1134 
October is 
Hope Farm Notes 
Jack Frost seems to love a kill farmer 
this year. Up to October 10 hardly a tip 
of a leaf had felt liis fingers, while in the 
valley a few miles away there had been 
considerable damage. In the Spring the 
hills seem cold and backward, for the 
valley people on lighter soil start their 
gardens and have bloom on the fruit trees 
before we do. It seems hard to be obliged 
to wait for Spring when one is so tired of 
Winter, but we get it back with com¬ 
pound interest in the Fall. For Summer 
lingers long with us, and these last gold¬ 
en days of borrowed time are best of all. 
Poets and other gifted people—who 
either do not make a living or do not 
have to out of the soil—have spent much 
time telling about the glory of various 
seasons in the country. Blooming time, 
the first leafing in Spring, harvest and 
all the rest have been pointed out as the 
greatest of Nature’s miracles. To me 
there is nothing quite like the way the 
dark color finally creeps into the red 
apples. They grow on green and hard 
and make good size until at last you find 
a light blush coming upon the cheek. It 
grows deeper and deeper until some 
morning before the dew has gone you 
find the big red beauties with their full 
paint on. There is nothing to me more 
beautiful or more full of marvel than the 
way Nature puts on this last touch of 
color. Orange growers may tell me of 
the beauty of their yellow fruit amid the 
green foliage—it cannot compare with 
the blood-colored Baldwins and McIntosh 
on a Jersey hillside in October. 
. The double-action Cutaway or disk har¬ 
row is a great implement for working 
corn stubble. We have several acres of 
weedy corn where we did not seed the 
corn crops.early. After corn cutting this 
soil was torn up with the Cutaway, and 
then seeded to rye. There is no fun about 
pulling this tool—Broker and Tom, the 
big gray colts, handle it. but, no matter 
who tells you otherwise, three horses of 
only medium size are required to put 
proper motion into this big implement. 
When you consider the work it does you 
can easily understand this. Most modern 
farm implements require power because 
they are expected to lift or pull or pack 
more soil or fodder or hay than the old- 
time tools. Tou cannot lift things with¬ 
out power. The value of our big team 
becomes more and more apparent as we 
try new tools. 
The cover crop is the star farm board¬ 
er at Hope Farm. After some years’ ex¬ 
perience I would not think of letting our 
hilly land remain bare through Fall and 
Winter. The arguments in favor of the 
cover crop are old, but they become new¬ 
er and more powerful with each year. I 
can see no argument against the practice 
except the cost of seed and the labor. 
In a very dry season the cover crop would 
not do well in the corn, but rye may be 
seeded with us up to November 1, and 
rye will grow under the roughest condi¬ 
tions. Our first seeding of rye and clo¬ 
ver—made on Labor Day—is over six 
inches high already, while the soil below¬ 
ground is a network of roots. Next year 
when plowed under this mat of green 
stuff will be worth more than any 10 
tons of manure that we could haul up 
our steep hill. We have now gone far 
enough with this cover crop proposition 
to feel sure that with green manures and 
time we can double the productive power 
of this hard soil, and by adding fertilizers 
as they are needed grow good crops of 
anything that is suited to the land. 
I often wonder why more “back-to-the- 
landers” do not make a feature of the 
hay crop instead of trying fruit or gar¬ 
dening. Hay is in good and sure demand 
and when once started well-seeded grass 
requires less personal attention than any 
other farm crop. The fitting and seeding 
of old and weedy land is expensive and 
slow, yet I think if a man have natural 
grass land the capital invested in a good 
seeding will pay. Most of our land is too 
rough and hilly for profitable meadows 
but where a man has strong, level land 
near some large town or city the hay crop 
will pay. With us now, $20 per ton is 
a low price. It will cost nearly $25 to 
land a ton of No. 1 baled hay at our sta¬ 
tion. A yield of 2 y 2 tons per acre is 
not excessive with careful seeding and 
fertilizing. That means an income of $00 
per acre, and with a full outfit of tools 
the hay can be thrown under cover rapidly. 
THE RURAL NEW-L OKKEH 
My experience indicates that hay for 
a farm crop and hogs for live Stock will 
best suit the back-to-the-lander or the 
man who tries to farm by proxy, pro¬ 
vided he can fit the soil right and make 
the hogs help themselves to food and 
drink. 
Every year at this time come questions 
about sowing oats in the strawoerries to 
act as a Winter mulch. The theory is 
that the oats will make a thick, short 
growth until killed by frost, and then 
mat down over the berries and. protect 
them. A combination of barley and oats 
together will do better, but we have never 
found the scheme very satisfactory. The 
grain does furnish some mulch or pro¬ 
tection, but it does not fall down where 
it is needed most—which is dix-ectly over 
the plants. The grain grows in the al¬ 
leys between the rows where little mulch¬ 
ing is needed. The object of covering the 
plants is to keep the soil frozen through 
the Winter. The bare ground will thaw 
at the surface during many Winter or 
early Spring days, and then freeze again, 
and each change pulls at the plant a lit¬ 
tle. The frost that can lift out fence 
posts or split rocks will loosen many 
plants if it be given a chance to do so. 
The thick mulching, over the plants, pre¬ 
vents this thaw and freeze and thus 
keeps the soil solidly frozen. As a rule 
the oats and barley do not give growth 
enough to mat down over the plants, but 
they will help. We do not use the grain, 
as we like to keep on hoeing to clean out 
the weeds. 
We have a hen experiment in mind 
which ought to interest some of our hen 
men. In every large flock you will find 
a proportion of- “runts”—small or 
dwarfed birds. They have equal chance 
with the others, but somehow they stop 
growing and become “runts.” Now, are 
these from naturally inferior birds—like 
small potatoes from naturally small pro¬ 
ducing hills, or is it some arrest of Na¬ 
ture which will become free once more? 
We shall try to find out. We expect to 
get a pen of these runts—dwarfs out of 
superior stock—and breed them for a 
year or more by themselves. They will 
be weighed and measured from time to 
time, carefully fed, eggs recorded and a 
fair number of the eggs incubated. I 
want to see if these runts will breed, 
how many eggs they will lay and if chicks 
hatched from them will prove “runty or 
grow to full size. I have an opinion 
about some of these things, but opinions 
are not of great value as compared with 
the facts. Therefore we shall try the 
runts. 
These are great days for the children. 
Mother has started her little school. Four 
of our little folks and three children from 
neighbors make a very lively and valu¬ 
able seven. The room next to my “den” 
has been fitted up as a school-room, and 
on the blackboard you may see such 
childish truths as: 
I can see a dog. 
The dog can run. 
You might not give these a second 
thought, yet here is the foundation of 
an education being laid far down upon the 
solid rock. Observation and reasoning 
about the larger things of life will follow 
the dog, but he leads the procession up 
to knowledge because the child knows 
what he is. Our children exercise their 
brains over their little books and then 
they run out and exercise their legs on 
the lawn and under the trees with many 
an apple and peach to speed them on. 
Great is childhood, and wonderful is its 
development. Our little boys go out on 
the wagon with Uncle George to sell 
fruit. I gave them four young Twenty 
Ounce apple trees. This year the fruit 
was large and fine, and these boys have 
sold about,$9 worth of apples. Next 
Spring they are to plant 20 trees each, 
and own them. When it comes to varie¬ 
ties little Redhead wanted to plant 
Twenty Ounce. He knew what that did, 
and he had felt the money which it 
brings. Yet when he tasted McIntosh he 
knew it was better than Twenty Ounce. 
Then Wolf River came along with a few 
monsters, and the boy was undecided 
again. It is the old contest between 
quality and size. One thing at least— 
my boys do not want any more Ben 
Davis. When Redhead sells a peach bas¬ 
ket full of Twenty Ounce for 50 cents 
it is a temptation to plant more trees. 
A restaurant keeper in New York tells 
me he pays $4.75 a barrel for Twenty 
Ounce to supply a baked apple trade. 
Rhode Island Greening is a far better 
baking apple, but customers want good 
size and a little color. Redhead has felt 
some of this Twenty Ounce money. Is 
he wise to follow it? He thinks lie has 
to wait too long for Northern Spy. 
II. w. c. 
Grow Vegetables 
Through the Winter 
Grow radishes, lettuce and other cold-weather delicacies; 
start your early cabbage and tomato plants in hot beds at home. 
Build the frame of concrete and your grandchildren will find it 
as good as new. Wood cracks, rots, lets in cold. Concrete with¬ 
stands moisture, is free from cracks or joints, protects plants 
better, and looks neat always. The concrete hot bed is easy to 
build, but be sure your material is right. You are sure when you use 
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