208 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MARCH 14 
TH & 
Rural New-Yorker, 
TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK. 
4 Rational W eekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
ELBERT S. CARMAN, 
HERBERT W. COLLINGWOOD, 
EDITOR8. 
Rural Publishing Company: 
-AWSON VALENTINE, Piesident 
EDGAR H. LIBBY, Manager. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN, 
OUT-DOOR BOOKS, 
Copyright, 1891, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1891. 
to receive decisive action in one House or the 
other. Of the 14,033 bills introduced in the House, 
and the 5,129 in the Senate, making a total of 
19,162, 2,186, largely of a more or less private 
nature, have become laws, while 634 were defeated. 
Thus it made 362 more laws than its busy prede¬ 
cessor. Still, over 1,300 bills which were favorably 
reported by the various committees, failed to pass 
for want of time for further consideration. Among 
these were the Conger Lard and the Paddock Pure 
Food, the Nicaragua Canal and the Pacific Rail¬ 
road Funding Bills and several others of great 
public importance. By far too much time was 
wasted in the fierce and sometimes turbulent dis¬ 
cussion of purely partisan measures. Indeed, the 
work of the Fifty-first Congress was, in a large de¬ 
gree, political, and hence it has aroused the bitter¬ 
est passions of the people. Time alone can there¬ 
fore pass a just verdict on its merits and demerits. 
When you are more interested in listening to 
others than in hearing yourself talk, there is hope 
for you. 
A good, stout stick or club is a very sensible 
companion as one walks along country roads. One 
likes to feel that he may protect himself when the 
prevailing cur runs out to snarl at his heels. 
The market is well supplied with Vicar of Wink- 
field and Winter Nelis Pears which retail readily 
enough at 10 cents each. These are both consid¬ 
ered early winter pears, but cold storage seems to 
preserve them perfectly. 
Flossie : “Our teacher does not allow us to 
read the Sunday papers.” 
Annie : “Why not, pray ? The Sunday papers 
are written and printed for the most part on Satur¬ 
day night. It is Monday’s paper she should object 
to. That is, for the most part, written and printed 
on the Sabbath.” 
Straining at gnats and swallowing camels is the 
besetting sin of the day. 
Prof. Storer says that it would be well for 
every farmer to determine for his own soil how 
deep manure should be buried, by dividing the 
fields into fractions, and burying portions of the 
manure at different depths upon the several frac¬ 
tions. This, as stated, seems an easy thing to do. 
The R. N.-Y., however, has been trying to solve 
the same problem as to fertilizers for four years, 
and is no nearer a solution now than at the start. 
Why do we talk about Alfalfa as though it were 
a new thing ? Here is an extract from a diary 
written in Queens Co., N. Y., in 1788: “ Lucern 
grass is recently introduced and highly praised. It 
can be mowed five times in one season, and cuts 
eight loads of hay per acre. Cows feeding on it give 
larger messes of milk, and the butter is of superior 
quality. Horses are sustained by it as on grain, in 
their hardest labor.” The “ novelty ” sellers of 103 
years ago evidently knew their business. 
“ I have more faith in the growing voters than 
in the ready-made ones 1 ” writes a woman who is 
intensely interested in the cause of temperance. 
The older voters of to-day are strong party men. 
It is next to impossible to get them to vote for 
Prohibition while the old issues are waged so vio¬ 
lently. Will the coming voter, the boy of to-day— 
the girl, too, perhaps—exhibit the same “hide¬ 
bound ” political condition ? Let the women of 
America keep that question before them. The 
American home and the American school-house 
must train the soldiers who are to fight for tem¬ 
perance ! 
A few weeks ago a paragraph appeared in The R. 
N.-Y. concerning the so-called cooperative lists of 
country newspapers, also known as “patent in¬ 
sides.” Several good friends have told us, some by 
letter, some by word of mouth, that they are 
readers of this class of papers, and they object, for 
that reason, to being called “gullible.” Well, no 
doubt we were hasty. We apologize, at any rate, 
to our good friends for classing them in bad com- 
pany. Some of these cooperative papers are cer¬ 
tainly well edited ; at least the “patent inside” 
pages are, and are well worthy of a place in coun¬ 
try homes. 
The I ifty-first Congress, with its many virtues 
and faults, has gone into history. During its career 
of two years it appropriated more money than any 
other peace Congress since the foundation of the 
government, its generosity having expended up¬ 
wards of one billion dollars, or over $15 for every 
man, woman and child in the country, or about 
$90 for every voter. It found in the National 
Treasury a surplus of over $100,000,000; it has left 
it empty, besides incurring obligations likely to 
range between $50,000,000 and $75,000,000, which 
its successor must meet by new taxation. Thus it 
has added to the currency the hoardings of its pre¬ 
decessors, besides silver certificates for the monthly 
purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of the white metal. It 
has given to the country the McKinley Tariff, the 
full effects of which time must yet develop. ’ In 
legislation hardly a single measure of more than 
transient interest that has come before it, has failed 
A few complete copies of Dr. Lawes’s more im¬ 
portant publications are on their way to this 
country for distribution among our leading agricul¬ 
tural colleges and experiment stations. The collec¬ 
tion of papers extends as far back as 1845, and tells 
the results of a deal of work and trouble. This 
is precisely what many of the young men of our sta¬ 
tions need; that is to say, they need to know more 
of the work accomplished by Lawes and Gilbert 
and other renowned European investigators, so 
that they may not idle away their time in tugging 
away at solved problems or those which have 
already secured a degree of attention which they 
may never hope to give. 
We take the liberty of quoting the following 
paragraph from a private letter from Sir J. B. 
Lawes: “We are investigating the source of the 
nitrogen in leguminous plants, by means of the new 
processes. Your countryman, Dr. Pugh, when he 
carried on his experiments here in 1847, excluded 
all impurities from the air employed and got no fix¬ 
ation of nitrogen. We now grow the plants in the 
open air, but in a soil almost deprived of nitrogen, 
and we give the plants a small quantity of an extract 
from a soil where leguminous plants have previously 
grown. The result is a large increase in the nitro 
gen in the plant, due to the action of the micro¬ 
organisms in a manner not yet understood.” 
“I want to buy about 12 barrels of seed potatoes” 
said a farmer last week: “ where can I get them 
cheapest?” 
“ What variety do you want?” 
“ I don’t care particularly. I want them cheap; 
I guess I’ll buy some Western potatoes on the 
cars!” 
Is that a “ farmin’ don’t pay ’’farmer? Pretty 
close to it, and the reason is clear enough. There is 
as much difference between varieties of potatoes as 
to yield and quality, as there is between breeds of 
cows. The man who persists in raising a potato just 
because it is a potato, a cow just because it is a cow, 
and a strawberry just because it is a strawberry’ 
without any regard to their fitness for his soil and 
situation, will be as sure to bring up the rear as will 
the man in a foot race, who persists in wearing a 
shoe a size too small for him. 
The Agricultural Department at Washington has 
issued a large volume entitled “Diseases of The 
Horse,” containing special articles by some of the 
best veterinary authorities in the world. As a 
matter of fact, this volume, printed by the govern¬ 
ment and distributed gratuitously to farmers, is 
far superior to any veterinary work previously 
published and is the best printed evidence of the 
practical value of the Agricultural Department to 
practical horse breeders, that has yet appeared. 
Even the New York Sun, a paper that has for 
years ridiculed and condemned the publications of 
the Department, quotes Senator Blackburn to the 
effect that the single chapter on “Horse Shoeing ” 
is worth $1,000,000 to the farmers of the country! 
The Agricultural Department was never in better 
shape than at present and the beauty of it is that 
it is constantly gaining in usefulness. 
Some time back the live stock raisers of Kansas 
and several of the other Western States formed a 
mutual association for the sale of the stock of its 
members and other producers at reduced commis¬ 
sions, and it also sought to obtain for them the low¬ 
est possible rates of transportation, and to prevent 
a glut in any of the great live stock markets by 
withholding shipments from threatened points or 
diverting them to others. Straightway, in order to 
nullify this action of the producers, the middlemen, 
comprising the old-established commission houses 
and the agents of the Big Four and other live stock 
monopolistic concerns, formed a combination and 
fixed a minimum commission for selling stock, and 
prohibited its members from making any purchases 
from outsiders. For years the unscrupulous mon¬ 
opolists had, by a semi-secret agreement, been, to 
a great extent, able to name their own prices for the 
cattle, sheep and hogs that came to the chief 
markets, and they resentfully sought to perpetuate 
their nefarious advantage by this outrageous com¬ 
pact. Last week the Kansas Legislature passed a 
bill prohibiting combinations formed with the object 
of preventing competition among persons engaged 
in buying and selling live stock. It makes it unlaw¬ 
ful for any two or more persons engaged in such 
business to enter into any combination for the pur¬ 
pose of controlling live stock commission charges 
or of preventing free competition in the business, or 
of fixing a minimum commission for selling live 
stock. Such a measure may drive some of the 
monopolists across the line into Missouri or some of 
the other States; but its effects are likely to be ben¬ 
eficial to the farmers of Kansas. If all “farmer 
legislation” were of the same reasonable character, 
there would belittle cause for jokes or jeers by the 
most captious critic. 
Government control of railways undoubtedly has 
its advantages ; there are many things in connec¬ 
tion therewith which are well worth considering. 
Foreigners traveling in this country tell us that no¬ 
where on earth is railroading reduced to such an 
exact science as here. Nowhere else is such rapid 
time made. The superbly equipped trains are un¬ 
equaled in countries whose governments control the 
railroads. These countries, however, are of limited 
extent as compared with this, and in none of them 
do travelers have to spend successive days and 
nights in the cars. It seems that everything that 
capital and efficient management can do has been 
done to secure perfect service in this country. This 
is more evident on the great trunk lines and be¬ 
tween points connected by competing lines. The 
stimulus of competition has secured a maximum of 
service at a minimum of cost to the public. But 
these advantages are lacking in many places 
where no competition exists, and the public 
must pay exorbitant rates, and accept inferior ser¬ 
vice, or walk. These are the localities to receive 
the greatest benefit. The postal service affords as 
efficient, though necessarily less frequent service in 
the most remote parts of the country as in the most 
populous towns, and at no greater cost to the par¬ 
ties benefited. Would government control of the 
railroads, telegraphs, etc., insure equally efficient 
service ? It is not expected that a passenger will 
be carried from New York to San Francisco at 
the same price as from New York to Philadelphia, 
as is the case with letters, but it is reasonable to 
expect that passengers or freight will be carried 
oyer short distances on non competing railroads 
without paying four and five times as much as for 
the same service over competing lines, as at pres¬ 
ent. Will government control insure the benefit 
to the people who need it most, and who are now so 
poorly served ? 
BREVITIES. 
Hurrah for the clover farmer ! 
With brain both great and gray : 
He saves his bark ! Ills arms don’t crack! 
While clover works away. 
And hail to the faithful clover, 
Long may its fame endure! 
For prospects bright, and profits tight, 
All come from areen manure. 
Now’s the time to get a move on the manure. 
The best evidence of an ill-regulated home: “ Company 
manners.” 
Owing to its solidity, the R. N.-Y. No. 2, should be 
boiled longer than other varieties—a half hour at least. 
Among winter fruits the tomato may now be considered. 
as holding a permanent place. Well ripened specimens of 
goodly size sell for five cents each. 
Is it because subsoiling is a non-profltable operation 
that we hear so little about it nowadays ? More likely it 
was tried for soils and crops where it was not needed. 
Now, friend, if you must let the manure pile drain into 
the brook, put some healthy crop between the two. It will 
save some of the substance of your manure wash and 
the brook will be just as well satisfied. 
A NEW department will be found on page 212. “ We 
Want to Know 1” We want the experience of practical 
men, and we will thank any of our readers who can help 
us with the questions and suggestions there offered. All 
talk ! 
It is conceded on all hands that manure in the hill may 
give the plant a quick, vigorous start. And a vigorous 
young growth may help to carry it through the hardships 
of its later life. But a well fed babyhood will never sup¬ 
ply the needs of maturer life when the the plant needs 
abundant nourishment for the trying labor of life—grain 
or fruit production. 
The late Roscoe Conkling, one of the ablest and most 
far-sighted statesmen the country has produced, once re¬ 
marked to a friend that there was very fair Presidential 
timber in “ Uncle Jerry Rusk.” The drift of public opin¬ 
ion and public affairs renders it more than possible that 
this timber will, ere long, be utilized for the purpose fore¬ 
seen by the great New York Senator. 
When the McKinley Bill put sugar on the free list or 
nearly so, and placated the domestic sugar producers with 
liberal bounties on their products, it was shrewdly anti 
cipated by many that the bounties would soon be abolished 
and the domestic sugar producing interests of the country 
be left in the lurch. An agitation for the repeal of the sugar 
bounties has already started even before a dollar has been 
paid out under the law, and a great many farmers who 
have no interest in the welfare of their sugar-producing 
brethren are clamoring against the necessary taxation. 
What is the fate predicted of a house divided against itself ? 
Probably the greatest danger to any nation, but espe¬ 
cially to a republic whose foundation rests on the suffrage 
of the people, is corruption at the polls. According to 
current experience this is best minimized by the Austra¬ 
lian ballot system. Although this was first adopted in 
this country less than three years ago, it is now in force 
in eighteen States in the Union, and at municipal elections 
in several of the others, and is likely to promote or insure 
honest elections in all before long. It is gratifying to 
know that the farmers’ organizations everywhere have 
heartily supported this improvement in our methods of 
election. 
The Harvester Trust and the Harrow Trust have both 
lately received staggering blows from the arm of the law. 
Both have been declared illegal organizations inimical to 
the public welfare, and therefore incompetent to enforce 
contracts. The prestige of both organizations is so badly 
damaged by the revelations made and the judicial an¬ 
imadversions on them that it is not unlikely they may be 
dissolved. There may be some who would regret such an 
end to a career capable of a world of good, if beneficently 
directed : 
But wouldn’t all sorrow be wasted 
On such a pitiless, coselenceless entity, 
Which had ruthlessly all rivals basted 
Till In it they had sunk tlieir Identity ? 
