996 
Iht  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
Hope  Farm  Notes 
I  came  home  the  other  night  to  find  a 
group  of  the  children  out  by  the  wood- 
pile,  apparently  engaged  in  some  unusual 
occupation.  Some  years  ago  we  had  the 
backyard  paved  with  field  stones.  It  was 
always  muddy  in  soft  weather,  and  the 
best  of  doormats  will  not  keep  the  mud 
off  children’s  shoes.  A  clump  of  Sweet 
clover  started  growing  among  these 
stones,  and  I  have  let  it  seed  each  year, 
to  show  how  this  plant  will  grow  under 
hard  conditions.  It  is  now  nearly  shoul¬ 
der  high,  and  makes  a  thick  screen.  The 
children  were  behind  it,  and  the  occasion 
seemed  important.  I  thought  as  I  looked 
at  that  group  that  if  wishes  were  horses 
Hope  Farm  would  make  a  great  cavalry 
charge  upon  the  hall  of  fame.  The  world 
lies  before  these  children,  and  they  all 
have  large  ideas  as  to  the  places  they  are 
to  fill  in  the  future.  One  of  the  boys 
hopes  to  be  a  great  artist  some  day.  An¬ 
other  is  fitting  for  an  engineer’s  work. 
Very  likely  he  hopes  to  leave  some  great 
impossible  bridge  or  some  other  engineer¬ 
ing  feat  behind  him  as  a  monument.  An¬ 
other  seems  to  think  he  would  like  to 
make  a  small  fortune  as  a  ball  player, 
and  then  settle  down  as  a  merchant  or 
salesman.  The  Japanese  boy  evidently 
intends  to  be  a  mechanic.  The  oldest 
girl  wants  to  be  a  missionary,  while  the 
younger  one  has  an  ambition  to  he  a 
trained  nurse.  Little  Rose  thinks  she 
will  be  a  stenographer,  while  Rita,  as 
tar  as  heard  from,  concludes  very  sensibly 
that  she  will  “keep  house.” 
*  *  *  4c  * 
I  suppose  most  ambitious  children  have 
these  dreams  of  what  they  will  do  when 
they  grow  tip.  I  will  leave  it  for  you  to 
say  how  far  such  plans  are  worked  out 
in  actual  life.  I  wonder  sometimes  if 
the  child  of  today  will  have  a  fairer 
chance  to  work  out  his  dreams  than  we 
had  50  years  ago.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
not.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  tendency  of 
education  and  industry  is  toward  what  I 
may  call  the  “factory  system”;  that  is,  an 
over-organized  state  of  society.  In  all 
industries,  from  farming  to  shoemaking, 
workers  are  divided  into  two  great  classes 
— natural  and  manufactured.  I  think  we 
all  understand  the  difference  between  a 
natural  farmer  and  one  who  has  been 
manufactured  by  putting  together  agri¬ 
cultural  education,  capital  and  an  idea 
that  he  would  like  to  run  a  farm.  In  the 
old  days  I  think  the  boys  had  a  better 
chance  to  follow  out  their  instinct  for 
some  certain  line  of  work.  As  for  the 
girls,  in  those  days  there  was  little  for 
them  to  do  except  teach  school  or  get 
married.  Now  things  are  so  fully  organ¬ 
ized  that  the  great  majority  of  boys  and 
girls  can  only  hope  to  be  an  unseen  cog 
in  a  great  machine.  They  are  useful  and 
necessary,  but  before  many  years  the 
machine  grinds  out  about  all  this  individ¬ 
uality  they  ever  had.  As  I  see  it  coming, 
farming  or  some  of  its  branches  will  be 
about  the  only  business  which  offers  am¬ 
bitious  young  people  a  fair  chance  to  de¬ 
velop  originality  and  self-independence. 
*  *  *  *  $ 
If  you  really  think  that,  how  does  it 
happen  that  of  all  these  eight  children 
not  one  expresses  a  desire  to  be  a  farmer? 
I  shall  have  to  answer  frankly  that  I  do 
not  know.  We  have  never  tried  to  influ¬ 
ence  the  children  toward  any  particular 
line  of  work.  Like  most  women.  Mother 
has  felt  that  she  would  like  to  have  one 
or  more  of  her  children  take  up  some 
church  or  missionary  work.  As  for  me, 
I  have  made  no  effort  to  divert  their 
minds  toward  any  particular  occupation. 
I  think  all  children  who  are  worth  rais¬ 
ing  come  into  the  world  with  some  gen¬ 
eral  bent  of  mind.  If  you  can  discover 
early  in  life  what  that  inclination  is,  I 
think  it  wise  to  encourage  them  to  follow 
it  out.  All  children  should  grow  up  with 
a  clear-cut  understanding  of  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  right  and  wrong,  seiwice 
and  selfishness,  patriotism  and  meanness, 
but.  it  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  make  them 
understand  it.  Some  of  the  meanest  peo¬ 
ple  I  know  were  brought  up  under  the 
strictest,  form  of  religious  observance. 
The  natural  instincts  of  these  children 
were  repressed.  As  soon  as  they  got  out 
in  the  world  by  themselves  human  na¬ 
ture  asserted  itself,  and  acted  like  water. 
Either  under  high  heat  or  intense  cold  it 
will  expand  and  break  the  bonds.  My 
belief  is  that  some  of  my  children  will 
take  their  run  against  the  world  and 
finally  conclude  that  the  old  farm  looks 
well  after  all.  They  will  be  more  con¬ 
tented  on  the  farm  if  they  try  their  wings 
at  something  else.  As  for  saying  that  a 
boy  must  be  a  farmer,  or  that  a  girl  must 
marry  a  farmer,  regardless  of  their  nat¬ 
ural  inclination — “there  is  nothing  to 
it !” 
*  *  *  *  * 
But  I  have  not  told  you  what  these 
children  were  doing.  The  engineer  was 
turning  the  crank,  the  missionary  was 
standing  by,  holding  a  big  spoon ;  the 
nurse  looked  wisely  on,  the  typewriter 
had  been  licking  the  spoon,  and  the  Jap¬ 
anese  boy  was  pounding  ice  with  bis 
hatchet.  The  dog  lay  near,  with  his 
mouth  open.  The  Jersey  cow  stood  out 
by  the  shed,  nodding  her  head  as  if  to 
say  “That’s  me ;  I  thank  you  !” 
You  have  guessed  it — they  were  mak: 
ing  ice  cream.  Whenever  things  look  a 
little  dull  and  drab  and  there  is  danger 
of  an  explosion,  our  folks  find  it  helpful 
to  get  out  the  freezer  and  cool  off  the 
trouble.  The  children  make  a  group  job 
of  it.  Just  now  the  drought  is  burning 
us  up.  There  have  been  only  two  or 
three  light  showers  since  May,  and  the 
soil  is  burning  and  baking.  Corn  is  be¬ 
ginning  to  curl  up,  potatoes  do  not  grow7, 
and  apples  begin  to  drop.  All  these 
things  need  rain,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  have  had  ideal  hay  weather,  and  never 
harvested  our  crop  in  better  shape.  On 
our  heavier  soil  where  organic  matter 
has  been  plowed  in  we  might  stand  it  a 
little  longer,  but  on  the  lighter  sands 
and  loams  this  drought  will  mean  death  if 
it  is  kept  up  much  longer.  So  this  seems 
to  be  one  of  these  occasion  when  a  good 
dish  of  ice  cream  will  help  out.  The  mis¬ 
sionary  mixed  the  ingredients,  the  nurse 
looked  on  and  gave  it  a  certificate  of 
health.  Little  Rose  licked  the  spoon  and 
found  it  good — all  had  a  hand  in  it. 
They  had  it  all  done  by  supper  time,  and 
packed  it  away  in  ice.  It  was  a  hot 
night,  and  we  were  all  wmrrned  up.  After 
supper  I  hoed  a  few  rows  of  strawberries, 
the  boys  practiced  baseball  on  the  lawn, 
and  the  girl's  cleaned  up  the  dishes  and 
played  tennis.  So  that  when  darkness 
came  and  daylight  saving  tried  to  make 
the  clocks  fool  us  into  thinking  it  was 
bedtime,  we  sat  on  the  porch  and  opened 
the  freezer.  That  cream  wras  good.  It 
went  to  the  right  spot,  and  we  all  felt 
better  for  it — better  "physically,  mentally 
and  morally.”  Some  of  you  may  be 
shocked  at  the  suggestion  that  an  ice 
cream  freezer  can  affect  the  morals  of  a 
family.  I  knew  a  woman  once  who  made 
ice  cream  for  her  daughter’s  party.  Every¬ 
one  was  served,  but  they  all  w*aited  until 
grandfather  said  grace.  Then  they  start¬ 
ed  together  and  there  was  a  great  com¬ 
motion.  In  her  great  desire  to  do  it 
right.  Mother  had  put  in  salt  instead  of 
sugar !  You  need  not  tell  me  that  that 
freezer  did  not  affect  the  morals  of  that 
family. 
*  *  *  Sc  * 
After  eating  their  cream,  our  folks  sat 
around,  talking  and  laughing.  They  had 
shaken  off  the  spell  of  old  drought  for  the 
time.  For  some  deaf  people  it  is  worse 
than  misery  to  sit  in  the  dark  when  peo¬ 
ple  all  about  you  are  laughing  and  chat¬ 
ting,  evidently  in  great  enjoyment.  If  it 
were  light  you  might  perhaps  do  a  little 
lip  reading,  but  here  you  are,  near  enough 
to  touch  them,  yet  far  off  in  a  distant 
country.  Unless  you  are  gifted  with 
sound  humor  and  philosophy,  you  begin  to 
feel  that  the  people  about  you  are  laugh¬ 
ing  at  you.  That  is  not  so.  but  it  is  hard 
to  make  the  deaf  believe  it.  As  for  me, 
at  such  times  my  mind  goes  back,  search¬ 
ing  the  leaves  of  memory  to  find  some 
incident  with  which  to  compare  the  pres¬ 
ent.  It  will  be  about  like  this.  Ice 
cream  !  What  does  that  remind  me  of? 
What  was  that  girl's  name?  Helen — 
yes,  yes,  I  remember.  She  married  Cyrus 
Harlow,  and  they  went  back  to  live  on 
the  old  farm  !  Then  it  comes  back  to  me 
clearly,  and  while  the  children  are  laugh¬ 
ing  and  singing.  I  can  go  over  the  old 
story.  There  in  the  dark  I  can  see  it  all 
once  more. 
#  *  *  ❖  ❖ 
I  knew  Cyrus  Harlow  at  the  agricul¬ 
tural  college  40  years  ago.  He  was  what 
you  call  a  natural  farmer,  big  and  strong 
— a  true  farm  product.  His  father  had  a 
good  farm,  and  from  the  cradle  Cyrus 
was  expected  to  follow  Dad  and  run  the 
place.  Father  didn’t  think  much  of  col¬ 
lege  education  ;  in  those  days  it  was  not 
much  of  anything  to  scare  a  farmer,  and 
Cyrus  came  to  college.  Now  it  was  clear 
that  a  big,  strapping,  natural  farmer  like 
Cyrus  ought  to  have  married  some  strong 
and  sensible  farmer’s  daughter.  There 
was  one  right  on  the  next  farm  that  the 
old  folks  had  selected  for  Cyrus.  But 
Whittier  says 
“Love  has  never  known  a  course 
Beyond  its  own  sweet  will.” 
What  did  Cyrus  do  but  fall  in  love 
with  Helen  Bennet,  a  little,  slender  girl, 
just  about  half  his  size.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  a  school  teacher  in  a  small 
town.  She  had  never  lived  on  a  farm 
and  hardly  knew  a  cow  from  a  sheep. 
The  old  folks  made  such  a  time  about,  it 
that  Helen  wanted  to  break  her  engage¬ 
ment,  but  Cyrus  was  stubborn,  and  he 
took  her  off,  pretty  much  as  a  caveman 
would  have  done,  and  married  her.  They 
went  to  live  in  a  small  town,  where  Helen 
taught  school  and  Cyrus  worked  at  a 
trade.  But  a  born  farmer  cannot  be  hap¬ 
py  in  such  a  life,  and  at  home  things  went 
wrong  with  the  old  folks.  The  old  man 
fell  ill  and  lay  for  a  long  time  hovering 
between  life  and  death.  The  doctor  said 
he  never  would  be  able  to  work  again. 
And  mother  begged  Cyrus  and  Helen  to 
come  “home.”  They  went,  but  how7  the 
neighbors  did  laugh  at  this  little  slip  of 
a  school-ma'am  trying  to  fill  the  part  of 
farmer’s  wife  !  For  their  only  conception 
of  such  a  personage  was  one  w7ho  just 
knocked  wrork  down  by  main  strength, 
who  fought  and  struggled  against  useless 
labor,  until  finally  she  gave  way,  beaten 
and  bowed  and  weary.  This  “little  sniff 
of  a  school-teacher”  was  too  much  of  an 
ornament  to  wash  pans  and  churns  and 
scrub  floors  and  help  milk. 
#  *  $  3 '  * 
And  Helen  found  they  were  right.  Two 
weeks  of  effort  showed  her  she  could  not 
do  the  work  as  it  was  being  done.  She 
could  not  lift  those  heavy  pans  of  milk, 
skim  the  cream  by  hand,  churn  in  an  old- 
fashioned  churn  and  carry  out  pails  of 
skim-milk  for  calves.  It  meant  suicide, 
and  she  knew7  it.  So  she  began  to  think 
and  figure.  The  old  man  upstairs  was 
too  sick  to  object,  so  Cyrus  took  the 
money  and  bought  a  separator  at  a  time 
when  it  wras  a  novelty,  and  a  couple  of 
big  ice  cream  freezers.  Helen  w7ent  to 
town  and  induced  her  married  sister  to 
turn  her  spare  room  into  an  “ice  cream 
parlor.”  Instead  of  making  butter  in 
the  old,  laborious  way,  they  made  ice 
cream,  with  Cyrus  and  the  hired  man  to 
do  the  heavy  work.  It  was  good  cream, 
and  the  public  demanded  it.  Then  they 
began  to  make  pot  cheese  out  of  the  skim- 
milk.  It  was  slow  sale  at  first,  but  final¬ 
ly  there  was  a  demand  for  all  they  could 
make.  The  business  kept  growing,  until 
by  the  time  the  old  gentleman  got  down 
again  the  farm  business  was  twfice  what 
it  was  when  he  wras  taken  sick. 
“But  it  ain’t  farming,”  he  said.  “It 
ain’t  farming.” 
Cyrus  and  Helen  built  up  a  great  busi¬ 
ness.  They  handled  milk  for  most  of  the 
neighbors.  But  T  am  thinking  how  Hel¬ 
en  would  have  committed  slow  suicide 
had  she  kept  on  trying  to  lift  big  milk 
pans  and  run  a  heavy  churn.  She  found 
a  farm  job  fitted  to  her  size  and  strength 
and  made  a  success  of  it. 
But  it  appears  that  the  children  have 
scraped  enough  of  the  cream  off  the  bot¬ 
tom  of  the  freezer  to  fill  one  more  dish. 
That  is  for  Mother,  but  that  generous 
lady  put  half  of  it  into  my  dish,  and  we 
sit  in  the  dark  and  enjoy  it  to  the  last 
cooling  drop.  H.  w.  c. 
The  Value  of  Hubam  Clover 
[What  is  the  truth  about  Hubam 
clover?  There  seems  to  be  some  con¬ 
troversy  about  this  matter,  and  wTe  are 
after  the  facts.  There  follows  the  first 
article  on  the  subject,  thers  will  come 
later.] 
July  28,  1923 
I  have  had  Hubam  under  rather  close 
observation  for  a  few  years,  and  although 
further  study  of  the  plant,  together  w7ith 
the  changing  needs  of  agriculture,  may 
change  my  mind  in  the  matter,  I  am  of 
the  opinion  at  the  present  time  that  Hu¬ 
bam  clover  has  a  very  minor  part  to  play 
in  our  cropping  system.  Although  this 
may  be  a  minor  role,  it  is  nevertheless 
splendidly  adapted  to  its  part,  and  we 
should  bear  in  mind  the  possibility  that 
future  conditions  may  bring  it  a  larger 
field  of  usefulness. 
I  am  reminded  of  the  Soy  bean,  a  crop 
which  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  re¬ 
mained  comparatively  little  known  on 
our  farms,  in  spite  of  the  large  publicity 
given  it  by  the  farm  press  and  other 
agricultural  agencies  of  the  country.  The 
last  few  years  have  witnessed  a  most  re¬ 
markable  increase  in  its  utilization,  not 
so  much  because  of  propaganda  as  be¬ 
cause  the  time  was  ripe.  Changing  con¬ 
ditions  have  made  a  place  for  it.  We 
may  see  the  same  thing  happen  to  Hu¬ 
bam. 
Evidence  seems  to  be  accumulated  to 
show  that  as  a  soil  builder  Hubam  is  not 
as  efficient  as  the  old  biennial  white 
Sweet  clover.  Your  acquaintance  with 
the  experiment  station  literature  of  the 
country  makes  it  unnecessary  for  me  to 
review7  the  subject,  except  to  point  out 
that  the  obvious  is  happening ;  the  -fun¬ 
damental  difference  between  the  root  sys¬ 
tems  of  an  annual  and  a  biennial  plant 
as  storage  organs  is  such  as  to  give  the 
biennial  a  great  advantage. 
There  is  a  possibility  that  the  shattered 
seed  of  Hubam  may  lie  in  the  ground 
and  produce  a  volunteer  crop  later  on. 
This  feature  may  be  an  asset  or  a  lia¬ 
bility,  depending  on  circumstances.  Three 
years  ago  w7e  had,  at  the  station,  some 
plots  of  Hubam  located  in  a  Red  clover 
field.  Some  Hubam  seeds  v7ere  shattered. 
The  entire  field  was  plow7ed  and  put  into 
corn.  No  volunteer  Hubam  was  noted  in 
the  corn.  The  corn  ground  w7as  plowed 
and  seeded  to  oats  this  Spring.  At  the 
present  time  the  Hubam  is  as  thick  as 
it  can  stand,  and  until  a  short  time  ago 
was  as  tall  as  the  oats,  and  threatened  to 
become  a  nuisance  at  harvest  time.  We 
have  had  a  month  of  extremely  dry 
weather  locally,  and  this  has  checked  its 
growth  so  that  it  may  not  interfere. 
Our  previous  experiment  with  Hubam 
that  was  seeded  with  oats  as  a  nurse  crop 
w7as  not  so  fortunate.  The  season  v7as 
normal,  and  the  Hubam  made  such  a 
grow7th  that  the  oats  spoiled  in  the  bun¬ 
dles.  Our  present  attitude  towmrds  Hu¬ 
bam  is  one  of  “wmtchful  waiting,”  and 
our  advice  is  to  try  it  on  a  small  scale  at 
first.  L.  E.  THATCHER. 
Ohio  Experiment  Station. 
Trouble  with  Bees 
Our  bees  have  not  been  doing  well  for 
a  few7  years.  They  seem  to  get  weaker 
and  weaker,  and  finally  die,  and  on  open¬ 
ing  hives  are  filled  with  worms  about  an 
inch  long,  usually  in  a  strong  cocoon. 
Can  you  tell  me  what  causes  these,  and 
how7  to  prevent  them.  Our  swarms  do 
not  come  very  early.  Can  I  do  anything 
for  that?  s.  B. 
Virginia. 
It  w7ould  appear  that  the  bee  moth 
worms,  a  regular  pest  where  there  are 
black  bees,  have  got  into  your  colonies. 
If  your  bees  are  blacks  and  the  colonies 
are  not  strong,  the  moth  worm  may  do 
considerable  damage  in  the  combs.  But 
in  modern  beekeeping  the  bee  moth  and 
its  larvfe  do  little  harm.  They  can  be 
very  easily  held  under  control  by  the  in¬ 
troduction  of  Italian  bees,  or  by  keeping 
all  colonies  strong.  In  the  text-books  on 
beekeeping  you  w7ill  find  considerable  in¬ 
formation  on  the  bee  moth. 
There  is  a  possibility  that  you  have 
European  foul  brood  in  your  locality.  It 
is  a  disease  of  the  brood,  and  is  found  in 
several  parts  of  Virginia.  The  same 
treatment  that  applies  to  bee  moth  ap¬ 
plies  to  European  foul  brood.  If  you 
have  a  combination  of  the  two,  or  if  you 
have  either  one  or  the  other,  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  pure  Italian  stock  and  doubling 
up  the  colonies  w7iil  effect  a  cure. 
E.  R.  ROOT. 
Grocer’s  Clerk  :  “Should  I  order 
some  more  fresh  eggs?”  Grocer :  “No, 
we  have  enough  fresh  eggs  in  the  cellar 
to  last  us  a  couple  o’  months.” — The  pro¬ 
gressive  Grocer. 
