836 
‘The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Spring Arrives. —Winter took his of¬ 
ficial departure with us ou or about April 
first, and this being the case, we are 
naturally all hoping it isn't to be one 
more cruel joke at liis hands. The snow 
had actually disappeared into the ground 
without a trace at this belated date, but 
of course April is noted for her moods 
and temperament, and by the time these 
words are in print we may have decided, 
in the northern counties anyway, that 
she runs Winter himself a close second 
for baby blizzards and unspring-like 
weather. In our part of the country, in 
spite of this long-to-be-remembered cold 
season, the ground was ready for plowing 
in early April, whereas last year we 
waited much longer for the Spring thaw, 
owing to the lack of a snowy blanket dur¬ 
ing the months preceding. We are plan¬ 
ning to do business as usual this year, 
with no decrease in acreage or produc¬ 
tion. Potatoes, the earliest varieties, are 
a staple crop with us. and I have written 
in The R. N.-Y. of our experiences with 
the spud. We are soon to plant three or 
four acres to them—almost double that 
of last Summer—and we hope to sell 
these at the roadside at a fair profit. 1 
understand that the potato acreage must 
be diminished in many sections, owing 
to its being such a laborious crop to tend 
and harvest—where the laborers are all 
too few. But our two men will go after 
them as usual and ask no odds of any¬ 
body. The money comes in very handy 
along the first of August, before the main 
crop of later potatoes glut the market 
and reduce prices, and taken by and 
large, year by year, we plan to stick to 
potatoes and win or lose with them. 
TnE Cabbage Crop. —This year Ave 
shall plant probably four acres to cab¬ 
bage again, but are not looking for any 
phenomenal profits from this popular 
crop. Everyone did finely who cast his 
lot with cabbage last year in our nearby 
counties, and when this happens look out 
for a bigger crop the following year with 
discount on the price thereof. Of course 
the weather may play havoc with cab¬ 
bage. as it did in the several sections of 
the country in 1010 where the crop was 
a failure, in which case someone will take 
good prices and rejoice. But experts tell 
us we can afford to grow and feed our 
cabbage if the market is very weak, but 
this seems to be doubtful at present cost 
of seed and labor. We are going to try 
red cabbage this year, and also early 
cabbage, with less acreage in the staple 
late. Last year the sales of 'plants 
amounted to a satisfactory sum with us. 
and we shall probably get rid of our sur¬ 
plus similarly again. 
Other Crops. —We always raise a 
couple of acres of sugar beets for testing 
the purebred black aud whites, and* eight 
or 10 acres of oats. Silo corn enough for 
two large silos is always planted, and 
the i-est of the land is put in clover. 
Timothy and a decreasing plot of Alfalfa. 
This latter legume we have teased to like 
us and have pampered aud tended it for 
several years, but like others we have 
found that Alfalfa is a very finicky crop 
to get profitable results with on our soil, 
and that clover needs no such persuading 
to make good for us with a vengeance. 
The consensus of opinion seems to be 
that the clovers have never been half 
appreciated anyway, and that they are 
fully equal to Alfalfa in practically every 
respect. At least we shall increase our 
acreage in this latter feed and let the 
Alfalfa follow its dying inclinations. 
The Milk Situation'. —Nobody likes 
the milk situation very well, but it is 
probably preferable to another strike. 
Public opinion is rabid against this sort 
of protest, right or wrong, and he who 
takes the strike weapon into his hands 
plays with danger and only adds to the 
general misunderstanding and unrest. But 
it does seem too much to be handed 50 
cents a hundred under cost of production 
for our milk, and then turn around and 
pay profiteering prices for everything we 
buy. Imagine any other class standing 
for such goings-on for a moment! I 
think that a lot of farmers and dairymen 
found the year 1010 an unusually pros¬ 
perous one when they came to figure the' 
grand totals in filling out their income 
tax blanks, but it looks now as if the 
farmer would be the man who need make 
no returns in March. 1021. Taking 
money out of our pockets instead of put¬ 
ting it in will react on the profit totals 
for this year. Unless money crops pay 
better than ever before, and we have 
more of them, the Government can expect 
pretty meagre tax returns from Friend 
Farmer a year from now. 
Figuring Tax Returns.— And what a 
chore it was to figure out those tax blanks 
last month, wasn’t it? And how the 
country did laugh when the Associated 
Press flashed the news that Secretary 
Baker, with the help of a smart lawyer, 
had made a big mistake in paying his 
tax! If lawyers and Government heads 
couldn’t get the pesky questions straight, 
how could they suppose that ordinary 
mortals could untangle their personal af¬ 
fairs to the satisfaction of the collector? 
We surely have demonstrated, however, 
that keeping accounts is now vitally 
necessary, if they never were before, and 
in my opinion this knowledge of our per¬ 
sonal out-go and income is worth the tax 
a hundred times over. It pays to set 
down every cent spent at the time it is 
spent, when fresh in the mind, and just 
so all income received. I think farmers 
have been very sure that they didn’t make 
much money last year, and of course 
there were plenty who were dead right; 
but the man who knew instead of (messed 
probably made profits where lie would 
have denied them honestly if the figures 
hadn’t proved the facts. This was so in 
our case at least, and must have held 
good ou the average. 
The Faithful Horse. —The cars 
started in running the week previous to 
April first, and glad we were to see them. 
They frankly took the long indoor siege 
very hard and blamed the farmer. I think, 
for the snow-bound roads and impassable 
traveling of 1019! But the farmer and 
his faithful Dobbin will now proceed to 
take a back seat, and while the pair 
hauled many an adventurous automobile 
from the drifts not six weeks ago. all this 
is now forgotten and the lordly motorist 
sails by—his the chosen vehicle of all it 
surveys. But this hard Winter has not 
been in vain once more if it has proved 
to. the skeptical that horses must remain 
with us so long as wind and snow arrive 
to stay the first of January. We would 
be a helpless world indeed if the horse 
had been ruthlessly exterminated and the 
truck and car left alone in the field. 
Trade Wages.— Paper hangers and 
painters in our vicinity are receiving 75 
cents an hour this year and are in con¬ 
stant demand at the price. All other 
town tradesmen are getting their share 
of our dollar similarly—all except the 
farmer-dairyman. And yet I believe that 
enough of us will stick to the farm to 
feed the world, and that the exodus to 
the cities is far from over. In other 
words, there is evidently a surplus of 
milk and wheat and beef and pork and 
everything else eatable—or. else we would 
be getting corresponding prices for the 
produce of the farm. It must be evident 
to any thinker that painters and factory 
workers are in more demand than farmers 
•—that the fruits of the latter are not 
sufficient for the demand, while too many 
farmers, not too few, are left on the 
farms. 
Leaving the Farms. —There is much 
propaganda about going back to the land, 
but it does not emanate from farmers. 
They know that there are still far too 
many farmers, or food would bring what 
it is worth instead of what consumers 
will pay. This being the case, farmers 
who are really discontented will continue 
to join the painters and factoryites, aud 
no one can blame them. But we can 
take it for granted that enough will re¬ 
main still to make surpluses of this, that 
and the other, which has been the farm¬ 
er’s portion all down the ages. Some of 
us find the farm ample compensation, 
and take our losses and non-profits philo¬ 
sophically. aud our occasional profits 
gratefully—as for the few years since 
and during the war. The consumer nat¬ 
urally wants to buy his food at the lowest 
figure, and the producer would sell it 
with profit to himself. Other professions 
are now making the profits, and farmers 
are envying them, and the growing gen¬ 
eration is joining them. Before long the 
scales will dip the other way. because 
there are sufficient or too many painters 
and steel workers, and so on. and too few 
farmers to feed these adequately. When 
that time arrives those who hung on to 
the land will reap their belated financial 
reward. The sooner our farm boys de¬ 
part on masse for the city, the quicker 
farming will come into its own. because 
there will be left but one farmer to nine 
other laborers—the reverse being evident 
at present if farm produce prices are to 
be taken as a guide. So don't worry too 
much about the loss of farm labor and 
abandoned farms. When the condition 
becomes so acute that food is worth its 
weight in honest gold and silver we will 
make up for lost time and our industry 
will get back its rightful workers and 
the scales will once more automatically 
rise where food prices are concerned. 
And during those years of near food 
famine, brought about by a country’s lack 
of foresight, we will produce at profits 
comparable with those of our competitors 
today. Just wait and see! H. s. K. w. 
Hot Lunches and Hot Talk 
If I mistake not, II. S. K. W. is the 
woman whose letters 1 have usually en¬ 
joyed, but surely she must have been 
reading “Paradise Lost” before she wrote 
the one on page 660. Seventeen terms 
teaching rural schools, before becoming a 
rural mother, gave me a clear view of the 
school lunch problem from both angles. 
No doubt Mrs. W.’s children are not 
especially averse to cold lunches, but the 
fact remains- that most children are. As 
a rule they eat a fair quantity if it is 
mostly pie and cake, but not otherwise, 
and it is a fair question which is worse 
—too little food or too much pastry. A 
collection of milk bottles all dumped to¬ 
gether may he unsanitary, but is not the 
resulting fluid exactly the food on which 
April 24, 1920 j 
all city babies are raised, except that, in 
the latter case, the germs of thousands 
of dairies are mixed and fed to the babies 
raw? In making cocoa the milk would 
be boiled, and I believe it is common hos¬ 
pital practice to save “all foods that can 
be cooked before reserving.” It is true 
that for generations school children ate 
cold lunches, but it is also true that the 
whole germ idea is comparatively new; 
not all the children were killed either by 
cold lunches or germs, or even by the 
two combined. As to time, my pupils and 
I used often to have something hot at 
noon, and T never yet spent a minute on 
ir before 12 or after 1 o’clock, or even 
the whole noon hour. All I ever did was 
to see that I had a fairly good fire at 
noon. Then everyone could warm liquids, 
toast bread or reheat any food that need¬ 
ed it. Of course one stove wouldn't have 
had room for .”>0 separate dinners, but I 
never had that many pupils to use it at 
once. The parents usually consider a 
simple dish to be heated much more easily 
prepared at home than pie and cake. No, 
the hot lunch isn’t a fad nor is it new; 
my tots and I tried it. in embryo, more 
than 15 years ago. 
Once more, why should anyone assume 
that the 40.000 farmers who replied to 
the government questionnaire were not 
representative of the rank and file of the 
farming population of the country? The 
latest statistics show that many are leav¬ 
ing the farms, and the majority of those 
who remain most assuredly are working 
toward the eight-hour day. They started 
so far away that the journey is a long 
one, but the time of two to two and a half 
eight-hour shifts every day for the same 
man is fast becoming a thing of the past. 
It has often been said that “farmers are 
fools,” and we plead guilty, but we are 
not all hopeless idiots. Indeed, the work¬ 
ers should inherit a good deal of the earth, 
and eventually they will. Come on, Mrs. 
AY., with the common sense you usually 
use; you know there isn't a ghost of a 
chance that those 40,000 farmers were 
not entirely representative of their profes¬ 
sion. and why should they not be? Why 
should any farmer talk or feel otherwise? 
MRS. E. M. A. 
I see so many articles against the hot 
lunch plan in schools that I would like to 
tell about the plan in Balmville school. 
This plan has been a success. The trustees 
bought a small oil stove, a teakettle, eu- 
amel cups, some good cocoa and condensed 
milk. Each teacher prepared cocoa for 
her class during the noon hour, and the 
three teachers washes the dishes. Every 
child who wanted cocoa brought a penny. 
New York. myra e. scui.ly. 
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Copyright 1920 
Henry Sonneborn 
& Co., Inc 
