008 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 28, 
Hope Farm Notes 
Strawberries. —After long waiting 
and much trouble we got those straw¬ 
berries in the ground by May 14. The 
constant rains kept the soil so wet that 
we could not work it properly, and 
there is no use setting plants in unfit 
soil. The field is not the one we se¬ 
lected last Fall. The one we had in 
mind broke out into a thick sod this 
Spring in spite of last year’s culture, 
and I knew it would be a hopeless task 
to fight that grass among berries—to 
say nothing of white grubs. Across 
the lane is another field, rich and strong, 
but naturally wet. It has been cul¬ 
tivated for the past three years and is 
reasonably clean. So, as a sort of make¬ 
shift, we took this for strawberries. The 
ground was plowed early and fitted with 
spring-tooth and Acme until we had 
it right. Then came the rains, which 
made the field like deep mud and left 
it hard. We have worked it with the 
spike harrow and finally got those plants 
in about as near right as we know how. 
For the sake of knowing just what a 
field of.berries comes to, I shall give the 
figures from one block of about 4,000 
plants. The plants are set 2 l / 2 feet each 
way. I started several years ago setting 
plants closer, but experience has con¬ 
vinced me that I can do better with 
wider spaces between. With Marshall 
plants 2 l / 2 feet apart we can work with 
the horse both ways all through the 
Summer and put down four or five 
layers around each parent plant. These 
can be left as one big “hill” or used for 
sale or for transplanting. 
The cost of starting these 4,000 plants 
I figure as follows—putting the labor 
at 20 cents an hour for man and 10 
cents for each horse: Plowing, $3.50; 
harrowing. $3.60; setting plants, $5.40; 
plants. $22.40; total, $34.90. You will 
see that we used the harrow freely. The 
field was well plowed to begin with. 
Some of the plants were bought— 
others, w'ere from our own beds. I have 
charged the price I paid and the ex¬ 
press cost. We sold some of our own 
plants at $10 per thousand, and they 
were worth it, but I ' charged in this 
case at about the cost of plants from a 
plant nursery. We shall use some fer¬ 
tilizer—how much to be determined by 
the way the plants grow. That cost will 
be added later. If our plans mature 
this field will be cultivated about 20 
times and hoed at least four times. 
There will be runners to cut off and 
new plants to be potted or laid down. 
All this great cost of labor will be 
added that we may see what such cul¬ 
ture comes to. This is not the best 
field for our purpose. We can do far 
better next year when we conquer that 
sod on the other field. Yet, what do 
you say to growing 20,000 potted plants 
for sale and 3,000 quarts of berries on 
this patch? I am not making any bet 
or boast about it, but I consider that 
quite within reason, and with no 7 .iis- 
hap a better record can be made. You 
must remember too that a field set in 
this way is about as permanent as a 
crop of currants or blackberries.' We 
can renew the hills by putting down 
new layers and keep them going for 
years if need be. 
Horse or Hoe. —I have heard a dis¬ 
cussion between a New England garden¬ 
er and an Iowa corn grower. The for¬ 
mer claimed that with a hand hoe and 
a wheel hoe and no horse on the place 
he could *get more money out of 
the ground than the Iowa man could 
with his best team of horses. The 
Western farmer hooted at the idea, 
but I would back the hoe man in the 
contest. He could grow Marshall straw¬ 
berries, onions and celery—all worked 
by hand on rich soil, and if he knew 
how to do it turn off a great crop. If 
lie were a good salesman he could get 
more out of his season’s labor than the 
Western man" could for the Summer’s 
product of corn or potatoes or hay. But 
let no man think he can start right in 
without previous experience and do 
this magic with a hoe. He might as 
well expect to start dentistry or watch¬ 
making without knowing how to do the 
work. I have a letter from a city man 
who wants to know how many hills of 
strawberries and how many chickens one 
man can care for besides doing the other 
work on a 50-acre farm! This man 
does not realize that it all depends 
on the man, the soil, the variety of 
berries and the breed of hens, and the 
way they are kept. On weedy or grassy 
soil with varieties which naturally make 
many runners every hour of a man’s 
time would be needed to keep an acre 
clean. You should have seen the first 
berries -1 tried to grow! By August 
you could hardly see the plants. It 
was a wet Summer, and the grass came 
in and made a meadow of the field. 
As for chickens, it depends on whether 
you intend to let them run free or keep 
them yarded. You will be obliged to do 
the latter if you are to grow hilled 
strawberries. My advice would be to 
start with 500 plants on clean ground 
and give them all the care they need. 
Keep a strict account ’of what it all 
costs. When the crop is picked figure 
up and you will either drop a lot of 
other work and plant more strawberries 
or let the patch dead alone. 
Farm Notes. —On May 14 I went 
about with a foot rule measuring the 
growth made by various crops. Plenty 
of the hill strawberries were 14 inches 
high. This means measured with the 
leaves pulled straight up. The best Al¬ 
falfa was 30 inches high, with the aver¬ 
age about two feet. The seven-year-old 
apple trees in sod have made a growth 
of seven inches. Red clover averages 
about 16 inches high for last Spring’s 
seeding on good ground, and Orchard 
grass is about two feet for the best— 
where it has been fertilized. The best 
rye is nearly five feet high with an 
average of a little under four feet. The 
oats and peas stand at about eight inches. 
The wet weather is responsible for this 
rapid growth. Some of the rye is ready 
to be cut, but it would be folly to 
touch it now, for there would be no 
possibility of curing it for hay. I shall 
have to repeat what has been said before, 
that rye cut in bloo.iti and well cured 
makes a fair hay. It is the poorest of 
all the grain hays, being tough and not 
as tasty as oats, barley or wheat. We 
feed several tons of it every year in 
Winter when the horses are not hard at 
work. . . . Corn planting with us 
is late. It will be June 1 before we 
can get it all in. The ground has been 
wet and cold, and while some farmers 
planted early, I doubt if they will gain 
anything. We use our flint entirely this 
year. It will mature in a little over 90 
days with anything like a fair show. 
. . . My neighbor tells me he was 
offered $25 a ton for hay recently. Rye 
straw sells at $20 to $23 in local mar¬ 
kets. The last time I bought a ton of 
baled hay I found that it cost me $19.75 
at our railroad station. It was -not first- 
class. On tracing it back to the grower, 
I concluded that he got $7 fop the ton, 
and out of that paid the cost of grow¬ 
ing, baling and hauling. The $12.75 went 
to the various handlers who stood be¬ 
tween the two farms! The hay that I 
speak of as bringing $25 is delivered di¬ 
rect to the buyer’s barn. Our customers 
prefer long hay, for no one can tell 
until the wires are cut what mysteries 
the hay bale shelters. In spite of the 
way autos are displacing horses, hay 
remains one of our best local crops. We 
have promises of the greatest clover 
crop in the farm’s history. I am think¬ 
ing out some plan for cutting and grind¬ 
ing this crop for poultry food. 
All Sorts. —The woman who does 
part of our washing laid down the law 
of demand and supply the other day. 
She did not come and say “Please, 
won’t you pay me more - 'for doing this 
work?” No—she was on the right side 
of the market. She merely remarked: 
“The price for this washing will be 50 
cents more hereafter. The cost of liv¬ 
ing is higher and I must have more for 
my work!” 
Of course, water and soap do not cost 
any more than formerly, and no more 
energy is required to rub out the dirt. 
I could not get any more for eggs or 
potatoes or fruit. Yet there is no ar¬ 
guing with the woman who washes or 
the skilled man who does farm work. 
You simply come up to.the rack or do 
without. These people have a monopoly 
because they do a class of work which 
is necessary, and which the world can¬ 
not do without. Every morning I see 
an army of typewriters, clerks or sales¬ 
men going to the city. Not one in 1,000 
of them would have the courage or the 
power to stand up and demand more 
for their services, as our washerwoman 
has done! While she deals in neces¬ 
sities, they command nothing, for the 
places of most of them could be filled 
without great inconvenience in a week. 
The way our people are being educated 
at present tends to thin the ranks of the 
necessary workers and crowd the army 
of incompetents who work at non-es¬ 
sential things. It is a strange thing, too, 
when you think of it, because any man 
who can think consecutively for half a 
minute must realize that the production 
of food and fibre is running short of de¬ 
mand. That means that those who pro¬ 
duce these things in the future are to 
come nearest to monopoly, and with 
monopoly lies opportunity and prosper¬ 
ity. There has been a rush to the city, 
which has swamped out opportunity there 
for young people. The wave is now 
coming back, yet our teachers and our 
school officials do not seem to see it. 
We are still educating children for the 
unessential works of life. This feeling 
is well nigh universal in this country 
among men of middle age. Here I speak 
of it in New Jersey, and at once re¬ 
ceive the following from California: 
I want to “pat you on the hack.” I 
refer to “Hope Farm Notes,” page 498, 
in regard to your stand on high school 
matters. I was changing work with a 
neighbor the other day. His two children, 
home from high school, viewed us with a 
mild disdain because our table manners 
were not correct. All the latest scores and 
tricks in tennis, basketball, etc., were at 
their fingers’ ends, and a fashionable wed¬ 
ding on their tongues (to which none of 
us will go, though probably invited as old 
acquaintance). Of practical learning we 
heard none, except when a sop was thrown 
to us in the information that their ex¬ 
perimental plot of cabbage plants was not 
doing well. The “experimental plot” the 
old man and 1 put out are nearly ready 
to eat. Now, this man has worked hard 
to give those children better advantages 
than he had, and the result is they look 
down on him. At the same time he has 
spent his money on them as he went along, 
and will leave them nothing that they can 
keep up the acquired (or artificial?) style 
on. It looks, to say the least, somewhat 
unbalanced; nothing in their course to lit 
them for the life they must expect to live. 
G. E. E. 
I think I could safely guarantee to 
find in this country one million men 
who will take that view of modern edu¬ 
cation. • h. w. c. 
Suburbs: “It is simply great to wake 
up in the morning and liear the leaves 
whispering outside of your window.” 
Cityman: “It is all right to hear the 
leaves whisper, but I never could stand 
hearing the grass mown.”—Melbourne 
Australasian. 
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Don't keep yonrfamily and property 
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Istructions so you can put it up. 1 save 
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Pay Nothing Until Satisfied 
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J. A. SCOTT, President 
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Dept. I, Detroit. Mich. 
RICKER HAY CARRIER 
For Barn or Stack . 
With Fork or Sling v 
Holds the load at 
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PORTER 
HAY CARRIER 
Has wide open mouth and 
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lor illustrated booklet of POR¬ 
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J. E. PORTER CO., Ottawa, III. 
BINDER TWINE 7 ho POUND. 
|| Shipped on approval. Farmer Agents 
wanted. For samples and catalogue write 
TliEO. BURT & SONS, Melrose. Ohio. 
Make the Farm Pay 
Complete Home Study Courses in Agricul¬ 
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Gardening, Forestry, Poultry (Ttlture ami 
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All Kinds of Pure 
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Also a COMPLETE FERTILIZER for general 
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Prize Competitors 
Every Competitor in Farm. 
Contests for high quality and 
large product of different 
Crops per acre should use 
Nitrate of Soda 
to supplement both Fertilizers 
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Every Ammoniate has to 
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and use one hundred pounds 
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Directions how to use Nitrate of 
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if you write. 
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71 Nassau St., New York 
IN EACH TGWH 
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