the RURAI> NEJW-YORKER 
Making a Living on the Lonely Road 
Some Suggestions by the Pastoral Parson 
By Rev. Geo. B. Gilbert 
A Sunday Outing. —The Pastoral 
Parson is having a very busy day, as to¬ 
morrow we expect to have an unusual 
Sunday down in the country church. 
The final arrangements will be made at 
the social tonight. We expect to gather 
at the church for a very early service 
tomorrow morning, and then we all are 
going to the shore for the day. It is 
only about a 10-mile drive. The Pas¬ 
toral Parson has groomed the horses, 
given the two-seater its regular week¬ 
end scrubbing and we will all jog along 
together, enjoying the scenery and talk¬ 
ing over the crops. We are finding it 
wonderful how enjoyable the Christian 
religion is. This trip ought to make us 
all happy and cheerful for at least a 
month. I shall find some of them rather 
blue on the Lonely Road this afternoon, 
on account of so much rain, but I shall 
tell them of the old saying, “Too much 
rain scares the farmer to death, but too 
much drought starves him to death.” 
This is very true. What wonderful Fall 
feed we shall have ! One farmer assures 
me his second crop of hay will be better 
than the first! 
Schooliiouse Sociables. —“I have en¬ 
joyed this Summer so much more than 
any other I was ever in the country,” 
said a Summer boarder to me Thursday 
night. “Those parties in the school- 
house have been fine.” Here is another 
way the country minister can help the 
back-to the-lander who is trying to help 
out with Summer boarders. These board¬ 
ers want something going on. They want 
ice cream and soda and milk chocolate and 
pop-corn, etc. And, too, they want games 
and amusement. At two recent socials 
I could see that the schooliiouse was 
full, and I was told there were as many 
more outside. We have a party some¬ 
where every other weekday night. 
Let the country parson be onto his job 
in the Summer. If he needs a rest let 
him take it in February. 
Tiie Mortgaged Farm. —I fear mort¬ 
gages and Lonely Roads go together. They 
ought not to, for such farms ought to 
sell at such a low price that more of 
them would be paid for right down. No 
one knows how many have paid down 
all they were worth and are now bear¬ 
ing the burden of the terrible mortgage. 
The Pastoral Parson has had to wrestle 
with this all his life. As a boy I knew 
of a man who was said to greatly en¬ 
joy his veranda as he held a mortgage 
on all the land he could see from it! 
I wouldn’t mind some kind of mortgages 
coming my way, but as for Lonely Road 
mortgages, seems as though they kinder 
connected up work and worry with moth¬ 
ers and children more than any other 
kind. IIow hard it is to pay a mort¬ 
gage off on a farm small and stony and 
far from market! It seems easy while 
you are still in the city under the lure 
of the agent, but when you try it it is 
a different thing. 
Trying to Pay the Mortgage. —It 
is so hard for many -farms to pay their 
own mortgage that you would better try 
to get the money outside in some kind 
of way. Keep a string on the old city 
job and go down Winters for a while, 
it will be a tremendous help. Where 
the wood is cut off (and where is it 
not?) there is little to do during the 
W inter on the small farm. If, however, 
you cannot get away remember that a 
great deal of that time you spend grumb¬ 
ling and worrying mother and the chil¬ 
dren about going back to the city can 
be profitably spent even on a small place. 
Those pullets will take a lot of time 
and fussing—and pay you for it—much 
more than they probably get. I read that 
the food ranks fifth in the care of poul¬ 
try. Scolding around the kitchen fire 
with the water in the henhouse frozen 
over two-thirds of the day will never 
pay a mortgage. The pasture bushes 
you didn’t cut in the Fall better be cut 
in the Winter than not at all. Is there 
wood enough up to last all Summer? It 
will take a lot when the boarders come. 
That wagon body wants repairs and the 
work harness wants oil and—well, the 
Pastoral Parson never gets his Winter 
jobs done till Spring is upon him, and 
Ubove all plan your Spring crops to suit 
the Lonely Road farm. You had to buy 
garden truck in the city, therefore you 
will plant your whole farm to it, though 
you are miles and miles from an 'un¬ 
certain market. You see a picture of a 
bumper crop of potatoes on the front 
page of Tiie R. N.-Y. and so you go and 
put in a big piece when it is worth a 
third of all they bring to get them to 
market. Fifteen bushels at 60 cents, 
$9; one man and horse all day and 
mighty hard day, too, $3. Now here is 
one rule for all places far from market 
—produce a highly concentrated product. 
A load of butter like the load of potatoes 
would be worth $300. You can take 
in your buggy all the eggs and butter 
you can produce and trot right along 
easily both ways. Then, too, if there 
is anything you are sure of selling in New 
England and probably elsewhere, it is but¬ 
ter and eggs. If you can, get hold of 
a few families to furnish each week 
and get the retail price. I have been 
surprised to find how much a good-sized 
family in the towns will buy. While 
writing this I have got a hurry call from 
a Jewish family. The man is a tailor. 
I trade wholly with Jewish families, 
they eat so much fowl and so many eggs. 
This one family wants five dozen eggs 
(average we will say, 30 cents a dozen), 
four pounds of butter (35 cents year- 
round), two quarts cream a week at 40 
cents and $1.25 worth of fowl or broilers 
a week. This is five dollars a week, or 
$250 a year. You can see how two or 
three families like this would bring in 
good money. I have two other families 
practically as good that I cannot supply. 
In fact, I cannot supply this one. But 
if farming was my chief business I am 
sure I could plan to supply several fam¬ 
ilies. Do not be tempted to go into 
garden truck. When far from market 
there is sure to be a big waste in this 
line. You do not have to waste good 
butter and eggs. Put down eggs for 
your own use; those eggs your custom¬ 
ers do not want in the Spring. Do not 
have too many chickens on the Lonely 
farm and get to buying too much grain 
and carting it 10 or 12 miles or paying 
the grocer to cart it. It will not pay. I 
have found that 25 good hens to the 
cow pay best, giving the skim-milk not 
to the pigs but to the hens and growing 
heifer calves. This is the way to pay 
running expenses. While in town get 
your groceries from some cash store that 
does not deliver. We farmers cannot 
afford to pay for the city and town de¬ 
livery teams which we do not use. Let 
the city and town folks pay for their 
own (for the most part) laziness. If 
the grocer will not take less for cash and 
no delivery, hint to him that you can get 
these things by freight. No wonder you 
can’t get along, paying some one to bring 
your supplies 10 or 12 miles or less to 
your door and giving them five cents 
each for every pound of butter and dozen 
of eggs they take away for you. You 
are probably just about giving your mar¬ 
gin or profit to somebody else. 
Parcel Post. —Perhaps you have no 
market or are too far away to go to one. 
Stick to your butter and eggs just the 
same. Plan your dairy mostly for cool 
weather production and use the parcel 
post. The Pastoral Parson has success¬ 
fully sent butter 200 miles. Eggs can 
be profitably sent all the year round. 
Get in touch with your own or your 
neighbors’ city boarders and send to 
them. I know of a great many that do 
this. I have sent fowls very successfully 
this way. Take great care in packing 
and do it well or your customers will 
soon get discouraged. 
Cash Crop on the Lonely Road.— 
There is a great deal said and written 
nowadays about a cash crop. Some raise 
tobacco, some potatoes, and some turn 
off pork and in the West, of course, 
grain. With some it is fruit. Every 
farmer needs if possible to get in a lump 
sum of money at one time. What shall 
this crop be on the ’way-back farm? 
After five years of study of the matter 
the Pastoral Parson is convinced that 
this crop is new milch cows , prefer¬ 
ably heifers two or better three years 
old. One family I know 12 miles from 
market has turned off one heifer this 
year for $90 and is offered $70 for 
another and its calf. Can’t you raise 
two heifer calves a year? They pasture 
out round half the time at least. While 
they must be well fed and good sized, 
yet the actual grain cost is small com¬ 
pared with poultry or hogs. There is no 
marketing expense and a sure sale. If 
the heifer does not turn out a good 
milker, in these days vshe will bring 
good money as beef. I find gentle cows 
that a woman can milk, giving quite rich 
milk, bring fine prices as family cows. 
If the market is milk dealers suit your 
stock to them. They will pay good cash 
prices. Not having to sell your milk, 
you can give your calves a fine start on 
sweet milk and this always pays. Re¬ 
member it costs no more to raise a good 
cow than a poor one. 
Do Not Envy the Big Farmer. —My 
last word is, do not look with envy on 
the big meadows and broad acres and 
great herds of cows of the big farmer. 
A man who has eight horses and 
40 cows and hires five or six men 
stopped the other day and said, “After 
all, how much better off is the man with 
the small farm!” I was much surprised 
to hear him say this, but the more I 
look around the more I think he was 
right. The farm on which you can do your 
own work without hired help and do it 
well and save everything and market 
your own stuff, is the best farm. The 
problem of hired help both as to the 
expense and as to the company for your 
children is a very serious one. It will 
turn your hair gray quicker than inter¬ 
est and taxes or the price of cracked 
corn for your pullets. You may not 
handle so much money on the small 
place, but what of it? “I got discour¬ 
aged last week,” a mother said to me, 
“and offered to give up and go back to 
the city, but my boy fairly shouted, ‘We 
got enough to eat and wear and aren’t 
all sick all the time out here.’ ” 
As to Summer Boarders. —From ex¬ 
perience and observation the Pastoral 
Parson is not over-enthusiastic over Sum¬ 
mer boarders. It is a good way to sell 
your extra garden truck which would 
probably be a loss on the Lonely Road, 
but often smacks of the men folks let¬ 
ting up at the expense of extra work 
for the women folks. It is one thing 
to sit around in the shade and enter¬ 
tain them, giving them an occasional 
straw ride, and another thing to cook 
their great meals over a red-hot stove 
in July and August. All they want is 
fresh vegetables and milk before they 
come, but after they get there, dear me! 
1063 
Here is one thing you women folks in¬ 
sist on — have a week’s let-up between 
each lot of boarders. You can catch your 
breath, get cooled off, straighten out your 
house, and smooth off your temper before 
the next ones come. 
The Pastoral Parson has only three 
boys of his own, but an innumerable num¬ 
ber in mind, if not on his mind, and next 
time he wants to write you a letter on 
the boys of the Lonely Road. 
A Brace of Ostrich Babies. 
A couple of babies are shown in the 
picture of a kind out of the ordinary. 
These little ostriches were hatched on a 
farm near Bloomsburg, Pa. As they 
stand they are about five weeks old, and 
their size may be compared with the 
eggs. There are a number of ostrich 
farms in California and on the deserts 
near Mexico. Probably most of those 
who have gone to Florida have visited 
the ostrich farm at Jacksonville. Every 
now and then some one starts up with 
a scheme for hatching and raising 
ostriches on the upper Atlantic Coast, 
but the bird is not adapted to this humid 
climate, and as a rule it is very hard 
to hatch and rear the young. They may 
be brought out of the shell, but as a 
rule they rarely live beyond a few days. 
These two little birds have come on to 
five weeks old, and it may be possible 
to get them through. It may also be 
possible that eventually a strain of 
ostriches may be produced which will 
adapt itself to our trying climate, but 
up to this time it would seem better 
to invest money in Rhode Island Reds 
or some other breed of poultry that has 
a constitution for hustling in this climate. 
However, we all like to look at the young, 
and so these ostrich babies have their 
picture taken. 
Dinner for the Thrashers. 
Soon the farmers will be thrashing 
again, and it may help some sister to 
know how we manage the work indoors 
at this time. 
So many people serve chicken dinners 
that we always avoid them, since I know 
the men get extremely tired of chicken, 
and it does make lots of extra work. We 
find it much more satisfactory for all con¬ 
cerned to serve ham, bacon or salt pork. 
The latter, if fried brown and crisp, 
and served with plenty of rich milk gravy 
made in the frying pan after frying the 
meat, always calls forth far more praise 
from the crowd than fried chicken does. 
We consider an abundance of good bread, 
potatoes (preferably mashed), butter, 
tea, and coffee absolutely essential. Of 
course, we never entirely omit dessert, but 
it is less necessary than these other 
things. About the simplest way of solv¬ 
ing the dessert problem is to bake pies 
the day before—apple, mince, or pump¬ 
kin always go well with a table full of 
men. Puddings usually make too much 
work at the time the meal is served. A 
big kettle of sweet apples boiled with 
just sugar enough to form a jelly-like 
juice over them, is always acceptable 
and nothing is more easily prepared. 
If we have green onions, cucumbers, 
lettuce or ripe tomatoes we seldom serve 
more than one vegetable. We prefer 
green corn because it is so quickly and 
easily prepared, but cabbage, squash or 
string beans always seem to be well 
liked. If we aren’t too busy we make 
brown bread the day before and steam 
it a few minutes while preparing the din¬ 
ner. I don’t know a man who doesn’t 
like this. Raised biscuit is another favor¬ 
ite to be served if one has time and not 
otherwise. Baked beans have become 
nearly as monotonous as chicken, but 
served with tomato sauce nothing goes 
much better. 
To sum up, we find that a variety of 
eatables is of much less consequence than 
an abundance of the few most important 
staples, and if one is on the alert there 
are many ways of lessening labor. Men 
as a rule care little for salads and less 
for fancy cooking in general. A white 
oilcloth in place of a linen tablecloth 
saves lots of work, and the men almost 
invariably prefer it. The question of 
punctuality can hardly be over-estimated. 
It takes no longer, if as long, to get 
a meal on time and 99 out of every hun¬ 
dred prefer a plain dinner served just 
before the whistles blow, to the fanciest 
one imaginable served at 1 or 2 o’clock. 
E. A. 
A Brace of Ostrich Babies. 
