48o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 13 
" NEW IDEAS/’ 
There are a good many days in the 
year when we hear nothing about the 
agriculture of Iceland. This week we 
have decided to take one point about the 
farming on that lonely isle for our busi¬ 
ness text. As a nation, the Icelanders 
are about the most sober, industrious, 
frugal, thoughtful and studious people 
in the world. They work hard through 
their short summers and, in fact, keep 
right at it until the darkness of winter 
drives them into their low houses. There 
they sit through the long hours, carding 
and spinning wool, mending tools and 
doing other winter jobs, while the best 
reader sits in the center of the room 
reading aloud. At the end of each chap¬ 
ter, a general discussion of the reading 
takes place. With constant work and 
thoughtful study, the Iceland farmer 
ought to be very successful—or else all 
our teaching fails. Certainly, he makes 
use of theory and practice, and The It. 
N.-Y. has said time and again that these 
things are the basis of successful agri¬ 
culture. So they are—yet the Iceland 
farmer is a mighty poor stick, so far be¬ 
hind the times that the times are tired 
waiting for him to catch up. If you will 
give your careful attention, you will 
soon learn why this is so. 
* 
The chief products of Iceland farming 
are ponies and sheep. Now, people in 
the outside world don't buy these ani¬ 
mals just because they are raised in Ice¬ 
land. Oh no ! They buy them, if at all, 
because they are cheaper than those 
raised elsewhere. They are after bar¬ 
gains. Now sheep and ponies live by 
eating food. Two ponies can’t subsist 
on the food that will keep only one. It 
follows that the numbers of sheep and 
ponies that can be exported from Iceland 
will be determined by the amount of 
stock food produced there. The farmers 
in Iceland have paid little or no atten¬ 
tion to growing stock food. The sheep 
live on wild grass, sea weed, or even fish 
in summer. All the winter feed they 
have is the wild grass cut by hand and 
cured during the short summers. Now, 
you know enough about farming to see 
right away that such a country as that 
can’t raise sheep and ponies as cheaply 
as a locality where the farms are made 
to produce sweet hay and grain and 
roots ! It doesn’t make so much odds 
how cold the climate is—if they have 
the food, they can raise the stock. In 
the march of progress, the Iceland 
farmer is getting far behind, simply be¬ 
cause he doesn’t raise stock food enough. 
* 
“ Ah ! ha !” you say, “that upsets the 
whole theory of your paper. Here you 
have been telling what great readers 
these Icelanders are; yet, for all their 
‘ book learning,’ they don’t know enough 
to raise beans and potatoes ! ” 
Now hold on a minute until we see 
what these Icelanders read. They don’t 
spend their time reading the agricul¬ 
tural papers by a long shot. They just 
sit there day after day, and read the old 
sagas or stories about the savage Vik¬ 
ings who fought and thieved all along 
the coast of Europe 1,000 years ago. 
They spend their time reading about a 
lot of old back numbers who, in this age, 
would be jailed, if not hung. Of course 
those old thieves can’t teach the farmer 
of to-day how to raise oats and turnips 
for sheep and ponies. The Iceland 
farmer won’t get any new ideas until 
he goes where the new ideas are. 
The Scotch papers are now telling 
about a young Icelander who went to 
the mainland and worked on the farms 
until he learned how to raise oats, tur¬ 
nips and other farm crops, and to use 
tools. Best of all, he learned to read 
English so that the principles of agricul¬ 
tural science will be right within his 
reach. Now with all these new ideas, 
he is going home expecting to raise oats 
and grasses and other stock food. Why, 
that man will be a regular walking ex¬ 
periment station. He will take a head¬ 
ful of new ideas into Iceland. The 
memory of those bloodthirsty old Vik¬ 
ings will keep him back for a time, but 
he will down them finally, and if he 
live, within 10 years the food crop 
grown in that country will be wonder¬ 
fully increased. That will mean more 
stock for export—raised at a cost, too, 
that will render competition with other 
countries possible ! 
* 
Now of course we have no subscribers 
in Iceland, and our readers may say, 
“ Why don’t you give us something ap¬ 
propriate ? 'Why do you go to that for¬ 
saken country for a text ?”• 
The reason is this: In our travels about 
this great and glorious land, we have 
observed many farms, towns and locali¬ 
ties that are falling far behind in the 
race for agricultural success. Years ago 
these places were prosperous—the farm¬ 
ers were happy. Now we hear talk of 
“ hard times” and discontent. Less 
money comes to the farm than formerly, 
while expenses have increased. The ex¬ 
ports from the farm now meet, in com¬ 
petition, cheaper products from more 
favored localities, and the cheapest prod¬ 
uct rules the market. What’s the mat¬ 
ter ? Farms off in some other parts of 
the country produce more food to the 
acre, and hold their fertility better. 
Have these other farms any great natural 
advantages ? No, none to speak of—the 
chief difference is that the farmers who 
conduct them make use of new methods 
and crops. The silo, winter oats, Crim¬ 
son clover, cheap fertilizers, quality, 
cooperation, irrigation—these are a few 
of the things that have enabled these 
other farmers to increase the food crop 
(for animals and plants) and thus run the 
old farm into the ditch. In other words, 
it is the old Iceland question over again. 
The old back-number notions of farming 
were sound so long as the stage coach 
and the canal boat bound the East and 
the West together. When the rapid 
train cut the former day's travel down to 
half an hour, the old notions were 
doomed, and the doom spread to those 
who would not see that newer and more 
progressive methods were demanded by 
the change in the times. 
* 
And the likeness goes even further. 
We smile at the Icelander spending his 
brain power over the worthless deeds of 
1 , 000 -year-dead ruffians, while for the 
lack of a little study, be doesn’t know 
enough to sow turnips. Is he any more 
ridiculous than the American who spends 
his winter evenings* reading the county 
paper, or talking politics with the neigh¬ 
bors at the store ? That man’s cattle 
are on half rations because he can’t 
raise enough hay. His potatoes barely 
pay expenses of growing, and so it is 
with all his crops. They all diminish, 
except the scold crop from his wife and 
daughters. The sons have sense enough 
to get away. That man can give you all 
the county gossip, and talk you blind on 
the tariff ; but he doesn’t know enough 
to raise clover ; he doesn’t know how to 
buy fertilizers, or how to improve his 
soil, or what grain to add to hay for a 
butter ration. Why not? Because he 
can’t learn in his own neighborhood, 
and he hasn’t had enterprise enough to 
go outside for a new idea—though the 
old ones are worn out. Now we claim 
that this American citizen, born in this 
great Republic, inheriting all the glorious 
spirit of freedom, yet permitting mental 
laziness to tie him hand, foot and head 
in the race of progress, isn’t as good a 
man as the Icelander living on mental 
food that is 10 centuries old. 
That’s all. You may think the point 
out yourself. We did intend to tell you 
where to go to get the new ideas, but it 
seems as though that’s hardly necessary. 
Here’s what an attentive reader of The 
R. N.-Y. out in Fayette County, 0.,says: 
I have told Mr. M. that the other agricultural 
papers were so far behind Tub R. N.-Y. in fur¬ 
nishing wide-awake farmers what they need in the 
way of exchange of views, and experiment 
facts, that they were babies in their a, b, c’s as 
compared with The R. N.-Y. I have also agreed 
to pay for his paper myself, if he tell me at the 
end of the year, that it is not worth more than 
one dollar per year to him, and I have no fears of 
having to pay the dollar. 
That’s good enough for us. If any of 
our older readers wish to carry the mat¬ 
ter further, we suggest that they ponder 
well this note from a Massachusetts man: 
A well-to-do business man, both a grocer and 
market gardener, told me the other day that he 
never could get any good out of an agricultural 
paper. He had taken one or two and dropped 
them. I asked whether he had ever seen The R. 
N.-Y., and he said, l, No.” I told him that it had 
helped me a great deal. If you will send me two 
or three copies containing the Primer Science 
articles, I will hand them to him and perhaps he 
will be interested. If you send them direct to 
him, he will probably take no notice of them. 
“ Go and do thou likewise !” 
Fertilizers for Fail Crops 
should contain a high percentage of Potash to 
insure the largest yield and a permanent enrichment 
of the soil. 
Write for our “Farmers’ Guide,” a 142-page illustrated book. It 
is brim full of useful information for farmers. It will be sent free, and 
will make and save you money. Address, 
GERMAN KALI WORKS, 93 Nassau Street, New York. 
O OOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 
Used by Everybody 
Everywhere. 
There’s more real fertilizer to the cubic inch, in our 
Americus Brands than there’s in some others to 
the cubic foot = No filling = all clear fertilizer 
=—The greatest Wheat grower. 
Williams & Clark Fertilizer Co., 
New York. 
SOLD EVERYWHERE. 
Costs you nothing to become an Agent—there’s money in it. 
00000000000 000600000 6 o 
Five Tons 
of Grapes 
remove from the soil 12.60 lbs. of nitro¬ 
gen, 10.62 lbs. of phosphoric acid, and 
25.48 lbs. of potash. 100 lbs. of 
Albert’s Vineyard Manure 
contains 13 lbs. of nitrogen, 11 lbs. of 
phosphoric acid, and 28 lbs. of potash. 
Send for free sample, and our literature on “ The 
Manuring of Vineyards and Orchards,” and “ The 
Manuring of Garden Crops.” They are sent free. 
ROBT. L. MERYVIN & CO., 
Importers of Chemical Fertilizers, 88 Wall St., N. Y. 
The BEST 
ALL METAL 
Z°e N l oh EARTH. 
Sizes 30 inch up. Tee Tire—3in. 
face Spokes Riveted to tire. IIo 
not Touch the Ground. Will 
outwear 3 common metal wheels. 
Ask your dealer for 
the T 1CER wheel. 
If he^oesn’t know 
anything about it, 
write us direct. 
We’ll Sell You 
A SET. 
Send this to us 
when you write. 
Stoddard Mfg. Co. 
Wheel Dept. Dayton, O. 
CREAMERY WANTED. 
To lease or purchase. Creamery, with large or small 
output. Give full particulars. 
SIMPLEX DAIRY COMPANY, 
812 Bennett Building, New York City. 
Hard 
Times 
r* $ 12.00 per toi 
TO t* Dissolved S< 
Bone — the hig..v,. 
Farmers 
To meet the present 
hard times on farm¬ 
ers we will sell them 
direct Good Fer¬ 
tilizers for 
grain crops 
at the lowest 
wholesale prices, 
$12.00 per ton and upwards; 
| Q J 4 Dissolved South Carolina 
Bone —the highest grade made, 
Dissolved 
Animal 
Bone, 
Bone Meal, Potash Salts, Tankage and 
Nitrate Soda. Send for circulars. 
Powell Fertilizer & Chemical Co. 
Baltimore, Md. 
Ei Bowker’s Fertilizers. 3 
SOLUBLE—ACTIVE —SURE. 
EE RflWKFR fertil ' z er co., ^ 
^ DU 11 1X1.11 BOSTON & NEW YORK. — 5 
mmmmmmK 
M ORE and better WHEAT and a sure catch of 
GRASS will be the result of using with your 
Wheat this Fall FERTILIZERS manufactured 
by THE CLEVELAND DRYER COMPANY, Of 
Cleveland, O. Their goods are scientifically made for 
all crops and soils—and guaranteed—always reliable, 
uniform, dry anddrillable. Best quality; reasonable 
prices. Ammoniating material. Acid Phosphates and 
Potash always on hand for those desiring to make 
their own mixtures. THE CLEVELAND DRYER 
COMPANY, 130 Summit Street, Cleveland, O. 
Fruit Packages. 
A description of the current styles of baskets 
boxes, crates and barrels used in marketing 
fruits in all parts of the country. How to 
grade and pack fruit. Illustrated. Paper, 
20 cents. 
The Rural New-Yorker, New York. 
Miller’s Bean Harvesters and Planters are the best, and are no experiment, as thousands will testify. 
For particulars and prices address F. W. MILLER, Caledonia, N. Y. u 
