872 
TUTS RURA-I> NEW-YORKER 
August IT, 
Hope Farm Notes 
THE NEW JERSEY FIELD MEETING. 
The sixth Summer field meeting of the 
New Jersey State Horticultural Society was 
held July 17 at Hope Farm, Woodcliff Lake, 
Bergen Co., N. J. The New Jersey society 
for years confined its meetings to mid-Win¬ 
ter sessions, but under Horace Robert’s term 
of president the Summer meeting was tried 
for an experiment. The first meeting was 
held at the home orchards of John S. 
Collins in Burlington County, and proved 
a great success. The following years it 
was held at the orchards of the John Repp 
estate in Gloucester County, Hon. Wm. H. 
Reid's in Monmouth County, Horace Rob¬ 
erts’ in Burlington County, Edwin Beek- 
man's in Monmouth County. The invita¬ 
tion given the society to hold its sixth 
meeting in Bergen County was accepted at 
the Winter meeting held in Freehold, Mon¬ 
mouth Co., December 13-14, 1911. Wood- 
cliff Lake is a long distance from Camden. A 
majority of the members of the society live 
within a radius of 50 miles of the latter 
city, and have very different soil conditions 
from those of Bergen County. The great 
distance to travel and the want of inter¬ 
ested fellowship in Bergen County made it 
a problem to the executive committee 
whether the meeting could be made a suc¬ 
cess at so distant a point from the horti¬ 
cultural interests of the central and south¬ 
ern counties of the State. To add to the 
uncertainty of members being present the 
morning opened with threatening show¬ 
ers, and this no doubt kept many at home 
who otherwise would have been at the 
meeting. However, distance, weather con¬ 
ditions and all other obstacles could not in¬ 
terfere with the desire of hundreds of peo¬ 
ple to go and see Hope Farm and visit 
with and study in his own home sur¬ 
roundings the Hope Farm man. Very few 
of the thousands of horticulturists in all 
this orchard there were Alexander trees, 
carrying a heavy load of fruit that was 
about fit to market; they were as large and 
as fine colored as I ever saw anywhere of 
this variety. This orchard was cultivated 
as well as it was possible to cultivate in 
such rocky soil. Other orchards of peach 
from one year plantings to old trees, some 
cultivated and some under mulch culture 
were shown us. and the consensus of opin¬ 
ion was that cultivation is the best. 
The Hope Farm man showed us an eight- 
year-old apple orchard that he had kept 
cultivated, and I would call it a good first- 
class orchard for its age. Another orchard 
seven years old (with only a stone fence 
dividing them), had never been cultivated, 
but treated with mulching. While many 
of the trees in this orchard were as good 
trees as a seven-year-old cultivated tree, 
there were more of them that showed a 
need of something they were not getting. 
The trees in this orchard were uneven in 
size, while the cultivated orchard was the 
opposite, all the trees of the same variety 
being more uniform in size, vigor, etc. The 
Hope Farm man practiced the Striugfellow 
system of planting on many of his orchards, 
and he showed us trees which he had dug 
down to the depth of three feet or more 
that had sent down tap (?) roots to that 
depth, and were still in the soil beyond the 
point where the earth had been removed. 
He also showed us an apple orchard planted 
late last Spring with one-year-old trees, the 
roots of which had been cut back to four 
to six inches, and the tops were from 18 
to 24 inches above ground. Every tree 
in the several acres was alive as far as 
we could see them, and had made growths 
from three to 18 inches. This orchard had 
been planted by using a spade pressed down 
full length in the ground, and the little 
tree with its straight root pushed down 
to 12 to 18 inches and then the opening 
made by the spade filled in by stamping it 
hard with the foot, thus leaving the tree 
in a position as if the ground had never 
been disturbed. They now prefer the spade 
to the crowbar for a planting tool, as the 
crowbar makes a round hole hard to fill 
in and become massed with the other soil 
again. When a drought comes the filling 
remains separate and when rain and wind 
or freezing and thawing the tree is swayed 
WHAT HAPPENED TO A CROWBAR-HOLE TREE. Fig. 373. 
the States of our Union but what have 
seen, and heard and loved this man, and 
other thousands knew him through reading 
“Hope Farm Notes” in The R. N.-Y. All 
had a desire to see him on his native heath, 
and study him and his home life, in his 
home surroundings to see all of his chil¬ 
dren. “redheads” and “towheads,” to see 
and study his horticultural work that he 
has talked and written so much about. 
There gathered on the lawns and spread 
over the farm several hundred people, com¬ 
ing from all parts of our own State and 
some from other States. Many came in 
automobiles from the southern part of the 
State; among such I noted our President, 
Joseph Barton, Secretary Howard G. Tay¬ 
lor, lion. tYm. H. Reid of the executive 
committee and Lester C. Lovett, chairman 
of the flower committee. Some of these 
had traveled 150 miles in their autos and 
reached Hope Farm by 10 a. m. At 10 
a. m. the Hope Farm man announced tha)t 
he would lead the way and we were to 
follow over the hills and rocks of Hope 
Farm, and as a demonstration in pruning 
was to be the leading feature of the meeting 
he would show his method of pruning, and 
give others a chance to demonstrate their 
methods or ideas. 
His plan, as I understand it. is. with 
the peach, to cut it back to a straight stem 
about 18 to 24 inches high and then after 
forming a top the first year to do no more 
pruning except cutting interfering branches 
until the tree begins to show exhaustion, 
and then dishorn it, thus causing it to 
form an entirely new and vigorous head, 
and by keeping the root system healthy, 
free from borers, etc., you can keep a peach 
tree a long time in youthful vigor. This is 
an old idea, and in many cases has been a 
success, but more often is a failure. \Ye 
saw an orchard that never had a limb cut 
out of it after the top was formed the 
first year, and on the whole they were a 
good lot of trees, but I would have pinched 
back the leaders when two years old, and 
not had them so high up in the air to break 
down when loaded with fruit, and to have 
to use long ladders to pick the fruit.. Then 
again they had spread out too far and are 
hard to get at to spray. Some trees were 
as well proportioned as any tree might be 
that had been carefully pruned into shape, 
while next to it of the same variety were 
trees out of shape for either carrying a load 
of fruit or convenience for spraying; this 
> was true of some Belle of Georgia. In 
back and forth by the wind, and water 
freezes, forming ice in the crevices, all of 
which is injurious to the tree. The spade 
obviates all of this, while answering all 
the other purposes of the crowbar. 
After inspecting the 50 acres of orchards 
our guide showed us a Marshall strawberry 
patch that he was cleaning up preparatory 
to growing potted plants for his customers. 
He informed us that he had a good demand 
for these plants, the Marshall being an ideal 
berry if size, color and quality is the consid¬ 
eration, but it will not succeed with the 
average grower, and under general culture; 
with Hope Farm however it is the one 
only berry. Many persons gave practical 
demonstrations of their ideas or methods 
of pruning trees, and most of them had a 
very different system—and the best of it 
all was that every man was sure he knew 
it all. 
After lunch (which was served to the 
satisfaction of everybody at a very mod¬ 
erate price), Prof. Blake showed samples 
of the Wheeler and Red Bird peach, which 
were grown in the State experimental or¬ 
chard and were of the finest appearance 
of any early peaches I ever saw; also 
samples of the J. II. Hale peach grown in 
Georgia. This was one of the finest yel¬ 
lows of its season, and if it succeeds in 
New Jersey will be a profitable peach, as 
I understand it ripens a week after El- 
berta. Prof. Blake also gave a talk and 
practical demonstration of the pruning of a 
tree when planting. Prof. Blake cut short 
his very instructive' talk to give us time 
to visit the Tice farm, which was part 
of the day’s programme, and some distance 
from Hope Farm. The crowd again loaded 
into stages or automobiles and started for 
the Tice farms, where nearly two hours 
were spent in looking over the orchards 
and berry patches of this well-kept farm. 
Dir. Tice grows the Kieffcr mostly for 
pears, but they are not doing well for him 
this year. Just why his farm is called the 
“Pear Farm” was not made clear—there 
may be more pears than any one other kind 
of fruit tree. The apple farm, the currant 
farm, the truck farm, the' blackberry farm, 
would have been more appropriate. Mr. 
Tice had acres of currants, blackberries and 
apples, tomatoes and other truck in abund¬ 
ance. All of his land and crops showed the 
master myul in the care given to his crops. 
I understood that on the average Mr. Tice 
had 15 feet of soil over the layer of rock 
beneath him, while Hope Farm had a harder 
proposition in the fact that in many places 
the soil was but a few inches over the 
rock beneath, and at the best not more than 
three to four feet, and to my eye most of 
the soil covering the rocks on Hope Farm 
and that vicinity consisted of smaller rocks 
or stones which the inhabitants called soil. 
Everyone who has wondered about “the 
Bud,” “the Scion” and the “Graft,” about 
the redheads and Uncle John, came away 
from Hope Farm feeling a little better for 
seeing and knowing that what they had 
believed was only a pen picture was indeed 
a reality, and that the Hope Farm man was 
trying hard to solve the ever present prob¬ 
lem to the average city employee and small 
business man how to get back to the land 
and get a living out of it when his health, 
position or youth gives out. His experi¬ 
ment on Hope Farm is to prove that a 
man can invest in cheap rough land, plant 
trees and save that greatest of cost, labor 
and fertilizers, by nature’s method of doing 
these essential things, that is, heavy mulch¬ 
ing. The Hope Farm man evidently be¬ 
lieves it can be done, and has gone at it 
in a practical way, undertaking to make 
this farm pay as an investment in his 
orchards, and expects that the future will 
give him paying dividends. The methoc'ts 
of culture and pruning have already been 
described. One thing of more importance 
is the marketing of his fruit, and that is 
to know where your market is before you 
plant your orchard. Your customer should 
be the consumer, thus saving the middle¬ 
man’s profit, aud once you get a customer 
never let go of him. or still better never 
let him go of you. The way to bring this 
about is to grow the stuff that your q\is- 
tomer demands, and pack it so attractively 
and honestly that your customers will take 
no other goods but yours. Hope Farm has 
a market of this kind for all they grow 
of fruit or plants. Mr. Tice, I understand, 
markets his stuff in Paterson. 
Altogether this was one of the most profit¬ 
able and pleasant Summer meetings we have 
held. To those who live and farm in the 
middle and southern section of the State 
the rocks, hills, stumps and stones of Hotie 
Farm seemed like a hopeless task. To 
those who have visited the splendid orchards 
of the Repps in Gloucester County, of Hor¬ 
ace Roberts in Burlington County, and 
the peach orchards of the Barton Brothers, 
the finest apples grown in the country by 
John II. Barclay of Middlesex County, the 
magnificent trees grown by Wm. H. Reid 
and Edwin Beckman of Monmouth County 
and the apple orchards of Mr. Stemyer in 
Gloucester County filled with peaches that 
have paid over and over again for the 
expense, and left him a splendid paying 
apple orchard when the peaches are re¬ 
moved, the problem that Hope Farm is so 
bravely and manfully trying to solve for 
the unfortunate city man seems to be far 
off. All of these successful and profitable 
orchards are managed, cultivated and cared 
for, by the clear brain and strong arm of 
the brightest and most intelligent men in 
the horticultural industries, and they 
would not dare to take their hands off the 
steering gear for one minute. The thanks 
of the New Jersey Society and all the hor¬ 
ticulturists of the State are cheerfully given 
to the Hope Farm man. his wife and daugh¬ 
ter for the pleasant and profitable meeting 
at his place and for the knowledge we all 
received from Hope Farm methods of mulch 
and cultivation of the orchards. 
k. s. BLACK. 
Comment. —One of the trees to which Dir. 
Black refers is shown at Fig. 372. The 
soil was dug away so as to show where 
the roots were going. Ten years ago a 
little June-bud cut back to a stub was 
put in a crowbar hole and packed firmly. 
At that time we did not know of the large 
stone just below the point of the crowbar. 
As will be seen, what we call the “tap” 
root struck this stone, and instead of re¬ 
maining at the surface turned past the 
obstruction and went on down. DVe have 
followed such roots down 10 feet or more 
to the water level—not unlike the roots of 
clover or Alfalfa. DVe have never seen just 
such a root system, except with seedlings 
or cuttings, and the object of this close 
root-pruning is to make the tree as close 
to a cutting as possible. It seems to be 
quite an essential part of planting trees in 
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