548 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 11 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, I 
H. E. Van Deman, VAssociates. 
Mrs. E. T. Royle, ) 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 82.04, equal to 
8 s. 6d., or 8* *4 marks, or 10*4 francs. 
ADVERTISING RATES. 
Thirty cents per agate line (141 nes 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, AUGUST 11, 1900. 
The New Jersey State Dairy Commissioner has 
been investigating the milk supply at a number of 
the seashore resorts near Long Branch. Out of 35 
samples examined recently, 15 contained formalde¬ 
hyde, and prosecutions will follow. That is good, but 
why not use formaldehyde on some of the oleo rogues 
in Jersey? That would be a legitimate use for the 
poison. 
* 
Tiie Supreme Court of Massachusetts has decided 
that a bicycle is more properly a machine than a 
carriage, and has therefore reversed the decision of a 
lower court awarding $850 to a woman who had 
wrecked her wheel and injured herself in riding over 
a depression in the highway. The Supreme Court 
holds that it would impose an intolerable burden 
upon towns to hold them bound to keep their roads 
in such a state of repair and smoothness that a 
bicycle could go over them with assured safety. 
* 
The recent diplomatic agreement with Germany re¬ 
moves the vexatious inspection of dried and evapo¬ 
rated fruits from the United States. The State Depart¬ 
ment has been working for two years to convince 
the German government that such fruit could not 
carry the San Jos§ scale, being seconded in this ef¬ 
fort by leading German commercial associations. The 
system of inspection greatly hampered our trade in 
dried fruits, and its removal is of much benefit to 
American fruit interests. 
* 
This promises to be a great season for the tree 
shark. The nursery fraud will be abroad with his 
tongue well oiled, fresh paint on his samples, and 
whitewash on his conscience. He has a new volume 
of “fake” stories, “model orchards,” peaches that rea¬ 
sonable humans never heard of, apples grafted by 
some wonderful new process, and many other things 
will be proposed. One firm claims to be working with 
the State experiment station! Now wouldn’t you 
think it a great waste of space to keep warning the 
public against these rascals? It does seem so, and 
yet day after day, and week after week, these frauds 
capture their victims. 
* 
The “White Man’s Burden,” which is only a poet¬ 
ical name for the white man’s propensity to meddle 
with the religion and customs of races he assumes to 
be weaker in military power than his own, is to be 
increased by the task of conquering China and re¬ 
generating that peaceful agricultural nation after the 
modern commercial model. After 60 years of bullying 
by the trading nations of Europe, not unassisted by 
the United States, the tolerant people of China have 
oeen induced to rise against foreigners, and many 
outrages have been reported, but the worst has not 
been confirmed at this writing. Fortunately we had 
an admiral in Chinese waters who possessed the 
good sense to refrain from any act of war, except 
to land troops for the relief of the foreign Ministers 
who are shut up in Peking, and our Washington Ad¬ 
ministration is showing much more self-restraint in 
the whole matter than some of the military nations 
also concerned in the outbreak. While it is the duty 
of our country to enforce full reparation for injuries 
to the person or property of Americans in China, it 
is evident that beyond that we will not join in any 
war of revenge or destruction against a distant na¬ 
tion comprising nearly one-third of the human race, 
and against which we have not any really serious 
grievance. The truculent military nations of Europe 
may mean mischief for China, but it will be well for 
us to keep out of the tangle. 
Properly used, Paris-green is sure death to Cabbage 
worms, and is little, if any, more dangerous than 
when used on potato vines to kill the beetles. Some 
growers use Paris-green combined with flour or air- 
slaked lime, but they dislike letting it be known that 
they use this material, probably because they cannot 
overcome the prejudice of the consumer regarding 
Paris-green. Undoubtedly if it were known that any 
one section of the country made a practice of using 
Paris-green regularly to control Cabbage worms, 
dealers who handle cabbage from other sections 
would take advantage of the fact to destroy the mar¬ 
ket for that' section. Hence it is necessary to use 
arsenic under some other name than Paris-green in 
order to conceal the fact of its use, and one of the 
high-priced patent “bug killers” is secured. One of 
the favorite methods of beating the devil around the 
bush is to change his name as occasion demands. 
* 
An oleo manufacturer in Chicago refuses to pro¬ 
duce his books because they “contain incriminating 
evidence.” The law says that the Government officers 
shall have access to the books of dealers. The judge 
holds that this law is unconstitutional, and the Su¬ 
preme Court must settle it. This merely shows that 
the oleo men are not quite the angels some folks 
would have us believe. Congressman Wadsworth, 
of New York State, thought the Grout bill was not 
needed because the oleo men would be willing to do 
their part if given “fair treatment.” What nonsense! 
Here they are now admitting that their own books 
would convict them! Some of the Dapers in Mr. 
Wadsworth’s district are making plausible statements 
about his honest butter record. As a public man he 
ought to know by this time that the heavy direct tax 
on yellow oleo is the only way to force the manu¬ 
facturers to sell their product for just what it is, and 
also the only way to enable the consumer to buy it 
at a fair price—if he wants to do so. 
* 
Tuesday, August 7, is the time when the rural com¬ 
munities of the Empire State select the men who are 
to administer the school affairs for the ensuing year. 
Would that these rural school meetings might select 
men who are in touch with modern progress, and who 
are at heart in sympathy with true education, and 
qualified to decide what is for the best educational 
interests of their schools! Such men are not always 
selected. Our schools are criticised from many direc¬ 
tions, and perhaps with cause. But is it not true that 
the schools are, after all, fully as good as the inhabi¬ 
tants, as a whole, want them to be? These schools 
are by no means unimportant. There are many ways 
in which the rural school has an advantage over the 
graded village or city school, when the teacher, the 
parents, and the public are all interested along the 
same lines, and work together to help each other. 
There are poor teachers, no doubt, but we believe the 
frequent change of teachers in country schools com¬ 
monly does more to retard the school’s progress, than 
any other one thing except, perhaps, the indifference 
of the public. 
■k 
The following little note is not a bad illustration 
of what follows when a writer becomes wedded to 
large words and certain fixed forms of expression: 
“If I were to give you an orange,” said Judge Foote, of 
Topeka, “ I would simply say: ‘I give you the orange,’ 
but should the transaction be intrusted to a lawyer to put 
in writing he would adopt this form: ‘I hereby give, grant 
and convey to you all my interest, right, title and ad¬ 
vantage of and in said orange, together with its rind, 
skin, juice, pulp and pits; and all rights and advantage 
therein, with full power to bite, suck, or otherwise eat 
the same, or give away with or without the rind, skin, 
juice, pulp or pits; anything hereinbefore or in any other 
deed or deeds, instruments of any nature or kind what¬ 
soever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.’ ” 
We might give quotations from some bulletins or 
articles on agricultural topics that would rival this 
“conveyance of an orange,” in useless words. When 
the lawyer gets through, however, we feel sure of one 
thing, at least—that is, he has tied so many words 
around the orange that no one can pull it away from 
us. When the scientific man gets through we are not 
always sure about it. His words may be like thorns 
to make it harder for us to tear out the real meat 
of the question. Many bulletins are prepared for 
scientific workers or for the more intelligent class of 
farmers. You might just as well talk algebra to a 
boy who has not mastered square root as to expect 
tnese bulletins to answer the life problems of seven 
farmers out of 10. But is it the business of these 
scientific workers to get down close to the “plain 
people”? Can they not do better work by digging and 
sorting out the facts and leaving primer science to 
others? Very likely they can, provided they will un¬ 
derstand the situation and realize that they need 
practical middlemen to make their science soluble and 
pass it along to the busy folks who need it. 
We have often spoken of the possibilities of im¬ 
proved machinery. We have a set of potato-growing 
tools with which two men, each with only one leg, 
could do all the work of growing and digging 3,000 
bushels of potatoes. This would include plowing, har¬ 
rowing, weeding, cultivating, “bugging” and digging. 
The crop would not be as clean of weeds as we would 
like, but it could all be done without walking a step. 
No, two men each with one arm could not do it, for 
the hand is closer to the brain than the foot. The 
following actual record from Kansas is perhaps more 
remarkable: 
Notwithstanding the fact that he is an invalid, T. J. 
Duncan rented 190 acres of wheat ground last Fall, and 
his children, a girl of 16 years of age and a boy 14 years 
old, plowed the ground with riding plows, the girl har¬ 
rowed it, and the boy followed with the drill. A man 
w'as hired to run the harvester, the children doing most 
of the remainder of the work. The thrashing was com¬ 
pleted recently, and the 190 acres yielded 4,000 bushels of 
61-pound wheat. 
That is a pretty good record for a sick man. So 
many foolish “fakes” have been printed about Kan¬ 
sas, that we are glad to give a helpful fact. 
* 
When a man gets so far-sighted that he needs the 
tongs to hold a newspaper at a readable distance 
from his eyes, he ought to have glasses. The hobby 
of a certain farmer is: “Get close to your work.” His 
horses work with short traces, hauling the load 
easier. When handling a lever, he puts the fulcrum 
as near as possible to the weight to be lifted, getting 
a short purchase. He keeps a watch on the seasons, 
and grabs the plowing, sowing and harvesting by 
the coat collar before they can lag behind; chases a 
year’s supply of fuel into the woodhouse in Winter, be¬ 
sides cutting logs enough to make lumber of all sorts 
for the workshop, through which crippled farm tools 
are run on stormy days; and is in close touch with 
the markets, selling his products at the best prices. 
A storekeeper in the same vicinity worked on the op¬ 
posite plan, doing everything at long range. The 
store was left in the care (?) of clerks, while he 
fished or hunted. The business fizzled out. Some 
methods of reform are as ridiculous. To get a man 
out of the ditch a strong, brotherly grasp is needed. 
Handing him a tract with a pair of tongs will not 
do it. 
* 
BREVITIES. 
On the sixth of next November 
We will ask you to remember 
That The R. N.-Y. is standing at the same old corner still 
Doing business as ever 
At the same old stand and never 
Showing angel colored feathers with a farming fraud to 
kill. 
Dem., Rep., Pop, or Prohibition, 
Win the much desired position 
In the White House; you will find us 
Working hard and “getting there.” 
And we haven’t got to bribe a 
Friend to send a new subscriber, 
But for all the running ’round you do 
We’ll try to make it square. 
Sweet corn is quite low. 
Let’s all swear off on talking politics. 
“Getting even” often brings odd results. 
The dairyman’s motto—clean hands and clean cans. 
We never know how little we know until we begin to 
know. 
We like to see a handy tongue—that is, a hand hold¬ 
ing it. 
Smoke may preserve some kinds of meat, but it jams 
brains. 
Corporations have no soles, eh? Let one of them step 
on you and see! 
Will farmers whq receive free rural mail please tell 
us what form of mail box is best? 
The “California cold process” rascals are trying to sell 
their poisonous stuff. Let them alone! 
“A penny for your thoughts!” If you accepted the offer 
would the buyer get his money’s worth? 
Rape appears to be a favorite fodder for woodchucks, 
according to a correspondent on page 543. 
The last two weeks have wrought great damage to the 
potato crop in our locality. Blight has spread rapidly. 
Barley and peas may yet be sown in hope of obtaining 
a fair crop of fodder. It’s about the last chance this year. 
The udder is the rudder 
That makes the mortgage shudder 
And steers the golden grains into the pail. 
The West Indian scale, mentioned by Prof. Johnson on 
page 545, is not regarded as dangerous in the Northern 
States. 
Yes, yes, it is necessary to pound an ounce of preven¬ 
tion into some folks in order to save them from taking a 
ton of “cure.” 
That Potato-stalk weevil mentioned on page 544 breeds 
in Horse nettle when it cannot find potatoes. Another 
warning against weeds. 
