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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
NOV. 21 
THE 
Rural N ew-Y orker, 
TIME8 BUILDING. NEW YORK. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home*. 
ELBERT 8. CARMAN, 
HERBERT W. COLLINGWOOD, 
EDITORS. 
Rural Publishing Company: 
LAWSON VALENTINE, Pretident. RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN, 
EDGAR H. LIBBY, Manager. OUT-DOOR BOOKS. 
Copyright, 1891, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1891. 
Pity a man can’t throw away in a moment a bad 
reputation as he can a good one. 
Have you received the publisher’s special circular 
anont subscriptions and our plans for the coming 
year ? A. D. 1892 is to be a great, a very great year 
for American farmers and American agriculture, 
and The Rural New-Yorker will have something 
to do with making it a prosperous year for its 
readers. Please read the circular and send us the 
answer that you think it merits. 
S. A. Little, on page 816, resents the statement 
of J. S. Woodward in a recent Rural that wood 
ashes applied around the collar of peach trees will 
prove fatal. Here we have two good authorities 
diametrically opposed in their beliefs and prac¬ 
tices. Why ? Is it on account of different soils or 
environments ? We have known of the Little or¬ 
chards for years, and their product is noted for its 
superior quality as well as the trees for their cer¬ 
tainty of bearing even when others fail. The re¬ 
sults in these orchards seem to bear out fully the 
practices. Whence arises the difference in opinion ? 
What say our pomological readers ? 
The best people of Louisiana have just appealed 
to the rest of the country to aid them in their strug¬ 
gle against the lottery swindle. The managers of 
the latter have furnished the strongest argument 
in favor of a hearty response to this appeal. As a 
reason for the State’s protection for their fraud, 
they have just told its people that of the millions 
they draw annually from all parts of the country 
very little comes from their pockets. This gigantic 
swindle, which has already demoralized the people 
of one of our States and threatens to demoralize 
thousands in every other State in the Union, filches 
money, hard-earned money and often stolen money, 
from every State, county and town in the nation, 
and therefore the entire country is directly inter¬ 
ested in its extermination. 
W. II. Gilbert is a successful dairyman. In the 
interesting story of his operations printed on page 
814, he tells us that no butter maker should keep 
any cow that cannot make 250 pounds of butter 
in a year. Well now! according to that, there 
must be thousands of dairymen in the country who 
don’t make their business pay! The fault is in the 
cows and in the men who will persist in feeding 
good gram and hay to cows that cannot get the fat 
out of it. Think of a man buying coal to burn in 
a big open fire place and then growling because all 
the money he spends for fuel won’t heat his house. 
The neighbor with his stove or furnace uses less 
fuel and gets more heat. Is that correct? It is 
just so with your cows. Does it pay to keep them 
to put fat in the manure pile? Grade up the cows 
or quit dairying._ 
On removing the embargo on American pork, 
France has imposed on it a duty of 2A cents per 
pound, for the protection of French hog raisers and 
packers. If the importers paid the tax, the impost 
would not reduce the number of French consumers, 
nor greatly help French hog raisers; but it is hardly 
likely that, even for the sake of an increase in trade, 
dealers will sell American pork to Frenchmen for 
2A cents per pound less than they will sell it to 
Englishmen. The duty will therefore be equivalent 
to a bounty of 2A cents per pound to home produc¬ 
tion, and under such a lively stimulant Frenchmen 
are likely to raise so many hogs that there will be 
little room for the American animal. We can 
hardly complain, however, as the onerous French 
duty is only just half that imposed on foreign hams 
and bacon by the McKinley tariff. 
In the article on page 814 on Building up a Butter 
Business, Mr. Gilbert speaks of having found, in 
Chicago, a method in vogue for selling California 
fruits, which he thinks could be successfully applied 
to the New York butter market. This method as 
practiced in New York was described in detail in 
The R. N.-Y. in the early summer of 1889, and the 
opinion of its projector as to its feasibility for all 
kinds of produce was emphasized. Since then we 
have followed up the auction sales of different 
kinds of Eastern fruits, water-melons, tomatoes, 
etc., and have repeatedly stated the difficulties in 
the way of success by this method of making 
sales. We have stated its advantages and disad¬ 
vantages. So far as we have seen, no other Eastern 
agricultural paper has ever given more than a 
brief, passing notice to this most important matter, 
and, so far as many of them are concerned, their 
readers would be in total ignorance of the system 
for all the information they ever derived from these 
enterprising journals. Farmers, as well as others, 
who wish to keep posted on modern methods and 
new discoveries in the agricultural fields should be 
governed by these considerations, and read the 
papers that are devoting their energies to keeping 
abreast of the times in every department of the 
farm, the garden and the markets. 
In order to obtain protein enough to enable her 
to do her duty, a large milch cow would be forced 
to eat about 80 pounds of good Timothy hay per 
day, or nearly 160 pounds of corn fodder, or 150 
pounds of ensilage, or nearly 400 pounds of oat 
straw. She could obtain the needed quantity in 12 
pounds of pea meal, nine pounds of linseed meal, 
seven pounds of cotton-seed meal or 20 pounds of 
wheat bran. Timothy hay costs us this winter 
just one cent per pound, while linseed meal is worth 
VA cent. The Timothy ration would cost 80 cents, 
while the linseed meal would cost 13K cents. A 
cow’s time is worth nothing, but still she cannot 
afford to spend the hours required to chew and 
digest 80 pounds of Timothy hay. Neither can she 
live on the linseed meal ration without something 
to add bulk to the food and thus keep her digestive 
organs in condition. In “combination” there is 
strength—and profit. Forty-five pounds of clover 
hay will supply more digestible protein than 80 
pounds of Timothy. We know dairymen near the 
large cities who can sell Timothy hay at one cent a 
pound and buy good clover at three fourths of a 
cent. Under such circumstances when they feed 
their Timothy they feed it at a loss of more than 
one fourth of a cent for every pound they handle, 
which is a mighty big price to pay for the fun of 
“ doing as father did.” 
An acquaintance, a successful, well-to-do farmer, 
has just sold his oldest and most faithful team of 
horses because they have reached an age when they 
can no longer perform the amount of labor of which 
a younger team is capable. For years, since they 
were first broken to harness, they have labored 
faithfully and uncomplainingly through summer’s 
heat and winter’s cold ; have plowed and harrowed 
the fields and gathered in the harvests ; have gone 
to market, many times through heavy roads well- 
nigh impassable ; have cheerfully taken their mas¬ 
ter hither and thither on business or pleasure. Now 
when years of toil have made them less profitable 
to their owner they are heartlessly sacrificed and 
are not permitted to share during their old age the 
enjoyment of that competence to which they have 
so largely contributed. Isn’t it ungrateful, to say 
the least ? We can conceive of a condition of hope¬ 
less debt and poverty that might force one to such 
an act, but for a farmer with a competence, to 
sacrifice old and faithful servants to the abuse 
usually bestowed by the class of people who deal 
in old horses, is simply inexcusable. Better knock 
them in the head. We should not be surprised to 
hear that such a man had allowed his aged parents 
to become town charges, or had allowed his broken- 
down, decrepit wife to be sent to the poorhouse 
because she was no longer able to drudge and slave 
as in her younger days. 
The “Man with the Hoe” is making fierce war¬ 
fare against the Texas jack rabbits, which are the 
chief drawbacks to the agricultural prosperity of 
the State. Lately the legislature passed a law pro¬ 
viding a bounty of $1 a dozen for the scalps of the 
pests, half to be paid by the State and half by the 
county in which the rabbits were killed. The coun¬ 
ties where they are the thickest, however, are the 
most thinly settled and therefore the poorest, and 
the payment of their quota of the bounty threatens 
to bankrupt them. It is estimated that 500 jack 
rabbits exist, on an average, to every square mile of 
prairie in central and western Texas, and cattlemen 
say that 20 of them eat as much grass as a cow, 
so that the rabbits on a square mile eat as much 
grass as 25 cows, forcing the latter to rustle for a 
scanty livelihood. Moreover, the cultivation of 
crops is nearly impracticable where they abound. 
Men are making a business of killing them for the 
sake of the bounty, and the taxpayers in self-defense 
are organizing to slaughter the pests by wholesale 
and waive the right to the bounty. This they pro¬ 
pose to do by means of immense “drives” after 
the California fashion, entire neighborhoods joining 
in the crusade. What a marvelous country this is ! 
While in New Jersey it costs $5 to kill a rabbit at 
a certain season of the year, a bounty of $1,113 was 
paid the other day for the rabbits killed in Midland 
County, Texas, the first month after the passage of 
the law, and the work had only just begun ! 
There can be no doubt that during the recent 
political campaign the farmers, as a body, exercised 
much less influence and at the elections cast many 
fewer votes than the year before. Many causes 
contributed to this result, not the least of which 
were the crude projects, one-sided claims and ex¬ 
travagant demands made here and there by some 
of the agricultural organizations, and their excep¬ 
tional action was mistaken by more moderate fel¬ 
low farmers and others as indicative of the spirit 
of such organizations in general. For instance, the 
Farmers’ Alliance of Montgomery County, Texas, 
the other day in its own conceit solved the most 
difficult financial problem of all the ages. In their 
convention the members resolved that whereas on 
account of the scarcity of money many people are 
unable to pay their debts, Congress shall assemble 
as soon as possible and pass a bill embodying the 
following important features : 1. That any person 
who owes more money than he can pay, and who 
makes affidavit to that effect, properly attested by 
two of the creditors who want their pay, on making 
application to the Secretary of the Interior, shall 
receive from him sufficient money to pay all his 
debts. 2. Any person who owes more money than 
he can pay, but who wants to hold his property 
until he can sell it at an advantageous price, shall 
also be entitled to the above privilege. Another 
resolution provides that those who owe nothing but 
need a little ready money can get it by making suit¬ 
able application to the Secretary of the Interior and 
making due arrangements for paying interest. 
Was this a burlesque on the claims and demands 
of some other agricultural organizations ? If so, 
there is nothing to indicate the fact, and who can 
imagine a Farmers’ Alliance in Texas parodying 
the demands of similar Alliances in Kansas or else¬ 
where ? 
BREVITIES. 
The good man sits In his easy chair, 
Reading his paper at ease, 
’TIs good for a man with whitened hair 
To say: “ 1 can do as I please! ” 
Ills good wife sits with a pile of socks 
To be darned and patched in time ; 
She thinks and thinks as the old man rocks, 
And her thoughts they form this rhyme 
The farmer rests when the crops are In, 
But the housework will not end, 
For at each clock tick new tasks begin, 
“' Tts never too late to mend ! ” 
Debt makes folks sweat. 
Mortgages do not pay for the keeping. 
Can you feed quality into a hired man’s work ? 
When one is justified in striking back : when adversity 
hits him. 
Run your farm for your children rather than yonr 
children tor your farm. 
What is the best way to mark your underdrains so 
that you will know where they are ? 
Prof. Wm. Saunders, Director of the Canada Experi¬ 
ment Farms, says that the papaw is hardy in Ottawa. 
The R. N.-Y.’s correspondent, Edward F. Dibble, has 
been elected president of the New York State Farmers’ 
Alliance and Industrial Union. 
Some of the papers are howling about an alleged buying 
of votes in the last campaign. We would like to know 
in what way the vote buyer is worse than the vote seller 1 
The Garnet Chili Potato is the variety planted in Ber¬ 
muda. A red potato of shapely form that yields well 
would, no doubt, be insured a ready sale for Bermuda seed 
alone. 
Be thankful if your health is good, be thankful if it’s 
poor, because you know it might be worse than ’tis— 
that’s sure. Be thankful if you have to work, or if they 
let yon play ; in fact, my best advice is this—be thankful 
anyway. 
It is one of the easiest things in the world to delude 
oneself for a time, into the belief that a rising tide is a 
falling tide, or, conversely, that a falling tide is a rising 
tide. Much depends upon whether prejudice or reason is 
the ruling factor. 
They sing of the big Light Brahma—the queen of the 
fancy roost; the Wyandotte, “Rock” or LangahaD, and 
all of the rest may boast; but Uere’s to the hen that hus¬ 
tles so fast that she must keep lean. Long life to the 
little Leghorn, the rustling egg machine. 
A curious illustration of the evil power of prejudice is 
found in the way European peasants and workmen 
have regarded Indian corn. They did Dot want to eat it 
because it was “horse food!” Though many of them 
were half starved, they could not endure the idea of eating 
“ horse food 1” The better class of people abroad are now 
eating corn meal to teach the workers by example what 
they can hardly be starved to. 
As the Broadway and Third Avenue street car lines of 
this city, which employ about 5,000 horses, expect to have 
the traction system they are now laying down in opera¬ 
tion within a short time, they have ceased to buy horses 
and are making up for the ordinary mortality among 
their stock by compelling the survivors to do extra work. 
The overtaxed animals are therefore daily dying along 
the tracks while those that still toil on are hardlv fit for 
food for the crows. What a splendid thing for the equine 
race when machinery shall have superseded horse flesh 
as the motive power on our street railroads ! 
A compilation of analyses of American feeding stuffs 
has been prepared by Dr. E. H. Jenkins, and will soon be 
issued by the Agricultural Department at Washington. 
To ns, this is a very important volume, and we wish every 
farmer who feeds stock would obtain it and keep it where 
he can easily refer to it when feeding or making up ra¬ 
tions for his animals. From our own simple investiga¬ 
tions among neighbors we are satisfied that farmers are 
feeding too much fat—that is, they use foods which com¬ 
pel them to feed a surplus of fats in order to obtain suffi¬ 
cient protein. A careful study of Dr. Jenkins’s tables 
would soon show them their mistake. 
The Democrats have a big majority in the next Con¬ 
gress and will be pretty sure to make an issue for the next 
Presidential campaign. The leaders seem to be divided 
as to the proper course to pursue regarding the tariff. 
Some favor a complete bill on the principles of the Mills 
Bill. Others propose a few separate bills providing for 
the free entry of lumber, wool, twine and other articles, 
one at a time. This latter course, they think, would not 
create the opposition that a complete bill might, while 
they claim tnat New England can be won by “free raw 
materials.” Mr. McKinley, by the way, thinks the people 
have had all the tariff talk they call for, and that the ad¬ 
vantage will be against the party starting it anew. 
Young Governor Russell of Massachusetts declares that 
his election means that the Old Bay State is earnestly for 
tariff retorm in the line of free trade in raw materials. 
Of all the States in the Union, Massachusetts is one of 
the strongest in favor of protection for manufactured 
goods. Farmers are the principal producers of raw mater¬ 
ials—indeed, what else do they produce ? Governor Rus¬ 
sell’s declaration, therefore, is tor a reform which shall 
deprive the farmers of the light protec.ion they now have, 
while leaving to the manufacturers the onerous protec¬ 
tion they at present enjoy. Such a jug-handied reform 
might have been expected from a Scate whose manufact¬ 
uring interests far transcend her agricultural; but does 
the country at large want it—do the tarmers, whose de¬ 
cision in the matter must be final, want it ? May not 
these, if such a policy is pressed, come to think that 
what is good for the agricultural goose is equally good 
for the manufacturing gander ? 
