THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKLR, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homo 
Conducted by 
E. 8. CARMAN, 
J. 8. WOODWARD, 
Associate. 
AddresR 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1884. 
The Rural New-Yorker begs to offer 
$10 for the largest potato, without prongs 
or secondary tubers, delivered, postage or 
expressage prepaid, at this office before 
November 1st. The tia?m of the sender 
should be written on the Wrapper, and the 
variety and manner of cultivation should 
be stated by postal card. 
How ridiculous it is for any political party 
to take credit for the enormous addition 
made to our agricultural wealth during 
the last ten or twenty years? Farming has 
thriven and extended in spite of political 
factious, not by their favor. The increase 
in the area of improved land in the 20 
years ending in 1880, was about 120,000,- 
000 acres. In 1860 most, of this vast area 
was “government land,” the extreme 
valuation of which was $1.25 per acre: 
whereas now 5t.s average value must ap¬ 
proximate $100 per acre. What credit is 
due to any political party for this great en¬ 
hancement in value? 
-- — 
A dispatch from Canada says the cattle 
dealers of Montreal are becoming agitated 
over the proposition to let American ship¬ 
pers bring cattle from Montana to that 
port, on the ground that “it is well-known 
that foot-and-mouth disease prevails in 
the Western States, and fears arc awak¬ 
ened that if the stock are brought to 
Montreal on their way to Europe, and the 
disease is developed when they arrive in 
England, the Dominion would be at once 
“scheduled.” To whom is it “well 
known that foot-and-mouth disease pre¬ 
vails in the Western States,” or anywhere 
else in this country? Thorough investi¬ 
gation has demonstrated that the “scare” 
caused by the report of its presence in 
Kansas, Illinois and Iowa, a few months 
ago, had no foundation in fact; the na¬ 
ture of the disease, was mistaken by a few 
ignorant alarmists; and ergotism was mis 
represented as foot-ami mouth disease. 
The affected animals quarantined in Maine 
have all either died or recovered, and it 
has been officially declared that there is 
not now a single ease of foot-and-mouth 
disease in any part of this country. About 
a year ago some animals in a cargo of Ca¬ 
nadian cattle shipped at Portland, Me., 
were declared to be affected with the 
plague on their arrival at Liverpool, yet 
there was no agitation here to schedule 
the Dominion. We trust our friends 
across the border will be equally just and 
reasonable with regard to careless or ma¬ 
licious rumors of disease among our West¬ 
ern herds. 
THE SCARE OF INDIAN WHEAT COM¬ 
PETITION. 
Last Sunday a cablegram announced 
that the British Government had agreed 
to expend $150,000,000 on the extension 
of the railroad system of India, and 
straightway a number of American pa¬ 
pers, as if anxious to “bear” wheat just as 
the new crop is coming into market, en¬ 
large upon the injurious competion this is 
likely to beget, between American and In¬ 
dian wheat in the European markets. 
Even if the proposed scheme should be 
carried out, however, the effect must be 
insignificant in the European wheat mar¬ 
kets in view of the small scope of the pro¬ 
jected improvements in comparison with 
the magnitude of the obstacles to be over¬ 
come before India can be a very formid¬ 
able competitor with the United States in 
the wheat markets of the world. But it 
is by no means certain that the project will 
be executed. Although the cablegram 
spoke rather definitely, and the comments 
upon it in various papers imply that tho 
matter is decided, all the foundation 
there is at present for the talk, is a recom¬ 
mendation by a Committee of the House 
of Commons that a loan of the amount 
should bo made on condition that the In¬ 
dian Government &hall guarantee the in¬ 
terest on it; and that an equal amount 
shall be subscribed by private, capitalists. 
The promoters of the enterprise must 
therefore induce the Council of India to 
assume a serious responsibility in view of 
the excessive taxation already oppressing 
the natives of that, country; they must al¬ 
so induce the English Parliament to sanc¬ 
tion the loan, which will impose a fresh 
burthen on the British taxpayer, and they 
must coax investors to plaee their money 
in an enterprise in a distant land whose 
inhabitants arc inimical to the ruling 
power, and the stability of whose govern¬ 
ment and consequently the security of 
their investment, are liable to be jeopar¬ 
dized at any time by the hostile action of 
Russia. 
But even if all these conditions were ful¬ 
filled, the accomplishment of the project 
is hardly likely to affect our foreign 
wheat markets injuriously. The proposi¬ 
tion is due to advice of the Council of 
India, which after the famine of 1871*, 
urged the enlargement of the railroad 
system of that country in order to prevent 
the frequent famines which desolate some 
of the provinces, on account of the great 
difficulty of transporting food from those 
sections in which it is superabundant to 
those in which it is scarce. A large pro¬ 
portion of the money must therefore be 
spent in building internal roads, which 
will have lit tle or no effect on foreign mar¬ 
kets, as they will not facilitate the trans¬ 
portation of cereals to any shipping point. 
Indeed, they are more likely to decrease 
than to increase, competition abroad, by 
affording more markets at home. India 
has 1,277,000 square miles of territory— 
an area as large as the whole of the United 
States east of the Mississippi; it has a 
population of 350,000,000; yet in Decem¬ 
ber, 1882, in this vast and teeming coun¬ 
try only 10,144 miles of railroad were 
open, of which less than 000 miles were 
laid with a double track, and it had re¬ 
quired 30 years and $715,000,000 to 
afford this pittance of railroad facilities! 
In view of these facts, the most that can 
be expected from the proposed outlay of 
$300,000,000 is the construction of about 
4,000 miles of road in from ten to fifteen 
years, chiefly from one interior point to 
another, to remove danger of famine or 
for strategic purposes to guard the north¬ 
western frontier. 
Many generations must pass away and 
millions upon millions of dollars be spent, 
before India can have a railroad system to 
match ours as a grain collector. Tt can 
never have the same transportation facili¬ 
ties by river and lake. Rates to the 
seaboard must, for centuries be higher 
there than here, for return freights must 
be small and passenger traffic insignifi¬ 
cant. As the country advauces in civili¬ 
zation, the dietary of the people will im¬ 
prove, and instead of rice, their principal 
food at present, wheaten bread will be 
largely used, and home markets will take 
all the surplus crops of the wheat-produc¬ 
ing provinces. 
—-♦♦ » 
CATTLE QUARANTINE REGULATONS. 
The management of the United States 
cattle quarantine system has been trans¬ 
ferred from the Treasury Cattle Commis¬ 
sion to the Department of Agriculture. 
The newly established Bureau of Animal 
Industry will henceforth have charge of 
the matter, and additional regulations for 
the guidance ot importers of neat cattle 
have been adopted, to go into effect after 
July 31, 1884. According to these, neat 
cattle arriving in the United States from 
any part of the world, except North and 
South America,can be landed only at such 
ports on the Atlantic seaboard as are at 
the time provided with cattle-quar¬ 
antine stations under proper con¬ 
trol. Any person contemplating the 
importation of such cattle must first 
obtain a permit from the Treasury De¬ 
partment, stating the number and kind 
of animals to be imported, the port at 
which they are to be landed and quaran¬ 
tined, and the approximate date of their 
arrival, and the permit will secure the re¬ 
ception of the specified animals at the de¬ 
signated port and quarantine station at 
the prescribed date or during the next 
three weeks, after which the permit will 
be void. The importer may select the 
port of debarkation provided the quaran¬ 
tine lacilities there are sufficient, but no 
permit will be granted for importations at 
any port in excess of the accommodations 
at the Government quarantine station 
there. Every importer, on the day of 
shipment from a foreign port, must cable 
to the Secretary of the Treasury the num¬ 
ber of cattle shipped, the vessel on which 
they have been embarked, and the port at 
which they are to be lauded. United 
States Consuls at foreign ports are noti¬ 
fied to give clearance papers or certificates 
for importation of cattle, only upon pre¬ 
sentation of proper permits and only for 
the ports mentioned therein, and not in 
excess of the specified number. The ports 
now provided with quarantined Btations, 
at which cattle can be landed under the 
foregoing conditions, are Portland, Bos¬ 
ton, New York, and Baltimore. 
The Rural has frequently denounced 
the reckless manner in which foreign cat¬ 
tle have often been admitted among our 
herds without having been properly quar¬ 
antined, and the dangerous way in which 
they have been taken to the quarantine 
station and kept there. Our cattle inter¬ 
ests have already suffered damage to the 
amount of millions of dollars by the pres¬ 
ence of imported contagious pleuro-pneu- 
monia or a counterfeit of it, here and 
there in some of the States on the east 
of the Alleghany Mountains, although its 
spread has been checked without much 
difficulty or expense; but if foot-and- 
mouth disease were once to obtain a firm 
footing here, the losses would inevitably 
be enormous, owing to its exceedingly 
contagious character. Even in Great 
Britain, where all cattle are fenced in, 
and where the regulations providing 
for the quarantining of diseased animals 
are rigidly enforced, it is computed 
that during the present, outbreak, down 
to the end of last year, not less than 
800,000 cattle were affected, out of about, 
9,000,000 in the island. Here, even in 
the older settled States, suppression or re¬ 
pression would be extremely difficult,ow¬ 
ing to want of harmony in the action of 
the various States, and the careless man¬ 
ner in which laws against the disease 
would, most likely, he enforced; while if 
the plague once made its way among the 
herds ranging the Western Plains, it 
would become as permanent here as it has 
been for generations in Russia. 
-- ♦♦ ♦- 
PARTISAN VITUPERATION. 
The body can be no purer than the 
head; neither are the people in a govern¬ 
ment, like ours, more honest than the 
rulers. We have the freest government 
and the wisest people of any nation in ex¬ 
istence. By this, we mean that there is 
among us, less of supervision and control 
of individual action, that education is 
more universal, and that our people are 
more generally readers and thinkers. No¬ 
where else are so many newspapers pub¬ 
lished or so widely circulated and read, or 
do the people so freely discuss or so fear¬ 
lessly criticise the policy of t he adminis¬ 
tration in power. Nowhere else is the 
governing power so dependent on the peo¬ 
ple, or in other words, nowhere else have 
the people such complete control of the 
governing machinery. Even in na¬ 
tional affairs, once in four years, with the 
exception of the Senate, the entire legis¬ 
lative and executive branches of the gov¬ 
ernment can be completely revolutionized, 
and the policy of the government chang¬ 
ed. 
Our people naturally divide into two 
or more parties, each holding different 
views on the important questions that 
concern us; and so long as they keep 
so well posted, and take so much inter¬ 
est in governmental matters, there is 
but little danger of our getting very 
far astray. It is very desirable, in 
fact, it is a great element of safety, that 
at least the two leading parties should 
keep very nearly equal iu strength, and 
thus act each as a check and a purifier of 
the other. Of course, we are a very young 
nation, it being little more than 100 years 
since we elected our first chief Magistrate, 
the immortal Washington, and only 21 
different persons have occupied that, im¬ 
portant, position, and three of these were 
not elected by the people to the office, 
but have been what might be called acci¬ 
dental Presidents, 
The men elected to that position, from 
Washington to Garfield have been re¬ 
markably pure, intelligent and upright; 
men whom any nation might be proud to 
honor or to own. And yet, if we carefully 
study the history of the various political 
contests that have resulted in their elec¬ 
tions, we shall see that the best,‘purest and 
most exemplary of them were criticized, 
slandered and vituperated to such an ex¬ 
tent, that, were we to believe half that was 
charged against them, xvc should be 
compelled to believe them knaves and 
villains, or fools and jackanapes, and 
wonder how any decent party could 
nominate such men, or how decent 
people, could support them. Even the 
Father of his Country, the immortal 
Washington, whom the same partisan 
press afterward extolled as First in War, 
First in Peace and First in the Hearts of 
his Countrymen, when a candidate for 
re-election, was charged with being a 
libertine, an embezzler, a monarchist in 
disguise, plotting to usurp kingly 7 power 
and position. 
The same malignant and demoralizing 
practices have continued from then till 
now, only becoming , worse and worse as 
greater facilities enabled the people to 
show their venom more flagrantly. There 
has not been a candidate who has not been 
blackened and besmirched: every little 
peccadillo of youth, every accident of 
parentage, even the religious belief of 
the parents and wives, have been paraded 
and magnified till an impartial jury 
would be compelled to convict them of 
crime, and brand them as felons, or be¬ 
lieve they were the victims of the worst 
slanders. 
Instead of advocating the principles of 
their own party, and setting forth the 
virtues and qualifications of its candi¬ 
dates, the villificrs get down in the mire 
and the filth, and pride themselves in say¬ 
ing mean, dirty and indecent things of 
the opposing candidates. Even the illus¬ 
trated papers are «o unmindful of their 
high calling as to aid in this vile, dirty 
and indecent work, and should be 
ashamed of themselves. 
The campaign now just opening prom¬ 
ises to be no less malignant, dirty and 
foul. Already the candidates are paraded 
as leprous with fraud, theft and bribery 
on the one side; or with being fools and 
imbeciles on the other. Now the fact is 
that the two great leading parties are 
very fortunate in their choice of leaders. 
Tn both cases the men put in nomination 
have been chosen by the popular will in 
spite of the plottings and machinations of 
the politicians. Tn the one case, is a man 
of long service and of singular ability; on 
the other, a man, to be sure, of not great 
experience in public life, but oue who 
has fearlessly acted in the interests of the 
people as against the machines, and who 
has made a good Governor of the great 
Empire State. They are both good men, 
and one of them is to be chosen as the 
Chief Executive of this great nation, and 
to follow them, like sleuth-hounds, with 
slander, vituperation and malice, is all 
wrong, and exerts a very bad influence. 
If we show the carcass, bloated and 
and rank, so far as the sight can discern 
or the odor penetrate, we repel all decent 
birds and attract the buzzards, even 
though the carcass be painted canvass and 
the rank smell the invention of the chem¬ 
ist. So, Gentlemen of the partizan and 
illustrated press, your representations, and 
your calumny, while they familiarize our 
people with charged public crimes, and 
tend to teach the youth that integrity 
is always disassociated from public life, 
have a wider and more pernicious influ¬ 
ence. They reach other lands having no 
means of knowing the falsity and mal¬ 
evolence of the charges, and repel de¬ 
cent people, while they attract all the 
human buzzards. You teach that parties 
have no longer any distinguishing prin¬ 
ciples; that it is now only a question of 
men; and then you strain every nerve to 
Bee which can clothe the opposing candi¬ 
date with the vilest character and most 
repulsive form. You know that the 
parties have squarely divided on the. 
tariff question, and that each has fairly 
stated its position—cease, therefore, your 
warfare with mud and slime; for shame! 
get up out of the dirty mire and discuss 
the issues fairly and fully! Let poli¬ 
tics be purified and political warfare made 
decent; for no matter whether Mr. Blaine 
or Mr. Cleveland be elected, we shall 
have a good, able, honest President. Let 
us be decent! 
-- 
BREVITIES. 
There appears to be considerable trouble 
in the Farmers’ Union, of Manitoba. It is 
this body that has been vigorously agitating 
for better terms for that province, or, in case 
of refusal, for a separation from tbe Domin¬ 
ion. Politicians appear to have forced them¬ 
selves into prominent places in the councils of 
the organization, and discontent has been the 
natural result The Thornhill Branch has 
lately -seceded, on the ground that “the Union, 
as now constituted, appears to be more of a 
political nature than the farmers desire it to 
be; that it can in no sense be termed a Far¬ 
mers’ Union, as there are lawyers, doctors, 
brokers, etc.,” among its principal officers, 
and that the organization has been used for 
the aggrandizement of a few outsiders, re¬ 
gardless of the interests of farmers. 
We are greatly gratified at the energy 
shown by our boys already, in canvassing for 
clubs to secure some of the Cross-bred Diehl- 
Mediterranean Wheat. We knew they were 
made of the right stuff, and were wide-awake, 
but they are more active and energetic than 
we gave them credit for. But go ahead, boy's, 
as our wheat has ripened, and is harvested, we 
are better pleased with it than ever, and we 
really hope yon will call for every' bushel we 
liave‘. It will do tbe country more good, and 
the boys more good, and the Rural more 
good to have it thus scattered broadcast over 
the land than to sell it for the large price we 
have already been offered (or it. We know 
our wheat is pure, and we know it is free from 
foul seeds, and we believe it will prove emi¬ 
nently successful and satisfactory to all who 
get it, and that as it becomes tetter known 
next year, all you may grow, will, be eagerly 
taken in your ownheignborhood at such prices 
as„wili pay you extra well. , 
