New-York tribune., 1922-10-22
A FARMERS
CONFESSION
Continued from page six)


AS we proceeded with our building the Idle
and INDECENT Italians who lived up the road
came as spectators and hung over the fence
These ignorant farmers had no conveniences
whatever for their chickens and allowed them
to roost in the trees and make their own nests
under the porch or in the woodpile We pitied
thens and were glad that they we're taking les
sons from our scientific ideas. The agent had
given US list Of scientific food--feed, it is
called-for our chickens. There was one kind
for hens and another kind for roosters, GER
tain MIXTURE for pullets and another for
chicks, special brand for every particular
breed, one for white hens and one for black
and red ones. The feed was delivered to the
fowls through wonderful automatic hopper
patent--and the agent explained that the
more feed you gave them .he less they ate of it.
We had to send TO Kentucky for the feed and
there was quite period after the chicken
house was completed before the feed arrived.
Every day we waited we admired the chick
en- house ard gave weekend parties for our
city friends to come out and see for them
selves. Finally the great day arrived the feed
came and the transfer of the chickens at night
was fairly dramatic. Then something more
happened The chickens were scared almost
fused to function For six months or there
abouts they never laid an egg. But we under
stood. The newly rich have been often awed
by an unfamiliar environment The discom-
hture of the chickens was human quality.
The great disadvantage in raising chickens
is that no city person who regards with senti-
ment the creatures on the farm can possibly
eat them. Could we kill hen which had laid
frr, III:
us to broilers, since we felt no sense of obliga-
tion toward them. Among the many advan-
tages connected with country living by city
people none surpasses broilers How our week
enders loved them.
In leaving the farm one comes away with
great deal of information which is practically
valueless in the city. But nothing is lost, and
some time there may be another similar ex-
perience when 1t will be possible to utilize
what one has learned For example, chickens
must always have little gravel pile from
which to glean pebbles to aid them in the
process of digestion After half of tie chicken
family have fallen off their roosts and given
up the ghost, one may admit that the ex-
pertinent has registered in consciousness to
be utilized at another time There are rules
to go with the culture Of everything on tie
farm, and the fascination Of locking I'D the
rules in farm magazine and applying them
to ones own needs lever fails as refreshing
food for reflection
So even Suppose yoa are back o-the-land
sucker" as the editor of "The Rural New
Yorker" says, and suppose you do buy the
$4,000 farm for $4,000 and then leave It. as
he says, at the end Of two years you will not
l,r l...I
No. indeed; for thinl, of the fun and the
recreation you have hadl Can the memory
OF the thrills on seeing the little green things
come out Of the earth ever be lost? And
While 1t is novelty to find the morning paper
and the milk bottle your doersill and the
early mail delivery slipped under the door.
here must always be the sense of loss of the
creatures that fed from your hand; you mus,
always miss the intimacy with nature and
never can YOU forget that when you have
tucked Il little scrap OF potato away in the
earth and forgotten it for a few weeks and
then, 10! one day you investigated and you
found whole bagful Ct potatoes.
Never can you disregard the thrill you ex-
perienced as your family gathered around the
hospitable board and you reminded them that
everything on the table was produced OH your
farnl-bread butter, meat, vegetables and
dessert. All, tha derided back-to-the-lana
suckers get JOY ort Of the farm such as the
professional farmer knows nothing Of. To the
eitybroke man the farm is like the mud pies
of childhood.
Who can express hospitality in a city fiat?
The farms the thing There you stand in
with Mother Nature. You have a front seat
at the sunrise. You have the horizon for a
skyline. You can shake your duster out of
the window without having The Health De.
paitment swoop down upon you.
You are sharer in thousand secrets
undreamed of in the limited intelligence of
the city man. Had it not been for the agent
with his $4,000 worthless farm which he sold
ycu for $4,000, you might never have known
the priceless truth you now know. Even
Though you go back TO town. Your money gone
your electric torch changed to a dribbly tallow
dip--still, you can never be the same again
II You are the normal, tcmperamental per-
son you are not immune from the back-to-the
land fever just because you have had it once
The next time you will try bees and silk
worms; and now that you are really back from
the farm. enjoying the novelty of the leisure
50