1909 
TH EC RURAL NEW-YORKER 
car 
Hope Farm Notes 
. Farm Notes. —In spite of all our 
fears the peaches are filling v out in 
the bud. I had no idea they could 
stand such weather—but here they 
are! Now we shall slap on the fer¬ 
tilizer and give them the best care we 
can. The trees left in sod are later 
than those where we grew corn and 
followed with rye and clover. We 
have put on a good dressing of lime. 
The chemicals will go next, and our 
plan is to clip three times with the 
mower and leave most of the grass 
around the trees. You may judge the 
condition of our season when I say 
that the crab apples were in full 
bloom on Sunday, May 9. The early 
apples were following and the Bald¬ 
wins and Greenings just coming out. 
This is our apple year and the outlook 
is for a heavy crop. The six-year-old 
Ben Davis and Wealthy trees are 
well covered witli bloom. I never saw 
strawberries grow as they do this 
year. Out of some G,00() planted I 
doubt if we have lost a dozen. The 
plants set this Spring have been al¬ 
ready cultivated twice. If weather 
permits I expect to work through 
them with the light cultivator twice a 
week all Summer. All our chicken 
manure and fertilizer in addition will 
be worked in around the plants, and 
every runner cut off. You will need 
a slow and small horse to cultivate 
in these narrow rows and a patient 
driver. The plants in that Kevitt 
patch have been hand weeded once. 
We have left the Winter’s mulch on 
the ground around the plants. Some 
of these plants were 15 inches across 
the leaves as they lie on the ground 
by May 10, and they are alive with 
fruit buds. I never saw plants so 
loaded with bloom. It will evidently 
depend much upon the moisture sup¬ 
ply. If they have water enough they 
ought to make good the claims for 
them—if it prove dry they can hardly 
be expected to do it. We 
never put our potatoes in the ground 
better than we have done this year. The 
seed pieces have been put down into 
the sod with the fertilizer above them. 
Then the fields were well worked with 
a spike-tooth harrow. We shall har¬ 
row three times before the potatoes 
are up, and we are prepared to put 
on the Bordeaux from the first. I 
believe some of our best work with 
potatoes in the past has been pretty 
well wasted because we did not spray 
properl}'. The Alfalfa is taking a great 
start—far better than I expected. The 
older seeding is thin. Late in the Win¬ 
ter I thought we might as well let 
one field go to the plow. We put on 
lime and chemicals as an experiment 
and now the Alfalfa promises to take 
possession of the field. The stooling 
or spreading powers of this plant are 
so great that by June you would think 
there was a heavy stand. That makes 
me think more and more that it will 
pay to sow Alfalfa in drills and cul¬ 
tivate it if we cannot get it going in 
any other way. We have simply got 
to have more of these protein crops 
both to feed our land and feed our 
stock. 
The Trouble With Farming.— 
The statement I made about Mr. 
Johnson’s farming has started quite 
a discussion. On page 531 you will 
find an article by a New Hampshire 
man who seems to doubt the story. 
Over the State line in Vermont lives 
an ambitious farmer who has this to 
say about it: 
I was much interested in your ^tory ot 
Alfred Johnson in last week’s Hope Farm 
Notes. The fact that there are such in¬ 
stances of conspicuous success in farming 
-—success won by faith in tin 1 soil and by 
(lie application of good business sense- 
makes me slow lo agree with you iu your 
effort to locate the trouble with farm* con¬ 
ditions. The time is coming when it will 
be necessary for every acre of land in this 
country to be worked lo the capacity of 
Mr. Johnson’s, I believe. When there are 
such possibilities In good farming, when 
there are such rewards to be won by the 
practice of proper methods, do you think 
il wise to change economic conditions so 
that greater rewards may be given for the 
poor work which we farmers are averaging 
to do now? Give ns more about men of 
Mr. Johnson’s stamp. It gives one cour¬ 
age and it will help the boys. e. s. b. 
How do you reconcile these two 
views ? Our Vermont friend is a 
younger man with great hope and fi 
keen ambition to make the most of bis 
farm. I think he is right about the 
soil. If a man is to be a farmer at 
all he should try to be a good one. 
He cannot be a good farmer unless 
he develop his soil to a high state 
of fertility. While Mr. Johnson was 
toiling to build up his farm by drain¬ 
age, and using manure and chemicals, 
other farms around him stood still or 
grew less productive year by year. 
If others had had his faith in the soil, 
that entire section would have become 
noted for eggs and berries. Instead of 
hurting one another by competition 
farmers would all have been helped 
because they would have advertised 
the ‘section and buyers would 'have 
come chasing after their goods. No 
doubt about it! Every acre of .good 
land in the East will be needed. No 
man can make any mistake by fitting 
such land by drainage, manuring or 
good culture to do its best. All that 
is true, but it does not follow that 
this is the sole duty of a farmer. You 
go and ask Mr. Johnson 'what ‘lie 
thinks of the farmgr and his rights. 
He has traveled all over the country, 
and he will tell you that everywhere 
the farmer is expected to take what 
the rest of society feels inclined to of¬ 
fer him. The strong and successful 
have the best chance to assert their 
rights, yet even they are hurt when 
the poor are robbed. Booker Wash¬ 
ington tells the story of an old colored 
man who kept a ferry on an Alabama 
river. A poor white came one day 
and asked for a passage. The follow¬ 
ing dialogue resulted: 
“The fare am three cents.” 
“I ain’t got no three cents.” 
“Can’t you borry it ?” 
“No; nobody won’t lend.” 
“\\ ell, if a man ain’t got three cents 
and can’t borry, it don’t make no dif¬ 
ference which side of the ribber he 
stays on !” 
I he world seems to be getting more 
and more to take that view—that is, 
give a larger and larger premium to 
what we call success. I believe it is 
the duty of every farmer to try to 
be a good farmer—that is, to handle 
his soil as well as he can and use 
judgment and economy in his meth¬ 
ods. Mr. Johnson and hundreds of 
others have shown what can be done 
on the land. As a rule you will find 
these successful self-made men the 
most powerful advocates of the be¬ 
lief that the conditions which govern 
society are wrong in many respects. 
Having gone through the nightmare 
of it they feel that success puts a sort 
of obligation upon them to put up a 
fight for fairer things. That is the 
way they ought to feel—it’s a part 
of farm success. The discouraged far¬ 
mer on a poor farm must have his am¬ 
bition and his sympathy aroused before 
he, can make much out of the agricul¬ 
tural college 'or experiment station. 
Let any man who blames him because 
he doesn’t do better ask what he has 
done to get such a man really started. 
Planning the Game Ahead— The 
idea of letting boys play 'ball has 
stirred up some farmers. Here is one: 
T’lie Hope Farm man is wrong on the 
ball, and boy proposition. The boys are 
better off at work. There is enough to 
do on any farm to keep all hands busy. 
We work early and late as it is, and 
barely make a living. We would be worse 
off yet to encourage the boys to play when 
they ought to be at work. w. \r. e. 
Well sir. we don’t agree on this. I 
expect to get more work done by ar¬ 
ranging for a half holiday on Satur¬ 
day. I have never seen our friend’s 
farm, but the chances are that a good 
business man and a successful farmer 
could spend a week on it and find 
that more careful planning rather than 
harder work was needed. I know that 
on Hope Farm we do not always work 
to advantage, and I presume the same 
is true of other places. Many farmers 
lose time in going from one thing to 
another, or not taking the right thing 
at the right time. In my own case 
this is usually due to the mistake of 
not thinking it all out in advance. It 
it not unlike my boys playing ball. I 
find they could stop a ball fairly well, 
but when they got hold of it they had 
to stop and think what to do, and in 
most cases the runner was safe while 
they were thinking. We changed that 
by telling them to think out every pos¬ 
sible thing they might do with that 
ball when they got it. Thus they had 
it all in mind, and when the chance 
offered they were ready. Tt is just 
that way on the farm. We should 
keep in our heads the most important 
work for days ahead and think out the 
best ways of doing it. Last yegr T 
saw a man planting potatoes. He 
made good furrows and had all the 
family, women and children, out droo¬ 
ping seed and covering carefully with 
hand hoes. I counted an average of 
five strokes with the hoe for each 
piece. . My boys would drop a seed 
piece and cover it with one sidewise 
kick of the foot. Then with a culti¬ 
vator with the side wings on they 
would quickly fill these furrows by 
horse power. Now what I claim is 
that a. man working in that back- 
banded way is not justified in saying 
that the boys should not play hall be¬ 
cause there is too much to do. By 
thinking our work out long ahead, or¬ 
ganizing it carefully and then going at 
it with energy we can get it done in 
time. The boys will fall right in with 
that plan, and earn the half holiday. 
I would have a diamond laid out if I 
had any field level enough. That state¬ 
ment will give you an idea of the to¬ 
pography of Hope Farm. By the way, 
our boys have got to the point where 
they lose a game and blame it on the 
umpire! h. w. c. 
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