1326 
<Pk RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October IS, 1924 
The three little girls under the tree 
have decided to eat another apple. Over 
in the next field is a McIntosh tree with 
some remarkable fruit on it. The field 
is part of the new farm which I bought 
last Fall. There are a number of trees, 
and most of them seemed like a group of 
exhausted old men, tired of labor and not 
quite strong enough to quit. We pruned 
and sprayed and fertilized them, plowed 
the land and put in buckwheat and clover 
as a cover crop. Now those trees are 
standing up to shake themselves. They 
will come back to the job next year. As 
a rule the McIntosh is like a Scotchman. 
It never stops working, but of all this 
group only one tree carries any fruit. 
That one tree has one limb so closely 
covered with big red apples that it hangs 
down like a brilliant banner. Just what 
induced this one limb out of thousands of 
tired and discouraged branches to come 
forth in this way is beyond me. In 
cutting this corn every now and then I 
come upon some big stalk standing up 
straight and tall and carrying two great 
ears, while all around it are medium¬ 
sized stalks often with inferior ears— 
coming close to nubbins. All the hills 
in this field have had reasonable culture 
and equal care. Why should these big 
two-fisted fellows rise up above the com¬ 
mon lot? Why should that one apple 
limb yield that great banner of apples 
while ’ all around it other branches sit 
back and give up the fight? There must 
be some urge, some strong demand, in 
these superior specimens to push them 
out of a common performance. 
* * * $ * 
I have just cut one of these stalks with 
two ears on it. I shall save that for seed. 
The chances are that it will pass the 
habit on to its offspring. You take 
these three little children under the tree. 
As they sit there at play I can easily see 
that they are giving what I may call a 
toy performance of the actions and char¬ 
acter of their parents. All children seem 
to do that. Some of them grow up to 
produce nothing but nubbins. Nothing 
they ever do is big and broad. Others are 
like my two-eared stalk always working 
for the large, broad things of life. Part 
of this is “born in them”—yet most child¬ 
ren are like little monkeys, for they im¬ 
itate the language and the actions of 
those about them, and especially those 
for whom they have the deepest respect. 
There is where they differ from corn or 
apples, and there is where the great re¬ 
sponsibility of parent or guardian comes 
in. After an experience with many child¬ 
ren I am inclined to think that environ¬ 
ment and care are more important than 
pedigree. There are of course, some 
strong dominant characters who will carry 
what their parents have stamped upon 
them through all sorts of strong in¬ 
fluences—much like the two-fisted corn¬ 
stalk I have just cut, but with the great 
majority of children you can harness and 
direct tlieir habits if you can take them 
in time. While the years have brought 
wonderful improvement in the methods of 
caring for the child s body I do not think 
the companionship and parental example 
are eQURl to tliut of old times. J.heie 
are now so many things which take 
people away from home, and the struggle 
to keep up' with our friends is so fierce 
that parents lose control of their children 
earlier than in former years. There never 
was a better place for training the little 
child than in the country home. I think 
the well-ordered district school was and 
is the best place for the average child to 
gain the fundamentals of an education. 
Somehow the educators seem determined 
to drive our children into herds for train¬ 
ing rather than to give them individual 
care. _ 
* * * * * 
These little girls of mine want another 
apple. Two of them would be willing to 
take a Wolf River or a Northwestern 
Greening from the trees near at hand, 
but little Rose has a touch of the ad¬ 
venturer in her, and she remembers that 
limb of McIntosh in the next field. Her 
pedigree is Scotch and Irish—caution an I 
daring—and she has heard me say that 
we should not select the apples of life 
until we have looked through the next 
field A McIntosh over the wall is better 
than a Wolf River only a rod away. It 
is worth the labor of climbing a wall to 
be able to fill you mouth with fragrant 
pulp rather than dry sawdust and bees¬ 
wax. So. hand in hand the little things 
tramp off through the high weeds with 
some little reflection of the spirit of the 
argonauts when they started on their 
hunt for the golden fleece. The children 
were for a time hidden in the tall weeds, 
but just when I thought it about time to 
look them up, they came clambering over 
the stone wall—their little arms filled 
with red apples. They brought a big 
mellow one for me. Then they sat near 
the cornfield and flashed their little white 
teeth into what I may call the ideal tooth¬ 
brush. _ 
***** 
Those strong little teeth set me to 
thinking of the remarkable things that 
have been developed in the care of the 
human body. Years ago the man or 
woman with a set of sound natural teeth 
was the exception. Such a person was 
like that big two-fisted cornstalk growing 
up among common companions. In many 
cases children did not have the proper 
diet for tooth making and very few were 
ever taught to clean their teeth. In the 
family where I was brought up the 
greater part of our bread was “rye and 
Indian.” That meant a mixture of rye- 
ineal and cornmeal baked in an old-fash¬ 
ioned oven so that the crust was more 
than an inch thick. These crusts were 
cut off and given to the boy on the theory 
that eliewdng them would improve his 
teeth. A poor theory that, for good teeth 
are produced from the minerals in our 
food, not so much by over-chewing. A 
prizefighter may develop his muscles 
through hard exercise, but unless he eats 
plenty of muscle-producing food he can¬ 
not win a prizefight. I chewed these 
crusts, but I cannot say such action 
saved my teeth. These was too much 
brown bread, potato and pork and salt 
fish in our diet. I remember one family 
where the children ate these crusts with 
milk. Their teeth were generally good. 
Most families in those days used very 
little milk, even though they kept cows. 
I remember that one man -who was noted 
as a heavy cider drinker had unusually 
good teeth', and he confounded a temper¬ 
ance advocate who had no teeth left, in 
to the deck of the ship. But strange to 
say the dentist got hold of those teeth 
and pulled them out almost before I 
knew they were gone. There was no 
pain about it. Thus an operation which 
once might well be called “unspeakable 
agony” may now be called something of 
a pleasure. Perhaps we may come to the 
time when tooth pulling will become such 
a pleasure that we shall regret that we 
have so few teeth to be pulled ! 
***** 
At any rate that is a fair illustration 
of the way methods of caring for the 
body have developed. There seems no 
good reason right now why these little 
girls should not live to be 100 years old 
if it were only a question of keeping the 
body machine going. As I cut away at 
the corn I find myself asking a few perti- 
ment questions. Grant that it is possible 
for these little children so to prolong 
their life—shall we do them a real kind¬ 
ness by trying to carry them on beyond 
the so-called allotted span of years? Do 
w’e And anything about the life of the 
very old that seems really worth while? 
They cannot make new friends. Most of 
them fail to adapt themselves to new 
conditions. Yet all of them want to live 
longer. One might think that when one 
has passed through most of the adven¬ 
tures of life and cannot hope to enjoy 
more of them fully, that he might be 
eager for the coming greater adventure 
in an existence where, perhaps he mav 
ffOsjft 
Plate of Buttered Chayote 
a discussion at the store. Since then I 
have learned that a solution of vinegar 
is about the best toothwash one can find, 
while a mellow apple is the best combined 
toothbrush and paste ever invented. 
These little girls of ours are not expected 
to chew crusts, hut they have all the 
milk they can drink, “cereals” of entire 
grain, fruit and vegetables, until it seems 
a wonder how they can store all they eat, 
and at intervals their teeth are examined 
by a good dentist. And they scrub their 
little teeth several time a day. 
***** 
Yes, indeed, you can get a very good 
idea of the way the science of caring for 
the body has developed by observing the 
progress of dentistry. Something like 75 
years ago an uncle of mine went on a 
whaling voyage. This was before the 
days of cheap kerosene, and whale oil was 
even more necessary to society than gas¬ 
oline is today! These whalers were gone 
five years in some cases, and five years 
away from the civilized practices of good 
society will make a great difference to a 
man. There was a man on my uncle’s 
ship who suffered agonies from the tooth¬ 
ache. Ilis teeth were badly decayed, but 
as he said they “were put into his jaw 
and clinched on the inside.” This man s 
mouth got so bad that he could not eat, 
and the captain tried heroic measures. 
They caught this man and after a fierce 
struggle threw him down on the deck. 
Four men sat on him and held his arms 
and legs. They pried his mouth open 
and the captain took a pair of tweezers 
and “snaked” these teeth out. The man 
got up, rinsed his mouth in salt water 
and was ready for work. It was not un¬ 
common 50 years ago for a country 
dentist to induce the patient to open his 
mouth and as he did so thrust in a large 
corn cob. An assistant held this cob in 
place while the dentist reached in with 
his forceps and pulled the tooth. The 
corn cob was to prevent biting. Then 
came “laughing gas.” Fifty years ago 
I had several big teeth pulled while under 
the influence of this gas. It was no great 
laughing matter, but it beat the old bar¬ 
barous plan. Then the other day I had 
two more teeth taken out. The dentist 
smiled when I asked him where the 
“laughing gas” was. 
“We do not bother with that any more. 
We just pull them out!” 
“But doesn’t it kill a man?” 
“You will not feel it at all!” 
Who could believe such a statement as 
that? Yet the dentist was so confident 
that I told him to go ahead. lie painted 
a little iodine on the outside of the gum 
and then with a small hollow needle in¬ 
jected some substance into the roof of 
the mouth just above the teeth. I will 
confess that when I saw him coming with 
his forceps my mind flew back to the pic¬ 
ture of that poor whaleman held down 
renew his youth and stand on fair terms 
with others! Can it be that the world 
has given far more attention to the care 
of the body than to the care and de¬ 
velopment of character and the spirit? 
“Take no thought for your life 
what ye shall eat, neither for the 
body, what ye shall put on.” 
But the sun is getting down into the 
West and I am tired. Let’s go home! 
These world-old problems are too 
much for me. They will puzzle men long 
after I am gone. Let’s go home! The 
girls and I climb the little hill to the 
house. We may get a few nuts on the 
way. The squirrels are at work already. 
They know that they will be provided for 
in the same old way. n. w. C. 
Horticultural Gossip 
Air drainage. is a big item in fruit 
production. This season of much scab 
has witnessed some interesting cases of 
poor and good air drainage. I know of 
an orchard of R. I. Greenings in a low 
pocket that is literally eaten up with 
scan, while an unsprayed orchard on the 
hillside shows very little fungus, though 
codling moth and scale are severe. 
Next time you are in New Y’ork City 
stop in at some of the fruit auctions and 
see the way a vast amount of fruit is 
bought and sold. A wink of the eye or 
a flick of the finger may buy a carload 
of fruit, but you can be certain that 
competition is keen, and that buying from 
representative packages could not be done 
if the goods for sale were not graded and 
standardized. Just so long as fruit grow¬ 
ers continue to dump ungraded stuff on¬ 
to the open market, just so long will they 
miss the opportunity of breaking into 
some of the higher-priced markets. 
The plumcot is an interesting novelty 
for the lover of the rarer things. It is a 
cross between the Japanese plum and 
the apricot, produced by Luther Bur¬ 
bank and introduced some 18 years ago. 
The foliage resembles that of the plum, 
but the spininess of the apricot is appar¬ 
ent in the branches. The fruit is much 
like a plum in color and general appear¬ 
ance, but the flavor is a peculiarly agree¬ 
able and unmistakable blending of the 
apricot and the plum. 
Speaking of air drainage again, a grow¬ 
er who had an orchard of McIntosh in- 
terplanted with cherries was unable to 
control the scab on his apples. No doubt 
the difficulty of spraying had something 
to do with the problem, but nevertheless 
this year in a season of severe scab he 
has almost perfect control of the fungus. 
The answer may be in the fact that he 
opened up the orchard by cutting out all 
the cherry trees! 
The straight-sided bushel with remov¬ 
able bottom is meeting with considerable 
approval from some sources and criticism 
from others. Some commission men say 
that their trade likes to see the cover 
bulging, something that cannot be done 
the way the new bushel is intended to be 
used. Old-timers insist that it is easy 
to face an ordinary bushel basket when 
one has been at it long enough. Neverthe¬ 
less, the package is stiffer, handles better, 
and an attractive face can be made with 
little difficulty H. B. T. 
The Chayote 
“Plant Immigrants,” No. 217, issued 
by the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant 
Introduction, contains an interesting note 
on the chayote, accompanied by the pic¬ 
ture reproduced herewith. Says the bul¬ 
letin : 
The chayote, a southern vegetable be¬ 
longing to the same family as the cucum¬ 
ber and squash, produces its pear-shaped 
fruits in the Fall and, in the Far South, 
sometimes also in the late Spring. In 
flavor the chayote is more delicate than 
Summer squash or vegetable marrow, and 
in texture it is much superior to either. 
A number of excellent dishes are prepared 
from it. For “buttered chayotes,” as 
shown in the illustration, the fruits are 
sliced about three-quarters of an inch 
thick, crosswise through the seed, and 
pared. They are boiled until tender in 
just enough salted water to cover, then 
drained and placed in a serving dish with 
butter on the top slices, so it will melt 
over the lower ones. The boiled chayotes 
also may be diced and used in salads or 
served with a cream sauce. Most de¬ 
licious sweet pickles are made from part¬ 
ly cooked chayotes. 
Limestone in Ohio 
Ohio farmers are evidently becoming 
greatly interested in the use of ground 
limestone. At a number of railroad sta¬ 
tions, lime-kilns are being erected so that 
the limestone can be brought in quantity 
to the station and sold out as needed, 
thus keeping a full supply at hand. The 
Ohio Agricultural College has designed 
plans for a timber bin of 100 tons capaci¬ 
ty. This capacity con be changed some¬ 
what by varying the length of the bin in 
units of 4 ft. The limestone can be 
loaded from the car by elevating machin¬ 
ery, and can be re-loaded into the wagon 
by means of chutes. It is a good thing 
to see the use of ground limestone en¬ 
couraged. There are thousands of places 
in New York State where such lime is 
greatly needed; in fact, there must be 
an extensive use of it before proper work 
can be done on the soil. 
A Florida Man Talks 
As to the climate of Florida nobody 
can be told what it is until they see it 
for themselves ; that means Summer and 
Winter. The Summers are long, but not 
nearly as hot as it is in New York City. 
I remember that I spent a week in New 
York in September, 1903, and I think 
that it w r as the hottest place I was ever 
in, except Hongkong. 
It used to be said of us Florida Crack¬ 
ers (if you have lived in Florida five 
years you are a Cracker), that in Sum¬ 
mer we lived on sweet potatoes and in 
Winter on the Yankees, but times have 
changed, and we live altogether on Yan¬ 
kees, now, Summer and Winter, as all 
our products are sold north and west. 
In Florida you will find very few native- 
born Floridians except children. We have 
gathered here from all over the face of 
the globe. I was born in Ceylon, of 
English parents, and came here in the 
Spring of 1880, after having spent some 
time in England. Since then I have been 
round the world and have seen quite a 
good many climes. I must say that 
Ceylon beats Florida when it goes for 
comfort in climate, as it very seldom 
goes over 80 in the shade in the interior 
of the island, but the health is lacking 
that we have in Florida; Hawaiian 
Islands same as Ceylon. I will admit 
that w T e have more than our quota of 
suckers and swindlers, but I notice that 
in all the States there are some. 
In California I found they were all 
boosters. I spent two weeks there, but 
unfortunately it was unusual weather all 
the two weeks that I was there, so can¬ 
not say much about that place. . I have 
lived in Florida all these years, Sum¬ 
mer and Winter, except for a few trips. 
I am a farmer and I can say with truth 
that the climate is the finest in the 
world, the soil about the poorest, and 
living easiest to make of any place I 
have seen. 
I have just worked out my kitchen 
garden for the first time. I have tur¬ 
nips, beans, carrots, mustard, peas, beets, 
cauliflower, cabbage, onions, lettuce, 
just up, and hope to have fresh vege¬ 
tables all the Winter, which I do every 
year, but there are months in the Sum¬ 
mer, July, August and September, and 
part of October that we have to depend 
on the North for our green stuff. 
Florida. g. e. -wixtek. 
“If you must fight, my boy, take some 
one of your size.” “Well, pa, it amount¬ 
ed to the same thing this morning. I 
licked two boys each half as big as I 
was.”—Boston Transcript. 
