1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
755 
HOPE FARM NOTES. 
An Alarm of Fire.—While I was away in Ohio, 
the boys got an order from the butcher for our 
largest pig. One of the neighbors came over to 
help them, and they went at Billy Berkshire with 
murderous intent. They had half of him scalded 
and scraped when there came a loud cry of Fire! 
Fire! ! and they saw the smoke pouring from a 
neighbor’s house. There is a fire department in 
our town. Big iron rings and hammers are 
placed in various places, and citizens are ex¬ 
pected to run and strike the hammers on the 
rings in case of fire. Our pig-killers didn’t wait 
to sound the alarm, but they ran for the fire with 
most of the Hope Farm folks trailing behind. The 
men got there first with the Madame close at their 
heels, and Mrs. Kate, the Graft, the Scion and the 
Bud in the order named. Grandmother stayed at 
home—not being much of a runner—with the 
smallest Scion. Billy Berkshire had lost interest 
in the proceedings. 
Saved the House.—The house was a small, 
tenant’s place, and the fire started around the 
chimney. The woman of the house had a little 
two-weeks old baby. As nearly as I can make 
out from reports, the Madame took charge of 
affairs as soon as she got her breath. The men 
folks hadn’t thought of saving the house, but 
were throwing the breakable things out of the 
window and carrying the beds out witli great care 
The upper rooms were full of smoke, but the 
Madame started up “ to get some clothes for the 
baby.” The men followed to pull her back, but 
when they got there, discovered the blaze and 
organized a bucket brigade and put out the fire. 
No lives were lost and no great damage done. 
We have elected the Madame chief of the Hope 
Farm fire brigade. One thing I want to say is 
this: In case of a fire in the country, pick up the 
nearest bucket before you run. There was not a 
bucket of any sort at this fire until the neighbors 
ran home and bi ought their own. Always carry 
a bucket to a country fire. 
A Good Hog.—In the meantime, Billy Berk¬ 
shire had remained halted at the half-way sta¬ 
tion between pig and pork. After the fire had 
been well talked over, they went at him again 
and finished him up. He dressed 169 pounds, 
which we call pretty fair for a February pig. He 
was fed almost entirely on waste, such as kitchen 
swill, waste cabbage and nubbins of sweet corn. 
We fed him a little bran and corn meal from time 
to time, but I cannot figure that he cost over $1.25 
in cash for food. Our eight remaining shotes are 
growing like weeds. They are kept in a good- 
sized pen with a chance to run into a warm nest 
in a corner of the barn. The manure from two 
horses and a cow is thrown into this pen every 
day. A patch of rape grows near the pen, and 
each day, a good lot of it is cut and thrown to the 
hogs. They eat it close down to the stems, and 
grunt for more, which we give them in the form 
of waste cabbage. Every night we fill the cooker 
with small potatoes, turnips, and a cabbage or 
two, and let it cook and steam over night. This 
is put in the trough with a little dry bran scat¬ 
tered over it, and the pigs eat it all. While the 
rape and the wastes of the other crops hold out, 
we can make very cheap pork in this way. 
The Food Cooker pleases us well thus far. 
The one we have is made like a square stove 
with a square tank or boiler fitting nicely on the 
open top. It will burn up almost any of the waste 
wood to be found on the farm. We use the old, 
broken-down fences that formerly were an eye¬ 
sore on the read. We do not believe it will pay 
to cook grain. We would rather use that dry to 
scatter over the cooked food. I can readily see 
that on some farms, a cooker would not pay at 
all, but with us, with great wastes of bulky food, 
it is a good thing. We have quite a lot of small 
turnips this Fall. The pigs do not care much for 
them alone, but boil a few small potatoes, sweet 
potatoes or cabbage with them, and the pigs 
gladly swallow the whole mess. By boiling pota¬ 
toes or a bit of meat with turnip tops, or even 
sweet-corn stalks, we can get the hogs to eat 
things they would not otherwise touch. 
Failure with Cabbage.—I have never known 
the green cabbage worm to be so bad as it is this 
year. I think we have at least 4,000 cabbage so 
wormy that they cannot be sold. I notice the 
same thing wherever I go, yet the price of cab¬ 
bage does not go up. One reason why we began 
to stock up with pigs was the fact that we had 
so much green stuff that was unsalable to 
humans. Mr. Berkshire Pig and Miss Minorca 
Hen have no objection to a nice fat worm, and 
they will pay us a fair price for these defective 
heads. My opinion is that it will never do to let 
the wastes of such farming as ours rot on the 
ground when we can turn them into pork or eggs. 
I must say that I like a pig the more we sell these 
wastes to him. Cooking cabbage does not make 
it more digestible. Raw cabbage is more easily 
digested, even by humans. Yet the hogs like the 
cooked cabbage, and when we are feeding so 
much green stuff, we like to feed the cooked 
article. 
A Breeding Lesson.—Our eight shotes are 
from two different litters—widely different in 
breeding. The four smaller ones are nearly pure 
Berkshires—the sow being about the true type. 
The four larger ones are from a purebred Berk¬ 
shire boar out of a long-nosed,rangy so w—nervous 
and always hustling. The eight pigs are black 
with the Berkshire markings, but there is a great 
difference in their habits. The four little ones 
will eat their fill and then lie down. They are 
tame and quiet. The four larger ones are as 
wild as hawks. We cannot get near them. They 
eat and stuff, and then go out and dig in the 
manure or work about with no apparent object- 
Needless to say, the four little fellows are over¬ 
hauling their pen mates and will make more 
profitable animals for our plan of feeding. If 
they were pastured outside or kept on short fare, 
I think the large ones would beat. Another year, 
we hope to turn the hogs out into the rape and 
clover to pick their own food. Then the large 
ones might do better. Just now, our plan is to 
carry the food to them, and the quieter hogs are 
best. I speak of this because it seems to show 
what I have always claimed, that the nervous, 
“hustling” make-up of the animal is mostly 
taken from the mother’s side. For pen pigs, I 
should always prefer a quiet, good-natured sow. 
Handling the Manure.—As I have said, all 
our manure goes through the pigpens. It is al¬ 
ways a problem to know what to do with farm 
manure in order to get the most out of it. Our 
land is light, and the crops we raise require 
quick and active plant food. For both these rea¬ 
sons I think it pays us to work up our manure 
as fine as we can. When the pens get too lull, 
we haul the manure out to a field in the center of 
the farm where last year we grew potatoes. 
When the ground freezes, we shall get into the 
swamp and haul muck out, mixing it with this 
manure as it is piled up. We hope in this way 
to get a good lot of well-rotted muck and manure 
before Spring. If I had stiff, heavy clay soil, I 
would not do this, but would rather prefer to ])low 
in the manure in coarse, strawy shape. This, I 
think, would help make that stiff land more open 
and porous. On our light lands, we want the 
manure as fine and well broken up as possible, 
and would much rather harrow it in after plow¬ 
ing. We don’t use much manure anyway, but 
what we do have we want fine and good. 
Greater Respect for Corn—Last year I must 
confess that I was a little dubious about feeding 
much corn to poultry. We fed a soft, “ balanced 
ration ” exclusively, until we satisfied ourselves 
that it was not tne best thing for old and lazy 
hens. They got dumpy and lazy on this soft 
food, no matter if we used extra meat. Then we 
began feeding cracked and whole corn at night, 
making the hens scratch and work for it. Since 
then we have fed corn carefully in various com¬ 
binations, and we are satisfied that, under some 
conditions, it is the best grain food we can buy. 
What are these conditions ? Where green cut 
bone can be bought cheaply, this will provide 
cheap muscle-makers, but we have found it quite 
laxative in its effect. Corn is constipating, and 
the two go well together. When hens are on a 
wide range with plenty of bugs and grass, or 
where they are eating greedily of cabbage, corn 
is, to my mind, the best single grain for them. 
In cold weather, I think it pays to feed only corn 
at night. We find cracked corn more satisfactory 
than whole grain. As a rule, corn is the cheapest 
grain we can buy, and with many farmers, it is 
the only home-grown feeding grain. h. w. o. 
SHORT STORIES. 
Curing Oat Smut. —I tried the hot- 
water treatment of oats for smut as 
recommended by Bulletin 131, Geneva 
Experiment Station. I am unable to re¬ 
port efficiency, as untreated oats did not 
have smut. A neighbor who tried it 
with 25 bushels, reports complete suc¬ 
cess. The straw of treated oats was six 
inches longer than the other. He in¬ 
creased the quantity as directed by the 
bulletin, but says that the stand was 
not thick enough. I am afraid that the 
treatment injures the vitality of the oats. 
Ballston Centre, N. Y. A. s. c. 
Oranges and Tobacco in Florida.— 
Oranges are now ready to pick, much to 
the delight of the Floridian tourist; the 
crop, however, is quite small contrasted 
with those preceding the freeze. Perhaps 
30,000 boxes will cover the product, as 
against 10 times that amount prior to 
the destructive frost four years ago. The 
tobacco industry is booming here, and 
sales have been made at SI.50 per pound, 
while the average product per acre in 
this vicinity is 900 pounds, where SI5 
worth of fertilizer has been used. Many 
new people -from Iowa, Illinois, Ken¬ 
tucky, Tennessee and Alabama are grow¬ 
ing the weed. w. e. e. 
Pasco County. 
Peach Scab in Pennsylvania.— I 
have made some special inquiry concern¬ 
ing the practice of peach growers in this 
State, with the scab on peaches, and find 
none who has used a remedy. Some, 
recognizing the susceptibility of certain 
varieties when planted in low ground, 
have with good results planted such on 
the higher portions of their fruit lands. It 
does not seem probable that one spraying 
of sulphate of copper in April could pre¬ 
vent this spot. The better recommenda- 
Remember that Bowker’s Animal 
Meal is sold only in yellow bags and 
yellow packages. The original; richest 
in protein.— Adv. 
tion comes from Delaware to spray with 
Bordeaux Mixture, beginning early in 
July, using a mixture no stronger than 
one pound of sulphate of copper to 10 
gallons of water, and an abundance of 
lime. One or two sprayings should be 
made in August, using at this time a 
weak solution of ammoniacal carbonate 
of copper, to avoid a deposit. I have had 
no occasion to test this recommendation, 
and cannot say how efficient it will prove 
in trial. geo. c. butz. 
Horticulturist Pennsylvania Ex. Sta. 
Wire Fence and Lightning. —Henry 
Wallace, of Iowa, speaks in his Farmer 
and Dairyman of the great number of 
animals killed by lightning on wire 
fences. In one case, 32 sheep were found 
lying along the wire fence, which was 
struck 20 rods from the spot where they 
were killed. He says that all wire fences 
should be grounded. A wire fence which 
does not have metallic connection with 
the ground at intervals, he calls a serious 
menace to live stock. A wire fence 
properly grounded, however, acts as a 
lightning rod, and is almost a complete 
protection to the live stock within a 
reasonable distance of it. It is needless 
to say, too, that lightning-rods on build¬ 
ings should be carried to moist ground, 
and used without glass insulators. 
Icemaking in Hot Climates. —In ad¬ 
dition to the information given by Mr. 
Stewart on the freezing point (page 721), 
it may be interesting to know that, in 
India and other eastern countries, where 
the temperature never falls to anywhere 
near the freezing point of water, ice has 
been made, for, perhaps, thousands of 
years, by the natives in all seasons of 
the year. The manner in which this is 
done is as follows : Level ground is ex¬ 
cavated to a depth of two feet, and these 
excavations are filled to within six inches 
of the top with dry loose straw. In the 
evening, shallow, porous earthen dishes 
are filled with water and set on top of 
the straw in the excavation. If the 
atmospheric conditions are favorable (it 
will not freeze in all kinds of weather), 
ice to the thickness of paper to that of a 
finger may be collected in the morning. 
It is said that some establishments har¬ 
vest as much as five tons of ice, after a 
good night. edw. c. post. 
Michigan. 
Lost flesh lately? 
Does your brain tire? 
Losing control over your 
nerves ? 
Are your muscles becom¬ 
ing exhausted? 
You certainly know the 
remedy. It is nothing new; 
just the same remedy that 
has been curing these cases 
of thinness and paleness for 
twenty-five years. Scott’s 
Emulsion. The cod-liver 
oil in it is the food that 
makes the flesh, and the hy- 
pophosphites give tone to 
the nerves. 
50 c. and $ 1 . 00 , all druggists. 
SCOTT & BOWNE, Chemists, New York. 
Flre-Weather-Ughtnlng Proof 
Black, painted or galvanized metal ROOFING 
and siding; (brick, rocked or corrugated) 
METAL CEILINGS AND SIDE W ALLS 
Write for Catalogue 
Penn Metal Celling Sc Rooting Co., Ltd., Philadelphia 
SAWS 
ANY WOOD 
IN ANY POSITION 
ON ANY CROUND 
_ 4 in. to 5 ft. Through 
nCITC O MEN with a 
DtA I O m. Cross-cut Saw 
1 MAN with a FOLD¬ 
ING SAWING HACH1NK 
6 to 9 cords daily is the usual average for one man. 
SAWS DOWS 
Our 1899 Model Machine saws faster, runs easier & will 
last longer than ever. Adjusted In a minute to suit a 
12-year-old boy or the strongest man. Send for catalog 
showing latest improvements. First order gets agency. 
Folding Sawing Mach. Co. 64 S. Clinton St. S 0 26, Chicago. 
MICA 
AXLE 
CREASE 
The best slippery 
stuff for saving 
wear and tear on wagons and carriages. It saves 
horseflesh Your dealer sells it. Get some 
FRAZER ASS* 
BEST IN THE WOULD. 
Its wearing qualities are unsurpassed, actually 
tutlastlng three boxes of any other brand. Not 
affected by heat. GET THE GENUINE. 
FOR SALE BY DEALERS GENERALLY. 
Dairymenl 
Mail us your name and address. X 
mentioning this paper, and we will X 
send you free of charge a copy of the X 
PRACTICAL DAIRYMAN 
I 
(the only publication which lias 
ever undertaken the practical 
line of work just begun) together 
with Prospectus of the work it has 
undertaken and the policy it has 
established. Address 
{ PRACTICAL DAIRYMAN, 
g New York, N.Y, or Indianapolis, Ind. 
®«®©®©®$©®®®®©®®®»« 9 ®®®®®® 
We are the largest C+ppI 
manufacturers of.. ^ LCCI 
Truck Wheels 
for farm wagons in America 
Send for Catalogue 
Havana Metal Wheel Co , Havana, III. 
GOOD WHEELS AT LOW PRICES. 
$6.50 - - Buy. 4 BUGGY ) < 
6.85 - - Buy, 4 CAKltlAGK (. tr 
9.20 Buy,-! Milk, mill or Light 1 8 
Delivery Wngon ' 3T 
IHubs banded. Steel tire on. Customer 
pleased and orders duplicated. Cheaper 
to get new wheels than repair old. Can 
furnish new axles and set boxes. Send 
for price list and direction for measur- 
PARI Cl) field and 
bADLCII HOC FENCE 
With or without lower cable barbed. Cabled Poultry, 
Garden and Rabbit Fence, Steel Web Picket Fence 
for lawns and cemeteries. Steel Gates and Posts. 
DE KALB FENCE CO., 315 High St., DE KALB, ILL 
1 
- 
. 
: 
: 
Ml 
usune»«ssdsdl 
Don’t Shovel Snow 
all winter from the lane, but buy Page Fence and 
have a clear track. No drifts beliiud our Winter 
Styles. Ask for prices. 
Page Woven Wire Fence Co., Adrian.Mich. 
Good Fence, 
u strong fence, a cheap fence, 
an every purpose fence and one 
which you can build yourself Is 
The Ghandlee Fence 
The secret is in the lock which 
fastens the stays in such an 
easy and simple way that they 
must stay. We sell you the wire,locks 
and stays at prices which make this the 
cheapest fence on earth. No expensive 
machinery required tobuildlt.Youmake 
it any height and with any number of stays you wish. 
WE WANT AGENTS EVERYWHERE. Exclusive territory 
to the right men. Write to-day for terms and territory. 
To-morrow may be too late to get what you want. 
No. 7 
Hard 
Steel 
CHANDLEE FENCE CO., 11 S. Howard St., Baltimore, Md. 
[ADAM 
THE FENCE MAN 
Makes Woven Wire 
Fence that "Stands 
Up.” Cannot Sag. 
I Get his 1896 catalogue. It; 
J tells all about The Best 
D m Fence Made. . 
V, J. ADAM, Joliet, 
$8 to $15 MACHINE 
to weave y our ow n fence of 
Colled Hard Steel 
Spring Wire, 
52 inches high, at 
25 Cts. per Rod. 
820 buys wire for 100 
rod fence. Agents , 
Wanted.Catalogue Free. 
CARTER 
Wire Fence Mach. 
Box23 Jit.Sterling, 1 
Free, j 
i.Co. I 
Machine $10 
TO BUILD THE STRONGEST 
E»»» AND BEST WIRE FENCE. 
H |6 to 24 Gents per Rod. 
■2 No farm rights, royalties or 
oate nt stays to buy, AGENTS 
CJ WANTED. Write for circular. 
The Bowon Cable Stay Fence Co. 
NORWALK, OHIO, U.S.A. 
