1005. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
867 
Hope Farm Notes 
Old Friend Gone. —It is like recording the 
death of a member of the family to say that 
Major, the old sorrel horse, has passed away, 
lie has done nothing for several months but 
nibble grass in the pasture and give good 
advice to the brown colt. This old horse 
had a history. He must have been a beauty 
and a great roadster in his day, but he fell 
upon evil times and finally got down to a 
place in front of a horse car—before electric¬ 
ity mercifully came to the rescue of such 
poor brutes. I know he did his duty theie, 
as he did everywhere, but he broke down and 
was sold to a farmer for $7! He limped 
to the country where wounds of body and 
soul are healed and got back his strength. 
He was taken in part payment for a debt, 
and seven years ago I bought him for -foO. 
I have never regretted that bargain, for 
though the old fellow frequently reminded 
us that his years were many, he always 
worked willingly within his strength. I 
could tell many stories of the old fellow’s 
shrewdness and wit. He had a habit of 
shaking off his bridle, which sometimes got 
his drivers into trouble. Once two women 
drove him through a ford in the river to 
water him. He shook off his bridle, and 
when the women started to drive on the 
bits were out of his mouth and the lines 
would not guide him. Old Major's feet were 
very comfortable in that running water, and 
when he was told to “get up" he simply 
waded in deeper. In the end one of these 
good women was obliged to take off shoes and 
stockings and wade in the water to put old 
Major’s bridle on. The old horse was legally 
correct, for he had been taught to mind 
the rein ! Many a night the old veteran has 
picked his wav through the darkness and 
mud carrying child or man safely home. He 
was faithful to the end. Peace to him ! 
Horses must have something that corre¬ 
sponds to the human soul, or else they could 
never receive a recompense for the abuse 
and suffering some of them must endure 
upon earth. We shall have a memory of 
old Major for some years, for his hide will 
he sent to Rochester to be made into a lap 
robe! 
Home and Farm. —Work on our house 
crawls slowly. The masons come early and 
put in a good day, the carpenters come a 
little later and put in a sort of “sawed-off” 
day, while the plumbers come later still and 
quit earlier. I have heard the jokes about 
wealthy plumbers, and I am inclined to be¬ 
lieve that they have a wealth of time at least. 
If a plum grower undertook to handle his 
crop as these gentlemen with the b attached 
to the name do his profits would certainly 
be plumb with 0. While we are waiting for 
the new house Jack Frost puts in a day or 
two with extra white trimmings, which 
makes the old stone house feel like an ice¬ 
house. The room in which I claim Wash¬ 
ington slept is certainly a cold storage place ! 
However, all the Hope Farmers manage to 
keep warm—'including the hens, which are 
now safe in Winter quarters. I haven't said 
much about our chicken business lately—but 
we start the Winter with nearly 225 layers. 
We will wait till we make them lay before 
doing any crowing.Philip and 
Lars seem to be well pleased with the out¬ 
come in Norway. One Sunday afternoon last 
Summer I found them out behind the barn 
with the rifle going through the manual of 
arms. It looked then a little like war, and 
they were ready to go hack if need be. Sev¬ 
eral nosters announcing Norway’s demands 
were nailed to our barn door. It seems to 
he all seitled now—but why does Norway call 
for a king when she might become a Re¬ 
public? That is what beats me, and Philip 
lias no explanation to make. I do not crave 
the job of being figurehead of a country that 
has just kicked the crown off another man’s 
head. At any event I do not see that the 
new king will be anything more than a sort 
of hereditary president—not by any means 
as strong as one elected freely by the people. 
Lars has left us, as the Fall work is about 
cleared up. lie goes to Dakota, where some 
friend of his father’s has a farm. Lars got 
his first impression of American society at 
Hope Farm, but I don't know how our Jersey 
methods will fit into the West. . . . We 
have the mulch pulled away from the trees, 
and most of them mounded for Winter. 
Al>out three more days will finish spraying. 
The scale looks pretty sick where we put the 
soluble oils, and I feel hopeful I hat we can 
control it with this spray, i will not bet on 
it yet, however. When the Fall work is done 
we shall go at the woods. I want to clear 
off two fields for planting a new orchard, 
and also cut a number of oaks for timber. 
There is quite a quantity of White birch 
which, I am told, has some value now. I 
want that value, and the axes will sound all 
Winter at Hope Farm. 
Good Cows.— On page 811 I spoke of our 
cows. A dairyman in New York figures our 
problem as follows: 
“Your butter problem would he solved as 
follows : 22 pounds milk, 352 ounces, which 
is contained in 24 ounces .068 times, or 6.8 
per cent butter: churn test, which, less 15 
per cent, 5.78 per cent butter fat; or, as 
would probably be more nearly correct, less 
20 per cent, 5.5 per cent. Twenty-two 
pounds milk for 24 ounces butter, is 14 and 
two-third pounds milk for one pound butter, 
which is excellent, but not so very unusual 
as you evidently think it is: not for this 
season of the year. I have nine cows that 
will very nearly do as well right now. and 
some of them are practically “new milkers.” 
You see with butter at 25 cents you are re¬ 
ceiving nearly 3% cents per quart for 
your milk besides having your skim-milk left 
on the farm. There you have the reason, 
plain enough for even the dullest person to 
comprehend, why it is more profitable to 
make butter at home than to sell milk at 
the prevailing prices for each. What you 
have done with your cows, anyone else can 
do with theirs if they will take the same 
pains; and it pays.” h. a. g. 
This Is sound reasoning, and I believe it. 
I am very sure that good dairy butter can 
be sold to good advantage in any town or 
city. Yet it is very evident that dairying is 
a business which requires brains and skill. 
A man must make a business of it and be¬ 
lieve in the cow as well as in himself. There 
is a spirit or sentiment about it which the 
dairyman must have, whether he knows he 
has it or not. 
Fall Planted Strawberries. — Samuel 
Cooper, who has made quite a reputation 
for producing late crops of fruit sends me 
the following note : 
“I was interested in your account of setting 
strawberries in the Fall, and would suggest 
that you try setting three or four plants as 
though one plant in xUigust or September, 
and set about 15 inches apart in the row. 
You will be surprised to see the amount of 
fine fruit you will get the next season. 
Then after fruiting cut out every other hill 
and you will have a fine row for next season, 
I find this much less work than setting in 
the Spring and weeding all Summer!” 
Tills is a new idea to me, but I will try 
it next year. It is against the ordinary ad¬ 
vice to put more than one plant in a place, 
but I must say that the nearest I have 
come to success is where I have cut away 
from some of my pet beliefs and given new 
things a careful trial. Our Fall-set plants 
still look well, though they have had some 
sharp freezes. We shall begin mulching next 
week. 
Fruii Eaters.— A worthy member of the 
Apple Consumers’ League in Ontario Co., 
N. Y., sends this note on November 14. 
“Last night for supper we had our last 
mess of Sal way peaches. AKliough picked 
over three weeks ago, they had kept well, 
and while not a first-class peach, they tasted 
very good with sugar and cream, and this 
morning the temperature was four degrees. 
Zero and peaches don't often come quite so 
close together. I wish that this morning 
you could have stepped into a room where 
I have a nice pile of Northern Spies. It was 
a feast just to stand there and take in 
that fragrant, aromatic, spicy odor that 
filled the room. Talk about your Baldwins 
and Greenings—they are ‘not in it’ with 
the Spy.” J. R. w. 
We might have peaches at Thanksgiving, 
but we would have to pick them off the 
pantry shelves—in jars. Our Salways have 
not fruited yet. We look for them next 
year. As for apples—we call Baldwin very 
satisfying; at the same time I would cer¬ 
tainly try to keep those Northern Spies from 
rotting. Down in West Virginia they felt 
sorry for the poor fellows who had to be 
satisfied with Northern Spy. Grimes Golden 
is better. In northern Vermont they had 
sorrow for the poor Grimes Golden chaps 
who could not get any Fameuse. So there 
you are, we must all come down to the 
general proposition that “there’s no place like 
home!" 
Farm Power. —This question faces many 
farms. While North Carolina is a long way 
from New Jersey I think this problem Is; 
much the same to all of us: 
“I have to cut about 125 cords of wood into 
short lengths for heaters annually. Will the 
readers of The It. N.-Y. tell me the most 
economical way to cut it? The wood is 
cut in four-foot lengths, and split to con¬ 
venient size for handling. I have no power 
of any kind, and not other use for it at 
present. It will cost $1 per cord to cut by 
hand. Which will be cheaper for power, 
steam or gasoline engine, or tread power.” 
L. 
I am going to get a gasoline engine for 
our own" power. We have wood to cut, 
stalks to shred and water to pump, and I 
believe that with the power actually on hand 
other uses for it will develop. I have recent¬ 
ly been looking at some small engines, and 
it is simply astonishing to see what they will 
do. I know that sometimes they balk and 
stand still, but I believe in the principle of 
them. If I was in this man’s place I would 
get such an engine and a saw. Other uses 
for the power will develop. I saw one case 
recently where such a little engine pumped 
in little over an hour a full supply of water 
for 85 head of stock. The farmer watched 
it work and said : “Oh, my poor back ! If 
I had only known that engine before!” 
h. w. c. 
Making Winter 
Money. 
In this country there is a vast oppor¬ 
tunity for the man on the farm to turn 
his winter days into money. Thera is 
work everywhere for a man who owns 
and knows how to handle a good, service¬ 
able power. And it does not take a tech¬ 
nical man, a trained mechanic to make 
money in this way. We do the technical 
part. We study the thing out and put it 
up to you. Then you make money all 
through the winter days when most of 
your neighbors are idle. That’s what 
makes men prosperous and powerful in 
this country—taking advantage of the 
opportunities that lie right at their door. 
I Take the matter up with our Farm 
Power Men. Write about the work in 
your neighborhood and let us lay out a 
money making campaign for you. It won’t 
cost you anything to see what we can sug¬ 
gest. And don’t wait. Write now. Let us 
send you our free book on Farm Power, 
ADDRESS 
Fairbanks Farm Power Men. 
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4 ohn DunchA Sou 2 2 ft W ells tit.,MUwuultee,W la 
