788 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
NOV. 22 
Thanksgiving Notes. 
Helpful Hints from Colorado. 
The R. N.-Y. takes the liberty of printing the following 
extracts from a private letter. This little story will ap- 
pe.il to thousands of our readers this Thanksgiving time : 
“ Somehow the times for farmers, at any rate for those 
in this vicinity, have been hard. Although not exactly a 
farmer myself, I suffer when they suffer. If the farmer 
‘ who feeds us all ’ does not thrive, then neither does the 
merchant nor the laborer very bountifully. If the average 
man and woman are beset by hard times and money is 
scarce and hard to get and produce low priced, then there 
is generally in the community a disposition to live fru¬ 
gally, buy sparingly, and pay debts slowly. I deal directly 
with people at their back doors from ice and vegetable 
wagons. For many months the trade has been descending 
toward an unprofitable condition. That is, owing to hard 
times, people buy goods in such small quantities that the 
business is not profitable to the dealer. For 
instance, two horses and a hired man with 
a load of melting ice cannot profitably stop 
to sell a nickel’s worth of the latter. Last 
year my ice-house, containing 700 tons, was 
not nearly emptied, and water being scarce, 
gardening was unremunerative, and with a 
large family and the expense of hired help 
I fell behind about $600. It made me very 
unhappy and cost me some nights of broken 
rest. I knew a man who during 10 years of 
hard work had run behind in everything he 
had undertaken ; was that to be my fate ? 
There is such a thing as ill luck. There 
are tornadoes, fires, sickness, floods, beyond 
one’s control. Was the flood of hard times, 
which has overflowed the average tiller of 
the soil almost the whole world over, about 
to sweep over me and mine ? And was I, 
an industrious, frugal man, gifted with at 
least fair judgment, to sink in the ocean of 
impecuniosity as countless millions had 
already done ? I had been a soldier just 
long enough to catch the worrying, embar¬ 
rassing plague of a chronic disease. It did 
not take long to do that. If I had the will 
to wrestle mightily I had not the endurance. 
My buildings and life were insured. ‘So 
far so good.’ I would work my very best, 
and if I must go down, I would sink still striking out 
with all the powers I had 1 I owed some money. My credi¬ 
tor wanted a mortgage on my property. I am rather 
proud that I never mortgaged anything and did not need 
to at the age of 48. Water has been scarce, aud only one- 
half of my eight acres of garden received any this year. 
But what was irrigated did well. I have sold a good 
deal of truck even in this town, which goes by the name 
of Garden City. I advertised in the papers and got an op¬ 
portunity to ship 120 tons of ice to Colorado Springs, for 
which I received over $600. So I have done very well, in¬ 
deed, so far as business was concerned, and all my ice and 
vegetables are nearly sold out.” O. H. 
Greeley, Col. 
Potatoes and Manures. 
I was putting some fertilizer on potatoes after they had 
come up, as I believe they, as well as some other crops, re¬ 
quire additional food at different stages of growth. My 
neighbor came into the field and asked why I did not put 
the fertilizer close to the plants. Said I: 
“ Have you your rule with you ?” (He was 
a mechanic.) “Yes.” “Well, now, just 
measure the height of the top of this 
potato plant.” “ It is seven inches high,” 
said he. “ Now measure the roots.” “ Seven 
inches on each side of the plant,” he re¬ 
plied. “ Well now, when the vines of the 
potatoes are two feet long where will the 
roots be ? Why, they will form a perfect 
network all through the soil, and where the 
mouths are they will find the food ready 
for them.” This season has convinced me, 
more fully than ever, that heavy manuring 
with nitrogenous manure increases rot in a 
wet season. I planted a small piece of 
Rural N.-Y. No. 2 Potatoes, and they came 
out nice and sound, except those from one 
row which had been heavily manured in the 
winter for Lima beans, but, not having 
poles enough, I put in a row of the Rural 
potatoes. They were very large but rotted 
badly. Heavy manuring with stable manure must cause 
a fermentation in the soil, and so increase the tendency to 
rot, but in a dry season the effect might be different. 
Franklin, N. J.* J. R. 
Two Women Grow Prize Potatoes. 
In good season mother and I received, last spring, our 
prize potatoes which we won in that Women’s Contest. 
She received one pound of Vermont Wonder. We had a 
merry laugh when she undid the package and laid 13 little 
potatoes side by side; but they were shapely little fellows, 
white and nice, sound and with bright eyes We planted 
them May 20 on land heavily manured the year before and 
planted with sweet corn. I made large mellow hills, using a 
common spoonful of Bowker’s Hill and Drill Phosphate in 
each hill, well mixed in. She made 23 hills. They were 
hoed three times, and a liberal handful of ashes was ap¬ 
plied once, and twice we applied Paris-green in plaster; 
the beetles were not very bad. She dug them September 4, 
and had, in all, 79 pounds, an even, pretty lot of white, 
shapely tubers, rather long-oval. They had a pretty dark 
blue blossom which showed early in July ; but one potato 
looked pinkish and rounder when we first examined them, 
and when cut in two ; it produced six pounds, leaving 73 
pounds of the Wonder. The blooms were white. The 
tubers are pinkish white, slightly russeted, nearly round— 
a pretty potato. We shall name it “ The Gift.” 
A few days after mother’s were received my Reed’s Red 
Giants came. They were little giants, but surely red. 
The land was prepared and cultivated the same as for the 
others. They were planted May 20 and bloomed July 2. 
They ripened a few seed-balls; the flowers were lilac 
purple. We dug them September 4, and I had 89% pounds 
of nice, large tubers. They spread around in quite a 
neighborly way. Both varieties had strong, dark green 
stems and large leaves. The Wonder was the dwarfer of 
the two. Of it 12 tubers weighed nine pounds, and of the 
Giants 12 weighed 11% pounds. The Wonder is a little 
earlier. Both varieties cooked mealy and nice in Septem¬ 
ber ; neither showed any rot; all were smooth and nice. 
We shall plant them next season. 
Last year from one tiny Rural New-Yorker No. 2 
mother obtained four and one half pounds. The blight 
WE HAVE MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR!” Fig. 369. 
hurt them somewhat. We cooked three fair sized tubers, 
and last spring planted 50 hills, using some very tiny po¬ 
tatoes for a few. They were planted and treated the same 
as the above, dug the same day, and all were treated alike. 
I don’t think the seed would have weighed over three 
pounds, and from them we had 202 pounds, and 12 of the 
tubers weighed 15% pounds. I think these should be the 
Giants. They grew close in the hill; the vines were up¬ 
right aud strong ; they bloom white, purple tipped—very 
pretty. There seemed to be no small ones. I dou’t thihk 
there were a dozen unmerchantable. They were clean and 
nice—no rot. I should think these would prove very nice 
for a general crop. When cooked they are fine, even the 
big ones. We are much pleased with them aud have 
nearly a barrel, so that we shall plant a large piece next 
season. 
We planted the Early Beauty of Hebron and White Star 
with a very few Pride of America. The early plauted are 
all right; the late planted will be a very light crop owing 
PUTTING A HOG IN A WAGON. Fig. 370. See Page 789 
to rot. I shall not harvest from the field—rather low land 
—half a crop. There seems to be a demand for a better 
potato, and many are trying new kinds. Early Rose, 
Early Beauty of Hebron, White Star and Burbank are 
mostly plauted for the main crop, with a few Brooks, and 
for earliest, some Pearl of Savoy. We hope with these new 
varieties to raise fine crops next season. 
Merrimack County, N. H. HATTIE B. COLBY. 
When to Dig Potatoes. 
The present season I lost a part of my crop of potatoes 
by rot. A few which were dug before the blight struck 
them were entirely sound and remained so. When I found 
the rot had begun, I decided not to dig until the tubers 
had done rotting. I think that the safer practice, as there 
will then be little danger of their rotting after they have 
been dug. [We would call special attention to l)r. Hal- 
sted’s article on this subject in last week’s Rural.—Eds ] 
Usually, however, it is best to dig and sell as soon as the 
crop is fit to market. The risk of loss is less, aud the 
fields are kept cleaner. After the potato tops have died, 
weeds grow and seed rapidly, and the fields become foul. 
I plauted three quarters of au acre with seed which had be¬ 
gun to grow considerably. The lot was a failure, yielding 
less than 50 bushels. A waste of labor and fertilizer is 
caused by using such seed. M. MORSE. 
Norfolk County, Mass. 
Plan for Next Year Now. 
If you have been entirely successful in every branch of 
your farming this year, then you have no excuse to take 
thought for the next; but if you have not; if you have 
had hard work to get through ; if money has been scarce ; 
if you have felt that all the time there has been a load 
upon your shoulders which you could not lift off ; now is 
the time to plan for next year. But before we begin let us 
look back and see how wo have been doing—the retrospect 
may help us to decide what to do. Can we say that each 
farming operation has been the result of thought and plan 
or have we done things just because we were accustomed to 
do them ? If we have, our farming has not beeu the suc¬ 
cess it might have been. Look at the successful merchant. 
He has his whole business almost constantly in his mind. 
Every department receives his earnest thought, and before 
he makes a new venture every side of it 
is thoroughly investigated, and he takes 
weeks and maybe months to decide. On 
the other hand, we buy a certain brand of 
fertilizer because a smooth-tongued agent 
has come to our farm, and we put this or 
that field in corn with as little thought as 
we take to decide on what day we shall go 
to town. Can we wonder that we are still 
under the harrow ? 
A neighbor was telling me, not long ago, 
how he had ouce treated a part of his 
potato field, and in reply to my questions 
as to whether his treatment had been of 
any benefit, he said he was in such a hurry 
that fall that he did not take time to look. 
He is now over 70 years old and is still 
•‘hurrying.’’ Now if we don’t want to be 
compelled to hurry all the rest of our lives 
(there is a great difference between being 
compelled to hurry and hurrying of our 
own free will), we must stop and think. 
Why do we grow this or that crop ? Is it 
because it really pays, or because we have 
been in the habit of growing it ? Why do 
we raise just so much stock each year ? Is 
it because it is all we can profitably raise or 
because we have always raised just so 
much ? And so we might go on through all 
the list of farming operations, asking ourselves whether 
we are doing them because they pay or because we have 
always been doing them. Let us begin now to plan for 
next year; let us give each operation not ouly thought but 
plenty of it, and do nothing until we are satisfied that, so 
far as we cau know, it is the best thing to bo done, and if 
we do this I think next year will be a successful one. 
Baltimore County, Md. P. B. crosby. 
Giving Value to Worthless Apples. 
This year the man who has a good crop of any sort of 
apples is lucky, , aud should try to get the most out of 
them. There are thousands of farmers who have from 5 
to 100 bushels that are not worth much except for making 
cider or drying, and few are able to buy an evaporator, or 
if they are, few have time to take sufficient care of it to 
produce good evaporated fruit. This fall I found myself 
with about 100 bushels of dryiDg apples, worth about 30 
cents per bushel delivered five miles from my place. As 
evaporated fruit will bring two or three times as much as 
sun-dried, I hit upon the following way o^ 
drying mine: I bought some galvanized 
wire netting, such as is used for evapora¬ 
tors, and made some trays 20 inches by 2 
feet, using three quarter-inch hard wood for 
the frames and tacking the wire on one 
side with eight-ounce carpet tacks. The 
trays cost 40 cents each for the wire, aud I 
put them together myself. Then, with 
hard wood about au inch square and two 
feet long I made a frame to hold the trays 
—six of them—a galvanized iron strip being 
nailed on each side of the frame inside, so 
that the trays could slide in and out on 
them. I drove a wire spike into each corner 
to support it, so as to prevent the wood 
from burning. We have a common “• Good 
Luck ” range, and I can set the frame on 
the back of it and we can cook over the two 
front holes. I made of half-inch pine a box 
large enough to hold the tray so as to 
bleach the fruit, using common sulphur 
for the purpose. I bought a small 50 cent machine for 
paring, coring and slicing the apples. With this outfit we 
can evaporate from 8 to 10 bushels per week. I pare in the 
evenings and my wife takes care of them during the day. 
All who see my evaporated fruit say I have as nice a lot as 
any they ever saw. My apples are quite small, but I get 
about five pounds of dried fruit to the bushel, which, at 
the market prices, will bring from 14 to 16 cents per pound, 
or about 75 cents per bushel, which I think quite a good 
remuneration. The whole thing cost about $3, besides my 
time in making it, and that was not worth much, as I 
made it in rainy weather. c. L. BRAY. 
Oxford County, Me. 
Western New York Farming Still Sure. 
The past season, like several of its predecessors, has not 
been very encouraging for special farming, such as raising 
beans, potatoes, or barley, which, unfortunately, many 
western New York farmers have done. When prices are 
right, and the season favorable, any of these crops are 
profitable ; but when the reverse is the case, as during the 
past season, raising them amounts to almost a calamity. 
My experience is that farmers in this part of the State 
