1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
627 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
The Harvest. —We are now so far 
along that we can make a fair estimate 
of the season’s results. Put in con¬ 
densed form here is the record: 
Corn—A No. 1—a good crop. 
Cabbage—good—a fine promise. 
Cow peas—satisfactory—O. K. 
Potatoes—only fair. 
Pumpkins—a flat failure. 
Fruit—an average only. 
Fodder crops—good enough. 
There you have a statement of the 
seven most important Hope Farm crops. 
The actual harvest may tell a different 
story. We may have to cut that potato 
story down to “poor,” though I shall be 
sorry to do so. 
Good Corn. —Big corn is a comfort¬ 
able thing to have when one is in a tight 
place—except when you have it on your 
foot. Our Thoroughbred flint has made 
a good growth. In one old field over by 
the woods the stalks average over 13 feet 
high and the ears are immense. This 
was a field partly grown up to bushes 
and briers. We burned it over and 
plowed it after much pounding and 
bumping on the stones. My first plan 
was to sow cow peas in this field, but 1 
finally decided to put it right into corn, 
using a good dressing of fertilizer. The 
result shows what can be done with fer¬ 
tilizer alone on rough ground. Will it 
pay? We must wait until the crop is 
harvested before that can be answered. 
At present I can only say that I think 
so. Hope Farm will be well corned this 
year, and that’s a comfort. 
Cahhage Worms. —As I have said we 
are studying the cabbage crop as we go 
along. A mere student without experi¬ 
ence is not worth much, but we hope this 
time to buy experience at a profit. The 
starting was quite easy. We took a 
piece of strong land with a tough, 
heavy sod, plowed it and worked the 
soil fine. Then we marked the ground 
and set the plants, so that about all of 
them lived. Then we put fertilizer 
around the plants. People have differ¬ 
ent stories to tell about cultivating. 
We were not sure, but we kept old 
Frank walking up and down until the 
heavy rains drove him out. What about 
the “worms?” I studied up their life 
history in order to be ready for them. 
It seems that the white butterflies hatch 
in April or May. They don’t stop to 
write Spring poetry, but their fancy 
turns at once to the business at hand, 
which is to lay eggs where they will do 
the most good—or evil. They lay on 
weeds, old cabbage stumps, or early 
cabbage. These eggs hatch into worms 
which feed 10 to 12 days, and then crawl 
off and change to chrysalids, from which 
come more butterflies, and so on. 
This is an old story to many cabbage 
growers, though it was new to me. I 
have been watching for these butterflies, 
but very few have appeared thus far. 1 
was ready to spray with the resin-lime 
mixture, but there were so few of the 
insects that we did nothing. I presume 
but few of the insects were carried over 
from last year, as few cabbage have been 
grown in our neighborhood. The plants 
are now too large to spray with poisons. 
The Cow Peas.— On September 1 the 
big field of Early Black was a mass of 
pods. That was 90 days from seeding. 
With 10 days more before frost the seed 
crop will be safe. The vines are rank 
and green. I consider them fully equal 
to a coat of manure. The vines where 
nitrate of soda was used are larger, but 
at this date I should say that they will 
give a smaller crop of peas. Whippoor¬ 
will was in bloom September 1, but Clay, 
Wonderful and Red show no sign of 
heading out. They must think they are 
in Florida with Jack Frost 75 days off. 
They can’t play along that way in Jer¬ 
sey for, with us, cow peas as well as 
house and barn stock must take thought 
for the Winter. Some farmers say that 
these great viny varieties are better for 
fertilizing purposes than the smaller 
ones, which have sense enough to quit 
in time and come to a pod. I do not 
think so. I feel sure that one of our 
Early Black vines with the seeds well 
matured will show the chemist as much 
nitrogen as one of the big vines without 
pod or seed. As to the value of the 
cow peas in patching up the fertility of a 
poor field, I feel so sure of it that when 
I hear a man trying to talk the crop 
down I feel sure that he never saw a cow 
pea in his life. 
The Potatoes might easily be better. 
We dug 69 bushels out of a place that 
measures a trifle less than half an acre. 
I hope the big field will equal this rec¬ 
ord, but I won’t guarantee it. I expect 
this is small business by the side of 
what many of you have done. Now and 
then I find a man who says right out 
that he has hard work to average 100 
bushels per acre. I now see plainly 
some of the reasons for our moderate 
yield. We did not prepare the ground 
properly in the Spring, though in one 
way we did what we thought was best. 
We did not spray with Bordeaux Mixture 
as we should have done—and, I regret to 
have to say it, we let too many weeds 
and too much grass get into the field. 
We know this, because where we did 
our full duty by the crop the yield is 
good.The Florida potatoes 
are still growing. As readers know, 
they were planted on July 7, the seed 
being dug in Florida early in May. 
The plants have grown in an odd man¬ 
ner. They grew straight up with a 
single stem, quite unlike the usual habit 
of the variety, June Eating. We have 
used dry Bordeaux Mixture three times 
and the chances for a fair crop of me¬ 
dium-sized potatoes are good. 
The scab problem has not been serious 
this year. Sulphur was dusted on all 
the seed. There is practically no scab 
thus far except on one small space. 
There the potatoes were alive with scab. 
They were badly marked. The sulphur 
seemed to have had no effect in pre¬ 
venting scab in this small area, while 
elsewhere the tubers are clean. I can¬ 
not explain it except on the theory that 
some years ago a garden patch of scabby 
potatoes was grown on that space. The 
germs of the scab may have kept alive 
and grown from year to year on weeds, 
grass or other crops. Dr. Halsted has 
shown that this very thing occurs. The 
scab germs may be carried and kept 
alive in this way. This is the only way 
I can account for it.In an¬ 
other part of the field wireworms have 
done some damage. They have eaten 
nearly half of good-sized potatoes. This, 
too, in hills where sulphur was used on 
the seed. Some people would say that 
this work proves that what we call scab 
is wireworm work. The scab is a dis¬ 
tinct disease.Some of the 
tubers have started a second growth, 
which makes bad business. These 
tubers were stunted by the dry weather. 
They quit and thought their life work 
was done. The later rains started them 
again, but all they could do is to start 
out a little neck and knob at one end. 
This makes a poor shape, which is shun¬ 
ned by all who are expected to peel a po¬ 
tato. It is like some men who live 
along, through dwarfed and narrow 
lives, until certain habits are fixed. In 
some way they get a start and plunge 
in to try to “be somebody.” They can’t 
grow all over, but some little ridiculous 
bunch starts out just where it is not 
wanted. No use talking, it requires 
long and steady growth to make a per¬ 
fect potato or a gentleman. 
Grass Seeding. —I intended lo seed a 
part of the early potato ground after 
digging, but it is too full of weeds and 
foul grass. I want to crop and cultivate 
it another year before seeding. I shall 
try a modification of the Clark method 
in the orchard of Greening apples. The 
trees are headed very high, otherwise I 
would not attempt it. The field was in 
sod last year. We plowed it in December 
roughly. Last Spring it was worked 
with the Acme and tooth harrow and 
sown to oats. After harvest the rag¬ 
weeds started, but they were plowed 
under when about six inches high. The 
Cutaway was used three times, the Acme 
five times and the tooth harrow three 
times. This is as near as we could 
come to Mr. Clark’s method this jear. I 
like to use the Acme before the Cut¬ 
away. By doing so I think that the. 
Cutaway gets a firmer grip on the soil. 
A flexible Acme is now made. Instead of 
having one rigid bar it is in two parts, 
so that one side win ride up over a stone 
or a bump, while the other side keeps 
down. We used the quantity of Timothy 
and Red-top that Mr. Clark recommends, 
but I did not sow Red clover this Fall. 
We shall also seed an open field—rather 
low and moist—in much the same man¬ 
ner. I would like to spend more time 
in fitting the soil, but as most farmers 
know, the team is worked hard in late 
Summer and Fall, and we cannot do all 
we have planned. When we get more 
of this tough sod conquered we hope to 
do better. h. w. c. 
FRUIT LAWN FARM NOTES. 
The rains that began June 27 have 
ceased, and everything is drying up or 
being eaten by grasshoppers. We are 
abundantly blessed with the latter. The 
second-crop clover, buckwheat and corn¬ 
field furbish abundant food for the 
“hoppers.” Buckwheat put in with the 
grain drill makes a better showing than 
that broadcast. 
At our farm we have an orphan colt. 
It never tasted mare’s milk. At first we 
gave it cow’s milk diluted one-half with 
water, and sugar added, often in small 
doses, increasing until in a few days it 
drank six quarts of milk—14 quarts of 
milk and water. It now, at eight weeks, 
gets 10 quarts of milk in five messes. It 
eats hay and a little oats, but dislikes 
bran unless mixed with its milk and 
water. It also drinks a little pail of 
water between meals, taken to it by our 
little girl. It is very fond of humans, 
but shy of other colts or horses, though 
the latter have been in the same barn all 
along. 
Our calves have been in the barn all 
Summer. They are the best calves we 
have seen this year raised on skim-milk. 
They do not have to spend their 
strength fighting flies and looking for 
grass among the weeds of the old calf 
pasture. We have them free of lice, 
which is another big item. One had lice 
until a month ago, and it did not do 
near as well as the others. Since treat¬ 
ing for lice it is doing well. We use 
petroleum or crude oil in its pure state, 
as it comes from the oil well. Let it 
stand a time until it loses some of the 
gas, and it does not injure the hair in 
the least, but rather makes it smoother 
and shiny. Saturate the whole body 
with the oil. 
We have not progressed enough finan¬ 
cially to possess spraying outfits, but 
see the need of spraying in the orchard 
and potato field. Blight is doing its 
work. Many days of hot, rainy weather, 
followed by hot, dry days as these, have 
caused the potatoes to blight more than 
usual. I think spraying would have 
helped them somewhat, but I do not 
know. I have not even seen the effect 
of spraying on potatoes. Not much 
spraying is done here. 
Our cornfield is on a stony knoll, so 
we sowed rye at the last cultivation. 
We hope to prevent leaching the coming 
Winter by having a coat or blanket on 
all fields that are not in meadow or 
wheat. The clover in wheat stubble is 
immense. We will have to mow and 
rake it up next month. It would be 
good for the field to leave it, but the 
mice might destroy many plants. 
The Duchess apple is giving us abun¬ 
dant sauce at this season. This is a 
grand apple, very little imperfect or 
wormy fruit. An apple, and a good one 
for a certain purpose, is what is known 
here as the Sweet Russet. It is a Fall 
apple, and is used by the people here in 
cooking apple butter, being a large apple 
with even surface, so it is easy to peel 
and core. Many people plant sweet ap¬ 
ples for hogs. This apple would be 
better than what is generally planted. 
It is not catalogued in any fruit cata¬ 
logue that I have seen. Some books on 
pomology do not mention it, others only 
give it a few lines of description. 
Black Ash, Pa. w. H. M. 
R. N.-Y.—Downing mentions three ap¬ 
ples known locally as Sweet Russet. 
One, grown on Long Island, is small, but 
of very fine quality, ripening in Septem¬ 
ber. Another, grown in New England. 
New York and elsewhere, is larger, 
lighter in color, and good from Novem¬ 
ber till March. Still another, called the 
Sweet Russet of Kentucky, is small and 
dark, and of rather poor quality. 
A store in the Far East evidently has 
the record for quick delivery, as its adver¬ 
tisement is said to read: ‘‘Goods despatch¬ 
ed as expeditiously as a cannon ball.” 
Deaf or Blind.—I like to read Hope 
Farm notes, but I cannot think as the 
writer does, that it is better to be blind 
than deaf. Anything but to be blind: It 
is very hard to be deaf, and I think, 1 
know whereof 1 speak, for I have been 
deaf, more or less, by spells, for over 40 
years, and for the last 10 years cannot 
hear any common conversation; and it is 
very hard to sit in a room full of people 
and not know one word that is said. I go 
to church, but should never know that 
there was a preacher there if I did not see 
him, or where the hymns w r ere if some 
one did not find them for me, and tell me 
which one it was; but still I have my eyes 
and can see my friends, the flowers, trees, 
birds, and all the beautiful things there 
are in the world, and then I can read and 
know of some things that are going on, 
and can sew. I have aways liked to make 
fancy things, and do sewing, and if I were 
blind I could not. It is, and always has 
been, a terrible trial to me to be deaf, but 
I can say truly, it is better than to be 
blind. MRS. HOWARD SMITH. 
Conn. 
ARMSTRONG * McKELVY 
Pittsburgh. 
BEYMER-BAUMAN 
Pittsburgh. 
DAVIS -CHAMBERS 
Pittsburgh. 
FAHNESTOCK 
Pittsburgh. 
ANCHOR ) , 
> Cincinnati. 
ECKSTEIN ) 
ATLANTIC 
BRADLEY 
BROOKLYN 
JEWETT 
ULSTER 
UNION 
SOUTHERN 
SHIPMAN 
COLLIER 
MISSOURI 
RED SEAL 
SOUTHERN 
JOHN T. LEWIS A BROS CO 
Philadelphia. 
MORLEY 
Cleveland. 
SALEM 
Salom, Mass. 
CORNELL 
BufTalo. 
KENTUCKY 
Louisville. 
New York. 
Chicago. 
) St. Louis. 
p 
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pnpp For colors use National Lead Company’s Pure White 
pjiPr Lead Tinting Colors. Any shade desired is readily 
■ BlaaBa obta j net j Pamphlet giving full information and show¬ 
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