1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
855 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Manufacturing Loafers. —I went 
into the country store the other night, 
and while waiting for my goods to be 
made up, I saw how loafers are made. 
Half a dozen young boys were playing 
about, knocking off hats, shouting, play¬ 
ing tag and otherwise making them¬ 
selves into a nuisance. A nuisance is 
the first step in the evolution of a boy 
into a loafer. He hangs around the 
store for a few years, learning to smoke 
and hearing talk that has barbs on the 
words. He takes this talk to the school, 
and peddles it out to the other boys, or 
shouts it after the girls. He is a nuis¬ 
ance, ready to graduate to the railroad 
station or the cigar shop, where he 
lounges and loafs, and then moves on to 
the saloon. That is one way in which 
loafers are made. The storekeeper is 
not responsible for it. Who 'is? The 
parent or guardian who lets these boys 
stay at the store or at any other loung¬ 
ing place. I wondered that night what 
in the world parents were thinking of 
to let these little boys run wild. If I 
ever catch the Graft up to such mis¬ 
chief I will graft the buggy whip on him 
in great shape. The place for a young 
boy is at home, when night comes. 
There are very few loafers and saloon 
flowers manufactured at home. Mind 
you, I don’t call a place where children 
come merely to roost a home. 
Changing the Tune. —A friend in 
Vermont sends the following note: 
In Hope Farm Notes you say you are 
going to plow this Fall. What’s “changed 
your tune?” Aren’t you the fellow who 
was so much against Fall plowing? Won’t 
you lose nitrogen? Does the getting ready 
for early sowing and being ahead of your 
work balance the loss? h. m. p. 
That’s right. If we seem to get off 
the track, sail right in, and find out. I 
have had to change my tune many 
times. I consider it a good thing to 
change when the old tune has killed a 
cow—that is, if you wish to save the 
rest of the herd. When I was a young 
man I thought I could sing tenor. I have 
spent hours that should have been spent 
in bed singing such glorious sentiment 
as: 
Oh, Genevieve, I’d give the world, 
To live again those golden hours! 
Would I do it again, if I could get off 
among the scenes of 20 years ago? I 
think so, though I should make a sorry 
voice of it, I expect. At that time I 
had nothing but hopes and crude am¬ 
bitions. These are easily and cheaply 
fed on sentiment. I have lived long 
enough to realize that I don’t own the 
world, and couldn’t give it if I wanted 
to. In my efforts to get hold of a cor¬ 
ner of 'it, I have found it mighty slip¬ 
pery. To maturer minds that song is 
what the boys call a “bluff.” The 
Madame is a sensible woman, and her 
intimate society, as well as the pres¬ 
ence of the Bud, has changed my ideas 
with regard to what I should do for 
“Genevieve.” As life goes on, I find 
that it is too short to live again any 
hours, be they of gold, silver or brass. 
My business is to see to the coming 
days, and so I have changed my tune, 
though the Madame still plays the same 
accompaniment, though it is true that 
she has developed some flesh and 
wrinkles since I was a singer. 
Fall Plowing. —So, also, I have 
changed my views somewhat about that, 
as I never before saw the greatest need 
of it. On the old farm we used heavy 
dressings of soluble fertilizer, while the 
soil was thin and leachy. There was a 
great lack of humus in the soil. I know 
that the greater part of the nitrogen that 
Is leached out of the soil goes between 
September 1 and December 1. That is 
the time when the soil is left uncovered, 
unless you get some crop like grain, 
clover or rape started after the Summer 
crops are done. Of course, under such 
circumstances, Fall plowing would be 
the worst possible practice, and I sang 
the song of “cover crops” with all my 
lung power. On the new farm all this 
is changed. The old sod is tough and 
strong, and full of White grubs and 
wireworms. After the middle of 
November I do not think that there is 
any great loss in nitrogen, while I am 
sure that the frost will tear up this old 
sod and kill many insects. I would not 
care to try to grow potatoes on this 
tough sod when Spring-plowed, and po¬ 
tatoes is our money crop. So a different 
situation demands new methods. New 
songs demand new tunes. You will not 
hear Fall plowing from me next year. 
The Madame doesn’t care much about 
“those golden hours!” She is more 
concerned about having her wood-box 
filled and water brought into the house. 
This new farm has humus enough. The 
problem is to break it up properly. 
Horse Feed. —There are other ways 
in which I must change.my tune. On 
the old farm I thought it paid best to 
raise sweet corn, sell the ears, and take 
the money to buy grain to feed with the 
stalks. I must now sing a different 
tune. Our markets for sweet corn have 
changed, so that only the very early and 
the very late will bring good prices. We 
have more land here, and I shall raise 
field corn almost entirely. One thing 
that leads me to do this is the poor 
quality of horse feed which we have 
been buying. Our horses are heavy, and 
work hard. They need strong feed. We 
like ground corn and oats, but some of 
the stuff we buy is an insult to either 
grain. Our local miller gives a good 
sample of feed, but some of the cheap 
stuff is disgraceful. I shall raise a big 
crop of corn, exchange part of it for 
whole oats, and buy a cheap grinder for 
our own use. There is another change 
of tune, brought about by a discord by 
the grain adulterators and a higher 
pitch on the new farm. 
Potato Digging. —Mr. M. Garrahan, 
of Pennsylvania, asks these questions: 
Before you close the season at Hope 
Farm, there are a couple of things some 
of us would like to have you bring up 
again. The first is, will the Hoover ma¬ 
chine dig potatoes when the tops are green 
and the skins tender, without bruising 
them too much for shipment? Again, I 
think that you have expressed a prefer¬ 
ence for a cultivator drawn by two horses. 
If this is so, why so? Can a man do any 
more work in a day, or can he do better 
work than with a one-horse Planet Jr., for 
instance? Then, when you get that wind¬ 
mill at work, please tell us how you keep 
the tank from freezing. 
We did not use the digger very much 
until after the vines had begun to die 
down. It did bruise some of the tubers. 
The worst injury was done by the steel 
fingers that strike off the vines and 
kick them to one side. When these hit 
a tuber fairly they made quite a bad 
wound in it. With us this loss was not 
serious, and did not injure the crop as 
a whole for shipment. Where the vines 
were green and heavy, they seemed to 
protect the tubers by giving them a soft 
place to strike on. Except for this 
striking, the bruising was not much 
worse than with the plow and finger 
diggers. 
Two-Horse Cultivators. —We use 
the Iron Age two-horse cultivator for 
various reasons. A light boy or even a 
girl or woman can drive it, and do a 
little more work than two large men 
with single cultivators. I observe that 
our horses walk faster with this tool 
than when hitched singly. The teeth 
are und,er better control. With the hand 
or foot you can move the tooth up close 
to a plant or away from it, as desired. 
You work both sides of the row at once, 
and do a steadier and more uniform job, 
for the wheeled cultivator is held up 
closer to the work. Where hilling-up 
is desired, the riding cultivator is bet¬ 
ter, as you can use a disc attachment, 
which throws the soil just where you 
want it. With a careless or lazy man 
these advantages over the walking tool 
are even more apparent. The chief dis¬ 
advantages of the riding cultivator are 
that it takes more time and space to 
turn around, and the horses do more 
damage at the ends of the rows in 
trampling down the plants. The riding 
cultivator with all the teeth on makes 
a good harrow for covering a crop like 
cow peas. As for the tank, I shall have 
to wait for cold weather before answer¬ 
ing the question. 
Odd Mention. —The hens are mighty 
lazy about laying. They have been 
neglected in the rush of other matters. 
We are now feeding animal meal, which, 
in our country, seems to have taken the 
lead as poultry meat. That Will bring 
them, if anything will.Our 
horseshoeing bills are something awful. 
Many of the roads in our country art 
hard and firm—as our tax bills attest 
They are convenient for hauling heavy 
loads, but how they do pound up a 
horse’s hoofs! On comparing bills for 
horseshoeing with farmers in sections 
where soft dirt roads prevail, I find that 
it costs us nearly twice as much to keep 
a horse shod.I notice that 
the Baldwin apple trees hold their 
foliage longer than most other varieties. 
The orchard of Greenings is bare as 
can be, while the Baldwins still are in 
full leaf of brown and yellow. 
h. w. c. 
Food Poisons.— The North Carolina Ex¬ 
periment Station (Raleigh) is doing much 
work in exposing frauds and adulterations 
in food products. In Bulletin 165, an ac¬ 
count Is given of the investigations of the 
foods sold in North Carolina. It was found 
that all the samples of fruits examined 
contained poisonous preservatives, chiefly 
salicylic acid; 60 per cent of the canned 
vegetables also contained this poison. The 
canned meats found on the market were 
generally free from the poisons, but there 
can be no doubt that the fruit and vege¬ 
tables contained the preservative, although 
no mention of it is made on the labels. In 
canned peas and other vegetables, copper is 
often used to add a bright green color. 
Dr. Withers, who made the investigations, 
says, among other things, that a depres¬ 
sion at the end of the can Indicates that 
no fermentation has taken place since sell¬ 
ing. The swelled can or one with the end 
bulged out, should never be used, for it is 
certainly fermented. The canners use the 
salicylic acid because they don’t like to 
boil their fruit and vegetables until they 
are thoroughly cooked. Too much boiling 
causes the food to become soft and fall in 
pieces, and the canners, instead of cooking 
the food as they should, use the acid, and 
thus obtain a firmer product. North Caro¬ 
lina is doing right in printing the names 
of the canners who use these poisons. That 
is the proper way to bring them to time. 
Publicity of this sort will show the people 
who the frauds are, and they will not face 
printer’s ink for any great length of time. 
Dr. Bkliiman’s Pilules cure biliousness and elea,. 
the complexion. Price 25c. Samples free. P. O. 
Box 2033, New York.— Ado. 
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while time endures, there is hourly need 
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have a lifetime of accurate service—the 
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Sold by Jewelers everywhere. An 
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Send for new free booklet. 
ELGIN NATIONAL WATCH CO.. Elgin, 111. 
. .Before Buying a New 
Harness 
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WHY? 
Why was the only award to bone 
cutters at the World's Fair, Chicago, 
A given to the Webster & Hannum 
(I Bone Cutter ? 
” Because wherever it has come into 
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cuts laster and easier, cuts meat and 
gristle without clogging, and is the 
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Ask about Stearns Clover Cutters and Grit 
Crushers. Send for free booklet on poultry feeding 
E. C. STEARNS & CO., Box 20, Syracuse, N. Y 
A THOUSAND HEN 
owners havo doubled their egg crop by feeding 
I Green Gut Bone. The best, easleHt, most laatlug 
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*P. W. MANN CO.. Box Is. Millord, Msm. 
Hand Bone, Shell, and 
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Daisy Bone Cutter. Power Mills. 
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MAKES HENS LA Y JVm. 
Hoots and Vegetables cut with this 
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Hatches the largest per cent, of 
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310 First Premiums 
Awarded to the PRAIRIE STATE 
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TTCATU Tfl I IPC on HENS and CH 1 CKHNS 
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