1192 
"Che RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Oitobcr 19, 1918 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
It surely is a case of lion. John Frost 
this year, for old Jack has kept his hands 
off well. Up to Oct. 7 nothing on our 
hills had been bitten. On Oct. 4. as I 
went down into the valley, to get a train, 
I saw the roofs and the low places as 
white as snow; but with us the tomatoes 
and peppers were still green and growing. 
Tlie end is corning, however. AYe all know" 
we are living on borrowed time, and we 
are ready. We began picking Baldwin 
apples Oct. 5. Our crop is light this year 
as a result of of the fearful cold of last 
Winter’. The (piality is high. The best 
specimens of this year’s crop are the finest 
we have ever seen. The.se apples will be 
sold at once. By November 1 I do not 
expect to have an apple on hand except 
what we need for home use. The labor 
shortage has made it necessary for us to 
sell at wholesale, and when I can get such 
prices as are now offered I take no chance 
whatever on storage. 
it t, If if 
We are now able to make a fair state¬ 
ment about the value of dust as compared 
with liquid spraying. We used the dust 
entirely this year—a combination of pow¬ 
dered sulphur and dry arsenate of lead. 
This mixture was made for us by a manu¬ 
facturer. I find that some fruit growers 
buy a “mixer” and put the materials to¬ 
gether at home. It is much the same prin¬ 
ciple as buying ready-mixed fertilizers or 
practicing “home mixing.” In some cases 
hydrated lime, land plaster or ground to¬ 
bacco are added to the sulphur and poi¬ 
son. The tobacco is supposed to fight 
plant lice, though I cannot .see how the 
dry powder can hurt them much. Of 
course the success of this “dusting” de¬ 
pends on your ability to blow out a cloud 
of the dust so it will sift and settle all 
through the tree. Some people ask if 
they cannot throw the dust into the air 
and let it blow through the ti'ee, or use 
a .small hand bellows. No—such things 
will not answer. Raising fine fruit has 
now become a business which requires 
sound and strong equipment. I have seen 
men try to spray with a small squirt-gun, 
or try using a long-handled dipper. A 
few small trees may be covered in that 
way, but if you are to grow fruit as a 
business you must have a business equip¬ 
ment. We have a power duster—which 
is a small engine operating a strong fan 
blower, and this raises a cloud of dust 
which, being fine and light, sifts all 
through the trees. 
After carefully picking and examining 
our fruit we conclude that this dust is 
just as effective in killing the worms as 
any liquid we have tried. While no elab¬ 
orate experiments have been made, such 
tests as a fruit grower would naturally 
make shows that the dust has been very 
effective. There have been some striking 
results. One block of Baldwins was so 
light in bloom that it did not seem worth 
while to dust it. A row of Wealthy ap¬ 
ples along side was dusted, and we let that 
block go at that. To my surprise a num¬ 
ber of these trees put out a good supply 
of fruit—giving .something like a barrel 
and a half at picking. In walking through 
the orchard last week I was surprised to 
find the ground under one of these trees 
quite red with fallen apples, while a large 
proportion of those on the tree were 
wormy! A few rows south stood another 
tree carrying about the same number of 
apples. There was hai’dly an apple on 
the ground, those on the tree were larger, 
and I could find but a few wormy fiaiits. 
It was hard to under.stand this until I 
remembered diisting these Wealthy trees. 
Tlie wind was from the south and it blew 
the dust so that it sifted through this 
tree and thus killed (he worms. There 
can be no othei’ reason for the difference. 
^Yhen there is a fair wind the dust sifts 
farther through the orchard than the 
s]iray ever can. For apple scab-—which 
does not trouble us much anyway—the 
dust seems to be not quite equal to the 
liquid, though with several dustings there 
would be little difference. 
ii< * >i< * * 
Of course there is little use claiming 
that the dust will kill the San .Tos^ scale. 
I know some dust men who say it will, 
but I think they have dust in their eyes, 
and I do not pay much attention to such 
statements. Very likely a good dusting 
at just the time in Summer when the 
young insects are out from under the shell 
might kill some of them, but we shall 
continue to fight the scale by spraying the 
dormant tree. We u.se oil for this pur¬ 
pose, but others prefer lime-sulphur. Both 
will do the job, but a sprayer will be 
needed to put either one on. We have 
found a little scale left on a few blocks 
of trees, though the insect seems to be 
dying out. This Winter I plan to prune 
the trees well, and soak them all with the 
oil. I shall continue to use the dust in 
fighting the worms and other leaf eaters. 
It is more expensive than spraying, but 
after we learn how to do it the work goes 
at least three times as fast. We can go 
into our hill orchard with a good supply 
of dust and keep working steadily all day 
—leaving the orchard only for dinner. 
With the sprayer we must make eight or 
nore trips down hill for water’. Then we 
can use the dust effectively in a high 
witid which would make spraying impos- 
We surely got results this year in 
killing the worms, but remember that the 
duster is not a full substitute for the 
sprayer. You must have the latter, too, 
for dormant tree work and for plant lice. 
There will come many a time when the 
poison must be put in at once. A day or 
two of delay will cause a great loss. That 
is where the duster earns gold by the 
handful. 
if if if. It 
This Spanish influenza worked into 
Hope Farm a little. Thomas came down 
wiht it. The germs probably got at him 
during his long marketing trips. At col¬ 
lege my daughter had a little touch of it, 
but was out in a few days. It is nothing 
to play or fool with. If you find it coming 
on I give you the .same advice given in 
“The Child”: “Go and get old Doc Green¬ 
way as quick as the Lord will let you !” 
Do not try to bluff the disease off and let 
it work out, but go to bed and stay there 
until you feel better. There are too many 
complications to this new trouble to m'ake 
it .safe for any of us to play with it. The 
treatment is much the same as for 
“grippe.” Keep the throat and nose clean 
with some good spray or gargle. There 
have been many deaths at this end of the 
country due to lack of care of the throat, 
for this influenza is quite likely to work 
into pneumonia if neglected. Many peo¬ 
ple are asking if this disease was intro- 
.^duced purposely by the Germans! I do 
not think so—though our family punster 
says the disease is a fjerm 'un. As nearly 
as I can learn it was brought to this 
country on a Norwegian ship, after sweep¬ 
ing up and down thi’ough Europe. I 
imagine it came much like the “Russian 
grippe” a few years ago. I am not so 
much concerned about where it came 
from as I am about protecting my family 
now that it is here! 
^ >ic Ik 
Some one tells us of paying .$24 a cord 
for 18-inch wood, sawed and split, in New 
York Cit.v. We h.ave in our woods sev¬ 
eral thousand cords of standing timber— 
.a good share of it being dead chestnut. 
We are selling some of these chestnuts to 
be used at an army camp, but on our .80 
acres we might cut 3,0{K) cords! Now 
here is a fine chance for the Rochester 
Herald to tell a good story of a rich far¬ 
mer. All it has to do is to multiply .8,000 
by $24 and prove that Hope Farm is 
making $72,000, for the land will be worth 
more after it is cleared! That is about 
the plan of most of the stories, for of 
course (he Herald can make the city man 
believe that these dead chestnuts will come 
to life, cut themselves down, saw them¬ 
selves up and walk off to market. As a 
laile whenever a “chestnut” comes to life 
the people who must witness the resur¬ 
rection suffer, but these wise men who 
know all about farming repeat the old 
statement about these rich and miserly 
farmers. 
4c « Ik * * 
A few cords of wood may sell at $24 in 
small lots, but for actual fuel purposes 
our dead chestnut would not bring much 
over $10. To cut and saw and split and 
haul that wood out to where the truck 
could handle it would cost at least ,$S at 
the present prices for labor. It is not 
likely that this chestnut would find a 
refsdy sale anyway, as this wood is too 
light to make a steady fire. Oak or hick¬ 
ory wood is wanted, but I shall not cut 
our hard wood except as a last resort. 
There will be a shortage of fuel this Win¬ 
ter, and much wood will be burned. Peo¬ 
ple will have to use it in order to keep 
warm. That is an old story to me. When 
I was a boy wood was an almost universal 
fuel. People bought several cords of four- 
foot sticks, and the boys sawed it up into 
stove wood. Little if any coal was in 
common use. Where I live now, just after 
the war, thousands of cords of wood were 
cut and sent to New York. We may 
come back into that business this year. 
It is just as honorable to sell dead chest¬ 
nut to keep the home fires burning as it 
is to sell sour apples which are to 
sweeten human nature. If you see it 
stated that the Hope Farm man has made 
$72,000 profit on his wood please deny it 
for me. Such a windfall would be a calam¬ 
ity. I would not know what to do with 
the money ! ii. w. c. 
Vegetable Cellar Under Garage 
I wish to make an extension of IS to 
20 feet to my barns with a cellar below 
ground level to store roots, etc. (carrots, 
turnips, mangel beets, cabbage and pota¬ 
toes) ; above ground level to be used as 
a garage or wagon shed. What ventila¬ 
tion will be needed, also strength of con¬ 
crete walls for cellar? The ground is 
loo.se sand. w. h. j. 
Lakewood, N. J. 
Concrete blocks make the best and 
cheapest cellar wall for this locality, as 
they can be purchased nearby and de¬ 
livered to the job at a very reason.sble 
price. A good mason will lay 200 blocks 
in a day and there are no forms to make 
and no concrete to mix except a little 
mortar to lay the blocks in. A cellar of 
this size should have one fair-sized win¬ 
dow on the north side and two on the 
east. These should be double windows, 
the outer sash being hung at the top. 
swinging out at the bottom, while the in¬ 
side window is hinged at the bottom and 
swings in at the top. With both windows 
closed the cellar can easily be made frost¬ 
proof. The outside of the wall should be 
coated with a good waterproof paint to 
keep the dampness away from the vege¬ 
tables. A .small ventilator shaft can be 
run from the cellar up near the roof for 
ventilation when too cold to open win¬ 
dows. This shaft should be about six 
inches square and insulated with roofing 
paper to aid in the circulation of air. 
c. s. G. 
Army 
in America 
Unproductive Acres 
V<.l 
Acres that don’t produce to full capacity 
arc more than slackers. They are ac¬ 
tively helping the Kaiser to win the war. 
Food is ammunition! Only when all 
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fully engaged in beating the Boche. 
Shortage of help may prevent clearing new 
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