1060 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 12, 
Hope Farm Notes 
End of Summer. —The night of Sep- 
' tember 26 was one of those occasions 
- when you dream of floating near an 
iceberg and wake up shivering to hunt 
for a blanket. We were not surprised 
in the morning to hear reports of a 
light frost in the valley below us. There 
was no touch of it on our hills, but 
without question the Hon. John Frost 
has begun his campaign for reelection. 
It is time to cut corn and get in the 
tender crops. By Saturday night our 
corn was all cut, except the Eureka and 
about an acre of late-planted Sanford. 
These are still growing, and we shall 
let them stand as long as possible. The 
green tomatoes and peppers must be 
picked and put in the hotbeds under 
glass and the bush Lima beans can be 
pulled and piled for protection. There 
is no standing off frost when it really 
gets busy. While we regret to see the 
life go out of the gardens and fields, 
there is no reason for complaining; and 
the life will not all go, for Hope Farm 
is well covered with rye, clover, vetch 
and turnips. These cover crops. will 
keep green until snow comes, and when¬ 
ever thaw scrapes off part of the snow 
there will be our cover crops smiling 
through. . . . Inside the house this 
finger tip of Jack Frost was as good as 
a blow from a club. For 10 days or 
more there have been fires at night in 
the open fireplaces, but now the house 
must be warmed. So the heater has 
been overhauled and on September 29 
we started the first fire. I know people 
who say they will save fuel by delaying 
such work as long as possible. I call 
it a mistake to do so. The children and 
' older people are likely to take colds and 
keep them all through Winter, and the 
cost of these colds will far more than 
offset any economy in fuel. Make the 
home comfortable early in the season 
and keep it so all Winter. Another 
thing: when these fires are started up, 
we should make sure of the pipes and 
chimneys. In some cases these pipes 
are rusted nearly off and too close to 
woodwork. When fierce weather comes 
and you must drive the fires hard, these 
are danger points. Many a house has 
taken fire at these weak places. 
Crops. —The entrance of John Frost 
clears the stage of most other perform¬ 
ers and we may review the programme. 
Our hay crop was the best we have 
had—both in quality and quantity. Po¬ 
tatoes only fair. The fact is we have 
no really suitable potato soil, except 
one field in the lower farm, which we 
expect to try next year. Corn never 
was better. The garden crops, except 
sweet corn, were very satisfactory. The 
peach crop was fair in spite of the 
terrible Winter. We have lost 75 bas¬ 
kets or more through brown rot and a 
baby cyclone, but the early crop of 
Carman and Belle of Georgia was fine. 
Apples are a very light crop, but we 
have given our trees unusually good 
care. They are now loaded with fruit 
buds for next year. Both peach and 
apple have made the best growth of any 
year since we have been here. Another 
good thing is the fact that we never 
had such a carpet of cover crops all 
over the orchards. This can be plowed 
under next Spring or cut and piled 
around the trees as seems best. So as 
the Hon. John Frost claims his election 
the Hope Farm orchards seem ready to 
crawl under the blankets and sleep the 
sleep that means a great awakening. I 
can hardly tell you how pleasant it is 
to see these acres of clover and vetch— 
fertilizer factories which work day and 
night until frozen up. The strawberry 
crop was a success. We had a good 
trade in fruit and layer plants. The 
potted plants did not come up as they 
should have done. We never had our 
crop in better condition for Winter. 
The light mulch will go on early and 
the plants will sleep in contentment. 
Let us not forget the four-footed red¬ 
heads. We have tried the experiment 
of keeping pigs in portable pens. The 
little houses are on runners and the 
y small yards are hooked together. This 
outfit is hauled from place to place in 
an apple orchard where the sod is hard 
and tough. The pigs have the dish¬ 
water thickened with grain and waste 
from the garden and orchards. In their 
little yard they have ripped up the sod 
and kept themselves clean. We have 
seen them grow from little handfuls of 
pigs to great hogs, and at a light ex¬ 
pense. This is a good way to keep 
pigs on a fruit farm. The experiment 
satisfies us so well that next year I 
hope to have a dozen such houses. This 
Winter we are planning to take hold of 
a wood crop. There are 30 acres of 
timber on Hope Farm—most of it chest¬ 
nut, with some hard wood. The chest¬ 
nuts are dead or dying, and we would 
like to clear 15 acres this Winter—sell¬ 
ing poles and cordwood. I would rather 
sell the timber and give some one the 
job of cutting, but you get less than 
the 35-cent dollar on most such deals. 
I think there is to be an increased de¬ 
mand for wood fuel, and we shall try 
to handle the crop. 
What shall we do with the 15 acres 
when the timber is off? Put 1,500 apple 
trees right in and clear out the stumps 
later. I have the greatest confidence 
in the McIntosh apple grown on our 
hills, and I stand read}' to invest in 
good trees. We cannot overdo the pro¬ 
duction of fine fruit, here within 25 
miles of the 6,000,000 people who are 
grouped around the mouth of the Hud¬ 
son. They may be overdoing tree 
planting *in the back lands far from 
market, but where the consumer can be 
reached—as he can f'e here—I have no 
fear of over-production. Land in this 
section is rapidly rising in value. I 
have seen it go from $50 to over $250 
per acre, with the end out of sight. If 
you are to cultivate such land at all, 
it seems wise to put in crops which are 
permanent, and which will give good re¬ 
turns per acre. This was once a section 
of small fields of rye or potatoes. They 
will not pay a living now on this high- 
priced land. I should either let the land 
alone or put it in orchards or gardens. 
If we had been wise we would have 
planted 15 acres in Christmas trees 
when we came here a dozen years ago. 
That would have now meant a gift far 
more satisfactory than I generally get 
in my stocking. 
And last comes the human crop. From 
Uncle John down to the smallest red¬ 
head they are all ready for Fall and 
Winter. We start with 16 people, large 
and small. They fill the house to over¬ 
flowing and make things lively at all 
hours. Sometimes when I pass great 
farmhouses standing on some lonely 
road with only one small corner oc¬ 
cupied, I wish they might be stuffed 
with children as Hope Farm is. A 
few of our redheads would soon stir 
up the monotony of such farm life and 
do the older folks more good than a 
dose of medicine. The most good would 
be done in households where the old 
folks did not want the children. The 
children might start in as a nuisance 
and become a blessing—and how they 
would help the old folks by doing so! 
Wood Ashes. —By keeping at this 
matter of “cover crops” we seem to 
have interested a lot of people in dress¬ 
ing up the soil for Winter. That’s good, 
and another good thing is the fact that 
people are hunting up all sorts of waste 
'materials to use as plant food. In many 
cases these wastes are very cheap, and 
until people know their plant food value 
they offer great bargains. Here is the 
way questions come: 
Will you tell me the amount of chemicals 
equal to one ton of wood ashes? 
New York. l. h. d. 
It depends of course upon the kind 
of wood, the amount of sand in this 
wood, and whether the ashes have been 
leached by exposure. A fair sample of 
unleached wood ashes ought to contain 
100 pounds of potash, 40 of phosphoric 
acid and 600 pounds of lime. There is 
no nitrogen—that element is always 
driven off into the air when wood or 
other combustibles are burned. You can 
get 100 pounds of potash in 200 pounds 
of either muriate or sulphate of potash, 
or in 800 pounds of kainit. The 40 
pounds of phosphoric acid will be found 
in 200 pounds bone or 225 pounds of basic 
slag. It will require nearly 1,200 pounds 
of average lime to equal that element 
in the wood ashes. You might figure 
from this that you could easily mix up 
an artificial ash that would be “just as 
good.” I doubt it. We have fourd the 
oiiginal wood ashes superior in some 
way to any combination of equal 
amounts of plant food. 
h. w. c. 
Sash that pay for 
themselves 
We know of instances where Sunlight Double Glass Sash 
have grown crops so much earlier and so much better that the 
extra prices they brought on the early market paid for the 
glass themselves. 
Two layers of glass instead of one 
The enclosed dry air space means that the sash are never 
covered—and the plants get all the light all the time—and 
this accounts for their rapid growth and sturdiness. Even in 
zero weather you need not cover Sunlight Double Glass Sash. 
or Hot-beds 
and Cold-frames 
Send for these books 
One is our free catalog; the other is a book on hot-beds 
and cold-frames by Professor Massey. It is authoritative and 
of vital interest to all professional growers. 4c in stamps 
will bring Professor Massey’s book 
in addition to the catalog. 
Sunlight Double 
Glass Sash Co. 
924 E. Broadway, Louisville, Ky. 
GROUND 95* 
THROUGH 
100 MESH SCREEN 
80* THROUGH 
200 MESH SCREEN 
Every Time T ou See a Rooster 
Think of 
CONTAINING 
PHOSPHORUS 
PHOSPHORIC ACID 
I 0 ! 5lWiMrJhan_Your ^Grandfather 
Do your crop yields prove it? If your soil has 
been depleted by continuous growing of grrtin- 
rrops, you must exercise this wisdom by making a 
proper selection of tlie plant foods with which to 
restore the fertility. We can prove to you that the 
most commonly deficient element of plant food is 
Phosphorous, and that the most economical si •nice 
of Phosphorus is 
GROUND PHOSPHATE ROCK 
WRITE DS FOR THE PROOF 
FEDERAL CHEMICAL CO. 
Ground Reck Dept. Columbia, Tenn. 
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