642 
Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Boys and Girls 
By Edward M. Tuttle 
This is Our Page. Once a month we meet here as friends, telling each 
other of all that interests us, at work, at play, at home, at school. 
“Have Some” 
I wonder if the -sap is stirring yet, 
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate, 
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun, 
And crocus fires are kindling one by one. 
-—Rossetti. 
Not one of us would refuse our young 
friend’s invitation, I am sure. To drink 
from a sap bucket is really to taste the 
Springtime. Think of getting sugar from 
a tree! Perhaps there are some of you 
boys and girls who have never seen maple 
syrup and maple sugar made. I did not 
until I was grown up. I spent my boy¬ 
hood on the same Tong Island farm 
where I am now, and there are no sugar 
maple trees here. But my father used to 
tell about the work in a sugar bush 
when he was a boy up in Northern New 
York. Then when I left home to go to 
school up-State I. too, saw the sap flow, 
and tasted it, and watched the boiling 
down and sugaring off. 
Making maple sugar is different from 
any other kind of work. It belongs to 
the month of March, and has a special 
interest for all who have ever done it. 
I hope some of you who are helping with 
the sugar-making will write and describe 
how the work is done, so that other 
readers may know about it. 
Garden-making Time 
Now we begin making our gardens in 
earnest. April days- are nearly here, and 
very soon, if not already, the ground will 
be in shape to work. 
Your letters have been telling me of 
your garden plans. Ruth II. writes 
from up in Central New York : 
“Now I will tell you about my garden. 
I have made two window boxes to put in 
the windows to start my tomatoes early. 
I am going to have in my garden toma¬ 
toes, beets, radishes, chard, watermelons, 
muskmelons, pumpkins, squashes, celery, 
cabbage, lettuce, onions, peppers and 
cucumbers. I earned the money for my 
seeds by mending daddy’s overalls, and 
he gave me five cents a patch.” 
Isn’t that fine! Ruth is the kind of 
girl who does things. It is easy to see 
that. She has her plans made early. She 
builds her own seed boxes. She earns 
the money to buy her seeds. And she 
will have a good garden, I am sure. I 
hope she will write about it later on. 
Probably you all have your garden 
patches picked out. The soil needs to 
be rich and easy to work, but of com*se 
some places are much better than others. 
We have to use what we have, and do 
our best with it. The hardest part of 
the garden work is to turn over the soil 
the first time. Unless you are older and 
stronger you will need help with this. I 
am sure your father or your big brother 
will do part if you show them that you 
are iu earnest about the garden. 
Once it is plowed or spaded, then you 
can set to work to make the soil fine and 
mellow. It is a great deal easier to work 
the garden before the seeds are sown than 
afterwards. It is all the better if there 
are several weeks between the time the 
garden is plowed and the time the first 
seeds are sown. There will be a chance 
to kill one or two crops of weeds. 
You will find that seeds belong in two 
groups or classes. One class contains 
those that may be sown early in the 
Spring, about as soon as the ground is in 
shape. They are not hurt by the frost. 
Such are the seeds of beets, carrots, let¬ 
tuce, onions, parsnips, peas, radishes, 
early turnips and some others. Of the 
flowers, Alyssum, bachelor’s-button, can¬ 
dytuft, marigold, mignonette, morning 
glory, nasturtium. Phlox, sweet peas and 
many others belong to the early Spring 
group. 
The second class of seeds must not be 
planted until all danger of frost is past. 
The exact date will depend on what part 
of the country you are in. Beans, corn, 
cucumbers, squash and the melons belong 
to this class. Asters, balsam, larkspur, 
Petunias and sunflower are some of the 
flowers to be planted late. 
With certain plants, such as tomatoes, 
cabbage, peppers and others, we can gain 
time by starting them in the house and 
then setting out the young plants when 
there is no danger of frosts. 
In sowing the garden try to have 
straight rows. Nothing tells so much 
about the gardener as this. Crooked 
rows mean careless, loose habits. A line 
and two sticks will make all the differ¬ 
ence. We want our gardens to be good- 
looking. 
Some seeds are very small. We have 
to be careful not to sow them too thick. 
I have never forgotten a lesson I learned 
when I went out to help my father sow 
turnips. He made the furrow and told 
me to sow the seeds. By the time I was 
half way across one row the seeds were 
gone. He had expected to sow three rows 
with them. 
Study the directions for sowing each 
kind of seed, and do the sowing care¬ 
fully. By the time our next page is out 
I expect many of you will have your gar¬ 
dens well under way with the early seeds 
planted. 
Some Good Letters 
I enjoy the Boys’ and Girls’ Page very 
much. I have kept a garden for two 
years, but I did not take care of it very 
well. This year I am going to start in 
new. I live in the country, and I am 
nine years old. I am very much inter¬ 
ested in birds. We have a wren house very 
near our house, and it is such fun to 
watch them. They come about five feet 
from us and are almost tame. I know 
the song sparrow, cardinal, robin, blue- 
jay, bluebird, meadow lark, scarlet tana- 
ger, red-winged blackbird, indigo bunting, 
red-headed woodpecker, orchard oriole, 
Baltimore oriole, owl. crow, mourning 
dove and others. The picture of the wren 
house in the last number was very nice. 
We need a new wren house, and we may 
copy that one. Georgia f. 
Ohio. 
Georgia is very frank about her garden, 
and I am glad she is. She will do better 
this year. One thing we need to have 
with gardens is lots of stick-to-itivcness 
along in the Summer when it gets hot 
and the weeds are growing fast. But 
that is where Our Page will help. We 
will all feel that we are encouraging each 
other and that we must do our best. 
That is a fine list of birds Georgia 
knows, and she will be learning others 
each year. 
Another letter: 
I wanted to write and tell you how 
much I like the Boys’ and Girls’ Page in 
The R. N.-Y. It has something helpful 
in it always. I have been noticing for 
signs of Spring, and I have seen many 
meadow larks in the fields on my way 
to school mornings. I have to get up 
early, because I have a mile to walk for 
the train to take me to the next station, 
and quite a walk from there to the 
sehoolhouse. Then I walk all the way 
home, because there is no afternoon 
train. I do errands for my family on the 
way to and fro, for we live quite a way 
from the village. This afternoon when I 
got home I saw The R. N.-Y., found 
Our Page, and there were three pictures 
of Mike. I think he is a pretty kitten. 
I hope the flying squirrel comes again, 
so that you can tell me more about his 
habits. I live on a farm, too, and intend 
to have a garden this year. 
It is almost supper time now, so I 
must close and help my mother. 
New York. AEETTA T. 
It is good to know Our Page is helpful. 
That is what we want it to be. Also 
we want it to be interesting. Aletta 
mentions the signs of Spring, and once 
more I remind you not to forget to keep 
the lists. This is just the time now when 
the signs are coming thick and fast. On 
another part of this page Aletta will find 
some more about the flying squirrel, as 
she hopes. 
I certainly think you have the most 
splendid and interesting Roys’ and Girls’ 
Page that I have ever seen in any paper. 
It is too bad that we can't have one every 
week. But I know you have a lot to do; 
every farmer does. So we will all be 
contented with the dandy one which we 
have every month. I do so enjoy the let¬ 
ters and also the pictures, because they 
are real life pictures. My father has 
taken The R. N.-Y. for some time, and 
we both like it. 
I think you have a fine subject for 
next month. Spring! I think Spring is 
the nicest season of the year, don’t you? 
We all begin to watch for birds and 
plant our gardens. I love to watch for 
signs of Spring. 
In the January number I read where 
a boy in Pennsylvania with the initials 
O. L. said, “The reason why boys cannot 
write as much as girls is because they 
have so much more to do. There are the 
chores to do and always some farm work 
to do between times.” I think he is mis¬ 
taken. don’t you, Mi*. Tuttle? I think 
that if he had to stay in the house for 
a few days and help with the washing, 
ironing, baking, sewing, cooking and the 
hundred other things that girls and their 
mothers have to do, he would change his 
ideas completely. Besides, some girls 
help with the chores and farm wprk, too, 
besides what they have to do in the house. 
I don’t mean to say that the girls do 
more than boys, but I do think they do 
just as much. Don’t you agree with me? 
I worked on the farm last Summer and 
help with the chores the year around. 
My father has a farm of 2G5 acres. 
We have 10 cows, but do not get much 
milk from them now. My little sister 
and I do the milking in the evenings iu 
Winter and evenings and mornings both 
in the Summer. We have five cats, and 
they surely keep the mice away. Their 
names are Kitty Gray, Nigger. Brownie, 
Fluff and the other is kind of wild, so 
we never named it. We also have pigs, 
sheep and horses. I like the horses best 
of all. I think they are such pretty 
animals. Well, I hope my letter is not 
too long. It is the first I have ever 
written to any paper, but I am not going 
to ask you to print it. because I know 
you have so many others to look over that 
I suppose there will be others more in¬ 
teresting than mine. But I will write 
again, anyway Next time I am going 
to tell you about my school and fair 
work. RUTH T. 
Ohio. 
March 27, 1920 
Ruth writes a fine letter. I think we 
would all like Our Page to come every 
week, but there are good reasons for not 
doing that now, and we will think all 
the more of it once a month. Ruth takes 
a fair and square stand about boys’ and 
girls’ work. It is not a question of more 
work or harder work. It is a question 
of each doing his or her best. I did think 
Ruth’s letter interesting enough to let 
you all read it. It will be interesting to 
hear from her again about the school and 
fair work. 
All of these letters show what Our 
Page is meaning to us. I hope you feel 
that you may say the things that are 
really in your minds and tell of the 
things that really happen. Then we will 
find much that is helpful and interesting 
to us all. 
Raising Lambs 
I am going to tell you about our lamb, 
named Junior. He is not a year old. 
When he was young his mother died. So 
my father said that my sister and myself 
Junior 
could have him for a pet, and that we 
should feed him and take care of him. 
We kept him in a small lot near the 
house until he was old enough to eat 
grass and grain. Then we moved him 
into the barnyard. 
Arms Full 
About every day we would let him 
out. Sometimes we would jump and he 
would jump and play with us. We also 
taught him to bunt, and I am sorry now 
I did. I have much fun with him, and 
one day he followed us to the road ami 
we thought lie would be run over. He 
ran under the school wagon, and some 
passerby said to the driver that a lamb 
was under the wagon and would be run 
over. One of the boys w r eut out of the 
wagon and the lamb came out from under 
the wagon to see him. The boy was 
afraid the lamb would bunt and jumped 
into the wagon. Our father has 10 sheep 
and two other lambs, named Bertha anil 
Betty. T 
\\ e live on a 152%-acre farm. 'j c 
have two mules, named Dick and Maude. 
We pet them and we are fond of them, 
and they surely like us. 
I am sending you a picture of our 
lamb. Junior. lie is in the orchard. He 
is also a trick lamb. 
Ohio. gwbUJJ uitie years. 
