286 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
H'ard Days. —This Winter has been 
bad enough for people who naturally pre- . 
pare for cold weather. In the North 
most people are well acquainted with 
.Tack Frost and know, his work. They 
prepare for him by building.warm houses, 
providing heating outfits and banking up 
the house and stopping cracks. Even 
with all this they got the worst of it this 
year. It was like the surprise party the 
military' engineers got at the be'ginning of 
this war. It v/as claimed that some of 
the forts on the frontier of Belgium were 
impregnable—could not be broken, down. 
Then came the Germans with great can¬ 
non that stood off out of range and blew 
those fine forts into a mass of concrete 
and eartii and steel. The engineers had 
not measured the awful offensive power of 
those great guns. Many of our farmers 
who thought they had a sure defense 
against the cold now find that Jack Frost 
seems to have learned from this European 
war how to build heavier guns. He has 
pushed into houses and barns which have 
always been comfortable, gone four feet 
into the ground to freeze water pipes, and 
played havoc generally with many a sure 
thing. This is one of the worst things 
about this Winter—it has broken down 
defeiices and shown us that the cold is 
our master. 
The Sovtu.—I t has been bad enough 
in the North, w’here we naturally prepare 
for such things, but the South has caught 
a heavier dose. In that country too many 
people build the house for Summer weath¬ 
er, and take very little thought for the 
cold. Many of them have no heating 
stoves at all—just an open fireplace at 
one end—the chimney built on the out¬ 
side ! M'hen the ordinary cold snap comes 
a big roaring fir<* will keep at h*ast one 
side of the body Avarm, and usually A\hen 
Jack Frost goes South he gets a little 
afraid of hard work. Now you may im¬ 
agine what it means in such Ji country 
when the ice falls upon the land as it 
has this year. Week after Aveek there 
have been snoAV and ice and blizzards 
where in former years the soil was open, 
Crimson clover groAviug, and ploAving go¬ 
ing on. We think our lot is hard enough, 
but what about the people in that unpre¬ 
pared country AA’hen Jack Frost hauls up 
a feAV of his big guns and lets them go? 
A Sad .ToruNEY.— I have just hoard oi 
a ca.se.Avhich Avill shoAV this up well. You 
remember hoAV A\^e told of the families 
who journeyed to Florida for the Winter? 
Mr. 01d.s and his wife drove dpAvu. They 
had a good horse and traveled leisurely, 
AAfith good and comfortable Aveather. Mr. 
Vaughn and his Avife Avent South in a 
car. They got there long before the cold 
Aveather, and uoav man, woman and car 
are busy. A farmer in Central New York 
decided to try Florida, in order to avoid 
the cold Winters! He started too late in 
the season, driving the farm team, with 
the Avife and half a dozen children—carry¬ 
ing a tent for shelter. In an ordinary 
season this wouTcl haA'e been a safe and 
Avise enterprise, but now I hear from him 
and the report spells disaster. He is only 
half -way doAvn through Virginia: 
“You will perhaps remember I wrote 
you I was going to start for Florida last 
kovember. Well, I started in the snoAV, 
and while it melted more came, and had 
tp wade hub_ deep ^through drifts in Penn¬ 
sylvania, and finally, during a blizzard 
near here, my team, through exposure in 
open buildings, got pneumonia and I lost 
two horses, so as capital was limited must 
needs stay here for the present. This Ls 
the hardest Winter ever known here. 
Snow has been on ground for weeks and 
mercury below zero many times. I think 
I am perfectly safe in saying that three- 
fourths of the potatoes in Virginia are 
frozen. So, you see, I have nothing but 
failure to report. We did, hoAvever, have 
a very pleasant trip in spite of hardships 
and cold weather, and were all well till 
we reached here. Hope to press forward 
for Florida. E.D.L.” 
Now many of us in our Northern homes 
think life has handed us the Avorst cards 
in the pack this Winter. What do you 
think of this man in that strange country 
under these conditions? He is Avorse off 
than most of us, yet he puts up a fine 
front against calamity. His thought is to 
*‘press fortoard to Florida!’* A good bat- 
RURAL N 
tie cry, that. Tvet us all “press forward.” 
We are not frozen up yet! 
Frozen Potatoes. —When Jack Frost 
reaches into the cellar and freezes the 
potatoes he deals a knock-out bloAV to 
the country family. It is like hitting a 
fat man a hard bloAV in the stomach. We 
do not realize hoAV necessary the potato 
is in making up a diet for the farm home 
until Ave’ are deprived of it. City people 
often give up eating potatoes. At one 
time there was a sort of club in New 
York organized for the purpose of getting 
people to stop eating potatoes. It fell 
through, but there are thousands in the 
city who cut out potatoes when the price 
goes over three cents a pound. The farm 
family cannot live in full health and com¬ 
fort without potatoes, and the loss of 
home supplies has been the hardest blow 
of the Winter. If those frozen potatoes 
once thaw out they are done for. If, 
while frozen stiff, they are piit at once 
into boiling Avater, they may be eaten. 
Some people boil the frozen potatoes be¬ 
fore they can thaw and pack them doAA-n 
like lard or meat in stone crocks or 
buckets. • The hot boiled potato may be 
stuffed or packed into jars and kept for 
.some time, to be served as fried or mashed 
or in bash. It is not'as' good as the 
sound potato, but it helps save food. 
Bread Substitutes. —Our folks are 
using cornmeal, oatmeal, wheat meal and 
E W-YO R K E R 
cannot be answered by any outsider. 
They refer to personal troubles which no 
stranger can soh’e. We do our best to 
give advice and sympathy, but the way 
out of most of such things lies up the lad¬ 
der of personal courage and character— 
up to higher ground. We understand 
these things, and no one need fear that 
his confidence AA'ill be betrayed by us. 
At least half a dozen men Avrite that they 
are living alone and need some good 
housekeeper. They cannot afford to pay 
much, but seem to think there are a num¬ 
ber of middle-aged women who Avill be 
willing to Avork for a home. The fact is, 
such w’omen could probably earn large 
wages in towns if they are capable of 
housekeeping. It is the same old story 
of the inability of a farmer to compete in 
the labor mai-ket. Then, there are many 
troubles about propeify—particularly the 
sister’s or daughter’s share. In many 
cases the men folks have simply taken 
the money and invested or spent it, the 
women being left AA’ithout their share. I 
neA’er knew tlie time when so many people 
were asking about breaking a Avill, think¬ 
ing father or mother has not treated them 
fairly. Another great trouble arising this 
Winter is in the relation between parents 
and children. In one case a girl married 
against the adA'ice of her mother. Noav 
she doesn’t like her mother-in-laAV and 
February 23, 1918 
put new spirit and power into thousands 
of elderly men like John Grey? In idle 
times of peace they might have retired, 
but they never Avill do that under fire. 
They cannot farm as they once did, but 
they will raise small gi-ain and meat, and 
be far happier at this work than they 
ever could be sitting in town “telling 
about it.” H.W. c. 
Milkman in Lucerne, Switzerland with Cart Drawn by Dogs 
buckAvheat in various forms in place of 
white bread. These substitutes mostly 
cost more than Avhite flour, though I can 
see no reason for it. If it is so neces¬ 
sary to save Avhite flour for the Euro¬ 
peans, the first principle should be to 
make the substitutes cheaper. I find peo¬ 
ple entirely Avilling to eat substitutes, but 
Avhy should they pay extra for them? 
That surplus money ought to go into Avar 
savings stamps or banks! AYe tried sub¬ 
stituting buckAA'heat in a Avholesale Avay 
Avith rather trying results. Some of our 
folks ate so many buckAA'heat cakes that 
they “broke out” all over. The tAVo little 
girls each developed a good-sized ".sty” in 
the eyes. The doctor looked at them and 
said “buckAvheat.” It may be that our 
girls regarded those cakes AA'ith the same 
inclination so CA’idently a part of our 
family of Jersey Reds! At any rate, this 
great indulgence in buckwheat has made 
it necessary for a feAA' of our folks to 
take “sulphur and molasses”—the good 
old remedy of my boyhood days! AVell, 
Ave are saving wheat for the soldiers, any- 
Avay! 
H.\rd Thinking. —This hard Wi' a* 
has shut many people aAvay from I,.;.aan 
companionship, and driven them upon 
their own thoughts. These thoughts find 
expression in hundreds of questions Avhich 
are sent to The R. N.-Y. Many of them 
are evidently the result of long brooding 
over troubles or fears. Most of them 
she Avants to knoAV hoAV she can go back 
to her mother and .still make her husband 
support her! The Winter has brought 
great drifts of such troubles, most of 
them, I think, being caused by too much 
brooding over small AA'rougs and a lack of 
good reading and finer thinking. 
Old Timers.—I kuoAv of an elderly 
man Avho succeeded as a farmer and ac¬ 
quired more property that he needed to 
satisfy his modest habits and tastes. He 
thought he ought to “retire,” until the 
Avar came. The tAvo strong grandsons 
Avere drafted and the old man considered 
giA'ing up his farm. The more he thought 
about it the less he Avanted to. He 
thought of those tAVO boys “over there” 
and he could not bring himself to the idea 
of sitting down to Avait AA'hile others were 
fighting. So he Avent and bought another 
farm! At supper that night he looked 
aero.ss the table and said : 
“Helen, I’ve just bought a new farm!” 
“Whv. .Tohn Grey, Avhat did you do that 
Tv., " ...ou had better go and look in the 
Bible and see A\hen „v. 'vere born. You 
must hr -3 t'>rgotven!” 
“N i.’m nearly 70* '-now that, but I 
nr c’.o my sha.. . . u.ie more, perhaps, 
for there will be some quitters!” 
Helen looked at him a moment and nod¬ 
ded her head. 
“You are right, John; let’s forget just 
that one line in the Bible!” 
Do you know, I think this Avar is to 
Notes on Growing Cabb 2 ige Seed 
Is it possible to groAv a crop of early 
cabbage seed from plants raised the same 
season in New York State, or must the 
seed be planted about the usual time for 
late cabbage, and the heads held over, 
Winter? / ^ C. F. R. 
Bui'ns, N. Y. 
It is possible to groAA' a ci'op of cabbage 
seed from plants groAA’ii the same season, 
especially if the seed is jdanted very early 
in hotbeds or cold frames. If the young 
plants groAV under adverse conditions of 
sudden temperature changes and light 
freezes the plants may shoot to seed 
without forming a head. The early cab¬ 
bage groWei'S of northern NeAV .Tersey 
and Long Island plant the seed for their 
early Spring crop of cabbage in January 
and early February. They are very 
careful to avoid a sudden chill in 
their plant beds during March, when 
the plants are in a soft rapid growing 
condition, because this AA'ould induce them 
to run to seed instead of forming a head. 
In the early trucking section of Virginia 
the enormous crop of early cabbage is 
produced from plants set in the Fall on 
the shady side of a small ridge. This 
ridge iiroA'ides protection from Avind and 
storms. Formerly the plants AA'ere set on 
the Southern side of the ridge, but it Avas 
found that this Avarm idace in the sun 
faA'ored a quick groAvth during Avarm 
spells in the Winter. A cold spell in¬ 
jured the plants and induced them to run 
to seed. Noav that danger is overcome 
by setting the plants on the shady side 
of the ridge so that the plants remain 
quite donnant until settled Avarm weather 
comes and the plant is ready to develop 
a fine head. 
Cabbage seed can be produced from 
these premature jilants, but the yield Avill 
not be nearly so large as it .should be. 
The very best Avay is to select the most 
desirable heads from the field of Fall cab¬ 
bage. In this Avay the most desirable 
stock plants will be secured. These are 
trenched in the Fall Avith the roots at¬ 
tached, and early the next Spring they 
are set quite deep to develop a heavy crop 
of seed, Avhich should be ready to harvest 
before the 1st of July. If very desii'a- 
ble plants are found in the field of early 
cabbage Avhile h.-irvestiug, cut the head 
and mark the stump. If the field is to be 
used for a succession crop heel these 
stumps in elseAA-here until they are 
trenched as celerv is stored for Winter. 
The next Spring these stumps Avill pro¬ 
duce A'ei’A’ desirable seed: hoAA'ever, it is 
said that if this practice is kept up con¬ 
stantly for a fcAV years it Avill result in an 
inferior strain. 
Most of the cabbage s('ed on the market 
at the present time is not groAvn from 
selected plants, I am sorry to say. On 
the other hand it is groAvn from plants 
which are too young in the Fall to com¬ 
plete the deA'elopment of their heads. 
These plants sto'-e easily and cai-ry over 
Winter in splendid condition. They in¬ 
variably produce a very heavy crop of 
seed the next Spring, thus making possi¬ 
ble the cheapest method of production, 
even though it does not offer an oppor¬ 
tunity for selection. R. aa’. de baun. 
A Hand Power Bean Sorter 
I see a question by G. P. on page 150 
of how to hand pick beans the best Avay. 
While H. E. Cox has ansAA'ered this to a 
certain extent I Avould like to add fur¬ 
ther that G. P can buy a hand picker 
for about $7.50 which will greatly assist 
him in the picking of his beans. This 
affair is a light machine which is tread 
much like a seAving machine, thereby X'un- 
ning a canvas belt 0 inches wide, said 
belt running toward the operator. Beans 
trickle down on this belt from a hopper 
above it in amounts varying to suit the 
picker who picks off the poor beans, as 
all the beans run by the good beaus pass¬ 
ing down into a basket, the good beans 
not being touched by the operator. I 
make a business of raising seed beans, 
producing about 125 bushels each season, 
and personally hand pick all this stock. 
I find no trouble to pick from three- 
quarters to tAvo bushels of beans per houi', 
according to the amount of dirt therein. 
Of course, these beans are thoroughly 
cleaned Avith a fanning mill before being 
run through the hand picker. 
F. J. HICKEY. 
