1905. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
4n 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farm Notes. —The farmers in the valley 
a few miles away are complaining of dry soil, 
and beginning to watch the clouds for rain. 
Watching the clouds is much like watching 
the clock to see if dinner isn't about ready. 
The clock doesn't cook the dinner ! We would 
like some rain, but we are not suffering yet. 
During the past week Jack and Alex put the 
manure around 2,000 or more young trees. 
Each received a good coat about as far out 
as the branches extend. The trees in the 
old field which I know to be sour also received 
a big nundful of lime scattered around in 
and under the manure. Now then, rain or 
no rain, these trees will not suffer. We can 
let them alone for a month and then cut the 
grass and weeds and pile around the trees. 
It was a big and a hard job to haul this 
manure up the steep hillsides. In a wet 
season I would not have done it but the 
chances are that this will be a dry May, and 
I intend to hold all the moisture I can around 
those young trees. They are shaking them¬ 
selves and beginning to justify our method of 
planting, and they shall have a fair chance. 
The grass is backward—these dry cold winds 
have kept it down, but the clover grows every 
hour. It used to be a great surprise to the 
children that the clover should jump up head 
and shoulders above the grass in a dry sea¬ 
son. It was easy to understand it when I 
pulled clover and grass up and showed them 
how the roots of the former are deep in the 
soil, while those of the latter are near the 
surface. We know that we always find water 
when we dig for it in the earth. The old 
well, dug into the rock, went dry in dry 
Summers, but our drilled well, more than 
twice as deep, never goes dry. The children 
see this, and they also see the point when 
I pull up one of the Striugfellow root- 
pruned trees, and they see the tap roots 
going straight down, while the trees planted 
with long roots in a big hole have no such 
deep rooting. They see this with their own 
eyes, and understand it. When I under¬ 
take to tell them that the years of youth 
are like the rooting of a young tree, and 
that the habit of digging down into the 
root of things will make a man stand up 
and grow like the clover in a dry season, 
they can't get the truth of it. No one but a 
man with his root system well set can ap¬ 
preciate that at its best, and he will sel¬ 
dom root-prune his own habits. Philip has 
weeded the onions for transplanting. As I 
have often stated, the seed is sown thickly 
in drills and kept clean of weeds until 
the fine for planting. This early weeding 
and the labor of setting out the plants is 
less than the weeding required for the 
drilled onions. Last year we had some 
trouble with blight or wilt in the hotbed. 
This year Philip took soil from the bottom 
of an old manure pile, and mixed it with 
ashes and soil from under a big brush 
fire This seems to have been just what the 
onion plants wanted. In consequence of 
the dry weather the rye is shorter than 
usual this year, but about May 15 it will 
be cut for' borse fodder and the stubble 
plowed under for late potatoes. We have 
one small field at the lower part of the farm 
where potatoes and rye will alternate year 
after year, unless there is too much scab. 
As soon as the potatoes are dug we seed to 
rye. This makes a fair growth and can be 
cut the middle of May, and the stubble 
plowed for potatoes, using fertilizer on that, 
crop. My idea is that a fruit grower or 
gardener must crowd his land and, if pos¬ 
sible, make it produce money crops and also 
a share of his stock food. I hope things 
(I will not now say (/real) from the Alfalfa. 
The stand is thickening up every day. but the 
little plants which have started this year 
are light-colored. They need moisture—and 
probably nitrogen. The larger plants could 
hardly be better—dark green in color and 
with the roots well covered with nodules. 
Fruit Matters. — I could not ask for a 
better start with the fruit. The older aj>- 
ple trees are covered with bloom, and the 
older peach trees have set a fair quantity 
of fruit. The pears are well loaded, and 
the cherries had just the right sort of wea-. 
ther at blooming time. So far as I can' 
see we did not lose a single strawberry 
plant in setting this Spring, and the Mar¬ 
shalls look as though they are prepared to 
give a load of fruit. Of course we need 
moisture, but if we don't get rain we will 
do the best we can with cultivation and 
mulch. I have bought sulphate of copper 
and Paris-green, and as soon as the blos¬ 
soms fall and the little apples begin to 
turn down we will put the spray on the 
apple trees. This Is a job that nobody at 
Hope Farm hankers after, but it must be 
done if we are to have good fruit to sell. 
Four years ago we top-worked a number 
of seedling apple trees with such varieties 
as Grimes Golden. Ensee and other good 
ones. They gave a few apples the second 
year after grafting, more last year, and this 
year there is nearly a full bloom. In some 
cases the old tree was cut off at the main 
stem, while in others half was taken at a 
time. I have been skeptical about the wis¬ 
dom of trying to save these old trees, but 
these promise so well that I feel inclined 
to try others. The orchard where the hogs 
have run for the last two years is a mar¬ 
vel for vigor. 'I he more T see of the work 
of the hog in a high-headed orchard the 
more I think of the hog. I doubt the wis¬ 
dom of putting hogs in a young or low¬ 
headed orchard, and I know it will not pay 
to put them in any orchard and starve them, 
keep them from water or not supply them 
with wood ashes or bone. 
Hex Notes. —As nearly as I can figure 
our hens have earned about $1.15 each since 
•Tan. 1. This includes eggs sold, chicks 
batched, eggs eaten and two roosters eaten. 
I expect them to double that record before 
the year is out. The cost of feeding a ben 
one year will run from 80 cents to a dollar. 
Emnia gave our hen department a good 
start, and we shall develop it. We have 
about 75 little chicks out, with several hens 
and the incubator still to talk up. Jack 
has fenced off a good slice of the orchard 
near the house, and the hens run in this 
large yard. Our flock is a mixture of White 
Leghorn and White Wyandotte. The Leg¬ 
horns are the better layers, but the Wyan- 
dottes are more contented, stay inside a low 
fence and are excellent sitters. Jack is try¬ 
ing some eggs of Brown Leghorn. The 
Browns seem to be hardier than the Whites, 
better mothers and broilers, and as good 
or better layers, though the eggs are smaller. 
We have room at Hope Farm for a good 
flock of 300 hens if they can be well cared 
for. We have used a good many eggs from 
our own llock for hatching. The (lock is 
mixed, yet the best of the hens are good 
layers. Out of 20 eggs two hens hatched 
24 chicks, which tells the story of vitality 
in italics. A big black and white rooster 
appeared with the flock one day and went 
into the yard with the hens. I do not 
know where he came from, or why he de¬ 
serted his former family, but he whipped all 
our roosters until they ran for cover. While 
I am a man of peace, I must admit that 
such spirit is good in the pedigree of chick¬ 
ens. I want some of that old fellow’s daugh¬ 
ters for next year's laying hens. 1 can stand 
their color if they carry his hustling quali¬ 
ties. Jack and I have thought of starting a 
small flock of turkeys. Eggs for batching 
cost 35 and 40 cents each ! We have de¬ 
cided to buy young birds, letting some one 
else do the hatching. 
Lazy Max’s Orchardixg. —A Massachu¬ 
setts man. asks this question : 
“I have an orchard of apple, pear and 
peach trees, set three years ago. Will you 
tell me how to keep the trees growing to 
the best advantage, with the minimum 
amount of labor and fertilizer? I do not 
wish to plant the land. w. c. c.” 
I head this “lazy man’s orcharding" be¬ 
cause my own plan has been so called. A 
young tree will not make good growth un¬ 
less it is well fed, kept free of grass close 
around the trunk, well supplied with mois¬ 
ture, and the roots so placed that they 
obtain a fair supply of air. Thorough culti¬ 
vation. where (he upper soil is kept con¬ 
stantly stirred, with the use of fertilizers or 
manure, supplies all these conditions—some 
of them, as I think, to excess. It is not 
possible for all of us to give this thorough 
cultivation. I cannot, and it does not follow 
that one is lazy if he finds it better econ¬ 
omy to hunt tip a substitute for this con¬ 
stant culture. I should want to start first 
with close root-pruned trees, and plant them 
in small holes. I feel very sure that this 
gives me a tree better able to withstand 
drought, because it has a deeper rooting sys¬ 
tem. The chief object of cultivation is to 
prevent the escape of moisture—the culti¬ 
vated part of the upper soij acting as a 
“dust mulch" to prevent the evaporation 
of water. In my own experience a “mulch’’ 
on top of the ground is practically as useful 
for this purpose as the cultivated soil. By a 
mulch I mean any material, such as hay. 
straw, manure, brush, even old boards or 
paper that will shade the soil and not per¬ 
mit the soil moisture to pass through it. 
I have put pieces of old carpet or fertilizer 
sacks on the ground around young trees, 
thrown dirt over them to hold them down, 
and thus kept the soil cool and moist all 
through the Summer. It is much less labor 
to put a good mulch around the young tree 
and let it stay there than to cultivate five 
or -six times during the season. We have 
just finished an orchard of about 400 peach 
trees set last year in sod. Each tree had 
about 15 pounds of good manure put around 
the base on top of the old last year’s mulch. 
Nothing else will be done to that orchard 
until the grass is about 15 inches high. 
Then it will be cut with the mower, part 
thrown around the trees, and the rest left 
on the ground. If at this time the trees 
seem to be growing too fast we shall scat¬ 
ter around each one a little over a pound 
of a mixture of three parts acid phosphate 
and one part muriate of potash. The grass 
will be cut three times or more. We hap¬ 
pened have the manure this year. If we 
had not had it we should have hoed out a 
circle about two feet in diameter about, each 
tree, and used 1 V> pound of some good 
fertilizer containing nitrogen. As the grass 
grew, it would lie cut and piled around the 
tree. The object of the hoeing is to keep the 
grass from growing close to the trunk. With 
this early cleaning, a fair amount of solu¬ 
ble fertilizer scattered out as far as the 
branches extend, and the soil about them 
shaded by a good mulch, your trees will make 
a fair growth. Of course pruning and spray¬ 
ing will cost as much with the mulched 
trees as with the others, but I have found 
that a good man with hoe and scythe used 
at just the right time will prettv nearly take 
the place of a team of horses In caring for 
an orchard ! it. w. c. 
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Killer saved $5.00 in fowls. 
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p|S8 
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GOOD POTATOES ' 
BRING FANCY PRICES 
To grow a large crop of good potatoes, the 
soil must contain plenty of Potash. 
Tomatoes, melons, cabbage, turnips, lettuce 
—in fact, all vegetables remove large quanti¬ 
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\ 
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