720 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
THE 
RURAL NLW'YORKLR, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Dome 
Conducted by 
K. 8. CABMAN, 
Editor. 
J. 8. WOODWAKB, 
Associate 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Pabk Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1. 1884. 
Don’t, forget to send one of the yellow 
labels, when you renew your subscription. 
The number *1874 represents the number 
of weekly issues of the Rural made since 
it. was established in 1850 (then Moore’s 
Rural New-Yorker) to Dec. 80, 1885. 
To suppose, as many do, that it stands 
foT A. D. 1874, is a mistake. 
— - 
Our readers will agree with us when 
we say that during most of the year the 
Rurai* has had very little to say of itself; 
has kept no standing advertisements, or 
anything of the kind, perpetually before 
their eyes. Our next will be a sort, of 
self-glorification issue, and our readers 
must bear with us for the once. The 
truth is that the Rural’s circulation and 
influence are not so great but that they 
may he advantageously extended, and we 
shall call upon our good friends to help 
us in the good work. 
It will pay to spend a little leisure 
time, before cold weather, in re nailing 
every loose board, and in battening up 
the cracks about the stables to shut out 
the cold and make them comfortable. It 
is simply barbarous to confine the stock 
in cold, bleak stables, and compel them 
to shiver out the cold Winter on dry food 
alone; and any man who will be so cruel 
and inhuman,* not to say shortsighted, 
should he doomed to live on plain hard¬ 
tack and sleep in an open garret with 
simply a sheet for covering. It may be 
such treatment would remind him of the 
proverb “ A merciful man is merciful to 
his beast.”_ _ _ 
We notice a growing practice ofhaving 
the judging of live stock at fairs done by 
experts, usually a single judge to a class. 
The Kansas Board for three years past has 
had our contributor, Mr. F. D. Coburn, as 
an expert judge on all classes of swine, in¬ 
cluding the sweepstakes competition. Al¬ 
though the entries have been very large, 
running from 800 to COO head, and the 
best the owners could buy or produce, bis 
work lniHgiveu great satisfaction—so much 
so that many of the counties have adopted 
the same plan and have given him con¬ 
stant employment during the fair season. 
No society having tried this method, 
thinks for a moment of going back to the 
old way. With a compel ent, honest judge, 
there can certainly be no other way of ob¬ 
taining so correct a result. Of course, 
much of the success of this method de¬ 
pends upon the efficiency and honesty of 
the expert, and these societies were very 
fortunate in securing one so well qualified 
in every way as Mr. Coburn. 
-- > • 
Don’t forget yourself and spend too 
much time in politics! It is by no meaus 
a vital question who shall be President.; 
hut it is vital that our farmers be made 
more intelligent and thoughtful, better 
posted and more earnest; that our farms 
may be made more fertile, kept freer from 
weeds, and made to produce larger crops; 
that we procure better seeds and carefully 
improve our stock, that our profits may 
be larger. The prosperity of the country 
depends upon the success of our agri¬ 
culture, as that is the foundation of 
all legitimate business; therefore you can 
benefit yourself and the country more, on 
election day, by calling your friend’s at¬ 
tention to the Rural Nbw-Yohkkr, and 
inducing him to become a subscriber and 
reader, than by peddling tickets. Try it, 
and see if you arc not much better Ma¬ 
tured at night and more happy over your 
success than if you had made yourself 
hoarse in the vain endeavor to change 
some man’s mind. Try it, friends, and 
we will he ever grateful. 
--- ♦»» — 
We hope our readers will be pleased 
with the next week’s paper. Now for the 
Farmer s' fall and winter election ! 
Readers of the Rural, send for all the 
other farm and garden “candidates.” 
Compare them! Vote far the best, If you 
vote for the R. N.-Y., ask your neighbor 
to vote for it also. We are just red-hot 
with ruralistic ardor. We propose to 
make our paper for 1885, decidedly more 
aggressive and progressive than everjte- 
fore —aggressive as against ignorance, 
injustice, wrong, monopolies, and all 
practices that demoralize or degrade the 
farmer: progressive in improving the noil, 
doing better farming, raising better crops, 
beautifying the home, and inducing the 
farmer to do more reading, thinking, and 
careful work than ever before. Our 
motto shall be: “never satisfied with 
THE TAST, ALWAYS BTRIVJNO FOR THE 
better.” Come, friends, join the good 
Rural army “as w'e go marching on!” 
You will be in good company; will have 
a good object in view; and we will guide 
you as best we know how; God helping us. 
EFFECTS OF HIGH LICENSE. 
The Illinois papers are publishing state¬ 
ments of the operation of the Harper Law 
in all parts of the State, and so fur as we 
have read the reports, all agree that the 
law is a wonderful success. It imposes a 
license fee of $500 for the privilege of sell¬ 
ing liquors. The better class of liquor-deal¬ 
ers alone are able to pay this sum,and hence 
their sympaties are actively interested in 
support of the law. Small dealers in the 
slums and alleys—the fellows who are- 
usual ly patronized by criminals and in 
return protect them—cannot afford to pay 
the fee, and any attempt made by them 
to sell liquor without a license is promptly 
reported by the licensed dealers, who con¬ 
stitute themselves a detective corps and 
are stimulated to vigilance by self interest. 
Druukenness and crime go hand in 
hand, and t here is a diminution of both 
under the Harper Law. Drunkards and 
criminals seem to be the only opponents 
of the measure, except our prohibition 
friends, who appear not to wish the evils 
of intemperance to be diminished by any 
method short of the total prohibition of 
liquor dealing or drinking. We thorough¬ 
ly gympatize with them iu their noble 
aspirations; but until these can be re¬ 
alized, we will not refuse smaller bless¬ 
ings. The Illinois taxpayers are delighted 
with the law, for while it cobIb less to 
support prisons and poor-houses, the 
revenue from the license fees is in many 
places double the amount formerly col¬ 
lected. The same story comes from Texas, 
where the license fee was lately fixed at 
$1,000. The Scott Law, which also seeks 
to regulate the sale of liquor, in Canada, 
appears to afford great satisfaction to the 
best classes wherever it has been enforced. 
Let us by all means hasten the glorious 
era of total prohibition; hut meanwhile 
let all who can conscientiously do so, en¬ 
courage every _ advance toward that 
golden age. 
FARMERS SELLING; SPECULATORS 
HOLDING WHEAT. 
Figures show that, contrary to expect¬ 
ations, farmers, either under pressure of 
hard times, or because they see no im¬ 
mediate prospect of an advance in prices, 
have been marketing their wheat very 
freely, in spite of the low prices they ob¬ 
tain for it. The interior points, called 
“primary markets,” for which grain re- 
ceipts have been collated, are St. Louis, 
Peoria, Chicago. Milwaukee, Detroit, 
Duluth, Toledo and Cleveland. Minne¬ 
apolis and St. Paul are omitted, because 
most of the wheat received at those points 
is made into flour instead of being re- 
shipped. The receipts of wheat at these 
eight markets, for the nine weeks endiug 
with the last Saturday in September, were 
29,002,500 bushels in 1884; 28,453,041 
bushels in 1883; 24,814,991 bushels in 
1882; 14,684,051 bushelsin 1881; 23,056,- 
253 bushels in 1880, and 30,754,392 bush¬ 
els iu 1879, so that never since ’79 has so 
large a quantity of wheat found its way 
so early in the season, to these interior 
markets, as this year. The contrast may 
be still more strongly shown bv calling 
attention to the fact that our present crop 
of “about 500,000,000 bushels” is about 
equal to that, of 1882; yet our farmers 
have sent 15 per cent, more wheat to mar¬ 
ket iu the nine weeks following July 28, 
1884, than in the corresponding period 
two years ago, although in the latter case 
wheat sold at Chicago for $1.05 per bush¬ 
el, while in the former it brought only 81 
cents. 
But although a larger amount ot wheat 
than usual has left the hands of farmers, 
a smaller amount than usual, taking the 
average of years, has reached the sea¬ 
board. The movement of grain East from 
the above eight markets, has been only 72 
per cent, of the receipts in 1884, against 
80 per cent, in 1883; and 81 per cent, in 
1882, so t hat wheat must be accumulating 
in the hands of buyers and speculators in 
the interior. For ourselves, if able to 
afford to do so, we would prefer to hold 
back our wheat rather than sell it at a 
loss; but wc willingly confess that it 
might be a wiser policy to accommodate 
ourselves to the era of prevailing low 
prices, and put up with a small known 
loss, rather than risk a large unknown one. 
PROBABILITY OF HIGHER TARIFFS 
IN EUROPE. 
American farmers may just as well be¬ 
gin at once to prepare for the imposition 
of heavier duties on imports of agricul¬ 
tural products into several European coun¬ 
tries. In the United Kingdom, France, 
Germany, and several other Continental 
countries, agriculturists and stock rais¬ 
ers are loud in their demands for protection 
from the ruinous c ompetition to which 
many of their products are exposed with 
the cheaper products from this side of 
the Atlantic. Even in Great Britain, the 
birth place and home of Free Trade, maDy 
manufacturers are disposed to support the 
demands of the farmers, in hopes that 
the adoption of a retaliatory protective 
tariff might force this country to lower its 
tariff on foreign manufactured goods; and 
this feeling is much stronger among the 
manufacturers of Continental countries 
where the doctrine of Free Trade has 
never obtained full acceptance. 
European statesmen and financiers, too, 
are dissatisfied with the present condition 
of things. While our “ protective” tar¬ 
iff checks or prohibits here the sale of 
goods from their countries, or diminishes 
the profits of their countrymen, our sur¬ 
plus products—and these are nearly all 
agricultural—are admitted into most Eu¬ 
ropean countries on more favorable terms. 
The consequence, of late years, has been 
that the balance of trade has been stead¬ 
ily in favor of this country, and after the 
payment, of the interest on our national 
debt and on other American securities in 
the hands of Europeans, there has been a 
constant flow of money from the other side 
of the Atlantic to this. If this is per¬ 
mitted to continue, the “ long heads” of 
Europe fear that gold and silver will 
become comparatively scarce there, and 
consequently that the New World will 
have an unfair advantage over the Old. 
Iu France it has been already officially 
proposed to lay heavier duties on imports 
of loreign cattle and grain. Of course, it 
will take some time to pass such a law and 
put it in force, and during the interval it 
is expected that considerable quantities of 
American wheat, will bo stored in France 
in anticipation of higher prices after the 
enforcement of the proposed law. Little 
or nothing will probably be done iu Eng¬ 
land in the way of imposing new burth¬ 
ens on importations from this country; 
but other Continental lands are likely to 
be influenced not a little by the action of 
France. 
--- 
DIVERSIFIED HUSBANDRY. 
For a number of years live agricultural 
societies and papers in the South have 
been urging the planters to devote less at 
tentiou to cotton, the great money crop, 
and more to other crops, especially to 
corn, the great food crop of that section. 
This persistent advice had very little ef¬ 
fect, until last year, when the low prices 
of cotton emphasized it. Owing to t he con¬ 
sequent increase in food crops this year, 
it is calculated that the Southern pur¬ 
r-liases of bteadstuffs from the North and 
West will be reduced from $175,000,000, 
or $200,000,000, to less than $125,000,- 
000. It is probable that in future a still 
larger amount of the money that has hith¬ 
erto been sent, every year, to other sec¬ 
tions for the purchase of food, will be 
kept at home, as the growth of diversified 
husbandry is like'y to render our South¬ 
ern friends more self-supporting and in¬ 
dependent. Indeed, exclusive or even 
excessive devotion to any particular crop 
is seldom, in any section, a paying policy. 
After bad harvests it leaves the farmer 
short of produce; after good harvests it 
makes him a competitor with his fellows 
in a ruinously low market. 
What cotton has been iu the South, 
wheat has been in the North west—the 
great money crop, the crop in the pro¬ 
duction of which the agriculturist has ex¬ 
pended most of his time, labor and means. 
As the low prices for cotton in the 
South last year induced the planters of 
that section to bestow more attention than 
usual on other crops; so the low prices for 
wheat this year, have led the farmers of 
the Northwest to cast about tor some 
other crops suitable to their soil, climate 
and environments. Of these the favorite 
appears to be flax. It has been already 
cultivated there go extensively that it is 
thought that the crops of Minnesota and 
Dakota alone, will amount to marly one- 
half of the 9,000,000 bushels of seed, 
which is estimated to be the aggregate 
crop of the United States for the current 
year. The yield there, seems to be larger 
than in other sections of the country, 
averaging from 15 to 18 bushels per acre— 
about the same as wheat. Large areas of 
new land are yearly brought under culti¬ 
vation in that region, and (lax is especial¬ 
ly well adapted to such a section, as it 
thrives excellently on new breaking, the 
first year’s yield often paying all the ex¬ 
penses, and somerirai'p, as wc are assured 
by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “leaving a 
comfortable margin towards paying for 
the land itself.” During the past season 
the price has remained steady between 
$1. and $1.15 per bushel; while the price 
of No. 1 Hard wheat—the best grade— 
has been as low as 55 cents per bushel in 
some places, so that flax has been consid¬ 
erably more profitable, than wheat. The 
increase in acreage under it there last year, 
was about 25 per cent., and it is expected 
that this year the increase will be even 
greater. 
Between January 1st and August 1st of 
the present year we imported over 600,000 
bags of foreign “linseed, so that there is 
no immediate danger ot over-production. 
Moreover, with the increase of stock 
raising and a justcr appreciation of the 
value of linseed cake as stock feed, the 
home demaud is sure to increase largely. 
The principal linseed-oil mills in the 
Northwest are at St. Paul, and all the oil¬ 
cake from these has found a ready sale in 
the dairy districts west of Chicago. In 
the Old Country the fiber is considered 
the most valuable portion of flax, while 
here it is, to a great extent, allowed to go 
to waste. Mills for manufacturing it 
into tow for upholstering purposes, exist 
in the Northwest, Kansas, and other flax¬ 
growing sections; and these pay from 
$20 to $25 per ton for the fiber; but with 
thicker planting, better cultivation and 
more careful harvesting, there seems to 
be no reason why the same plant, should 
not furnish about the ordinary quantity 
of seed as well as a fiber long enough for 
the manufacture of cordage. Doubtless 
the attention flax-growing is now receiv¬ 
ing in the Northwest, will also arouse 
greater interest in the industry in other 
suitable parts of the country. 
BREVITIES. 
We are pleased to be able to sav that at 
this date. Get. 24, after several nights, during 
which water has frozen, the leaves of the new 
plum, l’runns Piwsardii, are still unharmed, 
while the color remains a dark purple. 
Realizing the fart that the boys and girls 
of to day, will be the farmers and farmers 
wives of a quarter of a century hence, how 
important llmt they he not corrupted; that 
they be elevated and ennobled; that they be 
encouraged to study, think, investigate, that 
they may be better men aud women, better 
farmers uml farmers’wives than we. Oh we 
cannot be too careful of our boys and girls! 
They are the hope of the nation. 
Our friends should remember that the Great 
American Fat Stock Show will opeu in Chi¬ 
cago on November 10; and during the first 
week, a convention of those interested in the 
breeding and management of the various 
classes of live stock in the United States, will 
be held in the Lake City on Thursday and Fri¬ 
day. November 13 and 14. We trust all who 
e«u do so, will visit the show, where will be 
assembled the “best object lessons” in the 
country, in the arts of breeding and feeding 
all kinds Of live stock. The cattlemen’s con¬ 
vention should also be numerously attended, 
for the best means of preventing and exterm¬ 
inating contagious diseases among stock, and 
the legislation. State and National, needed to 
effect these objects, will be fully discussed. 
The “bucket shops’ 1 of Chicago and other 
large cities are the centers of a vast amount 
of gambling in stocks of all kinds, and espe¬ 
cially in grain, pork and other agricul¬ 
tural products. Market quotations are 
telegraphed to them constantly during the 
day, and people with gambling inclinations, 
but meaus too small to speculate through 
brokers in the regular Stock nml Produce 
Exchanges, place any sums, from $5 upwards, 
as margins with the keepers of these “bucket 
shops.” and lose their margins or win a trifle, 
according to the rise or fall of the special 
article iu which they have invested. Thou¬ 
sands of dollars are lost in this way every day. 
The gambling spirit is engendered or fostered. 
Clerks speculate with their employers’ money, 
and thus start on the road to the penitentiary 
or to Canada. The owners of the “shops” are 
generally a disreputable race. They are con¬ 
stantly !i bursting up,’ and swindling their 
patrons, but the plucked pigeons are con¬ 
stant Iv succeeded by pluckable ones. Efforts 
are being repeatedly made to break up these 
pernicious concerns; but they appear to have 
as many lives as a cat. Judge Blodgett, of 
the Federal Court, has just rendered, at Chi¬ 
cago, a decision authorizing telegraph com¬ 
panies to refuse to transmit quotations from 
the Exchanges to the “bucket shops;” thus 
putting an end to their demoralizing opera¬ 
tions The decision was based on the ground 
that the Board of Trade, whose agents the 
telegraph companies are, has a right to de¬ 
cide to whom it* market reports shall be sent. 
Immediately on the announcement of the 
decision, an injunction was obtained from 
the Superior Court by the “ bucket shop” 
sharpers.restraining the telegraph companies 
from doing what the Federal Court hud just 
authorized them to do, and thus prolonging 
their life for a little while. Oh, the unc' r- 
tainties and delays of the Law! 
