i89i 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
8i7 
Farm Politics. 
Here it is proposed to discuss with freedom and fairness, ques¬ 
tions of National or State policy that particularly concern farm¬ 
ers. The editors disclaim responsibility for the opinions of cor¬ 
respondents. The object is to develop a true and fair basis for 
organization among farmers. Let us think out just what we want 
and then strive for it. 
AN INTERNATIONAL SILVER AGREEMENT. 
Bradstreet’s calls attention to one point made by Secre¬ 
tary Foster in a recent speech on the silver question. The 
Secretary said, in effect, that recent silver legislation had, 
in his opinion, gone as far as prudence would permit, and 
that the effect of free silver agitation here on foreign 
opinion had been such as to handicap any efforts which 
might be made to bring about an international agreement. 
He said that he had made, in a very quiet way, quite a 
careful investigation of the feeling of foreign countries 
upon the subject of an international agreement between 
them and our country, ty which gold and silver upon 
some acceptable basis can be maintained at a parity and 
had but little hesitancy in saying that but for the feeling 
existing abroad that public sentiment in this country is 
such as to compel the adoption of unlimited free coinage 
we could make some agreement for at least a better use of 
silver, if not a complete international agreement. This is 
a statement which may be commended to the careful at¬ 
tention of the conservative men among those who are in¬ 
terested in furthering the use of silver. 
WHAT AILS THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT? 
Allow me to express my hearty approval of the senti¬ 
ments expressed in the editorial on the “ Drink Question ” 
in The Rural of October 24. I had long been impressed 
with the idea that genuine workers in temperance reform 
had an earnest supporter in The R. N.-Y., and when I 
read the article referred to, I rejoiced that a paper depend¬ 
ing on the public for patronage dares to utter such cour¬ 
ageous and outspoken words against the rum power. None 
can overestimate the good The Rural is accomplishing, 
and the support and strength it is imparting to tne weary 
and despondent ones engaged in the noble work of temper¬ 
ance reform. IRVING D. COOK. 
R. N.-Y.—It ought not to require more courage to 
state the facts about the liquor traffic than to discuss the 
tariff or questions of finance or business. We gave exact 
figures to show that this drink question is the greatest 
economic and social problem before the people to-day. No 
man can deny that statement because it is true. Men may 
honestly differ on other matters. There are unquestion¬ 
ably honest men who would be benefited by a low tariff or 
free trade, and there are those who would be helped by a 
higher tariff. There are honest men who would reap an 
advantage from “ free silver ” or paper money. But who 
will defend the rum trade on the same plea ? The liquor 
business as a business is utterly indefeasible on any moral 
or sound political or economic ground. It builds up no 
productive industry, it does not foster the home or lead to 
patriotism or love of country; it does not stimulate honor, 
economy, industry or any other virtue under the sun. It 
is thoroughly harmful, and yet it is the greatest and most 
powerful business that present civilization Knows of. 
When The Rural New-Yorker is afraid to state the 
facts about this infamous business through fear of hurting 
the feelings of some of its readers, it had better suspend 
publication and die. It is a fact that the liquor business 
is increasing. What is to be done about it ? Is there any 
hope in the future ? As a vote-gatherer the Prohibition 
party has not been a great success. In some localities its 
vote has increased while in others it has fallen off. Why 
is this ? Examine most leading Prohibition papers and 
you will find more bitter, intemperate language than any 
of the old-time partisan papers use. There is nothing in 
these fierce and heated arguments that will attract the 
young men and women who are needed in the work. Such 
talk may hold a party together; but it will not make a 
party grow. The old party organs understand this fact, 
and any one who reads them can see that the successful 
ones are those that grow and develop with the times and 
present new and attractive arguments to catch the younger 
voters. Some new argument, some new force must be 
brought to bear upon voters or little progress can be made. 
The present Prohibition party will hold its own and gain 
slowly, but it will not win until it discovers some newer 
and more practical way of making voters. We speak 
these words advisedly after talking with dozens of men 
who have voted the Pronibition ticket for years, and will 
continue to vote it. 
The great hope for temperance lies, not with this genera¬ 
tion, but with the next one. The coming voter will be an 
active or passive friend of the saloon or an enemy to it. 
The mothers who are teaching their little ones true tem¬ 
perance principles, and the fathers who set their children 
examples of pure and temperate lives are in their quiet 
way doing a great work for the cause. The man who takes 
pains that his children shall grow up to manhood and 
womanhood with a disgust for drunkenness and a hatred 
for the saloon, is worthy of respect, be he Republican, 
Democrat, Greenbacker, Prohibitionist, or what not. The 
great battle for temperance lies in the country. The great 
problem is to drive the rum shops into the towns and 
cities. Once pen them up there, and they will surely rot 
themselves to death—though at a fearful cost of life and 
treasure. Educate the boys by example, not by precept. 
It is the home against the saloon. A reading habit, a love 
of music, a faith in the honesty and purity of his parents, 
will do more for the boy who is to cast the ballot of the 
future than ail the temperance lectures that ever were 
written. Truth compels us to say that by far too many 
Prohibitionists are about the most intemperate men in the 
country. That man will fail to command respect who 
preaches temperance and yet consumes gallons of a patent 
medicine that chemists know contains 25 per cent of rum. 
The man who has ruined his health by improper eating 
deserves to be a failure as a temperance orator. The man 
who uses insulting and abusive language in discussion 
with an opponent who differs with him only in details, is 
not a temperate man and is not so considered by the voters 
whose ballots he wants to secure. The man who proposes 
to add voters to the Prohibition party must be a pure and 
temperate man first of all. 
We see hope in the future not so much through the pres¬ 
ent political agitation, but through the efforts of the brave 
and true women who are quietly and earnestly teaching 
their little ones the right and the justice of this drink 
question. Would that every such woman might truly feel 
that her children can look to their father as an example of 
what a temperate man should be. The children raised in 
such families will be against the saloon. It matters not 
what ticket they vote—they will drive the saloon out of 
their neighborhood and keep it out. The number of votes 
cast for the Prohibition candidates is not the true gauge 
of the growth of the anti-saloon sentiment. The move¬ 
ment is deeper—it has to do with the coming voter. Within 
a few years those who are now being trained by these tem¬ 
perance mothers will be men—voters. It Is our hope and 
belief that they will bring into American politics an anti¬ 
saloon sentiment that will startle the country. Let no 
honest temperance worker despair. We wish to make it 
clear that we have nothing but respect and admiration for 
the many high-minded men who have been consistently 
true to the principles of Prohibition. We believe that the 
time has come for a newer and more popular movement 
against the saloon, and we welcome any practical sugges¬ 
tion as to ways and means for driving the rum shop out of 
the country. _ 
The Farmers Club. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
(Every query must be accompanied by the name and address of the 
writer to insure attention. Before asking a question please see if it is 
not answered in our advertising columns. Ask only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
Feeding Good Qualities Into Native Cows. 
F. B. P., Goldsboro, N. C. —I was very much interested 
in Mr. H. Stewart’s native North Carolina cow. I was 
the more interested from the fact that circumstances force 
many of us to keep more or less of these native cattle, and 
when we can have the advantage of such experience as Mr. 
Stewart’s in the way of improving them, we should gladly 
avail ourselves of it and ask for more. I would be glad 
if Mr. Stewart would give a more detailed account of the 
care, feed, etc., of his cow each year he has owned her. 
Many of us could profit by his experience in Improving 
our native cattle, and such a course would be far more 
profitable than the introduction of foreign cattle that are 
not accustomed to our climate, feed, habits, etc. I, too, 
have some good native cows, but they cannot be compared 
with Mr. Stewart’s. This may be accounted for owing to 
the differences in climate, water, files, etc., as he is on the 
mountains and I in tho eastern part of the State. I have 
with me a young man from the mountains who says that 
he is confident that if the same feed and attention that 
mine get were given to the cattle in the mountains, they 
would almost, if not quite, double the quantity of their 
milk. He further states tnat Mr. Stewart’s experience 
coincides with his in regard to the superiority of the moun¬ 
tain sides (wood land) over pastures, for milk and beef. I 
would like Mr. Stewart to state what trees seem to 
give the best pasturage. This is an important point 
brought out by Mr. Stewart, as many have supposed that 
bushes in a pasture were entirely out of place. 
I have noticed my own cattle eating the leaves from 
young sweet gum and other trees, but supposed they 
derived but little benefit from them. In fact, I have been 
contemplating their destruction if possible, but If they are 
even as good as the grass I needn’t go to that expense. I have 
noticed that the cattle that have the run of our river low 
lands are in much better flesh and give more milk than 
those that have access only to the higher lands or plney 
woods, which would indicate that the pasturage from 
some cause is much richer on the low lands. 
In connection with Mr. Stewart’s article The Rural 
states that scientists say that fat cannot be fed into milk, 
that the quantity of milk can be improved by means of 
feed, but not the quality. That may be “science,” but it is 
contrary to my experience. A test of the same cow, with¬ 
out any other feed than green rye In spring, and the run of 
a fresh field of cow peas in the fall, will convince one on 
this point. She may be fresh each time, but there will be 
a marked difference in the richness of her milk. 
Ans.—A ll I can say Is that I have been feeding my cows 
only moderately, and no more than would be profitable. 
The common feeding has been good pasture as soon as the 
woods’ feed began to fail. From May to September the 
cows run in the woods, and are brought up for milking. 
The pasture is, of course, fenced, and to bring the cows to 
the gate, where they are usually waiting both night and 
morning, two quarts of corn meal are given at milking 
time. When the woods’ feed fails the cows are put on the 
clover meadows and are not left to lose all they nave made 
previously, by eating dry leaves only. As long as the 
weather is favorable they feed in the fields, and there are 
few days in the winter when they cannot get a bellyful of 
green clover and grass. But to equalize the seasons, the 
corn meal is doubled in quantity as soon as the feeding of 
the summer fails, and all tnrougn the winter the cows 
have as much hay or corn fodder as they will eat clean. 
At nights in the winter they stay in a comfortable shed, 
and have a spring branch that is never frozen to drink 
from. A three-year-old cow which will come in in a month 
% has j ust been brought in from the wood pasture where she 
has fed all the summer. She is fat enough for good beef. 
The calf of my cow Nellie, that Is now 14 months old, 
weighs 489 pounds, and is much fatter than ever her 
mother was, and if I am not disappointed will be a much 
better cow. This is the result of the feeding of the dam, 
and an evidence of her improvement constitutionally, by 
the care she has had for the five years I have had her. And 
this is a point I wish to impress on every one, viz.: that 
this care has a constitutional benefit on the animal, which 
is inherited by the calves. This has been a most conspicu¬ 
ous result of the good care I have given to my cows In the 
five years I have been testing this matter. 
As regards the feeding of fat into the milk, this Is now a 
settled thing. I have borne the burden of the discussion 
for years against the accumulated efforts of the scientists. 
My friend, E. W. Stewart, alone, has held the same belief, 
and has given full expression to it on many occasions. 
And now the scientific gentlemen are coming round to the 
same belief and acknowledging the truth. The latest 
proof comes from the Iowa Station in the unconditional 
statement that “you can feed fat into the milk.” It has 
been a long dispute In which practical men have striven 
with the professors, but practice has been able in the end 
to show the way to science : that is, to enforce the truth of 
the scientific teaching which has been current among 
physiologists for many years past, and which I was taught 
40 years ago, when I was a student of physiology, viz., that 
the fats of the food ara assimilated into the system with¬ 
out change, and are distributed throughout the system 
where the fat accumulates still unchanged by digestion. 
And this I have proved by hundreds, if not thousands, of 
tests during my long experience in the dairy, in which I 
have found that the actual character, as well as the quan¬ 
tity, of the butter is subject to change by the feeding. And 
not to seem to throw any slur upon science, I would say 
that it was as a scientific student I was first made sure 
that this was the fact, and practice and experience corrob¬ 
orated it. The fact was originally determined by the most 
careful scientific investigations made when I was a student, 
and was then fresh and newly published, and has been 
accepted in the practice of medicine ever since. The agri¬ 
cultural chemists alone have disputed it. h. stewart. 
Macon County, N. C. 
Linseed Meal as a Fertilizer. 
Several Subscribers. —Is it true that linseed meal is used 
as a direct fertilizer like superphosphate or plaster ? 
Ans.—Y es, but not to any great extent, because it Is 
cheaper to feed it to cattle or sheep and let them utilize 
the fats. Two-thirds of the fertility in the linseed meal 
will appear In the manure, while the animals will make 
meat out of the substances that would not be of any value 
as fertilizers. At the Ohio Experiment Station linseed 
meal was tested against nitrate of soda, both being used 
like ordinary fertilizers. The linseed meal gave better re¬ 
sults than the nitrate on that soil. As we have stated, 
there are probably few places in Ohio where it would not 
pay better to feed the linseed meal to stock and use It in 
the form of manure. Mann Bros. & Co., Buffalo, N. Y., 
write as follows concerning this matter : “We know of a 
number of instances where linseed meal has been used 
directly for a fertilizer in the orange groves of Florida. 
We have sent a number of car-loads there for that purpose 
In past seasons, and a prominent grower who received them 
volunteered the information that better results were ob¬ 
tained from it than from any other fertilizer he had tried. 
We have known of other growers using it with the same 
satisfactory results. In fact there is quite a large trade in 
oil meal to be used as a fertilizer in the orange-growing 
districts of Florida. Orange trees to do well, must, like 
live stock, be properly fed, and as in the case of the latter, 
nothing agrees with them so satisfactorily as linseed oil 
meal. The price of oil meal is regulated entirely by the 
foreign demand for the oil cake from which it is made. 
Values are very high at present, owing to the sharp de¬ 
mand from the United Kingdom and the continent of 
Europe for all.kinds of food stuffs.” 
We have read of cases where linseed and cotton-seed meals 
were used in connection with green crops, like clover or 
millet, to feed “ worn out ” land. Why should not such a 
combination make a good manure? It is just what the 
animals eat, and the frost, air and sun “ work it up” as 
completely as it would be in passing through an animal. 
At the same time it will not pay us to use linseed meal in 
this way. 
A Western Fertilizer. 
0. M„ Agency, Iowa.—Fox what especial plants would 
a iertiiizer be suitable containing these elements: ammonia 
8.18; bone phosphate 25.80 ? This fertilizer is manufac¬ 
tured at Ottumwa, Iowa, at a pork packing house. It is 
sold here at $10 per ton. Would it be of more value if 
mixed with some other element, and in what proportion? 
ANS.—For any plants whatever. You must add potash 
either as muriate or sulphate to give not less than 10 per 
cent, and then you will have a high-grade complete fertili¬ 
zer well adapted to almost any crop upon whlcu It is desir¬ 
able to use the complete fertilizers of the manufacturers. 
Tne fertilizer you mention if ground fine is worth not less 
than $56 a ton, assuming that eight per cent of ammonia 
covers that in tne bone, and making no allowance for the 
added potash. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Splints on a Horse.— O. K., Crum Elbow, N. Y.—The 
little hard lumps growing on the fore legs of your colt— 
about two inches below the knee—are probably splints. 
These are the most common forms of swelling on horses. 
When they do not cause lameness many recommend let¬ 
ting them alone, as they usually do little if any harm. 
Tincture of iodine rubbed on two or three times daily 
until a blis'.er is formed, will probably prove effective. 
Let the animal rest with moderate exercise, and feed laxa¬ 
tive foods during treatment. After the blister is healed 
repeat the treatment if necessary. 
