1905. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
23 
H ope Farm Notes 
Florida.— It is the day after Christmas 
and I am sitting under a tree in the open air. 
Six days ago when we left New York I wore 
a thick overcoat. I have been glad to peel off 
one garment after another until now both 
coat and vest have been hung up. At the 
back of the house, in the shade, the mercury 
stands at 76 degrees. Roses are in bloom all 
around. The orange trees in Uncle Ed's grove 
are covered with green leaves and banging 
with yellow fruit. The live oaks are leaved 
out and the few trees that have dropped 
their leaves are well covered with clusters of 
southern moss. It is enough to upset all your 
calculations—this Christmas m shirt sleetes. 
i never expected to see it, yet it is only an¬ 
other illustration of the fact that one is never 
too old to learn or have new experiences If 
von ask me if such a Christmas seems natural 
I must say frankly No! We have been 
brought up to consider snowdrifts and cold 
winds a legitimate part of Christmas. I hink 
of Santa Claus with his reindeer and his fur 
coat getting through this sand . I have not 
been able to find anyone yet who can say what 
thev tell children in this country about Santa 
dius How does he make his way from 
house to house ? Charlie cut a Christmas tree 
for the baby, but how the old fellow got into 
the house—no one but the child can tel!. 
Yet there is no reason why the cold North 
should monopolize Santa Claus and what lic 
represents. The spirit of Christmas is here 
if the snowdrifts are not, and for mj part I 
am glad that mv stocking holds the privilege 
of sitting here fn the shade with oranges on 
the trees to take the place of Baldwin apples 
in the cellar. 
Christmas Dinner. —Uncle Ed gave his 
boarders a feast worthy of the day. After 
breakfast we went down to the garden and 
nicked lettuce, spinach, turnips and onions. 
There were cabbage, radishes and peas also. A 
collide of fine turkeys had been doing duty in 
a small yard. Uncle Ed brought them at 1» 
cents a pound live weight. They walked up to 
the block without a murmur, since they akin t 
know what it represented. I picked a basket 
of the brightest oranges I could find. ’I hese 
turkeys came to the table with green vege¬ 
tables, white and sweet potatoes, cranberry 
and apple sauce, bread and butter, gravy and 
other fixings. Hope Farm supplied the apples 
and five keen appetites. The sun was bright 
outside and doors and windows were all open. 
The weather might be called unnatural, but 
the dinner wasn't—except in size—and when 
Uncle Ed called upon the Dope barm man to 
sav grace we were all thankful. After dinner 
there was a ride through the pines to the 
church. Everybody wanted to knock oft and 
celebrate the following day, and so here we 
are a lot of idlers. The Madame has been 
cutting the boy's hair! Uncle Ed got a big 
piece of beef out of his icebox and sliced it 
up. lie buys beef in large hunks—the dressed 
beef monopoly has invaded even this quiet sec¬ 
tion. Earlv in the forenoon Uncle Ed, 
Clin rile and Ben appeared on the porch with 
double-barreled guns. The little boys were 
wild to go hunting and the little girl nearly 
cried because she could not go. So the Hope 
Farm man went along with her to see the 
slaughter. I am no hunter and the way the 
brown setter worked among the email was a 
revelation to me. TTe ranged through the 
woods, one eye on his master. Sometimes 
while running at full speed the doer would 
ston like a flash and creep up to a clump of 
bushes, everv muscle quivering, yet under per¬ 
fect control. Then the hunters would ad¬ 
vance and at a signal the doe would rush in 
and “rise” a flock of quail. Bang! went the 
guns and one or more of the beauties would 
fall. I must confess that it seemed much like 
murder to me and the little girl, and I soon 
liad enough and came back alone. The hunt¬ 
ers and liovs kept on and returned finally with 
17 birds—and hot as August in New Jersey. 
Hog Hunting. —Another thing which com¬ 
bined pleasure with business was a hog bunt. 
In this country the hogs run wild without 
food, shelter or care except such as they find 
for themselves. No man can grow a crop 
here without protecting it with barbed wire. 
Now and then some one wants to put. a pig 
in a pen lor feeding. You must first catch 
your pig, and that is no child s play, lot 
there are few race horses that can beat these 
woods pigs in a short race. Men go out with 
dogs, get sight of a pig and run him down. 
The dogs hang on till they get the pig tired 
and men catch him by the ears and pull him 
to the ground. The “hunters” tie the scream¬ 
ing creature’s legs and carry him home to his 
pen. It was worth a dollar to me when the 
pig turned and knocked one of the dogs over. 
Of course the brown setter is not used in 
these "hog hunts.” One would as soon think 
of using a fencing sword to chop wood . 
“Cur” or mongrel dogs do this work, and, I 
am forced to say. do it well. Uncle Ed has 
one of these captives in a pen, where I had 
a good chance to examine him. lie is black, 
but iiilly Berkshire would draw the color line 
on him, and be proud of the dash of white 
on his face when he saw that nose and snout. 
This pig could certainly drink from the bot¬ 
tom of a Mason's jar by running his snout 
down into it! What could you expect, for 
without that snout the poor thing would 
starve on the range? lie and his ancestors 
developed that nose by hard work. The poor 
thing was unconquered in spite of his pen. 
Even a hog possesses the spirit of freedom. 
Here he was in a good shelter, with food 
and water constantly before him, all his 
wants supplied without effort on his part, 
ana still he longed for the freedom of the 
fields and would gladly change his lazy lot for 
the hardships of the wanderer. I respected 
the hog! I knew just how he felt, and so did 
Byron when he pictured the dying gladiator : 
“There were his young Barbarians at play, 
There was their Dacian mother, he. their sire 
Slaughtered—to make a Roman holiday !” 
I want no poor captives for my meat. Bet¬ 
ter shoot them on the range ! I hope to breed 
the wildness, the snout and the legs out of 
some of them and harness Billy Berkshire’s 
meat-making machinery to their vitality and 
hustle. 
Other Days. —I should be sorry to have 
anyone get the impression that all there is to 
do’in Florida is to sit in the shade and eat 
oranges or hunt quail or even hogs. There 
are strenuous days here—and also overcoat 
days. Y'ou ask Uncle Ed and Aunt Patience 
some night after the boarders have finished 
supper if Florida life is an idle dream ! 
Tackle Charlie after a day’s hard grubbing on 
the new farm and get him to say how much 
of an idyl such pastoral employment is ! No 
one lives here without work unless he is 
spending what he earned by previous labor or 
what some one earned for him. In the North 
you can work out a three-crop rotation in pos¬ 
sibly two years. Here you can work a three 
or four-crop rotation in one year, but it 
means work in either case. As for weather, 
while I sat with no vest on in the shade ot a 
tree, I got a daily paper and read about the 
blizzard that was roaring through the North. 
Zero weather and a foot of snow seemed like 
a fairy tale while we were planting peach 
trees and finding open buds here and there. 
The next morning, however, when I got up 
the room seemed chilly somehow. There had 
been a cold rain in the night and a high wind 
was blowing. The mercury had crawled down 
to 42 degrees and Uncle Ed had started a hot 
fire in the open fireplace. No use talking, we 
cold-blooded citizens from the North got 
around that fire, and it felt good. The sun 
came out, but the mercury kept falling 
through the dav. I wanted to get out and 
pick the fruit, but Uncle Ed said : “No. dan¬ 
ger !” These old-timers who have been frozen 
out several times are hard to scare. l ne 
next morning we were to take an early train 
and got up at four to be ready. The ther¬ 
mometer stood at 33 degrees and there vas 
thick white frost on the pine needles and a 
little crust on the damp soil. I shivered 
spite of my overcoat, and I felt that the end 
of Florida had surely come. How can an 
orange stand such frost? To my surprise 
Uncle Ed was cheerful. “No danger ! h» 
said, when I suggested giving up our trip and 
getting the fruit off the trees. These Floiida 
frosts are surely good medicine for the nerves 
and heart trouble ! 
Our train was due at 4.30. but who expects 
a train to be on time when they print this on 
the time table? 
These schedules show the times at which 
trains may be expected to arrive at and de¬ 
part from the several stations, but their ai- 
rival or departure at the times stated is not 
guaranteed nor is this company to be held ie- 
sponsible for any delay or any consequences 
arising therefrom.” 
Uncle Ed and Charlie knew what to expect, 
so they built a hot fire by the side of the track 
and we stood around it toasting shins and 
back alternately for two hours and 40 min¬ 
utes. As we had to signal the train we did 
not dare to hunt shelter. We saw the east 
change from the black shadow ot the pine 
forest through all the gentle and beautiful 
streakings of light until the sun snowed over 
the tree tops. Birds flew over us. A dock ot 
robins which feasted in a Jersey strawberry 
field last June flew out for their A\ inter break¬ 
fast! Clouds of thick, black smoke began to 
rise from the chimneys and we knew fat pine 
wood was warming up many a lean break 
fast. We saw it all by our fire until the lazy 
train came around the curve with a bluster 
and roar like a belated man who expects by 
scolding others to draw attention trom bis 
own delay. Y ou stand on a frosty morning in 
Florida, one side of you chilling to the bone 
while the other burns over an open tire, and 
remember what another freeze will mean to 
this country and your mind will be full or 
strange thoughts. It seemed to me like the 
end of time, but still Uncle Ed said “No dan¬ 
ger’” He was right, for though the mercury 
fell to 32 degrees. I could not find a single 
twig that was injured. The fruit seemed all 
the better for it. A temperature of 2» de¬ 
grees for several days is what does ihe busi¬ 
ness. When the mercury hovers around 30 
degrees a greenhorn has heart action like a 
force pump, hut your true Florida freeze-out 
buckles up his belt, looks at the eastern sky 
and if his trees are banked and his fruit oft 
becomes a philosopher. I think the trees are 
hardier than they were before the freeze. I 
have seen a few houses or cases built around 
the smaller trees for protection, but most 
growers must take the weather as it comes. 
This countrv needs some money crop besides 
oranges. What is it to be? As if to add a 
a strange commentary upon the weather. I ncie 
Ed as I write, comes into the gate wheeling 
a big chunk of ice. which just came by ex¬ 
press from a point 30 miles away. It is artt- i 
ficlal ice, packed in sawdust and then put in 
a bag. It kept so well on the train that the 
corners are barely melted off. The Madame 
started her little school in the open air. but 
this bit of frost drove them indoors by the 
fire It seems much like old times to sit by 
the open fire at night and have the children 
call for a storv. T don’t believe there is a 
woodchuck in Florida, and yet I find the peo¬ 
ple here deeply interested in his doings as 
well as in Judge Lynx and Charlie Crow. 
Farming. —I have little space left to tell 
of our preparations for farming this Winter. 
The old white mare, "Bird,” got here safely 
on the boat. I expect our humans to leave 
all their coughs down here, but the Bird’s 
asthma will stay here. She is too big and 
clumsy for this country. Smaller, active 
horses are better. She undertook to kick 
Uncle Ed’s horse out of the barn when she 
first got here, but when “Dexter.” a little 
brown fellow, got her out in the field he made 
a show of her on a single plow. Bird is not 
the first city resident to find that while city 
airs may do*in town, a Florida cracker knows 
what to do in the sand. There is much grub- 
bing and fencing and cutting to be done on 
the farm here before potatoes can be planted. 
Two fields looked reasonably clear after 
Charlie had whacked at them awhile, but 
when he started to plow he found the soil a 
mass of tough roots of what is known locally 
as the “shoestring” vine. I shall send down 
the disk plow and that ought to tear things 
up. Next week I will try to tell what such 
farming in Florida really means. h. w. c. 
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$ 4.12 
EVERLASTING 
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Cures and prevents sore shoulders. Adjusts to fit. Nohames.no I 
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THE KINU HARNESS CO., 6 Lake St.,Owego, Tioga Co.,N.Y. 
It is 
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.furs 
McMillan Fur & Wool Co. 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
W RITE FOR C I RCU LARS 
AVE YOUR BACK 
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WE LEAD THE WORLD 
r We are the largest manufac¬ 
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BOX 17 HAV>K«. ILL 
When Plow Hunting! 
choose from the celebrated Syracuse line 
a plow that the experience of thousands 
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No. 401 
SYRACUSE C ^ D 
shown here has proved one of the most 
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Syracuse Chilled Plow Co., 
Syracuse, N. Y. 
Most Useful Mill 
Grinds ear corn, all small grains; shells, cuts 
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EVER MADE 
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Windmill 
U 
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Feed Mill Sense. 
Feed mills have come to be standard articles. 
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any mill we i 
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p. o. box 263, 
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MUNCY, PA. 
Return This Nlill 
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Small size for hand 
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save time and labor, 3 
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35 Years Experience 
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