6«8 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 10, 
Hope Farm Notes 
The C'ow. —We get much interest out of 
keeping the milk record. A little spring 
balance hangs just back of the cow's stall. 
The pails are accurately weighed and marked, 
it means but the fraction of a minute to 
hang these pails on the hook and get the 
weight. A paper tacked on the wall with 
a pencil tied to a string makes it easy to 
keep the record. The cow came on the 
evening of April 19, and gave 10 pounds 
that night. Including that milking she gave 
in April 286 pounds. In 28 days of May 
she gave 894 pounds, for we have worked 
her up to 35 pounds per day. Thus in 
39 days this cow gave us 1180 pounds, and 
she is still “going strong.” She has good 
pasture grass and eight pounds per day of 
a mixture of half wheat bran and one- 
quarter each cornmeal and ground oats. We 
also keep dry hay before her at night, and 
she cats quite a little of it. As the gar¬ 
den develops she will have a chance to 
eat all the beet tops, lettuce, sweet corn, 
refuse, etc., that she cares for. I expect 
to bring her up to 40 pounds. The accu¬ 
rate record enables us to know exactly 
what Mollie is doing. If she begins to fall 
off we can change or increase her feed at 
once, and hold her up to the record. You 
will understand that this is not thin “chalk 
and water.” Mollie is a high-grade Guern¬ 
sey with a dark colored high testing milk. 
Cost and Value.— I hope to keep this 
cow’s record for a year. What value shall 
we put on the milk? I figure it at four 
cents a pound, since that is what we have 
to pay in cash when we buy. I know that 
just as good milk is being sold for less than 
one cent a pound back among the hills in 
the dairy districts, but an article is worth 
to me what I have to pay for it in cash. 
Again, I believe this milk is well worth 
four cents a pound as actual food, compared 
with other things we buy. I could get 
greater food value for a dollar in oatmeal 
or wheat, but milk is needed to make them 
palatable. I believe milk at four cents a 
pound is cheaper than meat at present 
prices. We have 17 people to feed, and 
they get away with our 35 pounds per day 
as milk, cream, pot cheese, puddings and 
milk bread. I claim therefore that our 
cow earned for us $47.20 in her first 39 
days. If this figuring is wrong tell me 
where the error is. As for cost, the grain 
ration costs about 12 cents a day. We 
have a small pasture, and picket the cow 
on a strip of Alfalfa or in corners where 
the grass comes in. I do not know how to 
figure any great value for these spots. 
With the fullest charge for labor and all I 
think this milk costs us about one cent a 
pound to produce. 
Fool Figuring. —Now I know what some 
real estate agent could do with these fig¬ 
ures if he were after some “back to the 
lander.” Here is a plain case of a cow 
making a “profit” of over 80 cents a day. 
As there are 365 days in a year this means 
$292 profit. Let one man keep 10 cows 
and make $3,000 yearly profit! That is 
about the way some of those fellows figure 
on $10 hens, two-quart strawberry plants 
and $40 apple trees, and many a poor 
tiling parts with his money thereby. If it 
costs us one cent a pound to produce milk 
under the most favorable circumstances— 
feeding largely on what would otherwise be 
wasted, and selling the milk to ourselves— 
think about the dairymen who sell at 90 
cents per 100 pounds. Such men must pay 
for feed and get pay for all their labor 
out of this starvation price, with a heavy 
expense for outfit! If my cow fell to 20 
or 15 pounds, the cost of keeping her would 
be much the same, which would make the 
cost two cents per pound or more. If I 
kept two or three cows the cost per pound 
would at once jump up. I should have to 
Ouy more grain and interfere -with our other 
crops to raise more fodder or build new 
fences. The point is that this proposition 
of figuring the cost of a crop has many 
sides to it. I have seen men who kept two 
cows or three pigs or 25 chickens figure 
that these animals paid a good profit. 
So they branched out with 10 cows or 20 
hogs or 500 birds—and lost a lot of money. 
Their two cows paid, because like mine they 
used up a lot of stuff which would other¬ 
wise have been wasted. When more cows 
were kept the farmer got 'way out beyond 
the limit of utilizing wastes and had to 
pay cash. Here was where he went down. 
It was much the same with the hogs and 
hens. It takes something of a genius to 
invest cash in feed and fertilizers and get 
it back in the profit by selling in the 
wholesale market. It is better to keep well 
inside the limit of what the farm produces 
if you can. And by the way, imagine us 
trying to give our big family all the milk 
and cream they want and paying retail 
prices for it—in a town! My friend Mollie 
is a mighty useful Hope Farmer. 
Unwelcome Guests. —The 17-year locusts 
have come upon us in a multitude. We 
found a few here and there up to the time 
a small patch of Alfalfa was plowed. That 
brought out thousands of them and now 
the farm is full. We have no reason to 
claim that these are purebred or that they 
are any better than others, but if you 
want to buy several thousand you can have 
them at a low figure. It is now common 
knowledge that this insect remains in the 
soil 17 years. Then it crawls out, mounts 
a tree, cuts little slits in the young wood 
and deposits its eggs. In a few weeks these 
eggs hatch, the baby locusts drop to the 
ground and crawl out of sight to remain 
for 17 years more. There is no way &f 
fighting them. Anyone would quickly rec¬ 
ognize that if he saw some of our trees 
fairly alive with them. We do not worry, 
partly because it would do no good, partly 
because the drought is worse, and also be¬ 
cause these interesting insects will not do 
much damage. Give us a good rain and 
the trees will grow away from them. If 
you can send 10,000 English sparrows into 
our neighborhood right now we will thank 
you. These sparrows take a savage delight 
in tearing the locusts apart. 
Farm Notes. —The drought is beginning 
to be serious. We have had several short 
showers which helped a little, but it is 
time we had more. I have put all our im¬ 
portant crops on the lower farm this year. 
The soil here is inclined to be moist any¬ 
way. In a dry season we shall make it. If 
we have a deluge later—it will be against 
us, but we must take the chances. We 
have more potatoes planted than in years. 
They are starting well. Seed was unusual¬ 
ly low, and planting seems to be lighter 
than usual. The price does not vary much 
in our local market, and potatoes make a 
good first crop with us. We can get out 
the tubers early, pile the tops around the 
trees and then put in potted strawberry 
plants, yellow turnips, cabbage or celery. 
. . . We got about 30.000 plants of 
Prizetakor onions for transplanting when 
we wanted 75,000. Some plants were 
killed in the hotbed by “damping off,” and 
the seed did not sprout as I hoped it would. 
Still the 30,000 are out in place and we 
will care for them as best we can. 
The field of potted strawberry plants set 
out last September did not look very happy 
in April. We filled in the missing places, 
and by Decoration Day had hoed once and 
cultivated four times. They must be 
worked about 25 times during the season. 
There are some 8,000 plants set three feet 
apart each way. They have come forward 
wonderfully in the past two weeks. We 
can get five good potted plants from each 
hill if need be, and leave a big clump at 
each place that will give at least three 
quarts to five plants. Many of them will 
run over a quart to the plant, but I would 
much rather get. under the average than 
over it. . . . We got our spraying done 
in good time. There were two showers 
during the week, but the mixture had a 
good chance to dry before these showers 
came and we do not worry about it. We 
used this year commercial lime-sulphur, 
about one gallon to 45 of water, and two 
pounds arsenate of lead. This left a good 
coating or film on the trees with practically 
no injury. We discarded the gas sprayer 
this year and went back to hand power. 
The gas sprayer tank was too small, and 
too much time was required in making it 
airtight after each charge. The gas power 
was expensive—with considerable leakage. 
We never had such a remarkable promise 
for fruit, but rain is needed, for the hot 
dry winds are milking the soil. 
Education. —I have had many letters 
from boys and young men who ask about 
working their way through college. Can it 
be done? At what colleges can a boy get 
work to do? How much will he need, etc.? 
I worked my way through such a college 
over 25 years ago, but I do not think my 
experience would be fair now for compari¬ 
son. In those old days the entire scheme 
of education was different. The colleges 
were in the pioneer stage. So, in a way, 
were the students. The States did not like 
to give up money to these colleges. They 
had not proved themselves. The boys could 
not as a rule get funds except through 
their labor. Thus we had to work or quit. 
The conditions now are very different. One 
of our boys wants to go to college or school, 
ne has decided to be a farmer, so we 
looked about for a school or college of farm¬ 
ing rather than of “agriculture.” We have 
found a good two-years practical course and 
the boy will try it. I am after figures and 
information, so we will keep some records 
of this education. The boy will take about 
an acre of the best land on the farm and 
grow a potato crop. With a fair season 
there should be a fair yield. At our retail 
prices this will mean some money. Then 
the boy will work through the Summer by 
the hour with a chance to make all he 
can and the wages will go for his educa¬ 
tion. Let us see how this comes out. I 
should not care to educate a boy except in 
some such way. As for sending him to col¬ 
lege just because others go, or without 
some effort on his part to work his way— 
not for “yours truly.” Perhaps the story 
of this experiment in education may help 
other boys as it is told. h. w. c. 
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