384 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
WOV. 22 
' Iprji of a pluralist. 
DAILY RURAL LIFE. 
From the Diary of a Gentleman near New 
York City. 
HARD TIMES. 
Nov. 7. —Already the cry of “ Hard times” 
has reached my rural retreat, and is becom¬ 
ing quite general among all classes ; even 
those who have millions like to have some¬ 
thing to croak about, and they echo the 
sound that come* up to them from the really 
needy. But why is it “hard times ?” Have 
we not been exceedingly prosperous as a 
nation doling the past decade i Does liis- 
tory furnish a parallel ease of such wonder¬ 
ful progress and general prosperity as ours ? 
No 1 and whose fault is it but our own if we 
suffer from the late disturbance in commer¬ 
cial centers ? 
There are few nations or individuals who 
can bear prosperity with equanimity. Each 
dollar added to their woalth brings with it a 
corresponding waut, and thus desires expand 
as facilities for indulgence are acquired. If 
a clerk, working on a salary of a thousand 
dollars a year, gets five hundred added, he 
goes home in great glee, and immediately 
sets to thinking how he shall spend this addi¬ 
tional sum. If he is a married man, more 
than likely he says, “ Wife, we can take a 
better house, now ; or we will have new 
carpets, pictures, pianos”—or something else 
which might be dispensed with without any 
great inconvenience. But there is never a 
thought about laying aside the live hundred 
dollars where it will draw interest and be¬ 
come a fund to be drawn upon in just such 
times as arc now upon us. We may go down 
to the very lowest strata of society and the 
same improvident system prevails. I have 
paid my laborers the pust season higher 
wages than they ever received before, while 
their Jiving expenses were not necessarily as 
high ; still, not one of them has a dollar laid 
aside for a time of need. But, can we blame 
the ignorant laborer for his improvidence 
when he is only doing what others higher in 
the social scale practice continually t I con¬ 
fess to feeling Occasionally irritated at the 
improvidence and heedlessuoss of my hired 
men ; but then comes the thought that I am 
indebted to t heir very faults for their labor ; 
for were they intelligent, industrious and 
saving they would long ago have been in 
some other business, perhaps owning even a 
better place than my own. The poorest of 
the laboring classes are really no more im¬ 
provident than those higher up ; but having 
less to fall back on, they touch bottom a 
little sooner, hence the more acute their suf¬ 
ferings, My only fear is that the panic will 
not continue sutheieutly long or be severe 
enough to bring things and our people down 
to a sound basis. The inflated prices caused 
by the war ought long ago to have been 
abandoned ; but as no one felt like making a 
beginning, all held on until thebubble burst. 
I had much rather sell ray potatoes at -to or 
50 cents per bushel, and get it in gold, silver, 
or bills of equal value, and be able to pur¬ 
chase my boots for *5 a pair, than to obtain 
£1 for Hie potatoes and pay, as now, £12 or 
£15 per pair fer hoots. High prices and 
abundance of money always beget specula¬ 
tion, improvident extravagance following, 
ending in a panic, and consequent suffering. 
WORK IN THE GARDEN. 
Nov. 8,—There is not much to be done in 
the garden at this season ; but the little 
work required is frequently of considerable 
importance. Tf one cultivates tender rasp¬ 
berries, and the very best sorts we have are 
of this kind, they must be protected, else no 
fruit will be produced next year. Even what 
are usually termed “ hardy sorts,” will usual¬ 
ly bear enough more fruit to pay for protec¬ 
tion, provided it can be done by bending 
down the canes and then covering with soil. 
This is the usual method of protecting those 
varieties requiring it; but there are a few 
sorts. like the Philadelphia, Purple Cane and 
Black-caps, that produce such strong, stocky 
canes, that it is almost , or quite, impossible 
to bend them to the ground without break¬ 
ing. In localities where such varieties are 
grown and need protection, it is best to train 
on trellis and then protect with straw, old 
coffee sacks—or even evergreen boughs will 
answer ; all that is required is enough to 
keep off the cold winds and shade the canes. 
As a rule, all the foreign sorts, and the seed¬ 
lings therefrom, require protection ; and a 
crop of fruit need not be expected without. 
Protection should not be given until the 
ground gets cool, a few slight freezes show¬ 
ing that it is time to cover up the caues. 
When the canes are sufficiently flexible to 
be laid down and covered with soil, the ex¬ 
pense of giving protection is very little, and 
no one should neglect this operation if they 
desire fruit another season. 
In nearly all of our Northern States grape 
vines are more or less liable to injury by cold 
during the winter ; but if trained in such a 
manner that they can be thrown down upon 
the ground and held there by a stone or sod, 
there will be little danger of winter-killing. 
The past season 1 have had no fruit from any 
vine left upon the trellises the previous win¬ 
ter ; and although this was an unusual fail¬ 
ure, still 1 am convinced that, not only for 
safety but to insure a good crop, it is best to 
give a little protection to the vines every 
winter. I am now pruning my vines, pre¬ 
paratory to laying them down, and here¬ 
after I shall practice this system, training 
with special reference to giving protection. 
No difficulty need be experienced in bending 
down even a large cane, provided one com¬ 
mences when the vine is young, and is then 
laid down in the same direction every au¬ 
tumn. Tn small gardens and city yards this 
mode of protection may not be a convenient 
one ; hut under such circumstances the vines 
may be covered with straw mat s or old sacks. 
Many of our half-hardy ornament al shrubs 
may be protected in this same manner—that 
is, bending down and covering with earth. 
I practice this system with all half-hardy 
and tender roses, such as the Hybrid Perpet¬ 
ual, Teas and Bourbons, and find that they 
come out fresh and uninjured in spring. The 
only danger of injury is covering too early 
in fall or in leaving them too late in spring 
before uncovering. With small plants of the 
more tender sorts St is perhaps best to dig up 
and bury in trenches ; but strong plants will 
bloom far more freely if the roots are left 
undisturbed and the top protected. But 
there are so many seemingly insignificant 
operations requiring attention at this season 
in the garden, that one could fill a volume 
with mere hints. The celery must be taken 
up and stored where it can Be reached when 
wanted. The spinach needs to be covered ; 
asparagus bed top-dressed, a Iter the old stalks 
are cut down and burned—I say burned, be¬ 
cause in doing so we may kill some of the 
beetles or their eggs, which infest this plant 
lu many localities in the Eastern States, 
If 1 pass out of the garden into the orchard, 
1 find there is something to be done there. 
If grass or weeds have been allowed to grow 
up around the stems, they form a fin© place 
for mice to make their nests, just where it 
will be most convenient to be when hunger 
forces them to gnaw the bark from the trees. 
If there have been any tent-caterpillars in t he 
orchard during the summer, the egg's depos¬ 
ited by the moth will now be found in flus¬ 
ters surrounding the small twigs. 
But, really, when I started out upon this 
walk, I thought my full work was nearly 
completed ; yet it grows with every step, 
and I must hasten back, quit w riting, hurry 
up the men, and lend a haud myself. 
Jujboriniltitral. 
GIRDLING FRUIT TREES. 
A correspondent says:— I noticed in the 
Rural New-Yorker an article on girdling 
fruit trees, to promote fruitfulness, which 
agrees with my own experience in the 
matter. I have a pear seedling which 
had stood for a long time in my garden 
without blossoming. August, 1872, tired 
of wait ing, I budded two branches of it, slit¬ 
ting and starting the bark nearly half way 
round in the operation. Last spring the 
buds looked a little doubtful, and I girdled 
the limbs just outside of them, not wishing 
to remove the limbs until I was sure of the 
buds growing. The buds did not. gl ow, but 
the limits both blossomed. The severe hail 
storm in J tine beat the fruit entirely off the 
branch most, exposed ; but the other is car¬ 
rying fruit to-day.—C. A. W., Dublin, N. II. 
-«.*«.- 
HERBACEOUS ERYTHRINA. 
Inclosed find leaves of a tree t hat is plant¬ 
ed here on side-walks. I have asked several 
parties for the name and no one can tell me; 
please tell me its name, through vour col¬ 
umns.—A. Wernest. 
Having only leaves for our guide in deter¬ 
mining the name of the plant, we may make 
a mistake, but believe it is Erythi'ina herbn- 
cea. This plant can hardly rank as a tree, 
hut as a tall-growing herbaceous plant. If 
we have guessed aright in the name, the 
plant grows four or five feet high, flowers 
about two inches long, bright scarlet, and 
borne on racemes one to two feet long. The 
I seeds are also bright scarlet. 
THE RAILROADS AND THE FARMS. 
Three men meet in a room in New York. 
They are not called kings, wear no crowns, 
and bear no seeptree. They merely repre¬ 
sent trunk fines of railway from the Missis¬ 
sippi to New York. Other points settled, 
one says ; 
“As to the grain rate ; shall we make it 
fifty from Chicago ?” 
“ Agreed ! crops are heavy, and we shall 
have enough to do.” 
Business finished, the three enjoy sundry 
bottles of good wine. The daily paperspres- 
ently announce that “the trunk lines have 
agreed upon a new schedule of rates for 
freight which is, in effect, a trifling increase ; 
on grain, from forty-five to fifty cents from 
Chicago to New York, with rates to other 
points in the usual proportion.” The con¬ 
versation was insignifleaut, the increase 
“ trifling.” But to t he farmers of the North¬ 
west, it means that the will of three men 
has taken over thirty millions from the cash 
value of their products for that year, and 
five hundred millions from the actual value 
of their farms. 
The conversation is imaginary ; but the 
startling facts upon which it is based arc 
terribly real, as Western farmers have 
learned. The few men who control the 
great railway lines have it in their power to 
strip Western agriculture of all its earnings, 
—Dot after the manner of ancient highway¬ 
men, by high handed defiance of society and 
law, the rush of swift steeds, the clash of 
steel, and the stern, “Htand and deliver!” 
The bandits <>f modern civilization, who en¬ 
rich themselves by the plunder of others, 
come with chests full of charters; judges 
are their friends, if not their tools ; and they 
wield no weapon more alarming than the 
little pencil with which they calculate differ¬ 
ences of rate, apparently so insignificant t hat, 
public opinion wonders why the farmers 
should complain abmt such t rifles. Yet the 
farmers have complained, and, complaining 
in vain, have got angry. When largo bodies 
of men get angry, the results are likely to be 
important, though they may not always 
prove beneficent. The fanners’ movement 
threatens a revolution in the business of 
transportation, if not in the laws which pro¬ 
tect investments of capital. It seems strange, 
no doubt, to those who do not know that a 
change of one-twentieth of a mill per one 
hundred pounds, in t he charge for transpor¬ 
tation per mile, may take hundreds of mil¬ 
lions from the actual value of farms. It can 
neither be comprehended nor intelligently 
directed, without a full understanding of the 
condit ions under which agriculture exists in 
the Northwestern States, and of the power 
which the railway has exerted awl still 
wields for the development or destruction of 
that great industry ,—Atlantic Monthly. 
OUR OLD HOMESTEAD. 
Dear Rural :—It is but a few weeks since 
it was my good fortune to peruse your pages, 
and, being a journalist and also something of 
a naturalist, 1 recognized your merits at 
once. 1 have thought, every week since you 
fell to my lot, that 1 might contribute to 
your worth ill someway; but not until to¬ 
day was I forced to take up m 3 - pen in your 
cause. The ^ditorial visit to “Home” was 
so interesting and so full of the feelings that 
I have felt in relation to the place of my 
birth and the birth of mj- aucesters, that it 
seemed to me “Our Okl Homestead” would 
furnish something of interest in addition to 
what 3 ’ou said. 
Our home is not of the country, but of the 
seaside, and instead of looking out upon 
countless acres it overlooks vast domains of 
water. It is an old house, with the large 
frame, the enormous chiuwey and the old- 
fashioned porch, standing facing the south¬ 
east. its ends being northeast and southwest; 
and from the northeast windows, with the 
aid of a spyglass, jthe waves of the Atlantic 
can be seen lashing the shores of the Isle of 
Shoals, twenty-seven miles distant. When 
it was built, I can hardly tell, but it was first 
the abode of my great-great, grandfather 
away back in the eighteenth century, and 
around the dear old house lingers many a 
token of “ye ancient daj-s." The old- 
fashioned fireplaces are the same liberal in¬ 
stitutions that did service before the days of 
stoves ; the rooms the same that rang with 
the glees of fifteen children; the same walls 
that did service before the days of wall 
paper, and beneath the modern paper still 
exist the daubs of paint, crossing each other 
in stripes, that were once considered decora- I 
tive. For three generations the inhabitants 
of the house were hardy mariners—fisher¬ 
men, pilots and captains—and before it, for 
the first hundred 3 -ears of its existence, was 
a raised, turfed terrace, which served as a 
seat to neighbors and wayfaring men after I 
their day’s work was done, and it was not 
until about 1852 that the business of the place 
demanded the removal of the bank-seat. 
The northeast end of the house is shingled, 
and the shingles have Stood the winds and 
rains for sevent>* years, the oldest neighbor 
not remembering when or by whom the 
work was done; but It was well done, and to 
this da 3 ‘ the pelting rain* of the Atlantic 
coast do not penetra te them. 
In the records of dea ths of the early branch 
of t he family t hree Out of every five deaths 
read, Drowned. The most promising and 
bravest, the youngest and fairest, male and 
female, lost ,their lives by the treacherous 
sea—so fair and yet so foul. The old kitchen 
at one time was the scene of three corpses— 
three brothers drowned—All by the capsizing 
of a single boat. 
THE MARKS OF BOYHOOD. 
In the cellar we find the monster arch, and 
on an old joist, in paint, we find, "‘J. C., 
1720,” the trace of that age of bovhood when 
one hankers to leave upon whatever he shall 
touch his own impress, and here a boy left it 
eighty-threc years ago, grow to manhood, 
maybe, passed from earth, and his ancestors 
know not of him, yet there still stands the 
act of a few solitary' moments, when idle 
hands had nothing else to do. And hero is 
an old door that has hung on its rusty hinges 
for generations upon generations, and upon 
with • . C., 1820 ,” 
in the sail, ami the worker of it may be seen 
tottering along the streets made prematurely 
old b 3 ' the hardships of a seafaring life, yet. 
that stands as the symbol of his bo 3 'hood 
dreams, all of which he has realized, and is 
now onl 3 ' waiting for the Harvester to gather 
him to tlie home of his father*. 
This is only a brief sketch of the old manse 
that has sheltered six generations and still 
welcomes to its roof the seventh ; and from 
its windows the same expanse of water is 
beheld, and in summer the same refreshing 
breezes blow that have gratified the sight 
and bathed the brows of all who have gone 
before. It is a dear old home, with histories 
of love and sorrow, of mystery and of mirth, 
and ever dear to ub who bold it still, p. a. w. 
■-- 
FROFITS OF CO-OPERATION. 
Some eight or ten years ago. sa 3 's the New 
England Farmer, Joseph D. Holmes, Charles 
Jordan aud Win. Millard, three young farm 
era living almost within a stone’s throw of 
each other, decided to joiu'in establishing a 
dairy milk route from their farms to Paw 
tucket, Rhode Island, some six miles away. 
Neither farm was large enough to sustain a 
route alone, but the three together could do 
it easily. Neither wanted to take the place 
of a middleman and do all the marketing, 
nor did either wish to give up his business to 
a middleman. So they agreed that each 
! should take his turn on the milk wagon. 
The milk accounts are all kept in one book, 
and the buyers at the village settle their bills 
• 13 - this book, whether it. comes by one or an¬ 
other of the members of the company. Each 
of the three men go with the wagon every 
third day in regular order, unless for accom¬ 
modation sake one goes a trip for one of the 
others. Each uses his own horse and wagon, 
and each knows the amount of milk that is 
taken from the different farms every day. 
The two trips that each one makes every 
week enables him to market most of his oth¬ 
er produce, such as apples, potatoes, sweet 
corn, tomatoes and other garden product?, of 
which each one raises considerable quantities, 
without making special trips for sueh pur¬ 
poses. Nor is there any liitcliing up and 
going to the store for purchase ; all t,hc buy¬ 
ing, as well as selling, being done on their 
regular market days ; and they are all in 
daily communication wir.lt the'post office, 
which is no small Convenience to farmers. 
Under this system of partnership, the cost 
of marketing'is reduced to the minimum, 
while each bears his just proportion of the 
expeuses, and receives equal shore in all the 
advantages of the combination. Since this 
arrangement has been established, all their 
farms have been real 13 - enhanced in value. 
The 3 -oung men have increased their stock 
and 'it is better fed and better housed. 
Buildings have been repaired and enlarged, 
more and bett er tools purchased and the mud 
is constantly increasing infertility and pro¬ 
ductiveness. But little complaint is heard 
front them about hard times for farmers. 
They pay their bills, take the papers, and 
know what, is going on in the world outside. 
Age have been familiar with this company 
from its organization, and believe the exam¬ 
ple these men have set is worths' of imitation 
by many farmers who are now grumbling 
about the cost of getting their goods to 
market. 
ri 
