1012 
THE RU RAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
An Old Meadow. —I have told of one 
old meadow which grew too thin to cut 
longer. As soon as the hay was off we 
plowed this field and fitted it well with 
Cutaway and Acme. Then we marked 
out furrows three feet apart and scat¬ 
tered in corn for fodder. This corn was 
planted about as thick as we usually sow 
garden peas and covered three inches deep. 
On part of the field we put Japanese mil¬ 
let in the same way—scattered in fur¬ 
rows. We shall keep the cultivators run¬ 
ning both to force the corn and millet and 
to tear up this old sod, and at the last 
cultivation rye will go in as a cover crop. 
Of course, planting corn in late July is 
all out of season, but I do not know of 
any crop that will give us more forage. 
Sorghum might do it, but in our latitude 
corn is the safer crop. The object of this 
work is to get as much fodder as we can, 
and prepare the land for Alfalfa next 
year. In order to do this we shall culti¬ 
vate the corn freely and thus rip up the 
old sod. Early next Spring we plan to 
plow the rye under and use at least one 
ton of slaked lime per acre. Then after 
fitting the soil well we expect to trans¬ 
plant our Alfalfa seedlings all over this 
field ! These seedlings will be cultivated 
like corn. Judging from what they have 
done this year we should get at least two 
tons of hay to the acre next year and 
have the Alfalfa securely fixed for eight 
years or more of cutting. I do not advise 
others to try this plan unless they are 
prepared for much hard labor. We try 
it partly as an experiment to test this 
transplanting theory on a large scale. 
Alfalfa Seedlings. —At Fig 378, page 
1007, is shown another plant of these new 
Siberian varieties. This is Semipala- 
tinsk—quite different from Cossack which 
was shown last week. This is a yellow- 
flowered Alfalfa withh a peculiar habit of 
growth. It does not stand upright like 
Cossack or the ordinary Alfalfa but 
spreads or sprawls out over the ground 
like a melon vine. Prof. N. E. Ilanson 
considers it the strongest of the Alfalfas 
yet brought to this country. A single big 
plant of this variety gave him over 18 
pounds of green forage in one season. As 
a pasture plant I think this Semipalatinsk 
will be a great help in many rough coun¬ 
tries, but its recumbent habit of growth 
is against it as a hay plant. I should 
say that Cossack, Grimm and some others 
will prove superior for hay. But notice 
the root growth. It is even more 
branched than Cossack or Grimm. What 
a contrast between this and the old tap- 
rooted sorts. These Siberian varieties 
seem fully capable of obtaining full water 
supply like the tap-rooted kinds—yet see 
how they anchor themselves in the ground 
and spread their feeding roots out into 
the upper soil. Here is another thing. 
See how the roots of this plant have 
sprouted from the end of the seedling 
root. When these roots came from South 
Dakota they appeared to have been ripped 
out with a plow—cut off five or six inches 
below the crown. They went into the 
ground much like a closely root-pruned 
tree and now they are making much the 
same form of root that we find on such 
trees. Of course it looks like a rather 
small business to plant Alfalfa as we do 
cabbage or tomatoes, but we may find 
several untbought-of things which make 
it pay. 
Everbearing Strawberries. — This 
Spring we planted 500 Superb plants to 
test this theory of “everbearing.” I have 
been rather sceptical about it. The 
plants made a good growth and in late 
June blossoms began to appear. We 
were told to cut these off, but as we 
wanted to study the full habit of the 
berry we let them alone. As a result we 
have had ripe berries ever since July 4. 
Most of the plants will show ripe fruit, 
green fruit in all stages and bloom at the 
same time. These fruits are picked free¬ 
ly without any effort to keep a record. 
On July 31 we picked two quarts of good 
ones. In addition to this the plants are 
making runners quite freely. With a 
reasonable amount of moisture I should 
judge that we shall have at least 2.000 
potted plants from this bed before Win¬ 
ter. I expect to put them all out in a 
strong piece of ground near the house, 
where they can be irrigated. I do not 
feel sure yet of the great commercial im¬ 
portance of these plants but there is no 
question about their home value. With a 
few hundred plants a small family with 
a back-yard garden could by planting 
Marshall and Gandy, have a full supply 
of berries for at least 125 days. I find 
that people want berries whenever they 
can get them—in the season or out of it. 
Buckwheat and Turnips. —This is a 
great combination for what you may call 
a Summer cover crop. I have told of one 
strawberry field that had been picked five 
years. It was too grassy to pay to pick 
longer, so we plowed it promptly and 
sowed buckwheat and turnips. By Au¬ 
gust 1 there was a solid mat of buck¬ 
wheat at least 18 inches high and a thick 
scattering of turnips. About the middle 
of August this mass will be plowed right 
under and packed down. Then the sur¬ 
face will be stirred up and big layer 
strawberry plants put in 3x2 feet. Thor¬ 
ough culture will be given, and if we can 
get hold of a fair supply of water we 
shall get some fruit next year, and be 
ready for four years more of picking. 
IIow this buckwheat with its small and 
delicate root system can ever make such 
a remarkable growth is more than I can 
understand. It does it, however, and this 
fact makes buckwheat the best Summer 
cover crop for growing between a Spring 
crop and Fall planting or seeding. 
The Potato Chop. —It is the best we 
ever had—somehow we seem to have hit 
the combination of soil culture and con¬ 
ditions just right this year. The best 
yield is on an old Alfalfa patch which 
had mostly gone back to grass. The soil 
was full of the decayed Alfalfa roots and 
the way those potatoes grew was a won¬ 
der. Many of the vines grew four feet 
right into the air. These are Irish Cob¬ 
blers, for this variety, with all its faults, 
remains the best one for our needs. If 
prices improve a little this patch will be 
dug and sold before September 1, so as to 
put in a cover crop and follow with po¬ 
tatoes again next year. We still follow 
the plan of planting potatoes between 
the rows of bearing peach trees. We 
get good crops in this way and this sea¬ 
son the potato crop will pay all expenses 
of caring for the peach orchard except 
spraying. Potato prices have started low, 
but I think they will come up later. 
There is another good crop in the coun¬ 
try, and we must all got busy on a po¬ 
tato campaign if we expect to take care 
of the potatoes. 
Backed Apples. —They have come 
around once more in season, and it will 
require a large crop to satisfy our fam¬ 
ily. The little boys and I are great ap¬ 
ple consumers. When we started in to 
settle our strawberry plant trade on Sat¬ 
urday night we had to begin by eating 
a good-sized dish of baked apple and 
milk. That’s a good way to avoid trou¬ 
ble over figures. Our plant trade this 
year is good thus far, as the damp sea¬ 
son makes it a good time to transplant, 
On Saturday afternoon after the boys 
had quit work a customer drove in for 
225 potted plants. One boy was down 
by the brook fishing, while the other was 
getting ready to go in swimming. Bus¬ 
iness is busness however, and they came 
at good speed to help me dig the pots. 
Our customer finally drove off with 
plants spread all over his ear. After 
some figuring we found that the week’s 
commission for the boys amounted to $9 
and they went joyfully to bed that much 
nearer their two wheels. Next week 
promises to be another good one. and in 
addition to the plant business these boys 
expect to harvest the seed from the Cos¬ 
sack Alfalfa and get it into the ground 
for a crop of seedlings. We have already 
some 50,000 seedlings of Grimm, over 
eight inches high. Then we are beginning 
to sort out our Red pullets to try to 
get 10 good ones for the next egg-lay¬ 
ing contest. There is surely plenty of 
business on the farm this Summer. 
Drinking Water. —I have always felt 
that the average man and woman fail to 
drink enough water. A farmer out iu the 
field and sweating freely must drink or 
he will burn up, but there seem to be 
thousands of people in the world who 
never sweat and who think it vulgar to 
drink water. They will sip a little moist¬ 
ure now and then when they ought to 
drink a gallon or more of pure water 
every day. Dr. S. A. Knopf writes the 
Medical Record about the use of water 
in cases of tuberculosis: 
I invariably ask the new patient how 
much water he drinks daily; most fre¬ 
quently the answer is, “I drink very lit¬ 
tle.” When the patient is taken under 
treatment and urged to drink from six 
to eight glasses of water between meal 
times and even small quantities with his 
meals, it is surprising to notice how 
quickly nearly all the symptoms, such as 
high temperature, headaches, malaise and 
anorexia disappear, and even the cough 
becomes better. 
Of course the explanation for this im¬ 
provement lies in the fact that with in¬ 
creased ingestion of water the toxins se¬ 
creted by the tubercle bacilli as well as 
the toxins from an overloaded intestinal 
tract become largely diluted. The in¬ 
creased amount of water ingested also 
helps to make the sputum less tenacious. 
This bencficicnt action of water on cough 
and expectoration can be materially in¬ 
creased by urging the patient to take an 
abundance of salt with his meals. 
I am not a scientist and cannot argue 
about this, but I am sure that every adult 
would 1 m* better off for drinking at least a 
gallon of pure water every day, and de¬ 
veloping a strong sweat out in the air. 
My remedy for most of the physical ills 
of life is to drink all the water you can, 
then proceed ' to sweat it out, with a 
good bath each day. 
Soluble Nitrogen. —We have been 
making some experiments with nitrate of 
soda this season that are very striking. 
One block of peach trees did not look 
well. The foliage was light colored and 
the leaves small in spite of plowing and 
cultivating. Evidently nitrogen was 
needed—there could he no doubt that this 
was the language of tree life yelling “Ni¬ 
trogen” with a capital N. So we gave 
each tree a double handful of nitrate of 
soda. An Italian put part of it on and 
he thought it ought to go close tip to the 
trunk—so he put it in a little pile at the 
base of the tree. Even with this foolish 
manner of fertilizing the nitrate “got 
there.” These trees pulled down the 
yellow flag and slowly took on a deep 
green color. They are now green enough 
to suit anyone and the fruit is growing 
in size. After baying we used about 125 
pounds of nitrate per acre on the best of 
the meadows. The effect in this damp 
season is remarkable, for the grass takes 
oji a dark green color and has started to 
grow. As a rule I would not advise the 
use of nitrate alone on grass but this 
year we needed the hay and I thought it 
was the one season in half a dozen to 
push the meadows. We have also used 
nitrate on carrots where the growth was 
slack and the color a little light. You 
must use judgment, however, in handling 
this powerful stuff. The last of July is 
our time for cleaning out the manure and 
the cuttings from the fence rows. We 
put this stuff around the bearing trees of 
our sod orchards. One block in particular 
makes a good growth of grass. We take 
this out of the orchard as hay and haul 
back the manure and trash to pile around 
the trees. n. w. c. 
Notes from a Maryland Garden. 
Progressive Strawberry. —I planted 
200 of the Progressive strawberry plants 
the past Spring, and have been getting 
fruit from them right along, and am still 
now, the last of July, getting a supply for 
the table. The plants are full of green 
fruit and bloom, are growing well and 
making runners, and some of the runners 
are blooming. Hence I cannot see the 
wisdom of keeping off the bloom as ad¬ 
vised by “Trucker, Jr.,” page 936. Even 
if the plants were injured by fruiting 
the fruit will pay well to plant more an¬ 
other season, for this 200 plants have 
already given us a dozen or more quarts, 
and promise to keep it up all Summer. 
They are growing in heavily manured 
soil of a medium sandy loam, with a 
strong clay right under the top soil. For 
a Spring crop I have found no superior 
to the Chesapeake. Its only fault is that 
it makes so few runners that it is hard 
to increase rapidly. It would make an 
excellent variety for the hill method, 
since it naturally is inclined to stick to 
the bill. 
A New Cucumber.—I have tried 
among new things this season some of 
the Mammoth White cucumbers. They 
are very good when half grown, but they 
grow fully 20 inches or more long be¬ 
fore ripening. They seem to be very pro¬ 
lific. 
Onion Sets. —My onion-set crop has 
been harvested, and the exceedingly fav¬ 
orable weather has made many of them 
too large. I have turned these over to 
my better half for pickling, since these 
•extra large sets will always run to seed 
when planted. Of course we can save 
August 14, 1915. 
the onion by nipping out the seed stalk 
as soon as it starts, but that is a good 
deal of bother, and many will get ahead 
of one. These sets are mainly the Nor¬ 
folk Queen, which I shall plant in Sep¬ 
tember for early green onions. At same 
time I shall plant the sets of the Yellow 
Potato onion, which have been harvested 
a month. These will be for ripe onions. 
Then I have tried growing some sets of 
the Giant Rocca and Commercial, Sil¬ 
ver King and Prizetaker; have never 
tried these from ripe sets, and will be 
somewhat curious to note the result. I 
propose to keep these for Spring planting 
for making ripe onions, and will compare 
the results with the sowing of seed under 
glass in Winter for transplanting as I 
have been in the habit of doing. If the 
ripe sets will do as well it will save some 
Winter work in the frames and leave 
more room there for the lettuce and beets, 
etc. 
August Lettuce. —Now, with the 
coming of August. I begin on lettuce 
again by sowing seed of the May King 
for a Fall crop in the open ground. I 
use this variety for this crop, and later 
sow seed of the Big Boston to set in the 
frames for the Christmas and New Years 
crop. 
Sweet Clover. —In riding through 
Talbot County, Maryland, I noted that 
the Sweet clover, so called, was growing 
rankly in every vacant place in fields and 
roadsides. None lias ever been sown 
there so far as I could ascertain, and no 
one is sowing it, but it is simply regarded 
as a weed, and certainly no lime nor in¬ 
oculation has ever been nsed, and yet I 
saw masses of it five feet tall. Its 
abundance may explain to some extent 
the ease with which Alfalfa grows in 
that county. One of the most success¬ 
ful Alfalfa growers simply sows the seed 
on his wheat in Spring just as we have 
been sowing clover seed, and he gets a 
fine stand. The Sweet clover is not 
sown, simply because down here where 
we can grow peas and Crimson clover 
and Alfalfa so well we do not need the 
Melilotus. In a short motor ride today 
I saw a large plot of Alfalfa which has 
been cut three times already, and is rush¬ 
ing up for a fourth cutting. What do 
we want with Sweet clover? This Alfal¬ 
fa is growing on a piece of newly cleared 
pine land, and if it had any lime I could 
not ascertain, but believe that it bad. 
Midsummer Sowings. —But to get 
back to the garden. Now is the best 
time to sow pansy seed, and if in the 
vegetable garden some early Fall greens 
are wanted, some spinach and Norfolk 
curled kale may be sown early in August. 
I make two sowings of spinach, one in 
early August for Fall use and another in 
mid-September to winter over for Spring 
cutting. The first sowing is made in 
rows and cultivated. The last sowing is 
made broadcast, for I find that the plants 
winter better in this way. On a plot 
that was very heavily manured for a 
Spring crop of lettuce I sot some late 
tomato plants. Where those tomato vines 
intend to stop I would like to discover, 
for I never saw such a growth with as 
little indications of fruiting. Evidently 
we can get soil too rich for tomatoes. 
W. F. MASSEY. 
Alfalfa as an Orchard Crop. 
I have seen an article on page 917, on 
Alfalfa as an orchard crop. I should like 
to know why you consider it unfavorable 
to grow Alfalfa in an orchard till the 
trees are at least seven years old. Bulle¬ 
tin No. 100 of the State College, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, recommends Alfalfa as an orchard 
crop with mulching the young trees. 
Syracuse, N. Y. g. b. 
On most soils Alfalfa would take too 
much moisture from the young trees. Our 
experience is that young trees do much 
better with thorough culture. After they 
are well grown or come into bearing a 
system of mulching, or cutting the grass 
and piling it around the trees, will an¬ 
swer, but unless there are special reasons 
for doing otherwise we would advise good 
culture for the younger trees. There are 
several orchards around Syracuse where 
Alfalfa grows well. One or sometimes 
two cuttings of the Alfalfa will be used 
for hay—the rest cut and left on the 
ground as a mulch. On strong, natural 
grass land this works well, but the 
trouble is that most men. when they once 
get a good crop of Alfalfa, want to take 
it all, and will leave nothing for the trees. 
