1907. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
527 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farm Notes. —Here we are at the end 
of June calling for a good shower. Part 
of our strawberries are on soil where 
this fruit never should be planted. It is 
hard and stiff, lacking in humus. After 
a week or so of hot sun this soil bakes 
like a brick. The plants having made a 
heavy growth during the wet season can¬ 
not get water to mature their fruit. Right 
now, however, the soil that is full of de¬ 
caying humus, holds water so well that a 
dig of the hoe sends up damp and dark 
soil. It has taken me some years fully 
to realize how necessary it is to have a soil 
full of humus if you want strawberries. 
Our strawberry crop will be light. T hat 
late frost did us more harm than I thought. 
President seems to be particularly liable to 
frost injury. I banked on Excelsior this 
year for a very early berry. It seems to 
be a little ahead of Michel’s Early but 
with us is sour as a pickle—too sour ex¬ 
cept for canning. I have never known the 
wild strawberries to be as large as they 
are this year. There are several spots on 
the hills where the wild fruit will aver¬ 
age nearly as large as some cultivated 
varieties. . . . We drilled the carrots 
between the rows of Spring-set straw¬ 
berries on June 17. I would not think of 
doing this if the berries were to run in 
matted rows. We follow the hill system— 
leaving about five strong plants to each 
one set and cutting off all other runners. 
In this way we have space enough left for 
the carrots and can use the cultivators 
until late in the season. I have spoken 
of another strawberry field with plants set 
five feet apart and onions drilled in be¬ 
tween. It hurts my feelings to give things 
up, but after trying my best to make the 
onions do their duty I give it up. We 
shall cultivate the whole space between the 
strawberry rows, clean it nicely and drill 
carrots. Our onion crop is thus admitted 
to be a total failure. But why carrots? 
All signs point to a short gram crop, 
which means awful prices for us. I must 
do all I can to cut my bills down. It will 
not do to plant corn or some high-grow¬ 
ing crop among the berries, as the latter 
would suffer. Of all roots for cow or 
horse feed I know of none better than 
carrots. With idle horses in Winter I 
can keep them in good condition on corn- 
fodder, carrots, and a little wheat bran. 
We are also sowing yellow turnips and 
mangels, but for the strawberry beds the 
carrots seem best. ... I have been 
debating what to do with my three acres 
of wheat, which is in good condition. 
Shall I let it go to grain or cut it early 
for hay? In the former case I should 
have a good lot of grain for chicken feed 
and good straw for the strawberries. If I 
cut it now I shall have four tons or more 
of good hay, which I could not buy in 
market for less than $100. I shall also 
gain nearly three weeks in getting the 
stubble plowed under and planted to corn 
and cabbage. This may make all the 
difference this year between a crop of 
grain and none at all on the corn. So I 
shall cut the grain for hay, and the first 
cutting of Alfalfa will come at about the 
same time. . . . When a man is doing 
gardening the question of how far he can 
go in double cropping is sure to come up. 
If we have a good piece of ground, and 
fill it full of manure, it seems like a great 
loss to let the plants stand far apart as 
we do in field culture. Why not crowd 
them and thus get more off each square 
rod? My experience shows that this 
scheme may result in great success or 
awful failure—depending on the care you 
give the soil. The more you crowd the 
plants the more hoe and finger work you 
must give, and that is where most people 
fall down. I have a patch of hand- 
planted and hand-worked potatoes that 
bid fair to give three times the yield of 
ordinary field culture. 1 hey are planted 
two feet by one, and have been kept clean. 
Our bush fruits we planted in rows six 
feet apart. Between the plants in the rows 
we have early cabbage or Golden Bantam 
sweet corn—doing well. Between the 
rows we have drilled two rows of yellow 
turnips after cultivating the ground thor¬ 
oughly six times. After cultivating pota¬ 
toes (in rows three feet apart) eight times 
and hoeing twice we shall plant sweet corn 
between the rows. On another part of 
the lower field we have currants in rows 
eight feet apart and three feet in the row. 
Between the currant plants are strawber¬ 
ries. Between the currant rows are pota¬ 
toes with sweet corn growing between 
potato plants every five feet. In every 
other potato row are young peach trees. 
They have all been well fertilized, and I 
have cultivated between the potatoes and 
currants nine times already, and hoed 
twice. It looks now as if we should get 
good pay for the time and toil we have 
plastered on this piece of ground, but I 
well know that if we let it alone for a 
short time we should have an awful failure. 
A Woman’s Plowing. —This note is 
from an ex-teacher in Massachusetts, who 
has taken a farm where she raises chick¬ 
ens, and wants to grow fruit and vege¬ 
tables : 
I have before now written you of my 
attempts at farming. The out-of-door life 
has given me strength, even if it hasn't 
filled my purse. Help is so scarce here that 
it is hard to get a man to do anything 
The only way I could get any plowing done 
this year was to use a spring-tooth harrow 
on land previously cultivated for two years. 
A Danish woman helps me do the cultivating. 
From your .notes on page 463 I wondered 
if it would be possible for me with the help 
of this Danish woman, my horse weighing 
from 000 to 1,000 pounds, and the “Wonder 
plow trucks,” to do my own plowing. Do 
you think it would? 
There is a hard problem. “Plowing” 
with a spring-tooth harrow and one horse 
is not very satisfactory to land or crops. 
It might fit soil roughly for grass or 
grain, but garden crops need deeper work. 
We find the trucks very satisfactory with 
our team and soil and we could hardly get 
along without them. I have not tried them 
with a one-horse plow, but the manufac¬ 
turers claim they will work with it. That 
horse is rather light for plowing hard 
ground, but I think the trucks will enable 
you to turn the soil over. Don’t try to do 
too much at a time, and, if you can, train 
the horse to walk slowly. The manufac¬ 
turers say they will send the trucks on 
trial. 
A Woman’s Farm Problem. —As I go 
about the country, or hear from people 
who feel they can talk without reserve, 
I meet people with hard problems. Some 
of them deal with the stern question of 
providing the daily supply of bread and 
butter. With others this question does 
not press hard, but other things crowd in 
upon life with fearful force. I take the 
liberty of quoting from a private letter 
from a Western State that we may know 
the farm problem which confronts one 
woman. The Massachusetts teacher wants 
to plow a few acres, the western woman 
wants to maintain that excellent farm, but 
is denied by affliction the power to do it 
as she would like: 
This woman lost her hearing when she 
was a little girl, and so feels she cannot 
assume the management herself, as she might 
otherwise do. She loves the farm because 
it has been her home all her life; because 
her father planned and laid out the fields, 
put up the buildings, set out the now tower¬ 
ing shade trees, and planted the orchard and 
small fruit garden. The spirits of loved ones 
seem to hover about this place, and makes 
the woman feel at home. Also this woman 
loves farming'. She has studied art, hut to 
her eyes there are no sights more beautiful 
than waving fields of grain, clean from all 
weeds: long and well-kept rows of corn; 
and a wide-spread garden where flowers, 
fruits and vegetables mingle in neighborly 
profusion. Also this woman believes in pure¬ 
bred stock, not the scrubs which the ordinary 
tenant is contented with. The tenant can¬ 
not afford “thoroughbreds,” so what is the 
woman to do ? And last, but by no means 
least, this woman believes with all her heart 
and with all her soul and with all her might, 
in the preservation and improvement of 
soils; and the average tenant believes In 
skinning the land for all it is worth. I do 
reallv think that every land owner should 
keep the soil in such condition that future 
generations may derive as much benefit frpm 
it as did the pioneers who upturned the 
virgin soil. I know that if given proper 
care, one acre might produce as much as two 
acres now do, and I do believe in purebred 
stock, but unless I can secure an honest, cap¬ 
able and up-to-date manager I cannot hope 
to keep the farm from depreciating in value. 
Now there are parts of that letter, re¬ 
ferring to the soil and the love of the fai in 
which might well occupy your mind for 
half a dozen Sunday afternoons on the 
hill. I do not know that I have ever read 
a clearer statement of what I call the 
duty which a farmer owes to his soil and 
his home. Let a man with strength and 
energy have this ambition, and the prob¬ 
lem would not be a hard one, for such a 
man would only need to put on his armor 
and fight. With this woman, however, the 
task seems wellnigh overpowering. I can 
realize just how she feels. Will not some 
of you western farmers tell us what can 
be done? 
Windmills.— Here is a question, from 
Maine, which needs general discussion: 
Aside from the vagaries of the wind, are 
there anv “outs” or objections to the power 
windmills? We have been making quite care¬ 
ful experiments with charcoal for the chicks 
this Spring and we feel that it would be un¬ 
wise to bring up a flock of chicks again with¬ 
out a liberal supply. f. c. c. 
Our mill has now been in operation 
seven years. There have been no costs 
for repairs in that time, except a small 
chain. The mill has worked steadily 
whenever the wind blew. Our mill does 
nothing but pump water but it does this 
so well that only three times during the 
past year have our tanks run dry. This 
was partly our own fault for not utilizing 
the wind as we should. I hear no objec¬ 
tion to power mills except that they are 
slow and at the mercy of the wind. Of 
course no one could depend on them for 
filling a silo or generating electricity, for 
they might stand idle just when needed. 
The tendency now is to gas engines. Peo¬ 
ple want something that has povver always 
on tap—they don’t like to wait—-though 
sometimes they have to wait until the gas 
engine gets ready to wake up. I regard 
my windmill as a faithful old friend. If 
anyone can put up other objections to 
wind power I should like to hear them. 
We have come to the same conclusion 
after using charcoal for chicks and going 
through several attacks of white scours. 
Patents. —Now and then I have ques¬ 
tions like the following: 
Will you let me know just how I must go 
to work to patent a sap spout which I have 
made a drawing of? I noticed that a neigh¬ 
bor of ours who tapped thousands of trees 
lost a great many pails of sap and also pan 
covers. This sap spout I have in mind is 
perfect. It cannot slip cover or pail either. 
A. M. T. 
I am not a patent lawyer, and probably 
couldn’t invent a new machine that could 
stand the test. As I understand it, the 
mere conception of an idea is not patent¬ 
able.” A thing might be new and useful 
and yet of such a character that no patent 
could be given. Who decides this? The 
patent office at Washington. You.or your 
agent must apply to the Commissioner of 
Patents at Washington. You send draw¬ 
ings or models if required. There are 
in the patent office a number of exam¬ 
iners who will look up the records and 
decide whether your sap spout is new and 
useful. There may be something just like 
it already on file, or they may consider it 
no improvement over others. If these men 
find no objection to granting the patent it 
will be given. If they do find objection 
you will have a chance to explain or argue 
further. If the examiners refuse the pat¬ 
ent you will have the right to appeal if 
you care to. While some inventors deal 
directly with the patent office, I think most 
of them now hire agents or patent law¬ 
yers to do the work for them. These 
men, through long practice and intimate 
acquaintance, know just what to do. 
Cold Canning. —We used to have more 
questions like the following than we do 
When you write advertisers mention The 
R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a quick reply and 
“a square deal." See guarantee, page 8. 
Give 
’ your harness’ 
’“life” and' 
J strength—make 1 
it weather-proof, 
r sweat-proof and 
^durable by using 
EUREKA 1 
Harness Oil 
Tones up the leather fibres. Pre¬ 
vents decay. Contains nothing 
1 that will cut and chafe. 
iBOSTON COACH AXLE OIL, 
i helps the wheels go round. 
\ Makes heavy loads light and, 
i hard roads easy. Better than/ 
. Castor Oil. Everywhere— , 
nil sl7.es. Made by 
STANDARD OIL CO. 
^icorporat«d 
R* ’Anderton” Tor 
Buggy 
Get Our Plan' 
Guarantee that our buggies will 
stay right two full years, backed 
by |25,000 cash bond. Your 
money back if erery claim Is 
not proved. 
“Anderton” 
lino Includes Buggies, Surreys, 
Stanhopes, Driving Wagons, 
Spring Wagons, Pony Vohiolos, 
Carts, Harness etc. 
Try nn “Anderton” Yohlele 80dny» 
fr©©* Absolutely not ono cent of deposit required. Write for 
handsomely illustrated 140-pago catalog. 
THE ANDFTtTON MANUFACTURING COMPANY, 
19 Third 8t„ Cincinnati, O, 
s 
AYE YOUR BACK 
Save time, horses, work 
and money by using an 
I Electric Handy Wagon 
Low wheels, broad tires. No 
living man can build a better. 
Book on “Wheel Sense" free. 
EI»ciricWhe9*Co.Bi 88, Quincy,III. 
now: 
I have recently purchased 'a formula for 
preserving fruit and vegetables by the cold 
process. Formula calls for a compound ex¬ 
tract of salvx. I would like to know what 
this compound extract of salyx is. Can it he 
used as a food or is it a poisonous drug? 
R. A. B. 
I will try to relieve your anxiety by 
advising you to throw the stuff away at 
once where nothing can eat it, and then 
make a solemn resolution not to invest in 
any more such games. The “extract of 
salyx” I understand to be a form o i salicylic 
acid which should never be put into food. 
It is sometimes used as a medicine and 
before the pure food law went into effect 
I am told it was often used in canned 
goods. 'Such stuff is also used in em¬ 
balming fluids. If you want to embalm 
your fruit you might try this “cold pro¬ 
cess,” but not any for me. I am safe 
in saying that if you used it for preserving 
food and then tried to sell this food where 
the law could touch you you would be 
liable to arrest. Let the “cold process” 
alone. If you want canned goods follow 
the good old plan of cooking them thor¬ 
oughly and putting them into air-tight jars 
while they are red hot. h. w. c. 
Wheels 
WITH GROOVED TIRES 
4 in. wide, The Groove protects 
the heads of spokes from wear, 
which makes wheel good and 
strong till tire is worn out. We 
make plain tire wheels in other 
widths. We make wheels to fit 
any thimble skein or straight 
steel axle. Getour free catalog 
of Steel Wheels and Low Down 
Handy Wagons. 
HAVANA METAL WHEEL CO.. 
Box 17 Havana, HI. 
Write for N et Price Illustrated Implement Cata¬ 
logue. Robert C. Reeves Co., 187Water St., N.Y.Oity 
.. _Ndv\/I 
Capacity: 12 to 18 Tons per Day 
Economical In help and power. The simp 
Self-Feed attachment handles large or small 
I charges, saves labor and adds to capacity. 
| Press stands on Its wheels In operation—no 
holes to dig. Tyer stands up to do h Is work; no 
getting down In the dust, mud or snow. Positive, 
automatic plunger draw, bridge less than eight 
I Inches high. Easily and quickly set for work. 
Adapted for work at bank barns. Woalsobullda 
Belt Power Press. Get free catalog before buying. 
[ Sandwich Mtg. Co., 1B7 Main St., Sandwich, III. 
COVERED WITH 
Carey’s Roofing 
Barn on 
Charles Lexow’s Farrfl 
Mitchell. Illinois. 
The CAREY Idea: ONE Root is Enough 
D ON’T YOU THINK one roof ought to be enough for any building? 
Charles Lexow, of Mitchell, Ills., recently became a convert to this 
Carey Idea. In 20 years or so, doubtless he will pay the sort of tribute to 
Carey’s Roofing that H. L. Bonta, of Harrodsburg, Mercer Co., Ky., does, 
when he wrote us, April 23rd last:— “Some 15 or 18 years ago , I bought Carey’s 
Hoofing to cover a large bam. The Roofing is still doing good service.” 
CAREY’S 
FLEXIBLE 
CEMENT 
ROOFING 
is fire-resisting, wind and waterproof; will not Rot, Rust, Melt, Break or Dry Out. It is 
equally adapted to flat or steep surfaces; is easily laid on new buildings or over leaky 
shingles or metal roofs, with but knife and hammer as tools. 
CAREY’S ROOFING is composed of the highest grade of woolen felt of our own manu¬ 
facture, strong East Indian burlap and our own highly tempered asphalt cementcompound, 
all compressed into compact, always flexible sheets. The Carey Patent Lap covers and 
permanently protects nail-heads. 
Sold and shipped direct from our warehouses, conveniently 
located. Write for Sample and our KOOK-HOOK—both FREE. 
THE PHILIP CAREY MFG. CO., 42 Wayne Avenue, CINCINNATI, O. 
