1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Pioneer Farming. —That is about 
what we are trying to do at Hope Farm. 
While naturally strong, the soil is full 
of rocks and stones, and weeds and 
bushes. This year the chief aim is to 
break up part of the farm and get it 
smooth and mellow. We can’t hope to 
raise big crops while doing this, but we 
will do the best we can. I am taking 
the back of the farm first, for that is in 
worst 3hape. The bushes and young 
cedars have come in, and in a few years 
more the fields would cost more than 
they are worth to clean up. We plowed 
one stony and grubby field that was ; n- 
tended for cow peas. When the soil 
turned up it looked so well that we de¬ 
cided to plant corn instead, and we used 
ajbout 600 pounds per acre of corn ter- 
tilizer. Some people say that you can’t 
get your money back by using fertilizer 
on field corn. These same people Will 
tell you that it doesn’t pay to keep a 
„u0-pound butter cow, or to half feed a 
good one. While it is possible to use 
too much fertilizer on corn, I don’t think 
many of us are likely to do so. The fer- 
t.iizer cranks say, why use cow peas at 
all? Why not break up the old fields 
and start at once with corn and heavy 
dressings of fertilizer? There may be 
truth in that—but I want to know, and 
so I try both ways. 
'Cow Peas.— We are planting them 
wherever we can find a place—mostly on 
the back fields. One field over past the 
woods has evidently been out of culti¬ 
vation for yer.rs. It seemed to be about 
the last call for subduing it, so all hands 
went at it with ax and grub hoe, and 
made way for the sulky plow. The steel 
in this plow was well tempered, or it 
would have been like its name. It was 
a tough, hard job. The cow peas were 
broadcast on the furrows and worked in 
with the Acme. Now we can leave them 
alone until Fall. We hope for a good 
crop of seed, but an early frost might 
stop that. There are other fields so 
grown up with little trees that we can¬ 
not find time to clean and plow them. 
We shall plow furrows three feet apart 
as best we can, right through these old 
fields, and sow the cow peas without 
plowing. Uncle Ed says this works well 
in Florida, and New Jersey ought to 
be able to do as well. This crop will be 
for seed. I have known melons to be 
grown in this way. They are planted in 
furrows eight feet apart, and the vines 
run out over the unplowed sod. 
Tiie Corn Crop.— We tried to put this 
crop in right. The sod was plowed this 
Spring and harrowed twice. The field 
was then marked with a disk marker, 
and the seed dropped and covered by 
hand. About three days after planting 
we ran the Acme harrow over the field. 
This smoothed and leveled the surface— 
doing better work, I think, than a roller 
would have done. We used tar on the 
seed corn, stirring it in and drying it 
out with wood ashes. I fear I haven’t 
as much faith as I should have, for I 
half expected that the tar would injure 
the seed. I felt much the same way 
over the formaldehyde on the oats and 
the sulphur on the potatoes. These wise 
men may be all right, but we like our 
own experience best. The tar seems to 
have done its duty. The corn sprouts 
well, and the crows find nothing to crow 
over when they pull up a hill. The men 
who ought to know say that Mr. Crow is 
a bird of good character, who destroys 
50 insects for every kernel of corn. 
Corn-eating with him seems to be like 
the one evil habit that sometimes 
throws a shadow on an otherwise good 
man. The tar seems to take all the 
sport out of Mr. Crow’s deviltry. I 
wish I knew of some mental or moral 
tar to do the same thing for human 
beings! 
Potato Beetles. —The boys have 
been claiming that there would be no 
Potato bugs to fight this year, because 
there have been no potatoes on the 
4 03 
farm for years. I knew better, and now 
our potatoes are fairly alive with the 
hard-shelled beetles. I have never seen 
them so thick. Where do they come 
from? That is too much for me. It is 
enough to know that they are here, and 
we must prepare to fight their children. 
Suppose we all quit other work and 
spent a week destroying the egg clus¬ 
ters, would it pay? I doubt it. It seems 
to me more sensible to get ready to poi¬ 
son them. Last year we went at them 
with dry Paris-green. This year I wish 
to test it with the spray. We have a 
big Eclipse pump and barrel. This will 
be mounted on the two front wheels of 
the wagon, with nozzles behind aimed 
at three rows. We hope to put on Bor¬ 
deaux Mixture and Paris-green at one 
shot. The Bowker Chemical Co. offer 
readymade mixtures of poisons and 
fungicides, which have only to be dis- 
so’ved in water. I have some of these, 
and shall try them on the first bugs. I 
see no reason why such mixtures should 
not work well. They will prove very 
convenient if they kill bugs and blight. 
I think they will. I shall know later. 
'Sulphured Seed. —I am much pleased 
with the way our potatoes have sprout¬ 
ed. We used sulphur freely on the seed, 
and hardly a piece has failed. I think 
that the sulphur gives a stronger and 
healthier sprout. Why this is so, I don’t 
know. When I was a boy I had to take 
sulphur and molasses every Spring. 
This, and probably other things, made a 
tough sprout out of me. I hoped to be 
able to show that in much the same way 
the potato plant absorbed a little of this 
sulphur through its roots. Before I said 
a word about it, I thought I would ask 
my friend. Prof. Knowit. This is what 
he says: 
So far as I know there have been no 
scientific investigations regarding the in¬ 
fluence of sulphur upon general healthful¬ 
ness of the potato plant. I am not able, 
therefore, to give you any information of 
value to you. A small amount of sulphur 
is found in the living substance (proto¬ 
plasm) of every plant cell, and sulphur is 
an essential plant food. Ample amounts 
are found in all soils to supply the plant 
with sulphurous food. The evidence is 
that all such sulphur is absorbed by the 
plant in the form of sulphates (never as 
free sulphur). If so, it would seem as 
though the addition of a sulphate (gypsum) 
would lead to more immediate results than 
would the use of the free sulphur as pro¬ 
posed by you. 
That seems to upset my theory, but I 
have an opinion which I am going to 
hold on to. Certainly, as far as I have 
gone with it, I would advise all potato 
growers to use sulphur on the seed 
pieces, but it won’t do to claim too much 
for it. 
Odd Mention. —Our potato field is 
alive with moles. Their runs appear 
everywhere. I presume they are after 
the white grubs with which the sod is 
filled. I have hunted carefully, but fail 
thus far to find where they have touched 
a seed piece. Perhaps the sulphur is 
too much for them.It is said 
that rhubarb will kill or sicken hogs. I 
doubt it. Who can tell? .... Our 
transplanted sweet corn has had a hard 
time, but is now picking up a little. The 
cold weather has headed everything 
back. The corn was planted in pots 
that proved too small, and the roots 
were badly pinched up. Corn roots will 
work down into quite hard soil. In fact, 
I think shallow plowing with a very 
fine surface is best for corn. When its 
roots are once cramped, however, it does 
not easily recover.Our hens 
have nearly all hung out the incubation 
flag. We made only one run of the in¬ 
cubators—and that was a very slow 
walk. We promised Brother Holmes to 
give his condition powder a hard test, 
and so we hope to “break” some setting 
hens and load them with a charge of the 
powder. That ought to make them hit 
the egg mark.Farmers have 
been at work on the roads about Hope 
Farm. They use a road machine, and 
scrape dirt, sod, stones and all to the 
middle of the road, and “crown it up.” 
The stones are then picked out, but the 
trash remains. The result is that most 
of us wait for the next one to rule down 
the crown, and there are two sloping 
tracks at the sides. Uneasily rides the 
road that wears a crown! .... The 
Alaska peas in the garden were in 
bloom May 24. We planted Perry’s Hy¬ 
brid sweet corn in between the rows, 
and late turnips or beets can go in when 
the pea's come out.I have a 
six-year-old strawberry plant that has 
been transplanted three times, with a 
fair load of fruit on it. h. w. c. 
Accordino to the Crop Reporter, the 
beet has been so much improved by culti¬ 
vation that it contains three times as much 
sugar as it did a century ago. 
Speaking of the California exhibit at the 
Paris Exposition, a French authority says: 
“The State of California has a magnificent 
display all to itself. Some Frenchmen can¬ 
not make out whether California is a sep¬ 
arate country, or whether it has seceded 
from the United States.” 
Grafted Trees.— The closing paragraphs 
of Hope Farm Notes, page 247, in regard to 
grafting wild trees, I can heartily say 
“Amen” to. I have been at that business, 
on my place, for three years, and there is 
plenty of the raw material left yet. I 
could have got the trees from a nursery, 
perhaps, at less cost, counting my time, 
but would I have looked after them, keep¬ 
ing insects in check, etc.? Not much! 
I'm like the rest of mankind In that re¬ 
spect. I think it is a good kind of training 
for a man to graft his own trees. It fos¬ 
ters an interest in the trees, which doesn’t 
seem to be possessed by the majority of 
those who buy their trees. g. s. g. 
New York. 
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