1264 
November 22, 
Hope Farm Notes 
The apple crop seemed to grow larger 
the more we picked it. We made what 
we called a conservative estimate of the 
fruit on the trees, but it was far under 
the actual showing. Storage rooms were 
filled and still the crop piled up. The 
wet Fall interfered with picking but there 
has been no really freezing weather and 
the fruit has kept well. 
Our local advertising has paid well. 
We have been quite surprised to learn 
how many townspeople there are who 
want to deal direct with farmers if they 
can be sure of the quality. In several 
cases one order led to another—a neigh¬ 
bor or visitor saw the apples and at once 
called for some of the same sort. Quite 
a number of orders came by ’phone—in 
some cases from points 12 miles away. 
People who dream of the pleasure of 
“Baek-to-the-landing” should have chased 
Merrill through a few days of this apple 
trade. They would get up in time to feed 
Broker and start by five o'clock for the 
country town 10 miles away. There a 
load of apples would be delivered so as 
to get back before dinner. Then Bob 
went into the wagon, and off went an¬ 
other load to a town some four miles off. 
Back in the late afternoon to find a 
’phone order for several barrels to be 
delivered three miles in another direc¬ 
tion. In between trips the apples are to 
be sorted and packed. This and more is 
what you must do in order to get more 
than 35 cents of that dollar. Some peo¬ 
ple far from market work even harder 
and get barely 25 cents. With us, by 
means of direct trade and parcel post, it 
■will be possible to obtain 85 to 90 cents 
of the consumer’s dollar, but let no man 
think he can sit in a comfortable chair 
and work it out with perishable fruit 
or meat. 
Many people who try to deal direct 
complain of the treatment some of their 
customers give. We have had very little 
trouble. In one case the woman said the 
fruit was very poor, while the man, when 
he paid the bill, said they were “fine.” I 
have had one or two cases of rather dis¬ 
tant shipment where customers made an 
outcry—as I knew without cause. In 
these cases we knew that we had given 
full measure and packed the goods well. 
We became satisfied that these customers 
howled in order to get a reduced price or 
more goods. There were very few of 
them, and I can usually tell them by the 
way they talk and write. Our way of 
handling them is to send their money 
right back and tell them to keep the goods 
as a present. In the end you will be bet¬ 
ter off to do this, and also politely state 
that future orders from them will not be 
filled. That puts it up to them, and it 
will be a very sure test of character. In 
all this I assume that you know the goods 
were true and properly packed. If you 
have any doubt on that score the cus¬ 
tomer may be right. All this refers to 
small orders. On a larger deal there 
would be some other things to consider, 
but as a general rule if you strike a cus¬ 
tomer who is evidently unreasonable or 
tricky the best thing is to settle with him 
promptly and let it be known at once 
that you do not want any more of his 
trade. 
The disposition of the drops and small 
apples becomes a problem on many farms. 
In some sections the evaporators take 
them, or the local cider mill will grind 
them up. On some of our trees we had 
quite a proportion of small-sized fruit. A 
good many barrels have been sold to ped¬ 
dlers, who sell them in Paterson or near¬ 
by towns. We also have some direct sale 
for a grade which we call “pie apples.” 
I see great carloads of “bulk apples” 
coming to New York. These apples are 
simply dumped into box cars much like 
potatoes, and are bought by peddlers, who 
hawk them about the streets. Some of 
these apples are of good size and quality, 
yet it is doubtful if they net the growers 
much over 50 cents a barrel. No man 
can afford to grow and pick up apples at 
any such price, and when this fruit gets 
here it greatly hurts the trade in good, 
barrelled stock. In our own case we are 
obliged to rush off our stock in the face 
of great competition. By the middle of 
December this competition will be about 
destroyed by freezing weather. We ought 
to have built a storage house, put our 
fruit right into it and waited for the 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
rush to die out. I did not think our crop 
this year would be large enough to justify 
building such a house, but that is where 
we figured wrong. Before another big 
crop we must have the house. 
The apple work has upset some of our 
farm plans. One good thing, we got the 
corn crops mostly in. The land where 
the mangels grew is bare, but that we 
could not help. Corn husking is behind, 
and the long rains have hurt the seed 
corn. We began feeding corn fodder once 
a day in early October, for corn fodder is 
i ever better than during Fall and early 
Winter. It is a mistake to hold it until 
Spring. The mangels might well be out 
and in the pits, but this apple crop comes 
first. The mangel tops make great cow 
feed. We twist or cut them off and feed 
the cows heavily. These tops are likely 
to last through November, and then we 
can begin on the roots. 
At this time of the year a great many 
of us who never fed cow beets before are 
feeding them now. and I, and doubtless 
many others, would like to know if it is 
important that the beets be thoroughly 
cleaned before cutting up to feed? What 
effect would dirt, have on a cow’s digestive 
apparatus? Would a half bushel of the 
cut-up beets be too much at a feed per 
cow? H. B. H. 
Pennsylvania. 
With ordinary handling I think most 
of the dirt will be shaken off the roots. 
The heavy rains have washed our own 
crop clean when piled in the field. I do 
not understand that in large herds the 
roots are washed before feeding. I think 
they are thrown into the root cutter and 
sliced, and that this handling shakes off 
most of the dirt. It is said that a man 
during his lifetime must eat “a peck of 
dirt,” and a bushel or so would not seri¬ 
ously injure a cow. We shall cut our 
roots as they are and feed. Should there 
be any with much soil clinging we will 
dash a pail of water over them. We shall 
begin with a peck at a feed and increase 
gradually till all the cows will eat freely. 
These little runt Leghorn pullets I 
spoke of are still here. They have not 
begun to lay yet, and apparently make 
but little growth. Some of our people 
seem to think that these dwarfs will not 
breed and will lay only a few infertile 
eggs. We shall see about that. These 
pullets are all of good pedigree, and had 
a good chance in feeding and care. I do 
not know why they are dwarfed, but I 
have always felt that I would like to 
know if the chickens of such runts can 
ever “come back.” Personally, I think 
we may get chicks from these runts that 
will equal their grandparents in size and 
vigor. Now I have a proposition from a 
bee man who wants to pasture his stock 
at Hope Farm on a sort of cooperative 
basis. This man is located at a point 
where thei'e is little if any bee pasture. 
Up here, among the hills, there is good 
bee feed. So this man purposes to bring 
his hives up here for the Summer, on 
the principle of turning his cow into the 
pasture. It strikes me like a good thing. 
A few miles away from us the Hacken¬ 
sack Hirer comes rippling and winding 
down out of the hills. Little brooks from 
such springs as we have run through the 
fields and add their clear water to the 
upper Hackensack. The lower part of tin' 
river is broad and muddy, for the salt 
water sends the tide up to a certain point 
to swell the stream. Up above this tide¬ 
water point the river is not much more 
than a large brook, filled with the life- 
giving hill water. For centuries this 
clear water was mingled with the brack¬ 
ish stuff below. It turned a few water 
wheels. but beyond doing this work it 
ranked as a cheap and rather useless 
thing. The few straggling houses along 
the Jersey side of the Hudson River 
grew to towns, and then to cities, and 
thousands called for water as for sun¬ 
light and air. Then the water in the 
hills became valuable. Dams were put 
across the river, ponds were made, and 
the water piped down under the marshes 
to the big cities. I have always been 
sorry that the people who live among the 
hills or the State itself could not have 
foreseen what was to happen, and hold 
this water privilege as a public gift rather 
than a form of monopolistic graft, as it 
is now. A big private corporation se¬ 
cured the privilege of watering the people, 
and they are preparing to use the “last 
wrung drop” out of our hills. You 
would hardly expect a monopoly of this 
sort to preach a sermon, yet this one has 
given me a text. 
One day last Winter I saw workmen 
building a dam across the narrow Hack¬ 
ensack. It was at a point near a meadow 
or swamp, which is surrounded by little 
hills. Before the dam was completed they 
began building a great houseboat three 
times as wide as the river and perhaps 
150 feet long. At times this river will 
hardly float a canoe, yet here they were 
building a vessel large enough for ocean 
traffic. They loaded aboard great steam 
engines and heavy cranes for lifting, 
though it all seemed as useless as a ship 
in the desert. Slowly the water backed 
up over that meadow and then a strange 
thing happened. That great ship came to 
life. It reached out a great steel arm, 
hooked it into a stump and pulled it out 
by the roots. Then it put the end of a 
great tube down into the mud and an¬ 
other tube up over the little hills and 
started the engine. A great stream of 
thick mud came pouring out over the 
hills. .It spread out over the uplands; 
the water ran off and left a thick deposit 
of soil. Day and night that pump worked 
on. It sucked up that meadow until the 
big ship floated. Slowly it sailed up the 
stream, ripping up the stumps with its 
steel hand and sucking up the mud and 
spitting it over the upland. Day and 
night it ripped and sucked, until to-day 
there is a deep lake nearly half a mile 
wide where formerly a large brook ran 
through a wooded meadow. The fields 
around this lake have been raised a foot 
or two with mud and, strange to say, 
this new soil has broken out with a 
growth of green. No digging, no scraping. 
That big, awkward ship on dry land just 
sucked out the mud until the water 
rushed in and the ship floated. 
Now I have seen many a man who 
thought himself stranded, high and dry, 
while a little brook of opportunity ran 
past him. As judged by everything I 
ever saw before that big mud ship was 
the crazy contrivance of some hare¬ 
brained crank. For how could a great 
ark float on wet mud? The men who 
built it had that sort of confident faith 
which may move a mountain. They piled 
up the water and the ship worked itself 
free. There are hundreds of us who think 
we are left on the mud because we feel 
that our little trickle of opportunity is too 
small. The men who built that ship in 
the mud have preached us all a sermon. 
It will do you more good to think it out 
than for me to try to explain it. 
H. w. c. 
Doctor: “The room seems cold, Mrs. 
Hooligan; have you kept the thermom¬ 
eter at seventy, as I told you?” Mrs. 
Hooligan : “Sure, an’ Oi have, dochter. 
There’s th’ ricketty thing in a toombler 
of warrurn wather this blessed rninnut.”— 
Credit Lost. 
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