1184 
•She  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
September  9,  1916. 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
THE  BUSINESS  FARMER'S  PAPER 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  for  Country  and  Suburban  lfome» 
Established  iSSO 
I  ntili-liod  nrceklj  by  the  Rural  J'liblisliiof  Coripnnj,  338  W-it  30th  Street,  Sen  fork 
Herbert  W.  Coixwowo op,  Fn  si  V-nt  and  Editor. 
Ji.oiS  .1,  Dillon,  Treasurer  and  (Ji  nt  i  al  Manager. 
tVm.  F.  Dillon,  Seorelftry.  Mr.*:.  E.  T.  Koxi.it.  Assoeiato  Editor. 
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the  transaction,  and  to  identify  it,  you  should  mention  Tun  Rural  New- 
Yorker  wl\(n  writing  the  advertiser. 
THERE  wHI  be  move  fanners  in  the  next  New 
York  Legislature  than  in  any  previous  one  if 
plans  work  out.  Many  farmers  are  being  designated 
for  the  primaries.  In  Orleans  County  Dr.  F.  M. 
Lattin,  a  fruit  grower,  is  in  the  primary  for  the 
Assembly  nomination,  while  Marc  W.  Cole  will  run 
for  Senator  against  Geo.  F.  Thompson.  Both  Cole 
and  Lattin  will  stand  for  marketing  reform.  There 
are  many  other  farmer  candidates  in  other  rural 
counties — they  are  fanners  too. 
IN  spite  of  all  that  lias  been  said  about  it  we  have 
a  number  of  people  writing  in  to  say  they  will 
sow  Sweet  clover  in  late  September  as  a  cover  crop. 
Their  idea  is  to  have  a  crop  for  plowing  under  next 
Spring.  They  will  lose  their  seed  and  their  labor, 
tor  Sweet  clover  is  not  adapted  to  this  late  seeding. 
It  should  go  in  during  July  at  the  latest  in  our  lati¬ 
tude,  if  you  expect  to  see  it  again!  Do  not  sow 
Sweet  clover  in  the  Fall  or  Crimson  clover  in  the 
Spring  unless  you  want  to  throw  the  seed  away. 
Bye  is  now  the  safest  cover  crop  for  you  to  use  in 
corn  or  after  potatoes.  We  should  put  a  little  Al- 
sike  clover  in  with  it. 
* 
THE  Ohio  Experiment  Station  tells  of  a  new 
scheme  for  cooperation..  In  Miami  County  the 
Hessian  fly  had  done  great  damage.  The  county 
agent  and  the  State  entomologist  assisted,  and  the 
farmers  were  organized.  As  many  as  possible  were 
induced  to  sign  a  pledge  not  to  seed  any  wheat  un¬ 
til  the  entomologist  advised.  Then  a  breeding  cage 
was  installed  at  the  county  farm,  and  complete  rec¬ 
ords  of  egg-laying  by  the  insect  were  kept.  In  this 
way  it  was  learned  just  when  the  new  brood  of 
insects  would  appear  and  seeding  was  held  hack 
until  after  October  1  when  practically  all  the  flies 
had  disappeared.  The  result  of  this  cooperative 
work  was  very  satisfactory.  It  was  almost  impos¬ 
sible  to  locate  a  single  Hessian  fly  on  any  farm  field, 
while,  had  there  not  been  this  concerted  action,  there 
would  have  been  disaster  to  the  wheat.  It  makes 
little  difference  what  you  cooperate  for — to  kill  an 
insect  or  give  new  life  to  farming — (lie  act  of  com¬ 
bining  forces  gives  a  giant’s  strength. 
❖ 
AS  we  write  the  nation  is  threatened  with  a  great 
railroad  strike  on  the  part  of  workers  on  freight 
trains.  Our  readers  are  probably  familiar  with  the 
chief  points  at  issue  between  the  workmen  and  the 
railroad  executives.  The  workmen  demand  an  eight- 
hour  day  with  increased  wages  for  work  extending 
over  that  time.  The  railroad  men  will  not  grant  this 
unless  assured  that  they  can  have  an  increase  of 
freight  rates.  President  Wilson  attempted  to  adjust 
the  matter,  hut  without  success.  lie  thereupon  went 
to  Congress  and  requested  new  legislation.  This  in¬ 
cluded  the  establishment  of  a  legal  eight-hour  day, 
compulsory  arbitration  of  labor  troubles  and  Federal 
light  to  seize  the  railroads  and  run  them  with  draft¬ 
ed  men  in  case  of  a  strike  or  public  need.  At  this 
time  it  is  not  known  just  what  Congress  will  do 
about  it.  From  the  standpoint  of  farmers  there  are 
several  things  in  all  this  which  are  of  supreme  im¬ 
portance.  A  freight  strike  now  would  mean  the  loss 
of  millions  in  fruit,  vegetables  and  other  perishable 
crops,  and  this  loss  would  fall  directly  upon  our 
farmers.  As  for  an  eight-hour  day,  farmers  at  this 
season  must  average  12  hours  or«more,  and  then  fre¬ 
quently  fail  to  finish  their  work.  Railroad  em¬ 
ployees  are  paid  for  their  eight-hour  day  far  more, 
on  the  average,  than  the  farmers  receive  for  their 
12  hours  of  labor.  Through  their  thorough  organiza¬ 
tion  400,000  workmen,  or  less  than  half  of  one  per 
cent,  of  the  population,  get  what  they  want,  while 
15,000,000  farmers,  working  as  individuals,  must  take 
what  they  can  get!  President  Wilson’s  call  for  Fed¬ 
eral  control  of  the  railroads  may  be  considered  a 
step  toward  government  ownership  or  absolute  con¬ 
trol,  for  if  this  be  needed  in  time  of  strife  it  will  he 
also  needed  in  time  of  peace.  The  production  of  food 
and  fibre  is  just  as  important  ns  its  transportation. 
If  the  farmers  of  the  country  really  understood  what 
these  workmen  are  paid  and  how  they  are  able  to 
obtain  it  the  35-cent  dollar  would  he  soon  doubled. 
* 
“1  Ye  can  do  it  ourselves /” 
IIAT  is  the  slogan  of  the  Skillet  Creek  Farmers’ 
Club,  as  recorded  in  Bulletin  271  of  the  Wis¬ 
consin  Experiment  Station.  This  club  numbers 
about  75  men,  women  and  children,  and  no  one  can 
estimate  the  good  which  it  has  worked  out  for  the 
community. 
The  result  which  gives  the  people  of  the  Skillet  Creek 
neighborhood  the  greatest  satisfaction  is  the  delightful 
spirit  of  friendliness,  sympathetic  interest,  and  helpful¬ 
ness  which  is  the  ruling  spirit  of  the  neighborhood. 
There  has  been  established  a  neighborhood  ideal  which 
does  not  countenance  harsh  criticism  or  unkind  gossip. 
The  result  of  this  condition  is  displayed  in  the  per¬ 
vading  spirit  of  'contentment  and  the  reluctance  of  the 
people  to  sell  their  farms  and  leave  the  neighborhood. 
The  R.  N.-Y.  lias  long  been  on  record  as  believing 
that  the  improving  of  our  country  conditions  and 
our  business  relation  is  at  the  basis  a  moral  propo¬ 
sition.  There  must  be  finer  and  more  friendly  re¬ 
lation  between  man  and  man  and  neighbor  and 
neighbor  before  we  can  ever  put  up  any  united 
strength  against  the  interests  which  are  bleeding 
farming.  The  members  of  this  farmers’  club  say, 
“ire  can  do  it  ourselves because  they  know  the 
neighborly  tie  holds  them  together.  It  is  a  mistake 
for  any  group  of  farmers  to  wait  for  someone  from 
the  outside  to  come  and  “help”  them — and  then  de¬ 
mand  half  the  proceeds  for  the  service.  Let  the 
-State  or  its  representatives  provide  the  machinery 
or  the  opportunity  and  then  let  the  farmers  get  to¬ 
gether  and  say,  “We  can  do  it  ourselves 
THIS  milk  question  or  the  contest  over  milk 
prices  has  now  come  down  to  a  definite  issue. 
The  details  are  given  on  the  next  page.  The  Dairy¬ 
men's  Reague  is  to  handle  the  milk  produced  by  its 
members  and  the  Foods  and  Markets  Department  is 
to  act  as  agent  for  selling  it.  The  League,  through 
its  full  membership,  can  offer  a  controlling  quantity 
<>f  milk.  The  dealers  must,  have  this  supply  and  will 
pay  an  advanced  price  for  it  if  they  find  that  the 
League  members  hang  together.  The  Department 
can  and  will  handle  the  selling  end  properly  hut  it 
must  he  able  to  know  definitely  that  a  certain  quan¬ 
tity  of  milk  will  lie  delivered.  Therefore  the  whole 
tiling  comes  hack  to  the  farmers  themselves,  and  they 
are  face  to  face  with  the  responsibility.  After  end¬ 
less  work  and  planning  the  -situation  lias  reached  a 
point  far  in  advance  of  any  previous  situation  in 
the  milk  business.  The  final  test  has  now  come  for 
the  Dairymen's  League.  If  its  members  stand  firm, 
like  an  army,  and  refuse  to  make  contracts  as  in¬ 
dividuals,  lmt  let  the  League  sell  their  milk  through 
its  agent,  they  will  win  their  battle.  Tt  is  one  of 
those  occasions  which  come  up  once  in  10  or  20  years 
as  a  combination  of  public  sentiment  and  natural 
conditions.  “Once  unto  every  man /”  It  is  now  up 
to  the  farmers  themselves! 
* 
In  the  editorial  on  the  milk  situation,  page  1134.  I 
think  that  the  note  from  the  Binghamton  (N.  Y.) 
Herald  is  the  foundation  stone.  The  man  who  is  really 
losing  money,  the  man  who  gets  little  or  nothing  for 
his  labor,  is  the  small  farmer.  He  has  a  few  cows  and 
makes  a  can  or  two  of  milk.  His  cows  are  below  the 
average,  and  he  cannot  get  money  enough  ahead  to 
buy  better  ones.  lie  does  not  sell  out  because,  he  says, 
“I  can’t  get  my  money  out  of  tny  cows.”  He  bates  to 
lose,  so  he  keeps  on  making  milk  and  gets  just  enough 
to  exist,  not  live,  lie  can't  seem  to  see  that  it  would 
he  better  by  far  for  him  to  sell  his  few  cows  and  go  to 
work  by  the  day.  Or  better  still  if  he  would  sell  half 
of  his  cows  and  raise  most  of  his  grain  and  feed  his 
milk  to  calves  and  pigs,  his  returns  would  he  larger. 
If  some  of  thp  hill  farmers  would  speak,  that  is  the 
way  you  would  find  most  of  them.  Father  and  I  made 
milk  for  a  while,  hut  we  gave  it  up.  We  churn  now 
and  feed  the  skim-milk  on  the  farm,  W.  E.  B. 
Sullivan  Co.,  N.  Y. 
HAT  is  a  clear,  simple  statement  of  the  hill 
farmers’  problem.  Something  like  1,000  agri¬ 
cultural  experts  in  the  State  of  New  York  stand 
ready  to  advise  such  men,  and  most  of  them  cannot 
understand  his  problem  because  tli£y  have  not  lived 
his  life.  It  seems  to  us  more  necessary  that  such  a 
life  story  be  told  than  that  the  larger  operations  of 
successful  farmers  be  recorded.  The  State  cannot 
afford  to  have  these  hill  farmers  pushed  off  the  stage 
as  freeholders.  We  wish  some  one  could  tell  their 
story  with  a  power  that  would  compel  the  public 
to  listen.  We  think  many  of  these  farms  might  well 
go  to  Sweet  clover  and  sheep. 
* 
On  page  1139  C.  D.  Dayton  criticizes  Fred  D.  Spen¬ 
cer’s  report  before  the  Wicks  committee.  He  finds 
Mr.  Spencer’s  business  too  small — instead  of  12  cmvs 
he  should  have  20.  Maybe  he  should,  hut  can  he? 
There  may  be  329  reasons  why  he  cannot,  and  any  one 
of  this  number  may  be  quite  sufficient.  Writing  to  a 
friend  in  the  city  this  Summer  I  mentioned  knocking 
i  he  bugs  off  the  garden  potatoes.  She  canoe  back  at  me. 
"Why  don’t  you  spray  those  potatoes  with  Paris  green?” 
The  writer  (a  woman)  knows  Paris  green  by  sight 
and  is  move  or  less  intimate  with  acetate  of  lead,  but 
is  literally  handicapped,  having  crippled  hands,  so  that 
spraying  the  potatoes  was  an  impossibility.  The  man 
of  the  house  was  struggling  with  an  unprecedented  hay 
crop,  and  the  effort  at  bugging  potatoes  was  merely  a 
Stopgap  owing  to  his  inability  to  spray  as  usual.  From 
personal  experience  then  1  can  say  that  advice  that 
does  not  take  into  consideration  the  individual  'handi¬ 
cap  is  worse  than  wasted,  for  its  hint  at  a  lack  of  in¬ 
telligence  is  apt  to  be  resented  by  the  advisee.  In  this 
character  of  advisee  the  farmer  is  both  patient  and 
long  suffering.  c. 
E  find  that  one  reason  why  farmers  are  some¬ 
times  slow  to  take  expert  advice  is  that  it 
does  not  consider  their  limitation  or  conditions.  The 
advice,  may  he  sound  and  true  when  the  conditions 
are  right  and  yet  he  “misfit  advice”  when  applied  to 
another  farmer.  This  sort  of  advice  is  given  very 
freely  in  this  milk  proposition  and  it  probably  does 
more  harm  than  good.  This  is  a  safe  rule:  “If  you 
cannot  put  yourself  in  the  other  fellow’s  place  do  not 
advise  him — just  suggest.  ’ 
* 
One  of  the  best  sheep  men  1  knew,  and  one  of  the 
best  farmers,  also,  couldn’t  read  or  write,  but  he  could 
think  and  do  things.  I  am  in  favor  of  education,  the 
right  kind,  but  American  education  today  has  something 
the  matter  with  it.  It  makes  the  blade  mau  “hear  a 
call”  or  starts  him  to  work  the  other  mau  ;  the  red  man 
to  drink  and  curse  like  the  paleface,  and  the  white 
man  to  want  a.  position  where  he  can  lord  it  over  some¬ 
body  and  keep  his  hands  in  bis  pockets.  w.  w.  R. 
YET  there  are  black  men  and  red  men  and  white 
men  who  absorb  a  good  share  of  this  education 
and  come  out  clean  and  strong,  with  a  true  idea  of 
service.  Is  the  education  at  fault — or  is  the  trou¬ 
ble  with  the  parents  and  the  pupils?  Our  views  on 
this  subject  are  well  known.  We  think  there  are 
too  many  hoys  and  girls  sent  to  college  to  get  rid  of 
them,  to  fill  up  their  ungainly  years,  or  because 
other  children  go  as  a  matter  of  fashion.  These 
children  who  wander  through  college  life  in  an  aim¬ 
less,  inefficient,  way  iujure  the  college  and  do  them¬ 
selves  little  good.  Far  better  put  the  children  at 
some  useful  work  rather  than  send  them  to  college. 
On  the  other  hand  if  they  have  something  of  the 
vision  and  thought  of  what  true  education  means 
let  them  go  to  college  if  it  takes  your  last  dollar  to 
put  them  over.  Education  is  like  life — what  we 
make  it.  Too  many  people  have  tried  to  make  it  a 
fad  when  it  ought  to  be  the  very  enduring  spirit  of 
life. 
* 
Your  paper  docs  not  boast  and  blare  nor  hold  out 
false  hopes  and  make  insipid  promises  and  that  is  why 
I  take  it.  I  am  not  a  big  farmer,  but  what  I  do  is  done 
intensively.  One  farm  paper  managed  intensively  is  of 
more  worth  than  a  dozen  catchpenny  papers. 
Massachusetts.  GEO.  HEMINGWAY. 
ONE  of  the  most  satisfactory  things  about  R. 
N.-Y.  readers  is  the  fact  that  we  need  not  “boast 
and  blare”  or  tell  people  what  the  paper  is.  We  see 
some  of  the  papers  taking  up  much  good  space  in 
talking  about  themselves,  explaining  what  they  are 
doing  and  patting  themselves  on  the  back  generally. 
We  like  to  go  on  the  principle  that  our  readers  are 
intelligent  people  who  know  what  they  want  and  are 
capable  of  doing  their  own  thinking.  Thus  we  put 
the  best,  we  have  into  The  R.  N.-Y.  and  let  it  go  at 
that.  A  bluff  and  a  boast  usually  run  before  a  gold 
brick,  and  it  is  a  waste  of  energy  to  tell  intelligent 
people  what  they  are  very  capable  of  deciding  for 
themselves.  So  it  is  that  we  frequently  have  letters 
like  the  following : 
Use  the  enclosed  to  renew  my  subscription  for  five 
years.  I  feel  sure  my  confidence  in  The  R.  N.-Y.  won’t 
change  in  that  leugth  of  time  even  if  the  subscription 
price  should  be  raised.  Ji.  N.  r. 
< 'i-nnecticut. 
This  man  does  not  need  to  he  told  that  during  the 
next  five  years  we  shall  go  right  ahead  along  the 
road,  trying  to  improve  the  roadbed  and  thus  make 
easier  traveling  for  the  multitude. 
Brevities 
In  the  North  it  is  time  to  begin  planning  for  the 
stoves  or  Winter  heating. 
Most  apples  are  good,  but  McIntosh  Red  properly 
grown  is  about  it. 
Can  anyone  tell  how  to  get  rid  of  duckweed  when  it 
has  once  taken  possession  of  a  lawn?  Our  experts  give 
it  up. 
One  thing  the  dreaded  “strike”  will  do — make  motor 
trucks  more  popular  than  ever  and  convince  thousands 
of  farmers  that  the  trucks  must  come. 
Many  a  cow  will  eat  ragweed  pickles  with  her  sil¬ 
age  next  Winter,  for  the  cornfields  are  stuffed  with  the 
weed,  and  it  will  go  right  into  the  silo. 
The  Rhode  Island  Experiment  Station  says  that  R. 
I.  Bent  grass  is  found  in  many  old  fields  of  that  State. 
The  seed  is  now  valuable  and  in  good  demand,  and  will 
give  quite  an  income  to  those  who  can  harvest  it. 
In  a  recent  ride  through  New  Jersey  our  folks  were 
help  up  four  times  by  local  health  officers  and 
‘'searched”  for  passengers  under  16  years.  We  keep 
our  children  at  home,  yet  it  is  doubtful  if  local  author¬ 
ities  have  any  legal  right  to  hold  up  passengers  on  the 
highway. 
