( 
C/ic RURAL N E W-Y O R K E R 
980 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Farm Bukkau Exct'ksion. —On Sat¬ 
urday, August o, the Bergen County 
Farm Bureau held its annual excursion. 
Time was when farmers thought they 
must go to Coney Island, or to some 
I)icnie. in order to get an outing. Coney 
Island used tip their money without a 
fair bargain, while they usually ate too 
much at the picnic. In those days no one 
seemt'd to think that we could find enter- 
tiiinment and instruction right on our 
own farms if we go at it right. The car 
has made it pos.sible to get around and 
the Fitrm Btireau has given the organiza¬ 
tion needed to put such things over. We 
have in L. F. Merrill, our Farm Bureau 
agent, a fine organizer, and his work 
shows in individual and cooperative im- 
jirovenient all over the county. I doubt 
if there is a farmer left who will not 
admit that our Farm Bureau has helped 
the county, for Mr. Merrill has suc- 
c(*eded in carrying the idea of coopera¬ 
tion out into the highways and byways. 
Thk Trip. — So about loO people 
started from the court house and went 
spinning along the road from one plac'e 
to another—stopping now and then to 
g<“t out and look at crops or tools. It 
required a triji of this sort to realize how 
this “commuter's county” has risen to 
the call for food. Most of our land is 
now high-priced, and we have all the 
labor disadvantages which are found close 
to a big city. Yet Bergen County will 
}ji’oduce far more food this year than ever 
before. This does not mean such a large 
increase in bread and meat, though both 
grain and live stock are coming up. Our 
food crops are sweet corn, tomatoes, gar¬ 
den truck and fruit. Your Western grain 
farmer with his big fields of wheat or 
corn and his flocks and herds may think 
we are not helj)ing much, but every ear 
of sweet corn takes the place of three 
slices of bread, and thousands of people, 
during the Summer, practically live on 
tomatoes and vegetables. So we are 
learning to grow the food which is best 
adapted to our soil, and which buys the 
most money per unit of labor. That is 
the big lesson which all farm sections 
must learn. One reason why some com¬ 
munities fall behind is because they con¬ 
tinue to produce a class of food which 
other sections can produce cheaper or 
better. 
CoMixG AND Going. —We have seen 
this work out both ways in this country. 
Years ago, before the meat business went 
into the hands of monopolies, our farmers 
would buy steers and feed them through 
the Winter on cornstalks and grain. The 
local butcher would buy them and 
slaughter for local consumption. There 
was a little money in it. and this work 
j)rovid<‘d manure for garden crops. With 
the pas.sing of the local butcher shop this 
steer-feeding failed and for many years 
the plan of stock-keeping did not appeal 
to our farmers. Now it is coming back 
once more, but this time it means winter¬ 
ing heifers or dry cows. This kind of 
cattle can be bought in the North where 
stock is cheaper than here. The stalks 
of sweet corn may be fed through the 
Winter, with some grain, and in the 
.Spring the cow on full milk can be sold 
to a dairyman, who usually, on our high- 
priced land, will not find it i)rontable to 
rai.se his own cows or winterdry stock. 
A good cow, handled in this way, will 
usually pay better than the old-time steer, 
and will turn the stalks into manure. 
One of the farms vi.sited on this trip has 
150 acres of sweet corn this year, .and 
you can imagine the income from feeding 
these .stalks to a carload of dry cows and 
heifers. Some years ago most of our 
farmers raised melons and found them 
profitable. Now you will not find an 
acre of melons. The blight and wilt dis¬ 
ease became very bad. and growers in 
Colorado and the South organized and 
learned how to ship and market in large 
Quantities. Thus, ivhen one of our farm¬ 
ers went to market with a barreFof mel¬ 
ons, he would find every store well sup¬ 
plied with mixed fruit of uniform appear¬ 
ance and high qimlity. With a crop of 
this sort thorough organization 2,000 
miles away will beat individualism right 
in the shadow of the market. So our 
farmers on their high-priced land must 
know what is going on and be prepared 
to change their crops and methods quickly 
if need be. The Farm Bureair gives us 
a chance to get together to study these 
things and the organization enables us 
to pa.ss the information around in such 
a way that our farmers will believe it 
and give it a trial. 
Tractor vs. IIok. —One of the most 
impressive things about this trip was a 
mighty contrast between what we may call 
extensive and intensive farming. Those 
of you who have travelled by rail west 
from New York will recall the great 
stretches of salt marsh surrounding the 
Hackensack and Passaic rivers. Here 
are thousands of acres of flat soil as 
rich in plant food as the famous meadows 
of Holland, yet .so saturated with salt 
from the sea water that it produces noth¬ 
ing but salt hay and cattails. At the 
upper part of the valley, just below 
Hackensack, this marsh land ri.ses a little 
so as to give drainage down to the river. 
I’art of it has formed in little ridges of 
dry land and on this farmers who learned 
how to handle such land in Europe are 
growing great crops of vegetables by hand 
culture. Below these ridges the ui)per 
j)art of the swamp has lain for year.s 
I)roducing little beside mos<iuitoes and 
tough gra.ss and bushes. The mosquitoes 
were and are of a superior breed—genuine 
“.Jersey birds.” In the ooze and mud 
of that swamp, they hardened their 
muscles and sharpened their bills and 
sailed out seeking adventure. If they 
could only find some human suffering 
from malaria how they did pounce upon 
him and pump a few germs out of his 
blood. Then with a fiendish desire to 
spread evil abroad they would seek some 
healthy human and punch a little malari.a 
into him. That was about all that New 
.Tersey society got out of this swamp un¬ 
til the State declare<l war upon the 
mosquito. Thorough drainage took the 
water from this soil and that made it im¬ 
possible for the mosquitoes to breed. 
A Giant at Work. —On our farm bu¬ 
reau excursion we drove in our cars 
through this swamp, where formerly no 
man would venture in a wet season. On 
a spot where, I am told, 30 years ago, 
a man was stung by mosquitoes until he 
was driven insane, a great tractor was 
at work turning the black soil over in 
great dark slices. This land had been 
drained by open ditches until it was not 
wet, but what you would call “spongy” 
to the feet. It was covered with weeds 
and rushes (which stood higher than my 
head) and blueberiw and other bushes 
about waist high. These last were nailed 
and clinched into the ground by long 
twisting roots as large as your thumb. 
It is doubtful if any horses could have 
worked there comfortably. Two or thi*ee 
yoke of cattle working together might 
have broken through those roots with a 
faii’-sized plow, but it was no job for 
old-time power. A big tractor with 
caterpillar tread was at work on this 
soil, pulling five plows behind it. It 
walked off through that soil, leaving a 
strip over six feet wide behind it thor¬ 
oughly plowed. Weeds, bushes, sod—all 
were tucked out of sight—nothing to be 
seen but the bottoms of the furrows, 
black and fat with the accumulation of 
centuries of decay. Left to itself very 
likely some of those who follow us in the 
far future would utilize this as peat or 
co'al. Now it will be used as plant food 
to produce grain and vegetables. I think 
this use will extend down to the edge of 
the Hudson, until this old mosquito pest 
lie will be made to produce as much 
food as an entire State the size of Dela¬ 
ware I 
The Contrast. —After seeing this fear¬ 
ful gasoline giant at work we went on for 
a short distance and saw tin' other side 
of the jiicture. This was a comparatively 
small farm on a little higher ground 
worked by hand power. For example, 
one field had been in early lettuce or 
beets. These had been taken out and 
celery put in. Between each two rows 
of celery were two rows of spinach. It 
will all be kept clean by hand and wheel 
hoe, and later rye can be seeded to plow 
under as a cover crop if needed. This 
black soil does not suffer greatly from 
drought if well handled, and year after 
year these gardeners will take from three 
acres far more than many farmers further 
back can get from the entire farm. A 
great motor truck on this farm hauls the 
stuff’ away. It could make three or four 
trips inside of 24 hours if necessary. No 
greater contrast could be presented than 
the giant tractor down in the swamp 
smashing its way through that rich 
“virgin” soil, and this smaller farm just 
a little higher above the water level, and 
cultivated by hand power! Can the little 
farm live and hold its own by the side 
of the giant? 
What Is Comi.ng. —The great majority 
of the farmers who went on this trip 
came out of the higher land back from 
the river among the hills, A few of them 
may own 100 acres of land, but most of 
them would average 50 acres or less of 
cultivated soil. Their land has been un¬ 
der cultivation for 150 years or more. 
Not more than two or three of them 
could work a tractor to advantage. They 
are obliged to spend heavily for fertilizer 
and manure, and they are all short of 
help. You may imagine, therefore, that 
it was a very thoughtful group of farmers 
who followed that tractor up and down 
the marsh, and kicked into that black 
soil as it turned away from the plow! 
What effect will the opening of this great 
tract of land have upon the business of 
our smaller farm.s—back among the hills? 
Everyone of us realized that this black 
soil contains about as much nitrogen as 
the stable manure hauled out from New 
York. This nitrogen is not yet available, 
but lime and culture will bring it out. 
When this great tract is fully limed and 
drained and workeil it will produce all 
the crops we are now growing, and it 
will be like the great, fully organized fac¬ 
tory in competition wtih the little two- 
man shop back at the hill water power. 
I think some of these farmers were think¬ 
ing of what became of the little factories 
and shops they knew as boys! With all 
this great tract of rich land under cultiva¬ 
tion, good roads and a truck service with 
a tunnel under the river, what is to be¬ 
come of the 50-acre farmer with light 
.soil :ind limiti'd <-apital. a dozen miles 
further from market? Can he hold up 
his end? That, I take it, is to be the 
greatest question in farming of the fu¬ 
ture, for I believe that after the war there 
will be a concentration of production on 
thousands of acres near our large markets 
on land up to this time unused! I think 
we must look the .situation right in the 
face, as I shall try to do next week. 
H. W. c. 
War Saving Stamps and Wheel Hoe 
I notice that The B. N.-Y. calls for 
experiences in earning money for the pur¬ 
chase of War Savings Stamps, and that 
reference is made to the popular im¬ 
pression that it is difficult for the farm 
women and girls to earn any real cash 
for this or similar purposes. I have had 
(luite a varied experience in both city 
and country conditions, and I would em¬ 
phatically say that given the essentials 
of time, moderate strength' and a simple 
equipment, the country woman’s or 
girl's chances are far superior to those 
of city women for earning spending 
money. If the city woman wants to earn 
anything she generally has to sacrifice 
her entire time to her work, and give ex- 
jicting service, dress expensively while at 
work, and in the end has not much to 
show for her effort. 
Good land for the growing of special 
garden crops that one knows to be easily 
salable is to be had almost anywhere in 
the country at very little or no expense 
for rent. Plenty of fertilizer, a good hand 
hoe, a few seeds, a knowledge of grow¬ 
ing things, and attention for brief pei iods 
of time when the efforts will count most, 
and a good crop is assured. Perhaps an 
account of the various plans in operatio.. 
here this year for raising money for war 
savings, for personal expenses, music, 
special gjirdening and nature literature 
and other wants peculiar to young boys, 
will be of interest. My young son of 
twelve years has always been much in¬ 
terested in gardening. He has an inter¬ 
esting garden library and has had a small 
garden for several years pa.st, and has 
grown things for the children’s exhibit at 
our county fairs. This year he has be¬ 
come a real gardener with two plots of 
generous size under his sole care. He be¬ 
gan the season with a hotbed. He hung 
over this new attraction in the early days 
of Spring with almost alnsurd interest. 
It furnished him with early cabbage and 
cauliflower plants that now, the third 
week in July, have heads of a size almost 
ready for market; beets and carrots for 
early transplanting, and the.se now being 
big enough to begin to use or sell; fine 
tomato plants and sugar-beet plants that 
will furnish him good-sized beets for a 
displ.ay of beets and IhsT syrup for bis 
fair exhibit. Besides this he has made 
a few rows of early Golden Bantam sweet 
corn now in tassel, crookneck squashes 
nearly big enough to cook or sell, kohl- 
August 17, 1918 
rabi and string beans that have been big 
enough for a week past, and a nice plot 
of popcorn. 
Two years ago he sold two barrels of 
potato onion sets at six cents a pound, 
netting him .$15 for the lot. This Spring 
he had about the same amount of sets 
that he had the year he grew the two 
barrels and was offered 10c a pound for 
them by our local seed.sman. The latter 
was retailing them at ,30c a quart, so the 
youngster decided not to sell but to plant 
them all. He expects two to three bar¬ 
rels of sets this Fall and will sell some 
of them for pickling onions at 10 cents 
to 15 cents a quart. At a conservative 
estimate these sets ought to bring him in 
$.30 or thereabouts if marketed properly. 
He can sell any kind of well-grown 
garden stuff at the new public market of 
our little home city, six miles away. At 
this time of year the market is open on 
Saturdays only, but will soon be open on 
Tuesdays and Saturdays. Popcorn will 
always bring at least $1 a bushel, and 
this year will be much higher. 
He has entered his garden in a war 
garden contest for school children, and on 
the strength of his having won about $.50 
in fair premiums la.st year with garden 
and school exhibits, it is safe to say he 
will do equally well, probably better this 
year. Besides his own garden project he 
has been of considerable help to me with 
some plans of my own. These included 
four long rows of early potatoes that had 
been exposed to the light since early in 
March and were planted April 10. They 
came up very quickly, and made a won¬ 
derful set of new potatoes. We began 
digging them .Inly 1, and could have sold 
the entire crop at .$3 per bushel. We 
preferred to make other use of them, how’- 
ever. I’.art of these potatoes were Stray 
Beauty or Bliss Triumph, said to be the 
only potato that has ever successfully 
produced a second crop the same season 
in this county. At the time we began 
digging the new ones we planted a second 
crop of old seed that had been exposed 
to the sun a week or two right between 
the rows of tl\e first crop, using a good 
tablespoonful of acid phosphate in each 
hill, well stirred into the soil. This was 
also done at the first planting. The soil 
is a good loam and had a generous coat 
of niiinure before planting. 
The second planting is now beginning 
to come up. It will require care not to 
trample them when digging the remainder 
of the first crop, and they will have to be 
sprayed with a hand sprayer, with home¬ 
made Bordeaux mixture to prevent blight. 
But we think they will be worth the 
trouble. The fact that they were earlier 
than any other potatoes in this .section 
seemed to make the work easier for both 
of us, and it is always the early products 
of any sort that get the good prices. 
This boy. or any other boy, who is shown 
how to do a thing really well, will enjoy 
the doing. The other day when he came 
in from his garden with a pailful of fine 
big new potatoes and another of string 
beans he pas.sed three carpenters from 
town who were working on our barn. 
One wanted to buy a bushel, and each of 
the others wanted a peck of the potatoes 
and the boy’s pride in his produce was 
quite genuine. We are also growing a 
plot of sugar beets for syrup for home 
cooking purposes. 
Another partnership project he is help¬ 
ing me with is a half acre of yellow-eye 
wax beans. We are growing these for 
seed, having had fine luck with a similar 
though smaller plot last year. These 
will be thrashed this Fall and will fur¬ 
nish busy work after other jobs are out 
of the way in handpicking them. Last 
year we sold such beans for seed, testing 
practically 100 per cent in a germinating 
test, at .$10.80 per bushel. We choose 
this variety because they are earlier, 
hardier, and better yielders than any 
other bean we know of. The pod is a 
white wax string bean that is also in 
good demand as a market string bean. 
As a little experiment we have planted 
•a few pinto beans also this year, to see 
if they can hold their own in this climate 
with f is valuable yellow-eye bean. 
The’’ aie natives of the Southwest, ami 
are there grown more cheaply than New 
York State beans can be grown. We 
want to know if this is becau.se they are 
more prolific, or if it is due to other 
conditions. 
But the thing I want to speak most 
emphatically about is the part the wheel- 
hoc plays in all our garden work. I 
have very little time for out-of-door woi'k 
myself. My son goes to school, takes his 
weekly^ lesson in music, helps his father 
with light team work very frequently, 
and is the only boy on the farm to do 
chores or errands. Were it not for this 
valuable time-sav<w in gardening we could 
never accomplish a .sixth as much as we 
are now doing. Ours is a big, single¬ 
wheel hoe with small plow, cultivator, 
blade for cutting the weeds off near the 
surface, and a weeder—-all quickly ex¬ 
changed or adjusted as needed. Both 
the boy and I operate it. It cost .$.') 5tl 
a few years ago and is as good now iis 
new, as it has been well cared for. By 
using this often, getting close up to the 
plants, but one hand weeding of most of 
our garden stuff has been necessary. We 
take all of the care of the family garden, 
too. iind have never had so good a one 
as this year, and no horse or man has 
been near it since it was harrowed in the 
Spring. By all means get a wheel-hoe. 
It means a bigger and better garden and 
a great saving of time and strength. 
MOTHER OF YOUNG GARDENER. 
A Job of Fixing Up Around the House and Yard 
