1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
5i5 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Young Stock.- —Of all the talk of Hope 
Farm, I think the notes about the chil¬ 
dren are most popular. I find many 
farmers who consider the human young 
stock as more likely to win a prize than 
anything else on the place. The agri¬ 
cultural writers used to hold up the ter¬ 
rible example of the farmer who gave 
the colt and the calf better care than he 
gave the boy and the girl. We hear less 
of that now, and I am satisfied that the 
child crop is getting better care and cul¬ 
tivation now than was generally the 
eas.e when I was a boy on the farm. So 
I offer pictures of our young stock this 
week—the Graft, the Bud and the two 
Scions. I have said several times that 
the Bud is our own little girl. The Graft 
is a little waif who was abandoned by 
his parents and left to strangers. He 
passed through various stages of poor- 
house, hospital and asylum, until he 
landed in our family, and the Madame 
took hold of him. His history will make 
a whole story of itself some day. The 
Scions are the Madame’s little nephew 
and niece. Their mother is sick and un¬ 
able to care for them, and so the 
Madame comes to the front again as a 
brooder. These four little “workers” 
make a quartette of as sturdy and happy 
little chunks as you will find anywhere, 
and we hope they will grow up to be 
sound and honest citizens. We don’t 
crack them up as cherubs or prize win¬ 
ners, unless you will let us act as judges. 
They are just honest little folks, with 
all the good and bad tendencies that be¬ 
long to the average child. 
Their Care. —You will notice that 
they are all barefooted. If you could 
get near to them, you would find their 
feet, legs and hands brown with tan and 
dirt, and their faces like brown leather 
with berry juice smeared over it. Some 
people consider it vulgar or degrading 
for children to “run wild” in this way. 
We don t. We think the little folks are 
much better off with their bare feet in the 
dirt. It saves shoe-leather and stocking 
darning, too, but that is a small matter. 
I like to see a child get right down close 
to the good old earth. Now and then 
they stub a toe or step on a splinter or 
a briar. I think they are quite proud 
when they can have a foot bandaged up 
with vaseline, and limp a little. They 
run very exciting races. The Bud gets 
a start of about 25 feet, the Scions next 
with about the same start over tue 
Graft, and then they manage to finish 
close together, so there are few heart¬ 
burnings over prizes. At night, there is 
a general wash-up. They all go through 
the tub and are well lathered with soap 
and water. The Madame thinks a child 
should end the hot, dusty day with a 
bath. It 'is hard sometimes to find the 
time for it, but how the little folks do 
like it, and how the smooth little skin 
does shine. What a good thing it is to 
start the habit of being clean. 
The Food— A little pig or a calf may 
be turned loose to eat anything, but we 
want to know just what these children 
put into their mouths. They have been 
taught to tell us just what they eat be¬ 
tween meals. Sometimes they go to de¬ 
liver berries and fruit to the neighbors. 
You know how some good folks are 
about such things. When a little child 
comes near them, they think they must 
give it a piece of cake or bread and but¬ 
ter. They regard a little child as a 
walking stomach—which is about right. 
Our little folks are pretty well trained, 
and they always bring such food home 
to show us before eating it. When t*»e 
little Graft came to us, he was fairly 
crazy for meat. According to his story, 
the asylum diet was composed chiefly of 
potatoes, brown bread and skim-milk. 
Not much growth or bone food in that, 
and his little body certainly proved 
what the scientists claim about it. The 
little fellow would actually sneak around 
and steal pieces of meat to satisfy the 
bodily craving for “muscle-makers.” We 
gave him all the oatmeal and skim-milk, 
fruit and vegetables, and bread and but¬ 
ter he could eat. It was a wonderful 
thing to watch that little body make it¬ 
self over. The little bones grew harder, 
tue flesh changed from flabby to firm, 
the eye and skin grew clear, and the 
muscles were keyed up like the strings 
on a violin, when some skillful hand is 
to make them talk tne language of 
music. The Madame has seen that little 
body develop into health and sturdy 
strength, and she feels sure that diet is 
the key to both disposition and energy. 
“Vitality comes from victuals,” as an 
old friend of mine says. The basis of 
our children’s food is boiled oatmeal, 
or some other crushed cereal. They eat 
whole loaves of good bread well but¬ 
tered or smeared wild molasses. All 
sorts of vegetables and fruit, and a fair 
amount of fish are allowed, but no lean 
meat except a little of the white chicken 
meat. They have a little fat beef or 
mutton, and they often gnaw the chicken 
bones, but no lean meat for them until 
their second teeth are fully formed. 
Their Education. —These little peo¬ 
ple have hardly begun to think of school 
yet. The Madame is an old school¬ 
teacher, and she has seen too many poor 
little, nervous bodies in the school-room 
that should have been in the country 
building body and muscle. Our children 
will spend the best part of the first 
seven years of life in growing into 
tough little animals. They know most 
of their letters now, and can, probably, 
count up to 30. The average town child 
of similar age is, probably, far ahead of 
them in “education,” so-called, but that 
doesn’t disturb me at all. There are 
children right in our town who were 
started at school so early that they 
fairly hate it now. One boy purposely 
cut his finger so that he couldn’t hold 
his pencil, and could have a vacation. I 
have lived long enough to know that 
“education is a matter of a whole life¬ 
time. Perhaps I don’t know anything 
about it, but our modern schoolhouse 
seems to me much like a place where 
they stuff a child with theories, and then 
send him out to apply them. According 
to my experience, he is likely to find 
this application a tough and soul-sour¬ 
ing job. Why not teach a child more of 
the direct things that he must use in 
order to make a living, and drop some 
of the stuff that he can apply only in his 
blundering, unaided way? Some of these 
normal school graduates seem to think 
that a child is like a stick of wood on a 
saw buck. The Madame went through a 
normal school, but I think her personal 
experience with the Bud, Graft and 
Scions has brought her ideas of school¬ 
ing down to a normal condition. One 
thing, our little folks are taught to 
mind! They “mind” and are respectful 
to their elders, if it takes a switch to 
bring it about. When I was a boy, a 
man gave me a well-deserved thrashing, 
and I would publicly thank him for it 
to-day if I should meet him. Spare the 
shingle, and the rain of ingratitude will 
come through your future roof! We 
want our little folks to be truthful, hon¬ 
est and pure-minded. We want them to 
know and understand the habits of 
plants, insects and birds. Why, the 
Graft knows about all our crops, and 
can tell you things about animal life 
that your town boy never dreamed of. 
But here I am wasting space over four 
little things that never brought us in a 
dollar, but prove a constant source of 
worry, care and work. Some old bache¬ 
lor will find fault with this waste of 
space, and I must stop right here! 
Crop Prospects. —The recent showers 
have greatly helped the potatoes, and 
the early crop seems assured. Where 
we used the nitrate of soda, the plants 
have taken on fresh vigor, and are 
green and thrifty. The bugs are still 
giving us trouble, but Paragrene mas¬ 
ters them quickly. The strawberry crop 
was not a full success. Through lack of 
moisture, nearly half the berries formed 
only little nubbins tnat were not worth 
picking. As you go by the field now, 
you have a whiff of a delicious fra¬ 
grance, which is about all the little fruit 
can give. I have learned that a good- 
sized strawberry plant, in a dry June, 
will drink more water in a day than an 
average man. The black raspberries are 
doing well. Kansas came first, and now 
Gregg is ripening. Our Early Harvest 
blackberries are giving a fair yield. We 
can’t complain—It wouldn’t help us if 
we did. The strawberries are to be 
plowed under for late cabbage and po¬ 
tatoes, and we let the weeds grow un¬ 
disturbed before the plowing, h. w. c. 
FOUR NEW BOOKS. 
The Hop, its Culture and Cure, Mar¬ 
keting and Manufacture, Is the title of 
a new handbook by Herbert Myrick. All 
points of hop growing are treated, not only 
from the American standpoint, but the sys¬ 
tems in vogue among foreign growers are 
also detailed. In addition to the cultiva¬ 
tion of the hop, marketing is fully dis¬ 
cussed, and the preferences of varied mar¬ 
kets are described. In looking at the illus¬ 
trations of the mammoth hop yards of the 
Pacific coast, one realizes something of the 
extent of this crop. Methods differ greatly 
in different sections of this country, and 
the quality of the product varies, also. The 
book under discussion enters into all the 
details which are likely to come before the 
hop grower in any part of the United States; 
it contains nearly 300 pages, and 137 illustra¬ 
tions. Price $1.50. 
Our Gardens.— The Rev. S. Reynolds 
Hole, Dean of Rochester, England, is well 
known in this country, as well as Great 
Britain, as the author of A Book About 
Roses, one of the most delightful books 
ever written upon this subject. A more re¬ 
cent volume is Our Gardens, which dis¬ 
cusses all classes of plants out of doors, in 
the same delightful vein. Dean Hole has 
been an ardent garden lover from his school 
days, and now, past three-score and ten, 
he finds his greatest happiness among 
growing things. His present volume is a 
beautiful example of bookmaking, illus¬ 
trated by numerous fine examples of old 
gardens. Though containing a copious fund 
of gardening knowledge, it. is not so much 
a practical treatise as a book for garden 
lovers, belonging to the same category as 
The Garden That I Dove,, by Alfred Austin, 
or some of Mr. Ellwanger’s essays. The 
price of Our Gardens is $3. 
Ornamental Shrubs.— This book, by 
Lucius D. Davis, is a handsome volume of 
338 pages, freely illustrated. It Is designed 
for the use of planters rather than bot¬ 
anists, and while attention is given to 
native shrubs, the rarer exotics, suitable 
for planting in the United States, are de¬ 
scribed, and their merits given. Some of 
the illustrations and descriptions are al¬ 
ready familiar, but there‘is enough new 
matter to give the book permanent value 
to the professional gardener, as well as the 
amateur. There are, however, some slips 
in botanical names. Hydrangea hortensls 
should not be called H. hortensia, in spite 
of the fact that this old shrub has been 
called Hortensia opuloides by some bot¬ 
anists, neither should H. ramulls-coccinea 
be called ramulis coccineis. There are some 
other errors in spelling, which form a trap 
for the unbotanical. The cultural advice 
will be found excellent. The price of the 
book is $3.50. 
Our Insect Foes and Friends.— Nothing 
adds more pleasure to country life than a 
knowledge of familiar plants, birds and in¬ 
sects. We are likely to neglect the last, 
partly because many people dislike these 
humble creatures, classing them all con¬ 
temptuously under the head of “bugs,” and 
partly because many books on entomology 
seem too abstruse for popular reading. Of 
recent years, however, several useful books 
have appeared upon this subject, designed 
for general readers, and to this class be¬ 
longs Our Insect Friends and Foes, by 
Belle S. Cragin. It is a volume of 377 pages, 
with over 250 illustrations, giving full de¬ 
scriptions of all the more important species 
found in the United States. The description 
Impossible for any Liquid that Is Sprayed on 
Cow, to protect her from Flies, In sun of 100 de¬ 
grees ,‘,4 as loot? as “SHOO-FLV” applied with a 
brush. See *• Shoo-Fly ” adv., page 500, this paper. 
of an insect-collector's outfit, and advice 
on the care and arrangement of a collec¬ 
tion, will be found very useful. A list of 
popular and scientific names will be found 
very helpful, and the book is supplied with 
a copious index. It is written in a very 
interesting style. The price of tue book 
is $1.75._ 
A traveler who excited interest on a 
suburban street recently, was a man who 
was pushing a bicycle and leading a goat. 
Judging from his anxious appearance, he 
felt that the combination was an inappro¬ 
priate one. 
Two Kansas men have obtained a patent 
for a kindling made of corn cobs. The pith 
of the cob is entirely removed, and its place 
filled with a mixture of inflammable fluids 
like turpentine, benzine, etc., after which 
the ends are sealed in plaster, and the 
whole filled with resin. A match touched to 
this combination makes an instantaneous 
blaze. 
Dry Weather Strawberries.— Mr. Geo. 
T. Powell wrote us last year about his 
strawberry plants which had grown to an 
immense size before going into Winter 
quarters. He now says that the dry weather 
has cut this crop short; yet, last week, he 
was shipping 20 to 25 bushels daily from an 
acre. There had not been rain enough to 
wet the roots of the strawberries in 10 
weeks. He has one plant that carries 010 
berries, and he lias been giving it two gal¬ 
lons of water daily for some time. He has 
had men and teams hauling water to these 
plants, and the work has paid well. Where 
the Crimson clover was plowed under in 
a thick mat, the strawberries are doing 
best. Mr. Powell’s experience with these 
strawberries is in line with what we have 
observed this year in our potatoes and corn. 
The thick mat of Crimson clover and cow 
peas seems to help the plants more than the 
heavy mat of manure. We judge that green 
manures well plowed under and packed 
down are better able to hold moisture in a 
dry time than average stable manure. 
Preserves 
A (—fru Its, J ol 1 les, pickles or Cfttsu p are 
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