i89o 
CAMP LIFE IN A FARM HOUSE. 
MART WAGER-FISHER. 
I. 
It is generally recognized, I think, that 
we are passing through a transition period 
in what concerns our ways of living, the 
methods by which we are enabled to live 
in separate houses as families, and get 
the work done which is necessary for our 
health and comfort. How or when we 
shall have worked our way out of the 
difficulties which now beset our every-day 
living is not easy to predict, but it will 
come some time, surely, and the means 
that will be available in all thickly settled 
communities will reach far out and inter¬ 
est country towns and agricultural 
districts as well.. In that good time coming 
we may need to spend as much money on 
our living as now, but the money will 
bring us in better returns. We shall have 
less care, more freedom, and be subject, it 
is to be hoped, to far less friction and 
annoyance from hired workers than we 
now have to endure, to say nothing of what 
they may have to undergo. 
In my dozen or more years of housekeep¬ 
ing, in connection with my own experience 
and that of scores of housekeeping friends 
with whom I have talked, I have been re¬ 
peatedly impressed with what seems to be 
a fact—that one of the chief trials, if not 
the very chief, connected with employees, 
lies in giving them board and lodging. 
Every servant in or about a house adds so 
much work to be done, and so much to the 
expenses of the household. In Boston, the 
cost of a cook is estimated at from §5 to $8 a 
week in addition to the weekly or monthly 
wages paid; that of a man employee at a 
sum equal to the monthly wages paid him, 
exclusive of his washing. On the Pacific 
coast, where the Chinese have been so 
generally employed as domestics, they have 
rarely been lodged by their employers, hir¬ 
ing for themselves a sleeping place at a 
cost of, perhaps, $2 a month. A room that 
a servant would occupy his employer could 
“ rent out,” if he so desired, for $6 or $8 a 
month. 
A New York country woman who spent 
some time in a Philadelphia family a time 
ago, hearing a good deal about the cost of 
boarding employees, expressed surprise. 
“ In New York,” she said, we never think 
that boarding anybody amounts to any¬ 
thing. Food is raised in abundance, and 
we think nothing of it.” 
“ But suppose you thought something of 
it,” came the reply, “ and made an estimate 
of the amount and cost of what employees 
eat from sugar to salt, the wear of bedding, 
towels, tablecloths, breakage of breakables, 
fuel, lights, etc., how much do you think 
it would be ?” 
“I haven’t the smallest idea,” she re¬ 
turned. “ Of course it would be something; 
but, as I have said, we never think of do¬ 
ing that.” 
Well, to show you how much it coBts, let 
me tell you that it costs me as much to 
provide for the man and woman who eat 
in the kitchen as for my family of three 
and often four, who dine in the dining¬ 
room. Of bread and potatoes they consume 
nearly twice as much. We have meat 
twice a day; they are children of “ Ould 
Ireland,” and say they must have meat 
thrice daily and plenty of it (they had it in 
their Irish homes not oftener than once a 
week or once a month), and they are 
always the first to complain of the food. They 
seem to think that employers keep house 
for the privilege of boarding employees. 
They so dislike prudence and economy 
that they wish to live only where extrava¬ 
gance prevails, and as for intelligence, I 
never yet have had a servant in my employ 
capable, for example, of cleaning, filling 
and taking care of lamps properly. They 
invariably, sooner or later, cut the thread 
of the screws, and are almost always lack¬ 
ing in mechanical ingenuity. Our work 
we must have done, and although the 
servants employed are quite enough to do 
the work of the family, yet we are con¬ 
stantly sending out work, or bringing in 
day labor, as well as doing certain things 
ourselves which cannot be trusted to their 
hands. The man never seems able to 
adjust the furnace to the requirements 
of the weather, or to put on coal without 
filling the house with gas. If my husband 
attends to it, everything works perfectly. 
But what is the sense in paying for having 
a thing done and then, doing it yourself ? 
But the thing that most annoys me is to 
incur the expense of employees in order to 
have my head and hands free for other 
work, and, instead, find my cares increased 
and my annoyances doubled. When I hire 
a certain colored man to come in and do 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
891 
cleaning, he brings his own materials to 
work with, his own luncheon, and accom¬ 
plishes a great deal without any fuss or 
dissatisfaction. When the linen is sent to 
the laundry, it comes back perfectly 
“done,” and there is no “fuss” about 
that. I have no care in regard to either. 
But the moment we have resident “help,” 
not only are expenses greatly increased, 
but care is enormously added to. I am 
awfully tired of it, and am looking to the 
heavens for some way out of it, and still be 
able to keep house and have our home. 
How do you think it can be done ? 
“ Well, I don’t know,” replied the New 
York country woman, “ unless you reduce 
your living to as simple terms as we do, 
and do most of your work yourself.” 
The Philadelphia woman’s jeremiad and 
the New York woman’s suggested solution 
of her friend’s difficulties came with a good 
deal of force to my mind one day last June, 
when the cook left for a “ place ” at the 
sea shore. The weather was hot, ice was 
dear, flies were insinuating themselves 
everywhere a crevice offered ingress. The 
home and all its surroundings were lovely, 
with every “ modern convenience,” but the 
long, warm summer loomed up before me 
heavily, and I felt that to get away where 
life was simpler, the requirements of home 
and society less exacting, away somewhere, 
we three by ourselves, to lead a care-free, 
go as-we please kind of existence, would be 
heaven begun below. At this juncture, 
much after the fashion of story-tellers, 
Anaximander returned from his office, 
presently remarking: 
“ What would you say to letting Dr. K. 
have our house for the summer. He is very 
particular about sanitary conditions, 
wholesome surroundings, etc., and has 
taken a fancy to this place. He offers a 
good sum for it, so if you want to be free 
of the establishment for three months now 
is your chance. What do you say ?” 
“A la bonne heure! Let him have itl 
Nothing could be better!” exclaimed 
Madame. “But where shall we go?” 
“Oh, you and the lad can go again to the 
mountains. I must be within reach of my 
office.” 
“We will stay together this Bummer 
wherever we are, in Ruth and Naomi de¬ 
votion,” I responded. “Let’s go to your 
farm! It is only 18 miles from the city, 
and there are lots of trains in and out. 
The mansion house isn’t occupied. We 
can have it all to ourselves.” 
“I don’t think we had better go there. 
You wouldn’t like it. You would have 
absolutely no society but the farmer’s 
family, and they are colored. Then, too, 
the house is but little furnished.” 
“Never mind the furniture!” resounded 
from the opposite party. “Come! let’s 
have a care-free time for oncel I see 
exactly how the whole thing can be ar¬ 
ranged. We’ll live as if in camp—contrive 
out of nothing what we have need of.” 
“But you had better go and see the place 
first.” 
“No, I’d rather not. We’ll make it ‘do’ 
fora while, anyway.” 
And how the undertaking succeded will 
form the theme of a few succeeding 
papers. 
MANAGEMENT OF YOUNG CHICKS. 
The most profitable period for hatching 
and raising chicks for early broilers is from 
November to May, as not only are the 
winter months then utilized, but the high¬ 
est prices are secured. The marketing of 
broilers begins at any time after the new 
year opens and extends well into July. 
Prices are the highest in April and May. 
The expenses, however, are less in the sum¬ 
mer season, but the prices are lower. 
Whether the chicks are raised by hens or 
brooders, the first essential is warmth. 
Young chicks are really naked when 
hatched, and the slightest exposure to cold 
or dampness is injurious. For the first 
three days (or even a week) they should be 
confined so as to prevent them from going 
over six inches from the brooder, as they 
will not know whereto receive the warmth 
until they learn. When with the hen they 
should be kept within easy call of her 
“ cluck.” If there are too many chicks in 
the brooder, or with a hen, there will be a 
greater loss than if only a sufficient number 
to allow comfort to each are together. 
When feeding chicks, let them be so fed 
that they will never lack for a supply. 
Hard-boiled eggs are unfit for them. For 
36 hours after they are hatched give 
nothing. Stale bread dipped in milk, 
squeezed, and fed crumbly, three times a 
day, is sufficient, but a trough of clean, 
granulated oatmeal (pin-head oatmeal) 
should be kept within reach of them all 
the time. A mess of raw meal will some¬ 
times do injury. Cracked wheat should be 
placed before them when they are a week 
old, and as soon as they can eat it they 
should have whole wheat and cracked 
corn, and the oatmeal should be stopped, 
as it is expensive. The bread and milk 
may be varied with mashed potatoes after 
the first week, and, when they are two 
weeks old, finely chopped cooked meat 
may be given twice a week. Pound up 
crockery-ware (uncolored) very fine,to serve 
them as grit. Do not feed any substance 
that is liable to cause indigestion. The 
main thing is warmth, as a chick should 
never become chilled 
Give them a scratching place by using 
earth in a shallow box. Green food is not 
as necessary as different kinds of grain 
food. Cooked potatoes or turnips are 
better than green food. As long as the 
chicks do not crowd they have plenty of 
warmth. When they crowd together they 
have not enough. Constipation and bowel 
diseases are due to cold rather than to the 
food. 
The scourge of young chicks is vermin. 
In brooder establishments no hens are 
kept, and there is nothing of this kind. 
Lice pass from the hens to the chicks. The 
chief enemy is the large body louse that 
preys on the head and neck. The remedy 
is to grease both these places with a few 
drops of lard oil. If lice can be kept down 
young chicks will pay even in the summer 
months. The hens must be carefully ex 
amined when they bring off broods. 
p. H. JACOBS. 
Introduce yourself to the hens. 
A Wise Hen.—A Michigan paper has 
the following : 
Will Gregg has a hen that knows a thing 
or two. He has arranged in his hennery a 
self-feeder. It consists of a panful of feed 
suspended from a nail overhead. In the 
bottom is a hole covered by a spring 
stopper. A string runs from the stopper 
to within a few inches of the ground, 
where it is tied to the end of a short stick, 
one end of which rests on the ground. 
When the hens step on the stick it pulls 
down on the string, opens the stopper 
and the feed drops out. This hen has 
learned in some way that the string is the 
“ open sesame,” and instead of waiting 
for some one to accidentally step on the 
stick, she catches hold of the string, gives a 
vigorous jerk and down comes the feed. 
We are prepared to guarantee that this 
hen is part Dorking. The Dorkings are the 
most intelligent birds we have ever seen. 
We could give dozens of instances where 
they have shown almost human intelli¬ 
gence. 
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