1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
515 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
I have a large grist of questions on 
hand, some of which I will try to answer. 
Corn Fertilizers. —Here is one from a 
Few York farmer: 
“1 phosphated my corn with 500 pounds 
dissolved hone, or phosphoric acid 12 per 
cent; 400 pounds kainit and 1,000 pounds 
gypsum, using 175 pounds per acre on the 
hill. Is there any acid made unavailable, 
and how could I have improved on it 
without too much expense? One side of 
the field is clay loam, the other clay 
muck.” 
I call that a very small dose of fertilizer. 
The chances are that your “dissolved 
bone” is only dissolved phosphate rock. 
In 1,900 pounds of your mixture you had 
only’ 60 pounds of phosphoric acid and 50 
of potash. Thus you used to the acre a 
little over five pounds of phosphoric acid 
a nd less of potash. Unless the soil is nat¬ 
urally strong I would liken that to feed¬ 
ing a horse a pint of oats. The use of the 
plaster or gvpsum seems to me like put¬ 
ting three quarts of chaff or sawdust in 
with the pint of oats! 
Why do you say that? 
Because plaster Is not a fertilizer in the 
true sense of the word. Both practical 
and scientific men used to think so, but It 
now seems to be settled that we do not 
use plaster as a manure, but for the effect 
it has on other manurial elements. It ap¬ 
pears to set free some potash in the soil— 
though if this is the object it should be 
broadcast over the field and not put in 
the hill. It has more or less power to 
change the form of compounds of nitro¬ 
gen so that this valuable substance may 
not escape. The place for this work is in 
the manure pile or stable, and these are 
the only places where we would use 
plaster. True, it makes a good “filler” or 
bulk for real fertilizers, but it adds little 
if any fertilizer value. As we are obliged 
to use fertilizers at Hope Farm your 
bulky mixture would hardly be worth 
considering. 
What do you use? 
This year we are using one of the stand¬ 
ard high-grade mixtures—about 50U pounds 
to the acre. Of course we do not know 
how much manure you used or how good 
the soil naturally. Our own soil is poor, 
and we used no manure on it. 
Lime on Clay Soil.—T he same farmer 
asks this question: 
“What treatment would be best to im¬ 
prove the texture of clay muck that gran¬ 
ulates in lumps the size of peas?” 
L can only say that if I had a clay soil 
that lumped in that way I would give it 
a good dressing of lime. That is like the 
general advice to soak the feet in hot 
water when you have a headache, but 
other things must usually be done, too. 
The action of lime is to break up lumps 
and clods in heavy soils, while on light 
3 oils it does the opposite thing—makes 
them more compact. 
Why not use the plaster for this then. 
It contains lime. 
Yes, but not in the proper form. Baking 
soda is not used on the table in place of 
common salt, though the latter contains 
soda. What we call “lime" is in such 
form that it makes certain chemical 
changes easily and quickly, and these 
changes in the structure or condition of 
the soil are of more importance than the 
lime needed as actual plant food. lo put 
lime on the manure pile would be one of 
the worst things one could do. It may 
set up chemical changes which drive away 
nitrogen. Plaster, on the other hand, 
when put on the manure arrests the nitro¬ 
gen instead of letting it out of jail. A 
Slippery elm switch applied mechanically 
to a bad boy may prove an inspiring force 
for civilization, but you wouldn’t use it 
that way to help a sort throat or a fever. 
You would steep it into a tea and let the 
boy sip it. The tea would hardly answer 
where the switch was needed, nor would 
plaster do the work of lime 
Do you use much lime at Hope Farm? 
We have used but little thus far, though 
I feel sure some of our soil needs it. I 
Vn experimenting with basic slag or 
“odorless phosphate.” 
What is that? 
A refuse or by-product from iron smelt¬ 
ing. Some iron ores contain so much phos¬ 
phoric acid that the iron is too brittle 
for ordinary use. In order to get rid of 
this trouble, use is made of our friend 
lime and one of its "attractions.” The 
iron ore is melted and a certain weight of 
lime poured in. This unites with the phos¬ 
phoric acid and both are drawn away, 
leaving the pure Iron. This slag cools and 
becomes a solid mass which is ground up 
fine and used as a fertilizer. It contains 
about 50 per cent of lime and 10 per cent 
more of phosphoric acid. I take it that 
the lime is in good condition for use, and 
that the phosphoric acid, while less avail¬ 
able than that in acid phosphate, will 
quickly help most crops. I am using some 
of this on the Alfalfa and most other 
crops. 
Purifying Water.— Here is a question 
from another New York man: 
“I have a well 24 feet deep that has been 
dug nearly 50 years, I think. It has al¬ 
ways had good water and lots of it until 
the last four years, when it went dry in 
the Summer and tasted unpleasant. We 
cleaned the well last year, but found noth¬ 
ing in it. There are about 20 feet of water 
in it now, but it has had a disagreeable 
taste for about six weeks, so that 1 have 
to carry water from my neighbor. 1 
water three horses at the well three tim<s 
a day. Do you think the water would 
taste all right if I put a windmill on the 
well and kept most of the water pumped 
out? I am told by some that that would 
make It all right.” 
If that well were mine I would first find 
out what makes the water taste bad. I 
would try to make arrangements with Dr. 
W. H. Jordan of the Geneva Experiment 
Station to analyze the water. Thus you 
may find the cause, and then you can tell 
better what to do. That is probably what 
you would do if the wife or child lost 
their health—find out what ailed them be¬ 
fore you spent money for new treatment. 
I have known cases of old and deep wells 
which became foul with gas. The water 
was purified by pumping and dashing a 
chain through it because this let in the 
air. Your well may receive the foul drain¬ 
age from barn or sink. In that case the 
windmill would do it little good. I cer¬ 
tainly would not spend money for a mill 
until I knew what it is that gives the bad 
taste. The practical man has the evidence 
of his nose and tongue, but that is not 
enough—the scientific man must pick the 
water apart for him. 
Feeding Notes.— A reader in Pennsyl¬ 
vania writes this: 
“Will you give me instructions in regard 
to feeding cotton-seed meal to horses, 
cattle and hogs.” 
I know very little about feeding cotton¬ 
seed meal. After using It quite freely I 
decided that for the variety of stock that 
we carry, wheat bran and brewers' grains 
are better suited to our needs. I would 
not feed cotton-seed meal to hogs or 
horses. It seems to be an excellent feed 
when given with judgment to cattle. 
What do I mean by judgment? A fair 
knowledge of the effects of this meal on 
the animal system. It is constipating for 
one thing, and too much of it, or a dam¬ 
aged sample, will affect the brain or 
nervous system. I would therefore never 
feed it except when cows are eating some 
laxative forage like pasture, silage or 
roots. I think it would be well to mix 
linseed with It. I would not feed more 
than half a pound per day to begin with, 
and gradually work up to two pounds for 
a cow. Some of these men who feed tons 
of this meal will laugh at the cautious 
Hope Farm man, but I have not had their 
experience. 
Our experience with brewers’ grains has 
been quite satisfactory, except that the 
grains do not seem to be uniform in qual¬ 
ity as bran, cornmeal or oats. We are 
feeding our hogs on the dried grains with 
about 20 per cent of bran and middlings. 
This with weeds and grass makes a cheap 
ration. I wish I had half a dozen good 
sheep right now, though it will shock 
some of these sheep men when I say that 
I want them for teeth rather than wool. 
A man in our town lias several lambs 
which he keeps in a movable yard. This 
is pushed about from place to place, and 
the sheep clean up the loul grass and 
weeds. There are dozens of stretches 
along my fences where the sheep could 
make mutton and clean up the corners. I 
would then have some one on th’e place 
who really enjoys killing weeds. Most of 
us regard that as an irksome job. Why 
not use the hogs for this? They need a 
stronger fence, more water and are not 
so good for nibbling. A hog knows when 
he has done work enough—the sheep never 
does! 
Farm Notes.— It was a pleasure to see 
the wheat and rye housed. The wheat 
was dead ripe, and shelled out a little too 
much. This Is our first wheat crop, and 
we are unable to figure what it ought to 
yield. The thing that pleases us next to 
getting this grain under cover is the way 
the young grass and clover are pointing 
up through the gi-ain stubole. Our barns 
never were crowded as they are now, and 
there will be more to follow. 
When we came to cut the second “Clark” 
grass field a great surprise awaited. The 
grass looked short, but we forgot how 
thick it was, and it lay in great heaps be¬ 
hind the mower. We had to borrow a 
tedder in order to save it. I have no plat¬ 
form scales, and cannot give the yield to 
the acre, but it filled up an awful hole 
in the haymow!.I don't know 
that we handled the oats and peas accord¬ 
ing to the most scientific plan, but we got 
three tons of fine fodder off about an acre 
of hillside. They were cut on Wednesday 
afternoon, and lay one day spread out. 
Then they were raked Into windrows. 
These were turned daily until Saturday, 
when they were cocked up and hauled in 
Monday. On the whole we had good 
weather for curing. The oats dried out 
quickly, but the peavines hung to their 
sap like bulldogs.By the way 
—not a single 17-year-locust has shown 
up at Hope Farm! It seems to have been 
a false alarm, but as we were true to the 
principles laid down for meeting them we 
have no regrets to offer. 
Boys and Bali. Playing.—H ere is one 
hot off the bat from a Michigan friend: 
“The Hope Farm man tells of stopping 
work to play ball with the little boys. 
That seem to me silly business for a man 
as old as he is.” 
Oh, 1 don't know. There are lots of 
worse things in this world than ball play 
ing. It’s just like putting ball bearings 
on the machinery that keeps these little 
fellows at work to put in 10 minutes at the 
game. I would much rather stop and play 
with them than to have them run off and 
play witli a lot of idle and irresponsible 
urchins! I must confess, too, that I enjo) 
the game myself! Why, 25 years ago, 
when I made that home run and sent three 
more in ahead of me, I was a “biger 
man than old Grant” for 10 minutes. I 
make no home runs now except when I 
race the children from the barn to the 
house, but a little good, harmless sport 
with a ball helps take some of the mean 
edges off of life. 
I think a man ought to be close to his 
children both in their play and then 
work. I never knew my own father, foi 
he was killed early in the Civil War when 
i was too small to observe, but I have 
often thought how a child must regard 
the man who has charge of him. A man 
once told me of an experience of his - child 
hood. His father was a man who thought 
it unwise ever to let the boys know that 
he thought them about right, so when 
they were around he always qualified or 
found a little fault. One day this boy hid 
under the table when a neighbor called. 
Father got to bragging about his smart 
boys. “Why,” he said, "that Charlie is 
one of the best and smartest boys I ever 
saw—he takes after me!” 
Oh! Plow that little chap under the 
table enjoyed that. It just mellowed his 
little heart, and nobody knows how much 
good it did him! h. w. c. 
Cow Peas and Intensive Culture.— A 
man may have a very limited area under 
cultivation, but if he will keep part of that 
in cow peas, plant a still less acreage to 
cultivated crops, and with more Intensive 
cultivation and then keep alternating his 
tillage land with cow peas or clover and 
commercial crops, he will soon grow to be 
a very “big small farmer,” or else a larger 
one; he simply cannot help himself. Cow 
peas will force him into prosperity. 
j. h. hale. 
Bulletin No. 181, of the Raleigh (N. C.) 
Experiment Station, gives a condensed 
history of the culture of the silk worm, 
with interesting facts about the business 
as now carried on in North Carolina. Silk 
worms were domesticated in China about 
2700 B. C., and that country is still the 
greatest producer, Italy, Japan, India and 
France following. In 1771 this Industry 
was taken up in New York, New Jersey 
and Pennsylvania, and in 1820 it was in¬ 
troduced into the Central West. The 
Government issued a manual of silk 
growing in 1826, and the business became 
popular along the Atlantic coast, an ex¬ 
tensive business being done in the sale ot 
mulberry trees at high prices by nursery¬ 
men as food for silk worms. A severe 
frost in 1841 killed nearly all of these 
trees, thus practically wiping out the silk 
business in the North. There are, how¬ 
ever, suitable varieties of mulberries that 
will stand northern Winters, and accept¬ 
able temporary foods, such as salsify, let¬ 
tuce, cultivated hemp and some of the 
legumes. The United States is the great¬ 
est silk manufacturing country in the 
world. It produces practically none of 
the raw material, yet large sections, par¬ 
ticularly in the South, are well adapted to 
silk culture, as the mulberry tree aqd 
other desirable foods flourish. The worms 
may be tended by women and children in 
addition to other work about the house. 
This bulletin estimates that there are at 
least 50,000 families in North Carolina in 
which the product of four or five ounces 
of silk worm eggs could be reared each 
year, without interfering with other work, 
making an additional income of over $3,- 
000 , 000 . 
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Ready Roofing 
ASPHALT READY ROOFING GO. 
136 Water St., New York. 
can be very 
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Send for free 
samples. 
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LASTS YEARS 
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If you want water only when t he wind blows a windmill will do your work 
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