Dewar Wn
e Bellefonte, Pa., January 31, 1919.
Blighty! “What
Hopes?”
Author of “Over the Top,”
“First Call,” Etc,
Mr. Empey’s Experi-
ences During HisSeven-
teen Months in theFirst
Line Trenches of the
British Army in France
(Copyright, 1917, by The McClure Newspaper
(Copyright, aatey pape
The battle of the Somme was still
raging. I had been hit by three rifle
bullets, one through the left cheek,
the other two through the left shoul-
der, while engaged in a trench raid
for prisoners, and was on my journey
to Blighty.
I remember being carried down a
flight of steps and placed on a white
table in a brightly lighted room, a
doctor and a sergeant bending over
me—a delicious drink of ale, then the
whispered word “chloroform ;” some-
thing like a gas helmet being placed
over my nose and mouth, a couple of .
long, indrawn, gasping breaths, a
rumbling in my ears; then the skyline
of New York suddenly appeared. This
was quickly followed by the Statue
of Liberty shaking hands with the
Singer building; a rushing, hissing
sound in my ears, like escaping steam,
and then—Dblackness.
I opened my eyes. I was lying on
a stretcher, covered with blankets, in
a low-roofed, wooden building. Across
the way from me was a long row of
stretchers, each stretcher holding a
wounded Tommy, some lying flat, oth-
ers propped up by folded blankets.
Others were sitting on their stretchers
tenderly caressing an arm bound up
with white bandages.
Occasionally a stretcher, reclining
on which was a muddy and bloody
soldier, would be carried down the
aisle by two stretcher bearers. This
stretcher would be placed in an open
space in the row opposite.
I could hear a hum of conversation
all about me, and as my brain cleared
snatches of it became intelligible.
My right hand seemed to be in a
vise. I'could not release it. Squirm-
ing in bed, which sent a sharp, shoot-
ing pain through my left shoulder, I
tried with my unbandaged eye to see
what was holding my wrist.
A Royal Army Medical corps man
was sitting on the floor at the head of '
my stretcher, and had my wrist in his
grasp. He was about twenty years |
old, and looked dog-tired; his chin
would gradually sink to his chest, as
if he were falling asleep; then he
would suddenly start, lift up his head
with a jerk, and stare around the
room.
slowly close. I gave my arm a tug
and he quickly opened his eyes; then
across his face flashed a smile. To
me it appeared like the sun rising from |
behind a hill at daybreak. That smile !
sent a warm glow through me.
lieve that right then I was in love
Then he opened *
his mouth and, as is usual in such |
with his boyish face.
cases, spoiled it all:
“Strafe me pink, but you do tyke
your own bloomin’ time to come out |
o’ chloroform. ’'Ere I've been, bloody
well balmy, a ’‘oldin’ your bloomin’
pulse.”
Dut of the corner of my mouth I
asked him:
“Where am I?”
Still smiling, he hailed a stretcher
bearer across the way.
|
“I sye, ’Awkins, this blighter wants
“What's the Matter? Am | Wounded?”
a blocmin’ map of Frawnce; ’e wants
to know where ’e is.”
’Awkins, across the way, snxv-ered:
“Teil ’ira ’e’s bloomin’ well = Sam
Isaac’s fish ’ouse down Tottenham
Court Road, awalitin’ for 'is order o’
fish and chips.”
This brought a general laugh from
the Tommies opposite me and on my
right and left.
Somewhat incensed at their merris
ment, I retorted:
“Quit your kidding; for the love of
Mike, have some sense. What's the
matter? Am I wounded?”
The stretcher bearer, still with the
Pretty soon his eyelids would '
I be-
sunny smile on his face, which made |
me feel a little ashamed at my resent. |
ment, answered: |
“Naw, you ain't wounded, myte. |
You just ’appened to fall down in |
the bloomin’ road and one o’ those |
blinkin’ tanks crawled over you.”
This rather frightened me, and is !
a pleading voice I asked:
“Please tell me; what is the matter |
with me?” . !
The stretcher bearer leaned over |
and read from a little tag pinned to.
my tunic: |
“G. S. W. left face—(two) left!
shoulder. Cot.”
Then he carried on:
“H’it means that you ‘ave a rifle
bullet through the left side of your
clock (face) and two bullets through
your left shoulder, and that you're a
cot case, which means that you won't
‘ave to bloody well walk. Two of us
| poor blokes will ave to carry you on
a stretcher. You sure are a lucky
bloke; pretty cushy, I calls it.”
I asked him if the wounds were good
for Blighty.
He answered:
“Yes, you're zood for Blighty, and
I’m a-thinkin’ that they're good for a
discharge. That left h’arm o’ your’n
will be out 0’ commission for the rest
o’ your life. Your wife, if you've got
one, will bloomin’ well ‘ave to cut
your meat for you, that is if you're
lucky enough to get any blinkin’ meat
on the pension the Top °Ats ’ome will
‘and you.”
A feeling of pride surged through :
me. In a hospital of wounded soldiers
a severely wounded case is more or
less looked up to, while a man with a
superficial wound is treated as an or-
dinary mortal. I could read respect,
perhaps intermixed with a little envy,
in the eyes of the surrounding Tom-
mies and medical men,
The door at the end of the ward
opened. A howl came from the cot at
my right, and a gruff Irish voice
shouted :
“Close that damned door. You
bloomin’ hospital men have no sinse
at all. Here I am, knocked about by a
shell, and the likes o’ youse puts me
in a bloody draft. It’s a good thing we
have a navy; with the likes 0’ you
blokes in the army, we certainly need
one.”
A snicker went up from the patients.
Then a Tommy on my left answered
this outburst with:
“Bloody nerve, I call it. ‘Ere ’e is,
a’ covered with blankets, and grousin’
about a little drawft, and not many
hours back ’e was lyin’ in a bloomin’
shell ‘ole, with the wind a-blowin’ the
whiskers off im, and ’e a-prayin’ for
stretcher bearers. I'll wager a quid ’e
belongs to the Royal Irish Rifles.”
The man on my right retorted:
“Naw, I'm not in the Royal Irish
Rifles, but I belong to a good outfit—
the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and I can
lick the man that says they ain’t.”
| “Just then, from a corner of the ward,
| came the voice of a stretcher bearer:
“Jones, get the M. O. (medical of-
{ ficer). Hurry up—quick—this poor
bloke’s a-goin’ west.” |
The man holding my hand suddenly |
released his grip, and rising to his feet
hurriedly left the ward. A dead si-
i lence ensued. I tried to turn in the
direction from which the first voice
had come, but the sharp pain in my
! shoulder warned me that it was use-
less.
In a few seconds the door opened
and I could hear low voices down in
the corner. I could see the Tommies
around me intently gazing in the di-
| rection of the voices. After a few
minutes the door opened again, then
. closed, and Jones came back. I looked
"up at him and he solemnly nodded.
One more son of Britain had paid
the toll of war.
My unbandaged eye suddenly be-
! came cloudy and misty and a hot tear
{ rolled down my cheek.
The door at the other end of the
| ward opened and two stretcher bear-
| ers entered, going in the direction of
| the dead man. Pretty soon they left
| the ward, carrying a stretcher, on
| which was a still form covered with a
blanket. The Irishman on my right
| was repeating to himself:
! “Poor bloke, poor bloke; he sure
i done his bit, and it won't be long be-
i fore he’ll be pushin’ up the daisies
| somewhere in France. And before this
war is over, there'll be lots more in the
same fix.”
One of the Tommies, in an effort to
be brave, addressed Jones:
“What's ’is nyme, Mike? What bat-
talion is ’e from?”
Jones answered :
“James Collins, a lance corporal out
of the Royal Warwicks; five machine
gun bullets through the right lung—
hemorrhage.”
The door opened again and two
stretcher bearers entered, carrying a
Tommy, his head lying flat, and a
smell of ether pervaded the ward. We
knew it was a case from the Pictures
(operating room). The stretcher bear-
ers placed him on the right of the
Irishman.
Jones now left me, and, getting a lit-
tle white basin, went over to the new
arrival. The Tommies turned inquir-
ing looks in his direction. Answering
these glances, he read from the tag
pinned to the tunic of the patient:
“Shell wound, left foot—amputa-
tion.”
Then and there I l:'new that I had
lost my prestige.
In a short while the form on the
stretcher began to mumble. This
mumbling soon turned to singing; that
Tommy sure could sing! He must have
been a comedian in civilian life, be-
cause the Tommies were soon roaring
with laughter; so was I, as much as
my wounds would permit. Harry Tate,
the famous English comedian, in his
palmiest days, never had a more ap-
preciative audience. After a while the
singing ceased, and the Tommies be-
gan conversing among themselves. The
main topic was—*“Blighty—What
Hopes?’ Each one was hoping his
wound was serious enough for him to
be sent to England. The stretcher
bearers were being pestered with ques-
tions as to what chance the Tommies
had of reaching their coveted goal. X
believe they all envied the man under
ether, because, with a left foot miss
i ing, he was sure to be sent to Blighty.
A sergeant major of the Royal Army
Medical corps entered the ward. The
medical men promptly stood at atten-
tion, except one or two who were
taking care of serious cases. The ser-
geant major ordered:
“Get this ward in shape. The M. O.
is coming through in five minutes to
inspect cases and ‘clear out.’”
The medical men went from cot to
cot, carefully smoothing out blankets,
tucking in loose ends and picking up
“fag ends” (cigarette butts).
The sergeant major left.
In about ten minutes the door
opened again and, with a smart “shun”
from the sergeant major a dead si-
lence reigned in the ward. The medi-
cal men all came to attention, then
the doctor entered, followed by a
clerk and a R. A. M. C. sergeant. He
stopped at each cot, carefully read
the tag on the wounded man occupy-
!
ing it, passed a few remarks which |
' the clerk jotted down on a pad of
paper, and as he left each wounded
soldier he made a cheering remark to
| him.
When he came to me he asked:
“Well, how are you feeling, my
lad?” at the same time stooping over
my tag.
“Hum—three rifle bullets; well, my
lucky fellow, it means England for
you.”
I could have kissed that doctor.
Then he passed to the Irishman on
my right. Stooping over him, he said;
“How are you, my lad?’
The Irishman answered:
“I'm d——d sick and I want to get
out of here; I want to get out of here,
out of this draft. Every tin minutes
they're openin’ and a-shuttin’ that
door.”
The doctor, with a wink, turned to
the R. A. M. C. sergeant and said:
“Shrapnel, left foot, knee and right
breast. I see no reason why this
man won't be ready for duty in a
couple of days.”
The Irishman,
swered :
“Dooty ; how the h—1 can I do dooty
when I can't walk?”
The doctor answered :
“That will be all right, my lad.
We'll fix you up with a cusl job at
brigade headquarters, pounding a
typewriter.”
The Irishman, with a groan of dis-
gust, addressing nobody in particu-
lar, sighed:
“Out since Mons, and I end up
workin’ a bloody typewriter at head-
quarters. Stick me in skirts and I'll
go as a manicurist.”
The doctor, paying no attention to
this remark, went to the next case
and soon left the ward.
As soon as the door closed a string
of oaths came from the Irishman:
“Poundin’ a — typewriter
at headquarters; just like the bloody
British army; what in h—I do I know
with a yell, an-
Just my luck. Why couldn't that
shell have hit me in the hands. But
I s’pose if I'd lost my bloody hands
they’d made a tight-rope walker out
o’ me.
tioning each other:
“What did he sye to you?”
you good for Blighty?’ “He marked
England on my tag!” “What does
base hospital mean? Does it mean
that I'm to stick it out in this bloody
mud while you blokes are a-goin’ to
Blighty?” ete.
tered, carrying a little oblong green
box, which, we all knew, contained
cigarettes.
chorus of:
“Gimme a fag, mate; I'm all out.
Come on, chum, don’t forget me.
That's a good fellow. Let's have
one.”
Pretty soon every Tommy who was
able had a lighted fag between his
lips, and a sigh of content went up
as he inhaled deep drafts of the
smoke. I certainly enjoyed mine.
The sergeant major again entered.
The medical men came to attention.
In crisp tones he ordered:
“Get the convoy for England ready.
Look alive; the ambulances are ex-
pected any minute.”
The stretcher bearers entered, bus-
tling about, and the ward was in an
uproar. Then, outside, could be heard
the chugging engines of the waiting
ambulances.
As each fortunate Tommy was car-
ried out the more unfortunate ones,
who were to be left behind at the
base hospital, bravely wished him a
“Good luck, mate; give my regards
to Trafalgar square. Be careful and
don’t lose your watch in Petticoat
lane. Give ’er my love.”
As I was carried through the door
the cold air sent a shiver through me
and my wounds began to pain. The
effect of the chloroform was wearing
off. Outside it was dark and confu-
sion seemed to reign supreme. Lan-
terns were flashing to and fro and
long lines of stretchers could be seen
moving toward the ambulances.
I was placed in an ambulance with
three otters. A rasping noise as the
gears were shifted, and with a jerk
the ambulance started. That jerk
made me grind my teeth.
But I was happy in the thought
that at last I was on my way to that
longed-for heaven, Blighty!
——The truly wise man always has
“respect unto the recompense of the
reward.”
THE BOYHOOD OF GROVER THE HAPSBURG HOUSE—RU-
CLEVELAND.
The forerunner of the Cleveland
family
Cleveland. He came to our shores
from Ipswich, England, reaching New | empire so many years, and probably
England on or about the year 1635. no dozen families combined have ever
Grover Cleveland, President of the
United States, was descended from
Aaron, the second son of Moses Cleve-
land. The father of Grover Cleveland
was a minister, the Rev. Richard Fal-
ley Cleveland, and his mother was
Miss Ann Neale, of Irish descent.
Stephen Grover Cleveland was born
on the 18th day of March, 1837, in
Caldwell, New Jersey, a small town
not very far from Newark. His fath-
er was at this time pastor of the
Presbyterian church in Caldwell. He
had a salary of about five hundred
dollars a year and a very large fam-
ily. The name of Grover was given
to the minister’s son in honor of a
former pastor of the church, the Rev.
Stephen Grover. As the boy grew
older his first name seems to have
been lost sight of and he was known
only as Grover, or “Grove,” as the
boys called him. He lived several
years in Caldwell and then his father
accepted a call to a church in the
small town of Fayetteville in New
York State. This town was about ten
miles from Syracuse, and was an at-
tractive little town. Of the character
of the country at this time we read:
i
{
in this country was Moses Sovereigns to European peoples, no
“It was a great country for a boy |
Y | force Rudolf subsequently collected by
to grow up in. It was not in any
sense new, and some of the houses had
moss on their roofs; but there were !
plenty of genuine log houses back
among the hills whose owners had not
yet become sufficiently forehanded to
build framed, white painted dwellings
with green blinds, such as might be
lived in by men whose farms were
nearer the market. It was not a new
country, indeed, but it was very young
and it was growing tremendously,
while in no other part of the United
States was there a greater degree of
mental activity. It was said that
more politics, such as they were, and
more religion, such as it was, could
be found within twelve miles of Salt
Poin than in the District of Colum-
ia,
The boy Grover entered the com-
mon school of the town. There was
an Academy in the town and it was
the ambition of all really ambitious
boys to enter the Academy as soon as
possible. :
With Grover Cleveland the will to
do a thing was paramount to actually
bringing that thing to pass, and when
he had once made up his mind to en-
ter the Academy it was certain that
he would do so. He was only eleven
years old when the great desire of his
heart was realized and he became a
student at the Fayetteville Academy.
He was a student in the best sense of
the word, and he had entered that
Academy “for business.”
With nine children in the family,
and the minister’s salary small, it be-
came necessary for the boys of the
family to earn an honest penny as
soon as possible, and at twelve years
of age Grover became the youngest
clerk in the town. He entered a gen-
eral store, where he was kept busy
during the day and in the evenings he
continued his studies at home. After
Grover worked for a year in the store,
the Cleveland family left Fayette-
ville and went to the larger town of
Clinton, Mr. Cleveland having accept-
ed a position with the Home Mission
Society of his church. Grover enter-
ed a good preparatory school in Clin-
ton and had his eye on Hamilton Col-
lege in the town. He had to earn
: : i more money and he went back to the
about one of those writin’ machines? ' clerkship in the store in Fayetteville,
; where he remained two years working
Win this war—what hopes?” |
The Tommies were eagerly ques- Rot only himself, but his widowed
“Are
hard, studying when he could and
saving his money in the hope of a col-
lege education. When he was sixteen
years old his father died and he had
mother and some young brothers and
sisters to think of.
The ambitious boy did not think
that there was any opportunity for
him in New York and he decided to
go West. He returned to his moth-
er’s home and borrowed twenty-five
dollars from a man who had confi-
. dence enough in him to loan it to him
He was greeted with a
Pretty soon a stretcher bearer en- ‘on his personal note, and the boy and
a companion started for the West
without being at all sure as to where
they would locate. When they reach-
ed Buffalo, young Cleveland walked
| ten miles to the large stock farm of
his uncle to make a visit. This was
the end of his going West, for his un-
cle was so pleased with the push and
apparent ambition of the boy that he
made him a good offer to remain on
the farm. Grover Cleveland had by
this time decided that he would like
to become a lawyer, and his prosper-
ous uncle came to think that his hust-
ling young nephew would succeed in
about anything he undertook. Through
the influence of his uncle young
Cleveland entered the office of the law
firm . of Rogers, Bowen and Rogers
where he soon made it evident that he
“meant business” and would probably
develop into a good lawyer. That this
prophecy was verified the world
knows.
It was not an easy victory, but the
boy who won out had three essential
traits of character. They were con-
stant industry, high courage and un-
failing honesty. Nothing will carry
a young fellow farther on the road to
success than these three traits of
character. They helped to carry Gro-
ver Cleveland to the White House as
the twenty-second President of the
United States.—Ex.
A Lesson from the Birds.
Among the birds there seems to be
an understanding of community life
and sociability. They stick together
in their pleasures and in their jour-
neys and in their troubles. This is es-
pecially true of the sea birds. They
always respond to the cry of distress
from one of their number. If one is
shot, the gulls, snipe and plover will
circle around the spot until the fear
of death finally drives them away. If
a wounded snipe is found, its friends
will bring it food and guard it from
all enemies until it can fly again. The
little wood birds are the same. They
quarrel among themselves sometimes,
but they always band together in case
of danger. The presence of large
hawks or crows is heralded by shrill
calls, and all within the danger ra-
dius get together and fight like little
soldiers.
——Subscribe for the “Watchman.”
DOLF, THE FOUNDER.
No family has furnished so many
family has ever reigned over a great
furnished so many worthless kings
and emperors as the Hapsburgs. Ever
since their robber founder, Rudolf I,
stepped from his castle of Habichts-
burg (Hawk’s Nest), on the Rhine, to
the throne of the Holy Rome Empire
in 1272, his descendants have, with
one or two exceptions, and excepting
the Luxemburg interregnum, misrul-
ed the empire of which Austria has
nearly always been the central State.
Both as emperors of Germany and
Austria and as kings of Spain they
have as a rule been haughty, incompe-
tent, extravagant and imperious, with
ingratitude as their chief characteris-
tic.
Old Rudolf made a bluff at reform-
ing when he was elected Emperor by |
the aid of his friend, the Hohenzol-
lern burgrave of Nuremberg, ances-
tor of the present Prussian Kaiser,
who was also a robber, as his name
indicated, Hohen-high-zollern atol-
lery, or high tollhouse keeper, the
said tollhouse being a castle on the
Alps, where his ancestors held up
merchants on their way from Switz-
erland to Nuremberg. Rudolf decided
to close up the robber barons on the
Rhine, and what they collected by
taxation and thereby earned the cred-
it from his historians of being an hon-
est emperor, something rare, appar-
ently, at that time. i
Since Rudolf introduced the Haps- |
burg family to history there have
been twenty Hapsburg Kaisers of the
Holy Roman Empire, four Kaisers of
the Austrian Empire, six Hapsburg'
kings of Spain, a dozen Hapsburg
grand dukes of Tuscany and hundreds |
of dukes, archdukes, counts and |
princes of other States, all living on!
the public purse and spending money |
like water.
Of all that great crew of royal
grafters not more than half a dozen
have deserved more than a line of |
mention in history, unless the blood- |
thirsty tiger, Ferdinand II, and his
bigoted son, Ferdinand III, who con- |
ducted the thirty years’ war, are de- |
serving of more than mention. {
The only Hapsburg monarchs who
have been remembered with respect |
are Maximilian I, Charles V. Ferdin- |
and I, Maria Teresa, Francis II of |
Austria, and old Franz Josef. Of
most of the others, like General Cus- |
ter’s Indian, it might be said, “the |
good Hapsburgs were dead Haps-
burgs.”
Charles V was responsible for the !
80 years’ war which freed Holland
and brought England and Holland to
the front as leading maritime nations;
Ferdinand II was responsible for the
30 years’ war, which reduced Germa-
ny to such a terrible condition that it
took 200 years to recover.
Maria Teresa has always had the
reputation of being the silver lining
to the dark cloud of Hapsburg domi-
nation, but even she was an expensive
luxury to her subjects.
In his history of Germany, Menzel
shows the haughty bearing of the
Hapsburg monarch, the extravagance
of his court and the imposing digni-
ty of the crown. Says Menzel: “Dur-
ing the reign of Charles VI, father of
Maria Teresa, the emperor was beheld
with distant awe as being superior to
other human beings, surrounded by a
court consisting of no fewer than 40,-
000 individuals, all of whom aided in
the consumption of the public reve-
nue. There were 266 chamberlains,
who looked after numerous festivals,
processions, etc., which consumed an
enormous revenue, which the people
had to furnish.
“Half of Vienna fed from the impe-
rial kitchens and cellars—that is, the
court half. Two casks of Tokay were
daily reckoned for softening the bread
of the Empress’ parrots; twelve
quarts of the best wine were requir-
ed for the Empress’ ‘night-cap,” and
i buckets of wine for her daily
ath.
“The people were degraded to the
lowest condition of servility. The
oath of allegiance to the Emperor de-
clared, ‘the light of Heaven is obscur-
ed by your Majesty’s illimitable splen-
dor. The universe is not spacious
enough to be the scene of such events
when your most faithful and obedi-
ent estates reach the height of their
happiness by casting themselves at
the feet of your Majesty.’ ”
One wonders how such a worthless, |
faithless, ungrateful line of monarchs
could rule over a great people so many |
centuries, and even the statement that
Austria was necessary to the rest of
Europe, first, as a vanguard of Chris-
tianity against the Turk, and second-
ly, as the representative of Catholic-
ism, does not explain the necessity of
maintaining in power the Hapsburgs,
who were never accused of a wise act
and rarely of a generous one, and who
have for centuries been noted for in-
gratitude.
If in their last desperate struggle
to maintain their position against the
advance of progress they are ‘buried
beneath the tidal wave of democracy,
the peoples of the polyglot empire
they have so long misruled may con- !
template with complacency the end of
a race of rulers, who were for some
unexplainable reason permitted to
outlive by a century their fellow-mis- |
rulers, the Bourbons, and who during
all that period have ever been a bar-
rier to the happiness of their subjects.
—Thomas B. Blynn.
One More Sucker.
Jenkins, who had gone to the shop
that sold everything, happened to no-
tice, while the assistant was serving
him, a sovereign lying on the floor |
near his foot—a whole, round, golden
sovereign! } ;
Quivering with excitement and
glancing cautiously around to s.e that
no one was watching him, he dropped, ;
quite accidentally, of course, one of
his gloves on top of the coin. Then,
bending, he proceeded to pick up his
glove; but the sovereign did not ac-
company it. The elusive coin still re-
mained where it was upon the floor.
He made a second attempt to get hold
of it, but with the same result. |
“Good evening, sir! May I be al-
lowed to show you a bottle of our fa-
mous liquid glue? As, no doubt, you
are aware, its sticking powers—"
But Jenkins had fled.—London Tit-
Bits.
FARM NOTES. *
—Don’t treat lightly the boy who
sells “hot roasted peanuts” at the ball
park. Peanuts are “a splendid food,
cheap and nutritious.” The United
States Department of Agriculture
says so.
—The British breeds of sheep am-
ply demonstrate the possibility of ob-
taining large yields of wool and meat
from the same animals, and with both
flocks of the future will develop still
further upon a wool and mutton ba-
sis.
—While the labor required by sheep
raising is continuous, it is not heavy,
and if properly supervised and made
interesting by financial return ean
well be performed by boys incapable
of other kinds of farm work. This
fact should be given consideration in
many sections where farm labor is
scarce.
—The Belgian hare is one of the
best rabbits for table use. It weighs
more than most breeds, develops rap-
| idly, and the quality of the meat is
superior to all the others. The Flem-
ish giant is a Belgian hare bred ex-
clusively for large size, with the re-
sult that the meat is coarser and less
delicate in flavor. These characteris-
tics are considered by some persons
as desirable, but this is largely a mat-
ter of individual taste.
—One of the best and cheapest
ways to control weeds on farms is to
keep a flock of sheep. In addition to
controlling weeds without cost, sheep
will render a profit by producing nu-
tritious food and wool, and will assist
. materially in meeting demands on the"
nation for meat and wool production.
If weeds are not permitted to grow
and develop leaves they will die, but
it would require a great amount of
{ hand labor to keep most weeds under
control by this method. Sheep will
keep the weeds down and the more
weeds they eat the less will be their
cost of upkeep, and the greater will
be the supply of feed released for oth-
er stock. Many rough or permanent
grass pastures that require mowing
can be kept clean by the use of sheep,
while at the same time the cattle-car-
rying capacity of the pasture is in-
creased.
—There should be 100 hens on
every farm in the United States, de-
clares a recent publication from the
office of the Secretary of Agriculture.
And we should obtain 100 eggs from
every hen. With approximately 6,-
000,000 farms, that would mean 600,-
| 000,000 hens and 60,000,000,000 eggs
per year, according to the calculations
of the writers, who then add that the
number of eggs constitutes a military
resouree not to be ignored. A
One hundred hens on every farm is
not a particularly big contract. There
is hardly a farm in the United States
but could support that number of
hens practically on its waste mater-
ials and without materially added
cost. One hundred hens to a farm is
considerably less than the average
number of hens to a farm in many of
the better poultry-producing sections
of the country. It is an average that
could easily be maintained in the sec-
tions of the country where the aver-
age per farm is now lower.
One hundred eggs from every hen,
while far below what could be obtain-
ed with proper encouragement of
fowls, is considerably more than the
average egg production the country
over.
—Nearly 17,000 samples of seed
were received for test last year at the
seed-testing laboratory of the United
States Department of Agriculture in
Washington, and 11,349 samples at
the five branch laboratories maintain-
ed in co-operation with State institu-
tions. All of these samples were ex-
amined to determine the quality of
the seed and the presence of adulter-
ants. The enforcement of the seed-
importation act has served to prevent
many shipments of imported seed, un-
fit for seeding purposes, from being
distributed in their original condition.
Among these shipments over 675,000
pounds of red clover seed were pro-
hibited entry on account of the pres-
ence of weed seeds and dead seed.
Approximately one-half of this was
recleaned in bond—the weed seeds
and other refuse removed being de-
stroyed, while the seed of good qual-
ity was allowed to go into the seed
trade. The other half of the prohib-
ited red clover shipments was reject-
ed because it contained so much dead
seed as to be of practically no value
for seeding purposes. Three ship-
. ments, aggregating enough seed to
sow 16,000 acres at a normal rate of
seeding, contained no seed which could
be expected to grow in the field. Be-
cause of the difficulties of trans-At-
lantic shipment, imports of almost all
kinds of seed have fallen off, Canada
bluegrass from Canada and winter
rape from Japan being the only two
items of imports which have exceed-
ed those of the previous year.
—The milk of the Jersey is rich in
butterfat, frequently testing about b
, ber cent. Where butterfat is produc-
ed for market, the Jersey is unsur-
passed, as her cream is highly color-
ed, making it e pecially suitable for
a fancy trade. She is an economical
feeder, producing considerable butter-
fat in proportion to the feed she con-
sumes, and will thrive when confined
in a corral on a small farm or when
allowed to range at will on a ranch.
Owing to their rugged, vigorous
condition, the Ayrshires are especially
adapted to rough, hilly farms. They
have been bred under favorable con-
ditions until they have acquired a
more rugged constitution than more
refined breeds. For milk and butter
qualifications, the Ayrshires stand be-
tween the Holstein and the Jerseys,
and are excellent general purpose
COWS.
The Guernsey is similar to the Jer-
sey, has richer milk and more highly
' colored butter; it is also larger, mak-
ing a fair animal for the butcher,
when well fatted.
Shorthorns, Red Polls and Brown
Swiss cows are more of the beef kind
than they are for milk. Nature in-
tended these breeds as beef-produc-
ing animals. In general it will be no-
ticed, each breea has its special qual-
ifications, and the selection of a par-
ticular breed depends upon the indi-
' vidual farmer’s requirements.
As a rule, one cow out of every
four is not worth keeping; she is
merely a boarder. All such should be
. gotten rid of as soon as known. It is
a good plan to make a test once a
month.
“n
Sa
San?