1909. 
THE: RURAL NEW-YORKER 
789 
Hope Farm Notes 
1'arm and Home. —On the night of 
Saturday, August 21, we looked over 
our strawberry beds with some satis¬ 
faction. Having been on our knees for 
the greater part of the day, we felt 
justified in looking for good works. I 
have been talking about our drought. 
Well, there is nothing to it now. For 
several days the clouds rolled harmless¬ 
ly around us but on Monday morning 
we had a clear idea of the view which 
greeted Noah when he looked out upon 
the deluge. How it did rain, and how 
the thirsty soil did swallow it. This 
rain kept steadily up for two days. The 
papers reported that five inches of rain 
fell in 24 hours, and we can well be¬ 
lieve it. As 1 wrote last week, we had 
put in the Crimson clover, and before 
the rain stopped the cornfields were 
green with it. There was one case 
where we gained by going right ahead 
with our plans regardless of the out¬ 
look. Hope Farm is expected to stand 
on a stool with three legs, strawberries, 
peaches and apples, and the berries got 
first attention after this rain. Many of 
the plants which we set out two weeks 
before had died. While the soil was 
still moist our folks went right in and 
dug up good layer plants. These were 
lifted with a ball of dirt at the roots 
and transplanted where we want the 
new beds. Most of these were put be¬ 
tween rows of early potatoes. Then 
we got in with sharp hoes and cut off the 
runners on our big single plants. This 
is a good-sized job for anyone, and it is 
where most growers fall down in trying 
this hill system. It gets too tiresome 
after about three cuttings. Then we 
ran the _ cultivator through the rows. 
By this time the old “Kevitt” patch was 
quite weedy. You will remember that 
as soon as this patch was picked we 
mowed off the vines and left the mulch 
on the ground. This mulch checked 
the weeds for a time, but after that rain 
nothing could stop them. I was not 
ready to rip that mulch up, so we got 
in and pulled those weeds with our 
lingers. The ground was wet and the 
weeds pulled easily. I have learned to 
have peach trees growing somewhere 
near every garden or berry field. We 
pulled the weeds into baskets and piled 
them around peach trees now making 
their second year’s growth. As evi¬ 
dence of the virtue of this weed mulch¬ 
ing I measured the growth on one of 
such peach trees on August 21. 
There were plenty of shoots of this 
year’s wood 48 inches long. These 
trees are planted 12 x 16 feet between 
blackberry vines, and bushels of weeds 
have been piled around them. Little 
trees planted this year and treated in 
the same way had shoots 26 inches long 
on the same date. These “Kevitt” plants 
responded to the rain, and we found 
many of them a foot high—which rep¬ 
resents the new growth after fruiting. 
T hen night came we had the field clean, 
but our fingers seemed about a quarter 
of an inch shorter than when we start¬ 
ed. I now feel convinced that Kevitt 
sets the plants too close together. I 
shall hereafter plant two feet apart each 
way, and use the horse more. I know 
mat Marshall, under this culture, will 
make tremendous hills; the work will 
cost 15 per cent less and we shall get 
nearly' as many berries. In spite of the 
drought our plants, look better than last 
'. ar - • • You will remember that we 
tried an experiment of changing mat¬ 
ted rows , to the hill system. Shortly 
.’liter fruiting the tops were cut off 
and then with one horse and a sharp 
'tile plow we plowed away from the 
row on both sides—leaving a narrow 
fringe of plants down the center. In 
these furrows we scattered the year’s 
accumulation of chicken manure. Then 
the. cultivators were run up and down 
until these furrows were filled and the 
middles worked down. It was then an 
tn \v job with a hoe to chop out the 
surplusplants and leave a row of single 
alls. I hese will be hoed and the run¬ 
ners cut the 'same as our other plants. 
• • • 1 he soaking rain came just in 
mne for the later peaches and apples, 
i thought the Elbertas would be un¬ 
dersized, but since the soak they have 
taken on bulk and promise to be as large 
as ever. As. usual Carman did well, 
giung good-sized fruit of magnificent 
color The people in our section are 
prejudiced in favor of a vellow peach, 
klberta being the standard. They bc- 
T'i lo see now that Carman is higher 
m quality, and some of them use it for 
canning. “It comes out of the jars like 
;T ea ™’ t he y say. Another good thing 
about Carman is that it bears early. 
Me have trees of the third season’s 
growth with nearly a basket of good 
peaches, while one tree with the second 
year’s growth matured nearly a dozen. 
This of course means strong buds on 
the first year’s growth. Last week Mr. 
Stubenrauch told us how the Carman 
peach originated. There was no “wiz¬ 
ard work” about it, yet I am quite safe 
in saying that Mr. Burbank has not yet 
given the world a fruit of greater econ¬ 
omic value than the Carman peach. . . . 
The rain helped our late apples. They' 
might have been undersized as the trees 
are well loaded, but now they are gain¬ 
ing in size as only a thirsty apple on 
wet soil can do. We are to have a 
good crop of Baldwin and Greening, 
and the quality is finer than ever before. 
The proportion of wormy apples is so 
small that it will cut little figure in re¬ 
sults. The first McIntosh Red on the 
young trees are beauties. They are 
good enough to send to that Boston 
fruit show. I told Mother to name a 
few of her best friends to whom we 
could send some of these apples as a 
thank-offering for the way our trees 
have settled down to business. She has 
so many best friends she cannot weli 
decide, so we may as well bake and 
eat them at home. As usual the Fall 
Pippin apple is at the front with a fine 
crop. Of all the apples I know Fall 
Pippin is the leader. If I could only 
give it a red skin and a later season I 
would plant no other variety. . . 
T his leads me to say that this variety 
business is often exasperating. I have 
250 Chair’s Choice peach trees which I 
planted on ’’expert” advice. The peach 
is all right, but the tree is a late and 
shy bearer and does not pay me. If in 
place of them I had 150 Elbertas and 
100 Carman I would be far better off. 
Then I have 250 Sutton Beauty apple 
trees. Again I followed “expert” ad¬ 
vice to my sorrow. If I had Fall Pip¬ 
pin, McIntosh and Wealthy in place of 
these Suttons Hope Farm would be the 
gainer. I have other varieties, “stan¬ 
dard” no doubt, which do not pay'me. 
When people come asking for advice 
about varieties I feel like thinking rath¬ 
er than talking. I find in my own or¬ 
chard that it is very easy to go wrong 
when guided by the best of expert ad¬ 
vice. The orchards near at home are 
the best places to learn the truth about 
varieties. . . . Our friend the soak¬ 
ing rain gave great courage to the late 
cabbage and fodder corn. The latter 
was planted very late on an old sod— 
not in the hope of getting much corn, 
but so that we might work up and kill 
out the sod and plant it next year to 
strawberries. It looks now as if we 
can do this and at the same time get 
a fair lot of corn fodder. The rain 
has also soaked the ground so that Fall 
plowing can be done—ready for the 
rye. . . A visitor at the farm the 
other day pointed out what at first was 
a puzzle. There is a block of about 100 
peach trees planted this year among 
strawberries. They have not been fer¬ 
tilized, but weeds and trash taken from 
the berries have been thrown around 
the trees. One man pointed out that 
several rows were better than the oth¬ 
ers. Why? At first it seemed as if all 
the trees had received similar treat¬ 
ment, but I finally observed that two 
hens with chickens had visited the field 
daily and worked around these mulched 
trees. The amount of work they did in 
tearing that mulch of weeds away was 
astonishing. The hens knew that in¬ 
sects accumulated under this mulch. 
They came and scratched it from the 
trees and partly scratched it back again, 
and we kept it up by piling more weeds. 
I do not know why they did not work 
in the same way in the rest of the field, 
d he fact is that the first trees were 
better and the mulehers and cultivators 
may 'settle the point. h. w. c. 
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