P34 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 20, 1922 
sagacity, anil now when the friends of the farmers 
(and that means of the national well-being) have 
become more plentiful in Congress, we are working 
for a little help to balance il up with our other in¬ 
terests and make them all profitable, so there will 
be cash circulating for the public. As usual, when 
this question comes up. a lot of Congressmen who 
can see nothing hut their salaries and perquisites, 
and a lot more clothing men who want to soak their 
customers by blaming (he soaking on the duty, begin 
to yell. We will say nothing about the first class, 
because no one could do some of them their justice, 
but the latter have a propaganda disseminating 
sophistries to prepare the people to pay them in¬ 
creased prices. We have clippings here from all over 
the land taken from circular letters sent by whole¬ 
sale clothing manufacturers to retailers with in¬ 
structions to get them in ihe press, and they are a 
marvel. They assert that the proposed duty will 
raise the price of every suit and overcoat from $5 
to $20. and their hearts are breaking at the thought 
of the robbery by the grasping sheepmen. They are 
like a friend in the retail clothing business during 
.Schedule K days who said : “Reynolds, you know I am 
a Democrat, but I want a duty on wool. For every 
cent a pound of tariff I slick on a dollar, and when 
a fellow kicks about the price of a suit or overcoat 
1 blame it ou the duty and the sheepmen." and he 
was exactly in the same shape as those kickers, lie 
sold little but shoddy. The difference was he waited 
until after the duty was on. but (bey are preparing 
the people so they can save explanations later. 
THE NEW TARIFF.—To give them wider pub¬ 
licity. they arc pestering Congress, and our Repre¬ 
sentative, William M. Morgan, a wool grower, got. 
tired of tlieir stuff and showed the fallacy of it in 
the New York nail]/ A'c/r* Record. A lot of them 
swarmed back at him the next day. Even an Eng¬ 
lishman who wants the freest kind of free trade to 
sell shoddy to them jumped in. Our man inserts a 
few inches of truthful aggravation and they till 
columns very recklessly Ihe next day. It is our man 
against the Held. This propaganda is widespread, 
so. readers. 1 want you to listen to the facts. Here¬ 
with are the true conditions: The proposed duty is 
32 cents a pound on scoured wool, and 2Va lbs. will 
make a good virgin wool, moderate weight suit, 
about like you buy. 
EFFECT OF THE DUTY—No wholesale or retail 
clothier has any right to add a cent to the cloth, >r 
the readymade garments he bought. The mill that 
buys the wool pays the duty. The proposed duty is 
lower than the emergency duty, and the cost of cloth 
has already been raised, predicated on that 45 cents 
duty, very little, if any of which, has been paid. 
Also, this cloth on hand to date was made from very 
low-priced wool they bought during the past years, 
< n which Ihere was no duty. From this it is easily 
seen that instead of an advance on cloth it already 
lias the advantage of being made from wool that was 
almost a gift, and that it already has a 45-cents a 
pound duty stuck on. Further, to show you the in¬ 
wardness of the main props of this increased price 
propaganda who are making such a yell about wool 
duty, they have a very shady reputation on virgin 
wool. They are on the Government record, and you 
can find how vociferous they were against it in the 
record <>f the hearing on the "Truth in Fabrics” bill 
last July. They did not want any truth then, and 
their “$5 to $20” claims now show that their repu¬ 
tation for truth and veracity lias not been redeemed. 
SHODDY SALKS.—The fact that they were op¬ 
posed to truth in textiles shows they wanted to sell 
shoddy under the name of our wool. That is plain, 
and the reader can form his own conclusion when 
they want to sell shoddy and kick on wool duty that 
they are preparing to stick that wool duty ou shoddy 
suits. On their side this duty talk is for a purpose, 
and on ours it is colossal bunk. This talk of mine 
i> to get money in circulation by the way of the 
sheep industry. There should be Others trying to 
get il by a balanced production with sugar, liax and 
hemp. I insist that there must always l»e trouble 
with our buying power unless the farmers put up 
the money, and also insist that they never will until 
they can. 
A PESSIMISTIC VIEW.—There never were so 
many sullen men in the land as now. Too many 
have been sent to Congress that liked big business 
better than the welfare of the whole people, or else 
they were so stupid they eared for nothing, except 
for their salaries. They have been blind to the real 
source of a circulation so essential for the comfort 
and happiness of all. There were 1.656 failures in 
June, only 60 a day, and that has been happening 
for nearly two years. When you must buy things, 
and sometimes think you were soaked, try to put 
yourself in the place of the man with the anxious 
heart, looking helplessly and hopelessly for the 
money to pay his store and house rent, besides bis 
grocery and clothing bills. He reads about these 
failures that are of small concern to you. Just 
imagine you and your family in such a fix, and if 
you have any humanity about you. you can see ir 
is the duty of favored land-owners to work for our 
own and bis welfare. 
THE GOLDEN HOOF.—Now. then, look at mil- 
Lons of acres that the “golden hoof” should he en¬ 
riching. growing half crops with fertilizers, com¬ 
peting with land lifted for full yields, and the accu¬ 
mulated dribs of grain and cotton from them cutting 
the heart out of the prices to impoverish all farmers. 
You all know what I aui talking about. Notice.that 
expanse of land competing with ihe other, piling on 
more surplus to impoverish all and head off money 
for the buying power of the public. This sheep 
bind should be a customer instead of a competitor 
of the good land, buying grain to produce mutton 
and wool, all making money. Look how that would 
work out. Suppose we had the quota of money that 
should have come to the land for wool during the 
past 30 or 40 years, and in addition the untold for¬ 
tunes lost from that surplus: we would be as per¬ 
manently flush as l'onzi was for a spell. Now is it 
right to encourage the sheep industry with some 
protection? 
THE CLOTHING TRADE,—In regard to clothes, 
our good wool went to the warehouse pool the fifth 
of July, and after growing that kind for half a cen¬ 
tury I have a right to wear the best virgin wool 
clothes to be found. There is such a demoralization 
in the clothing trade, from reasons you have seen 
in the foregoing, that virgin wool can scarcely be 
found except by those interested in all the details 
of the wool business. I took a 40-mWe spin to Colum¬ 
bus yesterday, went into a tailoring establishment 
that is very prosperous because up-to-date ou virgin 
wool, and asked to see a bolt of the color, weight 
and Quality desired, one that had the manufacturer's 
name on it and the brand “Virgin Wool.” 1 left my 
measure and a check and walked out. I wear wool 
while working in the evenings for the national wel¬ 
fare this way, and for our daily bread in the day, 
and I would smile to see those grasping wool-duty 
kickers get anything on me. w. w. Reynolds^ 
Ohio. 
When Like Produces Like 
The laying competitions continue to point, with 
emphasis to the fact that there is a vast difference in 
tin* productivity of hpus aud to the further fact that 
jr IM id yields are not eonfmed to any special breed. 
Consider for a moment the 1<> best pens at Stm-rs and 
the 10 poorest pens: Loth groups consist, of Rocks. Reds. 
Wyaudottes and Leghorn-. There are. of course, 100 
heiis in each division. The average egg yield since 
November 1 last is 74 eggs per hen in one lot and HI 
eggs per hen in the other. It has. of course, cost nearly, 
if not quite, as much to feed, house, and care for one 
group of lions as for the other, but the gross income in 
one case exceeds the other by more than 80 per cent. 
HAT is taken from the weekly report of the 
Connecticut egg-laying contest. It is true, 
but there seems to he no absolutely sure 
thing about breeding and developing the su¬ 
perior birds. In the majority of eases the 
daughters of a cockerel whose mother was 
a superior layer will excel—but not always. 
We have a curious instance of this in our own ex¬ 
perience. We entered a pen of Red pullets in the 
Vineland contest. We never before took such pains 
in breeding and selecting, and we had the right to 
expect a remarkably fine pen. In truth, these birds 
proved the worst sort of failures. They were feeble 
—nearly one-tliird of them died. Those that did live 
were mostly drones, and their egg performance was 
disgraceful. Had they been at home, they never 
would have cumbered the earth after August, but. 
they were entered for a breeding contest, and we 
bad to carry it through. These lazy and worthless 
birds were mated with a young cockerel, and pullets 
for this year's contest were selected from their 
chicks. Strange as if may seem, the daughters of 
these idle drones started into early laying, and have 
made a very creditable record. For a time they 
ranked among the leaders, and in view of the dis¬ 
graceful record of their mothers, the public seemed 
to give all the credit to their father. As one man 
wrote us: “He must have been a remarkable bird. 
I presume you paid $1<*0 or more for him—out of 
some prize-winning flock! II is a remarkable illus¬ 
tration of trhaf the introduction of improved blood 
trill do to a vent ordinary flock!" 
For the sake of theory and good practice, we 
probably should say nothing, but let it go: yet the 
truth is that tlie father of these good pullets was 
anything but a $100 bird. There was no blue blood 
about him. We became so disgusted with the per¬ 
formance of these pullets that we lost interest in 
them. The leather medal seemed the only one pos¬ 
sible for tlieir daughters, so we decided to make 
sure of that, at least. We just went out into the 
yard and picked up the first cockerel we saw. His 
color was fairly good, but we paid little attention 
to bis pedigree or “points.” He was just “a young 
rooster"—nothing more. Yet from this accident, or 
grab-bag selection we obtained a pen which are 
nearly (50 per cent better than tlieir mothers. Who 
can explain it? 
Farming for a One-armed Man 
I am one of the unfortunates that have left an arm 
behind, married, with a family of wife, two children 
and myself. We have always had a desire for farming 
and have decided to try a small farm with poultry and 
fruit as tin 1 main issue. 1 wish to have your advice as 
to the kind and size of a farm most suitable for a man 
in my position. I am by no means helpless, for 1 am 
a big man. (5 ft. tall, and weigh about ISO. and have al¬ 
ways done hard work, and am doing a man-sized job now. 
New Jersey. s. u. W. 
NE of the best farmers we know Inis only one 
leg. That leg is a good one, however, and by 
the help of machinery its owner has been tilde to 
develop ;i good business. We know of several men 
v. bo have lost one arm or hand who have been able 
to organize and work a good farm garden. If a 
man's bead is good and bis courage is true lie can 
find substitutes for the missing arm. We would 
suggest a small place of 10 to 12 acres of good level 
land for stu b a man. Poultry and small fruits or 
asparagus will pay best. We would advise some 
new breed or some improved strain of an old breed 
so as to develop a business in stock or eggs for 
hatching. Just now the Black Jersey Giants seem 
to offer fair opportunity. We expect a good demand 
for them for several years to come, and if some 
breeder can develop a superior laying strain lie will 
reap a good harvest. Or some good family ol Leg¬ 
horns or Reds should pay well. Both breeds are 
popular and in good demand. We think that during 
the next few years a smaller flock of very choice 
hirds will pay better than a large flock for commer¬ 
cial egg production. Asparagus is a good crop for 
such a situation. Once planted on suitable soil, the 
asparagus will last for years, and there is usually 
a good demand. Strawberries and raspberries 
promise well for the next few years. These crops 
are not likely to be overdone, as the supply lias been 
short. With one of the lighter tractors a strong 
man with one arm can do much of the cultivating 
of -neb crops. Of course lie would have to depend 
on helpers for picking and weeding, but such help 
can usually be obtained near a town of fair size. 
As a rule an hour’s work in strawberries will pay 
far better than an hour in potatoes or grain. We 
should write to the New Jersey Agricultural College 
at New Brunswick and obtain a supply of bulletins 
and extension pamphlets, and spend a few days visit¬ 
ing among people who work small places such as 
you have in mind. In the list of hooks sold by The 
It. N.-Y, are several that will help you. but you 
must not expect to get the whole story from books. 
They are suggestive and useful, hut the real exper¬ 
ience must lie dug out of the soil—by hand. 
A Defense of the Baldwin Apple 
Y our editorial on page 800. together with an 
article in a former issue concerning the passiMg 
of the Baldwin apple, arouses me to say a word in 
its defense. Here in Niagara County we have 
always considered it the main standby, and I have 
seen nothing to indicate any change of opinion, 
nothing to suggest that other sorts are supplanting 
it in favor. While it is true that Wealthy. McIntosh 
and other early varieties have been heavily planted 
during tlie past 20 years, there are likewise plenty 
of young blocks of Greening. Baldwin and Spy. and 
I do net think it is generally considered that 
Wealthy and McIntosh will ever seriously compete 
with these old standard sorts. 
You mentioned particularly ihe McIntosh as 
hardier and more profitable than Baldwin. That is 
true—so far as it goes. My McIntosh have been 
money-makers: but here along Lake Ontario there 
are seasons when fogs and rain make It very diffi¬ 
cult to keep the Macs free from scab. From that 
standpoint I consider McIntosh an expensive and 
somewhat uncertain apple to raise. 
1 have had a slight experience with the selling end 
of the apple industry, a factor which every com¬ 
mercial grower must consider; and my observation 
indicates that when it comes to marketing. McIntosh 
is in no way a substitute for Baldwin. If McIntosh 
is not put on the market before the holidays, you 
