1108 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
While we were- in Mississippi things 
went on well here, including the weather. 
There came a period of sunshine with 
only a little shower now and then. The 
ground dried and the grass fairly jumped 
at its pumps and sucked the water out of 
the soil. The temptation was to jump in 
and plow up more land while this good 
weather lasted, but instead of doing that 
our folks got out the cultivators and 
worked on what we have planted. It is 
better to care for what you have in, 
rather than to keep on planting for the 
sake of having a big acreage. If it turns 
wet once more we can sow millet, and 
other fodder crops, and the weed killing 
during this bright weather will save the 
corn and tomatoes. With hay at $50 to 
$60 per ton the fodder crop proposition is 
a paying one. Another rain has now 
started, but it is not likely to hurt—in 
fact, some of our crops really needed a 
soaking. 
* * * * * 
By the first week in June we had over 
eight acres of sweet corn planted, about 
3,000 tomatoes and 1,000 each of peppers 
and eggplants, one acre of potatoes, and 
the stage well set for 1,000 or more bar¬ 
rels of apples—besides the best garden we 
ever started. There will be about 10 acres 
more of corn, squash, roots, cabbage and 
millet. The trees have been well dusted, 
and part of our orchards plowed and har¬ 
rowed. The rest will be kept in sod. with 
the grass cut and piled around the trees. 
It will make us jump to keep up with this 
program with our labor, but a Jersey 
Summer is the proper season for jumping 
.—surely not for sitting down to tell about 
it At this moment it looks as if we 
should produce more food than ever be¬ 
fore, but it has cost at least 30 per cent 
more than ever. We must all work hard¬ 
er, and a wrong turn in the weather might 
upset every plan we have made. How¬ 
ever. we intend to go right ahead and do 
the best we can. It is a chance, and we 
realize it. 
***** 
The fearful price of potatoes and the 
impossibility of obtaining good seed made 
us use every precaution this.year to have 
our crop planted right. I just want to 
thank all the good friends who helped us 
out with seed. We have, samples from a 
dozen or more places, and I never saw 
anything finer than some of these samples. 
We have a chance to plant them side by 
side so as to see if there is any great dif¬ 
ference in power between seed from vari¬ 
ous localities. Then we have several sam¬ 
ples of certified seed. Several people have 
sent us a few tubers of entirely new va¬ 
rieties, including two which are said to 
be absolutely blight-proof. Surely we can 
give all such varieties a fine chance to 
show their power, for if a potato will 
blight anywhere it will show the disease 
in Bergen County. These potatoes were 
all planted by hand on the best soil we 
have, and they will be well cultivated. 
They will be d'usted with our regular mix¬ 
ture' of 85 per cent powdered sulphur and 
15 per cent of arsenate of lead. With us 
that kills the bugs promptly and seems to 
delay the spread of blight or to check its 
growth. I will not say this dust is a 
complete “cure” for the blight disease. Ho 
not say for a moment that I ever made 
any such claim. If you want to play an 
entirely safe game I advise you to use 
Bordeaux mixture as. the scientific men 
advise, yet we use this sulphur dust and 
get good results from it. 
***** 
It seems as if I have said over and over 
all I know (and perhaps more) about the 
use of dust in place of the liquid spray. 
This is the third year we have used it in 
our orchard, and each year makes me 
stronger in my faith in this dry treatment. 
As we have often stated, the dust we use 
is ,85 per cent sulnhur and 15 per cent 
lead arsenate. Other mixtures contain 
some lime or plaster or finely ground to¬ 
bacco. The latter is supposed to kill 
plant lice. We are satisfied with the 
plain sulphur and arsenate'mixture. We 
have Jhe mixture made up for us by a 
mamifacturer. though it is quite possible 
to obtain a machine and mix it at home. 
The dust is blown' out by means of a fan 
operated by a small gasoline engine, and 
through a tubd which looks like the metal 
spouts on a house. We apply the dust at 
just about the same time- that you would 
use the poisoned liquid. With us that 
means after the bloom has fallen and the 
little apple begins to turn its head down. 
The weather this year was well-nigh 
ideal for using this dust. There was good 
sunshine and a gentle wind to sift the 
cloud of dust out through the trees. Some 
of the “dusters” say the. leaves should be 
wet, or at least moist, in order to. make 
the dust stick. We do not find this nec¬ 
essary. as the dust sticks nicely to any 
green leaf. We worked right through the 
Our plan of operation was to start as 
early as convenient after breakfast. With 
the dust tank or hopper well filled and a 
reserve of several hundred pounds of dust, 
the outfit was started at the windward 
side of the orchard. A boy drove the 
horse and a man carried the tube. A 
whirl at the engine handle started that 
“gas hired man” into action, and a cloud 
of yellow dust began pouring out of the 
tube. The man simply held the tube up 
into the tree and worked it back and forth 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
and up and down, perhaps a minute to 
each tree. The smoke-like dust worked 
up all through the tree and floated lazily 
off through the orchard, sifting through 
other trees as it went. In many cases 
this dust would sift through eight or 10 
rows beyond the tree to which it was ap¬ 
plied, and there was evidence of the dust 
in the air 20 minutes after it was applied. 
I think anyone would admit after seeing 
these smoky dust clouds sift through the 
orchard that the trees were as thoroughly 
covered with poison as they possibly could 
be with any fine liquid spray. Counting 
the time required in going back to fill the 
tank with water, our people worked about 
thi'ce times as fast with the duster. In 
some locations where the water is nearer 
there would not be this wide margin of 
time, but with us—there being no water 
on the hill—the dust saves a vast amount 
of time. Thus far in killing the leaf-eat¬ 
ing insects, the dust has given us quite as 
good results as the liquid. 
r|e sjc sjs =ge 
Yet I find the “dusters” are generally 
looked upon as heretics or dangerous char¬ 
acters! Ever since the world began the 
pioneers in any movement have never 
come near very much of the pie—if I 
may put it that way. If I could call back 
to life the men and women who in other 
years have been persecuted or killed sim¬ 
ply because they were among the first to 
break away from old-time traditions. I 
could surely people a world. You might 
think that in a free country like this a 
man might use dust for killing insects 
without being called insane or soft-head¬ 
ed. Yet I find'people so worked up over 
the subject that they say that he who 
practices or preaches “dusting” is an ene¬ 
my of the fruit grower and is doing great 
injury to the business. That is because 
he may actually obtain a convert or two 
now and then. Some years ago it was 
much the same with lime and sulphur for 
spraying. I have had good men lecture 
me like a delinquent schoolboy because I 
used oil and got good results. These men 
could not deny that the oil killed the scale 
and helped the trees, but they seemed to 
have determined that nothing but lime-sul¬ 
phur should be used. It has been the same 
way with dozens of other things. Years 
ago I heard an old minister preach a ser¬ 
mon on this form of prejudice. lie told 
of a man wandering about in a dark 
night. Suddenly, far in the distance, he 
saw a light, and started straight for it. 
That way led him through a swamp, over 
rough places, through a swift river and 
other obstacles. Finally, after dreadful 
hardships, he reached a comfortable house, 
and through the window saw a bright lire 
with a happy family gathered around it. 
lie knocked at the door and a farmer 
opened it. but blocked the way. 
“How did you get here?” asked the 
farmer. 
“I came the best I could through the 
swamp and over the field.” 
“You can’t come in,” said the farmer. 
“That’s not the right way. There is a 
smooth road five miles long. Go back and 
start again, find the road and come over it. 
You can’t come in here unless you travel 
the right road. That’s the one we use !” 
All my life I have been hoping to find a 
day when bigotry and selfishness would 
be softened a little. I think it. is coming. 
***** 
T have had something to say about those 
Black Jersey Giant chickens. The longer 
we keep them the better we like them. 
They are about equal to our Reds as lay¬ 
ers, with a somewhat larger egg. There 
is no question about their size and eating 
quality. They are quiet, handsome birds, 
and easy keepers. Their black legs will 
prove a disadvantage in the market, but 
for home use, especially in small flocks, 
they are good. We find the eggs from 
our pen quite low in fertility, though 
other breeders say they have little trouble. 
We think our chief trouble is that our 
breeders are pullets. This big breed would 
naturally be late in maturing, and I think 
these pullets were hardly capable of lay¬ 
ing normal eggs at first. Older hens seem 
to give a full proportion of fertile eggs. I 
think the Black Giants have a great 
future. They will follow the history of 
the Reds. We have not fully standard¬ 
ized them yet, but they have the qualities 
which have made all true Americans great. 
What is any American anyway but a 
more or less recent mixture of British and 
European blood inside a body “made in 
America”? 
***** 
The gray goose is the most successful 
bird on the farm today. She and a white 
hen as an understudy hatched 14 goslings 
—all as lively and fat as need be. If all 
human husbands would take half the in- 
June 19, 1920 
terest in bringing up their children that 
the gander does in his offspring the future 
of this country would be bright. You 
never saw a more devoted parent. He 
and the goose travel about all day with 
their family ranged between them. At 
night the gander broods part of the flock 
and by day he leads them about, teaching 
them everything a young goose needs to 
know. Let anything that might possibly 
be considered an enemy approach and the 
gander comes to the front with a hiss like 
a locomotive, and his right wing present¬ 
ed like a prizefighter’s arm. They tell me 
he could break a child’s leg with a blow 
from that wing. “All he asks is to be let 
alone,” and I surely have no wish to in¬ 
terfere with him. I know some men who 
Will not even wheel the baby carriage 
around the block. I would like to compel 
them to watch that gander’s paternal oc¬ 
cupation for an hour or two. They could 
learn some great lessons in bringing up a 
family. Would they heed such lessons? 
But, seriously, it seems to me that a few 
pairs of geese will protfe very profitable 
stock on many a farm. H. w. c. 
Down East Crop Conditions 
Maine stands to produce at best not 
more than one-third a normal fruit crop. 
'Phe .severe Winter has seriously tried 
Baldwin, Greening, Stark and Ben Davis 
trees, and they start slowly, showing 
small leaves and want of vitality. Men 
engaged in grafting report great, difficulty 
in getting good scion stock. McIntosh 
bloom is heavy, and the same with odd 
varieties, but the per cent is small. May 
30 was White Sunday, fully 10 days 
late. Land still cold and work greatly 
delayed. Tremendous lack of man power 
on the farms means big shortage in crop 
yield in September. City people are just 
waking to the fact and calling on the 
Governor for message urging farmers to 
plant more, yet. putting in the way the 
one obstacle certain to thwart our ef¬ 
forts—big wages and short hours. But 
for seriousness of situation the frantic 
appeals of the city press would be amus¬ 
ing. Outrageous prices for feed stuff, 
coupled with total loss of farm help, is 
breaking up the herds and putting farms 
on the market. Meanwhile the workers 
keep on doing the best they can under 
the circumstances. g. m. twitch ell. 
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