THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December l2 
856 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FABNER'S PAPER, 
h National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
IIKKBERT W. Cor-LiNGwooD, Editor. 
DK. WALTKll VAN rLKKT, t . . _ 
Mus. K. T. ROYLE, ^Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to Ss. 6(1., 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, ana 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 York. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1903. 
A Color Supplement. 
Next week every subscriber will receive with his 
paper a supplement in the shape of a picture in seven 
colors of the new Crimson Rambler rose Philadelphia. 
The Woman and Home Department will tell you next 
week how it can be framed so as to preserve it and 
make a pretty picture. The rose will be sent to sub¬ 
scribers for the coming year. The publisher, on page 
861, makes a suggestion to use a subscription to The 
R. N.-Y. with the rose as a Christmas present. A pic¬ 
ture of the rose will also be sent such subscribers. In 
the free distribution of this rose subscribers benefit 
in the material production of the Rural Grounds as 
well as in the information acquired in the work. 
n 
We begin this week a discussion of a subject that 
is dear (expensive) to the hearts of fruit-tree buyers— 
“substitution.” The nurserymen will have the first 
chance. We have readers who say that a nurseryman 
has no more right to “substitute” one variety for an¬ 
other than a grocer or a butcher or a hardware dealer 
has to take our money and then give us something 
which we do not want but which he calls “just as 
good.” We shall see what the nurserymen have to 
say to that. 
The hardware dealers are being flooded with cir¬ 
culars urging them to oppose any effort to give the 
people a parcels postage. We ,do not understand why 
hardware dealers should be picked out in this way 
to help fight this needed measure, and we hope they 
will see the wolf’s teeth behind the lamb’s hide. They 
need not be afraid that the “department store” will 
send a stove or a furnace by mail as a “parcel.” The 
size and weight of these parcels will be limited. Back 
of all these efforts to head off the parcels post you 
will find the big express companies. 
• 
The New York State Fruit Growers will meet at 
Geneva on January 6-7. This meeting will be of more 
than ordinary importance. As is well known, this is 
a business association. Its members discuss not only 
methods of growing crops and cultivating the soil, but 
the business side of fruit selling and other public mat¬ 
ters which concern farmers. This year there are sev¬ 
eral important public questions which call for public 
discussion. Every farmer in the State who has a fruit 
tree growing on his farm might well go to Geneva 
and talk over the situation. Numbers count at such a 
gathering. New York fruit growing is a great indus¬ 
try, and nothing but a great crowd can truly repre¬ 
sent it. 
* 
Some country communities have been much annoyed 
by people who sell liquor under what is known as a 
“Government license.” There are many rural places 
where the local sentiment is so strongly opposed to 
liquor selling that no saloon doing business under a 
State license would be permitted. Residents are pre¬ 
pared to enforce strict prohibition of the traffic in 
liquors. It often happens that in such a community 
some one obtains an internal revenue license from the 
United States Government and thus, to a large extent, 
overrides the expressed desire of a large majority of 
the people. A bill now before the United States Sen¬ 
ate seeks to help in such conditions. It provides that 
no one shall receive a “Government” license who can¬ 
not show a license issued by the State or local au¬ 
thorities. Thus in a place where a “local option” vote 
or sentiment had decided that no liquors are to be 
sold it would be impossible for some dealer to defy 
public sentiment as is now frequently done. This bill 
seems to us fair. It should be passed as a just tem¬ 
perance measure which will do much to relieve some 
excellent country neighborhoods from the curse of a 
low groggery. 
* 
Some weeks ago Henry Field, of Iowa, told of rais¬ 
ing 677 bushels of potatoes on an acre. They netted 
27 cents, which gave $165.79 for the acre. Now comes 
F. M. P., of Cayuga Co., N. Y., who tells us on page 
860 how he grew 375 bushels on an acre. These pota¬ 
toes would bring 50 cents at the car. This would 
make $187.50 for one acre. F. M. P. is able to get more 
than this, as the potatoes are good enough for seed, 
and the acre will bring $375 at least. If our western 
friends could bring their rich soil closer to the eastern 
markets there would be more in farming for them. 
Our eastern farmers are better able to get closer to a 
strong soil than the westerners are to get closer to 
the markets. 
* 
Some of those who are responsible for the selection 
of a log cabin for the Maine building at the St. Louis 
Exposition boldly say that hunting and fishing are the 
chief Maine attractions. They want to get people to 
come to the State to shoot and fish and drop some 
money in the pockets of the landlords. The forests of 
Maine do not need all this advertising. What the 
State needs is encouragement for those whose homes 
are there and who cultivate her soil. Maine apples 
are in a class by themselves. Every other State in 
the same latitude has hunting grounds, but where 
can you equal the color and flavor which Nature packs 
into a Maine apple? Maine had a chance to go out 
into the home of Ben Davis and make him ashamed 
of his own family. The most striking “Maine build¬ 
ing” would be a modern farmhouse with apples from 
cellar to garret Give the “sportsmen” a rest—they 
need it—but give the world apples. 
• 
The recent death of Antoine Crozy removes one who 
has done much to beautify the world he lived in, and 
whose work is admired by many who never even heard 
his name. He was one of the most famous of French 
hybridizers, his work of late years being devoted 
chiefly to Gannas. He originated many standard va¬ 
rieties, and though we must not overlook the earnest 
and conscientious work of Ganna hybridizers in our 
own country, such as Antoine Wintzer and others, 
American flower lovers owe a great debt to M. Grozy. 
In addition to his work upon Gannas, he worked suc¬ 
cessfully with Dahlias, Phloxes, poppies, pinks, carna¬ 
tions, and a variety of other garden flowers. Former¬ 
ly at Lyons, France, he spent the later years of his life 
at Hyeres, on the Mediterranean, where the genial cli¬ 
mate is especially favorable to the work of the hybrid¬ 
izer. M. Grozy’s services to horticulture were recog¬ 
nized by the French government, which honored him 
with the dignity of Officier du Merite Agricole, and he 
leaves behind him a lasting monument of character 
and achievement. 
Some of the women who write articles on so-called 
“household economy” for the magazines might well 
be muzzled. Not long ago one of them began a cru¬ 
sade against potatoes and baked beans. Another 
makes all manner of sport of salt pork and bacon, 
while a fresh one now comes forward with the state¬ 
ment that eggs should not be eaten freely. These good 
women surely have never lived on a farm, or they 
would know better than to condemn potatoes, pork, 
beans and eggs—four staple articles of farm food. If 
they could leave their comfortable chairs for a time 
and get out into the cold at the end of a cross-cut saw, 
or at some similar job they would learn something 
about diet which they never can learn from the study 
of a chemist’s tables. A farmer’s open-air life is such 
that he needs an abundance of starch and fat—the fuel 
elements in food—and potatoes and pork properly 
cooked supply these in excellent form. These “house¬ 
hold” editors would do better to learn how farm food 
should be cooked and then tell about it, rather than 
to condemn useful food at random. 
* 
The farm season of 1903 will long be remembered 
as a strange combination of good and evil. The early 
drought stunted crops, and the cold wet Summer 
would not let them grow. Then came the long, mild 
Fall, which induced some farmers to delay putting 
the crops under cover. The “Hon. John Frost” kept 
his pledge longer than most of us thought he could, 
but the “old Jack” in him was too much, and at 
Thanksgiving he came with his friend snow and 
caught thousands of bushels of apples piled in the or¬ 
chards, and thousands of acres of corn unhusked in 
the shock. While this has been a hard and trying sea¬ 
son prices have generally ruled high, and nearly every 
farmer has had some crop that turned out fairly well. 
The shortage of apple barrels has hurt growers in 
western New York and elsewhere. This strange sea¬ 
son has upset a good many calculations. We have in 
years past denounced the methods of an Ohio nursery 
firm which sold so-called “new” varieties of peaches 
at an extravagant price. A number of orchards of 
these varieties were planted, but they were so late that 
not until this year have they ripened more than a few 
specimens. This year the frost held off so long that 
some of these orchards produced a large crop, which 
sold at high prices, since all other peaches were gone. 
It is not likely that the owners of these orchards will 
ever live to see another season when the trees will 
bear, but we believe in giving the devil his due, 
though he seldom pays the dues which belong to 
others! 
* 
Definite facts about the frauds in the Post Office 
Department are at last made public. It seems that for 
several years past a gang of scoundrels have been 
taking advantage of their public positions to rob the 
Government. Most people have supposed that this 
Department was comparatively clear from corruption. 
It has been pointed out as evidence of what the Gov¬ 
ernment can do with other public utilities, like the 
telegraph, telephone or express service. It evidently 
needs a thorough cleaning out, and every rogue who 
has had a hand in Uncle Sam’s pocket should be put 
behind the bars. President Roosevelt makes the fol¬ 
lowing statement, with which every honest man will 
agree; 
In the last resort good laws and good administration 
alike must rest upon the broad basis of sound public 
opinion. A dull public conscience, an easygoing acqui¬ 
escence in corruption, infallibly means debasement in 
public life, and such debasement in the end means the 
ruin of free institutions. Self-government becomes a 
farce if the representatives of the people corrupt others 
or are themselves corrupted. Freedom is not a gift 
which wdll tarry long in the hands of the dishonest or 
of those so foolish or so Incompetent as to tolerate dis¬ 
honesty in their public servants. Under our system all 
power comes from the people, and all punishment rests 
ultimately with the people. The toleration of the wrong, 
not the exposure of the wrong, is the real offence. 
The President must understand, however, that the 
people fully know the difference between words and 
deeds. We do not talk weeds out of a cornfield—the 
hoe beats the tongue at such work. These things can¬ 
not be cured by talking about them. They must be 
cut out, and each cut will let the blood out of a poli¬ 
tician, who will never forget the wound. This “graft,” 
or selling the power of public office for private gain, 
is the most corrupting feature of modern society. 
Every “grafter” high or low should be grafted on to a 
chain gang and kept there. The common people of 
this country will watch President Roosevelt’s course 
in this matter with interest 
BREVITIES. 
liME is money you spend, not earn it, when you loaf. 
Who will agree to return all “Government seeds” this 
year? 
One place where we want a hard face and a hard 
heart is on the road. 
Unhappily gray hairs on the head do not always mean 
gray matter inside it. 
Some men are forced to pay special taxes because they 
will not pay special attention. 
Notice how the apple buyers in the Hood River Valley, 
page 850, apply partial prohibition to the Ben Davis 
apple! 
The wagon tongue steadies a team of horses, but a 
wagging tongue takes all the steadiness out of a team 
of humans. 
At every horticultural meeting this year some expert 
should show how to make the lime and sulphur wash 
with caustic potash. 
Some of the papers call our new brothers on the Isth¬ 
mus Panamanians, and some call them Panamans. How 
about the Pana-womans? 
What about the fellows who “kick” whether there is 
cause or not so as to get more out of it? We believe In 
kicking the kicking habit out of them. 
It is reported that Chicago restaurant keepers will re¬ 
fuse to serve potatoes free with meat orders. That will 
make some difference in the potato trade. 
The trouble about letting most men have “a finger In 
the pie” Is that they want to push the whole hand in 
after It—and the pie isn’t large enough. 
Farmers near New York complain of the usual epi¬ 
demic of chicken-stealing, which begins every year about 
Thanksgiving. What precautions do you take to make 
your henhouse secure against marauders? 
Among arguments in favor of the mule, which may be 
added to those given on page 862, Is the fact that In war¬ 
fare the mule forms a staple article of food, while a 
cut from the most expensive automobile possesses few 
culinary attractions. 
That Illinois farmer on first page, who alludes to nut¬ 
megs, means, of course, nutmeg melons, the contraction 
used being a common term In many localities, but there 
is no reason why American farmers in our tropical pos¬ 
sessions may not be raising real Simon-pure nutmegs be¬ 
fore many years are over. 
