828 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
DEC 45 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT 8. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row. New YorK 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1883. 
The Rural New-Yorker stops when the 
paid-for subscription expires. We do not 
notify our subscribers when their subscrip¬ 
tion terms expire. This is indicated by 
the numbers on the address labels. If 
there is no number the subscriotion term 
expires with the year. If subscribers 
receive more copies than those paid for, 
it is our loss, not theirs. Notifications, 
therefore, to “stop the paper” need never 
be made. A prompt renewal of subscrip¬ 
tions is respectfully solicited. Please ad¬ 
vise us of any irregularity in the receipt 
of the paper. Missing numbers will be 
supplied without charge. 
Rural friends—in renewing will you 
kindly write your name and full address 
plainly. It will save many mistakes and 
nmch correspondence. 
Advice to Farmers. Send for speci¬ 
men copies of all the rural papers pub¬ 
lished in the country. Examine them 
carefully and—subscribe for the best! 
- - - 
Carp! Are any of onr readers raising 
them? If so, with what success? We 
are hungry for information on this sub¬ 
ject from those who can write from ex¬ 
perience. 
- ♦ » » - 
A Chicago friend writes us: “Our 
worst monopoly, so far as it goes, is the 
anthracite coal monopoly, by which the 
price has been raised from five to seven 
dollars, and about 15 per cent, of slate 
added.” 
We have within the past week covered 
our strawberry plants with leaves, using 
five dump-wheel barrows full to an area 
20 feet square. These leaves are held in 
place by a slight covering of long, strawy 
manure. A very small quantity of the 
latter serves for the purpose. 
We believe we might send for every 
KiefTerPeur raised in a season and distrib¬ 
ute them among 1000 people and write 
down word for word the opinion of every 
ODe for the public benefit, and that writers 
in horticultural and agricultural journals 
would still speak of the pear in direct op¬ 
position to a just estimate derived there¬ 
from. 
DISCONTENT IN MANITOBA. 
Manitoba, one of the Provinces of the 
Dominion of Canada, is bounded on the 
south along its whole length of 135 miles, 
by Minnesota and Dakota. Its breadth 
from north to south is 104 miles, and its 
area 14,340 square miles, about 500 miles 
more than the aggregate, area of Connect¬ 
icut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 
In 1874 it bad a population of about 
20,000, about half of whom were French, 
Scotch and English “half-breeds,” the 
class known by that name including all 
having any intermixture of Indian blood. 
Since that date there has been a heavy 
immigration, chiefly from the Province of 
Ontario, with a considerable accession 
from Europe, made principally through 
the efforts of the Canadian Pacific Rail¬ 
road, which lately received from the Do¬ 
minion enormous land grants on the com¬ 
pletion of its line through the Province, 
and by the active co-operation of a number 
of English and Scotch capitalists who 
have bought vast tracts of land either 
from the railroad company or from the 
authorities of the Dominion. The gen¬ 
eral surface, is a level prairie 700 feet above 
the sea level. The principal stream is the 
Red River of the North, which, rising in 
Minnesota, flows north for 140 miles 
through the Province, emptying into Lake 
Wionepeg. The climate is healthy but 
extremely variable, the mercury falling in 
Winter 40 degrees below zero, and rising 
in Summer as high as 100 degrees above. 
The soil is very fertile, being of the same 
character as that in our great Dakota 
wheat region, and wheat is the staple 
crop, though barley, oats, rye, potatoes, 
etc., also do well. 
In 1870, Manitoba, after considerable 
opposition, chiefly on the part of the 
“half-breeds” under Louis Riel, became 
annexed to the confederation of Canadian 
Provinces started in 1867 under the name 
of “the Dominion of Canada.” Since 
then several causes of complaint have 
arisen owing to the treatment of the 
Province by the Dominion, and these have 
led to the formation of the Manitoba 
Ritrhts League which met the other day 
at Winnepcg, the capital of the Province, 
and submitted a platform of principles to 
the people. This declares that the exer¬ 
cise of the veto bv the Federal Govern¬ 
ment on acts of the Provincial Legislature 
relating to local affairs, is “ arbitrary, un- 
contsitutional, and a menace to the future 
of the confederation.” While recognizing 
the possible advantages of the Canadian 
Pacific Railroad, it declares that “the 
baneful effects of railway monopoly call 
loudly for the active and persistent exer¬ 
cise of the power of the people to main¬ 
tain their rights.” It protests that the 
present customs tariff, especially on ag¬ 
ricultural implements, “is extremely un¬ 
just aud oppressive and has aroused an 
intense feeling of dissatisfaction with re¬ 
lation to theconfederation,” for it paralyz¬ 
es an important agricultural industry, and 
in the interest of Eastern Canadian manu¬ 
facturers discriminates against Manitoba 
in favor of Minnesota ami Dakota, as the 
inhabitants of those States can buy their 
instruments much cheaper than their 
neighbors across the line. It asserts that 
the lands belong to the people, and that 
the policy of withholding from settlement 
and granting to companies and private in¬ 
dividuals for inadequate compensation 
large tracts of the public domain threatens 
the introduction of the evils that oppress 
the people of the older countries, and 
merits “the most unmeasured condemna¬ 
tion.” A farmers’ alliance is to be formed 
whose principal objects will lie agitation 
to carry out the principles enunciated in 
tliis “ declaration of rights.” 
THE PLAGUE OF MONOPOLIES. 
In considering the causes from which 
the prevailing plague—let us call it—of 
monopolies springs, it is proper to look at 
the principle which underlies every one of 
them. This is clearly the assumed right 
of implicated person or persons to tax the 
public at his or their owu discretion for 
iiis or their own personal advantage and 
without giving in return any adequate 
service. From the glaring instances of 
this injustice which have been referred to 
in these columns, the action of this prin¬ 
ciple is clearly apparent. It then becomes 
a matter for inquiry, by what wrong con¬ 
dition of affairs is this action possible? 
The farmers are the foundation upon 
which the fabric of society is built up. 
They produce the food and the raw ma¬ 
terial for the clothing of the world. It is 
their labor which makes all other labor 
possible, and it is their products which are 
the primary basis of all wealth. It is this 
fundamental fact which gave rise to the 
adage, “The farmer pays for all.” And 
when the farmer sees an insolent corpora¬ 
tion, or an equally insolent individual, 
gathering in an enormously excessive 
share of the public wealth, he is quite 
right in his suspicion that he is one of the 
unwilling contributors to it. He is, in 
fact, a victim to the greed and rapacity of 
the person or persons who are fast mon¬ 
opolizing the wealth of the nation. 
Wealth represents the products of labor 
that have been accumulated in excess of 
the quantity required to reproduce them¬ 
selves; the profits for them, in fact. When 
one man or set of men gathers in, without 
the consent of others, an excessive propor¬ 
tion of this accumulated wealth; when 
he, in fact, monopolizes more than his 
share, then to that extent we become sub¬ 
ject to a monopoly. 
Unfortunately, the great monopolies 
we are suffering under at the present time 
are the creatures of law; and it is proper 
to iuquirc how the laws have been made 
by which these monopolies have been 
given the power to tax the public against 
its will. Here is a typical explanation of 
this problem: While the Legislature of 
a State is gathering, prior to holding a 
session, a body of men known its the 
“lobby” is also gathering, whose purpose 
is to influence legislation, and this body 
represents every interest which is antago¬ 
nistic to, and in conflict with, the inter¬ 
ests of the general public. Its purpose is 
to wring money from the people. There 
is a railroad lobby; an oil lobby; an in¬ 
surance lobby; a telegraph lobby; & 
lobby, in fact, for every grasping monop¬ 
oly which intends to perpetuate itself and 
secure more power to levy taxes upon 
the. public. The list, it is seen, includes 
those enterprises, the just and equitable 
conduct of which is the most vital to the 
public interests and in which a monop¬ 
oly is utterly unjust and iniquitous. The 
public conveyance of gojds and persons; 
our light; our safety from fire and the 
methods of rapid business and private 
communication are all in the hands of 
men who have habitually fleeced and 
robbed the public, and whose efforts are 
now turned to increasing and perpetu¬ 
ating their facilities, and in most Legisla¬ 
tures there are less than half a dozen farm¬ 
ers to represent the interests of three- 
fifths of the people of the State, against 
all the influence of the combined wealth 
of all the aggressive monopolies. 
Thus it is easily seen that the law¬ 
making body not only represents unfairly 
the most important public interest, but it 
is also unfairly influenced by the strong¬ 
est pressure against that interest. The 
consequence is inevitable— laws are made 
by which the courts cannot prevent the 
most glaring injustice in watering stocks, 
so ns to increase charges for telegraphing, 
for railroad freights, and for the most in¬ 
dispensable articles of necessity. An in¬ 
stance which is typical of many may be 
given in the recent decision of the highest 
court in the State of New York, that the 
addition of 15 million dollars to the stock 
of the Western Union Telegraph Com¬ 
pany was made in accordance with law. 
Thus this company, which monopolizes 
the telegraph business of the count ry, was 
enabled to make, by a few strokes of the 
pen. this vast addition to its stock, and 
to tax the public by excessive charges to 
pay dividends upon it. 
But “what are you going to do about 
it?” There is but one thing to be done. 
This is to call the attention of the farmers 
to tile state of affairs; to remind them of 
their own latent power, which is, by vir¬ 
tue of their numbers and their aggregate 
wealth, paramount to that of any other 
class, and to encourage them to use their 
proper power and influence in legislation 
to protect themselves by restricting the 
power for evil of their adversaries. 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE FARMERS. 
“The Department of Agriculture is ac¬ 
complishing much in the direction of the 
agricultural development of the country,” 
said the President in his message read be¬ 
fore Congress last Tuesday, and then he 
referred to the “convention of those in¬ 
terested in the cattle industry of the coun¬ 
try, lately held at Chicago,” and inti¬ 
mated that a committee of the convention 
will invite the co-operation of Congress in 
investigating the causes of pleuro-pneu- 
mnnia and other contagious diseases of 
animals, and in “providing methods for 
their prevention and cure.” The repeal 
of the restriction on the importation of 
our swine products into France he attri¬ 
butes “no less to the friendly representa¬ 
tions of this Government than to a grow¬ 
ing conviction in France that the restric¬ 
tion was not demanded by any real dan¬ 
ger to health.” To Germany, which “still 
prohibits the introduction of all swine 
products from America,” he had “ex¬ 
tended a friendly invitation to send ex¬ 
perts to the United States to inquire 
whether the use of these products was 
dangerous to health. This invitation was 
declinedbut, believing it of great im¬ 
portance “that, the exact facts should be 
ascertained and promulgated.” he has ap¬ 
pointed “a competent commission to 
make a thorough investigation of the sub¬ 
ject.” As “its members have shown 
their public spirit by accepting their trust 
without pledge of compensation.” he 
trusts “that Congress will see in the na¬ 
tional and international bearings of the 
matter a sufficient motive for providing at 
least for the reimbursement of such ex¬ 
penses as they may reasonably incur,” 
to which we add a fair compensation for 
their services; for why should those serving 
agriculture alone be asked to give their 
services gratuitously? Although in this 
part of the message no retaliatory legisla¬ 
tion is advised against Germany aud other 
countries that discriminate against our 
hog products, later on, referring to re¬ 
strictions on our trade in the Spanish 
West Indian Islands and Brazil, he asks, 
“Is it not advisable to provide some 
means of equitable retaliation in our re¬ 
lations with Governments which discrimi¬ 
nate against our own?” The answer to 
this query will apply as well to the. un¬ 
friendly countries in the Old World as to 
those in the New. Although we are in¬ 
clined to believe that legislation for the 
purpose of international retaliation is 
somewhat like “cutting off one’s nose to 
spite one’s face,” still, with regard to Ger¬ 
many, we would certainly like to experi¬ 
ence the pleasure often attendant upon 
that sort of self-hurtful operation. 
Over a year ago a reciprocity treaty 
was entered into between the United 
States and the Sandwich Islands by wbicli 
sugar produced in Hawaii is admitted into 
this country duty free, and it has been 
frequently charged that sugar from other 
countries is imported into Hawaii and 
thence shipped to the United States as the 
native product; hence the abrogation of 
the treaty has been urged by many. The 
President says he is “convinced that 
charges of abuses and frauds under the 
treaty have been exaggerated;” but he 
recommends “that the treaty be modified 
wherever its provisions have proved oner¬ 
ous to legitimate trade between the two 
countries.” 
As in his previous message, the Presi¬ 
dent again calls attention “to the neces¬ 
sity of protecting by suitable legislation 
the forests situated on the public domain,” 
In many parts of the West “general 
agriculture is only made practicable by 
resort to irrigation, while successful ir¬ 
rigation would itself be impracticable 
without the aid afforded by forests in 
contributing to the regularity and con¬ 
stancy of the supply of water.” As im¬ 
portant. tributaries of the Missouri, Colum¬ 
bia and Saskatchewan rise in the mountain 
region of Northern Montana, between the 
Blackfeet and Flathead Indian Reserva¬ 
tions, he recommends that this part of the 
public domain be withdrawn from public 
sale and made a forest reserve. The 
country is unsuitable for settlement, “but 
upon the rivers that flow from it depends 
the future agricultural development of a 
vast tract of country.” 
With regard to monopolies, while the 
President does not think it advisable that 
the Government should “assume the same 
control over the telegraph that it has al¬ 
ways exercised over the mail,” still he 
avows his belief “that the Government 
should bo authorized by law lo exercise 
some sort of supervision over inter-State 
telegraph communication,” and he will 
approve legislation to that end. With 
regard to railroad monopolies he says: 
“While we cannot fail to recognize the 
importance of the vast railway systems of 
the country, and their great and benefi¬ 
cent influences upon the development of 
our material wealth, we should, on the 
other hand, remember that no individual 
and no corporation ought to be invested 
with absolute power over the interest of 
any other citizens or class of citizens. The 
right of these railway corporations to a 
fair and profitable return upon their in¬ 
vestments and to reasonable freedom in 
their regulations must be recognized, but 
it seems only just that, so far as its con¬ 
stitutional authority will permit, Con¬ 
gress should protect the people at largo 
in their inter-State traffic against acts of 
injustice which the State Governments 
are powerless to prevent.” 
BREVITIES. 
Do not try to bite things which are too hard, 
if you value your teeth. 
The Wisconsin State Horticultural Society 
will hold its next Winter meeting at Green 
Bay, December 10 and 20. 
A little authority is a dangerous thing. 
The sickest, meanest sort of authority is that 
of the ignorant, purse-proud man. Deliver 
us from him ! 
Do you know just how much you owe ? 
Can’t you pay it liefore ISM begins '? Pray do 
if you can. A man with #50 in the bank and 
a poor coat is entitled to more respect than 
one who owes his neighbor and dresses in tine 
clothes. 
A body called the Farmers’ Congress met 
at Louisville, Ky., last Thursday, December 
0 . and adopted u constitution and by-laws. 
The object of the organization is stated to be 
the advance of the agricultural interests of 
the country. The “Congress” is to be com¬ 
posed of the suiuo number of members as the 
National Congress. Ouo member of each 
Btate Agricultural College, and all the heads 
of the Bureaus of Agriculture of the differ- 
eut States and of the United States are to be 
nr ojfioio members. The Officers are “to have 
the power to do all that may advance the ob¬ 
jects of the organization.” Governors of the 
States are requested to appoint delegates each 
year by April 1. How mauy were present at 
the “Congress” we know not, neither does the 
telegraph inform us who they were, or by 
whom they were chosen to represent the seven 
million fanners of the country. Probably 
they were self-constituted representatives. 
Auyhow, they boldly passed “resolutions” 
demanding that the Commissioner of Agri¬ 
culture should be made n Cabinet Officer, and 
recommending t hat, a commit to be appointed 
in each State to present resolutions to the re¬ 
spective Legislatures asking that a Bureau ol' 
Statistic* be established. Col. Robert Beverly, 
of Virginia, was elected president for tne 
ensuing year, and one vice-president was 
named for each State in the Union. 
