1907. 
k 
65 
Hope Farm Notes 
West and East. —Two letters received 
the past week bring out the point 1 have 
been trying to make about land values. 
A man in an eastern State says his boys 
want to go West. The old farm, close 
to a large city, has become so valuable 
for building purposes that it will not 
pay to farm. Here is a case where land 
values have increased without any con¬ 
nection with the productive power of the 
soil. With the money thus earned by 
his land this man can go West and buy 
a good farm, having capital enough to 
run it. On the other hand, a western 
man flunks he can sell out to good ad¬ 
vantage, come East and buy a farm at 
half or one-third the price per acre which 
his western farm will bring. His farm 
is worth $125 per acre—value based on 
its productive power. It has more than 
doubled in value on his hands, and the 
money which it brings will enable him to 
buy twice as much land in an eastern or 
southern State, wifh ample cash capital 
left. Thus one man will go West be¬ 
cause lie docs not like the influence of 
the market town, while the other thinks 
of coming East so as to get nearer the 
markets. Both will speculate on the in¬ 
creased value of land. As between the 
two the man who moves West is more 
likely to be satisfied than the man who 
comes East. It will be easier for him to 
grow into the new conditions, for they 
are more roomy, and he can expand. The 
western man, on the other hand, must 
narrow or contract his methods and this 
is always harder to do. For example, 
if he buys a .cheap farm in the East, he 
will find soil which requires chemical 
fertilizers. Somehow I found stronger 
prejudice against the use of fertilizers 
among the western farmers than against 
any other part of eastern farming. It 
was like a suggestion of glasses or false 
teeth or a cane to men who claim to be 
sound and strong, and yet know that 
these things have come to others like 
them. Western men cannot bear to think 
that their rich soil will ever run short 
of fertility, for that will upset many plans. 
Yet many of them already see that the 
West must’ follow all farm history and 
that it will be no disgrace to use chemi¬ 
cals when they are needed. If, in the 
course of years, 1,000 cattle are fed on 
a farm and sent away from it we must 
understand that they may carry nearly 
40,000 pounds of nitrogen and 25,000 
of phosphoric acid. It is not bad farm¬ 
ing or any insult' to the land to plan to 
bring some of that loss back to the farm. 
That is all there will be to chemical farm¬ 
ing in the West when people see it. I 
understand one reason why this feeling 
against the use of chemicals is so strong. 
Western farmers know that one chief rea¬ 
son for decrease of yields is the careless 
methods of handling the soil. The use 
of a little fertilizer may for a time keep 
up the yield without better farming, but 
in the end the farm will be worse off 
for it. 1 think they are wise, therefore, 
to encourage better tillage before advis¬ 
ing fertilizer. 
T he End and Beginning. —At Omaha 
I went all through a large packing house, 
and saw the entire operation from the 
killing to the packing. The cattle stood 
and took their doom like typical “dumb 
brutes,” but the hogs went screaming 
and struggling to their death. That visit 
made me more and more content with a 
diet of baked apples, fishballs, beans and 
grain food. As we were watching a lot 
of fine steers designed tor the export 
trade slide away into the cooling room 
a farmer from southwest’ Iowa said: 
“This is end of our farming!” 
He was right, because those animals 
had manufactured his grass and grain. 
Yet it was but the beginning our eastern 
farming. We are able to' pay for the 
blood, tankage and bone from these steers, 
add potash and raise more corn to feed 
more animals at a profit. Thus one sort’ 
of farming may begin where another ends. 
A whole volume could be written to show 
why and how the West is sending both 
the cream and the wastes of its farming 
to help maintain the agriculture of the 
East. If is true, however, that a good 
many western farmers are thinking over 
this fertilizer question. The way they are 
getting at it is illustrated by the follow¬ 
ing letter from a well-known Kansas 
farmer: 
If you wanted to raise a record-breaking 
yield of corn on good Kansas soil, sod plowed 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
and well manured, would you use 160 pounds 
of nitrate of soda to the acre in addition to 
the manure? 
That seems to be a fair sample of. t’he 
way people are coming at the subject. 
My scout through the West has made me 
very shy about giving advice to western 
farmers. In New Jersey, under such con¬ 
ditions, I would not use the nitrate of 
soda alone unless I knew the soil was 
very poor in nitrogen. With such Kan¬ 
sas land as I think is here meant the 
argument against using nitrate alone is 
stronger yet. Nitrate of soda supplies 
only one element of plant food—nitrogen. 
Under the conditions named is an extra 
supply of nitrogen required? I t'hink not. 
What they pointed out to me as good 
corn ground seemed well supplied with 
nitrogen, and the manure provided a good 
supply of it, too. To use nitrate of soda 
alone would supply still more nitrogen, or 
more than t'he crop needs. The effect 
would he to stimulate a very large, rank 
growth of stalk and leaf. Earing and 
ripening would be delayed, and if our 
own experience counts for anything, the 
yield of actual grain would not be much 
increased. 
Is there anything that can be used then 
to help out the yield? 
Yes, if I owned the corn I would not’ 
add any more nitrogen, but use potash 
and phosphoric acid. All grain crops re¬ 
quire large supplies of these elements. 
The phosphoric acid has been called the 
life-giving principle in seeds. Corn is 
particularly in need of potash. The ash 
of the cob often shows 30 per cent or 
more. As we figure a “balanced fertil¬ 
izer” in the East, manure is weak in pot¬ 
ash and phosphoric acid as compared 
with nitrogen. It is considered very 
economical t’o add these chemicals to the 
manure. Also consider the plant-food 
history of most western land. Grain and 
live stock have been sent away from it. 
These have taken nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid and potash. Clover farming and 
manure have kept and brought in a good 
supply of nitrogen, but there has been a 
constant drain of the ot'hers. I think, 
therefore, that on most western farms 
it would be beginning at the wrong end 
to begin to buy nitrogen in fertilizers. 
Phosphoric acid and potash are most 
needed. On that corn I would use 75 
pounds muriate of potash and either 225 
pounds of acid phosphate or 150 pounds 
of fine ground bone per acre. I would 
scatter this along the rows and work it in 
with the cultivator. But can western 
farmers afford to use fertilizers when a 
ton of hay which costs me nearly $20 at 
my farm nets a western farmer $5, or 
while a beefsteak which I saw offered at 
12 ]/, cents in Omaha costs me 24 cents 
a pound? 
Home and Farm.— “Oh, shut up!” 
Possibly I shall lose my right to the 
title of “philosopher” with some people 
when I say that the Hope Farm man ad¬ 
dressed that remark to a member of his 
own family! Of course, I ought to know 
that’ if one have a real and true message 
he is sure to deliver it. If lie have no 
message at all the best plan is to let him 
talk on and thus prove himself. The time 
was shortly after midnight. We had all 
put in a tiresome day, and had traveled 
some two hours into t’he pleasant land of 
dreams. In the next room was the min¬ 
ister, and we had been telling him what 
a remarkably fine baby Hope Farm can 
show. As if to humble our pride the 
child woke up and proceeded to howl 
for two solid hours. I do not know to 
this day what ailed him, but he woke up 
the house, I will appeal to t'hose who 
have been through similar performances 
to say if my remarks were justified. They 
will first want to know if they were ef¬ 
fective. They were—for almost two min¬ 
utes—then the child started in again until 
he finished. I’ll guarantee t’hat I am 
talking to hundreds who have been 
through the same performance. You 
wanted to whip the child and yet, when 
morning came, and the little scamp roused 
up pink and smiling, you were very glad 
you didn’t do it. . . . We plow’ed all 
through the first week of the year, then 
t'he frost locked up the crust for a few 
days. As I write it looks as if we could 
plow again soon. I never saw such a 
Winter, still if we do not have a severe 
snap later on to kill the buds it will 
prove a profitable one. We are getting 
our fields cleared of cedars and White 
birch. After this gets a little drier we 
shall trim out’ all wood large enough for 
Lima bean poles, pile the rest and burn 
it. Then as soon as- t’he ground is fit we 
shall take the Cutaway and tear up the 
surface before we plant trees. We have 
not done this in former years, but I am 
now satisfied it is the best’ thing to do, 
for otherwise we cannot get a good sod 
for our mulch culture. The trees look 
first-rate thus far, and we are prepared 
to crowd them hard this year. Tf all goes 
well we shall have our hands on a slice 
of _ that income we have worked and 
waited for. h. w. c. 
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The Acme Harrow 
^Well pulverized soil 
is the moat im¬ 
portant requi¬ 
site of a good 
seed bed. No 
field— no 
matter how 
rich—is well 
prepared forseed 
unless the ground 
has been thoroughly 
pulverized. 
Does the old fashioned spike 
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np the grass, weeds and trash the 
plow burled, and which should stay 
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Fiat steel spurs go ahead of the Acme coulters or teeth, 
crushing and leveling every clod. 
Then the coulters like long plowshares 
follow, turning the soil both ways and 
mixing it. When they get through with 
it the soil Is as fine as a Harrow can make 
it and presents all its food to the seed. 
Think how much easier on the 
team the Acme Harrow is! 
The old harrow dragged blunt¬ 
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cuts smoothly through. 
Then the Acme is very conveni¬ 
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The Acme is the lowest priced harrow 
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DUANE H. NASH, Box 38 , 
A postal to mo and It will come. 
MILLINGTON, N. J. 
The best forks bear this label 
they Com No More 
A Good Fork must be formed on cor¬ 
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They must prove true in quality, 
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Hr * H 1 
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-- 
lot 
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