770 
ZTAe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 8, 1918 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The Drive. —It was evident on the 
morning of May 25 that the enemy didve 
was on. The quack grass had broken 
through the first line defenses of the early 
sweet corn, and was sweeping on. The 
iKlroot and ragweed had the potatoes go¬ 
ing. and in the lower orchard the codling 
worm Avas making one last desperate 
charge to capture a fine block of Mc¬ 
Intosh apples. A big bunch of dock had 
sprung up, almost by night, in the straAV- 
berries, there Avere four acres of ploAved 
ground to be disked for SAveet corn, and— 
but that AA’as enough to think about at one 
time. So Thomas and I had a council of 
war during breakfast to decide Avhere to 
put up the stiffest fight. We decided that 
the qtiack grass, redroot and codling worm 
Avere most dangerous—or most like the 
Prus-sian guard. 
Reinforceaiexts. —At 7 o’clock three 
boys came Avheeling into the yard. Tavo 
of them might be called “young men” in 
these actiA'e days. If you go by their 
names this AAms indeed an allied army— 
German, English and Italian—but all one 
in their feeling against the Kaiser. P.ut 
Avhile these boys Avere inspired by patriot¬ 
ism they Avere Avorking for pay. “Money 
makes the mare go,” and it also drives 
along the mankind of XeAV Jersey. So 
these young men simply folded their aimis 
and said “Twenty-five cents an hour!” 
Years ago I Avorked all day “turning 
AAheel” in a rope Avalk at three cents an 
hour, but I realize, a little sadly at times, 
that the modern laborer thinks the' only 
Avay to be “Avorthy of his hire” is to mul¬ 
tiply the old rate by 10. I understand 
that Japan offered to get into the present 
Avar Avith a red-hot poker, but that Eng¬ 
land and France considered her price too 
high. Pei-haps they AAmuld better have 
paid it. At any rate, it is any honest 
allies in a drive, and I told those boys to 
get into line till noon and show Avhat they 
were made of and Avhat they had back of 
their labor demand. So they shouldered 
hoes and marched in. There Avere three 
of them, three of our oaa'u boys, the tAvo 
little girls and Thomas, be.sides the Hope 
Farm man. 
Pl.\x or r.AAfPAiGX.—In former years 
the Aveeds have beaten us Avhile Ave were 
getting the liquid spray on the trees. 
Then Ave tried to rip througli once Avith 
the cultivator so as to cover all the crops, 
Avith the result that a Avide strip of Aveeds 
Avas left along the roAvs to capture the 
held hater on. Thomas believes in start¬ 
ing the little plants right. So instead of 
rushing through once as if it Avere a race 
to reach the end of the row. he took big 
Tom and Avent, sloAvly and carefully, back 
and forth in each roAv. Iii this Avay he 
was able to Avork Avithin an inch oi- tAVO 
of the plants and throAV a layer of soil 
over the Aveeds along the roAV. I knoAV 
men who think anyone can hoe or culti¬ 
vate, and that the Avork is purely mechan¬ 
ical. Not- much—more brain Avork js 
rc<|uired to SAving a hoe properly than is 
needed to run many an expensive ma¬ 
chine. At any rate the tAvo Toms repre¬ 
sented the artillery and they moAved doAvn 
and ripped up the Aveeds in great shape. 
Following them came the hoe brigade. 
Their orders were to slice the sharp edge 
of a hoe along betAvt'en the plants so as 
to cut all Aveeds out into the middles, and 
then fill up just a little around the plants. 
I took the little girls into the straAA'ber- 
ries Avhere they cut out - dock Avhile I 
hoed. Y"ou see Ave have potatoes and 
sweet corn growing between tlie berry 
])lants. and it takes a good eye to tell 
corn and a babj'- potato plant from a Aveed. 
There are some tomato plants in these 
strawberries and they are to be saved. 
'J’he little girls very carefully hoed and 
nursed several small ragAveeds which do 
look something like baby tomato plants. 
Fighting Worais.—T he two Toms 
Avorked over a number of roAVS ahead of 
tlie boys, and then aa'C remembered the 
Tirgent call for help Avhere the codling 
AVorms Avere attacking the Eastern front. 
So. reinforced b.v Droker to help pull the 
]>ig gun, Tom and I folloAved the duster to 
the loAver orchard for a final round 
against the Avorms. We are depending on 
dust alone this year to fight the Avorm. 
We may have made a mistake, but we 
must stand for the result noAV anyAvay. 
The “duster” is a .small gas engine and 
fan bloAver mounted on a low truck. When 
we started in I confess that we did not 
knoAV hoAV to Avork it. We were like the 
tAvo soldiers I have read of who stood be¬ 
laud some machine guns and saw a great 
mass of Germans charging them. If 
Those men had understood hoAV to work 
Tho.se guns they could have driven the 
enemy back. They did not knoAV how 
and the Huns SAvept over them. We lost 
much time Avlien Ave .started because this 
little engine Avould not Avork. We turned 
and cranked until our backs ached, but it 
ir.ould not start. We had begun to con¬ 
demn it as “no good” Avhen it suddenly 
occurred to us that the Avater tank 
slopiied over. Whe'n. we put a tight cover 
on this tank the engine jumped right in 
at the first crank and AVorked like a little 
giant to turn that fan. The water had 
been slopping over and running down to 
cool off the ardor of the gasoline. You 
can take the punch out of any enterprise 
by throwing cold water on it. The cover 
over the top gave the gas a chance for a 
dry explosion. We had been voting “wet” 
without knoAving it. Then after Ave put 
the engine at work there seemed some¬ 
thing Avrong. The dust did not pour out 
of the tube as we see it doing in the pic¬ 
tures 1 It came in a lazy sort of puff, 
barely reaching the tops of medium-sized 
trees. AVe were ready to vote the machine 
a toy and humbug Avhe it suddenly came 
to us that AA'e had it belte'd so that the 
bloAving fan Avorked the Avrong way ! It 
Avas inrning away from the pipes! By 
tAvisting the belt so as to reverse the 
power Ave could turn the whole blast into 
the pipe and then that dust belched out 
like_ smoke from a A’olcano. That little 
engine bad been doing its best to make a 
regular bloAvhard out of that fan, and we 
had not given it a chance—but had blamed 
it for our OAvn failure I 
Biting Dt’St.—T hat is Avhat Ave did 
for an liour. T<)m and Broker pulled the 
machine along the roAvs of trees. A turn 
of the crank sent the engine puffing, and 
the fan in.side the bloAver began to whirl. 
The turn of a .screAV and a belch of pow¬ 
dered sulphur and dry arsenate of lead 
came out of the pijjc and spread all 
through the trees. It sloAvly sifted 
through and drifted on Avith the gentle 
wind through the orchard. You could see 
it sloAvly settling all over the trees, ff'he 
dusting was done Avithout stopping the 
horses, moving constantly on at a sIoav 
Avalk. The stuff got into eyes, nose and 
mouth, and for a day people glance at 
you Avith suspicion at that strong suli)hur 
smell. But out on the Easteim front of 
the farm, fighting that friend of the 
Kaiser, C. AVorm, we kicked up the best 
dust we could. It remains to be seen 
hoAV many Avorms we killed. I do not 
knoAV yet how this dust compares Avith the 
liquid. It costs more, but can be put on 
much fa.ster and is pretty nearly a “one- 
man job.” It .seems to me that this fine 
du.st. floating about, is about as likely to 
hit the Avorm as the usual liquid. At any 
rate Ave have used it as our sole depend¬ 
ence this year, and noAV we aAvait results. 
The Line Bend.s.—W hen Ave finished 
the dusting the boys had nearly caught 
up with the cultivating, and the tAvo 
Toms went at it again—ripping up the 
enemy’s soldiers by the million. There 
Avas one big place where the quack gra.ss 
had played ducks and drakes Avith the 
corn. Years ago there Avas a hog yard 
there, and the quack grass seemed to have 
stronger roots in consequence! Tom and 
I h.ad a consultation and sized up the sit¬ 
uation. AATth the army of enemies ap¬ 
proaching on all sides, it seemed better 
to give Avay a little here and clean up 
the rest of the field. So Ave let that 
quack grass alone for the time. AA^e Avill 
kill it out later, but today a stroke of the 
hoe goes further in the rest of the field. 
This Fall we may try the homeopathic 
treatment for these quack-grass roots by 
putting the hogs in to finish up what they 
started. Noav and then you will read in 
the papers hoAV the battle line in Europe 
bends or gives a little here and there. 
This does not mean defeat. It is a patch 
of quack gra.ss, not AAmrth the cost of de¬ 
fending at this moment, but to be cleared 
up later. 
Dinner.—N o one Aa>ted to keep on 
hoeing Avhen the dinner bell rang. Every 
aiTiiy travels on its .stomach. The boys 
sat in the shade of the barn and ate their 
iron ration, and the rest of us Avent in- 
.side for our fodder. AA"e had fried eggs 
and little pieces of bacon, boiled potatoes, 
rice, bread and butter and rhubarb sauce. 
At the NeAA' York restaurant where I 
often eat “bacon and eggs” not as good as 
ours costs 45 cents, with bread and butter 
exti-a. As there AA’ere 11 of us at this 
meal you can figure the cost of feeding 
this army of fighters. Of course our city 
friends Avill say food doesn’t cost a farmer 
anything. I Avish that Avas true, but I 
have never found but three things that 
may be given Avitbout charge; they are 
kicks, medicine and advice. But it is 
kicks and medicine for the Kaise”, and 
Avhile Ave cannot stand up and face the 
great drive on the AA^estern front Ave must 
defend our corn and potatoes at the point 
of the hoe. So at the .stroke of one avc 
Avere at it again. The tAVo Toms resumed 
their sloAV, monotonous journey uj) and 
doAvn the potato roAvs, and the rest of us 
got into close quarters Avith the hoes. The 
first field Avas finished and then the artil¬ 
lery moved on up the lane to the other 
potato field. This is in an apple orchard 
Avhere straAvberries grew. For .several 
years they Avere heavily mulched each 
year Avith manure. Tlien all this was 
ploAved under and buckAvheat seeded. Noav 
the soil is thick with humus and the po¬ 
tatoes are jumping; .so are the Aveeds. 
All through the sunny afternoon the two 
Toms went ahead and ripi)ed out the 
enemy. AA"e followed and cleaned them 
111 ). AA’hen the sun began to disappear be¬ 
hind the hill Ave could, see about two 
acres clean as anyone could ask for. The 
allies received their money and AV'^'ut 
Avheeling home. Cherry-top Avent fishing, 
the little girls had their bath, and the 
Hope Farm man tried to clean off some 
of the sulphur dust. Then there was 
supper and a Avalk out about the laAvn to 
see hoAV the floAvers and the shrubbery 
are doing. AA’'ell, anyAvay, Ave put in a full 
day against the Kaiser. A good book to 
read tonight Avill be “The First Call.” by 
Empey. ii .av. c. 
Threefold Co-operation 
Every telephone connection 
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slightest inattention or indif¬ 
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person who calls, or the com¬ 
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Not only is it to the advan¬ 
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