1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
771 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farm Notes.— The sugar beets were safe¬ 
ly under cover by Election Day. I have 
been inclined to make light of this crop, 
having heard suc'h great stories about what 
a beet ought to be. The samples I saw at 
the fairs were much larger than ours—but 
then, the neighbors look handsomer when 
they dress up for church than %ve do in our 
barn clothes. I say nothing about their com¬ 
fort! I had occasion to go to a locality 
where sugar beets are grown for the fac¬ 
tory, and I found that our beets rank well 
with any I could find. On one strip con¬ 
taining a little less than an acre we dug, 
as nearly as I can calculate, 5,200 pounds 
of beets, which gives over 11 tons per acre. 
That, I am told, is a small yield, but we 
have to be satisfied with it for the first 
time. The tops, which were still green 
when cut, made excellent feed for the cows. 
We 'have not started to feed the beets yet. 
Shall you raise another crop next year? 
I doubt it. The yellow turnips, grown 
as a second crop after rye and clover, will 
give nearly as large a yield as the beets. 
Prof. I. P. Roberts says that mangels are 
far better than beets to raise for stock 
food. He says the yield of mangels will bo 
twice that of the beets. Wait till we feed 
them and see how they satisfy the stock! 
As soon as the beets were out the ground 
was harrowed and seeded to rye. We are 
regular rye cranks this year, as I am de¬ 
termined to have no bare ground for the 
Winter if it can be prevented. It occurs 
to me as I. look over the farm and see this 
green rye sprouting up to cover the ground 
that we would all be better off if we could 
use what I may call moral rye to better 
advantage! Sometimes a man sows a good 
intention, takes good care of it and really 
raises a crop of creditable actions. Then 
he quits and says he has done his duty 
while, if he would but know it, right be¬ 
hind that crop comes the chance to raise 
more like it to better advantage, and with 
much less labor and self-denial than if the 
ground is permitted to go bare. 
Then you would keep people up to their 
best ideals all the time? 
With my knowledge of human nature I 
regard that as too big a job to undertake! 
It is easier to serve the devil than it is to 
fight him. One reason for this is that the 
Evil One is likely to tackle a man on his 
bare ground when the moral force of one 
good action has been leached out of his 
life—just as the soluble nitrogen left by 
one crop is leached out of the soil by the 
water unless some living crop is there to 
utilize it. That is what the rye does in 
our fields, and it should be easy to see what 
I mean by “moral rye.” 
When the sugar beets were harvested 
there was a question whether to dig the 
yellow turnips or begin husking corn. I 
finally decided to take the lower field of 
corn first. We have had no frost yet hard 
enough to hurt the turnips. The weather 
has been bright and sunny, and I want 
that corn fodder under cover before it is 
soaked by another long rain. With us, 
corn fodder means much. We make hay 
while the shredder runs, and we want the 
stalks put under cover while they are 
bright and fresh. As I have said, we shall 
start the shredder earlier than ever before 
this Fall. November and December are 
far better months for feeding stalks than 
February and March. Resides that we get 
more work out of the engine, which we 
hire by the day. When the mercury is 
crawling down toward zero the heat under 
the boiler jumps out to see it crawl and it 
takes too much of our wood to keep .the 
water boiling! 
I have been asked how the Crimson 
clover and Cow-horn turnips are looking. 
They were seeded in the corn early in 
August. The pumpkin vines made such 
a spread that we could not work the cul¬ 
tivators, so the seed was left on top of the 
ground. A good rain followed. The result 
is a good stand of clover, but a poor catch 
of turnips. It is not safe to sow clover 
this way, but in this case there was noth¬ 
ing else to do. 
Fruit Matters.— The strawberries are 
going into Winter quarters hopeful for 
next year's crop. They have made good 
growth, and the plants are not too close 
together. There are too many weeds to 
suit us in part of the beds. The potted 
Marshalls, set out in August, have made 
a surprising growth. We know, of course, 
what a potted plant cannot do, but these 
look as well as any we ever watched. In 
May the strip of ground where these plants 
are was in rye. This was cut for fodder and 
the ground plowed and planted in Crosby 
sweet corn. This was picked so that the 
ground could be plowed and fitted for the 
strawberries.We have several 
'.hundred plants of wild strawberries 
brought into cultivation. Tney vary con¬ 
siderably in habit—several being quite 
promising. They do not send out runners 
as freely as Marshall, and that is less in 
clined to spread than most varieties. 
Why do you continue to plant Marshall? 
Because it seems to be the berry for our 
soil. It does not give as many quarts per 
acre as some other varieties, but. at its 
best there is nothing to compare with it 
around here for size, color and flavor com 
bined. I have given up growing potatoes 
because it is more profitable to produce 
big red apples on the same ground. Thus 
far there has been more money for us in 
the stroke of a hoe among Marshall straw¬ 
berries than in any other muscular energy 
we have attempted! 
You seem to think highly of the hoe? 
I do. It's mightier than the sword! Take 
a man who is not afraid of a hoe handle 
and give him two acres of such soil as we 
have on the lower part of the farm and he 
can produce a crop worth far more than 
the total proceeds from many a 160-acre 
farm out West. He will do it, too, with¬ 
out owning a horse! 
Why, then, don’t you do it? 
Some of these personal questions are 
quite embarrassing to a man who is forced 
to fall back upon the old familiar answer 
of “I 'hope to some day!” 
The year after we came here I planted 
quite an outfit of blackberries and rasp¬ 
berries in a small field north of the house. 
It seemed at the time an ideal place for 
bush fruit, but for some reason they failed 
to thrive. We discovered the reason when 
we dug a ditch to drain from the kitchen. 
A ledge of rock comes close to the surface, 
In some places leaving barely six inches of 
soil. The ground is naturally hard, and 
usually w’hen the fruit should be ripening 
we have a fierce drought, which bakes the 
soil above the rock as hard as a brick. In 
spite of constant cultivation we were not 
able to ripen a fair crop of fruit until this 
year, when instead of cultivating we 
mulched heavily around the plants. This 
gave us a fine crop, and convinced me 
that in such situations a mulch Is far su¬ 
perior to cultivation for holding moisture. 
Still, that location is not desirable for 
small fruits, for t'hey ought to have deep 
strong soil. We have started another small 
fruit plantation south of the house, and 
the plants in tho old bed are to be dug, 
cut back and transplanted when the leaves 
fall—if they ever do. It is a fact that our 
mulched trees of peach, apple and plum 
are holding their leaves longer and better 
than any other trees around us. 
Pigs and Pork.—Wo have been offered 
10 cents a pound for pork, and t'he slaughter 
has already begun. We have a number of 
good-sized hogs in good condition, and 
they will be killed to order for the local 
butcher. Several middle-aged sows that 
are not entirely satisfactory as breeders 
will be turned off in this way. We have 
stuffed them for some weeks on pumpkins 
and other soft food and give them about 
two weeks’ heavy feeding on corn before 
killing. The butchers do not want fat pork. 
One reason why we can get the price is 
that our 'hogs are not “hog fat.” The 
lean meat with just enough hard fat on it 
is what people want 
In what way do the sows fail? 
The chief objection is the small size of 
their litters, though I must say that these 
small litters are usually alt good. I mean 
to get one new sow of a family noted for 
large litters if I can find it among the 
Berkshires. Old Hugha, the grandmother 
of our herd, will soon eat her way to pork. 
She is a big animal, and quite expensive 
to winter, as most old hogs are. We will 
smooth out her big hams and shoulders 
with pumpkins and corn, and send her 
along with two daughters and several 
grandsons to help pay the taxes. 
Hope Flat.— The Hope Farm man never 
expected to be boxed up in a city fiat dur¬ 
ing such beautiful weat'her as we are likely 
to have this Fall. We little know what 
is in store for us, however. Here is our 
family splitting up into two sections. 
Grandmother reached the point where it 
was necessary for her to have more com¬ 
forts than a Hope Farm Winter can pro¬ 
vide. That is one unfortunate thing about 
life in some country neighborhoods—you 
cannot always care for the old and the 
sick as t'heir cases demand. The Winters 
are tough on our hills. It is next to im¬ 
possible to obtain first-class help in farm¬ 
houses where all conveniences are lacking. 
We decided that Grandmother could not 
stand tho Winter here, and tho Madame, 
too, was well worn out with her long siege 
of nursing. The thing came up all at once, 
and we had to act quickly while Grand¬ 
mother could be moved. The result is that 
part of the family is now located in a 
small flat in New York, while tho rest are 
here moving on the best they can. No use 
stopping to say “Too bad” about such 
things. This move seemed necessary, and 
we would better look at the bright side. 
If we don’t see any bright side, better 
polish up one of the dark ones and make 
it shine. I have no doubt people will smile 
at some of our city experiences. It is 'hard , 
for country folks to work into city ways 
without many bruises. I have a good 
chance also to see what is done with the 
food which farmers raise and send to the 
city and will try to tell about it. The 
farm will move right along. I am out 
here to-night. The Bud came to keep me 
company. She grew tired with the early 
darkness and has gone to bed. I sit by a 
crackling open fire, for I promised to stay 
wit'h her till sleep came to drive away all 
fear of the dark. There is no reason why 
I should fear the dark. True, it seems to 
be closing in about us at times, but morn¬ 
ing will come again both to Hope Farm 
and Hope Flat! H. w. c. 
White Grubs and Strawberries.— We 
are never troubled wit'h the white grub 
here, as a rule, for the reason that straw¬ 
berries are generally planted after cow 
peas instead of clover. It is highly prob¬ 
able, however, that tho Tennessee straw¬ 
berry plot referred to on page 752 would 
be seriously damaged by the grub if the 
planting followed the turning of the clover 
sod in November. I should therefore be 
inclined to advise very strongly the imme¬ 
diate breaking of the plot—the planting to 
be postponed until the latter part of Feb¬ 
ruary. Several Winter harrowings with a 
disk or Cutaway harrow should measurably 
succeed in exterminating the grub by that 
time. H. N. STARNES. 
Georgia Exp. Station. 
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