1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
887 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
Training a Child. —When I told of 
spanking the Graft and Scion I seem to 
have hurt the feelings of many good 
friends. Here, for example, is a letter 
from a friend in Pennsylvania: 
I am much interested in the crops on 
Hope Farm, especially in Scion, Graft and 
Bud. I have a great interest in this crop, 
and, although it can be raised in towns 
and cities, it is generally admitted that the 
country is the best place for it, and people 
going into that business should note this 
fact. But I don’t approve of its manage¬ 
ment, as recommended by the Hope 
Farmer. I and the Madame have raised 
a crop of four boys and three girls to man¬ 
hood and womanhood, six of them being of 
former marriages, four of mine and three 
of hers, and one between us, so you will 
notice that it was a pretty well mixed 
family. They are all doing for themselves, 
and are all good citizens, and give their 
parents no concern in regard to conduct or 
habits, and none has ever been touched by 
hand or rod as practiced on Hope Farm. 
Now, at the age of three-score, we can look 
back and feel thankful that we never 
struck a child, and feel that our children 
have more respect for us than if we had 
used the rod. Having had the experience 
we know whereof we speak. It makes me 
shudder when 1 read of a strong man whip¬ 
ping little children; it is a relic of barbar¬ 
ism that should not be practiced in this 
enlightened age. J. w. bell. 
That certainly beats my experience 
for numbers and personal variety, 
though our four little folks represent 
three different families. I am sorry to 
see that some of our readers appear to 
think that I took a club and knocked 
those little fellows senseless. That is 
all a mistake. They were not injured 
at all. Of course they howled a little, 
but an hour later you never would have 
known anything about it. They haven’t 
cut any more trees since that time. This 
tree-cutting had been explained to them 
time after time. They knew better. The 
Graft was to blame, for he is one of 
those boys who think it smart to dare 
you and go just as far as he can safely 
into what he knows is forbidden. I find 
that a pretty sure remedy for this 
“smartness” in the head is a smart on 
another portion of the body! I know 
several families where the stick is never 
employed. Most of such children are 
about as close to a nuisance as they 
can get. They have pretty much their 
own way, and run over their parents 
about as they please. A man told me 
last week of a family of five that had 
never been corrected or spanked. He 
said that two of than are now in jail, and 
I was not surprised. Several good 
friends have criticised us for putting 
that placard on the Graft’s back. The 
Madame says that she will reply to that 
herself in a short time! 
Goon Hen Season. —This has been a 
good season for the hens. The long In¬ 
dian Summer has given the pullets cour¬ 
age, and the old hens have renewed 
their youth. During the rush of Fall 
work and moving our hens did not get 
the care that they deserved. It was 
handiest to throw them some corn and 
let them alone. Hens love corn, but 
eggs are not wild over it. A week after 
we began feeding our morning mash of 
bran, oats, corn meal and animal meal, 
the hens began their singing. Now they 
are doing very well. I hear good re¬ 
ports of hens elsewhere. In the South, 
where the hens can run about all Win¬ 
ter in the Crimson clover, they are get¬ 
ting in great shape for the Winter. This 
dry and clear Fall has been much better 
for the hens than last year’s drizzle and 
snow. No use talking, the only comfort¬ 
able hen is a dry hen. That is not all, 
however, for you must keep her crop 
well filled and keep her free from ver¬ 
min. The higher type of two-leggers 
may get along on vegetables, but the 
hen must have meat to do her best. I 
will add that the only difference between 
our hen mash and horse feed is that the 
former contains animal meal—the latter 
does not. 
Training a Calf. — I never did liks 
the plan of keeping a heifer calf penned 
up in a dark stall or tied in the field. 
Some folks seem to be afraid that a calf 
will run off an ounce or so of meat. I 
don’t like a lazy calf any more than 1 
like a lazy child. It is well enough for 
a beef animal to be lazy and sluggish, 
but a dairy animal should have life and 
lung. When we consider how much the 
blood has to do with milk production, 
we can say with truth that a cow milks 
from her lungs and heart. It does me 
good to see our little heifer (the new 
baby) kick up her heels and run. That’s 
good lung exercise. It does her good. It 
is not her business to lie down and put 
on fat. I wish her to eat and then pro¬ 
ceed to run and skip some size to her 
lungs. We rarely hear of tuberculosis 
in the horse, one reason for it being that 
'he uses his lungs constantly. I’ll tell 
you right now that good, honest work 
cures many of the ills that afflict brute 
or human. 
Poor Soil. —I find that I talked too 
fast about having a rich farm. It is true 
that the front fields are in good heart, 
but several back fields are poor enough. 
There is a growth of wild grass and 
briers on them, and the cedars and 
bushes are coming in. I am sorry to 
see them going back to the forest, and 
we hope to get them partly under way 
before next Spring. We shall certainly 
burn these old fields over. Even 
Brother Hale would agree to that. There 
must be more or less grubbing done, too. 
if I can get a fair-sized field cleared up 
I shall try to put part of it in cow peas, 
and start the other at once in corn or 
potatoes, with a good dressing of high- 
grade fertilizer. That will be a fair 
comparison of two methods of handling 
the land. 
Fall Work. —We are still plowing. 
There have been several hard freezes, 
but even when the open ground is frozen 
solid the sod is open enough to plow. 
Our pear orchard has been in sod nearly 
20 years—so the neighbors say. The 
little cedars had begun to crowd in. We 
have turned this tough sod over, leav¬ 
ing the furrows standing up. It is hard 
work on two horses, and Dan begins to 
show the effect of this hard work. Last 
week we changed the pole on the sulky 
plow and put in the three-horse evener. 
Dan would not work at all with the 
other two horses, but will pull his best 
with either alone. I think that he re¬ 
members the hard work on the digger. 
He seems to associate three-horse work 
with a job beyond his powers, and re¬ 
fuses to tackle it. We have not begun 
pruning or tree trimming yet, nor have 
we cut the Winter’s fuel. The open 
Fall has given such a good chance to 
work the plow that we 'have kept at it> 
steadily. 
Pig Talk. —We have nine pigs—large 
and small. One of them will be found in 
the form of pork and sausage before this 
;is read. Out of six little pigs in one pen, 
two are Chester Whites and four are 
Berkshires. They have the same food— 
boiled potatoes, swill, with a little 
ground grain and sweet corn on the ear. 
Now it is a fact that Charlie Chester and 
Snowball do not keep up with their 
black mates. The latter are undoubt¬ 
edly growing faster. Shall we go on 
and say that this proves that Berkshires 
are more useful than Chester Whites? 
No, although so-called experiments have 
been decided on poorer evidence. I ob¬ 
serve that the little Berkshires are bet¬ 
ter able to gnaw off the ear corn than 
the Chesters. There is no doubt about 
this, as anyone could see after watching 
them 10 minutes. The Berkshires have 
better mouth and teeth for this gnaw¬ 
ing. I find that oats are very good for 
little pigs. Oats contain great growth in 
small packages—no doubt of it. 
Bits of Talk. —The ashes from the 
stove go right out on the plowed ground 
in the orchard. Thus the trees over in 
the woods are passing through the stove 
to feed the apple trees near the house. 
This is a great thought to the children. 
They bring in an armful of wood, and 
take out a handful of ashes. Some 
grown-up people wish to take a handful 
and get an armful in exchange for it. 
My friend the cow pea comes nearest to 
doing that.The Graft and the 
Scion are enjoying their first knives. 
They carry those knives to bed with 
them. I’d give a good deal if I could get 
as much fun out of $1,000 as these little 
chaps do out of a 10-cent knife. They 
are careful now. and do not cut living 
things—especially cherry trees. 
Our apples are keeping well in a dry 
shed, spread out in the dark. There may 
be better apples than a Rhode Island 
Greening just in its prime, but I am con¬ 
tent not to hunt for them.It 
has been the business of the Graft to 
wash the Scion’s face and then his own 
each morning. The result was usually a 
poor job for both. I hit upon the scheme 
of having each wash the other’s face, 
and this gave surprisingly good results. 
Two grown-up men might have made an 
arrangement to go light with the wash- 
rag, but with boys it is a contest to see 
which can do the cleaner job. 
It may 'interest some of our readers to 
know that our feed bill from May 1 to 
October 1 was $109.97. This represents 
the grain for three horses and a pony, 
one cow, and an average of about 200 
hens. We bought all the grain that this 
stock consumed. h. w. c. 
Grapes and Grape Training.— Prof. 
Wm. B. AlwoocI, of the Virginia Experi¬ 
ment Station (Blacksburg), has issued in 
separate pamphlet form a section of his 
Bulletin No. 94. This describes two Ameri¬ 
can systems of grape training, and also 
gives notes on varieties of grapes. The 
bulletin describes the Kniftln system, and 
what is called the recurved fan system, 
with excellent pictures, showing how the 
vines are to be trimmed and trained. We 
often receive numerous questions from 
readers who are not familiar with grape- 
growing and who wish to know just how 
to train their vines most effectively. This 
bulletin by Prof. Alwood will give them 
just about the information they are after 
Green Corn and Pole Beans in Mid¬ 
winter.— Farmers’ Bulletin No. 105, United 
States Department of Agriculture, contains 
an account of experiments in growing 
sweet corn and pole beans in Winter in 
the forcing-house. Both crops were suc¬ 
cessfully and rather cheaply grown, except 
that the temperature should not be allowed 
to fall below 60 degrees F. at night, and 
70 degrees is considered better. They are 
tall-growing crops, and require consider 
able room over the beds, and therefore car. 
only be grown in houses where the bed; 
are made directly on the ground. The 
corn was found to grow most economically 
when planted nine inches apart in rows Us 
inches from each other and the beans 18 
inches apart each way, with two or three 
plants in a hill. With such thick planting 
the foliage becomes very dense, but pro¬ 
ductiveness apparently is not diminished, 
wire or string trellis is used for the 
(ians, but the corn requires no training 
kcept the early removal of all suckers, 
Jd possibly the removal of half the tas¬ 
sels in order to throw more strength into 
the ears. Little trouble was needed to 
secure the pollenization of either of these 
novel Winter crops, beyond keeping the 
air in the houses rather dry during the 
flowering period. Beans are, of course, 
self-fertile, and a little dusting of the silks 
with pollen from the tassels, was used in 
the case of corn, but even this is not really 
necessary. The time required to mature 
a crop of green corn was from 83 to 86 
days, and in the case of the beans from 
54 to 62 days, according to variety. The 
varieties of corn tested were Crosby’s 
Early, First of All, and White Cob. The 
first was preferred, but the latter was the 
earliest. Mastiff Golden Pod, Golden Clus¬ 
ter, and Golden Champion beans all suc¬ 
ceeded well, and are named in the order of 
their productiveness. No trouble with in¬ 
sects or fungous diseases was encountered. 
Any good greenhouse compost should grow 
these crops successfully The yield of pole 
beans was an average 1,136 ounces per 
hundred plants, as against 280 ounces aver¬ 
age product for the same number of plants 
of dwarf varieties grown under the same 
conditions. The average price in the city 
markets of forced snap beans is 25 to 50 
cents per bunch of 25 to 50 pods, accord¬ 
ing to size and demand. There is no es¬ 
tablished price for forced sweet corn, as 
none has yet been put on the market, but 
it is probable that it would meet a great 
demand if offered in good quality out of 
the usual season. 
J 
Nothing Under the Sun 
will Make Hens Lay and keep them In 
healthy condition all the year ’round, like 
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AND TONIC 
Thousands can testify to its excellent merits. 
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mail, 40c.; 5 cans, $1. on board express N. Y. 
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Box 3022, New York.— Adv. 
Which Was Created First— 
The Hen or the Egg ? 
Poultrymen may differ in their opin¬ 
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that green cut bone prepared by 
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-the kind that are sure to hatch and / 
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___ _ _____ that will live and grow and also ^ 
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