The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Thoughts of a Plain Farm Woman 
The New Baby. —'Since my last letter 
written in .June we have added a new 
member to our little family in the small 
form of one Elsie Jane, who arrived on 
the early morning of July 17. This wee 
daughter makes our fourth child—two 
hoys and two girls—and although I had 
previously thought that three is company 
and four might make a crowd, she re¬ 
ceived a right warm welcome and found 
her own share of care and love waiting. 
And little Elsie is so good, although not 
yet three weeks old! I can’t resist this 
opportunity, as an experienced mother, 
to preach about the proper bringing up 
of babies, because it is the truth that the 
average baby is a very cross one, and a 
fearful care and responsibility to a busy 
mother—and most babies needn’t be cross 
and are not naturally so. its poor, worried 
parent being unconsciously to blame in so 
many instances. 
Systematic Care. —It practically all 
depends on how you start in with a child, 
right from the beginning. A nursing 
baby is vastly easier to keep well and 
growing than the bottle one, who must 
he experimented with to a degree in order 
to get the proper mixture to suit her par¬ 
ticular requirements. But, anyhow, it 
doesn’t do to be irregular about feeding, 
and after the first three or four days a 
baby should eat once in two and one-half 
hours, preferably, instead of every two 
hours. My children have always been 
fed on the dot, and not before, and it is 
surprising how quickly they learn to sleep 
in between, when everything agrees, in¬ 
stead of wailing for food, which their 
little stomachs do not need, except at the 
stated intervals. Young mothers invar¬ 
iably think that when the baby cries she 
is hungry, which is rarely the case. So 
they let the poor little thing eat and eat 
and eat at any time of day or night, and. 
mercy! one can imagine the state into 
which the baby’s delicate apparatus is 
thrown and the constant distress it suf¬ 
fers as a result. It stands to reason that 
great doctors and nurses who have made 
a life study of babies know whereof they 
speak when they lay down the law that 
our little charges should only be fed at 
stated intervals, and that when they cry 
something else ails them. Of course, 
small babies do cry now and then, and if 
there is anything really wrong at. bii-th, 
they cry far too much, but a doctor in 
such cases is the one to consult for a 
remedy, instead of plying them with more 
food as a cure-all. I have proved to mv 
own satisfaction, at least, that a healthy 
born baby, brought up according to Holt, 
which paeans regular eating periods, a 
warm little bed of its own, no holding or 
rocking to speak of, but always kept dry 
and daintily clean, turns into an ador¬ 
ably good baby in three or four weeks, 
with such regular, dependable habits that 
it is a constant joy to its busy farm 
mother, instead of a trouble and worry. 
But, unfortunately, not every mother will 
agree with me, or put my proven tests in 
practice. 
A Coot. Summer. —This has been a 
wonderful Summer so far in our region, 
and I have enjoyed every minute of it. 
During July three frosts were reported 
near us, and the first night of August 
witnessed another close by. A Summer 
with a frost in every month is quite a 
record, but the crops look good, and while 
rather late, we shall probably come out 
all right in the end. The first week in 
August finds us getting ready to dig our 
crop of early potatoes, which usually are 
on the market before this. We got sev¬ 
eral days behind this season by having to 
wait for a man with a planter, which ma¬ 
chine will be added to our own equipment 
next year. We have five acres of late 
and early varieties, and the early reds 
were cut up into seed for almost two 
weeks before being planted, owing to the 
delay mentioned above and bad weather, 
so that the stand is not as good as usual. 
There are many “misses” in the red field, 
but we hope to receive .$2 or $2.50 a 
bushel by next week at the gate. 
The Drop in* Potatoes. —This year 
every Tom, Dick and Harry planted a 
jag of potatoes, inspired by the scarcity 
and unheard-of prices of last Winter, and 
as a result the big growers of New York, 
anyway, will not make the money on the 
crop that they did in 1019. Potatoes 
have gone down alarmingly in the past 
few weeks, as the smalt raisers got theirs 
into the ground fairly before the frost 
was out and onto the market much earlier 
than usual. As I have remarked before 
in these columns, you can’t expect to pay 
off the mortgage every year with the same 
crop; but take the years on the average, 
the man who goes in for a staple and 
keeps on in spite _ of ups and downs in 
price almost invariably comes out with a 
lot of money in his pocket. It is rare to 
guess ivhen and what to raise and only 
do it "when the market looks promising. 
One has to stay by season after season— 
and we find that it pays. 
Farmers’ Profits. —I was criticised on 
the “Things to Think About” page not long 
ago by a man who thought I showed poor 
taste in telling of our last, year’s profits, 
nnd who went so far as to hint that these 
were not really normal, and were the ex¬ 
ception instead of rule. This contributor 
also thought that I am decidedly mistaken 
in the opinion that the worn-out, back-hill 
farms many , miles from market are 
doomed to eventual extinction, in spite of 
the thousands of proofs anywhere, but 
especially in the Empire State and in 
New England. Taking up the question 
of making money on the farm and then 
telling about it, why not? _ It strikes me 
that a farmer ■who is making money has 
no particular cause to be ashamed "of it, 
in spite of the watchful income tax, for, 
as one farmer said, when he was able to 
make enough money with Nature to pay 
a tax, he’d throw up his hat and lay 
down the cold cash with a glad heart! 
The point is that those -who are fairly 
successful at last in agriculture ought to 
share their secrets or methods with those 
who are not. I have never heard of any¬ 
one’s criticising the Hope Farm man for 
telling the ways and whys of his farming 
operations from week to week, and I 
venture to predict that thousands of in¬ 
terested readers have learned better meth¬ 
ods by reading “Hope Farm Notes’’ and 
putting them into practice. But some 
people who don’t' make a go of farming 
themselves refuse to believe the evidence 
of their own eyes w T here others are con¬ 
cerned, and assert that there isn’t any 
such animal as a successful farmer. I’ll 
admit that they v r ere almost as extinct 
as the dodo not five years back, but if 
the war did nothing else, it did apparently 
help American farmers, and most of us 
have been making good ever since, if we 
were not. afraid of pulling up our sleeves 
and wading in all over—an example 
which the rest of the world was and is 
careful not to imitate, we must admit. 
Making Money.— I said that there 
was no reason why a farmer situated 
close to his markets and raising what 
the country wants can’t make money. I 
still say it. and wall offer to show' any 
doubter several good examples in my own 
community, or in any other. But I do 
believe that the owner of land far off on 
the hills, especially if he does not own 
it clear, is in for a hard row, as he always 
has been, and that he will have to develop 
more and more brains and brawn in or¬ 
der to keep up with the main procession 
who are demanding and getting legitimate 
profits on all they produce. As I see it. 
a farm on poor soil on our Eastern hills 
is at such a disadvantage to start with, 
through no fault of his own, that he will 
have to be an exceptional manager and 
worker to make good. His handicaps are 
legion, while the man on the rich valley 
land, close to the railroad, State highway 
1371 
or city, can forge ahead with half the ef¬ 
fort and make hay while the sun shines. 
Agricultural Handicaps. —Some of 
these handicaps follow. Poor soil, requir¬ 
ing loads of expensive fertilizer and labor 
to compare with its rivals. Land which 
cannot be w'orked with labor-saving ma¬ 
chinery, hence requiring four times the 
exertion and length of time to prepare 
and fit it. Back-hill farms have never 
supported good dairies at a profit because 
of worn-out pastures and land which must 
be devoted to other purposes than for the 
raising of roughage required bv the mod¬ 
ern way of dairying. But a big dairy is 
absolutely necessary for the continued fer¬ 
tility of a farm, and here we meet the 
vicious circle again—worn-out Eastern 
hill farms can’t support profitable herds, 
and without the herds the land goes to 
rack and ruin—so that’s the answer 
The Back-ITill Farmer. —One can’t 
blame the reader for being slightly put 
out at my views, as many hundreds of 
them live on these self-same farms, and 
are working night and day to snatch a 
precarious living from them. Why would 
it not be an excellent plan to hear their 
side of the question, and all of us find out 
just what methods are being used by the 
successful hill farmer in contrast to those 
who deny that there are any? For here 
and there is a_ back-hill farm w'hieh does 
make money, in spite of its natural dis¬ 
advantages, and like the man in the valley 
who is today reaping a few long-honed- 
for profits, it would be a great thing if he 
would disclose his ways and let the thing 
be well hashed over. 
Working with Brains. —It stands to 
reason that the farmer who has to spend 
valuable time to get to his far-removed 
markets, in these days particularly of 
high-priced and scarce labor, just can’t 
compete on equal terms with the man who 
can put up a sign and have the world 
rush to his door for his products. But I 
do believe that in these changing and in¬ 
secure times the farmer who grimly wrnrks 
with extra efficiency and purpose and 
keeps everlastingly at it. and who uses 
brains and much discretion in the selec¬ 
tion of the crops to be grown most profit¬ 
ably on his acres, will come out ahead of 
the game even if he lives on the top of a 
mountain. It seems to me that work is 
the grand cure-all for most of our farm 
troubles, and the back-hill farm will re¬ 
spond to a satisfactory degree when this 
magical remedy is applied. 
A Story with a Moral. —In the Saf- 
vrdaij Evening Post of August 7 there is 
a story, “Wild Carrot,” by Hugh Mac- 
Nair Kahler, which I wish every reader 
of The It. N.-Y. who has not already done 
so would read. This story is a wonder¬ 
fully true and understanding treatise of 
(Continued on page 1381) 
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