736 
fHE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 2 
/WeGM 
“NEW LIFE." 
I set out some strawberry plants early 
in September. They were potted plants 
and I gave directions to have them kept 
wet by pouring water over the cases in 
which the pots were packed. The man 
forgot to wet one case, and it was pretty 
well dried out. He got in a hurry, and 
stuck them right in without watering. 
Before 1 found it out, they were wilted 
down. We tried watering, but the 
plants were too far gone, apparently, 
and the leaves all died. Still I stuck to 
them and poured on the water. I had 
been bragging to our minister about my 
famous Parker Earle strawberries. I 
went so far as to tell him to go and stick 
marks near any dozen plants he might 
select, and that I would try to make 
these 12 plants produce 10 quarts of ber¬ 
ries. Of course, his plan was to mark 12 
of these dead ones, and thus have a 
laugh on me. Last Saturday, as I was 
hunting for white grubs among these 
plants, along came the minister. 
“ Ah, ha !” he said. “ How are those 
dead strawberries ?” 
“Come here and I’ll show you, Dom¬ 
inie,” said I. 
In he came with a wide grin on his 
face. He saw a singular thing. Those 
plants were, to all appearances, as dead 
as cellar door nails. The leaves were 
all brown and dried up. But down at 
the crown of the plant, new life was 
pushing out. Tiny leaves, fresh and 
vigorous, were growing and in the 
ground the little ball of earth that came 
out of the pot was alive with sound 
roots. The plants that we had given up 
as dead and worthless, had taken on 
new life, and were likely to beat many 
a plant that had kept on growing all 
through the drought. 
Now the minister had the sermon side 
of that incident in his mind at once. 
Why, he quoted me an appropriate text 
before I had the thing fairly explained. 
“ Look at it,” he said. “ Does not that 
show that nothing is hopeless, though 
to human eyes it may seem as if all hope 
had gone ? Here’s a man, we will say, 
who by cai’eless living, has given himself 
up to his evil tendencies. You might 
give him up and say that his moral facul¬ 
ties are as dead as those strawberries. 
But, no, all of a sudden, a new influence 
strikes into his life and matures that 
moral force and—” but we can’t go 
through the whole sermon here, though 
I have no doubt many of you would find 
it more interesting than anything I can 
write. However, we must not forg’et 
the real object of this department, and 
so I will ask you to go right on and 
think out the minister’s thought. 
My point this week is a practical one. 
Men and women get discouraged and 
give up ; farms pass under the hammer, 
schools lose their influence, neighbor¬ 
hoods become filled with sad and lone¬ 
some people. We all know that. Why 
is it ? Isn’t it a good deal like those 
strawberry plants ? Some people are 
started dry. There is nothing in their 
early life or training to stimulate thought 
or investigation. They accept a place 
in the “ old rut.” Some day they wake 
up and find that the world has swept 
past them. Cj Then -they get sad and sour. 
Even though they could not share in 
all the good things of modern life, it 
would be a pleasure to be with them in 
imagination, and to feel and think with 
the great minds who are digging away 
at the world’s mysteries, and letting the 
light into them inch by inch. But a per¬ 
son can’t do much of that unless a new 
life starts up his finer faculties. Some 
stimulating thought or suggestion gets 
into his mind, and, like the yeast in the 
bread, makes his thoughts rise and 
broaden out. Life is made better and 
happier when a new thought chases a 
man on to some experiment or idea that 
drags him out of himself. 
And here is another point : Lots of us 
go on dealing with raw materials year 
after year, without knowing that in this 
crude matter, is a wonderful force and 
power that we do not know how to get 
out. It’s like what Prof. Wm. Kent said 
about the miner and the engineer : 
The great forces of Nature which the engineer 
utilizes for the production of wealth, are the 
forces of wind and of running water, and the 
stored energy of fuel in the forests, peat bogs, 
coal mines and gas and oil wells. By far the 
greatest of these forms of stored energy is that 
of coal. Let us compare for a moment the work 
that can be done by a ton of coal with the muscu¬ 
lar power of men. One man digging coal from 
the side of a hill can easily dig, say, 4,000 pounds 
of coal in a day. Another man running a boiler 
and engine can burn these same two tons under 
a boiler, and if the engine is a moderately good 
non-condensing engine using three pounds of coal 
per indicated horse-power per hour, it will develop 
from the two tons of coal 133 horse-power for 10 
hours, equivalent to the physical labor that could 
be done by 1,300 men. Thus a man’s labor, by 
means of coal and a steam engine, can be multi¬ 
plied 650 times. 
There is a wonderful thought, not only 
for the engineer, but for the farmer, too. 
Why, a farmer spends his life handling 
Nature’s raw materials and putting them 
together into organized forms called 
food. When a man makes a profit on 
the farm, what does it mean ? Why, 
like the miner and the engineer, he is 
getting extra force out of those raw 
materials. When he grows clover and 
thus obtains a store of cheap nitrogen, 
when he cultivates his soil with such 
skill that he brings water to his drought- 
stricken crops, when he puts blood and 
breeding into his cows and potatoes, and 
even when he nails a board over a crack 
in the henhouse, he is saving wastes and 
giving an extra living force to Nature’s 
crude materials. Mind you, we know 
that some men make money on the farm 
on a very different principle. They are 
like the miner digging coal—dealing with 
brute force alone. They make their 
money by denying to themselves and 
families the God-given right to live so 
that the mind and heart will be lifted 
up to higher and grander things than 
mere routine drudgery. 
Why, here’s a man asking such a ques¬ 
tion as this: 
Can a father afford to bring up his children in 
such a way that the childhood habits will always 
keep them down ? 
We say, No ! NO ! Yet that is just what 
the man is doing who works without 
thought or new ideas—furnishing the 
crude coal for others to turn into the 
greatly magnified force of steam. 
Well, what about it ? Now you know 
what’s coming just as well as I do. 
Your conscience begins to prick you as 
you think how easily you might have 
captured neighbor Jones for a short¬ 
term subscription. This department is 
anchored to The It. N.-Y. We’re not 
going to make any argument or applica¬ 
tion this week. Here’s a man making it 
for us: 
Hello ! Rural New-Yorker ! Hold still while I 
hit you with a club ! I’ll try to hit you every 
morning for a few days with a club like this, if 
you’ll hit me with a dollar bill every evening. I 
know you believe in fair play ! e. g. Packard. 
That’s right, club us hard ! Beat the 
“dust” all out of our jacket! We are 
holding right on to the belief that every 
sprout on that club will be a permanent 
one. Club away ! You have made sev¬ 
eral dollars by the clubbing, as will be 
seen below You will collar a dollar 
every time you club harder than the 
next man ! 
And here’s another man who made use 
of a new idea : 
The getting of this new subscription was a very 
easy matter; I simply “let down the bucket,” and 
drew it up with a new name. n. h. e. 
Juniata Co., Pa. 
That man made use of his reading, you 
see. By the way there is quite a lesson 
in our Crimson clover patch. It was so 
dry that some of the tough weeds got 
the better of the clover, and nearly 
crowded it out. Along came Jack Frost 
with his first hard bite. The next morn¬ 
ing the weeds were dead—flat down— 
while the clover was smiling away as 
proud as could be to think that, at last, 
its enemies were killed off and it was 
free to grow unobstructed. Now many 
a person starts out bravely after a club 
of subscriptions. It’s all plain sailing, 
while they tell what they are going to do; 
but the real work of it seems to chill 
them like a frost, and down they go— 
like those weeds. The Crimson clover 
plants that stood last week’s frost and 
captured the dollar bills, are named as 
follows : 
Oct. 21.—Aaron W. Rose, Monroe Co., Ind. 
22. —Walter Johnson, Middlesex Co., Conn. 
23. —E. G. Packard, Kent Co., Del. 
24. —E. G. Packard, Kent Co., Del. 
25. —Fred. II. Johnson, Worcester Co., Mass. 
26. —E. G. Packard, Kent Co., Del. 
Over 5,000 barrels of American and Canadian 
apples were sold in Liverpool on Tuesday. Cana¬ 
dian Kings brought from $4.50 to $6 per barrel; 
Greenings, $3.60 to $3.90, and other varieties from 
$3.75 to $4.50. American Baldwins sold for $3.75 
to $4.50, and Greenings from $2.85 to $3.40. 
Cauliflowers have begun to arrive from Long 
Island, and much of the stock is of poor quality, 
due largely to poor packing. The following direc¬ 
tions for trimming and packing are given by an 
expert: “Carefully trim the ’flowers so that they 
will present an attractive appearance. Trim the 
leaves close to the face of the ’flower, and cut off 
the stalk close to the head. The stock should be 
packed in barrels face down, with each layer cov¬ 
ered with a thin layer of straw. Standard bar¬ 
rels should be used with the sides cut freely, so 
that plenty of air may be admitted, which will 
prevent the stock from heating and spoiling.” 
BREAK FA ST-SUPPER. 
EPPS’S 
GRATEFUL— COMFORTING 
COCOA 
BOILING WATER OR MILK. 
CATALOQUE 
PRINTERS 
If you are thinking of issuing a catalogue the 
coming season, it will be of interest to you to write 
us for pi ices on this class of work, and samples. 
Remember, we pay the freight; also give our cus¬ 
tomers the benefit of a large stock of fruit cuts 
Work—First-class; Prices—^kiw. 
DCDDV P. U C A D M Nurserymen's Printers , 
iCnnl 06 nCAnri, SALISBURY, md. 
Farm Cream Separators Send for catalogue. 
P. M. SHAliPLES, West Chester, Pa., Elgin, Ill. 
WITH CHARITY FOR ALL 
(OTHER FENCES) 
and ELASTICITY for ours, we invite the most 
searching investigation. 
PAGE WOVEN WIRE FENCE CO., Adrain, Mich. 
E: Bowker’s Fertilizers. 12 
SOLUBLE — ACTIVE— SURE. 
EBOWKER 
FERTILIZER CO., 
BOSTON A NEW YORK.- 
AKE MONEY’ 
Large and profitable crops can be 
grown by fertilizing with 
NiTRATE OF SODA 
Nearly all fertilizers are ineffective because ^ 
they contain too little nitrogen. Add a little V 
nitrate of soda to these and the result will } 
be astonishing. 
A Valuable Pamphlet telling how 
to save $10 to $15 per ton on fertilizers, and 
A how to fertilize most economically and ef- A 
W fectively,‘sent FREE Address 
f S. M. Harris, Moreton Farm (P.0,), New York. * 
© 9 • 
Fertilizers containing a high percentage of potash pro¬ 
duce the largest yields and best quality of 
Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oats, 
and all winter crops. 
Send for our pamphlets on the use of potash on the farm. They are sent free. 
It will cost you nothing to read them, and they will save you dollars. Address, 
GERMAN KALI WORKS, 93 Nassau Street, New York. 
$ 50 , $ 40 , $ 30 , $ 20 , $ 15 , $ 10 , $ 5 , 
will be given in prizes for the seven largest clubs of yearly subscriptions sent 
to The Rural New-Yorker during the month of November. In addition to this ) 
the agent retains his regular commission, and a daily prize of $1 will be sent every 
night to the agent who sends the largest club received that day. The prize¬ 
winners for October will be reported next week. We usually send the prize¬ 
winners more money than they send us. If we gave you all the money you collect 
and a little more besides for every subscription that you could take, you would 
make money, wouldn’t you ? Well, that is just what we do for those who win 
prizes. In September we sent six prizes that we did not promise, because the 
agents earned them. You are sure to get paid for your work for The Rural. 
Those who start first have the best chance for big prizes. Send for samples, order 
blanks, return envelopes, etc. THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, New York. 
The Atlanta Weekly Constitution 
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homes than any weekly newspaper published on the face of the earth, Is The Leading Champion 
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THE CONSTITUTION’S SPECIAL FEATURES 
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Exposition now being held in Atlanta, will interest readers in every quarter of America. We will send The 
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