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692 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
I imagine some of us need a little brac¬ 
ing up on the subject of holidays. The av¬ 
erage man or woman does not quit work 
and play half as much as he ought to. 
The fact is. too many of us never learned 
how to play, and we come to have a sort 
of contempt for anything that takes us 
away from work. That is a mistake. 
Show me a man who does not know how 
to enjoy or appreciate a holiday now and 
then, and I will guarantee that if he live 
long enough he will end his days as what 
we call a “grouch.” The big, public holi¬ 
days are well enough, though I sometimes 
think there are too many of them. What 
we need most as farmers, is to observe 
the private family holidays. There are 
birthdays, wedding days and other events 
which may mean so much to the family if 
we can only remember them. The years 
go by silently and rapidly at best, and 
they may become ghosts if we let them 
pass unnoticed. Far better stop them as 
they go and see them change, at a pleas¬ 
ant word or memory, into happy spirits. 
That is what the Hope Farm man con¬ 
cluded as he looked out of the window one 
cold, raw morning last week. This “new 
time” pulls me out of bed long before day¬ 
light by the sun time, and that, in a damp 
New Jersey Spring, is not a time for 
laughter or happy memories. However, 
I remembered the date—it was our wed¬ 
ding day—of far greater importance to 
our household than the Fourth of July or 
New Year’s. As I walked over the hills 
to my train I counted up the years! It 
did not seem possible. It was, however, 
a holiday; not ti>- be celebrated with fire¬ 
works, but with flowers. So the Hope 
Farm man came home at night with a box 
of roses and sweet peas and daffodils. 
Little Rose came over with the boys to 
meet me, and when she demanded five 
cents to spend at the store, why, it was 
a part of the celebration. And of course 
I handed the box to Rose and let her car¬ 
ry it upstairs to Mother. Y"ou should 
have seen the little thing holding the big 
box with one hand and pulling herself 
along with the other hand on the rail. It 
was a great day; the children were all 
waiting and Aunt Eleanor had made one 
of her famous cakes for the occasion. 
During the day I had received a sad let¬ 
ter from a woman whose children refused 
to help her. The poor thing must wander 
about from one family to another, un¬ 
welcome anywhere. This came to my 
mind when the children escorted me up¬ 
stairs where Mother was unpacking the 
flowers. She had a present for me—a 
letter from her daughter at college. What 
that young woman had to say about the 
day and her father and mother was 
summed up in the following: 
“7 cannot imagine the possibility of 
having more satisfactory parents than I 
have .” 
Oh, it pays to celebrate the family holi¬ 
days ! 
It was a dark, mean, raw night, and 
we were all gathered in front of the fire. 
Mother was reading aloud and I was 
looking over some papers when suddenly 
the telephone bell rang sharply. One of 
the neighbors across the valley rang us up 
to say that the back of our farm was all 
ablaze with fire! We had not noticed it, 
but on running outside we saw the top of 
the hill spouting up flame like a volcano. 
There are two things which night and 
imagination can multiply. One is the 
bark or yell of a coyote on the Western 
plains; the other a bright fire on a dark 
night. In former years I have heard the 
cowardly little coyote yelling on the 
plains. When two of them started their 
hideous duet you would be willing to cer¬ 
tify that 100 of them were calling. When 
we' saw those flames leaping up at the hill¬ 
top it seemed as if all the trees on the 
hill were burning like candles. The boys 
caught u£) hoes and spades and started on 
the run. I am not so rapid as I was when 
that orchard was planted, so I brought up 
the rear. We had begun to plow the or¬ 
chard, and I could not understand what 
there was to burn. The fire was in the 
cherry orchard on the east slope of the 
hill. Several neighbors came running and 
we quickly stamped it out, for the fire 
was like the coyote—more bluff than bus¬ 
iness. 
s*: 
Last. Fall I let the weeds grow in this 
orchard as a cover crop. This is one way 
to provide organic matter. The cherry 
trees are 20 feet apart, and there are two 
rows of currants between each two rows 
Vht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
April 19, 1919 
of trees. The soil is good, and after cul¬ 
tivation stops the weeds come in and 
make a great crop, which stood far above 
the currant bushes. We should have 
plowed all this stuff under last Fall, but 
there was so much to do handling the ap¬ 
ple crop that the plowing could not be 
done. I have been thinking all Winter 
that these weeds would provide the or¬ 
ganic matter to be found in half a dozen 
loads of manure. Here comes this fire 
and in half an hour eats up this “organic 
matter” as a herd of cattle would eat 
grass. It leaves us a few pecks of lime, 
potash and phosphorus, but the nitrogen 
and the humus have sailed into the air. 
That is the one great danger in keeping 
an orchard in sod with the grass cut and 
piled to be used as mulch, or with weeds 
left standing. Should fire once get in it 
will sweep through, eat up all your mulch, 
and. in many cases, scorch and ruin the 
trees. '• 
In this case I do not think much dam¬ 
age has been done. Most of the trees had 
a little cleared space around them, and the 
fire swept rapidly on. A few of The trees 
are scorched, but I think they will re¬ 
cover. No one knows how this fire start¬ 
ed. I think Someone'went through the 
orchard and stopped to light his pipe and 
threw the match down before it was ex¬ 
tinguished. . That is the way many or 
most of these mysterious orchard fires 
start. To all who plan an orchard kept 
in sod or under a mulch I would urge 
pulling the mulch away from the trees 
during the Fall and piling earth or coal 
ashes around the trunk of the tree. My 
reports show that great damage has been 
done this past Winter by mice. In some 
cases they have worked in old orchards 
and girdled trees IS inches in diameter. 
In some localities there has been a regular* 
plague of mice. Some of them apparently 
work underground and gnaw at tin 1 roots. 
We have lost about 25 trees—some of 
them just ready to bear. The best remedy 
we have found in years past was to put a 
mound of coal ashes around the trunk of 
the tree. It was our belief that the mice 
would not cross an open space to gnaw 
the bark. This season seems to kill off 
that theory. I am sure the mice have 
crawled over the ashes and also worked 
down under them. 
* * * * * 
As I write this there is every indica¬ 
tion of a great fruit crop—perhaps the 
largest we have ever had. It is not out 
of the woods yet. Our local weather 
prophet says we are about to have the 
worst blizzard we have known on April 
28. If he is right there will not be 
much show for our fruit. The buds look 
well now, and we shall proceed on the 
theory that the prophet is wrong. Then 
if he is right, after all. we shall know we 
did our best. That hill orchard is being 
plowed this year. The furrows run north 
and south—last year they ran the other 
way. A narrow strip of sod is left along 
the' tree rows. After plowing the orchard 
will be harrowed perhaps four times, de¬ 
pending on the way our other work goes 
on. This harrowing will be done in three 
different ways; up and down, across the 
rows, and then diagonally. Early in. July 
we expect to seed to buckwheat with a 
combination of Alsike, Crimson and a 
little Sweet clover, and a small amount of 
turnip seed. I shall not use rye this year, 
for if we get a good stand of clover I shall 
let it- stand two years, cutting the crops 
and leaving it on the ground. But why 
use Crimson clover when you know it will 
fail seven times in 10? I will explain my 
idea about that a little later. 
***** 
We have no stable manure to plow un¬ 
der, but there is a fair sod on most of the 
orchard, with considerable clover mixed j 
in it. We use a fair quantity of phos- j 
phate around the trees, and if the bloom 
gets safely past the first we will add sul¬ 
phate of ammonia. I am trying that out 
this year as an experiment. Our soil 
seems reasonbly well supplied with pot¬ 
ash, but phosphorus is the most needed 
remedy. By using Alsike clover and Soy 
beans I think we can furnish most of the 
nitrogen needed by the apples. For 
peaches extra nitrogen must be used. In 
an apple orchard of thrifty trees I think 
we can depend on clover and similar crops 
to get most of the needed nitrogen for us. 
Phosphorus must be supplied in some 
form and when potash comes down to a 
reasonable price I shall use more of it. 
The same is true of lime. My soil needs 
it. although since we came here I have 
used nearly 75 tons. The present price 
is so high that I cannot afford to use it, 
and Alsike clover makes a fair growth 
with us even when the soil is somewhat 
acid. 
***** 
I shall use the dust again this year on 
both apples and peaches. Last year’s re¬ 
sults from dusting were good. We held 
the worm in check. The dust costs more 
than the spray mixture, but we made a 
wonderful saving in time, and experts 
were not needed, as is the case with liquid 
spray. For the eating insects I think the 
dust is satisfactory. It will not answer 
if you have a bad case of scale. In that 
case a liquid spray is necessary. My 
own belief is that the dust kills some or 
many scales when applied in June while 
the young insects are crawling, but to get 
them at their work you must have some 
penetrating or smothering liquid. Now. 
do not quote the Hope Farm man wrong 
on this dusting. We depend on it for 
killing the eating insects, but we add pos¬ 
itively that if you have the scale you must 
use a liquid spray. h. w. c. 
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MORE CROPS! 
That is what you want to get in spite 
of scarcity of labor. Here is the way. 
Harrows 
mellow and level the Iand--pulverize 
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For all purposes - single, double, 
orchard, tractor, etc. Single harrow 
(illustrated) is reversible —no tongue 
truck is required - perfect balance « 
light draft. 
Disks are of cutlery steel, forged sharp 
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See the genuine Clark “Cutaways” at your dealer’s. 
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“ The Soil and its Tillage it gives valuable data about 
the henefits of deep cultivation — free for the asking. 
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