THE RUSAL NEW-YORKER. 
JAN 44 
j THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National J ournal for Country and Suburban Home 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. C ARMAN". 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Pakk Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 1888. 
The next special Rural New-Yorker 
will be dated January 28. 
A novel way of exterminating English 
sparrows comes to us from a subscriber in 
Canada: “The best way to get rid of 
English sparrows is to feed them with 
bread moistened in whisky. They will 
be senseless for a few minutes, and can 
be picked up like apples under a tree.” 
We are pained to hear of the death of 
Charles H. Marot, the proprietor and pub¬ 
lisher of the Gardeners’ Monthly, which 
occurred on the 21st of December, after 
a few days’ illness, in his 62nd year. The 
good Thomas Meehan has been associated 
with him as editor for a quarter of a 
century. 
We know of one township in which 
there are 27 miles of road. For 18 years 
it has cost $2,500 a year to repair them. 
The interest on this and the capital would 
amount to $45,000, which would be $1,- 
666.33 per mile. If during the first of 
the 18 years the roads had been thoroughly 
macadamized, scarcely any further ex¬ 
pense would have been needed during the 
18 years. In the one case we have roads 
rarely in order and sometimes nearly im¬ 
passable; in the other good roads always. 
If country people are short-sighted in 
one thing more than another, it is in the 
care of their roads or, better, in the in¬ 
difference with which they regard them. 
Let no reader of the Rural forget the 
first page picture of last week’s issue. It is a 
powerful blow at a crying evil. We need 
powerful blows at such things. We need 
to startle public sentiment into action. 
While the public endure these evils with 
no other mark of disapproval than a 
grumble or two, the evils wax fat. It is 
only when the public shall rise and de¬ 
mand that wrongs be righted that evil is 
checked. Bring this matter of proper 
protection at railroad crossings up at the 
Grange, the farmers’ club, the store— 
wherever you meet friends. It will not 
be long before members of the Legislature 
will hear of it. It is through them that 
the public must work. Make them hear. 
Some poultry men advertise that they 
never have diseases in their yards. It 
may be so, but they cannot guarantee 
that the stock they sell will be free from 
disease unless they can compel the pur¬ 
chaser to give the fowls the same care 
they received in their yards. Good birds 
under the most favorable conditions of 
shelter and food will keep in better health 
than when they are placed amid unhealth¬ 
ful surroundings. We often hear that 
people in a certain locality are exception¬ 
ally strong and healthy. Is it because of 
the people or because of the place? Take 
them into an unhealthful locality and 
would they be less liable to disease than 
others? Isn’t the same true of stock? 
Can we preserve health unless we copy 
the conditions in which health is found? 
TnE Commissioner of the Labor Bu¬ 
reau of Michigan ha9 just made a report 
which gives some startling statistics of 
the condition of the farmers of that -State. 
His figures indicate that probably one- 
half the farming land in the State, and 
possibly more, is heavily encumbered with 
mortgages Of the 90,803 farms investi¬ 
gated 43,079, or about 47 per cent., were, 
in whole or part, plastered with mort¬ 
gages. Worse still, the mortgages 
amount to from 55 to 60 per cent, of the 
assessed valuation of the land. The rate 
of interest averages as high as 7.2 per 
cent, and a commission of 10 per cent, is 
usually charged by the agents who secure 
the loan. Thus if a farmer borrows $1,- 
000 he actually receives only $900, though 
he has to pay interest on $1,000. Many 
a man before making a mortgage feels as 
if he were soon to own the National sur¬ 
plus ; but it doesn’t take long until he feels 
as if he had soon to pay the National debt. 
■ ■ ■ . . . - 
The trade in pure maple sugar and 
sirup -is always good. Unscrupulous 
frauds palm off great quantities of glucose 
and other cheap sweets as “maple sugar,” 
but the pure article when properly adver¬ 
tised and vouched for is sure to command 
a good price. In fact, the trouble is not 
so much that the market will ever be 
“glutted,” as that there will not be 
enough. Many a famous “sugar bush,” 
that has produced tons of sugar, is now 
failing. The trees are old and are losing 
vitality. New groves have not been 
planted. They will have to be sooner or 
later—why not do it now? Many farm¬ 
ers have planted chestnut trees on old 
fields that would hardly support sheep, 
and have made good returns in nuts and 
timber. Why not plant sugar maples in¬ 
stead? The nut market can be overdone; 
the maple sugar market cannot at present. 
♦ »» 
The “protectionists” and “free-trad¬ 
ers” are making use of the farm mort¬ 
gages in Michigan and elsewhere in the 
West as texts for supporting their re¬ 
spective views. The “free-traders” say 
that a very large proportion of the far¬ 
mers of the West are engaged in a strug¬ 
gle to enrich Eastern capitalists in two 
ways. In the first place, they are paying 
them a bounty of from 50 to 150 per cent 
on all the merchandise they consume, and 
to enable them to do this, they are, in 
the second place, borrowing money from 
them at high rates of interest in a vain 
attempt to keep their heads above water. 
On the other hand, the “protectionists” 
claim that farmers can now buy their 
agricultural implements, their clothing, 
their groceries and provisions, and the 
other necessaries of life for lower prices 
than were ever paid under free-trade. 
This they attribute to the protective 
tariff under which American industries 
have grown and multiplied until domestic 
competition has brought the benefits of 
excellent goods at low prices to every¬ 
body’s door. Many go so far as to say 
that, like the National debt of England, 
mortgages are a blessing in disguise. If 
so the disguise is to us impenetrable. 
Between the North and South Forks 
of the Red River and the 100th degree of 
longitude is an extensive range of fertile 
country about 34 miles wide by 167 miles 
long, containing 3,687,360 acres. It is 
claimed by Texas under the name of 
Greer County, and by the United States 
as a part of the Indian Territory, and is 
also known as “No Man’s Land.” Be¬ 
longing definitely to no organized com¬ 
munity, it is governed by no laws, and 
has long been the resort of desperadoes of 
all kinds. The. land has never been sold 
by any proper authority, and the thou¬ 
sands of settlers there—stockmen and 
ranchers—hold their possessions by squat¬ 
ter sovereignty. The President ha9 just 
issued a proclamation-warning all persons 
whatever against selling or otherwise 
“disposing of any of said land or exer¬ 
cising or attempting to exercise any 
authority over” it; and also warning 
“all persons against purchasing any part 
of the territory from any person or per¬ 
sons whomsoever.” An enormous amount 
of land swindling has already been per¬ 
petrated by locating Texas land grants in 
“Greer County,” and selling the certifi¬ 
cates to greenhorns, and this proclamation 
should have been issued over two years 
ago. More than three years ago the Eye- 
Opener warned Rural readers against this 
fraud. 
Senator George, of Alabama, has in¬ 
troduced in Congress a bill to protect 
innocent purchasers of patented articles, 
making it a valid defence against actions 
for infringement that an article was 
bought for use or consumption, not for 
sale, in good faith in the usual course of 
trade. It also provides that all patents 
shall be subject to purchase by the Gov¬ 
ernment for general use at a reasonable 
valuation. Both are excellent measures. 
Let the patentee look for damages for 
infringement of his patent to the manu¬ 
facturer who always knows of the in¬ 
fringement or to the dealer who is seldom 
ignorant of it, and not to the user of the 
article who seldom knows that its manu¬ 
facture infringes on any patent. The 
very object of granting a patent is to 
stimulate the inventive genius of the 
country to the discovery or invention of 
new and useful devices or new adapta¬ 
tions of old ones for the public benefit, 
by giving patentees a monopoly of their 
inventions for 17 years, to enable them to 
reap a reward for their talent. Com¬ 
paratively little profit, however, is, as a 
rule, made by the inventors, the great 
bulk of the profits going to the manu¬ 
facturers and agents who handle the pat¬ 
ented articles. If the United States pays 
a fair price for the patent, the inventor, 
in 99 cases out of 100, will receive a 
greater reward than he does under the 
present conditions. If the patent is of 
general or wide public utility, the people 
can well afford to pay the inventor gener¬ 
ously, in order to enable the government 
to throw open the device to general use. 
Several notes of warning come from 
the West, and especially the region west 
of the Missouri River, w’ith regard to the 
safety of loans made by Eastern capital¬ 
ists on the security of Western farm 
mortgages. The people of that section 
are industrious, persevering and progres¬ 
sive ; but they are also given,in an inordin¬ 
ate degree, to the dangerous process of 
borrowing. They appear to be willing to 
plaster their land with mortgages with 
great cheerfulness in the expectation that 
it will rapidly rise in value. Many of 
them have paid off the first mortgage from 
the proceeds of the second, and the sec¬ 
ond from the proceeds of the third, and 
so on, the amount obtained on each suc¬ 
cessive mortgage being proportionate to 
the advance in value of the land. It is al¬ 
leged that in their eagerness to secure 
their 10 per cent, on all loans made for 
Eastern capitalists, the Western agents 
have not been looking closely enough 
into the actual value of the lands to be 
mortgaged, and that their real value has 
not kept pace with the advance in price. 
Indeed in some places while the price has 
advanced owing to the influx of immi¬ 
grants, the real value of the land has fallen 
off owing to injudicious cropping. Then 
again, the mortgages given by the owners 
of farms for the improvement of their 
property are supplementary to the much 
heavier burden represented by bonds 
voted for the construction of railroads 
through the country and for other public 
purposes. The aggregate of this sort of 
indebtedness is said to be extremely large 
in all parts of that section, every county, 
town and school distiict, being so heavily 
in debt that the payment of the interest 
is difficult, while the principal has yet 
to be provided for by increased taxa¬ 
tion. Some borrowing is necessary and 
profitable in a new country; but the 
greatest danger is that people seldom know 
when to stop. 
ANJOU. 
f'lMiE Beurre d’Anjou Pear or Anjou as 
jL it is now called; have you it? If 
not, take the Rural’s advice and plant a 
tree or a hundred, if you live where pears 
thrive. The excellence of the Anjou is 
not half appreciated. It has never had a 
boom—never been advertised and puffed 
up as are in these times the new things 
that are every year introduced. Nursery¬ 
men know of its excellence People call 
for Bartletts and Seckels and those well- 
known. The nurseryman can not spend 
half an hour in inducing the buyer to add 
or to substitute the Anjou. He gives his 
patrons what they want, or is contented 
to mention the Anjou as one of the best. 
And so it occurs that time must do at 
length what advertising does at once and 
too often overdoes. We tell you friends 
make a note to plant the Anjou. It is 
for a Fall pear what the Bartlett is for a 
Summer pear—and more. The tree is 
more vigorous and less liable to blight. 
The fruit is of better quality and the 
market demand for it is greater where it 
is known. Marshall P. Wilder told our 
readers years ago that for one pear, the 
Anjou is the best. Ask Patrick Barry, 
W. C. Barry, T. T. Lyon, Dr. Hoskins, 
P. J. Berckmans or any other of our first 
pomological authorities how they esti¬ 
mate it and they will support these words 
of praise. It will thrive wherever any 
pear will thrive except it may be those of 
Japan origin like the Kieffer and Le Conte. 
Twenty-one States give it double stars, 13 
single stars, while still in several States 
and territories it is not known at all. 
- . 
brevities. 
The boom in favor of dehorning cattle is 
still raging and spreading. 
The Rural has on hand a good supply of 
horns taken from the cattle dehorned by the 
Westtown F. and G. Club. Drawings will be 
made from them. 
Spraying fruit trees with the Paris-green 
solution is the farm practice that will have a 
great “boom” next year. The Rural will 
tell all about how practical men do this work. 
If every market gardener sending vege¬ 
tables to New York would cut down the area 
given to tomatoes last year by 10 per cent, 
and plant the space to sweet corn, money 
would be made. 
The boy who gets the man’s head before he 
gets the man’s size is not the most desirable 
boy. The man who keeps the boy’s heart, no 
matter how large he grows, comes close up in 
the race for “best man.” 
Mr. Jacobs tells us that he believes that 
lime for shell making is taken directly from 
the food and that oyster shells only serve to 
assist in grinding the food. Pending discus¬ 
sion we shall continue to feed our chickens 
bone meal. 
The farm girls who sit in the parlor and 
let mother do all the hard work, won’t be at 
all pleased with the cartoon we are preparing 
for their especial benefit. Better turn over a 
new leaf, girls, or you will be pointed out in 
this picture. 
We shall probably have a good deal to say 
after awhile in regard to our new farm of 43 
acres. This gives a long-felt want, that of 
owning farm lands near the Experiment 
Grounds. Meanwhile the Rural Farm on 
Long Island will go on much as before. 
The season for buying chemical fertilizers 
is getting near at hand. What brands are 
you going to buy and what are your reasons 
for preferring them? Do you guess at it or 
are your purchases based "upon sound obser¬ 
vation and experiment? These are questions 
that all are interested in. 
Capons are in good demand in the markets. 
It seems impossible to overstock the market 
with a prime article. Caponizing is an art, 
and a cruel one. So far as our observation 
goes, not one man in 10 can do it without kill¬ 
ing many birds. It is cruel business, say what 
you will of it. 
We have two good compost heaps. It gives 
one a feeling of satisfaction to look at them. 
Green rag-weeds, muck, sods, horse manure, 
chamber slops and some dead small animals! 
Separately they don’t amount to much. To¬ 
gether they have been working for us whether 
we slept, worked or played. 
Regardless of former experiences, farm¬ 
ers are planning to go into potatoes very 
heavily this year. Most of them will try 
late potatoes. Last year’s crop is rapidly dis¬ 
appearing and will be used up earlier in the 
year than formerly. For these reasons we 
believe that early potatoes will pay best this 
year. 
Milkmen in Orange County speak of “keep¬ 
ing a bull a scrub.” By that they mean keep 
ing him in poor condition, or suitable condi¬ 
tion for breeding, without too much fat. When 
a man realizes that the presence or absence of 
the best care and feed makes or unmakes a 
“scrub” condition, it is evident that he has 
learned to keep cattle with an eye to business. 
It is with sorrow we announce the death of 
our occasional contributor, Dr. James R. 
Nichols, founder of the Journal of Chemis¬ 
try, who died last Monday at the age of 08. 
He was one of the earliest experiment farm¬ 
ers. having established an experimental farm 
at Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1863, where for 
many years he did a great deal of excellent 
work 
Will the continued use of Paris-green ex¬ 
terminate the potato beetle eventually? It 
certainly ought to and would come near it if 
the farmers of a community would combine 
and fight the pest systematically. A single 
shiftless farmer can breed beetles enough on 
his potatoes to stock up the neighborhood. 
This is how the poor farmer, however good- 
natured, breaks the Golden Rule. 
* The Farmers’ Instiitute to be held at Alba-* 
ny January 17 and 18 promises to be the best 
of the series, Among the speakers announced 
are J. H. Sander, T. S. Gold. C A. Mills, C. 
M. Winslow, Major Alvord and Prof. Smock. 
Half fares have been arranged for on rail¬ 
roads and reduced hotel rates can be secured. 
As the meeting of the N. Y. Board of Agricul¬ 
ture will be held during the session of the in¬ 
stitute, this gathering promses to be a very 
important one. Can’t you go? 
The point is frequently made that South¬ 
ern farmers are slow to move into grass farm¬ 
ing because for generations planters and la¬ 
borers were taught to look upon grass as an 
enemy to cotton, and to bate it intensely. 
This hatred has been inherited. These hered¬ 
itary hatreds work no end of harm to agricul¬ 
ture. Every neighborhood has them. The 
worst of it is that we get so accustomed to 
our own pet hatred that we get to love it and 
see only the bad policy of our neighbors. 
Among the trees not previously tried that 
have of late been added to the collection at 
the Rural Grounds are Pinus ponderosa, P. 
Jeffreyii, P. Pallisiana. P. Monspeliensis, 
Abies Barryii, A. morinda, Thuya Barrowsii, 
the Laciniated European Linden, Double¬ 
flowering Philadelphus, Double-flowering 
Rose of Sharon, Leopoldii, Viburnum Phle- 
botryohum, Acer dasycarpum crispum, 
Wier’s, Pendulous European Linden, Mem- 
minger’s Horsechestnut, Rhus Osbkecii. 
The farmers of the counties bordering on 
the Central Hudson, as well as of a few of the 
interior counties of this State have formed an 
organization for self-protection. It is espec¬ 
ially intended to seek legislation that will 
benefit them and particularly to obtain lower 
rates of transportation, both by rail and 
boat. Over 300 of the leading farmers of 
Dutchess, Orange, Ulster, Columbia, Green 
and Delaware counties have become active 
members of the body, and it promises a rapid 
growth. The next meeting will be held at 
Poughkeepsie on January 21, when a line of 
action will be decided on. Organization 
among farmers, local, State^nd National, is 
one of the greatest agricultural requirements 
of the times. 
The amount of foreign potatoes reaching 
this port is far in excess of that of home-raised 
tubers. New Brunswick. Nova Scotia and 
Prince Edward Island have for years been 
heavy shippers, but of late the importations 
from Europe far transcend those from Can¬ 
ada. Scotland is the heaviest contributor in 
the “Old World,” but England, Holland, Bel¬ 
gium, Germany and Denmark also contribute 
more or less. In four days recently the ag¬ 
gregate shipments from Nova Scotia amounted 
to 9,460 sacks: while those from Europe were 
as high as 49,783 sacks, or 146.349 bushels. At 
15 cents a bushel on the importations during 
these four days, the tariff amounted to $22,- 
402.35. The freight on the shipments from 
Canadian ports is greater than on those from 
Europe; because the fleets of transatlantic 
steamers are seldom full of legitimate freight. 
They have to bring some ballast, and potatoes 
are better than sand or stones, even at a nom¬ 
inal rate. Mr. Palmer, a large importer of 
potatoes here says that there is an average 
profit of 25 cents a bushel on all European po¬ 
tatoes landed here. 
