Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
303 
Winter Life in the North Woods 
HE other day we had a letter from a reader 
of The Rural New-Yorker in the Repub¬ 
lic of Haiti. He wanted to know where he 
could get a machine for making ice or 
“manufacturing cold.’’ When this letter 
came, two other readers of The Rural 
New-Yorker. Aunt Hannah Payne and Uncle 
Billy Payne, were at their home at Raqnette Lake. 
N. Y., enjoying such scenes as are pictured this 
week. Something of a contrast with the outlook 
from the plantation of our friend in Haiti. 
Walled in by snowdrifts and locked by ice. Aunt 
Hannah and Uncle Billy passed the Winter evening. 
Aunt Hannah had been making balsam pillows; she 
stopped to write to The Rural New-Yorker. Uncle 
Billy is SO years old. an early settler in the Adiron¬ 
dack s—hale and hearty, farmer, trapper and guide. 
He sat reading “Hope Farm Notes” without a 
thought of using glasses. He came to a page in the 
book wherein is printed the words of an old-fash¬ 
ioned song—which the Hope Farm man remembered 
gentleman, as Aunt Hannah says. Many a man has 
quoted Adam—“The woman tempted me"—and then 
run off to leave her to her fate. 
We have seen men who growled like a bulldog at 
a back door when they had to scrape or sweep three 
inches of snow off the sidewalk. What would they 
think of such a job as is pictured at Figure 93. 
This was a case where it was necessary to dig a 
tunnel from the lake in order to fill the ice house. 
The snow was thrown out. and that gentlemanly ox 
hauled the big loads of ice up from the lake—the 
snow so deep that you could not see him as he 
walked through the tunnel. If it were true that 
“snow is manure,” the fertilizer bill in that region 
should not be high. They raise grain and have a 
good garden. Usually the garden cannot be started 
until nearly June. Aunt Hannah says they often 
have to plant the seed with mittens on, and they 
have to replant owing to heavy frosts in June. By the 
first of July, when the visitors begin to come, the 
garden “looks like nothing,” but suddenly it springs 
der tips are taken off for the pillows, dried just 
enough so that they will not heat and sour, and 
stuffed into the cases. Then they are sent to the 
sleepless and weary ones in town—carrying the 
charm of the hills and the everlasting fragrance of 
the forest. It is a beautiful business, and no one 
can estimate the comfort and health Aunt Hannah 
has distributed in her pillows. The larger picture 
shows how the dogs haul the pillows across the lake 
in Winter. The train runs three times a week— 
the station about five miles away. When the ice is 
not firm. Uncle I»i 11 y and Aunt Hannah pack the 
load on their backs— about 30 lbs.-—and carry the 
pillows about seven miles over the trail. 
It's a strenuous life, but apparently a happy one. 
Yon may call it farming or not. as you please. 
Uncle Billy owns 240 acres, and was one of the first 
settlers, and is “doing well." That means comfort, 
happiness and independence. Who ever got more 
than that out of life*.' 1 Aunt Hannah says; “It’s 
nothing wonderful for the thermometer to go to 30 
How Aunt Hannah Payne Markets Her Halsani Pillows. I'iiy. 02. 
as being sung in an old New England farmhouse 
many years ago. 
“Along the aisles of the dim old forest 
I strayed in the dewy dawn. 
And heard far away in the silent arches 
The echoes of the morn.” 
That came as an old memory to Aunt Hannah, 
■who remembered the song as one she sang as a 
school girl long, long ago. The nearest neighbor was 
over a mile away, and the snow—well, we can see 
from the picture what it is like. Yet here was home 
and kindly memory from our good friends. 
Life on Raquette Lake has a low temperature at 
this season. \ isions of Summer are lost in the snow, 
but to the three shown in Figure 94 Florida would 
have no claim—it is “too far from home.” The ox 
is the family automobile and tractor and you know 
of homes where the cow is considered the most 
important member of the family. This ox is the 
motive i ower at Pine Hill Camp. He can do the 
plowing and hauling and trucking, or shuffle off 
across the ice at passenger traffic. Aunt Hannah 
tells some remarkable stories about this ox. There 
is one which Uncle Billy thinks we will consider a 
big hit, but Aunt Hannah saw it. and that settles it! 
This ox stands five feet 8 inches high, and weighs 
2300 lbs. One day he, with the cow, broke into the 
garden, and Uncle Billy set the dogs on them. There 
was a big tree on the bank that the animals jumped 
over when they came down hill into the garden, but 
going up-hill, away from the dogs, was another mat¬ 
ter. They could not get up the hill to the pasture. 
So the ox put liis big horns under the tree and held 
it up while the cow passed under. Then he tossed 
the tree up and crawled under it himself. Quite the 
up like magic, and the plants grow wonderfully. It 
may be the snow water in the soil, or the clear sun¬ 
shine and air. but in some way Nature favors these 
Northern gardeners, and the plants jump and run 
with wonderful speed. Hr. Grenfell in his book on 
Labrador tells of seeing several rows of potatoes in 
upper Newfoundland. There was more or less frost 
every night, and the potutoes were saved only by 
tucking them away under blankets every night, as 
one would tuck a tender child away in bed. That, 
of course, is not necessary at Raquette Lake, but 
they do often have a race with the frost! 
But you will ask what, are the crops in such a 
country? Ifow do people make a living from the 
land? .Summer is the great harvest time, and Sum¬ 
mer visitors are the customers. During the hot 
weather these people come in swarms out of the 
valleys and hot swampy places, looking to the hills 
for health and strength. Uncle Billy acts as guide 
part of the time. Aunt Hannah sells vegetables, 
maple sugar, lemonade, all sorts of things to people 
who pass through the farm on the way to West 
Mountain. And she has also developed a good trade 
in balsam pillows. These are fine for hay fever 
patients. Many people who cannot sleep under or¬ 
dinary conditions will lay their wears heads on one 
of Aunt Hannah's fragrant pillows, and before they 
know it they have wandered off into the happy land 
where the forests whisper and the wind sings its 
cheerful songs. Making these pillows properly is an 
art. You cannot pick the balsam ahead and let it 
dry naturally. When an order comes they go right 
out in the woods and break off the ends of the 
boughs. The trees are not cut down. The ends are 
broken off and a new growth starts. Then the ten- 
aud 40 below, but, thank God. it does not stay there 
long, oiv we would all be dead. When it gets down 
there is no comfort anywhere but in bed.” Very 
likely our friend from Haiti, who wants to “manu¬ 
facture cold.” would be inclined to agree with that 
statement. 
Cotton Growing and Poor Soils 
EORG1A CONDITIONS.— I note what W. L. 
Williamson of Georgia says on page 79 about 
my statement that cotton will not produce lint in the 
North, if grown on rich soil. My statement will, of 
course, surprise any Georgia farmer, for Georgia 
farmers, especially cotton growers, just don’t know 
what 1 mean by rich soil, nor can they understand 
why cotton will keep on making “weed” and will not 
fruit until too late for it to mature on rich land in 
the North. The principal soils in the cotton belt are 
the Norfolk and Orangeburg soils. The United 
States Bureau of Soil Surveys says that the Norfolk 
soils contain on the average about 600 lbs. of phos¬ 
phorus, 14.000 lbs. of potash and 2.50O lbs. of lime, 
and that the Orangeburg soils contain about 700 lbs. 
of phosphorus. 15,000 lbs. of potash and 1,600 lbs. of 
lime. Any of these lands that have been continuous¬ 
ly cropped to cotton and corn for generations con¬ 
tain practically no humus or nitrogen. That is what 
I mean by poor soil, for the Bureau of Soils classes 
the Orangeburg and Norfolk soils as poorer in plant 
food than any other generally cultivated soils in the 
United States. 
RICHER SOIL.—The rich soils I am talking about 
are such soils as the Hagerstown clay, which con¬ 
tains 3.500 lbs. of phosphorus, 71,000 lbs. of potash 
