966 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
Jane 14, 1919 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
If I had you here this afternoon I 
could give you a job that would test your 
muscle if not your patriotism. It is Mem¬ 
orial Day ; a perfect specimen of New Jer¬ 
sey weather at its very best. There is 
hardly a cloud to he seen, for a gentle 
breeze has swept the sky clean. The 
warm sunshine floods over the grass and 
trees, brilliant as they are after the 
weeks of rain and fog. A beautiful day, 
and here we are at the far outskirts of 
this country churchyard, busy with mem¬ 
orial ceremonies. Ah ! A patriotic meet¬ 
ing ! If you were here you would be 
asked to serve as “orator of the day”; a 
few patriotic remai-ks after the country 
band played “America” and the school 
children sang! Well, of course, you say 
“I am no orator, but if you insist upon it 
I have a few thoughts which the world 
might well listen to !” No, you are wrong. 
We do not want any oratory from you. 
If I bad you here I would put you right 
alongside of the sexton, who, though he 
has his best clothes on, is spading up this 
tough old sod, as part of his tribute to 
memory. I might have appeared a6 “or¬ 
ator” at several celebrations today, but 
here I am from choice, in overalls and 
brown shirt, digging up the churchyard 
plot where Louise is buried. Somehow 
our family felt that an effort to turn this 
rough place into a little green spot of 
lawn was our most fitting celebration of 
Memorial Day. So here I am, casting 
aside the joys of oratory, and here are 
the boys neglecting the ball field, and here 
are mother and the girls—all silent and 
thoughtful as we work. 
* * * * * 
Well we may be, for this is one of the 
breeding places of American history. Ris¬ 
ing above the trees to the east is the spite 
of the old Paramus Church. During the 
Revolution it was, for a time, used as a 
prison for captured Hessians. It was a 
wonder they ever lived to “enjoy” this en¬ 
forced church attendance, for the hatred 
the Jersey farmers had for these hirelings 
was beyond expression. Not far from 
here is a little stream where a Hessian 
straggler stopped to bathe his wounded 
foot. A little girl spied him through the 
bushes. She ran to the house, mounted a 
table and took down the big musket hang¬ 
ing over the door. She dragged it along, 
aimed it over the fence, pulled the trigger 
—and there lay a dead soldier in the shal¬ 
low brook, with dark-colored water trick¬ 
ling over the stones for rods before it 
could shake itself free from the dark stain 
and go sparkling and clear on its way. 
All around us on this level plain Wash¬ 
ington’s soldiers camped for the Winter 
after that terrible campaign which lost 
New.York. We have only to glance at the 
little flags scattered through the church¬ 
yard today to realize what the Civil War 
meant to this community. If these old 
hills which look down upon us could talk, 
what a story they could tell! No human 
“orator of the day” would attempt to 
compete with them. And here we are, 
part heirs to all this brave heritage, try¬ 
ing to turn a little spot of this weed tan¬ 
gle into a bit of lawn! The Hope Farm 
man digs with a round-pointed shovel— 
driving it far down into the tough sod and 
turning each piec„ completely over. The 
sexton has volunteered to help with a 
spade. Carl is digging with a fork, and 
Cherry-top is raking and smoothing the 
top. The little girls are putting fresh 
flowers on the graves, while little James 
is bringing water. Mother is sitting in 
the buggy sewing some garments for the 
Red Cross, with little Rose at her side. 
We drove over in the wagon with the old 
horse. I took his harness off and tied 
him to a tree. Now he is on the ground 
rolling and trying to decorate his back 
with clean dirt. So you could see where 
you would fit in if you were here. You 
could take my shovel or that hoe, while 
the wife could sit with Mother in the bug¬ 
gy and help on those garments and talk, 
as women know so well how to do at such 
times. Over the fence, on the State road, 
we see the cars and trucks go rushing by, 
covered with flags and filled with happy 
Perhaps you are one of those experts 
who .know how to do things just right, 
and vou would shake your head and say: 
“That’s not the way to do it; why don’t 
you do it right?” I know, of course, that 
in order to get a first-class lawn you 
should first clean out the old trash com¬ 
pletely. This old stuff ought to be turned 
under and then two hoed crops grown so 
as to kill the weeds completely. That is 
out of the question here, so we try an¬ 
other plan, based on the theory that if 
you will back up the cultivated plant with 
food and care it will whip out the wild 
plant. You take a wild man or a wild 
animal and let him have all the advantage 
of the wilderness and he will soon clean 
out his civilized competitors. Put the 
wild man into a “ring” with boxing gloves 
on and make him follow the “rules of the 
game” and civilized man will soon put an 
end to him. Man gains a temporary ad¬ 
vantage over nature only by introducing 
some of his artificial rules. Let him 
neglect his advantage and before he knows 
it she has him outside of the ring in a 
rough-and-tumble—which is the end of 
him. I do not think this soil we are work- 
ing on has been touched since the Civil 
War. There was not much lime in it 
naturally, and now it is about exhausted. 
There is little here but wild strawberries, 
quack grass and several disreputable 
weeds with big, tough roots. The whole 
thing is held together and protected by a 
tangle of wild brier vines. It looks as if 
Nature had run her barbed wire entangle¬ 
ments all through the ground. It is as 
if she tried to protest against the feeble 
efforts of man to beautify the resting place 
of the dead. Through the still, holy calm 
of this beautiful afternoon one can almost 
hear the complaint: “Why do you toil 
and try to change my inevitable will? 
Your loved one has gone back to me—- 
Nature—why. not leave her to me and let 
me weave my fingers of green around her 
as I will? Do I not know how many of 
those who lie in this churchyard were de¬ 
nied the love and care they needed in life? 
I, at least, denied them nothing. Why not 
give them hack to me and leave my own 
rude decoration undisturbed?” 
* * * $ $ 
Can anyone answer? Surely I cannot 
as I dig over the old sod. Even though I 
may succeed in changing this tangle into a 
lawn, whenever human interest and care 
is removed Nature will surely come back 
and claim her own. Why. then, do we do 
such things? Is it because others do? Is 
the expression of our memory of the dead 
dictated largely by habit or fashion? Is 
our religion, after all, a pleasure or a 
penance in our effort to express belief ir 
some divine ruling being? Is not true re 
ligion, after all. found in the effort to re¬ 
member the living or the dead in overcom¬ 
ing pain or repugnance through personal 
sacrifice of some sort? You take a warm 
Summer afternoon in a country church¬ 
yard with a round-pointed shovel and a 
tough sod, a man in the afternoon of life, 
and a little grave close at hand, and these 
thoughts may come home to you even 
closer than they do in church. At any 
rate, if thoughts turned under with sod 
can serve as lime and fertilizer we shall 
have a wonderful lawn on that plot. We 
turned that sod completely over, chopping 
out the worst of the quack grass roots and 
stamping the sods down. Then we scat¬ 
tered lime all over and raked it thor¬ 
oughly in. Then the boys borrowed the 
sexton’s roller and packed the plot. This 
revealed several little hollows and ridges, 
but before settling them I thought it well 
to put in the fertilizer. I had brought 
enough high-grade potato fertilizer to give 
about 1.000 pounds to the acre, and this 
was scattered evenly all over and raked 
in. I am experimenting this year with a 
combination of sulphate of ammonia and 
barium phosphate, but the notato manure j 
has some potash, and that is needed on 
this soil. So as I scattered that mixture 
I remembered how the corners of the earth 
were contributing to the work of reviving 
this little spot of Jersey soil. The nitrate 
of soda came from the South American 
desert, the sulphate of ammonia came 
from a coalpit in Pennsylvania, the dried 
blood was produced from a steer grown 
on an Iowa farm, the nitrate of potash 
came up out of the soil in South Africa, 
the bone came from India, the phosphate 
from Florida and the potash was taken 
from a brine lake in Nebraska. The 
world has been brought together in this 
effort to conquer Nature, and cure this 
little tangled pimple on the face of New 
Jersey. 
***** 
With the fertilizer raked in we tried to 
get a better grade on the surface. The 
high places were scraped with the hoe 
without exposing the grass and weeds. 
Then I dug soil from a spot near by 
where I judged there had been a bonfire 
many years ago. This soil was scattered 
over the low places and well raked in. 
When this was done we scattered our 
grass seed as evenly as possible, and 
raked it well into the ground. Then the 
roller was used for the last time, and we 
carried water in sprinkling pots and gave 
the soil a light soaking. But will not that 
old trash come up and work in to kill out 
the new seeding? M.v belief is that the 
lime and fertilizer will give the cultivated 
grasses a start which will enable them 
to crowd out the trash somewhat as “civ- 
ilzation” usually cleans out uncivilized 
nature. As an experiment I put a little 
-lime and fertilizer on a spot alongside the 
burial plot where there seemed to be noth¬ 
ing growing but wild strawberries and 
wire grass. I expect to go there later and 
find something of a growth of tame grass¬ 
es with a little sprinkling of clover. I 
think the seeds are there waiting for 
favorable conditions which the lime and 
fertilizer will supply. For there is good 
everywhere, waiting for the elements of 
human sacrifice to make them start. But 
do not think this is the way to st..rt a 
good lawn, because it is not. We had to 
take this burial plot in this rough and 
ready way. It may fail after all. but T 
have faith in the civilized seeds, with 
the backing of lime and fertilizer, to 
gain the mastery. 
***** 
When our job was finally done we har- 
c /r[ us ^ c that is 
^more than a memory 
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3NTo 
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NAME. . 
ADDRESS. 
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Experience not neces¬ 
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Address :— 
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333 W. 30th Street New York City 
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] 
