332 
1ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TOE BUSINESS FARMER'S PATER 
X National Weekly Journal lor Country and Suburban Home* 
i'ntablixtlfil iSSO 
i-nhlishrd nrcklj lij the Rnrnl mbliuhlnr Oompiin.y. 338 Wrst 301 h Street,Sen Fork 
TT erbert W. Cou tsowoft), President and Editor. 
.Iiiiiv J. DILLON, Treasure)- and General Manager. 
\VM. F. Dillon, Seerettiry, _ Mrs. E. T. Kqylk. Associate Editor. - 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Vnion, $2.01. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8>, marts, or l'* 1 * francs. Hrtnlt in money order, express 
order, porsonal elteck or bonk draft. 
Entered at New York Post Oflice as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates. *1.00 per agate lino—t words. References required for 
advertisers unknown to us ; ami cush must accompany transient orders. 
“ A SQUARE DEAL" 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible person We use every possible precaution and ndmit the advertising of 
reliable houses only, But to umi.e doubly wire, we will make good any loss 
to mild subscribers sustained by trust mg any deliberate swindler, irrespon- 
sibl- advertise is or misleading ad veil Iscments tn our column*, and any 
such swindler will be publicly exposed. We oro also often called upon 
to adjust dilfercnces or mistake* between our subscribers and honest, 
responsible bouses, whether advertiser* or not We willingly use our good 
others t,, it,is end, but such cu*c« ahotlld not be confuted with dishonest 
transactions. Wo protect otliserilb is against rogue*, but we will not tie 
responsible for the debt s of honest bankrupt* sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice ol the complaint must be sent to us within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and to identify it, you should mention The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. _ 
Read the article on page 3)». 
Vs 
Please rush The Rural New-Yorker to the enclosed 
address. This man asked me today where was a good 
place to advertise to sell his eggs, I told him your 
paper, and he said ho "had never seen it, ’ and I sup¬ 
posed him an intelligent man. For heaven’s sake, rush 
him a copy. I don’t want him to die without seeing the 
best country paper published. LOUIS C. BEK NETT. 
New York. 
T HE paper goes right out to this unfortunate at. 
once. There are a few thousand more who 
might be brought into the fold. 
Vs 
C C T"HtEE seeds” are still being distributed by Con- 
Jl gressmen, but we hear little about it lately. 
One of our Ohio readers received a package of these 
seeds and at once sent them hack to his Congressman 
with this letter: 
R. C. Cole, M. C., Washington, D. C.: 
I received tin* free seeds sent me. and will return 
them by today’s mail. When I plant seeds I want to 
get them from a more reliable firm than the United 
States Congress. The majority of farmers regard the 
distribution of seeds by Congress as petty graft, and a 
questionable method of electioneering. 
Yours, for better government, P. .T. baker. 
And Mr. Raker is helping to gain a “better govern¬ 
ment” by writing just such letters. There is too 
much “graft” and special privilege in high places, 
and this is made possible only when common folks 
are willing to take the little chunks of “graft” 
tossed out to us by government officials. This free 
seed humbug is a “graft" designed openly to act as 
a sort of petty bribery in the interests <>f Congress¬ 
men. To our mind, the man who accepts this little 
“graft” disqualifies himself as a critic of those who 
take thousands where lit* takes seeds! We came 
near killing the free seed humbug this season. An¬ 
other year we can get rid of it. 
Vs 
Whereas. The Farm Brokers’ Association. Inc., and 
the New York Association of Real Estate Brokers pro¬ 
test against the further publication of a farm catalogue 
anti work relating thereto by the State Departments of 
Farms and Markets of the State of New York, he it 
Resolved. That the New York State Grange, assembled 
at Binghamton, X. Y„ February 7 to 10, 1922, request 
thilt the State Departments of Farms and Markets be 
requested to continue the publication of said catalogue 
for the benefit of the State of Xew York having farms 
for sale and bringing to our State worthy applicants 
for said farms. 
IDS resolution was unanimously adopted by the 
New York State Orange at Binghamton. The 
Department of Farms and Markets at- Albany has 
for some years issued a pamphlet containing descrip¬ 
tions of unoccupied farms. These farms are well 
described, and pains have been taken to have the de¬ 
scriptions verified. We know from our own corre¬ 
spondence that many Western buyers have used 
these pamphlets to good advantage. The real estate 
men want to kill off this plan of encouraging direct 
dealing between buyer and owner, and for that rea¬ 
son they are trying to prevent the State from pub¬ 
lishing anything about these farms. It is a selfish 
effort on the part of the real estate men to control 
this entire business of selling farms. We think that 
under the circumstances the State is justified in help¬ 
ing call attention to these farms and giving a chance 
for direct dealing. This publication work ought to 
be continued. Tt will not hurt any legitimate real 
estate business. It ought to help it. 
A FEW weeks ago we had an article by “Mapes. 
the Hen Man.” It was a good article, simple 
and clear, and true as to details and figures. After 
many years of work and study, Mr. Mapes has de¬ 
veloped a system which enables him to produce a 
good income with a minimum of work. It has taken 
>5 yours to learn how to do it- Sych. articles ought 
to be helpful if people would use ordinary common 
Sense in reading them, but that quality seems to be 
so rare that the truth sometimes becomes dangerous. 
One of the worst offenders in the real estate busness 
takes this article by Mapes and rushes into an inter¬ 
view : 
I know of one farm in Orange Go.. N. Y., which keeps 
10 cows and 1,500 hens, which produced an income of 
$1,000 in December, and one boy of IS years did prac¬ 
tically all the work. That farm had a good balance on 
the right side of the ledger every month last year. 
It is not likely that this man ever saw the farm 
referred to, yet he tries to make out that lie knows 
till about it, and that any man can easily get. these- 
results if he will only buy a farm. This is the most 
dangerous form of “sucker bait,” and there seems to 
he no way of shutting it off. 
* 
Tn ■(he “Summary of the Census of Agriculture for 
the United States. 1919 and 1020,” issued by the De¬ 
partment of Commerce, it appears that there were only 
115.800.105 apple trees of bearing age. and only 30.195.- 
085 apple trees not of bearing age in 1020. against 151,- 
322,840 bearing age, and 05,701,848 not. of bearing age 
in 1010. In other words, a decrease of about 05,000,000 
in 10 years. The Mountain and Pacific divisions show 
° 040.001 decrease; all others decrease. IIow do you 
explain this? F. N\ WILCOX. 
HESE figures arc given by the census and appear 
to be accepted by the horticultural authorities. 
It, is our understanding that most of this loss is due 
to the death or removal of older trees. Many-so- 
called farm orchards have disappeared. They were, 
iit best, only a side line on dairy or grain farms, and 
did not receive good care. Scale, blight and lack of 
pruning and spraying ended them. While thousands 
of trees are planted each year, a good portion of 
them never live to hearing age through lack of care. 
On the other hand, the commercial orchards, well 
planted and cared for, are giving increased yields— 
much as well-kept purebred stock will outyield scrub 
herds. Thus the actual yield of fruit will not, in a 
favorable season, fall as short as one might expect 
from the shortage of trees. We regard the present 
as a good time to plant an orchard if the owner is 
prepared to take care of it. If he is not willing to 
spend some time and money on such an orchard he 
would much better never start it. 
* 
D URING the past month at least 50 letters have 
reached us with incomplete addresses. In a few 
cases the postofiiee is omitted, but in most cases there 
is no signature, or possibly two initials. iSome of 
these letters contain questions which we presume 
are important to the writers. We cannot answer 
them; many are of personal interest only. We have 
repeatedly stated that we can pay no attention to 
unsigned letters. There seems no reasonable excuse 
for refusing to identify such questions by- signing the 
name. We want to help our readers whenever it Is 
possible to do so, lmt let us repeat the statement 
once more— no attention will he paid to letters un¬ 
less the name and postoffice are plainly given. 
* 
N a recent speech in New York City James R. 
Howard, president of the Farm Bureau Federa¬ 
tion. intimated that the Western farmer is becom¬ 
ing a specialist, and that it does not pay him to at¬ 
tempt side lines. For instance, he said that on his 
own farm it did not pay to care for the farm or¬ 
chard. He advised letting tlie orchard go and buy¬ 
ing fruit from those who make a specialty of its 
production. In 1010 Iowa had 5.847.034 hearing ap¬ 
ple trees. Tn 1020 this number had fallen to 2.990,- 
400. That is. about half tlie trees had disappeared. 
We think the Stale would have been in better shape 
today if the orchards and gardens had been kept up. 
We never yet saw a farmer who let orchard and gar¬ 
den go who would buy half enough fruit and vege¬ 
tables for the family, tine reason why Eastern farm¬ 
ers have stood the financial strain better than West¬ 
ern men is because they have had several crops— 
like fruit, milk, potatoes, eggs and garden stuff, to 
sell. Our advice to Eastern farmers is to plan a 
fair-sized orchard on every farm and take the time 
to give it reasonable care. 
* 
.S we see on page 345, the sheepmen finally won 
out with their wool pool. They put the wool 
together in a great bunch and held on—at times 
when it seemed almost hopeless to do so. As a result 
they have obtained nearly twice what the local 
buyers were ready to pay. Naturally it cost some¬ 
thing to do this work, yet when all expenses are 
paid the sheepmen will be ahead financially as a 
result of pooling. Not only that, lmt the experience 
gained by hanging together through this hard strug¬ 
gle will be worth far more than the guiu iu money. 
It has been an investment in courage and bulldog 
March 4, 1922 
tenacity that will pay great dividends. The next 
wool pool ought to be as big as an ocean. 
Vs 
IIAT are the prospects in the fruit and vege¬ 
table business? That question comes up each 
year as we issue our Annual Horticultural Number. 
We are inclined to take a conservative view of apple 
growing, even though the figures show a great loss 
in bearing trees. There are still trees enough left 
to gbit the local markets in ease of a season just 
exactly suited to the crop. There will tie some sea¬ 
sons of low prices in the future, hut on the whole, 
taking one season with another, apple growing offers 
good opportunity to the young man who will stay by 
the job and care for his trees. We shall keep on 
planting moderately, confident that we ean find a 
good market. As for small fruits, there has been an 
under supply for some years, and good prices seem 
assured for several years to come. In grapes, we 
think M>r. Gladwin’s summary oil page 322 is about 
right. Tn our judgment this is no time to invest in 
“unit orchards” or in big speculative plantings, hut 
for the moderate and conservative planter we think 
the future is as secure and hopeful as it ever was. 
Vs 
AST week we told of a ease before the Supreme 
Court of New Jersey which involved the right 
of a city council to establish daylight saving time. 
This ease was finally decided in favor of Mr. Minch. 
Here is a brief statement of it: 
A daylight saving ordinance had been passed by the 
city of Bridgeton and Minch Brothers were summoned 
to appear in court at 10 a, m., daylight saving time. 
When they arrived at 10 a. m.. standard time, they 
found judgment entered against them. In reversing this 
judgment the Supreme Court held that a city has no 
power to change tile hours for holding court, as the 
statute regulating these things fixes standard time for 
all court sessions. 
That settles it for New Jersey at least. We think 
that similar action brought in other towns and cities 
would prove that the laws passed by local councils 
are unconstitutional. 
Vs 
HE absorbing topic of public interest for the 
past few weeks has been the payment of a 
bonus to soldiers who served in the World War. 
Both the groat political parlies at their conventions 
promised to make some form of payment, and the 
Republican party, now in power, is under obligations 
to keet) its promise iu some way. It is proposed, 
first of all. to take full care of the wounded and 
disabled and provide jobs for those who are out of 
work. The others are to receive an option of a 
grant of land, paid-up life insurance or a cash pay¬ 
ment. It is expected that a large proportion of these 
soldiers will demand the cash payment, and as the 
Dill conies up in Congress the fact is made clear that 
the nation does not have the cash in hand to make 
the payments. We are all taxed to the limit (and 
some of ns beyond the limit) as it is. Tt was first 
proposed to levy new taxes on gasoline and other 
necessities, hut this seems to have been abandoned 
under a storm of popular protest. A new bond issue 
seems out of tbo question. There would be no popu¬ 
lar demand for such bonds. Their purchase would 
he limited to a class of wealthy people, who would 
use them as tax-free securities to hide their true 
income. Many of ns now hold Victory bonds, which 
must he paid or refunded next. year. A new tax on 
all sales has been proposed, hut this is being fought 
by farmers and llieir organizations, who demand an 
increased tax on excess profits. There is little hope 
< f paying any bonus out of income from our credits 
in Europe. As it looks now. Congress will probably 
pass the hill and take a chance on paying the money 
out of the general income and what can he saved in 
the Navy Department. Uersonally. we are opposed 
to the bonus, and if it is passed we shall advise our 
own hoys and soldier friends not to touch their 
share. This nation should give every reasonable 
care to the sick and disabled ami to those who are 
out of work. We can see no reason, however, why 
able-bodied young men. most of them, with a good 
job, should receive this bonus while every working 
citizen is staggering under the load of taxes and 
debt. 
Brevities 
Keep in the middle of the road—politically. 
Many readers will be glad to see “Trucker, Jr.”, 
back with us. 
Sulphate of ammonia contains about. 20 per cent 
more ammonia than nitrate of soda. It is about the 
same in adaptability, bur tin* sulphate is an acid fer¬ 
tilizer and lime should be applied when it is used. It 
is a good fertilizer for apple orchards. 
We think it would pay some poultry man to try to 
develop a high laying strain of bantams. There are said 
to tie specimen hens which lay 150 or more eggs per 
year. With their small size and light food demands, 
we thjnk bantams could he made popular as backyard 
fowls. 
