1356 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Some years ago I worked for a farmer 
in a Western State. I was a student at 
an agricultural college, but funds ran out, 
and so I “accepted a position” to clean 
up the harvest, cut corn and dig potatoes 
in order to earn the “few paltry dollars” 
needed to finish the college term. On the 
same farm was a law student from the 
university like myself, financially stranded 
and willing to dig an educational life pre¬ 
server out of the soil. A year or so ago 
I heard a college professor advise his 
students never to take a farm job for less 
than $75 per month, and to be sure and 
demand “the rights of labor.” This bud¬ 
ding young lawyer and I worked for $18 
a month and board, and as for “the rights 
of labor,” we put in 13 hours a day, with 
nothing except lack of daylight to prevent 
a longer day. 'And we could make the 
$18 go further along the road to knowl¬ 
edge than any $50 my boys ever spent at 
college. We made a pair of “educated 
hired men,” and I fear we put more spav¬ 
ined science and lubricated law into local 
circulation than was good 1 for the com¬ 
munity. “A little knowledge is a danger¬ 
ous thing,” and we young fellows felt that 
we must sustain the reputation of college 
and university! I think now that part 
of the obstinate objection to “education” 
which common people held 1 at that time 
was due to the efforts of such fledglings as 
we were to show off our small and shop¬ 
worn stock of knowledge 
much paint! 
***** 
It was comparatively easy in those days 
to paint the wonders of “science.” Al¬ 
most everything “went,” for there was no 
such general spread of information as we 
have today. ' When a farmer of long ex¬ 
perience cornered you on some farm prob¬ 
lem you could generally get out of it by 
talking about bacteria, nitrogen or “com¬ 
bustible gases.” That put you up a tree 
where the farmer with his stout club 
“No, dinner ain’t ready yet. When it 
is you’ll be called.” 
“1 don’t care if they be; they can wait! 
They don’t have to work on this farm. ” 
“Don’t you come soft-sawdering ’rounc 
me. Get out of my kitchen till I’m 
ready.” 
“You make me think of that gray 
rooster shufflin’ ’round them hens. He 
won’t do no more shufflin’ anyway. Now 
get out!” 
* * * * 
A lawyer knows when to be diplomatic, 
and a scientist knows when to be silent, 
so when the boss came back we never 
intimated that we had heard the conver¬ 
sation. The boss was a good actor: 
“She ain’t quite ready yet. The stove 
didn’t draw good, and she’s taking extra 
pains with that egg gravy. You. know 
that gray rooster that yelled so under my 
window every morning? Well, the wife 
don’t sleep good, and that rooster kept 
her awake. So I killed him, and the wife 
is doing a fipe job on him for dinner. You 
can smell him now. The more work you 
do, the more appetite you’ll have for din¬ 
ner!” 
That seemed sensible, and we made that 
saw eat sawdust until the woman came 
to the door and blew a blast on the horn 
which must have been heard in town. I 
think a whisper would have called us in. 
We washed hands and faces in the shed 
and walked in. There was the gray 
rooster—no longer gray, but brown and 
steaming on a big platter. Around him 
were boiled potatoes, mashed turnips, 
We put on too squash and egg gravy with hot corn bread, 
while the fragrance of an apple pudding 
was wafted in from the kitchen. 
“Now then, John Eaton, if you can’t 
say grace with a thankful heart over that 
dinner, you don’t deserve a thing. That 
rooster’s bothered me all Summer. Now 
he’s gone I just thought I’d celebrate his 
going!” 
Of course, I might have told this lady 
that she was just reverting back to primal 
instincts. That was probably the way 
her ancestors, far back in the stone age, 
could not get at you, and in all history the fUt when they obtained full control over 
soldier on the heights has had the advan¬ 
tage of the valley man. The former can 
roll stones or big words down at his an¬ 
tagonist, while the other lacks the engine 
required to throw stones back. Much of 
this is changed now through the great dif¬ 
fusion of knowledge. The “educated 
hired man” would have a job to fool the 
boss with big words in these days. When 
I was a college student I knew an edu¬ 
cated man who said that America would 
commit national suicide by establishing 
colleges where any boy or girl could ob¬ 
tain a scientific education. lie said 
knowledge was power—a useful- tool in 
the hands of a few selected leaders, but a 
dangerous toy in the hands of the multi¬ 
tude. He claimed that putting scientific 
knowledge in the minds- of most people 
would be as dangerous as giving the ordi¬ 
nary child a horn, of" gunpowder to play 
with. He claimed that what he called 
the common man would not be fit to make 
use of scientific power for 10 generations 
at least. Studying the “classics” and 
dead languages was safe enough—but sci¬ 
ence was too dangerous. I wonder what 
that man would think could he come back 
today and see the books which my children 
are studying in high school. These chil¬ 
dren are having a stronger course in 
science than I had at college, and thev 
do not try to inflate it with super-heated 
air. as 1 I confess that I did. I have lost 
track of my young lawyer friend, but if 
he has been able to keep up the ingenious 
legal traps he sprung on that farm, he 
must be some highly luminous legal au¬ 
thority by this time. 
* * * * * 
One day the rain came down in floods, 
and we could not cut corn. So the boss, 
urged by his wife, led us out to the wood¬ 
shed for a day’s work in the dry timber. 
The young lawyer and I got on the sal¬ 
ami the boss split and piled. The result 
was a pile of dry wood which pleased the 
woman so well that she brought out a 
pan of cookies for us to eat. Why is it 
that lovely woman will never stoop to 
folly when it would be most appreciated? 
Why was it necessary for this lady to 
take some of the sweetness out of those 
cookies by standing with her hands on 
her hips and remarking to her husband: 
“I suppose you great lazy things can’t 
do a thing unless your stomach is kept 
full!” 
We worked on until the young law¬ 
yer’s sharp ear detected the faint echo of 
the 12 o’clock .whistle in the town some 
miles away. That meant dinnertime, and 
when you are young and ambitious and 
have -been sawing wood all the forenoon, 
the dinner horn has a sweet sound. Not 
one of us dared to “knock off” and go 
into the house until we were called, but 
the young lawyer and T made things lively 
for the farmer. I discussed the scientific 
aspect of the feeding problem in a way 
that would startle the modern expert. At 
any rate, I think I made it clear that 
carbohydrates and protein are absolutely 
essential in the life of a hired man. The 
young lawyer quoted legal decisions to 
prove what breaking a contract means, 
and then he proved that 12 o’clock was 
the contract hour for dinner. Finally the 
farmer, with the air of one who takes his 
life in his hands, walked in the back door 
to investigate. 
* * ❖ £ * 
Probably the highest art of conversa¬ 
tion is to make one side of it so emphatic 
that you do not need to hear the other 
side in order to have a full understanding. 
their annoyers. The feeling had simply 
jumped over thousands of years at the 
call of that rooster. But who would be 
foolish enough to remind the cook of such 
things? And what a dinner that was! 
* * $ $ * 
As I looked up from my writing some 
instinctive feeling seemed to assure me 
that history was about to repeat itself. 
The Japanese boy had an accumulation 
of water at the corners of his mouth. 
Hose was surely rubbing her little stom¬ 
ach—-and there can be no mistaking that 
satisfying fragrance whic-Ji is wafted in 
from the kitchen. There are three big, 
well-browned birds in the pan on the 
stove, and my daughter has just popped 
a big apple pudding into the oven ! And 
then I remember. Those erring Red hens 
have just come back from the Vineland 
egg-laying contest..and I remember what 
I said should be done with them as soon 
as they came. The folks have taken me 
right at my word. College life was evi¬ 
dently too much for these birds. Two 
years ago I sent 20 pullets to the contest, 
and we thought we had several world- 
beaters. Now nine of them come crawl¬ 
ing back. Eleven of the 20 died. It is 
true that most of these died on the nest, 
but such a death is hardly as honorable 
as the death of a soldier on the battlefield. 
These birds nearly won the leather medal 
this year. One of them laid 195 eggs as 
a pullet and 165 as a hen, which is not so 
bad. but as a pen these Reds of mine 
ranked 95 in a total of 100 pens. Unfor¬ 
tunately that means 95 from the top and 
not from the bottom. The record for this 
past year was 1.252 eggs, with an average 
of about 13 laying. As a matter of fact, 
there are thousands of flocks in the count- 
try which will average less than that. 
The nine Lens which came back to us gave 
the record as shown below: 
Egg record. 
1920. 
1921. 
Bergen Co. Belle. 
. . 92 
S6 
Hope Farm Beauty... 
. . 153 
10S 
Wcaremus Rose . 
. . 195 
165 
I’ollyanna . 
. 153 
91 
Red Head . 
139 
Charity . 
114 
Cave Girl . 
. 138 
104 
Crimson Rambler. 
. 120 
185 
Queen . 
127 
Total . 
1,119 
Average . 
124 
Such birds have no 
place in 
a public 
exhibition. Most of them are drones, and 
there is only one place where they will 
shine. Three of them have entered that 
place. We now see them in the roasting 
pan. One hour from now the pan will bo 
empty. Our folks want to roast one of 
the remaining drones and send it to the 
boy at college. I hardly know about that. 
The Chinese believe that by eating the 
heart of a tiger one may gain great cour¬ 
age and skill. If that principle is true, I 
question the wisdom of feeding a roasted 
drone to a student. But. at any rate, 
when those three fat hens come to the 
table and fall apart under Mother’s skill¬ 
ful knife it will be the most successful 
moment of their lives. That big apple 
pudding will stand at the other end of 
the table, and in between will be potatoes, 
turnips, onions and tomatoes, with a dish 
of genuine Southern gravy to lubricate the 
passage. The trouble with these Reds was 
that at the egg-laying contest they were 
like square pegs in round holes. Here on 
the table they will exactly fit into the hole 
at the back of the mouth. 
November 19, 1921 
Plenty of Potash 
After all the years of 
Potash Hunger 
the opportunity has come to 
buy Potash at very low prices 
I N order to take advantage of 
these low prices no time should 
be lost in telling your dealer what 
you will require so that there will 
be plenty of time to import the 
Potash. 
The right kind and amount of 
fertilizer is a great help in reduc¬ 
ing the cost of crop production. 
A fertilizer high in Potash, 4 to 
10 per cent, improves both the 
quantity and quality of all crops. 
Great quantities of Potash have 
been removed from the soil in the 
past six years. Now is the time 
to restore it at small cost. 
SOIL & CROP SERVICE,^POTASH SYNDICATE 
H. A. HUSTON, Manager 
42 Broadway ;New York 
POTASH 
PAYS 
My great re- 
We never heard what the farmer said, but gret is that you cannot be here to sample 
his wife was very distinct: 
these birds. 
II. w. c. 
THE HOPE FARM BOOK 
This attractive 234-page book has 
some of the best of the Hope Farm 
Man’s popular sketches—philos¬ 
ophy, humor, and sympathetic 
human touch. Price $1.50. 
For Sale by RURAL NEW-YORKER 
335 West 30tli Street, New York 
