248 
ty, must see that these arteries arid veins are 
opened as needed, and kept open. The same ul¬ 
timate authority that opens wagon roads in the 
country, and streets in the city, opens rail¬ 
ways through unwilling private land. The 
railways are as truly public thoroughfares as 
the roads and streets, though made and man¬ 
aged by private capital, somewhat like turn¬ 
pikes and plank roads of old. And even as 
the turnpikes were gradually bought or taken 
by the county or State, the toll-gates taken 
down, and the roads owned, repaired and 
kept wholly at public cost and for the general 
good, and as the Post-Office system has all 
the time been owned and managed by the 
Government solely for the good of society, so 
if the good of society should ever seem to re¬ 
quire it. might the Government take the rail¬ 
ways into its own hands by purchase on ap¬ 
praisal, exactly as it at first authorized the 
railway companies to take their road beds 
from the farmers on appraisal and purchase. 
Fig. 87. 
To deny this is to deny the right of Govern¬ 
ment itself to render a needed public service, 
which y et it has a right to authorize others to 
render. 
Clearly the Government has no right to au¬ 
thorize railway companies to take, even by 
purchase on appraisal, the lands of unwilling 
private owners,except on the ground that rail¬ 
ways are needed as public thoroughfares, and 
in order, and provided that the railwavs may 
serve the public reasonably, impartially and 
well, with no sudden changes in rates to shock 
and disturb business, with no secret rebates 
or discriminations for or against persons or 
localities. Clearly the government has the 
same right to regulate freight rates that it 
has to regulate passenger rates. The latter 
right is seldom questioned by the railways; 
the former right is often sharply questioned 
and bitterly resisted. 
The fact that the wise adjustment of freight 
rates is a matter of great complexity and diffi¬ 
culty,does not prove that such an adjustment 
is not needed by the public,but exactly the re¬ 
verse. The very fact of the intricacy of the 
problem makes it the easier for the railways 
to overcharge or discriminate if they are left 
wholly free by law to fix their charges as they 
will. It is a matter,however,that calls not for 
passionate recrimination and warfare, but 
for calm study and most earnest and candid 
deliberation. Never shall we secure laws 
both wise and just until we are as anxious to 
protect the real rights of the private property 
invested as to guard the public interests in¬ 
volved, and vice versa. If society and gov¬ 
ernment make unjust demands against the 
railways, it will react injuriously upon socie¬ 
ty. We shall be more likely to succeed, how¬ 
ever, if we make an earnest effort, than if we 
give up in despair. Free competition will 
not regulate the matter, for in reality, as 
seen, we have not free competition, but vir¬ 
tual monopoly backed by public franchise. 
Third. Another sharp limitation arises 
from the fact not often noticed, though hinted 
at above, that the railway companies are not 
inventors except in minor degree, hence 
should not, as they sometimes seem to do, 
claim the rights and profits of inventors. The 
great predominant inventions that give them 
their vast carrying power,—steam-engine, 
locomotive, graded road-bed, solid, parallel 
steel rails and the like—these overshadowing 
things, 1 say, are not the inventions of the 
present railway companies or managers. 
These with the vastly increased carrying 
power they confer, long since became the 
property of the general public, with the lapse 
of the patents that once covered them. It is 
not enough to say that the railways carry 
cheaper than teams and wagons can. Of 
course they do. That is just what these great 
inventions of the past enable them to do. It 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
AM 42 
is, however, a curious fact illustrating this 
hidden fallacy of argument, that one of the 
first railways built in Iowa based its local rates 
upon the actual cost of wagon transportation 
on dirt roads, mud roads, usually in the then 
new country. This was an absurdity, an 
utter ignoring of the existence of steam en¬ 
gine and iron track as ideas then and agents 
then belonging to society, to the world at 
large. 
Eitml (Topics. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
WOMEN’S 
National Potato Contest. 
Instructions to be Observed in 
Competing for the Souvenirs. 
The plot must not be less than 1089 square 
feet, or one-fortieth of an acre. The rows 
must be equally (i. e. approximately so) dis¬ 
tant from each other whatever that distance 
may be. The seed-pieces must be planted at 
an equal distance apart in the rows, trenches 
or drills. ADy kind of manure or fertilizer, 
or both, and in any quantity, may be used. 
Any variety of potatoes may be planted. 
2. The plot, whatever the size, must be set¬ 
tled upon on or before April 30, though it may 
be planted earlier or later in the presence of 
two witnesses. If larger than one-fortieth of 
an acre, this tact will have weight with the 
judges to this extent: All things equal , or 
nearly so, the larger plot will draw the higher 
premium. 
It is imperative that'each contestant should 
devise the entire plan of the contest and sup¬ 
erintend every part of the work; see the land 
prepared, manured and fertilized; the seed 
cut, planted and covered; the insect-exter¬ 
minator prepared and applied; the crop Har¬ 
vested, weighed, etc., according to the instruc¬ 
tions which fo'low. It is not deemed imper¬ 
ative that a contestant should be constrain¬ 
ed to do the work with her own hands. The 
R. N.-Y. has considered this carefully in def¬ 
erence to many who have expressed the opin¬ 
ion that each contestant should perform the 
entire work. But it should be borne in mind 
that many are physically unable to do so and 
Fig. 88. 
it would be manifestly unfair to rule them 
out as ineligible for that reason. In this 
“Contest” there is no justice in exacting of 
women what in similar competitions has never 
been demanded of men. 
3. The full reports must be received before 
November 1st next. 
THE REPORTS. 
The following particulars must be given is 
the reports: 
1. Size of the plot. 
2. Whether the land is rolling or flat, 
sandy or clayey, moist or dry, naturally or 
artificially drained. 
3. What was raised on this land for the 
three past years and about how much crop of 
each was harvested? How much fertilizer or 
manure was used ? 
4. When plowed or spaded, how deep ? 
5. What and how much manure or fertilizer 
was applied? The approximate cost of each ? 
6. When planted, the variety, size of seed 
and average number of eyes; total weight of 
seed; how planted, i. e., in hills, diills or 
trenches; the depth ? 
7. Give an account of the weather from 
planting until harvest, whether wet or dry, 
hot or cool, etc. 
8. State when and how often cultivated; 
how deep, with what implements. 
9. Give the approximate hight of vines, 
size of stems, date of bloom. 
10. At what date they began to die; when 
dead ? 
11. What was used to kill potato beetles; 
how often applied; how applied ? 
12. The date of harvesting. 
13. State how many bushels altogether (60 
pounds to the bushel). How manv bushels of 
marketable; how many of unmarketable? 
N. B. All potatoes weighing less than three 
ounces to be considered unmarketable. Ab¬ 
solute exactitude in this will not be insisted 
upon. 
I 14. State whether the potatoes averaged 
shapely or unshapely; eyes deep or shallow; 
smooth or otherwise. If scaDby, state what 
was deemed the cause of the scab. 
15. If engaged in another “ Contest ” state 
wherein you would proceed differently. 
FINALLY. 
The following certificates must accompany 
each report : 
Fig. 89. 
FIRST. 
I do hereby affirm that the report herewith 
sent you is true in every particular. 
JOHN JONES. 
Jonesville, Jones Co , Ohio. 
SECOND. 
We do hereby^ affirm that we measured the 
plot of John Jones and found it of the exact 
area he states. We further affirm that we 
saw the potatoes dug and weighed as they 
were dug and that his statement is correct. 
Signed, 
( JAMES BROWN, 
) CALEB SMITH, 
Jonesville, Jones Co., Ohio. 
fklfr Crops. 
“CONTEST” CRITICISM. 
WHAT WOMEN WRITE CONCERN¬ 
ING THEIR CONTEST. 
FROM ILLINOIS. 
My husband, though not a farmer or gar- 
denere xcept so far as potatoes are concerned 
is enthusiastically in favor of the Women’s 
Potato Contest. His increasing enthusiasm 
in the matter has awakened an answering 
echo in my own mind. Therefore, please, en¬ 
ter my name as one of the contestants. My 
husband has for years taken pains to fix up 
our kitchen garden plot in the highest state 
of fertility, and says I may take my choice in 
this rich garden plot; I shall also help myself 
to his fine compost heaps of leaf-mold, and 
to the best commercial fertilizer the markets 
afford. And as to varieties to plant, we al¬ 
ready have almost every novelty in the 
potato-line grown in the country. Then we 
have almost every kind of garden plow ever 
invented; and let me tell my sisters to use 
Cole’s garden plow. With this easy-running 
implement it is only fun to cultivate the gar¬ 
den. We take so many agricultural papers 
that I am making myself believe I am as well 
posted in potato culture, as “Joseph.” 
In your efforts in favor of progressive agri¬ 
culture, and in bringing about some useful 
employment and out-door exercise and health¬ 
ful recreations for us poor, cooped-up women 
you have my best wishes and heartfelt 
thanks. mrs. j. w. baker. 
Bureau County. 
FROM ALABAMA. 
My husband, though an M. I)., has been a 
constant reader of your good paper for some 
years, and I, (little dreaming that through 
weary months of sickness be would be driven 
into abandoning work in his chosen profes¬ 
sion) have often laughed at him for perusing 
your paper and catalogues, which he always 
claimed rested him. Last November while I 
was very sick we decided that change of cli¬ 
mate and changeof occupation, were what »e 
most needed to restore us to health. Bo 
while I was so ill that it seemed almost like a 
farce, my husband sent in my name to you 
as one of those who would enter the lists of 
contestants in the Women’s Potato Contfst. 
We came South in December, planted pota¬ 
toes the 15th of February; aside from my little 
contest plot, we put in six acres of Beauty of 
Hebrons. From the day we began the work 
our health steadily improved. I think you 
deserve great credit and many thanks from 
delicate ladies, for thinking of the plan of the 
Contest, etc., to induce women to work out of 
doors more. My little plot of potatoes will 
not be ready to dig till the first or second 
week in June. As to the division of souvenirs, 
etc., you know the average number of bush¬ 
els per acre is less in Alabama than in Wis¬ 
consin and other States either East or West, 
as given by the Agricultural Reports of the 
United States. I presume there will be very 
few competing for the prizes in the South, but 
I hope that those who do will not labor un¬ 
der any undue disadvantage arising through 
dividing the country into East and West, as 
you spoke of doing in a late number. When 
my name was sent to you we were at our 
home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I hope I 
may be one in the South who will win, as I 
have done all the work with my own hands. 
Wheeler Station. m. b. h. 
FROM MASSACHUSETTS 
Why not conduct the Women’s Potato Con¬ 
test in the same manner as the one in which 
you took part last year? Let there be no 
minimum size or weight to constitute a “ mer¬ 
chantable” potato, but rather let the entire 
yields be estimated by weight only, as that is 
the only accurate and honest method to ascer¬ 
tain the true amount raised by each contes¬ 
tant in the United States 
I would also like to cross out one other idea. 
Why say anything as regards cost of produc¬ 
ing the crop. It seems to me that this Wom¬ 
en’s Contest should be conducted in a purely 
business-like manner just the same as though 
the participants were men instead of women. 
Among the prizes offered by the Mapis Co., 
and others, I see nothing regarding cost of 
production: it shuply means the man who gets 
the largest yield from one acre. One party 
might be able to select a plot where it would 
need no fertilizer to raise a good crop of pota¬ 
toes, while others, like the writer, could truth¬ 
fully say, one year ago the plot was too poor 
for bugs to live on. Yet, health being spared, I 
have great topes of that little piece of ground. 
Am I alone in saying that the first prize 
should go to the woman who gets the largest 
yield and dots the most work with her own 
hands? Supposing I tell my husband just how 
to do the work, and at harvest time, my plot 
gives the greatest yield. My neighbor over 
the way has done all the work on her plot (ex¬ 
cepting plowing, harrowing, and applying the 
manure) and she gets within a small amount 
of my yield. By the labor of both head and 
hands she has earned that first prize and 
ought to have it. mrs. f. l. avery 
I am much pleased with your success in 
creating an interest in the Women’s Potato 
Contest, but I do think your condition 
about the “crop grown at least cost ” is man 
ifestly unfair. What chance has a woman 
on some of New England’s barren fields in com¬ 
petition with her sisters in situations where the 
soil has all its virgin fertility! In New Eng¬ 
land, in many places the natural soil will not 
produce 20 bushels of potatoes to the acre. 
