Over in the dairy among the pines, the Senior Partner found, last fall, a stump long and slender 

 and hollowed into a basin. At the time he thought of a bird bath. Xow was the time to fix it. 



"Mike, hitch up Texas and go into the dairy and bring in that stump; we'U pipe it to-night and 

 have a fountain in the front lawn." 



"Can't we go too?" came the piping voices of wee ones. 



"Of course you may, and I'll go witji you for Mike doesn't Icnow where it is," I replied. 



All that evening by lantern light the plumbers worked, Mike supplanting the 'longshoreman, 

 and a wonderful change for the better it proved to be, for Mike had been trained as a pipe fitter. Id 

 fact, he seems a jack of all trades: cobbler, carpenter, plumber, farmer: that necessary adjunct to a 

 complete home — a "handy man." The stump was set by the flagstaff where on Decoration Day the 

 flag had been raised on its new pole to half m.ast. (The American flag has always waved at Peace 

 and Plenty). A very convenient hole in one of the tap roots admitted of a pipe being run through, 

 while a gas-jet as a tip threw a fine spray like a fan shaped flame. The stump was inclined slightly 

 forward, a kerosene barrel, Avith the bottom knocked out, sunk at the end of the stump; this filled with 

 large stone received the drip from the fountain. From our next trip to the beach we returned ladened 

 with bright pebbles \\hich the children dropped in the fountain bowl to sparkle in the water. In a 

 few days our efforts were rewarded (if the beauty of it and the trickling sound of water was not reward 

 enough) for bluebirds came for a bath, then the thrushes, and later indigo-buntings and yellow warblers, 

 while sparrows of many varieties proceeded at once to build in the trees about the homestead. 



On the 4th the State Agricultural Inspector arrived, his surprise at the farm's appearance warmed 

 our hearts and inspired us with new courage and greater determination. We needed the courage for 

 that same day we discovered root maggot in Pe-tsai and Sakurajima radish. We had wondered why 

 the latter went to blossom w hile so small, for at home they grew enormous before sending up the blossom 

 stalk. Root maggot galore in every last one of them! 



"All right, sir, we'll fix you," we said. 



"Ted, take out all those Sakurajima (there was one long row), fork over the ground well and make 

 a drill in exactly the same place. Everlastingly pour in Canada wood ashes in the bottom of the drill 

 and we'll plant Sakurajima right over again in that same spot," said the Railroad Farmer. 



"It will be a tough maggot that can live in those ashes, sir," said Ted. "Guoy! but they do go 

 for my 'ands." 



No maggots could stand them and our Sakurajima filled the heart of even a Jap with delight 

 for he carried one home from the Fair weighing ten pounds. 



With the exodus of the 'longshoreman's family, came "Shep," a cook loaned us to tide over until 

 new help could be procured. We were somewhat of a family; we 4 and the stenographer, Ted, Mike, 

 Nettie, and Walter, my faithful maid's brother of 14, whom we took from a home, knowing well the 

 value of a boy this age to "fetch and carry." 



In a few days Roger and Sophia, a colored couple of some fifty-five summers, appeared. Aunt 

 Sophie was a sweet-faced, gray-haired little bit of a woman, while Uncle Roger was large, rheumatic 

 and jolly. She was a true Southern cook and gave us loads upon loads of hot bread and fried things 

 in general. Uncle had always been a porter and didn't know a hoe from a shovel. The agricultural 

 instinct is in the race, however, and he soon learned to hill up corn and hoe potatoes in due and ancient 

 form. In spite of all the modern farm machinery there is a certain amount of hand labor necessary, 

 especially in new ground. 



Peanuts went in early in May, the little Spanish and the huge Mammoth. 



Walter soon learned to gather radishes, assist in transplanting and made himself generally useful. 

 From the seed-bed were transplanted 180 kohl rabi, some of the North China products, and Emerald 

 Isle kale. 



Radishes were so abundant it kept one of us busy all day, washing and packing them. Many 

 were sent direct to one of the big restaurants, being packed, unbunched, in crates lined with paraffin 

 paper. 1,400 radishes to a crate was the average and each radish perfect of its type. One of our first 

 resolves and firm compacts was that nothing but the very best that we could produce should leave 

 the farm. Therefore frcm radishes, right through the season, every variety was sorted, washed or 

 polished, according to its needs. 



On the 7th of June the shipment reads: 55 bunches for a Huntington grocer; 1,400 loose in a crate 

 to a New York restaurant, and 21 bunches each in a paper pot to the "History Makers" and experts 

 who visited the farm the day the first stump was blown up. 



Ted and Walter were set "bushing" peas. We wished to test the time given to bushing and that 

 to placing a portable wire fence (a strip of wire fastened to sharpened stakes). Brushing 2 rows each 

 100 hundred feet long required IJ^ hours, placing fence to the same length rows required 8 minutes. 

 The wire was neat, satisfactory, and easy to pick from. The bush was straggly, untidy, and almost 

 impossible to pick from, especially if the picker wore long hair and skirts. 



Potato bugs were pestering the life out of us by this time. Walter picked by hand each morning 

 and strange to say they were worse on the tomatoes than on the potatoes. John dusted a mixture 

 of bordeaux paris green and land plaster dry upon the potatoes and blew slug shot upon the tomatoes; 

 yet the beetle went merrily on its way rejoicing. 



Some exquisite eggplants from the Huntington grower were set in the east end of the orchard 

 among the tomato rows where imported tomatoes had given up the ghost. In 24 hours they were 

 so^black with flea beetle you could not detect the color of the leaves. Hellebore blown on thick seemed 

 to^drive them away. 



We have a standing joke in our little home town. The assistant postmaster is an enthusiastic 

 gardener, and above all else he loves an eggplant. For years he has tried to raise them and never has 

 succeeded in even getting one to set. 



"Hello, neighbor," he called through the post-office window, "I hear you're goin' farmin' out 

 in the scrub oaks. "J 



36 



