486 
Hope Farm Notes 
Some Dishwashing. —All sorts of re¬ 
quests come from our people. Not long 
ago a woman asked for the statistics of 
dishwashing. Probably few people ever 
considered that this humble job could get 
up to the dignity of “statistics.” The 
Government gathers and guesses at fig¬ 
ures of all sorts. Every successful busi¬ 
ness must have the figures showing cost 
and income, or it will be wrecked. Yet 
who ever has thought it worth while to 
figure out the “statistics” of that most 
important of all “jobs”—kitchen work? 
I think the way to get statistics is to 
go and get them. No use wandering off 
into the next county or going hat in hand 
to some expert. If you want dishwash¬ 
ing statistics go right into your own 
kitchen and get them. Nothing like tak¬ 
ing your own advice, so I invaded the 
Hope Farm kitchen with tape measure, 
pencil and paper. On March 15 we had 
15 people in the family. Three friends 
drove up to have dinner with us, but I 
did not count them, for when you mix 
statistics up with friendship you take the 
joy out of both jobs. The figures I am 
to give will show rather less than more 
of a day’s dishwashing at Hope Farm. 
First I measured the dishes. Then I sud¬ 
denly found that I had forgotten how to 
figure the area of a circle. It was neces¬ 
sary to go back 40 years to the children’s 
school books in order to do it. It’s easy 
enough when you hunt up the rule to find 
how many square inches you must wash 
and wipe over to clean up the day’s dish¬ 
es. Having obtained the figures, we 
found the number of dishes used during 
the day and proceeded to multiply. This 
is what we figure it out—counting both 
sides of each plate: 
Sq. Ins. 
Cups . 1.900 
Saucers. 1.281 
Large Saucers. 4..”(18 
Large Plates . 4,908 
Small Plates . 2.000 
Platters. s 00 
Glasses . 5,740 
Pitchers . 050 
Pots and Pans. 2.120 
Spoons . 100 
Total square inches.23,987 
The large saucers are used by the chil¬ 
dren in eating cereal and milk. Do not 
be alarmed at the large area of “glasses.” 
This is a temperance hotel, but the chil¬ 
dren drink milk freely and we are all fond 
of water. The total for the day will 
average more than this, as there are al¬ 
ways extra pans and dishes which must 
be scoured or cleaned. 
Now see what this means. Every 
square inch of this job must be washed 
and then wiped—gone over twice. Thus 
each day 166 square feet of surface must 
be cleaned and dried. When this is all 
done by hand it means going over 332 
square feet with the hands. That repre¬ 
sents (10,590 square feet in the course of 
a year, and there are 43,5(50 square feet 
in an acre. People say that no one has 
ever measured the possibilities of one 
acre of land. What about this acre and 
a half of dish surface? Let the women 
folks keep this lip for 10 or 20 years, and 
they will come close to covering a good- 
sized farm. If we are to talk about farm 
economy for the outdoor jobs, what about 
this intense cultivation of dirty dishes? 
Would you go back to the scythe and quit 
the mowing machine, or go to pumping 
■water by hand and get rid of the engine 
or windmill? I have something of an 
imagination, but I can hardly see you 
doing it. Yet how does the farm kitchen 
stand in this scheme of farm economy? 
Water for the barn stock is fine—but 
what about the kitchen stock? A good 
dishwashing machine ought to be a fix¬ 
ture, just as much as a mower or reaper. 
Personally I hope that some day cheap 
and neat paper plates will be invented, 
so that they can be burned up after the 
meal and leave the cook free to do some¬ 
thing besides washing an acre of dish 
surface. 
Some Weather. —As nearly as I can 
find out, Hope Farm, or part of it, has 
been under the cultivation of white men 
something over 200 years. For some cen¬ 
turies before that the Indians grew grapes 
on our hills and exchanged them for furs 
and corn. In all that time, however, I 
doubt if the middle of March presented 
less of a Spring-like appearance than this 
year. The snowdrifts are still high on 
THE RUR-A.lv 
the hills, and the ground is frozen. The 
snow melts slowly—Hint's one good thing 
for our hills; but plowing is a long way 
off. Spraying has also been greatly de¬ 
layed. It is hard to work through the 
drifts with the tank, and the ends of the 
day are too cold for spraying. This is the 
season when the spray business must 
jump when it does start, and a good 
power sprayer will half pay for itself in 
this sort of a season. In former seasons 
we have had spraying weather during 
each of the Winter months, but there has 
been little opportunity this year. 
One thing at least we shall make sure 
of, and that is a good supply of fuel. We 
use dead chestnuts from the woods, 
hauled down in 10-foot lengths. W e 
bought a saw and rigged it up by the 
woodshed. Then the gasoline engine on 
the power sprayer was belted up to the 
saw and put at work. I see no reason 
why this strong arm should sit idle on 
that sprayer for 10 months of the year, 
when it can be used for pumping and 
sawing. 
Every year when we have a snowy 
Winter farmers console themselves by 
saying that the grass and grain crops are 
sure to be fine. This usually follows. 
Somehow farmers get the idea that the 
nitrogen which the snow brings down to 
the soil is responsible for the increase. 
I doubt if there is enough of it to count. 
It is true that some nitrogen is washed 
out of the air by the snow, but it is a 
very small amount after all. I think the 
snow helps the soil by filling it full of 
water, and helps the crops by protecting 
them, like the mulch on strawberries. 
When snow melts slowly the water set¬ 
tles deeply into the soil. It is far more 
likely to stay there than when it comes 
in a heavy rain which washes across the 
fields. The snow water remains in the 
soil, and thus the grass and grain have 
a better opportunity in early Spring. 
Then the snow covers the grain and new 
seeding, and prevents the heave and pull 
of the frost on the soil. Under the snow 
the plants may go on making root growth, 
as I am sure strawberries often do under 
the mulch. Then when the snow finally 
goes these protected plants are ready to 
begin growth at once. For this reason I 
expect this coming y n ar to be a banner 
season for our cover crops—rye, vetch and 
Crimson clover. I think it is to be one 
of the years when Crimson clover does its 
best with us. As we have over 30 acres 
of these cover crops we are interested in 
the snow. I think this matter of Spring 
protection for our grain crops is to be an 
important one. We have tried sowing 
barley with the rye and cover crops. It 
makes a fair growth during the Fall, and 
then dies in a mat over the ground. Our 
experience is that this dead mat protects 
the young rye through the early Spring 
as a mulch. 
Our old stone house is being used as a 
hospital just now. The boy is home from 
college with a case of “mumps,” and he is 
quarantined in the room where we may 
say that George Washington may pos¬ 
sibly have slept. At any rate, the house 
was here when Washington and his dis¬ 
couraged army wintered some four miles 
away. If he did not sleep in this old 
house he missed an opportunity. At any 
rate the boy’s head is not swelled at any 
thought of his great ghostly companion. 
There is swelling enough with the mumps 
without adding to it. I suppose if we 
were to know how many cases there have 
been in that old house since its stones 
were laid the present affliction would 
seem a light one. No doubt before this 
house was built, Indians in their wig¬ 
wams have greeted their little world with 
a swelled neck and a changed voice with¬ 
out knowing just what ailed them. These, 
however, are very poor companions of 
misery. We can only hope the younger 
children will skip the mumps. H. w. c. 
NEW-VOKKEK 
Marcn 2S, 
One of the Atlantic City’s life guards 
was discussing his profession. “Funny 
things happen to us guards sometimes,” 
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street went into the water wearing one 
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wigs. A big wave went over her and 
when she came up the transformation was 
floating out to sea. She turned and ran 
to Tim. “ ‘Oh, save my hair!’ she yelled. 
‘Save my hair!’ “ ‘Pardon me, lady,’ says 
Tim. ‘I’m a life saver, not a hair restor¬ 
er.’ ”—Philadelphia Ledger. 
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