876 
THIS KURA L, N EW-YORKER 
July 20, 
Hope Farm Notes 
Primary Election. —There was a 
primary in our district last week to se¬ 
lect candidates for a special Congres¬ 
sional election. Under the New Jersey 
law there are no caucuses and conven¬ 
tions—candidates are voted for the same 
as in a regular election. There is a bal¬ 
lot box for each large party. There was 
no excitement about this primary—a 
mere handful of votes being cast. The 
Democrats had a contest between two 
men. but the Republicans and Progres¬ 
sives had each but one candidate. The 
question of their relative strength will 
come at the election. Some 20 years ago 
I was “in politics,” and it must be con¬ 
fessed that I did my share at “working” 
the caucus and convention. I could tell 
some interesting tales—but what’s the 
use, since New Jersey never will go back 
to that old plan ! Put it to a vote and 
try to “recall” our primary law and I am 
sure the people would vote five to one 
against such a proposition. I do not be¬ 
lieve there is a farmer in New York 
State who can fairly claim to be intelli¬ 
gent who would not agree at once that 
our primary system is far superior to 
the New York plan. He would say at 
once that a farmer in New Jersey has 
a far better chance to influence his can¬ 
didate than a farmer of the same class 
in a rural county of New York. That 
is why those of us who see this thing work¬ 
ing out cannot understand why our New 
York friends are slow to demand the 
same thing. Right here perhaps is a 
good place to print the question from a 
Western man: 
“ll'i/Z you tell us why Gov. Wilson, of 
New Jersey, succeeded in putting through 
reform legislation, while Gov. Sulzcr, of 
New York, has failed? It seems to vs 
out here that the States and their people 
are much alike. Why a failure on one 
side of the river and a success on the 
other?" 
Now that question gets down pretty 
close to the heart of things. I never saw 
Gov. Sulzer in my life, and I never got 
within 50 feet of Gov. Wilson. Thus all 
I could give would be an opinion—worth 
about as much as that of 100,000 other 
Jersey men. Suppose we think that ques¬ 
tion over for a few weeks and then take 
it up. 
Votes foe Women. —Several people 
say they want a fair statement of the 
way farm women feel about voting. I 
do not know of any better answer than 
the one of old: 
u He is of age—ask him!" 
Right here in our own neighborhood 
out of about 50 country women we found 
three who really think they want the vote. 
About 20 were opposed to such voting— 
the others do not care. Out of about 20 
adult girls and women who have visited 
Hope Farm this Summer only two seem 
to care particularly for the privilege. We 
sent 20 letters to women whose names 
were taken at random from Tiie R. N.-Y. 
list. Only two expressed a desire to vote. 
The great majority of them do not care 
one way or the other. Among this class 
the sentiment seems to be weaker than 
last year. The violent action of the Eng¬ 
lish “militants” seems to have shocked 
some of our country women who have no 
sympathy with such tactics. My judg¬ 
ment would be that at present in the 
Eastern States “votes for women” is 
largely an industrial movement among 
the women and girls who work in the 
large cities. It has not yet appealed to 
farmers’ wives and daughters. 
Farm Wages. —Some of our back-to- 
the-laud friends will get little comfort 
from Mr. Cosgrove’s statement about 
Tom Barron. It seems that Mr. Barron 
employs a few city workers. Instead of 
paying them wages they pay him $500 a 
year and give him their labor! Not long 
ago a boy applied to me for a job. A 
glance was enough to tell us that he had 
everything to learn and would simply be 
in the way for weeks. Yet his mother 
insisted that he must be paid $20 or 
more per month and board ! He did not 
come! I have many letters from men 
who say they want work on a farm. 
Some of them frankly say that they do 
not expect to be paid much, but they 
want to learn. I worked for an old 
farmer once who used to say to such a 
worker: “You take as much space at 
the table as a good man!" Other city 
workers want the highest wages, while 
they cannot give more than fair service. 
If such a man really wants to study 
farming he would get more by paying 
such a man as Mr. Barron than by de¬ 
manding high wages. As a matter of 
fact one of our Italians will cover more 
land with a hoe in 10 hours than most 
city men could in 13. True, this may 
not be called high-class labor, but will 
some one tell us why a farmer should be 
expected to do what no other occupation 
does? The United States Government 
pays the cadets at West Point and An¬ 
napolis while they are studying, but the 
average farmer can hardly follow that 
plan. 
Strawberries. —As soon as possible 
after picking we ran the mower over the 
strawberry fields. The object of this is 
to clip off the tops, both to get rid of 
diseased leaves and to start out a more 
vigorous vine. It seems to be much like 
pruning a tree. When you cut it Nature 
starts in to repair damages and force out 
new growth. At one time we let these 
tops dry on the ground and then started 
a fire to burn them off. After having 
such a fire nearly get away from us we 
gave that up and now let these tops re¬ 
main as a mulch or rake them off. As 
soon as they are dry the cultivator or a 
small plow is started between the rows, 
going back and forth to loosen up the 
soil and rip out weeds. Such soil is usu¬ 
ally very hard, for the pickers have 
tramped it down solid and it requires 
deep and thorough working. Our beds 
are four and five years old, but we shall 
fruit them several years more by cleaning 
up at this time and starting some new 
plants. After this cultivating we shall 
go in with hoes and work up the soil 
around the mother plants. There seems 
to be a good demand for new plants this 
season, so the runners will be permitted 
to work out into the middles more than 
usual. The time to fertilize such straw¬ 
berries is in late July. The object of 
this is to induce the plant to make fruit 
buds freely. These buds are made in 
August and September usually, and un¬ 
less they are made and well developed 
you cannot expect a full crop next year. 
A fertilizer high in potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid is best for this late Summer 
feeding—with only a small proportion 
of nitrogen. We think the manure used 
as a mulch gives our crop about all the 
nitrogen it needs. In feeding the straw¬ 
berry you must remember that this plant 
has not a very wide range in the soil. 
It does not spread its roots out much at 
the side, but roots down. Therefore the 
fertilizer should be put up close to it and 
well worked in. With corn or with 
blackberries you can put the fertilizer 
anywhere in the field and the roots will 
hunt and get it. With strawberries the 
food must be put right up close to the 
plants. 
The potted plant is another thing. We 
get our best potted plants from the 
younger mothers. This year we set out 
plants 3x3 feet on a place where Crim¬ 
son clover and turnips were plowed un¬ 
der. These plants have been cultivated 
and hoed and the rains have brought 
them up well. We pot in the field, for 
the scheme of transplanting slips into 
beds has never given us the best plants. 
We want a plant which has had a fair 
chance to draw upon its mother while its 
roots are starting in the pot. These lit¬ 
tle pots are filled firmly with damp, rich 
soil and stuck in the ground beside the 
parent plant. The joint of the runner is 
put into the soil of this pot and held 
down by a stone. In a short time the 
roots of this little plant have filled the 
entire pot—and it is ready for trans¬ 
planting or shipment. Such a plant 
when well soaked and wrapped ships 
well and will make a fair growth before 
freezing weather. It usually gives one 
spray of large fruit next Spring. I can¬ 
not advise anyone to buy potted plants 
for heavy planting. They cost too much. 
For garden planting or for obtaining 
new or choice varieties to start with 
these little plants will pay. 
Farm Notes. —Soaking rains have 
washed much of the scowl off the face of 
Nature in these parts. We were very 
dry on the hills, but this water has 
soaked down and ought to carry us 
through if we can bottle it up. Our 
Greening orchard is in sod. Year after 
year we cut a heavy crop of hay. In the 
Spring the grass gets a good dressing of 
fertilizer. The trees bear every other 
year. The orchard is planted in a thin 
strip of soil over the solid rock, and in 
a bearing year this is one place where 
the water must be bottled. So right 
after the soaking rain we hauled the ac¬ 
cumulation of manure and trash and 
spread it under these Greening trees. 
It is a great mistake to keep trees in sod 
and take all the grass out year after 
year. Our plan is to cut the grass, feed 
it to stock and then haul the manure 
back under the trees. It is now the 
time to cut all the fence corners and 
other waste places and pile all the trash 
around the trees. This helps bottle up 
the water, and certainly helps the trees 
mature their fruit. Then come the 
cornfields. Thanks to the weeder we had 
them in better shape than ever before 
after haying. As soon as the hay was 
in the barn the corn was all worked with 
the cultivator set to run deep. Once more 
with shallow culture will carry the corn 
through to the cover crop. Some weeds 
will get in but we can pull them. Each 
year I think we learn more about corn 
culture. If we can keep the weeds down 
I would keep the cultivator and plow out 
after the corn is waist high until the 
cover crop is ready. It becomes a ques¬ 
tion of keeping the weeds down in the 
cheapest manner. The weeder runs fre¬ 
quently from the time the corn is planted 
and one good hoeing will handle most 
weeds. I doubt if there is much in the 
ordinary theory of cultivating corn to 
hold the moisture—after the crop is waist 
high. At any rate in our form of cul¬ 
ture weeds have their use. . . . One 
field of mangels does not make a good 
showing as we get it cleaned up. Some¬ 
thing was wrong with seed, soil or seed¬ 
ing, and there are long vacant gaps in 
many rows. As the best shift under the 
circumstances we are drilling carrot 
seed in these missing places. Of course 
the carrots will not make large roots, 
but they will give something of a crop, 
better under such conditions than any¬ 
thing else I can think of. The carrot is 
the toughest root I know of. We used 
to seed yellow turnips for Winter feed¬ 
ing, but except for sheep they are of lit¬ 
tle account. . . . Picking early ap¬ 
ples has begun. The crop is heavy, but 
it is located on big, high-headed trees, 
and hard to get at. Prices are fair, but 
this sort of stock will not keep well. The 
first Alexander peaches were picked July 
12. They are small, but high colored 
and of fair flavor. It would not pay as 
a commercial variety with us, as it comes 
into competition with the Elbertas from 
the far South and Carmans from farther 
North, and is too small to stand up to 
them. We have one row of about 20 
Let- My Pumping 
Engines Do the Work 
Yes, sir. Get a Galloway Pumping 
Engine Outfit. Put it to a 90-day test on 
your farm. Use it to run the churn, cream sep¬ 
arator. washing machine, pump or any small 
machine on your place. Then if you don’t say it’s 
the best little engine you ever saw in your life, 
you can ship it back. I’ll refund your money and pay 
the freight both ways. No strinesto this offer—Is there? 
Then on top of this wonderfully liberal offer I’ll save you 
$25 to $50 on the outfit. Can you boat it? Never. Write me today. 
Get My Special Offer and Prices 
Do it today. Only $24.75 for a h. p. “ 
of the Farm” pumping engine. You can’t afford 
for your windmill to blow down or a calm, hot 
day when you have to do all the pumping for a 
lot of stock by hand. Be prepared. Get my spe- 
cial pumping engine catalog. Save $25 to $50 on your en¬ 
gine and join my list of ever 30.000 eatiefied Gnllowav 
engine cuotomors. Wrtto mo today. Don’t put it off. 
You’ll need an engine in the next fow weeks. It’ll 
for itself the first month. Get my spocial 1913 
offer. Address: Wm. Galloway, Pres. 
$2475 
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FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 
trees. One year with another Carman is 
our most profitable peach. This year it 
looks like a record crop—but I have 
counted record crops before now and dis¬ 
counted them later. The safest time to 
figure on a peach crop is after it has 
been picked and sold and paid for—and 
you have paid the bills. . . . Even 
now I get questions about spraying to 
prevent brown rot on peaches. This 
spraying should have been done last 
Spring. It is late now to do much good. 
A spraying of the self-boiled lime-sul¬ 
phur or the commercial brand one to 100 
may help, but I would not use it at 
least three weeks before ripening. If you 
do the peaches will most likely be stained. 
H. W. C. 
“Alice in Wonderland.” 
“Lords of the World.” 
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“The Rifle Rangers.” 
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I now have on my barn steel roofing, 
painted, not galvanized. It has been on 
22 years and is just beginning to leak. 
Had I sheathed it tight it would be in 
good condtion yet. I put it on my 
house at the same time and sheathed 
it tight with paper underneath. It is 
perfectly good at this writing. I see no 
reason why galvanized steel should not 
last 40 years. J. H. s. 
Spring Valley, N. Y. • 
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