THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 15 
198 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PARER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Hornet. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
UK. WALTER Van Fleet, I Associates 
MRS. E. T. KOVLE, ( Absociaies. 
John 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 y 2 marks, or IOV 2 francs. 
“A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is 
backed by a responsible person. But to make doubly 
sure we will make good any loss to paid subscribers 
sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising 
in our columns, ana any such swindler will be publicly 
exposed. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we 
do not guarantee to adjust trifling differences between 
subscribers and honest responsible advertisers. Neither 
will we be responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts 
sanctioned by the courts. Notice of the complaint must 
be sent us within one month of the time of the trans¬ 
action, and you must have mentioned The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
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. MARCH 15, 1902. 
In response to many calls for description of the 
“King" system of barn ventilation Mr. Cook gives a 
first installment of full details on page 195. Surely 
our dumb friends at the barn deserve a chance to 
breathe pure air. Pictures next week will make the 
system clear. 
* 
Spraying is now a regular job on most farms. The 
pump ranks with the plow as a necessary tool. Let 
no man make the mistake of buying a pump that is 
too small and feeble to do the work he must have 
done. Strong power is required to drive Bordeaux 
Mixture or crude petroleum through a fine nozzle, 
and these substances will register no serious kick 
against insect or disease unless they are kicked out 
of the nozzle at a lively pace. More power to your 
pump! 
* 
“Why does The R. N.-Y. give space to any praise 
of the Ben Davis apple?” asks a correspondent. The 
R. N.-Y. has strong opinions regarding Ben Davis and 
many other things, but it doesn’t pretend that its 
opinions are always right. It is a weakness of some 
people that their opinions are so “strong” that they 
become rank prejudices. We are ready to admit any 
fair and honest argument, even if it knock the pith 
out of our own side of the matter. The R. N.-Y. does 
not want to be like the old lady who said: I am 
ready to be convinced but I’d like to see the one who 
could convince me!” 
* 
On page 190 farmers give positive views about the 
best time to cut timber to prevent “powder-posting. ’ 
One is sure that July is the time, another says “the 
full moon of February” is the proper season. Hero 
are two men, both good natural observers, who arrive 
at opposite conclusions regarding this important mat¬ 
ter. Would the opinion of a trained scientific ob¬ 
server be worth more than that of these practical 
men? It may be true that the season has less to do 
with it than either of them think. How many of us 
are so sure of our ground that we can swear to such 
things? If we are to go by the majority in this mat¬ 
ter the late Summer cutters will carry the day. 
* 
Our correspondent on page 190 complains of too 
much expert opinion on the Kieffer pear. He has 
been told for years by persons who think they ought 
to know that Kieffer is the best and most profitable 
pear in existence, and now come tales of serious de¬ 
fects. He has planted many Kieffers, and expected to 
plant more, but adverse opinions have made him irre¬ 
solute. He is not alone in his indecision. The status 
of a new fruit of such distinct character—so pro¬ 
nounced in both virtues and defects—is not easily 
settled, and much time must pass before a just idea 
can be gained. Up to date the following points in 
favor of the Kieffer are quite generally conceded. 1. 
It is about the most vigorous, healthy and productive 
of all pears. 2. The trees are upright, handsome and 
rapid growers, coming into bearing three to five years 
after planting. 3. The pears are large, attractively 
colored and of best shipping texture, being handled 
as cheaply as apples. 4. It is the most useful of all 
pears for canning when well grown, keeping firm in 
the cans much longer than Bartlett, and of excellent 
quality when so packed. We may also add that Kieffer 
and other pears of the China type are plainly more 
resistant to Pernicious scale than the older kinds. The 
objections urged are: 1. Low dessert quality as com¬ 
monly grown and marketed, prejudicing the buyer 
against all pears. 2. Tendency to overbear, thus pro¬ 
ducing a great bulk of unattractive fruit, difficult to 
sell. 3. In consequence of the two preceding objec¬ 
tions there is every probability of permanent lower 
price for Kieffers than for other commercial pears. 
Owners of Kieffer orchards claim that the pears can 
be sold at the average price of apples with more 
profit, on account of greater yield and certainty of 
crop. Many think this variety is already overplanted 
and others that it will be fairly profitable for a long 
time to come. Each must form his opinion from the 
best evidence at hand. 
* 
We have made arrangements with O. W. Mapes to 
contribute his experience with poultry aud pigs for 
the benefit ot our readers. Everybody knows Mapes 
the hen man by reputation at least. He keeps about 
2,000 hens and makes them pay a good profit. These 
hens are in 40 or more houses—each a little colony by 
itself. This gives a fine chance for experiment work, 
and R. N.-Y. readers will get the full benefit of it. 
Now the way to get hold of the great fund of infor¬ 
mation which 50,000 hens have laid under Mr. Mapes’o 
hat is to call for it! Let us tap the fountain by bor¬ 
ing in with practical and sensible questions. That is 
the thing to do when a man comes along as full of 
fact as a maple tree is full of sap. We don’t care to 
have this department filled with pure Mapes, but 
rather applied Mapes, and the application of one ques¬ 
tion at a time will do the business. 
* 
Last week we told how, out in Montana, the apple 
and the cow got together against oleo. Why should 
the apple take a hand in this fight? Because there is 
a principle at stake—a square fight against counter¬ 
feits. At the fruit growers’ meeting at which the reso¬ 
lution against oleo was passed a paper on food adul¬ 
terations was read. The contents of a can of so- 
called preserved strawberries were examined. It was 
boiled pumpkin and potato colored and flavored by 
chemicals! But strawberries have seeds! So did this 
“preserve.” The chemist took them out and planted 
them. They grew up—a fine crop of grass ! That is 
what we call putting hayseed to an ignoble use, but 
no worse than coloring cheap fat to make it pass as 
butter! With such striking possibilities for fraud no 
wonder the apple joined the cow in her fight for life. 
Who that is honest wouldn’t? The wool growers are 
the last people in the world who should support the 
oleo fraud. The worst enemy of their own industry 
is shoddy, which endeavors to counterfeit the sheep’s 
coat just as oleo tries to counterfeit the cow’s fat. 
* 
The movement for penny postage is growing. A 
petition with over 300,000 signatures of business men, 
bankers and manufacturers is ready for presentation 
to the Post Office Committee of Congress, and it is re¬ 
ported that more than 400,000 personal letters have 
been written to Members urging the reduction. It is 
claimed the saving to the Post Office Department due 
to the restriction of second-class mail privileges late¬ 
ly in effect will be anywhere from $8,000,000 to $15,- 
000,000 a year, and would be nearly sufficient to carry 
letters and other first-class mail at one cent an ounce, 
as the greater use of the mails at half the present rate 
would increase receipts over their present volume. 
This is all very well; penny postage would be a great 
advantage to every business man, and an inestimable 
boon to the general public, but an adequate parcels 
post is a more immediate and pressing necessity, and 
would not hinge on any saving gained by denying 
periodical publication rates to worthy enterprises, as 
is now likely to occur. It would doubtless be a paying 
venture from the start. The advantages of a cheap 
parcels post, capable of exchanging at a living rate 
the more valuable products of the farm for the com¬ 
modities of merchandise are so evident, in view of 
the prohibitory exactions of the express and other 
quick transportation companies, that they need scarce¬ 
ly to be mentioned. Penny letter postage would re¬ 
duce the cost of The R. N.-Y. thousands of dollars, 
and benefit every reader, yet we feel that cheap trans¬ 
portation of small parcels under Government super¬ 
vision is a more urgent need, and likely to prove ot 
greater advantage to rural dwellers. Some idea of 
the grip express and railroad companies have gained 
on our chief legislative bodies may be had from the 
experience of a committee of the National Associa¬ 
tion of Advertisers, who have asked the small boon 
of the privilege of mailing catalogues in bulk like 
periodicals, but paying the present rate of one cent 
an ounce, without the cost and trouble of affixing a 
stamp to every separate piece. This trifling conces¬ 
sion, they were told, would be considered, as it would 
not reduce the revenues, but when the subject of a 
parcels post was mentioned, the legislators at once 
earned them to drop the matter, or the transportation 
companies would see to it they got nothing at all. We 
will welcome one cent postage as an achievement 
worthy of the postal department of a great Nation, 
but it should not come at the expense of the much- 
needed parcels post and the postal savings bank. The 
average Congressman may be but as a weak reed in 
the hands'"of the transportation companies just now, 
but if the farmers of the country make a determined 
effort they can get the needed postal facilities, and 
anything else they really want—that is honest and 
fair. 
* 
Prof. Wm. P. Brooks, of Massachusetts, is doing 
good work in docking some of the fairy tales that 
grow in the seedsmen’s catalogues. “Steel Trust" 
millet is the latest. This is without doubt the old 
Japanese Barnyard millet—a good plant under some 
conditions. Prof. Brooks says: 
The cut used in the catalogue describing it is made 
from a photograph showing Japanese Barnyard millet 
grown on the farm of one of my correspondents, and, by 
way of making absolute identification possible, perhaps, 
my friend is included in the cut. An agent of the firm 
is represented to have found “this wonder, the grand, 
superbly colossal, 1902 introduction” in a province near 
Moscow, where the peasants were rolling in riches and 
dwelling in “elegant farm residences.” The cause as¬ 
signed for this wonderful prosperity the reader already 
imagines. The firm advertising this millet of course se¬ 
cured a little of the seed by means of an enormous bribe, 
as the peasants of this district had resolved always to 
keep this wonderful crop to themselves. 
The same thing under the name of Japanese Barn¬ 
yard can be bought for less than half the price 
charged for this so-called “new” plant. We have 
ceased to wonder why such seedsmen go into a trance 
and dream such red ink dreams, but we do wonder 
more and more why farmers believe the stories. 
* 
The committee of the Philadelphia Florists’ Club 
appointed to investigate the identity of the roses 
Balduin, Helen Gould, etc., has made a supplementary 
report exonerating the Dingee & Conard Co., of West 
Grove, Pa., from blame in the matter, as it was shown 
they bought the rose disseminated as Helen Gould 
from parties who regarded it as a new American 
seedling, and believed they had a right to name it. 
Others claim that the two varieties grown side by 
side are more or less distinct, though alike in bloom. 
Helen Gould being more of the Tea rose type whil- 
Balduin is subject to dormant intervals like a Hybrid 
Tea. The whole subject is badly mixed, it now ap¬ 
pearing that Balduin, Columbia and Red Kaiserin are 
unmistakably names under which plants and flowers 
of one variety have been sold, while Helen Gould is 
possibly different but very similar. This whole busi¬ 
ness of duplicate names for flowers and fruits is mis¬ 
leading and injurious to horticulture. Customers are 
often induced to buy a variety under a new name 
when they already possess it under another designa¬ 
tion. These mistakes in naming are not always pur¬ 
posely made, but result from imperfect information. 
The result, however, is equally injurious in both cases. 
Recent examples of duplicate names for valuable 
plants may be found in the Winchell or Green Moun¬ 
tain grape; the Triumph or Columbus gooseberry, 
the Mayes or Austin dewberry and many others. The 
duplication of new names and renaming of old varie¬ 
ties always breeds doubt and confusion. 
• 
BREVITIES. 
The spraying season has begun. 
Should the jail be made a moral hospital? 
It seems that even doves will fight. 
Look out for the “expert” who has an ax to grind. 
Lime opens the stiff soil, and binds together the sand. 
The Belgian hare keeps a good butcher’s shop for the 
farm. 
A tree root will dig through hardpan too hard for a 
pickax. 
Insects, like some humans, do not like loo white a 
background. 
Unless the why of a thing can be made clear, we 
would experiment with it only. 
It’s early yet for accurate reports, but thus far in the 
fruit counties of New York the buds appear to be safe. 
Many a buy product which the grocer or butcher fur¬ 
nishes might be made a by-product with a little care and 
work. 
What a shame that the russet apple should die out! 
There is something against the color—even tan shoes 
are going out of date! 
Subsoiling is good for clay. That It true, as we ob¬ 
serve, of human clay. Many men prefer to soil their 
hands through a substitute. 
Mr. Morse, page 191, hits the bull’s eye when he says 
that the knife that cuts those thick potato peelings is 
trimming off the income of some future husband! 
In spite of the fearful storms and floods in western 
New York, dozens of large fruit growers report “prun¬ 
ing all done!" No waste of time there, even if work 
means waist-deep in snow. 
Here is a sentiment from one of Connecticut readers: 
“The sun doesn't always shine up here, unless we punch 
a hole in the clouds and let it through. Isn’t that a job 
we can sometimes best do on our knees?" 
