66o 
£ September 29 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
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, ) 
H. E. Van Deman, VAssociates. 
Mrs. E. T. Koyle, j 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
Io 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 1 nes to the inch). Yearly orders 
of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 25 cents per fine. 
Reading Notices, ending with “Adi 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, SEPTEMBER 29, 1900. 
FOR ONLY 25 CENTS. 
We are now sending The R. N.-Y. for the remain¬ 
der of this year for 25 cents. Please read uie particu¬ 
lars on top of page 655. If you can help introduce the 
paper to a single new subscriber, we shall appreciate 
your interest. We have received thousands of letters 
thanking uj for the new rose, Ruby Queen, sent out 
last season. You will show the rose to your friends. 
When you do so will be just the time to suggest to 
them that they need the paper. Many have already 
done so. Perhaps you are one who forgot it. Will 
you try to remember it next time? 
* 
The high winds reported last week did great dam¬ 
age in the apple orchards of western New York. 
Probably half the fruit was thrown to the ground. 
Much of ic will be used by the evaporators, but large 
quantities will be shipped. The markets will be 
crowded with these windfalls. This will interfere 
with the sale of ripe Fall varieties, and will upset 
the trade later. There is no longer any doubt but 
that there is a short crop of first-class late apples. 
The dealers and buyers have spread reports of full 
crops, but a careful survey of the whole field fails to 
reveal them. Apples are worth more money than 
buyers are offering. 
• 
Our Minnesota friend on page 654 is afraid that 
New Jersey corn will not come up to the western 
standard, in central and southern New jersey corn 
grows to perfection. The best of it fully equals the 
yield in Kansas or Iowa. The northern part of the 
State is not so well adapted to corn-growing, yet some 
fair yields are produced. Our own crop of white flint 
grew slowly at first, but made a surprising gain in 
August. This flint grows an immense amount of leaf. 
We think it pays to consider the fodder part of the 
corn crop, especially in a season like the one just end¬ 
ing. We do not care for tne big stalks which rival a 
tree in size. They are good tor the silo, but not so 
good for ury fodder. 
I* 
Our reports all indicate a shortage of nursery 
stock. The dry weather has proved fatal to much of 
this stock and has siunted more of it. There will 
probably be a heavy demand also, and this ought to 
make higher prices. All the more reason for buying 
of the best nurserymen you can find. The rogues 
will be abroad this year in full force, for the urought 
will not affect the lies tuey tell or the ink on their 
pictures. Keep away from the tree tramp this year 
if you never did before! About the greatest liar we 
have heard of this year is a local nurseryman in Ala¬ 
bama who offers a grape which will produce 250 
pounds oi. grapes the second year from planting! 
These grapes will keep fresh all Winter, and when 
Spring comes they turn into fine raisins! We will 
pour a little vitriol on this rascal next week. 
• 
The late Sir John Rennet Lawes, whose death was 
recently noted in The R. N.-Y., has bequeathed his 
experiment station, at Rothamsted, which he carried 
on exclusively at his own expense, to the British na¬ 
tion, together with the laboratory, certain areas of 
land, and an endowment of £100,000. A trust deed 
was executed and trustees appointed by Sir John 
more than 10 years ago, to insure the continuance of 
his investigations. Sir John Evans is chairman of 
the managing committee, which has already entered 
upon its duties. It is pleasant to record that Sir John 
Lawes’s ousy, useful life thus finds its fittest me¬ 
morial in the continuance of his work. The labora¬ 
tory was presented to him in 1855, as a testimonial 
for his services to British agriculture, taking the 
place of an old barn previously used for the purpose. 
The experiments were begun with plants in pots, 
which were afterwards extended to the field. It is 
difficult to overestimate the value of the 60 years’ 
work terminated by the death of Sir J. B. Lawes. 
* 
The great coal strike affects thousands of families 
that will never see a coal mine or talk with a miner. 
It may c:.use nearly as much difference in the cost of 
fuel for the poor family in the city as the difference 
in wages would mean to the miner’s family. Thus 
the public nave an interest in the strike, and have a 
right to say that it should be settled at once. On one 
hand we are told that the miners are struggling for 
their rights which are denied them by great corpora¬ 
tions. On the other nand, it is claimed that the whole 
thing is a vast political scheme designed to affect 
tue presidential election. Neither corporation nor 
political managers should be permitted lor a single 
day to hold up the output of tne fuel which God 
stored in the earth for the benefit of mankind! The 
questions uetween tne miner and the mine owner 
should be settled at once by arbitration. 
* 
Rum and race horses have written ruin on many a 
farm. We probably all know of men who have lost 
good farms because they insisted on dissolving them 
in liquor and then swallowing them. As a rule the 
farmer takes great pains to point out these "horrible 
examples” to boys and young men, yet he is not so 
quick to see how the saloon system of selling liquor 
is always of indirect injury to his business. Many 
farmers have had an experience with a drinking hired 
man or have hau a son enticed away by the "gang” 
wmch always makes its headquarters at the country 
saloon. We know of farmers who drive to market 
with fruit or vegetables. Sometimes when tired or 
discouraged they drink at some handy saloon and 
lose their sense. Hucksters lie in wait for these fel¬ 
lows, and often succeed in buying their produce at a 
ridiculously low price, and sell it so as to demoralize 
the local market. No use talking, the city saloon 
digs a ho*e in the farmer’s market, while the country 
rumshop endangers his home. 
• 
We have referred to city business men who buy 
farms and undertake to conduct them on what they 
call "business principles.” Some of these men are 
shrewd -• keen at tneir city business, and realize 
the need of capital and careful oversight. They seem 
to forget all this when they operate the farm. The 
soil is usually weedy and run down, yet it is like pul¬ 
ling teeth to get them to buy the proper fertilizers or 
manure. They want returns at once. They would 
wait years to put a factory or a store on a paying 
basis, but unless their farmer can make the wornout 
farm pay from the start they find fault with him. 
They are also ready to try any plausible theory that 
is presented, though they would laugh at a man who 
presented anything corresponding to it for tneir city 
business. Let these men oe patient, wise in their 
outlays and proviue themselves with managers who 
know how t manage and they can make their farms 
pay. The R. N.-Y. would L^e to bring the city farm¬ 
er and the practical manager together. 
• 
The new census indicates that about one-third of 
the people in this country are living in towns or cities 
of 8,000 inhabitants or over. The cities in the East 
have, apparently, increased more rapidly than west¬ 
ern cities of the same size, and the "boom town” of 
the West hao about disappeared. During the past five 
years many city people have gone to the country to 
live, and the electric railroads have helped this move¬ 
ment. Tne city has gained from the country chiefly 
in two ways. Many large places nave annexed new 
territory. This was formerly farming land, but has 
been made accessible by electric lines. Many retired 
farmers nave rented their farms and moved to town. 
There is still to be heard the old complaint that the 
brightest boys are leaving the farm, but when they 
reach the city they run up against the i.act that there 
are fewer cnances than ever before. The trusts or 
combinations of business reduce competition, and this 
means me discharge of hundreds of salesmen and 
clerks. Many of these men are making for the coun¬ 
try, so that the stream is running both ways. 
• 
A drummer traveling in the mountain sections of 
West Virginia and Kentucky tells an amusing story 
about the current coin of some sections. A man en¬ 
tered a combined store and tavern, got a drink, and 
took a coon skin from his pocket for pay, the bar¬ 
keeper giving him a rabbit skin in change. Before 
leaving, however, he bought a plug of tobacco, handed 
out the rabbit skin, and for change got a squirrel 
skin. The storekeeper told the drummer that for 
months at a time he would not see any money at all. 
The furs passed from hand to hand the same as 
money, and once a year a fur buyer came around and 
bought up ail that were offered. Here is a sugges¬ 
tion for the financial plank in the platform of some 
new political party. Another instance in the same 
section is mentioned, in which a yenng man in going 
to a dance took along a dozen large potatoes as his 
share of the fiddler’s fee. He received two onions in 
change, and a bystander worked himself into a sweai 
trying to figure out the exact value of that dance in 
the “coin of the realm.” We have lived in neighbor¬ 
hoods wnere, before the days of incubators, a setting 
hen represented the highest standard of value. 
• 
A generation ago many farmers in the Eastern 
States made money out of their farms. This money 
was usually sent away from the land for investment. 
The farmer was ready to spend his labor on the soil, 
but the money dug out of it was sent away 10 buy a 
oond or to develop some western farm through a 
trust company. Thus the farm was often neglected. 
The nelds “wore out” and the boys and gins went 
away after the comforts and pleasant things of life 
which they felt that they had earned, if more of 
that money had been invested on the farm itself it 
would have paid far better interest. In some cases 
the western farm mortgage and the county bond may 
be held responsible for the abandoned farm or the 
idle weeu-grown field. There were men who left the 
old homestead and traveled to the West because they 
wanted to follow the money which the farm had sent 
ahead, auis policy has reduced tne value of farming 
lands in many sections, for they are sold on the basis 
of what they will produce. We feel certain that a 
man with fair capital can buy tnese low-crop lands, 
increase tneir productiveness with cow peas, clover 
and chemical fertilizers and make a good investment 
on his money. 
BREVITIES. 
That’s right, Bill, bring an armful of that wood; 
Don't make no clutter on your mother's floor. 
A little taste of fire will do us good, 
it feels like frost—say, Alary, shut that door! 
’Tain t time to mount a stove, but jest a touch 
Of wood lire sorter drives the chili away. 
That paper 1 do to kindle—not too much. 
Don’t want to throw no useful thing away. 
Now break them shingles sorter line an’ small 
An’ pile that brush on top—what is that, Bill? 
That trash we cut along that big stone wall? 
it made me sweat, but now it takes the chill 
Out o’ my bones—now, then, them middlin’ sticks 
An’ put that chunk of apple wood on top. 
That represents some migiity heavy licks; 
Wait till it gits het up—you’ll hear it pop 
Now touch yer match an’ see that paper burn. 
That’s Lemycratic politics, 1 bet— 
Them shingles are ablaze—see that flame turn 
An’ catch that brush?—say, Afother, don’t you set 
Too close, for fust you know that apple root 
Will spit them sparks out halfway to the door; 
1 call this comfort—Jack, pull off my boot. 
It does me good to hear that chimney roar! 
A pedigree traces a race track! 
Paris-green for the green worm. 
Better get a move on that stove. 
How often does the lion’s share go to the liar? 
Too much wet weather will turn clover into wry hay. 
The giving of advice gets to be a vice with some people. 
Who will analyze ambition and tell us what It is 
made of? 
What is the most economical way to dispose of dead 
farm animals? 
“Yours for humanity and good crops,” writes a friend 
in New York State. 
We have seen the English sparrow kill and eat the 
green Cabbage worm. 
The cow with butter in her breeding can take it out and 
put it it on her owner’s bread. 
People are advised to cultivate the will. To do this 
they must cultivate the won’t. 
If real human justice were general great riches and 
starvation would be impossible. 
Why not be one of the few immortal names that were 
not born to dye their character black? 
If you drew the line squarely at rum and tobacco could 
you hire enough men to run your farm? 
Better have a “No Trespassing” sign tacked on your 
conscience than a “For Sale” or “To Let.” 
You may set us down as in favor of the following 
proposition: “It is not childish to consider the child 
crop.” 
What we call ragweed is “hogweed” in Maryland. It 
requires a large share of the alphabet to print its scien¬ 
tific name—Ambrosia artemisisefolia! 
“I am a milk can,” saye the Holstein cow. “Yes, it’s 
thin enough to be milk cant,” says the Jersey. “At any 
rate, it isn’t milk can’t,” replied old Black!” 
So pack that when thy purchaser shall come and scan 
the tip-top layer he may know that all the way, down 
to the lowest notch, and through the middle they are all 
the same. 
We have heard people argue that It pays to cut corn 
and let it wilt a few days before cutting it into the silo. 
This saves hauling water—they say. We would rather 
haul the water! 
