1901 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
471 
H opejarmNotes 
Field Notes. —After 10 days of sun 
and wind, in spite of all the rain, the 
soil in the valleys turned dry as a chip. 
A peculiar thing about our country is 
the fact that the lower lands are often 
sandy and warm while the hills are cold 
and late. The valley people began to 
suffer for lack of moisture. You could 
follow the track of a wagon on the lower 
roads by the dust kicked up by the 
horses. For weeks and weeks farmers 
were finding fault because they had too 
much wet, and here they were calling 
for more of it. That’s pretty good evi¬ 
dence of the futility of human efforts to 
change the regular order of things. . . 
While our friends in the valley were 
getting ready to growl, our heavier soil 
was not suffering. The upper surface 
looked dry, but the light scratch of hoe 
or cultivator would turn up the dark 
color that lightens up our hopes in dry 
weather. On one lower field, which was 
plowed June 21 for corn and potatoes, 
(he soil was almost too wet for the plow. 
I feel sure that most of our soil would 
mature a crop, even though we nad not 
a drop of rain before September. While 
this is true we were grateful for a live¬ 
ly shower on June 23—just enough to 
moisten the soil well. . . . The cul¬ 
tivator and weeder have been moving 
lively in the corn and potatoes. Some¬ 
how we have had more use for the weed- 
er this season than ever before, and this 
extra use has increased our respect for 
the tool. Our plan has been to use the 
.\cme harrow before the corn came up. 
This left the surface level and smooth. 
.•\s soon as the corn began to peek 
through the weeder was started, first in 
one direction and then in another. Tnis 
has been very effective, and our corn is 
very clean thus far. . . The “Clark” 
grass was ciuite disappointing until the 
Timothy began to head out. It was 
short and failed to grow properly. All 
of a sudden the heads shot up, and it is 
now quite satisfactory, though far short 
of Mr. Clark’s own field. 
Fiuut Matteks. —Apples will be a 
good crop with us. I thought the wet 
weather had prevented the fruit from 
“setting,” but in some way the trees 
have hatched out all they can carry. The 
constant rains prevented us from spray¬ 
ing, yet so far as I can judge, the fruit 
is remarkably free from insects or dis¬ 
eases. I believe the general apple crop 
of the country is short. With the gen¬ 
eral upset and mix caused by the late, 
wet season, the early apples ought to be 
salable this year at fair prices. Many 
of my best trees are of early varieties— 
planted by people now long dead. . . 
. The cherry crop is not very cheering. 
In spite of the wet the fruit started well, 
but has dropped badly, and is rotting. 
The aphis are lunching on the trees 
and take it all through we cannot brag. 
•My neighbor, an old man, who has lived 
here many years, says that if we get a 
full cherry crop once in five years w'e 
should be thankful. I thought last year 
I would show him a thing or two about 
cherries, but now I am very glad I didn’t 
say a word, for he knew more about it 
then I did. I do not see any great profit 
in cherries, but I shall continue to set 
the trees along the stone walls, for our 
most vigorous trees are there, and noth¬ 
ing else seems to w'ant to hug a stone 
wall except wild grapevines, weeds—and 
the Hope Farm man on Sunday after¬ 
noons. . . . Those blueberry bushes 
which were sent from New Hampshire 
have made a good start. If they do well 
I shall plant more of them and try to 
cover quite a space. The so-called 
huckleberries which I find growing on 
our hills are poor things. 1 hope these 
imported Yankees will show them how 
to do their duty. It’s pretty hard when 
a man or huckleberry must be shown 
what to do in order to fill his proper 
place in nature! 
Change oe Plans. —It is a good thing 
to have your work organized and thor¬ 
oughly planned. That is true, yet I 
think it is wiser sometimes to break 
that plan short off when circumstances 
make it necessary. This year, for ex¬ 
ample, we tried to make our plans early. 
We figured it out with care, so that with 
an ordinary season every tillable acre 
would be provided with some useful 
crop. The rains came, and June 10 
found us just about where we planned 
to be by May 15. It was hard to stop, 
with good soil unplowed and growing up 
to grass and weeds, but I knew that it 
was better to take care of what we had 
in rather than to increase the acreage 
and half care for all. It was hard to do 
this, for a farmer hates to see some of 
his best fields lying idle or worse, yet I 
reasoned that cultivator, hoe, weeder 
and mower were more useful than plow 
and harrow. So we quit planting and 
went to nursing what we had planted. 
When our crops are cared for we shall 
plow again, and the fields now standing 
still will go into late fodder corn and 
buckwheat. I wish to try seeding clover 
and possibly Timothy with buckwheat. 
I do not know much about the buck¬ 
wheat crop. I shall use it this year be¬ 
cause I have not been able to fit the 
ground for corn and potatoes, and I want 
to raise some crop that will return grain 
or cash without much hand work. The 
old farmers about us say that buckwheat 
should go on the poorest fields of the 
farm. Others say use strong ground or 
add fertilizer. Who knowsf 
Live Stock Notes. —The man who 
bought our little Billy Berkshire has 
been keeping track of his weight, and he 
sends the following interesting record: 
I herewith give you the weight of little 
Lilly Berkaliire, a little boar of my own 
breeding, cross of Berkshire boar and 
scrub sow, a little sow same age as Billy 
out of that litter of live pigs I told you 
about before; and a little Berkshire sow 
1 bought recently: 
Billy Jotin Scrub B'rk. 
Berk. 
York. 
SOW. 
SOW. 
libs. 
I.bs. 
Lbs. 
Lbs. 
.March ... 
. I'J 
20 
19 
. . 
May 15 .. 
. 8 IV 2 
31!/2 
321/2 
May 26 .. 
. 39 
401/2 
42 
. . 
June 1 ... 
. 41 J 14 
431/2 
451/2 
June 18 .. 
53y2 
55 
37 
'The two 
boars are in tlie 
same pen 
and 
were fed a little extra. The sow is in a 
pen witli 15 more of different size, receiv¬ 
ing no extra care; still she is in the lead. 
So far the cross breeds make a better 
showing, but of course it is too soon to 
form an opinion. This is not to say that 
I am in favor of cross breeds, but it 
seems they are a little coarser in their 
make-up. Comparing the two Berkshires 
with the two scrubs, it is like comparing 
two race horses with two track horses; 
you may say blood tells. The two little 
Berks are a tine pair, and in spite f f 
Billy’s being the light weight he is boss 
in the pen and quite spunky. Next year 
1 am going to experiment a little, whetlicr 
the pure breeds or the cross breeds are 
better for the making of pork, making the 
most weight from farrowing to killing 
time. u. J. 
I am glad to know that Billy is 
spunky and inclined to be boss of the 
pen. He had some of Julia’s skim-milk 
to drink, so we should expect him to be 
a kicker. I would rather have spunk 
and vigor than weight or pork in the 
head of the herd. Take our old rooster 
Don for example. He is not a large bird, 
and he would hardly be noticed at a 
poultry show, but he would fight a lion 
in defence of his wives. Chicks from 
some high-scoring birds come feebly in¬ 
to the world, and tumble over dead at 
an east wind. Old Don’s sons and daugh¬ 
ters have the spirit of their sire. They 
kick themselves out of the shell, and 
make the world shell out a good living 
and a fair start. The size of the sire 
doesn’t count half so much as the spirit. 
1 am told that the father of John L. Sul¬ 
livan was a little bit of a man. He 
lacked the size needed to give his son a 
sound thrashing, yet it was his spiifit 
which enabled the big fellow to whip 
the best men the world could furnish. 
Household Notes. —I have neard peo¬ 
ple joke about country living, and say 
that farmers eat salt pork and potatoes 
from one year’s end to the other. Sen¬ 
sible people pay little attention to such 
stuff now, for they know better. The 
Hope Farmers are not growing dyspep¬ 
tic over a diet of pork and potatoes. We 
have eaten strawberries until our noses 
are red, peas until we are at peace with 
the world, with turnip, beets, onions to 
fill out. The fattest of the hens want 
to sit and we set them right in the oven 
where they hatch out a fine meal. There 
are dozens of chicks growing into little 
balls of fat—just right for the frying 
pan, and half a dozen roasting pigs all 
ready to crawl into the hot oven. 'Ihe 
cherries are ripe, and they will last un¬ 
til the Red Astrachan apples are ready 
for baking and sauce! You take one of 
Aunt Jennie’s cherry pies and cover it 
all out of sight with Julia’s thickest 
cream!! Why, it’s enough to make a 
man forget that he was brought up in 
the belief that cherries and milk to¬ 
gether are poisonous! The Hope Farm 
man is no confirmed pie-eater, and he 
has a horror of putting on too much fat, 
but his plate goes up the second time! I 
apeak of these things to show what an 
American farmer can put on his table 
at light cash expense if he wants to. 
. . I got home the other night and 
found the little Graft hobbling about 
with a sore foot. He had stepped on a 
little bone and stuck it into the bottom 
of his foot. I had a close call from lock¬ 
jaw when I was a boy, and I didn’t like 
the looks of that foot. So we hustled 
out old Major and carried the Graft and 
the two little girls to see the old doc¬ 
tor. He bathed the wound with lister- 
ine and put a piece of fat pork on it. It 
was not long before the Graft announced 
that he could “work his toes” and he 
celebrated this condition by eating a big 
supper. This is one of the dangers of 
“going barefoot,” still, we think it a 
good thing for the children to “shed 
their shoes” in Summer. ii. w. c. 
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J Address 
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COMPANY 
Enosburg Falls, Vt. 
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WHEEL BARROWS, 
>f Costly Breakfast. 
The Washington Star tells of a scientific 
man who was hunting in the Rocky Moun 
tains for specimens for the Smithsonian 
Institute. He was particularly anxious to 
get eggs of a certain rare variety of part¬ 
ridges, and was prepared to pay an enor¬ 
mous price for them if necessary. One 
morning he ran across a miner who had 
just been cooking his breakfast, and on 
the ground the scientist saw shells of the 
very eggs he was after. The miner had 
eaten six of them, and he turned pale when 
the professor told him that he would 
gladly have paid $100 apiece for the eggs. 
'The thought that he had eaten a $000 
breakfast was maddening, but the miner 
believed they could find more of these 
eggs, as he had found this nest without 
looking for it at all. They hunted to¬ 
gether for a week, but with no success, 
and the professor finally got some himself 
100 miles from that place. Several years 
after he got a letter from the miner, who 
was still in Colorado, and said that that 
$000 breakfast had taken away his appetite 
for eggs to such an extent tliat he had 
not been able to eat any since. Most peo¬ 
ple who buy anything at an extravagant 
price do not realize it until later, and 
those who laiigh at this miner’s expensive 
mistake may be more than duplicating his 
blunder in other ways. How about a man 
who to get carriages, costly machinery or 
furniture that he does not need, fastens 
on his farm a mortgage that through poor 
ciops .or other misfortunes grows until it 
cats up the farm and turns him out of 
doors? Or what about people who through 
dissipation chop off 25 years from theli 
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A LETTER. 
I cannot understand, 
why any farmer would 
spend his money for 
a h 1 g h-w heeled 
wagon, when he can 
get a Parmers Han¬ 
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money. I can assure you 
that tnere will be no more 
tky scrapers used on the 
neatly Pruit Farm.” 
PUANK M. BEATTY, Covington, Ind. 
FARMERS HANDY WAGON CO..Snqinaw, Mich , 
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CUTTERS 
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QUARANTEH) to be (he BEST. 
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Where Liberty Ends. —Rev. Louis A. 
Banks, of New York, in speaking of faith 
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emphasizing his conversation by flourish¬ 
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country. “Yes,” replied the other, “this is 
a free country, but your liberty to flourish 
that umbrella ends where my nose begins.’ 
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