818 
DEC 2 
THE RURAL HEW-YORKER 
1 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal lor Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
eubert s. carman. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Rare Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, DEC. 2, 1882. 
The Rorai, New-Yorker -will he sent 
to all yearly subscribers from now until 
January 1, 1884, for $2.00. 
---- 
ANN ©rise KM KNT. 
We are pleased to announce that a 
special scries of ably written aitides has 
been secured by the Rural New- 1 orker, 
the publication of which will be begun in 
a few weeks. The names of (he "writers 
and the subjects chosen are as follows, so 
far as we can at present announce (hem: 
BY PROF. LEVI STOCKBRIDGE, 
AMHERST, MASS. 
Subject: The Agricultural Capabilities 
of Dakota and Montana. 
BY PROF. G. E. MORROW, 
ILLINOIS INDUS. UNIVERSITY. 
Subject: 1st. The Pedigree Question. 
2nd. Lessons from the Fat Stock Shores. 
BY HON. BEN. PERLEY POORE, 
INDIAN HILL FARM, MASS. 
Subject: Making Farm Humes Happy. 
BY W. A. ARMSTRONG, 
EDITOR HUSBANDMAN, NEW YORK. 
Subject: The Means of Agricultural 
Improvement. 
BY REV. E. P. ROE, 
NEW YORK. 
Subject: How to Secure the Best Returns 
in Strawberry Cult/are. 
BY JAMES R, NICHOLS, M. D., 
EDITOR .JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY, MASS. 
Subject: Facts Learned from Twenty - 
five Years' Experience in Conducting an 
Experiment Farm. 
BY PROF. J. M. McBRIDE, 
SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 
Subject: Farm Seeds — Their Purity 
and Vitality. 
BY PROF. W. J. BEAL, 
MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 
Subject: Should all Students be Com¬ 
pelled to Labor at an Agricultural College ? 
BY II. W. RAVENEL, 
SOUTH CAROLINA. 
Subject: The Introduction of Japan 
Clover into this Country. 
BY GEO. B. LORING, 
U. S. COM. OF AGRICULTURE. 
Subject: Will be announced later. 
- +■ +■■ * - 
“PROFITABLE FARMING FOR A POOR 
MAN.” 
Such is the title of a series of essays for 
the best of which premiums were offered 
in the Rural New-Yorker of August 12. 
Our object in soliciting such articles was 
to assist those farmers who have limited 
means or those who, with a small capital, 
are about to engage in farming. The 
wish was expressed that those farmers 
who had passed the trying ordeal from 
poverty to comfortable circumstances by 
the sweat of their brows would be the 
first to enter the contest and tell how they 
did it. The response has been all that we 
could have hoped, and we have only to 
regret that the prizes do not extend to 
fifty instead of to three, since there are as 
many as fifty which are nearly alike en¬ 
titled to premiums. We believe the en¬ 
tire series of articles will prove the most 
instructive to the class for which they are 
intended of any ever written for the rural 
press. Their publication will be com¬ 
menced early next month and extend 
through 1883. Let all who are struggling 
vainly to prosper on the farm read them. 
The premiums have been awarded as 
follows: 
FIRST PREMIUM: 
Mr. Clem Auldon, Jr., of Colorado. 
SECOND PREMIUM: 
Mr. John H. Crozler, of Tennessee. 
THIRD PREMIUM: 
Mrs. Annie L. Jack, of Province of 
Quebec, Canada. 
Mr. Charles Downing is much the 
same. His mind is perfectly clear but 
he is no sponger. 
One of the best plans that we can think 
of is that every one of our present subscri¬ 
bers, pecuniarily able so to do, should, 
as a Christmas gift, present some friend 
with the Rural New-Yorker for 1883. 
Many of our friends have done this for 
years and to them the Rural is greatly in¬ 
debted for the prosperity it now enjoys. 
closed by brush and wire fences, and the 
ownership of them maintained as against 
immigrants and settlers, and should these 
have the hardihood to take up land with¬ 
in the fraudulent boundaries, they are 
harassed by the reckless hirelings of the 
land-grabbers and persecuted in the 
courts, which too often are unjustly 
on the side of their oppressors. The 
public domain is a sacred trust for 
the benefit not only of this generation 
but also of those that are to follow. It 
is the hope not only of the poor farmer 
of the East, and of the ambitious farm 
laborer who is saving his wages with the 
intention of “taking up” a farm of his 
own ere long, but also of many of the 
toiling multitudes of factory and work¬ 
shop whose heavyburdensare lightened by 
the hope that they, or at any Tate their 
children, will yet have a home of their 
own in the. bountiful West. Already by 
far too much of the people's property has 
been given away to greedy railroad cor¬ 
porations. Rich land pirates should not 
be permitted to steal an acre of what is 
left of it. This outrage the Government 
should promptly prevent and redress 
The farmers of the country having the 
power to fashion the Government, have, 
of course, the power of righting all their 
own grievances. If they fail to do so, they 
are guilty of an omission of duty hurtful to 
themselves and their successors. Let each 
one of them remember that “ who would 
be free, himself must strike the blow.” 
Tnr, number of new rural journals that 
are starting up all over the country, is 
an evidence, or rather a result, of the 
prosperity of all farm and garden indus¬ 
tries. The Rural wishes them all suc¬ 
cess; but we would be plessed to see 
more earnestness in the direction of mak¬ 
ing better papers rather than cheaper papers. 
Mr. August Gottschalk, of Montana, 
sends us a nicely shaped White Elephant 
Potato that weighs 33 ounces—the largest 
potato of a regular form we have ever 
seen. It measures 9£ inches long and 3£ 
inches in diameter. It had been frozen 
during its long passage and was therefore 
received in a soft condition. It probably 
weighed more when it was sent. 
As announced in the Fair Number, the 
Rural New-Yorker again clubs with 
the Chicago Inter-Ocean, the Detroit Free 
Press and N. Y. World. Those of our 
readers who choose through us to sub¬ 
scribe for both papers are promised our 
best attention. The price for any of the 
above and the Rural New-Yorker with 
its Seed Distribution will be as hitherto, 
but $2.75 for one year. 
Readers and friends of the Rural, 
when you send in your subscriptions, 
you would help us in carrying out our 
projects for 1883 if you would also send 
in the subscription of a friend. We ask 
now the word of good will for the Rural 
New-Yorker, which we know thousands 
of our readers may freely speak without 
doing violence to their manhood. It will 
heip us now more than at any oilier season 
of the year. 
--- 
Mrs. Jack, our respected Canada con¬ 
tributor, writes us iu a long article re¬ 
served for future publication, as follows: 
“We do not believe in the meanness that 
will put inferior fruit into the middle of 
an apple barrel. Apart from the dishon¬ 
esty of the transaction, it does not pay, 
for dealers are not long iu finding out 
that the fruit is uniairly packed, and 
when once confidence is lost, it is not easy to 
regain it. Happy is that fruit-grower 
whose word is taken and trusted. I know 
it is a great temptation to put a few culls 
at the bottom of the basket—but it pays 
better in the end to send them down in a 
separate package. There are always buy¬ 
ers for such second-class fruit.” 
ILLEGAL LAND-GRABBING. 
CORN. 
A corner in corn in this market cre¬ 
ated a great deal of excitement among 
grain dealers during the past week. A 
week ago No. 2 Mixed corn for Novem 
her delivery was 8S to 881 cents per 
bushel; but from Monday to Wednesday 
the price rose by jumps and reached 
$1.10 in the early hours of the latter day, 
having crossed the price of wheat for the 
first time in the history of the New York 
Produce Exchange. Corn here is sold in 
lots of 5,000 to 8,000 bushels, and the 
margin on a single transaciion of either 
of theic sizes ranges from $250 to $800 
which are deposited in the hands of the 
Superintendent of the Produce Exchange. 
On Wednesday the aggregate of the mar¬ 
gins put up in this way amounted to 
$025,000—a larger amount than was ever 
before deposited on any single day. Super¬ 
intendent Grant says that less than three 
per cent, of the pales of grain arc strictly 
legitim tte and all the rest are gambling 
transactions. The evils arising from un¬ 
scrupulous combinations of capital for 
manipulating the prices of the necessaries 
and comforts of life cry loudly aud im¬ 
peratively for remedial legislation. With¬ 
in a few weedea that monstrous monopoly, 
the Standard Oil Company, which practi¬ 
cally controls and fixes the price of 
petroleum and its products, which rank 
third iu the nation’s exports, has through 
its speculative manipulath ns more than 
doubled the price of crude petroleum, 
thereby securing unjust profits variously 
estimated at from twenty to forty mil¬ 
lion dollars. It is only within the last 
few years that speculators have turned 
their attention to agricultural products 
which have lately been favorite objects of 
their manipulation. After they had ac¬ 
complished their object with November 
corn in this market, the price tumbled 
rapidly and is now about 10 cents a bush¬ 
el lower than on Wednesday morning. 
The new coni coming into Western mar¬ 
kets does not grade well: the ears are 
short aud not evenly filled, and worms, 
mold aud rotting have done considerable 
damage. As regards prices for the next 
month, a great deal will depend on the 
weather. If it continues clear it will hus- 
ten the drying out of the new corn and 
improve its quality; but, in any event, the 
“ visible supply ” is so small and foreign 
prices so firm that there is little prospect 
of lower prices before the end of the year.. 
to all other property, which but for the 
farms, would have no value at all. Then 
if the majority in numbers and wealth 
should rule, the farmers would be the 
ruling clasi. But they are not. One 
man rules thtm, with a few others whom 
he controls, and the American people of 
to-day have a king over them; for it is 
the province of a king to command and 
tax his subjects; and to tax a people is 
to say “you shall pay to me or my offi¬ 
cers a certain portion of your property or 
income in return for whatever service I 
may think proper to render to you.” 
Here is a case: 
The Kansas farmers are enjoying the 
finest crop of wheat they ever grew. 
They expect to have a surplus of 25 mil- 
lion bushelH for sale. The price at har¬ 
vest was quoted at the elevators at 80 
cents a bushel, and contracts were made 
to take a large quantity of wheat at that 
price. But in a day the price dropped 
to 70 cents and the contracts were repu 
diated by the buyers. What changed 
the value of wheat 10 cents a bushel so 
suddenly ? Simply the announcement 
that an advance of freight of 15 cents per 
100 pounds had been ordered on wheat. 
For what reason ? Did it cost 15 cents 
more to carry the wheat than before ? 
Not at all; but simply because the Kan¬ 
sas farmers had so much wheat to spare 
the railroad kings for their own benefit 
laid a tax of 10 cents a bushel upon the 
wheat in addition to the cost of carriage. 
And this takes four million dollars from 
the Kansas farmers’ pockets and puts it 
into those of a few men who are rolling 
in wealth. And a like extortion is prac¬ 
ticed on the farmers of every other State 
in the Union, 
But why do not farmers fix the amount 
they wish'to pay for the services rendered 
to them, or at least fix the price of their 
wheat ? Simply because they stand sin¬ 
gly and alone, while all their competitors 
are combined to further their owq inter¬ 
ests at the farmers’ expense. And yet 
the farmer?, if they would, could elect 
farmers to the Legislatures and govern 
the country to suit themselves and make 
laws to protect themselves, if they were 
only organized and combined. Is not 
this a powerful argument in favor of the 
formation of farmers’ clubs; of the better 
education of farmers and farmers’ chil¬ 
dren, and of the necessity for far¬ 
mers to fit thimselves for their posi¬ 
tion in society and then to quietly 
walk up and occupy it ? Why should the 
education of a farmer’s bov be inferior to 
that of the son of a merchant, a lawyer, 
or an artisan, or mechanic?—and why 
should not rural schools be as complete 
and thorough as those of cities ? Here 
6eems to be the weak point. The man 
who sways and persuades and rules his 
fellow-men, is one who thinks, and who 
can express his thoughts, so as to impress 
them upon other men. And why should 
not a young faimer be as fully competent 
to do this as a youug lawyer ? He ought 
to be aud wou’d be if he were as well ed¬ 
ucated. Aud so it is that the first thing 
to be done by farmers to gain their right 
position iu society, and make their just 
iniluence felt, is to improve their schools 
aud see that their children are as well ed¬ 
ucated as other children, and also to ed¬ 
ucate themselves by reading and study of 
those things which concern their own 
welfare; for intelligence rules and mind 
controls matter. 
THE RIGHTS OF FARMERS AND HOW 
TO SECURE THEM. 
he annual report just issued by Com- 
lioner McFarland, of the Land Office, 
vs that large tracts of the most eligi- 
part of public domain have been un- 
ully taken possession of by rich and 
tential land-sharks, much to the loss 
injury of genuine settlers. Thou- 
Is upon thousands of acres in all the 
tier States and Territories, and espec- 
r in California, have been illegally in- 
It is boasted that in our Government 
the majority rules. Does it ? Of what 
does the majority consist ? Twenty-fivo 
million persons out of the fifty millions 
of our population, live upon the four mil¬ 
lion farms in this land. These persons 
own, on the average, one thousand dol¬ 
lars each; and in the aggregate they rep¬ 
resent twtnty-five thousand million dol¬ 
lars’ worth of property the value of which 
could not be reduced by any panic or dis¬ 
aster short of the actual destruction of 
the whole continent. The farm property 
is the only real estate, because it is the 
foundation of all wealth and gives value 
BREVITIES. 
Blessed is he that lives within his income, 
if it is but a hundred a yoar 
Carefully drawn rngraviogs of our cross¬ 
bred w heats are continued on page 815. 
Wk have had engravings made of all the 
new potatoes tested at the Rurul Grounds the 
past season. Reports of yields aud quality 
will he made in time to guide our renders as 
to their selections for Spring planting. 
As all of our readers are aware, about one 
thousand dollars in piemiums were offered for 
the best yields of the Rural Heavy Dent and 
Thoroughbred Flint corns sent to subscribers 
in our last Free Heed Distribution. We are 
uow comparing the reports and the premiums 
will be announced as soon as possible. 
A friend, in speaking of the advertisements 
tnat are ofteu interwoven with excellent arti¬ 
cles, exclaimed, “Oh, for it man that has uo 
axe to grind l* 1 The truth is, however, that all 
enterprising people have axes to grind, no 
matter what their occupation is—no matter 
how or where they live. What may fairly be 
objected to is the method—the manner of 
grinding the implement. 
Since the enormous development of the ship¬ 
ment of dressed meats in refrigerator cam 
from Chicago, there has been an extraor¬ 
dinary decrease in the business of canning 
meat in that city, aud some of the most ex¬ 
tensive caoners are abandoning the business 
and “going into" the dressed meat trade. 
“ Westward the course of ‘ killing’ takes its 
way,” however: oue large firm intends to 
kill “out West,” and ship the dressed meat 
east to Chicago, Others will do likewise. 
