1490 
<Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 23, 1922 
Notes From New England 
State Police. —Farmers in Massa¬ 
chusetts are grateful for the State Police. 
This organization, which as vet is so new 
that its existence is not known in some 
sections, has proved remarkably efficient 
the past Summer in doing away with the 
petty thieving which has been both an 
annoyance and a serious los to farmers 
living on the main highways ever since 
the automobile became common on the 
roads. Lawless as these automobile 
thieves are, they have a very wholesome 
respect for the State Police, and the hit* 
ter have been doing all they can, appar¬ 
ently, to protect the farmers' Crops. The 
number of State policemen is now being 
increased so that farmers in other sec¬ 
tions of the State will have the same pro¬ 
tection. 
Chicken Thieves. —During the past 
season the poultry keepers on the South 
Shore, who specialize in roaster chickens, 
have suffered to a greater extent than 
ever from chicken thieves, one man hav¬ 
ing lost, it is reported, 1,000 birds. The 
chicken raisers got together some time 
ago and formed the Plymouth County 
Poultry Association, with L. II. Ogden, 
of Nor well, at the head. Then they went 
to (’apt. Parker, of the State Police, and 
stated their grievances. (’apt. Parker 
immediately offered to appoint a squad 
of five men to look after the chickens of 
the district if quarters could be provided. 
The town of Nor well promptly offered as 
barracks a school house which is 'to be 
given up as soon as a new school is com¬ 
pleted. One of the towns in the center 
of the poultry district thus becomes a 
State Police headquarters. The associa¬ 
tion is going further, however, and will 
try to get a law enacted by which more 
drastic punishment can be meted out to 
chicken stealers. Apparently these thieves 
are largely of the same class as the men 
who steal fruits and vegetables. Tlie.i 
come out from the cities in automobiles 
and snatch up as many chickens or hens 
as they can get hold of in a sudden raid. 
They usually bring bags to pm the chick¬ 
ens in. and sometimes make a grand coup, 
stealing as many as lo() bens in one 
night. 
Poultry Business Improves. —Inci¬ 
dentally it may be said that the poultry 
business on the South Shore, which suf¬ 
fered almost a total eclipse during the 
war. is now coming to the front again. 
At one time this section was famous the 
country over for its roasting chickens, 
which brought a premium on the market, 
and brought wealth to several growers. 
At that time dozens of shoeshop workers 
as well as professional poultrymeil 
raised roaster chickens, hatching them 
out in their cellars. Many of the poul¬ 
try men began hatching in December so us 
to have rousting chickens on the market 
early in the Summer. Some of the poul- 
trymen are still growiug roasters, but 
this phase of the business is not as large 
as formerly, although there are still a 
considerable number of men who raise 
Light Brahmas, the old-time roasting 
breed. More White Plymouth Rocks 
than any other kind of hen are to be seen 
on the South Shore, however, and many 
of the newer poulrrymen are as much in¬ 
terested in egg raising as in the produc¬ 
tion of meat. 
I Ian dung Snow hy Modern Meth¬ 
ods. —There arc few places, at. least in 
the southern part of New England, where 
automobiles are not used the year round. 
Connection is maintained even between 
the big cities, the main arteries being 
broken out by means of tractors and 
plows. The caterpillar type of tractor 
seems to have been tried out for this 
purpose in rhe West first, but is equally 
successful in the East. These machines 
will crawl over the snow instead of sink¬ 
ing into it, and can go where vehicles 
with ordinary wheels would be stalled 
within a few feet. Heavy snowplows are 
attached to these tractors. In some places 
heavy auto trucks are equipped with 
moldboard plows in front; occasionally 
an arrangement is made with contractors 
for the use of their trucks in Winter. 
They can be operated to best advantage 
in fleets of three or four, .one machine 
traveling a little behind another, In 
Northern Vermont as well as in Maine 
it is more customary to roll and pack the 
snow to make a firm roadway than to try 
in remove it. Very heavy rollers, often 
as high as a man’s head, are used, and 
the big rollers have two drums working 
on two shafts. 
A New Selling Plan. — Motorists 
traveling over some of the main roads 
crossing Massachusetts have been inter¬ 
ested and surprised this Fall to see large 
numbers of small evergreen trees in tubs 
set up alongside the roadside stands con¬ 
ducted by the farmers. These evergreens 
are for sale, and represent a new selling 
plan. They have been consigned to the 
farmers b.v nurserymen who are pushing 
the sale of such stock, and the farmers 
make a profit on dll the stock they sell. 
These young evergreens, which may be 
junipers, spruces or arborvitms, are being 
used in increasing numbers for house dec¬ 
oration. Indeed, even the florists are 
using them to a considerable extent in the 
place of palms. They sell particularly 
well just before Christinas. 
Christmas Evergreens. —People in¬ 
terested in the protection of wild plants 
are making a determined effort to prevent 
I he use of mountain laurel for Christmas 
decorations. Tons of this laurel are used 
every season, and much of it is shipped 
in by farmers, who in some instances 
make no effort to prevent the destruction 
of the plants. Mountain laurel grows 
very slowly, and practically no attempt 
is being made to increase it. It isu't at 
Christmas time only that the laurel is 
used, either. Florists buy immense quan¬ 
tities all through the season, using it for 
their decorative work. Another business, 
and one in which many farmers are in¬ 
terested. is the gathering of ferns, mil¬ 
lions of which are shipped to Boston, 
New York and the cities further West 
every year. This business centers in the 
southern part of Vermont, although 
ferns are gathered in many other parts 
of New England. The gathering is done 
in many instances by the families of 
farmers, who a id several hundred dollars 
to tlie family purse in this way. This 
year there lias been much complaint be- 
eau.se of a pest which damages the fronds. 
It is feared that the spread of this pest 
may interfere seriously with the fern bus¬ 
iness. The fern trade is on a different 
basis from the laurel trade, because the 
plants are not exterminated, for the rea¬ 
son that the fronds are carefully broken 
off in order that they may be in the right 
condition for shipping, and no damage is 
done to the roots, from which a new lot 
of ferns soon grows. 
Turkey Pricks. — Did the turkey 
growers profiteer this year? The market 
men in Boston believe that they did. It 
is interesting to get both sides of a ques¬ 
tion. Ninety per cent of the so-called 
Vermont turkeys sold in Boston come 
from New York State, mainly from St. 
Lawrence County. No one could possibly 
tell the difference between these Now 
York State turkeys and those which were 
actually raised across the border. The 
price paid by the buyers who "flocked to 
St. Lawrence County ranged from (50 to 
TO cents a pound. These buyers, many 
of whom consigned to Boston commission 
men. had tq spend at least 7 touts a 
pound to cover their packing and ship¬ 
ping charges and their overhead expenses. 
I know of one commission merchant who 
found a letter in a turkey from a New 
York Stare town. It was put there by 
the man who grew the bird, and who 
asked the buyer to let him know what he 
paid. This commission man wrote the 
turkey raiser and asked him what he 
sold his birds for. Sixty-eight cents a 
pound was the word that came back. Add 
7 cents to that price and we have 7.' cents 
that the turkeys cost the buyer, liis 
check from the commission merchant was 
at the rate of 73 cents a pound, which 
means that he lost 2 cents a pound on bis 
transaction. Many other buyers had sim¬ 
ilar experiences this year, and naturally 
are going to buy very carefully next Fall. 
Boston dealers were informed early in 
the season that Western turkeys could 
not be purchased for under 42 cents alive. 
They sent back word that they would not 
buy turkeys at that price. These are llie 
real reasons, according to the dealers, for 
the high prices which prevailed this year, 
prices which left many turkeys in the 
stalls Thanksgiving Day. The public 
will not pay these prices, it is true that, 
the turkey crop is rather short this year. 
For that matter, it is short most years. 
Without question the total number of 
turkeys throughout the country is con¬ 
stantly decreasing. Someone has said 
that in future years the only turkeys to 
be seen will be stuffed in a museum, and 
that may bo true. e. i. Farrington. 
Countrywide Produce Situation 
bright spots and dull — conditions 
BEST IN SOUTH-LOW BUYING POWER— 
DOLLARS STILL PAY DEBTS—POTATO 
•MARKETS STRONGER EAST THAN 
WEST 
The cash account of the farmer at the 
end of this year depends quite a lot on 
what he has to sell. The summaries, as 
they sift in from the various States and 
sections, show a difference iu tone. Price 
of some things picked up considerably 
during the closing mouths. 
A report from Ohio points out that 
most of the products on which Mid¬ 
western farmers depend are higher than 
they were a year ago. The only impor¬ 
tant exceptions, it. says, arc potatoes and 
hay. Live stock, grain and dairy products 
are doing better than last year, and much 
cheap graiu has been turned into beef, 
pork and mutton at a gain to the feeders. 
A North Carolina summary points out 
cotton and tobacco as bright spots in re¬ 
gard to yield in that State and in price. 
Those crops arc so prominent ns money 
bringers iu the South that: many farmers 
are able to overlook somewhat the cheap¬ 
ness of corn, sweet potatoes and the like. 
Conditions in the South show more im¬ 
provement than any other section, partly 
because the South was hardest hit by the 
depression. 
EAST NOT AS CHEERFUL 
Reports from the East and North are 
not so cheerful as those from the South 
and West, because so many of the lead¬ 
ing cash products, including vegetables, 
fruits and eggs, are cheaper than last 
year. Milk is a very littie higher, but so 
is the cost of feed. Heavy production of 
some of these products would be some 
practical offset to the price, were it not 
for the fad that a dollars worth of them 
buys only two-thirds as much of what 
the farmer needs ns it did before the war. 
< die consideration at least favors the 
man in debt—-a dollar will go tis far now 
as it ever did toward paying off a mort¬ 
gage. 
The situation has its bright spots, but 
after all, the season's average yield of 
alt crops combined was below the long 
term average, and was grown at a loss 
if figured on a real business basis. Some 
farmers have had two or three years iu 
succession of this sort of thing, and their 
debts have piled up instead of being 
paid off. 
IRREGULAR POTATO PRICES 
Potatoes continue to be one of the most 
unsatisfactory features, There are still 
so many to be sold (lint prices have failed 
to show much recovery since digging 
time, taking the average for all the great 
markets, but the Eastern cities have 
shown a gain of MO to 40 cents per 100 
lbs., while Chicago and the Western cities 
have lost about the same amount. Just 
the opposite was happeuing a year ago. 
The reason is that the crop was lighter 
in the East than the West. This places 
Maine, New York, New Jersey and Penn¬ 
sylvania in a more favorable market 
position, because they are not oversup¬ 
plying their nearest cities to the same 
extent as the great, crops of Minnesota, 
Michigan, Wisconsin and the Far West 
art* oversupplying the Western cities. 
Western shippers, of course, understand 
thp situation, and they are shipping pota¬ 
toes extensively us far East as Cleveland 
and Pittsburg, thus narrowing somewhat 
the usual outlet for Eastern stock. But 
I he Eastern shippers have some advan¬ 
tage iu freight charges, notwithstanding 
the emergency rates from some Western 
shipping sections. The danger is that too 
many Eastern farmers will hold back for 
Spring shipments. Prices at Western 
New York shipping stations arc some¬ 
times as low as 45 cents per bushel as 
bought of the growers. 
Canada has a large crop, but not so 
great as iu either 1020 or 1021. The 
average usual yield is 140 to 170 bushels, 
considerably higher than in the United 
States, but Canada no longer has the 
advantage in rate of money exchange, 
while the freight and customs tariff makes 
the fence quite high along the border. 
MORE STORAGE ONIONS 
The official report: shows about one- 
third more onions in storage than last 
season, which was a short crop year. The 
storage stock is not very large for the 
production. Some Eastern onions were 
poor keepers Ibis season. The price of 
good onions is about $2 per 100 lbs. in 
the country, and the city markets are 
firm at $2 to $2.75. Texas plantings are 
lighter this year, which will reduce com¬ 
petition in the Spring, and altogether the 
outlook is fair for a clean-up of the main 
crop. Cabbage has been doing better 
lately. Growers are getting $12 to $15 
per ton for the hard, long keeping kinds. 
The unexpected vise of cabbage, together 
with the firmness in the apple and onion 
markets, has brightened the outlook for 
many farmers at the end of the year. 
G. b. F. 
Two motor driven ore carrying steam¬ 
ships each of 20.000 tons and measuring 
560 feet in length and 72 feet in width, 
are under construction in German ship¬ 
yards ot Hamburg for the Bethlehem 
Steel Company. The boats will ply be¬ 
tween Chile und the United States. 
Clearing a Wide Track. Fig. 6(12 
South Shore Roasting Chickens. Fig. 660 
