i7o 
March 11 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
IBS 
Rural New-Yorker 
TIMES BUILDING , NEW YORK. 
▲ national Weekly Journal lor Country and Suburban Homes. 
ELBERT 8. CARMAN, Editor-In-Chief. 
HERBERT W. COLLINGWOOD, Managing Editor 
ERWIN G. FOWLER, Associate Editor. 
Vcrpyriohted 1S93. 
Address all communications and make all orders payable to The 
Rural Publishing Company. 
Money orders and bank drafts are the safest In transmitting money. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1893. 
Even food abhorrently rejected by Americans is 
welcomed by the less fortunate inhabitants of other 
lands. Profitable cargoes of horse-flesh from New 
York afford a dainty addition to the bill of fare of 
Belgian working people at six cents per pound ! 
* # 
Every year, at this season, we have a great flood of 
questions to be answered. This year there are more 
on fertilizers than ever before. We try to answer 
them all as.carefully as possible, but it often happens 
that where several persons ask the same questions we 
give one answer for all. Take, for example, the 
difference between nitrogen and ammonia. Half a 
dozen persons ask this question and they are all 
expected to read the answer in this issue. We hope 
this will be satisfactory and will explain why, some¬ 
times, answers are not repeated. Our friends will see 
how necessary it is for us to save all possible space at 
this season. 
* * 
We note with unqualified pleasure the appointment 
of Mr. Wm. D. Barns of Middle Hope, N. Y., to be one 
of the Board of Control of the State Experiment 
Station. Governor Flower has made no mistake in 
this appointment. Mr. Barns is a successful and pro¬ 
gressive horticulturist, fully abreast with the times, 
and his influence cannot but be beneficial in the Board. 
He enjoys to the fullest degree the confidence of his 
neighbors, in the Hudson Iliver fruit regions, and of 
the horticultural public at large. He is preeminently 
fitted for the place. The Rural has no acquaintance 
with the other appointments in the Board, but sincerely 
hopes they may be as wise and judicious as is that of 
Mr. Barns. # 
Often we hear men, half converted to the use of 
fertilizers, say, “Fertilizers may be all right so long 
as I use stable manure with them—they must have 
stable manure to give good results.'’ That is all right, 
only a little twisted about. The manure doesn’t help 
the fertilizer as much as the fertilizer helps the ma¬ 
nure. Look at the analysis of a ton of average manure. 
It will contain about 10 pounds of nitrogen, 12 of pot¬ 
ash and 5 of phosphoric acid. It is always understood 
in making up a fertilizer that there must be more phos¬ 
phoric acid than of either potash or nitrogen ; the rea¬ 
sons for this have been often explained. Now, when 
a little superphosphate is added to the manure, the 
proportion of phosphoric acid is increased and the 
whole product is better for use because better bal¬ 
anced. It is the fertilizer that does the work, and our 
stable manure friends ought to recognize the fact. 
Every man who needs to use manure at all can use to 
good advantage 100 pounds of superphosphate with 
every ton of manure. # 
Wreckers of National banks and other fiduciary 
institutions are among the most baneful curses of 
society. Their crimes are usually the result, not of 
pinching poverty, but of flagrant self-indulgence or 
a lust for speedy enrichment by speculative ventures. 
Often they have treacherously plundered their friends 
and patrons for years. The injury they inflict on trade 
and commerce and on private individuals is widespread 
and disastrous. It is harder to convict them than men 
in any other class of the community. Their numerous 
friends palliate their rascalities and try to shield them 
from the consequences. The money they have mis 
appropriated enables them to fee able lawyers to plead 
their causes, and not infrequently to “ influence” even 
jurors. When, therefore, the law once gets hold of 
the scamps, it ought to retain its grip firmly until the 
full measure of punishment has been doled out to 
them. A thief or a burglar, who is far less pernicious 
to the welfare of the public, being usually without 
friends, has to serve out his full term in the peniten¬ 
tiary, except such commutation as he earns by good 
behavior. How ip it with a bank president or other 
trusted official who has been convicted of demoralizing 
dishonesty and turpitude ? Let the record of Executive 
clemency to National bank convicts during President 
Harrison’s Administration answer. No less than 17 
notorious bank wreckers have been pardoned, or have 
had their sentences commuted by the President in the 
last four years. Why go to the trouble, worry and 
enormous expense of convicting these rascals, when 
their pardon is so readily secured by Executive con¬ 
cession to friendly persistence? Why have one law 
for the rich and another for the poor scoundrel ? 
* * 
The following bill is to be introduced in the Penn¬ 
sylvania legislature: 
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa¬ 
tives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania In General Assembly met, 
and It Is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that from and 
after the passage of this act there shall be no recovery for damages 
done by any horse, mule, cattle, sheep or swine trespassing upon any 
real estate within the County of Snyder unless the real estate be In¬ 
closed with a good and substantial fence at least 4H> feet In height. 
This is an excellent illustration of a back-handed 
way of doing business. Instead of forcing farmers to 
keep out cattle, why do they not force the owners of 
cattle to keep them in ? The effect of such a ridicu 
Ions law would be to encourage those shiftless farmers 
who have no crops of their own to lose to give their 
stock still freer license to roam the roads and streets. 
What the people of a country neighborhood need is a 
bill making all fences unnecessary except those around 
pastures. It is the business of cattle owners to keep 
their stock off their neighbor’s land, and not the duty 
of the man who owns the crop to spend money to de¬ 
fend his property. That is, the law should make the 
trespasser pay the penalty. We hope the farmers of 
Pennsylvania will prevent the passage of this bill, 
which is entirely wrong in principle. 
* # 
It is daily becoming more evident that there is a 
determined purpose on the part of the dominant party 
in New York State to run all the State institutions 
connected with agriculture on a strictly partisan basis, 
in the hope of securing more votes among the farmers 
by “ machine ” methods. The creation of the pro¬ 
posed new Department of Agriculture, the multipli¬ 
cation of offices provided for and the large salaries for 
the incumbents are all parts of a plan to force all the 
institutions relating to agriculture into “ practical 
politics in other words, to demoralize and render 
them inefficient for the purposes for which they are 
professedly designed in order to advance partisan ob¬ 
jects. In 1884 the Dairy Commissioner’s office cost 
$5,000 ; it now costs $100,000, and as a partisan “ma¬ 
chine ” will doubtless cost much more. Efficient and 
experienced subordinates have already been removed 
to make way for pot-house politicians for whose benefit 
civil service rules have been suspended, because it was 
known that, owing to their general ignorance, they 
could not pass the necessary examination as a prelimi¬ 
nary to taking office. How long will the farmers of 
the State tolerate such abuses grossly prejudicial to 
their best interests ? 
* * 
It would seem that Dr. G. A. Blumer, Superintendent 
of the Utica State Hospital (insane) needs a little 
attention from the legislature of this State. He has 
been feeding the unfortunates entrusted to his care 
with hog butter and unblushingly announces that he 
has purchased 4,000 pounds of Armour & Co., of 
Chicago for that purpose. He has ascertained that 
hog butter is “ palatable and wholesome, and a most 
valuable article of food.” All the same, it is perfectly 
safe to say that Dr. Blumer himself eats genuine 
butter. What nonsense it is to assert that a compound, 
more than 60 per cent of which is the fat of hogs, and 
all sorts of hogs at that, can be as wholesome as 
genuine butter. The opinions of Prof. Chandler of 
New York and of Prof. Parker of the University of 
Pennsylvania, as to the wholesomeness of this villain¬ 
ous fraud count for nothing. Expert opinions can be 
procured to day in favor of anything and everything, 
and in the matter of hog butter the evidence on the 
other side is altogether too conclusive against it. But 
its worst feature is its fraudulent character. No 
human being ever willingly eats it—it is a fraud from 
beginning to end and no honorable man will either 
sell or make it. * * 
From the latest trustworthy information it appears 
that the aggregate supply of European hops last 
season was 131,435,000 pounds, nearly 4,000,000 less 
than in 1891; while the aggregate crop in the United 
States was nearly 500,000 pounds larger, so that the 
combined American and European crops were about 
3,500,000 pounds smaller than in 1891, when the yield 
was 174,664,568 pounds. It is estimated that the 
aggregate demand will be considerably more during 
the current year than the preceding, and as the stocks 
at the opening of the season were unusually small on 
both sides of the Atlantic, the outlook for higher 
figures appears promising. Prices, however, though 
quite profitable, are hardly satisfactory to American 
growers in view of the relation of supply and demand. 
While brewers have been quite unwilling to pay 25 
cents per pound for the best American sorts, they have 
been readily paying 55 cents for foreign hops which 
are said to be much inferior, as most of them are 
cheap Russian kinds, repacked in Germany and im¬ 
ported as choice Bavarian stock. Growers therefore, 
in all parts of this country are slow and cautious in 
selling, in the expectation of higher figures. No other 
crop partakes so much of a gambling character and 
producers this year think they hold the trump cards. 
* * 
The world owes much to Baron Justus Von Liebig 
whose picture appears on our first page. The success 
of our present system of farming with chemicals dates 
from his careful investigation into the composition of 
soils, crops and manures. Perhaps the most import¬ 
ant of all his discoveries was a cheap and simple pro¬ 
cess of making superphosphates by treating the crude 
phosphates with sulphuric acid. This solved one 
great problem in manuring. Soluble forms of nitro¬ 
gen and potash were to be obtained, but supplies of 
phosphoric acid were locked up in insoluble forms and 
probably the most helpful event in agricultural chem¬ 
istry were Liebig’s discovery of a method of “cooking 
phosphates for a plant’s dinner. ’ 
* * 
BREVITIES. 
UNCLE SAM TO NEW JERSEY. 
Where's all this Jersey justice that you bran about so much ? 
The stout, old-time Dutch virtue sadly needs a double crutch. 
You Jerseymen have lamed it with your gamblers' racing bill, 
And on the hearts of honest men there lies a deadly chill; 
The State that honest Dutchmen built on love of right and law, 
Whose old stone houses scattered along her roadways, saw 
The farmer fight the Hessian and the red-coat long ago! 
Shame! Shame on you, New Jersey now, that you have sunk so low. 
For years Louisiana was the gamblers' paradise; 
For years they held her firmly with a throat-grip like a vice. 
Till, stung to desperation, from her sin and shame she rose, 
And thrust the evil from her and shook off her cursed foes. 
Thank God! Louisiana from the sinful curse Is free. 
But shame on you, New Jersey, that you weakly bend the knee. 
Burn up your honest charter! Turn your heroes to the wall, 
Rebind the eyes of Justice that she may not see vour fall. 
Toll bells In all your steeples; let their mournful notes proclaim 
How Jersey’s boasted honor has been turned to blackest shame. 
Do you cure your hay too much ? 
Don’t dig up old sorrows or open old sores. 
Don’t buy ammonia thinking It Is nitrogen. 
YOU can’t bore The R. N.-Y. by boring after Information. 
The odors of garlic or turnips can be aerated out of milk. 
Don't mix ashes and ground raw bone a long time before using. 
When the baby cries for bread perhaps a rock will satisfy him. 
The man who backs out at a bluff Is certainly not up to snuff. 
Prof. Massey’s comments on Mr. Grundy’s ex-farmer next week. 
Which would you rather use on another man’s land—manure or 
fertilizers ? 
The time has come In history—page 162, when wheat is cheaper hog 
food than corn. 
MANY a housewife Is “burned at the steak.” Better be a vegetarian 
than eat “roasted mother.” 
This Is the season when your stock find the mistakes you made in 
curing your hay last summer. 
What Is a spur on a rooster good for ? Better disperse all chicken- 
yard quarrels by dls-spurring the quarrelers. 
He who quits when his back aches so’s to heal It ere It breaks, wisest 
of precautions takes, he may yet become “ great shakes.” 
There Is a good deal of talk about fertilizers now because our 
readers call for It. Have patience, ye stockmen, we will give you 
your full share. 
The discoverer of the ensilage system was to the dairy business 
what Liebig’s investigations with superphosphates were to the fer¬ 
tilizer business. 
When a pig squeals all It does Is to develop Its lungs and the lungs 
give about the biggest waste to be found In the pig’s body. You will 
never get rich cultivating waste. 
IT costs Mr. Howe 12 (page 163) to haul his straw, for which he would 
be paid $3 per ton. He would get the $2, but would have to give an 
equivalent In horse work. If he had no Other work for them, It might 
pay; otherwise not. 
A friend in Colorado wants to try fertilizers, but says the mater¬ 
ials will cost, Including freight, nearly $80 per ton. Cotton-seed meal, 
however, sells for about the same price as In New York. Here Is a 
singular Instance where a cattle food makes a cheap fertilizer. 
This Is World’s Fair year. Thousands of people who usually go 
abroad will stay at home and thousands more will come from Europe 
to spend the summer here. They must all be fed. If there Is anything 
In logic, these facts should indicate that good meat, butter, vege¬ 
tables and fruits will be in demand. There is one shadow on this 
page—cholera scare ! 
A Maine subscriber gives this little bit of farm experience : “ I 
took a copy of The R. N.-T. Into our Grange meeting and tried to get 
subscriptions. I even read a number of Items. The members said 
they had more papers than they could read, but I guess they needed 
better if not more; for one member brought in some linseed meal and 
wanted to know what It was.” 
Many questions are asked about Peter Cooper's bone as a ferti¬ 
lizer. This is bone from which glue has been made. The glue takes 
away the greater part of the nitrogen In the original bone and leaves 
a substance high In phosphoric acid and which Is somewhat more 
soluble than plain ground bone as the effect of the steaming by means 
of which the glue is extracted. This substance used to be a very 
cheap source of phosphoric acid, but Is now much higher In price. 
The Spring Wheat Millers’Combination Is now reported to Include 
all the mills In Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin and 
northern Illinois, as well as the spring wheat mills at Buffalo, Niagara 
Falls and Rochester. N. Y. Indeed, nearly every spring wheat mill 
from Duluth to Boston Is said to be embraced by It. Minimum rates 
for flour have been already established, and before harvest doubtless 
maximum rates for wheat will be agreed upon. Should this organ¬ 
ization prove successful, there is little doubt that the winter wheat 
millers will combine In the same way, and then producers and con¬ 
sumers are likely to be ground between the upper and nether mill¬ 
stones. 
AS anticipated, the Anti-Option BUI has failed to pass even the 
Lower House of Congress, where, less than a year ago, Its sup¬ 
porters were In an overwhelming majority. A vote of two-thirds of 
the members is needed to advance it on the calendar before Its regu¬ 
lar order. On Wednesday a vote was taken on this point, and, though 
there was a strong majority of 174 to 124 In Its favor, that majority 
did not amount to two-thirds of the members present. Its opponents 
In the present Congress would have “talked it to death” by filibus¬ 
tering anyhow. Are farmers prepared “to gird up their loins ” and 
fight another.battle In favor of It In theinext Congress? 
