562 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 17 
HOW IT IS DISTRIBUTED. 
. Part II. 
The figures given lust week plainly in- 
dieate that the wealth of this country 
is surely centering in the towns. Land 
and houses in city and town, have in¬ 
creased enormously in value, while farm 
property—back from railroads—has de¬ 
clined in value. “ Society,” or the con¬ 
gregation of people at any one spot, 
gives an increased value to property. 
Land and buildings increase in value as 
they serve the wants of more and more 
people. Could the great American cities 
have been broken up and their popula¬ 
tion and wealth scattered about the land 
so that every well-located county could 
have a large town, few can doabt that 
two things would have followed: Wealth 
would have been more evenly distributed, 
and progress in many of the arts and 
sciences would have been retarded. With 
many towns in place of the fewer large 
cities, we think, on the whole, Ameri¬ 
cans would be to-day more generally 
contented, more generally prosperous, 
and more patriotic. There would be 
fewer paupers, less drunkenness, fewer 
millionaires, and less class hatred and 
corruption in politics. We say this, well 
knowing that without the vast wealth 
amassed in our great cities, the wonder¬ 
ful developments in electricity, pho¬ 
tography, engineering, chemistry, and 
other sciences, could not have been made! 
All these things have blessed this land 
and century ; but it has not been an un¬ 
mixed blessing, for each new and power¬ 
ful force has but increased the propor¬ 
tion of newly-created wealth that has 
turned from country to town. 
One trouble is that the American is a 
dollar hunter, pure and simple. He has 
not yet learned how to live in content¬ 
ment and peace. Every new force for 
increasing the power of a human hand, 
is to him but a new scheme for making 
more money. This country is run on a 
money basis, and morals and right must, 
as a rule, follow, rather than lead, the 
dollar. There seems to be an intoxica¬ 
tion about wealth that drives men on to 
plan and scheme to increase the leverage 
and power that money brings them. Now 
and then a philanthropist rises above the 
crowd, and gives the world the benefit 
of some great invention, or devotes his 
wealth to the education of the enterpris¬ 
ing poor. As a rule, however, wealth 
seems to dull the edge of man’s moral 
force, and many, even of those who de¬ 
claim so violently against the rich, are 
in their own smaller business relations 
grasping and selfish. 
The wrong that lies at the base of this 
unequal distribution of wealth, is moral 
rather than political. We have taught 
too much in our schools and in our popu¬ 
lar literature, that the chief end of life 
is to make money and acquire property. 
The result lias been a fierce and awful 
competition in which the strong have 
gradually and almost unconsciously en¬ 
croached upon the rights of the weak, 
using every new power of invention or 
of favorable location, to increase their 
advantage. Cities and towns have grown, 
and drained the farms and villages, be¬ 
cause ambitious young men saw that 
money circulated more freely among a 
crowd, and society had decreed that 
money was the chief end of life. Even 
these young men, country-born and 
bred, would soon bring themselves to 
advocate laws which they knew would 
aid in depopulating the old home town 
if they thought the change would bring 
increased business to them in the city. 
So long as American society is but a 
fierce struggle for competition, with the 
prize given to the strongest arm, the 
town -will continue to draw value away 
from the farm—unless the farmer can 
show that there is more money to be 
made in the country, a thing not likely 
to occur at once. 
Now the Shakers present a living ex¬ 
ample of exact cooperation. Life in their 
quiet community, is the reverse of that 
in the outside world. On a beautiful 
day in June we drove over the hills at 
Mount Lebanon, N. Y., and came in 
sight of the peaceful Shaker village. It 
was a quietand restful scene. The shaded 
country road ran through the village 
with neat, comfortable houses and well- 
kept gardens on either hand. There was 
an air of solid prosperity about the 
place that few farm villages in this age 
can show. We had supposed that the 
Shakers were a retiring people, shunning 
publicity and not desiring visitors. In 
this we were mistaken, for the greeting 
was so kindly and hearty that there 
could be no doubt about its genuine¬ 
ness. From talks with some of the lead¬ 
ing members, and a study of their liter¬ 
ature, we are able to give the following 
facts about these “ Shakers,” or “ True 
Believers,” as they prefer to be called : 
The society is supposed to be composed 
of those who desire to live in such a way 
that the spiritual, rather than the world¬ 
ly nature, will be developed. Believing 
that the love of money lies at the base 
of most worldly trouble and selfishness, 
they started with the idea that no mem¬ 
ber should ever be able to acquire more 
wealth than another. Property is all 
held in common. Members are free to 
leave at any time they desire ; but they 
cannot take one cent of the property 
with them. The fruits of their labor go 
to the common fund. They can enjoy 
them only so long as they remain mem¬ 
bers of the community. There can be no 
competition here, because the work of 
the strongest and shrewdest counts for 
no more than that of the weakest. Both 
receive a home—shelter, food, clothing 
and amusement as the result of their 
work. Of the 200 people in the com¬ 
munity, all are upon an equality as re¬ 
gards the comforts of life, and the prop¬ 
erty of the society becomes more and 
more valuable as years go by. 
Let us take any other farm community 
of 200 persons divided into 50 private 
families, and compare their business re¬ 
sults with those of the Shakers. In any 
50 families, there will be degrees of rich 
and poor. The total business result will 
be less because there is no organization 
and greater waste. A few men will be 
found holding mortgages on the prop¬ 
erty of their less fortunate neighbors. 
You will find more discontent, more un¬ 
happiness, more envy, more worry, and 
more longing for some indefinable bet¬ 
ter thing than among the peaceful and 
quiet Shakers ; but you will also find in 
these scattered families, that love for 
one’s own little home—wife and children 
and the independence of private means— 
that the Shakers do not know or realize. 
You see, it can be shown that this ex¬ 
act cooperation is not all brightness. 
Here, as everywhere else, it is personal 
sacrifice and unselfishness that make 
cooperation possible. We hope to bring 
this out still clearer in discussing the 
social and religious features of Shaker 
life. 
FEEDING COTTON SEED TO STOCK. 
The following notes were prepared by 
Prof. A. M. Soule, of the Texas Experi¬ 
ment Station, where extensive experi¬ 
ments have been made with cotton seed 
and its hulls and meal. When fed with 
judgment, the cotton-seed meal proves a 
cheap stock food for certain animals. In 
the North, the hulls alone, or the whole 
seed, are not popular or profitable. We 
think that this article justifies The R. 
N.-Y. in saying that, with average cows, 
cotton-seed meal should not be fed to ex¬ 
ceed 2Jt' pounds per day for each cow, 
and never unless the cattle are at pasture 
or eating ensilage : 
Cotton-seed meal and hulls, raw, 
boiled, or roasted cotton seed,«cannot be 
fed to hogs. Of the combinations used, 
pure meal was fatal in every instance 
but one, and boiled cotton seed, the 
least so. The possibilities of feeding 
this food with some other product, are 
as yet an unsolved problem. Various 
combinations were tried here, singly and 
in conjunction with corn meal the past 
winter, but failed to give results of value. 
It is true that the hogs were not killed, 
but if it failed to fatten (as it seems to 
do), it is of no value. Again, it must be 
borne in mind that, as a food, it is very 
distasteful to hogs, and they will, in 
some instances, almost starve rather 
than eat it, so that it is sometimes diffi¬ 
cult to know whether it was the effects 
of starvation, or the meal, that was re¬ 
sponsible for the trouble. It is true, the 
hogs fed on the seed or its products, will 
make some gains; but in the experiments 
noted, these have been so slow and un¬ 
satisfactory as far to outweigh its use¬ 
fulness, to say nothing of the risk in¬ 
curred. There are those that claim that 
they can fatten hogs on boiled cotton 
seed, singly and in combination with 
corn or other food stuffs ; but provided 
these instances are correct, the question 
is, is it the union of the two that produces 
these results, or will the corn be equally 
as effective ? The effects of the cotton¬ 
seed meal will, doubtless, be modified by 
the companion food. 
As to wha t the deleterious principle in 
this food is, we cannot say. The in¬ 
vestigations made by I)r. Wiley reveal 
the facts that cotton-seed meal contains 
two alkaloids ; the one poisonous, but 
in insufficient quantities to prove in¬ 
jurious to stock, and the other in quan¬ 
tity, but of a harmless character. Some 
feeders claim that the poisonous prin¬ 
ciple is found in the hulls only ; but if 
this were the fact, then hogs would not 
be killed by eating the meal. Others 
claim that the trouble is found in the 
hulls, and is similar to that found in 
cotton roots ; but so far as I know, there 
is no evidence to substantiate this state¬ 
ment. 
It has long been known that cotton¬ 
seed meal will produce ill-health, blind- 
(Continued on next page.) 
A KNIFE 
in the hand of a Surgeon 
gives you a feeling of hor¬ 
ror and dread. There is 
no longer necessity for its 
use in many diseases form¬ 
erly regarded as incurable 
without cutting. 
The Triumph of 
Conservative Surgery 
is well illustrated by the fact that 
PI 1PTI 1RF or Breach, is now radically 
I\UI I UivL cured without the knife and 
without pain. Clumsy, chafing trusses can be 
thrown away ! They never cure but often induce 
inflammation, strangulation and death. 
TUMORS Ovarian, Fibroid (Uterine) and 
1 LmiVH\ 0 ? m any others, are now removed 
without the perils of cutting operations. 
PM F Tl 1/VIOPQ however large, Fis- 
* 1 1 UiTIVylvO} tula atu j other diseases 
of the lower bowel, are permanently cured with¬ 
out pain or resort to the knife. 
STONF * n Bladder, no matter how large, 
Olv/INL, j s crushed, pulverized, washed out 
and perfectly removed without cutting. 
^sTPIfTI 1RF Urinary Passage is also 
Olivivl bl\L, removed without cutting in 
hundreds of cases. For pamphlet, references 
and all particulars, send io cents (in stamps) to 
World’s Dispensary Medical Association, No. 663 
Main Street, Buffalo, N. Y. 
MOTHERS_«ss^- 
and those soon to 
become mothers, 
should know that 
Dr. Pierce’s Favorite 
Prescription robs 
childbirth of its tor¬ 
tures, terrors and 
dangers to both 
mother and child, by 
aiding nature in pre¬ 
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for parturition. 
Thereby “labor” 
and the period of 
confinement ar 
greatly shortened. It also promotes the 
secretion of an abundance of nourishment 
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Mrs. Dora A. Guthrie, of Oakley , Overton Co., 
Tenn., writes: “When I began taking Dr. 
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Now I do all my housework, washing, cooking, 
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Your 4 Favorite Prescription ’ is the best to take 
before confinement, or at least it proved so with 
me. I never suffered so little with any of my 
children as I did with my last.” 
/W/// ( 
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38 Dey Street. N. Y 
Horses, Cattle, Sheep and Swine. 
Geo. W. Curtis, M. S. A. Origin, History, 
Improvement, Description, Characteristics, 
Merits, Objections, Adaptability South, etc., 
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The Business Hen. 
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means of making a dollar. The price in cloth 
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one new subscription. 
The Rural New-Yorker, New York. 
