1908. 
a'HEC RURAL/ 
NKW-YOKKE R 
tmr 
Hope Farm Notes 
A Farmer Factory. —About six miles 
north of Hope Farm, over the line in 
New York State, is the Cherry Tree 
Home School, conducted by tbe Salva¬ 
tion Army. We drove up there on Au¬ 
gust 1 to look at gardens which the chil¬ 
dren had planted. There were 16 little 
plots, each measuring the length of one 
hoc handle one way by three lengths the 
other, each worked by a little boy from 
six to 10 years old. Then five older 
boys had each taken a quarter acre. A 
good friend had offered prizes for the 
best gardens, and I was to act as judge. 
We finally decided to wait until the 
harvest before deciding about prizes— 
for a race is ended at the finish. We 
gave tlie 16 little fellows each JO cents 
for their labor, and in September the 
yields from other gardens will be com¬ 
pared. 
I wish that all our readers could know 
what great work the Salvation Army is 
doing at schools like this. Mrs. Amelia 
Benjamin, a staff captain in the Army, 
is matron here, and you would feel more 
hopeful over the future of your country 
if you could hear her talk and see what 
is being done with those children. Cap¬ 
tain Benjamin believes that the true sal¬ 
vation of the city children of this class 
is to put them in the country, where 
they may grow up in a good home and 
learn farming. I be whole plan here is 
to train and inspire these children so 
that they will never go back to the city, 
but grow up to live on a farm. As a 
part of her plan in this direction Cap¬ 
tain Benjamin has worked out a course 
in agriculture for children which seems 
to me remarkable. She studied all the 
farm text books she could find, took a 
correspondence course in agriculture and 
then adapted a course of her own in 
connection with the work on the farm 
and garden. As a result those children 
can talk to you intelligently about nitro¬ 
gen or potash and tell you why clover 
makes the land better, while corn or 
potatoes take plant food away from it. 
When I told about “pussley,” how it con¬ 
tained more nitrogen than clover and 
how it just took this nitrogen away 
from the soil, these children understood. 
They could also see why this rich weed 
which had stolen the nitrogen away 
from the soil should not be burned or 
thrown away, but fed to pigs or piled 
around a young tree so that it would 
not be wasted. My belief is that those 
children are actually getting a better 
course in agriculture than we got in our 
first year at an agricultural college 
nearly 30 years ago. These children, 
growing up with that sort of school 
training, and their little hands right in 
the soil, will make the best of farmers. 
And let us think too just what this 
home school is doing for society. It 
needs but a short study of the children 
to realize what their natural tendency 
would be and what they would come to 
if left untrained in the city. They 
would incite real enemies of society. 
They are American children, most of 
them orphans, or at least motherless. 
Some are the children of parents with 
bad habits or dead ambitions. In some 
cases the father contributes something 
for the child's support. All stand alike 
at the home—the only desire there being 
to weed out the evil in character if pos¬ 
sible and start these little fellows on the 
way to good citizenship. Captain Ben¬ 
jamin said one thing which struck me 
forcibly. She was speaking of the dif¬ 
ference between motherless and father¬ 
less children. You may take two fam¬ 
ilies as nearly alike as possible. Sup¬ 
pose, for example, two twin sisters 
marry twin brothers. There arc the 
same number of children in each fam¬ 
ily. In one case the father dies and in 
the other the mother. Which children 
will have the better chance to grow up 
with good character and service? The 
one with the mother influence every 
time. I think the Salvation Army rec¬ 
ognizes this fact that the motherless 
children are in greatest need of help, 
and that it is the loss of the mother feel¬ 
ing that is hardest to make good. 
There is one little experiment going 
on at Cherry Tree Home which might 
keep a man thinking for a good while, 
hour small plots of corn are planted 
side by side with conditions of seed and 
planting alike. On one stable manure 
was used, and on the next a combination 
of chemicals giving about the same plant 
food value as the manure. On the next 
plot no plant food was used, but the 
most thorough hoeing has been done, 
while on the next plot nothing was add¬ 
ed to the soil and practically nothing 
has been done with hoe or cultivator. 
And you ought to see the difference in 
favor of elbow grease! If anything the 
chemicals seem ahead of the manure, 
though it is a close call. When it comes 
to the value of the hoe—a blind man 
could sec it. I cannot think of anything 
more useful to keep before these chil¬ 
dren through the hot working days than 
this evidence of the value of labor. Of 
course these children are like all others 
—from six to 70 years. It is great fun 
to prepare the ground and sow the seed, 
because hope is large and faith has no 
sweat or dirt on her face. It is not 
quite so bad to pull out the first crop 
of weeds, but as crop after crop of the 
rascals come marching on like an in¬ 
exhaustible army the tendency to say 
“IV hat's the use?” and quit grows 
stronger and stronger. The fighting 
against these three words is the great 
life conflict for character. 
I asked Captain Benjamin bow long 
they keep these children and what be¬ 
comes of them. They are fit to go 
“when they learn the value of a dollar 
After all that is a pretty good test of 
character. When a child knows about 
the history and possibilities of a sweat- 
stained dollar you can begin to trust him 
out in the world. Man usually goes 
wrong in his hunt for a dishonest dol¬ 
lar or in his desire to spend it foolishly. 
Usually when the children are about 14 
places are found for them on good 
farms, and they are prepared to give 
good service. I wish that more people 
could realize what the Salvation Army 
is doing in such schools. To my mind 
there is no more patriotic service which 
men and women can render than this 
saving of motherless city children. John 
Randolph was once asked to aid a fund 
for helping the Greeks obtain their in¬ 
dependence: His answer was: “The 
Greeks are at your door!” The needy 
and poor and those crying for moral 
help are at your door, in front of your 
comfortable farm home. It seems to 
me that it should be the glory of every 
well-intended life that some little sacri¬ 
fice has been made to help those who, 
like Captain Benjamin, are transplant¬ 
ing the little city seedlings so that they 
will bear good fruit. 
Medicine in Weeds. —The other day 
while I was in the city, our folks tele¬ 
phoned in that I was to bring out a 
package of “Dog grass.” Some one was 
sick, and this grass had been prescribed. 
“Dog grass!” This was repeated over 
and over, but I thought there must be 
some mistake until we hunted it up in 
the United States Dispensatory. There 
we found that “Dog grass” is the same 
as our old friend, “quack” or “crab” 
or “witch” or “quitch.” I also found 
that it is a remedy for certain trou¬ 
bles. So I went out and bought a quan¬ 
tity of the “grass,” which was simply 
hay made from this weed and chopped 
or ground fine. Here for years l had 
been pulling this, weed out of our straw¬ 
berries and throwing it away and had 
now come to the point of paying at the 
rate of over $600 a ton for it. We 
stand ready to supply several tons to 
those who want it at much less than I 
paid. This incident led me to look 
up the properties of some other weeds. 
Ragweed 1 find not only gets hold of 
potash for us, but is used for coughs 
or throat trouble. Smartweed is used 
as medicine and our old friend “puss- 
ley” not only aids in kidney and similar 
troubles, but is very useful in cases 
of scurvy. Our boys may have greater 
respect for these pests now that they 
know their useful qualities, but I doubt 
it. If any sufferer wants to try the 
effect of the pulling cure he may get 
down in my garden and berry patch 
and fully test the merits of pulling 
“Dog grass” and “pussley.” The exer¬ 
cise will help him if the weeds do not. 
Farm Notes. —We began picking 
Carman peaches for sale August 3. A 
few trees hurt by the borers ripened 
earlier than this. They have not looked 
right all Summer, and we should have 
taken two-thirds of the fruit off. We 
let it stay and it ripened early. After 
maturing their crop these trees now be¬ 
gin to shake themselves. They take 
on a darker color and are making good 
growth. I often notice peach trees 
which act in a most unaccountable way. 
Our crop of Carmans could hardly be 
better from four-year-old trees. The 
fruit hangs in great masses and turns 
a dark crimson in the sun. T have 
never trimmed these trees at all, and 
they have made long slender limbs, 
and a high top. The weight of fruit 
has brought these long limbs to the 
ground till the tree looks at a dis¬ 
tance like a green mound about five 
feet high with a wide strip of bright 
red all around it. Yet only one small 
bough in the entire orchard has been 
broken off. These long slender limbs 
swaying in the wind have held their 
fruit, while the shorter and stocky 
boughs on pruned trees have shaken 
off considerable of their crop. I think 
this crop of Carman peaches has con¬ 
vinced everyone who has seen it of 
the possibilities of mulch culture. I 
would not be surprised if Carman is 
one of the varieties particularly suited 
to this method at its best. These bril¬ 
liant peaches catch the eye of custom¬ 
ers, and our crop has been in great de¬ 
mand. After all, the Elberta is the 
great commercial peach. People know 
it and demand it. While I consider it 
decidedly inferior to several other good 
varieties there is no use denying the 
fact that people demand Elberta. Our 
Carmans came on the market in com¬ 
petition with Delaware Elbertas and I 
find that any white peach must be A 
No. 1 to hold its own. As we raise it 
Carman is a red peach! A western 
man tells me that this experience with 
Elberta ought to show me how people 
in many western towns regard the Ben 
Davis apple. He claims that his cus¬ 
tomers regard Ben Davis as my cus¬ 
tomers do Elberta, and that they de¬ 
mand old Ben in preference to others. 
I am glad I don’t have to raise fruit 
for them. . . . We began seeding 
Crimson clover and turnips in the corn 
August 9. I waited for a shower be¬ 
fore starting. In the moist warm 
ground the clover will show itself in 
48 hours. If anyone doubt the power 
of clover and turnips to help a crop 
he should see our cornfield. There 
were places all over it where the clover 
was thin to start with, and dried out 
in March. A stranger can find these 
places by looking at the corn, for there 
the crop is smaller and lighter colored. 
While the ball growth of clover alone 
will far more than pay cost of seed 
and labor the Spring growth will dou¬ 
ble the value. VVe have corn on one 
part of the hill where there was no 
clover, and I know how much fertilizer 
was required to bring this corn up to 
the other. It seems to me impossible 
to say too much about the value of 
these manurial crops—especially those 
which bring nitrogen to the soil. This 
note from a woman in Connecticut 
who is obliged to work such land as 
she has by proxy is to the point: 
'Plils morning I walked through a piece 
of cow pens sown according to your advice 
sent in a letter several years ago. I did 
not report upon my first trial, because) 
things could not be carried out at all as I 
bad planned. Hut I did have some cow 
peas sowed and plowed under before sow¬ 
ing to grass. It was the second season 
before my not wholly successful handling 
of the piece showed definite results, and 
not till this year have I been able to re¬ 
peat the trial. But I was able to point 
out, in all the surrounding Timothy, where 
the cow peas grew best on that first piece, 
and I noticed that the man who does our 
farm work, and who sowed cow peas at that 
first planting, took a decided interest in this 
season’s work, and rather boasts of bow 
well they look. As he has plenty of barn¬ 
yard manure to use on his own land he. 
was In the habit of merely shaking bis 
head over Timothy on our farm, saying wo 
could not grow grass without, keeping stock 
on our farm—refusing, of course, to sell 
me a pound from his own barnyard. 
A. M. T. 
It was hard for her to get anyone to 
sow cow peas and plow them under 
properly. You see prejudice is strong 
and it is hard for many people to be¬ 
lieve what is said about clover or cow 
peas. I knew that if those cow peas 
could be made to grow, and were then 
plowed under that the grass coming 
after them would be obliged to show 
where they went. Of all the crops I 
have ever tried the cow pea gives surer 
and quicker results in manurial value 
than any other. It decays rapidly and 
seems to gather a vast amount of nitro¬ 
gen. dhe only objection we have to 
cow peas is that the crop requires the 
entire growing season and occupies the 
ground when corn, potatoes or similar 
things could be grown. It is too much 
of a job to plow our soil and we do 
better to grow a salable crop through 
tbe Summer and follow with Crimson 
clover and turnips. If one has the soil 
and will spare tbe time a crop of cow 
peas plowed under makes tbe finest 
fitting for potatoes, strawberries or 
grass seeding. h. w. c. 
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