The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1007 
Things To Think About 
The object of this department is to give readers a chance to express themselves on farm 
matters. Not long articles can he used—just short, pointed opinions or suggestions. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER does not always endorse what is printed here. You might 
call this a mental safety valve. 
Trouble on a Rural Route 
I was very much interested to read the 
article on page 017 of the action taken by 
the farmers to remedy the rural delivery 
troubles. I am a victim of the same “dis¬ 
ease,” and if nothing is done pretty soon 
it may be fatal to me. Here is my case: 
1 1 live in Westchester County, on the 
' State road. I am specializing in poultry 
1 for egg production. I have worked up a 
[parcel post I’etail egg trade to New York 
City. Pretty near all of my eggs are sold 
that way. We used to get our mail de¬ 
livered twice a day. It was a star route, 
but was later changed to once a day. 
Since January 15 the mail was discon¬ 
tinued entirely. A petition was sent to 
the Foui’th Assistant Postmaster General 
to have the deliveries continued. He 
sent inspectors, a few of them, but no re¬ 
sults as yet. I wrote to my Congressman 
and to the Fourth Assistant Postmaster 
General—-but all I got was promises of an 
investigation. Almost six months and no 
deliveries in sight yet.. I wrote to my 
County Agent, asking if he was able to 
do something, but did not even get a reply 
from him. 
Can you imagine a busy State road in 
Westchester County where there are sel¬ 
dom two farmhouses out of sight all along 
the road and no mail delivered? I live 
about five miles from the Peekskill post 
office and I must make at least three or 
four trips a week with my horse to send 
off my eggs and to receive the empty 
.boxes; and for a work horse it is more 
than a half day affair. Most of my field 
work is a good deal neglected, and cannot 
catch up with my work. I am also busy 
with the hatching and brooding, and the 
chicks have not received the care they 
should get. This mail trouble has been 
very costly to me. Can you advise what 
else I can do to get the post office officials 
to act? I read that the Farm Bureaus 
have become interested in these cases, but 
T do not know what is the matter with the 
Farm Bureau in this county, 
i New York. .iosepii sunshine. 
“Home-making in the Country” 
I Ildw true every word of this article of 
Mr. Wing’s on page 873. What fine 
1 writers those Wings all were! Poor 
“.Toe” Wing, .how I used to be delighted 
with his articles. This Charles should 
be encouraged, for I believe he is every 
hit as good a writer as lamented “Joe.” 
What he says about his own settlement 
is just exactly true around here. No 
neighborly visiting: no old-fashioned 
flowers (nor new-fashioned either) ; no 
gardens. How I used to love the blue¬ 
bells. and the hollyhocks, and Sweet 
Williams, but now we see no flowers. No 
home-making. The farmhouse is now 
simply a boarding house; no “hooking 
mats”; no “quilting parties” ; the tenants 
and foreigners and laborers occupying the 
old homesteads of the neighborhood. A 
visit of a neighbor is indeeel a rare thing 
these days. It seems to be the same all 
over—in Illinois as in Prince Edward 
Island. Pity ’tis, ’tis true. 
1 J. A. MC DONALD. . 
Prince Edward Island. 
Trespassing Golfers and Shotguns 
Our farm for half a mile adjoins a 
country club and golf course. An ordi¬ 
nary barb wire fence separates our pas¬ 
ture from the club property, but the cul¬ 
tivated fields are unfenced. Much dam¬ 
age has been done in the past few years 
to our potatoes, beans, grain, etc., by the 
players ruthlessly trampling the crops in 
search of stray balls. We have put up 
“No Trespass” signs all along the line, 
but they are utterly disregarded, and last 
year were even pulled up and thrown 
away. We can see the offenders in the 
fields from the house, but it is so far 
away we cannot identify even those we 
know. They also cut the wires and push 
out staples to let the wires down in order 
to get into the pasture, thus making it 
very easy for our cattle to go through. 
We have taken the matter up with va¬ 
rious club officials, but all to no purpose. 
We do not wish to cause any unpleas¬ 
antness nor hard feelings, but we cannot 
see our crops destroyed, and must have 
protection or reparation for damages. 
What can we do? E. a. 
This is a novel case. The meanness of 
it becomes apparent when we realize that 
the farmer in this case is a woman. There 
is no doubt but that the individuals could 
be separately haled into court as tres- 
jpassers and be made to pay for the dam¬ 
age they had done. This is slow, tedious 
and eo6tly, but it may be the most effec¬ 
tive remedy. If a couple of these tres- 
Jpassers are arrested it may be quite salu¬ 
tary to the rest. If they are caught, or if 
a few are identified as trespassers and 
then they, with the club as an organiza¬ 
tion, joined in a lawsuit as party defend¬ 
ants. the question of who is responsible 
could be thrashed out. Another idea is 
! to pay two or three good stout boys 25 or 
50 cents apiece for each golf ball they get 
[on your property. This might lead to 
caution on the part of the golfers, or it 
might lead to fights on the part of their 
caddies and your boys, and to more damage 
than is now being done. One thing is cer¬ 
tain ; you must be prepared for trouble-if 
you are ever going to cure this evil, and 
it may be that the most trouble you can 
cause them in a short space of time will 
be the best and quickest way in the end. 
Write the club first that the situation has 
become intolerable, and that you will hold 
the club and each individual trespasser 
responsible. Then get a couple of good 
witnesses who can identify the parties 
who come upon your land and the damage 
they do. As a last resort get a shotgun 
and place yourself or some one who can 
shoot it, in a position overlooking the 
grounds, and as a man comes over or 
through the fence, blaze away in that di¬ 
rection, carefully, and yell as if you meant 
business. The application of this plan 
last Fall netted me three nut stealers and 
eight quarts of hickorynuts per one 
charge, and no further trouble all the 
Fall. What do golfers or hunters care 
for your property? They do fear a 
charge of shot. If you lived near I would 
hold the gun and pull the trigger, and do 
the “talking” or at least part of it. I 
have an idea the golfer would do the rest. 
M. D. 
Old Ways and New 
We were interested in the question of 
what had changed old neighborhood ways 
in the country and banished the flowers. 
Looking back 30 years, Deep River, a 
village of 2,000, was a sleepy and rather 
shabby sort of place. We lived on the 
edge of it, and saw it change gradually 
until now it has town water, lights, trol¬ 
ley, good sidewalks and is as well-kept 
as a small city. Half the people have 
autos, there are numberless clubs, and the 
old neighborly calls are a thing of the 
past except among very intimate friends. 
The ways began to change long before 
the automobile arrived; with the desire 
for outward improvement came more con¬ 
ventional ^ways of living and more for¬ 
mality. Now the club life takes the place 
of “neighboring.” 
Here we live on the main street be¬ 
tween two mill villages . We have been 
here over 10 years. Folks called on us 
at first, but the ladies’ society in the local 
church is the only organized social life 
except the Grange. Intimate friends and 
those who live near keep up a semblance 
of the old ways. Visiting in a Vermont 
region nine miles back from the railroad, 
sister found the old ways in full force, as 
she did in rural Iowa. It. seems as though 
American life were in a state of evolution, 
and this change of ways is a serial 
change, the more pronounced in older and 
more closely settled communities. Ap¬ 
parently it began with easier connmuica- 
tion. The automobile has annihilated dis¬ 
tance. telephones make talking with a 
friend the matter of a moment only, and 
“I will see you at the club” is' heard 
daily. 
Father says that people’s interests are 
much more widely scattered in these days. 
People “think larger” for one thing. 
Either we live our own lives more eloselv 
or else take up some form of social serv¬ 
ice. and the local community is only an 
item, not the whole thing with us. 
As to flowers, we have them in the 
backyard out of sight, because we can’t 
raise enough to supply all the youngsters 
who beg for blossoms. Why the mill 
people don't have them may be explained 
by one family who had room for just one 
cherished tomato plant, but could get 
nothing from it because the dozen or so 
little Poles next door picked the wee 
green ones as fast as formed to use as 
marbles. Personally we like the old ways 
best, and look to see the pendulum swing 
back in time so we rural dwellers may 
enjoy the best of them once more. 
EDNA S. KNAPP. 
The Covenant of Calgary 
Why working women prefer all other 
lines of wage earning to domestic service 
is a matter under constant discussion. 
Wages are steadily rising, yet the supply 
of such workers steadily declines, and it 
is quite evident that what we regard as 
peculiarly “woman’s sphere” does not ap¬ 
peal to those dependent on their own exer¬ 
tions for their livelihood. At Calgary. 
Alberta, a recent effort has been made to 
put housework on a more satisfactory 
basis. The Housekeepers’ Association, 
composed of domestic workers in that 
city, has drawn up the following agree¬ 
ment. which is to be imposed upon em¬ 
ployers : 
“I. I promise good behavior and my 
best services to my employer. 
“2. The rate of my wage shall be- 
a month. 
“3. Ten hours shall constitute a day’s 
work. 
“4. If more hours are required they 
shall be regarded as overtime and paid 
for at the rate of 15c an hour. 
“5. I shall have every Sunday evening 
free after (5:30 o’clock. 
“6. My employer shall speak of me as 
her ‘housekeeper’ and shall always ad¬ 
dress me as Miss or Mrs. So-and-so. 
“7. I shall have the privilege of enter¬ 
ing or departing by the front door. 
“8. I shall have the use of a suitable 
room one evening a week in which to en¬ 
tertain my friends until 10 o’clock. 
“9. I shall make it a rule to be in my 
employer’s house at 11 o’clock every even¬ 
ing. 
“10. I shall be given proper board. 
“11. Comfoi-table and sanitary lodgings 
shall be provided for me. 
“12. This engagement of service may 
be terminated at any time by either party 
giving two weeks’ notice. 
“13. In case of the violation of any of 
these terms either party may terminate 
the engagement immediately. 
“14. All complaints from either em¬ 
ployees or employers shall be laid before 
an arbitration board composed of mem¬ 
bers of the Housekeepers’ Association, 
who shall seek to adjust the difficulties 
with justice. 
At first this contract was regarded as 
revolutionary, but it has proved advan¬ 
tageous to both sides. The Housekeepers’ 
Association has been admitted to the Fed¬ 
eral Workers’ Union of Canada, and is 
recognized by confederated women’s clubs. 
It is proving a training school for domes¬ 
tic workers and in improving their condi¬ 
tion improves their education and ability. 
No fair-minded employer could take ex¬ 
ception to the 14 points of the Calgary 
Covenant, and we think their general rec¬ 
ognition would interest many intelligent 
country girls in domestic work, who are 
now moving towards office or factory. In 
our own neighborhood a Finnish girl was 
recently offered .$45 a month to do the work 
for a family of three, and declined, be¬ 
cause she wanted $50. while a well-to-do 
woman in an adjacent factory town of¬ 
fered $80 a month for a cook. 
Your Body Temperature 
No matter how you may feel about it, 
you are really “just about the same, 
thank you,” so far as your actual tem¬ 
perature is concerned. That is, if you 
are well. If in good health, you may 
fish from floating icebergs in the Arctic 
or stone cocoanuts from tropical palms 
without any material change in your body 
that a thermometer could discover. Being 
a warm-blooded animal, you have within 
you a delicately adjusted heat-regulating 
apparatus that keeps you at 9S.6 degrees 
F. Summer and Winter alike. You are 
never blistering hot or freezing cold, not 
really: you just feel that way. When¬ 
ever, if ever, you get far away from that 
body temperature that nature has fixed 
upon as best for you, all things consid¬ 
ered, it means that something is inter¬ 
fering with the thermostat inside you. 
Perhaps clinkers are clogging the grate, 
or the drafts are being tinkered with. It 
means, usually, that a physician should 
be called in to look for the cause of the 
disturbance. 
If you are not one of those people who 
are always fussing about their own or 
someone’s else health, it is a pretty good j 
idea to have a physician’s thermometer | 
in the house. It will enable you to tell 
whether a member of the family is really 
feverish or whether his apparently flushed 
face and hot skin are the product of your 
excited imagination. But, if you are 
going to use such an instrument of pre¬ 
cision as a fever thermometer, you should 
know something about the natural varia¬ 
tions that occur in body temperature, 
slight though these are. While, as I have 
said, the normal temperature of the 
human body, taken in the mouth or in 
the armpit, is 98.6, there are some varia¬ 
tions from this that do not indicate dis¬ 
ease. For instance, the normal temper¬ 
ature is about one degree higher in in¬ 
fancy and early childhood than in middle 
age, and it may vary as much either way 
in the elderly. In children, too, it is 
much more easily disturbed. There is 
also a variation at different periods of 
the day that close observation might de¬ 
tect. 
The body temperature rises from be¬ 
tween seven and eight o’clock in the 
morning to the same hour in the evening, 
registering, perhaps, a degree higher at 
the latter hour. It then slowly falls 
until, sometime between 12 and four A. 
M.. it reaches its lowest point. It is at 
this period of the day that the vital 
forces of the body seem to reach their 
lowest ebb: thus accounting, perhaps, for 
the blues that are likely to attack one if 
he lies awake after midnight. But these 
variations are not likely to exceed one 
degree in extent, and have no significance 
from the standpoint of health. Violent 
exercise may raise the temperature of 
the body a degree or two, though this in¬ 
creased heat is soon dissipated. Taking 
food and drink, particularly hot foods and 
drinks, will also, increase the thermometer 
reading a fraction of a degree. 
These slight variations in temperature 
in health do not indicate any failure of 
the heat-regulating mechanism of the hu¬ 
man body; they testify, rather, to its 
wonderful perfection. The heat of the 
body doesn’t just happen: it is as much 
the result of the burning of fuel within 
the body as is the heat from a stove the 
result of the consumption of fuel there. 
Food is fuel, and the vital processes going 
on within the body apply the match to 
it. No artificial stove has ever been in¬ 
vented. however, that utilizes its fuel 
with even a small part of the efficiency 
shown by the human body, and no man 
made regulating apparatus can approach 
the human nervous system in the delicacy 
and certainty of its operation. A£. B. D. 
The 
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Papec Machine Company 
110 Main Street Shertsville, N. Y. 
25 distributing points in U. S. 
1 
HAY CAPS waterproof, 
made from 
light duck and canvas. All sires. 
Write for prices. Eight ox. plain 
WAGON COVERS, 7x10 feet. $5. 
WATERPROOF CANVAS, *5.95 each. 
W. W. STANLEY. SO Chureb St.. New Yard 
VAILE-HIMES 
WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS 
Did you know that for 30c a month 
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Supply System? 
It will pump the water for washing 
the clothes in the laundry, and the 
dishes in the kitchen. It will save a 
woman many a backache and many a 
more serious trouble. 
It will water the stock, keep the lawn 
green and fresh, make work more easy, 
labor more productive and profit more 
plentiful. 
This exceedingly low operating cost 
is just one of the features of V&K 
Water Supply Systems. They are very 
quiet, smooth running, self-starting, 
self-stopping, self-priming, and they re¬ 
quire no attention except to replenish 
the on about once a year. 
Write for free book. 16 will pay 
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11^ 
THE VAILE-KIMES CO. 
Dayton, Ohio 
s 1<»dcrnWay 
Tearout-Maii 
I 
The Vaile-Kimes Co., 
Dept. C-201, Dayton, Ohio. 
Gentlemen :—Please send me free book on 
water supply. 
Name.. 
Address... 
