4"3 RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Boys and Girls 
By Edward M. Tuttle 
This is our page. Here we meet as friends, telling each other of 
our work, and of our play, of our pleasures and of our troubles. 
A Winter's Hike 
When February sun shines cold 
There comes a day when in the air 
The wings of Winter slow unfold 
And show the golden Summer there. 
-PHILIP ir. SAVAGE. 
I 
We all know such days. The ground 
may still be covered with snow. Winter 
has seemed to have a firm hold. But on 
these days the sun feels warm at noon. 
The air is softer. We feel the hold of 
Winter loosen. We say it seems like 
Spring. We think of flowers and birds 
and the living, growing things. The next 
day it may be real Winter again. But 
we have had a promise; we have caught 
a glimpse; we know that it will not al¬ 
ways be Winter. Spring and Summer 
time are on the way. 
It is on such a day as this that it is 
good to walk as the boys in the picture 
are doing. We fill our lungs with the 
clean air. We want to shout and sing, 
and very often we do both. We are glad 
to be alive. We are full of plans. We 
notice everything that happens on our 
walk. We have such a good time! 
The Memory Verse 
Joyce A., a little New York girl, said 
in a neat letter that she wrote a while 
ago: “I am learning the poem, and I 
like Our Page very much.” She is the 
first one who has spoken about the little 
verses that I have put at the top of each 
page. I hope that many of you will learn 
them. I try to select something good 
each time; something that it will he 
worth while to keep in mind. Perhaps 
some of you will like to suggest verses 
for the coming months. I should like to 
have you do it. 
Our Gardens 
I hope that every boy and girl who 
reads Our Page will have a garden this 
year. It may be large; it may be small. 
It may contain a big variety of vege¬ 
tables; it may contain only one or two 
kinds. It may be a flower garden instead 
of a vegetable garden. It may be both. 
The kind of garden does not matter so 
Eonch. What T want is to have each one 
of you take a piece of the good earth, 
help to make it soft and fine for seeds, 
sow those seeds with your own hands, 
watch the little plants come up, care for 
them, faithfully all Summer long, and 
finally come to the harvest time. If you 
have done this before you know why I 
want all boys and girls to do it. You 
will be doing it again without my asking. 
If you have never done it yet, begin this 
Spring. 
Choose the kind of garden you like 
best. Have it the right size for your 
size and strength. It is not wise to tackle 
too big a space and then not he able to 
keep it free from weeds. That is discour¬ 
aging. On the other hand, it is just as 
bad to take a little hit of a space, not 
half as large as you could handle well. 
That looks like laziness. Make it a good 
piece of work, one that you will feel 
proud of. 
It is time to be making plans now. Get 
hold of seed catalogs from good seed com¬ 
panies and look them through. Study the 
different plants. Find out which varie¬ 
ties seem best for your garden. Learn 
how much seed it takes for a certain num¬ 
ber of feet of row. At last decide what 
you want, and how much you want, and 
send in your order. This should be done 
soon. Some seeds such as tomatoes, pep¬ 
pers, eggplants, early cabbage and others 
are best started in the house to be set 
out of doors later. It will he time to 
start them before the next issue of Our 
Page is out. 
Think about your garden a lot. Bead 
all you can find about garden making, 
and the best way to grow the different 
vegetables and flowers. Talk your plans 
over with your father and mother. Get 
their advice and encouragement, but do 
the work yourself. It is your garden. 
We should like to hear about gardens 
you may have had before. As soon as 
this year’s garden is started write about 
that. There is a fine picture on this page 
of a New York girl and some vegetables 
she raised last year. Orvilla I). sent the 
picture to me, and said in her letter: 
“Last year when it was garden planting 
time, I raised five big pumpkins from one 
seed. Was not this good? And some 
carrots and some beets, and some beans, 
and some turnips, and I am going to 
have some flowers in my own garden, 
too.” This was good. And you see what 
happens. After her first experience Or¬ 
villa is going to keep right on having 
gardens. So are we all, aren’t we? 
Bird Boxes 
The other thing I said last time that 
we would talk about this month was 
bird houses. Really, it is better to say 
bird boxes, because they should be more 
like boxes than houses. I have sometimes 
seen elaborate houses built for the birds, 
with windows and chimneys and porches. 
It may be fun to build such houses, but 
after all they do not suit the birds, and 
usually stay empty. The nearer a box 
for the birds can be made to look like the 
stub of a tree or a fence post with a 
hole in it, the better the birds will be 
pleased. The best materials to use are 
old weathered boards, or slabs with the 
bark on, or hollow limbs. 
There are just a few points tc- keep in 
mind in building a bird box. If they are 
followed there is a very good chance of 
having n pair of birds use the hex. 
1. The box should not be too small. 
Neither should it be very large. A box 
five inches square aud a foot high will do 
for such birds as wrens, blue birds and 
tree swallows. For flickers the box 
should be seven or eight inches square 
and two feet high. The 'oug way of the 
box sLould always be up an 1 down. 
2. There should only be o room in 
the box. This is true for all birds except 
purple martins, which live in colonies. 
3. There should only be one opening 
in the box, unless it is a martin box The 
rition aud size of the opening are veiy 
important. It should always be round, 
and should be placed above the center of 
the box. About two inches down from 
•he- top is the best place. The birds wa it 
the nest to be out of sight. For wrens 
the hole should be one inch in diameter. 
For blue birds and tree swallows aud any 
other medium-sized birds one and one-half 
February 28, 1920 i 
inch is best. For flickers and large birds 
two inches or more are needed. 
4. Once the box is built it should bo 
rightly placed. It is a mistake to put 
it : n the center of a tree where it will 
b i in the shade. The birds like sunlight. 
The best place is on a pole in the open 
not far from trees. Or the box can be 
A Box for Wrens About One-fifth Size 
nailed to the trunk of a tall tree. From 
eight to twelve feet from the ground is the 
best height for the box. 
Now I expect that a great many of 
you will build at least one box during 
the next month, and put it up. We should 
encourage the birds about our homes. 
They are our friends. Only a very few 
lards do more harm than good. Most of 
them do much good eating insects and 
weed seeds. 
It will be interesting to have some let¬ 
ters about the bird boxes and later about 
the birds that rent them from you for 
the season. Here are a couple of notes 
from boys that have come to me already : 
Leonard II.. Connecticut, says, “Last 
year I made a bird house out of a codfish 
box, and two wrens that had been here 
before came and lived in it. I am going 
to have some more bird houses this year.” 
Walter G. writes from Maryland, "We 
have six houses for the martins; three 
houses for the wrens. I like to watch the 
martins when they build their nests, and 
sit on the roof to sing and bring food to 
their young, and then when the young 
ones get big enough to fly, the mother bird 
teaches them to fly.” 
A Joke on Your Editor 
On Our Page last month there was a 
picture of two little children and their 
pet calf. I asked you to write me a story 
about the picture. I asked whether you 
thought the children were girls or boys 
or one of each. And then when the 
paper came out it said under the picture, 
‘Two little girls and a heifer calf.” How 
it happened I do not know, but of course 
I did not mean to give the secret away 
so soon. I think some of you thought I 
was trying to fool you because you wrote 
that you thought they were boys or one 
boy and one girl. But instead I fooled 
myself. They are little girls, just as the 
paper said last time. 
The Stories 
However, many of you sent iu stories 
and I am going to print three or four of 
them because I think you will like them. 
Here they are: 
The Children and the Calf 
Beauty is a Holstein calf. She is very 
pretty. Do you wonder they call her 
Beauty? She is about four months old, 
and is very fond of her friends, Evelyn 
and Alice. 
They feed her every morning about half 
past seven. She has whole milk to drink. 
Beauty is switching her tail because she 
is so fond of her breakfast. 
Standing by Beauty’s side is a Ply¬ 
mouth Rock hen. Most calves would kick 
the hens if they came around when they 
were eating. But Beauty doesn’t. Don’t 
you wish Beauty was your calf? 
Elizabeth W., 13 years. 
Vermont. 
Future Farmers 
Two little children lived in the country. 
There was a little girl and a boy. The 
boy was five years old and the girl was 
seven. 
The little boy’s name was Ben; the 
girl’s name was Marie. Their father 
gave them a black and white Holstein calf 
for a pet. 
They fed it every day and watered her. 
Orvilla and the Vegetables She Raised 
