1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER; 
563 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Winter Crops. —On July 31 we took 
advantage of a day too wet to work in 
the crops and hauled out the Summer’s 
accumulation of manure. This manure 
was not bulky, for the pigs had worked 
it over thoroughly. Pig-worked manure 
is like a high-grade fertilizer. But half 
the handling and hauling is required to 
get a dollar’s worth of plant food to the 
field. This manure went on an orchard 
of apples—mostly Baldwins—about half 
way up the hill. The trees have not had 
good care. The ground had not been 
plowed for several years. We have used 
it for a pasture this year, and I won¬ 
dered why the stock spent so much time 
there, until I caught Major and Nellie 
stealing apples off the trees. To my 
surprise, I found a good crop of fruit. 
That’s as near as trees can come to 
heaping coals of fire on the head of a 
man who wouldn’t treat them right. 
We put our manure there, and have 
turned the sod over. Now we hope to 
sow a mixture of Winter oats, rye and 
Crimson clover. This, I hope, will give 
us good pasture through the Fall and a 
fair crop of rye in the Spring. I use 
Winter oats from Delaware, expecting 
that they will grow better in August 
than our northern oats, and stool out 
more, thus giving better pasture. 
Son. Overcoat. —I shall do my best to 
cover most of our plowed ground with 
some living crop next Winter. Last 
Fall we plowed and left the soil open to 
the weather. What was right for us 
then would be wrong for us now. We 
have now pretty well disposed of the 
tough old sod which covered the ground 
one year ago. I am sure it is a mistake 
to let any soil on which a Summer crop 
has been manured or fertilized remain 
bare during the three leachy months, 
which are September, October and No¬ 
vember. During these months the soil 
is well filled with soluble nitrogen. The 
water will surely wash it out unless liv¬ 
ing plants are there to utilize it. I shall 
use a good deal of rye this Fall. I ex¬ 
pected at one time to use Crimson 
clover in all the corn, but finally gave 
it up. One reason is that we hope to 
spend some time hauling out or burying 
the stones and rocks in the cornfields. 
This will tear and smash up the ground, 
so that there wouldn’t be much of the 
clover left by the time we got through. 
I shall use a bushel of Crimson clover 
seed anyway, but most of the Winter 
clothes for Hope Farm will be cut out 
of rye. 
A Water System. —A friend in Iowa 
wishes to know why we spent the money 
for pump, windmill and water pipes 
while there is a mortgage on the farm! 
“Why not pay for the farm first,” he 
says, “and then put in the luxuries?” 
We don’t call water a “luxury” in New 
Jersey! We need it—lots of it, too. 
This was a dry farm when we bought it. 
One reason why we got it at what we 
call a very low figure was because there 
was no good drinking water near the 
house. Many people looked at the place 
and liked it. When the women folks 
came to clinch the bargain they asked: 
“Where is the water?” 
“Oh—in tne spring!” 
“How far?” 
“About a quarter of a mile away!” 
That settled it with most of them, and 
it gave the farm a bad name. I always 
did like to buy things that had been 
squeezed of water or reputation, put the 
water back, and thus increase their 
value. The water supply was a good in¬ 
vestment, for it has added to the value 
of the farm, besides proving a great 
convenience. If we were living far back 
in the country, where farm property 
rarely changes hands, I should question 
the wisdom of spending needed money 
for windmill and pipes. In our locality, 
I think such a water supply adds to the 
value of the farm in all ways. The peo¬ 
ple who sold us this farm lost money on 
it because no one would invest his 
earnings in it. I hope to show that it 
pays to invest money right in the farm. 
Farm Notes. —The new horse limped 
a little when he came, and became 
worse after a brush with the mower. 
The trouble proved to be in the muscles 
or tendons just below the knee, in the 
right front leg. Dr. Kilborne prescribed 
a blistering liniment made of equal 
parts of sweet oil and ammonia. Char¬ 
lie put it on, and reported: “It sure did 
blister him.” Life was a burden to the 
old fellow for a while, but it will help 
him. He must get the stiffness out of 
his legs before potato-digging time. . . 
. . We hope to use the Hoover digger 
again this year, though I doubt whether 
it will work on the rocky upper field. 
This digger will go wherever your 
horses can pull it.The rape 
in the orchard is fairly good in the open 
places where the sun strikes the ground. 
In the dense shade it is worthless. It 
will not do as an orchard crop, for it 
loves the sun. Millet and sorghum have 
made a short growth in the shade, but 
Orchard grass seems most like a fat 
man, for it seems to enjoy life under a 
tree. I hope to seed the two large or¬ 
chards to Orchard grass and Alsike 
clover.The ground where we 
cut the oats was not permitted to loaf 
very long. Before the end of July it 
was plowed—before the ragweeds got a 
big start. We drilled yellow turnips on 
about half an acre, and sowed rye on 
the rest.The fodder question 
is settled, I hope. The late fodder, such 
as millet, sorghum and Kaffir, bids fair 
to stuff our barns full—to say nothing 
of the big corn crop. I am satisfied that 
while these other crops may be superior 
in other parts of the country, there is 
nothing that will back up the meadows 
so well in New Jersey as corn—maize. 
In our section the Thoroughbred flint 
corn will make more eatable fodder to 
the acre than any plant you can bring 
along. No—I won’t bar Mr. Clark’s 
great yield of Red-top and Timothy! 
But are these great stalks eatablef Yes, 
when they are cut and crushed. It’s 
only about two-thirds of the battle to 
grow the crop. 
Plant Medicine. —The experiment 
men seem to think that the Bordeaux 
Mixture is an easy one. Many of them 
now simply say that a last year’s bul¬ 
letin tells how to make it. Uncle Ed 
says he followed directions to the dot on 
an i, and yet the Mixture wouldn’t mix 
or spray properly. We then tried the 
soda-Bordeaux. To make this Uncle Ed 
dissolved the sulphate of copper in the 
usual way in a wooden bucket. He tried 
that first with an iron bucket. The cop¬ 
per not only dissolved itself, but ate up 
the bottom of the bucket as well. Then 
he dissolved one pound of Lewis lye. 
This solution was mixed with three 
pounds of the dissolved copper and six 
ounces of lime made into a whitewash. 
Water enough to make 30 gallons was 
added. A new crop of bugs was hatch¬ 
ing out, and so we added Paragrene. 
This soda-Bordeaux sprays readily and 
covers the plants well. With us it sticks 
as well as the lime mixture, and I like 
it better, except that it costs more. The 
potato vines that were sprayed are 
green and thriving. The blight is ruin¬ 
ing most fields in our neighborhood, and 
farmers are predicting high prices. They 
must remember that Bergen County, N. 
J., is not the only place where potatoes 
are grown. 
Coming Crops. —The cabbage is satis¬ 
factory up to date. The worms have 
not yet appeared. We keep the culti¬ 
vator at work, and the field is naturally 
moist. All the wood ashes we can find, 
go around the cabbage plants. That, I 
believe, is the best place just now for 
ashes. . . . We put nitrate of soda 
on the meadows after haying, but I am 
disappointed at the second crop thus 
far. The truth of the thing probably is 
that it is more a matter of moisture 
than manure. The nitrate alone will 
not feed grass. It must have moisture 
enough, and the late Summer with us 
is too dry.This is the season 
for cow peas. They delight in this hot, 
dry weather. On August 2 I found a 
few plants in bloom, with little pods 
starting—63 days from seeding. I mean 
to mark these early plants, and save 
the seed separately. What we want at 
the North is a very early pea. I am 
told that what is called the Black pea 
is badly mixed. I shall try to pick out 
an extra-early variety or sort. I ob¬ 
serve that people are arguing against 
the use of the cow pea at the North. 
They say that it is a southern plant—of 
no value north of Delaware. Possibly 
these folks have seen the cow pea grow¬ 
ing, but I doubt it. I would like to have 
them look at our back fields just now. 
Work or Play. —I said last week that 
life is much of a treadmill to many of 
us. We were picking up apples for the 
pigs last week, when the little Bud 
stopped to ask: 
“Father, is this work or play?” 
What a question! you will say, and 
yet there is a thought in the child's 
question that we may well ponder over. 
I never broke down so much muscular 
tissue in my life as I did when I played 
ball, yet I never complained of my back 
or wanted to stop and look at the clock! 
It is the motive or incentive that makes 
exercise pleasure or drudgery. If one 
can only scare up some high and worthy 
reason for doing his work it will be like 
play. When I was a boy the old man 
who brought me up used to tell me that 
if I imagined that I was playing ball 
while I was really shoveling manure I 
would have as much fun as the other 
boys. I tried hard and afflicted myself 
with a lively imagination which has 
made trouble for me before now, but I 
know that work is not made into play 
until we go deeper, and build on some 
true and noble motive for toiling on. 
Some people say that such motives can 
have no place in their lives now that 
loved ones have passed away, or disap¬ 
pointment has shadowed them. I hope 
that is not true. n. w. c. 
CRISP CONNECTICUT NOTES. 
The Cabman Grape. —I have a large 
Carman vine, on the sunny side of an 
outbuilding, that bears abundantly 
every year. I think the clusters are 
smaller than usual this season, but there 
are some fine ones on the vine. It is 
too late for this section, ripening about 
with Catawba, but last year it ripened 
perfectly, as we had no early frosts. In¬ 
cidentally, it saved itself from destruc¬ 
tion by so doing, as I had decided that 
its room was worth more than its com¬ 
pany. It has many characteristics of 
the Clinton, and in flavor is much like 
that variety at its best. Last year, 
everybody about the place let the fruit 
severely alone—having had previous 
experience—until other grapes were 
nearly gone. They were then very at¬ 
tractive-looking, large—in fact, immense 
—clusters of fruit, covered with the 
heaviest coat of purple bloom I ever 
saw. They had been colored for three 
or four weeks, but were not really ripe 
until about October 20. I think that in 
lighter soil they would doubtless ripen 
earlier. 
Cultivating Cabbage. —You are mis¬ 
taken about the cabbage cultivation, un¬ 
less the Jersey cabbage differs from the 
New England type. In my experience it 
responds to frequent cultivation more 
promptly than any other vegetable I 
grow. I have even run the cultivator 
when the leaves nearly met across the 
space between the rows, necessarily 
breaking many of them, and the growth 
seemed greatly quickened thereby. I 
liave convinced myself that I cannot cul¬ 
tivate too often nor hoe too much. 
Dry Weather; Pea-Louse. —We can 
stand dry weather as long as most farm¬ 
ers, but we have got enough. We are 
in the same canoe that you are, blight 
ruining the early potatoes, and no Bor¬ 
deaux on them. They looked so green, 
and the weather was so fine it did not 
seem as though they could blight, but 
the early ones went in two days. The 
late ones are all right, but need water 
badly. Two fields of peas were saved 
by tne English sparrow. A flock of a 
hundred or so cleaned the vines com¬ 
pletely. Score one good point for the 
sparrow. The brush-and-cultivator plan 
is useless where peas are brushed as we 
grow them here. Spraying was of little 
use, as any spray that killed the lice 
also damaged the vines. Our sweet 
peas, which we grow for bloom for flor¬ 
ists, were badly infested, but have re¬ 
covered, and are now giving a fair crop. 
The season of the louse here is confined 
to the month of June, so far as damage 
to the pea is concerned. Since June 26 
I have searched for one diligently on all 
kinds of plants, but fail to find him. 
They have certainly left the peas, as I 
have a field of Champions in full bloom 
that have not a louse on them. They 
are not on the clovers, nor on the other 
plants on which I have sometimes found 
them. They disappeared last year at 
about the same time, but I did not look 
for them, so that I am not sure they 
were not on some other plant, but this 
year, if they exist, I cannot find them. 
Do you know that the Crimson Ram¬ 
bler rose roots readily from cuttings? 
At least, mine does. I wish I had some 
of your early apples here; I could han¬ 
dle a few bushels daily to good advan¬ 
tage. I shall put in about 50 trees of 
early varieties in the Spring, c. v. a. 
An exchange gives this recipe for spoil¬ 
ing any horse: “Take a fine, noble-spirited 
horse, cut off the hair of his tail bob short, 
put him in harness with a short check- 
rein, hitch him in the sun where the ther¬ 
mometer is as high as 90, and where flies 
are plenty! If he is a horse of common 
sense, he will take the first opportunity 
to run away and destroy your carriage, 
and dash out your brains (if you have 
any.)” 
We Make Our Own 
Steel, Rods, and Wire used in Page Fences: 
Cut down tlie prices, and can furnish promptly. 
PAGE WOVEN WIRE PENCE CO., ADRIAN, MICH. 
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