868 
THE K.UKA.E NEW-YORKER 
March 7, 
; Hope Farm Notes 
The Real and the Ideal. 
We have them both in horticulture or 
rather vve have much of one and great 
need of the other. 
The Real Thing. —Here are a few 
actual questions which have come in re¬ 
cently : 
1. Do you think my peach buds are 
damaged? 
2. There has been frost in my cellar 
where the seed potatoes are kept. Do 
you think they will sprout? 
3. I have a field quite low and wet. 
Do you think it is sour? 
4. Do you think I can graft tame 
cherries on the wild choke-cherries grow¬ 
ing on my farm? 
5. I hear much about peach borers. 
Do you think my trees are likely to be 
affected? 
(5. I thought you said wood ashes will 
injure hen manure. I mix the two and 
can smell the ammonia—therefore I 
know it is very good! 
7. I am tired of working for others. 
Do you think it would pay me to buy a 
horse and wagon and peddle fruit and 
vegetables? 
These are actual questions, and we 
have many like them. The most suitable 
text I can think of for answer is: 
“// c is of age—ask him /” 
I should ask the peach buds by cut¬ 
ting a few and bringing them to a warm 
room and putting the twigs in water. 
Ask them and they will tell whether they 
are able to put out bloom or not. The 
same with the seed potatoes. Take a 
few fair samples, cut as you would for 
the field and leave them in a sunny win¬ 
dow or plant in boxes or pots. They 
can beat the Hope Farm man in telling 
how much life they have left. Also the 
field. Why not test it with litmus pa¬ 
per? Take a cupful of the soil—a fair 
sample—make a knife hole in it and put 
in a strip of blue litmus paper. Press 
the soil around it. If it turns red the 
soil needs lime. As for grafting tame 
ckerrks on wild stock 1 doubt it, nor can 
I see why it should be done, but here is 
another case of “ask him.” Try a few 
and see how it comes out. You will also 
have to ask the borers. Usually, these 
insects work into all peach trees where 
any number of them are grown. Dig 
away the soil at the foot of the tree and 
hunt for the gum and the little burrows 
which the borers make. If they are 
there cut or dig them out. We did say 
that wood ashes will injure manure and 
here we repeat it. The fact that you 
smell ammonia is sure evidence of this 
injury, for the ammonia which you smell 
is passing off into the air as a gas. 
When once mixed with the air you have 
lost it. If a careless child opened the 
bird cage and let the canary fly away 
you would hardly claim that the child 
was a great help in making canaries. 
Yet the gas and the bird are both lost 
when they get into the air. You may 
catch the bird but the ammonia is lost. 
When you mix in wood ashes you ask 
the lien manure —but somehow you got 
the wrong answer. As for peddling you 
will have to ask the job. You 
will find it still more tiresome working 
for youi'self when the bills are to be 
paid. Good peddlers are like poets in 
one way—they are born, not made. 
You would be surprised to know how 
many of such questions we receive. No 
stranger can possibly answer them. One 
might make a bluff or a guess but the 
best advice is “ask him.” The mental 
exercise required to experiment and ob¬ 
serve and take accurate records is the 
best thing for a farmer or gardener, for 
it is along these lines that men learn 
to think for themselves and this makes 
progress. 
The Ideal. — The real thing is all 
right—a necessity in life—yet the ideal 
is greater, for without it no lasting suc¬ 
cess is possible. As another text for this 
I would take one used by President 
Thomas of Middlebury College in a ser¬ 
mon to his graduating class: 
“Is not this the carpenter, the son of 
Mary , the brother of James and Joses 
and Judas and Simon? Are not his sis¬ 
ters here with us? And they were of¬ 
fended in him.” 
The people of that little village in 
Judea could not realize that a man of 
this plain, common stock could do the 
(wonderful things which were reported to 
jthem. How could an ideal come out 
of the dust? Ever since the world be¬ 
gan to take notice of ideals men have 
gone hunting for them in the sky or over 
the hill in the next county. We have 
got into the habit of looking at the stars 
rather than at our feet. Yet we live and 
move and work on the earth. The far¬ 
away places and the inhabitants of the 
stars do not need our ideals half as 
much as those who live right in our own 
valley—neighbors and friends. Many of 
us have come to regard the ideals of life 
much as we do the black suit of clothes 
or the silk dress tucked away in cedar or 
moth-balls and taken out now and then 
for some fine occasion. We need to dress 
these ideals up in overalls and boots, so 
they can go with us right out into daily 
work. I have seen old soldiers with a 
rusty sword and a flag hanging on the 
wall. There was their ideal of devotion 
to country. They might have served 
their country better by carrying that 
ideal out with the hoe and scythe instead 
of leaving it with the sword. I am talk¬ 
ing in this way because I want you to 
think out the meaning yourself—without 
having it all explained. We must put 
our ideal right into our own work—not 
lock it up for special occasions. An ideal 
represents the cleanest, strongest, most 
satisfying thing in a man’s life. It is 
the one priceless thing which he would 
take most pleasure and confidence in lay¬ 
ing right upon the altar for all to see. 1 
And here is what I mean by carrying this 
into everyday life—dressing it up in 
overalls and boots. Let every nursery¬ 
man put a piece of that priceless thing 
into every box of trees he sends from his 
nursery. Let every fruit grower and 
gardener put it into every package that 
leaves his farm for sale. Let them plant 
it in the soil as treatment for their farms, 
and let them put it into every contract 
or argument they make with their fel- 
lowmen. That is the way to idealize the 
humble things of life—put that part of 
yourself which you are not ashamed of 
right into them. h. w. c. 
A Fertilizer for Corn. 
I have an upland field, sandy loam 
soil, rather thin, on which was grown a 
crop of silage corn last year. I wish to 
raise silage corn on it again the coming 
season, and would like to know what fer¬ 
tilizer to use. The field was given a 
heavy coat of barnyard manure last sea¬ 
son ; I do not wish to use any manure 
this year, but nitrate of soda alone, or 
with muriate of potash, if the nitrate 
would not be sufficient. How much of 
the nitrate, or of the nitrate and potash 
together, should I use, and how would 
it be best applied? To my knowledge 
lime has never been used on this soil; 
would it probably be of benefit to the 
corn crop to apply lime also? f. s. f. 
Griffin Corners, N. Y. 
You cannot expect to raise a good corn 
crop by the use of nitrate of soda alone, 
or nitrate mixed with muriate of potash. 
Phosphoric acid must also be used on 
that kind of soil to make a complete fer¬ 
tilizer. The nitrate is not the best form 
of nitrogen for the growing crop. In 
farmers would not use 
under such conditions, 
the most available form 
is thus the best form 
early growing crops of 
fact, many good 
nitrate on corn 
The nitrate gives 
of nitrogen, and 
to use for the 
oats or grass, which must make their 
start and grow in the cool part of the 
Spring, when the ground is cold and ni¬ 
trates are not formed in it. The corn 
plant makes its heavy growth late in the 
Summer, when the ground is warm and 
nitrates are readily developed in it, from 
organic forms. Thus the best fertilizer 
for the corn crop carries this nitrogen 
in organic form, which will be broken up 
and made available late in the Summer. 
Dried blood and tankage are, there¬ 
fore, better for the corn crop than ni¬ 
trate of soda. On such soil as you men¬ 
tion, a mixture containing two parts of 
tankage by weight, five parts acid phos¬ 
phate and two parts muriate of potash 
ought to give results on the corn. If 
you have had no experience in the use 
of fertilizers it would probably pay you 
better to. buy one of the ready-mixed 
brands for corn. On such a soil an ap¬ 
plication of ground limestone would 
probably pay well. 
“What 
Freddie. 
is a hobby, mother?” asked 
“Something people are very 
fond of,” replied mother. “Oh, is it?” 
exclaimed Freddie, very much surprised, 
“I thought it was a husband!”—Mel¬ 
bourne Australasian. 
Who Loses the Money 
When the critical moment of the spraying season is at hand and the sprayer 
breaks down? 
Surely Not the People Who Made the Sprayer or the Dealer Who Sold It To You 
You know very well that you are the biggest loser when the greater part of 
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THE PUMP WITH THE CLUTCH 
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