1911 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
017 
AN OX TROTTER. 
The recent articles in The R. N. Y. re¬ 
garding the use of oxen on the farm are 
suggestive. I submit view from life, 
Fig. 175, which is a street scene in my 
own town. This worthy man is owner 
of 80 acres of excellent land, as yet 
largely uncleared, and is equipped ac¬ 
cording to his means and needs. “Old 
Charley” is doing faithful service as 
roadster, for logging, plowing, cultivat¬ 
ing and any work usually assigned to 
horses. This man has the right mettle, 
and later, when conditions warrant, will 
be seen leading home a pair of weanling 
Colts. J. L. SHIGLEY. 
Osceola Co., Mich. 
R. N.-Y.—Better an ox paid for than 
an automobile “on tick.” 
NOTES ON THE BERMUDA ISLANDS. 
As you wished to hear what I thought of 
these islands, I send a few notes. As a 
farming country they will never be a great 
success. Of the little more than 12,000 
acres, not over 1,000 are what can be called 
first-class farming land, another 1,000 fair, 
and another 1,000 can be made profitable 
only in very favorable seasons. The other 
9,000 acres have so little soil that cultiva¬ 
tion can never be made to pay. The sur¬ 
face is very undulating and everywhere 
covered, except where cultivated, or bare 
rocks, with cedar or juniper trees, so that 
at a distance it looks as though it was 
one solid forest, interspersed with houses. 
What land is cultivated lies in small 
patches in the valleys or on the hillsides, 
and in size from a mere garden spot to not 
to exceed, except in few instances, one acre. 
The soil consists of disintegrated coral 
rock mixed with humus of decayed vegeta¬ 
tion, and is entirely lacking in anything of 
a clayey nature, so that when rain falls it 
settles at once down, through soil and rock, 
so that though the average rainfall is over 
five feet yearly, crops are very apt to suf¬ 
fer for moisture. The crops grown are po¬ 
tatoes, onions, lettuce, celery, carrots, pars¬ 
ley and lilies in extent as named, but as 
there is no frost here some crop is kept 
growing on the land all the time. Usually 
four crops are taken each year and of 
course such intensive cropping requires 
heavy manuring, and much use is made of 
chemicals, but still the most difficult thing 
to maintain is a sufficient quantity of 
humus, and this is supplied by stable 
manure from the great number of horses 
that are kept for use by the livery stables, 
as an immense number of horses are kept 
here for livery purposes, and from seaweed, 
of which great quantities are driven on 
shore by the autumnal gales. Of course 
all crops are grown for the New York mar¬ 
ket, and the profit depends upon prices 
there, and so have to be ready for use 
when in most demand. Just now the lettuce 
and parsley crops are about finished and 
carrots are coming in plenty, and growers 
report unsatisfactory prices. Onions and 
potatoes are now coming and are selling 
well, potatoes at $5 per barrel and onions 
from $1.50 to $2 per 50-pound box. Lilies 
are now troubled with a blight, so are not 
grown very largely. Potatoes, onions and 
in fact all crops grown are not allowed to 
ripen but are gathered as soon as largo 
enough to use ; only frhm this fact it would 
not be possible to get so many crops each 
year from same land. 
Oranges and lemons, once largely grown, 
have been entirely abandoned on' account 
of the ravages of a fly and the scale, but 
the government is now making great efforts 
to overcome these pests. The only live 
stock aside from the horses, and they are 
all imported, are an occasional cow, a good 
many goats, and a very few chickens. I 
have seen four turkeys and three hogs. The 
labor on the land here is mostly done by 
the colored people, and by hand ; in fact I 
have seen only 10 or 12 plows on the is¬ 
land, and these were all for one horse. 
The plots are so small and of all shapes, 
some not more than a rod wide and 10 to 
20 rods long more or less and of all shapes 
as may be, so horse power is out of the 
question. The implements are very rude, 
mostly hoes weighing from three to five or 
six pounds, and are used to chop up the 
soil, which leaves the weeds on top of the 
ground to dry up and be lost, while the sen¬ 
sible way would be to spade them into the 
soil to add to the humus. All crops are 
planted in beds, the rows from 15 to 20 
inches apart, about five rows and then a 
space left. Potatoes are grown in the same 
way, with rows 24 inches apart and plants 
10 inches in row, and instead of level cul¬ 
ture they are hilled just as high as can lie 
done at this distance between rows. The 
onions are sown thick and when about as 
large as peas are pulled and dried and 
then planted about four inches apart in 
rows 15 to 18 inches asunder. 
Nearly everything on which the people 
live is brought here from the States. The 
money crop here is the flood of visitors, and 
were it not for these the people would find 
it a hard proposition to live. In 1908 
there were a little over 19,000 people on 
the islands, of which over two-thirds were 
colored; in fact the colored people here do 
nearly all the labor on the land and very 
much in the towns. It is not an uncommon 
sight to see a half-dozen working in a 
gang in a plot of onions or potatoes of an 
acre or less. All the stages are driven by 
colored men. the same with carriages, anil 
all trades are followed by them. They 
largely own their own homes and seem 
prosperous and happy. They seem quite dif¬ 
ferent from the colored people of the 
United States, and instead of living in 
localities by themselves are mixed all 
through the country and villages among 
the whites. Still I notice they have their 
separate schools and churches, and do not 
associate with the whites. I am told that 
the only intermarriages between white and 
colored is an occasional case where an 
English soldier marries a colored wife. 
As a Health and Pleasure Resort.— 
As such Bermuda is a success, and were it 
not for the great drawback of the ocean 
trip Florida would not be in it at all. As 
it is now every steamer here is crowded 
and the visitors have difficulty in finding 
good quarters. Not only in the villages 
but all over the island a large proportion 
of the houses are used as boarding houses, 
and are no sooner emptied of one lot than 
filled by another, and they charge from .$10 
to as high as $30 and $40 per week for 
board. But the sensible way for a family 
is to take rooms with conveniences for 
light housekeeping, get their own break¬ 
fast and supper and take dinner wherever 
they happen to be. In this way they can 
have the quiet of home and be out of the 
noisy crowd. The islands are mostly con¬ 
nected with bridges and very comfortable 
stages run from each end to Hamilton 
twice daily, and the cheapest thing here is 
the stage fares, which are only two cents 
per mile. One can go out on the morning 
stage from Hamilton, go 'to St. George at 
one end or to Somerset at the other and 
spend four and a half hours sightseeing 
and come back on the return, or he can stop 
off at any point, spend the day, coming 
back at evening, and as the islands are 
very narrow in this way can be seen all the 
very pleasant bays and coves and beauty 
spots at ruuch better advantage than to 
drive and keep out of the crowds. There 
are also boats running every half hour to 
various points and the fare in these is 
also very reasonable. The lowest tempera¬ 
ture this Winter was 49 degrees and the 
highest in Summer is about 90 degrees, 
but the average is 57 degrees for January, 
79 degrees for July, but as the wind is al¬ 
ways from the water from whichever way 
it blows, it is always cool. Very few 
houses have any arrangement for heating 
and a large share of the cooking is done on 
oil or gasoline stoves. These islands are 
simply the top of coral mountains, which 
when formed were heaved up out of the 
sea, and as the rock is very porous, the 
only water that can be obtained in wells is 
brackish and quite apt to cause stomach 
trouble. The drinking water is caught 
from the roofs of the buildings or from 
water sheds made on purpose, and kept 
in cisterns. As the roofs are made of 
slabs of the rock and very little fuel is 
burned and no doves or pigeons kept the 
water is exceedingly pure and good. There 
are over 100 miles of roads on the islands 
and all are in first-class condition. They 
are made of the rock, which breaks down 
and cements on the surface, and they are 
as smooth as a floor, have gutters at the 
sides and in many places are cut through 
the solid rock down from a few feet to as 
much as 20 to 30 feet, about 18 feet wide, 
with the sides perpendicular, and if it were 
to rain a week the soil would take the 
water as fast as it came and in an hour the 
road would be dry and in fine condition. 
The houses are made inside partitions and 
all of blocks of the rock, cut about 24 
inches long, 10 inches wide and six to eight 
thick, and these laid up with mortar made 
of the burned rock, mostly one story and 
roofed with slabs of the same rock, cut 
from one to two inches thick, and the whole 
structure, roof and all, coated with cement, 
so the buildings are white and require no 
paint after once finished. All houses, those 
of the poorest as well as the rich, are made 
of the same material, and I do not think 
there are 20 wooden houses in the entire 
group of Islands. What Bermuda needs is 
a good trolley road from one end to the 
other and an effort is now being made to 
secure it, but strong opposition is made 
by two classes, the old conservatives and 
the livery and coach owners, and it would 
be a good tiling if a subway could be con¬ 
structed from New York. 
J. s. WOODWARD. 
AN AUTOMOBILE IN HIDE. Fig. 175.. 
