834 
The 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. 
New York. joun b., 12 years. 
Memory Verse 
It is easy enough to he pleasant 
When life flows by like a song, 
But the man worth while 
Is the man who can smile 
When everything goes dead wrong. 
—Selected. 
This little verse was sent in by Helen 
B. of Maryland. In her letter she said: 
“As you asked us to suggest a verse for 
the beginning of Our Page, T thought 
this one would be right good.” It is 
good, and I hope that you will all learn 
it and try to practice what it teaches, 
for things sometimes go 'wrong with boys 
and girls as well as with older folks, and 
those are the times when we show our 
true selves. So let’s try to smile through 
the 1 wird places. 
I always like to give the name of the 
author of the verse used on Our Page. 
This one that Helen sent has been familiar 
to me for a long time, but I have never 
known who wrote it. I wonder whether 
any one of our readers does know? 
The Signs of Spring 
Now then. I hope that a whole lot of 
you will send me the lists of the signs of 
Spring that you have been keeping for 
the last two months. Do it right away 
before you forget it. I must have the 
lists within a week after you receive this 
page if I am to look them over and select 
some of the best to print in May. It 
has pleased me to hear from so many of 
you that you were keeping the lists, and 
I believe it lias been an interesting and 
worth-while plan. I am eager to see what 
you have discovered, and I think that all 
those who for some reason did not keep 
lists this year are eager, too. 
Rabbits 
The letter from Nicholas I)., in the 
March Page, stirred up a lot of the boys. 
I think the best plan will be to give 
several letters just as they came to me. 
Says Kenneth A.. Ohio: "I wish 
Nicholas I). would please write and tell 
us boys how to care for rabbits. I intend 
to get some.” 
Another letter reads: 
While reading the Bovs’ and Girls’ 
Page I came across the let ten written by 
Nicholas asking why more boys didn’t 
raise rabbits. T think he is mistaken, 
for most all the boys around my town 
have them. I have -4 myself. It is very 
true that they are fine pets and fine eat¬ 
ing, but I couldn’t kill one, as I have 
petted them so. I have them tamed so 
that I can let them out of the hutches, 
and can catch them whenever I want to. 
They are very profitable, 'as they eat 
grass and weeds, which cost nothing, and 
can be sold for a good price. I sell them 
for 50 cents each when they are six weeks 
old. My letter is getting quite long, so 
I will close till later and then write about 
how I began the business. 
John brings up a point, that I think 
many of us feel. I like all the life and 
work on the farm except that of killing 
the animals that I have cared for. But, 
after all. the killing does not need to be 
done by the one who raises them. Prob¬ 
ably some of you wonder, as 1 do, where 
John gets his grass and weeds in the 
Winter time, or what he does. In fact, 
this seems to be a real problem, as you 
see by the next letter: 
I saw a suggestion made by Nicholas 
D.. and I heartily approve of it. I wish 
someone that had experience with rabbits 
would write aud tell about how to house 
and take care of rabbits. I am a begin¬ 
ner in the rabbit business, and would like 
to make it a success. It is now a year 
since I started, and they have hardly paid 
their food over Winter. I believe if 
someone would tell me how to take care 
of them they would be a success, es¬ 
pecially if he would tell me how to take 
care of the young at weaning time. I 
think that is the time when most can- 
should be taken of them. I have found 
that from the time you take them away 
from their mother till they are two 
months old is the critical period, and I 
am sure that any information on rabbits 
would be appreciated very much. 
Pennsylvania. ciiristiax m. 
It is clear that we need some more 
help with this rabbit question, and I hope 
that Nicholas, John and others who have 
had success will write in detail about tin- 
business. Also you will find it pays to 
look all through Tm: R. N.-Y. every week, 
for there are often helpful things for 
boys and girls, even when Our Page is 
not printed. For instance, if you will go 
back to tin- issue of March 20, on page 
007. you will find something there about 
building rabbit hutches and feeding rab¬ 
bits. 
One other thing. There was a great 
deal of damage done by rabbits to fruit 
trees during the past Winter. There is 
some complaint that not all the rabbits 
were wild ones, but that some persons 
having tame white rabbits did not prop¬ 
erly pen them and that they ran loose aud 
worked harm also. This is something for 
every owner of rabbits to bear in mind, 
surely. 
How Are the Gardens? 
Well started by this time. I hope. Who 
has peas up? Radishes and lettuce and 
some of the other early vegetables will 
be showing, too. At the time I am writ¬ 
ing this page it is too soon for your let¬ 
ters to tell much about your gardens. 
But nearly all of you have said that you 
were planning them. I am glad of this, 
and glad, too, that so many are going to 
try to make them better gardens this year 
than ever before. That is the right spirit. 
David L. t Pennsylvania, says: “I had 
a garden last Summer. 1 raised lots of 
tomatoes. 1 am going to have one this 
year, and try to keep it better.” 
Harold ('.. New York, writes: “I have 
a garden every year. Last year I raised 
peanuts and got half a bushel of them. 
I raised potatoes, lettuce, radishes ami 
beets and other things. I am going to 
have another this year.” 
In a long, interesting letter from Ar- 
delia T.. Vermont, she mentions her gar¬ 
den : “Now I will tell you about my 
garden. 1 have four window- boxes, but 
they are small. I have tomatoes, cab¬ 
bages and cauliflowers up. I have plant¬ 
ed more, but they are not up yet. I have 
had a garden as far back as I can remem¬ 
ber, but I never cared for it much. But 
this year I am not going to let the other 
readers of Our Page get ahead of me if 
I can help it. I intend to have in my 
garden tomatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, 
peppers, beans, peas, onions, carrots, 
beets, radishes, cucumbers and lettuce. 
Enough to keep me busy, if I expect to 
keep it free from weeds.” 
Helen L., Pennsylvania, asks: “What 
are you going to raise in your garden tlii- 
year?” and continues: “I am going to 
try to raise tomatoes. I am going to 
start them in a hotbed and then trans¬ 
plant them.” 
In my garden, Helen. I shall have all 
of the common vegetables. I think that 
nothing on the farm is more important 
than the garden and the orchard. Out 
of them comes much of the food for the 
household, both for Summer and for Win¬ 
ter. I have just been eating a fine Rus¬ 
set apple that has been stored away dur¬ 
ing all the cold months. There are 
enough of them left to last till May 1, 
and we have had apple sauce, or an ap¬ 
ple dessert of some kind nearly every day. 
Last year I set out 200 tomato plants 
from the hotbed. Ten cents had paid for 
the seed. From those 200 plants we had 
all we could eat every day from the first 
of August until way into October. More 
than 100 quarts were canned for Winter. 
And I sold over $15 worth besides—more 
than enough to pay for all my garden 
seeds. It is wonderful to me how so 
much comes from so little, if given right 
care. I am hoping to do as well with 
tomatoes again this year. 
Everyone who is living on a farm 
knows that the long, hard Winter has 
made Spring work late this year. You 
boys and girls understand this as well as 
the older folks. When the snow and ice 
had gone it seemed as though we wanted 
to do everything at once. It took me 
until the first of April to get our wood 
supply for the year cut and sawed and 
April 24, 1020 
partly split. We are still splitting on 
frosty mornings. On April 3 I prepared 
the hotbed. On April 6 we turned the 
first soil with the plow—a place for po¬ 
tatoes. In the next few days all the 
garden ground was plowed and it is 
ready now to plant. I am writing on 
April 10. so you see that by the time you 
read this things will be much further 
along. 
How good it seems to be at work with 
the soil again! Do you feel this, too? 
It is something that I want every boy 
and girl who reads Our Page to feel and 
to love. A great American man of agri¬ 
culture, Dr. L. II. Bailey, has called the 
earth holy. We should think of it that 
way. Out of it come our food and cloth¬ 
ing and shelter. Out of it for all the 
years ahead other persons must obtain 
their living, too. AVe must take cane of 
the soil. AVe must make it to grow good 
crops under our care, and we must leave 
it better than we find it. 
Write to me about your garden, and if 
you have any snapshots taken of it dur¬ 
ing the coming months, send one along. 
Perhaps it will help Our Page. 
A Question on Wasps 
Several letters came to me from pupils 
in a rural school up in New York State 
telling about their study of Nature, and 
in one of them were these questions: 
“We have been studying the mason wasp. 
AVe found one cell that contained spiders 
entirely. Is this cell used as a pantry? 
If so, how do they get into the pantry?” 
It must be that this is the mud-dauber, 
a very common but interesting mason 
wasp. After the mother wasp has made 
the little cell of cement, which is really 
mud mixed with her saliva, she goes off in 
search of spiders. When she has found 
a spider’s nest, she either jumps on the 
spider at once or else scares it out of 
the web into the leaves and grass. When 
she catches it, she stings the spider in 
such a way that it will remain alive for 
many days, though it is helpless and un¬ 
able to move. This spider the mother 
wasp carries back and thrusts into the 
cell. Then she goes out again and again 
until she has spiders enough almost to 
fill the cell. Then the mother wasp does 
something that this school has not dis¬ 
covered. She lays a tiny egg within tin- 
cell and then closes tlx- end. She now 
builds another cell, and after filling it 
with spiders and laying the egg. she seals 
it up. AA’e often find these mud houses 
containing a number of cells fastened to 
ceilings of porches and attics. 
After a time, in each cell, the egg 
hatches- into a tiny white grub. This tit¬ 
tle creature does indeed find a full “pun- 
try." It begins to feed upon the spiders 
(which are still living), and each day it 
grows larger. At last, when tin- spiders 
are gone and the grub is full grown, it 
makes a silken cocoon about its body in¬ 
side of the cell and changes into a pupa. 
When it comes out of the cocoon it is no 
longer a grub, but a full-grown wasp. 
There is no food now, so. with its sharp 
jaws, the wasp cuts a hole through the 
cell and flies away to join other wasps. 
AVith these facts the boys and girls in 
this school will see that there was some¬ 
th 
A Start in the Poultry Business 
.1 Fnir-sizcil ■ Si('fii')i) of Bees 
Three Illinois Younysters 
