958 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 29, 
join, and the same is true in the homes of our friends 
and acquaintances. In the matter mentioned of bath 
and towels, the help are as welcome to the use of the 
bathroom (which is supplied with clean towels) as 
ourselves, and I do wish they could be prevailed upon 
to use it much more frequently than they do, and the 
men have well furnished rooms. To run our business 
profitably and pleasantly requires two men the year 
around, besides the owner, and a woman to help in the 
house. We have owned this farm 11 years. The first 
year I had a girl of 14 at $7 a month, the next year 
another at $8, and she stayed the next year for $9, 
then for three years we had a very capable young 
woman at $10, then for two years a middle-aged woman 
for $12 a month. Since then we have not been able to 
get any steady help at any price. An uncle once told 
me, when I had made a fruitless trip to his neighbor¬ 
hood in quest of help: “You scare them, trying to 
hire for a year; they never work more than a week at 
a time, or a month at most.” This I find is true,, and 
profiting by his advice do get a few weeks’ help some¬ 
times. As long as our village friends cannot get house 
help at $18 and $20 a month, how can we outside 
people expect to have any? 
As for outdoor help, we have had all sorts, and for 
the last year or two have been thankful for any. Wages 
have varied according to quality. One boy of 16 we 
paid $18 dollars a month for the year; board, washing, 
mending and the use of a team at pleasure, and he was 
worth it. We have never paid over $20 a month, but 
know of others who pay $25 and $30 with board, etc. 
The matter of farmers exchanging work with each 
other is something like trying to lift oneself by one’s 
boot-straps. If we have 10 men four days to fill silo, 
*we shall save our corn (if we are the first ones to fill 
silo) but while the good man repays those 40 days’ 
* work in kind, who will dig his potatoes, pick apples and 
care for his dairy? Such advice is exasperating to 
those who are suffering from a very real evil. 
For instance, between us and our market town lies a 
beautiful ridge of fertile farms, for a distance of less 
than four miles. Fifteen years ago there were 14 in¬ 
habited houses on this street. Now there are five. Of 
these one is a wealthy city man, one a tenant farmer, 
one is still occupied by the owner, but his large barn 
was burned by lightning a few years ago and he has 
not rebuilt, but sells his grass; one is still farmed in 
a small way, by the owner without help; and one is 
occupied by a family of vagabonds who live by begging 
and petty thieving, and can rarely be got to work out 
of jail. I have never sympathized with lonesome folks, 
thinking it an idle, town-bred notion, but when we drive 
past these closed houses, some already ruinous, and all 
swiftly showing their empty, neglected state, I am 
forced to recognize our growing isolation; and to 
wonder if soon a lack of men and teams will leave our 
Winter snow banks an impassable barrier to friends, 
foe or physician. 
Why don’t our farm young folks stay? It is easier 
to say “Why,” than to mention all the whys, but youth 
seeks youth, and lack of help overworks us all, and 
renders the farm home less pleasant than it should be. 
We have two little folks, and should appreciate a Roose- 
veltian family, but it is as suicidal, and positively im¬ 
moral, for our overworked farmers’ wives to have to 
bear children, as for the mu<h pitied sweatshop workers, 
except that we have better food, and if the child does 
not die in infancy, it has the healing helpfulness of fresh 
air and outdoor life to atone for pre-natal exhaustion, 
and parents too hard-worked to give its growing mind 
and body the care that such young creatures should 
have. When our two little folks are grown will they 
be likely to “stay on the farm” if these conditions 
continue? All the expensive modern machinery helps, 
but cannot run itself, and needs some “brains” in charge 
of it. “Short hours and big pay” might secure us help 
on the farm, but none can run long where outgo is 
greater than income, and how customers do object when 
the price of farm produce goes up. If we must pay $3 
a day for eight hours’ work, we must receive at least 
75 cents a pound for butter to make both ends meet. 
We know whereof we speak when we tell you that 
the scarcity of farm help is discouraging, and forcing 
many farmers hereabouts out of business; and is caus¬ 
ing the practical abandonment of many fine farms, 
which, though they are still owned by some one, and are 
mowed, and partly pastured, are not fanned, nor the 
houses occupied. A large farm, of some seven hundred 
acres, near us, was purchased by a western party early 
last Summer. They leave it next month disgusted by 
lack of help. For instance, to get three acres of 
potatoes dug they had to hire two Italians at $1.75 a 
day, and were obliged to take them home each night, 
a distance of five miles and go after them in the morn¬ 
ing. This farm has two pleasant tenant houses, and 
could furnish work for at least five men and two women 
the year around. I don’t know why these things are 
so, but many of the published reasons are aggravatingly 
silly, and mostly untrue. MRS. F. L. ives. 
Litchfield Co., Conn. 
YOUNG STOCK KEEPERS. 
A Flock of Ducks. 
Ever since I can remember I have wanted some little 
ducks to play with, but as we have no running water on 
our farm my people never kept ducks. Last April, how¬ 
ever, I was allowed to send for a setting of purebred 
Pekin eggs as an investment for some money of my 
own. The eegs cost $1.50, express charges added made 
them $2.10. I set them under two hens, and after vari- 
A YOUNG STOCK-KEEPER’S DUCKS. Fig. 432. 
ous accidents got six ducklings, which I gave to one 
hen, and very funny little things they were with their 
big feet and bills. I read in “Poultry Craft” how to 
feed and care for them, and how they did grow! They 
did not care for their hen mother very long and I kept 
them in a shady yard, fenced with low poultry netting. 
The only water they had was in a large milkpan and a 
small trough filled fresh several times a day. They were 
never sick, and at nine weeks old they averaged six 
pounds each in weight. I could have sold them then to 
the butcher for 18 cents per pound, but I did not want 
them killed. They soon became so large and white and 
handsome that visitors thought them old ducks, and 
they were very tame nice pets. As I could not well 
keep them all Winter I sold them when school com¬ 
menced to a man who has a nice pond for them 
to swim in. He gave me $5 for them and will keep 
Nellie, Maud, Grace and big Teddy. I suppose Pete 
and Jerry made a Thanksgiving dinner, but I would not 
want to see the dear white beauties killed, and I am 
glad that they and I had a good time all Summer. 
Jefferson Co., N. Y. ' f. vivien petrie. 
PROSPEROUS IN CALIFORNIA. 
I have about 10 acres of Alfalfa; with me it spells 
prosperity ever since I began to grow it. I can cut 
GLADIOLUS PRIMULINUS. TWO-TIIIRDS NATURAL 
SIZE. Fig. 433. See Ruralisms, Page 962. 
five crops a year, but I usually cut only four and 
graze the fifth. It is only in the last few years that we 
have taken to growing it plentifully; before that it was 
patchy. Now everyone is growing it or attempting to 
do so. My next door neighbor has now 80 acres, and 
you can imagine what a beautiful sight it is when in 
full growth. We do not irrigate; ours is what we 
call bottom land, sandy loam, and the river runs along¬ 
side of it 26 feet deep, the land without a stone for 
the first 15 to 18 feet deep. The State as a whole 
seems to me this year to be prosperous; certainly fruit 
was out of sight in price. We farmers were getting up 
here the following prices: 9 Yz cents for peaches; 2 y 2 
cents for prunes (offered) some accepted, some not; 
pears (Bartlett), $35 to $40 per ton, as they are wanted 
to pack; $25 a ton all in, no culls. Good land is very 
dear out here and bad is dear at any price. You people 
‘back East” seem to me to get bad places sometimes, 
and often they cannot be too careful, but still they are 
coming, taking up land which may or may not turn out 
well. This section is blessed in having large mining 
interests around, and they push money into the towns, 
and we get a share of it. There is no doubt in rav 
mind but that a good market gardener who understands 
his business and goes slow for a short time ought to do 
well; he would want water, capital, land and brains and 
be sober. Tomatoes from 10 cents to V/ 2 ‘, peppers, 
8 to 4; potatoes, 1*4 to 1; asparagus, 10 cents a pound; 
squash, fair sale; cucumbers seem always wanted. Mel¬ 
ons a good market. We sometimes get slight frosts in 
April, and it does some damage; otherwise it’s hard 
to find fault. These big mining camps take a power 
of stuff to keep them. The most beautiful climate on 
earth, excepting July and August, when it is hot, I 
acknowledge. I have stood it for 13 years and am not 
tired of it yet. w. j. b. m. 
Redding, Cal. __ 
WHAT MAKES THE WATER FOUL? 
About nine years ago I piped a spring to house and barn 
with one-inch iron pipe. The distance is about 1,000 feet 
and the spring is about 70 feet higher than the house. I 
never had any trouble with this line, but lately the water 
is so red that my wife cannot use it any more in the house. 
When you see it come from the tap you think it is clear, 
but if it stands awhile in tub or you boil it it is red. Can 
I do anything to have clear water come through this line, 
or shall I have to lay a new line? The flow is about the 
same as it has been from the start. Is this water danger¬ 
ous to health? Could you or some of your readers give me 
some light on this matter? q. w. b. 
The information your correspondent gives is not 
such as to permit one to state just what his difficulty 
may be. It is not unusual for city water works to be 
troubled with the accumulation of excessive amounts 
of iron oxide in the water pipes, to such an extent as 
to render the water turbid, this accumulation being 
greatly influenced by the development of certain organ¬ 
isms in the water. This action does not make the 
water unwholesome, but renders it unpleasant or diffi¬ 
cult to use. It does not seem clear that a cause of 
this character could be the trouble with the case in 
question, though it would be suspected if the difficulty 
in question has originated suddenly and never existed 
before this time. It must be remembered that when 
iron pipes begin to corrode through the action of water 
the corrosion does not take place uniformly, but the 
surface is eroded, forming pits, which may greatly in¬ 
crease, on account of great irregularity and roughness, 
the total interior surface of the pipe, so that the corro¬ 
sion of the pipe would take place at an increasingly 
rapid rate and, in a case where the water moves slowly 
through the pipe, it might not be noticed at first when 
years later it would become evident. If the turbidity 
of the water has appeared suddenly this could hardly 
be the cause. The first thing to do is to go to the 
spring itself and see if, when this water is taken to 
the house, and treated as that coming from the pipe 
is treated, it. becomes turbid in the same way and to 
the same extent. If it does not the difficulty originates 
in the pipe. If the difficulty is in the pipe and water 
is not allowed to run continuously through it the 
trouble may disappear if a more or less strong continu¬ 
ous flow is permitted, or, before using it in the house, 
enough water is allowed to waste entirely to empty 
the pipe. An inch pipe 1,000 feet long would hold 
about 350 pounds of water, which means that some 12 
pails of water, holding 30 pounds each, would be re¬ 
quired to empty it. If an organic growth is taking 
place in the pipe and is causing the difficulty this could 
be arrested by running through the pipe a solution 
which would destroy the organisms, but if such is 
really the difficulty it would be liable to recur again 
sooner or later. A strong solution of Babbitt’s lye 
run through the pipe would probably clean it out, and 
as much as a full 50-gallon barrel, made strong, would 
be required effectually to clean the pipe. Probably as 
much as three or four pound packages would bj re¬ 
quired for the barrel of water. This treatment would 
not permanently affect the water, as the soda lye would 
be washed out readily when the spring water is turned 
in, and any of the lye adhering to the walls of the 
pipe would be rapidly converted, by the carbonic acid 
in the water, to carbonate of soda, so much used in 
cooking. _F- H. KING. 
Darwin thougtit that as man gained in intellect he lost 
in instinct. Most likely. This may explain why a great 
scientist might he unable to harness a horse or milk a 
cow. Yet he might work out some principle of mechanics 
which would enable a horse to haul 30 per cent more weight. 
