Garden
VOL. LXV
INDIANAPOLIS, JANUARY 22, 1910.
NO. 4
Written  for the Indiana Farmer:
WINTER    READING   AND     STUDY.
By Walter S. Smith.
Winter is the time for farmers to
do their reading; for the summer days
are long, hot and busy, and it seems
necessary to stay in the field as long
as it is light enough to work. My own
opinion is that farmers ought to read in
the summer also; but it is not common
to find it convenient and probably
never will be. Indeed there are farmers who feel that they —
have no time for reading
in  the  winter.
But the nights are long,
the crops are in, the fuel
is provided, and there is
some leisure in the course
of every 24 hours.
Dr. Franklin divided his
day into thirds: 8 hours
to labor, 8 hours to sleep
and 8 to study. This is
a happy and healthful apportionment. If men are
sober, industrious and
economical, this division
of the day will provide an
abundance of the necessaries of life, and enable
them   to  enjoy  it.
The 15-hour workers
may make a little more
money, but they are not
the happier class.
.       *       .       .   ■   .
Laet us then suppose our
readers to be fond of
reading and glad of opportunities for it. How
may  it  be  managed?
1. Answering the question as to the selection, I
would not allow that any
man needs what is obtained by reading and
study more than the
farmer  needs  it.     His  li- ~
brary may not need to be as large and
as expensive as the libraries of professional men. But it should be an
institution in the family, and should
be worth several dollars.
I once showed a volume of my new
encyclopedia to a dairy farmer, and
suggested that he ought to buy it for
his family. He answered: "Oh, lt
doesn't know anything about milk."
I said, "I will show you that it says
more about it than you ever heard on
the subject." Turning to the article
Milk," I found a whole page, or more
in small type on that subject besides
references to Dairying, Cream, Butter,
''heese, etc.; altogether a half dozen to
a dozen pages of the very best of information.
It will pay any intelligent farmer to
have a good encyclopedia. And, under
the head of reference books, let me
say these all are very important. The
articles in them are short, racy and as
accurate as it is possible to make them.
.Some of the single articles in my collection of volumes, are equal to entire
text-books. And there is not an item
nf any college text book more skillfully
set forth than I find it here.
A good dictionary Is a very useful
volume. In addition to the definition
and the spelling of all the words in the
language, it has rules for spelling, tables of prefixes, suffixes and synonyms,
laws of derivation, and often a complete history of the world. And the
proper use of the dictionary will enable
the reader to comprehend all he reads
in   books,   magazines  and   papers.
Other special books, like legal forms,
veterinary digests, books of recipes
and household medical works, will save
the family many a trip to these special
professionals. By watching the Washington reports, new publications can be
noted as fast as they appear. These
reports  can  be  had  free,  every  month
to  give  up     housekeeping,  so  we    live
with  our  children.
I, as you know have always been a
great lover of fruit'and the cultivating
and care of it. This is my hobby and
we have  thoroughly enjoyed  it here.
I had a bountiful crop of different
kinds of fruit here last year, especially apricots, plums and peaches. The
trees of these fruits were so full that
they were broken to pieces. These
| fruits at the orchards could be bought
at one  cent  per  pound.
The  Fletcher  Pioneer  Cabin,  near    Brookville,   Ind.
Built     in   1821.
for the asking. In that way many a
good book can be secured, with all
needed information on spraying,
mulching, fertilizers, and other special
matters   of   interest.
Then outside the pale of special
works, the farmer and his family may
find as much use as any other class of
people for a good general collection.
History, fiction, oratory, poetry and religious miscellany are all good to have
about. Let no farmer think himself
thoroly furnished without agricultural
papers. They are fine for their advertising if they possessed not another
merit. But they are full of farm talk
and bristle with things that look to the
general improvement of the land, the
stock, the machinery, the intellect,
the health, the business management,
and the general enjoyment of farming.
Not only should we take the papers,
but we should read them.
INTERESTING   LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
Within find $1 for which send the
Farmer to me for two years, and oblige.
The Farmer to me is like the visit of
an old friend; I have been taking It so
long I do not want to lose its visits. I
came here in October, 1908; my son-in-
law bought and moved here. My wife
being an invalid, from a stroke of
paralysis, some five years ago, we had
Strawberries we have nearly the
whole year, and raspberries a large
portion of the year. I send you a
price list of the Los Angeles markets
for to-day, so you can see what we
have to select our fare from, and the
prices which are high now. The crop
of oranges here this year will be short
of last year, on acocunt of the very
hot days the last of May and first of
June; the mercury ran up to 100 degrees, and the heat blasted the young
fruit. There will be from half to two-
thirds of a crop; but the oranges are
very flne. There is a wonderful immigration here from the East, and real
estate is on a boom. New houses are
going up by the hundreds, and hundreds of acres are being set  to  fruits.
It is a question that every man must
solve for himself, whether to stay east,
or come to the more mild climate of
California. It is my judgment that
the man who has a good farm in Indiana will do well to stay with it. The
expense of living is higher than there
and the land is much higher in price.
Unimproved land is from $100 to $300.
Bearing orange groves from $1,000 to
$3,000  per  acre. Levi  Hill.
Pasadena,  Cal.
 ,   m   , '
We are glad to learn that friend D.
W. Heagy, of Columbus, is recovering
from the severe bruising he received in
an attack by his Jersey bull recently.
TIIE FLETCHER  CABIN.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
The Fletcher Cabin is one of the few
examples of pioneer Indiana with its
"stick  and  mud"  chimney.
In 1821, the house was built, an-1 ten
years later the old grey stork left a
baby girl there whom the mother, in
the old fashion for Biblical names,
called Martha. Those were troublous days for babies, as the long rows
of tiny tombstones in the old cemeteries attest, and of all the cabin's brood,
— none reached maturity
save Martha and a brother. As she grew into
womanhood the mother
needed her, and when the
civil ■ war, with thundering cannon and breaking
hearts came on, the
mother was laid away
and she found time to
dream of love. Then, in
her honeymoon, Uncle
Sam's draft took "him,"
and he sleeps in a soldier's grave, under whispering pines in the Southland. After enlisting
never again did he press
his bride to his breast in
fervent embrace, nor did
he ever know of the boy
who came to the cabin
home and played about
the   broad   fireplace.
The old home meant
more than ever to Martha; and when her baby
grewinto manhoodand its
duties, its shelter grew into her passion. The tiny
shrubs she had planted
grew into great trees,
sheltering the old woman
and the old house, while
vines and shrubs bloomed
in riotous abandon.
'^ The other    day a sum
mons came for her, and she fell into
slumber, in the same quaint, hand-
turned, rope-corded bed, sitting in the
same corner of the same room, where
first she saw the light. And when the
kindly neighbor women came, country
fashion, to care for the cold body, the
great ii on teakettle hung from the old
crane, and sent its masses of vapor up
the wide chimney throat, just as when
the catnip and the boneset were steeped into tea for her infantile ailments.
And when I saw the steam from the
kettle, seemingly lost amid the wood
smoke, and knew that somewhere, as
rain, or snow, or dew, it would return
again, I wondered where and how the
devotion of Martha Fletcher to her
mother, her home and her child would
bloom anew. For naught can be utterly  lost—only  changed.
Dr. G. Henri Bogart.
Brookville,   Ind.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
I would like to hear from farmers
that check their corn; what kind of a
cultivator is the easiest and most successful to plow check corn, a walking
or rider? I have been told a common
rider isn't "-o  good. I.  N.  Dyer.
J. M. Cass Co., asks a question and
says "answer private please." If he will
think a minute he can understand why
we do not do as he asks.