6oo 
August 22 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TUB BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Eglablished 1S50. 
Ukkbeut \V. Cor.i.iNGWOOi), Kditor. 
Du. VVALTEU Fleet, I 
Mus. K. T. lioYLE, j-Associates. 
JOHX J. Dillon, Business Managrer. 
STJBSOBIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countrie.s in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to Ss. 6d., or 8^4 marks, or 10* *4 francs. 
“ A SaUARE 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 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street. New York. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1903. 
The R. N.-Y.’s tent will be open as usual at the 
New York State Pair. We shall be glad to meet old 
friends and make new ones. Bring your lunch basket 
and make yourself at home. You will be welcome. 
* 
Has any reader ever known of a hard liquor 
drinker who was at the same time a full consumer of 
good apples? We have never found one, and we have 
made it our business to hunt for him. We think there 
are sensible and scientific reasons for saying that one 
who eats a full supply of good apples every day will 
have little natural craving for alcohol. We firmly 
believe that the Hon. American Apple is a practical 
temperance reformer. 
• 
Ne.iVR a small town in New Zealand many raspber¬ 
ries are grown. The growers felt an interest in the 
place, and were anxious to see it grow and assume 
trade importance. They agreed among themselves 
that for three years everything they grew should be 
sold to a local evaporator and preserve factory. The 
result was a large and steady supply of fruit which 
kept the factory busy and made its products famous. 
This attracted new trade, brought business to the 
town and gave every fruit grower a share in the pros¬ 
perity which followed. This plan of cooperating to 
promote some home industry will always succeed if 
fairly managed. 
Both science and song have been invoked to show 
farmers what wonderful friends they have in song 
birds. Fruit growers accepted these statements for 
many years, though they were not always sure of it. 
Since the study of natural things has become more 
general fruit growers have learned to observe closely, 
and they now see that the birds often do far more 
injury in fruit-picking time than they can ever offset 
by good deeds at other seasons. We called for ex¬ 
perience two weeks ago, and reports are rushing in to 
show that many birds are downright thieves. A fruit 
grower is more likely to believe the evidence of his 
own eyes than a statement of what a bird ought to do. 
• 
CoMJTXssiONER of Agriculture Wieting has just 
warned every president of a fair association in New 
York that there is a string tied to the State’s money; 
Any agricultural society, agricultural club or agrj 
cultural exposition which shall knowingly permit any 
immoral, lewd, obscene or indecent show or exhibition, 
use, or knowingly permit the use of any gambling de¬ 
vice, instrument or contrivance in the operation 
of which bets are laid or wagers made, wheel of for¬ 
tune, or the playing or carrying on of any game of 
chance, upon the grounds used by it for, or during, an 
annual meeting, fair or exhibition, shall thereupon forfeit 
its rights to any moneys it would or might be entitled 
to receive under the provisions of this act. 
This official way of saying “Now will you be good!” 
is endorsed by the best farmers. In how many cases 
has the money really been held up? 
• 
PnrOES for good apples are now ruling high—in fact 
all fruit of -feir quality is selling well. As usual, the 
shippers and handlers of apples start in early to talk 
“big crop,” and thus frighten growers into selling at 
a low figure. We understand, of course, that ship¬ 
pers have, or ought to have, the best of facilities for 
estimating the size of the apple crop. We feel sure, 
however, that this year they have put their estimates 
far too high. As Mr. Worth points out on page 601, 
this method of estimating on the “percentage” basis 
is misleading, and gives very little idea of the actual 
supply for the American market. A heavy crop in 
Virginia, for example, would not affect our trade 
greatly, since most of the apples from that section 
are exported. It is still too early to give an accurate 
estimate, for a single high wind might cut the salable 
crop in two, yet we feel confident that the total sup¬ 
ply of good fruit will fail short of last year’s. On the 
basis of actual supply and demand prices ought to 
rule high. 
» 
The farmers of New York begin to realize that they 
can defeat the canal appropriation scheme in Novem¬ 
ber. When the bill passed the Legislature and was 
signed by Gov. Odell farmers were at first inclined to 
be discouraged, for they felt that New York and Buf¬ 
falo were wildly in favor of the scheme. It now ap¬ 
pears that few voters in these cities care anything 
about the canal. The noise is being made by a com¬ 
paratively few wealthy men, most of whom would be 
benefited personally by an enlarged canal. Approach 
5U city voters at random and ask them why they favor 
a barge canal, and it is doubtful whether 40 of them 
have ever given it a thoughu With this indifference 
in the cities against the personal interest which farm¬ 
ers are taking to defeat the appropriation there is 
more than a fighting chance to win. Organize to get 
out the farm vote! 
We have not had a season for years which goes so 
far to prove the bacterial theory of plant food prep¬ 
aration as the present one. It has been observed that 
on some soils which are naturally rich, crops have 
grown slowly if at ail. The reason is that while these 
soils were full of plant food it was mostly in the form 
of humus, and not available until broken up into 
soluble forms. This work is done by bacteria, and 
they do not work until the soil is warm. The pres¬ 
ent season has been so cold that the nitrogen in the 
humus has not been made soluble, and so crops have 
been standing still, when with warmer weather they 
would have made a rapid growth. Even when stable 
manure was used on heavy soils farmers have noticed 
that while crops often started well they stood still 
after making a fair growth. This is explained when 
we understand that manure contains three forms of 
nitrogen—one a nitrate fully available and others re¬ 
quiring, like other organic forms, reasonable warmth 
to fit them for plant food. Thus a crop may have 
used up the nitrates in the manure and then be com¬ 
pelled to stand still waiting for a fresh supply. 
• 
Reih)kts of short crops come from many sections. 
The past season has been a hard one, yet there are 
bright sides to the situation. Prices for most farm 
produce are higher than last year, and are likely to 
remain so. Supplies of food in the country are lower 
than usual—particularly fruits and vegetables, which 
are handled by canning factories. This will ensure 
fair prices, and a demand for all surplus, even should 
several years of fat crops follow this lean one. Hogs 
and some other live stock will most likely he low for 
the next 60 days at least, as there is danger for the 
corn crop, and many will clean out their flocks and 
herds rather than buy high-priced corn for feeding. 
While we pay little attention to the claim that the 
average farmer is enjoying any wonderful prosperity, 
we do not on the other hand believe that he is ruined 
or anywhere near it by this hard season. We find 
farmers here and there who say this is to be the best 
season they have ever known. These men have been 
able to take advantage of the high prices by raising 
a good-sized crop of something that the market de¬ 
mands. Rain or shine, wet or dry. The R. N.-Y. is 
hopeful for the future. The hopeless can never grasp 
opportunity. 
• 
We are now able to judge whether the Grout anti- 
oleo law has proved effective. In the year ending 
June 30, 1902, 126,315,427 pounds of oleo were made. 
Last year (ending June 30, 1903) 71,211,244 pounds 
were made—a decrease of 55,104,183 pounds. In the 
year after this law went into effect the average price 
of creamery butter ranged IVz cent higher than dur¬ 
ing the year before. The year’s output of creamery 
butter in 1900 was 439,954,173 pounds, and if this aver¬ 
age increase in price could hold for all this butter it 
would mean a gain of more than |6,000,000 for dairy¬ 
men. The year has witnessed several efforts of the 
oleo men to break the force of the law, but all have 
been defeated, and there Is now good evidence to show 
that the manufacturers realize that they are near the 
end of their rope in the fraudulent part of their busi¬ 
ness. They are now trying to fill the papers with 
sad stories about the great loss which beef cattle 
farmers will sustain. They claim as they did two 
years ago, that the loss will be from |3 to $5 per head 
on beef cattle when the price of oleo oil goes down. 
The utter nonsense of this claim was fully exposed 
while the hill was before Congress, yet the oleo men 
still make it public. They realize that popular feel¬ 
ing is all against them. They cannot rouse the con¬ 
sumers, for no honest man will champion the cause 
of a counterfeit. So they are trying to gain the sup¬ 
port of the stock growers, but they will fail in this 
because already cattle and hog fats are dull in price, 
because cheaper substitutes have been taking their 
places. When the oleo manufacturers colored cheap 
fats and sold them as butter they made so much profit 
out of the counterfeiting that others saw the profit in 
counterfeiting lard or tallow. Beef growers are not 
foolish enough to support methods which will only 
encourage further competition in imitation fats. It 
seems to us therefore that the oleo men are now ex¬ 
periencing the strange sensation of being forced into 
honesty! 
« 
Somewhbjre in this broad land there dwells a man 
with a great head for devising humbugs. His specialty 
is hens or eggs. His last plan was to write letters 
signed by some benevolent friend who claimed to have 
made hens lay as never before by feeding them a 
simple red powder which anyone could buy! These 
letters were printed in hundreds of daily papers, and 
tons of this so-called egg food were sold in conse¬ 
quence of this advertising. Of course the whole thing 
was a fraud, designed to sell this stuff at a high price. 
Now this bright scamp is at it again. This time it 
is a woman who writes. Nearly dead with consump¬ 
tion she went to California, and finally bought some 
hens. Waiting for hens to lay fresh eggs proved 
somewhat slow, so she learned a wonderful secret of 
preserving eggs. She bought 2,000 dozen eggs at 12 
cents per dozen, preserved them with the famous 
process, and sold them at 34 cents! This was done 
while she was “too weak to sit up all day!” Now she 
is so anxious that other women should share in these 
wonderful profits tkat she will tell them how it is 
done—if they send her 10 cents in stamps. Here is 
a sample of her story: 
We have eggs enough preserved now to make us $900 
each; so you see we have made money, and surely any¬ 
one can do as well as we poor invalids. Start with $20 
and reinvest all the proceeds of it for seven years and 
you will have almost $20,000. Just for amusement, figure 
out what $20 will bring in seven years, at 150 per cent 
compound interest; on eggs you often make 200 per cent. 
At many places you can buy at eight or 10 cents a 
dozen eggs which in Winter sell for 30 or 35; what better 
business do you want? 
Was anything ever devised with more petty mean¬ 
ness tef obtain money from discouraged girls and wo¬ 
men? What can the daily papers be thinking of to 
print such stuff? They probably imagine that eggs 
grow on trees, or are dug out of the ground like pota¬ 
toes. Of course no reader of The R. N.-Y. will be 
deceived by such silly talk, but we have no doubt 
these rogues will make more money in a month than 
50 honest men can make in a year! 
BREVITIES. 
Read the analysis of Clark’s grass method on page 595. 
When it comes to stealing fruit the robin is certainly 
a “bird.” 
The lime-sulphur wash with caustic potash seems to 
be coming. 
Sense beats sentiment because it represents thought 
and experience. 
Dignity Is well enough, but some people have so much 
of it that they cannot dig for facts. 
The Secretary of War has Issued an order prohibiting 
the docking of horses in the public service. 
We have matured seed of the Velvet bean in northern 
New Jersey, but the vines were not large. Our common 
Lima bean made a better fertilizing crop. 
We are asked why the Borden Milk Condensing Com¬ 
pany do not reply to the recent articles on silage and 
conden.sed milk! They have notified us that a full 
answer is being prepared. 
We would not depend upon the growth of sorrel or 
other crops as evidence that soils are acid. Far better 
try the test with litmus paper. When this paper turns 
red when put in damp soil it is a sure indication that 
the soil needs lime. 
Congressman Mudd of Maryland is said to be arguing 
against the free rural mail delivery on the ground that 
it robs people of their privilege of meeting at the post 
office for discussion with their neighbors. Mr. Mudd is 
apparently trying to live up to his name. 
An assistant at an eastern agricultural college has just 
secured a fine position. This Is the comment made by one 
who knows: “Good men to take such places are as scarce 
as hen’s teeth. And it’s not the fault of the agricultural 
colleges, either. It is just simply because really efficient 
men are seldom made.” 
The Philadelphia collector of customs, in his efforts to 
protect our infant industries, recently levied a duty of 20 
per cent upon a mummy, classifying it as an "unenum¬ 
erated manufactured article.” However, the United States 
General Appraisers have decided that mummies may en¬ 
ter free as anatomical preparations, so the price of these 
necessities will not be Increased by the tariff. 
