1372 
TShe  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
THE  BU8IXER&  F  A  R 1/7-:/?'  A  PAPER 
A  National  Weekly  •louriial  IV* r  C‘nnntrjT  amt  Sti l>u rlian  llomo* 
,  Etttnbl  Inked  ffii Jf. 
1'ublUhed  weekly  by  t li**  burnt  Pttlt1i*Iilnic  Company,  338  IVi  ^i  30th  Biroot,  Now  York 
HERBERT  W.  <  v>», ling  wood.  Uru«1<1r»tit  ami  Editor. 
.Ions  .1  Dtt.t/ »n%  TroaKuror  and  (Jonoiul  Malinger. 
Wm.  F.  Dillon,  Serrelrtiy.  Mlt&  K  T.  lfdYLK.  Associate  Editor. 
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advertisers  unknown  t « •  us  ;  and  rush  most,  accompany  transient  orders. 
“A  SQUARE  DEAL” 
Wr  Relieve  that  every  advertisement  in  this  paper  is  hacked  by  a  respon- 
nil. Ir  poison.  Wo  HH6  every  possible  in-ecaiiUon  and  admit  the  ad\  ertising  of 
rehahje  houses  only.  Hut  to  make  doubly  sure,  we  will  make  gaud  any  loss 
to  paid  subscriber*  sustained  by  trusting  any  deliberate  swindler,  irrespon¬ 
sible  advertisers  or  misleading  advcrUpemcuts  in  our  columns.  and  any 
fucJi  swindler  will  he  publicly  exposed.  We  are  also  oltoii  called  upon 
to  ad  lust  ditfcivncoi  or  ruikdttkes  between  our  sub-crib'  end  honest, 
rc.spotisjblc  nouscK.  whet  her  Hdvcrtl.'tcrK  or  tipt.  We  willingly  e  *•  our  good 
officer,  to  this  end,  but  such  cv**os  should  not  be  confused  \>  ith  dishonest 
t ran k[ic 1 1  « >xnt.  We  protect.  KtihKc’ribors  against  rogues,  but  we  will  not  be 
rcsftoiiaible  for  th«  debts  of  honest  bankrupts  sanctioned  bv  tin*  courts, 
>f»tice  of  the  complaint  inu*f  1m  sen*  to  u*.  within  one  month  of  the  time  of 
tin-  transaction,  and  to  identify  it.  you  shoujd  mention  Tut:  It  UR  A  L  NEW- 
YORKER  when  writing  the  advertiser, 
Good  Friends  Who  Stick 
No.  II. 
OME  papers  have  fair-weather  friends  who  stand 
liy  when  things  come  their  way,  but  seldom  take 
any  risk  in  proclaiming  their  friendship.  We  seem 
to  have  a  good  share  of  the  other  kind  too — the 
stand-up-and-figlif  friends. 
At  a  meeting  I  was  addressing  up  in  Delaware  Coun¬ 
ty,  some  one  in  the  audience  asked  me  a  question,  the 
import  of  which  1  didn’t,  catch.  1  hesitated  a  second, 
intending  to  request  him  to  repeat  it.  Before  I  could 
do  so,  some  one  on  the  other  side  of  the  hall  inquired 
df  my  inquisitive  friend,  “Do  you  read  The  Rural 
New-\ okker ?”  "No,”  lie  answered,  "1  never  heard  of 
it.”  “Well,  then,  my  friend,  you  bad  better  go  back 
home,  it  will  take  you  too  long  to  catch  up  with  the 
things  concerning  the  farmer,  if  you  don’t  read  The 
Rural  New-Yorker.”  .toiix  e.  kraft. 
Kingston,  N.  Y, 
We  will  just  leave  it  with  the  big  army  of  read¬ 
ers  to  say  whether  this  advice  was  sound  or  not. 
* 
WORMY  chestnuts  may  be  condemned  under 
the  food  and  drug  laws,  and  several  shipments 
have  been  held  up  and  condemned.  The  worms  de¬ 
velop  rapidly  in  stored  nuts,  and  the  safest  plan  is 
to  fumigate  them  with  bisulphide  of  carbon  as  we 
have  often  described  for  beans.  The  chestnuts  are 
put  into  a  tight  box  or  barrel.  To  one  bushel  of 
nuts  one  ounce  of  the  bisulphide  is  poured  into  a 
saucer  and  put  on  top  of  the  nuts — all  well  covered. 
The  liquid  evaporates  and  forms  a  heavy  gas,  which 
works  down  through  the  nuts.  We  wish  that  moldy 
“mental  chestnuts”  could  be  destroyed  in  the  same 
way. 
* 
IS  the  mail  who  milks  the  cow  competent  to  pre¬ 
pare  that  milk  for  human  consumption V  You  may 
call  that  a  foolish  question,  yet  it  stands  at  the 
foundation  of  future  dairy  progress.  The  greatest 
profit  in  the  milk  business  is  made  by  those  who 
assemble,  grade  and  process  the  milk  so  if  is  ac¬ 
cepted  as  legal  and  “sanitary.”  The  distributors 
have  been  doing  this  work  because  they  have  se¬ 
cured  a  practical  monopoly  of  the  fixtures  and  rep- 
utalion  for  doing  it:  right.  Thus  they  have  been  able 
to  divide  the  consumer’s  dollar  for  milk  roughly 
into  three  nearly  equal  parts — one-third  each  for 
producing,  preparing  and  distributing.  There  is  no 
good  reason  why  the  farmer  should  not  prepare  this 
milk  as  well  as  (he  distributor  and  fake  flic  pay 
for  doing  it.  Why  should  a  farmer  drop  control  of 
the  milk  when  it  leaves  bis  barn,  and  let  others  take 
out  of  it  money  which  by  right  belongs  to  him? 
We  have  never  heard  but  one  reason — Which  is 
not  based  on  reason  at  all.  The  large  cities  are 
afflicted  with  a  number  of  human  pests  who  have 
capitalized  tile  word  “sanitary”  for  their  own  selfish 
use.  We  do  not  refer  to  the  honest  scientists  who 
try  in  a  sensible  way  to  protect  the  public,  hut  to 
the  yellow  human  screams  and  false  alarms  who 
frighten  the  public  with  terrible  stories  of  “un¬ 
sanitary”  food.  Probably  the  worst  type  of  those 
false  alarms  is  Alfred  W.  McCann,  a  so-called  food 
expert.  During  the  recent  battle  over  milk  prices 
McCann  tried  to  convince  New  York  people  that 
the  only  way  to  obtain  pure  milk  was  to  let  the 
big  distributors  keep  up  their  present  monopoly. 
He  said  the  farmers  might  send  dirty  and  poisonous 
milk,  and  he  had  Commissioner  Dillon  pictured  as 
a  modern  Ilerod  murdering  thousands  of  dear  ba¬ 
bies.  Of  course  a  fellow  like  McCann  would  go  to 
a  farmer’s  table  and  make  a  full  meal.  He  would 
eat  homemade  sausage,  cottage  cheese,  butter  or 
fruit  until  you  had  to  carry  him  away  from  the 
table.  Then  he  would  go  back  to  the  city  and  rage 
at  the  “unsanitary”  practices  of  farmers! 
The  fact  is  that  much  of  this  so-called  “sanitary” 
talk  is  what  the  boys  call  “bunk,”  and  is  used  to 
exploit  some  monopoly  or  some  patent  process  for 
preparing  food.  When  farmers  begin  to  control  the 
methods  of  standardizing  and  legalizing  the  milk 
they  produce  they  will  find  this  fierce  army  of  “san¬ 
itary  experts”  arrayed  against  them.  We  shall  he 
obliged  to  fight  their  outrageous  falsehoods  as  we 
have  fought  the  distributors.  The  farmers  are  fully 
capable  of  supplying  the  retailers  with  clean,  “san¬ 
itary"  milk  which  will  satisfy  any  reasonable  scien¬ 
tist.  They  will  have  to  come  to  it  sooner  or  later  in 
order  to  control  their  business  and  get  their  fair 
share  out  of  it. 
* 
THE  question  of  an  effective  Foods  and  Markets 
Department  for  New  York  is  not  a  national 
issue,  yet  something  of  the  same  nature  is  likely 
to  come  before  Congress.  Through  some  mix-up  of 
names  the  letter  asking  candidates  for  an  opinion 
was  sent  to  Hon.  L.  W.  Mott  of  Oswego,  and  he  re¬ 
plies  : 
T  hove  been  nominated  for  Con  fess  and  not  for  the 
New  York  Legislature,  hut  at  the  same  time  1  am 
glad  to  indorse  tin*  work  which  the  Ibimui  of  Foods 
and  Markets  has  been  doing  in  the  State.  Of  course, 
no  public  service  department  can  be  operated  without 
criticism,  and  generally  speaking,  it  would  not  receive 
criticism  if  the  officials  at  its  head  were  not.  active  and 
up  and  doing. 
I  hope  to  see  that  the  Department  is  continued  and 
its  scope  broadened.  That,  can  be  done  only  by  gener¬ 
ous  support  and  appropriations.  I  trust  that  the  com¬ 
ing  session  of  the  State  Legislature  will  recognize  the 
worth  of  the  Department,  based  on  its  past  record. 
LUTHER  W.  MOTT. 
Thus  far  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three 
dodgers  every  candidate  from  a  rural  couuty  lias 
pledged  himself  to  give  the  department  a  fair  show¬ 
ing.  What  Mr.  Mott  says  about  criticism  is  right. 
The  interests  which  now  control  public  affairs  want 
a  farm  official  who  will  simply  sit  in  a  soft  chair 
as  a  harmless  ornament.  Whenever  such  a  man  is 
.“.bused  it  is  nine  chances  in  10  that  he  putting  up  a 
fight,  and  has  hit  some  full-blooded  handler  right, 
on  the  nose. 
* 
Sullivan  County.  N.  Y..  and  the  Sullivan  County 
portion  of  25th  Senatorial  District  is  being  organized 
this  week,  through  the  Legislative  Cormuitfoes  of  the 
Granges,  for  the  benefit  of  Foods  and  Markets.  Orange 
County  has  been ’invited  to  cooperate  in  the  work  com¬ 
mon  to  the  25th  District.  A  meeting  will  be  called  at 
Liberty  at  which  all  the  legislative  committeemen  in  the 
county  will  be  in  attendance.  Requests  for  pledges  from 
the  different  party  nominees  have  already  been  sent, 
out  and  our  candidates  will  be  selected  at  the  Liberty 
meeting,  where  also  a  campaign  program  will  he  draft¬ 
ed  and  adopted.  henry  musch,  jr. 
E  think  this  is  the  first  time  in  New  York 
Stale  that,  a  straight  farm  issue  has  been 
put  definitely  into  politics.  This  method  is  quite 
common  in  some  Western  States  and  there  seems 
no  good  reason  why  it  should  not  be  employed  here. 
We  predict  that  before  another  Presidential  elec¬ 
tion  the  greatest  public  question  in  New  York  will 
be  the  fairer  distribution  of  food  products  and  the 
dollar  paid  by  the  consumer.  The  present  election 
has  been  the  dullest  since  the  war  and  we  think  it 
has  done  more  than  any  other  to  smash  up  party 
lines  and  party  prejudices.  The  farmers  are  to  give 
the  country  new  issues. 
* 
MR.  HARVEY  LOSES]  starts  something  on 
page  1304  when  he  asks  about  potash.  For 
two  years  now  we  have  all  been  cut  down  in  our 
1  otash  supplies,  and  we  should  be  able  to  tell 
whether  crops  have  suffered  in  consequence.  The 
scientific  experiments  appear  to  show  that  on  most 
of  the  Atlantic  slope  lands  potash  is  needed.  Much 
of  this  land  is  naturally  deficient  in  potash,  and  the 
crops  taken  from  it  have  carried  large  quantities  of 
that  element.  Most  of  us  have  taken  the  word  of 
the  scientific  men  for  it  and  paid  our  money  freely 
for  potash.  Has  this  been  wise?  The  past  two 
years  have  given  us  a  chance  to  ask  the  soil.  What 
does  it  say  to  your  crops?  Let  us  have  the  facts 
without  any  prejudice  or  biased  judgment.  After 
cutting  down  the  potash  for  two  years. — what  do 
,\  on  know? 
* 
THOUSANDS  of  letters  like  the  following  are  be¬ 
ing  sent  to  Northern  investors  and  money¬ 
lenders  from  the  South. 
I  am  still  offering  Texas  farm  mortgages  for  sale, 
paying  ~J/>%  brokerage  therefor.  More  loan  compan¬ 
ies  are  operating  in  Texas  than  ever  before  in  its  his¬ 
tory,  confirming  my  belief  that  there  is  no  better  field 
for  such  class  of  investments. 
fn  Texas  the  legal  rate  is  6%,  but  by  contract 
10%.  Of  course  the  majority  of  these  loans  are  be¬ 
ing  made  by  contract  at  the  higher  rate,  as  other¬ 
wise  this  big  commission  could  not  ho  paid.  Evi¬ 
dently  the  mortgage  sharks  are  working  overtime  in 
order  to  nail  up  borrowers  before  the  new  rural 
credits  law  can  begin  operations.  Most  of  the  farm 
loan  companies  will  try  to  leave  out  the  clause 
which  permits  a  borrower  to  pay  all  or  part  of  the 
principle  on  any  date  of  interest.  If  this  clause  is 
October  28.  1010. 
left  in  the  borrower  can  obtain  money  under  the 
new  law,  pay  off  the  old  obligation  and  save  half  or 
more  of  the  interest  charge.  Unless  there  is  such  a 
clause  the  debt  must  run  on  through  its  term  at  the 
high  rate.  We  warn  our  readers  not  to  have  this 
clause  cut  out  of  their  contracts  because  if  they  do 
they  will  not  he  able  to  change  the  loan  later  when 
there  is  a  chanee  to  obtain  lower  interest.  No  one 
will  state  when  the  rural  credit  banks  will  he  ready 
to  loan  money;  probably  not  for  six  months  at  least. 
* 
E  have  found  unusual  interest  among  our 
readers  as  to  the  attitude  of  the  present 
Comptroller  of  New  York  regarding  the  Foods  and 
Markets  Department.  Mr.  Eugene  M.  'Travis  is  a 
candidate  for  re-election,  and  in  reply  to  a  request, 
lor  a  statement  of  his  position  lie  writes: 
I  have  a  high  regard  for  The  Rural  New-Yorker 
n<  its  support  of  measures  that  tend  to  improve  the 
quality,  packing  and  marketing  of  farm  products. 
The  Rural  New-Yorker  for  years  advocated  the 
licensing  of  commission  merchants.  As  a  distributor 
of  fruit  and  vegetables,  buying  every  package  from  the 
farmer,  auctioneer  or  commission  merchant,  the  pro¬ 
position  to  me  seemed  unwise:  but  when  the  time  ar¬ 
rived  to  draft  a  bill  which  became  the  law.  1  was  active 
in  the  framing  of  the  law,  and  seemingly  the  law  works 
well  to  all  concerned. 
I  am  in  favor  of  any  sufficient  appropriation  and 
moral  support  that  will  bring  together  the  producer, 
seller  and  consumer  and  give  all  three  a  square  deal, 
and  The  R.  N.-Y.  has  done  much  to  bring  this,  to  pass. 
„T  „  ^  ,  .  ETTtiENE  M.  TRAVIS. 
»\e  call  that  very  pleasant  but  not  very  definite. 
Mr.  Joseph  W.  Masters,  the  opposition  candidate, 
w  rites : 
I  am  a  firm  believer  in  the  movement  for  which  that 
Department  was  created.  There  is  a  very  general  real¬ 
ization  among  all  classes  of  our  population  that  the 
high  cost  of  the  necessities  of  life  can  be  reduced  only 
through  n  more  direct  contact  between  producer  and 
consumer. 
Because  the  Department  of  Foods  and  Markets  was 
created  to  bring  about  this  direct  contact,  and  because 
it  represents  an  effort  for  an  object  in  which  we  all 
have  a  deep  interest,  I  wish  to  assure  you  that  if 
elected  Comptroller,  I  shall  do  all  in  my  power  to 
increase  its  scope  and  promote  its  cffVctiveness.  This, 
of  course  can  lit*  accomplished  only  through  liberal  ap¬ 
propriations,  and  through  an  intelligent  cooperation 
of  all  forces  of  tin*  State  Government, 
J.  W.  MASTERS. 
* 
E  seldom  take  time  to  tell  about  what  has 
been  done  unless  it  has  some  direct  bearing 
on  the  future.  The  milk  war  has  been  fought,  and 
now  comes  the  time  to  organize  our  experience  and 
have  it  ready  for  future  use.  So  let  us  remember 
the  thing  which  finally  ended  the  battle.  The  dis¬ 
tributors  based  their  hope  of  victory  upon  two 
things — both  of  them  destructive.  They  never  ex¬ 
pected  the  farmers  would  stick  together.  They 
really  believed  that  after  a  few  days  the  League 
would  crumble  and  that  farmers  would  run  to  get 
out  of  the  wreck.  It  upset  all  their  calculations 
when  they  found  the  League  standing  like  a  stone 
wall  day  after  day.  without  a  murmur  or  com¬ 
plaint,  Then  the  distributors  tried  a  more  danger¬ 
ous  game — that  of  dividing  the  leaders  and  thus 
splitting  up  the  program.  A  plan  of  battle  once 
split  up  means  worse  ruin  than  a  broken  army,  for 
it  destroys  faitli  in  leadership.  The  distributors 
came  near  doing  it — nearer  than  most  League  mem¬ 
bers  will  ever  know.  Only  one  tiling  saved  the  sit¬ 
uation  at  that  crisis.  The  executive  -committee 
came  together  and  promptly  demanded  the  presi¬ 
dent's  resignation.  If  they  had  hesitated  or  tem¬ 
porised  right  then  the  long  fight  would  have  been 
hist.  They  hit  out  like  a  bolt  of  lightning,  and  the 
distributors  then  saw  that  their  game  was  up. 
When  strong  men  act  promptly  in  that  way  there 
is  no  use  trying  to  beat  them.  In  that  incident  lies' 
tin*  great  dramatic  lesson  of  the  milk  war! 
Brevities 
Tt  is  a  good  thing  to  work  in  a  peck  measure  if  you 
i  an  make  it  the  finest  peck  in  the  world. 
There  have  been  many  experiments  this  last  season 
in  substituting  common  salt  for  potash  in  potatoes. 
Reports  thus  far  sent  ns  show  that  the  salt  did  not 
substitute. 
Tex  years  ago  we  saw  a  boy  riding  on  a  bicycle  while 
driving  the  cows  home  from  pasture.  Hist  grandfather 
called  him  lazy.  Last  mouth  we  saw  another  hoy  using 
a  car  to  drive  the  herd  home  and  he  was  called  “a 
smart  boy.” 
Arizona  reports  several  native  plants  which  contain 
rubber — enough  of  it  to  make  them  profitable.  Prof. 
Forbes  says  he  has  heard  that  the  stomachs  of  slaugh¬ 
tered  sheep  sometimes  contain  small  lumps  of  rubber — 
taken  out  >if  plants  which  they  chewed  at  pasture.  A 
sort  of  rubber  cud! 
Some  years  ago  the  writer  took  part  in  a  great  dis¬ 
pute  over  the  right  of  a  student  to  vote  in  the  town 
where  his  school  or  college  was  located.  The  Wiscon¬ 
sin  Supreme  Court  has  settled  the  question  for  that 
State:  “A  student’s  rigid  to  vote  in  the  place  of  his 
attendance  at  school  or  college  depends,  according  to 
the  verdict,  upon  his  relation  to  his  parental  home.  If 
he  has  become  Vina ncipaled’  from  his  parents’  home 
and  is  earning  his  own  living,  he  may  vote  in  his  col¬ 
lege  town.  If  he  is  still  dependent  or  partly  dependent 
on  home  support,  and  has  no  definite  intention  of  mak¬ 
ing  the  college  town  his  permanent  home,  he  has  no 
right  to  vote  there.” 
