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August 8 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
568 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FABMEE'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Eetahlwhed 1850 . 
Herbert w. Collingwood, Editor. 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, ( . ... 
Mrs. B. T. Royle, j-Associates. 
John J, Dillon, Business Manager. 
SIJBSCBIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, *2.04, 
equal to 8s. 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 complaint 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 
erder, personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street. New York. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1903 
Prizes! ! Prizes! ! 
$12, $10, $8, $5. 
The R. N.-Y. offers cash prizes for the best account, 
with pictures, of 
ONE DAY’S WORK ON THE FARM! 
We want a plain, natural story of the operations 
which fill one busy day on your farm—either indoors 
or out. This ought to give a clear idea of what farm 
life means. 
These prize articles should contain not over 1,200 
words and should, if possible, be accompanied by two 
or more photographs. Preference will be given to 
the plain, homely accounts of farm life and work, for 
what we desire is a true pen picture of a farm work¬ 
ing day. The articles must be in our hands by 
October 15. 
♦ 
OuB correspondence shows that New York farmers 
are rousing for the fight against the canal appropria¬ 
tion. At first they felt that the battle was a hopeless 
one. Now they see that there is a good chance to win. 
The average voter in this city cares little for the 
canal. Thousands will not take interest enough in it 
to mark their ballots. This apathy will give farmers 
their chance. If the canal advocates want to make it 
an issue of money against manhood, the latter quality 
will be found ready for them. 
* 
It looks as though eastern fruit growers are facing 
a difficult pi’oblem in the rapid increase of fruit-eat¬ 
ing birds. In some places the growers do not appear 
to get even fair samples of their crop. If a bird eats 
more fruit than ho is worth during the season it mat¬ 
ters little that he is compelled to hunt insects at 
other times. As a matter of fact, it is evident the 
birds complained of, being migratory, must do their 
insect-catching in southern localities, and therefore 
can only be of trifling local benefit to the gardener in 
any event. No one wishes to encourage needless bird 
destruction, but it seems only fair that a grower 
should have liberty to protect his crops when in dan¬ 
ger. We want more accurate information on this 
subject. Read Notes from the Rural Grounds, page 566. 
m 
Let us see what can be done with short words. 
Some who write much seem to feel that they must 
use long words, to make their thought clear. They are 
wrong! Short words are like the old short swords 
which carved the world for Rome. The short word, 
like the short sword, means a hand-to-hand fight with 
the best force in a man’s mind. Plain people think in 
short words. They may know what the big words 
mean, but while these come in at the ear they are 
slow to reach the mind, while the short, strong word 
goes home at once. Why? It is part of the plain 
man’s speech. When he talks to his friends he makes 
use of the short words. The big words do not bring 
him a clear view of what he wants to know. Thus if 
we would reach him we must use his own form of 
speech. The use of short words is good for those who 
write Hunt for the short word and throw out all 
large ones, and you will find that the slow search 
trains the mind and gives force to speech as few 
things can. Pick up the big-word style on your pen, 
and you will find that your mind grows toward a sort 
f laze. You will use more words than you need and 
cloud your thought when you would like to make it 
clear. Short words reach the plain folk. Force the 
big ones off your pen if you would force your thought 
on those who need it! 
* 
One of the greatest “fake” stories of the year is that 
of the alleged “college students” who went to Kansas 
to help in the harvest. We were told that football 
and baseball players and college “strong men” went 
out to grapple with the wheat. Then came the story 
of defeat—even the girls on the Kansas farms are said 
to have outworked the “college” men, so that they 
wisely gave up the job. A few students may have 
gone West to work in the harvest, and if they did 
we venture to say that they held their own. The great 
truth in such a story is the fact that when a man 
tackles the job of a wide-awake farmer he will find 
ample use for every force of body and mind that can 
be crowded into his frame! 
* 
The latest game of the letter-writing frauds is to 
offer a typewriter free. They offer $25 per 1,000 foi 
writing letters, and the typewriter is to be given as 
part of the price. You send them $2.50 to begin with 
“as evidence of good faith,” and they promise to send 
you the typewriter and sheets of paper for the letters. 
The machine seems to be a mere toy. It would be 
about as sensible to try to cut down a big White oak 
tree with a toy hatchet as to write any number of let¬ 
ters with this little machine. The chances are that 
you would never receive the typewriter anyway, 
though the company would be very sure to receive 
your money. We surely hope that none of our read¬ 
ers will send grown-up dollars after baby typewriters. 
This whole letter-writing business should be let alone. 
• 
S UPROSE you are a farmer and have developed a 
good retail trade in your town. You start on your 
trip some day and your customers begin to say: “No, 
I do not want any more potatoes or eggs. The Gov¬ 
ernment at Washington has sent me a full supply. 
Our Congressman obtained them for me free, and I 
shall see that he goes back to Congress!” Do you 
know how you would feel as you hauled your 
load home? Just about like a reputable seedsman 
when he finds that all his customers are receiving 
“Government seeds” free! The Government has just 
as much right to interfere with your trade in this way 
as it has to interfere with the trade in seeds! If 
you stand idly by and permit one little wrong to exist 
you cannot reasonably protest when it grows into a 
big one. 
* 
We are interested in the following letter from a 
friend in Pennsylvania: 
You make so good a paper I prefer sending the full 
price to joining a club at a discount. Please consider me 
a life subscriber. This cannot count for much, as 1 am 
in my eighty-second year. I helped D. D. T. Moore to 
circulate the first number of The R. N.Y. It is a much 
better paper to-day. 
We find a number of families where The R. N.-Y. 
has been taken by three generations. Grandfather, 
father and son have grown along with the paper. 
While the grandson uses many farm implements 
which grandfather knew little about in his day, both 
used such tools as plow, hoe and spade. Grandfather’s 
hoe would not answer to-day, for the years have de¬ 
veloped a lighter and more serviceable one. The old 
Moore’s Rural New-Yorker cost $3 per year. If the 
old paper were printed to-day at that price few would 
take it. We are glad to think that The R. N.-Y. has 
developed along with the farmer, so that we can keep 
step with him. 
We may talk as we will about the tariff or other 
political questions, but the greatest problem before 
this country to-day is whether the corn crop will win 
in the race against Jack Frost. It will be hard to 
name any other single product that has as much to do 
with infiuencing general business as the year’s output 
of corn. The last crop reached 2,523,648,312 bushels, 
with an export price of slightly over 60 cents per 
bushel. Within the memory of young men corn 
ranked below wheat in commercial importance, but 
now it is chief among the world’s crops. New uses 
and new markets have been found for it. Formerly 
there was a fearful waste in disposing of the stalks. 
'The silo wiped out part of this waste, and gave added 
value to the green plant, and the machines for shred¬ 
ding and crushing have doubled the value of the dry 
stalk. Paper is made from the hard part of the stalk, 
and packing for warships from the pith. For cen¬ 
turies corn was more or less a hand crop; now it is 
possible to plant, cultivate, harvest, husk, shell and 
deliver by horse or steam power. Few of us stop to 
think how the work of producing the country’s corn 
has been developed! We can all understand v/hat it 
would mean to the Nation if this year’s crop should 
fail! Prom the poorest hired man to the richest rail¬ 
road magnate all would feel the loss. It would be a 
remarkable object lesson of what the business world 
owes to the farmer, but it would cause untold suffer¬ 
ing. Such a misfortune now threatens the country, 
but we believe that a hot August will carry the crop 
safely through. Every man whose living depends on 
trade may thank his stars that the American farmer 
is at work in the cornfield doing his best to “make 
the crop.” No one records his work day by day in 
the papers, but he is doing far more to maintain 
“prosperity” than the brokers in Wall Street. 
* 
Land speculators and cattlemen are said to be try¬ 
ing to force Secretary Hitchcock out of the Cabinet. 
Why—has he been caught stealing from Uncle Sam? 
No—he has been trying to stop the wholesale stealing 
of public land which his accusers have been winking 
at. The present trouble results from the distribution 
of land among the Creek Indians. Each member of a 
family received 160 acres, and in many cases the por¬ 
tion belonging to child/en has been leased or prac¬ 
tically given away by the father. It has been decided 
that all such leases of minor children are void unless 
made by legally appointed guardians. This seems like 
a fair safeguard for the rights of these children, but 
the speculators are up in arms against it. Now Sec¬ 
retary Hitchcock issues a new set of rules designed 
still further to protect the rights of the Indians. The 
land robbers object to anything that will clip their 
claws. They have stolen millions of acres of the pub¬ 
lic lands, and are now so bold that they will threaten 
anyone who opposes them. 
• 
When the Grout anti-oleo bill was passed the oleo 
people first made fun of it. They said they would 
“ride right through it” with legal objections, but 
somehow they never were able to do so. They then 
hunted for “natural” coloring matters with which to 
evade the law, but were held up by the Government. 
Baffled and beaten, they now admit that the law is 
likely to accomplish its purpose. This is what a lead¬ 
ing manufacturer says: 
Federal legislation and restrictions by many States re¬ 
garding the manufacture of oleomargarine have so less¬ 
ened the productive value of beef suet that the packers 
are compelled to make tallow from this product, which 
is worth perhaps 5% to six cents per pound, instead of 
oleo oil, formerly worth nearly double that. Oleo oil, as 
is well known, is an absolutely pure animal product 
made from prime beef suet, and is used in the manufac¬ 
ture of oleomargarine. 
The whole trouble seems to be that manufacturers 
are no longer able to buy this six-cent fat, color it 
yellow and sell it for butter at 18 cents or more! The 
fact is the export trade in oleomargarine and the oil 
is increasing. In June of this year 13,583,170 pounds 
of the oil and 955,700 pounds of the grease were ex¬ 
ported, while in June of last year exports were 8,- 
309,706 pounds of oil and only 266,125 pounds of 
grease. This means a gain of more than 50 per cent 
in value. The oleo makers seem at last to be on the 
run, since all their claims and “arguments” have been 
exploded. All see now that what they are really after 
is the right to color six-cent fat and sell it as a coun¬ 
terfeit for more than twice its value. 
BREVITIES, 
Old sod turned up or turned over—which? 
“Head over heels in work”! Where else should the 
head be? 
In spite of the dry season Geo. M. Clark’s grass cut 
nearly four tons to the acre this year. 
Keep the “taffy” you would like to serve out under 
lock and key if it is to mean anything. 
These are the days of “specialists,” the scarcest of 
which is the specialist in common sense. 
Time and brains! How many people that you know put 
more of the former than of the latter into their business? 
Snow fell in New Hampshire July 28. Snow contains a 
little nitrogen, but we prefer to have our July supply in 
the form of stable manure. 
If we wanted to dwarf a human life and make it un¬ 
happy we would take away all necessity for labor and 
leave the life with “nothing to do.” 
There are some writers who make the English lan¬ 
guage walk Spanish, then put a Dutch lock on their 
meaning, and take French leave of it. 
We agree with the Practical Fruit Grower that it is 
fortunate for the Ben Davis apple that it was born red. 
Who would touch it if it wore a green or yellow Jacket? 
It is reported that agents in Ohio are selling “Pros¬ 
perity” wheat at $3.50 per bushel. At the Ohio Experi¬ 
ment Station this wheat gave a smaller yield than Vel- 
. et Chaff. 
A Jersetman recently bought a “doped” horse. He- 
drove him home in great glee, but the poor thing gave 
out on the way, and then the driver was fined for own¬ 
ing such an animal. 
At last the trip across the country has been made on 
an auto. It Is not likely that these vehicles will ever be 
very serviceable in handling farm freight until we have 
steel tracks on the roads. 
Can anyone tell us of a case where hens have actually 
eaten any large number of Potato beetles? We have kept 
large flocks of hens in potato fields, yet while they have 
sometimes eaten the eggs we have not known them to 
eat the Insects. Has anyone proof that they will do so? 
