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THE: RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Hope Farm Notes 
Taxes.—W hen I printed our tax bill 
1 really thought I had a grievance. As 
usual, whenever I get ready to growl 
about conditions I find that I am very 
well off comparatively. I always start 
up others who have far greater cause 
for complaint. “There are many worse 
off than you!” That is an old song I 
heard as a boy, and it is true. As for 
tax bills, I have received many letters 
and give here a few of the figures. Here 
are a few statements, from New Jersey: 
Dover, Ocean Co., total tax rate $ 1 . 98 ; 
Berkeley, $ 1 . 36 ; Westfield, Union Co., 
$. 1 . 95 ; Fanwood, $ 1 . 40 ; Lincoln, . 85 . In 
Union Co. I understand farm lands are 
assessed at from $50 to $300 per acre. 
In my own town the theory of assess¬ 
ment seems to be to put a somewhat low 
valuation on land but a high one on 
buildings and improvements. 
It is in New York State that farmers 
seem to be getting many blessings of tax¬ 
ation. For instance, what would you 
think of life in Hempstall with a school 
tax of $ 1.50 and town and county tax of 
$ 1 . 52 ? This means $ 3 . 02 , with farm 
lands assessed at $100 to $250 per acre! 
In the township of Verona, Oneida Co., 
the tax is $ 1,584 for State, county and 
town; for highway cash system . 474 , and 
for schools or a total of $ 2,987 on $ 100 . 
In Stroudsburg, Monroe Co., Pa., the 
total tax is $2 on the $100, and as my 
friend says: 
And if the farmer lias been fortunate 
enough to get a few hundred dollars ahead 
and has it invested in any way. shape or 
manner, we pay the State four mills or $4 
on the thousand yet. 
But here come a couple which are not 
only like “tacks” in the stockings but 
like ice cold feet thrown in: 
As you seem to think your tax rate ex¬ 
cessive and ask for comparison with other 
“taxes on farm property,” will send you 
mine for your comfort. I paid about $3.50 
per $100.' besides $1 per $100 school tax. 
What can be done for the farmers of New 
York State to lessen such a burden of 
taxation? a. m. w. 
Glens Falls, N. Y. 
That is what I call a star performance 
in taxation. I do not know what can be 
done to cut off some of the “graft” in 
such a tax bill. The assessment value 
of this farm land is not given, but the 
rate is awful. Imagine a farmer with 
such a tax rate, paying interest on bor¬ 
rowed capital and getting 40 cents of 
the consumer’s dollar! And yet, the 
worst is to come! 
I read in the last issue of The R. N.-Y. 
about the “tack” in the Hope Farm man’s 
Christmas stocking. Hope Farm is very 
lucky to he located in the State of New 
Jersey, and not in the town of Lewis. Essex 
County, N. Y., where the “tack” has be¬ 
come a 20-penny nail. Below is the rate 
of tax on $100 of valuation : 
State, county, town and highway $4.02 
School . 1.13 
Total . $5.15 
You can see this is quite a burden for 
the poor farms of this Adirondack region, 
whoso chief crops are children and mort¬ 
gages. p. x. J. 
Elizabethtown, N. Y. 
Well, it is a pleasure to be a Jersey- 
man under such conditions. With my 
assessment a rate of $ 5.15 would drive 
us from the farm. Our friend says I am 
“lucky.” Well, this goes to prove what 
I said at starting, that the way to cure a 
man from the growling habit is to get 
him to let out his champion growl and 
challenge the world to match it. He will 
quickly hear from others who carry a 
burden so heavy that his own load seems 
like a light knapsack. Why- when the 
mercury in our thermometer hovered 
around zero we thought it very remark¬ 
able. Yet here comes Geo. R. Schauber 
with a report from Saratoga Co., N. Y. 
The minimum temperature to date lias 
been 17 degrees below zero. This is about 
as cold as peach buds will stand here, and 
sometimes this temperature proves fatal to 
them. Snow at present is about two feet 
deep, and proves such an effectual blanket 
on the lake that the ice is rather growing 
thinner instead of thicker, despite the cold 
weather; seven below this morning. 
The very thought of that draws us to 
take comfort in another buckwheat cake 
and a piece of sausage—and of course 
a baked apple. Our zero temperature 
has done us no damage yet, while 20 
degrees above ruined the fruit in Uncle 
Ed’s Florida orange grove. Then not 
long ago I got a letter from a man 
who talked about this “cheerful Hope 
Farm man.” “Why,” he said, “I do not 
believe you ever knew what it is to get 
blue!” Here I had been fighting against 
“blues” for years, and imagining my 
troubles could not be matched. This 
man tells me something of his own sad 
life. It is a hard story of affliction and 
fine devotion to others. While the mem¬ 
ory of it lasts you will not get me to let 
out an}" more personal growls. 
To come back to that last letter on 
taxation! That crop of children and 
mortgages appeals to me. It is hard on 
the child to struggle up while a mortgage 
stands like a wolf at the door demand¬ 
ing blood money which must be paid. It 
is hard on the child to feel that in order 
to stay on the old farm he must yoke 
himself with the greedy beast that has 
swallowed, year after year, the best the 
farm produced. Our children like to 
read the old stories of knights who went 
out to kill the dragons. It is a very much 
finer and harder thing for a boy to 
handle the old farm so as to kill the 
mortgage by paying it off. Can this be 
done? Some strong men have done it, 
but it must be evident something beside 
the present “agricultural education’' must 
be found to induce boys and girls to 
tackle the job. 
And all this opens another subject, 
which is put in the following letter bet¬ 
ter than I can put it: 
There is an excellent letter from Ellen 
E. De Graff on page 45, that demands equal, 
or in my opinion, more attention than 
agricultural education in the public schools. 
It exposes and deplores the ignorance of 
women about business. But wh.v does she 
not include men? Go into a public school 
and take at random boys and girls, say 
about 13 years of age, who are about to 
leave school. Give each one a piece of 
writing paper, and ask them separately to 
write a check payable to any particular 
person, llow many could do it correctly, 
and if so, how many would know the dif¬ 
ference between a check and a certified 
check? llow many would know that if 
the check was not presented within a rea¬ 
sonable time, and the maker became bank¬ 
rupt, the payee could not recover? Try the 
same process with a promissory note, and 
ask what is the meaning of an endorsement 
without recoursef Try it with a bill of 
lading, a mortgage or deed, etc. Not only 
would you find the pupil ignorant, but in 
many cases the teacher equally so. Yet we 
are not living on the planet Mars, but on 
a workaday world in which literature may 
be ornamental but unsatisfying to an empty 
stomach. The Romans knew it. hence their 
phrase, “Utile et dulce” (the useful with 
the pleasant), but observe that the utile 
takes precedence. I have been urging this 
for years with tongue and pen, hut I might 
as well have jumped into the Atlantic with 
the expectation of creating a tidal wave 
in the Pacific. We are wasting millions 
of money, but what is of far more impor¬ 
tance, eons of time that belong to the 
children and not to us. Do not infer from 
this that I am an enemy to the acquirement 
of an elementary knowledge of agriculture 
in the schools, but as I know that all sci¬ 
ences are embraced in agriculture. I feel 
as did Newton, sitting upon the seashore 
and surveying the almost illimitable ocean 
before him. We might begin by giving or 
lending to each child over 10 years of age 
a small cheap microscope and thus create 
an appetite for acquisition. w. w. 
Rhode Island. 
I have just been buying a piece of 
land and have explained to the children 
the nature of a deed, a search of title, 
a mortgage and bond and forms of com¬ 
mercial paper. I have also learned that 
there are grown-up men and women 
who actually do not know that records 
of titles to real estate are kept by the 
county clerk. These people actually 
have no idea whatever about what con¬ 
stitutes a title to property. Nor do they 
understand the obligation which goes 
with signing a note. When it comes to 
contracts they are worse than children, 
and it is easy to see how men and women 
are fooled and duped by sharpers. As 
our friend says, “literature may be or¬ 
namental but unsatisfying to an empty 
stomach.” While I am on record and 
will stay there as saying that all children 
will be better for a good share of read¬ 
ing in history and poetry, they should, 
every one of them be taught useful 
things, from harnessing a horse or bak¬ 
ing bread to writing a note or under¬ 
standing a deed or contract. 
“What fruit shall we have?” 
This was the question the girls put 
to me at the close of dinner. It is some¬ 
thing of a privilege to be selected to de¬ 
cide such an important question, and I 
wanted to know what there was to select 
from. 
“Oh, peaches, pears, cherries, straw¬ 
berries, plums, raspberries, blackberries, 
currants and quinces!” 
I ran my eye over the big drifts which 
roll away to the peach orchard, and re¬ 
membering how Jack Frost has spared 
us thus far I selected “peaches.” Then I 
found that my office was perfunctory 
after all, for the girls looked at Mother 
to see if she would put O. K. on the 
order. She did, and the smaller girl 
climbed a chair and brought out a jar 
which looked like liquid gold with nug¬ 
gets floating in it. The other girl went 
to the secret place where she had hidden 
the cocoamit cake. Of course you must 
understand that peaches are not to inter¬ 
fere with the daily supply of baked ap¬ 
ples. The boys helped grow and pick 
these peaches, and the girls preserved 
them, and all this gave an extra touch 
to the feast. Every farm family should 
have a supply of fruit. Nothing gives 
such a fresh memory of Summer when 
the wind howls over the snow. 
I had intended to tell about our big 
snow storm and the work we are doing, 
but these other matters have mortgaged 
all my space. Everything is in good 
health at Hope Farm, from the peach 
buds to the baby. H. w. c. 
January 29. 
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