<Ibt RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
Do you raise Corn? 
Our book ‘ ‘Corn: The 
Foundation of Profit- 
•blo Farm¬ 
ing” will 
holp you. 
January IS, 1919 
“Potatoes: A 
Money Crop” is 
a worthwhile 
farm book for 
all potato 
growers. 
Fertilizers Help 
Good Farmers Succeed 
A good farmer in Delaware after testing all kinds says: 
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Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. 
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Address Crop Book Department 
THE COE-MORTIMER COMPANY 
Subsidiary of The American Agricultural Chemical Co. 
51 Chamber* Street 
New York City . 
Truck 
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88 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
We have had our first taste of veal 
Winter at last. The cold wave which 
froze up ilie West reached us with a little 
of the frost taken out, but still cold 
enough to change the mud into solid crust. 
There has been no snow yet. The rye has 
made more growth this season than 1 have 
ever known this Winter crop to make be¬ 
fore. On New Year’s Day the rye was as 
rank and green as a pasture. If you 
could dig into the ground at such a time 
you would quickly see why rye is such a 
great success as a cover crop. 11 you 
were t<> judge it entirely by the growth 
above ground you might think it. of small 
account during the Fall and Winter. But 
dig into the ground and you have quite 
another story. You find the soil full of 
roots. They spread everywhere a perfect 
network of fiber, reaching into every 
square inch of soil. The growth below 
ground is very much greater than that 
above ground, and even though root and 
top were all destroyed before Spring the 
j ve would pay a great profit over labor 
and seed. These roots, down in the ground, 
silent and invisible, are working hard for 
the farmer. They prevent the loss of 
nitrates, for it would be quite impossible 
for any plant food to escape these mil¬ 
lions of hungry mouths at the ends of 
these roots. Not only the nitrates, but 
other forms of plant food are taken up 
and saved by these rye roots. This season 
when we plow the rye under and use lime 
this plant food will be liberated, and the 
sweet corn or potatoes will reach out their 
fingers and pull it in. When the farmer 
pockets the cash which the corn and po¬ 
tatoes bring him he forgets the long, pa¬ 
tient labor of these rye roots, working 
through the long Fall and W inter, to lay 
up their tinv savings in order that the 
crops which’ follow them may have an 
easier time. 
* * * # * 
I get to thinking of this as we pile the 
big apple chunks on our fire. The wind is 
roaring outside, and the window frames 
and doors are not as tight as they should 
be. 1 wonder how many farm families 
can feel that they have a cover crop grow¬ 
ing in the home as sure and useful as the 
rye out in the cornfield. ’Phis paper will 
be read in at least 150,000 homes in which 
the child crop represents the best product. 
We are all thinking about what we are to 
plant this year. \\ hat is to follow that 
rye and clover so as to get the benefit of 
it’s contribution and labor? We figure 
that out as well as we can, and then in a 
larger way, we begin to ask. who is to 
work this farm in the future? Who is to 
have the benefit of mv labor and my sav¬ 
ings? What will be done with them? 
Will my love and pride in this piece of 
land die out when I pass on, or will there 
come children and younger people to carry 
on my work and make it finer and more 
complete? As this raw, cold wind roars 
over the land there are thousands of 
farmers asking themselves such ques¬ 
tions. Some are on lonely hillside farms; 
others may be in town or village, but it. 
is the hard, bui ning question which must 
finally come to all country people. 
HC * * !» # 
The question conies most forcibly to 
those who are privileged to sit before a 
blazing open fire. A mail may be en¬ 
tirely comfortable with his feet over a reg¬ 
ister or on a hot-water radiator, or backed 
up against a hot stove, but he never can 
get to the real heart of life in any such 
situation. In order to do that one must 
know something of the invisible things 
which really direct his life. The man at 
the register or radiator may know that 
somewhere down cellar there is a big iron 
box in which coal is burning. The heat 
comes up and makes him comfortable, but 
that is all there is to it. There is no sen¬ 
timent about it. and any other piece of old 
iron or steel would mean the same to him. 
An open fire is different. The fireplace is 
built of rocks and stones right from his 
own farm. The fuel represents the old 
defenses of the farm, rails, posts and old 
trees. It is all a part of his life, and as 
he sees the flames curl up and around the 
■wood and feels the heat thrown out by 
the brick and stone he feels that somehow 
he has got close up to the primal, invis¬ 
ible forces of life. You see, the \\ inter 
cover crop for the home is something like 
the rye—the best and finest part of it be¬ 
ing down below tlie surface, where most 
people never think of looking. Most of us 
try to see that our children are kept well 
fed and clothed and physically happy, 
and some of us deny ourselves in order 
that these children may have an easier 
time than we had. And perhaps we meas¬ 
ure our success in raising the child crop 
by the body and brain and the material 
things we may leave behind. As I glow 
older it becomes more and more evident 
to me that this side of the child’s legacy 
is like the top of the rye plant—the part 
which grows above ground. That is good, 
and it receives most notice, yet the most 
essential and useful part of the rye is 
found in the network of roots under¬ 
ground. invisible, often neglected, and ac¬ 
cepted as a matter of course. 
* * * * 
I know of a case which will illustrate 
what I mean. A man and woman with a 
home in the country undertook to provide 
for and raise a family of children. They 
mav not have been very well equipped 
for such work. They were “old-fashioned” 
people, brought up under hard and pinched 
conditions, and with not what you can 
call an ideal childhood. Among these 
children was a boy who made a bad start, 
lie was naturally indolent, careless, will¬ 
ful and determined to have his own way. 
The man had been forced to work hard all 
iiis life, until labor had become a habit 
with him—as much so as eating or sleep¬ 
ing. The woman had felt the pinch of 
poverty and debt, and knew in her own 
life the penalty of easy-going shiftlessness 
and lack of financial responsibility. Here 
was this boy, lazy and despising labor, 
and unwilling to see why he should not 
have the things which he thought he want¬ 
ed. You can imagine the dance he led his 
guardians. They despaired at times, but 
held on and did the best they knew to 
give that boy body and health, good home 
surroundings, a fair example of behavior, 
reasonable character, and to train his 
brain for useful work. I rather think they 
would have done better if their own child¬ 
hood had been different, but they did their 
best, but when the boy finally worked out 
into the world it looked like the top of a 
rye crop in Winter—thin and rather 
short and feeble. Very likely, as is so 
often the case, the woman had vision to 
see that part of the crop which lies below 
ground—the roots firmly fixed in the ideals 
of that home life. 
■s * * * * 
The years went by, and the boy saw 
much of life in his wanderings. One day 
lie wrote a letter home and told of a new 
book which, through some chance, had 
fallen into his hands. Perhaps you may 
have seen such a boy make an effort to 
admit that he was wrong, and that his 
proud, willful spirit had been humbled. 
It is hard to make a direct admission, and 
this boy used his new book in order to 
explain. That is what a good book is for 
at least one of the things. For a good 
book is a study of human nature and the 
working out of life, lie who reads it may 
find himself surrounded by silent, invisible 
companions who may carry his message 
along for him. So this boy said he had 
read “The Light in the Clearing,” by Irv¬ 
ing Batcheller, and if the folks at home 
wanted to know just how he felt about 
them they should read that book, for he 
had come to have just the same feeling 
that the boy in that story had for Uncle 
Peabody and Aunt Deol. It was a great 
message. Reading that book was like 
digging into the ground and noticing the 
million roots of the rye, spreading every¬ 
where. While unseen and unknown— 
many of them so small that one could 
hardly notice them—they were the true 
life of the cover crop. And so this man 
and woman, through that book, learned 
that all through these long years the little 
influences of homo, working and spreading 
down into the foundations of character, 
had been like the roots of the rye, far 
more useful than the things which seemed 
to make the showing. 
$ * # p * 
I wish everyone who has anything of 
farm life in his history could read “The 
Light in the Clearing.” The old maid and 
her unmarried brother who had this or¬ 
phan child thrown into their home life 
knew little of how to bring up a child. 
They did not even know how to express 
the love they felt for him, or the longing 
they had that his life might be made hap¬ 
pier and better than theirs. No one 
could be more practical or matter-of-fact 
than “Aunt Deel,” while the boy was sen¬ 
sitive and highstrung. The woman felt 
this difference in temperament, and knew 
that her own peculiarities had become a 
habit, yet how she did try to express her 
feeling so that the boy could understand 
it. lie was a great trial to them, and at 
times they regretted their burden, until 
one night the boy, feeling something of 
this, ran off and they thought ho was lost. 
The description of that is a fine bit of 
writing. Then when that old skinflint 
came and hounded Uncle Peabody about 
the mortgage! He scolded them for spend¬ 
ing money on that boy. He ought to go 
to the poorhouse! Then the old folks be¬ 
gan to see what the boy meant to them. 
Then the picture of these two older peo¬ 
ple and the boy sitting around the wood 
stove through the dreary Winter nights, 
taking turns reading aloud by the light of 
a candle. Silas Wright, a noted charac¬ 
ter of Northern New York, had lent them 
books to read in this way, and they went 
through these volumes slowly and steadily. 
They could not pronounce half the words 
properly, and the meaning of many of 
them was beyond them, yet they got the 
thought of the author, and it worked into 
their lives—like the roots of the rye in 
the soil. That appeals to me, because it 
was the way I was brought up. Through 
the long Winter evenings Uncle Daniel 
and Aunt Mary sat in their rocking chairs 
and I on the small cricket, while Aunt 
Mary read lectures or sermons or poems 
in her hard, high voice. It was a great 
life. My children would rebel if forced 
now to live it. and I do not think I should 
blame them. For what right has any man 
to demand that his children must go back 
50 years in habit and social conditions? 
At any rate, Batcheller’s book is one of 
the finest studies of old-time country life 
I have ever read, and I wish all our peo¬ 
ple could get its true message. 
* * # # # 
Someone has said that one reason why 
most teachers and educators are ‘ small 
potatoes” is because they persist in asso¬ 
ciating with immature or unripe minds. 
Of course you will have to prove, first of 
all, that such people are small potatoes. 
They will naturally deny it, yet in a way 
it is true. Human life is progressive. 
Mind cannot stand still. It is like a 
(Continued on page 105) 
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INTERESTING GARDEN BOOKS 
A Woman's Hardy Garden— Bu Mrs. 
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For tale by Rural New-Yorker. 333 W. 30th St., N.Y. 
When you write advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a 
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