1905. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
775 
THE SIMPLE LIFE ON A FARM. 
Working for a Home. 
Having been much interested in the sketches of farm 
life in your paper, 1 send you one Saturday's work 
on a small farm in Erie Co., Pa., in the month of 
August. At 5 A. M. 1 don my morning suit, which 
consists of short skirt, shirt waist, heavy shoes and 
sunbonnet. Having started a fire in the kitchen range, 
1 put the potatoes, which were cleaned the night be¬ 
fore, on to boil, take the milk pail and wade through 
the dew across a 10-acre field to milk my cow, a 
process which takes about half an hour. Hastening 
home as fast as a large pail of milk and heavy, wet shoes 
will allow, I soon have the milk strained and skimmed. 
I then fly to the house to find the potatoes cooked and 
the table set by my little daughter, 10 years old. At 
six A. M. we sit down to breakfast, which consists of 
boiled potatoes, soft boiled eggs, bread, butter, fresh 
tomatoes, new milk, sliced cucumbers, oatmeal and 
cream, after which the real work of the day begins. 
First, 1 feed four broods and flocks of chickens, feed 
a pig, go to the barn and water the horse. I forgot 
to mention the good man of this house 
is a tradesman, and works in the city. 
After the farm chores are done I do the 
churning, and as I have customers who 
want fresh butter. 1 must work the butter 
into rolls at once. After the churning is 
done and things washed baking must be 
done. After five loaves of bread, four 
pies, a panful of fruit cake and one of 
beans are finished I find I have one hour 
of time for the garden. I hasten with 
baskets to the garden, where I fill orders 
for a half bushel of tomatoes, half bushel 
of cucumbers, a bushel of sweet corn, one 
bushel of potatoes. I then rush to the 
milk house and count and wash the 
week's gathering of eggs. By this time 
my little daughter announces dinner is 
ready. 
In the meantime she has cleaned and 
filled the lamps, washed dishes, tidied the 
kitchen, dusted the sitting room and par¬ 
lor and made the beds. After the dinner 
of raised biscuit, butter, baked beans, 
fresh apple pie and blackberries and 
cream, T retire to the chamber and 
change my short suit, take a bath and 
comb my hair, after which I go to the 
barn, feed and water the horse, feed the 
chickens and pig, curry the horse, run 
out a buggy, harness the horse, and retire 
to the house, where I sleep the sleep of 
the just for one hour. On waking I feel 
much refreshed. 1 then change my dress 
for my driving suit, which consists of a 
denim skirt, linen waist and sailor hat, 
hitch Billy to the buggy, load in the pro¬ 
duce which I prepared in the forenoon, 
and with my little daughter start for town, 
two miles away. The day being fine, we 
enjoy the ride immensely. Having cus¬ 
tomers for my produce, I have no diffi¬ 
culty in disposing of my load, and at the 
same time take orders for next Saturday. 
Farm truck being scarce to-day, I re¬ 
ceived the following for my load in this 
little town: One bushel potatoes. 70 
cents; eight dozen sweet corn, 80 cents; 
eight dozen cucumbers, 80 cents: one-half 
bushel tomatoes, -10 cents; eight dozen 
eggs at 22 cents, $ 1 . 76 ; five pounds but¬ 
ter at 22 cents. $1.10; total, $ 5 . 56 . As I NORMAL SCHOOL STUDENTS PLANTING TREE SEEDS. Fig. 333 . Page 777 . 
lived in town for 15 years and am ac¬ 
quainted with almost everybody, I visited longer than 
1 ought to have done, but the roads being good and 
Billy a flyer I arrived home in good time for supper. 
I he good man has come from his week’s work, and we 
do the evening chores together, after which we count 
our week’s earnings and plan how soon the mortgage 
will be paid, after which we sit on the doorstep and 
visit until bed time. There might be worse things than 
living on a farm. Anyway, I enjoy my busy life; be¬ 
tween my hours of work I enjoy myself with my flowers 
and in many ways which are denied to the city woman. 
ELIZABETH HERKERLY. 
NORMAL SCHOOL STUDENTS IN A GREENHOUSE. Fig. 332 . Page 777. 
BIG STORIES BOILED DOWN. 
Buffer Without Any Cow. 
A reader sends us a copy of the Oswego Times con¬ 
taining one of the most remarkable “big stories” we 
have ever seen in print. Some correspondent of the 
Times claims to have found at New Braintree. Mass., a 
factory where butter is made direct from hay. 
This plant covers about five acres of ground : the building 
alone covers about two acres and is two stories high. It is 
constructed on the latest improved plans, being built of 
concrete and then smoothed up with cement. This plant is 
for the making of butter from hay without the use of 
cows. This plant uses some 10,000 tons of hay per year 
now, and arrangements are now being made to more than 
double the capacity within the next year or so. These 
people buy the hay as soon as it is thoroughly cured, paying 
as high as $15 per ton for good clover and from that down 
to $8 for the poorer grades. The hay is then cut up fine, 
about one-half inch in length, and put in very large, 
strong vats or tanks, they being so made that they are 
capable of standing great pressure. About five tons of 
hay is put in each vat and certain chemicals are sprayed 
on the hay. Then steam is forced into the vats until all 
the hay is thoroughly softened, then the vat is hermetically 
sealed and left for 27 hours, after which time immense 
pressure is put on and every particle of juice pressed from 
the hay. This juice is run through a separator and the 
butter fat comes out just the same as the cream from 
milk. This is kept at a temperature of 60 degrees for 20 
hours and then churned. The butter produced in this 
manner is now selling in New York and Boston markets for 
40 cents to 50 cents per pound, and the average amount 
of butte'r taken from a ton of hay is 100 pounds, good 
clover making as high as 150 pounds per ton, while hay of 
a poorer quality will seldom run below 75 pounds per ton. 
The juice, after the butter fat is extracted, is mixed with 
buckwheat middling and baked into cakes, and is being 
used by dealers in fancy poultry for feeding young chick¬ 
ens. it having been demonstrated that 20 per cent more 
chickens can be raised from this food than any other food 
known. Then again the hay, after having l»een pressed, is 
put into a dry kiln and thoroughly dried, and then ground 
as line as cornmeal and sold for horse feed, it being 
claimed that this mixed with oats half and half gives better 
results than clear oats, and as oats are worth about 1 % 
to 1 Ms cents per pound, this feed is sold for about $20 
per ton. so that altogether it is a very profitable business. 
Experiments are now going on by which the manufacturers 
are expecting to bring out new products making it still 
better. 
The trouble is that some people will actually believe 
such yarns, and think the old cow is to be put out of 
business. Having stood tile shock from the “oleo” men 
the cow is quite prepared to survive even this famous 
factory. We have readers at this place. This is what 
one of them says : 
"Wo do not know of the slightest foundation for this- yarn. 
\Ve believe it to be a canard pure and simple. We do not 
have a daily paper regularly, but we have one occasionally 
and lately I have been almost shocked to see the way the 
reporter lies to make a sensation. For instance, a neigh¬ 
bor got his hand caught in a corn harvester, and his 
thumb was hurt a little. The reporter had his hand a 
mass of pulp, his thumb cut off. and perhaps his hand would 
have to be. Everything considered I would just as soon 
my children would not have the daily paper to feed on. 
The folly of telling such a story is evident when we 
consider what butter fat is. Tt is really a part of the 
cow! The fat in the food is made over in the cow’s 
body, and as the milk is secreted the fat is mixed with 
it, being little cells or scales formed in the cow's udder. 
A fat or oil is made direct from cornmeal, but it is not 
at all like butter fat made from feeding cornmeal to a 
cow. In the cow’s body the fat of the food is made 
over and organized, and then put into the milk. It is 
strange that a reputable paper should print such awful 
nonsense without labeling it ‘“A Joke.” 
WHITE GRUBS AND POTATOES 
We need help here in this section. If you can aid us we 
shall be thankful, it is the white grub; fields of potatoes 
are about eaten up. and all potatoes about spoiled. The 
roads were a sight to behold on account of the yellow 
butterfly this Fall. Every third year the grubs seem to 
be worse; corn roots eaten off and corn spoiled. What 
system of fertilizing wilt kill grubs? How can we raise 
potatoes and get rid of these grubs? I want to take a 
three-year rotation. Potatoes, oats or Spring wheat hay: 
when to plow? What should 1 fertilize with in potatoes 
planted after clover hay for potatoes and the grubs? 
What fertilizer in drill for Spring wheat or oats? When 
plow clover and potato ground where potatoes were this 
year to subdue grubs and get crop? What to fertilize with 
for best results and how much per acre for potatoes? 
Alpine. X. Y. e. a. it. 
Prof. M. V. Slingerland sends this dis¬ 
couraging report about methods for de¬ 
stroying white grubs. It will be seen that 
there is no connection between the butter¬ 
flies and the grubs, since the egg-laying 
form of life in this insect is a beetle. 
Farmers have reported to us that buck¬ 
wheat is offensive to these grubs, but we 
have not found it so. They will not be 
so likely to trouble you next year: 
“The ‘yellow butterfly’ mentioned by the 
correspondent has no connection with 
white grubs. The adult form of the white 
grub is a large brown beetle, known as 
June-bug or May-beetle. As these insects 
have a three-year life-cycle, it often hap¬ 
pens that every third year they are more 
destructive. There is no system of fer¬ 
tilizing or applying anything to the soil in 
practicable quantities that will destroy 
these grubs. Over small areas, hand-dig¬ 
ging is the only effective method, and this 
is practicable in strawberry beds. Thor¬ 
ough cultivation is the greatest discour¬ 
ager of underground-living insects. There¬ 
fore, a short system of crop rotation will 
help very materially in controlling this 
pest, especially if the rotation consists • 
largely of crops that need thorough and 
frequent cultivation. Very thorough stir¬ 
ring of the soil in early Fall will kill 
many of them which are transforming 
into beetles.” 
Thus thorough cultivation for a few 
years, especially in late Summer and early 
Fall, will be best to kill off the grubs. 
No practical system of fertilizing will de¬ 
stroy them, so you should consider the 
needs of the potato crop in using chem¬ 
icals. Unless you are familiar with the 
use of chemicals we would begin by using- 
some well-known brand of potato fer¬ 
tilizer. Leave strips through the field on 
which you can use potash alone, acid 
phosphate alone, and on another the two 
together. This will show you if the soil 
needs one of these elements in particular. 
Then you can get a better idea about 
using the chemicals. We would use 600 
pounds of potato fertilizer per acre, and 
400 pounds for grain. We would plow 
the clover sod in Spring unless you can 
save time by plowing part of it in the Fall. 
In Fall plowing leave the furrows standing up, and in 
Spring work them down with a spring-tooth. 
SHORT HINTS ABOUT DRAINAGE. 
There are as many differing views on the subject of 
drainage as there are fields to drain. Nor is this 
strange, for there are so many varying conditions that 
must be considered; kind of soil, amount of wa t er, 
length of ditch, fall to be secured, etc., that a rule for 
one case would not serve for another. But there arc 
some points in common which are not disputed. Level¬ 
ing can be guessed at only when the fall is plenty and 
the spirit level is satisfactory in cases where there is no 
deep cutting. In that case an engineer is indispensable. 
The proximity of the drains must be graded by the 
amount of water held in the soil. The depth should be 
sufficient to protect the tile (for tint is the best) from 
injury in plowing; about three feet if the fall permits 
and one foot wide, which will be sufficient for three or 
five-inch tile. The former are most common, but where 
there is very wet springy ground five inches is better. 
A fall of three inches to the rod is excessive and 1 </. 
inch about the usual. Tf V ou build a stone drain an 
open throat is indispensable to prevent filling up, as 
also to be useful in cleaning out. j. \v. *«j>, 
Pontiac, Mich. 
