The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
21 
Notes from Vermont 
Tonight is the end of another busy 
■week, and I have been braiding palm leaf 
hats while reading our papers and won¬ 
dered if there were any more braiders 
among Tiie R. N.-Y. readers. It used 
to be quite an industry in some parts of 
New England. 
We are in a fern picking section, and 
good pickers get from 40 to 00 bunches 
an hour, and receive a cent and a half 
per bunch of 25 fronds. Our boys car¬ 
ried a few bunches down yesterday late 
in the afternoon, and the dealer said he 
had taken in 30 cratesful that day. Three 
months of picking brings to the vicinity 
a good many hundreds of dollars. 
Husband and son have been peeling 
wild cherry bark these cloudy days, but 
the bark dries slowly. Prices for bark 
are not as good as last year as yet, but 
the trees grow along the fences and in 
pastures, and it is an improvement to 
cut them out, and also get rid of a feed¬ 
ing place of the tent caterpillar. The 
two have worked at it odd jobs for five 
or six weeks, and have about a ton of 
bark dried, sacked and tagged. It will 
net about $125. Perhaps this may en¬ 
courage someone else to try the bark 
business, and besides, there is nearly 
enough house wood cut to last us half 
the Winter. 
I was glad to read the editorial sug¬ 
gestion that the farm should be credited 
with the produce consumed. And why 
do so few farmers raise a good garden? 
We had a half acre of garden vegetables 
for our family of seven, and I know we 
never could have afforded to buy the 
vegetables we consumed. Ted’s cabbage 
grew finely. We gave a neighbor some 
plants, and the worms troubled his, but 
we never had to do anything to ours to 
kill the worms, but every afternoon 
Dandy Drake, his wife and seven children 
promenaded up and down between the 
rows, snapping at something. They did 
not eat the cabbages, so concluded they 
ate the worms. If they do we shall like 
our Indian Runnel's better than ever. 
The boys gathered about 300 cabbages 
today, and we have eaten and given away 
at least another hundred. The Jersey 
Wakefield began to crack open perhaps 10 
days ago, hut they held out well in spite 
of the rain. The Greenback with us 
makes the hardest, largest heads; one 
weighed 12 pounds. The season was not 
quite long enough for the Red Rock to 
get full size, but they are verily rocks. 
The Savoy should have been sown earlier, 
too. We know that much more than we 
did last Spring. 
School began Tuesday, as the directors 
could not find a teacher before, and these 
cabbages were only across the road from 
the schoolhouse, and to us it has been 
pitiable to think the parents would not 
provide vegetables for their children, as 
they easily could. One child found a 
cabbage broken over, and took it. cut 
out a tiny piece and gave to two others 
and ate every bit of the rest himself. A 
little girl found a cabbage a cow had 
bitten into, arid she knelt down in the 
mud and chewed off some. Laddie came 
home and told me about her, so I gave her 
two large heads, and her little brother 
clawed (there is no other word to des¬ 
cribe it) into one and filled his mouth 
and hands. They are not poor people, 
they buy lavishly from the store, but 
would never think to buy or raise the 
various vegetables the children crave. 
I wonder if the time will ever come 
when the human race will be as careful 
in the human family as they are in the 
breeding and balanced rations of the other 
animals. In one of Harriet Beecher 
Stowe’s delightful, homey, old-fashioned 
stories she tells us: “One must be a 
good animal before he can be a good 
man.” The continued wet weather has 
been a trial to our dispositions, harvest¬ 
ing has been delayed and some crops in¬ 
jured. We took a 50-mile trip in the 
Fall and everywhere saw and heard the 
same, potatoes fair, but rotting more or 
less; corn was fine, but this wet weather 
is molding and rotting. We saw but one 
field of wheat, and the green sprouts 
were visible in the shock. 
Everywhere there was an abundance of 
berries and wild fruit except apples. 
Sugar was scarce, but things were canned 
by the cold pack method. One friend said 
she always burned her hands lifting the 
cans from the hot water, so 1 showed her 
a hook made from rather heavy plain 
fence wire, the other end of the wire 
being wound around a piece of wood for 
a handle. 
In a catalog I noticed a tool for edging 
grass beside walks and around flower 
beds. It was almost exactly like an old- 
fashioned chopping knife, and I found it 
worked fine. 
Some are rejoicing because the canning 
season is over, but more are learning to 
can the year around. I can every month 
of the year. This week it was 14 bottles 
of beet and cabbage relish; then there are 
a lot of citrous to preserve, and we are 
going to try some of our small carrots in 
carrot marmalade. By that time some of 
the cans will be empty, ready to fill with 
squash, pumpkin or apple, or perhaps 
meat and mincemeat. This year there 
are red cabbage pickles to make, and the 
boys want me to can some cabbage. 
When I notice the many Government 
bulletins quoted I wonder if we appre¬ 
ciate the library of useful information 
that is ours for the asking. Every house¬ 
wife should have the bulletins on canning, 
preserving, jelly making and drying of 
fruits and vegetables, and if the directions 
are exactly followed success is sure. 
The subject of keeping the boys on the 
farm is one each family must solve for 
itself, but if boys think home is the best 
place on earth they will not be impatient 
to leave. This year the boys had two 
fine watermelons, next year they plan to 
have quite a patch. The Early Spanish 
peanuts set full; now the boys wonder 
if they are ripe enough to grow next 
year. The Japanese radishes are not 30 
inches long, but did well, but are too 
“smarty” for us. The gourds are a de¬ 
light, and there is a variety of sizes and 
colors that afford two-year-old Junior 
hours of pleasure. These are little things 
all, but if they bind the household nearer 
together, is it a little thing? 
If there is a shady place to beautify a 
trip to the woods in Fall will give you 
plants to bloom next Spring. The chil¬ 
dren can tell you where the dog-tooth 
violet, Spring beauties, wake-robins, He- 
paticas and jack-iii-the-pulpit grows, then 
take a lesson from Mother Nature and 
give them as homelike a place as possible. 
The many questions about removing 
wild trees for transplanting reminds me 
of the experience of a frieinj. He said 
when he was at home they wanted a row 
of mixed native trees, so while the ground 
was yet frozen in the Spring he selected 
his trees, cut a block of soil around each 
one, and lifted them that way. He said 
he set them about twice as near each 
other as he wanted them, expecting half 
would die. but almost everyone lived. 
Those who have tried it fail to winter 
Cannas in the cellar in our long Winters, 
but the most successful one I know lets 
the frost kill the leaves, lifts the roots 
and sets them in tubs of dirt, just as they 
are to be started next Spring. These are 
placed in a light frost-proof room and 
water enough given to keep them just 
barely alive until perhaps April. This 
has been successful with me. 
MOTHER BEE. 
Holiday Candies 
Part II. 
Fruit and Nut Fudge.—Put -the white 
of an egg in a measuring cup and add to 
it an equal quantity of water; then pour 
into a dish and beat in one pound of 
confectioner’s sugar gradually until it 
forms a thick paste. Flavor it with 
orange juice and mix with it chopped al¬ 
monds, dates and figs. Cut into squares. 
Maple Nougat.—Take three eupsful of 
maple syrup and one cupful of water, 
then add four tablespo'onsful of glucose 
and boil until it forms a hard ball when 
tried in water. Beat up the whites of 
four eggs to a stiff froth, then add them 
to the boiling syrup and stir until the 
mass is very thick, then add one teaspoon¬ 
ful of orange flower water, half a cupful 
of chopped angelica, half a -cupful of 
chopped English walnut meats and stir 
well. Pour into a frame lined with wafer 
paper, put wafer paper on the top. then 
put a board and weights on that. When 
half cold slip around frame with a knife, 
turn out and cut into neat bars or squares 
with sharp knife. Wrap each bar or 
square in waxed paper. 
Peanut Brittle.—One cupful syrup, one 
tablespoonful vinegar, one-fourth tea¬ 
spoonful salt, one teaspoonful vanilla, one 
cupful freshly roasted peanuts, halved. 
Cook the syrup, vinegar and salt in a 
saucepan until a little dropped in cold 
water forms a soft ball. Put peanuts and 
this syrup into an iron skillet and stir the 
mixture until the syrup becomes a golden 
brown. Remove it from the heat and add 
the vanilla. Pour the candy into a shal¬ 
low buttered pan and spread it out into 
a tlnn sheet. Allow it to cool, then re¬ 
move it from the pan aud crack it into 
pieces. 
Cocoanut Candy.—Two eupsful of sy¬ 
rup, three eupsful of cocoanut aud three- 
fourths of a pint of cold water. Put the 
syrup with the water into a saucepan and 
let it dissolve. Boil it for five minutes, 
then strain, add the cocoanut, set the 
saucepan again on the fire and stir till 
the candy rises, then spread on sheets of 
writing paper which have been warmed 
before the fire, and before ibu candy is 
quite cold take it off the paper and cut 
in squares. 
Cocoanut Balls.—Boil together one 
quart of syrup and a pint of water, wash¬ 
ing the sides of the pan when it is first 
boiling with a brush dipped in cold water. 
Boil without stirring till the syrup sugars 
when tried in a little cold water. Stir 
in one-half cupful chopped cocoanut, then 
roll into small balls. 
Fruit Paste.—Put through a meat chop¬ 
per enough cherry, peach or quince pre¬ 
serves to make a half pint with the 
juice. Ileat fruit and add two table- 
spoonsful of gelatin previously softened 
in very little cold water. Stir well and 
continue stirring until it begins to cool 
and thicken, then pour into oiled dish to 
make a layer one inch thick. Let dry 
slowly, sprinkle with sugar, and place in 
a box with waxed paper between the 
layers. A mixture of dried apricots and 
dates may be used for this paste. Wash 
apricots and soak over night in enough 
water to cover. Pour off water, bring 
it to a boil, pour over apricots and let 
stand until cold. Put apricots and dates 
through meat chopper, and proceed with 
the proportions as given. 
Honey Candy.—Place in a saucer % 
lb. of chopped hazel nuts, 2 lbs. of chopped 
almonds, (4 lb. of grated chocolate, table- 
spoonful of cinnamon and a pint of honey. 
Boil together till thick and smooth, let 
cool and roll out on confectioner’s sugar, 
cut into little rounds aud dry slowly in 
a moderate oven. iielen a. lynan. 
Social Interests on the Farm 
Perhaps the experience and efforts of 
myself and neighbors in keeping our young 
people on the farms and interesting them 
in the good of the home community at all 
times may be interesting. The experi¬ 
ment and its results became widely 
known and brought many visitors, at first 
out of curiosity, later because they en¬ 
joyed it. It certainly solved our rural 
problem for us. as to how to keep the 
young people interested on the farm. Ours 
is a somewhat scattered community of 
large farms in one of the counties of 
New York State. These farms for the 
most part keep large or fair-sized dairies, 
therefore “chore time” is nearly always 
at hand, or seems to be, if one wishes to 
go to a place at any distance and puts a 
veto on any outside amusements away 
from home. 
In our midst stood an old, dilapidated 
church (a Seventh-Day Baptist), most 
of whose members were dead, moved 
away, or else turned into some other 
creed. No services were held within 
three or four miles, and but few of the 
residents were able to attend. The young 
people, of whom there are upwards of 
40, ranging in ages from 12 to 25 years, • 
beside a number of small children, hadi 
no place to attend either Sunday school 
or preaching on Sunday, or any ‘place to 
spend an evening where they could be-; 
come better acquainted and enjov each 
other’s society. 1 
Musterole—Keep 
It Handy on 
theMedicineShelf 
For headache or neuralgia 
—for rheumatism—for sud¬ 
den colds or sore throats, 
Musterole offers quick re¬ 
lief. 
Musterole has all the vir¬ 
tues of the old-time mustard 
plaster but is without the 
sting, burn or blister. 
It is a clean, white ointment 
made from oil of mustard and a few 
home simples and is easy to use. 
All you do is rub gently over 
the spot where there is pain or 
congestion. 
Almost instantly your pleasant¬ 
ly tingling skin tells you that good 
old Musterole has begun its heal¬ 
ing work. 
9 After the first warm glow 
comes a soothing, lasting cool¬ 
ness, but way down deep under¬ 
neath the coolness, Musterole has 
generated a peculiar heat which 
disperses congestion and sends 
your pain away. 
Try it for those many ills for 
which grandma used a mustard 
plaster. It quickly loosens up a 
cough. It reduces inflammation 
in cases of sore throat. It relieves 
bronchitis, neuralgia, lumbago, 
rheumatism, stiff neck, sore mus¬ 
cles, sprains and strains. It often 
prevents pneumonia. 
Keep a jar handy on the medi¬ 
cine shelf. 
Many doctors and nurses recommend 
Musterole. 
30c and 60c jars; hospital size $2.50. 
The Musterole Co., Cleveland, Ohio 
BETTER THAN A MUSTARD PLASTER 
Famous Restaurant Combination 
At last a plan was devised by a man, j 
a natural leader of men, an intelligent! 
( hristian, with a family of two daugh¬ 
ters and two sous. This plan was talked' 
over with the other neighbors, and invi¬ 
tations were given to all to met at his 
house the following Sunday evening at I 
7:30 to organize a meeting to be held' 
at the different homes, always on Sundav , 
evenings, to be known as the Civic Bet¬ 
terment League, whose motto is “Do good | 
to whoever, whatever and when you can.”.! 
About a dozen people responded to the 
first invitation. A president, vice-presi¬ 
dent. secretary and treasurer were elected, 
a collection taken, songs (hymns) sung, 
a chapter in the Bible was read, dis-; 
cussed and explained, prayer offered and! 
a place of meeting selected for the next , 
week. A leader was selected to prepare I 
a literary program which should consist 1 
of readings, recitations, hymns aiul a dis-, 
cussion of a chapter of the Bible. The 1 
work of these programs was to be given 
to the young people to select, and all re- j 
sponded to the task. At the close of the i 
meeting the name of each enrolled mem-j 
her was called by the secretary, after the 
reading of the minutes, and each respond¬ 
ed by repeating a verse or passage from 1 
the Bible. After the second meeting a 
social was arranged for, which cncour-j 
aged the young men to spend their ice 
cream money at home instead of in town. 
Soon these meetings became too largely 
attended to be held at private houses, and , 
as it was becoming warmer weather, the 
old church was opened. a“bee” was made 
and it was cleared of rubbish, cleaned, 
and the meetings were held there. 
It, then became evident what our leader 
had in his mind when those collections were 
taken up aud ice cream and other socials 
held ; the money was used in purchasing 
singing books, lesson quarterlies, lights 
and repairs on the old church. Once in 
two weeks a social was held, and the al¬ 
ternate week a party was held at one or 
another of the homes. As the clays be¬ 
came longer a Sunday school was organ¬ 
ized and held at fi F. M. in order to al¬ 
low the small children to go home before 
the league meeting. As the Summer ad¬ 
vanced picnics were held, drives planned 
and entertainments, plays, etc., gotten up 
and given in public, aud the result finan-j 
cially was that in one year $289 had been 1 
kept in this community, which was used 
for the betterment of the surroundings! 
that otherwise would have been spent in 
some other town, or in some movie house 
of doubtful benefit. Everyone of these 
young people is contented, aud when de¬ 
sirous of a change, they have a different 
plan fnc.au entertainment. Jessie. I 
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We're accepting orders from families direct for this 
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GILLIES COFFEE CO., 233-239 Washington St., New York 
Established 79 Years 
Indoor Closet $10.85 
Have a warm, sanitary .odorless toilet 
in the house anywhere you want it. 
The Bennett is made of enameled 
steel with wood seat and lasts a 
lifetime. Disinfects automatically. 
Splendid for invalids. Shipped com- 
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p r epaid. Satisfaction guaranteed or money back 
BENNETT HOMES i Equipment Dept. ) 
455 Main Street, N. Tonawauda, NTT . 
By H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS 
— A practical and handy book of all kinds — 
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“ For tale by J ^ 
f THE RURAL NEW-YORKER | 
333 West 30th Street, New York E 
^in N ii ii ii ii ii 111 in 11 in i m mi iiiiiiiiiii 1111 r 
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