64o 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
Oct.  1 
THE 
Rural  New-Yorker 
TIMES  BUILDING,  NEW  YORK. 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  for  Country  and  Suburban  Homes. 
ELBERT  8.  CARMAN.  Editor  In  Chief. 
HERBERT  W.  COLLINGWOOD,  Managing  Editor 
Copyrighted  1X92. 
SATURDAY ,  OCTOBER  1 ,  1892. 
Give  us  a  reason  why  you  should  not  pay  for  the 
fruit  you  get  out  of  your  neighbor’s  orchard  as  well 
as  for  the  groceries  in  the  grocery  store.  To  take  an 
apple  off  a  fruit  stand  when  the  owner's  back  is  turned 
is  called  stealing.  What  name  do  you  give  for  the  act 
of  taking  the  apple  off  a  farmer's  tree  ?  Does  the  fact 
of  the  farmer’s  selling  the  apple  make  it  more  surely 
property  in  a  legal  sense  ? 
*  # 
In  a  recent  conversation  with  Mr.  Charles  L.  Jones, 
Treasurer  of  the  New  Jersey  State  Horticultural  So¬ 
ciety,  he  stated  that  he  was  successfully  growing 
Black  Hamburg  grapes  in  the  open  air,  and  he  inclines 
to  the  belief  that  we  can  grow  most  of  the  European 
grapes  (Viniferas)  in  this  way.  The  chief  difficulty 
has  heretofore  been  in  preserving  the  foliage  from 
mildew,  but  this  is  easily  obviated  by  spraying.  This 
recalls  to  the  writer’s  mind  the  fact  that  he  saw  at  the 
State  fair  last  year  at  Syracuse,  some  of  these  grapes 
grown  in  the  open  air  in  that  city.  The  experiment 
is  worth  trying,  and  it  will,  no  doubt,  be  wise  to  give 
the  vines  some  little  winter  protection. 
*  * 
A  short  winter  course  in  agriculture  will  open  at 
Cornell  early  in  January.  We  sincerely  hope  that 
hundreds  of  boys  in  New  York  State  will  avail  them¬ 
selves  of  this  chance  to  make  the  best  possible  use  of 
their  winter.  The  course  will  be  practical  in  the  ex¬ 
treme — with  no  nonsense  about  it,  but  a  fair  and  ear¬ 
nest  discussion  of  the  “  why  ”  of  the  principles  that 
underlie  farm  operations.  The  II.  N.-Y.  would  like 
to  see  500  boys  crowd  into  Cornell  and  start  this  new 
course  with  the  biggest  boom  ever  known  to  scientific 
agriculture.  Now,  young  man,  there  may  be  only  499 
boys  there  if  you  don’t  go  !  We  want  you  to  go,  Make 
ready  now,  talk  and  work  and  think  about  it  with  all 
your  power  and  the  way  will  be  provided  for  you. 
As  a  first  step,  write  to  Prof  I.  P;  Roberts,  Ithaca,  N. 
Y.,  and  ask  for  a  catalogue  telling  all  about  the  new 
course.  *  # 
There  seems  to  be  a  paucity  of  brains  in  the  man¬ 
agement  of  the  Erie  Railway,  or  else  a  surplus  of  brains 
of  a  very  poor  kind.  It  stands  persistently  in  its  own 
light  by  refusing  its  patrons  the  business  facilities 
they  are  entitled  to,  and  is  as  cranky  as  a  Chicago 
anarchist  in  its  general  methods.  It  refused  special 
trains  for  the  accommodation  of  the  annual  fair 
of  the  Orange  County  Agricultural  Society,  com¬ 
pelling  those  who  needed  that  road  to  submit  to 
great  inconvenience.  Of  course,  the  service  was  in¬ 
sufficient,  but  if  a  railway  company  sees  fit  to  play 
the  hog,  there  seems  to  be  no  way  at  present  to  com¬ 
pel  a  reform.  Heretofore,  at  these  fairs,  special  trains 
have  been  run  in  addition  to  the  regular  trains,  and 
both  together  were  inadequate  to  the  business.  There 
seems  to  be  a  general  paresis  creeping  over  the  Erie 
managers.  The  silly  blunders  and  petty  boycotts  they 
have  been  guilty  of  in  the  past  two  years  are  not  at 
all  to  their  credit. 
#  * 
Resolutions  have  just  been  adopted  by  the  New 
York  State  Farmers’  Alliance  at  its  convention  at 
Rochester,  denouncing  the  Reading  coal  combine. 
Something  more  than  mere  denunciation  should  be 
launched  against  this  monstrous  monopoly  by  all 
lovers  of  the  present  institutions  of  their  country 
throughout  the  land.  Since  its  formation,  hardly  a 
year  ago,  it  has  raised  the  price  of  anthracite  coal  25 
cents  per  ton  four  times,  although  at  the  outset  it 
loudly  protested  that  its  sole  object  was  by  economy 
and  good  management  to  be  able  to  lower  the  price  of 
coal  to  the  public,  while  paying  those  pecuniarily  in¬ 
terested  in  the  combination  larger  interest  on  their 
investments.  The  last  increase  of  25  cents  per  ton  will 
net  the  monopoly,  according  to  fair  calculations, 
$1,250,000.  Of  the  vast  extra  sums  wrung  from  the 
public  since  the  organization  of  this  monstrosity,  not 
one  cent  has  been  paid  to  the  half-starved  miners  who 
toil  for  these  coal  barons.  Why  does  not  the  General 
Government  take  action  against  this  worse  than  trust  ? 
If  the  much  vaunted  Anti-Trust  Law  passed  by  Con¬ 
gress,  cannot  reach  this  monster,  it  is,  as  many  have 
always  supposed,  a  delusion  and  a  fraud,  purposely 
designed  to  hoodwink  the  public.  Taxation  without 
representation  led  to  one  glorious  revolution  in  this 
country  ;  will  it  lead  to  another  ? 
it  will  be  noticed  that  our  question  concerning 
chances  for  young  men  with  small  means  to  secure 
farms  in  various  parts  of  the  country  has  called  out 
many  replies  from  the  South.  It  certainly  does  seem 
as  though  the  country  close  around  the  medium-sized 
Southern  cities  affords  fine  openings  for  skilled  gar¬ 
deners,  fruit  growers  and  poultrymen.  A  good  mar¬ 
ket  seems  assured,  competition  will  not  be  close  for 
some  years,  at  least,  and  the  climate  and  soil  are  fully 
satisfactory.  There  can  oe  no  doubt  about  the  truth 
of  the  various  statements  we  have  printed  and  this 
fact  only  adds  to  the  wonder  why  emigrants  from 
our  Northern  States  have  not  rushed  to  the  South  in¬ 
stead  of  to  the  cold,  and  in  many  ways  undesirable 
sections  of  the  Northwest.  This  is  certainly  one  of 
the  strangest  freaks  of  modern  civilization. 
*  * 
We  take  this  extract  from  the  report  of  a  daily 
paper  on  the  New  Jersey  State  Fair. 
The  race  track  is  very  much  in  evidence  this  year,  and  divides  atten¬ 
tion  with  the  surreptitious  young  men  who  collect  a  small  crowd 
around  them  in  a  retired  spot  and  offer  to  bet  with  the  soft  youths 
from  Morris  and  Passaic  Counties  that  they  can’t  tell  which  shell 
hides  the  little  rubber  ball.  There  are  several  other  attractions  of 
this  kind. 
The  big  attraction  one  day  was  Corbett,  the  prize 
fighter.  And  still  the  Secretary  tells  us  he  refuses  all 
money  for  gambling  devices.  Those  mentioned  above 
must  be  “  dead  heads.”  Here  is  the  comment  of  a 
neighbor  who  went  to  the  fair  on  Wednesday  :  “  It 
was  the  most  disgusting  exhibition  I  ever  saw.  A 
prize  fight  was  carried  out  in  full  view  of  thousands 
and  a  more  brutal,  sickening  picture  to  put  before 
farmers’  boys  and  girls  can  hardly  be  imagined.” 
Shame  on  a  society  that  will  permit  such  things  and 
then  pretend  that  it  is  working  for  the  “best  interests 
of  the  farmer  !” 
*  * 
We  would  again  call  special  attention  to  the  pub¬ 
lisher’s  offer  of  two  hundred  dollars  in  cash,  to  be 
divided  on  January  1  among  those  who  send  in  before 
that  date  clubs  of  10  or  more  trial  subscriptions  at  25 
cents  each.  This  is  in  addition  to  other  premiums 
offered  for  the  trial  clubs.  The  special  features  and 
astonishingly  liberal  new  seed  and  plant  gifts  to  all 
1893  subscribers  (claimed  to  be  worth  $5  to  $25  to  any 
intelligent  farmer)  should  make  these  “  trial  ”  readers 
permanent.  Further,  those  who  secure  trial  clubs 
now,  stand  the  best  chance  of  winning  large  premiums 
for  yearly  subscribers  later  on.  The  latter  will  amount 
to  some  two  thousand  dollars  in  cash  and  several  thou¬ 
sands  more  in  extra  premiums.  Verily,  those  500,000 
readers  will  surely  be  forthcoming  if  present  subscrib¬ 
ers  really  want  to  earn  liberal  incomes  during  the 
coming  dull  season— that  will  be  anything  but  “  dull” 
to  the  workers  who  see  the  opportunity.  But  clubs  of 
trial  subscribers  at  25  cents  each,  in  competition  for  a 
share  in  the  extra  $200  cash,  are  first  in  order. 
*  * 
Vice  Presipent  Levi  P.  Morton  and  H.  M.  Cotrell, 
owner  and  manager  of  ihe  Ellerslie  stock  farm,  state 
that  the  readers  of  The  R.  N.-Y.  who  answer  their  ad¬ 
vertisement  are  peculiar  in  the  fact  that  they  want  to 
buy  whole  herds  of  stock  at  once.  Through  other 
papers  they  receive  calls  for  bulls  and  single  cows,  but 
The  R.  N.-Y.  readers  call  for  herds  of  from  4  to  15 
cows,  headed  by  a  good  bull.  They  say  “  We  conclude 
therefore  that  readers  of  The  Rural  New-Yorker  are 
business  farmers  who  know  what  they  want  and  are 
prepared  to  pay  for  it.  Gentleman  farmers,  and  those 
who  spend  on  farming  money  earned  elsewhere  are 
evidently  not  in  a  majority  among  your  readers. 
Whenever  we  want  to  reach  those  who  farm  with  an 
eye  to  business,  we  expect  to  do  it  through  The  Rural 
New-Yorker.”  This  tallies  with  the  experience  of 
other  stockmen  who  advertise  with  us.  While  not 
devoted  exclusively  to  the  live-stock  interests,  The  R. 
N.-Y.  urges  its  readers  always  to  have  nothing  but  the 
best  if  they  are  to  have  any  animals  at  all.  Water  and 
waste,  while  good  things  to  sell,  are  the  poorest  things 
to  buy,  and  this  applies  to  a  cow,  sheep  or  horse  just 
as  well  as  to  stable  manure  or  feed.  Those  papers 
that  treat  of  live  stock  and  little  else  are  patron¬ 
ized  largely  by  breeders.  The  great  sales  of  stock  in 
the  future  must  be  made,  not  to  breeders,  but  to  pro¬ 
gressive  farmers,  who  have  begun  in  a  systematic  way 
to  improve  their  farms  and  their  flocks  by  squeezing 
out  all  possible  wastes  of  labor  or  food.  This  is  the 
class  to  which  The  R.  N.-Y.  addresses  itself. 
*  * 
We  wonder  if  it  has  not  occurred  to  the  experiment 
station  workers  that  the  question  of  how  large  the 
seed  potatoes  should  be  to  produce  economic  results 
has  not  been  fairly  solved?  Granting  that  whole  seed- 
using  tubers  of  medium  size — will  give  the  largest 
crops  as  a  rule,  it  seems  to  have  been  demonstrated 
that  whole  seed  does  not  pay.  That  is,  the  increase  of 
crop  from  whole  seed  will  not  pay  for  the  increased 
cost  of  such  seed.  During  the  past  20  years,  The  R. 
N.  Y.  (off  and  on)  has  been  tugging  away  at  the  prob¬ 
lem  and  that  is  the  conclusion  it  has  arrived  at.  The 
crop  will  be  larger  from  whole  seed,  but  not  enough 
larger  to  pay  for  the  increase  of  seed  and  unmarket¬ 
able  potatoes  as  compared  with  the  crop  from  good- 
sized  pieces.  It  may  be  stated  in  this  way:  If  we  drop 
a  whole  tuber,  weighing  one-quarter  of  a  pound,  in  a 
drill  or  hill  three  feet  bv  one  foot  away  from  its  neigh¬ 
bors,  we  shall  needed  14,520  potatoes,  to  the  acre  which, 
at  GO  pounds  to  the  bushel,  would  require  60  bushels  to 
the  acre.  Now  our  experience  is  that  the  yield  will 
not  be  40  bushels  greater  per  acre  of  marketable  pota¬ 
toes  than  if  the  same  seed  were  cut  in  three  pieces 
giving  at  least  two  strong  eyes  to  each.  It  is  plain 
that  these  results  will  'ary  with  the  variety  of 
potato — whether  it  has  few  or  many  eyes:  with  the 
vigor  of  vine;  with  the  soil;  with  the  quality  of  manure 
or  fertilizer  used;  with  the  season  and  with  the  care 
given  to  the  crop.  But  these  are  matters  that  every 
farmer  must  decide  for  himself.  Experiment  stations 
cannot  decide  them  except  for  their  soil,  climate  and 
the  varieties  used;  and  it  is  respectfully  submitted 
that  station  workers  may  profitably  give  up  this  prob¬ 
lem  as  one  upon  which  they  can  throw  no  additional 
light,  and  devote  themslves  to  fresher  investigations. 
*  * 
BREVITIE  8. 
Who’s  living  on  you  ?  Who’s  living  on  you. 
Taking  advantage  of  things  that  you  do  ? 
Old  back-handed  schemes  and  wild,  useless  dreams, 
Leaving  no  profit  when  you’ve  worked  them  through  ? 
All  labor  has  cost!  What  portion  is  lost 
Out  of  your  pocket  to  middleman’s  hand  ? 
Stop  throwing  away;  some  time  you’ll  be  gray; 
Then  your  strength  falters  and  helpless  you  stand. 
Good  energy  waste,  then  misery  taste. 
Don’t  you  let  others  draw  pay  from  your  toll. 
Who’s  living  on  you  ?  Who’s  living  on  you  ? 
Hush  nd  your  strength  and  their  foul  chances  spoil! 
Why  should  not  women  make  good  shepherds  ? 
Good  sheep  are  not  only  Interesting  but  interest-bearing  animals. 
Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard,  and  learn  how  to  bank  up  your  cellar. 
“  Laziness  causes  gapes,  what’s  the  cure  for  It  ?  ”  Go  to 
scratching. 
The  most  valuable  and  dearest  services  In  life  are  those  that  cannot 
possibly  be  estimated  In  money. 
The  chief  objection  to  Prickly  Comfrey  seems  to  be  the  great  labor 
required  in  cutting  and  handling  it. 
The  problem  for  the  business  man  is  how  “  to  raise  the  wind  ’’—that 
fer  the  farmer  is  how  to  raise  the  water. 
In  the  light  of  the  changes  that  have  taken  place  in  the  last  15  years 
—what  can  you  honestly  say  that  you  knowl 
Nobody  can  be  a  howling  success  as  a  milker.  This  is  an  operation 
where  silence  means  golden  butter- unless  one  can  sing. 
If  you  feed  your  cows  hay  just  three  times  a  day  for  100  days  on  a 
stretch,  you  had  best  put  your  mow  and  the  mouth  of  your  cow  just  as 
lose  as  your  wits,  sir,  can  fetch. 
Which  Is  the  “  lazy  man’s  hen  ’’—the  Leghorn  that  will  hustle  about 
and  pick  up  most  of  her  living,  or  the  Brahma  that  won’t  compel  him 
to  run  to  the  rescue  of  his  garden  ? 
The  California  papers  are  telling  of  their  peaches  that  weigh  14 
ounces  and  measure  a  foot  in  circumference.  We  beg  them  to  keep 
such  monsters  away  from  this  market. 
Prospects  seem  good  for  a  poor  crop  of  clover  seed — if  we  may  put 
it  that  way.  This  will  mean  a  higher  price;  which  is  unfortunate  be¬ 
cause  clover  is  still  the  backbone  of  American  agriculture. 
Do  you  find  that  robins  are  fruit  robbers  ?  Our  friend  on  page  634 
thinks  birds  do  not  care  for  white  grapes,  as  he  believes  they  consider 
all  light-colored  grapes  unripe.  We  observe  that  wire-worms  seem  to 
prefer  pink  potatoes  to  buff  or  whi. e-colored. 
One  thing  noticed  in  our  family  statistics  is  the  fact  that  the  hus¬ 
band’s  clothing  costs  more  than  the  wife’s.  It  ought  to  be  the  reverse, 
particularly  as  the  women  folks  are  generally  expected  to  supply  most 
of  the  family  beauty.  The  men  folks  should  be  satisfied  with  supply¬ 
ing  dignity! 
When  Prof.  I.  P.  Roberts  was  asked  if  he  considered  the  Babcock 
milk  tester  fair  and  accurate,  he  said:  “  8o  fair  and  accurate  that  wo 
base  our  calculations  on  it,  although  wre  have  a  perfect  laboratory 
and  one  of  the  best  chemists  in  the  State.  It  has  resulted  in  showing 
us  that  our  poorest  cow  has  the  longest  pedigree,  and  the  test  was 
Indorsed  by  the  churn  and  scales.  She  will  have  to  go.” 
This  season’s  experience  has  taught  more  farmers  than  ever  before 
that  they  are  not  fitted  bv  Nature  to  profitably  manage  and  direct 
hired  labor.  It  would  be  better  for  them  to  do  well  what  they,  with  the 
members  of  their  own  family,  can  accomplish  and  stop  at  that.  This 
trying  to  cover  twice  as  much  ground  as  can  be  well  treated  is  like 
keeping  and  feeding  six  scrubs  to  give  the  butter  that  three  Jerseys 
will  make. 
A  Dakota  man  gave  the  kerosene  emulsion  a  very  practical  test 
last  spring.  He  prepared  a  pailful  of  It  with  which  to  dip  some  lambs 
to  kill  ticks.  An  old  ewe  that  was  In  the  habit  of  stealing  part  of  the 
dog’s  ration  of  milk  found  the  emulsion  in  the  usual  feeding  pall,  and 
drank  it  all  up  “  without  any  serious  results.’’  We  will  venture  to  say, 
however,  that  the  ewe  concluded  something  was  the  matter  with  the 
cow  that  gave  the  milk. 
One  of  the  most  absurd  poultry  claims  ever  made  is  that  the  new 
Buff  Leghorns  are  better  layers  than  the  Whites  or  Browns!  Why  aro 
they  better?  The  color  certainly  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  it! 
Those  who  believe  that  probably  still  believe  that  a  white  cow  will 
make  white  butter.  Are  the  “Buffs”  cross-breeds?  That  would  be 
about  the  only  way  to  improve  their  laying  qualities— but  what  blood 
besides  Leghorn  do  they  contain? 
The  report  of  the  New  York  City  Board  of  Health  for  the  week  end¬ 
ing  September  10,  among  other  information  furnished,  states  that  23 
samples  of  milk  were  analyzed.  Of  these,  five  were  found  unadul¬ 
terated,  nine  were  adulterated  by  the  addition  of  water,  five  were  both 
skimmed  and  watered,  and  four  were  adulterated  by  partial  skim¬ 
ming.  Here  are  18  violators  of  the  law.  Will  they  all  be  prosecuted 
in  due  time,  or  can  the  matter  be  “  fixed  up  ?  ” 
Growers  of  Florida  oranges  have  become  convinced  that  there 
is  sure  to  be  a  glut  of  their  fruit  In  Northern  markets  this  autumn. 
There  will  not  be  too  many  oranges  to  go  around  among  all  who  would 
like  them,  but  through  faults  in  the  methods  of  distributing,  the 
smaller  markets  will  not  be  supplied  and  the  larger  ones  will  suffer. 
While  this  glut  is  likely  to  occur  in  New  York,  there  will  be  a  shortage 
in  England  just  before  the  Mediterranean  oranges  begin  to  arrive. 
Why  not  ship  our  surplus  to  England,  says  the  orange  grower  !  It  is 
likely  that  the  scheme  will  be  tried  this  season,  though  it  will  be  an 
expensive  experiment  because  the  English  prefer  a  sourer  orange  and 
must  be  taught  to  like  the  Florldas.  Education  is  expensive — yet  it  pays. 
