816 
Oic RURAL N-EW-YORKER 
June 23, 1017. 
8 HOPE FARM NOTES 
Growing Weather.— We have had a 
change in our weather programme. Of 
late the days have been bright and windy, 
while every night brings a shower. I 
worked for a farmer once Avho called such 
weather conditions ideal. He said that 
when it rained nights and Sundays the 
hired man could rest! He surely kept 
the hired man busy—for, as he said, that 
is what a hired man is for. At any rate 
this sort of weather does make things 
jump. Our potatoes are mounting up 
into the air, and the corn is coming. On 
the whole we are further along Avith our 
work than ever before at this season. I 
think all have worked wdth more spirit 
as a result of the war needs, and as 
things look now Hope Farm is in for a 
bumper crop. It may turn out so as to 
bump our pride and pocket book, yet, so 
we w’ill make no brags about it. 
Strawberries.—W e shall have a 
smaller crop than for several years past. 
This is really from choice. Grass and 
weeds woi-ked into our largest fiekl, and 
in the Spring I figured carefully the cost 
of cleaning it up. A few years ago Avith 
labor at ,$1.25 per day of 10 hours such 
cleaning by hand labor Avould have paid. 
Noav, Avith .^2 for less than a nine-hour 
day that field Avas so bad that I could not 
see Avhere the labor cost Avould come in. 
So I decided to let that field go, get Avhat 
berries AV'e can out of the tangle, and ploAV 
everything under as soon as picking is 
done. What then? We plan to put on 
lime and then set out late cabbage. This 
is good land, full of humus, and Avith 
a heavy coat of manure used last Win- 
ten- as a mulch. Cabbage Avill do Avell on 
such soil. If AA^e like Ave can set potted 
or layer straAA^berry plants betAveen the 
cabbage and thus get another straAvberry 
plantation, but the soil is too foul for 
that. We shall probably seed rye in the 
cabbage during early October, ))1oav this 
under next Spring and plant corn. 
Closer Citeture.—H ut Avhat about 
straAA’berries? In our country I think 
we must noAV begin to put our crops into 
groups according to their needs of hand 
labor, for that has come to be so high 
that it must be considered as never be¬ 
fore. When Ave plant straAvberries three 
feet apart each Avay Ave have less than 
5.000 to the acre. At 8'^ feet there 
would be about 3,700 plants. Ibith 
Avould require a great amount of horse 
and hand labor to keep them clean. Noav 
, ar asparagus roots grcAV on about one- 
sixth of an acre of good though Aveedy 
soil. Hy putting the plants IS inches 
apart Ave croAvd 8,500 or more on this 
patch. It is my .job to keep them clean 
and keep the runners off. Noav Avill hand 
woi’k pay better on this small patch than 
on an acre set 8i/4 feet each Avay? T 
think so—at least I am Avilling to try it. 
and I think most of us, in our country, 
must concentrate our Avork upon some 
crops and handle the others so they Avill 
pretty much take care of themselves. 
But Avhat can you get out of 4,000 straAV- 
berry plants? When kept clean and 
handled right Ave ought to get 10.000 
potted or large layer plants this Fall, 
and nearly 75 crates of fruit next year! 
Don’t believe it? Well. I can’t prove it 
until AA-e do it, surely, and I know be¬ 
fore Ave start that there Avill be many 
million blows Avith the hoe before it is 
done. 
Transpi.antei) Ai.falfa.—M y tAvo- 
year-old plants are surely great. I shall 
print a pictui-e of some of them a little 
later, but no picture can really shoAV 
them as they are. In some cases the 
crown of a single plant Avill measure a 
foot or more across, and I find ca.ses 
where new- groAvth is starting up from 
the roots someAvhat after the manner of 
quack grass. I am not advocating large 
field transplanting of these roots yet; 
that may come latex-. In many Alfalfa 
fields I find bai-e spots all the Avay from 
the size of a barrel head to that of a 
i-oom. It is next to impossible to reseed 
these sjxots until the entire field is ploAved, 
yet they cause considerable loss as a 
whole. I think it Avould pay a fai-mer to 
take half a day and go over the field with 
a basket of Alfalfa x-oots and a spade 
and fill these bare spots. It is easy to do 
it. I just dx-ive a spade into the ground. 
put the root doAvn behind the spade, let 
the soil fall back upon the root and step 
hard on it. The plants will .start grow¬ 
ing at once, and cover the bare .spots. 
To one who has never seen these trans¬ 
planted roots gx-OAv this .nay seem child’s 
play, yet I believe it will come to be reg¬ 
ular practice in the future. 
Small Operations.— Fox- the present 
I think this transplanting Avill be con¬ 
fined to small places where hand AVork is 
a necessity. It ought to becoxne valuable 
for poultx-ymen in the hunt they must 
noAA' make for a cheaper hen x-ation. We 
are now stax-ting an experiment Avhich aa-c 
haA'C long Avanted to Avork out. Near one 
of the chicken houses the boys have 
planted a patch of potatoes in hills— 
thx-ee feet apart each Avay. My ixlaxi is to 
haA-e them cultivated tAvice each Avay, 
and then to plant a root of Cossack Al¬ 
falfa one way betAveen the hills. That 
Avill leave us free to cultivate one way 
with the horse Avhile the other Avay will 
requix-e hoeing. After the potatoes are 
dug, AA-e shall have, if my theory is sound, 
the field AA-ell set In Alfalfa near the 
buildings for green feed ox- for c'I’y fod¬ 
der. I do not knoAV Avhethex- such a scheme 
is pi'actical or not—and so I am going to 
find out. 
Cheaper Hen Food.— One thing I 
knoAv—unless Ave can economize in some 
Avay on poultry food the hens Avill eat us 
off the farm. I do not see hoAV the price 
of grain can come back to xiormal pi-ices 
for sevex-al years at least. We have 
either to groAV more of it on the farnx or 
else feed our birds on some substitute. 
Soxne mexx say this cannot be done, but 
do they knoAv? I have heard men argixe 
that COAVS cannot pay unless they are 
stuffed with grain feed ! I am sure we 
should find upoxx investigation that the 
most px-ofitable herds xioav ax-e oxx the 
farms Avhere only modei-ate grain rations 
are fed and Avhere the most Alfalfa, 
clover or Soy beans are gi-oAvn. Soxne 
people get the idea that all animals, in¬ 
cluding themselves, must be fed ixi Ji cer- 
taiix Avay or they Avill fail. Many a Noav 
England Yankee believed that the only 
Avay to keep a pig Avas to shut him into a 
small, filthy pen and feed him on SAvill 
and cox-n. As soon as the pig got a 
chance he proA’cd his ability to g’-aze like 
a coAV and live on grass. The same Avith 
human beings. There Avas old Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar ! He surely Avas a high liver, 
Avith desires for a balanced ration Avhich 
Avere about the limit. Yet for some years 
he “ate grass like the ox,” and if we judge 
from x-epox-ts of his conduct before and 
after these were the most useful years of 
his life. Many a man never kneAv Avhat 
efficient sex-vice was until he was driven 
from roast beef and “all the fixing.s” to 
plain vegetables and grain. Some of the 
first comex-s to this country lived on the 
fat of the land at home. They struck 
the wilderness and had to live on boiled 
corn and clams—but they made a good 
job of nation-building on that diet. So I 
think Ave are in fox- shoAving our hens a 
new diet or being eaten up by the hens. 
In this neAv diet Alfalfa, green and dx-ied. 
Soy beans and coav peas and native cox-n 
must play a large part. I think 500 
plants of Cossack Alfalfa well planted 
and kejxt up Avill provide a good share of 
the px-otein for 200 hen.s. That is Avhy I 
think Ave may Aveil try these roots—as I 
find many avIxo say they cannot make Al¬ 
falfa gx'OAv in the oi-dinary Avay. So. in 
order to put this thing Avhere aa’C can all 
understand it I Avill confine my advice 
about tx-ansplanting Alfalfa to the hen 
men. If they make it go the others Avill 
come to it latex-. ii. av. c. 
Dog Kills Hen 
Yesterday morning while we were at 
bx-cakfast an untagged dog came into our 
yard and killed one of our best laying 
pullets. My husband shut the dog up, 
got his gun and Avas going to shoot the 
dog. We did not-just know our legal 
x-ights, so let the dog go. mks. f. m. f. 
NeAv York. 
In a case of this sort where the dog 
Avas caught in the act your husband would 
have been justified in shooting him 
j)romptly. A dog has no legal rights off 
his master’s pi-operty, especially Avhen he 
Aveax-s no collar or tag. Under the new 
dog law in Noav York this point Avill be 
made clear. 
Potatoes Soaked in Formalin as Food 
I noti<-e in The B. N.-Y. a statement 
(hat potatoes that have beeix soaked in 
formaliix are xiot i)oisoxious to haxidle. 
IIoAv is it about eating them, Avhere a 
few ai-e left, more than Avanted for plant¬ 
ing? Would it be injxxx-ious to eat them 
after peeling them and washing them 
thox-oughly? G. B. T. 
OAvego, N. Y. 
There Avould be no danger from eating 
potatoes AA-.hich had been soaked in foi'- 
malin after they had been propex-ly peeled. 
The solution is not strong enough to 
leaA^e any perceptible axnount of the 
poison on the tu'ber.s. The same is true 
of oats Avhich have been tx-eated Avith 
formalin. A number of people have Avrit- 
ten asking if such oats may safely be 
fed to horses after they have been treat¬ 
ed. Surely, there would be no danger 
Avhatever, 
Home-grown Spinach S^ed 
Would it be practical fox- me to use 
spinaclx seed grown in my own field, ox- is 
it necessary to have foreign seed? T. A. 
Long Island. 
If T. A. allows his spinach seed to 
groAV he should have practically all of it 
ready to plant by the last part of July. 
Sevex-al groAvers in New Jersey gx-ew con¬ 
siderable of it last year. They found 
it was a little more bulky for a given 
weight than the foreign-grown seed. 
rioAvever, it germinated very well. Sev¬ 
ex-al farmers in Southern Jersey are 
gx-oAving spinach seed under contract Avith 
one of our largest seed companies; there¬ 
fore, the inquirer on Long Island should 
find thi.s well worth while. R, w. D. 
Corrosive Sublimate for Rhizoctonia 
I noticed a recent ax-ticle in which it is 
stated that the reason for advocating the 
use of corrosive sublimate rather than 
fox-malixx in the treatment of seed pota¬ 
toes, is not clear. As you say the for¬ 
malin treatment is cheaper, safer and 
more easily carx-ied out. It has been 
found, hoAvever, that the formalin treat¬ 
ment does not control rhizoctonia, but 
that the corrosive sublimate treatment 
controls both x-hizoctonia and scab. I be¬ 
lieve this Avas first worked out by the 
NeAv Yox-k Experiment Station at Gene¬ 
va, Noav Yox-k. For this reason colleges 
and experiment stations are recommend¬ 
ing the cox-x-osive sublimate rather than 
the formalin treatmenfe for seed pota- 
toe.s. Some years rhizoctonia is a very 
serious potato disease, as it kills many 
young potato plants. Under some condi¬ 
tions the stand ixi the field is sex-iously 
reduced and considerable loss results. 
This Avas true in many fields ixx Westex-n 
Massachusetts last year. Some author¬ 
ities consider rhizoctonia our second most 
serious potato disease, as they consider 
that it causes mox-e financial loss than 
any di.sease except late blight and the 
rot following it. earl jones. 
Mass. Exp. Station. 
Wild Garlic 
As usual, at this season Ave have a good 
many questions about getting i-id of gax-- 
lic ox- Avild onion ixx cultivated fields and 
pastures. The Indiana Experiment Sta¬ 
tion at Lafayette thx-ee years ago i.ssued 
Bulletin 176, which fully discusses the 
fight against this pest. All Avho are mak¬ 
ing a battle against it should x-ead the 
stf)ry <xf these experiments. Of course 
hand digging or pulling is the surest Avay 
of getting rid of the garlic, but that is 
practically inxpossible oxx most farms. As 
for smothering it oxxt, or cultivating it 
out, that is almost as hard as hand pull¬ 
ing. although it is the method generally 
used. At the Indiana Station they had 
good results by spraying Avith a kind of 
oil generally ixsed for orchard heating. It 
x-equired about 75 gallons of oil to the 
acre, and Avhen px-operly applied it ap¬ 
peal’s to do a good job. Spraying this 
oil is also found useful ixx killing out 
soxne other Avoeds. While the oil seems 
to kill off the tops of Canada thistle or 
yelloAV dock, the roots were able to send 
up ncAV sprouts later on. The oil could 
probably be used to advantage fox- killing 
out Avee'ds along the roadsides or oxx Avalks 
and paths. 
Organizing Co-operative Associations 
As our readers know, the people of 
North Dakota have carxied the business 
of practical cooperation to a very ad¬ 
vanced point. They liaA-e done all sox-ts 
of things out ixx that agricultural State 
in the Avay of getting farmers to combine. 
This is very good wox-k, axxd while of 
course North Dakota’s problems ax-e in 
many Avays peculiax-, the principles upon 
AA'liich these fax'iners Avox-k are much the 
same as those Avhich must be employed 
elseAvhere. The North Dakota Experi¬ 
ment Station at Bi-ookings has noAv is¬ 
sued Cix-cixlar No. 10, which is entitled 
< Irganizing Codpex-ative Associations. 
This is Avx-itten by .Tames E. Boyle, and 
giAms an excellent statement as to what 
cooperation is for, and hoAv farmers may 
organize. It gives plans fox- ox-ganizing, 
constitution and by-laws, in fact just the 
information Avhich Avould be needed to get 
farmers together into such an organiza¬ 
tion. It is a good pamphlet, and fx-om 
it one may see Ixoav those Westex-n fax-- 
mers have been able to get together. 
Hay by Parcel Post 
The “Daily Ledger,” of Tacoma, Wash¬ 
ington, px-ints the picture of a load of 
hay which Avas .sent by parcel post. A 
man in Buhl, Idaho, had a call froxix his 
brother in Garland. Hay at that place 
was held at .$35 a ton and impossible to 
buy at that; so the Garland- man ordered 
a ton sent by mail. It Avas put up in 
100-pound lots, axxd the postage was .$1.08 
per 100 pounds, which made .$21.60 a ton. 
As the ox-igixxal cost- was .$25, this made 
the hay delivered ixx Garlaixd ^ by inaxl 
worth $46.60. That surely is high-px-iced 
hay, and a case where the parcel post 
fell doAvn on delivering the goods cheaply. 
It is doubtful, however-, if expressage on 
the hay would have beexx cheaper-, and 
the customer wanted the hay at once, as 
he could buy none in his home market. 
