THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. ' 131 



Perhaps the most interesting portion of this paper concerning lawTis will be an answer 

 to the question, "How to secure a good lawn after it has become thin and weedy?" 



Through the results of experiments made by Mr. Lawes and his associates in England, 

 I am able to give a remedy that shall be inexpensive and satisfactory. 



During the growing season apply at two or three different tunes a commercial fertil- 

 izer, consisting of ammonia salts, nitrate of soda and fine bone meal. Unleached wood 

 ashes are very valuable. A commercial fertihzer on a lawn is preferable to barnyard 

 manure for two reasons: No weed seeds are introduced, and the front yard is not con- 

 verted into an unsightly barnyard for several months in the year. The proportions and 

 amount of fertihzer needed cannot be given exactly, because soils differ so much in dif- 

 ferent places. 



"On general principles, all manures tend to drive out the weeds by increasing the better 

 herbage." 



SOME FARMING EXPERIENCES OF TWO CITY WOMEN. 



(ISABEL MC ISAAC, BENTON HARBOR.) 



During the past ten years we have been reading many accounts of the wonderful suc- 

 cesses of amateur farmers who reap large paying har\^ests the first year, and go abroad 

 on the proceeds of their fourth or fifth crops. We have no such success to record, indeed 

 we do not claim any greater degree of success than any of you who have been farming all 

 your lives. We hope you fully appreciate the modesty of that statement, because the 

 temptation to boast is not unknown to farmers, and being women we might make claims 

 which men would hesitate to dispute. 



The migrations of men from the country to the city have been the subject of much re- 

 cent discussion, many theories have been advanced and many suggestions made, but the 

 migration goes on without hindrance. Such movements obey some natural law or force 

 which we often fail to recognize, but speaking from the standpoint of both experiences, 

 it seems perfectly natural that young people, both men and women, should yearn for the 

 greater activity and opportunity which the city affords. The migration of mankind from 

 the city to the country has really only begun in this country, and should it continue to in- 

 crease at the present rate, another generation will find us a much better balanced nation 

 than we have been during the period which has followed the civil war. As yet we city 

 emigrants are uncommon enough for city friends to declare us crazy, and our country neigh- 

 bors to give us two years to fail and return to town. 



Thus far we two have not yet been sent to an insane hospital, and our neighbors have 

 been obliged to extend the time to four years, and in one or two instances have actually 

 admitted that we might possibly escape the poor house. 



We came to the country after twenty years of strenuous life in the great hospitals of a 

 great city, a hfe that knew no hours of relief from responsibility and anxiety, which brought 

 us in contact with every phase of men and women, good and bad, rich and poor, high and 

 low, wise and ignorant, all in an atmosphere of physical disability to which was often 

 added mental disturbance and moral degradation. There came a time when we felt that 

 some far away corner where m.en were well, and we might have at least one hour in the 

 twenty-four to call our veiy own, where the air was fresh, the sun unclouded by soot and 

 smoke, and v%here we might once more be our own masters, would be all we could ask; and 

 thus it w'as that in spite of remonstrances of friends we bought ten acres of fruit land in 

 your midst. 



We came to the country entirely ignorant of what it meant, the only glimmer of intel- 

 ligence on the subject that we seem to have had was that we were old and experienced 

 enough to predict that it would take at least five years for us to learn how to make farm- 

 ing pay. But in this we were happily surprised to find the farm self-supporting at the 

 end of three years. 



There have been many times when we have been thoroughly disgusted and would cer- 

 tainly have abandoned farming but for the fact that we could not afford to lose our in- 

 vestment, and because of the innate obstinacy which has always compelled us to overcome 

 rather than submit to obstacles. 



One of the things which has given us as much hope as anything else, has been in seeing 

 a number of farmers who appeared to us to be both lazy and lacking in intelligence who 

 managed to make their bread and butter and tobacco at farming, and if they could do it 

 why may we not do as much. 



Our little farm is very favorably situated for our purpose, being surrounded on three 

 sides by deep ravines, on the fourth by golf links, and is far from the highway, our entrance 



