8o8 
THfi RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
DEC 7 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
(34 Park Row, New York), 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban 
Homes, 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1889. 
NOTICE. 
T HE entries for the “ Notes 
on a Back Number” prize 
will close December 15. 
All who have new and prom¬ 
ising varieties of potatoes for 
sale, should announce them in 
the It. N.-Y. Potato Special to 
appear in a couple of weeks. 
pool or combination contrary to 
the provisions of the Anti-Trust Law, 
have just been revoked. Some of them 
are among the largest business con¬ 
cerns in the State, and it is probable 
that no small amount of trouble and 
inconvenience will be caused before 
the vexed question of the constitution¬ 
ality of the law will be settled. Some 
say they will not obey the law now 
because they know that in the future it 
will be declared invalid by the courts. 
Various other excuses are given by 
others for their proposed disobedience. 
The big fight, however, will come 
between the State and the large cor¬ 
porations which admit they are in 
the trusts and combinations, but 
claim that they have a legal right to 
be in them. The opposition to the 
law among the members of the illegal 
combinations is strong and bitter, and 
neither money nor pains will be spar¬ 
ed to defeat it before the courts. The 
people of the country at large will 
watch with no small interest the 
course of the war between the State 
and the monopolies. 
CANNED MILK. 
England farming. If we could live 
the past 50 years of our history over 
again, it might be that New England 
farmers would have changed the poli¬ 
cy of our government in several lines. 
Has the immense immigration from 
Europe which we have encouraged for 
years been of unmixed benefit ? We 
have prohibited the importation of 
the products of cheap labor but we 
have brought over the cheap labor it¬ 
self. We have given away the soil 
that Nature designed for the next 
century’s food-raising and used this 
very gift as a club to drive our own 
citizens away from their home¬ 
steads. Free land, cheap labor, a 
horde of middlemen and handlers! 
Again, our wonderful railroad sys¬ 
tems! Suppose they were less won¬ 
derful. Suppose it was less easy to 
transport a carload of corn or a car¬ 
load of butter from Iowa or Nebraska 
to Boston. Would the Vermont or 
New Hampshire farmer be better off, 
better able to keep his ‘ ‘ younger peo¬ 
ple ” at home? And on the other 
hand would the Iowa farmer be so 
much worse off that his profit would 
be changed to loss? But these 
thoughts are of no material conse- 
“ After try mg to exhaust my soil 
for 30 years, the bulk of the fertility 
is still there.” Sir J. B. Lawes, page 
804. 
“What is the use, my friends, of 
pulling away at the horns and tail 
while some one else quietly gets the 
milk ?” T. B. Terry, page 804. 
A cow with good teeth will make 
short work of an ear of dent corn. 
Cob, grain and all quickly disappear. 
Horses nibble off the gram and leave 
the cob, but some cows seem to like 
the taste of the cob. Cobs of dent 
varieties please our cow more than 
do the hard, flint varieties. We know 
of farmers who feed their corn with¬ 
out husking it. at all. The cows eat 
the ears, husk, cob and all. With 
the softer varieties the grain is about 
all eaten up, but with flint corn, the 
older cows have a hard time. The 
best you can make of it, it is a curi¬ 
ous sight to see a cow handle a big 
ear of corn. 
The Farmers’ Alliance claims a 
membership of 2,500,000, and the 
Knights say they have a paying mem¬ 
bership of 250,000. A confederation 
would therefore give 2,750,000 votes. 
Of this vast constituency the farmers 
would of course be the body ; the 
workingmen the tail. Would the tail 
wag the body or vice versa ? The union 
would of course be mainly for po¬ 
litical purposes, as on the questions 
of wages, strikes, hours of work, etc., 
the two orders could not well agree. 
Even on the single-tax question the 
farmers and the operatives, as repre¬ 
sented by the recent conventions of 
the Grangers and the Knights, are dia¬ 
metrically opposed. The Grangers 
strongly opposed such a measure ; 
while the Knights emphatically ap¬ 
proved of it. The political papers 
have had a great deal to say editorially 
during the past week about the pro¬ 
jected union, and of course, most of 
them disapprove of it. 
As usual, the Thanksgiving market 
was Hooded with poultry. While 
prime, fresh stock always sells for 
good prices at this time, poor lots, or 
those arriving in a damaged condition 
must be sold for what they will bring. 
The weather has been the worst pos¬ 
sible for handling dressed poultry, be¬ 
ing warm and wet, and many lots of 
dry-packed were so sour upon arrival 
that it was almost impossible to sell 
them at any price. The R. N.-Y. has 
constantly advised its readers to sell 
their poultry, especially fowls and 
chickens, before the markets become 
so glutted and prices so depreciated. 
Tons of chickens were sold in this mar¬ 
ket the past week for less money than 
the same birds would have brought 
three months ago. Does this pay? 
Chickens sold as low as five cents per 
S ound! From now until after the 
oliday markets, it will not pay to 
ship anything but choice poultry to 
this city. Fancy turkeys and ducks 
especially, are wanted. 
U NTIL within a short time the 
stewards on the large ocean 
steamers have used condensed milk 
almost exclusively. We are now told 
that many are using Norwegian can¬ 
ned milk, which has the merit of be¬ 
ing all ready for use as well as being 
without change of form, and preserv¬ 
ing the mixture of butter fats almost 
exactly as the product came from the 
cow. This Norwegian milk is pre¬ 
pared by a patent process which is so 
simple that it is quite surprising that 
it ever could be patented or that it 
was not made use of long ago. The 
milk is heated to 110 degrees, then 
cooled to 50 degrees, then heated to 
110 degrees again, and again cooled, 
then heated to about 100 degrees and 
at once placed in tin cans and per¬ 
fectly sealed. After being treated in 
this way, it is said to keep perfectly 
for months in the cans, or even for 
several days after being taken from 
them. Cream taken from this canned 
milk makes excellent butter. It is 
confidently expected that the canned 
milk will be offered for sale at all 
grocery and provision scores in Eng¬ 
land within a few years. Why not in 
this country? The process is said to 
be the result of efforts made bv a 
dairyman in Norway to provide a 
profitable use for surplus milk at milk 
factories. We have an abundance of 
surplus milk in this country. Why 
can we not have experiments made to 
test the value of this patent here ? 
This is a good chance for our experi¬ 
ment stations to show them interest in 
practical dairy matters. 
ABANDONED.” 
The charters of over 250 Missouri 
corporations which are charged 
with being., .members of some trust, 
T HIS title is being wr itten on hun¬ 
dreds of good farms in the New 
England States. Many of these farms 
are as productive as they were 30 
years ago when they supported large 
families comfortably and happily. 
Right by the side of the abandoned 
farms the R. N.-Y. has subscribers 
who are actually making money at 
farming. Why then is this sad and 
disheartening title written over these 
farms? Page after page has been 
printed in reply to this question, yet 
the bottom of it has not yet been 
reached. Western competition, un¬ 
just tariff laws, high prices for farm 
hands, overproduction, increased cost 
of living ; all these reasons are prac¬ 
tically answered by the thoughtful 
and enterprising farmei-s who make 
farming pay right in these “aban¬ 
doned ” districts. Does any one doubt 
that there are such men? “The old 
folks have died off while the younger 
people have gone to the cities.” This 
statement by A. B. Deering on 
page 804, states the fact of the 
matter. Find the reason why the 
younger people prefer city life 
to New England farm life and 
you find the reason for the abandon¬ 
ment of these farms. Some of the 
younger people do stay and work the 
farms when the old folks retire. Find 
the difference between the home lives 
of those who stay and of those who go 
away and you learn another part of 
the secret. 
There are many things that might 
be truthfully said about the causes 
that have led to the decadence in New 
quence now. We have given away 
our lands; our grain and meat would 
feed the world, our railroads are the 
marvel of the century. We have 
turned the old conditions upside 
down. Those who have deserted these 
Eastern farms and those who are now 
ready to desert have not been able to 
adapt themselves to new and strange 
conditions. You can’t farm in New 
England as you did 20 years ago and 
make much of a living. That seems 
settled. You can farm there in a way 
that will pay a good profit. How is 
it to be done? The R. N.-Y. proposes 
to let its correspondents tell for them¬ 
selves. 
CHEESE SYNDICATES. 
C ONSIDERABLE has been said of 
late about attempts of British 
capitalists to buy up the* principal 
cheese factories in this country, and 
especially those in the northern and 
central cheese-producing sections of 
New York. C. B. Ryan, of Ingersoll, 
Canada, an avowed agent of the com¬ 
bination, claims to have secured op¬ 
tions on over 300 factories in that 
region, and a large cheese firm in 
Lowville, Lewis County, has also been 
getting options on factories in that 
neighborhood, but denies that it is 
acting for foreign capitalists. Rumors 
of similar negotiations likewise come 
from some other dairy districts in 
other States. Dairymen naturally 
ask what are likely to be the effects of 
such combinations. Will they, like 
others of a monopolistic tendency, 
seek to lower prices for producers and 
raise them for consumers? It seems to 
us that combinations for such a pur¬ 
pose would be impracticable. The first 
cost of a cheese factory is not large, 
while the patrons are not bound to 
send milk unless the price is satisfac¬ 
tory. The manager of a factory is 
frequently, if not generally, a hired 
hand who makes cheese for a mere 
trifle over the cost of making it at 
home. What therefore could prevent 
the starting of a new factory by farm¬ 
ers in any section in which they might 
think they were unjustly treated by 
the combination? Indeed, there would 
be a temptation to start such factor¬ 
ies even where no charge of the kind 
could be justly made, in order to force 
the syndicate to buy them at a profit 
to the owners. 
Another scheme of a somewhat dif¬ 
ferent nature has been quietly pro¬ 
gressing for some time and appears 
more likely to be realized. It is pro¬ 
posed to form an important syndicate, 
with a capital of $5,000,000, for the 
purpose of supplying the markets of 
Great Britain with the most accept¬ 
able kinds of American cheese at the 
lowest price consistent with a fair 
profit on the investment. Depots for 
the proper distribution and expe¬ 
ditious handling of stock after landing 
are to be established at various ports 
of the United Kingdom, and fully 
qualified and duly accredited buying 
agents, including two from London, 
two from Liveipool, and one each 
from Manchester, Bristol, Hull, Glas¬ 
gow, Leith, Leeds and Biimingham, 
and probably other large consuming 
and distributing points also, are to 
act upon this side of the water. It is 
tu be their duty to attend personally 
at the various Boards of Trade in the 
producing districts here and in Can¬ 
ada, picking out and purchasing the 
best grades of cheese suitable for 
the various markets they represent, 
and making direct shipments through 
the various ports on our seaboard. 
Under the circumstances this would 
be the closest practicable approach to 
a direct deal between the producer 
and the foreign consumer, and it is be¬ 
lieved that if the scheme is successful¬ 
ly carried out, a reasonable interest 
can be realized on the investment 
from the curtailment of the customary 
taxes by middlemen, while a fair mar¬ 
gin of profit can be maintained for the 
producer at the same time that the 
average cost to the consumer may be 
reduced. It is also proposed to start 
a large depot in New York City to 
supply wholesale operators with all 
the cheese they may want for home 
consumption. However plausible 
such schemes may be in prospect, and 
however fair the promises of their 
projectors, there is always some dan¬ 
ger that when they are in the full 
swing of success they will use their 
power for unjust self-aggrandizement 
at the cost of producers and consum¬ 
ers alike. 
BREVITIES. 
SOME of the best hog breeders in the coun¬ 
try are going to tell us how they find a pro¬ 
fit in feeding oats to hogs. 
“UNEASY lies the head ” of the farmer 
whose cows are shivering on the shady side 
of a straw stack these chilly nights. 
At the Chicago Fat Stock Show, a New 
York State Holstein cow took first pri>e 
on butter record, and a Pennsylvania 
Holstein second. 
More intimate trade relations with the 
South American Republics seem inevitable. 
Will they operate advantageously for the 
farmers of the United States? 
An organization with the title “The Na¬ 
tional Dairy and Food Commissioners’ As¬ 
sociation of the United States ” was formed 
in Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday. 
All farmers are interested in the figures 
S ivingtliecostoflivingon thefarm. These 
gures tell some curious tales. By-and-bv 
we shall give the cost of life in towns ana 
cities. Then our readers can estimate what 
their wood, milk, butter, eggs and poultry 
are worth. 
Alluding to the communication on 
“ Cross-fertilization of Grapes ” on page 
806, the R. N.-Y. would say that it has had 
quite a little experience in such work. We 
have always removed the “cap” to apply 
the foreign pollen and have found in almost 
every case (the flower being perfect) that 
the pollen is ripe before the cap falls. 
Probably, however, the stigmas are often 
receptive after the fall of the cap in the 
case of varieties having imperfect stamens. 
It appears that the Western silo men 
have little use for heavy weights or jack- 
screws on their silos. Some of the men 
who write for this issue of the R. N.-Y. 
have made the silo so successful that they 
are able to keep a cow for each acre of land 
they own. It is evident that “patent” 
silage will not find many takers among 
these men at present. Still, the R. N.-Y! 
can only say that of all the samples of sil¬ 
age it has ever seen the sweetest and most 
palatable was that made by Mr. Colcord’s 
patent. 
A CORRESPONDENT, page 806, speaks of 
feeding a ration consisting of half oat-meal 
and half corn-meal to dairy cows. The 
R. N.-Y. has been feeding whole oats to a 
dairy cow. We find that the oats are more 
completely digested than whole corn and 
that they certainly increase the cow’s milk 
yield. The butter, however, is not equal 
to that produced from clear corn-meal. In 
this experiment oats were fed alone. With 
one-third oat-meal and two-thirds corn- 
meal we do not notice any inferiority in 
the butter. 
Oh Dear ! those horrid, bothersome 
German chemists ! Another of them has 
iust “ discovered ” another substitute for 
butter! It is a fatty substance in the 
cocoanut. Of course, in many respects it 
is better than genuine butter; but, all the 
same, it is sold under the name of “ the in¬ 
ferior product.” It is being turned out in 
vast quantities at Manheim, a single fac¬ 
tory producing 6,000 pounds a day, worth in 
the wholesale market 15 cents per pound. 
A very stringent anti-oleo law has just 
been passed by the Reichstag, which goes 
into force in all the German Empire on 
January 1, 1890. It forbids the sale of any 
imitation or any substitute for butter un¬ 
less there is plainly stamped on the cover or 
article itself a statement that it is a sub¬ 
stitute or imitation. Butter is defined to 
be “ the article of fat in which, besides salt 
and coloring, no other ingredients appear ex¬ 
cept those coming from milk. ” It would be 
interesting to compare the effects of this 
law in Germany with those of the anti-oleo 
laws, national and State, in this country. 
According to the report of Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue, the other day, in spite 
of all legislation and of the boasts of the 
Dairy Commissioners and their assistants 
in various States, there has been a large 
increase in the manufacture and sale of 
oleomargarine during the past year in the 
United States. 
