1007. 
THE RURAt NEW-YORKER 
907 
Hope Farm Notes 
Thanksgiving. —I am writing this 
while Mother and the girls are putting 
the last touches on dinner. Philip and 
I have been husking corn and pulling 
the husks off our appetites. We came 
down from the hill a little too early. 
The little girls have permitted me to 
look at the turkey in the oven. He 
certainly looks good enough to eat— 
’way to the very inside of the stuffing. 
On the stove bubbling and dancing in 
various pots and pans are onions, 
squash and potatoes, while lettuce and 
celery need no cooking. In the pantry 
are two big pumpkin pies, a great dish 
of cranberry sauce and best of all, a big 
disk of baked apples. You will say the 
Hope Farm folks live high, and yet 
when you come to think of it, what is 
there remarkable about that for a farm 
dinner? Few people keep turkeys, but a 
fat hen will do. When a man doesn’t 
have that outfit of vegetables on hand— 
who’s to blame? We could add three 
other vegetables and half a dozen dif¬ 
ferent kinds of fruit. But I smell that 
southern gravy with the egg in it, and 
this must wait until after dinner. 
That bird dressed 14 pounds, but our 
II Hope Farmers addressed themselves 
so well to it that the amount of meat left 
is nearer 14 ounces. Everyone had two 
helps, and some, after mature delibera¬ 
tion, came the third time. As for the 
rest of the “fixings,” they were certainly 
well fixed. After dinner Philip and I 
husked corn again until dusk. Then all 
our folks went over to the old house and 
built a roaring fire in the big fireplace. 
We had popcorn and nuts—and apples, 
of course. It is a pleasant ending of 
Thanksgiving Day to sit on a comfort¬ 
able chair in the dim light of an open 
fire and have gentle things to ponder 
over. The children are popping corn 
over the coals. Three-fourths of 
Mother’s face is in the shadow, but I 
can tell by the other fourth that she is 
living over old scenes in the South, while 
I am busy with memories that are close 
to the snow of the North. Tq show 
how pictures of memory will rise at 
such a time I recall two things that went 
through my mind that night. 
In my younger days I was obliged to 
do anything that came to hand. One 
Winter in Michigan I struck a job at 
ditching—glad to get the work. Twice 
a week, after my day’s work was done, 
I went around to the schoolhouse or 
church and gave “entertainments.” I 
would stand up by a hot stove and 
“speak pieces” for hours, and then have 
some one pass around the hat! One 
Thanksgiving night I went to a place 
that was noted as a “tough district.” The 
little schoolhouse was so crowded that 
there was hardly room for my voice. 
After my throat gave out a man got up 
and made what I called the best Thanks¬ 
giving speech ever heard. It was about 
like this: 
“Now, good people, we have haw- 
hawed an’ blowed our noses over this 
young man’s pieces. I’m thankful for 
what he’s said, an’ he’ll be thankful that 
I pass the hat. There aint no wrinkles 
on his throat, hut I can count a dozen 
on his coat, an’ when he throwed him¬ 
self in that funny piece an’ liked to 
bump into the stove 1 see a couple of 
patches! Now, I’ll pass the hat and you 
folks can just loosen up right now! Bill, 
you’re good for 50 cents. Henry, come 
up with a quarter. George, let go that 
dime, an’ loosen up that dollar bill!” 
With my eyes shut, and looking back 
over 25 hard years I can still see that 
good Samaritan passing the hat. I doubt 
if his wife or even his daughter ever 
called him handsome, but to me he had 
some of the earmarks of an angel as he 
brought back that hat with silver and 
paper instead of the customary copper! 
That meant going back to college for 
another term. I always was better at 
producing than at selling my own goods. 
Another picture took me back 30 years 
to a time when T passed the night with 
an old couple on a back farm. After 
supper the old man pushed back his 
chair and took an old-fashioned tun¬ 
ing fork from a little nail on the wall. 
He struck it on his knee, held it to his 
ear to get the pitch, and then lie and his 
wife started singing together—just as 
if I had been 50 miles away. Neither 
of them had much of any voice left, but 
that was the most effective music I ever 
heard. Here is one verse: 
“Go for my wandering boy to-night, 
Search for him where you will. 
Bring him to me with all his blight, 
And tell him I love him still.” 
The night was dark and stormy, the 
house was poor and mean, and the dim 
kerosene lamp made but a feeble light, 
yet the room seemed full of glory. I was 
a sort of “wandering boy” myself at 
that time—far away from home, and not 
very prosperous except in health. 
“You see,” said the old man, as he 
hung up his tuning fork, “we haven’t 
heard from him for some years, but we 
like to have him know that every night 
we think of him and sing that song. 
Some day he will hear it and let us 
know.” 
You would scarcely believe me if I 
were to tell you how many times I have 
sec'n this tragedy of life acted in lonely 
homes. There are the old folks who 
cannot somehow understand that the 
“boy” has grown to be a man. On the 
other hand is the man who through his 
busy life or through a sense of failure 
cannot realize how the old folks regard 
him. The world would be better off if 
I could have had some of the “boys” 
with me on Thanksgiving night to see 
these pictures rise out of the fire! What 
is your home for if not for keeping such 
memories alive ? 
Hope Farm Flint.—I do not refer to 
flint hearts, but to a variety of corn 
which we think is worth talking about. 
The original seed came from Connecti¬ 
cut, and we are selecting ears of the 
type which suits us. We lay aside the 
stalks which carry two good-sized ears, 
and then select the medium-sized ears of 
dark yellow, and well covered to the tip 
with grain. We are after a variety 
which will cover our special needs— 
which are as follows: 1. We want a 
variety of corn that will stand close 
planting among young trees. The large 
growing dents make too much stalk. 
They shade the trees and take too much 
moisture from the soil. This flint makes 
a low stalk, can be planted close and 
with us will yield more actual grain than 
the dents. We can plant this corn and 
give thorough culture up to August 10; 
then sow Crimson clover and turnips. 
In this way we can get good tillage 
or cover cron and a corn crop thrown in. 
2. We must economize on hay—there¬ 
fore we want a cornstalk that will come 
nearest to hay as a forage. The stalks 
of this flint are slender, and our horses 
eat practically the whole thing without 
cutting. At least half the stalks of 
the larger dents would be left uneaten. 
I feel quite sure that this flint does not 
require as much fertilizer for a bushel 
of grain as the larger varieties. By 
cutting enough of the Crimson clover 
for hay and plowing the rest under we 
can with light expense for fertilizer keep 
up the corn yield. We hope we can se¬ 
lect and develop a variety of flint that 
will carry two ears on a short stalk and 
suit the needs of a fruit grower. An¬ 
other thing we are after is a! shorter 
growing season so that we can, if acci¬ 
dent should compel it, plant as late as 
June 15 and get some corn. I am afraid 
that many farmers who saw this flint 
growing for the first time would be¬ 
come disgusted with it. It surely does 
look puny up to the time the ear forms, 
but such doubting Thomases should re¬ 
member that Napoleon and Admiral Nel¬ 
son were pretty small stalks of humanity. 
Another thing I have, noticed is that 
frequently a new variety of corn is not 
at its best during the first season in a 
new location. If we stay by it and keep 
selecting the best it will improve. 
Advertising. —I tried the experiment 
of advertising apples in the local paper 
in our county town. The results are 
astonishing. We had a flood of orders 
which swept all our surplus apples out of 
the cellar. This convinces me that in 
every town there are families that would 
gladly buy a Winter’s supply of produce 
from a farmer if the proposition was put 
at them in a business-like way. The 
sale of our apples has led to other busi¬ 
ness. People have ordered potatoes 
until we have barely enough left for our 
own use, and pumpkins, yellow turnips 
and cabbage arc going. A trade which 
I did not think of has also been devel¬ 
oped—that is, cabbage for chicken feed¬ 
ing. It seems that hundreds of people 
in town keep hens, and are great be¬ 
lievers in green food. We offer cabbage 
with the roots on all ready to hang up 
on a string, and found a good sale for 
it at a good price. The fact is no one 
knows what the home market will take 
until he tries hard. “There’s no place 
like home !” h. w. c. 
View of Mr. I. Newton Swift's Stock Farm at Ypsilanti, Michigan. 
Water in Your Country Home 
Running Water for Your Stock 
You may have all the conveniences of the best city water supply in your 
country home. You may have a supply of fresh running water for your 
stock. You may have an abundant supply of water delivered any¬ 
where— to bathroom, kitchen, laundry, barn, lawn or garden. The best 
and most efficient water supply, together with absolute fire protection, 
will be yours if you install the 
Kewanee System of Water Supply 
The Kewanee System does away with the old- 
fashioned elevated tank, which is unsightly and 
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and on account of its location, cannot give the 
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With the Kewanee System, the storage tank is 
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Mr. I. Newton Swift writes: A few years ago I had your Kewanee System installed on 
my farm of 240 acres. It supplies 75 cows and young stock, a dozen horses, 6 0 hogs, and 500 
chickens. It affords fire protection for all the buildings, with an average water pressure of 
40 to 50 pounds. It gives me pleasure to recommend this system, because it is boimd to give 
complete satisfaction. (Cut above shows a view of Mr. Swift's farm.) 
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73 I)epot8t.,NewLexInirton,0. 
ICC Rfinif Now—Today 
[Its IJUUIV HANTUno. INC. 1902 
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iTHE A. W. STRAUB CO., 3737-39-41 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, Pa.a 
