1905. 
T1IE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
491 
Hope Farm Notes 
A Run of Luck. —Genevieve, the cow, died 
after all. We got her pretty well over the 
milk fever, hut pneumonia followed, and she 
could not rally. I did not intend to raise 
the calf, hut when her mother died I felt that 
I would like to have some living remembrance 
of her. So we are trying to bring up the lit¬ 
tle thing. We are short of skim-milk, with 
so many little human calves to feed, and it 
became a problem as to what to do. I cooked 
oatmeal and mixed it with the little skimmed 
milk we could spare and with an occasional 
raw egg kept the little orphan going. We 
now have a package of “calf meal." Philip 
thinks this smells like a combination of 
“slippery elm and fertilizer,’’ but the calf 
takes to It, and thus far it has taken to the 
calf. I fed a little that was left to the small 
pigs and they nearly stood on their heads 
in their eagerness to wring the last drop out 
of the trough. It is as hard to make a good 
calf without milk as it is to make a good 
custard of water, starch and sugar, but we 
shall do our best with this one. We were 
not over the grief at poor Genevieve's death 
when Frank, the faithful old work horse, was 
stricken. lie dropped his head and went 
down, literally falling in harness, for he was 
in the field when the attack came. We made 
him comfortable and sent for the vet. I 
went myself this time, and it seemed as if 
every auto in the country puffed and whizzed 
around Nellie Bly. I left Mother at prayer 
meeting on my way, and waited for her on 
my way home. When we got there a light in 
the barn showed that the doctor had come. 
The old horse was very sick with inflamma¬ 
tion of the bladder. We put hot bandages 
and mild blisters on him, gave him medicines 
and stayed by him as best we could, but on 
Sunday morning the poor fellow lay dead. 
The doctor was afraid for him from the first, 
lie cannot, tell what brought the trouble on. 
After seeing poor Frank suffer as he did I am 
glad the disease is rare. When I opened the 
box stall early Sunday morning and saw that 
faithful brute stretched out in his last sleep 
I knew just how people have felt before me 
when they saw the motive power of the farm 
still forever. I am not specially fond of a 
horse either. I have been up against some 
hard blows in my life, and have lived down 
many disappointments, but at that moment 1 
wished I was 40 or 30 years younger—at an 
age when one may show grief or joy in a nat¬ 
ural way! Many a man who reads these 
lines who has worked with his horse and 
learned to know him in silent, lonely places 
will know what I mean. It was like the 
passing away of a member of the family to 
lose old Frank. One of his shoes will be 
nailed over the door, iie did his duty as 
well as lie could. He was big and heavy and 
clumsy on his feet, but he had horse sense, 
and that is like “good character” in a man. 
I do not want another horse shaped like him. 
but I shall go far before I find his true and 
faithful honesty. We are now left without a 
team. 
“Luck seems to be against you !” 
No, I will not say that; we are having a 
good bunch of trouble all around just now. 
Some people seem to get it in bunches, but 
the average will come out right. 
Rad and Good. —We have been disappointed 
in our pepper plants. They were shipped 
properly, but have gone astray somewhere. 
The express companies are sometimes enough 
to make a peaceful man want to light. I can¬ 
not well explain how the loss of these plants 
has upset our plans. We shall have to plant 
more bush Limas. The maggots too have 
done great damage to the onions. They never 
troubled us so much. I hear reports of sim¬ 
ilar loss from all over. The emulsion of soap 
and carbolic acid will get the maggots, but 
it seems only useful on a small scale for lack 
of any way to put it on rapidly. Our onion 
crop will be short. The grass also promises 
to be short. On the other hand, our young 
orchards never looked better. The trees are 
making a beautiful growth. The dry weather 
which killed some of our little peach trees on 
top of the hill lias been just the tiling for 
the apple and pear trees planted In the low 
wet field at the lower part of the farm. 
They have all started well. Had it been a 
wet season many of them would have quit 
early. We never had a better outlook for 
apple and peach, and never sprayed the 
apples so thoroughly. Then the chicken de¬ 
partment never was quite so promising. The 
hens lay well, and while the lice have fin¬ 
ished some of tlie little chicks we are learn¬ 
ing how to finish the lice. As for straw¬ 
berries, when you can eat Marshalls as large 
as an Astrachan apple, crimson all the way 
through, and fragrant as a bouquet, who can 
find fault with “luck" for which we were not 
responsible? I confess that I felt a little 
“blue” one night when things all seemed to 
have stopped wagging their tails and bared 
their teeth. I sat in the darkness thinking 
if I hadn’t better start in and scold several 
people. The little girl had learned to play a 
new tune. She came and climbed on my knee 
and asked : 
“Oh, Father, would you like to hear me 
play ’Yield Not to Temptation?’” 
Of course I wanted to hear it! I suggest 
that those who come in from failure and loss 
feeling as if they would like to scold and 
whip innocent ones hunt up the hymn and 
read it over before they carry out. their plan. 
You see nine out of 10 people want to talk 
about and broadcast the evil or sorrow that 
comes in their way. That is why there is so 
much of it in the world. Let us join the 10 
per cent who bury their sorrow and talk 
about their blessings. 
Parasites. —You may think I break my 
own rule when 1 give another commission 
return on Florida potatoes, but I don't give 
it simply to complain. Here it is: 
Four barrels potatoes at $1.50. $G.OO 
Commission .GO 
Cartage .24 
Freight . 3.12—3.9G 
$2.04 
This is only one small shipment, but it 
will illustrate what I have in mind. The 
railroads make sure of their charges, no mat¬ 
ter what happens to producer and consumer. 
The farmer may (ind his returns cut down 
to one-third, but the railroads get full price. 
Last year potatoes which bring us $1.50 now 
sold at $3.75. The railroads charged as much 
for carrying the low-priced potatoes as they 
did for the others. If they say that their ex¬ 
penses for running the road were just as high 
I answer, so were the farmer’s expenses. 
In fact, they were higher, since feed, ferti¬ 
lizer and some other things cost more. As a 
matter of justice, it is hard to see why the 
income of the railroad should be held up to 
the top notch, while this very high price may 
mean ruin to the farmer. 
The railroads seem to be bent on killing 
the goose before its golden egg is fully laid. 
In some parts of the South the railroads in¬ 
duced northern people to settle and grow 
berries or truck. As they were promised 
prompt shipment and all the iced cars they 
needed many good people invested all they 
had and what they could reasonably borrow 
in strawberry culture. They had a tine crop, 
but when picking time came the railroads 
simply left them to ruin. Where 20 cars 
were called for eight or 10 would be sent. 
Files of crated berries as large as houses 
were piled up along the tracks to rot and turn 
to a red drip in the sun. The crimson ooze 
that fell from those crates was the true life 
blood squeezed out of hopeful hearts by the 
greed and carelessness of the railroads and ice 
car men. They will simply ruin the fruit and 
trucking interests of the South by such busi¬ 
ness. One would think they would see that 
It is to their permanent Interest to accommo¬ 
date people and help them get started. This 
would increase business. But my observation 
is that these railroads and express companies 
are after what there is in it to-day, regardless 
of tiie future or of the shipper’s feelings. 
You may have observed white objects growing 
on the backs of the great green tomato 
worms. They are parasites, creatures which 
live on the worms and slowly eat them up. 
The eggs are laid on the worm’s back. After 
hatching the parasites eat into the worm and 
devour the fatty tissue. Yet these hateful 
creatures have an instinct which teaches 
them not to touch any vital organ of the 
worm. They seem to know that if they de¬ 
stroyed the heart or other organs the worm 
would die and thus they would lose the 
chance to feed. So they merely eat the fatty 
tissue, and the worm lives on for their ben¬ 
efit. It seems to me that some of these “com¬ 
mon carriers” have less Instinct than these 
parasites. They will not even give the ship¬ 
pers a chance to live. They seem willing to 
attack and destroy the very heart of the 
business they have induced men to enter, 
while the parasite' knows enough to let the 
worm live at least. No one need wonder that 
country people will demand legislation of 
some sort to regulate railroads. If the rail¬ 
road men keep on they will get a worse deal 
than they deserve! 
Farm Questions.—(A Kentucky man wants 
to know about oats : 
“Which is the best way to dispose of an oat 
crop, to two-year-old steers: allow them to 
get ripe and cut with a self-binder, or cut 
them with a mowing machine, and make oat 
hay? I would like to know the proper time 
to cut oats to make oat hay of the best qual¬ 
ity. I have good results by feeding two bun¬ 
dles of oats per day to each steer in connec¬ 
tion with what clover hay they want. Of 
course I do not expect to fatten on this ra¬ 
tion to any great extent.” B. a. v. 
I have never fed steers. There is only one 
steer that I know of in this township. For 
cow feed I have found it best, to cut the oats 
early and make lia.v. That is what I shall do 
this year. We cut as soon as we can after 
we find the first heads with grains so that 
they crush into a milky fluid between the fin¬ 
ger nails. The oats are cut like other grass, 
and cured in cocks Tike clover hay. T am 
quite sure that an average animal will get 
more food out of the oat plant handled In 
this way than out of the mature grain and 
the hard straw. When cut with a self-binder 
the crop is easier to handle and feed out. 
My experience is not worth much, as it is on 
a small scale, and I place no value whatever 
upon any theory I might have. 
Another man in Maryland asks this ques¬ 
tion : 
“Can Dwarf Essex rape lie cut and cured 
like clover or hay? If so, how and when? 
Will It hurt cattle or sheep to turn them Into 
rape field from grass field?” c. c. s. 
No, you cannot cure rape into hay. It 
would only make a moldy mass like rotten 
turnips. The only value 1 have found in rape 
is as a green pasture or for plowing under. 
It is so good for these purposes that we can 
overlook its weak features. Be very careful 
about turning stock into a rape field for the 
first time. They will eat so much of it that 
they will bloat. Begin an hour at a time, 
then turn them out and let them stay a little 
longer the next day, and so on. I have not 
found this trouble with hogs. Man has 
given the hog a name which stands for greed¬ 
iness, but Nature has deprived him of the 
three extra stomachs which she gave the 
sheep and the cow. These animals sometimes 
commit suicide with capacity for a weapon, 
stuffing their larger stomachs full. If the 
hog had been given the four stomachs of the 
cow and also hisjiresent desire to stuff there 
would be no pork in the world to-day. 
H. W. C. 
Are You a Dairy Farmer, 
a Grain Farmer, a Stock 
Farmer, or a General 
Farmer? 
It doesn’t make any difference 
what kind of a farmer you are, 
your farm, your barn and your 
work is different from that of 
your neighbor. If you buy a 
power to do your work, you 
will find that to use that power 
profitably will take a different 
arrangement from any you have 
ever seen on any other farm. 
Instead of buying an engine and 
then finding that it won’t do your 
work, why not take up the 
whole question with Fairbanks 
Farm Power Men? It won’t cost 
you anything to have them solve 
your problem, to show you how 
to use your power so it will 
make money for you. Write 
for their free book on “Farm 
Power” and tell them about 
your farm. See what they have 
to say to you. Just address, 
FAIRBANKS FARM POWER MEN, 
The Fairbanks Co., New York. 
Scales, truck *, valves a”d fittings, ga r and 
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When you write advertisers mention The 
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The Latest 1’rodm t of the SJOtli Century. 
The Air-Cooled Lumping Gasoline Engine. 
Just what 
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for Sawing 
Wood, 
Churning. 
Running 
Cream 
Separator. 
No Water 
to freeze. 
Gasoline 
in the base. 
Made in U*s 
and 2'u H. 
F. Either 
plain or 
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gear. 
Write for 
price. 
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& Co., 
Bingham¬ 
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York. 
COLUMBUS 
Gas and Gasoline 
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Simple, effective, 
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adjusted. 
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Columbus, Ohio. 
Send for catalogue 
No. G2. 
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We are the largest manufac¬ 
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Tire Steel Farm Wagon 
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Grooved Tire Wheels to 
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HAVANA METAL WHEEL CO. 
*# BOX 17 HAVANA.HL. 
IT DOES THE TRICK! specialI 
[ATOIS 
A5PINWALL SPRAYER 
GREATLY IMPROVED FOR 1905. 
Especially designed for handling Bor¬ 
deaux and other heavy mixtures 
used in spraying for blight. 
HIGH-PRESSURE PUMP 
Brass-lined Cylinder, 
Brass-ball Valves. 
Syphon airitator constantly in motion in 
mires an even Holution of mixtures and 
prevents clogging of screen. 
Bugs Destroyed & Blight & Rot Prevented. 
Fifty-eight tests conducted bythoNew 
York agricultural departmentin 1U04 show¬ 
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per acre on sprayed llehls as compared 
with uiisprayecl. We are the only concern 
In the world making a complete line of 
potato machinery consisting of Cutters, 
Planters, Sprayers, Diggers and Sorters. 
Write for our free Catalogue . 
Aspinwall Manufacturing Co., 
67 Sabin St., Jackson, Mich., U. S. A. 
'Phis axle runs easier than any other, and requires 
no attention, It’s n, VUonclor.” 
STANDARD BALL AXLE WORKS,LANCASTER, PA. 
THE POTATO CROP, 
large or small, is best 
harvested with 
tho Improved 
DOW DEN 
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• them all, fast, cleanand un- 
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Goodhue 
Wind 
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Our hand¬ 
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INDESTRUCTIBLE 
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It gives much valuable and practical Informa¬ 
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APPLETON MFG. CO. 
27 FARGO ST. BATAVIA, ILL. 
BUCKEYE 
WalkingCultivator 
In Modern Farming 
r J machinery has an importance that cannot 
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22 Canal St., Springfield, Ohio. 
CUTAWAY TOOLS FOR LARGE HAY CROPS. 
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All these machines wl 11 kill witch- 
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[CUTAWAY HAKKOY7 CO.,I 
lliggauuni, Conn., U. S. A. 
