THE RURAL WEW-YORKER. 
SES! 
for t\jc Doitttg. 
If any of our girls, old or young, keep ca¬ 
naries, they must remember about feeding 
some green food. All birds in a state of 
nature, are fond of green food iu some form, 
and I notice that human beings are not at all 
behind in this respect. Give the birds some¬ 
thing green. Lettuce is good for them, so is 
grass,so,in fact,isalmost any sweet vegetation. 
Let them have it every day. They need it. 
I saw a horse last week that could play 
ball. The “ball” was a piece of apple. The 
horse would stand with his mouth opened as 
wide ns it could be. The boy who drove him 
tossed the apples and the horse would catch 
them every time they came near him. Every 
time he made a catch he was allowed to eat 
what he caught, so he was very anxious to 
play well. I have seen a dog play regular 
ball. He would run ba«es as well as anybody. 
His owner had to bat for biin, but he could 
catch aud run with the ball without help. 
Oub folks are canning fruit at wholesale 
just now. We will do the retail part of the 
business next winter when we eat it, 1 got 
home the other night and found the house 
pretty nearly filled with pineapples. 'My 
folks bought up a lot of fruit. They were 
hard at work cutting it up for canning. By 
10 o’clock it all stood in the jars cooked and 
ready for eating. Next winter it will proba¬ 
bly make us all good natured. We need some¬ 
thing pretty sweet then, for some of our 
weather is gloomy enough. 
It is getting pretty near to the picnic sea¬ 
son. Picnics are good things when they are 
well conducted. The dinner is always a pret¬ 
ty important part to me. I fear some of 
you will think that Uncle Mark thinks more 
about eating than he ought to. I must say 
that 1 am fond of a good diuoer aud that I 
have the bighest respect for a good cook. I 
think the person who eats too much is guilty 
of intemperance,bat I also thiuk that unless a 
person eats plenty of good food that tastes 
good he uever will amount to much. But 
about the picnics. 1 went to one once where 
1 came about, as near being guilty of “intem¬ 
perance” ns I often get. A girl brought a 
basket of sandwiches that were so good that I 
had hanl work to stop eating them. She told 
me how they were made. Light “Parker 
House rolls” were baked the night before. 
Cold boiled ham was chopped fine—it would 
be a good plan to run it through an Enter¬ 
prise Chopper. Then it was well seasoned and 
some hard-boiled eggs were chopped fine aud 
mixed with it. A little milk was added and 
the mixture spread on the buttered rolls. And 
it was fine! The highest ambition of every 
housekeeper I have ever seen is to have her 
fooil eaten right up, and I will guarantee that 
picnic sandwiches made in this way will 
never have to be brought home. 
A young man tells rue a story that I tbink 
is worth repeating. Twelve years ago he 
worked in Boston iu a store. He got six dol¬ 
lars per week and had to pay five dollars for 
board, There was no chance to get ahead that 
he could see. 1 he “Labor Movement” at that 
time was being discussed by workingmen at 
a series of Sunday meetings. This young 
man went to some of the meetings and listened 
to the talk. Much of it seemed reasonable 
enough. There were thousands of poor people 
iu the city and also many rich people who 
could not know what suffering meant. One 
Sunday u man read a paper on the advan¬ 
tages of the West. He urged young tnen to 
leave t he cities and go to the West, take up 
land and thus develop the country and at the 
same time take the crowd away from the city. 
After the lecture many “workingmen” made 
fun of the arguments advanced. “We can’t 
get away!” they said. “It takes all we can 
earn to buy bread. We will stay hero and 
make the rich folks divide with us.” At last 
the man who read the paper got up and said: 
“How many men in this audience drink beer?” 
• A1 • lost every man present held up his hand. 
“How many .smoke?” The bauds went up 
again. “Now, then,” he said, “not a sin¬ 
gle man who has held up his hand 
has any right to suy be can’t get away from 
the city aud make a good aud useful citizen of 
himself if he so desires.” How they hooted 
at him then ! That was 12 years ago. This 
young man I speak of left the city and went 
West. The first job they gave bim was that 
of spreading manure. He paid his debts, got 
an education aud a fine start in the world. A 
few weeks ago be went back to Boston on a 
visit. What do you suppose be found ? In 
that same httll,someof these very workingmen 
were saying almost the very same words 
about the cruelty of the rich aud the utter 
helplessness of the poor. There they were just 
as shabby, a good deal older, but not an inch 
in advance of their position of 12 years ago. 
It was the same old story: “We can’t get 
away from the city I We are tied down by 
the rich ! ” They had kept at their beer and 
tobacco. They had poured all their chances 
down their throats. They had puffed away 
the chances for 100 good deeds. They will 
just go on puftiug and pouring until the end 
comes. Now then, you can point your own 
moral to suit yourselves. My lesson i* that 
every boy iu this country has a fair chance if 
he will only practice temperance and economy 
and work out the chances that come to him, 
with courage and patience. My idea of the 
“Labor Question” is that any young man 
who is willing to work patiently, honestly and 
intelligently will sooner or later find an em¬ 
ployer who will appreciate his work as it 
should be appreciated and pay him for it. 
1 hope our boys arc not in the bird-killing 
business. That is a very poor business to be 
in. I hope our girls have long ago given up 
the use of feathers as ornaments. Ribbons 
are much prettier, I think. Savages wear 
feathers. 
« - 
THE BOYS ON THE FARM. * 
BY ONE OF THE BOY’S. 
For the last 10 or 15 years the sidewalk 
farmer, the penny-a-liner and the banker, the 
merchant and the lawyer—who were raised 
on the farm but didn’t “stick”—have been 
giving us boys a world of advice. One can 
hardly pick up an Agricultural Journal which 
does not contain some fullsome praise of the 
“boy of the rosy cheek and the bounding 
heart” or of his surroundings: and yet in the 
very next line, they will call our father 
“Dad”—the old man—a stingy, close-fisted 
penurious old curmudgeon who makes his 
boys work 16 hours a day from the time they 
can “toddle” to the field until they run away 
or leave him at 21, Now we protest against 
having our honored fathers called by any 
such names or accused of stinginess in the 
usual sense of the word. He may have to 
practice the strictest economy, but be does it 
for the good of bis boys, (or family) and we 
thoroughly understand the matter between 
Ourselves, and the “boys” are only too willing 
to share the burdens and sacrifices, carry the 
heavy jug of water or work 16 hours a day in 
harvest. Then some one gets up a boom on 
the farmer’s wife. This is a sort of au annual 
production and usually ripens soon after har¬ 
vest. Some hot August afternoon, a reporter 
seeks the friendly shade of a spreading oak iu 
some country grave-yard; he is racking his 
brains for a subject for next week’s issue: 
“Mortality of Farmers’ wives; Consumption; 
Over-work; Second Wives.” This will be a 
happy hit and the merrliantand lawyer’s wife 
will exhibit great sympathy for the over¬ 
worked fanner’s wife when they get a mo¬ 
ment to glance at the papers after the annoy¬ 
ing late caller has departed; while most prob¬ 
ably at the same moment the object of their 
sympathy and solicitude, is, and has been for 
the last two hours enjoying the most healthful 
and uudisturbed slumber. 
This will be followed by a series of articles 
on “The Education of Farmers’ Hons.” This 
forms a fine heading; it sounds well. “Edu¬ 
cation;” think how much of our individual 
aud national welfare depends on it! “Farm¬ 
ers’ Hons;” that is getting right down to the 
“bed-rock.” Of course the fanner (father) is 
entirely iguored; it is taken for granted that 
he neither knows nor cares how or where, if 
at all, bis son is educated. Aud when these 
well-meaning friends of ours get short of sub¬ 
jects, adjectives and expletives, the calf, colt 
and lamb subject is inexhaustible; for if the 
colt be wanting, they can sandwich iu a half 
dozen hens, and a respectable article—for 
length—can be made out of the computation 
of the number of eggs produced—before they 
are laid, of course—and the price. Methiuks 
1 see the first bright streaks of the dawn of 
the millennium; the calf,the colt and the lamb 
shall lie down together and a farmer’s boy 
shall lead them. We’ve gotten pretty much 
over the “sting of the old man’s harsh words,” 
aud we own up it did set a little close when 
we asked him for another $10 to pay for that 
trio of Plymouth Rocks, he remarked as ho 
drew out the money: “John, my boy, let the 
fever be as light as possible.” 
In ull kindness we say to our friends give us 
a rest; we’re tired. During the summer we 
have raised millions on millions of bushels of 
corn, wheat, oats and barley. We have 
raised calves and colts and lambs and chickens 
till no man can number them for multitude. 
During the single month of October we put 
ullout for our European cousins some 12,000,- 
000 to 15,000,000 bushels of wheat as u pledge 
that this country, notwithstanding the politi¬ 
cal “whoppers,” is “as good as the wheat,” no 
matter who is elected President. Then we 
have gathered the apples and most of the corn; 
in fact, we have furnished three square meals 
per day for over 45,000,000 of people at home, 
partially fed several millions more of our 
cousins, to say nothing of keeping the whole 
Irish nation from starvation. 
We farmers constitute but three-fifths of 
our population; yet in the last quarter of a 
century we have broken, cleared, fenced, aud 
brought under cultivation sufficient land to 
make several respectable empires. We have 
furnished about 50 per cent, of all noted 
scientific, literary, and professional men, aud 
over 60 per cent, of all our Presidents, Con¬ 
gressmen, and successful business men. It 
almost takes my breath uway to thiuk what 
wo might have done if we hadn’t felt the 
“sti..g of the old man’s words and injudicious 
treatment.” What greater heights of agri¬ 
cultural aud scholastic greatness might we 
not have reached had we not been under the 
hateful influence of that “close-fisted curmud¬ 
geon,” our father? What extra thousands of 
calves would now be lowing on every hill-top 
if that “niggardly, close-fisted old Dad” had 
only given us that first calf! The truth of it 
is, we farmers’ boys know a thing or two, if 
we have got a patch on the seat of our pants 
aud don’t know the latest style of backing out 
of a room. This deluge of advice and soft- 
soap, with a superabundance of lye, is getting 
a little monotonous. We are neither heathen 
fools uor knaves, nor have we lost our natural 
love for our kindred. Our friends tell us to 
be contented, but we are not contented, aud 
don’t mean to be, The successes of to-day 
will not do for to-morrow; we are on the 
climb. I said we knew a thing or two; there 
are three or four things we do not know, but 
wish to. We will take it kindly if, for in¬ 
stance, you will tell us the cause aud cure of 
pear-blight; give us a short chapter on pre¬ 
vention of rust in oats; search out and reveal 
to us the hidden mysteries of the common 
wire-worm; tell us how to prevent hog and 
chicken cholera. We will pay for it liber¬ 
ally; wo have always paid all our 
own bills and a part of other people’s, and we 
have the name of giviug the most liberal sup¬ 
port to journals relating to agriculture, of any 
nation on the globe. Organize a half dozen 
experiment stations and get them into useful 
operation! We want them and are willing to 
pay for them if they can 1*e run intelligently 
and honestly; but mind you, we do uot want 
auy “taffy,” “spread-eagle” or abuse,of our 
respected paterfamilias. What we want Is 
the truth—facts. If we cannot get the 
station so that we may learn new facts, 
gather old ones, arrange and explain them for 
the younger boy’s. If they are worth any¬ 
thing we stand ready to take them all; but 
don’t come around with your book, “Stick to 
the Farm" or “Advice to Farmers’ Boys.” 
Let “Dad” and the boys arrange their little 
family matters to suit themselves. It is a lit¬ 
tle humiliating to be advised in public as to 
how ofteu we should kiss our respected mother 
or be reminded that we should uot leun our 
head and chair against the parlor wall. We 
will learn all those little things by the time 
we get to the White House. 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I would like to join 
the Y. H. C. Papa hus taken the Rural 
over 14 years and we like it as well to-day as 
ever. I like to read the Cousins’ letters and I 
would like to correspond with some of the 
Cousins. I do not go to school. My two sis¬ 
ters and I study at home. I study spelling, 
reading, arithmetic and grammar, and my 
sisters each study reading, spelling and arith¬ 
metic. They recite to me,and I recite to Mam¬ 
ma and Papa. Your Niece, 
Clarion Co., Pa. allie ruoh. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I want to join the 
Youths’ Horticultural Club, and I want to 
tell you something that puzzles me. I asked 
Mamma, und she said, “Ask Uncle Mark.” I 
planted some popcorn in one end of my 
Mamma’s window garden before the snow 
was all off the ground outdoors. It came up 
quick and grows fast. The box is in my bed 
room,and every morning when I wake up big 
round drops of dew are shining ou the points 
of the blades of com, just as if it were grow¬ 
ing out of doors iu the cornfield. I don’t see 
any drops on Mamma’s chrysanthemum, that 
grows in the other end of the same box. The 
box is just as long as the window is wide, 
about two feet. How comes dew to fall in the 
house, aud why doesn’t the chrysanthemum 
glisten with it like the corn? 
Yours truly, 
1a Crosse Co.,Wis. Francism. Lincoln. 
P. S.—Mamma says: “Tell Uncle Mark that 
there is a ventilator iu the chrysanthemum 
end of the window, 3x10 inches, a little way 
above it. ” 
[I should say that the ventilator aud the 
larger expanse of blade of the corn will ac¬ 
count for “dew,” You will notice this sum¬ 
mer that some strong, rank-growing plants 
carry much more dew or moisture than 
others.—u. m.] 
Dear Uncle Mark: I got my sister to 
write to you. I like to farm. I think that is 
nice work. I go to school all the time. I 
bavo to attend to the cows every morning and 
night. The peas that you sent mo were very 
pretty. They had six colors aud they grew 
about four feet high. I had 750 peas and 212 
pods. The highest that I had in a pod were 
eight. I am 12 years old. Your Nephew, 
Swan ton, Neb. WILLIE miller. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I thought I would 
write aud tell you of my success with the 
sweet peas you sent me. They were nice. 
The admiration of all who saw them. There 
were 10 or 12 kinds. I have a bird; it is a 
sweet singer. I eujoy taking care of it. 
From your niece, 
Cortlaud Co., N. Y. m. louise smith. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I bavo three brothers 
and one sister. We have three pigs, two cows, 
and two horses. We live on a farm of 60 
acres. I have a mile and a quarter to go to 
school. I am a little boy eight years old. 
Audubon Co., Iowa. ira w. OVERTON. 
Dear Uncle Mark : My Papa has taken 
the Rural eight years. I did not plant the 
sweet peas. My Papa has 30 acres. He has 
11 cows and two yearlings, and 100 Plymouth 
Ilock chickens. I have seven cats anti my 
sister has a dog. We have 11 cats altogether. 
I am nine years old. I have some fuu with 
the dog. Papa says he plauted the Angel of 
Midnight Corn, but it looks like the common 
com, aud does not seem to pay well enough 
to raise it here. I saw a piece in the paper 
about you, and my birthday comes on the 
same day as yours, so we can celebrate to¬ 
gether. henry fuller. 
Waterman 111 
PtecfUattfoujJ 
That Tired Feeling 
The warm -weather has ft debilitating effect, 
especially upon those who are within doors most 
of the tinio. The peculiar, yet common, com¬ 
plaint known ns "that tired feeling,” Is the 
result. This feeling can ho entirely overcome by 
taking Hood's Sarsaparilla, which gives new life 
and strength to nil the functions of the body. 
“I could not sleep; laid no appetite. 1 took 
Hood's Sarsaparilla and soon began to sleep 
soundly; could got Up without that tired and 
languid feeling; and my appetite Improved.” 
R. a. Sanford, Kent, Ohio. 
v Hood’s Sarsaparilla 
Sold by all druggists. $1; six for $5. Made 
only by C. I. HOOD & CO., Lowell, Mass. 
IOO Doses One Dollar 
KNtJTdKIl HOIK K-It It ED CABT ST A L- 
LIONS, THOMAS RLLKRBY, of MELTON-ON- 
Tll K- 1 | I 1,1, S’H I) FARM, near IlONl.'ASTER, 
ENGLAND, lias several High Class Twoand Three Year 
Olds for stile. Apply to htin direct. 
