1904 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farm Notes.-—O f course we could find 
fault with the weather if we cared to, but stop and play baseball. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PARKER HANDY DERRICK 
447 
trees. The manure hauled out last Winter 
is now in fine shape: Ibis was spread on the 
onion field and harrowed iD with a good dress¬ 
ing of iron slag. We can use nitrate of soda 
later if it seems necessary. These are hast 
ling days for all hands, with no chance to 
it has done us much good as well as harm. 
I never saw the grass and young trees look 
better. We got the fertilizer on in time and 
the showers carried it down just -where it 
could do the most good. A year ago at this 
time we were burning up with drought. The 
soil was baked like a brick and the grass 
stood still. Mr. Van Deman saw our young 
trees at that time, and thought they were 
about done for. They had a struggle to get 
A Woodchuck. —The Madame and I sat 
on the stone wall by the peach orchard look¬ 
ing out across the valley. Tire children were 
in the woods picking violets. Shep began 
barking furiously, but we paid little attention 
to him until the sound came nearer and 
nearer. Shep is a dog with some dignity, 
and he does not bark without some reason for 
it. When he keeps it up it is time to inves¬ 
tigate. 'Die Madame and 1 walked along by 
the stone wall and found Shep making dashes 
at a gray animal that kept to the highest 
stones. It was a big woodchuck. Shep 
through but you ought to see them now! hardly knew how to get at him. The chuck 
imoug , e .. , , kept at the top of the wall and slowly re- 
Of course the wet cold weathei has be n treated if ypep had been a natural fighter 
against many of our plans, but grass and he w0l ,icl have made a dash, then jumped 
fruit and late garden crops are our stand¬ 
bys, and they look now' as if they would 
stand by. ... I have not planted a hill 
of field corn yet, and shall not do more than 
plant small patches of one or two new vari¬ 
eties. The corn crop has no part in our plan 
w r hen we get it fully under way. Grass and 
orchards for the hillsides and garden crops 
for the lower fields, with as little stock to be 
wintered as possible. We shall have pigs 
and perhaps a few lambs to eat up our grass 
and rape, but they will not be wintered. 
over behind and had the awkward creature 
by the neck, as I have seen dogs do. But 
Shep is a gentleman, and fights fair. lie 
ran straight at the woodchuck, and got sev¬ 
eral tastes of those sharp teeth ! Still, he 
had Mr. Chuck worried, and would soon have 
worn him out. When we came the wood¬ 
chuck was tired, but still full of fight. He 
saw he was cornered, and expected death, for 
that is what he would have given us had he 
held the advantage, but why were we made 
a little higher than a woodchuck? There 
was no white feather about him. I-Ie got the 
best position he could, braced himself and got 
those teeth ready for action ! I could easily 
have knocked him over with a stone, and 
When we get the hillside fully seeded why Shep would have finished lnm. I shall fill 
•) tiip .rvqqa from a niost farmers and their boys with disgust 
? I he glass nom a wheQ l gay tbig seemed too muc h like mur- 
sliould we raise corn l 
well-fertilized meadow will bring us more 
money with one-quarter of the cost than any 
corn crop we have ever raised among our 
stones. I am very careful to say that this 
der to me. I had respect for that wood¬ 
chuck. He had put up a good tight for his 
life, and now when I had him in a corner I 
must admit that I didn’t have the nerve to 
murder him. We stood and watched the 
..inn of leaving out corn is not intended as stubborn old fellow, and even called Shep 
plan ot a g back until the chuck got a fair start and 
general advice to fanners. M ltli many coin made for bis hol(l I[e got there before Shep 
is the most useful crop that can be grown. d j d and bobbed inside. I have no doubt he 
wuii ii<i it does not seem to be, and I hold proceeded to tell his wife how he whipped a 
,11 1,1c nonriitionsi find tlo 8 twice as large as he was, and held up 
that a man should study his condili ., f W0 strange creatures who did not dare 
out just what he wants to do, and then con- t ac kle him. Mrs. Woodchuck will think her 
fine his energies to that thing. . . . Our 
potato crop is not large, but it looks right. 
Our largest patch is on an old strawberry 
field. This gave a good yield the first season, 
and we tried our plan of plowing out the 
old row and starting a new one from the 
runners. The season was so wet that the 
grass beat us, and this year the bed was like 
a meadow. I wish I had 50 acres of meadow 
that was in such grass. It was plowed 
April 26, but the rains held up wflrk until 
husband is a great citizen surely. I am 
aware what people will think of this per¬ 
formance. The little boys were very sorry 
that they spent time picking flowers when they 
might have “killed a woodchuck." The desire 
to kill something gets into the heart of every 
boy. It often makes him cruel and ready to 
take unfair advantage. I knew the nuisance 
that woodchucks make on a farm, and if they 
establish themselves here 1 shall have to fight 
them—but I will fight fair even with a 
woodchuck. 
Odds and Ends. —At the north of the farm¬ 
house is a small field that has bothered me 
is underlaid by a solid ledge of 
Mnv 5 when we worked the plowed ground gieatly. It - . , . p , 
.uay .), wueii . „, in . t ,.„ rock—in some places there is barely a foot 
with the disk and smoothed it down witn 0 j hard soil. I plowed it for a garden one 
Acme, broadcasting potato fertilizer. On year, but everything burned up. So did grass 
« furrows were opened with the plow, and so did the small fruits we planted there. 
May 0 t ulows weie open * During a drought the soil bakes solid to tbe 
and seed pieces dropped and coveied . rock The little boys and I have decided to 
plowing a furrow back over them. This left p U t a stringfellow peach orchard there. We 
„ hi eh ridee over the potatoes with a valley planted the trees, well pruned, in small holes, 
a high nage ovei >- t and use all the ashes and wastes from the 
at the side, lhe soil is liea\y ana tin. s . house around them. The coal ashes are put 
son promised to be wet, and we concluded around the trees for a mulch and the wood 
that this ridging would be better than level ashes broadcast. The slops are poured 
mat s * s fnmid the around the trees at a safe distance, and all 
preparation. On May -l we ioum rubbish from lawn, old sods or leaves that 
•Tust. what every farmer needs for 
heavy lifting or loading of manure, 
lumber, machinery,etc. Portable, 
can be set anywhere, on wagon, scaf¬ 
fold, in basement or barn loft, etc. 
Manure fork or shovel attached. Will 
lift 3000 lbs. Has 20 ft. sweep. 
Can be easily converted into a 
Stump Puller or Grubber for 
small stumps or second growth 
timber. Write for prices and 
*• catalogue.. 
NATIONAL, HOIST & MACHINE CO., 
Dept. K, 463 W. 23nd St., Chicago. 
sprouts just breaking through, and then we are ra ked up go around the trees. As the 
ran the weeder both ways, smoothing off the grass grows we cut it andjtse lt^for mulch- 
field and killing many weeds. We shall put 
more fertilizer along the rows and work it 
in with the cultivator. The rest of our pota¬ 
toes are planted between the young currant 
hushes. They will he well fertilized and 
given good tillage. Our plan on the lower 
farm is to crowd crops close and give them 
good culture. . . . Some one will ask 
what we expect to grow for money crops. 
The older orchards near the house are well 
seeded to rape and clover, with some gi ass. 
About 20 pigs will pasture there! We have 
about 2,500 pepper plants nicely started, and 
a fair lot of tomatoes. Two fields in oats 
and peas will he plowed when this crop is 
cut, and planted either to late cabbage oi 
late sweet corn, with pear trees to follow. 
We shall have a small forest of Lima beans, 
half an acre of Hubbard squash, a large area 
in ITizetaker onions and a fair crop of straw¬ 
berries and cherries. The Baldwin apples 
promise a good crop this year, and the Nyack 
will also 
ing. Our trees are doing well, and we shall 
be able in time to turn this eyesore into a 
trim little orchard. Our trees are headed 
low, hut we already have them over eight 
feet high. The boys turn table scraps into 
eggs in their hen.vard—now we will turn 
house wastes into peaches. . . . The lit¬ 
tle boy’s hens are doing fairly well. He 
found that three of the eight hens he bought 
in New York were nearly old enough to vote, 
and a few of the old veterans left on the 
farm would well match them. The Brown 
Leghorns do the best work. Even one of 
these proves to be a shirk, and the hoy learns 
with regret that there are drones as well as 
workers in all breeds. We have had a num¬ 
ber of different men working for us by lhe 
day. The little boy has noticed that while 
these men all demand the same price per day, 
they do very different amounts of work. 
Sometimes the man who eats most and brags 
most does least work and breaks most tools. 
It has grieved the boy to learn that some of 
his beloved hens Lave about the same traits. 
The children expected great things of Fatty, 
the Light Brahma, but she proved mighty 
only at the feeding dish and small at the egg 
basket. . . . The oldest little girl, whom 
I have called the Bud, came to an event in 
her life not long ago when she made her first 
cake. She went hack to an old hook of recipes 
Pippins are well bloomed. There 
he some liav to sell and a good many pullets which Grandmother collected, and found one 
' ■ „ , , „„Hor«+nnd that iu Grandfather’s handwriting. I wish some 
to sell or winter. Lou will i * 0 f 0U1 . statesmen would put as much care 
these garden crops are not to be permanent j n t 0 their state papers as this little cook put 
w-ith us We are simplv pushing our lower into that cake. It was a proud little girl 
witn us. we die al v l b <m who asked Father to cut it for her. Every- 
helds as best we can until t ‘ body on the farm had to sample it, and it 
the hills come in hearing. There will prop- was ‘ i be unanimous opinion that a second 
ablv he a small crop of peaches this year and piece would be desirable. I am very glad to 
7 , , w „ nm . see my little daughter become interested in 
a good one next yeai. . . . \\ cooking and housework. Every woman should 
disk ploiv very useful. We have done some know about such things. Some women try 
work with it alone, hut in most cases it lias to keep their daughters from knowing how 
.. ,, . ,, . . ,,i,,o- nmi to da such "homely things because they feel 
followed the turning plow, chopping and tbat u . g - n gom / 
way degrading. I regard 
tossing up the furrows and helping to kill such ideas as the height of folly. They mean 
out the sod. The ground on w 7 hich the pep¬ 
per plants were put was tough add grassy in 
places. We plowed it one way and smoothed 
with the Acme, then worked crosswise with 
a spring-tooth and followed with the disk. 
This stirring fitted the soil well, and I ex¬ 
pect it will pay. I do not expect the disk 
will ever entirely do away with the turning 
plow, though in some places it does better 
work. If the two could he worked on the 
same piece of ground we could put our soil 
into splendid shape.. . . The onions will 
he transplanted before Decoration Day, as it 
looks now. We started the plants later than 
usual, hut they are strong and of good size, 
The wet weather prevented us from working 
the onion soil just when we wanted it done, 
and a crop of Yellow dock came up on part 
of the field. Philip is no friend of a weed, 
and he proceeded to dock the damage to be 
done by that crop by digging it lip by hand. 
We lost track of the loads he dug and carted 
to the dump, lie hates this weed so that he 
doesn’t e.ven want to put it around the peach 
baling" 7 
PRESSES 
FANDARD 11 
WOOL, ETC. 
VICTORIOUS Sc. IN 
LARGEST 8: MOST PER Ft? 
ALSO OTHER AGRICULTU 
-f- SEND FOR CATAL 
^Whitman Agr’l Co.- 
IE EARTH OVER. 
^ Hoover Potato 
Digger 
Saves time, labor and pota¬ 
toes. The only ma¬ 
chine that sepa¬ 
rates the potatoee 
from the vines. 
Prices within the 
reach of 
farmer. 
a serious injury to the child. ... I 
often wonder if some of our well-meaning 
city women really know how ridiculous they 
make themselves at times. Sometimes when 
country people come to town the city folks 
are shocked at their behavior. Do they 
realize that when they go to the country they 
are far more absurd? A city woman once 
stopped at a farmhouse. She got up late in 
the morning and lay In a cool hammock while 
the farmer’s wife was at her work. The city 
woman saw the other going from one task 
to another, busy and helpful, without the wit 
to see that this helpful service made a happy 
woman. 
“I am so sorry for you,” she said; “your 
life is so hard and narrow!” 
The farmer’s wife was made of the right 
stuff. She said: 
••1 do not need your pity. I do my duty 
While my work is hard I labor for my hus¬ 
band, who appreciates it, and for my children 
who will appreciate it later. I keep my life 
sweet with work—it is the best service I can 
give to God. You should Keep your pity for 
yourself.” 
The pity of it was that the city woman 
didn’t have the strength of character to see 
the point. h. w. c 
Catalog 
FREE. 
OUT CO. Avery * 
Ohio. 
THE POTATO CROP, 
large or small, is best 
harvested with 
the Improved 
Looking for a Home? 
Then why not keep in view 
the fact that the 
farming lands of 
aro sufficient to support a 
population of 50,000,000 or over? 
The immigration to Western 
Canada during the past six 
years has been phenomenal. 
DOWOEN 
Pntntn DinnnPm Dee P or shallow, you get 
Uiyytsnm them all.fast, demand ua- 
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DOWDEN MFC. CO., Bos ZZ% PRAIRIE CITY, I A. 
Homestead Lands 
easily accessible, and other 
lands may be purchased from 
Railway and Land Companies. 
Western Canada’s grain lands 
produce marvellous crops .while 
the grazing lands contain all 
the nutritive qualities for fat¬ 
tening cattle and other stock. 
Markets, Schools, Railway, 
and all other condition, 
make Western Canada a 
desirable spot for the home- 
seeker. • 
Write to the Superintendent Im- 
migration.Ottawa,Canada,for a 
descriptive Atlas, and other in¬ 
formation: or to the authorized 
Canadian Government Agent— 
W. D. SCOTT, Supt. of Immigrationi 
Ottawa, Can. 
Lei Us Send You 
Our Book. 
about good wheels and good wagons that will save 
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ELECTRIC STEEL WHEELS 
-and the- 
ELECTRIC HANDY WAGON. 
By every test, they are the best. More than one and 
a quarter millions sold. Spokes united to the 
hub. Can't work loose. A set of our wheels will 
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The Agricultural Drain Tile" 
made by JOHN H. JACKSON, 
ALBANY, N. Y., are the very 
__ .... , , best that long experience, thor- 
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Cement, Plaster, Lime, etc. Write for what you want. 76 Third Ave. 
pv, 
rli : 
of life is uncertain—it may 
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© 
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If the span of your life is short, it pro¬ 
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Opportunities for men of character to act as representatives 
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For full information fill out this coupon, or write 
The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States 
130 BROADWAY, NEW YORK Dept. No. 125 
Please send me information regarding an Endowment for 8. 
if issued at.years of age. 
Name.. 
Address. 
