i38 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
February  27 
T  H  K 
Rural  New-Yorker 
TIMES  HUILTJING,  NEW  YORK. 
*  * 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  for  Country  and  Suburban  Homes. 
*  * 
ELBERT  8.  CARMAN.  Editor  In  Chief 
HERBERT  W.  COLLINGWOOD,  Managing  Editor. 
Copyrighted  1892. 
SATURDAY ,  FEBRUARY  27,  1892. 
A  dairyman  or  a  sheepman  can  afford  to  use  fertil¬ 
izers,  because  the  more  he  uses  of  them  the  more  stock 
food  he  can  grow  and  the  more  stock  he  can  keep.  Put 
all  the  stable  manure  on  corn  ground,  close  to  the 
barn,  and  thus  make  short  hauls  both  ways  for  the  two 
heaviest  and  most  watery  products.  Use  the  fertilizers 
on  outlying  fields  of  grass  and  small  grains.  These  are 
the  crops  from  which  the  water  can  be  dried  before 
hauling.  This  hauling  useless  water  is  farm-profit 
slaughter. 
*  * 
A  careful  scrutiny  of  the  report  of  the  Bureau  of 
Animal  Industry  of  the  Agricultural  Department, 
fails  to  satisfy  the  impartial  student  of  the  value  of 
any  of  the  inoculating  processes  intended  to  do  away 
with  the  ravages  of  hog  cholera.  The  methods  of  Dr. 
Billings,  of  Nebraska,  are  not  shown  to  be  valuable — 
in  short,  the  whole  system  is  yet  in  a  very  inchoate 
condition.  We  trust  the  Department  will  continue  its 
researches,  until  it  finally  establishes  beyond  question, 
the  value  or  the  uselessness  of  the  theory. 
*  * 
Last  year  an  English  farmer  bought  clover  seed  of 
a  local  seedsman.  When  the  crop  came  up  it  was  found 
badly  mixed  with  dodder.  The  farmer  sued  the  seeds¬ 
man  for  selling  him  impure  seeds  and  secured  a  verdict 
for  $100.  The  seedsman  claimed  that  he  did  not  grow 
the  seeds  and,  in  turn,  brought  suit  against  the  large 
firm  of  whom  he  bought  them.  Tie  obtained  a  verdict, 
and  now  the  large  firm  proposes  to  sue  the  man  who 
grew  the  seeds  for  it.  A  few  such  test  cases  in  this 
country  would  do  good,  though,  owing  to  the  general 
refusal  of  American  seedsmen  to  guarantee  their  seeds, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  make  out  a  case. 
*  * 
The  propriety  of  pensioning  the  firemen  of  this  city, 
when  too  old  for  active  service,  is  now  being  discussed. 
A  champion  has  also  arisen  for  the  police  force  and  he 
wants  them  pensioned  when  they  get  old.  The  teachers 
in  the  public  schools  have  for  several  years  been  urging 
their  claims  to  a  pension.  The  Rural  suggests  that 
it  will  be  better  to  make  the  law  general  and  give 
everybody  a  pension.  A  school  teacher  has  no  more 
claims  on  the  public  than  has  an  editor;  a  policeman 
is  hardly  as  good  as  a  blacksmith,  and  a  fireman  is  no 
more  useful  or  necessary  than  a  farmer,  while  all  of 
them  draw  salaries  large  enough  to  support  them  well 
and  enable  them  to  lay  aside  a  competency  !  Isn’t  it  so  ? 
*  * 
The  corn  plant  is  the  greatest  natural  gift  to  America. 
We  have  practically  a  monopoly  of  its  production.  If 
England  could  grow  corn,  her  imports  of  meat  and 
breadstuffs  would  be  cut  down  nearly  one-half.  Both 
for  its  food  value  and  for  its  fertilizing  value,  corn  will 
ever  remain  the  king  of  American  food  plants.  It  can 
be  made  to  produce  more  pounds  of  digestible  food  for 
man  and  beast  per  acre  than  any  other  plant,  and  it 
will  do  it  under  circumstances  that  would  stunt  many 
other  crops.  To  make  the  value  of  this  crop  complete, 
we  need  new  methods  for  utilizing  the  tough,  hard 
parts  of  the  stalk  that  are  not  fit  for  stock  food.  Paper 
manufacturers  can  afford  to  make  exhaustive  experi¬ 
ments  with  corn  stalks. 
*  * 
The  most  monstrous  combination  of  capital  that  has 
ever  cursed  this  country  has  just  been  formed.  It  is  a 
combination  of  capital  against  industry,  of  wealth 
against  poverty,  of  greed  against  need.  It  controls 
80  per  cent  of  the  coal  output  of  the  country  and  seeks 
to  put  millions  of  dollars  yearly  in  the  plethoric 
pockets  of  the  conspirators,  by  forcing  every  poor  man 
to  use  less  coal  and  pay  more  for  it,  and  by  taxing 
every  industry  which  uses  the  commodity.  The  Read¬ 
ing  Railroad,  with  a  capital  of  $180,000,000;  the  Lehigh 
Valley,  with  a  capital  of  $100,000,000,  and  the  New 
Jersey  Central  with  a  capital  of  $25,000,000,  are  the 
chief  members  of  the  combination,  but  other  roads 
will  be  compelled  to  charge  trust  prices,  so  that  it  is  a 
fair  estimate  to  put  the  total  capital  of  the  combina¬ 
tion  at  $530,000,000  at  least.  On  this  enormous  sum 
big  dividends  must  be  wrung  from  the  public  by  put¬ 
ting  up  prices  and  curtailing  production  in  order  the 
better  to  effect  this.  An  advance  of  50  cents  a  ton  on 
the  coal  supply  of  New  York  city  and  Brooklyn  alone 
would  amount  to  nearly  $3,000,000  a  year,  what,  then, 
must  be  the  increase  of  income  extorted  from  the 
people  of  the  whole  country  by  the  advance  in  prices, 
which  is  inevitable?  This  combination  is  a  conspiracy 
against  good  morals,  against  the  public  welfare, 
against  the  spirit  of  the  law,  against  every  principle 
of  equity.  It  threatens  the  people  alike  in  their  homes 
and  in  their  workshops.  It  must  be  broken — demol¬ 
ished — if  there  is  law  enough  to  protect  the  people;  if 
not,  adequate  legislation  is  imperatively  demanded. 
#  * 
Farm  manure  is  a  perfect  as  well  as  a  complete 
food  for  some  plants;  it  is  a  complete  though  imper¬ 
fect  food  for  most  plants.  Hence  it  is  that  in  using  it 
we  supply  the  soil  with  relatively  too  much  of  one 
kind  of  plant  food — too  little  of  another.  If  we  use 
large  quantities  of  farm  manure  on  the  land,  we  give 
the  plants  not  only  all  they  need  of  all  kinds  of  food, 
but  much  more  than  they  need  of  some  kinds.  The 
exact  remedy  for  such  inequalities  will  probably  never 
be  known.  In  a  general  way,  however,  we  may  find 
out  by  experiment  whether  our  land  needs  more  or 
less  (or  none)  of  phosphate,  potash  and  nitrate,  and 
we  may  then  supplement  our  farm  manure  accordingly 
by  corresponding  additions  of  minerals. 
*  * 
The  first  cargo  of  flour  contributed  by  the  millers 
of  the  country,  the  people  of  Minnesota  and  the  farmers 
of  Nebraska  for  the  relief  of  the  starving  peasantry  of 
Russia,  is  now  ready  for  shipment.  The  railroads  have 
granted  free  transportation  to  the  4,500,000  pounds  or 
over,  the  warehouses  of  New  York  city  have  allowed 
it  free  storage,  and  one  of  the  ocean  steamship  lines 
has  offered  one  of  its  vessels  to  transport  it  free  to 
Libau,  where  it  will  arrive  probably  before  the  first  of 
April.  The  latest  dispatches  show  that  over  27,000,000 
Russians  are  in  danger  of  starvation  before  next  har¬ 
vest,  thousands  have  already  perished  from  hunger, 
while  hundreds  of  thousands  have  suffered  all  the 
pangs  of  famine.  Surely  the  generous  American  peo¬ 
ple,  in  this  year  of  supereminent  abundance,  will  con¬ 
tinue  to  turn  a  generous  ear  to  the  cries  for  help  from 
their  old-time  friends  across  the  Atlantic. 
*  * 
The  series  of  fertilizer  experiments  on  potatoes — 
concluded  in  this  issue — fairly  point  to  one  conclusion, 
if  to  no  other,  viz.,  that  the  drought  may  be  such  that 
while  there  is  insufficient  moisture  in  the  soil  to  dis¬ 
solve  chemical  fertilizers  and  render  them  soluble, 
there  may  shill  be  soil  moisture  enough  to  give  a  cer¬ 
tain  amount  of  nutriment  to  the  plants.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  plant  growth  without  moisture;  but  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  an  amount  of  moisture  sufficient  to 
keep  the  plant  alive  and  growing  might  be  quite  in¬ 
sufficient  to  dissolve  applied  potash,  nitrate  or  phos¬ 
phate.  It  is  quite  within  the  experience  of  many  of 
our  readers  that  farm  manure — even  when  applied  in 
generous  quantity — has  failed  to  give  a  large  crop.  In 
such  cases,  the  failure  is  usually  and  justly  attributed 
to  the  season.  When  fertilizers  are  used  freely  and 
the  crop  fails  during  a  dry  season,  many  are  too  apt  to 
attribute  the  failure  to  the  fertilizers  and  not  to  the 
drought. 
*  * 
In  the  lower  house  of  Congress,  the  other  day,  there 
was  a  strenuous  struggle  between  the  farmers  and  the 
lawyers,  and,  strange  to  say,  the  former  won.  Mr. 
Hatch,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Agriculture,  had 
introduced  an  amendment  to  the  oleomargarine  law, 
providing  that  any  oleomargarine  transported  into 
any  State  or  Territory,  or  remaining  therein  for  use, 
consumption,  sale  or  storage,  shall,  on  its  arrival  in 
such  State  or  Territory,  be  subject  to  the  laws  thereof, 
in  the  same  manner  as  though  it  had  been  produced  in 
such  State  or  Territory,  and  shall  not  be  exempt 
therefrom,  because  introduced  in  original  packages  or 
otherwise.  The  measure  is  supported  by  the  dairy 
interests  in  every  section  of  the  country.  Its  purpose 
is  to  place  oleomargarine  in  the  original  packages  on 
the  same  legal  footing  on  which  the  Wilson  Original 
Package  Law  places  the  sale  of  liquors.  In  other 
words,  it  gives  the  great  dairy  States  which  have 
passed  laws  on  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  oleomar¬ 
garine  the  same  control  over  the  product  which  all  the 
States  had  prior  to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court’s 
decision  on  the  original  package  question.  Mr.  Hatch 
moved  that  the  measure  be  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Agriculture,  while  Mr.  Culbertson,  Chairman  of  the 
Judiciary  Committee,  insisted  that  it  should  be  referred 
to  his  committee  and  was  supported  by  Speaker  Crisp. 
On  a  call  of  the  “yeas”  and  “nays,”  however  the 
House  declared  by  a  vote  of  128  yeas  to  18  nays,  that  it 
should  be  referred  to  the  Agricultural  Committee. 
This  was  only  fair,  since  from  the  outset,  this  Com¬ 
mittee  has  had  entire  charge  of  all  oleomargarine 
legislation.  Its  success  in  the  present  instance  means 
the  passage  of  the  measure  which  will  be  a  great  boon 
to  the  dairy  interests  of  the  country. 
Symbiosis  is  a  new  word  with  which  our  readers 
must  familiarize  themselves  in  studying  the  nod¬ 
ule  theory  and  how  certain  plants  may  obtain  ni¬ 
trogen  from  the  air  of  the  soil  and  so  manipulate  it  as 
to  render  it  fit  for  assimilation  by  the  plants.  Nodules 
are  usually  regarded  as  injurious  to  plants;  that  is,  they 
are  the  evidences  or  abodes  of  insects  or  microbes 
which  live  upon  the  plant  juices  or  tissues.  Thus  we 
have  the  grape  phylloxera  which  forms  little  galls  on 
the  leaves  (Gallsecolae)  and  swellings  or  nodules  on  the 
roots  (Radicolse)  and  other  similar  minute  insects  in 
great  variety.  But  all  these  are  more  or  less  harmful 
to  the  plants;  they  are  parasites  upon  their  hosts  as 
truly  as  is  the  Dodder  or  Mistletoe.  Now,  the  microbe 
which  causes  the  swellings  upon  the  roots  of  peas, 
beans,  Lucern,  clover,  lupines,  sainfoin  and  other  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  great  Pulse  family,  is  a  benign  creature. 
It  works  for  the  good  of  its  host  by  furnishing  assimil¬ 
able  nitrogen  which  it  has  gathered  from  the  air, 
asking  in  return  only  an  abode.  Whether  these  mi¬ 
crobes  really  harm  the  plants  in  any  way,  as  do  other 
gall-producing  insects,  is  not  known,  but  they  are  as¬ 
sumed  to  be  far  more  serviceable  than  detrimental. 
They  cannot,  therefore,  be  considered  mere  parasites, 
and  the  peculiar  association  has  been  denominated  by 
the  pleasant,  expressive  word  Symbiosis  which  (from 
the  Greek)  signifies  “  to  throw  together,”  “  a  throw¬ 
ing  or  living  together”  and  “life  ;”  in  other  words  a 
sympathetic  living  together. 
Brevities. 
You  take  two  men  and  thrust  them  Into  life 
To  make  their  living;  one  Is  strong  and  tough, 
With  rugged  nature  tit  to  bear  the  strife, 
And  wring  success  from  chances  stern  and  rough; 
The  other,  iiner-fibered,  cannot  hew 
Life's  rougher  work  to  symmetry,  and  still 
The  work  that  others  start  will  take  on  new 
And  lasting  beauty  from  his  wondrous  skill. 
The  world  moves  onward,  happy,  brave,  and  free 
When  strong  and  skilled  men  work  In  harmony. 
And  so  with  plants— corn  means  the  stronger  man, 
The  giant  who  may  master  sod  and  tear 
The  roughness  from  It;  this  Is  Nature's  plan: 
The  strongest  must  the  hardest  burdens  bear. 
Then  let  potatoes  be  the  skilled  man's  mate. 
Pour  in  the  finished  product— not  the  crude. 
Let  appetite  on  good  digestion  wait. 
Give  to  the  corn  plant  all  that’s  coarse  and  rude, 
With  corn  on  sod— potatoes  after  that — 
Well  fed  and  fostered,  farm  grows  rich  and  fat. 
Eat  less— not  to  save  food,  but  to  save  health. 
Prof.  I.  P. — Roberts,  says  he— “  extra  good  feeding  beats  breeding,” 
says  he. 
The  more  fertilizers  you  use  the  more  "humus  ”  will  the  grass  crop 
leave  In  the  soil. 
This  spring,  as  usual,  we  shall  give  the  latest  Information  regarding 
silos  and  the  progress  of  ensilage. 
One  way  to  make  cow  manure  '•  Hre-fang  ”  Is  to  use  large  quantities 
of  dry  sawdust  for  bedding.  That  It  will  induce  fermentation  In  natu- 
ally  "cold”  manure  is  one  argument  In  favor  of  sawdust  as  a  bedding. 
The  English  courts  keep  on  giving  damages  for  animals  hurt  on 
barbed  wire  fences.  According  to  these  decisions,  If  A  puts  up  a  barbed 
wire  fence  even  on  his  own  land,  and  B’s  animals  are  hurt  on  It,  A  Is 
responsible. 
When  you  haul  20  tons  of  stable  manure  In  two  years,  you  haul  at 
least  25,000  pounds  of  useless  water.  When  you  plow  under  a  heavy 
sod  one  year  and  apply  1,200  pounds  of  fertilizer  the  next,  you  save  the 
work  of  hauling  38,800  pounds  and  you  get  just  as  good  results! 
Young  man,  when  you  make  the  great  choice  of  your  life— of  course 
we  refer  to  selecting  a  wife— keep  these  words  of  wisdom  down  deep  In 
In  your  mind;  they’re  ancient  and  honorable  as  you  will  find:  Beauty 
may  fade,  money  may  fly,  but  love  and  devotion  will  always  stay  by. 
The  close  relationship  between  plant  food  and  animal  food  Is  Illus¬ 
trated  by  the  Western  practice  of  “  following”  cattle  with  hogs.  The 
hogs  fatten  on  the  manure— that  Is,  they  eat  the  corn  that  passes, 
undigested,  through  the  cattle,  The  manure  Is  therefore  both  plant 
and  animal  food. 
The  solid  portions  of  stable  manure  are  not  only  the  least  valuable, 
but  they  cannot  run  away.  The  liquids  will  run  for  a  lower  level— that 
is  their  nature,  and  they  will  soak  out  the  best  of  the  solids  for  com¬ 
pany.  A  liquid-manure  cistern  Is  as  useful  as  a  meal  bin.  Liquid 
manure  was  made  to  be  applied  through  a  tube  and  not  with  a  fork. 
The  majority  of  the  experiments  In  using  the  Bordeaux  Mixture  on 
potatoes  to  prevent  blight  and  rot  have  been  favorable— particularly 
In  France  and  England,  where  the  experiments  have  been  very  care¬ 
fully  conducted.  We  believe  It  will  pay  to  use  the  B.  M.;  at  the  same 
time  we  think  our  chemists  will  devise  a  cheaper  and  better  application. 
Prof.  W.  W.  Cooke,  of  the  Vermont  State  Experiment  Station,  Is 
emphatic  in  the  statement  that  “  there  Is  absolutely  no  loss  of  either 
actual  or  churnable  fat  in  the  souring  of  cream  even  to  the  point  of 
rankness.”  The  statement  is  made  on  the  basis  of  numerous  tests  by 
chemist  and  churn,  and  the  question  may  therefore  be  considered 
settled. 
AN  English  milkman  was  recently  fined  $20  and  costs  for  selling 
“milk”  which  contained  less  than  one  per  cent  of  solids  “  other  than 
chalk”— that  Is,  the  mixture  contained  92  per  cent  of  water  and  eight 
per  cent  of  milk!  “  Milk  Is  a  perfect  food.”  The  best  punishment  for 
that  milkman  would  be  to  make  him  “live”  on  his  own  milk  for  two 
weeks  or  more ! 
It  Is  said  that  on  some  of  the  Islands  off  the  coast  of  Scotland,  farm 
manure  Is  dried  and  used  for  fuel,  the  ashes  being  carefully  saved  and 
used  to  fertilize  the  few  rude  crops.  The  Inhabitants  know  that  they 
can  supply  vegetable  matter  to  the  soli  In  the  form  of  seaweed,  while 
it  Is  harder  to  dry  this  latter  substance  so  that  it  will  burn  well.  The 
writer  has  eaten  many  a  good  meal  cooked  with  the  heat  from  “  buf¬ 
falo  chips.” 
Can  a  chemist  analyze  a  Jersey  and  a  Holstein  cow  and  tell  from  the 
results  what  these  animals  should  have  to  eat?  Can  he  analyze  an  oat 
plant  and  a  strawberry  plant  and  thus  tell  how  much  of  a  certain  man¬ 
ure  must  be  given  them?  No,  because  the  oat  grows  for  months 
while  the  berry  grows  for  days.  One  needs  more  soluble  food  than  the 
other,  and  analysis  without  a  knowledge  of  the  hubits  of  the  plants  1b  of 
little  value. 
Mu.  Williams  tells  us,  on  page  130  that  the  earnings  of  the  average 
cow  at  the  cheese  factory  was  $21.51  per  year.  That  means  that  at 
the  price  paid  for  milk,  there  was  an  average  of  but  3,300  pounds 
per  cow !  Think  of  it!  They  fed  their  cows  what  they  produced  on  the 
farm  and  no  more,  and  put  back  on  the  farm  what  the  cows  and  the 
rains  had  left  In  the  manure.  Is  It  any  wonder  that  the  cow’s  bag 
went  dry  and  that  a  fertilizer  bag  was  needed? 
