408 
April 28, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Hope Farm Notes 
Cost of Crops. —I am ready to report 
the first part of an experiment We 
put in a scant two acres of oats and 
peas. This is a quite steep hillside, 
sloping to the east. There was a crop 
of buckwheat on it last year. Two 
bushels of Canada peas, costing $5, were 
put on top of the ground and chopped 
in with Cutaway and disk. The Cut¬ 
away broke when about half done, and 
we finished with the single disk, which 
took more time. Then five bushels of 
oats, costing $6.25, were put on the 
disk furrows and worked in with the 
Acme. In all, we spent 17 hours with 
man and team and three hours for man 
alone, and the crop went in well. Some 
of the farmers who operate on a large 
scale must remember that our fields are 
small, and that frequent turning eats 
up time. My oat and pea crop, there¬ 
fore, stands me as follows: Seed, 
$11.25; labor, $7.80; fertilizer, $6; total, 
$25.05. I have charged 40 cents an hour 
for man and team and 20 cents for a 
man, and at harvest I shall charge the 
same. I know what this land cost me 
and what the money I paid for it 
brought at interest. Let us see what 
we make from the land. You may say 
I paid too much for the seed, but these 
are exact prices from a seed store. I 
want to follow several crops right 
through in the same way. 1 would like 
to have 500 others do the same. Just 
keep a record of your time at 20 and 
40 cents an hour, and add the price 
of fertilizer or manure. No matter how 
we come out—let us have the facts. 
School Taxes. —For the purpose of i 
comparison. I give the school figures for 
our township or borough. This place 
is in Bergen County, N. J., a little over 
20 miles from New York. We have a 
population of about 500 people—the 
borough covering about four square 
miles. There are about • 130 property 
holders—some owning only one lot, and 
paying less than one dollar taxes. There 
are 84 children of school age, and an 
average attendance at our one school 
house of 73. Now for last year the 
school expenses in this small locality 
were as follows: 
High school tuition . $513.50 
Transportation . 520.20 
Teachers’ salaries . 1,324.80 
Repairs and janitor . 267.72 
Supplies . 205.90 
Library books . 46.27 
Text books . 64.33 
Teachers’ retirement fund .... 26.00 
Insurance, printing, etc., etc. .. 126.05 
Note (paid) . 416.00 
Total . $3,510.77 
Here we have an average of more 
than $7 tax for each man, woman and 
child in our borough. There are eight 
children attending high school in nearby 
towns—we spend $1,033.70 or $129.20 
each to send them there. Our 130 tax¬ 
payers pay an average of $29 each for 
our school children, and the majority 
of them have no children to send! Some 
of this money comes back finally from 
the State, but we pay it to begin with 
at least. I should add that the total 
taxable property in our borough is val¬ 
ued at $417,835. 
Now, I think it is high time the 
American people began to realize what 
it costs to keep a child in school and 
to figure whether we, as a nation, get 
our money’s worth. The school in our 
place is well conducted, but last year, 
as you see, it cost $41.88 for each child 
of school age. When I was a boy at 
the district school I do not believe it 
cost $10 per child. I shall be told, of 
course, in answer, that every item of 
living expense has increased since then, 
and that the modern system of educa¬ 
tion is not only more expensive, but 
far better. I will agree to the expense 
side of it without argument, but I am 
not so sure about the other. I submit 
these figures, not by way of criticism, 
but to make the foundation for a fair 
discussion of this question— What dues 
it cost the public to educate a child , 
and do taxpayers get their money back? 
I do not care for theories, but I want 
the cold-blooded facts from your dis¬ 
trict. 
High Schools. —I have had my say 
about the modern high schools many 
times. Personally, I have little use for 
them, because 1 do not see that they 
are of any practical value to the child 
who is fated to become an '“average 
citizen.” If you are a man of this class, 
go and investigate the course at the 
high school near you, and tell me hon¬ 
estly what they teach that would give 
you a fairer chance in the world. I 
think the bulk of our school money and 
the finest of our teachers should be put 
in the common schools and spent upon 
children who can hardly expect to go 
beyond 16 years in school life. You 
will realize at once that this means 
about 75 per cent of our people. If I 
had my way, I would see that the child 
received the best common school edu¬ 
cation obtainable, and "if, after that, so- 
called higher education was wanted, I 
would put it up to the parent to pay 
for it, or for the child to earn it. It 
seems to me absurd for the public to 
be taxed to carry children to a high 
school and then pay their tuition. We 
shall no doubt next be told that the 
public should carry children to college, 
pay their way, and then provide them 
with a job when they get through. That 
is the tendency unless we stop some¬ 
where. As for those of us who utter 
a feeble protest, in those days, we shall 
no doubt be put at harder labor, in 
order to pay the needed taxes. 
Strawberries. — I do not like to 
change a plan, but sometimes it must 
be done. I had a field as I thought 
ready for strawberries. It was in sod 
a year ago. The grass was cut early, 
the sod plowed and fodder corn planted 
in drills. We kept it well cultivated, 
and I thought the grass was well killed 
out. I planned to plow the field this 
Spring, fit it, plant strawberries in hills 
and work both ways with the cultivator. 
This Spring, however, I find the grass 
working in so that I do not dare to 
plant berries. It would be next to im¬ 
possible to keep them clean at reason¬ 
able cost. So we shall plant corn in 
hills, work both ways and try to kill 
out the grass. After that the field will 
be in far better condition for the plants. 
It would be great folly to set straw¬ 
berry plants where the grass can work 
into them, and it is evident that at least 
two years of good culture are needed 
to kill the sod. The hill strawberries 
have been cultivated and are now being 
hoed. We shall probably work them 
about three times, or until just after 
the bloom falls. Then I think they are 
better left alone with such mulch as 
we can get around them. Formerly we 
did very little cultivating in the Spring, 
but experience seems to show that a 
thorough working early in the season 
starts the plants off lively. Our plants 
never looked better at this season. 
We ran short of mulch last 
year, and were driven to all sorts of 
material. On part of the bed I put 
fine brush cut from a back field, where 
birch sprouts had come in. The brush 
was laid lengthwise over the rows with 
manure between. This worked well. 
Not a plant was thrown out, and the 
crop looks as well as where a thick 
coat of manure was used. I should 
think pine boughs would be excellent 
for this purpose. On one part of my 
field I am experimenting with coal 
ashes. The rows are well cultivated 
and the plants are hoed and the ground 
levelled. Then I plan to put a layer of 
coal ashes all over the ground, so the 
plants will be left growing up through 
it. This I reason will keep down weeds, 
retain moisture in the soil and not hurt 
the plants. We shall see about it. 
All Sorts. —We have had our first 
experience with dynamite for blowing 
out stumps. Some of the old apple 
trees were sawed off close to the 
ground. In the back field there were a 
number of large White birch stumps 
which interfere with cultivating. In¬ 
stead of a stump puller, we tried blast¬ 
ing. They came out all fight. It re¬ 
quires some experience to judge the 
way a tree’s roots run and how much 
dynamite to use, but there is no doubt 
as to the fearful power in those car¬ 
tridges. Merrill turned up at night 
with a headache, but the fields are clean. 
Another week of dry wind has about 
finished the Crimson clover. There are 
a few patches here and there on the 
hill, and a fair stand on one of the 
lower fields. If some one will tell me 
why the only Crimson I have left is 
on the poorest and also the best soil, 
I shall be glad to learn. The rye is 
excellent this Spring. I never had more 
of it or a better stand. As usual, the 
best rye is after the potato crop. That 
is probably due to the heavy fertilizing 
which we always give potatoes and to 
the fact that this crop is always well 
worked. The Red clover put in with 
the rye in September and limed is.feeble, 
and 1 do not expect much from it. The 
Sprihg seeding is starting well. . 
By Sunday, April 10, the earliest peach 
trees were in bloom, with a cold wind 
blowing hard from the north. This is 
the time for philosophy rather than 
peaches, though we hope for both. 
The hen business goes on. 
The boy hatched 99 chicks in the first 
incubator run. Of course you can beat 
that, and we do not offer it as a star 
performance. The girls are laying an 
anchor to windward by selling some of 
their Brahma eggs. Nothing like a lit¬ 
tle capital as you look along the rocky 
way between an egg and a full-grown 
chick. _ II. w. c. 
Student: “Want my hair cut.” Bar¬ 
ber: “Any special way?” Student: 
“Yes; off."'—Williams’ Purple Cow. 
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