859 
Z>hc  RURAL.  NEW-YORKER 
wlmt  others  h;id  done  I  could  do,  if  I 
could  do  anything  at  all.  My  nature 
and  tastes  had  already  given  me  a  start, 
a  long  avenue  straight  ahead  seemed  operw 
before  my  thoughts.  Chosen  specialties, 
exact  business  principles,  enthusiasm,  a 
leader  in  my  occupation.  All  sorts  of 
indirect  possibilities  loomed  invitingly  in 
the  distance. 
(To  be  continued) 
furnaces  during  the  Summer,  the  regis¬ 
ters  should  all  be  closed  and  the  dampers 
in  the  pipes  leading  to  them  closed. 
Ashes  should  all  be  cleaned  out  and  it  is 
a  good  plan  to  put  some  lime  in  a  pan  in 
the  firebox  to  absorb  the  moisture.  At 
least  every  other  year  the  warm-air  pipes 
should  be  taken  down  and  cleaned  out, 
and  every  year  the  joints  examined  to  see 
if  they  need  re-cementing.  It  is  a  very 
good  plan  every  three  years  to  take  the 
jacket  off  and  re-cement  the  joints.” 
A  local  dealer  advises  the  kindling  of 
a  light  lire  in  the  furnace  at  intervals 
during  the  Summer,  as  cool  damp  days 
present  the  opportunity.  This  would 
seem  to  he  a  good  thing  to  do.  He  also 
said  that  often  a  quantity  of  zinc  was 
burned  the  furnace  before  laying  it  up 
for  the  Summer  to  help  prevent  rust. 
Frank  of  Peach  Hill 
By  Geo.  B.  Fiske 
(Continued  from  page  S37) 
There  I  first  learned  what  agriculture 
could  do  for  a  man,  and  what  it  meant  to 
he  on  fire  with  love  of  the  calling.  Here 
were  men  who  had  made  something  of 
themselves,  successful,  well-dressed,  alert, 
brainy,  vigorous  in  mind  atul  body.  The 
best  kind  of  men  I  thought;  not  flashy, 
nervous,  shallow,  like  so  many  others  I 
had  known  in  city  life,  but  real  meu ; 
farmers  who  are  something.  I  will  learn 
to  do  such  farming,  I  resolved,  I  will  he 
•somebody,  as  well  as  a  farmer.  I  saw, 
too,  that  some  farmers  who  had  seemed 
quite  ordinary  were  full  of  the  raw  ma¬ 
terial  of  general  ability,  as  well  they 
might  he,  having  brothers  and  relatives 
high  in  professional  and  mercantile  life. 
I  saw  Barney  Frost,  one  of  those  uncut 
diamonds,  throw  a  chunk  of  somewhat 
rough  hut  very  solid  sense  into  a  puddle 
of  muddy  or  muddled  talk.  The  missile 
grazed  pretty  close  and  splashed  the 
scientific  bystanders  depressingly.  He 
showed  little  deference  to  the  so-called 
“experts”  hut  went  boldly  to  his  point, 
slow  and  original  with  his  “I  don't  see 
this — I  don’t  believe  that, — and  will 
prove  it. — Much  of  it  is  nonsense — 
and  why  not  so  and  so?”  It  was  ex¬ 
asperating,  no  doubt,  to  those  college- 
trained  men,  hut  the  audience  it  seemed 
rather  enjoyed  being  compelled  to  take 
the  farmer's  more  sound  and  simple 
view,  worked  out  from  his  long  experi¬ 
ence  and  outdoor  thinking.  A  city  man 
could  have  talked  much  longer  and  more 
smoothly,  hut  few  could  have  fetched 
their  audience  by  main  force  and  cour¬ 
age,  straight  to  the  point. 
The  best  of  the  speakers,  I  thought, 
were  those  who  had  made  a  success  of 
wide  repute  and  who  told  something  of 
their  own  life  stories,  like  Wales  of  Con¬ 
necticut  and  Berry  of  Ohio.  What 
chance  had  a  college  professor  shut,  up  in 
a  building  with  hooks  and  chemicals,  and 
teaching  half  a  dozen  branches?  How 
could  such  tell  us  how  to  raise  Crops? 
But  I  found  that  in  their  way  they  too 
had  worked  out  important  questions, 
based  on  tests  so  painstaking  and  long 
continued  that  the  story  was  tiresome  in 
spots,  yet  supplying  food  for  thought 
that  might  help  us  out  of  a  tight  place 
on  occasion.  It  was  quite  a  fighting  day 
for  old  Barney  Frost.  At  dinner  he  had 
a  tilt  with  Harmon,  the  keen-eyed  fertil¬ 
izer  manufacturer,  and  tried  to  make  him 
confess  that  much  of  what  he  termed 
“blend"  or  “balance”  or  “base”  in  his 
ready-mixed  output  was  really  nothing 
hut  a  make-weight. 
“You  don’t  catch  me  this  time,  Barney,” 
laughed  the  fertilizer  man.  It  seems  .they 
were  good-natured  foes  of  long  standing. 
Frost  had  been  a  member  of  the  Legis¬ 
lature  several  years,  and  had  opposed 
about  everything  wanted  by  the  fertilizer 
interests. 
“I  have  had  lots  of  fun  with  this  fel¬ 
low,”  grinned  Ilarmon.  “lie  was  always 
a  good  old  fighter.” 
“Well;  I  hope  you're  not  done  yet,” 
rejoined  Frost.  “I'm  not.” 
I’retty  soon  he  touched  off  another 
squib  about  his  pet  aversion.  “I’ll  tell 
you,  Frank,”  he  said  to  me,  “how  those 
long  papers  on  scientific  farming  should 
he  given.  Ram  'em  all  into  that  old  can¬ 
non  over  on  the  common  and  shoot  ’em 
off.  It  would  save  a  lot  of  time  and  do 
just  as  much  good."  But  he  didn’t  quite 
mean  it.  Bather  it  was  his  love  of  fun 
and  fighting,  and  his  delight  in  stirring 
up  the  professors.  I  have  caught  him 
trying  out,  on  the  sly,  some  of  those  same 
“scientific”  notions. 
After  the  meetings  were  over  we  little 
knots  of  farmers  gathered  about  the 
speakers,  and  it  was  here  that  much  of 
the  day  was  crystallized  into  substance, 
for  each  man  could  ask  what  he  wanted 
to  know  for  his  own  special  conditions. 
Stories  too  that  were  told  in  the  hotel 
in  the  evening  of  young  men  in  their 
twenties  and  thirties  who  were  known  all 
over  the  State,  some  of  them  all  over  the 
country ;  breeders  of  famous  prize  stock, 
great  crop  specialists,  men  who  started 
a  new  system  of  crop  culture  which  is 
everywhere  coupled  with  the  inventor’s 
name,  men  who  have  developed  the  busi- 
Panama  -  P acif  ic  Exposition 
awarded  to 
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