982 
{ Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
J HOPE FARM NOTES 
The past week gave us three clear days, 
two that were rainy and one cloudy with 
ehowers. Two nights were close to freez¬ 
ing and the cherry blooms escaped by 
even less than a hair's breadth. They 
were still nights, so the cold air rolled 
down into the valleys, and we on the hills 
escaped. Below us quite a little damage 
was done. Some of the farmers on warm, 
early land, took a chance on very early 
planting of sweet corn. It came up right, 
but I fear these cold nights have cut it 
badly. Sweet corn is a tender plant, and 
how Jack* Frost does love to gnaw it off 
the cob and off the earth. The peach 
and apple trees have been slow to bloom 
this year, and that has surely saved them 
thus far. By May S the first open bloom 
of crab apples appeared with us. That 
is about two weeks late. Few. if any. of 
the apples had started any bloom at that 
date. There will be some peaches, al¬ 
though not a full crop by any means. 
Take it as a whole the middle of May 
finds us at least 25 per cent behind our 
regular place at this season. 
***** 
We are planting sweet corn quite 
heavily, and by May S had something like 
six acres in. Most of this follows corn 
of last year, with a cover crop plowed 
under. It may be said that the wet sea¬ 
son has been very good for the cover crops 
and that the cover crops have helped with 
the wet soil. Rye and clover are gluttons 
for water, and in a season like this one 
they make a tremendous growth. This 
habit make them useful in sucking the 
water out of w T et soils. They are like 
pumps to pull the moisture away. There 
can be no question about the fact that 
rye and Alsike clover will help put wet 
soil in shape for earlier plowing. Take 
a naturally wet field in a season like this. 
Have half of it in rye and clover and the 
other half bare. You will find that the 
covered half will be in condition to plow 
several days earlier than the othei\ We 
do not always realize how strong plants 
like rye suck up the water. They cer¬ 
tainly pull like a porous plaster, and 
there" can be no question about the benefit 
the soil receives from the yearly addition 
of this cover crop. If anyone can name 
any cheaper way of manuring I would 
like to know of it. 
j}e i'fi £ :Je :je 
Last year we saved our own sweet corn 
seed. The best rows or hills were se¬ 
lected and the stalks were bent over and 
protected from birds. As soon as. they 
were hard and ripe the ears were picked, 
the husks pulled back and the ears hung 
up in a dry shed. That is the way our 
market gardeners handle the ear’s, and as 
a result we have strong and vital seed 
which we know is true. We make use 
of three varieties for main crop—Cory, 
Mammoth (Early and Late) and the local 
sort known as “Shemanee.” The latter 
is very vigorous, and makes a great ear. 
Sometimes a little Minnesota or Crosby 
will be planted, but these three varieties 
give a good succession of well-known sorts. 
For home use Golden Bantam is great, 
and in New England this yellow corn, 
like brown eggs, is considered superior. 
In Winter whenever I go to New England 
and have a farmer’s dinner they always 
serve this yellow corn. Somehow the 
crows do not seem so numerous this year, 
and we have not tarred the corn as usual. 
Anyway, we must have some crows that 
have taken a sea voyage or two. for dur¬ 
ing the past years they have pulled up 
great numbers of hills of tarred corn. I 
understand “pyrox” will fix them, and 
other “dressings” are suggested, but we 
have had great success with old-fashioned 
scarecrows. No use talking, Thomas suc¬ 
ceeded in stuffing up a few suits of old 
clothes that did scare those black rascals 
away. You may say that our New Jer¬ 
sey crows belong to a degenerate and 
timid bi*eed—but the scarecrows did fix 
them last year. 
* * * * * 
The potato situation gets worse each 
week in our section. Many families have 
cut potatoes entirely out of their scheme 
of food, and they will not go back to them 
until the price drops far down. It will 
be much like what happened as a result 
of very high milk prices. People stopped 
buying milk, and will not use it freely 
again until the price drops. We were 
helped out by friends who sent us pack¬ 
ages of seed potatoes—mostly by mail. 
As a result we have better seed than ever 
before, and wm are planting it as well as 
we know how. The plan this year is to 
select patches of the strongest garden 
soil we have and plant by hand*. One 
sample patch will show how we try to 
sew up the potato situation this year. 
This patch is back of the house. The 
children have had their eyes on it for a 
tennis court, but they resigned that in 
favor of potatoes. The ground was cov¬ 
ered with clover and grass. This was 
plowed under deep and the surface made 
as fine and smooth as possible. Then we 
plowed out wide furrows, three feet apart. 
:J: # Jje sjs ❖ 
I never cut seed as carefully as has 
been done this year. When seed is cheap 
we can take a good-sized tuber and slice 
it in two and perhaps cut one of the 
halves. This year, however, we cut to 
one-eye pieces, planning to leave one 
strong eye on each piece, with as much 
of the tuber as possible to serve as nurs¬ 
ing bottle for the little plant. The seed 
was of a new variety sent us by a friend 
who rightly thinks he has a good one. 
Some time ago. when we wrote about 
that Idaho baked potato, this man sent 
me a sample of his new red kind to see 
how they compared. We baked them 
and found them superior to any we had 
ever tried. So now we have some of the 
seed. The tubers have eyes well dis¬ 
tributed, so that often six or eight pieces 
can be cut out. These pieces were 
dropped about 15 inches apart in the fur¬ 
rows and about three inches of fine dirt 
hoed in over them. In field culture we 
should use the cultivator for this work, 
but in this garden scale we naturally use 
more hand work. The object is to cover 
lightly in this cold soil, and get the plant 
above ground as quickly as possible. A 
good dressing of potato fertilizer will be 
scattered in the furrows, and as soon as 
the plants get above ground the culti¬ 
vator and hoes will be kept going in order 
to tear up the sod plowed out in making 
the furrows. It will be a job to keep 
this grassy patch clean, but we have got 
to do it. 
* -4c * * * 
The labor expense this year is some¬ 
thing awful to contemplate. When I first 
came here we found all the labor we 
needed at $1 a day for a 10-hour day— 
and the hours were well spent. Now I 
hear of one case in a near-by town where 
a common workman demanded $7 a day 
for running a lawn mower! He puts in 
less than eight hours. He claims he can 
get .$10 a day at the brickyards. This 
job was finally given to a farmer who 
seems to have given up working his small 
farm because he can make more at such 
jobs. There are many farmers who seem 
to have stopped working their own fields 
in order to plow or cultivate for others. 
They make more money by doing so, but 
in evei'y case there is a loss in produc¬ 
tion. and, what is more serious, a loss 
in farm spirit. Nor do I find as many 
gardens started or -worked this year as 
formerly. During the past few years 
money has been flowing like water into 
the towns and cities, and people have sim¬ 
ply gone crazy over spending what they 
can get their hands on. The “organized” 
workers have had more than their share. 
The clerks and unorganized people have 
not had what they deserve. In the end 
it all comes out of the land. This thing 
cannot last forever. It is likely that 
some big upheaval like a panic will be 
needed to clear up the mess and get us 
back to sanity. 
:J: :«c :}: % :}: 
I met a man the other day—usually 
good natured and hopeful—who has be¬ 
come a pessimist from away back. He 
says that next Winter will see food riots 
in the big cities—the army needed to put 
them down. I once saw a “bread riot” 
in New York. It was a group of women 
who demanded rye bread, potatoes, cab¬ 
bage and milk. They were offered rice, 
beans and cornmeal, bub such food was 
treated with scorn. One man told me 
that corn, rice and beans were fit only for 
Chinamen and slaves! When I told him 
my favorite dinner was brown bread and 
beans and rice pudding, he “rioted” 
greatly in language. lie made one good 
point, which was that the papers stated 
that farmers could hardly sell their i‘ye, 
cabbage and milk at the cost of produc¬ 
tion. The country was overstocked with 
these things. Why could not people have 
them? But my pessimistic friend thinks 
the world has all gone wrong. He will 
quit producing, let his farm go and spend 
his time telling how bad the situation is. 
He is wrong in that. I am not so sure 
of the “food riots” unless the distributors 
hold up the supply; but many people will 
be forced back into war economies. On 
the other hand, this looks like the best 
year for farm prices we have had thus 
far in the century. I must except milk 
and a few other things, for they are not 
free to be bought and sold according to de¬ 
mand : but for most farm crops the price 
outlook is good. I think we should all 
face the situation squarely and then go 
to work to remedy it. if we can. This 
thing of quitting to talk about the trouble, 
will not help it. I know some men who 
for years have been working on a wrong 
plan and out-of-date methods. If neces¬ 
sity will force us into something better, 
we shall all be better off. 
:Jc * * % 
Perhaps you remember how last year 
we tried to kill out a bad patch of quack 
grass. It was plowed early and seeded 
thickly to oats. Thes^ oats were cut for 
hay and the field at once plowed and well 
worked with a spring-tooth. Then we 
May 22, 1920 
seeded thickly to buckwheat, with about 
three pecks of rye to the acre added. The 
buckwheat, of course, came up first and 
made a very heavy growth, completely 
hiding the rye. When the buckwheat was 
cut it was hard to find any rye, but. I 
felt sure of it, and. sure enough, it is 
now over a foot high and thick enough. 
As for the quack grass, it has mostly dis¬ 
appeared, but there are a few patches left, 
and I know only too well how it will 
spread all over once more if we leave it 
alone. This field will be plowed and 
planted in tomatoes and peppers, with a 
heavy dose of chicken manure and phos¬ 
phate. We hope to clean out the rest of 
the quack grass by thorough culture. The 
point about this is that on reasonably 
good soil and with a damp season we can 
sow buckwheat and rye together and ex¬ 
pect each to give us a crop. I know of 
only one useful place for quack. It. is 
not bail for a mulched orchard, where the 
desire is to fill the soil with organic mat¬ 
ter. Quack is a duck for doing that! 
***** 
As the apple trees get ready to show 
their colors I find some rather strange 
things. One block of Northwestern Green¬ 
ings seems to have become lazy. As a rule, 
this variety gives a fair crop every year—- 
at least, ours have done so. This year, 
however, most of the tree have few, if any, 
blooms, while a few are loaded, as usual. 
The trees all look well, and have had 
good care. On the other hand, a block of 
old trees of Rhode Island Greening has 
“come back” in a wonderful manner. For 
several years these trees dawdled along 
and I thought they were done, but here 
they are loaded with bloom, standing up 
like great bouquets, and apparently good 
for five barrels or more of fruit each. I 
cannot figure out any reason for it. They 
just decided to give us a big crop—to 
help out the food problem. The most re¬ 
markable thing is the way the Baldwin 
trees are t-.'peating. Last year was their 
season, and they made much of it. Yet 
here they are again with a fair bloom 
and with all the evidence of a good crop. 
Of course, I know that evidence is not 
apples, but from long experience it is clear 
that these trees have loaded up for an¬ 
other crop. IIow did they do it? The 
Baldwin, under ordinary conditions, sel¬ 
dom, if ever, repeats. It bears a full 
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