1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
467 
HOPE FARM MOTES. 
Lively Times. —The last week in June 
found us with a long list of jobs on 
hand. Among the problems that faced 
us were: 
Cherries to be picked. 
A crust on the cornfield. 
Bugs at the late potatoes. 
Weeds in the early potatoes. 
Weeds going to seed in the lane. 
Oats nearly ready to cut. 
Grass just ready for the mower. 
Beets and carrots needing cultivation. 
Pear blight appearing. 
Cabbage ground to be plowed. 
This is only a partial list. Most farm¬ 
ers know how work crowds at this time 
of the year. When it comes to a ques¬ 
tion of letting some crops go until later 
it requires nice judgment to know what 
to do first. At such times the extra 
horse earns money, for with two or even 
three cultivators on the move on a hot, 
windy day, you can put up a lively bat¬ 
tle against the weeds. 
Odd Notes. —One of the cornfields is 
a perfect network of mole runs. It is an 
old field, which was grubbed out and 
plowed. I observe that many of these 
runs lead to a hill of corn. Most of the 
hills have been visited by the moles, 
yet I do not see that they have touched 
any of the corn. My notion is that they 
are after the cutworms, which seem to 
congregate around the hills. I find these 
old fields stuffed with cutworms and 
white grubs. That’s a sort of humus 
that we can get along w.thout. These 
insects ao not seem to trouble the cow 
peas at all.Uncle Ed brought 
a package of Velvet bean seed from 
Florida. It has been planted in one of 
the back fields near the cow peas, for 
comparison. It sprouts well, and has a 
larger, broader leaf than the cow pea. 
Uncle Ed tells great stories of what this 
Velvet bean does in Florida. It climbs 
big trees, chases men out of the corn¬ 
field, and performs similar agricultural 
feats. We shall see what it does on our 
slow Jersey hills.A few sam¬ 
ples of pear blight have appeared on our 
old trees. They must be cut out at 
once. “We told you so!” will be the 
comment of those who claim that ma¬ 
nure is the wrong thing for pear trees. 
Grafting Seedlings. —I have had a 
good deal to say about the tough old 
seedling trees Which we found on the 
farm. One of these tough fellows is 
shown at Fig. 153. The picture is taken 
from a photograph. This tree stands on 
a prominent corner of the farm, and is 
a pretty good example of how not to do 
it. That’s what you get by letting a 
little tree have its own way. It grew 
"every wnich way” when left to its own 
devices. A mere pinch of a thumb nail, 
if applied at the right time, would have 
made it into a shapely tree. Lots of 
humans grow up with character devel¬ 
oped about like that tree. They straggle 
and lap and interfere with themselves 
until sometimes the law steps in and 
wipes them out by taking life or liberty 
from them. What is the good of ke 2 p- 
ing sucn a tough-look.ng subject? We 
wanted to see what could be made of it. 
so we had it top-grafted. When the 
grafter finished we took another pic¬ 
ture. There it is at Fig. 154. The grafts 
have taken nicely. Next year the branch 
left as a sap-sucker will be cut off, and 
we hope to have a good crop of Grimes 
Golden apples from the tree some day. 
It may not be good business to spend 
time over these trees, but I like to try 
it at least. Many a boy has gone away 
from his father’s farm because he could 
not see any chance to use ins brains or 
to develop nice and accurate skill in the 
crude work of the farm. In some of 
these cases the boy would have re¬ 
mained at home if he had been taught 
to graft and encouraged to practice his 
art. If I can make some of these rough 
seedlings into useful trees, will they not 
be worth more to me than anything 1 
could buy? 
Scraps. —The cherry crop was close to 
a failure. A late frost ruined most of 
the fruit at the outer branches. The 
cherries on the inner branches escaped, 
but the cold, sunless weather in the 
middle of June nearly ruined them. We 
are better off than some others, yet this 
is not a “cherry year.” .... The 
Lima beans are blighting this year worse 
than I have ever known them to do. Of 
course it is easy to say “Use Bordeaux 
Mixture,” but there are a dozen other 
things to be done first. The peas are 
better than ever this year. We have 
seen nothing of this Green pea-louse yet. 
a hope farm apple seedling. Fig 153 
A dish of Nott’s Excelsior peas and a 
slice of roast Pekin duck will make one 
forget, for the moment, those ragweeds 
in the potatoes.Our Florida 
seed potatoes have been a long time 
sprouting. We have them out on the 
ground by the side of a shed. We have 
purposely let the weeds and grass grow 
up among them. The little sprouts are 
slowly appearing, and we expect to plant 
about the Fourth of July in a piece of 
sod Which has been plowed twice. I do 
not know what the outcome of this will 
be, but I hope to raise a fair crop of 
potatoes before frost.The 
nights are still cool, and the cow peas 
make but a slow growth. I observe that 
where we used a little nitrate of soda 
with the peas the leaves are larger and 
greener than where no fertilizer was 
used. These peas are in very poor, light 
soil. I used the nitrate in order to give 
them a good start. Beyond starting them 
right I doubt if it will pay to use nitro¬ 
gen with cow peas. 
Nitrate Notes. —If the season con¬ 
tinue dry the question of using nitrate 
of soda on the meadows, and possibly on 
potatoes, will be a live one. The ni- 
AFTER PRUNING AND GRAFTING. Fig. 154. 
trate gives the most soluble form of 
nitrogen, and a pinch of it at just the 
right time may make all the difference 
between loss or profit. Suppose the 
Madame had succeeded in inducing her 
husband to attack the parlor carpet. Af¬ 
ter much promising and many excuses 
he pulls the carpet and hangs it on a 
line in the breeze. Then, after various 
emphatic remarks, he takes his stick 
and starts the dust. Finally, the 
Madame looks out of the window and 
sees that he is just ready to quit, with 
about 10 per cent of the dust still in the 
carpet. Now there are two ways of 
doing business. One is for her to pull 
up the window, put her head out and 
call: “A little more on the underside, 
John!” 
Now, no man likes to see his wife’s 
head sticking out of a window! The 
chances are that he would throw his 
stick over the fence, and not strike an¬ 
other lick. If, instead of that, the 
Madame poured out a cup of coffee just 
as John liked it, and carried it out to 
him, the chances are that he would 
pound every grain of dust out of the car¬ 
pet and look around for another one to 
beat! Now. it won’t do to stick our 
head out of the window and yell at a 
crop that has been just about winded by 
drought. Far better carry the coffee to 
it, and a bag of nitrate of soda is the 
best coffeepot for plants that I ever 
heard of. 
Child Crop Notes. —We are planning 
for a picnic in our own woods for the 
Fourth of July. I don’t believe in drag¬ 
ging the family away for holidays. It 
seems to me right to encourage the little 
folks to make home days out of these 
holidays. Young folks are too much in¬ 
clined to get away from home as it is. 
It always pleases me to hear the chil¬ 
dren say “Let’s go home!” . . . . 
The Graft and old Major make a helpful 
team. The little chap is proud of his 
ability to drive the old horse, for he does 
it well, and helps us by doing it. He has 
to be careful about turning around, for 
Major, like other old people, doesn’t pro¬ 
pose to take any extra steps if he can 
help it.The children all go 
barefooted. Now and then they stub a 
toe or step on a splinter, but on the 
whole, I think that they are better off 
for it. I do think it pays to get down 
into close contact with the sou. Some 
of our good friends are afraid that the 
children will get their feet all out of 
shape by running with bare feet in the 
sand. The Madame watches that care¬ 
fully, and I think good shoes will keep 
the feet right. To tell the truth, our 
little folks run and dig and play like 
raPbits. I think it is just what they 
need to give them tough and wiry little 
bodies.Last Winter I spoke 
of the little allowance we give the chil¬ 
dren. They have each week one cent for 
each year of cheir age—for example, the 
Bud has five cents and the Graft eight 
cents. They put this money into little 
banks. We hope to get them in the way 
of spending their money wisely. The 
Graft used to say that he expected to 
keep his money and give half of it to the 
Old Ladies’ Home, and the rest to the 
Madame when she gets too old to work. 
He now seems to be a little doubtful 
about the Old Ladies’ Home, for he says 
he expects to have a wife of his own. 
He informs m; privately that he doesn’t 
purpose letting Ms wife have much to 
say about farm work. The children took 
some ot their money to buy a birthday 
present for Aunt Jennie, and they were 
willing to give 10 cents each to pay the 
express charges on Rover, the little 
brown dog that was sent to Brent. 
H. W. C. 
U ;hat runs on wheels. 
>ld Everywhere. 
>y STANDARD OIL CO. 
. .Before Buying a New 
Harness 
Stud S ct«. In h tamps to pay postage on descriptive cat¬ 
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WILLIAMS KROS., Ithaca. N. Y. 
A new business is reported from Kan¬ 
sas. Gophers are very troublesome in 
some parts of the State, and contractors are 
sent out who are ready to take the job of 
clearing farms of this troublesome pest. 
Under one plan a contractor agrees to 
catch all the gophers on a farm at 25 cents 
a head. On another plan, the contractor 
guarantees to clear the farm at 50 cents 
an acre. Both steel traps and poisons are 
used, and the business is said to pay well. 
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