764 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Hope Farm Notes 
A S nearly as I can make out, this Hope 
Harm man uses air-slaked lime and 
puts it on every year instead of every 
four or five years. Does he not know that 
this is right against the advice of most of 
the authorities and experts? s. n. J. 
He does—he knows it well. I do not 
pretend to be an expert or an authority. 
If I had that pleasure it would be in 
line for me to tell people just what they 
ought to do, and scold them a little if 
they failed to do it. I just use lime be¬ 
cause experience tells me that it pays, 
and figures show that right here we get 
more lime for a dollar in the slaked lime. 
When you count in freight and handling, 
and consider that you must use twice as 
much of the ground limestone the slaked 
lime is cheaper. It might not be so in 
your section, but I would not buy until I 
had figured out the cost of a pound of 
lime in both kinds. 
Another reason why we use slaked lime 
is that we want a quick, sharp action 
upon the soil. We are raising fruit, and 
the soil is naturally hard and tough. It 
needs breaking up and crumbling. The 
slaked lime is b tter for this work. Again, 
we plow under catch crops of rye, vetch 
and clover every year —not every three or 
four years. This yearly plowing under of 
green crops is likely to keep the land sour. 
Rye in particular would be bad on the 
land if plowed in year after year without 
lime. It is the toughest of our cover 
crops, and with its big hollow stems ad¬ 
mits the air so that it is very likely to fer¬ 
ment unless handled right. With this 
yearly use of cover crops I am not so 
anxious to store humus up in the soil as 
I am to break the organic matter up and 
feed it to the trees. Thus we use 500 
pounds or more of slaked lime per acre 
after plowing under the cover crop. This 
helps keep the soil sweet and hastens the 
decay of the rye. Do not mix this plan 
up with that followed in Western grain 
or stock feeding. The soil in such sec¬ 
tions is different from ours, and the rota¬ 
tion is such that yearly applications of 
lime cannot well be made. So they use 
two tons or more of ground limestone 
when seeding to grass, grain or clover, or 
when plowing a sod for corn. While they 
plow under a sod every four or five years, 
we plow in a heavy green crop each year. 
That is why annual applications of lime 
pay us, but the system is not for general 
application. You see a man must use 
brains with lime, and think out a plan to 
suit his needs. Some of those experts talk 
as if it should be considered a crime to 
use slaked lime. I judge that some of 
them would like to have a law which 
would compel a man to use ground lime¬ 
stone. I would like to take a broader 
view of the matter, and tell a man to 
study and figure so that he may know 
when to use slaked lime or limestone, and 
how to buy a pound of lime for least 
money. 
We use lime on everything except po¬ 
tatoes and strawberries. Field corn does 
not respond to it as some other crops do, 
though sweet corn is more likely to. We 
like to use a little lime whenever we plow 
green rye under. For example, we plant¬ 
ed a field in sweet corn May 16. Rye 
was growing there—a little over two feet 
high. I would rather have it four feet, 
but this was an early planting. A heavy 
chain dragging in front of the plow put 
this rye under, aud the plow was put 
down deep. Then we took the lime 
spreader and put about 600 pounds per 
acre right on the rough furrows. Then 
came the big Cutaway well weighted 
down. With this green young rye the 
weight of the Cutaway is enough to pack 
it solid. Had the rye been older we 
should have used the roller before the 
Cutaway. Then followed the Acme har¬ 
row, and the field was ready for planting. 
Fertilizer will be applied when the corn 
is four to five inches high. In a general 
way that is our plan for working cover 
crops. Under this system we have seen 
our soil grow more and more mellow and 
productive, while our trees have grown 
into fruiting at a very moderate expense. 
“Decoration Day.” —I think the pic¬ 
ture on our first page this week is one of 
the most effective presentments of the 
subject that I have ever seen. This picture 
was taken in a border State, where war 
meant the separation of families and ruin. 
Here are two old soldiers—one who wore 
the blue and one who fought in gray, 
united beside the grave of some old com¬ 
rade who died in the bloom of his youth. 
Reside them stands the little child—net 
able to realize what this ceremony means 
to the old men, and yet feeling something 
of the mingled sorrow and joy which fills 
their hearts. It seems to be impossible 
for an older generation to convey the full 
meaning of life’s tragedy to those who fol¬ 
low. At a great army banquet once I 
asked a young man who sat next me if he 
could realize what the Civil War must 
have meant to the men of moderate means 
who loft their families unprovided for 
and marched into actual battle. He looked 
at me in mild wonder at such a question, 
and said he had never really thought of it. 
The war was an acknowledged fact— 
tucked away for 50 years in history. He 
felt that the outcome of the war had been 
a good thing for him, but as for analyzing 
the sentiments of the people who actually 
took part in it, he was “not interested.” 
When the company sang, or tried to sing, 
“America” this man helped out in a per¬ 
functory way. When they sang one of 
these foolish songs about 
“Father pays the bills; 
He’s all right!” 
my friend tuned up in great voice. There 
was nothing mean or unpatriotic about 
him—a sound, clean young man; he sim¬ 
ply failed to grasp the sentiment of it all. 
Show him these two old soldiers at the 
grave, and he could not realize how, as 
they watch those flowers, “the past rises 
before them like a dream.” This young 
fellow cannot yet see that out of these 
dreams and visions must come the 
strength of the ages to give men that 
patriotism which can endure with pa¬ 
tience and go down to the humblest things 
of life. “Decoration Day” will soon be a 
memory—vanishing into the great tumult 
of the busy years, yet there are many of 
us who can never forget what it means. 
It is harder for the women who endured 
the war privations to forget. Woman’s 
world is at home, and oftentimes within 
its narrow walls there must dwell with 
her deep sorrows aud painful memories. 
For to woman has always been given the 
hardest burden of the years and the poor¬ 
est chance to throw off the yoke at home 
with outside pleasure or occupations. As 
Whittier wrote of the overworked farm¬ 
er’s wife: 
“Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls.” 
You see these old soldiers and their 
children have these dreams and memories 
of Decoration Day to break down their 
hard and narrow surroundings so that 
they may for the time being live in 
“stately halls” of imagination. Now the 
connection of what follows with Decora¬ 
tion Day is not entirely clear, but I say 
it now that we may think it over. 
Sentiment Through Business. —We 
are asked sometimes why in this Woman 
and Home Magazine we have so much to 
say about the business opportunities for 
farm women. It is because, with most 
women, their way to independent thought 
and feeling lies in the way of financial 
independence. When a woman can feel 
that she has developed some little source 
of financial income, and has proved her¬ 
self, in some small degree, capable of doing 
business, she begins to take up that spirit 
and hope which go with independence. 
She is a better wife and mother and house¬ 
keeper from the fact that she has some 
little part in the world’s business. It is 
easier for her to conjure up those “stately 
halls” while washing dishes or scrubbing, 
and we are all the better for visits to our 
more “stately halls.” That is why this 
matter of developing little plans for sell¬ 
ing homemade products will be the strong¬ 
est feature of this magazine. We cannot 
have too many suggestions or true state¬ 
ments of what farm women have done in 
this line. 
Child Labor. —At this season the old 
idea of working children comes up. Shall 
we pay them for their labor or expect 
them to work for nothing? Here is a 
big question with many sides to it. Some 
people argue that the child should not be 
paid. “Make him realize that home is 
a cooperative enterprise where all must 
work and share.” Thus these people 
talk, but many of them forget the last 
two words of their programme. The 
children work all right, but have no share 
or right to property. I think each child 
should have a regular job to perform with 
the understanding that this is his contri¬ 
bution to the home. After that is done I 
think it a wise plan to pay him for spe¬ 
cial labor. I follow that plan with our 
children and it has worked well thus far. 
We pay them in several ways. They 
make a bargain at so much for a job, 
they get a commission on sales, or they 
have the proceeds from a small piece of 
land. Not long ago the boys bargained 
to do a certain piece of work for 15 cents 
each. When we came to settle up little 
Redhead claimed that I had “a 50-cent 
job for 15 cents.” When his attention 
was called to the men in the Scriptures 
who agreed to work all day for a penny 
while those who came at noon get the 
same because of a contract he agreed, 
but hereafter he will consider his labor 
bargains more carefully. Our boys have 
bank accounts for their savings. The 
three little boys have taken a rich piece 
May 30, 
of ground—perhaps one-eighth of an acre. 
They will set out Marshall strawberry 
plants three feet each way and plant 
Irish Cobbler potatoes 18 inches each 
way among the berries, with a few Tele¬ 
phone peas in each potato hill. This 
will mean hard culture. The potatoes 
will be dug early and then the boys will 
sell potted plants and lay down hills of 
strawberries for next year’s crop. They 
will have the entire proceeds from the 
field. I shall try to get them to figure 
whether it will pay them to hire one of 
the Italians for a day’s labor. A boy 
should be taught to manage as well as 
work. h. w. c. 
Penalizing the Saloonkeeper. 
NEBRASKA law giving the wife and 
children of men who become habitu¬ 
al drunkards an action against 
saloonkeepers who sell them liquor was 
sustained by the Supreme Court at 
Washington, on April 27th. Mrs. 
May Budger recovered heavy damages 
against Omaha saloonkeepers who had 
sold drinks to her husband, a paper- 
hanger, and the court affirmed the judg¬ 
ment in an appeal taken by the saloon¬ 
keepers and their bondsmen. 
This case is well settled. For many 
years temperance people have made a bat¬ 
tle for this principle. If a man loses life 
or limb in a factory through an imper¬ 
fect machine, or an accident which might 
have been prevented by the owner, his 
family would have a clear right to dam¬ 
ages. They have the right to live, and 
husband and father’s labor is essential. 
When a rum-seller makes a man an 
habitual drunkard he leaves the victim 
worse than if he had lost limb or life, 
and he should be made to pay for it. 
The strict enforcement of such a law 
will force many a rum-seller out of busi¬ 
ness—a splendid outcome! 
A Little Discouraged at Parcel Post. 
HAVE been trying to study up wheth¬ 
er or not it would pay to place an 
advertisement, taking advantage of your 
assisting offer in April 25tli issue, page 
636, encouraging parcel post business, 
and while it is proven a helpful thing, it 
strikes me that the mail authorities need 
“jacking up” before it proves fully suc¬ 
cessful. I have worried and fretted and 
wondered h'ow I might assist in making 
ends meet, for I am trying to manage 
the poultry part of farm life, while my 
husband works out at carpenter trade, 
for it seems impossible to make a living 
off our farm without any capital, it 
being so dreadfully stony and hilly, too. 
We secured quite substantial egg car¬ 
riers (having sent West for same), feel¬ 
ing that we might profit by sending eggs 
to New York privately, and our expe¬ 
rience at that was discouraging through 
parcel post carelessness. About two doz¬ 
en out of four were broken. One would 
think to see them packed that they could 
go anywhere in United States without 
breakage, so we had to cut that out. 
Then I managed to secure two customers 
for dressed chicken, and for all they are 
marked “Perishable” they are sometimes 
three days on the road. One sent last 
Friday, for instance, was collected here 
at 3 1*. M. Friday, and never reached 
Park Place, Brooklyn, until Monday 
evening, and then had a great hole in end 
of package, where a mouse had had its 
feast off leg, aud customer said it was 
unfit to eat. It has me rather discour¬ 
aged, wondering how one can do business 
under such conditions. I might in time 
work up a little trade if Uncle Sam’s 
men would only have more assisting 
power. Carefulness would aid a great 
many, and parcel post business, too. I 
like the country and like farming, but a 
woman cannot undertake anything but 
poultry out here. MRS. P. T. R. 
New Jersey. 
R- N.-Y.—We think the parcel post 
conditions will slowly improve as the 
service grows. We have had much worse 
complaint about express packages. A 
package collected late in the afternoon on 
a rural route in New Jersey could hardly 
be expected to leave the local post office 
that day, and it probably lay over Sun¬ 
day in the New York office. We have 
never advised egg shipments, though some 
report fair success. We should stick to 
parcel post a while longer. You must 
remember that there is a certain propor¬ 
tion of loss in all business. 
CO-OPERATION IN THE HEN YARD. 
The Plymouth Rock hen shown above is the mother of the two 
broods here represented. She hatched and brooded the White Afri¬ 
can Guineas during the middle of Summer. Then she stole her nest 
and hatched out a brood of her own about November 1. When the 
Guineas found that there were new babies in the family they fol¬ 
lowed the old hen about as if they were tiny chicks. Mrs. P. Rock 
cannot get rid of them and does not try to. Here is a co-operative 
society in feathers which might make many a human family take 
notice. 
