1138 
TShe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 5, 1918 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
I take it this disturbance which is 
roaring outside tonight is the equinoctial 
storm. Years ago in school I recited 
Longf(‘How’s i>oein : 
“When d<'sceiids from the Atlantic 
The gigantic 
Storm wind of the equinox I” 
There is nothing gigantic about the 
wind outside. Its spec'd seems more like 
the ox than of anything related to the 
horse. Rut the night is black as your 
Winter hat, and the rain is beating at 
the window and i)ouring down the spouts. 
At any rate I n'member that on this date 
the days and nights are (‘qual and that 
tomorrow we slide off into the shorter and 
darker days. So it is time to get ready 
for Winter and start the home habit 
early. I imagine that all over the land in 
thousands of lonely farm homes this same 
feeling is coming up tonight and I can 
only hope you all can face it as cheer¬ 
fully as we do. 
* * * , >1< 
We have a big fire roaring in the fire¬ 
place. We hiive had our supper and there 
is a basket of api)les near at hand. The 
gleam of the fire on the windows shows 
the raindrops smashing against the glass 
and crawling slowly down as if seeking 
some entrance so that they might get in 
and put a wet blanket over ns. We have 
made all the live stock comfortable. No 
use trying to impo.se humaji comfort upon 
the turkeys. They know what they want, 
and they are in a tall pear tree from 
choice. The rain is .soaking them, but for 
countless generations their ancestors have 
done the same thing, so what can a poor 
human with hardly 2.'> generations of 
hunting for shelter beTiind him to do in 
the case? These white birds will be on 
the lawn tomorrow morning as fresh as 
a lady from the bath. The hens are more 
sen.sible—or shall we say more sensitive, 
to man’s enslaving influence? They are 
in their warm, dry hou.se with only a few 
mites to trouble them. The horses stamp 
and stretch in their stalls and in the 
absence of the motor truck discuss the 
great fall of man in his descent from 
hay and oats to gasoline. The cow can¬ 
not complain in her warm nest with a 
pile of green cornstalks near by. The 
10 aristocratic Red pigs are curled up 
in bed. Tlu'ir pure blood has been made 
immune to cholera, so why should, they 
worry about the coming knife? The sow 
puts herself before her seven babies and 
all are asleep. These seven little ones 
had for grandi)arents a purebred Rerk 
and a pure Red, so that their mother is 
a sort of calico lady. Their father can 
write his name in the Rerkshire record. 
As a result of all this .Tacob could claim 
every one of the litter if his contract 
were in force on this farm. The cats are 
sleeping in the hay and, for the time, 
Hope Farm has no dog, so there is no 
worry about the barn people. As for the 
treesj they are safe. This wind will not 
blow down .much fruit. The apples are 
having their faces nicely wmshed, and how 
they will shind hi the sun tomorrow! 
* :K * -l! 
Nor .should we ivorry much about the 
humans. Our Summer visitors and friends 
have sifted but and left us with 12 Hope 
Farmers for the Winter. The daughter 
has gone back to college. Somewhere be¬ 
tween here and New York the motor 
truck is coughing its way along the wet 
road with Thomas at the wheel. It is a 
bad night to be out. but tomatoes and 
green corn are about like milk when they 
are ready, and there is a man in New 
York depending on our apples to make to¬ 
morrow’s suiiply of pies. The hood of 
the truck shelters Thomas, and the old 
tent keeps the rain away from nearly 
$100 w'orth of produce as the gasoline 
outblows the wind in power. Five of 
the children are boning away at their 
school work. It is arithmetic tonight. 
Cherry-top is rubbing his hair the wrong 
way over a hard one. I can look over 
his shouldei’ and read it. 
“A farmer received $100 for some pro¬ 
duce. It passed through the hands of a 
shipper, a commission man and a re¬ 
tailer who gained respectively 121/^ per 
cent. 8% per cent and 20 per cent. What 
was the”retail price?’’ 
That was a wonderful commission man 
to be content with .81/^ per cent, but if 
I were 12 once more I have no doubt I 
should do what Cherry-top did. He found 
himself stuck and took it to Mother, so 
she might oil the mental machim'ry. And 
IVIother puts down the letter from her 
daughter and finds the consumer’s dollar. 
Strange how you cannot got away from 
the habits and appearance of your first 
25 years! Sitting there with the shade 
on her face. Mother seems to change as 
that “cxami)le” takes her back to the 
school room. I’he spectach'd woman, a 
little gray, iind dignified enough to be 
Food Administrator, seems to fade from 
view. There comes in her place a young 
school teacher—at that fine age when all 
the Avorld is a meinb(‘r of the primary 
class and must stand up and toe the 
mark. As I sit by the fire holding little 
Rose it does not seem possible that this 
is New .Tersey. Am I not back in that 
muddy little Alissis.sippi town once niore, 
watching the young school teacher? No. 
I am still a .Ter.seyman. Little Rose 
bre.aks up all the romance of it by asking 
me to sing. ’I''her(‘ may have been days, 
or nights, when Mother was wdlling or 
able to endure a vocal afHiction, but now 
she sternly countermands the musical 
order given by little Rose, and it is 
clearly evident that if it were put to a 
vote no one but the baby would support 
her own motion. The smalle.st girl does 
not go to the public school yet, so Aunt 
Eleanor by the table is giving the child 
a touch of kindergarten work. So let the 
rain beat—we can beat it to contentment 
before our fire, all warm and busy. And 
little Rose curls up close to me and says: 
“We had a fine supper.” 
***** 
I called it good for a war meal. There 
was a little warm soup, then Lima beans 
in cream—all j’ou could eat. boiled sweet 
corn, cottage cheese, two kinds of war 
bread and butter and baked Gravenstein 
apples. I looked on the bill of fare at 
a i-estaurant the other day and found that 
they made a great offer of an ear of corn, 
a small dish of Lima beans and a potato 
for t!() cents! Ry paying R) cents more 
you could have two slices of bread and 
a small dab of butter with a baked apple 
for 20 cents. Surely only millionaires 
and farmers can afl'ord to eat the fat of 
the laud in these days. That corn was 
nearly a full meal alone. Y'ou get an 
idea of it from the ear pictured on page 
11.81. We had sevei-al thousands of ears 
about as good. Some time ago I told 
about trying to find the “Sheemanie” 
corn at thd seed stores. Thomas told me 
about it. but no one had ever heard of 
any such variety. Finally I found that 
it was a local name for a selected strain 
of Early Mammoth. A farmer who lives 
a few miles from here found some su¬ 
perior ears in his field and saved them 
for .seed. Ry continued selection he seems 
to have well fixed the strain and has pro¬ 
duced what seems to me the best large¬ 
eared market sweet corn we have. Some 
of these ears sold at $.85 per thousand this 
year. This “Sheemanie” corn shows 
what an observant man can do with some 
of the chances which nature scatters like 
pearls before all of us. I just want to 
say right here that I have none of the 
seed .to sell or give away and will not 
under any circumstances let any of it go. 
I feel that the man who discovered it has 
a moral right to hold this corn, and one 
of the things which we work out before 
our fire is the conviction that a moral 
right comes in ahead of any legal techni¬ 
cality. 
H: ^ sk ^ 
Rut it is time to eat a round of apples. 
!\Iy own choice will be a McIntosh, 
though the one I would select sells at 
$7..50 per ban-el. You may have your 
choice of Wealthy, Spy, Graven.stein, York 
Imperial, Greening and Raldwin. If any 
of you_ prefer Ren Davis, say the word 
and it is yours. There is so much of com¬ 
fort liere tonight that even a man who 
selects Ren Davis from choice may draw 
up and be happy. We shall feel sorry— 
not for his tongue but for his taste. The 
largest boy is going to iron or pi-ess his 
clothes, and iron out a soft collar. Some 
years ago this would have meant a flat¬ 
iron standing close up in the a.shes, but 
that was in the old days. Now the boy 
attaches a cord to the electric fixture, 
the other end to an electric iron. Then 
he puts a board across two chairs and in 
three minutes his iron is hot enough to 
pres.s those clothes right into fashionable 
service. Do I think it pays to take time 
for such work? I do! Such a feeling 
leads young people to take greater care 
of their clothes and develops neatness. 
No use talking, the man or woman who 
can make a neat, clean appearance in 
public or in business has an advantage. 
Even those who are careless in their own 
dress _ and _ habits have, perhaps without 
knowing it, a respect for the neatly 
dres.sed man. Then anyone will feel more 
at ease and liecome more capable of doing 
his best if he feels that his clothes, for 
any work, are neat and well kept. Why, 
the other day we bought a new harness 
f(ir Rrownie. The ohl one had become 
di.sgraceful, and the dainty little hor.se 
took little pride in her woi-k. When she 
went to church with the girls Philip pol¬ 
ished her up to match the new harness, 
and Rrownie suddenly came to life. She 
pawed up the driveway and danced down 
the road like a racer—or her mother at 
her best! I used to know a man who 
went about looking like a wandering 
junk bag. His philosophy was: 
“On earth there is nothing great but 
man : in man thei-e is nothing great but 
mind.” 
He influenced me more or less in my 
habits, and it was a bad influence. No 
man can be great unless he spends most 
of his time analyzing and understanding 
small things. Power comes from pouring 
water hy the bucketful into your reser¬ 
voir and then making it turn your wheel. 
I fear that my personal appearance is 
often a gi-eat trial to my wife and daugh¬ 
ter, and I am glad to see the children 
started on neat and clean habits. I could 
quote you a yard or two from Carlyle on 
clothes but I would advise all of you to 
encourage your childreu to keep their 
clothes, but I would advise all of you to 
might not be accepted as evidence in 
favor of the hot-iron habit, but who ever 
exjiects a preacher to practice, liis own 
advice? ^ Is not every pulpit a sort of 
advertising board for virtues rather than 
an exhibition of the virtues themselves? 
Do not understand that I favor buying 
expensive clothing; I do not, but I do 
favor taking the best possible care of 
what we have. 
^ 't* ^ V 
Rut have another apple and put that 
peach root on the fire! That is where 
we get the square root out of comfort. 
The arithmetic of life is hard at best. A 
good apple will take some of the teeth 
(Continued on page 1148) 
1- wheat 
more coiTi 
2- meat 
US& more fish ^ Beans 
j-£ats 
use just enough 
4-suXar _ 
nse syrups 
and serve * 
the cause oFireed 
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