1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
343 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Birthdays. —Hope Farm is a great 
place for family celebrations. Wo con¬ 
sider it well for the children to make 
much of birthdays and similar events 
Visits from friends, good news from ab¬ 
sent ones, any pleasant little event that 
bobs up from everyday life, will start a 
Hope Farm celebration List Saturday 
night, after our baked beans had been 
disposed of, I noticed some little commo¬ 
tion in the kitchen. First I knew, in 
walked the little Bud carrying a great 
cake with a number of little candles 
on it. 
Dot's for fader's birfday ! 
With that she handed me the cake, and 
then stood by my chair, her little face 
as bright as any of the candles. Our 
Florida members had opened a can of 
their celebrated Peen-to peaches. I 
carved my cake, and we had a merry 
little time with more fun than some 
folks could buy for SI 000 a minute. 
“ Old Timers ”—Some one will break 
in right here, and a9k how many can¬ 
dles there were on that cake! Well, 
now, as one of New York’s great men 
says, “That’s personal business!” It 
concerns chiefly the Madame and my¬ 
self. I think we all come to a time in 
life when we do not consider it exactly 
a compliment to have our age proclaimed 
—even on a birthday cake. I would 
^divide life into three periods For a 
time, we are anxious to add a few years 
to each birthday. It’s a happy feeling 
to look ahead to an ideal maturity. 
Viewed through hopes and dreams, it 
has a rosy hue. Then wj cometo a time 
when we would gladly knock off a few 
years if we could. We strike maturity 
of body and mind, and somehow, the 
flint of years and experience doe-n’t 
make much of a spark. We find, on look¬ 
ing the thing fairly in the face, that we 
have done many wrong things well and 
many good things ill. It is a prefty 
shallow man who is satisfied to remain 
at the “Get There” station. Then, 
finally, we shake ourselves and under¬ 
stand that our best day’s work has been 
done. We hang to the top notch, and 
deceive ourselves a good while; but 
finally, we have to admit that we are 
slipping down. No use trying to knock 
off the years then. W.thout knowing 
it, we made the spot that we go sliding 
to whi’e we were climbing up the other 
side. 
What About It ?—Sermonizing is not 
in my line, but after the candles burned 
out and the cake disappeared, I sat think¬ 
ing a few birthday thoughts. 
I can’t be electel President of the United 
States. I am not tltted by taste or tem¬ 
perament to shine in politics. 
Tnere isn’t one-tenth of one per cent of a 
chance that I shall ever be a rich man 
It would be a violation of natural law to 
imagine that I can ever be known as a 
particularly handsome man, a great 
diplomatist, a celebrated soldier or any 
mental or physical giant. 
Every hour I spend hereafter dreaming 
about any of these impossible things is 
an hour deliberately wasted. 
If I put my influence and example before 
my home folks and the few I can per¬ 
sonally touch, I may make it stick. If 
I try to cover “ humanity ” In general, 
the result will bj too thin to cast a 
sliado ,v. 
Now, my conviction is that when a man 
of middle life can honestly say “ them’s 
my sentiments” to the above statements, 
he has received the most useful and valu¬ 
able birthday present that the market 
affords. I am speaking for myself alone. 
You, my friend, may have satisfied your¬ 
self that it is a part of the great scheme 
of universal destiny that you are called 
to be one of the world’s great leaders. 
I fear that you will find that, while 
many call themselves, few are chosen. 
Simple Ambitions. —Happy the man, 
say I, who can wake up before he gets 
too old, and realize that, as a seedling, 
his fruit has mighty fe w points of superi¬ 
ority over the standard sorts of character 
and work That man has a perfect gold 
mine of happiness in sight, if, after mak¬ 
ing this discovery, he can realize that 
he may yet be useful to the world as a 
grafting stock for younger buds and 
scions, if he will saw off a few bad 
habits ! 
I charge thee—fling away ambition ! 
I wish Shakespeare had put the adject¬ 
ive “worldly” in that line. It would 
have weakened his poetry, but it would 
have strengthened his advice. 
“Yes”, I hear some one say, “ that is 
all very nice, but you must admit that it 
has been the fierce, insane ambitions of 
men that have crowded the world into 
its present s l ate of civilization. If all 
men were satisfied to accept your views, 
there would be little progress to record.” 
My answer is that part of the world 
has been developed too fast for the good 
of all. Society in this country is getting 
to be like the biscuit that the Bud tried 
to bake on top of the stove. The crust 
made fine short cake, but the inside was 
like chicken dough. Common, every¬ 
day men must realize that their sphere 
of usefulness is narrow. Get right into 
that, say I, and make the most of it. In 
that way, the units of society will be 
made stronger. The units take care of 
the whole. 
Hkn Notes —Our first chickens, 
hatched under a hen in January, are now 
so large that the roosters are consider¬ 
ing the best way to start a crow. . . . 
We are much interested in watching the 
chicks from our pen of Blacks and the 
neighboring pen of White Leghorns. The 
eggs from the Whites are more fertile 
than the others—at least when put side 
by side in the incubators, a much greater 
proportion of the Whites hatch. In the 
brooders, however, a different story is 
told. The Blacks are hardy and stand 
up, while the Whites die off rapidly. We 
cannot exactly account for it, though 
the longer we keep the Black Minorcas 
the more we are convinced that they are 
the hardiest of the Mediterranean breeds. 
As compared with our White Leghorns, 
the Blacks are hardier, lees nervous, 
slower to mature, fully equal as layers, 
with larger eggs, but heavier eaters— 
consuming at least 15 per cent more food 
per hen. 
Rhubarb and Syrup —The pieplant 
comes up out of the giound like a very 
welcome friend. We are all very fond 
of it. I lived on the plains once when 
rhubarb was about the only native fruit. 
No one can tell how good it tasted. Last 
Fall, our folks tried to can some rhubarb 
into jelly. It wouldn’t “ jell ” alone, but 
we finally mixed it with apple, and this 
made it solid. That m^de, without ex¬ 
ception, the finest j _lly I have ever 
tasted. We wanted to try the plan of 
raising rhubarb in the dark, but our 
roots were frozen in solid before we 
learned about the scheme. Uncle Ed 
brought with him from Florida a jug of 
syrup made from ribbon cane. It is cer¬ 
tainly fine stuff. We like it better, on 
the whole, than maple syrup. Few of 
our young people nowadays even know 
what really good syrup is. When I was 
a boy, we used to eat gallons of the old- 
fashioned molasses. It was a good and 
healthful sweet. The cheap and nasty 
glucose has killed off the trade in mo¬ 
lasses, and sickened many people of 
liquid sweets. 
Fruit Notes —I gave up the Early 
Harvest blackberries a month ago, but 
now they are budding out heavily. We 
cut them back quite severely. We are 
surprised that this variety came safely 
through the cold Winter. Last year, it 
was our most profitable bush fruit, Both 
Kansas and Gregg blackcaps are in fine 
trim, and Snyder blackberry did not 
lose a tip. The Cuthberts that were 
transplanted after plowing under straw¬ 
berries last year are now in fine condi- 
dition. . . . Last August, I set out 
10 potted plants of the Gladstone straw¬ 
berry. We now have 124 fine, strong 
plants. Last Spring, I transplanted 
about 75 wild strawberry plants, and 
gave them good care and food. It is 
wonderful how they vary in appearance. 
One or two look promising, and may be 
good enough to name after the Madame 
or the Bud. h. w. c. 
" BACK TO THE LAND.” 
opportunities for “small means” men. 
Farm Schools —Mr. Geo. T. Powell, 
of Ghent, N. Y., is well known to farm¬ 
ers of the country as an institute lecturer, 
and a student of agricultural matters. 
Mr. Powell is arranging for a farm school 
for btudents on his home farm during 
the year, and as this is something of a 
novel enterprise for America, we desired 
to obtain something of an idea as to 
what Mr. Powell expects to result from 
such school. It will be remembered that 
Prof. Bailey, in his lecture before the 
Western New York Horticultural Society, 
said that, while we are ahead of Europe 
in our farmers’ institutes, our experi¬ 
ment stations, and to some extent, in 
our agricultural colleges, we are behind 
the Europeans in our primary or inter¬ 
mediate schools. He advocated schools 
on farms where a limited number of 
students might be taught by some prac¬ 
tical and successful farmer, such instruc¬ 
tion to be limited to technical methods 
and practice. Mr. Powell is, perhaps, 
the first to start a definite school of this 
kind. In 1896, he taught a few students 
in this way, and he tells us that two of 
them have bought farms, and while they 
were city young men with capital and 
education, they are doing excellent work 
in the country. 
“ But what sort of course will you give 
them?” we asked. 
“ I shall make this course very thor¬ 
ough, giving carefully-prepared lectures, 
chiefly along economic lines, and shall, 
also, make field work, or study of the 
growing crops, a prominent feature. The 
more I study the conditions I meet every¬ 
where among farmers, the more I see 
the necessity of this plan of instruction. 
It cannot be obtained at any agricul¬ 
tural college, for the college is fitting 
and making teachers, and that, evi¬ 
dently, takes young men away from the 
farm.” 
Whom Fob ?—“ What class of young 
men do you seek, at this time ? ” 
THE NEW POTATO CULTURE, . 
THE BUSINESS HEN, . 
FERTILIZERS, .... 
FERTILITY OF THE LAND . 
FEEDS AND FEEDING . 
AMERICAN FRUIT CULTURIST, . 
PRINCIPLES OF PLANT CULTURE, 
“ My idea, at present, is to limit the 
work to those young men who have 
more or less capital. New York City 
men assure me that there are young men 
in the town, who have some capital, but 
who cannot use it against the great 
amount of money that is combined so 
largely in trusts. Most lines of indus¬ 
trial enterprise are now controlled by 
these great corporations, and the men 
of limited means have small chance in 
business against them. In my opinion, 
it would be for the benefit of agricul¬ 
ture to induce this capital again to seek 
investment in the land. In that way, we 
can build up rural interests again on a 
very substantial basis. 
“ Young men with energy and small 
capital can take their money into the 
country, and establish themselves in 
fruit, dairying, poultry, or such other 
lines as they see fit. The money thus 
spent, diverted from the town and city, 
will benefit the country. Such young 
men will bring dignity and skill to the 
farm, and from every point of view, it 
seems desirable to induce sunh men to 
go back to the land. It is well to en¬ 
courage the waifs and the poor to seek 
homes in the country ; at the same time, 
the class of young men with small capi¬ 
tal should not be overlooked. The coun¬ 
try needs them, and they certainly will 
not go until it is shown in a practical 
way, that it is possible to invest their 
money securely and profitably. My idea 
is that farm schools located on success¬ 
ful farms, where the underlying princi¬ 
ples of agricultural science, also the best 
practices, can be taught, will do much 
to bring such men back to the land.” 
Pkof. L. R. Jonbs, of Vermont, reports that a 
pound of Red clover seed contains 336,000 seeds, 
with all the way from 4,000 to 10,000 weed seeds. 
Alslke clover contains 720,000 seeds to the pound, 
and as a rule, contains a greater proportion of 
weed seed. 
Test Seed Cokn.— The Illinois Experiment Sta¬ 
tion suggests this simple test for seed corn. It 
Is worth trying. You should know what your 
corn will do before you plant it: “ Use two din¬ 
ner plates. Place an inch of soil In the bottom 
of the first plate, moisten and cover with two 
thicknes&es of any cloth, preferably old cloth 
that has been washed several times. Upon this 
place the seed to be tested, and cover with an¬ 
other moist cloth. Then cover by turning the 
second plate bottom upwards over the first to 
preve*t the soil from drying out, and set in a 
warm place.” 
E. S. Carman, . 
$0 40 
H. W. Colling wood, 
.40 
Prof. E. B. Voorhees, 
1.00 
Prof. I. P. Roberts, 
1 25 
Prof. VV. A. Henry, 
2.00 
John J. Thomas, 
2 50 
Prof. E. S. Goff, 
1.25 
Send for Our Book Catalogue. 
There are good books on almost every detail of farm or 
garden practice. Tell ns what yon want. Onr advice costs 
yon nothing. THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, New York. 
BAD, WORSE, WORST SPRAIN 
Can, without delay or trifling, be 
cured promptly by the 
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