1907. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
4i5 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farm Topics. — I spoke about that in¬ 
cubator that persisted in breaking the 
“no smoking” rule. When we found that 
it would, not go we got the eggs out as 
quickly as possible, and put them under 
hens and a turkey. These eggs were 
pretty cold before we changed them, and 
I did not have great hopes for chicks. 
There were about 150 that seemed worth 
trying after testing. We made the sit¬ 
ting hens and the turkey stretch them¬ 
selves to the limit and still there were 30 
eggs left. We took a couple of hens that 
wanted to sit and then changed their 
minds, planted them on these eggs and 
boxed them in so they couldn’t get away. 
But what’s the use of trying to make a 
hen do what she objects to? Those hens 
would not do business, and the eggs were 
spoiled. Out of the remainder we 
hatched 107. These were divided up 
among part of the hens, and the others 
started on another round. Old Queen, 
the white turkey, was a success as an in¬ 
cubator and a failure as a brooder. She 
was too clumsy, and killed her chicks. 
We learned to let her brood the eggs un¬ 
til they were “pipped”—then we took 
them away and put them, under hens to 
finish the job. We have made a failure 
thus far of trying to raise chicks in the 
brooders. They go off at wholesale with 
scours! While this happens in the brood¬ 
ers hens cooped a few feet away raise 
every chick with the same feed and water. 
Why is it? . . . Some weeks ago I 
spoke of a sow that broke her leg. It 
was done while we were all at church, 
and I have been unable to see how she 
did it. There were seven lusty little pigs. 
The sow would eat but little, and be¬ 
came so thin and weak that I did not 
expect her to live. Still, she nursed the 
pigs until T thought they could live with¬ 
out her milk and then we took them away 
and fed them on a thin slop of mixed 
feed. The sow soon began to gain, and 
is now eating well. While lame she will 
make a good hog by Fall. The little 
fellows are small, and will never be full 
size, I fear. We have no skim-milk to 
feed them. With a healthy sow we can 
start the pigs well, but if they lack milk 
for the first eight weeks they will carry 
the evidence of it up to the- very knife. 
Another sow had six pigs and killed three 
of them. She is a good-sized animal, and 
her three pigs weigh more than the seven 
of the other litter. There is one objec¬ 
tion to my plan of buying sows instead of 
breeding them here. We are not always 
sure that they will prove good milkers. 
A profitable sow must be a good dairy 
animal. . . . We are using a set of 
Wonder plow trucks this year for the 
first time. Bob and Jerry cannot be 
called a very steady team, and our soil 
is tough and stony. In many cases we 
have had trouble in doing smooth, even 
plowing. These “trucks” are really two 
wheels, one large and one small, which 
are bolted to the plow beam. The large 
one runs in the furrow ahead of the 
plow, while the small one travels on the 
unplowed land. The difference in level 
between the two gives the depth of the 
furrow. We find this a great help. The 
wheels keep the plow steady and hold it 
down to the work with little pulling or 
riding on the plow handles. On some 
of our fields the trucks save the time of 
an extra man as driver. ... As we 
all know, many excellent writers on farm 
matters insist that we spread over too 
much ground in trying to raise our crops. 
They would have us take less ground, 
work it thoroughly, feed it well and thus 
make it grow double the crop. This is 
called “intensive farming”—a sort of rais¬ 
ing two blades of grass on half the space 
on which one grew before. Now, is there 
anything in this for practical men, or is 
it a “fad?” I am going to try to find out 
this year on my lower fields. For ex¬ 
ample, potatoes. I have no use for my 
old potato planter, and my neighbor uses 
it to plant for a number of people. All 
around me are fields planted with it, and 
I can have a chance to compare results. 
Along the road there is a piece of land 
we want for a lawn this Fall. I am try¬ 
ing “intensive” potato culture ahead of 
the lawn. The soil was plowed, well 
worked twice with spring-tooth and three 
times with the Acme. Then we laid it 
off carefully in straight rows two feet 
apart, and planted Irish Cobbler seed 
about 15 inches in the row. Potato fer¬ 
tilizer at the rate of 1,500 pounds per 
acre was scattered along the rows. We 
expect to work that soil four times with 
a light harrow or weeder before the 
plants come up. Then we shall use a 
cultivator, working deep until the vines 
are large, hand-hoe to keep down weeds 
and watch those plants like children. Now 
let’s see how this puttering method com¬ 
pares with the machine planting. With 
twice the crop our hand work will pay 
and, if need be, we can plant sweet corn 
in the potatoes and turnips in the corn 
after the potatoes are dug. Or, take an¬ 
other case, we have a patch of some 600 
currant bushes. The scale got at them 
badly; and I cut them back and planted 
strawberries between the bushes. This 
Spring we plowed betwee-n the rows and 
planted 45 peach trees 16 feet apart. Be¬ 
tween the peach trees we have planted 
potatoes. Later single stalks of Ever¬ 
green corn will be grown five feet apart 
in the potato rows. The strawberries 
look well, and after fruiting we shall let 
runners work out so as to make wide 
beds. The currants are making a new 
growth from the roots, and we shall now 
try to keep them free from scale. Now 
all this demands heavy fertilizing and 
the most thorough culture. You must 
keep the grass and weeds down or get 
out. Also in planting raspberries and 
blackberries..As an advo¬ 
cate of sod culture I had one trump card 
in a peach orchard of 50 trees on the 
lower farm. In a petulant mood Nature 
humped up the rock here until the solid 
ledge came to the surface. A hard point 
sticks out with a thin wipe of soil over 
the rest. Garden crops and grain dry 
out here every Summer, so I picked it 
as a hard test for the Stringfellow meth¬ 
od. The peach trees were planted in 
little holes cut in the sod, and have been 
mulched from the start with the weeds 
which are hand-picked from the garden 
and strawberries. They have grown into 
a perfect demonstration of the possibili¬ 
ties of this method. Here was a chance to 
put my thumb in the armhole of a vest 
and smile superior at these cultivating 
scoffers! In an evil moment I told the 
boys to plow a little patch beyond this 
orchard. They didn’t understand, and be¬ 
fore I knew it they had struggled and 
toiled all over that ledge and ripped up 
my chance to “point with pride.” It’s 
all plowed up! I am frank to say that 
it will probably put new life into the trees 
and make them larger, but no one who 
sees them now will believe that I made 
them as they are without cultivation. 
When I tell about it they will squint an 
eye at those furrows and shrug their 
shoulders! However, I have another or¬ 
chard as an object lesson. I have often 
felt that I would like to read the 
thoughts of some of these experimenters 
when the work they wanted to bank on 
is upset. . . . Sunday, May 5, was the 
nearest approach to a Spring day we have 
had this year. It was only an approach, 
for though the sun was warm and bright 
a cold wind was blowing. I fear that a 
number of our citizens on their way to 
church would have been reasonably satis¬ 
fied if Saturday had changed weather 
with Sunday. It is to be hoped that 
Spring has finally come. This good day 
found us with only half the potatoes 
planted, with 2,000 strawberry plants to 
set, 150 trees to plant, hardly an onion 
seed started and other handicaps. How¬ 
ever, what we have done thus far looks 
well, and what we lack is a chance to do 
more. We have a good bloom on most 
of the peach trees, cherries are white, 
and this is our apple year. It seemed 
like the return of good old times to walk 
over the hills on Sunday afternoon and 
really feel the sun once more. Each year 
it seems if there were greater joy than 
ever before when the Spring came danc¬ 
ing up our valley. It is a source of great 
comfort to me to sit here on my stone 
wall and see week by week how the green 
starts by the springs and low places, 
creeps over the rye and grass, sends a 
little shimmer of color through the trees, 
and finally bursts out into the full glory 
of Spring. Here I am, one of a long 
string of so-called proprietors of this 
piece of land. Very likelv for a thousand 
years men have rested here and tried in 
their various ways of reasoning to under¬ 
stand the great mystery of life and the 
far greater mystery of death. Not 
one has solved it, yet those have come 
nearest to it who got closest to the 
silence, and have come to the death which 
Winter brings and the life which follows 
it with Spring. I have had men tell me 
that such thinking will never increase the 
potato crop, or kill the San Jose scale, 
and they are right; yet it may give us a 
better motive for growing more potatoes 
and making a better orchard. Each 
Spring shows me how the city is growing 
out toward our valley. “Wait till they 
get those tunnels under the river,” people 
say, “and then your hills will be covered 
by a town.” It is not unlikely, yet what¬ 
ever man may do, Spring will still come 
dancing up the valley after Winter goes. 
Those who follow me will see fewer trees 
from my hill, but there will be the same 
ripple on the water, the same light on 
the clouds and the same smile of God 
in the sunshine and faint shadows. No 
man who knows that the sun is shining 
can get away from that, and ’way back 
on lonely farms where life is hard and 
weary and where there is little hope for 
the rush of eager feet from the city, the 
same smile and comfort are to be found. 
H. W. C. 
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