UMASS/AMHERST 312Dbb OEfiS lt.3b t LIBRARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE SOURCE-.VXiX.X EXP. STA. P.&A.CHEM, Public Document No. 4 SIXTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS State Board of Agricdlture. 1914. BOSTON: WEIGHT & POTTER PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS, 32 DERNE STREET. 1915. ^'d^^L CV4.3 yvi3^ 1^1-^ Approved by The State Board of Publication. TABLP] OF CONTENTS. PAGE State Board of Agriculture, 1915, v Report of the Secretarj^, vii Public Winter Meeting of the Board at Worcester, .... 1 Address of Welcome by Hon. George M. Wright, .... 3 Response for the Board by Wilfrid Wheeler, 4 Lecture: Profitable Farm Poultry, with Special Reference to Eggs and Meat. By W. R. Graham, 6 Lecture: The Value of Experimental Work for Truck Farmers. By T. C. Johnson, 20 Lecture: Co-operation in Fruit Growing as Practiced in Nova Scotia, By W. H. Woodworth, 38 Lecture: Beef Production in New England. By Herbert H. Wing, 61 Lecture: Household Accounting. By Laura Comstock, ... 78 Lecture: Factors affecting Economical Milk Production. By C. H. Eckles, 91 Lecture: The Encouragement of Clean Milk Production. By L. B. Cook, 115 Lecture: Some Experiences in Farm Accounting. By Charlotte P. Goddard, 124 Lecture: Alfalfa for New England. By Arthur D. Cromwell, . . 142 Summer Field Meeting of the Board at Lowell, 163 Essay: Rats and Rat Riddance. By Edward Howe Forbush, . . 167 Essay: Cranberry Growing. By Henry J. Frankhn, .... 255 Essay: The Army Worm. By Henry T. Fernald, .... 284 Essay: The Home Vegetable Garden. By Allen French, . . . 295 Essay: The Sanitary Side of Farm Water Supplies. By X. H. Goodnough, 311 Essay: Sewage Disposal in Rural Districts. By Edward H. Williams, 320 Agricultural Legislation of 1914, 327 Thirteenth Annual Report of the State Nursery Inspector, . . 355 Seventh Annual Report of the State Ornithologist, .... 373 Fifth Annual Report of the State Inspector of Apiaries, . . . 405 Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Dairy Bureau, .... 417 Report on the Encouragement of Dairying Contests for 1914, . 443 First Annual Report on the Boys' and Girls' Club Work, . . . 453 Eleventh Annual Report of the State Forester, 479 Returns of the Incorporated Agricultural Societies, .... 585 Directory of Agricultural Organizations, 601 Lidex, 631 State Board of Agriculture, 1915. Members ex Officio. His Excellexcy DAVID I. WALSH. His Honor GRAFTON D. GUSHING. Hon. albert P. LANGTRY, Secretary of the Commonwealth. KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD, President, Massachusetts Agricultural College. LESTER H. HOWARD, Acting Commissioner of Animal Industry. F. WILLIAM RANE, State Forester. WILFRID WHEELER, Secretary of the Board. Members appointed by the Governor and Council. HENRY M. HOWARD of Newton (P. O. West Newton), . CHARLES M. GARDNER of Westfield, FRANK P. NEWKIRK of Easthampton, Term expires . 1915 . 1916 . 1917 Members chosen by the Incorporated Societies. Amesbury and Salisbury {Agricultural and Horticultural), Barnstable County, . Blackstone Valley, Deerfield Valley, Eastern Hampden, Essex, Franklin County, Hampshire, Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden, ■ Highland, Hillside Hingham {Agricultural and Horticul- tural), . . . . . Hoosac Valley, .... Housatonic, ..... Lenox Horticultural, Marshfield {Agricultural and Horticul- tural), . . . . . Martha's Vineyard, .... Massachusetts Horticultural, Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, .... Middlesex Xorth, .... Middlesex South, .... Nantucket, ..... Oxford, ...... Plymouth County, .... A. WILLIS BARTLETT of Salisbury, . 191S JOHN BURSLEY of Barnstable (P. O. West Barnstable) 1916 JACOB A. WILLIAMS of Northbridge, . 1918 DAVID T. BARNARD of Shelburne, . . 1917 O. E. BRADWAY of Monson, . . . 1918 FREDERICK A. RUSSELL of Methuen, . 1917 GEORGE E. TAYLOR, Jr., of Shelburne, . 1916 F. E. FARRAR of Amherst, . . . 1916 CLARENCE E. HODGKINS of Northamp- ton, 1918 JOHN T. BRYAN of Middlefield (P. O. Chester, R. F. D.) 1917 HAROLD S. PACKARD of Plainfield, . 1917 U. S. BATES of Hingham 1918 NATHAN B. FLOOD of North Adams, . 1918 CHARLES W. FREEHAN of Great Barring- ton, 1918 ALFRED H. WINGETT of Lenox, . . 1917 WALTER H. FAUNCE of Kingston, . . 1918 JAMES F. ADAMS of West Tisbury, . . 1916 EDWARD B. WILDER of Dorchester, . 1918 N. I. BOWDITCH of Framingham, . . 1918 GEORGE W. TRULL of Tewksbury (P. O. Lowell, R. F. D.) 1917 JOHN J. ERWIN of Wayland, . . . 1917 HERBERT G. WORTH of Nantucket, . 1918 WALTER A. LOVETT of Oxford, . . 1916 ERNEST LEACH of Bridgewater, . . 1917 vi BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. Xo. 4. Term expires Quannapowitt, .... CALVERT H. PLAYDON, D.V.S., of Reading, 1916 Spencer (Farmers' and Mechanics' As- sociation) EDWARD WARREN of Leicester, . . 1916 Union {Agricultural and Horticultural), HEXRY K. HERRICK of Blandford, . 1916 West Taunton CHARLES I. KING of Taunton, . . 1917 Weymouth {Agricultural and Horticul- tural) THERON L. TIRRELL of Weymouth (P. O. South Weymouth), 1918 Worcester EDWARD A. WATERS of West Boylston, . 1917 Worcester East ARTHUR C. HAWKINS of Lancaster, . 1918 Worcester North {Agricultural a n d Driving Association), . . . HENRY D. CLARK, D.V.S., of Fitchburg, 1918 Worcester Northivest {Agricultural and Mechanical) ALBERT ELLSWORTH of Atliol, . .1916 Worcester South, .... WILLIAM E. PATRICK of Warren, . .1916 Worcester County West, . . . JAMES A. RICE of Barrc, . . . 1917 ®l)c dommonroealtl) of illassacliusctts. THE SIXTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT SECRETARY State Boaed of Ageicultuee. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Taken the country over, agricultural conditions during 1914 varied with the section and crop. Cotton, with an' enormous yield in the south, is a drug on the market, while wheat, also a large crop, has not reached such a high level in years. Again, apples have not sold as cheap since 1896. These conditions w^ere largely brought about by the European war now raging, and which has prevented the export of cotton to Germany, while it has created an unusual demand for wheat to countries whose ports are open. The apple market has been affected from a number of causes, chief among which are an over- estimate of the crop, poor grading, and to some extent lack of transportation facilities. ]\Jassachusetts, not depending so much on one crop as some States, is, without doubt, in much better shape finftncially than tho.-e States whose prosperity is dependent upon the success of either potatoes, corn or cotton. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon diversified agriculture for a State so situated as Massachusetts. Our soils vary in quality; our climatic con- ditions also vary, while our markets demand the greatest viii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. variety in food products. It would therefore be folly for Mas- sachusetts ever to attempt to specialize in one crop. We should not attempt to become the greatest dairy State, or the greatest potato State, but rather, by adapting ourselves to the demands of our markets, seek to produce a higher per acre production of those crops which will return to us the most money. General agricultural conditions are constantly improving, that is, our farmers in most sections are using machinery as far as possible in their farm operations, and are practicing crop rotation; are making better uses of fertilizers and their ap- plications; are using better strains of seed; and are striving constantly to improve the quality of seed, breeds of cattle, and the fertility of the soil. At best, all of this is a slow operation, and immediate results are not possible. A prominent market gardener recently said that it took him five years to bring new land into a state of profitable productiveness, and this, in spite of tlie fact that he was using large quantities of manure each year. Massachusetts agriculture has seen great changes in the past one hundred years, chiefly owing to the severe competition of States more favored than we are by climate, soil or trans- portation facilities for the production and distribution of some particular crop; but in spite of the loss of some crops and a great reduction in dairying, the State has advanced steadily in the value of its agricultural products since 1870, as the following figures will show: — 1879, $24,160,881 1889, 28,072,500 1899, 42,298,274 1909, 60,000,000 We are fast moving from extensive to intensive agriculture, and several of our counties are among the most productive in the United States, based on the per acre production of im- proved land. The values of farm products for our counties on this basis are as follows: — No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. ix Barnstable, $38 67 Berkshire, 13 90 Bristol, 30 07 Dukes, 13 29 Essex, 34 08 Franklin, 30 07 Hampden, 23 32 Hampshire, 27 48 Middlesex, 35 39 Nantucket, 17 60 Norfolk, 32 93 Plymouth, 41 21 Suffolk, 137 43 Worcester, 22 40 One rather significant fact bearing upon the future of agri- culture has recently come to your secretary's attention, namely, that from 1900 to 1910 the population of the State increased 561,070, or 20 per cent; the urban population increased 558,269, or 17.S per cent; and the rural population 2,801, or 1.17 per cent. The number of farms decreased 798, or 2.1 per cent; acreage in farms decreased 271,123, or 8.6 per cent; and the improved acreage decreased 127,631, or 9.9 per cent. In other words, an increased rural population of 2,801 on 271,123 acres less of farm land had to feed an increased urban population of 558,269. Of course, this is utterly impossible, and so Massachusetts continues to import her food supply. Our greatest need in the State is farmers, and if we cannot make farmers out of our own people, we must import them from wherever the}' can be found. The resettlement of our land by people from other countries continues in some districts, notably in Barnstable and Bristol counties and along the Connecticut River; and we may look for a decided increase in immigration at the close of the war now raging in Europe. Does Massachusetts want these immi- grants? It would seem to your secretary that she does, for undoubtedly many of them will be of a very desirable class and will come to make permanent homes. When this immigration begins, we should be in a position to offer these people facilities for finding agricultural opportunities, and sufficient credit to enable them to begin business, both of which subjects will be treated later in this report. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. The Year's Crops. Crop conditions in the State have been excellent the past season, and prices were normal until the outbreak of the European war, when prices for such crops as apples, onions and potatoes fell off. This was due to several causes, namely, the overestimate of some crops by the government, poor exporting conditions, lack of storage facilities, and also a tendency on the part of many farmers to rush all their crop to market at once, irrespective of grades. ^Market gardeners have had a fair season with the exception of the fall and early winter, when lettuce as usual has sold very cheap. It would seem as if some action should be taken by the market gardeners to create a standard for this crop. Far too much light lettuce is put upon the market, and coming into competition as it does with a part of the southern crop, the southern lettuce is preferred owing to its greater weight. Undoubtedly our market gardeners would secure a better price for their lettuce were they content to grow three crops instead of four, or, in some cases, two crops instead of three. Other market-garden crops were good, and on the whole prices were normal. The onion crop in the Connecticut valley was fine, — the best in years, — but prices ruled low and may have some influence in reducing the acreage planted the coming season. Tobacco in the Connecticut valley was good, and fair prices have been realized for the crop. Probably no crop in ■Massa- chusetts receives such careful, painstaking attention as does tobacco, grown as it is by a class of farmers highly skilled in this work, by study of soils and fertilizers, cultural, harvesting and curing conditions. They have brought this crop up to be one of our most profitable, and while the area in which it may be cultivated is restricted, still the per acre production is high. In many sections old seedings and clover were severely injured by the deep freezing and severe winter weather, so that the hay crop was much reduced, and, although definite figures are not available at this time, the crop was probably less than in 1913. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xi While moisture conditions were good for starting the crop, those who did not cut their hay early lost heavily from bad weather at cutting time. The use of machinery in harvesting our hay crop is making it possible for us to grow more each year. The demand for home-grown hay is good, and prices were high. The potato crop was large in size, but prices ruled low. This was due to a bumper crop all over the country and as far as prices were concerned, Massachusetts farmers fared better than those of most other States. In some parts of Vermont and New York, potatoes changed hands at 20 to 25 cents a bushel. The severe winter wiped out our peach crop entirely, and in some places injured other fruit buds, such as plums, grapes and small fruits. The apple crop, however, was exceptionally large, and prices, except on the very best grades, were unsatisfactory. The corn crop was good in most cases and ripened well, although in a few sections early frosts cut the crop somewhat. Abundant moisture in the summer gave a good crop of ensilage corn, and silos were well filled. Reclamation of Waste Land. A great deal is being said and written about getting certain classes of people in the cities back on the land, and a large number of well meaning but impractical people are advocating such measures, for which they are even going so far as to require State aid. These people do not seem to realize that it requires just as much training and experience, and perhaps a little more, to make successful farmers as it does to ensure success in any other profession. Any attempts of this sort should be confined to persons having had previous agricultural experience, or who have combined some system of training with their regular work, which would in some degree fit them for life on the farms. One feature in connection with this question is worth considering, and that is placing our unused lands in a condition where it will be possible for people of moderate means to take them up. Such work should be done by State institutions alread}' in existence, as, for example, Bridgewater State Farm and other penal institutions. Land should be acquired, cleared, drained, and made ready for cultivation, and then sold for a xii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. price sufficient to cover the cost to the State; payments for this land should be extended over a series of years, with an added charge to cover interest, and the title should not pass from the State until all payments had been made. Farm Labor. At the request of the Governor, this Board tried the experi- ment in the spring of placing some of Boston's unemployed men on farms. A number of these men came to the office and registered on May 21, and a list of their names, ages and qualifications was sent on May 26 to 650 of the larger dairy farms of the State. Up to July 6, thirteen inquiries were re- ceived by letter and six by telephone. Thirteen men were secured positions, and it is known that nine of the men kept them for less than three weeks. This experiment was, of course, tried on too small a scale to draw final conclusions, but it does suggest one or two facts about the labor question. One is that the demand for help on farms is largely overestimated. Every year during the harvest season the newspapers publish stories telling of the thousands of men who will be needed to gather the crops, but when only twenty inquiries are received from 650 of the larger farmers of the State, it cannot be said that they are in a very desperate way for help. Not only uninformed persons but men right on the ground seem to overestimate the demand for farm labor. A good instance of this is the correspondence which this office had with the county agent for Orange County, Vermont. The agent said in his first letter that he could place 25 men in his section at S25 a month. When he came actually to get orders from the farmers, he was able to place just two. In a later letter he said, "I regret I cannot place some of the rest. I ran an advertisement in a local paper but no one has come forward with a request." It also apj)ears evident that no matter how small or how great the demand for help on the farm, it cannot be satis- factorily filled with the floating labor from the city, which has neither the training nor the inclination to do farm work. What farmers want are men who can milk and drive teams, and who in addition are temperate and want steady positions. It No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xiii is perhaps regrettable but true that the unemployed of our cities do not fill these requirements. Most of this help which vibrates between shop and farm is of the poorest quality, but if it could be kept in one place long enough to give it adequate training, it might prove of some value. Fertilizer Situation. The war in Europe, and the consequent difficulty of producing , and transporting certain fertilizing elements, particularly potash and basic slag, both of which are produced in large quantities in Germany, has resulted in a great shortage of both these products, but particularly of potash, and many farmers who have been used to mixing their own fertilizers from the raw products will find themselves more or less handicapped this year, principally with potash, as dealers are refusing to sell this product separately. There seems to be a fair supply of basic slag, and nitrate of soda is being offered at practically the same prices as last year. ]\Iost of the fertilizer dealers are offering mixed goods with a guarantee of 4 per cent of potash, and it will be necessary in most cases for farmers to buy these in order to get potash this season. Some chemists are advising the use of common salt, where no potash is used, applied at the rate of 500 pounds per acre. The lack of potash in our country this year recalls forcibly to our minds the rather humiliating position that this country is placed in regarding this element, and of our almost complete dependence upon Germany and other countries for our supply. There are several sources of potash in our country and, no doubt, large deposits could be discovered were the matter taken up seriously by the government. Seaweeds of various kinds contain a large percentage of this element, and there are other sources w^hich might bring a fair supply. The future of agriculture depends upon conserving the fertility of the soil, and potash is one of the elements necessary to that conservation. Basic slag, containing a large percentage of phosphorus, is also imported from Germany, while Germany takes large quantities of our rock phosphates. It would seem as if our farmers should use more of our natural rock phosphates, both xiv BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. treated and untreated, according to results desired. All farmers should avail themselves of the results of the latest experiments on the use of these phosphates, and a circular published by the Board on "How to Buy Fertilizers" should also be carefully studied. As the fertilizer question "becomes more acute, as it is bound to do, we must depend more upon animal fertilizers and soiling crops for keeping up soil fertility, and in many places, not only in the country in general, but in our own State in particular, animal husbandry should be revived, and many of the practices now common in the congested areas of Europe will have to be adopted. The Milk Situation. The charge has been made during the past few years that Boston is a closed market for the sale of milk, and that it is impossible to sell milk here on a fair competitive basis. Few people realize the amount of machinery and outfit necessary to handle milk in a safe way throughout the year; even the person or firm handling only a few quarts of milk must have the equipment for properly caring for this very perishable food. Therefore it is impossible for every farmer to maintain his own dairy outfit. Several courses are open to the farmer who wishes to raise milk: he can keep enough animals to afford to put in special dairy apparatus on his farm, and deliver milk to city or town customers direct, as is now done by quite a few; he may sell his milk to the dealer in the city who maintains a small dairy plant; or he may sell to the large contractors. Whichever course he may pursue, he has as free a market as does the farmer who sells fruit or vegetables, for both these latter i)roducts are in direct competition with similar products from other States and from our own State. Along with milk production in some sections of this State should go the raising of dairy cattle, in order that it shall not be necessary for the farmer to purchase new animals each year, but by producing his own, derive the benefit of this profit. High-grade animals should be ])roduced, as it costs as much to raise a scrub as it does a cow producing 8,000 pounds of milk; and no farmer in our State can aft'ord to keep a cow which produces less than 6,000 pounds of milk per year. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xv Dairy animals will come back in this State if our farmers find that they can make a greater profit in them than from other kinds of agriculture, but it would be the height of folly to attempt to impose on this State the production of a commodity which farmers in other States are willing to produce at a loss or may possibly produce cheaper. The inroad of the foot-and-mouth disease has resulted in the killing of about 1,200 dairy animals in the State, but this condition has not materially affected the dairy situation. The agricultural history of Massachusetts would show an ever changing type of farming. We learn a great deal about the loss of dairy cattle in our State, and the consequent re- duction in the amount of milk produced. Some people are inclined to look upon this as the whole agricultural question, not realizing that beginning a few years after the first settle- ments were made, Massachusetts agriculture has undergone great changes. The great crops of grain, beef and mutton have been grown here in sufficient quantities to feed our people, but as new lands were opened up and cheaper transportation became possible, these crops followed the lines of the cheapest production and forced our people to grow something else. So it has become with dairying; the farmers of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Canada feel that they can produce milk at prices which dealers are willing to pay, therefore if we cannot meet these prices, we shall have to go into other lines of agriculture, or produce milk of a higher quality for which our people must pay a fair price commensurate with the cost of production. State Ownership of Stallions. Massachusetts has never been a great horse-breeding State, but we have got to come to it sooner or later, and now that the terrible war in Europe is fast depleting the horses of the countries engaged in breeding them, and these countries are drawing heavily upon the United States to keep their stock re- plenished, a more fitting time for us to attempt a revival of this important industry could not be found. Undoubtedly the principal drawback to horse breeding here is the lack of stallions, and the practical problems surrounding xvi BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. their ownership and use by the farmer. No farmer can afford to own a stallion, as he would a bull, and few farmers can afford to pay the rather large fee charged by the owners of the few stallions in the State. New^ Jersey has tried the experiment of State ownership and so far with success. Massachusetts should try this also, and to this effect a bill has been drawn for presentation to the Legislature. • Sheep. In connection with this subject quite a study of the dog laws of various States and other countries has been made by your secretary. The Hampden County Improvement League is much interested in the subject of better dog laws, and a law prepared by them has been introduced into the present Legis- lature. Wild Deer. The law passed last season relative to the better control of these animals has had a marked effect in reducing them and their consequent damage to our orchards. The Board should oppose any attempt to repeal this law% and should possibly attempt to have the open season extended. Alfalfa. This very important crop is not meeting with the success which it ought to in our State, and it would seem that it is largely due to lack of knowledge regarding the growing of it. The Board, in conjunction with other organizations interested in this subject, should appeal to the government and the State experiment station in order that a sub-experiment station for the growing of this crop be established in Massachusetts. Much alfalfa is now being brought to our State from Texas and California, while we have much land which could grow it. There is no doubt that it would pay if grown only as a one- season crop, as we do Hungarian barley or oats, planting the cheaper varieties of seed in the s})ring, getting if possible two cuttings which may be fed green or put in the silo. We must not give up the attempt to grow alfalfa, for we are bound to succeed if we persist. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xvii Roads and Transportation. The State should extend its highways as rapidly as possible in order to connect sparsely settled districts with large centers. INIiich of the transportation of the future in our hill towns must be done by motor truck and auto, and the use of these vehicles and the consequent better service to the people in these districts should be hastened by the construction of better roads. Not only should the State construct better main highways, but it should assist the towns in building better connecting roads by reducing grades, improving bridges and culverts, to accommo- date the new methods of transportation. The report of the Massachusetts Highway Commission says : — There are now in the State 1,039.07 miles of State liighway. During 1914, 76.16 miles of State highway were constructed. Under the provisions of the "small town" act, roads were constructed in 91 towns, and con- tracts were made but not completed in 18 towns. Engineering advice has been given in 48 cities and toAvns on work where the State made no financial contribution. Work has been done, under the provisions of chapter 525 of the Acts of 1910, in 66 towns. The total number of to^^^ls and cities which have received aid from the State during the year 1914. either by the construction of State high- ways, construction of roads under the "small town" act, or the improve- ment of roads imder the provisions of chapter 525 of the Acts of 1910, is 207. The increased use of the auto truck is very apparent through- out the State, and in many places it has already taken the place of the horse for hauling farm produce to market, and we may look for a greater use of the truck just as soon as roads are extended and new land developed. Markets and Marketing. This subject, which is far too apt to be a secondary one when considering agricultural operations, is really the key to success in the whole question. We may grow good crops, pack them well, and get them to the market, but if we do not have the ability to sell, or the market acquaintance, very often the price xviii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. received for our goods does not compensate for cost of pro- duction. The first step in good marketing is good grading laws, and the second is strong selling organizations. The products of our Massachusetts farmers, subject to no grading laws or regulations, come in competition with those of other States where either State laws or co-operative association regulations have fixed a standard which insures the buyer against careless handling and poor grading. The regeneration of Massachusetts agriculture will not come until we make some attempt to better the marketing conditions. It would therefore seem proper at this time to request the Legislature to establish a bureau of markets, whose duties shall be the fixing of standard grades, enforcement of grading laws, assisting in the formation of selling organizations, giving the farmers reliable information in relation to markets not only in this State but in others. This bureau should become a clearing house for information on all marketing questions, and would be of untold value to our farmers. The question of a law to license commission men has come up several times during the past year, and a bill was introduced into the last Legislature relative to the subject. This bill was not supported even by its introducer, and it would therefore seem as if the case were not sufficiently acute to warrant any such law. Investigation of this question ought, however, to go on, and if such a law is necessary, it should be enacted. Many of us are far too apt to feel that a middle man is not necessary in the sale of our products, little realizing that we often act as our own middle man and far too often to the detriment of our growing crops. Sales companies and co- operative associations controlled by the farmers should be established, with the State Bureau acting as a clearing house for them. A bill to require all cities and towns of over 10,000 inhabit- ants to provide suitable marketing places where farmers may sell direct to consumers has been introduced on recommendation of a member of the Board. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xix The Need of Agricultural Grading Laws. The large apple crop of 1914 demonstrated more than ever before the need of some grading laws in the State. Maine has been working under an apple-grading law for four years. New York passed one last year, and Canada has had one for over eight years. From all these sources come only good reports. Nova Scotia says it has raised the price of her apples abroad over $1 per barrel. The same is true of Maine, and dealers in New York say that Baldwin apples, packed under their law, have brought from 65 cents to $1 a barrel more than have Baldwins from Massachusetts. We must adopt such a law sooner or later if we are to compete with the other States, and as all these laws are designed to cover only those apples packed in closed packages and to enforce a true marking of them, it will not interfere with the person who still wishes to pack any old way, except that he must mark his apples "ungraded" or "unclassified." The open package is not affected by the law. The Boston Chamber of Commerce has recently appointed a committee, composed of persons representing all branches of the apple industry', to draft a law which may be made uniform in all the New England States, and this committee has devoted a great deal of time and thought to the matter. The law which it proposes to introduce will be based on the best points of all the laws so far enacted. Your secretary is a member of that committee, and has already introduced a bill which may have to be revised in the legislative committee later on, the committee on grading not being ready to report just yet. Not only apples, but many other farm products, should come under such laws. We cannot expect to sell in large quantities until we can get large quantities of one grade. Never was this more strikingly illustrated than last fall when the Board, desiring to help in the sale of apples, started the "buy a barrel of apples" movement. Orders came in very fast, and were turned over to the secretary of the Massachusetts Fruit Growers' Association. Difficulty was experienced in finding enough growers who were packing in uniform grades to fill the orders received. Here is another instance of the value of a XX BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. grading law. A Boston concern, wishing to give away a barrel of apples with each purchase, was forced to send to INIaine to get enough apples of one grade to fill the orders. Rural Credits. In the secretary's report for 1913, among general recom- mendations was this phrase: "A system of banking must be established whereby farmers may obtain money on as easy terms as other business men do." In connection with this, the Legislature, on recommendation of the Board, passed a law extending the scope of credit unions (and there is no doubt that sooner or later advantage will be taken of this by some classes of our farmers) ; but we need a more far-reaching law, a law which will be of greater advantage in developing our now unproduc- tive land and financing new agricultural development. This is particularly necessary at this time as it seems probable that the government will not pass any such legislation; and even should it do so,- it will not interfere with a sound State law. To this end, your secretary has studied at length the New York land bank law and, after consultation with authorities in New York and the Bank Commissioner of our State, has decided to introduce this law at this time to the Legislature, believing that in so doing there will be established a system of banking which will materially aid the farmer. Other States are about to pass such laws, and the national Secretary of Agriculture speaks of such legislation as follows : — It is the judgment of the best students of economic conditions here that there is needed, to supplement existing agencies, a proper land- mortgage system, operating through pri-\^ate funds, just as other banking institutions operate, and this judgment is shared by leaders of economic thought abroad. The national banking system up to the present time has labored under restrictions imposed by law which made it impossible for the national banks to solve the problems in the most effective way. State banks, with fewer restrictions, with smaller capital requirements, and ability to lend on real estate, have established more intimate touch and have perhaps rendered greater assistance. The proposed law provides for the creation of a State land bank, made up of associations who subscribe the capital, on No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxi the same basis as the building and loan associations. Loans are to be made on farm lands to the extent of 60 per cent of their value, with the understanding that the money is to be used to improve the land. In order to create additional funds in the bank, debenture bonds are to be issued upon the mortgages held, and these bonds offered to the public. These bonds would become a safe and, no doubt, attractive form of invest- ment as there would be back of them actual land values. The whole system contemplates supervision by the Bank Com- missioner, and once well established, will undoubtedly system- atize credits in rural districts and materially reduce the rate of interest. Advertising Massachusetts Agricultural Resources. What was said last year in the report of the secretary relative to this subject holds more true to-day than ever. Massa- chusetts took the lead among the eastern States on this subject in 1908, and since then other States have followed along the same general lines. New York publishes a book of over 600 pages on her agricultural resources and farms for sale. There seems to be a feeling on the part of some farmers that the advertising of our land will cause greater competition among us. This does not seem true, however, when you stop to consider that the competition will only be transferred from interstate to State competition. In other words, we are now importing practically two-thirds of all the food products we consume. Our farmers are competing with New York, New Jersey and other States in the same products which can be grown here just as well as in the sections mentioned. We want the farmers from those other States to come here and take up our land and grow these crops, thereby increasing the valuation of our State, and, furthermore, keep in Massachusetts money which is now going out of the State. In this connection, a bill has been drawn to cover not only the publication of the bulletin on Massachusetts agricultural resources, but also providing for the collection by the Board of data relative to Massachusetts agriculture as will be of benefit to us. As an example of the kind of work contemplated, it is desirable that we should know more about the production of xxii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. apples in the State; and it is proposed under this bill to take an apple census and to follow this up each year with an estimate of the crop based on actual knowledge of the number of bearing trees in the State. Massachusetts and the country at large suffered untold loss this year from the overestimation of the apple crop, based on the government figures, for this estimate had the effect of depressing prices and causing farmers to sacri- fice their apples. Once the apple census was carefully made, other crops could be taken up. In connection with this work, the State would have the advantage of being able to use the large relief maps prepared by the Board for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, and such data as is collected may be placed on the maps from time to time. In this way, it would be possible in a few years to have a complete map for each crop, showing its distribution and the exact number of acres devoted to it. Reclamation of Wet Lands, The bill presented to the Legislature last season, making some changes in the act of 1913, providing for the reclamation of wet lands, was enacted into law, and the sum of S10,000 added to the appropriation. The joint committee investigated tracts of land in the following towns: Acton, Bridgewater, Carlisle, Concord, Randolph, Sturbridge, Walpole and Wayland. Several detailed surveys were made and definite plans laid to start work when the Board of Health was reorganized, and a ruling of the Attorney-General brought the work to a close early in the summer. As the Department of Health has only recently become organized, no new work has been undertaken. Therefore there remains now an unexpended balance of $24,- 547.55. Where large tracts of land are to be drained, it will undoubtedly be found wise to follow such a law as Illinois and other western States have adopted, that is, to provide for the deepening of the main stream or else make a new channel which will give land owners a chance to drain into the main water course. The expense of the whole operation should be charged to the acreage affected over a term of years long enough not to make it a hard load for the farmer to carry. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxiii Exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The Board of Panama-Pacific Managers turned over to this Board $5,000, to be used in making an agricultural exhibit at the exposition, and after several conferences with the Board it was decided to make such an exhibit. A committee, composed of Messrs. Albert Ellsworth, Calvert H. Playdon, F. W. Rane and F. P. Newkirk, was appointed at the summer field meeting, June, 1914, and a plan already mapped out was decided upon, namely, to collect data relative to ^Massachusetts agriculture, consisting of pictures, maps, charts and booklets, designed to call attention to the agri- cultural possibilities in our State. The State forestry depart- ment was also given some money, and it was decided to com- bine the exhibits. Mr. Warren H. Manning was retained by the committee to perfect the plan, which was as follows: — That two large relief maps of the State should be made, one showing conditions much as they are, the other showing to what agriculture and forestry development should lead. The Board may be congratulated on having secured Mr. Manning's services, for with his great knowledge of conditions in the State, and the help of other departments, we have been able to collect more data in one place relative to the resources and condilions of the State than was ever before brought together. Other features of the exhibit are pictures of all phases of Massachusetts agriculture, which are to be shown in an auto- matic machine, as well as moving pictures of actual farm operations on Massachusetts agriculture; road and railroad maps and an exhibit of old agricultural tools make up the balance of the display which will undoubtedly form a unique feature of the exposition. A splendid location at the exposition has been secured in the agricultural building, and the exhibit is well on its way at this time. Horticultural Exhibit. In addition to the agricultural exhibit, your secretary was requested by the Board of Panama-Pacific Managers to get together an exhibit of Massachusetts horticultural products, and as our State is producing a great deal of the best orna- xxiv BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. mental nursery stock grown in the country, it was decided to plant a Massachusetts garden on the exposition grounds. A committee composed of Messrs. Roland, Finlayson, Farquhar, Wyman and Shea, was chosen by your secretary, and stock was collected from the following growers: — Thomas Roland. Cherry Hill Nurseries (T. C. Thurlow & Sons, Inc.). R. & J. Farquhar & Co. Edward Gillett. Old Colony Nurseries, Inc. Edward F. Dwyer & Sons. George B. Eager. Peter Fisher. Patten & Co. Bay State Nurseries. J. K. Alexander. George H. Walker. Eastern Nurseries. New England Nurseries. Frederick J. Rea. Forbes & Keith. J. Woodward Manning. Breck-Robinson Company. E. L. Lewis. Mr. Carl Purdy of L^kiah, California, was retained as land- scape architect in California. The garden has been planted successfully, and jVIassachusetts had the honor of being the only State having such a design on the grounds. In addition to this work, shrubs and flowers were planted about the State building. For all this work, the Board will receive due recognition by the authorities at the exposition. The relations between your secretary and the Board of Panama-Pacific Managers, as well as with the authorities in California, have been most pleasant, and while the work has made many exacting demands upon his time, the data collected and the work done will be of great value to the State for all time. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. XXV Insect Pests. Undoubtedly the most serious insect pest of the year was the army worm, which appeared in large quantities in some parts of the State during late July and early August. The principal places attacked were : — Abington. Arlington. Athol. Attleborough. Barnstable. Berkley. Boston- Bourne. Braintree. Brewster. Brighton. Brockton. Carver. Chatham. Chelmsford. Cohasset. Dartmouth. Dighton. Duxbury. East Bridgewater. Easton. EdgartoTVTi. Fairhaven. Fall River. Falmouth. Gloucester. Halifax. Hanover. Hanson. Harvard. Harwich. Hingham. Holbrook. Hyannis. Longmeadow. Mansfield. Medford. Middleborough. Milford. Nantucket. Newbury. North Andover. Northbridge. Norton. Norwell. Oak Bluffs. Pembroke. Plymouth. Plympton. Raynham. Rochester. Rockland. Rockport. Salisbury. Scituate. Seekonk. Somerset. Swansea. Taunton. Tisbury. Topsfield. Wareham. West Boylston. West Bridgewater. West Tisbury. Weymouth. Whitman. Worcester. Reports of enormous losses have been numerous from many places, but personal visits to some of these have failed to indi- cate any very great amount of destruction. Examination of xxvi BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. many places where the loss was estimated at as much as $500 leads to the opinion that one-fifth of this amount would be more nearly correct. A member of the State Board who visited various parts of the towns of Bridgewater, Middleborough, Wareham, Carver, Plympton and Plymouth during the height of the invasion this year has supplied the following statement : — At the Bridgewater State Farm the army worms were very numerous, though Mr, Bacon, the farmer there, stated that the attack was not as bad as in 1896. The greatest injury was to oats and grass, and v/ould perhaps reach $500. There were several smaller outbreaks in Bridgewater, but with shght money loss. Middleborough had numerous though small outbreaks, the total loss being estimated at $300. In Wareham, some lawns and small fields of grass were injured, the estimated loss being less than $100. Reports of damage to cranberry bogs in Carver failed to be supported on investigation; a few mowing fields attacked indicated a loss of perhaps $100. In Plymouth, no places were found where the insect was causing any appreciable injury. In these towns the whole question of damage has been much overestimated without question, for all cases reported were followed up and always found to be much exaggerated. A bulletin on the army worm, its habits, history and an account of the recent outbreak, has been prepared by Dr. H. T. Fernald, and is a splendid treatise on the subject. Tent caterpillars were not so numerous as last season, but in some parts of the State did considerable damage; 1913 probably marked the height of the present cycle of this insect. Forest tent caterpillars were abundant in some places, and their work is often mistaken for that of the gypsy moth. Brown-tail moths were very scarce in most sections, and reports are now coming in that the webs made last year contain very few live insects. Orchard insects, such as codling moth, railroad worm and leaf miners were not as numerous as usual. Good conditions at time of spraying probably reduced the number of codling moths, so that there was a small second lot, although in some sections this pest was serious. One of our most troublesome orchard pests is the aphis, and when these are plentiful, as they were during the past season, No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxvii much damage is done. As they are sucking insects they are more difficult to destroy than leaf-eating insects, and particu- larly so as they work when the tree is in leaf and continue their depredations during the entire growing season. The greatest damage done is the checking of tree growth, reducing the size of the fruit and causing it to be much discolored. Scale insects are still rapidly killing our neglected orchard trees, and the greatest danger from this pest is the spread from neglected orchards to those given good care by the owners. The whole insect question is one which should have deep thought. We are bound to have a bad outbreak of some insect each year, for conditions governing their control by parasites are such that some years the parasites are killed; and there has not been any means yet devised by which human agencies can completely control serious outbreaks. A greater knowledge of parasites would be of untold value to us, and the breeding of them will undoubtedly be an economic possi- bility in the near future. Nursery Inspection. The inspection of our nurseries for dangerous insects and plant diseases has been conducted in a very efficient and effective manner. The work of Dr. Fernald and his assistants has been of the highest order, so much so that our certificates of inspection are accepted by all States. In connection with this, your secretary would like to call your attention to a question which is bound to have some influence upon the future of the fruit industry of the State, and that is the importation of fruit grown in South Africa, New Zealand and such countries. These fruits, coming from countries where conditions are similar to ours, may carry insects and diseases new to us, and should be inspected before being sold in the State. Western States have taken very definite precautions to guard against such dangers, but we in Massachusetts are inclined to take the precaution too late. A bill for presentation to the Legislature has been drawn covering the necessary points, and an additional appropriation of 12,000 asked for to do this inspection. xxviii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Apiary Inspection. This department has performed its work in a very satisfactory manner, and has covered much new territory which it has been impossible to reach in other years owing to the small force of inspectors. It is gratifying to know that in sections where this work has been going on longest, bee diseases have practically been wiped out; and just as soon as we can better control the shipment of bees into our State, just so much sooner may we expect to keep the State entirely clean. To this end it is recommended that an amendment to the present law be enacted providing that transportation companies, common carriers and other persons bringing broods of bees into the State be required to notify the State Inspector of Apiaries immediately of such shipments in order that, if deemed neces- sary, they may be inspected. It is also recommended that the salary of the State Inspector of Apiaries be fixed at $500 per annum instead of So per diem as at present. This will accord with the nursery inspection law. The department is asking for $1,000 more this year to carry on the work, as a larger force of inspectors is necessary in order to cover the ground quickly. The Dairy Bureau. The Bureau has been particularly active the past season, and its work is becoming more and more effective. Cases of fraud against tlie dairy laws have been prosecuted vigorously, and while old offenders of this type are driven from their ways, there seems to be a certain number of new ones always coming along. The second year's work on encouragement of dairying will be reported fully by the Bureau. Mr. Harwood, the general agent, was sent to Europe to study dairy conditions there, and while he was able to visit only the Channel Islands and Great Britain, owing to the outbreak of the war, his trip was of great value, inasmuch as he was able to compare con- ditions with a first-hand knowledge. ^Ir. Harwood has also visited some of the New England States in connection with the Chamber of Commerce investigation, and is contemplating a trip through southern Canada in the spring. We have got to know more about conditions surrounding us, for the future of No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxix dairying depends much upon this knowledge. It would be unwise for us to advocate ordinary dairying if we find upon investigation that market milk can be produced cheaper in other States which are within hauling distance of our markets. The State Ornithologist. The State Ornithologist has this year been investigating very thoroughly both the cat and the rat, and while they may recall vividly to us visions of our primer days, they nevertheless have a very decided influence upon our bird life. ]Mr. Forbush's investigations on the rats have been summed up in a bulletin on the subject which is now ready for distribution. This bulletin treats the question from every possible angle, embodying many new ideas, and bringing together more material on the subject than has ever been collected in one publication. His investigations in regard to cats are not complete as yet, but data obtained will, no doubt, be of service in determining the econom.ic value of this animal. Various other matters connected with bird and animal life have been investigated by Mr. Forbush, and these will be embodied in his report. The sale of the special reports by Mr. Forbush for the fiscal year ending Nov. 30, 1914, has been as follows: "Useful Birds and their Protection," 594; "Game Birds, Wild. Fowl and Shore Birds," 267. ' The State Forester. A new commission, created by the last Legislature to buy lands for reforestation, has given the State Forester another duty, as he is a member of this commission. The work of suppressing the gypsy and brown-tail moths has gone on as usual. Parasites have been liberated and certainly they have done good work, particularly so the Colosoma beetle, which feeds upon the larvae of the gypsy moth, in particular. This parasite in turn is preyed upon by the skunk, and in some sections where skunks are plentiful, it is much reduced by them. The removal of the broad-leaved trees, which are the common food of most of the forest insects, will greatly reduce the num- ber of these pests simply by reducing their food supply. XXX BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Forest fires have been controlled well during the year, and only once during the shooting season, when the woods were dry, did they do great damage. Reforestation is going on as rapidly as funds are available. The planting of these new forests, particularly of pine and other evergreens, and the cutting of our hard woods, will before long have a marked effect on the destruction of our woodlands by insects. The Fairs. Probably never in the history of the fairs of the State has there been such universally good weather through the entire season. Tlie only fairs which suffered were those held during the early part of September, when cold, windy weather pre- vailed. The balance of the month was warm and dry, and the attendance at practically all the fairs was good. Exliibits in most cases were excellent, and it is gratifying to see in many cases a return of interest in the exhibition of beef producing animals, such as were shown at Greenfield, Worcester and Charlemont. At present there seems to be a growing tendency to make a specialty of one breed of animal at a fair; and it would appear to be a step in the right direction, as a certain fair should be known as the Guernsey fair, another as the Holstein fair, etc. If our fairs are to accomplish the greatest good, they should become centers of buying and selling, and if one breed of animal can be concentrated at one place, exchange in these animals would be facilitated. It is pleasing to note that in many cases our fairs are shutting out the fakirs and are striving to get attractions of a higher class, designed to return a profit to the fair management rather than to the fakir. All of the incorporated societies, with the exception of Spencer, held fairs this year, and many unin- corporated organizations. A large number of towns celebrated the gathering of the harvest by holding a fair, and it is an institution which certainly shoidd be commended; for what could be more appropriate at such a time than an exhibition of the products of the farm for friendly competition, and a gather- ing together of the people in sympathy with a common interest? Fairs have always marked a cycle in the farm year, and to abandon this annual event would be a regrettable step, re- No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxxi moving one of the things which stimulate the farmer to produce his best, and taking from him a favorable chance to compare his efforts with those of his neighbor. It would seem advisable that the premium lists of the various fairs should be revised and standard lists of fruits, flowers, vegetables and stock furnished, so that each society may choose from this list such things as would best be en- couraged in its section. Twenty-six States in the Union are now offering prizes at their fairs in "better babies" contests. Only one society in JNJassachusetts has taken up this work, but with a degree of success which has made these contests one of the features of the exhibition. It would seem to your secretary that while we are giving so much attention to the care and feeding of stock and the growing of crops, it might be well to consider the larger question of developing strong and healthy children, as these should be the best crop of the farm. These contests are conducted just as stock judging contests are. Points scored are for development and not for beauty. Directions are given to parents as to the care and feeding of children, and, in other States, such contests have had a marked effect upon the de- velopment of the child. This question is so closely connected with that of milk production and its use, that it would seem advisable for us to favor any plan which would lead to a more sane use of milk in the home. Institute Work. A vote of the committee on institutes and public meetings, and later confirmed by the executive committee, has made it possible to carry out a circuit of institutes, as outlined in my last report. Arrangements for working out such a plan are under way, and it is hoped that it may be carried out this winter. There is a growing demand for these institutes from all sorts of organizations, and if the Board had the necessary appropriation, more than double the work could be done. Your secretary attended the annual meeting of Farmers' Institute Workers in Washington, and found that in comparison with the amount of money spent, we are getting as good results as are other States. There is, however, a growing feeling among xxxii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. institute workers that the extension departments of the colleges are looking with eager eyes upon this work, and are demanding that it be placed under their control. It may be that in some States this is desirable, but your secretary feels that it would be unwise for the Board to give up this work. Many questions enter into the extension of these institutes, and all involve more money. We could do much better work with a paid leader who could devote his whole time at least three months in the year to the work. Lectures illustrated by stereopticon and moving pictures are as a rule more instructive. The Board should make a series of moving-picture films of all Massachusetts agricultural operations and have them for use at all times. Those used the past year belong to the Board of Panama-Pacific Managers, and wherever they have been shown much interest has been displayed. The total number of institutes for the year was 161, with 188 sessions, and the total attendance was 22,649, or 120 per session, against 115 last year, 118 in 1912 and 126 in 1911. One of the societies held 8 institutes; two held 5; four held 4; eleven held 3; seven held 2; five held 1; five held none, and 75 institutes were held by organizations not represented on the Board. PouLTKY Premium Bounty.- The bounty annually appropriated for the purpose of re- imbursing poultry associations applying therefor, to the extent of their expenditures in premiums for the breeds specified by the Board, was distributed as follows: — Attleboro Poultry Association, $130 64 Dalton Poultry, Pigeon and Pet Stock Association, . . . 167 09 Eastern Massachusetts Poultry and Pigeon Association, . . 105 77 Holyoke Poultry and Pet Stock Association, .... 248 76 Lawrence Poultry, Pigeon and Pet Stock Association, . . 49 76 Lenox Poultry Association, 101 38 Mansfield Poultry, Pigeon and Pet Stock Association, . . 46 00 Milford Poultry Association, 213 88 New England Poultry' Association, 191 50 Northern Berksliire Poultry Association, 173 54 Springfield Poultry Association, 300 00 Worcester Poultry Association, 253 14 Total, $1,981 46 No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxxiii The law regulating the distribution of this bounty was amended so as to conform more nearly to that applying to the agricultural societies. The limitation of the period w^ithin which associations must hold their shows was extended from three months to the whole year and June 30 was set as the close of the year. The date of filing returns was definitely set as July 10, and bounty was made payable in August instead of September. The basis on which the bounty due each associa- tion is to be reckoned was changed from the amount of entry fees taken in to the amount of money paid out in State prem- iums for such breeds and strains of poultry as the Board con- siders most worthy of encouragement. The term "State premium" was defined as a premium described in the premium lists of the associations as being offered by the Board through the association. By a ruling of the Board associations can be reimbursed only for first premiums. Boys' and Girls' Agricultural Work. The Legislature granted $1,000 additional for this work last year, and the immediate results are very apparent, inasmuch as over 40,000 boys and girls were enrolled in potato, corn, canning and other clubs. State-wide contests in all branches of garden and farm work have been held, and a great stimulus to the youths of our State to go into agriculture has been given. Professor jMorton, of the agricultural college, who has had charge of the work under Professor Hart, will report to you more fully. Special Exhibitions. A number of exhibitions of farm products have been held by the Board during the past year, and at several held by other organizations the Board has offered prize money or cups. Two noteworthy points about all these exhibitions should be mentioned: first, the high quality of the entries has shown that the best of our Massachusetts farmers can produce as good corn, fruit and dairy products as any State in the Union; second, a comparison of the exhibitions of this year with those of five and six years ago shows that there has been a rapid improvement in the quality of exhibits. xxxiv BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. The first apple show of the year was that of the International Apple Shippers' Association at Boston, in August. For this the Board collected a small exhibit of early varieties of apples to represent Massachusetts. This exhibit made a good showing though it was, of course, at a disadvantage as compared with some other States on account of the early date of the con- vention and the fact that very few of our apples had reached their full size and color. The Board exhibited 100 boxes of Massachusetts grown Mcintosh at the pure food and domestic science fair which was held at Mechanics' Hall in October; and appropriated money for the Massachusetts prize winners at the New England fruit show at Providence, in November. In connection with the public winter meeting at Worcester, the Board offered $300 in prizes for a corn show, which was judged by Professor J. A. Foord of Amherst. There were 40 contestants and a creditable display of both flint and dent corn. The same amount was appropriated for an apple show, which was judged by Professor F. C. Sears of Amherst. There were thirty-five contestants, and the quality of the fruit shown was uniformly excellent. Knowledge of box packing is becoming more widespread among our growers, although there is still large room for improvement here. One class which brought out some interesting entries was that for the most attractive and practical retail package for apples; and considerable ingenuity was shown by exhibitors in contriving packages which would stand shipping, be neat, convenient to carry, and tasteful enough to catch the buyer's eye. Five hundred dollars was given by the Board to the Massa- chusetts Dairymen's Association for exhibitions of dairy products. \Yith this money two shows were held, — one at Amherst, in connection with farmers' week, and the other at the public winter meeting at Worcester. Both were very successful, largely due to the efforts of the secretary of the association. Professor W. P. B. Lockwood of Amherst. An exhibit of boys' and girls' home and school garden club work was also held at the Worcester meeting, and the showing of the coming generation of farmers was most praiseworthy. All parts of the State were well represented. A further de- No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxxv scription of the work of the boj's' and girls' clubs during the year will be found under that heading. Cups were offered in the students' apple judging and packing contests, and great interest was manifested in these. A cup was also awarded for the best exhibit of apiary products at the New England fair at Worcester. Cups were offered for best window displays of apples in Boston and Brockton, and prizes awarded in the boys' stock judging contest at Lowell. Meetings of the Board. The Board has held its regular meetings the past year. The annual meeting was in January, at which the routine business of the year is done, reports read, and legislation decided upon. The summer meeting was held at Hood Farm, Lowell, on June 24, and in spite of a hot day a very large number of people gathered to listen to a most interesting program. Discussions on spraying, marketing and swine raising, together with demonstrations of irrigating appliances, the use of dynamite in agriculture, and boys' stock judging contest, completed a profitable day. The Board gave a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Hood for his hospitality. In July a most successful dynamiting demonstration was held at Valley Field Farm, Lexington, at which more than 300 persons were present. The winter meeting of the Board was held in Worcester in the rooms of the horticultural society, in co-operation with the Worcester Horticultural Society, Worcester County Improve- ment League, Massachusetts Dairymen's Association, Massa- chusetts Milk Inspectors' Association, New England Alfalfa Growers' Association and other organizations. The subjects discussed were poultry, market gardening, fruit growing, raising beef cattle, home economics, milk production, alfalfa, and farm accounting. All sessions of these meetings were well attended, the average being over 200. The splendid spirit of co-operation manifested by all the organizations, the desire on the part of the citizens of W^orcester, and particularly the W^orcester Chamber of Commerce, to make the meeting a success, marks one of the bright spots of the year in agriculture. xxxvi BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Various exhibitions of corn, fruit, dairy products, boys' and girls' garden products, and the sediment cottons of the clean- milk contest, served as an added attraction. jNIoving pictures of Massachusetts agriculture were shown between the lectures, and these being more or less of a novelty at such a meeting were much enjoyed. The future success of such meetings depends largely upon the co-operation of all organizations, and, wherever we may go, it is hoped that the same spirit will prevail as in the past. For the first time attention has been called to the provisions of chapter 452 of the Acts of 1910, which require that all State boards and commissions shall deposit with the Secretary of the Commonwealth, on or before the first Wednesday of January in each year, such parts of their annual reports as contain recommendations or suggestions for legislation, which are to be accompanied by drafts of bills qr resolves embodying the legislation recommended. It is apparent that the enforcement of this provision will necessitate a meeting of the Board on a date prior to the first Wednesday in January. It is therefore recommended that the date of expiration of the terms of members be set on the first Tuesday of December, thus allowing the annual meeting to be held at that time. A corresponding change in the time of holding the public winter meeting will be necessary, and it is recommended that the by-laws of the Board be amended so as to allow the date of this meeting to be set each year by the Board, Co-operation with Other Organizations. During the past year the Board has enjoyed very pleasant relations with various other organizations. The mutually helpful co-operation between the Board and the agricultural college has been maintained, and many of the professors have been engaged to work with the Board at exhibitions, institutes, and in various other ways. The grange has also co-operated in many ways, particularly in the institute work, where our speakers acting jointly with the grange have addressed large audiences. The Boston Chamber of Commerce, through its agricultural committee, has many times co-operated with the Board, No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxxvii particularly in the matter of collecting data relative to the milk and fruit questions; and your secretary has attended a number of meetings held by the Chamber, and is at present a member of the committee appointed by the Chamber to formu- late an apple-grading law. The Massachusetts Dairymen's Association, the Massa- chusetts Milk Inspectors' Association, the INIassachusetts Fruit Growers' Association, the Worcester and Hampden County Improvement Leagues, the Worcester Chamber of Commerce, the Worcester County Agricultural Society, and many other organizations have united to assist in the work of the Board, and to all these the Board wishes Godspeed. Changes in the Board. The expiration of terms resulted in the following changes in the personnel of the Board: Mr. Rufus M. Smith, of the Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden Society, retires after three years of service, and Mr. Clarence E. Hodgkins has been elected to fill his place; Mr. Abner Towne, of the Hoosac Valley Society, retires after three years of service, and Mr. Nathan B. Flood has been elected from this society; Mr. R. H. Race, of the Housatonic Society, retires after three years of service, and Mr. Charles W. Freehan will assume his seat; Mr. George F. Morse, of the Worcester East Society, retires after six years of service, and Mr. Arthur C. Hawkins has been chosen his successor; Mr. L. E. Fletcher, of the Worcester North Associa- tion, retires after three years of service, and Dr. Henry D. Clark has been elected to the Board in his place. The vacancy caused by the deposition of Mr. Fred F. Walker as Com- missioner of Animal Industry will be filled temporarily by the acting commissioner. Dr. Lester H. Howard. Work of the Office. The added interest in agriculture among the people and the increased activities of the Board are directly reflected by the greater demands on the working force in the office of the Board. Each new project requires original thought and investigation and more or less correspondence. The work of editing and supervising the printing and distribution of the numerous xxxviii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. publications, the constantly increasing requests for information on every conceivable subject relating to agricultural oppor- tunities, farms and farm lands, live stock, crops, and the like, answers to many of which require some investigation and lengthy letters, and the collection, compilation and filing of data of all kinds, besides the indexing and care of a circulating and reference library, keep a limited force constantly busy. A dictating machine wuth one transcriber has been installed, thus nearly trebling the output of one stenographer and afford- ing a corresponding saving of money to the Commonwealth. The vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr, Erwin H. Forbush, in 1913, as second clerk, was filled by the appoint- ment in February of Mr. Robert Edw^ards Annin, Jr., of Rich- mond. The bill providing for amending the present statute relating to the employment of clerical assistance in the office of the Board did not become a law, but the difficulty in which the Board would have been placed had no provision of funds been made was remedied by the ways and means committee's action in recommending an appropriation of $2,800 in addition to the $6,000 appropriated for dissemination. It is undesirable to have the clerks and stenographers paid from funds provided for lectures, publications and the library. It is recommended, therefore, that an annual appropriation of .$5,000 be made in order that all clerks, excepting the first clerk, may be paid therefrom. Extracts from the Trespass Laws. Two lots of the cloth posters bearing extracts from the trespass laws have been printed, — one of 3,000, costing $145.19, and another, near the end of the year, of 500, costing $29.36. The authorization by the Legislature to sell, at not less than cost, copies in addition to the five allowed each applicant free of charge resulted in a total sale of 376 posters, netting $18.80. This money was turned into the treasury of the Commonwealth and credited to the Board's appropriation for incidental and contingent expenses, to which the cost of printing has been charged. The demand for these poslers increased over the preceding year, and was greatest in the spring and fall. No. 4.] • REPORT OF SECRETARY. xxxix Following the demand of poiiltrymen, a law was passed authorizing the detention by the owner of poultry, or by his agent or employee, of any one found in his poultry house without permission, and providing a severe penalty. In order that the protection thus afforded to keepers of poultry may be made well known, it is recommended that the secretary of the Board be enabled by legislative action to print and distribute such quantities of posters bearing the aforenamed act as may be required to meet the demand. The cost can be paid for out of the appropriation for incidental and contingent expenses. Complaint from one source and another, of the nuisance committed by unauthorized persons in dumping rubbish on the property of others, leads to the recommendation that legislation be passed prohibiting such dumping and providing a penalty therefor. It also seems desirable to amend existing law so as to prohibit the moving from one place to another on the land of another, without permission, such objects as are already protected from being cut down or carried away by those not authorized. Legislation of 1914. Out of fourteen recommendations for legislation only eight met with favorable consideration by the Legislature of 1914. The method of publishing the annual report was changed so as to provide for a more economical expenditure of the appropria- tion for this purpose. The annual report of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station was removed, as agreed to by the station, and the edition of the report reduced from 15,000 copies to not more than 10,000 copies, while authorization was given to print separates from the report in editions of not more than 10,000 copies each. The month in which societies shall receive their bounties was changed from October to August, in order that the money might be immediately available for use at the current fairs. An increase of $1,000 was allowed for use in premiums to children and youths for home and school garden work, domestic science and exhibits. The poultry premium bounty was restricted, and the payment thereof and the filing of returns regulated. The sale of the cloth posters, giving the extracts from the trespass laws, was authorized. xl BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Five copies per year to each applicant are furnished free of charge as formerly, but those desiring more than this number may secure them at cost. The salary of the State Ornithologist was increased from SI, 500 to $2,000. An amendment was made to the wet lands reclamation act, so called, allowing owners to repurchase within two years reclaimed land at the original price plus the cost of reclamation plus interest at the rate of 4 per cent per annum. Permission was given to sell in the bale hay produced on re- claimed land. The powers of credit unions were extended so as to permit the lending of money to be applied to the purchase of farms and farm lands and to improvements thereof and thereupon. These unions were further authorized to issue nontaxable forty-year debenture bonds to an amount not ex- ceeding 80 per cent of the total mortgage loans outstanding at the date of issue. The following recommendations did not become law: a resolve providing for an appropriation of S2,500 to be used for collect- ing and distributing available facts relating to the agricultural resources, advantages and opportunities of the Commonwealth; a resolve providing an appropriation of S500 to be used in purchasing and caring for agricultural books, photographs, exhibits, specimens and the like for the library of the Board; an act providing an increase from $2,000 to $3,000 in the appropriation for the encouragement of agriculture by the holding of special exhibitions; an act to further extend and protect co-operative associations; and an act providing for a division of the appropriation for lectures before the Board and extra clerical assistance, so as to permit the payment for said lectures from the appropriation for disseminating useful in- formation in agriculture, and so as further to permit the pay- ment of all clerical assistance in the office of the Board, with the exception of the first clerk, from an appropriation of $5,000 for this purpose alone. While the last-named bill was not passed, a special appropriation of $2,800 was added to that for dissemination, so that the regular office force was maintained. In connection, herewith, it is recommended that such laws enacted each year as relate to agriculture be published in the annual report of the Board, and separately at the discretion of the secretary. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xli Milk Legislation. Not less than thirteen bills relating to milk were introduced into the Legislature by various agencies. The only legislation placed on the statutes, however, was an act requiring producers and dealers to secure from local boards of health a permit to sell or deliver milk, and further requiring local boards of health to notify other boards of health and the State Board of Health of cases where a permit granted has been revoked. The power to enforce the latter provision was vested in the State Board of Health. Publications. The following publications were issued by this Board during 1913, and may be secured upon application to this office: — Name of Publication. Pages. Number. Agriculture of Massachusetts, 1913, Bulletin No. 1 (fourth edition, revised) Bulletin No. 2 (fourth edition, revised), .... Bulletin No. 6 (first edition), List of Available Publications, Circular No. 3, Scale Insects Circular No. 4, Apple Packing, Circular No. 8, Cost of Milk Production, .... Circular No. 9, What it costs to produce Milk in New England, Circular No. 11, Bacteriological Aspects of Milk Inspection, Circular No. 12, Apple Diseases, Circular No. 13, Clean Milk Contest, Circular No. 14, • Currants, Circular No. 15,' Cantaloupes, Circular No. 16,1 Grape Pruning, Circular No. 17, i Poultry Feeds, Circular No. 18,1 Farm Water Supplies Circular No. 19,1 The New Orchard, Circular No. 20, 1 Farm Management, Circular No. 21,1 Dairy Cattle, Circular No. 22, The Army Worm Circular No. 23,1 Rural Credits, Circular No. 24,1 Alfalfa 532 5,000 160 3,500 232 5,000 148 2,000 8 5,000 12 2,000 20 1,000 8 2,000 12 2,000 12 2,500 20 500 16 2,000 8 5,000 16 5,000 12 5,000 26 7,000 8 4,500 16 8,000 24 10,000 16 5,000 16 6,000 20 6,000 16 6,000 I Separate from sixty-first annual report. xlii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Name op Publication. Number. Circular No. 25, » Fertilizers, Circular No. 26, i Nut Culture, . Circular No. 27, > Peach Growing, Circular No. 28,* Co-operation, . Circular No. 29, i Farm Accounting, Circular No. 30, i Farm Ice Houses, Nature Leaflet, No. 6 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 15 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. Ifi (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 22 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 23 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 24 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 25 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 28 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 36 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 37 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 44 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 45 (reprint), . Nature Leaflet No. 46 (reprint), . Annual Report of State Inspector of Apiaries (Apiary Inspec- tion Bulletin No. 7), Apiary Inspection Bulletin No. 7A, Soft Candy Feed for Bees, Apiary Inspection Bulletin No. 8, Honey Bees as Pollenizers, . Annual Report of State Nursery Inspector, .... Annual Report of State Ornithologist, Annual Report of Dairy Bureau, Directory of Agricultural Organizations, ..... List of Breeders and Owners of Pure bred Cattle, Seventy-one Farms for Sale, List of Institute Speakers, Directory of Milk Producers 5,000 5,000 3,500 3,500 3,500 4,500 2,000 2,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 1,500 2,500 l,.50O 1,500 2,000 2,000 2,000 2,000 4,000 3,500 500 3,000 1,000 500 500 1,500 400 200 I Separate from sixty-first annual report. The size of the volume, "Agriculture of Massachusetts," has been reduced by the omission of the report of the experiment station. The new method of printing the annual report, recommended in my report of last year, was put into effect with the last volume, and has resulted in a considerable saving to the State. The number of volumes was reduced from 15,000 to 5,000; and instead of the entire report being distributed to No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xliii members of the Legislature and various agricultural organiza- tions, they were given the right to order up to 25 copies each of the various separates from the report, which were issued as circulars. By this method of distribution people interested in some specific subject do not have to take the entire report in order to get the article which they wish. That this method has been popular with the general public is shown by the fact that a total of 47,652 copies of the various circulars from the last annual report were applied for by members of the Legislature and organizations. This does not include any of the individual applications for publications by letter and personal call. These have averaged about 20 a day. It must be remembered that the Board does not have the franking privilege and so keeps no general mailing list; our publications, therefore, go out only to those who show enough interest to actually apply for them. Bulletins of Massachusetts Agriculture. Three bulletins were published during the year. The fourth edition of No. 2, "Apple Growing," appeared in February, 1914. The extensive interest in this subject among our citizens is shown by the fact that out of an edition of 5,000 copies less than 200 remain at the present writing. Bulletin No, 6, the new publication on "Dairying," which I mentioned in my last report as being in press, appeared in March, and this has met with a steady demand. It covers the various branches of the dairy business in Massachusetts in a comprehensive way. The fourth edition of No. 1, "Poultry Culture," was published during the summer. Prof. J. C. Graham's article, on "Poultry Feeds and JNIethods of Feeding," and Prof. James E. Rice's article, on "Some Practical Points in the Management of Poultry for Egg Production," were added to this bulletin, thus bringing it more nearly up to date. Out of an edition of 3,500 copies about 3,000 have been applied for. At present a new edition of Bulletin No, 4, "Small Fruits and Berries," is in press, and will appear in a few weeks. Bulletin No. 3, on "Grasses and Forage Crops," is ready to go to press; and would have been published last year but for lack of funds. \Yith the funds now at our disposal for this work, not more than three or four of these bulletins can be published xliv BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. in a year; and with the present demand, this means that all of them cannot be kept in print at the same time. Bulletin No. 5, "Vegetable Growing," has now been out of print for over six months. It is hoped that this can be republished dur- ing the present year, as also a new bulletin, to be called No. 7, and which is to cover orchard fruits, with the exception of the apple. Legislative Appropriations. Odjects for which appropriated. 1914. Appropriation. Used. Traveling and necessary expenses of the Board Salaries of secretary and clerks, ....... Traveling and necessary expenses of the secretary, Lectures before the Board and extra clerical assistance, Incidental, ........... Dissemination of useful information in agriculture, Printing 5,000 copies of "Agriculture in Massachusetts," and separata Bounties to agricultural societies, Poultry premium bounties Encouragement of orcharding, State apiary inspection, State nursery inspection State Ornithologist, salary and expenses Special exhibitions Premiums to children, Encouragement of dairying, Reclaiming wet lands, Dairy Bureau, salaries and expenses, ...... SI, 400 00 5,700 00 500 00 1,600 00 2,000 00 8,800 00 6,000 00 30,000 00 2,000 00 500 00 2,000 00 15,000 00 2,500 00 2,000 00 2,000 00 6,165 191 25,000 002 10,300 00 5123,465 19 SI, 498 79 5,700 00 384 90 1,584 51 1,974 11 8,463 03 4,159 24 30,000 99 1,981 46 451 12 1,996 47 11,395 46 2,499 74 2,000 04 1,855 35 5,379 28 452 45 10,297 66 492,074 60 1 Total available. 2 Jointly with the State Board of Health. The Outlook for the Comixg Year. Agriculture, in many branches, probably never had a more promising outlook than that for 1915. The war in Europe is bound to curtail production very heavily in all of the countries engaged, and it will therefore remain for this country to supply the enormous waste which this war has entailed. Crops of No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xlv staple food supplies, which can be shipped long distances, should be grown as far as possible, such as grain, hay, onions, tobacco, apples, corn, and meats of all kinds. Massachusetts can grow many of these crops, and is in a splendid position to ship them through the port of Boston. Many other crops could be preserved or canned, and steps should be taken to establish canneries in centers where such crops can be grown easily. The opportunity is yours, Massa- chusetts farmers. Will you make the most of it? The production of many farm and garden seeds in our State should be carefully studied out, for while European countries have been producing much of our seed, there is no reason whatever why we should not begin to produce our own. It is generally true that seeds of the highest quality are retained by growers, and the person who buys has to take second choice. Therefore it behooves us to look into this matter thoroughly and see what can be done. The outlook for producing more meat in our State is promising, and will become more so just as soon as suitable slaughtering establishments are provided in local centers. With wheat selling as at present around $1.40 per bushel, it would be well to consider the production of this crop on some of our lands. It certainly would pay better than some crops we are now growing, and we may look for a shortage in wheat for some years to come. Fruit conditions are promising as undoubtedly the large apple crop of 1914 will not be repeated, and it is our turn to have a peach crop. Certainly with Massachusetts importing three-quarters of the food supply, and with the great demand bound to be made upon us by foreign countries, the Massachusetts farmers may not legitimately complain of a lack of prospect. Conclusion. In closing this report I would like to express to you my cordial appreciation for the help given by all during the year. I sometimes feel that we do not get together often enough, and were it practical, I would like to suggest that the executive committee meet once a month. You are busy at your own xlvi BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. vocations and no doubt cannot afford to come together so often, but if you have requests to make or ideas to advance, please do not hesitate to send them in. You are in close touch with your neighboring farmers and ought to know if we can help them, and it is largely through you that we may be of service. Let us go out this year and preach the gospel of better farm- ing for Massachusetts, better crops, better marketing, so that conditions in the rural districts will be such that a better citizenship may grow up in our State, founded upon the integrity and right living toward which life in the open country should lead. Summary of Recommendations of the State Board of Agriculture. 1. That the annual salary of the General Agent of the Dairy Bureau be increased from $1,800 to $2,300. 2. That transportation companies, common carriers and other persons bringing broods of bees into the state be required to notify the State Inspector of Apiaries immediately of such shipments in order that, if deemed necessary, they may be in- spected. Further, that the salary of the State Inspector of Apiaries be fixed at $500 per annum instead of $5 per diem, and that an increase from $2,000 to $3,000 be allowed for apiary inspection. 3. That the State Nursery Inspector and his deputies be authorized to inspect and, if necessary, to destroy, treat or return fruit brought into the state suspected of being infested with injurious insects or plant diseases liable to establish them- selves in Massachusetts, and that an additional appropriation of $2,000 be provided for this purpose. 4. That cities and towns of 10,000 or more inhabitants be required to provide and maintain public markets for the dis- posal of farm produce. 5. That the trespass laws be amended so as to prohibit the moving, by unauthorized persons of certain objects resting on the land of another. 6. That there be established a INIassachusetts land bank. No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xlvii 7. That the dumping of refuse or other material on the land of another without permission be prohibited, and providing a penalty therefor. 8. That the Board be authorized to print and distribute posters relative to poultry thieving. 9. That provision be made for the improvement of farm horses by the purchase and maintenance of thoroughbred registered stallions of draft or general farm breeds. 10. That the date of expiration of membership on the Board be changed from the second Wednesday in January to the first Tuesday in December. 11. That the Board be authorized to collect, tabulate and circulate information relating to the agricultural resources, advantages and opportunities of the commonwealth. 12. That there be provided a division of the appropriation for lectures before the board and extra clerical assistance, so as to permit the payment for said lectures from the appropria- tion for disseminating useful information in agriculture, and so as further to permit the payment of all clerical assistance in the office of the Board, with the exception of the first clerk, from an appropriation of So, 000 for this purpose alone. 13. That the packing, shipping and sale of apples be regu- lated. Respectfully submitted, WILFRID WHEELER, Secretary. PUBLIC WINTER MEETING Board of Agriculture WOECESTER. December 1, 2 and 3, 1914. PUBLIC WINTER MEETING OF THE BOARD, AT WORCESTER. The annual public winter meeting of the Board for lectures and discussions was held at Horticultural Hall, Worcester, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, December 1, 2 and 3, 1914. The Worcester County Improvement League, the Massa- chusetts Dairymen's Association, the Alassachusetts Milk In- spectors' Association and the New England Alfalfa Association also held their annual meetings at the same time and place, and the co-operation of these organizations helped the meeting both in attendance and interest. The total attendance at all the sessions was about 1,600. The meeting was called to order on the first day at 10 a.m., by J. Lewis Ellsworth, president of the Worcester Chamber of Commerce and ex-secretary of the Board of Agriculture. Mr. Ellsworth introduced Honorable George M. Weight, mayor of Worcester, who delivered the address of welcome. ADDRESS OF WELCOME, BY HONORABLE GEORGE M. WRIGHT, MAYOR OF WORCESTER. I come here at considerable sacrifice this morning. This is my busy week, as you must all know who read the Worcester papers; we have a campaign here and election next Tuesday, and I am to play a more or less important part in the election. But I am very glad to be here and to meet so many of the men and women gathered here from different parts of the State at this convention. Mr. Ellsworth has referred to the fact that I am a Worcester County farmer. I have, it is true, owned a farm now for about five years, and have been going through the motions of farming and accomplishing some results. I am just completing a new modern barn 150 feet long, built of field stone, and with stone walls 18 inches thick — with the most modern system of ventilation installed, made on plans of 4 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. my own. Every square foot of the floor space in that barn will see the sunlight, and the rays of the sun direct during some time every sunny day. That is a novelty which few cattle barns — that I have seen, anyway — possess. There will be something like seventy tie-ups of the most modern de- sign, and there will be some other features about the place which are my ow-n design and idea. The city of Worcester is growing to be more and more a meeting place for organizations such as yours, and for conven- tions, whether agricultural or political or religious. They are meeting here almost every week. We have the State grange next week, and we have these conventions here continually. It is centrally located and we have now the best of hotel facil- ities and the best of railroad facilities, both electric and steam. And we welcome the members of any and all organizations throughout the State — and, in fact, throughout New England, because this is the center of New England — to Worcester to hold their conventions, and to meet here in our midst. It gives me great pleasure, and I assure you it is a great honor, to bring to you here this morning the greetings of the city of Worcester, and a welcome and a godspeed in your future work in your chosen profession. I thank you. RESPONSE FOR THE BOARD, BY WILFRID WHEELER. On behalf of the members of the Board, in the absence of our first vice-president, Mr. Bursley, I will just say a few words in response to the Honorable George M. Wright's greet- ing to us in this beautiful city of Worcester. It certainly gives me great pleasure to thank the mayor for his cordial greeting to us, and I am sure that we appreciate the chance to come to a city like Worcester, which is practically the center of New England, geographically speaking, and also one of the greatest agricultural centers in ^Massachusetts. Worcester is a city which is growing very rapidly, and we are glad to see its growth, and we are glad to believe that agricul- ture has had a great deal to do with the growth of this city. And one of the most hopeful signs of the times to me is to see the chief executives of cities, great business and manufacturing men, business men of all kinds, interested in agriculture as the No. 4.1 RESPONSE FOR THE BOARD. 5 mayor of Worcester is at the present time. Agriculture as a business, as a pleasure, is becoming more and more popular, and I believe that the mayor is setting an example in the right direction in building barns, in building up agriculture, and per- haps establishing an example for the farmers of this section which they may copy and go forward in a very honorable calling. And I thank the mayor very cordially for his greeting to us here to-day. It gives me great pleasure at this time to introduce to you Mr. F. A. Russell, second vice-president of the Board, who will preside at this morning's session. Mr. F. A. RussKLL. Mr. Secretary, Ladies and Gentlemen: It gives me great pleasure to be with you this morning; also it gives me pleasure to preside at one of the meetings of the Board of Agriculture. We have for the subject of our morning discussion a very interesting one — one which is taking a large place in the farming industries of the State, and one which, as we hear it talked about from the platform, seems to give the greatest profit, perhaps, of any farming industry there is, — as we hear it from the platform. We have with us this morning a gentleman from farther north than we are, and I am pleased to introduce Mr. W. R. Graham, professor of poultry hus- bandry, Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph, Ontario. BOARD or AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. PROFITABLE FARM POULTRY WITH SPECIAL REFER- ENCE TO EGGS AND MEAT. W. R. GRAHAM, PROFESSOR OF POULTRY HUSBANDRY, ONTARIO AGRICUL- TURAL COLLEGE, GUELPH, ONTARIO, CANADA. Farmers in practically all countries of the world find the keeping of poultry profitable. It is true that some make much more money than others, which is also true of almost any branch of agriculture. Speaking generally, farmers grow better poultry than do those who try to grow a large number of chick- ens on a small area. My observations have been that most people succeed best, taking one year with another, who grow a variety of crops, rather than those who grow but one crop. Let us now try and analyse the keeping of poultry on the farm. Permit me to present a diagram so that we may clearly understand our position. BREEDING We have here presented a triangle, all sides of which are equal, and my experience and observation leads me to believe that in order to succeed well it is necessary that equal attention be paid to each side, and, furthermore, neglect of any of these factors may be the primary cause of partial or complete failure. The base or foundation represents breeding. Good blood is of prime importance. We all realize the importance of good breeding and constant selection in cattle, seeds, fruit trees, etc. Few, if any, expect heavy milk production or beef production No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 7 from scrub cattle. Poor seed means a poor crop, and the plant- ing of fruit trees of unknown varieties or seedling stock is not good business. The same is true of poultry just as much as in any other branch of farming. Good stock is the foundation. No matter how well fed and housed, nor how faithful and care- ful the attendant may be, the best success is not obtained without foundation stock of good breeding. Study the kind of product your market demands, and then breed to please the buyer. I take it that you have here a good market for both meat and eggs. This means a discussion of the breeding of the dual-purpose hen, or what may be termed the American breeds in general. No doubt some of you may breed especially for egg production, and others breed largely for flesh production. The same general ideas, I think, will apply in all cases. A study of European markets, and to some extent home markets, indicates that in the production of a high-class article uniformity is of prime importance. The uniformity of the goods shipped by Denmark makes a market for Danish produce. A farmer who has a reputation of producing a uniform good class of produce, whose produce is dependable, has less difficulty in selling, and ordinarily gets a premium price. He produces a uniform, dependable article. Uniformity in dressed poultry is not secured from scrub stock, and at times not from pure-bred stock; the same, in a measure, applies to size and color of eggs. In order to produce a uniform product it is necessary to study some of the underlying principles of breeding. With your per- mission I wish to show illustrations of some of the things that happen in breeding, also to discuss for a few moments some common practices in breeding. I am not a biologist, but I am interested in practical breeding, and therefore study as a common layman, and endeavor to try out in a practical way what science tells us. The art of poultry breeding is science applied. The first thing to do is to select pure-bred birds of the type or shape desired. If these cannot be found it may, in special instances, be desirable to cross breeds. In selecting breeding birds constitution or vigor is of first importance; it is the mainspring of the works, so to speak. Then we may select as to shape, size, egg production, color of skin and plumage, and 8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. if possible hatching power of eggs. Some of these characters are visible, others are masked or hidden, and the birds must be tried out. Select those that breed the best birds, regardless of relationship. Some say inbreed, others say do not inbreed. What is one to do? After trap-nesting and pedigreeing poultry for over ten years, and coupling with this some years of ob- servation in breeding with small and large matings, I now am at the point where I would answer the above question by saying it depends upon circumstances. Let us examine some of these ideas. Take, for example, the characteristic of size. If we cross a small breed w^ith a large breed the resulting offspring in the first generation will be inter- mediate in size between the two, and are usually fairly, if not exceptionally, uniform in size. These crossbreeds may please us to such an extent that we decide to breed them together and perpetuate the kind; but here we encounter a difficulty, for in the second generation, or perhaps the third, if we rear, say, five hundred specimens, we find we have no uniformity either in weight, size, shape or anything else. We have about every con- ceivable thing that is known in chickendom, and, moreover, the mortality in birds bred as above is usually very high. We have lost that valuable desideratum — uniformity, though we may still have a few individuals of exceptional merit. This is the method to follow where you wish to secure something that you cannot already find in the existing breeds. As a common practice it is bad policy. Such results are probably the cause of the idea "do not inbreed." A similar result has come under my observation where two absolutely distinct lines of the same breed have been crossed and the progeny of such a mating bred together. Now let us look at another side of this same method of breed- ing. If we take the few specimens that meet our ideal, and have plenty of constitution, and breed them together we find we begin to produce a uniform flock of a new kind. True, many may have to be discarded, but by close breeding we tend to fix the characteristics. This does not yet answer the question as to what would be a good practice for the farmer. The common practice of buying a new pure-bred male from No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 9 a different breeder each season, where some care is taken as to general vigor and type, will generally give fairly good results as far as visible characteristics are concerned, because one is practically producing in a more or less degree the first cross. This plan must, in most instances, be continued. Where one desires to make a product quite distinctive it will usually best be done by inbreeding the crossbred strains, watching for the divisions, selecting the individuals which meet the ideal and then inbreeding these. The perfect specimen probably does not exist, hence, ordi- narily speaking, one is forced occasionally to introduce new blood. This is best done by means of a new female, and then trying the offspring sparingly until such times as you get what you want. Our pedigrees indicate that the male has much more to do with the pullets laying than does the female. It is, therefore, obvious that we should buy and select males from good laying hens that have been mated to good males, and I would con- sider it worthy of a trial to buy the new males annually from some one reliable breeder year after year so long as the resulting offspring is satisfactory. ^Yhere eggs are wanted, especially during the first year of the hen's life, it is of importance to select birds, particularly males, which mature to nearly the desired weight at about five or six months. Closely associated with this, in our experience, is the question of early feathering over the back. Slow back feather- ing generally means slow maturing, which in turn is late laying. Our best layers usually begin laying at five, six or seven months of age. The next side of the triangle refers to environment; that is, age of stock, housing, feeding and range. These conditions must be first class. Late-hatched pullets seldom mature early enough to lay during the period of the high prices of eggs, neither do yearling hens commonly lay as well during the period of high prices as early hatched pullets, and hens two years old and over pay only as special breeders. Our records show, yearly, that birds that lay well during the winter are equally as good layers for the 10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. balance of the year as those who make httle or no performance during the winter months. Sizes, shapes and styles of houses are almost endless. This problem is ever present, and each one settles it to please his or her own conditions. It matters not so much the kind of house so long as abundance of fresh air is secured without direct drafts over the birds, and as long as the house is light and roomy. Dryness and reasonable cleanliness are also prime factors. The smaller the flock the larger proportionately should be the house, and, moreover, the labor cost per hen for caring for her is also increased. A man will take care of 15 one- hundred-bird flocks with less exertion than 70 ten-bird flocks. Your labor charges for care and management should be about 35 or 40 cents per hen per year. Keep your poultry houses well aired, drj' and clean. Feeds and methods of feeding are countless. Common sense appears to be an inactive factor in many human beings. Some try to mix and feed the most complicated grain mixtures possible. All these things take time and time costs money. I am not at all sure that a hard and fast rule for feeding can be laid down. The essentials can be enumerated and are as follows: green food, grain food, animal food, mineral food and exercise. Green food ordinarily is cheap and handy, receives little at- tention, and hence I place it first to draw your attention. Poultry require considerable green food; it reduces the ex- pensive feed bills and sustains health. In summer various grasses and waste garden truck supply the wants. Little chicks require very tender, crisp, green feed. For winter foods, clover, hay, roots, cabbage or sprouted oats will give good results. Feeding cooked roots is also a good means of cheapen- ing the ration. Experimental demonstrations with us show no great differ- ence among these foods. Cabbage, if anything, encourages laying, while rape tends to color the yolks of eggs in some instances seriously, from a market standpoint. A full-grown hen will eat about l^ cubic inches of sprouted oats per day. Ordinarily give the birds all they want, but do not feed de- composed or highly flavored feeds. No. 400. Laid 208 eggs in ten months. No. 523. Laid 50 eggs in twelve montlis. No. 312. Laid 194 eggs in nine months and three days. Three Hens from the Massachusetts Agricultural College Flock. No. 4.] FAR]\I POULTRY. 11 Wheat, corn and crushed oats are the staple grain feeds, and for animal foods nothing equals sour milk or buttermilk; when meat scrap has to be fed, about 10 per cent, of the mash food is all that may be given with safety. The birds would eat more and might do better for a short period of time, but a reaction is almost sure to follow. Mineral foods are supplied by granulated bone, granulated rock or grit, and oyster shell or old plaster. It might be well to give you our method of feeding and then we might discuss the same. DuYing the winter we use about equal parts of whole wheat and corn. This is fed 'in about 6 inches of litter early in the morning, say tw^o handfuls for three birds. At noon the green food is given, and at night all the whole grain they will eat. We keep crushed oats in hoppers constantly before the birds. If the flocks gets lazy we close the hopper for part of the day to make them work. Sour milk is used as drink. Grit, oyster shell and granulated bone are always in little boxes where they can help themselves. When we cannot get sour milk and have to feed beef scrap I rather prefer mixing ground grain, such as middlings, corn meal, oat chop and 10 per cent meat meal, then feeding as a moist mash at midday. Sometimes we add to such a mixture about one-third in bulk of cooked roots. The environmental factor of range is overlooked so frequently that I desire to call special attention to it. The following illustrations are two birds of the same breeding. The larger one is grown on free range where there are not more than fifty chickens per acre, and the smaller one in a small city lot where chickens are penned up. The case is extreme, yet at the same time is not uncommon. Clean ground, tender green food, clean water and shade are essentials to growing chickens. Ground may be cleaned by crop rotation, which is undoubtedly the best plan, or it may be kept in fair condition by frequent plowing or digging. The proposition can be put in another form; that is, raise the young stock in the country, where there is an abundance of room and a variety of food, then you may bring them, when well grown, to the city, or the permanent long houses with limited runs. Old fowls can be maintained fairly well on old ground, but 12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. young stock rarely does well. This is the outstanding point in the farmer's case. He raises better chickens at less cost, owing to clean and pure surroundings. Let us now consider the remaining side of the triangle. The attendant is worthy of serious consideration. ]My father told me that "one man's breath was good for stock and other men's breath was bad." This appears in a sense to be true. The attendant must develop a bond of sympathy between the birds and himself; in order to do a day's work he must move rather quickly but gently. Birds that are afraid of the attendant do not do their best. The attendant must consider his stock first and foremost and himself last. I believe in having a man dressed neatly but plainly. A poultry house is no place for blue clothes and white collars. A khaki suit shows little dirt and looks fairly neat. The attendant must be a keen observer, punctual as to hours, and have an abundance of common sense. Caring for live stock is no position for the careless, or the person who is looking for 6 o'clock. In conclusion I would suggest the attendant keeping in his hat the following words: "Fresh air and common sense." If these are there and he removes his hat occasionally he will not forget. Mr. N. W. Sanborn. How about the weight of these high- laying females? Do you get as many pounds of eggs from the large egg-layers as from the moderate sized ones? Professor Graham. Generally speaking, you will find more 200-egg hens which lay 23-ounce eggs than lay 25-ounce eggs to the dozen. We constantly have hens which will lay large eggs, — many of them. One of the hens we showed on the screen — Xo. 58 — laid 25-ounce eggs; but I will say that if you don't watch it you will produce little eggs. Mr. W. H. (iouLD. Which do you consider the best flooring for a hen house, especially in the winter season, — ■ earth or cement? Professor Graham. Well, my experience in regard to the best flooring for hen houses is this: when you consider the cost of the litter and the cost of taking the ground out of the hen house every other year and renewing it, cement is the best A pair of good utility fowls. Massachusetts Agricultural College. No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 13 floor. It takes more litter on a ground floor, and in a series of years, if you figure up the time and the cost of renewing the earth floor, it is better to have the cement floor. Now, where you use the cement floor, ordinarily you must supply some sort of a dust bag in one corner of the house. If you use only a little litter — say, two or three inches — then in a cold climate you get into trouble with the cement floor. In addition to that, never make the cement floor smooth or very rough. If you make it smooth the litter will blow all round the place; if you make it very rough the hens will wear their toenails down to the quick. The common finish, such as you have on side- walks, is about the best that we know of. We have taken out practically all of our board floors and all our ground floors and are using almost entirely cement floors. Mr. Thomas D. Govern. Can you get as many eggs by feeding hard grain and dry mash as by feeding wet mash? Professor Graham. Where we use rolled oats we can, but I doubt it with other mixtures. The backbone of our egg pro- duction, in a word, depends on the rolled oats and the sour milk and the green food. Mr. Govern. In Massachusetts, with milk at 42 cents a can, we can't very well afl^ord to feed it to hens. Professor Graham. That is true. There is a difference in different sections of the country. With us sour milk is worth 20 cents a hundred. That is not very high. We buy oats at $28 a ton, SI. 40 a hundred. But we can't get as many eggs out of beef scrap or cooked meat as we can out of sour milk. If you want to use beef scrap I would strongly advise your using a little bit of muriatic acid in the drinking water, for the reason that the hen's digestive tract is normally acid, and we frequently get into trouble when their digestive tracts be- come alkaline, and with sour milk, too, you get a value beyond the feeding value of the milk, largely due to its physical action, which maintains the normal sour or acid digestive tract. It has a value greater than its chemical composition shows. Mr. C. F. Whitman. You dwelt considerably on feeding vegetables to poultry. Would you recommend feeding fruit, — apples or pears? Professor Graham. Yes. I would recommend the feeding of apples. 14 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Mr. Whitman. Do you think it is good- to feed vegetables? Professor Graham. As long as they do not eat too many of the seeds, which is ordinarily not the case. At the present time we are mixing them in with roots. I would say in a gen- eral way that it is a good plan to give the hens any waste products that you have, like apples or turnips, but do not feed them on waste products exclusively. Mr. Whitman. I asked that question because I want to know whether the cider pulp is better, or the apples and fruit itself before extraction. Professor Graham. I will have to go back a number of years to give you my experience on cider pulp. During my first experiences in the chicken business I happened to be sit- uated near a cider mill, and was able to secure cider pulp from the mill at low rate; and when I got that pulp fresh, when it had been ground the same day, and when I cooked it a little I got good results; but if I kept it on hand and it heated or turned a little sour the results were disastrous. Judging from this experience it would be necessary to feed it fresh. Mr. J. M. Schwartz. In mentioning your green feed you don't say anything about alfalfa. How does that compare with cabbages? Professor Graham. I have good results from good alfalfa, but in many instances with the alfalfa that we come in con- tact with, apparently they have taken the leaves off and used them for some other purpose. They sold us the woody stems as chicken feed, which has not given very good results. If you can get good alfalfa you will get very good results indeed. Personally, I would just as soon have the roots as I would alfalfa. Mr. G. S. Dodge. How about feeding green ground bone? Professor Graham. That depends on the kind of bone. If you are grinding the bones yourself by hand, I would say do not feed it, because you will get all of the knuckle bones which contain a very high percentage of fat, and are easy to cut. We have found in our experience that the machine-ground green cut bone, if fed with good judgment, will give good results. Where it is fed fairly liberally to the heavy breeds, such as No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 15 Plymouth Rocks or Wyandottes, it is apt to have some effect upon the hatching power of the eggs in the spring, and it is a food that has to be fed with discretion. I would say, in a nut- shell, it is a good food for a man with an abundance of common sense to use, but it is a bad food if considered fool-proof. Question. Is there any easy way to sour milk in the winter time? Professor Graham. Yes, a very easy way is to put the sweet milk in a pail that has had sour milk in it and set it behind the kitchen stove over night and it will be sour before morning. One of the finest things about feeding sour milk is that you don't have to worry about everything being absolutely clean. If you are feeding sweet milk you must have everything clean. The easy way to get it sour is to use a barrel or large hogshead that holds from 30 to 100 gallons, and keep on pour- ing in and out. Question. Do you feed the sour milk clear? Professor Graham. Yes. As far as drink is concerned, when the thermometer goes below zero, all drinks are taken away and the chickens all eat snow. You will have less trouble with frozen combs and things of that kind if you feed snow. Question. You do not think snow brings bowel complaint in any form whatever? Professor Graham. No, I have never had that experience with it at all. We let them wallow around in the snow and eat it in cold weather. We dump the water out of the drinking tins and keep them filled with snow. Mr. C. R. Harris. You mentioned the use of hydrochloric acid in the drinking water. Would anything else answer the same purpose? Professor Graham. I am not in a position to answer that question. I have gotten my information along this line from our veterinary general of the dominion, and I asked him one day, ''Is there any other acid that I could use or recommend in the place of this one?" He answered, "That is the only one that I have positive information on." So that is the best an- swer I can give you. Mr. Harris. Is there anything other than judgment by which you can determine the amount and frequency of the use of hvdrochloric acid? 16 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Professor Graham. From the available experience, for the quantity for general preventive work, about 1 teaspoonful of commercial acid to 2 gallons of drinking water. Either earthen- ware or wooden drinking articles should be used. You could not use the acid and metal very long or you would be in trouble. Mr. Brown. Would a flock of hens get sufficient drink through the winter from snow alone? Professor Graham. From our experience, yes, because we have numerous flocks of hens that are laying heavily in the win- ter time that don't get anything to drink except snow for weeks at a time. They may get some cooked vegetables or substances containing water, but, for example, in this open-front house I showed you we sometimes have a week at a stretch when the thermometer is between 10 and 29 below zero, and the ther- mometer inside the house showing from zero to 7 below. Now, you take an ordinary pail of water and set it down there and it is ice before you get out, almost. So there are weeks and weeks when they don't get anything but snow. Professor Brooks. I would like to ask the speaker whether he has ever had any complaints of the quality of eggs from feeding cabbages. Professor Graham. We have gone fairly thoroughly into the matter, and even from a high-class retail trade in eggs we have never had any complaints as to flavor, even when the hens had all the cabbages they could eat. I cannot say the same when the hens were fed rape, scorched or musty grains or onions, however, for these almost always aft'ected the flavor unfavorably, and our customers noticed it. Professor Brooks. I don't want to occupy the time that belongs to the speaker, but I do wish to say that a number of years ago I compared two flocks of hens of similar breeding and similar housing in every respect, and fed similarly except as regards vegetable food. The eggs from the two lots were sent under numbers to a number of families, and the house- keepers were discriminating. There was never any failure to indicate that the eggs from the hens which were fed with the cabbage were superior to the others. They spoke of thsir sweetness and fine flavor; they did not recognize the cabbage. No. 4.1 FARM POULTRY. • 17 They did not know what the feeding was. The two lots of eggs were simply sent with the request that they use them and advise if they found them different. There was always a report favorable to the cabbage. As to the analysis, they did not show a great difference but there was no taint in the eggs from the fowl fed with cabbages. Many of the housekeepers re- ported that they found that the flavor of the cabbage eggs was strong. They did not describe the cabbage flavor. Professor Graham. I think what Professor Brooks says is absolutely correct. Now, I don't know whether you have in your locality here a trade for certified eggs such as there is for certified milk. I am under the impression that if that trade ever develops, the hens who lay those eggs will have to be kept indoors all the time. You will have to feed them right up on a diet arranged by a practical dietician, because there is no doubt that people who are not living an active life are mighty par- ticular about the flavor of the eggs and the color of the yolk. Mr. H. K. Proctor. I would like to ask about the fertility of hatching eggs. Professor Graham. Do you mean fertility or hatching power? Mr. Proctor. Well, hatching power. Which would be better, to put, say, four or five males with a flock, or alternate them one each day for five days and then repeat? Professor Graham. I think from my experience the answer to that question would depend upon the range and the style of house in use. That is to say, if you had 5 males in the flock and 100 females there, or 75, and a house 20 feet square and the birds fastened inside, you would get better results to use the males a half day each, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, or one a day. But if the birds can get outside, or if the birds are in a long house in which there are partitions going three-quarters of the way across, then I doubt very much whether you would get actual results for the labor of cooping these males. yh. Proctor. Once in a while there is a cockerel who will give his head a little shake. He seems to be vigorous and all right in every way. I would like to know if that is a bad habit. 18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Professor Graham. Well, I don't know, Mr. Proctor, whether that is a habit. It is sometimes one of the symptoms of worms. You could find out easily by going to your druggist and getting a worm powder, or take a piece of bread and put on turpentine and put it down his throat, or give him a chew of tobacco. Professor Brooks. About the rolled oats. Are those the oats from which the hulls have been separated? Professor Graham. The commonest kind of horse feed with us is the rolled or crushed oats, in which the whole oat is run through a roller and the oat comes out flat. Now, the men who handle horses in the largest number are farmers, and the farmers swear by rolled oats for horses. The way we started to feed them to the hens was, when ordering ground oats from a miller, he said he hadn't any on hand, but he sent us some rolled oats. The hens took so kindly to the proposition and liked it so much better than they did the chopped oats that I w^as perfectly satisfied. Now, they don't eat all the hull. As near as we can tell, they waste about 18 per cent of the hull. Professor Brooks. Would you blame them for wasting 100 per cent of the hull? Professor Graham. Yes, for this reason, which brings up a very interesting point: it seems to me that there are two sides to a feeding proposition, • — ■ a physiological side and a commer- cial side, and a certain amount of bran or alfalfa may obviate trouble in the stomach and give the juices of the stomach a better chance to act. We have tried the ordinary oats along- side of the common horse oats or crushed oats, and invariably we have gotten for a long period of time better results from the horse kind of oats than we did from the human kind of oats; but for a short period of time, say ten days or two weeks, if you want to fatten a chicken or get him ready for show, you can get there quicker with the aid of flour or rolled oats which you have for human food than you can with the crushed oats as fed to horses. But in the end we lose out in that we run into digestive troubles, particularly in the liver, we get a soft, pink liver. The average hen with us eats 72 pounds per year, — 24 pounds of corn, 24 pounds of wheat and 24 pounds of crushed oats. No. 4.] FAR:M poultry. 19 Question. What do you consider the best feed for fattening chickens? Professor Graham. Ours is a milk-feeding proposition. We teach our people to eat milk-fed chickens, and those are the chickens that bring highest prices. We use about two parts of finely ground oats or flour, or oats with the hulls partly sifted out, two parts of buckwheat and one of corn meal, mixed with sour milk. The vital factor is sour milk. Mr. Robert Johnson. How about barley for feeding? Professor Graham. It depends entirely upon the barley. If your barley is well ripened and is not musty I would be inclined to feed about two-thirds barley, but I would want to be absolutely certain that that barley was not musty and had not been scoured before I used it, because it is one of the grains about which it is difficult to tell whether it has been a little bit musty or not. Mr. HiGGiNSON. How often do you feed cooked food? Professor Graham. I don't suppose, ordinarily speaking, that we fed cooked feed twice a year, except from an experi- mental standpoint, until this year. Now we are feeding more cooked food than we ever did before, because grain is high and we have a host of mangels. It is a question of getting the mangels out of the way and cutting down the grain bill. But ordinarily we do not cook any feed. We sprout oats for them, or we give them cabbage and go ahead without any cooked feed. Just at the present moment labor is cheaper than feed. Ordinarily labor is dearer than feed, and when labor is dear and feed is cheap we will feed the feed and do away with the labor. Afternoon Session. The chairman for the afternoon session was Mr. Henry M. Howard of Newton, who introduced Professor T. C. Johnson of Norfolk, Virginia, to speak on "The Value of Experimental Work for Truck Farmers." 20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. THE YALUE OF EXPERIMENTAL WORK FOR TRUCK FARMERS. T. C. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA TRUCK EXPERIMENT STATION, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA. The work of the experiment stations has long been recog- nized as of great value to the fruit growers, dairymen, stock- men and general farmers, but the truck farmers have not, as a rule, received their full share of attention. There are two apparent reasons for this. The nature of the crops grown is such that they occupy the ground a comparatively short period, and they are usually followed by other crops in quick succes- sion. This renders it very difficult to conduct successfully a series of fertilizer or disease-control experiments. Such experi- ments on orchards and grain crops of which the plants occupy the ground for a number of years, or the rotations are definitely worked out, are comparatively easy, but with short-season truck crops the problem is quite different. The ability to shift from one crop to another tends to develop the idea of solving the problems, or rather dodging them, by changing the cropping system. This, of course, is not practical with the orchardist or grain farmers. The experiment stations have not received the demands for assistance from truck farmers that they have from the other classes of farm workers. Accordingly, they have responded to these urgent calls, and of necessity neglected the interests of the truck farmers. But within the past few years there has been a noted increase in experimental work intended to benefit the truck farmers. This is especially notable in the States of Virginia, New York and Illinois, and the United States Department of Agriculture has, through its Department of Horticulture, been conducting investigations on several phases of truck farming. No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 21 There are several classes of truck-farm problems which should receive attention from the experiment stations. The Virginia Truck Experiment Station was established for the purpose of solving some of these for Virginia market gardeners, as is set forth in section 2 of the charter as follows : — Object. — It shall be the object of the station to conduct researches on the physiology of plants and the diseases to wliich they are subject, with remedies for same. In hke manner investigations looking to the control and eradication of insect pests shall be undertaken. The comparative advantage of rotative cropping, the capacity of new plants for acclimatiza- tion, the improvement of varieties through plant breeding and selection, and the utihty of manures, natural or artificial, shall all be considered with such other researches bearing directly on the interests of the truck growers of the State as may be deemed advisable. Vegetable growers in general are interested in the problems pertaining to soil fertility, soil utility and soil sanitation. Also, they are concerned with plant breeding, especially in its rela- tion to the improvement of varieties and the development of disease-resistant strains in fungous and bacterial diseases and methods of controlling them; in insect studies, including life histories and methods of control; and in general marketing problems. Soil Fertility. The work on soil fertility should include such topics as the use of natural and artificial manures, the kinds to use on cer- tain crops, the method and time of making applications, and the quantities best suited. All these important factors are influenced by the crop rotation followed. When leguminous crops are to be turned under for soil improvement, smaller quantities of manures may be used; but if a certain class of legumes are grown for market purposes, the soil may be ac- tually robbed of a portion of its available plant food. In a series of experiments conducted by the Virginia Truck Experi- ment Station it was found that the yield of a kale crop was greatly influenced by the crop previously grown in the rota- tion, as recorded in Bulletin No. 9. The different plats in the experiment were cropped and treated as follows, and then planted with kale in August, 1912: — 22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Plat 1 was planted to beans in April of 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1912, with millet following the beans in July, 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911. Plat 2 was planted to potatoes in March, 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911, and crimson clover sown after the potatoes were dug each year. The crimson clover was turned under for potatoes in the early spring of 1909, 1910 and 1911, and worked into the ground during the summer of 1912. Plat 3 was treated in all respects similar to plat 2, except that an ap- plication of 1,500 pounds of hydrated lime per acre was given before planting the potatoes in 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911. Plat 4 was given an application of 15 tons of well-rotted stable manure per acre before plowing for the potatoes in 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911, and for the corn in 1912. The potatoes were planted in March, and fol- lowed by corn in July of each year. In 1912 the potatoes were omitted from the rotation, and corn planted in May. The stable manure was apphed immediately before planting the corn. Plat 5 was treated in all respects similar to plat 4, except an applica- tion of 1,500 pounds of hydrated hme was given per acre after the manure was turned under, and before the potatoes were planted in 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911. All plats received equal amounts of commercial fertihzer during the entire experiment. Plat 1 produced 6,829.71 pounds of kale per acre. Plat 2 produced 8,919.71 pounds of kale per acre. Plat 3 produced 13,824.00 pounds of kale per acre. Plat 4 produced 13,834.28 pounds of kale per acre. Plat 5 produced 16,893.91 pounds of kale per acre. Using the yield on plat 1, from which both the beans and miUet were harvested, as the basis of comparison, the use of crimson clover in the rotation inci'eased the yield 30.16 per cent, crimson clover and hme 102.4 per cent, stable manure 102.5 per cent, and stable manure and lime 145.9 per cent. The work on artificial manure should include a study of the source of the various ingredients used. For instance, in our work in Virginia W'e have found that the nitrogen for cer- tain crops grown in the winter or early spring should be ob- tained from one set of combinations, while for the same crop growai in the later summer a different combination is desirable. The form of phosphoric acid to be used depends quite as much upon the condition of the soil as upon the crop which is to receive it. There is still much work to be done on the various sources of potash best suited for the different crops in any line of agriculture. Where large quantities of commercial ferti- lizers are used, there are almost certain to be deleterious re- No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 23 suits. The residual effect of fertilizer has so modified the soil constituents that it is now practically impossible to grow cer- tain crops where they formerly thrived. It is often seen that large quantities may be used under one system of cultivation with good results, while under another the result might be injurious. Two crops might require a fertilizer of the same quantitative analysis, but quite different in the ingredients from which the materials are obtained. For instance, tobacco pre- fers the potash from sulphate of potash, while on certain soils peanuts yield better if treated with muriate of potash. There is still much room for the study of lime for use in connection with truck crops. We know in a general way what the results of lime are, but the application and interpre- tation of these results in specific cases is sometimes quite difficult. The Rhode Island Experiment Station has added very greatly to our knowledge of the use of lime with many of our truck crops, but the results obtained on the Rhode Island soils do not necessarily apply in all particulars to other types of soils. Under some conditions pulverized limestone may give excellent results; under others the results from it are negative; but those from freshly burned lime are quite marked. The kind and quantity of lime that may be used in connection with commercial fertilizer and stable manure also vary with the character of the soil. The soils of the Norfolk sandy loam type in the southern Atlantic States are prone to acidity in reaction. Consequently larger quantities of lime may be beneficially used on them in growing such crops as potatoes, strawberries and beets, but on soils which are alkaline in reaction the results are often injurious. The in- fluence of fertilizer on the acidity of the soil is still open for investigation. Some investigators claim that it is practically impossible to increase the acidity by the use of commercial fertilizer. However, experiments conducted at the Virginia Truck Experiment Station seem to indicate that the acidity may be markedly increased by the use of certain fertilizer combinations. 24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Drainage and Irrigation. The acidity of the soil is also influenced very largel}^ by the drainage. It is frequently said by good truck farmers that if they were forced to choose between drainage and commercial fertilizer they would probably select drainage as the more im- portant factor in crop production. The amount of drainage and the location and depth of drainage pipes are best deter- mined by the local conditions. Drainage experiments con- ducted on one type of soil under certain conditions throw some light on the treatment under similar conditions; but if the conditions are different, it is best to make the experiment on the particular soil in question. It is well recognized that drainage has a marked influence on the availability of plant food added in the form of natural or artificial manures, but it is not so well known under just what conditions the plant may get the maximum quantity of these ingredients with the minimum loss by leaching. The effect of drainage on the relative earliness of market garden crops is obvious. Irrigation should be studied in connection with drainage. It has been the general opinion that our irrigation problems were limited to the arid and semi-arid districts of the west, but we are -now fast realizing the importance of an abundant and constant water supply for our eastern agriculture. The in- tensive truck farmer in the upper south would no sooner think of attempting to grow his crop without adequate drainage and irrigation facilities than without the use of stable manure or commercial fertilizer. The time, the quantity and the method of application are still fruitful subjects of investigation. We know that in a general way most of our truck crops should receive at least an inch of water per week, but there are some that will thrive better with one and one-half inches or even two inches, provided the drainage facilities are adequate. The ditch or furrow method of applying water has long been the standard in many sections of the country, but a few years ago the overhead system became quite popular. Now there seems to be a trend toward the furrow method under certain trucking conditions in the far south and the semi-arid west. There No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 25 seems to be no definite data on these points which will enable the farmer to learn just which method he should use under his conditions. There is room here for a large amount of work. Plant Breeding. The work of the plant breeder in modern agriculture is almost as important as is that of the soil physicist. To the plant breeder we are indebted for the numerous adaptations of vegetables which have brought large remuneration to cer- tain localities. For example, if only one kind of potato could be grown, many districts giving large acreage to that crop would be deprived of that industry. Since there is great diversity of soil, climate and market conditions in the country, there arises great necessity for the development of characteristics adapted to use in the given surroundings. Accordingly, the plant breeder is devoting him- self to this line of work and has produced some well-known results. The soil, climatic and cultural conditions in eastern Virginia require a class of spinach of the Savoy type, while under conditions prevailing in Louisiana the Savoy does not thrive so well as some of the thick-set or long-standing types. Market growers in the vicinity of Grand Rapids use the open- head or loose-leaf lettuce, while those in the Atlantic States grow some form of head lettuce. The plant breeders are at present busy making still further developments of these strains which have been adapted thus far to local conditions. Until a few years ago it was thought that tomato seed obtained from a typical individual of a variety would give the best results possible, but now it is known that in addition to being from a typical plant it is best to pollinate the flowers with pollen from another plant of the same variety, thus infusing new blood into the combination. By specialized breeding the cucumber has been adapted to the cultural method of the open field, the cold frame and the greenhouse. The truck farmers in the south have long since learned that the potatoes of the Bliss type may be grown in Florida, Texas and Louisiana with a profit, but that in the Carolinas and Virginia the Cobbler type is more popular, and in Long Island 26 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. other types come nearer meeting the requirements. The early Ohio is popular in the middle western States, but in the south Atlantic it is held in poor esteem. Thus it appears that potato growers in the best producing centers have learned to depend on certain varieties of seed adapted to their special interests. After securing a variety desirable for a given locality, the plant breeder has open before him a large opportunity for developing strains resistant to disease and unfavorable environment. The Crosby Egyptian beets, now used to a large extent in Massa- chusetts, are favorites with the Virginia truckers for their early spring crop, but the Egyptian beets are preferred for the late summer and fall crops. The laws governing the transmission of characteristics in breeding are fruitful sources of study. The work done in this line by a number of the experiment stations in both American and European countries is fast becoming of great value to truck farmers. Plant Diseases. The experiment stations have devoted a great deal of time and energy in the last twenty years to studying the causes of plant diseases and the remedies for them, yet in some lines of agriculture this work has hardly started. The study should now be devoted to discovering the causes underlying the diseases of plants. In some trucking sections the excessive use of commercial fertilizer, together with the tiitensive methods of cultivation, have rendered conditions favorable for the de- velopment of certain classes of diseases that otherwise would not be likely to occur. The study of the exact conditions making it possible for the disease to develop should be under- taken. After this discovery the application of remedies may be much simplified. The life history of the organism causing certain diseases should receive careful study. It is important to know the life cycle of the organism in order to combat the specific disease. If the market gardener wishes to maintain the health of his plants, it is as important for him to keep his plantation in a sanitary condition as for him to treat the diseases after they make their appearance. But in order that he may do this in- telligently, the scientist should be in a position to give him the No.. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 27 full life history of the organism causing the trouble. He should know where the organism spends its time when not on the plant in question. It frequently happens that diseases may be introduced into new localities on the seed. A marked case of this kind w^as encountered in eastern Virginia in the spring of 1911. A large grower of plants purchased cabbage seed from a certain seed concern and planted them for the purpose of growing plants for his neighbors. He supplied about two mil- lion plants to the different truckers. Within a few wrecks ploma wilt appeared in all the fields where plants from this particular lot were used, the loss resulting in from 50 per cent to 90 per cent of the crop. The man who grew the plants was guilty of negligence, and the man who used them was innocent; but if the plant grower had followed the instruction given by the experiment station, the disease need not have been intro- duced. Some diseases may be controlled by soil treatments. That is, the soil may be rendered favorable or unfavorable for their development by the treatment given it. This is especially true with some forms of bacterial and fungous diseases. In other instances, the disease may be controlled by treating the seeds or the vegetative portion of the plants used for propa- gation. The Virginia Truck Experiment Station in co-operation with the Maine Experiment Station has been conducting a series of investigations looking to the control and eradication of the " black-leg " disease formerly prevalent in some potatoes brought from the north and planted in the south. This work has resulted in developing practical means of eliminating the trouble by selection of the seed potatoes in the fields in the north. At the present time the preventive measures are much more important than are the curative. Blight can be controlled in the potatoes by spraying with fungicides before the disease makes its appearance, but if once established in the plants, the problem of eradicating it is quite difficult. The experiment stations frequently outline modifications in methods of culture that will largely control a number of the more malignant diseases. 28 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Truck Crop Insects. It has long been known that such insects as the Colorado potato beetle and the codling moth can be controlled by the application of arsenical poisons, but with aphides and numer- ous other insects it is important to know their life histories in order to combat them successfully. The truck farmer can apply the remedies, but the investigator should work out the life histories in order to know when best to make the applica- tion. Recent studies conducted at the Virginia Truck Experi- ment Station show that the pea aphis spends a great deal of its time while not on peas on clovers and similar plants which are green throughout the mild winters. Consequently, a large number of insects are in waiting when the peas make their appearance in the early spring. A knowledge of this fact serves to caution the trucker not to grow peas and clover in close proximity. The feeding and migratory habits of the insect should be studied carefully. The larvae of the fig beetle in the south has the obnoxious habit of feeding on organic matter contained in very rich, sandy soils. Their burrows in the soil are sometimes so numerous that such a crop as parsley may be practically ruined. The insects have the habit of coming to the surface of the ground at night and crawling from place to place. A knowledge of this habit enables the truck farmer to trap them in open ditches. By the omission of crops in rotation which furnish hibernat- ing places, or by the intelligent disposition of the refuse left after harvesting, the injury from other classes of insects may be greatly reduced. Marketing Problems. The various phases of harvesting and marketing are fruitful fields for investigation. Refrigeration in transit and pre-cool- ing for long shipments are receiving the attention of the fruit growers, but very few experimental shipments of vegetables have been undertaken. This question is interstate in its char- acter. Consequently, it should be undertaken by the Federal Department of Agriculture, or by different experiment stations as a co-operative project. No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 29 Systems of cost accounting are receiving careful attention by the various farm management departments, but the ques- tions involved in proper marketing of garden products are re- ceiving but little consideration. The matter of distribution is of much importance. It frequently happens that vegetables will be selling very low in one neighborhood and high in an- other only a few miles distant on account of the poor methods of distribution. This feature should receive attention by the departments of agricultural economics. Mr. H. F. Arnold. I wonder if it would be out of place for Professor Johnson to tell us what the trouble was that he spoke of with those cabbages, and what the remedy was that he applied to that trouble. Professor Johnson. It was a form of wilt which was over- come by treating the seed with a formaldehyde solution. Treatment in that way would have effectively prevented that. It was a disease that was brought in with the seed. The Ohio Experiment Station and Federal Department of Agriculture both published bulletins on that proposition. Question. I would like to ask the professor if he has found, in his experience, any difference in the keeping qualities of vegetables raised by irrigation. Professor Johnson. Not in my personal experience. In the west the farmers claim to have produced a better grade of vegetables by irrigation, but they have a tendency to be a little softer. But the quantity and the grade are so much better that they counteract any negative results. Mr. Howard. In regard to that disease in potatoes, how did that affect the potatoes? Professor Johnson. The disease makes its appearance on the young potato plant when it is 6 to 12 or 15 inches tall. It causes a blackening of the stem first, which runs down to the tuber, the stem topples over and the tuber rots. This disease has the fortunate habit of not carrying over in the soil, so that it is a very easy disease to control. Mr. Lewis. I would like to ask the speaker if he can give us any information on the melon blight or cucumber wilt. Professor Johnson. There are two or three of those blights. 30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Now, we have in the far south a bacterial wilt which I don't believe you have in this State. Then we have some of those fungous diseases which cause trouble. With the bacterial wilt it is a question of proper rotation to get that out of the soil. Of course, in the bacterial wilt we have to go a step further and not reinfest the field by using manure composed of the de- cayed vegetables that have had this bacterial wilt. In a lot of our work we have done spraying on cucumbers and have used the Bordeaux mixture. If we can get one composed of a small amount of copper sulphate and a small amount of lime, and have a good pressure, we can get good results. If we use a 5-5-50 Bordeaux and apply with a low pressure pump our results are sure to be negative. But where we use a 6-6-50 Bordeaux and apply it under 100 or 125 pounds' pressure, and arrange the nozzles of the pump so that we can get under the inside of the foliage, we have been able to hold up the cucum- bers for weeks. Mr. H. F. ToMPSON. I would like to ask Professor John- son about the apparatus that is used for applying the Bor- deaux mixture. Professor Johnson. We have not been able to buy a satis- factory machine on the market for that purpose. There are several types of spraying machines that are used, any of which give good high pressure, but they are usually two-gear ma- chines, geared to wheels. We use them so as to have three nozzles play on a row of cucumbers, two nozzles set so as to play in at an angle, and a third one to play on the top of the row. And we arrange those so as to spray two rows of cucum- bers each time the machine goes across the field. Some of our farmers have spray pumps that will hold up a hundred pounds of pressure under nine nozzles, — these large type of nozzles. Where they use nine nozzles it usually takes about 125 gallons of liquid to spray an acre of ground, and we have to have spray pumps that will sustain 125 pounds' pressure. Question. How early is that spraying done? Professor Johnson. The spraying is usually started when the vines are 16 or 20 to 24 inches long. I don't like to wait after 24 inches, and don't start before 16. The spraj'ing has a slight tendency to delay the first setting of the cucumbers, that is, it No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 31 keeps the vines green and vigorous. In this spraying we usually find it advisable to train the vines on the rows so that we will get through the vines. Question. I would like to ask the speaker if he thinks melon blight is caused by weather conditions or insects. Professor Johnson. Neither one. The weather conditions may be favorable for the development of it, but the melon blight is either a fungous or bacterial disease. The insect comes in when you have a bacterial disease, and the insect sucks the juice out of the plant, and it may be carried out to other plants. The insect may be either of the flea-beetle type or the striped cucumber type or another type the name of which escapes me for the moment. The control of insects plays a large part in the control of the distribution of plant diseases, the insect getting the plant diseases on its body and carrying them to other plants. We have had all that demonstrated recently by the typhoid germ being carried by the fly. Mr. HiGGENBOTHAM. What is it that attacks the small plants just as the seed leaves are coming out? On the cucumber the leaves seem to curl up and turn yellow. Professor Johnson. There is a small beetle that looks something like the flea beetle. It is not the flea beetle, but from ordinary appearance it might be taken for one. Those insects jump off and go on the ground. Now, one of the best remedies we have found for them — not a remedy, after all, but only a means of driving them away — is by applying raw fish scrap, — dried ground fish scrap. Do not take fish scrap that has been treated with phosphoric acid, but take the or- dinary fish scrap. You can put that right on top of the cucum- ber plant as it comes through the ground and it will drive them away. It does not kill them. Mr. George W. Trull. Did I understand you to say how many times you spray for blight? Professor Johnson, We usually spray cucumbers about every ten days or two weeks, depending on weather conditions, making the first application when the vines are 16 to 20 inches long. If we have dry weather it is not necessary to spray more than every two weeks, but if the weather happens to be a little cloudy or with some rain, and the vines are making a 32 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. rapid growth, we prefer to make the sprayings not over ten days apart, and to make four or five sprayings a season. Mr. Howard. I would like to ask Professor Johnson what support he has received from the truck farmers? How do they take to these experiments? Professor Johnson. Our truck farmers in eastern Virginia, to use a slang expression, decided some eight or nine years ago that they were up against a hard proposition, so to show their faith in the work they got together and bought a farm and then went down in their pockets. In addition to buying that farm, they paid out $7,500 in cash for buildings on the farm, and then they turned around and leased that to the State for ten years without rent and renewable at the option of the State. In other words, they turned it over to the State and asked the State to come in and run that work. The State took up the proposition and has made the appropriations and has continued the work. Now% every time that our experiment station wants anything from our Legislature the first thing we do is to go to the truck farmers and get a good committee from them, and then we go to the Legislature and we usually get some money. The value of that property that the truck farmers have put into the work is to-day $25,000; that is, if the State should vacate the property the farmers could sell out for $25,000 or $30,000, but they are perfectly willing to let it go on, and in addition make frequent contributions for cer- tain improvements or investments. Question. I would like to ask, what are the features of the organization? Professor Johnson. There are two organizations in eastern Virginia that are back of it. The one that fathered the move- ment was the Southern Produce Company. It is a co-operative trucking organization at Norfolk. The other organization is the Eastern Shore of Virginia Produce Exchange. As I under- stand it, the Southern Produce Company did not ask the East- ern Shore Produce Exchange to help at the time the project was started, but after that the Eastern Shore Produce Exchange came in, so that those two organizations are behind the work, and the work is supported by them. The Southern Produce Company is an organization in eastern Virginia of 400 members, No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 83 and it does $2,500,000 worth of business. The other is an organization of about 1,500 members, and their secretary and treasurer told me the other day that their business for this year amounted to a Httle over $5,500,000. I might say in that connection that practically every State that has taken up this work has taken it up with the hearty co-operation of the people who are interested in it. Market growers or vegetable growers or truck farmers, — by whatever name you call them — must get behind the proposition to make the proposition fairly suc- cessful if they want to get the benefit of it. Mr. Howard. Professor Johnson spoke about malnutrition in regard to raising a spinach crop. I would state here that we have had a good deal of trouble with the spinach yellowing at times in the fall, and at times in the midsummer. Can you give us any information on that? Professor Johnson. That is one of the troubles we are working on now, and have been working on for the last two or three years. That yellowing of the plant is one of the hardest propositions we have had to meet in our spinach troubles. We have done this: wherever we have used the wide rotation and used a good deal of lime we have not had much trouble; where we have used close rotation and neglected to use the lime we have had a good deal of trouble. Question. Do you have mold on the spinach? Professor Johnson. We have done some work on spraying spinach when it was young, but of course you understand there would be objection to spraying spinach with Bordeaux mixture. Mold has not proven very detrimental to us yet. We have it in some of our fields. It is largely a question of cleaning the fields and preventing the introduction of the disease from other fields or from other sources where the disease may be spending some of its time. There is a question again of plantation sanita- tion, as we might put it. Mr. Howard. I think there are a number of truck farmers here, and market gardeners around Worcester and Boston who are present at this meeting. We certainly have troubles enough in regard to producing good crops. One of our big problems has been the looking after sanitation in the soil, — to keep the rubbish out of it. I would like to get Mr. Hittinger to say a few words in regard to what he has accomplished in that line. 34 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Mr. HiTTiNGER. I don't just understand what you mean. In the greenhouse or out of doors? Mr. Howard. In regard to the greenhouse work, because you have got rid of so much of the lettuce rot. Mr. HiTTiNGER. That is done by keeping the ground cleaned up; keeping the old stuff out of the soil there; not putting it into the manure. I will state what we do to the old refuse that is left from om* outdoor crops. I generally clean it up and form it into a pile and make a compost heap out of it; take some coal ashes and then mix it in and put manure with it, and put it on some of our lighter soils, and it seems to work all right there. I notice when you leave it in the soil there you are apt to have more trouble. In the greenhouses we generally keep that stuff all cleaned up. Now, we have never sterilized in our greenhouses, and by doing that we avoid sterilizing any houses. I would like to ask one thing: if you don't find that yellow^ comes after you manure a piece of ground in the fall, then why do you plant spinach where it has never been manured? Professor Johnson. We have been able to control that best on our soil where we have plowed under a crop of cow peas. We find that trouble has not been caused by the application of manure ; in fact, we have been able to control it largely by the application of manure, that is, we have added to the vigor of the plant so much that it has been able to withstand those troubles. Mr. Arnold. I would like to start a little bit of discussion here, — in fact, to get the opinion of some of you other people about that question which has been brought up about the refuse crop. We have had a little discussion at home between myself and my brothers on the subject. On a trip recently to the market gardeners we stopped at Long Island on the farm of Mr. VanSuclin there, and I noticed he spoke of being very careful to clean up the refuse of all crops, — carrot tops, beet tops, anything of that kind, — to clean them off the land. It has always been our practice at home to plow in that kind of stuff. What do you do with celery trimmings? We take ours out and plow them into the land; we believed there must be some value in them. As far as the question of disease is concerned. No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 35 will the disease of the celery carry over the winter in the land that is outdoors? I would like to get some opinions on this question. It seems to me the best we can do with that stuff is to plow it in. We pay money for refuse straw that has been used as litter under a horse, and I can't see any difference in that and good healthy celery, or with some few spots on it, carrot tops or beet tops, or anything of that kind. Mr. Trull. I was in Lawrence only a short time ago, and a druggist said to me, "What are you farmers all buying so much formaldehyde for?" I said, "I don't know; is that a fact?" "Yes," he said. I told him what I wanted of it. Now, can you tell me how we should use it and what it is good for? Professor Johnson. Formaldehyde is used for several things by the farmer. It is especially used in treating potatoes that have scab for the prevention of the spread of the scab in pota- toes another year. It is also used by the farmers of the west in treating wheat for smut. It is used in treating a number of seeds to cleanse them of germs of disease that may be carried over on the seed. Question. Tell us, please, how you treat them. Professor Johnson. In treating wheat we usually make a solution of 1 pint of formaldehyde to 30 gallons of water, and then spread the wheat down on a canvas and spread it out so that it is a few inches thick, and moisten it with this solution, — the water and the formaldehyde solution, — and allow it to stand a little while before the wheat is sown. In treating pota- toes we make a solution of 1 pint of formaldehyde to 30 gallons of water, and dip the potatoes into that solution for two hours, take them out, allow them to drain and dry, and then go out and plant them. Question. Will you tell us what kind of formaldehyde to ask for when you go to the store to buy it? In one case I sent a man to a store to get it and he got something else. Professor Johnson. We use 40 per cent commercial. What is the price of it here? I know v/hat we pay for it in hundred- pound carboys. A Voice. About 20 or 25 cents a pound. They charge 75 cents for a pound of chemically pure. Professor Johnson. A person ought to buy the material in 36 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. large quantities ■ — 100 or 200 pound lots — at 9 to 12 cents a pound. A pound is a little less than a pint. Mr. Howard. I would like to ask Professor Johnson what he requires of these farmers in cleanliness in regard to diseased crops. When they have diseased crops, does he allow them to plow the latter into the ground, or does he recommend them to clean up the land? Mr. Johnson. Most of the farmers follow the practice of cleaning up. Most of them, if they have any disease appear in the lettuce, will remove not only the head of lettuce but the soil around the head. This is especially true when the lettuce has lettuce droop. The head will be removed and burned in the furnace, or taken away where it will not get back into the soil. The question came just now about leaving the lettuce on the ground. There is another problem comes in which is rather important to the southern grower, that is, in growing our spinach we will harvest it in November to March or April. Now, if we harvest a crop of spinach in March and expect to follow that crop of spinach with snap beans we are going to have trouble on our hands right off and our trouble comes in a way you would hardly expect. There is a little black fly that deposits eggs on the refuse spinach that is left on the ground. If we turn them into the ground we will have the finest crop of root maggots you ever saw. Those flies deposit their eggs on the leaf, and the decaying leaf goes into the ground. It prac- tically insures your not getting the beans. If we turn that spinach under and leave it under for thirty to forty-five days before we plant the beans we are not troubled. Further, we have found in our work that if we plow under a diseased crop of cucumbers we are almost sure, — if we follow immediately with cucumbers, or within twelve months, — we are almost sure to have the disease worse in our cucumbers than if we had not plowed under the disease at the time. So that I would emphasize that. The question of sanitation is really a very important question in the control of our market-garden diseases. Mr. Brown. That question is one that has inteiested me a good deal. I was present in a market gardener's meeting recently, and one man said to me that if he had his way he No. 4.] TRUCK FARMING. 37 would clean up his celery fields absolutely, if it wouldn't cost him much money. In my own case this last year I planted celery on a tract of land where I had blight last year, and again this year. A friend of mine who was in the business in 1913 had bad blight in his celery, and in 1914 planted the land with celery and had the best crop he had ever raised. I can't ex- plain it and I don't believe you can. I can't tell whether that blight is carried over in the soil or not. In my experience I should say it was perfectly positive it was so; but I go to my friend who did the same that I did and he had not a bit of trouble. Evening Session. Mr. John Bursley of Barnstable, first vice-president of the Board, presided at the evening meeting and introduced Mr. W. H. Woodworth of Berwick, Nova Scotia, who spoke on "Co-operation in Fruit Growing as Practiced in Nova Scotia." 38 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. CO-OPERATION IN FRUIT GROWING AS PRACTICED IN NOVA SCOTIA. W, H. WOODWORTH, BERWICK, NOVA SCOTIA. It is constantly remarked, and perhaps with a certain amount of truth, that farmers, as a class, are so set in their ideas that it is impossible for a body of them to work together to accomplish any particular purpose. This co-operative movement, of which I am to speak to you, was organized in 1907 by a few of the best fruit growers in Berwick, a pretty village in the heart of the fruitful Annapolis valley in Nova Scotia. The method of handling the fruit pro- ducts of the valley prior to this date was very easy and emi- nently satisfactory to a certain few individuals, but far too easy and satisfactory to be much appreciated by the fruit growers. The European commission houses handling Nova Scotian fruit had their agents over here. During the shipping season these agents had subagents at nearly all railway stations from which any quantity of fruit was shipped. On an appointed day the farmer would pack his apples at home and haul them to the station, where the subagent would make up carload lots and forward on his immediate superior's orders. These apples were then left to the tender mercies of the consignees, who, when they eventually sold them, would commence piling up an ac- count of charges that were really startling in their ingenuity. A charge was made for every conceivable thing under the sun, including commission for every one who had anything to do with the apples, and when all was deducted that the consignee's conscience would allow, the farmer received an account of sales and sometimes a check representing what remnant of the wreck remained for him. The farmers chafed under this system of disposing of their products, but individually could do nothing. An attempt was made about ten years ago to organize some kind of a co-operative movement, but owing to the fact that it No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 39 was on too comprehensive a scale and was not founded on busi- ness principles, it was a failure. In 1907 a few of the most up-to-date and energetic farmers in Berwick made up their minds, however, that in co-operation alone was to be found a cure for the state of affairs that then existed. The product from their orchards was increasing year by year, and they realized that there were only two ways in wdiich they could give proper attention to the packing and grading of their fruit. One way was to build individual apple houses on their farms large enough to permit of fruit being stored and packed; another way was to get together and build or buy a large warehouse on the line of railw^ay, where the apples of all could be stored and packed. The latter was the scheme that appeared the most attractive, and these men formed the first co-operative fruit company in Nova Scotia. This company was called the Berwick Fruit Company, and was incorporated under the Nova Scotia joint stock companies' act, with an authorized capital of $10,000. Warehouse accom- modation was secured, and during the first season some 7,000 barrels of apples were handled. This company did not limit its sphere of usefulness to the mere handling of apples, but it aimed, also, at being an educational power. The leaders of this movement soon found that one of the most important factors in successful co-operative fruit packing was the production of good fruit. The company therefore used its best influence to educate its members and also farmers generally in the matter of careful cultivation, spraying, and the other operations necessary to secure high-class fruit. At the beginning of the second season the membership of this company had doubled, and a new warehouse was purchased. In 1908 the output of this company was 15,000 barrels, which increased the following year to 22,000. The early history of this company is a splendid demonstra- tion of what can be done by a body of men associated together for the common benefit. The superiority of the pack put out secured splendid prices. While farmers outside the company had to be content wdth SI. 25 per barrel, tree run, for their apples, the members of the co-operative company were receiving $2.65 for No. 1 grade of fruit, $1.90 for No. 2 and $1.22 for No. 3. 40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. News of the phenomenal success soon spread, and in 1909 five more companies were incorporated under a new act enacted especially to facilitate the incorporation of such companies. The following year saw that number increased. The apples of all members of co-operative companies are packed at the warehouses by experts. No farmer who is a member of a company is permitted to pack any standard vari- ety at home, neither is he allowed to sell except through his company. Thus the companies are able to put up a uniform pack which they can guarantee. A farmer joining a company agrees to pool his apples, and he is paid the average price realized for each variety in the three grades. Thus there is a direct incentive to raise good fruit, for the member receives the average price for the grades into which his fruit packs. It was realized, however, by the leader of this movement that while much could be accomplished by individual companies, it needed concerted action on the part of all companies to carry this co-operative idea to its logical conclusion. The companies were valuable factors in educating their members in the matter of cultivation, spraying, and improving the pack of their products. As individual companies working entirely independ- ently of one another, however, they rather defeated the very idea of co-operation, because they really became competitors of one another. Speculators were wont to play one company against another, so that the superior pack did not make that extra money that its quality merited. It was also realized that if the companies could work together large savings could be effected in the purchasing of supplies, such as fertilizer, nails, pulp heads and spray materials. The matter of transportation could also be better and more econom- ically handled. A conference was held and it was determined that some form of centralization was necessary. At this point, however, the Nova Scotia farmers showed that while they were ready to consider new ideas and act on them if their Judgment pro- nounced them good, yet they would not "buy a pig in a poke." The}' decided, therefore, that they would give this centraliza- tion scheme a trial for a year and see just what could be accom- plished before floating the Central as an incorporated body. An No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 41 executive committee of three members was elected from the leaders of the companies, some twenty-two in number, who decided to participate in the movement. The farmers were fortunate in their choice. As I stated before, the companies did not tie themselves to the Central Association in any way, they contributed nothing to found or start it, and were under no legal obligations to support it. The work of the Central was to attend to the matter of transportation, make what sales it could for the com- panies, buy supplies and generally assist all affiliated com- panies. Companies wishing to affiliate paid an entrance fee of $5. To maintain itself the Central charged the companies a small percentage of what apples it sold and earned certain money, as will be explained later. This Central Association came into existence in July, 1911. The whole scheme was an experiment, and no company was compelled to supply a single barrel of apples, to fill orders taken by the Central, if it thought it could do better elsewhere. Under these circumstances it is little short of wonderful that at the end of the season the man- ager was able to report an unqualified success. Great credit is due to the companies, the majority of which, I am glad to say, stood by their Central. There were a few weak-kneed com- panies, but these dropped out early in the game. A brief resume of the work accomplished by this experimental Central Association may prove of interest to you. In the first place Nova Scotia had that year a record crop of apples. The very magnitude of the crop gave the Central its first oppor- tunity to demonstrate its usefulness. With such a large crop there was naturally a lack of laborers to harvest it. The Cen- tral advertised for help, and in response to their appeal a small army of laborers invaded the valley and were distributed by the Central to the various companies who had previously made their requirements known. These companies in turn passed the help on to each of the members who required it. Previous to this action by the Central Association the valley laborers were demanding an unreasonable remuneration for picking. The advent of the additional help, however, knocked the bottom out of this "hold up," and the growers, even those altogether outside of the movement, were able to harvest their crops at a reasonable rate. 42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. It had long been thought that a good market for the farmers' Nova Scotia Gravensteins could be found in the Canadian west. This splendid apple never had a chance on the European markets on account of the large quantities of English fruit always available in those markets early in the season, and the lack of fast boats to place it on that market in prime condition. The Central engaged a man of marked ability as a salesman to go west and see what could be done. As a result of this short trip some 12,000 barrels were shipped to the northwest prov- inces by the Central Association. The opening up of this market has proved a great boon to the Nova Scotia apple trade, for, as is ever the case when a new market is found, the old markets were relieved and thereby steadied, resulting in better prices all round. Verily, in this initial year, the Central Association did not lack opportunities. Take the matter of transportation for instance. The supply of steamships, usually all sufficient to carry the apple crop to European markets, proved totally inadequate to cope with the tremendous quantities of early fruit sent forward. The end of September saw the Halifax terminal blocked, its cars of fruit sweltering in the sun, and no boats to carry it to market. The Central Association quickly grasped the situation and dis- patched four train loads to Montreal, connecting there with fast boats to England. This, however, was only done as a tem- porary relief. In the meantime they chartered four boats, which carried some 40,000 barrels out of Halifax, and so effec- tually relieved the situation to that port that a similar con- gestion did not occur again throughout the entire season. I claim that the farmers of the valley were saved thousands of dollars by this action. Not only did the members of the com- panies benefit, but the entire body of fruit growers. That action alone justified the existence of the Central, and should have earned for it the support of all fair-minded and clear- thinking men. The Central Association also proved a great selling factor. During the season it sold for the companies 102,000 barrels of apples, and, what is quite as important, made good prices. Another very useful work accomplished was the securing of space on steamers and attending to the shipping of the com- No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 43 panics' apples. During the season 400,000 barrels of apples were shipped on its bills of lading. In the matter of marine insurance a great saving was effected. The fact that the Central had some 400,000 barrels to insure, secured for the company an exceptionally low premium, and materially reduced that little item seen on most accounts of sales, which in the course of a year amounts to a considerable sum. Insurance of the warehouses and contents was also effected at a very close rate, the Central earning the commission usually going to the agents. Supplies were bought at very low figures. An order for 1,250,000 pulp heads and 500 kegs of nails naturally secured inside prices. The largest saving, however, was made in the purchase of fertilizers. Many companies who had stood loyally by their Central throughout the apple deals backed out when it came to buying fertilizers. Only a few companies, therefore, were working with the Central in this field, but even then 2,283 tons were handled. The fertilizer was bought at a saving, compared with the lowest price quoted by the agent, of about S3 per ton. Fertilizer agents assured the companies that they would guarantee them as low a price as the Central could give them, and others advertised openly in the press that they would supply fertilizer at even lower prices than could be obtained through the Central. Thanks, however, to the business acumen of the managers, the fertilizer agents were soon glad to with- draw those advertisements, and the companies who stood by the Central were able to divide a net saving of $6,800 on their fertilizer deal, I know some companies whose lack of faith in their Central cost them $4 per ton on their fertilizer supplies. One should not be too ready, however, to blame those companies; after all it was only an experimental year, and it is not strange that some should look askance at the idea of giving their order blindly without knowing how much their goods would cost them. At the same time all the more credit is due to those who were sufficiently imbued with the right spirit of co-opera- tion to do this. The great thing for the individual to remember, however, in a co-operative movement, is that after all it is not a Central 44 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Association selling you material; it is you yourself buying material at first cost through your own buyer, that is, your Central Association. The Central did not work to make any profit out of the affiliated companies. Supplies were distributed at cost and apples were sold at cost. A small levy was made on all apples sold to cover the expenses of the Central, but owing to the economical manner in which things were worked out, money being earned by the Central in various ways already indicated, the entire business of the companies was handled at the ridiculously low cost of three-eighths of a cent per barrel. Thus did the leaders of this movement demonstrate to the farmers what could be done by co-operation. During the winter months a special bill had been prepared to enable the Central Association to be incorporated. This bill, with certain modifications, was passed by the House of Assembly at Halifax. Steps were taken in June, 1912, to com- plete the organization of this movement and to incorporate as many companies as possible into one central body. The speculators who had so long made a very lucrative living out of the farmers did not allow this organization to be effected without a determined opposition, but thanks to the zeal and untiring energy which was put into it, twenty-four of the twenty-seven co-operative companies signed the memorandum of association, which gave birth to the United Fruit Companies of Nova Scotia, Limited. The company is incorporated with an authorized capital of $200,000, of which $76,000 is sub- scribed, each subsidiary company subscribing 20 per cent, of its authorized capital. The organization meeting was held at Kentville on July 8, 1912, the companies being represented by seventy-two delegates. By-laws were adopted and directors and officers were appointed, each company being represented on the directorate by one representative. Ten other companies have been formed and have come into the Central Association since organization, so that there are now thirty-seven companies. All the companies agreed to come in under a by-law which gives the Central Association complete control of all their fruit. All apples are pooled and average prices are returned to the companies according to the class and grade of fruit packed. m0 w No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 45 These companies collectively have a membership of about 2,500 of the most up-to-date and progressive farmers of the valley. The United Fruit Companies can therefore claim to have control of the best fruit produced in the finest fruit producing district in Canada. There are forty-seven warehouses belonging to the companies, having a total frost-proof storage capacity of 750,000 barrels of apples. These warehouses are turning out on an average 25,000 barrels of apples a week. Eight steamers and ten schooners beside the regular boats have been chartered by the company. Three of the companies have erected evaporators, where the cull apples are used up, thus reducing waste to a minimum. It is the aim of the United Fruit Company to establish and maintain a uniform high standard of pack, which they guarantee. It is considered that in this way a demand will be created for co-operative packed fruit, which will natu- rally mean higher returns. Already the superiority of this pack has been noticed. Fruit inspectors have reported on it to Ottawa, and Ottawa in turn has congratulated the companies. Disinterested persons in various parts of Canada have com- mented on it in the press. And above all it is reported that the European buyers now look for and demand the co-operative mark. Thus it can fairly be said that the aim of the companies has been accomplished. Great importance is attached to this matter of good pack, and to maintain uniformity the chief inspector visits every warehouse constantly; spending a little time at each, inspecting barrels packed, and giving instructions. His reports concerning conditions prevailing at each warehouse are carefully noted and filed. New markets are constantly being sought, and in this con- nection much valuable work has been accomplished. Markets on the continent of Europe hitherto supplied through a series of middlemen are now being supplied direct, and trial shipments are being made to other hemispheres where the Nova Scotia apples, the apples with the flavor, have never previously been tasted, but where it is hoped a demand will be created. As the shipping season is only at its early stage, it would be premature to talk about what has been accomplished this year. Suffice it 46 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. to say that up to October 31, 206,000 barrels and 42,000 boxes had been shipped, and quite a fair proportion of this quantity had been shipped to fill orders. The wonderful success that has attended the co-operative movement is having a telling effect, and applications are being constantly received from responsible farmers asking for assist- ance in forming companies in their neighborhoods. Nine such companies are now in course of organization, and at the end of the apple shipping season a vigorous campaign will be conducted to still further extend the scope of this movement. It is not proposed that the shipping of apples and furnishing of fertilizer shall be the sum and substance of this movement. A more ambitious program is mapped out. It is proposed that in time everything that a farmer requires on his farm or in his home can be purchased through the co-operative companies. Advertisements are seen daily, setting forth the advantage of buying direct from the makers. Through the co-operative movement the farmer will get his supplies direct from the makers, minus even the advertising expenses, and with all the saving in cost which is always effected when a large quantity of any material is bought. Through co-operation the farmer buys his supplies direct from the producer and sells his product direct to the consumer. The small army of middlemen, who have been making a comfortable living out of him on both sides, has to retire and he, the producer, gets the full value of his money on the one hand, and gets all the money that his produce makes on the other. As I stated before, the United Fruit Companies have a very ambitious program. It contains such items as the erection of cold-storage plants, the running of a line of refrigerator cars, erecting or purchasing large department stores, erecting saw- mills and cooperage and box-making shops, and even banking and insurance. Indeed the possibilities are unlimited. See what has been done in Europe. Who will say that what Den- mark has accomplished is not possible in Canada? One does not expect all this in a year, or two years or even five years, but given judicious management and capable oJBBcials in all departments and in ten years I look to see the United Fruit Companies of Nova Scotia the most powerful organization in eastern Canada. No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 47 The Central Association has an efficient office staff working on an organized system. Instructions are sent out from the Central office constantly to all subsidiary companies, directing as to varieties to be packed and how, when, and where to be shipped. Space on the various boats is allotted to the com- panies, and directions issued as to method of shipping, etc. Statistics are compiled showing quantity and condition of crop throughout the American continent and Europe. Constant telegraphic advices are received and recorded, giving total estimated shipments of apples from all ports to all ports. Pre- vailing conditions on all markets are recorded daily, and reports received from our representatives and agents from ail markets touched by the North American fruits. All the reports are carefully studied and instructions issued as a result. The or- ganized fruit growers of Nova Scotia this year demonstrated to the world that co-operation is a mighty factor. As soon as the unreasonable increase of ocean rates was com- municated to the Central office, it was recognized that unless immediate action was taken the Annapolis valley would be sub- jected to a tax which would be nothing short of murderous to its industry. The increase of 32 cents per barrel was utterly indefensible; the claim of the steamship companies that addi- tional war risks had to be paid did not form sufficient excuse, as less than half the amount of the advance would more than cover any additional cost in that direction. It was simply an attempt on the part of the combine to take advantage of the war to make those who were forced to ship pay a rate that would make bigger profits for the steamship owners. There were two ways of combating this menace; one, was an appeal to the government at Ottawa, and the other, was by chartering boats owned by concerns outside of the Atlantic combine. The United Companies pursued both courses. A strongly worded protest was immediately mailed to the minister of trade and commerce. The shippers of the United States were also appealed to with a view to bringing pressure to bear on the combination through the American trade. It was found that the American shippers were all ready to co- operate with the United Fruit Companies, who were alone on the Canadian side in fightins the increase in a determined 48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. manner. The Dominion fruit conference was about to be held and the officials of the United Fruit Companies attending that conference were instructed to bring the matter up as an emer- gency. In the meantime the strongest weapon of the organized fruit growers was used. Steamship brokers were instructed to as- certain what independent tonnage was available for chartering, and it was quickly found that no difficulty would be experienced in obtaining all the boats necessary to carry the United Fruit Companies' apples. The United Fruit Companies then in- formed the International Combine that they proposed charter- ing independent boats, and as an indication that this was no idle threat two boats were chartered. This had the desired effect and we were quickly notified that the steamship com- panies had decided to reduce the increase by 19 cents. Now the moral to be drawn from this short but sharp fight is that organized and united the fruit growers of the valley are a power, a power that can demand and obtain fair treatment. The fact that the organized fruit growers were powerful enough to charter their own boats and powerful enough to be abso- lutely independent of the regular steamship lines has saved the valley 19 cents on every barrel of apples that will be shipped. Consider what this means. If only 600,000 barrels are shipped this year the United Fruit Companies will have saved the valley $114,000 — $114,000 in the pockets of the growers in- stead of the pockets of the steamship companies. If the United Fruit Companies had not been in existence, the advanced freight rates would have gone into effect and the growers would have had to pay, or allow their fruit to rot. The few big shippers probably would not have paid the increase, but that would only be a repetition of what has happened pre- viously, and the ordinary , growers would have had to pay, while a few privileged individuals would not. By taking space and retailing it to smaller shippers, the favored few would have become just so much richer at the expense of their less fortunate brethren. As individuals, the growers can do nothing; as an organized body working co-operatively, they are a power to be considered. The co-operative movement in Nova Scotia is just what I No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 49 say it has been. And I will quote from the annual report of the co-operative society for last year: "Your purchases for the past year have included 575,000 pulp heads, 35,000 pounds of nails, 67,800 pounds of grass and clover seed, 22,745 pounds of other seeds, 48,300 pounds of vetches, 4,500 bushels of seed oats, 2,060 barrels of flour [and they bought a lot more flour just before the war], 19,649 bags of feed, 6,044 tons of fertilizer, 104,000 pounds of arsenate of lead, 8,900 rods of steel fence, 1,800 barrels of lime sulphur, 2,200 pounds 'Black leaf 40.' These supplies have cost in round figures about $183,000." Our country is especially fitted for co-operation, because the Dominion Atlantic Railroad runs from one end of the valley to the other, and the warehouses are dotted all the way from Digby to Yarmouth, and at Berwick we have six more. The central office does all the selling. They get their orders from England, from the Canadian west, or wherever it may be. Each warehouse is notified by telephone or telegraph how many barrels to put into that particular lot. The great trouble we had was to get the farmers started. They are a suspicious lot of men, afraid somebody will make a dollar out of them. In Nova Scotia the great talk against the co-operative companies is that the manager is making some money. Of course you can't get a good manager unless you pay him. Last year it cost about 4 cents a barrel for all the apples that were handled by the co-operative company to pay the total running expenses of the whole business for clerks. We have a splendid system of bookkeeping, too. Every man knows what his apples bring, and we have auditors to handle the books so that there is no possibility of fraud, and up to the present date the movement is working very well indeed. Our apples go to Africa, Cape Colony, Glasgow, England and the Canadian west, and we are opening up a market now in South America. We sell very few apples in the United States. Question. In what condition are the apples when picked and taken to the warehouse? Mr. WooDWORTH. They are picked in the orchard care- fully, and the early apples taken to the warehouse in barrels with a little bit of burlap and a hoop drawn over it. The later 50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. fruit is put in the barrel and the heads are put in upside down, and they are shipped to the warehouse and stored there. They are all put in in blocks, a block of Baldwins and a block of Greenings, and shipped out just as they are wanted. The warehouses are kept very neat and clean, too, and everything piled up in them, and it is a pleasure to go in. Question. How far are the warehouses from the orchards? Mr. WooDWORTH. Oh, 4 or 5 miles at the most. Not 5 miles now, because you see the valley is only about 6 miles wide, and the railroad runs through the center. I am 2 miles from the station. We draw 35 or 40 barrels to a load and draw 4 loads a day. Pick up the apples, load them in the wagon and go right down and get your slip from the ware- house for every barrel of apples you put in. Question. You said you headed the barrels in the orchard. Mr. WooDWORTH. Yes, we put the heads in upside dowm so that it gives a little more space. We do not press them down in the orchard; we shake them down, jar them down when we pick them, and then shove the head in. Question. Are they all repacked? Mr. WooDWORTH. All are graded and repacked at the warehouse. Mr. Wheeler. I would like to ask if you consider the co- operative association takes the place of passing necessary laws, — for instance, a grading law? Mr. WooDWORTH. Oh, no. These companies have to be looked after. I have got a copy of the inspection and sale act of Nova Scotia. If you people had this law it would be the best thing you ever had. I will quote one or two para- graphs : — Fancy quality, unless such fruit consists of well-grown specimens of one variety, sound, of uniform and of at least normal size and good color for the variety, of normal shape, free from worm-holes, bruises, scab and other defect and properly packed; No. 1 quality, unless such fruit includes no culls and consists of well-grown specimens of one variety, sound, of not less than medium size and of good color for the variety, of normal shap e and not less than 90 per cent free from scab, worm-holes, bruises and othe r defects, and properly packed. No. 4.1 FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 51 Now, that is the No. 1, but they say there must be 90 per cent good, clean fruit. We intend they shall be all good clean fruit, but perhaps some man may not have good eyesight and they allow 10 per cent leeway — the law does — for some of that kind of stuff to come in. No. 2 quaUt.y, unless such fruit includes no culls and consists of speci- mens of not less than medium size for the variety, and not less than 80 per cent free from worm-holes and such other defects as cause material waste, and properly packed. That is the No. 2 pack. In any package in which the face or shown surface gives a false repre- sentation of the contents of such package; and it shall be considered a false representation when more than 15 per cent of such fruit is sub- stantially smaller in size than, or inferior in grade to, or different in variety from, the face or shown surface of such package. You see, that fruit must be all the same all the way through. If you pack a box of apples down in our country and the face does not represent the whole, then you are hauled up. Every person who, by himself or through the agency of any other person, violates any of the provisions of sections 320 and 321 of this act, shall be liable, for the first offense to a fine not exceeding $25 and not less than $10; for the second offense to a fine not exceeding $50 and not less than $25; and for the third and each subsequent offense to a fine not exceeding $200 and not less than $50, together, in all cases, with the costs of the prosecution; and in default of payment of such fine and costs shall be liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labor, for a term not exceeding one month, unless such fine and costs, and the costs of enforcing them, are sooner paid. Now, that is the law of our country, and it is enforced in Nova Scotia by about fifteen fruit inspectors, and those fruit inspectors appear constantly when you are packing apples in your own home, and are in the co-operative places every day. It has raised the standard of Nova Scotia apples above what it was a few years ago, and which gave Nova Scotia apples a bad name on the London market. 52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Whenever such violation is with respect to a lot or shipment consisting of 50 or more closed packages, there may be imposed, in addition to any penalty provided by this section, for the first offense 25 cents, for the second offense 50 cents, and for the third and each subsequent offense one dollar for each barrel. This act is not only for Nova Scotia, but for all of Canada. Our fruit inspectors are at Halifax when the fruit is being shipped, — they haul up the barrels there, — and they are in the warehouses. They give no certificate, though, of inspection for any lot. They can't open all the barrels they go through. Question. What was the beginning of this law? What brought it about? Did it come through the growers? Mr. WooDWORTH. Our Fruit Growers Association ap- proached the government and blocked out a bill and got it passed through the Dominion Parliament. There has been some complaint from people who did not want to put their fruit up well. But the thing now has become a law and we have got to respect it, and I can tell you that I have packed 2,500 barrels of apples this year and we are very particular. Many men, perhaps, in this State do not need any law, but a lot of them do. If you could see some of the apples I saw at Lewiston last year, where a barrel was bought in the open market and brought in, it would make you smile. The man who packed those apples didn't know how to pack a barrel of fruit. Now, I have got about a quarter of an hour and I v/ill give you some points in fruit growing in Nova Scotia. Successjul Fruit growing in Nova Scotia. The Annapolis valley is situated between the North and South mountains, running from Windsor in the east to Annapolis Royal in the west. The average width of this valley is 6 miles, and practically all the apples grown in Nova Scotia are grown in this valley. Grand Pre, made famous by your poet Longfellow, is situated in the eastern section of the valley. Apple trees were first planted here by the Arcadian French. Some of these trees are still bearing fruit. The varieties grown are Gravenstein, Ribston, Blenheim, King, Golden Russet, Baldwin, Rhode Island Greening, Stark and Ben Davis. In the vear ISSO it was thought wonderful that 41,000 No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 53 barrels should be exported, yet by 1911 the quantity had risen to nearly 2,000,000 barrels. New orchards are planted every year, and as yet only a small fraction of the total area has been set. Orchards that have been planted during the last twenty-five years are set 33 feet each way, which for a standard orchard is about right. Special attention is paid by the successful grower to the following points : — Cultivation. — IMost of the plowing in the larger orchards is done in the autumn, preferably after the leaves have fallen. Early in the spring, as soon as the land is fit, the land is harrowed with disc harrows, followed in ten days with spring tooth and later with smoothing harrows. The cultivation is kept up every ten days until the 1st of July. At this time cultivation ceases, and the entire area is sown with a cover crop of summer vetches or tares. These vetches grow lux- uriantly and produce a very heavy crop, which is plowed under in the autumn. This is of great value to the soil, as it adds an immense quantity of humus, which is heavily charged with nitrogen gathered from the air during the growing season by the millions of bacteria which are ever working, although unseen, in the interest of the orchardist. The conservation of moisture is one of the most important results of cultivation. The stirring of the top soil breaks up the capillary tubes that bring the water from below, and evaporation is checked. Two other advantages of cultivation are that soil under thorough cultivation has a larger amount of plant food available for plant use, and the finely pulverized soil offers no resistance to root development, and thus helps the trees to extend their feeding area. Fertilization. — Another important factor in successful or- charding is keeping up the fertility of the soil. Without a generous supply of plant food the trees will not make a satis- factory growth or produce a paying crop. For nitrogen, large quantities of nitrate of soda are used. Ground fish, obtained from the Fish Reduction Works at Carver, Nova Scotia, is a splendid fertilizer. Nitrogen is also supplied by manure and the plowing under of leguminous crops. Basic slag from the steel works at Sydney, Nova Scotia, has been successfully used the past few years as a source of phos- 54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. plioric acid. It also has a percentage of free lime which has a beneficial effect on the soil. In the past, large quantities of muriate of potash have been used in our orchards, but the farmers are not using much of late years, as our soils contain plenty of potash, which needs only cultivation to make it available. I might mention at this point that land of a wet nature must be thoroughly underdrained before success is possible. Trees will not do their best with wet feet. Priming. — Most of the pruning is done in March and the early part of April. Our trees are headed out about 3 feet from the ground, and are cut back a little each year so as to form a low-headed tree. A tree that is low headed presents many advantages over the tall slim tree. The former is easily sprayed. The picking of the fruit can be done with much greater care. The tree itself is much stronger, and is not affected by winds. Spraying. — The operation of spraying is not a pleasant one. Spraying has become universal in our valley. For a long period Bordeaux mixture and Paris green was the spray used, but of late years lime-sulphur with arsenate of lead as a poison has almost entirely taken the place of the former. The black scab or spot is the greatest enemy we have to fight. Spraying should be done while the trees are dormant, with the 1 to 8 or 1 to 9 mixture of lime-sulphur; then before the blossoms open, with lime-sulphur 1 to 40, and 2 pounds of arsenate of lead; and again after the petals have fallen, with the same mixture; and if necessary, after another period of ten days. Fine, thorough spraying generally does the work. The operation must be thoroughly done and every part of the tree must be reached. Power sprayers are used in almost every instance. Question. What variety of vetch do you use? Mr. WooDWORTH. Just the common vetch or tares, not the hairy vetch, which is more expensive. The vetch we use costs $2 a bushel. Question. How much do you seed to the acre? Mr. WooDWORTH. One bushel. Have your land in a good state of cultivation, then just go over it with a smoothing No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 55 harrow after you sow your vetches. They grow fast and form a nice bed for the apples to fall on later. Question. What do you pay for basic slag? Mr. WooDWORTH. I have to pay $13 for basic slag through the companies, and I think it is 12| per cent of phosphoric and about 40 per cent of free lime. It has quite a high percentage. You know they put the limestone into the furnaces at the steel works and the dross comes out, and the jfiner it is ground the better for us. This works splendidly on the low lands on account of the phosphoric acid it contains. Question. Are you troubled with the aphis? Mr. WooDWORTH. Yes, w^e used to be. You must keep in touch with the professors so as to know when the aphis is coming. Question, How can you tell wdiether you are going to have it or not? Mr. WooDWORTH. You can see these little aphides very early in the spring. Quite a lot, I believe, depends upon the season. But we examine our trees with a glass just as soon as the very first leaves commence to show, that is, when the little aphides hatch, — and we get intelligence, too, from all over the valley, — from the fruit companies, — and the spray- ing is all done about the same time of the year. The indi- cations for aphis are reported at the central office, and w^e have a co-operative newspaper which spreads the news all through the valley, which is a great aid to us. Question. Do you have the tent caterpillar? Mr. W^ooDWORTH. Yes, a few. But, as I say, the black spot is what we are fighting, and I expect it is the damp weather conditions that cause it down there. Question. Do you use any Bordeaux in fighting the black spot? Mr. WooDWORTH. We used to rely on Bordeaux. I used to go around the country with lime and blue vitriol and mix Bordeaux, and show" the farmers how to apply it; but since lime and sulphur came in I have used Bordeaux only one or two years. Lime-sulphur has taken its place. The only objection I have to Bordeaux is that it russets the apples. I can't grow apples unrusseted by the use of Bordeaux, and I can grow clean fruit with lime-sulphur. 56 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Question. Do you ever have any trouble with burning foHage with lime-sulphur? Mr. WooDWORTH. No. I don't think there is any trouble with burning the foliage if you don't get your mixture too strong. Question. What do you pay for commercial lime-sulphur? Mr. WooDW^ORTH. Eight dollars a barrel, 40 gallons. If you want to make lime- sulphur cheap, get some brick, a 2-inch plank, make a little brick furnace with a wooden box with a sheet-iron bottom, about 6 feet long and 35 inches broad, nail it on with two rows of tacks, put a bit of stove pipe up through the end for a draft, and put in a hundred weight of sulphur to 50 pounds of lime, and boil it one hour and draw it off. Take a hydrometer and test it, and use it according to the hydrometer test. The test of the hydrometer gives the strength. You have to pay $2.25 for the sulphur and about 25 cents for the lime. In April you can boil your lime-sulphur when you are doing nothing else, and I have saved S50 this year. Question. What formula do you use for Bordeaux mixture? IVIr. WooDWORTH. Forty gallons of water and -4 pounds of blue vitriol and 4 pounds of lime. You should dilute the 4 pounds of blue vitriol with 20 gallons of water in a barrel, and the 4 pounds of lime with another 20 gallons of water, and then pour simultaneously into a third barrel; if you don't do it this way your Bordeaux is no good. Question. How much growth do you get on a tree? Mr. WooDWORTH. On a tree that is fruiting never over 4 or 5 inches of growth. Question. Do you thin your apples? Mr. WooDW^ORTH. Well, we want to; it is a hard prop- osition, the thinning of fruit. We have only thinned a very few trees, and I know that it is the right thing to do, but we have not done it. Our best fruit growers do. Thinning will become universal in a little w4iile. Question. Do you raise any small fruit along with the trees? Mr. WooDWORTH. If you grow small fruit the raspberries and strawberries sap the soil of its fertility. I have always No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 57 noticed that where a man grows strawberries betw^een the trees his apple-tree leaves are all yellow. We grow apples and turnips and get huge crops in between the rows. Question. Are not currants good? Mr. WoODWORTH. We never grow any currants between the trees. We grow some raspberries. Question. At what age do your trees bear? Mr. WooDWORTH. Well, the Wageners begin to bear about three or four years after they are set out. Of course, they are small trees and can't bear very large crops. I have an orchard planted out about thirteen years, — 30 acres of orchard, — and that has given me a splendid crop, averaging 50 bushels to the acre; that would be a barrel to a tree. Of course, some trees have two barrels on; others don't have any. Question. Wliat do your apples bring a barrel this fall? Mr. WooDWORTH, Our apples for export have brought about $1.60 through the co-operative companies. You count that a small price; for these war times we count it a very good price. Question. How much is the profit on a barrel of apples at that price? Mr. WooDW'ORTH. Fifty cents. We pay 28 cents for barrels; it costs us about 12 cents to get them packed; they do it a little cheaper this year than they have been doing it. Of course, in the co-operative movement we have to pay for what it costs. Question. You pay for picking? Mr, W^oodworth. We pay for picking usually $1 a day. I have paid more. If we could get experienced pickers we would pay them more, but* we usually get new pickers each year, and if you have ever attempted to pick apples with a lot of fellows that never had picked them before you know that all you hear is a basket falling, or a man, and by the time you have them well taught the season is over. Question. Is the business done through your co-operative societies done on a cash basis? Mr. WooDWORTH. Yes, we sell all the stuff for cash, except what we send to the other side, and on that the returns come back as soon as sold. Question. What temperature do you keep in the ware- houses? 58 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Mr. WooDWOETH. We try to regulate the temperature as well as we can, but you see when in the autumn days it gets hot, as it did last year, the temperature gets very high, and we counsel our co-operative fellows to keep their fruit at home when they can, — not to haul off too much fruit early. We have no system of cold storage yet; we are talking about it. It would be a pretty nice thing for us. We have accomplished much, and the Nova Scotia co-operative companies are the talk, of all western Canada. We are way ahead of Ontario along that line, and we feel very proud that we have made such a business of it. We have a very fine secretary and a good business man. Every central office employs a manager and bookkeepers, and each co-operative company has a manager and head, and then the girls and young fellows do the packing. The apples are all sorted in baskets. The African trade re- quires box stuff. Think of sending apples to South Africa, 3,000 miles. We sell large quantities of fruit right from the warehouse. About all fruit sold to the Canadian west is by the carload. Question. What is the inside measurement of your bushel box? Mr. WooDw^ORTH. Eleven by twenty. It is a longer box than the so-called standard, but not so deep. It holds a bushel. Question. Is it 10 by 11 by 20? Mr. WooDWORTH. Yes; I think that is the measurement. Our barrel is smaller than yours. I think our barrel is like the New York State barrel. Mr. Wheeler. This Oregon box is 10^ by 11| by 18. We have no law in this State requiring any size. Mr. WoODWORTH. Of course, there is a call for boxed stuff, but the majority of our trade is packed in barrels. The size of our box is regulated by the Dominion government. You will never feel happy until you get a good stiff law on about in- spection; it is one of the very best things for any agricultural or any fruit-growing district. There will be a lot of kickers at first, but they will all disappear. No. 4.] BEEF PRODUCTION. 59 Second Day. The second day's meeting was called to order at 10.30 a.m. by Secretary Wheeler, who introduced Mr, George E. Taylor, Jr., of Shelbiirne as the chairman of the meeting. ADDRESS OF MR. GEORGE E. TAYLOR, Jr. Mr. Secretary, Ladies and Gentlemen: Yesterday afternoon we heard complaints voiced here on the decrease in the number of dairy cows in the State of Massachusetts. The reasons ascribed to that decrease may or may not coincide with your ideas. I think that there are reasons that were not brought out. I believe that the labor question is one affecting that problem as much, perhaps, as any one item. A man who has twenty cows to milk and has to get along with help who are rather particular about working more than eight hours a day is rather in a hole. Now, it seems to me that the cost of production of milk and the selling price of the same are in too close a ratio. I was rather interested this summer in watching the workings of our Franklin County Dairy Improvement Association and the results obtained by that association. We figured the cost of the milk production very closely and the selling price of the same. Taking the cost of the food value alone, the actual food-value cost of the milk was from 2^ to 3 J cents. We did not take into account interest on the invest- ment or depreciation, the cost of selling or the labor required in the care of the cattle. So that you can see, if you are selling milk for 4 cents, and the actual food cost of the same is 3 J cents, you are not getting out whole. Lots of milk is sold as cream to the co-operative creameries that does not bring 2§ cents. Now, the price of beef in the Chicago market is from 7^ to 11 cents a pound on foot. This, I think, is one factor that has made the decrease in the number of milch cows in the State of Massachusetts. If you can get $75 for a good cow for beef, when you are getting 3 or 4 cents a quart for your milk, the chances are you may let her go for that reason. That is one reason why we get the decrease in the number of cows. Now, it seems to me that taking those con- 60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. siderations together here under our conditions in Massa- chusetts, — the comparatively low price of our milk and the comparatively high price of beef, — we are beginning to see the value of getting these two factors in an animal together. When we can produce an animal which will make good in the dairy and pay for her feed, and at the same time make a good carcass of beef that will sell for 10 or 11 cents on foot, there is something in it. I would say parenthetically that this is the class of cattle we have when we are breeding dairy Shorthorns. And the consideration for our meeting this morning is our beef question in New England. It is to be presented to you by Professor H. H. Wing, professor of animal husbandry of the New York State College of Agriculture, whom I will now introduce to you. No. 4.] BEEF PRODUCTION. 61 BEEF PEODUCTION IN NEW ENGLAND. HERBERT H. WING, PROFESSOR OF ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, NEW YORK. I am asked to speak to you on the subject of beef produc- tion. I have taken the liberty to broaden the subject, and if you please, will attempt to discuss the whole question of meat supply in its relation to the New England farmer. INIuch attention has been given to the number of meat- producing domestic animals in the United States, particularly since the Federal Census of 1910 called attention to the fact that there had been a sharp decrease in the number of such animals during the preceding decade. This was the more noticeable to the public, since the first sharp increase in price occurred at about the same time. Students and statisticians who had given attention to the question of meat production in the United States had long been aware of the fact that meat-producing animals were relatively decreasing, but as these matters were largely confined to trade journals and occasional references in the agricultural press, the general pub- lic remained to a large extent indifferent to them. It might be well for us to briefly review the condition of the country and more especially of New England with respect to the num- bers of meat-producing domestic animals, and since dairy cattle are intimately associated with meat-producing animals and the meat-producing industry, these have been included as well. In order not to burden you with extensive quotations of sta- tistics, I have arranged the most important figures on a chart, so that you may the more readily see at a glance the more important facts. 62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Chart No. 1. — Live Stock in the United States. 1900. 1910. Number. Per 1,000 of Total Popula- tion. Per 1,000 of Rural Popula- tion. Number. Per 1,000 of Total Popula- tion. Per 1,000 of Rural Popula- tion. Cattle, dairy, 18,108,666 238 401 21,795,770 237 442 Cattle, other, 51,227,166 674 1,133 41,886,878 455 849 Swine, .... 64,686,155 851 1,431 59,473,636 647 1,205 Sheep, .... 61,735,014 812 1,366 52,838,748 575 1,071 /7^ New England. Cattle, dairy, 893,478 160 796 841,698 128 767 Cattle, other. 713,137 128 636 494,852 76 451 Swine, .... 362,199 65 323 396,642 61 361 Sheep, .... 922,558 165 822 430,672 66 392 Giving our attention first to the country at large, it will be seen that, with the exception of dairy cattle, all other classes have not only relatively but actually decreased in the decade from 1900 to 1910, and that while dairy cattle have increased in the same period something more than three and a half million, this has been barely sufficient to keep pace with the increase in population. The next matter to which I wish to call your attention is the relatively small numbers of all classes of domestic animals in New England as compared with the country as a whole, particularly meat-producing cattle, sheep and swine; and to the further fact that all classes, dairy cattle included, have shown a marked decrease in New England during the decade. In this connection it is of course necessary to con- sider the two classes of population: the consumers, most of whom dwell in the cities; the producers, or those who live in the rural districts. The United States Census divides the population of the country into urban and rural population, including in the urban population all those who dwell in cities or incorporated villages of 2,500 inhabitants or more. As you know. New England differs from the rest of the United Ko. 4.] BEEF PRODUCTION. 63 States in some important features of municipal organization, and has no unit comparable with the incorporated village in other parts of the country, so that the census officers, in making this distribution of the population, have classed as urban all those New England towns which contain 2,500 or more in- habitants. Many of these towns have, of course, considerable areas that are truly rural in their character, so that the rural population may perhaps be slightly decreased in New England from this cause. In the United States, as a whole, in 1910, 53.7 per cent, of the total population were classed as rural, whereas in New England only 16.7 per cent, were so classed. This shows a much larger proportion of urban population in New England than in the country as a whole, which no doubt largely accounts for the small numbers of domestic animals in New England in proportion to the total population. I have further compared the numbers of animals in the whole country and in New England on the basis of the rural population rather than the total population, as the census reports show that the rural population per square mile in New England is practically the same as the average of the whole country, the figures being 16.6 persons per square mile in the United States as a whole, and 17 in New England. Arranging, then, the census sta- tistics of the animal population on the basis of the rural popu- lation we find that, as compared with the country as a whole, New England had in 1900 nearly twice as many dairy cattle as the average of the whole country, and that while dairy cattle had undoubtedly increased as compared with the rural population in the whole country, they had decreased from 796 per thousand to 767 per thousand in New England, showing that even in this most important branch of animal husbandry there had been a marked decrease in the last decade. The numbers of cattle, other than dairy cattle, swine and sheep, it will be seen are markedly less, ranging from less than one- third to about one-half as many in New England as in the country as a whole, and the numbers of swine alone show a slight increase in the decade; but it will be seen that the total numbers of swine are still insignificant in New England as compared with the country as a whole. 64 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. The statistics further show clearly what is apparent to most people, — the relatively great importance of the dairy cow among the animals of the farm, particularly in New Eng- land and in the northeastern States generally. The present high price of not only beef but of all meat products, with no indication of a lessening price in the future, has brought home the question of meat consumption with great force to a large proportion of the consuming public, and the problem that confronts a great many people at the present time is the source of the meat supply in the home. Without attempting to take up the question as to whether the people in the United States eat more meat than is necessary, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of a vegetarian diet or any similar matters, I think it is safe to assume that the per capita consumption is likely to decrease, but I think that most of us, inheriting the ideas of our beef-eating English ancestors, will go a long way before we entirely forego meat as an important part of our dietary. It behooves us, then, as farmers to bestir ourselves to discover if we may not pro- duce more meat as a profitable part of our farm industry. It is not necessary to call your attention to the fact that the conditions in the United States with regard to the production of beef have been anomalous for the last fifty years. In this time vast areas of fertile soil have been opened up for settlement and development. The crops easiest to produce on these vast areas have been grass and the cereal grains, notably corn, and the latter has been produced in abundance far beyond the capacity of the people to use as grain. A large part of this raw material has naturally gone into beef as the easiest method of marketing this crop, without regard as to whether such a practice was on the whole an economical one. We therefore became, and have remained up to the present time, a beef- exporting country, and beef has been relatively cheap. The ease of its production in the central west has put the eastern farmer entirely out of competition in the production of beef. Two factors have been prominent in causing a decline in meat-producing animals: first, the taking up of vast areas of practically free pasturage upon which beef-producing stock could be raised; and secondly, the increased use and market No. 4.] BEEF PRODUCTION. 65 for cereals, including corn, and the marked increase in the ex- port demand for such cereals, which has relatively raised the price of the material upon which range-grown animals were fattened. During the past ten years the middle west farmer has found it less and less profitable to market his corn in the shape of beef or pork, and so the relative numbers have de- clined. If the consuming public continues to demand beef so that the price rises sufficiently we shall undoubtedly con- tinue to produce it, and largely in the corn-growing regions of the middle west; but the western farmer will not in the future be as strong a competitor of the eastern farmer as he has in the past. What outlook, then, does the production of meat aft'ord to the New England farmer under present condi- tions? New England will undoubtedly continue to import a large proportion of her meat supply. As the prices rise the per capita consumption will undoubtedly decrease. In either case, however, the New England farmer, constituting only about one sixth of the population, would seem to be assured of a perma- nent market at his own doors. The proportion of such market that he can supply will depend very largely upon his own intelligence, industry, and business ability. Along what lines, then, is it probable that profitable meat- producing farm industries may be increased? Inquiries and correspondence coming to me during the last two years have shown that there is considerable interest in the question of increased meat production in northeastern United States. This correspondence has come in considerable degree, not so much from farmers as from city people looking toward agri- culture as a means of investment or employment. Nearly all such inquiries assume that if meat production is to be increased in the east it must be as a special, highly developed industry, and questions as to the proper places for specialized sheep farms, swine farms and beef farms, as distinct branches of agriculture, have been numerous. If the meat products in New England are to be increased I see little indication that it is likely to come in this specialized form, but that it is much more likely to develop in connection with dairying, fruit growing or with other branches of agri- culture; and other countries give evidence that this is likely 66 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. to be so. England and Holland are two countries, both using considerable amounts of meat, both meat-importing, and both producing beef in sufficient amounts to make it an important part of the income of the rural population. The English farmer produces a few steers or a few wethers as a part of his general farm plan, and not, in most cases, as a special industry to which he devotes his whole attention; and it seems to me that if this same idea could be carried out among our New England farmers it would result in a notable increase in the meat output. The means of doing this I have not the time to discuss in very great detail, but I would like to call your at- tention to a few features of the matter. In the first place, I do not believe that beef production in New England is going to take the form of keeping a cow to grow a steer that shall be kept until he is two and a half years old, and then fed for ninety to one hundred and twenty days on clear corn the whole time; neither do I believe that the New England farmer is going to produce beef by crowding a calf with all the milk it can consume for six months, and then with a rich diet of heavy, concentrated food for nine months, in order to make the so-called "baby beef." Profitable beef production in the United States, and particularly in New England, must get away from the idea that unlimited consumption of highly concentrated food is necessary; and then we shall produce beef in the future, perhaps not of the superlative quality we have demanded in the past, but still of good, succulent quality, able to nourish any man, very largely from coarse forage in the form of silage and grass. Several of our western experi- ment stations, notably the one at Purdue University, have been working on the question of beef production through the con- sumption of silage. Silage has revolutionized the dairy in- dustry in the northeastern States, and I venture to predict that it will have a similar effect on meat production. As a matter of fact, meat production for the New England farmer seems to hinge very largely on his capacity to produce more grass or more corn silage or both. Another feature that we cannot lose sight of — and it is perhaps somewhat heretical to mention this — is the question of combining dairy and beef production. In the countries I •mr w 1. n, travel and recreation. Papers and magazines, books, subscriptions to concerts and the like could be credited to education. No. 4.] HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTING. 83 The matter of cultivating a habit of saving and putting aside definite sums each week, month or year, depending on the manner in wbich the income is received, should be emphasized. Whenever the income will permit this should be regularly done. The habit of saving is worth everything to young people, and will prepare not only for the "rainy" day, but for the sunshiny one as well. Accounts. After the question of the proper distribution of the income has been thoroughly discussed, and definite sums apportioned for different purposes, the next thing is to decide on the best way to keep accounts. He would be a poor business man who did not know where his money went after he had earned it. How can one tell where it is best to retrench, if that becomes necessary? Where would it be best to appropriate more in order to lead most efficient lives? Is the doctor re- ceiving a goodly percentage of the income for keeping the homemaker in fit physical condition, while little if any money is spent for help with the housework? Accurate accounts, if carefully studied, reveal much of an interesting nature. Com- parisons by months and by years will prove profitable by show- ing the wisdom or error of the method of expenditure. What is the best method of keeping household accounts? That method which will give the least trouble, take the least time, 'and show daily, monthly and yearly expenditures. An elaborate "system" has killed many an honest attempt to keep accounts. Keep them in such a way that a balance can be made at any time between receipts and expenses. Items should be so listed that there will be no difficulty in seeing how much is spent for food, how much for clothing or other purposes. The account keeper must decide how minutely itemized the record shall be, e.g., are there to be subdivisions under food, such as dry groceries, vegetables, canned goods, meat; under clothes are the individual members to have separate accounts. Operating expenses may profitably have subdivisions such as fuel, fighting, laundry, outside help. The extra time taken to place expenses in the right column will be little and the returns will be great. Above all, make the record fit the family needs. If five columns would show all that was desired as to better 84 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. ways of expending the income the following year, have five. If seven are needed, have seven. Head them to make them most useful to your family. The following explanations are given to suggest ways of keeping accounts that are workable: — Envelope System. The simplest way of keeping accounts is by the envelope system. This plan, however, seems only advisable when one's income is not much above SI, 000 a year, and is received at stated times. Envelopes are marked and the apportioned sum placed inside. When any money is taken the date and amount should be recorded on a shp of paper and placed within. The account should be balanced weekly or monthly, depending upon when the appropriation is renewed. If any money is borrowed from one envelope for another careful record should be kept of it. Following this method means that many times more money is kept about than is safe or desirable. Also, when money is borrowed from one account for another and not credited there IS confusion in balancing accounts. Note-book System. An ordinary unruled note book or loose-leaf note book may be used by ruhng the pages to suit the divisions of the income; or a family expense book may be bought with printed head- ings. Two pages should be used for the account. Reference to the specimen pages shown will make plainer the following explanation. On the extreme left of the first page should be a column for the days of the month. The source of receipts should be noted as well as amounts. Food has but two divisions, groceries and meat. It seems inadvisable to keep these items in greater detail on such a page. If one wishes to know exactly how much is spent for dry groceries, how much for green groceries, how much for fruit, these accounts can be easily kept by retaining grocers' slips, and entering amounts on a separate page; or by using a small pass book, where items are entered, prices noted and the totals No. 4.] HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTING. 85 1 1 1 . 1 ai O K o «V2 ® O •► O ^ ^ ' f^3 S s H o El 01 0 O K 2 '3 a Pi |3§ B ^ Intere on Valu a o o is* P3 a 3 O s 3 O / Date. "i O H II ^HCNPO-ocot^ooo50i-i 86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. ° ft -< g 6q ffl2 ■ 5 2 , S ■■s-SftS No. 4.] HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTING. 87 transferred to a general account book. If the family buys fruits and vegetables out of season it is well to keep careful record of such expenditures, as it is easy to substitute something which will be of equal nutritive value but much cheaper. On the other hand, the itemized account of fruits and vegetables will often show a surprisingly small amount used, and it would be a question worth considering whether more of the income should be used for the purchase of these commodities. House ownership is indicated in the next division. Interest on the value of the house and the lot is the first subhead. Another includes taxes on house, grounds and gardens; and insurance premiums. There are yearly repairs that should be made and are suggested as a third heading. If car fare has to be paid to and from work, then that too should be reckoned under ownership or rental, as a stated sum must be put by to meet the expenses because of the location of the house. If a house is rented the headings would be practically the same, — rent would replace interest on value, and taxes would not include the house and land. Many times repairs are made for which the owner does not pay, and these should be noted as repairs as if the property were owned. Under operating expenses there are five heads; fuel and light, svages, stationery and postage, telephone, express and freight charges and car fare for other than business purposes. Fuel should include wood, coal, kerosene, alcohol or elec- tricity. If wood is taken from the farm, that item should appear either in the farm records or the household records or both. Kerosene used for the oil stove might be included with the oil for lighting purposes if lamps are used. Alcohol used for a flatiron should be listed under fuels. Wages should include What is paid regularly to the maid, if one is kept, and the occasional help from outside, e.g., some one to help with the weekly cleaning, laundry work, the cleaning of windows. Laundry may be listed in a separate column if so desired. The next two subdivisions need no comment, — those of stationery and postage and telephone. The last column indi- cating car fares means the occasional trips taken by the family and not the regular business trips. 88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Clothes may well be subdivided according to the members in the family; but it would seem more simple to keep the itemized account on another page in the same book, and record the total expenditures on this sheet. The last heading, higher life, or, as Mrs. Richards calls it in another place, the " intellectual and emotional" life, receives 25 per cent of the income in the ideal division. This must of necessity be cut down when the income is small, but some allowance must always be made; otherwise the mere feeding, housing and clothing would mean an existence little above the brute stage. Here the divisions will represent what the in- dividual families most enjoy, and the accounts will show whether the expenditures for the things lasting but not material are wisely expended. Church and philanthropy must surely come in each family record of expense; books, papers and magazines should be found in every home. Library dues should be listed here. Lectures, concerts, theaters, moving pictures are attended frequently and deserve a separate column. Money expended in traveling and vacation expenses form another item under this higher life heading. Savings in the bank, life insurance and stocks and bonds should also be listed. Furniture considered as personal property can be included here, and it is suggested that house- hold appliances be indicated in such a way that the sum yearly spent on these may be seen at a glance. What per cent is spent on such improvements in the home? How much should be spent, taking all things into consideration? Under "phy- sician" and "dentist" should be included all money paid out for physicians, surgeon, oculist, dentist, nurse, medicine and all expenses incurred by sickness. If too large a proportion falls here the matter should be thoughtfully considered to see if the causes cannot be removed. If other headings are desired space could be used between higher life and daily total expenses. The daily totals should be calculated and the sums placed in the columns reserved at the extreme right under the caption daily total expenses. At the foot of each column space is left for the totals of each column. The grand total of these totals at the bottom of the two pages should balance with the grand Xo. 4.] HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTING. 89 totals of the daily totals. Space is indicated for the monthly total receipts and the monthly total expenses. In the back part of the account book two duplicate pages should be ruled for a recapitulation by months. When bal- ancing accounts at the close of each month the totals should be carried forward to these pages. Card System. The card system is well liked by some people for keeping accounts. In using cards the headings may be the same as those used in a book. Each month the total expenditures should be transferred to a card reserved for monthly totals. Methods of Payment. Cash payment is the best method to follow. A checking account in a bank conveniently located is a desirable thing to have and encourages businesslike methods. Grocery and dry goods bills may be allowed to run for a month; but it is not wise to have goods charged for an indefinite time. When cash is paid one cannot spend money that is yet to be earned. When a charge account is kept it is an easy matter to buy, trusting the future will bring money for payment. The install- ment plan is an expensive one, and should be used only by those finding it impossible to make other arrangements. It is fitting that this brief discussion of an important subject close with a quotation of Miss Mary S. Snow: "It is meet that women in every part of the land shall seriously study how the}' will spend the wage so hardly come by on the part of the wage earner, — that wisdom and skill in the spending shall match the earnestness and zeal in the earning." Bibliography. " The Cost of Living as modified by Sanitary Science," by Ellen H. Richards. " Foods and Household Management," by Kinne and Cooley, " Household Management," by Bertha M. Terrill. " How to keep Household Accounts," by C. W. Haskins. "The Woman who spends," by Bertha J. R. Lucas. " Fami Accounting and Business Methods," by J. A. Bexell. 90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. " The Modern Household," by Talbot and Breckemidge. " The New Housekeeping," by Christine Frederick. "The $500, $1,000 and $2,000 Income," by Mary S. Snow, Journal of Home Economics, Vol. IV. " Students' Accounts," Department of Home Economics, Ithaca, New York. " Expense Account Book," Women's Educational and Industrial Union, Boston. " Family Expense Record," by H. E. Wedelstaedt. Afternoon Session. The afternoon session was called to order at 1.30 by Air. A. Willis Bartlett of Amesbury, who introduced Professor C. H. Eckles of Columbia, Missouri, to speak on "Factors affecting the Economical Production of Milk." No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 91 FACTOES AFFECTING ECONOMICAL MILK PKODUCTION. C. H. ECKLES, PROFESSOR OF DAIRY HUSBANDRY, UNIVERSITY OF • MISSOURI, COLUMBIA, MISSOURI. The day of cheap feed for cattle as well as cheap food for man is past in this country. Never before in the history of the world has such an area of wonderfully fertile and easily tillable land been brought into use within the. span of a lifetime as was done in the Mississippi valley during the past century. As a result of this enormous increase in the production of foodstuffs, and the low price which resulted, both the American consumer and the American farmer developed habits which they do not propose to give up without a struggle. The consumer, on the one hand, became accustomed to cheap food, and it was only a few years ago that the standard price of milk in my State was 5 cents per quart. Now, when there are no immense areas of new land to bring into cultivation, and the population is catching up with the production of food, the inevitable result is higher prices for food, and the consumer is certain some one is robbing him because the cost of living has advanced. The consumer does not realize that the farmer who produces the food to-day is making only fair wages, and on the average probably less than he did ten or twenty years ago. On the other hand, the tendency on the part of the farmer, with cheap feed for his animals, with a soil of great fertility to draw upon, has been to develop most wasteful habits in pro- duction. For example, it is only since feed became so high that it is impossible to carry on a dairy business with poor cows, that the milk producer has begun really to give attention to the selection of the individual cow. It is the necessity of the times that is compelling the adoption of business systems in dairy farming operations. At present a large portion of the United States is in a period of transition from a temporary to a permanent condition of agriculture. 92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. The consumer need not expect cheap food again, neither can the producer expect to continue in business if he does not use methods of keeping down the cost of production which were not thought of a few years ago. It is certainly to be hoped that some means of decreasing the cost of distribution of food products, and especially milk, will be worked out. Unless some means can be found to accomplish this result the consumer must expect to pay more for milk in the future tlian at present. Since I am not familiar with New England conditions, I can speak only for my own State, and others similarly located, in saying that the average man who sells market milk to-day is hardly making wages for himself and family, provided every- thing, including interest on investment, be taken into account. If the average man is doing no better than this, it is evident many are not making even current wages, or savings bank interest on their investment. On the other hand, there are plenty of men wdio are not only making a good income but in addition are constantly increasing their capital by paying on their farm or buying additional land. I doubt not that a similar variation in income exists among New England farmers supplying your many cities with milk. The farmer below the average, like the cow below the standard, is bound to be eliminated. While I do not believe the price paid the farmer for milk is high enough at present in my section of the country, at the same time I do not believe that the price ever will be raised sufficiently, nor should it be, to allow the slipshod farmers who now rank as below the average to continue in business. The Conditions in the Middle West. The eastern farmer is generally inclined to look upon the milk producer in what he calls the w^est as having great ad- vantages in the way of cheaper feed. In the past this has been probably more of an advantage than it is at present. While the cost of feed is somewhat higher in the eastern States, the market price of milk is also correspondingly better. It is questionable if the farmer who produces market milk in Illinois, Wisconsin or Missouri has conditions any more favor- able, taking everything into account, than in the New England States. No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 93 It should be kept in mind that the production of milk on the farms in the Mississippi valley is largely a side line to other lines of farming. This is especially true of the cream, which supplies the numerous butter factories which make Minnesota and Iowa the center of the butter producing industry. This cream comes from farms where the owners are, as a rule, pro- ducing several articles for market, among which cream is of more or less importance. On these farms the average number of cows milked is about ten. It is almost impossible to esti- mate correctly the actual cost of keeping cows under these conditions. It is difficult even to estimate the cost of the feed. A considerable portion of their ration consists of roughage in the way of grass, corn silage, and hay, which could not be marketed to advantage, if at all, and the labor of caring for the animals is largely done by members of the family. Under these conditions it is possible to keep a limited number of animals on a farm with very little additional expense. This accounts for the fact that a State like Missouri keeps 750,000 cows, and the farmers consider they are making money in spite of the fact that the average production is only about 4,000 pounds of milk and 160 pounds of butter fat. This is the typical condition in the corn-belt States. If an attempt were made to keep the same cows under con- ditions where the feed was purchased at market price and the labor was paid at current rates, these average animals would show not a profit but -a loss. At the same time under the conditions existing, they are undoubtedly kept at some profit. The men who produce market milk in my State average a little high in total production per cow, securing on the average be- tween 5,000 and 5,550 pounds of milk. The following figures give the actual feed consumed and its cost for a year for three Missouri Holstein cows averaging 8,426 pounds of milk, and for three of the same breed averaging 5,709 pounds: — 94 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Table 1. — Three Holstein Cows averaging 8,4-26 Pounds Milk. Pounds fed. | Value per Ton. Cost. Alfalfa hay, Silage, . Corn, . Bran, . Cottonseed meal, Pasture five months. 2,216 5,363 1,808 904 452 $14 00 3 50 22 00 20 00 30 00 1 501 $14 79 9 39 19 88 9 04 6 78 7 50 $67 38 Feed cost per 100 pounds milk, $0.80. Total value milk, $1.50 per hundredweight, $126.39. 1 Per month. Table 2. — Three Holstein Cows averaging 5,709 Pounds Milk. Pounds fed. Value per Ton. Cost. 2,048 $14 00 $14 34 4,082 3 50 7 14 1,016 22 00 11 18 508 20 00 5 08 254 30 00 3 81 - 1 501 7 50 - - $49 05 Alfalfa hay. Silage, . Corn, . Bran, . Cottoaseed meal, Pasture five months. Feed cost per 100 pounds milk, $0.84. Total value milk, $1.50 per hundredweight, $85.63. 1 Per month. It is seen from these figures that in the State mentioned it cost $60 to $70 to feed a cow that will produce 8,000 to 8,500 pounds of milk, or about SO cents per hundred pounds. Those averaging 5,709 pounds required about $50 worth of feed, or a cost of 84 cents per hundred. The prices of feed used are about the average prices with us for the past five years, and represent, except in the case of silage, what these feeds could be purchased for on the m^arket. These cows represent ordinary producing animals of their breed. These figures, it should be understood, are based entirely upon actual weights of all the feed and milk produced. Figures are also given below of the actual feed consumed by No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION 95 three cows having quite a wide range of production. These animals were not on pasture, but received practically the same ration throughout the year. Table 3. — Amount and Cost of Feed for Three Cows of Different Milk- producing Capacity. Holstein, 11,987 Pounds Milk. Pounds fed. Value per Ton. Cost. Alfalfa hay 5,685 $14 00 $39 79 Silage, 7,946 3 50 13 91 Corn, 1,920 22 00 21 12 Bran, 960 20 00 9 60 Cottonseed meal, 480 30 00 7 20 - $91 62 Feed cost per 100 pounds milk, $0.76. Total value milk, $1.50 per hundredweight, $179.90. Ayrshire, 9,169 Pounds Milk. Alfalfa hay, 4,807 $14 00 $33 65 Silage, 5,550 3 50 9 71 Corn, 1,644 22 00 18 08 Bran 822 20 00 8 22 Cottonseed meal, 411 30 00 6 17 - - $75 83 Feed cost per 100 pounds milk, $0.83. Total value milk, $1.50 per hundredweight, $137.53. Shorthorn, 5,573 Pounds Milk. Alfalfa hay, 4,023 $14 00 $28 15 Silage, 5,950 3 50 10 41 Corn 1,140 22 00 12 54 Bran, 570 20 00 5 70 Cottonseed meal, 285 30 00 4 27 - - $61 07 Feed cost per 100 pounds milk, $1.10. Total value milk, $1.50 per hundredweight, $83.59. We could give a large number of similar figures of which these are representative. On the basis cf our figures, which are based not upon estimates but upon actual records, and which 96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. I believe fairly represent practical conditions, we can make a fair estimate of the cost of feed required for producing milk in my State during the past five years. Table 4. — Estimated Cost of Feed in Missouri. Production per Year (Pounds). Cost of Feed per Year. Average Cost per 100 Pounds (Milk;. 5,000-6,000, 6,000-7,000, 8,000-10,000, S50 00-$60 00 55 00- 65 00 65 00- 80 00 85-$ 1 00 80- 95 75- 85 It is, of course, recognized that the cost of feed, while the largest single item, is only one among several that go to make up the total cost of milk production. It is an exceedingly difficult matter to give a fair estimate of these other factors entering into the cost of milk production. Even as regards feed there is some difficulty, since the cattle make use in part of feed that could not be put on the market, and which there- fore can hardly be said to have a market price. In Missouri the production of milk, as stated, is so closely connected with general farming operations that it is practically impossible to separate the labor items. In many cases the milking is done largely by younger members of the family and in that way some income secured for their services, which probably would not be had at all if it were not for having this particular work to do. There are certain items that of course can be estimated with reasonable accuracy, as, for example, the cost of maintain- ing the herd bull, and the interest on the investment; and it is fairly easy to estimate the depreciation in the value of the cow. I regret that I cannot present some accurately taken figures that would give us definite information for conditions as exist- ing in my State. The best estimate and most complete figures on this subject of the cost of milk production in addition to the feed is found in a bulletin from the New Hampshire Experi- ment Station by Professor Rasmussen. He estimates the cost of keeping a cow to be $50 per year in addition to the feed. While the cost of feed is somewhat lower in the Mississippi valley States than in the east, the market price of milk is also No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 97 lower. A fair estimate of the amount received by farmers in Missouri during the last five years, for milk sold at wholesale to go to the cities, is $1,50 per hundred pounds. The average price for butter fat at creameries has been around 28 cents and in some places probably even less, giving an income of not much over $1 per hundred for milk sold to creameries, exclusive of the value of the skim milk used on the farms for feeding purposes. There is no question but that a portion of those producing cream for the creamery or milk for cities in Missouri are not making their expenses, that is, either they are not themselves getting current wages or are receiving less than current interest on their investment, or probably both. A large number are really making a small projBt, that is, a fair return for their work, while a smaller number are making large profits for the time and money expended. To put it in another way, those who manage their business skillfully are realizing a good market price for their feed at home, and are receiving good pay for their labor and interest on their capital. is it possible to produce milk at a profit at the Present Prices? It seems to me that it is faip to raise the question as to whether or not it is possible to produce milk at a profit under present conditions. If it is being done by some, would it not be worth while to study the conditions under which they are doing it? The difficulty in considering the question, as already intimated, is the impossibility of getting a fair estimate as to the various items that contribute toward the expenses of milk production outside of feed. There is plenty of evidence that certain men are producing milk at a profit; at least we have such evidence in my State. We can point to farmers who began twenty years ago with little capital and who have paid for their farms and have a valuable herd of cattle, and who have done so by the production and sale of milk. Unquestion- ably, similar examples could be cited in other States. Further than that we can refer to actual figures as taken from various sources. The following two tables, taken from our records, show the 98 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. amount of feed used and the cost of feeding a Jersey cow for a year, also the production of milk and fat from that ration: — Table 5. — Ration fed a High-class Jersey Cow. Pounds fed. Market Value per •Ton. Cost of Amount fed. Corn, ...... Bran, ...... Oil meal, ..... Alfalfa Silage, Pasture four and one-half months, 1,376 6S8 344 2,694 4,57.5 $20 00 23 00 33 00 15 00 3 00 2 001 $13 76 7 91 5 68 20 20 6 86 9 00 $63 41 1 Per month. Total cost of the feed consumed by this animal was $63.41. Had this animal been capable of producing only 200 pounds of butter fat in a year, this feed bill would certainly look excessive. During the year, however, her production was as follows: — Table 6. — ■ Production and Income from High-class Jersey Cow. Milk (pounds), . . . . ^ 7,940 Fat (pounds), . . . . " 484 484 pounds fat at 28^ cents equals 635 pounds skim milk at 20 cents per hundred\veight equals $137 94 12 70 $150 64 The price given per pound of butter fat was the local cream- ery price during the time this butter fat was produced. The skim milk value is placed at what it sells locally for hog feed. The income from this cow was $150.64 for the year, leaving the calf out of the consideration and figuring on the basis of cream- ery prices. Granting the accuracy of the estimate by Professor Rasmussen of New Hampshire, that it costs $56 in addition to the feed to keep a cow in milk a year, there still was a margin of $31 after deducting the $119, which W'ould cover all expenses, including labor, interest and depreciation. A cow like this beats any railroad proposition in the country. A railroad is No. 4.] ECOXO:\IieAL MILK PRODUCTION. 99 expected to make only good interest on its investment after paying labor charges and depreciation. What railroad can show, as this cow did, a clear profit of one-third the cost price in a year? Take the figures as already given of the Holstein cow producing 11,987 pounds of milk at a feed cost of S91. Had this cow been on pasture, it would have reduced her feed bill several dollars, but at the figures given we can add on the $56 estimated by Professor Rasmussen for other expense, and still, had her milk been sold at the local price of SI. 50 a hundredweight, the income would have exceeded the expendi- ture $33.90. Whenever figures have been collected regarding the income from herds or from individual cows, the same wide variations in income, as pointed out, have been found. There is one fact, however, that always stands out strikingly, and that is, eco- nomical production is found only with high-producing cows. The figures already given, showing the cost of production by cows of different grades, illustrate the facts in this connection clearly. The three Holstein cows producing 8,426 pounds of milk in a year did so at a cost of 80 cents per hundred, with an average income of $126.39, counting milk at $1.50 per hundred pounds. The three Holstein cows producing 5,709 pounds of milk per year cost only $49.05 for feed, but their income was only $85.63. In other words, for $17 additional feed, when given to one of the better cows, $40.76 worth of additional milk was secured. The other items of cost, such as labor, stabling, etc., would be practically the same for both animals. Figures as given for the three individual animals are still more striking. The cow producing 11,987 pounds of milk did so at a cost of $91.62 for feed. The cow producing 5,573 pounds of milk, or practically one-half as much, required feed to the amount of $61.07. At $1.50 per hundred pounds the difference in the income of these two animals would be $96.31 per year. The difference in the cost of feed was $30. The following figures, taken from the bulletin issued by the New Hampshire Experi- ment Station already mentioned, illustrate the same con- dition: — 100 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Table 7. — New Hampshire Cow Test Association Records, 203 Cows. Number of Cows. Production (Pounds). Cost Feed. Cost 100 Pounds Milk. Income above Feed. 14, ... 26, ... 41, ... 40, ... 39, ... 25, ... 10, ... Average for all, Above 10,000 9,000-10,000 8,000- 9,000 7,000- 8,000 6,000- 7,000 5,000- 6,000 4,000- 5.000 Under 4,000 7,094 S88 59 88 25 83 46 81 18 73 59 65 91 56 61 57 22 $73 61 SO 81 93 98 1 10 1 13 1 19 1 23 1 86 SI 04 $106 82 79 18 63 86 52 11 43 65 34 56 27 20 4 25 $49 48 It will be noted that cows producing above 10,000 pounds of milk did so at a feed cost of around SO cents per hundred pounds. Those producing 5,000 pounds cost about $1.20 per hundred pounds, while those going under 4,000 pounds showed the exceptionally high cost of $1.86 per hundred. Here we have exactly the same point illustrated. A low-producing cow, especially the cow producing less than 5,000 pounds of milk a year, is the animal that shows very high cost of production, and it is only necessary to have a few animals of this kind in the herd before the chances of running the business at a profit are gone. It should be pointed out that in each case the high-producing animal uses more feed. This is inevitable. There is a good deal of loose thinking and talk concerning this point among dairymen, and especially among others who at times attempt to advise them. It is even stated that it costs as much to keep a poor-producing animal as it does a good one. This is true in regard to certain items of expense, such as stabling, labor, insurance, etc., but it is not true and cannot be true with reference to the feed. The animal that is a large producer must have more feed. And the fact that she is a large producer and requires more feed is the reason she is a more economical producer. In order to make it clear where the economy of production comes in with the high-producing cow, I have prepared the following table : — No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 101 Table 8. — Use of Feed by Coivs of Different Producing Capacities. For Maintenance (Per Cent). For Milk (Per Cent). Cow giving 4,500 pounds of milk, Cow giving 9,000 pounds of milk, 60 40 40 60 Under the term maintenance is included the feed necessary to maintain the animal's body. In case of animals producing 4,500 pounds of milk, about 60 per cent of the feed is used to support the body and about 40 per cent is used for producing milk. With the animal that produces 9,000 pounds of milk a year, the condition is reversed. While she uses the same amount of feed for maintenance, she uses 25 per cent more feed than the first, which it will easily be seen gives her twice as much feed available for milk production. This table shows that in general one cow using 25 per cent more feed than another may produce twice as much milk. The economy in the high-producing cow lies in her ability to use a larger amount of feed after enough has been provided for the main- tenance of the animal. This is the simple but entire explanation of the difference in economy of producing milk by different cows. It is not difference in digestion of food, or that one has a power to get something out of her ration that another cannot. How TO GET THE EFFICIENT CoW. It would be interesting, and it might be profitable, if limi- tation of time did not prevent, to consider in some detail as to how the high-producing cow is to be secured. Time will be taken to discuss only one or two points and those only briefly. The first is that in order to secure profitable cows for the dairy herd, the dairyman must raise them himself, I am fully aware of the situation in regard to the expense of raising a calf where the whole milk is sold, but at the same time there is absolutely no other way for a farmer to improve the quality of his herd. There are herds in my State that have been maintained for tw^enty years or more entirely by purchase, and these herds 102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. to-daj', as far as we can find out, are not one bit more pro- ductive than was the herd owned by the same man twenty years ago. Absolutely no progress has been made and never will be made until the owner raises his own dairy cows. This will involve, of course, giving closer attention to the matter of breeding. It will not pay to raise a dairy heifer unless the chances are good for her to be a profitable cow when mature, that is to say, she must be given the right inheritance as far as possible in order that the number of cows that will have to be rejected by selection will be reduced to the minimum. After the cow is raised and in milk, the only salvation of the dairy- man is to keep records of her production. This may be done to good advantage through the cow-testing association or by the owner himself. It is not necessary to milk a heifer long to find out if she is a good one or not. Last year I compiled the records of our herd, which are complete for twenty-two years, and I found that in only one case would we have been far wrong had we culled out the inferior cows on their first year's record. It is a mistake to keep a young cow year after year thinking next time she will be a good one. Our rule is that unless there is some good excuse apparent for her poor performance, we condemn a heifer that shows up poorly the first year. Another question that I might discuss in detail, if I had the time, in this connection, is that of heifer raising and to what extent the manner of raising affects the dairy qualities of animals when mature. In other words, is the inferior or superior cow, from a milking standpoint, born that way, or is she made what she is by the manner of feeding and treatment when young? We have been carrying on investigations along this line for a number of years. Our conclusions so far are, that the dairy qualities of an animal are mostly dependent upon heredity, and that you cannot to any great extent, at least, affect the dairy qualities of the animal by the way she is fed or managed when young. We would, of course, not go so far as to say it is not possible under very abnormal conditions to injure the milk-giving functions by the way she is raised, but it would be necessary to go beyond ordinary practices to get any such effect. Pure-bred Guernsey cow. An eeononiical dahv macliine. '•I^- A practical and attractive dairy liaru, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 103 We are convinced that the milk-giving characteristics are hereditary, but it should be clearly understood that we do not think the amount of milk that a farmer secures from his cows has been taken out of his hands and is to be attributed entirely to the ancestors of his herd. Such is certainly not the case. By the milking qualities of an animal we mean simply her capacity as a milk-producing machine, and in order to get good results from any piece of machinery we must have an efficient operator. So the inherited dairy characteristics of the cow are the first requirement, and the next is that this machine be handled by some one skilled in its management. The Feeding Question. It is not my purpose to discuss the subject of feeding in detail, as I am not familiar with the local conditions and problems, but I desire to take up a few points that I consider of the greatest importance in regard to the fundamental principles of successful feeding. I have already emphasized as best I could the importance of selecting the cow that has the ability to produce large quantities of milk as the starting point for economical production. In INIissouri, and I think the same is true in a number of other States, before we can begin to select cows we must first give them an opportunity to make good. If a cow does not receive a sufficient amount of feed, or the ration is unsuitable for producing milk, it is unwise to sa}'' she is an inferior producer and sell her. The first thing to do, and the step that must precede the selection of the cow, is to make sure the conditions for production are right. Then if she does not respond, she cannot be sold too quickly. In the section of the country with which I am familiar, the most common mistake made in feeding cows is not to give them enough. Many of the farmers are more accustomed to feeding steers and hogs than they are to feeding dairy cows. While they recognize that to fatten steers economically the animals must have all the feed they will eat, they do not understand that exactly the same thing holds with a dairy cow. If I see the proposition correctly, you cannot afford to keep cows that are not well fed. It may be that you cannot afford to keep the 104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. cows you have at all, but certainly you cannot afford to keep them without using what capacity they have to produce milk. The dairy cow in a way may be looked upon as a milk- producing machine or factory, and like all factories there is a certain amount of fixed charges that have to be met. With a cow of fair-producing capacity, about one-half her feed is used to maintain the functions of the body without returning any- thing in the way of product. It is the second half of her ration that is used in producing milk. That is, if it costs us $70 to feed a certain cow in milk, about $35 of this sum is used to keep the cow alive. That is fixed charges or the ration of maintenance. This ration of maintenance is practically the same whether the cow be a heavy producer or a low producer, as already pointed out. The high-producing cow is simply one that has a big capacity for using feed above what it costs to maintain herself. The proper feeding of cows in regard to amount is illustrated in thq table which follows: — Table 9. — Rations. Full Ration. Ration of Maintenance. Used for Milk Production. a b c Three-quarters Ration. Ration of Maintenance. Available for Milk Production. d e f Half Ration. Ration of Maintenance. a h The lines from a to c represent the ration for a heavy-pro- ducing cow, which is the one most liable to be underfed. The first half, from a to b, represents the amount of feed required to maintain the animal's body. The second half, from b to c, represents the portion of the feed used for the production of milk. In this case there is no fat being produced on the animal's body and the cow is supposed to have such dairy qualities that she uses all the feed she can digest for milk production. The line below represents what would happen if the feed of this animal is reduced one-fourth. The ration of maintenance remains practically the same as in the first case. The amount No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 105 represented by the line fZ to e is the amount required to main- tain the animal's body, which is the same quantity as in the first case; however, the cut of one-fourth in the ration will be seen to come entirely on that available for milk production and reduces that amount one-half. Suppose the ration of such a cow to be still further reduced to one-half of the full ration, or that required for mainte- nance alone, as represented by the third line. In this case the cutting down of the ration one-half would remove all available feed for milk production. However, the animal would not cease producing milk at once. This is . a point of great importance in feeding cows, and a lack of such knowledge leads to serious errors in feeding. The milk-producmg function is so strong that the cow will continue to produce milk for some time, even when the feed is insufficient, utilizing the reserve material which has been accumulated in the body in the past. This always happens in the case of a heavy-milking cow during the first few wrecks after the birth of a calf. At this time it is not generally possible, and not desirable on account of the condition of the animal, to feed her heavily enough to supply the nutrients necessary to produce the milk. Even if the feed were offered, the appetite is not usually strong enough to cause the necessary amount of feed to be taken to prevent loss in weight. As a rule, all heavy-milking cows decline in weight for the first two or three weeks, and occasionally for ten weeks, after calving, which means that the nutrients used for milk production have been in excess of the feed supplied for that purpose. The same thing happens in the case of a cow that is not fed a sufficient ration for the amount of milk she is pro- ducing. She may continue to produce considerable milk for a while by drawing on the reserve material of the body, but as soon as this is exhausted, the production of milk must come down to the amount available for this purpose, above the ration of maintenance. When the feed is in excess, the cow begins to store reserve material on her body. If the amount of milk produced by a cow varied directly with the feed, and she did not store up nutrients at one time and draw on reserve materials at another, it would simplify the problem of feeding very much and result in more economical feeding at all times. 106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. How TO AVOID OVERFEBDING. Wkile the statement and illustration given applies to one class of dairy cows, there is another class to which it does not apply, and with wliich it would lead to a serious mistake in feeding from an economical standpoint. This group includes those of lower productive capacity which are liable to be over- fed, especially when they are in the herds of dairymen who realize the necessity of liberal feeding. The proper feeding of tliis group of animals can perhaps be made clearer by the following illustration: — Table 10. — Coiv of Lower Productive Capacity liable to be overfed. Full Ralion. Used for Ration of Maintenance. Milk Production. Body Fat. a — — — — ■ ■ — — h c d Economical Ration. Used for Ration of Maintenance. Milk Production. The line a to d represents the amount of feed that an animal of this class will consume; a to h represents the ration of main- tenance as before. In this case, however, the capacity for making milk is not equal to the capacity of the animal for utilizing feed in excess of that required to maintain the body. The amount wliich the animal is capable of utilizing for milk production is represented by that portion of the line h to c, while the animal's appetite is equal to the total line a to d. Tliis gives a surplus, c to d, which is not utilized for milk production, but which will be used for storing fat on the animal's body, and we will have the cow gaining in weight while she is producing milk. This gain in weight will be of no service so far as milk production is concerned, except that it is of some value as a reserve material to be drawn upon at some other time when feed is not supplied in suflScient amounts, and it is not eco- nomical nor desirable to fatten dairy animals udth the expensive feeds which are fed dairy cows. That portion of the feed represented by the line c to d should be taken from the ration. This means reducing her feed to take off the amount used for No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 107 storing fat on the body; in other words, feeding her only what she will utilize for milk production. This means feed enough to maintain a practically uniform body weight. In every large herd where the amount fed is not carefully regulated, we find errors made in both these classes. We find the heavy pro- ducing cows being underfed, and we find the light producing" cou's being overfed and allowed to accumulate fat. Relation of Live Weight to Proper Feeding. The live weight of a cow is a good index of whether the cow is being fed a proper amount or not, but good judgment must be used in regulating the ration by observing this condition. We must expect that a cow will lose weight in the first few weeks of her milking period, but after this period is past there is no reason why she need to change much in weight for several months, and this is the period when the greater part of the milk production is secured. It will not mean, of course, that the animal should not be allowed to gain in weight during the latter end of the milking period. This is necessary on account of the development of the foetus, and since it is natural for the animal to carry some fat on her body at calving time. It does mean, however, that in order to feed a herd of cows economically it will not do to feed them all the same quantity of grain, whether they are giving a gallon of milk a day or whether they are giving four gallons; and it means that when a cow in the middle of her lactation period is putting on weight she is being fed more than she needs, and will give just as much milk if the feed is cut down somewhat. It also means that if a certain animal is losing in weight, sufficient feed is not being given, and if the deficiency is not supplied, it will not be long before the milk production will come down to correspond with the amount of feed available. Feeding as Individuals. In connection with this subject of the amount to feed cows, it needs to be pointed out that it is only possible to feed a bunch of cows economically when they are fed as individuals, and not as a herd. A too common practice, even in the other- 108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. wise well-conducted herds, is for all animals to be fed the same amount of grain, regardless of the time they have been in milk or the quantity of milk individual cows are producing. Such feeding always lacks economy, as the high-producing cow does not get enough, and, while she may milk very well for a short time, she soon comes down to a lower level, while the lighter producing cow usually gets too much and accumulates fat. One of the difficult problems which confronts the practical feeder is how to adjust the quantity of feed to meet these individual requirements. It can be done fairly well even in the large herds by observing how much milk the cow is producing, and whether she is gaining or losing in body weight. Balanced Rations. In the corn belt next to underfeeding the most common mistake in feeding is giving rations deficient in protein. This comes about from the abundance and relative cheapness of corn, corn silage or corn fodder, and the large amount of timothy hay grown. I assume that in New England, where it is the custom to purchase considerable feed, this error is not so common or serious as with the farmers in the corn belt. Closely connected with this question is the one of growing legumes on the farm. We are constantly urging the Missouri farmers to grow more alfalfa, cowpea and clover hay. I hope New England dairy farmers already appreciate the importance of this subject and need no urging along this line. In my judgment successful and economical feeding of dairy cows must be based largely upon legume hay and corn silage. With plenty of home-grown alfalfa or clover hay on hand, it is an easy matter to plan a good ration for our cows and at the minimum expense for grain. Succulent Feed. In order that cows may do their best it is necessary that succulent feed in some form be provided. In some of the northern sections of our country, and especially in Europe, this desirable part of the ration is supplied in a very satisfactory state in the form of root crops. In the greater part of our country corn silage has taken the place of roots in the ration. No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. 109 Corn silage supplies the succulent feed so desirable in order to keep the animals in the best possible condition. At the same time in most parts of the United States corn yields more food nutrients per acre than any other crop, with the possible exception of alfalfa in those regions where the latter flourishes. Missouri has built over 8,000 silos during the past three years, and the progressive dairymen there would not think of doing without one. It will be but a few years until every farmer in the State will be provided with one. The use of silage is also growing with us as a summer feed to help out the pastures. It looks now as if the silo will in time supersede the soiling system almost entirely. Mixed Feeds. I presume the sale of mixed feeds is large in the State of Massachusetts, as it is in other places where much feed is sold. While I certainly do not condemn mixed feeds as a whole, I would especially caution every one to be on guard in purchasing them. I see no advantage in selecting them in preference to the straight feedstuffs, like corn, bran or cottonseed meal. Mixed feeds must of necessity either sell higher than the same quantity of food ingredients in the unmixed form, or the mixed feed must contain some product that could not be sold alone. Every firm making a mixed feed has expenses to meet. They have advertising bills, traveling salesmen, a profit for themselves, and the handling of the feed once or twice in addition. As a matter of fact too often the chief reason for mixing feeds is to sell some product, oat hulls for example, that would not be salable alone. No feed dealer can make a mixture any better or any cheaper than a farmer who is properly in- formed regarding the feeding problem. In this respect, as well as many others, Massachusetts dairymen will do well to make use of the information supplied by the experiment station at Amherst. INIr. BowEN. At the price of grain that you gave us there, what would be the amount of milk that would condemn a heifer the first year? Professor Eckles. The records in our herd show that on no . BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. the average the two-year-old heifers produced 70 per cent of what they produced as mature cows; the three-year-olds pro- duced 80 per cent, and the four-year-olds approximately 90 per cent of what they did as mature cows. When you try to get an absolute figure it is a difficult matter; it depends upon the breed. A Holstein that did not produce 6,000 pounds of milk as a two-year-old would not be doing very much. A Jersey heifer that did not produce 4,500 pounds would not be doing very much. Unless there is some reasonable excuse for the heifer, you are perfectly safe in selling her if she does not do well in the first place. You can see after the heifer has been milked a month whether she is going to be any good or not. I think the best practice is to milk the heifer for one year, and then decide at the end of that time whether you w^ill keep her or not, and if you decide to sell her keep her until she produces her second calf, because the milk will be good and the calf is as apt to be a good cow, if of a good size, as if the heifer were a better producer. Everything goes to show that in the same breed, cows in the same line of breeding follow the sire rather more strongly than they do the mother. Mr. TuTTLE. Then, if I understand you, if you had a cow that was not good for much, but her dam and her sisters were good, and she was bred to a good sire, you would not hesitate to raise her calf. Professor Eckles. Well, I will tell you the difference in that respect is not as great as we have been inclined to think at times. If she was from a good line of breeding and of a good male, and she was bred to a sire known to produce good animals, I would not hesitate to raise her offspring. Mr. Porter. When would you have the heifer freshen; two or three years? Professor Eckles. Well, our practice has been, among the smaller breeds, like the Jerseys, to have them come in to milk at twenty-six or twenty-eight months. I do not care to have them come in earlier. We prefer our Hoi steins to be fresh at about thirty months. You understand we have four different breeds in our herd, including the Jersey and the larger Holsteins. I have accumulated a large amount of experimental data in the last seven years, while working on this point, that goes to No. 4.] ECONOMICAL MILK PRODUCTION. Ill indicate that you can affect at least the size of the animal quite a little; in other words, I have corroborated the belief of practical dairymen that if a cow calves early it tends to make her undersized. We can keep them somewhat smaller and somewhat more refined in appearance if we have them come to milk early. However, our general feeling is that a cow does better if pretty well matured before she comes into milk the first time. Question. What is the smallest amount of milk a cow must give to be profitable? Professor Eckles. How much milk must a cow give in order to pay for her keep? Well, that varies so widely it is a pretty difficult matter to answ^er. Of course, it depends upon the breed, too. I should say that 5,000 pounds, if you had to set one figure, would be as good as any, but I would not want to be satisfied with 5,000 pounds. I think if all the cows in the country produced 5,000 pounds we would be better off. I would want Jerseys to average 5,000, and I would want Holsteins to average 8,000. It is a difficult matter to give any one figure that would be satisfactory. I suppose there are plenty of men in this audience who could give a figure that would be more satisfactory, because they are more familiar with the conditions and what it takes to keep a cow here than I am. Mr. ToWNE. I would like to ask this gentleman if in his southern State he can keep a cow longer at pasture than we can in New England, — consequently keep her cheaper. Also I would like to ask this question, although it may not be in his line: Is it practical for farmers who have a good deal of milk to use a milking machine? Professor Eckles. In regard to the first part of the question, as to the length of pasture season in Missouri as compared with here. The gentleman spoke of Missouri as a southern State. We do not speak of Missouri as a southern State, but a sort of a middle State. But we have not the conditions of the far south there, nor quite the conditions of the north. The pasturage season is unquestionably longer than here. We turn our cattle to pasture ordinarily by the 1st of May, or possibly the last week in April, and if we have an abundance 112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. of pasture, so that we allow it to grow up in the fall, we keep them on pasture until the 1st of November. Sometimes we pasture j'oung stock out until Christmas. The conditions are not so much different that way. But haven't we been paying too much attention to pasture, anyway? The general feeling all over the country now is that we have been counting too much on the pasture. Of course, it is very economical from the labor standpoint to have the cattle in the pasture, but to get large production we must have something to help it out as soon as the pasture gets short. So even in the west the pasture proposition is getting to be of less importance than formerly, and lots of the farmers there are commencing to use silage to help out the summer pasture. The second question the gentleman asked was in regard to the milking machine. Now, I do not know whether I care to make any definite answer in regard to that, but I will answer the gentleman about as I answer the many inquiries we receive on that subject, and that is in this way: I would not want any one to buy a milking machine on my recommendation by any means. I would recommend any one who is interested in milking machines to go and see one in operation and decide for himself, after watching as long as he wanted to, whether he wanted it. My personal feeling is that the milking machine is now a commercial success. I believe if a man has thirty cows or more the milking machine is an entirely practical thing, and I look for the use of the milking macliine to be very widely extended in the next few years. Mr. Wild. I take it that this is a fair, and perhaps more than a fair, representation of the dairj^men of Massachusetts. I have for the past three or four years been reading care- fully the agricultural papers, especially "Hoard's Dairyman" and the "Rural New Yorker," and others, and have become very much interested in the testing of cows and knowing what they are doing. And I would like it put to a vote in this meeting to-day, how many people there are in the dairy business in Massachusetts who are keeping a record of their dairy production, and with your permission, Mr. Cliairman, I would like to ask those who are keeping records to rise so that they can be counted. [Rising vote taken.] No. 4.] ECONOMICAL :MILK PRODUCTION. 113 The Chairman. I make it fifty-six. Mr. Wild. That is very gratifying. It will be, I know, a matter of great encouragement to the Farmers' Bureau of Worcester County to know that there has been a start made in this direction. Question. I would like to ask one question in regard to this morning's lecture. It is not exactly in keeping with the present topic. As I understood the speaker this morning, he would sell a cow after she was eight years old. I think that would depend something on the production, wouldn't it? Professor Eckles. ]\Iy feeling would be, if she were a good cow, not to sell her. Question. As I understand it, the lecturer advocated selling a cow at eight y.ears if she w as fat. He was advocating in that way turning beef into the market. Mr. Bartlett. I would like to add one point along that line; that is, if a man is raising five or six or a dozen young cattle every year and keeps the heifers he will have something to turn every year, and then of course it would not be profitable for him to turn the best cows, but to turn the ones to some- body else that he did not care for. Professor Eckles. I would like to ask a question myself of some one. I do not know whom to ask it of. I would like to ask how much milk a cow should produce in the State of Massachusetts to be a profitable animal. Mr. S. E. Smith. I can't afford to keep a cow that gives less than 6,000 pounds. Mr. Epps. My milk is sold at 8 cents a quart, and I keep records, and I don't consider that I can keep a cow unless she gives me 8,000 pounds of milk. Question. I should like to ask that gentleman what kind of cows he keeps. Holsteins, I suppose. Mr. Epps. No, sir, I have got a herd of mixed-bred cows, some Jersey blood, Guernsey, Holstein, • — none of them thoroughbreds. For the grade of my milk I would refer you to the inspector's test. I guarantee it to test from 4 to o per cent butter fat. I have no trouble in getting from my herd between 8,000 and 9,000 pounds. I have a small herd of cows, eleven or twelve, and I am not getting rich at that. 114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Dairymen's Association. At the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Dairymen's Association, which followed Professor Eckles' talk, Mr. L. B. Cook, of the United States Department of Agriculture, was introduced and spoke on "The Encouragement of Clean Milk Production." No. 4.] CLEAN MILK PRODUCTION. 115 THE ENCOURAGEME^^T OF CLEAN MILK PRODUCTION. L. B. COOK, MILK SPECIALIST, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OP AGRICUL- TURE, WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OP COLUMBIA. If the dairy farmers of this coimtry were asked this ques- tion, " What can be done to encourage the production of clean milk ? " I am sure that nearly all would answer, " Secure better prices and markets for our product." Therefore, the conditions as they exist to-day are these: many dairymen do not receive enough for their product to warrant any extensive changes or outlay, and many dairymen who are paying no par- ticular attention to better milk are receiving the same price for their milk as those who are trying to market a clean, safe prod- uct. This state of affairs, one can readily see, does not en- courage clean milk production ; however, we must work with the facts as they are. If we expect the farmers to produce better milk, we must assist them to receive a reasonable profit for their labor. In some sections of this country, dairymen state that the price received for milk is not sufficient to warrant their staying in the business. If it were not for the value the cows are to the farm, more dairymen would stop milking them, and take up some other line of agriculture. The question of prices and profit is a problem which we must meet, but one which cannot be quickly solved. While we are adjusting this problem, we must meet the conditions as they exist with many dairymen, and encourage them to the possibilities that are now before them. The United States census shows that the number of dairy cows per 100 population is slightly decreasing; probably part of this loss is covered by the increased production. The price of milk during a period of years has been increasing slightly, but nothing in proportion to the rise of prices for other food- 116 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. stuffs. This increase has not been sufficient to meet the in- creased cost of production. Improved sanitation means more cost to produce; therefore, when we are working with farmers who are receiving a low price for milk, we must act with reason. ]^o one will deny that in many cases the farmers are receiving little compensa- tion for milking cows; however, I believe with existing prices it is possible for the dairymen of this country to obtain more profit and produce better milk. It is claimed that only about one-third of the dairy cows in ISTew York State are kept at a profit. If this is true of Xew York, it is probably true of many other States. As I visit the dairymen of this country, I am impressed with the statements that they make in regard to the amount of milk received per cow. Some dairymen say their cows are averaging about one gallon each, while others say theirs give three. Why this dif- ference ? There are several things that might assist in this condition of affairs, yet I believe it is principally accounted for by the difference in cows. A profitable cow costs little more to keep than an unprofitable one ; yet farmer after farmer is keeping these scrub cows. It is also a question of the dairy- man not really knowing which are his profitable cows and w^hich the boarders. Too many think they have no time for the Bab- cock test and the scales. If dairymen are to produce milk on an economical basis, they must start with better cows. Then they must properly care and feed these cows if best results are to be obtained. Successful dairymen are using silos, growing alfalfa, etc. ; therefore other farmers should study these matters. Again, as one travels over this country, he cannot help being impressed with the many kinds of waste that are continually occurring on our farais. The farm machinery that should last a number of years is allowed to deteriorate rapidly because it is not properly housed and cared for. One of the most valuable assets to the farm, namely, the liquid manure, is allowed to waste by soaking into the gTOund near the barn. Even the solid maniTre is thrown under the eaves, and the soluble elements, which are the best forms of plant food, are allowed to be lost. So we might mention loss after loss that is continually occur- ring on our farms, mainly because of poor management. I can No. 4.] CLEAN MILK PRODUCTION. 117 hardly see how the dairyman can expect the consumer to pay for such losses ; yet that is really what he wants when he allows these conditions to exist, and cries for better prices. !N^ow, why is it that these unprofitable practices are con- tinuing? One reason is that no one has told the farmers dif- ferently, and here is a real opportunity for the milk inspectors of this country. The inspector should act as an educator to these farmers, and assist them to see their mistakes. I am afraid we inspectors do not spend time enough on the farms and with the farmers, but try to cover too many places in a day. Dairymen must be shown the value of keeping books. ISTo business firm, with capital equal to the value of a farm, would think of conducting its business without books. Dairymen must know where their losses and gains are, otherwise, at the end of the year, they will not know definitely whether they have gained or lost. In nearly all hearings on the cost of milk pro- duction, the farmers have been hampered by lack of definite figures. It is not sufiicient merely to say, " Milk costs me more to produce than I get for it." Until dairymen realize this fact, I believe they are going to be hampered in their fight for better prices. On the other hand, we should encourage the producer by trying to educate the consumer to the value of milk. During these times of high cost of living, it is very opportune that con- sumers appreciate the food and economic value of milk. 1 believe that most people should use more milk, and that many do not realize its cheapness as a food, even if it costs 10 cents a quart. It is surprising how quickly consumers are ready to stop using milk, when there is a rise of 1 cent a quart, yet make little complaint when beefsteak rises several cents a pound. Also, they must be educated to the fact that clean, safe milk costs more to produce and therefore they should expect to pay more. Until consumers are willing to pay a reasonable price for milk, and appreciate quality, it is a question in my mind whether the farmers' prices can be increased, and the inspectors accomplish the results they would like. Milk inspectors in their work must bear in mind that city consumers need and must have milk ; therefore their work among the dairymen should be constructive and not destructive. 118 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. I believe the ideal inspector has two lines of work to accom- plish; one, to protect the consumer, and the other, to assist the milkman. Inspectors can do much good by assisting the dairyman to keep in touch with the available literature on different phases of dairying. The successful dairyman must be a business man, that is, one who has knowledge and applies it. Our federal, State and college departments are continually publishing litera- ture which should be in the hands of the milk producer, yet it is surprising how few avail themselves of this free information ; possibly, they do not know of these bulletins ; if not, inspectors should help to keep them informed. I believe no successful dairyman can afford to be without a dairy paper. By reading and studying he becomes encouraged to produce better milk, and will know how to secure more profit from his business. On the point of producing better milk there is much need of education. Dairymen must be educated to the value of clean milk. Large sums of money are lost annually because good milk is allowed to spoil. It needs to be said with emphasis that it is to the interest of every producer to have the best milk ]30ssible; such milk is always worth more than that carelessly produced, for whatever purpose it is to be used. Our main standard for quality is the bacteria count, yet dairymen as a rule know little about bacteria. How many farmers know what bacteria are, where they come from, and what they do ? Possibly, they have heard something about their dangers, but nothing about their value. Much education is needed on the sources of bacteria and how their numbers can be controlled. The bacteria problem, as now impressed on the minds of many dairymen, is a factor of discouragement, and a problem which they do not know how to handle. They need encouragement and education on this subject. Good, clean, safe milk can be produced with a minimum of expensive equipment. Why not encourage the dairyman to im- prove quality by asking him to do two or three essential things, rather than discourage him by telling him a multitude of re- quirements ? I believe more energy should be spent on a few essentials, instead of giving the dairyman the idea that it is No. 4.] CLEAN I\1ILK PRODUCTION. 119 necessary for him to go to considerable expense in order to pro- duce clean, safe milk. The less the expense and the smaller the number of require- ments we have for the production of clean milk, the quicker results we are going to obtain. We must always bear in mind that the dairjmian is in the business to make a profit, and we should assist him to this end. If we can help him to solve some of his financial problems, the question of quality will be easier to handle. For example, the covered pail costs very little more than an open pail, yet the results for clean milk are wonderful. It is claimed that this one factor under ordinary farm condi- tions will exclude about 90 per cent, of the dirt. The use of the damp cloth takes only a little time, yet it is one of the important factors for clean milk production. It is encouraging to note that some of the large dairy com- panies are paying a premium for milk of a high sanitary stand- ard as well as for a fat content. This, surely, should be an incentive for dairymeu to produce better milk. The grading of milk as now done in some cities and one State ought to be a move in the direction of encouraging the farmer to produce better milk. !N^o one ought to be satisfied with his product when it is sold as grade C and at a lower price than grade A or B. Certified milk, as you all know, sells for more than ordinary milk because it is recognized as something of better quality. It is only a question of a short time when quality in milk must be recognized, the same as with other commodities. We have made some progress already. The problem of encouraging farmers in this manner rests partly on our city milk inspectors, who should act as educators and not entirely as law enforcers. They must put themselves in the dairyman's place, give him their time and thought, then I am sure results will be forthcoming. Co-operation and a feeling of friendliness and good will should exist between health departments and dairymen. The farmers should be encouraged to feel that the health department and the inspectors are not only for the purpose of protecting the city consumers but also of assisting them. One way of promoting this good feeling is by holding meet- 120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. ings at some couvenient place, like the country schoolhouse. At these meetings the dairymen should be encouraged to feel that it is their meeting, that questions and discussions are expected. Such meetings are being held by the inspectors of some cities, and are a decided success. Another method of assisting the dairyman is by milk contests in which good prizes are offered. With these contests are usually held meetings that are of value to the dairymen, and in these contests I think more good can be done the contestants if good, practical prizes are offered ; for example, give pure- bred stock, covered milk pails or separators. Education should be the main purpose of such contests. At a recent milk contest, the results of which were based on the average of four samples taken at random from cans as delivered in the city, I had the pleasure of meeting the gentle- man who won first prize. In conversation he told me that he was then receiving about 19 cents a gallon for his milk, which was more than was received by any other producer sending to the same dairy company. Later I learned that in the preceding year, which was his first time in a contest, he won a prize and was at that time receiving about 17 cents a gallon for his milk. His score the first year was 89.4 per cent, and this year 95.8 per cent. This shows that the contest had been of considerable educational value to him and that he had profited financially, not only from the prize money, which amounted to $45, but, also, he received more for his milk throughout the year. If results are to be accomplished, the inspector must spend considerable time with the dairyman and not hurriedly try to cover his territory. If this is done, it will mean that there must be more inspectors and more money for this work; yet is not this what must be done if results are to be accomplished ? And results are what we want. ' I do not believe that as good results can be accomplished by force. You might make a dairyman nse a covered pail, but if he has to use it against his wishes, he is not apt to use it when the inspector is not there, while on the other hand, if he is educated to the value of the covered pail, he appreciates the necessity for using it regularly. Nt). 4.] CLEAN MILK PRODUCTION. 121 The dairyman must be encouraged, by our assistance. We must take an interest in his views, and help him to overcome his j)roblems. Nearly every farmer can receive more profit from his dairy if he will use business methods ; that is, have better cows, practice better breeding, feed wisely, grow alfalfa, use a silo, etc. He can produce better milk by using a covered pail, by wiping the udder with a damp cloth, by more attention to washing and scalding utensils, and by better cooling. We, as inspectors, should not only call the dairyman's at- tention to his poor equipment and methods, but should en- courage him by oifering suggestions as to how he can, with the least expense and trouble, correct his shortcomings. We do not want these dairymen to go out of business ; there- fore, we must assist them to more economical practices, so they can derive a better profit from their business ; we want also to educate them to the value of clean milk and the essentials neces- sary to make such a product. The main milk problem is not what we can get a few dairy- men to do, but what we can assist the majority to do. What are we going to do with the tenant farmer, or one who does not have the means to build new barns, etc. ? This is the ques- tion which we must answer, and I believe it can be accomplished only by education. What we want is clean, safe milk; the poorly equipped farmer can produce this kind of milk if he only knows the essentials necessary. It is a question of encouraging and not discouraging. As a rule there is no surplus milk in our cities ; therefore let us work with the idea of encouraging the dairymen to produce more and better milk. IVIr. P. M. Harw^ood. I presume the speaker has noticed that the State of Massachusetts, through the Dairy Bureau of the State Board of Agriculture, has done work along the line of encouraging clean milk production, and for that purpose prizes have been awarded. There has been great improvement during the last year in the exhibits. We had nearly 100 more entries this year in the clean milk contest than we had last year, and I think any one who has seen the cottons both in this contest and in the Massa- 122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. chusetts Dairymen's Association contest will agree with me that there has been wonderful improvement. I doubt very much if there is any other State in the Union that can make a better showing of clean milk. Now, the point that is going to be gained from this clean milk work is that the confidence that the consumer has in Massachusetts milk will be greatly strengthened, which will redound to the benefit of the Massa- chusetts farmer. Mr. Crocker. Won't you please tell the audience just how your agents get at these clean cottons for this test? Mr. Harwood. After the entries have closed we send an agent to each contestant. Five cows are milked, and the milk is put into a mixing tank. The agent then thoroughly stirs this milk in the tank, takes a quart of it and runs it through a sediment tester, in the bottom of which is a piece of ab- sorbent cotton. The cotton is then taken out and put in a box which contains the man's number. The same number is put on a card and enclosed in an envelope on the outside of which is the man's name. Now, these are both sealed and returned to the office. The boxes are opened by the judge. After the awards have been made by number the envelopes are opened, the cards taken out, and the name of the contestant ascertained, so you see there is absolutel}^ no chance for favoritism. Now this whole proposition is one of cleanliness. The speaker here to-day said that clean milk could be made under very simple conditions. We are trying to encourage the farmer to do that, and Ave find that they are doing it more and more, and the difference between the exhibits this year and last show a distinct improvement in twelve months. Third Day. The third day's session was called to order at 10 a.m. by Secretary Wheeler, who introduced Mr. Herbert G. Worth of Nantucket as chairman. No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 123 ADDRESS OF MR. HERBERT G. WORTH. Mr. Secretary, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject this morning is farm accounting. To my mind there is nothing that should interest the farmer any more than farm accounting. The farmer is the most peculiar man, I believe, that is in business to-day. As a rule, he goes about his business in a haphazard manner and never knows where he stands. If any merchant should have the amount of money invested in a business that the farmer has and could not tell at any time where he stood, we would certainly look for failure from such a man. And I believe that many times the failure of the farmer is due to the fact that he does not know what is paying and what is not. But we are in hopes that the farmer can be educated so that he will know just as well as any other business man where he is. And this morning we are to hear a paper read on farm accounting, which I hope will be of great benefit to each of us. I take great pleasure in introducing Miss Charlotte P. Goddard of Saratoga Springs, New York. 124 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. SOME EXPERIENCES IN FARM ACCOUNTING. MISS CHARLOTTE P. GODDARD, SARATOGA, NEW YORK. It seems to me that no up-to-date farmer in these days would question the value of a good system of bookkeeping; no such farmer, if his farm is bringing him in a good profit, but would be glad to know just where his best profit is, or, in case there is little or no profit, to know where the leakage is. But how to bring it about is often a difficult problem. His day's work is a long one, often twelve, fourteen, or even more hours. He does not feel like sitting down at his desk at the end of such a day, and to stop during the day is impossible. Oftentimes that sort of work is distasteful to him, which makes it doubly difficult. On the other hand, to employ a book- keeper is out of the question, not only on account of the ex- pense, but because there would not be enough work to keep one employed all the time. If he is fortunate enough to have a wife or daughter who can do this work, and who has the time as well, then his problem is solved; but usually, even though she may be capable of doing the work, she has duties of her own which require all her time. My suggestion, as a solution of this problem, is that several farmers get together, as they are beginning to do in other lines, and employ a book- keeper co-operatively. For the past three years it has been my great pleasure to serve one community in this capacity, and I know that the people for whom I have been doing this work will agree with me that the plan has worked splendidly. My work as a co-operative bookkeeper is the result of the fact that several people in one community felt the need of some one with a knowledge of bookkeeping and cost account- ing who would come in and handle their accounts, and whom they did not need to employ for the whole time, as each one needed a bookkeeper only a few days of every month. By No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 125 co-operating in this matter, they arranged with me to do their work, going from one to another in regular rotation. In this way I have been able to give each one all the time necessary for the work, delegating, in each case, to the man in charge, the keeping of such records as must be made daily. Every- thing in the way of bookkeeping which could wait until my return was left for me to do, — the making out of all bills, the balancing of the books, the analysis of the bills to be paid, the keeping of all permanent records, and so forth. In this way the coming of the bookkeeper became not a burden, but more and more a help. In order to show you how it is possible to keep up a system of bookkeeping in this way, and how practical it really is, I will endeavor to describe, in a general way, the system which I have used. Of the records which the farmer himself must keep, the most important is, of course, a cash book. It is imperative that we have a careful record of every item of expense or receipt, large or small, whether a check or a cash transaction. Such records must necessarily be made daily, so that the care of them de- volves on the farmer himself. The balancing of this cash book may, however, be left for the bookkeeper. She might even relieve the farmer of the task of balancing his check book, if he did not care to bother with it himself. Right here let me say that I hope every farmer does have a bank account and does pay all his bills by check. I have been surprised to find how many people there are who do not make use of such an institution as the bank. I know of a man who had been in business for himself for years, with good success, who is now the efficient manager of a farm, but who says that never, until within a year, did he do business with any bank. He told me that many times he had had several thousand dollars in cash in his home, hidden under rugs, and so forth; and when I asked him wdiat happened on sweeping day, he replied that his wife took good care of it, that none was ever lost. Would any of you think of mowing a ten-acre field of oats with a scythe when there was a good mowing machine in your own barn? Of course not. Neither, I hope, would any of you think of keeping any quantity of money in your home 126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. when there is an institution in your own town which can take better care of your money for -you than you can yourself. To return to our accounts. Aside from the cash book there are a few other records which must be kept up daily, in order to give the bookkeeper all the data she needs. Whenever any article of any kind is sold, some record must be made of it. This can best be done by the use of duplicate slips, similar to those used in our grocery and provision stores. By the use of these a carbon copy is made of every slip. One copy goes to the purchaser, the other is kept for the bookkeeper. From all these slips accumulated during the month she makes out the bills. This is a very simple and safe way to keep these items, and the books are very inexpensive. The farmer ought also to keep some sort of memoranda of all purchases made, so that when the dealer presents his bill at the end of the month, he or the bookkeeper may be able to check up every item of that bill. In most cases he will receive a slip with each purchase, so that he has merely to keep these together carefully. The milk record, feed record, and labor record, if kept at all, must necessarily be kept from day to day. I shall refer to these in more detail later. So much for the farmer's part in this bookkeeping. This certainly is not difficult, nor does it require much time, and it is even simpler than it sounds. And the fact that it is simple should recommend it to you, for, next to accuracy, it seems to me that simplicity is the most important quality of a system of farm accounting. By simplicity I do not mean that it shall be any less complete than any well-kept set of books anywhere, but it shall be such that any desired fact may be easily available in the books; that there may be the least possible crossing of accounts from one book to another; that the time which the farmer himself must spend on them shall be kept at a minimum; and that, above everything else, the books, at any time, shall be perfectly intelligible to the farmer himself. Aside from the cash book, which is to be kept by the farmer, two other books, kept entirely by the bookkeeper, will be in- dispensable. The first is what I have called a bill book, which No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 127 takes the place of a customer's ledger. When the bills are made out, each one is entered in this bill book before being sent out. The name of the purchaser, with the amount of the bill and the total amount of each sort of article purchased, is all that need be entered. For example, Mrs. Brown pur- chased goods to the amount of $15, of which $5 was for butter, $4.50 for eggs, $3 for milk and $2.50 for cream. Mts. Smith's bill amounted to $10, all of which was for butter; and so on down through the list. Besides entering all new bills, any of the preceding months' bills, which may be still unpaid, are also listed, so that this book, then, always shows what the accounts receivable are on the first of each month, and also gives an analysis of each account, so that we have a permanent record of what each bill is for, as well as the amount of it. This is invaluable, in posting from the cash book to the dis- tribution sheets, for it not only shows where all the receipts shall be credited, but shows it in a small space as well. All the items of each bill are not entered, for if a customer should desire a second bill, or if, for anj^ reason, we should wish to know what his bill was for, the items are easily found by re- ferring back to the slips from which the original bill was made out. The second book to which I have referred is the distribution book. This may be considered as the final summing up of all other accounts, — that toward which all other accounts have pointed, for this is the one to which we shall refer whenever we wish to learn how the business of the farm is getting on. By the use of this book it is possible to do away with a general ledger (unless one prefers to keep that also), and for our pur- pose it is much more valuable. The distribution book shows the entire amount of receipts and expenditures for each month, all on one page, and analyzed in such a way that the receipts and expenditures, for any particular part of the farm's work, may be seen at a glance. These sheets are then summarized on a yearly sheet, which shows the gross expenses and receipts for the year in a convenient and comprehensive way. Every item in the cash book, of whatever kind, is entered in the dis- tribution book. This book must, of course, balance exactly with the cash book each month. The receipts are put in in red, 128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. in order that they may easily be distinguished from the ex- penditures, for both receipts and expenditures may, in some cases, be put in one column. Many items will need to be analyzed before entering, in order to know that every detail of every bill shall be charged to the correct account. For instance, a bill for grain is divided in such a way that whatever was used for the cows is charged to cows; that used for poultry, to poultry; for horses, to horses, etc. For instance, if the farmer will indicate, on the slip which the dealer gives him whenever he buys grain, just which ani- mals he is buying it for, he will not need to trust to his memory to divide up the bill at the end of the month. A bill for hardv/are, too, may be partly for tools, partly for repairs to buildings, and partly for some permanent improve- ment. This bill should be divided accordingly, and so on with the other bills. The receipts are taken care of in the same way. For instance, if a customer pays a bill — suppose Mrs. Brown pays her $15, that amount is divided between cows and poultry, according to the amount for butter, eggs, milk and cream. These figures are always available in the bill book. I have here a sample page from such a distribution book. (See Fig. 2.) This shows only part of the headings which might be used. The headings of the distribution sheet will depend on the nature of the farm. If a dairy farm, we would naturally be interested to keep a number of subheadings under cows, such as butter, milk, cream, stock, grain, labor and dairy; while if the cows were a secondary interest, we might need only one or two. If a poultry farm, we would divide up into several headings for the poultry; this, of course, in order to enable us to know at the end of the month, or the year, not only what the net gain for that particular thing was, but also to know in what special branch the greater part of that profit was made. The question of dividing the labor into the proper accounts is always a difficult one. The greater part of it must neces- sarily go under the heading of general labor, but as far as possible anything which can be charged to a definite account is so charged. For instance, on a large poultry farm, where No. -1.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 129 one or more men give all the time to the care of the hens, that time is naturally charged to the poultry account. Division of labor may be made quite accurately by the expenditure of a very little time; in fact, only a few moments each day, if a plan similar to that in use at one of the State colleges is em- ployed. A sheet for each man and each team is kept, with a place to show, for each one, just where their work for the day is put in. This is the labor record to which I have already referred. (See Fig. 1.) It is important, as far as possible, to separate, in everything, the charges for maintenance and general expenses from those for permanent improvements, for we want to be able to analyze our running expens.es at the end of the year. A yearly inventory is indispensable. Without it even the yearly distribution sheet will not show us just where we stand. That sheet might show a balance on the wrong side, but when the inventory is considered, there may be found such an in- crease over that of the year before as to more than offset the deficit in the account. On the other hand, we might have a good showing on the distribution sheet, which would be greatly reduced by a decrease in the inventory. But taking the two together, we shall be able to make up a statement which will show exactly where we stand. Other accounts, their nature depending on the type of farm, will be found very helpful. On a poultry farm I would suggest keeping a careful egg record, and even if the number of poultry is small, such a record will be found to be well worth while. Samples of egg record blanks will be found in Figs. 3 and 4. On a dairy farm a careful record of each cow is invaluable. By keeping a milk record, with which you are all familiar, and a record of the feed given to each cow (which is much more simple than you think, unless you have tried it), the book- keeper will be able to work out all the other details found on this record, except the per cent of butter fat, for which you will need to make a test each month. (See Figs. 5 and 6.) You may notice that I have made no account of the labor of taking care of the cow, and while this must be considered, in order to be perfectly fair, it is not shown on the card for this reason: all the other data on the cards are figures which 130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. may be accurately determined each month. Then, the question of labor for the whole herd is taken care of on the distribution sheet. So, at the end of the year, if we w^ish to add to the whole year's record an item for labor, it will not be difficult to work out an average cost per cow for the year. The value of the fertilizer and the selling price or value of her calf are items on the other side which have been omitted for the same reason. It would be impossible, I think, to work out a system of farm accounting which could be uniform in all cases, for where one farm may require one plan, the next may require quite a different one. The general plan of the system which I have used in my work as bookkeeper is the same, but there are no two places which use just the same sort of records, as the differences in the farms, as well as the preferences of the owners, must be taken into consideration. To a certain extent it might be said that accounting could be done equally well for a merchant as for a manufacturing con- cern, for a lawyer as for a farmer, once one has acquired the knowledge of bookkeeping; on the other hand, it seems to me that an accountant will do better work for a merchant if he knows something of a merchant's business than if he knows only figures; in the same way a person who knows nothing about a farm will have more difficulty with a farmer's books than one who does not have to inquire what is meant by such terms as pyrox, silage, balanced rations, butter fat, and so forth. So a bookkeeper who knew something about the business of farming would be more valuable than one who did not. The more he knows about the details of the farm, the better able will he be to analyze the accounts and keep each item in its proper place. Because a farmer's books should be as simple as possible, it does not necessarily follow that it is a simple thing to keep them. A set of books which are simple and at the same time comprehensive and definite require, perhaps, more time in their first planning and later in the keeping of them, but one is in- finitely repaid when any bit of information about the business is wanted, and it will be more and more wanted as its advan- tages are seen. How much better to give a few minutes each No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 131 day to the books, in order to have them where every bit of information is easily available, than to do without them be- cause we think we have no time, with the result that when we need a certain bit of information we must spend hours, perhaps, looking through papers, bills, books, and so forth, and then not find it, even in the end. I know the plea that you have no time to give to the books, that you cannot afford to hire any one else, that a farmer has no chance until evening for anything of that kind, and then he is too tired, after such a long day's work as his must be. If he is interested in having his books well kept, and if he can co-operate with several others who care to do the same thing, then this plan of a co-operative bookkeeper is, in my opinion, the best solution of his problem. In this way he has the advantage of an accountant who knows, not only accounts in general, but farm accounts in particular, and also has that accountant at a reasonable expense. In every case I have found that the work which I have done on the accounts has stimulated the farmers themselves to a desire to know definitely about the financial side of their venture. Moreover, as they realized more and more the value of the records, they became more anxious to have them complete, and the suggestion to add a new sort of record has frequently come from the owner rather than the book- keeper. For instance, when it comes to the question of distribution of labor, the farmer may say, "It is impossible to divide the labor; most of the time of most of the men is general labor; we cannot split up each one's time." So I get from him, as best I can, a general idea of what the different men do, and then wait. By and by he comes to me, perhaps, about two men who, he has previously told me, were putting about all their time on general work. He will say, "You ought not to charge all their time to general labor; it is too much. They are really putting considerable time on that new build- ing. I think we should keep an account of that, in order to charge it to permanent improvement." "Very well," I say. "That is just the sort of thing I want to get hold of." Then' I have him start, in the simplest possible way, a daily record of the time of those men. 132 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Of course you will understand that the accounts of the dif- ferent farms are kept entirely separate. The co-operation simply consists in the group of farmers, each paying part of the bookkeeper's salary. It is not, in any sense, co-operative bookkeeping. The books of each farmer are absolutely distinct and apart from every other, and the business of each farm is kept as confidentially by the bookkeeper as if it were her own. Nothing must ever be carried by her from one place to another. I hope that I have succeeded in making clear to you just how this plan of a co-operative bookkeeper has been worked out, and how it may be worked out again. If so, I am very glad, and I shall be happy to do anything I can to help any one who is interested to try out this plan for himself. No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 133 P4 o »> o CO s 03 1 1 1 1 1 «o ^ M s «<» N M s e> i i 'i i ; M r- CO e- 00 00* 00 T-l (N eg 09 00 09 CU a 01 « SR s n o t4 o o M o o pq o o O 1 CO o o CO esi eq S S o kO u^ o o 00 •«•< •* i g g g g § g g g C4 ^ U3 O O M "^ 00 "3 c a, r* w3 o o o o r~ m o o Ks « g g O CM s — 00 o g 2 g g 2 US US g O « c « - 5 2 ^ ^ fl 3 ^ P^ >> S s - o Jot? o » o 0) O cj o a Total Return. Value of Skimmed Milk. o c II O 3 SM fa 1-3 fee IV S s i-s 3 u ^ 1 02 4^ O O > o S5 a 53 O Oh 'a 138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Mr. F. A. Russell. There has not been a subject before the Board meeting this year, or any other year since I have been a member of the Board, that has interested me more than this subject which we are dealing with at the present time. As the speaker said in the beginning, we farmers do not know what we are doing; we do not know whether we are making money unless the old sheepskin is full. But I would like to ask the lecturer what amount of business a man would naturally have to do to be justified in hiring a bookkeeper; or, in other words, if a man is doing $10,000 or .S15,000 or $25,000 worth of business a year, would he be justified in hiring a bookkeeper, in your estimation? Miss GoDDARD. I should think he would. Mr. Wheeler. Would Miss Goddard please explain how many farmers she thinks a co-operative bookkeeper could take care of? That is, farmers in the ordinary sense of the word. Perhaps she might be able to tell how many she took care of in her New Hampshire experience. Miss Goddard. I took care of four farmers, and it required only about two weeks of each month, so that I could have taken care of eight very easily. Mr. Hayden. I w^ould like to ask how much of a book- keeper's time would be needed to do the bookkeeping of a dairy farm of a hundred head of cattle. Miss Goddard. I should think a week a month would be sufficient. Professor J. A. Foord. I want to rise and second the re- mark of the Chairman about this paper, and say what an excellent paper I think it is. And I want to emphasize one or two points, especially along the lines of the questions already answered. What ]Miss Goddard said about the wife or daughter, I want to amplify a little and say, get the boy or the girl. I think perhaps the wife has enough to do. But I want to emphasize, gentlemen, the desirability of getting the young men interested in the accounting side of it. jNIy experience is that it is hard work to teach old dogs new tricks, and the older men are not going to take up detailed accounting. But the young men we want to keep on the farm, and we want to show them that farming is profitable, because we know it is No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 139 if properly conducted, with the best conditions for right Hving that there are. Now, the way to do that is to show your boy that you are doing it; and if you are not, why not? And I beheve there is no better way or cheaper way for you to get your bookkeeping done than to put those children at it. The boy in the high school can just as well keep the accounts Miss Goddard has suggested as anybody, and the girls, I think, within reason. Now, I do not mean to throw any cold water on Miss Goddard's suggestions, because those children will not stay with us always. I think the co-operative scheme is excellent, but I do want to emphasize the desirability of interesting the young people in the business affairs of the farm, because when it comes right down to it tha+ is what they are going out to look for when they look for a position, — the dollars and cents in it. We know that there is no better place than the farm. Now, one other thing I would like to speak of: Miss Goddard spoke of the purchase slip. I have found no simpler way of keeping the records on the college farm than the record made at the time of the happen- ing, because I want to emphasize the fact that the time to make a record is when it happens, whether it is a pail of milk weighed or the sale of a pig, and the man who makes that record should be the man on the spot. Very frequently mistakes will occur that are easily corrected if you can show the original record. They may be rather hard to decipher sometimes if the man happens to be a Polander, but I believe this is an excellent plan. Miss Goddard spoke of the classi- fication of items, speaking of the feed record. I agree very heartily. The time to classify items is when it happens. I haven't found it quite as simple as Miss Goddard said, but anyhow w^e do what we can along that line. Now, this classi- fication is not so serious. Do not keep too many accounts the first year. Suppose you say this year, "We will keep an account of potatoes and find out what it costs to raise po- tatoes." I have been working on this accounting matter a good deal, because I believe every man should know what is doing in his business. Keep accounts as Miss Goddard has suggested, with the amount of labor spent in different operations in hours. Keep a general labor account of your men so that 140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. you will get the total cost of labor for the year. Now, at the end of the year, in your general labor account, you have got all the expenses of labor, whether for board or salaries, or whatever it is — it is all there. In each account under your cows, under your apples, or under your general crop you have the number of hours of labor; then it is simply a question of dividing the total expense for labor by the total number of hours for the average cost of labor per hour. It seems to me this is the simplest method I have seen. I can only close, Mr. Chairman, by once more commending the excellent paper, and I do hope it will influence more people to keep accounts. Don't be too ambitious. One account run through a year for one kind of crop will be more valuable than half a dozen for four or five or six months. Mr. Wheeler. My idea in getting Miss Goddard here was not so much to give a general idea of how people could keep books, but with the idea of using a bookkeeper co-operatively. It seems to me that while the Massachusetts farmers may not be able to afford to hire bookkeepers individually, this system of co-operative bookkeeping and a co-operative bookkeeper can be worked out advantageously. I think we lack trained bookkeepers along this line, and I feel sure that just as soon as there is a call for bookkeepers to go around and make the circuit of different farms, this class of bookkeepers will be supplied by the business colleges and the agricultural high schools which are now advertising various trades, — the business and agricultural bookkeeper. I think we are at the present time in need of bookkeepers who can do the sort of work which Miss Goddard has described here to-day. Mr. Foster. I would like to inquire of the lecturer how small a dairy or farm she knows of that has employed a co- operative bookkeeper. Miss Goddard. Well, I think none would be too small. I know of a case of a farmer who had four cows and perhaps not more than forty or fifty hens, and other things accordingly. It took me only one day a month to do all the work. The Chairman. The next number on the program is a lecture on Alfalfa. Now, alfalfa in New England is in its No. 4.] FARM ACCOUNTING. 141 infancy, and yet I believe that every farmer realizes the value of alfalfa and would like to know how he can raise the crop and raise it profitably, and on those points Professor A. D. Cromwell, professor of agriculture and botany, Pennsylvania State Normal School, West Chester, will try and inform us. 142 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. ALFALFA FOE NEW ENGLAND. ARTHUR D. CROMWELL, PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE AND BOTANY, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA. Why geow Ai^falfa? Life is a never ending series of adjustments. Of one thing we may be sure and that one thing is change. New England farmers have not always understood or remembered this, and hence at times New England farmers have failed to adjust themselves and their farm practices to the demands of the times. Among the changes that are now upon us are the adjustments that are to be made in farming by growing alfalfa. For as Mr. Ellsworth of Worcester, Massachusetts, has said, " Alfalfa is to be grown on every farm in New England." Alfalfa will enable those who gi'ow it to produce on each acre from 3 to 5 tons of feed, which is pound for pound equal to thrashed oats or wheat bran. At the same time that the alfalfa raiser produces from 3 to 5 tons of feed, equal pound for pound to thrashed oats, he is growing a plant that is storing, in each acre of his ground, from $25 to $30 worth of nitrogen each year. Then, too, alfalfa roots deeper than other farm crops, and it brings up from the subsoil rich stores of potash and phosphorus. But since alfalfa comes to us from the semi-arid regions, we must not expect it to produce good crops of seed in this humid climate. However, since it is a gift of the desert, we are to understand that when dry seasons come, as come they will, alfalfa growers are to have a crop, and, if any- thing, a better crop. Alfalfa can stand hard winters. Alfalfa is green a month earlier and a month later than other crops, and hence for a man who is practicing the soiling system, al- falfa offers a crop that can be used about two months more each year. Since it grows through the whole summer, it offers a soiling crop that is available every month from the time it No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 143 is large enough to cut in tJie spring until long after bard freez- ing comes in the fall. Alfalfa is a lime loving plant. It has 34 per cent of lime in its ash, while clover has but 20 per cent and timothy but 4 per cent. Growing animals, dairy cows and laying hens need lime. They need more lime than we are able to supply in corn and mill feeds ; hence alfalfa offers a plant that will supply lime to make bone and milk and eggs. There is no need for a ISTew England farmer spending a cent for feed unless he is feeding more stock than his given area of land can support. I mean the ISTew England farmer does not need to spend his hard-earned profits for mill feeds in order to get nitrogen or protein. He can gTOw his protein at home and enrich his soil at the same time. We live at the bottom of an ocean of air that is about 200 miles deep and composed of about four-fifths of nitrogen, and yet our profits are small and our cost of living high because we have to pay so much for protein, which we need in order to get that single element nitrogen. Yet alfalfa, soy beans, Canada peas, vetch and the clovers, including sweet clover, have associated with them on their roots bacteria which cluster together into different shaped but easily observed nodules, and which have the rare power of taking from the air circulating in the soil that element nitro- gen. These bacteria gather more nitrogen than they need ; they gather enough to feed the plant and to lay up an excess in the soil to feed the corn, potatoes or other crops which follow the alfalfa. The story seems too good to tell. You can have your cake and eat it. But alfalfa is going to make the man who succeeds in growing it master of the situation. The alfalfa grower is going to be the man who can buy the adjoining farm. The alfalfa plant is going to bring back to ISTew England the Berkshire, the Chester White and the Poland China hogs, to help lift the mortgage off the old New England farm. Alfalfa is going to enable the farmer in the east to make more on the small farm than the mid-westerner makes on his larger farm of $200 an acre land. Alfalfa is going to make the New Eng- land hen cackle two months longer each year. Alfalfa is going to add materially to the beauty of the New England landscape. 144 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. American ingenuity will soon enable some Yankee manufac- turers to put onto the market an alfalfa shredded biscuit that will do more than any patent breakfast food or medicine now on the market to make efficient men and women out of our boys and girls. Alfalfa besides putting the kink into the pig's tail while he heljDS lift the mortgage, besides enabling the old cow to give more milk, the hen to lay more eggs and the boys and girls to be stronger of bone and larger of muscle, besides adding to the beauty of the "New England landscape, alfalfa is to add to the contentment and happiness of the people by putting dollars into the farmer's pockets, and thus enabling him to have better homes, to support better schools and churches, and thus fulfill Dean Bailey's four requirements for the real husbandman: "To make a comfortable living; to leave the farm better than he found it; to rear a family carefully and well ; to be of service to the community." How TO GROW AlFAI^FA. To grow alfalfa successfully there are six things, each of which must be very carefully attended to. You may think as others have thought that you can get paying crops of alfalfa by leaving one or more of the six steps imdone, but experience will teach you in time that each and every one of the six things must be carefully taken care of. We call these six requisites the six alfalfa secrets, as follows : — 1. Good, well-drained soil. 2. A good, hard seed bed. 3. Plenty of the right kind of lime. 4. Good, acclimated, northern grown seed. 5. Good, abundant soil or seed inoculation. 6. Good harvesting and curing of the hay. Good Soil. You will notice that our first requirement is good soil. Al- falfa must have liberal feeding. It is true that alfalfa when once well established will come nearer making its own way, while giving paying crops, than will any other farm crop; yet No. 4.J ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 145 this fact must be faced, namely, during the first year alfalfa plants are delicate little plants which respond readily to liberal feeding. This means that we get more from the money spent for available nitrogen, potash and phosphorus to put on the gTOund, which we are to seed to alfalfa, than we get from the money spent for plant food for most other farm crops. But how is a man to know what to feed his alfalfa plants? My answer is ask your farm bureau agent, if you have one. He should have gathered some valuable information from the experiences of the farmers of your district, and he should have at hand what the experiment stations know as to what alfalfa needs. The next best source of information after your farm bureau, is your experiment station." Write to your ex- periment station and ask the men there what they know about feeding alfalfa. Your land may not be of the same kind as that on which they have experimented, and hence you may need other help. I can think of no place more valuable for one to come, once a year, than to a gathering like the New England Alfalfa Association meeting, and there compare notes and hear the experiences of farmers who have been growing alfalfa. But when all is said and done you must do a little experimenting on your own farm. Sow different strips on your alfalfa field with different amounts of the different fertilizers and then watch for results. But to start alfalfa you will want to have a rich soil, and you will need to use something like 500 jDOunds to an acre of a mixture of about 3 per cent of nitrogen, 8 per cent of phosphoric acid and 10 per cent of potash. Select Well-drained Soil. Alfalfa comes to us from the semi-arid regions of southern Asia. To be sure it has been grown in Europe for centuries, and in America for some years, yet it shows its desert origin by demanding a well-drained soil. Alfalfa will not live with its feet in the water. It will do well on loose sandy or stony soil. Alfalfa will thrive on a stony hillside so full of rock and so dry that corn will not develop an ear. I know of two pieces on such soil, one has been down for five years and the other for eight. The soil is so dry and sandy that blue grass and plan- 140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. tain, the two worst weed enemies of alfalfa, have not gotten a foothold. Of course a man gets more alfalfa on better ground, but he gets more dollars worth of feed from such a stone patch than he can get from seeding it to any other plant, unless it be sweet clover. Alfalfa seems to prefer a southern slope. I think that this is explained in part by the fact that southern slopes are dryer in fall and winter. Perhaps the gTound is sweeter and does not heave so seriously. Alfalfa can stand more cold than most other plants. After the first year it does not winter kill in a temperature from 20'^ to 30° below- zero. Alfalfa is green a month longer in the fall and a month earlier in the spring. Perhaps the southern slopes are favorable because alfalfa can get a better growth for winter covering in the fall, and an earlier growth in the spring. This does not mean that you cannot gTOw alfalfa on northern slopes. It does mean that I advise the beginner to start his first patch or two on his southern slopes. One of the great problems in America is the conservation of the soil on our hillsides. Alfalfa once wtII seeded may be left on a hillside for ten years; then if plaintain and grass come in, the patch may be plowed up, cultivated for a half year and seeded to alfalfa for another ten years. This makes alfalfa bet- ter than orchards for holding the soil on the hillsides. Low, wet gTound is apt to be sour. It will grow alsike clover, timothy, cow peas, red top and corn, for these are more tolerant of acid in the soil. Cow peas, alsike and red top seem to thrive best where the soil is slightly acid. But alfalfa will not gi'ow on sour soil. It winter kills and the bacteria fail to thrive. Some men have used tile drains and have converted low, coastal plain or river liottom soils into the best of alfalfa soils. Alfalfa being a gift of the desert demands a dry, well- drained soil. Prepare a Good, Chan, Hard Seed Bed. When we have studied how to gTow alfalfa as long and as diligently as we have studied how to grow corn, we shall laugh at the man who gets less than 5 or 6 tons to the acre, and some No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. U7 of you will be getting much more. But when we have learned how to grow alfalfa, we shall have learned that the seed is very, very small, and that for some weeks the little alfalfa plant is a very delicate little thing. That means that it cannot hold its own against many of the weeds. You can kill the weeds by disking and plowing, by cultivating and hoeing before the al- falfa is planted on the ground. But once the alfalfa is planted, you are doomed to partial failure if you have sown the seed on sn-ound infested with weeds. You must sow alfalfa on a clean seed bed in order to succeed well. The seed bed should be hard. I would hardly expect to succeed with alfalfa if I plowed the ground just before sowing the seed. I would much prefer disking to plowing before seed- ing. Where alfalfa is seeded in August, following wheat or oats, disking gives better results than plowing. But wo do not disk to save time. We must disk and disk until it takes as much time as it would to plow. However, the disking leaves a hard seed bed underneath, it gives us a garden mulch on top, and it leaves the stubble on the surface to act as a partial shade and to keep the soil from washing. Plowing, especially after a coat of manure or heavy coat of stubble is plowed under, causes the soil to dry out too rapidly and too deeply. Even oats, with a seed much larger than the little alfalfa seed, fre- quently do better on disked ground than on plowed ground. But if there are weeds, if the ground has been in oats, say, and the oats have been cut early for haj^, then the ground may be plowed, the deeper the better, and the weeds thoroughly killed. After the plowing the ground should be rolled, disked and har- rowed frequently to germinate and kill all weed seed and to give a good, hard seed bed underneath, with a clean garden mulch on top. Remember that you are seeding the alfalfa for from three to ten years to come, and it pays to do it well. You can easily reduce your alfalfa hay crop 1 to 2 tons for a number of years to come by not preparing a good seed bed. Think of a man's shortening his yield 2 tons of hay, worth $20 per ton, and that for three to ten years to come, and all of this loss to save a day's labor when preparing a seed bed. The seed bed should be clean enough and soft enough to do for an onion bed. It pays to have a clean, hard seed bed. 148 BOx\RD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Apply Plenty of the Right Kind of Lime. There are a number of things which we have to learn about liming. But of one thing we are certain, no farm crop requires more lime than does alfalfa. This may be because the bacteria which furnish the nitrogen for the alfalfa are very sensitive to sour soil. It may be, and undoubtedly in part is, because the bacteria that should thrive on the alfalfa roots are most easily killed by acids in the soil. However, I believe that there is another reason. The alfalfa plant has 34 per cent of lime in its ash, clover has 20 per cent and timothy has 4 per cent. I believe that we are just beginning to learn our A B C's of lime for animal and plant foods. I believe that when the truth is fully understood, we shall know that one reason why alfalfa is so good for growing animals, for poultry and for dairy cows is because of its high per cent of lime. If this proves to be true, there is no way known to the farmers of to-day by which they may make money faster than to sow lime on the land to feed alfalfa, which in turn is to feed animals and hence return to him in beef or milk, which sells at many times over the cost of the agricultural lime. There are two materials called lime, and they come to us in three forms. One material is dolomite, which is a magnesian- calcium carbonate. I believe that when we fully understand the lime problem, we shall have learned that the magnesium lime is not to be used for alfalfa. Hall says the English fann- ers learned years ago that the dolomite is not good for repeated applications. Do not misunderstand me. Magnesian lime will neutralize acids as readily as pure calcium lime, but I do not be- lieve that the neutralization of acids is all that there is to liming for alfalfa, nor do I believe that sweetening the soil is half that there is to liming for alfalfa. I believe that calcium is a very necessary plant food for alfalfa, and hence well worth feeding the plant in abundance. Lime comes to us in three forms, — caustic or burned, hy- drated or slaked and in the form of ground limestone. Only unburned, ground limestone is to be recommended for applying immediately before sowing alfalfa. Burned lime is believed to be injurious to the alfalfa bacteria. Hydrated lime is but No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 149 little better. Moreover, these forms are hard on the men who handle them, while ground calcium limestone is believed to be beneficial to men, especially men of weak lungs. Of course where one has to pay freight on a long haul, and where one can apply the burned lime some months jDreceding the planting of the alfalfa, it may pay to use burned limestone. Use Good, Acclimatedj Northern Grown Seed. Our people get the best results by using 30 pounds of seed to an acre. That should be too much. There are places where men have used as little as 6 quarts (12 pounds) with timothy and clover. In time the timothy and clover disappeared, the alfalfa survived and made a good stand that yielded three or more tons per acre. Twenty pounds to an acre should be enough, providing we use a disk drill and use good seed. But good seed is hard to get. I fear that the seed houses palm off on the eastern farmers entirely too much of the Asiatic seed. I fear that at times farmers are led to believe that the Turke- stan seed is superior. Then, too, I fear that entirely too much southern grown seed finds its way this far north. Massachusetts requires good seed, from plants that have been gTown in the United States for some years and from States as far north as Montana. How can you get it? Well, one way is to have one of your farm bureau agents go west and find a reliable gTower and then buy of him. Another way is to find a reliable dealer and then put it up to him to furnish you good seed at a reasonable rate. I found that we could get for the members of our farm bureau good seed at $7.80 per bushel of 60 pounds, and that at a time when other farmers were paying $13 and $15 for the same seed. It strikes me that there is nothing that your State association can do that will help more than to discover among yourselves a member who knows where you can get good seed ; then have him arrange so that you can get seed from him or his dealer. We have a form or legal paper which a man may deposit in his local bank with the money for the seed. The form provides that when the seed arrives, the bank pays the bill and that automatically releases the seed to the buyer. 150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Of course members of this associatiou will not run the risk of planting seed until their farm bureau agent or their State college men have examined and tested their seed. There is too much danger of dodder. After I had examined the seed from one seed honse, and had Pennsylvania State College examine it, and had the men in the United States Department of Agri- culture at Washington examine it, T found that the seed house had sent a farmer seed in which he might plant thirteen dodder seeds to a square rod. If you once get dodder on your place, you will probably be unable to grow paying crops of alfalfa for five or more years. My advice is to have samples of the seed examined by some one who knows how to examine and test alfalfa seed. But even that does not assure you that it is northern grown seed. Therefore, get seed from a reliable seed man, pay him a reasonable price, but give him to understand that he is to be responsible for the delivery of first-class north- ern grown, acclimated seed. Give the Soil or the Seed Abundant Inoculation. There are two ways to inoculate. One way is to go to a field where alfalfa is being grown and where there are plenty of nod- ules on the roots and take the soil from there and spread the soil over the field Avhich you intend to sow to alfalfa. There are people who will tell you that 200 or 300 pounds of soil will do. That may be true where you can sift the soil and seed or sow it with a hand seeder, but I think that a man can better afford to use 2 tons than 200 pounds of soil. If I were going to grow alfalfa, I would put in 2 or 4 square rods of ground. I would put this into alfalfa in the spring. I would inoculate it heavily, and then from that patch I would get soil for my field. For field inoculation I would use the manure spreader. I would go to a piece of ground where the nodules are thick, shovel oft" about 2 or 3 inches of the surface soil, and then load the spreader with the soil that lies from 3 inches to 15 inches below the surface. Then I would drive to the land which I intended to sow in alfalfa. There L would put the spreader in gear, let it run until the dirt began to pile up near the rear of the spreader, then stop and crank the load to the front and No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 151 then go ahead again. When the dirt was again piling near the rear end of the spreader, I would again shovel or crank it back to the front. You will do well to make a big load cover a half acre. But jou can give an acre two loads with less labor and bother than vou can putter around with 200 pounds, if you have to sift it and use a hand seeder. Three or 4 tons of soil are not too much. The soil should be spread on a cloudy day, and it should be harrowed in at once. I do not need to say that you run the risk of sowing plant diseases. Hence it is necessary to be very cautious to get soil for inoculation from land free of disease. We have found that the commercial cultures give us better results and cost us less than the soil inoculation. Of course I think both are better than either alone. You can get enough culture for an acre of seed for $2, and you can hardly take a man and team and spread your own soil for less than $2 per acre. The inoculating of the seed is a simple process. The directions that come with each batch of the culture give one ample information as to just what to do to inoculate the seed. We have had good results from the use of the commercial cul- tures. The United States Department of Agriculture at Wash- ington is very liberal with their cultures, and hence most of you can get the cultures free by asking for enough to inoculate seed for the number of acres which you intend to sow. Again I wish to tell you that I think you should sow something like 4 square rods the spring before you sow your field. Give the seed for the little patch double inoculation. You may sow a few square rods in the corner of some pig or cow lot. What you want is a rich well-manured plot in which you may get the bacteria to grow. You may seed this with a little oats to help keep down the weeds. Mow the oats for hay. Of course you will select some place where you can well spare a few inches of the soil and where the shoveling w^ill not be hard. Your main crop should be planted in August. This enables you to kill the weed seed. It enables you to s'et a crop of oat- hay or oat and Canada pea-hay or a crop of early potatoes. Now, if you have your little patch in which you have been growing the bacteria, and if you seed in August, you have 152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. your own soil for inoculation. Do not underestimate the im- portance of inoculation. After the alfalfa is once well started you will get 1 to 2 tons per acre more each season as a result of good, abundant inoculation. But that is little more than half of the story. If you have abundant inoculation, your alfalfa is to gather for you and store in your soil from $20 to $30 worth of nitrogen each year after the first year. This you are to get back in increased yields of potatoes and corn and in richer protein content of corn and grain for years after the alfalfa is plowed under. You ought to work out a crop rotation by which you can leave your alfalfa down for three or more years. If you leave the alfalfa down for three years, and if you had plenty of bac- teria on the roots, you should have land that is at least $50 per acre richer in nitrogen when you plow it up. Harvesting Alfat^fa Hay. After having gTown a crop which is equal pound for pound to thrashed oats or wheat bran, a man can very easily lose much of it by improper handling. He may injure his stand of alfalfa very materially by cutting too early or too late. Alfalfa must be cut when the little sprouts at the cro^vn are well started and are yet not high enough to be cut oif by the mowing machine. If mowed too early, they are little delicate, white sprouts that cannot stand the exposure to the bright sunshine and cannot yet make their own food. If cut too late, the plant may have accomplished its natural life work of reproduction and hence die a natural death ; or the mowing machine may clip the top buds of each of the stems that were to have made the next cutting. Then, too, if one cuts alfalfa in a humid climate, especially where there is much moisture in the ground, and cuts it in the forenoon, he cuts it when there is most moisture in the stems and leaves. The hay is longer in curing, the bac- teria of decay have a longer time to work, and hence the hay is of less value. But if one cuts in the afternoon, when the stems and leaves are wilted, he is able to put up the hay sooner, it is dryer and richer, and in every way better. Of course this does not offer so favorable a labor schedule, but alfalfa hay is No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 153 rich enough in food elements so that some extra labor can well be used in harvesting it. But the man who does not understand alfalfa will suffer the greatest loss, because he does not use the hay caps. The alfalfa leaf is the richest part of the plant. Horses do not like leaves so well, but cattle and chickens like them better. But the leaves are very readily shattered off unless the hay is cured under the hay caps. Some people make the mistake of having caps that are too small. The caps should be at least 50 by 50 inches. The corners may be fastened with weights or wire pins. Weights are made by filling small plant pots with cement into which has been placed a wire loop or hook. Wire pins are most pleasing to some. The pins are made by cutting a good strong- wire into foot lengths and then bending a hook or loop at one end. The pin is jabbed into the hay under the cap and thus holds the corners down and the cap on. Summary. Why grow Alfalfa? 1. Alfalfa is pound for pound equal to thrashed oats. 2. It pays better to grow alfalfa than to buy mill feeds. 3. Alfalfa requires less work than is required to gi'ow other farm crops. 4. Growing animals, hens and dairy cows need lime, and alfalfa fur- nishes most lime. 5. Alfalfa is the most drought resistant farm c-rop. 6. Alfalfa gives us most protein pev acre. 7. Alfalfa does most to improve the soil because (o) it roots deepest; (h) it gathers and stores in the soil most nitrogen. How TO GROW Alfalfa, Six alfalfa secrets : — 1. Good, well-drained soil. 2. A good, rich, hard seed bed. 3. Plenty of the right kind of lime. 4. Good, acclimated, northern gi'own seed. 5. Good, abundant soil or seed inoculation. 6. Cut at the right time and cure in the right wav. 154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. A Dozen Alfalfa Don'ts. 1. Don't sow on weedy soil. 2. Don't sow on jjoorly drained soil. 3. Don't seed a large acreage to begin with. 4. Don't say alfalfa can't be grown in New England. 5. Don't sow on any but sweet, well-drained soil. Alfalfa is a desert plant. 6. Don't sow on any but a well-prepared, well-settled seed bed. 7. Don't fail to give arajDle inoculation ; both seed and soil inoculation are best. 8. Don't pasture the first year, and don't pasture when wet. 9. Don't feed alfalfa as you do hay, feed it as you do grain. 10. Don't spend your hard-earned money for protein feeds; grow alfalfa, clovers, Canada and cow peas and soy beans. 11. Don't lose the leaves; they are the best part of the plant. Use hay caps. 12. Don't give up. Many prominent alfalfa growers succeeded after some failures. Question. Could you tell us where we can get the calcium limestone? Professor Cromwell. That will come out in the discussion. I am very glad you folks have changed so that you can get lime here. While your experiment station said a year ago that it cost $6 a ton, it now costs S3. We get it from West Virginia for $3.10 a ton. You certainly ought to get that lime for around $3 a ton. Question. In a case I know of the cows didn't like the alfalfa leaf. Why was that? Professor Cromwell. I suspect you must have had a wet period about the time you mowed, and you had some leaf spots. Generally, cows and hens like the leaves better, but horses like the stems. Mr. Abner Towne. I would like to ask how much seed you would recommend to be sowed to the acre. Professor Cromwell. The men in Chester County, Pennsyl- vania, who have had 5| tons per acre have put on 30 pounds of seed. Now, that is too much, — entirely too much. But for some reason we can't get very big yields without it. Twenty pounds ought to be enough if you have good enough seed. No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 155 In the west they only use 12 or 14 pounds to the acre. I am afraid it is because of our poor seed. Question. Do you put Hme on every year? Professor Cromwell. If you use the Htmus paper test, or have any reason to think your soil is sour, I would put on 2 tons of ground limestone just preceding your seeding, then I would take off two crops of alfalfa, worth $100 a year, and then I would put on another ton every two years as long as the alfalfa stands. Question. What do you say about drilling or broadcasting? Professor Cromwell. The ideal way to sow alfalfa is to sow it with the disk drill, drilling both ways of the field, one- half one way and the other half crossways of that, and if you have a disk drill I think you might get along with 20 pounds of seed quite well. We have one man this year whose field looks well and who used only 20 pounds with the disk drill. Question. Will you tell us something about raising alfalfa on gravelly soil? Professor Cromwell. If you have a southern slope so full of stones that corn won't mature there, I would expect to get 21 or 3 tons of alfalfa. It is the only crop except sweet clover which will grow there. Mr. J. F. Adams. I want to relate a little of my experience in trying to raise alfalfa, and then I want to ask the professor why I didn't succeed. One year ago last July I seeded to alfalfa about two acres of ground. The year before I planted corn, and before planting the corn a good coat of barn manure was plowed in about 8 or 9 inches deep, and in the spring about a ton and a half of lime put on. The lime cost me, delivered at my steamboat landing, about $9.20 a ton. I put on basic slag at the rate of 1,000 pounds to the acre, and potash. When I was ready to sow the alfalfa we distributed over the ground about 100 pounds of nitrate of soda to the acre. The ground was tilled thoroughly all summer whenever weeds made their appearance, with a disk harrow most of the time, oc- casionally with a spiked-tooth smoothing harrow. In July, when I was ready to sow my seed, I bought the best seed that I could get. I bought it from our local seed dealer, and inoculated the seed with something that came in a small 156 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. bottle. The instructions told me to put the bag of alfalfa seed into a pail of water and let it moisten there, and then take the seed and pour it out on a cloth, and then put the inocula- tion on. I sowed the seed by hand. I understood I should sow it in a wheelbarrow seeder, but failed to as the inoculation seemed to be a little stick}-. The seed came up splendidly, but there were some poor spots. The seed lived through the first winter beautifully and started up in the spring in very good shape, and I got a fair crop, — about a ton and a half to the acre, — what I would consider down there where I live a fair crop. The second crop started, and after a very short time some kind of a blight struck the plants. I don't know what it was. Professor Foord, I think, can tell us something about it, because I sent him a sample. The second crop was mowed earlier than, perhaps, I ought to have mowed it, but the reason for getting the second crop in when I did was because the army worms had struck it with full force and if I didn't get the alfalfa in I expected to lose it with the army worm. So I cut the alfalfa before the buds had started from the bottom, — before the third crop had started. We had some wet weather, and the army worms continued to eat it. It didn't wilt fast enough so that the army worms cared to leave it, and when the sun did get out there was not alfalfa enough left to raise. You could hardly see where I mowed any alfalfa. There was not enough to pay for raking. The third crop came up, but not very strong, and there seemed to be a blight on that, and to-day I don't believe there is one plant left in a field of nearly two acres. Now, I want to know why those plants died. Professor Cromwell. I suspect that Professor Foord knows more than I do about why that failed. Professor Foord. I would like to say that the sample that Mr. Adams sent us, and also some that I took myself, were turned over to our plant pathologist, and he stated that the disease, so far as he could find it, was not an alfalfa disease. The only suggestion I could give on Mr. Adams' proposition was the question of seed. He got the seed from the local dealers. After the second crop was cut and the army worm had been there, there were a good many weeds. With the No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 157 tillage that Mr. Adams gave the field it does not seem to me there ought to have been as many weeds there. They may have come in with your seed. I have a good many friends in the seed trade, but I like to jack them up a little occasionally. I think the seed problem in New England is an important one. I hope Mr. Adams will not feel discouraged on that two acres, but will go at it again. Mr, Adams. I will say that I have no idea of giving up that field of alfalfa at the present time, although that field cost me about $40 to the acre. I am going to plant it to alfalfa again, if nothing happens. Professor Cromwell. Let me relate the experience of one farmer in our county. After the first cutting he said, "My alfalfa is not what it should be. I want to find out wdiat is the trouble w4th it." So he went over the field and dug up half of it and found that the plants had only gone about 4 inches in the ground and the root was black. He thought he had a bacterial disease and asked us what was the matter. We sent to Washington and had them send out a specialist. It seemed the man had plowed up a badly infested clover field, and the clover worms were unable to get any food, so they were migrating in large numbers to that alfalfa, and were killing it. The alfalfa was coming up with a stem only 4 inches long. Now, because you didn't dig for the bacteria, you didn't know about the clover worm. That may be the solution of that problem. Question. Will you say something about the depth to plant, the covering and whether to use a roller or not? Professor Cromwell. My advice would be to plant the alfalfa | to 2 inches deep, depending on the moisture, and then have the ground harrowed. Do your rolling before you plant. Mr. TowxE. Would it be practicable to use alfalfa to renew old pasture lands; in other words, would it be a good thing for pasture and for cattle in pastures? Professor Cromw^ell. It was my good fortune this summer to have an automobile ride of 150 miles, studying pastures. A man from the Department at Washington came up to get some information — by the way, you folks notice that to-day 158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. the agriculturist goes out to the farmers to learn, instead of the farmers always coming to him to learn. I found one man pasturing 90 head of cows on 60 acres of high, hilly land, with the driest range in forty-two years, and his cattle had plenty of pasture. He said, "I can't get a good pasture without plowing up and putting it into alfalfa, getting two crops, and then sprinkling on some grass seed and letting it come to grass." I certainly would sprinkle a little handful of alfalfa with all my seeding, — timothy, clover and so on, — so that in time all of your soil will be thoroughly inoculated. That will take some years, but it certainly should be done, — a pound or two or more to the acre of every field that you seed from now on. Mr. TowNE. That brings to my mind that about six years ago I sowed about five acres of land, and in the seed was some alfalfa seed which came up in spots all over this piece of land. I was so delighted with it that I said to myself, "Why, that land will be inoculated, and I can raise the finest field of alfalfa in the country." For two years it seemed that every plant grew and the roots were large and well-established, and last fall I had an idea that I could cut it and use it for my hens, as it came up in bunches. I cut it and this year I have only one plant left. Professor Cromwell. You killed the goose that laid the golden egg that time. Mr. H. D. Fuller. I used the Galloway culture, which a neighbor of mine procured from Iowa. This year I have mowed it three times; the first time I got about a ton, the next time a ton and a half, and the last time about a ton, I think. Professor Cromwell. I don't know the Galloway cultures. Is it a water culture or a gelatine culture? A Voice. You use water with it. Professor Cromwell. My experience — and the United States government does not agree with me in this — is that the water cultures are very sensitive to the light. You can't keep them more than a week or two before you kill your bacteria. The gelatine cultures live longer. The water cultures are good if fresh, but you must use them almost immediately when you get them. I am awfullv sorrv that the gelatine men No. 4 ] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 159 patented their process, because I am satisfied that the gelatine is much better. Our men pay $1A0 an acre for culture. We buy through our farm bureau. We have one of the farmers act as buying agent. INIr. C. H. White. I would like to say that the Worcester County Farm Bureau is just starting — it is only two days old, but we are here for business, and I hope that you men in Worcester County, who hope to get lime this year, will confer with the Farm Bureau. Professor Cromwell. I want to make a comment on that, because that is the greatest movement you have. There are too many of you folks to write to the State college and the United States government and have much attention paid to it. Now you have a specialist between you and the State college and the United States government. Now you have a man who is salaried and who represents you, and the scientific knowledge at Washington and at the State college is to be put to work on your problems absolutely free. And it seems to me that there is no institution that can do more to help you. You men don't know what your neighbors are doing in the adjoining townships, and there is not a move you can make that will help you in the alfalfa business more than to have a man who can gather all the experiences together, both failures and successes. This man's business is to find what is good lime and what is not, to find what diseases you have and what you do not have. He can ask the State college in an authoritative way, and can ask Washington, so that Washington will put the brainiest men they have on your problems. A farm bureau is a vital problem in solving the questions in your county. Question. I have been told that there was no seed grown in the United States except in Utah. Is that correct? Professor Cromwell. I believe that the seed men are just as honest on the average as we are, but they are wretchedly careless about alfalfa. That statement is not true. There is lots of seed grown in Kansas, and there is lots of seed grown in Nebraska. Those States are south of you, and that seed will winterkill if brought to Massachusetts, but there is plenty of alfalfa seed grown north of this State, and standing winters harder than yours. We must give our seedmen to understand 160 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. that they have got to deliver the goods or something will happen in the seed business. There are hundreds of thousands of bushels of Asiatic alfalfa seed landed on our eastern United States, and of course it gets to you farmers first, and it gets to the Nebraska and Iowa farmer last. Much of it is useless; it is too old. So I think it is a vital problem to have some man like the Farm Bureau man to put it up to the seedsmen to deliver good seed. I believe you can get the seedsmen to do this for you. While we could buy seed for $7.80 a bushel, the men who got the best crops in our section paid $14 a bushel. They could afford to send a man to Montana and buy seed. We bought $2,000 worth of seed from one dealer. One of the Philadelphia dealers said the other day, "I guess the alfalfa business is a failure because I sold less seed this year than I have in ten years." The seedsmen have got to wake up, and they must tell us where they get their seed and wdiere it w^as grown. Professor Foord. ]Mr. Westgate, from the United States Department, told me three or four years ago that there were 5,000 acres of seed alfalfa in Ontario. Mr. Westgate had been through the province and knew what he was talking about. We have had excellent results from seed obtained from that section. Their winters are as severe as ours. In the early days of drought agitation we w^re told alfalfa would grow on sand. Now, tie together -what Mr. Cromwell has said with the picture of the manure spreader. If you don't you will make a failure of it. Alfalfa wants some fertility. It is a weak, sickly little plant when it starts. When raising it experi- mentally in the southern part of the State, where you have a lot of sandy soil, you must have that manure there to stimulate the bacteria and to get fertility until w^e get it started. I was interested two years ago, in walking up from the pier down off Cape Cod, to see right beside the road a great big bunch of sweet clover, and just beyond that, right on the seashore, they were mowing alfalfa. That is on sandy soil. Within 30 feet of the seashore, with the northeastern exposure, coming right down to the shore, was alfalfa planted. I had some friends in that cottage, and in the fall I took some spears from that alfalfa plant that had seeded, but not fully ripened, and I just No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 161 stuck them in a paper bag and tied tliem up and put them in my grip and laid them on a shelf in my study. That seed fully ripened. That was within 30 feet of a northeastern shore coming down on Cape Cod. So there is no doubt but what Ave can raise seed of our own in New England. Mr. Prescott of Concord has told us that we can raise our own seed. I don't want to advocate raising alfalfa seed, but I wanted to tie together the sand and the manure spreader, because if you don't you will make a failure as we did in the beginning. Mr. C. R. Harris. I want to ask about the use of lime. The speaker has very strongly come out for the use of ground limestone. Now, my farm has a heavy clay soil, and I have been using a caustic lime, and the alfalfa has grown, I think we can say, successfully. There is one field from which we have taken three cuttings. Some of my neighbors have also used the lime out of the same car, and their fields have grown equally well. Now, would it be better to stop using the caustic lime on this particular kind of soil and use the ground limestone? There is an economic advantage, of course, in the cost of lime which I am anxious to get if we can use it. Professor Cromwell. Of course, if the caustic lime has been on the field long enough before your alfalfa bacteria get there, why there is no difference between caustic lime and ground limestone. It is only where you use it immediately before that I fear it. And yet I know of instances where people have plowed under heavy green crops and have gotten splendid results with caustic lime. But I think there are eight failures to one success with caustic lime used immediately before you sow the alfalfa. Did you do that? Mr. Harris. Perhaps in the light of what you say a further explanation is necessary. Our method of growing is to follow oats cut for green fodder with alfalfa, and the alfalfa seeding would take place, probably, not more than a week after the application of the lime, and we have seeded in that way with success, both myself and my neighbors. Question. Would you cut alfalfa that is affected with the leaf blight? Professor Cromwell. I certainly would cut it just as soon as I saw that the leaf blight was going to be serious. 162 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. No. 4. Mr. C. W. Prescott. In regard to what Professor Foord said about manuring, I would like to state that we have been growing alfalfa in Concord without any manure and got good crops on sand}- land. We have only had one field that has winterkilled badly. Grimm has gone through the winter much better than any of the others, but some of the imported Turkestans have gone through the winter just as well as the other seed from northern-grown sections. I don't think it is necessary to have manure in order to grow alfalfa, though of course you may get larger crops. Professor Foord. I think I ought to ask if there is any difference between Concord sand and Barnstable or Plymouth Countrs^ sand? Mr. Wheeler. The Concord sand is not so good. Professor Cromwell. I want to agree with Professor Foord, that every man should use manure. We had the driest June in forty-two years in 1914, the wettest July in fifty years, and the driest September and October in fifty-two years, — a very abnormal season. Probably that very wet July accounts for so much leaf spot this summer. That may not occur again for years. Professor Foord. I spoke of the Ontario-grown seed. If you get in touch with the representative of Welland County you will get in touch with the farmers there who are growing a variety which seems to me a pretty strong variety and stands the winter there, and I should think would stand the cold weather here. On motion of ]\Ir. Wheeler, a rising vote of thanks was tendered Professor Cromwell for his address. The session was then adjourned. SUMMER FIELD MEETING STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE LOWELL. June 24, 1914. SUMMER FIELD MEETING. The summer field meeting of the Board was held at the Hood Farm, Lowell, on June 24. About 600 farmers with their families who attended saw and heard an interesting program. In the forenoon Winthrop Fillebrown of Bryant- ville gave a demonstration of ditching and subsoiling with dynamite, and H. L. Frost of Arlington demonstrated summer spraying. There was also a stock judging contest and A. E. Briggs, Secretary of the Boston Fruit and Produce Exchange, spoke on '' Marketing Farm and Garden Products." At the afternoon session Professor F. C. Minkler of New Brunswick, New Jersey, gave a talk on "^'Profitable Pork Production," and Winthrop Fillebrown gave a demonstration on blasting stumps and rocks. A continuous demonstration of the Skinner Irrigation system, an exhibit of parcel post pack- ages and farm machinery, and the opportunity to see one of the best herds of Jersey cattle in the world, all added to the interest of the day. ECONOMIC BIOLOGY BULLETIN No. 1. RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE EDWARD HOWE FORBUSH, State Ornithologist. The Most Expensive Animal that Man Maintains ; Fore- runner of Famine, Disease, and Pestilence. Disseminator of the Dreaded Trichina and the TERRIBLE BU- BONIC PLAGUE or "BLACK DEATH," which has slain its miserable horror-stricken millions since the dawn of history, and now has spread to the United States. PREFATORY NOTES. It may be asked why the State Ornithologist should write a bulletin on rats. In reply to this it may be said that eco- nomic ornithologists as such are especially interested in the destruction of rats for two reasons: (1) rats are very destruc- tive to the eggs and young of birds, whether wild, captive or domesticated; (2) many people who have given up keeping cats because of bird-killing habits now wish to know how to get rid of rats. Hence, the suppression of rats becomes a problem for the economic ornithologist. In 1912 Mr. J. Lewis Ellsworth, then secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, deemed these reasons sufficient to propose the preparation and publication of a bulletin on rats and rat riddance. The proposition was en- thusiastically received by the members of the Board, the task naturally fell to the State Ornithologist, and here is the bulletin. In the experimental work undertaken during the last two years as a preparation for the publication of this bulletin thousands of rats have been destroyed. The exact number cannot be given, owing to the fact that chemical poisons and fumigants were used in some cases, and where such methods are utilized the exact number killed cannot be ascertained. The author takes pleasure in acknowledging his great in- debtedness to the excellent publications on rats issued by the Biological Survey of the United States Department of Agri- culture, and particularly to Professor David E, Lantz of the Sur- vey, the author of these and other rat papers, who has furnished many facts contained in this bulletin, for his kind assistance and for valuable information received from him personally. The author is equally indebted to the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States Treasury Depart- ment for valuable publications, to Surgeon-General Rupert 170 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Blue of that service for many courtesies, including the use of electrotypes; also to Assistant Surgeon-General William Colby Rucker and Surgeon Richard M. Creel for photographs, and to all these gentlemen and Passed Assistant Surgeon J. R. Hurley for valuable and authoritative information. The small line cuts illustrating this bulletin were made from pen fetches by Mr. Walt F. McMahon. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. " 171 RATS AND RxVT RIDDANCE. INTRODUCTION. With the lapse of ages the rat has become a parasite on man. It has developed into the greatest rodent pest ever known. It is far more destructive, directly or indirectly, to human life and property than any wild beast or venomous serpent. It appro- priates nearly everything that man eats, and drinks many of his beverages. It follows him with its baleful influence from the cradle to the grave. It destroys his poultry and molests his domesticated animals. It has been known to attack and mutilate infants, sleepers, the sick, aged and infirm. It is the forerunner of famine, pestilence and death. It carries the germs of disease. It infects man's ships and habitations with the dreaded plague; sets fire to his dwellings and ships, and ceases its ravages only when the house burns or the ship sinks. As if not satisfied with pursuing him through life, it follows him in death, desecrating and mutilating his mortal remains. It is the duty of all nations to take part in the destruction of this abominable pest. Dr. William Colby Rucker, Assistant Surgeon-General, Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States, says that we must work and we must teach, and so bring about an antipathy toward the rat greater than the present antipathy toward the snake. Also, we must inculcate the lesson that "the rat is the most expensive animal that man maintains," and that its suppression and control are as important from an economic as from a humanitarian stand- point. RAT HISTORY. House rats and mice came to America in ships from the Eastern Hemisphere. They belong to the old world genus Mus. The house mouse (A'his musculus) may be regarded as a small rat, as it has similar habits; the black rat {Mus raitus) is medium in size, and the brown, Norway or wharf rat iMus 172 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. norvegicus) now the common rat of New England, is the largest, sometimes reaching a length of nineteen inches, including the tail. I have seen one taken that weighed nineteen ounces, possibly they may grow much larger,^ but those commonly seen are smaller. In New England this species is by far the greatest pest of all. The house mouse reached New England soon after its settle- ment, and the black rat had become well established here early in the eighteenth century. From that time until long after the American Revolution it was the common house rat of America; but the arrival of the cannibal brown rat, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, doomed the black rat to ex- tirpation. Here, as in Europe, the latter was driven out by the former, and now the black rat is found only in small num- bers, and in regions remote from coasts and large cities. Black rats were common about 1870 in towns of central Worcester County, Massachusetts, where now they have been extinct for years, but there are still a few left in some interior towns. No one positively knows the native country of the brown rat. Probably it did not originate in Norway, Persia or India, as some writers have asserted, and it seems to have been un- known to early Europeans. It is said to be practically unknown in Persia, and is found in India mainly near the coast and on the navigable rivers. The black rat is far more widely dis- tributed in India than the brown rat. The latter probably is of Asiatic origin, and is said to have reached England from some eastern port about 1728, shortly after it had crossed the Russian frontier from Asia.^ RAT HABITS. The first step toward effective destruction of rats is a study of their habits and food. Rats appear to be naturally noc- turnal, as they move about readily in the dark, feeling and smelling their way along walls and into holes and passages. Their ears, noses, "whiskers" (vibrissce) and feet are very sen- ' The Field (London, Sept. 20, 1913, p. 666) records the weight of several much larger specimens, as follows: one, 1 pound 13 ounces; one, 1 pound 15 ounces; two, 2 pounds each; one, 2 pounds 8 ounces; and one, 2 pounds 12 ounces. No measurements arc given. The English climate must be extremely favorable to the development of the brown rat. 2 Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agr., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, pp. 11-13. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 173 sitive, and serve well to guide them in the dark, but if too closely pursued by nocturnal enemies they can easily change their habits, feeding in daylight and sleeping at night. The brown rat may be seen abroad at any hour, especially at morn- ing and evening. It never likes to go far from some hole or hiding place to which it can retreat at the first sign of danger, and if it has to cross wide fields, it prefers to go through bushes, grass or gtain, along some wall or fence, or through or near a ditch, where it can find shelter. In many cases it burrows in the earth in fields, either near water, where it goes to drink, or near its food supplies. Sometimes these burrows are used only as places in which to hide from its enemies, but it often lives all summer (and under some circumstances all winter) in burrows in well-drained banks of rivers or small streams, or along the shores of islands in the sea. The brown rat drinks large quantities of water, and must have water, snow, rain or dew in plenty at all times, hence its preference for banks of streams, ditches, pools and springs. Also it is perfectly at home in water, and can swim rapidly and easily for half a mile or more, and it dives and swims readily under water. It nests and rears its young in burrows in and under buildings and under rubbish piles, and there it also stores more or less food for use in times of want or danger. Rats live outdoors more in the south than in the north. In rural New England, especially where grain is grown, the brown rat lives chiefly in fields in summer and in and around buildings in winter. In villages and cities rats stay much about buildings all the year, but some migrate into the open in spring and return to the buildings in autumn. Rats migrate in large num- bers whenever food fails, crossing deserts and rivers that may lie in their path. Hunger thus accounts for the great invasions of rats that sometimes occur. It is a well-known fact that rats catch and eat mice, but they never can exterminate mice, for the same reason that cats cannot extirpate rats. Mice are so much smaller than rats that they can run into holes where the latter cannot follow. Therefore rats and mice are commonly found in the same buildings or fields. It is not generally known, however, that brown rats are cannibals. The adult male will search out and eat its own offspring; but, on the 174 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub, Doc. other hand, the female will defend her young gallantly. James Rodwell, in an interesting little volume on the rat, containing many facts and some exaggerations, tells of a battle between two rats that he witnessed. Numbers of their companions gathered from all directions. All waited until one was con- quered and dying, then fell upon both combatants like a pack of hungry wolves and tore them to pieces.^ It is a common occurrence for a rat caught and injured in a trap, but not killed outright, to be set upon and eaten by its companions. I have known of many such cases. The rat is a courageous animal and when cornered usually will face great odds in defense of its life, and fight to the last breath. Not all individuals, however, exhibit the same daunt- less courage. There is more difference in rats than appears as they run off. Dr. Richard H. Creel of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States has made some investi- gations into the habits of rats in their relation to antiplague measures. His investigations furnish useful information to those who wish to rid their premises of rats. Five full-grown brown rats were placed within a stockade made of galvanized iron, sunk three feet into the ground. The rats being confined forty-eight hours failed to burrow under the stockade. No burrow extended downward more than two and one-half feet. Black rats so confined made no attempt to burrow. The brown rat burrows with the greatest ease, even in the hardest packed ground, and has perforated walls of sundried brick held together by sand-and-lime mortar, in some cases actually piercing the body of the brick. The English Plague Com- mission credits the brown rat with ability to gnaw through brick or concrete, but it is incredible that it can penetrate properly prepared concrete after it once becomes well hardened. In one of Dr. Creel's experiments a brown rat, in an attempt to scale a stockade, jumped upward and outward a distance of seventeen inches. Black rats jumped upward two feet in their efforts to scale the stockade, and in one instance one of them, confined within a perfectly smooth galvanized-iron can two feet in depth, spiraled its way to the top by a series of 1 Rodwell, James, The Rat; its History and Destructive Character, 1858, p. 22. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 175 jumps, and escaped. Rats were unable to climb up the inner or outer corner of a concrete building. Three species — the brown rat, the black rat and the roof rat (Mus alexandrinus) — climbed a one-inch standpipe and a cocoanut tree with the greatest ease.^ Rats have been observed climbing on elevator ropes and cables to the upper stories of the highest buildings, and crossing from building to building on telephone wires. Many authors state that the brown rat is found mainly in the lower parts of buildings and that the black rat and the roof rat seek the upper floors. Nevertheless, black rats go into cellars and brown rats almost always explore the attics of houses, especially those which contain open water tanks; also they have been found in the upper stories of some high buildings. RAT FOOD. Rats, like all rodents, are fitted to feed on vegetable matter, grain, hard seeds, roots, nuts, etc., but in the course of time they have become practically omnivorous, eating almost any- thing edible, and gnawing many substances that have little or no food value. RAT FECUNDITY. Possibly no mammal pest is more prolific than the rat. The fabulous speed of its multiplication baffles all but the most efficient and determined attempts at extermination. Kolazy says that he kept two female white rats in confinement that produced twenty-six litters, or 180 young, within thirteen months. Rodwell says that the female brown rat, is believed to bring forth from six to eight litters yearly; but estimating » Creel, Richard H., Public Health Reports, Vol. 28, No. 9, Feb. 28, 1913, pp. 382-385. 176 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. that a pair produces only four litters, six in each litter, each rat living three years, he figures that in that time the progeny of one pair would be 651,050.^ In temperate latitudes the brown rat is now known to breed from three to five times each year, bringing forth from six to twenty young each time. Assuming that the animal breeds but three times a year, and produces on the average ten young at each period. Prof. David E. Lantz estimates that with no deaths the number at the end of the third year would reach 20,155,392 individuals.^ Dr. William Colby Rucker, Assistant Surgeon-General, United States Public Health Service, computes the theoretical increase of a pair of rats for five years at 940,369,969,152.^ It is hardly necessary to say that such results as these could not occur in nature, but these figures indicate the immense possibilities of this pest under favorable circumstances. Let mankind rejoice that rats are cannibals. RAT NUMBERS AND DESTRUCTIVENESS. If an exact census of the rats in the United States could be taken, their numbers probably would be beyond belief. Few people realize how many rats infest their premises. Possibly there are none in some localities, but there are very many more in existence than ever are seen by human eyes. The number varies from a few pairs on some well-cared-for estates to hundreds in ratty tenements and farm buildings, and thousands on ill-protected farms and country estates. Rats come and go mysteriously in some localities. There are some large areas in the country where very little grain is raised or used, or where for some other reason rats are not numerous; other regions swarm with them. Farmers or householders, when interrogated, usually admit that they have a few rats. Careful investigation, however, sometimes shows that the farmer suffers an annual loss, equal perhaps to his taxes, be- cause of the grain eaten or wasted by rats in the fields and stolen from his fowls, cattle, horses and hogs, from his stored unthreshed grain, or from barrels and bags in barns or store- » Rodwell, Jaifles, The Rat, 1858, pp. 167, 168. 2 Lantz, David E.. U. S. Dept. Agr., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, p. 16. ' Treas. Dept., Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv. of U. S., The Rat and its Relation to the Public Health, by various authors, 1910, p. 153. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 177 houses, to say nothing of the toll taken from fruit, vegetables, poultry, eggs and other food. I have visited livery stables the proprietors of which believed that they had but few rats, but careful observation showed that considerable sums were lost yearly through unnoticed thefts perpetrated by numerous rodents that nightly entered the open, unprotected or carelessly closed grain bins, and daily fed in the mangers with the horses. These gentlemen relied on wandering cats that had taught the rats to keep out of sight. Rats are numerous in cities and villages, particularly in grocery, provision and grain stores, warehouses and grain mills, and many proprietors of these places practically have given up trying to repress them, and have resigned themselves to serious losses. Rats multiply most rapidly if well fed, sheltered and little molested. They find favorable conditions on farms where grain is grown. In 1901 a country estate of 2,000 acres near Chichester, England, was so badly infested by rats that 31,981 were killed within five years, under the supervision of the owner, and it was estimated that the tenants, while threshing the grain, had killed 5,000 more.^ In Jamaica in one year 38,000 rats were killed on one plan- tation.^ Farm holdings in England often were, and still are, badly infested. Rodwell says that a boy in Shropshire killed 630 rats in about four months, and it was computed that there were at least 1,260 rats on this farm of 280 acres. On another farm, of 400 acres, when the barn was emptied, after the threshing, over 1,400 rats were killed, and numbers escaped into drains and rabbit holes. On another place, of 180 acres, a boy was employed with six or eight traps, who caught five or six rats each night during the winter months, and at the emptying of one barn 800 more were killed, making in all 1,340 rats. On an estate, of 330 acres, 1,095 rats were said to have been killed during the year. A rat catcher of jNIiddlesex, with two ferrets, killed in one barn about 250 rats in one day, and more than 200 were killed there the next day. On another farm he caught 1 The Field (London), Vol. 100, Sept. 27, 1902, p. 545. » New Eng. Farmer, Vol. 12, 1834, p. 315. 178 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. over 150 rats alive in a small grain rick. Many more were killed and many escaped. A farmer killed more than 700 rats by surrounding a rick with boards and attacking them Vvith a dog.^ * Buckland says that an official report from the French gov- ernment asserts that the proprietor of a slaughterhouse killed 16,050 rats in one month. Rats are very numerous in this country. In Maryland, in 1832 a farmer and his men and dogs killed 217 brown rats from one stack of rye.^ At The Farm and Trades School at Thompson's Island, in Boston Harbor, a farm of about one hun- dred and fifty acres, in one day I counted over 800 rat burrows in the fields and along the shores. This was after many rats had been destroyed and a large number of holes closed. Later, about 1,300 rat holes were found open and rats were numerous also in som.e of the buildings. The pupils of the school pre- viously had caught in traps about 200 rats a month. From June 6 to August 13, 1913, 572 were caught, but this trapping alone hardly kept down the natural increase. Professor Lantz states that a farmer at Grand River, Iowa, had about 2,000 bushels of corn in three cribs, and that the rats ate and destroyed about one-fourth of the corn. At that time the farmer was poisoning and trapping rats, having killed as many as 300 in two days. The rats ruined more than enough corn to pay taxes on 400 acres of land.^ The Moline, Illinois "Evening JNIail" of April 25, 1904, states that Mr. F. U. Mont- gomery of Preemption, Mercer County, killed 3,435 rats on his farm. Most of these were caught in traps, between INIarch 20 and April 20, 1904. In a letter written to Dr. C. Hart Merriam by Mr. Alfred Chisholm of Savannah, it is asserted that on two rice plantations in Georgia 47,000 rats were killed during the v.inter and spring of one year.'* Practically all ships have rats, and their numbers increase enormously, despite the cats which are kept on shipboard to destroy them. The losses to ship stores and cargoes by rats are tremendous. The British man-of-war "Valiant" had so many rats aboard in 1776 that they destroyed more than 100 » Rodwell, James, The Rat, 1858, pp. 151-156. 2 Amer. Turf Reg., Vol. 3, Aug., 1832, p. 632. > Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agr., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, p. 20. * Ibid., p. 21. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 179 pounds of bread daily. The ship was fumigated, and six hampers were filled every day for some time with dead rats.^ Surgeon William C. Hobdy relates that the British steamer "Gadsby" on a voyage of twenty-nine days had 44,000 out of 46,000 bags of wheat in her cargo cut by rats, with an estimated damage of ^2,200. He says also that a small vessel (260 tons) was fumigated in San Francisco, after which 310 rats were picked up dead, — • "a barrelful and seven." On another larger vessel, fumigated some years earlier at Bombay, 1,300 rats were destroyed at one time, and the steamship " Minnehaha," fumigated at London, England, in May, 1901, yielded 1,700.^ Organized eft'orts to destroy rats have been made in various countries, and the numbers killed give some indication of rat abundance. In 1904 at Folkstone, England, the corporation employees, with the help of dogs, in three days killed 1,645 rats.^ A rat hunt at New Burlington, Ohio, November 26, 1866, yielded over 8,000 rats. In this hunt sides were chosen, as at a spelling bee, and the beaten party gave a dinner to the winners.^ A sparrow club in Kent, England, secured the destruction of 28,000 sparrows and 16,000 rats in three seasons by expending £6 (§29.20) in prizes.^ An international asso- ciation for the destruction of rats in Denmark succeeded in getting a government appropriation for its work, under which 1,141,293 rats were killed during the first year, ending July 1, 1908.^ In Copenhagen 103,000 rats were destroyed in eighteen weeks. In seven years 711,797 were killed in Stockholm.^ In the work done in American cities to check the bubonic plague great numbers of rats have been killed, although no correct count of them could be obtained, as both traps and poisons were used, but in the first four months about 130,000 were destroyed in San Francisco. In the early months of 1908, up to ]May, 278,000 were captured, and it was estimated that 500,000 had been poisoned. In a report of the Indian Famine ' Rodwell, James, The Rat, 1858, p. 164. 2 Treas. Dept., Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv. of U. S., The Rat and its Relation to the Public Health, by various authors, 1310, pp. 208, 209. » The Field (London), Vol. 104, July 16, 1904, p. 98. * Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agr., Biol. Surv. Bull. .33, 1909, p. 51. s Jour. Bd. of Agri., Gt. Britain, Vol. 9, 1902, p. 342. * Jour. Inc. Soc. for Destruction of Vermin, Vol. 1, Oct., 1908, p. 32. ' Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agr., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, p. 53. 180 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. Commission, presented to the British ParHament in 1881, it was stated that a plague of rats infested the Southern Deccan and Mahratta Districts, that rewards were paid for the destruc- tion of the vermin, and that over 12,000,000 were killed.^ In all these cases the number of rats killed may be regarded merely as an indication of the number in existence. No one knows how many escaped. Enough has been recorded here to give some idea of the enormous numbers of rats that infest the world, and we may next turn to a consideration of their destructiveness. Farmers assert that when rats become numerous the injury to crops passes all bounds. They sometimes swarm in grain fields. Corn fields are absolutely ruined by them. They climb the stalks and strip the cobs clear of grain. I have seen much corn destroyed by them in this manner, and Professor Lantz avers that he has seen whole fields thus ruined. A writer in the "American Agriculturist" says that rats destroyed three- fonrths of the corn on thirteen acres of land.^ Rats usually eat only the softer part of the kernel, wasting most of it. Sweet corn is a favorite grain. It may not be commonly known that rats often dig up seeds which have been planted, and in this way they may become more destructive than crows, squirrels, pheasants or marmots. On Thompson's Island the corn on more than two acres was destroyed in this way in the spring of 1913. There are no squirrels, no pheasants and no woodchncks on the island and crows do not breed there. Ordinarily rats do not trouble peas or beans, but they have been known to dig up quantities of the planted seed and to attack peas and beans, both stacked on farms and stored in Boston warehouses. Large portions of the crops of wheat, rye, barley, oats, etc., are taken by rats and mice in the fields, and when unthreshed grain is stored in barns or ricks rats swarm to it, and if left to themselves they destroy most of the grain. They take large toll from the rice planter and the sugar planter. Enormous quantities of corn and feed stuffs are eaten by rats, a little at a time, in granaries, feed stores, stables, barns and poultry houses. They are fond of malt, and cause the brewers great loss. Great quantities of 1 British Med. Jour., Sept. 16, 1905, p. 623. * Amer. Agricvilturist, Vol. 33, 1874, p. 300. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 181 flour and meal in bags are eaten by them, and much more ruined or depreciated in quahty by the filth which they dis- tribute. While trapping rats in a dwelling house I found stored in the barn twenty twenty-five-pound bags once filled with flour, nearly all of which had been eaten or ruined by rats. Small fruits disappear mysteriously, and birds that are known to eat them receive the blame; in many cases rats are the culprits. Rats, like squirrels, can climb bush, tree or vine. Unlike squirrels, rats work mainly in the night and escape notice, but they have been seen taking fruit from trees in daylight. Dr. L. O. Howard, Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture, records the fact that in a single afternoon he shot 28 rats from the branches of a cherry tree in Washington, District of Columbia. Rats have been seen to steal cherries in England, and both the black rat and the roof rat are shot in large numbers from the branches of fruit trees and other trees in the south. Capt. R. R. Raymond, United States Army, asserts that at West Point, New York, when visiting some cherry trees he frequently met rats in the trees on the same errand as himself.^ Fruits and vegetables, when stored in buildings and cellars, are attacked by rats. Quantities of grapes, oranges, bananas, figs, dates and cocoanuts, and pods of cocoa from which choc- olate is manufactured, are ruined by them. Grapes grown under glass especially are subject to attack. Massachusetts farmers report destruction of apples and potatoes in their cellars in quantities, aggregating hundreds of barrels. Rats are very destructive to tomatoes at times and to melons and squashes, which they appear to gnaw into mainly to obtain the seed, thus ruining far more than they actually destroy. Vegetables and fruits in transit on railroads and steamboats and in freight houses are eaten. Rats destroy cucumbers, sweet potatoes and grapefruit in this way. Rats eat seeds, bulbs, stems and leaves of flowering plants. Florists' green- houses are invaded by them. Tulips seem to be their favorite bulbs, and there are many tales of the loss of quantities of tulips; hundreds of bulbs are sometimes destroyed by rats ' Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agr., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, p. 24. 182 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. in a single night. Rats destroy pinks (carnations) and roses, of which they seem to be particularly fond; also hyacinths and chrysanthemums. Many growers have had their choicest flowers ruined by them. Rats are fond of meats of all kinds and devour them wherever they can be found. The injury begins at the slaughtering es- tablishment. Most slaughterhouses are infested with hordes of rats, which live on blood and offal and attack the meat when- ever an opportunity offers. No meat of any kind is safe unless kept in rat-proof refrigerators. Rats get access to the meat in some of the lower class markets and sometimes destroy a con- siderable quantity in a single night. Pantries, larders and cellars, wherever meat or game is kept, are raided by rats at every opportunity, and the loss from this source is very great. Rats gnaw into butter tubs, excavate and honeycomb fine cheeses, and consume and ruin more or less milk and cream. They drink and contaminate human beverages of many kinds if left uncovered, sometimes even gnawing into casks of wine or cider. The complaints regarding the ravages of rats among poultry are pathetic. In some years 50 per cent, of all the chicks and ducklings hatched in certain neighborhoods are killed by rats, and occasionally a single poultryman loses hundreds of chicks by them. Rats often rob hens' nests as soon as the eggs are laid, carrying the eggs away without breaking them, so that a great part of the loss is never even suspected. Pigeons' eggs and young are just as readily taken as those of the larger fowls, as rats are very skillful in climbing for them. When it is considered that the annual product of eggs and poultry from the farms of the United States considerably exceeds $500,000,000 in value, it will be seen how serious a loss rats may cause to this industry, and to the middlemen and retailers as well. Professor Lantz tells of a commission merchant in Washing- ton, District of Columbia, who lost 71^ dozen eggs by rats from a tub in which 100 dozen had been nailed up. The loss of young chicks and eggs is not the only poultry loss suffered by poultrymen and dealers. According to Dr. Bos, rats have been known to bite flesh from living fowls, ^ and I Bos, J. R., Agricultural Zoology, 1894, p. 39. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 183 some writers have asserted that rats can and do kill full-grown fowls. Rodwell avers that in a short time he lost by rats all his rabbits, guinea pigs, pigeons, and a large " setting " hen and her complement of eggs, and he mentions other instances where full-grown fowls and ducks were believed to have been killed and partially eaten by rats.^ Dr. Brehm says that Las Casas tells us that on the night of June 26, 1816, the rats ate all the provisions in Napoleon's house on St. Helena leaving him and his companions break- fastless, for poultry keeping had been abandoned because rats ate the fowls, even stealing them from their roosts in the trees.^ I have doubted that it was possible for rats to kill full-grown fowls, but recently have secured corroborative evidence from poultrymen. Mr. C. H. Bradley, superintendent of The Farm and Trades School at Thompson's Island, says that rats have gnawed the flesh from living turkeys at the farm, attacking them near the tail or eating out part of the breast. Some recovered, others died, and he has lost hens in the same way. Miss Florence E. Curtis writes from Whitman, Massachusetts, that rats kill her hens by eating off their heads at night, and Brew- ster and Dupuy assert that rats kill chickens, ducks, geese, partridges and the like, overcoming them, in spite of their size, by one deft bite through the neck.^ Mr. John B. King of Newbury port says that so long as rats can get a plentiful supply of grain they will not touch the poultry, but he says that his neighbor, Mr. Frank E. Silloway, who raises partridge cochins, has lost ten hens and one cock, averaging about eight pounds in weight, and that another neighbor has lost several brahmas in the same way. The rat usually gets the fowl by the head, and is thus enabled to hang on until the bird is dead, or it bites it through the neck (some old rats are very skillful at this); then the flesh on the head and neck is commonly devoured first, or the brains are eaten out. Mr. King says that at one time when he was breeding brown leghorns and keeping his grain in a rat-proof box, he frequently 1 Rodwell, James, The Rat, 185S, pp. 74, 76. 2 Brehm, Alfred Edmund, Life of Animals, 1896, p. 334. ' Dupuy, Wm. Atherton, and Brewster, Edwin Tenney, McClure's Magazine, May, 1910, Our Duel with the Rat, p. 69. 184 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. found the heads of some of his fowls mangled and bloody in the morning. Finally he found one dead, and one eye and the side of the face eaten off. Mr. Bradford A. Scudder tells me that Mr. Henry W. Walker, a neighbor, told him that within the past six months more than a dozen of his hens had been killed or seriously injured by rats. The dropping board was close below the perch, and some of the hens were attacked in the abdomen. Others were killed apparently by a bite through the neck, and their brains were eaten out. He believes that this was the work of rats, as no other animal could have gotten at the chickens in that place. In August, 1914, I visited the heath hen reservation main- tained by the Massachusetts Commissioners on Fisheries and Game on Martha's Vineyard, and there saw the body of a young Canada goose, fully fledged, that, according to the statement of Mr. William Day, the deputy commissioner in charge, had been killed by rats in the night. The head had been eaten off and the neck stripped of flesh. Later, the rats ate out much of the carcass, as may be seen by the illustration. In this case as well as that of the hens and turkeys at Thompson's Island, the circumstances were such that apparently no other animal than the rat could have been responsible. Rod well says that rats found an entrance to an aviary con- taining 366 birds and killed 355 of them in one night.^ Rats are very destructive to wild birds. A very large percent- age of the eggs of bullfinches, linnets, and other small birds are said to be eaten by them in England,^ Mr. C. H. Bradley, super- intendent of The Farm and Trades School on Thompson's Island, tells me that he and his family, hearing distressed cries from a robin's nest at twilight, saw a rat that had climbed to the nest and was eating the young birds. It is a well-known fact that rats destroy the eggs and young of ground-nesting birds. Rats sometimes exterminate colonies of sea birds. A few years ago a ship was wrecked on an island oft' the Maine coast, which was at that time the resort and breeding place of great num- bers of terns. Rats that came ashore from the wreck multi- plied exceedingly and destroyed or drove away all the sea birds 1 Rodwell, James, The Rat, 1858, pp. 69, 70. 2 The Spectator (London), Vol. 95, Oct. 21, 1905, p. 604. PLATE I. The carcass of a young Canada goose, fully fledged, killed and largely eaten by rats at the Heath Hen Reservation at Martha's Vineyard, maintained by the Massachusetts Com- mission on Fisheries and Game. The head had been gnawed off and the neck stripped of flesh. (Original photograph ) No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANXE. 185 breeding on the island. Many such instances have been noted on islands in various parts of the world. The rat often becomes the most serious pest of the game preserve and the zoological park; it destroys not only the food of birds and mammals, but the birds and their eggs and the young of mammals also. Many a gamekeeper finds rats more destructive to his young birds than hawks, owls, cats, foxes and all other so-called vermin put together. Rat depredations are attributed often to other animals; the skunk, weasel and mink are commonly blamed when the rat is the culprit. The eggs and young of pheasants, bobwhites and ducks are its common prey. Rats sometimes kill and eat young pigs. Dr. Brehm says that rats sometimes eat holes into the bodies of very fat swine, and that they eat the webs from between the toes of closely penned geese. Gilbert White asserts that rats ate away portions of the feet of an elephant in the London Zoological Gardens while the creature slept. The rats were destroyed and the elephant was put into a new house, where it recovered, but Brehm says that Hagenbeck, the dealer in animals, had three young African elephants killed by rats; the rats attacked the soles of their feet and gnawed through them.^ This seems almost incredible, and it is always questionable whether some of the birds and animals supposedly killed in the night were not dead or dying before they were molested by the rats. The boldness of rats, however, is well known. Craig says that they will gnaw the feet of sleeping dogs and nibble the hoofs of stabled horses.^ This is corroborated by Kane, and recent instances of hoof gnawing are reported. Rats confer some slight benefit on man by killing and eating rats, mice, some few insects, some carrion, offal and garbage and a great deal of sewage, but the benefits derived from rats are slight, indeed, compared with the injury that they do. Rats damage property in many ways. They cause the decay of sills, floor timbers and floors by bringing up moist soil in contact with them, thus making conditions favorable for tim- ber-destroying ants. They injure the timbers of buildings by 1 Brehm, Alfred Edmund, Life of Animals, 1896, p. 334. - Craig, Hugh, The Animal Kingdom, 1897, Vol. 2, p. 689. 186 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. gnawing them away in order to make passages into or through the walls. They sometimes even gnaw off the corners of hard bricks when such are in the way of their passage. They gnaw almost any building material except the very hardest brick, concrete, cement, glass and iron. They have been known to gnaw through zinc drain pipes and lead water and beer pipes, often causing flooding of buildings and great loss. They have compelled the manufacture of iron gas pipes, which formerly were made of softer material. There are indications that some- times lead pipes are gnawed to secure water, but this cannot be the case with gas pipes, which are more likely to be severed when the rats attempt to enlarge the holes through which such pipes pass. They drill through .flooring and plastering, un- Miscellaneous damage. dermine foundations and concrete floors, and ruin drains. They injure the planks and timbers of wooden ships, and although they are said never to gnaw through the planks so as to cause a leak, they have no doubt greatly weakened the fabric of many vessels, and perhaps have been responsible for the loss of some by water as well as by fire. They injure furniture, destroy mattresses, upholstery, matting and carpets; steal and hide in their holes jewelry and other valuable articles; destroy cloth, bagging, clothmg, books, silk hosiery, silk handkerchiefs, towels, napkins and other dry goods, letters, skins of birds and mammals, felting, wifls, deeds, drawings and other valuable papers; injure stored goods; eat labels off shoe boxes and other cartons, and injure packages of all kinds that are fastened with paste or glue. In a store in Washington, District of Columbia, they destroyed fifty dozen brooms worth $125. In another they broke $500 worth of fine china in a night, knocking it from the shelves. A restaurant lost $30 monthly in table linen, and a hotel $15 No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 187 in linen in one month. They gnaw ivory, shoes, gloves, leather and rubber goods in stores; ruin harnesses; strip paper labels from canned goods, and even eat manufactured feather goods in the millinery stores. They destroy mail sacks and their contents. I talked with a clerk in a large clothing emporium who told me that the firm had employed a man regularly as a rat catcher for two years, but that rats were still so numerous that they ruined about one suit of clothes nightly. Rats kill trees by undermining and gnawing their roots. They burrow into and undermine dams, dikes and levees, often causing breaks and serious losses. They cause much damage to all fish hatcheries and fish ponds w^iere food fishes are arti- ficially propagated, for there they gnaw through wooden tanks, burrow into the embankments and destroy quantities of fish which they catch and eat. About the year 1616 rats caused a two years' famine in Bermuda. They were considered largely responsible for a famine in India following the year 1879, and became so numer- ous on the Island of Mauritius that the Dutch were compelled to abandon it.^ Rat Incendiarism. Fires are attributed commonly to rats and matches. Rats are attracted by the phosphorus contained in matches, or by the paraffin in which some manufac- turers of matches dip their goods. Matches have been found in rat nests, and in one case at least a , ^ J? 1 1 • 1 1 1 l_ The incendiary. nest was found which had been set fire by such a match which nearly caused a fire on Her Majesty's ship "Revenge."^ Rats' winter nests are made commonly in buildings, between walls and near chimneys, where it is often very hot. The nests are built of dry and inflammable material. When rats take matches to these nests fire is very likely to result, either from the friction of the rats' teeth or from the heat, which readily ignites matches containing a large percentage of phosphorus. 1 Lantz, David E.,Treas. Dept., Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv. of U. S., The Rat and its Relation to the Public Health, by various authors, 1910, p. 223. 2 Hardwicke's Science Gossip, Vol. 5, 1869, p. 142. 188 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. It is believed that a considerable proportion of the great loss of life and property by fire in the United States is due to rats alone, for the foregoing is not by any means the only way in which they set fires. Fires in mills have been traced to the spontaneous ignition of oily rags and cotton waste carried under floors by rats and mice. Gas explosions and resultant fires have been caused by rats eating away lead pipes leading to gas meters, and human lives have been put in jeopardy through the leaking of gas from this cause even when no fire resulted. Rats often gnaw away the insulation from electric wires, and in recent years this has become probably the most fruitful cause of city fires that can be attributed to rats. In- surance companies a few years ago estimated the fire loss in the United States due to defective insulation of wires at $15,000,000 yearly, a large part of which is directly due to the depredations of rats.^ No doubt the annual loss from this source has increased rather than diminished. The Cost of keeping Rats. The cost of keeping rats has been variously computed. The annual upkeep per rat is estimated by the Incorporated Society for the Destruction of Vermin (British) at $1.80 in Great Britain, $1.20 in Denmark, and $1 in France. Surgeon R. H. Creel of the United States Public Health Service estimates one-half cent a day ($1.82 a year) as a con- servative figure of the cost of keeping a rat in the United States;^ and this seems very reasonable as it barely exceeds the estimate for Great Britain. At this rate a farmer or stable keeper who keeps 50 rats loses $91 yearly, and he who main- tains 100 rats loses $182 annually. It is a poor farm that can- not sustain 50 to 100 rats. Professor Lantz says that the average quantity of grain con- sumed by a full-grown rat is fully two ounces a day, and that a half-grown rat eats nearly as much as an adult. If fed on grain, therefore, a rat eats 45 to 50 pounds a year, worth about 60 cents in wheat or $1.80 to $2 in oatmeal. If fed on modern "denatured" cereals in packages, such as are used in our 1 Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agri., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, p. 28. 2 Creel, Richard H., U. S. Public Health Reports, Vol. 28, No. 27, July 4. 1913, p. 1405. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 189 households, the cost of maintaining a rat is greatly increased, and if fed on beefsteak, young chickens or squabs, the cost would be still greater. Hotel and restaurant keepers have esti- mated $5 as a conservative statement of the cost to them of keeping a rat a year. In addition to this, the injury that they do to property of other kinds is sometimes greater than that done to food supplies. Estimates of the amounts of losses from rats in foreign countries have been published. In Den- mark they have been reported to amount to 15,000,000 francs, or $3,000,000 yearly. In France the total losses from rats and mice in 1904 were estimated at 200,000,000 francs, or nearly $40,000,000. The German Ministry of Agriculture states that through the agency of the rat the people of Germany suffer an annual loss of at least 200,000,000 marks or $50,000,000. Sir James Crichton-Browne, of the English Incorporated Society for the Destruction of Vermin, asserts that the damage done by the rat to agriculture and rural communities alone in Great Britain and Ireland equals £15,000,000, or about $73,000,- 000 per annum. This takes no account of the injury done in towns or in connection with shipping.^ Professor Lantz estimates that the cities of the United States lose $35,000,000 annually from the depredations of rats. He says that if the number of rats supported by people of the United States were equal only to the number of domestic animals on the farms, the minimum cost of feeding them grain would be upwards of $100,000,000 a year. If we were to take the estimate of Surgeon Creel, that the depredations of a rat cost one-half cent each day, or $1.82 per year, and assume that there are only as many rats in the country as there are people (on the basis that the population of this country is now in round numbers 100,000,000), the rat would cost the people of the United States $182,000,000 a year. Any estimate of this kind must be largely guesswork, but a great indirect tax is not included in the above estimate, that is, the cost of the fight against the rat. No account can be had of the enormous sum paid for traps, poisons and rat catchers, the expense of fumi- gating steamships and rat-proofing buildings. The loss of rents is a serious item, as tenants are not infrequently driven out 1 Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agri., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, p. 19. 190 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. when rats become so numerous as to disturb their sleep and destroy their property. Professor Lantz speaks of an entire block of houses which remained untenanted for months because they were rat infested, and the owners lost yearly $2,000 in rent. I have known cases where tenants have left homes for this reason. The keeping of rats in city or country is extremely expensive from all points of view. All the above indictment of the rat refers only to the prop- erty that it destroys, and does not take into consideration its effect on the public health. It remains now to consider how it menaces not only man's property, but his health and his very life. THE RAT MENACE TO HUMAN LIFE AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH. Many accounts have been published of rats attacking human beings. A great number of such tales might be collected, but it would serve no good purpose. The old story of Bishop Hatto, who shut himself up in a stone tower to avoid the swarming rats that later found an entrance and devoured him, is perhaps one of the earliest of these tales. There are many narratives in print regarding the death of elderly, infirm or mtoxicated persons, and prisoners in dun- geons, who were supposed to have been killed and partially devoured by rats; also tales of sleepers, especially infants, attacked by them and seriously injured or killed. Naturalists add to these tales. Buffon says that dying persons, prisoners and children in the cradle have been gnawed by rats. Water- ton tells of a woman who was bitten on the shoulder while asleep. Jardine speaks of brown rats attacking people and mutilating infants. Buckland tells of a man attacked by rats, an infant killed by them, and the corpse of a pauper terribly mutilated by them in the morgue. Rodwell tells of children in the cradle having fingers eaten, toes, faces and necks lacerated, etc., some of whom died, apparently from the effects of such mutilation or from infection.^ Newspaper reporters make the most of any occurrence of this nature, though usually it may have little foundation in fact. While it is true that rats will > Rodwell, Jamas. The Rat, 1858, pp. 52-57. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDx\NCE. 191 fight savagely when cornered, and may inflict infectious wounds, as I know from personal experience, the cases where they make unprovoked attacks on human beings are rare. Under some circumstances a swarm of hungry rats might attack a man in the dark, but probably most of the narratives of such occur- rences are much overdrawn. Nevertheless, it is true that sleepers, particularly infants, have been bitten, and in some cases such attacks may have resulted fatally from infection carried on the teeth of the rat. This constitutes a real though rather remote danger which should be guarded against. I have investigated the cases of three persons, now living, who have been bitten by rats while asleep, — one while an infant, the other two in youth. The chairman of a city board of health still bears scars on his forehead, the result of such an attack, but the most recent fatal occurrence of this kind that has come to my notice is that of a newly born infant. This child was born to Mrs. Frank W. Silver of 57 Clovelly Street, Lynn, at a hospital, on the morning of September 5, 1914. During the next night the nurse left for a time the room in which the baby lay, heard the child cry and hurrying back saw a rat jump from the bed. The infant's head was bleeding and it died at about 3 a.m. September 8. One of the Boston papers contained a long account of the occurrence, in which it asserted that District Attorney Henry C. Attwill had ordered an autopsy to determine the cause of death. A few days later an item appeared, part of which follows: — Lynn, September 11. — That the death at a hospital Tuesday of the two-day-old infant of Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Silver of 57 Clovelly Street was due to the bite of a rat was the conclusion reached to-day by Med- ical Examiner Magrath of Boston, who made a pathological examination of the organs of the infant. After hearing from Dr. Magrath, Medical Examiner O'Shea signed the death certificate, and attributed the death to poisoning, resulting from the rat bite. The only error in this item seems to be the statement that the child was but two days old. It was nearly three days old. In order to determine whether the newspaper reports were warranted by facts, I wrote to Dr. O'Shea, who kindly sent me a statement of the findings of the medical examiner at the 192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. autopsy, which showed that the child's skull had been pene- trated by the rat's teeth, which had not, however, reached the brain. The internal organs examined were infected. The anatomical diagnosis was "streptococcus septicaemia." Dr. O'Shea says : — From the fact that the autopsy and microscopical and bacteriological examinations revealed nothing other than the presence of streptococcus sepsis to which the child's death could be attributed, together with the absolute knowledge of the rat bite, it seems reasonable to give the latter as the primary cause of death in this case. In reply to another letter, Dr. George Burgess Magrath, medical examiner, northern district, Suffolk County, who per- formed the autopsy, writes as follows: — In reply to your letter of September 25 I beg to state that the child in question died from streptococcus septica?mia about two and a half days subsequently to infection of the scalp, presumably and evidently caused by rat bite. Although the incidence of the septica?mia was quite rapid, I have no doubt that it was in consequence of the injury specified. The term "rat poisoning," which you use, I am not familiar with; I assume it to be co-ordinate with septicaemia. This occurrence should warn all hospital authorities to keep their premises clear of rats. I happen to know that at least one hospital is infested, and there may be others. On the other hand, the unreasonable fear of rats exhibited by many people is ridiculous. Some women go into hysterics at the sight of a rat, and there are tales of people made tem- porarily insane by contact with the creatures. The bite of the rat is not always and perhaps not often infectious. In my own case it was followed by inflammation, suppuration and pain, which }_lasted many days, after which there was no further inconvenience. Dr. Horder, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, reported three cases of a disease, previously undescribed, which he called rat-bite fever. Having been bitten by a rat, each patient, after an incubation period of three or four weeks, suffered in- flammation of the lymph channels in the tissues about the bite, accompanied by malaise, anorexia and fever. Hard, reddened patches appeared distributed over the skin, and tender swellings No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 193 of the muscles. The attack lasted a few days or a week, and was followed by similar attacks at intervals of from three to ten days. These intermittent symptoms in some cases extended through several months.^ The most serious indictment against the rat is the destruction of human lives caused by it as a carrier of diseases fatal to mankind. The deadly bubonic plague is com- municated to man mainly by the rat flea. The infection is conveyed from rat to rat, and from rat to man solely by the rat flea. The conclu- Germs. sions of the India Plague Commission have proved this. There is some reason to believe that certain Asiatic marmots carry the bacillus and some Asiatic and American squirrels have been infected, but the chief distributing agent is the rat. Professor Lantz states that within a dozen years there were 5,000,000 deaths from the plague in India, and in 1897 the plague de- stroyed 1,200,000 natives of that country. By the year 1908, the present pandemic of the disease, which started in China in 1S94, had invaded every continent and secured a foothold in 51 countries. Already (1914) it has reached the United States in Hawaii, San Francisco, Seattle, Porto Rico and New Orleans. With the increase in traffic at the port of Boston, there is con- stant danger that it may be brought here by ship-borne rats. Probably no seaport is now safe from this pestilence, and the only known method of combating it is to isolate all patients and to extirpate rats. In the campaigns against the rat, build- ings have been razed and burned, and all ships in infected ports have been fumigated to destroy rats, and many people have been engaged in 5<^ hunting, trapping and poisoning them. This infection does not persist in the Ptomaines. •! i c i i • i soil and a case or bubonic plague in man is not in itself infectious. The nonepidemic season is bridged over mainly by acute plague in the rat. Where there are no rats there are no rat fleas, and, therefore, there is no plague.^ Trichinosis among swine, a dreaded disease fatal to human life, is disseminated mainly by the rat. Trichinae are minute 1 Treadwell, A. L., The New International Year Book, 1910, p. 622. 2 Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agri., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, 1909, p. 31. 194 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. internal parasites, and the only two farm animals known to be infested by them are the hog and the rat. The disease in hogs is caused by eating trichinous rats or trichinous pork. Country slaughterhouses, where rats are abundant, are among the chief sources of trichinous pork, w^hich if not thoroughly cooked, communicates the disease to the person who eats it. Rats are subject to many intestinal worms and other internal parasites, and also to a kind of leprosy. Fatal so-called "septic pneu- monia" is said to result sometimes from drinking water from wells where rats have been drowned.^ Rats are disseminators of the germs of many diseases, be- cause of their habits of frequenting privies, drains and sewers for the food they find there. Ptomaines are likely to be con- veyed to human food in this manner. Rats are numerous in slums and hovels where malignant and loathsome diseases flourish, and so undoubtedly they convey infections to other localities by contact with food or food receptacles. Medical men and municipal boards of health are beginning to take cognizance of the rat as a dangerous agent in the dissemination of common diseases of both children and adults, but to what extent, if any, this animal distributes the seeds of typhoid and scarlet fevers, diphtheria and other malignant diseases, re- mains for future study to determine. CIRCUMSTANCES FAVORABLE TO THE MULTIPLICATION OF RATS AND THEIR APPEARANCE IN LARGE NUM- BERS. Rats can increase rapidly in numbers only under the most favorable conditions. As hereinbefore stated, a sudden influx of rats may usually be accounted for by a sudden scarcity of food somewhere, followed by migration. Rats naturally turn first to vegetable food, such as nuts and seeds. Certain seeds seem to be preferred by most rats to all other food, and where- ever such nourishment is plentiful, rats multiply rapidly. Plagues of rats occur in Brazil after the bamboo blooms. This great plant matures, produces its seed and dies, at intervals of several years, and according to Mr. Herbert H. Mercer the 1 The Spectator (London), Vol. 95, Oct. 21, 1895, p. 604. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 195 species most abundant in Brazil lives about thirty years. The seeding is not simultaneous with all plants, but lasts about five years, more and more canes seeding each year, and each cane producing an astonishing amount of fruit, so that often the ground is covered inches deep with the fallen seed. In 1879 ]VIr. Orville A. Derby found an almost universal lack of corn throughout the Province of Parana, Brazil, which was due to an invasion of rats which followed the fruiting of the canes. Each cane bears about a peck of edible seed, resembling rice, which is very nourishing. Durmg the fruiting season the number of canes bearing seed increases each year, and the rats multiply accordingly. The last of the crop of seeds having matured and fallen to the ground, decays. The rats, suddenly deprived of food, begin to migrate and invade the plantation houses, consuming and destroying everything eatable. At corn- planting time' the seed is eaten as fast as it can be put into the ground. Mr. Mercer replanted six times in one year, and finally gave up in despair. The rice crop is ruined, and every- thing in the houses in the way of provisions and leather is destroyed if not carefully guarded in rat-proof receptacles.^ Similar plagues of rats occur in Chili, where the cane fruits in the same manner; ^ also in Ceylon, following the flowering and death of tropical underwoods, which fruit in the same way as the cane, but about every seven years. The rats afterward attack coffee plantations and prove very destructive.^ Grain growing offers a similar attractive food supply for rats. They can live in the fields in summer and fall, storing up a certain supply of food in their burrows for winter. In open or southern winters they can pick up much waste grain. In the north, their sudden appearance in large numbers in November or December may be due to the approach of winter, which drives many into farm buildings or into villages and cities. Farms with accumulations of rubbish under, in and about the buildings harbor rats by the hundred in winter, and hay and grain stored m the barns too often furnish them such a liberal supply of food that they may breed in any month of the year. A sudden local appearance of rats in numbers often is due to energetic measures taken by some neighbor to rid his premises » Nature, Vol. 20, May 15, 1879, p.. 65. » Ibid., Vol. 20, July 17, 1879, p. 266. » Ibid., Vol. 20, Oct. 2, 1879, p. 530. 196 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. of rats. He who has large numbers on his premises must recognize the fact that the rats are there because either he or his neighbors feed and protect them. If rats come to you in preference to your neighbor it is because you feed them more and treat them better than he does. RAT RIDDANCE. There is no royal, easy and immediate road to rat riddance. It requires continuous mental and physical exertion to banish the rat, but it can be done, and a reasonable expenditure to that end is a wise economy. Extermination is too much to hope for, and banishment from large areas cannot be expected without great co-operative effort, but the individual can clear his premises of rats provided the conditions are first made right. The means for ridding premises of rats may be outlined as follows: — (1) Rat eviction: (a) destroying rat habitations and harbor- ing places; (b) rat-proofing buildings. (2) Rat starvation: (a) disposal of edible garbage and refuse; (6) rat-proofing receptacles for all sorts of edible mate- rials. (3) Rat slaughter: (a) traps; (b) poisons, chemical and biological; (c) shooting, clubbing, drowning, etc.; {d) encourag- ing natural enemies — owls, dogs, ferrets, cats, etc. (4) Rat driving and harrying. (5) Preventing rat multiplication: (a) all the above. Not all of these methods are necessary in every case, but all are useful under certain circumstances. Methods of permanent eviction come first, as it is of little use to extirpate rats and then invite others to come in by continuing favorable condi- tions, such as a plentiful, accessible supply of food and numerous excellent breeding places. Rat Eviction. Those who deprive rats of nesting places, food and drink will evict them, for this prevents breeding, and rats will not stay long where they cannot eat and drink. PLATE II. Fig. 1. — Defective and Buokex Wall. Entrance made for water pipes; should be repaired with cement the full depth of the wall. (From Public Health Reports, April 11, 1913.) Fig. 2. — Defective Basement Wall (Opening m.^de for the Installation of Hodse Sewage System). Opening left around sewer pipe and not subsequently closed. A convenient entrance for rats: should be closed with cement. (From Public Health Reports, April 11, 1913.) No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 197 Destroying Rat Habitations and Harboring Places. Outdoor rubbish and woodpiles give rats the best possible protection by hiding and covering the entrances to their bur- rows or nests, so that nothing larger than a rat can get at them. Any hole in which quantities of tin cans and rubbish have been dumped is almost sure to be frequented by rats. Public dumps and the neighborhood of such places are certain to be infested by them. A general clearing up, which is sanitary and com- mendable for many reasons, is a necessary preparation for a rat campaign. Rubbish, garbage, etc., should be burned. Wood should not be piled on the ground in or near buildings. All rat holes in cellar or foundation walls should be treated with unslaked lime or chloride of lime and then stopped with a mixture of cement, sand and broken glass, in which glass predominates. Rat-proofing Buildings. Improved building construction is most important; it is expensive, but will pay in the end by doing away with most of the annual loss due to the depredations of rats in buildings. A grocer in a Massachusetts town complained to his landlord of the injury to his stock caused by rats, and asked to have the building rat-proofed. The landlord replied that he could not afford it, but would pay the cost of the stock destroyed by rats in the store each month. At the end of the first month the grocer presented a bill for $25. The landlord made some forcible remarks and doubted the loss. He was shown the ruined goods, and decided that it would pay to rat-proof the building. When this had been done the rats remaining in the building were destroyed by phosphorus, and the grocer has had little trouble from rats for years. Stone or brick walls as underpinning will shut out rats if all crevices can be stopped with good cement mortar, but concrete or reinforced concrete is the best material for rat-proof con- struction. City ordinances everywhere should require such construction in the cellars and foundations of all dwelling houses and business blocks, and tenants should everywhere demand it as a protection against disease and the destruction of property. When buildings are under construction the addi- 198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. tional cost of rat-proofing is slight indeed in comparison with the advantage gained. Cellar walls, if made of stone, should be laid in concrete, and the cellar or basement floor should be of medium concrete 3 inches thick overlaid with cement. Such floors will be better drained and will not be undermined by rats if 8 or 10 inches of gravel can be put in as a foundation and the concrete laid upon it. If, then, the walls on which the sills of the house rest are of brick, stone or concrete, rising 2 feet or more above the ground, and the doors, windows and other openings are well protected, there will be little chance for rats to gain access to the building. A rat must have some shelter and something to stand on to gnaw through the wooden wall of a house. A veranda sometimes offers such an oppor- tunity, as the rats may find some support beneath it from which they may penetrate the wall. Verandas and walks should be made of concrete or similar material laid on gravel, with side walls extending at least 2| feet under ground. Plank walks furnish excellent accommodations for rats and should be done away with. As an additional safeguard the walls of the house above the sills may be filled with cement up to about 2 feet above the floor. This will prevent rats burrowing into the wall. If upper windows are left open, and unscreened, rats may enter them by way of trees near the house or vines climb- ing upon it. If rats gnaw the doors all outer doors should be provided with metal strips 6 inches wide at the bottom, and each outer door or screen door should have a spring or check device to keep it closed. Cellar windows, skylights and venti- lators should be screened with galvanized wire netting of half-inch mesh and not less than 20 gauge. Any unused chimney should have all openings closed with tight-fitting covers and the top screened. Traps that rats cannot crawl through should be used in all water-closets; otherwise they may enter the house from the sewer. All holes where pipes pass through cellar walls should be closed with concrete. In large storehouses or warehouses, particularly those without cellars, it is a great advantage to make the lower floor of reinforced concrete. In stores or dwelling houses where this cannot be used solid concrete walls and a double floor with l|-inch mesh wire netting of not less than 20 gauge nailed PLATE III. Fig. 1. — Unscreened Basement Ventilator. Rats enter basements from the street through such openings They should be covered with wire-mesh screen. (From Public Health Reports, April 11, 1913.) Fig. 2. — Rat Screens. Properly screened basement ventilators under show windows. (From Public Health Reports, April II, 1913.) No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 199 between the floors and extending up 8 inches under mopboards and casings will suffice. Nothing harbors rats in town or country like the barn, shed or other building with timbers laid on the ground or near it, with just space underneath to accommodate rats and exclude dogs and cats. Small ricks or buildings, such as corn barns, henhouses, woodsheds, etc., may be made rat-proof by setting them up on posts at least 2 feet from the ground (.3 feet is better), provided there are no lumber or rubbish piles, trees, chicken ways, etc., by which rats may gain access to the build- ing. Dogs, cats, skunks, weasels and other natural enemies of rats can pass freely beneath such buildings, and will make life unpleasant for the rodents there. There should be no projec- tion of post or beam to which the rat can climb and on which he can stand and gnaw through the floor above. ^ The New England corn barn, standing on four high posts, capped by inverted milk pans and reached only by a ladder, is effective, but its usefulness is too often minimized by lumber, rubbish or other material lying or leaning against it, and forming a bridge or ladder on which rats may enter. A building lined with wire netting of one-half inch mesh and 20 gauge, such as is used for screening cellar windows, is thus protected against rats, mice, squirrels or birds. Henhouses and brooder houses usually are built on the ground, or on posts set into it, with board or dirt floors. Some poultrymen use inch mesh chicken wire netting to keep out rats, digging a trench 2| feet deep around the building, and burying the wire netting upright in this, having first attached the upper end to the sills. I have used this wire with good results, but only when the small doors leading out into the yards were at least 24 inches from the ground, and when the fowls were not furnished gang-planks to walk out on, but were obliged to fly up to the entrances. Mice and small rats, however, will readily pass through this netting, and half- inch mesh is better. In rare instances rats dig under such a 30-inch netting and it should extend 36 inches under ground. The plan used on some game preserves may be better for pens. About a foot of netting is laid on the ground, extending out, not in, from the base of a wire fence or building. It is said that all 1 Poultry houses thus raised are free from dampness, but expert poultrymen do not recommend them for winter use in New England. 200 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. predatory animals try to burrow close to the wall or fence, and finding the wire desist. Concrete foundations and floors com- bined with the use of fine mesh netting to cover all openings may be recommended as the surest way of rat-proofing poultry houses. A foundation wall should first be provided, extending at least 1 foot under ground (3 feet would be better) and 1 foot above it. If the wall is slightly wider at the bottom than at the surface it will better withstand the heaving of frost. At least 8 inches of gravel may be laid on the ground under the floors inside the walls to insure good drainage. If the sills of the building are then laid on the walls, rats cannot reach the sills to gnaw through, and they cannot burrow under the floor and undermine it. A poultryman recently concreted the floor of his henhouse, but allowed the sills to rest on the ground. Immediately rats gnawed through the heavy spruce sill and tunneled under the concrete, working through it before it had hardened, entering as freely as before. Dr. R. H. Creel says that chicken pens can be protected by concrete walls extending down 2 feet or more into the ground with half-inch mesh wire netting covering the sides and tops of the pens. This will prevent rats, mice and sparrows from getting in, and will protect chickens against cats, hawks and other enemies. Fowls should be fed always in rat-proof houses, sheds or pens, never in open yards. In this way the great loss which ordinarily occurs in feeding rats, mice and English sparrows will be avoided. Open-front henhouses or scratching sheds should be covered with half-inch wire netting in order to keep rats from climbing in through the wire. Pigeon lofts should be similarly protected. No opening must be left anywhere unguarded. A gentleman in Milton, Massachusetts, found it impossible to raise squabs on account of the depreda- tions of rats, which, notwithstanding he had wired his pigeon loft, continued to kill pigeons and squabs, although the only opening was a window about 20 feet from the ground. It was suggested that he put a wide sheet of zinc around the window. This proved effective, stopping the entrance of both rats and squir- rels, as they could not climb up or over it. It is difficult to keep rats out of barns and stables where doors are constantly left open, but something may be done. ^ s S '3 rn ? P 2 H ^ & S > s :s o 6 >^ cS O S o No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 201 Concrete barn cellars will help to prevent rats from harboring in barns. Horse manure might be kept in a concrete pit with a cellar wire screen or a close cover over the top. Cow manure will not interest rats unless grain, straw or some similar food is mixed with it. All wells, water tanks, etc., should be rat- proofed, for rats must have water. Rat Starvation. Separating rats from their food will drive them away if no other method is resorted to. Where food is plentiful and easily obtained it is difficult to trap or poison rats. Starvation, then, increases the effectiveness of trapping and poisoning. Disposal of Edible Garbage and Refuse. All garbage should be placed in covered rat-proof cans and kept covered. It should be burned or disposed of where rats cannot get it. If manufacturing concerns and business houses allow their employees to lunch in the buildings, all remains of lunches should be carefully disposed of. When thrown into waste baskets, on floors or even outside the building, such crumbs and pieces will feed many rats and mice daily, and perhaps neutralize w^ell-directed attempts to rid the premises of the vermin. Rat-proofing Food Receptacles. All rooms in which food is kept should be rat-proofed with concrete, sheet metal or cellar wire netting, or all food should be kept in receptacles made of or lined with these or similar materials. If horse mangers were built 18 to 24 inches deep, to prevent horses from wasting and scattering grain, and were set at least 2 feet away from the walls and entirely unconnected with them, a favorite food supply of the rat would be cut off. The ordi- nary shallow manger built against the wall seems designed for the express purpose of feeding rats and wasting grain. Hog troughs should be deep. Care should be taken not to spill and scatter grain in feeding. Closely covered concrete vaults will keep rats out of privies. If the rules above given were followed universally, rats would 202 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. be noticeable only for their scarcity, and the rest of this bulle- tin would be useful only to farmers who have rats in their barns and fields. Rat Slaughter. However thorough we may be in evicting and starving rats there always will be careless or indolent neighbors who will furnish them food and good breeding places, and so perpetuate and increase the species that we shall have to take care of the overflow. Occasionally rats will get into a rat-proof building through a door or window carelessly left open, and most farmers have rats in their barns or outbuildings recurrently, or constantly. Hence the necessity for continuous rat persecution and destruction. A little rat catching now and then has no appreciable effect. Rat slaughter is the only term that de- scribes effective work. For centuries the rat has been under the ban. Every ex- pedient and contrivance that the inventive genius of man could devise for rat destruction has been utilized. It is not probable, therefore, that any new methods will be found in this bulletin, and if those here recommended have any merit, it will be because of precise detailed directions based on practical experience. Rat Trapping. Effective traps rate high among the means of destroying rats, and if used persistently and with judgment, in connection with a proper safeguarding of food supplies, many a home or farm may be cleared of rats by traps alone. An early ex- perience convinced me of this. As a boy of fifteen, while attending a country seminary, I lived one winter with my aged grandparents on a small Massachusetts farm. They kept two overgrown cats, which never caught a rat, and the house so swarmed with the rodents that they sometimes disturbed our slumber by running over our faces, and even ate a hole in my bed. Henhouse, pigpen, woodshed, stable and barn all had their quota of rats, both black and brown, for at that time the black rat was still common in Massachusetts. An attempt to catch a rat in a steel trap resulted in the capture of one of the cats, so the cats were killed and a trapping, campaign com- Q g 3 No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 203 menced. Having to attend to my studies, saw and split the winter's wood, do the chores in house and barn, and some cook- ing, churning, etc., I might have been considered fairly busy for a boy of fifteen, as boys go nowadays, but the rat catching de- volved upon me and was my only pastime. There was but one trap, a rusty steel concern, used for woodchucks, but numbers of deadfalls and other contrivances, including mouse traps, were fashioned by candlelight and firelight, and from cellar to garret and from pigpen to haymow the number of destructive con- traptions grew apace. Pantry and grain bin were closed securely to starve out the rats and drive them to the traps, where a variety of bait was offered, but they still found some food about the barn, pigpen and henhouse. Soon, nevertheless, we were awakened at night, not by rats running over our faces, but by the bang of deadfalls loaded with bricks as the unsuspecting victims were crushed beneath them. At the end of the second month neither rat nor mouse, nor a sign of either, could be found about the house or any of the farm buildings. Thus I learned by observation and experience that it was possible to rid the farm of rats by traps alone, by taking a little time every evening for trapping. Patient, persistent trapping succeeded where cats had failed utterly, and no particular pains were taken to disguise or con- ceal the traps. It is not always so easy to trap the rats on a farm as it was in this case, and some city rats are not so unsophisticated as were their country cousins in those days, but with conditions made right, traps may be used with great success. The ingenuity of man having been exercised for many years in inventing rat traps, numerous designs have been perfected, most of which are effective, — if the rats can be enticed into them. "There is the rub." Box traps open at one end or both ends, figure 4 traps, and many others of the deadfall type, steel traps and gins, tin box traps, wire cage traps, traps with pitfalls and trap doors, traps with mirrors to entice the foolish rat to his downfall, traps for drowning, guillotining, hanging and electrocuting rats, torture traps, humane traps and many others have been put on the market, but success depends more upon the trapper than upon the trap. One man 204 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. will set a trap, keep it set for weeks, and catch nothing; another will take the same trap, and by handling and setting it in a skillful manner make a catch the first or second night. There are three types of trap easily obtained, all of which are successful if properly handled, and although I have tried many others experimentally, it never has been necessary to use more than these to clean out the rats, provided conditions have been first made favorable for their use. Often in such a case one style of trap will suffice. Some rats may be taken by traps where food is plentiful and easily accessible, but trapping will be much more effective if they are deprived of all other food than that offered in or about the traps. Dr. Creel mentions a case where an ex- perienced trapper set traps in and around a bakery for two weeks, changing his bait from time to time, but each morning his traps were ratless. Cheese, bacon, meat, vegetables, flour, nuts and other attractive baits were used unavailingly ; but later, when the baker moved out and the rats had eaten all the loose flour and food remaining, more than 30 rats were trapped in a morning and in four days 80 were taken. "Traps or poisons," Dr. Creel says, "placed in the neighborhood of an overflowing garbage pail, in a pantry with open bins and ex- posed food, or in groceries and warehouses having foodstuffs spilled over the floor, will only result in wasted endeavor." ^ In a general way this is true; still, I have taken rats by both traps and poisons in a large barn where grain bins were open and where grain lay half an inch deep under the straw on the floors of the lofts, and have seen eight rats caught, one each night for eight nights, in a single trap set in a grocery where they could easily obtain a variety of food, but it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to clear premises of rats under such conditions. Where rats are very suspicious one of the first requisites in successful trapping is first to treat them well for a time and feed them well, so that they will feel at home and become confident and careless; then set many traps, taking away all other food than that in or near the traps. Rat- hunting dogs and cats are a detriment to the trapper, as they frighten the rats so that they become cautious and suspicious. 1 Creel, Richard H., Public Health Reports, Vol. 28, No. 27, July 4, 1913, pp. 1407, 1408. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 205 Also, dogs or cats are likely to get into traps and carry them off, or to carry off captive rats, traps and all or to steal the bait. Hence, it is best to use traps only in buildings, boxes or other receptacles where dogs, cats and chickens can be shut out. In outdoor trapping, wild birds may be caught, unless the traps are concealed in boxes, holes or trenches. When dogs and cats and food other than that in the traps have been disposed of, trapping may be undertaken with a certainty of success. Sjiajj Traps. — The time-honored snap trap, which has been used by fur trappers for generations, is the steel trap. This is a good rat trap if properly set and concealed, but it is a cruel and inhuman machine unless used in such a manner as to kill the victim at once. As ordinarily set, without any precaution, it may now and then get a rat, particularly in grocery or pro- vision stores, where food supplies are handled much. If a number of traps are kept constantly set so as to spring at a very light touch, and placed in rat runways or next the walls behind barrels or packing cases, a rat may now and then blunder into one, even if it is not baited. Sometimes unbaited traps are most successful, especially when the rats have become suspicious of baited traps. Rats may in time become so heed- less of unbaited traps as to get caught, for the trap is far more patient than the rat; it can always afford to wait, and the rat is often necessarily in a hurry. He who does not care to go to the trouble of covering or dis- guising his traps may succeed by first setting a number, baited, with the jaws open and the springs bound down by fine wire so that the traps cannot snap. The bait — bacon or strong toasted cheese — may be hung over the pan or tied to it. Fine sand or meal may be kept strewn about the traps for several days, and when the bait is taken nightly, and tracks in the meal or sand show that the rats have learned to run over the traps freely, the wire may be removed and the traps care- fully set and baited. Some success has followed hanging the bait over the pan, but it is a cruel expedient as the rat is commonly caught alive by one leg. No trap is more effective than the "break-back" or guillotine trap, provided with a wire fall, driven by a coiled wire spring 206 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. and sprung by a trigger, baited or unbaited, as seems best under different circumstances. (See Plates VI. and VII.) These traps are as humane as any, for (if set with circumspection) they usually catch the rat by the head, neck or back, killing it imme- diately. Occasionally, however, a rat will be caught by the leg, and will go off with the trap. For this reason all snap traps when set should be fastened to some heavy object or to the building by wire or cord. Sometimes the trap wdll be found sprung, but ratless. In such a case a mouse may be the culprit, and the trap, being too large for mice, springs over and past it. Sometimes the rat, coming in from the back of the trap, is missed or thrown off by the spring, and other times he is hit on the head by the trap but not held, and may be found dead not far away. A rat catcher explains this by the assertion that certain ''wise old rats" reach in from the front or side and spring the trap by a quick side cuff, getting away as the trap springs, and that occasionally one is not quick enough and is caught by the fore paw or hit on the head. I am inclined to doubt this explanation. Probably the metal trap (Plate VII., Fig. 2) is best, as it is durable and will not absorb and retain odors so readily as will the wooden traps. This trap and the similar wood and wire trap (Plate VI., Fig. 2, lower left) may best be set in a very dark place or corner, behind some box or chest, as it is imprac- ticable to conceal it. The wooden-backed trap is effective, as the rat cannot enter it from the back and so avoid the wire. If either of these upright traps is set with the back too close to the wall the wire release will strike the wall when the trap springs, throwing the trap forward, but it usually gets the rat. The flat trap (Plate VI., Fig. 2, upper figures), which can be obtained for ten cents at the five and ten cent stores, is not quite so strongly made as the others, and occasionally a large rat will get out of it, but it may be relied upon to clear a house or store of rats if sufficient numbers are prop- erly baited, set and concealed, and if the rats are deprived of food other than that furnished them at the traps. This trap may be easily disguised and hidden, but it has the disadvan- tage that the rat may come and get the bait from the back, and may thus escape the blow of the trap either by crawling PLATE VI. w '^^: '•''•tJfV. -pjvr^^; '"^ ■riifliil iiiti I I I il>n-lfc— I irraiii Fig. 1. — Trap set under water to deceive the experienced rat. This can be used most successfully in dark closets, attics or cellars. See page 211. (Original photograph.) Fig. 2. — Different makes of the snap trap, all of which are effective, but the official trap — lower right — probably is best. (Original photograph.) No. 4. RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 207 Trap arranged for front entrance. The trap should be covered with chaff. beneath the wire as he enters (I have seen a small rat do this), by crouching within the sweep of the wire so that it passes over without touching him or by being thrown off by the wire as it rises. Occasionally a rat will be found trapped that has been thrown in this way but carried clear over and caught on its back with its feet in the air. If the trap is set against a wall, with some obstruction like a brick set on either side, so that the rat cannot pass between the bricks and the wall, it is likely to run around to the front of the trap and so entering be caught (see cut); or the trap may be set so that it leans diagonally against the wall between two up- right bricks in some dark corner, or even hung upon the wall an inch or two from the floor. It is not practicable, to conceal it if hung up, but if so hung in some dark closet it may now and then get a rat. Another plan is to enclose the trap in a box with a hole placed so that the rat going in will come on the trap from the front, or the trap may be set in a covered grape basket, giving the rat room to enter only at the front under the raised cover. (See cut.) The flat trap, different makes of which are shown on Plate VI., has been used mainly in the trapping experiments undertaken by the State Board of Agriculture, chiefly be- cause it is inexpensive. One reason why many people have little success in trapping is that they do not use trays enough. Where rats are numerous 25 to 50 traps should be set, so that a considerable number of rats may be caught at first, before the alarm has spread. Every ten-cent trap that catches a rat saves the owner many times its cost. Rarely a single trap, carefully set, may catch a rat every night for a short time, but where rats are numerous they soon take the alarm, and one trap will not get enough in the end to keep pace wuth their increase. A similar trap is the "official" (Plate VI., Fig. 2, lower right). Grape basket with trap concealed inside. 208 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. used by the United States government in its rat extermination work. This costs more than the other flat traps, but the ad- vantage is claimed for it that the rat can spring it by either raising or lowering the trigger; also it has less wood in its construction than the other, which better fits it for outdoor use, and is more strongly made. Exposure to rain and snow eventually will spoil any trap of this type, as rust will weaken the springs, while wetting and drying may cause the wood to split, but the official trap will stand a season's exposure to the elements. Cleaning, Disguising, Scenting and Concealing Traps. — It is w^ell known that trappers use scented baits to lure animals to their traps, and there is many a "secret" of the professional trapper that is supposed to insure success. Some of these lures are useful, among them strong-smelling foods the odor of which readily can be perceived from a distance by all wild animals. Certain other scents, like musk, anise and catnip, are known to attract certain animals. In the days when rat-baiting was a common pastime, and when the rat pit was almost as much a national institution in England as the bull ring still is in Spain, rat catching was a thriving trade, and professional rat catchers of that day were firm believers in the use of scents for attracting rats. The experiments made by the Massa- chusetts State Board of Agriculture seem to prove that certain scents are attractive to some rats, but it is possible that these odors serve more to disguise the smell of the trap than to lure the rats. When the trap gives off an odor of iron rust, rat blood or human perspiration, no doubt the experienced rat takes the alarm. Therefore the expert rat catcher cleans the trap, disguises the odor or substitutes some strong odor for it. Whatever the reason, the scented traps caught more rats than those unscented. While trapping for three days in two barns with cleaned, covered and scented traps, handled with clean or scented gloves, we caught twenty-three rats. Three days' trap- ping with uncovered and unscented traps secured but three. To get the best results traps should be handled only with gloves and with great care and gentleness. Throwing or kicking the traps about is likely to put some of them out of action. The leather gloves used in trapping should not be handled, should PLATE VII. Fig. 1. — Care pays in trapping. Twenty-three rats trapped in two barns in a few days by clean, scented and concealed 10-cent traps, with a few mice taken incidentally. Trapping with uncovered and unclean traps yielded only three rats in the same buildings. See page 208. (Original photograph.) Fig. 2. — The Schuyler Trap. Metal traps like this are very durable and effective. (Original photograph.) No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 209 be kept as clean as possible and should be scented with a drop or two of the oils of anise, caraway or rhodium which have been proved efficient in overcoming human scent. Traps should be well cleaned, before setting, with plenty of water and a brush (or scalded), and dried before a fire. In scenting the bait, a single drop of oil of anise or caraway is dropped on a piece of paper, and this paper rubbed on the bait. This may be used for several traps. More is unnecessary and may repel the rats. Where gloves are not at hand the following procedure is recommended bj^ rat catchers : — Take a large handful of oatmeal; drop on it four drops of oil of caraway or anise; rub it through the hands until the oil is well mixed with the oatmeal, and continue to do this oc- casionally while handling and arranging the traps. This is intended to take up the perspiration and disguise the odor of the hands. Rat catchers in olden times were accustomed to make a trail from trap to trap by dragging from a fishing rod a herring, a rag scented with oil of caraway and another, or a calf's tail, scented with the oil of anise. The soles of the trappers' boots were /inointed. Trappers also used mixtures of various oils for drawing rats, among which were the oil of rhodium, oil of lavender and "oil of rats," which, as its name implies, was tried out of the rats themselves.^ Where one scent is not successful, or the rats learn to associate it with the trap, another may be tried, or the traps may be washed and smoked. Such precautions may not be necessary in a grocery store or a bakery, or wherever the food is handled constantly and the human odor is over everything, but, ordinarily, traps will give best service if cleaned and con- • cealed. Steel traps or flat traps may be covered with chaff, bran, cut hay, sawdust, feathers or dry earth. W^hen a trap is covered with bran or chaff the material should be strewn over a considerably larger space than the trap covers. Two or three traps may be set near together, but they should not be set so near that one in springing will spring another by striking or jarring it. When a steel trap or a guillotine trap is set in meal, shorts or earth, a bit of some light fluffy substance, like cotton, should be placed under the trigger or pan before 1 Rodwell, James, The Rat, London, 1850, pp. 249-251. 210 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. it is covered. This will prevent the covering material from getting under the pan and packing so as to stop the trap from springing. A trap should be set so gently that it will spring at the least pressure on pan or trigger. In setting, the fingers should not be used to depress the pan; a rolled-up paper wears better, and if the trap springs on it, it will not bend the wire. Catching the Experienced Rat. — Every one who has trapped rats knows that sometimes after most of the rats in a building have been caught there remain a few cautious old rascals that successfully defeat all efforts to entrap them. These may be taken without great difficulty if their food supply, other than that furnished by the traps, can be completely shut off, other- wise they may continue to defy all efforts to take them, but if the trapper is persevering they will be captured or driven away in time. The steel trap (if covered and its odor disguised or con- cealed) is one of the best devices with which to deceive rats. Some experienced rats are almost as cunning as a fox. Indeed, some of them are so much wiser in theii; way than most people who attempt to trap them that trapping often is given up in disgust. A close study of the habits of the rat is necessary for success- ful trapping. The trapper should remember that the rat always goes barefoot. When a cautious rat, in its nocturnal rambles in search of food and led by delectable odors, places its bare foot on cold, clammy iron or steel, the touch no doubt strikes a chill to its very marrow and raises an instant alarm. Also, if the trap is fully exposed to view it may arouse the rat's suspicions before dark. Hence the rat catcher covers the trap. • When the steel trap can be set under water it gives out no odor, and if the rat cannot see it readily, particularly at night, he is easily caught and drowned at once, which puts an end to his suffering. The trap may be set on a stone or a clod under water, and the bait may be attached to the pan so as to show above water. When the trap springs, the rat, caught by the head, springs with it, goes into deep water and is held down by the trap and drowned. A trap set under water in a little run leading into a fish hatchery pond caught a rat every night for nearly two weeks. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 211 Sometimes an "educated" house rat defies all efforts to entice him into a trap. In such a case the following plan often succeeds: take a large pail or firkin (if there is danger of leak- age a galvanized iron bucket is best) and a piece of cellar wire netting about 4 inches wide by 8 inches long. Bend the netting so that it will hang over the edge of the pail and form a shelf inside parallel to the bottom of the pail and about 2 inches from the top. A triangular piece of wood may be nailed under the shelf as a bracket to support it, so that it will hold the weight of both trap and rat. (See cut.) The trap may be dipped in melted wax to keep it from rusting, and set on the shelf with the bait tied to the pan. The pail should be set in some dark, unfre- ,,.. , „, '■ \V ire shelf for water quented spot in attic, closet or cellar, where trapping. the rats run, and filled with water so as to just cover the trap and pan but not the bait. I have used a thin chip, tied on top of the pan, on which the bait was fastened to keep it dry. The bait must be handled only with clean gloves. The pail should then be nearly or quite full. Now a board is laid from the floor to the top of the pail, and rests on the pail's edge or on the wire so as to bring its top level with the edge. (See Plate VL, Fig. 1.) A little grain is scattered along this board. This trap will be most successful if there is no other water near by that the rat can reach. If he can get both food and drink here he will sooner or later try to take the bait, when, if the trap is carefully set, it will catch him by the neck and he will jump in and land on his head in the bottom of the pail, where he is either killed by the trap or held down by it and drowned at once. The other rats will not understand his disappearance, and the trick may be repeated. This set must be carefully made and the trap kept covered with water. In winter it can be used only in heated buildings, where water never freezes. This arrangement is sure death if the right trap is used and the set is properly made. A washtub may be used and four traps set, which will be likely to increase the catch, but all the shelves and traps must be carefully adjusted and the tub leveled exactly, so that all the traps may be entirely covered 212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. with water. All traps set under water for rats should be sprung and reset about twice a week and always set lightly. These precautions neglected, a small rat might not be heavy enough to spring the trap. The trap shown near the bottom of the pail (Plate VI., Fig. 1) is commonly sold as a rat trap. It is a very handy trap for this purpose but has two bad faults, — the pan is too large and the spring under the pan throws it up when the trap springs. If the rat happens to put foot or nose down on the edge of the pan it comes so little within the sweep of the jaws that it may be thrown out by the upward lift of the spring under the pan, or pulled out by the rat as the trap closes. In that case the cautious rat may not come again. The No. 1 "Newhouse" trap, having a small pan and a side spring, is best. The above plan cannot be used out of doors where the trap can be seen and where domesticated ^, , animals or birds can get at it, "but rats may Newnouse trap. "^ '^ be trapped out doors in summer or at any time when water will not freeze, without danger of catching dogs, cats or poultry, if the trap is set in a covered trough, A watertight trough or open box must be made of boards or cement. It may be 12 inches long, 4^ inches wide and 3 inches deep, inside measurement, or larger if the trap to be set in it requires it. In the upper part of each end an opening for the entrance of the rat is made in the center, 2^ inches wide and 1^ inches deep. (See cut.) This allows the rat to come in only where the pan of the trap is ready to receive him. The trough must be set level into the earth up to the bottom of the opening, and filled with all the dis- Trough for steei traps. colored water it will hold. The water is discolored so that the rats cannot readily see the trap. The trap should be set in the trough under water, and next to one of the entrances, and if the trough is long enough two traps may be set, one at each end. The trough may then be covered with a board or box projecting well out over the entrance holes, or two small drain No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 213 tiles may be used as leaders, or a drain may be left open and the trough placed at its mouth leading into it. The whole thing should be so covered as to weight it well, render it dark, and keep animals larger than rats from getting at the traps. Thus advantage is taken of the natural tendency of rats to enter dark drains and dogs and cats are protected. Traps may be set without bait, as bait sometimes arouses the suspicions of the rat. Twelve traps set in this way caught eleven rats in one night, and a gardener on an English estate catches from 100 to 150 rats in these troughs during the mild English winter.^ A similar trough possibly might be made of split tile of 5 or 6 inches interior diameter. A rat hole may be made in or under a rat-proof henhouse or shed leading into a long rat-proof trough or covered waj^, with a wire-covered opening at its farther end. The cover to this may be raised, and if a trough it may be filled with water and a number of steel traps set in it; if merely a covered way, flat traps. The rat having gone in, must come out again, running the gauntlet of the traps both ways. When a trap is not set in water it should be a large one and the bait fastened to the pan; then when the trap springs it will take the rat "amidships" or by the neck, and shut off his breath at once, instead of catching him by the leg and allowing him to suffer torture. In summer, outdoors, or in a shed or cellar at any time, an old rat may be taken by placing a little cotton under the pan of a steel trap, covering the trap entirely with loose dry earth and using some strong-smelling bait, like fish, which may be -covered by a little chaff. Rats like to dig up things. In un- covering the bait your rat may be nipped. This plan works effectively and continually. New steel traps should be covered with earth for a day or two or well smoked, to take away the smell of the iron, before using them. Where rats refuse to take a bait tied to the pan the following plan may succeed: a dry goods box may be sawed off to two inches in depth and filled with bran or sawdust or some coarse meal. This may be set in a place frequented by rats and unbaited traps set in it close to iThe Field (London), Vol. 121, March 15, 1913, p. 493. 214 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. the sides, with the chains fastened radiating outside, so as to keep a caught rat from getting into more than one trap. Cover all with bran in which scatter small bits of any alluring bait. To render the box still more attractive, an upright stick about a foot long may be fastened in the center with a choice tidbit, large enough to be conspicuous, tied to the top. Some strong- smelling fish or ancient meat will do. Some rat is likely to be caught while dancing around the pole. The box should be moved rather frequently and a different kind of bait tried every few days. If the rats learn to climb the stick and get the bait, avoiding the trap, the bait may be hung by a string. In prancing around after the swinging bait the rats may get incautious. When they have learned to avoid the box a quantity of bran, fine sand or fine sawdust may be spread near the rat holes, and when the customary trails of the rats are shown by the tracks, unbaited traps may be set carefully where they run, and covered by the bran or other material; or an old chair may be set against the wall, the trap set beneath it, bait tied to the pan and the seat of the chair covered with straw hanging down to the floor on all sides; or a trap may be set near a rat hole and covered with a light weight, dark-colored cloth ; or set in a bucket in meal or bran, with a piece of toasted eheese tied to the pan, and the bucket covered carelessly with a weighted cover or board having a rat hole made just over the trap. If the rat jumps in he may spring the trap, or he may try the cheese and be caught by the neck, or he may tread on the pan in jumping out, with results disastrous to his peace of mind. If he does not go in, remove the cover and try him that way, covering the trap with meal. In covering steel traps with cloth, sawdust, meal, etc., care should be observed not to get much of the material over the jaws near where they are hinged, as that will interfere with the proper closing of the trap. Some trappers use a "bed" of feathers and other light materials in which food is scattered, until the rats come nightly, then carefully cleaned, smoked traps are buried in the bed. For this purpose good snap or "break-back" traps may be used in place of the steel trap, but the steel trap is best. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 215 Sometimes a weighted deadfall will kill a cautious rat. A bit of plank, well weighted, supported with a "figure 4" trigger, built to "throw clear," covered with straw and enticingly baited, may do the business. (See cut.) Rats drink a great deal, and in houses where there are no wells they resort to any accessible water tanks in garrets or closets. Traps set in dark places near such tanks are likely to bring results. ^^^ \nJ-L^,_,:j:,..;:,^M^^^i^W^. . When visiting a trap it is best not " Figure 4 " trap and details of . , , 1 • . p construction. to go too near it or touch it tor sev- eral days, unless it has been sprung. If a rat has been caught the trap should be cleaned and reset. If the trap has been sprung and has failed to catch him, reset it carefully and rebait it as before. In time the same rat may be caught. When rats become so wary that they will not spring con- cealed traps, watch for them and mark their runways, and set unbaited and uncovered traps there. If such a trap is set on a narrow joist, or where rats are known to run, they will see it, become accustomed to it and may in time become careless and spring it by jumping or running over it. I have taken one old rat in this way on the third night after setting the trap. This rat had not touched carefully set and baited traps. Rat Bait. — Rat catchers and other experts differ regarding the best bait for rats. Some believe that rats should be baited with the food to which they have been accustomed, — fish should be used in a fish market, meat in a meat market, and grain in a stable or grain store; others contend that the opposite plan secures best results. In the experiments made by the Massa- chusetts State Board of Agriculture a combination of both plans was successful. Where rats could get only grain, oatmeal or rolled oats was used in small quantities about the traps; a little was sprinkled on the tread and a light trail of oatmeal was laid from trap to trap, while the traps were baited with bacon, cheese, sausage, or some other animal food. Sometimes when rats are feeding on grain some strong smelling animal 216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. food, such as toasted cheese, bacon, sausage, fish or fish heads, will attract them where grain will not. The bait commonly used for the flat traps (Plate VI.) was a small bit of fried bacon. When forty or fifty traps were to be baited quickly, a piece of bacon was fried, cut into pieces w4th scissors, each piece pressed into the hole in the tread of a trap, and the partly melted grease poured in until the hole was filled. Also, strong smelling cheese was used; it was toasted, and, while still hot, forced into the hole in the tread with a knife blade. These traps require very little bait. Other traps, where the bait must be tied on or hooked on, may be baited with cheese, bacon, corn, or any tenacious meat or vegetable bait. Some writers assert that a rat has no choice of food, but I have known rats to pay no attention to stale, dirty bait for weeks, and to be caught immediately when the bait was changed for something more enticing. It is a good plan to change the bait now and then, using some tempting food other than the one commonly em- ployed. Cakes, doughnuts, honey, syrup or molasses, chicken, chickens' feet, scraps of raw or cooked beef or pork, prunes and other fruits and fresh vegetables all may be useful. The Wire Cage Trap. — Where rats are numerous, particularly about slaughterhouses or meat markets, the large nineteen or twenty inch French wire cage traps may be useful. The smaller cage traps, made of light wire, often will not hold strong, full-grown rats, which will force the wires apart, but the larger traps, if made of stiff, strong wire, well bound with lighter wire, Vvill hold a rat of any size. More than 25 rats, mostly young ones, have been taken in one of these large traps in a single night, and 200 have been taken in a season, but this is very unusual. Many of the smaller wire traps are in use, and though ordinarily set without any precautions, some success in their use has been reported by many Massachusetts people, but wire traps are not commonly nearly as effective as snap traps properly handled, and young rats are largely the victims. In many cases, where wire traps are exposed openly to view, rats cannot be enticed into them, and if once rats are caught in one their fellows may avoid it afterward. In such a case, where a trap had been set fruitlessly in a barn for weeks, baited with grain, I pushed it aside against a horse stall, No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 217 changed the bait to fried bacon and fish, covered it with two meal sacks and a heap of hay, leaving a small opening at the front, and the next morning six rats were inside. If this stratagem be tried in cold weather it is better first to cover the trap with short boards, to prevent the rats from drawing in bagging and hay for a warm nest, and so interfering with the working of the trap. Rats like to burrow in dark and obscure places under hay or rubbish to find food, and advantage should be taken of this tendency; but the plan may not succeed the second time. Some trappers have been successful by keeping one rat, a female, constantly in the trap, feeding her well and using her to entice others. Failing in this, the location of the trap may be changed, and it may be baited daily, covered, and left open at both ends, so that the rats can run through it freely. When they begin to run in and take the bait nightly, they may be fed thus for several days, and then the trap may be baited well and the door at the back closed. Professor David E. Lantz of the Biological Survey tells me that a merchant of his acquaintance succeeded in catching many rats by enclosing the trap in a box, with a hole opposite the entrance. He then left the trap open at the back, so that the rats could go in the front way and feed, pass out at the back door, and jump out at the top of the box. When all the rats had become accustomed to feeding there, he fastened down the cover of the box, and the next morning the rabble was within. The editor of "The Field" states that not a rat would touch his wire trap when it lay in the open, but when it was taken up, baited with refuse fish, and covered with an old mat, some "lovely specimens" were found entrapped the next morning.^ A correspondent asserts that he placed one of these traps in a meal sack, leaving the mouth of the sack open and using anise, and that the next morning he had a "trap full" of rats. Cornstalks, straw, old rags and any rubbish may be used to cover the trap, but if set on the ground it should be placed upon a board, to prevent rats burrowing underneath and securing the bait through the wires. All the precautions here- tofore recommended for handling other traps, such as smoking the trap and handling with clean or scented gloves, are ap- » The Field (London;, Vol. 89, May 1, 1897, p. 692. 218 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. plicable here. The following directions by Dr. W. Colby Rucker of the United States Public Health Service are ex- cellent : — Before setting, the lever on the trap should be tested to see that it works properly. The trap should be placed on a hard surface, with the rear end a httle higher than the entrance, so that the trap will close promptly. When setting the trap in the open it should be fastened to a board on which about an inch of soft dirt has been spread. Place the trap where the rat usually goes for food, or in a runway, and disturb the surroundings as httle as possible. It is sometimes well to place the trap near where there is dripping water, as the rats come there to drink. If the trap is set in hay or straw or wood it should be covered (with the exception of the entrance) with, tliis material. . . . The bait should be fastened to the inner side of the top of the trap with a piece of fine wire, so that the first rat in cannot force the bait underneath the pan and thus prevent the entrance of other rats. A few grains of barley should be scattered near the entrance of the trap and a small piece of cheese or meat fastened to the pan with a piece of wire. It is often well to touch the pan with a feather which has been dipped in oil of anise or oil of rhodium. Before leaving the trap it should be smoked with a piece of burning newspaper to kill the smell of the human hands or the rats which have been in it. Do not handle the trap after burning it out. When trapping in a neighborhood where rats are known to exist the traps should not be moved for three or four days unless they have rats in them, as it is well for the rats to become accustomed to seeing them and thus become careless about entering. It is not wise to kill rats where they are caught, as the squeahng may frighten the other rats away. ^ The three styles of trap given above ought to be sufficient to clear any premises of rats. There are homemade traps, how- ever, which have been often and highly recommended. Barrel Traps. — Professor David E. Lantz speaks of a writer in the "Cornhill Magazine," "about sixty years ago," who gave details of a barrel trap by duplicating which over 3,000 rats were caught in a warehouse in a single night. The rats were enticed for several nights to the tops of barrels covered with coarse brown paper, upon which bait was placed. Then a cross cut was made in the paper, so that afterwards the rats fell into the barrels. (See cut.) Another plan is to make a barrel head of thin light wood or cardboard, fixed to turn on a pivot. This tip-up is fastened I Treaa. Dept., Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv. of U.S., The Rat and ita Relation to the Public Health, by various authors, Washington, 1910, pp. 154, 155. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 219 up and baited until the rats feed nightly upon it, and then is released. (See cut.) "Pickett" says that an acquaintance of his tried this and found it a "horrible" success. In three days Barrel traps: 1, with stiff paper cover; 2, with hinged barrel cover; a, stop; b, baits. (After Biological Survey.) while he was away from home it engulfed 7 rats, 3 spring chickens, 1 high-bred hen and 4 prime young turkeys. Evi- dently, like most traps, it failed to discriminate.^ Still another plan is to fix a narrow tip-up on the edge of an open barrel, one edge of which rests on a shelf while the other projects out over the barrel, with the bait fastened to the end of the tip-up. Much has been written about these traps. Stories are told of the great numbers of rats caught in them. It is said that a brick should be stood on end in the bottom of the barrel in water enough to expose its upper end. The first rat to go in is said to climb on the brick. The next fights the occupant for possession of the island, and the "row" is said to attract all the other rats, who immediately, fired with curiosity or the zeal of the explorer, plunge in and join battle, until only one rat is left alive. All this sounds interesting and encouraging, but in the experiments of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture such traps were arranged in several infested stores and buildings, and no one of them ever caught more than a rat or two. I have seen a barrel trap, specially constructed and guaranteed to exterminate the rodents, into which no one was ever able to entice a rat. Success with these traps may be possible if they can be constantly attended by a skillful trapper, and if the rats can be denied food elsewhere, but the traps 1 The Rural Library, Vol. 1, No. 2, How to rid Buildings and Farm of Rats and Other Pests of Like Character, May 19, 1891, pp. 8, 9. 220 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. must be kept constantly baited for days if not for weeks, until the rats have become accustomed to feed on them, trails must be made to entice the rats to them, and it is often necessary to provide a bridge or other means of reaching the barrel top, along which grain, crumbs or other bait must be kept sprinkled. All this requires room, and the arrangements must be left un- disturbed. Where paper is utiHzed, it must be of a stiff, springy quality, so that when cut it will spring back into place when the rat has fallen through. Bait must be fastened to it, so that it will not fall in after the rat, and every barrel must be carefully tended and watched for a long time. The tip-ups must be nicely adjusted, so that they will not bind and will return quickly to place when tipped. Much time and trouble are required to make and adjust them carefully. In the ordinary store or farm building, the arrangement of the barrels is likely to be constantly changed by employees in the exigencies of business; the paper, if used, torn, and the whole plan upset. In a word, the scheme is not practicable except perhaps where all the conditions can be controlled by a skilled man.^ The following proceeding is simpler and has given better results in the experiments undertaken by the State Board of Agriculture: — A barrel, a large tub or a great kettle or cooker may have a false bottom made for it, which may be covered with chaff, among which grain, meat scraps, cheese, crumbs, etc., may be scattered, or the receptacle may be partly filled with any loose material, the top of which may be leveled, covered with chaff and baited. The rats must be trailed and enticed to this, and then fed there nightly until all in the building have found it. It is better to have a little water in the bottom from the first. When the rodents have become confident and hold nightly revels among the chaff, take out the false bottom or filling some evening, put in about 14 inches of water, scattering enough chaff on the top to cover it, with a few enticing bits of bait. This trap, properly handled, brings results, but no such trap can be used in winter in buildings where water will freeze, except by ' Deep boxes are sunk in the ground on game preserves just outside the wire pens, and two tip-ups are arranged for the top of each box, so that any small animal coming from either side running along just outside the wire will fall into the box. Such traps, properly set and attended by skilled gamekeepers, are very successful. Poultrymen might use them. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 221 A Burmese trap. (After Biological Survey.) the use of extremely salt brine, and winter is the season when rats are most troublesome in buildings. Sometimes rats may be enticed into a deep barrel or can, such as a garbage can, and if the receptacle is about 30 inches deep they cannot get out. I have known three or four to be taken in a night by using a heavy cardboard box about 30 inches deep and sprinkling bits of meat, cheese and crumbs m the bottom. A deep garbage can sunk in the earth on a rat trail, 'with grain in the bottom, claimed some victims. The jar trap (see cut) is said to be very successful. Rat Electrocution, — Metals charged with electricity are said to have some attraction for rats, and accounts of rat electrocution have been published. Dr. Rucker says that rats have been eradi- cated in cold-storage warehouses by suspending a bait between two heavily charged overhead wires at a point where the insulation had been removed. The hungry animal creeping along the wires shunts the current through its body, and, falling unconscious into a tub of water, is drowned. ^ Rat Fence and Battue. — A movable fence or a wire netting of about one-half inch mesh, or even strong cloth or canvas and stakes, may be used to enclose piles of wood, rubbish, shocks or stacks of grain, and the material may be shaken free of rats and thrown over the fence, when the exposed rats may be easily killed by dogs or by men armed with clubs or wide flat shovels. Many thousands of rats have been killed in this manner. Rats may climb the fence, but if closely followed they will not have time to get out of the enclosure. Grain-room Trapdoor. — A large grain bin or a grain room may have an opening made to admit rats, which opening may be closed by a little sliding door operated by a string from the outside of the build- ing. In the evening, when the rats have gone in, the farmer 1 Rucker, Wm. Colby, Public Health Reports, Vol. 27, No. 29, July 19, 1912, p. 1133. For grain room. 222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. lets go the string and the trapdoor closes of its own weight. Then he enters with a light and no rat escapes. A box may be set near the wall and as the rats run behind it it is pushed hard against the wall. This is one of the best traps known. Rat Poisons and Poisoning. Poison skillfully and scientifically administered will destroy or drive away rats. Where rats are numerous, poisons are much more economical of time and money than traps, but rarely more effective, and the use of poisons is dangerous and generally cannot be recommended. I have used them only in the experiments conducted by the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, never having found poisoning necessary on my own premises. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the dangerous character of rat poisons, people will continue to use them, for scattering poisons involves less trouble and expense than setting traps. Therefore, directions for the use of poisons are given below, but with repeated warnings against carelessness. There is always some element of danger to man and domestic animals, and often to wild birds and mammals, when poison is CAUTION used. All poisons should be carefully and con- spicuously labeled (see cut). They should be kept far from the medicine closet or the pantry, and should be locked up or hidden where children, servants and fools cannot get at them. It is necessary here to point out in detail many POISON. . , . , • 1 , 1 • • ways in which accidental poisoning may occur. Cats or dogs may eat poisoned rats, with deplorable results. Where poisoned meat, bread, fats or cereals are used, they may be eaten by children and dogs, cats, poultry, etc. Where poisoned grain is exposed out of doors wild birds and poultry may be endangered. Poultry, dogs, cats, pigs and calves have been poisoned fatally, while children and adults have been poisoned either unintentionally or purposely when rat poison has been left incautiously about the house. Wherever poison is used about dwellings every care should be observed to cover securely water, milk or any beverage. As poison "drives rats to drink" after they have partaken of poison they drink whatever liquid comes in their way. If nauseated by the poison they No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 223 are likely to vomit into the liquid, thus poisoning water, milk, beer and other beverages. If there is no other water they will climb or fall into open wells, which endangers the health if not the life of people who partake of water from such wells. If there is nothing for them to drink in the building they will get out of doors if possible, and take dew, snow or water from drains, etc. Rats are very resistant to some poisons and not many are found dead after poison has been used. I have found a few dead in such cases near or in water, sometimes many rods from the place where they were poisoned. The dying also 4M f Poisons are impartial. retire to holes in the ground. Rats sometimes carry poisoned food about, leaving it where birds, poultry, dogs or cats can get it. The use of traps will show definite results, but in the use of poisons the exact effect cannot be determined. When poisons are used on confined rats the results can be seen; but rats con- fined with poisoned food must eat it or starve, as they can get nothing else and cannot go elsewhere to feed. When poisoned food is put out for free rats some may be found dead, others may die in their holes. It is impossible to gauge the amount of poison that any rat may take. One may take just enough and die, another may take too much, which acts like an emetic, and the experience may or may not drive the rat to other quarters. Another may leave in search of water and never come back, or, finding water at hand, it may die in a wall or under a floor of a building, with the usual disagreeable con- sequences. Others may not touch the poisoned food, while still others may take just enough to warn them, but not enough to be fatal. Certain proprietary poisons are advertised to embalm rats or dry them up. Of others it is said that the rats "don't die in the house." It is almost needless to say that these claims have very little foundation in fact. There is no poison known which a rat can eat and retain enough of to embalm its carcass, 224 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. and now and then a poisoned rat may die in the house in spite of all precautions, but if the directions hereinafter described are followed, this mishap is not likely to happen often. There is nothing new known in rat poisons. Those most commonly used are arsenic, phosphorus and strychnine. Com- mon arsenical poisons are white arsenic or arsenious acid, and two other forms of arsenic, Paris green and arsenate of lead (London purple is rarely utilized). Squill, mix vomica, cyanide of potassium, corrosive sublimate (bichloride of mercury), hellebore, henbane, hemlock seeds and some other poisons have been used with varying results. Squill {Scylla maritima) is toxic or poisonous for rats, and in the quantities prepared for them is not fatal to larger animals. As arsenic, strychnine or phosphorus form the basis of the greater part of all the success- ful rat poisons used in this country, and as they are perhaps as effective as any in use, the various means of utilizing them will be considered here. The reader may inquire, if these poisons are effective, why recommend more than one? Un- fortunately, with poisons, as with traps, we depend on the co- operation of the rat, which we cannot always secure. If the rats have tasted elsewhere the combination that we offer them they may refuse to touch it, and it may be necessary to try some other formula; or they may have already taken small doses of arsenic, for example, and may be somewhat resistant to its effects. Hence a number of different poisons and dif- ferent preparations of each are given. The chief difficulty in the effective use of arsenic and strych- nine is to disguise them so as to get them into the rat in sufficient but not excessive quantity. Strychnine has a bitter taste; arsenic is more or less gritty in the mouth; phosphorus is easily detected, yet rats seem to like it, and for this reason it is one of the most effective rat poisons, if properly prepared and used. No one should u^e any of the recipes or formulce given here without first reading all that is written in this bidletin about poisons and their uses. Arsenic. — Arsenic (arsenious acid) being chemically un- changeable retains its toxic properties indefinitely under all conditions, and may be easily disguised, therefore it should be No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 225 as reliable and effective as any poison. Professor Lantz writes me, however, that the Public Health Service, since distributing poisons at San Francisco and New Orleans, has become con- vinced that arsenic is a very unreliable rat poison. Never- theless, it has been used effectively for this purpose for more than a century. On Thompson's Island, in 1907, when the rats had become so numerous that they were destroying every- thing edible on the farm, they were reduced almost to harmless numbers at once by quantities of ground fish and arsenic and sandwiches composed of bread, butter and arsenic. Five hundred pounds of fish and 50 loaves of bread were used. Arsenate of copper, in the form of Paris green, which is much used as a commercial rat poison, has no advantage over white arsenic, except that of color, which renders it con- spicuous, but it has the disadvantage that it contains less poison to the pound, and most of the commercial Paris green is adulterated. Arsenate of lead is a slower poison, of less strength than white arsenic, and though now much used it is not recommended. London purple has the advantage of con- spicuous color. Arsenate of soda has not been used as rat poison so far as I am aware White arsenic is a very dangerous poison in the hands of a careless person, as it somewhat re- sembles flour; it may be bought at a low price by the pound from wholesale druggists. A time-honored way of administering arsenic to rats is to place pieces of bread and butter sprinkled with sugar near their runs night after night, until they have learned where to look for them and their suspicions have been allayed, then to spread finely 'powdered arsenic thinly over both sides of slices of bread and spread soft butter over the arsenic, or, better, mix arsenic with the butter ^ before spreading, and sprinkle with c^!i^^;\^^* sugar as before. The poison be- Pain and apprehension. comes incorporated with the butter, and is eaten without suspicion by the cunning rodents. Some- times, however, the sly rat will eat the bread and avoid the poisoned butter, and it is better to melt the butter, stir in an equal quantity of arsenic, and pour the mixture on both 226 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. sides of the bread, so that it will soak in. The bread may be then cut in pieces about an inch square and each piece well sprinkled with powdered sugar. One piece should be fatal to any rat that will eat it. This or any other poison should be put down at night in places where no dog, cat or child can get to it, and the remnants picked up and buried deeply early the next morning. Poisoning rats in dwelling houses is not recommended, but if all water and other liquids are safely covered or otherwise disposed of, poisoned rats usually leave if possible and go elsewhere in search of drink, dying in fields, outbuildings, swamps, or on some neighbor's premises where water may be found. Liquids in open dishes, bottles or cans, and water tanks in closets, attics or elsewhere, should not be overlooked in covering. When poisoning rats in barns and outbuildings it is w^ell to have a small pan containing a little fresh water for rats to drink from for several nights in advance, and then to stir a tablespoonful of arsenic into the water on the night when the poisoned food is put down. Thus the rats, in their attempt to get relief, imbibe more poison, making their election sure. When rats once have learned the effects of arsenic those that recover will not touch it again unless it can be served to them in a form that they cannot recognize. Also, some rats \vill refuse at the beginning to take it in one medium, but may in another; hence the different combinations in which it is served, a few of which are here given. I wish to call attention to the wide variation in the percentages of arsenic in these prepara- tions. Arsenic and lard: Dr. Rucker says that the use of poisons has proven "very efficacious" in the rat-destroying work of the department in San Francisco, where, he asserts, arsenic and phosphorus have given very good results. Arsenic, he says, should be incorporated in some fatty materials, "such as lard, sweetened with sugar, flavored with anise or musk and colored a light pink" to denote its dangerous character. The lard readily takes up arsenic, which, so disguised, is usually taken by rats. A correspondent writes that he picked up three dead rats "near the watering trough" the morning after such a bait had been used. The proportions were roughly given by him No. 4.1 RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 227 as about a tablespoonful of arsenic to half a pint of melted lard, well mixed when hot and then cooled. Such a mixture may be used to advantage in the coldest weather, as it hardens but does not freeze. This contains only about 8^ per cent of arsenic. A heaping thimbleful should be sufficient for one rat. Arsenic, lard and corn meal: Dr. Rucker has sent me from New Orleans the following formula: arsenic 20 per cent, lard 34 per cent, corn meal 46 per cent. (Note the per cent of arsenic.) Half a thimbleful of this mixture placed in a rat hole ought to kill any rat that eats it. Cheese, mutton fat, and other bases may be used to deceive rats. Arsenic should be finely powdered when used as a rat poison, and when sugar is used with it brown sugar, which is moist, probably is best, but powdered sugar, which resembles arsenic somewhat in appearance, may disguise it better than the ordinary granulated article. Waterton, the English naturalist, whose house was overrun with rats in his absence, gives the following as an effective mixture : — Arsenic and oatmeal: a washbasin full of best oatmeal, two pounds of coarse brovyn sugar and a good dessertspoonful of arsenic, well mixed. A tablespoonful should be pushed well into every rat hole.^ Assuming that a washbasin holds three quarts, the quantity of arsenic as compared with the other ingredients would be about |^ of 1 per cent. As washbasins now made hold from two to six quarts, some more exact recipe is needed, and this is given by Professor Lantz, as follows: take a pound of oatmeal (not rolled oats), a pound of coarse brown sugar and a spoonful of arsenic; mix well together and put the composition into an earthern jar. Place a tablespoonful in each run frequented by rats. This formula has been given a wide circulation. It has two great advantages: (1) it is a nearly dry mixture and cannot freeze, and therefore can be used in the dead of winter, when rats need food most and are easily poisoned; (2) it does not stick together, and therefore cannot be carried about by rats, like bread and butter or arsenic pills, and perhaps left where domestic animals can get it, but I have never known this ' Waterton, Charles, Essays on Natural History, 1871, p. 240. 228 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. formula to clean out the rats, probably because the percentage of arsenic is much too small. Possibly the dose — a table- spoonful — might kill a rat now and then were he to eat it all, but there is no certainty that it will be eaten by one rat. Probably it is a safe practice in rat poisoning to mix so large a percentage of poison with the food that if a rat eats only a little he will die and as a means of safeguarding the rat against eating too much and then vomiting it, a small amount may be placed in each rat hole. When about IQ per cent of finely powdered arsenic was used in the mixture the rats disappeared, and some dead rats were found, but in most cases only a part of the tablespoonful was eaten. Less than half a teaspoonful would probably be an ample dose of the 10 per cent mixture. When rats live in holes in the ground in winter they may be poisoned by this mixture in very cold weather by moistening dry earth or clay with water, thus making a quantity of mud or wet clay, placing a teaspoonful of the mixture in each rat hole and closing every hole with mud. This will soon freeze hard, and the imprisoned rats must sooner or later eat the poisoned food or starve. The following rat catchers' recipes are abridged from Rod- well : — Arsenic and flour or malt: a quart of good flour or malt; mix with it an ounce and a half or two ounces of finely ground arsenic; add ten drops of oil of caraway, two drops of oil of anise, and one drop of oil of lavender. These should first be rubbed well up in a handful of flour or malt, then stirred in well with the whole (here we have about 3 per cent of arsenic, which I should increase to at least 8 per cent). Malt may be procured of wholesale druggists or brewers. Arsenical paste: take one ounce of finely powdered arsenic, one ounce of fresh butter, and make them into a paste with oatmeal and honey; rats eat of it greedily, then seek drink. (At least three ounces of oatmeal should be added, with honey enough to moisten.) This ought to give about 15 per cent of arsenic. As this is a most deadly thing, one should be very cautious in its use, and always wash the hands afterward. Arsenic pills: take two ounces of fine flour, two ounces of lump sugar, beat to a powder; ten drops of honey, one ounce of No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 229 arsenic, ground very fine, six drops of oil of rhodium, eight drops of oil of caraway; mix them all well together, and make them into a stiff paste with two or three spoonfuls of milk (over 6 per cent of arsenic in this) ; then cut into pills about the size of peas, and lay them where the vermin frequent.^ Johnson says that the following mixture is effective, and that rats never refuse it if first fed and left unmolested until they become bold and unsuspicious. A handful of good oatmeal mixed with a handful of newly ground malt and an ounce or an ounce and one-half of arsenic (about 19 per cent); make into dough and then into pills the size of a pea, and throw carelessly into rat holes. One of these pills carelessly twisted up in a piece of paper is said to rarely fail of its object.^ Arsenic, corn meal and eggs: mix twelve parts by weight of corn meal and one part of arsenic into a thick dough with white of eggs. Arsenic and fish: this is a combination used by professional rat killers and is very effective where rats will eat it. Care should be taken not to handle the fish or arsenic unless the rats are accustomed to take readily food which has been handled. About half a gill of finely powdered arsenic may be thoroughly mixed with a quart of ground fish. A small fish split open, arsenic rubbed in the cut with a stick and the fish sewed up, may deceive some over-cautious rat. Poisoned fish must be kept out of reach of dogs, cats and birds. Arsenic and milk: Mr. E. H. Reihl in Colman's "Rural World" gives the following plan to clear a barn of rats: each evening after the cows are milked a little fresh milk is placed in a shallow pan where the rats can get it easily. This is con- tinued for a week or more, until the rats get bold, then arsenic is mixed with the milk. Care should be used that no animals or children have access to the barn.^ Official arsenical rat poison: as this goes to press I have received from Passed Assistant Surgeon J. R. Hurley of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States the following formula, which the department has been using in San Francisco and which, so Surgeon Hurley informs > Rodwell, James, The Rat, 1858, pp. 256-259. 2 Johnson, T. B., The Gamekeepers' Directory, 1851, p. 45. ' Colman's Rural World, Vol. 61, 1908. p. 27. 230 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. me, has been evolved in the San Francisco office as the result of experience and experimentation, and has been found there to be practically as efficient as phosphorus. Laboratory ex- periments show that any rat that eats any quantity of this poison dies within a few days. The quantity of each ingredient given is large and the ordinary householder or farmer might find one-tenth this amount amply sufficient for his needs. Wliite arsenic, finely powdered, 4 pounds. Cheese, 4 pounds. Glycerine, 6 ounces. Water, H gallons. Corn meal, 10 pounds. Black aniline, sufficient to color to a slate gray. Oil of anise, | ounce. Melt the cheese with the glycerine and one-half gallon of the water, then add the corn meal and the balance of water, and continue to heat until the corn meal is thoroughly cooked. Then stir in the arsenic and black aniline, and lastly add the oil of anise. It may require more or less water for the above formula, according to the amount of starch in the corn meal, but the quantities as given above are for average quality of corn meal. It is essential in the preparation of this poison that the arsenic be powdered as finely as possible, in order that there shall be no grit in the paste when completed. The black aniline is added until the color of the paste is a slate gray, the idea being to have the color of the poison approximately the same as that of the surrounding ground. In this manner it does not attract the attention of children, dogs, chickens or other animals. In the preparation of the paste none of the ingredients should be handled by the bare hands, as there is reason to beheve that the odor of the human being attaches to the poison, and in some instances may render the rat suspicious of the poison. The paste when finished is placed in ordinary tin fruit cans, each can containing four pounds of paste. Each man places one can per day, and each can of four pounds should be sufficient to poison approximately from 800 to 1,000 holes or runs. The poison is placed with a small mixing spoon, somewhat similar No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 231 to a cheese scoop, and a piece approximately the size of a hazel- nut is placed in each hole or rat-run, in such manner as to be thoroughly concealed from the observation of any person or animal except the rat which uses the hole or run. The glycerine keeps the paste moist and in a fresh condition practically indefinitely, and it was not unusual to learn of dead rats being found in a vicinity where poison had been placed three or four weeks prior to the discovery of the dead animals. Probably this is one of the most deadly arsenical mixtures ever invented, but if rats do not take it one of the others least resembling it should be tried. Where they will take no arseni- cal mixture, as is sometimes the case, other poisons may be resorted to. It will be noticed that the percentage of arsenic in the above mixtures varies greatly. My own opinion is that where the quantity of arsenic is less than 8 or 10 per cent of the whole, the arsenic content should be increased to secure the best results. Prepared arsenic: sometimes rats appear to be suspicious of arsenic in its ordinary form and will not touch it. John Mayer, an honest old gamekeeper, recommends prepared arsenic, to be used as follows: he takes a pound of fine malt, mixes in three drops of oil of rhodium, two ounces of sugar, eight cloves and a tablespoonful of caraway seeds, beating all fine in a mortar. This is put out in small quantities, until rats take it freely. Then the arsenic is dissolved by pouring muriatic acid upon it and mixed with the bait.^ The effect, of muriatic acid is to reduce the arsenic and make its action quicker. Hence, a large percentage of arsenic should be used, that the rat may be fatally poisoned before the symptoms alarm it. The acid, having dissolved the arsenic, evaporates, leaving the arsenic as a fine powder. Strychnine {Strychnia sulyhate) . — Strychnine has given re- sults in practical experiments and is a very effective poison, but should never be used in a dwelling except where the rats cannot get into the walls, as the action of strychnine is very rapid. As compared with arsenic it is expensive, but is so quick and deadly in its action that a very small quantity will do the work of a much larger dose of arsenic. Its great draw- > Mayer, John, The Sportsmen's Directory, 1845, p. 148. 232 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. back is its bitter taste, which warns the experienced rat, but this warning often comes too late when a very small quantity of the poison has been inserted in meat or fish. If used on grain the taste must be disguised as much as possible with syrup or sugar. Strychnine syrup may be prepared as follows: add half an ounce of strychnia sulphate to a pint of boiling water; dissolve it, then add a pint of thick sugar syrup and stir well. Oat- meal or other cereals or bread crumbs may be thoroughly moistened with the syrup and distributed in small quantities in rat holes or runs. All that is not taken should be carefully cleaned up. Strychnine and sweet corn: sometimes this is recommended, but is dangerous to birds and poultry and should be used with caution. It was used with some success at Tliompson's Island by soaking corn in a bucket of hot water in which an ounce of strychnia sulphate had been dissolved. The corn was soaked twenty-four hours, and sugar was added to counteract the bitterness of the strychnine. It should be dried in the sun where no bird or animal can get it. Some of it was taken by rats and some rats were found dead. Dr. Rucker finds that rats will rarely take wheat poisoned with strychnine although squirrels will. Strychnine and fish: insert in a cut in a small piece of fish as much powdered strj^chnine as will equal half a grain of wheat (about one-tenth of a grain of the poison b}^ weight). This may be rolled inside the bait, and the pellet placed far down a rat hole. Strychnine, butter and cheese: ]Mrs. E. O. Marshall of New Salem, Massachusetts, reports continuous success with cheese treated as follows: two grains of powdered strychnia are spread with butter on a bit of cheese about one-quarter inch thick and an inch square. This amount of strychnine should be sufficient to kill at least ten rats, and probably would kill twenty if divided into equal doses and administered separately to each rat. Half a dozen pieces of cheese thus treated are used in the granary now and then; these pieces disappear quickly, and have so reduced the numbers of rats that where they were formerly to be seen running in every direction now they are No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 233 not seen at all. Mrs. Marshall asserts that rats take cheese in preference to grain. Probably the aroma of strong, fragrant cheese disguises the taste of the strychnia until the deed is done. PhospJiorus. — This is perhaps the most widely used poison for rats and mice, and is every effective if properly prepared and used. In an experiment with phosphorus conducted by the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture the rats disappeared. Many recipes for making phosphorus compounds have been published, but I cannot recommend any of them for general use, as many fires have resulted from the use of homemade preparations. Professor Lantz says that the phosphorus paste of the drug stores is composed commonly of dissolved yellow phosphorus mixed with glucose or other substances, and that the pro- portion of phosphorus varies from ^ per cent, which is too small to be always effective, to 4 per cent, which is dangerously inflammable. He has proved by experiment that a commercial phosphorus paste when exposed to sun and rain became so changed that it set fire to paper. The paste is for sale either as such or under some other name as a rat poison at many drug stores and some grocery stores, and those who wish to experiment with it can obtain it without diflSculty. Its odor, unless disguised, usually is something like that of matches, and it shines in the dark, which, no doubt, attracts the rats to it at night. It may be spread like butter on bread or cake, and when swallowed by the rats creates an intense inward burning and thirst, so that if no water is avail- able upon the premises they will leave at once, if possible, in search of it. Mr. F. L. Hitchings of the State Fish Hatchery at Sandwich, Massachusetts, makes an effective phosphorus poison by placing six bunches of Portland Star matches in about a pint of water that the heads may soak over night. In the morning he stirs into the resulting solution granulated Indian meal, enough to take up the water. Barium Carbonate. — The Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture, recommends barium carbonate as one of the cheapest and most effective poisons known for rats and mice. Prof. David E. Lantz says that it has the advantage 234 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. of lacking taste or odor; that it has a corrosive action on the mucous membrane of the stomach if taken in sufficient quan- tity; that in the small doses fed to rats and mice it would be harmless to other animals, and that its action upon rats is slow, so that if possible they usually leave the premises in search of water. This would appear to be the best rat poison known,^ but Dr. Rucker of the Public Health Service says : — • Tlois has not proven an effective poison owing to the fact that it is easily decomposed by the vegetable acids, especially lactic and oleic acid found in cheese and oil. The poisonous effect is not greatly altered by this change. A disagreeable metaUic taste is produced and the rats will not take it.^ In the experiments conducted by the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, rats rarely took this poison, and when it was given to others to try, they reported that rats gave it "the absent treatment." Although they were first fed food prepara- tions without the barium carbonate, they would not touch them after the barium had been incorporated. Professor Lantz finds this poison effective when prepared as follows: — Barium carbonate may be fed in the form of dough composed of four parts of meal or flour and one part of the mineral. A more convenient bait is ordinary oatmeal with about one-eiglith of its bulk of the mineral, mixed with water into a stiff dough. . . . The prepared bait should be placed in rat-runs, about a teaspoonful at a place. If a single applica- tion of the poison fails to kill or drive away all rats from the premises, it should be repeated, with a change of bait. Rod well recommends the following: take a quarter of an ounce of the powder. Make it up, with two ounces of flour or meal, into little balls, like marbles. The addition of two drops of oil of anise seems to make it more attractive to rats, but not to mice.^ One difficulty in regard to procuring barium carbonate is that most drug stores apparently do not carry it, and some druggists are likely to "palm off" barium sulphate upon the purchaser, 1 Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agr., Biol. Surv. Bull. 33, pp. 44, 45. 2 Treas. Dept., Public Health and Marine Hospital Serv. of U. S., The Rat and ita Rela- tion to the Public Health, by various authors, 1910, p. 157. » Rodwell, James, The Rat, 1858, pp. 261, 262. No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 235 but the •precipitated barium carbonate (which is best) should be kept in stock by all leading wholesale druggists. It is an old and well-known rat poison, which apparently has been used with good results by many people. Directions for Use of Poison in Poultry Houses. — No poison was used in poultry houses in the experiments made by the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, as the owners were not anxious to take the risk, several having already poisoned fowls. I cannot recommend anything but rat-proofing for poultry houses, but the Biological Survey recommends the following plan : — Two wooden boxes should be used, one considerably larger than the other, and each having two or more holes in the sides large enough to admit rats. The poisoned bait should be placed on the bottom and near the middle of the larger box, and the smaller box should then be inverted over it. Rats thus have free access to the bait, but fowls are excluded. ^ If strychnine is used the poisoned rats may not be able to get out of the box, or if they leave it tbey may not get to their holes and may be picked up in the morning and buried to pre- vent other animals from being poisoned by eating them. There is always an element of danger, however, in using poison in a poultry house, as rats may carry out poisoned food and leave it where the fowls can get it. Mice when poisoned with strychnine are rarely able to leave such a box, and so may be poisoned in the bouse without much danger of disagreeable results. General Directions for Poisoning. — Care should be taken in mixing and putting out poisons not to handle them or the food in which they are mixed unless scents are used on the hands, as in the directions for trapping given on page 209. Where rats seem suspicious of poisons it is best to put out unpoisoned material, such as that in which the poison is to be mixed, until the rats have become accustomed to eat it nightly. Then deprive them of it for one night and give them poisoned food the next. Poison should never be left out of doors where birds or domestic animals are likely to get it. If put in rat holes it should be inserted well in with a long-handled spoon. Poisoned 1 Lantz, David E., U. S. Dept. Agr., Farmers' Bulletin 297, 1907, p. 5. 236 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. meat should never be used in such cases, as it may be dug or pushed out by rats or dogs and eaten by dogs, cats or hogs. It is a good plan to dig a long trench in the ground, cover it with boards, boxes, etc., and feed and poison the rats in this trench. (See cut.) Antidotes for Rat Poisons. — If one accidentally takes rat poison, get rid of the poison at once by the use of a stomach pump, if a physician is at hand; if not, by the use of emetics. Vomiting may be excited also by tickling the throat with a feather or with the fingers, as well as by the free administration of warm salt or greasy water. Phosphorus: give an emetic of mustard, a tablespoonful stirred to a cream with water, or, better, blue vitriol, three grains, dissolved in water, every five minutes until vomiting occurs. Give a teaspoonful of old, thick oil of turpentine; also, one-half ounce of Epsom salts in half a tumbler of water, and if there be much pain, twenty drops of laudanum in water. Give no other oil, because tliis promotes the absorption of the poison. Arsenic: promote vomiting with copious draughts of warm water or mustard, one tablespoonful stirred to a cream with water. Get from a drug store hydrated peroxide of iron and administer a cupful of it. It may be made by mixing one-half ounce of perchloride of iron with half a tumbler of water and the same quantity of the solution of washing soda. Follow with olive oil or the white of eggs raw, also Epsom salts, one-half ounce to half a tumbler of water; also twenty drops of lauda- num in water, if much pain. Strychnine: give emetics, chloroform inhalations, and chloral PLATE VIII. Fig. 1. — Smoker ready for use in finding connecting burrows. (Original photograph.) li,, iir^ .-^niuke eniLMmu^ liDiii coniR'ctiiii; IidU'm. (