August 1 
552 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FABMER’S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
EatablisJied 1850. 
Herbert w. Coelingwood, Editor. 
DR. WALTER Van Fleet, 
Mrs. e. t. koyle, 
j. Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, J2.04, 
equal to Ss. 6d., or 8^ marks, or 10^ francs. 
“A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is 
backed by a responsible person. But to make doubly 
sure we will make good any loss to paid subscribers 
sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising 
in our columns, and any such swindler will be publicly 
exposed. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we 
do not guarantee to adjust trifling differences between 
subscribers and honest responsible advertisers. Neither 
will we be responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts 
sanctioned by the courts. Notice of the comjilaint must 
be sent to us within one month of the time of the trans¬ 
action, and you must have mentioned The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
Name and address of sender, and what the remittance 
is for, should appear in every letter. 
Remittances may be made in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street. New York. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1903. 
Wiricn is of greater value to your community—the 
circHis or the farmers’ institute? Is not the institute 
worthy of as much advertising as the circus? You 
may not be able to do this advertising all at once, but 
begin now with the largest doses you can get to¬ 
gether, and keep up the work. 
• 
We call attention to the New York State Fair, 
which will be held at Syracuse September 7-12. We 
are informed that the exhibits will be larger than 
ever this year, and that siecial attractions will be 
offered to interest visitors. To many of our readers 
the exhibits at a fair of this sort make an old story, 
but there is no better place to meet old friends and 
make new ones, and we urge all who can possibly do 
so to take at least one day off and visit the Fair. Of 
course The R. N.-Y. will be on hand as usual. 
« 
“A Woman Farmer’s Notes” is a new department 
which begins this week. Misis Little is a farmer who 
has spent some years in trying to find the stock or the 
crops which a woman can care for. Her experience 
will be valuable to women who have been left with 
little property beside the old farm. There are many 
such, and moist of them would gladly remain on the 
farm if they could feel that some department of farm¬ 
ing comes within the measure of their strength and 
means. We encourage such women to ask practical 
questions. Misis Little will answer them if possible. 
* 
In these days we hear much about agricultural edu¬ 
cation—much that is worthy and much that is worth¬ 
less. Our scientific friends should stop from time to 
time and think over this fact. Their facilities for 
teaching agriculture have been developed faster than 
the capacity of the common farmer to absorb them. 
It is like putting new wine into old bottles to overlook 
the fact that those who most need the help of agri¬ 
cultural science require a simpler method of instruc¬ 
tion than any agricultural college has yet put out. 
The best book of the sort we have yet seen is the bul¬ 
letin just issued by the Minnesota Station. 
* 
Daily papers have given facts about frauds in the 
contract for supplying seeds for free distribution. 
Some of them infer that this refiects upon the Na¬ 
tional Department of Agriculture. There is absolute¬ 
ly no truth in such an inference. The Agricultural 
Department is as clean as a new knife. As soon as 
the facts were known the contractor, who furnished 
the seeds, was held up and has not yet been paid for 
the unfulfilled contract. This is in marked contrast 
with the conduct of the Postoffice Department, where 
fraud and theft seem to have flourished. The only 
argument in those reported seed frauds is the sound 
argument against any Government seed distribution 
which interferes with a legitimate business. 
* 
Dr. Wheeler, of Rhode Island, says that five years 
ago he visited Germany, and was shown an experi¬ 
ment with clover seed. The seeds were put in water 
25 years before. Most of them sprouted the first year 
and others at intervals. A few days before his visit 
a seed had sprouted, and it will be some years yet 
before all are ready. In some years the clover seed 
has a thicker covering than in others, and it is like¬ 
ly that such seeds may stay in the soil for years be- 
• fore sprouting. We refer to this because there are 
still many good farmers who say that coal ashes, lime 
or manure bring clover into the soil. They have a 
piece of ground on which no clover seed has been 
sown for years. All of a sudden, when they least 
expect it, a fair stand of clover starts up. Now that 
clover seed did not come to the soil in ashes or ferti¬ 
lizer or lime. From the nature of these substances 
that would be impossible. The seed was already in 
the soil, like the seeds which Dr. Wheeler found in 
the water, waiting the opportunity to sprout and 
grow. This ability to “lay low” and wait for the most 
favorable time is not as much a patent right of the 
clover plant as is the ability to take nitrogen out of 
the air. Weeds are capable of doing the same thing. 
While Clark, the grass man, with his plan of tossing 
up the weeds to the sun kills millions of them he does 
not destroy all the seeds. 
Let us make a little suggestion to some of our 
teachers of scientific agriculture. Employ your vaca¬ 
tion so as to be of greater service to farmers! Do not 
go to Europe or study at some great university, but 
go out and work as hired man on a farm where the 
struggle for life is fierce, and where your higher edu¬ 
cation is most needed. What nonsense, you may say, 
the farmer does not need my muscle but my scientific 
research. There you deceive yourself! A large 
class of common farmers need your sympathy as 
much as they heed your science. You may not be 
conscious of it, but there is a gulf between you and 
some of these same common farmers, and we begin 
to think that sweat would be about the best thing 
with which to fill it Do you know just how this 
common farmer lives? Can you put yourself right in 
his place? If not, can you not see that you are mere¬ 
ly making signs, to him and not taking him by the 
hand? 
Rural police protection is becoming a serious ques¬ 
tion in many country districts rendered accessible to 
the hoodlum element of the cities by trolley lines or 
steam railways. Nothing portable is safe from these 
marauders, who are disorderly as well as thievish. 
One New Jersey community suffering the depreda¬ 
tions of lawless foreigners is reported to have se¬ 
cured peace and quiet through the engagement of a 
cowboy special constable. His duty is to patrol the 
country roads on horseback, keeping a supervision 
over suspicious characters, and as His capability in¬ 
spires respect he has an excellent influence. We have 
often thought that a body of men like the Canadian 
mounted police would be of great value in our isola¬ 
ted rural communities. The character of our popula¬ 
tion is changing, and we are so often confronted, not 
merely by petty thieving, but by horrifying crimes in 
country districts that it is evident such protection is 
needed more year by year. 
• 
If evidence were needed that Prof. Thomas F. Hunt 
who succeeds Prof. Roberts at Cornell, is a true “hay¬ 
seed” his first request of New York farmers will 
settle it: 
The Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station desires to 
secure samples of ripened heads of Timothy from as 
many different sources as possible. It is the purpose of 
this Experiment Station to enter upon the breeding of 
Timothy on an extended scale. It invites farmers having 
good fields of Timothy to send heads which represent 
fairly the best of their fields. Freak heads or heads from 
plants grown under unusual conditions are not wanted. 
Drop half a dozen heads, more or less, in an envelope, 
mark thereon plainly the name and address of the sender, 
and mail to Cornell College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y, 
This is an excellent idea, and we hope farmers will 
respond freely. Last year New York State headed the 
list in hay production with a value of $6,718,743. The 
hay that brings cash to the farm is Timothy. We all 
believe in improved stock and we breed to improve it. 
Let us breed grass which is the foundation of all stock. 
• 
Prof. Plumb, on page 559, presents a discouraging 
picture of rural conditions in the abandoned farm sec¬ 
tion of western New England. He is doubtless right 
in saying that much of this land should be given back 
to the forest. With systematic culture of forest trees 
this region could be made to provide an abundant 
supply of timber. Many of these hillsides are well 
suited to apple growing. We are satisfied that with 
some modification of the Stringfellow method an en¬ 
terprising man could produce fine fruit on those hills. 
With this method it would not be necessary for a fruit 
grower to live in that dreary solitude through the en¬ 
tire Winter. Prof. Plumb’s ideas are as level as his 
name indicates when he says that there can be no real 
success in farming unless the true spirit of agricul¬ 
ture is found among the people. Where is the agri¬ 
cultural Moses who will lead the hill people out of 
bondage? Remember this however! There is no 
place in the world to-day that offers better farm op¬ 
portunity in proportion to the price charged for land 
than among these New England hills! The man who 
goes there for a home will need a stout heart and 
arm, a brave and devoted wife and hopeful children! 
* 
For the first time tnere is to be an organized and 
persistent fight against the enlargement of the Erie 
Canal. The fight comes this year over the proposition 
to spend $101,000,000 of the State’s money in deepen¬ 
ing the old ditch. 'This proposition must be ratified 
by the people before the money can be paid, and a 
mighty effort will be made to defeat it. Former ap¬ 
propriations for the canal have been carried without 
great trouble, as little organized effort was made to 
defeat them. This year it is different. At the 
Rochester meeting referred t» on page 553, a good or¬ 
ganization was started. The character of the men 
who head it will ensure a thorough and earnest cam¬ 
paign. With the exception of those who live in the 
counties close to Buffalo, New York farmers are near¬ 
ly unanimous against this great appropriation. They 
have the best of reasons for opposing it, and they have 
the votes needed to defeat it. This early beginning 
means business, and there must be no let-up in the 
fight if success is to follow. 
* 
A SCIENTIST should always try to be sensible. We 
heard one criticising a farmer for not cutting his hay 
early. The scientist proved by his figures that early- 
cut hay contains more nutriment than late-cut, and 
this, he said, settled it without further argument. 
The farmer had an argument, too. He did not feed 
his hay, but sold it to a livery stable. Now horse 
feeders prefer late-cut hay; some of them will pay 
more for it. They do not care so much for the food 
value of the hay, for they feed grain heavily. The 
late-cut hay is easier to handle and suits the horses. 
Besides all this, the late cutting was an advantage to 
the farmer, since it enabled him to put off haying 
until his other crops were cleaned. The scientist stuck 
to his argument in favor of early cutting, and had the 
farmer been feeding the hay he would have been 
right, but the fact that he was selling the hay made 
all the difference in the world. He was fully justified 
in giving what his customer called for. Was it his 
business to try to change another man’s habits? 
• 
The passing of Pope Leo XIII. removes one of the 
great figures of the past century—not merely a figure 
in the world’s history, but a maker of it. We cannot 
consider him in his relation to Catholicism alone, for 
consciously or unconsciously, his personality touched 
all creeds. Shorn of his temporal power by the unifi¬ 
cation of Italy, a self-imposed prisoner within the 
Vatican, the earthly power of his predecessors was 
gone, and in its place came a mental or spiritual force 
immeasurably greater. This is best shown by the 
world’s attitude toward the dying Pontiff during the 
last struggle of his vigorous will against the coming 
of the shadow. All Christendom watched him with 
sympathy and prayer, and even those of widely differ¬ 
ing belief looked upon the dying figure in the Fisher¬ 
man’s Chair with the tender touch of human brother¬ 
hood. The world does move to a broader charity; 
sectional hatred and religious strife must surely pass 
away. There is no more forcible example of this than 
the attitude of the world’s myriad peoples towards 
that silent figure whose austere sweetness has so long 
stood at the head of the Roman Church. 
• 
BREVITIES. 
What can you say for or against raw muck? 
The stranger in a strange land is prayed for or upon! 
Wonderful— what a change has come over the spirit 
of grass farmers! 
The law Is supposed to help the weak—not to bolster 
up the strong. 
Can anyone tell of a “weed law” which really knocks 
out noxious weeds? 
Reiad Geo. T. Powell’s interesting article on the use of 
Crimson clover—page 646. 
It is one thing to take nitrogen out of the air, and 
quite another to take it out of the soil. 
Keep on casting your bread upon the waters and feel 
confident that it will return finally as dipped toast. 
Is it true that as a man grows richer in worldly goods 
he grows poorer in sympathy and spiritual wealth? Is 
a man who can fill the first part qualified to speak of 
the second? 
Golden Bantam sweet corn is a small garden variety 
comparatively new. Sown April 24, first picking was 
ready July 18; small, but delicious in quality. It seems 
well suited for the home garden. 
According to the estimate of President Haines, of the 
Bergh Society, it will cost $76,800 to muzzle the dogs of 
Greater New York for one year. To muzzle their owners 
should these pets be treated as they deserve would cost 
10 times as much. 
At the Rothamstead (England) Experiment Station, 
conducted for so many years by Sir J. B. Lawes and Sir 
Henry Gilbert, one field is carrying its sixtieth successive 
wheat crop, while the permanent grass land is doing 
well, after the same treatment for 48 years. 
