THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
SEPT 4 
THE 
RURAU NEW-YORKER, 
A National Jonrnalf or Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1880. 
32 PAGES. 
Next week we issue a supplement of 16 
pages, or 32 pages in all. 
-♦ - 
It is impossible to open an English ag¬ 
ricultural paper of the present time with¬ 
out finding an editorial on “Saved by 
Hope.” English agriculture has about 
struck bottom, and all that keeps many 
farmers up is the hope that the times will 
change and that prices will improve so 
that farming will be once more profitable. 
The worst of it is that farmers have little 
besides hope to tempt them to look for 
better times. Competition is close, no 
new markets are apparent,and many of the 
old ones are changing. Truly the English 
farmers have reason to feel doubtful. 
Still hope is a better anchor than doubt. 
It is better to believe that good times are 
probable than to settle down to the con¬ 
viction that nothing can improve. There 
have been depressions in agricultnre be¬ 
fore, yet farmers have lived happily and 
contentedly through them. The point to 
be held in mind is that the habits of econ¬ 
omy that poor crops or low prices have 
forced upon us must not be entirely 
dropped when the times once begin to im¬ 
prove. 
There is some talk of urging Congress 
to appoint a committee to investigate the 
condition of the Agricultural Colleges of 
the country. These colleges were estab¬ 
lished through an act of the General 
Government appropriating certain lands, 
the proceeds from the sale of which were 
to goto the support of the institutions. 
It is claimed that a thorough investiga¬ 
tion would reveal the fact that the condi¬ 
tions accompanying this gift have never, 
except in the case of some half dozen col¬ 
leges, been complied with, and the money 
has been cleatfy misappropriated. Such 
an investigation might work good results. 
There is certainly no reasou in the world 
why thousands of dollars should be given 
to an institution for the express purpose 
of aiding agriculture, and the mechanic 
arte, and then have the money spent for a 
totally different, object. Why not stir up 
these colleges aud find out just what they 
are doing. If they cannot increase in 
usefulness, cannot attract students and 
gain in dignity, why should they exist at 
all? There is no economy in paying out 
this sum every yeur in order that a few 
professors may draw comfortable salaries. 
It will be of more profit to the State to 
pay the entire expenses of the dozen or 
more students at an agricultural college 
like those of Massachusetts, Michigan, 
Kansas or Mississippi, and close up the 
home concern, if tilings are going to 
drag along in the future as they have in 
the past. On the whole, we hope Con¬ 
gress will take the matter up. 
SOME THINGS THE FARMERS WANT. 
There has just been a representative 
gathering of the farmers of the North¬ 
west at St. Paul. In a set of lucid, defi¬ 
nite resolutions they left no doubt of the 
things they need in the way of legislation. 
Of these, four at. least are of national im¬ 
portance. They want the national oleo¬ 
margarine law strictly enforced. A num¬ 
ber of States have passed stringent laws 
in regard to this matter; but in not one 
of them have they been efficiently carried 
out. Now that the national authorities 
have the supervision of the manufacture 
and sale of the product, it should be 
much easier for the State authorities to 
enforce every provision of the State laws; 
and in those States which now have oleo¬ 
margarine laws, not a pound of the con¬ 
coction should be sold in contravention of 
the State or national laws. It is not now 
a question of whether the law is good or 
bad ; it is on the statute book, and should 
be enforced. 
They want Congress to appropriate 
$3,000,000 “to stamp out contagious 
diseases among domestic animals.” When 
Congress appropriated $150,000 the other 
day for this purpose, what a cry of ex¬ 
travagance rose from Borne agricultural 
“authorities,” and how bitterly they 
must denounce the assembled farmers of 
■M 
the Northwest for their outrageously un¬ 
reasonable demands! The amount asked, 
however, is not a t ithe of the losses inflicted 
on the nation every year by contagious 
diseases among our live stock. 
They want speculation in food stuffs 
stopped as far as possible by the passage 
of State laws prohibiting gambling in 
the form of dealing in “futures.” The 
injury done to American agriculture by 
this sort of speculation is a serious matter, 
not only to the farmers of the country, 
but to every class in it. The 
unscrupulous men who engage in 
this form of gambling have not only dis¬ 
organized our home markets, but lost us 
a good deal of our foreign trade in agri¬ 
cultural products, by unduly raising 
prices here beyond what foreigners would 
pay; by creating abroad distrust of 
American fair-dealing; and by inducing 
purchasing foreign countries to seek else¬ 
where for their supplies, and thus stimu¬ 
lating production among our rivals. They 
are the leeches who add nothing to the 
w'ealth of the nation, but prey alike on 
producers and consumers. If legislation 
could suppress them, they should be 
suppressed at once. 
They want a Secretary of Agriculture, 
with a seat in the Cabinet. We do not 
remember any large assemblage of farmers 
in any part of the couutry at which a 
resolution of this kind has failed to re¬ 
ceive hearty indorsement. A considera¬ 
ble number of prominent agricultural 
writers, however, can see no advantage in 
such an elevation of the chief representa¬ 
tive of the agriculture of the nation. It 
will not make spring wheat yield fifty 
bushels to the acre in Minnesota, or be as 
effective a remedy against the curculio as a 
flock of hensin a New England plum-patch. 
The farmers of the country, however, would 
undoubtedly he pleased with the meas¬ 
ure ; and the farmers of the country 
can, if they please, undoubtedly enforce 
their wishes iu the matter. 
MORE IMMIGRANTS. 
It looks as though England is ap¬ 
proaching the limit of her population 
that can live liappilv upon her soil. 
There are, to he sure, countries more 
densely populated. In portions of China 
and Japan people are crowded so closely 
that an English garden would seem like a 
stock farm to them. No Englishman 
would care to live as the Japanese live. 
John Bull needs more room, and if he 
cannot get it at home he must seek it else- 
where. England, without Wales, con¬ 
tains 50,922 square miles. In 1881 she 
had a population of 24,608,391, or 480 to 
the square mile. Massachusetts seems 
crowded to us, yet she has hut 228 per¬ 
sons per square mile. New York has 108, 
and New’England 60. The surplus popu¬ 
lation of England must go somewhere, 
and it will come here if allowed to do so. 
It may go to Canada, and thus help to re¬ 
alize Beacousfield’9 dream of an English 
wheat supply ; hut with the preseut state 
of Canada such an emigration is not to 
be expected. The Government of Mexico 
has made strong efforts to induce colo¬ 
nies to go to that country. These efforts 
will not be much of a success. Emigra¬ 
tion is almost sure to follow' distinct lines 
of latitude. The history of the attempted 
French colony in Paraguay shows how 
difficult it is to acclimate colonists in a 
warm country. In 1880 we had in this 
country 2,772,169 persons w r ho were 
natives of Great Britain and lrelaud. 
More than half of these were located in 
New York, New England and Pennsyl¬ 
vania. It is time to seriously consider 
this question of emigration. Wc have 
welcomed the world to our doors. Is it 
not about time to modify that welcome ? 
Uncle Sam is no longer “rich enough to 
give us all a farm.” The old gentleman 
should not injure himself by his gifts out¬ 
side the family. 
HELP NEEDED FOR THE SUPREME 
COURT.* 
There are now before the United States 
Supreme Court, on appeal from the United 
States Circuit and District Courts, several 
important patent cases in which the 
farmers of the country are interested. 
There are before the same august, but 
slow-moving body, a large number of 
other cases in which important pri¬ 
vate and public interests are involved. 
Prompt decision in such matters is of great 
public and private importance; but prompt 
decisions are impossible as the court is at 
present constituted, owing to its dilatory 
mode of work and the over-loaded con¬ 
dition of its docket. When it convened 
last October there were 851 cases on the 
docket. During the term 489 cases were 
added, while the court disposed of only 
440. Thus after eight months’ steady 
work the court adjourned with 49 cases 
more on its docket than it began with. 
Next Fall it will meet with a good three 
years’ work before it. and the arrearage is 
increasing all the time. Isn’t it a shame 
that suitors appealing to the highest tri¬ 
bunal in the land must wait three years 
for a hearing, however great an injustice 
may be caused by the delay? The people 
of the country are now paying unduly 
high prices for a large number of articles 
on account of the royalty exacted from the 
manufacturers by the owners of patents 
which the court will certainly declare 
invalid when it gets to them. Neither 
the royalties nor the excess of prices paid 
on account of them are recoverable, even 
though the court should declare the 
patents to have been worthless from the 
outset. The late Judge David Davis 
matured an admirable scheme for the 
relief of the court, and the Senate passed 
it twice; but theHouse on both occasions 
treated it with the neglect which it has of 
late accorded to many important measures 
originated in the other branch. This 
flagrant dereliction of duty should not be 
repeated. The interests of l he country as 
well as common justice and decency de¬ 
mand a speedy decision in cases involving 
great public and private interests, and it 
is chiefly such cases that are appealed to 
the Supreme Court. Early io the next 
session, Congress should relieve this body 
from some of the burden of business 
which each succeeding term shows it can¬ 
not carry, and this is a good time for 
electors to remind their Representatives 
of the necessity foi prompt action. 
GRAIN BUYERS’ ASSOCIATIONS. 
While fairly conducted associations of 
grain buyers may he of considerable ad¬ 
vantage to the farmers of the section in 
which they operate, by securing lower 
storage and transportation rates and shar¬ 
ing the consequent advantages with their 
customers, such organizations guided by 
selfish and unscrupulous principles are a 
curse to the couutry they oppress. Such 
for years was the Millers’ Association to 
the Northwest. For ten years this organ¬ 
ization practically controlled the prices of 
wheat in the greater part of Minnesota 
and Dakota and greatly influenced them in 
adjoining sections. The agents at Minne¬ 
apolis fixed the prices for buyers along 
every line of railroad tributary to that 
place, aud telegraphed them every day to 
its agents operating among the farmers. 
Most of the large elevator companies were 
controlled by the Association and were 
compelled to stick to the prices made. 
The railroad companies which were inter¬ 
ested in the scheme, gave the Association 
a rebate which gave it a great advantage 
over any outside buyer who might be rash 
enough to compete with it. Thus the far¬ 
mers were compelled to sell their grain at 
the figures fixed by this “giant monopoly. ” 
Last year a new grain law promised re¬ 
lief to the farmers by allowing anybody 
aud everybody to huihl warehouses and 
elevators where they pleased, aud a multi¬ 
tude of small, independent elevators 
came into sharp competition with the 
large elevator companies. The Millers’ 
Association in struggling against this 
competition incurred considerable loss, 
while the farmers, for the first time in a 
decade, enjoyed the benefits of fair compe¬ 
tition among the buyers. 
This year the Millers’ Association will 
not keep its buyers in the field as former¬ 
ly, but it expects to exercise influence on 
prices through a new association of 
buyers organized early this month, and 
including all the leading grain buyers in 
Minnesota aud Dakota. Over 200 of 
these from all sections met at. Minneapo¬ 
lis the other day, and bound themselves 
by ironclad rules to adhere to certain 
prices for grain, and pay no more. The 
plan adopted was that of the Iowa Grain 
Dealers’ Association, which for four years 
has fixed the prices for grain in that 
State on the basis of the Chicago market, 
less the freight from the point of ship¬ 
ment to that market, and a liberal allow¬ 
ance of three cents per bushel for mar¬ 
gins. The railroads allow a rebate of 
two cents per 100 pounds to the members 
of the association. This compels all 
buyers to join the organization, for out¬ 
siders not getting this rebate, could not 
compete with members. Recent legisla¬ 
tion iu Minnesota is very stringent in 
prohibiting such oppressive organizations, 
and the State Railroad and Warehouse 
Commissioners, whose duty it is to see to 
the enforcement of the law, are closely 
watching the new association ; but the 
members declare they have no intention 
of breaking the laws. If the law passed 
for that very object does not protect the 
farmer, however, it is likely he will find 
in the Grain Buyers’ Association as op¬ 
pressive a monopoly as he ever found in 
the Millers’ Association. 
BREVITIES. 
Are our criminal laws designed to protect 
honest men or malefactors ? 
Now cut out the old canes of the blackberry 
and raspberry bushes; cultivate the soil. 
We have fifty or more chrysanthemums 
grown from seed started not till March. The 
plants are as thrifty as possible, aud will, no 
doubt, give a great variety of flowers later. 
Wk asked a good old doctor last week to 
name the best treatise ou heajth. He took a 
piece of paper and wrote, “Keep your head 
cool, your feet warm and your bowels open.” 
What do you think of it. friends ? Doesn’t 
that, state about all there is to it ? 
In agricultural practice, as in other things, 
authorities sometimes differ. In this issue 
friend Waldo F. Brown advocates the plow¬ 
ing under of the entire clover crop ; in last 
issue friend Henry Stewart insisted that it is 
more economical to cut the crop for hay and 
plow under only the roots and stubble. 
Market gardeners tell us that sweet corn 
soils to better advantage this year than any 
other vegetable. Much of the corn about 
here has been badly injured by worms, and 
the price for good ears has held up well. 
Eating corn is about like eating cash for the 
market gardeuer. Tomatoes, beans, potatoes 
and apples are slow 
That was a lively meeting of florists in Phil¬ 
adelphia file other day; and owing to the rapid 
advance in their business the florists of this 
country ought to be a merry set when, once a 
vear, they come together to talk over experi¬ 
ences and profits. Forty years ago. Brother 
Henderson tells us, the sales of cut flowers in 
New York City at New Year’s amounted to 
less thau $250. Last New Year's the sales 
reached $100,000. while over $3,000,000 were 
paid for cut flowers here during t he past year. 
Doubtless the increase in other places was just 
as great, so the 8.000 florists in the country 
have good cause to be merry. An increased 
love of flowers is a sure sign of an increase in 
refinement in any community. What better 
proof of this truth can we have than that 
women, who excel men iu refinement the 
world over, have a far stronger love than men 
for floral beauties. 
Wednesday last the Secretary of the Illinois 
State Board of Agriculture sent, warrants for 
$100 apiece to the t reasurers of 87 agricultur¬ 
al societies iu the State on account of the fairs 
held in 1885. Thirty-one other societies re¬ 
ceived similar warrants last month, making 
08 societies in all cutitled to this bounty. The 
Inst. General Assembly made these appropria¬ 
tions for county and other agricultural fail's; 
but provided that no warrant should be drawn 
until the President rmd Secretary of each soci¬ 
ety had filed fifiidavita with the State Board 
of Agriculture that no wheel of fortune or any 
other gambling device was licensed or allowed 
on thi! fair grounds. This proviso is good as far 
as it goes: but bet ting ou horse races or trots, as 
well as licensing or tolerating the sale of in¬ 
toxicants should have also lteen prohibited. 
The farmers of Michigan may well congrat¬ 
ulate themselves. They are makiugsolid pro¬ 
gress towards political recognition. If they 
do not secure the rights that any political 
party can bestow upon them, it will be their 
own fault. Hon. C. G. Luce has just lieen 
nominated for Governor by the Republicans. 
Tho nomination was unanimous and hearty. 
Mr. Luce is a farmer. As Master of the Mich¬ 
igan State Grange he has labored for years for 
the best interests of the farm. He is a sound, 
honest, out-spoken man—as near to the ideal 
farmers’ candidate ns we can well imagine. 
Farmers to the front every time say we. 
Whenever the opportunity offers it is the duty 
of farmers to show their power. What better 
chance will the farmers of Michigan ever have 
thau the present? Here is a chance to place a 
man from their own ranks iu the highest of¬ 
fice in tho State. Do it, say we, and prove 
that it can he done. 
The National Rut,ferine and Oleomargarine 
Association, representing 25 manufacturers, 
10 of whom were present, met at, Chicago 
Wednesday, and after a good deal of grumb¬ 
ling and carping at the new law, decided not 
to test, its validity in the courts. If tho gro¬ 
cers aud jobbers refuse to pay the tax im¬ 
posed for selling the stuff, the manufacturers 
threaten to sell direct to the consumers. 
If they do pay the tax, $48 and $480 respec¬ 
tively, theu the manufacturers will do their 
utmost to have the tax lightened. Here is a 
threat and a promise to the underlings; what 
will tho effect l>e? Some people grumble that 
the price of butter hasn’t gone up with a jump 
since the passage of t,he law. Pshaw 1 It won’t 
go into effect before November 1, and as t he re¬ 
sults of it are a trifle doubtful, there’s little 
disposition to discount them in advance; but 
there is certainly an upward movement,. 
The latest advices with regard to European 
crops show that the harvest, is short every¬ 
where except, in Russia and Rounmniu and the 
stock of cereals ou hand in the former country 
is very low. In France the wheat crop will 
be 40,000.000 bushels less thau lost year. The 
shortage is about proportionally os great iu 
other continental countries, aud in nearly all 
other crops also there is a considerable short¬ 
age. The Indian wheat, crop is also shorter 
than hitherto reported. There is therefore a 
fair prospect of remunerative prieesfor Amer¬ 
ican wheat for those farmers who can hold on 
to it. In venturing such predictions thero is 
always much reluctance, because no one 
knows all the circumstances which would 
decide oven (legitimate trade, and speculators 
can always upset the most, reasonable infer¬ 
ences. If one could foretell with certainty 
the course'of the market even for the next 
two months, thero would be “ millions in it. 
