1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
627 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Potato Scab. —The crop all through 
our section is well plastered with scab. 
The thick, chunky potatoes are not in¬ 
jured so much by it. Some varieties 
have a thick, heavy skin. When the 
scab fungus starts, it does not spread 
along this tough skin, but digs deep 
into the potato. Oh the thin-skinned 
varieties, it act" differently—spreading 
along the surface. Our worst cases of 
scab are on the long, slender potatoes, 
where a late or second growth was 
made. The early drought checked the 
growth, and the later rains started it 
anew, resulting in a neck and head at 
one end. I observe that, where the scab 
starts on the neck, it is likely to travel 
all around it, and make a very ugly 
wound. A tough-skinned variety like 
Rural Blush is rarely covered with scab; 
the wounds go deep down but do not 
spread on the surface. 
Wasted Fertilizer. —When fert-.- 
izers are used heavily on potatoes, you 
will usually find, at digging time, a 
thin gray streak in the drill where the 
fertilizer was dropped. Farmers Icok at 
this, and conclude that the crop was not 
able to utilize the fertilizer. Some of 
them argue from this that fertilizers are 
not available, and do not pay. You will 
notice that, o,n light soils, most of the 
stable manure gets out of sight in one 
season. I do not think this gray streak 
shows that the fertilizer was wasted. 
A ton of good fertilizer may contain 
20 per cent by weight of available plant 
food. The remaining 80 per cent is 
mere bulk for holding the plant food 
together. Its about like a lemon. You 
squeeze out the juice, and leave a big, 
useless bulk of peel. The gray streak 
in the potato drill is about like the 
lemon peel, for the crop has sucked 
out most of the plant food. What there 
is left of it is safe, for it will feed fol¬ 
lowing crops. But where does the 
“bulk” of the manure go to? What is 
it? Water and vegetable matter. Dur¬ 
ing the hot season, the water evapo¬ 
rates, and the vegetable matter slowly 
burns up. The “bulk” in the fertilizer 
is mostly indestructible, and it stays in 
the soil. Dig into the soil where we 
plowed under a thick mat of Crimson 
clover, and you can hardly find a trace 
of it by August. 
Marketing Notes. —It pars to sort 
carefully. There is a good market here 
for second-sized potatoes. Instead of 
trying to crowd all the seconds we 
can into first size, we aim to be a little 
liberal the other way. The result is that 
our seconds are always very salable, and 
our firsts are always satisfactory. A 
little stinginess in sorting would hurt 
both sizes. The ..verage prices are now 
70 cents a bushel for firsts and 35 and 
40 for seconds. One night last week we 
hired a two-horse wagon, and with our 
own wagon, hauled 60 bushels of pota¬ 
toes, several hundred ears of corn and 
some early cabbage to market. We 
struck a crowded market. The dealers 
had, apparently, got together, and 
bought several car-loads of potatoes. I 
suppose some heavy shipper i-t a dis¬ 
tance sent part of his crop direct to 
Paterson. The result was that the 
dealers did not need to buy that day, 
and they decided to offer only 50 cents. 
That would make the price for coming 
days, and farmers would feel it all 
through the season. I am glad that 
most of the farmers refused to sell. 
Some of them hauled their loads home 
again. We left part of our load for an 
agent to handle. In such a case, farm¬ 
ers are wise to hold out fo - the price. 
Where there is a regular farmer’s mar¬ 
ket, as there is in Paterson, the farmers 
can largely control prices if they work 
together. 
Labor Notes. —One potato field is so 
weedy that we tried the plan of run¬ 
ning the mower - ver it before using the 
Hoover potato digger. We thought 
this would lighten the draught, but it 
seemed to work the other way. The 
standing weeds gave the digger a chance 
to get hold, and with plenty of power 
in front, it soon shook the dirt and the 
life out of them. The cut weeds slip¬ 
ped and dodged away, and clogged up 
the digger repeatedly. It would be 
much better if we could rake them away, 
but this does not pay. Far better put 
the power on the digger, and smash the 
whole thing out. That digger does 
leave the soil in fine shape for grain or 
grass. It lifts the rows right up, and 
sifts and shakes the soil like a gardener 
fixing a soil for the greenhouse. It is 
better than plowing. . . Early sweet 
corn cutting has uejun. This comes at 
the wrong time—just when we should 
be digging and hauling potatoes. Much 
of our early sweet was never pick¬ 
ed, for prices went away out of sight, so 
we shall use it for feed. The yield of 
grain in this early corn is only about 
60 per cent of the regular field corn, 
but the stalks make better iodaer. . . 
By the way, some of the neighbors plow¬ 
ed sod in July and sowed corn in drills 
for fodder. This corn is about 18 inches 
high, and most of it is as yellow as gold. 
Here and there on the field are spots 
where the corn stands far aoove the 
rest—dark green and thrifty. Cattie 
that pastured in that field are respon- 
sioie for these spots. A few hundred 
pounds of nitrate of soda on that field 
would, in this season, have doubled tne 
yield of corn at a lignt expense. 
The Dead Alive. —Somehow I come 
back to potatoes every time I start out. 
Just now, we are half-potato anyway. 
We handle them by day and dream 
about them by night. When we strike 
a good patch, the starch gets into our 
courage, and when we dig into the scab, 
we have a momentary dose of the hol¬ 
low-heart. The blight struck one field, 
and I gave it up because the tubers 
were only half-grown, and the vines 
were rapidly dying. The vines died 
to the ground, but for some reason, we 
did not dig at once. When we did dig, 
I was astonished to find great big 
tubers as fine as any one coulu desire. 
A part of that growth must have been 
made after the vines died. I have con¬ 
sidered such a thing as that impossible 
—but here they are! If some one can 
tell the why ana how about it, I am 
very ready to listen. One thing is sure 
—it doesn’t pay to quit at apparent fail¬ 
ures. 
Farm Prices. —In most cases, I think 
farmers in our section have not done 
as well this year as they hoped. Fruit 
prices were fair, but the crop was short. 
Many farmers argued that the short crop 
of peaches would create an extra de¬ 
mand for melons and tomatoes. This 
idea was too general, and these crops 
have been overdone. All sections are 
pouring melons and tomatoes into New 
York, and our local melons often find 
hard sale at $1 a barrel, with fine to¬ 
matoes at two basnets for a quarter! 
These tomatoes must be picked and 
wiped and packed and hauled to mar¬ 
ket. Then it makes one pretty sick to 
see people going to a grocery store and 
paying 10 cents for a can of tomatoes 
while a whole basket of this beautiful 
fresh fruit brings only 12^ cents! Our 
cherry crop was profitable because the 
California crop was a partial failure, 
and Lima beans have paid well lor much 
the same reason. Potatoes have been 
quite satisfactory thus far, but we ex¬ 
pect a heavy late crop from the West 
and North, which will cause very low 
prices. Sweet corn is very low. On 
the other hand, many of the things we 
have to buy are going up in price. 
Happy Hogs. —While the close of the 
growing season may cause some of the 
Hope Farm people to wish for rubber 
joints in their faith, our hogs find in it 
the realization of their fondest hopes. 
On a farm like ours, there are innumer¬ 
able wastes—cabbage, sweet-corn nub¬ 
bins, apples and potatoes too small for 
bakers to buy. I can asure you that 
Sarah Berkshire and her brothers and 
sisters have no melancholy thoughts 
these days. They had a few bad hours, I 
think, the day they filled up on raw po¬ 
tatoes alone, but since they have learned 
to take alternate courses of pota¬ 
toes, apples, cabbage and weeds, life 
has been for them “one long, sweet day.” 
They are certainly filling the pork bar¬ 
rel. Success to them. There are no 
black spots on their happiness, but their 
trouble will come later—all in a lump. 
Well, why should they grieve about 
that? There are rape and sorghum and 
many other good things for them to 
taste before they taste the butcher’s 
knife. 
A New Baby. —A little long-expected 
stranger arrived at Hope Farm last 
week. She was most welcome, for it is 
a little daughter. I have always said 
that I would prefer to have a large fam¬ 
ily of girls if I had any choice in the 
matter. Of course, we have already 
blocked out a great future for this lit¬ 
tle worker. I am rejoiced to say that 
she looks just like her mother. If she 
will only act like her when she grows 
up, there will be a very satisfactory com¬ 
bination. Her father is not much in 
evidence yet, but no doubt some of his 
qualities will show themselves later. 
The young lady hasn’t had much to say 
yet, but she is making herself quite at 
home at Hope Farm, and the Bud and 
the rest of the children are not a bit 
jealous. I should say, however, that 
this little stranger is the daughter of our 
old cow, and we have named her Blos¬ 
som, after Her sister who ran into the 
fence and broke her neck. h. w. c. 
BULLETINS BOILED DOWN. 
these adulterating frauds. Publish them; 
print their names in full; make the people 
understand who the humbugs are. Print¬ 
er’s ink has been used to destroy many 
kinds of vermin, and it will kill these adul¬ 
terating worms of humanity as nothing 
else will. 
This pamphlet also gives a synopsis of 
the new oleo law passed by the last Michi¬ 
gan Legislature. This law now forbids the 
use of any name of any breed of dairy cat¬ 
tle, or the use of any words or symbols 
commonly used in the sale of butter by 
those who offer for sale or advertise any 
form of oleo. Good again! The more we 
hedge these rascals in with such provisions, 
the better it is for the good old cow. The 
Michigan Department analyzed, during 
July, 52 samples of food products; 29 of 
them were found to be pure, and 23 were 
adulterated. In one case, a brand of 
cream of tartar was marked strictly pure; 
it contained absolutely no cream of tartar 
whatever, but nearly 17 per cent of alum, 
and a mixture of corn starch, acid phos¬ 
phate and lime, and ordinary plaster. Keep 
after the adulterators. They are the worst 
leeches to-day that suck the life blood 
from the American farmer. 
Forcing Rhubarb.— Last year, The R. 
N.-Y. made a brief note calling attention 
to the ease with which rhubarb could be 
forced in a frost-proof cellar or outbuild¬ 
ing. This note, which was followed by 
comprehensive articles on the subject, sug¬ 
gested the advisability of investigating this 
subject to Prof. F. W. Card, and in Bulle¬ 
tin 55, of the Rhode Island Experiment Sta¬ 
tion (Kingston), he details his experience. 
Experiments were made with rhubarb roots 
dug early in December, before the ground 
was frozen, and with another lot of roots, 
which were thoroughly frozen before being 
brought indoors. Some of both lots were 
put on greenhouse benches, next the eaves, 
and in full sunlight; others were placed 
under a bench with sides and ends tightly 
boarded up, so as to keep them in darkness. 
The comparison was entirely in favor of 
frozen plants grown in darkness. The roots 
that had not been frozen, both en the bench 
and under it, were dilatory in starting, 
and gave an inferior product. The frozen 
roots, in dark situations, began yielding 
good stalks 17 days after being brought in, 
while the same lot of roots, in the light, 
were eight weeks in reaching productive¬ 
ness. In the light, the plant produces a 
greater proportion of leaf, while in the 
dark, the energy of the plant runs to stalk. 
Prof. Card’s experiments, carefully made, 
fully support the opinions given In the 
rhubarb-forcing articles printed in This 
R. N.-Y. 
Noxious Weeds.— Bulletin No. 76, of the 
Wisconsin Experiment Station (Madison), 
discusses the noxious weeds of Wisconsin. 
It was prepared by Prof. E. S. Goff, in or¬ 
der to explain and make clear the Wiscon ¬ 
sin law against weeds. This law seems 
very strict, but in order to make any law 
effective, the people must understand what 
the law is about, therefore. Prof. Goff gives 
pictures of the various weeds which are 
classed as criminals in Wisconsin, and tells 
how best to destroy them. Other bad 
weeds, which are not mentioned usua'ly, 
are also considered. This is an excellent 
bulletin for farmers to study, because it 
pictures the weeds accurately, and tells 
something about their life history, which 
leads up to suggestions about killing them. 
A good deal of space is given to the Canada 
thistle, which is certainly one of the most 
aggressive and tenacious of weeds. In 
speaking of the best way of killing it, Prof. 
Goff quotes from our old friend, J. S. Wood¬ 
ward, as follows: 
Ridding Land of Canada Thistle.—Get 
the land well set in clover, and the richer 
the better. Let it stand until just as the 
thistles begin to show bloom, then mow it, 
being sure to cut all thistles. It is well 
then to apply some plaster to start a quick 
growth of clover. When the clover is up a 
good growth, say at the middle or last of 
July or first of August, plow the field, and 
be sure that it is all plowed. Don't cut the 
clover, but plow the whole ground, having 
a chain on plow, if necessary, to put all the 
grass under. Roll at once, and harrow so 
as to cover all the thistles. Keep the field 
well cultivated all the following Fall. 
Every time a thistle shows, go over it 
with some broad-toothed cultivator, hav¬ 
ing the teeth sharp, and in two days after, 
follow with a hoe, cutting off the head of 
every last thistle. Follow up till late Fall, 
then in the Spring, plow the field, and you 
will have the best of all fitted fields for 
barley or oats, and if the work is thorough, 
I will give $1 apiece for every thistle that 
ever shows again, unless it come from the 
seed. 
Michigan Adulterations.— The State of 
Michigan issues monthly bulletins from the 
Dairy and Food Department, which make 
interesting reading. The July bulletin 
says that the firm of Hilker & Bletsch, of 
Cincinnati. Ohio, have been selling adul¬ 
terated goods through the State of Michi¬ 
gan. Their worst frauds are cream of tar¬ 
tar and jelly. Their agent does not now 
dare to enter the State, for warrants are 
out for his arrest. The Department warns 
the trad’e in Michigan against the pur¬ 
chase of these adulterated goods, either by 
mail or otherwise, as action will be taken 
against any and all found offering this 
adulterated stuff bought from or manufac¬ 
tured by the said Hilker & Bletsch. This 
is business, and that Is the way to stop 
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