THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
190?. 
5n 
Hope Farm Notes 
A Farm Lawn. —Here is a letter from 
an Illinois woman about a lawn. I wish 
every farm woman in the land would in¬ 
sist upon having pleasant surroundings 
for the house: 
Will you tell me how to improve an old 
lawn? Being quite shady the grass has 
thinned out, and there is very much moss. 
Where It is more sunny there is considerable 
sorrel. It seems almost impossible to spade 
or plow it all over and start new, and some 
tell me to sow grass seed over it in Spring, 
while others say Fall is the time. I do not 
think it was ever seeded to lawn grass seed, 
such as is used to-day, but. is old-fashioned 
Prairie grass and White clover, with June 
grass. After all the advice I have received 
if I were to go about it alone I should wait 
till Fall, say October, and then rake thorough¬ 
ly to get the moss out and sow the seed. 
Then rake again and perhaps roll. Would 
that be right? But what about the leaves 
which would fall almost to cover it? Hard 
maple leaves from the many trees along the 
road? What kind of seed should be used—• 
lawn mixture or Blue grass or clover? But 
the clover could not be sown in Fall in this 
country. Would raking be enough or would 
it be better to go over lightly with disk har¬ 
row and then roll ? Should it not be top- 
dressed with some good fertilizer like ground 
bone and the pulverized sheep manure which 
is $4 a barrel in Chicago? Does the pres¬ 
ence of sorrel indicate that the soil is sour, 
and if so could we apply air-slaked lime 
as a top-dressing? While my father lived 
he kept the lawn in good condition, but I do 
not remember that he ever applied ferti¬ 
lizer, and perhaps that accounts for its run¬ 
down state. I shall have trees trimmed so 
the shade need not hinder the growth of 
grass. It is a farm lawn, and I am anxious 
to keep it smooth and green. e. s. w. 
I have found the early Fall the best 
time for seeding a lawn. That is the nat¬ 
ural time for seeding—when Nature sows 
her seeds. I doubt the possibility of re¬ 
seeding the old lawn without tearing up 
the old sod. I should call it a hard prop¬ 
osition to remake an old mossy and shady 
lawn without giving it thorough culture 
through the Summer. Our own lawn is 
voted a success. A year ago it was a 
rough old field, and Mother wanted a 
smooth lawn right away. I will say to 
any man that if he wants a job to try the 
very limits of his character he wants to 
make a good lawn out of an old field with 
a critical and impatient lady to boss the 
job. Our folks couldn’t see why I did 
not plow that old sod in the Spring, level 
it and seed at once. I admit that it was 
hard to resist the temptation to travel in 
the broad and easy path, but I knew what 
would come later, when the weeds and 
foul stuff in that old sod came into the 
lawn. I knew we couldn’t keep them out 
if they were left in there, so I stuck to 
the job with all the dignity I could mus¬ 
ter. We gave that sod a thick coat of 
manure and plowed it under. Then we 
sowed Japanese millet, cut it early, plowed 
again and alternated with spring-tooth 
and Acme about 10 times each. Then the 
field'was made level or nearly so. I put 
that word “nearly” because 999 men out 
of 1,000 will finally go down when the 
wife runs her eye over the job he is 
proud of and finds a hollow. Talk about 
your spirit levels—few things will level 
your spirits like the discovery of those 
hollows in your job. We put seed of a' 
lawn grass mixture on with a Cahoon 
seeder on a still day, going once each way. 
The seed was worked in with a hand rake. 
We seeded in early September just before 
a little rain. This Spring I top-dressed 
with basic slag and a fertilizer strong in 
nitrogen, and we now have a thick, rich 
lawn. Happily some people nearby seed¬ 
ed in Spring on top of an old sod. The 
weeds and foul stuff have come in, and 
the so-called lawn is an eyesore instead 
of a rest for the eye. The moss and 
sorrel indicate the need of lime. Ihis can 
be supplied in slaked lime or wood ashes. 
We should sow the seed in September. 
It may be possible to get a new start by 
thoroughly raking, but I would not guar¬ 
antee it. From my experience I would 
disk the land thoroughly, then roll and 
rake. I would use the lime or wood 
ashes at once after disking. Get the soil 
as fine as you can. Use the mixed lawn 
grass seed or equal parts Red-top and 
Blue grass, with a little White clover, and 
put it on thick. If you can get wood 
ashes use two parts by weight of the 
ashes to one part of ground bone. The 
sheep manure is good. If, in the Spring, 
the lawn does not show green enough 
use nitrate of soda at the rate of 150 
pounds per acre. Now that. is what I 
would do from my own experience. New 
Jersey is a long distance from Illinois, 
■and perhaps in that soil it is possible to 
make a good lawn out of a poor one with¬ 
out killing the bad one first. I can’t do it. 
But is it not possible to get rid of the 
old grass without plowing and harrow¬ 
ing? Yes, but I doubt if if is practical. 
We have a letter from a reliable man who 
tells how he killed an old lawn with ni¬ 
trate of soda and then started a beautiful 
new one! Nitrate of soda? We thought 
that was plant food—to give life to plants! 
So it is, about the liveliest. plant food 
there is, but everything that gives life will 
also give death if you handle it that way. 
Take water, for example. Let a cat 
drink Out of a tub and he will have an 
abundance of energy to catch rats or 
make night hideous—as his constitution 
dictates. Hold the cat down under the 
water and he would have no value at 
Hope Farm except for planting beside a 
peach tree. Now my friend knew that a 
reasonable amount of nitrate would make 
grass grow, but his lawn was played out— 
thin, poor, mossy and sour. It needed re¬ 
seeding, but was so situated that he didn’t 
want to plow it up. So, as an experiment, 
he covered part of it with nitrate of soda. 
I cannot say how much, but he put on 
enough to kill out every spear of grass! 
After this was done he raked the laiul 
over thoroughly and at the right time 
sowed his grass seed, got a fine catch, and 
has now a beautiful lawn in place of the 
old one. The great dose of nitrate killed 
the old grass, but was largely washed out 
of the soil, and did not interfere with the 
new seeding. I give this as a curious il¬ 
lustration of what people can do. I could 
not afford to make a lawn that way. 
The Man and the Land. — I hail from 
the neck of Cape Cod, and am proud of 
the fact. I didn’t stay there because I 
couldn’t see much opportunity. Here is 
a man who found and held it: 
As the farmers of this town are largely 
engaged in asparagus culture, I noted with 
interest the article on its profit as a crop on 
page 433. My net sales last season from 
four acres of old and two acres of "young, cut 
hut part of the season, were a trme over 
$1,800. Perhaps it may interest the Hope 
Farm man who advised some three years ago, 
and has lately repeated the advice to leave 
the Cape, to know of one who has lived on 
its sandy shores for 73 years, and is very 
well satisfied with his sandy acres, and would 
not care to exchange for a rocky hillside 
farm in .Tersev. J. A. C. 
Barnstable Co., Mass. 
Now—“there’s no place like home.” An 
offer to swap Hope Farm for a much 
richer and more prosperous place wouldn’t 
interest me for a moment. If it is a 
rocky hillside—so much the better if we 
bring the orchard through. Cape Cod is 
all right for those who have a home root¬ 
ed to its sand. This man's income from 
asparagus will make many a western 
farmer look thoughtful. When I was a 
boy farming was voted “played out” on 
the Cape. Now asparagus and cranber¬ 
ries are making fortunes for those who 
handle them right. You talk about your 
inventors and scientists and “captains of 
industry”—they are no more worthy of 
praise than the men who have learned to 
adapt new crops to old and waste soils. 
With asparagus for the sands and cran¬ 
berries for the swamps these men have 
changed the destiny of a section. My re¬ 
gret is that I have no soil that is just 
right for asparagus. A few miles south 
of us there are acres of land on which 
this crop would grow to perfection. If 
some of the young men who are earning 
a few dollars per week in the city would 
take off coat and vest and sweat a little in 
body and brain they could make a small 
fortune. As for Cape Cod I have said it 
is a good place to go away from, be¬ 
cause a man carries a reputation which 
sometimes he cannot live up to. It is also 
a good place to stay if a man will use the 
wits which pedigree, history, climate and 
diet give him. 
Life Insurance. —This letter, which is 
like many others, touches me in a tender 
spot, as I have a similar policy in the 
same company: 
I would like to ask your opinion in regard 
to the -- Insurance Company. Do you 
consider them a good reliable company, and 
if you held a 20-year policy against them aud 
hail paid 13 premiums, would you continue 
paying, or would you drop it? Can you in¬ 
form me what per cent they pay? I have 
been told that they only pay 90 cents on a 
dollar of the amount of the policy. v. A. 
I carry a 20-year policy on which I have 
paid premiums for 13 years. No one 
could induce me to take out another policy 
of that sort, yet I shall continue to pay 
the premiums, as I do not see how I can 
get my money back unless I do so. Like 
thousands of others, I took this policy 
without figuring just how it would work 
out. I find that the policy guarantees no 
real earnings, but intimates that I shall 
get what the company will allow. Last 
year I asked the company what they would 
pay me if I got out. They tell me the 
policy has “no surrender value.” They 
will lend me about half what I have paid 
in at five per cent, and I must transfer 
the policy to them as security, I now find 
that if, when I started, I had taken a plain 
insurance without any “endowment” side 
to it and put the difference in cost into a 
savings bank I should now be much bet¬ 
ter off. As I figure it, they have simply 
got me and my money, and I must either 
die or keep on paying those premiums to 
realize on it. Some policies are different 
from mine, but I give the most unhappy 
five minutes I can to those gentlemen who 
come and ask me to take out a larger 
policy. I can understand how these great 
companies are piling up their vast sums 
of money. Thousands of people like my¬ 
self have been contributing to it; now our 
hands are tied while our accumulations 
may be loaned and manipulated so as to 
do us no end of damage. We do not often 
realize how money grows. Not long ago 
I was notified by the savings bank in the 
little town where I lived as a boy that I 
had an account there. I did not know it, 
but I understand that 47 years ago, just 
before my father went to the war, he de¬ 
posited a dollar to my credit at this bank. 
A few dimes and nickels were added, and 
then nothing more was done. Now, with 
no effort or thought on my part that little 
sum has grown to $11.71. This power of 
the working dollar for good or evil is 
enough to make people lie awake at 
nights. 
Growing Strawberry Mulch. —The 
following question interests me, and I 
would like to have it discussed: 
I have been greatly troubled with foul 
seed in the straw I use for mulching my 
strawberries. Last Fall I sifted the straw, 
and it was considerable benefit, but there 
is still too much rye, cheat, etc., in the 
mulch, and I am thinking of trying to grow 
some crop purposely for mulch. What shall 
it be? I would like something that can be 
grown after July 1, so I can grow It on old 
strawberry beds after picking the fruit, and 
of course I would be glad if it could he a 
leguminous plant, but am hardly expecting 
that. I am thinking of sowing or drilling 
corn very thickly, but am afraid it will 1 m? 
rather coarse, and difficult to handle unless 
cut up, and that will be expensive. We can 
get straw for about $1 per* ton within two 
or three miles, so you see that is our cheap¬ 
est material, but the foul seeds almost pro¬ 
hibit the use of it. w. w. f. 
I am up against the same proposition. 
Straw in this country is worth $22 or 
more per ton. Hay is nearly $30 at re¬ 
tail, and both are out of the question for 
mulching. I have cut all my rye and 
wheat for fodder. Many Lima beans 
are grown in this country, and I get all 
the vines I can for mulching. They are 
coarse, and give good protection when 
held down by a little manure. We use 
the vines of beans, peppers, potatoes and 
tomatoes in much the same way. Cow- 
pea and Soy bean vines are good, but all 
these need something else to pack them 
down. A thick seeding of Japanese millet 
on rich land ought to make a good mulch. 
While I have not tried it, I think from its 
appearance, it would be better than corn 
fodder. I shall try it this year, seeding 
on a part of the strawberry field which is 
to be plowed under. I have never found 
anything better than straw. If I could 
get it at a dollar a ton I would shake out 
what seed I could and use it. I would like 
to hear from strawberry growers at once 
about this. 
Farm Notes. —We got one of those rare 
June days after all on Sunday, June 16. 
It is rare that we get one well done, but 
we did enjoy that warm weather. So 
did everything on the farm, including the 
weeds. We had our first strawberries on 
that day—the first picking from Excelsior, 
which should have been ready by June 1. 
The crop from the early sorts is very 
light, as the frost killed most of the bloom. 
The later ones look better, but every¬ 
thing is at least two weeks behind. The 
farm made a fair showing after all in the 
face of this June day. The lower farm, 
or the warden part of it, never looked 
cleaner or better. We have nearly half an 
acre of Spring-set strawberry plants that 
we are prepared to back. They are Presi¬ 
dents and Marshalls. By June 16 we had 
hoed them four times and cultivated them 
seven times, and they showed it. In old 
times a man was quite a power in society 
when he could muster Tour blades in his 
household when the enemy appeared. In¬ 
cluding the boys Hope Farm can at a 
pinch muster seven hoes. During the 
week we expect to drill carrots midway 
between the rows of strawberries. As the 
latter are to be kept in hills we can find 
room for the carrots. I arp after every¬ 
thing that can be used for stock feeding 
for, without doubt, hay and grain will be 
out of sight by Fall. ... I have told 
of one field where we set strawberries 
five feet apart and drilled onions midway 
between. The berry plants are doing 
well enough, but the onions are very poor. 
It looks like a flat failure for us on 
onions this year, as we lost our plants for 
transplanting. We shall keep on planting 
corn until late in July. I feel hopeful for 
a late Fall; at least I feel like taking the 
risk and putting in the corn. Every 
mouthful of feed will be money saved this 
year. I told how we planted melons and 
squash in some of the orchards. I did 
not expect much from them, as it was so 
late and cold, but to my surprise they are 
making a fair start. It was the little hot¬ 
bed under them—in the shape of a forkful 
of good manure stamped down and cov¬ 
ered that kent them going. Our trade in 
pansy plants turned out well. The chil¬ 
dren filled the neighborhood with color, 
and had enough left for three great beds 
in front of the house. I find that while 
some things change, peddling remains 
much the same. The little boys passed 
bv some houses because they were “afraid 
of the dog.” I remembered some scenes 
from my old book-agent days, and had no 
heart to find fault. h. w. c. 
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