1092 
•Pk RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 9, 1922 
Maybe that hill 
is not there, after all— 
V ERY often the hill we seem to be climbing is 
made out of the common mistakes of diet which 
starve tissues and nerves and slow down energies. 
How smooth and level the path seemed to be 
when we were younger. 
Simple, natural food may level that hill to a 
smooth path again. 
Why not try it? 
Begin today with a dish of Grape-Nuts with 
cream or milk—and fresh or preserved fruit added 
if you like. 
Keep on with this crisp, delicious, strength¬ 
ening food ill place of heavy, ill-assorted, starchy 
breakfasts and lunches—and see if the old-time 
zest and speed on the old-time level path doesn’t 
come back again. 
GrapeNuts -THE BODY BUILDER 
“There’s a Reason” 
Made by Postum Cereal Company, Inc., Battle Creek, Michigan 
and Safety 
P UT your money at work. In¬ 
vest it in our Gold Notes. De¬ 
nominations: $100—$500—$1,000. 
Due one year to 5 years from 
date. Interest, 5'/2%, payable 
semi-annually. We give you am¬ 
ple security, based on New York 
State’s diversified agriculture. 
Write for particulars. 
Farmers Fund, Inc. 
M. W. Cole, President 
Li ncoln-Alliance Bank Bldg., Rochester, N. Y. 
Capital $400.000 Surplus $110,000 
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiimiii 
USEFUL FARM BOOKS 
Fertilizers and Crop. Van Slyke. .. .$3.25 
Feeding Farm Animals, Bull....... 2.60 
Milk Testing. Publow..90 
Butter Making, Publow.90 
Manual of Milk Products, Stocking. 3.00 
Book of C’beese, Tbom and Fisk.... 2.40 
.Successful Fruit Culture, Maynard. 1.75 
Pruning Manual. Bailey. 3.25 
American Apple Orchard, Waugh.. 1.75 
American Peach Orchard, Waugh.. 1.75 
Vegetable Garden, Watts. 2.50 
Vegetable Forcing, Watts. 2.50 
Edmonds' Poultry Account Book... 1.00 
Poultry. Richardson...... 150 
Turkey Book, Damon. 1.75 
For sate by 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 W. 30th St. New York City 
M11! 11111111LJ111 lit 11111111111111111111111II111111 
(DoKou 
Line A 
—on Stoves, Ranges 
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Offer quoU&K money savin* direct 
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Sec new lindens—blue and gray 
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30 days' trial. Cash 
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lot Fuin»c«. Sif S 5 and up. 
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Ash for Catalog No. 114 
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Kalamazoo, Mich. 
A K&mifcazoe 
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NEW, Perfected 
TREE GUARD 
which orchardists claim will 
establish REMARKABLE REC¬ 
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fruit grower* heretofore bav* 
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Yet cb«..p-1 rumh) on market | 
Write today fof Important, de¬ 
scriptive booklet— f icc. Addle** 
Dept. N, 
Fruit Growers Supply Co. 
71 Murray Street, New York 
News from the Ox-team Express 
Again I write for the benefit of your 
large family of readers, especially those 
who may be interested in our progress 
(the ox-team express). We are now 
about 50 miles west, of Topeka, Kansas, 
on what the fingerboard signs call the 
Victory Highway. The last one we passed 
says: New York, 1,200 miles; San 
Francisco. 1,933 miles; Topeka, 40 miles; 
Denver, 507 miles. If these signs are 
correct we evidently did not. take the 
shortest route. The natives here tell me 
about 35 miles from here there is an 
acre of land dedicated to the halfway 
mark, so the measurements differ in some 
respects. I must say the State, of Kan¬ 
sas is not just what my impression was. 
I did not expect to find any hills. I ex¬ 
pected to see that this was a vast stretch 
of flat prairie, as far as the eye could see 
one could not see any bills. This is not 
so. There are hills and hollows. The 
flat lands are mostly sown to wheat. A 
few weeks back wheat was being cut and 
shocked. Now as we pass along we see 
fork will top off the bunch. They say 
with two good teams on the bull rakes 
they can stack 30 tons a day. Good A-l 
grade Alfalfa hay is quoted here, loose, 
$S per ton: baled, $12. That which I 
saw them stacking was second cut, and 
rained on after cutting. This, the owner 
says, he will be delighted if he gets $3 to 
$1 the ton for in the stack. 
We are passing cornfields. One side 
of the road are the wheatfields; the 
others are sown to corn. Stalks are 10 
to 12 ft. high, ears look good at a dis¬ 
tance. hut what weeds, weeds and more 
weeds! Some cornfields I could hardly 
convince myself whether they sowed corn 
or sunflowers. These are not the sun¬ 
flowers we had in the East that grow 18 
to 20 ft. high with a flower at the top as 
large as a dinner plate, but the dwarf 
kind, 5 to 0 ft. high, and the flowers grow 
in clusters.. Then there is the weed we 
called ’‘nettles.” If I saw one on our 
Connecticut farm 3 ft. high I would 
throw a fit. Here on the roadside they 
Peach Color and Sunlight 
The picture shown is re-engraved from 
Bulletin No. 356 of the New Jersey Ex¬ 
periment Station at New Brunswick. 
This bulletin reports some recent studies 
on peach yellows and little peach. We 
are constantly receiving ciuostious about 
these peach diseases, and this bulletin 
will answer many of them. The picture 
does not show a diseased peach, hut shows 
that the normal red color on peaches re¬ 
sults from maturity and full exposure to 
sunlight. Three Belle of Georgia peaches 
are shown. The two outside fruits de¬ 
veloped normally and show the charac¬ 
teristic color of the variety. The middle 
peach was kept covered by a black paper 
hag, so that it developed under cover. 
Most of us have seen cases of sun print¬ 
ing on apples, where definite figures or 
names or initials are plainly marked on 
the side of the fruit. This may be done 
by using pieces of paper or cloth over 
parts of the fruit, so as to prevent the 
sun from reaching the skin directly. 
the thrashers belching forth the straw, 
building stacks as large as a good-sized 
barn, sometimes half a dozen stacks in a 
field, and at night we can look in all direc¬ 
tions and see these strawstaeks burning. 
This seems like an awful waste, but I 
suppose it is the easiest way to rid the 
fields. The soil is so rich, judging from 
the way the weeds grow, that turning 
under those weeds makes enough fer¬ 
tilizer to make another crop of wheat, 
although hack in Missouri this did not 
work out on one 900-acre farm. Last 
year that particular farm was in wheat, 
and the owner concluded that it would 
not pay to cut it. so left it standing. 
The natives here say we have not yet 
come to tin 1 wheal fields; 100 to 2(H) miles 
farther on we will really come to the 
wheatfields. We’ll wait and see. 
In the meantime we are seeing thiugs. 
Today I stopped the team long enough to 
walk across a field where they were 
stacking Alfalfa, second cut. These 
stacks are sometimes 30 ft. high, It ft. 
wide, 25 to 30 ft. long. They use a wing 
stacker. This is a form of derrick with 
a center pole to which is attached a long 
arm that will reach the ground with one 
end. To this is attached a series of fin¬ 
gers or large fork. The tines are eight 
to 10 in number, and 1 to 6 ft. in length. 
The width is usually 10 ft., and these 
fingers or prongs are 12 to 18 in. apart. 
When it is down to pick up the load of 
hay, perhaps 400 to 500 lbs., a “bull 
rake,” another tool with fingers extend¬ 
ing forward about -1% to 5 ft., is drawn 
up with its load by two horses, one each 
hitched single to the extreme end of the 
rake, ami the hay is exchanged from the 
fork of the bull rake to the fork of the 
swing stacker. Then a horse or mule 
pulls the long arm of the stacker and the 
hay is swung around to the stack and 
dumped. There a man with a hand lmy- 
are thick, and some 10 ft. high, and still 
going up. 
Sometimes I am asked how I find 
things as we travel along. My answer 
as to Kansas is—too much land in pos¬ 
session of one person. They grow too 
many woods and not enough trees. The 
farther we go through Kansas the fewer 
trees we see; I mean shade trees. Along 
this highway, the golden belt, this hot 
weather, we see birds hide in the shadow 
of a telegraph pole to hide from the hot 
sun. True, we occasionally see some trees 
off in the distance, but when we reach 
these they are near some house which, 
h.v the way, is set back from (he road 
one-fourth or one-half mile. Sometimes 
we must drive north or south on a eross- 
ro'ad half a mile to shade for the cattle 
and ourselves from 11 a. in. to 2 p. in. 
on a hot day. Old Sol gets in some good 
licks on these flat lands. Hot? A cou¬ 
ple of weeks ago one day the press re¬ 
ports said the thermometer went up to 
108 degrees. Well, it's good corn weather; 
the farmers may have a good corn crop, 
so they can perhaps get 20 cents the 
bushel. Last Fall it was rated 20 cents 
in Ohio, and some farmers told me they 
would burn it rather than sell at that 
price and pay 40 cents per bushel for 
coal. Surely the farmer is a true Chris¬ 
tian ; he practices faith, hope and char¬ 
ity. In the sowing season he plants in 
faith that the weather conditions will he 
such he will get a good crop. lie hopes 
to get compensation enough so he can 
live. Then when he gets neither he gives 
away what he has at less than cost of 
production; truly it Christian, therefore 
also the “goat." 
I’ve been writing this in sections as we 
pass along, writing at such times as we 
rest aud hide from the hot sun. So now 
we have reached the geographical point 
that is the center of the United States, 
