1901 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
437 
The Cornell Reading Conrse. 
Edited by John Craig, Professor of Uni¬ 
versity Extension, and Editor Farmers' 
Reading Course, Cornell Uni/oersity, 
Ithaca, N. Y. 
JOTTINGS BY THE WAY. 
Grange Meetings—Good and Bad. 
The Grange as a State institution is 
a power in the land. The Grange as a 
local organization rarely lives up to its 
opportunities. In the State its inter¬ 
ests are looked after by wideawake, en¬ 
ergetic farmers, who are also business 
men. The local Grange often lacks these 
energizing souls, and suffers in conse¬ 
quence. During the past three months 
the writer has had exceptional opportu¬ 
nities of studying the strength and the 
weakness of this institution. This ex¬ 
perience impresses him with the belief 
that the success of a Grange often hinges 
upon the unselfish actions and public 
spiritedness of one or two of its mem¬ 
bers. I have attended a number of 
meetings this Spring, some of these were 
special, others general. Some were mel¬ 
ancholy failures, others heart-cheering 
successes. What contributed to the suc¬ 
cesses? What caused the failures? 
A Successful Meeting. —Let us illus¬ 
trate a success and a failure and per¬ 
haps we can guess at the underlying 
cause in each case. Here’s one which 
took place in Genesee County a couple 
of months ago. The writer was asked 
to meet with a certain Grange. He ac¬ 
quiesced. On the appointed day he was 
met at the station and taken to the hall. 
Although the day was wet, fully 150 
men and women were present. The first 
item was “a Grange luncheon.” This 
was unique and enjoyable. Couples sat 
vis-a-vis. Board trays were placed on 
their knees and the serious business 
commenced. The young served the old. 
All were merry. It was an indoor pic¬ 
nic! After clearing up and dishwashing 
the other part of the programme was 
attacked with vigor. Music—by the au¬ 
dience—an address by the visitor, a 
question-box by the chairman, completed 
the afternoon’s entertainment. The 
visitor went away feeling that he had 
had a good time, done some good and 
had made some friends. This meeting 
had been advertised and talked up. Some 
one had seen to it. 
The Unsuccessful Kind. —Traveled 
over 200 miles to attend this one, an 
evening Grange meeting early in June. 
It was a beautiful day. I was duly met 
at station and kindly taken charge of 
by a Granger who was of the easy-going 
type. About 8.15 P. M. he “guessed 
we'd better go over to the hall and see if 
folks were turning up.” About a dozen 
had arrived. Some of these were sur¬ 
prised to know there “was to be any 
speakin’.” At 8.35 the Grange convened 
to transact routine work; at 9.30 the 
speaker was invited to take the fioor. 
Think of beginning a speech to an au¬ 
dience of men who had worked hard in 
the fields for 12 hours that day at 9.30 
P. M., and yet the speaker had been ex¬ 
pressly asked for that purpose! A 
glance at the audience showed an inter¬ 
esting picture. Twenty-five or 30 men 
and a dozen women sat around the walls 
with chairs tilted at various angles ac¬ 
cording to the sitter’s idea of comfort— 
all prepared to take it as easy as pos¬ 
sible. And they did. The soothing 
tones of the speaker’s voice sent half a 
dozen to sleep within 10 minutes. The 
speaker told an anecdote. This woke 
one of them, who celebrated his waking 
by a solo guffaw after everyone else had 
finished. The women were more inter¬ 
ested in studying the attitude of the 
slumberers than the remarks of the 
speaker, and finally organized a whis¬ 
pering and tittering club at one side. 
The speaker struggled on. Finally one 
sleeper with a throat affection broke in¬ 
to a blood-curdling snore which awoke 
the entire company, and sent the gig¬ 
gling part of the audience off into a 
fresh attack of titters. The speaker 
threw up the sponge and retired as 
gracefully as possible. It was 10.15. Cer¬ 
tainly time for everyone present to be 
in bed. But the evening had been wast¬ 
ed. The visitor’s time and the State’s 
money had been wasted, and the audi¬ 
ence went away disappointed. What 
was the trouble? A listening, thinking 
audience had not come. No one took it 
upon him or herself to work up an in¬ 
terest, a newspaper notice or two ap¬ 
peared, but were undoubtedly overlook¬ 
ed. What is everybody’s business is no¬ 
body’s business. Let us labor to make 
the Grange what it should be—a live 
factor in the social, business and public 
life of the farmer. 
Next week we will say something 
about transplanting strawberries during 
wet weather. 
taking one j'ear with another, hens will 
pay better than anything else o. a. c. 
A CITY MAN TURNS FARMER. 
Past VIII. 
At the commencement of my last ar¬ 
ticle I asked some questions that might 
be in the mind of a man seeking how 
he could make a living on a farm, and 
wiil proceed to answer them. 
In the first place, what did we pro¬ 
duce? A 300-pound hog gave us lard 
enough, and salt pork enough to last 
a year; the hams and shoulders we 
cured and smoked, then cut them in 
slices and partly fried, and packing 
tightly in stone pars poured the hot fat 
on top, thus completely sealing them. 
We have never found any way of keep¬ 
ing hams so good as this. The fresh 
pork, spare ribs, sausage, etc., kept us 
in meat nearly all Winter. Milk, butter, 
eggs, and all the poultry we wanted to 
eat, with plenty of potatoes, turnips, 
cabbages and apples, saved any expen¬ 
diture of money in that direction. 
We had four large sweet cherry trees, 
two of large White Oxhearts, and two 
of black ones. From one tree we sold 
$9 worth, and preserved enough to have 
sold for $3 more. So the output of that 
one tree was equal to $300 in a savings 
bank at four per cent. We had preserves 
of all kinds, field beans enough for a 
year’s supply of baked beans. 
Now let us see what there is yet to 
buy. Flour, tea and coffee, sugar and 
fresh meat; as to the latter the route of 
the bi-weekly butcher’s cart did not 
come nearer than half a mile to our 
house, and the bother of going up to 
wait for the butcher undoubtedly lessen¬ 
ed our meat bill considerably. As we 
made no attempt to raise our grain, but 
bought it all, the grain bill was the 
heaviest single item of expense. But 
this was more than paid for by the hens, 
leaving the money received from the sale 
of butter to pay above expenses. We 
were so well supplied with clothing 
when we came from the city that it was 
several years before the expense for 
clothes became an item of much con¬ 
sideration. So we did not have to run 
in debt, but with good management not 
only paid all expenses, but continually 
added buildings and conveniences. 
I clapboarded the back of the house, 
put in new window casings, shingled the 
whole roof, painted the house twice, 
moved a large grapevine, and put up an 
arbor on the south side of the house; 
in fact, made so many improvements 
that neighbors remarked they would 
hardly know the place. Being in poor 
health most of the time I have been 
compelled to hire all my plowing done, 
and most of the hoeing and cultivating. 
Haying for several years I have not at¬ 
tempted to do myself; paying a certain 
sum to have it cut, cured and put in the 
barn. Notwithstanding the handicap of 
ill-health, and being forced to hire so 
much help, we have not only made a 
living, but every year have added build¬ 
ings, new wire fences, set out trees, or 
other betterments to the farm, and I 
honestly think that the success we have 
achieved is due mainly to my hens. That 
little busy hen, sneered at by most farm¬ 
ers, merely tolerated by some, utterly 
ignored by others, is, when properly 
cared for, the most profitable thing on a 
farm. "When properly cared for" must 
be put in italics, for nothing will resent 
neglect quicker. 
Can any man, then, make a living on 
a farm by keeping 200 hens? Undoubt¬ 
edly no. He must serve his apprentice¬ 
ship to the business, and must have a 
natural liking for hens. He must be a 
benman, as others are horsemen, cow¬ 
men, dogmen, etc. And there will be 
seasons when under precisely similar 
conditions so far as we can see, the hens 
will not do so well, but I am convinced 
that for each dollar of capital invested, 
"TAKE A DAY OFF AND REST.’’ 
A Maine Farmer Tries It. 
Along in June after much planting, sow¬ 
ing, hoeing and whoaing, I had an attach 
of the farmer’s tired feeling, and took a 
day off, as advised by the editor of this 
paper. I do not, like some, believe all 1 
see, but I did think I could rely on such 
a recommendation, and was grievously 
disappointed, for I think I was never more 
tired in my life than after that day of 
rest. I took the little girl, my only boy 
and boon companion, now her brothers are 
away at school, and we went down the 
Kennebec Valley to Augusta, and visited 
the State House, where every two years 
wonderful things are talked of which, 
somehow, never happen as expected. As 
we lounged about on the slippery seats in 
the corridors there came to mind a line 
of the beautiful hymn, 
“All the wide world to either pole 
Hath not for thee a home.” 
In these big edifices of brick and stone 
and iron, marble staircases and luxurious 
offices, there should be one place for the 
owners; a comfortable room, with settees 
and a few easy chairs, and lounges, where 
a farmer, on business at the Capitol, could 
bring his wife and children. After seeing 
the sights, the wife could lay the baby 
down, and the tired girl and boy could 
rest and sleep, with convenient lavatories, 
and an attendant or two to take people 
around and show them all that is worth 
seeing. There were push buttons in the 
walls, but in these days of "You push the 
button and 1 do the rest,” how should 1 
know but 1 might turn on the electric 
lights or call out the militia or the whole 
Augusta fire department; or old Gov, 
Powers himself might stand In the door¬ 
way, shaking his mane and saying, “My 
friend, what can 1 do for youf" It would 
be mighty embarrassing this year, for the 
boys have nominated another man, and 1 
couldn't tell him how pleased I should be 
to vote for him. 
There should be a diagram of the build¬ 
ing, with plain directions for the plain 
men who come here. How could, 1 tell 
whether the Agricultural Department, for 
instance, is located up under the dome, in 
an atmosphere suitable for corn, or down 
in the basement, in a temperature about 
right for potatoes or mushrooms? 1 knew 
the officers, any of them, would be glad to 
tell me, would be glad to see me, and 
learn of the short crop of hay and cater¬ 
pillars up on the Sebasticook, but I reflect¬ 
ed that they would soon learn all about 
these things in the Boston dailies, so 1 
contented myself with feasting my eyes 
on the portraits of G. Washington and 
other worthies which do so much to adorn 
our public buildings nowadays, as well as 
“point a moral and adorn a tale” for con¬ 
fiding youth. I used to think that the be¬ 
nignant presence of these gentlemen might 
be a help to our legislators and enable 
them to resist temptation when wild 
schemes are in the air. Some of the do¬ 
ings here might well cause the portraits 
to blush, but I never heard of their af¬ 
fecting a member that way. The elevator 
was cosy and inviting, and the little girl 
rode up and down to her great delight, 
while I talked with the veteran who man¬ 
aged it and who knew lots of the folks up 
river. Finally he left his post for a few 
minutes, and opened up for us the two 
assembly rooms, where we found the seats 
"luxuriant,” as the little girl called them, 
and the carpets all but knee deep. But 
think of their being unseen so long, while 
we had to rest on the hard seats in the 
lobbies. And out under the oaks and elms, 
where there there should be a sort of pic¬ 
nic ground for taxpayers, there was a sign 
reading: “Newly seeded to grass; no pass¬ 
ing.” I noticed In passing that the State 
is in the business of growing hawkweed, 
which is already ruining farms almost In 
sight of the Capitol. This whole valley In 
fact is a flower garden in June, and no 
wonder the western man said he couldn’t 
see how the farmers of Maine raised any¬ 
thing, all the land seemed devoted to 
flowers. I think myself that we could well 
dispute with China the title of “Flowery 
Kingdom.” After our 20-mile ride up 
river, the little girl was fresh as a daisy, 
while as to her father, there didn’t seem 
to be much left of him. This Illustrates 
the difference between what the bicyclers 
call “resilient” youth, and inelastic ma¬ 
turity. _ C. S. PAINE. 
Cure before cost, of cou'se; but besides being a 
wonderful curative for Throat and Lung diseases. 
Dr. D. Jayne’s Expectorant is about the least expen¬ 
sive remedy; It takes so little of It.— Adv. 
|k m I on Hens and Chicks. 
Il6«tn 10 LIC6 M-page Book FBEE. 
D. J. LAMBERT, Box307, Apponaug, R. I. 
You may be a gentleman, a scholar and a master 
of many languages, but lack common sense if you 
buy a scale without llret having got prices from 
Jones of Binghamton, Binghamton, N. Y. Jones he 
pays the freight. 
The Fanner 
Can ReducQ Expensos 
of cultivation by the judicious 
use of 
Nitrate of Soda 
upon his land. This when prop 
erly applied, with other elements of 
plant food, never fails to largely in¬ 
crease the yield of hay, grain, or garden 
crops, without additional cultivation or 
labor. Our literature and ilaiofdealerm 
in Nitrate of Soda will be sent free on 
application to John A. Myers, 12-0 
John St., New York City. 
ORNAMENTAL FENCE 
designs, all steel, 
rHandsome, durable.— 
Cheaper than a wood 
fence. Special indnoe- 
ments to church and 
osmeteries. Cstslogue /Vss. 
KOKOMO rENCE 
MACHINE CO.s 
454 North St., 
Kokemo, Indlajut, 
IT’S NO JOKE 
when we say that PAGE Fences require lees posts 
than others, and that they do not sag. 
PAGE WOVEN W IRE FENCE CO., ADRIAN, MICH. 
% 
A 
Ki AliKi ■nil ri 113 
CUTTERS. CARRIERSSc POWERS.! 
TWENTY SIZEA COMMON OR SELF FEED, WIND OR 
CHAIN ELEVATORS, SWEEP TREAD & STEAM POWERS 
|;K CATALOGUE & SILO SENSE BOOKLET FREE HJa 
i SMALLEY M'F'G.CO. MANITOWOC, WIS.^'K 
THE ROSS 
CUnERS 4 
Hive Proven Superior to lU Oihcn. ^ 
THE E. W. ROSS CO., ^ 
_ SPRINGFIELD, O. 
Send for Cuilogut No. 44* which detcribes the full tine. 
CHAMPION HAY PRESS 
FAMOUS MFG. CO. CHICAGO 
_iigi 
■trongest, cheapest baler. Made of wrought steel. 
Operated by 1 or 2 horses. Bales 10 to 16 tons a day. 
Sold on 6 days trial. Oatalogue free. Address 
^^_CEO^^£RTEL_COsQulnoy^ll^^ 
Farm Blaeksmithlno- 
An Illustrated book writ¬ 
ten expressly for farmers. 
It tells all about making 
and tempering steel tools, 
making chains, hooks, 
rings, clevises, holts, eto., 
etc. Filing saws, splicing 
rope, shoeing horses. 
Price 50c., doth bound, 
by mail post-paid. Address 
J. M. DREW, 
St. Anthony Park, Minn. 
IDER 
MACHINERY 
I BMt and oheapeit. 
' Bend for oatalogne. 
BOOMER a BOSCHERT 
PRESS CO., 
llo street, 
BTKAOUBE, M. v 
that will last longer 
_ _ww. _ __« than shingles or tin 
at one-naif the cost, send ®8tamp for sample and 
price toU.M. 8WKKT, 62 Wetmore Ave.,Wln8ted, Ct 
For Best Roofing 
at nne-naif the cost, send 
RUBEROID 
THE 
poultry-houseI 
ROOFING 
I As a water-proof covering for Poultry-1 
Houses, RUBEROID has no equal. Keepsl 
tne houses cool during the warm weather, 
and warm In 'Winter, and the chicks dry and | 
I comfortable. The sun cannot melt It. 
THE STANDARD PAINT CD., 
100 'William Street, 
NEW YORK. 
