422 
April 2, 
Hope Farm Notes 
Poultry. —If you can remember when 
von ran an incubator for the first time, 
you will appreciate the state of mind 
our boys arc in. 1 had about abandoned 
the chicken business—the incubators had 
not been touched for a year. When the 
hoys caught the hen fever they tinkered 
up one of these machines, put it up in 
an out-building and set it going. The 
pen of R. I. Reds contributed most of 
the eggs, and a neighbor’s flock gave the 
rest. Very few things in this world 
have been watched as carefully as that 
thermometer. It went up to 10.-)° and 
then slowly fell to 103°, and the boys 
have managed thus far to keep it there. 
All the poultry books in reach have been 
read and everyone within reach of the 
tongue has been interviewed. It re¬ 
mains to be seen whether wisdom or 
chicks will come out of this ocean of 
advice. These boys are probably fair 
specimens of the average “chicken 
crank.” I shall watch this "hatch” right 
'through the season, give a fair state¬ 
ment of the labor and cost of food, and 
see just what comes from it. In the 
meantime, the Red hen on her eggs in 
the shed keeps steadily at her job. The 
incubator may get all the attention and 
discussion, but the hen will do her own 
lamp trimming and egg turning and 
cooling without any watching. Like 
many another patient worker, she gets 
no credit for this because it is expected 
of her as a part of her nature. 
The Last Apple. —Many of us have 
read the description of the last man 
surveying the ruins of London. A great 
orator has pictured “The Last Grand 
Army Man.” I have seen a picture by 
a French artist called “The Last 
Cartridge.” Perhaps you have read 
Read’s poem “The Closing Scene.” 
There must be a last to everything, and 
the baby and I realized it when the last 
Baldwin apple was baked and eaten. 
They are all gone! We sold too close 
in the Fall. I thought I had left enough 
to carry us through, but the family ca¬ 
pacity was too great, and here we are 
appleless. Well, we had a royal feast 
while they lasted, and we shall know 
better next Winter. There are. of 
course, many apples left in New York, 
but they want $5 or more for a barrel 
with no straight guarantee at that. We 
shall have to try the faith cure on 
evaporated apples and prunes—that is, 
eat them and think they are apples. 
Cost of Living. —A man on a well- 
stocked farm with vegetables and fruit 
and chickens, eggs and pork cannot 
realize how many town people are 
obliged to pinch and economize. Rent 
is high in the city, and by the time that 
is paid many a man has little left for 
food. I give here an exact statement 
of the food bought by one man and his 
wife living in a large city. They rent 
a room, and get one meal each day— 
usually dinner—at a boarding house. 
The man tells me that from choice he 
would buy a boiled dinner of corned 
beef and cabbage as the most substan¬ 
tial food he can find. The balance of 
the food for a week’s supply was: Milk 
or cream, .63; bread and rolls. .56; 
pea soup, .10; corn flakes, .10; butter, 
.20; eggs, .10; cheese, .10; tea and cocoa, 
.12; baked beans, .05. In addition to 
this, they used one gallon of oil at 12 
cents in an oil stove for cooking. The 
rent of the room is $3, and the dinners 
cost 25 cents each. Imagine a farmer 
on a good farm economizing like that. 
Imagine him crediting such prices for 
what his farm produces. He would soon 
be a millionaire, in theory at least. In 
all seriousness, the great majority of 
us do not begin to realize how poor 
people in the city are held up for the 
price of food. Not only are they forced 
to pay these extravagant prices, but 
they are robbed through the use of short 
measures. After a recent investigation 
in New York it was found that 60 per 
cent of some weights and measures 
were false. Some of the poor people 
were getting less than 14 ounces when 
they paid for a pound. 
And this brings up the cost of living 
in other countries. A special agent of 
this country has been in England study¬ 
ing the cost of living and wages paid 
English workmen. As as average of 75 
families he gives the following cost of 
food one week for a man, his wife and 
two small children: 
Two pounds bacon, .48; .30 pounds bread, 
.90; one pound butter, .24: one pound 
cheese, .14; four ounces coffee, .00; one 
pound currants, .00: sis pounds meat. .00; 
10 pounds milk. .40; 14 pounds potatoes. 
.24: three pounds rice, .12; live pounds 
sugar, .20; five pounds vegetables, .10; 
four ounces tea, .12. Total, $3.66. 
This agent states that bread is one 
cent or more cheaper per pound in Eng¬ 
land than in this country. The meat is 
part of a frozen carcass from Australia * 
THE RURAL 
or Argentina. So far as I can learn, 
the cost of food in England is cheaper 
than here, although England imports a 
large proportion of the bread and meat 
her people need. I am also told that, in 
spite of this cheaper food, farmers, as 
a rule, receive higher prices for their 
products than similar things bring here. 
I am not anxious to move to England, 
but I think these facts and figures are 
worth studying. One great reason why 
food is cheaper and yet farm produce 
brings more on the other side is because 
they have a parcels post. Many tons of 
fresh food are sent by mail, and the 
fair postage rates have brought down 
both railroad and express transportation 
charges. 
Farm Notes. — I still have questions 
about what to do with coal ashes. We 
use our own supply for mulching around 
trees. There is little, if any plant food 
in such ashes, yet they always show 
where they are put. The ash heap is a 
good place for throwing house slops. 
I have known cases where nitrate of 
soda or nitrate of potash have been dis¬ 
solved in water and the solution sprin¬ 
kled over coal ashes. When the ashes 
are dried they can be spread like a fer¬ 
tilizer. For using small quantities of 
nitrate this is a good way to make an 
even distribution. . . . Prices of 
seed potatoes are low this year. It is a 
good time to stock up with new varie¬ 
ties. I think planting will be as heavy 
as usual. For my part, I expect to put 
in more than for several years past. 
There is also more talk about soaking 
the seed to kill the scab germs than I 
ever heard before. I think it pays to 
NEW-YORKER 
use sulphur on the seed pieces, even if 
you soak. Our plan is to cut into peach 
baskets and scatter the sulphur in as 
we cut, shaking the basket to sift the 
sulphur down through. By keeping the 
basket on a large piece of paper there is 
no waste of sulphur, for what falls 
through can be used again. I think 
this sulphuring destroys some of the 
scab germs on the seed, overcomes to 
some extent the effect of germs in the 
soil and prevents the seed piece from 
rotting in a cold and damp Spring. 
. We have the spray on most of 
the orchards where we know the scale 
is serious. I will cover everything if 
we can only get the wind to go down. 
On our windy hills spraying becomes 
a job for a patient and watchful man. 
We have had only one entire day thus 
far that was really fit for spraying. In 
large orchards, where the trees act as a 
sort of wind-break, it does not matter 
so much, but in our narrow, exposed 
fields the wind has full sweep. Even 
with the best weather we can get, we 
are usually forced to be content with 
spraying one side of a tree at a time. 
Last year we could have 
plowed sod in February. The first at¬ 
tempt at working the soil this year was 
on March 24th. Then we used the big 
disk plow on one of those old “loafer 
fields” at the back of the farm. There 
are small stumps and grubs there still. 
The disk, when weighted down, cuts 
and chops them off and stirs the soil. 
My plan is to work this rough land 
both ways with the disk and then smooth 
with spring-tooth and Acme, mark out 
in hills and plant flint corn. I shall 
keep an accurate account of what this 
costs, charging every hour’s work we 
put in at 20 cents "for a man and 20 
cents for a horse. I have learned that 
corn, grain and fodder with clover or 
Alfalfa will make at least 75 per cent 
of the ration for any animal on the farm. 
Egg Contests. —To come back to the 
hen business, I will give a Hope Farm 
record. The boy has a breeding pen 
of 13 R. I. Reds. One of them has been 
on the nest, clucking her desire to sit 
for a week. During the seven days 
ending March 21 we took 67 eggs from 
this pen. I am satisfied that 12 hens did 
the laying. On each of two separate 
days they gave 12 eggs. I am quite 
aware that this will start up the big 
stories, and I say in advance that this 
is the best we can show yet. The boy 
would enter his hens in a contest if 
you will let him take care of them. I 
have been reading about an egg-laying 
contest now on in Australia. It is to 
last a year, and at the end of seven 
months six White Leghorns are ahead, 
with 826 eggs. I understand the Austra¬ 
lian contests are very popular and that 
the results arc given out day by day. 
A year ago last Fall there was tre¬ 
mendous excitement over the baseball 
championship. I used to see great 
crowds struggling in the streets to learn 
the latest news. When Chance made a 
hit, or Tinker dropped a fly, or some¬ 
body else made a run the world knew 
of it at once. I do not expect to see 
any hen contests where men will stop 
work when Speckle lays an egg or 
groan when Reddy fails to shell out. but 
the boy has six Rhode Islands to enter 
when the contest starts. tr. w. c. 
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