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the: RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
June 22, 
Hope Farm Notes 
June Days. —What is so raw as a day 
in June? If James Russell Lowell had 
lived in New Jersey this year he would 
have felt inclined to hold up the press 
and edit his poem. Yet as it stands it 
expresses a great truth, for a perfect 
June day is certainly a rare product. 
There has been one long succession of 
cold rains and raw north winds. Now 
« 
and then- the wind takes a vacation and 
the papers print in big letters “Hottest 
June day in 25 years.” So far as work 
and farm plans go, June might as well 
be standing on its head. Some corn is 
planted and up, but it does not look 
right. June is the best month for corn, 
for then it must get its start, but this 
. year the corn looks feeble and yellow 
like a child caught barefooted on frosty 
ground. Grass is good. We shall have 
our best hay crop. It has been a great 
season to prove the value of soluble 
fertilizers on grass. Where the mea¬ 
dows were top-dressed early the rains 
carried the plant food down and the 
grass made a good start. This would 
not be true of lime put on the sod. In 
a wet season a good share of such lime 
will stick like a mortar at the surface— 
just where it is not needed. The trees 
have made a tine growth. By the mid¬ 
dle of June many of our young bearing 
apple trees had new wood 15 inches or 
more in length. Some of the peach 
trees had even more while the young 
fruit is developing just as it should. On 
our wind-swept hills there is no evi¬ 
dence of peach curl or other disease 
yet. In fact, as I write, we could hardly 
ask for a better outlook for the or- 
cards. The strawberries are not so 
satisfactory. During the wet Spring the 
weeds and grass beat us and this will 
mean some rot and loss, but the Mar¬ 
shalls are as large and fine as ever be¬ 
fore and there will be a fair crop—if 
the rain lets up. When it comes to gar¬ 
den vegetables they are much like 
humans. Here near the middle of June 
1 have a good fire in the open fireplace. 
Several members of the family find it 
to their taste to get before that fire. 
Others have no use for a fire but run 
out into the air to work or play. Need¬ 
less to say the redheads are found in 
the last named class! Vegetables are 
not unlike humans in their weather be¬ 
havior. Lettuce, peas, turnips or spinach 
and potatoes rather like this cool 
weather and have no fault to find. To¬ 
matoes, sweet corn and others act much 
like the thin-blooded individuals who 
come and shiver before my fire. It is 
at best a raw, mixed-up season, but we 
have so many blessings thrown in with 
the kicks that we have no fault to find. 
In fact we would not find fault if we 
could for that would only add to the 
troubles. 
Pruning Trees. —People are still ask¬ 
ing how we prune a tree for planting. 
Perhaps the picture at Fig. 279 will help 
show it. This was taken with a small 
camera. The five young children are 
lined up on the lawn. The larger boy 
has the tree as it came out of the nur¬ 
seryman’s box. The next boy has one 
with the top pruned, while little red¬ 
head has the two-year-old tree as we 
put it in the ground. We prefer year¬ 
lings, but now and then we get some 
older trees. Later I shall show some 
of the “cut-backs” in the field. The 
two redheads in front of the picture 
are not able to do much with fruit yet 
except to eat it, but they will come 
along in time. I have explained why we 
cut back these trees and put them in 
small holes. I am unable to see any 
advantage in leaving the large tops 
which some growers advise. 
Mulch on Poor Soil. —Here .is a 
question which is often repeated: 
I have some gravelly stony hill land 
which has lain in pasture for the last 25 
years. The last two dry seasons together 
with lying so long has killed out about all 
the grass so that scarcely any thing is 
growing. I wish to get this in shape to 
plant one-year apples, headed low, and then 
mulch, but I must first get something to 
grow as there is nothing there now to 
mulch with. This is stony and difficult to 
plow, and manure is out of the question. 
I’loase tell me how to proceed to get this 
in shape with the least expense. I have 
700 trees eight years old that are doing 
finely under mulch. D. w. s. 
New York. 
We have some land much like this. 
It is usually thin and sour, needing hu¬ 
mus and lime. We can work it over 
with a disk or spring-tooth and sow 
rye and cow horn turnips in late July, 
using at least 1500 pounds of lime per 
acre. This will make a fair growth. 
Next Spring cut the rye and pile it 
around the trees. More and more grass 
will work in. Early in the Summer disk 
again and sow buckwheat thinly and 
grass seed, mostly Blue grass and Red 
top. Keep this clipped and the sod will 
gradually thicken up and make a good 
mulch. We can start with the poorest 
soil and use lime—first turnips, then 
buckwheat, rye, cow peas or field beans, 
rye again with vetch, and finally get the 
soil so clover will make a fair growth. 
should he drop the habit even though 
he strike a place where he thinks it 
would pay him to do so. It is a part 
of the plan of education that it involves 
a test of value. If such education is 
worth anything it must prove its value. 
The public will not accept a college 
education at its face value. No grocer 
or butcher will take a “degree” of B. S. 
or L.L. D. in payment for his bill. Nor 
will a fruit farmer or the other hired 
men accept a boy’s college record as 
evidence that he can hoe or plow or 
drive a team. He has got to get right 
down into the common dirt and prove 
his value in the plain things which they 
understand. And, if he did but know 
it, that is the finest thing for the boy, 
for he must understand that if his col¬ 
lege education is good for anything he 
must learn to spread it, not in the lan¬ 
guage of his classroom but in the 
thoughts and words which plain, unedu¬ 
cated people use. At college and school 
we learn in one sort of language—that 
of the wise. We must practice our life 
and do our teaching in another language 
—that of the common people. I think 
there is a good illustration of this in 
the way different people sometimes try 
flag of sorrel, we all want him to come 
forward. There is more sorrel in our 
neighborhood this year than I have no¬ 
ticed before. On one grass field there 
is a curious sight. There are strips of 
clover in full vigor—as fine as we ever 
had on the farm. Then right along¬ 
side are patches the colQr of our red¬ 
heads and fully as vigorous. In some 
of these patches the sorrel is so thick 
and strong that practically no Timothy 
appears. There is a little Red top, but 
not a plant of clover. The sorrel has 
simply monopolized the soil, yet right 
alongside there is little or no sorrel but 
a wonderful stand of clover. I knew 
before that Red-top will make a fair 
growth among sorrel, that Timothy will 
only spindle along, and that Red clover 
will quit, while Alsike makes a fair 
growth. But why should there be the 
difference on these strips? My only 
explanation is that the boys put more 
fertilizer where the clover is found. 
Perhaps the wind blew it over. The 
soluble nitrogen and potash gave the 
clover its chance to get ahead of the 
sorrel. Usually, I call sorrel a poor 
land crop. I think soluble nitrogen will 
drive the grass ahead "of it, if there is 
good grass there to drive. 
Advertising. —The time is here when 
farmers who want to deal direct with 
consumers must advertise. When we 
get parcels post advertising will be a 
necessity. Not long since a farmer ad¬ 
vertised some articles in The R. N.-Y. 
# He said about this : 
If the paper cannot sell these goods with 
one or two insertions it is not much good 
as an advertising medium. I read the 
paper all through and have for years, and 
of course all do the same. Therefore if 
anyone wants my stuff he will come at once. 
He was wrong. How can he hope to 
sell his goods until he becomes ac¬ 
quainted with readers? Does <he 
form his final opinion of the new min¬ 
ister the first time he hears him preach? 
Would he pay money to a new and un¬ 
tried peddler until the man kept com¬ 
ing and proved his character? It is the 
same way with an advertiser. Readers 
must become acquainted with him. You 
have confidence in The R. N.-Y. or in 
THE RED HEADS AND RO( 
College Boys. —This college boy and 
work problem is a lively one on all 
sides: 
Are you not too hard on these college 
boys who want to work on a farm and earn 
money to finish their course? s. b. 
No—why should I be? I had to do 
the same sort of work while I was at 
college. I ought to know what the col¬ 
lege boy has to offer and what he gets 
out of it. Then, again, my own boy is 
to do this very thing this Summer. A 
college boy is like a scythe. You can¬ 
not sharpen it on cake and gingerbread 
and ice cream. Such things would only 
make it rusty. In order to cut grass 
you must hold the scythe right down 
on the grindstone and let the clear grit 
form the cutting edge. Now the aver¬ 
age college boy can only hope to make 
good on a farm by proving himself a 
superior hired man. His class-room 
knowledge does not fit him to do this— 
it is more likely to be in his way at the 
start. He can only make good by plain, 
hard labor right out in the sun where 
at first he is at a disadvantage with 
hired men who have nothing but prac¬ 
tical work and experience to go by. No 
use for the college boy to claim that 
his smattering of classroom knowledge 
ought to be considered in his wages. No 
use for him to think that a farmer will 
pay him more just because he is work¬ 
ing his way through college. There is 
nothing to either proposition. The boy 
can just offer two hands, two feet 
and a head, and he must stand or fall 
upon the production from this outfit. 
The college boy should have learned to 
keep himself clean and neat in body 
and soul and under no circumstances 
T-PRUNED TREES. Fig. 279. 
to make me hear or understand. Some 
of them seem to have poorer lung 
power than a frog and they make ges¬ 
tures to explain their meaning. I could 
write a volume on how these hand wav- 
ings and grimaces impress a deaf man, 
but some of them make their point clear 
at once while others cannot get outside 
their own poor little scheme of com¬ 
munication. As for my boy, he has 
found a job on a fruit farm. He was 
willing to come home and work, but 
wanted to know how others do things 
and get as wide an experience as pos¬ 
sible. I told him to go right ahead and 
take a job without any influence or 
favors. It is my hope that the farmer 
that he works for will make him earn 
every cent of his money and make him 
know he has been working when vaca¬ 
tion ends. That is the grindstone for 
the scythe. 
The Curse of Sorrel. —Here is one 
about our sour old friend sorrel: 
I should like to hear from some of the 
Rural hay growers what they do (if they 
do) to get rid of red sorrel. We seed 
down a field with Timothy and first year 
get a fine crop of Timothy; the second year 
about half and half of sorrel, and the third 
about all sorrel. Let no one say lime, for 
the more lime the more sorrel. F. h. 
New York. 
Since we are not to say “lime” I take 
a back seat. On my soil the sorrel has 
grown thin under lime and cultivation. 
I cannot say it disappears. I have seen 
sorrel growing around chunks of de¬ 
cayed manure which I knew were alka¬ 
line. People have told us of seeing it 
in full vigor around lime pits and kilns. 
It anyone can tell us how to cure 
bilious soil, which throws out the red 
certain writers because they have be¬ 
come old friends through long study 
and acquaintance. You want to know 
something of your man before you send 
him money. If he appears once and then 
fades away, you do not know him. If 
he keeps coming week after week like 
a man passing by your door you soon 
feel that you know him. At first you 
may just look at the passing stranger. 
Soon you nod at him. Then it is “good 
morning,” and so on until you are 
friends. So it is with advertising. If 
you are after trade you must be pre¬ 
pared to stay by your advertising until 
the people who read the papers know 
your name. Soon they will feel that 
they know you, and then if you have 
the right goods the rest will be easy. 
There is not a local paper in this coun¬ 
try that will not help sell farm produce 
if the owner will go at it right. Far 
better develop the local market before 
reaching out into the distance. If you 
advertise state just what you have and 
keep your name before the people all 
Summer. h. w. c 
Production of Timothy Seed. 
If. V. W.j Massachusetts .—I Lave 10 
acres of nice clean Timothy grass I would 
like to save seed from. Will you give an 
idea how it is harvested? What kind of 
thrasher? Will use seed on place so will 
not have to be so particular to have it 
extra cleaned and graded. 
Ans. —Timothy for seed is allowed to 
ripen thoroughly, when it is cut with a 
wheat binder and shocked up much as 
wheat is. After a period of 10 days or 
two weeks the seed is thrashed from 
the shock in an ordinary wheat thrasher, 
only the wheat riddles are removed and 
Timothy seed riddles substituted. In¬ 
stead of thrashing from the shock the 
Timothy may be ricked or mowed and 
thrashed later if desired. It is likely 
there is no wheat binder near the in¬ 
quirer’s farm, but he may get a clover 
buncher or an old reaper to do the 
work. However, if possible, get a wheat 
binder as it will save much hard labor. 
Ohio. *W. E. DUCK WALL. 
