670 
April 19, 1924 
*lht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Hope Farm Notes 
Cape Cod 
Pabt III 
The Cape Cod strawberry is noted in 
the Boston market. As is the case with 
asparagus, it is a matter of finding the 
soil best suited to the crop, and then 
the variety best adapted to the soil. That 
is coming to be the foundation of all suc¬ 
cess in modern farming. The big Hol¬ 
stein cows make a great success in the 
rich pastures of Holland, while the more 
active Ayrshires prosper on the rough 
hills and moors of Scotland. It is largely a 
matter of adaptation, and it is interesting 
to* consider whether the scientific men of 
the college or the practical farmers are 
most useful in working out such things. 
In New Jersey and many parts of East¬ 
ern New York the Leghorn hen, grouped 
in large commercial farms, is the right 
feather duster for keeping the bank ac¬ 
count clean, while in Eastern Massa¬ 
chusetts some larger breed, like Reds or 
Rocks, will show greater profit. Much of 
the Cape’s strawberry business has 
grouped around Falmouth, where there 
are, some years, over 300 acres. The 
growers seem to select a well-drained 
loam soil—if possible on land recently 
cleared from the wood. Of varieties 
Howard 17 seems to be the favorite. The 
pioneers of the business are Portuguese 
people, many of whom drifted in from 
such industrial centers as New Bedford 
and Fall River. They came with the 
European’s great desire to own a piece 
of land and by careful, hard work have 
created what amounts to a new industry. 
s)e $ s|s sfc 
There is not much stable manure to 
be found on the Cape (there should be 
far more live stock kept) so that chemi¬ 
cal fertilizers are largely used on the ber¬ 
ries. The acreage in fruit will run from 
half an acre to four acres, and on the 
smaller places it is practically all hand 
work. The land is cleared by hand, 
plants set and placed, fertilizer applied, 
hoeing, weeding — all operations per¬ 
formed by hand. It is rather a curious 
thought that here in the oldest agricul¬ 
tural part of America this hand work 
should still be carried on successfully. 
There are many fields on the Cape which 
have gone through the same monotonous 
program again and again. The _ early 
settlers found them cleared and cultivated 
by the Indians. They learned from the 
natives to use fish for fertilizer. They 
found that after a few years of cultiva¬ 
tion even twice the quantity of fish failed 
to produce the corn, though the land held 
out better when seaweed and kelp were 
used. When the land failed it was 
usually abandoned. Then brush and 
weeds occupied it. Finally the scrub oaks 
grew large enough for fuel. They were 
cut, and the brush and weeds were 
burned—leaving a thin film of ashes on 
the soil. Then it; was found that for sev¬ 
eral years more the fish would bring 
good crops of corn. Of course no one 
knew at that time what these natural 
signs meant. These light soils are natur¬ 
ally deficient in potash. The fish con¬ 
tains nitrogen and phosphorus. The kelp 
and seaweed supplied a little potash but 
when the fish alone was used there came 
a time, after a few years, when the 
available potash in the soil was exhausted 
and thus the corn could not make a full 
crop. When abandoned brush and weeds 
came in. These rougher plants were able 
to utilize forms of potash in the soil 
which the corn or beans could not digest. 
Thus, when after some years, the brush 
and weeds were burned, the potash they 
had taken out of the soil was made avail¬ 
able and corn would grow once more! 
For centuries both red and white farmers 
knew that this “rotation” of crops 
worked out but while they knew the 
“how” of it, the chemist had to come 
along later and prove the “why” of it. 
I have no doubt that there are fields on 
the lower Cape which have produced 
crops in something of this way for 600 
years, and now, in strawberries, they are 
more productive than ever before. 
***** 
In this intensive culture the. land is 
made as smooth and fine as possible, and 
rows marked out 4% to 5 ft. apart. Then 
the plants are set by hand 14 to 15 in. 
in the row. The object evidently is to 
make a wide matted row with a narrow 
path between for the piekers. Most of 
us who try to save hand labor let the 
runners go as they please—trusting some¬ 
how to nature to place them properly. 
These Cape Cod growers place every plant 
by hand—putting each one just where it 
is wanted. As we know the joint of the 
vine between runner plants will average 
a little more than one foot long, so that 
when the row or bed is completed they 
have a space 3*4 to 4 ft. wide with 
plants evenly set a little over one foot 
apart each way. Of course the surplus 
runners are nipped off. Chemical fer¬ 
tilizers are used entirely, and all applied 
by hand—close around the plants where 
needed. My understanding is that about 
half the fertilizer is put on when the 
plants are set and the other half in Au¬ 
gust or September to promote the growth 
of fruit buds. TTp to this time pine 
needles have been used for mulching. 
They have been easily obtained in the 
near-by pine woods, are clean and free 
from weed seed. Some sort of instinct 
seems to have made it clear to these farm¬ 
ers that pine needles will not injure an 
acid-soil crop like strawberries, while they 
might hurt corn or beans. If the business 
is extended some new mulch material will 
be needed. I should think a crop of 
Sudan grass broadcast on good soil would 
supply it. But after all this careful 
hand work some surprising crops of ber¬ 
ries are produced. I was told of one 
case where about 10.000 quarts were 
grown on one measured half acre! These 
were Howard 17. and they were of great 
size and fine quality. At this rate how 
many acres of wheat land in Kansas or 
Nebraska would it take to equal one acre 
of Cape Cod land in berries? 
❖ * £ ❖ # 
Last week I spoke of the soil around 
Eastham. It was once celebrated for 
corn production ; now it is even more cel¬ 
ebrated for asparagus. Some years after 
the settlement at Plymouth a company 
broke away from that colony and moved 
to Eastham, where they remained, farm¬ 
ing and fishing. Thus, even at that early 
date, practical farmers knew good land. 
I presume they judged it by the crops 
which the Indians produced. You could 
hardly judge this Cape Cod soil from its 
color and general appearance. It looks 
thin and light colored, yet when properly 
handled it gives great yields of crops nat¬ 
urally adapted to it. Last year Arthur 
T. Benner grew 500,000 asparagus plants. 
He used GO lbs. of seed on a little over 
five acres, and says “You can estimate 
Ihe number of miles I crawled to keep 
them free from weeds!” Most Ameri¬ 
cans would rather estimate than crawl. 
Perhaps that is one reason for the decline 
of agriculture! One man reports great 
loss from cutworms until he turned the 
hens into the asparagus patch. That 
turned cutworms into eggs. It seems to 
be the common belief among these aspara¬ 
gus growers that after a couple of years 
growth “the humus problem takes care of 
itself”; that is, the asparagus roots fill 
this light soil so completely that they 
provide a full supply of organic matter. 
To fit the land for asparagus, manure 
must be used, or some green crop like rye 
or clover must be plowed under. In 1850 
Thoreau described the government’s at¬ 
tempts to hold the sandy soil by planting 
beach grass. This plant grows up through 
the sand and uses its roots to bind the 
soil together, which it has done quite ef¬ 
fectively. In Thoreau’s day it was quite 
generally expected that within a century 
the wind and the Atlantic would break 
down the forearm and wrist of the Cape 
and leave Provincetown on an island, 
lienee the need of some “binder” to hold 
the soil together—there being little clay 
on the Cape. I judge that this forearm 
is now stronger and thicker than ever— 
saved by binder or humus crops and, I 
take it, such crops represent the great 
need of the farming soil today. I should 
think that Soy beans. Sweet clover and 
some of the acid soil legumes would work 
wonders with this land. If kudzu could 
be made to thrive here it would fill this 
soil with a richness which would make 
Captain Kidd’s buried treasures seem like 
a child’s penny bank. For it seems to me 
that there is a great treasure hidden in 
the Soil of Cape Cod, undiscovered, but 
wait in?. 
* * * * * 
The Cape has always seemed to me like 
a land of mystery. Years ago, when I 
was a little boy, an old Cape Cod captain 
spent the night at our little farm. After 
supper, under the influence of several 
mugs of hard cider, he became musical. 
No; I can hardly say that, for his sing¬ 
ing was much like the roar of the wind 
and the slamming of a back door. But 
the words of his song stuck in my mind : 
“Oh, my name was Cap’n Kidd 
As I sailed, as 1 sailed. 
And much wickedness I did 
As I sailed! 
Then I murdered William Moore 
As I sailed, as I sailed, 
And I left him in his goi-e 
As I sailed !” 
There were many more verses relating 
how Captain Kidd buried his treasure 
along the shore at various places. This 
Cape Cod man told us thrilling tales of 
adventure in the hunting of Kidd’s treas¬ 
ure, and I went to bed thinking it was a 
very poor business to keep on raising 
beans and corn and Light Brahma hens 
when one could go out and dig up Span¬ 
ish gold for the digging! Now I have an 
idea that for many years the people of 
Cape Cod entertained some such idea as 
that. What I mean to say is that they 
regarded farming or the cultivation of the 
toil as of secondary importance. The 
ocean and what came out of it meant 
more to them than the soil. It is not 
likely that many of them have hunted for 
Captain Kidd’s treasure, but their 
thought has been so much upon the ocean 
that they have neglected the treasure 
which lies right under their feet. There 
is the old, oft-repeated story of the Eng¬ 
lish farmer who became despondent and 
lost faith in his farm. One night he had 
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