1911 
1©T 
BACK TO THE FRUIT FARM. 
Slowly Making It Pay. 
Mulching Peaches. —On a cold day 
in late December I began hauling manure 
to scatter around the young peach trees. 
This strawy stable manure would make 
an ideal mulch, and keep the ground 
from warming up too early in the 
Spring, thus holding the fruit buds in 
check. My wife came out aftei' I 
had returned from the orchard with the 
first load and asked me what I had been 
doing. I told her that I had been put¬ 
ting some money in the bank. She un¬ 
derstood my answer, and with a laugh 
said: “Yes, but it is not subject to 
check. I told her no; that the deposit 
was put in the savings account and would 
draw more than the customary three 
per cent interest. Just yesterday I was 
examining some especially fine and 
thrifty three-year-old peach trees, and 
they are loaded with buds. I shall prune 
out a great many of these buds early in 
the Spring, as I do not want my young 
trees to overbear. The strawberry beds 
went into their Winter quarters in fine 
shape, and I shall fruit 3 y 2 acres next 
Spring. 
Strawberry Experiments. —I have 
been experimenting the past Summer and 
Winter with these strawberry beds and 
next Spring shall be able to note the re¬ 
sults with some accuracy. I like to find 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
have unthought-of incidental expenses 
for at least two years before the money 
begins coming your way to relieve the 
strain. 
Hens or Hogs. —Take my advice and 
stay out of the chicken business; it is 
sheer folly to attempt to make money 
out of them wher? one is not fully 
and expensively equipped for such. 
One good brood sow will make you 
more returns in a year than a dozen 
liens; at least that has been our ex¬ 
perience. As an example of the above 
statement I give the following facts. 
One year ago this month I bought a 
young sow, paying $2.50 for her. I 
fed her waste from kitchen and some 
corn and in the Spring turned her on 
pasture, giving her two ears of corn 
a day till green corn was ready to 
feed. All told I fed her, to be con¬ 
servative, $3 worth of corn. Yester¬ 
day I sold four of her pigs for $20 
and have the sow left. Now for the 
chickens. Last Spring we bought four 
hens and one rooster, pure stock. White 
Wyandott'es, paying $0 for the bunch. 
Chicken house, $25; wire and fencing, 
$10; feeders, coops, outdoor brooders 
and other fixtures. $5; baby chick feed, 
$2: other feed $10 to date. These chick¬ 
ens had an open run all Summer, 
plenty of fresh water and the best of 
feed and attention. The above is the 
debit side brieflv stated. The credit 
YOUNG CARMAN PEACH TREES IN; -STRAWBERRIES. Fig. 03. 
out things for myself, as asking some¬ 
body else never quite satisfies. In the 
garden are three rows of strawberries 
which after fruiting never had a hoe in 
th£m all Summer. The middles are a 
thick mass of vines, and they are now 
covered with a natural mulch, dried crab 
grass and weeds. In the new field which 
was cultivated and runners kept in check 
all Summer we left one row of Senator 
Dunlap and one row of Warfield un¬ 
covered for the Winter to observe the 
result of the no-mulch system. In the 
old patch which will give its third crop 
next Summer we worked just as 
thoroughly after fruiting as we did the 
new one, and at the beginning of Winter 
anyone not familiar with strawberry 
culture could not have told the old patch 
from the new one. In the old field we 
mulched with wheat straw and in the 
new one with manure bought at a livery 
stable and spread on the vines at a cost 
of $1 per load delivered. This was 
pretty good manure, as the bedding had 
been done with straw, all except three 
loads which were of pine shavings. I 
had these three loads scattered over 
four rows of berries across the field, and 
here I shall be able to observe the quality 
of pine shavings and sawdust manure as 
a mulch. 
Back to the Land.- —Taking a retro¬ 
spective view of the past year we are 
highly satisfied with our farm venture, 
although I have spent almost every dol¬ 
lar that 1 have made, at my job in the 
city on this farm. I feel that I am buy¬ 
ing my way to freedom and to be my 
own boss. I feel that the money I have 
spent for manure, wood ashes, nursery 
stock, fencing, labor and other things 
has been well invested, and that I shall 
get it all back in the near future with 
compound interest. We have denied 
ourselves some pleasures, and have 
worked hard to make our venture a 
success, and so far would not trade 
our prospects for a very enticing posi¬ 
tion in the city. It takes considerable 
capital, no little work, and good hard 
business sense to make a venture of 
this kind a success. In the first place, 
if you are thinking of making a move 
of this kind, and haven’t the capital to 
back you up till the proposition be¬ 
gins paying, be very careful not to get 
in debt outside of the first crop of the 
farm. Keep your job in the city, and 
that will keep your head above water 
till you can make it pay. If you are 
in debt for the original cost of the 
farm, the interest on your loan will 
grow at a livelier rate than weeds in 
the strawberry field. Then you will 
side . is as follows: 3s young pullets, 
average market value, $15; six young 
roosters for the table, average total 
value, $3; one rooster sold for $1. 
This leaves us on the debit side of 
the ledger for the first day of Janu¬ 
ary, 1911, $32, and not an egg yet. If 
these pullets commenced laying on the 
first day of January and laid an egg 
apiece a day for the next three months, 
with eggs at 30 cents per dozen, we 
would be $4 ahead of the game the 
first day of April, 1911, if feed was 
(Continued on next page.) 
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