34 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
now sheep raising is considered safer and more profitable 
than any other branch of farming. Men now wonder why 
we did not discover the truth earlier; for we have all the 
conditions necessary—nutritious grasses, a dry climate, an 
invigorating atmosphere and bright sunshine 360 days in 
the year. Probably some of my Eastern readers will think 
me a genuine Dakota liar when I tell them that now in 
the last week of December I still turn my sheep out in the 
morning on the prairie (for we have no snow) and they 
come home about four in the afternoon “chock-full.” All 
kinds of stock as well as sheep like this grass even in mid¬ 
winter, and prefer it to the best hay that can be given 
them. Such being the case, I can see no reason why we 
should not be very successful, provided the tariff tinkers 
will leave wool alone. There are several thousand sheep 
now in my immediate neighborhood, and the cry is “ still 
they come.” They are brought from Minnesota,Iowa, Wis¬ 
consin and even Montana, and are sold on three years’ 
time at $3.75 to $4 a head. They are largely Merinos with 
Shropshire and Merino grades, and, as a rule, are scrubby 
little things, but “ handsome is that handsome does.” 
They shear about 10 pounds, and last year the wool 
brought 15 or 16 cents a pound. Shropshire wool brought 
about 30 cents, but the fleece was not quite so heavy. The 
idea now is to get a good grade from purebred Shropshire 
bucks so as to produce quality and quantity in one. I have 
no doubt that wool-growing will outstrip all other 
branches of farming here, and when the mossbacksgetthe 
wool out of their eyes, it will become well-nigh uni¬ 
versal. 
Strange to say, the business of shipping the sheep in 
here has been almost exclusively in the hands of a Wis¬ 
consin man, and that he has been able to hold control of 
the market in the district is due to his honorable, and in 
many instances generous treatment of his patrons. Such 
treatment touches the heart of a Dakotian accustomed, as 
he is, to foreclosures, mortgage sales and judgments, and 
makes him think twice before he goes in debt again 
and gives a mortgage. Apart from the financial aspect of 
the question, wool growing has many advantages. The 
labor involved is not half as severe as that required in 
wheat raising ; six hours on the prairie are all the sheep 
want; the remainder of the time the owner has for other 
work. Any one who has tried to make a living raising 
wheat, getting up early, toiling hard all day and doing 
chores all night, will appreciate the difference. One will 
have time to look at the garden and raise some vegetables, 
and, if he has an eye for the beautiful, some flowers. He 
will have time to fix up the shanty and make it more at¬ 
tractive, for to him it is the dearest spot on earth. Fur¬ 
ther, he will have more time to read and study. I was 
greatly pleased this summer to find a woman out on the 
prairie studying her Sunday-school lesson, while she 
herded a large flock of sheep with the assistance of a 
dog. 
Thus it will be seen that sheep raising is profitable in 
every way. I might relate many stories of the “ big 
money ” in the business, according to some of the “ yarns ” 
I have listened to lately ; but as I cannot vouch for their 
truth, I dare not send them to The R. N.-Y. One thing is 
certain, we are rustling, and the country will hear more 
from us about wool in the near future. 
Clark County, South Dakota. T. MACALPINE. 
CAMP LIFE IN A FARM HOUSE. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
IV. 
Our four rooms were very quickly put in order upon the 
heels of Martha’s cleaning, and what with the rugs, books, 
and some prints pinned to the walls for pictures, they pre¬ 
sented quite a home-like effect. Muslin window curtains 
laid in the bottom of one of the trunks were never put up. 
There were inside or outside shutters to all the windows, 
and as we all detest curtains, we were glad to dispense 
with them. Anaximander’s folding rubber bath tub came 
into excellent service, as many a time before. Wilfrid en¬ 
joyed an every-other-day swim of five minutes in the creek 
at the foot of the lawn, and one of my delights was in 
seeing his plump, white legs flying down through the grass 
to his swimming ground. From my hammock, swinging 
on the piazza, I could watch his sunny head above the 
water, and sing out to him when the five minutes had ex¬ 
pired. I often went with him and sat on the bank while 
he swam or fished, the bank being very pretty and fragrant 
with mint. The water formed cascades and rapids 
running over the rocks, and at a certain hour in the after¬ 
noon the picture framed by the arch of the bridge was ex¬ 
quisite. Day after day I said I must make a sketch of it, 
but the days went by and I only enjoyed looking at it and 
attempted no copy. 
Aside from our three simple meals daily (Anaximander 
lunched in the city), and the necessary “darning” and 
bed-making, I loafed the whole summer through, lying in 
my hammock, reading, often aloud to Wilfrid, helping 
him with his French translations, breathing in the fresh 
air, and as care free as it was possible for a human mortal 
to be. A gingham gown was the best I needed. I had no 
visitors and paid no visits. Sometimes the lad went up 
and down the creek a-fishing and peering into the water 
for its teeming life; but he was usually accompanied by 
one of the “kids” over the way, who would be quick to 
report any mishap. Wilfrid from the outset saw the 
possibilities of a canoe in the creek, and quick to act, soon 
constructed a framework in the form of a boat out of 
saplings, which he covered with canvas, gave it a coat of 
white paint, put a seat in it, made a double-ended paddle, 
and was commodore of a new craft, which he propelled 
with the quickness of a young Indian shooting rapids, 
and which was light enough for him to carry from point 
to point. This canoe was an object of marked interest to 
the “ other boys ” who often congregated on the bridge to 
see Wilfrid glide through the arch and up the stream. 
Our out-of-door living was an unqualified success. We 
usually breakfasted at half-past six to enable Anaximan¬ 
der to catch an early train to his office—the ride consum¬ 
ing one hour—and an early train in the morning meant an 
early train home in the afternoon. During July we were 
obliged only twice to eat indoors on account of the weather. 
If the evenings were wet or cold we always built an open 
wood fire. As no fires were burning in the house, and the 
shade was so great about it the one thing I feared was 
dampness. The brick walks about the house were moss- 
grown from lack of sun, and I found gloves and shoes 
molding in closets and drawers. I had occasion before 
our summer was ended to talk with an intelligent physi¬ 
cian of the region, and in commenting upon the farm 
houses I had noticed in a drive, every one, without excep¬ 
tion, buried in shade, he said that the occupants of those 
old-stone, deeply-shaded houses developed a disease pe¬ 
culiar to themselves; a mongrel kind of fever, with typhoid 
malarial symptoms, but quite unclassiflable, sometimes 
fatal, and still they continue to live on in the midst of the 
damp and mustiness and their beloved trees. 
From the first week of our stay at the farm we had dis¬ 
cussed which trees should be felled. I had marked 12 for 
the axe, all beautiful, noble trees, but somewhat spoiled on 
one side from not having enough room to develop prop¬ 
erly. One great maple, whose wide-spreading branches 
shaded the morning end of the house, Wilfrid urged 
should be cut down. But I argued that if certain limbs 
were removed the sun would then shine freely on the 
house, and the tree might still be spared. But the man 
who tried to climb the tree and saw off the branches 
found it impossible to do so. So days and even weeks 
went by, and, beyond some trimming, the trees remained 
intact. Each one had its own charm and beauty, and 
some we highly valued, one superb Colorado Blue Spruce, 
a huge maple with branches drooping to the ground, pyra¬ 
midal arbor-vitses, stately spruces, a large chestnut, one 
branch of which was a swinging bar for the gymnastic 
members of the family, pines, oaks, trees of ash, wild 
cherry, in fact, quite a little forest. Many pretty things 
grew in the grass, which had never known a lawn mower. 
Owls uttered their mournful notes in the trees, but Wil¬ 
frid said the notes to his ears were not mournful. Had 
we known by what hand many of our finest trees were to 
be felled before the summer was over, our enjoyment of 
them could not have been so complete. 
One of the features of the “ parlor end ” of our long 
piazza was tin cans and bottles filled with wild flowers; 
nearby on a bench the “ botany ” reposed, and in this con¬ 
venient juxtaposition we considerably enlarged our knowl¬ 
edge of the names of plants. Our walks always lay across 
the fields—few highways are interesting for a walk—the 
favorite one being along the mill-race, which was a series 
of pictures, clumps of beautiful beeches (why are they not 
more frequently planted for ornament ?) into which gen¬ 
erations of boys had cut their initials, lichen-grown rocks, 
and the banks all the way massed with vines, flowers and 
shrubs. 
Womans Work. 
IS THE BLOOM OFF THE PEACH ? 
N women’s periodicals and in the newspaper and other 
columns especially devoted to women, it is inevitable 
that the “woman question” should be discussed with ever- 
increasing interest; though much that is said is mere in¬ 
dividual notion, or a repetition of old arguments that are 
scarcely arguments at all, nor ever were. 
But under the above taking caption, “Is the Bloom off 
the Peach” the Housekeeper’s Weekly has of late been 
giving some very interesting discussion, carried on by 
Marion Harland and several others ; and, strange to say, 
set on foot by a man’s remark, which brought a perfect 
fusilade of women’s missives to bear upon his offending 
head. The remark was made to a lady friend, and was to 
the effect that when all women go out into the world to 
earn their money for themselves, the bloom will be off the 
peach, and the world will lose something very precious. 
Marion Harland, in her reply, rather satirically refers to 
the extreme disagreeableness, in spite of its beauty, of the 
furry, or woolly coating which gives its bloom to the real 
peach, although she admits that this has nothing to do 
with the question at issue. 
After some prodding, the gentleman was stirred up to 
give his exact meaning, and he finally succeeded in defin¬ 
ing the “ bloom” to mean womanly delicacy, and modesty; 
and the “something precious” which is likely to be lost, 
as “ the culture of body, mind and heart, the leisure and 
conditions for higher physical and mental development 
which are essential to the making of better mothers, etc.” 
He declares further that we look for the “ strong, gentle, 
gracious figures” not among the tired and worn crowds of 
workers that struggle and jostle for room in the cars day 
by day, but from among those who have been “ dependent 
upon father and husband, and whose material needs have 
been supplied, and generously supplied, by the men on 
whom they properly and rightly depended ; those who 
have leisure and opportunity for training, culture, etc.” 
All this sounds very plausible, perhaps, but it is a hard 
fact that the leisure for training and culture and develop¬ 
ment never comes to the great army of women who are 
dependent upon father and husband; it comes only to 
those in the comparatively rare circumstances in which 
there are abundant means by which this leisure and cul¬ 
ture are secured; and his argument is really simply this: 
“ Those whose material needs have been generously sup¬ 
plied by father and husband are the ones from whose thin 
ranks come our strong, gentle, gracious women,” and it 
does not touch the average woman at all. The average 
woman is, unfortunately, dependent upon a father or 
JAN. io 
husband who does not, and usually cannot supply what 
this man would have us believe are necessary to this 
gracious culture. 
More than all this, we believe that his conviction is a 
mistaken one, and his statement, which is based upon it, 
therefore false; we believe that the strong, gentle and 
gracious woman can come only from the ranks of those 
who have had trials as well as culture, struggle as well as 
mere passive maintenance. Who that has been reared in 
an atmosphere of generously supplied dependence can be 
strong ? and who that has had but theoretical training 
can be gentle and gracious of soul ? The one point which 
this thoughtful student of our problem makes which is 
new, and which will bear some consideration, is this: 
“For the material support of the average woman, two 
men voluntarily make themselves responsible; first, her 
father, and, second, her husband. To speak of her as de¬ 
pendent in any individual sense, is as absurd as it would 
be to call men dependent, because, as children, their bodily 
and mental needs were provided for by their mothers.” 
We commend this to the thought of two classes: first, 
to women—and they are not a few—in whom this sense 
of being dependent has always rankled; second, to men 
who have considered themselves generous when they have 
given their wives a dollar or two at a time without 
grumbling, to provide for the necessities of the women 
and the children who belong to them. 
Marion Harland makes this point: “ The home stamp is 
the bloom that wears.” That is, if gentleness and grace 
have been ingrained by the example and precept of those 
gentle, gracious, dependent mothers, the bloom of delicacy 
will be fast colors; it will not rub off like pearl powder, 
at the first touch. 
When we first read the assertion made by this man, 
whose remarks make it seem evident that his knowledge 
of the average middle class home is slight, our thoughts 
reverted in confutation, to three girls whom we know 
well. Two of them are from a large family, and they 
prefer to earn their own “ material support” rather than 
to be a burden on a father who is at times hard pressed to 
make the funds go around. They were trained by a mother 
who gained a part of her own strength and grace through 
teaching school, before she became a second time “ depend¬ 
ent.” The third is keeping her place in an up-town store 
where the hours are long and the work h&rd, when better 
positions have been offered her, solely because she thinks 
she can do good where she is. These three are gentle, 
refined, Christian girls, received among the best society, 
and growing into that gracious womanhood through their 
work. And the “ bloom ” grows brighter and more endur¬ 
ing every day! 
Women and the Ballot.—“A woman” in a recent 
Rural, says, among other things on woman’s wages, that 
“ perhaps should woman receive the elective franchise, it 
might teach her business methods, she would be ashamed 
to go to the polls ignorant of the cause and effect of the 
measures she was supporting.” Now, I believe a woman 
has as much right to the ballot as her brother, but I cannot 
see why the average woman would be “ ashamed to go to 
the polls ignorant of the cause and effect of the measures 
she is supporting,” when so many of her brothers, and her 
uncles, and her cousins, are not a bit ashamed of doing 
just that same thing year after year, unless we admit that 
she is not only more conscientious, but more “ far-seeing ” 
as well, than they. Now, is she? 
Our leader in “Woman’s Work” quotes wisely from 
“ Woman’s Work in Public,” when she says : “ My idea Is 
that it would be of great benefit if suffrage were limited 
to those who could read and write ” ; but did not General 
Grant go further, and once promulgate a doctrine to the 
effect that a sort of political primer should be prepared, in 
which all voters must be “ perfect ” before they would be 
allowed to exercise the right of suffrage ? Who can quote 
it? 
While about it, I will say one thing more on Woman’s 
Work: “ Charlotte,” in a late issue of The R. N.-Y., says 
that the need of the hour is “ educated mothers,” to answer 
intelligently the questions of children, to bring them up 
hyglenically, etc. I affirm that the need is for educated 
women—not only mothers, but maiden sisters, widowed, 
deserted, or “ old maid ” aunties and lone cousins of the 
feminine gender; for in many households these often do as 
much towards “bringing up the children” as do the 
mothers. JUDY JONES. 
In writing to advertisers, please mention The R. N.-Y. 
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