HOPE FARM NOTES 
rru nr i-l r> . „ fV,,,* .iK.viif ftrUUIIU WUlTf Uim 1 DUUUUJS 31UJ1U IJ«IM 
r he Weather Bureau state t lat ab been j n sod four years. We plowed ntul 
<J m Of ram fell upon the face ot Noifh- Wowed it< and mark( , d ()llt drills. The 
era New Jersey during June It seemed seed of S(ldttn grasa was , 11|( in witu u 
nearer JO to me, but an actual foot garden dr jn, and covered with rakes. We 
always did show up imagination 1 knew * h „ t a at Iot of fod<ier irom this 
a .boy who always had to scrub lst face i thjnk i( . ivps more than fodder 
wdh hot water and soft soap wlule the £ an(] thp st ems are line, so that the 
boss of the . household stood by and sto ek will eat them up clean, 
watched the job. There always was an * 
excess of alkali in that soap, and it nearly * * * * * • 
took that boy's skin off along with the So us I look down over the rain-washed 
dirt. It troubled him until one day people hills I think how farming and its meth- 
from town stopped to buy eggs, and this pds are changing. Fifty years ago on 
boy heard the woman remark: these hills the damage to the luiy crop 
•‘What a beautiful Complexion that might have beou made partly good by 
hoy has. I wish dear Willie had such vising millet or corn fodder, or selling off 
skin!” some of the stock. Here we are using 
There sat “dear Willie,” a fat, pasty- Sudan grass from Africa. Soy beans from 
faced youth, overfed and under-exercised. Japan, cow peas from Georgia, Ilubam 
"I’d like to sweat and scrub dear clover from Alabama, and so on. While 
Willie,” was the comment of the woman the world is competing with us in the 
who brought me up, and I felt at that sale of our crops, it is also contributing 
time that I would gladly help in the job. to help us hold our own. 1 keep thinking 
Some of these women who seem to spend of this as that cloud piles up in the west, 
more time over their complexions than on and the first low growl of thunder reaches 
mind and conscience combined might try those with good ears. We want no more 
the soft soap on their faces, and then rain, hut if it comes, what then? We 
stand over a steaming tub for half au cannot stop it. It will do us much dam- 
hour. At any rate, I thought of it as, age. hut can we not think of some good 
on July S, we looked down over the face it will do? Old Broker cocks one ear 
of our farm. We actually had one day as he pulls the cultivator through the 
of sunshine after the continued drop of strawberries; the dog under the tree puts 
the rain. There is one tiling, at least, his head at one side; that crow watching 
about our hilly country—the water runs us from yonder dead chestnuts—they all 
off. Oh, it gathers in a few low pockets, know there is a thunderstorm off over 
just as that soft soap used to get into that hill, but they are not worrying— 
my mouth and eyes and ears, hut the hill- they have been through such things be¬ 
sides shed the water fairly well, and we fore. There comes to ihp the memory of 
see the value of a sod or mulched orchard a wetter Summer than this one years ago, 
when June wades in 0 in. of water. For when I worked as a hired man on a West¬ 
on our cultivated side hills the land is eru farm. I had dropped out of college to 
gashed and gullied, while the sod has earn a few dollars in haying and harvest, 
held hack and absorbed the deluge. and th ‘ rain struck us with live acres of 
***** clover down and the rest all tangled up, 
_ ... .. f , ,, and the wheat all ready to cut. Rain! 
So that while the face of the ft rm p pr haps memory is naturally fond of the 
looked a little scarred and tender, it must mu i ti|)lication table, but i think our wet 
be said that it had a beautiful com- j unp was but a sprinkle to that Michigan 
plexmn. We were able to feed t y Summer. Some men are born pessimistic, 
tree this year with strong manure, and Th(iy P . nmot h e,p it. and my boss was of 
this wet season has brought out 11 11 that nature, lie felt sick to see his beau- 
markable growth. I he late frost hint tiful clover going, but there was nothing 
somewhat, but it looks like a tuir crop be could do. We did all the "odd jobs” 
we eau only have sunshine to Rive it to o - that farm could provide, The woodshed 
The clover finally wei jt j, ' l iU , was full of fuel. We swept the barn floor 
black and a little musty, but the sto ' till it' must have felt like a hoy's face 
will eat it. As 1 looked down over the ft,soft, soap, and still the rain came 
farm I saw the cocks ot hay and green doW ,j ; n sheets. The farmer could not 
rye. Some of it has been on the gr<m c think of any other job, so he moved on 
nearly two weeks, waiting for two (lays ,house. 
of sunshine to take the sog out, ot it. • r phe woman wants the cellar cleaned 
l.veii now a dark cloud is ^fhering ^^ up and whitewashed, and a butter bole 
west, and the papers all sa\ tlmile dl]g out. As tiiere ain't anything else 
showers. If tins one will holu off four (o ( j () wc >j] do that.'” 
hours longer, we can get that hay under So ' wp went dowu collar with shovels 
(•over. The cats are all ready to cut foi and a bupkpt of whitewash, while the 
hay, and we shall have to take a c n downpour of the rain on the cellar door 
on them Monday, for if you want ot t h y, s tilI reminded us of the deluge. 
.....A l,,t it n-iuuir trir.x crndUt 
A BEVERAGE 
weiotWhea 
port-on ot Molasses 
im.iMOUI M 
Wtum Cereal Ccmp3n> 
j knij C*u<.Nd«.,U }A. 
| Ml WUGHT FOl'H OUNCCS_j 
What’s the 
Answer to 
“H ow do you do? 
npHINK it over carefully 
and then 
-L answer frankly. Face the facts. Do 
your nerves and digestion stand the jolt¬ 
ing of the coffee drug? Can they go on 
standing it. 
There’s charm and complete satisfac¬ 
tion in Postum—and freedom from any 
harm to health. 
Thousands of sensible people who have 
seriously looked for the answer to “How 
do you do?” have turned from coffee to 
Postum, and are doing so well, in satis¬ 
faction and health, that they wouldn’t 
think of turning back. 
You can begin today, with an order to 
your grocer. 
Postum comes in two forms: Instant Postum 
(in tins\ made instantly in the cup by the ad¬ 
dition of boiling water. Postum Cereal (in 
packages of larger bulk, for those who prefer 
to make the drink while the meal is being pre¬ 
pared) made by boiling for fully 20 minutes. 
Postum for Health 
**There’s a Reason” 
Up above us in the kitchen we could 
hear the steady tramp of the farmer’s 
wife as she trudged about preparing din¬ 
ner. She was a woman of some size, and 
her (ramping was emphatic. Once she 
(‘ailed down the cellar stairs, and I run 
out to the garden and dug a few hills of 
potatoes and pulled a head of lettuce. If 
my boss was a pessimist, his wife was 
surely an optimist, and as she tramped 
about her kitchen she began singing at 
her work. She was just one of those 
happy people who are blessed with the 
ability to relieve the mind in song. This 
woman never heard any great operas. 
About all she knew were some of the 
popular “Moody and Sankey” hymns, and 
down in the dark cellar we heard her 
voice soaring up to reach the sunshine 
above the rain : 
“Beautiful valley of Eden, 
Home of the pure and blest, 
IIow often amid the wild billows 
I dream of thy rest—pure rest!” 
To me. with youth and hope, and with 
absolutely nothing that rain could spoil, 
it seemed to me something like the voice 
of a 200-lb. angel singing at Heaven’s 
gate; hut my boss could not see it that 
way. He stood the music as long as lie 
could, and then he tramped up the stairs 
into the kitchen. 
“Say, Kate, what are you singing for? 
Don't you know we’ve lost the hay? How 
are we going to pay taxes? I’ll bet the 
wheat is mined. What you singing for? 
What is there in this weather to sing 
about?” 
But he might as well have tried to stop 
a bird from singing. 
“Why, Henry, of course I sing. I can't 
lieiar th? rain and I can’t see the clover 
while I sing. The next thing to curing 
a had trouble is to forget it.,” 
But Henry couldn’t see it. He came 
hack growling, and as we worked on in 
(lie dim light. Kate's voice above us went 
soaring up above the clouds. 
"My Heavenly Father walks with me. 
And sweet communion there shall be, 
He takes me gently by the hand. 
For this is Heaven’s border land.” 
I wanted to join in the chorus. 
“Oh Beulah land, sweet Beulah land, 
As on thy highest mount I stand!” 
For while the boss was far down in 
the valley of gloom, that soug seemed to 
lift me up out of the rain. 
And her dinner was as good as* her 
song. The boss and I finally went up 
and ate our fill of fried hum, mealy po- 
Made by Postum Cereal Co., Inc., Battle Creek, Mich, 
The book that best expresses the senti¬ 
ment and charm of real country living 
is 
Hope Farm Notes 
cAn order came the other day from the Island of Jamaica for 
one of these books. Copies have been sent to Mexico, South 
Africa, Austria and New Zealand—all over the world. It is 
being read wherever the human heart feels a love for clean 
and wholesome country living. 
But, no use talking, the rains have 
washed the face of Hope Farm until it 
smarts. And yet 1 have letters every day 
from people who say the land is so dry 
and hard that they cannot plow it. I 
imagine the faces of such farms look like 
the “rnug” of dear Willie, as compared 
with ours. The worst trouble with us is 
the loss of our hay. Df course, we shall 
have a lot of dark-colored, dry stuff, but 
it cannot be called good hay. and the 
clover was so tangled and beaten down 
that we could not possibly cut it all. 
There should have been some Timothy or 
Orchard grass in with it to hold the clover 
up. As it was, the job was much like 
frying to cut Canada pens without any 
oats to hold the wayward pen vines up to 
their duty. We must have more fodder, 
so today we are getting in Soy beans, 
cow peas and Sudan grass. Of course, 
these are not seeded together, hut put in 
drills. After picking flu sour cherries, 
we plowed ami harrowed the orchard, 
and marked out drills M ft. apart. Wilson 
Soy beans and Black-eye cow peas were 
dropped by hand, and lightly covered with 
iron rakes. Slow work, you may say, 
but we think we did it right, and in this 
tough sod ground the cultivator would 
rip up too much. The Sudan grass was 
s'-eded in a block of Sutton apple trees on 
the west side of the hill. Sutton has the 
peculiar habit of growing upright, like a 
Ivieffer pear tree. It does not spread out 
like McIntosh or Baldwin, aud thus there 
is more open space between rows. I have 
found fault with Sutton and with “authori¬ 
ties” who advised me to plant this variety, 
hut now I feel better over it. My But¬ 
tons this year are well loaded, while right 
A Civilizing Agent for Agriculture 
That is what one reader calls it—and he has sent five separate 
copies to people who need to know more of the human side of 
farm life. It is one of the best evidences of Good House¬ 
keeping to have this book on your table. Is it in your house? 
The Hope Farm man will autograph your copy if you desire. 
The book should go wherever the Rural New-Yorker is taken. 
RURAL NEW YORKER. 333 Wed 30th S»., New York 
GENTLEMEN—Enclosed find remittance for $1.50, for which send me, postpaid 
copy of “ Hope Farm Notes.” 
Name 
R. F. D. or Street No, 
When you write advertisers mention The R. N. - Y. and you ’ll get a 
quick reply and a “square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
