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FARMER
Vol. VI.—No. 42.
RALEIGH. N. C., OCTOBER 24, 1912.
One Dollar a Year.
Studying Agricultural Europe
Henry A. Wallace in Wallace*s Farmer.
In England,
the little village of Tring,
thirt
ty or forty miles from London,
the most beautifully kept estate
^ e have seen. This is the Lord Roth-
^ property, 2,000 to 3,000 acres
^hich is farm land. Thanks to the
st)1 ot the manager, we had a
^ eiidid time looking over the fam-
tierd of milking Shorthorns, the
aiii Jerseys, the rose garden,
Ijg the pastures that have never
stowed in the memory of man.
^ilki
Pianager has been breeding
year;
Shorthorns for over twenty
strj
, and all this time he has been
for milk alone, and not for
the time he has kept strict
th;
Which have guided him more
an
Sotjj^^^ything else in his breeding,
are j, ®t.his cows are white, some
hapf,°^^s, and some are red. Some
blQQ^^ to be of almost pure Bates
^ines, while others are mixed.
I)ro(j^*^®^test thing to me is that they
year^j^^ over 6,000 pounds of milk.
cows
and year out. Some of his
er^g^^*''6 over 12,000 pounds, an av-
he Of four gallons a day. Such cows
'ises
most in his breeding work.
the manager did not em-
hgayj^® the point, I noticed that the
breg(j?®^ producers are of the Bates
Ope The manager says that no
knows anything about
**fe ^^as been at it all his
^Pd
he
IS still largely in the dark.
Of
OOu
* Says the one safe side is the
the
power. We saw a number
^fge
best producers. They are
V ^nimals, weighing 1,200 to 1,
^U(lgg ’^PPds as near as we could
^hitg'. they had been black and
white and roan,
®teiug jr*" taken them for Hol-
^Ped ’ their heads were more re-
JJtore of the hide
was
50lU
0 a Jersey than a Holstein.
^^y ^ cows which had been
SpL S, mnnfU ...v i._
''‘'‘spciid or so looked to be
®onie Of fu ^ animals. So, also, did
'^hild bull The Roth-
r ^ breeders at
from $200 upward
Ser doesn’t think much of
fads, and some of his
her registered in the Short-
B^^rs aer, fu Five or six
Sot ^ dairy Shorthorn breed-
and formed a record
Blver
^^10 Rothchild
fu^'ls aro «tone. The barn-
v„,®^selvea^ ^ paved, and the barns
vino most of them covered
t tho^ Wherever there are
straight
whhu. part of the
ih *^^oning V, ^ devoted to landscape
6(1^^^ acres expanse of
hy a p„„ olosely clipped grass,
ija ^reea t.. line of dense for
In
air you
the rose garden you
fillPfi fairyland. The
'V th perfume, and the
eye is filled with the red, white, pink
and cream roses. Near the rose
garden we saw the inside of a beau
tiful dairy. The fioor was of white
tile and the w'alls of blue. Here are
butter samples. To one side w'as
the most beautiful bouquet of yellow
roses I ever saw. One of us touched
his finger to a petal in admiration,
and then we discovered that they
were made of butter. None would
have ever guessed it by loo'king.
Shorthorn cows grazed with deer
on hillside pastures, which have nev
er been plowed. Beautiful bits of
woodland so thickly set w’ith trees
that the sun can scarcely shine
through even at mid-day. Every
where are roads as smooth as city
paving. Flowers, grass and trees all
in perfect order. There are deer
like Jerseys on the Rothchild farm.
Nowhere have I seen Jerseys with
more refinement of finer boned. They
seem like toy cows, and would make
a nice ornament for the front yard,
but, like every other farm animal on
the place, they must show a profit or
be sold. Records are kept of every
cow, and each year the low producers
are sold. On the London market
Jersey milk wholesale for 24 cents a
gallon, as compared with 19 cents a
gallon for Shorthorn milk. Jersey
milk will test five or six per cent, as
compared with three or four per cent
for Shorthorn. During 1911 the av
erage daily yield for the nineteen
Jerseys in the herd was tw ogallons.
We saw a few of the 4,000 chick
ens on the place. They are the white
legged, single-combed, Sussex breed.
The manager looks upon them as one
of the best paying of the ail-purpose
breeds of fowl. They not only furnish
fine early broilers for the London
market, but they are good layers.
Here at the Rothchild place we
asked again about the rent of Eng
lish land, and were told that there
was a variation of from $5 to $25 per
acre. Some of the finest pasture and
hay land rents for as high as $25 per
acre, but this is not realy too much
when you consider that hay last win
ter sold for $30 a ton, and one acre
of such land will produce three tons.
The manager at the Rothchild farm
not only wined and dined us to our
heart’s content, but insisted that -we
be served with afternoon tea. A
rather amusing thing occured at
lunch. When—as usual—the ser
vants came around to get our orders
for drinks, most of us ordered ginger
ale or lemonade, but several of our
company, to be polite, so they claim
ed, ordered whiskey and soda, so the
manager would not be lonesome
when he ordered his. But, strange
to say, this manager differed from
some of the others by whom we had
been entertained, and ordered noth
ing but water.
At Windsor, near London, the King
lives and keeps his herds and flocks.
The day after visiting Lord Roth-
child’s beautiful establishment we
saw the King’s Shorthorn herd. Of
course, George V. really doesn’t both
er his head about the herd, but just
the same he has many good Short
horns which, under the management
of Mr. McWilliams, win their share
of the prizes at the big shows. The
King’s Shorthorns were big, and
largely of Scotch breeding. They are
blockier and lower set than the milk
ing Shorthorns of Lord Rothchild’s
herd. But on the average, are not
much better than Lord Rothchild’s,
even for beef. On the whole, .we were
disappointed in the King’s herd, al
though we saw there some very good
animals. One was the herd header.
Proud Jubilant, bought from Duthie,
the Scotch breeder, for $1,700, when
six months old. The best cow was
Windsor Bell, who won first at the
Royal shows this year. Also we saw
a two-year-old steer carried over
from last year’s Royal, where he was
champion over all breeds.
Windsor Castle, where the King
lives, is not so fine looking as I ex
pected. It is just a plain castle,
with no fancy work about it. The
interesting thing about it is, that
the Kings of England have lived here
for more than eight hundred years.
The most beautiful thing about the
grounds is a broad avenue three
miles long, lined with old elm trees.
They were planted 230 years ago by
Charles H. The castle is at one end
of the walk, while at the other end,
three iMles away, is a statute of
George HI. on horseback. Back of
the statue begins a wooded park
twenty-five miles in circumference.
In southeastern England is some of
the prettiest farming land of any we
saw. It is all underlaid with chalk,
which is a kind of lime, and, like
our limestone soils, is very fertile.
The most noted crop of Kent County
is hops, but there are also fine oats,
wheat and hay fields. It was nice
to drive out from Canterbury,
through the farming country on a
fine macadamized road. Mr. Scott
pointed out some Canada thistles in
a pasture. Mr. Pervier called atten
tion to the fact that many of the
orchards were in grass, and not as
cleanly cultivated as they should be.
Yet, try as we might, we could find
but little fault. The wheat fields were
better than any I ever saw in the
Corn Belt. The Hawthorn hedge
fences were kept in almost perfect
shape. But it was when we looked
at the hop fields that we saw the most
condensed cultivation. Hops are
vines which must grow ten to fifteen
feet into the air if they are to pro
duce well. The hop itself, which is
used in brewing, is the blossom of
the hop plant, just after it has bloom
ed but before seed has formed. This
hop blossom has in it flavors which
make beer taste better. Brewers pay
good prices for hop blossoms, and
for this reason thousands of acres
around Canterbury are put in hops.
We had the pleasure of visiting Mr.
Berry, one of the largest hop grow
ers. For three weeks during the
busy season in the fall, 2,500 pickers
are at work on Mr. Berry’s three hun
dred acres of hops. On this place we
saw one solid field of seventy acres
of hops. From above, it reminded
me of a gigantic piece of green lace.
Every six feet fourteen-foot poles are
set. The hops follow up the poles for
five or six feet', and then follow
strings across to the next row. The
big seventy-acre field looked like a
continuous row of- arbors. Clean cul
tivation was given between rows. We
decided that hop growing is more like
market gardening than farming.
Hops are affected with a louse and
mildew. Tobacco decoction kills the
louse, and powdered sulphur prevents
mildew. Mr. Berry lays great empha-
hasis on spraying. He has four
miles of pipes in his fields, so that
spraying machines can load up quick
ly and easily. It was interesting to
look at the spraying machines. They
were arranged so they could be pull
ed between the rows, and were equip
ped with twelve nozzles, pointed at
all angles, so that every leaf would
be covered from the under side. Ev
ery plant louse must be killed, for if
even one escapes there may be a mil
lion more within a week. Many lit
tle galvanized sheds are found on
every hop-grower’s place. Here the
hop pickers from out of town live.
Some of them live in Canterbury,
but large numbers come from Lon
don. They get lodging and firewood,
and are paid a shiling (24 cents) for
picking a six-bushel basket. A good
picker will earn a dollar a day. Af
ter the hops are picked, they are
put in kilns to dry; these look like
silos with long, pointed roofs. Af
ter the hops are dried, they are baled
and marketed. Mr. Berry says that
New York and California hops have
been giving the Engiish hops some
close competition.
There are several hundred acres of
pears, apples, cherries, raspberries,
and gooseberries on the Berry farm.
Suppose we stop for a minute in a
seventy-acre sweet cherry orchard.
The big, black, juicy cherries are
now being picked. It takes but one
invitation for us to help ourselves.
I never tasted such cherries. Our
Corn Belt cherries are about half as
large as these, and about one-tenth
as sweet. The trees in this orchard
were headed high. Mr. Berry claims
that Southern England is one of the
best apple growing sections in the
world. He has apple trees that net
him $500 worth of fruit per acre ev
ery year. His orchards are set with
trees eight feet apart each way. The
trees are grown on what is called a
dwarf stock. Also they are kept low.
Some of his trees are set twenty feet
apart each way and headed high. Un
der them he grows gooseberries and
raspberries. As we walked through
such an orchard, it was gooseberry
picking time, and we had to stop
and pick a few sweet English goose
berries as big as plums. Mr. Berry
told us that an acre of gooseberries
had netted him as high as $600. We
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