1901 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
695 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Tael Holders. —A few weeks since 
we had a question regarding a horse 
that gets his tail over the rein and holds 
it down. Here is a remedy that seems 
sensible: 
A few weeks ago I noticed you men¬ 
tioned the fact that “Old Major’’ annoys 
you by getting the lines under his tail and 
clinging to them, and that you know of 
no way to break a horse of this trouble¬ 
some habit. I have known horses that 
took this method of getting a chance to 
run, and I have broken them of it by this 
simple arrangement: Wind the crupper to 
several times its usual size, with cloth or 
leather. This prevents a horse from being 
able to cling to the line If it gets under 
the tail, and after being driven in this way 
a few weeks, letting him get the line under 
frequently to convince him he can’t hold 
It, you can take the wrappings off the 
crupper and he will have forgotten about 
his old habit. I hope Old Major is not too 
old to leai'n. b. e. 
Warren Co., Pa. 
Of course, with the crupper made so 
large the horse cannot get a clinch on 
the reins. Old Major is an expert at the 
business, and his tail Is almost like a 
fifth leg. Too old to learn? Well, it 
depends upon the teacher and the 
method of instruction. You take a horse 
or a human that is old enough to be a 
grandfather, and not much of anything 
short of absolute prohibition well 
rubbed in will cause him to shed a bad 
habit! 
Racing With Frost. —Our corn was 
very late, but as it was mostly at the 
top of the hill I took chances with the 
frost and did not begin to cut until Sep¬ 
tember 23. On September 24 we woke to 
find a cold wind blowing down the val¬ 
ley, and all the old farmers shrugged 
their shoulders and said: 
“That means frost surely!” 
It did feel like it. I would not have 
cared so much for a still cold, for at 
such times the cold air rolis down our 
steep hills carrying frost to the valleys. 
When cold comes in this way we fre¬ 
quently have two weeks of growing 
weather after all tender plan’ts have 
been killed in the valley two miles 
away. When frost comes with a wind, 
however, we lose this advantage, be¬ 
cause the air is all stirred up together, 
and the colder waves or layers cannot 
drain away. That was why i feared for 
the corn, but after noon the wind died 
down, the air grew still, and the mer¬ 
cury went but little lower than 40 de¬ 
grees all night. It was a closer call 
than we like, though the Doys made the 
corn knives fly, for those stalks will 
have to be both bread and meat for the 
horses this Winter. 
What Is Frost?—O ld Jack poked his 
nose so close to our faces that we heard 
his teeth snap. What is this thing that 
jumps upon us without warning, and 
ruins our tender crops in a single night? 
As a matter of curiosity I began to ask 
people to tell me what frost is. Most 
of them had never thought of it before, 
though all had suffered more or less 
from cold. 
“Frozen dew!” 
That was the best answer I could get. 
When dew collects on plants at a time 
when the temperature is below the 
freezing point we have frost. 
Where does dew come from? 
I find that people who have brushed 
through the dew for many years have 
but a vague idea as to what it is. Fili 
a pitcher with cool water and set it in 
warm air. We all know how a little 
film of moisture will form on the out¬ 
side. I have heard people argue that 
this proves that the pitcher was porous, 
so that the water came through it. The 
truth is that the air around the pitcher 
contained water vapor. When this 
warm air came in contact with the 
colder pitcher this vapor is condensed 
into little drops of water which gather 
on the sides of the pitcher, until it be¬ 
comes quite wet. This condensing of 
water occurs when a warm substance 
containing water vapor meets another 
substance cool enough to condense the 
vapor, and the dew comes from the 
ViTarmer substance. During the nights, 
when dew is deposited, contrary to gen¬ 
eral belief, the soil is several degrees 
warmer than the air! 
What Jack Does. —I had a field of 
fodder corn growing on the lower part 
ol the farm. Had the mercury con¬ 
tinued to fall I should have left the corn 
on the hill and cut the fodder, throwing 
it flat on the ground. The soil being 
warmer than the air would have pre¬ 
vented severe freezing, and the stalks 
would have thawed out slowly if they 
had frozen. 
What good would that do? Are not 
frozen plants ruined? 
As I understand it, the thawing Is 
usually more destructive than the freez¬ 
ing. As we all know, the living plant is 
made up of little cells which contain 
water. Cold drives the water from these 
cells, and it may be frozen on the sur¬ 
face of the plant or among the ceiis, in¬ 
side. When this frozen water thaws 
these little cells try to take it up again, 
and if they succeed in doing so the 
plant may actually live and go on grow¬ 
ing slowly. When the thawing is very 
slow the water is presented no faster 
than the cells can use it. When the 
thaw is rapid the water returns too fast 
for the cells. They are overworked and 
die. I understand that gardeners some¬ 
times save plants that are frosted, by 
dipping them in ice water, thus making 
them thaw out as slowly as possible. We 
would not think of dipping a frosted 
finger, nose or foot into hot water, but 
would rub it in snow or dip it in cold 
water. 
House Notes. —The stoves wei’e not 
up by October 1, which is later than 
usual. We have had a wood fire in the 
open grate several times, but take it all 
around September was milder than last 
year. . . . We are now considering 
a bath room for the house. I hold that 
such a room is even more useful in the 
country than in the city. tJince we have 
the water works we shall try to get the 
fixtures. I find that this season the 
room can be fitted up for about the price 
of 125 bushels of potatoes! The price of 
most things we must buy is pretty well 
fixed, while the price of what we sell 
jumps up and down like a school girl 
skipping rope. The great trouble we 
experience is finding a good place for 
drainage. The house is crowded close 
to the road on the lower part of the 
farm. We shall have to use a cess pool, 
since we cannot drain into the lower 
land across the road—for that belongs 
to a neighbor. Out by the barn is an 
old cistern which was used for stock 
water before we drilled the well. We 
may be able to dig this deeper and thus 
get fall enough from the house. If we 
use it we shau have to pump it out fre¬ 
quently eitner directly upon the soil or 
on to the manure pile. 
Pig Matters. —We won first on Berk¬ 
shire sows at the local fair. The little 
boar we sold in the Spring was also ex¬ 
hibited, and he won a first. 1 like the 
Berkshires more and more as I have 
a chance to observe them under ail con¬ 
ditions. They suit our conditions ex¬ 
actly. ... We have two little pigs 
that present a hard conundrum for the 
breeding expert. They are full sisters— 
their mother a grade Berkshire of fair 
breeding. They ran with the family and. 
have had an equal chance in all respects. 
Yet, when one weighed 47 pounds the 
other weighed but 19! Now was the lit¬ 
tle thing a born “runt”—doomed from, 
its birth to carry a stunted frame and 
a system incapable of assimilating food?' 
It was not a question of breed O'r feed,, 
but apparently some defect in the little 
fellow’s vital makeup. We have put her 
by herseii for an experiment in full 
feeding, but she will never pay. Out of 
three litters of 23 pigs there were four 
poor ones—this little dwarf being the 
worst of all. , . . The local butchei* 
has offered me 10 cents a pound for two 
large hogs dressed. It just happens that 
right now pork is scarce, but within a 
week or two prices will tumble. I have 
noticed for several years that pork is 
short in our local market for a few 
weeks around October 1. Farmers do 
not like to kill until after a heavy frost. 
Within a short time now pork will be 
rushing in almost too fast to sell well. 
Farm Notes. —As I have explained. 
our chicken yard is in two parts. One 
part is used as a garden—the hens oc¬ 
cupying it during Fall and Winter. We 
have just turned them in to clean out 
the weeds. The other side will now be 
plowed and sown to rye. . . . We 
are watching the growth of the Cow- 
horn turnips with much interest. Above 
ground they look much like the ordi¬ 
nary strap-leaf varieties, but below 
ground they make a long tap-root go¬ 
ing down into the soil farther, with us, 
than the yellow turnips do. By the mid¬ 
dle of September some of these tap-roots 
were nearly a foot long. We did not 
sow them in hard, tough soil, but in 
well-worked ground. It is claimed that 
they will dig down through the hard 
subsoil and not only open it up, but 
"pump” up fertility. I doubt whether 
these tap-roots do much more than 
bring water to the plant. Still, I should 
judge from the present appearance of 
the Cow-horns that they will help the 
soil if plowed under. . . . Our rape 
is quite satisfactory this year. We cut 
it and feed green to the hogs. Rape and 
corn fodder constitute seven per cent of 
the food of our breeding sows just now. 
. . . Poets and others tell of various 
perfumes to be found on the farm. One 
of the most satisfactory smells I know 
of is that which fills a cornfield a day 
or two after cutting. Those shocks as 
they slowly dry give out a solid and 
substantial perfume that is both sweet 
and sensible. That’s the stuff for a 
farmer’s handkerchief! 
Knowledge Is King. —Two weeks ago 
a friend punched me up a little because 
I gave advice. Here is the result of a 
little of that same advice given five 
years ago: 
It may be of Interest to you to know 
that the writer is a fruit grower now, 
most agreeably situated, with a splendid 
orchard two years old last March, as a 
result of advice given by you in June, 1896. 
He was then a bookkeeper to whom office 
work was very intolerable at Pine Bluff, 
Ark. 1 wrote to you for advice as to 
adopting agriculture. You replied: “Go 
to Cornell University for a year or two.” 
I wrote to Prof. Roberts; he said: “Come.” 
I landed there July 10, 1896, remained some¬ 
thing over a year, and came to Georgia 
during 1898 to look up its advantages. 1 
liked what I saw of the country and the 
prospect for peach culture, and so located 
here. Will say that I went to Cornell to 
study agriculture and registered for the 
agriculture course, but after attending 
Prof. Bailey’s lectures in addition to reg¬ 
ular course, horticulture seemed so much 
more attractive that 1 adopted it. My only 
regret is that I had not done so sooner. 
s. R. c. 
I had forgotten the circumstance. A 
young man with fair capital and a de¬ 
sire to live in the country cannot do 
better than to spend a year or two at a 
good agriculturai school. When I was 
a young man I went through an agricul¬ 
tural college, but in those days the col¬ 
lege itself was trying to learn how to be 
really useful to farmers. I was part of 
an experiment which boys of to-day 
may profit by. At that time Prof. Bai¬ 
ley was a student—^the best in the col¬ 
lege—but few thought he was an educa¬ 
tional bud destined to unfold into the 
representative of a new system of teach¬ 
ing. Wny do I advise all young farm¬ 
ers to go to an agricultural college? I 
do not so advise—not by a good deal. 
Some are so situated that they cannot 
go. It might not do them any good if 
they did. I am frank to say that I near¬ 
ly starved to death while I was trying 
to forget some of the things I learned, 
but other things have been of great 
benefit to me, and I would not give them 
up for twice tne struggle they cost. At 
one time I felt like helping any young 
man who thought that he wanted to get 
an education. I am out of that busi¬ 
ness now, for I find that some foiKS do 
not know what they do want. To rush 
at an education as one wouid at a “fad” 
is bad business for all connected. When 
a boy wants a thing bad enough to get 
down and dig for it, and deny himself, 
he will usually get it and make good 
use of it, too. H. w. c. 
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