696 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 21, 1917. 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
End Of Day. —T confos.s that this 
oomps to me lying in a comfortable ham¬ 
mock on the front porch. Now you will 
say—“That is a nice thing for a young 
and energetic farmer to admit. He 
should he out at work.” I do not feel 
like claiming the right to either adjec¬ 
tive tonight. I am tired, and it seems 
good to get inside the screened room and 
stretch out like a lazy man. It is Sat¬ 
urday night, and we have put in a stren¬ 
uous day. ('ertain good specimens of the 
•Tersey mo.squito are at work outside the 
.screen, but as for me—my day's work 
is over. The children challenged me to 
play tennis, and they are now knocking 
the balls about, but they may have a 
monopoly of such violent exercise. It 
is just such a situation as this which 
I)resents a full argument for a screened 
porch. Every country family should have 
one—a part of the outdoors wilh a roof 
overhead and wire screens around it. 
You may claim, as a boardinghouse keep¬ 
er, that tlrere are no flies or mosquitoes 
in 3 'our section, hut it is 20 to 1 that 
the screens would prove a great blessing. 
PLP:NTy Of AVouk. —There was a full 
supply of it as we turned out after hi’eak- 
fast. There was a big hunch of hay 
lying in the windrow, that strawberry 
patch Y’as weedy (of course), the corn 
needed cultivating and hoeing, there were 
more of those Alfalfa plants to he trans- 
planted, the cabbage ground needed plow¬ 
ing, the grass on the side hill should be 
cut. I could have found 15 pressing jobs 
without half trying. The weather report 
indicated showers. Of coui*.se I know 
that is reasonable evidence of fair weath¬ 
er, hut that hay should not be out over 
Sunday. So the two Italian day hands 
went at it with forks—shaking it up to 
the breeze over and over. It was not 
quite ready to come in without this hand 
work. Merrill got the hay-fork and car¬ 
rier ready, and then began plowing under 
the old strawberry field for cabbage. 
Part of that field has already been fitted 
iind seeded to carrots. The women folks 
were all busy indoors. .Tust outside the 
back porch was a table covered wilh 
l)latters on which strawberries Avere dry¬ 
ing in the sun. It is of course an old 
story how they partly cook these berries 
and then spread them out to dry. It 
makes a good paste or “leather.” 
lloETXo.—It was the strawberry patch 
for mine. One of the boys started trans- 
lilanting Alfalfa among the potatoes, and 
another worked on the lawn. The vest 
of the children came with me. I have 
invented a new scheme for cleaning such 
crops as this berry patch. This is an age 
for “utility”—a lime for specialists. You 
Avould not put the mechanic who works 
one of tho.se big 20-inch guns on a horse 
and tell him to charge with the cavalry. 
A'ou would let him drop a few big shells 
into the enemy’s camp and then say, 
“Forward, the Eight Brigade!” It is 
much the same with “intensive hoeing.” 
\ man of my age .should have good aians 
and shoulders for hoeing, but when he 
gets down to pull weeds the enemy will 
get him at a vulnerable point. No one 
likes to be hit in the back. So my 
scheme is to stand up and work the hoe 
and let one of the little Cherry-tops crawl 
along ^ and finger the weeds out from 
around the plants! This makes use of 
all arms of the .service, and lets me serve 
in the artillery—where I belong! Our 
Naval Be.serve volunteer came out with 
his hoe to submarine a few roots of 
quack grass, and the enemy began to fall 
back, in spite of the back-handed help 
which the neutrals brought in ! 
Onion Transplants. —You will re¬ 
member that these berry plants are put 
r)ut ].S inches each way—or about 20,000 
to the acre. While we were celebrating 
part of .Tuly Fourth in killing a few 
thousand quack gra.ss roots Philip ap- 
l)eared with a bunch of Prize-taker onion 
jdants and proposed that we put them in 
between the berry plants! The onion 
seed was .started in late April. The 
bulbs are now about the size of a pen¬ 
cil. Philip just pulled them out of the 
thick rows as he thinned out the crop, cut 
off the tops, and now they are ready to 
transplant. So the children got down 
and set scweral thousand of these onions 
—putting two i)lants in the row between 
each two .strawberry plants. Along other 
rows we shall transplant carrots or man¬ 
gels. When j’ou consider that in addi¬ 
tion to this we shall layer or pot nearly 
lO.tXK) new berry plants also you 
can realize that this will be a bu.sy spot. 
AVe have it clean now and .some of the 
strawberry plants ate nearly 15 inches 
high already and have sent out four to 
five good runners. Does all this hand 
work pay? AVe are going to find out. 
Personally I think that in this country 
most of us will have to come to very in¬ 
tensive culture on a few acres, with 
grass or grain on the rest of the farm. 
AVith us close culture on the lower farm, 
with .sod orchards in the back fields 
seems our best outlook. 
Chance Df AA'ork.— In spite of my 
light horse scouts I had to get down 
now and then to pull a few weeds. The 
children can realize the importance of a 
big ragweed or redroot, but they cannot 
quite estimate what the baby weeds will 
come to. After a couple of hours I 
thought it a good plan to look over the 
farm work and incidentally straighten 
out my back. So I went up the lane and 
the children tagged after me. We picked 
up Mother on the way, and she went up 
to see how that Bible teacber’s patch is 
coming on. It seems to be well .sown to 
the landscape. The potatoes thus far are 
this earth requires faith and patience it 
is the slow, monotonous grind of clean¬ 
ing out quack grass and weeds in a berry 
field. A*ou can hardly hope to obtain re¬ 
sults for your labor before, next year, 
and unle.ss a man has some vision or 
spirit of prophecy, he will surely quit 
and go to raising potatoes or corn. As 
for children, I think forcing them to do 
such work without relief or change would 
be about the surest way to drive them 
from the farm. 
Dinner And DPty. —AA'e had a stew 
(mostly vegetables and gravy) with 
beets, turnips, rice and lettuce with 
st7’j»wberries, which the daughter had 
made into a shortcake. A cai'ping critic 
<ir uni)rejudiced hi.storian might have 
said it was long on cake and short on 
berries, but the only true criticism of 
such a dish is what is left over, and 
there was only a stain on the plate left 
behind this. After cleaning this up the 
j'oung folks had a few games of tennis. 
I was at my old job with the hoe until 
I .saw we could easily finish in an hour 
or so. Then I remembered the corn on 
the east side of the road. It is weedy, 
and right over the fence my neighbor has 
a good cornfield. lie has a variety of 
corn which naturally grows larger than 
ours, and the field has had good care. 
. ; “ - ■ •>-. . 
♦rriK-' 
A Signboard for the Strawberry Business. Fig. 378 Reproduced from Country Life in America 
fiiK'. They have been sprayed and hilled 
11 ]) with the shovel plow, and we could 
not ask for finer color. The beans look 
well, but the wet Aveather has brought in 
Ihe grass and weeds. This must be fixed 
at once, so Cherry-top harnessed old Bob 
to the cultivator and began Avorking those 
beans. Two children kept on planting 
Alfalfa roots. They have a potato patch 
in which the hills are three feet each 
Avay, Now they are putting an Alfalfa 
plant midway betAveen hills one way of 
the field. Thus Avhen the potatoes are 
dug Ave shall ha\’e the Alfalfa plants 
three feet each Avay. This scheme may or 
may not Avork. It does not cost much to 
try it, and aa’O shall find out. 
Still At It.—T he Italians had that 
hay tossed up to the air and came hack 
to hoe corn. Merrill Avas ploAving under 
the old straAvberry field. Thi.s field got 
aAvay from us this year and I found it 
Avould not pay to clean it. So it has 
groAvn into a great tangle of grass and 
Aveeds. AA’ith the manure ))ut on for 
mulching it is as rich as gold, and Ave 
expect great cabbage here. Alerrill had a 
chain on the ploAV and Avas turning over 
a deep fun-oAv Avith Tom and Broker, 
smashing things through. There were a 
feAV berries left in the grass, so the 
smallest girl and I got a pan .and picked 
berries enough for dinner. Then Ave Avent 
doAvn and bi'gan our sIoav trench Avork 
among the straAvberries. If anything on 
We must not let our corn get too far 
behind by contrast! So the Naval Be¬ 
got 
serve man 
and started for 
children and I 
We found the 
old Bob out once more 
that cornfield, Avhile the 
folloAved Avith our hoes. 
ragAvecds starting thick 
around the corn hills. The projAosition 
Avas to run the cultivator tAvice in a roAv 
—back and forth—AA’orking close up on 
each side of the corn. Then we folloAved 
Avith our hoes and cut out the Aveeds 
Avhich .shoAved .above ground. In the 
meantime Merrill and the Italians ap- 
pi'ared Avith the Avagon to haul in the 
ha.v. It Avas in good condition and a 
sight worth looking at to see Tom and 
Broker pull the great, heaping loads out 
of the field and toss it into the moAV Avith 
the hay fork. Bob finished cultivating 
in time to step into the hay-rake and 
bunch up the scatterings, so that the 
field Avas left clean. The children had 
done about Avork enough, and so Avhen 
they came to the end of the roAV their 
AYork day Avas ended and off they Avent 
to go in SAvimming in the old mill pond. 
I Avent back to the straAvberry patch— 
Avhich seems likely to be my farm homo 
for the balance of the Summer. We 
cleaned it up in due time, and it did 
look pretty as Ave stopped to glance over 
it at the end of the day. We haA'o in¬ 
vested several hundred thousand bloAA’s 
Avith the hoe in it and Avill make it many 
millions before frost comes to end the 
SMUTTED 
WHEAT 
Grain Smuts 
The U. S. Dept, ol Agnculture re¬ 
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for cleansing seed grain before planting. 
It guards against the development of 
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fORMffLDEHyne 
^ Farmer's Friend 
The loss through smut in this country 
amounts to millions annually. This 
can be prevented by treating all seeds 
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solution. Pint bottles at your dealers, 
35 cents, treats 40 bushels. Complete 
directions for using Formaldehyde, , 
U. S. Dept, of Agriculture reports and 
hundreds of valuable suggestions in our 
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