1 150 
T"  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
September  s,  1923 
Hope  Farm  Notes 
^  — .  8° 
move  power 
with  less  wear 
THE  extreme  durability  and  economy  of  Case  trac¬ 
tors  is  due  to  simplicity  of  design,  and  care  taken 
to  reduce  friction.  On  all  sizes,  the  drive  is  direct  to 
both  rear  wheels.  Simple  spur  gears  throughout  avoid 
friction  and  thrust.  The  heat  treated  steel  gears  resist 
wear.  All  shafts  are  unusually  rigid  to  resist  all  strain. 
Teeth  are  cut  to  roll  instead  of  rub  on  one  another, 
and  their  surfaces  are  smooth  and  hard. 
Gear  shafts  are  made  of  unusually  rigid  material,  to  avoid 
springing.  High  grade  roller  bearings  are  used,  firmly  held  in 
accurate  alignment  to  prevent  binding  strains.  Every  gear  and 
bearing  is  unfailingly  lubricated. 
The  whole  train  of  gears,  from  the  crank  shaft  pinion  to  the 
master  gears,  is  tightly  enclosed  to  exclude  dust  and  dirt.  No 
detail  that  can  possibly  reduce  friction  is  overlooked  or  neglected. 
The  result  is  a  tractor  that  outworks  and  outlasts  other  ma¬ 
chines,  making  a  good  investment  for  its  owner.  Write  for  an 
interesting  booklet,  “Better  Farming  with  Better  Tractors.’* 
J.  I.  CASE  THRESHING  MACHINE  COMPANY 
(.Established  1842) 
Dept.  J22  Racine  Wisconsin 
Up  among  the  Connecticut  hills  I  read 
David  Grayson’s  “Great  Possessions”  for 
perhaps  the  fifth  time.  His  sketch  of 
“The  Old  Stone  Mason”  fits  in  well 
with  the  .spirit  of  this  place.  For  all 
about  us,  along  the  roads,  dividing  the 
farms,  are  stone  walls — some  of  them,  I 
should  judge,  at  least  200  years  old.  They 
are  “dry”  walls;  that  is,  built  without 
lime  or  cement;  just  plain  stones  fitted 
together  by  skillful  hands.  Some  of  these 
walls  are  remarkable,  not  only  for  their 
solid  character,  but  for  their  beauty. 
Stones  of  various  colors  and  grains  are 
grouped  exactly  as  a  trained  artist  would 
put  them  together  if  he  were  striving  to 
leave  behind  him  a  monument  to  beauty. 
The  white,  glittering  "silex”  from  Lan¬ 
tern  Hill  has  been  used  with  striking  ef¬ 
fect  in  building  some  of  these  dry  walls. 
They  have  been  held  together  all  these 
years  just  by  the  skill  and  mechanical  in¬ 
stinct  of  the  old  builders.  This  wall¬ 
building  has  now  become  practically  a 
lost  art.  I  suppose  some  stone  walls  are 
now  built,  but  it  will  be  no  disparage¬ 
ment  of  our  modern  stone  masons  to  say 
that  they  would  have  the  job  of  their  life¬ 
time  trying  to  equal  this  enduring  work. 
There  is  one  strong,  beautiful  wall  in  the 
woods  above  us  which  must  be  at  least 
150  years  old.  All  about  it  are  the  ruins 
of  modern  fences.  Kails  have  decayed, 
wire  has  long  since  rusted,  but  the  old 
stone  wall  is  as  solid  and  strong  as  the 
day  it  was  put  up.  It  stands  there  like 
the  solid,  eternal  truth,  unchangeable, 
unbreakable,  ever  on  guard,  silent — repre¬ 
senting  the  great,  enduring  labor  of  hu¬ 
man  hands,  now  dead. 
*  *  *  *  * 
1  remember  how  some  years  ago  1  visit¬ 
ed  the  battlefield  of  Antietam  in  Mary¬ 
land.  In  the  center  of  that  battlefield 
stands  the  most  imposing  monument  1 
have  ever  seen  anywhere.  It  is  sur¬ 
mounted  by  a  noble  figure,  and  on  the 
side  we  read  these  words : 
“Not  for  themselves,  hut  for  their 
con  n  try.” 
There  was  a  good-sized  group  of  us, 
and  I  remember  that  J.  H.  Hale  and  1. 
without  knowing  just  why  Ave  did  it,  took 
off  our  hats  before  that  beautiful  pile  of 
gray  stones.  The  rest  of  the  company 
followed  us.  I  imagine  that  Hale  and  1, 
brought  up  as  we  were,  amid  the  evidence 
of  this  enduring  labor,  came  to  feel  some¬ 
thing  of  what  these  old  wall-builders  did 
"for  their  country.”  For  these  men  put 
the  best  that  was  in  them  into  these 
walls.  They  dug  the  stones  out  of  the 
ground  in  order  that  the  land  could  be 
cleared  so  that  the  race  might  be  fed  and 
clothed.  After  conquering  the  stones 
they  mustered  them  like  an  orderly  army 
into  enduring  walls  to  protect  the  fields 
they  had  once  encumbered,  and  mark  the 
legal,  orderly  rights  of  property.  I  once 
had  a  neighbor  in  New  Jersey  who  had 
lived  on  his  farm  for  nearly  60  years. 
When  I  asked  him  what  he  had  left  to 
show  for  his  labor  he  could  only  point  to 
an  old  stone  wall.  That  amused  our  young¬ 
er  people,  but  I  understood  that  the  wall 
represented  victory — perhaps  the  most 
glorious  thing  in  that  man’s  life.  The 
big  stones  were  originally  tyrants,  fight¬ 
ing  with  him  for  the  right  to  cultivate 
his  fields.  He  conquered  them  and  made 
them  slaves,  drilling  them  like  an  army 
to  stand  guard  on  the  line  of  his  property. 
The  old  man  had  seemed  to  my  children 
like  a  very  common,  grizzled  old  veteran, 
not  very  clean,  with  bleared  eyes  and  to¬ 
bacco-stained  mouth.  He  could  not  be 
any  heroic  figure  to  youth.  Yet  as  he 
stood  by  his  old  wall,  and  I  remem¬ 
bered  how  his  back  and  fingers  had  been 
bent  in  the  struggle  with  stones,  he 
seemed  to  me  like 
“'Some  village  Hampden  who  with  daunt¬ 
less  breast, 
The  little  tyrant  of  his  fields  withstood.” 
I  can  understand  all  that  this  means, 
and  the  feeling  of  it  makes  me  take  off  my 
hat  when  I  pass  that  solid,  beautiful  wall 
in  the  woods  above  our  camp.  My  chil¬ 
dren  wonder  at  it,  shrugging  their  shoul¬ 
ders  a  little.  What  can  there  be  about  a 
pile  of  gray  stones  that  can  provoke  such 
sentiment?  It  was  rheir  unfortunate 
privilege  to  be  born  and  “raised”  in  what 
I  may  call  a  “jazz”  age.  The  hum  of 
machinery  has  been  substituted  for  the 
hymn  of  labor  which  filled  the  air  when 
men  and  women  fought  bare-lianded 
aeainst  the  forces  of  labor  and  overcame 
them. 
*  *  *  *  * 
My  children  are  interested  in  the 
Egyptian  pyramids  and  what  they  stand 
for.  but  as  David  Grayson  says: 
“More  toil  has  gone  into  the  stone 
fences  of  New  England,  free  labor  of  a 
free  people,  than  ever  went  into  the  slave- 
driven  building  of  the  Pyramids  of 
Egypt.”  That  is  it  exactly — free  labor  of 
a  free  people.  You  may  smile  at  their 
labor  now  and  say  that  a  few  strands  of 
barbed  wire  will  beat  these  stone  walls, 
but  you  talk  that  way  because  you  do 
not  get  the  sentiment  and  the  memory 
that  is  built  into  these  old  walls.  Out  in 
the  Western  prairies  men  are  born  and 
grow  up  to  manhood  without  ever  seeing 
a  stone  wall  or  even  a  stone  as  large  as 
your  fist.  They  go  through  life  never 
knowing  what  they  have  missed.  People 
say  the  Yankee  was  cold-blooded  and 
without  sentiment,  but  there  is  more  hon¬ 
est  sentiment  and  patriotic  expression 
packed  away  into  these  old  walls  than  in 
any  other  enduring  farm  work  that  I 
know  of.  They  will  last  longer  than  any 
other  monument  erected  by  farmers. 
Yes,  and  in  every  farm  yard  I  notice 
a  bright  flash  of  color  in  the  little  flower 
garden  where  the  tired  farmer’s  wife,  no 
matter  how  much  she  has  to  do,  expressed 
her  sentiment  and  love  of  beauty  in 
flowers. 
***** 
One  thing  is  sure,  these  old  walls  have 
outlived  many  gates.  The  old  builders 
left  gaps  here  and  there  for  men  and 
teams  to  pass  through.  Sometimes  there 
is  a  “pair  of  bars”  and  sometimes  a 
swinging  gate.  The  ends  of  the  walls 
where  the  road  runs  are  firm  and  solid — 
built  of  square,  well-fitted  stones,  built 
so  compactly  that  it  would  require  a 
battering-ram  to  break  them  down.  And 
these  big  stones  seem  to  apologize  for  the 
gate : 
“We  have  stood  here  and  watched  half 
a  dozen  of  these  man-made  contrivances 
fall  down  and  decay.  Even  the  iron 
rusts  away  before  our  eyes  while  we 
stand  fixed  and  immovable — just  where 
great-grandfather  put  us  and  told  us  to 
stay.  These  modern  contrivances  are 
mere  playthings  —  old  things  are  the 
best !”  Hanging  over  the  gate  which  ad¬ 
mits  us  on  our  road  to  camp  is  a  modern 
sign : 
“If  you  open  this  gate  for  heaven’s  sake 
shut  it.  If  not  for  heaven’s  sake  do  it 
for  my  sake !” 
This  appeal  seems  to  be  very  effective 
for  people  seem  to  take  extra  care  to  shut 
the  gate  after  them.  The  sheep  in  the 
pasture  seem  to  feel  that  there  will  be  no 
chance  for  them  to  break  out.  I  have 
known  sheep  to  hang  around  the  gate  or 
nearby  watching  for  some  careless  hand 
to  leave  the  gate  open,  although  they  are 
just  as  well  off  in  the  pasture  as  they 
ever  would  be  outside,  but  the  sheep  in 
this  pasture  seem  to  feel  that  this  appeal 
is  too  high  for  common  folks,  and  who 
else  will  be  likely  to  seek  these  solitudes? 
*  *  *  *  * 
And  we  have  good  neighbors  among 
these  stone  walls.  The  other  morning  I 
■saw  three  of  them  coming  up  the  road  to 
our  camp.  So  I  went  in  to  tell  our  folks 
that  Mrs.  Caprahircus  and  her  two  chil¬ 
dren  were  coming.  Years  ago  such  a  name 
would  no  doubt  have  made  the  man  of 
the  house  take  down  the  musket  from 
its  place  over  the  door,  but  Connecticut 
has  entertained  people  with  strange 
names  in  recent  years,  and  some  of  these 
names  are  even  on  record  at  the  capitol 
at  Hartford  or  the  great  college  at  New 
Haven.  So  Mrs.  Caprahircus  might  well 
be  some  brunette  from  Italy  or  some 
blonde  from  Hungary  and  one  may  well 
take  off  the  kitchen  apron,  glance  in  the 
mirror  or  even  powder  a  sun-burned  nose 
before  going  to  meet  her.  And  Mrs. 
Caprahircus  with  her  children  came 
slowly  up  to  our  door.  There  she  came — 
a  milk  goat  and  her  two  kids!  They 
came  on  fearlessly,  and  the  children  en¬ 
tertained  them  with  corn  husks,  apple 
parings  and  a  little  sugar.  A  black  cow 
down  by  the  fence  looked  at  Mrs.  Capra- 
hircus  with  no  benevolent  glances.  For 
many  years  the  ancestors  of  this  cow  had 
roamed  these  woods  and  dry  pastures 
providing  milk  and  butter  for ‘the  people. 
Now  comes  this  little  upstart  making 
herself  at.  home  as  if  she  owned  the  place. 
Is  not  this  Yankeeland?  What  right  have 
these  foreigners  with  their  jawbreaking 
names  to  take  jobs  away  from  plain 
Brown  and  Smith  and  .Tones?  But  Mrs. 
Caprahircus  seemed  to  run  true  to  out¬ 
standing  form.  She  took  a  large  bite 
from  a  huckleberry  bush,  and  as  her 
beard  wagged  in  the  chewing  she  seemed 
to  say : 
“See  here  my  black  friend,  you  stand 
there  growling  and  fault-finding.  The 
grass  has  dried  up  and  so  has  your  milk. 
Instead  of  getting  out  and  finding  new 
kinds  of  food,  you  stand  there  and  com¬ 
plain  because  I  get  around  and  make  the 
most  of  my  opportunity.  That  farmer 
has  to  baby  you  along  with  grain  and 
hay  or  you’d  starve  to  death.  Not  me! 
I  get  out  and  eat  brush  and  leaves  and 
twigs  and  manufacture  good  sweet  milk 
out  of  them.  W  hat  are  you  growling 
about?  Your  ancestors  could  make  milk 
out  of  huckleberry  bushes  like  I  can. 
You  are  a  degenerate!  You  stand  by  the 
bars  and  wait  for  somebody  to  come  and 
feed  you.  I  get  out  and  live  on  the  brush. 
You  wait  for  opportunity.  I  go  out  and 
chew  it  up.  You  make  me  very  tired.” 
The  milk  goat  is  coming.  People  are 
taking  her  along  on  excursions  or  vaca¬ 
tions.  She  manufactures  milk  for  them 
while  they  wait  and  the  remarks  of  Mrs. 
Caprahircus  to  the  black  cow  will  apply 
to  many  cases  where  the  foreigner  has 
come  in  and  gone  out  for  opportunity 
while  the  native  sits  down  and  waits  for 
it.  You  see  there  are  many  people  who 
do  not  get  just  the  message  of  these  old 
stone  walls.  They  preach  a  great  ser¬ 
mon  and  give  a  fine  object  lesson,  but  of 
themselves  they  will  not  support  us — it’s 
the  hard,  skillful  labor  that  went  into 
them  that  counts. 
***** 
And  I  find  other  enduring  things  be- 
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Organized  Co-operation 
A  NEW  BOOK 
By  JOHN  J.  DILLON 
This  book  is  written  in  three 
parts. 
PART  ONE.— The  Develop¬ 
ment  of  the  Agricultural  Indus¬ 
try.  In  five  chapters. 
PART  TWO.  —  Fundamental 
Principles  and  Adaptable  Forms 
of  Co-operative  Organization.  In 
ten  chapters. 
PART  THREE.  —  Application 
of  Co-operation  to  Efficient  and 
Economic  Distribution  of  Farm 
Products.  In  seven  chapters. 
This  is  a  ntw  treatment  of  the 
co-operative  subject.  Heretofore 
writers  of  books  have  contented 
themselves  with  accounts  of  co¬ 
operative  work  where  established. 
It  has  been  mostly  propaganda 
and  exhortation.  This  was  all 
good  in  its  time.  But  we  have 
grown  beyond  it.  Farmers  are 
now  committed  to  co-operation. 
Once  shy  of  it,  they  are  at  last  a 
unit  for  it.  What  they  want  now 
is  principles  and  definite  policies 
that  have  pr,  ved  successful.  This 
book  is  the  first  real  attempt  to 
supply  this  want.  Other,  and  it 
is  to  be  hoped  better,  books  will 
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present  there  is  no  other  book 
seriously  treating  the  subject  of 
organized  co-operation. 
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