1908. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
639 
Hope Farm Notes 
Good Farming. —Since I began to tell 
my little “story” I have learned of many 
farms where a good crop of human 
character is being grown. I did not real¬ 
ize how many farms are contributing 
to society by providing homes and labor 
for those who otherwise would be “mis¬ 
fits” in the world. There appear to be 
many good men and women who are 
using their homes as human repair 
shops—doing the work quietly and with¬ 
out any fuss. I wish I could get a 
full record of the number of humans— 
outside of regular families—who are 
being helped in this way. They run in 
age all the way from cradle fillers to 
white-haired people. It would astonish 
the world if I could give the figures 
showing what the American farms are 
doing to build up and maintain good 
citizens. Anyone who will think for a 
moment must realize the awful waste 
of human life in town and city. Child¬ 
ren that are ill-born and ill-raised, and 
young people that are untrained for 
useful service go to swell the army of 
crime and discontent that has taken the 
life out of every nation that did not 
make much of it's farm homes. There 
is no place on earth where this human 
waste can be utilized and turned to good 
account except on the farm. So far as 
I can learn no class of people are doing 
more of it than readers of The R. 
N.-Y. Later I shall be able to tell some 
stories of this sort of “good farming” 
that will make the stories of berries or 
potatoes or grain look very small. 
Alfalfa. —We made our first cutting 
June 13. Last year we hauled this first 
cutting in on July 4. This is the old 
field, three years from seeding. At one 
time I thought the grass had swamped 
the Alfalfa, but the latter came on with 
a rush, and finally made the best crop 
we ever had. The best of it stood over 
40 inches high, and so thick that it was 
hard to get the mower through it. We 
cut when most of the blooms were dry¬ 
ing up, though the appearance of the 
plant did not settle that. With straw¬ 
berry picking at its height and a dozen 
other things to do, we had to get the 
grass cut so as to haul it in at odd 
times. Last year’s seeding of Alfalfa 
in that orchard has taken a great brace 
since the rain stopped. At one time 
part of it began to turn yellow and 
looked sickly. Now it is all turning 
green and growing. In part of this or¬ 
chard there was a volunteer seeding of 
rye with the Alfalfa. In order to make 
hay of the rye we had to cut it the last 
week in May. I had been told that 
clipping the Alfalfa at that time would 
hurt it, but it is coming up again thick 
and green after the cutting. On the 
whole it looks now as if we should 
have a good Alfalfa field where we ex¬ 
pected only two-thirds of one. Every 
time I see the plant I realize more and 
more what it will mean to fruit farmers 
to have a few acres of it. 
Strawberries. —We are just at that 
part of the game when you shut your 
eyes and see great clusters of red berries 
everywhere! The hot weather set the 
fruit to ripening fast, and onlv a berry 
grower can tell what it means to have 
those tender red beauties come upon 
him with a rush. We can muster nine 
fair pickers if need be, all taught to 
pinch off the stem and never touch the 
berry. Our worst trouble is in picking 
berries with white tips. Some of our 
big Marshalls will be bright red at the 
top, while the shaded tip will be white. 
We have to turn them up to make sure. 
The boys have developed quite a retail 
trade in our neighborhood. June 13 
they sold 139 quarts in that way. Our 
crate trade is larger than ever before 
this year—many families buy a crate, 
eat the berries while they are fresh and 
can the rest. Two or more families can 
combine in this trade and divide up the 
crate. Our Marshalls are finer than ever 
this year, many of them being fully as 
large as an Astrachan apple, so that they 
must be sliced or cut up. While Mar¬ 
shall and President suit our trade I can¬ 
not advise them for general culture. 
Marshall is not a heavy cropper. At best 
it gives a few big and beautiful berries, 
but the men at some distance from 
market who must ship at wholesale will 
not get enough Marshalls from one 
acre. As for President, it is a grand 
berry when all the conditions are right, 
but is very likely to be nipped by a late 
frost, and the hardest berry to fertilize 
properly I have ever grown. Each year 
makes me more convinced than ever 
that it doesn’t pay to mix fruit grow¬ 
ing with general farming or dairying 
and try to do them both right. Just now 
when every finger and every nerve is 
needed to get these berries into market 
the corn ought to be cultivated, the 
onions are foul with weeds, the Alfalfa 
and clover are ready to cut, and a lot 
of other jobs put back by the wet 
weather standing around like ghosts to 
haunt us. 
Farm Notes. —We replanted that 
cornfield where the crows dug the corn 
as far as our seed went. We put a 
heavy coat of tar on the second plant¬ 
ing, and this seems to have fixed the 
crows. We shall probably plant sor¬ 
ghum in drills on the vacant spots. Last 
year’s corn ground was well covered 
with Crimson clover. Early in April, a 
neighbor looked at the field and could 
find little if any clover. It came up like 
magic when the weather turned warm, 
and by Decoration Day had daubed the 
entire field with scarlet. I had intended 
to cut and cure part of it, but there 
was so much other work to do that we 
finally plowed the whole crop right un¬ 
der, and planted corn again. When you 
figure the cost of clover and turnip 
seed that makes pretty cheap manure, 
and I shall get good returns in corn and 
trees. We shall harrow the corn and 
cultivate it thoroughly, and early in 
August sow clover and turnips again. 
. . . We have one orchard of 400 
peach trees which promise a good crop 
this year. It has not been plowed 
since a year before the peach trees 
were set. Last year we gave it a good 
dressing of iron slag. The results were 
hardly apparent last season, but this 
year the clover came crowding in as 
never before. I thinx the lime in the 
slag is responsible for this. I cut that 
fine clover crop on June 10, while the 
bloom was fresh and intended to rake it 
up and put it around the trees. Philip 
and the boys think it a fearful waste to 
let that fine hay rot on the ground. Ever 
since the time of Moses and long before 
him, people have called for a “sign” 
whenever asked to do a thing which 
opposed their former experience. I 
mention this to point out one of the 
temptations which lie in wait for a 
“mulcher.” All through the Spring he 
will tell about cutting the grass and 
piling a good hay-cock around each 
tree, but when he actually sees the hay 
and knows the price per ton his heart 
often fails—and another “failure” of the 
mulch system is started. We have no 
end of forest leaves and trash from a 
rough field to take the place of the hay, 
if we could get time to haul it. . . . 
We were late with peas this year—the 
first picking coming from the Alaskas, 
June 13. In former years we grew 
quite a number of peas for sale, but 
they do -not pay well. The picking 
comes with strawberries, and a good 
hand can pick $5 worth of berries, 
while picking a dollar’s worth of peas. 
As fast as our peas are picked, we pull 
the vine for the pigs and plow the 
ground at once for another crop. We 
can grow sweet corn, cabbage, celery, 
turnips and garden stuff after peas. 
This year we shall probably sow fodder 
corn and seed to rye and Crimson clover 
in the. corn. This plan of crowding the 
land is to be the keynote of future 
farming. My .neighbor, the dairyman, 
fed out his green rye while the cows 
would eat it well, and then cut the bal¬ 
ance for hay. While he was hauling 
this hay from the field, he had a team 
at work plowing the stubble. As soon 
as the rye hay is under cover the first 
team will follow with harrow and 
planter sowing corn or Japanese millet. 
By the time the field is all plowed the 
first corn will be nearly up. Of course 
this means high feeding for the land 
and an extra team, but it is the way to 
work our farms for profit. . , . As 
Beauty, our bay colt, makes a great fool 
of herself on the road at sight of an 
auto, I thought of the work cure on the 
farm. First we put her with Jerry on 
the spring-tooth harrow, then on the 
Acme, and then on a small plow. She 
did reasonably well after first trying to 
pull the entire load and then concluding 
she would not pull at all. Jerry was 
wise enough to fall in with her first 
proposition, and let her pull while he 
took a rest. Then, when she wanted 
to strike he pulled her and her load for 
a rod, and that endel her sulk. Then 
I tried her on a cultivator. One of the 
boys has dreams of being a cowboy, so 
he mounted her after we hitched her 
up. It didn’t work. The load on her 
back and the traces near her legs were 
too much, and she plunged and kicked 
and finally threw herself. The boy was 
unhurt, but doesn’t care to try anv buck¬ 
ing mustangs. I got Beauty by the head 
and finally led her along the rows with 
the boy to hold the cultivator. When 
she understood what was wanted and 
also that there was nothing else to do 
she quit her nonsense. We shall make 
her earn her.food yet. It does hurt my 
feelings to have any able-bodied citizen 
with two legs, or four, around that 
does not earn its food! 
Hope Farm Punch. —I spoke of this 
little Hope Farmer last week. Since 
then he went to the Philadelphia show 
and won one first, two special prizes and 
a medal for best toy dog in the show. 
There probably isn’t a human being in 
our township who could go to an exhi¬ 
bition and win first prize. This little 
dog has a history like the rest of us. 
Only two of the litter lived. Nature 
seems to provide that Boston terriers 
shall not increase rapidly. If they in¬ 
creased as do the tough little scrub 
dogs that run about there would be little 
value in them. Punch’s brother was a 
big white-faced fellow, who grew like 
a weed, while poor little Punch lan¬ 
guished from the start. We never ex¬ 
pected he would live. He lingered on a 
feeble little puppy, apparently making no 
growth at all. Mother saved his life, 
and he finally got started, but was so 
stunted that he remained a dwarf. I 
thought this would spoil him for sale, 
but it appears that this very misfortune 
put him in the class of toy dogs—under 
12 pounds. So, partly as a result of his 
sickness he has become a valuable 
animal—probably worth more than any 
horse in the county, and more than a 
herd of 15 good cows. Punch has a 
good ancestry, but the accident of his 
early sickness made him small. I pre¬ 
sume many of our readers would be 
surprised to learn of the demand for 
well-marked Boston terriers. They have 
no value except as pets, but many a 
woman will pay $500 for a dog that 
suits her fancy. A man might take 
that true statement and make a ginseng 
story out of it. It would be easy to 
say that you could keep 20 dogs on an 
acre. You might safely depend on 10 
puppies each year from a dog! There 
you have (on paper) 200 puppies at $500 
each or $100,000 per acre? That’s the 
way to figure a ginseng or Belgian hare 
story, but when you come to dogs there 
is nothing to it. Judging from our ex¬ 
perience I should say that three live 
puppies per year would be a fair aver¬ 
age. It is only now and then that the 
ordinary breeder will strike an extra 
good one. It is doubtful if Hope Farm 
will ever duplicate Punch. I presume $40 
or $50 is what one could depend on for 
the average run. Punch’s mother cost 
$35. There is no fortune in the busi¬ 
ness. I mention it merely to show some 
of the newer sorts of trade which have 
grown up near the large eastern cities. 
Out in Iowa people were surprised 
when I spoke of boarding horses. There 
are people who do well at boarding 
dogs and cats while the owners are away 
from town. These people will take the 
animal to the country and keep it in 
good condition, the owner being willing 
to pay as high as $3 a week for its 
board. The fact is that all sorts of 
new desires are being developed, and 
all sorts of new trades are being 
worked out in catering to the wants of 
the rich. I never did think my farm 
would produce dogs, yet here we are 
doing it. I am now figuring to get 
some Newfoundland dogs, as I think 
there would be a good demand for 
them, and I believe they would pay bet¬ 
ter than cows. h. w. c. 
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