588 
7ht  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
April  14,  1923 
All  Sorts 
f  t  1  _ 
Getting  Under  the  Potato  Skin 
On  page  484  we  printed  a  note  stating 
how  G.  F.  Beardsley  of  Michigan  put  a 
note  in  a  potato  and  sent  it  to  market. 
Beardsley  got  24  cents  a  bushel,  and  the 
woman  who  bought  the  potatoes  paid 
$1.20.  'What  puzzled  us  was  the  way  this 
note  was  hidden  in  the  tuber.  We  know 
now,  for  this  question  has  had  a  wide 
response.  First  comes  a  note  from  one 
of  Mi*.  Beardsley’s  neighbors: 
You  seem  to  question  the  possibility  of 
Mr.  Beardsley’s  getting  a  note  under  the 
skin  of  his  potato.  I  am  well  acquainted 
with  the  Beardsleys.  Yesterday  I  was 
talking  with  a  member  of  t he  family. 
They  simply  bored  a  hole  in  the  potato, 
put  in  the  note,  fitted  a  piece  of  potato 
to  the  hole,  pegged  it  fast,  and  the  trick 
was  done.  They  have  received  many  let¬ 
ters  from  different  parts  of  the  country 
regarding  their  potatoes. 
JAMES  H.  STEERE. 
Several  of  our  people  have  sent  us  po¬ 
tatoes  showing  just  how  these  notes  are 
inserted.  One  of  them  is  shown  on  this 
page.  This  potato  is  sent  by  II.  L.  Ilurff 
of  New  Jersey,  who  says : 
I  am  sending  you  b.v  parcel  post  a 
small  potato.  Please  examine  it  and 
you  will  see  that  G.  F.  Beardsley  could 
easily  put  a  note  in  a  potato,  and  as  you 
state  that  putting  a  note  under  the  skin 
of  a  potato  is  a  little  strong  for  you, 
I  thought  I  would  show  you  how  easily 
it  can  be  done.  While  this  one  is  not 
very  neatly  done,  it  shows  it  can  be  done, 
and  I  have  done  the  same  thing  more  than 
once.  Got  an  answer  once,  too,  but  think 
best  not  to  tell  you  now  what  was  in  it. 
Mr.  Beardsley  got  more  than  I  did  two 
years  ago.  My  commission  merchant  re¬ 
turned  me  10c  a  basket  for  cabbage.  12 
heads  in  a  basket.  My  daughter,  who 
lives  in  Philadelphia,  paid  lOc  for  one 
head  of  the  same  size  the  same  day.  Who 
got  the  $1.10  on  one  basket? 
A  little  study  of  the  picture  will  show 
how  the  work  is  done.  A  small  piece  of 
the  skin  is  cut  out,  leaving  one  side  at¬ 
tached  to  the  potato  so  it  will  flap  over. 
Then  a  little  hole  is  scooped  out  and  the 
note  pushed  down  in.  as  shown  in  the 
picture.  You  will  notice  at  the  upper 
sides  of  this  little  hole  several  wooden 
pegs  or  points  of  toothpicks.  They  are 
used  to  peg  the  top  down  when  it  is  put 
back  over  the  hole,  and  these  pegs,  being 
so  nearly  the  color  of  the  potato,  are 
skillfully  hidden  so  that  a  very  neat  job 
is  done.  In  some  cases  these  pegs  would 
not  be  noticed  until  someone  tried  to  peel 
the  potato.  Several  of.  these  potatoes 
have  been  sent  us.  We  understand  that 
thousands  of  them  have  been  “noted”  in 
this  manner  and  sent  on  their  way  to 
market.  The  response  from  buyers  has 
been  good.  The  suggestion  has  been  made 
that  under  the  Federal  laws  this  might  be 
called  a  technical  violation  of  the  rules 
against  “adulteration,”  but  that  is  not 
very  likely  to  happen.  Our  younger  readers 
do  not  realize  that  The  It.  X.-Y.  started 
this  plan  years  ago.  We  first  suggested 
putting  such  notes  inside  dressed  turkeys. 
Then  the  habit  spread  to  other  produce, 
and  it  has  had  much  to  do  in  making 
buyers  understand  the  spread  between  the 
farm  and  the  consumer.  A  good  edu¬ 
cator — keep  it  up. 
they  become  a  nuisance  to  neighbors,  and 
hens  in  flower  and  kitchen  gardens  are 
something  more  than  a  nuisance.  So  far 
as  the  law  stands,  a  trespassing  hen 
would  rank  the  same  as  trespassing  ele¬ 
phant  or  horse,  except,  of  course,  that 
she  "would  do  less  damage. 
There  is  no  law  by  which  you  can 
compel  a  man  to  keep  his  hens  at  home, 
and  you  seem  to  have  done  more  than 
your  part  in  fencing  the  hens  out.  Le¬ 
gally  you  can  bring  suit  against  your 
neighbors  for  damages,  but  it  is  hard  to 
state  the  exact  damage  done  by  a  hen's 
claw.  In  many  cases  the  aggrieved  party 
has  put  up  a  henhouse  or  yard ;  he  en¬ 
tices  these  wandering  hens  into  the  en¬ 
closure,  and  then  fastens  them  there 
The  owner  of  the  hens  cannot  come  and 
take  them  away  without  being  guilty  of 
trespassing,  and  generally  after  a  few 
days  he  is  willing  to  settle  and  agree  to 
keep  his  bens  at  home.  This  plan  might 
work  in  the  Spring,  when  hens  are  lay¬ 
ing;  but,  or  course,  it  would  be  merely 
an  expense  in  the  Fall  when  tkore  are 
few-,  if  any,  eggs.  In  some  cases  the 
how  infuriating  it  is  for  a  man  to  plant 
and  care  for  a  nice  garden  of  flowers  or 
vegetables,  and  then  have  these  wandering 
hens  come  and  scratch  and  burrow  in 
your  choicest  flower  bed  until  they  ruin 
the  whole  thing.  It  seems  to  us  at  times 
as  though  it  is  impossible  for  any  human 
being  to  be  a  Christian  gentleman  and 
let  his  hens  run  at  large  over  his  neigh¬ 
bor’s  property. 
Th«  Ox  Team  Express 
Mr.  Berrang  and  his  ox  team  express 
attract  attention  wherever  they  go.  A 
man  in  Missouri  wrote  his  local  paper 
about  Mr.  Berrang.  This  paper  went  to 
Colorado  Springs,  and  a  paper  there 
printed  the  following.  They  have  the 
name  “Berkang” — but  “what’s  in  a 
name,”  anyway? 
J.  C.  Berkang,  who  is  spending  the 
Winter  down  at  Denver  (it  is  down 
from  Colorado  Springs)  writes  interest¬ 
ingly  in  a  New  York  paper  of  his  trip 
out  to  this  region  last  Fall  behind  an  ox 
train.  He  is  going  on  to  the  coast.  Now, 
he’ll  miss  something  if  he  fails  to  come 
up  to  the  Springs.  (It  is  up  to  the 
Springs.)  Berkaug  refers  to  Denver  as 
the  mile-high  city.  We’ll  remind  Berkang 
that  Colorado  Springs  is  only  75S  feet 
higher  up  yet  (as  the  German  might  say), 
and  about  70  miles  across  between  towns. 
You  drive  these  oxen  on  up  here,  Ber¬ 
kang.  and  take  a  spin  up  and  around 
How  tlic  Potato  Is  Made  a  Messenger 
A  picture  of  an  old  “one-horse  tavern”  in  Schoharie  Co.,  N.  Y.  There  was  a  time 
when  this  house  was  the  center  of  community  life.  It  ran  down  hill  when  the  stage 
coach  stopped.  Small  use  for  it  now  in  this  age  of  cars  and  gas  engines.  Youth  has 
little  respect  for  it,  but  age  can  remember  earlier  days.  Something  sad  about  the  old 
house.  If  it  could  talk,  what  a  story  it  could  tell.  But  who,  in  this  busy  age,  would 
stop  to  listen? 
Where  Is  My  Wandering  Hen? 
For  a  number  of  years  I  have  been 
bothered  a"  lot  with  my  neighbors’  chick¬ 
ens.  and  this  year  they  are  no  exception 
to  the  rule.  They  have  started  in  strong, 
digging  in  the  pansy  beds,  cold  frames, 
■and  tearing  down  the  compost  heaps. 
There  is  a  good  woven"  wire  fence  on  our 
line,  erected  by  myself  eight -  years  ago, 
whic-h  is  practically  chicken-probf,  but 
they  come  around  the  end  on  the  road 
side  and  fly  over  the  top.  The  neighbors 
on  the  other  side  are  keeping  chickens 
this  year,  and  letting  them  run  also,  and 
;  they  generally  head  this  way.  There  is 
|  no  fence  on  this  side  of  my  property. 
jThe  neighbor  first  mentioned  is  a  farmer; 
I  the  last  named  only  have  a  house  and  lot. 
'Is  there  any  New  Jersey  law  that  applies 
in  a  ease  of  this  nature?  Will  it  be 
necessary  for  me  to  fence  these  pests  ant, 
or  have  I  got  a  right  to  warn  them  to 
keep  their  live  stock  at  home?  For  three 
years  we  kept  chickens,  but  always  in  a 
yard.  They  never  ran  anywhere,  let 
alone  on  some  one’s  else  property. 
,  New  Jersey.  J.  W.  S. 
This  hen  trespassing  does  more  to 
break  up  neighborhood  friendship  than 
anything  else  which  can  happen  in  the 
Spring.  We  probably  have  500  letters 
much  like  the  above,  and  it  is  hard  to 
give  definite  advice. 
Of  course,  no  mau  has  any  business  to 
allow  his  hens  to  run  at  large  so  that 
owner  of  the  garden  becomes  so  desperate 
that  he  goes  to  extreme  measures.  The 
plan  is  to  notify  the  owner  of  the  hens, 
in  writing,  that  unless  he  keeps  his  hens 
at  home  they  will  be  shot.  If  they  per¬ 
sist '  in  coming  after  that  warning,  you 
must  live  up  to  your  promise  and  shoot 
the  hens,  when  you  can  prove  that  they 
are  on  your  premises ;  after  shooting 
them,*  pick  up  the  dead  hens  and  throw 
them  over  the  fence  upou  their  owner’s 
property.  He  has  recourse  to  two  reme¬ 
dies.  If  he  is  a  larger  man  than  you, 
he  can  invite  you  out  into  the  road  to 
settle  it,  man  to  man  ;  if  he  doesn’t  want 
to  do  that,  he  can  sue  you  for  the  value 
of  the  hens,  and  you  can  bring  counter¬ 
suit  for  damages.  Of  course,  this  is  the 
last  resort,  although  it  is  generally  effec¬ 
tive.  It  seems  to  us  to  be  true  that  some 
men  will  not  realize  their  obligations  to 
their  neighbors  until  that,  obligation  is 
shot  into  their  hens. 
We  hesitate  to  make  any  such  sugges¬ 
tion  ;  but  we  know  from  sad  experience 
Fike’s  Peak,  a  reach  of  about  18  miles 
up  yet  again.  You’ll  have  some  fine 
thrills,  especially  those  oxen.  It  might 
cause  you  a  little  quakiness  when  you 
reach  the  top  aud  the  oxen  might  have 
some  nosebleed,  but  no  other  hurt.  There 
will  be  an  interesting  page  missing  from 
your  diary  if  you  fail  to  drive  “them 
steers”  on  up  here,  and  up  the  Peak ; 
also  we’ll  better  hope  you  bon  trip  on 
to  the  Pacific. 
The  Original  “Mary”  and  Her  Lamb 
“Mary  had  a  little  lamb, 
Its  fleece  was  white  as  snow, 
And  everywhere  that  Mary  went, 
The  lamb  was  sure  to  go.” 
It  would  be  a  rather  poor  specimen  of 
an  American  who  would  stand  up  and 
admit  that  he  never  heard  that  poem. 
Possibly  parts  of  the  Declaration  of  In¬ 
dependence  have  had  a  wider  circulation 
in  print,  but  Mary  aud  her  lamb  are 
known  everywhere.  But  was  there  ever  a 
“Mary,”  and  did  she  own  a  lamb,  or  is  it 
all  imagination,  including  the  snow-white 
fleece?  This  matters  seems  to  be  settled 
by  Frank  Winslow  Sawyer  of  Providence, 
R.  I.,  who  recently  told  the  true  story 
of  his  aunt,  Mary  E.  Sawyer,  and  her 
lamb.  Mary  Sawyer  was  born  in  1806, 
and  this  is  her  story : 
“I  was  always  very  fond  of  animals. 
Due  cold,  bleak  March  morning  I  went 
out  with  father  to  the  barn  and  found 
two  lambs  that  had  been  born  in  the 
night.  One  of  them  had  been  forsaken 
by  its  mother,  and  through  neglect  was 
about  dead  from  hunger  and  cold.  I 
teased  father  to  let  me  take  it  into  the 
house,  and  then  worked  upon  mother’s 
sympathies.  She  got  it  catnip  tea  and  I 
kept  it  warm  by  wrapping  it  in  an  old 
garment  and  holding  it  in  my  arms  by 
the  fireside.  All  day  long  I  nursed  the 
lamb,  aud  sat  up  all  night  to  be  sure  that 
it  was  kept  warm.  In  the  morning,  to 
my  girlish  delight,  it  was  able  to  stand; 
then  it  improved  rapidly,  learned  to  drink 
milk,  and  became  a  pet,  following  me 
anywhere  if  I  only  called  it. 
“The  fleece  of  the  lamb  was  of  the 
finest  and  whitest,  and  I  would  comb  it 
and  tie  it  with  bright  ribbons  and  dress  it 
up  with  pantalettes  aud  a  shawl.  The 
day  the  lamb  went  to  school  I  hadn’t  seen 
her  previous  tei  starting  off,  and  so  I 
called.  Soon  I  heard  a  faint  bleating  way 
down  the  field,  and  I  knew  that  my  pet 
was  coming  -to  meet  me.  My  brother, 
Nathaniel,  who  was  with  me,  said :  ‘Let’s 
take  the  lamb  to  school  with  us.’  I 
thought  it  would  be  a  good  idea,  and  so 
let  her  follow  right  along  after  me.  When 
I  arrived  at.  school  I  put  the  lamb  under 
my  desk  with  a  blanket,  where  it  quietly 
stayed  until  I  was  called  upon  to  go  to 
the  platform  to  recite.  Then  there  was  a 
clatter,  clatter  on  the  flo«r  as  the  lamb 
trotted  after  me.  The  teacher  laughed 
outright,  and,  of  course,  all  the  children 
giggled.  I  took  the  lamb  out  and  put  it 
in  the  shed  until  noon,  w7hen  it  followed 
me  home.” 
But  Mary  did  not  write  the  immortal 
poem.  That  was  written  by  a  young  man 
named  John  Roulston,  who  was  fitting, 
himself  for  college.  Mary  followed  the 
usual  course  of  Yankee  girls.  She  taught 
school  awhile,  then  married  a  man  named 
Tyler  and  became  the  matron  of  an  in¬ 
sane  asylum  in  Massachusetts. 
And  the  lamb?  It  was  killed  by  a  cow, 
probably  one  of  those  sharp-horned  Devons 
that  were  formerly  so  common  in  New 
England.  The  pet  lamb  danced  about 
the  barnyard,  and  this  cow,  with  one 
thrust  of  her  horns,  killed  the  little  thing. 
The  Tobacco  Cure  for  Worms 
Many  of  our  poultrymen  are  writing 
for  information  about  the  tobacco  treat¬ 
ment  for  worms  in  chickens.  We  have 
frequently  given  this,  but.  there  is  so  much 
demand  for  it  that  the  information  is  re¬ 
peated. 
The  great  trouble  comes  from  round 
worms,  and  these  are  quite  frequently 
found  in  hens.  The  tobacco  treatment 
consists  of  steeping  1  lb.  of  finely  cut  to¬ 
bacco  stems  for  two  hours  in  water 
enough  to  fully  cover  it.  The  stems  must 
he  cut  fine  to  begin  with.  This  steeping 
will  take  much  of  the  soluble  parts  of  the 
stems  out  of  it.  After  two  hours  of  soak¬ 
ing,  add  the  liquor  and  what  is  left  of  the 
stems  to  four  quarts  of  mash.  The  birds 
should  be  kept  fasting  for  a  day  before 
this  mash  is  fed.  The  quantity  here  given 
should  be  fed  to  100  fowls,  preferably  in 
the  middle  of  the  afternoon.  A  few  hours 
after  feeding  the  tobacco  mash,  1  lb.  of 
Epsom  salts  should  be  dissolved  in  a 
moist  mash  and  fed  to  these  birds’ — about 
three  quarts  of  mash  being  given,  and 
care  should  be  taken  to  see  that  each  bird 
gets  a  fair  share.  The  expelled  worms 
will  soou  be  seen  iu  the  droppings,  and 
these  should  be  removed  or  disinfected  at 
once,  or  else  the  birds  will  probably  be 
troubled  again  in  the  same  way. 
The  amount  of  tobacco  here  given  is 
sufficient  for  100  birds,  and  a  greater  or 
less  number  should  receive  proportionate 
amounts  of  the  tobacco.  This  treatment 
has  given  good  satisfaction  in  most  cases, 
and  we  would  advise  its  use  whenever  it 
is  evident  that  worms  are  troubling  the 
hens. 
“Water  Worms” 
The  note  on  page  4S0  about  “water 
worms,”  must  refer  to  what  we  have  in 
wells  in  Illinois.  We  have  a  white,  many¬ 
legged  “Varmint”  that  Corresponds  to 
that  description  that  is  found  in  all  wells, 
deep  and  shallow,  dug  and  bored.  They 
are  not  from  any  open  water,  but  live  in 
the  small  underground  veins  of  water 
I  have  seen  them  in  the  wells  of  a  section 
of  Illinois  well  over  100  miles  in  length 
and  breadth,  so  they  are  general.  We 
think  nothing  of  them  when  one  comes 
up  in  the  bucket  once  every  day  or  two. 
I  have  seen  people  bite  them  up,  as  I 
have  also  done.  They  have  a  woody 
taste.  Once  in  a  while  I  see  a  pump  with 
a  strainer  over  the  spout  to  catch  them, 
but  most  people  care  little  about  them. 
Illinois.  I.  L.  SEARS, 
