86 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
JAN. 31 
Boys! Which Way Are You Going? 
C. E. Chapman, Tompkins County, 
N. Y.—“ Mr. Chapman. In your letters to 
The R. N.-Y. you tell us not to smoke, and 
to work and save our wages and would 
make old men of us. Don’t you believe in 
fun ? What shall we do to amuse our¬ 
selves ? Will not the girls call us misers 
and go back on us ? ” 
The above note was received by me signed 
“ A Boy.” 
Ans. —If you have a chance to have some 
good, legitimate fun that will not make 
you ashamed to look mother in the face, 
take it. Be sure it is fun you are getting 
and that you are getting your money’s 
worth. The so-called fun that leaves you 
in the morning with an empty pocket, an 
aching head and an uneasy, shame-faced 
feeling is dearly bought. “ But,” you say: 
“ A cigar now and then, an occasional 
drink or dance won’t hurt anybody.” Did 
you ever notice a vine beginning to grow 
up the side of a tree. It is small and in¬ 
significant ; but it keeps growing, twining 
around the tree trunk till it completely 
covers it. In a few months more the tree 
is dead. Is there any fun in endangering 
your future health, wealth, and standing 
in your town ? We are unconsciously 
molded by our associates. Test your 
friends by their influence on you and 
choose your companions wisely. Look at 
the “fruits” of the saloon, and ask your¬ 
self if there is fun enough in it to pay the 
price which must always be paid. I will 
tell you how I spend one evening each week. 
We have a society of neighbors who meet 
at the house of some member. There are 
no dues or expenses. The president calls 
to order and the meeting is opened by 
singing. Recitations and selections follow. 
A chapter is read from history and the 
reader questions the rest on what has been 
read. This cultivates the memory as no 
previous study is allowed. The question 
box, to which all contribute, is opened and 
the questions are answered and discussed. 
A recess gives opportunity for a social ex¬ 
change of views. The young folks plan 
their sleigh rides and the president makes 
out the programme for the next meeting. 
Being called to order, practical talks on 
assigned subjects are given. Visitors are 
called upon for a speech, the spelling-down 
causes much merriment. “ Current topics” 
consist of remarks from any one who is 
called upon by the president, and are con¬ 
fined to what the speakers have read in the 
papers during the week and must conclude 
with the statement of what benefit they ex¬ 
pect to derive from their reading. Terry’s 
article on “ Thoroughness ” in The Rukal 
was spoken of by one member, and “ The 
Bounty on Sugar” by another. An inter¬ 
esting dispute between the “Graduate” 
and the “Squire” as to the different kinds 
of sugar and what they were made of was 
educational. The “ Critic,” without giving 
names, calls attention to words mispro¬ 
nounced, the grammatical mistakes and 
the statements calculated to deceive. Re¬ 
freshed in mind, encouraged and stimulated 
to thought and action, we go to our homes 
better men and women. 
Do you know the shape of the pupil in 
the eye of man, cat and cow ? If so, do you 
know why each one was made so ? Inquire 
and study until you have found out all 
about it. A knowledge of the wonderful 
plan will give you more real, lasting pleas¬ 
ure than a dance, and cost nothing. Once 
created, this desire to learn never leaves 
and never tires one, and is a constant 
pleasure. To gratify this desire is to 
amuse yourself. To dance all night, smoke, 
drink, spend your money, contaminate y our 
morals, ruin your health and prospects is 
to abuse yourself. 
A man without a character is like a man 
in a snow storm without a home. 
“ My dear,” said a lady to her husband, 
“ why don’t you hire a man who will take 
a paper and read instead of being always in 
the road evenings.” 
“There are no such,” was the reply. 
“ When they get to that point they soon 
cease to be hired men.” 
“Mary,” said I, “isn’t your ‘fellow' 
spending a good deal of money in your 
company ?” 
“ What do I care ? If I liked him well 
enough to marry him I would not let him,” 
said she. 
Keep your money and the estimation of 
every true woman. The girl who does not 
respect the honest, clean-mouthed, self-sus¬ 
taining boy who is living up to his best 
knowledge for future success is not worthy 
of a second thought. She will not make a 
careful, sympathizing wife. I pray you 
give a good deal of thought to the “ butter¬ 
flies of fashion”—that you may avoid them. 
Wild Cherry For Grafting. 
W. G. Waring, Blair County, Pa.—I n 
The R. N.-Y.’s report of the Ontario fruit 
growers’ meeting—page 37—reference is 
made to Professor Budd’s suggestion to 
make trial of the wild red cherry (Prunus 
Pennsylvanica) as a stock for hardy cherries 
in cold climates. I have trees now about 
15 years old growing on it, both Hearts and 
Morellos (sweets and sours). This wild 
stock is very hardy, although it has a 
habit, like the peach tree and Mahaleb, of 
making its principal growth quite late in 
the season. Buds being well ripened then, 
take on it at that season—in late August 
or the fore part of September—with great 
ease and certainty. Grafting is equally 
successful, with the usual care to cut the 
scions before they have been dried or 
harmed by parching cold and wind, if they 
are set on the first day in March, when the 
air is mild enough to allow of waxing 
securely. The grafts grow so freely that 
we never see any sprouts of the wild stock 
about the large trees, although it will 
sprout freely if the main stems are ren¬ 
dered incapable of carrying the supplies 
gathered by the roots. Seedlings of this 
wild stock vary in their habit of growth as 
seedlings of other trees do, and sprouts 
from a vigorous stock make probably better 
stocks than the weaker seedlings. The 
suggestion to root graft the cherry, and 
plant deep enough to induce roots from 
the scion is a good one, even if this very 
hardy stock in question is used, because the 
roots of it are very pliant and the wood 
brittle, and an unsupported top heavy tree 
on that root is liable to bend over under 
the stress of a storm. Rather more precau¬ 
tion of management is advisable for grow¬ 
ing cherry trees successfully from root- 
grafts than is necessary with apple. 
Our Second Farmer President. 
E. P. Powell, Oneida County, N. Y.— 
It is a peculiarity of our great men of 100 
years ago that with few exceptions they 
loved the art of agriculture. Washington 
was not alone In his desire to retire to his 
fields from arduous duties at the capital. 
Jefferson was an enthusiast with his plow 
as he was with his pen. He was this to the 
last. I do not know a more striking paper 
than the one written probably near the close 
of his life, in which he says: “ I sometimes 
ask myself whether my country is the 
better for my having lived at all.” He then 
enumerates what he considers his beneficent 
acts. They are the disestablishment of the 
State Church of Virginia; the putting of 
an end to entails; the prohibition of the 
importation of slaves ; the drafting of the 
Declaration of Independence; the importa¬ 
tion of olive culture, and the introduction 
of upland rice to supersede rice that will 
grow only in swamps. He adds: “The 
greatest service which can be rendered to 
any country is to add a useful plant to its 
culture, especially a bread grain ; next in 
value to bread is oil.” So, in fact, he 
esteemed the increase of valuable food pro¬ 
ducts a more beneficent act on his part 
than the formulation of the Declaration of 
Independence. In this he may have been 
right, for, depend on it, our freedom is of 
value only as our people become enthusi¬ 
astic and skillful agriculturists. The 
Aryan race has from the outset developed 
vigor and achieved victorious progress only 
as an agricultural people. The evil threat¬ 
ening us most seriously to-day. is that we 
are becoming a race of traders; and our 
percentage of farmers has decreased for 75 
years. The spirit of Jefferson must re¬ 
animate us, as I think it will. The farmer 
has heretofore spent himself politically in 
voting; he will hereafter manipulate our 
institutions and shape them in favor of 
production rather than of traffic. 
Jefferson did not hesitate to draw the 
contrast sharply: “ Cultivators of the 
earth are the most valuable citizens,” said 
he. “ They are the most vigorous, the 
most independent, the most virtuous; and 
they are tied to their country and wedded 
to its liberty and interests by the most last¬ 
ing bonds. I consider artificers as the 
panderers of vice and the instruments by 
which the liberties of a country are gener¬ 
ally overturned.” In this harsh judgment 
Jefferson will not be sustained; but he may 
not be very far from right. He loved and 
practiced the most democratic methods 
of living, without ostentation or extrav¬ 
agance. He adds : “Those who labor in the 
earth are the chosen people of God, if ever 
He has a chosen people, whose breasts He 
has made his peculiar deposit for substan¬ 
tial and genuine virtue. Corruption of 
morals in the mass of cultivators is a 
phenomenon of which no age or nation has 
furnished an example. Generally speaking, 
the proportion which the aggregate of the 
other classes of citizens bears in any State 
to that of the husbandmen is the proportion 
of its unsound to its healthy parts.” This 
was enthusiasm of judgment; but, after all, 
it does not come far short of an accurate 
estimate of history. The farming class has 
never been fond of mere revolution; but 
has been intensely tenacious of liberty. 
From the Magna Charta to the Declaration 
of Independence in America all progress in 
liberty has been the work of the strong arm 
of the land tiller. The farmers began the 
Revolution, and they achieved the victory. 
Our large cities were full of Tories, and 
even Boston disliked to lose the redcoats 
and their delightful social powers. 
Jefferson was a pioneer in scientific farm¬ 
ing, delighting in experiments. He had, in 
fact, an experimental farm. He leaves for 
us a table of 37 fruits and vegetables which 
he raised for market, and their times of 
ripening during eight years. Had he not 
been a great statesman he would to-day 
rank with such men as Downing and Wil¬ 
der and Barry. The time seems to be re¬ 
curring when such a man as Wilder will be 
preferred by the people for high official 
position to a professed politician. 
Tying up Celery ; Apples. 
C. G. Atkins, Hancock County, Me.— 
I hope The Rural will have something 
more to tell us about the new mode of 
growing celery referred to on page five in 
the issue for January 3. I have tried tying 
up celery in newspapers during the grow¬ 
ing season and shall try It again. 
In the same column some advice is given 
to W. G. S., Benedict, N. Y., against which 
I must protest. He asks for a list of 100 
apples for home use, and the following 
are recommended: Esopus Spitzenburg, 
Fameuse, Northern Spy, Porter and King 
of Tompkins. Dear me 1 One hundred 
trees for home use, and not a summer or 
sweet apple among them ! Only two are 
fall apples, and one of these so poor a 
variety as the Porter 1 Perhaps Benedict 
is in the apple-maggot district. If so, then 
tbe Porter and Fameuse are liable to 
attack, and if W. G. S., must fight for 
these two varieties, he might as well ex¬ 
tend the list so a» to give himself a longer 
apple season and a greater variety. He 
ought to have 25 varieties. 
R. N.-Y.—We do not agree with our 
friend, but would gladly invite discussion. 
There are few apples of higher quality than 
Porter. It is an early autumn variety and 
that is as close as we care to come to a 
summer apple. As for sweet apples, few 
people like them and there is no market 
demand. 
For a Disordered Liver 
Try BEECHAM’S PILLS. 
25cts. a Box. 
OF ALL DTLT 7 GK 3 TSTS. 
A child can man¬ 
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all it wants is fill- 
-TTTtn in g and wiping 
\ V \once a day and 
trimming once a week. 
So much for one year’s im¬ 
provement in lamps ! 
We have a primer to send. 
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