1012 
THE KUR-A.Lv NEW-YORKER 
Hope Farm Notes 
THE CONNECTICUT POULTRY MEETING. 
Part I. 
CROWD.—It is something like 
climbing a rocky road up Zion’s 
hill to reach the little country church 
at the Connecticut Agricultural Col¬ 
lege. Nestling among the higher hills 
the church stands on a rocky ledge as if 
the original worshippers desired the 
deeper soil for more practical purposes. 
Mansfield Center, the nearby village, was 
settled in 1692, so this church is 150 
years old, at least. Originally a larger 
building, it was rebuilt—smaller to suit 
the dwindling congregation. Strange 
how the factories of New England have 
grown larger and larger to suit expand¬ 
ing trade, while the churches have work¬ 
ed the other way. Yet the things which 
have given true strength and character 
to New England came out of the churches 
rather than the factories. There must 
have been some great gatherings in this 
old church in years gone by. Take the 
time when the news from Lexington was 
brought into this section. Only a few 
miles north of here old Israel Putnam 
left his oxen for the women folks to un¬ 
yoke and rode off to battle. What a ser¬ 
mon the minister of this church must 
have preached. Then you have only to 
glance at the little flags fluttering over 
the graves in the country churchyard to 
imagine what a congregation toiled up 
the hill into this church when Lincoln 
called for volunteers! If the old church 
could speak what stories it could tell, and 
yet I doubt if it ever had more people 
than -were packed into and around it on 
the night of July 29. The Connecticut 
Poultry Association had come home to 
roost, and without realizing it was mak¬ 
ing a part of that peaceful history which 
is to substitute the hen for the eagle on 
the American flag. 
Crowded Quarters. —It had been one 
of those cold, cheerless days which 
bring out the best and the meanest quali¬ 
ties of New England like»a thick ham 
sandwich. Furious bursts of driving 
rain had washed the green hills. Now 
and then the sun would wipe away the 
tears and smile for a moment so that 
even old-timers were deceived into get¬ 
ting away from cover—only to be 
drenched. Looking over the rolling coun¬ 
try the hills seemed like great unhappy 
animals, drenched through the skin and 
humped up in discomfort. Night closed 
in starless and black, with a cold drizzle 
of rain. As the darkness fell people came 
from all directions—walking out of the 
shadows to secure an early seat. They 
crowded the pews beyond the limit and 
gave themselves hardly half the space 
they allotted to a hen. They packed the 
gallery like sardines, filled the aisles and 
stood up at the back. The choir seats 
and the platform were crowded, and the 
standees looked with speculative eyes at 
the organ as a possible roosting place. 
Outside a double row of late comers 
peered in through the windows. Surely 
the star of the evening who was to ad¬ 
dress such a gathering might well say 
that he “played to full capacity.” And 
the “star,” plain Tom Barron, sitting on 
that crowded platform, had evidently be¬ 
gan to wish he had never come inside the 
crowded church. 
A Henman’s Message. —That was 
what it was all about. The master hen 
builder had come from England to tell 
how he makes an egg-laying machine. At 
the egg-laying contests in Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, Minnesota, British Colum¬ 
bia and New Zealand the English birds 
had been laying rings around the others, 
and here was the master builder where 
the critics and the curious were to corner 
him if they could. It was a critical 
crowd, bristling with “show me,” for it 
hurts your average hen man to admit 
that anyone cao tell him about a hen. 
Right up in the deacon’s pew sat our old 
friend, “Mapes the hen man,” like a bird 
dog on the scent of a statement which op¬ 
posed his conviction. Up where the choir 
usually made harmony sat that wise old 
veteran, A. F. Hunter—hero of a hun¬ 
dred battles. D. J. Lambert, Judge Card, 
Whitney, Prof. Graham, McGrew, and 
dozens of others who have for years di¬ 
rected poultry thought, were there with 
sharpened pencils and a shade more or 
less of prejudice against this new idea of 
making egg-laying machines. For within 
rifle shot of where they sat at the egg- 
laying contest was the unanswerable ar¬ 
gument that “a hen’s a hen for all that,” 
without regard to her comb or wattles 
or tail feathers or other “fancy” points. 
Before the meeting I asked many of these 
men what they thought of Barron and his 
hens. The answer invariably was: 
“The hens are all right. As for Bar¬ 
ron I do not know—I came here to find 
out.” 
And up where the minister usually dig¬ 
nifies the chair sat Tom Barron. He 
knew he had an audience of cold-blooded 
critics full of pet theories and spurs. lie 
acted like a man who would gladly be at 
home with 3.000 miles of salt water be¬ 
tween himself and his audience. But out 
at the egg-contest houses 10 Leghorns and 
10 Wyandottes were calmly sleeping with 
head under wing, after making a con¬ 
vincing speech on eggs. It was now up 
to their master to say a few words! 
“Tom Barron !” The name “Tom” fits 
him like his skin. No one would ever 
think of calling him Thomas, unless pos¬ 
sibly Mrs. Barron had some strong fam¬ 
ily admonition to communicate. l r ou 
may have pictured some typical “John 
Bull”—thick, heavy and solid, with side 
whiskers and curling hair. Your mental 
picture is all wrong. If ever a man 
looked like an alert, well-bred Leghorn 
rooster Tom Barron is the man. Erect, 
alert, active, with long legs, compact 
body, black, straight hair, kindly eyes 
and a long prominent nose, it seemed to 
me as I studied him that the plastic part 
of Tom Barron’s personality had gone 
into the trap-nest along with his birds. 
Through these long years of culling out 
the drones, he has put himself through a 
test cf instinct and intelligence which 
has given him something of the sterling 
characteristics of the business Leghorn. 
It is true that a man cannot excel as a 
poultry keeper unless he is half hen. 
Barron is all hen or as near to it as a 
human can get. No higher compliment 
could be given. History shows how the 
British lion came growling over here 
years ago. This very old church sent out 
some of the men and some of the spirit 
which twisted his tail and sent him home. 
Now come the British Wyandottes and 
Leghorns to beat us at the peaceful bat¬ 
tle of the trap-nest. In this same old 
church were the men who must learn 
how to beat the British hen as their an¬ 
cestors handled the lion! 
A Plain Talk. —These Connecticut 
hen men do not waste any time in getting 
on the nest. I have been at meetings 
where some word-spouting orator took 
half an hour to “welcome” the crowd, 
while another consumed as much time in 
response. President Beach, of the Agri¬ 
cultural College took possibly five min¬ 
utes to tell the company to make them¬ 
selves at home. Then Mr. Brundage took 
three minutes to say we were on hand. 
Then he introduced Tom Barron. There 
was not much applause for here was a 
gathering of “show me” people. They 
waited and reserved judgment. Mr. Bar¬ 
ron is about the best hen builder in the 
world, but he is no orator, and it is his 
happy privilege to recognize the fact and 
admit it. He stood first on one foot and 
then on the other. He didn’t know what 
to do with his hands. Happily they are 
big and strong, and scarred and hardened 
by work. Now and then he dropped an 
h or two, and like an economical English¬ 
man he tacked them on at some more 
convenient place. He was just plain 
“Tom” Barron talking of what he had 
to say brightly, sincerely and simply as 
if he were sitting down and talking to a 
friend. I think this was what held and 
captured his hearers. Had lie been a 
skilled orator, a polished speaker, most 
of those who listened would have felt 
that somehow he did not quite touch 
their business. They would have felt 
that Barron might be the “talker” of the 
family, but that Mrs. Barron or someone 
else was really responsible for those 20 
hens out at the contest. These practical 
men came to know that up on the plat¬ 
form, trying to “tell about it,” they too 
would shift from one foot to the other, 
and most likely forget the important 
things they wanted to say. Here was a 
plain man like themselves who talked 
about the common things they could all 
understand. 
The Important Things. —Mr. Bar¬ 
ron talked and showed pictures of his 
English hen plant for over an hour. 
Then he answered questions. Some of 
these wore from people who make an ef¬ 
fort to be “funny” and stagger a little 
under the burden. Barron made much of 
his use of the trap-nest, and this seemed 
to get on the nerves or some of his critics. 
They asked him if he trap-nested his 
cows, or if this English yacht which is 
coming over to race has been trap-nested ! 
Barron took it all good-naturedly, and 
many of his replies pleased the people 
greatly. It was easy to see by this time 
what the dominant thought of this meet¬ 
ing was to be. Every poultry keeper 
knows that he feeds both drones and 
workers in his flock. The drone will eat 
as much as the worker, but the latter 
must not only pay a profit on her own 
food, but also pay the fare for her lazy 
sister. The great problem therefore is 
to cull out the drones before they get a 
chance at our feed. Is there any way of 
doing this with certainty, and can we im¬ 
prove our flocks by breeding improved 
stock as surely as we can improve a 
dairy herd by introducing new blood? 
The “standard” score card and the so- 
called contests at the poultry shows are 
of no value whatever in answering such 
a question. You and I may have a dairy 
of cows. The home and all it stands for 
may depend on our ability to increase the 
amount of butter per cow. We know 
what to do! Go and buy a Jersey or 
Guernsey bull of some “prepotent” fam¬ 
ily and put him at the head of our herd. 
If we can select a bull with a long line of 
ancestors noted for their dairy records, 
we are practically sure to raise a lot of 
heifers capable of beating their mother 
at butter production. We may accept 
that fact as demonstrated. Now can we 
do the same thing with our hens? If not 
why not? There you have the vital ques¬ 
tion in practical poultry culture. I do 
not wonder that the fanciers fly at Tom 
Barron, for the message of breeding and 
selecting which he brings is destined to 
make their “scale of points” look like a 
farce and a useless thing. Barron claims 
that through a long series of trap-nested 
females he secures males as prepotent 
and strong to transmit their mother’s 
good qualities as the well-bred bull. I 
shall test his theory by obtaining one of 
his finest cockerels and breeding him to 
my “scrubs” next season. But this is 
away from our text. The next morning 
I saw Tom Barron in a more natural 
role of orator. This time he stood upon 
the housetops. Upon Hie roof of one of 
the henhouses at the poultry contest, 
Barron, with a hen in his hands, was 
showing how he cast out the drones, 
while hundreds of hen men gathered 
around to watch. But let us take that 
up next week. h. w. c. 
Fertilizer for Strawberries. 
HAVE about two acres of land planted 
to corn, oats and potatoes. Next 
Spring I intend to plant strawberries 
on the same; before doing so I shall sow 
it down to rye and plow it under next 
Spring. I should like to buy my fertil¬ 
izer and mix it myself this Winter. Could 
you inform me what would be best and 
about how much I should require; also 
the best way of applying the same? Could 
you inform me as to about the necessary 
number of plants it would require for two 
acres, the rows being four feet apart? 
Rockland, Mass. d. r. 
Your plan of seeding the potato land to 
rye for plowing under next Spring is 
good. After plowing under be sure to 
pack the rye down firmly. Then make 
the surface soil fine and set out the 
plants. If you wish to mix the chemi¬ 
cals we should use 400 pounds dried 
blood, 400 pounds sulphate of potash and 
1,200 pounds acid phosphate to be used 
on the two acres. The best results for 
us have come from scattering the chemi¬ 
cals at the time of setting on a two-foot 
strip, where the plants are to go. Work 
it in well by running the cultivator back 
and forth. We shall set the plants two 
feet apart in the row. If the rows are 
four feet apart this will mean about 5,500 
plants to the acre. 
Wild Carrots. 
ILL the Hope Farm man tells us if 
there is any merit in the wild car¬ 
rot? It certainly has some good 
qualities, not the least of which is ten¬ 
acity. I have been fighting it for many 
years and the end is not yet. One of the 
merits of the clover plant, according to 
many writers, is the amount of vegetable 
left in the soil by decaying roots. Is this 
not true of the carrot? Another good 
quality is productiveness or reproduction. 
The plants may be cut off time after time 
and in a few days you find another set 
of blossom or seed heads, each time with 
a shorter stem, saving its time here in 
order to ripen its crop of seed. If some 
of our plant wizards could in some way 
graft this quality into the Timothy plant 
August 15, 
he would certainly be the means of re¬ 
ducing the “high cost of living” in horses 
and cow's. e. j. l. 
Let us not wait for these “plant wiz¬ 
ards” to “whiz” these qualities into Tim¬ 
othy. It is about as likely to happen as 
the report that they crossed the inilkw'eed 
on the strawberry and grew berries and 
cream on the same plant! With us the 
wild carrot makes a fair quality of hay. 
Our horses are fond of it—particularly 
the older ones. This year there is a 
smaller crop than usual of wild carrot. 
Without doubt the root does open the 
soil and provide considerable organic 
matter. 
EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS CROP NOTES 
This has been so far a very peculiar 
season. While perhaps no more rain 
than is needed has fallen, yet it has been 
distributed over many days, as the rule a 
little each day, or at least, every other 
day, and to finish gathering the hay crop 
is a problem. Dog days started in about 
three weeks before their time, and bid 
fair to continue. Those that pushed their 
haying along early were lucky, and al¬ 
most everyone reports a good crop, or 
better than last season. Corn is looking 
well, but is in most cases very backward 
and small, and unless frost holds off well 
will not probably bo a full crop or ma¬ 
ture properly. Potatoes on the contrary 
never looked better, and certainly prom¬ 
ise a good crop if looks are worth any¬ 
thing. The past few weeks have been 
good growing and farming weather for 
them. Onions also look well, and if they 
bottom up well, will be a large crop. Va¬ 
rious kinds of raspberries have turned 
out well, but picking weather has been 
bad, and many have dropped off the 
bushes. Prices have been low’ on these 
and currants, and other small fruits also. 
Apples now look like a good crop, espe¬ 
cially the earlier varieties, some trees of 
w’hich are loaded, in fact, too many on 
trees to insure best size. The Winter 
fruit hangs about right to turn out a 
good crop of fair-sized fruit. Insect 
pests have been and are now very trouble¬ 
some, and will affect the quality of much 
of the fruit, except that which has re¬ 
ceived extra care, and this will proba¬ 
bly pay those who were able properly to 
spray their fruit a good profit for so 
doing. Pears are a light crop in many 
cases. Cranberries now promise a good 
extra crop, but the next few weeks may 
change the outlook. A late Spring fol¬ 
lowed by a cool Summer, especially 
nights, has not been altogether favorable 
to most crops especially corn, and unless 
a fairly late Fall without serious early 
frosts helps us out we will not feel we 
have had a favored season. Strawberries, 
which promised a large crop early in the 
season, w'ere seriously affected by the 
early dry spell, and in some towns w'ere 
a very short crop or no crop at all. Blue¬ 
berries, which last year in this section 
were a heavy crop, in fact the heaviest 
ever known about here by reason of the 
big forest fire a few years before, are w r ay 
below the average this year, and many 
disappointed seekers go home with nearly 
empty pails. Wild grapes are not fruit¬ 
ing well this season, and will be short of 
the demand. Walnuts and chestnuts look 
like a good promise of a crop. A. e. p. 
July 28.—-The Peninsula Horticultural 
Society will hold its next meeting in Wil¬ 
mington in January, when it expects to 
make its biggest and best exhibition of 
fruits, vegetables and home-canned goods, 
eclipsing, if possible, the fine display at 
Easton last Winter. Prizes amounting 
t<> $1,500 will be given, $300 in three 
prizes for the best general exhibit of 
fruit, $25 for the best single box of ap¬ 
ples. $25 for the best five boxes, and $50 
for the best 10 boxes of apples, with sec¬ 
ond and third prizes in each class. Every 
good commercial variety will be recog¬ 
nized in box packs, and $8 will be allotted 
to each variety, amounting to $200 in all 
for this class. Prizes for vegetables will 
be larger and more numerous than ever 
before, and home-canned goods will re¬ 
ceive suitable recognition for the first 
time. There will be a prize of $15 for 
the best exhibit of canned fruits and vege¬ 
tables canned by a housekeeper, $15 for 
the best exhibit of fruits canned by 
mother and daughters, the team work 
prize of $15 for the best exhibit of toma¬ 
toes by girls in the canning clubs. The 
Summer meeting of the Peninsula Horti¬ 
cultural Society will be held at Mulberry 
Hill orchard near Easton during August. 
All the fruit growers everywhere have 
been invited. Lunch will be served by 
the orchard owners assisted by the county 
Grange. Automobile trips will be made 
to surrounding orchards and other places 
of interest. Approximately 12,000,000 
quarts of strawberries were carried by 
the Delaware Railroad during the berry 
season. This shipment falls below that 
of last year, and is ascribed to the 
drought. It is estimated that 100,000 
hampers of apples have been shipped to 
market during the last fortnight. Wheat 
thrashing is almost over. Some phenom¬ 
enal yields of wheat have been reported. 
Many claim to have received a yield of 
30 bushels per acre, others 40, and some 
even as high as 50 bushels to the acre. 
We are having plenty of rain now, which 
has greatly benefited growing crops, but 
is delaying wheat thrashing where it has 
not already been thrashed. A severe hail* 
storm visited some portions of this coun¬ 
ty on July 25, almost totally destroying 
growing corn, tomatoes and fruit, c. H, 
Dover, Del. 
