IT
Garden
VOL. LVII.
INDIANAPOLIS, NOV. 22, 1902.—TWENTY PAGES.
NO. 47
Haunts of tne Red Fox.
Editor* Indian* Farmer:
By chance I got hold of one of your
papers and like it vary iiin.ii. I see on
page 18 in October 11, 1902 number where
a reader wants to know where the red fox
is plentiful ia 1'osey county. They nre
very thick in Lynn township, Harmony
township, Black township and Point township. West Lynn is an ideal place for
fox chasing and there are several hounds
lure. Foxes are most too thick to have
the best of sport. J. A. A.
Posey   Co.
A Big: Crop of Tomatoes.
Editors Indian* Fanner:
The canning plant at Bloomingdale, Ind.,
has just closed a successful year. The
acreage of tomatoes planted was not as
large as it should have been but the yield
was much above the average. Last
spring a prize of $18 in gold was offered
for the largest crop per acre. This has
just been awarded to Joseph Brown, an
energetic young farmer, who produced 745
bushels of tomatoes on less than 2 acres
of ground. Another farmer raised over
$700 worth of tomatoes this season.
Parke Co. Mrs. L. N. H.
Traveling Libraries.
Mltor* Indian* Fanner:
I see in this week's Farmer, that out of
85 of the circulating libraries belonging
to the State, only 15 are in use at this
time. How can we have them in Shelby
Co? I think the people here would be
delighted to have them. W. W. S.
Shelbyville, Nov. 6.
—We are glad to know that one reader
of ours, at least, is anxious to get some of
the reading matter that the State so generously offers to all who will comply with
the regulations the Legislature has made
for the preservation of the books.
The Act under which the so-called traveling libraries were purchased was passed
Feb. 24, 1899. It provides for appointing
a public library commission, and for the
purchase and preservation of the books.
Section 3 appropriates $3,000 for the purchase of books, and for loaning them to
library associations and other organizations and persons provided for in Sec. 4,
which states that any five or more citizens
may organize a library association, on
furnishing satisfactory security for the
care and return of the books to the secretary of the State Commission. The only
expense is that of expressage to and return from the local organization.
If our correspondent, or any other reader
will send us a list of five responsible citi-
?ens in their neighborhood who will guarantee the safe keeping and return of the
books, we will arrange for sending them.
The libraries are different from each other.
When one has been used it can be exchanged for another. We will send catalogues to those who send ns the five
names of citizens who will be responsible
for complying with the regulations, and
shall be glad if we can help them in getting all the 70 libraries, now lying idle
in the State Honse basement, into use
among our readers. Now is just the time
to start this good work. The evenings are
lone, and there is plenty of time to read,
and these books are worth tha reading.
They are not trash.
8ug*ar Be-t Growing ln Colorado.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
Rocky Ford furnishes a striking example
of what extensive farming will accomplish
for a community. The farmers grow the
famous Rocky Ford cantelonpes which are
shipped  a!l over the United  States as a
superior fruit; they also raise thousands
of tons of sugar beet! to supply the new
beet sugar factory- The melons are
the must profitable under favorable market conditio-**; but the beets furnish the
rarest crop, and are a money maker withal.
Three years ago the sugar factory was
completed St a cost of over a million dollars and with a capacity of 1,000 tons of
beeta a day or from 125,000 to 150,000
pounds of sugar daily, according to the
amount of baccaharine contained in the
1 .*. ts. At that time the population of the
town was about 900. To-day it is 3,400
and the surrounding country has settled
...i i***>*pon(lingly. And the factory is not
yet nearly in full operation because it
takes years for the farmers to get in a full
beet acreage. The first year the beets
laised were 43,000 tons; last year the crop
was 1)0,000 tons; this year it will be over
100,000 tons. In 1900, four thousand
acres were in beets; in 1901, ninety-two
hundred acres were planted and this year
beet fields cover 15,000 acres.
There Is a thorough community of Interest between the farmers and ..ta! sugar
makers. The factory must see that the
beet grower is satisfied, or there will be no
beets grown to keep it running; the beet
grower is stimnlated to careful wo-k by the
sliding scale paid for his beets. Not only
the tonnage yield per acre bnt the sujrar
content in the beet depends largely upon
cultural conditions. If the grower's beets
go 14 per cent sugar he gets $4 a ton nnd
for every one per cent of sugar above 14
the factory offers him 33 cents. The
Rocky Ford sngar content has been very
high and the prices paid by the factory
averaged $5.17 per ton which will make
a total paid this year, to the farmers of
the valley, in excess of $500,000. Moreover the pay is spot cash and there are no
commissions or losses. Like Jones of
Binghamton, the factory pays the freight
Some of the beets come 100 miles, and
these farmers net exactly as much as
though their land were within sight of the
factory. I saw a long line of 28 cars
en the Santa Fe road all piled full of
sngnr beets waiting to be switched np
alongside the factory.
How mnch can a man make from an
acre of beets, and how many acres can he
grow? Well, in the first place the beet
needs to bo rotated. The best farmers do
not as a rule plant beets two suecessivn
years on thrf same land. So they must
per force raise other crops. But the
Rocky Ford beet fields run generally from
T. to 20 acres. The cost of raising the
crop is $25 or $30 an acre counting nil
labor; bnt it costs practically the same as
it does with most crops, to raise any 8
tons to the acre as 25 tons. So the profit
depends. Hardly a field crop, it seems,
needs more the exercise of good common
sense combined with scientific knowledge.
Twenty-five tons per acre is above the
average yield; but it is by no means the
limit. The average tonnage is constantly
increasing year by year as the growers
study more the habits of the beet. The
Agricultural Department gives 38 tons per
acre as the ideal average yield, with abont
50.000 beets to the acre, each beet weighing two pounds. This yield has been
surpassed however on a prize acre with a
42 ton crop. If the careful grower can
average 25 tons he can clear $100 an acre
and he can easily take care of ten acres
and also raise fruit or other crops in addition.
The beet needs a deep soil sufficiently
loose to allow its taproot to easily penetrate;  if    the  subsoil  is    hard  the    tap
1.raiuii.*s and the beet loses ils sugar eon-
tent. The depth to which the root will
descend is not generally known. At the
Paris Exposition a glass tube contained a
sugar   beet   tOOt   whose   tap   was   111   feet
long.    This ha.l been obtained by dining
down along si.le the root and then caiv-
fully spraying away the dirt. With this
hnl.it of deep rooting the erop thrives on
but little water. Also if water is s*
an.l the ground gets dry, the beets will
stand still for weeks, an.l then start forward again into full vigor as soon as moisture comes. Sulisoiling to a depth of 14
or 16 Inches is practiced l.y the best fanners upon the lirst plowing land for beets.
The Stocky Ford Irrigation ditch bringing water from the Arkansas rive always
earriea a sediment which furnishes renewed life to the soil, like the muddy
flow of the Nile. Instead of decreasing
the fertility the land becomes better
every year, and the farmers use no commercial fertilizer.
One great by-industry of a beet sugar
factory is cattle feeding. Thousands of
head of fine steers are fattened in the pens
adjacent to the Rocky Ford factory on
alfalfa, sorgum an.l the beet pulp, after
the sugar is ext* acted. Seven entire carloads of steers from this factory topped
the Kansas City market In price tor 13
years.
The steers weighed 1,200 nnd 1,400
pounds. Dairying also forms an important by-industry' to beet sugar growing.
Where the pulp can be hauled back to
the farm it can be fed with great profit
to milch cows.
The farmers of Rocky Ford feel safe in
the sight of the black stack of the factory
pouring ont its clouds of inky smoke from
$250 worth of coal a day. It represents
a million dollars insurance to them and
furnishes them a certain opportunity to
market a sure crop, the price of which
they can depend upon. Then by rotating
they can raise alfalfa and stock or cante-
loupes, or half dozen other products which
thrive in the valley. G. E. M.
Rocky Ford, CoL. October 22.
Plant Pood ln Vegetable Crops.
Editor* Indiana Farmer:
Plant food means the principles in manures and fertilizers which promote the
growth of plants, and for all practical
purposes may be considered to refer only
to nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid.
At least, these three substances are about
all that are necessary to plant growth that
is likely to become so deficient in soils that
*j the growth of crops is checked by their
absence. The quantities of these plant
elements actually taken up by plants is
small as compared with the full bulk of
the crop, but they are nevertheless necessary; so much so that without them or
any one of them, plants simply fail to
make growth. The point is illustrated by
the fact that if a soil contained for example enough potash for half a crop, only
a half a crop at best can lie grown. It
is well, therefore, to accustom ourselves
to regard manures of whatever form, as
well as fertilizers anil agricultural chemicals, as simply so much nitogen, potash
and phosphoric acid.
Nitrogen is often called "ammonia" probably because the word ammonia means a
well known substance to many people,
while nitrogen is an unfamiliar word.
Ammonia is however, a compound of nitrogen and a gas called hydrogen, and the
hydrogen is of little or no value in plant
growth. As a matter of fact, the nitrogen
plant food in manures and fertilizers rarely ever contains any  actual  ammonia  as
such, as it is probably better at once to
udopt the word nitrogen and become familiar with it. Nitrogen is a gas, and as used
as plant food is generally understood to
be combined wilh a gas called oxygen,
forming nitric acid. When this nitric
a. i.i is joined to other substances, a product is formed called a nitrate, and tliis
is the most oseful form of nitrogen plant
food. Potash and phosphoric acid are
both substances too well known to need
a  detailed description here.
The actual needs of crops in plant food
is somewhat in dispute. As all soils contain more or less of all three of the element* of plant food, manurial applications which were not known to suit the
actual needs of the crops, have given good
returns. This because the fertilizer applied made up with what existed in the
soil naturally, all the plant food needed
l*y the crop. However, these conditions
are unusual, when a gradual falling off
in acre yields shows tliat plant food is
needed. However rich a soil may be,
with continuous cropping the time comes
at last when crops begin to fail, and fertilizer applications will restore the crop-
making power of the soil. It is not easy
tO say just how much fertilizer should
be used, and what kind. The actual need
iu plant food of any particular crop is,
so far as we now know, best shown by the
actual plant food contained in the crop itself. As the crop took np tliis plant food
in order to make its growth, and as nature rarely makes use of anything it does
not want, the composition of a crop ought
to show just what a similar crop will need
in the way of plant food.
It Is true tliat a soil may be deficient
only In one or two of the plant food elements, in wiiich case it would seem to be
a waste to apply any other plant food
than that deficient. However, it is very
difficult to draw such fine lines of distinction, especially as the element or elements present, though ample this year,
may become exhausted a season or two
later. A ehcose-paring policy fails badly
on the farm, as in the event of crop failure, the loss ln time, etc. is irreparable,
ln general practice, it perhaps is cheaper
to make the mistake on the safe side, and
r.se plant food liberally, unless it is well
known that certain elements are not required as manure. The following table
sl;..ws the actual plant food contained per
i*cre, in  average crops of various  vegeta-
Wes: Phos.
Crop. Nttropen. Potash.       Arid.
Apparatus..     ..   12 pounda 12 pounds 4 pounds
Knrly beets  . .   . 43 pounds. Ta ponnds 1*. pou-dl
Karly   cabbage   114 pounds 129 pounds 23 pounds
.'nuliflo.vpr   ...    (a pounds 15 pounds     7 pounds
Cucumbers   ..    .112 pound*. 108 pounds 84 pound*.
Lettuce fit) pounds 111 pounds 21 pounds
Onions *,7 poumls 48 pounds 19 pounds
Potatoes 30 pounds 41  pounds 10 pounds
Tomatoes 11   poumls fl pounds     8 pounds
Turnips 21  pounds 5 pounds     8 pounds
The figures relate only to those portions
of the crop which are usually sold off the
land, the straw, tops, haves, etc., not being counted as they are supposed to go
back to the soil as manure of one kind
or another. As a matter of fact, it is
doubtful if a very great quantity of this
ronghage, rather the plant food contained
in it, is not lost in the operation. At best.
it is doubtful if it reached the very land
from which it was taken. Consequently,
the actual drain of plant food in growing
vegetable crops must be much more than
the figures in the table show. One very
good thing the table brings out is the relation between tho different elements of
plant food. It shows that for a certain
nmount of nitrogen for example, certain
other amounts of potash, and of phosphoric acid must be used, that is, the proper
balance in the plant food.   G. K. Wilson.