1522 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
THE  BfflTXESf!  FARMER1  S  TAPER 
A  National  H  pekly  Journal  for  Country  mid  Sulturbnn  Homes 
T't'lhllitheii  i mo 
Piitilinlied  iToelilj  lijr  the  Hiirnl  PuhlUblng  Compiiny,  8.33  West  80th  Street,  Fork 
HERBERT  IV.  CV>r.TJJfC-woor>,  JVi  sulrnt  and  Editor. 
Joitv  J.  Pi i.LON.  rr&'sui'ri'  and  Ornoral  Manager. 
MPr.  F.  PixjiON.  Secretary.  Mrs  i  :.  t.  Royuc.  Associate  Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION:  ONE  DOLLAR  A  YEAR 
To  foreign  countries  in  tlio  Universal  Postal  Union,  jm.Ot,  equal  to  8s.  fid.,  or 
8*6  marks,  or  lO1*  francs.  Remit,  in  money  Order,  express 
order,  personal  chock  or  bank  draft, 
Entered  at  New  York  Post  Office  as  Second  Class  Matter. 
Advertising  rates,  7R  cents  per  ag-ate  lino— 7  words.  References  required  for 
advertisers  unknown  to  us  ;  and  cash  must  accompany  transient  orders. 
“A  SQUARE  DEAL” 
We  believe  thnt,  every  advertisement  in  tills  paper  is  backed  by  a  respon- 
sible  person.  We  use  every  possible  precaution  a  ud  adniit  tite  advertising  of 
reliable  houses  only.  Rut  to  make  doubly  sure,  wo  wall  make  good  any  loss 
to  t laid  subsenlXTs  wist*ln«1  by  trusting  any  deliberate  aw  i tidier,  irrespon¬ 
sible  advertise!*  or  nuale.utlng  Advertisements  in  onr  oolumns,  and  any 
such  swindler  a  ill  lj..  publicly  ex  posed.  We  nro  also  often  called  upon 
to  adjust  differences  *w  mlptaluw  between  our  subserltiern  and  honest, 
responsible  boiki*  a.  whether  advertiser*  or  not.  Wo  willingly  Use  our  good 
otboe*  to  this  end.  but  anth  cases  should  not  be  confused  with  dishonest 
transactions.  W«-  protect  subscriber*  against  rogues,  but  wo  w  ill  not.  bo 
responsible  for  the  debt*  of  honest  bankrupts  Sanctioned  by  the  courts, 
.Notice  oi  tnocomjd&mt  njtisrt*  be-  rent  to  n«  \>  i Tl i i u  out*  month  oi  the  time  of 
the  transaction,  ami  to  identify  it,  you  should  mention  The  Rural  New- 
j  orker  when  writing  the  advertiser. 
Good  Friends  Who  Stick 
No.  7. 
E  recently  sent  a  letter  to  all  old  subscribers 
who  for  some  reason  have  left  the  family. 
In  this  letter  reference  was  made  to  “the  Prodigal 
Son”  who  wandered  away  from  home.  There  was 
a  warm  welcome  awaiting  him!  Through  some 
mistake  this  letter  went  to  a  few  people  who  never 
thought  of  leaving  home,  and  one  of  them  comes 
back  as  follows: 
Your  illustration  of  the  Prodigal  Son  docs  not  seem 
to  illustrate  in  my  case.  You  remember  the  story  as 
given  by  St.  I.uke,  which  says,  a  certain  man  had  two 
sons;  one  went  away,  the  other  remained  at  home.  I 
represent  the  one  that  remained  at  home,  to  whom 
the  father  said:  “Son.  thou  art  ever  with  me.  All  that 
1  have  is  thine.”  The  R.  N.-Yt.  finds  its  way  into  my 
home  every  week  and  has  for  a  long  time,  and  will 
continue  to  do  so  for  it  much  longer  time,  so  you  see 
I  am  home  with  the  family  where  I  ought,  to  be.  »S 'ay. 
your  paper  can’t  be  beat.  If  I  was  a  man  who  uses 
the  weed  1  should  ask  for  a  good  cigar  on  this,  but 
as  1  do  not  use  it  will  just  say,  write  again  some  day, 
Massachusetts.  j,  i,.  staples. 
We  always  did  have  great  sympathy  for  the  good 
son  who  remained  at  home  and  did  the  work  of  a 
hired  man.  Nothing  is  too  good  for  him.  Our 
idea  of  a  good  substitute  for  a  cigar  or  a  drink  is  a 
good  apple.  We  want  all  the  folks  this  season — 
the  home-loving  son,  the  prodigal,  and  all  their 
friends — bring  them  in  and  fill  the  house. 
* 
WE  are  asked  if  any  organizations  have  been 
formed  in  New  Jersey  for  the  purpose  of 
using  the  Rural  Credits  law.  We  do  not  know  of 
any.  If  our  readers  know,  will  they  please  tell 
us?  Generally  speaking  this  law  does  not  meet 
the  requirements  of  our  Eastern  farmers.  We  are 
told  that  it  is  not  fully  understood  even  in  the 
South  and  West,  for  which  sections  it  was  evident¬ 
ly  arranged.  Many  farmers  still  seem  to  think 
they  can  go  right  to  some  government  agent  and 
borrow  what  they  need  at  four  iter  cent.  The  fact 
is  that  a  loan  under  this  law  will  usually  be  harder 
to  make  than  from  a  local  bank  or  broker,  but  the 
interest  will  be  lower  and  the  terms  of  payment 
easier  and  surer. 
SOME  of  the  best  farming  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  is  done  in  New  Jersey.  We  ca/i  easily 
find  you  Jersey  farms  where  the  yield  of  corn  per 
acre  is  larger  than  on  the  famous  corn  land  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  We  can  find  you  other  good- 
sized  Jersey  farms  where  the  acre  income  is  larger 
than  similar  returns  from  the  famous  farms  of 
England  and  Europe.  And  yet  New  Jersey  is  cap¬ 
able  of  producing  three  times  as  much  food  as  she 
does  now.  Klie  will  do  this  when  the  distribution 
problem  is  worked  out.  You  must  remember  that 
except  for  a  narrow  strip  at  the  North,  New  Jersey 
is  surrounded  by  water.  The  State  is  a  thumb  of 
land  separated  from  the  nation's  hand.  Exports 
and  imports  to  market  must  cross  the  river,  and 
this  has  greatly  hampered  the  Jersey  farmers  in 
both  the  New  York  and  Philadelphia  markets.  Tun¬ 
nels  under  the  Hudson  and  Delaware,  or  bridges 
over  them,  are  greatly  needed.  They  should  be 
planned  so  that  wagons  and  motor  tracks  could 
drive  quickly  and  directly  into  the  city  markets 
without  waiting  for  the  slow  ferry  system.  If  it 
were  possible  to  reach  New  York  in  this  way  the 
country  for  100  miles  around  would  start  an  im¬ 
mense  boom  in  food  production,  and  a  system  of 
trucking  service  would  bring  produce  right  to  the 
consumer  with  only  one  hand  to  pass  it  on.  One 
great  reason  for  high  prices  in  New  York  is  the 
difficulty  in  getting  produce  upon  the  island  of 
Manhattan.  The  tunnel  or  bridge,  open  to  ordinary 
traffic,  would  make  a  great  change  in  the  situation. 
The  States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey  and  Penn¬ 
sylvania  and  the  Federal  government  should  com¬ 
bine  to  put  these  tunnels  or  bridges  into  operation. 
73/ye  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
E  think  our  American  poultry  breeders  owe 
n  debt,  of  gratitude  to  Tom  Barron.  Some 
of  the  fanciers  may  not  agree  with  this,  but  we 
cannot  help  that.  We  think  Mr.  Barron  has  taught 
us  much  about  poultry.  He  has  shown  how  the  egg 
contests  may  be  made  popular  and  useful,  and 
what  they  are  good  foi\  We  hope  Mr.  Barron  has 
had  his  reward  for  this.  He  deserved  it,  and  he 
has  shown  himself  to  be  a  good  winner  and  a  good 
loser,  and  a  good  fellow  generally.  We  think  the 
American  ben  is  better  for  having  made  Tom  Bar¬ 
ron's  acquaintance ! 
* 
CONGRESS  has  appropriated  $175,000  for  work 
in  producing  potash  from  kelp.  This  kelp  is 
a  sea  plant  growing  in  the  ocean  waters — off  the 
Pacific  Coast.  A  factory  will  lie  built  in  Southern 
California.  The  kelp  is  cut  off  down  below  the 
surface,  dried  and  distilled.  Electric  power  will 
be  used  with  crude  petroleum  for  fuel.  The  fac¬ 
tory  will  handle  200  tons  of  kelp  per  day — which 
will  mean  five  tons  of  muriate  of  potash.  The  pro¬ 
duct  will  he  sold — the  money  going  to  the  U.  S. 
Treasury.  Thus  the  government  goes  directly  into 
the  fertilizer  business.  There  are  unlimited  sup¬ 
plies  of  potash  in  these  beds  of  kelp — more  than 
enough  to  supply  American  needs.  All  this  illus¬ 
trates  the  slow  hut  sure  growth  of  an  idea.  When 
the  European  war  started  it  was  known  that  this 
kelp  contained  potash,  but  few,  if  any,  dreamed 
that  it  was  practically  useful.  By  slow  degrees  pub¬ 
lic  attention  grew  into  a  demand— and  the  work  is 
begun.  In  a  way  that  is  what  we  call  putting  a 
thing  into  popular  thought,  and  it  can  be  done  with 
any  idea  that  is  right. 
* 
TIIE  proposed  embargo  is  just,  another  instance 
of  the  way  the  interests  of  farmers  are  con¬ 
sidered.  when  it  seems  necessary  to  make  of  some 
class  of  our  citizens  what  the  boys  in  their  slang 
call  “tlie  goat.”  The  proposition  is  to  prohibit  the 
export  of  all  farm  products,  on  the  theory  that  this 
would  put  great  supplies  of  food  into  the  home 
market  and  thus  reduce  the  cost  of  living.  Noth¬ 
ing  of  the  sort  would  happen  just  so  long  as  food 
supplies  are  controlled  as  they  now  are  by  specu¬ 
lators,  transportation  companies  and  middlemen. 
The  stores  of  food  which  would  be  hold  from  ex¬ 
port  are  mostly  of  a  class  which  could  lie  held  for 
months,  or  years,  before  sale,  and  they  would  not 
be  sold  here  until  the  speculators  got  their  price. 
There  is  no  need  of  such  an  embargo.  There  is 
plenty  of  food  in  the  country  for  all.  Strike  down 
the  speculators  and  guarantee  farmers  a  fair  price 
and  market  and  they  will  supply  this  country  and 
more  for  export.  And  there  are  other  tilings  which 
enter  into  export  trade,  and  which  blow  up  the  cost 
of  living:  shoes,  all  leather  goods,  clothing,  paper. 
Even  the  hunters  who  came  across  the  farm  re¬ 
cently  say  that  ammunition  is  out  of  sight.  (We 
wish  it  was.)  These  things  are  all  necessities,  and 
we  are  all  being  held  up  when  we  purchase  them. 
Why  single  out  farm  products  and  let  these  other 
articles  go?  For  answer  we  are  told  that  our 
manufacturers  must  not  be  disturbed  because  they 
must  retain  their  foreign  market.  Must  indeed! 
For  years  American  farmers  paid  our  nation's  debts 
abroad  in  their  shipments  of  grain,  flour  and  moat. 
Thus  in  that  respect  the  nation  is  under  far  greater 
obligation  to  farmers  than  to  manufacturers,  and 
during  the  coming  years  the  farmers  will  have  full 
need  of  the  foreign  market.  To  put  an  embargo 
on  farm  produce  and  let  war  material  and  man¬ 
ufactured  goods  pass  out  freely  would  be  clearly 
class  discrimination,  and  farmers  should  never  stand 
for  it  a  moment. 
* 
THIS  is  a  great  world  we  live  in.  Some  years 
ago  100  farmers  scattered  through  New  Eng¬ 
land  had  deposits  in  various  savings  banks  aver¬ 
aging  $500  each.  The  banks  paid  them  about  4% 
per  cent,  interest.  These  banks  sent  the  $50,000  to 
a  large  city  bank  and  this,  in  its  turn,  sent  the 
money  to  Western  cities,  from  which  it  was  dis¬ 
tributed  through  agents  and  finally  loaned  on  West¬ 
ern  farm  mortgages.  The  farmers  usually  paid 
about  eight  per  cent,  for  this  money,  and  also  for 
discounts,  “searches,”  commissions,  etc.,  which  usu¬ 
ally  brought  it  up  to  about  10  per  cent.  For  years 
these  Western  men  bad  their  good  seasons  and  bad, 
but  they  managed  to  pay  up  their  interest.  When 
at  last  prosperity  enabled  them  to  clear  the  debt 
they  found  they  had,  in  many  cases,  put  up  two  or 
three  times  the  original  loan.  No  one  can  blame 
them  for  feeling  the  injustice  of  such  a  system,  and 
if,  as  in  many  cases,  they  have  not  even  paid  the 
debt,  after  25  years,  can  you  blame  them  for  think¬ 
ing  that  the  creditor  lias  had  all  the  advantage? 
Yet  those  100  farmers  in  New  England  have  acted 
December  9,  1916. 
honestly  and  fairly,  and  are  entitled  to  their  in¬ 
terest.  Those  Western  men  should  not  make  the 
mistake  of  blaming  all  Eastern  people  for  their 
troubles — and  thus  drift,  into  sectional  bitterness. 
The  farmer  in  Maine  and  the  farmer  in  Montana 
have  too  much  in  common  as  men  and  farmers  to 
quarrel  about  that  money.  The  system  of  distribu¬ 
ting  it  is  wrong  and  too  expensive.  As  we  under¬ 
stand  it  the  Rural  Credit  law  is  an  effort  to  change 
this.  The  ideal  way  would  lie  for  the  New  England 
farmer  to  buy  the  bonds  which  secure  the  loan  and 
have  the  government  loan  the  money  to  the  Western 
farmer.  That  would  bring  them  closer  together, 
and  cut  out  some  of  the  middlemen.  The  lender 
would  get  as  much  for  his  money  as  he  does  now. 
and  the  Western  man  would  have  a  fairer  chance  to 
borrow.  Farmers  do  not  need  government  help  half 
as  much  as  they  need  the  spirit  and  power  to  help 
each  other. 
* 
THOSE  letters  from  Western  farmers  about  the 
election  are  plain  and  right  to  the  point. 
What  we  print  on  page  1514  is  the  condensed  state¬ 
ment  of  several  hundred  reports.  This  week  it  is 
“The  Money  Question.”  Thousands,  yes,  millions, 
of  Western  people  do  not  feel  as  this  report  in¬ 
dicates,  but  there  were  enough  of  them  who  do  feel 
so  to  carry  the  election.  Many  of  these  letters 
state  that  Western  people  are  reading  more  than 
ever  before.  Evidently,  they  are  reading  such  books' 
as  Wm.  Allen  White’s  “A  Certain  Rich  Man,”  with 
a  full  understanding  of  what  it  means.  People  who 
have  never  lived  in  tlio  West  during  the  days  of 
its  poverty  and  desperation  cannot  realize  how  this 
book  has  influenced  Western  thought.  Next  week 
we  shall  consider  “The  Progressive  Movement”  in 
its  effect  upon  the  election.  This  we  find  the  most 
-significant  of  all,  and  it  will  he  the  hardest  for 
cur  Eastern  people  to  understand.  What  are  the 
reasons  for  this  discussion  in  a  farm  paper?  The 
East  and  the  West  are,  without  question,  drifting 
slowly  apart  through  a  misunderstanding.  In  their 
feeliug  against  the  creditor  class  and  political  bosses 
the  Western  people  seem  to  be  losing  sight  of  the 
fact  that  our  Eastern  farmers  and  working  people 
have  everything  in  common  with  them  and  have 
also  suffered  at  the  hands  of  bosses  and  money  pi¬ 
rates.  It  ought  to  be  made  clear  to  all  farmers  that 
they  should  take  common  ground  and  not  permit 
any  powerful  classes  to  separate  them  on  a  sec¬ 
tional  issue. 
* 
THE  New  York  papers  are  printing  columns 
about  an  “egg  boycott.”  One  reason  is  that 
they  have  little  else  to  talk  about,  another  that  they 
try  to  express  popular  indignation  at  a  wicked  rob¬ 
bery.  Six  months  or  so  ago,  when  eggs  were  cheap 
and  plenty,  jobbers  and  speculators  bought  great 
supplies  at  a  low  figure.  The  farmers  obtained  from 
1<»  to  possibly  22  cents  a  dozen  for  these  eggs.  Part 
were  sold  promptly,  others  were  put  into  cold  stor¬ 
age.  Now  they  are  coming  out,  and  the  robbers  who 
held  them  and  sold  them  have  been  trying  to  make 
the  people  pay  50  cents  or  even  more  for  these  cheap 
eggs!  What  is  even  meaner  than  this  robbery,  they 
try  to  make  consumers  believe  that  farmers  are  re¬ 
sponsible  for  it.  No  wonder  people  are  organizing 
to  prevent  the  consumption  and  sale  of  these  eggs 
until  with  warmer  weather  the  old  hen  comes  to 
the  rescue !  The  worst  thing  that  can  happen  to 
farming  is  to  have  the  public  feel  that  farmers  are 
trying  to  rob  them  by  charging  extortionate  prices. 
The  only  hope  for  increasing  consumption  of  milk, 
eggs,  poultry,  fruit  and  pther  food  lies  in  making 
consumers  feel  that  they  are  being  squarely  treat¬ 
ed  and  honestly  served.  These  cold  storage  rascals 
are  doing  more  to  Injure  the  chicken  business  than 
all  the  vermin,  cholera  and  roup  in  this  section  of 
the  country. 
Brevities 
In  time  of  trouble — eat  a  baked  apple. 
Still  come  favorable  reports  on  Sudan  grass  as  a 
forage  plant. 
The  poultry  men  will  sink  or  swim — depending  on 
the  old  lien’s  whim. 
Hit  a  man  and  lie  will  lie  inclined  to  get  over  it  in 
time.  Kick  him  and  lie  will  never  forget  it. 
There  will  be  a  meeting  of  the  human  contestants 
in  the  Vineland  egg  contest  at  the  headquarters  on 
Dec.  0.  It  ought  to  he  a  good  thing. 
GRANBKRItY  bogs  are  usually  deficient  in  phosphoric 
acid.  Some  experiments  indicate  that  when  raw  phos¬ 
phate  is  put  into  these  sour  hogs,  a  part  of  it,  at  least, 
becomes  available. 
Now  the  geologists  tell  us  that  the  water  contained 
in  the  entire  earth’s  crust  would,  if  all  drawn  out. 
make  a  lake  covering  the  entire  earth’s  surface  100 
feet  deep.  It  doesn’t  look  like  it  in  a  drought,  yet 
Alfalfa  knows  more  about  it  than  Timothy. 
