776 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
NOV 23 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
(34 Park Row, New York), 
A National 
Journal for Country 
Homes. 
and Suburban 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1889. 
NOTICE. 
“In order to succeed with poultry, 
one must be part hen himself.” So 
said a farmer the other day in speak¬ 
ing about the possibilities of farming. 
It is equally true that a man must be 
part sheep or part cow or part horse 
m order to succeed in caring for 
either of these animals. And it is 
equally true that a good book-keeper 
must be part book and a good tailor 
part cloth in order to excel. Success 
m these days comes only to those who 
absolutely master some one thing; 
who stick to it and study it until they 
absorb from it the secret of success. 
“ So far as I have tried them , I can 
recommend red squirrels as the best of 
rat-traps."—So says Prof. Cook on the 
first page of this issue. 
It is with very sincere regret we 
learn of the burning of the home build¬ 
ings of our friend and contributor Dr. 
T. H. Hoskins. Not only were the 
buildings destroyed, but all the con¬ 
tents of his seed-rooms. Not a thing 
was saved. All of the varieties of 
corn, peas, beans, etc., over which he 
had worked for years were wiped out. 
His nominal loss, outside of insurance, 
is $3,000, but this does not include the 
greater loss of the varieties re¬ 
ferred to. This is a severe blow 
to Dr. Hoskins at his age, which 
though not great, puts him, neverthe¬ 
less, at a time of life when one is re¬ 
luctant to plunge in and repair by 
arduous work such sad misfortunes. 
A FINE QUALIFICATION. 
A NEW correspondent of the R. 
N.-Y., who lives in Livingston 
County, N. Y., thus states his reasons 
for considering himself qualified to 
write about agricultural topics : 
“We, that is, father, brother and 
myself, have about 900 acres of land in 
this county divided into four farms, 
three of which are worked on shares 
by tenants. The products of the four 
farms for the present season are as 
follows, in round numbers : 
5,000 bus. wheat av’ge y’ld per acre 2634 bu. 
2,500 “ barley “ “ “ “ 85 
into manure, thereby making the land 
more productive every year besides 
paying six per cent, net.” 
So it seems that fanning on a large 
scale is not confined to the West ex¬ 
clusively. We feel sure our readers 
will be interested to learn of the 
methods employed on these four farms. 
own countrymen, but also for the 
protection of many of the immigrants. 
THE VOTERS SHOULD SPEAK. 
THE COST OF FARM LIFE. 
T he rural new-York¬ 
er is invariably discon¬ 
tinued at the end of the term 
subscribed for. Any copies sent 
to non-subscribers are sent with¬ 
out charge as specimens merely. 
Mr. Terry, on page 773, estimates 
that each member of his family eats 
about three barrels of potatoes yearly. 
Is that an average of potato consump¬ 
tion per capita 1 
“The Rural New-Yorker has been 
the most profitable instructor I have 
had since I changed my occupation to 
farming. I began this late in life, 
but feel more interest in the business 
than in any I have followed, although 
I spent over 40 years in the printing 
office, from devil to editor and pro¬ 
prietor.” 
Thus writes a Michigan subscriber. 
It would seem that there is still hope 
in agriculture while a man can make 
such a statement as this. 
T HE figures showing the cost of 
farm life, which appear on page 
773, are very interesting. Such com- 
S arisons are valuable. That much- 
esired surplus which we all want for 
a “rainy day,” is to be obtained more 
through what we save than through 
what we earn. In these times it is 
hard to save money unless the mem¬ 
bers of the family make a business of 
self-denial and studied economy. In 
a general way it may be said that if 
our neighbor can obtain food, raiment 
and true happiness at a cheaper rate 
than we can, he has an advantage 
over us as great as the superiority ot 
liis farming methods which enables 
him to produce a larger crop than we 
can grow. Let us study the various 
statements as they appear in the R.- 
N.-Y. Are our own expenses greater 
or less? In what items can the differ¬ 
ence be found ? 
Another point of value about this 
matter is suggested by a subscriber as 
follows: 
“ It is to be hoped that the inquiries 
made by the R. N.-Y. into the domes¬ 
tic expenditures of farmers and the 
answers thereto, will induce many 
persons to keep accounts of their liv¬ 
ing expenses in future. Too many 
farmers do not know anything about 
their receipts or expenditures. At 
the end of the year they find out from 
their creditors how much they are in 
debt, and this is the extent of their 
knowledge in business. If they could 
be induced to read the Rural New- 
Yorker one year they would be wiser 
and no doubt richer too.” 
ISN’T IT TIME ? 
s 
MALL wonder this country is 
flooded every year by a tidal- 
wave of foreign immigration, much 
of it very undesirable. Besides the 
genuine attractions it offers to the 
poor of other nations in the form of 
remunerative employment; to the 
adventurous in the form of a host of 
opportunities for rapid enrichment; 
and to the oppressed 
F ROM present indications there is no 
doubt that a strong effort will be 
made in the next Congress to repeal 
the duties on raw sugar without 
touching those on refined. To silence 
dissatisfaction among domestic pro¬ 
ducers, it will be proposed to compen¬ 
sate the sugar-cane planters of Louisi¬ 
ana, the sorghum growers of Kansas 
and the sugar-beet ranchers of Califor¬ 
nia by a bounty on raw domestic sug¬ 
ars. This would enable the Republi¬ 
can party to reduce the revenue, ac- 
cordmg to its promises, while harmon¬ 
izing conflicting interests. Moreover, 
the measure could be advocated as a 
compliment to our South American 
guests as a step towards commercial 
reciprocity with the nations of this 
Western Hemisphere. True enough, 
more than three-fourths of all our 
imports of raw sugar come from the 
French, Spanish, Dutch and English, 
West Indian possessions and other 
parts of the globe which are wholly 
outside the reciprocity scheme now 
being discussed in this country. Most 
of the commercial advantages of the 
proposed measure would therefore ac¬ 
crue to this country’s commercial 
rivals. So long as our manufacturing 
interests are favored by a protective 
tariff, it would evidently be unfair to 
ruin the home producers of raw sugar 
by the removal of similar protection, 
unless they were reimbursed by 
bounties equal in amount to the duties 
removed. The aggregate of these 
bounties would form only a com¬ 
paratively small proportion of the 
loss of $50,000,000 inflicted annually 
on our fiscal revenue by the repeal of 
the tariff on raw sugar. Who would 
be the real gainers by the proposed leg¬ 
islation ? Would it be the sugar con¬ 
sumers at large, or the sugar refiners 
—the public or the Sugar Trust and 
its competitors ? Would the prices of 
refined sugar be lowered in proportion 
to the duties abrogated, or raised in 
proportion to the Treasury bounties 
paid to the domestic producers of raw 
cane, sorghum and beet sugar; or 
would prices take a medium course ? 
It is evident that the whole matter 
would depend almost entirely on the 
action ot the sugar refiners, whose 
business is now virtually in the con¬ 
trol of only two parties—the Sugar 
Trust and Claus Spreckels. Has their 
policy hitherto been of such a charac¬ 
ter as to justify the public in expect- 
fr&edom from^iw^rajuiy^of exacting {£“ 
militarism, grinding taxation and des- an( * s ien l u n own lnt,f 1( * sts 
potic rule, numerous swindling allure 
2,800 
“ oats “ 
a 
a 
“ 40 “ 
7,000 
“ ear com “ 
it 
ti 
“ 100 “ 
850 
“ potatoes “ 
a 
u 
“ 70 “ 
436 tons hay “ 
a 
u 
“ 2 tons 
As to stock, we have at present 116 
head of cattle, 41 horses, 44 hogs and 
200 sheep. We expect to feed this 
winter, for the New York market, 600 
sheep and three or four car-loads of 
steers. We have used a car-load of 
fertilizer this and in fact every season 
and work all our corn, straw, coarse 
bjr aud three-quarters of our hay 
ments help to add a multitude of ig¬ 
norant, credulous and avaricious 
dupes to the incoming throng. Rail¬ 
road and steam-ship companies dot 
the continent of Europe and the 
islands of her seas with agencies whose 
chief business is to beguile passengers 
for profit, even by all sorts of delusive 
misrepresentations ; land syndicates 
and manufacturing and mining mag¬ 
nates and corporations here are equal¬ 
ly unscrupulous in securing foreign 
settlers and workmen ; and, worst 
and most heartless of all, many of the 
countrymen of the victims, on this 
and the other side of the Atlantic, 
cause thousands of poor peasantry to 
abandon their homes and cherished 
associations every year, to seek in vain 
here for an illusive Eldorado which 
had been glowingly pictured to them 
as a substantial reality by their de¬ 
ceitful compatriots. 
It is seldom that slow-footed justice 
overtakes these rascals, but she does 
occasionally. Last Thursday, at 
Wadowice, in Austria, 65 persons 
were put on trial charged with swind¬ 
ling a multitude of Galician peasants 
by inducing them to emigrate to 
America by false statements and then 
obtaining a commission on their pas¬ 
sage money. Among the accused are 
a Commissary of Police, the Comp¬ 
troller of the Customs, a Hungarian 
Judge and a number of Customs offic¬ 
ials. In addition to making larg« 
sums by deporting credulous rustics 
and villagers, the swindlers made 
“ enormous gains ” by threatening to 
expose military deserters to the au¬ 
thorities unless they paid exorbitant 
figures for passage and outfits. In 
one year 5,799 deserters were dis¬ 
patched in this way. Surely it is high 
time to regulate immigration, not only 
for the sake of the well-being of our 
hands when their own interests are 
intimately concerned ? Many insist, 
as the only real safeguard for con¬ 
sumers, that duties on raw sugar 
should not be repealed unless those on 
the refined product are swept away 
at the same time. What does the 
mighty constituency of the farmers 
of the country say on the matter ? 
THE 
KNIGHTS AND 
ALLIANCE. 
THE 
O NE of the most important subjects 
discussed by the Knights of 
Labor at their convention at Atlanta 
during the week, was the advisability 
of federation with the Farmers’ Al¬ 
liance, the most aggressive association 
of agriculturists. Such federation 
would mean a union or league for po¬ 
litical and also, where desirable or 
practicable, for economic purposes. To 
a great extent such an alliance has al¬ 
ready been in operation for some time 
in Texas with fairly satisfactory re¬ 
sults. The order of the Knights of 
Labor is composed wholly of operatives 
in various non-productive vocations; 
while the members of the Alliance are 
all producers. What could, in theory, 
be more advantageous to both parties 
than a combination of producers and 
consumers? The interests of both, 
however, do not always run in the 
same or parallel lines. To begin with, 
while it is to the benefit of the pro¬ 
ducers to obtain high prices for their 
goods, it is to the benefit of the con¬ 
sumers to pay low prices for the same 
commodities. Both classes, however, 
could secure these antagonistic bene¬ 
fits, in part at least, by dividing be¬ 
tween them the large taxes now levied 
on both by middlemen. An economic 
union for the direct transfer of prod¬ 
ucts could accomplish this desirable 
object. Again, the Knights are fight¬ 
ing for higher wages for labor; the 
Alliance men complain that farm 
labor is already too high-priced for 
the profits from the farms. 
Once more, the means adopted by 
the Knights for compelling higher 
wages are often very detrimental to 
their proposed allies. The great rail¬ 
road strike by the Knights on Gould’s 
southwestern system three years ago, 
and that of the kindred organization, 
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi¬ 
neers, on the Quincy system one year 
ago, inflicted losses running high 
among the millions on the farmers and 
stockmen of a dozen or more States 
and Territories. There are several 
other points also in which the eco¬ 
nomic interests of both classes to a 
minor extent clash ; but there are like¬ 
wise several in which one class could 
well advance the pecuniary welfare 
of the other. Politically and econom¬ 
ically the interests of both alike are 
particularly antagonistic to reckless 
public expenditures, to high and un¬ 
fair taxation, to unscrupulous corner¬ 
ing of food products, to all sorts of 
monopolistic exactions, and to all leg¬ 
islation discriminating in favor of 
capital against labor. Surely there 
are many purposes for which the 
Knights and the Alliance, and the 
classes they represent, could unite 
with mutual and reciprocal advan¬ 
tages. 
“ Those who wish may live on the 
‘ fat of the land; ’ but as for me and 
my family we thank God for the 
fruit. Estimating v'hat we groiv our¬ 
selves at what we could sell them for at 
wholesale , our fruit bill runs up to 
$137— doctor's bills —0.”—T. B. Terry, 
page 773. 
BREVITIES. 
Concords 
Catawbas. 
Why do you cover 
down, roots up ? 
are still selling its high as 
your cabbages heads 
Read what Prof. Budd says about mulch¬ 
ing orchards with Japan Buckwheat—page 
772. 
“Wife and I are partners.” See page 
773. That means industry, cheerfulness, 
goodness, happiness. 
John Gould of Ohio writes: “ My si¬ 
lage this year is splendid. It cost about §4. 
per acre to cut and put in the silo, or 22 
cents per double load of 2,000 pounds.” 
The white grape Antoinette (Miner) 
seems to be little known. It is one of the 
hardiest varieties grown at the Rural 
Grounds and its quality is better than that 
of Concord. 
Quite a good deal of complaint about 
tough pork comes from farmers this year. 
Many charge the trouble to the account of 
extra milk feeding. Have you noticed it ? 
How do you account for it ? 
How much is an acre of apple trees worth 
just coming into bearing ? The trees are 
supposed to be varieties adapted to the 
climate and planted in a fertile soil. How 
much is an acre of peaches w T orth ? Of 
quinces ? Of pears ? 
OUR hired man said last evening: “That 
is the best paper you have,” as helaid down 
a copy of the Rural New.-Yorker and we 
have five weekly papers and get quite a 
number of monthlies. And I think he is 
about right. s. H. R. 
Cabot, Vermont. 
The R. N.-Y. has just completed the 
Wlanting of no less than 2,000 seeds, the re¬ 
sult of hybridizing Teas and Hybrid 
Remontant roses upon Rosa rugosa. 
They were planted an inch apart each way 
in shallow square boxes of mellow garden 
soil. These boxes, protected by a frame, 
will be kept out-of-doors until February 
when they will be removed to the house 
and placed in the conservatory. 
“ Potatoes, whether early or late, 
should never be left in the ground long 
after the vines die.” So say our contem¬ 
poraries. It may be good advice. But the 
R. N.-Y. gives its own experience, right or 
wrong, for what it may l>e worth. Late 
potatoes mature so late that there is not 
much time before frost to leave them in the 
ground. Let the season be what it may, 
there is'not the slightest chance of their 
sprouting, and, as we believe, they had as 
well be left in the ground until frosts are 
threatened, as to be harvested earlier. 
The R. N.-Y. has not been able to find 
any better fowls for eating purposes than 
the Dorkings or their grades. Light Brah¬ 
mas, unless full-grown, are found to be 
tough and bony. Leghorns we do not care 
to eat at all. Wyandottes and Plymouth 
Rocks are excellent but lack the abundance 
of breast meat found in the Dorking. The 
experts tell us that a great development of 
breast in poultry is due to the excessive 
use of the wings. Our Dorkings are quiet 
birds not given to flying, yet they are “as 
broad across the breast as they are long iu 
the back.” 
