852 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December 22 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Coli.ingwood, Editor. 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, j 
H. E. Van Deman, VAssociates. 
Mrs. E. T. Rotle, ) 
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 854 marks, or 1054 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, DECEMBER 22, 1900. 
Last week we asked readers to favor us with an 
early renewal of their subscriptions. Let us have it 
before January 1, please. This gives you a chance to 
settle the year 1901 before it begins. We wish we 
could tell you how to settle all your duties as easily. 
* 
The census shows that there are 2,833,877 horses in 
towns and cities. They are not connected with farms, 
and hay and feed for them is bought. An aver¬ 
age of two tons of hay per year is not high for such 
horses, but that means a demand for 5,667,754 tons for 
these horse boarders. That seems like a vast quan¬ 
tity, and yet the single State of New York produced 
last year 6,419,462 tons of hay, while Iowa surpassed 
even this record with 7,908,159 tons. 
* 
The notes on page 857 regarding fraudulent com¬ 
mission men and buyers should be one of the most 
valuable Christmas presents we can possibly make 
certain of our readers. Again and again do these 
rogues victimize farmers who bite at their glowing 
bait. Read these notes carefully. How is it possible 
for such rascals to obtain trade after all that has been 
said about them? But, of course, you cannot answer 
us; you do not pretend to be a mind-reader. 
• 
Which canal is of greater importance—the ditch 
across Central America or the alimentary canal run¬ 
ning through the center of every American? Congress 
seems to think the ditch should be attended to first. 
We do not agree with that proposition. The question 
of pure food is of vital importance to consumers and 
producers alike. Nothing will do more to benefit the 
farmer’s market than a suppression of the frauds who 
now put bulk and poison into the people’s food. The 
human canal first, if you please! 
* 
We are asked what foreign goods are now coming 
to this country. During th: 10 months ending October 
such imports amounted to $695,108,928. Of this over 
$180,000,000, or 26 per cent, represented food and ani¬ 
mals. More than one-third of all were crude articles 
like silk and wool—which are manufactured here. 
Over 26 per cent wer articles partly or entirely manu¬ 
factured, and less than 14 per cent were classed as 
luxuries. Coffee, tea, sugar and fruit are the chief 
food articles imported, while cloth, leather goods, jew¬ 
elry and hardware are the principal manufactured 
articles. 
* 
A reader in Idaho sends this postscript to a letter: 
You folks in New York are so provincial that you fail 
to see that the settlement of the arid West creates an 
increased demand on eastern manufacturers whose em¬ 
ployees must be fed in great part by eastern farmers. 
It would be almost as good an argument to say that 
if the manufacturers remain Bast, western farmers 
will have an increased market for grain, wool and 
meat, while the railroads will have more freight. We 
are not opposed to the settlement of the arid lands, 
in the proper manner and in due time. We see no 
reason why the general Government should step in 
and create another “western boom. This, we think, 
would follow if public money were spent to provide 
means for watering the desert. A vast proportion of 
the land now occupied is not half tilled. Better en¬ 
courage better tillage of this land than to ask farmers 
to rush off to new soil. There are millions of acres 
of eastern land that need drainage as badly as the 
desert needs watering. Let the great swamps in Vir¬ 
ginia and along the coast be drained, and we shall 
have tracts of rich land on which food can be grown 
and homes made close to the heart and lungs of our 
Government. We think Uncle Sam would better pay 
attention to his vest before be lengthens out his coat 
tails. We would leave the arid West as a legacy for 
our children. 
* 
The picture on page 853 is worth studying. The old 
cow has kicked the oleo tub out of the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives, but the Senator stands prepared to catch 
it if he is not interfered with. There is much truth 
in the picture, for the Senate is notoriously slow, and 
Senators do not represent the masses of common peo¬ 
ple. Still, they are willing to listen to these same 
common people when the voice is loud enough. Sen¬ 
ator Platt, of New York State, says that he will sup¬ 
port the Grout bill. Day after day he is presenting 
petitions from those who demand the passage of this 
measure. On the day the Grout bill passed the House 
Senator Platt presented 157 of such petitions. He has 
written the following letter to Mr. F. E. Dawley: 
December 6, 1900. 
My Dear Mr. Dawley: 
I have read your letter of December 4 concerning the 
Grout bill. My mail has been composed largely of appeals 
in that behalf for the last two weeks, and I presume it 
is a fact that the farmers throughout the country are 
very much interested in the passage of that bill, minus 
the Wadsworth amendment. I will favor the passage of 
the bill in its original form. Very truly yours, 
T. C. Platt. 
No doubt about it! The farmers of this country 
have learned something of their power. Pour in the 
letters! 
* 
Postmaster General Smith calls for $3,500,000 with 
which to maintain and extend the system of free rural 
mail delivery. Of this, $1,000,000 is to be used in ex¬ 
tending the service. Mr. Smith says that $12,000,000 
would enable him to deliver the mails free to every 
citizen in the country. If the abuses which have 
grown in connection with the delivery of second-class 
mail matter could be remedied the saving would just 
about pay for the full extension of rural delivery. Mr. 
Smith makes a strong argument for a better country 
mail service. 
Rural free delivery brings the farm within the daily 
range of the intellectual and commercial activities of the 
world, and the isolation and monotony which have been 
the bane of agricultural life are sensibly mitigated. It 
proves to be one of the most effective and powerful of 
educational agencies. Wherever it is extended the schools 
improve and the civic spirit of the community feels a 
new pulsation. The standard of intelligence is raised, en¬ 
lightened interest in public affairs is quickened and better 
citizenship follows. 
Of course there are a few gloomy characters who do 
not like to see the farmer share in the world’s pro¬ 
gression. The New York Sun is one of them, for it 
says: 
The village post office and the village store are his ex¬ 
change, his club, his Rialto. There he meets his towns¬ 
men, cracks his joke, tells his tale, forecasts the weather 
with an unerring eye, discusses crops and prices and 
politics, cows, sheep and horses, steers and shotes, and 
pretty much everything else from Calvinism to catnip. 
****** ^e believe the farmer to be wise, and 
therefore we cannot believe that he is in feverish anxiety 
to get his mail. That is or should be a vice of cities. 
In the country there should be more time, more delibera¬ 
tion, a greater kindness to the nerves. A man should not 
get a letter too often. The edge of his sensibilities should 
not be nicked; and if he be a good man and true, he 
should turn over a letter a half dozen times, investigate 
the superscription and postmark carefully, and prolong 
the minute of opening with the formula, “I wonder who 
it’s from?” 
There is a man who never heard of a Grange or a 
farmer’s club. He thinks the average farmer never 
heard of a telephone or a telegram, and that “Snow 
Bound’’ is still a true picture of American farm life. 
What else could one expect from a man who has noth¬ 
ing but brick and stone in his blood? 
* 
We have read with care the discussion which took 
place in the House of Representatives over the Grout 
bill. We think any fair-minded man who will read 
the arguments advanced for and against this bill will 
be forced to admit that its advocates had the better 
of it. They proceeded to state the extent of the busi¬ 
ness done in oleo, named the ingredients which enter 
into its make-up and demonstrated that it can be 
made for less than 10 cents a pound including the two- 
cent tax. They then showed that 90 per cent of the 
colored oleo is sold as butter, and detailed some of 
the tricks and fraudulent schemes which enable deal¬ 
ers to practice this deception. This fraud is possible 
only when the oleo is colored yellow. It was shown 
that 32 States containing 60,000,000 population have 
passed what is known as anti-color laws—that is, laws 
which prohibit the use of yellow color in oleo. This 
is evidence that the majority of Americans do not 
want to pay butter prices for colored oleo. It was 
shown that in consequence of our systems of inter¬ 
state commerce State laws will not permit the proper 
control of this fraudulent business. Congressman 
Henry in summing up made these statements: 
With such facts in evidence, who shall say that by the 
prevention of the fraudulent sale of colored oleo at prices 
nearly approximating the cost of butter, together with 
a reduction In the cost of the uncolored article of nearly 
two cents per pound, enabling Its sale at a price not ex¬ 
ceeding 15 cents per pound, the laboring man or another 
who chooses or is forced to use oleomargarine in place 
of butter will not be benefited? Certainly, none can deny 
that the great consuming public should be protected from 
the grasp of unscrupulous manufacturers and trusts, if 
a combination of beef and hog fats, cotton-seed oil, and 
other waste or refuse products is to be made, colored 
and sold as a substitute for farmer’s butter, then the 
manufacture and sale should be conducted openly and 
honestly rather than secretly and fraudulently. 
In answer to these arguments Mr. Wadsworth anil 
others, as it seems to us, dodged the real question. 
They quoted pages of testimony from scientific men 
to prove that oleo is healthful. This seemed useless, 
because no one had denied the fact, but they did not 
dare to go on and say that these same scientific men 
say that yellow oleo is a fraudulent product! They 
also had much to say about the injury to the poor by 
depriving them of a cheap food. The facts are tha~ 
the Grout bill removes 1% cent of tax per pound from 
the uncolored oleo, so that it can De sola at 12 cents 
a pound, with a profit of nearly 50 per cent! They 
had two answers to the color argument. One was an 
attempt to ridicule it—one man going so far as to say 
that instead of oleo being colored to imitate butter, 
the latter was really colored to imitate its greasy 
rival. The other was the claim that yellow is not the 
natural color of butter, and that whenever butter 
color is used a tax should also be paid. That is a fair 
statement of the arguments and we feel sure that any 
fair-minded man who will consider them will admit 
the justice of the dairyman’s demand. 
* 
BREVITIES. 
If I could act as Santa Claus, 
With power to fill your stocking full, 
I’d bid the busy moments pause 
For one full hour, and then I’d pull 
The curtain of your years away. 
And straight before your vision bring, 
A picture of a distant day 
When Santa was the “real thing.” 
I’d kick away all care and blame, 
I’d make you drop life’s grinding chore— 
The hustle after bread and fame— 
And be a trusting child once more. 
You’d hear once more with startled ear 
The reindeer hoofs upon the roof; 
With no slave driver Duty near, 
To lash you with its stern reproof. 
Yes! Yes! Could I but have the power, 
I’d pass the vaults where wealth is piled. 
And give you just one happy hour 
Of childhood pure and undefiled! 
Rare— the cases of duty well done. 
Not much encouragement for the Idaho pear. 
The stable-manure portion of the plant’s dinner is 
served a la cart. 
No use talking, American beet-sugar growers are talk¬ 
ing hopefully about sugar. 
Doesn’t the frost bite your conscience through that 
crack in the barn? 
A correspondent on page 851 suggests a useful wrinkle 
in the bagging of forest leaves. 
The catcher was Henry, the pitcher was Grout, and 
oleomargarine quickly struck out. 
It seems that nitrogen can be fed into grass. See what 
Prof. Phelps says about this next week. 
What do you think of a dairy farmer who says that 
skim-milk is good enough for his own family? 
Californians are writing us that they do all their 
farm work except harrowing with traction engines. 
Now, fruit growers—which do we need most—Improved 
varieties or improved methods of caring for those we now 
have? 
“Now then—you’re striking the right cord,” said Mrs. 
Farmer as her husband attacked the wood pile with 
his ax. 
The cripple who makes head take the place of heel is 
root pruned, but top-grafted. He carries his feet under 
his hat. 
The proposed “monument” to the memory of Peter M. 
Gideon will take the form of a fund of $1,000 to provide 
for prizes for student work in horticulture. 
An Illinois coroner’s jury recently reported the cause 
of a woman’s death as “a complication of doctors.” It 
seems reasonable to regard that as an unusually in¬ 
telligent jury. 
The Vermont Experiment Station people preach the 
doctrine that stable manure may be hauled out and spread 
on level or moderately sloping fields on any day in the 
year but Sundays. 
Mr. Slingerland says, in telling us about that uncanny 
insect on page 846, that the male has a much greater 
power of jaw than the female. Is this peculiarity con¬ 
fined to the insect world? 
Rural free delivery of the mail brings good things 
along with it. A scheme for numbering farmhouses is 
proposed, so that a map of the country will be as com¬ 
prehensive as a map of the town. 
The Tree-Planting Association of New York City offers 
to furnish to all inquirers, free of charge, full information 
as to the most suitable trees for city growth, with list of 
nurserymen, and prices for the completed work, includ¬ 
ing iron tree-protectors. This association is trying to 
educate city dwellers to a proper appreciation of trees, 
and their care. 
