THE OLD-TIME FARM BOY. 
Not a $25,000 Beauty. 
What would the boys of to-day think of the way 
the country boys lived 60 and 70 years ago, or even 
40 years ago, when the writer was a boy? At the 
age of six we boys (I speak more especially about 
boys, as there were no girls in our family) began to 
have our regular chores to do. At seven we began 
to milk, and at the age of 10 we were 
expected to be out at four in the morn¬ 
ing and do our share of the milking, 
feed the pigs and calves, eat our break¬ 
fast and away to the field (no compul¬ 
sory educational laws in those days) 
driving oxen to plow, or harrowing with 
an old 40-tooth drag; hoeing corn, for 
it must be hoed at least three times. 
We boys at 10 were expected to hoe a 
hill and skip a hill to keep up with the 
men; fetch the water for the men to 
drink, and ride the old mare to culti¬ 
vate, for the man who held the cultiva¬ 
tor must have a boy to ride the horse, 
but he must not let her step on a hill 
of corn, for if he did, the whole field 
was thought to have gone to ruin. I 
wonder what the farmers of those days 
would have thought to see the farmers 
of to-day gliding through the cornfield 
with a two-horse, double-row cultivator 
doing the work of six men. 
The boys of those days had to work. 
The majority of farmers seemed to 
think that all a boy was created for was 
what work they could get out of him; 
that a boy ever became tired was some¬ 
thing against the laws of nature; if he 
lagged, he was lazy. The school days 
of the farmer boys of those times were 
from about December first to April first, 
but mind you, we were expected to go 
to the barn evenings and husk corn un¬ 
til the husking was all done. After 
that was done, then for the apples, for 
about 75 to 100 bushels must be pared, 
quartered and cored, and strung on 
strings with the rib of an old umbrella 
for a needle, and hung up behind the 
kitchen stove to dry. This work was 
all done evenings. About two or three 
bushels were considered to be a fair 
evening’s work. Oh, yes, we used to 
have corn huskings and apple parings. 
It broke the monotony, and we young¬ 
sters had lots of fun, but I guess the 
boys of to-day would think it was 
father tame sport, for now the hotels 
and saloons have more attractions. The 
average farmer’s boy of the twentieth 
century has more money spent on him 
in one year than the boy of 50 years ago 
had in his entire boyhood days. There 
was not even a $1,000 boy in those days. 
At the ages of nine and 10 respective¬ 
ly my brother and I rode our old bob¬ 
tailed mare, “Slippery Jane,” to school. 
neighbor’s, and who rode to and from school with us. 
The neighbor was a relative of the family, and he 
told us that our people had all gone away early in 
the day, as a near relative of the family had died, and 
that we must hurry home and do up the chores, which 
consisted of about 40 head of cattle to care for, also 
horses, hogs, hens and various other things. Our 
neighbor relative told us to hurry home, do up the 
chores, eat our supper, be careful of fire, and get to 
NO DOG NEEDED ON THIS FARM. Fig. 46G. 
A PRIZE CANADIAN CLYDESDALE. Fig. 467. See' Page »:;0. 
a distance of two miles. What would the boys of 
this age think to see two such youngsters astride of 
one horse? But as we became a little older we drove 
her hitched to father’s old pung. In connection with 
this I never shall forget an incident, although it was 
a very common occurrence for boys of those days to 
be left alone and with the care of the premises. My 
brother was 10 and I 11 years old. We came from 
school one very cold, stormy night in February. We 
stopped on our way to leave a girl who lived at a 
bed early, and get up early next morning, do up the 
chores, give our cowhide boots a fresh coat of grease 
and make ready to go to the funeral of the relative 
where our people had gone the day before. Well, 
we trudged home as fast as we could hurry the old 
mare, the snow was falling fast, and a stiff wind' 
was coming up in the west. Our home was a mile 
from the main highway, and over a mile from the 
nearest neighbor, and in the very shadow of the 
heavy timber. We arrived home to find it deserted 
except for our old shepherd dog, Jim, and the house 
as cold as an iceberg. You can bet we were not 
very long in doing up those chores and getting our¬ 
selves tucked away in bed. It seems that I can hear 
now the wind howl around that old-fashioned Dutch 
house up there on the hill that cold and stormy 
night. The next morning we were up bright and 
early to make ready for our journey, some five or six 
miles away. Our neighbor relative came and helped 
us some about chores, so we could get 
started as early as possible, as the 
funeral was to be quite early, for the 
body was to be shipped by railroad. At 
last we were off with old “Slippery Jane” 
hitched to the pung, but the high wind 
of the night before had piled the snow 
mountains high, and our passage was 
necessarily very slow. We tipped over 
no less than 16 times, and had the old 
mare so deeply in the snow that we 
were obliged to shovel her out as many 
times, but at last we reached our desti¬ 
nation. This is practically the life the 
farmer beys of our section lived away 
back in the sixties. Fig. 468 shows two 
characteristic boys of that period. 
F. D. SQUIERS. 
CITY MAN IN THE COUNTRY. 
High Price for Western Land. 
Your reply to the questions of the 
Ohio man, under heading “City Man in 
the Country,” page 797, is very inter¬ 
esting to me and no doubt will be to 
hundreds at this time. I wish to empha¬ 
size your remark that the desirable 
parts of the West are rapidly becoming 
high-priced, not because of rapid buying 
by real users, but from the buying and 
holding of speculators, who think they 
see in the future a swarm of buyers 
from the East as the fruits of flowery 
advertising. Especially is this the fact 
in southern California where, owing to 
persistent advertising, commissions and 
speculating profits, the ordinary small 
ranches in my opinion are far beyond 
profit-earning prices, even at the present 
high prices of produce. With the ex¬ 
ception of Los Angeles this whole terri¬ 
tory lacks the factory markets of the 
Eastern States, and very few towns get 
the benefit of the tourist trade without 
shipping and commission charges, which 
are high. Near these towns a couple of 
thousand dollars would purchase a very 
small piece of land. There is no fruit 
which gives you two crops per year, and 
very few vegetables more than one crop. 
Taking into consideration the cost of 
irrigation, the high price of land, the 
small fluctuating markets, high trans¬ 
portation and commission charges, and 
a very uncertain climate for growing 
crops, the person with small capital in 
the Eastern States should thoroughly 
post himself before leaving the eastern 
country at this time to try ranching here. L. c. s. 
California. 
A Typical New York Case. 
In reply to city man of Ohio and others, I will say 
they can succeed in such a section as this at least, 
and should they want to make trial I will take an 
honest, industrious man. The business is gardening. 
Summer boarders and poultry raising. I have a fine 
location here, best of markets, get best prices, as the 
trade is mainly with campers and the hotels. I am 
