The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
three-year-old cow, two pairs of Belgian 
hares, a dog and a cat. We have 300 
little chickens which I tend mostly. We 
have nine cows and one bull, two calves, 
two horses, five shoats. We live on a 
105 -acre farm. 1 built four birdhouses 
last Winter, and they all had birds in 
them this Spring, but one. I built a feed¬ 
ing platform for the birds last night 
(June 24). 
We have a fish pond on our farm that 
covers over 3^4 acres of land. We go 
fishing about twice a week, and catch a 
nice, big mess of catfish and eels. I was 
swimming yesterday for the first time. 
jMy. but I had a lot of fun ! In the 
Winter time I have the most fun on the 
pond. I love to skate. 
Last year I raised a big boar pig and 
got $70 for it; six chickens, $12; caught 
two skunks and two muskrats, for which 
I got $11.75. I had $15 in the bank. So 
I took $6.25 out of the bank and got a 
Liberty Bond. Then I had $8.25 left in 
the bank. My cow had a calf this Spring, 
which brought me $20.02. So now I have 
a $100 Liberty Bond and $28.27 besides 
in the bank. 
I am 11 years old. I go to school 
every day I can when there is school. I 
am in the eighth grade. Your friend, 
Pennsylvania. ebnest ii. 
Ernest did well to rent three bird- 
houses out of four. The best I could do 
was to rent two out of five. lie lias his 
feeding shelf ready in plenty of time. It 
is a good plan to think ahead on such 
things.' Make them now, when you have 
time. Feeding stations should be up and 
ready in October, so that the birds will 
have plenty of time to grow used to them 
before snow flies. 
In these days of high meat prices a 
farm fish pond is worth while. Perhaps 
you could have one on your farm with 
only a little work this Fall. Talk it 
over with your father. If you want more 
information on the subject, the New York 
State College of Agriculture, at Ithaca, 
has a Reading Course Lesson No. 94, 
entitled, "The Farm Fishpond.” 
It will need some mental arithmetic to 
follow Ernest's business dealings, but 
you will find that they come out straight. 
Ilundred-dollar Liberty Bonds can be 
bought now for less than $100. Can 
any of you explain why this is? Also 
what is meant by interest, say 4 per cent 
on $100? If you could buy a 4 per cent 
$100 Liberty Bond today for $90, how 
much interest would it bring you on your 
money? Can you see, then, why Liberty 
Bonds are a good investment now? 
This is the time to save your money. 
It takes $2 now to buy something that 
used to cost $1. If you do not absolutely 
have to have something, save your $2. 
Some day they will be worth more to you 
than they are now. Good ways of keep¬ 
ing money are in War Savings Stamps 
and Liberty Bonds. 
I imagine that most of you could not 
answer the August nature puzzle, and 
are anxiously waiting to find out 
What It Was 
Several thought it was a dragon fly. 
Only one letter gave the right answer. 
Here it is: 
I read Emily A.’s letter in The Rural 
New-Yorker of August 28. in which she 
described an insect. 1 think this was the 
mock humming bird. I cannot find the 
Latin name for it. but it seems to answer 
her description pretty well. 
These insects are usually seen at any 
time during the Summer. They appear 
to get the nectar from the flowers, and 
after they have made their rounds of the 
flowers near at hand they shoot off like 
A Pit alter Picture 
an arrow. I have often tried to follow 
them, but have been unsuccessful. 
This insect is a species of Sphinx moth. 
I do not think of any nature puzzles now, 
but I will send one in as soon as I do. 
New York. Katharine t. 
Surely every boy and girl has seen a 
tomato worm. Of course, but what has 
that got to do with a Sphinx moth? you 
may ask. Everything in the world to do 
with it, because the tomato worm becomes 
a Sphinx moth, and hovers like a hum¬ 
ming-bird about the garden flowers just 
at dusk. But first the worm digs into 
the ground, and changes to a pointed 
brown object, with a “handle” on one 
side. "Who knows what this “handle” is? 
There are many other Sphinx moths 
besides those that come from tomato 
worms, but they all have the humming¬ 
bird flight. So they are often called 
humming-bird moths. Another name is 
hawk moths. With this much of a start 
I know that you will want to discover 
more about these interesting insects on 
your own account. 
It is not very hard to think of a na¬ 
ture puzzle. All you have to do is to 
give a good description of some natural 
object—bird, insect, animal, flower, fruit, 
tree, vine, or anything else. We have a 
very good puzzle this month sent by 
Dorothy J., New York. It is her turn to 
ask 
What Is It? 
One Sunday morning as I was sitting 
on the porch I heard a noise and looked 
lip. Just over my head was a bird pull¬ 
ing out a thread which was hanging from 
the clothes line, lie finally pulled the 
thread loose and took it to a email maple 
tree, where they were building a nest. 
I got a few pieces of twine and put 
them on the clothes line. In a few min¬ 
utes he came back to get the twine. The 
bird was very pretty, and about six inches 
long. He was a yellowish-brown with a 
gray tail and yellow underparts. I no- 
ticcd after he had come back a few times 
that he had a yellow stripe across the tip 
of his tail. His head had a point on the 
ba<-k of it like the bluejay. 
He kept coming back ail that day and 
the next, and did not seem to be the least 
afraid of me, as I would sit there under 
the line and he would come and get the 
twine. One day as I was watching him 
I discovered something more about him. 
He had the very tips of his wings red. 
Now can you tell what kind of a bird this 
was? 
There is a question that I want to aslc 
the boys and girls who read Our 1‘age. 
It is this: 
Do You Have to be Watched? 
A few days ago I heard a young fellow 
asked what he had been doing this Sum¬ 
mer. 
“Oh,” he said, “I've been working for 
- Company.” Then he added: “I’ve 
been mostly on my own time, so you can 
guess how much I’ve worked.” 
lie meant, of course, that he had not 
been watched, so he had loafed, llis em¬ 
ployer had trusted him. and he had wasted 
time and taken money which he had not 
earned. 
This way of doing is all too common 
nowadays. I think that often we do not 
realize just what it means. It is a habit 
that grows on us without our thinking. 
But it is a very bad habit. I am sure 
that anyone who lets this habit of shirk¬ 
ing and loafing get a hold on him will 
never amount to very.much. The only 
time he really works is when he is 
watched—when the boss keeps an eye on 
him every minute. That is nothing to 
be proud of. is it? If I were a loafer I 
would not boast about it? 
I know another young man who works 
by the hour on his own time. Ilis em¬ 
ployer lives a thousand miles away. The 
two do not see each other from one year's 
end to the'next. Yet the work goes on. 
Each month the young man sends in his 
bill for so many hours of work, and it 
is paid without question. Why? Be¬ 
cause his employer has learned that this 
man can be trusted. He can be trusted 
to tell exactly how long he works—to the 
minute. And he can be trusted to work 
hard when he is at work —without being 
watched! 
Which kind of person would you rather 
be? 
Notes on Many Things 
Janice P., a 10-year-old New York girl, 
sent the lines for the “Box” this month. 
I hope that you all feel with her a love 
for Our Page, which is now one year old. 
If you truly love it you will work for i'- 
so that it may grow better and better as it 
grows older. Suppose that each one of 
you decides as you read this to send some¬ 
thing to me for Our Page. Send some 
lines for the Box, or a “Memory Verse,’’ 
or a “What Is It?” or a “Picture Story,” 
or a photograph, or drawing, or a good, 
long letter about yourself and your doings, 
or anything else you like. Don’t put it 
off. for then another month will slip away. 
Do it now! 
These are lovely moonlight nights. A 
few more of them and the moon will be 
full—the harvest moon. Step out of doors 
sometime after dark and walk far enough 
away from the house so that you will be 
alone. Stand a few minutes and feel the 
wonder of the night. How bright the 
moonlight is—yet how soft it is. too! 
Everything looks different by moonlight. 
The world is a fairy world. There is a 
ceaseless hum of insects. Can you tell 
one from the other? I want you boys 
and girls to know and love starlight, 
moonlight, night winds, little night noises 
and the big stillness. 
A while ago I had a letter from Ethel 
C.. New York, in which she said: “I 
wish we could have the pictures to write 
stories about in Our Page again. I en¬ 
joyed reading the stories about the pictures 
we had. I had a story written about one 
picture, but I did not get it sent in time.” 
Ethel will find that she has her wish this 
month. I hope that a lot of you will 
enjoy writing stories about the pony-cart 
picture, and will send them to me as 
soon as possible. I have one or two 
other pictures that will be fine for stories, 
but would like some more. Perhaps you 
have one you can send. That will give 
us all pleasure. 
It is garden harvest time.- You .should 
be saving the products and storing for 
Winter. Try to leave your garden plot 
clean and in good shape. It means much 
to a family to have a Winter’s supply of 
fresh or home-canned vegetables and fruit. 
1 figure that my garden pays for the time 
and money spent on it as well as anything 
on the farm. It pays better than some 
crops we call cash crops. Of course, :t 
is not on such a large scale. But a good 
home vegetable garden is a real money- 
enver, besides giving us more and better 
fs>od for the table than we can buy. I 
ivoi:’ : e to have some good garden 
f 549 
stories from you, and perhaps some pic¬ 
tures that wc can use on Our Page when 
garden time comes round again. 
• Meta T. wrote from Ohio: “I sup¬ 
pose you'll be sorry to hear I have no 
garden, as I have been sick three years 
with leakage of the heart. But I hope I 
may join Our Page, as I always take 
great interest in it. I won't have any 
jars of fruit of my own in the cellar, but 
I did hull some strawberries.” 
Of course, we are sorry for every boy 
and girl who is not well and strong, and 
hope they soon may be so. But even jf 
you are not well you can be cheerful, as 
Meta is. There are plenty of things to 
do to help just as much as making a gar¬ 
den—lots and lots of hand work, sitting 
down shelling peas, fixing beans, looking 
over berries, peeling apples for sauce, 
silking corn—and writing letters ! 
Edgerton L.. New York, who was first 
with the mullein puzzle last month, said 
in his letter: “I would like to be a 
professor. The subjects I will take iu first 
year high are elementary algebra, Eng¬ 
lish, French and biology. Am I taking the 
right subjects to be a professor? What 
subjects do you think I ought to take in 
Second, third and fourth year high?” 
Your own principal will be able to advise 
you much better on this than I can, 
Edgerton. It depends on what subjects 
you want to teach when you go into the 
work. I suppose you plan to go to col¬ 
lege? You should be studying the dif¬ 
ferent college catalogs to learn their re¬ 
quirements, courses and fitness for your 
needs. So many boys and girls get to the 
last year of high school before they begin 
to think of what they will need for college. 
It is good to begin early. Your teacher, 
your parents and some of the other boys 
and girls will be interested to study and 
talk over the college catalogs with you. 
In a letter from Helen S., New Y'ork, 
I found this sentence: “Maybe this let¬ 
ter will not be put in the Boys and Girls' 
page because I don’t belong to it.” Every 
boy and girl who reads Our Page belongs 
to it. But you belong to it much more 
truly when you do something for the 
page. So I think that Helen belongs 
more than some others, because she wrote 
a letter. I have said many times that all 
letters cannot be printed. You can see 
why that is. A great many letters come 
to me each month. It would take too 
much space to print them all. I liave to 
choose those that I think will be of most 
interest to all our readers. But this does 
not mean that the others do not help. 
Almost every letter gives me some new 
idea to work out for Our Page. So if 
you read this you belong, and if you write 
or send something to help, you belong all 
the more. Address your letters to Ed- 
ward M. Tuttle, 333 West 30th street, 
New York City, in care The Rural 
New-Yorker. 
Anns Full 
