1909. 
739 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farm Notes. —When I said the 
drought was broken I made a mistake. 
It was only beivt a little. As usual, 
cold, drying winds followed tbe rain, 
and in three days the soil was like 
dry powder where we cultivated, and 
like a brick where the soil was left 
alone. The strawberr}’ plants which we 
transplanted with so much hope had a 
hard time in this drying wind. Many 
will die in spite of all we can do. The 
corn is growing well, for we keep the 
soil constantly 'stirred up with the cul¬ 
tivator. Old Jerry is our best cultivat¬ 
ing horse, and this season is his time of 
the year. On the meadows nothing 
grows except Alfalfa. Such a season 
as this gives any farmer an unanswer¬ 
able argument for Alfalfa. It springs 
up and grows while Red clover stands 
discouraged and Timothy utterly re¬ 
fuses to start. The cow peas are com¬ 
ing along, but I am somewhat disap¬ 
pointed in the Soy beans. They make 
only a moderate growth, though they 
have been well cared for and ought to 
live up to their reputation. After all, 
each year seems to give additional evi¬ 
dence that for our section at least there 
is no surer crop than corn to provide 
a large amount of fodder. On a fruit 
farm this is particularly true. . . . 
The dry season has hurried the early 
apples into bearing, and we began ship¬ 
ping August 2. The Nyack Pippins are 
smaller than usual in conseciuence of 
the drought, but otherwise finer than 
ever. The spraying has made a great 
difference in the number of wormy 
apples. There is no way of giving ex¬ 
act figures, but my estimate would be 
90 per cent of clean apples for the 
orchard against less than 40 per cent in 
years when no spray was used. During 
the dry weather most of the wormy 
fruit fell off, so that practically all the 
fruit left on the trees is clean. Apple 
prices are high. Even windfalls bring 
fair prices—they being used for pie and 
sauce making. We have a good many 
sweet apples. In former years they 
were very wormy, and we seldom tried 
to ship them. This year as a result of 
the spraying they are clean and fair, 
and we shall ship 50 barrels or more 
at fair prices. We have seldom done 
anything on the farm that paid better 
than this job of spraying to kill the 
worms. Vet we made a mistake in not 
spraying the Baldwin orchard with oil. 
I looked the trees over, but could find 
no scale, and then concluded to let them 
alone. I now find a little scale on 
some of tbe trees. Tt is not bad, but 
I do not want any scale marks at all, 
and there would have been none if we 
had oiled the trees. 
Tt has been something of a novelty 
to have apple buyers chasing after us 
to take our crop. Ten years ago this 
was quite a noted apple country, but 
when the scale appeared most of our 
farmers let it work. Only three or four 
of us have sprayed with any effect. As 
a result most of the trees which once 
paid good interest on $50 apiece are 
now producing a poor grade of cider 
apples. The buyers do not offer us 
enough. I know about what the fruit 
will bring us, and see no reason why 
I should make these buyers a present of 
a nice lump of money. They actually 
offer about 50 cents a barrel on tbe 
tree for fruit which, when well handled 
will bring $3.50, with practically all the 
cost of handling going to our own 
people. My crop of Baldwins and 
Greenings will be one of the best we 
ever had. These trees are all in sod; 
we took hay out of the orchard and put 
back what manure we could scrape up 
—throwing it around the trees. In ad¬ 
dition, lime and chemicals were broad¬ 
cast in the orchards. 
The new horse soon became one of 
the family. Old Jerry’s day is about 
over, and Frank, the new horse, is to 
take the old fellow’s place. I did not 
quite need him yet. but he seemed and 
acted like a bargain, so I bought him. 
He is a big powerful bay, capable of 
trotting past most of our neighbors on 
the road, and with neck and shoulders 
to make even a sulky plow good-natured 
about its work. Frank was formerly a 
“woman’s horse” on a place where 
there was general work to do. The re¬ 
lations between some women and their 
horses have always interested me. I 
see them pull on the lines and rattle 
the whip in the socket when they want 
the horse to trot. The h<3rse of course 
knows they would not whip him, but 
let the man take the lines and finger the 
whip and there is a different situation. 
Frank did not need the rattle of the 
whip to make him go, for that was his 
business and his pleasure. Farm work 
was a new thing to him, and he needed 
all his muscle before he learned that 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Bob is a shirk and was unloading his 
share of the job. We had them first 
on a plow breaking up a piece of dry 
sod. It was a tough job and the Sher¬ 
wood harness will not let the lazy horse 
loaf much. Frank did his best, but 
worked so hard that the band rubbed 
his back. When we put them into the 
other. harness on a double-tree 'Bob 
could shirk and Frank had the entire 
load until we made his lazy partner 
come up. This and working on the big 
disk plow made our new friend realize 
that the job of “woman’s horse” lies 
among the gentler ways of life. How¬ 
ever, he is all right, and only needs to 
know what is wanted of him. He will 
then do it up to . the limit of his 
strength. T know now that many a 
horse is spoiled by his driver. They 
are willing to learn, but the driver 
lacks patience, and instead of treating 
the horse like a pupil treats him like a 
slave. I don’t blame the horse for re¬ 
senting it. ... I plan to scatter lime 
all through the corn early in August 
and cultivate it in. Then, in about a 
week, we shall try to get in the clover 
and turnip seed. My idea is that the 
lime will help the clover, and that this 
is a good time to put it on. After set¬ 
ting out the cabbage we scattered lime 
between the rows and cultivated it in. 
Putting lime on the corn is a new one 
for me, but the scheme looks reasona¬ 
ble at least. 
Raising Boys. —A farmer was asked 
to take a boy on his farm and show 
him how to be a farmer. Of course, T 
presume every parent thinks his child 
is about right, but I would rather have 
the opinion of some outsider who tried 
to -make the child useful. In the pres¬ 
ent case the following report was made: 
If ho (loos not go balky, I may he able 
1o break him in. but it will be a tough 
job for both of us. Why anybody wants to 
raise up a boy the way lie has evidently 
been raised, is a mystery to me. It is just 
like taking a potato with a long white 
sprout out of the. cellar and expecting it 
to grow in the sun. 
There are many mysteries in this 
world—some of them past finding out. 
In all the list I do not know of any 
harder to solve than the way some peo¬ 
ple go at training a boy. You would 
never think , they had any idea of the 
future at all. The child simply lives 
for to-day, and a poor day at that. The 
illustration of a potato sprout started 
in the dark is a good one. We know 
what happens to the plant from such 
seed when it gets up against the real 
condition of life. If you can get such 
a boy on a farm in the hands of a good 
farmer, where he can’t get away,' you 
give him about the only chance he has 
to make good. 
Too. Much Turnips. —In order that 
we may have all sides of this “catch 
crop” proposition, I am glad to print 
the following story: 
The following is a funny experience with 
Crimson clover and Cow-horn turnips, in- 
t< nded as a cover crop in a young orchard. 
The land at that time was in good condi¬ 
tion, recently underdrained and fertilized: 
also two crops of clover had been plowed 
under. I knew the Hope Farm man sowed 
Cow-horn turnips with Crimson clover, but 
had forgotten how much turnip seed he 
used, so to be safe I bought 20 ounces 
ionly 1 ti pound) and dumped this much 
into a grain bag with SO pounds of Crim¬ 
son clover seed and rolled and kneaded the 
bag a long time, thoroughly mixing the 
two kinds of seed, and sowed the whole 
on the four acres of young apple orchard 
on .Tune 28. (Note the time of year.) 
We had rain and the seed grew promptly, 
and tlie time came when I would have 
mowed the weeds which were hurting the 
clover, but the turnips stood up in the 
way, and would have been mowed down 
with the weeds, so we had to let every¬ 
thing grow, which we knew would make 
humus at least. And such a growth we 
never saw around here ! The pigweeds and 
red-roots were taller than a man’s head, 
with side branches three feet long, snarled 
and tangled together, and as one groped his 
way, stumbling over high turnips, It was 
like getting lost in the undergrowth of a 
jungle. The turnips proved to be a re¬ 
markably even stand, growing about 12 
or 15 inches apart. By the last of Sep¬ 
tember. they stood up like stumps over 
the ground, and were from six to 10 inches 
high out of the ground, and including tops, 
were from 10 to 20 inches high. On ex¬ 
amination I found that most of them would 
break off at the depth of the plow, while 
others had round smooth bottom which re¬ 
sembled a human skull, from which grew 
a few small roots, about the size of a lead 
pencil. Others curled around and with a 
white color made a surprising likeness to 
the horns of a cow. The turnips, with 
tops off, weighed from two to seven 
pounds each in October, with a diameter 
of from two to six inches. A man tried 
to drive across the lot in a one-horse 
wagon, and as he could not stand up or 
sit down, he was nearly capsized. I found 
in the reports that a turnip crop left on 
the ground to decay had a fertilizing value 
of .$1.05 per ton, and a man familiar with 
sugar beets thought my turnips would dress 
out 25 tons to the acre. But beside this 
t he weeds ! I never knew they would grow 
so large when cultivated and given 500 
pounds of phosphoric acid to the acre. 
The next stage in the proceeding is one of 
humiliation. After cold weather the fol¬ 
lowing Winter there came a real hot spell 
on bare ground, and they began to rot. and 
the stench in the neighborhood is never 
to be forgotten. As my orchard was bor¬ 
dered on the lower side by a row of houses 
in the village, I heard a great deal said 
about that outrageous smell. Before 
Spring tlie turnips slushed away, and the 
tall weed stalks were plowed under. The 
soil proved to lx> much blacker than before 
and very mellow, while the clover was all 
smothered out. Again Crimson clover was 
raised as before, but all alone this time; 
it was very heavy and even and about 
nine inches high from seed sown July 18. 
Let me say. however, that following the 
big crop of turnips, the soil was very 
sour, but it did not hinder our having a 
bumper crop of clover before Winter. But 
we did have a visit of twig blight in all 
the apple trees. This bad condition was 
aggravated by a wet season and a hard 
hailstorm which cut the bark and scat¬ 
tered the blight disease in tlie wounds. 
The following year gave another big crop 
of Crimson clover, which usually lives 
through the Winter in very fair condition, 
although we plow it under the last of 
April. FRANK MUNSON. 
Ontario Co., N. Y. 
I have had something like that expe¬ 
rience once during a mild Winter. 
There can be no doubt as to the 
strength of that “turnipy” smell when 
the thaw conies after a hard freeze. I 
knew a man once who was converted to 
the plan of chemicals and green crops 
by this very smell. He believed that 
the nose is the best test for the 
strength of fertilizer, and these turnips 
convinced him that green crops would 
give a complete substitute for stable 
manure. My fields are quite far from 
the house. I should have set the cutter 
bar as high as possible and clipped that 
growth before the weeds got too high. 
I know that these turnips leave results 
in the soil which are all out of propor¬ 
tion to the plant food value which 
chemists say they contain. If a farmer 
had a flock of sheep or some dry cat¬ 
tle and could let them in to eat off 
the turnips he would have a great com¬ 
bination. Unless some such plan can 
be tried or unless you can plow them 
under in the Fall and sow rye it may 
be well to keep the turnips out in fields 
near a house. For back fields by all 
means add them to the clover, h. w. c. 
There is no doubt about 
what is in 
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Smooth and mineral surface. Back¬ 
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THE BARBER ASPHALT 
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Largest producers of 
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PHILADELPHIA 
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HAVANA LOW WAGONS 
“Fun on tlie Farm?” Well, yes, when you 
have the right kind of tools to work with. 
Ancl the right kind of tools makes work a 
pleasure. - Our Low-Down Handy Wagon, 
with steel or wood wheels, is tlie right kind. 
You can have our catalogue for the asking. •, 
HAVANA METAL WHEEL CO., Box 17, Havana. III. 
-.--y.w 
Lodged wheat 
is dead loss, because you 
can’t harvest it—you can’t thresh 
it—you can’t sell it. 
your wheat is lodged resolve that next 
year you will get straw strong enough to bear 
the heaviest wheat your land can produce. 
That means Potash. It fills out the grain and makes 
a sturdy, elastic stalk for the grain to ripen on—keeps it 
standing for the harvester; 
- 
J 
i*v; 
Potash Pays 
Unless your wheat fertilizer is 2-8-6, it’s too low in Potash. Two 
pounds of Muriate of Potash to each 100 pounds of fertilizer increases 
the Potash total one per cent. 
Send for new Farmers’ Note Book— about soil, crops, 
manures and fertilizers—a practical book compiled by experts. 
Mailed on request, free. 
German Kali Works, 93 Nassau St., New York 
Chicago—Monadnock Block 
Atlanta, 6a.—1224 Candler Bldg. 
"-4*11 
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Lightning Rods 
Are Properly Made and Properly Put Up 
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