776 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
November 7 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Establisfied 1850 . 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
Or. Walter Va.v Fleet, I 
Mrs. K. T. Uovlb, Associates. 
John' J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the LTniversal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. 6d., or SYz marks, or lOVi 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 trilling 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 Y'ork. 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1903. 
Ten Weeks for Ten Cents. 
Perhaps the one thing more than any other that 
brings The R. N.-Y. so close to its readers is the 
fact that they help make it. It has an interest of 
their own creation. It is the result of a larger num¬ 
ber of an especially intelligent and progressive class 
of business farmers combining together and cooper¬ 
ating with each other, inasmuch as that can be done 
under a mutual organization to spread among its 
members reliable agricultural information, and to 
establish a spokesman or champion of their mutual 
interests. They naturally take it upon themselves to 
report matters of interest, to point out defects, to 
commend features that appeal to them; always to 
encourage and ever anxious to increase the member¬ 
ship. That is what makes the paper grow, and which 
has more than doubled its circulation in three years. 
The membership is yet short of the one hundred 
thousand. Can't you send one or more of those 10 
weeks trials for 10 cents? 
* 
The farmers’ institute “workers” or teachers will 
hold a “Normal institute” this year at Geneva and 
Cornell. The object, as we understand it, is to en¬ 
able the institute speakers to become acquainted with 
the work at station and college, and also give them 
a chance to poljsh up their fund of agricultural 
science before starting out for the Winter. This is 
a good idea_ and it ought to help the institute 
speakers. These gentlemen must remember, however, 
that the average farmer needs their sympathy rather 
more than he needs their science. 
We were told last week why apple barrels are so 
high this year. It seems to be due chiefly to costly 
timber. It may interest fruit growers to know that 
while the price of barrels is soaring there is a tariff 
of 30 per cent on Canadian stave timber! We un¬ 
derstand how some feelings are hurt when even a 
suggestion is fired at a tariff, but of what earthly 
k 
use is this tariff on Canadian barrel stock when 
American barrels are so high? We are using up our 
own timber at a rapid rate. When we are finally 
obliged to go to Canada for it she will have the 
power and excuse for adding an export duty on what 
*we must buy! 
Ix 1790 Samuel Slater built at Pawtucket. R. I. 
the first American cotton mill in which perfected 
machinery was employed. At that time the English 
manufacturers had a monopoly of cotton manufac¬ 
turing, because they controlled the machinery. The 
English law forbid, under heavy penally, the export 
of machinery, models or even plans of machinery 
to the United States. The English were determined 
that this country should not be permitted to com¬ 
pete with them, and it could not so long as Americans 
were unable to use the English machinery. Samuel 
Slater was bound as an apprentice to an English 
manufacturer. He made a thorough study of the 
machinery required until he was able to construct 
it from memory. Then he came to America. While 
the English law might stop the export of actual ma¬ 
chines or models it could not hold up a man’s brain. 
Slater brought his brain here and offered the im¬ 
pressions which memory had written upon it for 
sale. He found backers, built the machines from 
memory, and thus laid the foundation of American 
cotton spinning. There are young men at our 
agricultural colleges to-day who are in one way 
working after the plan of Samuel Slater. There is 
no tariff or embargo on the principle of agricultural 
science, save that Nature lays upon any worker, but 
many of these students, like Slater, have nothing to 
offer but stout hands and a brain with impressions 
which study has carried into it. After faithful work 
and study at the college they go out and offer their 
brains to those who have the capital and the farms 
but lack the knowledge. There is a demand all over 
the country for such skilled brains. Agriculture is 
now developing a new phase—men with capital are 
taking land as an investment as they would buy a 
ship or a factory. There will be no lack of oppor¬ 
tunity for the agricultural college graduate who has 
cultivated hand and heart along with his brain. 
* 
The old question of tlie best season for hauling 
out manure is of more importance to many farmers 
than the building of the Panama Canal. It is hard 
for some men to beljeve that the manure is safe out¬ 
side of the barnyard. Such men leave it there 
and crowd all the work of hauling into the Spring 
season, when other work is pressing. They would 
get just as much out of their manure and do the 
work of hauling cheaper if they would haul^ every 
day or week, as fast as a load is ready. On a level 
sod manure can safely be spread at any time. Even 
on a slope the manure can be left in piles through 
the Winter with little if any loss. It is good 
economy to get this part of the “Spring work” done 
before Spring opens. 
* 
Oh ueah! We seem to have shocked one or two 
dignified people by insisting that farmers should voh: 
irith fhe poHhKjn stamp and insist upon having their 
common rights. Such people would have a farmer 
satisfied to dig and plow and plant and reap so that 
handlers and middlemen may enjoy the fruits of his 
toil, while lawyers and statesmen make laws for 
him. Of course it is too bad to disturb such a beau¬ 
tiful programme, but we shall do alj we can to upset 
it, if need be to enable the farmer to secure what 
belongs tu him. Booker Washington is reported as 
saying that the colored people in the South have a 
song about like this: “Take everything, but leave 
me my Saviour.” The white man seems prepared 
to take the singer at his word! 
During the next three months we may look for 
an increased list of destructive fires in dwelling 
houses, often resulting in some loss of life. Fire 
is no respi?cter of seasons, but cold weather means a. 
heavier strain upon heating apparatus, which may 
perhaps be unequal to the work imposed. Over¬ 
heated stoves are a frequent source of danger; so 
are badly constructed fines and chimneys. Wooden 
fireboards behind stoves are an invitation to dis¬ 
aster; so are wooden mantels just over a stovepipe. 
The lightly-built wooden houses so abundant every¬ 
where are often pretty and convenient firetraps. We 
cannot all build of stone or brick, but we can put a 
little more money in the masonry of the chimney, 
and if stoves are reyed upon for heating we can see 
that they are judiciously placed, and not overworked 
to the danger line. An abundant and accessible water 
supply, at all times a convenience, may mean the 
security of life itself when fire threatens the home. 
* 
Qeo. T. Powell is the first member of the Apple 
Consumers’ League to give his “experience.” Here 
it is: 
While spending two weeks at the Willard Hotel in 
Washington some time since, and finding no baked sweet 
apples on the bill of fare, I asked the head waiter if he 
would have them provided. At the next meal sweet baked 
apples and cream were on the bill of fare. I was given 
a seat at a private table with a man, his wife and his 
children. The lady, observing my ordering, ordered 
baked apples and cream. She found them so delicious 
she told her husband to try them; then the children had 
them, and for the two weeks these were ordered by the 
entire family beside myself twdee a day. With such an 
increase in the use of apples as this in hotels alone, 
hundreds of thousands of barrels of apple.s more would 
be consumed than at the present time. 
That is the point exactly. Thousands of people 
do not know what a good baked apple tastes like. 
They eat foreign-grown oranges or bananas when 
good apples would suit them far better. Mr. Powell 
led those people into better ways of living. Ever 
since then they have been using their teeth to gnaw 
the word “Denwnd” on an apple box! For if a man 
taste a good baked apple at a hotel he will carry the 
taste home with him, and the apple must follow. 
Now, gentlemen what are you doing? How many 
benighted persons have you led up to the apple? 
Have you tongue-grafted apples to any bill of fare? 
Let’s hear from you! 
Ox page 644, Prof. Alwood, of Virginia, told of 
his plan of painting young apple trees with white 
lead and oil to protect them from mice and rabbits. 
Readers would be startled if we were to print all the 
comments which this statement has called out. Few 
have ever tried the paint, and most growers are 
afraid it will kill the trees. Prof. Alwood has prac¬ 
ticed painting for 15 years, and still advises it. 
There you are as between the scientist who has 
tested the practice and advises it and the practical 
grower who is afraid of the paint because he has 
not tried it. What can a fruit grower do but test 
the remedy on a few trees? 
* 
For many years farmers bought fertilizers at 
random. Some of them do so still, but the best in¬ 
formed now study the chemical analysis of the fer¬ 
tilizer, and try to buy nitrogen, potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid instead of “a ton of phosphate.” Fer¬ 
tilizer knowledge is spreading among farmers. The 
ability to understand a chemical analysis and the 
inclination to be guided by it is growing. The value 
of the chemical analysis is also growing. Whe'n the 
first efforts were made to protect the farmer in buy¬ 
ing fertilizers it was considered enough to give the 
per cent of nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid. It 
was found later that in order to distinguish a good 
fertilizer from a poor one it was necessary to 
separate the three forms of nitrogen. It was easy 
to see that a fertilizer containing half its nitrogen 
in the form of nitrates is worth more than one with 
only organic nitrogen. So the chemists developed 
the plan of showing how much of each of the three 
foi-ms, “nitrate,” “ammonia” a'nd “organic,” the fer¬ 
tilizer contains. To the buyers who study out the 
difference between these forms of nitrogen such 
analyses prove very useful. In like manner it was 
soon found that potash in the form of sulphate or 
in wood ashes gives better results in some cases 
than muriate or kainit. This difference is mostly 
due to the salt which is found in the muriate. In 
order to protect buyers the chemists began to state 
in the analyses the amount of chlorine with the 
potash, for this indicated the amount of salt present. 
The phosphoric acid has been separated Into “avail- 
lable” and “insoluble,” but this has never been a 
satisfactory division. Ground bone, which the 
chemist, from his test, might call “Insoljible” will 
decay in the soil and finally become fully availably. 
It appears that manufacturers use large quantities 
of alumina phosphate in mixed fertilizers. This con¬ 
tains over 30 per cent of so-called “available” phos¬ 
phoric acid, and yet on a soil naturally acid it is 
practically out of ^the reach of most plants. From 
these facts it seems evident that we must have a 
better system of estimating the value of phosphoric 
acid in mixed fertilizers. Instead of saying, as has 
been the custom, that one kind of “available” is as 
good as another, the chemists must tell us the forms 
in which phosphoric acid is supplied—the same 
as they do with nitrogen. We are glad to see this 
development in the study of fertilizers. Millions 
have been lost already to farmers through their in¬ 
ability to tell a good fertilizer from a bad one. Any¬ 
thing that will make these things clear to them is 
good, and the scientific men should keep patiently at 
the work of education. 
BREVITIES. 
Bull fighting—beef .scraps. 
What kills most calves? Filth! 
A RABBIT pie makes a good protector for fruit trees. 
A "professor of animal industry” should take the ant 
for his first assistant. 
A BORER in the base of a peach tree will surely obstruct 
the even tenor of its way. 
It is said that capons are sometimes used for hatch¬ 
ing—a sort of setting son. 
Here are three R’s that should go in any man’s edu¬ 
cation-reliability. readiness, righteousness. 
Tobacco is troubled with a wilt disease. The tobacco 
fiend suffers as a result of a won’t disease. 
Let’s all try the experiment of painting a few trees 
with lead and oil, as Prof. Alwood advises. 
One who has the milk of human kindness in his heart 
can raise a good calf with mighty little skim-milk. One 
who lacks it cannot raise a good one with all the milk 
ever known. 
Now it is claimed that the increase in appendicitis in 
England is caused by the heavy consumption of frozen 
meat! What did our ancestors do without this disease? 
Lid it go by some other name? 
Hurrah for Judge C. W. Smith, of Kansas, who ad¬ 
journed court during the harvest season, so that the 
jurors could save their crops, which, he says, are of 
more account than the adjustment of petty quarrels. 
A CAT may kill 20 chickens, but we do not condemn all 
cats because we know they have virtues as well as vices. 
A hawk kills a chicken and we at once decide to kill all 
hawks, though the hawk also has virtues, such as killing 
mice and other vermin. 
