467 
THE RURAL HEW-YORKER. 
Cato. 
“Every Man is presumed to know the Law. 
Nine-tenths of all Litigation arises from Ig¬ 
norance of Law.'" 
WORKING DAYS OF A HIRED MAN. 
T. M. S., Hoboken, N. J. —1. What are the 
days in a year on which a man working, by the 
month can not be compelled to work? 2. Can 
a hired man make his employer pay him for 
extra time, that is, working before 7 a.m. and 
after 6 p. m.? 
Ans —There is no legal rule on the subject 
applicable to every calling. Ordinarily, Sun¬ 
days are excepted from working days, but on 
a farm a large amount of work must be done 
by the hands on Sunday, as the cattle must be 
fed and watered, cows must be milked and 
other services rendered. In livery stables, 
especially where funerals are attended, Sun¬ 
day is often the busiest day of the week. In 
ordinary mechanical labor hands by the 
month were not required to work Sunday 
and the legal holidays until the Saturday law 
was passed, when in many establishments the 
employes were given the chance to work at 
full wages or take the time off at a reduction. 
A hired man cannot collect for overtime un¬ 
less hired for specific hours, and compelled to 
give a longer service. 
ALIENS AND REAL ESTATE. 
J. S. S., Brooklyn, N. Y. —A Spanish sub¬ 
ject while in this city married a lady, who by 
birth was a British subject. The husband 
afterward declared his intention to become an 
American citizen, but is yet an alien. Can 
his wife, who has not been naturalized, hold 
or transfer real property? A friend of mine 
says she cannot, and assures me that in case 
of death the wife cannot will her real estate 
and that it will go to the State and not to her 
heirs. I hold that the wift’s citizenship is the 
same as her husband’s until she becomes a 
widow. Am I not right? 
Ans. —If the wife, being an alien, wishes to 
deal in real estate, she must make the declar¬ 
ation for herself. Without such declaration 
she can divide any real property she may ac¬ 
quire so that her heirs would inherit, but she 
cannot give a perfect title, if it is questioned, 
in the way of sale and transfer. 
SALE OF TOBACCO TO MINORS IN N. H. 
L. M. S., Keene, N. II. —What precisely is 
the statute of this State relating to the sale of 
tobacco to people under age? 
Ans. —The New Hampshire statute prohib¬ 
iting the sale of tobacco to minors, which was 
approved August 25, 1885, is in two sections, 
as follows: Section 1. No person shall know¬ 
ingly sell any cigarette or tobacco in any of 
its forms, to any minor under 16 years of 
age. Section 2. If any person shall violate 
the provisions of this act, he shall be liable to 
a fine of $20 for each and every such offence, 
such penalty or fine to go to the county treas¬ 
urer, for the use of the county wherein the 
violation of this act occurs. 
ALIENS AND ROAD TAXES. 
S. L., Tarry town, N. Y.— Is a foreigner, 
who is not a property-holder, liable for road 
tax? If so and he refuses to pay, what is the 
penalty? 
Ans.—E very person owning land or occu¬ 
pying land in the town in which he or she re¬ 
sides, and every male inhabitant above the 
age of 21 years residing in the town where the 
assessment is made, shall be assessed to work 
on the public highway in such town. If he 
does not wish to work, he may settle by a pay¬ 
ment of money. If he refuses either to work 
or to pay the tax, a fine for the amount may 
be levied on his goods and chattels. Aliens 
are subject to this tax. 
L. M. H. Skeneateles, N. Y. —Suppose a 
clause in a will reads thus: “I bequeath all the 
property I may be possessed of at death to 
John Brown.” How would it affect property 
left to the testator (directly) after his disease. 
VY r ould the will cover that also? 
Ans. —Nothing which was not in the pos¬ 
session of the testator at the time of his death 
would pass by such a, will unless it was specifi¬ 
cally mentioned. 
one, while the amount or quality of the work 
done will be much less and inferior to that 
done with good tools. 
A farmer should employ none but honest, 
sober men. 
A farmer should select his seed with great 
care. He can’t afford to waste time in sow¬ 
ing poor seed or in cultivating or reaping the 
scanty produce from it, and surely he caunot 
afford the use of the land for such a purpose. 
Remember it costs more to till and harvest 
the ground necessary to raise 100 bushels of 
grain from poor seed than it does from good 
seed, while the product from poor seed will 
not sell as well as that from good seed. 
A farmer should have not only a good farm 
and good farm implements, but also a good 
place to store his wagons, reapers, plows, etc. 
A good farmer never s;ores his wagon under 
a tree, or his plow in the ferce corner. It 
pays to take good care of all tools. A store¬ 
house is a necessity for every farmer. 
Never sow or plant until your land is in 
good condition. Seed will not grow, and 
SHORT, PITHY PARAGRAPHS. 
A farmer should not own, rent or occupy 
more land than he can work and work well. 
Fifty acres thoroughly worked are far better 
than 100 acres half worked. The desire to 
own a large farm has ruined many men. 
In locating a farm don’t go too far from 
market, or from the church and school-house. 
A farmer should supply himself with the 
best farm tools and implements he can obtain. 
A good plow, harrow, reaper or fan-mill is 
cheaper in the end than low-priced ones. It 
costs just as much to hire a man or team to 
work a day with a poor plow as with; a good 
produce well on hard or lumpy soil, on hard- 
pan, or among brushes, or on wet, soggy, un¬ 
drained land. 
It pays to plow deep, harrow thoroughly, 
sow carefully, till diligently, and harvest in 
the right time. 
Don’t leave spring work to be done in the 
summer, or harvesting for cold weather. 
Farmers, or at least a majority of them, 
have yet to learn the value of thorough eulti 
vation. Much of the injury to crops by 
drought can be prevented by continually stir¬ 
ring the soil, not simply enough to keep down 
weeds, but to keep the soil looie so the air 
can get down to the roots of plants, and to 
keep the soil moist. As soon as the sun 
has thoroughly dried out the soil on the sur¬ 
face, turn it over and you will save your crop 
in very dry weather. 
Don’t let your grain or grass stand until it 
is dead-ripe before you cut it. To do so not 
only lessens the value of the grain, but the 
hay and straw are not worth nearly as much 
for feeding 
When grain or grass is ready for the barn 
house it at once. Every day it remains in 
the field it loses in value. 
Farmers should pay more attention to mar 
keting and selling their produce than many of 
them do. Not only should they get into mar¬ 
ket at the right time to take advantage of the 
best prices, but they should be more careful 
in preparing stuff for market. Don’t take 
poor produce and try to dispose of it for first 
quality; it won’t pay. Sort apples and po¬ 
tatoes; put good fair ones together, and do 
not mix in poor ones. The poor ones detract 
from the value of the good. Sell the poor as 
second grade, or keep them and feed what you 
can’t use. 
Put up your butter in nice, small packages. 
Butter so packed will bring more than that in 
tubs. Put your fruit up in neat baskets; it 
will fete i a better price. 
Of course you raise fruit. If you do not, 
arrange to do so at once. A farmer can’t 
afford to be without berries, grapes and cur¬ 
rants as well as the larger fruits. Have a 
good fruit orchard and a good garden. A 
man who calls himself a farmer should not 
buy his berries or vegetables, and he should 
not think of being without them. Berries 
and all kinds of fruit should be raised because 
they are more profitable than corn or oats, 
but above all things, you can’t afford to be 
without them on your own table. 
Farmers, keep good stock. Don’t feed a 
poor horse, cow or pig. The best breeds, and 
best of their kind are the cheapest. Then you 
should take good care of them. Give them 
plenty to eat and good warm stables or 
shelter. 
A farmer should read and provide plenty of 
good books and papers for his family. He 
should take one (or three, if he can,) but one 
surely, of the best agricultural papers he can 
find. A man who farms no better than his 
father did 30 years ago, is not worthy the 
name of farmer. But he won’t do well, unless 
he keeps posted on what is going on among 
farmers, and he can’t do this unless he reads. 
You need to know the result of the vast num¬ 
ber of experiments men of learning and 
practical knowledge of agriculture are making 
daily, with all kinds of crops; you need to 
know about the best breeds of stock, about 
improved machinery, and a thousand things 
you will not know unless you read. Read and 
profit by other men’s mistakes as well as by 
their successes. 
Don’t be afraid of being called a “book- 
farmer.” Remember that all the great im¬ 
provements and advances made in agriculture, 
are the results of work done by these so-called 
“book-farmers,” and the more we have of 
them the better for the country and for us. 
Farmers, make your houses convenient and 
pleasant, not only inside but in their sur¬ 
roundings. Such a home will cheer your wife, 
who is obliged to spend most of her time in 
the house. It will help to make your children 
love home and life on the farm. 
Have a flower garden for the girls. Set out 
shade trees around the house and along the 
highway. They will add to your pleasure 
and make your farm more valuable when you 
want to sell. 
Don’t work haphazzard, think and plan 
your work, so you and your help can do it in 
a systematic way. 
Experiment a, little each year, with some 
kiud of crop—with some kind of fertilizer. 
Go slow, go sure, but be sure and go. Don’t 
stand still, or get into a rut. 
Farm better this year than you did last. 
Read, study, think and plan to do your work 
better each year. Raise better crops, better 
stock and do this cheaper this year than ever 
before. 
It is important that you have good roads. 
Join with your neighbors in trying to im¬ 
prove them each year. 
And, above all things,exalt your occupation. 
Never forget that agriculture is the most im¬ 
portant pursuit in which men can be engaged, 
for upon it depends the prosperity of the na 
tion. It is the only sure and safe foundation 
of national prosperity. m. 
1850. 
THEN AND NOW. 
1888. 
C. S RICE. 
How the farmer with small capital made 
money 40 years ago; farming for one's-self 
and working on shares; opportunities to 
rent farms or work on shares never more 
numerous; far greater frugality and econ¬ 
omy then than now, advantages of farm¬ 
ing to-day; profits and outlay greater now, 
necessary expenses never less than now; 
farming profits are small, so should ex¬ 
penses be; specimens of success; dignity of 
agriculture. 
r r , HE sentiment largely prevails that no- 
A- thing can be made at farming at the pre¬ 
sent day, and that there is but one side to a 
farmer’s life, and that a dark side. It is true 
that the opportunities for a young man with 
little capital to engage in farming in the State 
of New York on land of his own, with a fair 
promise of success, were far more numerous 
40 years ago than they are now. At that 
time, in the newer portions of the State, there 
were many small farms partly cleared, and 
with cheap buildings and a few hundred dol¬ 
lars in part-payment a young man could 
secure possession and assume the dignity and 
responsibility of an owner and tiller of the 
soil. The house was small and the furniture 
scant and cheap. All the provisions used in 
the family were raised on the farm, and the 
amount expended for clothing was little more 
than comfort and decency required. If enough 
could be sold from the farm to pay the ex¬ 
penses of living and leave a small surplus, the 
young farmer was doing very well, as much 
of his time was spent in clearing land and 
making improvements that rendered his place 
more valuable each year. After a few years 
the place was either sold at an advance, or 
more cheap land was bought to be in turn 
brought into cultivation and rendered more 
valuable. In this manner the owner accumu¬ 
lated property, although he did little more 
than pay the interest on his debts, and really 
never made a cent beyond a living from the 
cultivation of farm crops. The day for mak¬ 
ing money in this manner is past; but if the 
opportunity offered, it is a question whether 
the young man of the present time would be 
willing to practice the rigid economy and per¬ 
form the labor necessary to insure success. 
Times have changed and the expense of liv¬ 
ing is far greater, not necessarily, but through 
voluntary conformity to the habits, customs, 
and fashions of the day. Five or eight hun¬ 
dred dollars will hardly suffice to establish 
the aspiring young couple of to day on a farm 
of their own, as the same sum did their par¬ 
ents years ago. 
There was another way in which the young 
man of limited means formerly, as at the 
present time, farmed it on his own account 
and that was by hiring a farm or working 
one on shares. There are many men of my 
acquaintance that are now wealthy, as the 
term is applied to farmers in this vicinity, 
who by years of economy and toil on a hired 
farm accumulated capital that enabled them 
to purchase and partly pay for a farm of their 
own. Well directed labor has since furnished 
them with means to pay their debts, build 
fine houses, establish their children in homes 
of their own, and has in some cases resulted 
in a surplus now invested in stocks and mort¬ 
gages. The opportunities to rent farms or 
work them on shares are now more numer¬ 
ous than at any earlier period. The terms on 
which farms are let to be worked on shares 
are precisely the same as in former years. 
In comparing the profitableness of farming 
40 years ago and now, the problem is made 
far more simple by removing from it an idle 
proprietor with an expensive family and the 
costly outfit of fancy carriages, sleighs and 
harness, the ornamental improvements in the 
buildings and grounds, and the thousand and 
one ways in which the money now goes, and 
placing on the farm the plain, inexpensive 
laboring family with brains enough to insure 
success. There were many such families 40 
years ago, and I am glad to record the fact 
that there are such families to-day, and that 
they are saving money just as easily and just 
as surely as the others did. Why not ? Prices 
of farm products are higher. There is a 
greater variety of salable products. Markets 
are more stable and easier of access. Im¬ 
proved breeds for the dairy are within the 
reach of all. Tools have been greatly im¬ 
proved, and although hired labor costs more 
than it did then, the ground can be thorougly 
tilled and crops harvested and secured for less 
money than formerly, thanks to good imple¬ 
ments, the result of the fertile inventive 
genius of the American mechanic. A piece of 
ground containing 7% acres on my farm has 
just been fitted for a potato crop. All the 
tools in town 40 years ago could not have fitted 
that ground as thoroughly. The jointer-plow, 
the spring-tooth wheel-harrow, the “Ac¬ 
me,” aud finally the weighted smooth¬ 
ing-harrow have fitted the ground 
as no tools with horses at that time could 
have done. And then 1% acres of 
potatoes would have glutted the 25-cent 
Lowville market of that day. Now many 
thousands of dollars’ worth of potatoes are 
shipped from here every year. The possibil¬ 
ity of realizing a hundred dollars net profit 
from an acre of potatoes had not been dreamed 
of. A Dutchess County milk farmer told me 
last winter that, low as the price was which 
he received for milk, an acre of corn fodder 
was worth $75 for milk production. Forty 
years ago no man knew enough to raise, care 
for and feed an acre of corn fodder to any pro¬ 
fit. Many acres of farming land are now used 
profitably in supplying canning factories, an 
industry of recent origin. The population of 
cities and villages is greatly increased, aud now 
it is possible all over the State to contract 
supplies of fine, fresh-made summer butter 
for 20 cents and upwards. 
About 40 years ago a man on one of the 
rented farms in this vicinity received 15 1 / 
cents per pound for his dairy butter, includ¬ 
ing the fall make. It was the high price of 
lo)^ cents for butter that enabled him to pay 
his rent and contribute to the purchase of a 
fine farm afterwards. In 1852 he purchased a 
farm that he now owns, and in the fall of that 
year, his dairy butter was sold for 16 cents, 
the highest price that he had ever received. 
He made as good butter as any in this vicinity. 
As an illustration of the changes of the times, 
I will state that although children were added 
to his family, no costly baby carriage was pur¬ 
chased. One outfit of this kind owned to-day 
perhaps by a man working for day wages has 
cost more money than all the baby wagons of 
the farmers of this town at that period. This 
is a small matter, some will say; but the profits 
of the farmer are never large, and small items 
of extra expense incurred in living at the pres¬ 
ent time largely consume the proceeds of the 
farm. Such expenses, as indicated above, be¬ 
gin at the cradle and end only at the grave. 
The successful farmer above mentioned paid 
no money for cigars or tobacco in any form, 
or for intoxicating drinks; neither was money 
spent in the purchase of fancy carriages,cutters 
or harnesses. These together with the musical 
instruments and the fine house and furniture 
were indulged in only after the accumu¬ 
lation of capital sufficient to warrant such an 
expenditure. 
He did, however, own some books and took 
some papers, among them the Rural New- 
Yorker almost from its start, and it was at 
his house that I first became acquainted with 
the paper. Some others bought the fine things 
and built the new house too soon, and the re¬ 
sults were disaster and failure. 
Men in this town have lately bought and 
paid for fine farms of good size with money 
saved on land worked on shares in recent 
years. One young man of my acquaintance 
worked by the month for several years on one 
place, carefully saving his earnings. He now 
works the same farm on shares. The careful 
and economical habits of the faithful farm 
laborer are retained, and he and his young 
wife are adding several hundred dollars to 
their capital each year. 
Forty years ago, with the dairy devoted ex¬ 
clusively to the making of cheese, the best 
dairymen averaged $25 for each cow kept. 
Now, $40 to $50 are not at all uncommon, and 
many engaged in making fine butter realize 
far greater profits. Then the best farm horses 
were worth $100. Now a colt can be raised 
and kept until three years old for $80, and can 
then be sold for $150 and upwards. If per¬ 
chance the farmer has to buy his horses, that 
is his own fault and is not chargeable to the 
times. The necessary expenditures; for the 
