788 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
A May Day 
Part X 
Here at the end of May 3 I feel that 
we have saved about all the daylight that 
the average day can provide. I feel that 
both mentally and physically, with the 
feeling rather concentrated in knees and 
back and shoulders. After a man of my 
age drives a spade into the ground about 
2,500 times and steps along several miles 
through loose soil, well he knows he has 
been doing something. We were out 
bright and early, ready for a strenuous 
day, for the backward season is now on 
the run, trying to catch up. For break¬ 
fast-.there was an abundant supply of oat¬ 
meal and cream and pancakes. Those 
who wanted fried eggs in addition could 
have them, for the Reds are now in full 
bloom of hen fruit. The baby had an 
orange to begin with ; a bowl of rhubarb 
sauce suited me as an insurance against 
scurvy or similar troubles. Tom and 
Broker, at the barn, were storing away 
energy in the form of hay and grain, for 
they have their job, like the rest of us. 
When I came out after breakfast it 
seemed to me that I had never seen a 
fairer sight than the old farm presented 
that morning. I say that every Spring, 
and it is always true, for each recurring 
May seems better than any picture Na¬ 
ture has ever attempted before. There 
may be those who prefer the full green 
maturity of Summer, the bright but mel¬ 
ancholy tints of Autumn, or the clean 
whiteness of Winter—but give me Spring, 
with its evidence of renewed life and its 
joy of hope and promise. Surely we had 
it all that morning. The bare soil had 
that rich brown color we notice before 
the crops are put in. Somehow it makes 
me think of the deep yellow on the hen’s 
body when she begins to lay freely. After 
weeks of steady laying this deep color 
fades out, as if she Had paid in gold for 
the privilege of supplying man with food. 
And the soil, to my eye, seems richer and 
darker in Spring, while in the Fall it 
seems to show evidence of giving up much 
of its substance in the crops it has pro¬ 
duced. Of course the soil experts will 
smile at this fancy, but that is the way it 
seems to me when Spring in all her fresh 
power and beauty starts in upon us. The 
trees on the . hill are all a shimmer of 
green. There are white spots where the 
cherries have burst into bloom, and pink 
patches where the peaches have opened 
their buds. The green grass creeps in 
here and there; a ribbon of bright water 
winds down the hill and spreads out into 
the little pond behind the barn. The 
crabapples are just beginning to show 
their pink flowers—the farm stretches out 
like a living picture—out to the far dis¬ 
tant Palisades,' their dark western sun¬ 
less side turned to us. 
* * * * * 
“Very fine! Very fine, no doubt,” says 
my practical friend, but gazing at such 
pictures will not plant potatoes or straw- 
berries. “Let us then be up and doing!” 
Well, I observe that some of us are de¬ 
nied many of the comforts and satisfac¬ 
tions of life which money and other ma¬ 
terial things can buy. That being so, we 
must get at least some of the pleasures 
of life out of what I may call spiritual 
things. I knew a man once who said 
about all he hat! at home was a mortgage, 
a scolding wife and a crippled baby. Yet 
sometimes at evening as he came in from 
his day’s work the western sky would be 
all aglow with colors. This man would 
stand and lodk at them for 10 minutes, 
and receive, from that wonderful picture, 
such an exultation of soul that after sup¬ 
per he could sit with the baby on his 
knee and forget about the mortgage, and 
never hear a word of his wife’s com¬ 
plaints. I have known people to come 
in at night thoroughly discouraged and 
weary of life. They find a letter from 
some old friend, full of cheer and en¬ 
couragement, and it is like,pulling a buck¬ 
et of renewed strength out of some for¬ 
gotten well of energy. Or a man may be 
wearied to exhaustion from his day’s 
work. A clean shave and a bath will put 
him right up on his toes. So it seems to 
me that a true farmer may take great 
comfort and patience from the sky, the 
fields, the trees and the living things all 
about him. There are satisfactions about 
these associations which the unhappy 
wretch who must live among brick and 
stone never can understand. I think 
thet»e things put an element into the 
farmer’s character which cannot be ob¬ 
tained in any other way, and which is 
perhaps the most necessary element in 
our national life. Believing that. I feel 
like fighting to the end against the pre¬ 
vailing desire to “uplift” and improve the 
farmer by fitting so many of the modern 
ideas of town life upon him. Schools, 
for example. I believe it far better to 
spend the public money in improving the 
country schools as they are, rather than 
trying to force modern town methods 
upon them. 
* * * * $ 
But there is work to be done today. 
There is a great bunch of strawberry 
plants to go into that patch on the new 
farm. The plants are here, tucked away 
in damp moes, but the land is not quite 
ready, so the first job for Tom and 
Broker is to fit that field. Last year that 
land was in potatoes, kept quite clean, 
though a little grass has crept in. Usu¬ 
ally potato ground is ideal for strawber¬ 
ries, though I would rather have rye, 
seeded after digging, to be plowed under 
this Spring. As it is, we put a thick 
coat of manure all over this field, and 
plowed it under about as deep as the plow 
can run. The soil is naturally moist, 
well suited to such varieties as Marshall, 
Gandy and Howard. Now our plan is to 
work it three times—once with the 
spring-tooth and twice with the Acme. 
That ought to crush the lumps and leave 
the soil fit. Hauling the spring-tooth is 
like play for our big horses. There is 
something very dignified in the way big 
Tom marches over that field with the har¬ 
row teeth kicking and cuffing the soil 
lumps out of the way. Broker has less 
dignity and more of the shirk. He holds 
back and lets Tom do most of the pulling 
until Rene makes him get into line. You 
and I have seen the same thing worked 
out with human working teams where 
the conscientious worker does most of 
the pulling, since there is no commanding 
voice to make the shirk do his duty. The 
spring teeth are set so that they will 
merely kick over the upper surface and 
not tear out the manure. The Acme ie a 
very different proposition. It is no play¬ 
thing, and with Rene sitting on it the 
big horses know they are working. Those 
twisted teeth, held close to the ground, 
cut and turn and pack the soil. It is an 
old tool, well rusted. The old teeth were 
well worn down, and they bit at the soil 
as gingerly as a man with half a dozen 
sore molars would bite at a beefsteak. 
Let a dentist fit such a man out with a 
couple of crowns or a plate and he would 
if need be rival an Eskimo in chewing 
rawhide or leather to make it pliable. 
We got a dozen new teeth for the Acme 
and fitted them to the rusty frame, and 
now, as a result of this dentistry, it 
bites like a bulldog. That is the way 
many of us are doing this year—fitting 
up our old machinery and making it “go” 
another season. This strawberry field 
May 17, 1924 
will be worked twice with the Acme, but 
Rene and the horses can do it without 
our supervision. Let’s get back to our 
job until we can plant strawberries. 
* * * * * 
I am going to nlant those Davis Seed¬ 
ling potatoes. Nearly (JO years ago, on 
the little farm in Southeastern Massa¬ 
chusetts, we raised two varieties of po¬ 
tatoes. The Jackson Whites were true 
to color, while Davis Seedling was red. 
Some of your modern varieties may be 
better, and memory may be a defective 
witness or an inferior chemist, but I 
cannot recall any finer potato for fisbball 
making than the old Davis Seedling. 
That is the supreme test for a potato. I 
thought this fine old variety had been 
crowded out by these modern young 
sprouts, but two farmers in Massachu¬ 
setts have sent me samples of the old 
stock, and I am going to plant them as I 
would entertain some old friend. Our 
garden is as rich and clean as fertilizer 
and good culture can make it, just the 
place for these Davis Seedlings. I run a 
straight line across the garden and 
smooth the soil under this with a rake. I 
will cut these tubers to one strong eye 
Every Farm Needs Some 
Modem Equipment 
T HE continued use of worn-out 
and out-of-date equipment is 
costing the farmers of the United 
States millions of dollars annually. 
Carefully prepared statistics show that 
many farmers are paying, over and 
over again, for improved equipment 
they do not own. The United States 
Department of Agriculture says that 
over-repaired, inefficient machines 
and implements are losing their 
owners more than the cost of new 
tools, through scant yield and loss of 
labor and time in preparing seed beds, 
planting, cultivating, and harvesting 
the crops. 
The wise American manufacturer 
does not hesitate to replace equipment 
the moment such equipment is out of 
date. He must keep his costs down 
with the others, or lower, and his pro¬ 
duction up with the others, or higher. 
If he did not modernize his plant, his 
competitors would undersell him and 
force him into bankruptcy. 
The farmer should think in exactly* 
such terms regarding his food-factory 
and his equipment. He should check 
over his farming investment and drop 
every old method and every old 
machine as soon as he has evidence 
that he could save or make more money 
with a newer method or an improved 
machine. He should learn, as every 
successful manufacturer has learned, 
that the value of a piece of'equipment 
should never be measured by its price but 
by what it will do for him—by what it 
will earn and save and make . 
Help the Farm to Earn More 
Greater profit on the farm can be 
made possible through careful planning 
and management, diversification, seed 
testing, fertilization, saving of labor 
and time, and increased yield. Farm 
equipment is the big factor concerned in each 
of these details . It made agriculture great; 
it will make agriculture still greater. 
There is probably not a farm in the United States that 
could not be improved from a money-making stand¬ 
point by the purchase of some modem equipment. 
The McCormick* Deering Line of Farm Operating Equipment 
Grain Binders 
Threshers 
Harvester-Threshers 
Headers 
Push Binders 
Mowers 
Hay Rakes 
Tedders 
Hay Loaders 
Side-Delivery Rakes 
Sweep Rakes and Stackers 
Combined Side Rakes and 
Tedders 
Baling Presses 
Corn Planters 
Listers 
Corn Cultivators 
Corn Binders 
Com Pickers 
Corn Shelters 
Ensilage Cutters 
Huskers and Shredders 
Huskers and Silo Fillers 
Beet Seeders 
Beet Cultivators 
Beet Pullers 
Cotton Planters 
Grain Drills 
Lime Sowers 
Broadcast Seeders 
Tractor Plows 
Walking Plows 
Riding Plows 
Disk Harrows 
Spring-Tooth Harrows 
Peg-Tooth Harrows 
Tractor Harrows 
One-Horse Cultivators 
Culti-Packers 
Kerosene Engines 
Tractors 
Motor Trucks 
Cream Separators 
Manure Spreaders 
Stalk Cutters 
Feed Grinders 
Stone Burr Mills 
Cane Mills 
Potato Diggers 
Wagons 
Twine 
INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY 
606 So. Michigan Ave. 
of America 
( Incorporated) 
Chicago, Illinois 
