7^0 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 16, 
Hope Farm Notes 
Strawberry Culture.— Last week I 
spoke of a berry crop and its failure. 
What shall now be done with the plants? 
In the ordinary matted row crop the 
plan after one or at most two crops is to 
plow and plant something else in rotation. 
The hill berries cost too much in plant¬ 
ing and cultivation, and unfess they be¬ 
came very grassy they should be fruited 
live years at least. We fruited one patch 
eight years, and have now plowed it up 
to plant in celery. This could have gone 
on two years more, but the patch was not 
well located, and was about the best place 
we had for celery and garden crops. The 
main beds will be handled about as fol¬ 
lows. Just after July 4 we run over all 
with the mowing machine. This shaves 
off vines and weeds close. Next week I 
will try to show a full-sized plant, that 
you may see how mucli we cut off. It 
seems like a shame to chop off this great 
top, but it is the best thing to do for 
next year’s crop. I have left the top re¬ 
main in order to compare with the 
clipped plants—the latter give better 
foliage and more fruit buds. Cutting off 
the vines will destroy many insects and 
germs of plant disease. The clipping 
stimulates the plant to make a new 
growth, just as trimming a tree starts 
out a new top. The vines and weeds lie 
o:i the ground a few days to dry. The 
safest way is to rake them carefully off 
and burn—thus destroying many germs 
and insects. I do not like the plan of 
running fire over the bed to burn these 
clippings. There is danger of hurting 
the plants. As we have little if any 
disease at Hope Farm we have let the 
clippings remain, working them into the 
soil with the cultivators. As soon as 
these clippings are dried we begin the 
work of cleaning. With a cultivator set 
narrow we work back and forth between 
the rows, ripping up the runners and 
tearing the soil. Then with our hoes we 
go over the field, cut out weeds between 
the plants and cut off all runners not 
needed for potting or laying down. We 
can safely take four or five potted plants 
from the parent and still have the latter 
in good condition to yield its crop next 
year. Late in July is a good time to 
fertilize such beds. A good mixture for 
this purpose would be equal parts of 
fine ground bone, acid phosphate and 
sulphate of potash. 1 would use such a 
mixture because we use stable manure 
heavily for mulching, and this gives ni¬ 
trogen enough. If we used straw or hay 
I should use some nitrate of soda or 
dried blood with the other chemicals. 
My plan is to put this fertilizer up close 
to the plants. The strawberry is not a 
long or wide-rooted plant. Its roots go 
down rather than out into the rows, and 
the fertilizer should be put close to it. 
1 laving cleaned up and fertilized, the 
scheme is to keep the field clean—weeds 
out and the soil mellow, with the run¬ 
ners cut off. In order to do this well we 
find it necessary to cultivate and hoe 
from 16 to 20 times up to October 1. 
This will give an idea of the time and 
work required to handle an acre of such 
berries. Those who write asking how 
large an area one man can handle should 
figure carefully on at least 15 separate 
workings. If they have not the experi¬ 
ence in hoeing or cultivating to enable 
them to make such an estimate, I should 
never advise them to try more than 
1,000 plants as a starter. Where weeds 
have not gone to seed, it is a fair plan 
to leave them to decay on top of the 
ground with the roots exposed. Where 
weeds have seeded or with grass or 
“pussley” which will grow if you give it 
five per cent of a chance, the only safe 
way is to pick up in baskets and carry 
out of the field to dump around young 
trees. 
Home Matters. —The evening of July 
2 found a weary and wet bunch of Hope 
Farmers. The effect was evident; as for 
the cause, you might have found part of 
it in a mowful of new hay in the barn, 
and a shelfful of currant jelly in the 
pantry. Hot? There had been two of 
those stewy days when you exist in a 
fireless cooker and the red-eyed sun 
looks down through the hazy fog like a 
pirate. We had over eight tons of hay 
in the barn and over two more outside 
not quite ready to house. Some of the 
clover was a trifle green, but we put it 
in and threw salt over it. We had passed 
a week of haying, cultivating, picking 
currants and hoeing. The boys went out 
and played ball after supper, but the rest 
of us lined up on the front porch when 
the chores were done. Sorry we could 
not get all the hay under cover, for now 
it will stay out over the “Fourth,” but 
the one rain and the “muggy” days put 
us back. With anything like fair weather 
next week we shall get the rest of our 
hay, including the oats and peas, into the 
barn. Through it all we will try to 
keep the cultivator running in the corn. 
We had just put the vanishing touches 
on an unmentionable quantity of baked 
beans, a great pile of lettuce, and a dish 
of raspberries. Then the boys came lug¬ 
ging out a pleasant surprise—the trial 
trip of the new ice cream freezer. You 
sit in front of your own home on Satur¬ 
day night, with the thought that your 
week’s work has gone better than you 
expected and that there are 12 well-fed 
people on your farm, and your dish of 
ice cream will have the proper taste. It 
is true that a gang of mosquitoes had 
been blown in from some swamp, but a 
few “joss sticks” smoking away held 
them off. While we sat there at peace 
with the world there was a call for help 
in the road. Some wayfarer had a “hot 
box” or smoking axle on his wagon. 
Our boys ran out and got the wheel off 
and found the axle so hot that it would 
burn your hand. I never saw one so bad 
before. We wrapped cloths around it 
and poured on cold water until the tem¬ 
perature went down, and the more ac¬ 
tive members of the family were ready 
for the next adventure in which they 
could rescue something. Nothing ap¬ 
peared, however, and as the “joss sticks” 
burned out and the mosquitoes stopped 
sneezing and began business, the Hope 
Farmers were ready for bath and bed. 
Mother and the girls had arranged a 
picnic for the Fourth. There will be a 
dozen or more friends up from the coun¬ 
ty town to go through the great Ameri¬ 
can celebration of talking and eating. 
Instead of starving •themselves so as to 
enjoy such a festival, our folks went into 
practice. For Sunday dinner, we picked 
nearly two peach baskets full of Gradus 
peas, a great armful of lettuce, onions 
and turnips, and about six quarts of 
strawberries. To be sure there was meat 
for those, who wanted it, and “fixings” 
like bread and butter and gravy, but I 
hardly care to say how few of those 
peas were left. Let some of you town 
people who have no garden figure what 
it would cost to feed 12 hearty people on 
such a meal! 
All Sorts. —We never had such a hay 
crop as is now going into the barns, and 
thus far it has been harvested in fine 
shape. The oats and peas will not run 
as heavy as 1 hoped, but there will be a 
good lot of them, and if the weather 
holds good they will be in just the right 
shape when cut. As I have explained, 
the plan is to work up the oat and pea 
stubble and get in Alfalfa. There is some 
draining to be done first, and this may 
set us back. On the best of the Timothy 
meadows, which w r ere cut before July 4, 
we put on more fertilizer as soon as the 
hay was off, and with fair rains can get 
another crop of 1500 pounds per acre. 
. . . The earliest peas were done by 
July 1. Out came the vines; the weeds 
are cut off and the ground plowed and 
seeded in yellow turnips. This crop, 
with us, should go in by July 15, and on 
good soil, with a fair chance, will give a 
heavy yield. At the last working rye can 
be seeded so as to get a fair stand for 
Winter. . . . That German Spring 
rye, seeded May 6, was in full head on 
July 4. 1 figure many things by that 
date, for it is the turning point of Sum¬ 
mer with us. This German rye stands 
about as high as our Winter rye. The 
stalks are a dark blue, and are stiff and 
strong. I sowed some in drills like fod¬ 
der corn, but it has not grown as well as 
where broadcast. A little of the seed has 
been saved and as soon as our Winter 
rye is cut I shall sow the German to see 
if it is possible to grow it to grain and 
straw between two crops of the Winter 
variety. The oats seeded in drills and 
cultivated have done well. They stood 
2 l / 2 feet high on July 4 and were thick 
and strong. I am curious to see how 
the yield will compare with broadcast 
oats. The scheme of drilling and culti¬ 
vating was to grow the grain between 
trees, so as not to take too much mois¬ 
ture, but this year there has been water 
enough for all. . . . Potatoes are 
still jumping, with no evidence of blight. 
I know, however, that this pest comes 
like a thief in the night, and it may get 
our potato crop yet. During the past 
week four hours more were spent culti¬ 
vating—this makes $1.20, or a total cost 
of $49.45. . . . The lawns seem well 
filled with Red and Light Brahma chick¬ 
ens. We let them run about, as they do 
little harm. The large Brahmas are the 
quietest birds I have ever seen. I fre¬ 
quently see a group of them lying on the 
lawn just like a flock of sheep. It would 
be hard to count the chicks which the 
children have carried along thus far. 
Who can count running chicks? The sec¬ 
ond growth of Alfalfa was 20 inches high 
by July 1. That speltz grew slowly on, 
and when about 2feet high formed its 
head, which at first looks like barley. 
The grain seems to be later than oats 
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