tot RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1367 
August Reflections by a Farmer 
T HE HAY CROP.—There is a joy in field work 
found nowhere else. We look now on 70 acres 
of meadow stubbles,, with the new grass making a 
beautiful lawn, and then at four big mows stuffed 
until the fork would work no longer. Then the two 
little barns each have their six tons of feed, and the 
lambs will shut their eyes with satisfaction when 
eating it out of the racks next Winter. The past 
long severe Winter, with icy snow, injured the hay 
some, as it did the wheat much, and the crop is only 
about a ton and a half per acre, but it is fine and 
rich, and no seed had begun to drop. It was all put 
up without rain except. 10 acres. July, except the 
first third, when dashing rains had a habit of coming 
suddenly, was fine for haying, and the time was put 
in very pleasantly and profitably. The boy has 
made a hand for 12 years, and the writer for 55, 
which gives a good average, and as we understand 
each other, and there is no lost motion, we were sat- 
hiring manipulators of them, under labor conditions. 
ADJUSTING FARM PRACTICE—We should 
grow 3,000 bushels of corn and wheat, but we grow 
none of the latter we can help. We began to save 
$200 on seed wheat and fertilizer last Fall, intending 
wheat harvest and thrashing time for rustling hay, 
and it was fortunate, since wheat is a failure. About 
half the place is in pasture, and our aim is 300 
Delaine ewes as soon as wool sells for wool and sub¬ 
stitutes for something else than wool. In the mean¬ 
time we will use some of this pasture for Summer 
and Winter feeding, and what falls down will not 
hurt the dirt any. The avocation of farming is in 
process of adjustment and we are adjusting our¬ 
selves to that process. What the finished product 
will be no one knows, but all labor is ruined some, 
and farm labor completely. It has taken me a long 
life to learn some of it. and I wonder when the 
others will begin. Folks who do not know think 
difficulties as they arise. We can accomplish suc¬ 
cess in peace while all others are in turmoil, uncer¬ 
tainty, and liable to impending distress. Mills are 
closing, workers less efficient, the cost of living in¬ 
creasing, rents advancing, interest rising, freight, 
passenger and express rates have jumped, money is 
flowing like water in income and other taxes, and 
there must be an era of distress before adjustment. 
BUSINESS METHODS.—It would have been an 
easy contract for any man who had arrived at a fair 
place in farming to be away up in business now. 
Modern methods, with a disregard of the Golden 
Rule, would have put him up into the top row of 
finance, but he is better fixed in all that is worth 
while by staying closer to the commandments of the 
decalogue. He did not have to cheat, swindle and 
profiteer, manipulate watered stock nor squeeze 
every person he could, unless he wanted to. We had 
an illustration of modern business in our painting 
isfied every evening when he got in his bathtub at 
the farm and I did at town. 
MANAGING THE WORK.—Cutting and tedding 
were done in the mornings, when the side-delivery 
made strings, and the boy took the hay from the 
loader until he got both loads, when we drove them 
to the barn. He stuck the first fork and climbed 
into the mow, while the writer drove the team and 
stuck the others. No time was lost by an absence of 
a man on the wagon, because it took no time to step 
up a short ladder and fix the fork. We have 200 
acres that should call for three good hands during 
Summer and Fall. One with four horses can plant 
and sow all that three can save, but we have ad¬ 
justed our farming to the times. The landowners 
must do their -own farming in this section, and I 
have “come back.” Formerly my work was to keep 
fences, gates, roadsides and stock in shape, and that 
is all any old-timer should do, but tiie fences and 
roadsides look as if the place was rented or belonged 
to heirs. If any want shrubbery let them come to 
me. Hill land roads call for scythes, and imagine 
Life in the Apple Orchard Has Now Begun. Fig. 413. 
’most any chump can farm, but the doctoring of foot- 
rot in sheep, or ailments of other farm animals, re¬ 
quires as much skill as an operation for appendicitis, 
and tiie work in our sheep barn in March calls for as 
much care as the cases of obstetrics of all the M. D.’s 
in six townships in a year. Also, the mortality is 
lower. 
SELLING PROSPECTS.—No, we do not know 
what the final adjustment will be, but do know that 
we will have enough to eat. and that we can sell all 
that is left to others who will need it badly. The 
price we get may be very low unless we hold to the 
right time, but we are learning that. At present, 
wheat and all food products are selling lower and 
lower. The Immense yields always customary at. 
this season are again here, in the press, but wheat, 
flour, bread, and every kind of food will be higher 
next Winter than ever known, During the future 
years of this class of trouble we will have no anx¬ 
ieties, and will have the best of earth while we live. 
It is a joy to be one’s own boss, with no rent to pay, 
to do as one pleases, and to conquer all the seeming 
contract today. A pint can of varnish wanted was 
priced $1.45 at one store. $1.40 at another and bought 
for 45c at another. On the other hand, the con¬ 
tractor has just quit work and bought tickets for 
himself and family to Kansas. It is only the no¬ 
torious men that are advertised with the first essen¬ 
tial to greatness. They “were born in a log cabin,” 
but there are hundreds of thousands on the farms 
living peaceful lives, with “clean hands and pure 
hearts,” greater men, and more useful, that began 
life in log pens. The American farmer is the best 
fixed of all men. Schemers are “putting it over on 
him” to some extent, but he survives, and the intelli¬ 
gent organizations he is going into will squelch them 
after awhile. The day is coming when they will not 
use capital and the government to squeeze the farm¬ 
ers, whatever they may do to others. They have 
taken too much rope. 
PLEASANT WORK.—Now to come back to our 
own farm. Another month is here, with its pleasur¬ 
able cares. The oats are nearly all ready and the 
binder is run out and sits under canvas in the corner 
