1908. 
THE RURA.L NEW-YORKER 
789 
Hope Farm Notes 
Farm Capital. —It seems that the in¬ 
ability to obtain fair working capital is 
the worst drawback to farming in many 
sections. Here is a case like hundreds 
of others: 
Do you know of a young or middle-aged 
man with a few hundred dollars capital, 
sober, industrious, who would be willing to 
take a partnership in a small vegetable, 
poultry and dairy farm, already established, 
located near good market, good schools, 
churches, railroad, etc.? m. s. s. 
Bristol, Conn. 
In this case the man started on a 
waste farm and by hard work has made 
a good home. Now he comes to the 
point where a few hundred dollars well 
invested would soon double the income. 
If a man in town were running a store 
or a little factory and reached the point 
where if he had the cash he could buy 
cheaper and enlarge his trade he would 
hunt for a partner. This farmer is in 
just the same situation. 
To show how varied the problem is 
I give another case. A man 52 years 
old, a good machinist by trade, saved 
money and lost it by investing in 
“watered stock” and by fire. He has 
nothing but 20 acres of unimproved land, 
but no capital or farm knowledge. He 
offers to go and work for any good 
farmer for one year on condition that 
the farmer will show him how to do 
farm work and pay the taxes on this 
land. I am getting all sorts of plans and 
suggestions of this sort. I have heard 
that doctors, lawyers and clergymen 
come to know sides of life which the 
laymen seldom dream of. I begin to 
think that I might pass an examination 
for entrance into this class. Certainly 
there are hundreds of struggling farm¬ 
ers and middle-aged farmers who are 
held up by lack of cash or opportunity. 
I wish I could help them to either. 
Surely the cold-blooded advice of our 
literary friends must gall such people 
rather than gratify them. 
Farm Notes. —The other morning I 
saw two men bailing water out of the 
brook. Their well had run dry. That 
is the first time I have seen such a thing 
in our neighborhood and it shows that 
the drought has hit us at last. There is 
a legend how years ago the springs 
mostly dried and people came from miles 
around to our neighborhood for drink¬ 
ing water. We can still supply them if 
need be. Our drilled well is over 140 
feet deep and I doubt if it could be 
pumped dry. I hear of farmers selling 
water to neighbors and others. I could 
not think of taking advantage of mis¬ 
fortune in that way. It is well enough 
to bottle pure water and sell it as you 
would milk, but to make your neighbors 
pay the price of calamity is too much. 
. . . I have told about Jack’s little 
Boston terrier, Hope Farm Punch. This 
little dog won 21 first prizes at dog 
shows and a large sum of money was 
offered for him. I advised Jack to sell 
him at once, but like most breeders who 
develop a prize winner he hated to let 
him go. He thought there would be 
greater profit in holding the little dog, 
but one morning when they got up they 
found Punch dying. Pie had a bone 
stuck in his throat. This and other 
complications proved too much for him. 
It was j'ust like leaving a big bunch of 
money on the table and seeing the wind 
blow it into the fire! Every week I live 
adds to the conviction that we cannot 
afford to keep our capital in risky enter¬ 
prises. This little dog had his value, 
but it was too much of a gamble for a 
poor man to hold him. Such things are 
for the rich who will not greatly miss 
the loss. If a poor man or farmer in 
moderate circumstances chance to breed 
a superior breeding animal or develop 
anything else which depends upon fash¬ 
ion for its value I would advise him to 
get rid of it as soon as he can get the 
price in his hand. Most of us cannot 
afford to fool with values that are like 
gunpowder. ... I spent most of 
September 26 chasing Jerry behind a 
cultivator through the strawberries. We 
shall keep the soil stirred up in this crop, 
until late in November. With most 
other crops this late cultivation would 
be a mistake, but with the cold-blooded 
strawberry we can hardly have too much 
growth. Then, again, this constant 
horse work keeps the runners out of the 
alleys and helps prevent the thick matted 
rows. \\ ith the Marshall strawberry the 
thick mat is just what we do not want. 
In that Kevitt patch we are still clipping 
off runners. If the average man would 
stick to his duty as persistently as these 
plants do to plant making, this world 
would soon be too good to be true! One 
trouble with our farming is that we are 
short of good mulch material for berries. 
I will not use weeds—they will answer 
for the trees. We have begun already 
to cover the narrow alleys in the Kevitt 
patch. Leaves, lawn clippings, corn 
husks and similar wastes are put thickly 
on the ground between the plants. Vines 
of peppers, tomatoes, beans, etc., will be 
saved and put over the plants with ma¬ 
nure to hold them down. I realize that 
these big plants will be more liable to 
heave out than smaller ones, so we shall 
cover them early. 
Chemicals and Weeds. —Our old 
friend from Ohio talks sense in this 
way: 
On page 736 you say remember that rye as 
a catch crop beats weeds. Well and good, but 
I also remember that tall weed story given 
recently in Hope Farm Notes in that Repp 
pear orchard. I have a field on which for 
over 15 years one or two truck crops were 
grown annually; during all this time there 
was no manure put on this field, nor was 
there ever anything sown or planted as a 
green or “catch* crop to plow down. “Chem¬ 
icals and weeds” did the work. On a por¬ 
tion of this field we harvested this season 
a good crop of early peas and on the same 
ground have now growing and have begun 
to sell a magnificent crop of radishes and 
Canadian table rutabagas. On another por- 
tion of this same field we have planted cu¬ 
cumbers and corn. We marked the ground 
in rows 3% feet apart, planted one row to 
cucumbers and the next to corn, we har¬ 
vested an unusually big crop of the finest 
cucumbers and have now growing a big 
crop of corn, many stalks with two large 
ears of corn 11 inches long and 8V> inches 
in circumference by actual measure. This 
field is the best I have on my farm to-day ; 
so much for chemicals and weeds. It was 
amusing to see a big cucumber grow on a 
stalk of corn two feet from the ground and 
above it a little way two big ears of corn, 
but such was the case, where the vines went 
up on stalks of corn. Some look upon weeds 
as a nuisance, but I am always pleased with 
a big crop of the same, of course not grow¬ 
ing at the same time with the hoed crops. 
Ohio. J. II. BOI.LIXGER. 
No doubt as to the value of weeds as 
a late Summer crop when plowed under. 
We know what they will do when cut 
and piled around young trees. We have 
and four feet of new growth to an¬ 
swer for them. They are not of so 
much use after September or in early 
Spring. Most of them grow very little 
in October or November. If we let 
them alone the ground would be pretty 
bare. They do not usually start until 
warm weather. Rye grows well up to 
freezing and starts early in Spring. We 
can cover the ground with it in Fall 
after the weeds stop and get a good 
growth in Spring before they start. I 
would, therefore, plow the weeds under 
and sow rye. 
“Young man, let me give you a little 
advice!” 
It was the first time in some years 
that anyone had addressed me as 
“young man.” Yet my friend was quali¬ 
fied to say it, if I was not to receive the 
compliment. He was over 75—straight 
and vigorous and with one of those 
faces which seem to shine as if the fire 
behind it had burned out all but what 
was worth saving. We were up on my 
hill of a Sunday afternoon in late Sep¬ 
tember. My friend knew this country 
well and he had been telling me some¬ 
thing of its history. For centuries it 
seems our hillside had been noted for 
the fruit it produced and particularly 
its grapes. 1 he Indians came from 
miles around to trade with the tribe 
which held our valley—giving skins and 
food for the grapes. Then the white 
men worked up from the coast and 
bought the land, built their houses in the 
valleys and rudely worked the land. 
With generation after generation the 
farming changed until the city people, 
hunting for homes, broke into our val¬ 
ley. As he talked I could somehow see 
it all going before me—the endless pro¬ 
cession passing along our road. It 
ranged all the way from the Indian 
squaw toiling along the forest trail with 
her weary burden to the scorching auto 
leaving its cloud of dust behind. In be¬ 
tween were the Continental soldier with 
the Dutch farmer handing him food and 
the red-coated Hessian with that same 
Dutch farmer, musket in hand, waiting 
for him behind the wall. Perhaps my 
friend called me “young man” because 
these previous farm owners were so 
much older. At any rate, he claimed 
that out of all of them—without regard 
to race or age or color, the only ones 
that we would care to pattern after were 
those who kept young to the last. Some 
were rich and some were great, but 
judged by the years which come to a 
man after 45, about the only ones worth 
talking about, were those who were able 
to keep up the joy of living and hang 
on to some part of childhood. “Make 
much of your children,” said the old 
man. “When they grow up, go out and 
get hold of others—always try to have a 
child in the house. Plant trees every 
year and see them grow, or if you keep 
animals, always have some lively young¬ 
sters around. There is little joy in age, 
but great joy in youth—so hang to it as 
long as you live.” 
My venerable friend is right. I often 
meet men who say that one 4 drawback in 
life has been the fact that they could 
not get over being a boy. If they could 
only have been a little harder and a lit¬ 
tle more cruel they could have done bet¬ 
ter. Yet, here was my friend with his 
white hair and shining face, after going 
all through it, saying that what they 
called loss was really gain. h. w. c. 
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