106 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 17, 1920 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
You recently stated that there is little, 
if any, oil or coal in New Jersey. Are 
you not wrong about that? I certainly 
find a scum of oil on the water in some 
of my fields. I think there are oil wells 
beneath my farm. 
I doubt it. We find the same film of 
oil on some of our low places and also 
what looks like iron rust. I went so far 
as to consult some geologists about it. 
They tell me that there is not enough oil 
anywhere in the soil of New Jersey to 
pay for working. They know what is 
known about such things. I know little or 
nothing—therefore I believe them. The 
little scum or stain of oil that we find 
may oil up the imagination of a real es¬ 
tate agent, but that would be the limit. 
What do you mean by that? 
I understand that some agents, when 
they try' to sell a farm, point to this little 
oil scum on the stagnant water and give 
the “prospect” to understand that he may 
be an "oil king” in the future. They tell 
him this scum of oil is sure indication of a 
rich deposit, and no doubt they sometimes 
make a rich haul by this oiling up the 
cupidity of the average buyer. A mo¬ 
ment's thought ought to be enough to 
make a man realize that if there were oil 
and coal in these hills—within 50 miles of 
the great manufacturing fires of New 
York—the scientific men would have dis¬ 
covered it long ago and covered this coun¬ 
try with wells and mines. Do not waste 
any time dreaming about oil wells. The 
hills of North Jersey and Southern New 
York are destined to occupy just one 
place in the world’s economy—they must 
serve as water carriers in the industrial 
army. 
How do you make that out? 
There are now 0.000.000 people living 
at the mouth of the Hudson River. I 
have no doubt my children will live to 
see double that number there. The tun¬ 
nels under the river are to build up the 
towns and cities on the Jersey side of the 
river. As the human body contains about 
75 per cent water, that element is abso¬ 
lutely necessary. It must come' from the 
hills—running down to supply the towns. 
I think that sooner or later the water 
from every one of our clear springs and 
brooks will be needed by the valley people. 
Some years ago, near where we live, 
a little brook or river wound its way 
through a break in the hills and across a 
meadow. It once turned a small wheel, 
gave drink to a few birds and cattle and 
provided a few fish. 1 hat was all it did 
for hundreds of years. Then came a 
great water company. They built a dam 
at the lower part of the valley and flooded 
the water back into a lake. This water 
under control is piped down below, 
filtered and distributed in the cities 20 
miles away. The little brook which frit¬ 
tered itself away, with no earning ca¬ 
pacity. now. placed under control, earns 
millions for the big corporation—while 
under the old individual ownership it was 
more or less of a nuisance. I think most 
of the hill lands near the large cities will 
be used to provide water, and those who 
undertake to farm among them must fit 
their crops into that plan. 
What crops will fit? 
Water crops. I suppose you realize 
that in a good juicy apple or peach there 
is as much water as there is in milk. A 
section cannot endure as a water pro¬ 
vider unless it is kept .,ell wooded. Cut 
off the trees and the springs usually dry 
up. I think the hills of this great water¬ 
shed may well be covered with apple or¬ 
chards. That will give us a profitable 
crop and protect the hills about as well 
as the forest would. The chief product 
of our section must be water, and such 
crops as we grow should be water crops. 
What do you call water crops? 
The things which contain a large pro¬ 
portion of water. Here are a few of 
them—for example, eggs contain about 
75 per cent of water, apples, 85 per centj 
tomatoes. 93.76 per cent; sweet corn. 75 
per cent, and so on. A water crop is 
naturally quick to decay, and must be 
handled at once. This can be done within 
Short distance of the big markets, but it is 
clear that selling water through pipes or 
in “nature’s original package” is to be 
the business of these hills. 
Is old-fashioned fanning done? 
In this section. I think so. There will 
be some men to stick right to old methods 
and plans for awhile, but fate, which is 
the slow, irresistible movement of time, 
will finally drive them out, and they will 
probably blame some po’itical party, pro¬ 
hibition or something else for the trouble. 
While I speak of this section alone, the 
same thing will happen to other sections 
in a different way. Yet while change to 
new things is on with a rush and a whirl, 
I think in some ways we are to change 
back to old habits. 
Name one or two. 
Well, let us take flour and sugar. There 
has been great trouble over these two 
staples, and I think people will decide 
that here are cases where “ we have got 
to do it ourselves .” We have been experi¬ 
menting with a little electric grinder in 
making flour and cornmeal. This grinder 
can be carried about anywhere' and con¬ 
nected with an electric wire. We took 
wheat of good quality, washed it clean, 
dried it in the oven and ran it through 
this machine. By regrinding and sifting 
vve make an excellent flour. We also 
make a good quality of cornmeal. The 
bread from this flour ie good. My belief 
is that in the future many housewives 
will make their own flour and meal in 
this way. They will buy the entire grain 
and grind it right on the kitchen table, 
and there will be an immense direct trade 
in small quantities of wheat and corn. 
But most of us do not raise wheat. 
I know it, but you have probably never 
tried raising it as a garden crop, 
on good soil, drilled in rows and hoed or 
cultivated. You can grow a tremendous 
crop on a small piece of land, and I will 
go on record as predicting that in the fu¬ 
ture thousands of families will grow, their 
wheat supply in the garden and grind it 
right in the home. They may not be 
able, to get a flour as white as what they 
can buy, but it will be 'better for them. 
But ichat about sugar? 
I think many of us will use more mo¬ 
lasses and syrup in the future and make 
much of the latter on the farm.. A patch 
of sorghum will provide the juice, and 
the manufacturers will give us small 
presses and evaporating pans for turning 
it into syrup. I think this will be tried 
on many farms this Summer. Sugar beets 
are useful in big factories, but you can¬ 
not make good beet sugar or syrup on a 
small scale. Sorghum can be used to 
produce a small supply. 
But this is going back to old times. 1 
thought we were to make progress. 
It is “going back to old times,” and it 
happens to be progress, too. For progress 
not only pushes a plow ahead, but it 
drags a rake behind. The rake is often 
more useful than the plow, for it pulls 
up into view many good habits or prac¬ 
tices which we ought never to have 
dropped. We never would have shed 
them if our eyes had not been blinded 
by the glare of “progress.” Now it will 
pay to get off the-wagon and pick them up. 
The truth is we have let too many of the 
good old-time jobs get away from us. 
Our parents were millers and bakers and 
laundrymen and waiters, and nobody 
knows what not. We have let most of 
these jobs pass into the hands of others, 
who do what we could just as well do 
ourselves—and charge us for doing it more 
than we get ourselves. And. the only rea¬ 
son we can give for doing it is that the 
very people who have captured our old 
jobs now dictate the fashion which holds 
us slaves. I think we are going to break 
away and come back to doing some of 
the old jobs with improved tools. 
Do you think fashion makes us walk a 
straight line? 
I know it. Go out and hunt for men 
and women who will have the .nerve to 
wear old clothes or do things which other 
people smile at.! You will have to use 
a fine-tooth comb to find them, and when 
you do find them, the chances are that 
the very fact of their being out of fashion 
has trained them to “kick” so constantly 
that it is hard to live with them. A candy- 
maker thought out a scheme for advertis¬ 
ing that his candy never sold for less than 
one dollar a pound. He got every girl 
in town to believe that when a young fel¬ 
low gave her candy of any other make 
he was something of a “piker”—trying to 
economize. Perhaps you know how far 
the average young fellow gets in the face 
of that reputation. All the samples of 
candy were largely sugar, butter and 
chocolate—but this one also had “style.” 
Will our Eastern farmers come nearer 
to supplying all the food the cities need? 
I doubt it. They must be more and 
more specialists, but they will provide 
more of their own food. Some years ago 
I traveled on a train with the New York 
Commissioner of Foods and Markets. He 
was late, and had no time to get any 
dinner. So when the train boy came 
along he tried to make up a balanced ra¬ 
tion from what there was to buy. An 
apple and a banana gave carbohydrates 
and vitamines. a box of pecan nuts gave 
protein and fat, and a box of “milk choc¬ 
olate” gave him sugar and more carbo¬ 
hydrates. It was a balanced ration—a 
little short of protein, but the apple came 
from Oregon, the banana from Mexico, 
the nuts from Texas and the chocolate 
from Venezuela, while the water eame 
from a lake in New Jersey. All of the 
New York Commissioner’s lunch that 
came from his own State was the air! 
Once when riding through Vermont we 
had a fine dinner in a dining car. I 
figured out that the only part of it which 
Vermont produced was the butter and the 
ice! We have all got to go back to the 
old habit of producing more of our own 
food. 
I hare given quite a bit of time to the 
study of keeping fit personally, and know 
pretty near what to expect when we are 
invited away to a big feed, or rather a 
succession of such useless feeds, and try a 
little of this and more of that till one's 
stomach surely must resemble a garbage 
pail. Well. 1 did it, and that is why this 
reply is 10 days late, or possibly worse 
than that. Of course, I suppose you never 
do such things. 
Not if I can help it. The average man 
over 50 usually eats almost twice as much 
as he needs. He knows better, of course, 
but it is “set before him,” and if he doesn’t 
eat it the cook and hostess feels badly 
when she has done her best to spread forth 
a feast. Many a day in some hotel or 
(Continued on page 122) 
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high prices for 
coffee when 
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costs less and is 
better for you! 
There’s been no raise 
in. price. 
Usually sold at 15£and! 25^ 
by 
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ANALYSING 
PHOSPHORIC ACID Grade A 28.00% Grade B 16.00% 
BARIUM SULPHIDE 7.00% 7.00% 
MANURE IS NO MORE A COMPLETE RA TION 
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Tbe addition of Phosphorus to manure will pay as well as feeding grain with hay. 
A few pounds of B-P scattered each day in the gutters of your barn will 
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