1506 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 23, 1022 
All letters to Publisher's Desk depart¬ 
ment must be signed with writer's full 
name and address given. Many inquiries 
are answered by mail instead of printing 
inquiry and answer, hence unsigned let¬ 
ters receive no consideration. 
E. G. Lewis is again in the courts, this 
time in the State of California. In St. 
I.ouis some years back he mesmerized 
bankers, many publishers, some of them 
agricultural publishers, the Chautauqua 
Circle, professional men and educational 
institutions and colleges. By the help of 
their influence and the element of re¬ 
spectability they gave him. together with 
his own personal allurements. Lewis 
picked up substantially $12,000.000 to 
promote about 00 schemes, varying 
from small fakes to monumental swin¬ 
dles. He managed to escape three indict¬ 
ments, and as many criminal trial <, but 
his schemes finally went through the Fed¬ 
eral courts, and his victims lost all. 
Many of them were ex-soldiers, poor 
women and superannuated persons who 
put their all into the Lewis enterprises 
for the get-rich prospects he painted for 
them. The Post Ofliee Department is¬ 
sued “fraud orders" against him at oue 
time, and investigated him many times. 
Through politics and a change of admin¬ 
istration, Lewis actually induced a com¬ 
mittee of Congress as a monumental bluff 
to inquire into the restrictions put on him 
by officials of the Post Office Deparment. 
same time. Do not change the preferred 
for the common stock. If the stock 
should he redeemed, as stated, consider 
yourself fortunate. 
This afternoon an agent representing 
the Cornbelt. Nursery aud Forestry As¬ 
sociation, Bloomington, 111., came hero, 
lie was selling everbearing strawberry 
plants at <! rents each. According to 
photographs, this strawberry avoirs up 
as a small hush, 10 or 12 in. high, rather 
than its it low plant on the ground. Tie* 
contract is that they sell 1,000 plants 
and lheu furnish another 1.000 free of 
charge. They come and ml vise as to 
care, marketing, etc., for five years. All 
the ptty they ask is half the net proceeds 
of next October's crop as pa.v for their 
plants and work. Although not written 
in the contract, the agent said the com¬ 
pany guaranteed a yield of one-half quart 
per mouth per plant, and agreed to pay 
not less than 1U> cents per quart, agreed 
to take nil berries aud pay express on 
cases to Cleveland. The bank here gives 
the company a $50,000 to $75,000 Itrad- 
street rating. Several here were taken 
in. ourselves included, but the more 1 
think of it the more suspicious I become 
thiit it is a fraud. n. i„ p. 
Ohio. 
The above report requires little com¬ 
ment. Aliy experienced fruit grower 
would say that this plan of buy ing plants 
is unwise, to say the least. The. Corn- 
belt Nursery and Forestry Association 
has a good financial rating, as stated, 
but this does not make the plan desirable. 
If it has been the custom of the concern 
to sell strawberry plants at 0 cents each, 
the firm ought to in* rich. Only new aud 
a very rare variety could be worth any 
such price. We cannot say what the 
variety in question or its merits may be. 
DISTRIBUTOR. Large square THE BOX. Matched lumber 
steel shaft with heavy hexa- with heavy steel strapped top 
gon shaped steel blades which sills and side braces. Bot- 
cut and throw manure widely. tom is perfectly tight. 
Cannot turn on square shaft. DRIVE. Malleable link chain 
DT? . mr-n a i * . . on malleable gears. Throws out 
Angle stee l bars an( j i n while driving. 
with diamond shaped self- FEED. Strong and positive, 
sharpening steel teeth punched No wearing of parts when 
and riveted to angles. out Q f gear . 
Send for spreader judging card and use it before you buy. 
The Ohio Cultivator Co., Bellevue, Ohio 
That investigation was one of the most 
humiliating experiences of Congress. Hou 
Win. 0. Redfield, a member of the Con¬ 
gressional committee, and later n mem¬ 
ber of the Wilson Cabinet, championed 
the Lewis pretences and apologized for all 
his fake and fraudulent schemes, Tiie 
Rural New-Yorker alone threw the 
searchlight of publicity into the swindles, 
and finally’ stopped the easy flow of 
money from country people to St. Louis. 
Then Lewis went to California. Now 
it is said that be had 00 schemes under 
way there, and that the people contrib¬ 
uted $25,000,000 to them, Federal and 
State authorities are now starring to in¬ 
vestigate them. It is said that they are 
so interlocked and tangled that it may 
take months to investigate them, and all 
the details can never be known. In the 
meantime Lewis has brought suit against 
two associates to recover $1,400,000 
which he alleges to have lost through 
them, but which must have come from a 
gullible public. This suit will serve the 
purpose of the Congressional investiga¬ 
tion in the St. Ijouis ense. Hon. Wm. C. 
Redfield of Brooklyn Borough, in the 
City of New York, and ex-member of a 
Presidential Cabinet, has now another op¬ 
portunity to champion his abused protege. 
Is the Farmers’ Standard Carbide 
Company making good? I bought live 
$10 shares when they first began, aud we 
were sorry enough. Now they have given 
me five shares more in their acetylene 
business. Mine is the preferred stock, 
and they tell us that iu December they 
will he redeemed. They want me to 
change to common stock. I do not un¬ 
derstand such tilings very well. Is it 
safe to send money for their carbide? 
Our interest has not C0IQO yet for this 
half year. It comes in October or No¬ 
vember. Does that mean we will not get 
any more on account of their giving us 
that stock? Shall we exchange our pre¬ 
ferred stock to common? I wish we could 
get our $50 back. E. P. R. 
New York. 
We do not hear much of the activities 
of the Farmers’ Standard Carbide Com¬ 
pany lately. We have always regarded 
the company with suspicion, because of 
the methods employed in the sale of stock. 
Some dividends have been paid, and in 
some instances stock salesmen have car¬ 
ried the dividend check to the stockholder 
and with promises of bigger dividends in 
the future induced further investment. 
If the dividends were not paid for the 
express purpose of inducing extra invest¬ 
ment from stockholders they were used 
for this purpose al least. We have never 
seen any statement showing that divi¬ 
dends paid were earned. That the divi¬ 
dend due in I ictober or November has 
not been paid would indicate that the 
company is not active in selling more 
stock by the previous methods, or the 
dividend payment may only be delayed to 
Jet I i m a flock of stock salesmen at tbe 
The “strawberry bush" is certainly a new 
one! We may next hear of strawberries 
growing on trees, but the staid berry 
growers will want to “be shown.” 
A note of warning lias been sounded to 
all holders of the IfilS series of War 
Savings Stamps by U. II. Ron)back. Di¬ 
rector of the Government Savings System 
for tin* Second Federal Reserve District. 
"Swindlers are already at work among 
the uninformed people of our district. A 
pitiful instance of their activities came 
to our attention yesterday. A poor Ita! 
inn woman who lives in Brooklyn bought 
Thrift Stamps back in HUS and finally 
had enough to obtain a $5 War Savings 
Stamp. This one lone stamp, which ma¬ 
tures on .January 1, represented her ef¬ 
forts ti help finance the war. The other 
day a man appeared at her door, told 
her he was a representative of the I’ost 
IDfliee and asked if she had any IWar Sav¬ 
ings Stamps. When she produced her 
stamp she was told that the government 
was going ro cash it now and the man 
proceeded to dip the stamp from the 
card. He then made a notation in a book 
and wrote on the certificate, "Present at 
the P. < >. at “ :30 tomorrow." and depart¬ 
ed with the stamp. In the expectation of 
receiving her $5, the woman called at the 
I’ost Office the next day and presented 
her mutilated certificate, only to find that 
she had been defrauded.” 
There is no reason, according to the 
Savings Director, why losses of this kind 
should occur, and lie urges all holders of 
1018 War Savings ('ertifieates and 
Stamps to surrender them to no one 
other than a Post Office, hank or the 
Federal Reserve Rank. Ample facilities 
have been provided hy the government to 
enable owners of these stamps either to 
exchange them at once for the new Treas¬ 
ury Savings Certificates or redeem them 
for cash. 
This warning is timely. It is not safe 
even to discuss personal affairs with 
strangers. The postmaster or a local 
bank will wive advice aud adjust all ex¬ 
changes without any element of danger or 
loss. 
It may interest you to know that this 
subscriber is a teacher in a city school, 
but she finds your paper a great assis¬ 
tance to her in her teaching, especially in 
the subject of geography as they teach if 
now. She has always shown an interest 
in the paper when visiting here, so last 
year I ordered it sent to her for a birth¬ 
day present. She said now that she can¬ 
not do without it. so I remit for her for 
another year. MRS. o. Q. E. 
Connecticut. 
The more teachers that we have who 
use The R. N.-Y. ns a textbook, the 
greater will be the understanding of farm 
problems by the coming generation. Such 
teachers serve all people aud enrich the 
world. 
Horse nettle, one of our most per¬ 
nicious weeds, seems to he increasing in 
the North. It is a perennial, spreading 
both by seeds and rootstocks. Prevent 
seeding by lioe cutting or pulling out. 
Short rotations are helpful, alternate 
hoed crops given thorough tillage, and 
Hover, rye or vetch, which choke* tin* 
weed, and also provide late forage and 
humus for turning under. 
SAVE HALF Your 
Paint Bills 
BY USING Ingersoll Paint 
PROVED BEST by 80 years’ ttse. It 
will please you. TKe ObfLY PAINT en¬ 
dorsed by the “GRANGE” for 47 years. 
Made in all colors—for all purposes. 
Get my FREE DELIVERY offer. .. 
From Factory Direct to You at Wholesale Prfi.cs. 
INCER80LL PAINT BO( >K—FREE 
Toll* nil nbmit Paint and l'nintinir for Durability. Valu¬ 
able Information FREE To You with Hmnple Cards. 
Write in*. DO IT NOW I WIT.t. SAVE YOU MONEY. 
Oldest Ready Mixed Paint Honor In America—Estab. 1843 
0. W. Ingersoll, 246 Plymouth Si., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
WITTE S 
Buzz Saw 
Prom Plttaburgh 
$#0.05 
No need to worry about coal i f 
you hiv$ this rig—Uso cogioe A 
every day _—- £ 
tor other 
work. 
72 n f Cat* join- 
a* last a* you cniC**I I 
feed wood to**w. Cut Tour entire"™*— 
winter's wood la ■ few day*. WITTE Power 
Bus* 8*wa are built in 8 sue* —smell, nwtdium 
*nd lirjte, Cnjln, tnd Saw Complete with 
Belt. Every terra nhould have ona. We also 
make Log Saw*. Tree Snwa end big Portable Saw 
Huts. Tell us Sizo Engine or Snw Outtlt you can 
Dio, and we will quote yoa apvcial. 
_JIVITTE ENGINE WORKS 
1893 Oakland Ave., Kansas City, Mo. 
1893 Empire Bldg.. Pittsburgh, Pa. 
6f r ir rooM TMC 
•*irc0> omta 
V*n*.4..l 
K1TSELMAN FENCE 
ITT TW “I Saved Z4 4c. e Rod,*' write*'E. F. 
773 fc>** White, Vernon. III. You. too. ohii nave. 
Wo Pay the Freight Write for Free 
Catalog of Farm, Poultry, LttwuKetn«*. 
KITSfLMAN BROS , Dept. «T«, MUNCIE, INO. 
r R EIGHT. 
PPEPA/i 
tBRm$P rices Slashed 
Chas. Rowe says: * I saved $60.00 on my or¬ 
der.” Thousands doing same. Get our low 
rmiuht prepaid” special cut prices before 
you huv fencing, gates, roofing or paint. 
It. will pay you big. Oar quality higheat—prices 
lowest. SoniJ for u»23 cat price catalog. |6) 
Brown Fence & Wire Co , Dept 4306 Cleveland. Ohio 
H Test Fence 
t 7 For Strength 
No. 7 of Series 
An explained lam week. Open 
Hearth steel of winch n'mut fences 
.'ire made t* the atronge»t steel nbt ain- 
nhie, It retains the galvanizing ioat 
much longer, conseiiueiuly is Irnttev 
able lo resist runt, hot a rod of f Ml'IIlK, 
all >o. » fearo hat boon replaced, ul- 
Jhough it has hern in uae man? than 
20 yearn. Read advertisement No.fj 
next week. Write and order yotip 
lenev now and prove these statements. 
Bond Steel Post Co.' 
2S Maumeo St. 
Adrian, Mich. 
LOOK* 
ONLY/ 
Think of it! the well-known 
high grade Pearlnaa Fence aold for a* low aa 17c a rod; 
it'u because Wu now sell direct from factory at fac¬ 
tory price*. This mean* a big saving for farmer* 
everywhere. Write for free 101 page catalog of Fence, 
Farm Gate*, Steel Posts, llnrb Wire. Rooting, Points 
—the low pricca will astonnh you—save you 40ft. 
PEERLESS WIRE & FENCE CO. 0 
p.»v4 ina CLtvrtAND. omio 
If you wish to borrow 
money on a long-time, easy-payment 
first mortgage on an improved farm 
which you personally operate and 
which is you r chief source of income, we 
have funds available at 5,'i% interest. 
Send in your application at once as applications 
are considered in the order received. Remem¬ 
ber, vve loan only in New England, New York 
and New Jersey. 
If you wish to invest 
a small or large amount where it will be safe, 
tax free and available when needed, buy our 
5 '/o Federal Farm Loan Bonds, issued under U. 
1 | S. Government Supervision. These Bonds may 
I be had in denominations as low as $40, coupon 
■MM or registered. Interest is paid twice a year. 
Price at market to yield about 4 . 5 %. 
Inquire of the Sec rotary-Treasurer of the National 
Farm Loan Association in your County or write to 
The Federal Land Bank of Springfield, Mass 
