679 
I!H)3 
Hope Farm Notes 
IjOVE to Work.—I met a man last week 
who told me about his two remarkable 
boys. These little fellows are so eager to 
work and help their father that they cry 
when it seems so cold and hard that they 
ought to rest. 
•'What shall I do with those boys?” said 
their father. 
The question was too much for me, for 
I have never seen boys who cried to work. 
We certainly do not have many of them at 
Hope Farm. I wanted to know why and 
how the boys got such an idea of labor. 
\ man who stood near put his hand on the 
father’s arm and said: 
“It's in the breed!” 
When I heard more of the father’s his- 
jQj.y—how he worked for his schooling and 
how he won a home by his own labor, I 
felt that this was the right answer. When 
1 spoke of this at home, the Madame and 
I seemed to recall, both together, the fact 
that our own child has never shed many 
of such tears. At least we looked at each 
other curiously as though wondering which 
side of the house could provide the foun¬ 
tain from which such tears came! 
If I had such boys I should consider it 
a blessi-ng which might easily be turned 
into a curse. I cannot think of any greater 
blessing that can crown a human life 
than a love for honest labor. Work is the 
great sweetener of life, and yet a life 
which contains nothing but toil and drudg¬ 
ery is hardly worth living. I consider it 
the business of every honest human being 
to earn with his own hands a home and a 
competence. To go beyond that and toil 
and slave for the mere sake of keeping 
the poor old bones in motion is to misuse 
a God-given privilege. I would try to 
humor these little boys and get them to 
spend part of their energy in studying the 
things in wood and field. Get them to 
learn to gratify part of their craving for 
labor by learning the how and the why of 
things, as well as the mere mechanical 
part of doing them. It is a great thing 
to encourage habits of thrift and Industi y 
in a child, but the time must come in every 
human life, and especially in the life of a 
farmer, when something above mere toil 
of the hands will be needed to satisfy the 
heart. We should look ahead to that time. 
The Gohden Years. —We may divide a 
man’s life into three periods. Youth is the 
time for preparation—we may call them 
the years of brass. The years in which 
a man puts up his best fight against the 
forces that would crush him are the years 
of steel. The later time of life, when 
white hairs show that reflection must take 
the place of action, may well be called 
golden years. What shall a man do with 
his golden years? That question may well 
haunt the man of middle life. We know 
that it is folly for a young man, unpre¬ 
pared, to rush into battle witliout his 
armor on. Others probably call it equal 
folly for an old man to try to do a young 
man’s work when it Is evident that his 
best day’s work has already been done. 
Yet no ambitious man likes to sit Idly 
down in the sun, waiting with folded 
hands. Some of the bitterest tragedies of 
life come in these golden years, because 
we have nothing to do that can touch the 
spiritual side of life. One man may name 
this and another that as the best occupa¬ 
tion for the golden years. As for me. it 
1 live to see them. I intend to plant and 
care for an orchard. To me a young tree 
is something like a new chance in life. 
As you care for it, and direct its growth, 
it seems as though you can prune away 
the errors of your own early time. You 
may not be able to swing your ax and chon 
down some great tree that has grown tor 
a century, but you do better than that. 
You put love and power and spirit Into a 
little tree that may live for another cen¬ 
tury as evidence that though your strength 
failed your skill and love grew keener and 
stronger. I like to think what an old man 
may leave behind him In an orchard. A 
stately trunk and branches that reach out 
like a well-spent life; leaves that draw 
music and Inspiration out of every breeze: 
fruit .that may carry a blessing and a 
comfort wherever the sails of commerce 
are wafted. It is a sublime thing for a 
man in his golden years to plant an or¬ 
chard-best of all to plant it on some waste 
land from which younger men have gone, 
discouraged. Others may not feel as 1 
do about it, but to me the old man who 
can save an abandoned farm with an oi - 
chard and save along with It an abandoned 
child to learn to love the orchard and care 
for it when the old man’s golden years are 
ended, offers the noblest gift to society and 
the holiest offering to God that the human 
mind can think of. 
Sunday afternoon.— It was natural to 
think of these things as I sat on the old 
stone wall on the second Sunday In Sep¬ 
tember. For once we had a beautiful day. 
The sun was bright, the sky was blue, and 
the wind was blowing hard enough to 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER. 
whirl the windmill. That alone was enough 
to make every Hope Farmer feel gay, for 
that lazy mill had been “resting” for days, 
and all hands had been called to the pump 
to irrigate the kitchen. The farm never 
looked prettier—even the weeds were hand¬ 
some in the sun. The hills rolled awav 
range after range, with the first red and 
yellow appearing in the woods. The man 
who couldn’t sit on that old wall and look 
off across the valley without forgetting 
his troubles in the glory of living would 
surely be too tough a citizen for Hope 
Farm to open up. There were good friends 
near, too. In my hand I held a big stick 
which a good friend In Kentucky sent me. 
I had in my pocket a little token of re¬ 
membrance from my sister. Below in the 
valley I could see the grapevines which 
my West Virginia friend grew. In the 
clover field far away a spot of white 
showed Rose, the Yorkshire so,w from 
Michigan. The seed of the corn close at 
hand was sent from a good old friend in 
Connecticut, while great stalks near the 
house hung out like a banner the gift of 
a Maryland friend. Even Shep, who lay 
by my side, came first as a gift from a 
New York man, who felt that Hope Farm 
ought to have a dog! It was pleasant to 
sit there in the sun and think of these 
things—forget the cold hard season behind 
us, and look hopefully ahead to the next 
one. That I take it is a good business to 
be in on Sunday afternoon. 
Farm Notes.— But while all this is good 
enough to think about It will hardly pay 
taxes and interest. “Handsome is that 
handsome does,” and what is Hope Farm 
doint/f Well, our first hay crop was the 
best we ever had, and now we have a big 
crop of rowen. Our barns will be stuffed 
and we shall have hay to sell. I am satis¬ 
fied, however, that while the grass has 
made a rank growth the quality is far be¬ 
low what perfect grass ought to be. You 
cannot produce rich, nourishing grass 
without sunshine. The hay, this year, is 
far inferior to the standard. As com¬ 
pared with hay grown in sunny weather 
it is like ground feed adulterated with oat 
hulls. 
Are you going to knock off several dollars 
per ton on this account? 
I will sell at the “going price,” which 
will, I think, adjust itself to the condition 
of the hay! .... You remember what 
I said about potatoes some weeks ago? It 
was well I learned not to brag about the 
crop. The rot spread like wild fire. We 
dug as fast as we could, but more than 
half were lost. As the price was fair we 
sold at once and .shall buy our Winter 
potatoes! Part of the potatoes, planted 
among the young currants, were so badly 
rotted that we left them in the soil. These 
potatoes were well fertilized, and now the 
boys want to know if this fertilizer will 
be lost when the potatoes rot. No, no! It 
will be used by the currant bushes, but 
this is not a very profitable way of fer¬ 
tilizing fruit.What about the 
corn? The field planted on Decoration Day 
will surely mature seed. That planted two 
weeks later is likely to. That planted July 
3 has a big job ahead of it. On September 
12, or 70 days after planting, it stood all 
the way from four to six feet high, in full 
tassel, and fair-sized ears starting. It 
cannot, of course, reach full size of either 
stalk or ears, but with fair weather up to 
October 1 it will make grain. The late- 
planted fodder corn looks well and will 
take good care of the stock through the 
worst of the Winter. The grass seed has 
been worked into the corn. I doubt the 
value of this plan—but we shall see about 
that.The transplanted onions are 
ripening fast. We shall begin shipping the 
ripest at once. In spite of the bad season 
this crop has proved very satisfactory- 
the best on the farm. Philip has been 
thinking of picking out 100 of the largest 
onions to use next year for growing seed. 
He thought in this way he could obtain a 
fine strain of Prizetakers. I am told by 
an old seed grower that such selection will 
not give the best seed. It seems that these 
great big onions do not come from a single 
bud, but from a group of several. Better 
seed. I am told, will be produced from 
medium-sized onions of just the desired 
type.Old Major, our veteran 
horse is. I fear, about on his last legs. We 
v/ill certainly make his “golden years” 
comfortable. He has the run of the pas¬ 
ture now, and will probably do no more 
work. His companion in the pasture is 
our famous filly—fleet of foot and full of 
nerve. The children were greatly grieved 
the other day to see this well-bred filly 
“draw off an’ kick poor old Major right 
on the leg!” They saw the poor old four¬ 
legged gentleman limp away, and it hurt 
their little hearts to think that a young 
and vigorous horse should kick an old 
veteran. “It would be like me kicking 
Grandmother!” said the Scion. He will 
learn before he is gray-haired that not all 
those who use their youthful vigor in 
Inirting the aged walk on four legs! . . . 
1 |■e(•(‘ntly gave my opinion about sulky 
plows on a rocky hillside. Experience with 
those chemists over the “drunken cow” 
convinces me that there are others. Hero 
is what a New England man says: 
“We h.ave used a reversible sulky plow 
right here in rocky New England for 
more than a dozen years, and my brother 
who runs it thinks it runs just as easy or 
easier than the hand plow. In fact, it is 
coming into quite general use. We would 
strongly advise the man you speak of in 
your recent farm notes to get a sulky 
plow or a disk sulky on trial. We find that 
a straight cutter runs easier than a 
jointer.” h. w. c. 
Japs as Fruit Growers:- In discussing 
the farm labor problem in California, the 
Fruit Grower says: “Government action, 
rightly or wrongly, has practically deprived 
the State of as reliable help as local em¬ 
ployers ever had in their orchards. We 
mean the Chinese, and now we have the 
Jap, the saucy, debonair Jap, who would 
like to do all of his work in a white, 
starched shirt with cuffs and collar accom¬ 
paniments, the conscienceless Jap who quits 
when it pleases him without for a minute 
consulting the interests of his employer, 
the rascally Jap who when grapes or fruit 
begin to get thinned out takes his horde 
of pickers with him and seeks pastures 
new where fruit is more abundant on the 
branches and on the vines—and this despite 
a contract with you fondly hoped would 
hold him and his crew. Hold him? There 
is no such thing as holding a Jap when 
he wants to do the other thing, and re¬ 
liable? Well now, is a mule reliable? Is 
a flea reliable? 'Can you put your finger on 
him whenever you wish to? Ask of the 
winds if Japs are constant!” 
TEST PAGE FENCE ONCE 
and youMl never be eatisfled wllh iin.v other, 
I’AtJK IVOYKN WIllK KKNifi'. < 0.. Adrian, Jlicli. 
W EBER JR. 
Gasoline Engines 
arc the outgrowth of 19 years of 
engine building^. Notapproached 
foritreoftb, Mfetj,attnpllcltj or width 
of duty. Valuablo fora feoro of farm 
dailot. Any boy ean run thorn. 2)^ full horM powor at 1 ms than 6 ets. 
pot hour. Toft^ and toady for aoUoa upon arrlral. Mado to fit 
farmort* noods. Other sitM up to 3fK) h. p. Writs for frao cataloKus. 
WEBER CAS * GASOLINE ENGINE COMPANY, 
Box 206« Kansas City, Mo. 
CHARTER 
Gasoline Engine. 
For Grindlnf?, Shelling, Fodder CMttlng, 
Thresnlng, Pumping, Sawing, etc. 
STATIONARIES, PORTABLES, SAWING 
AND PUMPING OUTFITS. ETC. 
Send for mast’d Catalog A Teettmonlala 
Stmim Your Powor Kmmtimm 
SIAITHI U% ENQIIIE CO.} Boi 26 STIRLIHIn 
THE BREAK DOWN 
la usually in the wheel. They receive the strain and 
wear. They dry out, spokes and feloes rot, tires 
come loose. Get the service out of wheels you do 
out of gears by using 
Electric Metal Wheels. 
You have a wagon for a life 
time. Electiics are the staunch¬ 
est, tightest, easiest running 
wheels made. Straight or stag¬ 
gered oval steel spokes, cast in 
thehub,hotrlvete<l In tire. Broad 
tires, no rutting, light draft,any 
height, lit any wagon. 
Write for free illustrated cata¬ 
logue on Electric Wheels and 
Handy Wagons. 
ELECTRIC WHEEL CO., 
Box 88, Quincy, Ills. 
THE POTATO CROP, 
large or small, is best 
narvested with 
tho Improvad 
«ni. StAudard dlpr|:«r with uo p««r, and It lajU. Aik for frao Dowden book. 
nOWDEN MFC. CO.« Box tt, PRAIRIE CITY» liU 
¥ DRILLING 
W £^1^1^ MACHINES 
Over 70 sizes and styles, for drilling either deep or 
shallow wells in any kind of soli or rock. Mounted 
on wheels or on sills. With engines or horse powers. 
Strong, simple and durable, Any mechanic can 
operate them easily. Send for catalog. 
WILLIAMS BROS., Ithaca, N. Y, 
Only One Hand 
needed to stanchion Cattle 
if you have our 
Steel Latch Stanchion 
When open is locked ready for 
cattleto come In: closed. It swings 
J freely. Best dairy cattle tie be¬ 
cause comfortable and quiet; 
^ ’^ves greatest freedom. Made of selected 
"hardwood oil finished. We are tlie sole manufac¬ 
turers. Write now for circulars and delivered prices. 
TOI.KI><> 1‘I.OW CO., Dept. K, TOLEDO, OHIO, 
CLARK'S SS CROPS 
s Reversible Bush 
Plow and Harrow. 
Cuts a track 5 ft. wide, 1 
ft. deep. Connects tho 
sub-soli water. It is an 
excellent machine for 
covering In sugar cane, 
strength guaranteed. 
Can plow a newly cut 
forest, stump, bush or bog land, leaves the land true, 
clean for any crop. 
Clark’s Dbl. Action 
Cutaway Harrow. 
Moves 15,000 tons of 
Kartli in a I>ay. 
Clark’s 8 Foot 
Smoothing Harrow 
Wll: .smooth an acre as 
true as a mill pond In 
twenty minutes. 
Clark’s Rev. Sulky Disk Plow. 
Made single or double. One or 
two furrows, five to ten inches 
deep, 14 inches wide. For 
^dhr horses. Light 
draft. No side draft No 
similar plow made. When 
Clark’s grass tools are used 
as directed In his grass clr- 
nlar, we, the C. H. Co. guarantee 
them to kill wild mustard, char- 
...sun Mower, milk weed, morning 
glory, itussion thistle or any other foul plant that 
grows, or money refunded. Now Is the time to com¬ 
mence work for next year’s seeding to grass. 
lock, hard hack. 
Clark’s Cider Mill 
Horse, Hand or Steam Power. 
From Hvo gallons to eight barrels. 
PERFECT GRIND. 
will grind 75 bushels per hour 
easily. 
Send for Circulars. 
S PUTAWAY Harrow Co. 
E ^Higganum, "Cf. U. S. A. 
EACH 
that blows is turned into value for the 
man who pumps or generates 
power for grinding, sawing, etc., 
with the 
Freeman 
Steel Windmills. 
Mills with 
genius to 
work and 
strength t o 
stand. Full 
line high grades with special four 
p^ost angle steel tower. Also Feed 
Cutters, Wood Saws, Corn Shel- 
lers, etc. Write for catalog 102 
Raelne» 
Wis. 
S. Freeman & Sons Mfg. Co., 
THE APPLETQN 
N 29 
HAND FODDER 
CUTTER 
IT’S A GOOD ONE AND 
THE PRICE IS LOW 
-BUY 
Should you want a larger power ensilage and fodder 
cutter or corn husker, sheller, horse power, feed 
grinder, wood saw, windmill, farm truck, seeder, 
etc., send at once for our free Catalogue. 
V>|ipletonMaiiutaclurlngCo.B.M,u"fi°.u!8.A. 
CYPHERS INCUBATOB, 
World’s Standard Hatcher. 
Uaed on ^ Got. EzpenmontStauoiu in u. S,. 
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Modol *iPoa*Amorfcftn,OeL 1901. 16>p.oiroQ- 
Ixr freo 0>mpl«t« ootologue, 180 p. oxll in. 
tor 10& Aok b^oroit offloo for book No. iiii 
.. ... - CYPHERS iNCCBATOU CO., 
Moisture IMow., NevTorkN.I. 
