1680 
7ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 30, 1020 
The Thoughts of a Plain Farm Woman 
The Useful Rhubarb. —This month 
and September are busy months for the 
farm woman, and we have been no ex¬ 
ception to the rule at our house. Unlike 
most country families, we can practically 
no fruit, contenting ourselves with a 
bountiful supply of conserves, marma¬ 
lades and jellies instead. The big rhu¬ 
barb patch is the most helpful thing in 
the garden, as we use it from Spring 
.until Fall to eke out all kinds of fruit 
for the conserves. We combine it, usually 
half and half, with pineapple, pears, ber¬ 
ries of every sort, and so on ad infinitum. 
It makes a good thing go just twice as 
far. and when the fruits are bought, at 
half the expense, and detracts nothing 
whatever from its better half's flavor. 
Yes. indeed, the lowly pieplant is invalu¬ 
able. and I often wonder why so many 
women allow their big patches to grow 
up to seed, with a very occasional hunch 
made into pies only. In the Winter we 
always make orange marmalade when the 
fruit is cheapest, and candy the peel left 
over, so that nothing is wasted. Now 
that sugar is to descend to the common 
level once more, folks will feel more like 
canning and preserving liberally again, 
and this season should witness a bigger 
addition to cellar shelves than has been 
possible or practical for several years 
past. 
Dyeing Day. —We have just been en¬ 
joying our big annual “dyeing” day, and 
I am rather disgusted at the way the 
faded hand-me-downs and make-overs 
have turned out. Like everything else, 
I should judge that the dyes of the sup¬ 
posedly good old-fashioned, reliable brands 
have lost their power and prestige; at 
least we secured very unsatisfactory re¬ 
sults. the colors being weak and waver¬ 
ing. even though double the amount of 
dye called for was used (and incidentally 
at nearly double the old price). But the 
dye-pot is an institution at this farm, and 
our pocketbook depends upon it to fur¬ 
nish good-looking wearables for the 
younger members of the family, anyway, 
it is a mighty thrifty way of converting 
the old into the new at insignificant ex¬ 
pense. and sugar, salt and flour bags in¬ 
variably furnish their quota toward 
rompers, blouses and aprons, as well as 
more aristocratic but faded cloth bought 
at present inflated prices. Dyed, the cot¬ 
ton sacks wear almost like iron, and 
when made up after pretty patterns and 
ornamented with dashing needle-work I 
defy anyone to find fault with their be¬ 
comingness, and the saving counts up 
generously. 
Stocking Economies. —This game of 
being thrifty is a good one, anyway, and 
I presume we play it as hard in our 
family as the average, and then some. 
In the Winter, to wear with high shoes, 
we buy the separate stocking feet and 
sew them onto old but unpatched legs. 
White stocking legs make excellent wash 
cloths after discarding the worn parts, 
and old Turkish towels end their days 
likewise, and also in good-looking bibs 
for the children—which need no ironing. 
The Slighter Rac, Bag. —Our rag bag 
is cruelly slighted most of the time, as 
clothes beyond repair do not enter there¬ 
in. but instead are knit into gay rugs and 
mats to brighten up our painted floors, 
and to take the place of old-time but now 
discarded carpets. I knit rugs in Win¬ 
ter, when we are apt to be snow-bound, 
and it is pleasing work and surely pays. 
Wisdom in Economy. —I suppose there 
is such a thing as carrying this thrift 
business too far. and becoming mean and 
stingy and small as a result. I hope we 
haven’t quite reached that point, but like 
other farmers we learned the lesson of 
strict economy before things became a 
bit easier on the average farm of very 
recent years—and a lesson well learned 
has a happy way of sticking. It’s simply 
a case of choosing whether you will have 
your cake or eat it—both being humanly 
impossible. Sometimes we choose to go 
without this or that in order to have the 
other, and I firmly believe that such 
discipline is the best character maker 
known to man. A family which is will¬ 
ing to economize and work in order to 
reach some longed-for goal, such as a col¬ 
lege education for Willy, or a little car. 
or to pay off the mortgage, or to fix over 
the house, or to start in with purebred 
stock, is not only going to reach that goal, 
hut go on from there, and in the end 
have and hold many more comforts and 
desires as a result of choosing the hard 
but sure way in the beginning. Some 
folks prefer to eat up their extra profits 
—to set a table simply staggering with 
good things, which today are to be had 
only by shelling out a king’s ransom. 
We all know that man or woman who 
declares: “Well, I’m going to have all 
I want to eat. anyhow. I don’t have 
anything else !” And of course it never 
occurs to such a person that the reason 
they have nothing else is because their 
stomach-demands are catered to at the 
expense of lesser desires, or in other 
words, they pack all their ambition eggs 
into one basket, and when the basket 
breaks there is nothing left—not a cent— 
for something more lasting and precious. 
Moderation in All Things. —I like 
good things to eat myself, but I don’t 
believe in pampering the inner man at 
the expense of all else. Moderation in 
all things is about right, but most of us 
do not observe it, but instead put all our 
eggs into a car, or on our backs, or into 
educations for the youngsters, or into the 
barns, stock or machinery, or into a 
thousand different pet hobbies which rise 
up to claim every cent over and above the 
grim necessities. Some day I just hope 
that farmer folks will have enough mighty 
dollars to spread out over their legitimate 
hopes and longings and ambitions, so that 
they may get. a belated taste of everything 
worth having, as some others are reputed 
to enjoy. And yet I wager that when we 
get these things the unattainable will 
still be hovering just around the corner, 
even as it does today, and there we will 
be grubbing and sweating to catch up 
with it. And when we get our farm 
paid for, or a new car, or whatever it is 
we want most, why, then we will natur¬ 
ally turn around and complain because 
our farm is not larger, thus necessitating 
the buying of another place; and soon 
the new car will be pretty small potatoes 
and we will not be content without a six 
or eight cylinder—we’ve all been there, 
and after scrambling up the hill that 
looked so high from the A-alley, lo and 
behold ! there is a second hill in the dis¬ 
tance so much higher and greener that 
we can hardly wait, to try to scale that, 
too. It’s divine discontent, as someone 
has said, and I suppose everyone worth 
his salt has it. It is certain sure that we 
farmers are harboring more of the germ 
than we ever thought possible a gener¬ 
ation ago. 
A Producers’ Association. —And to 
prove the above, just see how the co¬ 
operative farm movements are gaining 
volume. Here in our little community 
they have organized a Producers’ Asso¬ 
ciation, Incorporated, which it is fondly 
hoped will do great things for the growers, 
who now find their markets pretty well 
restricted. This association has its sis¬ 
ter organizations throughout the country, 
and very likely there is one in your com¬ 
munity, or soon will be. Its purpose is 
to eliminate all middlemen but one, as I 
understand it, the one middleman in our 
case being the North American Fruit 
Exchange, which handles Florida citrus 
fruits and many similar big Western 
products direct for the growers. We pay 
a fee of $5 to join, and and that permits 
us to bring our cabbages or potatoes or 
hay or apples—whatever surplus is pro¬ 
duced locally—to the car, where it is 
shipped out upon order of the exchange’s 
secretary to the city or market demanding 
that article at that time, and consequently 
at better prices than if sent to a point 
where the same may be a drug on the 
market. 
Helping Ourselves. —Of course we 
all know that co-operative ventures have 
not been uniformly satisfactory in the 
past, the reasons being legion, but the 
time has surely come, as witness this 
Fall, when the farmer must help him¬ 
self, or do it himself, as The R. N.-Y. 
says, if he saves himself from total ex¬ 
tinction. I hope that we have reached a 
point where we see this more clearly and 
sensibly than some of us have in the past, 
and that by sticking together as other 
classes do for the common good, we can 
eventually demand and get what ought to 
be ours. A smart man was saying to me 
the other day what every farmer knows, 
but what he has strangely refused to 
practice, that “farmers would be the 
mightiest factor, the most terrifying trust, 
the world has ever experienced, if we 
really wanted to be.” And this goes 
without saying. If farmers ever get to 
the point where they unitedly combine to 
restrict production here, and to further 
it there, according to the estimated de¬ 
mand and supply, gracious! wouldn’t we 
pretty near run things in this little old 
United States! And in a measure that 
time is on the way. Slowly but surely 
farmers are beginning to see that they 
can’t produce any longer without regard 
for this little-understood business of de¬ 
mand and supply, and before very long 
they are going to take stock, cleverly and 
coldly, of the agricultural business out¬ 
look—looked after for them by paid co¬ 
operative managers—and then we shall 
see cabbage produced, for instance, in 
sufficient quantity only to warrant enough 
at a decent price and no more; likewise 
all similar foods insofar as the farmer 
and the weather can combine to secure 
the profitable results. And what a hue 
and cry will go up then ! 
JUST Business. —But it is only bring¬ 
ing good business methods into the farm 
fold, and goodness knows we have been 
urged to do that by our friends, the 
bankers and investigators and the like 
for years. It is done in every other 
going cencern, and it is high time we 
copied such tricks ourselves. Imagine the 
shoe men making so many shoes that 
shoes sold for 25 cents a pair (the com¬ 
parison is found in cabbage this year and 
40 other lines with which I am not 
familiar) ; well, such a thing never has 
and never will occur so long as manu¬ 
facturers retain their ordinary common 
sense and sagacity. And yet that is just 
what we farmers do year after year, with 
no united planning for different results, 
and so logically, we take what is handed 
us—good, bad or indifferent, as the sea¬ 
son breaks, and deplore our hard luck 
seven times out of 10. The co-operative 
associations are gradually to change 
these silly ways of ours, and if we can 
only see it so, and give them our sup¬ 
port, the day will come right along when 
we will dictate instead of accept as others 
do. Isn’t that so? H. S. k. w. 
Why Vote for 
MILLER? 
Because 
Governor Smith in his Speeches Says He Still 
Adheres to the Daylight Savings Law. 
Because 
Governor Smith Says He Will Not Exempt the 
Farmers from the Daylight Savings Law. 
Because 
A Republican Legislature passed the Bill repeal¬ 
ing the Daylight Savings Law AND GOVER¬ 
NOR SMITH VETOED IT. 
Because 
Governor Smith Believes in Fixing Prices for 
Farm Products. 
Because 
Nathan L. Miller, Republican Candidate for 
Governor, Would relieve the Farmers from the 
Daylight Savings Law. 
Because 
Nathan L. Miller is Opposed to Price Fixing- 
on Farm Products. 
Keep TAMMANY Out 
of State Control 
VOTE 
The Straight 
REPUBLICAN 
TICKET 
Paid Advertisement by Republican State Committee. 
