APRIL

_April 2._--Spring seems to be approaching this year in much the same

way as the snail in the old school problem climbed to the top of the

pole. He used to climb up two inches in the daytime and slip back one at

night. Every approach of spring is followed by an immediate relapse, and

on several occasions it seemed to advance only one inch in the daytime

and then to slip back six inches at night. But it is certainly coming.

Every time the sap begins running again it runs a little faster, and

last Sunday it gushed out at a rate that was both wasteful and wicked. I

have just heard of one good man who was so impressed by the waste that

he sat up until twelve o'clock on Sunday night, and immediately after

the clock struck he went out to the sugar-bush and gathered the sap by

the light of a lantern. I can't help wondering if he was not really

breaking the Sabbath in knowing anything about the condition of his

sap-buckets, and especially in having his mind on the subject during the

hours of waiting. It is a delicate point, and one on which we should

have an authoritative ruling. But spring is really coming, and the

imagination kindles at the thought. It is really no wonder that every

one with a touch of poetry "rages on swift iambics" in the spring. After

the season of dreariness and death the hosts of light and life come back

to reconquer the earth. Marshalled and led by their great general, the

sun, the birds come back with the south winds. The flowers, and every

green herb, rouse and push through the warm soil; the leaves expand in

the genial glow, and presently the world is all alive again. In a short

time we get accustomed to the reign of life, and poetry languishes

during the heat of summer. But while the change is taking place the soul

of man expands, and his thoughts begin to pulse in accord with the great

rhythms of the universe. In such a state of exaltation poetry becomes as

natural as breathing.

Of course the birds are back, and it is impossible to disregard them

entirely. The boys shout the news to me whenever they see a returned

traveller--bluebirds, killdeers, robins, meadow-larks: in short, "all

the migrant hosts of June." But they need no announcer. Their songs and

cries make their presence known. The song-sparrows are singing with a

persistence that suggests that they have selected their summer homes and

are satisfied. A few minutes ago a horned lark rested for a moment on a

fence post and warbled in a hurried, excited way that suggested a brief

respite from the cares of housekeeping. As their nests are frequently

found when there is snow on the ground, his mate is probably brooding

somewhere in the neighbourhood. Lucky birds! They have no "ne temere"

decree to bother them, and the way they go over line fences shows that

they have no idea of property rights. But, as I said, the birds are not

the dominating attraction of the day. My mind constantly goes back to

the sun and its boundless activity. If I were a painter I should want to

paint the sunshine when it seems to be so alive as it is this morning.

It is brushing away the snow, making the elm buds misty, sending

countless rivulets whispering and lisping through the grass, and filling

every nook and cranny with its flood of life. The sunshine we are having

seems to be piled on the earth as high as the sun itself. The air is

steeped in it, and wherever we turn we can see its "banners yellow,

glorious, golden." Everything we look at reflects back the sunshine. The

very songs of the birds seem to come to us freighted with

sunshine--sunshine everywhere and over everything. Even the houses and

barns across the fields look as if they had been awakened by it, and are

cheery and cosy and hospitable. It is certainly a great day.

And it seems to be a day for big ideas. While gathering sap, I sampled

some of the buckets and noticed that some trees give much sweeter sap

than others. Now, why shouldn't the Department of Forestry look into the

matter of maple sugar production in a scientific way? The trees that

give the sweetest sap must be of a better strain than the others, and by

adopting selective methods, why should it not be possible to develop

sugar maples just as they are developing new brands of wheat? By taking

seeds from the best trees and planting them, in about sixty years we

should have another generation of trees ready to tap. We could then

discover, or rather our descendants could, which of these inherited the

strongest sugar-producing qualities, and seeds could be gathered from

them for a new planting. By keeping up the work for a thousand years or

so trees might be developed that would produce "real, old-fashioned"

maple syrup direct from the spile without all this troublesome work of

"boiling-in." Somehow on a day like this such an idea does not seem half

so absurd as it will probably look in type. Canada is a young nation,

with all the future before it. We are now laying the foundations of all

the great things that are to be, so why should not something be done to

develop the maple sugar industry? I wish I had thought of this sooner,

so that I might have suggested it to the sugar-maker of the Donlands

with a view to having the matter properly considered by Parliament. But

the idea will keep. In an experiment that is to extend over a thousand

years or so a year or two at the beginning will not matter much.

Does not the college song say, "The best of friends must part, must

part?" After I had been chumming with my neighbour, the sun, for a few

glorious hours its work carried it elsewhere and it moved westward,

"trailing clouds of glory" as it moved. My helpers had long since gone

to hunt for sandwiches--and had failed to return. Even the little boy

whose part in sugar-making was purely decorative, making mudpies with

snow frosting, had lost interest in his work and had gone home. I was

left alone with the kettle and the ravenous fire under it--and with a

spring appetite. About the time when the sun was touching the horizon

and the frost was coming back to undo its work in puny spitefulness I

went home to supper, leaving a good fire blazing and the kettle boiling.

After that came a session under the stars and the full moon, and then

another trip across the fields, carrying a twelve-quart pail of syrup.

Tired? Well, yes, but I had an outing in that wonderful sunshine.

Besides, I have a pailful of the sunshine to use with future pancakes.

Sugar-making has compensations.

_April 5._--Have you ever watched a small boy trying to make a broad

jump? He will go back and back, so as to get a good start, and when at

last he tries he has to run so far before he reaches the mark that he is

out of breath and can't jump. Well, that is exactly the fix I am in this

morning. There is something I want to talk about, and I want to do it

without appearing to be teaching a lesson or drawing a moral or

preaching a lay sermon. I have gone so far back in my attempt to get a

good start that for the past half hour I have been grumbling against

Shakespeare for having made the Duke say that he could find

"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in everything."

If I thought there was any truth in those lines I would lock myself in

the house and pull down the blinds, so that I could not see the face of

nature. I can enjoy nature only when I feel that nature is enjoying

herself. Of course the explanation of Shakespeare's little sermon lies

in the fact that the Duke was speaking in character, and he was a

stodgy, inefficient person of the kind that are all the time going

around spoiling the good things of life by drawing morals from them.

That same Shakespeare had a little practice that casts a great light on

the workings of his mind. He usually put his wisest philosophy into the

mouths of his fools and his noblest sentiments into the mouths of his

worst villains. It was the murderous king in _Hamlet_ who mouthed about

the divinity that hedges the person of a King, and it was Iago who

moralised about the stealing of one's purse being the stealing of trash.

Because of this I don't believe that Shakespeare ever meant that

"sermons-in-stones" stuff to cast a gloom over my open-air life in this

glorious spring weather. It is my private opinion that he accepted life

as he found it with more irresponsible joyousness than any other man

that ever walked the earth, and if he let some of his characters drool

improving sentiments it was because he found people doing such things,

and found, moreover, that it was the people whose actions conformed to

them the least whose sentiments were the most elevating.

But this is not what I intended talking about at all. However, I warned

you in the opening sentences that I might not be able to make my jump

after all. To do or say anything definite requires concentration, and

how can a man concentrate his mind when the sun is shining and the south

wind blowing and the birds singing and the children asking when we are

to go fishing? Then there is the garden to be attended to and so many

other things to be done that one doesn't know where to start. And all

the while, as some poet has sung:

"Nature's calling from the trout-brook,

Calling: 'Whish!

Son, you poor, tired, lazy feller,

Come and fish!'"

But I mustn't go fishing. That would be flying right in the face of

public opinion. Everybody is working as everybody should be. Instead of

saying, with Hamlet, "I must be idle," I must say with the prosaic

people who make up this workaday world, "Get busy! Get busy!"

_April 7._--The other day when we were sawing the big maple a little

thing happened that put me in a hopeful frame of mind. It was found that

the saw did not have enough "set," and that if the work was to be

completed with reasonable ease it must be fixed. My recollections of

setting saws went back about twenty-five years, when the instrument

used was a huge contraption made up of screws, gauges, pincers, and such

things that needed the management of an expert. It usually took a couple

of hours to set the saw, and unless the thing was skilfully done it did

more harm than good. But the situation had to be faced, and I went and

got the most up-to-date setting tool. To my surprise it was a little

punch that a man might carry in his vest pocket. I was instructed to put

it on the end of a tooth and give it a smart tap with a hammer. If I did

that to every tooth the saw would be set perfectly. Full of incredulity

I undertook the task, and in less than five minutes had the saw in

perfect trim. Every tooth had the same amount of set, and the cut we

made was as smooth as if it had been planed. Evidently the perfect tool

for setting a saw has been developed, and nothing could be simpler. That

started me to thinking about all the implements that are in use on the

farm, and how simple they are when compared with the first inventions.

The first mowers were so big and complex and heavy that they foundered

scores of horses every spring. A team could hardly pull them across the

field, and they made a noise like a boiler factory. The modern mower is

so light and simple that one horse can pull it, and it doesn't make any

more noise than a sewing machine. Apparently man makes all his first

inventions in the most complex way possible, and it takes him years

before he can hit on the simple and obvious way of doing things. A

disreputable philosopher once said, "Nothing is so hard to see as the

obvious," and I guess he was right. The touch of hope, I found, lay in

the fact that whatever a man sets his mind to he will finally simplify,

though he may begin with a bewildering tangle. Now, about the only thing

that is getting more complex every day is the art of living. When we try

to improve it we add something--put in a telephone or something of the

kind--and keep on adding until we make life a burden. Perhaps that is

because we have not yet given life sufficient thought. When conditions

become intolerable perhaps we will begin to give them thought and be

able in time to simplify them as we are simplifying everything else.

Perfected living may yet be found to be as far from the complex life of

the present as the old cumbersome saw-setting tool was from the little

punch that I used the other day. It is a cheering thought. Simplicity

makes our work easier, and it may yet make our living more enjoyable.

That is worth thinking about.

The number of green fields there are, as compared with those that are

ruled off with brown furrows, brings up once more the question of the

constant migration from the farms of Ontario. But I am coming to the

conclusion that we are going about the problem of keeping the boy on the

farm in the wrong way. Instead of trying to point out the advantages of

farm life, we should devote some of our energy to showing the

disadvantages of city life. The cities remind me of sticky fly-paper.

They look so inviting from a distance, and when once you get your feet

into them it is almost impossible to get out. And those who are already

caught make such a great buzzing that every one within hearing thinks

that the honey must be plentiful and fine. The buzzing is evidence of

excitement, and the young people living the monotonous life of the

country are just dying for excitement. Besides, the cities have an

unfair advantage. They publish all the important newspapers, and of

course a newspaper that does not constantly point with pride to the

glories of its home would be lacking in public spirit. They paint

everything in attractive colours, and the flies keep on flocking to the

centre of attraction. I hope that some day we shall have a paper that

will be edited and printed somewhere in the fields, and that will stand

up for them as the city papers stand up for the streets.

_April 9._--Unless something is done to relieve the scarcity of hired

men we may hear of the revival of the press gang, and then the country

will be no place for a man whose most strenuous work is done on a

typewriter. Farmers are getting positively ravenous for help. And that

reminds me that I haven't seen a tramp in two years. They used to be so

plentiful along the lines of the railroads that they were a tax on

charitably-disposed people, but now I doubt if a tramp could travel a

mile in any direction through the country without being gobbled up. He

would find every avenue barred with work, and eager employers waylaying

him at every corner. A man cannot be idle in the country now unless he

has a farm of his own on which to loaf, and even then he must put up "No

Trespass" signs. Perhaps that accounts for the migration of the poets to

the cities. It would hardly be safe for them to be going around picking

flowers, listening to the birds, and rolling up their eyes when the

country is full of farm work that is crying to be attended to. And that

reminds me that one of them, whose name I shall not betray, has these

poignant lines in one of his poems:

"I fear that work before me lies--

Indeed, I see no option,

Unless perhaps I advertise:

'An orphan for adoption.'"

_April 12._--It seems that the apple trees get "that tired feeling" in

the spring, just like the rest of us, and need a good tonic to put them

in shape. As nearly as I could learn from Mr. Clement and Mr. Buchanan,

that first application of lime-sulphur wash means much the same to the

trees as a dosing of sulphur and molasses does to the boys, and I can

tell you right here that it is a whole lot easier to administer. The

trees can't squirm and howl and wriggle out of it. They just stand and

take their medicine. The lime-sulphur kills the oyster-shell scale,

insect eggs, fungi, microbes, etc., and acts as a general

constitutional. And it is no particular trick to apply it. As a matter

of fact, it looks to me to be about the easiest spring job on the farm.

I say "looks," because all I did was to smoke my pipe and look on.

Perhaps the other spring jobs seemed harder because I had to put on my

overalls and pitch into them myself. But to a man sitting on the fence

and smoking while the work is being done spraying doesn't seem a bit

hard, even though it may be scientific. And even the science of it is

not so very profound. They demonstrated the whole process to me, from

carrying the water in buckets to the boiler to spilling what was left

over from the barrel when they were done. It was a complete and

satisfying exhibition.

To begin with, they unloaded their boiler and explained how to make it

and what it cost. It is made from pine boards and a sheet of zinc--the

boards for the sides and ends and the zinc for the bottom. Whether it

costs $2.50 or $2.80 I cannot remember, and I have lost the envelope on

the back of which I made my notes. Anyway, it doesn't matter, for any

one who is interested in the work can get the bulletins on "Lime-sulphur

Wash" and "Apple Orcharding" from the Department of Agriculture by

sending a postal card asking for them. These bulletins contain full and

exact explanations of everything that an orchardist needs to know, from

preparing the ground for the planting of trees to the packing and

marketing of apples. If you have only one tree in the back yard it will

pay to get these booklets and they will tell you much more than I intend

to take the trouble to tell. But let us get back to our work. After they

had set up the boiler they put in it forty gallons of water, which they

heated almost to the boiling point. Then they mixed a hundred pounds of

sulphur with water till it made a smooth paste and added it to the water

in the boiler. After it was thoroughly mixed they began to drop in stone

lime until fifty pounds had been added, and the mixture became as much a

witch's broth as the one described in _Macbeth_. I found myself

unconsciously repeating:

"Double, double toil and trouble,

Boil, cauldron, boil and bubble."

It boiled and bubbled all right, but the toil and trouble were not

particularly evident. All that was necessary was to keep the mess

stirred up with a hoe and to keep it boiling for an hour. Even though

making lime-sulphur wash comes under the head of science, I would rather

undertake to cook a barrel of it than to make a pot of oatmeal porridge

without getting it scorched. No one need be afraid of that part of the

work.

When finished, the barrel of mixture, according to the most careful

ciphering, cost just $2.80. That included charges for both labour and

wood--two things no farmer would think of mentioning. As for the labour,

every farmer has a lot of it in his system that is bound to go to waste

unless he employs it on some job like this, and he would never think of

taking it into account. It is the same with the wood. Why put in a

charge for wood when all you need is the tail-board of the gravel box or

an armful of bed slats or anything else that is not being used at the

time? Still, they insisted on counting in the wood, though they refused

to add two cents for the extra tobacco I smoked while watching them and

sniffing the brew. The barrel of mixture was strong enough to make eight

barrels when diluted to the strength required for the trees. This makes

the cost of each barrel of home-cooked wash thirty-five cents. This is

an important item, as the commercial wash comes to eighty cents a

barrel. It certainly pays the man who has a large orchard to prepare his

own materials.

But it was when they began to apply the wash to the trees that I really

got into touch with my scientists. After they had explained to me the

workings of their spraying outfit, which had cost $27.50, they filled

the barrel to which the spraying pump was attached and got busy; and

right there they revealed the fact that scientists are just as human as

the rest of us. The spraying outfit is fitted with two lines of hose, so

that two men can administer the spray at the same time, but they were

able to use only one line, as they had lost one of the nozzles. My heart

opened to them at once. That was just the way things would be likely to

happen if I had tried to do the work myself. And I had a decided

advantage of them. If I had lost a nozzle I could blame it on the boys,

but all they could do was to admit that they had lost it themselves.

After this incident I was no longer abashed by the fact that the work

being done was of the kind that is called scientific. The bane of my

existence is perfect people who never make mistakes and who always do

everything right. When I found that these scientists were human like

myself I filled my pipe again and began to take an interest in life. The

one hose that was in working order ended in a bamboo pole with a tube

inside it. This made it possible for the man doing the spraying to reach

the top branches of the trees. Here again the work did not seem hard nor

of a kind to need special training. Any one should be able to do it. The

nozzle was spouting out a cloud of spray and all that was necessary was

to direct it so that the cloud would touch every twig and branch of the

tree. Of course, a man had to manage it so that he didn't get sprayed

too much himself, for that lime-sulphur certainly had some "zip" to it.

I got a couple of whiffs of it, and it is my private opinion that any

microbe that could stand up against it without sneezing would be able to

"stand unabashed amid the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the

crash of worlds."

After all, it was not the work of spraying that impressed me most about

the visit of Mr. Clement, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Palmer. They did their

work well, and no sensible man can doubt that such work is necessary and

profitable. But what is coming over the world when three well-educated,

cultured, ambitious young men are doing such work at all? They are of

the type of clean-cut, intelligent young fellows that you would have

found a few years ago preparing themselves for law or medicine or for a

career in the world of business. But here they are teaching farming,

talking farming, and looking forward to farming as their life-work. Ever

since Cadmus invented the alphabet education has been looked upon as a

door of escape from the drudgery of farm work. When I went to school no

lesson impressed me more than the one about John Adams and his Latin

grammar. When the boy found the grammar too hard his father gave him a

job of ditching and he quickly went back to his studies and became

President. Moral: Get an education and get out of doing farm work. But

here are these young men with their good educations coming back to work

the land. Are the farmers of the future to be men of this type? I can

hardly believe it, and yet it should be true. Farming is one of the

finest occupations in the world if taken in moderation. But it will take

more than science and profits to keep young men of this type on the

land. They will need a very fine quality of philosophy to enable them to

see the true value of things. They will have to learn how to realise the

possibilities of their own souls while doing the humble daily tasks. I

do not know whether they have a chair of philosophy in Guelph or not,

but if they have it should be occupied by some one

"High-rife with old Philosophy

And mad with glimpses of futurity."

His course of lectures should be the most important in the college. His

work would be to prepare us for a future in which the heavy burdens of

the world will be borne by educated men who will understand their rights

as well as their work. With such men behind the ploughs, the day of

predatory big business will soon come to an end. The men who feed the

world will no longer be the slaves of the cunning. But it is still so

much easier to make a living by cleverness and cunning that it is hard

to believe that the hard work of farming is to be taken over by men of

education who will know their own worth and the worth of their work. It

is a glorious dream, but the world will have to make more progress in

philosophy than it has in science before it comes true. When my

scientific friends finally completed their work and left me I felt

lonesome and homesick for the outer world for the first time since

coming back to the land. In spite of their enthusiasm about farming and

farm work, I felt that they belonged to that world rather than to the

world in which I am sojourning.

_April 16._--"I've given up the danged farm," said a callow youth this

morning in response to a civil question about the progress being made

with the spring work. At present he is putting in his time as the

village cut-up, and when it really becomes necessary for him to work

he'll get a job as cook on a gravel train or as oiler in a garage. He'll

live in a boiled horse boarding-house and fill himself with husks and

other deleterious substances. The "danged" farm isn't swift enough for

him.

Unfortunately there are many in his class, though they express

themselves differently. They are travelling the school and college route

to the over-crowded professions or going to the city in search of a

nice, clean job. "The danged farm" isn't good enough for them.

At this point the observer usually begins to pound the pulpit, but I am

in no mood to usurp the prerogatives of the preacher. If fellows of this

sort want to leave the country for the city, let them go. There are

altogether too many useless people in the country now. There are men

spoiling land who ought to be putting in their time as dock-wallopers or

at some city occupation that requires no brains. At the same time, there

are a lot of struggling doctors, lawyers, preachers, and business men in

the cities who have just the education and brains needed to make the

best kind of farmers. Don't make any mistake about it. The farming of

the future is going to be the best of the learned professions, and the

only one in which a man of brains and character can find scope for his

individuality and abilities. Farming is about the only man's job left.

The city has changed as much as the country in the last twenty-five

years, and it is no longer the place for a man of wholesome ambition.

The change is due to two things--machines and organisation. The machines

have made trades a thing of the past, and organisation is doing away

with individual enterprise. There are no more trades where skilled

artisans work in wood or metal or cloth or leather. There are machines

now that do the work, and men and women can get jobs to wait on them.

You cannot realise what it means to be the slave of such a machine

unless you have been one or have seen such slaves at work. Some years

ago I was conducted through one of the largest shoe factories in Lynn,

Massachusetts, by its proud proprietor. I could not help noticing the

clock-like regularity with which the men and women who were at work

performed every motion. In making a shoe there are seventy-two separate

operations, and each is made by a different operator with a machine. No

one person in all that factory could make an entire shoe. The skill of

each individual was confined to one operation, such as sewing in the

tongue or pegging on the heel. While we were passing through the factory

and the proprietor was explaining to me how things were done, not one of

those workers paused or looked up. I commented on their unflagging

industry. The proprietor smiled. "I have figured out to a nicety just

how many operations can be made in a day by each machine, and have the

speed regulated to perform just that number of operations. Of course,

the operator can stop the machine if not ready to go on, but he is

docked at the end of the day for each operation he misses."

I never was so near being an anarchist in my life as I was while the

memory of that incident was fresh in my mind. The workers in that

factory were not simply slaves to their employer, but to merciless

machines. And that is only a sample of what you can find in any industry

that has been perfected along modern lines. In the factories work has

none of the charm it had for the old-time artisan who performed every

operation himself. It is simply machine-driven drudgery, and the man who

thinks that kind of work preferable to work on a farm deserves no better

employment.

So much for the physical workers. The case of the mental workers, while

apparently better, is really worse, but the subject is a dangerous one

to handle. Still enough may be said to suggest some lines of thought.

The fact that almost all business enterprises are conducted by

organisations or companies has entirely changed the positions of all

employees, from office-boy to the president of the company. To parody

Tennyson: "The individual withers, and the company is more and more."

The shareholders, through their directors, adopt a money-making policy

for their company, and that policy must be enforced, no matter how

heartless it may be. For instance, I know of a lithographing company

which has the excellent rule that it pays for only the work done by its

employees. That seems all right, doesn't it? Well, one day I was

lunching with the superintendent of manufacture and he was very much

depressed. I asked what was troubling him, and he explained:

"One of my best printers has had a hard winter of it on account of

sickness in his family. He is an entirely sober, industrious fellow, but

I know he has had a hard time to make both ends meet. Well, he had to

stay out one day this week to bury his little girl, and when pay-day

came he was docked for that day."

"Surely if you called the attention of the president to the case he

would have fixed things."

"He couldn't do a thing. It is a rule of the company. All the president

could do would be to do what I have done myself--open the man's envelope

and put in the pay out of his own pocket."

Now, it is safe to say that not one pious shareholder of that company

would justify the treatment that faithful printer would have received if

the superintendent had not been foolishly soft-hearted, and yet, as a

shareholder, each one would share in the increased dividends caused by

such savings. That is only a trivial example of the results of

organisation. Ruthless methods of competition and of increasing profits

are not adopted from choice by the executive officers, but from

necessity. As individuals they would not stoop to do the things they do

as officers of a company. Above everything else the company must be

successful. No one asks it to be charitable, or kind, or even moral. But

every one insists that it must be efficient. As John D. Rockefeller, the

greatest of all business organisers, blandly informed the Senatorial

Commission which was investigating his business methods: "I am merely a

clamourer for dividends." He had nothing to do with the methods by which

dividends were secured. What he wanted was dividends, and the employee

who failed to provide them would not be long in receiving his

discharge.

In the country matters are different. Such machinery as is used only

serves to relieve farm work of its drudgery. Seedtime and harvest still

have their olden charm. As for organisation, it will be many years

before the farmers have enough of it to enable them to get the just

returns from their labour. In all their work and business dealings the

farmers are their own masters and need not be driven, either in matters

of work or conscience. And the way scientific farming is developing the

farmer's work can give as much scope to his brain power as any of the

learned professions. Neither are the financial returns to be despised. A

successful farmer can make as good an income as the average city man.

When these things are understood as they should be I expect to see an

exodus of intelligent men from the cities to the country, where they can

develop themselves physically, mentally, morally, and financially.

Indeed, a day may come when we shall hear people preaching: "Boys, don't

leave the city."

_April 19._--It is just possible that the hen has been studied too much

from a utilitarian or practical point of view. If allowed to pass the

succulent broiler stage she is regarded simply as an egg-producing

machine, and after a useful life she sinks unsung into the pot-pie or

fricassee. If instead of being born a hen she had been born a water

wagtail, or some bird of no economic value, her charms and social habits

would be embalmed in a Saturday editorial. Her cunning little ways would

be closely observed and set down with delicate humour, and exceptional

literary grace would be used to give her a niche in _The Globe's_

gallery of nature friends. These thoughts were in my mind as I went out

of the house this morning, and, as luck would have it, the first thing

that caught my eye was a Buff Orpington that was pursuing the early worm

to its lair in a flower bed. The fact that that flower bed is placed

where no flower bed should be, and was so placed against my earnest

protests, reconciled me to what was going on. I decided at once that

the time was favourable for a study of the hen. Betaking myself to a

sunny corner of the coal box, I sat down and began to observe. The hen

was of robust habit, but apparently in thorough athletic training. The

soil in which she was scratching was of the kind that would be given a

low classification by a constructive engineer or a Parliamentary

investigating committee. It was a sandy loam, and I had to mind my eyes

whenever she scattered it in my direction. The first outstanding fact

that I gathered was that this particular hen had a definite method of

procedure to which she adhered with remarkable singleness of purpose.

Lowering her head, she examined the ground first with one eye and then

with the other. Then she stepped forward with the confident air of a

baseball star going to the bat, scratched once with one foot and then

twice with the other. If she scratched first with the right foot she

would scratch twice with the left, and _vice versa_. Then she would step

back and carefully examine the field of her depredations. If no worm was

in evidence she would step forward briskly and repeat the performance.

As I had never read this in any book or paper dealing with the hen and

her habits, I took out my notebook and began to secure material for a

future scientific article. But I was doomed to disappointment. At this

moment a door bulged open and an apparition with a broom swooped down on

that hen. She fled squawking, and I discreetly slipped around the corner

of the house. I might have found it hard to explain why that hen hadn't

been shooed away.

There is a wild plum tree in blossom in the woods, the trees are showing

faintly green, the meadows and wheatfields are vivid and, even though

the weather is chilly, summer is really started. A change of the wind

will make everything all right. At the same time no one has any grudge

against the raw east wind that has been blowing lately, for it brought

much-needed rain. When it comes to furnishing wet weather the east wind

is very dependable. I knew it was blowing on Sunday morning when I

wakened and heard the rain pelting on the tent. Being drowsy, I decided

to stay where I was until the shower passed, but after a couple of hours

made up my mind that my case was much like that of the man who sat on

the bank of a river and waited for the water to flow past so that he

could cross. I should have been there for a day or more if a healthy

appetite had not forced me out. It was a glorious rain and will do much

to start the crops towards a prosperous harvest. Oats and barley are

already showing through the ground and the battle with the weeds has

commenced in the garden. The sky signs are now for fine weather and

others besides the birds are feeling chirpy. I don't care if I never run

to catch a street car again as long as I live.

This is the season of the pot-herb, the time when the winter-kept

vegetables lose their flavour and hothouse products are too dear and too

tasteless. Everybody hankers for something green, but how many take the

trouble to get it? Nettles and sourdock are now at their best and only

need to be picked. With the pioneers they were at once a medicine and a

food, for the long winters, with no vegetables, often bred scurvy and

other disorders, so that their first care in the early spring was to

feed lustily on greens. Nettles are coarse and have a peculiar brackish

taste and yet are not unpalatable. Sourdock, however, is as good as the

best spinach, and the only trouble is to get enough of it to satisfy a

hungry family. It is to be found chiefly in low spots or around old

buildings. It is so good that if it were not a native weed it would be

cultivated as a herb. In the good old days its root was an important

part of spring bitters. By the way, does any one make spring bitters any

more? They were usually made by an infusion of the roots of burdocks,

sourdocks, wild cherry and willow twigs, and anything else that tasted

bad enough to be considered worthy of a place in the brew. After this

concoction had been allowed to ferment, it could be guaranteed to kill

or cure. The last time I tasted old-fashioned spring bitters was in the

home of a retired farmer who had gathered the ingredients in the Humber

Valley. He gave me a hospitable dose, and, though I made my escape as

soon as possible, I was sick all the way from North Toronto to twelve

o'clock. People either do not need bitters any more or else they haven't

the constitutions to stand them. The same applies to sulphur and

molasses, of which I have not heard for many years, although it used to

come as regularly as the spring. Although I am a stickler for old-time

ways and things, I think I shall leave out all of the old spring dosing

except the greens. An epicure would relish sourdock, and to-day I

noticed some fresh green dandelions that will shortly be served as a

salad. Even though the garden will not yield anything for weeks to come

except blisters and backaches, there is plenty of good eating in the

fields.

_April 22._--"I saw a chickadee to-day," said a retired farmer, "and it

reminded me of us fellows who have given up farming and moved into

town."

"How?"

"Well, you know the fellows that write nature articles for the papers

say that every fall the chickadees go crazy for a while. The theory is

that they once used to migrate, and when migration time comes round they

feel the old impulse to go south, but not strong enough to make them

travel. It just churns them up, and they hustle around crazy-like, and

don't know what to do with themselves. The spring affects us fellows in

the same way. When the time for seeding comes around we feel that

there's something we ought to be doing, and it isn't here for us to do,

so we loaf around, feeling as lonesome as a lot of motherless colts. If

you don't believe it, just fool around town for a while and talk with

some of the gang. They don't know what's ailing them, but I do."

Of course, he was right, but these retired farmers resemble the

chickadees in still another respect. Their migrating to town is really

the result of an outgrown impulse. There was some excuse for a man who

"retired" when the farm represented nothing but hard work, loneliness,

and complete isolation from the active world. It was then an entirely

laudable ambition for a man to make money and move to town, where he

could live with some degree of comfort and enjoy human companionship.

But in the older parts of the country that day is past. Railroads,

trolleys, and good roads have brought the farms as near to the life of

things as the villages and towns were a few years ago. Many farmers

nowadays get their mail daily; many get daily papers, and some have even

gone so far as to have telephones. In fact, the farmer who is

sufficiently "well off" to retire can get for himself on his farm much

greater comforts than he can ever get on the back streets of any town or

city, and at much less cost.

The question of cost is the one that gives the retired farmer the

greatest surprise, and causes him the most trouble. But on this point

let the man of experience speak:

"When I retired I thought I had everything figured out to perfection,

and would end my days in peace and fatness; but I wasn't within a mile

of the facts. I don't believe any one can figure out just what a farmer

gets from his farm. To begin with, he gets most of his living--his

potatoes, vegetables, eggs, milk, butter, meat, firewood, and such

things; and he never thinks of them in the same way as he does when he

has to pay money for them in town. Then, there are things he can do

without and expenses he can dodge in the country that he can't avoid in

town without getting a reputation for being mean. Not having lived the

town life, he can't know about them in advance. That's why retired

farmers are so often unpopular. People say they are against progress and

can be counted on to vote against anything that's for the good of the

town. Well, I guess that's about right. Things that are for the good of

the town raise the taxes, and when one's income is at a dead level and

the cost of living is going up every year one doesn't hanker for more

expenses. With things going the way they are, there's many a retired

farmer who has discovered that he has changed country prosperity for

town poverty, and that doesn't make him feel generous and

public-spirited."

"There's no place like the farm, after all!"

"O, ho! So you've got that notion in your head, have you? Well, let me

tell you that if there is another living creature more forlorn, buncoed,

and bedevilled than the retired farmer it is the city or town man who

tries farming as a peaceful and easy way to spend his declining years.

Talk about miscalculating! He is the one that has it down to a fine

thing. The city man thinks that if he has a farm clear of debt, good

stock, and up-to-date implements he'll not only be able to sit under his

own vine and fig tree, but to make money. It's a pretty dream: but it's

seldom true. What the city man leaves out of the calculation is

work--the hard, back-breaking, never-ending work it takes to run a farm.

And when it comes to doing things he usually has about as much sense as

a disappointed Brahma hen that sets on a crockery door-knob and tries to

hatch out reversible egg-cups. He thinks all he has to do is to plant

and let nature do the rest. Well, nature does it. Nature puts ten times

as much steam in weeds as she does in turnips, and it looks as if she'd

rather see her potato bugs plump and thrifty than anything else on the

farm. After a man has tried farming for a few years he finds that nature

is less his friend than his enemy. The number of blights, bugs, worms,

and caterpillars she has depending on her bounty is out of all reason.

Nature, my son, needs more petting and coaxing than a woman to make her

treat you half-decent, and it's ten to one she'll jilt you in the end.

No, my son, the farm is no place for a man who isn't ready to get up at

four o'clock in the morning and crow with the roosters, and then plug

away all day and be thankful if he gets through with his chores by nine

o'clock at night.

"Yes, I know, my middle name is Jeremiah, but if you don't believe me

just have a look at some of these city farmers next market day. You'll

know them by their untidy clothes. The first thing a city man thinks

when he moves to the country is that he doesn't need to care how he

dresses, and he doesn't. A respectable scarecrow wouldn't be seen with

some of them. And they're just about as careless about everything else,

though it is taking care of everything that makes it possible for a man

to get along on a farm at all. But what's the use of my talking? If

you've made up your mind to have a try at farming nothing I can say will

stop you; but don't forget that I told you."

From which it appears that in the never-ending debate regarding "Country

Life _versus_ City Life" much may be said on both sides--all of it bad.

Even when eminent authorities are quoted the situation is not improved.

Tolstoi assures us that "cities are places where humanity has commenced

to rot," and Hawthorne put himself on record as believing that "the more

a man turns over the clods the more like a clod his brain becomes."

Thoreau considered country life ideal, because a man could provide for

necessities with so little effort and have so much time for mental and

spiritual growth, and Horace Greeley thought it admirable "if a man

could only afford it." At the present time when so many teachers are

shouting "Back to the soil" the merits of country life are more than

ever in need of being investigated.