1909. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
29 
Hope Farm Notes 
‘'School Teachers.” —Among the 
notes of comments regarding “Nell Bev¬ 
erly, Farmer,” is the following: 
I have finished “Nell Beverly,” and liked 
it very much. The greatest trouble with 
it was that it was inclined to make me 
cry in places, and that is not good for 
the eyes. Had I been writing this story 
I would not have allowed Jackson to act 
as he did. I would have made “that great 
love" of his so strong that he would have 
taken Nell away from that plow, tucked 
her under his arm and gone looking for 
the minister right away. Of course, that 
would have spoiled the story along the 
line it is written, but I certainly should 
have done it. I think that the moral of 
the story, “Keep hard cider out of the 
cellar." is a good one, and no doubt this 
story will bring the thing home to a good 
many farmers as it has never looked to 
them before. j. grant morse. 
I do not know how much experience 
Mr. Morse has had with New England 
schoolmarms. My mother was a 
teacher, my sisters are teachers and I 
married another. You might, therefore, 
call me an authority on the subject. The 
last thing I should think of doing would 
be to try to make one of them leave 
what she had decided was her duty. 
Mr. Cosgrove puts it well in a few 
words on page 30. Nell Beverly saw 
the situation and the future. Jackson’s 
mother did not want him to marry her. 
She could not bring herself to let him 
support and care for the younger chil¬ 
dren. While he thought he was willing 
to do it, there is nothing so bitter for 
any woman as the feeling that her fam¬ 
ily must be dependent upon her hus¬ 
band. She had put her hand to the 
plow, and as for some one coming to 
“tuck her under his arm” and carry her 
from it—whoever thinks that could have 
been done has not sized up the stub¬ 
born righteous obstinacy of the true 
New England character. This concen¬ 
trated bulldog tendency seems hard and 
unlovable to many, but it is true to 
nature, and has meant much in the de¬ 
velopment of this country. Mrs. Howe, 
who planned the story, thought these 
scenes out carefully while herself guid¬ 
ing the plow. You remember that when 
the children begged Nell to stop plow¬ 
ing and hire a man to do it, she said her 
muscle had been well developed by “boy 
shaking.” I wouldn’t mind if we had 
more of that in our schools now! You 
will notice that Nell Beverly did not 
raise ginseng, or $10,000 cows or $25 
hens or some of these remarkable things 
that many writers tell us about. Her 
work was done by plain, straight farm¬ 
ing without any frills. 
“Stand and Deliver!”— Christmas 
night is no time for a highwayman to 
plv his trade, yet I was held up. It was 
in the evening and I was nearly alone 
in the house—most of our folks having 
gone to the old house to fix the Christ¬ 
mas tree. I heard a slight noise and 
turned suddenly to find myself looking 
straight down the barrel of a gun— 
poked up to within two feet of my face. 
Glancing along the barrel I met the 
gaze of another eye and a finger on the 
trigger. I do not know how others feel 
when they look into a gun barrel which 
they know is loaded, but the chances are 
that they put in a year’s thinking in less 
than five ticks of the clock. I knew that 
eye well enough to realize that the trig¬ 
ger would be pulled, and I knew that 
the bullet was aimed straight between 
my eyes—yet I never once thought of 
dodging or throwing up my hands! 
Now don’t put the Hope Farm man 
down as some great heroic character— 
who dies but never surrenders. He knew 
there was a string tied to that -bullet. 
The highwayman was the baby. He had 
a toy airgun about a foot long. The 
bullet was a piece of cork fastened to 
a string. The little chap was holding 
me up to compel me to carry him ' 
through the snow to the Christmas tree. 
I stand much from this little tyrant. 
There is a string tied to every one of 
his bullets. The genuine hold-up of the 
season came later. Uncle -Ed and 
Charlie sent us three boxes of oranges 
and grape fruit from Florida. They 
came in fair condition, and our folks 
began feasting on them—though the 
baby and I prefer baked apples. When 
T came _ to pay freight and expressage 
they pointed another kind of a gun at 
me. I he charge was $2.70! There was 
no string to that bullet—there is noth- 
raising 
express gun at you. It wouldn’t seem 
so bad if you did not have to feel that 
your good old Uncle Sam is a sort of 
partner in the hold-up by refusing to 
give us a fair parcels post. 
Grinding Corn. —Everywhere in the 
East I find this corn question 
corns on the pocket nerve: 
Will you give me more light on the 
corn question? One of our ablest farmers 
asked me the other day, when I told him 
I had some corn ground up for our horses 
and hogs, what I added to the value of 
the corn by paying seven cents per bushel 
for grinding it, and also hauling it to 
mill. I notice the animals waste it a 
good deal when fed on the ear. We raised 
about 20 acres this year, and expect to 
raise more and more grain instead of 
buying at the present high prices. 
Connecticut. m. l. c. 
We grind most of our corn, because I 
am satisfied that our old horses get more 
out of it when ground, and because we 
can mix it better with other grain. For 
the young horses some ear corn will 
pay. The colts can grind it properly, and 
gnawing it from the cob helps keep down 
lampas or growth at top of the mouth. 
Most of our horses are old. and their 
teeth are not good- We grind for them, 
but I would not pay seven cents a bushel 
for grinding and haul to mill. One 
Winter we soaked the shelled corn over 
night and found it 
an excellent plan 
for both horses and hogs. Now we use 
a sweep grinder and use the idle horses 
to crush grain alone, or corn and cob. 
Just now oats are cheaper than corn and 
we mix the two grains half and half, 
and crush into a coarse meal. I am 
satisfied that in this way we save 15 
per cent of the value of the corn over 
feeding on the ear. On some farms it 
might pay to stand this loss rather than 
put the labor into grinding or shelling. 
Here Winter is the dull season, and such 
saving will pay well. We usually find a 
heavy loss in feeding ear corn to hogs. 
Once in Wisconsin at an institute a 
college man advocated grinding- corn 
for hogs. He claimed among other 
things that it took the hog longer to get 
off the ear corn. Old Theodore Louis 
wanted to know what a hog’s time teas 
worth! We find it worth a good deal 
when he doesn’t grow as he ought to. 
We get more pork on our hogs when 
we grind tht grain and make a thick- 
slop. By all means raise more corn, and 
if you take my advice you will get a 
feed mill and grind at home. 
s me 
ing to do but 
if you have ; 
dig into your pocketbook, 
my, when they point the 
“Trotting Blood.”— This man hit 
in something of a sore spot: 
I have noticed more than once that the 
Hope Farm man speaks of a former en¬ 
thusiasm of his for using brood mares, 
of good trotting blood, on the farm, and 
raising colts from them, but always speaks 
as though his enthusiasm had waned, be¬ 
cause of the high spirit of such critters. 
Now, I do not pretend to lie an expert 
on horse matters, but it always makes 
me think of a week I spent four or five 
Summers ago with a farmer in New Hamp¬ 
shire. He was broken in health, thin 
from overwork, but told that, some years 
before, he had been in the habit of mow¬ 
ing hay for others at ,?l per acre, all day, 
and then, changing his team, of mowing 
nearly all night, moonlight nights, anil 
at night, he always hitched his trot- 
ting-bred mare on the cutter-bar side, 
since she was so quiet and seemed to know 
he could not see so well at night and 
would invariably stop when the knives ap¬ 
proached a stone, though by daylight she 
would pay no attention to it. The mare 
was. I think. 22 years old when I was 
there, and in 11 years he had had 10 colts 
from her: worked one colt all the time— 
not the same one—and considered it was 
what every farmer should do. as well-bred 
trotting stock sold for a good price. This 
mare, and the colt he was then raising, 
were certainly gentle enough and tractable. 
j. l. p. 
You are correct in saying that my 
enthusiasm for trotting blood has waned- 
I am no sport and admit it frankly. 
Our old mare, “Nellie.” has given us 
two colts. Very foolishly, as I now 
think, I permitted this high-strung nerv¬ 
ous animal to be mated with small 
nervous trotters. As a result we have 
“Brownie,” a little delicate sorrel, kind 
and true, and with fair speed, but un¬ 
dersized. “Beauty” is larger, full of 
nerve and speed, but worthless for prac¬ 
tical use on account of her disposition 
and foolish terror at automobiles. We 
sold her finally to a man who simply 
wanted a bunch of speed and nerve. He 
has it. but on a fair calculation I think 
this colt cost me $100 more than she 
brought. I think this colt-raising busi¬ 
ness depends upon both the mare and 
the man. If the mare is of a kindly 
disposition and has horse sense I think 
a dash of trotting blood would be an 
advantage. Not any in the sire—for me. 
T would prefer a larger and quieter 
breed. As for the man who raises the 
colt he is largely responsible for its 
actions. T frankly admit that T am not 
a norseman, and that I do not care much 
for a horse! I have no doubt the colts 
know it. My figures show that in this 
country a farmer must have a verv fine 
colt, well broken, in order to get 
profit out of him at four years old. 
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FENCE 
Made of High Carbon Double Strength 
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INDRUF.OID 
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