1893 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
853 
THE PROSPECT. 
The recent discussions about the sugar bounty and 
the question of placing a tariff on imports of sugar 
have revived interest in the study of our annual con¬ 
sumption of sweets. It appears from the last Internal 
Revenue report that the total estimated sugar crop of 
the world is 7,110,000 tons of 2,240 pounds each. Of 
this, more than half, cr 3,770,000 tons is beet sugar 
made mostly in Germany, Austria, France and Russia. 
In the last fiscal year the United States imported 3,- 
766,445,347 pounds of sugar, the heaviest importation 
ever known. Of this, 436,333 843 pounds were beet 
sugar. In the same year we produced in this country 
455,141 381 pounds of cane sugar, 27,083,288 of beet 
sugar, 1,026,100 of sorghum, and an estimated product 
of 32,000.000 pounds of maple sugar, or 515,250,769 
pounds in all, practically all of which was consumed 
here. In the last fiscal year §9,375,130.88 were paid 
as bounty to 6,753 producers. There was a total of 
§531,363 81 paid to seven manufacturers of beet sugar, 
and §19,797 to two manufacturers of sorghum. There 
has been quite a development of the beet sugar in¬ 
terests in California—the three factories trere using 
the beets grown on 9,070 acres, and turning out an 
average of 2,403 pounds of sugar per acre. The pres¬ 
ent season’s crop is estimated at nearly double that of 
last year. As to maple sugar, a bounty of §62,585 06 
was paid on 3,533,602 pounds made by 4,024 producers 
from 3,460,139 trees. On the whole, while the American 
beet sugar industry seems to be gaining it is evident 
that the furore for sorghum sugar is over, and it will 
be a long time before we can hope to raise sugar 
enough to sweeten our tea and coffee. 
X X X 
Some of the people who object to a Government 
bounty on sugar would probably go crazy if they 
lived in Queensland. That country and New South 
Wales have large areas suitable to thj growing of 
sugar cane. The Queensland Parliament has been 
considering a bill to encourage the growth of sugar 
by national aid. In brief, it is proposed that any 
sugar company that can prove that it has sufficient 
cane planted may obtain the consent of the Colonial 
Treasurer to issue bonds with interest at five per 
cent and payable in 15 years. The Treasurer will guar¬ 
antee payment of these bonds, principal and interest, 
and will take, in the name of the government, a first 
mortgage on the buildings and lands of the company. 
In other words the government advances money to 
build the works and accepts a mortgage as security I 
That is paternalism with a vengeance, and it is sin¬ 
gular that such an advanced form of protection should 
be advocated by a branch of the English Government. 
It simply indicates the great desire on the part of 
nations, that possess the suitable conditions for grow- 
the crop, to reduce their sugar bill. 
X X t 
The lengths to which partisan papers will go in 
twisting every day occurrences and doings into forms 
to make of them political capital, is a disgrace to 
journalism, and a menace to the best interests of the 
country. The editors of many of these papers seem 
to have an utter disregard for truth in the statement 
of, and comment upon, what they are pleased to call 
news. The organs of neither political party are free 
from this bias. In the heat of political campaigns, 
the country is represented in both as sure to go to 
smash if the opposition win. The fact of the matter 
is that any thinking man with a modicum of brains 
knows better. If he doesn’t, he has small faith in the 
integrity of the principles on which our Government 
is founded. Any change in administration, or any 
proposed radical reform or change in existing laws 
and customs, unsettles the current of business some¬ 
what. It must necessarily be so. But this is only a 
surface disturbance, temporary and of short duration. 
To deeper causes than these must be attributed any 
real danger or permanent injury to the business in¬ 
terests of the country as a whole. The last change in 
administration, and the recent proposed tariff changes, 
have afforded fresh opportunity for a repetition of the 
attacks of these vapid calamity howlers. Laying 
aside all discussion of tariff questions, or of the wisdom 
or unwisdom of any of these proposed changes about 
which there is abundant opportunity for an honest 
difference of opinion, isn’t it little short of criminal 
for any journal purporting to be a newspaper to make 
statements so calculated to destroy public confidence, 
and render still worse any business stringency that 
may exist ? XXX 
The truth is that money is scarce. Farmers haven't 
been getting so high prices for crops, and the latter 
have often been failures. Business men, city and 
country, haven’t had the usual amount to spend, hence 
less demand for goods, and factories have been obliged 
to suspend operations. New factories are opening, 
meanwhile, but the partisan papers don’t publish 
these with the same flourish of trumpets as they do 
the suspensions. As our country grows, business con¬ 
ditions change, and so long as we are under a protec¬ 
tive tariff, it must also change from time to time as 
industrial and commercial conditions change. That 
some branches of industry or business must suffer, is 
inevitable ; but it is usually true that those most pro¬ 
tected are likely to suffer most, or, at least, to feel the 
change most. The question is, or ought to be, not 
how best to serve any particular class, but how best 
to carry out that transcendent principle in political 
economy, and secure the greatest good to the greatest 
number. No man is so poorly fitted to understand and 
discuss any great public question, as he who gets his 
information solely from the columns of an organ of one 
or the other of the political parties. It is impossible 
for such an individual to be well informed on such 
topics. Yet, our respected Secretary of Agriculture 
would have one of these furnish the only modern men¬ 
tal pabulum of our rural dwellers. Shades of Adam 
Smith ! Thy Wealth of Nations is a gem beside some 
of these foul blots upon the pages of contemporary 
literature. ^ ^ ^ 
The R. N.-Y. has always opposed the formation of 
Trusts. It is our belief that the principles on which 
these great combinations of industry are built up are 
selfish and opposed to fair dealing in trade. The ob¬ 
ject of the Trust is to kill competition. Having de¬ 
stroyed this legitimate branch of trade, it is easy for 
the Trust to regulate the price and quality of their 
goods to suit themselves. There is nothing to force 
them either to fairer prices or superior quality—noth¬ 
ing but the law and experience has shown how little 
can really be acromplished in this way, One of the 
greatest taxes the public is called upon to pay is the 
Trust tax—that is, the enforced tribute that comes 
from a lack of competition. Every selfish Trust en¬ 
forces this tax, but what have the public to say or do 
about it ? An appeal to the law is useless—it must be 
an appeal to honor and a spirit of fairness. So long 
as the Trust has a fighting competitor it cannot carry 
out its full scheme. It must kill that competitor first. 
Is it not plain, therefore, that the interests of the 
public are best served by holding up the hands of the 
competitor. Let us take an actual instance. There 
is an Ax Trust in this country which has endeavored, 
by unscrupulous means, to secure absolute control of 
the output of axes. Having secured such control, it 
was their plan to advance the price of axes—and they 
could easily have done so could they have controlled 
the supply. One large firm stood out against them 
and continued to sell at a price that compelled the 
Trust to sell at lower figures than they had marked 
out. Let this concern be wiped out and the Trust 
will be free to dictate the price at which axes are to 
be sold. Is not that clear? Is it not the duty of 
those who see the danger in such selfish combinations 
to go out of their way to patronize the house that 
blocks the Trust ? Surely if men will not do that 
they are not deserving of sympathy when they de¬ 
claim against Trusts! The name of the house is the 
Kelly Mnfg. Co., of Louisville, Ky. The ax for you 
to ask for is the Kelly ax. We make this plain state¬ 
ment here because it seems to us that this is a matter of 
more than passing importance. It is the principle of 
cooperative help to honest competition. Stand by the 
Trust’s competitors or forever hold your peace ! 
X X X 
In view of the fact that the Wilson tariff bill does 
not provide a revenue sufficientito defray the expenses 
of the Government, and that a part at least of this 
deficiency must be made up by an increase in the in¬ 
ternal revenue tax, it has been suggested that the tax 
on oleomargarine be raised to 10 cents a pound instead 
of two cents as at present. It is argued that as much 
of this “ oleo” is now sold frequently as pure butter, 
such a tax would not be a hardship either on the con¬ 
sumer or seller. That such a tax would raise con¬ 
siderable revenue is evident from the figures given in 
the last report of the Commissioner of Internal Rev¬ 
enue. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893, there 
were produced in this country 67,224,298 pounds of 
oleomargarine. Including-the special taxes on manu¬ 
facturers, and wholesale and retail dealers the rev¬ 
enue from this product was §1,670,643.50. Over half, 
or 39,437,852 pounds were made in Illinois, and an 
equally large part of tne revenue is collected in that 
State. During the last fiscal year the pz*oduction of 
“oleo” was increased by 16,860,143 pounds, and there 
are now 22 factories, and 228 wholesale, and 6,369 re¬ 
tail dealers paying the Government tax. The com¬ 
missioner in his report says that practically all the 
oleomargarine made is taxed properly, but the law is 
evaded by both wholesale and retail dealers who sell 
the stuff as genuine butter, resorting to various 
methods to deceive the purchasers. The commissioner 
suggests some changes in the law that he thinks would 
make the deception harder to carry out, but he also 
suggests a reduction in the special tax on dealers from 
§480 to §120 for wholesalers, and §120 to §12 for retail¬ 
ers. This is hardly in accord with the scheme to tax 
the stuff 10 cents a pound instead of two. 
X X X 
“ I wish I could get hold of that stuff to put on my 
farm,” said a young farmer as we were walking 
through a street where a street cleaner was sweeping 
into piles the droppings and other refuse which ac¬ 
cumulate so rapidly on our city pavements. “ That 
is valuable fertilizer, and should bring a revenue to 
the city instead of the city paying a lai-ge sum to have 
it removed and dumped into the sea. Of course that 
would not suit the Tammany government, but there 
ought not to be such a waste.” This refuse is mostly 
droppings from the horses, and as the latter in the 
city are fed largely on grain, the droppings are more 
valuable as manure than those from horses not so 
heavily fed. The removal and transportation, is of 
course, the great problem. Under the present system, 
more than §2,000,000 are annually paid for doing this 
work. The collections of the cleaners’ carts are 
dumped on scows, and these are towed out to sea and 
there dumped. The trimmers, as the men are called 
who level down properly the loads as they are dumped, 
sort out all bones, rags, bottles, cans, and everything 
that can be used or sold in any way as junk, but all 
the fertilizers are lost, thrown into the sea. It does 
seem as though some way should be devised to save 
this vast amount of fertility, and put it where it is so 
much needed on the farms and gardens in this vicinity. 
PARAGON CHESTNUT CULTURE. 
Acting on the advice of The R. N.-Y. in the spring 
of 1890 I bought three Paragon chestnut trees. They 
were planted in vacant places in a grove of common 
chestnuts. Two lived and I am ashamed to acknowl¬ 
edge that they have been utterly neglected, never hav¬ 
ing had any mulching or care beyond being let alone. 
Neither of them is over seven feet high or three-fourths 
of an inch in diameter of body, but this past summer 
one of them produced three burrs each with three 
chestnuts and the other had seven burrs with three 
nuts in each burr. Here was this little tree with 21 
nuts, each of the weight of four average nuts from 
the common trees. This would make the crop equal 
to 84 common nuts. The number of nuts was a sur¬ 
prise to me, and if the common trees in our grove had 
produced chestnuts in proportion we would have had 
more than 500 bushels. I tested them in comparison 
with the common nuts, and gave them to others to 
taste ; all agreed that they were equally good. I also 
showed them to a dealer in our city, and while the 
common nuts were selling for §5 per bushel, he said 
he would gladly pay §8 for such as these. 
In the spring of 1892, we sent a hired man into our 
chestnut grove to cut down some other trees which 
were growing there. Through a misunderstanding of 
the order, he cut some 40 chestnuts before we discov¬ 
ered what he was doing. The trees cut varied from 
four to eight inches in diameter. To make the best 
of the situation, we let the sprouts grow about the 
stumps as the quickest way to repair the damage. 
These sprouts made a growth of eight feet on an aver¬ 
age and last spring I sent to H. M. Engle for scions of 
Paragon and Numbo, and grafted from three to five 
sprouts about each stump. I had the impression that 
it was very difficult to successfully graft the chestnut 
and so I took great pains in doing the work. I selected 
scions and stocks as nearly of the same size as possible 
and used the splice or tongue system of grafting, 
winding well with waxed cloth. A part I grafted 
quite early and others after the leaves on the stocks 
were nearly as large as a mouse’s ear, having kept the 
scions in the saw-du3t next the ice in the ice-house. 
To my surprise and great joy more than 75 per cent 
of the scions grew, though some grew so rapidly that 
they were broken off by the wind before fully united. 
They have made a growth of from four to six feet and 
some have produced over 25 feet of new wood ; all 
have ripened up as sound as a dollar. From present 
appearances—judging from what the two little trees 
have done, many of these scions will bear another 
year. Now, I am more than glad that our Dutchman 
did not better understand English. We shall have the 
rest of the natural grove cut down so as to graft the 
sprouts that spring from the stumps. As no insects 
ever attack the chestnut here I believe a Paragon 
orchard will pay more money than the same land in 
apples. . 1 . s WOODWARD. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
We see In our advertising columns this week that Messrs. Ayer & 
McKinney, Times Building, Philadelphia, Pa., are offering some of 
thetr Merldale Jerseys for sale They tell us that this Is the latest 
and choicest lot they have yet offered, and at lower prices than ever 
before. This Is a rare opportunity to secure desirable Jerseys. This 
herd contains beyond any doubt some of the finest Jerseys in the 
country, and the farmer who secures one or more of them will have 
something of which to be proud. A catalogue of the animals offered 
for sale will be sent any one Interested In Jerseys, on application to 
the proprietors. 
It Is not just the thing to get Into a sleigh, or wagon either, and ride 
In cold weather without a good robe. The real buffalo robe is now 
almost a thing of the past, but the Saskatchewan robe Is almost a per¬ 
fect substitute. It Is warm, handsome, and will last a lifetime 
with ordinary care. We don’t know how a young man could excuse 
himself to a young lady whom he invited to take a sleigh ride without 
providing himself with one of these robes. The American Buffalo 
Robe Company, 3-5 Howell St., Buffalo, N. Y., will send an Illustrated 
book telling all about them, If you ask for it. 
