1228 
The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
September  29,  1928 
Hope  Farm  Notes 
Four  years  ago  the  boys  noticed  two 
peach  sprouts  coining  up  beside  the  sheds 
in  the  barnyard.  One  was  near  the 
driven  well — the  other  just  outside  the 
stone  foundation  of  fa  little  ‘building 
where  Philip  has  his  room.  I  presume 
that  some  years  ago  some  of  us  went  by 
eating  peaches  and  carelessly  tossed  the 
pits  away.  They  may  have  fallen  into 
some  little  hole,  or  it  is  possible  that 
some  burrowing  rat  or  some  scratching 
cat  or  dog  covered  them.  At  any  rate 
they  found  protection  and  sprouted,  as 
seedlings  without  number  have  done  in 
past  years.  It  is  a  wonder  that  these 
tiny  sprouts  were  not  destroyed  in  clean¬ 
ing  up  around  the  yard,  but  in  some  way 
they  escaped  the  scythe  and  the  hoe. 
When  I  saw  them  really  making  size 
and  spreading  out  fan  shape  against 
the  wall  of  the  buildings  I  felt  that  they 
had  earned  the  right  to  live,  and  we 
agreed  to  let  them  come  to  fruiting.  T 
told  the  boys  how  the  great  Elberta  peach 
came  in  much  the  same  way  from  a 
chance  seedling,  but  they  were  not  greatly 
impressed.  The  beginning  of  a  large 
thing  may  be  like  the  small  end  of  a 
telescope,  but  it.  does  not  seem  remark¬ 
able  until  the  larger  end  is  fitted  to  it. 
Great  men  are  usually  honored  at  the 
grave  rather  than  in  the  cradle.  It  may 
be  different  with  cattle.  The  calf  may  be 
valued  highly  for  his  pedigree  only  to 
prove  a  failure  as  an  adult.  It  is  said 
that  Daniel  Webster  as  a  boy  in  the 
“little  red  school  house”  was  not  overly 
clean,  fine  day  the  teacher  called  him 
out  in  front  and  made  him  hold  up  his 
right  hand. 
“Daniel.”  she  said,  “I’ll  defy  you  to 
find  another  hand  in  all  this  school  as 
dirty  as  this  is!” 
Quick  as  thought  the  future  “god-like 
Daniel”  held  up  his  left  hand  which  car¬ 
ried  more  dirt  than  the  other!  .Yet.,  no 
one  would  have  concluded  that  this  quick¬ 
witted  boy  would  ever-,  become  a  great 
statesman  and  near-President. 
***** 
It  was  much  the  same  with  our  seed¬ 
ling  peaches.  The  trees  proved  strong 
and  well-shaped,  with  good  foliage,  but 
I  knew  it  was  a  million  to  one  chance 
that  these  pits,  so  carelessly  thrown 
away,  could  ever  contain  the  germ  of 
superiority.  So  we  just  waited  for  the 
fruit.  Last  year  there  was  a  light 
bloom,  but  a  late  frost  killed  the  buds. 
Later  we  found  just  one  peach  hidden 
behind  the  thick  foliage.  I  let  that  ripen 
and  carried  it  in  for  mother  to  eat. 
Busy  for  the  moment,  she  laid  it  on  the 
table  and  while  her  back  was  turned, 
some  member  of  our  big  family  saw.  a 
peach  on  the  table,  and  without  knowing 
what  it  was  quickly  “placed  it  in  that 
reeeptiele  to  which  all  good  .peaches 
naturally  gravitate” — in  short  words,  ate 
it  and  couldn’t  remember  how  it  tasted ! 
And  thus  the  secret  of  the  peach  tree  was 
as  safely  hidden  as  that  of  the  sphinx. 
This  year  both  trees  bloomed  heavily  and 
matured  their  fruit.  It  was  a  very  dry 
season,  and  all  peaches  were  undersized, 
but  one  of  these  seedlings,  from  the  be¬ 
ginning.  gave  evidence  that  it  would  rank 
among  the  sizable  varieties.  They  ripened 
close  together,  about  the  middle  of  Sep¬ 
tember,  about  two  weeks  later  than  El¬ 
berta.  One  of  them  is  a  small  yellow 
neaeh,  round,  a  freestone  of  superior 
flavor  and  rich,  red  color.  It  looks  some¬ 
thing  like  Crosby  and  resembles  that  va¬ 
riety  in  color  and  quality.  In  a  normal 
season  this  peach  might  run  a  little 
larger,  but  it  is  too  small  for  commer¬ 
cial  use.  As  a  late  maturing  peach  it 
might  have  some  value  for  home  garden 
use,  but  I  do  not  consider  it  worth  pro¬ 
pagating.  We  have  too  many  standard 
varieties  now.  We  should  be  as  well  off 
if  half  of  them  were  discarded.  The 
other  peach  is  more  promising.  A  pic¬ 
ture  of  it,  exact  size,  is  shown  on  page 
1227.  In  a  season  of  usual  moisture,  or 
under  high  cultivation  these  peaches  will 
run  larger.  It  is  a  white  peach  with  a 
red  cheek,  freestone  and  firm  flesh.  If 
is  above  the  average  in  quality.  The 
general  opinion  seems  to  be  that  it  is 
better  than  Elberta.  but  not  so  high 
quality  as  Belle  of  Georgia.  The  tree  is 
vigorous,  with  good  foliage,  and  the  late 
ripening  gives  it  a  season  when  most 
white  peaches  are  out  of  market.  On 
the  whole  I  think  this  peach  is  worth 
trving,  although  I  know  full  well  the 
folly  of  putting  out  new  fruits  when  our 
present  list  is  crowded  with  strap-hang¬ 
ers  and  worthless  varieties.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  be  any  Burbank,  for  all  we 
have  done  to  produce  this  “novelty”  is 
to  sit  still  with  more  or  less  impatience 
until  these  seedlings  got  ready  to  per¬ 
form.  If  that  peach  pit  tossed  carelessly 
away  in  our  barnyard  can  be  the  means 
of  adding  comfort  and  profit  to  peach 
growers  I  shall  feel  well  repaid.  It  will 
be  good  to  feel  that  one  has  helped  nature 
struggle  through  to  the  growing  of  a 
worthy  gift  to  mankind. 
***** 
One  of  the  great  mysteries  of  nature 
is  the  way  life  comes  and  goes.  All  about 
us  in  a  never-failing  succession  we  see 
worked  out  the  great  drama  of  the  uni¬ 
verse  which  enters  at  the  door  of  birth 
and  exits  behind  the  mysterious  curtain 
we  call  death.  That  is  not  only  true  of 
human  life,  but  of  all  life,  from  the  brain 
of  the  great  scientist  down  to  the  small¬ 
est  germ  which  shows  its  faint  struggle 
for  vitality  under  his  microscope.  And 
the  farmer  sees  more  of  this  unending 
procession  than  any  other,  for  he  more 
than  other  men  must  pass  his  days  among 
living  things.  lie  watches  his  crops  from 
the  sprouting  of  the  seed  to  the  death¬ 
dealing  frost.  Trees,  animals,  come  into 
life,  pass  through  their  little  part  of  the 
great  drama  and  pass  on  to  dissolution. 
He  sees  them  organized  and  grow 
through  the  great  chemical  laboratory  of 
nature  and  then  sees  them  pass  on  as 
the_  great  builder,  life,  deserts  them  and 
their  bodies  are  destroyed.  Birth  and 
death,  these  great  changes,  continue  on 
every  farm,  through  the  ever-changing 
years,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  in  view¬ 
ing  them  the  farmer  should  somehow  feel 
that  he  has  the  opportunity  of  drawing 
closer  to  God  and  the  great  mysteries 
which  lie  behind  the  curtain  than  other 
men  can  hope  for.  I  have  been  thinking 
of  this  lately,  for  on  Hope  Farm  the 
door  opened  and  the  curtain  fell  in  the 
same  week.  J  am  not  concerned  partic¬ 
ularly  about  any  profit  there  might  be 
in  selling  a  new  variety.  I  rather  think 
that  such  a  gift  of  nature  should  not  be 
used  as  a  monopoly.  Where  a  man 
starts  out  and  through  his  own  skill  and 
patience  “breeds”  or  produces  some  new 
variety  I  think  he  is  entitled  to  a  fair 
reward.  But  when  a  man  simply  through 
accident,  or  it  may  be  through  some  true 
guiding  of  Providence,  discovers  a  su¬ 
perior  chance  seedling  I  think  he  should 
consider  it  as  a  gift  to  humanity — not  a 
special,  personal  offering  to  himself.  It 
might  be  wiser  to  control  the  distribution 
for  a  while  in  order  to  make  it  fair,  but 
beyond  that  I  think  a  new  seedling  of 
this  sort  should  be  made  free.  I  have 
regarded  Prof.  S.  M.  Babcock  as  one  of 
the  greatest  of  Americans  because  he 
gave  his  milk-testing  machine  openly  and 
without  reserve  to  the  public.  There  is 
not  a  dairyman  milking  a  cow  today  who 
has  not  been  benefited  by  the  public 
gift.  The  humble  birth  of  our  new  peach 
has  started  this  line  of  thought.  The 
tree  from  which  the  pit  was  taken  may 
have  produced  5.000  peaches — yet  this 
may  have  been  the  only  one  which  had  in 
it  the  germ  of  superiority.  We  gave  it 
at  best  only  perfunctory  care  and  idle 
curiosity,  yet  the  destiny  of  its  birth 
has  been  fulfilled.  It  has  been  carried 
through  to  fruitage.  A  new  influence  has 
come  into  the  world — in  humble  guise 
perhaps,  and  yet  it  may  be  possible  to  en¬ 
rich  and  brighten  many  a  human  life.  It 
is  a  great  thing  to  have  the  door  of  birth 
swing  open  at  the  farm.  Life  is  all 
ahead  of  the  new  comer.  Hope  sends 
a  gleam  along  the  way  which  even  the 
older  folks  can  see. 
***** 
And  death  has  come  to  us  too — strange 
and  sudden.  Many  of  you  will  remember 
Missie,  the  little  Jersey  cow.  She  came 
from  the  town  in  Mississippi  where 
mother  lived  as  a  girl.  We  had  her  sent 
up  in  a  crate.  A  beautiful  deer-like  ani¬ 
mal,  slender  and  delicate,  with  genuine 
“crumpled”  horns  and  an  eye  as  expres¬ 
sive  as  any  human's.  She  became  a 
household  pet— a  full  member  of  the 
family.  We  did  not  pasture  her,  but 
had  her  picketed  with  halter  and  chain. 
She  would  begin  at  one  side  of  a  field 
of  millet  or  clover  and  eat  her  way 
across  as  the  stake  was  changed — leaving 
the  field  like  a  lawn.  That  is  the  way 
her  ancestors  on  the  Island  of  Jersey 
were  fed,  and  she  seemed  to  know  it. 
And  such  milk  and  cream  as  that  little 
cow  produced !  We  did  not  put  her  in 
the  barn  at  night.  She  was  more  com¬ 
fortable  out  of  doors.  The  little  pasture 
near  the.  barn  has  several  apple  trees, 
and  we  did  not  dare  let  Missie  run  there 
over  night.  'She  is  too  fond  of  sour  ap¬ 
ples  and  every  cow  man  knows  what  too 
much  apple  sauce  will  do  to  a  cow.  So 
she  was  picketed  near  the  barn  on  a  short 
chain.  There  she  rested  in  comfort, 
and  every  morning  she  was  up  waiting 
for  breakfast  —  her  delicate  head 
stretched  out  and  her  little  ears  pointed 
straight  forward.  But  the  other  morn¬ 
ing  when  we  went  to  feed  her  there  was 
no  beautiful  little  cow  eagerly  waiting 
for  us — just  a  little  fawn  colored  heap 
on  the  groupd.  For  Missie  was  dead. 
Her  neck  was  broken !  Probably  some 
midnight  prowler  frightened  her.  It  may 
have  been  a  dog  or  some  large  animal, 
or  perhaps  some  thief.  Our  theory  is 
that  the  little  cow  was  frightened  by 
something  and  jumped  suddenly  up  to 
run.  The  chain  on  the  halter  caught  her 
at  just  the  right  angle  and  snapped  her 
neck  off !  Some  of  you  folks  who  own 
so  many  cattle  that  you  have  never  had 
a  chance  to  become  really  acquainted 
with  any  one  of  them,  will  smile  at  this 
record  of  a  cow’s  death.  But  somehow 
little  Missie  seemed  more  than  a  cow. 
But  then  those  of  you  who  have  had 
such  an  animal  in  the  family  will  under¬ 
stand  all  about  it.  You  who  must  divide 
your  affection  among  the  members  of  a 
great  herd  can  hardly  get  it.  But  birth 
and  death,  the  two  great  extremes  ef 
life,  are  the  great  avenues  of  the  world. 
There  is  no  escaping  the  influences  they 
have  upon  us. 
(Continued  on  Page  1241) 
Warmth 
A  PERFECTION  Oil 
Heater  is  at  home 
anywhere  in  the  house: 
in  the  nursery  these  brisk 
mornings,  for  Father 
in  the  bathroom,  for  the 
unexpected  guest,  late 
arrived  and  chilled 
through  —  there  are  a 
hundred  possible  con¬ 
tingencies  during  the  fall 
andwinter  months  when 
a  Perfection  Oil  Heater 
would  prevent  sickness, 
brighten  hospitality,  and 
keep  the  home  warm 
and  comfortable* 
Economical  Clean 
Odorless 
PERFECTION 
OO  Heaters 
STANDARD  OIL  CO,  OF  NEW  YORK,  26  Broadway 
