C*/>e  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
717 
Frank  of  Peach  Hill 
By  Geo.  B.  Fiske 
(Continued  from  page  606.) 
“I’d  like  to  cut  some  of  their  profits, 
though.” 
“Some  of  the  sly  old  birds  may  learn 
to  buy  right,  but  there'll  be  a  new  crop 
of  green  buyers  coining  on.  I  don't  wor- 
ry.  Farmers  won’t  learn  to  co-operate 
with  anybody  much  in  my  day.  Lack  of 
capital  and  independence  will  keep  them 
mostly  separate  a  good  while  yet.” 
All  this  talk  went  on  with  little  atten¬ 
tion  paid  to  me  as  a  possible  customer. 
No  doubt  I  had  been  sized  up  promptly 
as  a  very  poor  prospect.  The  agent  prob¬ 
ably  made  his  profits  from  would-be  fancy 
farmers  who  would  pay  for  a  farm  more 
money  than  it  would  by  any  chance  eyer 
earn  the  interest  upon.  And  Landers  saw 
little  gain  from  lanky  boys  like  me,  who 
bothered  him  about  what  was  not  for 
sale,  and  who  didn’t  want  to  pay  much 
and  on  credit  at  that.  They  were  now 
talking  on  sale  terms  again  with  great 
frankness. 
“There’s  good  stuff  In  a  fellow  that 
can  buckle  down  and  earn  a  farm  on  cre¬ 
dit.”  conceded  Bunce. 
“You  bet  there  is,”  agreed  the  neigh¬ 
bor.  “But  a  man  must  be  a  fool  to  go 
to  you  agents  for  a  farm  and  pay  two 
prices  with  your  commission  to  hoot. 
Now  if  I  wanted  to  buy  a  farm,  I  would 
pick  out  my  town  and  then  drive  around 
and  find  out  who  was  selling  it  and  what 
was  his  bottom  price.  No  agents  in  mine.” 
“Very  well  my  friend,”  assented  the 
agent,  “for  those  who  know  what  they 
want,  but  most  people  don’t,  and  they 
come  to  an  agent  to  find  out.  They  are 
not  even  sure  they  want  a  farm  at  all 
until  we  talk  it  into  them.  If  folks  knew 
what  they  wanted  and  where  to  buy,  all 
we  middlemen  would  he  out  of  a  job.  But 
they  don’t  know  anything  sure,  and  that’s 
where  our  chance  comes  in.” 
Somehow  all  this  talk  made  me  feel 
more  than  ever  that  I  must  shift  for  my¬ 
self  and  keep  both  eyes  open. 
In  a  lucky  day  I  persuaded  old  Barney 
Frost  and  his  kind  wife  to  hoard  me  for 
a  week.  Land.  I  found,  was  mostly  tied 
up  by  rich  fancy  farmers  or  belonged  to 
old  farm  estates  held  long  in  the  family 
and  not  readily  offered  for  sale.  Most 
lots  on  the  open  market  were  too  far 
from  town  to  suit  my  taste.  Old  Barney 
Frost  became  quite  interested  and  talked 
things  over  at  meal  times.  One  day  he 
took  me  up  on  a  hill  in  the  highest  part 
of  his  pasture  where  we  could  overlook 
the  town  and  many  of  the  best  farms.  He 
was  old  style,  sure  enough,  self  made 
from  the  start. 
“There’s  no  money  in  farmin’,”  he 
would  say  with  a  whimsical  twist  of  his 
strong  old  face.  “In  my  day  a  young 
man  could  take  a  farm  with  a  big  mort¬ 
gage  on  it  and  pay  it  all  off.  Can’t  do 
it  now,  with  all  these  fandangle  notions 
about  scientific  farmin’.  Scientific? 
Huh!  We  used  to  work!  Any  man  has 
got  to  work  on  a  farm.  Those  farms  of 
ours  down  there  in  Poverty  Flats  were 
made  by  hard  work.” 
Which  was  true  enough,  but  the  joke 
of  it  all  was  that  most  of  the  farms  in 
this  suggestively  named  section  were  now 
owned  by  fancy  farmers  with  their  for¬ 
tunes  and  their  expensive  ways. 
“See  that  stone  wall,”  he  remarked, 
pointing  to  an  elaborately  laid  structure 
along  down  the  road.  “That  wall  is  wide 
enough  to  drive  a  pair  of  horses  on.  It 
was  made  from  the  rocks  blasted  out  of 
the  field,  and  that  wall  cost  more  than 
old  man  Wheeler  got  for  the  whole  farm 
when  lie  sold  it  to  the  rich  man.  Cot  a 
fair  price  for  it.  too,  as  prices  went  them 
days.  Look  at  that  heap  of  rocks  laid  up 
like  a  pyramid.  That  was  blasted  out, 
too.  It  was  Fourth  of  July  all  the  year 
’round  on  that  farm.  More  of  your 
scientific  farmin' !” 
“You  made  money  on  your  farm,”  I 
suggested. 
“O,  middlin’ !  But  there’s  nothin’  to 
it,  much.”  The  joke  here  was  that 
Frost  is  about  the  richest  real  farmer  in 
town.  Took  it  out  of  his  bones,  though.  No 
union  hours  of  labor  for  him,  so  I’m  told. 
Meanwhile  I  was  looking  around  the 
field.  “This  hill  looks  like  a  good  place 
for  an  orchard,”  I  observed,  “about  like 
one  I  saw  a  few  miles  from  here  covered 
with  peaches  and  apples.” 
“If  I  were  a  young  man  again.”  replied 
Frost.  “I  would  go  into  peaches,  but 
I’m  too  old.  I  suppose,  to  set  trees.” 
“You  could  hire  more  help,”  I  sug¬ 
gested. 
“And  have  more  trouble.  When  a  man 
gets  well  along  in  years  he  wants  less 
bother.” 
“I  suppose  you  have  a  few  thousand 
helpers  anyhow,  working  for  you  night 
and  day.” 
(To  be  continued.) 
Adulterated  Sweet  Clover 
It  seems  that  the  discussion  of  Sweet 
clover  and  its  value  as  a  farm  .crop  has 
had  the  usual  effect  of  causing  adulter¬ 
ation  of  the  seed.  The  price  is  high,  and 
apparently  the  temptation  to  mix  in  other 
seed  has  proved  too  much  for  many  of 
the  dealers. 
Edgar  Brown,  the  botanist  who  has 
charge  of  the  seed  laboratory  of  the  De¬ 
partment  of  Agriculture,  has  been  investi¬ 
gating  this  matter.  Letters  were  written 
to  various  seedsmen  asking  for  samples  of 
white  Sweet  clover.  They  received  147  sam¬ 
ples  plainly  marked  as  Sweet  clover  seed. 
Of  this  only  91  was  true  white  clover. 
The  other  56  contained  a  mixture  of 
white  Sweet  clover,  yellow  Sweet  clover 
and  Alfalfa  seed.  Out  of  172  mail  sam¬ 
ples  98.  or  57%.  were  true  to  name.  It 
was  then  decided  to  buy  different  lots  of 
the  Sweet  clover  seed  without  sending  in 
advance  other  mailed  samples.  Of  these 
purchased  lots  44  samples  were  labeled 
white  Sweet  clover,  and  only  five  were 
found  true  to  name.  Thus  it  was  found 
that  when  dealers  were  asked  to  send  a 
sample  of  their  seed  57%  of  the  lot  were 
true  to  name.  When,  however,  purchases 
were  made  at  quotation  without  mailed 
samples  55%  of  the  lots  were  true,  while 
43%  were  adulterated.  Of  172  trade 
samples  22  were  adulterated  With  Alfalfa 
and  of  92  purchased  lots  27  were  thus 
adulterated,  and  mixtures  of  the  two 
were  sold  ns  Alfalfa  seed.  In  fact  it 
seems  that  Alfalfa  sometimes  of  low 
quality  apparently  is  now  used  to  adul¬ 
terate  the  Sweet  clover  seed.  People  who 
are  purchasing  seed  of  this  variety  will 
do  well  to  submit  samples  to  Edgar 
Brown,  Bureau  of  Plant  Industry,  Agri¬ 
cultural  Department,  Washington,  D.  C., 
and  ask  for  an  examination  of  what  they 
have  received,  before  they  put  it  into  the 
ground.  Thousands  of  farmers  want  to 
give  Sweet  culver  a  fair  trial  this  year, 
but  they  will  be  unable  to  do  so  unless 
they  can  get  better  service  than  this.  We 
have  no  doubt  that  many  a  farmer  will 
obtain  an  adulterated  sample  of  Sweet 
clover,  seed  it  as  lie  has  been  told  to  do 
and  become  dissatisfied  with  results  and 
then  denounce  Sweet,  clover  as  a  fraud 
when  he  has  not  really  given  the  plant  a 
fair  trial.  What  a  nuisance  and  a  shame 
it  is  that  farmers  should  be  treated  in 
this  way  and  put  off  with  adulterated 
goods. 
Everbearing  Strawberries 
I  have  read  with  interest  L.  R.  John¬ 
son's  article  on  page  525.  As  there  are 
many  worthless  “ever  bearers”  on  the 
market  it  is  evident  that  this  kind  is 
what  he  refers  to.  If  he  grew  the  Pro¬ 
gressive  he  might  have  a  different  story 
to  tell,  for  this  stands  alone  -the  real  won¬ 
der  among  strawberries.  Last  Spring  T  pur¬ 
chased  100  Progressives,  planted  mine  in 
good  ground,  kept  blossoms  picked  off  till 
July,  when  plants  pushed  such  ft  mass 
of  blossom  buds  I  gave  up.  Those  plants 
were  a  sight,  nothing  like  them  had  Over 
been  seen  around  here.  All  were  load¬ 
ed  down  with  fine  rich  quality  berries  and 
we  luxuriated  in  delicious  strawberries 
from  July  till  in  October  when  they 
threvv  out  runners  and  plants  so  abund¬ 
antly  it  hindered  their  bearing,  although 
I  picked  some  till  in  November.  I  found 
some  nice  ripe  ones  as  late  as  Nov.  15. 
I  even  picked  a  few  on  Nov.  25 — not  very 
nice — but  they  were  strawberries.  Green 
ones  and  blossoms  still  showing  up  al¬ 
though  we  had  numerous  hard  frosts,  I 
have  grown  strawberries  for  40  years, 
and  the  Progressive  is  the  surprise  of  my 
life.  They  are  almost  a  miracle  among 
plants  and  their  quality  is  perfection.  I 
never  ate  a  better.  I  have  no  plants  for 
sale.  I  may  add  I  planted  at  same  time 
several  other  much  praised  “everbearers” 
but  all  were  comparatively  worthless.  I 
will  hoe  them  all  out.  a.  t.  cook. 
New  York. 
“Sav.  Alabama  is  a  dry  State,  isn’t 
it?”  “Sure.”  “Why,  my  dear,  when  I 
was  there  I  saw  several  negroes  who 
were  intoxicated.”  “Well,  of  course,  they 
can’t  stop  the  sale  of  that  awful  cotton 
gin  entirely.” — Cornell  Widow. 
JJ(m.7Re 
G.'ant/hinter 
I  STAND  for  the  best  of  workmanship, 
real  paint-knowledge  and  ripe  expe¬ 
rience.  1  know  what  painters,  as  well  as 
home-owners  are  up  against. 
1  got  my  training  in  the  school  of  experience  — 
where  an  unworkmanlike  job  was  a  crime  and  last¬ 
ing  results  were  the  only  real  mark  of  craftsmanship. 
1  know  colors  —  my  whole  life  has  been  steeped  in  ’em. 
I  know  paint— good  paint.  And  I  know  that  no  matter  how  good 
the  workman — how  honest  he  means  to  be — the  right  results  are  only 
possible  when  the  paint  itself  is  100%  right  —  smoothly-mixed,  uni¬ 
form  in  color  and  body,  perfect-working— reliable  always. 
I  know  Lucas ,  and  that  sixty-seven  years  of  good,  honest  paint¬ 
making  go  into  every  can  which  bears  this  label.  I  know  that  the 
Lucas  standard  is  my  standard  and  that  Lucas  Paint  is  mixed  as  1 
would  mix  it — if  1  had  their  wonderful  organization  —  their  expensive 
machinery— the  best  materials  the  world  yields.  1  know  that  Lucas 
means  quality  to  the  last  drop. 
1  know  that  Lucas  is  the  paint  for  me  and  for  my  customers — 
the  paint  with  which  my  men  do  the  best  work — the  paint  that 
“stands  up” — that  keeps  its  beauty  and  its  color — that  does  not  crack, 
peel,  blister  or  flake  off. 
1  know  that  the  real  purpose  of  paint  is  to  protect — to  add  to  the 
life  and  utility  of  what  it  covers. 
1  know  that  Lucas  Paint  does  protect — that  it  outwears  ordinary 
paint  two  to  one. 
1  stand  by  Lucas  Paint  because  Lucas  Paint  stands  by  me. 
Know  The  Giant  Painter  in  your  town.  For  information  address: 
c/0l£l22  &  CTO.  Office  15  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
