86 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 19, 1924 
For The School Bill 
In order to qualify as a witness let 
me first state that the first 16 years of 
my life were spent on the farm my father 
chopped out of the wilderness; the next 
30 years were spent in school work as a 
student, a teacher in country and village 
schools, one term as school commissioner, 
and the last 34 years on the farm where 
I now live. My children have attended 
country schools, village schools and col¬ 
leges, and have all taught more or less. 
From this it should appear that I might 
have a right to express an opinion on. 
anything pertaining to schools, provided 
I have knowledge of the particular sub¬ 
ject under discussion. 
About 18 months ago the Dairymen’s 
League asked me to explain the report of 
the Committee of Twenty-one. I agreed 
to, but found'out at once that I knew 
very little about it. I obtained the 
printed reports that the chairman of the 
committee was distributing and studied 
them and still I knew I was not prepared 
to answer questions. Finally I sent for 
the separate reports of the chairman or 
head of each sub-committee. These re¬ 
ports are to be had in book form at 75 
cents each. From these I got a clear 
understanding of the whole report, and 
felt prepared to discuss it. After this 
preparation I began to ask questions of 
my neighbors, and found them exactly 
as ignorant as I was before my thor¬ 
ough investigation. They knew nothing 
definite about the plan, but some were 
very free with opinions. From this I 
believe a large majority of the votes 
taken at the special meeting to consider 
the school bill were the honest opinion of 
the voter upon a subject on which he 
had little or no accurate information. I 
believe a school law based upon the re¬ 
port of the Committee of Twenty-one 
would.be the most valuable piece of legis¬ 
lation that has been enacted since I have 
known anything about the schools. 
Before I explain that last statement let 
me say that if the pending bill, based 
on the report of the Committee of Twen¬ 
ty-one, should become a law, it would 
cost the district in which my farm is 
situated $1S,000 and much interest dur¬ 
ing the next 30 years. I will say fur¬ 
ther that while it would add so much to 
our taxes I do not know another district 
that would not. be benefited by the law 
Much is said about consolidation. Farm¬ 
er folks are led to believe that if this 
bill becomes law a majority in a district 
could circulate a petition, or pass a de¬ 
cisive vote, to annul a district and con¬ 
solidate it with some other district, and 
it would be done, even if every family 
in the’district having children were op¬ 
posed. The complete answer to that is 
that all that can be done under the law 
today, but it is not done. Worse than 
that, under the present law the district 
superintendent has power to consolidate 
any district and if his action is sustained 
by* the Department of Education it stands 
in spite of anyone, and yet it is almost 
never done. 
There is consolidation of management 
for the schools in a community unit and 
also consolidation of property for uni¬ 
form taxation, but under this bill the 
arbitrary power to consolidate schools 
is 'taken away from district superin¬ 
tendents, and boards of education cannot 
close a school and transport children 
while the average daily attendance 
reaches a certain number. 
There are provisions in the bill for 
better preparations for rural teachers, 
for higher qualifications and a much bet¬ 
ter method of appointing district super¬ 
intendents and for better school privi¬ 
leges for farmers’ children ; but the great 
value in the bill is the distribution of 
State aid in proportion to the financial 
needs of the district. Under the present 
system there is no great difference in 
the amount given per teacher in large 
and rich districts and in small and poor 
districts. Be careful to get this: This 
bill is a plan to distribute State aid among 
the districts according to their needs. At 
present I know a district that can sup¬ 
port a school by a tax rate of five mills 
on a dollar of assessed valuation, and 
lying next to that in one direction is 
a district that must levy a rate of 24 
mills, while touching it on another side is 
a district that this year levies 38 mills 
for the actual running of the schools! 
(Thinking people in the cities might well 
be alarmed if they knew how many of 
the farms in these small weak school dis¬ 
tricts have been deserted, abandoned, 
thrown out of production, in the past 10 
vears. But when the farmer has to pay 
around 3 per cent of his valuation for 
school, and 5 or 6 per cent, as many do, 
on a mortgage, and then another 3 or 4 
per cent for town and county tax, and 
pays the exorbitant price demanded for 
everything he must buy, there is small 
inducement for him to continue the lonely 
drudgery of life on some back-hill farm.) 
In his investigation of school support 
Dr. Updegraf fixed a certain district val¬ 
uation as sufficient to support a school 
without State aid. The school bill fixes 
this assessed valuation at .$18,000. Dis¬ 
tricts having that much or more valua¬ 
tion would not be benefited financially by 
this bill. All districts of lower valuation 
would be assisted. Instead of going into 
detail as to how it is all figured out, will 
simply state the results for the commu¬ 
nity unit in which I would live. This 
unit would be composed of the village of 
Little Valley and five or six farm districts. 
The village district has an assessed valu¬ 
ation of $80,000 back of each teacher. 
My district has $180,000 back of a teach¬ 
er. Another has $100,000, another $35,- 
000, and others $25,000 to $75,000 back 
of a teacher. Tax rates on these various 
districts vary from five mills to 40 mills 
on the dollar for schools. Allowing the 
total average cost per teacher in ail the 
schools in the community unit to be 
$1,350, our uniform tax rate on all prop¬ 
erty and for all schools in the unit would 
be 7^4 mills on the dollar. Some differ¬ 
ence between this rate and the 30 or 40 
mills on the dollar farmers are paying 
now in the weak districts. This rate is 
obtained by dividing $1,350, the average 
cost per teacher, by $180,000, the neces¬ 
sary valuation back of a teacher. Sup¬ 
pose we have an average valuation of 
$80,000 back of each teacher. It would 
give a total valuation for whole unit (20 
teachers in the whole community unit) of 
20 times $S0,000, or $1,600,000. Now, 
20 times $180,000 gives $3,600,000. This 
is the valuation needed to raise the whole 
budget for the community unit. So it 
will be seen that the community unit 
would pay 7% mills on a total valuation 
of $1,600,000, and the State would pay 
the balance, or 7% mills on the $2,000,- 
000 valuation lacking in the community 
unit. (This is the method by which the 
commission arrived at the rate of taxa¬ 
tion. In the bill a shorter computation 
is used that gives the same result, but not 
so easy to explain.) 
Each reader of this can guess very 
closely the size and boundary of his unit 
and can make his own computations. If 
the unit contains no high school, then 
the whole unit will pay the expense of 
transporting the high school pupils to 
their school. Even here the State pays a 
part of the cost. The State will pay from 
10 to 30 per cent of the cost of new 
buildings, according to the poverty of the 
unit. 
The village of Little Valley has one of 
the finest, best equipped, most finished 
schoolhouses in the State. The people of 
the village, and also those outside who 
send pupils in for high school work, are 
justly proud of this building. But this 
village district has a bonded indebtedness 
of $150,000. All the districts put into the 
same unit with the village must pay then- 
share of this indebtedness. 
The weak districts will be helped by 
other features of the bill much more than 
they will be hurt by this burden of in¬ 
debtedness, but my district, with $180,- 
000 valuation, will find the taxes nearly 
doubled. But our people will get great 
benefit from this wonderful school build¬ 
ing and the quality of work done by the 
teachers in it. Already we go there to 
witness entertainments in which our 
children take part, to hear lectures, to 
see first-class movies, and I believe now 
we would rather assume the debt than 
lose the wonderful opportunities this build¬ 
ing will afford our children. So we see it 
is easier to consolidate the schools under 
the present system than under the pro¬ 
posed law —yet it is not done. We also 
see that the main idea back of this law is 
to give the needed financial assistance to 
all small districts of low valuation ; that 
is, to help the very people who through 
their ignorance are putting up the only 
protest against this proposed law. 
If we are to produce the necessary food 
for our growing cities, men must stay 
on the farms and grow the crops. Men 
will not continue the life of profitless 
drudgery on these lonely back farms un¬ 
less something happens to improve finan¬ 
cial conditions. Hundreds of farms with¬ 
in an hour’s ride from the county site 
here are given up to thorn bushes, paint¬ 
brush and weeds, and the explanation is 
men cannot make a decent living on them 
and pay the exorbitant taxes. This bill 
is a great plan to use the State school 
fund in such a way as to help the farm¬ 
ers in the back districts to stay on the 
job and maintain their own school at 
home. g. w. boyce. 
Cattaraugus Co., N .Y. 
Setting Trees with Posthole Digger 
In 1919 we lost our herd of hogs with 
swine plague, and we decided to set out 
an apple orchard on the hog lot of about 
six acres, filling in with peach trees. We 
ordered the trees that Fall, and the nur¬ 
seryman heeled them in on his own farm. 
During the Winter the rabbits ate the 
bark off two-thirds of them. This made 
it necessary for him to re-order for us, 
and he was unable to secure all of what 
we had first ordered. Then the railroad 
company kept them in transit or some 
other place for six weeks or more. When 
they finally arrived it was the latter part 
of May, 1920. We had the ground al¬ 
ready prepared, and marked out 20 ft. 
each way with a wheelbarrow. It was 
rather dry, and we had no outside help. 
My oldest boy was going to school yet. 
lie was, however, getting out early, both 
morning and afternoon. While the chil¬ 
dren were at school we cut the trees 
back to about a foot above the roots, 
also trimming the roots off some, loaded 
the trees on a wagon, with several bar¬ 
rels of water. With a posthole digger I 
made a hole 10 or 12 in. deep. The old¬ 
est boy put two quarts of water in each 
hole. Then a tree stub was put in and 
the hole filled with top soil only. 
After they were all planted we opened 
a furrow with one-horse plow and put 
stable manure, very thin, and covered 
with same outfit. This was raked off in 
the tree rows and planted to cucumbers 
and cantaloupes. In between Ave planted 
mostly sweet corn. About the last of 
June it started to rain, and I believe it 
rained eight days every week. We tried 
to keep it cultivated, but the only way 
we could tell where we left off was to 
leave the cultivator where we stopped 
and go on from there the next chance Ave 
got. Part of the time the middle of the 
field was so soft a person could not Avalk 
across without going in nearly to the 
knees. The trees grew and the corn grew, 
but you never saw weeds grow like those. 
In the Fall no one would ever think there 
was an orchard in the field, and one 
would have to be a good guesser to guess 
there was corn in the field. We cut the 
field over in the Fall, cutting everything 
but the trees; no effort was made to sow 
any cover crop. 
The trees had ^made a very good 
average growth of 5 ft. one year later; 
-so we then cut them back rather 
hard again, about half of the growth, 
anyhow. We decided to try for canta¬ 
loupes again in the tree rows, planting 
Golden Bantam corn between. We put 
manure along the tree rows, covering 
with a one-horse plow, and plowing the 
balance with a two-horse plow. The 
cantaloupes were planted and hydrated 
lime sprinkled thinly along on top, while 
a big handful of. 4-5-5 was put around 
each hill. 
Last year was rather dry for most 
farmers, but we kept the cultivator going 
and things were going nicely:—fairly 
clean and growing well. It had been dry 
for 10 days or more; we had just laid the 
cantaloupes by, expecting them to take 
care of themselves. July 7 the surround¬ 
ing country had a very heavy thunder¬ 
shower, while this vicinity was treated to 
one of the worst hailstorms ever known ; 
one man went to the store for $10 Avorth 
of windoAV lights. Our nice-looking mel¬ 
on vines were nothing but ropes. The 
corn was riddled, and the trees had 
gashes in the bark over 2 in. long. Cul¬ 
tivation was stopped and the whole thing 
let go as it Avas. We gathered what we 
could of the corn and fed to the animals. 
The weeds made a cover crop. I had 
said I did not intend to plow the ground 
again, expecting to get a tractor and disk 
it; hoAvever, after this it did not look 
very much like buying one. I had just 
arranged to hire one to disk it, when a 
neighbor offered me his if we could run 
it; said his men couldn’t or wouldn’t, 
and as they had not used it for two or 
three years it was a problem to get it 
started. However, it Avas made to go, 
and the orchard was disked, lengthwise, 
crosswise and diagonally. We noAv ex¬ 
pect to plant cow peas in rows and culti¬ 
vate until July 15, and then soav a mix¬ 
ture of Crimson clover, rape and Coav- 
horn turnips. Some time in May the dear 
deer came in and ate the leaves off the 
apple trees. Some encouragement for a 
farmer to work, and suffer from blight, 
hail and drought, and then have his crop 
eaten by deer so some city sport can have 
a day’s gunning once a year. w. A. B. 
Is It Gold In the Well? 
We have a well on our farm with very 
good water, 30 ft. deep. Sometimes the 
water has been very low, but it never has 
been dry until last Fall, about six weeks 
ago, and about two years back. From 
time to time I would find gold ore like 
gold in water pail, and telling my hus¬ 
band he thought it was a little brass from 
cylinder, but lately my husband cleaned 
the well out and says there is one big 
rock which looks golden. He brought up 
a little of it and it is all like little gold 
and silver specks mixed with sandy 
ground. This stone is about 25 ft. down 
and A’ery large. Would the State Chemi¬ 
cal Department examine it if I sent them 
a little? C G. 
Easton, Pa. 
It is very doubtful if this substance is 
gold. Most likely it will prove to be 
pyrites or “fool’s gold.” Many people 
have been deceived by 'this bright sub¬ 
stance so often found in rock formation. 
The State Geologist or the Agricultural 
Department at Harrisburg will no doubt 
help you. 
Auto Hogs in Alabama 
For the sake of the children fight for 
the little red schoolhouse and try to get 
back a race of men who will have enough 
red blood in them to get out and handle 
those hunters and auto hogs instead of 
writing to you about them, as they have 
been doing in the last three or four years. 
This section has shipped several hun¬ 
dred carloads of Satsuma oranges in the 
past few weeks, and I have not seen in 
the papers nor heard of a case of auto 
hogs being in a grove. I found one 
couple picking wild berries on this place 
last season, but I do not look for them 
back. I asked the man if he was a nat¬ 
ural born thief, or did his mother teach 
him to steal. This did not sound good to 
him, and he called his wife and started 
the flivver down the road in a rush. An¬ 
other time my daughter heard a woman 
tell her two children to get through the 
fence for the berries, “but not to make a 
noise.” She spoke up good and brisk: 
“That’s right, teach them when they are 
young, and Avhen they groAV up they may 
be able to rob a bank,” and another fliv¬ 
ver hurried down the road. Should we 
have such trouble as your people write 
about there would be a funeral or two 
here, and they know it, so Ave don’t have 
the trouble. J. R. davis. 
Alabama. 
The Useful Farm Cat 
On page 1542 Wm. E. Smith states 
that he Avas much interested in an ar¬ 
ticle by Mrs. A. D. J. on cats as rat 
catchers. I, in turn, Avas interested in 
Mr. Smith’s article. The cat has her 
faults, no doubt, the same as the rest of 
us, but to accuse her of being an arrant 
coward and shirker, is a little far-fetched, 
in my opinion. I have lived in the coun¬ 
try 20 years, and except for about two 
years have owned a cat. During said 
two years the place was over-run with 
field mice, said mice on one occasion de¬ 
stroying the greater part of a trench of 
celery A r alued at between $75 and $100. 
Perhaps Mr. Smith could have overcome 
the difficulty Avith the little red trap, but 
I acquired a cat, and have had very lit¬ 
tle trouble Avith field mice since that time. 
I have knoAvn the cat that Ave have at the 
present time to catch four such mice in 
one day. Also of the eight cats we have 
had there was not one that would not 
kill rats. 
Last Spring a pair of robins reared 
tAvo broods of young in the wagon-house, 
within easy reach of the cat. Of course 
a cat is a cat, with a cat’s instincts, but 
they can be taught to a certain extent 
that birds are taboo. In regard to the 
cat as a chicken killer, I do not know 
much about the folks in Massachusetts, 
but around this part of York State when 
a cat begins killing chickens she signs 
her own death warrant. My wife and 
myself are both lovers of birds and wild 
life, but our experience has shown us 
that the right kind of a cat is more of a 
blessing than a nuisance. G. s. w. 
Geneva, N. Y. 
This shows F. C. Keeler, a well-known Ontario fruit grower, and a fine McIntosh 
apple tree. Ontario is the original home of McIntosh, and the apple is at its best 
there. Mr. Keeler is noted as a plant breeder and groAver, and has met with remark¬ 
able success with some of his varieties. 
