The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Thoughts of a Plain Farm Woman 
The Home Budget.— February on the 
farm is - short but not exactly sweet in 
the minds of those housekeepers who both 
dread and welcome it as the month in 
which old Winter takes his last fling and 
does his best to make country-bound 
women thank their lucky stars that he 
can tarry be t 28 days. We are keeping a 
financial budget this year, a business-like 
rway of conducting our affairs I am 
ashamed to admit has never been adopted 
at our farm for any length of time. To 
be sure, at the beginning of every new 
year I would solemnly intend setting 
down every expenditure in which I had a 
hand. Of course, the feed bills are filed 
and itemized and a good share of both 
outgo and income put down in black and 
white, but we never were quite thorough 
enough, and many dollars each month 
were omitted fron: our former records. 
This year we are going to know—not 
guess—just where we stand at the end 
of each month, and, better, just the 
amount available for spending that month 
and then keeping inside it. As our milk 
dividends come in every 15th, we are call¬ 
ing the time between each mid-month the 
calendar month, as most dairymen have 
learned long since to do. Farm women 
are born business women, and they revel 
in taking care of the pennies so that the 
dollars will take care of themselves. And 
to the budget keeper there is a feeling of 
“well done” when the monthly totals bal¬ 
ance on her side to the extent of a new 
Summer silk or a new carpet for the sit¬ 
ting-room. For you can conscientiously 
enjoy dollars which are not needed in ad¬ 
vance out at the barn or for seed or ma¬ 
chinery. A budget should include all 
monthly necessities as they come in sea¬ 
son, and what little is left over can be 
saved or spent at will. We feel that it 
will be worth the small time required to 
know exactly and to a penny the spend¬ 
ings and earnings of our farm for 1910. 
School Privileges.—T he children are 
chafing to get outdoors, and it is a prob¬ 
lem to keep three lively youngsters- out 
of mischief at our house this time of year. 
Ann, who is six. goes half a mile to the 
village school, and as we live on a State 
road she has made the trip morning, noon 
and night so far without a break. This, 
of course, was owing to our unusual Win¬ 
ter, as I had had visions of teaching her 
at home when January arrived. Ann 
learns easily and is a nice little reader. 
She has an unusually good teacher, a 
young married woman, who is doing in¬ 
valuable work with her small pupils in 
building for the future. Mrs. Thompson 
insists on clean finger-nails, clean teeth 
and better personal habits of all kinds 
She is a lady—pardon that much-abused 
term—and is teaching her little charges 
likewise to be ladies and gentlemen in so 
far as she can. We consider that this dis¬ 
trict is very fortunate in its teacher for 
the youngest pupils, as many of her ideas 
must stick in their minds through life. I 
often wonder if it is true, as some great 
man has said, that the first seven years of 
a child's life are the foundation for all 
his later years? I hope that it is true, 
and I mean never to let myself forget 
such a mighty responsibility. Busy farm 
mothers cannot go in for some of the time¬ 
taking methods advocated by kindergart- 
ners and the like, but insistence upon 
nice table manners, grammatical speech 
and dainty personal habits are refine¬ 
ments to which every child is entitled, 
and for which they will later thank us 
above everything else. 
Tiie Boy Problem. —My two boys are 
four years and two, respectively, and are 
“handfuls,” as the saying goes. They 
quarrel and fight constantly in spite of 
anything I can say or do. I think school 
some day will do wonders for both in 
controlling their tempers, but I dread 
that time for the little sons. A mother 
once told me that her small boy was 
never the same after he had attended 
school-for six months. He was never all 
hers any more. lie made up naughty faces 
at friend and foe, he learned to hide 
things from her, and strange language is¬ 
sued from his lips in place of the innocent 
conversations carried on before. We 
mothers all have to see our boys go out 
babies and come home sad little imita¬ 
tions of worldly men. Our boys never 
Dick out the good men to imitate, either; 
it is always the ones we yearn to protect 
them from whom they copy. Yet all 
boys must go through this phase, and 
though we tremble for the outcome, they 
invariably do come out a credit and joy 
to the mothers who feared for them. 
Preparing for Spring. —One always 
feels like celebrating the near arrival of 
Spring in an orgy of new things for the 
house—new chairs, new dishes, new cur¬ 
tains, and new linen. But present prices 
for the most common articles of everyday 
necessity give me pause this year, as it 
didn’t do -even last Spring. But there is 
much satisfaction in having a cake and 
eating it, too, and clever country women 
for ages past have evolved new house fur¬ 
nishings as far as possible from the old. 
I am a great believer in the virtues of 
paint, and a season never passes in which 
I don't change the appearance of sundry 
furniture by freshening it over with the 
magic brush. It is rather impossible, per¬ 
haps, to wave a wand and see new dishes 
materialize, but feed-bags, the finer ones, 
ripped, bleached and dyed, make pretty 
dresses for the house, curtains, bureau 
scarfs, cushion covers and many other 
articles “too numerous to mention.” A 
neighbor of mine made herself an unusu¬ 
ally good-looking dress out of these bags, 
dyeing them a soft tan and making up with 
a new pattern. Then she worked a small, 
conventional design in dark brown and 
green embroidery cotton around wrists, 
neck, and on the pockets, and the result 
was pleasing in the extreme. These bags 
make strong and pretty dresses for little 
girls, and with a touch of smocking or 
embroidery, they are very like the beach 
clothes sold by city stores to mothers of 
rich children. 
309 
The Farm Vacation. —Speaking of 
beach apparel reminds me that we farm 
women are now probably enjoying ds 
much of a vacation as we will know at 
any time this year. Each month brings 
its regular work, of course, but February 
and March might as well be called our 
vacatiou months. April begins to look up 
considerably in work, and as for May and 
June, the more outdoor chores the bet- 
tei, according to the average garden-lov¬ 
ing woman. But July brings big busi¬ 
ness to those of us who help on the farm, 
and our minds sometimes go back linger¬ 
ingly to those “restful” days in March 
when we merely cooked three meals, tend¬ 
ed to the housework, cared for the children 
and sewed, mended and did odd jobs from 
morning to night! Ah. that was a real 
vacation ! But Spring has a magic way 
with him, and just now I am on tiptoe 
for those July days to come. We have 
had a long “rest” and the contact with 
Mother Earth holds no terrors for most of 
us. V e will see few oceans and beaches, 
behold few mountain and lake resorts, 
perhaps, but I presume that most of us 
will live longer and just as happily as the 
pampered females who make up our so- 
called society. So I am hastening to get 
the threads picked up and everything 
possible done, so that April will be more 
free for the planting of flowers and veg¬ 
etables, March is a bluff, bullying fellow, 
but we can t help but enjoy his roarings; 
in a way he means .Spring, anyhow. And, 
best of all, we can paint furniture, and 
hem sheets, and dressmake and rest, with 
the blessed knowledge that we are at 
peace and that the cheerful business of 
just home-making matters once more. 
This being so, we can throw dull 
care away and welcome March in what¬ 
ever guise he approaches—lion or lamb. 
But farm women have a right to be lion- 
hearted this year after helping feed the 
world last, and not one of us but who is 
ready for what the Spring may bring. Tt 
won’t be war, anyway. n. s. k. w. 
Mrs. Bings’ new baby is just in fash¬ 
ion.” “How do you mean?" “It is such 
a red cross affair."—Baltimore American. 
These Seven Cows 
Kept for One Year on the Product of One Acre 
% 
It is hardly believable. Keeping seven cows for a whole year on the product of one acre goes a long way 
towards reducing the cost of milk. On one acre of land in the state of Michigan, Ross’ Eureka Ensilage Corn 
produced, in one year, 70 tons and 800 lbs. of the best quality of sweet ensilage. Figuring at the rate of 50 lbs. 
per day, this would be sufficient to feed seven cows for one year with enough left over for 261 feeds. 
£? J 
Ron’ Eureka Com will produce more tons of good 
sweet ensilage per acre, than any other variety. Four 
of the heaviest acres of this corn in one year gave a total 
yield of 200 tons and 96 lbs., an average of 50 tons and 
24 lbs. per acre, but this is not much above the average. 
If you plant cheap corn you will reap accordingly. We 
have been sellingEureka corn for nearly 40years and we 
know before shipping that it will grow under favorable 
conditions. This corn usually germinates 90% or better. 
Rou' Eureka Corn is white, smooth dent variety, and 
grows the tallest of any known corn, usually 16 to 20 
feet. We have heard from some of our customers who 
say that it grows as high as 23 feet and it >vill get into 
condition for the silo early in September. 
Rojj’ Eureka Corn is only one of our specialties. We 
handle a complete line of Farm Seeds, suen as Oats, Rye, 
Barley, Wheat, Buckwheat, Cow Peas, Vetch, Soy Beans, 
Essex Rape, and all varieties of Field and Ensilage Corn ; 
Grass Seeds, including all kinds of Alfalfa and Sudan 
Grass. We also have a full line of Agricultural Imple¬ 
ments, Poultry Supplies, Fertilizer, etc. Our 120-page 
catalog will be mailed free on request. 
Every bag of 
Ross' Eureka 
Corn bears 
this trade¬ 
mark. Adopt¬ 
ed for your 
protection. 
Ross’ Eureka Corn 
Buy a 
■-.iw’* 
Betsy Ross Victory Garden 
17 large packages of highest quality vegetables, a 4 00 
enough for the home garden, postpaid, for only 5 | — 
1 pkt. Beans, Sure Crop Black Wax * «i»* Sntn.i-h i ....t 
1 pkt. Beet, Crosby's Egyptian 
1 pkt. Carrot, Danvers Half Long 
1 pkt. Cabbage, Copenhagen Market 
1 pkt. Cucumber, Early White Spine 
1 pkt. Lettuce, May King 
l pkt. Peas, Sutton's Excelsior 
t pkt. Radish, Scarlet Globe 
1 pkt. Squash, Blue Hubbard (S Collections $5. OO) 
Each variety the best of its kind. All should be 
planted in every garden. Address, enclosing $1.00, 
ROSS BROS. CO., Front Street, Worcester, Mass. 
1 pkt. Spinach, Thick Leaf 
1 pkt. Sweet Corn, Golden Bantam 
t pkt. Onion, Yellow Globe Danvera 
1 pkt. Turnip, P. T. White Globe 
1 pkt. Swiss Chard 
1 pkt. Beans, Green Pod Stringless 
1 pkt. Squash. Summer Crookneck 
1 pkt. Melon, Rocky Ford 
ROSS BROTHERS COMPANY, 67 Front Street, Worcester, Mass. 
