1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Hope Farm Notes 
Paying the Price. —The recent articles 
by Mr. Hartman have called out more 
comment than anything of the sort ever 
before printed in The R. N.-Y. The 
story of a success makes some people 
very sad, while others become as hopeful 
as the inventor of a new balloon. It all 
depends upon the sort of spectacles we 
put on when we read between the lines. 
Those who have failed see the trouble 
and obstacles which proved too great for 
their strength and will. Those who hope 
see little of these things, but only the 
profits which Mr. Hartman truthfully de¬ 
scribes. Would such people really pay 
the price if they knew what it represents 
in sweat and blood? Here is a letter 
from Mrs. Hartman which shows some¬ 
thing of what lies between these lines: 
I suppose lots of people will read that ar¬ 
ticle who would not pay the price we do for 
that same success. There are neighbors who 
go to all picnics or anywhere they take a 
notion to, then wonder why they can't make 
their farm pay. Monday morning up at four, 
in corn, patch at 5 a. m., then to town to 
stores with 130 dozen corn, home rather late, 
up again Tuesday morning at 4 a. m., gath¬ 
ered and packed until 6 p. m. the following 
with the exception of the pickles which were 
gathered the afternoon before, by five men, 
one boy, two women (that includes Mr. Hart¬ 
man and myself, for we are in the very 
thickest of it all) : 340 dozen corn of three 
kinds; 24 bushel crates of tomatoes graded in 
five grades. 15% bushels first class fully ripe, 
four bushels first class greenish ; two bushels 
crooked; 1 % bushel small: one bushel first 
class, but burst, sold at retail ; 3,000 pickles 
sorted into six grades from very smallest to 
slicing, washed, counted and crated by boy 
and myself; 147 bunches of radishes, washed 
and bunched; 0 bunches red beets; 30 head 
cauliflower, 20 egg plants; 347 peppers; three 
bushels cabbage; the other woman and I put 
up all the radishes after one man pulled 
them and brought them in, we two women 
also wiped, graded and crated all the toma¬ 
toes. After 5 p. in. we saw our wagon could 
not hold all. so Mr. Hartman started out 
for another large team, but came back not 
successful so asked one of the men to take 
our largest wagon up as soon as he could 
run home and get a bite to eat. lie started 
for town at seven, back by midnight ; in the 
meantime Mr. Ilartman washed, shaved and 
ate supper, and was off for a three-mile walk 
to a trolley car for market to stay with 
that first load that was sent up. When the 
team came back another man was here 
getting the other team ready, put the tired 
mules in the stable one hour, reloaded that 
wagon and at one a. m. both teams are off 
again. In all the three loads consisted of 
03 bushel crates and two baskets. Mr. Hart¬ 
man caught a few hours’ sleep on three berry 
crates (which I forgot to mention in the 
load gathered by four pickers extra). The 
wagon that left at one a. m. arrived at the 
market house at 4.30 a. m., then Mr. Hart¬ 
man has all day to sell the three loads. It 
will he dark by the time he gets home. One 
team is stabled for him to bring home, the 
other came right, back. To-morrow another 
load of corn must go; three corn patches 
that should have succeeded each other came 
all at once. Some men would be helpless, 
but Mr. Hartman will get it through. 
Would you pay the price—or rather 
could you pay it? Some of these good 
people who think they would like to 
give up a paying job and go out to do 
as Mr. Hartman has done may well com¬ 
mit that letter to memory. No man 
runs the market garden business on 
dreams or big stories! I have crawled 
out of bed some of these dead and damp 
mornings and groaned at the thought 
of the weeds in the strawberries. A man 
once said to me “I look about and see 
others getting large salaries or holding 
big positions. I am just as smart ^as 
they are—why do I not have them?” 
My answer had to be a question! 
“What can you do well? In what 
single line are you counted a master? 
No man can be a master of anything and 
keep the fact hidden!” 
Strawberry Culture. —The following 
question is from Ohio: 
Permit me to ask a few questions, espe¬ 
cially of those who make strawberry grow¬ 
ing a success, those who grow fancy berries. 
Are they grown in hills or narrow rows? 
How do you keep the runners off? What sort 
of tools* do you use? C. h. k. 
Holland, O. 
Most growers seem to depend largely 
upon horse culture when berries are 
grown in hills or narrow rows. The cul¬ 
tivators are kept running, and this tears 
up the runners, which spread out too far. 
After this is done we can easily keep 
the runners cut off by using a _ sickle. 
Pick up a mass of the runners with one 
hand and slash them off. In some cases 
we have seen a knife or rolling cutter 
running at the side of the cultivator. 
Some use a sharp hoe or a tool used for 
trimming walks and lawns. We do this 
work by hand, as we are working for 
fancy berries, and have not a large acre¬ 
age yet. Since we do much hand weed¬ 
ing we find it possible to take care of the 
runners when we pull the weeds. 
Crimson Clover. —There seems to be 
a renewed interest in this crop. Letters 
come to us from all over. Here is one 
from New York: 
I have a piece of ground in sod that I 
would like to plow up in August and sow 
to something that I can plow under uext 
Spring for corn. Which would you advise. 
Crimson clover or rye? Where can I get 
Crimson clover seed? What is the price per 
bushel, and how much to sow to the acre? 
Mi Her ton, N. Y. e. l. b. 
In that latitude I would sow rye if 
I wanted to be sure of a crop. As an 
experiment I would sow five pounds of 
Crimson clover seed per acre—with the 
rye. We have used this combination and 
found that the clover was less likely to 
thr?w out in Spring than when it was 
used alone. While we have had fair 
success with Crimson I do not advise 
anyone much north of Philadelphia to 
sow it largely alone. Sow it as an ex¬ 
periment . up to August 20, but if you 
want a sure thing to plow tinder next 
Spring sow rye. I do not advise any¬ 
one to gamble, and depending on Crim¬ 
son clover alone for a green crop in 
New York State is a pure gamble, though 
with a fair chance of winning.. By 
rights such clover ought to be two inches 
high right now. Plere is another Crim¬ 
son clover question from Kentucky: 
Can I sow Crimson clover in September 
after corn is cut, with the hope of getting a 
crop of hay the following Spring? I have 
not seen any Crimson clover in this section, 
and do not know whether it would be a suc¬ 
cess or not. J. s. 
I • think the chances would be fair in 
that latitude, but why wait until the corn 
is cut ? Sow the clover seed at once 
right in the corn, and cover it lightly 
with a fine-tooth harrow or small drag. 
You will stand a better chance by doing 
this than if you wait until the corn is 
cut. Prof. Voorhees, at New Bruns¬ 
wick, N. J.. cut two tons of Crimson 
clover hay this year on land seeded in 
the corn last Fall! Can any Kentuckian 
help our friend out? I am a Jerseyman, 
and our habits may not win in Ken¬ 
tucky. Here is another nearer my size: 
.Tust reaped oats off a piece of sandy loam, 
sowed 7<>0 or 800 pounds per acre, fertilizer 
with oats. Would Crimson clover grow a 
crop on such poor soil, or would it. be better 
or rather necessary to plow in some manure, 
or sow a complete fertilizer with the clover 
seed? What quantity of Crimson clover seed 
do you think correct for an acre? s. 
Montville, N. J. 
My experience is that Crimson clover 
needs good soil and plenty of plant food 
to make a full growth. It is not like 
cow peas—a crop that will make a fair 
growth on the poorest soil. It pays to 
feed Crimson clover. I would, if possi¬ 
ble, put manure or fertilizer on that soil. 
We use 12 pounds of Crimson seed per 
acre. It should be worked under a lit¬ 
tle deeper than you sow Red clover. 
Farm and Home. —The Japanese millet 
has been out in the weather 10 days. 
About all we can do is to shake it out 
and cock it again. It smells like poor 
stuff, but while a cow’s nose is quite deli¬ 
cate her stomach is large. The Japanese 
lived in caves through the Winter and 
then crawled out and whipped the Rus- 
sions. This millet has powers of resist¬ 
ance. . . . If we had been soiling cat¬ 
tle this year we would have had a full 
supply of food. First the rye—several 
sowings gave us a good succession. The 
Alfalfa was large enough when the rye 
got hard, and while that was resting the 
oats came on. Then the young Japanese 
millet was fit, and now the cow peas 
and Kaffir corn are ready, and also the 
early sweet cornstalks after picking ears. 
As it is we do not carry enough stock 
to make soiling pay. . . .. The con¬ 
tinued rains have made it impossible to 
keep all the crops clean. It will not pay 
to work the weeds out of some fields. 
Whenever we can we plow up weedy 
places and sow turnips with rye to fol¬ 
low later. In other places we cut the 
weeds off with a sickle letting the tops 
lie on the ground as a mulch. The 
strawberries and garden are clean. We 
have nearly worked the ends of our fin¬ 
gers off, but the berries are clean and 
the weeds are around the young trees. 
We have been hauling the Summer’s ac¬ 
cumulation of manure and the spent ma¬ 
nure from the hotbeds to the hill, where 
it is put around the young trees. This 
will keep up the growth for a month 
yet—which on our hills is safe. . . . 
I counted six vegetables on the table the 
other day—boiled cow peas, potatoes, to¬ 
matoes, beets, peppers and onions. We 
might also have had carrots, cucumbers^ 
squash, beans, peas, lettuce and sweet 
corn. The vegetables our big family 
consumed at this one meal would have 
cost over $2 if bought at retail measure. 
The first mess of Golden Bantam sweet 
corn was an event in our family. As 
near as I could figure about 45 ears were 
required to go around, and it was voted 
delicious by all hands. I was going to 
say that I cannot understand why every 
farmer does not have a good garden- 
but I do. It requires hard and skillful 
work to keep such a garden clean, and 
this work is sure to interfere with the 
regular farm operations. It is true that 
some of these farm operations will not 
pay as well as a garden would, but it is 
hard to make a farmer believe it. A 
dog got at the fresh meat Saturday night, 
and when Sunday came there was noth¬ 
ing but the paper in sight. There was 
no possible starvation with a garden 
full of vegetables, and surplus roosters 
in the yard. ... If you will over¬ 
look the weeds and a couple of damp 
pockets I can show you one cornfield to 
be a little proud of. It is Learning corn 
planted in drills on that field which was 
stone-drained last Fall. The tassels as 
they form are eight and nine feet high. 
The stalks are a dark rich green, and 
big enough to be used for a club. On the 
wet parts the weeds are bad, but we shall 
have some corn. The boys grew a little 
discouraged when the Canada flint began 
to tassel at three feet high. After all 
their work at cultivating they expected 
stalks as large as the Learning. There 
is where they mistake. It is the nature 
of this flint to make a small stalk and 
a small ear, and it is doing just as it 
should. Those who form an ideal and 
think there can be no other are just like 
the poor things who go out hunting for 
trouble. If a variety of corn is to be 
the ideal for making grain in the short¬ 
est time and the least plant food it can¬ 
not operate like Learning or some other 
big, long-growing sort. The quick 
growers must cut down the size of the 
stalk and get to business at once. That 
is what the Canada flint is doing. We 
must not compare the racer with the dray 
horse. 
Was It Blight? — I presume there are 
many who have been as badly puzzled 
over plant diseases as this Illinois man: 
I have a quarter of an acre of potatoes 
that seemed to be doing well until all of a 
sudden they laid .down flat on the ground, 
having the appearance of being ripe. The 
leaves curled up at the edges and dried and 
withered. I suppose they have been struck 
by the blight; the tubers are in size from a 
pea to a cherry. I had concluded to pull 
the vines and burn them, and then sow some 
turnips for cow feed, when a couple of good 
showers seemed to put new life into them : 
they started to throw out new leaves and 
turned a dark green color. Do potatoes ever 
recover from the blight? If there Is a 
chance for half a crop I would leave them 
stand : if not I will not lose any more time, 
but try to raise some turnips for the cow. 
c. H. 
This could not have been true blight, 
for had the vines gone down with that 
they could not have revived. It was 
probably a form of sunscald, which in¬ 
jured the leaves but left the vines. New 
leaves formed at the joints, and the po¬ 
tatoes may now make a fair crop. If 
they remain green we would let them 
alone. I am quite sure that plants and 
brutes, and humans too, have before now 
suffered loss or even death because the 
symptoms of their disease were not un¬ 
derstood. This wet season has upset all 
my calculations with its freedom from 
rot and blight up to August. H. w. c. . 
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