66? 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
Oct.  8 
The  Dark  Side. 
Weeds!  weeds  !  weeds  !  weeds  ! 
Just  what  the  farmer  never  needs. 
But  what  the  farmer  always  nets, 
Destroying  half  his  planted  seeds, 
And  from  his  profit  sorely  bleeds, 
No  wonder  that  the  farmer  frets  ! 
Bugs  1  grubs  !  grubs  !  bugs  ! 
(.Just  when  the  agriculturist  hugs 
A  fond  belief,  as  round  he  prowls 
That  soon  he'll  pay  the  mortgage  thugs), 
Hat  up  his  crops,  defying  drugs— 
No  wonder  that  the  farmer  growls  1 
Ualn  1  drought  !  drought  !  rain  ! 
Drench  his  hay  and  burn  his  grain, 
And,  with  a  thousand  other  cares, 
Cows  and  colts  and  pigs  are  slain 
Bv  some  disease  none  can  explain— 
No  wonder  that  the  farmer  swears  ! 
Boys  !  girls  1  girls  !  boys  ! 
Fly  to  city  sights  and  noise, 
Nought  will  keep  them  on  the  farm. 
Hired  help  that  he  employs. 
Bob  him  of  hts  hopes  and  joys, 
And  break  the  farmer's  heart  and  arm. 
Down  !  down  !  down  !  down  1 
Tumble  the  markets  In  the  town, 
And  half  a  loaf  Is  hard  to  earn. 
No  wonder  that  a  settled  frown 
Comes  o’er  his  manly  features  brown— 
He  must  some  other  business  learn  1 
Tax  1  debt  1  debt !  tax  1 
In  spite  of  plow,  and  hoe.  and  ax, 
Bun  away  with  all  his  strength. 
Neighbors  jeer  and  call  him  lax, 
And  try  to  quench  the  “  smoking  flax  ” — 
No  wonder  that  he’s  down  at  length  ! 
Blizzard  !  blight  1  wind  1  hall  ! 
Swindle  1  lire  !  foreclosure  !  sale  ! 
Dog  the  farmer's  steps  about— 
But  let  us  hope,  If  actions  fall, 
HoneBt  motives  will  avail— 
A  light  that  never  will  go  out  ! 
THOMAS  FARDON. 
Odds  and  Ends. 
Straightening  Oriental  Eyes. — Sev¬ 
eral  German  and  American  doctors  are 
said  to  be  malting-  fortunes  in  Japan  by 
fixing-  the  eyes  of  the  Japanese  so  they 
will  look  more  like  Caucasian  optics.  A 
writer  in  the  Medical  Times  says  : 
The  Japanese  show  the  traces  of  their 
Mongolian  origin  more  plainly  in  the 
shape  of  their  eyelids  than  in  the  color  of 
their  skin,  and  those  who  can  afford  it 
are  ridding  themselves  of  this  unmis¬ 
takable  evidence  of  their  despised  ances¬ 
try  by  submitting  to  a  simple  and  com¬ 
paratively  painless  operation,  which  con¬ 
sists  in  the  surgeon  slitting  the  outer  rim 
of  the  eyelids  in  a  straight  line  for  the 
barest  infinitesimal  part  of  an  inch.  The 
wound  is  then  covered  with  a  thin  piece 
of  chemically  prepared  sticking-plaster, 
the  faithful  subject  of  the  Mikado  goes 
on  about  his  business  as  if  nothing  had 
happened,  and,  in  a  few  days,  the  wound 
is  healed  and  he  looks  on  his  envious  fel¬ 
lows  through  lids  as  straight  as  the 
American’s. 
Pigs  on  a  Spree. — The  Lewiston  Jour¬ 
nal  tells  of  a  drove  of  pigs  that  roamed 
over  the  clam  flats  near  Saco,  Me.,  living 
chiefly  on  clams  which  they  dug  them¬ 
selves.  Nearby  was  a  store  where  cherry 
rum  was  made  and  sold.  One  day,  in 
clearing  out,  a  lot  of  old  cherries  were 
dumped  upon  the  fiats  at  low  tide. 
This  rubbish  was  soon  discovered  by 
these  greedy,  half-starved  hogs.  The 
cherries  proved  to  be  a  precious  morsel 
for  them,  and  were  devoured  at  once. 
The  effect  was  ludicrous  in  the  extreme 
at  first.  They  began  to  run  and  caper 
and  fight  and  root  and  cut  up  all  manner 
of  ridiculous  manceuvres,  until  finally 
the  rum  in  the  cherries  became  too  much 
for  them,  and  down  they  lay  upon  the 
flats  at  nearly  low  water,  dead  drunk. 
Soon  the  tide  turned  and  began  to  flow 
in.  An  alarm  was  given,  and  the  neigh¬ 
bors  hastened  to  the  scene  with  whips, 
brooms,  clubs,  and  all  manner  of  per¬ 
suaders,  which  were  used  lustily,  but 
without  effect.  The  hogs  would  not 
budge  an  inch,  the  tide  swallowed  them 
up,  and  the  Saco  harbor  for  days  after 
was  full  of  dead  hogs. 
Old  Time  Postal  Rates. — Uncle  Sam 
will  now  carry  a  letter  from  Portland  to 
San  Francisco  for  two  cents.  This  was 
his  rate  78  years  ago — and  he  made  less 
money  at  it  too  : 
For  every  single  letter  by  land,  for  40 
miles,  8  cents ;  90  miles,  10  cents ;  150 
miles,  12%  cents;  300  miles,  17  cents; 
500  miles,  20  cents,  and  for  more  than  500 
miles,  25  cents.  No  allowance  to  be 
made  for  intermediate  miles.  Every 
double  letter  is  to  pay  double  the  said 
rates  ;  every  triple  letter,  triple  ;  every 
packet  weighing  one  ounce,  at  the  rate 
of  four  single  letters  each  ounce.  Every 
ship  letter  originally  received  at  an  office 
for  delivery,  six  cents.  Magazines  and 
pamphlets,  not  over  50  miles,  one  cent 
per  sheet ;  over  50  miles,  and  not  exceed¬ 
ing  100  miles,  1%  cent  per  sheet;  over 
100  miles,  two  cents  per  sheet. 
Lynching  a  Rat. — A  writer  in  the 
Manchester  (England)  Times  tells  how  a 
rat  was  punished  for  unintentionally  de¬ 
ceiving  its  neighbors  : 
In  the  neighborhood  of  a  York  village 
the  other  day,  a  gentleman,  looking  over 
a  wall,  saw  a  dead  hen  in  the  field.  Pre¬ 
sently  a  rat  ran  up,  sniffed  at  the  defunct 
fowl  with  much  satisfaction,  and  went 
away  in  some  haste.  The  onlooker,  who 
is  a  student  of  natural  history,  knew 
what  that  meant,  and  removed  the  hen 
from  the  spot.  In  a  minute  or  two  the 
rat  came  back  with  half  a  dozen  friends, 
with  the  evident  intention  of  removing 
the  carcass  for  future  use.  Arrived  at 
the  spot  where  the  fowl  had  lain  the  rat 
raised  a  loud  squeak  of  astonishment  at 
its  absence.  In  a  trice  the  other  rats  fell 
upon  him  so  savagely  that  they  left  him 
dead  on  the  field,  as  a  warning  not  to 
play  practical  jokes  with  his  friends. 
Animal  Friendship.  —  Almost  every 
farmer  has  noticed  that  his  animals  have 
likes  and  dislikes  for  other  members  of 
the  barnyard.  Horses  especially  do  not 
like  to  be  left  alone.  Our  own  mare 
when  taken  from  her  four  stable  com¬ 
panions  and  put  by  herself  in  her  new 
home  evidently  pined  and  grieved  for  her 
old  friends.  The  London  Standard  gives 
these  illustrations : 
One  of  the  runners  in  this  year’s  Derby, 
a  colt  named  Galeopsis,  had  for  some 
time  before  the  race  shown  symptoms  of 
distress  and  uneasiness,  amounting  to 
positive  melancholy,  and  not  attributable 
to  any  physical  cause.  A  goat  and  kid 
were  procured,  and  judiciously  intro¬ 
duced  to  the  stable,  the  result  being  thus 
described  by  an  eye  witness :  ‘  Galeopsis 
seemed  to  take  much  interest  in  them 
until  the  goat  died  ;  but  the  kid  remains, 
and  the  horse  now  vastly  diverts  himself 
by  lifting  the  little  creature  up  by  the 
back  of  its  neck  with  its  teeth,  putting 
it  down  in  the  manger,  carefully  placing 
it  on  the  ground  again  after  a  while,  and 
then  repeating  the  operation.’  There  is 
an  interesting  record  of  the  strange  dis¬ 
like  entertained  by  a  pony  for  a  particu¬ 
lar  horse  with  which  it  was  brought  into 
daily  contact,  and  the  extraordinary 
friendship  formed  by  it  for  a  calf  in  the 
same  meadow.  The  pony  and  calf  be¬ 
came  inseparable,  showing  their  mutual 
regard  in  many  diverting  ways,  greatly 
to  the  annoyance  of  the  calf’s  mother, 
who,  not  unnaturally,  evinced  the  utmost 
jealousy  and  resentment.  Gilbert  White 
relates  how  a  horse  and  hen,  spending 
much  of  their  time  together  in  a  lonely 
orchard,  also  became  the  fastest  of 
friends.  ‘  The  fowl  would  approach  the 
horse  with  notes  of  complacency,  rub¬ 
bing  herself  gently  against  his  legs, 
whilst  the  horse  would  look  down  with 
satisfaction,  and  move  with  the  greatest 
caution  and  circumspection  lest  he  should 
trample  on  his  diminutive  companion.’ 
“  Milk  takes  more  lives  than  whisky,” 
says  the  American  Grocer,  which  state¬ 
ment  is  the  veriest  nonsense.  Without 
doubt  milk  is  occasionally  sold  which  is 
not  desirable,  or  that  may  be  contamin 
ated  with  disease  germs.  But  the  dan¬ 
ger  is  greatly  exaggerated.  It  is  just 
now  the  fashionable  fad  to  talk  learn¬ 
edly  about  germs,  bacteria  and  bacilli 
and  a  very  large  part  of  the  literature 
on  the  subject  is  bosh.  But  no  one  will 
question  the  murderous  work  of  whisky 
and  its  numerous  relatives  of  other 
names.  This  poison  goes  on  with  its 
work  from  year  to  year  and  never  stops. 
It  sweeps  an  army  into  the  grave  for 
every  individual  that  is  harmed  through 
the  instrumentality  of  milk.  Our  es¬ 
teemed  contemporary  should  not  indulge 
in  such  sweeping  statements. 
A  Mental  Alibi.  —  Harper’s  gives 
this  conversation  between  a  Kentucky 
negro  and  his  old  master  ; 
“  Where  are  you  going,  Jim  ?  ” 
“I  just  gwine  down  to  Gareysville, 
suli.” 
“Why,  what  is  going  on  in  Gareys¬ 
ville,  Jim  ?  ” 
“  Dar  gwine  be  a  big  chu’ch  meeting 
dar  dis  evenin’,  suh  ;  dey  gwine  try  me, 
and  say  dey  gwine  tu’n  me  out  de  chu’ch.” 
“Turn  you  out  of  the  church,  Jim? 
Why,  what  have  you  been  doing  ?  ” 
“  Wal,  suh,  I  danced  a  little  at  de  frolic 
we  hed  up  de  road  here  t’other  night. 
And  dey  gwine  tu’n  me  out,  dey  say,  ’cos 
I  danced.” 
‘  Well,  good-by,  Jim,”  said  the  gen¬ 
tleman,  turning  back  toward  his  home. 
“  Good  luck  to  you.  I  hope  you’ll  come 
out  all  right.” 
“  Good-by,  Mars’  Bud.  Don’t  you  be¬ 
lieve  but  I  gwine  come  out  all  right.” 
And  so  the  negro  went  his  way. 
Two  days  thereafter  the  gentleman 
reports  that  he  was  just  passing  out  of 
his  gate  into  the  road  when  up  came 
Jim,  all  radiant  and  jubilant. 
“  Well,  Jim,”  he  said,  “did  you  come 
out  all  right?  I  suppose  so  from  your 
looks.” 
“Yes,  suh;  dat  I  did  I’s  all  right; 
dey  nuvver  tun’ed  me  out.” 
“  Why,  Jim,  how  did  you  manage  it  ? 
You  told  me  you  did  dance  at  the  frolic.” 
“  Yes,  suh,  I  did;  and  I  nuvver  denied 
’fore  de  cote  dat  I  did  dance  ;  but  I  jist 
proved  to  'em  dat  I  was  so  drunk  1  nuvver 
knowed  what  I  was  doin',  and  so  of  co’se 
dey  couldn’t  tu’n  me  out.” 
THE  FABMEB’S  YEAB. 
In  spring,  we  plow  and  seed, 
In  summer,  weed  and  prune; 
And  garner  in  our  golden  meed 
Beneath  the  autumn  moon. 
In  Spring  we  watch  for  frost; 
In  summer,  pray  for  rain; 
And  watch,  lest  all  our  labor’s  lost, 
In  autumn,  frost  again. 
In  winter,  by  the  hearth, 
We  plan  the  coming  year, 
And  laugh  at  Borea’s  icy  wrath. 
Amid  our  bard-earn’d  cheer. 
— CLIFFORD  PERLEY  THAYER. 
*  *  * 
A  Winter  Crop,  or  its  equivalent,  that 
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before  planting;  On  the  sowing  of  seeds;  After  plant¬ 
ing;  Future  management  of  the  plants.  Just  the 
thing  for  the  busy  man.  Price,  cloth.  20  cents. 
Window  Gardening. — Written  by  ex¬ 
pert  flower  and  plant  growers.  Covers 
every  phase  of  plant  culture  in  the 
house. 
A  lot  of  delightful  and  practical  articles  and  pleas¬ 
ing  Illustrations— all  on  Window  Gardening— make  up 
Ibis  pretty  little  work.  Price,  10  cents. 
THE  RURAL  PUBLISHING  OO., 
Timea  Building  New  York. 
