749 
When Jim Ferguson Went Back 
By the Brown Owl 
1‘AUX III. 
One day when Kate was in town she 
stopped at a fruit stand and asked the 
price of some tomatoes that were dis- 
plaj'ed in front of the store. 
“Ten cents a pound.” said the dealer. 
"All of that,” gasped Kate as a vis¬ 
ion of her tomato patch fast turning 
red flashed into her mind. 
“Yes madam,” explained the man. “you 
see it is so very hard to get them; we 
ship those in from the South.” 
“Why I have all of a bushel now of 
ripe ones and more will be ready very 
soon,” eagerly interrupted Kate. 
“O,” answered the dealer, and he im¬ 
mediately lost all interest in tomatoes 
and turned away. 
Kate followed him into the store and 
a.sked him if he needed any more toma¬ 
toes and what he would pay for them. 
The dealer in a very frosty disinterested 
voice told her that he had a large ship¬ 
ment ordered, plenty for his trade at 
present, but that if .she cared to bring 
some in the first of the next week he 
would give her To cents a bushel for 
them. Kate visited the remaining places 
in town where fresh vegetables were for 
sale" with no better luck; 75 cent.s was 
all they would pay for tomatoes and 
they didn’t seem at all anxious to pay 
that. Early cabbage, Summer squash, 
beets, lettuce heads, and string beans 
held important i)laces in the display of 
each dealer, and were selling at high 
in’ioes, but just as soon as they found 
that Kate came to sell instead of to buy 
they lost interest at once, and either re¬ 
fused to buy outright or the price offered 
was so ridiculously low that Kate re¬ 
fused to sell. xVnd this was what she 
was to realize on her f^uminer work! 
Kate knew that peoide outside of the 
town raised vegetables and berries and 
brought them in and sold them out from 
house to house. 'She often saw women 
going to town early in the morning and 
returning late, making a long hard day. 
I’or Kate this was not possible. There 
were too many other demands on her 
time, so she bought a lot of new glass 
jars and put up enough vegetables- to 
last a year. Then she gave away the 
extra tomatoes and fed quantities of fine 
lettuce to the hens. There were plenty 
of people who would have been glad to 
buy the surplus from that garden, but 
Kate knew of no way to reach them. 
Jim made light ()f the garden failure. 
“You have enough in cans to feed the 
neighborhood all Wintei-,’' he said laugh¬ 
ing. 
Fall came and there were enough po¬ 
tatoes for their own use until potato 
time came again ; enough hay, grain and 
corn fen- the use of their stock, which now 
nnmhei-ed three cows and a calf and one 
hoi-sc. They had qu.-intities of veg<'tabli'S 
and a few apples. 
That Winter a neighbor boy was 
hired to do the chores, and .Tim held his 
job while his family put in another 
loiudy Winter. Next Spring some 
farm work was hired and Kate went in 
for chickens. She had excellent luck 
with two incubators and succeedi'd in 
raising a fine flock. Katt* sold several 
dollars’ worth of broilers at a fair price, 
and realized the first real profit from the 
farm, out.side of the regular monthly 
milk money. The thi'ee cows had been 
cared for l)y the same boy who had 
worked for them dui-ing the AMnter, and 
the milk can carried to a nearby fac¬ 
tory by a neighbor. 
In the Fall there were about 50 
chiekeiis- from a .Tune hatch that were 
not large enough when the broilers were 
sold. Tlmse Kate fattened carefully on 
corn and skim-milk. They were in fine 
condition by the middle of Xovfunber and 
full of hope Kate went to the largest 
meat market in town and told the prop¬ 
rietor what her chickens were like and 
offered tlnan for sale. Dressed chickens 
hanging outside of That maiiket. and 
skinny blue ones at that, were selling 
for *22 cents i)er pound, and yet all Kate 
"as offered for her fine fat ones was 
seven cents per pound live weight. An¬ 
other shop ofl’ered but five cents and did 
not want them badly at that. She fin¬ 
ally sold them at the first place and 
when she called for her pay they blunt¬ 
BAc RURAL NEW-YORKER 
ly told her that they always subtracted a 
certain per cent, for “shrinkage.” In 
this ease it was five pounds. That deal 
I think has the 35-cent dollar beaten a 
mile. 
The Winter came on early, and it was 
a difficult one in many ways. The chore 
boy, although gettting good wages, got 
rather tired of his job, and Kate had 
much of the work to look after herself. 
When Spring came the farm work was 
again hired done. 
“Next Spring,” said .Tim. “I can stay 
home and do it mys<'lf.’’ 
Kate decided to sa.e herself further 
worry about the chores by doing them 
herself, so just as soon as it was time 
for the cows to be turned out to pasture 
the chore boy. much to his surprise, was 
told he would not be needed any more, 
and Kate became farm hand in earnest. 
(To be continued') 
The Other Side of Cossack Alfalfa 
I note Mr. .Teffries' statements on page 
040. He would have your readers believe 
that we are trying to keeji Cossack Al¬ 
falfa out of Wisconsin, and that “it has 
spread over Wisconsin in spite of the op¬ 
position of thv, State College. I want the 
readers of TiiK R. N.-Y. to know the 
facts. 
We never have opposed Cossack Alfal¬ 
fa as a variety. We msver have said one 
word against it. We have always pre¬ 
sented its excellent merits. We have not 
yet found it superior in yields and hardi¬ 
ness to the (Trimm or Baltic, hut ive hope 
■it f<f. 
IMr. .Teffries himself, on page 1.3 of his 
booklet on the “Wonder Plant.” states: 
“The Secretary f)f the Alfalfa Order of 
the University of Wisconsin in a written 
.statement declared that their experience 
with the Wonder Plant (meaning Cos¬ 
sack Alfalfa) bore out in every detail the 
experience with it hei-e. and recom¬ 
mended that every effort be made to in¬ 
troduce it here generally as quickly as 
possible.” And now he tells you that 
they “were turned down good and hard.” 
Our issue with Mr. .Teffries is not over 
the merits of Cossack Alfalfa. It is due 
to the fact that every conceivable scheme 
is being used to distribute Cossack Alfal¬ 
fa seed to Wisconsin and other farmers 
at the fahnlous price of .$2 a poundf I 
want to state right now, in no uncertain 
terms, that we do not want the name of 
our association and our college linked 
with any get-rich-quick propagand.-i to 
foist on our farmers Alfalfa .seed of any 
variety at a pound. 
The remarks of Tiif: R. N.-Y'. follow¬ 
ing 3Ir. .Teffries’ article wisely warned 
about tliis very thing in the statement: 
“Wo think the Cossack Alfalfa a superior 
\ariety, and we advise our people to try 
it, hut not to pay extraraf/ant prices for 
heavy seeding.” It will be of interest to 
the readers of The R. N.-Y, to know that 
liist Fall Cossack Alfalfa seed could be 
bought and was purchased direct from 
glowers in Slouth Dakota at 50 cents a 
pound. 
3Ir. .Teffries’ article, as is plainly evi¬ 
dent, contains many unfair statements. 
He says: “Mr. (Traber rather resents ex¬ 
periments, investigations and demonstra¬ 
tions being made by individuals not un¬ 
der control of the State colh'ges.” The 
fact is that I attended the first meeting 
in Mr. .Teffrie.s’ county to aid and facili¬ 
tate the distributoin of Cossack Alfalfa 
seed and plants among the farmers for an 
experimental test. I was asked to attend 
this meeting in order to help along this 
very work, and I did. I went there not 
to encourage the .$2-a-pound seed busi¬ 
ness, but to assi.st in getting farmers on 
the sand lands of Burnett Cotuity to try 
out in an experimental way the Cossack 
variety and the tran.splanting method of 
growing Alfalfa for s-oed and hay. It has 
bc'en my business for the i)ast five years 
as secretary of the Alfalfa Orfl^r, with 
its one thousand Alfalfa growers, to have 
established hundreds and hundreds of ex- 
l)erimental tests with anybody and every¬ 
body who cared to conduct them. 
In the past two years we have insti¬ 
tuted over 5(X) tests on Grimm, Coss"ack 
and common Ifalfa from ^'arious sources. 
No, we do not resent personal exi)erimen- 
tation. but we have had to “show up’’ 
some very unfair ictorial comparisons 
of Cossack and Grimm Alfalfa plants, 
which Were used to advertise .$2-a-i)oun(l 
Cossack Alfalfa. We have great faith in 
Cossack Alfalfa. It is a coming variety, 
but nothing will hurt it so much as these 
exploitations for selling the seeci at exor¬ 
bitant prices. r.. f. grabkr. 
Seretary, Alfalfa Order. 
R. NVY'.—'’I’liis closes the discus.sion— 
both sides having I.ad their say. We 
hope the net result will be—more Alfalfa. 
We believe Cossack is a great variety, but 
under no circumstances will we counte¬ 
nance any schenie for working it off at 
any fabulous price. We take no part in 
any personal controversies, as we have 
troubles enough of our own. All we ask 
IS for our readers to try Alfalfa and trv 
It persistently. Try different varieties and 
try all sorts of culture—including trans¬ 
planting ! 
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