1546 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
This has been a long and busy day, 
and I am glad it is over. All day long 
there, has been a mist or thick fog. You 
could not call it rain—at times the stones 
were dry—but the air was full of 
moisture, and as you walked through it 
you felt as if Nature were spraying you 
with a very fine nozzle. Now, after dark, 
the mist has concentrated in a fine rain. 
It is a good thing to start a roaring fire 
in the open fireplace, get up in front of it 
and review the day’s work. The smaller 
children have gone off to bed, and the 
entire family will follow early, for Hope 
Farm offers rest for the weary to-night 
and we are all candidates for admission 
to the weary society. 
* * * * * 
No fro t yet (October <») and the race 
for the corn' is still on. We cut that field 
of Luce’s Favorite, as it was in fair 
shape, though some of the ears might 
well stand longer. We planted it for 
fodder anyway, and it has given a good 
lot of it. We shall begin feeding it out 
in November. I think most of us make 
a mistake in holding the dry fodder too 
long. I would feed it first and save the 
hay for late Winter. That, flint corn will 
be cut this week. I wish it could stand 
longer aud ripen out more of the ears, 
but there is danger now at any moment, 
and we must have that fodder. The ears 
seem to develop and ripen in the shock 
to some extent, and we shall have some 
good seed. We shall lose some of that 
sweet corn, for the ears will not develop 
in this cool, moist weather. Sweet corn 
must have sun and heat to make its sugar. 
Part of the ears are fit, but most of it 
must go for feeding. Anyway, it is some¬ 
thing of a gamble to plant late sweet corn 
in July. The conditions must be right in 
order to bring it through. They were not 
right this year. 
***** 
We spent the day picking Baldwin 
apples. In bright, clear weather I might 
let them stand longer, but with such a 
season as we are now having it is a safer 
risk to get them off promptly. We had 
a gang of school boys today, and they did 
good work. These boys came in a car. 
Twenty years ago, if I had been told that 
workmen would come in their own cars 
and carry off twice as much as they were 
then carrying as the price of a day’s work, 
I could not have believed it. Yet here 
was the impossible worked out. These 
pickers kept right at it without stop, and 
took off the fruit so fast that it kept a 
steady stream of apples riding down the 
hill. I presume every fruit grower has 
his own plan for organizing the job of 
picking. There is no cast iron rule 
about it. 
***** 
We sell practically all our fruit in 
bushel hampers, so that no barrels are 
required. We do not use any sorting or 
packing table in the orchard. . We were 
picking today from trees about 17 years 
old. They are strong, upright trees with 
a fair share of their fruit at the top. 
The pickers carry bags or buckets. Part 
of them work around the tree, picking 
what they can from the ground. On our 
low-headed trees this means nearly 10 
per cent of the fruit. The instructions 
are to get a firm grasp on the apple and 
give it a quick twist to remove it from 
the limb. We do not want it pulled or 
jerked off. Of course, this fruit is to be 
handled like eggs, in the bag or bucket. 
While these boys are picking from the 
ground, others take light ladders and 
mount into the tree, working up to the 
top. The apples are put into half-barrel 
hampers, which stand between tin* rows. 
One man is kept busy hauling these filled 
hampers down to the house. He has two 
horses in a big spring wagon, which will 
carry 20 of these hampers or 10 barrels 
at a load. On level ground he could take 
more, but on these steep rough hills, with 
the open hampers. 20 is our limit. These 
hampers are emptied into big bins at our 
storage house, and taken back for another 
load. The drops are kept separate from 
the others and will be sold early for pie 
fruit. 
-3* -5 s ¥ 
These young trees where we picked to¬ 
day averaged about six hampers to. the 
tree—more including the drops. This is 
the first good crop they have given us, 
and you may judge from that how long 
w must wait for Baldwin to get busy. 
The quality of this fruit is the finest I 
have seen. Much of it is blood red in 
color and very large. There is some dis¬ 
cussion about the true quality of Bald¬ 
win. I have seen some that were quite 
inferior, but when grown at its best it 
ranks with any Winter apple I know of. 
Our customers know the variety by its 
shane and color, and demand it. The 
tree is an easy one to grow—that is, it 
does not require too much “fussing” and 
petting. With us it does best on rather 
light soil, though I am told we are too 
far south for best results with Baldwin. 
***** 
The results suit us, however, when the 
trees really get under way. We have one 
orchard of Baldwins on the lower part 
of the farm. I do not know how old 
these trees are, since they were here when 
we came. At that time they had just 
began to give a few scattering apples. 
They stand in wide strips of heavy sod, 
and have never had a plow close to them. 
The grass is cut and left on the ground, 
and now and then we pile weeds, manure, 
or whatever we can find, around the trees. 
This is the bearing year, and we have 
picked one tree as a sample. It was not 
the best tree—perhaps a fair average. 
The tree gave 24 half-barrel hampers of 
picked fruit—with the drops to follow. 
There are tw T o in that orchard which seem 
good for 20 to 30 hampers each, as they 
have a great spread of wood and are 
loaded with fruit. These apples must be 
soiled out into two grades, and I do not 
know yet what they will bring, so I will 
make no exact estimate as to the income 
from such a tree. I am sure that one of 
these best Baldwin trees will give greater 
profit this year than many a cow in this 
town. Cherry-top bought nine Northern 
8py trees this year. It was the off-year 
with six of them, yet he sold $99.50 worth 
of fruit. There is a Northern Spy tree 
on our lawn which Was a little scrubby 
thing when we came here. I gave the 
tree to Mother .and this year’s crop 
b ought her exactly $24. 
. , ; ***** 
I do not give these figures with any 
thought of “,b]o\ying” pr of leading people 
astray. I can show you other trees— 
great Strapping fellows 15 years old and 
over—which have never yet given five 
cents in income. I do not know what ails 
these drones. They have the same care as 
the others, but they are lazy, and thus 
far have refused to work. They must be 
supported by the profitable trees, and any 
man who starts an orchard must discount 
them. We have been fortunate enough 
to plant a few varieties which seem to be 
exactly suited to our soil. That makes 
all the difference in the world, for you 
cannot produce good fruit unless the va¬ 
riety is suited to the soil. Then we have 
a_ wonderful market, and our truck enables 
us to get the fruit into it at just the right 
time. In addition to this, Thomas is a 
high-class salesman, who knows where 
to go and how to stand firm for his price. 
You have got to have some such com¬ 
bination as that in order to make an or¬ 
chard pay. Take out any link of that 
chain, and you will have hard sledding. 
***** 
You may imagine that I had a pleasant 
day on our hills, as I saw these big red 
beauties coining off the trees and gently 
rolling down the hill to storage. October 
is the glorious month for the fruit grower, 
when the fruit hangs at its best, and the 
trees seem to reach out their limbs to 
shake hands with him. Of course you 
remember the long years of waiting and 
the way neighbors and “experts” smiled 
at the enterprise. Most of the neighbors 
felt, that every farm should have a few 
trees or a small orchard, but as for trying 
to make trees support the farm, it seemed 
a crazy scheme. As for the “experts,” 
they seemed to think that my rough and 
ready plan would be rough enough, but 
n ver ready. But it was all I could do 
at the time. I did not have the capital 
or the expert labor to carry out the plans 
which those experts laid down for us. 
Many a year we had to let the iveeds 
grow, or cut them with a scythe and pile 
around the trees. Of course I realized 
then, as I do now, that all"this great ex¬ 
pense and labor properly applied will pro¬ 
duce fine fruit, fancy fruit if you like. 
It seemed to me that we could work out 
a simpler and less laborious plan and pro¬ 
duce good commercial fruit—not fancy, 
perha s, but suitable for our market. I 
thought then, and I know now, that the 
margin between cost and price of this 
“commercial” fruit is just about as large 
as that of the fancy article. I know that 
a man with a “good eye” could come into 
our orchard and select, boxes of the best 
fruit and hold his own at fruit shows with 
any orchard in the country. It’s the man 
who selects the exhibition fruit, just as 
it is the man who selects the pullets at 
a egg-laying contest. 
***** 
I could prove these things to you better 
if I had you here before the fire tonight. 
I would bring in that pan of baked ap¬ 
ples, and we would come near emptying it 
as we talked. I think our talk would 
turn away from the orchards, and we 
would begin to discourse the big things 
that are ripening in the world. Society 
seems to be all upside down. No one 
knows what is to happen next, and the 
trouble is that a big share of our people 
do not seem to care so long as their im¬ 
mediate wants are satisfied. What are 
farmers to do in the future? 8hall they 
join in the merry dance now going on, 
and lose the solid conservative character 
they have always had? I hope not, for 
the country now needs more than ever 
before a sound and solid and fully de¬ 
pendable class of people. This has got 
October 18, 1919 
to be the freeholders or small landowners. 
I think the time has come when we shall 
be more likely to get what is coming to 
us by standing up for order and a square 
deal than we will by standing for disorder 
and a crooked deal. But it is too late to 
start a new one. Have another apple, 
and the*. I will show you up to the front 
room. The other folks are all asleep. 
The rain on the roof will put you with 
them, and tomorrow night we will talk 
this labor question out. ir. w. c. 
A Big Ohio Farm 
Mas tern farmers tilling 100 acres will 
be interested to know how things shape 
out on a 700-acre farm in Ohio. 
Seven farmers with their families arc 
each comfortably housed in roomy farm 
houses at favorable distances apart. At 
the opening of Spring work the owner 
tells his men what fields or sections of the 
farm he wants put into wheat or corn, 
and then the farmers go ahead with the 
work by common consent, without a fore¬ 
man. A telephone call up from one house 
to the other at the close or beginning of 
the day appears to be all the visible man¬ 
agement necessary for complete efficiency 
mi this extensive farm. 
The crops this year are as follows: 
Corn, 165 acres; wheat, ISO acres; clover, 
90 acres; horses 28; hogs, 2(54; cattle, 
112; calves. 14. The wheat is all sold; 
corn and clover are converted into animal 
fat and protein ; 165 hogs last year met 
the entire wage for farm help. 
The rotation is clover, wheat, corn— 
and such corn ! This 50-acre field of corn 
the writer walked through yesterday is a 
veritable forest. In many instances we 
noted that the lowest corn ears were above 
the writer’s ears. .Sons of Anak are 
needed to harvest such a crop as this! It 
took stuff to raise it. clover as a founda¬ 
tion ; 1,500 loads of manure completed 
the boost. Cover crops are not in use, 
neither are commercial fertilizers. There 
is no woodland or waste land on this 700- 
acre farm ; all is under cultivation or in 
pasture. It is a gold mine. The men 
who do tin* work are high-class farmers, 
keen, well-read, up-to-date. s. 
“The Kilkenny cats kept fighting until 
there was nothing left of them.” “Yes. 
They were the original Bolsheviki.”— 
Washington Star. 
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PAIGE-DETROIT MOTOR CAR COMPANY, McKINSTRY AYE., DETROIT 
