Ilto 
^he RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 13, 1017 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Strawherkies. —If, 25 years ago, I 
had said that our family may have ripe 
strawberries at any time through Septem¬ 
ber and October I should have had trouble 
at once. Yet it is true that we can go 
to our patch of Superb and Progressive 
and pick a mess at any time. We have 
them when we want them—which is 
not frequently, as our folks prefer peaches, 
grapes and baked apples at this season. 
There is no question about the possibility 
of fruiting these Fall-bearing varieties. 
We have them ready at any time—yet I 
question their value for commercial pur- 
IHjses. I think every family with a gai’- 
den should have some of these plants, but 
for us tlie standard sorts, fruiting in 
.June, are more profitable. True, the i)rice 
of the Fall berries is often high, but at 
best they represent a novelty out of its 
regular season. I should call it a fancy 
crop, ranking with mushrooms or similar 
l)roducts in practical importan«R. 
tlOR.v. —Our corn was all cut and 
shocked by Sept. 29, with practically no 
damage from frost. The fodder of the 
flint corn Avill feed out almost like hay. 
The Webber’s lOarly has a coarser stalk, 
but most of it will be eaten without cut¬ 
ting. I should think this Webber’s corn 
would be great for silage in the country 
north of New York. Our own crop is the 
largest rve have ever grown, and we shall 
begin at once to feed out the Webber’s. 
This is a dent which ripens early, and 
promptly gives dry grain. At present 
the price of feed is awful. If half the 
e.xperts say about the nation’s crop is 
true, corn ought to come down in price 
and bring feed along with it before Christ¬ 
mas. So we w’ill feed out our dry corn 
early and take a chance on cheaper grain 
later. The same with hay. We begin 
feeding the corn fodder in November, and 
thus save the hay. Many farmers make 
the mistake of holding the fodder until 
Februai’y or March. We use it during 
the idle season and make it at least three- 
quarters of the roughage for the horses. 
This year we tried an experiment at sow¬ 
ing corn after late peas. These were 
picked in late July, the ground plowed 
and flint corn broadcast like wheat or rye 
and harrowed in. Then a little later, 
after a rain. Alsike and Sweet clover seed 
was thrown in. At the end of September 
the corn stood over three feet high in a 
thick mat, and thei'e is a fair stand of 
clover. I should say that this corn will 
give us as much late fodder as millet. 
What Vaiuety? —I consider Webber’s 
the best dent corn we have yet grown. 
Formerly w'e planted Learning, but the 
Webber’s is evidently superior for our 
locality. As between a dent and a flint 
the situation will have to settle that. I 
think the dents as a class give more grain 
and a larger stalk, and as a rule they re¬ 
quire a, longer growing season. The 
stalks are larger and with less leaf sur¬ 
face than the flint, and therefore the flint 
fodder is better. I think the flints will 
make a fair crop on poorer soils with 
less fertilizer, and that they are hardier 
than the dents. On the stronger, level 
land I should plant a good dent after 
making sure that the variety had been 
well tested in the locality. On the hills 
and among the orchard trees I prefer a 
flint. We have one which makes a low, 
branching growth with slender stalks and 
usually two fair-sized ears to the stalk. 
This interferes less with the young trees 
than the larger varieties, gives a fodder 
which is eaten clean without chopping 
and also a good yield of grain. We have 
been selecting this flint variety for some 
years aiming at a true 90-day corn, low 
down, very leafy and double-eared. It 
may not look very ijromising to the man 
who wants eight-foot corn with a stalk 
like a young tree, but I have never found 
anything equal to it for growing in an 
oithard. We think we have in this flint 
variety a corn as well selected and trained 
for orchard work as a man who has 
grown up from childhood among trees. 
Selecting Seed. —Before the corn was 
cut we went through and picked off the 
ears which came up to our A standard. 
This selection included the ear, the stalk 
and the general appearance of the grow¬ 
ing hill. It would hardly be possible to 
put in words just what wje look for in the 
living plant. We know what we call a 
good hill of corn w’hen we see it and 
we know why one hill is better than an¬ 
other when we find them in the field. 
Yet it would be hard to put the exact 
difference on paper. It is much like a 
dairyman selecting a good cow or a sharp 
business man picking the helper he wants 
from a crowd of applicants. Such men 
have what is called “a good eye,” which 
means that they have printed upon the 
brain an ideal or image of what they 
want. That image has been created by long 
experience. We think we know what we 
want in this flint corn, and the A grade 
is picked in the field before cutting. We 
pick into bags and these are carried to 
the granary, where the husks are pulled 
back and the ears strung on wires in a 
cool dry place. At husking time we make 
another selection of good ears found on 
sizable stalks. In the standing corn 
some good ears are overlooked. Others 
which seemed too green at that time, will 
have developed fully by husking time. So 
we husk out what we call a “B” grade 
—probably as good as the other, only 
the selection was not made from the liv¬ 
ing plant. It is good to see how year by 
year as this selecting goes on the pro¬ 
portion of A and B grade ears grow 
larger. I consider this selected flint the 
best com for orchard growing, though it 
is not recommended for rich, level land 
where heavy stalks and big ears are 
wanted. 
Pumpkins. —We have a big crop this 
year of fine yellow fellows. They were 
grown among orchard trees without much 
cost of money or labor. The old timers 
in this region used pumpkins freely as 
food, and I thought their descendants 
would come back for pumpkin and milk. 
So we printed this in the local papers: 
“BIG PUMPKINS.—The big yellow 
fellows like Uncle Silas used to raise. 
Good for pies and puddings, for canning 
or drying, or for making Jack O’Lanterns. 
Give the boy a chance to carve a pumpkin 
face.” 
There was slow response to this, but 
the customers are finally coming. They 
will come faster after frost. The old- 
fashioned pumpkin and milk supper has 
passed out of fashion, but there are still 
many middle-aged people who will try it 
once more. If pumpkin pie is something 
of a back number with humans, it is right 
•up on a front .seat with Jeremiah .Jersey 
and his associates. All you have to do 
is to cut a pumpkin in two, scoop out the 
seeds and let .Terry at it. He will quickly 
provide the milk of hog kindne.ss and the 
sugar of hunger and make a pie which 
needs no baking. How those hogs do 
thrive on pumpkin, w'orniy cabbage, ear 
corn and bran or tankage. AVe are 
putting the frame on them now. Later 
mo're corn will ptoperly fill out the 
picture. AVe can see now how much will 
go to waste on a farm where there are 
no hogs or no humans to pi'k the waste 
up. AA^ith what we sell and what we feed, 
counting .the small cost, these pumpkins 
will pi'ove one of the most economical 
crops we have this year. Early in Oc¬ 
tober the land where they were grown 
will be seeded to rye. h. w. c. 
Plowing Old Pasture Land.s 
AVe find the following advice wander¬ 
ing through the papers: 
“There ai’e million of acres of old pas¬ 
tures that for years farmers have real¬ 
ized should be broken up, farmed a year 
or two and reseeded to good pasture 
grasses. These pastures are poor because 
they were never sown to pasture grasses. 
Now is the time to break them up and 
reseed to a good pasture. Old meadows 
need the same treatment. Never a bet¬ 
ter opbortunity for this than for the next 
year or two, while the price of grain is 
high.” 
Most of this is entirely true, but one 
important detail is omitted. How is the 
average farmer to do this work with his 
present horse-power and the price of 
labor? Our experience is that these old 
pasture do not plow themselves. They 
make a tough proposition for the best 
farm team, or even for a tractor, and in 
these times how is a farmer to turn this 
old sod over and fit it? On our own 
farm we have found it impossible, this 
year, to get even regular work well done, 
and breaking up new land is out of the 
question. If we had time and help it 
would pay far better to drain a couple 
of wet fields near the farm buildings, 
rather than rip up old pasture land. 
This is the sort of advice and suggestion 
which farmers resent, because they know 
that while it seems sensible to a town 
man, it is impossible with ordinary labor 
and conditions. There is no doubt about 
the latent wealth in some of these old 
fields, but miners do not get out ore with 
jack-knives and toothpicks. 
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