1426 
Vht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
November 15, 1924 
are inherited memories of good old days when young 
folks husked corn in the barn by the light of tallow 
candles, ate pumpkin pies and doughnuts, drank 
sweet cider and found many a red ear in the com. 
Those were the days of simple joys beneath starlit 
skies, long before we dreamed of rushing about in a 
gasoline carriage or dressing up to go to the movies. 
It is a good thing that memories of these good old 
days are stirring in the modern brain, and the humble 
pumpkin is bringing them back. Many a man and 
woman whose bodies have degenerated into bundles 
of worn nerves would be partly made over by going 
back to childhood and carving some hideous face of 
jack-o’-lantern in the side of a big pumpkin. What 
difference does it make whether you grow pumpkins 
or peaches, so long as you cater to a worthy desire? 
New Peach Possibilities 
W HILE peaches are not supposed to grow in 
Northern New York, the larger peach tree 
in the picture has flourished for seven years on the 
northern border of St. Lawrence County. The bush 
in the foreground is : three years old. Both sprang 
from peach stones thrown in the backyard. No 
peaches have yet been produced, but prospective 
investors in northern peach land will be glad to 
know that the proud owners look for a booming 
crop next year. neil c. doeen. 
New York. 
R. N.-Y.—Some of our peach growers, with thous¬ 
ands of trees in bearing, may smile at this little 
bush growing up near the St. Lawrence River, but 
it means much to these watchers. We have seen 
such little trees in Northern Vermont actually made 
to bear fruit. They were trained in such a way that 
when Winter came they were “laid down” or bent 
to the ground and covered with straw or manure. 
In some cases the trees were twisted over into a 
trench and thus protected. We saw them actually 
bearing fruit after such Winter protection. No 
profit in this, but a great satisfaction. 
Necessity of Working the Teeth 
I N the many years that I have read The R. N.-Y. 
it has been a pleasure to read any health article 
you may publish, and I often wish they would ap¬ 
pear more often, as The R. N.-Y. takes a place by 
the side of the familv Bible in many country dis¬ 
tricts. but in reading H^pe Farm Notes,” page 1326, 
in regard to the teeth, I think you should have said 
more—or not as much. 
Your statement of the corn bread with crust one 
inch thick, and I presume baked in the oven over 
night (ours was), carries me back to the farm of 
my boyhood days in Washington Co., Nj Y. Yes, 
the crusts were given to the,boys and girls (nine of 
them) to make good teeth, and I differ from your 
reasoning—it was just what the “kids” ought to 
eat. “Good teeth are produced from minerals,” but 
the minerals must be obtained from the blood, pre¬ 
natal or in ejirly childhood, while teeth and bone 
tissue are developing. The blood vessels of the body 
run parallel with the surface of the skin. In the 
gingiva or gum tissue surrounding the teeth, the 
blood vessels are not parallel with the surface but 
at right angle to the surface, as a matter of fact 
the gum tissue is considered an end organ and must 
be vigorously used to deplete the blood vessels and 
attract a full supply of fresh blood laden with the 
minerals to supply the developing teeth. 
Today teeth are lost because of the disease known 
as pyorrhea (periodontaclasia) perhaps full as often 
as from decay. Pyorrhea is ever on the increase. 
It is always preceded hy a deposit on the neck of 
the teeth causing gingivitis, then pyorrhea. It has 
often been called a filth disease. This would not 
occur if we masticated a food which required harder 
work on teeth and gum. tissue. Today 
one-third of the people have no room 
for the third molars, and the laterals 
are often missing or crowded out of 
place. Our boy crusts, compelling hard 
work, brought an extra supply of blood 
to the upper part of the body, and the 
bones were more fully developed. At 
my country home on the Hudson a 
rock path was being made for the 
barge canal. The work was done by 
men from the country districts of 
Italy. The mid-day meal of those 
men consisted of a loaf of bread, 14 
inches long, pointed at both ends, and 
three inches in diameter, baked very 
hard. The boys would eat that hard 
bread, some having one onion. It had 
to be thoroughly masticated, as it was dry. When 
finished they would drink one, two or three dippers 
of water. I examined the mouth of at least 200. I 
found a few broken teeth, less than a dozen decayed, 
A Seedling Peach Tree in St. Laivrence Co., N. Y. 
and always clean white teeth, gum absolutely free 
from gingivitis, never any irregularity, and not one 
ever used a toothbrush. 
I began the practice of dentistry in 1868; am in 
full practice today, have gone through the 56 years 
with my eyes open and see many sad changes. The 
The Pumpkin Farmer Exhibiting His Crop. Fig. 591. 
soft mushy pre-digested food and sweets certainly 
call for the vigorous use of a toothbrush, but to 
give room for 32 teeth and retain a beautiful hard 
healthy pink gum tissue, give the children a share 
of foods requiring hard work, like the crusts of 
the old corn and rye bread. a. m. weight. 
New York. 
Mr. KevitVs Political Pumpkins. Fig. 592. 
The New Idea in Poultry Culling 
J UDGMENT NEEDED.—Your article on “The 
Robber Hen,” page 1343, is quite interesting, as 
I make a special study of culling of hens. But after 
one has read and reread all the rules, etc., to my 
mind the final analysis of all culling is good judg¬ 
ment. You mention this, but not enough emphasis 
is laid on the matter of judgment, and the proof of 
it is that we have only one T. Barron. Very likely 
there are successors now in the making, and pos¬ 
sibly there will be some as good as the master. 
LAYING OR BREEDING STOCK.—I have read 
many books on the subject and listened to quite a 
few lectures and demonstrations, and on the subject 
of culling would say that the main object being for 
greater returns, I believe there are two distinct 
branches of it, culling for better breeding stock, 
and culling for egg laying. For now comes the 
latest new idea, which upsets all the previous knowl¬ 
edge. It belongs to the culling for egg-laying stock, 
and goes on record to say that we can make the 
most money from our early molters and yellow¬ 
legged variety in the yearling class which previous 
to this we had been advised to get rid of at any 
price. One man has tested it out and found that 
he made a dollar more per hen. For it seems that 
these hens can be brought along to lay in the Fall 
months- of October. November and December, when 
eggs are at their highest. The late molters being 
a small minority, possibly 10 per cent, do very well 
if they lay much past the first of November. Of 
course for breeders these are the birds to save over 
for next year. But the commercial poultry farm, 
where baby chicks or pullets are bought each year, 
is advised to get rid of the late molters, as they 
will not lay again until eggs are at flush of the 
season, and generally at the lowest price, too. I 
have one particular Leghorn in my flock, two years 
old now. For the last two seasons she has molted 
in end of June and July. In October she looks like 
a young pullet and gets to laying, too, as she is now. 
Maybe it is possible to work up from this kind a 
strain of birds that will do the same kind of pro¬ 
ducing. I would like to hear what some of our 
wise men think of the new idea, as to whether they 
have drawn similar conclusions, or what? Strictly 
speaking, the question should be answered by the 
men who are not hatching their own, but are in the 
egg producing business. eobert gbaham. 
Long Island. 
Cheap Farms in Butternuts 
A LIVE STOCK COUNTRY.—Butternuts Creek 
flows rh rough the southwestern corner of 
Otsego County, N. Y., a county fairly representative 
of the eastern central part of the State when you 
get south of the great Mohawk Valley. Along t lie 
southern border of this county lies the wide valley 
of the Susquehanna, a river that rises within its 
boundaries, to wander for 400 miles in search of an 
opening through the Appalachians through which 
it may reach the sea. On its western line is the 
short and picturesque Unadilla River, and between 
these streams such hills and valleys as make up 
much of the rugged surface of the Empire State. 
Butternuts Creek flows through one of the small 
valleys tributary to the Susquehanna, and through 
a township of the same name. East and west of it 
are the hills, through which one may drive over 
good roads and past farm home after farm home, 
for the greater part thrifty in appearance and at¬ 
tractive in surroundings. It is essentially a live 
stock country, which here means a dairying section. 
The meadows are small, irregular in outline and 
scattered through a jumble of hills and knolls that 
are quite evidently better adapted to pasturage than 
to cultivated crops. There is little of what could 
be called timber upon the hillsides, though they are 
dotted, here and there, with patches 
of hardwoods, now beautiful in their 
Autumn foliage. For the most part, 
the knolls and higher hills are cleared 
and in well-watered meadows and pas¬ 
ture land. It is a grass country. 
SELLING OUT.—There are probab¬ 
ly 50 deserted farms in the town of 
Butternuts, said an elderly farmer to 
me as we watched the sale of seven 
fine dairy farms, all grouped together 
in a great estate of over 1.500 acres. 
It was this, sale, widely advertised as 
the disposal at auction of many thous¬ 
and dollars worth of land, stock and 
tools, that drew me there. I wanted to 
see what hill farms in Otsego County 
would bring when placed under the 
