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VOL. XLIX. NO. 2093. _ NEW YORK, MARCH 8, i89o. IIYVear ts ' 
[Entered According to Act of Congress in the Year 1890 , by the Rural New-Yorker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.] 
farm (['couonu). 
OKRA FIBER. 
fj*. HE R. N.-Y. has kept its read¬ 
ers informed regarding the 
efforts that have been made 
in the South to find in the 
fiber of the okra plant a sub¬ 
stitute for jute. The active 
fight made against the Jute Bagging Trust 
during the last year or two has greatly 
stimulated the desire to produce some ma¬ 
terial that can be economically grown and 
manufactured close by the cotton fields. 
The okra plant can certainly be grown 
cheaply enough. It will undoubtedly provide 
a fiber suitable for covering and binding 
cotton bales, or, in fact, answer all the pur¬ 
poses for which jute can be used. Can it 
be prepared economically? This is the 
serious question to be considered. Through 
the kindness of Assistant Secretary Willets 
we are enabled to show exact drawings of 
specimens of the fiber that were sent to the 
Department of Agriculture. They have 
never been illustrated before. The 
figure at the left represents a portion 
of the stem of the plant, showing, in the mid¬ 
dle, the work of a newly-invented machine. 
The central drawing shows the fiber as 
hatcheled and ready for twisting or weav¬ 
ing, while the drawing at the right repre¬ 
sents the exact size of a cord made in an or¬ 
dinary rope-walk. Will okra take the 
place of jute ? It all depends upon thecost 
of preparing the crude fiber. At present 
we do not understand that the process is 
economical enough to warrant any positive 
statement regarding the ultimate success 
of the project. The fiber is ready; what is 
needed is a machine to handle it econom¬ 
ically. He who produces such a machine 
will bring hope to Southern farmers. 
tfunt (ionics. 
EXERCISING THE BRAIN. 
T. B. TERRY. 
Preaching, not practicing; head-work 
often more profitable than hand-work 
on the farm; the former shouldn't be 
subordinated to the latter; one for the 
“boss,” the other for the hired man; a 
home example; need of agricultural 
papers. 
Last summer several of the best agricul¬ 
tural papers in the land used express'jns 
something as follows : “ Don’t make the 
hired man clean the horses and then you 
drive them.” “ If there is a hard job to 
do, take hold and help the hired man do 
it; don’t put the hardest work on to him.” 
At the first glance the Golden Rule would 
seem to indicate that this advice was cor¬ 
rect; but let us think about it a little. 
These remarks were usually editorial. 
Now, do these editors help the office boys 
to sweep and clean up? Are they in the 
habit of taking hold and helping their men 
to do the hardest muscular work connected 
with printing their papers? “ Certainly 
not; ” they would answer, “ for we are the 
editors, and have to superintend and over¬ 
see the whole business. Our work is large¬ 
ly head-work, and we couldn’t afford to 
waste our time on something that a cheaper 
hand could do as well.” All right, and 
that is exactly the position that a first-class 
farmer should occupy. When you tell him 
to do his share of the hard, muscular work 
of the farm, however, you do not recognize 
that his business needs superintendence 
and thought as well as yours. See? 
The intelligent, progressive farmer has a 
great many points to think about and 
study over. He can profitably find all the 
exercise for his brain under which it can 
keep healthy. Now would it be right to 
expect him to do as much of the hard mus¬ 
cular work as his hired men who have al¬ 
most no brain work to perform ? Think of 
the burden of care and anxiety that is on 
the shoulders of the owner, and the hired 
help who simply has to perform his tasks 
honestly day by day, knowing that his pay 
is sure and doesn’t depend at all on the 
weather or the markets. If the grubs eat 
the corn or potatoes, they do not take one 
cent out of his so many dollars a month. 
If the frost takes $100 from the farmer in a 
single night, the hired mau’s pay goes on 
all the same. Who has to be sure that that 
pay is always ready, and manage all the 
other numerous financial matters in a busi¬ 
ness-like manner ? 
My honest belief is that an enterprising, 
business-like farmer, who puts all the hard¬ 
est work possible on to the hired man, who 
even drives the team that the man took 
care of before the owner got up in the 
morning, will still give his man the easiest 
row to hoe. The man will enjoy the sound¬ 
est sleep and grow old in the slowest way, 
unless the farmer is exceedingly careful. 
Hard work doesn’t often hurt one of itself; 
but it is hard work on top of worrying over 
business matters, and studying how this, 
OKRA FIBRE. From Nature. Fig. 45 . 
that and the other thing can be done best, 
and the anxiety as to the result. A year 
ago last summer, I had a strong, healthy, 
active young man working for me. He 
had been here four years, and enjoyed tak¬ 
ing the blunt of the work. Unbeknown 
to us and his friends, he loaned some of 
his money to a man who was likely to cheat 
him out of it, and he worked on, and wor¬ 
ried and studied over his trouble until he 
brought on brain fever and died. 
On my farm we try to have, as nearly as 
possible, a fair division of labor. And we 
believe in the Golden Rule and try to live up 
to it, also. I do all the thinking and at¬ 
tend to the financial management, plan out 
the work, etc., etc., and then do that part 
of it that will interfere least with my 
superintending, and be the least exhaustive 
to me. I need to do some to keep me in 
good health. If we are using a riding and 
walking harrow I usually ride. This gives 
me .a chance to work and oversee, and at 
the same time be studying'o ver the very best 
way to put in the crop. Double work 
like this, being out in the pure air and 
sunlight, is little more exhaustive than the 
studying alone would be. When cutting 
wheat or digging potatoes, I ride the bind¬ 
er or digger and the mem take care of the 
horses, set up the grain and pick up the po¬ 
tatoes—the heaviest muscular worK. 
When digging potatoes there are many 
points to be watched. It takes system and 
a head to put in 300 to 400 bushels a day, 
with little help. I can do the light work 
and manage so as to be worth 
far more than I could earn at 
picking up. Of course, my strength 
is always ready, in reserve, for an emer¬ 
gency. It is once in a while necessary to 
throw aside all care and thinking and do 
the hardest work that any dollar-a-day 
hand could do as well. It seems to me 
that many farmers who do this all the time 
make a mistake. To be sure, circumstances 
are different, and no rule can be laid down 
for every one. But this general rule is cer¬ 
tainly true, that head-work receives higher 
pay than hand labor in all lines of business. 
Many will doubtless think this matters 
little to a farmer; but I cannot agree with 
them. I believe that better head-work and 
management on very many farms in this 
country are just what are most needed. But 
how can we have time and strength for this 
if we do as much of the muscular work of 
the farm, the mere routine work, as our 
hired man? 
No farmer can afford now to get along 
without two or three good agricultural 
papers. The time is past for learning en¬ 
tirely from one’s own experience, or that of 
his neighbors. Visiting other farmers 
throughout the country would do; but 
this can be done a hundred times more 
cheaply and quickly through such a paper 
as the Rural New-Yorker. I read its 
columns, noons and evenings, and at odd 
spells, and then, while I am doing some 
light work that will not interfere, I com¬ 
pare all the -ways I have read of with my 
own, to see if there is any thing I can adopt 
to advantage. Thus I am constantly study¬ 
ing to improve. As my friend J. M. Smith, 
of Wisconsin, says: “I’ll not claim to be a 
perfect cultivator, but a constantly im¬ 
proving one.” If he had helped his hired 
men to do all the hard work in his mag¬ 
nificent garden, do you think he would 
ever have got $ 1,000 returns from an acre ? 
No, he would have been too sleepy and 
tired to use his brain to such advantage. 
A man cannot be superintendent and work¬ 
man too, on the farm any more than else¬ 
where, and do his best in both lines. 
Summit County, Ohio. 
