448 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
July  'J 
IB* 
Rural  New-Yorker 
TIMES  BUILDING,  NEW  YORK. 
*  * 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  for  Country  and  Suburban  Homes. 
BLBERT  S.  CARMAN.  Editor  In  Chief. 
HERBERT  W.  COLLINGWOOD,  Managing  Editor. 
Copyrighted  1892. 
SATURDAY,  JULY  9 ,  1892. 
The  new  Columbus  Gooseberry  is  promising.  The 
berries  are  large,  smooth  and  free  of  mildew.  This 
and  one  or  two  other  varieties  not  yet  introduced  bid 
fair  to  solve  the  problem  of  securing  healthy  goose¬ 
berries  as  large  as  the  foreign  sorts. 
*  * 
The  R.  N.-Y.  hastens  to  report  that  the  vines  of  the 
half  plot  of  potatoes  which  have  twice  been  sprayed 
with  the  modified  Bordeaux  mixture,  are  looking  more 
vigorous  with  fewer  dead  leaves  than  the  vines  of  the 
half  not  sprayed.  Two  sprayings  have  been  deemed  ne¬ 
cessary  on  account  of  frequent  showers  after  the  first 
spraying.  The  simple  formula,  it  may  be  repeated,  is 
two  ounces  each  of  copper  sulphate  and  lime  to  one 
gallon  of  water.  #  * 
Mr.  Denise,  of  New  Jersey,  has  carried  the  Chemi¬ 
cals  and  Clover  rotation  a  little  further  than  others. 
He  seeds  wheat  with  both  clover  and  Timothy.  The 
first  year's  hay  is  all  clover.  This  he  feeds  to  his  own 
stock,  selling  only  the  second  year’s  cutting,  which  is 
nearly  pure  Timothy.  The  stable  manure  is  all  used 
on  the  sod  for  corn.  There  is  one  sure  thing  about 
grass  farming.  All  should  grow  clover,  but  no  one 
should  sell  it  if  he  can  possibly  avoid  it.  Timothy  is 
the  grass  to  sell.  Feed  clover  and  sell  Timothy  is 
sound  advice  to  one  who  keeps  stock. 
*  * 
It  again  becomes  necessary  to  warn  our  readers 
against  that  “  California  Cold  Process”  of  preserving 
fruit.  Prof.  E.  W.  Hilgard  of  the  California  Experi¬ 
ment  Station,  has  found  it  necessary  to  issue  a  special 
circular  on  the  matter,  as  the  frauds  who  have  charge 
of  this  scheme  are  doing  an  enormous  business.  In 
addition  to  large  doses  of  sulphur  the  “  cold  process  ” 
means  the  use  of  “Compound  Extract  of  Salyx,”  which 
turns  out  to  be  salicylic  acid.  Sample  fruit,  distrib¬ 
uted  by  the  “  cold  process”  agents,  contained  enough 
salicylic  acid  to  “  stop  one’s  digestion  point  blank  !” 
*  * 
The  opponents  of  the  Pure  Food  Bill  try  to  manu¬ 
facture  sentiment  in  their  favor  by  getting  the  news¬ 
papers  that  live  on  patent  medicine  advertisements  to 
protest  against  the  measure.  The  medicine  makers 
know  that  the  bill  will  make  them  tell  how  much 
rum  they  sell,  and  they  threaten  the  newspapers  with 
a  loss  of  advertising  space  if  the  bill  passes.  In  like 
manner,  the  big  Exchanges  are  fighting  the  anti¬ 
option  bill  by  issuing  alleged  “  opinions”  to  the  effect 
that  under  it  the  grocer  or  butcher  could  not  take  an 
order  for  a  dozen  eggs  or  a  bushel  of  potatoes,  unless 
he  had  those  identical  eggs  and  potatoes  on  hand  when 
the  order  was  given!  Don’t  be  deceived  by  such  talk. 
That  bill  is  coming.  *  * 
Justice  Lubton  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Tennessee, 
after  careful  investigation,  declares  that  over  10  per 
cent  of  the  laws  passed  by  the  last  two  legislatures  of 
the  State  have  already  been  declared  unconstitutional 
by  the  courts,  and  it  is  estimated  that  at  least  10  per  cent 
more  will  meet  the  same  fate  when  tested  in  the  same 
way.  Thus  one-fifth  of  the  work  done  by  these  two 
legislatures  is  of  no  account— a  mere  waste  of  time 
and  a  source  of  heavy  expense  to  the  public  in  contest¬ 
ing  the  laws.  Over  10,000  new  laws  are  passed  in  the 
United  States  each  year  by  the  Federal  and  State  legis¬ 
latures,  and  if  the  Tennessee  rule  is  applied  to  them 
2,000  must  be  void  on  account  of  their  unconstitution¬ 
ality.  How  many  more  are  ill-advised,  faulty  and 
pernicious  ?  It  is  estimated  that  50  times  as  many  new 
laws  are  made  annually  in  this  country  as  are  needed 
in  England,  France,  Germany,  or  any  other  civilized 
nation.  Are  there  not  really  too  many  ill-considered, 
mischievous  and  faulty  laws  thrust  upon  us  every  year 
by  our  rattle-brain  legislators  ? 
#  * 
The  Anti-Option  Bill  lately  passed  by  an  overwhelm¬ 
ing  majority  of  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Wash¬ 
ington  is  now  in  the  hands  of  the  committee  on  Judic¬ 
iary  of  the  Senate.  Its  opponents  all  over  the  country 
are  active  in  bringing  pressure  to  bear  on  that  body  to 
induce  its  members  to  reject  it  or  at  least  to  fail  to 
act  on  it.  Their  latest  plan  is  to  get  the  hired  lawyers 
of  the  Produce  Exchanges  to  formulate  opinions  as  to 
its  pernicious  character  and  ruinous  effects  on  all 
kinds  of  mercantile  business.  They  declare  it  would 
be  impossible  to  confine  its  action  to  the  speculators 
at  whom  it  is  mainly  directed,  but  that  it  would  ham* 
per  and  injure  every  kind  of  wholesale  business.  What 
weight  should  be  attached  to  such  purchased  opinions? 
Who  does  not  know  that  any  kind  of  opinion  can  be 
secured  from  a  lawyer  with  regard  to  any  law  on 
the  Statute  books,  and  how  much  more  readily  with 
regard  to  any  proposed  law  still  under  discussion. 
The  friends  of  the  measure  should,  however,  promptly 
write  to  their  respective  Senators  urging  the  passage 
of  the  bill.  #  # 
An  effort  is  being  made  to  induce  the  Department 
of  Agriculture  to  again  attempt  to  introduce  the  cul¬ 
ture  of  tea  as  a  profitable  industry  in  this  country.  It 
is  claimed  that  the  plants  in  the  abandoned  govern¬ 
ment  experiment  garden  at  Summerville,  S.  C.,  after 
years  of  neglect,  still  hold  their  own,  and  that  from  a 
private  tea  garden  at  Fayetteville,  in  the  same  State, 
wild  plants  have  been  scattered  throughout  that  sec¬ 
tion,  from  which  farmers  keep  their  own  tables  sup¬ 
plied.  Recently  some  of  this  tea  was  tested  by  expert 
tasters,  who  pronounced  it  of  superior  quality.  Several 
parties  in  South  Carolina  are  reported  to  have  recently 
engaged  in  tea  culture,  and  hence  this  effort  to  revive 
an  experiment  which  all  past  experience  shows  to  be 
unprofitable  under  our  conditions  of  climate  and  labor. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  tea  of  excellent  quality  can  be 
produced  in  certain  sections  of  this  country  ;  but  there 
is  also  no  doubt  that  the  growers  cannot  compete  with 
the  cheap  labor  of  China,  Japan,  Ceylon  and  India. 
*  # 
There  are  in  the  United  States  8,097  artesian  wells 
representing  an  aggregate  investment  of  $1,988,4(51. 
Of  the  total  number  3,930  are  used  for  irrigating  pur¬ 
poses,  the  average  depth  per  well  being  210.41  feet  and 
the  average  cost  $245.58;  while  the  total  discharge  of 
water  per  minute  is  440,719.71  gallons  or  54.43  gallons 
per  well.  The  average  area  irrigated  per  well  is  13.21 
acres  and  the  average  cost  of  water  per  acre  irrigated, 
$18  55.  Half  the  wells  of  this  kind  are  in  California 
where  38,378  acres  are  irrigated  by  artesian  wells. 
Even  in  the  arid  region,  where  agriculture  without  ir¬ 
rigation  is  impossible,  the  mode  of  irrigating  by  wells 
is  making  slow  progress,  although  marvelous  results 
have  been  accomplished  where  the  best  crops  have 
been  planted  on  the  irrigated  land  and  the  best  care 
and  culture  have  been  given  them.  It  appears,  how¬ 
ever,  that  the  general  run  of  farmers  who  use  this 
method  of  irrigation  do  not  conduct  their  business  so 
economically  and  efficiently  as  to  realize  all  the  profits 
possible  from  the  system,  and  hence  its  adoption  is 
slow  and  spasmodic.  Here  as  elsewhere,  more  careful 
and  skillful  work  is  the  main  thing  needed. 
*  * 
Elsewhere  in  this  issue  are  notes  of  a  visit  to  the  milk 
producers  whose  product  finds  a  market  in  Philadel¬ 
phia.  The  farmers  of  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey  and 
Delaware  engaged  in  this  trade,  have  formed  a  strong 
organization  and  have  materially  improved  the  situa¬ 
tion  from  the  producers’  standpoint.  Still,  there  is  a 
large  proportion  of  producers  outside  of  the  organiza¬ 
tion  and  this  should  be  remedied.  Every  milk  pro¬ 
ducer  in  the  territory  named  should  promptly  join  the 
organization.  He  is  now  profiting  from  its  workings 
and  .it  is  neither  generous  nor  business-like  to  with¬ 
hold  his  support.  Get  into  the  ranks  and  when  in, 
give  the  company  a  hearty,  loyal  support.  Speak  your 
mind  freely  at  its  meetings  and  discuss  all  questions  in 
a  fair  manner.  Then  when  decisions  have  been  reached, 
g-ive  them  a  cordial  support,  even  though  they  clash 
with  your  own.  That  is  the  way  people  work  in  other 
organizations,  but  we  regret  to  say,  it  is  not  generally 
true  of  farmers.  Let  the  farmers  of  the  Keystone 
State  set  a  good  example — Jersey  is  ready  to  go  along, 
and  Delaware  will  follow  suit.  That  is  the  way  to 
win  :  and  success,  on  any  other  basis,  is  impossible. 
*  * 
What  about  that  point  raised  by  Jersey  man  this 
week  ?  All  things  considered,  docs  the  farmer  near  a 
big  city  have  an  advantage  over  one  back  in  the  cen¬ 
tral  counties  ?  At  first  thought,  it  would  seem  as  though 
he  had,  but  the  more  one  investigates  the  other  side, 
the  more  evident  it  becomes  that  the  average  farmer  is 
worse  off  near  a  great  market.  An  expert  gardener 
or  fruit  grower  cannot  get  too  near  his  customers,  for 
every  hour  of  the  life  of  his  products  is  valuable.  The 
shorter  the  distance  between  the  vine  and  the  mouth, 
the  less  the  shrinkage  and  the  greater  the  profit.  That 
is  all  right  for  the  expert,  but  how  about  the  farmer  ? 
As  Jerseyman  says,  hardly  10  per  cent  of  the  farmers 
of  the  country  will,  by  their  own  efforts,  fit  themselves 
for  gardeners  or  fruit  men.  Where  one  is  growing  the 
coarser  products  of  the  farm,  the  problem  will  always 
be  to  reduce  the  cost  of  producing  a  bushel  or  a  pound. 
It  may  not  be  a  mistake  for  the  gardener  or  fruit 
grower  to  buy  bread,  meat,  butter  and  other  food 
products,  because  his  land  is  too  valuable  to  grow 
them.  But  it  may  be  a  mistake  for  his  neighbor,  a 
farmer,  to  buy  these  things  ;  h«  might  produce  them 
more  cheaply.  It  is  our  belief  that,  all  things  con¬ 
sidered,  a  good  farmer  in  central  New  York  is  as  well 
off,  in  a  business  way,  as  one  within  25  miles  of  New 
York.  Whether  he  is  any  happier  is  another  question. 
After  all,  that  depends  upon  the  man  rather  than  on 
the  location.  #  # 
Bbevitie  S. 
There's  rust  upon  the  harrow  and  the  weeder’s  teeth  are  dim : 
The  field  Is  full  of  growing  weeds,  the  farmer’s  face  is  grim. 
He  tried  with  cultivator  and  with  hoe  to  take  the  place 
Of  harrow  and  of  weeder — he  Is  beaten  in  the  race. 
The  weeds  will  grow  and  mock  him  till  the  very  frosts  of  fall; 
Oh,  why  not  use  the  tools  that  kill  the  fellows’  while  they’re  small  ? 
Take  sleep  and  keep  sweet. 
What  sort  of  medicine  Is  hope? 
Crosby  discusses  the  devil  on  page  440. 
The  butter  maker  does  not  need  an  aerator. 
No  legislation  can  bring  prosperity  or  happiness  without  self-help. 
Ice  Cream  Is  a  “perfect  food”— particularly  on  these  hot  days. 
What  is  there  In  It  to  hurt  anybody? 
Take  a  good  smell  of  the  average  glass  of  ’’soda’'  before  you  drink 
It  and  the  chances  are  you'll  not  take  It. 
Let  the  “  ins  ”  and  the  “  outs  ”  over  politics  rave;  still  “  the  star- 
spangled  banner  in  triumph  shall  wave.” 
A  cow  was  never  made  to  gnaw  her  food,  and  yet  thousands  of  them 
will  have  to  do  that  when  the  pastures  dry  up. 
What  Is  a  wild  cherry  tree  but  a  nursery  for  tent  caterpillars? 
What  is  a  barberry  bush  but  a  nest  for  wheat  rust? 
Let  a  nursing  mare  get  chilled  in  a  cold  rain,  and  you  will  have  a 
genuine  case  of  ague— the  mare  has  the  chill  and  the  colt  the  fever. 
The  greatest  trouble  with  New  York  cheese  makers  is  that  their 
curds  are  too  watery.  They  mustn't  be  too  anxious  to  “sell  water.” 
Not  until  a  boy  can  eat  a  barrel  of  apples  at  one  sitting  will  we  hear 
of  a  case  of  poisoning  from  eating  fruit  sprayed  for  the  codling  moths. 
The  millionaires  are  well  provided  for.  We  want  help  for  the 
million  heirs  of  poverty  who  have  only  their  heads  and  hands  to 
do  with. 
IS  a  dog  a  dog?  Why  should  they  all  be  taxed  alike— big,  little,  good 
and  bad?  We  would  like  to  see  them  taxed  on  the  basis  of  thelrcapac- 
ity  for  doing  mischief. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  year  we  promised  to  “  take  hold  of  the  milk 
question.”  Havn’twe  done  so?  We  might  safely  offer  a  prize  to  any  one 
who  can  point  to  a  pa  per  that  is  doing  more ! 
Shipping  milk  along  the  Erie,  in  this  hot  and  trying  weather,  makes 
the  farmers  sad  and  weary;  it  will  only  need  a  feather  more  to  break 
the  camel’s  back— then  you’ll  hear  that  traffic  crack. 
It  Is  not  generally  known  that  there  is  a  defect  in  hearing  some¬ 
what  similar  to  color  blindness  in  sight.  Some  persons  cannot  dis¬ 
tinguish  certain  sounds  distinctly  while  in  general  their  hearing  is 
perfect. 
A  happy,  happy  man  is  he. 
Who  calls  his  bath  a  luxury. 
But  cursed  in  health  must  that  one  be 
Who  calls  it  a  necessity! 
We  think  it  goes  without  saying  that  our  vegetarian  friend  who  tells 
us  about  his  diet  on  page  446,  is  a  healthy  and  happy  man.  Not  one 
man  in  100  is  master  of  himself  sufficiently  to  enable  him  to  give  up 
eating  meat. 
How  absurd  it  is  for  people  to  claim  that  green  grass  is  bad  for  work 
horses.  Of  course  it  wouldn't  pay  to  give  them  nothing  but  green  grass— 
there  is  reason  even  in  grass.  But  a  short  bite  of  grass  every  day  will 
do  them  good.  It  is  cooling,  opening  and  nourishing. 
A  New  York  State  man  has  secured  a  patent  on  a  process  for  pro¬ 
tecting  iron.  It  is  a  coating  of  tobacco  juice  and  some  metal.  It 
would  be  a  great  relief  to  the  public  if  all  the  chewers  could  be  brought 
together  to  provide  this  juice  and  “  utilize  a  waste  product.” 
Some  people  have  a  prejudice  against  Jersey  beef  because  of  the 
hard,  yellow  fat.  It  is  good  beef  though.  On  the  islands  of  Jersey  and 
Guernsey  the  people  prefer  the  yellow  beef,  just  as  they  prefer  yellow 
butter  to  pale-colored  fat.  It  is,  therefore,  only  a  matter  of  taste. 
The  “  fashion  ”  now  is  for  buff-colored  poultry,  and  some  breeders  are 
claiming  that  corn  and  plenty  of  green  food  tend  to  deepen  this  buff 
color  and  to  give  white  breeds  a  brassy  tinge.  We  know  that  oil  meal 
and  grass  will  make  a  horse’s  coat  dark  and  shiny.  Can  any  food  do 
more  than  to  give  feathers  or  hair  a  healthful  appearance  ? 
The  recent  notes  on  Dorset  sheep  have  called  out  many  inquiries 
from  farmers  in  the  central  West,  who  have  about  decided  that  lamb 
and  mutton  are  about  the  only  meats  that  can  be  profitably  made  out 
of  their  big  straw  stacks  and  fodder  shocks.  Right  they  are.  They 
will  find  good  mutton  a  first-rate  button  on  which  to  suspend  agricul¬ 
ture. 
The  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania  was  asked  to  decide  whether 
cider  is  an  intoxicating  drink  or  not,  and  whether  a  license  is  neces¬ 
sary  for  its  sale.  The  court  decides  that  it  is  a  question  of  fact  which 
a  jury  must  pass  upon.  If  a  cider  drinker  gets  drunk,  cider  Is  intoxi¬ 
cating— if  he  does  not,  it  is  a  harmless  beverage  according  to  this 
decision. 
The  latest  scheme  for  silver  coinage  is  to  levy  an  internal  revenue 
tax  upon  silver  equal  to  the  difference  between  the  value  of  the  bul¬ 
lion  in  its  ratio  to  gold.  Thus,  by  putting  an  internal  revenue  tax  of 
65  per  cent  on  the  present  bullion  value  of  silver,  it  would  be  brought 
to  a  parity  with  gold.  This  would  be  useless  without  an  equal  import 
tax  or  tariff. 
ON  June  30  prime  American  live  cattle  sold  at  Deptford,  England,  at 
12  cents  per  pound.  They  were  worth  five  cents  in  New  York.  The 
cost  of  transportation  and  loss  will  not  exceed  two  cents  a  pound— yet 
the  English  butchers  pay  12  cents.  By  the  time  it  reaches  English 
consumers  the  meat  will  bring  18  cents.  The  fact  is  that  England’s 
restrictions  upon  the  importation  of  American  cattle  are  more  unjust 
than  any  tariff  monopoly  on  record. 
The  experimenters  at  our  stations  have  shown  how  tomatoes  and 
geraniums  can  be  grafted  on  potato  vines  so  as  to  grow  fruit  or  (lower 
above  ground  and  tubers  below.  This  grafting  is  a  horticultural  curi¬ 
osity,  not  a  practical  success.  Yet  the  “  tree  agent  ”  frauds  have 
taken  hold  of  this.  They  go  about  with  a  vine  carefully  packed  show¬ 
ing  tomatoes  on  the  vine  and  potatoes  on  the  roots  and  attempt  to 
sell  the  “  wonderful  new  variety  ”  at  an  exorbitant  price.  They  get 
lots  of  people  to  buy  it  too.  No  reader  of  The  R.  N.-Y.  will  pay  for 
seeds  of  such  a  vine.  Let  him  do  his  own  grafting, 
ALL  our  commercial,  mercantile  and  business  interests  have  long 
felt  the  need  of  a  uniform  bankruptcy  law,  which  can  be  secured  only 
by  national  legislation.  Hitherto  each  State  has  enacted  laws  on  this 
subject  which  have  been  operative  only  within  its  own  borders,  and 
multitudinous  opportunities  for  rascality  and  dishonesty  among 
unscrupulous  debtors  have  been  the  result.  The  Torrey  National 
Bankruptcy  Bill  now  before  Congress  seeks  to  apply  a  remedy  for  these 
evils  and  should  certainly  be  passed  at  the  present  session  regardless 
of  party  politics.  It  is  urgently  demanded  by  the  business  interests  of 
the  country  and  will  materially  aid  in  checking  dishonesty  and  in 
breaking  up  fraudulent  preferences  in  the  treatment  of  creditors. 
