39o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
top and rolls slowly down over sieves with different sized 
meshes. The smallest sized tubers drop out at one point, 
a larger size at another, and so on until the largest size 
drop out at the bottom. As shown on another page, a 
great many of our fruit, growers like to sort their fruit on 
the tree before it is fully grown ; still, even with the best of 
care, there must be some hand work to be done by those 
who are after the highest price. Let a good machine do 
this w'ork for 3 0 U. 
RIGBY Potato Digger.— This machine is made by Rigby 
it Burleigh, of Houlton, Maine. We have never seen it in 
operat ion, but abundant testimonials as to its value are 
given by those who have tried it. It is made and used in a 
genuine potato country, Aroostook County, Maine. 
TOOL eor an Orchard. —The answers to my question : 
“ \\ hat special instruments do nurserymen use,” in a late 
Rural are not satisfactory. Will the paper kindly try 
again. How do those who use the implements mentioned 
prevent the harness and singletree from barking the 
trees ? I am sure that they have some special appliances. 
Is there not in use for working among trees a harness with¬ 
out any singletree ? G. G. 
R. X.-Y.—Probably the tool mentioned in the last R.N.-Y. 
will suit you better. The Sherwood steel harness has no 
traces or wiffletrees and can be used with safety among 
trees. 
For Cultivating Orchards.— I use the Planet Junior 
Cutaway harrow and a corn cultivator with the shovels 
placed outxide the wheels (instead of inside) for orchard 
and garden plowing. Still my wants in this direction are 
not satisfied. jj B 
A New Milking Machine.— Nothing is so much desired 
by dairymen as a thoroughly practical milking machine. 
Up to date the human hand is so far ahead in the race that 
other devices are hardly thought of by practical men. Now 
and then, however, we hear of a machine that meets with 
local favor, at least. The latest of these was exhibited at a 
Scottish dairy show and the following description of it is 
taken from the North British Agriculturist. An iron 
suction tube is fitted all around the stable above the 
cows, and from this an india-rubber tube descends 
to the vessel Into which the milk is to be drawn. A 
belt is hung over the cow’s back, and from this belt 
the close vessel into which the milk is to be drawn 
is suspended. Four separate India rubber tubes about 
a foot and a half long terminate in this vessel, and 
at the other end they have tin necks which goon to thesepa 
rate teats of the cow. They do not grasp the teats, but fix 
themselves by the force of the suction to the udder at the 
root of the teats. The suction force is supplied by a force 
Pump erected in the corner of the stable, which can be 
easily managed by a boy. The lid of the close vessel is of 
glass, so that the milkmaid can see at a glance that the 
four different streams of milk from the different teats are 
coming all right, and this glass cover is also held on by the 
suction ; and as soon as the suction force is switched off 
the glass lid can be lifted off and the tubes withdrawn 
from the teats. It may be objected that some difficulty 
would be experienced in keeping these india-rubber tubes 
clean, particularly during the warm weather; but there 
is no reason why they should not be made of tin, in which 
case they could be effectively cleansed by rinsing with 
boiling water. The cows seemed to like the inechauical 
milker very well; at least they chewed the cud very com¬ 
placently while the milk was being drawn from them by 
the suction tube. 
A GIRL IN A GARDEN; GERMAN GRIT. 
Do you ask what a woman can do on a farm ? I will tell 
you what one woman did do, and is doing, in the State of 
New Jersey. Never mind the exact place, and let there be 
no inquisitiveness as to her name. Let us call her Bar¬ 
bara Heck. She was born in Ratisbon, Bavaria, June 17, 
18(14, the only child of a weaver, who soon after her birth 
became insane as the result of an accident, and was placed 
in the lunatic asylum at Baireuth. Her mother dying in 
1870, Barbara was taken to the orphanage, and remained 
there a little less than six years, when she was bound to a 
Franconia farmer, whose place was in that beautiful 
neighborhood of Baireuth which Richter has immortalized 
in his Siebenkas. There Barbara served until she was 18 ; 
and after that continued to work for two years at wages. 
At 17 she became engaged to George Hofmau, who came to 
America to provide a home, in 1882. A Jersey farmer 
found him at Castle Garden, and hired him. He worked 
two seasons, and having laid by about *200, in March, 1884, 
he hired a little, run-down, six-acre farm for *5 a month 
in money, and the same in produce, the money to !>e paid 
in advance, and the produce to be delivered in the fall. I 
thought the rent outrageously high ; but George was hope¬ 
ful, sent for Barbara, and occupied himself in making the 
house habitable. On March 27 the ship was due. George 
went to New York to meet it, aud in crossing the river in 
the night, fell from the ferryboat and was drowned. 
When Barbara landed at Hoboken, with her poor father, 
she found her lover’s body there. Some kind Germans at¬ 
tended to the Interment, and when all was over, the girl 
and her father came out to Jersey and surprised us all by 
announcing her intention of carrying on the farm that 
George had rented. 
She took possession on Wednesday, April 3. The house 
was comfortably furnished, the hot-beds made, and about 
threecords of manure on the ground. I do not think that 
she had over *100 to start with , but she started, and the 
circumstances could not have been more unpropitious. 
Her father was a harmless imbecile, strong and able to 
work when set to do it, but needing constant supervision. 
All the work, everything, devolved on Barbara, and she 
worked—worked as only a German woman can. The first 
year she made *18 above expenses; the second year, *150; 
the third, above *200. In 1887 blie bought the place, aud 
owns It to-day free of all encumbrance, having earned every 
cent paid for it. I have no fairy stories to tell of her 
phenomenal success. She has indeed succeeded, but it has 
been honest, hard-earned success. For two years she did 
everything, with her father’s inconsequential help, except 
the plowing. Since then she has hired a good deal, but has 
worked out of-doors every day in the spring; summer and 
fall. 
I asked our assessor to-day what the place is worth. He 
said : “If it, were for sale, I could sell it a dozen times be¬ 
fore night for *1,500. If I owned it myself, I wouldn’t look 
at *300 on top of that.” 
In 1879 it was abandoned, ‘‘cut up into village lots,” 
and boomed on railway prospects. In 1884 the rent that 
George paid was fully 60 per cent, of the value of the prop¬ 
erty, and there was no one w-ho would have given *200 for 
it. You will understand me now when I say that the other 
day 1 went over to Barbara’s, with this question: 
“ How did you get along so P I want to tell the readers 
of the Rural New-Yorker how you did it ” 
“ Well, ma’am,” she said, “ There is nothing to tell. Any 
woman can do the same.” 
Dear reader, she was right. What she has done any 
woman can do; and because of such possibilities I tell her 
story. 
‘‘Now, see here!” she began. *‘In the post-office the 
dav before yesterday, I heard our minister say to the new 
Methodist minister: ‘Sister Heck is a truck woman.’ Now, 
I am not that. No. It was so the first year I came. Not 
since. I raise three vegetables only. Never see any others 
in my garden. No money in any others. No. If I want 
other sorts to eat, I buy them.” 
“ The three?” I asked. “ What are they ?” 
“Peas, squashes and turnips,” she replied. "Nothing 
else. I put peas first, for I know that there is nothing 
that is at all more profitable for the amount of labor re¬ 
quired. I feel that there is no risk in putting my four 
acres to peas every year, for if you will be pleased to think 
of it, you will see that the crop requires little or no labor 
until picking time. There’s no crop that requires less, 
and none that draws less on the more valuable ingredients 
of the soil. I plant in hope, hoe but little, and pick in joy. 
If the market is dull, it is still a profitable crop to ripen 
and sell for seed.” 
“Tell me,” I said, “your method of culture, and the 
varieties planted.” 
“My fertilizer,” she said, “is hen manure. I plant as 
early as I can get the ground ready, in drills about four 
inches deep, and two feet apart. Some varieties are three 
and four feet apart—that is those requiring heavy brush. 
(Notice this, you who plant, in drills scarcely a foot apart.) 
I brush all but the dwarfs, and although I can aud some¬ 
times do run a Planet Jr. horse-hoe, I usually hoe by 
hand. Do it myself.” 
“ You have successive plantings ? ” 
“ No. My rows are 40 feet long, and each takes a pint 
of seed. By sowing two or three varieties early in the 
spiiug, that is, both early and late, a supply will be ob¬ 
tained from Early in June till late in July, with only one 
planting. A second sowing of early kinds conies in nicely, 
and I do sow some. I have tried to raise two crops of early 
on same ground in a season, but the attempt has not been 
very successful.” 
“ The varieties ?” 
“ For a stand-by, a late pea, the old Champion of Eng¬ 
land is my favorite. For an early sort I plant Vick’s 
Extra Early, which is the earliest of the very earliest peas, 
unusually productive and sure of a market. I do not buy 
the seeds left round at stores on commission, and no one 
should. For a medium sort I fancy the real American 
Wonder. The buyers like the large pods that it has.” 
“ You only have these three sorts ?” 
“ No, I grow altogether 20 kinds of the early aud me¬ 
dium; there are nine others besides those I mentioned. 
They are: Kentish Invicta, First Crop, Tom Thumb, 
Little Gem, Market Garden, Blue Peter, Laxtou’s Alpha, 
McLean’s Advancer, and the new King of the Dwarfs. 
There are eight other late varieties: Yorkshire Hero, 
Telephone, Pride of the Market, Bliss’s Abundance, Ever¬ 
bearing, Dwarf Gray, Tall Gray, aud Tall White Sugar. 
All but I he new one cost 10 cents a packet, though, of 
course, I do not buy by the packet 1” 
“But, Barbara, you plant all to peas, aud I can’t see 
where the squash comes in.” 
She smiled, and said : “ 1 have tried various other crops 
on the ground after the peas are removed, for I do not like 
to see the ground idle for half of the growing season, 
and 1 don’t cure to turn it over to the weeds. After two 
years I hit on the idea of planting a row of squashes along 
the center of every fourth space among the rows of peas, 
putting them in when the peas are in bloom. Before the 
vines begin to run the peas are out of the way. The shad 
ing does the squashes good,and the bugsdo not seem to find 
them. As soon us they are relieved of the presence of the 
peas, it is amazing how they grow. There’s no room for 
weeds, and you see the peas have not Htoleu much soil fer¬ 
tility. I never saw better squashes, and the six acres uet me 
between *40 aud *50 each for the squashes alone.” 
“ What kinds ?” 
“ The Bush Crook-Necked as a summer variety, and the 
Hubbard for winter. 1 am careful to get the real kinds, 
the same as with peas. Some customers like the Bush 
•Scallop for a summer squash, but the Crook Necked goes 
best." 
“ What of the turnips ?” 
“ They come in later. After the 1st of August the 
squash vines need no more hoeing, and I scatter in Dutch 
turnips. They need no care, and after the frost kills 
the vines they grow right on, and piece out my income 
nicely.” 
Good crops, good sense, and little labor. Dear sister, 
you can do as well. Why uot try It t l. c. M. 
TUNE i4 
14/omans Work. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
t this season, when the old potatoes so often turn black 
in cooking, I find It a very good plan to peel them the 
day before and leave them in water overnight. They are 
usually peeled in the morning, and the water is changed 
at night, to prevent any risk of its being soured. Natur¬ 
ally they lose a good deal of their starch in this process; 
1 cannot say whether it is this which prevents them from 
becoming black. Certainly, if boiled quickly after thus 
lying in water, they are by far whiter when cooked than 
if treated in the ordinary way. 
* 
* * 
After house-cleaning is over, one is often seriously in¬ 
convenienced, in sewing, by rough fingers and chapped 
hands; it is really necessary to soften them, not merely 
for the looks, but for comfort. Every one who has tried it 
knows the misery of attempting to make buttonholes, or 
to do any other piece of work requiring the use of silk, 
with fingers like nutmeg graters. Of course, a good deal 
of care is needed to bring the hands to real smoothness : 
but, as a preliminary, the old-fashioned remedy of beef 
marrow maybe strongly recommended. The fat should 
be slightly softeued at the fire, and then rubbed well into 
the skin, just as if rubbing with a good lather. After this 
has been done for some months, the hands should be well 
washed in plenty of warm water, and dried gently on a 
soft towel. This treatment, frequently repeated, will 
both soften aud whiten the hands, and will be found very 
beneficial when the skin is naturally disposed to chap. In 
addition to this, the often recommended mixture of gly¬ 
cerine and rose-water will keep the hands in good condi¬ 
tion ; it should be rubbed ou while they are wet, after they 
have been washed, and then they should be dried with a 
towel. It is worth while to keep one’s hands smooth, for 
then they do not become stained nearly so soon as when 
rough, apart from looks and comfort. Beef suet is some¬ 
times used instead of marrow, and either seems very com¬ 
forting to sore hands. 
* 
* • 
Gloves seem a very expensive part of one’s toilet, be¬ 
cause they are so soon eitner worn or soiled. Cleaning is 
quite an expensive process, when oit repeated; it is worth 
while to know how to clean them for oue’s-self, nor is it a 
difficult operation. The cleaning substance is quite a 
simple combination ; the proportions are as follows: Deo¬ 
dorized benzine, one quart; ch loroform.oue drachm; alcohol, 
two drachms. A little cologne is added to perfume it. Pour 
a little of this substance in a bowl, and wash the gloves 
well in it, rubbing them gently, just as if washing any 
ordinary fabric, then rinse in a little clean fluid. Rub 
them with a soft cloth, to remove wrinkles, then hang in 
a cool room lo dry. Care must be taken to avoid bringing 
the fluid near a light or fire, as it is highly inflammable; 
never try to clean your gloves by lamp-light. This fluid 
will lie found excellent to remove grease spots from any 
fabric, or to clean greasy coat collars. 
Next in Importance to keeping one’s gloves clean is keep¬ 
ing them in good repair. For this purpose the regular 
glove silk, which comes in plaited skeius, is, of course, the 
best, for it is not only just the right size, but is also found 
in all the glove shades. If, in addition, the worker is pro¬ 
vided with a glove needle, which is almost three-cornered 
rather than round, there is no excuse for poor work. 
Quite a useful adjunct in mending gloves is silk sticking- 
plaster. Frequently a rip which, when darned ever so 
neatly, is liable to tear out agaiu, may be made perfectly 
firm by putting a piece of sticking plaster under it. I 
have a great respect for court plaster as a part of one’s 
mending outfit, for I have seen both shoes and gloves 
mended with it. Kid shoes, when beginning to crack, can 
often be made presentable with a bit of sticking-plaster 
insertion. By all means keep court plaster In your toilet 
mending basket. 
* 
* * 
When putting away clothes for the season, if they are 
carefully wrapped up, one often has the trouble afterwards 
of opening a number of parcels before finding the needed 
article. Such parcels should not be laid away without a 
list of their contents being written on the wrapper. In the 
case of cotton dresses, which are always folded in paper 
when laid away, I pin a bit of the stuff of which the dreas 
is composed to the outside; then a single glance tells the 
contents, and one avoids the necessity of a long search. 
■» * # 
In making up cotton dresses with a lined waist, it is 
often advisable to use the same material as 1 he dress for a 
lining. In that case, if it shrinks in washing it will shrink 
evenly, instead of pulling all out of shape, which is often 
the case with a different lining. Another advantage is 
that when it begins to wear thin or into holes it does not 
show so much. Linings are not very satisfactory in dresses 
frequently laundered ; but when it is really necessary this 
mode is certainly the best. EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
i,0rc 11 11 uc0u$ sVilfcrtij&ittfl. 
In writing to advertisers, please mention the R. N.-Y. 
When Utlijf win. tick, we gave her Cnniorlu, 
When kite » hi. it Child, Khe cried forCkkiurlh, 
\\ lien tin heenine kiln*, rhe clung lo < imiurii. 
When the bud Children, »ne guvethem Chmoi Iu. 
