1000 
TUB RURAL NEW-YORKER; 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Terrible Temptation. — I presume most 
farmers are tempted to change their plans 
every Spring. I know I am. One field 
where I planned to put oats turns out to 
be too wet and soggy. That old apple or¬ 
chard near the barn would grow fair oats. 
We have manured it well, and there would 
be short hauls for heavy loads. I am 
tempted to change my plan and put oats 
there. But I promised that orchard a fair 
show. It was Fall-plowed, and I agreed 
to keep it well cultivated up to the middle 
of June, anyway. That is what an orchard 
ought to have. You simply can’t grow good 
oats and good apples together. These 
trees may be too far gone for help, but we 
will give them what they need, anyway. As 
1 have said, we raise oats to cut and cure 
for hay. We shall take some of the Fall- 
plowed potato ground and, if possible, fol¬ 
low it with buckwheat and clover. I have 
also been tempted to try “cheap” seed po¬ 
tatoes when I know better. Cow peas and 
clover are high this year, and I have been 
tempted to let them go. Yes, yes, we ail 
have these temptations on the farm. We 
know better, and yet we have to club our¬ 
selves up to the task of doing our plain 
duty. 
Fine Manure.— We got 13 big loads of 
manure out of the pigpen at the old place. 
It was dry and fine. The horses were bed¬ 
ded last year on planer shavings and the 
manure was thoroughly worked over by 
hungry hogs. Uncle Ed scattered a little 
corn in the manure as he threw it out. I’ll 
guarantee that each hog lifted BOO pounds 
weight with his nose in hunting for each 
grain of corn. The shavings were well 
rotted. I do not like to use fresh shavings 
as manure, but when they are worked up 
as these were there is nothing better. What 
a difference in handling and spreading this 
manure compared with that in which stalks 
and straw are mixed! We spread this 
manure in an old pear orchard. People 
say such stuff will be sure to cause blight. 
I know that these trees are about gone, 
and it is a principle at Hope Farm to give 
the old veterans the best we have. I’ll get 
new wood on these old trees if there is any 
to be had. 
Transplanting Fruits.— At the old place 
we had good patches of Early Harvest 
blackberries—Cuthbert, Gregg and Kansas 
raspberries and Wilder and Prince Albert 
currants. We dug about two dozen Wilder 
currants, which will give us a fair start. 
If we want more we can use cuttings, 
though I do not. expect to go into currant 
culture extensively. It has never paid us. 
We have also dug a fair lot of raspberries 
and blackberries. It does not pay usually 
to dig up three-year-old plants, yet this 
stock was good, and we tried it. We cut 
the tops well back and hope to get a little 
fruit this year. We have also dug up a 
few rhubarb roots and some of our old 
Parker Earle strawberry plants. These 
strawberry plants are five years old. They 
are just as old as the Bud, and I want to 
carry them as long as I can as a matter 
of curiosity. I think that we can fruit 
strawberries for a dozen years, though, of 
course, it wouldn’t pay to do so for busi¬ 
ness. I must have a few plants of White 
Imperial currant. There is nothing finer 
for home use. Wilder and White Imperial 
make a great home garden team. 
Learning to Drive.— The Graft is begin¬ 
ning to drive old Major. It is a great event 
in the life of a boy when he is trusted alone 
with a horse. It gives him a feeling of 
mastery and power to think that he is able 
to direct a force far greater than his own. 
Old Major is an ideal horse for a boy to 
“break in” with. He couldn’t run away 
if he wanted to, and his ambitions in that 
direction died out a dozen years ago. His 
only road ambition now is to get home to 
his stall at the most convenient moment. 
Such dead ambitions make fine grafting 
stock for a boy’s buds of mastery and 
power. We always take the whip out of 
the socket when the Graft assumes the 
lines. He is at the age when boys like to 
"show off.” His orders are to keep Major 
on the walk, and the old horse ably sup¬ 
ports the orders. The Graft doesn’t object 
to the walk, because the slower the pro¬ 
gress the longer his job lasts. An old 
horse and a young boy make a handy com¬ 
bination for running errands and light jobs. 
Getting a Start.— We have a number of 
little pots, used formerly for potting straw¬ 
berries. This year we hope to preserve a 
lttle sunshine in them. They are filled with 
a mixture of rich manure and soil used for 
starting sweat corn, bush Lima beans, 
melons, etc. We plant two kernels of 
sweet corn, a bean or two melon seeds in 
a pot and then sink it in soft soil in the 
hotbed. When the plants get a fair start 
and the weather is warm we can take the 
whole thing out of the pot and transplant 
in the garden. We have done this with 
sods before, and, of course, there is noth¬ 
ing new about it. The pots are quite small 
—too small for sweet corn if the season 
continues cold. Once let the tap root of 
corn curl up against the bottom of the pot 
and it will be hard to get it to go straight 
down again. We do not attempt this on a 
large scale. It is only for our garden. We 
want the earliest vegetables for our own 
use. I also want to try starting peanuts, 
and even cotton in this way. 
Odd Notes.— Brent took the incubators 
on shares. He hatched 14 out of the 100- 
egg machine, and 38 out of 200 eggs in the 
other. That seems like small business to 
many, but those who fail seldom get into 
print. Two setting hens are faithfully 
covering their eggs. The other hens are 
still shelling out the eggs at a great rate. 
.The horses are on full feed. 
They have a hard season’s work ahead of 
them and must be well fed and handled. A 
Cutaway harrow will not only tear a sod into 
pieces, but it will tear the fat off a horse’s 
ribs.Our women folks believe 
that this principle of stuff when you work, 
go light when you play, may be applied in 
the house as well as in the barn. " There is 
no sense in getting up a great meal on 
Sunday night. Aunt Jennie puts us off 
with crackers and cheese and milk or cocoa 
for Sunday supper. It’s enough. The 
women folks ought to have their share of 
Sunday.In sowing oats , on 
Fail-plowed sod we first work the sod with 
the Acme. Then the oats are broadcast 
and worked in with a spike-tooth harrow 
and lightly rolled. This appears to make 
a good seed bed.Our first 
plowing was done on April 5. This was in 
a small patch at the side of the house, 
which we intend for a small fruit planta¬ 
tion. We expect to fill it largely with all 
suitable bush fruits. This year, between 
the fruit we hope to raise such vegetables 
as peas, beans, sweet corn, etc. They will 
be very handy to the kitchen door. I can 
put a hose on one of our hydrants and keep 
the mill running in breezy weather, so as 
to irrigate this patch. 
Fruit Advice.— My idea of starting a 
little nursery of apples or transplanting 
cherry sprouts for grafting has called out 
quite a little comment. The cherry trans 
planting seems sensible enough. Mr. J. S. 
Woodward sends this note about apple 
planting: 
“If I were to set a new orchard (I am 
thinking of it), I would plant Ben Davis 
exclusively. Don’t be frightened. Ben 
has one good trait certainly. A sound 
body; also good healthy roots. I would 
then, the second Spring, top-graft every¬ 
one of them to such varieties as I wanted. 
This would give superior bodies and roots 
and save several years in time. I once 
planted an orchard of two-year-old trees. 
The soil was rich, and if any fellow was 
ever sick of his job it was I with that or¬ 
chard. I had to keep them staked up until 
they were five or six years old. They grew 
so fast that unless staked they would bend 
every which way.” 
That’s a novel idea, to make Ben Davis 
realize the error of his ways by grafting 
him at the top. I had thought that North¬ 
ern Spy made about the best grafting stock, 
but perhaps Ben is better. You see it’s 
a big problem—this idea of starting an or¬ 
chard so well that it will live as a monu¬ 
ment to your patience and skill. The world 
is just running over with wisdom and ex¬ 
perience in fruit culture. All a fellow has 
to do is to stand still and take the drip¬ 
pings. That doesn’t suit me, however. I 
want to stir it up and get the best and 
wisest of it before I start. h. w. c. 
The Farmers’ Advocate says that a Kan¬ 
sas man recently sold his crop of 1,000 
bushels of pop corn for $600. 
It is reported from Columbia, S. C., that 
the sale of fertilizers this year is one-half 
more than last year. This is supposed to 
be due to the increased plantings of cotton 
which the farmers are preparing to make 
on account of the prevailing high prices. 
In my article on Soy beans and Japan 
millet in the silo, page 212, I inadvertently 
wrote Hungarian millet at the beginning, 
instead of Japan millet, which was used 
exclusively. s. R. D. 
Loch Sheldrake, N. Y. 
Low Down Wheels.— In regard to those 
low solid wheels, you won’t need to carry 
any mud; you will have all you can do to 
carry the wheels—up hill. Not but what 
they are all right in their place, but their 
place Is not on the road, and especially a 
hilly road. reader. 
Milton, N. Y. 
The Railroad Gazette states that during 
1899 there were 123,893 cars of all kinds built 
in this country, an Increase of about 20,000 
over the previous year. Of these 117,982 
were for freight, 1,200 for passenger service, 
and the remainder for street railways. A 
feature of last year’s building was the 
number of steel freight cars turned out. 
In 1898 there were 2,700, and in 1899 the out¬ 
put was 10,500. 
Other People’s Profits 
nt. when they began to spray tha right way — 
' PEPPLER AND CLIMAX SIX-ROW SPRAYERS. 
h for you. Read how they upray Ho acree a day. 
have increased 25 to 60 per cent, when they began to apray tha right way — 
with the right sprayer, the p ~ “ 
They will do as much for you. Read how they apray Ho acres aAay, ’ 
N how they save the poison, increase crops one-half, pay for them- [ 
■elves in one season. Catalogue contains spray calendar, formulas, etc. Sent free. 1 
I also manufacture the Improved Riggs Plow and Riggs Furrowers. 
THOMAS PEPPLER, Box 60 , HICHTSTOWN, N.J. 
> T V» M I MI I WU 'I I »M 1 
l FRPTII .IZRPSH from factory to farm ! 
IWE SELL YOU DIRECT. NO AGENT’S PROFITS. 
NO SALESMAN'S EXPENSES. 
VALUABLE PREMIUMS GIVEN FREE. 
For premium list, prices, samples and book, write 
THE SCIENTIFIC FERTILIZER COMPANY, HERR’S ISLAND. PITTS BURG, IPA. 
Agricultural Chemicals. 
For lowest prices on Muriate and Sulphate of Potash, 
Kainit, other Agricultural Chemicals, Acid Phosphate, etc., 
address 
The American Agricultural Chemical Co ^ 26 Broadway, New York, N. Y. 
.LUikt.Lliikt.LilikLLU.ikk.Lllikt.L. 
Lister’s 
I Potato Manure 
always grows large crops of line quality and smooth¬ 
skinned potatoes. It is a rare combination of the best 
plant food materials so prepared as to force a rapid 
growth which discourages potato bugs and insures 
early maturity. 
Send for free copy “Farmers’ 
Memorandum Book.” 
I Listers Agricultural Chemical Wurks, 
1 59 FRONT ST, NEW YORK. Factories at NEWARK, N. J. 
