1130 
g* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 30, 1924 
Hope Farm Notes 
“supper time” 
Part I. 
If you could be here tonight we could 
with a little crowding make a place for 
you without putting in another leaf. You 
would make No. 11 at the table. Philip 
has had his supper, and is now sitting on 
the bench in the barnyard smoking his 
pipe and watching the sunset. Years ago 
in Norway Philip "watched the sun in the 
west and finally decided to see what lay 
at the end of this flaming road to Amer¬ 
ica. He has found out! The three older 
people live in the stone house. They were 
missionaries in India for many years; 
finally anchored at Hope Farm. In Cey¬ 
lon, where the famed “spicy breezes blew 
soft” they formed the habit of going to 
bed with the birds and getting up before 
the birds think of rising. At any rate, 
here we are after a lively day in the sun, 
eating our supper. The two older girls 
cooked the meal, put it on the table and 
rang the bell. We have no butler or 
special waiter. There is a great dish of 
baked beans before me. Several plates 
are piled high with bread. There is a 
dieh of pickled beets, plenty of milk and 
butter, and on the sideboard a good-sized 
disli of strawberries. Just as I started to 
dish out the beans little Camille nudged 
me on the arm. In our haste and hunger 
we had forgotten that she likes to offer a 
second blessing. So we wait while the 
little girl bows her head and says in her 
kindly little voice: 
“Father in Heaven, kind and good, 
We thank thee for our daily food. 
Amen.” 
f 
I notice that her little black eyes are 
wide open to make sure that we are all 
serious. It is well to have our food 
doubly blessed in the formula of two de¬ 
nominations. 
* * * * * 
I suppose I shall shock some of you 
good people when I say that eating baked 
beans on Saturday night and consuming 
fiehballs Sunday morning is something of 
a religious rite in a family tracing back 
to 'the old stock of New England. I do 
not know whether you would call it a 
part of the science or the philosophy of 
religion, but I have observed that many 
people seem to feel that they are exercis¬ 
ing a vital part of their religious nature 
in preparing and eating their favorite 
food. I have seen something of this in a 
German over a plate of sauerkraut, an 
Englishman before a roast of beef, hot 
and rare; a Vermont man. when about 
to eat buckwheat cakes and maple syrup; 
an Italian with a snarl of spaghetti on 
hie fork ; a Cape Cod man with a smoked 
herring under his knife; a colored man 
before a roasted ’possum surrounded by 
sweet potatoes, or a Texas white man 
with half a fried chicken in his fingers! 
It is, in truth, a part of religious mani¬ 
festation. and all of these characters will 
understand what I had in mind as I 
started to dieh out those beans. They 
will wonder at our plebeian taste in using 
beans as a part of family worship, but 
then it may not have been their privilege 
to be born in New England. In this fra¬ 
grant dish before me I could see far more 
than “the coarse and very common food, 
fit only for menials,” which some, whose 
brows are higher than their brains, con¬ 
sider a fair description of baked beans! 
These beans grew under the sunny skies 
of Michigan or New York. The farmer 
planted and tended them with loving care. 
The money they brought paid his taxes 
and helped guard the home. They gath¬ 
ered in the heart of his soil, the sparkling 
dew, the bright sunshine and a part of 
the love of the earth which the farmer 
carried in his heart. He carried them 
safely through flood or drought—safely 
past ‘insect and blight. The thrasher tore 
away the pods and vines, and nimble-fin¬ 
gered girls sorted out the culls and sent 
the clean, solid beans to us. The rose 
may represent the 'beauty of earth, the 
orange or apple its flavor and healing 
acid, but the solid and useful bean stands 
for the plain common sense and solid 
virtue of the soil. Our girls took those 
beans, soaked and boiled them until they 
were ready and then packed them in the 
deep bean’ pot, with salt, a little molas¬ 
ses and pieces of sweet; solid pork. Then 
came hours in the hot oven, and as the 
heat worked through and through the 
mass some chemical process was started. 
Perhaps the pork or the molasses acted 
as a form of catalyzer and stirred the 
beans on to some supreme effort until this 
least fragrant of all vegetables devel¬ 
oped an odor rivalling anything the diem- 
istry of the oven can produce. This fra- 
graiiee is so overpowering that when the 
Yankee housewife opens the oven door to 
see how the beans are cooking, every 
member of the household, even the hired 
man. splitting wood in the shed as a rainy 
day job, will find it necessary to wipe the 
corners of the mouth. And think, too, 
what the honest bean represents in his¬ 
tory or civilization. Have not the bean 
eaters led the procession? Have not the 
armies of America conquered the world 
on a diet of beans? When the anatomist, 
in his studies of the human frame, finds it 
necessary to open the human skull, he 
fills it with beans and moistens them. 
The swelling ipower of the beans will part 
and open the sutures of the skull. Three 
generations of bean eating will increase 
the brain power of any race! So here 
is this brown and fragrant dish before me 
as I take spoon in hand to serve my 
people! 
***** 
But our folks want to eat beans, not to 
dream about them, and I am forcibly re¬ 
minded of this by the lady across the 
table, who considers herself justified in 
acting as spokesman for the party. If you 
were here I should give you a double 
helping. My folks are interested in the 
prose of bean eating; we like a bit of 
poetry, too. Just pass those pickled beets 
around. They were grown in our garden, 
and that is homemade vinegar. Who 
wants to eat some tongue-biting concoc¬ 
tion called “sauce” when he can get good, 
honest, pickled beets? That bread plate 
seemed to have a white mountain on it 
when we started. Now it is empty, and 
the girls must attack enother loaf with 
the carving knife. Here comes little Ca¬ 
mille for a third helping to beans! This 
is a case where I must defer to Ma’s judg¬ 
ment. She holds up a hand, measuring 
one finger joint with her thumb. I sup¬ 
pose that means just part of one spoon¬ 
ful, but as she holds up three fingers I 
have at least technical instructions to 
serve out three. It makes the lady a lit¬ 
tle thoughtful, but as she is meditating a 
second helping for herself she lets my lib¬ 
eral service go with a doubtful shake of 
the head. Rose wants a third glass of 
milk. We are all hungry, and legitimate¬ 
ly so, for this has been a lively day. We 
can think and talk the day over as we 
eat our beans. I know of some families 
where father and mother seize upon sup¬ 
per time as the ideal period for scolding 
every member of the family, including 
each other. That is anything but an aid 
to digestion, and goes poorly with the re¬ 
ligious rite of eating baked beans ; in fact, 
it will take the religion all out of it, and 
I will grant that beans without some 
form of gastronomic religion make poor 
food. 
***** 
Yes, it has been a lively day for all of 
us. Mother has been housecleaning, put¬ 
ting varnish on the kitchen floor, and 
when I came in from work she had a pile 
of clothes large as a young mountain be¬ 
side her to be patched and darned and 
sorted out. That is the sort of crop that 
is always full of crab grass and ragweed, 
when there is one small needle to cover 
the holes and fasten the buttons for such 
a crowd as ours. The girls have been in 
the kitchen nearly all day, with various 
forays, broom in hand, into other_ rooms. 
When things get too bad these girls can 
sit at the piano and sing a few songs. 
That makes it easier. Hate in the after¬ 
noon the girls went down to the swim¬ 
ming pond and cooled off. They can swim 
and dive with the best. Then they played 
croquet awhile and dried their hair. I 
would like to have a swimming pond on 
every farm where there is a brook or run¬ 
ning stream, and I would have bathing 
suits as common and popular as kitchen 
aprons. A plunge into cool water at the 
end of a hot day will make life better for 
all of us. As we drive about the country 
after supper I see dozens of people dip¬ 
ping into these homemade pools. It is 
fine to stop the water for a while on its 
run to the ocean, so that it may contrib¬ 
ute a little to the comfort of country peo¬ 
ple. I am glad to go back to the modern 
imitation of “the old swimming hole” I 
knew as a boy. The three little girls 
have done a little weed pulling and a 
great deal of playing all through the day. 
Part of the afternoon they sat under the 
peach tree and watched me at work. They 
had their bath in the late afternoon, with 
Rose as general superintendent, and here 
they are, sweet and clean, casting longing 
eyes at the bean dish long after Ma says 
stop! 
***** 
One of the boys is studying civil en¬ 
gineering, and he has a job with a sur¬ 
veyor in the county town. He will work 
at it till he goes back to college. Another 
boy took the day off to see a baseball 
game. He sat in the hot sun, boiled into 
great excitement until the mighty Pipp 
hit a three-bagger and put the Yankees 
ahead. The older boy has been cutting 
hay in one of the back orchards. It seems 
pretty late to be cutting hay in New Jer¬ 
sey on August 16. The experts who say 
that early-cut hay is the only kind worth 
while will put us down as very poor farm¬ 
ers—as no doubt we are. This young ap¬ 
ple orchard is on a rough hillside. I 
wanted to have it plowed and smoothed 
this Spring, but the hired man left me 
and the work could not be done. So I 
left the orchard alone, but some 10 days 
ago, when I went to look at it, I was sur¬ 
prised to find a thick mat of Red-top 
grass, in some cases nearly three feet 
high. I cannot understand where this 
Red-top came from. To my certain 
knowledge no seed of that grass has been 
put on that field for more than 20 years. 
There is hardly a blade of Timothy and 
no Red clover—just a solid block of Red- 
top. Of course that indicates a sour soil, 
but where did the grass seed come from? 
There are several tons of this. hay in 
sight, and we shall need all of it before 
next Summer. So the driver put old auto 
tires on the wheels of the mower and 
went at it. It was a rough job, with 
stones and bumps and roots, and great 
care in driving was necessary. We got 
the grass down, however, and the boy cut 
the trash along the rows of trees. Of 
course as this hay comes out mamire 
must go back to make up for the lose. We 
expect to plow and smooth the field this 
Fall and seed to Red-top and Alsike 
clover. I think many of our farmers 
would do well to seed more Red-top. For 
some reason there is a sort of prejudice 
against it. One farmer tells me that his 
cows do not like it. By analysis the Red- 
top is worth more than Timothy for feed¬ 
ing, and all my stock will eat it freely. 
Where hay is to be sold the Red-top will 
lessen the value of the bale, but for feed¬ 
ing I think it superior. This crop we cut 
today is over-ripe, as dry as straw, but it 
will make good horse feed. We also have 
about an acre of Japanese millet on the 
ground. Something went wrong with the 
seeding, so the millet came up unevenly 
and much ragweed came in. I cut it be¬ 
fore the ragweed seed could form. It will 
make good cow hay. Now as soon as pos¬ 
sible we shall plow this millet field, fit 
the soil and seed to barley, with Red-top 
and Alsike clover. Barley is the best 
grain I know of to seed for a late hay 
crop. Often when the season is right 
you can cut nearly a ton of good hay in 
October, and have the ground well needed 
for next year. My, plan is to get all our 
open ground and most of the orchards 
into clover and grass. I would like to 
have about two acres of strawberries, a 
good garden, perhaps an acre in potatoes, 
and the rest in trees. It will be necessary 
to plant some corn in order to clean up 
the sod after several years’ cutting, but 
an soon as I can get to it I shall have all 
surplus land in hay crops. Mowing in 
this broiling sun is hungry work, and I 
am glad to honor the three drafts which 
the young man makes on the bean dish. 
II. w. c. 
(To be continued) 
Not All Are “Auto Hogs” 
I have just read the article on page 
1075. “Rounding up the Auto Hogs,” 
and I w r ould like to put in a protest. This 
thing can be carried too far. I am a 
farmer, and have a car. and sometimes 
when we can spare the time we take the 
car and start out for a camping trip and 
a vacation. We took the car two years 
ago and drove through to Ohio; we 
camped nights by the roadside or on 
school grounds. We cannot stand the ex¬ 
pense of hotel bills, neither do we like 
the hotels for our night stops. We took 
the Lincoln Highway out, and return¬ 
ing we went to Niagara Falls and came 
through Central New York to Albany, 
and then, d.own the Hudson and so 
through to Trenton and Philadelphia, 
and so on home. We had a good 
trip and a fine time, and all the trouble 
we had camping nights was a little south 
of Kingston on the Hudson. We had 
trouble to get a place to camp, but west 
we had no trouble at all. The people 
west are more friendly, and try to make 
it pleasant for a camper, and seem 
pleased to have autoists camp on their 
premises. Some have put up free camp 
grounds, and give the camper every con¬ 
venience and courtesy, and so they did 
through New York until down the Hud¬ 
son. They seemed a different class of 
people. 
One night in Ohio we camped in a 
school yard in the grape region, and there 
were grapes ripe on every side as far as 
the eye could see. The people told us 
that a great many camped there nights 
and the grapes were not touched, so I 
believe the people who travel in cars and 
camp by the roadside are on an average 
just as good and peaceable as the farm¬ 
ers who are making such a kick. How 
is it? Won’t a person be permitted to 
drive through the country in a car and 
stop by the roadside to eat his lunch or 
camp out for the night. Is not someone 
working for the railroad and hotels? 
There may be some who drive cars 
through the country who do damage to 
farmers. If you can tell them when you 
see them send them on, but be careful 
for the Word says “Be not forgetful to 
entertain strangers for thereby some have 
entertained angels unaware.” Let us do 
unto others as we would that they should 
do. unto us, and if we do that we will 
drive off no campers unless we know 
them to be rascals. p. e. twining. 
How to Cook a Woodchuck 
. Your discussion of woodchucks from, 
time to time has been of much interest to 
me, because I know how delicious they 
are when cooked, and I never saw a time 
when the woods were so full of them as 
they are at present. Why, an old-timer 
even made his home in our garden all 
Spring, but I haven’t laid eyes on him 
for a month ; no doubt, someone sampled 
him, though he looked like a very old 
chap. 
About 25 years ago I boarded with an 
old lady who taught me to cook all kinds 
of game and wild food, birds, etc. ’Pos¬ 
sum, coon and woodchuck were favorite 
dishes with her family, and one day Uncle 
Billy brought home a skunk, which she 
agreed to cook, but said she wouldn’t eat 
the pesky thing. However, she couldn’t 
resist tasting it when she saw how we all 
enjoyed it. There is no odor from any 
of these animals if they have been prop- 
exdy handled, both in killing and dressing. 
The scent glands and oil glands should be 
carefully removed with a sharp knife or 
scissors. 
There are many who will not eat lamb 
or mutton, claiming it has a greasy, wool¬ 
ly flavor, which is not the case if the ani¬ 
mal has been properly prepai-ed. I send 
a recipe which I hope will convince some 
of the doubters that woodchuck and wild 
meat is good food, and it is vei’y easy to 
cook it so it will be fit for a king, as the 
old saying is. ’Possum and coon may be 
cooked in the same manner, but are very 
fine when stuffed and masted until ten¬ 
der. An opossum should be cleaned like a 
pig—scald and scrape it, not skin it. The 
important thing is to make sure the wood¬ 
chuck has been properly dressed and 
cleaned before cooking. The meat is de¬ 
licious and tastee more like fresh pork 
spareribs than anything else I could men¬ 
tion. There are little grease bags in the 
neck near the shoulders that should be 
carefully removed before cooking. Fail, 
ure to remove these sacs is the reason so 
many think woodchuck unfit for food. 
When left in the odor is very strong, and 
of coui-ee makes the meat unpalatable. If 
the ’chuck is young it may be cut in 
pieces of convenient size; roll each piece 
in flour, all the flour you can rub in, then 
salt and pepper each piece a little, lay 
them in a lai-ge iron frying pan or skillet 
neaidy cover with warm water, put in 
oven and cook till tendei*. Turn the 
pieces over from time to time and they 
will brown peiffectly. Add a little water 
as it cooks down so there will be a nice 
bowl of gravy all ready when meat is 
done. 
If preferred, the young woodchuck may 
be left whole and stuffed with bread and 
onion di’essing, as you would use for fowl. 
Sew it up with coarse needle and twine 
and roast tender. Baste often eo the 
meat will not be too dry. Roast about 30 
minutes for each pound. An older ’chuck 
may be cooked in about the same way, 
but should be pax-boiled for about an hour, 
then roll in flour and cook as above until 
tender. When possible, serve sweet po¬ 
tatoes with it, baked or Southern style. 
MRS. W. D. 
“How long is it going to take to get 
through with this case?” asked the client 
who was under suspicion of housebreak¬ 
ing. “Well,” replied the young barrister 
thoughtfully, “it’ll take me about two 
weeks, but I’m afraid it’s going to take 
you about four years.”—Montreal Sta. 
Here we have the entire family—father, mother and the children. German shep¬ 
herd or Police dogs. This breed is getting strong backing as a farm dog. It has 
some faults—what has not—but a well-bred 'specimen has many fine qualities which 
fit it for farm life. 
