9QS 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 11, 
Hope Farm Notes 
Part I. 
A PATCHWORK DAY.—I went to 
bed Friday night determined to 
have one day as a purely theoretical 
farmer. I was to plant potatoes on June 
28, against general advice and on a 
theory of my own. Why is it not a good 
thing sometimes for a man to kick over 
the traces, reject all advice and try his 
own way? When I awoke Saturday I 
knew one of those patchwork days had 
come—when you cannot do anything as 
you would like. The sky was dull and 
grey and full of tears. We had about 
two tons of hay as the mower left it on 
the ground and had planned to keep on 
cutting through the forenoon. How were 
we to know that Nature would cry when 
we wanted her to smile? First thing of 
all was ammunition, and that we got in 
a good bowl of oatmeal and milk, a R. 
I. Red egg and coffee. Then we went out 
to plan the day’s patchwork. 
Plenty of Work. —The Italian army 
marched in early, for we had hired them 
by the day. Merrill had the cows in the 
pasture and the horses were ready. There 
was that hay on the ground, 20 acres of 
corn that might well taste the weeder, 
bugs getting at the potatoes, two acres of 
strawberries needing hoeing, the seedling 
asparagus plants alive with weeds, peas 
to be picked and the ’phone sounding with 
orders for strawberries. The sky broke 
loose into one of those mean, dripping 
showers, which make cultivating and hoe¬ 
ing just plain transplanting of weeds. 
As an opening skirmish Merrill led the 
Italians into the strawberry patch. We 
began picking Marshalls on Juno 1. 
After four weeks there were still big red 
berries in that four-year-old field. The 
vines are thick and high, and the weeds 
have come in so that the shower made it 
seem like a wet sponge. I kept out, but 
the Italians proved to be good swimmers, 
and the heaping boxes of red fruit soon 
began to show under the packing tree. 
Almost before we knew it the rain 
stopped and the sun popped out bright 
and clear. At the house the children 
were busy preparing vegetables for din¬ 
ner, while Mother was organizing her 
forces for a job at canning strawberries. 
Plowing Old Friends. —That five- 
year-old patch was doomed. The vines 
were thick and strong and it was full of 
sorrel, but there was no use carrying it 
another year. It gave us the earliest 
fruit this year. On Friday two of a 
neighbor’s boys gleaned a crate out of it, 
but the time had come to put our old 
friend under ground. So Philip hitched 
Tom and Broker to the plow and began 
working round ancLround the field. Tom 
and Broker are two gentlemen from Vir¬ 
ginia, gray in color and great in weight 
and power. Hauling the big plow is 
usually play for them, but on this sultry 
day and in this solid field they found 
a full horse’s job. The 'roots of a five- 
year strawberry field grab the plow about 
like Alfalfa roots, and the entire soil is 
stuffed with humus. To begin with, we 
plowed under a heavy growth of rye and 
clover, and year by year the cream of the 
farm has been going back for mulching. 
Little comes out, for 1,000 quarts of ber¬ 
ries will take away less than three 
pounds of nitrogen, one pound of phos¬ 
phoric acid and four pounds of potash. 
Everything else, including the vines and 
old roots, goes back to tlie soil. So, 
after five years, an old strawberry bed 
will be the richest and soundest spot on 
the farm. Philip put the plow down to 
the limit, and as Tom and Broker tum¬ 
bled the fat furrows over they wondered 
who told them that strawberry culture 
was a soft job, and this was where I had 
my eye on potato culture. 
“Friendship.” —There was a chance 
for an essay on friendship as we watched 
that old berry field turn upside down. 
These old veteran plants might well have 
bewailed the fate which turned them out 
of a bright and beautiful world in their 
old age, just because they needed more 
care than these young sprouts growing 
beside them. Had they not for years 
stood up and delivered the big berries on 
call? What friendship was this which 
cut them out right when they wanted to 
show what old folks can do when they 
try? Of course I could tell them what 
great things they were to do with my 
potato crop, but like the rest of the old 
timers these plants lacked faith in my 
new theory. Anyway, who remembers the 
dead? The potatoes might do wonders, 
but who would give any credit to these 
strawberry plants for growing potatoes? 
You see friendship has its sharp angles 
and teeth. I was reminded of this by a 
soft brush against my leg, and there was 
the Airedale terrier as usual at my heel, 
ready for business. This little dog has 
appointed herself a special protector for 
the Hope Farm man. She knows he does 
not hear well, and does not intend that 
any insurgent shall slip one over him. 
In several cases strangers have come to 
see me. When she sees me walking off 
over the farm with them the little Aire¬ 
dale drops everything else and follows 
like a shadow. In several cases these 
men have become interested in some dis¬ 
cussion and taken hold of my arm in or¬ 
der to make me hear. In a flash, unless 
I can think to stop her with a word, the 
Airedale is upon them. It is somewhat 
embarrassing to have such friends. 
Shakespeare compared a “thankless 
child” to a serpent’s tooth. Little Aire¬ 
dale’s teeth are just as sharp, and she 
may produce “thankless friends.” But 
here comes another shower. Philip and 
Merrill and the Italians are waterproof 
but the Hope Farm man is better under 
shelter. So it is “me for the house” with 
my faithful friend close at hand. She 
stands in the barnyard to see me safely 
across the lawn, and then lies under the 
shed with her watchful eye open. 
A Fruit Trade. —On the cool front- 
porch Mother and the girls look like the 
sanguinary picture of Liberty killing a 
whole batch of tyrants. Their hands and 
arms are red with strawberry juice and 
one might find a smear or two on their 
faces. They are cutting and trimming 
the fruit for the kettle which is bubbling 
on the kitchen stove. We must keep up 
our reputation for being able to pick 
Marshall berries every day in the year, 
and the girls want to enjoy a few college 
spreads next Winter—of bread or crack¬ 
ers and Hope Farm preserves. Some 
people seem to can the fruit which can¬ 
not be sold, but our folks want the best, 
and they trim and cut out every speck or 
hard place. But here is the sun once 
more, and though there is no wind the 
sky looks like the face of a child that 
has had its cry out. We picked off about 
125 quarts of berries. There might have 
been two crates more, but with fair 
weather they will go until Monday to 
fill some orders. It is not a wise plan 
to stock up too heavily with berries on 
Saturday afternoon. So we vacate the 
berry field and bold a little council of 
war. No use touching that hay on the 
ground or cutting more down. No use 
cultivating. You would just dig a weed 
at one place and stick it in somewhere 
else. Much the same with hoeing in the 
beet field. There are three safe jobs 
until that strawberry field is ready— 
potting strawberry plants, cutting weeds 
and grass with a scythe, and cleaning 
out the asparagus seedlings. On the 
whole this latter promises most, so the 
Italians go down on their knees and finger 
out the weeds, while Merrill runs the 
scuffle hoe. I take the Redheads and 
go to picking peas to be sold on the 
wagon this afternoon. I would like to 
try an experiment with the weeder on the 
hill cornfield, but Bob will be needed for 
the wagon. Here comes another sprinkle, 
but the sharp-eared Redheads have heard 
the call for dinner, and here comes Philip 
down the lane with the big gray horses. 
Dinner. —A combination of Saturday 
and canning day prompts the housewife 
to put up odds and ends for dinner. Un¬ 
der the shed the Italians munched their 
bread and cheese and onion. Tom and 
Broker recruited on hay and grain, and 
the little Airedale planted herself in sight 
of the kitchen door. When I took up my 
knife to carve I found the cold, fat re¬ 
mains of a ham bone. It required a 
mighty struggle to find any lean meat 
on this remnant, but that was no kill¬ 
ing matter with an abundance of string 
beans, creamed potatoes, whole wheat 
bread and butter and about five quarts of 
big Marshall strawberries. As I figured 
it this made 79 meals since the berries 
began, and I think we have had them on 
the table at each meal. The ham bone 
was cleaned up, and there was nothing 
but a stain at the bottom of the berry 
dish when the Hope Farm family 'started 
for the afternoon campaign. The kitchen, 
in fact the entire house, was filled with 
the fragrance of cooking berries. “No 
water! No water!” It was a chorus 
from the women folks, for the tank had 
gone dry and the willing windmill had 
been deserted by his friend Mr. Breeze. 
A dry tank is a nuisance with a kitchen 
full of work and a squad of children com¬ 
ing on later for their bath. So Merrill 
got out the belt, rigged up the pumping j 
jack and started the sprayer engine. It 
was remarkable how the gasoline hired 
man reached out his strong arm in aid 
of his friend the windmill. The cold 
water soon began pouring into the tank. 
Old Bob stepped into the wagon shafts 
and the boys drove off to sell their straw¬ 
berries and peas. Philip and the grays 
went back to plowing, and I started cut¬ 
ting potato seed with the two little red¬ 
headed girls to “help.” 
Pedigreed Asparagus. —I can see the 
Italians down on their knees fingering out 
the “pusley” and red-root from the deli¬ 
cate little plants of asparagus. These 
weeds are all put into piles by the side 
of the patch and will be hauled to the 
hill and piled around the apple trees. As 
I cut my potato seed I try to guess what 
trap-nesting freak of history has sent 
these descendents of the old Romans 
down on their knees in my asparagus 
patch. Tom Barron tells us that the 
constant use of the trap-nest in his flock 
has developed a certain type or character 
of hens. Reputation would not do it, but 
performance did. Every Italian who 
comes to this country may carry the 
reputation of tracing back to the old Ro¬ 
man legions, but the trap-nest of life 
and work puts him in place. Yet these 
men may not realize it, but in working 
with this asparagus they are dealing with 
about the best pedigreed thing in New 
Jersey. This patch of Reading Giant has 
royal breeding for resisting rust. It will 
seem strange to many of us—this idea 
of breeding asparagus as we would breed 
prize animals, but it has been done. Out 
of something like a quarter of a million 
seedlings the experts found one strong 
male plant which would not rust. Then 
out of another great lot they found a 
rustless female plant. From these, what 
I call a royal strain of-immune asparagus 
has been started. In my little patch are j 
some 1(5,000 of these royal plants—better ! 
bred than anything else on the farm ex¬ 
cept it may be my little Airedale friend. ! 
No wonder we give this patch first choice , 
for labor. It is worth the attention of ' 
any Roman army that ever cleaned out a i 
province and scattered salt over the crops. 
Salt would not hurt the asparagus, but 
it would keep the weeds down. I could 
give some figures about the financial pos¬ 
sibilities of this asparagus which would 
class me as a manufacturer of big stories. 
Potato Planting.— But here comes 
Philip with bad news. The plow has 
broken. I know not whether those tough 
old berry roots combined for a desperate 
effort, or whether they enlisted the sym¬ 
pathies of an apple tree root, but at any 
rate Tom and Broker put all their meat 
against some obstruction, and the plow 
handles smashed. There we were with a 
narrow strip of unplowed strawberry bed 
laughing at us, and no plow large enough 
to rip it over. Having started to plant 
potatoes I decided to do so on what had 
already been plowed. So Philip switched 
over to the Acme harrow and started to 
fit what he had plowed. Nine times out 
of ten I should have used the cutaway 
first and thus torn up the upper five inch¬ 
es of the field—then used the Acme to 
fit the surface. That is the plan for 
early planting, but the middle of Summer 
is unseasonable planting at best, and I 
wanted unseasonable preparation. The 
soil is moist and open, and my theory 
was to disturb it as little as possible after 
plowing—just smooth the surface over 
and put the potato seed right down into 
the undisturbed furrows. Right there 
among the vines and weeds I figure that 
the seed piece will have a better chance 
to make stem and roots during the hot 
dry days which are coming, and which 
make an end of our early planted crop. 
I might have used the planter or dug 
out furrows with the shovel plow, but I 
wanted to try out my theory about late- 
planted potatoes. Corn or cabbage would 
have been safer and we expected to plant 
out celery on this field, but instead of 
these we planted a theory. 
II. \v. c. 
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