Iht  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
1523 
tiful  voice,  will  throw  away  all  her 
chances  on  a  pack  of  dirty  heathens? 
What  do  they  pay  her  for  such  a  sacri¬ 
fice?” 
“Not  much  more  than  expenses,  but  as 
for  the  sacrifice !  See  here,  mister,  I 
don’t  know  your  name  or  who  you  are, 
but  you  got  this  all  wrong.  Up  here 
among  these  hills  we  are  mostly  poor 
folks.  We  haven’t  much  money  to  give 
the  world,  but  we  try  to  give  our  own 
flesh  and  blood  to  the  service  of  God. 
The  great  things  of  the  world  are  not 
done  up  here.  Our  work  is  humble,  but 
we  give  what  we  have.  We  need  that 
girl  at  home,  but  one  of  us  must  go  out 
and  do  the  Lord’s  work.  Hannah  will 
go  and  we’ll  be  provided  for.” 
He  would  have  gone  on.  but  the  older 
woman  came  in  with  the  lamp — for  sup¬ 
per  was  ready.  In  the  lamplight  Bryant 
looked  about  him.  In  the  corner  was  a 
little  Christmas  tree  with  a  few  bright 
trinkets  and  candles.  It  was  a  poor  little 
tree,  yet  it  seemed  to  Bryant  to  hold  out 
its  green  arms  to  him  as  he  had  never 
seen  a  Christmas  tree  do  before. 
“We  always  have  a  little  tree  for  the 
children,”  staid  the  girl.  “Off  here  in  this 
lonely  place  we  like  to  keep  up  the  old 
idea  of  Christmas.  It.  is  hard  to  do  it, 
but  we  want  the  children  to  carry,  the 
day  in  their  hearts  as  long  as  they  live.” 
After  supper,  as  Bryant  sat  before  his 
fire,  the  little  boy  who  had  led  him  into 
the  house  came  and  stood  beside  his 
knee. 
“Say  mister,  can’t  you  tell  us  a  Christ¬ 
mas  story?”  H.  w.  C. 
(To  Be  Continued) 
Michigan  Fruit  Growers  Meet 
Michigan  fruit  growers  have  just  re¬ 
turned  to  their  homes  after  attending  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  State  Horticultural 
Society  at  Grand  Rapids,  Nov.  20  to  23. 
During  the  same  week  the  second  annual 
apple  and  potato  show  was  held.  Be¬ 
tween  the  two  events  there  was  much  to 
interest  everyone,  including  the  growers, 
the  dealers  in  fruit  growing  necessities, 
and  to  a  great  degree  the  consumers  who 
live  in  the  city  of  Grand  Rapids. 
The  program  for  the  Horticultural  So¬ 
ciety  meeting  was  very  interesting  and 
far-reaching.  Problems  of  production 
and  marketing  were  both  considered. 
While  there  was  much  interest  shown 
with  reference  to  the  latest  developments 
along  production  lines,  the  greatest  in¬ 
terest  was  manifested  in  the  marketing 
problem.  Michigan  growers  have  again 
this  year  felt  the  need  of  better  methods 
of  distribution.  The  two  outstanding 
suggestions  for  the  solution  of  the  mar¬ 
keting  problem  were  the  more  extensive 
use  of  co-operative  organizations  and  the 
building  of  many  more  cold  storages. 
President  James  Nicol  of  the  Michigan 
Fruit  Growers,  Inc.,  pointed  out  the 
value  of  organization  and  urged  the 
growers  to  back  their  organizations,  while 
Prof.  V.  R.  Gardner  of  the  M.  A.  C.  Hor¬ 
ticultural  Department  showed  by  statis¬ 
tics  gathered  in  the  large  cities  that  the 
consumer  wants  apples  all  through  the 
Winter.  He  then  pointed  out  that  98  per 
cent  of  Michigan’s  apple  crop  goes  to 
market  before  December  1.  Prof.  R.  E. 
Marshall  of  the  same  department  then 
showed  how  well  the  few  cold  storages 
in  Michigan  were  working,  some  of  them 
practically  paying  for  themselves  in  a 
year’s  time. 
The  Apple  and  Potato  Show  was  con¬ 
siderably  larger  and  better  than  last 
year.  There  was  very  keen  competition 
in  all  the  entries  of  apple  and  potato  ex¬ 
hibits.  The  fine  quality  of  the  exhibits 
was  very  noticeable  and  made  hard  work 
for  the  judges.  There  were  no  county  ex¬ 
hibits,  the  entries  being  almost  entirely 
by  individual  growers.  Some  of  the  co¬ 
operative  organizations  competed  in  the 
commercially  packed  fruit. 
The  machinery  and  equipment  exhibit 
was  very  extensive  and  interesting  to  the 
fruit  grower.  'Several  valuable  educa¬ 
tional  exhibits  were  put  on  by  the  Horti¬ 
cultural,  Farm  Mechanics  and  Home 
Economics  departments  of  the  college, 
the  State  Farm  Bureau,  and  the  State 
Department  of  Agriculture. 
The  attendance  at  the  show  was  very 
good.  It  was  evident  that  the  people  of 
the  city  were  much  more  interested  than 
the  previous  year.  More  people  passed 
the  gate  in  one  day  this  year  than  during 
the  entire  week  of  the  show  last  year. 
This  speaks  well  for  the  show  and  indi¬ 
cates  that  it  should  continue  in  the  fu¬ 
ture,  and  become  an  annual  event  to 
which  the  fruit  and  potato  interests  of 
the  State  will  look  forward.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  attendance  at  the  Horti¬ 
cultural  Society  meetings  was  not  as 
large  as  usual.  Many  thought  that  it 
was  due  to  the  date  of  the  meeting  having 
been  set  ahead  about  three  weeks.  The 
weather  was  unusually  good  and  no  doubt 
many  farmers  felt  that  they  could  not 
leave  their  work.  Next  year  the  meeting 
will  be  held  the  first  week  in  December. 
Apples  in  Natural  Storage 
On  page  1460,  in  the  account  of  the  life 
of  George  R.  Schauber,  I  note  the  fol¬ 
lowing  :  “His  choicely  grown  Spy  apples 
were  mostly  marketed  in  the  Spring  after 
being  kept  in  natural  storage  all  Winter.” 
It  would  certainly  be  interesting  to  know 
how  this  natural  storage  was  made,  and 
something  of  its  temperature  and  how  it 
was  regulated,  if  there  was  any  regula¬ 
tion  to  it.  I  have  a  young  orchard  com¬ 
ing  on  a  mountainside  where  a  cave  or 
other  sidehill  storage  can  be  used  if  such 
would  be  likely  to  give  such  results,  and 
I  have  still  a  recollection  of  apples  that 
sometimes  came  out  of  my  grandfather’s 
cellar  in  the  Spring,  and  then  sometimes 
they  had  decayed  before  Spring  came. 
His  cellar  had  a  spring  in  it  where  the 
milk  crocks  sat  in  water.  H.  s.  B. 
Staunton,  Ya. 
Mr.  Schauber  was  a  very  careful  and 
painstaking  man.  His  fruit  was  thinned 
and  sprayed  so  that  each  specimen  was 
fine.  He  picked  at  just  the  right  time 
and  reserved  only  the  finest  specimens. 
They  were  handled  like  eggs,  and  prompt¬ 
ly  wx-apped  in  soft  paper  and  then  packed 
in  crates  which  were  stored  in  a  cool, 
airy  cellar.  Apples  picked  without  the 
least  bruising  and  stored  in  this  way  will 
keep  safely  to  the  limit  of  their  season. 
A  Booster  for  New  England 
Your  editorial  comment  on  page  1342 
on  the  letter  of  J.  B.  K.  in  regard  to  the 
“worn-out  New  England  soil”  interested 
me  very  much,  as  I  have  had  some  experi¬ 
ence  with  that  kind  of  soil,  which  experi¬ 
ence  possibly  may  be  of  interest  to  you  or 
some  of  your  readers. 
About  12  years  ago  as  a  “back-to-the- 
lander”  I  came  to  this  little  farm  on  the 
Maine  coast.  The  fields  were  so  badly 
run  out  that  I  doubt  if  you  could  have 
scraped  up  half  a  ton  of  hay  to  the  acre. 
The  soil  apparently  was  acid,  so  I  used  a 
liberal  amount  of  lime  and,  for  want  of 
manure,  chemicals  (nitrate  of  soda,  acid 
phosphate  and  muriate  of  potash).  From 
a  half  acre  of  that  “run-out  soil”  I  sold 
that  first  season  about  $140  worth  of  veg¬ 
etables  and  flowers  to  the  'Summer  visit¬ 
ors  of  the  neighborhood.  You  can  im¬ 
agine  my  surprise  in  the  Fall  when  I 
looked  over  my  accounts  to  find  that  my 
four  rows  of  sweet  peas,  about  50  ft. 
long,  had  yielded  me  $25.  In  the  Fall  I 
sowed  Winter  rye  to  turn  under  in  the 
Spring,  and  the  productiveness  of  the 
land  increased  each  year  until  on  the 
third  or  fourth  year  an  acre  yielded  me 
$400,  and  the  best  half  of  that  acre,  best 
only  because  I  had  the  most  profitable 
crops  planted  on  it,  yielded  $350.  Early 
in  the  business  I  noticed  that  there  was  a 
large  unsupplied  demand  for  berries,  and 
as  my  small  strawberry  patch  usually 
ceased  bearing  the  middle  or  last  of  July, 
I  put  in  600  raspberry  bushes  in  order  to 
lengthen  out  the  berry  season.  These 
were  put  on  a  piece  of  the  ground  I  had 
used  for  a  number  of  .years,  in  area  about 
50  ft.  square;  they  yielded  splendidly  as 
soon  as  the  bed  was  fairly  established. 
The  fourth  season  it  yielded  about  700 
pint  boxes,  which  met  with  such  a  ready 
sale  that  they  brought  me  $125.  You  can 
figure  out  the  per  acre  yield  ;  I  don’t  dare 
to  give  it.  Since  then  I  have  naturally 
been  increasing  my  berry  plantings. 
This  may  seem  to  you  like  a  bragging 
letter,  but,  if  so,  I  want  it  understood 
that  the  bragging  is  for  our  soil  and  cli¬ 
mate.  Our  acid  soils  and  our  cool,  moist 
climate,  seems  to  be  ideal  for  fruits  and 
flowers.  With  a  very  limited  knowledge 
of  floriculture  I  have  produced  sweet 
peas  and  asters  that  it  seems  to  me  would 
compare  very  favorably  with  those  of  pro¬ 
fessional  growers,  sweet  peas  with  stems 
nearly  a  foot  long,  and  three  and  four 
large  blossoms  to  a  stem,  asters  4  and  5 
in.  in  diameter.  Why,  the  peonies  grow¬ 
ing  near  the  house,  nearly  smothered  in 
grass  as  they  are,  this  year  were  as  large 
as  the  head  of  a  good-sized  child. 
If  people  like  J.  B.  K.  would  stop  talk¬ 
ing  about  “New  England’s  run-out  soil,” 
and  the  impossibility  of  getting  a  living 
in  rural  New  England,  and  open  their 
eyes  to  the  possibilities  about  them  of  the 
good  markets  supplied  by  our  Summer 
visitors,  and  if  they  would  set  about  in 
good  earnest  to  supply  those  markets,  we 
would  soon  have  a  different  story  to  tell 
in  this  part  of  the  country.  Thousands 
of  dollars  worth  of  fruit  from  other  parts 
of  the  country,  some  of  it  from  clear 
across  the  continent,  are  shipped  in  to 
New  England  each  year,  which  could  be 
displaced  by  our  homegrown  berries  and 
fruits  if  our  people  would  only  wake  up 
to  the  possibilities  that  are  being  neg¬ 
lected  in  our  “worn-out  soils.” 
Maine.  h.  a.  swanton. 
First  Freshman  (putting  up  pic¬ 
tures)  :  “I  can’t  find  a  single  pin.  Where 
do  they  all  go  to,  anyway?”  Second 
Freshman :  “It’s  hard  'to  tell,  because 
they’re  pointed  in  one  direction  and  head¬ 
ed  in  another.” — Congregationalist, 
Genuine  Government  Goods 
nl 
Guaranteed  as  represented  or  money  refunded 
Horse 
Brushes 
Curry 
Combs 
Originally  intended  for  groom¬ 
ing  horses.  lrou  will  find  them 
useful  around  your  household 
for  many  other  pui  poses. 
Made  of  genuine  fine  quality 
black  leather.  Set  in  leather. 
Leather  strap.  Oval  shaped. 
Size,  6 V2  x  414, 
Guaranteed  abso¬ 
lutely  new.  Now 
offered  at  . 
$6.00  Dozen 
The  real  U.  S.  Anny 
stuff.  Bi-and  new.  Guar¬ 
anteed.  Remarkable 
values  at 
15? 
$1.50  Dozen 
each 
Order 
/?  Af»  a  Bale 
»  t 
of 
A  A 
« — ■; - _Vry 
I  /  !; 
U.  S.  Government  Horse  Covers 
The  outside  of  the  horse  cover  or  stable  blanket  is  made  of  waterproof 
brown  cotton  duck,  lined  with  a  strong,  heavy  blanket  material,  extending 
from  under  the  hem  to  the  edges.  Size,  76  inches  at  bottom,  64  inches  at 
top,  depth  of  neck,  35*4  inches,  depth  of  back  end  33  inches,  two  sur¬ 
cingles,  each  3  inches  wide,  strongly  stitched  and  reinforced.  It  is  the 
genuine  article-^-strong,  durable,  warm  and  will  fit  any  fair  sized  horse. 
Buy  the  real  thing  and  order  a  few  blankets  while  the  supply 
lasts.  You  will  never  duplicate  them  again  at  the  price  we 
are  offering  them  to  you.  Weight  9  pounds.  Shipping  weight,  ^  J.** 
10  pounds  .  M  each 
Order  a  Bale  Containing  10  BLANKETS 
at  the  Wholesale  Price  ol . 
$010 
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U.  S.  Army  McLellan  Saddles 
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Brand  new,  made  of  the  finest  qual¬ 
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each 
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Wooden  stirrups,  leather  covered. 
Shipping  weight  about  25  pounds. 
For  Immediate  Shipment  at 
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Unused  Double  Rein  and  Double  $  A  25  Brand  New  5-lb.  Olive  Drab 
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Note— We  pay  no  forwarding  chargee.  Send  checks  or  money  orders  to  Dept.  NR. 
J.  SILVERMAN  &  BROS.,  Inc.,  594  Broadway,  New  York,  N.  Y. 
Wholesale  and  Retail  Distributors 
$Q95 
Weach 
Puts  2  H-P  Engine  on  Your 
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Ed.  H.  Witte,  Famous  Engine  Manufac¬ 
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Ed.  H.  Witte,  nationally-known  engine 
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