642 
THE RURAE NKW-YORKEK 
April 12, 
Hope Farm Notes 
The Spring of 1913 will have to pass 
into history as the worst spraying season 
on record. The buds started earlier 
than usual, and by the 28th of March 
many of the peach buds began to show 
a spot of pink. This is 10 days ahead 
of real safety with us—both for frost 
and for spraying. All through March 
a succession of high winds followed by 
rains prevented satisfactory use of a 
spray. Of course you can fill the tank 
and aim the nozzle at a .tree, but only a 
small proportion of the liquid gets 
where you need it. On our wind-swept 
hills Winter and Spring spraying be¬ 
comes a gamble, with most of the best 
cards against you. We have several 
spots in our orchards where we know 
the scale is at work, but with the bad 
weather and the swelling buds it was 
hard to clean such places out with our 
hand pump. 
When does a tree cease to be known 
as “dormant’’? In various words that 
question has come up 50 times this 
month. The directions for using a spray 
strong enough to kill the scale state tlfat 
these mixtures should be used on the 
“dormant tree.” Many people have hesi¬ 
tated this year as the buds began to 
swell, for a substance strong enough to 
get through the shell over the scale 
seems like a harsh friend for opening 
buds. During the last week in March 
the crab apple leaves were all out of the 
bud. I would not spray such trees with 
the strong mixture. Where the peach 
buds began to show the pink spot I let 
them alone. This is the safer proposi¬ 
tion, though large commercial growers 
say they go ahead and spray until the 
flowers are all out. I would not give 
such advice. 
What are you going to do, then? 
Spraying is a necessity in this section. 
We shall cover everything we can, watch 
our trees carefully, and if we find tke 
scale working in June go after it with 
self-boiled lime-sulphur or about one to 
50 of the commercial brands. Of course 
that means spraying again and again 
through the Summer, for this mild mix¬ 
ture will only kill the young insects out 
from under the shell. Kill one brood 
and another is upon you a little later. 
Naturally, if you use a mixture strong 
enough to kill the older insects you 'will 
scald your trees. This Summer spraying 
is a makeshift and nuisance at best, but 
if the scale is bad such spraying is 
necessary. 
We realize now that we have got to 
have a power sprayer to handle our 
orchards properly. Take it this Spring 
with only a few suitable days—with a 
good power rig we could have covered 
three times as much ground and made a 
better job. With such a rig we can 
drive to the brook, use a tank filler to 
put water in the tank, and get right into 
the orchard at once. When it comes to 
spraying for the Codling worm there 
will be even shorter stories, for late 
May with us is another windy time, and 
it often happens that there are only 
parts of several days when it is possible 
to do a thorough job. The poison must 
go on at just the right time. So we 
have ordered a power sprayer. We 
would be far better off now if it had 
been bought in time for the earlier 
Spring work, yet in an ordinary season 
the hand pump would have answered 
for the scale. It is the extraordinary 
season that we must provide for. With 
the power on hand we hope to put up a 
quick battle against scale and worm on 
short notice. While we hope to put up 
a good battle against the insects, the 
danger will come from old Jack Frost. 
The peach buds are foolish this year— 
starting out long before they should. A 
hard nip such as we have had in yq^rs 
past would get them. The danger will 
not be over until May 1 at least. It 
would go hard to see our beautiful outfit 
of plump buds killed in a night, but if 
you start to raise peaches you must 
know that you take a chance. 
Grain Problems. —The following ques¬ 
tions come from within 10 miles of 
Hope Farm. We answer them from 
conditions in our locality. A different 
plan might be better where you live: 
I want to put in five acres of Spring 
wheat; also two or three acres of oats for 
chickens. Will it pay me to do so, as I 
have all the tools, plenty of ground and 
manure? Will you tell exactly when to put 
both wheat and oats in? 
If you take my advice you will not 
sow Spring wheat in this section. Fall 
wheat gives us a fair crop, but this cli¬ 
mate is not suited to the Spring variety. 
Beardless barley will pay you better, and 
the hens like barley. Oats give a fair 
crop in this section, but oats and Can¬ 
ada peas seeded together will pay better. 
We have often told how to sow five 
pecks of Canada peas on top of an acre 
of ground and disk or plow them under. 
Then broadcast 2% bushels of oats and 
harrow in. The crop can be cut like 
other grain and threshed out. Grown 
together it makes good feed for all 
stock. 
Wheat never goes below $2 a bag (100 
pounds) in this vicinity; oats $1.30 here, 
80 pounds; corn $1.45; corn is $1.60 to 
$1.80 nine months of the year. I am go¬ 
ing to put in five acres of corn. I have 
an apple orchard, four or five acres, trees 
all six to eight years old, that has not 
been plowed up for three or four years. 
Would it hurt the trees to plant in this 
orchard? If not, which would do the best, 
corn, wheat or oats? 
You can safely plant corn in that or¬ 
chard. Do not put the corn closer than 
four feet from the trees and use a fair 
amount of fertilizer. We shall do the 
same thing in ou<r orchards. Give this 
corn good culture and at the last culti¬ 
vation sow rye and clover right among 
the corn and cultivate }n. 
I have never bothered with wheat and 
oats, and any information on this subject 
will be greatly appreciated. Rye grows fine 
here. What do you think of putting all 
fields down in rye, and selling this grain 
to pay the chickens’ feed bill? I have 
1,000 layers and am going to hatch 0,000 
eggs this season, as I wish to get 2,000 or 
3,000 layers. 
As you are situated I think it will 
pay you best to grow corn and rye with¬ 
out bothering much with wheat and oats. 
A good variety of flint corn, well cared 
for, will give you a fair yield of grain, 
and corn is the basis of any useful feed 
mixture. By using cover crops in the 
corn you can keep up the yield and im¬ 
prove the soil. Rye is one of the-easiest 
crops to grow' in our section, and one 
of the best for your purpose. With 
your chicken manure and some chemi¬ 
cals you can easily keep up the yield 
so as to produce nearly $30 worth of 
straw and $15 worth of grain per acre. 
This $45 invested in other grain will 
give you more than you could produce 
of v'heat or oats. You can keep your 
fields in rye year after year and in 
some seasons you can grow a crop of 
sorghum or Kaffir corn in betw'een two 
rye i,rops. This is done by plowing or 
disking the rye stubble at once after 
harvest and drilling in the sorghum 
seed. It will not always get through 
before frost, but it comes near it. At 
any rate, it makes good fodder, or can 
be run through a cutter to make litter 
for the hens. 
All Sorts. —We had to buy two tons 
of hay to help out. A hay dealer charged 
$18 for fair quality hay and the Erie 
Railroad charged $7.20 for hauling the 
tw'o tons 21 miles! They will .probably 
give a rebate, but I give these prices 
so that farmers who bale and ship hay 
can figure how much of my dollar they 
would receive! Yet even if they sold 
at $6 or $8 per ton they could not trace 
the shipment and find out who bought 
it. . . . When you come to talk about 
commission men and what they do to 
farmers’ produce, consider the follow¬ 
ing statement. This carload of cabbage 
was sent to a commission house in Cin¬ 
cinnati, Ohio, by a New York farmer. 
This is what they send him: 
Car cabbage 22640.$80.00 
Sorry could do no better for you, but 
the situation as far as cabbage is 
concerned is dead. 
Switching, ice, freight.$45.00 
Expressage, cartage, car serv¬ 
ice . 12.00 
Commission . 15.00 
Weighing . 1.00 
-- 73.00 
Net proceeds . 7.00 
That means seven whole dollars for 
an entire carload of cabbage ! The com¬ 
mission man made sure of his $15, and 
the railroads took $45.00. These agents 
get their share before the farmer has 
any look at his. Naturally such a com¬ 
mission man would call it “impudent 
and unjust” for anyone to ask him who 
bought this cabbage and what he paid 
for it. At the time this farmer was 
fingering his $7 the people who eat cab¬ 
bage in Cincinnati were paying high re¬ 
tail prices. 
If you asked me which citizen of Hope 
Farm views the coming of Spring with 
greatest joy I should say Spot, the 
brown cow. She broke her hip last Fall 
and still limps, but she has kept strictly 
at her job all Winter. She puts her 
head out of the window of her stall and 
sees the rye jumping and the grass tak¬ 
ing on green, and it must seem cheerful. 
For the roots gave out long ago and dry 
hay and grain make a monotonous diet. 
The heifer gets at the rye, but Spot must 
wait until the pasture is ready. Green 
wheat is all right, but rye gives the milk 
a taste that ought not to be there. So 
Spot must wait, with or without pa¬ 
tience. But the grass is thick and green 
around the spring, and there is not much 
longer to wait. h. w. c. 
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