824 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
November 28 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER, 
h National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes, 
Established 1850. 
Herbeiit W. Coi/Lingwood, Bditor. 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, | 
Mrs. E. T. Koyle, ^ Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCBIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries In the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
ecjual to Ss. Od., or SVz marks, or IOV 2 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, NOVEMBER 28, 1903. 
“Substitution”! We receive complaints every sea¬ 
son from fruit'growers who say that nurserymen ac¬ 
cept their order, take their money, and then “sub¬ 
stitute” or put in certain varieties of their own selec¬ 
tion in place of what the customer really wants. We 
want to hear from parties who have had such substi¬ 
tutes drafted upon them. We want the facts for our 
own information. 
* 
On page 818 Dr. Smead takes a hand in the discus¬ 
sion of the drunken cow question. What have our 
scientific friends to say now? Is there anything left 
for them to say? They may take the floor at any 
time. The learned man often likes to say that what 
the practical^ farmer needs is a clearer knowledge of 
scientific principles. Dr. Smead suggests something 
of an answer which the practical man might make. 
« 
The meeting of the National Grange at Rochester 
was a great success. As most of the proceedings were 
not intended for the general public we have not at¬ 
tempted to give an extended report. Records of the 
proceedings will be carried back to Subordinate 
Granges by the proper officials. At the open meetings 
prominent speakers reviewed the work of the order 
and indicated the way in which the power of the 
Grange may be exerted for public good. We are safe 
in saying that no public convention has met this year 
representing stronger or more practical uplifting 
forces in American society than this meeting of the 
National Grange. It is growing slowly but powerfully 
—as an oak tree ought to grow. 
* 
A WELL-KNOWN specialist remarked, while looking 
at the Chrysanthemums recently shown in New York, 
that some of the finest new varieties now appearing 
owe their origin to Australia. It is strange that a 
flow^er should first see the light in Melbourne or Syd¬ 
ney, prove its value in England, and then come here 
to take a prominent place in American floriculture. 
Australians are, however, ardent flower fanciers, and 
their climate appears particularly favorable to experi¬ 
ments in hybridization. Chrysanthemums of Austra¬ 
lian origin are marked by great vigor of constitution, 
naturally resulting in fine foliage, purity of color and 
finish of flower. It is quite possible that the dry at¬ 
mosphere and brilliant sun at the time when Chrys¬ 
anthemums are ripening their pollen and maturing 
seed has much to do with this vigor. As yet we know 
little of the floricultural possibilities that lie under 
the Southern Cross; the future may unfold many sur¬ 
prises, not only in Chrysanthemums. Seed growing in 
many lines certainly seems one of the future indus¬ 
tries of Australasia. 
* 
The farmers’ institutes in southern New Jersey 
bring out some remarkabl^e reports of farm success. 
The soil in that section is light—a farmer in the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley would hardly consider it worth culti¬ 
vating—yet hundreds of farmers have sold this year 
over $100 worth of farm produce for each acre of the 
farm. Some of the smaller farmers have cleared more 
than this as net profit. At the Swedesboro institute 
one farmer made the following statement: “When 
the early drought was burning us up the papers all 
said that the south Jersey farmers were ‘broke.’ Now 
at the end of the season the banks are bursting to 
hold our money!” It is a mystery to farmers from 
other sections how this thin, warm land can be made 
to produce such crops. They do not realize how this 
soil is fed. It is stuffed with well-rotted stable ma¬ 
nure, or heavily dressed with high-grade fertilizers. 
This light land is quickly and easily worked, and it 
responds tp good culture. Where green crops are 
plowed in this sandy soil holds moisture far better 
than one would think possible to look at it. The ten¬ 
dency in this section is to concentrate the work and 
plant food upon small farms. As a rule the small 
farmers are most prosperous, for they can give per¬ 
sonal attention to every crop. 
* 
Secretary F. D. Coburn of the Kansas State Board 
of Agriculture makes the following remarks: 
It passeth understanding why theft by a cow should 
be tolerated more than theft by a human. In effect, the 
result to the loser in either case is the same. Our Gov¬ 
ernment has found it wisdom to study and establish far- 
reaching methods for the detection and the repression 
of the latter; and by the same token why should our 
farmers and dairymen be less vigilant in regard to this 
possible proclivity in their cow's—beasts described as 
dumb, yet outwitting their owners? 
The truth is that the cow doesn’t do the stealing 
half as much as the man who feeds her. In most 
cases the man feeds the cow an unbalanced ration 
with which the cow cannot possibly do her best. 
Think of a man feeding a cow on cornstalks, Timothy 
hay and cornmeal, and then finding fault because she 
does not make a pail full of milk. When a man robs 
himself he has no right to kick the cow. He should 
hire some big scientific man to kick where the blow 
will do the most good. There are plenty of “scrub” 
cows in this world. Some of them, if well fed, would 
shame the performance of their pedigreed sisters. 
“Theft” by such cows is tolerated because their own¬ 
ers do the stealing and the cows have no power to 
carry the proof “higher up.” Will such men learn 
wisdom from pedigreed cows? 
* 
Liitle things show how carefully The R. N.-Y. is 
read, and what a wide range of readers it has. A few 
weeks ago the Hope Farm man told how his children 
were discussing Indians and their doings. That was 
read by a man far out on an Indian reservation in 
the West. He writes to assure us that the modern 
Indian is learning to walk in “the white man’s road.” 
We hope the red man will be taught to pass by some 
of the corners where the white man stops to loaf, but 
we must admit that it is hardly fair to give a modern 
child a one-sided idea of the Indian’s character. We 
have a letter from another man who says that he 
took a short term subscription for The R. N.-Y. and 
turned it over to the farm hands. He is a stock 
breeder and assumed without much examination that 
The R. N.-Y. wohld not be of great value to one in his 
business. To his surprise he finds that the paper is 
carefully studied by all his people, and he concludes 
that if it has the power to interest readers in this way 
it must prove a good advertising medium for stock. 
He will find that this idea is correct. Readers of The 
R. N.-Y. are business farmers—intelligent and progres¬ 
sive. When they buy live stock at all they want the 
best. The papers which make a specialty of liye 
stock are crowded with breeders’ cards, so that com¬ 
petition for the patronage which readers have to offer 
is very close. It ought to be easy for a live stock ad¬ 
vertiser to see that when he comes before our readers 
it is like driving his cow into a rich new pasture, 
where the grass has not been bitten close! 
* 
Some of the labor unions in this city recently con¬ 
sidered the fine ethical point involved where a wo¬ 
man sews an appliquS section upon her husband’s 
trousers with her own non-union hands, instead of 
entrusting it to organized labor. From the stand¬ 
point of the labor trust the woman who cuts down her 
husband’s coat for Johnny, without a permit from 
the tailors’ union, makes petticoats for Mollie with¬ 
out consulting the united garment workers, cljps the 
baby’s hair without a barber’s card, and feeds her 
family upon the good things mother used to make, all 
without a union label, is a stumbling block in the 
path of progress. It seemed, however, when under 
discussion, that while some enthusiastic and obviously 
unmarried members were disposed to forbid “scab” 
labor in the home, as without, those chastened by 
domestic experience doubted the wisdom of carrying 
their principles within those sacred precints. In 
other words, the power of the union may stop trans- 
IKH’tation or defy capital, but when it meets the eter¬ 
nal feminine it doesn’t go. Our own private opinion 
(with the highest respect for those l^bor leaders who 
are honestly trying to improve conditions) is that they 
just “don’t dast” bring the labor question into the 
home. If they do, some woman is going to get up 
among the eight-hour-a-day toilers to remind them 
that she often works 18, and soothes a fretful baby 
during the other six. Talk about the suffering in¬ 
duced by a long struggle like the big coal strike! Just 
think what would happen if the wives and mothers 
ever organize a sympathetic strike! There are cases 
where it is well to let sleeping dogs lie. Until the 
women rise in their might and organize the Universal 
Union of Amalgamated Housewives, their husbands 
may well tread softly, and thank Heaven kindly that 
their buttons are kept in place, even by the unhal¬ 
lowed work of non-union hands. 
* 
In a recent speech upon improving the condition of 
the city poor, Mr. De Forest, New York’s tenement 
house commissioner, referred to a fire which, last 
month, caused the death of 25 persons in this city. It 
occurred in ine cellar of an old-style tenement, start¬ 
ing in a wooden bin, spreading to a wooden floor, and 
thence to a wooden stairway, which acted as a flue. 
Most of the dead were suffocated by smoke; the 
prompt work of the firemen prevented their crema¬ 
tion, but not their death. In a new tenement, built 
in accordance with the new building laws, it was as¬ 
serted that such a fire would be impossible, as a floor 
of concrete or other fireproof material must be above 
the cellar, and the stairway would be entirely fire¬ 
proof. Mr. De Forest said that he had recently been 
called upon to investigate a complaint that the Italian 
children in a new tenement were amusing themselves 
by building bonfires on the stairs. When he uttered 
a gentle remonstrance to the mothers, those ladies 
shrugged their shoulders cheerfully and remarked: 
“No hurta; all stona—like streeta.” Without endors¬ 
ing this point of view, it may be confidently asserted 
that the growing use of concrete in building will do 
much to lessen fire risks. Where heating apparatus 
is in the cellar, a fireproof floor above it seems a vital 
necessity. 
* 
If the State of Maine wants to make a back-handed 
exhibit of how not to do it at St. Louis it should box 
up a few “commissioners” and put them where all can 
see. The Legislature appropriated $40,000 for a State 
exhibit. The officers of the Bornological Society at 
once asked for $5,000 for the purpose of making a 
great exhibit of apples and other fruits. Their re¬ 
quest was pigeon-holed and they have been put off- 
again and again until it is now too late to prepare the 
fruit. The “commissioners” intend to build a log 
cabin for the Maine building at St. Louis. Could there 
be greater nonsense than offering a log cabin as rep- 
lesentative of the civilization of one of the oldest 
States in the Union? Maine people do not care to ap¬ 
pear before the West like a Rip Van Winkle still 
asleep, after a nap of two centuries! They want to 
show the West what Maine is to-day, and what her 
soil can produce that is unique and characteristic of 
it. There are dozens of other States that produce 
lumber and ice and game, but where can you go to 
find such apples as are grown in parts of the old Pino 
Tree State? If these stupid “commissioners” did but 
know it, the most striking exhibit they could possibly 
make would be a great collection of Maine apples. Out 
in the home of the Ben Davis this sun-painted and 
high-flavored fruit would command attention. One 
would think that these “commissioners” had a 
“strike” of another sort in mind. It is a shame that 
the appropriation should have been put in the hands 
of such men. We sympathize with the worthy officers 
of the Bornological Society in their disgust at such 
outrageous conduct. 
BREVITIES. 
Sound advice may be silence. 
Tobacco waste—the money spent for it. 
Condense the news if you would spread it. 
Think what you do when you spoil a child! 
Read the sweet corn notes under Ruralisms. 
Advice becomes a vice when you give too much of it. 
The Asparagus rust is doing great damage in Cali¬ 
fornia. 
Russia is to have an agricultural high school for 
women. 
By their fruits ye know fruit growers; by their brutes 
yo know dairymen. 
Cream of tartar is made from the dregs of wine. Some 
people catch a tartar from the dregs of whine! 
Is it the man behind the cow or the man in front of 
the cow who does the business—feeder or milker? 
Have any readers tried the experiment of preserving 
eggs in liquid glass (silicate of soda)? If so, we would 
like to hear from them! 
Remember, boy, that there is more muscle in skim- 
milk than in cream. Those who live on the “fat of the 
land” may die at a streak of the lean. 
We hear of a case where a gas engine is mounted on 
a stone boat with a barrel of water to make weight, and 
hauled about from place to place on the farm. 
“Applied Christianity means good government,” said 
Jacob A. Riis in a recent speech on behalf of the tene¬ 
ment dwellers of New York. First of all, self-government! 
A farmer goes into a muck swamp and drains it by 
digging ditches so that the water will run off. He hauls 
the muck dug out of these ditches up on the higher 
ground and spreads it, or puts it in a compost. By so 
doing he puts veins in the swamp and adds life blood to 
the upper fields. Who comes nearer to eating cake and 
having it than that? 
