5o8 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. Augusta 
TSB 
Rural New-Yorker 
Cor. Chambers and Pearl St *., b/ew York. 
A Weakly Jenmal for Conntry and Suburban Hnmea. 
BLBHBT 8. CABMAN, Hdltor-ln-Cblef. 
HHBBKBT W, COLLINGWOOD, ManaKln* Hdltor 
JOHN J. DItiLiON, BuslneBS Manager. 
OopvriQhted 1894. 
Addreea all bnaineBs oommnnloations and make all ordera pay¬ 
able to THH BUBAL NEW-YOBKKB. 
Be Bure that the name and addreaa of aender, with name of Boat 
office and State, and what the remittance la for, appear In every letter. 
Money ordera and bank drafta on New York are the aafeat meana of 
tranamlttlng money. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1894. 
We get all sides of the calf question this week. One 
man would keep the calf in the barn for the first sum¬ 
mer, while another thinks one that is “too choice for 
sunlight should be vealed.” When the doctors dis¬ 
agree so radically, it may be a good thing to leave it 
to the calf and let it run in or out of shade as it 
pleases. ^ 
Whebe can you get a better picture to hang over 
your desk than an accurate map of your farm—with 
the fields numbered and correctly measured ? You 
would be surprised to see how such a map will increase 
your interest in your business and lead to more scien¬ 
tific methods of farming. If you have any drains, it 
is a good thing to have an underground map, too. 
* 
Among the hills of northern New Jersey and eastern 
Pennsylvania, buckwheat is a very popular crop. 
Wheat does not, as a rule, thrive on these farms and 
the rye is now largely fed to work horses—so buck¬ 
wheat is the chief grain grown for home consumption. 
An average family will consume 250 pounds or more of 
the flour—mainly in cakes as a substitute for bread. 
Buckwheat is a cheap grain to grow, and its flour 
makes an excellent food for use during the cold winters 
on these hills. 
« 
The R. N.-Y. is getting lots of letters about the 
recent symposium on the tuberculin test. About a 
year hence, some of the other papers may begin to 
discuss this matter without personal feeling or bias. 
In the meantime, those breeders who come forward 
and guarantee their animals free from tuberculosis, 
will reap a harvest. The R. N.-Y. has no motive in 
stirring up this matter beyond a desire to benefit 
those who buy or sell blooded cattle through the 
medium of its columns. 
“ Every' man is for himself and in a very marked 
and offensive degree against his neighbors.” That is 
the report a stranger makes about a certain farming 
community. We all know that it is true of many a 
farm neighborhood. We also know that wherever 
farmers distrust one another, there can be no coSpera- 
tion for social or business purposes. Without such 
cooperation there can be little of either profit or 
pleasure. How the middlemen and the frauds do love 
to find such neighborhoods. 
Cord-wood farmers near the large towns and cities 
used to have a profitable business. The crop cost them 
nothing but the labor of cutting and hauling. Now, 
however, the price has fallen so that there is nothing 
in the business, but a means of providing work for 
the teams. The decrease in price is due to the use of 
other fuel. Even in the brickyards where wood was 
formerly used almost exclusively, they are now ex¬ 
perimenting with oil with every prospect of success. 
This cord-wood trade is a good illustration of the way 
in which science is changing industry by discovering 
cheaper substitutes for old-time methods and materials. 
« 
The Seventh-day Baptists regard Saturday as the 
Scriptural Sabbath, and do no work on that day, while 
on Sunday they work as other Christians work on 
Monday. This sect is quite strong in Tennessee, and 
most of its members are farmers. It is not uncommon 
to see them plowing, haying or doing other farm work 
on Sunday. This is not done with any idea of dese¬ 
crating the day, but because they believe that Satur¬ 
day is the proper day for worship. There is a law 
in Tennessee which forbids Sunday work, and the 
Seventh-day Baptists are constantly being hauled 
before the courts and fined or imprisoned for working 
on what they conceive to be a week or working day. 
These prosecutions are usually justified on high moral 
grounds—that the good name of the State demands a 
proper observance of the Sabbath. The “ good name 
of the State” is something that all patriots should 
strive to uphold. The papers often contain reports of 
Ijnchings, mob law and other crimes committed in the 
State of Tennessee. It seems to us that the State’s 
“good name” would be cleaner if these outrages were 
brought up to the law as sharply as are these Seventh- 
day farmers! 
* 
Picking the feathers all out of poultry before they 
are dead—as is done by many butchers—is a shameful 
example of cruelty. A man should be sent to prison 
for doing it! “Every man there is an anarchist!” 
said the superintendent of a large butchering estab¬ 
lishment, pointing into a room where men were 
slaughtering hogs by plunging a knife into their 
throats. No man can continue to practice cmel and 
painful acts to animals without losing the best part of 
his manhood. 
tt 
See here, my friend, if you started in with a big 
stack of hay and kept cutting it down, a forkful at a 
time, to feed the stock, it would be very evident to you 
after a while that it was necessary for you to replenish 
that stack. Your eyes would teach you that. Now 
take jour farm. For a’good many years, you have 
been selling stock and milk. The stock and milk all 
came out of the soil and have left it that much poorer. 
Why, then, is not your farm—to that extent—growing 
poorer each year as clearly as the hay stack is dwin- 
dling? Yonknow the hay stack must be replaced—why 
do you object to adding the bone and potash you have 
sold away from the farm ? Let’s hear the answer I 
« 
That question about the Colorado mortgage will 
interest a good many farmers all over the country. 
In that comparatively new State, you see there is a 
question as to a man's ability to pay a mortgage out 
of the proceeds of his labor. The question of debt is 
a hard one anywhere. It is quite easy to figure out on 
paper how money may be borrowed and paid again 
with the cash one ought to receive in return for work. 
Somehow the returns do not always come in as ex¬ 
pected. Debt and mortgage are often good invest¬ 
ments, if we may put it that way, and yet more often, 
we think, they curse rather than bless. He is, in¬ 
deed, a shrewd and farsighted man who can see 
through them to the end. 
It may be new to some of our readers to learn that 
the great bulk of the poultry in this country is to be 
found on farms west of the Ohio River. Such is the 
fact, however. The corn-growing States are famous 
for their poultry. We can see from the account of 
that great poultry slaughtering house in Kansas City, 
how the trade in Western poultry is likely to make 
itself felt all over the country. Improved systems of 
refrigt ration have made this possible. Artificial cold 
conquers the heat, just as artificial heat enables gar¬ 
deners to laugh at the winter’s cold. As to the com¬ 
mercial effect on the poultry business, of this whole¬ 
sale slaughtering, we are not yet prepared to speak. 
It is a grave question as to what the future will be. 
How much of the present reduction in the price of cat¬ 
tle is due to the change in slaughtering and distribu¬ 
tion ? 
« 
It may be considered a curious time to talk about 
pure air in the stable now, when there is little possi¬ 
bility of getting any other kind. But now is the time 
to prepare for the coming season when the cows are to 
be shut in with their own breath. Barns will be built 
or re-modeled during the hot season, when shelter is 
not necessary. Plan right I We think it is made 
clear this week why a change of air is needed in the 
stable. The point is to substitute pure air for foul 
inside the building, and do it in such a way as to avoid 
draughts and quick changes of temperature. Air will 
not pass out of a barn until it becomes warmer than 
the air outside. That is the principle of ventilation. 
Three plans are suggested this week. The subject is 
an interesting one, and we wish the experiment 
stations would take the matter up and give us the 
science of it with exact laws and results. 
The R. N.-Y. recently mentioned the fact that Mr. 
Johnson on his little Jersey farm, found women to be 
superior berry pickers and packers. This week in the 
article on Wholesale Chicken Killing, on page 503, we 
are told that women are better for the work of pick¬ 
ing poultry than men, “ as they do cleaner and more 
satisfactory work.” It seems as though women are 
superior for almost every position except where mere 
brute force is required. Yet there are those who 
think that woman is an inferior being, the weaker 
vessel, well enough as a wife, mother and house¬ 
keeper, because indispensable there, but not to be in¬ 
trusted with those matters which most deeply concern 
the welfare of the human race. Do such ever consider 
that when the great Creator made woman, he fashioned 
her from a rib taken from man’s side, that she might 
be, not only his helpmeet, but his companion and 
equal ? If the equality is to the discredit of anybody, 
it certainly isn’t often to the woman. 
« 
The long-continued and widely extended drought 
has given the price of corn an upward tendency. 
There seems little doubt that the crop throughout the 
corn belt is seriously injured, and in seme parts is 
likely to prove almost a total failure. Not enough 
rain to do more than lay the dust, has fallen in weeks 
over large areas, and other crops as well as corn are 
badly injured. An Iowa correspondent draws a 
pathetic picture of the situation there. In sympathy 
with corn, the prices of other grains have advanced, 
so that to those having these to sell, this may prove 
the silver lining to the cloud of discouragement of the 
corn situation. 
« 
There is a good deal of practical sense in Mr. Chap¬ 
man's first-page article. The desire to “ dx up,” 
beautify his home, and surround himself with nice and 
comfortable things, is one of the noblest ambitions a 
farmer can possibly have roused within him. We 
don’t care whether this is started by a Jersey bull, a Leg¬ 
horn hen, a Berkshire pig, a flower bed or a wife—it 
is a good thing and one of the saving graces of agri¬ 
culture. What a mistake—what a crime it is for farm¬ 
ers to settle back and say that there is no fun or 
pleasure to be had on the farm 1 The man who makes 
such a statement as that, usually has some serious de¬ 
fect in his training—due to wrong principles of educa¬ 
tion or home influence. The child who is to become a 
farmer ought to be trained as a naturalist, and taught 
to find pleasure in investigating the beautiful mys¬ 
teries of nature. That is what we mean by teaching 
agriculture in country schools. 
* 
BREVITIES. 
I ain't been reelin' well this year—I Jeat gut overhet 
Laat June, an’ lay 'round ez I might. I ain’t gut cooled off yet. 
I let the boya lead off tbla year—1 aet beneatb the treea 
An’ visit with the women folka an' sorter take my ease. 
I calculate I earned a rest an’ I ain’t gonter watt 
An’ take the only rest I git inside the churchyard gate. 
My gals Is lookin’ after me—they traveled off to town 
An’ bought a hammock, strung it up; my stars, they done it brown I 
“ Now, pa," they sez, ** git in an' rest I ’’ " I'd Jess soon climb a tree,” 
8ez 1, *’ that rockin’ chair o' mine Is good enough for me." 
Y’e don’t ketch my feet off the ground, a-swlngln’ up ser high. 
But one day when the women folks wuz out o’ sight, thinks I, 
’• I guess i’ll sample that ’ere thing,” an’ so I jest climbed In 
An' laid there swingin', swingin' slow, as neat as any pin. 
My stars I But warn't I comfortable—a-swlngln’ to and fro ? 
The gals come back an’ ketched me there jest sound asleep ! I know 
How folks crack up a rockin’ chair for comfort as the best. 
Give me a hammock In the shade an’ you kin have the rest. 
File the rank schemea. 
Pure air ought to be free. 
There’s no help in a yelp ! 
What brake for the tongue 7 
Don't guess at the cow’s mess. 
’• Change of air”—for the cow. 
Calves and apples won't agree. 
Keep clean—soap beats medicine. 
Ink Is the connecting link of think. 
Whatsoever ye sew that must ye rip 1 
Unlike other evil, flies dislike darkness. 
Bust on your education—that’s disgrace. 
Why does milk whey more in hot weather? 
Many a good canllllower is spoiled in the pot. 
Dirt decreases the liability of consumption—of food. 
Many a man shrivels under the shade of his own opinion. 
Worse than any growing weed Is he who lets it go to seed I 
ATTEND to those teeth—there's dyspepsia In gum chewing. 
We want a record of your experience with seco.id-crop potatoes. 
Grape juice for a harvest drink. That's the juice that contains no 
abuse! 
Uncouth truth gees a-begging. People like It with a polish of 
flattery. 
What varieties of potatoes stand a drought best with you? Are 
they those with the smallest vines 7 
What is a manure heap but a pile of absorbents with a small 
amount of fertility scattered through It 7 
What about buying your winter’s coal now? It can't shrink and 
you won’t pay for much water In this drought. 
You have a spring or pond on a hillside and below It are crops 
suffering from drought. It’s your own fault-you might have Irri¬ 
gated ! 
” A LITTLE female liar 1 ” is the way one Kansas woman Is referred 
to by the papers. That Is a necessary part of ’’ woman’s suffrage,” 
apparently. 
China Is the only country left without a government postal system. 
Stamps are there Issued by corporations, much like our telegraph and 
railroad systems. 
Of the two horse machlnes-mower and rake—the latter is probably 
more Important. That Is, you could house more hay In a day with 
scythe and horse rake than with mower and band rake I 
Six pounds of bran, and one pound each of sugar and white arsenic 
Is the pudding they make In Kansas for the grasshoppers. Placed In 
little balls along the edge of a Held or around a stack it causes many 
a hopper funeral. 
A FIRST-RATE scheme of the Minnesota Experiment Station Is to 
send actual sprays and stems of the Busslan thistle inside a bulletin 
on that pest. These sprays are mounted on paper and show just what 
the plant is—beating any picture. 
In time of Are, see how the engine pumps and throws the water 
where It Is needed. In time of drought, see how a good engine and 
pump would take the water from your brook or pond and put It where 
the plants could drink it 7 Don’t yon realize how much of your proflts 
dry up because your plants can’t drink 7 
