1905. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
523 
Hope Farm Notes 
Help Wanted. —The following letter 
doesn't seem to need much of an introduc¬ 
tion : 
"Please state in your Hope Farm Notes 
next week that I have found a man for my 
farm. (I haven't really got one for sure 
yet, but that don't matter.) Tell them any¬ 
thing, only be sure to make them clearly 
understand that I am not in need of anyone. 
I have had letters from all kinds of folks, 
young and old, married and single, and, I 
should guess, rich and poor, all wanting to 
raise chickens for me. One man uses printed 
stationery that announces that he is the pro¬ 
prietor of a Michigan fruit farm. He is 
doing well, hut it is too cold there ! Whew ! 
I guess he wouldn't think it very hot if he 
were here some morning when the ther¬ 
mometer goes 20 or 30 below zero. Another 
is a city man who earns a good salary; but 
he spends it all. Wonder if he couldn’t 
spend half the income of a little chicken 
farm? The next is a young single man 
without financial means, hut he has a 
“classical college education.” I am afraid 
that, like the “piper’s cow,” the chickens 
would not be satisfied if he talked Latin to 
them, but failed to throw out the feed. Then 
I have heard from a first-class architect and 
builder, who would not care to feed the hens 
or' clean out the roosts, but he can build 
beautiful hen coops and having read “The 
Business Hen” could tell the hired help all 
about it. The trouble with these people in 
the first place is that they either did not half 
read what you wrote about my place, or they 
did not remember it. long enough to write 
me. One man even addressed me as “Mr. 
j Grant Morse, Proprietor Hope Farm." He 
had the idea that I wanted to rent him 
Hope Farm, and another resented the fact 
that when he wrote to you for my address, 
you tried to hire him, when you distinctly 
said that you should try to catch the first 
man ” J. GRANT MORSE. 
It will be remembered that on page 459 
I printed a letter from Mr. Morse in which 
he called for a good family to take one of 
his farms. At this season of the year most 
capable people are busy, and do not need 
jobs. Desirable men really have the advan¬ 
tage in any deal with a farmer, for as things 
are now the good man calls forth greater 
competition than the good job. Some of the 
people that have written Mr. Morse would 
make good helpers after they had learned 
how, but they would not like to pay for 
their own experience. The man with the 
classical education might find his Latin and 
Greek useful in expressing his feelings when 
the eggs spoiled in the incubators, or the 
chicks began to droop and die, but I cannot 
think of any other value they would have 
in the hen business. I can readily see that 
a city man might spend every cent of a 
good salary and actually save money on one- 
third of the sum in the country. It would 
be a good thing for the world if some of 
these city workers could be trained to do 
useful work on the farm. One trouble Is 
that most of them seem to feel that the farm¬ 
er should pay for their training! Yet they 
would not expect that of a carpenter or a 
merchant! We have partly solved our help 
problem by importing a colored girl from 
Florida. 
Atx Sorts. —The weather held farm work 
up by (lie throat—or tried to—the third week 
in June. We had a succession of thunder¬ 
storms. While the rain was not falling a 
thick fog settled on the hills, and made life 
as sticky as a postage stamp on a poli¬ 
tician’s back. We had two fields of clover 
that needed cutting, but it was no time to 
put it down. So we let it stand. The 
cherries were ripening. We filled some or¬ 
ders, but the fog settled the rest, for rot 
swept over the trees in a short time. The 
strawberries in matted rows turned soft and 
“mushy.” It was a bad week, though not so 
bad as we usually have at this season. We 
were able to get the strawberries and pota¬ 
toes hoed, and all this moisture helps the 
grass. . . . Our haying will be late after 
all. During the drought the grass made but 
a short growth. Now it is climbing up, and 
I am disposed to let it go and get some size 
before cutting. . . . The little calf which 
we have set out to raise in memory of poor 
Genevieve is having her trials like the rest 
of us. This thing of raising a calf with 
little or no milk is hard on the calf. We 
feed “calf meal” according to directions, and 
have the little thing so that it will nibble 
oats. For a time I thought it could not get 
through, but now it is doing better, and is 
making fair growth. While it: may be possible 
to produce a good calf without milk, it is 
not what you can call an easy job, and I 
feel sorry for the calf. ... I have a 
cow that has developed a remarkable taste 
for apples. Turn her into the Baldwin 
orchard and she will leave the finest of 
White clover and grass to tear the trees 
down. She reaches up to the lower limbs, 
and strips them clean of green fruit. Put 
her in the high-headed orchard, where she 
cannot reach the limbs, and she spends her 
time hunting for windfalls. She gives a good 
flow of milk, but has this craving for apples. 
You might call her a regular member of the 
Apple Consumers’ League in good standing. 
Perhaps she got hold of a paper containing 
an account of the league and swallowed it! 
If this is what an apple-eating argument 
leads to in my own family it may be time to 
pause. . . . The other night a neighbor 
brought in some samples of muck out of a 
swamp. I always try to keep a package of 
litmus paper on hand to test soils for acid. 
To those who have never used this paper 
I will say that it is stained blue with a ma¬ 
terial which is very sensitive to acid. When 
this blue paper touches anything that is 
sour the color changes to pink or red. It 
was interesting to see how the color changed 
when the paper was put into that muck, 
even for a short time. To haul that muck 
right out of the swamp and put it on the 
land would prove an Injury. Most of the 
soil in our locality is sour anyway. Yet 
if lime were used with the muck it will help 
the soil. I hope, during late July and Aug¬ 
ust, to have a good many loads of muck 
hauled from the swamp and thrown around 
the apple trees. As this is done lime enough 
to make the pile quite white will be scat¬ 
tered over it. Our swamps and low places 
ought to be the richest parts of the farm, 
for the fertility of the hills has been carried 
there. It is not such a bad thing that the 
muck is sour and inert, for otherwise it 
might have all been lost to us. It is locked 
up for safe keeping. Lime will help us un¬ 
lock it. Litmus paper is handy to have 
about. It pays to pick out the sour things 
and sweeten them up. . . . Not a day 
passes that we do not miss old Frank. I am 
sorry to go into the barn and not see his 
honest old face looking out from the stall. 
It will be hard to fill his place. I have 
bought a brown mare, Madge. She is faith¬ 
ful and true, and has far more speed on the 
road than Frank ever dreamed of, but when¬ 
ever there is a big load to be hauled up our 
hill we shall miss Frank's big shoulders. 
Florida Matters. —-A Florida reader does 
not like my statement about the potato crop. 
He says: 
“In your issue of June 10 the Hope Farm 
man gives his experience with his Florida 
potato crop. I enclose a few bills of sale 
from one of my neighbors to show you that 
there is money in early potatoes if you have 
the land. He planted eight barrels and 
shipped 136 barrels. The first two barrels 
sold for $8.50 each. Potatoes grown on our 
muck land always bring the top prices in 
the market.” f. v. 
West Apopka, Fla. 
I give copies of two of the bills. Here 
is the best one, dated April 19: 
4 barrels potatoes @ $7.00. $28.00 
Freight . $4.24 
Cartage .20 
Commission . 2.80 
r.24 
$20.76 
Here is another, dated April 22 : 
4 barrels potatoes @ $4.50. $18.50 
Freight . $4.16 
Commission . 1 85 
- 6.01 
$12.49 
I give a copy of the bill, though I don’t 
see how the commission man figures it 
$18.50. That is his lookout. You see it 
makes a great difference when you get your 
potatoes into market early. A few days will 
make a wonderful difference in the price. 
All I can say is that this man beats me out 
of sight. It didn’t cost any more to carry 
the $7 barrel than those I sold for $1.50. 
There may have been a few potato growers 
who made money this year, but I am sure 
the great majority ran a poor crop against 
low prices. We now have our potato ground 
planted to sweet potatoes or sown to cow 
peas for hay. 
I have had a letter from a well-known 
New York farmer who has spent several 
Winters in Florida. Among other things, 
he says: 
“There is no question in regard to the cli¬ 
mate of central Florida for consumptives, or 
for people who have got past the cremation 
period. I think there is no class of elderly 
people that the Florida climate will do more 
good than farmers. Then the expense is not 
so great. A man and his wife can spend 
three months in the town where I stop in 
the Winter and pay all expenses from the 
time they leave home in western New York 
until their return for $200, and if they shut 
up their house at home they will save half 
of that.” 
I find that there are quite a good many 
elderly farmers who ask about a Winter in 
Florida. I feel sure that most of them 
would renew at least a good share of their 
youth if they could skip a few blizzards and 
get down into the mild air of the South. 
They would not want to stay there all the 
year, and they must remember that Florida 
is a poor place for an elderly man who ex¬ 
pects to work his way. A man who ex¬ 
pects to get much good out of a Florida 
Winter must be prepared to go there as a 
loafer and take things easy. The northern 
visitor will find Florida a good place to spend 
money, but not much of a place to earn it. 
II. w. c. 
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7 - 
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