The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
1047 
A  Farm  Woman’s  Notes 
One  Day  on  an  Up-state  New  York  Farm 
Self-help. — Our  farm  consists  of  153 
acres,  of  which  20  are  in  wood-lot,  30 
under  cultivation  and  about  35  in  meadow 
and  60  in  pastures.  We  have  always 
considered  it  necessary  to  keep  one  hired 
man  the  year  round,  as  the  milking  dairy 
cows  number  anywhere  from  15  to  25, 
but  like  most  farmers  this  Spring,  a  good 
man  was  not  to  be  had.  So  my  husband, 
since  the  first  of  March,  has  quite  cap¬ 
ably  gone  it  on  his  own  hook,  and  the 
work  seems  to  be  as  well  along  as  if  two 
or  three  hired  Dicks  and  Ilarrys  at  $60 
a  month  and  “findings”  were  on  hand  to 
receive  their  monthly  wages.  We  have 
four  children,  and  the  older  ones  are 
being  brought  up  to  work  and  become 
passably  self-reliant.  My  husband  has 
not  hired  any  outsider  at  all  for  haying 
or  otherwise,  except  half  a  day’s  work 
from  a  man  with  a  two-horse  potato 
planter. 
Haying  Time. — Take  a  typical  haying 
day,  for  instance,  which,  as  it  is  a  “one- 
man”  job  this  Summer,  must  be  rushed 
along  a  little  more  promptly  than  usual. 
The  boss  gets  up  at  5  A.  M.  and  hikes 
to  the  barn  where  a  one  double-unit  milk¬ 
ing  machine  capably  helps  him  at  this 
end  of  the  day.  As  pastures  begin  to 
shorten  he  begins  feeding  silage,  which 
makes  the  chores  longer.  However,  one 
little  chore  which  is  usual  on  many  dairy 
farms  does  not  bother  at  this  one,  and 
that  is  going  after  the  cows.  Our  river 
pasture  is  very  near  the  barns,  and  as  a 
grain  ration  is  fed  the  year  round,  the 
cows  can  be  counted  on  99  times  out  of 
100  to  be  among  those  present  at  chores. 
This  is  a  real  help,  as  all  will  admit. 
The  morning  milking,  although  the  cows’ 
messes  are  considerably  shortening  up 
now,  lasts  until  6  :30  or  a  little  later,  as 
there  are  two  teams  to  be  fed  and  groomed 
and  several  calves  to  be  attended  to.  The 
boss  then  comes  in  for  a  half  hour  at 
breakfast — the  rest  of  us  having  eaten  at 
6  A.  M.; — and  then  hitches  up,  goes  to  the 
shipping  station  with  the  night’s  and 
morning’s  milk,  does  any  grocery-store 
errands  needed,  goes  to  the  blacksmith 
occasionally,  but  on  the  hay-day  of  which 
we  speak,  he  plans  to  be  home  and  at  it 
by  certainly  eight  o’clock. 
Quick  Action. — While  he  is  gone,  the 
two  boys,  aged  nearly_  nine  and  seven 
respectively,  sweep  the  barn  floor,  put  the 
horse  manure  in  the  gutters,  get  down 
bedding  straw — and  then  go  fishing  in 
the  adjoining  river  until  the  hay  is  raked 
up !  At  eight  o’clock,  then,  this  farmer 
on  his  own  is  mowing  or  raking  hay  with 
the  side-delivery  rake.  It  has  been  so 
unusually  dry  so  far  this  Summer  that 
hay  cut,  raked,  and  got  up  all  in  one 
day  has  been  in  better  shape  than  that 
allowed  to  stand  the  customary  48  hours. 
Also,  every  day  has  been  a  hay  day  about, 
which,  with  a  regular  hired  man  on  the 
job,  would  surely  have  driven  the  latter 
crazy,  with  no  let-ups  from  rain  in  which 
to  laze  around.  When  the  day’s  al¬ 
lowance  of  hay  has  been  cut  and  raked, 
or  raked  only,  the  hay-loader — a  new  one 
and  competent — gets  on  the  job  manned 
by  the  eight-year-old  as  driver  and  his 
dad  as  load-maker.  They  will  get  in  six 
or  eight  big  loads,  according  to  how  much 
cutting  and  raking  was  done  first,  of 
course. 
Mowing  Away. — The  hardest  part  of 
haying,  when  you  do  it  all  alone,  is  the 
eternal  mowing  away.  Especially  when 
the  big  hay-loft  gets  pretty  well  filled 
and  each  forkful,  so  to  speak,  has  to  be 
crowded  in  by  the  man  on  the  load.  The 
oldest  child,  our  10-year-old  girl,  drives 
the  second  team  on  the  horse-fork,  while 
her  brother  rests  up  between  loads  as 
driver.  The  latter  is  a  capable  little 
horseman,  and  in  no  wise  takes  after  his 
mother  in,  this  respect,  as  you  may  have 
gleaned  e’er  this  that  I  am  not  repre¬ 
sented  in  our  strenuous  day.  I  help  trans¬ 
plant  our  four  acres  of  cabbage,  riding  the 
planter  beside  myt  husband,  with  the  boy 
as  driver,  and  we  do  the  same  thing  with 
potatoes,  using  the  cabbage  setter  to  drop 
them  with.  But  when  it  comes  to  driv¬ 
ing  one  horse,  let  alone  two,  I  am  one 
grand  total  loss.  If  I  were  able  to  do 
the  raking,  for  instance,  as  most  farm 
women  do,  the  help  would  be  worth  while. 
This  lack  of  capability  on  my  part — the 
fear  of  horses — must  be  because  I  wasn’t 
bred  and  brought  up  on  a  farm. 
Tiie  Noon  Hour. — My  husband  insists 
on  his  hour’s  nooning,  eats  a  leisurely 
meal  to  the  accompaniment  of  an  electric 
fan,  and  all  the  ice  cream  for  dessert  that 
he  can  hold.  With  our  vacuum  freezer 
this  good  food  is  most  easily  made  every 
day  in  haying,  and  we  can  think  of  no 
more  delicious  way  in  which  to  serve 
milk.  Perhaps  it  is  not  necessary  to  add 
that  the  boss  manages  to  sneak  into  the 
house  several  times  through  the  long 
afternoon  for  another  ice-cream  hand-out. 
During  his  hour’s  nooning  my  husband 
enjoys  stretching  out  on  the  couch,  read¬ 
ing  the  morning  paper  and  looking. over 
his  mail.  He  may  even  snooze  for  15 
minutes.  I’ll  say  he  deserves  it. 
The  Afternoon  Rush. — The  afternoon 
is  one  grand  rush  with  the  hay-loader. 
If  much  hay  is  down  chores  are  not 
started  until  seven  o’clock  or  sometimes 
later.  My  husband  keeps  up  his  morale 
the  while  on  ice  cream  and  several  quarts 
of  iced  milk.  The  milking  is  performed 
as  per  morning  when  he  gets  around, 
although  at  other  times  of  year  we  be¬ 
lieve  in  very  regular  hours  for  the  cows. 
The  horses  are  turned  out  to  pasture 
for  the  night,  the  silage  got 'out  for  next 
morning’s  rations,  the  grain  placed  in 
the  mangers,  and  everything  done  in  a 
routine  way  for  the  next  morning's  chores. 
As  soon  as  Tan  has  eaten  his  simple  year- 
round  supper  of  bread  and  milk,  cheese, 
sauce  and  cake — he  will  have  none  of 
your  hot  suppers — we  go  to  bed  with  the 
children  and  chickens — other  people’s 
chickens  rather — and  one  farm  day  is  con¬ 
sidered  more  or  less  done. 
The  Breaking  Point. — It  is  probably 
unnecessary  to  say  that  this  day-after-day 
business  is  too  hard  for  one  man  to  keep 
up.  He  will  surely  pay  for  it  later.  My 
husband  is  33  years  old  and  has  worked 
hard  all  his  life,  but  he  admits  that  he 
can’t  turn  off  the  work  as  easily  as  he 
could  10  years  ago.  Ten  years  from  now, 
if  the  labor  situation  continues  and  we 
try  to  do  as  much  as  has  been  done  here 
in  the  past,  he  won’t  be  able  to  do  but 
the  smallest  part  of  it.  Every  machine, 
whether  human  or  iron,  has  a  definite 
breaking  point. 
Money  Crops. — At  this  place  we  de¬ 
pend  on  Fall  money  crops  to  help  out  the 
.regular  business  of  dairying.  We  have 
four  acres  of  late  cabbage,  some  early 
cabbage  for  roadside  market,  and  three 
or  four  acres  of  early  and  late  potatoes, 
all  of  which  means  constant  application 
with  the  cultivator  and  the  power  sprayer. 
We  have  12  acres  of  silage  corn  to  fill 
two  silos,  and  this  has  to  be  cultivated 
often  on  the  start.  The  eight  or  10  acres 
of  oats  are  no  bother  until  reaping  time. 
The  harvesting  of  the  potatoes  and  cab¬ 
bage  is  a  big  item.  We  have  lately  cut 
our  cabbage  alone,  at  which  I  also  serve, 
but  it  is  a  back-breaking  job  for  two — 
and  one  of  them  a  rather  inefficient 
woman.  When  you  take  into  considera¬ 
tion  the  fact  that  last  year  we  didn’t 
sell  one  ton  of  our  late  cabbage,  the  labor 
and  expense  entering  into  them  is  rather 
breath-taking.  This  year  promises  to  be 
another  drug-year  in  cabbage,  so  the  cows 
will  probably  enjoy  their  fill  of  cabbage 
salad  for  quite  some  time.  We  bet  wrong 
last  year  as  to  laying  them  down,  and 
so  were  aot  in  at  the  sweepstakes  when 
the  vegetables  soared  to  $40  a  ton.  But 
we  did  clear  several  thousand  dollars  on 
the  crop  several  years  ago. 
-  Potatoes. — As  for  potatoes,  I  believe 
that  they  are  going  to  be  reasonably 
high,  if  our  own  crop  is  any  sign.  The 
long  cold  spell  a£  the  critical  setting  time, 
plus  the  continued  drought,  has  done  the 
work  at  this  place,  and  we  doubt  if  we 
dig  our  early  spuds  at  all.  It  seems  bet¬ 
ter  now  to  leave  them  in  the  ground,  let 
them  mature  entirely,  and  dispose  of  them 
late  this  Fall  at  market  price.  We  rax-ely 
store  potatoes,  as  year  in  and  year  out, 
we  make  more  by  selling*  from  the  field, 
especially  as  we  have  a  good  roadside 
market  developed  for  about  all  we  raise. 
The  Farmer’s  Struggle. — So  this  is 
my  story  and  this  is  my  song,  as  it  were. 
If  we  were  in  debt,  if  we  did  not  own  an 
exceptionally  good  farm,  if  we  were  pay¬ 
ing  out  from  $5  to  $7  a  day  for  the  extra 
help  my  husband  needs  so  badly,  it  is 
certain  that  for  the  past  two  years  we 
would  have  gone  under,  or  nearly  under, 
as  so  many  young  farmers  have  done  who 
have  not  accumulated  a  nest  egg  down 
the  years  to  see  them  through  this  critical 
time.  Our  city  friends  would  no  more 
think  they  could  put  in  such  a  day  at 
physical  labor  as  I  have  described  than 
that  they  could  commit  suicide.  Yet 
this  is  the  regular  routine  with  many 
farmers  who,  though  they  may  have  help, 
work  fully  as  hard  as  my  man.  Then,  at 
the  end  of  such  a  back-breaking  year,  not 
to  have  one  penny  of  profit  to  show  for 
it — ah,  there’s  the  rub !  It’s  a  great 
game,  if  you  like  hard  and  cruel  and  long 
fighting  against  too  big  odds.  I  believe 
the  average  back-to-the-lander  is  doomed 
before  he  starts.  There  is  a  surplus  of 
farmers  in  this  country,  let  as  many  as 
will  go  back  in  disgust  to  the  cities.  *  We 
insist  on  working  for  nothing,  from  early 
to  late,  and  unlike  any  other  industry, 
every  farmer  is  in  fierce  competition  with 
his  brother-farmer  for  a  bare  living  and 
a  mended  roof  over  his  head.  Under  such 
conditions  it  is  not  strange  that  we  have 
nothing  to  show  for  our  pains  but  a  bad 
headache  and  a  rusty  disposition. 
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