506 
March 20, 1921 
<P* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Pastoral Parson and His Country Folks 
By Rev. George B. Gilbert 
Snow for Once! —Here it is March 
first, and it has been a wonderful Win¬ 
ter. For the first time ever known navi¬ 
gation of the* Connecticut River has kept 
open all Winter. The boats are still run¬ 
ning to New York, and have only lost a 
trip or two. Maple sugar was made 
around the State several weeks ago. 
Leaves and buds on rose hushes had 
started some time ago. The papers re¬ 
ported the arrival of robins. Then the 
weather man decided if he was going to 
have a snowstorm this Winter lie must 
get busy—and he did : 1(5, 18 and even 
110 inches came in one day, with a terrible 
blow. It was a whole week after this 
shake-up—the worst in 21 years—that 
the Parson started on a trip down coun¬ 
try. 
Two Miles Per Hour.— For some 
seven miles of the way the Parson gener¬ 
ally takes the State road, but now the 
big auto scrapers push off the snow as 
soon as it comes and ruin the sleighing. 
He did not relish dragging a sleigh for 
several miles on macadam, so he took the; 
back road. For five or six miles he got 
along fairly well, then at the old Peden 
place the trouble began. Here was some 
two miles of unbroken road. Much of 
the way he had to walk. It was stop and 
rest every rod or two. It was getting 
late and dark. One other place lie had 
to lead the horse out into the lots to get. 
around the drifts. He was just five hours 
making the trip. It was not much over 
10 miles the way he went. 
Ready for 8pRI.no. — The Parson 
wanted particularly to make this trip, as 
we are making up our orders for fertilizer 
for the Spring. We are also making plans 
for our seed potatoes. We hope also to 
buy our grass seed together. Now is just 
the time to get all the orders in. 
Ten at Church. —We went down and 
shoveled out the old church the next 
morning, and rang the bell. Wo took 
down the Christmas trimming, for this 
was the first sendee we had had since 
Lent. Then we put a big kettle of cocoa 
on the big stove in the corner of the 
church. Well, we had 10 altogether, 
which was more than the Parson ex¬ 
pected. No one lives in sight of this 
church, anyway, and after our service we 
gathered around that old stove and had 
that cocoa and bread and some fine cook¬ 
ies one of the girls brought. The Parson 
will just have to visit this section oftener, 
as it makes a good many haircuts for one 
Sunday—he had to fix up four heads be¬ 
fore church and one after—and get an 
early start home at that. It poured all 
the way home, and we took still a third 
route and 14 miles of mud part way. and 
drifts that drove us again to the fields 
the other part. 
•Turt Right. —As the Parson was mus¬ 
ing on how the roads might have been 
worse Ik 1 thought of the darkey and his 
whiskey. The boss had given Sambo a 
quart of whiskey as lie was going home at 
night. The next morning he asked Sambo 
how it was. “.Tus* right, jus’ right." he 
exclaimed. He said this so many times 
that the boss felt constrained to ask him 
in what special respects was it “jus’ 
right." “It suttenly was jus’ right, sir: 
jus’ right, sir! If it had been any better 
you would not have given it to me; and 
if it had been any worse it sure would 
have killed me!” 
Co-operation. —The Parson has just 
been telephoning in an order for grain 
for his folks down county. It does look 
as though a group of farmers around here 
would really hang together and do busi¬ 
ness at a great saving. The test will 
come when, some day. a grain merchant 
in town will drop tlie price lower than 
we can buy for. Then will the .members of 
the association remember the times they 
saved and go right up to the car and get 
the stuff just the same? It all depends 
on whether they will do this. Our asso¬ 
ciation has handled over $0,000 worthy of 
grain in two months. We pay in $25 a 
share, and now have a working capital 
of about $1,500. Should two cars come 
in at once, enough is borrowed at the 
banks to pay for both. It is all a cash 
business, practically no time at all being 
given. 
Extend the Business. —We are feel¬ 
ing our way carefully, but the next thing 
we need is some kind of a warehouse, 
where a man’s goods can be put if lie 
cannot come for them in the time limit 
set for emptying the car. Of course there 
would be a small charge for the trans¬ 
portation. Down county folks cannot get 
up here in time to get stuff from the car. 
They have few or no ’phones in the Par¬ 
son’s section, and it lakes two days to 
get word to them. We are all getting 
fencing this way this year, and an order 
is being now made up for a carload of 
tools. Three manure spreaders were or¬ 
dered through the association some time 
ago. The Parson must get in an order 
for that horse fork he has promised the 
hoys to get before Summer. The small 
orders the Parson sent in today for down 
county folks will be delivered through a 
local dealer, so the men from a distance 
will have more time to get them. 
A Buyer. —A great deal depends on 
getting a good buyer. We now have a 
man who is superintendent of an orphans’ 
home, and so used to buying in large 
quantities and at wholesale. He gets 2*4 
per cent for doing business. The Farm 
Bureau Agent is secretary of the asso¬ 
ciation. but of course handles no funds. 
We have got some flour, but there is not 
much saved on this, as so many grocers 
in competition keep the price down. We 
shall probably go into tires next; the 
buyer claims we can save 40 per cent, 
though this figure is probably a little 
high. 
Local Dealers.— One of the most in¬ 
teresting things in connection with co¬ 
operative buying is to see how the local 
dealers will come down. The very morn¬ 
ing after we had a good association meet¬ 
ing the Parson dropped into a local deal¬ 
er's and asked for a bag of corn and oats 
ground together. The clerk turned to the 
owner and asked what they were. With¬ 
out looking up he said $2.85. Then he 
happened to look up and see who was 
standing there. “Well, well, we might do 
a little better for Mr. Gilbert; $2.45.” 
Another Store.— We have two grain 
stores in town. The co-operative asso¬ 
ciation buys a good deal through the 
other firm. We always buy locally if the 
price is right. The association pays them 
spot cash in advance, and then the farm¬ 
ers go down to their storehouse by the 
track and get. the goods. A neighbor went 
down and got two tons of cottonseed in 
two consecutive days. The second ton. off 
from the same pile in ’the same store- 
We have both old and young readers. 
Now that Mr. Tuttle is talking to the 
boys and girls, every member of the fam¬ 
ily may find something to interest them 
in the paper. The little girl shown in the 
picture gets the paper out of the box 
houst», cost just $17 less than the first, 
being bought through the association. 
Many Prices. —One day the Parson 
drove up to this store in a lumber box 
wagon. The clerk came out, and the 
Parson asked for a bag of cottonseed. 
He brought it out and put it in the 
wagon, and the Parson handed him $3. 
He brought back just 50 cents. The Par¬ 
son knew that cottonseed was down, and 
soon learned on getting home that the 
price paid was far too much. He ’phoned 
in to the store and asked them if they 
were not high on cottonseed. “How 
much did you pay?” asked the man, ap¬ 
parently having no idea what his clerks 
were asking. The Parson told him. “Oh, 
yes 1 Too much !” he exclaimed. “That 
is our retail delivery and charge price. 
Step in and we will make it right.” But 
it wasn't delivery or charge, and the man 
who put it in the wagon and took tin* 
money certainly knew it. and the clerk 
who took the money certainly knew it, 
and the owner of the store sat right in 
the window and couldn’t help seeing the 
wagon and the cottonseed on top of a 
load of coal. 
Fertilizers. — Many of the farmers 
around here are mixing their chemicals 
this year for the first time. This will be 
the case with the Parson. Our grain 
buyer is taking the orders, and the whole 
will probably bo pooled with the Eastern 
States people. We have to seed down 
about three acres with oats on rather 
poor land, recently taken in from old 
pasture. We shall put on our stable 
manure and a ton of acid phosphate, and 
seed down, and also some lime. Most of 
the men around here expect to mix up a 
4-8-4 formula with nitrate of soda, cot¬ 
tonseed meal, acid phosphate and muriate 
of potash. We shall use this for pota¬ 
toes as well as corn, simply putting in 
more of it. 
Potatoes.— The Parson imagines this 
is a good year to plant potatoes. To the 
home gardener fertilizer is still high, 
almost as high as last year, and when he 
remembers the price of his seed and 
reads in his newspaper that potatoes are 
now around 80 cents to a dollar whole¬ 
sale he will lose his old time enthusiasm. 
He will decide that daylight saving is 
better for playing baseball and golf than 
for picking potato bugs. It looks as 
though there would be as bad a mix-up 
over time around here as last year. The 
railroad runs its trains an hour earlier 
and leaves the clocks as they are. and 
some towns do one thing and some an¬ 
other, and no one knows when anything 
begins or ends, save that on a farm if you 
ever get anywhere you must begin at day¬ 
light. anyway, and while it is better to 
quit in good season and have a game of 
croquet with the boys, yet it is hard not 
to keep at it till the first star shines out 
in the sky. 
The Geese. — Many are going into 
geese in a small way, and some have good 
luck and a good many poor. There would 
seem to he a good deal to learn yet about 
the way of goslings. How long should 
they be left with the hen? A neighbor 
thinks the hen picked her goslings on the 
head and thus caused the death of many 
of them. One woman, who raises about 
25 every year, says never to let the old 
goose hatch the eggs, while others claim 
this is the best way. Some s.ay never let the 
young goslings go near the water; others 
say it is the natural way, and let them go 
to it. One thing is certain : If the brook 
or pond is big enough for snapping tur¬ 
tles they will finish your goslings in short 
order. On the whole, the Parson and the 
boys have had such uncertain luck with 
goslings that last year we sold practically 
so as to have first look at it. Mother will 
come next—father being out ou the farm 
at work. At night he will have his chance, 
so that The R. N.Y. proves a visitor 
and good neighbor to all of the farm 
household. 
all the eggs, not raising a single goose, 
and we shall probably do the same this 
year. Some think that a goose will eat 
any old swale grass down in the swamp 
that nothing else will touch. But it cer¬ 
tainly is not so with our geese. They 
will not touch the swamp grass, nor ap¬ 
parently eat any kind of grass or weed 
that a cow or calf won’t eat. We see 
few letters in the farm papers from those 
having experience bringing up goslings, 
and such, to the Parson’s mind, would 
be of great use. 
A Smokehouse. —The Parson has been 
at his wits’ end for a smokehouse for the 
hams and bacon.' Barrels are unsatisfac¬ 
tory, as they keep the meat too near the 
fire, and the string pulls out. and there is 
bother enough. Twice with the Parson 
the whole thing has caught fire and nearly 
lost the meat altogether. The other day 
he thought of an old icebox there was on 
the place. He immediately decided it 
would solve tin 1 question. lie took this 
old icebox and made a hole in the bottom 
big enough to put a stovepipe through, 
lie then put the thing up on a big stone 
there is in the back yard that Mrs. Par¬ 
son suns her tinware on. On an elbow 
leading into the box from the bottom he 
put about 10 feet of old stovepipe and 
put another elbow on the other end. He 
connected this elbow with the top of an 
old sheet-iron oven that came out of the 
stove. You build up a smudge in this 
oven and the smoke goes through the old 
stovepipe up into the icebox where the 
meat is. The pipe has some little slant 
to it. so that there is a fair draft. It 
works the best when there is little or no 
wind, and, in fact, such a thing should 
not be operated when there is a bad wind, 
anvway. The boys delight in getting the 
thing to going and see the smoke boil out 
of the box through the sacking thrown 
over the top. Ilow the boys do love 
bacon! A good bacon sandwich and a 
cup of cocoa, and a happy boy ! 
The Fuel Question.— The Parson has 
been reading how Senator Calder accused 
the coal barons of stealing 1.500 millions 
from the people, but that this was most 
stoutly denied, for they said they had 
only taken 600 millions more than they 
should have! The president of the man¬ 
ufacturers' association of this State says 
that the factories alone have been robbed 
of 17 millions in this little State. We 
have been burning coke in the one-pipe 
furnace and paying $16 a ton for it and 
drawing it ourselves. We find we can 
buy wood for $5.50 a cord in the woods, 
and not so very far away. As the boys 
can draw it with the big horse during 
vacation, and we can saw it with the old 
Ford at practically no expense, it would 
appear that this was altogether our 
cheapest fuel. We have a complete team 
for sawing. Flossie sits in the car and 
regulates the gas, Shelley passes up the 
wood, the Parson tends the saw (that 
being the easiest!) and George throws 
away. Little Charlsie Roy chews away 
on a piece of bread and looks on, which 
really makes the thing complete. 
The Calf Beat Him. — The school 
question is up in our Legislature again, 
and they are trying to decide how much 
farming they can or should teach in the 
country schools. A good many still take 
the stand of the old academy principal 
down South, when a man made a great 
plea in his school that the hoys should be 
taught to milk. He advocated diversified 
farming, but how could they keep cows 
if no one could milk, and how could they 
milk unless they were taught? The old 
academy principal listened gravely, and 
when the government agent had finished 
he rose with flashing eye. “Never as long 
as I live,” said he. “shall I spend my time 
teaching a boy how to do a tiling that any 
calf can do a great deal better!” 
Palm Sunday.— The next trip down to 
the village missions will lie on Palm Sun¬ 
day. The Parson always likes Palm Sun¬ 
day. The palms have come, and the 
branches will be distributed on that Sun¬ 
day. What a fine, happy time everybody 
will have! For a long time we have 
always had something to eat after the 
service held down in the country—the 
real open. country—hut next Sunday we 
are planning that all the people at church 
go down in the basement of one of the 
village missions and there have a supper 
together. Everybody will talk and visit, 
and we will be about the church for some 
three hours or more. The young folks 
will play the piano and sing, and it will 
almost seem like a little sociable. Why 
should, the churches always have their 
good times—good times for boys and good 
times for young folks and good times for 
grown-ups—on week days, and only dole¬ 
ful and gloomy times on Sunday, and then 
wonder why the people bent it away from 
the churches on Sunday in their autos 
instead of towards them? 
No Place to Go. — Country people 
want to go somewhere like other folks, 
and really like a good place to go to. Did 
your w ife ever get a new dress, and then 
just hang it up in the closet, with no 
chance to wear it? Tt makes the Parson 
think of an old fellow called Uncle Bill, 
who always went around telling how lie 
didn’t believe in either heaven or hell. 
Both ideas were all bosh and nonsense. 
There were no such places. When he 
died they got some really nice clothes for 
his burial and fixed him all up in great 
shape. The people marched along to look 
at him for the last time with proper 
funeral countenances. But one young 
fellow broke right out laughing. They 
were all shocked. “What are yon laugh¬ 
ing about?” they demanded. “I can’t 
help it.” lie said. “To think of old Uncle 
Bill all dressed up like that and no place 
to go.” 
Care of Baby Chicks 
I have 25 baby chicks coming April 1, 
P>. P. Rocks, and want t<* know best way 
to raise them, indoors or out. Do T need 
a brooder? I have never raised any. ex¬ 
cepting by setting my own hens, and 
wish to change breed entirely, doing away 
with R. T. Reds and keeping B. P. Rocks. 
In case I have a setting hen then will 
she take them or part of them? R. s. 
New York. 
The easiest way to care for these chicks 
would he to give them to a good motherly 
sitting lion that had been thoroughly dust¬ 
ed two or three times at weekly inter¬ 
vals with lice powder, or otherwise rid 
of her tenants. A large hen should care 
for the 25 after the first of April, though 
dividing them up between two hens would 
assure each chick more individual care 
and training and might he worth while 
in the case of particularly valuable chicks. 
If no sitting hen is at hand. 25 chicks 
should be easily raised in a fireless brood¬ 
er. This may be simply a good-sized dry- 
goods box of about IS inches in height 
in one part of which a stone jug filled 
with hot water and wrapped in thick 
cloth may be placed morning and niglit 
to furnish the required heat. To one ac¬ 
customed to the care of chicks the rais¬ 
ing of 25 may be accomplished satisfac¬ 
torily with very little equipment; per¬ 
haps nothing more than a light box that 
may be placed near the kitchen stove at 
night and set out on the grass in the sun¬ 
shine during the day. There is no brooder 
more nearly automatic in operation, how¬ 
ever. than the original type, clothed in 
feathers. M. R. R. 
