78 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 21, 19M! 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
A few weeks ago I spoke of the thing 
which seems to do most to upset progress 
and keep a fence of prejudice between 
human beiugs who ought to co-operate. 
It is a lack of charitable understanding— 
a failure to understand or admit “the 
other side of the case." Many of us are 
one-sided, and the habit of considering 
our side first and last grows upon us. in 
spite of reason or study or experience. 
Of course, no one can get very far along 
the road unless he has fixed and solid 
opinions. You cannot make any mark 
in history with the flat side of a knife. 
A flabby, cowardly mind, always agree¬ 
ing with auy mind with which it comes 
in contact, is like a disease in its effect 
upon youth—either of years or mental 
capacity. On the other hand, the man 
who uses only the edge of the knife in 
his contact with others usually cuts too 
deep and leaves wounds and soars which 
might be healed with gentler treatment. 
If we go deeper into this prejudice and 
bigoted opinion, we shall find that it is 
due chiefly to two things—lack of under¬ 
standing and unwillingness to admit that 
we are wrong The lack of understand¬ 
ing may result from various causes. As 
a rule, i think the beginning is Innocent 
enough, but the thing becomes fixed in 
mind. It becomes a habit of thought, 
and many of us would permit the los-s of 
a hai ’ before we will admit that we are 
"mistaken in our judgment.” If you tell 
me that some of the greatest events in 
history have been brought about through 
the obstinate and narrow "bigotry" of 
some determined man, 1 will agree to 
show you for each such case half a dozen 
other- which have meant misery and 
.wickedness resulting from just such a 
bigoted stand. 
* * :)e * * 
But no man should attempt to sermon¬ 
ize about such things unless lie is willing 
to take bis own medicine. The trouble 
with many preachers seems to be that 
when they step out of the pulpit they 
forget that practice and preaching begin 
with ihe same letter. An experience of 
my own explains how some of these large 
stories and prejudiced views get into the 
language. Some time ago the statement 
was made that we had some tdd apple 
trees in the orchard, near our barn, that 
are about 70 feet high ! I think there 
was a misprint. I meant to say 00, hut a 
figure 7 worked in at the wrung place, 
and you must always stand for printed 
figures. The tree looked the part surely 
as you stand on the ground and look into 
the air. It seemed to stand up above the 
windmill, aud did I not pay for a (50-foot 
mill? The imagination grows as you 
gaze up toward the sky. It is lar easier 
to manufacture distance as you look up 
than when you dig down into the ground. 
Of course, I should have measured the 
tree before making such a statement, but 
I thought the word “about" would cover 
it. so 1 ran my eye up in the air and 
let it go at that. But who can escape 
the thousands of eyes which scan this 
paper? Clark Allis, an old-time fruit 
grower, with many old tree's, claimed that 
there is no apple tree 70 feet high, and lie 
challenged me to have this one measured. 
So at the holidays one of the boys came 
home from au engineering school, and I 
asked him to measure that tree accurately. 
He did it by getting angles and men sat¬ 
ing distances on the ground—and I 
walked off and left him free to figure it 
out. The figures show that my “70-foot 
tree” is exactly -10 feet S inches high 1 
Well, it was a shock, but a useful one. 
That tree does look mighty tall as you 
stand on the ground and look up. but the 
human eye cannot compete with cold fig¬ 
ures when it comes to making an accurate 
statement. 
$ * * * * 
We have hud a number of such cases to 
prove the need of careful figuring. We 
bought a field of standing grass once. 
As we looked across the field the crop 
seemed over four feet high, aud we put 
the tonnage at a good figure. When we 
came to cut it we found the grass so thin 
that it did not come up to half our esti¬ 
mate. We have bought much chicken 
manure after estimating the amount in a 
pile and paying so much a ton. Out of 
curiosity we ran a few loads over the 
ccales. and we find we were all off in our 
estimate. Now every load is weighed, and 
we pay for what the weigher's statement 
shows. There are some men with a well- 
trained eye who can make vejy close esti¬ 
mates of weights- and measures, but I 
fear that, in some instances, most of us 
get it about as close as I did on the tree. 
I shall have to admit that I have no 70- 
foot apple trees at Hope Farm, but if any 
reader can prove that such skyscrapers 
are growing in America, I hope to hear 
from him. The in formation will show 
that, my imagination may be right if my 
figures were wrong. Of course. 1 might 
say that this tree has been pruned or cut 
back or get up some other plausible ex¬ 
cuse. That, however, would he worse 
than the original guess. I see nothing to 
do but to stand up and admit that it was 
an honest guess, though that will prove 
that I am a poor guesser. Many state¬ 
ments are based on a difference of opin¬ 
ion not always entirely honest, I fear. 
They cannot always be settled by measur¬ 
ing the tree. It is a great tiling to keep 
our eyes in the air at tins ami thus got 
the larger view of life; but we must re¬ 
member that the place for our feet is 
right on the ground. I have an idea that 
some of the statistics aud agricultural re¬ 
ports that we quote so freely are just 
nhmit as accurate as my tree estimate. 
Some of the records of scientific experi¬ 
ment seem to be made up by observing 
the figures of a very small unit and mul¬ 
tiplying them so as to get the probable 
average for on acre or more. In some 
cases that is about us accurate as measur¬ 
ing the tree with the eye. 
There are many old notions and preju¬ 
dices which start with less foundation of 
fact than the story about my tree. I 
have told before now of my experience 
with sulphur and molasses as a boy. In 
those days people usually “came out” in 
Spring looking about a- vigorous as a 
woodchuck after his Winter's sleep. Most 
of ns had boils, more or less "malaria.” no 
appetite, and "Spring pains." The stand¬ 
ard remedy for thi> condition was brim¬ 
stone and molasses. This meant the or¬ 
dinary fine sulphur mixed with thick 
"New Orleans" molasses. We took it 
out of a big iron spoon every morning, 
and my aunt stood over me like an aveng¬ 
ing fate to make sure that I licked the 
spoon clean. This was considered a stand- 
and remedy for till ills, from toothache to 
tuberculosis, and you could find citizens 
in our neighborhood ready to take oatli 
that it had cured all their ills. I remem¬ 
ber particularly the time when the potato 
bugs first hit New England. They cleaned 
nit our crop that year while we stood by. 
not knowing how to fight them. I was 
kept busy picking the bugs off into a 
pan. but it seemed as if by the time I got 
to the end of the row the vinos were cov¬ 
ered once more. That year we had no 
potatoes, and in their place we ate yellow 
turnips and carrots. In those days no 
one dreamed of opening a window at 
night. Fuel cost too much. What was 
the use trying to heat “ail outdoors”? 
Every window was shut tight, and there 
was a bank of manure or straw around 
the house to keep out the air. The cow 
usually went dry in Winter, so as to 
save feed. Down in the cellar we had a 
bin full of potatoes, a pig salted down, a 
few carrots, a few apples, ha f a bushel 
of beans, a string of sucked herring, and 
a salted cod. This, with while bread, 
doughnuts and eurumeal mush, repre¬ 
sented our Winter food—aud we won¬ 
dered why Spring brought us a load of 
boils aud pains. Now. the year that 
potato crop failed two things happened — 
we were obliged to "winter" on yellow 
turnips, and a pane of glass in the window 
of the room where I slept was broken. 
T broke it with a stone, and as punish¬ 
ment the wind was permitted to blow in 
at me every night, although I stuffed a 
cloth in the hole. 
* * * * * 
Well, (be Spring following that Win¬ 
ter 1 had practically no boils aud felt so 
chipper and worked so well that the sul¬ 
phur treatment was abandoned! My 
undo read somewhere that yellow turnips 
contain considerable sulphur, and he was 
therefore confirmed in lus belief that sul¬ 
phur is a sovereign remedy. It looked 
plausible to me. No man gets very far 
away from the convictions of his first 25 
years, and for over half a century I went 
about giving this experience with yellow 
turnips as proof of the great value of the 
sulphur treatment. Then I>r. Osborne 
went digging after vitandnes in our food, 
lie told me that the sulphur had prac¬ 
tically nothing to do with it. The turnips 
supplied vitamines in greater quantities 
than the potatoes. The pork, cornmeal, 
doughnuts, and salt fish had given us 
l’ew. if any, of these vitamines, and we 
had been breathing poisoned air all night 
in that close house. That explained the 
Spring boils and aches. The molasses 
may pave helped by supplying vitamines. 
but the sulphur was nut a “cure." That 
broken window ami the vitamines in the 
yellow turnips had done the trick for me. 
No more Spring sulphur for me or my 
folks. Milk, apples, vegetables, and fresh 
air beat all the molasses and brimstone. 
Prescott, in his “Conquest of Mexico,” 
telle how a Spaniard permitted bis com¬ 
manders to lower him down into a vol¬ 
cano. that be might scrape sulphur off the 
sides, while he hung over a roaring and 
smoking abyss! Some of the. folks iu our 
old town would have been almost ready 
to do that, rather than go without. "Spring 
medicine" for the family. The chances 
are that you and I and all the rest of us 
have notions and prejudices just about as 
lacking in real foundation as that old 
sulphur remedy. Do you want to know 
what great service yu can give to hu¬ 
manity? Get rid of some of those old 
ideas which we have blindly followed for 
years without knowing just why. We have 
come to a new period in the world’s liis- 
tor v The great war blew tilings up, and 
they cannot M*ttlp down just as they were 
before. Few people want them to do so. 
Unless people of middle age or older can 
realize how the world is changing and 
take hold of the problem with reason, the 
situation will get. away from its. and im¬ 
patient youth, which cannot be denied, 
will take the bit in tin* teeth and run 
away. If we have figured the tree too 
high, we must admit it. If sulphur is not 
the true remedy, let’s find the right one 
aud use it. n. w. o. 
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