1905. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKE^ 
699 
Hope Farm Notes 
Fruit Notes. —The chief thing wrong 
about our peach crop was that it was too 
short. There wasn't enough to go around. 
Every customer we had wanted more. We 
could have sold five times as many within 
five miles of the farm. The peaches were ex¬ 
cellent—high colored and good size. T he 
large size of some varieties, like Elberta and 
Carman, surprised me, as it seems to have 
been decided that whatever else we may say 
of sod culture the fruit is smaller than where 
the trees are thoroughly cultivated. I don't 
believe that any longer for I have the goods 
which disprove it. We have big apples, 
peaches and pears on trees which have not 
been cultivated for years. . . . Another 
thing we have which gives me much worry— 
the scale. It is not bad except on one block 
of peach trees, which are well plastered. We 
have just been experimenting with Summer 
or Fall spraying. Under ordinary circum¬ 
stances I do not care to spray while the 
leaves are all on. It is true that you catch 
the scale with its thinnest armor on, but there 
is great danger of hurting the tree. This 
danger is almost an offset to the advantages. 
I would rather wait until the leaves have 
hardened, so that the tree has well finished 
its growth. We have sprayed some 50 peach 
trees in full leaf largely as an experiment. 
We are using several different samples of 
“soluble oils.” It seems that during the 
past year chemists have been at work at¬ 
tempting to make petroleum and kerosene sol¬ 
uble, so that it will mix or dissolve freely 
with water and not injure the foliage. We 
have tried several such mixtures, among 
others one of kerosene and resin. This dis¬ 
solves freely in water, and thus far has not 
hurt the trees seriously, though it is hard on 
the nozzles. I am not prepared to say yet 
how thoroughly it has cleared out the scale. 
I shall use this wash for wiping or scrubbing 
off the trunks and branches of young trees 
which carry more or less scale. In spraying 
with the foliage on I find one objection to 
low-down heads which I had not seriously 
considered before. I have headed some of our 
peach trees within a foot of the ground. It 
is hard to get the spray thoroughly around 
the stems of such trees. In many cases that 
is where the scale gets in its worst work. 
Many young trees will be found fairly crusted 
with scale at the stems, and the low head 
makes it hard to get at them. When the tree 
gets older the stem bark is rough and the in¬ 
sects cannot hurt it so much. On trees where 
the worst work of the insect is at the tops, I 
have cut off the limbs and started a new top 
by painting the stem with kerosene and limoid. 
Where the young stem is well crusted I begin 
to think it wiser to cut the tree down and 
put a new one in its place, and give it better 
care. 
Kerosene and Limoid. — The following 
letter is a fair sample of many : 
“Will 10 per cent K.-L. mixture be as ef¬ 
fective against San .Tost? scale sprayed in Sep¬ 
tember as 20 per cent in the Spring? Will it 
be all right to spray trees in September that 
are affected with scale now? What proportion 
of kerosene would be best to use?” J. o. R. 
If the trees are not very bad I would wait 
until December or Spring, and use a 20 per¬ 
cent mixture of kerosene and limoid. Many 
of my trees will not be sprayed until Decem¬ 
ber, as I do not think they are bad enough 
to warrant it. Others are so bad that I ex¬ 
pect to spray them twice, once with a mix- 
lure as strong as a 10 per cent K.-L. in late 
September, and again in December with a mix¬ 
ture twice as- strong. One object in spraying 
early in Winter is to make sure of the scales. 
You can tell by Spring whether your work 
has been effective, and if any large number of 
live insects are found you can give them an¬ 
other dose. Newer readers should understand 
that K.-L. stands for a mixture of kerosene 
and limoid—the latter being a very fine 
ground lime containing some magnesia. The 
kerosene and limoid are mixed in the form of 
a paste, water added and well churned up, 
and then enough water added to give the 
right proportion. A 10-per-cent K.-L. means 
10 quarts of kerosene and 10 pounds of lime 
with 00 quarts of water, making 100 quarts 
of mixture. Our experience with this K.-L. 
has been fairly satisfactory. I am satisfied 
it saved our oldest peach trees and gave us a 
fair crop, but it did not kill all the scales, 
and some of the trees are still well covered, 
and must be sprayed again. While we can 
keep the scale in check with K.-L. we have 
not cleaned it out by any means. On one 
block of Baldwin apple trees where we used 
K.-L. thoroughly the trees are quite free, 
while some of the fruit shows the scale marks. 
I must say that a Greening orchard where 
we used lime and sulphur has fewer spotted 
apples. 
Disn washing. —The woman who told us 
about washing machines last week asks an¬ 
other question, which I hope will attract some 
housekeeper with a sensible answer. 
“Now I want a little light on another 
household machine—a dish washer. Have 
you folks ever tried one of those, and do 
you recommend it as highly as you do the 
washer? I live on a dairy farm, and spend 
on the whole about one and one-half day 
of every week washing dishes. Do you know 
of a machine that will wash and dry the 
table dishes well without undue breakage!" 
In my younger days I was for a time dish¬ 
washer in a large boarding house. Much ol 
the cooking was done by steam. There was a 
large wooden tank or box in the kitchen, and 
we had steam pipes connected with it. By 
putting racks or shelves in the box and plac¬ 
ing the dishes on them, and then letting in 
steam at high pressure about three-fourths 
of the “dirty work” of dish washing was done 
quickly. A small quantity of kerosene sprayed 
on the dishes helped, and tnere was no trace 
of the oil left. YVe have never tried but one 
dishwasher, and our folks went from that 
back to the old hand method. At the big 
hotels I am told that, they have a sort of 
wire cage in which dishes are set. This cage 
is let down into a dish or tank containing hot 
water and washing powder and whirled 
around. This takes off much of the grease 
and but little hand work is needed—at least 
given. It seems to me that most people use 
water that is too cold, and also the wrong 
kind of soap. Kerosene will certainly heln. 
but housekeepers do not like to use it. Hav¬ 
ing washed a good many acres of dishes m 
my time I know what the job amounts to. 
It is worse than any chore that ever grew 
around a barn. I hope some one will come 
forward with a remedy. 
Cni.TiVATiNG Strawberries. —Any attempt 
to answer the following question will only 
make it clear that facts are often based on 
personal opinion or conditions. 
“I would like to ask if it is practical to 
cultivate a fruiting bed of strawberries in the 
Spring? YVe all know they want all of the 
moisture they can get, but the berries get so 
sandy it spoils their sale unless well bedded 
with mulch, and does it pay?” o. R. l. 
I know good growers who cultivate thor¬ 
oughly up to the very time of picking. They 
usually have rather sandy land, grow the 
varieties that, do best in hill culture, and find 
It hard to obtain good mulching material. 
They get good results. 1 have seen them pick 
the berries. The fruit is not as clean as I 
should like, but it sells well. As I am situ¬ 
ated I would do little If any Spring cultivat¬ 
ing. Our soil is inclined to be heavy, and in 
spite of all we can do the plants run out more 
or less between the rows. YY'e try to give 
thorough culture during the Fall. Just now 
we are working over one patch for the eighth 
time this season. If possible every weed will be 
out of the patch by November, and just be¬ 
fore the ground freezes we shall cover the 
whole surface with straw manure and vines 
of bush Lima beans. This will remain on 
until the plants start in the Spring. Then 
we will help the plants through by raking 
the mulch from over them and let it lie on 
the ground between the rows. In ordinary 
seasons with us this gives the crop moisture 
enough to develop its fruit. In very dry 
seasons, in which weeds come in, we work 
around the plants in the rows with narrow 
hand hoes. It is necessary to get down on 
your knees to do this right, and it pays. 
YY'e doubt the wisdom of giving much Spring 
cultivation to strawberries, or of using fertil¬ 
izer in the Spring. A fair amount of nitro¬ 
gen may pay, but since the fruit buds are 
formed in late Summer and Fall most of the 
fertilizer ought to be used at that time. 
Ale Sorts. —The Alfalfa is still growing. 
It is now nearly three inches high, with a 
good color. The older field is getting thicker. 
On half the space there is now a good stand, 
and I am inclined to let it go, and not plow 
it in the Spring. . . . Our calf that was 
raised without milk is small but strong and 
thrifty. She has good pasture and oats—that 
is all.' For the first month she had an aver¬ 
age of three pints of milk a day, with oat¬ 
meal boiled to a gruel and some calf meal. 
Since the first four weeks she has had no 
milk at all. She had a hard struggle for a 
time, but is now healthy enough for anyone. 
She does not grow large, and we conclude that 
while it is possible to raise a calf without 
milk there is not much profit in it. . . . 
The pigs did poorly in their pen, although 
well fed and kept clean. They did not grow 
as they should. YY'e let them out into the 
orchard and they picked up at once. They 
get their nose into the dirt, eat grass and 
rape, and gnaw at the windfall apples. They 
are now growing like weeds. It is an amus¬ 
ing thing to see a dozen young pullets fol¬ 
lowing each pig about. As the strong snout 
rips through the sod the pullets pounce In 
and often get the worm or grub before the 
pig can get his nose out. . . . The foun¬ 
dation for the new addition to the house is 
laid The mason gave us an example in the 
art of hustling. YY r e had the cellar dug and 
the stones hauled, and then rested. About 
4 o’clock in the afternoon of Labor Day the 
mason drove up to say he would be at work 
early the next morning. There was no sand 
on the place. The roads were full of mud. 
and the sand bank over a mile away, with a 
good hill between. I had celebrated Labor 
Day by working, but states have been lost be¬ 
fore now for the lack of sand, and so we 
hitched up the team and the little boy and I 
hauled the first load before dark. The mason 
had his lime in it by 7 o’clock, and the way 
he put those walls together was a caution to 
younger men and a shame to lazy ones. “YY’e 
didn't come here to play,” he said, “we came 
to work”—and the stones grew together like 
magic. They used a lime mortar and set up 
a wall of stones out from the hank, filling 
in with smaller stones and covering all with 
a good coat of mortar. These stones were 
taken from our old walls—weighing from 40 
to 125 pounds. They make a solid founda¬ 
tion when people know how to put them to¬ 
gether. I have had a number of letters from 
people who ask if the common stone found in 
old walls can Tie used for this purpose. All I 
know is that ours are, and that they have 
given excellent satisfaction. I would not 
have it thought that the whole of New Jer¬ 
sey is covered with big stones. The other 
day a man came to see me wtio lives on a 
farm barely three miles away. It is a level, 
sandy farm with hardly a stone on it. New 
Jersey is built in streaks, like some Jersey- 
men.' It is hardly fair to hit them in one 
streak and think you have touched a fair 
sample of the whole. YY'itli the rapid build¬ 
ing that is going on down in the valley be¬ 
low us I have no doubt that before many 
years our stone walls will bring nearly the 
original price of the farm for building pur¬ 
poses. It is astonishing how society, or the 
crowding of people into certain localities gives 
value to things that were considered nseless 
A man might sit on one of these farms near 
New Y’ork and do nothing—letting good fields 
grow to bramble and weeds. Finally, the 
growth of population will, without any effort 
on his part, double the selling value of bis 
land ! All through our section this revolution 
is going on. For one I am sorry for it, for 
while it is pleasant to think that the value of 
farm property is rising, I would rather have 
it rise because the earning capacity of the 
land has been increased. It does not give 
a farmer a very high opinion of his own work 
to see that others are increasing the value 
of his property by settling around it. 
ii. w. c. 
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