1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
571 
Hope Farm Notes 
Hay Notes. —The Fourth of July 
brought a flood of rain. 1 never saw be¬ 
fore such a downpour as we had for half 
an hour. Of course we could reason 
that there would be little danger from 
firecrackers, but we had several tons of 
hay on the hill. It was in good-sized 
cocks, so I didn't worry—that would 
have done no good even if it had been 
spread out and all afloat. At noon, after 
several false starts, the sky cleared and 
the sun came out. My first idea was to 
open these cocks and spread the hay out, 
but there were a few more clouds in 
the north, and we could not get the hay 
in that day anyway. As the weather was 
cool I let the hay alone. It was soaked to 
the ground, and had it been hot weather 
I should have opened it anyway. As it 
turned out there was no heating, and the 
next day we opened it and were able to 
make fair stuff out of it. It didn’t seem 
possible that there could be more rain 
to fall. We kept on cutting every day— 
hauling in as it dried. On Saturday 
morning there were over four tons down 
—most of it cut the day before. Not 
long ago some one wrote about putting 
the boys or “cheap help” on the mowing 
machine. That would not work with us, 
for about all our hay is cut in young or¬ 
chards, where it is easy to bark a tree. 
We need a careful hand on the machine 
to leave a strip of grass along the trees. 
On Saturday morning we found the wind 
blowing, with just enough sun to make 
work comfortable. Philip ^ot out the 
mower and went to cutting down more 
grass. I gave Nelson, the day hand, a 
sickle and sent him ahead to cut the grass 
around the trees, while I followed with a 
scythe to cut the strips between them. 
The grass had not been raked up. I do 
not like to leave it spread out over night, 
but you cannot always do as you would 
like. While it was drying Merrill, with 
one of the little girls to ride the horse, 
ran through the strawberries with the 
cultivator. In former years the end of 
haying has found our garden crops a mass 
of weeds. We don’t want that this year. 
As soon as the dew was off the grass 
Merrill began raking into small wind¬ 
rows. I kept on cutting, while after 1 the 
hay was raked Merrill and Nelson began 
to shake it up with their forks. We 
should have had a tedder in this thick 
grass, but the fork was our best substi¬ 
tute. We left the hay well shaken up 
as late as we could, and a little before 
four o’clock began to haul in. I am sat¬ 
isfied that four big loads were never 
tossed into our barn as rapidly before. 
We- put Philip on the load, with Nelson 
and I to pitch to him. By the time the 
horses stopped in the barn I began to un¬ 
hitch Terry, while Nelson climbed into 
the hay mow and Philip hauled down the 
hay fork. By the time he had the fork 
fastened for the first pull I had Jerry 
fast to the rope, and the way those loads 
mounted into the mow was a caution. As 
soon as I saw Philip trip the forkful, back 
I came with Jerry, while Nelson leveled 
the hay and kept it stamped down. That 
horse fork certainly made Sunday seem 
a little more like a day of rest! 
“Clark” Grass. —“Say, old man, what 
name was that I heard about thick 
grass?” 
It was Madge that asked this question 
as she and Jerry were pulling the mow¬ 
ing machine in our lower meadow. The 
grass was thick and heavy, and the ma¬ 
chine clogged! 
“Why Clark!” said Jerry. “He’s the 
grass man!” 
“I’ll always remember that!” said 
Madge. “He makes too hard work for a 
poor horse!” 
“Oh, I don’t know! You have to 
walk three times as far to cut three tons 
on three acres as you would to get the 
same amount on one acre! And it’s bet¬ 
ter hay, too. When we clog up in this 
Clark grass take a good bite of that Red- 
top !” 
Madge got two good mouthfuls. She 
decided that while Clark makes hard 
work for a horse in July, he is a great 
friend in December when eating time 
comes. 
We were cutting a field where we tried 
to seed after the Clark method, or as 
close to it as we could. Our work paid 
well, for the grass bunched up in great 
masses after the mower. There are 
three main essentials in this “Clark” 
method—thorough preparation of the 
soil, heavy seeding and heavy fertilizing. 
In reseeding an old meadow Mr. Clark 
will work the soil 25 or 30 times between 
July 1 and September 10. Turning the 
sod over and harrowing two or three 
times will not answer for him. All the 
old trash and grass plants must be killed 
out, and the surface soil left finer than 
any ash heap that is left out doors. The 
surface must be level and smooth too. 
We have seen the necessity for this, for 
parts of our best field are rough and 
uneven. This not only makes it hard for 
the mower, but I notice that in many of 
these little dishy places the grass is killed 
out and weeds have started. Clark advo¬ 
cates about three times as much seed as 
the average farmer uses, and makes sev¬ 
eral different seedings, so as to have 
every little spot well covered. Then he 
puts on more fertilizer than most of us 
do on potatoes. We cannot all carry out 
this plan exactly, yet I must say that the 
only really good grass on my farm is 
where I followed the Clark plan as close¬ 
ly as we could. I shall try to seed one 
and perhaps two fields this Fall. One is 
a sour old bog which has produced little 
besides weeds and disappointment. We 
put stone drains into it last Fall, and 
now have a fair stand of corn in spite of 
the wet season. The boys cannot under¬ 
stand why I want them to cultivate and 
hoe that field again and again. “The 
corn crop will not pay for all this work.” 
they say. That is true, but I have in 
mind something beyond the corn—that is 
grass. Clark works his grass land with a 
Cutaway again and again through July 
and August. The object is to keep the 
soil stirred up and to kill weeds. We 
cannot do that, but the thorough cultivat¬ 
ing and hoeing will answer much the 
same purpose, and while the corn may 
not respond to it the grass will. We 
shall cut the corn early, and as soon as it 
is fit haul it out of the field or set it up 
around the fence, so as to leave the field 
clear. Then we shall fit the soil as well 
as we possibly can with our tools and 
time, use about a ton of lime to the acre, 
and sow Timothy and Red-top seed as 
early in September as possible. The 
stones are now pretty well picked up on 
this field, but we will make the surface 
as even as we can. There is no use tell¬ 
ing a man that he must harrow and dig 
his grass land 30 times just because Clark 
does so. A farmer may have only one 
team to work with, and a dozen jobs at 
once for them to do. Mr. Clark has 
plenty of horse power, and if need be can 
take a number of good men from a fac¬ 
tory and put them in the hayfield. That 
is perfectly legitimate—I wish I could do 
so—but a farmer with only two horses 
and his own two hands must modify these 
methods. He can have better grass by 
doing the best he can on one small field 
at a time. Sometimes these experts and 
scientific men find fault because farmers 
do not imitate them. They do not under¬ 
stand that they have made their methods 
more prominent than the principles of 
their scheme. The farmer cannot fol¬ 
low their methods, but he could adopt 
their principles if they would make them 
clear. 
Alfalfa.—A man came to see the Al¬ 
falfa on July 4. He swam through the 
wet grass until we came to the field. 
The Alfalfa did look nice—green as could 
be and over 18 inches on the second cut¬ 
ting. 
“Why,” said this man, “If I had a 
small patch of that stuff it would feed 
my horse!” 
That’s what it would do, and our friend 
saw at once what 1 believe to be one of 
the most useful things about Alfalfa at 
the East. Somehow people have an idea 
that this crop is only for large stockmen. 
I hear such people say that while it may 
do for dairymen or sheep feeders it has 
no place on a truck or fruit farm. Now 
that is just where they make a. mistake. 
Fruit farmers and gardeners keep some 
stock which must be fed. They either 
buy hay or keep several acres in. Timothy. 
In some cases their best land is kept in 
grass, when it would bring far more if 
free to produce their regular crops. Now, 
suppose there was a fair-sized field of 
Alfalfa on such a farm—on some distant 
part where it would not interfere with 
the regular rotation. The stock could be 
fed on less than half the land required 
for the Timothy, it would be a permanent 
grass field, and it would make the rest 
of the farm richer. In fact, there seems 
to me every reason why a small farmer 
should try hard to get Alfalfa started. 
Pull this idea that the crop is for large 
farmers only right out by the roots. The 
Alfalfa field substitutes for the grain bin 
and will feed all stock—from hens to 
hogs. 
All Sorts.— I have been telling about 
double cropping—that is, planting one 
crop between the rows of another and 
then pulling the earlier one out. I feel 
guilty over this, and can only hope that 
those who undertook this game had a 
better time than I have had. For ex¬ 
ample, I planted rows of sweet corn be¬ 
tween rows of peas. It seems easy—it 
is easy—to tell about pulling out the pea- 
vines at the proper time and then having 
a nice stand of corn. It is pleasanter to 
tell about it than to do the required work. 
Our corn came up nicely, and made a 
fair stand—above the peas. I ought to 
have pulled the peavines early, but haying 
and hoeing and half a dozen other things 
came along. By July 4 l was doing a 
little bragging about my famous double 
culture, when I looked out between 
showers and found a row of ragweed 
along the pea rows—higher than the corn. 
We often fail to measure the possibili¬ 
ties of old friends. I ought to know the 
New Jersey weed, but I had no idea he 
could jump that way. Better late than 
never—so I got out in the rain and pulled 
those vines, to be thrashed out later. 
Then I cut the ragweed off with a sickle, 
and when the rain quit took a small 
plow and threw furrows away from the 
corn and over the pea rows. In this 
way we shall be able to clean the ground 
and have fair corn, but it is a question 
as to whether it would not have been 
more economical in the end to leave the 
corn out, plow vines and weeds under 
when done picking, and plant anew. The 
game of planting corn and squash be¬ 
tween the rows of currants has worked 
out much better, except that it is hard 
to keep the crab-grass out of the currants. 
Anyone who tries this double cropping 
must know how a weed grows and keep 
ahead of it. . . . We cut and hauled 
the oat hay into the barn July 7. Just 
as soon as the horses could get out of 
the hayfield the oat stubble was plowed 
under, and late cabbage plants set there. 
We shall use fertilizer along the rows 
and give good culture. . . . This is a 
very bad season for my good friend the 
Carman peach. A great variety this is 
in a dry season, but with us it does not 
seem able to stand too much wet weather. 
In such a season as this it rots as badly 
as any variety we have. What with late 
frost, scale and wet the peach crop will 
not be remarkable. . . . We may put 
it down as a pretty safe proposition that 
the ragweeds are to get the cow peas on 
the wetter spots of our orchard. The 
peas are still in the ring, but they have 
to wring water out of the soil before 
they can root, and it takes them a long 
time to climb up a rung of the ladder. I 
will not bet on them. On the lighter and 
higher ground the cow peas look like dif¬ 
ferent caitle. Here they have joined 
hands with the Kaffir corn to boss the 
job. This gives me a tip. When I come 
to seed Alfalfa in this orchard I shall 
throw some Timothy seed on those wet 
spots. I wish I had more faith in Al¬ 
falfa, but I know the Timothy will come 
anyway. What I really need is not more 
faith but more ditches! 
Strawberry Notes. —Merrill spoke for 
the job of cleaning up the old strawberry 
bed. No one felt like disputing his right 
to it, and he will be responsible for the 
work. First the field was clipped with 
the mowing machine. There was no dis¬ 
ease on the plants, so we did not burn 
the clippings. Then Merrill stretched 
lines across the field three feet apart, 
leaving a strip of plants about a foot 
wide between. With a small, sharp plow 
he threw furrows away from these strips. 
Thus the field was left with these rows 
of plants, and in between two furrows 
thrown together, a quantity of chicken 
manure and fine horse manure was scat¬ 
tered in the furrows close to the rows, 
and then the cultivator started—working 
down the soil and tearing out old plants 
and weeds. These will be taken out and 
the weeds in the rows carefully pulled. 
Runners will come out into the cultivated 
space and be placed where we want them. 
As is pretty well known, President is 
an imperfect plant, and must have some 
good variety planted near it. I wrote 
Mr. Hunt to learn what he considers the 
best pollenizer. This is what he says: 
For a number of years I have used the 
Nic Ohmer to pollenize President, but for 
the last two or three years have been look¬ 
ing for some other variety to take its place. 
'Hie Nic Ohmer is all right when It is right, 
and almost as fine as the President, but It 
seems to be more liable to shot-hole fungus 
than any variety I know of. I consider one 
row of a perfect variety to four imperfect 
sufficient for pollenization. My crop this 
year was only about half of one, but some of 
them very tine though. They were hit un¬ 
commonly hard by the frost, then continued 
dry weather up until the flood, which de- 
troved a large portion of what remained. 
It poured for four days so that we could 
not get any picked. 
We use Marshall to pollenize Presi¬ 
dent. I know what that rain meant to 
the berry crop! H. w. c. 
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