728 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
Nov.  5 
THE 
Rural  New-Yorker 
TIMES  BUILDING,  NEW  YORK. 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  for  Country  and  Suburban  Homes. 
ELBERT  S.  CARMAN,  Editor-In-Chief. 
HERBERT  W.  COLLINGWOOD,  Managing  Editor 
ERWIN  G.  FOWLER,  Associate  Editor. 
Copyrighted  1892. 
SATURDAY,  NOVEMBER  5,  1892, 
Scott’s  novels  furnish  picturesque  names  for  horses, 
cows  and  pig's.  »  * 
To  have  success,  think  success.  But  thinking  is  not 
passive  ;  it  means  work.  #  # 
Noisome  odors  are  not  always  harmful  to  health. 
But  as  one  would  jump  aside  when  he  hears  the  rattle 
of  a  rattlesnake,  it  is  well  to  regard  them  as  warnings 
of  worse  to  come.  #  * 
Originators  of  new  varieties  of  strawberries  should 
bear  in  mind  Mr.  Williams’s  simple  suggestion  as  to 
names.  Give  feminine  names  to  pistillates  and  neutral 
or  masculine  names  to  bi-sexuals. 
#  * 
Labor-saving  machinery  is  demanded  and  used 
most  by  those  who  use  their  brain  machinery  most 
vigorously.  The  indolent  would  welcome  machinery 
that  would  save  them  from  mental  as  well  as  physical 
exertion.  #  * 
Slow  as  is  the  market  to  estimate  the  real  value  of 
fruits,  when  size  and  beauty  are  conspicuous,  we  will 
guarantee  that  the  sale  of  California  peaches  and 
Kieffer  pears — wherever  offered — will  prove  to  be  less 
and  less  in  the  future. 
*  * 
Chrysanthemum  shows  have  been  wonderfully  pop¬ 
ular  during  the  last  few  years,  and  deservedly  so.  The 
improved  tuberous-rooted  begonias,  no  less  than  the 
chrysanthemums,  display  the  effects  of  crossing  and 
the  cultivation  and  selection  of  the  best  seedlings. 
Now  we  should  have  tuberous  begonia  shows;  for 
these  plants,  in  marked  respects,  are  more  deserving 
of  public  homage  than  chrysanthemums  ever  can  be. 
*  * 
A  dealer  in  fruits  and  vegetables  in  this  city  was 
railing  at  farmers  wTho  “  deacon  ”  their  produce,  in 
the  hearing  of  the  writer  of  these  lines,  a  few  days 
ago.  When  he  was  told  that  the  dealers  were  greater 
sinners  than  the  farmers  in  this  respect,  he  was  taken 
aback  and,  at  first,  inclined  to  deny  it.  But  when  we 
called  his  attention  to  one  of  his  employees  “  deacon¬ 
ing  ”  a  barrel  of  sweet  potatoes  and  another  doing 
similar  work  on  a  basket  of  pears,  he  evinced  a  dispo¬ 
sition  to  change  the  subject.  Two  wrongs,  however, 
will  not  make  a  right,  and  the  sins  of  the  dealer  are 
no  excuse  for  those  of  the  farmer. 
*  * 
A  week  ago  “  The  National  League  of  Good  Roads” 
was  organized  at  Chicago,  with  General  Roy  Stone  of 
New  York,  as  president.  Its  specific  object  is  to 
awaken  general  interest  in  the  improvement  of 
roads ;  determine  the  best  methods  of  building  and 
maintaining  them ;  secure  such  legislation,  State  and 
National,  as  may  be  necessary  for  their  establishment 
and  support,  and  to  foster  and  encourage  publications 
to  serve  these  purposes.  While  wheelmen  are  the 
most  earnest  and  active  advocates  of  better  roads,  no 
other  class  can  gain  so  much  by  them  as  farmers,  who 
should,  therefore,  lend  a  hearty  support  to  every  fair 
effort  to  secure  them.  *  * 
It  is  creditably  announced  from  the  South  that  at 
last  a  cotton-picking  machine  that  does  the  work  in  a 
highly  satisfactory  manner  has  been  invented  and  has 
lately  been  thoroughly  tested  in  a  field  near  Dallas, 
Texas.  It  picks  at  the  rate  of  a  bale  in  two  hours,  which 
is  pretty  nearly  a  week’s  work  for  an  average  farm 
hand,  and  it  injures  neither  the  stalk,  boll  nor  bloom. 
An  examination  of  its  work  could  discover  not  a  single 
stalk  broken  or  bloom  deprived  of  a  petal.  A  green 
le&f  here  and  there  had  been  torn  off,  but  they  were 
fewer  than  after  average  hand  picking.  Moreover,  it 
picks  as  well  as  a  careful  hand,  cleanses  the  bolls  of  all 
dirt  and  allows  none  of  the  cotton  to  fall  to  the  ground. 
It  is  known  as  .the  Todd  machine,  and,  if  half  what 
is  confidently  claimed  for  it  is  true,  it  will  be  a  bless¬ 
ing  of  inestimable  value  to  the  cotton  States.  Of 
course,  the  consumers  and  middlemen  will  in  this  case, 
as  in  others  of  a  like  nature,  get  most  of  the  pecuniary 
benefits  from  the  cheapening  of  tbe  staple  owing  to 
the  work  of  the  new  invention  ;  the  great  advantage 
to  the  planters  will  be  that  they  will  no  longer  be  de¬ 
pendent  on  uncertain  colored  labor,  on  account  of  the 
unreliability  of  which  much  of  the  crop  is  left  every 
year  in  the  field  until  it  is  seriously  damaged  or 
altogether  ruined. 
Some  little  idea  of  the  rottenness  of  the  retail  milk 
trade  in  this  city  may  be  had  when  we  inform  our 
readers  that  in  the  year  1892  up  to  October  22,  the 
milk  inspectors  of  the  Board  of  Health  have  made  143 
arrests.  Of  this  number  139  were  held  to  bail,  102 
have  been  tried  and  100  have  been  convicted  and  the 
culprits  have  been  mulcted  in  fines  to  the  amount  of 
$3,150.  In  1891,  186  arrests  were  made,  170  were  held 
to  bail,  158  were  tried  and  153  convicted,  paying 
$4,286  in  fines.  The  work  of  the  Board  of  Health  would 
be  more  effective,  if  the  police  magistrates  of  the  city 
were  not  so  lenient  in  the  matter  of  fines.  The  crooked 
milkman  is  apt  to  be  an  influential  “heeler”  and  must 
not  be  too  severely  punished  for  his  rascality.  The 
violators  of  the  hog-butter  law  are  almost  always  let 
off  with  the  minimum  fine  and  some  of  the  judges 
seem  to  lean  strongly  to  the  culprit’s  side. 
*  * 
The  big  public  question  this  year  will  be  road  im¬ 
provement.  It  seems  strange  that  there  should  be 
any  “opposition  party”  to  those  who  want  better 
roads,  but,  if  you  think  there  is  no  opposition,  start  a 
road  campaign  in  your  locality  and  find  out.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  road  problem  is  of  far  more  im¬ 
portance  to  the  farmer  than  either  the  tariff  or  silver 
questions.  A  good  road  costs  money.  It  is  a  business 
investment  requiring  a  large  outlay  of  cash  at  first, 
and  the  interest  on  this  investment  comes  back  not 
only  directly  in  the  form  of  cash,  but  indirectly,  as 
the  farmer  along  the  road  is  able  to  save  horse  power 
in  hauling  his  crops  to  market.  The  chief  question 
is,  how  is  the  money  to  be  raised  ?  Who  is  to  handle 
and  pay  it  out  ?  It  is  a  financial  matter  rather  than  a 
question  of  engineering  skill.  It  ought  to  be  debated 
and  redebated  in  every  schoolhouse  in  the  land. 
*  * 
We  deny  the  Louisiana  lottery  the  privileges  of  our 
mails  and  resort  to  every  possible  means,  legal  and 
moral,  to  drive  it  out  of  business.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  gamblers  in  futures,  the  parasites  on  legitimate 
trade,  who  sell  corn,  wheat,  rye,  pork,  lard  and  other 
products  which  they  never  owned  and  never  expect  to 
own,  are  given  every  facility  for  carrying  on  their  busi¬ 
ness.  There  is  no  difference  in  the  morals  of  the  trans¬ 
actions — whether  a  man  bets  on  the  turn  of  a  wheel 
or  puts  up  a  margin  for  a  stock  transaction.  Both  are 
gambling — pure  and  simple.  If  it  is  right  to  bet  that 
a  certain  stock  will  advance  within  30  days,  it  is 
right  to  bet  on  the  turn  of  a  card  or  the  stopping  of 
a  wheel.  Let  us  be  consistent  and  either  legalize  all 
gambling  or  none.  Buying  a  stock  outright  for  an 
investment  is  all  right,  but  for  every  transaction  of 
this  kind,  there  are  scores,  if  not  hundreds  of  those 
alluded  to  above.  There  is  more  real  gambling  done 
by  the  Exchanges — stock  and  produce — than  in  all  the 
gambling  dens  of  Christendom,  and  more  men  are 
ruined  by  the  former  than  the  latter. 
*  * 
Assistant  United  States  Pomologist  W.  A.  Taylor, 
read  a  paper  at  the  recent  meeting  of  the  American 
Horticultural  Society,  in  Chicago,  entitled  “The  What, 
When  and  How  of  Fruit  Nomenclature.”  The  paper 
is  logical  and  forcibly  impresses  the  necessity  of  a 
general  support  of  the  rules  adopted  by  the  American 
Pomological  Society  five  years  or  more  ago,  as  laid 
down  in  the  society’s  catalogue.  But  the  progress 
thus  far  made  is  far  from  encouraging.  Prof.  Bailey’s 
“  Annals  of  Horticulture”  show  that  in  the  past  three 
years  as  many  as  131  out  of  377  varieties  put  on  the 
market  during  1889,  1890  and  1891,  are  not  eligible  for 
the  catalogue  or  for  exhibition  under  the  rules.  When 
it  is  remembered  that  the  last  published  catalogue  of 
the  American  Pomological  Society  contains  but  a  few 
more  than  1,100  varietal  names  it  will  be  readily  seen, 
as  Mr.  Taylor  remarks,  that,  unless  there  is  a  radical 
change  in  our  present  practice,  we  are  in  danger  of 
soon  undoing  the  good  that  has  been  done,  by  swell¬ 
ing  our  lists  with  uncouth  and  unauthorized  names. 
We  are  making  new  errors  faster  than  we  can  correct 
the  old  ones.  #  * 
The  Long  Island  Railroad  is  a  very  beautiful  illus¬ 
tration  of  how  mean  a  great  corporation  can  be,  and 
how,  in  consulting  its  own  interests,  it  utterly  ignores 
the  rights  of  the  traveling  public.  It  chooses  to  forget 
that  it  owes  duties  to  the  public,  and  tyrannizes  over 
it  with  an  unsparing  hand.  On  October  10  this  com¬ 
pany  put  in  force  on  its  lines  a  very  odious  regulation. 
Heretofore,  holders  of  1,000-mile  tickets  could  board  a 
train,  present  their  books,  and  the  conductor  would 
tear  out  coupons  covering  the  distance  to  be  traveled. 
.The  new  order  compels  the  holder  of  such  a  book  to 
present  it  at  the  station,  when  the  ticket  seller  will 
tear  out  the  coupon  andsgive  a  ticket  for  it,  which  is 
to  be  presented  to  the  conductor  on  the  train.  If  you 
offer  your  book  to  the  conductor,  he  declines  to  re¬ 
ceive  it,  and,  if  you  refuse  to  pay,  he  will  put  you  off 
the  train.  The  Rural  does  not  believe  that  such  an 
outrage  would  be  tolerated  if  the  matter  were  taken 
into  the  courts.  It  does  not  believe  that  when  the 
railroad  company  sells  a  ticket  good  for  1,000  miles’ 
travel  it  can  refuse  to  take  it  for  fares,  and  we  believe 
a  suit  for  damages  would  stand  in  the  case  of  a  person 
ejected  from  a  train  for  such  a  reason.  It  is  a  bit  of 
petty  meanness  which  is  a  characteristic  of  this  road, 
which  has  used  the  charter  given  it  by  the  people  to 
plunder  the  donors  at  its  own  sweet  will. 
*  * 
Statistics  have  their  uses,  and  the  statistics  of  ag¬ 
ricultural  production  are  a  part  of  the  history  of  the 
country.  But  the  time  to  publish  them  is  when  they 
are  accomplished  facts.  We  object  to  prophetic  sta¬ 
tistics — the  statistics  which  may  be  all  right  but 
which  are  quite  as  often  wrong,  which  tell  us  in  ad¬ 
vance  what  the  crop  of  corn,  of  wheat  or  of  other 
grains  is  going  to  be.  What  possible  good  end  do 
the  gathering  and  publishing  of  these  “  previous  ”  sta¬ 
tistics  conserve  ?  It  is  simply  a  waste  of  the  public 
money  and  forms  a  basis  for  speculation,  which,  nine 
times  out  of  ten,  does  not  help  the  man  who  grows 
the  crop.  Better  spend  the  money  in  some  other  way. 
*  * 
BREVITIES. 
There's  a  shadow  on  the  White  House, 
Death’s  hand  is  at  the  door 
With  a  message  that  comes  ever 
Alike  to  rich  and  poor. 
To  a  stricken,  pure-souled  woman 
That  shadow  means  relief, 
Though  the  bleeding  hearts  behind  her 
Sit  bowed  in  bluer  grief. 
Yet  the  shadow  brings  this  comfort: 
Death  touched  her  like  a  friend. 
For  she  did  not  fear  its  eomlng, 
She  trusted  to  the  end. 
To  tbe  lowly  and  the  mighty 
Death  cometh  In  good  time; 
May  It  bring  to  hut  and  White  House 
A  peace  and  rest  sublime. 
Toothsome  celery  from  Tecumseh,  Mich,  is  now  In  our  city  markets. 
Winter  is  the  harvest  time  for  Ideas.  Spring  is  best  for  their 
sowing. 
Ditches  and  drains  will  not  only  make  fuller  harvests,  but  fewer 
doctors’  bills. 
It  ought  to  be  made  a  felony— this  cutting  off  horses’  tails  at  the 
behest  of  an  idiotic  fashion. 
Physical  strength  is  so  great  a  part  of  our  capital  that  we  should 
husband  and  cultivate  It  carefully. 
Black  paint  from  white  milk  !  That  Is  what  they  make  at  that 
big  Chicago  creamery.  We  have  seen  the  paint.  It  Is  black  as  ebony. 
Send  for  the  catalogues  of  the  leading  seedsmen,  as  soon  as  they 
are  announced.  A  few  good  catalogues  in  a  family  are  suggestive  and 
Inspiring,  especially  to  the  young  folks. 
Chrysanthemums  were  so  named  because  of  the  golden  yellow 
flowers  which  the  plants  bore.  It  is  not  an  appropriate  name,  there¬ 
fore,  for  the  popular  Fall  Queen  of  to-day. 
Stir  yourself  a  little  in  the  work  that  you  engage,  with  your  name 
In  letters  fair  upon  your  country's  page;  never  be  content  to  rest  at 
common  “  average,”  but  strike  for  the  top  of  the  ladder. 
Swedish  .farmers  whittle  clumsy  stools,  palls  and  the  like  during 
the  winter.  American  farmers  carve  their  success  through  the  ac¬ 
cumulation  of  good  and  practical  information  at  this  season. 
A  Man’s  Intellectual  outfit,  like  his  shoes,  needs  brushing  up  at 
frequent  Intervals.  The  Institutes  and  similar  gatherings  afford  the 
farmer  the  necessary  mental  attrition  for  keeping  his  braUs  bright. 
Col.  Pearson  of  Vineland,  N.  J.,  says  :  “Spraying  saved  my  entire 
crop  of  40  varieties  of  grapes.  Many  of  my  neighbors  lost  their  whole 
crop  by  not  spraying.”  And  yet  there  are  those  who  pretend  to  doubt 
the  efficiency  of  spraying. 
A  writer  in  a  contemporary  gives  his  treatment  for  hog  cholera. 
Later,  in  the  same  article,  he  tells  how  15  out  of  a  lot  of  17  died 
In  two  hours,  despite  his  remedy;  we  conclude  It  is  not  a  very  reliable 
one  and  we  won’t  waste  space  on  It. 
James  Lick,  the  Californian,  gave  to  his  State  its  big  telescope— 
the  biggest  in  the  world.  A  Chicago  millionaire,  fired  with  a  desire  to 
‘lick”  California,  has  given  an  order  for  a  bigger  one,  for  the 
Chicago  University,  the  bill  to  be  sent  to  him. 
In  the  vicinity  of  the  Rural  Grounds  and  in  New  Jersey  and  South¬ 
ern  New  York  generally,  the  drought  is  of  unusual  severity.  The 
streams.are  low;  wells  and  cisterns  are  exhausted  and  the  pastures 
badly  burned.  Wheat  Is  suffering  everywhere  while  rye  has  not  been 
sown  by  many  farmers  who  value  It  as  their  most  Important  crop. 
Prof.  Roberts  says  that  if  a  man  wauts  to  put  plaster  on  his  farm 
he  had  better  apply  it  through  the  barn— that  is,  use  it  as  an  absorbent 
first  In  the  stable  and  apply  It  in  the  manure.  In  this  way  it  does  the 
soil  just  as  much  good  as  though  it  were  scattered  on  the  land  right 
from  a  barrel  while,  in  addition,  it  absorbs  and  holds  nitrogen  that 
would  otherwise  go  to  waste.  Mr.  Ross  (page  724)  now  tells  us  a  similar 
tale  about  mulching  wheat  with  straw.  Before  It  goes  on  the  wheat 
this  straw  is  used  to  bed  the  stock  “  knee  deep.”  That’s  good! 
When  the  writer  was  a  boy  the  only  “coffee”  served  was  a  soup  of 
dried  carrots.  The  carrots  were  sliced  and  roasted  in  the  oven  and 
then  ground  and  boiled  like  genuine  coffee.  When  the  school  teacher 
called,  a  little  roasted  rye  was  added  and  on  a  visit  from  the  minister, 
a  pinch  of  real  coffee  went  into  the  pot.  but  for  all  ordinary  occasions 
the  carrots  did  yeoman  service.  Lots  of  people  still  use  coffee  substi¬ 
tutes.  What  we  want  to  say  fcs  that  the  Soja  Bean  is  being  used  by 
some  farmers  for  coffee  with  satisfaction.  More  about  this  later. 
AT  a  meeting  the  other  night  of  the  local  branches  of  all  the  labor 
unions  at  St.  Louis,  it  was  unanimously  resolved: 
That  we  call  on  all  labor  organizations  to  take  such  action  as  will 
tend  to  prevent,  in  future,  the  calling  out  of  any  army  bodies,  State 
militia  or  otuerwise,  to  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  American 
workmen  to  comply  with  the  demands  of  brutal  and  tyrannical  capital. 
As  The  Rural  declared  several  months  ago,  all  that  is  wanted  by 
those  modest  representatives  of  one-twentieth  of  the  wage-earners  of 
the  United  States,  is  unrestrained  license  to  impose  their  demands 
for  the  cost  of  their  labor  on  the  other  nineteen-twentieths. 
While  our  trade  with  the  South  American  States  with  which  we 
have  formed  treaties  of  reciprocity  has  increased  23.78  per  cent  during 
the  last  two  years,  our  exports  of  corn  and  wheat  to  the  United  King¬ 
dom  have  increased  GO  per  cent,  and  our  exports  of  bacon  $1,011,859, 
and  of  cattle  and  cattle  products  $5,452,571,  though  we  have  no  recipro¬ 
city  with  Great  Britain.  The  opponents  of  McKinley  reciprocity  urge 
these  figures  as  convincing  arguments  of  the  futility  of  reciprocity. 
On  the  i.ther  hand,  the  advocates  of  the  measure  insist  that  the  great 
increase  in  our  cereal  exports  has  been  due  to  the  shortage  of  foreign 
crops  and  the  consequent  increased  demand  for  our  surplus  bread- 
stuffs;  and  that  the  recent  National  legislation  on  the  inspection  and 
certification  of  our  meats  has  increased  both  the  quality  and  value  of 
our  exports  of  them  to  the  European  markets  Whatever  the  cause, 
he  farmers  have  been  the  gainers 
