RURAL NEW-YORKER 
853 
The Farmer of Fifty Years 
Part III. 
Perhaps it is time that we take up the 
practical or financial aspect of the pur¬ 
chase of the new farm. 
In the first place, is it a good time to 
buy farm property? It would seem to me 
that it is. Everything but land has gone 
up in price, and the' only thing that has 
kept land from going up is the lack of 
farm help. After the war is over that 
trouble will he eliminated. Not only 
will the boys come back from the front, 
hut the great army of workers upon war 
materials will be released. Then there 
will be a greater shortage of farm pro¬ 
ducts than of anything else. Not only a 
shoi'tage of food products, hut of horses, 
cattle and all other farm animals. It is 
only common sense to believe that the 
kind of factory that produces these things, 
which is the farm, will be in great de¬ 
mand. Then farm values will go as high 
as manufacturing plants are today. 
It seems to me that there is no doubt 
about the wisdom of investing in farm 
property now—if we can only hold out 
until the war is over. The great thing 
is our ability to hang on and not “go 
l. listed” this year and i)ossibly next. Our 
farms must be managed efficiently. There 
is no doubt about that. The worst prob¬ 
lem is the help. Of course, there are a 
few young married men with babies de¬ 
pendent on them, who will stay on the 
farms. That is one advantage in having 
conveniences for married help who will 
live by themselves. P>ut the great mass of 
hired farm help this year will be those 
who are good for nothing else, and pity 
the farmer who has got to get along with 
them. P.nt we have to rise to the situa¬ 
tion. We have to be everlastingly on the 
job. and furnish the brains for the man 
who is shy of them. 
There are two types of these young in¬ 
competents who are being handed out 
to us. fine is the fellow who knows but 
little, but knows enough to know it. and 
the other is the one who knows but little 
and thinks that he knows everything. 
The first we can have hopes of. lie will 
m. ake a lot of mistakes and cause a good 
deal of loss both in time and breakage, 
but we must take those things as our 
share of the war burden and stand it. 
lUit the other fellow would be best sent 
back where he came from as soon as pos¬ 
sible. We are being worked at too high 
a speed, and our nerves are keyed at too 
high a i)itch for us to afford to be worn 
out by some brainless city youth who 
thinks that his mission in life is to sur¬ 
prise the natives. 
The next thing, after we get the help, 
is to se*> to it that they are given a 
chance to earn their wages. I don’t mean 
by this that we should try to overwork 
them. That is had policy at any time, 
but rather that we should see to it that 
the land that they work is capable of pro¬ 
ducing a bumper crop. If we have a 
piece of poor land, don’t put a crop on it. 
I.et it go into pasture or ev('n lie idle. 
P.uy all The fertilizer that the land needs, 
but don’t depend on the fertilizer to pro¬ 
duce the crop. Then work the land with 
good horses and machinei\v. It is folly 
to pay high prices for help and then pre¬ 
clude the possibility of the helji earning 
their wages by setting them out to work 
with either horses or tools that are inef¬ 
ficient. Of coui'se we shall meet with 
losses by doing this. The si)irited horses 
will run away with the sleejiy hired man. 
but they will keep him awake at least 
part of the time. The men will also 
break the good machines, but they will 
earn something with them when they are 
in working order. And it is our job to 
see to it that they are in working order 
as much of the time as possible. . 
In fact, we have to get right down to a 
factory basis. Every morning we must 
go at a job that will i)roduce our wages, 
and as much more as we can. AVe have to 
cut out that old* idea of “puttin’ in our 
time.’’ A man may potter around all day 
and get as tired as blazes, but. when night 
comes, he has not earned his .salt so far 
!is actual dollars are concerned. 
The next thing is to see that we don’t 
“bite off more than we can chew.” If it 
should b(* a good early Spring with good 
w('ather. we are apt to jiitch in and plant 
more than tve can harvest. This is worse 
than not planting enough. One should 
remember that the land, seed and all the 
work is thrown away if the crop is finally 
wasted in the Fall. That was a mistake 
that a lot of people made last year. Now 
tlu're ai-e more potatoes in the bins than 
we can sell, and a good many acres in 
the ground that were not harvested. On 
the other hand, hay is scarce and high, 
just because the hayfields were plowed for 
potatoes. 
It is also a real man’s job to get the 
manure up into the fields. You can see 
Avhere the man with the weak spine lives 
just by driving past his barn and noting 
the big pile of manure under the eaves. 
No; we old fellows don’t have to go to 
France to prove what we are made of. 
J. GRAXT AtORSE. 
A Simple System of Sub-irrigation 
The accompanying drawing shows how 
I water my vines, such as cucumbers, 
squashes, etc., by taking a glazed three- 
inch sewer pipe and cementing into it a 
three-inch soft drain tile as shown in i)ic- 
ture: putting a one-inch cement plug in 
the bottom of drain tile, as shown. I set 
PLUG TO CLOSE 
TOP OF PIPE 
these sub-irrigating pipes to a depth as 
shown and plant the seeds around them. 
This waters the plants below the ground 
and prevents the soil from caking or from 
scalding the vines. The vines can be wa¬ 
tered any time of the day, no matter how 
hot the weather. These pipes get quite 
hot in the hot sun, and thus warm the 
water before it i)asses on to the roots of 
the i)lants. This is like a warm rain. 
Watering twice a week is all I give them, 
as the sun and wind do not dry up the 
water and cause the ground to bake. I 
am using 14 of these sub-irrigating pipes 
this year. a. b. 
Portland. (Ire. 
Selling Cider in Massachusetts 
Several readers have asked for the law 
controlling the .sale of cider by Massa¬ 
chusetts farmers. The amended law of 
the State reads as follows: 
“No person shall sell, or expose for 
sale', spirituous or intoxicating liquor, ex¬ 
cept as authorized in this chapter; but 
the provisions of this chapter shall not 
apply to sales made by a person under a 
provision of law which requires him to 
sell personal property, or to sales of cider 
at wholesale hi/ the original makers there¬ 
of. or hg farmers -who sell cider, not to 
be drank on the premises, in quantities 
not e.reeeding in the aggregate the prod- 
net of apples raised by them in the season 
of. or next preceding, such sales, or to 
sales in any quantity by such farmers 
not to be drunk on the -premises if the 
cider does not contain more than three 
per cent of alcohol by weight at sixty de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit; nor shall the provisions 
of this chai)ter apply to sales of cider by 
the original makers thereof other thaii 
such maker.s and farmer.s .selling not to 
he drunk on the premises as aforesaid, 
if the cider does not contain more than 
three per cent of alcohol as afores.aid. not 
to be drunk on the i)remises; noi- shall 
the provisions of this chapter apply to 
sales of wine at wholesale by the original 
makers thereof at the place of manufac¬ 
ture and not to be drunk on the prem¬ 
ises.” 
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