874 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Is it possible to combine beauty with 
great ability? There will be a division 
of opinion about that. The beautiful peo¬ 
ple will say they are just as capable as 
others, while the plain folks will claim 
that Nature generally evens things up 
and thus gives an extra endowment of 
brains to offset any lack of beauty. M'y 
own observation has been that when men 
and women get to feeling that they are 
superior in face and form to the average 
they rather expect to get. through life on 
their “shape” alone. Not being expected 
to make up for any lack of beauty by 
extra exertion, they often wake up too 
late in life only to realize that beauty 
will fade and that only character and ex¬ 
tra ability can revive it. Youth gener¬ 
ally sets the wrong standard of value. 
The light-headed, pretty girl who hardly 
knows how to dust a room receives atten¬ 
tion. while the plainer girl, who is an 
expert housekeeper, may be neglected. 
The bright-faced, flippant, shallow youth 
is too often put ahead of the slower, sei-i- 
ous and solid young man with the se¬ 
cured future. I know of one bright and 
fun-living girl who is trying to decide 
between two young men. One is a good 
dancer and good dresser and bright talker. 
He has more ability in his heels than in 
his head. He never could be anything 
more than a third-degree lawyer, a clerk 
or salesman The other man is an edu¬ 
cated mechanic. At present he wears over¬ 
alls. and his hands and face are black 
with oil when at work. Some day. how¬ 
ever, he is sure to own a garage, and then 
a big factory. At 25 he doesn't look pretty, 
but at 40 or 45 he will be a big business 
man. Does the girl prefer 10 years of 
dancing to 30 years of solid and increas¬ 
ing comfort? You must ask the girl—■ 
and' she does not know. 
<c * * $ 9 
I fear that most of our ordinary stand¬ 
ards of life and living are based on beauty 
rather than utility. Take the case of 
chickens. The “standard” by which the 
birds are scored considers the shape and 
plumage rather than any power of pro¬ 
ducing eggs or making choice meat.. It 
is largely based upon beauty. Many 
breeders of fancy stock opposed the egg- 
laying contests because they thought se¬ 
lection for egg production would develop 
strains of every breed not true to the 
“standard.” Some of us would not care 
if this proved true; but most of the fanei- 
ers seem to think the light would fail in 
the poultry busines if an egg-laying ma¬ 
chine worked away fi-orn the standard. 
The Vineland egg-laying contest gives us 
a fair chance to look this over and see 
what is coming. Each of the 2,000 birds 
in the 100 pens has been carefully 
scored, and we are thus able to see how' 
beauty matches up with uti i: ty. 
* sS if if 
Let us take the 12 pens of the R. I. 
Rods in this contest. I give below a table 
showing how these pens average in scoi-- 
ing and their egg record up to April 2, or 
the twenty-second w T eek: 
Pen 
Pen 
Egg 
No. Ownoi-. 
score, record. 
22—J. 8. Armitage.... 
78.86 
1.108 
23—Cream Ridge Farm... 
83.40 
1,230 
24—H. W. Collingwood... 
88.15 
662 
25—Etion Poultry Farm.. 
83.41 
1.31 S 
26—C. R. Ferguson. 
SI .23 
1.182 
27—Mrs. W. L. Huxxdei-t- 
mark . 
80.94 
LI <13 
28—Sveamore Farm. 
83.92 
1.121 
29—TL G. Tavlor. Jr. 
76 23 
1.3.39 
30—Underhill Bros. 
74.80 
1.039 
31—H. I’. Walker. 
79.23 
1.885 
32—Maple Farm. 
84.78 
1.284 
33—David E. Warner. 
89.03 
995 
A perfect score would be 100. The cuts 
- ere "robably most made on defects of 
comb, color, style or shape. But consider 
for a moment what this shows. My owui 
birds and those of Mr. Warner scoi*c con¬ 
siderably above any of the others, yet 
wo are at the tail end of the procession. 
Uhdei-liill’s pen, well related to the fa¬ 
mous prize-winners of last year, scores 
Ieks than 75! That remarkable pen 31 
of Mr. Walker’s, far ahead of every other, 
scores less than SO, while Mr. Taylor’s 
pen, second among the Reds, score? only 
70! The average score of all pens was 
85.41. To my great surprise. I find my¬ 
self contributing “beauty” to the contest, 
while birds that have no standing in the 
“Standard” are laying the eggs. 
And this is not confined to the Reds. 
The highest score obtained by any pen 
was 93.26. That was for pen 21 of White 
Wyandottes. Yet this pen up to April 2 
had laid only 857 eggs The next best 
pen was No. 37. scoring 92.61. with a 
total l’ecord of only 555 eggs. Taking the 
leading pens and their records and scores, 
we have the following. They are printed 
in the order of their record: 
Score. Record. 
Pen 31—R. T. Reds. 79.23 1.885 
Pen 77—White Leghorn.. 90.18 1,661 
Pen 81—White Leghorn.. 67.78 1.585 
Pen 65—White Leghorn.. 89.31 1.460 
Pen 35—White Leghorn.. 91.08 1.419 
Pen 38—White Leghorn. . 90.68 1.370 
Pen 70—White Leghorn.. 89.75 1,353 
Pen 96—White Leghorn.. 90.07 1.341 
Pen 29—R. I. Reds. 76.23 1.339 
Pen 58—White Leghorn.. 89.93 1,328 
One pen of Leghorns scored only 54.21, 
yet has a record of 1,188 eggs. The Leg¬ 
horns, as a rule, show a far greater ability 
to combine beauty and utility than the 
heavier breeds. Yet the highest scoring 
pens of Leghorns rank as follows: 
Score. Record. 
Pen 62. 91.65 590 
Pen 90. 91.30 777 
Pen 60. 91.21 1.151 
Pen 37. 91.20 891 
Fen 35. 91.0S 1,419 
* * * * * 
As for the heavier breeds, the following 
table shows the highest and lowest pen 
in each class, with scores: 
Barred Plymouth Rock— 
Highest score... . 88.08; l-peord, 1.124 
Lowest score. . .. 74.37; record, 1,044 
White Rocks— 
Highest score.... 90.71; record. 1.124 
Lowest score.... 67.81; record, 1,147 
White Wyandotte— 
Highest score.... 93.26; record, 857 
Lowest score-53.71; record, 1,287 
As for my own birds, I never was more 
surprised than I was to learn that we 
had actually contributed a company of 
beauties to the world. I had settled back 
into the comforting conviction that, it 
must ever be a case of “handsome is that 
handsome does” at Hope Farm. Yet here 
are these Red gii'ls of ours pluming and 
parading themselves out in the limelight 
with little thought about eggs. Well, it’s 
a new one to me—this idea of carrying 
the bui-den and responsibility of beauty. 
I would much rather have eggs. I go 
out and look at the parents of these birds. 
The old folks are just ordinary-looking 
specimens, a little shabbily off color, as 
I see it, but the hens can lay eggs ! Where 
did these beauties come from? By what 
curious fi-eak did Nature go back some¬ 
where in the past and introduce my birds 
to some painted lady, and prevent their 
mothers from passing along the ability 
and inclination to wox-k for a living? For 
several generations we have been working 
these birds along toward utility. Now, 
even with the most direct line of breeding, 
back they go to beauty. And the strange 
thing is that most o^'these birds were 
selected under the rules laid down by the 
experts. And our pullets at home have 
laid steadiy—above tfle avex-age, while 
their beautiful sisteivs at Vineland are on 
the dunce’s bench. "It must be because 
no official scorer has come here to tell 
these home pullets just how beautiful they 
are! Some of these beauties cannot 
stand praise. 
* * * * * 
Well, leaving the Red hens to their 
work. I can truthfully sav that no one 
except a committee of ducks and geese 
would give the April weather a high score. 
Thei-e has been one long-continued “spell” 
of rain and cold. Our goose has kept at 
work all thi-ough it, and has laid IS eggs 
thus far, but most of us have envied her 
courage without the power to emulate her 
example. We began plowing the hill or¬ 
chard April 14, and between rains have 
kept at it. No garden plowed yet. and, 
of course, nothing planted. The rhubarb 
is breaking through, and within a week 
thei-e may be a small mess, but so far as 
all records go this is the most backward 
season we have ever had. However, we 
are l-eady if the weather is not. We have 
the manure all out and spread ; spraying 
mostly done, the orchard trimmed and 
the wood cut and piled. You give us dry 
ground and sunshine and we will try to 
do the rest. Our chief crops this year, 
outside of the orchards, will be sweet corn 
and tomatoes, with more attention to the 
garden than ever before. Many of ns 
will be short of food by another year, 
and it will prove the finest economy to 
double the. usual garden space and can 
and dry the surp’us. I s ill think that 
all kinds of good food will be high to the 
May 1, 1020 
consumer. Where, as in our case, we can 
sell nearly or quite direct, thei-e ought 
to be a good chance in farming. It will 
be a "amble, though, at present prices for 
farm necessities. I have decided to take 
the chance, and as we have a labor sup¬ 
ply in sight at this moment. I am going 
to put up some capital and try it. 7 
would not. however, advise borrowinr 
much money to take the chance. I would 
keep inside or very close to my own 
capital. 
***!*:*: 
The raili-oad sti-ike hit us hard. This 
is a commuter’s country, and a vei-y large 
proportion of our people work in New 
York, going and coming ea«-h day. With¬ 
out any warning whatever our folks sud¬ 
denly found the railroads deserted and 
no trains running. There was a great 
mystery about it all. No one knew what 
the stx*ike was about or just what silent 
and mysterious power had suddenly held 
up all traffic. I was obliged to drive to 
the Hudson River on the first day and 
cross on a ferry. After that people in 
our locality dx-ove across the country to 
the West Shore Railroad, which in some 
way was kent open. On some of the rail¬ 
roads' volunteer train crews wex-e organ¬ 
ized, with soldiers acting as firemen. No 
one can compute the loss and trouble 
caused bv this strike. It was an exh : - 
bition of the menace of power which 
hangs over every industry at this time. 
The commuter is unorganized and cannot 
protect himself as “organized laboi-” can. 
but he is tired of being held up and made 
to suffer in this way. He is the natural 
friend and political pai-tner of the farmer, 
and there will be a combination of the 
two some day within 100 miles of the 
City Hall in New York that will dominate 
the Sta'.es of New l T ork, New Jersey and 
Connecticut. This last strike has con¬ 
vinced the commuter that there is little 
if any, government left in this country,’ 
^ssoci*; 
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