822 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 24, 1922 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BVS1XESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country aiul Suburban Homes 
Established ov.o _ 
fubllabed nwhlj by the Hnral riiblubiur Company. 888 W«1 30th Street, New York 
Hkkukut tv. rou.LNfiwooD, President and Editor. 
John J. I huajn, Treasurer and General Miui.-h'it. 
Wm. F. Diiaon, Secretary. Mus. E. T- UoVj.k, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION : ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.01. H,mit in money 
order, express order, personal cheek or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates, *1.00 per Agate line—7 words. Reference!' required for 
advertisers unknown to us ; and rash must accompany transient orders. 
"A SQUARE DEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is hacked by a respon¬ 
sible person. We use every possible precaution and admit the advertising of 
reliable houses only. But to ip.ikc doubly swre wo will make good any loss 
to paid subscribers' sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler, irrexpon- 
silile adveriiseru or mlnleading advertiwnjentfl In our columns, and any 
such swindler will be publicly exposed. We are also often called upon 
to ad lust differences or mistakes between our subscribers and honest, 
responsible houses, whether advertisers, or not. We willingly use our good 
offices to this end, but such eases should not be confused with dishonest 
transactions. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we will not bo 
responsible tor the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned l.y the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must be sent to uk within one tnont h of the time or 
the transaction, and to identify it, you should mention Tiie Rural Nk\v- 
Yorkkr when writing the advertiser. 
Mrs. Short is a woman 70 years old, reads without 
glasses, and is around every day, looking after her gar¬ 
dens, etc. She has been taking other farm papers, but 
The R, N.-Y. is the apple of her eye. so she says. She 
has been taking farm papers for GO years, so she claims. 
tv. j. H. 
F we may be permitted to express an opinion, we 
would say that Mrs. Short seems to us a very 
sensible woman. 
* 
Can you tell me whether a smooth iron rim over the 
lugs of a tractor would enable me to run on the State 
road legally ? I do not care to do any pulling—just 
getting there and back. j. P. L. 
New York. 
ES. A smooth iron rim over the lugs on the 
driving wheels will comply with the rules and 
regulations. A tractor thus equipped may legally 
operate over the improved highways. If the front 
wheels are equipped with a guide band, such 
band must he at least -% in- wide and not more than 
in. high. You must remember that a person 
operating such a tractor will he held responsible for 
all damage resulting from its use. The State may 
permit the use of the tractor on the highway, but it 
assumes no responsibility by doing so. 
5k 
The farmers <>f New York State are certainly op¬ 
posed to the re-election of Senator Culder. If a strong 
man is nominated against him in the primary. Culder 
will be beaten, because the great bulk of the party vote 
is “up-State.” s. J. 
E shall have to class that statement among 
the things which. St. Paul said were true but 
not expedient. There will be no primary this year. 
The candidate for Senator will he nominated at an 
old-time convention, dominated by hand-picked dele¬ 
gates. The last New York Legislature changed the 
primary law and thus took u useful weapon out of 
the hands of country people. Wo warned our read¬ 
ers at the time, but they did not, apparently, realize 
what would follow. The New Y’ork primary law 
never was perfect, but, even so, it was a weapon 
which might have been put to good use this year. 
We see what happened in Indiana. Pennsylvania and 
Iowa through a primary. We think the New York 
politicians took the weapon away from farmers be¬ 
cause they knew the time for usi-ng it had come. 
There is the old story of the boss who saw several 
Italian workmen handling -wheelbarrows, lie took 
the barrows away because, as he said. “We can't 
trust them fellers icith nuich in try." Without a pri¬ 
mary there is small chance of preventing tlie re-nom¬ 
ination of Senator ('alder, lit* will be forced upon 
the unwilling element of the party, which must fur¬ 
nish the needed votes if he is to be elected. The 
farmers are either indifferent or in outspoken oppo¬ 
sition because they think Mr. Calder is, by nature, 
by training and by habits of thought, out. of all sym¬ 
pathy with farmers and their true needs. 
5k 
HE much-discussed report of the Committee of 
Twenty-one has finally been published. It is a 
thick volume of nearly 275 pages, entitled, “Rural 
School Survey of New York,” and it. gives in full 
uletail the findings of the committee. We can 
readily see that such an expensive book cannot be 
put into every home, but it. will be distributed so 
that everyone may have a chance to study it. We 
believe that this report precipitates one of the most 
important public questions ever presented to the 
rural people of New York. Surely our rural schools 
represent the very heart of our country society, and 
there can be no definite rural progress unless our 
country schools can keep pace with it or lead it. Our 
country children have the right to a sound training 
in the essential elements of English education, and 
they must have it. While many rural schools are 
doing excellent work, it would he folly to say that, 
the system is all that it should be. It is our convic¬ 
tion that the members of this Committee of Twenty- 
one have honestly tried to find the weak spots in our 
rural school system, and we propose to accept and 
discuss their report with an open mind and without 
prejudice. Our country readers may trust us to 
defend their rights and to stand for plain common 
sense in education. At the same time we intend to 
give members of this committee full opportunity to 
explain their position. Next week l*rof. Geo. A. 
Weeks, chairman of the committee, will make a clear 
statement of the report The question will then be 
thrown open to the public. We expect to open a 
special department in which this big problem will be 
discussed down to the bone. 
5k 
HAT are known as the acid legumes have 
never had a fair chance before farmers. 
These are the legumes or pod-bearing plants which 
do not require large quantities of lime. They will 
grow xvell on sour soil. Ry “legume” we mean a 
plant that, has the ability to take nitrogen from the 
air through the bacteria which work on its roots. 
Thus far most attention has been given to those 
legumes like Alfalfa and Red or Sweet clover, which 
demand large quantities of lime in order to make 
even a fair growth. The proposition has been so 
mixed up with the lime problem that most people 
think unless they can use lime freely there is no use 
in trying Alfalfa or other legumes. The truth is 
that there are many of the nitrogen-gathering plants 
which do not need much lime. Alslkc clover will 
make a fine growth on a soil quite acid. So will Soy 
beans, cow peas, kudzu and several others. We 
think Alslkc clover is far better suited to the average 
soil of New England than either Red clover or Al¬ 
falfa. When Northern farmers realize that kudzu 
is not a tropical plant, but. will give great yearly 
crops of pasturage as far north as Albany, our 
Northern pastures will be more than doubled in 
value, and we all understand what that will mean 
to rural neighborhoods. Comparatively few farmers 
yet, understand what Soy beans can do for a farm. 
Here is a crop that will take In as much nitrogen as 
Alfalfa without heavy lime applications or sjieeiul 
cultivation. It is sometimes like telling a man to do 
rhe impossible'when he is advised to use lime at the 
rate of a ton to the acre in order to start Alfalfa. 
With Alsike clover and Soy beans he can start at 
once, just as his soil is today. 
sk 
HE story goes of a white man who went up to 
Labrador among the natives. Just before the 
ice stopped navigation someone sent up a box of 
oranges, and several of them fell into the hands of 
the native fishermen. They never saw the fruit lie- 
fore, and hardly knew what to do with it. The 
white man. wise to ways of civilization, proposed 
what lie called a co-operative plan, lie squeezed the 
juice out of an orange and proposed to keep all of it 
himself, while the natives had the peel! “See.” he 
said, "I take only a small part and generously give 
you all there is left !” It seemed to the simple Lab¬ 
rador natives a line example of the white man’s 
Christian benevolence. So they patiently chewed the 
tough peel while the white man enjoyed the only part 
of the orange that was worth while. Finally, by 
accident, one of the natives tasted the real juice, 
lie at once objected to the trade. “Me try happy 
tongue—you chew hide!” he said, and a good-sized 
“bloc” of natives enforced the new rule. We have in 
this a miniature illustration ol‘ what went on in 
American legislation for many years. When the 
orange of business and social benefits was to he 
eaten, the politicians usually secured the juice and 
the farmers chewed the peel. That was the usual 
division. Now comes the “farmers’ bloc” in Con¬ 
gress, saying, like the Labrador native. ''You ch< io 
hide!" and the politician proceeds to chow it. 
sk 
AVE you ever thought what you will do on your 
one hundredth birthday? Would you like to 
celebrate it? A farmer in New Jersey recently 
rounded out a century of years and started No. 101 
by splitting wood and starting his housework—for 
he lives alone. This last week Columbia University 
gave a degree to l>r. Stephen Smith, who will be 100 
next February. Dr. Smith has practiced his profes¬ 
sion for 72 years and is still healing the sick. Roth 
of these men—the farmer and the doctor—expect, to 
live for some years longer. They feel well and capa¬ 
ble. and take a kindly view of life. The average 
man of 50 has spent half a century in refusing to 
take care of himself, and then proceeds to commit 
suicide by worrying and grieving over imaginary 
troubles. We believe that in the future it will be 
quite common for men and women to round out a 
full century of useful and happy years, and find 
themselves still vigorous and cheerful. We believe 
we can take a child born this year, and so rear and 
train him that, barring accidents, he will be alive 
and strong in tlie year 2022! He would have to be 
well born. Ills mother would have little or no worry 
or exhausting work before his birth, and but little to 
do besides nursing anil training him for his first two 
years. It is true that our own mothers never had 
such opportunity, but do you doubt that we might, be 
better physically today if mother had been given 
an easier time? We would make the child a milk 
drinker from the start lie would have no meat 
until bis second teeth came, but he would be fed 
largely on milk, grains, fruits and vegetables. We 
would have him examined each few months by a 
good doctor to be sure that his teeth and eyes and 
ears and throat were in order. We xvould have him 
treated by some skilled osteopath to develop liis 
bones and body, and he would have his full share of 
play and work. We would give him a reasonable ed¬ 
ucation and. if possible, develop a habit of reading 
cheerful and useful hooks. He would work into the 
profession he most desired, he it. farmer, lawyer, 
doctor, mason or carpenter. Started in this way, he 
would, unless he abused his body with tobacco or 
alcohol or lazy living, live surely to be 100—a sound, 
well-ordered life. Do you think this is all ideal? 
The greater part of it is possible for your child. 
5k 
HE American people pay out. each year about 
one billion dollars for “soft drinks.” This does 
not include milk and pure fruit juices, but repre¬ 
sents the long list of colored and flavored waters 
into which gas is injected. There is very little of 
any food value about this stuff, except when ice 
cream is used with it. A very large part of the 
“flavoring” comes from synthetic chemical com¬ 
pounds made largely from coal tar products In imita¬ 
tion of various fruits. The use of these substitutes 
is injuring (he fruit business just, us oleo and other 
substitutes have hurt dairying. If the use of these 
chemicals couhl be regulated or prohibited fruit 
growing would he greatly helped through the in¬ 
creased demand for pure fruit juices. Mr. Clark 
Allis is a candidate for Congress in the Twenty-ninth 
Nexv Y'ork District. He is interested in apple grow¬ 
ing, and in the production of apple juice. If elected 
to Congress he will introduce and push a set of bills 
designed to control these chemical fruit substitutes 
just as the oleo laws control substitutes for butter. 
Every fruit grower can easily see the need of such 
laws and the benefit which will come from them. It 
is a new proposition, but the “soft, drink" craze is 
growing so that something must be done at once to 
take the sin out of synthetic drinks. Mr. Allis is the 
man to do it. lie has a strong and practical issue, 
and his district is noted as a fruit section. 
5k 
ANY dairymen think they have a hard life, 
with long, weary hours. They do, but sonre 
of the strawberry growers have just passed through 
an experience which makes the dairymen’s life seem 
like play. The heavy rains, followed by hot, scald¬ 
ing sun, have made berry picking a nightmare. It 
was like swimming in the soggy vines, and like play¬ 
ing the meat part of a stew to pick in the dull, life¬ 
less heat of a “muggy” day. While milk contains 
about -S7 per cent of water, the strawberry has even 
more, and when fully ripe is about as quick to go 
wrong. Handling the strawberry crop this year has 
meant 1<i hours or more per day in picking, sorting, 
packing and selling, and it was all crowded into a 
brief period. And the work does not begin or end 
with the picking, for all the way from the first green 
start in Spring until the plants are tucked away 
beneath their Winter blanket, there must l»e a con¬ 
stant battle against insects, weeds and disease. The 
business has paid fairly well in recent years, and 
the prosjiects are good for some years to come; but 
make no mistake in thinking that the job is what 
our boys call a “snap.” It. is more like the snap of 
a chain, which means slavery to a hoe; yet through 
such slavery many a man lias found freedom. 
Brevities 
When tlie “overhead” becomes too heavy it smashes 
in the roof. 
Are there any modern hired men who are working 
the old-time hours? 
The natural time for grass seeding is in late Summer, 
when grasses naturally ripen. 
■'Mother’s Day” should be celebrated 865 times dar¬ 
ing the year. Too many people make a parade over 
mother one day and a drudge of her 8(14 days. 
Some fruit growers were discouraged by the recent 
freeze, and would not spray or dust. Now they find a 
fair “set” of fruit after all. The worms will have a 
harvest. 
Every week we read elaborate figures to show that 
retail food prices are dropping. No one attempts to 
show that the farmer’s share of the consumer's dollar is 
increasing—and that’s the main thing in business. 
