484 
July 14 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKERJ 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS EARNER'S PAPER. 
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. Roylk, ) 
Joun J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 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, 20 cents per line. 
Heading 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 lie made in money order, express order, 
personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY. JULY 14, 1900. 
It is easy to theorize in favor of the plan of selling 
fruit, eggs and vegetables by weight. Where one man 
can make a theory, it is likely to require 1,000 men 
to turn it into a fact. Some of the reasons in favor 
of the change are given on page 480. They are sound, 
yet the new plan will make but slow progress. Where 
the trade has 'been accustomed to peck or dozen for 
many years it is hard to substitute the pound. It was 
hard to start the system of buying milk at the cream¬ 
eries by the pound, yet that was the proper way to 
buy it, and finally habit was changed. So it will be 
with the produce trade—at least, we hope so. 
* 
A recent correspondent comments on the acres of 
white daisies seen through New York State, and asks 
in irony whether the farmers could not make money 
furnishing daisy seed to the seedsmen who supply 
such meadow seeding. This is a case, however, where 
we must not be too ready to blame the seedsmen. All 
through New Jersey, as well as other States, those 
snowy fields of daisies show as a monument to farm¬ 
ers who don’t believe in fertilizers or reseeding as ap¬ 
plied to hayfields. Year after year the hungry fields 
appeal to their owners for a little of the food and 
care advised by Mr. Clark, and year after year the 
impudent daisies hustle the dying grass off the earth. 
One negligent haygrower may thus furnish work for 
several generations. 
* 
In seed buying, it is easy for the farmer to overlook 
the fact that it is cheap or expensive not only because 
it is high or low priced, but according to its actual 
price as good seed. In other words, seed containing 
a quantity of dirt, dead seeds and weed seeds is dear 
at any price. 'Seed-testing experts use the term 
“actual, or net value,” to indicate the proportion of 
seed that is both pure and viable. For example, in a 
bulletin 'issued by the Department of Agriculture, A. 
J. Pieters says that if a sample of clover seed has 9S 
per cent of pure seed, and 90 per cent of this will 
germinate, then the proportion of good seed in the 
entire sample is 90 per cent of 98 per cent, or 88.2 per 
cent, the net value. A sample of Red clover having 
a net value Of 88.2 per cent would give 52.9 pounds to 
the bushel. 
* 
We find some prosperous and healthy farmers who 
are sadly discontented and unhappy. They have good 
homes, farms paid for, and material wants well sup¬ 
plied. You ask them why they are not happy, and in 
many cases they will be unable to tell you. In some 
way life has not turned out as they hoped it would, 
and in the midst of abundant opportunities for se¬ 
curing a blessing they feel that life has been cursed 
instead. One of the most frequent causes for this un¬ 
happiness is a failure with the child crop. Perhaps 
the farmer and his wife are childless, or perhaps the 
children have died—or worse still, have turned out 
badly—a burden and disgrace to the old folks. Such 
things are not uncommon—neither is the empty house 
from which good sons and daughters have gone to 
make homes of their own. Yes, it must be said that 
much of the unhappiness of prosperous farmers past 
middle life is due to disappointments with the child 
crop. The only cure we know of is for such farmers 
to try again with some little child that needs help and 
guidance. The world is well filled with homeless little 
folks who need the love and care that might be so 
oountifully supplied on the farm. How can a farmer 
do more for his country or for himself than by train¬ 
ing a homeless waif into a good and useful citizen? 
Try it—you men who are unhappy in the midst of 
plenty and you women who cannot tell Why your 
heart is heavy when it should be light. 
The dry weather is bringing crops in some locali¬ 
ties dangerously near failure. The hay crop is very 
short, and potatoes are being pinched on the lighter 
soils. Corn stands hot, dry weather better than most 
other farm crops. On our own farm the soil is rather 
heavy, and crops have not yet suffered as they have 
on the lighter sands near by. One trouble with the 
present season is that the ground is so dry and hard 
■that it is almost impossible to fit land for a second 
crop. We would like to plow sod for late cabbage and 
follow the oats with millet, but in such a season the 
ground plows up hard and lumpy, and even with roller 
and harrow it is hard to make a good seed bed. It is 
dangerous to put oil' sowing fodder crops until late in 
the season. 
Western papers state that many women are ap¬ 
plying at employment agencies in the Middle West, 
for work in the harvest fields. These women are 
mainly foreigners, wno have been accustomed to field 
work in Europe. Such work is less difficult and fa¬ 
tiguing to them than the complicated housework of an 
American home. To our ideas, regular field work is 
most repugnant for women, but we must remember 
thaJt the objectionable feature of such toil is not the 
work itself, but that the worker must be mother and 
home-worker, too. She cannot fill both uelds, and do 
justice to herself and others. Many a farmer’s wife 
or daughter helps in the farm work at times, without 
any deterioration of her womanliness, but this is 
vastly different from the case of a woman to whom 
such toil represents her bare livelihood. We do 
not fear that such workers will ever take the place of 
men on our farms. 
* 
^ The New York Department of Agriculture has found 
samples of milk in Buffalo containing formaldehyde. 
This is the stuff we used this year for killing smut 
germs on the seed oats and scab germs on the pota¬ 
toes. 
Formaldehyde is obtained from the oxidization of 
wood alcohol, a deadly poison. Formaldehyde is used 
in medical colleges to embalm subjects for the dissect¬ 
ing table and to preserve from decay such portions of 
anatomy as medical professors and students wish to 
keep for study. The obviousness of the term embalmed 
milk is seen in the fact that formaldehyde is the basis 
of the preservatives sold and used to keep milk in hot 
weather without ice. 
That’s nice stuff to put into milk which is to feed 
children and invalids, and yet there is a large class 
of rascals in the country constantly urging farmers 
to use it. Many townspeople use the stuff also, after 
the milkman has already doctored it. Thus the baby 
often gets a double dose—which quite doubles him up. 
• 
A subscriber in Tennessee makes the following sen¬ 
sible suggestion: 
As you express a willingness to receive suggestions 
from subscribers looking to Improvement of your paper, 
would respectfully offer the following for your consider¬ 
ation: Ascertain by vote which department is most 
popular, then give space and prominence accordingly. 
Also get second and third choice, and be governed as 
to amount of matter by same. Find out whether any 
department should be discontinued. Also, whether any 
new ones should be added. In short, let subscribers say 
just what they want. w. j.' j. 
Johnson City, Tenn. 
We shall be glad to have readers help along this 
line. Many of them have already expressed their 
opinion. The majority of our letters contain bits of 
suggestion so that we are able to tell about what read¬ 
ers prefer in -the way of departments. We shall be 
glad to know more about it, and hope readers will 
express their preferences, as indicated in this note. 
We do not care to offer any prize for “the best opin¬ 
ion,” for we prefer impartial statements. 
* 
The sudden appearance of the Palmer worm and 
-the Green pea-louse in some localities, has revived the 
old question as to where these “new” insects come 
from. We have heard farmers talk about “spontane¬ 
ous production” of these insects as they do about 
spontaneous combustion in the haymow. Others 
have gone so far as to say that the entomologists are 
responsible for these insect outbreaks, as they never 
occurred before the entomologists began to talk about 
them! Farmers who study and think now understand 
that these insects often remain unnoticed for years. 
The conditions of food and shelter are not suitable, 
and so but few of the insects live. At last a season 
comes which is just right for these insects, and mil¬ 
lions of them are bred and fed into activity. They 
become numerous enough to be dangerous, though 
they may have been in the neighborhood for many 
years. Farmers sometimes find fault with the ento¬ 
mologists because they do not dash 'in at a day’s 
notice with a sure method of destroying these pests. 
How can they do so until they learn -the habits of the 
insect, and thus know how to fight it? We must not 
be unreasonable in our demands upon the scientists. 
“I am glad to see you touch up Payne and Wads¬ 
worth on the stand they take regarding the Grout 
bill,” writes a prominent farmer in Central New York. 
We shall continue to “keep in touch” with these men. 
They deserve being touched with a butter paddle in 
the hands of a stout dairyman. Both represent dis¬ 
tricts in which dairying is an important industry. 
Both of them would be salted down in the tub of well- 
earned obscurity but for the votes of the man with 
the cow. Mr. Payne in particular deserves this pad¬ 
dling. He seems to be one of those men who know it 
all. He doesn’t purpose to bother himself with this 
little oleo matter while “great National questions” 
demand his energies! Now the dairymen of Mr. 
Payne’s district do not need these “great National 
questions” half so much as they need a fair chance in 
the butter market. Suppose Mr. Payne had delib¬ 
erately worked against the interests of the town work¬ 
men and storekeepers in his district. He knows very 
well that he would never see Congress again, for this 
town vote would shift against him like a weather- 
vane in the wind. Yet he works directly against the 
interests of his farmer constituents, and then expects 
them to vote for him. Why? Because he reasons 
that they are such strong partisans that they will 
gtand any amount of insult and abuse, and still lick 
the hand that smites them. Now the question is—■ 
has he rightly judged the character of New York State 
dairymen? 
BREVITIES. 
Long, long ago, when eyes grew dim 
And old age stole the sight away. 
Men waited for the darkness grim, 
And said, “No power Its march can stay!” 
Lost sight was but God's justice; still 
Man had no right to change His will. 
But one wise man took bits of glass 
With proper curve and proper swell, 
And let the sunlight through them pass 
Into his eyes—they answered well, 
They rectified his waning sight, 
And saved him from the dread of night. 
They threw the wise man in the fire; 
They smashed his spectacles with speed, 
'Twas sacrilegious to aspire 
To change what Heaven had decreed! 
They burned him: but they could not kill 
His work, 'twas good, ’tis living still. 
Long years have passed men since that time, 
The world has grown in charity. 
And yet, when men with hope sublime, 
Look o’er the heads of you and me, 
To see the truth, we sneer them down, 
With cruel taunt and angry frown: 
We burn them in the fire of hate, 
Yet, constant as in a line of light, 
They live, and, wondrous to relate, 
We follow upward to the right. 
The good, the true is never lost. 
We wait, we sneer—we pay the cost. 
Oh! but It’s dry! 
But little profit in prophecy. 
Laid on the shelf—the hen-pecked husband. 
Do our planning before you strike the field. 
If you have a man’s work to do—go and do it. 
To him who will not use his wit, Nature deals a dose 
of nit. 
The price of Holsteins or Jerseys seems to be a matter 
of locality. 
We have a warm feeling in the heart for ice this 
hot weather. 
“Yours for free air and clean dirt,” writes a Massa¬ 
chusetts reader. 
You may know how to work, but do you know how 
to be wisely lazy? 
It seems strange for us to be planting potatoes at 
the Fourth of July! 
So it is, on the whole, better to keep the barn closed 
when filled with new hay! 
Will the scientific men tell us why the Potato beetles 
were so slow in hatching this year? 
Uncultivated fruit trees do not show the bad effects 
of a drought until the following years. 
With us the Potato beetles seem to prefer the hot 
sun. We find few, if any, in the shade near the woods. 
Many a man thinks he has a good conscience, when 
he is merely the possessor of one that has never been 
used. 
Orchard grass seems to be the fodder crop to grow 
in the shade. Rape does not thrive with us under large 
trees. 
Keep at your Congressman and make him say what 
he will do on December 6, when the Grout anti-oleo bill 
comes up in Congress. Will he vote yes, or no, or dodge? 
Keep at him! 
Here is a report from Orange Co., N. Y.: “Some 
farmers are planting fodder corn. So much corn has 
been planted in this county that our dealers in seed 
corn can hardly supply the demand.” 
A farmer, hard at work, finds what to him are new 
diseases and insects destroying his crops. He writes 
at once to the experiment station for help and receives 
w’ord that the station people are sorry, but the expert 
is off on his vacation, and the crop must go. That’s 
comforting! 
