1306 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Some 16 years ago I told of a conversa¬ 
tion I had with Uncle Ed, who lived with 
us at that time. Uncle Ed had his home 
in Florida, out spent the Summer work¬ 
ing at Hope Farm. At the time I speak 
of we were hoeing corn at the top of our 
hill. We had just planted the apple or- 
, chard, and we both realized the long and 
weary years of toilsome waiting before 
there couni be any fruit. It was a hot 
day, and at the end of the row we stopped 
to rest under the big cherry tree where 
the stone wall is broad and thick. It was 
a clear day, and far off across the rolling 
country to the East we could see the 
sparkle of the sun on some gilded-top 
building in New York. It^gave one a 
curious feeling to stand in that shady 
retreat on $50 land in a lonely neighbor¬ 
hood, practically untouched by modern 
development, and glance across to the mil¬ 
lions and the might crowded at the mouth 
of the Hudson. Most of us feel a sort 
of pride on viewing the evidence of 
wealth and power, even though we have 
no share in it, or even when we know it 
means blood money taken from our own 
lives. I felt something of this as I pointed 
it out to Uncle Ed, and told him how 
probably the overflow of that great city 
would some day make an acre of our or¬ 
chard worth more than a farm in Florida. 
***** 
It. did not seem to impress him greatly. 
He ran his eye over the glowing, prospect 
and then slowly filled his pipe for a smoke. 
I a l no friend of tobacco, but I confess 
thf sometimes I like to see a man like 
Uncle Ed slowly fill his pipe. You feel 
that some sort _of homely philosophy is 
sure to be smoked out. 
“The trouble with you folks up in this 
country,” said Uncle Ed. “is that you 
work too hard. You get so that there is 
nothing in you but work and save. And 
for what? How many of you ever get the 
benefit of your own work? Down where 
I live we don’t exist for the mere sake 
of working. I have known the time when 
I got up determined to do a good day's 
work cultivating. I got the horse all 
harnessed, only to find that my neighbor 
on the south had borrowed the cultivator, 
and I can’t do that. Then I think I’ll 
hoe, but the boys lost the hoe in the brush 
and can’t find it. Then there is the wood- 
pile to be cut up. but my neighbor on the 
north has borrowed the ax. 
***** 
“Now up in this country if fate chal¬ 
lenged a man like that he would start 
picking up stones and making a stone 
wall. Here is one now that we are 
resting against. I’ll bet some old owner 
of this farm piled up this heap of stones 
because he was determined that the boys 
never should play or go fishing. It is now 
the most useless thing you have on your 
farm. If. instead of picking stones and 
building this useless wall, that old-timer 
had quit when fate gave him the sign, 
taken a day off and let the boys go fish¬ 
ing or play ball, this farm would be worth 
far more than it is today. Down in my 
country when the cultivator and the hoe 
and the ax all get away from us we accept 
it as a voice from some higher authority, 
and we drop everything and go fishing. 
After that I notice things straighten out 
and work goes right. You fellows work 
too hard, and don’t know it. But this 
won't buy the woman a dress—we must 
hoe this corn out.” 
***** 
The rows ran to the south, and as we 
hoed on I could see, far away, that bright 
sparkle on the gilding of the big city. And 
I answered with the old familiar argu¬ 
ment : 
“You have just told in a few words 
why there are more savings of the poor 
and middle class people in that big city 
yonder than there are in the entire State 
of Florida.” That was 16 years ago and 
the statement was probably true at the 
time. Florida has gained since then. 
“Up in this country we believe that the 
Lord gives every man of decent- mind and 
reasonable body a chance to provide for 
himself and his family before he is 45. 
If he doesn’t do it by that time, he isn’t 
likely to do it at all. We think there 
are three ways of getting money. You 
can earn it through labor, steal it. or have 
it given to you. For most of us there is 
only one way—that is to dig it out by 
the hardest work, and then practice self- 
denial in order to hold it. Up in this 
country the men who quit and go fishing 
when conditions turn against them, spend 
their declining years without any bait. 
That money off there where you see that 
sparkle was produced by men who did not 
go fishing when conditions turned against 
them.” 
***** 
As I look back upon it now that seems 
like pretty cheap talk, but it was the 
way we looked at it in those days. 
“I know,” said Uncle Ed. “but how 
much better off are they when you sum 
it all up? I claim that the man who goes 
fishing gets something that the man who 1 
built that stone wall never knew. Who 
piled all that money up in the big city? 
■Some of mine is there. The interest I 
have paid on my mortgage has come into 
one of these big buildings for investment. 
The profits on many a box of oranges I 
shipped before the f' ceze never got away 
from New York. It stuck there and you 
can’t get it out. And that’s just what I 
mean. You fellows work your fingers 
stiff and make a little money, and then 
you put it into some bank or big com¬ 
pany or into stocks or bonds. In the end 
it all gets away from you and runs down 
hill to that big city. The hired man took 
$25 to the county fair. Ten dollars of it 
went for beer and rum. The local saloon¬ 
keeper passed the $10 on to the whole¬ 
saler, he to the brewer and he sent part 
of it to Germany and the rest to Wall 
Street. The other $15 mostly went in 
chance games or petty gambling. He 
lost $5 betting that he could find the 
little red ball under the hat. The man 
who won his $5 lost it that night playing 
poker. The gambler who won it lost it a 
few nights later in a gambling house. 
The gambling house man bought bogus 
oil and mining stocks and lost it that 
way. The oil stock man had sense enough 
to salt it down in respectable securities, 
and there it is now under that bright 
sparkle in the big city. You and the 
rest, o'" you do pretty much the same. 
This man who built your stone wall did 
it. The money he made was not invested 
here. If it had been you never could 
have bought this farm. It is off there 
under that bright sparkle—and the boys 
and girls run after it. Yon fellows icork 
too hard! 
***** 
I undertook to come back with that 
text about the man who provideth not 
for his family—but I never was good at 
remembering texts. That is probably be¬ 
cause I do not study them as I ought to. 
But at any rate I undertook to argue that 
it is a man’s first duty to provide for his 
family and also for his own “rainy day.” 
“The night cometh when no man can 
u■orh•. ,, 
“Down where I live.” said Uncle Ed, 
“we don’t have such rainy days as you 
do up here. Life is simple and straight, 
and old people are cared for. We want 
them to live with us—we are not waiting 
for them to pass off and leave their money. 
()ff in that big city where your money 
is turning over and over thousands of 
human lives get under it and are crushed 
out of all shape. Down there under that 
sparkle only the poor know what neigh¬ 
bors are. Many a man lives his life in 
some tenement or apartment house never 
knowing or caring what goes on in the 
room on the other side of the wall. There 
may be joy or sorrow, death or life, virtue 
or crime. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t 
care, because this never-ending grind of 
work has changed sympathy into selfish¬ 
ness. And, in the end, that is what all 
those dollars which you folks dump into 
the big city come to. If the habit is so 
strong that you’ve got to work and try 
to catch up with the man who has a little 
more than you have, why not invest your 
money at home and in the farm? Those 
fellows off under that sparkle will come 
chasing after your money if you invest 
it here, and you'^’ould be boss instead of 
servant! Am I right /” 
***** 
That was 16 years ago, and many 
things have happened since then. Uncle 
Ed has passed away—after many troubles 
and misfortunes. The world has been 
shaken up by the war and by great dis¬ 
coveries, so that we hardly know it. Yet 
there is a brighter sparkle than ever on 
the gilded roofs of the big city—greater 
wealth and more blinding poverty crouch¬ 
ing beneath it. The hill where we hoed 
September 6, 1919 
corn is now covered with big apple trees. 
Where then Bob and Jerry toiled slowly 
along with half a ton of fruit the truck 
now flashes down the hard, smooth road 
with two tons. But sitting on the old 
stone wall of a Sunday afternoon ,n late 
August I look across the valley and won¬ 
der how much there really is in Uncle 
Ed’s philosophy after all. What do you 
think ? h. w. c. 
Soil Analysis; Poultry Ration 
1. Where can I have the soil of my 
farm analyzed? 2. What is your idea of 
a mash containing 200 lbs. bread crumbs, 
200 lbs. wheat middlings, 100 lbs. brew¬ 
ers’ grains, 100 lbs. meat scraps, to be 
fed to White Leghorns? w. J. s. 
Barryville, N. Y. 
1. A chemist’s analysis of the soil of 
your farm would be of little value to you, 
as you are not so much interested in the 
amounts of the various elements that 
could be extracted in the chemist’s labora¬ 
tory as you are in those that growing 
crops will find available. This latter in¬ 
formation the growing plants themselves 
will give you when you have learned to 
read their bulletins, as all farmers should. 
It would be a fine thing if a chemical 
analysis of the soil would furnish the 
farmer with an index to all its crop re¬ 
quirements; unfortunately, however, there 
are too many other factors involved to 
make this practicable. 
This ration could be improved, I think, 
by the addition of wheat bran and some 
high protein concentrate like gluten feed, 
thus allowing a reduction in the amount 
of beef scrap fed ; neither am I sure that 
hens would find dried brewers’ grains a 
very palatable food. As made up. it does 
not seem to me a very well-balanced 
ration. M. b. d. 
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No City Child 
has Greater Advantages— 
Their Dreams have Come True 
T HEY know that the most important crop on every farm 
is children—and that the best is none too good for them. 
So Father, Mother and Grandmother have planned 
and dreamed of the day when they could have a Colt 
Lighting and Cooking Plant in their home. 
The new Colt plant was installed this morning. As they watch 
Bess, cuddled up in the arm chair, reading in the flood of rich, soft, 
white light, sunshine is in their hearts. They envy no one. 
Carbide Lighting 
omj£ 
TRADE 
nd Cooking Plant 
MARK 
is the most efficient and most economical 
light on the market. A record of nineteen 
years proves its entire reliability. There 
is nothing to get out of order. Farmers 
have used them for over ten years with¬ 
out spending a cent for repairs. It can 
stand in a corner of the cellar, in the cow 
barn or in an out house. It lights the 
house and barns, and supplies gas for a 
cooking stove. No other plant for light¬ 
ing country homes supplies this double 
service. Write us for the names and ad¬ 
dresses of neighbors who prefer it to all 
other systems. 
J. B. COLT COMPANY, 288 Fourth Avenue, N. Y. City 
