678 
■3? HE RURAb HEW-YORKER 
September 21. 
Hope Farm Notes 
Winter Work. —Now that Fall is 
coming on country people naturally be¬ 
gin to plan for the Winter. It is a dull, 
hard season for many. I have been 
through it, and know what it means to 
Winter on a lonely farm without society 
and without funds to buy books or pay 
bills. To get right into the heart of the 
subject, I have found the hardest thing 
about country Winters is the inability 
to turn labor into cash. If some one 
could organize a plan under which 
farmers, and especially young people, 
could have some way of earning money 
during Winter the country life problem 
would be half settled. No use “uplift¬ 
ing” people with beautiful essays or 
tine theories—what country people want 
is the chance to earn cash in Winter. 
If industries could be organized so that 
cash labor could be provided for the 
farm home this problem of keeping the 
children at home would be half worked 
out. The ability to earn cash is the key 
to the situation. As society is now 
organized cash and the right to spend 
it is the foundation of reform. Of 
course many farmers will say—keep a 
dairy or keep hens, or pick up some of 
the many forms of Winter farming. 
Such things require capital, and are out 
of reach of the means or capacity of 
the people we have in mind. Everyone 
who honestly studies the big problem of 
“uplifting” country people becomes con¬ 
vinced that the ability to earn and 
handle cash is the essential thing. This 
feeling is worldwide. The United 
States Consul at Moscow, Russia, tells 
how the Russian peasants attempt little 
home industries in order to earn cash. 
Before 1861, when the Russian serfs 
were emancipated, they were largely the 
manufacturers of the country. They 
worked for their masters and produced 
most of the clothing, implements, lace 
work. etc. After emancipation most 
of these industries died out. The free 
peasants had no capital or market. The 
noblemen or masters had directed and 
managed their labor—taking more than 
the “65-cent-dollar” ana the untrained 
and unorganized peasants could not 
carry on the business. Some of the ef¬ 
forts made by these poor people to earn 
even a little cash were and are pitiful. 
Here is a picture of native cottage 
life: 
And what are the surroundings of these 
patient workers? An izba (cabin), six by 
seven yards, with small windows: heat is 
by far too expensive during the long cold 
Winter; benches around a clumsy stove. In 
such a hut often live 10 or 12 people, who 
are talking, scolding, pushing each other. 
No possibility for work. Only in tbe even¬ 
ing, when the husbands and babies are 
asleep, the younger women, with little girls 
of six and seven, gather around a table in 
the corner with a small kerosene lamp in 
tbe middle and start on their beloved work. 
Until two or three o'clock the company is 
steadily working, and only after the moujiks 
have left the izba for early duties do the 
women hurriedly pack their frames in some 
safe corner, and throw themselves on the 
benches for a few hours' rest. Yet under 
such conditions most artistic work is pro¬ 
duced. 
I was brought up on a farm where 
there were Winter industries. We 
pegged shoes, braided straw hats and 
husk mats, made clothes and wooden- 
ware. This work was well paid for. 
I saw little of the cash which my 
fingers earned. It was mostly sent out 
West to invest in farm mortgages in 
“boom towns.” That is one way in 
which the young West was capitalized. 
The East would now be far better off 
if that money had been invested at 
home. At any rate there was cash 
labor at home until machinery enabled 
a cheap factory laborer to do several 
times as much as we could do by hand 
in barn, or shed. The development of 
the factory system wiped out the cash 
farm labor in New England and in a 
way left small farmers something of 
the same industrial legacy which fell to 
the Russian peasants. A revival of 
these old farm industries would do 
more to “uplift” farming than millions 
of money spent in our present forms 
of education. 
Fifty years ago I was not much of 
a laborer, but on our farm the Winters 
were spent making shoes, hats, coats, 
mats and chairs. This Summer I have 
been interested in seeing who is now 
making these articles. I find the work 
largely done by foreigners. Many of 
them live in the poorest and crudest 
way and send the money they earn to 
Europe. Most of them are cut down 
to the smallest possible wage. For 
instance, in cloth making, it appears that 
even these foreigners are forced to com¬ 
pete with the labor of children. In 
some of the Southern mills little things 
not much larger than our redheads are 
put at the looms. They are denied sun¬ 
shine and play and childhood in order 
that cloth may be made cheaply and 
thus cut down the wages of the North¬ 
ern operatives! That is but one illus¬ 
tration of what has happened since the 
little farm industries were taken away 
and consolidated in factor towns. Of 
course 1 tind people who say that all 
this was necessary as otherwise the peo¬ 
ple could not have been clothed or shod. 
1 do not believe it when 1 see the thou¬ 
sands of idle people and view the dull 
Winter life on many of our farms. 
These idle hands could easily supply the 
world’s needs under the old system of 
farm workshops. Under our present 
system a great army of useless middle¬ 
men and handlers has sprung up. I do 
not mean useful middlemen, for there 
are such. These useless middlemen get 
their share of the dollar so that the 
farmer takes the short end of it. When 
he seeks a dollar's worth he gets on the 
average 35 cents. When he buys a dol¬ 
lar’s worth he pays about $1.65 and on 
top of that usually has part of the 
year as idle time. It is this system of 
distribution of farm products and of 
cash labor which is at the bottom of 
our agricultural troubles. Put some 
form of cash labor into the farm home 
during the Winter and you are then 
ready for any reasonable reform. It 
is a clear case of building morals upon 
clean money. I have no definite sug¬ 
gestion to make about Winter work. 
1 think the development of parcels post 
will help somewhat—that is, those who 
have the capital and skill to develop a 
mail business. What we need most of 
all is a return to some plan of farm 
industries under which some of the 
things now made in factories can be 
made on the farms, and thus cut out 
the dull and idle season. 
Farm Food. —For the past three weeks 
we have been feeding 18 people at Hope 
Farm. This includes a few visitors. 
Some of the women who think there 
is no such family would be convinced 
if they could bake bread for our folks 
for a month. With such a collection of 
hungry mouths a good garden becomes 
a necessity. Think of feeding such a 
flock in town or city, where all the food 
must be bought. I have been interested 
in counting up our vegetables, fruit and 
milk for one day and figuring what it 
would have cost to buy them or feed 
my family at a middle-class restaurant 
in New York. Here is the table with 
actual prices figured 
I 
• 
Retail 
Restaurant 
Price 
Price 
3 doz. sweet corn.... 
.GO 
$3.60 
l'wo pecks Lima beans 
.80 
1.80 
Y> basket potatoes... 
.30 
.60 
% basket tomatoes.. 
.30 
i.oo 
Peppers . 
.20 
.50 
Lettuce, cucumbers 
and turnips. 
.40 
1.00 
2 trays peaches. 
.70 
1.80 
V-i peck apples. 
.25 
1.00 
15 quarts milk. 
1.20 
3.00 
$4.75 
$14.30 
Had we taken this big 
family to the 
restaurant where I 
eat in 
the city and 
all had eaten what they did at home the 
check would have been $14.30—unless 
they gave a discount to amateur phil¬ 
anthropists or heads of big families. 
Of course we would not have eaten all 
this food at a restaurant, but I am 
showing the possibilities of a farmer’s 
table. The Lima beans took the place 
of meat for our supper—with bread, 
butter and pot cheese. There was also 
a salad for those who like it, and, of 
course, fruit. As for the milk, it was 
consumed during the day as liquid or 
cheese. This is not remarkable with 
five small children and milk used with 
most vegetables. Such milk would cost 
us eight cents a quart if we bought it, 
so I charge it at that price. The res¬ 
taurant price is figured at what they 
charge me for individual portions of 
food. It will be seen that after con¬ 
suming this load of “garden produce” 
our folks have little room for meat or 
extras. They are all well and hearty 
and you would have trouble in finding a 
family of equal size and ages with 
smaller doctor’s bills. Great is the 
farm garden. What a shame it is to 
see people with abundant good land 
content with potatoes and turnips, with 
a few tomatoes now and then. 
I would have the best the farm af¬ 
fords used right at home. I preach that 
doctrine, but it startles me sometimes to 
see our folks take me right at the word. 
When I see them pouring thick cream 
into Lima beans and other vegetables 
my mind goes back over 40 years. They 
had cream on the old farm, but if I 
had used it as my children do I am 
sure the old gentleman who brought me 
up would have taken me out behind the 
barn with a switch. Those were the 
happy days when the boy was advised 
to eat all the fat meat so he would 
not need cod liver oil. He had the 
crusts so his teeth would grow, and 
drank skim-milk because “cream makes 
folks lazy.” My children will not be¬ 
lieve in such doctrine. When they have 
to pay for the cream themselves—as 
they will later on—they may think 
otherwise—but why should not the 
home come first in distributing what the 
farm produces? 
Farm Notes. —We had a little trouble 
with brown rot on the Elberta peaches— 
but no serious loss. The Carmans and 
Belle of Georgia were free. I had sup¬ 
posed the Elberta better able to stand 
up against this rot then most other 
varieties. The new peach, J. H. Hale, 
ought to stand about anything in the 
way of disease, insect or rough hand¬ 
ling, for it seems about as firm as a 
potato. Our crop has proved very 
satisfactory thus far. We have the 
varieties to give us nearly unbroken 
succession from late July until hard 
frost in October. The limits of the 
span are Alexander and Sal way, with 
some 10 varieties in between. Crosby 
is a peach not largely grown now. yet we 
find it a good one. The appearance is 
against it, for it cannot be called a 
handsome peach. Yet it has high flavor 
and is, I believe, the best canning peach 
of all. It comes out of the cans like 
liquid gold—rich and sweet. The 
Crosby will grow under hard conditions 
—it is a good “fence corner” peach, and 
one of the hardiest varietie, we have. 
I could not advise it for the regular 
market, but a few trees are very desira¬ 
ble. Globe is another variety often ad¬ 
vised by peach growers. With us it 
gives a few large and fine peaches— 
which are very subject to rot. I would 
never plant another Globe, though some 
pronounce it a great money maker. I 
am watching with great interest where 
the rj-e and barley were seeded to¬ 
gether. In habit of growth the young 
plants are quite distinct. What I hope 
the barley will do is make growth 
enough by late October to enable us to 
cut it for hay. Then 1 would like to 
have the rye come on and cover the 
ground for Fall and Winter. It looks 
now as if this would work out. The 
best of the Soy beans were a little over 
two feet high by September 7. They 
are still growing and have perhaps six 
weeks yet to grow. They have not 
done all I hoped for. Half the seed 
was inoculated with one of the com¬ 
mercial bacteria, but we cannot see any 
superiority as a result. Neither lot car¬ 
ries the nodules on their roots. The 
Soy bean seems to grow better in cool 
weather than the cow pea does. This 
Fall is about the best I have known for 
cover crops. The cornfields are green 
with rye, clover, turnips and vetch and 
there has been so much moisture that 
the corn has not suffered. 
Here is a question that will hit many 
farmers this Fall; “I- there a way to 
stack corn fodder so that it will not 
mould and heat? I never found any, 
but some methods are better than 
others. First the corji fodder should 
be well cured and not stacked while 
green or wet. We cut in small shocks 
and after husking tie in small bundles. 
Stack while the fodder is dry. An 
ordinary solid stack like that used for 
wheat or rye will nearly always heat 
in our climate. We get better results 
by building a long “horse” something 
like a big saw horse. There is a pole 
at the top with stout legs to the ground 
to form a triangle. Slats or light poles 
are fastened to these legs so that you 
have a frame somewhat like a three- 
cornered chicken coop. Stand the corn 
bundles up against this, several bundles 
deep and fasten the tops. It will shed 
most of the rain and the air circulating 
inside will dry out underneath. This 
is the best thing we have found. 
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