1909 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
TOT 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farmers’ Institutes. —No one will be 
likely to claim that the farmers’ insti¬ 
tute, as we see it in the East, is as use¬ 
ful as it ought to be. How can it be 
made better? I was thinking of this 
last week at a meeting held at Hamp¬ 
ton, Va. I spent several days at Hamp¬ 
ton Institute, which, as most of you 
know, is a training school for colored 
people. Young men and women are 
trained as teachers, farmers and me¬ 
chanics, and as these students come 
under peculiar circumstances, they can 
be handled and taught in most effective 
ways. For example, liquor drinking, 
smoking or profanity are barred at 
Hampton. A student found guilty of 
any of these things would be expelled 
at once. In the days I spent at Hamp¬ 
ton I did not see even a cigarette 
openly displayed. I could not help but 
think how such rules, strictly enforced, 
would depopulate our leading colleges 
and universities. There would be 
scarcely a corporal’s guard of students 
left. Later I shall try to tell some¬ 
thing of what I saw of these Har q- 
ton students. Now I want to speak of a 
farmers’ meeting. 
It was held in one of the class rooms. 
There were probably about 100 colored 
people and five whites present. Some 
of the former had so little “color” that 
I could not detect it. There were 
gray-haired men—some of whom I un¬ 
derstood had been slaves, and young 
fellows just starting in life. At the 
North such a meeting would have been 
addressed by some “lecturer.” He 
might have told a few good stories 
and then gone on with an elaborate 
lecture, with more or less detail, about 
some general crop. There was a differ¬ 
ent system employed here. Prof. Gra¬ 
ham, who is head of the Agricultural 
Department, went to the blackboard and 
set down in large, clear letters the fol¬ 
lowing statement about a potato crop. 
I give an exact copy: 
Eight acres Alfalfa Land. 
Expenses- 
75 loads manure @ 50c. $37 50 
9.600 pounds fertilizer. 1G0 00 
19 barrels Irish Cobbler seed..., 
11 barrels small size. 120 00 
40 pounds Paris green. 8 00 
Labor to harvest . 125 00 
Harvesting, etc. 55 00 
Total.$505 50 
Income. 
070 barrels @ $1.50. $1,005 00 
50 barrels, small @ 50c. 25 00 
$1,030 00 
505 50 
Profit 
$524 50 
This crop was grown on the Hamp¬ 
ton farm within a short distance of 
where the meeting was held. 
The colored man who had charge of 
this crop stood up by the blackboard 
and explained these figures. It is doubt¬ 
ful if he could make a speech, but 
he knew that crop from A to Z, and 
he could answer questions. Prof. Gra¬ 
ham plied him with questions, and 
finally the colored men present fell in. 
'Most of them 'confessed (that • their 
crops were smaller, and they wanted 
to know why. There was no such 
thing as a “lecture” about it, but just 
a quiet, orderly and earnest talk about 
that crop. Before they were done it 
had all been brought out clearly—how 
that Alfalfa sod gave good potato soil, 
how the potato crop had been handled 
and why, how to economize on labor, 
how to sell the crop to best advantage, 
and what to do with the land after the 
potatoes came out. 
I certainly never saw a more useful 
•farmers’ meeting, and gif ter it was 
over I saw a group of these colored 
farmers going through the Alfalfa and 
potato fields with .the foreman and 
learning more about it. Next day there 
was another meeting held outdoors un¬ 
der a tree. This one was devoted to 
poultry. Several chickens were killed 
and dressed, and Prof. Graham and 
Dr. Clark, with the blackboard, once 
more described henhouses and meth¬ 
ods of feeding poultry. Again there 
was no lecture, but a plain statement 
of facts analyzed and made clear by 
straight questions and plain business¬ 
like answers. No one tried to be 
“smart” or to give a “funny” reply, 
but the whole thing struck me like 
an earnest effort to conduct a serious 
and useful school. 
Now why not try such institutes at 
the North? Try the experiment of 
putting up some farmer who has kept 
figures, though he cannot make a 
speech? Let him set down his figures 
on the board about cows, or sheep, or 
potatoes, or peaches, or hogs. It will 
not make much difference whether 
those figures show profit or loss, so 
long as they are true and the farmer 
knows just what he has done. Then, 
let this farmer stand up and answer 
questions. Far better if he is not an 
“orator” or story-teller, so long as the 
audience can feel that he belongs to 
their kind. Let the conductor of the 
• 
institute and the scientific men restrain 
their eloquence, and simply ask and an¬ 
swer questions. If they can tell zvhy 
a thing is right or wrong, let them do 
so. For example, suppose a dairyman 
gets up to tell about his herd. His 
figures show that the milk costs all it 
comes to. Where is the trouble? If 
his feeding is wrong the scientific man 
should be able to tell why. If his cows 
are wrong, the conductor ought to ex¬ 
plain ; if methods are wrong some 
other wise man should be right to the 
job of telling all about it. At Hamp¬ 
ton, as I saw it, the how man took 
the front seat and the zvhy man picked 
up his chips, and that I believe is one 
good way to run a farmers’ institute. 
It may not suit the retired farmers and 
town people, who go to the institute 
to kill time and be amused, but it will 
help the men who need the institute 
most of all Pick many of the “speak¬ 
ers” from the ranks of working farm¬ 
ers. As to the argument that such men 
cannot make a speech, I will say that 
the colored farmer at Hampton is no 
orator, yet under skillful questioning he 
brought out the strongest sort of in¬ 
formation. I would like to see this 
scheme given a patient and fair trial. 
Southern Crops. —A northern farmer 
can learn many things from the opera¬ 
tions in tidewater Virginia. The first 
thing that struck me was the enormous 
growth of crab grass in the potato 
fields. The last of the eight acres men¬ 
tioned in the financial statement was 
being dug and the crab grass was like 
a meadow. They plow the potatoes out, 
pick up those in sight and then harrow 
with a spike-tooth to uncover the rest. 
They do not seem to know what a 
spring-tooth harrow is in that country. 
Of course when a potato crop is dug 
by July 15 it will not do to let the land 
stand idle. They can let the crab grass 
grow and cut it for hay and then plow 
and sow Winter oats and clover. Or 
they can plant another crop of potatoes. 
This was being done at Hampton on one 
field. The seed had been kept in cold 
storage, and will be cut and planted 
much like the first crop. No more fer¬ 
tilizer will be needed. This crop is 
dug in November. The land may then, 
if desired, be seeded to rye. This 
would hardly pay, since the same land 
will be fitted and planted to early peas 
in February. Thus, while much of our 
northern soil takes a vacation of seven 
months or more, this Virginia soil keeps 
working ten months. Another crop 
which fo’lows potatoes is corn. I saw 
great fields of dark-green corn shoulder 
high—planted after potatoes, cabbage 
or other crops were taken out. In 
some cases a row of black-eyed peas 
had been drilled down the middle of 
the corn. Later Crimson clover will 
be seeded in many of these cornfields. I 
do not see, however, how they can ob¬ 
tain a good seeding to this clover owing 
to the way they handle the corn. In¬ 
stead of keeping the surface level, they 
plow to the corn rows, leaving a deep 
valley at the center. In some cases, I 
was told, they simply plow four fur¬ 
rows together and plant corn at the 
center of this strip. Then, later, in¬ 
stead of cultivating, they plow the mid¬ 
dles to the corn rows, leaving the deep 
valleys I spoke of. I cannot see the 
wisdom of this practice, and could not 
find anyone who was able to explain 
it. Great fields of Soy beans were 
growing on the Hampton farm. They 
are mostly used for silage—cut into the 
silo with corn—first a load of bean 
vines and then a load of corn. 
Prof. Graham is a poultry expert, 
and he is developing a chicken busi¬ 
ness at Llampton. The hens are kept 
on the colony plan, scattered about in 
little houses, as they are on many 
farms in Connecticut. The situation 
is an excellent one for poultry, so far 
as climate goes. I was told that the 
buzzards become a nuisance from their 
habit of catching and killing young 
stock. They even kill and carry off 
young lambs. These birds are pro¬ 
tected by law in the Southern States on 
the theory that they are scavengers and 
utilize carrion. It seems to be the 
custom to haul out dead animals and 
leave them exposed where the buz¬ 
zards will eat them. These filthy birds 
in this way may carry the germs of 
fever, cholera or anthax, not only to 
places where living animals go, but to 
springs where humans obtain water. 
Efforts are being made to obtain a law 
which will compel people to burn or 
bury these carcasses and permit farm¬ 
ers to kill the buzzards in defense of 
their property. 
Farm Notes.*— It was very dry in 
Virginia, but I got back to Hope Farm 
to find the soil parched. A heavy storm 
sailed all around us, but we got only 
a few drops. It has become a serious 
thing with our farmers. Some of the 
peaches are dropping and the apples 
cannot make full size if this contin¬ 
ues. Our tap-rooted peach trees are 
all right yet. We keep the cultivators 
moving steadily among the corn, and 
it is growing well. The boys have 
taken the job of caring for the young 
trees. They cut weeds, trash, brush, 
anything that will rot, and pile it around 
the sod trees. In this way we keep 
them bright and green, and shall have 
a good growth. By July 17 we had 
been unable to plow for planting fod¬ 
der corn. The buckwheat ought to 
have gone in, but we cannot break the 
ground with our plows. The Spring- 
planted strawberries have made a beau¬ 
tiful growth, but it is so dry that the 
runners are not sprouting out. The 
tops of the old plants have been cut off, 
and a soaking rain will stir them all 
up. We are waiting for it with all the 
patience we can muster, and in the 
meantime keeping the surface soil 
stirred up. The rain will soon come— 
so much of it that we shall long for 
the drought once more—so what’s the 
use of complaining? But why com¬ 
plain when the hay crop is under cover 
and we can have our choice of two 
kinds of raspberries, blackberries, early 
peaches—and baked apples? H. w. c. 
CRITICISM OF A STATION BULLETIN. 
Don’t you think our experiment sta¬ 
tions should try not to take sides on. 
the matters they investigate? Should 
not their attitude be that of the judge, 
instead of that of the prosecuting at¬ 
torney? Wouldn’t it be better to have 
practical, successful farmers 'conduct 
these experiments, aided by expert chem¬ 
ists, bug men and microscope men, in¬ 
stead of scientists, who have not had 
practical experience? These queries 
are suggested by the last bulletin on the 
mulch system, applied to apple trees in 
northern New York. My experience 
is limited on this question. I am not a 
mulch man; but I notice that an apple 
or pear tree that has enough to eat is 
healthy and has good colored foliage, 
and produces an abundance of fruit. 
One of the best apple orchards I 
know is in Orchard grass which is cut 
for hay and drawn off year after year. 
Many profitable orchards hereabouts 
are pastured. We used to swallow the 
bulletins whole and accept as gospel 
what we learned at the institutes, but 
it begins to look as if the traditional 
“grain of salt” would have to be 
brought into requisition. 
These mulch experiments are con¬ 
ducted on a certain kind of soil. In 
plowing around half an acre recently I 
struck: 1. Gravelly loam so stony it 
was almost impossible to plow. 2. Black 
clayey soil, free from stones. 3. Black 
clayey soil, full of stone. 4. Extremely 
light sandy soil. 5. Medium sandy soil. 
None of these soils is similar to that 
of the mulch experiments. These bul¬ 
letins are extremely valuable; but should 
they not be more practical? Would 
not experienced farmers be less liable 
to have a hobby and be prejudiced for 
or against? Don’t the experiment sta¬ 
tions take the attitude too much that 
the way the farmers do it is wrong? 
We are just as anxious to have it 
proved to us that what we do that is 
right, is right, as we are to have our 
mistakes and errors pointed out. 
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