1136 
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Wh RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 30, 1924 
A Farm Woman’s Notes 
A Day at the Lake 
A finger of lake shimmering in the sun. 
Not a lonely expanse of water that ends 
in the horizon line, but a stretch of land 
beyond the water, with field on field of 
dark orchard, of bright green cabbage, of 
yellow oats, marked out neatly against 
the solid green over there on the opposite 
shore. A thin gauze of vapor trailing 
into a hazy blue sky from a campfire that 
everyone is just chilly enough to want. A 
grand willow tree overhead that tempts 
one to be forever looking upward for the 
picture of its great black limbs amongst 
the shaggy leaves that clothe them. There 
is a tremendous row of such trees as far 
as one can see down the beach, and they 
are planted at regular intervals, as some 
man’s hand must one day have planted 
them. I wish that I could thank him. 
But I judge he is by now past anyone’s 
thanking, for the willows must have 
grown many years. Anyhow, I believe he 
knew what he was doing and could fore¬ 
see our delight in bis beauty spot. I 
wonder who he was! 
This is our ground for the day. We 
have made the stones quite comfortable 
with folded blankets, and the next thing 
in order is dinner. The doctor, being the 
best camper of us all, has built the fire, 
set up an arch and hung the coffee pail. 
The charcoal which he produces from a 
paper bag to put on the fire, turns into a 
mound of live coals. There is no smoke, 
'but the coffee pail begins to sing gently. 
I hear the steady plunk, plunk, of stones 
falling into the lake, after being pro¬ 
pelled there by childish hands, but beside 
me the girl who has just come home from 
California murmurs: “Oh, this green ! I 
missed it so. To think that I had to go 
to California to appreciate it! . Grass 
doesn’t grow there unless the land is irri¬ 
gated, and the lawns even would die out 
if they didn’t keep watering them with 
hose. It’s such a desolate country !” This, 
to me, is a new description of that famous 
State. Shades of sunkist oranges! 
Yet somehow I feel the troubles and 
problems of yesterday slipping away, 
smoothing out into undreamed-of solu¬ 
tions as I examine the green with new 
interest. New York State, with her 
abandoned farms, posing as being more 
beautiful than California? Fancy the in¬ 
credulous look we get! If the green is 
cheerful, we need it. 
The tune of August marketing is writ¬ 
ten in a minor key. No matter how joy¬ 
ously the theme begins, very soon the 
spirit changes. We feel a premonition of 
defeat in the first motive. The local mar¬ 
kets are already occupied _ with vege¬ 
tables, too occupied to notice that we 
are ready with nearby produce. It is 
southern produce that fills the counters, 
the display windows. We may tap the 
storekeeper on the shoulder, smile, and 
say: “New York State is ready for mar¬ 
ket. How many spuds can you use this 
morning?” But he turns reluctantly, 
answers in dull tones: “I’ve got enough 
southern potatoes to last me a week. 
Maybe I’ll begin using homegrown stuff 
then. But these southern potatoes are 
good—'they are cheap. People are eating 
more potatoes than usual on account of 
their being cheap. I doubt if I could sell 
as many homegrowns if I had to raise the 
price.” 
So! We might have felt cross, only we 
learned that the growers of these Red 
Star potatoes get only 30 cents a bushel. 
The president of the chain-store system 
can buy them by the carload, laid down 
at the warehouse, for 83 cents a bushel. 
And beautiful potatoes they are, too; per¬ 
fectly graded in an over-size pack, to be 
bought in carloads by telegram, with one 
word, “Accepted.” From a trainman we 
hear that yesterday there passed a train 
with 25 carloads of them. We sense 
other misfortune beoide our own. Yet 
the time is coming when New York grow¬ 
ers must take their medicine. There are 
debts to pay in the North as well, and 
local potatoes will crowd out the southern 
potatoes because they must. Owing to 
heavy May rains the early crop is not to 
be large ; it looks as if northern growers 
were out of luck on every point. If New 
York State, underbidding, goes as low as 
Jersey and Virginia, we will be even more 
in need of sympathy than they. 
There has 'been enough rain to insure a 
heavy late crop if the frost holds off. Our 
nights here at the 15th of August are 
moonlit, clear, cold, suggestive of frost. 
The corn has not eared—everything is 
backward. We cannot afford to have to¬ 
matoes, cantaloupes and all green vege¬ 
tables wiped out this year in August, but 
if Nature so wills who can resist? It is 
a time of foreboding every evening when 
the full moon rises into a clear sky, and 
the mercury sinks down into the forties. 
And not a proper ear of corn in the 
county! 
From the cities, unemployment has be¬ 
gun to bring strangers along our country 
roads. In the Spring these men would 
have found plenty of work to be done, but 
now at this late date one man can easily 
harvest one man’s sowing, and is in no 
position to hire. The fruit crop is not to 
be large. Wheat is light, and the oats 
are a joke. This slowing up of industry 
and farm production, both happening at 
the same time, is my definition of hard 
times. Each reacts upon the other. The 
wage earner has no money with which to 
pay high prices, and the farmer has lit¬ 
tle to sell at low prices, and cannot buy 
manufactured goods that will speed up or¬ 
ders and start the factories going again. 
There is plenty of idle money waiting at 
the banks, but no one is in the mood to 
borrow and invest. That hard times is 
a mood as well as a condition is conceded 
by the best authorities. It is strange, 
indeed, that when industries are running 
to capacity and goods move easily the 
banks cannot keep up with the demand 
for money. But when industry slows 
down and selling is slow, it’s hard then 
for investors to place money to advan¬ 
tage. The amount of money in actual 
circulation is less, which gives the im¬ 
pression of money being scarce, when it 
is simply waiting. The longer this hold¬ 
ing back keeps up the worse the situation 
is, until finally money disappears alto¬ 
gether and stamps and coupons appear in 
place of it. I admit that we are going 
too fast nowadays, but I do wish that we 
could be vaccinated against having the 
mood that makes hard times, which is the 
condition of going too slowly. Must we 
always react from one extreme to the 
other? 
The doctor says that at last the coffee 
is on the 'boil. It is time to spread the 
cloth and open the baskets. I wonder 
how we will react to this chicken pie? 
Let us hope it is not too salty. The chil¬ 
dren will have to put off their bathing un¬ 
til after dinner, but they are hungry and 
do not mind. This is their first picnic at 
the lake. I hope there will be many 
more. To live one’s life through without 
variety is surely not wisdom. It’s not 
getting money’s worth. 
The shirt of little Mark’s bathing suit 
is made out of the tops of two stockings, 
but who cares? mbs. f. h. tjnger. 
Crop Notes 
We are having drought here in the 
Shawangunk Mountains; everything is 
crying out for the want of rain. Corn 
is curled up in the fields from the heat, 
and many hayfields are not worth cut¬ 
ting. Fruit trees are suffering also, 
some have no leaves left on them. Of 
course the season is late up here anyway, 
but the dry season is retarding the 
growth of everything. Our currant 
bushes have not done a thing, only a few 
on one bush. The cows almost refuse to 
stay in the pasture, because the grass is 
all dried out and there is nothing for 
them to eat. Every day we watch the 
sky closely for clouds, hoping for rain, 
but the clouds go along over the moun¬ 
tains toward the river, and leave us in 
the lurch. Eggs are coming slow on ac¬ 
count of the Summer molt. Everywhere 
one sees the Summer boarders wandering 
along the roads or joy-riding in cars. 
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