942 
Tht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 28, 1924 
Pastoral Parson and His Country Folks 
By Rev. George B. Gilbert 
Kind Words. —The Parson has always 
been a believer in kind words, and the 
other day he had a striking example of 
what kind words really are and how much 
they can do. A terribly forlorn and hun- 
gry-looking individual wandered into a 
restaurant and fell into a chair over in 
the corner. He counted hie bits of change 
and made out just enough to order two 
fried eggs. When the waiter came for bis 
order he got this request: “Two fried 
eggs and a few kind words.” A few min¬ 
utes later he returned. “There are the 
two fried eggs,” said he, “and as for the 
kind words—don’t eat ’em.” 
The Goslings. —In a way, the Parson 
has never had such good luck with gos¬ 
lings as this year; he should not eay 
“luck,” for really, there is no luck to it; 
just knowing what to do and doing it. 
He read somewhere about giving them 
eornmeal mixed up thick with water as a 
starter and on rainy days, and also that 
they must have deep water—over the nos¬ 
trils—with sand in the bottom. This 
seems to have been just what they need. 
Not a gosling has been sick a minute, 
much less died, this year. Of course we 
lost four by the rats. And we learned 
that you must be careful around a barn 
and not to shut off any place so the cats 
cannot get into it. While the house was 
banked for the Winter the cats could not 
get under the back porch, and so the rats 
took possession. The corn barn, the pig¬ 
pen, and main cellar, and even the lien- 
houses, ought to be accessible to the cats 
—unless you prefer rats. 
That Hog Feeder. —The Parson has 
just been over and knocked to pieces a 
self-feeder for hogs. It was pretty well 
rotted out, and but little of it worth sav¬ 
ing for kindling. The Parson remembers 
well the day he made that self-feeder. He 
made a good one, if he does say it, and 
worked hard on it and used up quite a 
little good lumber. Everything was self- 
feeder for hogs at that. time. The Farm 
Bureau meetings were held about it. Why, 
to have so much as a nursing pig with¬ 
out a self-feeder put one in the has-been 
class. Slides were shown of the two 
ways of feeding hogs all around the coun¬ 
try. Yet as far as the 'Parson was con¬ 
cerned, the whole self-feeder business was 
a perfect farce and waste of time and 
money. While there may be some used 
where they keep a lot of hogs, the Par¬ 
son does not know of a self-feeder in use 
in the whole county, or State, for that 
matter, at the present time. 
Wheat. —This makes the Parson think 
of the number of things he has done on 
the farm and the time and work and wor¬ 
ry he wasted on them. What a holler 
there was at one time around here about 
raising wheat! Oh, New England must 
raise wheat! We all went into it, sowed 
Winter wheat on the potato ground about 
the first of September. The Parson does 
not know of a farmer in the section of 
the country that pretends to raise a 
spoonful of wheat now. So with oats; 
how the Parson worked, raising oats, and 
what a job to get them thrashed and win¬ 
nowed. Now he knows, as The II. N.-Y. 
says, he lost money on every oat he 
raised, just as he did on the wheat. It 
would seem from what he reads that it 
takes about 64 hours man-labor to raise 
an acre of wheat in New England, while 
in the Middle West they can do it in 16 
hours. 
Chickens and Milk. —Then, too, 
there is the matter of milk for chickens. 
The Parson is treading on dangerous 
ground now. Why, a chicken would 
“kick the bucket” in 17 seconds if it did 
not have its crop full of sour milk day 
and night. One might cut a hole through 
the shell on the twentieth day and pour 
some sour milk down the chick's throat. 
Ilow the Parson used to fuss and work 
over this skim-milk business. And now, 
after the years, though we have plenty 
of milk around, he hasn't bothered to give 
any of it to the chickens. They haven’t 
had a drop of milk of any kind. The Par¬ 
son never saw chickens do better or grow 
faster. If a chicken needed milk so bad, 
he wonders Providence didn’t make ar¬ 
rangements for it to nurse. It all rests 
in the distinction we must make between 
the big commercial hen plant and the 
common farm flock running around in the 
grass. If one would watch these chickens 
pulling worms out of the grass in the 
early morning he wouldn’t bother much 
about milk. The same way with goslings. 
The Lord made a goose wonderfully fitted 
and inclined lo drink water, but I would¬ 
n’t try to fit him out with a nursing bot¬ 
tle. 
Spraying Apple Trees. —Then, too, 
there was that matter of spraying apple 
trees. How the Parson worked on that! 
He bought a share in a hand force pump 
and sprayed the two or three apple trees 
[faithfully. How the Farm Bureau hol¬ 
lered about this spraying, and what a lot 
of money was put into such pumps 
around here, and, I presume, all over the 
country. This spraying was just as the 
blossoms fall, to keep the apples from be¬ 
ing wormy. The Parson noticed the ap¬ 
ples seemed to be wormy just the same. 
This spraying always came at such a busy 
time of year, with the children all in 
i6MuTiunniiMinmti!i iiiHiiiiBinEitiid 
school, and all the Spring work to do. 
Now we are calmly told that this hand 
spraying is not swift or powerful enough 
to penetrate to where the young worms 
lie, and is of no use whatever. Seems as 
though that might have been found out 
before. What a lot of trouble and money 
it would have saved. 
Apple Trees. —East Sunday, as the 
Parson was coming along home, he stop¬ 
ped and looked over the fence at a man's 
house and counted 42 dead fruit trees— 
all set out last year. Every one of the 
lot was dead. There must be a great loss 
to people in the number of fruit trees that 
die. The Parson had a sad experience 
there. He feels all the worse about it as the 
trees were given to him. He has saved 
some of them, but many were lost. He 
remembered how the trees grew and bore 
fruit around the fences on the old farm, 
so, as he could not seem to think he could 
spare much good meadow land, he had 
them set around the fence—many of them 
along the pasture fence. He never thought 
about the cows. Of course they promptly 
reached over the fence (it was a wire 
The Vacation. —The schools are out 
for the Summer, and the children all at 
home. Shelley begins to play a church 
organ in a nearby city on next Sunday. 
Weekdays he will spend practicing on va¬ 
rious musical instruments and taking 
voice lessons, and helping about the farm. 
George is learning the local R. F. D. 
route and will be substitute for the 
mailman during his vacation. He may 
substitute several routes. He takes music 
lessons all Summer and practices every 
day on the cornet and saxophone. Clossie 
will do some work, a lot of playing, with 
a daily swim as soon as the pond is warm 
enough. The Parson bought him seven 
young goslings yesterday, for his. He will 
take care of the other goslings till they 
can look after themselves to earn what 
was paid for the ones that are his. To¬ 
day the boys are concreting the garage. 
It is a good roomy building that was on 
the place when we came, and a concrete 
floor will make it very satisfactory. The 
boys mix it on the ratio of one to four. 
The Puppy. —Somebody down country 
kindly gave little Ta a puppy. The Par¬ 
son is sending The R. N.-Y. a little poem 
which well describes the situation in the 
house. Y r esterday he had the new hat of 
the company lady who is visiting here. 
Mrs. Parson rescued it in the parlor just 
in time. But he is a cunning little fel¬ 
low and Ta loves him dearly. He leads 
him about the farm for hours. He loves 
to chase after the goslings and has had to 
Ta and His Puppy 
fence) and ate the tops of the trees right 
off as soon as they began to leave out. 
Then, too, he did not know that you must 
keep the grass away from young trees for 
several years if they are going to , grow 
well. This about ruined quite a number 
of trees. It is worth remembering, too, 
that while a cow loves young apple tree 
leaves and branches, a horse will not 
tonch them. 
Alfalfa.. —As the Parson is writing 
this, a farm paper comes with a great 
article on how to cure Alfalfa. This paper 
states that the raising of this crop is in¬ 
creasing very rapidly in New England. 
Well, perhaps it is, but the Parson fails 
to see it from the car windows. A few 
years ago there was a great deal of talk, 
with many meetings, about Alfalfa along 
the Connecticut Valley. It seems as 
though most of the farmers around here 
went into it, more or less. Getting the 
soil ready, with inoculation and all, was 
a lot of work and expense. As far as the 
Parson knows, even the men who hollered 
the loudest about it, never sow any more. 
One nearly run-out patch is all the Par¬ 
son knows of anywhere around here. The 
very man who tried the hardest to talk 
it into the Parson told him the other day 
he should never put in any more. It 
winter-kills too badly in New England. 
They have all come back to clover—Al- 
sike and Red mixed. Corn, oats and 
?lover is just about what it all ends with 
in New England. It is that way in Con¬ 
necticut, and was the same thing up in 
Vermont when the Parson came down 
from there last week. The difference 
seems to be that in Vermont they thrash 
the oats and feed the straw, sprinkled 
with molasses water, to the cows; while 
in Connecticut the oats are mostly cut for 
hay. As the Parson has said before, read 
all the farm bulletins and papers you 
want, then look around and see who is 
making a living in your locality and take 
careful note of how he does it. 
Supplying Families. —The farmers 
who seem to be doing the best around here 
are those who strive to supply families. 
The tendency now is, if you are a milk¬ 
man. to carry along other produce as well. 
Especially is this true with regard to 
eggs. You can deliver a dozen or two of 
eggs along with the milk without any 
trouble or expense. So it is often with 
vegetables and potatoes. It cuts out all 
the middlemen and the farmer gets all 
there is in it. One farmer told the Par¬ 
son a while ago that he still had 50 bush¬ 
els of potatoes he could not sell for any 
satisfactory price, while another, who has 
a house trade, said he could have sold 
300 bushels more potatoes at top price 
had he had them. All this in the same 
city. 
[I j •! a. it .8HM Mtobwoq dbv? 
I 
have some rather severe training. Like 
rats, he seems to prefer young geese to 
chickens. The Parson is told that the 
demand for eggs is greatly on the in¬ 
crease.. He hopes so. To deprive a boy 
of a pet dog is really to deprive him of 
his rights. The paper recently announced 
that insurance companies stood ready to 
reduce rates on burglary at any home 
where a dog was kept. 
Off Again. —The Parson has been up 
to Vermont, where he preached the bac¬ 
calaureate sermon in his old home town. 
He took for his text “For a man’s life 
consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things which he possesseth.” Whatever 
the sermon was, the text is certainly a 
good one, and its lesson sorely needed in 
this generation. The oldest farmer in 
Vermont never planted his corn so late as 
this year. Neither did there ever so many 
baby chicks come through the post office 
—and eo many of them die. One man es¬ 
timated that half of all that came through 
died. Milk business up there in a very 
bad way—farmers claiming they get only 
3% cents a quart. The seed potato busi¬ 
ness saves the day for a good many of 
them. 
Right Side. —Well, one of the boys 
from the garage has just announced that 
the first swim of the season is to be to¬ 
night. It is hot today and the boys have 
done well not to suggest it seriously be¬ 
fore. Mother is calling for dinner, and 
we will all go and finish those two White 
Leghorn sitters we had for dinner Sun¬ 
day. You know about the man who 
called the little grandson to him and said 
over and over: “You know I am your 
grandfather on your father’s side”; he 
kept repeating this, “on your father’s 
side.” “That is all very well,” shouted 
the little boy, “but if you’re going to stay 
’round here long you’ll have to get on 
mother’s side.” 
to a pup 
Last night you chewed a pair of shoes; 
Today, a cake of soap. 
My razor strap next you essayed ; 
(What was your wish or hope?) 
A Webster’s Unabridged you gnawed, 
A chair leg. and a bed ; 
And, counting all the things you ate, 
You should by rights be dead. 
But you are not. A healthy pup 
Takes all things as they come; 
The only penalty, perhaps, 
A pain in his wee turn. 
So there is very little hope 
Of peace at home these days; 
And you’ll my treasures all destroy 
Unless you mend your ways, 
ci t '>00691 boi o vita . ti 31 \C9C 
But such intentions you have not! 
O aggravating pup! 
I feel that I should part with you ; 
Surrender ; eive you up. 
But when you cock an eye at me, 
Come bounding at my call, 
I know that though you wreck the house 
You’re worth it all! 
—Edward Leamy. 
The Home Ice Cream Business 
I want to learn how to make ice 
cream on a fair-sized scale, thinking we 
can use our dairy products to good ad¬ 
vantage in that way. Will it be neces¬ 
sary for me to go to some school in 
order to learn the business? What 
books should I have? w. T. K. 
New York. 
It is quite possible to learn ice cream 
making at home, through the study of 
books and bulletins, and many who 
work into a business of considerable 
volume begin in this way. “Home¬ 
made” ice cream always commands the 
confidence of purchasers, and where 
milk and eggs are produced on the farm 
these products may be sold in the form 
of ice cream to advantage. Where it is 
made in large quantities a course in ice¬ 
cream making at an agricultural school 
would be helpful, because of the instruc¬ 
tion given in use of labor-saving appli¬ 
ances, and all the industrial short cuts 
that are helpful and economical. The 
New York State Agricultural School at 
Cobleskill, N. Y., gives a practical 
course in ice-cream making, also the 
Connecticut Agricultural College at 
Storrs, Conn. An excellent book which 
would give you a good deal of help is 
“The Manufacture of Ice Cream and 
Ices,” by Frandsen and Markham. This 
discusses the management of cream, milk 
powders, substances that give stiffness 
and body, packing and storing, etc. A 
book devoted to home making is “Mrs. 
Rorer’s Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen 
Puddings, Etc.” 
We would suggest that you write to 
the Department of Home Economics, 
State Agricultural College, Ithaca, N. 
Y., and ask them for bulletins or any 
other help they can give in this line. 
They are in a position to give you 
practical help. Your question is a very 
interesting one, and it is probable that 
we can get further help for you from 
readers who have done this work. 
Cat-tails for Chair Bottoms 
A correspondent on page-261 asks for 
information in regard to the use of cat¬ 
tails for rush-bottoming chairs. The .rule 
is that the leaves should be cut when the 
outer tips begin to turn yellow, and ex¬ 
perience has taught me that it is better 
to be too early than to delay too long, as 
the leaves are fit to use as soon as ma¬ 
ture, and when over-ripe and brittle they 
break too readily to make a smooth, 
strong coil. The season for gathering 
varies from the first of July to early Au¬ 
gust. The barn loft or the attic is a 
good place for curing rush, and I have 
found it fresh and pliable after lying for 
several years. It must, of course, be 
thoroughly moistened before using. I 
sprinkle it roll it up in bagging, and let 
it lie out of doors over night. r. f. d. 
Mixed Pickle 
Four quarts cucumbers, two quarts 
onions, two quarts green tomatoes, one 
quart string beans, one quart navy beans, 
two quarts butter beans, two quarts cab¬ 
bage or cauliflower, two quarts mangoes 
(green peppers), two quarts celery, all 
cut or chopped except cucumbers, which 
are put in whole if small. Parboil beans 
and cabbage. Put all of above in weak 
salt water (about two cups of salt) and 
let stand 24 hours. Then scald in same 
water and drain well. Prepare paste as 
follows: Three tablespoons white mus¬ 
tard, two tablespoons tumeric, three pints 
sugar, three quarts cider vinegar, one cup 
flour stirred in water. Boil this and pour 
boiling hot over the mixture. Let boil up 
well and can while hot in glass fruit jars. 
MRS. J. h. R. 
Ginger Cake 
One egg, one-half cup sugar, one-half 
cup molasses, one cup of sour cream or 
one-quartea’ clup shortening with sour 
milk, one cup bread flour, one-half tea¬ 
spoon salt, one-half teaspoon nutmeg, one- 
half teapsoon ginger, one cup bran. Beat 
egg and sugar together, add molasses and 
sour cream, or the shortening with sour 
milk. Mix the salt, nutmeg, ginger and 
bran with bread flour; add to the above 
ingredients, beat well then stir in one tea¬ 
spoon of soda dissolved in one-fourth cup 
of hot water. Beat again and bake in 
moderate oven 20 to 30 minutes. 
MRS. j. s. 
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