JULY 9 
THE RURAL HEW-YORMER. 
far t\jc Bmm0. 
THE ROBIN’S SONG. 
“Sikcuno for rain,” the farmer said. 
As the robins thrilled their sweetest; 
While the soft June day was bright o’er head 
With clouds the whitest, fleetest. 
But the wife from her window view, 
Atnoug the trees had been hearing 
The birds, as they gave a lessou new 
To the fledgelings they were rearing. 
’•Not so.” she said, "I think you're wrong,” 
They sing as if never weary; 
But thpse to me are the words of their song: 
“Come you here, come you here, my deary.” 
And then they fly to a furl her tree, 
With calls the gayest, clearest; 
They seem to say, “Come, follow me" 
"Come you here, lit tle dear, my dearest.” 
“Your old rime sign T don't believe; 
The robins their youug are teaching. 
And iny slight fancy their song can weave 
Into words ns plalu as preaching.” 
The good man smiled at Ills wife’s Idea, 
The bird song thus explaining; 
Yd answered: “What Is this I hear? 
“Surely, my dear. It Is raining!” a. r. d. 
In this city there are quite a number of 
men who hire themselves out as walking 
signs. Some of them have frames built around 
them on which are pasted advertisements of 
somebody’s soap or tooth brush or some other 
article. One man walks around dressed as an 
Indian with a big flag on which is printed the 
address of a tobacco firm. Six men are hired 
to walk across the Brooklyn bridge every 
night. They wear high white hats and long 
white dusters on which is pasted the name of 
a famous clothing house. On every rainy 
day six men parade up and down Broadway 
witli red and white umbrellas and rubber 
coats. All this advertising is said to help 
business. These walkiug advertisers are 
looked down upon. Even hod-carriers have 
more diguity. Many well-dressed men who 
laugh at the advertisements carry around 
signs that are a great deal more disgraceful. 
A ied whiskey-nose, for instance, and a great 
shapeless stomach are both more dishonorable 
than any sign carried through the streets. 
They advertise intemperance and gluttony. 
We are all walkiug advertisements to a cer¬ 
tain extent. We advertise ourselves. Try as 
hard as we can to prevent it, our characters 
are bound to show in our actions. If we want 
to behave well and make a good impression, 
we have got to begin at the bottom and do 
wlmt is right. 
Last year I spoke about piekiug potato 
beetles by hand. It is a tedious process. I 
don’t think it pays. It is a job generally 
given to the boys and girls. 1 have done lots 
of it, but never could see that, I picked half 
the beetles, This year 1 put plaster and 
Paris-green on my potatoes and the beetles 
have taken themselves away in a hurry. 
Last week it rained every day until Friday. 
We needed the rain, but it came down a little 
too hard at times. 8o much water fell one 
day that many gardens were all washed away. 
The best place for a garden is on level ground. 
When the gnidrn is made on a lull-side 
ditches should lie dug at intervals, so that the 
water will pass away and uot sweep down 
through the growing plants. A rainy day on 
some farms is a pretty dismal affair. The 
rainy weather seems to put a damper on the 
spirits of all the family. Nobody seems to 
feel right, auil everyttiiug seems to go wrong. 
This condition of affairs is bad enough. It is 
all the worse liecause it is not necessary. If 
every member of the family w ould take right 
hold of the matter and sayr “I don’t propose 
to be a weather indicator! I mean to keep 
good-natured in spite of ram or slime or hail 
or snow,” the rainy days would be much 
brighter and easier to endure. It does not 
cost anything ex tea lo be good uatured. There 
is a clear profit m the business of manufactur¬ 
ing happiness. 
Every mini and every boy should tie some¬ 
thing of a doctor. I don’t say that the girls 
and women should be, because they will have 
to be. No one cau lie a good housekeeper 
without knowing how to take care of the sick. 
All men should know how to take care of 
themselves and also what to do when their an¬ 
imals are out of condition. A great many 
men ruin their health in youth, simply be¬ 
cause they think it is a little weak and “girl¬ 
ish” to take care of themselves, That notion 
is all nonsense. Youth is the time, not only 
to save money, but to store up health and 
strength that will last through old age. 1 am 
always sorry to see a man old at 55 
or fill years. 1 have seen them so bent, 
and feeble at that age that they could not 
possibly enjoy life. They threw their health 
and strength away when they were youug 
men. As for understanding the diseases of 
animals, every farmer knows how much he 
could save if he could do the right thing when¬ 
ever, he has a sick animal. 
I can remember bow wonderful it seemed to 
me when I was a boy that a gas, a solid and a 
liquid could be produced from the same thing. 
One day in winter the teacher showed how it 
could lie done by putting a piece of ice into 
the tin pan on the stove The ice was a solid. 
The heat of the stove soon melted it to water 
—a liquid. As the heat became mere intense 
the water slowly changed to steam—a gas. 
That little experiment, made me think. It was 
a long time before I could bring myself to 
think that, by applying cold to the steam we 
could bring it back to water or even to ice, 
yet I know now that it can be done. Why I 
speak of it is this: I saw a boy on the street 
the other day smoking a cigarette. His face 
was pale and tbiu. There were dark lines 
under his eyes and around his mouth. I knew 
that the tobacco had painted those marks on 
liis face. I thought that his health and intel¬ 
ligence represented a solid. The cigarette 
was slowly changing them iuto smoke. The 
steam can be changed back into ice, but there 
is no possible way of changing the smoke 
back iuto health and braiu. If it comes back 
at all, it will come in paius, shattered nerves, 
weakened muscles, lack of courage, dull 
reasoning and blunted perception. The oon- 
sequeuee is so sure that there can be no possi¬ 
ble chance for argument about it. The boy 
who puts a cigar or cigarette into his mouth 
is not only an ignoramus but a criminal. He 
not only lessens his power to enjoy the best 
things of life, but he runs the risk of killing a 
part of bis own life. 
There were no reapers or mowing machines in 
those old days. Hand-labor was the thing. One 
man could find plenty to do on a very few 
acres. I often wonder wlmt these old men 
must think when they see our modern farm¬ 
ing. The thought must frighten them a little 
and make them a little sad too. Now, if 
farming can change so in the last 40 years, 
why can wo not expect that it will change 
almost as much in the next 40 years ? This 
looks reasonable enough to me. People say 
there is nothing more to improve. Let us see. 
Who could imagine the telephone, the tele¬ 
graph or any of the other wonderful inven¬ 
tions, 15 years before they were invented ? 
So many wonderful things have been done of 
late that 1 am gettiug so that 1 believe almost 
anything short of “perpetual motion” is pos¬ 
sible. I am sure that agriculture will see 
nmuy wonderful changes within the next 20 
years. Our boys aud girls will be men and 
women in ample time to take advantage of all 
these changes. Irrigation will play a wonder¬ 
ful part in the farming of the future. We all 
know how portions of the country suffer 
every year from drought. The day will come 
when we will store up water iu tanks and 
ponds as carefully as we now store up man¬ 
ure. Twenty years from now it will only be 
the shiftless farmers who are ruined by 
drought. Electricity will play a great part 
iu future farming. We shall see a plow or a 
team moving without any horse or other 
animal to draw it. Keep your eyes on the 
future, my boys and girls. Farming is goiug 
to be the most honorable and dignified busi¬ 
ness in this country. Those who stick to it 
and study it out, will live to enjoy all these 
taste of this drink, though I never could see 
that it was auy more refreshing than, cool 
spring water or cool milk. 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I wrote you a letter in 
January but did not see it in print, so I 
thought I would write again, hoping to have 
better success. We are having a very dry 
season so far. The crops are very dry. We 
have about 15 acres of oats that are looking 
nicely but some of them are pretty dry. We 
just, cleared about five acres and sowed it to 
oats, but they are so dry that they will have 
to be irrigated before they will come up. The 
weather is very dry: it lias not stormed since 
the lfith of April. The winter was very light, 
there was uot much SHOW in the mountains, 
so the water did not rise much this season. 
We have 24 hogs and eight pigs; I cut and 
fed them alfalfa three times a day. We com¬ 
menced haying yesterday; we have about 17 
acres of alfalfa, about five acres of it was 
sown this spring. G. o. iiammond. 
Paonia, Colo. 
Uncle Mark: It has beeu a longtime since 
I wrote to you. I did not see my last letter in 
print. I hope this one will be printed. We 
had a good school and a good teacher. We 
have 2(1 horses, over 100 cattle, and father is 
buying more. It was very dry last summer. 
Coruwasapoor crop. The llower seeds you 
sent were very nice. The melons yon sent were 
very nice indeed, though it was so dry that 
most of them were quite small. The largest 
muskmelon weighed 10_ 1 ,j’ pounds. After the 
melons were all gone we had a little rain. 
The watermelon vines blossomed and there 
were as many melons aud they grew as large as 
most of the others. Then the frost soou came 
aud there was only a few got ripe. Last fall 
father took all the sheep and 20 cows out to 
Dakota. After ho sold them he went to the 
Indian Reservation and several other places. 
Renwick, Iowa. a cousin. 
Dear Uncle Mark; I would like to join 
the Y. II. C., if you will let me. I am a girl, 
II years old. I live with my Uncle, aud lie 
takes the Rural. We planted tbo seeds you 
sent, and they came up, and the hens destroy¬ 
ed the peas. 1 have a kitten, and wo have a 
dog. His name is Sport. .We have nine cows,. 
three horses, aud we had a colt, but it died. 
Your Niece, mtnnie eiiwards. 
Dear Uncle Mark: I have a cat aud three 
kittens. The eat is black, and the kitteus are 
black and white. Our dog broke his leg while 
he was trying to catch a rat under a pile of 
wood. Papa wanted to kill him, but Mamina 
would uot let it be doue. She tied the leg up 
in pieces of wood, and the dog got well. He 
knows she did it, for now he is just as grateful 
as he cau lie. I think dogs know a great deal 
more than people tliiuk they do. 
Rockland Co., N. Y. mart smith. 
'Pli-sccUatteousi 
Scrofula 
Probably no form of disease Is sc generally dia 
tributed among our whole population as scrofula. 
Almost every Individual 1, is tb ■< ' itcnt pols f. 
coursing Ms veins Tbo terrible -.i.ileriugs eu 
tiured by those afflicted with scrofulous sores 
cannot be understood by others, and their grati¬ 
tude on finding a remedy that cures then’, aston¬ 
ishes a well person. Thu wonderful power of 
YOUTHFUL GARDENERS .—From The Queen. 
I know very well how boys feel about smok¬ 
ing, because 1 have been a boy. When I was 
a boy I can remember how we used to crawl 
under the school house and smoke pieces of 
grape vine and sweet-fern cigars. Most of 
the people who tried to make us stop the prac¬ 
tice seemed to forget that they were ever 
youug. I was fortunate enough to have a good 
man who understood boys talk to me and con¬ 
sequently I never learned to smoke tobacco 
while I was a boy. If I had begun then I am 
pretty sure that I never could have given it 
up. When I got to be a man, there were sev¬ 
eral years when 1 had to live in a very lonely 
place and work at dismal work. I had always 
heard that smoking made good “company,” so 
1 tried it. It took me bnt a short time to 
find out that smoking interfered witli my 
health and my work, and I stop|ied the prac¬ 
tice at once. All my experience since then 
teaches me that I did one of the most profit- 
aide things of my life when I stopped smoking 
Now boys, I kuow that uiauy of you think 
you kuow just a little more about this smok¬ 
ing habit than Uncle Mark docs. You prob¬ 
ably know more about it, now than you will 
30 years hence, but what you kuow then will 
be far more valuable. I state what. 1 know to 
be true. Some of you, 1 fear, will guess at it. 
We often hear our grandfathers tell of the 
way farming was done when they were boys. 
wonderful things. Niue-teuths of those who 
ruu away from it, because it seems a little 
hard, will pass the latter j'ears of their lives 
in vain regrets. 
In looking around among my friends I am 
surprised to see how many have bad teeth. It is 
no uncommon thing to see a person of 30 years 
with a number of false teeth. This state of 
affairs is bad enough, when we consider that 
iu a majority of cases these teeth might have 
been well preserved. It is uot plcusaut to 
think that our friends have been pulling out 
their teeth and throwing them away, but that 
is just about what some of them do. I don’t 
know of any investment that will pay a boy 
or girl more interest than the money spent for 
a toothbrush. The fact is wo don’t kuow how 
valuable our teeth are uutil we lose them. 
Then we know without any trouble. Remem¬ 
ber that most of you have the chance now to 
save your teeth. Teu years from now that 
niuy be gone forever. I should say get a tooth¬ 
brush and use it. Eat pleuty of breadcrusts 
and other hard food, don’t study too hard, 
while you are growing, and if your teeth be¬ 
gin to decay get to a good dentist if you cau 
aud have them fixed at once. 
Many people find oatmeal and water a line 
harvest drink. Put enough oatmeal iu to 
make the water a little “muddy.” I like the 
Hood’s Sarsaparilla 
In eradicating every form of Scrofula litis been so 
clearly and fully demonstrated that If, loaves no 
doubt that it is tlio greatest medical discovery of 
this generation. It is made by C. I. HOOD & CO* 
Lowell, Mass., and Is sold by all druggists. 
IOO Doses One Dollar 
JHISKY IIFI), VOt.AND-miNA, 
Hitter Millie, HirLwhlre A. York- 
* It Ire I’iff*. Southdown, CoUwold 
nnd O&furd Down Sheepnnd l.anibs 
.Scotch 4’ollcy Shepherd Dog* and 
* * Fancy I'oultry. Send Tor f*t*lo(fU« 
VY.ATLKK llUKl’KKACO'PMU.P* 
ruKt milk. 
warren- 
MILK BOTTLES 
Patented Muroh 23d, 1880. 
Adapted for the Delivery 
of Milk in all C ities 
nnd Tow ns. 
A LONQ-NEEDED WANT 
AT IAST SUPPLIED, 
A. V. WHITEMAN’, 
T-4 Murray St., NKtV YORK. 
TANDARD 
GALVANIZED WIRE NETTING. 
For I*oultry Fenolng. 
[ 7-8 UK ONK CKNT FOB 2 INCH M 10.11 No. 19 WIRE. 
EVERYTHING FOR THE POULTRY YARD. 
! Hatcher* and llroodcr*. 
Send for Circular. llrockner «fc Evans, 
28 VKSEY STREET, N. Y. CITY 
