1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
69 i 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Eating Crcw. —I have heard of people 
who had to eat crow as the result of an 
election bet, but I never thought that 
members of my family would smack 
their lips over the bird and call for 
more. The Graft and the Scion have 
been much interested in watching the 
crows this year, and when the black 
thieves began to steal the corn the little 
fellows began to ask whether they might 
eat one. I thought one taste would cure 
them for life, for I had always heard 
crow meat rated below par. Uncle Ed 
finally shot a crow right in the act of 
stealing our corn. The bird was plump 
as a partridge. The little boys picked 
and dressed it and tried to cook it, but 
made a poor job, and Aunt Jennie fin¬ 
ished it for them. The little fellows 
said it was as good as chicken! To my 
surprise Uncle Ed and Hugh say that 
the meat was really good. The crow was 
a young one, quite fat. It ought to be, 
if we judge from the way our corn has 
been picked. I am glad that even the 
crows at Hope Farm have full stomachs. 
No, I am not going to advocate baked 
crow for farmers. I don’t want any my¬ 
self, though the crow is a cleaner bird 
in its habits than most poultry. I’m not 
going to offer Hope Farm crows for sale 
and guarantee them to be equal to 
chicken. I’m just giving you the facts 
about the wise bird which, in my opin¬ 
ion, has a worse reputation than he de¬ 
serves. 
A Wedding. —We have all sorts of ex¬ 
periences at Hope Farm, and in order to 
round things out squarely we had to 
have a wedding. Charlie is the happy 
man. Aunt Emma came up alone from 
Florida on the steamer. They were 
married on the boat. Our dominie went 
on and “tied the Knot,” or “forged the 
fetters,” just as you see fit to call it. 
Hope Farm was represented by Aunt 
Jennie, the Madame, Hugh, the four 
children and yours truly. The little boys 
were afraid that some one would eat 
their fried crow while they were gone. 
“I’d rather go to uncle Charlie’s wed¬ 
ding than to eat crow!” said the little 
Bud—and she showed good taste! The 
wedding was very simple but very im¬ 
pressive. For a wedding tour the bridal 
couple took a trip on the Elevated rail¬ 
road up to Central Bark. They were up 
betimes the next morning, for Charlie 
had a day’s work at potato digging and 
Aunt Emma was anxious to do her share 
in the house. These young folks start 
off with a measure running over with 
good wishes and hope for the future. 
Potato Notes. —We are still digging. 
The yield is light, but the quality is very 
fine this year. A lady drove to the farm 
last week and ordered 16 bushels of 
Rural Blush for her Winter’s store. In 
calculating for Winter such people fig¬ 
ure on one barrel for each adult. Last 
year this ladv ordered is U"°r>els. She 
says that tney found only 11 rotten po¬ 
tatoes in the whole lot! The Rural 
Blush potato as we grow it in New Jer¬ 
sey is hard to beat. I am told that no 
less than three distinct potatoes are sold 
under this name—two of them being 
hardly fit for cow feed. That may be 
why this variety has been given up. . 
. . I planted a barrel of Orphan, but 
during cue Summer became quite dis¬ 
gusted with them. However, we put 
Bordeaux on them and kept them alive. 
Now we get our money back. The vines 
grew until frost, and the hills are well 
filled with long, white potatoes of good 
size and fine quality. Side by side with 
Carman No. 3 it is hard to say which is 
more profitable this year. In a shorter 
season the Carmans would surely win. 
. . . Those Florida potatoes dug in 
May and planted in July nave come 
through far better than I expected. 
On October 1 we dug tubers that were 
nearly full size—plenty large enough to 
sell. I did not expect to get tubers 
larger than an egg. I think that this 
demonstrates the hustling qualities of 
June Eating. We kept the vines well 
dusted with dry Bordeaux Mixture. The 
habit of growth of this second crop is 
peculiar. A single vine grew upright 
and did but little branching. There are 
rarely more than three to the vine, but 
all are of fair size. 
Farm Sentiment. —I referred last 
week to the value of fun and sentiment 
on the farm. No use talking, it pays to 
turn farm life over and try to have it 
done on both sides. Laughing and sing¬ 
ing may be all wrong in some situations, 
but they are all right in others. Aunt 
Mary and Aunt Jennie came to the sta¬ 
tion after me one evening and were 
caught m a soaking shower. Instead of 
howling and fault-finding about it they 
drove home singing. The most appro¬ 
priate song they could think of was 
“Showers of Blessings.” The sun had 
pushed the clouds away and great, long 
splinters of sunshine lay on the steep 
hills. 
There shall be showers of blessing, 
Precious reviving again, 
Over the hills and the valleys, 
Sounds of abundance of rain! 
The sound went rolling down the val¬ 
ley. Even old Frank pumped down his 
big feet in time to the music, and I hit 
the right note now and then. People 
with serious, weary faces came to the 
doors to listen, and they didn’t laugh, 
either. Yes, yes, it pays to sing at the 
right time. I know folks who are so 
serious and gloomy-minded that if they 
were to start singing on the road people 
would at once accuse them of being 
drunk. Say what you will, if the girls 
bad dried up vocally it would have taken 
them longer to dry out physically. 
Family Days. —We also favor making 
the most we can of birthdays or reun¬ 
ions. Not long ago the Madame’s birth¬ 
day came around. The girls got her to 
go to town in the afternoon. When she 
came home tney wouldn’t let her go in¬ 
to the dining room until supper was 
ready. They had the best table cloth on 
and a display of silver that fairly daz¬ 
zled the Hope Farmers. By each plate 
was a nasturtium to be pinned to our 
coats. Aunt Mary had pen-printed the 
following little cards: 
AUGUST 20. 1900. 
7 he J) a y IF e Celeb v a t e 
“HOPE FARM.” 
MENU. 
Tomato bisque Soup. 
Potato Salad. 
Corn Oysters. 
Bread. Butter. 
CUili Sauce. 
Tomato Catsup. 
Cheese. 
Apple Snow 
Cocoanut Cake 
Tea. 
It was neatly served by the Cutting. 
The men folxs all had their good coats 
on. After supper the girls insisted that 
the Madame snouid “play lady” and not 
do a stroke toward cleaning up the table. 
Of course my old friend Grinder will say 
“That won’t buy the woman a dress!” 
That may be so, but there are women 
in this world who crave something bet¬ 
ter than a dress. Better potato salad 
at Hope Farm with love for a dressing 
than terrapin and canvas-back duck 
with no one to think of but yourself! 
Now then, brother, when uoes your 
wife’s birthday come? 
Resin-Lime Mixture. —I have several 
letters like the following: 
Will the Hope Farm man kindly tell us 
just how the resin-lime mixture for de¬ 
stroying worms on cabbage is prepared? 
I want to use it another season. I have 
never got hold of any remedy for Cabbage 
worms that was of much service. 
Pine City, N. Y. R. b. s. 
It is too late now to use the mixture 
this season, but if you want a porous 
plaster for next year’s crops keep the 
facts in mind. This is what you want: 
Pulverized resin, five pounds; concen¬ 
trated lye, one pound; fisli oil, one pint; 
water, five gallons. To this I should 
add “good, careful work two hours.” 
The oil is used to soften or dissolve the 
resin. You first boil the water, resin 
and oil in an iron kettle. When the 
resin is softener- add the lye dissolved in 
water. Stir this in well and add four 
more gallons of hot water. Let the ket¬ 
tle cool slightly before you add the pot¬ 
ash. Be careful of this, or the whole 
mass may be thrown out of the kettle. 
Look out for your fire, for the oil and 
resin may boil up and burn, noil the 
stuff until it makes a clear, amber-col¬ 
ored liquid which will unite with cold 
water. You now have what is called a 
“stock solution” of a liquid soap that 
will stick like a plaster to leaf or stem. 
Put-it witn your water mixture of Paris- 
green and it will surely stay put. You 
take one gai on of this mixture, four 
ounces of Paris-green, three gallons of 
lime water and 16 of water, and start 
your sprayer. You will know you have 
been spraying before you get through, 
for this uesin soap goes hard and stays 
long. Nothing but the most powerful 
pumps win put it on right. We all 
know now Paris-green and Bordeaux 
Mixture will attend to bug and blight 
so long as they can be made to stick to 
the vine. A soaking rain takes the heart 
out of tnem, and they run. This resin- 
lime mixture gives them “sand” or stick- 
to-it-iveness. It is a bother to make 
this stuff, but I feel sure it will pay, be¬ 
cause it holds our friends right up face 
to face with the enemy. h. w. c. 
POSSIBLE PROFIT IN PEARS. 
On reading the first page article of 
Tiie R. N.-Y. of September 8 I find that 
you intend to plant 10 acres. You have 
the evidence of a great decline in prices; 
from $30 to per barrel; so at the end 
of x2 or 15 years, or by the time the 
trees will bear one barrel each, they 
will probably bring $1 or less. Four 
years ago the best hand-picked Bartletts 
sold at 40 cents per bushel to cold stor¬ 
age houses; windfalls and “shaken-off” 
Bartletts sold at 15 cents. These were 
the prices in Dayton. This year, with 
a very light crop, they were slow sale 
at $1 per bushel to the consumer, with 
no storage demand. Also bear in mind 
the immense numbers of Kieffers plant¬ 
ed since then. Your old pear trees will 
show the effect of that dressing of hog 
manure later on by landing on the wood 
pile. Last week I met a friend who 
complained of his Kieffers blighting so 
badly, except some he had planted in 
vacancies in an apple orchard (unculti¬ 
vated) which bore smaller fruit. The 
others were highly cultivated and had 
fine, large fruit, but many of the trees 
had died, and nearly all were partly 
blighted. What caused them to blight 
was a puzzle to him. “You manured 
them wua stable manure,” I said. 
“Yes,” was his reply, “and heavily and 
often.” A farmer told me that his pear 
trees had blighted so that he had but 
few left, and had manured them every 
year, so as to prevent blight. 
“That Pear Tree that Did Its Duty.” 
That report oi it sounds like a fairy tale, 
as I never saw a Bartlett have two bar¬ 
rels of fruit, and never expect to. But 
let us consider his “Winter protection” 
of coal ashes—possibly 10 feet or so in 
diameter, while its feeding roots extend 
from the body as far as the tree is feet 
in neight in all directions. His pile of 
protecting ashes covers the roots of his 
pear tree as a bunion plaster would 
cover a page of Tiie R. N.-Y. 
Mulching Pear Trees. —Last year I 
mulched a part of a row on each side as 
far as the trees (old) were in height; 
the mulch remained all of the year, with 
a bushel of ashes to each tree; mulch 
was replenished last Spring. The trees 
made but hule growth of new wood this 
year and had one-half peck of knotty 
fruit entirely worthless. Thus vanishes 
a hobby that I was sure would pay 
largely. Possibly another year will 
give better results, as pear trees are 
rather sluggish to respond to ill or good 
treatment unless it be actual stirring 
of the soil very frequently. 
Ohio. D. D. COTTOM. 
(No, we have not decided to plant 10 
acres of pear trees. We are only think¬ 
ing about it.—Eds.] 
Wliat a Doctor Says. 
Dr. O. O. JOHNSON, Loomis, Neb., January 12, 
1899, writes: 
I have used Jayne’s Expectorant for the last thirty 
years, and believe it to be THE BEST COUGH 
REMEDY ON THE MARKET.— Adv. 
TheVbufh’s 
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