144 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 23, 
Hope Farm Notes 
There never was anything quite like 
the way the fruit bloom burst out upon 
us this year. I have said that season 
after season, yet it seems to be true. 
Nature does her work in the same old 
way; yet, perhaps, as we go along a little 
further this evidence of renewed youth 
seems to appeal to us more and more. 
The bloom was late this year, and we 
had begun to think that perhaps after 
all the hard Winter had weakened the 
buds so that only a few of the stronger 
ones could struggle out. Then, after a 
few dull, rainy days, there came one of 
those sharp May winds which drive the 
clouds and the fog off the hills, and the 
sun burst out bright and warm. Then it 
seemed that a miracle had been wrought 
over night. Standing on our hill we 
looked off over the rolling country upon 
a glorious picture. The grass and rye 
had painted the fields a deep green. 
There was a shimmer of lighter green on 
the woods. Here and there along the 
fence rows and in the corners the cher¬ 
ries were great masses of white. The 
plum orchard was like a white cloud, and 
great masses of pink had gathered where, 
a few days before we saw the dead brown 
of the peach orchards. The wind was 
blowing and the sun flooding all the hills 
with light, and the apple trees were 
showing the first light tinge of pink. It 
was a glorious picture. The man who 
could look off through that balmy sun¬ 
shine and see the picture which the great 
artist had painted without being moved 
would be a hard citizen. I should be a 
little afraid of him. And probably no 
one can realize what it means so fully as 
he who has developed an orchard under 
hard conditions—seen the little trees 
grow and slowly develop until they be¬ 
come strong, and finally burst out into 
bloom to begin the real business of life. 
Men may gain millions or show their 
power in all sorts of contests with man 
or nature, but he who takes an aban¬ 
doned field and through his own care and 
toil turns it into a fruitful orchard feels 
the supreme joy of life when .Spring fin¬ 
ally comes dancing up the valley, and 
puts the first bloom on his trees. 
Tiie Crop. —It looks now like the larg¬ 
est peach crop we ever had. Carman and 
Belle of Georgia are loaded full. Elberta 
has a fair bloom, but we have not been 
planting Elberta heavily. Everyone else 
seemed to be doing so—we think it a 
good plan to keep away from the crowd. 
At the middle of May things look right 
for a heavy peach yield. This condi¬ 
tion is general through our section of 
Northern New Jersey. South of us there 
seems more damage by winter-killing, 
while farther north this damage is severe. 
I think what we may call the total crop 
of the Eastern States will be light, and 
this should be a good peach year with 
us. As for apples, this is supposed to be 
our short year, but to our surprise the 
bloom is heavy. The younger trees on 
the hill are coming on with their first 
fair-sized crop, but the great surprise is 
in an old orchard of high-headed trees 
near the barns. Ever since we have been 
here these trees have carried a great 
crop every other year, while in the al¬ 
ternate years they gave barely a peck 
each. Last year, for example, some of 
them gave 10 or 12 barrels. Thus to 
follow history these trees would rest this 
year and give us only a few big speci¬ 
mens. To my astonishment I find them 
full of bloom—loaded for as large a crop 
as we had last season. These trees are 
Nyack Pippin, Porter and Pound Sweet, 
and for years and years this habit of al¬ 
ternate bearing has been fixed. Yet here 
they are ready for another full crop. I 
can give no explanation except that two 
years ago we followed our plan of pen¬ 
ning some lively shotes around these 
trees. The pigs were kept in portable 
yards and in little houses built on run¬ 
ners. They were kept under a tree un¬ 
til the sod was well torn up, and then 
moved on to the next tree, and so on up 
and down the row. They got about half 
their living in this way, and gave these 
trees a remarkable cultivation. I can 
think of no other reason for this year’s 
display of buds. Looks as if they had 
been grafted into new life with a hog’s 
snout! 
The strawberries are in great shape—• 
the bloom coming on thick and strong.. 
As you know, we have had nothing but 
Marshall up to this year. Now we are 
trying three other sorts. Most of our 
beds are four and five years old. yet they 
are still profitable. I think the variety 
and the handling have something to do 
with this but it pays us, when a bed is 
once well started in hills, to let it stay 
four years at least. The five-year-old 
bed will be plowed after picking and put 
into a late crop. This may be celery 
or late sweet corn or cabbage. With the 
last named crops it will be possible to 
set potted strawberry plants between the 
rows of corn or cabbage, give all hand 
culture and have the soil reset in straw¬ 
berries for another year. The chances 
now are that we shall have more berries 
than ever before—in fact Hope Farm 
never started the season more favorably. 
Cover Crops. —This cool wet Spring 
has greatly bothered the potato planters, 
but has been ideal for the rye and vetch. 
Most of the Crimson clover was killed in 
February, but the vetch is fair, while 
the rye is fine. At this season it is easy 
to see several special advantages of a 
cover crop. We have enough rye growing 
in our young orchards to give us at least 
350 bushels of grain and 12 tons of straw 
if we were to let it go to maturity. That 
means over $500 worth of material from 
seed roughly covered in the corn crop 
last Fall. In a wet season, as this prom¬ 
ises to be, this crop could actually be cut 
and taken away—the stubble plowed un¬ 
der in late June and fertilizer and lime 
used. The trees would not suffer greatly. 
But good orcharding is not alone a mat¬ 
ter of keeping trees from suffering. You 
must keep them up to the top notch of 
happiness. That means in addition to 
spraying and pruning keeping the soil 
around their feet porous, clean, sweet, 
rich and full of humus. So we shall just 
cut enough of this rye to serve as bed¬ 
ding, and plow the rest right under as 
soon as it is large enough. Under it goes. 
You may think this is like plowing un¬ 
der $500 in good money—and it is. This 
plan, however, is not like that of the man 
who hid his lord’s money in the earth, 
but it is like gaining 10 talents for the 
one that is given you. This cover crop 
packed into the soil and well limed gives 
opportunity to the tree, and a strong ap¬ 
ple tree is one of the things which never 
will abuse an opportunity. 
Wet Soils. —Another thing about 
cover crops, and particularly rye, is their 
ability to dry out a wet soil. We have 
several oases of it this year. Several 
fields at the lower farm below the spring 
are naturally wet. One of them, through 
some misplay, was not seeded in rye late 
last Fall. The others were. The differ¬ 
ence in condition this Spring is remark¬ 
able. The bare field is knee deep with 
mud in some places and will not be work¬ 
able until June. The fields where rye 
is growing are comparatively dry and 
can be plowed for fodder corn by May 
15. The rank-growing rye has sucked the 
moisture out of this soil so rapidly that 
it has dried. The scientists who have 
measured and estimated this matter con¬ 
clude that crops of grain remove from the 
soil while growing about 500 tons of 
water for each ton of dry matter in the 
crop. Thus you can see what a crop of 
this rank-growing rye does to a wet soil 
in Spring! There can be no question 
about this fact and in it lies as much of 
a danger on dry soils as of an advantage 
on wet soils. This very power of the rye 
plant to suck out the soil moisture may 
injure the soil’s productive power if car¬ 
ried too far. Some people get a little 
greedy and want grain and straw and 
trees too. So they let oats or rye or 
wheat mature in a young orchard. The 
season turns dry and the grain crop takes 
about all the available moisture which 
the soil contains. The trees suffer and 
so do other crops which follow the grain. 
Thus the nicest sort of judgment is 
required to know when to plow the cover 
crop under and what to do next. In a 
wet season like this one the crop may 
safely go past the bloom. In a dry sea¬ 
son I would put it under before that. In 
any case, just as soon as it is plowed un¬ 
der, pack or crush the soil down so as 
to compact the cover crop solidly under 
ground and prevent the air from entering 
to dry it out. I will try to tell how we 
do it when we come to the job—not be¬ 
cause we claim to know how, but to make 
some basis for reasoning and thinking it 
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