The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
jj WOMAN AND HOME 
Last Spring 10 cities in New York 
State voted “dry.” and since then local 
prohibition has been enforced. In order 
to learn the effect of this we wrote to 
several persons in each ot these cities, 
asking for an impartial statement of con¬ 
ditions. These letters were sent at ran¬ 
dom. to persons who are strangers to us, 
as we think this the surest way to obtain 
facts. There was a very large response 
to these questions, and in every case the 
reply is that both business and social 
conditions have been improved by pro¬ 
hibition. Many of those who wrote ns 
are working people who have not been 
total abstainers in the past. They state 
without, qualification that the result has 
surely vindicated the “dry” arguments. 
The working people are as a class buying 
more food and other necessities, and sav¬ 
ing more of their money 
* 
Yes, I want The It. X.-Y. I am over 
50 years old. and intend to stay with you 
as long as 1 live. There are many, things 
1 like about the paper, but I think the 
spirit of it. or I will say the Christian 
spirit, is the unifying element that “gets 
me” as one of the family. It has been 
my observation that those who read The 
R N.-Y. year after year are persons who 
have much in common, and whose 
thoughts are much alike, willing to help 
each other 
Pennsylvania. n. m. beach. . 
We have worked for many years to try 
to develop that spirit, and it is now evi¬ 
dent to all. There is nothing in all the 
world quite like the genuine family feel¬ 
ing that you will always find among 
readers of The 11. X.-Y. The women are 
chiefly responsible for this. As a rule 
they decide as to the periodic literature 
which is to enter their homes, and no one 
can tell how much we owe to their quiet 
yet firm demand for the best. 
* 
Xot long ago a woman wrote, asking 
us what she could do to cure her husband 
of the drink habit. Within a few days 
came another letter from one who wants 
to use a email kitchen still for making 
whisky “for medical purposes.” Last week 
a woman wrote asking how she could in¬ 
duce her husband and son to give up the 
use of tobacco. Almost in the same mail 
came the following: 
Last Summer we grew about 100 lbs. of 
tobacco. My husband and grandpa would 
like to make some of it into plug or chew¬ 
ing tobacco, as the retail prices of same 
have gone up. up, and up, and the size of 
plugs is going down, down. When you 
4ook at the size and consider the price, 
the men folks say it is about as expensive, 
if not more so, than ladyfingers or marsh¬ 
mallows. Can you give us any informa¬ 
tion. or put us on the track where we 
would be most likely to find out how they 
make plug tobacco? miss. w. ii. b. 
Xew Jersey. 
Making plug tobacco is not in our line. 
It would not hurt our feelings if all the 
tobacco in the world were used to plug up 
the life currents of insects and other ver¬ 
min. Our object in printing this is to 
give an idea of the variety of questions 
which our people send us. Xeedless to 
say, we do our best to obtain any useful 
advice or information. 
* 
What do you think of the Eastern 
Shore of Maryland as a place of resi¬ 
dence? T wish a better climate than 
Southeastern Ohio. 1 am 00; have been 
a school teacher all my life, and paused 
long enough to raise three children. They 
are all gone away. 1 teach all day, and 
sometimes 1 can scarcely bear to enter 
the house at night. Do you suppose that 
a new place would kill this feeling, which 
is very hard to bear? My youngest daugh¬ 
ter desires me to give up all work and 
rest the remainder of my life. That is 
the worst solution of all. Yet T must do 
something, as I will not spend another 
Winter as lonely as this one. II. P. 
This is but one of the many requests 
for help which our readers send us. Of 
course we can only give the most general 
advice, for it is usually a matter of per¬ 
sonality. We think an active woman 
would make a mistake if she stopped all 
work and tried to “rest.” That would 
mean an unhappy condition for her. It is 
more than likely that in a new situation, 
among new faces and scenes, the lonely 
feeling would fade away. Much of it is 
no doubt due to old associations. There 
are some delightful places in Maryland 
where you would find pleasant neighbors 
and .un. agreeable climate, but you should 
be very careful where and how you locate. 
You need a change of scene and a new oc¬ 
cupation which will interest you. 
* 
Ax effort is being made in New York 
to open juries to women. The plan is 
not to make such jury duty compulsory, 
but to give women opportunity in case 
they care to serve. It is argued that in 
some cases, such as those involving the 
rights of children or helpless wives or 
mothers, women should have a right to 
jury duty, and that they might accom¬ 
plish much good. This movement has 
hardly taken definite shape yet. On page 
527 a woman from Washington tells of 
her experience as a juror. In Idaho some 
women have served on the jury, but the 
law concerning it is not clear. 
A City Woman Wants Co-operation 
Your paper has been very valuable to 
me. as it has been the only means through 
which I have gained information as to 
the real facts in the milk controversy. 
The city press is certainly in collusion 
with the milk trust to keen the public 
uninformed and confused, either printing 
nothing at all. or hiding the subject away 
in some obscure column in brief incom¬ 
plete paragraphs. As a helpless consumer 
1 have watched the growing power of the 
distributors year by year, until they have 
arrived at their present state of arro¬ 
gance. and I rejoice at their first defeat 
lately given them by the producers, and 
am encouraged by the plans being made 
by the farmers to maintain their freedom. 
It leads me to hope that the next step 
will now be possible—a direct deal with 
the consumer, and I am writing you to 
get your opinion as to how this desired 
result may be best brought about. In 
the first place the consuming public 
must be kept better informed about 
the facts, such as that, though the 
producer is getting a cent less for 
milk this month, that reduction has 
not been passed on to the consumer, etc. 
I do not know how this could be done 
except by leaflets sent by the producers 
to the presidents of women’s clubs, to 
social settlement heads, and other or¬ 
ganizations of consumers, so as to con¬ 
vince them of a need for direct co-opera¬ 
tion with the producer in order to elimi¬ 
nate the big dividend we now have to 
make for an unnecessary corporation. 
Also in these leafle's could be stated the 
unnecessary and expensive restrictions and 
laws which it would be wise to amend, 
where such have now become unnecessary 
or where State and city laws are dupli¬ 
cated Also, through these leafh s, do 
you not think the consumers coui-l he 
stimulated to take ten dollar shares i.> u 
co-operative company to furnish the 
trucks and other machinery ami expenses 
necessary for the direct distribution of 
milk by the "reducers? I, for one. would 
very much like to see some such inde¬ 
pendent scheme put in operation 
Brooklyn, X. Y. mks. f. m. s. 
It always seems easy to start such a 
co-operative enterprise to those who can 
see the advantage of doing it. We must 
all remember how strong force of habit 
is, and how hard it is to educate the pub¬ 
lic in new methods. The great majority 
of city consumers want cheaper food, 
promptly delivered, and. in a general way, 
they understand that they would be better 
off with closer dealing with farmers. But 
they do not know how to make the change, 
and for years they have been led into 
the habit of supporting the middlemen. 
It will take long education and great 
patience to make the change, but it has 
got to come. It is work for the women 
through their clubs and organizations. 
The Bed Cross and other societies formed 
for war work might well continue their 
activities in educating the people of both 
city and country in the habit of getting 
together and understanding each other. 
Buying by Parcel Post 
It may interest you and your readers 
to know that, as a city dweller whose ac¬ 
quaintance with farming is limited to a 
few weeks’ vacation, usually spent in 
playing with a vegetable garden in a sub¬ 
urban town, I find your paper interesting 
chiefly for the opportunities it offers me to 
purchase things from the country by par¬ 
cel post. 1 always turn directly io your 
classified advertising column and look for 
offers of honey, cottage cheese, peanuts, 
etc., to be sent by mail. I patronize such 
advertisements to the limit of my con¬ 
sumption capacity, and regret that your 
advertisers do not offer us a greater va¬ 
riety of commodities. For example, if some 
of the farm women who can vegetables 
would advertise their goods to be sent by 
parcel post, it would make some of us 
city-bound poeple happier. 
Massachusetts. (it as. w. mo at; ax. 
Before the war many of our readers 
developed a very good trade at selling 
farm products direct. When the war 
broke out and the home demand for food 
increased this trade was quite largely 
given up. Now it is coming again. Some 
farmers have tried it and abandoned the 
trade. Lack of help and the need of push¬ 
ing the farm work had made this direct 
trade impossible. Again, many have had 
an unpleasant experience in dealing with 
a certain class of city dead beats. These 
creatures buy and pay promptly for a 
time, and then ask credit. If they get it 
they run up a large bill on fair promises 
and then disappear without paying. In 
dealing with strangers country people 
should always demaud cash in advance. 
Homemade Flour 
Some time ago the writer fitted a pulley 
on a small hand mill in place of the crank, 
and arranged it to run by engine power 
while grinding feed on the larger feed 
mill. Later a 32-mesh sieve was secured, 
533 
and this was fitted up to be operated by 
a shaker while the mill was running, on 
the same plan as the riddles of a fan 
mill, and was placed so that the ground 
wheat falls upon the higher side of the 
sieve and gradually works down over the 
inclined surface, while the fine particles 
drop into a receptacle below. The first 
sieve left too much fine bran in the flour, 
so a fiO-mesh sieve was secured and sub¬ 
stituted for the other, and a much nicer 
product is the result, yet much of the 
wheat that is removed in ordinary mill¬ 
ing is retained in the flour. The flour is 
much like the old-time buhr flour, though 
perhaps coarser and darker, but cakes 
and biscuits made from this flour have a 
sweeter flavor and more quality than 
when made from patent flour. 
T am not sure yet just what percentage 
of the wheat can be recovered in the flour 
by this <>uttit. but at any rate the result¬ 
ing bran and shorts make good chicken 
feed. By setting the screen at different 
angles, and by running the shaker at dif¬ 
ferent speeds, as well as by running the 
mill at different speeds, the quality of 
the flour can be changed to suit one’s 
preference. Wheat is worth $2.15 here, 
flour $1.50 per sack, and if one can get 
10 pounds of flour from a bushel of wheat 
the flour is worth .V2.40, while there are 
20 pounds of feed, worth 3c. per pound 
at present prices, or a total of $3 for the 
bushel of wheat, and you have 85c. per 
bushel for grinding. Millers here do not 
get all of the 85c.. as quite a lot of their 
product is sold through dealers. Aside 
from any saving I prefer this homemade 
flour to the patent flour because of its 
quality and flavor. w. E. dlckwat.l. 
Ohio. 
Early Training of Children 
I wish to express my heartiest apprecia¬ 
tion of A. Ik’s article, “Spare the Rod 
and Spoil the Child.” on page 141, for it 
put into words what I have many times 
thought about our inconsistency in punish¬ 
ing our children. Every parent should 
read Sidonie Martyen Gruenberg’s “Sons 
and Daughters” and “Your Child To¬ 
day and Tomorrow.” They are the most 
helpful and understandable books about 
children that I have ever read, especially 
the first. “Sons and Daughters.” Judging 
from my own experience, II. S. K. \Y., 
page 309. need not worry about her quar¬ 
relsome little sons, for youngsters of that 
age to scrap constantly is as natural as 
for puppies and kittens, and means 
but little more—it is a young animal’s 
way of enjoying himself, or herself, for 
girls are as bad as boys in that respect. 
My boys are now seven and nine years 
old, and get along beautifully together, 
though they wrangled continually, just as 
hers are doing at that age. And don’t 
take sending them to school too seriously. 
I am sure that hoys from wholesome 
home surroundings will not instinctively 
choose the worst to imitate when they 
leave home for school. But be sure be¬ 
fore sending your girls and hoys to school 
that you have told them as simply and 
straightforwardly as possible the story 
of the formation and development of life 
and the meaning of sex. If is pitiful to 
think of the number of hoys and girls who 
are left to learn the most vital things of 
life from vulgar-tongued and i gnorant 
playmates. a. o. 
R. X.-Y.—The remarkable thing about 
this is that the very article which “A. 
O.” praises^ was called “cowardly and 
disreputable” by another correspondent. 
Thoughtlessness versus Conservatism or 
Thrift 
Here is a niiestion for the woman’s 
department of The R. X.-Y.—IIow much 
is the lack of conveniences in the farm 
home due to the thoughtlessness of the 
men. and how much to the conservatism 
of the women and their desire to save 
their husbands poeketbook? This ques¬ 
tion has come to my mind through the 
following incident: Our Grange, for 
want of n hall of its own, has met in 
the town hall, where there have never 
been any conveniences for handling a slip¬ 
per or refreshments. Water was heated 
on the old box wood stove used to heat 
the hall, and a little table in a crowded 
anteroom was the rest of the kitchen. It 
was suggested one day by one of the men 
that an old never-used flight of stairs be 
removed from that anteroom aud a bine 
flame oil stove be bought, thus making a 
good kitchen. This was promptly agreed 
t<>. hut some of the women thought they 
eould “get along” without the stove, as it 
was pretty expensive. One of the women 
did mi fires t a sink, which was added, hut 
the addition of another table being sug¬ 
gested the women finally decided that 
they could “get along” with what they 
had. To this day. when they want the 
kerosene stove lighted, the women usually 
ask rhe men who procured it to do it. ap¬ 
parently thinking it too mysterious a pro¬ 
cess for them to solve, it seems to me 
it would be difficult to find a group of 
men who would say “they could get 
along” without some suggested labor- 
saving device, especially when it was to 
be bought with money they themselves 
had been largely instrumental in earning. 
How about it? u. a. s. 
B. X.-Y.—This is from a man and it 
may suggest a wav of getting more con¬ 
veniences in tin* house. Evidently some 
<>f tin' men are waiting for the women t** 
assert themselves and demand necessities. 
The moral seems to be: Stop saying you 
can get along, but call for some house 
improvement whenever any outside ma¬ 
chine or fixture appears. 
