936 
•Ph RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 28, 1024 
Hope Farm Notes 
I have a letter from a reader in Penn¬ 
sylvania who says he is booked for a de¬ 
bate on the following subject: 
“ Resolved, That a woman who cornea 
outside and tries to boss the farm is a 
worse nuisance than the man who tries 
to run the house!’' 
This man is on the affirmative, and he 
wants me to give him some strong points 
against the woman who. as he rather 
crudely expresses it, “tries to wear a 
pair of pants that do not fit her!” I 
judge that this is to be a sort of knock¬ 
down and drag-out verbal battle, and I 
do not know that I should care to be one 
of the judges. I have taken part in many 
debates, but I do not recall one with a 
subject more evenly balanced than this 
one. To start wfith I will confess that 
my sympathies would be with the woman 
whose husband undertakes to tell her 
how to run the house, for the average 
farm woman knows far more about tiie 
outside w'ork than her man ever will 
know about housework. In many cases 
she has to go outside and help, while it is 
very seldom that the man comes inside 
and helps with her work. He might do it 
before he was married, when he came to 
her father’s house for supper on Sunday 
night, or perhaps for a few months after, 
but unless he has been well trained from 
the start he will soon develop into critic 
rather than worker. 
* * * * * 
But this man is out to prove if he can 
that the interfering woman is a great 
nuisance. First I should look up the ex- 
qet meaning of the word “nuisance.’’ In 
this case it evidently means annoyance, 
teasing or trouble. The other side will 
try to whow that a woman, being natur¬ 
ally more nervous than a man, will be 
more easily troubled or annoyed. Look 
out for them when they show that some 
men could not be annoyed unless you hit 
them with a club. Then get a few his¬ 
torical characters to support your argu¬ 
ment. Time has never been able to blot 
out the record of Xanthippe, the wife of 
Socrates. She holds the record for scold¬ 
ing wife. In the “Dialogues of Plato’’ 
you will find that Socrates was in prison, 
and Xanthippe came to tell him his duty. 
Phaedo, who tells the story, says that the 
woman turned to her husband and said, 
“as women will” : 
"This is the last time that either you 
will converse with your friends or they 
with you.” 
And all poor Socrates could say was 
“Let someone take her home.” No doubt 
Xanthippe had it about right, but let us 
imagine some modern woman saying to 
her husband : 
"Now, Mr. Jones, not another word 
from you! You’ve wasted time enough 
over those bums and lazy coots who come 
and talk to you. No more of it! Here¬ 
after you talk to me and listen to my 
conversation !” 
And the average man would not have 
the mild courage of Socrates and ask 
some friend to take his wife home ! She 
would take him. And Marcus Aurelius 
tells how visitors found Socrates dressed 
in a skin after Xanthippe had taken his 
cloak and gone out for a walk. The mod¬ 
ern Xanthippe would have left her hus¬ 
band to wear his old clothes and demand¬ 
ed a sealskin coat! Was that a nuisance 
or not? Then you can mention Lucretia 
Borgia, or Catherine of Russia as sam¬ 
ples of ladies who usurped a man’s job 
and carried it beyond the limits of man’s 
ability. 
***** 
The usual debater thinks he must go 
back into history for “terrible examples,” 
and then make application from some 
modern instance. Be careful, though, of 
the “come-back” on some of these things. 
The other side might show that Socrates 
was at best a good-natured, easy-going man 
who never would have been heard from 
if Xanthippe had not kept at him and 
stirred him into action. It was her con¬ 
stant nagging that made him what he 
was—a philosopher! How many men are 
there right in this township who would 
not amount to a hill of beans if their 
■wives did not keep them right up to the 
rack? Be careful about such a “come¬ 
back” as that, but hunt up cases where 
the woman is openly and braggingly the 
boss. We have all seen them. She comes 
right out to the barn or field where her 
husband is working with the men. 
“Now then, Henry, you’re doing this 
wrong. My father never would work that 
way. What do you want to plow up that 
clover for? Part of this farm is mine. I 
tell you, if that joint deed is good for 
anything. You’re working that horse too 
hard. What do you want to waste seed 
that way for? What’s that you say—my 
place is in the house? My place is just 
where I see fit to stand. I’m not going 
to stay in that kitchen and see my fath¬ 
er’s farm go to wrack and ruin while you 
try some of these new-fangled notions. 
Not help enough? We’ve got too much 
help now—great lazy things. They don’t 
show any life except when they get to 
the table.” 
And so on and on. The husband 
knows only too well that Susan inherit¬ 
ed the farm and stock. Hie share in the 
joint deed only puts him out of joint. 
Susan is a pretty woman, smart and 
capable, and reasonably good-natured 
when she can have her own way. Henry 
doesn’t dare to imitate Socrates and ask 
someone to take Susan home. He has to 
take it, with such grace as he can mus¬ 
ter. He may be a fine farmer, but even 
if he makes the farm shine he knows 
Susan will say : 
“That’s the result of father’s fine work 
10 years ago!” 
But Henry knows what the hired men 
and the neighbors are saying. He might 
fight them all, but what good would that 
do while Susan talks as she does? Out 
West, where I lived once, a very fine 
man ran for the State Senate. Ilis wife 
talked just about like Susan. He was 
properly called “henpecked.” The oppo¬ 
sition party held a parade at the county 
seat. First came two men carrying a 
banner, held high in air. On it was 
pinned a woman’s kitchen apron, with a 
pair of blue overalls above it. There 
was a big printed sign : 
TIIE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE! 
WHICH WEARS WHICH? 
The than was abler by far than the 
man who ran against him, but. he lost the 
election because of his reputation of be¬ 
ing henpecked. Can anyone possibly 
imagine a worse nuisance for any self- 
respecting man than that? 
* * * * * • 
If I were on the affirmative I should 
elaborate such arguments, and try to 
prove them by local instances which are 
usually to be found in most localities. 
Y T et if I were on the other side I should 
follow much the same plan and go to 
history or literature for examples. Blue¬ 
beard seems to me the best example of 
what complete man domination in the 
house may come to . He killed his wives 
on the whole more humanely than the 
man who nags and criticizes a sensitive 
woman to her death. King Henry VIII 
is another person who had rather com¬ 
plete control of his own household, and I 
think his numerous wives would have 
voted him a nuisance with a full under¬ 
standing of the meaning. “Patient Nan¬ 
cy Jones,” “Nancy Sykes” and others 
could give striking testimony as to the 
joy of having a man in the house who 
thinks he is the master of a kitchen 
stove as he is of a gasoline engine. The 
truth is that when the man puts on the 
apron he usually become more ridiculous 
and not half so useful as the woman wno 
dons a pair of overalls. The world has 
not quite come to see that yet, but it is 
true. The other side may present eases 
where with the wife sick, or perhaps a 
permanent invalid, men have come into 
the house and cared for the family. True, 
but even more cases can be found where 
in consequence of sickness or death of 
the husband the wife has conducted the 
farm, paid the bills and raised the fam¬ 
ily. That is about as broad as it is loag, 
but it is not the question at issue in this 
debate. I know men who make a great 
kitchen nuisance of themselves. They 
P licet l .gni'iqM mIJ ui ieaqq 
come in when the wife is tired and wor¬ 
ried over a dozen cares, and begin : 
“Now Mary, I wouldn't cut such a -big 
piece of meat for dinner. We can’t eat it 
all, and there will be waste. Then you’re 
burning up wood pretty fast with that 
draft wide open. Fuel is scarce just 
now. What makes you peel the potatoes 
so thick? That’s a waste, and they tell 
me the best nart of the potato is right 
under the skin. When I came in I no¬ 
ticed several pieces of meat on the dog’s 
plate. I wouldn’t do that. My mother 
would save all such pieces and make a 
hash or meat pie. The minister struck 
us once without warning, and mother had 
some of that hash. The minister liked 
it so well he passed his plate back four 
times. Then, why don’t you run those 
curtains up to the top? What’s the use 
of keeping them half way down, like 
that? You ought to make these children 
do more work. When I was a boy my 
sisters could make bread by the time 
they were 10 years old, and that gave 
mother more time to help outside. Hay¬ 
ing’s coming on right soon, and I don’t 
know what I’ll do for help. I guess 
you’ll have to let things go a little and 
drive the hay-rake. They tell me Roose¬ 
velt once called on a farmer’s wife who 
was out helping her husband in the hay- 
field. She had mixed a bread pudding of 
bread, milk, eggs and sugar, but they 
were all too busy to make a fire, so they 
ate the pudding raw. They tell me Roose- 
velte ate his share and said it was ‘bul¬ 
ly!” Now, there was a farmer’s wife!” 
They go on that way. It is not what 
you could call scolding, but a series of 
mean little insinuations. A sensitive, 
high-strung woman cannot take a roll¬ 
ing-pin and hit him over the head. She 
is doing her best to keep the home, and 
every word comes like a stab from a knife. 
The children, the hired help, and the 
guests all hear it, and little by little it 
lessens their respect for mother. She 
does not want their pity—she wants to 
be respected as rightful ruler of her house 
—a full partner in the business. So that, 
on the whole, considering the damage he 
does. I think the man who puts on the 
apron in this way is more of a nuisance 
than the woman who done overalls which 
are several sizes too large for her. Such 
a question should never arise on any 
farm, for partnership involves self-denial 
and fair consideration for others. For 
father or mother to think of each other as 
a nuisance is putting dynamite under the 
family altar—when love is the proper sac¬ 
rifice ! h. w. c. 
A Farm Woman’s Notes 
New Perplexities 
The rain stopped coming, a chill wind 
from the north freshened. The dull wet 
blanket that had covered the sky so long 
was pushed aside, and the sky under¬ 
neath shone like a jewel. Of a fatal 
clearness was that blue. Not the slightest 
veil to shield from the cold. It was the 
beginning of the end for all tender plants. 
The first frost iced over the water in the 
watering tub. The sky made up for rain, 
and most gardeners removed the covers 
from their plants. In the night there 
came the clearing wind, and the rising 
sun next morning found the ground again 
white. It was a clean sweep on the 23d 
of May. Strawberry blossoms opened 
black for a week after. 
It was remarkable how quickly the land 
dried, in spite of the continuing cold. The 
ground was like unleavened bread, hard 
and brittle. Farmers viewed their bak¬ 
ing fields and decided to replant oats. 
The stand of early potatoes was irregu- 
-iLmu: taflCXi evert 
lar; the seed that lay in damp hollows 
was destroyed. Their yield in dry years 
had been the best part of the crop, yet 
with the bulletin still promising rain, 
who wished to replant the sags? Now, in 
spite of what the Weather Bureau pro¬ 
phesies, the land continues to dry out. Only 
hay and wheat flourish, bound to a si¬ 
multaneous harvest. May has been 10 de¬ 
grees under the average temperature, and 
June threatens to follow the same chilly 
record. 
Already we are weary of waiting for 
crops to struggle up through stubborn 
soil, of watching them stand still through 
a week of backward weather. The pota¬ 
toes have been cultivated three times; 
once before they were up, and twice since 
then. The low temperature seems to have 
made the stems and leaves very thick and 
stocky, which is the way a plant bottles 
up the growth energy it dare not use. 
The potato is a cool weather plant by 
nature, and there are worse enemies than 
10 degrees below normal. It seems that 
there is always some voracious creature 
of the soil hungry for the tissue of this 
plant. First it was the potato beetle, a 
simple, trusting bug was he, and ate 
whatever was set before him. He hasn’t 
been seen around the premises since that 
first year. Then it was the flea beetle, 
who was so choosy about his victuals that 
he skipped off every leaf that was dusted 
with concentrated poison. Last year it 
was a shiny black worm in the ground 
whose name is millipede. Salt will exter¬ 
minate him. but we hesitate, knowing that 
salt will kill, also, a growing plant. We 
are told that sulphur is a certain repel¬ 
lent. 
“I can’t believe it,” spoke daddy. “Sul¬ 
phur is so tasteless that it couldn’t harm 
a mosquito. These worms are hard- 
shelled. It will need something violent 
indeed to drive them out.” 
Last year in one field the potatoes 
were so universally excoriated that we 
could not offer them at the stores. It 
was the field on which we had spent most 
time and money ; accordingly the size of 
the tubei-s found a market over at the 
State Prison, where peeling is done by 
machinery, but this is not our idea, of 
selling to people who have to eat what is 
set before them. 
The man from Florida objects. “Why, 
down South, we take the ticks off the 
cows with sulphur. We feed a cow sul¬ 
phur and the next day all the bugs drop 
off. I reckon maybe they is somethin’ 
about this sulphur treatment that fixes 
worms.” 
We laught at this, and catalogue it 
with the story of the joint snake that flies 
to pieces and puts himself together again. 
It is to us incredible. Y"et, something 
must be done. When put in a glass can 
of dirt, with a layer of dirt mixed with 
sulphur on top. the worms avoid the top 
layer. We ordered 300 lbs. of commer¬ 
cial sulphur—enough to treat one acre. 
It was at the time of drilling that we 
finally came to a realization of the power 
of it. Finding that the sulphur alone 
would not pass through the drill, we 
mixed it with fertilizer one windy dav. 
We got sulphur in the eyes, and it ceased 
to be harmless; the stinging kept us wip¬ 
ing away tears for 24 hours afterward. 
Tity the millipede, with sulphur in his 
eyes. If, indeed, he possesses eyes! 
Using an exactly opposite method, we 
have put part of the field in to wheat, 
followed by clover. The theory is, give 
these worms enough clover and grain 
roots to eat and they will let the potato 
roots alone. This comes of observing 
that in a neighbor’s freshly turned sod 
these worms are equally in evidence, yet 
his potatoes are untouched. 
There is another more general danger 
to the farmers of our community, I think, 
and that is the growing acreage of early 
potatoes. Time was when we could have 
sold 5,000 bushels of early spuds in three 
weeks without much effort. Now, with 
the almost universal planting in our dis¬ 
trict, the prices are much lower, the pro¬ 
duct much harder to sell. We are drift¬ 
ing toward lower prices, a crammed local 
market, and the time when early potatoes- 
will scarcely be worth selling. It is in 
our opinion not worth while to supply the 
locality with more potatoes than it can 
use, simply to crowd out competition. Ten 
acres of early oo<atoes (2,000 bushels) is 
the limit we have set for our acreage, 
which was originally 25. The crop is an 
expensive one to raise; low price levels 
mean loss. We feel certain of being able 
to dispose of 2,000 bushels at a profit; 
therefore have set this limit. Our hopes 
are divided between these potatoes and an 
acre of early strawberries that stretch 
northward from the kitchen door. It is 
our first year in berries, and we realize 
there is much to learn. So far we have 
succeeded' because we kept the patch ab¬ 
solutely clean of weeds, gave regular cul¬ 
tivation, and applied fertilizer of the right 
sort at the right time. Now we will soon 
be up against the marketing of the ber¬ 
ries. It is what I call a luxury crop; not 
an essential, like potatoes. The market 
is influenced most by good advertising. 
Make people hanker for berries and there 
is no telling what the limit will be, if you 
deliver what you advertise. This year we 
are not in the way of the Southern crop, 
which will be a blessing to all of us. 
Hardly a berry can tie picked before the 
first of July. The possibilities of a July 
berry will for once be realized. 
We sail forth on the uncharted sea. A 
hail to the other ships that pass! 
MRS. F. H. UNGER. 
... 'I'tiii .) •>- i-'i.ir.. C—i, 
This shows a place in Southern New Jersey where capons are dressed in large 
numbers. In some parts of that section capons are found quite profitable for 
superior city trade, and special pains are taken to prepare the capons properly. 
Near many large towns there would be a good demand for capons, if some good- 
sized breed of poultry is kept and the business is well understood. The way things 
look now the turkey crop will not increase much, and capons must take the place 
of the “National bird.” 
.1 
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£;VO! 
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9 iij fii 
