1900 
499 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
An Old Veteran. —Not long ago I re¬ 
ceived a leuer from a reader in Brook¬ 
lyn, N. Y. He was formerly a milkman, 
but had sold his route, and had left on 
his hands an old horse of uncertain age, 
but with some years of good service left 
in him. The old horse could be sold to 
a huckster, but this meant abuse and a 
terrible old age. “Can’t you find a place 
for the old horse at Hope Farm?” That 
was the germ of our friend’s letter. “My 
only condition is,” he wrote, “that you 
will use him well and never sell him, but 
put him out of the way kindly when he 
is no longer useful.” It made us all feel 
good to think that strangers knew that 
animals would be well cared for at Hope 
Farm. After talking the matter over, 
we decided to take the old horse, and in 
due time he put in an appearance. It is 
hard to tell whether he or old Major is 
the “father of the barn.” Their teeth 
are down below the age mark. Frank— 
we must have a new name for him—is a 
dark bay with good shape and a large, 
kindly eye. He was a good horse in his 
day, and is likely to prove a useful mem¬ 
ber of the family. 
Horse Habits. —Old Major seems to 
think he is secure in his job of “woman’s 
horse,” and he doesn’t purpose exerting 
himself. Lise other folks who think 
they have a copyright on a job, this may 
get him into trouble. The new horse is 
active and “willing.” He doesn’t object 
to making an extra motion or two, and 
first you know the women folks will be 
calling for him. These city folks often 
come out to the country prepared to 
show farmers how to do things, but old 
Frank is modest about such matters. He 
is quick and active for an old gentleman. 
We gave him a brush on the mower, and 
he started to haul the whole thing. It 
was a hot day, and he worked so hard 
that the water fairly rolled off Iran by 
noon. He’ll get over that. He was 
turned into the pasture where the other 
horses were, and without a word of 
warning Dan went up and kicked him a 
hard smash on the leg. I have seen boys 
at school do the same thing to a new 
scholar, but sometimes, when they tackle 
a boy right from town, they pile up a 
cord of trouble for themselves. Our city 
horse never kicked back, but simply 
turned tne other cheek, so that even Dan 
didn’t have cheek enough to kick again. 
The new horse makes three on the sulky 
plow or Cutaway, and that does great 
execution—or will when the smart old 
fellow sobers down and realizes how 
many thousand slow steps there are in 
a bushel of oats. 
Potato Notes. —When shall we stop 
cultivating potatoes? After the blos¬ 
soms fall is the time to quit. By that 
time the tubers are forming rapidly, and 
the roots are hard at work pumping up 
water. Almost any tool will break off 
many' of these roots, and stop the growth 
more or less. I was tempted to send the 
cultivators into the potatoes while some 
of the tubers were half as large as my 
fist. The ground was dry and hard, and 
I thought it wise to hill or ridge up a 
little more. The cultivator did more 
harm than good, and a cloud came down 
the ridge with a soaking rain that was 
far better than any cultivation. 
The bugs nearly ruined one small patch, 
in spite of all our tools and ammunition. 
One trouble with farming is that we are 
quite sure to overlook the little fields. 
It’s a mistake to plant these little scat¬ 
tered corners around the farm. Far bet¬ 
ter put the crop together in one large 
field.I never expected to 
plant potatoes on July 6, but that’s what 
we have done. It was the Florida seed. 
As readers know, we raised a crop of 
June Eatings last year. Uncle Ed took 
several barrels to Florida, and planted 
them in February. Part of the crop was 
dug early in May, and sent back to us. 
We have been trying various ways to 
make tnose potatoes sprout. They were 
kept under straw in the shade, outdoors 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
in the sun, down cellar, and in a shed, 
but right on the ground among the grass 
and weeds seemed the best place. By 
July 1 the sprouts were started, and we 
cut and planted in the usual way. I 
don’t know much about this thing, and 
shall not be disappointed if the crop 
fails. If they do grow, however, I feel 
sure that the tubers will make strong 
that he who starts a good line is just as 
noble as he who heirs one. The old 
cow’s pedigree has never been recorded, 
but I mean that her good deeds shall 
live in her daughters. I want to breed a 
small herd of choice cows, all of the 
blood of old Jersey, and as much like 
her as possible. That I believe to be a 
good model. I tried the same thing with 
are all exemplars of what natural condi¬ 
tions accomplish for the mind and spirit 
of mortals. It is a wholesome atmos¬ 
phere, even with a whiff of tobacco 
thrown in by Uncle Ed and Charlie. It 
feels good to be away from the stilted 
conventionalities elsewhere. The home 
of the Hope Farmites is a pleasing real¬ 
ity; and one leaves it with the benedic¬ 
tion of invigorating regard. w. a. d. 
seed. 
All Around. —The country around 
Hope Farm is full of city boarders. Our 
hills make a popular place for city folks 
to come and build up a little of their lost 
nerve force. Many of the farmhouses 
are well filled with this sort of live 
stock. It pays well to fill them up on 
chicken and eggs, fruit and vegetables. 
There are likely to be all sorts of folks, 
however, and a farmer must be several 
degrees more patient than Job, if he ex¬ 
pects to get through the season. As a 
rule, the people who have the poorest 
fare at home demand most when they 
pay board.With nine adults 
and four children on the farm the shoe 
leather bill becomes an important item. 
Uncle Ed has blossomed out as a cob¬ 
bler. I got one of those “repairing out¬ 
fits” offered by The R. N.-Y., and this 
gives him a fair set of tools for working 
in leather. This will save many a little 
bill at the shoe and harness shop. The 
Madame’s father was a lawyer in a Mis¬ 
sissippi town, but during the war he 
cobbled shoes for the neighborhood, and 
did a good job, too. You may say this 
cobbling is srpall business. Well, now. 
“BLOSSOM” OF HOPE FARM. Fig. 169. 
the biggest business in the world is built 
on numberless small things and small 
savings.Timely showers have 
given us a blessed soaking. We all en¬ 
joyed it, from Grandmother down to the 
24-hours-planted potatoes. The early 
potatoes are now pretty safe for a good 
crop. Junior Pride ripens first. The 
tubers are salable before either Bovee or 
June Eating. I think the latter will out- 
yield it, however. There was hardly a 
blossom on the Junior Pride, while June 
Eating was as white as a daisy field. . . 
. . The old hen and the surplus young 
rooster have about reached the end of 
their rope at Hope Farm. They will be 
boiled and fried through July and 
August. That’s the time for chicken 
meat.The little folks pick up 
the early windfall apples for the pigs. 
Why not turn the pigs into the orchard 
to do their own picking? There is no 
pig-tight fence around it, and it is full 
of cultivated crops. I have learned 
something about a boy. Let (him throw 
apples over the high fence, and the pigs 
will get twice as many as they will if 
the boy picks them up in a basket. 
Work runs on ball bearings if you let 
the boy think he is playing ball. 
Starting Families. —I have told be¬ 
fore now what a prize we secured when 
my Black hens, but they were not well 
suited to our climate. I would also like 
a family of horses, with Nellie, our 
driving mare, for a start, but she is a 
little too frisky and fearful of a bicycle 
to suit the Madame. It’s a good thing 
to have a model. h. w. c. 
A VISIT TO HOPE FARM. 
During the past year I thought I no¬ 
ticed a coolness on the part of the Hope 
Farm family towards me. As the result 
of much self-examination, I verily be¬ 
lieved that my persistent failure to visit 
Hope Farm was the innocent cause of 
this lowered temperature in our long 
friendship. There is entirely loo much 
of the “do - others - or - they’ll - do-you” 
spirit in these times, and the thought 
came to me that I could not afford to 
forfeit a friendship in which nothing of 
this sentiment ever entered. Hence I 
made one of the most positive engage¬ 
ments in my life to visit the home and 
the farm of the man who, so modestly, 
signs the “H. W. C.” columns in The 
R. N.-Y. I’ve been there, and here fol¬ 
low a few impressions: In my imagina¬ 
tion, I expected to see the symbol of 
Hope (the inevitable anchor) emblazon¬ 
ed on the house, the fence-posts or on a 
flag-pole; but H. W. C. told me (confi¬ 
dentially) that the anchor was hidden 
away in a Hackensack bank vault, in 
the form of a mortgage. However, it 
may afford many a disheartened farmer 
some sense of satisfaction to know that 
the Editor of The R. N.-Y. is carrying 
a heavy impost in this suburban handi¬ 
cap, and that he will set the pace for 
many who are aspiring to win out their 
fields and farms. The emblems of Hope, 
as I saw them, .shone in the faces of the 
Grandma, the Madame, the Bud, the 
Graft, me Scion and H. W. C. himself, 
as, on my arrival, I said, “Let us soap.” 
I was promptly escorted to the wash¬ 
room; I needed it; I was recognized. 
Hope Farm is no myth. It is 90 acres 
of previous neglect, wasted effort and 
avoidable failure. The evidences of 
care, forethought and intelligence were 
quite apparent to a demure young visitor 
from Brooklyn and myself. It occurred 
to me that while “Hope” is a pretty 
name, a lazy man’s sentiment and an 
expression in everybody’s mouth, neither 
this nor a farm by any other name can 
be a success without the cause-and-effect 
principle involved in reaping the har¬ 
vest ol progressive ideas. I may not 
comprehend the science of modern agri¬ 
culture; but I am very much impressed 
by the fact that the farmer of to-day is 
not (or need not be) a mere time-server, 
as were his fathers; rather, a man with 
new resources, with abundant inspira¬ 
tion in an advancing art, and with un¬ 
bounded means of winning the most 
honorable competence known in the 
competition of the world. The redemp¬ 
tion of soil to the standard of its pro¬ 
ductiveness, cannot be accomplished by 
any such means as manure, luck and 
hope. Brains, not tradition, is the secret 
of farming that propagates independence 
and quit claim deeds. The glitter and 
excitement of metropolitan life is in 
fierce contrast with the calm and seren¬ 
ity of the rural home. 
In this home, “the Madame," the par¬ 
ticular string on H. W. C.’s harp, has as 
little time and less inclination to violate 
the Tenth Commandment as any woman 
I ever knew—excepting, possibly, my 
mother, my wife and daughter. The 
Grandma, Uncle Ed and Charlie, the 
children (who, by the way, don’t look as 
though they had all the oats thrashed 
out of them), and the master himself, 
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old Jersey, the family cow, was bought. 
I paid $40 for her three years ago, with 
a young calf at her side. We sold the 
calf for $8. The second calf broke her 
neck, and the third is now a beautiful 
yearling. The old cow has kept us in 
milk and cream, and nobody knows how 
many pounds of solid child flesh. are due 
to her. A picture of the yearling (Blos¬ 
som) is shown at Fig. 169. She is the 
“new daughter” whose advent stirred up 
some little comment. The poet tells us 
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