1292 
Novemoer 16, litlji 
Whe RURAL NLW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Rye thrashing is over, and we are all 
glad of it, for it is a dusty, prickly job. 
We got far more grain than we expected, 
and the straw seems to be extra good. 
This is pretty much a clear gain, for most 
of this rye was put in as a cover crop 
and not intended for grain. Labor con¬ 
ditions were such this Spring that we 
could not plow all the rye under, so part 
of this cover crop was left to mature. 
That is where our rye and straw’ comes 
from this Fall. That is one reason w’hy 
we advocate seeding rye on every piece of 
open ground. If you are able to work 
the land the rye crcx) wull serve as manure. 
If you cannot work it the rye w’ill come 
on and give us $.S5 or more income per 
acre. 
***** 
I am afraid this rye thrashing destroyed 
another illu.sion for one of my boys. In 
the Spring w’hen the apple trees were in 
bloom, this boy concluded that fruit¬ 
growing suited him to a tee. Dusting 
made him a little thoughtful, but as the 
apples grew’ and took on color he deter¬ 
mined to be a fruit grow’er. Then came 
the rush and worry of picking and pack¬ 
ing. A big Twenty Ounce fell from the 
top of the tree and hit this boy on the 
head, then what a mean and monotonous 
job it proved to be—this eternal packing 
and packing. The boy changed his mind 
■—he w’ould not be a fruit grower. * * * 
Then came the tomato crop. In early Sum¬ 
mer it looked like a w’onder—big green 
plants alive wuth fruit. The boy decided to 
be a truck grower on the appearance of 
those vines. Then comes the slow, hot job 
of picking and the still harder job of w’rap- 
ping and packing. After some 50 crates 
the boy divorced truck growing from his 
scheme of life. * ♦ * Then he con¬ 
sidered grain raising. The rye did cer¬ 
tainly look fine as it began to ripen, and 
it seemed very close to self-supporting, 
too. Harvesting w’as hot and hard, but 
the boy stuck to grain raising until they 
got him taking straw away from the 
thrasher! The du.st poured out in his 
face, and the spines on the rye bit and 
stabbed him. The boy has decided that 
grain growing also has times when it 
goes against the grain. 
* * * * * 
I presume we are all boys of a larger 
growth. There may be people who go 
through life w’ithout any picking or pack¬ 
ing or thrashing or other hard jobs to 
bother them, but they must have a very 
monotonous existence. A life without a 
fight would be a failure. There are two 
sides to everything—the ideal and the 
real. He who lives in one of these en¬ 
tirely is either too narrow’ to fill out his 
place or so broad that he cannot get "ny- 
where. I have found that every job and 
every person I have ever met has at least 
two sides. You are sure to be disappoint¬ 
ed w’ith them unless you are able to reali- 
ize that fact and mix the tw’O together in 
your estimate. Take the case of .Tack and 
the soldier! .Tack has gone to Florida to 
try his hand at improving a little place 
we have there. No use telling about that 
till we know what to do and how to do it. 
Put at any rate .Tack helped us pick ap¬ 
ples and then started by train. He kept 
off the ocean because, on his way up, a 
submarine nearly got them. 
:fc 
.Tust before he started our folks fixed 
a great box of lunch for him. The boys 
even killed one of their White T.eghorn 
cockerels, and Mother turned him into the 
most approved Southern style “fried 
chicken.” There w’as w’heat bread, cheese, 
jelly, apples and all the rest—a peck of it 
at least. Well, before he re.ached Balti¬ 
more, Jack got hungry and started on that 
lunch. He calculated carefully how many 
times he should eat on the way to Florida, 
so as to make that food last him. Right 
behind sat a soldier, apparently of medi- 
dium size and capacity, and .Tack suddenly 
remembered that it w’ould be a patriotic 
thing to offer a share of his lunch to this 
brave defender of our national honor. So 
he passed the box over, expecting the sol¬ 
dier would take a few sandwiches, some 
fried chicken and perhaps an apple. But 
he forgot Napoleon’s axiom that “an 
army travels on its stomach”—if he ever 
heard of it before. “A good soldier never 
looks behind.” When an army cannot 
carry its rations it must live < T the coun¬ 
try and leave nothing for the enemy. This 
soldier was evidently well posted on all 
these rules of war, and he was a man of 
capacity. He simply emptied the box— 
cleaned up the entire lunch and sent Jack 
on to Florida w’ithout rations! 
***** 
No one here makes any complaint about 
this. We are glad the soldier had one 
good tuck-out at least, and sorry now we 
did not kill tw’o chickens. I think, how¬ 
ever, we may learn that it is wise to show 
some judgment in our patriotic efforts. 
These soldiers are entitled to the best we 
have, bTit “there are others.” They can 
have the best we can offer, but the home 
defenders are also entitled to a share. I 
Imar some strange things that happened 
during the last TJberty loan campaign 
due to what I call poor patriotic judg¬ 
ment. I learn of people who w’ere so 
worked up over bond buying that they 
neglected to pay their bills, and seriously 
embarrassed storekeepers and w’orkmen 
who are doing a close business and need 
all their small capital. I think w’e should 
use common sense in the expression of 
p.atriotism as wHl 'a.s in anything else. 
The nation needs all the money we can 
spare, but more than that it needs the 
sound, hopeful, uncomplaining spirit of 
real sacrifice. When the stern necessities 
of war gobble up more than our share we 
must take it with a smile, as Jack did the 
loss of his rations. The fight that we 
.shall put up for our rights when this war 
is over will have far more effort if we 
show good nerve and good spirit now. I 
hope every soldier has as good an appe¬ 
tite as this one on the train, for farmers 
W’ill have to feed them for a long time 
yet. 
***** 
You see I am not as enthusiastic as I 
might be about a prompt settlement of the 
war. I think the German people have 
had enough, and that the Kaiser and his 
war lords will have to quit. That will 
not_ end troubles. They will just about 
begin, for Germany and Austria are likely 
to break up into smaller states, and per¬ 
haps attempt self-government. Can they 
carry it out? Many of us are fond of 
saying that all a nation has to do in order 
to be free is to organize a republic! That 
is not 60 easy as it might seem. Read the 
early history of this republic, and see 
how’ close it came to smashing, again and 
again. Our people had been trained for 
150 years to govern themselves, yet when 
they came out from under the thin shadow’ 
of a throne they nearly wrecked the ship. 
The French Revolution, Russia today, are 
both melancholy illustrations of the puny 
efforts of man to change the thought and 
habit of a nation. The people of most of 
these small European states are not fit 
to govern themselves, through no fault of 
their own . You cannot jump men straight 
from the iron discipline of a monarchy 
into the personal liberty of a republic 
without running the risk of breaking their 
backs. The human mind must grow from 
one condition to the other, or it will ex¬ 
plode into anarchy and error. I think 
the biggest job for our army is to come 
after the fighting in the w’ork of policing 
Europe and patiently showing Europeans 
how’ to masffer their own freedom. I 
think this w’ill be finer w’ork than the 
fighting. It will take years to finish the 
job, and it will be the finest possible ser¬ 
vice for our soldiers or our country. All 
this is going to give farming in this coun¬ 
try the most wonderful oppprtunity it has 
ever had. It will be opportunity and a 
little more.^ If we handle it ourselves we 
shall hold it. If we turn it over to a lot 
of “delegates” or represenatives we shall 
be worse off than we are now. 
***** 
I had some of these things in mind 
when our Red hens came back from the 
egg-laying contest. After tw’o years at 
college they left their daughters down 
there for a new’ record and came home to 
look things over. There were only nine 
of them, for one gave up the conflict dur¬ 
ing the fierce heat of last Summer. The 
nine hens, how’ever, beat every other pen 
of Reds except one, and several of them 
have made fine records. I shall have the 
complete figures soon, and they are inter¬ 
esting as show’ing what a hen will do in 
her second year. These old birds came 
back from college w’ith several new ideas. 
TYhen w’e took them out of the crate and 
turned them into the yard they seemed 
dis.appointed at their reception. Instead 
of greeting them as professionals—high 
exponents of the art of laying—the smart 
young pullets in that pen turned up their 
delicate noses. One of the smartest of the 
lot voiced' the sentiments of the rest: 
“Who are these ragged old guys? 
Where do they come from, and what are 
they doing here?” 
This was too much for Polly, the hen 
that for w’eeks stood at the head of 1,000 
hens in laying. 
“Ragged guys, indeed, you saucy young 
upstart! We represent the College of 
New Jersey, I’d have you know. Not to 
speak of my ow’n recoi-d. here is Mrs. Bet¬ 
ty M.. a Red lady of high attainments. 
Ragged guys! I’ll teach you your man¬ 
ners !” 
With that Polly jumped and kicked the 
smart pullet w’ith both feet. It was a re¬ 
markable blow’, and must have been 
learned in the college gymnasium. The 
pullet went over backwards, and the two 
young cockerels came running to her as¬ 
sistance. The biggest one squared off at 
Polly. 
“Here, what do you mean by such con¬ 
duct? That lady is my dearest friend. 
I’ll make you know your place !” 
Polly knew it already. The tricks these 
students learn at college are amazing. I 
never saw such a fight as Polly put up. 
While Dick w’as getting ready, Polly 
jumped up and clinched her beak on his 
comb and hung on. As she settled back 
her weight (she is a large and fat ma¬ 
tron) pulled Dick down, and before I 
knew it she had him on the ground with 
that terrible clinch on his comb. And 
there she held him until one point on his 
comb gave way. Then he got up, looked 
at Polly a moment (as she swallowed the 
piece of comb), and walked off as if to 
say: 
“I W’ill not degrade myself by engaging 
in any rough and tumble.” 
^ Polly was ready for him, but he re¬ 
tired, and Reddy, his partner, w’ent with 
him in a hurry. I w’ent back a few hours 
later and Dick w’as on the roost explain¬ 
ing matters to the pullet. Reddy was off 
at one side, and Mrs. Polly, was boss of 
the yard. No one would question her 
right to vote on any matter concerning 
poultry ! I never saw any fighting like 
(Continued on page 1301) 
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