12 
‘The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 23, 1020 
The Sprayer That Should Be 
On Every Farm 
Every farm should have one or more Smith No. 22 
Banner Compressed Air Sprayers. 
It can be put to important uses almost daily. It will 
spray shrubbery, trees, garden and field vegetables 
and flower beds. It will spray to disinfect poultry 
houses, stables, cellars; to wash windows, buggies, 
etc., and also sprays stock for flies. It makes short, 
quick, easy work of any spraying job on the farm, 
spraying anything in liquid form. Easily operated 
by man or boy. 
SMITH 
NS 22 
Banner 
COMPRESSED AIR SPRAYER 
A few strokes of its strong pump and you have at 
your command a strong pressure to spray any liquid, 
anywhere. 
The automatic brass nozzle throws a fine, even mist 
spray or a coarse spray — as you wish. It wastes 
no liquid and does not clog. 
The tank, made of brass or galvanized steel, holds 
4 gallons. 
Handle locks conven¬ 
iently into pump head 
for loosening or tighten¬ 
ing pump — or for carry¬ 
ing sprayer in hand. Ad¬ 
justable strap with snap- 
ends for carrying over 
shoulder. Tank can be 
readily filled without 
funnel. 
Ask your dealer or send 
for literature on'No. 22 
Banner Sprayer 
D. B. SMITH & CO. 
UTICA, N. Y. 
We make 50 different 
kinds of sprayers. If in¬ 
terested in any other 
kind of sprayer, send for 
catalog 
The Thoughts of a Plain Farm Woman 
Social Problems. —We hear much 
these days about the social problem on 
the farm. Many people who never saw a 
farm, and then again many who have lived 
in the'country all their lives, are agitated 
over our lack of social interests and en¬ 
tertainment. Farmers who live on the 
State and improved roads are only as far 
away from town and the nearest church 
or movie house for nine months* in the 
year as it takes an average car to run 
the required distance after chores are 
done; but the back hill folk and the peo¬ 
ple situated many miles from the town 
or city feel sometimes that fate has not 
handed them a fair chance on this cotint, 
and that this question is paramount 
where the growing generation at least is 
concerned. Personally, this idea that the 
farmer and his family must be on the 
everlasting “go” like the bored and blas6 
city family seems all wrong and mere 
twaddle to me. I do not believe that 
happiness or mental broadness and real 
culture are found in those families who 
can never tarry a minute willingly in 
their own homes, in the society of their 
nearest and dearest. But this is the 
situation in which the greater part of 
rural America finds itself nevertheless. It 
is no longer considered the thing to re¬ 
main by one’s own fireside if there is a 
single possible place left to visit. That 
old sweet saying. “Home-keeping hearts 
are happiest, to stay at home is best.” 
has .been laughed out of being in the cos¬ 
mopolitan United States. Those who hon¬ 
estly do prefer, even in these days, to 
remain quietly at home of an evening, 
with the world’s bookshelf for a com¬ 
panion and their own family for com¬ 
pany, are pointed out as queer and old- 
fashioned. We seem to have reached the 
stage where artificial amusements must 
be provided at any cost, and the “jazzier” 
and the more exciting the better. 
Restless People. —But I still insist 
that the power to gratify the “social urge” 
neither brings contentment nor hap¬ 
piness. The most restless and seemingly 
hardest-to-suit people numbered among 
my acquaintances are those who are able 
to indulge their amusement-urge to the 
uttermost, and who flee from the thought 
of a happy hour spent alone at home. 
Artificial Amusements. —Rut not all 
of us are able to indulge these longings. 
The back-hill farmer family will be un¬ 
able to do so for some time, perhaps never, 
or until they pull up stakes and move 
within a stone’s throw of the town where 
a picture house or town hall queens it 
over the surrounding territory. And I 
cannot feel sorry for them that their 
longings in the artificial amusement field 
cannot be pampered and fed. I believe 
that if all America goes movie mad and 
dance mad and party mad and so on 
and so on, that some day the whole 
country will wake up so exhausted, so 
sleepy, so useless and lazy and sluggish that 
we will automatically descend from our 
high pedestal as world leaders and become 
a nation tired out and bored with’ itself, 
and worst of all. sick to death of itself. 
But all these distressing prophecies are 
not likely to happen so long as there re¬ 
main a few million national farmers who 
are willing to spend the main part of the 
night in bed, as the Lord intended His 
workers should, instead of tasting of 
doubtful and intoxicating revels away 
from home. 
Contented Home Life. —It seems to 
me that we have reached the pass even 
now where our nation is to be pitied, be¬ 
cause we can no longer depend on our¬ 
selves for happiness and content. In the 
city there is a constant temptation, of 
course, to spend one’s nights abroad in 
the land. But out in the free, sweet 
country the farther away from excitement 
the better, the worthwhile farmer and his 
wife are going to continue to be content 
in the home life for which rural America 
has been famous for ages—provided it is 
changed and improved in all instances 
where something now is lacking. By this 
I mean if every isolated country home in 
America could in time be equipped with 
electric lights and power, furnace, bath¬ 
room, conveniences and improvements of 
all kinds inside the house to correspond 
with the average city one, that the farmer 
and his family would be perfectly content 
to stay at home and let the social part 
of their lives take care of itself. 
Needed Improvements. —And what a 
difference these right, normal improve¬ 
ments would make! With funds sufficient 
to equip a comfortable and charming 
home, even if it were situated miles from 
nowhere, what sensible American farmer 
and his family would not be content to 
stay within its gates a comfortable 
majority of the time while the rest of the 
world worried? With funds to purchase 
musical instruments—player-piano., good 
phonograph, a miniature “moving picture” 
machine, a large camera and developing 
room, a room filled with the world’s best 
and greatest books and numberless maga¬ 
zines and newspapers on the big table— 
why, that family could afford to laugh at 
dullness and the social craze, and surely 
ought to bo able to attend to its particu¬ 
lar personal likes in this direction. But 
the sad part of it is that only one out 
of 10 farmers are at present able to af¬ 
ford a few of these rights or luxuries— 
whichever you consider them—and mean¬ 
while the rest of us must live along, alto¬ 
gether too far from the maddening crowd 
to suit the youngsters who threaten to 
leave home for the gay white lights. 
Tiie Way Out. —But I still have hopes 
that the average farmer and his family 
are going to attempt to find some way out 
of the difficulty, and not tamely give in 
to despair and discontent. The writer is 
one of those practically obsolete and very 
old-fashioned fogies, who goes out of an 
evening possibly three times in a year. 
It simply isn’t done at this farm, and yet 
I believe that I am as well content and 
quite as happy as Hie average hectic per¬ 
son in town and city who must leave his 
house the minute a meal is swallowed lest 
something new and entertaining be missed 
down town or at the latest release in 
nlmdom; for it all boils down to this: 
h y™ have got. to depend on the other 
fellow to entertain you in return for your 
dollar, you are of small account in the 
world s scheme of things. Years ago the 
average American family settled itself as 
a matter of course at least everv other 
evening to read and converse and play 
the piano or organ—in other words, to 
entertain themselves in the home, nor¬ 
mally and wholesomely. Many of us still 
do it on the farms—if we live back far 
enough but standards have so changed, 
people have so changed, and the poison 
has so infected even farmland that it 
seems dull and childish to find pleasure 
any longer in these simple, bettering 
things, so at the first opportunity a car 
is bought and we endeaver to transplant 
ourselves as quickly as possible to enter- 
tamment-land- 
. Saddening Outlook.—I think all this 
is very deplorable indeed, and as pre¬ 
viously hinted at, where will it end? But 
the question answers itself even as I write 
it. Those who go in too much for social 
unrest and. amusements siinply dig their 
own financial and success graves in due 
course. I have seen it happen many times, 
and it will continue to happen until sane- 
minded people decide to stop it. The 
sane-minded people will probably be the 
farmers in this case, for we will refuse 
to work hard and long and cheaply for 
those who do nothing but “go in” for 
pleasure and more pleasure. The farmer 
who may get the habit of tuning up the 
car every night to take a spin into town 
will soon see that he cannot do this and 
work hard and successfully next day, and 
we can depend upon the farmer to cut 
out the night work—if he intends to stay 
on top—as soon as this truth penetrates. 
Getting Down to Fundamentals.— 
I wished to prove at the conclusion of 
these thoughts that a “high old time” at 
the end of a day’s arduous labor is all 
stuff and nonsense. The social uplifters 
would have us believe this, and many dis¬ 
contented ones on the farms repeat it 
with martyr emphasis, but I do not be¬ 
lieve it for a minute. But I do believe 
that we should devote more thought and 
attention to our particular home social 
problem and wipe it out with books and 
up-to-date reading and every-healthy and 
amusing home entertainment capable of 
being devised by a smart farm mother. 
The man. or woman who does not read is 
to be pitied, and their children thrice so. 
And when the modern improvements take 
place generally of which I spoke a while 
back it would seem that every farmer’s 
family everywhere, if at all intelligent 
and resourceful, would stay willingly at 
home, spend the short evenings there en- 
joyably and to purpose, and get up in the 
morning refreshed and ready to cope with 
the day’s work- 
Wiiolesome Recreation. —But all the 
foregoing sounds as if I were “down” on 
moving pictures and good plays and 
church socials and neighborhood social af¬ 
fairs. Mercy, no! I think all of these 
perfectly right and very necessary at fit¬ 
ting intervals, but for a steady or even 
too-occasional night-to-night diet for hard¬ 
working country folk—never! It does 
everybody worlds of good to get out with 
other people once in a while and see what 
the other fellow is doing. If one tried to 
keep the young people eternally apart we 
would soon see that the plan worked any¬ 
thing but well. The point I would make 
is rather that once or twice a week is 
ample in which to satisfy our social and 
amusement wants, and the other five 
nights might more profitably be spent at 
home, getting acquainted with the family, 
talking over one’s hopes and plans for the 
future, and reading, singing and playing 
together in real family harmony. There 
are few who would wish to carry the 
stay-at-home idea to the lengths men¬ 
tioned in the writer’s own family, but 
when we have a big. cheery fire to sit be¬ 
fore, are tired out from the regular day’s 
work, have many fresh periodicals and 
papers inviting us to skim through them 
and, furthermore, have no desire whatever 
to see a “.movie” or dress up for other 
functions, it is very easy to slip into the 
“home-keeping hearts are happiest” view 
•—and criticize those neighbors who find 
home a bore! The middle road is always 
the safer one to travel, and the family 
who can mix home and outside interests 
equally are perhaps happiest in the end. 
It would be interesting to hear other 
women’s opinions on this phase of our 
lives today, and then, perhaps, we could 
discover whether it is better to be all- 
sufficient or dependent to a degree on so¬ 
ciety outside the farmhouse, u. c. K. W. 
