THE RURAL NEW-YORKEft: 
547 
id<X) 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
A Runaway. —I have had a little to 
say about our driving mare Nellie Bly. 
She is a handsome horse, with good 
speed, but nervous and timid. She can’t 
seem to get over the idea that a bicycle 
is a terrible creature coming to eat her 
up. She got away from Brent one 
night, and nearly smashed things up, 
and since then she has not been very 
popular. The Madame declined to ride 
behind her without thanks. We haven’t 
used her much of late. Saturday night 
Hugh drove her to town, and stopped 
at the store for the mail. In some way 
Nellie got loose from the post, and off 
she started in the direction of home. It 
was very dark, and she was quickly out 
of Hugh’s sight. The Hope Farm folks 
were seriously considering the prospects 
for bed when Hugh came in upon us 
with the startling information that 
Nellie had taken herself off with the old 
harness and buggy. We soon hitched up 
old Major, and Uncle Ed, Hugh, and I 
started out for the missing mare. Talk 
about hunting for a needle in a haystack 
in daylight—that is easy compared with 
hunting a swift-footed mare in the dark. 
No one had seen her, and there were so 
many hoof marks on the road that we 
could not make out her track. We final¬ 
ly went back to wait for daylight. It 
was nearly Sunday, and the women folks 
were waiting for us. They started a 
little fire in the stove, and the Madame 
fried some eggs and served a little lunch, 
as she said, “to celebrate the departure 
of Nellie Bly.” Poor Nellie! She was 
wandering somewhere—frightened and 
hungry—hunting for her home. We feel 
for any human or horse that longs for 
home and is kept away from it. 
The Lost Found. —The first stirrers 
on Sunday morning found Nellie in the 
barn with most of the harness still on 
her. She had hardly a scratch or mark. 
Next came a neighbor from the Lord’s 
Farm with a table cloth and some papers 
which were in the buggy. That ancient 
vehicle, he said, was down in his lane. 
One wheel was broken, the dashboard 
bent, and the cross bar of the shafts 
snapped. The buggy looked as though 
it had been upset and righted again. 
There were marks on the ground which 
looked as though Nellie had fallen and 
finally struggled free. She ran into this 
yard on her way from the store, right 
through the lane into a meadow. She 
was there several hours, and as soon as 
she was fi-ee she came straight home. 
Had she not become tangled in the lines, 
I think she would have bi’ought the 
buggy home without a scratch. It was 
pretty hard on the horse—alone in the 
night, in a strange place—hunting for a 
chance to get home. A hox-se loves its 
home. I have seen cases of homesick¬ 
ness in horses that were almost enough 
to bring teai-s to your eyes. I’m afraid 
that Nellie is a little too lively for the 
quiet Hope Farm folks. I believe the 
Madame thinks more ©f her for this es¬ 
capade. Now she would like to see 
Nellie tamed and made to realize that 
life is more of a treadmill than a skip¬ 
ping l-ope! * 
Home Thoughts. —Life is something 
of a treadmill, is it? Well, I find it so. 
Some people doubtless think that the 
Hope Farm folks never have any trou¬ 
bles, but that it’s all a merry dream 
from day to day. Don’t you make any 
mistake about that, my friend. I’ll tell 
you right now that, between us, we have 
just about sounded the depths of human, 
sorrow and blasted ambitions. We have 
our dark days and our hours of depres¬ 
sion and unhappiness, but why should 
we talk about them? Words make 
things grow. We fei’tilize good or evil 
by harping about them. I will touch 
the strings of the good and the true, and 
make the best music I can with my 
clumsy fingers, but when it comes to the 
mean and hateful things of life, I will 
do my best to get these strings around 
their neck and pull hai'd. 
Go 'bury thy sorrow! 
Get it under ground! Plow it under. 
Use it for fertilizer—that’s all it is good 
for, because fertilizer is made over into 
the useful and beautiful things of life. 
When you come to think of it, what a 
fearful responsibility life is, and how 
few of us realize it. No wonder people 
are discouraged sometimes, for they 
work hard and apparently have little in¬ 
fluence outside of their own home. 
That’s where they make their mistake. 
This world isn’t separated into little in¬ 
dividual cliques or families. Invisible 
wires and belts run all through the land, 
and when I make a bad break in my 
family I jar society a little. You do the 
same when you kick over the traces! 
All Sorts. —Early apples are low this 
year—70 cents to $1 a barrel. This 
hardly pays for picking. It becomes 
harder and harder to sell early apples in 
our markets. One reason is that there 
is a perfect flood of plums and peaches, 
from the South. People realize that 
fi’ost kills off the plum and peach, while 
it brings out the real flavor of the ap¬ 
ple. So they drop apples while the 
other fruits abound. If there are mar¬ 
kets where early apples are profitable, 1 
would like to know where they are. . . 
. . Potatoes are bringing fair prices 
again. I had hoped to save most of our 
crop to sell for seed, but $2.25 a barrel 
is a pretty fair price after all, and I may 
begin to dig earlier than we intended, 
and put most of the early crop right on 
the market. Junior Pride was fully ripe 
by July 25, while Bovee had at least 10 
days of life. I do not like Bovee. With 
us it gives too many small potatoes. It 
does not yield as heavily as June Eating. 
.... Our Florida potatoes are not a 
howling success. Not over 40 per cent 
of the seed pieces came up. The plants 
that came are growing well, and we 
hope to get tubers enough to carry the 
experiment out.How late can 
we sow corn for fodder with fair pros¬ 
pect for a paying crop? I hope to find 
out this year. We have sown at inter¬ 
vals up to August 1. I think July 1 is 
about the latest date for our country. 
In the missing places where the Florida 
potatoes failed to grow we planted early 
beans and corn on July 31. 
The Corn Crop. —We are proud of it 
this year, and we are not ashamed to 
match fields with any farmer in this 
pax-t of the country. On August 1 the 
field stood a solid mass of dark, rich 
green, at least six feet high. We tried 
hard to take care of that corn right. I 
got good seed, and we fitted the sod as 
well as we knew how, and we kept the 
cultivators going through it. Some vis¬ 
itors think we left too many stalks to 
the hill, but this flint variety suckers 
tremendously, and two or three stalks 
will stuff out a hill. That corn will 
make a great hole in my feed bill. I 
hope to get a cutter and crusher for 
working up the stalks. I think I can 
make a bargain with a neighbor to use 
his two-horse tread power for turning 
the cutter. To work the fat off a horse’s 
ribs in grinding up cornstalks which 
will put that fat back again seems to me 
a fair exchange of labor and fat. I 
used to argue against selling hay off the 
farm, i have talked many things in my 
day which rose up in after yeax-s to 
prove that I was wrong. I now think it 
possible for a farmer to prepare the 
cornstalks so as to feed his stock, and 
leave the hay for sale. This, I take to 
be good business, and I hope to get the 
back fields of the farm into grass. Do I 
think I can rival Mr. Clark in weight of 
hay to the acre? No, I don’t, but I shall 
try it. Mr. Clark’s head is partly stuffed 
with hay seed—that’s the best compli¬ 
ment one can possibly give a hay 
farmer. 
Those Loafer Fields. —People wish 
to know how those old fields at the back 
of the farm are doing. They are all 
right. In two of them we threw two 
furrows together at irregular intervals. 
sowed cow peas, and planted pumpkins 
right in the peas. The pea vines were 
about 15 inches high on August 1, and 
the pumpkins were in bloom. We have 
hoed out a little space ai-ound each hill 
of pumpkins, and put in a handful of 
fertilizer. There will be no further cul¬ 
tivation. Now, we’ll see! I believe that 
if the frost will hold off we shall have a 
large crop of cow-pea seed and a fair 
crop of pumpkins. The field is one-third 
plowed, and the pea vines are just as 
good as a crop of manure. Next Winter 
I can cut out the cedars and bushes, and 
have a fine crop of corn next year. Then 
I want to seed to grass for a permanent 
meadow. If Jack Frost will take his 
usual vacation those loafers will pay 
their way from the start. h. w. c. 
TWO SIDES OF THE BEN DAVIS. 
How fhe Dodors Disagree. 
Hard Words. —Don’t recommend that 
Ben Davis apple for this region, pro¬ 
vided you wish to keep your subscribers. 
We have two trees of them, which are 
just two too many. You can sell them 
all right the first time, if you can get 
away before they taste them, but the 
next time you are sure to catch a bless¬ 
ing. One peddler we sold to a few years 
ago came around last Fall, and I told 
him our Ben Davis trees had but five ox- 
six apples on them. He answered very 
quickly, “Tfiat’s a great plenty.” 
Dalton, Pa. c. p. p. 
Soft Words. —During the past year 
there have been so many conflicting 
opinions given in regard to Uncle Ben, 
that it was with much interest we await¬ 
ed the “ripening” of prices last Winter. 
With a cellar full of well-gi-own, smooth, 
highly-colored fruit of really fair qual¬ 
ity, we were anxious to know just what 
sort of reception they would be given in 
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our home market. On February 6, with 
a sample crate in the buggy, I struck 
the dealers for $1 per bushel straight 
through without grading. The sample 
was “clinched” by the very first dealer, 
from whom I obtained the privilege of 
using it an hour or so among his con¬ 
temporaries. The result was that, in 
less than a week, all that remained in 
our cellar was empty bins “partly filled” 
with regrets that such an experience had 
not Ben longer. It is true we found 
those who would not buy Ben Davis at 
any price; but while these people freely 
uncorked their bitterness against the 
variety, and offered ridiculous little 
scabby specimens of other varieties of 
“quality” in preference, other dealers 
freely, fearlessly and gladly paid us $1 
per bushel and took our big Bens in lots 
of one, two and three barrels—they find ¬ 
ing the barrels. Just at this time there 
were practically no nice apples in oux 
market. Nearly all the stock grown in 
our section was very imperfect and rot¬ 
ted badly. Our young orchard was 
treated to a thorough course of spraying, 
and we could easily follow up the re¬ 
sults from the time the little Bens were 
the size of a marble until they “bumped” 
xis a last farewell from the barrel of the 
■dealer. We had thought, for a time, 
quite seriously of top-grafting our trees 
to other varieties bearing a better repu¬ 
tation as to quality; but from the expe¬ 
rience of the past season, in which the 
better of our 10-year-old trees netted us 
from $5 to $8 per tree, we are inclined 
to be quite thoughtful as to the advisa¬ 
bility of the change. Just at present 1 
can see quite as much profit in pruning, 
feeding, spraying and thinning in this 
little orchard just as it stands. The de¬ 
mand for higher quality, I believe, would 
better be met by another planting. As 
for oux-selves, we really enjoy eating a 
big, well-developed Ben Davis as he 
grows here among our hills; the fruit is 
tender, juicy and of very fair quality. 
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