Bellefonte, Pa., September 21, 1917. A GARDEN LESSON. Said Uncle Josh, “Look here, b’gosh! That isn’t the way to hoe, Just scratch around and loosen the ground ’N then your stuff will grow. ’N dig out that weed; if it goes to seed The Devil will be to pay. Then thin out your stuff. There enough.” And Josh went on his way. —From National Emergency Food Garden Commission. that’s High diddle diddle this life is a riddle For prices have jumped o'er the moon, But plan a food garden on some vacant lot And prices will tumble down soon. Rock-a-bye baby in the tree top, Father is hoeing his home garden crop Soon he will harvest enough for us all, And High Cost of Living will have a bad fall. If Old Mother Hubbard should go to the cupboard She'd find all the food she'd desire For stored away there is foodstuff to spare, The product of canner and dryer. Old King Food in his merriest mood Set a-watching his garden plot He counted his beets and he reckoned ehis beans And he said “Will we not.” starve? We will Mary, Mary, no longer contrary, Has made a home garden grow, With turnips and beans to feed the ma- rines And the soldiers and sailors you know. President Pack, come blow our horn, Our allies are calling for wheat and corn, Set the nation to work to grow turnips and squash And we'll feed the whole world with our food, by gosh! Dickery, dickery, dock, The. back-yards in our block Are full enough of garden stuff Our pantry shelves to stock. “A dollar, a dollar, a ten o’clock scholar, Why do you come so late?” “I've stayed at home to dig the weeds; This gardening stunt is great.” There was an old man and he had a wood- en leg And he couldn’t steal could he beg, So he bought a back yard and he planted some beans And raised enough cash to buy a dozen machines. a ride, not a ride Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, Taffy will not work, so he must come to grief, The neighbors planted seeds in their yards and vacant lots And spent the summer raising things on thrifty garden plots. They're canning em and drying 'em and storing ‘em away If Taffy cannot steal em he'll have gro- ‘cer’s bills to pay. —From National Emergency Food Garden Commission. A CHANGE OF MASTERS. Dr. Michaelis was being piloted down Fifth avenue through the fog. His little limousine, swung by big springs on a long and heavy run- ning-gear moved forward gently with the south-bound line, which was checked at intervals as trucks and car- riages crossed the Avenue or melted in the stream of traffic. He sat in a corner, relaxed and introspective, with one elbow half out of the open win- dow, for although it was January, the afternoon was very warm. During a momentary gap in the compact pro- cession a yellow taxicab, launched by an ambitious driver, shot in abreast of him, grazing his mud-guards and, squeaking, stopped short as the whole line halted obedient to the blue Colos- sus at Forty-second Street. It car- ried a woman with black eyes, who suggested youth freed from the tram- mels of its inexperience. She wore a fur-trimmed cloak, and black hat with white feather curling down one side, and this feather trembled when she saw Michaelis so close to her; but, pressing her lips together, she lean- ed across the short space which sepa- rated her from him, and touched his arm with a little air of ownership. It was the free act of a moment, quick- ly ended, and before he fully took her in she was drifting away from him; for a trilling whistle had pierced the mist, gears were clanking everywhere, and all cars but his and a huge limou- sine ahead of it, one of whose tires had exploded with a pistol-shot report, were moving south. Leaning out of the window, he cried: “Sylvia! Sylvia!” but the yel- low taxicab, like a log in the stream, drew relentlessly away, as she stood, dim in the growing darkness, turning and looking back, waving half reluct- antly; he heard her call, “Bon chien chasse de race,” and she was gone. He motioned his driver excitedly, but they were pocketed by the crip- pled car ahead, and the vehicles mov- Ing past were too jealously closed up to be broken into. After several min- utes of restless, fuming delay, he was free and across Forty-second, Street, but then the other cars had scattered. His machine, wakened from its leth- argy, started in swift pursuit, dodged in and out, skidding at times for yards, overtook a dozen other cars, and just below Thirty-fourth Street missed a fat policeman by a hair. But the tax- icab had been swallowed up by the great city, and at the Farragut mon- ument he cancelled a visit in Ninth Street from his day-book, turned, and went slowly uptown again, still searching from both windows. Sylvia Dare! It was fifteen years ago that he saw her last, like a speck on the upper deck of the steamer, with her “swarthy man” towering over her. She must have a master, she always used to say, and had hit on this Rumanian prince just as Michael- is finished his year of being a needy student in Vienna. Her last flutter- ing good-by, as the great vessel warp- d from the pier, seemed to carry to him a reproach and a promise, but as : they had both agreed that everything | should stop then and there, he had not : heard directly from her since, except postal card from one of the cafes that brighten the river at Budapest came to him, bearing the single line, “Bon chien chasse de race.” He had not been sure that it was in her hand- writing. But now she was here in the same place with him; free, perhaps; anyway, plainly inviting as—it flash- ed over him—she must have been be- fore. After years of observation in stifling dispensaries, packed with those ill and those who fancied themselves so, of learning in laboratories what trace the microscope can show of the real reason why things go wrong, of analy- sis of ill-directed human motives which create the half of all disease, he had finally won out, as far as his pro- fession was concerned. He was estab- lished and even sought for in those disorders where self-consciousness be- trays itself, and where ugly spots in character may be washed away by a properly directed stream of interest. He had learned the way to make flut- tering hearts march evenly, and to put neurotic women on their feet without sacrificing the approval of their hus- bands, by methods made public in his book on Relapsing Personalities, which was in its third edition and had been translated into French. But he had never ceased to think of Sylvia Dare, and she had found him, after all these years, ‘distinguished, sombre, and impersonal, still brooding on the blunder of his life in letting her, who had so much to give and who gave so generously, escape him. Her home had never been in New York, and thinking of the quickest way to get news of her, Dangerfield occurred to him. Dangerfield, just back from three years at the French embassy, fleck- less at 6 p. m., true test of the man of leisure, was in the club’s big foyer, drinking a long glass of apple bran- dy. He was bubbling over with re- awakened patriotism, and it took Mi- chaelis several minutes to get him on to Continental topics. But he was led there finally. “Whom do you suppose I saw last month in Paris?” he said. “The Prin- cess Marinesco—you know, Sylvia Dare; you remember that little force- ful way of hers. Poor Sylvia! She found her master. The fellow was a brute, like most of those royalized Ru- manians. Let’s see, how long has she been gone? Fifteen years? Gad! time flies! She doesn’t look it. She hasn’t turned a hair. She might have, for they say the prince pulled her about the house by it before he finish- ed. His valet shot him, finally. ‘Self- defense,” the valet said. They hung him, anyway.” That was all Dangerfield knew, and as the club was filling up with cock- tail-drinkers, Michaelis left it, forgot his car, and walked home through the misty night. Fifth Avenue, almost stripped now of its engines, stretch- ed silently before him, dim and glistening, lined with a double row of violet lights, the farthest floating in the air like twin balloons. Soon he was at the spot where she had called to him an hour before, with the well- remembered quickness and defiance, and, as always, lurking behind them a whispered promise of surrender. He was bound for the evening by profes- sional obligations he could not shirk, but which he met mechanically, saved from error only by a long habit of be- ing right. Through a dreary inter- view over a wheezing millionaire, at which the physician who called him in consultation did the talking, and through a three-hour meeting of a medical society, over which he presid- ed by the ill-luck of being its vice- president, he kept picturing to himself what his life might have been with her warm sympathy; and imagining, with her vigorous personality to fire his energies, a far different success from the material one he had. Te next morning a hand-delivered letter, topping the pile that awaited him, did away with his plans for find- ing her. “Dear Carl,” it ran, “I need you sorely. Come to me. Till then I am here—and yours, Sylvia.” He had read it twice, standing up, before he called his assistant, Lynn- hart, an intense young man with round shoulders and deep-set eyes. “Busy day, Doctor,” Lynnhart said, holding out the appointment card. “Can’t see any one,” Michaelis jerk- ed out. Lynnhart looked at him side- wise. “Let me see,” Michaelis mutter- ed, scanning the lined paper. “Schenck? Tell him the solution isn’t ready. Mrs. Gildersleeve—that awful woman—telephone her I am sick— out of town—anything. I’ll see Wat- rous for two minutes. Mrs. Sniffens —oh! you see her, Lynn.” He did away with all of them and half a dozen others and in a few min- utes was humming up Fifth Avenue to her hotel, through a sparkling at- mosphere, for the hopeless fog of the day before had vanished. At the open door of her little salon he stood for a moment, wavering, powerless, paying the penalty of years of repression, while she, gasping his name, pushing aside her breakfast-ta- ble, came running to him. He met her half-way and caught her wrists, pull- ing them to his sides, looking down in- to her face. “Sylvia,” he whispered, “the same Sylvia, and free again, thank God.” She trembled and ceased smiling. “The prince is dead,” she said. This from her lips fired him still further, and tightening his grasp he drew her toward him, but she was in a different mood and turned away, shaking her head. : “No, no—not now,” she said; “there is something else first—something dif- ferent. Oh, my dear, why should something always come between us?” He did not seem to understand at first, and tried to put his arm around her, but she freed herself and put her ‘black-bordered handkerchief to her face, leaving him nonplussed, uncer- tain, till she turned, metamorphosed, smiling again, the handkerchief crum- pled in her hand. “Oh, come,” she said, “truce—for a moment, anyway,” and led him play- fully to a chair beside a divan into which she nestled. She launched a battery of questions at him, about his friends, his way of living, his daily routine. She knew pages of “Relaps- ing Personalities” by heart, and had heard of many of his famous cures. He did not try to keep up with her, feel- | speculating as to why she was so rest- perhaps once, five years ago, when a less, so ill at ease, with fingers inter- ing his way, worried, the lover lost in | the physician who could not help | twining and strong limbs never still | under her morning gown. “But why so nervous?” he asked at | last, quieting her ring hand which had i no rings on it. “It surely isn’t that— | I can’t flatter myself 2” “Flatter yourself ?” she interrupted. ! “How could I flatter a career like | yours, a great name like yours—"’ “What there is of it you nave! done!” “I have done? I? Why, what do | you mean?” “I mean,” he said, leaning over her, | “that what there is of good in me is | you, that my work is really yours; | without your image, without the mem- ory of your free spirit breathing life into it—I mean, Sylvia—" He stopped short in alarm, feeling instinctively for her pulse—for she had sunk back in the pillows, pale, shrunken, her hand clutching her heart. “Quick!” she gasped, her breathing labored, “my medicine—in the napkin —with the hypodermic syringe—two | pellets. Don’t stop to boil the wa- ter.” Without questioning, he went as she directed, shook too tiny pellets from a glass cylinder into a spoon, melted them and drew the solution up into a small transparent syringe. In less than a minute he was back again and deftly forced the shining hypodermic needle into the arm which lay bared for him. The effect was magical. She made a low sound of satisfaction, threw her head on her arm like a child going to sleep while her lips glistened red again, a faint fush tinging her pallor. Michaelis waited until her breathing had become regular, and then, putting up his watch, went over to the breakfast-table pulling his mus- tache, his forehead wrinkled. He pick- ed up the little vial, turned it to the light, studied its finely printed label, and looked sharply over toward the di- van. She was watching him lazily, with half-closed eyes, and seeing the question in his face, nodded yes to it. + How long have you been taking it? She beckoned him to the divan be- side her, but he moved reluctantly, and chose the chair, embarrassed and ill at ease, like a man controlled by something beyond himself. “It did not begin until years after I was married. Oh, years and years! It was only four years ago. What I went through before—but that is neither here nor there. This began it.” She held out her left arm which was crooked just above the wrist. “You see, it never got quite straight again. As he had been drinking, it took some time to get a doctor, and even after it was set the pain was so terrific the doctor gave me an injection. Of course, he repeated it, and—and so the wretched thing went on.” - “But you must have known,” Mi- chaelis said, like a parent reproving a wayward child. “1 didn’t at first. Once, after a week or so, I asked him if so much morphine wasn’t dangerous. ‘Not in surgery,” he laughed. ‘We use it all we like.” He was an ancien interne des hopitaux, straight as a string, and I trusted him. Oh, Carl, you know the rest of it.” : But he was now distant, formal, im- personal, trying to be the critical cli- nician who must find the right way and point it, even when it leads away from him. This dismayed her, and, leaning to- ward him, she threw her arms about his knees, the wide sleeves of her gown touching the floor. He patted her shoulders, soothed her, and then gently released himself, urging her to tell him everything. So she continued: “The young doc- tor came so often the prince became unreasonable, insane (you know what drinking men are,) jealous, and for- bade him the house. That was when it really began, for then I got my own outfit—Oh, must I go on? You know the story—every doctor knows it.” It was the same old story, mor- phine, comforter, then friend, until it changes to the brutal master, keeping its solitary, friendless slave at its feet in trembling expectation and obedi- ence.” : “I often stopped it for a week, once for thirteen days, but then, after some quarrel, the pain at the wrist would begin again. I would see the little needle shining in its case, so sure to blot out pain—and all the other things—" : : “Yes, of course,” Michaelis said, coldly, “but, now he is dead, why now ?”’ : “I have tried, oh so many times— and cannot.” Michaelis muttered, as though to some third person: “That's the bru- tal part of it. It rots the will so, blots the vision. It kills purpose, honor, truth—” a Catching the look of pain in her face, he stopped, while she, getting up impulsively, put both her hands on his broad shoulders, pressing them to the back of his chair, and sat down on his knee. “Carl Michaelis,” she said, “look me in the face. Is untruth there?” He looked at her with effort, but the desire his muscles rebelled at was lurking in his eyes. “Sylvia,” he said, slowly, “you might be steeped in lies, and I would never know it.” “And yet you doubt my truth— doubt me?” : He lifted her gently to the divan and stood over her. “You don’t un- derstand—you can’t. You can’t know or hate this thing as I do. It isn’t you I doubt, but you are no longer you. A fiend has got a hold on you, and you love him. Can’t you see? It is as though you were my wife and were living with sore beast who had alien- ated you, and while you belong to him how can you belong to me? And be- longing to him, how can I trust you or believe you?” . “Oh,” she said, pushing his arm from the back of the divan and sitting upright, her indignant eyes brilliant against the pallor of her face, “you are cruel, unfair. Why should you treat a physical weakness as though it were something immoral—something unclean ?” His wrists twitched with a gesture half of reproach, half of defense. “I can’t help it; my experience makes me see it so. There is very little physic- (Continued on page 7, Col. 1.) RR .THE SIGN OF THE RED CROSS.. Translated from the French Legendary Poem, “Le Brassard,” of Vicomte de Barrelli. The Goddess of Pity was winging her way Afar to the field where a young soldier lay (So humble a victim of war's cruel aim, Yet Love's ministrations the wounded may claim!) In touch of her fingers the soldier found rest. The goddess again would continue her quest, But paused as she listened to murmurings low, “The name of this might know!” angel, oh, would ¥ She smilingly sought out a white linen band All untaught in letters, yet deft was her hand— She dipped in his lifeblood her finger so | [fair And pressed the fine linen lo, was there! Red Cross The daughters of France, and charm, Now wear the Red Cross their arm! —By Harriet N. Magazine. loving legend as a sign on Cross Ralston, in Red THE FAMILY BALANCED RATION | (By Carl Vrooman, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture.) In time of war, as in time of peace, it is not only important, but essential, that the people be well fed. Victory does not depend alone on guns and soldiers; it depends as well on the ef- ficiency of every man, woman, and child back of the firing line. To maintain this efficiency there must be enough food, and it must be so cooked and so combined as to be both palatable and nourishing. The selection or orgenization of food in the diet is as important as the organization of an army; a small amount of food rightly combined will give more energy than a large amount badly combined, just as a small disci- plined force of scldiers is more effec- tive than an untrained mob. There is nothing mysterious about planning the cheapest, most palatabl: and most nutritious mezls. On the fingers of one hand the different groups of food can be counted thus: I. Foods depended on for mineral mat- ters, vegetables acids, and body- regulating substances. II. Foods depended on for protein. III. Foods depended on for starch. IV. Foods depended on for sugar. V. Foods depended on for fat. If all these grcups are included in the diet, the body will lack no neces- sary kind of material. To illustrate: Group I. Foods depended on for mineral matters, vegetable acids, and body- regulating substances. Fruits :—Apples, Pears, ete. Bananas, Ber- ries, Melons, Oranges, Lemons, etc. Vegetables :—Salads—Ilettue=, celery, ete. Potherb, or ‘“greens.” .Potatoes and root vegetables. Green peas, beans, ete. Tomatoes, squash, ete. Group II. I'oods depended on for protein, for muscle building: Milk, skim milk, cheese, ete. Eggs. Meat. Poultry Fish. Dried peas, beans, cowpeas, ete. Nuts. Group IIL. Foods depended on for starch: Cereal grains, meals, flour, ete. Cereal breakfast foods. Bread. Crackers. Macaroni and other pastes. Cakes, cookies, starchy puddings, ete. Potatoes and other starchy vegetables. Group IV. Foods depended on for sugar. Sugar. Molasses. Syrups. Honey. Can- dies. Fruits preserved in sugar, jel- lies, and dried fruits. Sweet cakes and desserts. Group V. Foods depended on for fat: Butter and cream. Lard, suet, and other cooking fats. Salt pork and bacon. Table and salad oils. Thinks of foods in these groups. If possible, see to it that at least one food from each group is served at least once a day. Learn from a study of these groups how to make up your own menus, and how to substitute one food for another in aczordance with palatability and price. When laying in supplies of foods, thirk in terms of these groups. Realize, for example, that when it is difficilt to obtain meat, dried beans and peas, dried fish and nuts can be eaten instead, and that the cereals, too, are rich in protein. When potatoes are scarce, ricz or cornmeal is an excellent substitute. A knowledge of these facts will pre- vent much sickness and useless ex- penditure of money. Consult with neighbors. Get in touch with your county agent, your Statz Agricultural college, or with the United States De- partment of Agriculture if you want more infermation. The war must be won in the kitch- ens and on the dining tatles of Amer- ica as well as in the irenches. The Department of Agriculture stands ready to supply information to help the housewife do her bit toward win- ning the war. FURTHER SUGGESTIONS. Further suggestions for planning well-balanced family menus will be found in the following buMetins sent free of charge by the United States Department of Agriculture upon pos- tal card request: : Corn Meal as a Food and Ways of Using It: F. B. 808. How to Select Foods—I. What the Body Needs: F. B. 808. . How to Select Foods—II. Cereal Foods: F. B. 817. How to Select Foods—III. Foods Rich in Protein: F. B. 824. How to Select Foods—IV. Fruits and Vegetables. Home Canning by the One-period Cold-pack Method: F. B. 839. . Drying Fruits and Vegetables in the Home: F. B. 841, 976. Food Requirements and the Menu, Extension Circular No. 65, Penna State College School of Agricul- ture, State College, Pa. Er ————— ——Through an intensive cam- paign by a crew of trained thrift workers, a Detroit savings bank with- in a few weeks obtained 7,500 new de- positors, and another bank recently celebrated its first birthday by put- ting 5,000 new names on its books. ——=Subscribe for the “Watchman”. — Fatigue Duty at the Front. 1 | Six o’clock on an August morning. { The sun, although not yet very high in i the sky, is streaming down on ground already baked by many rainless, ! sweltering days. | day, although signs of a storm are in ! the air, a storm that has been threat- ening for days and yet never comes. In the dusty village street a platoon is just forming up preparatory to going out “on fatigue,” a working party which means about two miles behind the front line. Breakfasts were eaten { half an hour ago, washing and shav- ling and all the other decencies of a | British soldier’s life were performed even earlier. The platoon commander has a very spruce appearance, with well polished boots and buttons and belt. He has the face of a boy, and looks as though in normal times he would still be at school, the mustache he wears seems to be having a real struggle for exis- tence, yet there is a set of the jaw and a poise of the head which speaks of experience in command which in ordi- ! nary times would not develop until ten | years later. The platoon moves off after being critically inspected by its commander. The heat soon begins to tell its tale in perspiring faces and loosened jackets, and the men look longingly at the i closed cafes and estiminets as they leave the village. There is a march of a mile to the Royal Engineers’ “Dumps” where the platoon obtains | its tools for the day's work. Arrived there, rifles are swung across the back, and each man takes a pick or shovel. Next to the rifle, he has often been told, these are his best friends at the front. There is still two miles of marching to the scene of the day’s labor, miles during which the rifle on the soldier’s back and the pick or shovel in his hand grows inconceivably heavy and hot. At the appointed renedzvous the par- ty is met by a non-commissioned offi- cer of the Royal Engineers, who points out the work to be done—a length of new trench to be dug. Equipment and coats are removed and stacked near by; each man is given his task. At first the task seems incredibly heavy owing to the sweltering heat, but that soon wears off and the men plug along steadily at their job, a nat- ural spirit of competition urging the majority to make as good a show as their neighbors. The turf is carefully removed first and stacked ready for further use, to serve as cover for the fresh earth of parapet and parados. Work proceeds as steadily as the heat permits; in boiling hot weather there must be occasional breaks, and in a short time something that looks like a trench begins to appear. . At midday there is a diversion. An aeroplane is seen overhead, the offi- cer’s glasses reveal the enemy mark- ings on the wings, and in a very few seconds, a British machine comes dashing out of the clouds to oppose it. Those interesting evolutions known as “maneuvering for position” begin, with occasional sputtering of machine guns as one or the other gets into ad- vantageous position. Gradually the British aviator drives the German lower until he is within range of the anti-aircraft artillery. The German perceives his danger and decides to slope homewards. His stay has not been long, but it was evidently long enough for him to spot the location of i the working party, for soon after he returns, shells begin to come over from the German batteries in unpleas- ant proximity to the work. The officer in charge quickly comes to a decision and gives an order. Everyone ceases work and gets into the partly dug trench, where they stay, getting what cover they can, un- til the burst of fire ceases as suddenly as it began. Casualties number four, one man killed, three slightly wound- ed, so slightly that after the use of a field dressing they are content to sit and smoke and wait for the rest of the party before going back. Work goes on with an hour’s rest and several short breaks until three o’clock, when the men form up once more and march away homeward. Such is one day’s work if one is a private on “fatigue duty.” Digging trenches, of course, is not the only duty of working parties. They are employed in clearing, repair- ing or improving front line trenches, carrying materials, laying light rail- ways, felling trees, assisting in min- ing operations, pumping water, mak- ing roads, building dugouts, or a score of other tasks. They may be employ- ed for the day in the front line or 15 miles from it. The vast amount of work that has to be done both in and behind the lines, work which is mainly done by regular infantrymen, is hard for the layman to realize. It is very well summed up by the remark of a Welsh soldier in reply to the recruiting pos- ter question, “What did you do in the great war daddy?” “Put half of France and Belgium into sandbags, my boy.” Whatever the task, the British pri- vate on fatigue duty is generally fair- ly cheerful about it, with one excep- tion. He has a rooted objection to anything that takes him into the trenches during his period of “rest,” not so much because he has any great fear of being killed or wounded, but because he feels that “out of the trenches” ought to mean out altogeth- er until the time comes for his next turn of duty. He feels that he is en- croaching on preserves that ought to be kept strictly for the use of men who are “up.” i t | | { { | i His Exemption Claim. One of the registrars in a Virginia country - district tells a story of a Negro obviously within the prescribed ages and of powerful physique, who turned up on registration day. The registrar had a good deal of difficulty in making the applicant understand the questions. . “Do you claim exemption?” he asked. “What's dat, suh?” “Is there any reason why you should not render military service— why you should not fight your coun- try’s battles ?” ; ; “Oh, yes, suh,” replied the appli- cant, much enlightened. “I’s gunshy.” ———Subscribe for the “Watchman.” going up to the “back of the front,” ! | 1 | con E—— FARM NOTES. —Ways of Using Barnvard Ma- { nure.—There is a right and a wrong ; way to use barnyard manure. It is as hot as mid- | When the rainfall during the'year has been above normal, there is an abnormal condition, and it is doubtful if a mod- erate application of manure plowed under in the fall would often cause the soil to dry out more quickly than one on which no manure was applicd. Of course, it is a well known fact that in some instances long manure plowed under in the ‘spring, or even in the fall, will cause crops to seuffer for lack of moisture,, for the simple rea- son that such manure intercepts the movement of capillary water from be- low to the region where surface root- lets get in their work. This only em- phasizes the importance of changing the system of farming, so that manure is not applied to stubble land. There are very few farms that can be main- tained in productiveness without hav- ing a certain area in meadow or pas- ture all the time. The right theory is to use such a ro- tation as will bring every foot of the land under the beneficial influence of grass. This being the case, the place to put manure is on the grass land. There never will be any regret about manure drying out a soil if it is used as a top dressing on meadows or on pastures. In such case every atom of the manure is utilized and a response is immediately made in a stronger growth of grass, while in turn no in- jurious results whatever can come from the manure when the pastures or meadows are broken up. Of course many a man hasn’t the right system under way of using permanent pas- tures to a greater or less extent. Pos- sibly because of their location adja- cent to the building he desires to pro- duce the grain in the same fields year after year and thus is tempted to use his manure where he can most quick- ly convert it into bushels. The theory of that, however, is wrong, and the quicker the system can be changed so that every field can be given a square deal, the better it will be for the reve- nues of that particular farm. In applying manure to the field three methods are pursued: (1) The manure is placed in larger or smaller heaps over the field and allowed to re- main some time before being spread. (2) It is broadcasted and allowed to lie on the surface for some time or plowed in immediately, and (3) It is i to the hill or drill with the seed. The first method is objectionable be- cause it increases labor of handling and chances of loss by fermentation and leaching, while uniform distribu- tion of the manure is not secured. The spots on which the heaps stand are strongly manured with the leachings of the manure, while the rest of the field receives the coarse parts of the manure largely deprived of its valua- ble constituents. Another disadvan- tage of this method is that proper fer- mentation is interfered with by the leaching out of the nitrogenous mat- ter and the drying action of the wind. The practice of storing manure in large heaps in the field is subject to some extent to the same objections. If, however, the heap is not allowed to lie too long and is carefully covered with earth the loss may be greatly reduced. Spreading the manure and allowing it to lie on the surface should be prac- ticed only on level fields, where there is no danger from surface washing. It has been claimed that when manure is spread broadcast and allowed to lie on the surface there may be a serious loss of ammonia into the air; but experi- ments have shown that, in case of properly-prepared manure, loss from this cause must be very small. On a leachy soil there may be a loss of sol- uble constituents in the drainage if the manure is spread a long while be- fore the crop is planted; but in ordina- ry practice the loss from this source is also likely to be insignificant. In this method of application the fertiliz- ing constituents of the manure are uniformly distributed, the liquid por- tion being gradually and thoroughly incorporated with the soil particles. One serious disadvantage, however, of the method is that the manure before being plowed in is leached to a large extent of its soluble nitrogenous com- pounds, which, as we have already ob- served, are necessary for fermenta- tion, and therefore it does not so read- ily ferment in the soil. It is not ad- visable, therefore, in the case of light or sandy soils, to follow this practice; but it is preferable to plow the ma- nure in as soon as spread. As to the depth to which it is advis- able to plow the manure in, the gen- eral rule should be observed that it should not be so deep as to prevent the access of sufficient moisture and air to insure fermentation and nitri- fication, and to permit of rapid wash- ing down of nitrates to the drain. In not exceed four inches. In light soils very compact soils the depth should this depth may be considerably in- creased, although in such soils there is more danger of loss by drainage than with heavy clay soils. Application in the hill or drill is useful where the supply of manure is limited and the full, immediate effect is desired. For forcing truck crops this method is especially valuable. Well-rotted manure is best suited to this method of application. It has been claimed, however, that manure applied in this way sometimes injures the appearance of root crops, especi- ally potatoes, by increasing the amount of scab. The so-called parking system, or feeding animals on the land, is a method of application which has many advantages; but the distribution of the manure by this system is irregular and subject to the same objection as broadcasting. : The application of liquid manure has certain obvious advantages, and is largely practiced, especially in Eu- rope. Manure leachings is a quick- acting, forcing manure, and is especi- ally valuable for grass. The expense of cisterns for collecting the leachings and the trouble of hauling and distrib- uting, together with the care which must be exercised to prevent loss of nitrogen from the readily fermentable liquid when it stands for any length of time, render it doubtful, however, whether this method is practicable ex- cept for special purposes and under peculiar conditions. — Philadelphia Record. ———Subscribe for the “Watchman.” wi “of? «iF
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