, 994 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
.Tune 21, 1019 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
In many ways this is proving the most, 
remarkable year this nation has ever 
known. Not only is the weather and the 
season abnormal, but human nature seems 
to be all shaken and twisted up in an 
effort to get into step with “reconstruc¬ 
tion.” . I have felt for the past two years 
that peace would bring harder problems 
than war ever could, and I think this is 
now being made evident. There are quite a 
number of middle-aged men and women 
in this country who did not really know 
what war means until the boy and the 
girl came back from service and began to 
discuss their future. These people thought 
they knew all about it when the boy went 
or when, a little later, the girl enlisted 
as a nurse. The calls for food production 
pushed them hard, and some of the Lib¬ 
erty loans pinched. It all seemed like 
war, sure enough, hut the boy and the 
girl brought the real germ of it home 
from France—into the valley among the 
hills where father and mother had worked 
and waited. 
* * * * * 
For that soldier and nurse knew that 
the real thing about this Great War was 
not the crushing of Germany or the kill¬ 
ing of several million Germans, but the 
spirit of sacrifice which sent all those 
young men across the sea, which induced 
this nation to put a mortgage of over $20 
on every acre of land and a debt of about 
$250 on every man, woman and child in 
the land and which gave those who re¬ 
mained at home the strength to endure 
untold work and woi’ry. You see, in 
spite of themselves, the boy and the girl 
have come back with a sort of glory in 
their hearts. I think the future of this 
country will depend quite largely upon 
the way we induce these young people to 
capitalize that glory and put it into the 
plain things of farm life. 
* * * * * 
At the end of the Civil War the soldiers 
fame back with much the same feeling. 
It is probbabl.v true that all wars are 
more or less inspired and directed by the 
big financial interests. I have no doubt 
that was true of our Civil War. and to 
some extent with the world war, but a 
republic like ours could not and would 
not fight unless the great masses of the 
plain people believed that it meant free¬ 
dom and a better life for someone in the 
world. The Civil War veterans came 
home with a great glory, but they did not 
somehow apply it to the humble things 
of life. I think it is a fair criticism to 
say that they spent too much tinWtalking 
about the war records, and too little in 
applying the history they helped make to 
practical things. I have seen crooks and 
incompetent men put in office over honest 
and trained workers because the former 
were shrewd enough to appeal to a war 
record or some narrow prejudice. When 
I was a boy a man could not be elected 
poundkeeper in our town except on some 
issue connected with the war. Looking 
back over the years now I can see clearly 
how this failure to apply the real spirit 
of the war to practical things is partly 
responsible for some of the evils which 
affect us as farmers. 
Jje 5gc sQc $ s}e 
As I go about the country I find many 
people who fall into one of two extremes. 
The war seems to have made some men 
and women rather hopeless, fife has 
been hard and drab at best, and they have 
been held down to narrow limits. The 
soldiers and the women who took up war 
work come back with great stories of ad¬ 
venture and lives running over with hope, 
and it makes the dull, monotonous home 
life seem harder than ever. I have found 
many such pople working hard on lonely 
farms, who have begun to think their life 
does not. count, and that what they do is 
of very small importance. Then there 
seems to be an increasing number of 
“blowhards.” I do not know what has 
started them up. but since the soldiers 
began to come home I hear more and 
more of these.hot-air artists telling what 
great things T did. or more likely, what 
“I done.” I do not know 7, just what it 
means, but some of these people seem to 
think they must put up a great story 
about their own importance, and they are 
surely doing it. It is curious how the 
aftermath of the war has brought out 
these two opposite human traits. Some of 
these humble and discouraged people have, 
if they only knew it, been living conse¬ 
crated, saintly lives of hard service, while 
some of these “blowhards” are as selfish 
as an oyster shell. Yet I fear that so far 
as human applause goes the blowhards 
are ahead. 
* * * * & 
I have long wanted to do or say some¬ 
thing that would make both classes of peo¬ 
ple see things as they are. The other night 
I found the following little poem which 
expresses what I have in mind far better 
than I can : 
MY T.OM) AND I. 
“T worked for men,” my Lord will say, 
When we meet at the end of the King’s 
highway. 
Brig'hten the 
Morning Meal 
with a hot drink that gives re¬ 
freshing invigoration. 
1 The Original 
| Postum Cereal 
is so pleasing and satisfying 
that it has completely taken the 
place of tea and coffee in many 
8 homes everywhere. 
| Try this healthful Drink and 
§ note results. 
| Two sizes, usually sold at 15c and 25c. 
At Grocers Everywhere! 
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I walked with the beggar along the road, 
I kissed the bondsman stung by the goad, 
I bore my half of the porter’s load. 
“And what did you do?” my Lord will 
say. 
“As you traveled along the King’s high¬ 
way V” 
“I made life sweet.” my Lord will say, 
When we meet at the end of the King’s 
highway. 
“I smoothed the path, where the thorns 
annoy, 
I gave the mother back her boy; 
I mended the children’s broken toy. 
“And what did you do?” my Lord will 
say. 
“As vou traveled along the King's high¬ 
way?” 
“I showed men God.” my Lord will say, 
“As I traveled along the King’s highway, 
I eased the sister’s troubled mind; 
I helped the blighted to be resigned ; 
I showed the sky to the souls born blind. 
And what did you do?” my Lord will say. 
When we meet at the end of the King’s 
highway. 
Of course I know there will be some to 
sneer at me when I say that the great ma¬ 
jority of our boys and girls who entered 
the war had something like that in their 
hearts. The people who are troubled and 
discouraged, and who think life has been 
a failure, are as a rule the ones who have 
done most for others. There are some 
who seem to think that religion is pretty 
much a matter of keeping in style. Others 
look upon it as a matter of service. At 
the end I think it will come pretty close 
to answering the question “What have 
you done on the King’s highway?” 
❖ * # # 
As I talk with the young soldiers now 
dropping out of the army I get the idea 
that they are not likely to make at least 
some of the mistakes of their grandfath¬ 
ers. They do not talk so much about 
their battles. They will not, like Gold¬ 
smith’s soldier, “shoulder his crutch and 
tell how fields were won.” It seems to 
me that these young men are looking to 
the future with cold analysis. Country 
life has got to be different for them, and 
they are going to make it different. They 
are not, on the whole, as radical as I ex¬ 
pected to find them. The discipline of the 
army has done them good. They are 
among the first to denounce the anarchists 
and shut off the speakers who talk near¬ 
treason. They are going after things, but 
they will go after them like a disciplined 
army, and not like a mixed-up mob. I 
have been greatly interested in learning 
whether those young men have changed 
their political beliefs. I find that prac¬ 
tically all I have talked with still belong 
to the same old party—most of them vot¬ 
ing as father did. But there is this dif¬ 
ference: Hereafter the party has got to 
slow ihcm. They will not follow any 
party blindly; the party has got to follow 
them with its eyes open. I think that in 
the future these boys will influence father 
politically more than father can influence 
them. 
***** 
And I see in that one of the most hope¬ 
ful signs that has ever appeared on the 
political skies of farming. These soldiers 
were taught that half the battle lies in 
the initiative —that is. getting the drop on 
the other side—starting first. If you wait 
until the other side or the other fellow 
gets all the advantage of motion the 
chances are that he will push yon aside or 
down. It will not. take these boys long to 
see that practically every law and every 
piece of legislation which has affected 
farming in our Eastern States in the past 
40 years has been started by some other 
interest—not by farmers. As a rule we 
have waited until these other interests 
fixed the thing to suit them and then we 
fell in on one side or the other. The re¬ 
sult has ever been that we never had an 
“agricultural” issue that was 40 per cent 
“farming.” We got a little out of it. but 
the other fellows always got much more. 
Now these young soldiers, coming back to 
the farms, understand the advantage of 
getting started first. Before long you will 
find them taking a leading part in , public 
life. They will have some clear ideas 
about what farming in the Eastern States 
needs in the way of legislation. There is 
a good deal needed besides passing laws, 
but we do need some radical legislation. 
We never can get it so long as we let 
these other interests cook up the issues 
for us. These boys will get out early, 
find what we need and make the issue 
themselves. Then the other interests can 
line Tip, as farmers have been doing all 
these years. That is part of the work for 
“the King’s highway.” and you may take 
it from me that it will be done. 
***** 
We have had about. 10 days of sun¬ 
shine after the long rains. Now another 
cool, gray day has come, and it looks like 
another long storm. What with weather 
and labor troubles our season’s program 
has been badly upset. Early June tells 
the story: No cherries, a few scattered 
peaches, a very light strawberry crop and 
nearly half the proposed sweet corn un¬ 
planted. The apples look well, except 
that blight has appeared in part of the 
orchard. We never had a finer garden, 
and such corn as we could get in looks 
fine. Grass is good and potatoes and to¬ 
matoes first-class. We make no complaint, 
but go ahead as best we can. We have 
planted some of that Long Island seed 
corn as fodder on a couple of acres where 
the sweet corn bad to be counted out. 
n. w. c. 
BUY YOUR SILO NOW 
Prices sure to advance. Save money 
by ordering now. 
FEED IS HIGH 
Never before has a silo been so 
needed on the farm as now. 
FARMERS AND DAIRYMEN: We 
will sell these silos at prices you can¬ 
not afford to overlook. Thousands of 
farmers will save money by buying 
now. We have made the TORNADO 
FIR SILO for twenty years and 
specialize on high grade, fir only. 
TORNADO SILOS are everywhere. 
They speak for themselves. Ask your 
neighbor. Don’t wait until railroad 
conditions, car shortages, etc., make 
delivery of your silo uncertain. 
TORNADO SILOS 
TORNADO SILOS are furnished with 
top and bottom storm proof anchors, 
inside iron hoops at top of silo, heavy 
steel braced door frame, covered lugs, 
more hoops, more doors than other 
silos, positively air-tight door sys¬ 
tem, etc. 
Write at once for our silo broadside 
and special early prices. 
THE W. R. HARRISON CO. 
MASSILLON, OHIO 
To Farmers of New York State ONLY 
The Patriotic Farmers Fund 
which performed valuable war-time service, has been incorpor¬ 
ated under the Banking Laws of New York State and is now the 
Farmers Fund, Inc. 
ITS DIRECTORS are New York State business men and 
bankers with a direct interest in the success of farmers. 
ITS RURROSE is to assist deserving farmer-borrowers, espe¬ 
cially those now without regular banking connections. 
ITS CAPITAL is ample—$400,000 in “free money” and a 
reserve of $100,000. 
ITS ORRER to you is short-time credit—3 to 12 months— 
at a reasonable cost. 
Write for pamphlet explainine our Short-Term 
Credit Plan for New York State Farmers 
FARMERS FUND, Inc. 
Alliance Bank Building Rochester, N. Y. 
