THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A.National Journal for Country and Suburban Home 
"mducted by 
E. S. CABMAN, 
J. S. WOODWARD, 
Editor. 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No, S4 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1885. 
We want just 821 of our subscribers to 
compete for the presents which we offer 
to them, by sending us clubs. 
If the number on your address label is 
1825, your subscription term will expire 
next week; if 1828, the week after, and 
so on. Please look to this. 
Ten dollars for each subscriber, for the 
largest clubs, while the smaller clubs will 
not reach half through the list. That’s 
the way our presents to subscribers will be 
awarded, if we may judge thus early. 
We have said that Carter’s Stratagem 
Pea is the very best intermediate pea in 
cultivation. We want our readers to 
remember it. If it is not, then reproach 
the Rukal. If it is, then give'us credit. 
We have tried every pea and have no in¬ 
terest whatever in praising the Stratagem 
beyond others. A trial packet will be 
found in every envelope of our present 
Free Seed Distribution. 
Does Farming Pay ? — About us are 20 
farms of greater or less size. One farmer 
has 20 acres. He supports a family of six, 
and they live and enjoy life and save a 
little. Another has 40 acres. He is go¬ 
ing behind every year, and will soon have 
to sell his mortgaged farm. Another has 
75 acres. He has reared a family of four 
children and educated, them fairly, and 
has money in the bank. Does farming 
pay? What a senseless question! Does 
the grocery business pay? Does the dry- 
goods, hardware, candy, or peanut busi¬ 
ness pay? Much depends upon whether 
a man has a head on him or not. Now, 
dear farm contemporaries, if you have 
anything else to print, don't discuss the 
question any longer as to whether farm¬ 
ing pays or not. 
Representative Millard, of N. Y. has 
introduced a bill into the House to ex¬ 
tend the Presidential term to six years; to 
render the President forever afterwards 
ineligible to reflection, and to grant all 
ex-Presidents a pension for life. While 
we are not politicians, we are heartily in 
favor of the first two of these provisions. 
The Presidential canvass completely de¬ 
moralizes all kinds of business for at least 
three months before the election; when a 
change is made in the politics of the admin¬ 
istration, the uncertainty of the in-com¬ 
ing party causes a farther stagnation of at 
least as long a time. We are quite certain 
that once in six years is quite often 
enough for this disturbance. It the Presi¬ 
dent were ineligible to reflection, he 
would have no incentive to do anything 
but to make his administration so good as 
to be gratefully remembered for all time. 
By all means let us have these two fea¬ 
tures engrafted into our political system; 
but we can see no reason why electing a 
man to the highest position in the gift of 
mortal man should needs make a pauper 
of him, to be for his natural life supported 
at public expense. A man capable of fil¬ 
ling the office should be quite as able to 
earn his bread and butter as are the mil¬ 
lions of honest toilers who would have to 
sweat so much the more to help earn the 
money to pay these pensions. We be¬ 
lieve the offering of a pension would be a 
direct insult- to any man who is worthy to 
occupy such a position. We sincerely 
hope Congress may make no unnecessary 
delay in passing such wise laws, so that 
the amendments can he acted upon so early 
that the successor of the President-elect 
shall be chosen for the full term of six 
years with no re-flection. 
- 
Friends of the Rural, do not fail to 
sow the seed of the Johnson or Means’ 
Grass or Evergreen Millet (Sorghum hal- 
apenae) we shall send to those who apply 
for the Rural’s Free Seed Distribution. 
We have great hopes that it will prove a 
valuable acquisition. The Rural, in 
disseminating this grass to its readers of 
the North, East and West, believes that 
it will prove hardy as far north as Chica¬ 
go and New York, and hopes it may prove 
hardy still further north. Being very 
nutritious in quality, leafy and succulent, 
if cut at the right time; being a long- 
lived perennial ■with root-stocks which are 
excellent food for swine; and, finally, as 
it may be cut twice and still mature an 
abundance of seeds, which themselves 
are probably as valuable as those of any 
sorghum, we seem justified in our hopes. 
Our seed is clean and of excellent quality. 
New England farmers along the shores 
of the Sound and ocean have secured 
thousands of tons of sea-weed for use as a 
fertilizer. It is being more extensively 
used than ever before, and much of it is 
being carted six or eight miles. Wc think 
that while it is a good practice to save 
and use all of this they can get, many of 
them, if they understood the proper 
method of winter feeding, both of cattle 
and sheep, could make a large amount of 
much richer and more valuable manure, 
and profitably employ their time in so do¬ 
ing. It is a sad sight to see so many im¬ 
poverished farms affording a mere sub¬ 
sistence to the owners, and surely it 
would pay them to post up on the best 
system of winter feeding and use their 
winter time in turning their bay and straw, 
together with grain and other feeding 
stuffs that can be bought cheap, into milk, 
butter and meat, and in so doing manufac¬ 
ture a fertilizer worthmauy times as much 
as sea-weed. It is a sad sight to see the 
shiploads of rich feeding stuffs going 
abroad, when our fields need all these, 
manurial elements so badly. 
The Rural is rejoiced to know that 
many of its readers are going to try its 
method of raising potatoes next Spring, 
and it is also glad to know that quite a 
number who have tried the method, have 
raised satisfactory crops, while their 
neighbors’ crops have been very unsatis¬ 
factory. We have this word of entreaty 
to make: Follow our method in every par¬ 
ticular according to the Rural’s direc¬ 
tions. Do not skimp or slight the sys¬ 
tem in any way. Try it thoroughly , or, 
should the crop prove less or no greater 
than that raised in the old way, do not 
condemn the Rural’s method. It you 
propose to make a batch of bread or cuke 
according to a new recipe, and omit some 
portion of it which may seem unimport¬ 
ant, the recipe should not be condemned 
if the cake or bread can not be eaten. 
After you have given our method of rais¬ 
ing potatoes a full, fair trial, improve 
upon it if you can; or abandonit entirely. 
We merely ask that our friends will not 
attempt to improve upon the original 
until they know what it is. 
Up to this date we have received from 
subscribers who are working for the pre¬ 
sents—offered to subscribers only—clubs 
as follows:—one each of 28, 20, 11, and 
several of nine and less; in all,not one-sixth 
as many have notified us of their intention 
to compete for them as we offer presents. 
We say this that our friends may see how 
easy it will be for them to secure a valu¬ 
able present with only a little effort. The 
senders of the.clubs so far reported would 
receive about 810 for each name sent. 
While we shall not complain and will 
faithfully distribute the presents to club 
senders, in strict accordance with the 
statements made, be the clubs large or 
small; we cannot but express the hope 
that a sufficient number will enter the 
contest to enable us to distribute all the 
presents offered. It would be simply too 
bad that such splendid presents should 
be allowed to go begging. Please look 
the list over once more and see if there 
is not something you would like, and that 
is worth much more than the little effort 
necessary to secure it. Dear friends, these 
presents are for you only, and unless se¬ 
cured by you, will revert to the manufac¬ 
turers, who in so kindly placing them at 
our command stipulated that they should 
go to subscribers only. Can it be possible 
that you do not care for them? 
THE RURAL A SAFE GUIDE? 
A friend in Indiana writes: “My 
neighbors, when I ask them to subscribe 
for the Rural, tell me that book farming 
will not pay in this country; that I will 
never succeed if 1 follow the fine-spun 
theories that all rural journalists advo¬ 
cate. Now is it possible that they are 
right, that you pretend to be doing what 
cannot be done on a farm? Had I better 
go back and flounder along in the old 
ruts, content to just make the two ends 
meet by the closest economy?” 
This question in some form comes to us 
quite often, and needs an honest answer. 
The fact is that many—indeed nearly all 
—the farm papers are edited by men who 
practically know no more about farming 
than we do of Hindoo. Of course, many 
of their correspondents are farmers— 
some of them good, practical farmers—but 
in the absence of practical farm experi¬ 
ence in the editors, the moat foolish and 
misleading statements get into the paper, 
and those who attempt to follow such 
theories are misled to their loss, and so 
become disgusted. It is no wonder that 
they declare all agricultural journalists 
frauds. 
But, dear friends, such is not the case 
with the Rural New-Yorker. Its edi¬ 
tors and owners are successful, practical 
farmers and horticulturists, and when 
they look over an article they know 
whether it is practical or misleading, aud 
if not correct it is rejected or sent back 
for revision. Aside from this, they are 
farmers like yourselves, and carefully 
watch all the operations on their 380 acres 
of land, and truthfully report to you just 
what they are doing; if they make a fail¬ 
ure, it is reported as faithfully as are their 
successes Last, year they grew over 2,400 
bushels of wheat on 61 acres, and over 
1,600 bushels of barley on 80 acres, and 
100 bushels of shelled corn per acre in 
actual field cultivation. They are this 
Winter running the barns full of stock, 
have already much over ] 00 young lambs 
for an early market, and what they do, 
why can’t you or any other farmer do as 
well: pray tell if you can? 
There is no royal road to success on the 
farm! It is only a matter of “knowing 
how” and management, and if any one 
follows their ways carefully, we cannot 
see why he should not be equally success¬ 
ful. The same number of pounds of bran, 
corn meal, oil-meal and mangels, with 
straw and hay, will make as many pounds 
of butter, meat or wool in one place as in 
another, and the manure made by the 
animals eating them will be just as rich 
in plant food, and if properly applied, 
will have the same benefical effects upon 
the crop in Indiana or Michigan as in 
Western New York, New Jersey or Long 
Island. When the editors tell how to tit 
land for any crop and how to sow the 
seeds, they tell precisely how they do the 
same thing to produce these crops; or 
when they advise as to stock feeding, they 
give instructions precisely as they prac¬ 
tice in their own barns and with their own 
stock. 
There is no danger in practicing book 
farming or in following the lead of the 
agricultural papers. The only difficulty 
is in knowing whom to follow. Our work 
is not done iu the dark, nor are our ways 
hid, and we invite all to come and sector 
themselves what we are doing and how 
we are doing it. Wc think the old ruts 
are already worn too deep, and those who 
get out of them into a better way will 
always be the most successful, and the 
hight of our ambition i9 to make the 
Rural an active aid to get people into 
the better way. 
-» »« - 
FREE PASSES ON RAILROADS. 
Bribery has always and everywhere 
been considered an odious offense reflect¬ 
ing little credit on the briber and much dis¬ 
grace on the bribed. A bribe is the re¬ 
ward given by a corruptor of morals for the 
commission of a turpitude or the omission 
of a duty. In war the known bribe-taker 
is infamous in all eyes; in peace be is 
often honored with a place among the 
law makers of the land or a seat among 
its judges. 
One of the last votes taken by the 
Lower House of Congress on Mr. Reagan’s 
Inter-State Commerce Bill just before 
adjourning for the holidays, was on an 
amendment offered by Mr. White of Ken¬ 
tucky, to the effect that any railroad 
company permitting the use of free passes 
or tickets sold at reduced rates, over its 
road or any of its branches, by auy per¬ 
son not a yiatd employs, shall be required 
to furnish a similar pass or ticket between 
the same or any intermediate points, to 
any aud all persons who shall apply for 
the same at any of the regular railroad 
ticket offices, within ten days from the 
date when the aforsaid pass or ticket, 
may be used. Many, nay most, of the 
members who had to vote on this pro¬ 
vision had doubtless in their pockets free 
railroad passes on which they expected 
to travel nome in a few days, and to re¬ 
turn to Washington after the recess, un¬ 
less in the meanwhile bribed with new 
passes for 1885. Small wonder therefore 
that only 40 votes were at first cast in 
favor of the amendment.aud on a division 
of the House, there were only 23 yeas to 
146 nays. The chief object of the 
Reagan Bill is to guard against unjust 
discrimination by railroads, can there be 
a more flagrant discrimination than to al¬ 
low some of the public to travel free, 
while forcing the rest to pay not only 
for themselves, but also for the favored 
few who travel gratuitously? Thus the 
majority of the public are compelled to 
pay for the bribes offered to the minority 
to act against their interests! Then again, 
•why cannot free passes be adroitly used 
to neutralize laws against discrimination 
in freight charges? What is to prevent a 
railroad company from repaying to one 
shipper, in the form of free passes, the 
difference in the amount he pays and that 
exacted from a less favored shipper, while 
both are apparently paying the same 
amount of money on the same amount of 
freight between the same places? 
While the acceptance of a bribe in 
the form of a free pass, may perhaps be 
more reprehensible in a member of the Na¬ 
tional than in a member of a State Legis¬ 
lature, on account of the more exalted 
position of the former, there is no doubt 
whatever that it is far more pernicious in 
the latter, both because he has always vast¬ 
ly more to do with railroad legislation, and 
because he is usually moie likely to be in¬ 
fluenced by such a petty consideration. The 
prohibition of free passes is already or- 
dainod by the Constitution of some States; 
while in others laws provide penalties for 
their issue. Their issue and use should be 
prohibited and punished in every State 
and Territory in the Union. Where they 
are prohibited, the prohibition was enacted 
on the ground that they were bribes 
given in contravention of public morality 
and public interest. To demonstrate the 
truth of this opinion would be a waste of 
time and space. The very men who ac¬ 
cept them acknowledge, to* themselves if 
not to the public, the immoral purposes 
ol the railroads in giving them, though 
they may feel as well as express confi¬ 
dence in their own integrity to withstand 
their insidious influence. But what shall 
he said of the delicate sense of honor of a 
law-maker, or judge who accepts a bribe 
to favor a particular interest while re¬ 
solved in his own mind not to be swayed 
in the slightest by it? 
Neither legislators who make laws to 
govern railroads, nor judges who inter¬ 
pret and try suits under those laws, should 
be permitted to accept free passes or any 
other consideration from the roads, 
lest their conduct should be swayed, 
or thought to be swayed by them. 
Nor should their families, relatives, or 
friends be allowed to do so, for a direct 
gift to the one is likely to he an indirect 
gift to the other. Nor should newspaper 
editors be allowed to do so for themselves 
or others; for while it their duty to speak 
out boldly and fearlessly in behalf of the 
public welfare, they are pretty sure either 
to be kept silent when they ought to be 
loud-voiced, or to have their utterance 
influenced by them. Nor should any 
other person whatsoever be allowed to do 
so, for the object of such a largess can 
hardly be for the public benefit, and any¬ 
how the public at large will have to pay 
for a gift about which they were uot con¬ 
sulted, and which is made with the object 
of injuring their interests. 
BREVITIE8. 
Rural Friends: Speak the “good word” 
now. 
Mr. Cbas. A. Green writes us that farmers 
are beginning to appreciate the good the 
Rural has done. Well, we beg to soy, iu the 
humblest manner, that it is time they'did. 
Do you like the Rural better now, that it 
is cut and pasted ? We hope so. 8how it to 
your neighbors and speak the “good word” 
now. 
If you deposit all your money in one sav¬ 
ings bank and it fails, you lose'your money. 
If you deposit one-third of your money in each 
of three bauks, the risk of losiug nne-third is 
three times as great and that of losing all 
three times less. This may be applied iu farm¬ 
ing to special as compared with general crops - 
A series of experiments with regard to 
hog cholera has for some time been in pro¬ 
gress, and will ba continued until satisfactory 
results shall tie attained, at the United States 
Department, of Agriculture at Washington, 
the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, 
and the office of Dr. Reeves, executive officer 
of the West Virginia Health Board, at Wheel¬ 
ing. The first result achieved, which has been 
given to the formers as a New Year’s gift, is 
the discovery that the germ of the disease is a 
specific germ, a bacillus, and that it can be 
reproduced. If fut ure experiments shall veri¬ 
fy present expectations, hogs may be inocula¬ 
ted with an attenuated form of the virus, that 
will produce in them a mild form of the dis¬ 
ease, which will prevent the ravages of the 
plague in its fatal form. Analogous results 
have beeu achieved by Pasteur with regard to 
malignant authrax in sheep; while inocula¬ 
tion has long been a preventive of fatal re¬ 
sults from contagious plenro - pneumonia 
among cattle; and vaccination as a preven¬ 
tive of small-pox in the human subject is a 
form of treatment in the same line. Many 
have insisted, however, that hog cholera is 
not a definite disease, but an indisposition, 
due to Improper feeding, etc., while others 
have been equally certain that the term em¬ 
braces several different disorders, what will 
become of these theories should further re¬ 
search verify the recent discoveries? 
