1910. 
THK RURAL NEW-YORKER 
©IS 
THE COLLEGE STUDENT HELP QUESTION. 
Where the Fault Lies. 
Being a graduate of one of our Eastern agricultural 
colleges and a farmer who has hired help of many 
kinds, including students, I have thought that possibly 
I could contribute something of interest on both sides 
of the student help question. As superintendent of a 
large farm it was my practice for several years to hire 
additional help during the Summer season, mainly in 
the form of student labor. This help has generally 
proven satisfactory, and even had one virtue, com¬ 
monly lacking in farm help, in that most of the young 
men were willing to admit a lack of practical knowl¬ 
edge and were ready to he shown. In other cases 
where young men have been employed for positions of 
responsibility and trust they have been found lacking. 
The chief lack has been in practical affairs, where only 
a study of little details in everyday work cotdd set 
the man right. 
1 believe the prime fault lies with the colleges in 
sending out young men to fill positions of trust whose 
practical experience along the line of special branches 
of farming is too limited. My own experience as a 
farm manager, in earlier years, has helped to confirm 
this belief. Being the son of a small farmer my ex¬ 
perience as a youth in extensive farming was limited 
and my college training of course did not make up for 
this deficiency. The second year after graduation I 
took the management of a stock farm where several 
old-time laborers were employed. Among these were 
two expert English plowmen. One of the first jobs 
these men were required to do was to prepare ground 
in early April for oats and peas, and in plowing they 
followed the good English custom of leaving head 
lands at the ends of the 
fields to be plowed last 
of all. I shall never for¬ 
get the disgust with 
which they resented my 
query as to why they did 
not plow “round the 
field.’ A most useful 
operation in which prac¬ 
tical experience oidy has 
set me right is in the 
home mixing of fertiliz¬ 
ers. In my college stud¬ 
ies the advantage of 
home mixing was favor¬ 
ably impressed upon me, 
but practice soon ran me 
against several s n a g s. 
My knowledge of chem¬ 
istry convinced me that 
1 could mix fertilizers 
adapted to almost any 
purpose, but I did not 
count on the fact that 
the fertilizer dealer, who 
vv a n t s to discourage 
home mixing, sends out 
his chemicals in varying 
degrees of moisture, and 
often coarse and lumpy. 
1 soon learned that some form of simple grinding 
machine was necessary for the nitrate of soda, and 
that the use of a proper drier and thorough screening 
were essential to prepare fertilizers for use in a planter 
or seeder. 
There is an increasing demand for men of scientific 
training to fill positions as farm managers and superin¬ 
tendents, hut such men often fail to “make good” lie- 
cause of a lack of practical knowledge which their 
college courses fail to give. Practical training is con¬ 
sidered essential in fitting men for other professions 
than agriculture. The physician without hospital ex¬ 
perience would not think of “hanging out his shingle.” 
The mining engineer is required, as a part of his train¬ 
ing, to become familiar with every detail of mining 
operations. The agricultural college courses are so 
general in the early part and so varied later that the 
student has little time to give to practical lines of work 
of a special character. For example, if lie wishes to 
fit himself as a dairy expert, so much time is needed 
for the chemistry, the bacteriology and the physics 
of the subject that lie has little time left for practical 
operations, such as the keeping of milk and fat records, 
the study of pedigrees and advanced registry work, 
to say nothing of the details of milk handling and 
butter making. 
The only solution 1 can see for meeting the problem 
shown by existing conditions is for the colleges to es¬ 
tablish post-graduate courses to lit men for the many 
positions now open to their graduates, except for the 
great lack of practical experience. These courses 
might well require one year of work at the college 
where the practical bearing of scientific teachings 
should he especially studied by experiments and where 
the student may study such practical problems in the 
field and stable as would naturally have a bearing in 
the special line of work he desired to follow. A 
second year should be spent on some farm where the 
business side of the student’s chosen line of work 
could be carefully studied. This second year of work 
would needs be under the general direction of a col¬ 
lege instructor, and the student should be required to 
carry out certain details which could no doubt be •pre¬ 
arranged with his employer. Such questions as the 
cost of production and of marketing, and the relative 
advantage of wholesaling or retailing could he studied 
under actual business conditions. This second year the 
student’s services ought to be of sufficient value to his 
employer so that the young man could at least earn 
his way, and thus not be adding to the expense for a 
fitting for his life work. “shepherd/’ 
HOW TO FIGHT FLEAS. 
Heroic Methods to Combat a Nuisance. 
IIow can (leas be prevented from beluK in the house, and 
la pt off people? We do not have dogs or cats in the 
house, but fleas have been very disagreeable. v. s. k. 
• New York. 
To clear a house of fleas when badly infested is 
often a strenuous task. In the first place, the source 
of infestation, if it be a cal or dog, must be removed 
or their bodies freed from the fleas. Stray cats or 
clogs must be prevented from getting under the house 
and porches. In addition, a change from carpets or 
matting to bare floors and rugs is recommended. The 
eggs of fleas drop on the floor when laid, and the 
larvnc live upon whatever organic matter, dust, etc., 
they find in cracks and crevices of floors, baseboards, 
and under carpets and mattings. But when bare 
floors with rugs that arc swept and often dusted take 
the place of carpets, fleas have to seek other places in 
order to increase or even maintain an existence. 
In severe infestations nothing but the removal of 
floor coverings followed by a thorough washing of the 
floors with strong soapsuds will avail. Even after this 
has been done it will often be necessary to make a 
liberal use of buhach or pyrethnun powder. Moreover, 
nothing but the fresh powder will do any good. It 
quickly loses its strength in standing on drugstore 
shelves and one should insist on getting fresh buhach 
or pyrethrum made in California. Do not be misled 
by a recommendation of Persian insect powder im¬ 
ported from Persia, because by the time it reaches this 
country it is most apt to have lost its effectiveness. 
Dust this powder about the baseboards, under the 
carpets and mattings before they are replaced and 
wherever the fleas may occur. 
Dr. Henry Skinner gives the following method used 
by him most successfully in getting rid of fleas, lie 
says: “Knowing the volatility of napthaline in warm 
weather and the irritating character of its vapor led 
me to try it. I took one room at a time, scattered on 
the lloor five pounds of flake napthaline and closed it 
:.’t hours. On entering such a room the napthaline 
vapor will instantly bring tears to the eyes. It proved 
to be a perfect remedy and very inexpensive as the 
napthaline could be swept up and transferred to other 
rooms.” Dr. L. O. Howard gives the substance of a 
very interesting letter from a woman anent the sub¬ 
ject of fleas. She states that during a long residence 
in Southern China, where fleas swarm even in clean 
houses, she made her own house immune through 
many years by dissolving alum in the whitewash or 
kalsomine that covered the interior walls, putting 
sheets of thick paper that had been dipped in a solu¬ 
tion of alum under the matting, and scattering pul¬ 
verized alum in all crevices where insects lodge or 
breed. Powdered alum, she states, may be sprinkled 
upon carpets already laid and then brushed or swept 
into their meshes with no injury to the carpets and 
with the certainty of banishment to many insect pests, 
including both fleas and moths. gi„enn vv. h fen rick. 
A STRONG THREAD OF LIFE. 
Some Sturdy Women Here and Abroad. 
The English Mark Lane Express gives the follow¬ 
ing statement regarding an Englishwoman : 
“Another example of the sturdy race of men and 
women which we possess in our country is to hand 
from the Lincoln district. In the village of Heighten 
is a woman named Mrs. Ann Speed, who is now in 
her 101st year. She acts as housekeeper for her son, 
who is 77 years old, and regularly attends Lincoln 
market, where she sells her butter and eggs, which 
entails a journey by train each week, while she also 
bakes her own bread. Seven of her children are still 
living, while her grandchildren number 40, and great¬ 
grandchildren total 50.” 
We often come upon these strong specimens of 
humanity. Only last week we met an old couple over 
83 years old, still working and bright and cheerful. 
Most of such people that we know of are in New Eng¬ 
land—like the following: 
“An instance of long life and activity upon the farm 
is that of Mrs. Augusta Dorr, of Milton Mills, N. II., 
who at 97 years of age still keeps house, doing her own 
work, and has this Summer picked peas in the garden, 
and driven the coxes to pasture, with as elastic a step 
as most women at 60, as her nephew says. She has 
often made butter and cheese, and says she could do 
it now, if necessary. Her employment for 97 years 
has been connected with 
the farm, and her homes 
have been but two in 
that time, 28 years were 
spent at her birthplace 
and the remaining al¬ 
most 70 years in her 
present home (of which 
she is the head), for she 
says with pride that ‘her 
children live with her, 
and not she with them.’ 
Until four years ago she 
often drove to Union, 
five miles distant, for 
grain; and thought noth¬ 
ing of walking a mile. 
In her ninety-first year 
she cut out and pieced 
seven bedquilts and 
sewed them all by hand, 
besides doing a large 
amount of mending and 
housework ; and has been 
in the habit of visiting 
Dover yearly to see to her 
business tTiere, often go¬ 
ing alone; says she has 
no fear of traveling alone 
anywhere and can take 
care of herself. This independence and hardihood evi¬ 
dently belong to both sides of her family, for her 
father-in-law was in the Revolutionary War, and was 
one of a party to go without food for nine days, and 
then killed, cooked and ate a rattlesnake and drank 
the broth. In her girlhood days she spun and wove 
cloth for her own clothing. The first calico dress that 
she ever had she bought for 30 cents per yard, and 
paid for it by spinning at 50 cents per week. Aside 
from being slightly hard of hearing she retains her 
faculties to a remarkable degree, and says she hopes 
to live to reach the century mark.” e. f. Dickinson. 
The Illinois Railroad and Warehouse Commission 
has struck a hard blow at express extortion, by issuing 
an order cutting express rates in that State. In some 
cases these rates are cut in half. Of course this order 
applies only to business entirely within the limits of 
Illinois, and the express companies will fight the order. 
They will probably go to the Federal courts after an 
injunction, claiming that the new rates confiscate their 
property. All this is for delay and a long fight will 
follow. Sooner or later, however, the end will come, 
and the more they fight and twist the clearer will the 
facts' appear. The Illinois Commission shows that 
some of the express companies started with no capital 
and now have millions of assets. It was all made out 
ol the public. There is practically no competition, as 
the companies are controlled by mutual interests, and 
the railroads, also have large holdings in the express 
companies. They keep up the pretense of competing, 
as under the Sherman law it is illegal to conspire in 
restraint of trade. In Europe the express business 
lias been largely given up. The railroad companies 
carry parcels at a low rate, and the government parcels 
post gives a prompt and quick service. In this coun¬ 
try the people are simply taxing themselves and sub- 
milting to all sorts of inconvenience in order to let 
the express companies get rich. 
