190S. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
3<33 
Hope Farm Notes 
All Sorts. —Just as we expected to 
begin plowing on April 1 a fierce cold 
wind came down the valley from the 
northwest, and roared for four days. 
The mercury did not go much below 20 
degrees, but the wind made it seem like 
December. Two weeks later it would 
probably have killed every peach bud, 
but they still had their overcoats on, and 
little damage was done. This high wind 
held up the spraying all over this region. 
Most of our people seem to start too late 
at this important job, and I am very 
glad we could do some of it through the 
Winter. Spring will now probably come 
with a rush, and we are all glad to see it. 
I have had Madge and Jerry clipped. 
Usually in Spring these horses seem dull 
and listless. It seems impossible to keep 
them fat, though they are crazy for food. 
In the past 1 have opposed clipping, but 
last year I struck a man who put up 
such sensible arguments for it that I had 
it done. One would think the clipping 
machine had given old Jerry a present 
of five years of life. Both he and Madge 
have braced up in a remarkable way. I 
asked Dr. Alexander why this clipping 
should have such an effect upon an old 
horse. This is what he says, and Madge 
and Jerry are living examples of his 
truth: 
The shedding of the coat In Spring saps 
the energy of the horse and the operation 
often is attended by lack of thrift, indi¬ 
gestion, weakness, lassitude, etc. Clipping 
relieves the horse of all this trouble and 
the pores of the skin at once act freely: 
sweating, which is exhausting, stops, and 
food is not. diverted to allow of sweating, 
while improved appetite and digestion ex¬ 
plain the horse's better spirits, and his 
sprightliness is natural under the circum¬ 
stances, and augmented by “lightness” felt 
when coat is removed. 
A man came at me the other day with 
a remarkable question: 
“Why don’t you have some big story 
to tell about your crops at Hope Farm? 
I can’t see that you lead in any crop, or 
that you are doing any better than hun¬ 
dreds of other farmers!” 
I don’t tell big stories, because I 
haven’t any to tell. The greatest success 
thus far at Hope Farm outside of the 
humans is Jack’s little dog Punch. This 
dog won first prize at the New York 
show, and would bring $500 or more. I’ll 
tell about him later. I might muster up 
a story of some size regarding what 
comes off a couple of acres near the 
house, but I would rather let the big 
stories tell themselves. Kevitt, Hunt 
and many others beat us out of sight on 
strawberries. Hulsart and others have 
us at the distance flag on asparagus, and 
somehow our hens and cows and horses 
fail to match the big records we read 
about. While we firmly believe these 
friends who tell about taking the equiva¬ 
lent of four tons of wheat bran from an 
acre of Alfalfa—we haven’t done it yet. 
In fact I am forced to admit that most 
of our farm achievements thus far will 
rank around “average.” You must re¬ 
member that our problem is to grow and 
develop an orchard on rough, hilly land, 
without large capital, and without great 
skill. I feel that such a problem is of 
greater human and vital interest than 
would be one of making strong, level 
land with all needed capital and help 
produce great crops. Our plan is work¬ 
ing out, and it looks now as if the “big 
stories” could come in a few years. I 
doubt if I shall want to tell them even 
when we demonstrate their truth, be¬ 
cause unless .you can make people be¬ 
lieve what stands back of them in the 
way of work and care and risk they may 
do more harm than good. As I see it 
the main thing in farming to-day, wheth¬ 
er a man is rich or poor, is to have an 
ideal and a definite plan and then stick 
to them through thick and thin. No 
matter what you decide to produce—be 
it cattle, hens, hay, onions, fruit or any 
other product, get your eye on the best 
and work toward it. Keep within your 
means if you have to take a single acre 
or a single animal at a time, but try to 
get it right. Have such confidence in 
your plan that you can invest your sav¬ 
ings in it. Working on this plan you 
may not have any big stories to tell for 
some years, but along this path lies the 
only right to tell such stories and have 
truth mixed with them. 
Every year reports of trouble like the 
following comes to me: 
I have only 42 acres of land. My near¬ 
est neighbor lives only about 10(V yards 
from me. He keeps a big flock of chick¬ 
ens, and they are all over my farm, and 
destroy my grain, fruit and berries. I told 
him in a nice sensible way to keep them 
off till the crops were over, then he rolled 
up his sleeves and asked me to come on the 
street, and when we chase the chickens 
his wife and the children watch us and 
call us nicknames and chicken thieves, etc. 
Now what shall I do, or what could I do. 
about it? I hate to spend the time and 
money at law. 
Poets and statesmen have sung the 
virtues of a hen, but no one ventures to 
tell the evil she is responsible for. The 
hen may hold nations together with her 
eggs, but she separates neighborhoods 
with her feet—when they exercise in a 
garden. I hardly knew what to say. The 
neighbors who join me are both smaller 
men than I am, and anyway, we wouldn’t 
get out in the highway except to fight 
against the ruts and bad places in the 
road. I have had some experience' with 
these gentlemen who proceed to “roll 
up their sleeves,” but I never saw one 
yet who didn’t roll them down again 
when his bluff was called. I am a man 
of peace, and if one of these sleeve-roll¬ 
ers dared me out in the road I am not 
clear whether I should challenge him to 
a foot race or a job of cutting weeds or 
picking up stones. But, seriously, this 
.is a hard problem for a peaceable man 
who wants to do what is right. I have 
had no experience with such neighbors. 
We once had a good dog trained to run 
such hens home. Lawing about such 
things is even worse than the jawing our 
friend is subject to. If you shoot the 
hens or kill them in other ways you are 
liable for the value of the hens, and you 
would be obliged to prove the value of 
the property which the hens destroyed. 
If any peaceable and non-fighting reader 
can tell us what to do I would like to 
hear from them—and persons of the 
other class are not barred out. I shall 
have to reprint the verse which has been 
called for several times before. 
„ Another important thing about the 
hen just now is the egg. The propor¬ 
tion of Americans who are living on 
eggs right now, while they are cheap, 
would astonish anyone who looked the 
matter up. Now, while a few eggs are 
good an exclusive diet of them will in 
time make ordinarily peaceful citizens so 
bilious that they want to throw vinegar 
over all the sweetness of life. The best 
antidote I know of is baked apple. Our 
russets are still in fine baking condition, 
and about five baked apples to each egg 
is a good way to break the shell of trou¬ 
ble and extortionate meat prices. Find 
a growler these days and you may know 
he is eating no apple with his eggs! 
Figures. —I never was very strong on 
arithmetic. As for bookkeeping I must 
confess that I have kept only a simple 
cash account. I know just what I have 
paid out and what I have taken in for 
some years past, but I have never tried 
to keep an elaborate account as some 
farmers do. The following “example” 
has been put up by an Illinois farmer: 
ITow should the following transaction he 
booked? A and R break some colts for 
other parties, and receive $50 for the job; 
half belongs to each. B collects all of this 
money and pays out $27.50 for grain: A 
uses $6.90 worth of the grain and B the 
remainder. How much would B owe A on 
the transaction, and how should it be 
booked to make it show plainly bow the 
business was done? w. s. s. 
I submitted this to a man reputed to 
he good at figures, and he submits the 
following: 
ACCOUNT WITH, COLTS. 
A and B for work.$50 
To B, grain . $20.60 
To B, cash . 4.40 
To A, grain . 6.90 
To A, cash . 18.10 
T do not understand that any of this 
grain was fed to the colts. If that is 
so B ought to pay A $18.10 in cash. It 
would be interesting to see how different 
farmers would enter these items on 
their books. 
Hard Ones. —It is comparatively easy 
for one who knows how to settle ques¬ 
tions of figures, but I get another line 
of questions which are harder. Take 
this one: 
Docs it follow that a man who is a poor 
manager and a poor provider has a scold¬ 
ing wife? 
T should say no—not of necessity, and 
yet it would be enough to make a ner¬ 
vous and ambitious woman scold to feel 
that her husband could, if he wanted to, 
make her more comfortable. It would 
require a very superior woman, or else 
one without hope or ambition to be 
cheerful under such conditions. 
Here is another: 
What should a woman do whose husband 
uses profane language hourly before his 
four sons, between the ages of seven and 
seventeen? 
I frankly answer that I do not know. 
It might be merely habit on the part of 
the man, who otherwise was well mean¬ 
ing and desirous of making something 
out of the boys. Tf so I think the boys 
would recognize the fact, and that their 
mother’s influence would prevail against 
it. If on the other hand, the father 
swears through pure wickedness, and 
doesn’t care about the boys, you would 
have a hard situation. What the mother 
should do will depend much on circum¬ 
stances. The worse it becomes the 
greater need for her to show the high¬ 
est Christian patience and cheerful ex¬ 
ample. Perhaps there are mothers who 
can tell us what is best. I would tell 
such fathers and their boys that aside 
from the sin and filth of profanity it is 
the poorest kind of business to fix the 
habit upon the tongue. All over the 
country societies are being formed and 
individuals arc planning to make pro¬ 
fanity so unpopular that it will be 
ranked by decent people among the dis¬ 
gusting things. The coming young man 
will find the habit of profanity an awful 
handicap in business. I think the man 
who will deliberately fasten this vile 
habit upon boys ought to have his mouth 
washed out with a strong carbolic acid 
solution. h. w. c. 
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• W. H. Bird, President Farmers’ 
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4< A. L. Kerr, Adams Basin, N. Y.— 
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