4888 
THE RURAL «EW-Y®SlfR. 
307 
liuval topics. 
THE BLACK SIDE OF FARMING. 
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M.D. 
(Continued.) 
Our pasture on the hill, originally an excel¬ 
lent one, had been gradually declining for a 
number of years. Still our small, active cat¬ 
tle got a sufficiency of feed there, unless, per¬ 
haps, in a very dry season. For the Short¬ 
horns, however, it was different. They seem¬ 
ed to climb the hill with difficulty, and they 
began to lose flesh almost at once when turned 
to grass. The bull became especially gaunt. 
I was forced to feed them at the barn. When 
the calves were weaned, which was done as 
soon as possible, we found that the cows did 
not give so good a mess as our common stock, 
and that it was also inferior in richness. The 
calves, however, did exceedingly well in a 
piece of inclosed meadow near the house which 
bore excellent grass, and I took a good deal of 
pride in carding them, nursing them, and 
seeing them grow. They were both heifers, 
and so far 1 was lucky, as they made better 
cows, both of them, than their mothers. Find¬ 
ing the bull of no further immediate use, and 
a source of no revenue, I got him into as good 
a condition as I could, and was fortunate 
enough to sell him, though at a loss of $05 on 
his cost. 
The ill success of this attempt at improved 
farming rather dampened my ardor, and for 
three or four years I tried to content myself 
with going on in the old way^ as my father 
had. In that way I could make a living; and 
• some years 1 could save a little,though doctors’ 
bills, a thing almost unknown in our family 
before, began to increase with an increase of 
family, and the growing feebleness of my 
parents. My mother began to show signs of 
lung trouble, and a good deal of money was 
spent for patent medicines which she hoped 
would help her, as well as for physicians’ 
attendance. She would take the patent med¬ 
icines along with the doctors’ prescriptions, 
without letting the latter know any thing 
about it, yet she seemed to get no better, but 
failed from season to season, requiring so 
much attendance that a hired girl, also before 
unknown in the house, had to be regularly 
employed. 
All this time the farm was sensibly decreas¬ 
ing in productiveness. It was originally 
strong, rich land, that on the river being an¬ 
nually overflowed up to the second bank. The 
upland was originally forested with a hard¬ 
wood growth. Large, luxuriant elms, the 
glory of the Connecticut Valley, shadowed 
the homestead and adorned the roadsides, while 
equally luxuriant sugar maples dotted the 
pasture. The woodland, besides the maples, 
contained many chestnuts, hickories and 
beeches, while the butternut disputed preced¬ 
ence with the elm along the brooksides and 
river road. But the pastures were not what 
they once were. They had become sensibly 
drier, poorer, more weedy and bushy, and 
during August and September they became 
so bare as to necessitate the transfer of nearly 
all the cattle to the mowing-land, where they 
fed the aftermath so closely, and in wet weath¬ 
er so poached the ground as to render fre¬ 
quent re-seeding necessary. Even the mead¬ 
ows which received the benefit of the river over¬ 
flow were sensibly becoming less productive; 
while the higher fields rapidly became more 
and more impoverished. At that time the 
growing of fodder corn for green feeding dur¬ 
ing the hot season was but little practiced, 
though we got considerable feed by topping 
the corn as soon as it was glazed. 
In the winter of 1854, my mother passed to 
her rest, and my father, who seemed to pine 
away from the day of her funeral, followed 
her to the better land in the succeeding au¬ 
tumn. Everything was left to me, in accord¬ 
ance with the family agreement, and though 1 
had saved no money, I was very little in debt. 
We had already three children, all girls. The 
buildings, though sound, needed considerable 
repairs, and the house needed repainting and 
refurnishing. The village had grown consid¬ 
erably, and was becoming something of a 
summer resort. The broad street, shaded by 
ancient elms, the views of the river vistas, the 
hills, and the more distant mountains, became 
increasingly attractive to city people of wealth 
and culture, though not nearly to the degree 
which now prevails in some parts of Western 
Massachusetts. The increase of style in the 
villages had its effect upon the neighboring 
farmers, and the taste for books, music, and 
other refining influences was manifestly grow¬ 
ing. As our girls grew, the expense of our 
living naturally grew larger, and I found it 
increasingly hard to “make both ends meet.” 
At this time, the cultivation of tobacco was 
extending up the river from Connecticut, an l 
many of our farmers were becoming more or 
less engaged in it. Some of them made large 
profits, for a number of years in succession, 
and the result was conspicuous in the beauti¬ 
fying of their homes, and the more liberal 
scale of their living. I had, a little earlier, 
conceived the idea of going somewhat into 
fruit growing, and had planted out and 
grafted a young orchard of several hundred 
trees upon a selected spot of my upland. But 
these, set in the grass, did not grow very 
rapidly, and I became impatient for a larger 
in ome. Indeed, such an increase had become 
a necessity. I was already getting in debt, 
and had been compelled to hire money for the 
renovation of my buildings. Before I could 
enter upon tobacco growing advantageously, 
it would be necessary to increase this debt by 
the cost of a tobacco barn, and also to employ 
more help, and to purchase manure. I resolved 
to do so, for I saw no alternative. I therefore 
built a large barn, at a cost of $2,000, hired an 
experienced foreman, and put 10 acres of my 
best land, with all my winter’s manure, into 
tobacco. I had an excellent crop, and although 
it was not cured or handled in the best man¬ 
ner, and consequently did not bring as much 
as it might have done, I realized very hand¬ 
somely on it, so that I paid for my barn the 
first season, besides meeting all the other extra 
expenses. But my other crops were very short 
and I was not able to winter my stock of cattle 
and sheep without buying both hay and grain. 
This was the beginning of what afterwards 
became habitual. A large and liberal supply 
of fertilizing material of high quality I found 
to be essential to a good yield and quality of 
tobacco. In order to provide this I bought 
largely of rich feed, increased my stock of 
cows, sheep and swine, bought manure when¬ 
ever I could find any to buy, and as chemical 
fertilizers were then coming into use, invested 
considerably in them. All this required 
money, and I became an habitual borrower. 
I had always had, before this, a sort of feeling 
that I was not really a good farmer, but I 
became actually an expert in growing and 
curing tobacco. Still, after five years, I had 
not fully cleared myself from debt. Another 
daughter and a son had been born. I was 
handling, for me, a good deal of money, and 
my household expenses grew faster than I was 
really aware of. Some seasons were poorer 
than others, the market fluctuated, and I did 
not always hit the right time to sell. So, 
though we lived well, and my family stood 
socially on an equality even with the best 
village people, I never was, as I said, really 
clear from debt. My name had become pretty 
well known in the banks of the valley towns, 
but I had never any difficulty in getting good 
names on my paper, or of getting what accom¬ 
modation I needed. In 1861 the outbreak of 
the civil war unsettled things greatly, but 
there was only a temporary depression, and 
soon all kinds of business, tobacco growing 
especially, was booming. I somewhat increas¬ 
ed my planting, and added to my curing and 
storing facilities, and at last got my head 
fairly above water, as I thought, when, one 
autumn night, a mighty wind, with thunder, 
lightning, rain and hail, came tearing up th 
valley, and leveled all my tobacco structures, 
filled with my finest crop even with the 
ground. It was a total loss, excepting only 
the materials saved from the wrecked build¬ 
ings. 
For some time previous a rather noted citi¬ 
zen of the valley, partly reformer and partly 
politician, had been lecturing and circulating 
tracts against tobacco. I had never heard 
him speak upon the subject, and thought little 
about it for some time, but some of his writ¬ 
ings fell in my way, and really awakened a 
feeling that my business was not wholly 
right. My wife became even more interested 
in the subject, and we had talked the matter 
over considerably before the tornado had 
done its fearful work. Then, perhaps partly 
on account of the mental depression which 
ensued, my compunctions in regard to the 
matter made me resolve to abandon the busi¬ 
ness. Notwithstanding my heavy loss, I was 
almost out of debt. My whole profit, how¬ 
ever, from some eight years of arduous work, 
was in those buildings and their contents. 
Our house structures, it is true, were in nice 
refair, and our stables well filled with live 
stock of all kinds. Perhaps I might say that 
in this way there was a little profit; but the 
farm, as a whole, was run down. Theground 
which had oeen planted in tobacco was very 
rich, but the remainder was in sorry contrast 
to it. 
(To be continued.) 
if you go as far as Washington, you won’t 
allow those women in council to demoralize 
you.” As I did go as far as Washington, and 
saw the women in council, it may amuse a 
reader or two to judge how “demoralizing” 
the proceedings were. 
I doubt if women, os a class, are positively 
better than are men, taking them all in all. 
Their surroundings and education, or lack of 
it, have made them, in some lines, less noble 
and generous than are men, while in others 
they have been less bad—to combine two 
words awkwardly. But with all their faults, 
I like congenial women exceedingly, better 
than I do men, probably for the same reason 
that men do, as an interesting woman is in¬ 
teresting beyond any other human being. 
And when women talk finely they excel men 
as public speakers, and even when they 
babble but ill, they somehow are more toler¬ 
able than are men of the same talking caliber. 
This may be because it requires more bravado 
on the part of a woman to appear before a 
public audience, and she does so only when 
she has something to say. However it may 
be, the women lately in council, from Eng¬ 
land, France, Scotland, Ireland, Finland, 
India, Denmark, and from possibly every 
State and Territory in the United States, 
were for the greater part exceedingly effect¬ 
ive speakers. They spoke clearly, forcibly, 
to the point, and with remarkable earnestness 
of conviction. Many of them were experien¬ 
ced talkers, like Frances Willard, Mrs. Cady 
Stanton, or Mi’s. Chant, of England, and a 
partial list of what they talked about will 
make it evident that the power and influ¬ 
ence of women have come to be tremendous 
forces in society: “Higher Education of 
Women in the United States,” “The Women 
of India,” “The Kindergarten in its de¬ 
velopment of Faculty,” “Co-Education,” “Of 
Danish Women,” “College Fellowships for 
Women,” “The Work of Unitarian Women,” 
“Woman as a Missionary,” “Prison Reform 
Work in Paris,” “Hospitals Managed by and 
for Women,” “Work of Women’s Indian As¬ 
sociation,” “The Red Cross Society,” “What 
Shall be Done with the Neglected Rich?” 
(this question was discussed by a gifted col¬ 
ored woman of Baltimore) “Police Matrons,” 
“Women’s Industrial Gains in the Last Half 
Century,” “Women in the Grange,” “Women 
in the Knights of Labor,” “Women in the 
Trades,” “Women as Farmers,” “Women as 
Educators,” “Women in Journalism,” “Wom¬ 
an in Medicine,” “Woman in Law,” Woman 
in the Ministry,” “Woman and Finance,” 
“Work of Finnish Women,” “The Women of 
Italy,” “The Work of Sorosis,” (a club in New 
York) “Legal Disabilities of Women,” “Legal 
Conditions of Women in the Three King¬ 
doms,” “Legal Conditions of Indian Women,” 
“Legal Condition of Women in Utah,” “Law 
in the Family,” “Sentimentalism in Politics,” 
“Constitutional Rights of the Women of the 
(Continued on page 308.) 
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LIGHT 
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Our miw 
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CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
WOMEN IN INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
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Offer the following special i nduce- 
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Checked and mixed all-wool 
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2,500 yards, 54 inches wide,$l. 
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500 pieces, 21-inch colored Su¬ 
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300 pieces, 24-inch figured all¬ 
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Fast Black Lisle Thread Hose, 
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ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
CHOICE FLOWER SEEDS. 
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