692 
SEPT .'26 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
Rural N e w-Y orker, 
TIMES BUILDING. NEW YORK. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
ELBERT 8. CARMAN, t EDITOR8. 
HERBERT W. COLLINQWOOD, I 
• Rural Publishing Company: 
LAWSON VALENTINE, Prasident. 
EDGAR H. LIBBY, Managar. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN 
OUT-DOOR BOOKS. 
Copyright, 1891, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1891. 
In line with the fine crop reports from all parts of 
the country comes the news from Cape Cod that 
the cranberry crop will be 20,000 bushels bigger 
than ever before. Now for a corresponding in¬ 
crease in the turkey crop to fitly celebrate Thanks¬ 
giving for all these blessings. 
Among the most promising of the newer grapes 
now on trial at the Rural Grounds may be mention¬ 
ed the Diamond, Geneva, Climax, Alice, Witt, Nec¬ 
tar, Berckmans and Ulster—this note being writ¬ 
ten a week after those which appear elsewhere. 
Lady gives the largest and earliest bunches among 
the whites ; Pocklmgton among the late whites, fol¬ 
lowed closely by Victoria. 
After a week of puttering, tedious work, the R. 
N.-Y. wheat crosses and rye wheat hybrids are 
again in the ground. Only those which seem to 
promise excellence in all or some respects were re¬ 
tained—about 75 in all; the rest were, as in years 
past, destroyed. We have now greater hope for 
the future of the rye-wheat hybrids than for the 
wheat crosses, though among the latter are sev¬ 
eral varieties that yield more than any of the known 
kinds which have been tried at the Rural Grounds 
under the same conditions. 
What a “slump” in wheat recently—six cents 
here in a week and seven in Chicago. Small won¬ 
der. In spite of all warnings, farmers are rushing 
their wheat so furiously to market that neither 
car room nor elevator storage is sufficient to meet 
the demand. The political papers are jubilant ; the 
agricultural despondent. The former regard only 
the speculators and consumers ; the latter have a 
thought for the producers also. Among long¬ 
headed, conservative people there is little doubt 
that the farmers who sell only enough of their crop 
to meet pressing demands and hold the rest, will 
come out ahead before May Day, and probably be¬ 
fore New Year’s. Of the vast quantities of wheat 
dumped on the market now, a comparatively small 
part goes into consumption ; while the surplus 
serves to lower prices at present and to act as a 
depressing competitor with the rest of the crop 
to be marketed hereafter. 
Lexicographer Johnson defined oats as the food 
of men in Scotland and horses in England, and 
throughout most of Europe Indian corn is looked 
upon in the same light in which Dr. Johnson regard¬ 
ed oats—as fit only for stock feed. “But see what 
men they have in Scotland and what horses in Eng¬ 
land,” was the just Scotch retort, and experience 
here shows that corn, like oats, is excellent food for 
both man and beast. 0 wing to the shortage of their 
crops, this is a good time to impress this fact on the 
people of Europe ; but the lesson will not be easily 
learned. Even during the terrible famine in Ire¬ 
land in 1848, cargoes of Indian meal rotted on the 
wharves because the starving people would not eat 
it. Now that the American hog is rapidly making 
his way in Europe, however, surely the great hog¬ 
making material should easily follow. 
If you must keep a dog, keep a good one—that 
is, one you can educate and make into a useful citi¬ 
zen. Dogs are what we make them ; well-behaved, 
faithful and useful, or sneaking, treacherous and 
useless. Many and varied are the possessions that 
are said to indicate the character of their owner, 
but the dog is about the best index of its owner’s 
capacity for leadership or for instructing and 
training others. It is safe to say that a dog imi¬ 
tates his master. Simple carelessness in the human 
becomes lawlessness or crime in the dog. It may 
not be pleasant to think that when your dog kills 
sheep, he is simply developing some weak spot in 
your nature to its legitimate conclusion ! The fact 
remains that whoever trained the dog is responsible 
for the killing. Men with cur dogs are generally 
the ones who lose money on hired help because they 
do not take pains to show their men how to work 
to the best advantage. It is likely that of all breeds 
of dogs now known, the collie would receive the 
greatest number of votes for Best Farm Dog. For 
special purposes of hunting, watching or killing 
vermin other dogs will excel the collie, but for mak¬ 
ing himself generally useful on the farm, particu¬ 
larly with stock, the Scotch dog leads. But he is 
useful only because he is capable of learning. The 
good qualities themselves are not born in him by 
any means. Untaught and untrained, the collie is 
just about the most mischievous dog in the world. 
He is shrewd in his rascality and seems to enjoy 
mischief. We have seen one worry stock and chase 
chicks like the veriest mongrel. This was because 
it was not taught any better, but it seems to show 
that the collie’s excellence is due to training—not 
to breeding. The collie’s powers of sight, smell and 
hearing are remarkable, as is its capacity of think¬ 
ing. These facts make its training all the more 
important and emphasize the necessity of having a 
single trainer. Children or thoughtless hired men 
will soon spoil the smartest collie that ever was 
bought, if they are permitted to tease him. The 
collie is for business ; a cur is good enough to play 
with. 
There are few good farmers who would try to 
farm with a team of horses such as are used on the 
street cars. Most of these animals are “misfits,” 
too small and light for heavy farm work, and too 
slow for fast driving. Yet these “ no good ” horses 
do something that is worth recording. Two of them 
will take a car weighing 5,000 pounds with passen¬ 
gers weighing 7,000 pounds more, and draw the 
whole weight, six tons, at the rate of six miles an 
hour, day after day, without any vacation. Now, 
in “bad going” your two big horses may possibly 
haul you and an empty wagon two miles an hour 
and come home plastered with mud up to the 
belly, and completely used up. Is not this so ? 
The poor, despised car horse accomplishes about 
five times as much as your noble, great animal be 
cause his load has a perfect track to run on. The 
strain on the harness is no greater, but the car does 
less mud lifting. Lifting mud on a wagon wheel is 
the most ignoble work that man or beast can en¬ 
gage in. The cost of the labor spent in flounder¬ 
ing about in dirt roads in spring would put an iron 
track on every road in this country. 
The most expensive and unsatisfactory thing 
about cotton culture is the picking. It is in the 
hands of the negroes who monopolize the cheap, un¬ 
skilled labor of the South. The Colored Farmers’ 
Alliance has a large membership. It has been fos¬ 
tered and encouraged by white Alliancemen. The 
negroes have long complained about the price paid 
for picking cotton—now they talk of demanding a 
higher price and using the Colored Alliance organi¬ 
zation as a machine for enforcing their demand. 
At the present price paid for cotton many farmers 
are forced to grow it at a loss, and they certainly 
cannot pay more for picking until other expenses 
are diminished or the selling price is raised. Yet, 
on general principles the negroes have as much right 
to combine and demand a fair price for their labor 
as the white employers have to combine and de¬ 
mand a fair price for their products. Whenever 
the negro is taught how to organize, and encouraged 
to combine and make dignified demands for legis¬ 
lation, he will, sooner or later, use the knowledge 
and power he has gained to further his own interests 
and advancement. In other words, the Colored 
Alliance will work for the interests of the negro 
farmer rather than for the American farmer, be¬ 
cause the former stands in greater need of help. 
Do plants sleep? Do they ever get tired? Do 
they need darkness in order to grow and digest the 
food they have assimilated during the day? These 
questions appear to be answered in the negative by 
Prof. Bailey’s experiments with the electric light in 
the Cornell greenhouse. In one room a powerful 
electric light was kept burning whenever sunlight 
was absent, in another no artificial light was pro¬ 
vided. Plants of the same age were put in the two 
rooms and cultivated in exactly the same way. The 
results show that plants do not need periods of 
darkness in order to grow and develop, They will 
grow in continuous full light and, as Prof. Bailey 
says: “ If the electric light enables plants to assim¬ 
ilate during the night and does not interfere with 
growth it must produce plants of marked precocity.” 
These experiments merely prove a few “first prin¬ 
ciples ”—a faint glimpse of the possibilities of elec¬ 
tric force in horticulture or agriculture. French 
experiments with wires run over fields of grain 
showed marked gain in product when electricity 
was used. Electricians agree that they have 
hardly begun to comprehend the value of this won¬ 
derful form of force. Electricity is now a city 
worker. The country needs it more than the town. 
May not the force that goes to waste in the 
brook, the breeze, or the ocean billow be harnessed 
and made to serve agriculture ? What a glorious 
field is opened for investigators in determining just 
what part in the economy of life is played by 
electricity ! 
The low prices for American wool, in spite of the 
McKinley tariff, are due to several causes, some of 
which have been lately mentioned in The Rural. 
Due attention has not been given to the untidy and 
extremely dirty condition in which home raised 
wool goes to market, or to the excess of cheap 
twine used in tying it. Then again, wool is excep¬ 
tionally cheap all over the world this year. For 
instance, the same grades brmg considerably higher 
prices in the United States than across the border, 
in Canada. The great increase in the use of shoddy, 
the principal ingredient in which consists of woolen 
rags of all sorts from all parts of the world, has 
also had a depressing effect on the price of wool. 
While the new tariff raised the duty on shoddy 
fabrics to 300 per cent for the benefit of the manu¬ 
facturers, it left the duty on woolen rags unchanged 
—at 10 cents per pound. In 1870 there were im¬ 
ported 512.792 pounds of the refuse; in 1880, 1,388,- 
233, in 1890, 8,622,209 and since the McKinley tariff 
went into effect the increase has been enormous. 
It is reasonably estimated that 41 per cent of 
the woolen fabrics now sold in the country con¬ 
sist of materials that are not wool, and the 
amount of adulteration is constantly increasing. 
Moreover, manufacturers insist that they must 
have a certain proportion of foreign wools to 
mix with domestic wools in order to manufact¬ 
ure fabrics to the best advantage. Conse¬ 
quently when they pay heavy duties on imported 
wools, they are compelled either to reduce the 
wages of labor, to increase the price of their 
products, or to pay less for home grown wool, in 
order to reimburse themselves for the tariff charges, 
and they say that they have always found it 
easier to lower the price of their raw material 
than to cut down the wages of their workmen or in¬ 
crease the price of their cloths. Hence the prices 
of domestic wools have gone down in spite of the 
increase of duties that was designed to put them up. 
BREVITIES. 
Good man Uncle Rusk ! Good man ! 
For the Yankee hog Is still 
Verv much “ in It: ’’ you have made a hit 
With the Meat Inspection Bill 
Don’t let things stop ! Finish out your plan 
Good man Uncle Rusk! G jod man! 
Good man Uncle Rusk ! Good man ! 
You will cure the “money craze.” 
If you teach the earth the amizinq worth 
Of our Yankee product—Maize ! 
We believe you will. f'>r we know you can, 
Good min Oncle Rusk ! Good man! 
Good man Uncle Rusk! Goodman! 
We will all live happily 
Oncontentm nt’sback, if you’ll grease the track 
For our hog and ho iny, 
More fat fo- the world’s big frying-nan, 
Good man Uncle Rusk! Goodman! 
HAS any gardener yet grown bush Lima beans under 
glass ? 
How do you handle your potato crop ? Do the bags 
have it ? 
Start the boy right; start the boy right; thus you will 
save him two-thirds of the fight. 
Will scientists earn their salaries so long as they spend 
their time confirming well known facts ? 
Is there any reason why posterity should not be called 
upon to pay part of the cost of public improvements ? 
IN irrigating strawberries a thick mulch of straw be¬ 
tween rows on ridges like those described by Mr. J. M. 
Smith will save water and weeds. 
We are glad to see that the stations—many of them—are 
heeding The R. N.-Y.’s advice to leave more space be¬ 
tween the lines of their tabular matter. 
When you get to be 70 years old a full head and a clear 
conscience will be more comfortable than a full pocket- 
book with dirt and emptiness elsewhere. 
“The middleman is a curse in almost every trade and in 
the tree trade he is at bis very worst.” So said Dr. 
Hoskins in last week’s R. N.-Y. It may well be repeated. 
The most promising sign about the trade in hides Is the 
fact that leg boots are again becoming fashionable. When 
fashion demands extra leather, that leather must be paid 
for. 
If every time the youngster finds a sum that’s hard to 
do, you run and do It for him, make a nick on the tablet 
of your memory that what I say is true, such a boy will 
never learn arithmetic 1 
You had better go right to work and rid yourself of the 
idea that the education o. your daughter Is not as im¬ 
portant as that of your son. The fact of the matter is 
that it is more important. 
The R. N.-Y. is not in the least afraid to print articles 
that are “out of the beaten track.” In fact, we like to 
print them because such things make people think even if 
they do “stir them up” a little. 
The Democrats of New York State seem to think they 
have selected a State Flower—of the golden rod variety. 
The Republicans hope to turn tUe Fassett on that flower’s 
hopes I Jones ? Well, he freights his pay for services ren¬ 
dered ! 
WE call for the biggest apple crop record. What is the 
greatest number of bushels ever taken from a single tree 
or a single acre of trees ? The butter, cheese, wheat and 
potato men have had their innings. Now for the apple; 
the wholesome king of fruits. 
“A Lumber Trust is the last” exclaim many of the 
papers. Though to those wanting lumber the news is 
doleful enough, to the general public it’s by far too good 
to be true. Tne last trust I Would that it were I The 
latest perhaps ; but, alas I not the last. 
The “dog flour” mentioned by Mr. Akin, page 693, 
seems to be inferior or discolored grades of flour mixed 
with mill refuse. Many feeders could tell some valuable 
stories about the use of refuse or damaged food. Some 
housekeepers will spoil tenderloin steak while others could 
make a king smack his chops over an inferior cut of meat. 
Mr. Akin’s remarks about the ease of selling a car load 
of horses of uniform shape, color and size, is well worth 
considering. People like to do a wholesale business—they 
don’t care to make a dozen trips to pick up a dozen arti¬ 
cles. Uniformity in stock, butter, cheese, potatoes or any 
other produce makes business easier and more profitable. 
Uniformity is the result of cooperation. 
Milk drinkers would be better off if they would confine 
themselves to skim-milk. Holstein and Ayrshire milk 
contains an extra amount of sugar, and for that reason is 
considered most palatable by many invalids We have 
investigated a number of first-class hospitals of late and 
without exception the doctors argue that skim-milk from 
the milk breeds is the best beverage for patients. 
Wyoming, the only State in the Union where female 
suffrage has been established by the fundamental law, 
has just enacted a law taxing every bachelor over 30, $2 
a year. This might be a fair law for Massachusetts where 
there’s a superabundance of the female persuasion ; but 
in Wyoming there’s a large surplus of the other sex, and 
how can they escape the tax ? The law may increase the 
revenue and population, but is hardly likely to increase 
the respect for matrimony. 
What a hubbub was created the other day by the ship¬ 
ment of from $60,000,000 to $70,000,000 in gold to Europe in 
a few months for business purposes ; yet scarcely a word 
is ever said about the exportation of nearly twice as m ch 
in the same period every year by tourists for pleasure pur¬ 
poses. Shouldn’t such outlay be discouraged by tne Impo¬ 
sition of a per capita tax on the wanderers ? They are 
just the people who, aoove all others, are likely to escape 
the payment of a just proportion of taxes at home, by 
shirking taxation on personal property, so that taxing 
their departure from the country would serve a double 
good purpose—discourage American extravagance abroad 
and encourage American honesty at home. 
