56 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 2 * 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PARER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, j 
H. E. Van Deman, > Associates. 
Mrs. E. T. Royle, j 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 82.04, equal to 
8s. 6d., or 8{4 marks, or 10>4 francs. 
ADVERTISING RATES. 
Thirty cents per agate line (14 lines to the inch). Yearly orders 
of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 25 cents per line. 
Reading Notices, ending with “Adv.,” 75 cents per 
count line. Absolutely One Price Only. 
Advertisements inserted only for responsible and honorable houses 
We must have copy one week before the date of issue. 
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, JANUARY 27, 1900. 
Trouble is likely to arise when the State Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture attempts to enforce the law regu¬ 
lating the size of fruit packages. A crate of straw¬ 
berries packed in “short” boxes and sent here from 
New Jersey would probably come under the “original 
package” exemption, and could, doubtless, be sold, 
much the same as oleo is now sold in original pack¬ 
ages. This makes it all the more necessary that near¬ 
by States should enact and enforce a law similar to 
the one now in force here. 
* 
A delegation of merchants from Porto Rico has 
come to ask President McKinley for free trade in the 
products of the Island. They desire sugar, tobacco 
and cocoanuts admitted free of duty. They say that 
free trade would greatly stimulate the business of 
their Island. On the other hand, the tobacco growers 
of New England and the sugar beet growers say that 
free trade in their products will mean ruin. There 
are many Congressmen who will be placed in a tough 
position when the time comes for a vote on the reci¬ 
procity treaties. To our notion a New England Amer- 
' ican is more worthy of consideration tnan a West 
Indian Spaniard! 
* 
Nearly all the carbolic acid used in this country is 
made in England, and recently the British govern¬ 
ment issued an order forbidding further export of the 
acid. The reason given is that the entire stock now 
on hand, and all that will be produced for some time 
to come, is needed in the manufacture of picric acid, 
from which the explosive lyddite is made. Conse¬ 
quently, the acid is likely to increase in price here. It 
is largely used in medicine and the arts, but, owing 
to the number of suicides through its agency, in sev¬ 
eral large cities, the authorities have been discussing 
restrictions on its sale, it is usually sold without 
question, though an acutely corrosive poison. 
* 
9 
Not a week passes without our receiving several 
letters from persons who wish to breed skunks for 
their fur. Several years ago, in an unlucky hour, we 
printed an account of a skunk farm in Livingston Co., 
N. Y. That article surely had strength, for its mem¬ 
ory is still vigorous. This farm was closed out short¬ 
ly after our article was printed. It was declared a 
nuisance by the neighbors. Skunks will not thrive in 
captivity, and we regard the scheme of breeding them 
successfully in colonies as out of the question. We 
have but one word of advice about skunk farming— 
DON’T! We wish we could make noise enough with 
that word to stop some of the people who are evi¬ 
dently bent on throwing their money away. 
* 
There is a set of sharpers from a western State now 
selling nursery trees in western New York. The 
public was warned against them in The R. N.-Y. two 
years ago, but they have been flourishing in some sec¬ 
tions, especially in Wayne and other counties south 
of Lake Ontario. Their special effort is to sell the 
Deaconess, Saint Clair and Daniel Boone peaches, 
which are varieties almost unheard of by the most 
advanced fruit growers and experimenters of the 
country. A few of the trees were sold one and two 
years ago, and a very few of the oldest bore speci¬ 
mens of fruit last year. In one case a tree in Wayne 
County, sold under the name Deaconess, bore a very 
small, late and inferior peacn. In another case a 
small early peach was produced that was thought by 
a good judge to be Triumph. In still another lot of 
trees labels were found attached to some of the bun¬ 
dles which bore the name Elberta. This is one of 
the old varieties, and a very good one withal, but the 
finding of these labels in addition to the others, 
proved that the trees had been changed in name. The 
price asked is $15 per 100, which is about twice that of 
first-class trees of the best standard varieties that 
are known to be profitable for either home or market 
purposes, it would be unwise to plant largely of any 
new variety until after it had been well tested, no 
matter how honorable the persons offering it might 
be; yet in some cases 1,000 and more trees were 
planted of the three kinds mentioned. 
* 
Piobably most of our readers have read In His 
Steps. This is the story of what befel certain men 
and women who tried the experiment of doing from 
day to day just what Christ would have done, had 
He been in their place! They tried to employ their 
talents and opportunities entirely along that line. It 
is a remarkable and quite probable story of how the 
world regards the practical enforcement of hign 
ideals. What would happen if our scientists and 
practical men who represent the farmer in agricul¬ 
tural college, experiment station and farmers’ insti¬ 
tute, were to follow In His Steps? We will leave the 
suggestion with some of them as good food for re¬ 
flection. 
• 
Our horticultural friends make short work of that 
nurseryman’s scheme, which is exposed on page 51. 
In spite of such warnings, it is probable that hun¬ 
dreds of farmers will fall into the trap. These ras¬ 
cals are careful not to go near a man who would 
read The R. N.-Y. or consult the experiment station. 
The people who are bitten by these wolves are usually 
the class who have no use for a true agricultural 
paper. Sometimes a man who ought to know better 
fails into such a trap. Sometimes they are even greater 
rogues than the agent, for they sign the papers (for a 
consideration), in order to induce others to do so. 
Our advice is either to give such rogues a wide berth, 
or to get close enough to them to do a fine job at 
boot grafting! 
ik 
Several oi our friends have written to The R. 
N.-Y., asking that we give an authoritative opinion on 
the question as to when the twentieth century be¬ 
gins. Computing centuries, either numerically or 
upon a bicycle, is not much in our line, but it is our 
unalterable opinion that we are now passing through 
the last year of the nineteenth century, and that we 
are not entitled to offer a twentieth-century impres¬ 
sion until January 1, 1901. Our dates are ordinal nu¬ 
merals, indicating the day, the month, the year, or 
the century that is passing, not the numbers that are 
past If our friends who do not accept this view will 
try to make change for a $20 bill on the same prin¬ 
ciple as that they use in computing the century, we 
think they will decide that the result is the short¬ 
change fraud known in the language of police circles 
as the “flim-flam game.” There are 100 years in a 
century. That is evident. We cannot be said to have 
completed 19 centuries until we have completed 1900 
years. 
* 
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company offers to pen¬ 
sion all its employees who have given the Company 
30 years’ faithful service. The pensions are computed 
at one per cent of the average wages for the whole 
term of service, and will amount to from $8 to $40 
per month, according to grade and the amount of 
earnings. It is said that the immediate cost to the 
railroad company will be $300,000 per year, with a 
continued increase for some time. The uark side of 
the arrangement lies in the ruling that hereafter no 
person will be given employment who has passed the 
age of 35 years, thus shutting cut many well-trained 
employees who may be so unfortunate as to lose 
their situations on other roads, but is necessary so 
that all new employees may be young enough to have 
a reasonable hope of completing the 30 years’ term of 
service. The Pennsylvania Company has not adopt¬ 
ed this policy from philanthropy, but as a business 
feature. They feel that it will secure them trust¬ 
worthy and efficient service, and in the end return 
more than it costs. If more large employers of labor 
would adopt this humane policy there would be less 
tension of feeling between the representatives of con¬ 
centrated capital and the unnumbered mass of people 
who have nothing but their labor to sell. Many of 
the great corporations seem to regard the employee as 
a human lemon, to be squeezed dry by a few hurried 
years of scantily-paid labor during the most efficient 
years of life, and then tossed aside like a worthless 
rind. The subject of old age and disability pensions 
for all laborers and producers is earnestly occupying 
the attention of such governments as those of Swit¬ 
zerland, New Zealand, and some of the Australian 
Colonies. Among the very last to claim the benefit of 
a general old-age pension the farmers would prob¬ 
ably be found, as they are still the most independent 
and self-reliant of all producers, yet it is hard to find 
a more deserving individual than the farner or farm 
laborer who has for 30 years effectively tilled the 
soil—who has produced a veritable mine of wealth for 
the community, and leaves the land Detter than be¬ 
fore, ana has yet faileu to amass a competence. If 
anyone is deserving of the comfort and assurance of 
a pension in the declining years of an honorable life, 
it certainly should be the faithful cultivator of the 
soil. 
* 
There was quite a discussion over free rural mail 
delivery in Congress the other day. The Post Office 
Department called for $150,000 additional appropria¬ 
tion. The Department has of its own accord spent 
$50,000 more than the authorized appropriation, and 
wants $100,000 more with which to extend the ser¬ 
vice. A curious thing came out in the discussion. 
Several speakers found fault with the Department for 
spending more than it should, and yet they all said 
that they would vote for the appropriation. Why? 
Because the people in their districts demanded free 
rural delivery. Their constituents had told them in 
no uncertain words that they wanted this service ex¬ 
tended, and every man with a farmer in his district 
knew what was expected of him. Congressmen who 
find that the climate of Washington agrees with their 
health seldom do the unexpected, for they like to 
please the man with the vote. There is a lesson here 
for those of us who want those oleo bills put through 
Congress. Give your Congressman to understand 
what is expected of him. Write him a letter from 
home. 
* 
BREVITIES. 
The farmer is “a country jake,” 
When snow lies deep on wintry hills. 
When flowers their vacation take, 
And hushed the song of murmuring rills. 
And many a quip behind his back, 
The city relative doth crack. 
But when the warm sun starts the grass, 
A mighty change doth come to pass; 
The “country jake” becomes a king, 
The relative his praise doth sing. 
And out upon the farm ere long 
He comes a hundred thousand strong. 
The liar is a two-storied man. 
The scratching leg leads to the hatching egg. 
Sense makes dollars, but do dollars make sense? 
A horse rare-dish—oats for the minister’s horse. 
Don’t waste money trying to make the silo frost-proof. 
The “open door!” Is it an entrance or an exit for the 
farmer? 
The farmer should turn a few by-products into buy- 
products. 
The song of the wind through the pines is always at the 
right pitch. 
You make no mistake when you call a cough mixture 
a draught-hoarse. 
Strange, but the more “sand” we use on life’s path¬ 
way the easier is the road. 
Correct you are, you must sit down hard on some 
folks who set themselves up. 
A bill before the New York Legislature would estab¬ 
lish a State hospital for consumptives in the Adirondacks. 
A fertilizer factory that ne’er was known to fail, is 
found in Mrs. Cow’s good hide —it runs from tongue to 
tail. 
An ordinary woodchuck would chuckle if he could read 
all the letters that are coming about that article on 
page 17. 
Danish farmers show little respect for the cow that 
pays the rent, when they are willing to ship all their 
butter abroad, and eat oleo themselves. 
The statement is made that a wellbred sow will earn 
more money than a cow. We want records of cows and 
sows in order to settle the matter. Who will send us the 
figures? 
“I find an old ax and a block of hard wood a pretty 
good bone cutter. It answers for all the bones we get 
here," says a friend who keeps a little flock of 22 profit¬ 
able hens. 
Humane Chicagoans are advocating rubbers for horses, 
and a good many animals have been equipped with them 
this Winter. They seem a better preventive of slipping 
than sharpened shoes. 
During the past five years, 60 per cent of all the farm 
products exported from this country were sold to John 
Bull, who is our largest customer. This includes the 
United Kingdom and the British colonies. 
Dame Nature should reorganize the noisy celebration 
that follows when an egg is born; she should make calcu¬ 
lation to let the hen produce the crow and let the rooster 
tackle the advertising agent’s part—the shrill and eager 
cackle. 
Oh for the mellow April days, when gay-plumed roosters 
strut, the while their busy wives exclaim, Ah-kut-kut, ker 
der kut! While on the glowing kitchen stove the tooth¬ 
some hen fruit fry, and from the pantry comes a whiff 
of mother’s custard pie! 
The Pennsylvania Editors’ Association declared that 
the paper trust is responsible for the increase in the price 
of white paper. Like sensible men they say that neither 
this nor any other trust should enjoy the benefit of a 
tariff or other Government favors. 
i 
