1901 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
HOPE FARM NOrk^. 
DioMTV AND Work. —We are still sell¬ 
ing chestnut poles out of our woods. A 
year ago I hated to see one of these trees 
come down, but I decided after some 
thought that we can hardly afford yet 
to let any of the Hope Farmers stand 
al)out on their dignity. Some of our 
trees, stripped and pruned for business, 
stand along the road in the valley hold¬ 
ing up telephone wires. They are not so 
handsome as they were when they stood 
idly in the woods, but since they peeled 
tiieir coats and walked down the hills to 
do their share of the world’s work they 
have ceased to be chestnuts or back 
numbers, for they are up with the pro¬ 
cession. Labor dignifies even a chest¬ 
nut tree. The wind that swept through 
their branches as they stood in the 
woods sang a song that added nothing 
to the world’s comfort or progress. The 
harping on the telephone wires is a true 
song of labor. Besides all this each tree 
drops coin in the Hope harmer’s hat as 
it w’alks down hill. A poet might call 
that ‘ a vulgar incident,” but as we are 
not poets we decide that the only vul¬ 
garity about ... would lie in a wrong use 
of the money. So down they go. . . . 
Last year I was quite a little concerned 
about some old pear trees that seemed 
all ready to dry up and die. We cut 
them back. Fall-plowed the sod, ma¬ 
nured them well and did our best to give 
them a start. The start is coming. They 
are putting out little shoots of new wood 
and shaking themselves for a new 
struggle. The sight of this new wood 
on these old trees does me as much good 
as it would to see old Major kick up his 
stiff heels to show his appreciation of 
h.is Winter’s care. 
Farm Notes. —Spring has seemed late 
this year, but, as usual about April 1 the 
sun came out bright and clear, and a ary 
breeze sprang up that quickly took the 
moisture out of the upper fields. The 
orchard of big trees near the house is 
on naturally moist ground, but it dries 
out as quickly as the lighter ground 
al)ove it. This is not surprising when 
we realize how those big trees are 
j)ump:ng water out of the soil and drain¬ 
ing it like so many big tile drains. . . 
We sow oats with Orchard-grass seed 
in this orchard. There are some good 
rea.sons why grain and grass should not 
1)6 sown in an orchard. Probably five 
times out of seven clean cultivation is 
better for an orchard, but we have, I 
think, one of the two cases where seed¬ 
ing to grass of some sort will prove a 
good policy. 1 sow Orchard grass be¬ 
cause it does best in the shade, gives a 
fair quality of hay and is cut early in 
the season. ... I put some clover 
seed in with the Orchard grass, but the 
question of clean clover-seed at $8 per 
bushel is after all a tough one. It ought 
not to be, for any farmer knows that 
there is a whole bag of fertilizer in a 
pound of clover seed. Probably if we 
could not possibly get it for less than 
$20 per bushel it would be fair business 
to pay that for it. Still, I suppose it is 
human nature to make a fuss when 
prices for what we buy go above the 
average. . . . After their long strug¬ 
gle the Winter oats show up in a badly 
l)attered condition. Where they were 
.sown alone only one narrow strip at the 
upper end of the field is left. There is 
a better stand where they were mixed 
with the rye, but they cannot be called 
a success with us as a Winter grain. For 
I' all pasture they are excellent. I have 
heard farmers call for some crop that 
would make a heavy Fall growth, cover 
the soil through the Winter and die out 
so as not to interfere with Spring cul¬ 
tivation. The Winter oats will fill this 
Ibll to perfection. . . . Ours is not 
much of a grain section, but nearly 
every farmer has more or less rye. As 
a rule it has not wintered well. Most of 
it is on hillside fields, which have wash¬ 
ed more or less. Most of our own rye 
was seeded with Winter oats or with 
Pi'imson clover. It will all be cut early 
fihd cured for hay. We have hauled 
some manure on this rye and after it is 
cut the ground will be plowed and plant¬ 
ed to late potatoes or sweet corn, to be 
again seeded to rye and clover. . . . 
On April 1 our four little baby Berk- 
shires weighed 31 pounds. They were 
then 12 days old. We estimated their 
weight when one day old at 14 pounds. 
They grew like debts. I never saw such 
perfectly-shaped pigs. What a contrast 
between these square blocks of pork and 
some of the scrubs we see on farms: 
These little fatties have bulging hams 
and shoulders, because their ancestors 
for many generations back have been 
ham fat. There is no accident about it. 
I mean to weigh the little fellows every 
week to see how fast they gain. 
Hen Notes. —The hens laid 527 eggs 
in March. They were worth a trifle over 
IVz cent each. The cost was a little less 
than for February. . . . "^ihe first 
plowing done on Hope Farm will be in 
the large chicken yard, which is to be 
used as a garden this year. It will be 
broken up early so as to give the hens 
a good chance to scratch it over. A good 
coat of manure will be put on, and this 
will be plowed in. Then the hens will 
be put in another large yard, alongside 
the one where they now are, and the 
first one planted with garden seeds. 
Later, when the low-growing crops are 
out of the way the hens may come back 
among the sweet corn and Lima beans 
while their second yard is being seeded 
to clover and rape. ... As I walked 
through the chicken yard a few days 
ago I felt a shock as though a baby bat¬ 
tering ram had struck me. It was the 
old Wyandotte rooster Don. He seemed 
to think that I had no place in that yard, 
so he came at me with both spurs. He 
fought me all the way to the gate. He 
is a game oid bird, and I have great re¬ 
spect for him. . . . Wherever I go I 
meet people who tell great stories about 
the use of hen manure on potatoes. 
There are farmers who claim to raise 
larger crops than I have ever dug by us¬ 
ing a large handful of hen manure in the 
hill. When 1 say that the auaition of 
potash and dissolved rocK ought to give 
still better results such people say 
“theory.” The truth is, that we are all 
after actual rather than theoretical pota¬ 
toes. Will pure hen manure bring them? 
1 would like to find out this year, and 1 
warn to ask a number of rows right in 
the field. I want to take several rows 
and put hen manure alone in every hill. 
In other rows I shall add potash, in oth¬ 
ers acia rock, and in still others both. 
Then we can compare the yield with that 
from the high-grade fertilizer. 
“Five Acres Enough.” —As may be 
supposed, I receive all sorts of letters 
containing praise, blame, criticism and 
ridicule. Here is a note from a man who 
evidently has an idea, and in theory it 
is a good one: 
I like to lead your Notes because they are 
so home-like and practical; but there is a 
huge class of people, and growing larger 
(that is, an increased per cent), that such 
as you do not have any impression on 
whatever; they need your advice, but you 
might as well talk to the Heathen Chinee. 
They are the laboring men without a 
home they can call their own; even our 
western towns are getting full of such. 
They work for wages and pay rent for their 
homes, and perhaps will work a piece of 
land on shares; but never have a home of 
their own. I have of late said that live 
acres of land is amply sufficient to support 
a family. It is just fun to think of the 
replies I get on questioning them; there is 
not one in 10 that will give a decent reply. 
Even our scientific agriculturists are loath 
to say flow much land will support a fam¬ 
ily; they will show that an acre of ground 
will keep a cow the year around; but they 
have no time for the poor man without any 
land. There is a great difference between 
the commercial farmer and the farmer who 
is satisfied to make a good living; 1 am 68 
years old, and when I look on my life and 
see the great mistake that was made in 
influencing me to make money on the farm, 
I want to spend the rest of my life in tell¬ 
ing others of the failures that I have made. 
Money is a poor standard by which to esti¬ 
mate the value of things that are necessarv 
in this life. u. t. 
Cannon Falls, Minn. 
t do not attempt to preach or talk di¬ 
rectly at anyone or any class of people. 
I simply relate some of the thoughts and 
doings of a farm family made up of 
widely different characters and curious¬ 
ly bound together. Our friend seems to 
think that five acres ought to provide a 
good living for an average family. If I 
were to cut Hope Farm up into 18 lots 
of five acres each there are not more 
than two of them that would probably 
give the living. The land below the 
spring might be irrigated and put in 
celery and strawberries, but the hill 
fields would never feed one person to an 
acre unless the farm and others too 
were all thrown together and run on a 
cooperative basis. If all men were equal¬ 
ly willing to work, and the smart and 
the strong loved to stop and help the 
weak as well as they do to crowd on and 
help themselves. I will not say that the 
five-acre scheme would be impossible, 
but as social conditions now are I should 
say —Heaven help the 18 average-sized 
families who tried to live on our 90 
acres! That is the same thing as saying 
that they would have to be satisfied with 
the living which their conduct earned 
for them! h. w. r. 
A Plank Drag. —I had a plank drag 
made this season that I have found effi¬ 
cient and useful. Being intended for one 
horse it is of a size to correspond. I 
used hemlock planks, because they are 
cheap. It is made up of eight pieces of 
two-incn plank, 10 inches wide and four 
feet in length. They are arranged clap¬ 
board fashion, overlapping one another 
four inches. The peculiar feature of the 
article consist in the way the pieces of 
plank are held together. The bond that 
connects them is strap iron 214 inches 
wide. 14 pieces each 16 inches in length, 
and bored with two holes near each end 
for large screws (each pair countersunk 
on the reverse sides) and with two holes 
in center for %-inch bolts, one five 
inches from each end. These straps are 
inserted, two between each pair of the 
planks six inches from either end, so 
that they lie on the top of the plank in 
front, and underneath the plank next 
in rotation behind. The effect is that 
the bolts, except those passing through 
the first and the last planks, go through 
the strap iron above and below each 
plank. Having the strap-iron cut into 
pieces of the required length, and the 
holes bored, which a machinist could do 
in a few minutes, the construction is 
simple and easy. The expense is trifling 
for the material. For the draft I had 
two holes bored in the first plank, and 
then adapted a spare cow-chain as the 
medium of connection between the plank 
and whiffletree replacing the wings on 
the one branch of the neck part with an 
extra “T.” For rubbing down and 
crushing lumps that the Acme harrow 
knocked to one side without breaking, 
and that a roller pressed down into the 
softer and looser earth unchanged, this 
plank drag has served an excellent pur¬ 
pose in preparing a seed bed and render¬ 
ing the working of a Summer fallow 
more effectual. w. o. e. 
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Ill 
Before Buying a New 
arness 
■end 4 cents in itampa to 
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I 100 Stylet to taUet from. 
IHreet to eoainmer frow 
Manmfaetuer. 
Tht Klni HarNMt Co.,Mtrt. 
4l2Cliar«hSL.e«t|t.N.Y. 
AMES 
PATENT 
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SUIFTINO CLEVIS. 
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-A.JSI=»I3XrW^.A.XaIj IVtl'Gr. 
.lACKSON, .MICH. 
CUTTERS 
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DIGGERS 
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oo.. 
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Uoe, Hill 
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The No- 6 Ir 
■ rUl 
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Box 10», 
'Greuloch, N. J. ’ 
No. 1 
Iron .ige 
UoBble Wheel 
Uoe. 
