10 
7ht  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
January  6,  1923 
All  Sorts 
Animals  and  Weather  Signs 
On  page  1393  I  read  the  item  “A 
Caterpillar  Weather  Prophet,”  and  the 
comment  thereon.  I  have  been  a  teacher 
for  more  than  40  years  and  have  always 
tried  to  put  people,  particularly  children, 
right  in  regard  to  the  innumerable  super¬ 
stitions  regarding  weather,  climate,  etc., 
of  which  the  above-mentioned  item  is  a 
good  example. 
It  is  hardly  worth  saying  that  the  good 
woman  cannot  foretell  the  kind  of  Win¬ 
ter  we  are  going  to  have  by  observing  a 
caterpillar  with  any  more  accuracy  than 
a  10-year-old  child  can  guess  at  it.  It 
is  particularly  the  explanation  with  which 
I  take  exception.  Nature  does  not  “look 
ahead*'  in  the  manner  suggested.  Life 
has  to  take  its  chances  with  whatever 
conditions  it  meets.  Animals  living  in  a 
cold  climate  develop  certain  peculiarities 
that  enable  them  to  cope  better  with  the 
conditions.  Some  of  them  grow  thick, 
warm  coats  of  fur,  others  produce  a 
heavy  covering  of  feathers,  and  some  mi¬ 
grate  at  the  coming  of  cold  weather,  and 
still  -others  make  warm  houses  for  Winter. 
The  instincts  that  lead  them  to  do  these 
things  are  not.  excited  by  what  the  com¬ 
ing  Winter  is  going  to  be,  but  have  been 
developed  through  ages  perhaps  during 
which  only  those  survived  who  were  best 
fitted  to  stand  the  conditions. 
Weather  prophets  have  claimed  that  if 
the  approaching  Winter  will  be  warm 
the  muskrat  will  build  his  house  with 
light  walls.  A  few  years  ago  a  certain 
Fall  was  very  warm  through  October, 
the  month  when  the  muskrat  usually 
builds.  Later  the  weather  became  very 
cold,  and  we  had  an  unusually  severe 
Winter,  and  the  muskrats  froze  by  the 
thousands. 
Not  longer  ago  than  last  Winter  all 
the  newspapers  were  filled  with  warnings 
of  a  severe  Winter.  The  woodsmen  of 
Maine  and'  the  Adirondaeks  told  of  the 
remarkably  large  stores  of  nuts  that  ani¬ 
mals  were  laying  up  and  claimed  furs 
were  unusually  thick  and  fine.  Well, 
last  Winter  was  an  unusually  mild  Win¬ 
ter. 
The  early  coming  of  wild  fowl  in  the 
Spring  has  been  considered  to  presage 
an  early  Spring,  but  I  have  known  these 
early  visitors  to  be  overwhelmed  and 
frozen  by  late  Spring  storms  that  cer¬ 
tainly  proved  for  the  geese  that  nature 
had  failed  to  carry  out  her  prophecies. 
I  was  raised  on  a  farm,  and  when  I 
was  a  boy,  if  the  coming  Winter  was 
going  to  be  particularly  severe,  my 
father’s  horses  always  were  fat  and  their 
coats  were  sleek  and  shiny.  If  the  Win¬ 
ter  was  to  be  mild  a  neighbor’s  horses 
were  always  skinny  and  shaggy-coated. 
These  signs  never  failed,  so  far  as  I 
know.  However,  when  the  Winter  con¬ 
ditions  were  reversed,  my  father's  horses 
were  still  as  sleek  as  ever,  while  our 
neighbor’s  horses  were  just  as  skinny 
before  a  cold  Winter  as  before  a  mild 
one.  I  concluded  that  the  condition  of 
i  he  horses  depended  not  on  what  kind  of 
Winter  was  before  them,  but  on  the  kind 
and  amount  of  grain  they  had  to  eat  in 
the  Fall  and  the  care  they  received.  So 
with  the  squirrels  in  the  Maine  woods; 
they  will  hide  away  a  big  store  for  the 
Winter  if  there  are  plenty  of  nuts,  and 
their  fur  will  be  thick  and  warm  if  they 
have  plenty  of  food  before  they  roll  them¬ 
selves  up  for  their  Winter  sleep. 
It  is  safe  to  say  for  90  per  cent  of  the 
popular  weather  signs  that  they  have  no 
basis  of  fact  whatever.  Nature  does  not 
bestow  any  special  favor  on  a  caterpillar 
as  a  prophecy  of  a  cold  Winter  any  more 
than  she  fills  a  poor  man’s  cellar  with 
coal.  W.  E.  ATKINSON. 
Finger  Joints  Are  Stiff 
I  have  been  very  much  interested  in 
health  notes  in  The  11.  N.-Y.,  and  hope 
you  will  keep  it  up.  1  have  read  a  lot 
along  health  lines,  and  believe  the  best 
way  to  cure  any  trouble  is  to  remove  the 
cause,  and  I  do  not  believe  drugs  remove 
the  cause  or  cure  our  bad  habits.  Most 
of  our  diseases  come  from  wrong  habits 
of  eating,  too  much  starch  or  proteins,  or 
not  enough  raw  fruit  or  vegetables ;  too 
much  tea  or  coffee  or  other  stimulants, 
<’an  anything  be  done  to  help  one  whose 
hands  are  getting  stiff  in  the  joints 
(arthritis)?  Some  of  the  fingers  are  a 
little  deformed.  I  am  06  years  old.  very 
slim;  weigh  about  115  lbs.;  very  active; 
tend  about  seven  acres  in  truck,  and  a 
small  greenhouse ;  can  plow  all  day.  My 
only  bad  habit,  except  that  I  may  eat 
more  starchy  food  than  I  should,  is  drink¬ 
ing  tea.  I  drink  a  small  bowl  of  tea  for 
breakfast.  I.  C. 
Texas. 
It  is  probable  that  you  have  the  form 
of  arthritis  (inflammation  of  a  joint) 
that  is  common  in  people  of  middle  age 
and  past,  and  that  affects  particularly  the 
joints  of  the  fingers.  This  was  formerly 
called  rheumatism,  but  it  is  now  consid¬ 
ered  to  be  the  result  of  infection  from 
some  source  within  the  body.  Small  ab¬ 
scesses  at  the  roots  of  decayed  teeth, 
pockets  of  pus  in  diseased  tonsils,  chron¬ 
ically  inflamed  gall  bladders,  and  other 
known  and  unknown  sources  of  inflam¬ 
mation  producing  germs  furnish  the  b!ood 
stream  with  products  that  set  up  ^rouble 
in  distant  joints.  It  is  evident  that  the 
first  step  in  treatment  should  be  the  re¬ 
moval  of  the  source  of  poisoning,  but  this 
is  more  easily  said  than  done.  Decayed 
teeth  and  old  roots  should  be  removed, 
either  on  suspicion  or  after  an  X  ray  ex¬ 
amination  had  shown  “focal  abscesses”  at 
their  root  ends.  Diseased  tonsils  should 
be  removed,  but  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
say  what  other  and  more  deeply  hidden 
sources  of  infection  may  exist  within  the 
body  and  in  places  not  get-at-able.  Treat¬ 
ment.  either  with  drugs  or  local  app’ica- 
tions,  has  not  given  encouraging  results. 
The  joints,  once  enlarged  and  stiffened, 
are  very  sure  to  stay  in  that  condition, 
and  treatment  should  be  directed  toward 
removing  any  known  sources  of  infection 
and  building  up  the  resistive  powers  of 
the  body  at  the  beginning  of  evidence  of 
oncoming  trouble.  Overwork,  exposure, 
undue  anxiety  and  other  things  which 
break  down  the  natural  resistance  of  the 
body  to  disease  contribute  to  this  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  joints  and  should  be  avoided, 
though,  let  me  say  right  here,  how  to 
avoid  some  of  these  things  is  beyond  my 
power  to  advise. 
I  cannot  agree  with  you  that  most  of 
our  diseases  come  from  bad  habits  in  eat¬ 
ing,  though  such  habits  have  enough  to 
answer  for.  Anyone  who  attempts  <o 
prevent  or  cure  disease  by  regulating  the 
proteins,  carbohydrates,  etc.,  of  his  food 
supply  will  soon  find  himself  in  a  maze 
of  facts  and  fancies  that  will  leave  him 
sorely  puzzled  and  with  little  change  in 
health.  It  is  enough  for  the  ordinary 
person  that  he  eat  moderately,  and  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  the  kind  of  work  that  he  is 
doing.  Food  is  so  plentiful  and  cheap  in 
this  country  that  ordinary  preferences 
may  be  depended  upon  to  attend  to  prop¬ 
er  “balance”  in  rations.  The  natural 
cravings  of  a  healthy  appetite  will  pre¬ 
vent  one  who  has  a  choice  in  foods  from 
long  continuing  a  very  one-sided  diet. 
After  a  few  meals  of  baked  beans,  there 
will  be  a  loud  call  for  some  bread  and 
butter  and  a  lettuce  salad.  Over-eating 
unquestionably  kills  more  Americans 
than  one-sided  eating,  for  good  food  is 
abundant  and  few  seem  afraid  of  such  a 
pleasant  death.  There  are  cases,  how¬ 
ever,  where  a  strictly  regulated  diet  is 
necessary,  but  these  are  cases  where  the 
oversight  of  a  competent  physician  is 
equally  necessary.  For  the  average 
America,  let  him  eat  moderately,  varying 
his  diet  with  fruits  and  vegetables,  milk 
and  other  dairy  products,  and  he  need 
not  fear  nutritional  diseases.  As  for  tea 
and  coffee,  they  are  stimulants,  of  course, 
else  we  wouldn’t  want  them,  but  they  are 
stimulants  of  a  very  mild  nature  and, 
unless  one  finds  from  actual  experience 
that  they  disagree  with  him,  he  needn’t 
get  into  a  panic  over  the  deadly  proper¬ 
ties  of  these  beverages.  They  are  not 
drinks  for  children,  whose  growth  re¬ 
quires  milk,  but,  if  you  are  of  middle 
age  or  elderly  and  find  that  a  cup  of  cof¬ 
fee  helps  out  an  otherwise  tasteless  break¬ 
fast.  while  one  of  tea  at  night  relieves  a 
little  of  the  day’s  weariness,  thank  the 
Lord  that  they  are  within  your  reach. 
u.  B.  D. 
Overflow  from  Septic  Tank 
If  the  overflow  from  septic  tank  should 
soak  out  on  an  adjoining  lot.  could  the 
owner  make  me  any  trouble?  Would  you 
give  size  of  tank  necessary  to  take  care 
of  sewage  from  bathroom  and  kitchen 
sink  from  small  family?  Would  like  in¬ 
formation  bow  to  build  the  tank. 
Andover.  N.  Y.  a.  m.  m. 
The  overflow  from  a  septic  tank  may 
contain  disease  germs  and  so  be  a  source 
of  danger  if  permitted  to  contaminate 
food  or  drinking  water  before  such  germs 
have  been  destroyed  by  exposure  to  sun¬ 
light  and  air  or  the  disinfecting  proper¬ 
ties  of  the  upper  layers  of  the  soil  into 
which  such  overflow  is  usually  permitted 
to  seep.  If  the  overflow  from  a  septic 
tank  endangered  in  any  way  a  neigh¬ 
bor's  water  or  food  supply,  it  would  cer¬ 
tainly  be  a  nuisance  subject  to  legal  con¬ 
trol  but,  as  the  seepage  from  a  tank’s 
disposal  pipe  does  not  penetrate  to  any 
great  distance  from  the  line  of  pipe,  it 
would  be  only  under  exceptional  circum¬ 
stances  that  a  neighbor  would  be  con¬ 
cerned. 
A  simple  septic  tank,  6  ft.  by  3  ft.  by 
5  ft.  6  in.  in  size,  suited  to  the  needs  of 
the  ordinary  family,  is  described  in  the 
October  30.  1920,  issue  of  this  paper.  It 
is  probably  unnecessary  to  say  that  the 
disposal  tiles  of  this  system  should  be 
laid  upon  one’s  own  property,  unless  per¬ 
mission  of  a  neighbor  is  obtained  to  use 
his.  The  outflow  from  the  tank  soon 
loses  any  dangerous  properties  that  it 
may  possess  when  exposed  to  the  action 
of  the  soil  into  which  it  seeps,  but  it  can¬ 
not  be  considered  free  from  danger  as  it 
comes  from  the  tank.  >r.  B.  n. 
“Youth  Must  Be  Served” 
The  Boston  Globe  prints  a  series  of 
bright  essays  signed  by  “Uncle  Dudley,” 
which  contain  some  of  the  best  philosophy 
to  be  found  in  current  literature.  One 
of  the  best  that  we  have  read  is  given 
here  entire: 
There  is  a  town  in  Massachusetts  which 
once  voted  to  bid  the  sun  stand  still  in 
the  heavens,  and  all  change  to  cease. 
The  place  had  been  a  thriving  commu¬ 
nity,  with  a  tavern,  which  did  much 
business,  and  a  stage  coach  line  which 
fed  a  steady  stream  of  guests  into  the 
tavern,  and  of  new  life  into  the  village  ; 
and  the  two  families  owning  inn  and  stage 
had  waxed  rich  and  powerful. 
Then,  one  day,  engineers,  planning  a 
railroad  across  that  part  of  the  country, 
came  knocking  at  the  town  gates  for  per¬ 
mission  to  link  the  place  with  their  pro¬ 
ject.  The  two  first  families  were  in  a 
flurry  at  this  threat  of  unexpected  com¬ 
petition.  So  they  got  together  and  lined 
up  the  town  in  opposition,  with  the  re¬ 
sult  that  the  engineers  chose  the  next 
town,  eight  miles  away,  for  their  contact 
with  this  district.  And  the  first  families 
breathed  sighs  of  relief. 
Soon,  however,  local  industries  felt  the 
pressure  of  competition  and  moved  to  the 
railroad  town  to  be  nearer  their  markets 
Gradually  half  the  population  followed 
them.  Journeymen  toilers  began  to  shun 
the  older  village.  The  tavern  fell  into 
decay  and  the  coach  line  died  a  be¬ 
leaguered  death  behind  the  ancient  stable. 
It  has  taken  that  town  nearly  two  gen¬ 
erations  to  shake  off  the  blanket  laid  upon 
it  to  protect  the  interests  of  a  small  group 
of  personally  minded  elders. 
Ever  since  society  began  to  function 
the  forces  operating  in  the  story  of  that 
town  have  been  at  work  in  our  existence. 
There  is  a  steady  offering  of  new  ideas, 
and  an  ever-present  combination  of  inter¬ 
ests  ready  to  show  progress  the  door — 
especially  when  it  interrupts  the  dividends 
of  the  first  families.  So  that  the  story 
of  what  went  on  there  is,  in  many  re- 
■spects,  the  chronicle  of  what  has  been 
going  on  in  the  larger  towns  which  we 
call  our  civilization. 
The  thing  is  happening  almost  con¬ 
tinuously  about  us.  Lately — to  notice  an 
immediate  example — we  have  begun  to 
enter  an  era  where  youth  is  resurgent. 
It  is  recovering  its  balance,  and  offering' 
its  ideas  to  society.  And  there  is  a  flurry 
among  many  of  the  elderly  gentlemen  who 
believe  that  the  stage-coach  era  is  still 
the  climax  of  history.  The  astonishing 
thing,  to  a  recent  sp  kesman  for  age. 
criticising  the  speech  of  a  very  earnest 
young  man  before  a  gathering  of  “solid 
business  men.”  was,  not  that  this  youthful 
thinker  urged  his  hearers  to  adopt  a  cre¬ 
ative  philosophy,  but  rather  that  these 
“solid  business  men”  did  not  refuse  to 
listen  and  stamp  out  of  the  hall  as  soon 
as  they  perceived  what  the  upstart  was 
about. 
The  real  cause  for  astonishment  should 
have  been  to  find  Youth  recovering  its 
poise  so  soon  after  stumbling  for  five 
years  on  the  way  from  the  Pit  digged  for 
it  by  the  gentlemen  who  still  entertain  a 
philosophy  similar  to  that  of  the  owners 
of  the  tavern  and  stage  coach.  If  Youth 
is  able  at  last  to  think  its  way  through 
the  slashing  criticisms  of  society,  govern¬ 
ment,  religion,  art,  science  and  economics 
which  were  the  fruit  of  its  first  dis¬ 
illusionment,  and  if  it  is  now  becoming 
the  contributor  again  rather  than  the  de¬ 
vastating  cynic — that  ought  to  be  con¬ 
sidered  one  of  the  most  important  happen¬ 
ings  in  half  a  decade. 
For  neither  in  our  social  nor  our  po¬ 
litical.  our  material  nor  our  spiritual  life, 
can  we  get  along  without  Youth.  What 
it  has  to  offer  by  way  of  suggestion,  cour¬ 
age  for  experiment,  and  vision,  has  en¬ 
abled  society  to  escape  utter  ruin  count¬ 
less  times  already.  Upon  Youth  has 
fallen  the  brunt  of  our  elders’  errors.  It 
was  Youth  who  went  into  the  breach  in 
1914,  not  the  “practical  realists”  who  had 
shunted  nations  to  that  crash  of  folly.  So 
it  is  poor  service  to  our  own  hides  to 
turn  him  from  the  gate  when  the  danger 
is  past,  and  to  adopt  a  lofty  attitude  of 
denial  toward  his  right  to  be  heard  and 
pondered — because  some  of  the  audience 
hannen  to  be  wedded  to  the  past. 
Youth  is  the  stream  of  the  new,  wash¬ 
ing  against  the  rocks  of  the  habitual  and 
the  old.  It  floods  in  a  continual  current 
of  enthusiasms,  of  joy  in  existence,  of 
hope,  of  fine  expectation,  of  sharp  aware¬ 
ness  of  evil  and  injustice,  of  headlong  am¬ 
bition  to  reap  harvests  that  seem  possible. 
Youth  is  the  idealist.  It  sees  what  may 
be  builded  out  of  what  is.  It  is  the  im¬ 
petuous  engineer,  knocking  at  the  gates 
of  thought,  clamoring  to  be  let  in.  It  is 
progress,  change,  alteration,  eternal  striv¬ 
ing  ahead,  and  if  it  is  inclined  to  trail  off 
the  discussion  sometimes  into  poppycock, 
it  has.  still,  the  seeds  of  vitality.  It  is 
that  part  of  life  which  is  irrepressible 
growth. 
A—'  is  the  half-way  house,  where  ex¬ 
perience  fructifies  into  caution.  The  aloe 
has  bloomed,  but  the  fruit  may  be  mellow¬ 
ing.  Age  has  met  disillusion  and  .knows 
the  garb  of  that  foeman.  It  has  pushed 
possibilities  to  the  limit,  and  feels  ready 
to  cry  halt,  that  it  may  consolidate  its 
winnings.  Crabbed  only  when  defeat  has 
embittered  it,  or  when  fear  has  driven 
out  generosity  and  implanted  greed,  it 
represents  the  realities  which  to  Youth 
are  still  touched  with  haze. 
But  Age  is  no  practical  realist  when 
it  deadens  its  ears  to  the  news  which  the 
new  generation  has  to  tell  it.  To  set 
oneself  against  the  idealist  merely  because 
of  a  constitutional  hatred  for  change,  is 
to  prophesv  one’s  own  defeat.  Hatred 
for  change  is  not  a  qualification  of  the 
practical  realist.  Ilis  storv  is  not  summed 
up  in  the  lines  on  the  tombstone  where 
those  two  English  soldiers  lie  buried,  in 
Concord : 
“They  came  3.000  miles  and  died,  (o 
keep  the  past  upon  the  throne.”  That, 
rather,  sums  up  the  attitude  of  folk  en¬ 
trenched  in  their  own  dav  ;  folk  who  have 
some  personal  gain  in  keeping  things  as 
they  are,  whether  dividends  from  the 
stage-coach  business  or  from  the  exploi¬ 
tation  of  their  fellow,  people  whose  only 
idea  of  desirable  progress  is  progress 
backward  to  “the  good  old  days”  (where 
it  was  possible  to  get  away  with  more 
than  they  can  today).  The  practical  real¬ 
ist  isn’t  as  foolish.  He  perceives  the  in¬ 
evitable  march  which  is  under  way  in 
human  affairs,  and  plans  for  future  devel¬ 
opments. 
Change  is  everywhere.  It  is  born  into 
the  world  with  our  progeny.  Every  baby 
in  the  cradle  is  a  potential  revolution, 
the  end  of  one  epoch  and  the  beginning 
of  another.  “Let  us  keep  the  keys  from 
the  children.”  cries  a  woman  novelist. 
Folly!  The  children  are  born  with  the 
keys  in  their  possession— brain.  And  if 
they  move  to  the  next  village  and  build 
up  a  lure  there  to  draw  half  of  our  local 
populace,  are  we  the  gainers? 
Change  will  not  be  denied  any  more 
than  Youth,  its  eternal  symbol.  Least 
of  all  by  any  township  vote  lined  up 
at  behest  of  operators  of  stage-coach  ideas, 
though  that  vote  be  ever  so  unanimous. 
The  ballot  was  taken  long  ago  in  this 
conflict,  when  Prometheus  defied  Heaven 
and  brought  light  to  men ;  earlier,  even, 
when  tin  Divine  Idea  became  creative 
and  the  world  emerged  from  “chaos  and 
old  night.” 
So  that,  despite  the  disservice  the  poet 
has  done  us  b'-  hinting  otherwise.  Crabbed 
Age  and  Youth  not  only  must  dwell  to¬ 
gether.  More,  they  must  lend  ear  to  one 
another.  They  are  the  two  elements  of 
human  life  in  our  social  Township;  power 
and  form,  idealism  and  reality.  They  are 
equal  halves  of  being,  parts  that  belong 
together.  Divided,  they  send  civilization 
either  lunatic  or  limning  through  the 
slime  bogs  of  greed.  Joined,  they  prom¬ 
ise  possible  victory. 
Why  not  have  each  quest  the  other  out. 
then,  with  mutual  respect  and  tolerance? 
Why  should  not  each  give  the  other  fair 
hearing,  seeking  what  contribution  the 
olher  may  have,  to  make  life  more  nearly 
what  it  might  be:  a  harmonious  progress 
to  co-operative  effort  and  courageous  in¬ 
quiry? 
Here  are  a  pair  of  "Buckeye  babies”  with  squashes,  for  which  we  have  been  at  a  loss 
to  find  a  name  until  we  saw  in  a  recent  number  of  The  R.  N.-Y.  a  picture  of  Abys¬ 
sinian  squash.  We  would  like  to  know  if  these  of  ours  belong  to  this  variety  and 
more  about  the  origin  and  habits  of  the  Abyssinian  squash.  These  we  have  were 
raised  from  seed  given  us  under  the  name  of  "banana  squash,”  and  we  have  been  told 
they  are  very  difficult  to  raise  about  here.  We  did  not  find  them  so  this  year,  and 
raised  six  this  size  from  two  hills  planted  and  cared  for  as  the  common  garden  varie¬ 
ties.  Those  we  raised  are  smooth-skinned,  deep  orange  when  fully  ripe,  meat  about 
two  inches  thick  and  rind  as  thin  as  paper.  When  cooked  it  becomes  tender  much 
quicker  than  most  squash  and  is  exceptionally  smooth  and  rich.  It  seems  to  us  a 
most  desirable  variety  if  adaptable  to  our  climate  and  soil. — e.  e.  lloyd,  Ohio. 
