70 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 15, 1921 
How 
about Hay? 
Hay is always a safe crop. Cheaply 
grown; economically handled; easily 
stored. It keeps. It can be fed to 
all classes of stock. It is always marketable. 
And, hay makes a heavy sod which covers and 
protects the soil, conserves moisture, forms valuable 
humus—adds to the soil’s fertility and with little or 
no extra expense prepares it for the next crop. 
The better the crop the better will all these 
things be borne out. To get it feed it! With a 
good stand, three to six hundred 
pounds of E. Frank Coe’s Special 
Top Dressing per acre should 
nearly double your yield. 
Order your fertilizers now. If 
we have no dealer near you, 
write for the agency yourself. 
THE COE-MORTIMER CO., Inc. 
Subsidiary of the American Agricultural ChemicalCo. 
51 Chambers St. New York City 
This Is a hay year. An or¬ 
dinary crop is a neglected 
crop. Don’t let yours shift 
for itself. We’ll send you, 
without charge, one of the 
most valuable books you 
can p os s e s s— "The Ne¬ 
glected Hay Crop" if you’ll 
write mentioning your 
acreage and crop plans. 
Increase the yield of every field" 
ni 
ALFALFA 
Consider Purity first in buying seed! 
Weeds kill out young Alfalfa plants. 
You plant Weeds if you sow IMPURE 
SEED. We supply Alfalfa of several 
varieties almost entirely free from all 
weeds. Scott’s Seeds represent the 
greatest care in selection and clean¬ 
ing. Scott’s Alfalfa is economical to 
sow. Goes farther. Saves loss from 
weeds. Produces large yields. Write 
for Scott’s Seed Book. It contains a very 
valuable section. How to Ktiow Good Seed. 
O. M. SCOTT & SONS CO. 
74 Sixth St., Marysville, Ohio 
SEED 
Timethy, Alfalfa, Clevers, Seed Oats, 
Seed Corn, Seed Grains and Grasses. 
Write today for Rohrer’s 1921 Catalog. It is 
FREE. Every bag of seed is guaranteed to 
please you. We specialize in flie Best Seeds 
obtainable. Write for this book at once. Seed 
Samples free if you mention this paper. 
P. L. ROHRER & BRO. 
SMOKETOWN, LANCASTER CO.. PENNA. 
PREERS 
1921 
QARPEN BOO 
Ts the one different kind of a Seed 
and Plant Catalog, in addition to list¬ 
ing. picturing and describing every 
worth-while Vegetable and Flower, it 
tells you how to successfully grow 
them. These valuable cultural direc¬ 
tions were written by famous A merican 
experts, especially for Dreer’s Garden 
Book. 
No matter whether your hobby is 
Vegetables or Flowers or both, you will 
find thatbyusing Dreer’s Garden Book 
for ready-reference, you can make 
your garden both pleasurable and pro¬ 
fitable. Contains 20S pages, six color 
plates, and numerous photographic 
reproductions of the best vf the recent, 
novelt ies and all theold-time favorites. 
A copy mil be mailed free to any¬ 
one mentioning this publication; 
HENRY A. DREER 
714-716 Chestnut St., 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
ry 
0. iTisti 
86 varieties, S3 75 per 1.000. History and illustrated 
book gives all details about most vigorous, true to nature, 
productive stock now grown. Book free. 
MAYER'S PLANT NURSERY, Merrill, Michigan 
Strawberry Plants belong vTr? e d t E i v e £ 
Catalogue Free. Basil Perky, Georgetown, Delaware 
Elhorto Pooch Delicious Apple, Montmorency Cher- 
ClUolId rcdLli ry, Kellog’s Premier and other straw¬ 
berry for immediate orders. Low prices. Spring deliv¬ 
ery. Order now from BRIDGEVILLE NURSERIES, Bridgeville, Del. 
PEACH TREES 
Apple, etc. 50,000 
straight, well root¬ 
ed trees. Standard varieties. Improve value, ap¬ 
pearance and pleasure of farm, garden, and orchard. 
Free catalogue. MITCHELL’S NURSERY, Beverly. Ohio 
Buy Right-HIGH GRADE SEEDS 
WIL80N EARLY SOY BEANS $4.60 ; 20 llush., $4.20. 
Ked Clover, $16.60 Bush. Yellow Danvers Onion Sets. 
$2 50; 20 Bush.. $2.25. LATT0H S LAYTON, Inc.. Georgetown, Del. 
{inti 1 U Rff ■ • 1 for Home, Garden, Truck, 
Nr KAY IV1 almaK orchard. Salesmen wanted. 
L/l IV/l 1 IHdlCl Idlo (|LLEN MFG c0 Pittstown. N. J. 
t breu u a g nd Certified Seed, Grain and Potatoes anteed 
grass and clover ; selected vegetable and tlower seed. 
Send for Spring Catalog. GREAT VALLE* SEED FARMS. Pocli, Pa. 
DPD SEEDS 
Grown From Select Stock 
— None Better —50 years 
selling seeds. Prices below all 
others. Buy and test. If not 
O.K. return and I will refund. 
Extra packets sent in all 
orders I rill. Send address for 
Big Catalogue illustrated with 
over 700 pictures of vegetables and 
flowers of every variety. 
R. H. SHUMWAY, Rockford, 111. 
Retain the District Schools 
Truly the rural .school of today does 
present many vital questions, and they 
are vital to uie personally, both as rural 
mother and rural teacher. Mrs. H. B. 
voices the sentiment of every truly loyal 
mother in the country. How can any¬ 
one’s imagination possibly run rampant 
enough to weave any suggestion of justice 
into a plan by which the country child is 
deprived of whatever educational oppor¬ 
tunity he has previously enjoyed, while 
his father pays for superior advantages 
for the city child? To be sure, a rural 
consolidated school would bring added 
opportunity to a few in the immediate 
vicinity, but only by taking away from 
the more distant pupils the last vestige of 
school privileges'. I know whereof I 
speak, because in my own school my most 
distant pupils can’t always attend. How 
would it he if we were consolidated with 
the adjoining districts? Don’t infer that 
ic would be better, because a public con¬ 
veyance would be provided. My pupils’ 
fathers provide private conveyances, but 
on many of our Winter days the weather 
is unfit for small children to face even for 
a mile or two. My bunch is about as far 
from being mollycoddles as one could well 
imagine, too, but it is not composed of 
foo 1 s. One little lad seriously affected 
with asthma has come to school on several 
occasions so nearly choking that I was 
frightened ; another boy of 14 fell in the 
creek to his waist one of fhc coldest days 
we have had thus far this year, but be¬ 
cause he was badly needed in the Christ¬ 
mas preparation, he “stayed by” and dried 
by the school fire, though I recommended 
that he go home but hesitated to com¬ 
mand him to do so because of the distance, 
and I could cite many other instances 
iliiit border on the heroic* Yet we have 
many days when I don’t see them all, nor 
< *° f expect to. I myself board within 50 
or 00 rods of my schoolhouse, and it is 
often plenty far enough. 
The question of bullies is also a fa¬ 
miliar one, for my own little girl began 
school where she_got rather an overdose 
till we decided to keep her at home. She 
was only six. and the following year I 
solved the problem by teaching and taking 
her with me. In my school we have no 
bullies, and if we had it doesn’t seem as 
if I should permit them to abuse the lit¬ 
tle tots. However, our teacher at home 
was in no wise to blame for (he treat¬ 
ment my girlie received ; she did the best 
she could. 
Having taught 17 terms before I was 
married, and having returned to the work 
this year, I don’t really enjoy being told 
that the majority of rural teachers are 
incompetent and our schools unfit to pat¬ 
ronize. Perhaps we are very faulty, but 
surely I am trying hard to do the very 
best within my power for all my pupils, 
and I have no reason to assume that I 
am superior in any way to my fellow- 
workers. 
Even granting that a modern consoli¬ 
dated school is superior to the present 
one-room institution, is not the latter 
usually better than none? And for all 
but the near-by pupils consolidation 
means none most of the. school year. For¬ 
tunately our superintendent is not in 
favor of compulsory consolidation, but she 
has sometimes been entirely unable to 
prevent districts from being consolidated 
against the wishes of a vast majority of 
the residents, though she went to Albany 
in an effort to secure recognition of the 
people’s rights. More superintendents 
like her would greatly improve the school 
system. In many cases a little extra 
equipment would help out very materially, 
localizing the executive power to a greater 
degree wouldrnake for added contentment 
aud satisfaction, but when the little coun¬ 
try school is abolished the rural sectiou 
is ruined. 
MRS. E. M. A. 
School Lunches 
CABBAGE 
VIII uiuu you ZUU 
FREE 
Condon’s NEW 
PROSPERITY 
Quick as lightning. Hard as stone. One of the earliest 
In existence. To introduce our Northern Grown 
‘‘Sure Crop" Live Seeds we will mail you 200 
seeds of Condon's New i 
I Prospsrity Cabbage and 
1 our Big 1921 GARDEN and 
FARM GUIDE. 
Send Postal Today for your 
free copy and Trial Package 
CONDON BROS., SEEDSMEN, 
5 Rock River Valley Seed Farm 
Box 20 7 ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS 
RA55 
Clnvare Tlmnthv Bell Brand Grass Seeds are the purest, best quality obtainable. Specially 
Viovers, I imuuijr adapted to your climatic and soil conditions—harainess bred into them. 
Write for Isbell’s 1921 Annual and FREE SAMPLES of any field seeds. Isbell’s ‘‘direct from grower’’ 
prices assure you of big saving quality seeds— "seeds that grow as their fame grows.” 
S. M. ISBELL & COMPANY, 80S MECHANIC STREET, JACKSON, MICHIGAN 
I have read with considerable interest 
the discussions concerning school lunches 
that have appeared from time to time in 
Tile R. N.-Y. I have four children at¬ 
tending school at the present time, and I 
can also plainly recall my own experience 
as a school child, and I differ somewhat 
with those other mothers who spend so 
much time and thought on the contents of 
the dinner pail. We have children in our 
own school (and I know many others) 
who come to school armed with a lunch 
plenty large enough for a lumberjack, and 
in almost every instance the same thing is 
done; the substantial bread and butter is 
thrown out and the child fills up on the 
pie, cake, cookies and whatever sweets he 
may have. Several of the children make 
a regular practice of “unloading” the 
bread and butter part of the lunch at the 
same place every night because “mamma 
says I must eat it, and if I take it home 
she’ll be mad,” hut mamma fills up the 
pail with pie, cake, doughnuts, cookies 
and preserves, with quite likely a handful 
of candy to finish up on, and invariably 
mamma’s proposed process is reversed, and 
and by the time the bread and butter is 
reached the protesting stomach can hold 
no more, with the results I have just 
chronicled. Any doubter can just follow a 
bevy of school children home some night 
and be convinced. I have never believed 
that a school child should be crammed to 
capacity at noon. Rather, if they carry 
sandwiches and a bottle of milk, I cannot 
but believe the results would be better all 
around. Of course, I do not mean that a 
child who has short rations morning and 
night should also be starved at noon, but 
I do believe that any child who has an 
abundance of good nourishing food ordi¬ 
narily would better have a light lunch on 
school days. I realize that lots of the 
mothers will take issue with me on that 
question, but it is surely a case of “being 
from Missouri” with me. 
New York. Harriet l. wood. 
Let There Be Full Discussion 
The committee of 21 now investigating 
the rural schools, made up of representa¬ 
tives from the various agricultural or¬ 
ganizations, contains quite a number of 
names of those who were active in put¬ 
ting over the township system that the 
people rebelled against. I am advised 
that the plan in mind now is to establish 
a county school system. This leads at 
once into the realm of bureaucracy. The 
larger the territory embraced, the worse 
will be the evil, in my opinion. Possibly 
the people want the present district done 
away with as unit in school administra¬ 
tion. If so, they should be told frankly 
that such is the plan, and let them con¬ 
sider calmly whether that is what they 
wish. It is not fair to reach that result 
under cover of some pretense of great 
reform. 
Personally, I believe that the district 
should be retained as the unit, and the 
system of rural education built on the 
district as the foundation so far as pri¬ 
mary education is concerned. The area 
of the district should be determined by 
the number of children of school age re¬ 
siding in it. Of course, there is a mini¬ 
mum which, perhaps, is 10 scholars, that 
is required to make an interesting and 
profitable school. When it comes to 
studies above the primary grades con¬ 
solidated rural schools may be the best 
solution. Certainly my neighborhood will 
oppose to the last limit the transportation 
of primary scholars to a district school, 
however good, or any other system which 
means a long day away from home, school 
buses and all the other accompaniments 
of consolidated schools. We feel that 
these officials who devise the plans for 
such schools seated in their overheated 
city offices should take a course in trans¬ 
portation for long distances during an 
average New York Winter. They would 
not then write so glibly about improved 
highways and automobiles having solved 
the problem of children going to a distant 
school. Very little has come to light of 
what is proposed, and I have no intention 
of discounting any plan. But I think 
that if the district is to be done away 
with as the unit in primary education, 
and the township or county system sub¬ 
stituted. the people should know it. and 
canvass the proposition in all its details 
before it is enacted into law. The usual 
procedure is to survey and consider until 
well along into the legislative sessions, 
and then something is jammed through. 
In the present case, from what has been 
disclosed so far. it is quite clear to me 
that nothing should be enacted into law 
prior to 1022; that is, after the surveyors 
and the committees have reached an 
agreement on the plan of the organization 
it should pass the test of the next district 
school meetings, and a season’s discussion 
before it is put into a statute. There 
should be no second occasion for such a 
situation as the previous township law 
created. The haste of its advocates and 
their methods in 1917 delayed rather 
than advanced the cause of reform of 
rural education. teacher. 
What “Compulsion” Is Referred To? 
How can the flag of liberty wave over a 
kchoolhouse where compulsion is enforced 
therein? t. w. h. 
Lehigh Co., Pa. 
The question is so brief that I cannot 
determine just what is meant by “compul¬ 
sion.” We have three pretty live young¬ 
sters going to school regularly, aud I 
think they—as all of us should—have a 
pretty well developed respect for the 
“Flag of Liberty.” as T. W. H. writes it. 
As for compulsion. I never hear them 
mention anything about it. Possibly the 
fact that parents are compelled to send 
their children to school for a certain num¬ 
ber of months each year till they are 16 
years old is what is referred to. Do you 
not think this is an excellent law for the 
future welfare of the children of the 
State? There are possibly circumstances 
where it may seem a hardship for children 
to go to school till they are 16 years old, 
but that boy or girl is getting an insight 
into the fundamentals of education, even 
if they cannot go to high school or college, 
that will never be a handicap, but a great 
benefit, regardless of what they endeavor 
to do later in life. Attending school 
should never be considered a compulsion, 
but a privilege so great as to be almost 
priceless. Think of the misery that would 
be obviated in Russia were every man 
and woman in that country educated as 
the children of Pennsylvania are being 
educated now. E.J. w. 
“And when you eloped with the girl,” 
asked a friend, “did her father follow?” 
“Did he?” said the young man. “Rather! 
He’s living with us yet.”—London Opin¬ 
ion. 
