3o8 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
APRIL 18 
th a 
Rural New-Yorker, 
TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homen. 
ELBERT 8. CARMAN, EDITOR8 
HERBERT W. COLLINQWOOD, 
Rural Publishing Company: 
LAWSON VALENTINE, Piesident. 
EDGAR H, LIBBY, Manager. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN, 
OUT-DOOR BOOKS. 
Copyright, 1891, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 1891. 
Mr. Carpenter, who gives an account, on page 303, 
of the work done on his Dakota farm, has sent us a 
statement showing the expenses of marketing his 
wheat. He sent a car-load to Duluth which sold 
for $575.83. The expenses were $60.97 for freight 
and $3.33 for weighing, commission, etc,, so that it 
netted him $511.53 ; and to this expense must be 
added the cost of hauling from the farm to the rail¬ 
road. The railroad charged over 10 per cent of the 
value of the wheat to haul it to market. Is it too 
much ? Do farmers generally know what propor¬ 
tion of the price of their farm products must be 
paid for hauling them to market ? Here is where the 
poor road gets in its work. If the load your horses 
can haul is cut down by 30 to 40 per cent by reason 
of mud, rough places and stones, you simply pay 
the difference in extra work, which means cash. 
How long can you afford to keep this up ? 
Advices from Northern New England tell of an 
extraordinarily heavy immigration of French-Can- 
adians to the factories, and “ abandoned” farms of 
that section. Thrifty, industrious and frugal, these 
are very desirable additions to our population if 
they remain permanently among us. We also 
learn, however, from the same quarter that over 
9,000 objectionable European immigrants have 
found their way into this country through Canada 
in the last month, besides those that have crossed 
the frontier further to the west, and the number is 
likely to increase as the new immigration law is 
more rigidly enforced in our seabord cities. Unless 
some means are devised for damming this foul 
stream of foreign pauper and criminal immigation 
across our northern frontier, our legislation in this 
line is likely to prove a farce. With prohibited 
Chinese pouring in from British Columbia on the 
west, and prohibited Europeans from Quebec and 
Ontario on the east, the Canadian question is 
likely to receive fresh complications. The pres¬ 
ent status of affairs is simply building up Canadian 
lines of transportation at the expense of American, 
without at all accomplishing the objects of our re¬ 
cent national legislation. 
One of the standing grievances of temperance 
men in States or towns which prohibited the liquor 
traffic within their borders has been the belief that 
the Federal Government gave dealers licenses to 
sell regardless of any local legislation. This has 
oftentimes discouraged attempts to enforce legisla¬ 
tion of the latter class. The Treasury Department 
has just issued a circular to remove this erroneous 
impression. The Government does not issue a 
license to any person to carry on a retail liquor 
business. Congress does levy a revenue tax of $25 
on the business of retail liquor dealers and the Com¬ 
missioner of Internal Revenue endeavors to collect 
this tax wherever the business is carried on, but no 
license is given. Farther than this, one section of 
the Revised Statutes of the United States expressly 
provides that the payment of any tax imposed by 
the internal revenue laws shall not be held to ex¬ 
empt any person from any penalty or punishment 
provided by the laws of any State for carrying on 
such trade or business within such State, contrary 
to the laws of the State or in places prohibited by 
municipal law. It will be seen that the possession 
of a Federal license is not only no protection to a 
retail liquor dealer, but is, on the contrary, prima 
facie evidence of his being engaged in an illegal 
business if in prohibition territory. 
experiment of reducing interest on loans by legisla¬ 
tion. They are probably better able to make the 
risky experiment than the people of any other 
State ; and should they suffer from it, they can, 
with the loss of merely a few scores of millions, re¬ 
peal the faulty legislation. 
The struggle for and the fruition of female suffrage 
have just been exemplified in two prominent cases. 
The other day the Massachusetts Senate by a vote 
of 25 to 15 voted down the bill to confer on women 
the right of municipal suffrage. In the Old Bay 
State the proposition to grant women unrestricted 
suffrage has been defeated 11 times in the last quar¬ 
ter of a century, and propositions for the extension 
to them of the right of suffrage at municipal elec¬ 
tions have been rejected 13 times. Though debated 
every year since 1867, the movement appears to have 
made no advance in the State which is usually re¬ 
garded as the pioneer in reforms in the East. In 
Kansas, the pioneer reform State of the West, women 
have enjoyed the right of municipal suffrage since 
1887, and have generally practiced it to a consider¬ 
able extent. In the town elections last Monday they 
voted in proportion of one woman to seven men. 
Wives of citizens, it was noted, came to the polls in 
groups rather than with their husbands and gener¬ 
ally exhibited a free and independent spirit. Their 
votes were divided nearly equally between the Re¬ 
publicans and Democrats in the absence of candi¬ 
dates from the Farmers’ Alliance; where these were 
in the field they received a large proportion of the 
female vote. The great stumbling-block to women 
suffrage appears to be that the great majority of 
women themselves seem to care little for obtaining 
the privilege or for exercising it when granted. 
Mr. John Lewis Childs, of Floral Park, 
Queens Co., N. Y., has brought a libel suit 
against the Rural Publishing Company, his 
claim for damages being $75,000. The suit 
will be one in which everybody who culti¬ 
vates plants for pleasure or profit will be in¬ 
terested. The prominent question to be set¬ 
tled is whether the press has or has not a 
legal right to guard the public against those 
seedsmen, florists and nurserymen who 
knowingly misrepresent the plants or seeds 
they offer in order to sell larger quantities or 
at exorbitant prices. We propose to place 
before our readers from time to time a full 
account of the progress of the case from its 
beginning to its end and we shall do this as 
freely and fully should the proceedings go 
against us as in our favor. We believe we 
are right, and rendering the public a good 
service. If we are wrong, let it be shown 
and we will take the consequences. If, on 
the other hand, Mr. Childs was properly 
amenable to our criticisms as we believe him 
to have been, it will be for him to take the 
consequences. Either The R. N.-Y. or Mr. 
Childs is approaching a very serious ordeal, 
and we do not think it is the former. Time 
will show. We are ready for the conflict. 
Mr. Childs is neither more nor less to The 
R. N.-Y. than is any other seedsman or 
florist. The litigation on our part is to settle 
a question of the first moment to the public. 
We have no thought of the mere individual 
who happens to be the means through which 
the law will approve or condemn our course. 
The farmers of the land have been well 
served by those stations which analyze chem¬ 
ical fertilizers and make public the analyses. 
But if there has been a pressing need of 
guarding the public against fraudulent plant 
foods, why is not the need equally as great to 
protect them against fraudulent plants ? If 
the farm press, which assumes to further 
and protect all farm interests, is in fact 
ready to betray them whenever its immediate 
pecuniary gain seems to be in the balance, 
the farm press is itself a fraud and the 
sooner its patrons recognize the fact the 
better. 
All over the country the debtor classes, and those 
likely to belong to that category, are trying to re¬ 
duce the interest on borrowed money by legislation. 
The Cameron Bill now before the New York Legis¬ 
lature proposes to reduce the legal rate of interest 
in this State from six to five per cent, and it has 
passed the Assembly by a vote of 69 to 4. It is 
claimed by its opponents that home capital will be 
diverted to places where it can earn a higher in¬ 
terest ; that this will prove highly injurious to the 
Empire State ; that large sums now loaned on 
property here will be withdrawn and invested else¬ 
where ; and, finally, that the measure will seriously 
impair the resources and profits of savings banks, 
which already find it difficult to earn for their de¬ 
positors a low rate of interest. All this may be 
theoretically true ; but while correct practice must 
always agree with correct theory in the abstract, 
experience has repeatedly shown that where the 
conditions are complicated by human passions, in¬ 
terests and conduct, the rule does not always, or 
even generally, hold true. Anyhow, the people of 
New York State appear determined to make the 
A name familiar to every boy—old or young—in 
this and many other lands, is that of P. T. Bar- 
num. What youngster does not recall the thrill of 
expectancy that pervaded every fiber of his being 
for weeks preceding the advent of the “ Greatest 
Show on Earth! ” The great showman’s eventful 
life has closed at the well-rounded age of four-score 
years. Our purpose in this note is not to write an 
obituary; other and abler pens have well performed 
this tribute—but to remind the farmer boys of this 
country of the possibilities open to them in this glori¬ 
ous country of ours. Mr. Barnum was a farmer 
boy, left to his own resources at 15 ; successively 
and, many times, contemporaneously, clerk, mer¬ 
chant, printer, editor, showman, manufacturer and 
lecturer, he acquired a fortune by the time he had 
reached middle life; lost every penny and many 
thousands besides through too implicit confidence 
in others; retrieved his losses; paid every dollar of 
his indebtedness and accumulated a fortune esti¬ 
mated at $5,000,000 after reaching an age at which 
many men begin to think of retiring from active 
life. He was a typical Yankee, fertile in resource, 
turning every seeming defeat into a stepping stone 
to greater achievements, with an eye ever to the 
main chance, of unimpeachable business integrity; 
his name and his life ought to be an inspiration to 
every young man in this country. Not that every 
young man should choose the business he did, but, 
as he did, choose the one to which he seems best 
adapted and make every other subservient to it. 
One strong factor tending to Barnum’s success was 
that he gave the people just what they wanted in 
his line and of the very best to be procured, a point 
to be well considered by every one dealing with the 
public, whether he be farmer or otherwise. 
BREVITIES. 
Mud! Mud! Up to the hub! 
Straining with half a load ! 
Thud ! Thud! Wheel like a tub, 
Better fix up your road. 
Train the colts to the plow. 
Don’t patronize an idle stallion. 
The same justice that presumes to keep beef or hog fat 
out of butter has a right to interfere when filth or foulness 
are put in. 
Read “ A Neighborly Lift” on page 318. Lift yourself 
into happiness by hitching on to your friends’ troubles and 
haullDg them out by the roots. 
Here Is a practical temperance proposition for you. 
How many of you Prohibition stockmen will buy that 
cheap Louisiana molasses and feed it to stock rather than 
have it made into rum ? 
There is no thoroughbred, be it man, beast or plant, 
that will not resent ill-treatment by becoming stunted 
quicker than a “scrub.” It will also prove quicker to 
appreciate good treatment. 
Lots of our friends have told us why the government 
should control the railroads, but few tell how the change 
in management is to be made We shall have a scheme to 
present in a few weeks that will show the how clearly. 
Dr. Hogeboom, in Farm Politics, gets pretty close to the 
feelings of a good majority of the farmers of this country 
The rum power threatens their homes, their business and 
their country. They want to know how to fight it most 
effectively. 
Should laws be framed to confer the greatest good on 
the least number or on the greatest ? Are not all laws that 
in any way favor or protect monopolies of the former 
character ? Wouldn’t this be a good criterion by which 
to gauge the merits of all legislation ? 
If New York or any other State legislature should pass 
a law making It a legal offense for any dairyman to use 
in his herd a bull that could not show a good milk or 
butter pedigree, people would call It “paternal legisla¬ 
tion ” of the worst sort—but would it not help dairying ? 
The sheep industry is looking up, particularly the de¬ 
partment of forcing early lambs. The latest scheme is to 
feed skimmed milk from the cow to the lambs. Several 
men, who ought to know, write us that lambs will make a 
better use of the surplus milk In butter dairies than any 
other animal. 
A reduction of three or four or even five per cent In the 
price of a commodity may be a trifle to the merchant or 
manufacturer who measures his profits by from 15 to 50 
percent; but to the farmer whose profits seldom exceed five 
per cent, such a reduction In the price of his products means 
pinching or poverty. 
Talking about the thousands of people who “can’t find 
work,” here is a note from a Maryland subscriber: 
“ Send some good farm hand out here and I will seli 
bim nine acres of good land for $75, and take it in work 
We are six miles from Deer Park, at a station on the Bal¬ 
timore and Ohio Railroad and close to 20,000 coal miners. 
Wages, $1.25 per day.” 
On some of the beet sugar farms in France, George ViUe 
has suggested experiments with green manures which give 
a new suggestion. Peas are mainly used—plowed under 
at their best and treated as though they supplied nothing 
but nitrogen. That is, some soluble phosphate and some 
potash salt are applied to the soil with possibly a little 
nitrogen. 
A good many people seem to think that the Leghorn 
crossed on the Light Brahma will make the ideal winter 
laying hen—a pleasing combination of summer industry 
and winter protection. Such hens do lay well, but the 
eggs are of a bad color—a muddy shade. There are fami¬ 
lies of Wyaudottes that lay as well as Leghorns. A cross 
of such birds with Brahmas would give a salable egg. but 
a cross with boards and tarred paper would be better yet. 
The Germans have been quick to recognize the value of 
basic slag, a product of Iron manufacture, as a fertilizer 
Expei iments have been made to learn how to use it. It is 
a lertilizer for special soils and special crops. It has 
given excellent returns on pastures and given a quicker 
return on heavy, damp soils than bone-black. Ic Is an 
excellent “ reinforcement’’—that is, used with some more 
soluble phosphate. The soluble phosphate acts first and 
the slag continues the work. 
“Farmin’ don’t pay” Is a complaint nowadays by far too 
common all over the country. How good farming does pay 
has been repeatedly told by successful farmers in The 
Rural. Over 8,000,000 acres of recent Indian lands have 
been thrown open to settlement during the last year, and 
in every case thousands of eager “ boomers ” had collected 
in Wisconsin, Dakota and the Indian Territory to get the 
first chance at locating there, in spite of the inevitable 
hardships of settlement in a new country. Do men tumble 
over each other in their eagerness to rush into a non-paying 
business ? 
In the South cotton, which the farmers have to sell, now 
brings two cents per pound less than a year ago; while 
corn, which they have to buy, brings one third more. 
This is not a novel, It is a chronic experience, which never 
appears to teach any lesson. Will farmers there put in 
more corn and less cotton next year? Decidedly not. 
They will put in more cotton than ever before, and then 
when it is a “ drug on the market” importune the govern¬ 
ment to make advances of money on it to buy corn, of 
which they had, year after year, persistently refused’ to 
plant enough. 
While the farmers of to day undoubtedly enjoy many 
advantages nnknown to or out of reach of their fathers, 
there is no doubt that in the general distribution of the 
good things created by modern Inventiveness and progress, 
the greater proportion of the increased wealth and pros¬ 
perity has fallen chiefly to the non-agricultural classes. 
In the grand rush and scramble the farmer may be ahead 
of his father’s position, but he Is still at the rear of the 
procession, and his growth of intelligence and wider oppor¬ 
tunities have made him more painfully realize the widen¬ 
ing gulf between his condition and that of other classes. 
Should farmers then be blamed or vituperated for seeking 
by every legitimate means to narrow this gulf and 
advance their own position ? 
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