88 
January 11, 
Hope Farm Notes 
The Snow. —On the morning before 
Christmas we woke to find the air one 
white whirl of snow, with a hard north 
wind blowing down the valley. It was 
the first “white Christmas” we have had 
in years. The older people could get 
on without it very well, but the chil¬ 
dren were eager to get out into the 
drifts. By noon the storm began to 
fade away, and by evening the stars 
were bright and the air clear. There 
could not be a more ideal Christmas 
Eve with the sparkling snow and the 
fresh frosty air. Old Bob played the 
part of reindeer and pulled us home, 
but he was more concerned over the 
cornstalks and grain in his manger than 
in the excitement of the redheads at the 
sound of his sleighbells. 
Christmas Day was bright and clear. 
We had the snow plow out and scraped 
paths, for it began to look like a long 
spell of snow blanketing. Christmas 
may come and go, but the family wash¬ 
ing goes on and there was a big one 
on hand, so after Christmas was dis¬ 
posed of it was tub instead of tree. 
Then Mother went to New York to 
hear “The Messiah” sung. When we 
came back at night you would have 
thought the yard was peopled with 
ghosts. It was only the “washing” for 
16 people spread on lines stretched 
across the lawn. Things looked well, 
but in the morning there was a pour- 
down of rain. Our line sleighing had 
turned to slush, with here and there a 
bare spot to take the joy out of the 
runners. It was said that this rain was 
worth $50,000 to New York City in 
melting snow that must otherwise be 
carted away, but Hope Farm could see 
no profit in it. All there was to it was 
to pin the clothes tighter to the lines 
and be hopeful that this soaking rain 
might run out a little dirt that the 
washboard had missed. And there was 
to be an entertainment at the church 
that night. A set of lantern slides 
showing scenes in the Holy Land were 
to be exhibited and the Hope Farm man 
was commissioned to read a lecture 
which came along with the slides. The 
rain kept up, growing colder toward 
night. Broker and Jennie hauled us 
through the slush to the church. The 
Hope Farm man is not much afraid of 
anything he can hear, but it is no dress 
parade to get up before a Sunday school 
and try to pronounce some of these 
Bible names. You take the names of 
those three gentlemen who went 
through the fiery furnace for example. 
It is no job for an amateur to pro¬ 
nounce them properly in a church. 
However, I found that the author of 
this lecture had a feeling for people 
like the Hope Farm man, and lie had 
left most of the hard ones out. It was 
quite easy to skip the few that remained. 
When we came out of the church we 
faced a cold blast, for the mercury was 
falling and the slush was rapidly turn¬ 
ing to ice. In the morning those 
clothes were frozen solid and some of 
them blown from the line and scattered 
about. I imagine that trying to pro¬ 
nounce Bible names is a very small 
thing compared with the job of gather¬ 
ing in frozen clothes and keeping rea¬ 
sonably good-natured over it. The grip 
of the frost holds the snow in place. 
New York City gained little through 
the rain, for it costs more to scrape and 
dig three inches of frozen snow than a 
foot of the soft material. 
Whenever snow comes we have many 
questions from people who want to 
know what value it has to the land. 
Snow is often called “poor man’s ma¬ 
nure.” Why? The popular notion is 
that snow contains considerable nitro¬ 
gen. Where could it come from? Only 
by washing the nitrogen or ammonia 
out of the air. Experiments show that 
both rain and snow together bring down 
in this way barely five pounds of nitro¬ 
gen per acre in a full year. There 
might be a little more than this near 
great cities, where gases from combus¬ 
tion pour into the air, but generally 
speaking a foot of snow remaining on 
an acre all Winter would not add any 
more plant food than half a ton of 
manure. Yet it is true that a snowy 
Winter does seem to help the grass and 
grain. I always expect the rye, the 
grass seeding and cover crops, to be 
better after a Winter when the snow 
lies deep on the fields. Now I think 
this is due largely to the protection or 
mulching which the snow affords. It is 
somewhat like the covering which we 
put on the strawberry plants. The snow 
prevents thaw and freeze which would 
pull the young grass and grain plants 
up and expose the roots. % I once lived 
THE RURAt NEW-YORKER 
in Michigan during a very open Winter, 
and farmers were greatly concerned 
about the wheat, since there was no 
snow to cover it. The soil would thaw 
during the day and freeze up at night, 
and the wheat plants were being slowly 
thrown out. Some of the farmers 
hauled out their straw and spread it 
over the grain fields and thus saved 
the crop. I think, therefore, that the 
value from heavy snow during the 
Winter comes from protecting the land. 
Children. —The following was writ¬ 
ten on Christmas Day and is I am sure, 
the thought which came up in many 
childless homes: 
I presume that you are spending the day 
with the “redheads.” This is one season 
of the year when I would be willing to take 
them off your hands, though wife thinks 
that I should be glad to return them by 
New Year’s. I am just beginning to get 
old enough to appreciate the fact that 
when a little older I shall be sorry for 
the lack of them in our own home. 
I would not be surprised if the wife 
is right about this, for in spite of all 
we may say about children they come 
close to a point at times when it would 
be easy to consider them a nuisance. 
When a man gets to middle years he 
usually, forms fixed habits of thought 
and of doing things—in fact it is easy 
for us all to become a little “cranky” 
over details. We do not usually realize 
this, but it is a fact, and children inter¬ 
fere sadly with life-long habits of doing 
things. The man who takes children 
is no longer free. He must give up 
many cherished habits, and learn to ac¬ 
quire a great patience which he can 
hardly hope to get hold of in any other 
way. We often speak of “raising” 
children. That is only one side of it, 
for in another way the children “raise” 
the man and woman. Anyone who at 
middle years, has tried to take children 
into their homes will easily understand 
why I am cautious about advising every¬ 
one to try the experiment. Yet as for 
the other side, I cannot do better right 
at this season than print this beautiful 
editorial from Collier’s. I have seen 
nothing better in its way: 
You who have children are the blessed 
ones; you who open sleepy eyes in the 
gray dawn of Christmas morning to see 
a small face round with excitement peer¬ 
ing through the bedroom door and hear 
from the next room treble shouts of 
‘‘Merry Christmas” and the scampering of 
little feet. You are the happv ones about 
whose Christmas tree the gifts are mostly 
toys. There are so many who have no 
children. So many homeless people in city 
boarding houses, in village cottages, in 
mines, in camps, in offices ; so many lonely 
women whom a cruel fate and a chaotic 
world have robbed of their heritage; so 
many barren in body or in spirit, to whom 
home is but a dwelling place and the 
future only a dream. You about whose 
skirts little hands are clinging are the 
ones to whom a Christmas really comes. 
When in the dusk of Christmas Day the 
curtains are drawn over the holly wreaths, 
and the fire throws a soft light among the 
yuletide evergreens, flickering on the shin¬ 
ing tree around which the gifts lie scat¬ 
tered, when a little head rests wearily 
against the father’s knee with the utter 
trust of childhood, and a soft, tired body 
snuggles up against the mother’s breast, 
then is life justified. The memory of a 
hard and lonely past may bring unnoticed 
tears, the fear of an uncertain future may 
sober the smile, but this moment at least 
is a perfect one. The world may roll on 
with its wars and wickedness and misery, 
kingdoms may go and governments may 
come, philosophies and religions may wax 
and wane, but to you at least is this life 
worth living, and to you is immortality 
assured. 
Results. —Several people wrote us 
about the figures given for the Light 
Brahmas and the hogs. These good 
farmers say they beat our hens and 
hogs all to pieces, and rather suggest 
that unless we can make a prize record 
we ought not to say a word. Of course 
I know that this plan of hiding the 
common records is popular, but I do not 
believe in it. Our Light Brahmas would 
never win a prize in an egg contest, but 
I will guarantee that they are superior 
to thousands of farm hens which are 
fondly supposed to be profitable. It 
does no harm to face the actual figures 
now and then. The world and farming 
would be better off if more people would 
give us the figures of failures as well 
as those of great success. At any rate 
we know that our Brahmas must move 
on and they move. Thousands of worse 
failures in feathers will be kept along in 
the belief that they are giving- a profit. 
As for the hogs we can beat that record 
another year; we know better what to 
do. I would like to get about three 
good sows of different breeds for our 
experiment. I would raise their litters 
as we did the Red pigs this year—in our 
small houses—and keep accurate records 
of what they eat and what they pro¬ 
duce. I want to buy these sows and 
will pay a fair price—no more. I do 
not care particularly for purebred stock, 
but I would like to have the pigs fairly 
represent three or more different breeds. 
I would like to find them reasonably 
near New York, so as to avoid heavy 
transportation charges. I will add the 
cost of the sow to the expense of feed¬ 
ing the family and in the Fall see how 
much pork they will" make. I am ready 
to talk to people who have such sows 
to sell. Remember I shall not buy high 
priced, pedigreed stock. I would pre¬ 
fer a strong, grade animal. H. w. c. 
Desert Lands Developing. 
Many of us, when we were children, 
read in books of travel or in romances 
something about the city of Bagdad. 
No one could think in those days that 
the region around Bagdad could ever 
supply the world with anything more 
substantial than dreams or impossible 
stories! Yet the impossible is in sight. 
A railroad has been run through- this 
Eastern country, conecting it with a port 
on the Mediterranean Sea, and Consul 
Jackson sends this prediction: 
This enterprise - at once opens lip to the 
markets of Europe and Egypt the great 
grain fields of northern Mesopotamia, and 
as the line penetrates farther east and 
southeast, other larger and richer parts of 
the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris 
rivers will be given an outlet for their 
products. At present a very small portion 
of the total area of these regions is being 
cultivated, for the sole reason that the cost 
of transport to the Mediterranean has been 
prohibitive. The fertility of the lands is 
unquestioned, the climate is most favorable, 
water for irrigation purposes is abundant, 
and it is now only a question of a short 
time until many millions of acres of the 
best soil in the world that have been lying 
idle for centuries will be put under a 
high state of cultivation. 
Centuries ago the then civilized world 
was fed from these deserts. The soil, 
lying idle, has not lost in fertility—it 
has gained. Now it is to come back into 
the labor of providing a part of the 
world’s bread. This is but a small part 
of the wonderful changes in industry 
which our children will see in the fu¬ 
ture. 
Wigwag: “I hear you have been buy¬ 
ing suburban property at Swamphurst. 
How deep is your lot?” Goodthing: 
“About two feet at high tide.”—Phila¬ 
delphia Record. 
A country school teacher was cashing 
her monthly check at the bank. The 
teller apologized for the filthy condition 
of the bills, saying: “I hope you’re not 
afraid of microbes.” “Not a bit of it,” 
the schoolmarm replied. “I’m sure no 
microbe could live on my salary.”—Lip- 
pincott’s. 
Mr. Fliram Jones had just returned 
from a personally conducted tour of 
Europe. “I suppose,” commented a 
friend, “that when you were in England 
you did as the English do and dropped 
your H’s.” “No,” moodily responded 
the returned traveller, “I didn’t. I did 
as the Americans do. I dropped my 
V’s and X’s.”—Lippincott’s. 
I 
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