
too late sowing, too early sowing, 
clover in spring in fall wheat on sod, 
no inoculation, cheap and foreign seed. 
Here in East-central Pennsylvania 
we overcome most of these disadvan¬ 
tages by sowing our clover seed about 
“the hundredth day after New Year.” 
By this time April has come, and the 
wheat in which we sow our clover seed 
has made enough progress to hide the 
seed from flocks of pigeons and field 
birds. If the seed is sown earlier, a 
warm spell in March may sprout it and 
a late freeze may kill all, like in ’21 
and ’22. If seed is sown too late, there 
are chances that no pelting rain will 
cover and start it off during the pres¬ 
ent summer if dry weather follows. 
We had poor success with clover until 
we limed our land. We have limestone 
quarries and lime kilns on the place 
and all about. So we applied lime in 
the old-fashioned way, which .is at the 
rate of 200 or more bushels to the acre. 
Now our clover crop is enormous, and 
our corn averages round 200-ear bush¬ 
els per acre yearly. We have several 
times sown a pasture field to wheat 
in fall and then sowed clover seed in 
same in spring, and every single time 
not so much as a single clover plant 
got started. Inoculation will not help 
much here because clover preferred to 
follow corn, then oats or wheat stubble. 
Cheap seed is the cast-off trash, with 
lightweight seeds and weed contents. 
Foreign seed is unacclimated and of 
low vitality._ 
APPLY MANURE DIRECT TO THE 
LAND \ 
It is always a problem how best. to 
dispose of the stable manure during 
the winter season. There is some 
waste of plant food in any way that 
it can be handled and conditions should 
be considered when we undertake to 
solve the problem. 
I use most of my stable manure on 
the land for corn, and if I can do it 
I draw the manure direct from the 
stable to the field and scatter it over 
the field. There may be some loss 
but most of this plant food is held in 
the soil. It is pretty well distributed 
through the soil and I have noticed 
that the early scattered manure seems 
to show up better on the crop than 
that distributed later in the winter. 
The manure may also be scattered 
over meadow land or the wheat field 
during the winter to advantage.—A. J. 
Legg. 
“We are enjoying the ‘American 
Agriculturist’ more than ever and see 
a great improvement in it for the past 
several months.”—H. M. Stanley, 
Onondaga Co., N. Y. 
SILOS 
T HERE are good reasons why 
more Unadilla Silos are sold 
each year than any others. 
They cure and keep silage 
better. They keep upright, air¬ 
tight and repel frost. They are 
easiest and safest to use. Unadillas 
are known by their famous safety 
door front ladder. 
This is the” time to arrange for 
your Unadilla. Early orders now, 
while our factory is not rushed, 
earn the biggest saving we 
ever offered. 
Write to-day for the big Unadilla 
catalog, early order discounts and 
agency offer for open territory. 
Unadilla Silo Company 
Box B Unadilla, N. Y. 
Learn Auto qnd 
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Trade a few weeks of your 
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CPU 171? RAILROAD FARE 
ff room and board 
If you come now, I will allow your R. R. fare to 
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Write me today for full particulars of this great 
offer and proof that I can quickly make you a suc¬ 
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J. Rahe. No colored enrollments. 1 
HENRY J. RAHE, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER 
RAHE ALTO AND TRACTOR SCHOOL 
Dept. 2114 nth and Locust Sts., Kansas City, Mo. 
Dept. 2114 916 Forbes Street, Pittsburg, Penn. 
Direct from Factory SAW RIGS 
^$105.00 to $130.00 
Send for Literature 
MORRISVILLE FOUNDRY CO. 
Morrisville, Vt. 
“The Truth About Wire Fence’ 
SOLUTION Of THE MYSTERY | 
THAT HAS COST FARMERS 
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS 
A cedar post outlasts a pine,so I 
two rolls of wire fence may j 
look alike, and cost the Bame, I 
yet one will last twice as long I 
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Write fora copy today. you can tell Oak from Poplar, f 
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Money-Making Dairy Farm 
Modern House; 20 Cows, Horses 
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Catalog Bargains — many states. Copy free. ST ROUT 
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Natural Leaf Tobacco wi^$^60 5 2o ib*. 1.1: 
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FARMERS FltlOX, MAYFIELD, KT. 
10lbs. $2.50; 20lbs. $4.50. 
\ 
