624 
September 16 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker 
Cor. Chambers and Pearl Sts ., New York. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
ELBERT 8. CARMAN, Editor-In-Chief. 
HERBERT W. COLLINGWOOD. Managing Editor 
ERWIN G. FOWLER. Associate Editor. 
Copyrighted 1S93. 
Address all business communications and make all orders pay¬ 
able to THE RURAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
Be sure that the name and address of sender, with name of Post- 
office and State, and what the remittance Is for, appear in every letter. 
Money orders and bank drafts on New York are the safest means of 
transmitting money. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1893. 
This idea of turning a flock of sheep into corn fields 
to eat out the weeds (page 031) is something new to 
most of us. It scores another point for the sheep, and 
shows how little one-half the world knows about the 
farm practices of the other. There are plenty of weeds 
on Eastern sheep farms, but we have yet to hear of a 
man east of the great lakes who has faith enough in 
h's sheep to let them have free range of his corn fields. 
* * 
The number of home-made potato planters in use is 
something astonishing. They are mostly simple con¬ 
trivances—a light frame on wheels, with a man, a boy 
and a box of potato sets. A piece of stove pipe or some 
other tube runs down to the ground. In front of it is 
a plow and behind it a coverer. While the boy drives, 
the man drops piece after piece in the stove pipe. They 
fall into the furrow and are covered at once. It is bet¬ 
ter for the man to drop if he wants to know where his 
seed pieces go to ! 
* # 
Every year the farmer is forced to decide whether 
a certain price for his wheat, potatoes or hay is a fair 
one. He studies long and hard as to whether he should 
take the price offered or hold and risk the chances of 
obtaining a higher one. How can he know what is 
fair unless he can tell what a bushel or pound cost ? 
Profit or loss is the difference between the cost and 
selling price. The latter is very evident to all. The 
former is tied up in a number of details ; still, how is 
a man going to know whether he can afford to sell 
unless he knows something of what his goods cost ? 
* * 
As the commission-man alluded to in our first page 
article has come to time with his check, we do not 
print his name. In future we trust he will be more 
careful to keep his promise or give a good explanation. 
In these times of financial stringency many honest 
men find it more than difficult to raise cash, though 
they may have abundant property. The trouble is 
that this is not easily negotiable and to convert it into 
cash at once would mean quite a loss in value. In the 
present case, however, the commission-man was clearly 
at fault and should have settled before The R. N.-Y. 
got after him. The shipper, too, was at fault as we 
have pointed out. 
* * 
The Supreme Court of Michigan seems to have de¬ 
cided that dogs in that State have value, and as prop¬ 
erty stand about as do horses or other farm stock. Ac¬ 
cording to this, the remedy against a trespassing dog 
is to sue the owner for damages. If A’s dog comes on 
B’s premises and B kills the animal, A may sue B for 
its value just as if he had killed a trespassing horse or 
cow. A may obtain the value of the dog, and also 
exemplary damages, if he can prove that B was ac¬ 
tuated by malice in killing the animal. But how 
could A prove the value of a mere mongrel or cur dog, 
and if B kept sheep what farmer jury would ever 
accuse him of malice ? 
* * 
At last the Standard Oil Trust will be soon officially 
wound up in accordance with the agreement arrived 
at by the managers on March 21, 1892. Already 60 
per cent of the Trust certificates have been handed in 
at the head office in New York city and canceled, and 
it is expected that the remaining 40 per cent will soon 
receive the same treatment. Though officially the 
Trust will be ended, however, the monopoly will 
remain, under new conditions, as strong as ever. 
Originally it was composed of a number of competing 
organizations and other interests, which were subse¬ 
quently consolidated into Standard Oil Companies, one 
in each State in which the concern operated to any 
considerable extent. The shares of these companies 
were assigned to the Trust trustees, who, in lieu 
thereof, issued to the owners Trust certificates on 
which were paid dividends derived from the operations 
of the consolidated concern. In March, 1892, it was 
decided that all the property held by the Trust, except 
stocks of corporations, should be sold at private sale, 
so that Trust magnates could buy in all they desired, 
and that the proceeds should be distributed to the 
owners of the Trust certificates according to their 
respective interests. Moreover, each holder of certi¬ 
ficates deposited received an assignment of as many 
shares in each of the corporations in the old Trust. 
The direction and management of the various com¬ 
panies in the Trust will continue to rest in the same 
hands as before, as the same interests which orig¬ 
inally held two-thirds of the certificates, will continue 
to hold an equal interest in the new stock. The two 
Rockefellers, Flagler, Archbold, Brewster, etc., will 
still control the mr nopoly which changes merely its 
name, but not its nature. 
* * 
Our first-page picture shows the farmer cornered 
by the wolves that have so long demanded a share of 
what he grows and sells. Food adulterations like 
oleo, bogus lard and all the minor frauds, have made 
millions of illegal profits because they have been sold 
for pure and standard articles while only counterfeits. 
The Pure Food Bill will make this wolf very sick. 
Already he draws back ! Cooperation and such work 
as The R. N.-Y. describes this week make Middle¬ 
men’s share draw off also. But Produce Gambling 
takes fresh heart at the failure to pass the Anti- 
Option Law and springs at the farmer anew. Swing 
your sickles, farmers, and lop off this curse. Help lop 
off your Congressman if he won’t help you ! 
* * 
The English farmers are making a great protest 
against the practice of selling American beef for 
“ prime English.” Dealers have made a business of 
buying carcasses of foreign-grown beef, cutting them 
up and selling with the tale that the whole thing was 
grown on English soil. This is bad enough, but in a 
report recently made to the House of Lords, referred 
to at length last week, we are told : 
It Is the custom of seme dealers to sell old bulls and cows and 
account for the Inferiority of the meat by saylngthat it Is “American.” 
That is to say, the meat of any old bull or cow may 
be worked off with the story that it is tough and rank 
because it is “ American.” It is a double fraud—try¬ 
ing to sell American beef for what it is not, and then 
trying to destroy its honest reputation. 
# * 
The R. N.-Y. has often advocated the burning of 
bones as a cheap and easy way of reducing them to a 
proper condition for use as a fertilizer. There are 
casts where burning is advisable chiefly because this 
is about the only way some farmers can get them into 
a fine meal or powder. As between a whole bone and 
bone ash, the latter is preferable, but if the whole 
hone could be crushed or ground into a fine meal 
without burning, it would be worth far more for fer¬ 
tilizing. It is a fact that bone ash is very slowly sol¬ 
uble as compared with a superphosphate or fine raw 
bone. Take two simTar bones—burn one to ashes 
and grind the other to a fine meal, and then apply 
heat in the form of steam. The steamed bone will be 
twice as valuable as the bone ash for immediate use. 
At the same time there are cases where bone burning 
is economical because of the great cost of crushing 
bones with ordinary tools. 
* # 
The sum of $45,000,000 in gold has reached New 
York from Europe during the last seven weeks and 
this vast importation has contributed largely towards 
the improvement of the financial situation in every 
part of the country. Already the New York banks 
have begun to send heavy remittances to the West 
and South to aid in moving the crops, and the farmers 
and planters will be the chief immediate beneficiaries 
from this policy. Under tae circumstances it can 
hardly be lenied that the banks have acted nobly. 
After paying out the whole of their available cash, 
they have dipped into their reserves, and in technical 
violation of the law, have supplied money to keep the 
crops of the country moving, and to prevent the 
stoppage of industrial operations. In this they have 
certainly done good work and deserve no small meed of 
commendation. 
* * 
A last word now about that South Carolina liquor 
business. We have made a very careful study of the 
matter from the time the original bill was introduced 
in the South Carolina Legislature. We have read the 
South Carolina papers and the reports of dozens of 
Northern correspondents who have been sent to the 
State to report the progress of the law. Over nine in 
ten of all reports are evidently prejudiced against it, 
and through them runs an evident desire to help make 
the law a failure. We have often wondered at the 
explanations of those who attack the Governor. 
According to their own statements, he must be about 
the most remarkable man of the century—to hold an 
entire State at bay and force the enactment of objec¬ 
tionable law after law as he has done. What other 
man since Napoleon has done the same ? We ask for 
information. Referring to the law in question, W. G. 
Chaffee, Mayor of Aiken, S. C., after attacking it 
in the North American Review, says: 
The new system is not. however, totally bad. There has been a 
marked decrease of drunkenness since It went into operation. In the 
municipality of which the writer is the chief executive officer the 
police have not made an arrest for drunkenness since July 1. 
* « 
At Fleetwood Park, near New York city on Septem¬ 
ber 4, the four-year-old horse Directum advanced the 
stallion trotting record by half a second, having made 
a mile in 2:07 against Stamboul’s record of 2:07% and 
Kremlin s of 2:07%. Both of these, however, were much 
older horses. Directum made the first half mile in 
1:00%, the fastest time ever made by a trotter or pacer 
in public, the best previous record having been 1:01, 
ma'e by Nancy Hanks and Martha Wilkes on a kite¬ 
shaped track, while Directum’s marvelous performance 
was on a “regular” one. With increase of age and 
more skillful handling still greater wonders are ex¬ 
pected from this black thunderbolt. 
« * 
BREVITIES. 
“ There is a time In the affairs of men,” 
When all the friends and neighbors want to sell 
Their goods and quit the business, and then 
It Is your time to purchase. You do well 
To be accommodating and to hil 
The market at its lowest ebb and buy 
When people stumble in their haste to quit 
Some standard farm produce—for. by and by. 
There comes a-knocklng our old friend Demand; 
Then you are partners with the Boss, Supply, 
And you may walk with money in your hand, 
And fear of no man shining in your eye. 
For instance, now the marts are crowded full 
Of woolly middlemen till profits sleep 
The sleep of death. Go get thyself a “ pull ” 
On fortune in a flock of mutton sheep. 
The cur is cursed. 
Fair play-fakirs. 
A Leghorn Is an egg horn. 
Are all rain-makers fakirs '! 
Production beats pedigree. 
Make a good crop of prunlngs. 
Your shoe Is an ox hide of tannin. 
The peacock gives a grew some tall 
The early bird catches the late worm. 
Let the “ setters ” get “ off their base.” 
You get Interest by living up to prlncli le. 
The pace that kills the work—a fast walk. 
Turn in and turn off work or be turned out. 
The devil has his lair at many a county fair. 
Think of 12 bushels of poultry food for $1.50! 
What do you think about that power question? 
The woist liability a man can have Is lie ability. 
What law compels you to make the doctor rich ? 
Better be ahead of the times than behind them. 
Extraction of fat—digging potatoes on a hot day. 
The money to build the house is made in the barn. 
Enforce a few laws and thus reinforce the farmer. 
What insecticide for the gold bug ? Nitrate of silver ? 
Corner yourself once and see If you are really honest. 
Corn and cows both dry up when the milk stops forming. 
A two-cent man never can put a tive-cent stamp on his doings. 
Farmers are full of trotting talk, when what they need is a horse 
to walk. 
What Is your Board of Labor ? Your wife and the cooking stove, 
probably. 
“ 1 MUST be on the safe side!” says the banker and he proceeds to 
put hlB funds inside the safe. 
IT costs a pile to put on style. You waste funds while you gnaw a 
file because some big gun will not smile. 
Sir J. B. Lawes reports, “The worst wheat crop I ever grew.” 
Many of us therefore have illustrious company. 
Pole thee— when you have to knock the fowls out of the tree with 
a pole In order to house them for winter. Ever see it done? 
Why does the New England farmer stick to his rocky farm? He can 
neither clear nor cultivate It! Answer that question and you will see 
how it Is that agricultural theory does not always work itself out just 
ab we think it should. 
Among the late crops grown by French farmers to help overcome 
the loss of forage by the terrible drought was buckwheat with turnip 
seed. This comtlnatlon gave a fair crop late In the season, and helps 
cut down the demand for American hay. 
You would not keep a false cackler In your henyard—a hen that 
sang without first taking the trouble to lay an egg! Not much! As 
soon as you discovered the lraud off would come her head. Why then 
do you permit yourself to blow about things you have never done? 
One of the most Interesting and instructive discourses on dairying 
ever issued is found In the Sixth Annual Report of the Vermont Experi¬ 
ment Station, Burlington. Vt. It is full of meat, and meat that is 
dlgestloie, too. We regret to say that some of the stations try to feed 
us on gristle. 
The man who could not Irrigate sat down in sad despair and let the 
parching weather into his prohts tear; the while his wiser neighbor 
who could not irrigate, with horse and cultivator went out to irritate the 
surface of his farm, sir, and made a mulch of soil that held a little 
moisture and paid him for his toil. 
We have told our readers about the curious experiments in Kansas 
with diseased chinch hugs. Prof. F. H. Snow who has tnis experiment 
in charge, says mat he sent over 7,500 boxes of diseased bugs to farm¬ 
ers this season. The diseased hugs communicate the disease to the 
B.'und ones and it spreads through the Held like a plague. 
Mr. Btxxs (page 618) asked his soli what It needed to grow a good 
crop of strawberries. “Nitrogen!” was the answer every time. See 
what he got by giving the soil wnat It ■ eeded? You never heard of 
soli so ugly that It would not answer a civil question about fertilizers. 
It will go into details too and tell whether clover or nitrate Is the 
cheaper form of nitrogen. It may prove, even in far off Washington, 
that the latter is the cheaper. 
