1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
2l3 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The Coughers.— There is so much “bark¬ 
ing!” going on at Hope Farm day and 
night that we may be said to l'eei of some 
of the things that make up a dog’s life! 
Yet I have never observed that the aver¬ 
age dog has such a hard lot, because he 
takes time for sober and cheerful reflec¬ 
tion. Let any man, no matter how afflicted 
he may be, sit down and fairly weigh his 
case, and if he is capable of acting as 
judge at all he will surely find himself 
surrounded by compensations. The aver¬ 
age person cannot act as judge—he advo¬ 
cates his own side. Do I go on and say 
that a compensation is ever equal to the 
thing it compensates for? Well, if the 
compensation is given us and we can’t 
possibly bring back the other thing we are 
much better off to think so at least. The 
little Scion started me upon this train of 
thought by running into our room on Sun¬ 
day morning with her eyes wide open. 
“Grandmother whooped!” 
That was as far as she got—the rest 
came in a fine exhibit of coughing. Think 
of Grandmother with the whooping cough! 
All her five children have had it, and now 
she takes it from her youngest grandchild. 
That is what you may call going through 
a family from seedling to tap-root! It 
may not be the regular article, but it looks 
that way! When such things occur in the 
dull and cheerless days a fellow is likely 
to have strange ideas about the so-called 
laws that govern natural things. it 
pleases us to say that all natural forces 
are fixed and well ordered, but can we 
really prove it? It seems to some that the 
so-called moral or spiritual forces that di¬ 
rect or impel human action are all tangled 
up and without order. Is that true? Let 
a man view those things with human un¬ 
derstanding only and he might conclude 
that if God has any motive at all it is 
cruel and unreasoning. If, however, he 
can realize that probably the human view 
brings out only one small and perhaps in¬ 
ferior part of a great plan he will think 
otherwise. 
Cough Treatment.— But all this poor 
philosophy cures no cough. The germs are 
at work in the little throats and we get 
’em with an atomizer. As stated last week 
we spray the throats with “Meditrina. 
This is a mixture of various substances 
containing chlorine. 
These bacteria are now so common that 
it pays to take the ammunition which the 
scientific men provide and fire away with¬ 
out asking any questions as to whether the 
bacteria bleed to death or smother. This 
little spray is worth a ton of cough drops 
for nose and throat troubles. Even the 
little Seedling has her throat sprayed. We 
use a special paste in the nose to prevent 
taking cold, but good vaseline would 
answer. This plan of getting right at the 
bacteria instead of taking a lot of medi¬ 
cine into the stomach is the new idea of 
fighting disease, and a good one, too. 
Many people of middle years find their 
teeth rapidly giving way. There you have 
bacteria again. You need a local wash or 
treatment just as much as a sour soil 
needs lime. A first-class dentist has given 
me the following recipe, which makes life 
such a burden for the bacteria that they 
throw it up: One ounce boroglyceride, five 
drops oil of wintergreen, 10 ounces boiling 
water. That makes a mixture which en¬ 
joys a brush with the bacteria which work 
on the gums and teeth. 
Other Matters.— “But all this has noth¬ 
ing to do with farming”—some hard critic 
will say. Why not? Is a farmer to do 
nothing but raise crops, eat and sleep, and 
call it a life? You and I may have lost 
most of our teeth; we may have catarrh, 
deafness, dyspepsia, bald head—nobody 
knows what. The bacteria which work in 
various parts of the body may have beaten 
us badly, but that’s no reason why we 
should sit down and let them finish our 
bad job or begin on our children. The way 
to show what we could have done had we 
known how to head these germs off is to 
demonstrate on our children! You may 
not agree with me, but to my notion the 
best legacy a farmer can leave to his coun¬ 
try is a little band of children clean and 
strong in mind, heart and body. Yes, yes, 
it is a very legitimate part of farming for 
a farmer to spray and pray against the 
bacteria that work to destroy body and 
soul of the child. If a farmer is so un¬ 
fortunate as to have no children of his 
own he should go out into the nearest by¬ 
way and pick up some little life that rep¬ 
resents a human disaster—and put char¬ 
acter and love into it. “It’s none of your 
business,” says the man who has ice water 
in his veins—but it is my business as an 
American citizen when I see clearly what 
is coming to the country unless we can use 
the farm as a moral hospital. 
But don’t you want your children pol¬ 
ished? 
That depends upon what you call polish. 
I have known mothers to spend days in 
trying to taper their daughters’ fingers or 
pinch their feet. The Madame has too 
many duties to permit such work. Some 
mothers pinch and deny themselves that 
their girls may be beautifully dressed. 
My own child is happy as a lark in a little 
red sweater and a skirt that started doing 
duty years ago for a woman weighing over 
200 pounds! 
But will they not be awkward and ill at 
ease in good clothing when they grow up? 
I hope not, but I shall try to start them 
so that they will think more of character 
than they do of clothes. Every child 
should be taught to be neat and orderly. 
Better master money by learning to know 
the true value of it rather than to have 
it master you. 
But what can such little things know 
about money? 
They know more than you think. The 
Madame gives them a weekly allowance of 
one cent for each year of their age. This 
costs 29 cents a week for the four chil¬ 
dren. They are also paid for the little jobs 
of extra work which they do. They keep 
this money themselves and invest it as 
they see fit. When, through carelessness, 
they destroy a garment or tool they must 
replace it out of their own money. We 
could not get the Graft to be careful of his 
rubbers until he paid for a new pair. 
These he handled like eggs. There is a 
standing rule at Hope Farm that whoever 
leaves a thing out of place in the house 
must give one cent to the Old Ladies’ 
Home. Mother has a box all ready for the 
pennies. It took three cents to make the 
Bud very careful of her clothes! How 
they did dance when Father had to pay 
two cents! They say that I should pay 
five cents instead of one, because I am 
older and have had a longer time to learn 
such things. Children, you see, do not 
know that the longer we live with some 
bad habits the more they master us. Say 
what you will about money—it can be made 
to stick closer than some hard habits. 
But you couldn't do this if you didn’t 
live in the country! 
Right you are, and that is the keynote 
to the whole business. Why, the other 
day I heard a man say that his children 
would not be interested in the poetry 
which our little folks enjoy. No wonder! 
I-Iis children live in town, and barely know 
a hen from a cherry tree. The poetry that 
lives has to do with nature and country 
things. You might as well expect to use 
a turnip for a nosegay as to write real 
poetry about brick and stone. The time is 
coming in this country when no person can 
be said to possess a liberal education until 
he has spent some part of his life on a 
farm—not as a mere guest, with nose 
turned up, but as an honest and faithful 
worker—with nose turned down so as to 
get the true smell of the soil. Another 
thing I want my children to get is faith. 
Why, if I could have had full faith in the 
future during some of my dark years I can 
see where I could be twice the man I am 
to-iday. That is what thousands of men 
will tell you if you can tap their vein of 
honesty. h. w. c. 
No. o 
Iron Age 
| Combined 
Double 
| and Single 
Wheel ( 
Hoe 
| Hill and 
Drill 
I Seeder 
No, 12 
Iron Age 
Wheel Plow 
and Cultivator 
No. 60 
I Iron Age 
Pivot 
Wheel 
Cultivator 
Iron Age 
i We show a few 
/of the famous 
Iron Age farm 
and garden implements that have grown „ 
in popularity for half a century. Every 
^one reduces the cost of the crop, 
saves time, trouble, and work. 
No. 1 
Iron Age 
Double 
and Single 
Wheel Hoe 
No. 6 
Iron Age 
Horwe Hoe 
i Cultivator 
^They were first y 
in the field, 
and are still 
first in favor. Write and learn what 
they will save you. 
The new Iron A*e Book, full < 
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Box 102 Grenloch, N. J. 
Improved- 
Robbins 
Potato Planter 
100 SIZES. 
GRAIN AND 
FERTILIZER. 
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SPRINGFIELD, OHIO. 
RUBEROID 
(Trade-Mark Registered) 
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102 William Street, New York. 
Here is Where We Make the, 
SAMSON 
75,000 Wind Mills Annually. 
That is the capacity of our new factories shown above. The old were unequal to the de¬ 
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six 
The Samson 
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The Stover Mfg. Co., 
502 River St., Freeport, Ills. 
