1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
595 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Getting Home. —No use talking, the best 
part of a vacation is getting home. We 
were all sorry to leave Cape Cod. To tell 
you the truth ’duty seemed to be stuck 
full of thorns a foot long as we looked 
back at it from the easy bed of a loafer 
on his vacation. No wonder the poor 
little Bud cried when our good host kissed 
her good-bve. We looked at her with 
much the same expression as that on the 
face of the woman who missed an import¬ 
ant train by half a minute and listened to 
the forcible remark of a man who was 
also left! We got over that, however. 
The harness was put on our shoulders so 
gently that we hardly felt it, and here 
we are again with a soft pad of gentle 
and happy memories to put where the 
nib comes hardest. Everything was all 
O. K. at home. Grandmother was in good 
spirits, the Chunk reported good sales, and 
the weather had been fair for farm work. 
The boys had the corn all cleaned up and 
the weeds mostly cut. The strawberries 
have been transplanted; the Alfalfa clip¬ 
ped off; the squashes have grown into a 
perfect tangle of vines; the sweet potatoes 
look well, and there is no blight in the 
late white ones! The children found nine 
new little pigs and 30 new chickens wait¬ 
ing them. Yes! Yes! It was a happy 
home coming. I climbed the hill on Sun¬ 
day and looked off over the old familiar 
valley. There were the same glorious old 
hills with the shadows chasing along 
them, the little streams stealing down 
through their fringes of grass and bushes, 
the cultivated fields, and the homes of 
neighbors peeping out through the or¬ 
chards! Surely home is a goodly place 
after all. Other places are good to come 
away from, but home is the place to go to! 
Despondency.— Sitting on the old stone 
wall that day with these things in mind, 
I felt moved to try and preach a little 
sermon to my friends and fellow sufferers, 
since, up there on the hills I felt in a 
sense lifted away from my own afflictions. 
Those of you who object to sermonizing 
should skip this and try to get your 
money's worth in some other part of the 
paper. 
Now, I know that many of my readers 
are in trouble. I am, and every mail brings 
news from people who are carrying crosses 
and facing hard duties with more or less 
bravery. There are women left alone on 
the farm, striving to drag a heavy heart 
through life. Men have seen wife and 
child pass away. Others have seen hopes 
and ambitions crushed out. This season 
has been hard for many. I will quote 
from a letter just at hand from central 
New York, where flood and storm have 
scarred the hillsides and ruined crops: 
"One neighbor hung himself; one says he 
shall have an auction and go to the old 
ladies’ home; another had the blues until 
he cried." 
Now, in spite of all the talk we have 
of the Nation’s great prosperity, I know 
that there are thousands of sad hearts in 
country homes, sad because they have 
seen the cherished things of life and the 
work of self-denying years swept out of 
their grasp by a power which they could 
neither master nor comprehend. The pic¬ 
ture of a strong man dropping his head 
upon the table and crying like a child is 
the saddest vision that can rise before our 
eyes. Farm life has its tragic side, and 
the sadness of it would crush us down 
at times if we would permit it to do so. 
No wonder men and women grow despond¬ 
ent when with each year comes a little 
more of the living blight which slowly 
destroys hope and faith in one’s physical 
ability to master the secret of happiness. 
I do not blame men and women who give 
w f ay to despondency under pressure of 
griefs which have staggered me. I only 
regret that they cannot realize that for 
most of the afflicted of middle years the 
only true help is a moral one 
Courage. —I feel like repeating that last 
sentence, though it may come like the 
application of a liniment I knew as a boy. 
The old man who brought me up invented 
a certain "lotion." Whenever I cut or 
burned my flesh that lotion bottle was 
hauled out; a hen’s feathei inserted and 
a liberal allowance smeared over the 
wound: It was like rubbing liquid fire on 
the flesh, but it did pull the smart out 
and carry it far away. I used to imagine 
that the “lotion” gathered the pain all 
into a lump and pulled it out by the roots 
with one quick twitch. One of the most 
helpful books I have ever read is a little 
volume entitled “Deafness and Cheerful¬ 
ness.” I read it over and over, and I wish 
that every deaf man or friend of a deaf 
man could have it. I find in this little 
book the following passage which I com¬ 
mend to all who feel their courage giving 
way: 
“ The noli lent dealing with misfortune in in manly 
silence to hear it; the next to the meanest is in 
feebleness to weep over it; the wholly unpardonable 
to ask others to weep also." 
With the first and third of these propo¬ 
sitions I fully agree. It is not always a 
sign of weakness for a man to get off into 
solitude somewhere and find relief in 
tears. When the tear glands are com¬ 
pletely dried up the man loses an element 
of character -which all the iron in his wall 
cannot replace. But “manly silence” is 
the “noblest dealing with misfortune”— 
and also the hardest. It is human to cry 
out and complain at the pain of what we 
call injustice, but if the child is human 
should not the grown man be something 
more? What are years and the burning 
and balm of experience given us for if 
not to enable us to rise up nearer to di¬ 
vine strength? As I look about me it 
occurs that most of us who have reached 
middle life or beyond have grown uncon¬ 
sciously away from childhood and youth¬ 
ful strength. We somehow feel that peo¬ 
ple ought to regard us as others did 25 
years ago. The fat man of 45 is no longer 
the young sprout of 20, though he may 
think so. If I am not mistaken, one great 
trouble with many of us is the fact that 
we crave and beg for the things that go 
with youth when, in reality we are grown¬ 
up men and women! It is our duty now 
to face life and its problems, not with the 
careless hope of youth, but with the sober 
and abiding faith that should come with 
mature years. Run over a child’s am¬ 
bitions and after his short grief, his spirits 
rise again for the next opportunity. The 
man’s hopes are shaken by repeated de¬ 
feat. and hope of physical victory finds 
itself caged at every turn by former de¬ 
feat. We may grieve or despond over this 
and play the child; or we may act the 
man, raise our hopes and ideals above the 
range of former defeat, and find comfort 
and courage in doing the things which 
shame infirmity and affliction. I know 
some of you will say that this complacent 
man may moralize all day—blit give him a 
touch of trouble, and how he would 
whine! I hope not! Trouble has taken 
many a mouthful out of us but, if I 
thought any honest friend really meant 
that, it would be the greatest trouble of 
all. I repeat that the greatest comfort to 
the despondent must be a moral one, yet 
the riding of some harmless hobby helps 
one to walk with fortitude. Let a man 
say to himself that he will study and 
work to breed the finest pigs or raise the 
finest strawberries or master some science 
or public question, and he will find strength 
and comfort in his work! I’ll promise not 
to attempt any more preaching for a good 
while, if you will let me end this little 
sermon with a quotation from Whittier: 
“Soon or late to all our dwellings come 
the specters of the mind; 
Doubts and fears and dread forebodings. 
in the darkness undefined. 
Round us throng the grim projections of 
the heart and of the brain, 
And our pride of strength is weakness, and 
the cunning hand is vain. 
In the dark we cry like children; and no 
answer from on high, 
Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and 
no white wings downward fly. 
But the heavenly help we pray for, comes 
to faith and not to sight, 
And our prayers themselves drive back¬ 
ward, all the spirits of the night.” 
Farm Notes.— The corn has improved 
wonderfully and now bids fair to give us 
a good crop. The fertilizer made itself 
felt in less than a week, in a darker green 
and a sudden jump. That is one great ad¬ 
vantage in using high-grade goods. They 
are available at once and nearly make 
up for a poor start. The heaviest of fer¬ 
tilizing in July, however, will never quite 
overcome a poor June growth. The best 
time to feed corn is when it is planted. 
We made a mistake in planting corn on 
poor soil and tried to correct it by feeding 
in July. The result is better than I ex¬ 
pected. The general complaint about corn 
in our locality is “plenty of stalk but poor 
ears.” .... Our potatoes have done 
well. One hill of June Eating gave five 
pounds, and there are plenty that go four 
pounds. Now, an easy to way to be rich 
(in imagination) is to figure about this 
way: There are about 5,000 hills to the 
acre. At an average of four pounds we 
have 20,000 pounds or 333 bushels. Three 
acres give 1,000 bushels! That’s the way 
some folks figure and they buy a carriage 
on the credit thus worked up! We don’t 
do such business at Hope Farm. We wait 
till the bills are paid. It looks as though 
wo should have a good yield. Prices are 
very low, but everything we have this 
year is good enough to hold for seed. As 
between Junior Pride and June Eating the 
former is at least two weeks earlier, while 
the latter gives a far better yield. The 
June Eating with us seems to be losing 
its early maturing qualities and would 
now rank as a medium late. 
There is promise of an enormous pumpkin 
crop. We have the corn well filled with 
pumpkins and they are very vigorous. 
Too vigorous we thought when we came 
to sow Crimson clover and Cow-horn tur¬ 
nips In the corn. It was impossible to get 
through the tangled mass with a culti¬ 
vator to cover the seed, and it was left on 
top of the damp ground. Will it sprout? 
I have known it to under much the same 
circumstances. I have sown Crimson 
clover in broadcast cow peas right on the 
ground and obtained a good stand. . . . 
The Alfalfa? We have the weeds clipped, 
and except for manuring have followed 
instructions to the dot on the i. The Al¬ 
falfa seems like some capricious people 
I have known, lacking in appreciation. 
The color is better than it was, but 'the 
plants are poor and spindling. The clover 
by its side is 10 times as vigorous. 
Marshall strawberries have been set after 
sweet corn and peas. These crops were 
cut or pulled and fed to the stock, and 
the ground well plowed and harrowed be¬ 
fore setting the plants. Of course no one 
expects a heavy crop next year from these 
Fall plants, but this method of setting 
after an early Summer crop suits us well. 
. . . . We have taken the advice of oui 
Connecticut friend and cut the wild car¬ 
rots for horse hay. It is true that horses 
love the cultivated carrot. If “like” 
really makes “like” (which, by the way, 
I doubt), a wild carrot ought to have so 
much energy that it will make old Major 
kick up his heels in great shape. 
h. w. c. 
Stone Wall Notes. 
This is the first Sunday that one could 
possibly sit. on a stone fence, even if one 
desired to, for some time. Many things 
might have been thought there the past six 
weeks—especially about the weather maker. 
My stone fence is along the public road, 
and overgrown with, raspberries so I will 
sit in the house. Yesterday was the first 
real hay day in three weeks. We have had 
the heaviest rains since 1S92; never had 
such rains in July since I can remember. 
1 use petroleum, full strength, for hog lice; 
46 degrees, I think, ours here is. I get it 
at the wells and let it stand a few days 
until the gas escapes, and pour from a can 
along the back from top of head to tail. 
It will run all over the porker and kill lice 
and eggs. The animals never need more 
than one application. The same treatment 
for sheep and lambs will free them from 
ticks. 
I can’t come up to the Hope Farm chick 
story, but had a hen leave the nest one day 
and the following day I found the eggs 
cold. I stuck the eggs under another hen 
and thought I’d try, as every egg had a 
chick in it, and they were selected eggs 
from my best layer. I wanted those eggs 
to hatch, and they did, though I had no 
hopes of their doing so when I found them. 
I am building a henhouse 15x45x7 feet high, 
half pitch roof, double wall with straw be¬ 
tween, tar paper outside with lap-siding 
over it. The attic is to be filled with 
straw. This house ought to be dry, with 
no frost showing on wall. The floor is 
double, with tar paper between, w. h. m. 
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