836 
THE) RURAL NEW-YORKhK 
July 12, 
Hope Farm Notes 
Strawberries and potato bugs wait for 
no man. When one is just ready to be 
eaten and the other just ready to eat 
you have our condition during the third 
week of June. For several years past 
the bug crop has been light with us. For 
two seasons there were hardly enough to 
make spraying profitable. Nature be¬ 
lieves in a fair average, and we got the 
surplus this year to make up for sev¬ 
eral short crops. All of a sudden our 
potato vines swarmed with the bugs. I 
never knew them to eat so fast, and cer¬ 
tainly our customers never made such 
demands for berries. It was a case of 
drop everything and fight the bugs. 
Merrill ran out the power sprayer like 
heavy artillery. We used a stronger so¬ 
lution of arsenate of lead in water than 
for the Codling worm ; and put in also 
one gallon of commercial lime-sulphur 
to 50 gallons. By driving the sprayer 
down between two rows of trees and us¬ 
ing double nozzles we gave those vines 
a coating that they will not forget. 
Within 24 hours there was a ring of 
dead bugs around each vine. I never saw 
such execution before. The lime-sulphur 
may not be of much use as a substitute 
for Bordeaux, but it helped fasten the 
poison to the vines and made it more 
effective. At one time it was thought 
that lime-sulphur would take the place 
of copper in controlling blight. I doubt 
it, yet it may help. Our three acres of 
potatoes look well, with some tubers the 
size of hen’s eggs by July 4. 
Every years several old questions 
about handling hay come up at this sea¬ 
son. Shall we cut grass early or late? 
The experts tell us to cut early—about 
when the grass is in bloom. The argu¬ 
ment is that the grass then contains most 
available nutriment. On the other hand, 
some of our best farmers wait until the 
seed is formed and the stalks are dry. 
They claim such grass cuts easily, cures 
quickly and with less loss, and that the 
hay is more salable for horse feeding. 
I think it is true that livery-stable men 
prefer this dead-ripe hay. But here is 
the thing which most of the experts 
seem to overlook. Many of us must cut 
the grass when we can. With berries 
and bugs and corn and half a dozen other 
things coming all in a bunch the man 
with one team or three horses must take 
things as he gets them. Personally I 
would rather cut grass early—in the 
bloom if possible—yet we cannot always 
do so and keep our other work up. 
Then comes the old question of curing 
hay in the swath or in windrow or cock. 
Take clover, oats and peas, or any plant 
with a big wide leaf and cut when quite 
green. The most sensible way to cure 
such hay is to work a large part of the 
moisture off through the leaves. It is the 
wind that cures hay—not the hot sun— 
but the dry air working through the cut 
grass. If you can keep the leaves rea¬ 
sonably green they will suck out most of 
the moisture in the stems and give it out 
into the air. If these leaves are left ex¬ 
posed to the air so they dry out at once 
they lose their power to suck the stems 
dry. and unless we can have the finest 
of bay weather it will take much longer 
to make hay. For green clover and simi¬ 
lar plants the best way is to cure the hay 
in windrow or cock, as in this way the 
leaves are kept alive longer. I find that 
the best hay on our farm is made in 
the orchards of big trees—in the shade. 
►Still another never-dying discussion is 
what to do with a hay barn after it has 
been filled with new hay. Shall we leave 
it open or shut it tight in order to dry 
out the hay and prevent too much heat¬ 
ing? I have seen farmers stop work in 
the hay field to argue this matter. The 
best thing to do with such a barn when 
you have filled it is to shut it tight- 
leaving places for ventilation at the top. 
In such case the heat of the hay drives 
the moisture out as vapor which will rise 
and pass out. When you leave the doors 
open the cooler air from outside works 
in and condenses this vapor as it rises 
from the hay. and you will find the top 
of each hay-mow damp from this cause. 
The thing to do is to let this new hay 
“sweat” and work off its surplus mois¬ 
ture as soon as possible, and the closed 
barn will do it best. 
I think more of the weeder every time 
we use it. We can work the young corn 
about three times as fast with this tool 
as with the cultivator, and the light 
scratching rips out thousands of little 
weeds at each round. When you come 
to think of three light scratchings in 
place of one deeper cultivation you will 
see where we come out ahead. Some 
farmers will not believe that this light 
working is as useful as the deep gouging 
with the cultivators, but a fair trial will 
convince them. I do not quite under¬ 
stand how the weeder fell out of use, for 
it is a great tool. It is an old story 
how Z. Breed, an old farmer in New 
Hampshire, was driven by necessity to 
devise the first crude weeder. Stiff with 
rheumatism, he found it hard to culti¬ 
vate or get down and pull weeds. It 
was harder yet to chase the hens out of 
his garden, but Mr. Breed learned from 
those marauding hens the principle of 
bis new tool. lie noticed that the hen’s 
claw uprooted the little weeds, but usu¬ 
ally left in most of the corn or other use¬ 
ful plants. So one day when his back 
and joints were painfully reminding him 
of their presence, he bored holes in a 
long board and fastened into these holes 
long and slender sticks then he fastened 
on two handles, hitched the outfit to an 
old white mare and started up and down 
his garden holding down so that the 
tips of those long sticks jerked and 
twisted about in the soil. At first it 
looked like destruction—as if the corn 
and beans were all scratched out. These 
crops straightened up and were better 
than ever, but millions of little weeds 
never came back to life. They were not 
rooted firmly and those twisting and 
scratching sticks pulled them out. That 
was the beginning of the “weeder.” For 
a time it was very popular. Somehow of 
late years it has fallen out of use. That 
is a mistake, for the weeder is a good 
tool. 
Up to the first of July we had 
picked Marshall strawberries continu¬ 
ously for 32 days. Our family consumed 
an average of nearly eight quarts a day 
for that period, and we kept on selling up 
to July 1. I do not know of any other 
variety which gives so long a picking sea¬ 
son. Of course the later ones were 
undersized, but they were of line flavor. 
In spite of its faults of shy bearing and 
plant-making, I still consider Marshall 
the best berry for family use—where 
you have strong soil and are willing to 
give it good care. I have people come 
after large outfits of plants for commer¬ 
cial planting. I would not willingly let 
them start unless they have had experi¬ 
ence enough to know what they are do¬ 
ing. The average man planting an acre 
of Marshalls, would I think be on the 
broad highway which leads to disap¬ 
pointment The man who wants the best 
berries for home use may well plant a 
few hundred Marshalls. Many a cattle 
breeder who is handling the big breeds 
with profit has a little Jersey tucked 
away in his barn—for the family supply 
of milk and cream. It might well be 
the same with Marshall strawberry. This 
year raspberries lapped over into the 
strawberry season, but our folks pay lit¬ 
tle attention to them, but stick to straw¬ 
berries. 
Our apple crop promises to be the best 
we have ever had. Reports from all over 
are conflicting as usual at this season, 
but a fair summary shows a total crop 
in sight under the average. I should 
judge that the earlier varieties are short. 
The late frost caught some of these ear¬ 
lier sorts with the bloom open and they 
suffered. Some trees bloomed well and 
set fruit freely, but now they are drop¬ 
ping, for the frost weakened them and 
they cannot keep up. There ought to be 
good prices for clean, early fruit. Our 
Nyaek Pippins are loaded. In former 
years They have not sold well, but this 
year there promises to be a good market. 
There is little evidence of young scale 
yet, though we expected it on some of our 
trees. If we find the scales in any quan¬ 
tity I want to try Summer spraying on 
a few trees at least, though I realize it 
will mean a constant battle all Summer 
and Fall. After all, what else can you 
ever expect in fruit growing? Men are 
carried to farm success on flowery beds 
of ease only in the pleasant dream of a 
back-to-the-lauder. If you doubt this get 
behind the weeder some hot day and 
chase old Bob in our cornfield. 
Several people ask if it is true that 
lime really has power to break up a stiff 
hard soil so it will crumble aparff It 
has. That is one of the few things we 
feel sure of. We have seen the thing 
worked out right on this farm. Our soil 
is naturally stiff and hard. In time of 
drought it will bake like a brick. Right 
now there are patches of soil so hard that 
you can hardly dent it with a heayy hoe. 
A few rods away on the same kind of 
soil you will find it open and mellow. 
Part of this condition is due to the cover 
crops which have been plowed under, but 
the lime has also helped. There used to 
be little brick kilns scattered about on 
clay banks. I once drove a horse at one 
of these little kilns to turn the wheel 
which worked or puddled the wet clay 
before baking. I learned then that this 
puddled clay would bake into fine brick, 
but if you put lime into the clay you 
could not make a good brick, for it would 
crumble apart. That action of lime on 
heavy soil will often be seen in farming. 
Some people work the clay so that it is 
almost puddled enough to make brick 
and it turns up hard and lumpy so that 
no ordinary tools can pulverize it. Put 
on a ton of slaked lime to the acre and 
see what happens! The slaked lime is 
better for this than the ground lime¬ 
stone. The use of this lime in connec¬ 
tion with cover crops to be plowed under 
is the best treatment I know of for these 
stiff, hard clays. And, strange to say, it 
is also the best treatment for the lighter 
sands, for here the lime compacts the soil 
and makes it solid, while in the case of 
the clay it acts to break up and open. 
H. w. c. 
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<•■39% 
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Trouble With Icehouse. 
I built an ice-house last Fall 10x14x9 
feet high. I sided and papered the out- 
sidtf and filled in with sawdust; boarded 
the inside, put gravel and sawdust on 
the bottom, and put about six inches of 
sawdust around the outside. My ice is 
not keeping at all. I have been told by 
some that I ought to have left the saw¬ 
dust out from between the walls, as there 
should bo a dead air chamber, and others 
say that is not the trouble. I have good 
top ventilation and I can see no reason 
why the ice should not keep. w. K. v. 
Kirkwood, N. Y. 
The sawdust filling in the space be¬ 
tween the sides does not do any harm 
and may do considerable good. A dead 
air space is the best insulator but the 
air must be dead. If uo filling is used, 
currents of air are liable to be set in 
motion and they cause poor iusulation, 
so sawdust and similar substances are 
used to divide up the air into little 
chambers and keep it imprisoned be¬ 
tween the particles of wood. The saw¬ 
dust must not be packed down hard. It 
is hard to tell just the difficulty with¬ 
out more knowledge of conditions. There 
are two possibilities, however. First, 
there must bo no chance for the warm 
air to get through tne gravel and up 
under the ice. This would mean a se¬ 
rious melting of the ice. Keep good 
drainage from below nut there must be 
no ventilation there. Secondly, the ice 
should have a top covering of sawdust, 
straw or similar substance a foot or 
more thick and good ventilation above 
this so that the covering will keep dry 
and. hence, remain a poor heat con¬ 
ductor. If these two suggestions are 
followed there should be no further 
trouble. R. P. c. 
Floor Paint with Blue. —I have 
tried for some time to find directions for 
making floor paint with glue instead of 
oil. My floor is so rough and uneven 
oil paint does not last well. If some 
reader of The R. N.-Y. can give the di¬ 
rections I shall be very thankful, c. T. 
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