Tht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
1( 77 
The Fuel Situation 
ILHAM II. WOODIN is State Fuel Admin¬ 
istrator of New York. His first order for 
the regulation of coal dealers is summarized as 
follows: 
Dealers may not until further orders deliver more 
anthracite at one time than the average of two weeks’ 
consumption of the recipient over a period of October 
1 to April 1. 
Two weeks’ supply may not be delivered to any con¬ 
sumer of the domestic sizes who already has the equiva¬ 
lent of two weeks’ mlppl.V or more on hand. 
The dealer must useertuiu from the purchaser whether 
or not he lifts placed similar orders with other dealers. 
The dealer will be held responsible for any misstate¬ 
ments or conceal incuts regarding his supplies of fuel. 
The administrator would have power to enter a 
private residence and remove a surplus of coni in 
case some lucky person has laid in a full Winter’s 
supply. While he has this power, it is not likely 
that he will use it except in cases where actual 
profiteering has beeu done. So long its such a law 
is enforced impartially there should be no complaint. 
In case of favoritism no complaint could be loud or 
strong enough. The chances now are that some of 
us will suffer from lack of fuel before Spring. This 
is no time for anyone to grab more than their share. 
Most of us who live on Eastern farms have a good 
supply of wood. Our stove and heaters are not all 
built for wood burning, but we can get along, and 
we will not complain if the coal supply is distributed 
fairly. The situation ought to give some of us a 
chance to dispose of our wood as fuel at a fair 
figure. 
Market for Wood Fuel 
On page 1110 we gave the opinion of a New York 
('ity dealer regarding wood as a fuel. We have not 
thought it will pay to send wood here. Coal is the city 
fuel, and while there may he some demand for wood, it 
will not he a natural thing to use it, except in some 
cases for fireplace fuel. The best market this year will 
be in the towns and smaller cities, where there are still 
many people who are familiar with wood as a fuel. 
Farmers also can use much of it, and thus economize 
on coal. The following note is from a dealer in Pough¬ 
keepsie. N. Y,, and is a fair sample of what is reported 
from such markets: 
HERE will be a fair sale of anything that will 
burn this year. You can assure your farmer 
patrons that chestnut or anything will sell. Wood 
as a substitute for coal has many advantages for 
anyone if the extra labor of rehandling cau be cut 
out. Labor costs, after all, are i><* per cent of wood, 
while in coal it is 70 per cent. I tisliouesty has done 
much to bring wood into disrepute, 3 ft. 9 in. being 
only one of the things cord wood, or 4-ft. wood, as 
some call it, has to bear. It is a pity that dry 
measure must be resorted to, for if wood was pro¬ 
perly aged it could be sold by weight, thus giving 
the hard woods the benefit of price, just as heavy 
seed ottts bring more than the half-tilled graiu. The 
scales determine quality. Green wood, the bane of 
all housekeepers, has done much to harm a natural 
kindling. Get your farmers in back sections, re¬ 
moved from easy transportation, to make surplus 
top wood and branches, the cleaning up of their 
woodlots, into good, well-burned charcoal. Yes, it 
is hard work. I know, and some sleepless nights, but 
it will pay. A cord of wood is estimated to do as 
much work as a half ton of anthracite. So coal is 
always cheaper, except one owns the wood. I hope 
The R. N.-Y. will clean up many a waste lot of wood 
by educating the farmer as to the value of his stock 
in trade. k. v. s. 
The Game Laws and Trespass Signs 
T HE New York Conservation Law provides that 
trespass signs w hich have been destroyed or 
have become illegible may he replaced at any time 
during July, August or September. When notices 
have been so renewed the land is legally posted 
until the first of October of the succeeding year. 
Violations are prosecuted by the Stare. The mini¬ 
mum penalty is $60, and of this the land owner 
receives $25. As trespass with a rod, gun or trap 
upon posted property is prohibited, convictions have 
proved easy and certain. Approximately 96 per cent 
of the cases prosecuted have resulted in convictions 
or settlements, and trespassing by lawless hunters 
on posted land lias practically censed. It will un¬ 
doubtedly he less during the coming open season 
than last year, for many who formerly overran 
farms without any regard for the owner’s right to 
peaceable possession have learned a lesson that they 
will uot soon forget. 
I spent most of the month of August motoring 
through the State, and talked with many farmers. 
All agreed that the law had provided much needed 
protection. Many stated that since they had posted 
their fasaus there had been a marked decrease in 
the amount of fruit stolen by auto thieves, and in 
every neighborhood after one or two convictions 
trespassing ceased. 
In Monroe County hordes of lawless gunners from 
Rochester formerly overran the farmer’s lands, 
damaged liis fences, stole his fruit and shot his 
domestic fowls. They shot so recklessly in orchards 
that it was impossible to pick apples on open days 
for pheasants. Most of these farms are now posted, 
and trespassing is a thing of the past. 
Pheasants have increased very rapidly, and many 
broods of young birds were seen and reported. The 
time is not far distant when the farmers of this 
section will receive a substantial return from their 
pheasants, either from respectable gunners, who 
lease the shooting rights, or from the sale of male 
birds killed on their farms. 
The Conservation Law should be amended so as to 
authorize the commissioner to grant licenses to 
farmers to take male pheasants on their own lauds 
during the month of November without restriction 
as to numbers and to permit the sale of such birds 
under proper restrictions. Such au amendment 
would encourage the farmer to feed and care for 
his pheasants during the Winter. Pheasants in¬ 
crease more rapidly when there are about five times 
as many female as male birds, and the males could 
not easily be reduced below this ratio. When the 
laws recognize that the farmer owns the game on 
his land so long as it remains there, we shall have 
game in abundance for everybody. 
HENRY M. BRIGHAM. 
Shipping Eggs by Parcel Post 
I am considering marketing the eggs from about 400 
hens this Winter by parcel post, and would like to get 
your views on the subject, I hi you know whether it 
has worked out satisfactorily to parcel post eggs to 
individual families on a year around contract price, or 
is it better to sell at the highest retail price, plus 
postage? This latter method would perhaps cause many 
arguments as to the price strictly fresh eggs could be 
bought for at retail, but the contract method is also 
liable to cause trouble. When the market price is 
higher than the contract price it would be all right, 
but during the months when it would be lower the 
customers would be quite likely to make some excuse 
to discontinue buying, and thus leave the producer 
holding the sack. Or do you perhaps know of any 
other satisfactory way? Should purebred Barred Rocks 
have a perfectly dean beak? Ours are streaked and 
spotted with black. The pullets are now live months 
old, and some have been laying for over three weeks, 
lair the black marks arc still on their beaks, h.g. s. 
Maryland- 
E have had considerable experience in .ship¬ 
ping eggs by parcel post, but must say that 
we do not care very much for the system, and have 
discontinued shipping in this way, except on special 
occasions. The labor of packing, addressing and 
mailing the packages, together with the cost of 
packages and postage and loss from breakage, make 
it necessary to charge such a high price for the eggs 
that very few people will pay the premium necessary 
to leave a fair profit for the producer. We tried 
charging 10 cents a dozen, over top quotations, plus 
postage, and the customer was to return boxes, hut 
found that very few customers would return boxes 
promptly and in good condition, so Ave were out the 
cost of the boxes not returned. The best method 
used was to charge the customer the cost of the 
boxes used to ship his eggs in. He would then re¬ 
turn them to save buying new boxes for every ship¬ 
ment. We also charged 10 cents over top quotations 
in this case, besides postage, and refused orders 
from parties who failed to give bunk references or 
whom wo did not know personally. Also we would 
not fill orders for less than four dozen eggs each 
shipment. This method of marketing may be of 
some use to producers who live some distance from 
good markets and who have time to attend to all 
the details of a business of this kind, but we found 
it much more satisfactory to cater to a local retail 
egg trade and wholesale the surplus, if any. Pure¬ 
bred Barred Rooks do not necessarily have clear 
yellow beaks. They are usually streaked and spotted 
with black or dark color, which is allowable. 
C. S. GREKNE. 
New York State Notes 
The Now York State Fair was a great exposition. 
More than one truthfully said this as they passed from 
exhibit to exhibit, and viewed what the great State was 
producing both iu animal and plant life. One thing 
was very noticeable, and that was the dean way the 
whole thing was conducted. There were very few of 
the low-type fakers under foot to mar the spectacle of 
the great fair. There were some of the indestructible 
comb salesmen, there were some of the non-loosening 
cement salesmen and, yes, there were a few selling some 
indispensable kitchen utensil, but few of the sort of 
salesmen why give you no value whatever for your 
money. Some people looked in vain for the big cheese 
which has occupied such an important place for so long, 
but this was uot shown this year. The makers of it 
found that the gathering of the material for it from so 
many factories was not entirely satisfactory'. The sale 
of milk drinks of all kinds, however, took its place in 
the building and iu the importance of the dairy industry. 
If one might judge from the display of farm machinery 
they would readily come to the conclusion that the 
shortage of labor on the land was fast hastening the 
age of power farming. The competition in this line 
was very great. Many of the long-established com¬ 
panies were finding, as their competitors, new men in 
the field. Near the entrance to the fair grounds there 
was exhibited something that may in time revolutionize 
the method of handling milk by means of refrigerator 
cars. This exhibit was to show the container car tanks 
for milk shipments. These cars contain glass-lined 
tanks and are so constructed that less than carlots of 
milk may be shipped if so desired, as each car contains 
nine compartments, each containing tanks which are 
insulated much as a thermos bottle is. They have a 
capacity of 600 gallons. This represents 60 of the 
10-gullou or 40-quart cans, which are the standard size 
used in the shipment of milk to the big markets. 
A great deal of interest centered in the county exhibit 
room, where each year a part of the Farm Bureaus of 
the State prepare an exhibit: which has for its object 
to properly typify the agriculture of the county. These 
exhibits are interesting because of the wide range of 
industry in Agriculture that is shown. It is interesting 
because of the better appreciation visitors get of the 
limitations as well as scope which different counties 
have. The awards are made for these exhibits on the 
basis of a score card, which gave 50 points for the 
correctness with which the exhibit typifies the county; 
30 points for the quality of material exhibited; 25 
points for the educational feature of the exhibit, and 
15 points for the diversity of the exhibitors. Tompkins 
County won first honors this year. One of the large 
features which they emphasized was the accredited herd 
work which has been organized this past year, and as 
a particular plan was original with them, and has be¬ 
come known as the Tompkins County plan. Onondaga 
County was the winner of the second prize. This ex¬ 
hibit attracted a good deal of attention from the fact 
that many Counties of the State are just getting into 
the raising of Alfalfa, and this county showed on one 
of its informational charts that they have growing in 
the county tit the present time 33,222 acres of this 
legume, and are the leading county in the East iu the 
total number of acres. They also showed wbat may 
be called a revived industry in their teasel display. 
They are now growing in that county approximately 
100 acres. These ave grown for the woolen trade, 
which has yet found uo substitute that will do as well 
in the manufacture of cloth as the head of a teasel plant 
when made into a spindle. The variety of teasel grown 
for the woolen trade differs from the wild form in that 
rite points that form the head have a distinct hook on 
the end, and the wild form is practically straight. In 
the center of the Essex County exhibit, which captured 
third place, there was a large scene of the county made 
from types of seeds grown in the farms and gardens of 
Essex County. This scene was made by eight of the 
local Granges. Although many folks think of Essex 
County as a mountainous county, they could not help 
but be impressed with the wide variety of products it 
produces, Oswego County, which won fourth prize, 
featured the crops which are grown on the muck lands 
of that county. The observation hive of bees which 
they showed was also the cause of much interest. The 
fifth prize went to Clinton County. Contrary to the 
proud growers of Western New York, Clinton County 
had conspicuously posted the slogan, “Our McIntosh 
Are Unexcelled.” Iu sixth place Nassau showed mostly 
garden crops, which has made that county famous the 
State over. Madison County won the seventh place 
among the contestants, and emphasized the milk in¬ 
dustry and cunning crops industry, which have made 
that county one of the leaders iu these two lines. Tioga, 
which was placed eighth, may well be proud of the 
fundamental road improvement program which they 
were first to inaugurate in the State. 
The experiment station display was unusually inter¬ 
esting because of the fact that there has beeu consider¬ 
able dismission over the new fruits that are being 
developed, and how they may rake the place of many 
of the standard varieties. This discussion has centered 
around the Baldwin to quite a large extent. When I 
discussed this matter with one of the meu most inti¬ 
mately connected with the apple industry of the State 
I asked him frankly if the Baldwin was losing in favor. 
He quickly replied that it. would be a long day before 
there would be auy apple that would surpass the wide 
use which is made of the Baldwin. It is true, he stated, 
that the Baldwin is quite consistently au alternate year 
bearing fruit, but its many other good characteristics 
still make it popular. He also stared that there are 
many old apple orchards which are largely Baldwins, 
which would nor bear out consistently the fact that the 
Baldwin is a short-lived tree. The Cortland apple, 
which we have heard s<> mm-it about, was nor on display 
at the fair, due probably to the fact that the samples 
had not stood up for display. There was one interest¬ 
ing apple, which fhe superintendent of the department 
allowed me to taste, and that was the station seedling 
that is a cross between the Yellow Transparent and 
the McIntosh, Ir i< a good apple, with plenty of snap 
to it. I believe from the one I tasted that the Yellow 
Transparent flavor predominates in this variety, yet 
unnamed. 
The Governor's speech at the farm dinner given by- 
Mr. Burnum. editor of the Poitt-Stundard of Syracuse, 
contained some items worthy of notice. He dwelt on 
the two strikes which have more or less hail the public 
at their mercy. In the Governor’s speech he stated 
that the purpose of the uewly organized fuel adminis¬ 
tration should be that the public should uot pay the 
whole bill which has been the losses of the employers 
and the employees. He stated that if a method could 
be employed whereby ihe losses in strikes were not 
transferred to the public strikes would be far less pop¬ 
ular than they are ar the present time. lie stated that it is 
the farmer who is .suffering most from the strikes which 
are now about closing. He stated that the conditions 
which have arisen lta\r beeu cuu*ed by the associations 
of capital making bargains with the associations of 
labor. To meet this condition properly he emphasized 
that the farmers must associate themselves together. 
Such associations of farmers will be unsuccessful, how ¬ 
ever. he believes, if they do uot take a broader angle 
than that now taken by capital and labor iu failing to 
consider the needs of the other classes. So far, lie as¬ 
serted. the farmer has not taken the same selfish atti¬ 
tude, and he said that there was nothing to indicate 
that there was growing auy such attitude. This he 
believes to be the stabilizing force in our present demo¬ 
cratic government, e. a. k 
