1002 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
419 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Pig Points.—You say that your young 
Berkshires show too much white. 
Yes, some of them, while perfect in shape 
and other markings, have too much white 
about the face and head. A few have white 
hairs on the side, but the great trouble is 
on the face. I do not understand it, since 
a good share of the litters are well 
marked. 
Is this uncommon? 
Very—if you are to believe what some 
breeders say for publication—not at all if 
you get back of the pen with which they 
write to make a sale and get into the real 
pigpens! 
Can these pigs be registered? 
Yes, but I would not have it done, nor 
would I sell one of these white-headed pigs 
to one who expected to breed pure stock. 
Why not? If they can be registered are 
they not just as good? 
Yes, for pork-making they are just as 
good as any. I shall keep some of the 
sows to raise pigs to sell as porkers, but, 
if one is to try to raise pure Berkshires 
and keep the breed as it should be, I hold 
that he should strive for an ideal hog, and 
reject all that fail to come up to the 
standard. 
Do you not hurt your business by talk¬ 
ing about these white faces? 
No, because we want people to know that 
Hope Farm wouldn’t sell a gold brick if 
it meant salvation from the sheriff. I 
have a line piece of wheat which I ex¬ 
pected to sell as seed, but I find it mixed 
with rye. We might cut out all the rye 
in sight and call it clean, but I claim that 
1 have no moral right to sell the crop as 
pure wheat—and who wants to buy any¬ 
thing else? No man has any right to sell 
seed or stock if he knows it contains 
weeds. 
But what will you do about those white 
faces? 
Get a companion to Billy Berk with as 
little white on his face as Berkshire law 
allows. 1 feel like staying right by this 
proposition until we wash the white dirt 
off their faces! This white hair is just a 
gentle nudge from Nature’s elbow to let 
us know that we can never get entirely 
away from our ancestors. The best of us 
think we are pretty smart and well bred, 
and that our savage and disreputable an¬ 
cestors have no hold upon us. Wait until 
opportunity and real desire make a com¬ 
bination—and back we go to our type! 
Those who are least likely to do this de¬ 
serve to be "registered.” 
Wiiat Breed? I have the following 
Questions from a New York man: 
"I see that you have both Berkshire and 
Yorkshire pigs. Which do you like the 
better? What do you think of the Jersey 
Red hog? I have a 12-acre apple orchard 
fenced to run my pigs in, and by putting 
up about 60 rods of fence can have another 
orchard the same size for them. I wish 
to get a pig that will grow fast on grass, 
rape and small apples, with a little giain, 
and when about seven months old to fat¬ 
ten up on corn. Would you advise me to 
send for some Jersey Reds?” 
I call it dangerous business to tell a man 
what ticket to vote, what church to join, 
what type of wife to pick out, or what 
breed or variety to choose. One must 
know all about the man in order to tell 
what his farm companions should be. With 
my present experience with hogs I should 
use Berkshires for the purpose mentioned. 
I have not had the Yorkshires long enough 
to know what they can do. My impres¬ 
sion is that they are slower to grow than 
tiie Berks. I judge that they will make a 
better carcass and give larger litters, but, 
in an orchard, and fed as this man sug¬ 
gests, I believe my Berks will make 150 
pounds of good pork as quickly and cheap¬ 
ly as any other breed. There is. not a 
shiftless bone in the body of a good Berk. 
1 have had no experience with the Red 
hogs. When my little Yorkshires come 
along they may put up some new argu¬ 
ment, and I have no strong prejudice to 
be overcome. The plan our friend suggests 
is a good one—it is the way to make cheap 
pork in the East. Winter the sows chiefly 
on clover hay or Alfalfa and let somebody 
else winter the fattening stock. 
Fertilizer Questions.— A good friend 
in Indiana who is a large potato grower 
asks this: 
"Are you fond of soggy potatoes, or why 
is it that you use muriate of potash on 
them instead of sulphate?” 
No, we don’t care for "soggy” potatoes 
though some customers do! Who are they, 
pray? Restaurant keepers who have de¬ 
mand for potato salad and fried potatoes. 
The “soggy” article when boiled will cut 
into a firm, hard slice, while the "mealy” 
tuber falls in pieces. I know that the ex¬ 
perts say that sulphate will give a better 
quality than muriate, but if I were to take 
my own experience alone I should say that 
there is little difference on our soil. Where 
one is selling potatoes on the general mar¬ 
ket and not to private customers I doubt 
whether the difference would ever be no¬ 
ticed. I experiment with this more or less 
every year, and have put the sulphate on 
an acre this season. 
A large bean grower in western New 
York says he raises fine crops with a 
weeder and acid phosphate. The weeder 
is right for all young crops. As for the 
claim that acid phosphate alone is a full 
fertilizer for beans I would not make it 
as a general statement. On some strong 
soils containing considerable clay it is 
true that phosphate alone will give good 
crops of clover. The soil seems to contain 
an abundance of potash, and the clover 
makes use of it. The acid phosphate not 
only helps to set this potash free, but 
seems to start the little bacteria into ac¬ 
tive work. As I understand it, the work 
of breaking up the organic matter in the 
soil and making its plant food available 
is faster and surer when there is plenty of 
phosphoric acid present. In a clover coun¬ 
try, therefore, where beans are planted 
on clover sod, the phosphate might for 
years produce fine crops. It would not do 
this on our soil. I do not much believe in 
the theory that any soil is good enough 
for beans. Lima beans require the strong¬ 
est soil and heavy feeding. Even cow peas, 
while giving a fair crop on poor soil, re¬ 
spond quickly to fertilizers or manure. I 
should call it close to a crime, though, to 
use manure on cow weas. 
Farm Matters.— Our potatoes have made 
a great start. The tops never looked bet¬ 
ter at this season. I have seen before now 
a man wearing a high silk hat which gave 
him a very dignified appearance. When he 
took the hat off we saw a bald head which 
bulged out behind and ran sharply back to 
a peak in front. The hat of a statesman 
merely hides the head of a clown—it does 
not fill it out. As for big potato tops—it’s 
pleasant to hear the neighbors admire 
them, but they make no worm holes in 
the mortgage. ... We used pine tar on 
the corn this year. The crows have little 
use for it, though gas tar seems more ef¬ 
fective. I find that the pigeons pull some 
corn, and are not afraid of eating the tar. 
Do crows ever attack the rye? We have 
a large field of rye close to the woods, but 
I have never seen a crow at work in it. 
With us both hens and pigeons refuse this 
grain. . . . The Potato beetles are lay¬ 
ing their eggs, and there is every indica¬ 
tion of a big crop of the soft-shelled ras¬ 
cals. Big tops are certainly an advantage 
when these fellows begin to eat. . . . 
By June 1 the potatoes had been worked 
twice with the Acme, twice with the weed¬ 
er and cultivated once. We shall work 
them this year for all we are worth. The 
soil is mellow and fine. The upper inch or 
two is dry—just right for taking the sap 
out of an up-rooted weed. Kick past this 
and you will strike soil dark and damp. 
That’s what you get by thorough prepara¬ 
tion. . . The corn was all worked with 
the Acme before it came up. As soon as 
it broke through the weeder was started 
and the cultivator will follow. Our crops 
never had a better start, in spite of the 
cold and hard season. 
Child Plans.— The Hope Farm Garden 
Association is prospering. The crops all 
come up in spite of much poking and dig¬ 
ging to see when they started. The presi¬ 
dent found that he had to work as hard 
as the poorest citizen—in fact, he thinks 
there are some sharp pins in the presiden¬ 
tial chair. Most of the weeds have been 
kept down, and one potato plant in this 
garden is larger than any other on the 
farm. It isn’t so hard to get children to 
work if you go at it in the right way. One 
hot day at the end of the week I was hoe¬ 
ing strawberries. The whole "Associa¬ 
tion” came marching out from the house 
after school. Thev wisely put the secre¬ 
tary as chairman of the delegation. 
“Oh, Father— won't you go and help us 
catch turtles?” 
These little folks had a collection of 17 
turtles in their pen. I showed them the 
weedy strawberries and told them that if 
they would help me clean it and then plant 
the pumpkins I would go! 
Now, these little folks worked like bees. 
The little boys picked up 10 bushels of 
weeds and carried them to the pigs, and 
the girls pulled the little weeds around 
the plants. We finished the strawberries 
and then all hands climbed the hill to the 
cornfield. The Graft dropped the seed and 
I covered it, while the others went to the 
spring for a pall of water. We sat under 
an apple tree and drank it and talked of 
what we will do when our orchard covers 
the hillside. We made short work of the 
pumpkins, and late in the afternoon I 
hitched old Major to the wagon and all 
five of us drove to the swamp by the rail¬ 
road. The little ones put on their rubber 
boots and began their turtle hunt. I took 
old Major’s harness off and let him eat 
grass by the roadside. The few passers-by 
seemed to be surprised to see a fleshy man 
sitting on a stone looking away from an 
open book—off to the hills where the sun 
was painting the clouds with glory. We 
got home in time for supper. The Madame 
was waiting for us at the gate. The chil¬ 
dren had three turtles and the Hope Farm 
man had a tighter grip on the best part 
of life that is worth remembering. 
Spoiled Children.— I have been reading 
of a German who came to this country to 
study the habits of Americans. I judge 
from what he writes that he got a fairer 
idea of what the true American is than 
Prince Henry did. This man noticed the 
pert, “smart” and disrespectful children— 
the cubs that make your hand tingle to 
get hold of a good switch! He rightly 
blames the parents! 
"They over-indulge the children and 
spoil them. All day long the father digs 
and delves in shop or office and the moth^- 
er makes sacrifices that her children may 
be educated. Thus in many cases it comes 
to be that the children are better educated 
and better bred than their parents, and look 
down on their parents as not quite so good 
as they. Filial respect dies in the child’s 
breast and selfish prfde takes its place. 
The mother economizes, does her own 
washing and turns her old gown that 
Fanny may have a silk dress and look 
like a lady, or that Johnny may wear 
white shirts every day and belong to the 
boy’s club.” 
I regret to say that I know of cases far 
worse than that. What can men and wo¬ 
men be thinking of to take the hard fibers 
of life and twist them into a door mat for 
their children’s feet! "Oh,” but some one 
will say, "this old fellow needn’t talk, he’ll 
spoil those little folks of his, too.” Well— 
if they are spoiled it won’t be done in that 
way—not while the Madame is able to ex¬ 
press her opinion. Several years ago a 
woman wrote me about her boy. He was 
a great big, overgrown fellow—larger than 
his father—who bossed them around and 
whined and wheedled his wants out of 
them. They had ruined him by kindness. 
1 have seen just such cases. They call for 
heroic treatment. I shall shock some of 
my good friends when I say that I wrote 
this woman that if she wanted to know 
what I would do—here was my programme. 
Make that boy behave himself! I would 
try every means to be firm with him, and 
as a last and final resort, cut me a big 
stick and either make him beg or pass the 
rest of my days in a hospital. h. w. c. 
If you want a harvesting machine that 
is reliable—one that will work success¬ 
fully in all conditions of grain—buy the 
McCormick.— Adv. 
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