8©2 
Hope Farm Notes 
On August 10 we began putting in 
the cover crops. I had a man tell me 
once that he was tired of having cover 
crops mentioned. His farm was rolling 
land which baked hard in a drought. 
It was just the place where cover crops 
were needed. The rains washed out the 
nitrates during Fall and early Winter, 
and the soil baked so hard because it 
lacked humus or vegetable matter. 
When the conditions are right the, cover 
crop is one of the most important which 
the farm can produce. 
Our conditions were not exactly right, 
but we took the best we had. The soil 
was still a little dry to nourish both 
cover crop and corn. Part of the corn 
was larger than I like for the last 
working. Gather up the upper leaves 
of our Learning corn and hold them 
straight up and the tips were seven 
feet above the soil. Such stalks are 
tender and the cultivation is likely to 
knock some of them over. I would 
rather have had the cover crop started 
a week before on some of our corn. 
This sowing cover crop seed in corn 
is one of the farm jobs that I like par¬ 
ticularly. It seems something like 
mastery of the elements to be tramping 
through your field throwing out the 
seed which is to serve a double purpose. 
The corn has won its battle, and has 
now only to mature its grain. The cover 
crop takes up the work and defends 
the farm. If this seed were not used 
Thanksgiving would find our hills dull 
and brown as death. The rye and the 
clover will keep my hillside green with 
life until the snow covers it, and now 
and then Summer will reach a finger tip 
over and wipe off the snow—and there 
will be my green cover crop full of life. 
And after the first hard frost pinches 
the life out of the corn and the weeds, 
how those restless nitrates in the soil 
will try to get away from us. We need 
them sadly, but they will run away from 
a good home unless some strong arm 
is here to hold them. And that is 
the job for my friend the cover crop. 
You cannot get by him—his roots are 
everywhere in the soil. He will take 
the runaway nitrate by the neck and 
say, ‘‘Here, you, stay right here. This 
man needs you.” These handfuls of 
seed which I am throwing out will grow 
into a great nitrogen bank and hold 
what belongs to Hope Farm. Then 
next Spring there will be a thick mat of 
greenstuff to plow under. It will give 
body and life to the soil, and give back 
to the trees what it has saved during 
the Winter. When a man thinks of 
these things no wonder he feels that 
he is doing something worth while in 
starting the cover crop. 
This year we are using rye, Alsike 
and Crimson clovers, Hairy vetch, bar¬ 
ley and Cow-horn turnips. These are 
used in different combinations, for we 
do not know yet what is best. In the 
first field 1 sowed rye while the boy 
followed with Crimson clover seed. I 
know this clover will fail seven times in 
10. yet, when we can start it early, and 
have a fair season, it will satisfy. Rye 
is the backbone of all our cover crops. 
As we scattered the seed Merrill fol¬ 
lowed with the lightest one-horse cul¬ 
tivator and covered the seeding. I had 
intended to go both ways, but the corn 
was very tender and brittle, and in spite 
of all care some stalks were broken off. 
So the corn was cultivated the long 
way of the fie.'d and we got two Italians 
to follow with iron rakes and cover the 
seed around and between the hills. In 
the next field we used rye, Hairy vetch 
and Cow-horn turnips. I am not sure 
of this combination, but it is worth 
trying. Later in the day I sowed Crim¬ 
son clover and turnips in a small corn 
field in the lower part of the farm. We 
want the crimson flowers near the 
house. Another combination will be 
turnips and Alsike clover—the latter 
to remain as a permanent crop. On 
several of the fields where the soil is 
moist and strong we sow equal parts 
of rye and barley. The idea is to cut 
the barley for fodder in October and 
let the rye come on as a Winter crop. 
I think this will work—it remains to 
be seen. A little Alsike clover seed 
with this would help. But at any rate 
our cornfields will be covered this 
Winter. 
One of the most interesting of these 
crops is Hairy vetch. The seed looks 
much like that of sweet peas, and the 
price is something to make a farmer 
feel faint. I think there is a great 
future in producing seed of this crop. 
Here is a chance for some bright young 
the; new-yortofe 
fellow. Let him sow rye and vetch in 
the corn and let the crop mature. He 
can then put in another crop. I would 
thrash the rye and vttch together and 
sell it as a combination ready to seed. 
I think there could be a great trade 
developed in northern-grown vetch 
seed. Such seed is worth 20 to 25 
cents a pound, and 1,500 pounds is not 
impossible. Of course you can buy im¬ 
ported vetch seed for less money, but 
I am speaking of home-grown, selected 
seed. By the way, our Soy beans are 
coming on slowly. By August 10 the 
best of them were about 15 inches high. 
They do not look like any miracle at 
present, but Hope Farm always gives 
things a chance to live up to reputa¬ 
tion. At the last cultivation of these 
beans, rye and Alsike clover will go in. 
There is nothing remarkable about 
them yet. 
Grain Smuts. —Somehow it happens 
this year that we get more questions 
than ever about the smuts of grain. In 
some cases where the thrashing machine 
takes hold of the oats and wheat a 
cloud like black smoke pours out. Many 
back-to-the-landers are having their first 
taste of this smut, and it nearly cures 
their farm fever. This black, hideous 
dust is grain smut, a disease which 
dwarfs the plant and in many cases 
makes the grain unfit for human food. 
When that black stuff pours from the 
thrasher your grain is beyond help— 
as much so as are your teeth when they 
loosen and drop out. The disease germs 
are in the seed grain, and they must 
be killed before the grain is put in the 
ground, or they will spread and grow 
all through the plant. The plan is to 
soak the seed grain in some solution 
that will kill the smut germs, but not 
prevent the grain from sprouting. Had 
this been done last Spring your oats 
would have grown better and no such 
black dust would have been produced. 
Formalin or formaldehyde is the smut 
killer. We use one pint to 50 gallons 
of water. Spread the grain on the barn 
floor and wet it down with this liquid. 
Then shovel together, cover with a 
blanket and let it stand several hours. 
Then spread it out and dry. This will 
fix the smut and give more grain, be¬ 
cause the grain plants will be healthier. 
The smut of corn is different. Most of 
us recognize this as the great, hateful 
black bunches which develop around 
some of the ears. This smut cannot be 
prevented by soaking the seed. The 
germs or spores which start it float in 
the air and attack the plant from the 
outside, while in the smaller grain the 
disease mostly starts from inside. Thus 
there is no sure remedy except a rota¬ 
tion—growing the corn on new ground 
and cutting off and burning all smutty 
ears. Do not leave them in the manure 
pile or in the field, for they will live 
over and keep the disease going. 
Human Smuts. —A political cam¬ 
paign is not unlike a thrashing machine. 
Men and what they say are run through 
it, and usually you will find a black 
dust of abuse and falsehood rising from 
it. This is what I call human smut— 
the meanest and most dangerous part of 
politics. For example, I received a note 
from a very well-known man in Ohio, 
who said: 
Mr. Roosevelt came through Ohio speak¬ 
ing against Taft. At one place he was so 
drunk that three men were needed to hold 
him up while lie talked. 
When I demanded proof it seems 
that this man got the story from a min¬ 
ister, who got it from another man, 
who in turn got it from “three repu¬ 
table persons.” Another man claimed 
that when Roosevelt spoke in Boston 
he was so drunk that he staggered as 
he came on the platform! Another 
man, who sat on the stage, insists that 
Mr. Roosevelt caught his foot on a 
hanging board. 
Now I call these things human smut 
—a germ disease which gets into the 
minds of some men and makes them 
magnify and repeat such hideous 
stories. Everyone knows where I stand 
on the rum question. We have no 
more use for intoxicating liquor than 
we have for typhoid germs, and the 
sooner people know it the better I am 
satisfied. The worst criticism I have 
of many Prohibitionists is their narrow 
and malignant personal abuse of pub¬ 
lic men. Somehow they cannot see how 
this restricts their influence. As a case 
of typical human smut there was a 
young minister accused of beating his 
wife! The scandal terminated in a 
secret trial by the elders and deacons. 
The case against him was as follows: 
Three reputable church members were 
in front of the minister’s house one 
night when they heard a fearful scream. 
The shadows on the curtain were very 
distinct. They recognized the woman’s 
voice screaming and pleading and saw 
the minister striking at her with a club 
and heard language “unfit for the pul¬ 
pit.” Then suddenly all was dark and 
there was a louder scream from the 
woman! A complete case, you will say, 
and human smut flew through that town 
like that from an oat thrasher! 
Finally some one thought that as a 
matter of form they should give the 
minister a chance. His story was that 
he and his wife were having a par¬ 
ticularly loving time—as much so as 
was possible in that mouldy old parson¬ 
age. All at once a mouse ran out of 
his hole—across the floor. Ministers’ 
wives are very human and this one 
screamed and jumped on a chair, 
where she stood waving her skirts and 
her voice to frighten the mouse. 
Most ministers are also human until 
they enter the pulpit, and this one 
caught up a bootjack and ran about 
striking at the mouse and, as he 
frankly admitted, using certain words 
which, while seemingly appropriate in 
a mouse hunt, were not for publication. 
The mouse got away without damage, 
but the bootjack knocked the lamp off 
the table and put it out. Thus the 
screams, the language and the blows 
were all genuine, but the witnesses did 
not read the shadow pantomime cor¬ 
rectly. Murder was intended, but it 
was mouse rather than wife. 
Now human smut is scandal, and it 
can take such a case as this and spread 
a social disease which means ruin ten 
reputation and blight upon progress. 
To the point—I believe these stories 
about Mr. Roosevelt are false and fool¬ 
ish. Men who are upon the most in¬ 
timate terms with him tell me frankly 
that these stories are false. I believe 
them to be what I call human smut. 
They and the people who repeat them 
and add to them ought to be soaked in 
formalin and then sprayed with lime- 
sulphur. Mr. Roosevelt is at a dis-- 
advantage in the fact that he cannot say 
at once that he does not drink at all. 
I wish he could and would say so. but 
the men who are gathering back of him 
by the hundred thousand have been so 
well soaked with a desire to help their 
country that they are immune to 
human smut! You may take it from 
me that sooner or later the new party 
will be obliged to take a strong stand 
on the liquor question. They were 
forced to take up votes for women 
though many of the leaders have op¬ 
posed such a change. They will have 
to drink cold water yet. H. w. c. 
August 24, 
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