1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
675 
HOPE FARM MOTES. 
A Country Fair. —A few miles from 
Hope Farm is the old race track at Ho- 
hokus. Of late years there has been but 
little racing there, but not long ago a 
progressive body of men secured the 
grounds and organized a fair associa¬ 
tion. Their first exhibition was held Sep¬ 
tember 18-21, and it was very creditable. 
Of course it takes time to organize and 
develop a show of this sort. Our farm¬ 
ers are so close to the great cities that 
they have lost much of the old-time 
neighborhood feeling that their fathers 
knew. Many of our farms are occupied 
by people who have other sources of in¬ 
come beside what they dig out of the 
soil. It is not possible, therefore, to 
create the former interest in an old- 
fashioned show. It is not hard, though, 
to get out a good crowd, for many town 
and city people attend, and we all hope 
that this fair can in time become a great 
success. There is need of it. 
Exhibits. —The Hope Farm folks de¬ 
termined to show up their products by 
the side of those from other farms. 
Uncle Ed had never exhibited such 
goods before, but he gathered up the 
best he could find and took them along. 
By watching the other exhibits he 
learned how to make a good display. We 
won first prize on field corn and on 
Evergreen sweet, and first on Carman 
No. 3, June Eating, Rural Blush, Bo- 
vee and Orphan potatoes, and second on 
Sir Walter Raleigh. Aunt Patience ex¬ 
hibited some of her paintings and 
china and won five prizes. Aunt Jennie 
intended to enter cake, pie and biscuit, 
but for some reason failed to do so. As 
it turned out she would have had a walk 
over if she had done so. We could also 
have won with old Jersey and the calf. 
We had no race horse suitable to win a 
prize now that Nellie has realized the 
true dignity of labor, but next year if 
they will offer prizes for best farm team, 
Frank and Dan will be on hand. Hope 
Farm will back Hugh for champion 
corn-cutter of Bergen County, or Char¬ 
lie to plow and fit ground for seeding, 
Uncle Ed to mend a gate or patch a har¬ 
ness, Aunt Jennie to make a chicken pie 
and play the piano while it is baking, 
or the Madame to train and tame half 
a dozen unruly children. All these 
things are useful on the farm—more so 
than horse-racing or throwing baseballs 
at a darkey’s head! Long live the clean 
county fair. It's a good institution. 
Short Hits. —The grass seed is all in 
except some Orchard grass in the or¬ 
chard near the house. I am glad now 
we took time enough to fit the soil. As 
I have said before, Mr. Clark might not 
be satisfied with the way we worked it, 
but we took all the time we could safe¬ 
ly spare from other labor. . . . On 
Septemoer 21 we turned the stock in to 
feed on the rye, oats and Crimson clover 
which was seeded early in August. It 
made excellent feed. The oats have 
stooled out remarkably. I am told that 
this is the way the Winter oats always 
behave. The fields where we used rye 
and clover alone do not make anything 
like the feed that the addition of the 
oats produced. ... . We appear to 
have killed tne Cabbage worms and thus 
saved the crop. At present it looks very 
well. The drought and the worm have 
cut the cabbage crop severely, and I 
now hope for good prices. ... I 
think more of that Kaflir corn as it 
comes nearer maturity. It will not rank 
with our flint corn in the production of 
fodder, but it is evidently going to sup¬ 
ply a large amount of grain. This grain 
forms in little heads or spikes at the 
top of the stalk. It is smaller than the 
grain of buckwheat, and is very much 
ahead of cracked corn as chicken feed. 
The whole head may be thrown to the 
fowls, and they will husk and shell 
it. . . . Our mixture of cow peas, 
Kaffir and sorghum did not amount to 
much. It made a fair amount of fodder, 
but was too hard to cut and cure. Pearl 
or Cat-tail millet made a heavy growth, 
but I prefer corn to all such crops. 
Potato Notes. —We are now digging 
in earnest, and shall keep at it until all 
are dug. The yield is disappointing, yet 
so far as I can learn we get as many 
potatoes to the acre as any of the farm¬ 
ers in our section. Most of them are 
very free from scab. There are plenty 
of tubers, but too many are small. . . 
Those Florida potatoes were still grow¬ 
ing on September 2o. They were plant¬ 
ed July 8, and have had a hard struggle 
with drought, bugs and blight. We used 
the dry Bordeaux Mixture applied with 
the Paris-green gun, and this certainly 
seems to have saved their lives. The 
best potatoes are now larger than hen’s 
eggs, and we are sure to obtain a fine 
lot of excellent seed. ... I never 
before had green and thriving potato 
vines at the last ot September, yet this 
year wherever we used the soda-Bor- 
deaux thoroughly the vines either died 
a natural death or lived until frost killed 
them. The contrast between the spray¬ 
ed and unsprayed vines is so striking 
that there can be no other way of ac¬ 
counting for it. I feel sure that the 
actual digging will show a great con¬ 
trast in yield. 
Sentiment in Farming. —J. H. Hale 
told me the other day something about 
his scheme of packing peaches to music. 
In his packing shed in Georgia the 
peaches come pouring in from the or¬ 
chards, and must be sorted and packed 
without delay. He found that as the 
afternoon passed away the packers be¬ 
came tired and began to lag. The 
strings that connect the mind with the 
fingers seemed to relax and sag. He 
said he remembered incidents of his own 
life, and also what he has heard soldiers 
say, and concluded to try music. Every 
afternoon at about 4 o’clock his orches¬ 
tra struck up. They began playing soft, 
gentle music and gradually quickened 
up until they were playing the liveliest 
of jigs. The effect on the packers was 
wonderful. Their eyes brightened up, 
hands moved faster and spirits rose, for 
the music keyed up the lagging strings 
and made the work lighter. Mr. Hale 
says that the packers actually did 30 per 
cent more work, and instead of leaving 
the shed with drooping shoulders and 
lagging head they felt like colts. I have 
seen much of the same thing. No use 
talking, the mind manages the muscle. 
Fun on the farm is the fungicide for all 
the ills that lurk in gloomy thoughts. 
Heaven help the farm family that does 
not possess at least one member whose 
soul is so full of sunshine that the rest 
can’t possibly shut it off. I remember 
once going over to our back field with 
letters for Hugh, Charlie and Uncle Ed. 
Hugh’s letter was from his sister, Char¬ 
lie’s from his sweetheart and Uncle Ed’s 
from his wife. They were toiling and 
sweating in the broiling sun, grubbing 
out stumps and bushes and trying to 
plow. These letters cost six cents in 
stamps, yet for the rest of the day these 
young men saw three girls sitting on the 
fence at each turn, and many an ache 
went out of the back. Don’t shut off 
honest fun, Mr. Farmer, and encourage 
music all you can. Perhaps, like me, you 
will encourage it more by refusing to 
sing yourself, but if anyone shows an 
inclination for it cultivate it as you 
would a new variety of fruit for which 
you are offered $l,00o. h. w. c. 
HOW TO CULTIVATE THE LUCHETIA 
DEWBERRY. 
I would select a piece of land as near 
level as possible, which I would term a 
medium loam, that is, neither sandy nor 
heavy clay. A mixture of clay would 
be all right. This should be plowed in 
the Fall or very early Spring, and put 
in thorough condition. Then with a 
one-horse plow I would lay off the first 
way from 2 y 2 to three feet, and the sec¬ 
ond way from five to six feet; this time 
going twice in the row, so as to clean it 
out thoroughly. One of the most im¬ 
portant points in the culture is to get 
good plants, pure and unmixed with wild 
dewberry, as, if the plants were dug from 
a patch where the wild dewberry has 
been growing, some of them might be 
mixed in with them. The plants should 
be set at every cross, about three or four 
inches deep, and covered with an or¬ 
dinary weeding hoe. This done, they 
should he cultivated thoroughly in each 
direction until the runners get to be in 
the way. Then cultivate the wide way 
only until about September 1, when 
they can be left alone until early Spring. 
Some time during the Winter half as 
many stakes as there are hills of dew¬ 
berries should be procured. These may 
be driven any time when convenient, 
one stake between every alternate hill, 
tying two hills to each stake. The 
stakes should be about 3% to four feet 
long allowing 12 inches to be driven into 
the ground and 2 y 2 to three feet above. 
After all danger of winterkilling is past, 
procure some binder twine, gather up 
the dewberry vines, and tie to the top 
of the stakes. It would he better to cut 
a notch near the top, and tie the string 
in this, so it will not slip down. Catch 
a half hitch around both hills of the 
vines, and then tie around the stake. 
After this is done, with a pair of prun¬ 
ing shears cut off all surplus vine from 
12 to 15 inches of where it is tied to the 
stake. This will balance them so that 
they will not slip out. 
Before the growth starts in the Spring 
the vines should be given a good appli¬ 
cation of some fertilizer rich in potash, 
or it would be as well to put a forkful 
of stable manure around each plant 
early in the Winter. If this is done, the 
fertilizer could be dispensed with. After 
the vines are tied in the early Spring, 
give thorough culture until the crop is 
harvested. Cultivate often, but shal¬ 
low. When the crop is harvested, with 
a pair of sharp pruning shears cut out 
all wood. Then they may be left until 
early the following Spring, when they 
should be first tied to the stakes as be¬ 
fore directed, trimmed, and given thor¬ 
ough cultivation. One patch treated in 
this way will last several years. The 
dewberry is undoubtedly the finest of 
the blackberry family. Coming in 
ahead of the Early Harvest blackberry, 
it is larger and better in every way 
than the Wilson blackberry, and always 
finds a ready sale in any markets; and 
so far, there are but few markets that 
are supplied with as many dewberries 
as could be profitably sold. With me, 
it is one of the surest crops that I have 
ever grown, not having had a single year 
that has not paid a handsome profit. 
The best variety that has ever been 
grown is the Lucretia. Austin or 
Mayes ripens a few days earlier, but is 
quite soft, and not nearly as good a 
shipper as the Lucretia, which, with me, 
more than offsets the advantage gained 
by earliness. Where they are to be 
sold in local market, or for home use, 
it would be well to plant some of both. 
Maryland. w. al-len. 
An English exchange says that we should 
wear gloves when setting a mouse trap, 
as the animals are quick to smell, and will 
avoid anything touched by the human 
hand. 
Cleanest in America. 
The Lackawanna Railroad is the cleanest rail¬ 
road in America. Even though it cared little for 
the comfort of its passengers, which it does, it 
probably would burn hard coal, for the reason 
that it owns the most extensive anthracite coal 
mines in Pennsylvania, and it is cheaper foi it to 
burn hard coal, which makes no smoke, than 
soft At any rate, there is no smoke from its loco¬ 
motives. It is built for the most part through 
the mountains where rock is the material easiest 
of access, and its roadbed for that reason is rock- 
ballasted. There is, therefore, no dust. These 
two things are of unusual interest to the traveler 
by this line, for the reason that on no other road 
in the United States is there stronger incentive to 
keep one’s eyes upon the passing scene. It Is 
said of this line truthfully, that every mile is pic¬ 
turesque. It traverses the agricultural region of 
western New York, the valley region of central 
New York, the mountain region of Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey, and every mile offers a view 
that is beautiful, interesting and entrancing. In 
point of comfort its passengers are particularly 
fortunate, for, in addition to there being no 
smoke or dust, the cars are roomy, comfortable 
and scrupulously clean. Sleeping cars, parlor 
cars and dining cars offer all the conveniences 
and comforts of modern travel.—Ad®. 
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By L. H. Bailey. This book comprises fu 1 
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