1901 
487 
HopeJarmNotes 
I meet people here and there who 
have some odd notions about Hope 
Farm- Some of them say openly that 
they do not believe there is any such 
place. They say without any reserve 
that it is all an imaginary picture. Oth¬ 
ers say there may be a farm, but they 
are not sure of it. It may not be out of 
place for me to answer here some of the 
questions that are frequently asked. 
Where is Hope Farm? 
In Bergen Co., New Jersey. Our post 
office is Woodcliff. The farm is nearly 
two miles from the railroad, about eight 
miles west of the Hudson River and 
four miles south of the New York State 
line. 
How large is the farm? 
The deed calls for a little over 87 
acres. 
Is it all in one block? 
No, the deed describes three pieces. 
One is a long narrow strip of 50 acres. 
There is also an oblong strip of 30 acres, 
and an irregular piece of seven. The 
last two strips join at the corner, bu. 
the larger strip is separate. 
Is it all tillable? 
No. There are 25 acres or more of 
good chestnut timber, and 12 or 15 more 
grown up to brush and briers. Several 
other acres'are so rocky that they can¬ 
not be plowed readily, and there is one 
low field below a spring that is used as 
a pasture. 
What is the character of the soil? 
It varies greatly. The buildings are 
grouped at the lower end of the long 
50-acre tract. The soil here is strong 
and heavy, but was set out years ago in 
early apples and in pears, so that it can¬ 
not be used for other crops, to which it 
is well suited. There is a gentle rise up 
the farm from the road for about 600 
feet, where a ledge of rock comes close 
to the surface—cropping out in places. 
Beyond this is a little valley or depres¬ 
sion, which receives the wash from sev¬ 
eral farms to the south and also the wa¬ 
ter from a large spring. Beyond the 
spring the ground rises abruptly to the 
west to form a high hill, and then slopes 
down more gradually to the woods. The 
soil on this large tract is strong, with a 
fair amount of clay. On the hillsides 
there are places where the ledge comes 
close to the surface, or even crops out. 
Is the land stony? 
Very. Former owners picked and 
piled the rocks and stones until there 
are over three miles of stone walls bor¬ 
dering the farm. The lower part has 
been quite well cleared, but the upper 
hills are covered. 
Why did you buy such a rough and 
unpromising place? 
1 do not call it unpromising. Others 
did so, and therefore the price was made 
low. I thought it was a bargain, and 
we were situated so that we had to live 
on a farm. 
What did you pay for it? 
That is a personal matter, but I have 
no objection to stating that the farm 
cost us $4,500. It was in the hands of a 
firm of lawyers who had acquired the 
property under foreclosure. I may say 
here that the farm is assessed at $5,600. 
The buildings are good and quite con¬ 
venient. 
Why was the property not bought? 
There is usually good reason when 
farm property stands still—’Without buy¬ 
ers. 
It think the chief reason was that 
there was no water at the house. For 
some reason former owners had never 
provided anything but cistern water. 
Drinking water had to be brought from 
the distant spring. We drilled a well 
down through the rock, and this gives 
us a constant supply of the purest wa¬ 
ter, which Is piped to house and barn. 
This is but one of the “possibilities” I 
have mentioned. The failure to utilize 
them hurt the reputation of the farm. 
When they are developed the farm will 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
gain more of a reputation than it de¬ 
serves. 
What are some of the other “possi¬ 
bilities?” 
The chestnut timber in the woods will 
with care provide a steady income. We 
have already sold over $500 worth of 
poles—taking the larger trees out, so 
that the smaller ones can make a better 
growth. There will be, I think, a yearly 
income of several hundred dollars with¬ 
out injuring the woods. The little val¬ 
ley l(!low the spring can, I am sure, be 
drained. Open ditches will relieve the 
surface wash from other farms and 
stone drains or tile will make the soil 
fit for early crops. I feel quite sure that 
wo can scrape out a fair-sized pond be¬ 
low the spring, and thus hold the water 
stored up for irrigation when needed. 
In this way the lower part of the farm 
could be made very productive. There 
is also water enough from the spring to 
run a small power if desired. 
What do you expect to do with the 
farm? 
I have not yet fully decided. We raise 
the ordinary crops while studying the 
soil and its needs. 
Haven’t you any plan? 
Only in a general way, because I do 
not yet fully understand the farm. We 
have owned it but two years. I do not 
feel like making permanent plans until 
we know what is best for it. There are 
about 250 apple trees from 20 to 40 years 
old. They were neglected when we 
found them, but have responded so well 
to culture and care that I feel sure the 
land is well suited to fruit. At present 
I expect to work the hill above the 
spring and the western slope into an 
apple orchard. 
What varieties? 
My belief is that such varieties as 
Baldwin, Sutton Beauty, Russet and 
Greening will pay best. I snail experi¬ 
ment with York Imperial and Rome 
Beauty. We have top-worked about 50 
trees to some of the newer varieties for 
trial. On the upper part of the 30-acre 
strip I would like to grow peaches. We 
have already set out 600 peach trees on 
the Stringfellow plan. 
What did you do that for? 
Because I wanted to give the matter 
a fair trial. If it will work up here I 
can see great chances in it for some of 
our waste hillside land. 
You want a fruit farm, then? 
That is my idea at present, because 
this rough and rocky location seems 
well adapted to trees. We raise fair 
crops of potatoes, corn and hay, but the 
shape of the fields and me lay of the 
land will not permit the most economi¬ 
cal working of such crops. I believe 
many farmers have failed by trying to 
force a farm to yield crops which were 
not suited to its soil or conditions. 
While one is bringing an apple or peach 
orchard into profitable bearing there 
can be no regular rotation of crops, but 
a farmer must do what he can as time 
goes on. There are dozens of things we 
would like to do. We hear of people 
who make great fortunes out of hens, 
ducks, asparagus, currants, strawber¬ 
ries and other products. We have paid 
expenses and a little more wiih some 
of these things, but the great profits in 
any of them seem to go to the few who 
have some special knowledge or loca¬ 
tion, or some very favoring circum¬ 
stance to help them out. 
'I'hen you do not believe it possible to 
make a great fortune on the farm? 
I have never made one. I do not see 
any in sight, nor do I know of anyone 
who has made a vast amount of inoney 
on a fair-sized farm. At some distant 
day I think land in our locality will in¬ 
crease greatly in value for building pur¬ 
poses. I shall not wait with folded 
hands for this time to come, but shall 
do my best to make Hope Farm valuable 
for its mrnlng capacity. 
Fakm Notes. —I have written more 
than I intended about this. All farmers 
ought to be interested in the future of 
their farms. One reason why I like an 
orchard farm is the fact that the labor 
spent on it is work of a permanent char¬ 
acter. I look upon a thrifty and well- 
selected apple orchard as about the 
noblest monument that a man can leave 
behind him. ... A hot wave came 
upon us during the last days of June. It 
was awful—on man and beast alike— 
though the old stone house was quite 
cool. We are not yet suffering from 
drought, for our soii retains the mois¬ 
ture well—with surface cultivation. . 
. . The Potato beetles came out sud¬ 
denly this year. Almost before we knew 
it they had stripped whole plants down 
to the stems. With the Eclipse pump 
mounted on the market wagon and the 
three nozzles aimed behind there was 
wholesale slaughter of the bugs. This 
year we tried the experiment of adding 
a pound of Paris-green and a pound of 
Leggett’s Fungiroid to each barrel of 
water. 'The Fungiroid is supposed to be 
a dry Bordeaux Mixture, to be blown dry 
upon the plants. This combination 
quickly put an end to the bugs. There 
are evidences of the copper on the 
leaves, but we have had practically no 
blight this year, and 1 doubt whether 
spraying would pay. Our potatoes are 
at the top of a wind-swept hill, with 
good drainage for air and water. . . . 
I receive so many letters about makiqg 
Bordeaux Mixture that I want to give 
our soda-Bordeaux formula once more. 
Take a one-pound can of Lewis lye and 
dissolve it in water. Then dissolve three 
pounds sulphate of copper. It can be 
put in a coarse sack and hung in a 
bucket or barrel of water. Add five gal¬ 
lons of water to the lye, and 10 gallons 
to the copper solution. Pour tnem to¬ 
gether into a barrel and add enough wa¬ 
ter to make 30 gallons. Four or five 
ounces of lime made into a paste may 
be added and well stirred in. This costs 
more than the lime Bordeaux but it 
sprays well and does effective work. In 
spite of all that the experiment stations 
have printed about the Bordeaux Mix¬ 
ture I find many farmers who say they 
have tried to make it with lime and 
failed. n. w. c. 
Opposed to the Centralized School. 
I wish to speak about the carrying of 
children to the center or village to 
school. There being so few pupils in some 
of the districts in our town some are 
transferred to other districts. One of the 
carriers Is a little girl about 10 years old. 
and she has tipped over once to my knowi- 
edge, and as they have a somewhat spirit¬ 
ed horse It is a wonder some of the chil¬ 
dren were not hurt. Another of the car¬ 
riers is a man who seldom is without a 
smokestack in his mouth. We are very 
thankful our children do not have to go 
on any of these routes. We are thankful 
that we do not live in a village (just on 
account of our children), with its cigarette 
smoking crowd lounging around, teaching 
children to be smart, etc. But if they are 
going to be carried to the village to school, 
we would much rather live in the village 
than to have them carried from one to 
three miles twice a day, crowded in with 
all sorts and conditions. We believe the 
best place for a child’s morals (and per¬ 
haps for its parents, too), is under the 
eye of its parents as much as possible. 
Superintendents of schools and some 
others are clamoring for a big scliool at 
the center, so that it may be graded and 
liave better schools. Suppose Abraham 
lancoln, David Livingstone and D. L. 
Moody had been carried to the center of 
town or graded school, would tliey have 
been the men they were, do you think'' 
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