100 ?. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
59i 
Hope Farm Notes 
Sunday Afternoon. — I would like to 
have some of your good folks with me 
this afternoon on the eastern slope of 
our hill, looking off over the valley to 
the Palisades. There was a hard thunder 
shower last night, with a. deluge of rain, 
but we awoke this morning to find the 
wind blowing and the sun shining. The 
trees and the grass are washed clean. 
There are streaks of lighter green where 
the tops of the chestnuts show in the 
woods, or where the wind blows up the 
under side of the leaves. A bit of blue 
water sparkles off to the left, and patches 
of corn, cabbage and fruit show their 
different shadings of green. The second 
growth of Alfalfa is standing up just be¬ 
low me and the melons and squash are 
feeling their strength and reaching their 
vines out from t-he tree rows. At my 
back is a five-year-old apple tree. I 
planted it—a mere stick—and it seemed 
at times as if it could not live. Yet here 
it is strong and true, with its first little 
crop of fruit. In the pasture below us is 
Juno, the young cow. Her mother died 
when she was three days old, and we 
were left almost without milk. We 
cooked messes of all sorts for the little 
orphan, but it seemed as if she could 
not live. Yet here she is strong and 
vigorous, bidding fair to make the best 
cow we ever had. It is hard to say 
whether a dairyman thinks more of his 
cow than a fruit grower does of a good 
tree, but with each of them it is the 
thought that he gave protection and care 
to a small helpless thing that gives the 
feeling of satisfaction. If I had you here 
this afternoon we should probably fall to 
talking about these things. The young 
look hopefully ahead to the great things 
they expect to do. You and I have had 
our visions pretty well shattered, yet, in 
all reason, we ought to be more hopeful 
than these young folks, for has not ex¬ 
perience taught us time and again the 
great, never ending lesson of life—that 
there can be no death for those who work 
patiently and hopefully on? Yesterday 
the rain fell in sheets all through the 
forenoon, and the fog covered us like a 
blanket. No wind, the tank empty and 
the women folks calling for water. It 
seemed like a black outlook to the boys. 
They figured that it would take 2,500 
strokes of the pump to fill even the small 
tank at the house, and no one wants to 
figure out how many tons of lifting that 
means. Yet it seems like very foolish 
worrying here on the hillside to-day, with 
the windmill whirling and doing all the 
lifting for us. Sometimes men tell me 
that I am foolish to stay here on the 
rough hills. Sell out, they say, when you 
get the chance, and buy some good level 
farm where you can run a rotation of 
crops. I’d like to have them here to-day. 
They can beat me on crops no doubt but 
this view is worth something, and their 
bank account couldn’t touch the satisfac¬ 
tion of feeling that one has struggled to 
save a farm and give permanent va’ue to 
what would otherwise be wasted. There 
are different motives' which induce men 
to work; love, hatred, habit, necessity, 
ambition—I can see a good share of mine 
in a little group coming up the lane. 
Mother and the children will sit under 
the trees and read. Whatever the motive 
few men could face such a scene as is 
spread before us this afternoon without 
feeling the words of the old hymn “Not 
the labor of my hands”! It is the spirit 
that lies back of it—the part we cannot 
realize or touch, and yet which is the 
most important thing of it all. What a 
world this would be if we could only tie 
Sunday afternoon to all our working 
hours! 
All Sorts. —Usually I find it hard to 
start the children in the morning, but for 
the past two weeks they have been up 
before I like to turn out. Let no one sup¬ 
pose that this means any frantic desire 
to wipe all the weeds off the face of 
Hope Farm! The Sunday school picnic 
is coming, and the children are to run in 
the various races. So they are spending 
some time in practicing how to make a 
good start. That seems to be 25 per cent 
of a good race, and surely one who gets 
that much ahead stands a good show. I 
find my bags scattered all about where 
practice for the sack race has left them. 
Childish? Well, what else do you want 
from children? Suppose you were 11 to 
14 years old, and your mates had been 
telling all Summer how they could leave 
you out of sight. The minister had prom¬ 
ised to make a speech in presenting the 
prizes, and to name the prize winners 
from the pulpit! Why, say, with such a 
prospect you would conquer sleep and get 
out and practice—if you had any spirit in 
you, and what a blunderbuss of a farmer 
it would be who couldn’t understand why 
you prefer to play hall and run races for 
glory rather than hoe corn for nothing. 
This spirit of labor must be considered. 
The other day we attacked our weedy 
cornfield. The little boy went along, but 
when I handed him a hoe he could not 
feel that it was a glorious weapon. His 
eyes kept wandering to tl - other side of 
the field, where Merrill, behind a culti¬ 
vator, was chasing old Jerry up and down 
the rows. 
“I could do that,” said the boy, and I 
gave him a chance. He was very proud 
and happy to follow the horse, while 
Merrill did far better work with the hoe. 
Up to the age of responsibility you must 
put play or its representative into labor 
to save it from drudgery. ... It was 
another side of this spirit of labor that 
spoiled my carrot crop. I hate to admit 
another failure, but I ought to have 
known better than to sow carrots so late, 
between the Spring-set strawberry plants. 
It would have been better to sow the 
carrots in April—then they would have 
made a good start and got past the 
Spring weeds. Carrots are slow starters, 
and like Alfalfa, they are feeble in youth. 
I did not figure how the redweed and 
“pussley” rush upon us in July. The 
little carrots came up when strawberry 
picking was at its height, and the hay 
had to be cut. We could not hoe at that 
time, and before we knew it the carrots 
were hidden and the strawberries foul 
with weeds. I offered the children their 
price to clean out those carrots, but two 
rows were all we could get clean. Then 
I had to figure rapidly, and I found I 
couldn’t clean those carrots and save the 
other crops. So I did it myself—took a 
-.ultivator and ripped carrots and weeds 
all up. That gave us a chance to clean 
the berries. I shall be sorry to set peo¬ 
ple wrong on this double cropping plan. 
Don’t sow carrots in June among other 
crops. Put them in early if you have the 
hoe power to handle them, but don’t bring 
them in competition with late Summer 
weeds. . . . “We are all out of pota¬ 
toes—shall we buy some or will you dig?” 
That’s what came out of the kitchen on 
July 20. New potatoes sell at $1.25 a 
bushel in our local market. I went out 
and dug a hill or two of Irish Cobblers 
which were planted April 26. They were 
not fully grown, but fair size, and I 
figure that it will pay best to dig. These 
potatoes are in that patch I have told of 
where we have peach trees, currants, 
strawberries, potatoes and sweet corn all 
growing together. The potatoes are in 
drills with sweet corn about five feet 
apart—a hill between two hills of pota¬ 
toes. The corn has now grown above the 
potato vines. I dig the hills close to the 
corn so as to give the latter a good 
chance and set a cabbage plant in the 
empty hill. . . . We are now feast¬ 
ing on raspberries and five different kinds 
of vegetables. There are raspberries, 
both blacks and reds, on tap at every 
meal, and better than all, the Yellow 
Transparent and Red Astrachan apples 
are ready for sauce and baking. We need 
this inspiring diet, for weed killing time 
has come, and there is no meaner job on 
a naturally weedy farm. The hay is all 
under cover, and peach and apple pick¬ 
ing will soon be here. We have some 
8,000 cabbage planted. How to kill the 
weeds, pick the fruit and get the plow¬ 
ing done requires close figuring and closer 
working. 
Cow Peas and Canada Peas. —This 
question has no doubt occurred to others: 
My seed house cannot supply me with any 
cow peas, but with Canada field peas. Would 
you sow them and turn under same as cow 
peas in Fall and sow rye, or do you think 
Crimson clover would give better results? 
ITow many bushels of Canada field peas do 
you sow per acre? Can they be sown with 
regular seed drill? If field peas are sown do 
you think it advisable to apply lime to soil 
before sowing rye or not? The soil intended 
for field peas or Crimson clover is a clay 
soil. E. w. K. 
Pennsylvania. 
There is little use trying to buy good 
seed of cow peas. The demand is far 
ahead of supply. This cow pea is not a pea 
at all—but a bean. The Canada field pea 
will not do well in hot weather. You 
would not take a Florida darkey to work 
in a lumber camp in Winter—nor would 
you take a French Canadian to get out 
cypress timber on one of the Florida 
Keys in Summer. The cow pea repre¬ 
sents the darkey. It does its best in hot 
sunshine. You could sow it now after 
some other crop, and obtain a great 
growth before Fall sowing of rye. The 
Canada pea does not like hot weather. In 
early Spring or in late Fall, when the 
weather is cool, it will do well, but sow 
it now and it will fail—mildew and 
starve. We sow five pecks per acre of 
Canada peas ; they can be seeded by a drill, 
but do not sow them now. We would use 
12 pounds of Crimson clover and lj4 
pound Cow-horn turnip seed per acre at 
once. Let them grow until late in Sep¬ 
tember and then fit for the rye. At that 
season you probably will not need the 
lime to sweeten the soil. Rye responds 
less to lime than any of the other small 
grains. 
Life Insurance.— I’ll guarantee that 
there are thousands of people who will 
say amen to the following: 
Your note of warning on life insurance 
excites my feelings of gratitude and makes 
me hope some may be rescued from falling 
into the trap. I have no possible claim on 
your time—only wish I had so that I might 
ask you if you know anyone in the flesh who 
has received “the dividend apportioned by 
the company,” and if so, what that dividend 
amounted to. As our case is even more dis¬ 
astrous than yours, it may be as well to 
relate it to show how much your warning is 
needed. We bought a bearing orange grove 
in Florida, and had a very comfortable and 
unencumbered home. The freezes of 1894-5, 
however, changed all this. My husband hav¬ 
ing learned farming and I thrift in a dif¬ 
ferent latitude, we were able to make a liv¬ 
ing after our trees were gone. But farming 
in Florida has its limitations, and we could 
only make a living. The only thing to do to 
feed the vulture of premiums was to move 
North and work for others in order to secure 
a fixed income. We have spent nine labori¬ 
ous, uncomfortable years, simply living to 
work and denying ourselves even some of 
the necessaries of life. We have three poli¬ 
cies, and have paid 17 premiums on one 20- 
year one. Now the question is, are we all the 
time throwing good money after bad, or will 
we be able at last to realize something with 
which to start a little farm home once more? 
Our life is one incessant drudgery, with lots 
of provocation for those who were not born 
in slavery. I think we are fond of work 
and certainly love farming, but at the end 
of every year there is a sigh of relief that 
we have got that much of life over. All our 
misery seems to be caused by this horrid 
trap we have fallen into, and like yourself, 
can see no way out of, but by paying, pay¬ 
ing, paying. What this vulture has con¬ 
sumed. 'if kept in a stocking even, would 
now buv us a comfortable little farm. With 
excellent health and simple tastes and nat¬ 
urally well-developed powers of enjoyment, 
we might be happy and perhaps help to 
make others so Instead of being nothing but 
machines, and aching ones at that. One can 
endure much if one can see freedom coming, 
but if the only result is to be a palace for 
Mr. McCall and a fancy dressing gown for 
Mr. Hyde one feels it has been something of 
a waste to be merely a parasite to accom¬ 
plish it. A - e. E. 
Pennsylvania. 
Now, I don’t want to do injustice to 
anyone. If any readers have paid out 
and received their “dividends” I wish 
they would tell us what it amounts to. 
No more “endowment” policies for me. 
I think plain insurance in a strong com¬ 
pany a good thing, but the trouble is you 
have to pay your share of supporting an 
army of employees and a great parade of 
getting “new business.” I have got to 
keep on paying in order to get anything 
on my policy. If I had more than one 
policy and were as hard pressed as this' 
friend I would borrow what I could on 
one and use the money to pay all the 
premiums. A new law in Massachusetts 
permits savings banks to issue insurance 
policies up to $500. The rate will be low, 
and the business is supervised by the 
State. I would like to have the agent who 
got me into my policy tackle me for an¬ 
other -with his palaver about “the dear 
little wife” and my “great duty to my 
family.” He’d get a reception that would 
warm or chill him as needed. There 
ought to be some form of safe insurance 
that would work out like a building and 
loan association. The thing that galls me 
most is to think of my few dollars multi¬ 
plied by the contribution of 100,000 more 
piled up in banks and trust companies for 
“financiers” to play financial “baseball” 
with and we poor things doing all the 
chasing of the ball. 
A Strange Dog. —Here is a dog prob¬ 
lem that is a new one to me: 
A strange dog came to my place one month 
ago, and is still here. I advertised him 
three times in the local paper, but no one 
has claimed him. I cannot keep him unless 
I pay a license fee; he stays at my home all 
alone most of the time, as my wife and I 
are away. He is a nice dog; I do not like 
to kill him. After advertising him and pay¬ 
ing his license, when could I sell him by 
right of law, and what redress would I 
have if his former owner took him away 
when we were all away, supposing I found 
out who he was? M. f. 
Massachusetts. 
I am neither a lawyer nor a judge of 
dogs, but if it were my case and I didn’t 
want to keep him and could find a cus¬ 
tomer I would sell him at once. I think 
you have used reasonable means to find 
the owner. If he came and took the dog 
away you could make him pay reasonable 
expense for advertising and keep. I sin¬ 
cerely hope that no strange dog will select 
Hope Farm as an abiding place. We 
have now all the members of the underfoot 
world we can provide for, yet there would 
surely be tears if I banished a new comer. 
h. w. c. 
HAY PRESSES 
■ ■ »» ■ tui c ucwnDirifQ 
THE HENDRICKS 
Press will Kuril its Cost in One 
Season. A postal with your name and 
address on the back 
will bring you our 
Free Catalog. 
D. B. Hendricks & Co. 
Cornell St. 
KINGSTON, N. Y. 
IT MAKES A. 
BALE THAT 
EVERY HAY 
BUYER 
WANTS 
THE NEW WAY” PRESS 
is a horizontal press. It bales 1% to 214 tons per hour. 
Feed hole 46x50 inches—easy to feed; no tramping-, 
forkonlyused. Revolutionizes the loose baling system. 
Makes the very desirable eastern market bale. Beats 
all Box and Upright Presses by doing 100 per cent 
more work. Stands at work just as you see it in the cut. 
Very portable. Adapted to bank barn work. We also 
make Horse and Belt Power Presses. Write for catalog. 
SANDWICH MFG. CO., 15? MAIN ST.. SANDWICH, ILL. 
Galvanized Iron Tanks 
, 12 and 15 
barrel capacity. 
Light, Durable, 
Inexpensive. 
BOWEN & QUICK 
Auburn, N. Y. 
Well 
DRILLING & 
PROSPECTING MACHINES. 
Fastest drillers known. Great money earners I 
LOOMIS MACHINE CO M TIFFIN, OHIO. 
TAT - PI ¥ drilling 
tt l/L 1/ machines 
Over 70 sizes and styles, for drilling either deep or 
Bhallow wells in anv kind or soil or rock. Mounted on 
wheels or on sills. W ith engines orhorse powers. Strong, 
simple and durable. Any mechanic can operate them 
easily. Send for catalog. 
WILLIAMS BROS., Ithaca. N. Y. 
| _ I Save nnd hind the 
IctfA I hr a Chare straw in neat bun- 
11 Tv I III G9IICI 9 dies and clean the 
• grain perfectly. 
400 bu. a day. Small power required. Also Manure 
Spreaders, Silos, Horseand Dog Powers, Cutters. Catalogfrea 
HARDER MFC. CO., Box 1 1 , COBLESKILL, N. Y- 
CRAIN DRILL 
TheYORK FORCE FEED DRIIX combines 
lightness with strength. Most complete drill made. No 
complex gearing to get out of order. Boxes are close to 
ground. Easily Fully 
regulates \^=rra^ Guaranteed 
quantity 
of seed 
or fer¬ 
tilizer. 
AWARD¬ 
ED GOLD 
MEDAL 
St, Louis 
World’s 
Fair. 
Weight, 
Only 700 lbs. 
Agents Wanted. 
Write for catalogue. 
THE HENCH & DROMGOLD CO.. 
• Mfrs., York, Pa. BI4DK ALSO WITH DISC 
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. Get our free catalog 
of Steel Wheels and Low Down 
Handy Wagons. 
HAVANA METAL WHEEL CO., 
Box 17 Havana, Ill. 
^flORE 
GOOD 
CIDER 
JUICE 
can be made from a given amount 
apples or grapes with one of our 
presses than with any other. 
The juice will be purer and 
bring higher prices, while 
the extra yield soon pays 
for the press. We make 
HYDRAULIC ES. 
in all sizes, hand or pow¬ 
er. 25 to 600 barrels per day. 
Also Steam Evaporators. Ap- — ■ 
pie-butter Cookers,etc. Fully~ = 
guaranteed. Catalog FREE. — 
The Hydraulic Press Mfg. Co.' ~-Hftil 
§3JMain Street, Ml. Gilead, Ohio 
V or Room 124Lt, 39 Cortland St., New York, N. Y. 
152 
_ J? THE ^ 
Er —. « 
PIONEER PREPARED 
ROOFING 
DURABLE, WEATHER-PROOF, FIRE-RESISTING 
CHEAPER THAN METAL OR SHINGLES. 
WEARS LONGER. NO TAR OR PAPER. | 
WILL NOT MELT, ROT OR CRACK 
THE standard paint company 
lOO WILLIAM STfllir, NEW VORK 
■rudm: CHICAGO, »T. 10UU, PHILADELPHIA, BOJTOH, AILAHTA I 
