292 
April 19 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homaa. 
Established i 860 . 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, / 
Mrs. K. T. Kovle, ^Associates. 
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 V 2 marks, or 10 1 / 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, anu 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, APRIL 19, 1902. 
Several parties are trying to sell so-called fountain 
pens by means of a new dodge. You receive a letter 
from some stranger—usually at Auburn, N. Y., or 
Wilkesbarre, Pa., praising the pen and tne company 
offering it. You are to sign a contract and send $2.50 
for the pen. You then agree to write every day 10 
letters praising the pen, and are to receive payment 
for this work! We will have more to say about this 
later—now we say that this scheme has all the ear 
marks of a “fake.” 
* 
“Farmers will plant more corn this year!” That is 
the universal report from all over the East. We are 
all planning to put corns on the feet of the feed bill. 
If this is not done we shall have the last cent tram¬ 
pled out of our pockets. Corn is the best grain to 
help out this year, for it will give more feed and 
fodder in return for a bag of fertilizer than anything 
we can put into the ground. Most of the extra corn 
will be grown on fertilizers, since the manure will be 
needed for the regular crops. It is a good thing that 
the king of American cereals is content with an old 
pasture and a handful of fertilizer! 
* 
It happens sometimes that a farmer reads a plaus¬ 
ible account of some new plan or method, and decides 
to try it. He invests some money and time, and car¬ 
ries the work through as best he can, to find that 
expected results do not follow. Then he may find that 
those who gave the advice have since learned that 
another way is surer and better. The farmer has 
been helping to settle an experiment, but while the 
experimenters were paid for their work, the farmer 
was forced to pay for his own loss! The fact is that 
farming is the least exact of all the sciences. The 
expei’imenter who goes off at “half-cock” can shoot 
an enthusiastic farmer’s profits as full of holes as 
a sieve! 
* 
There is much resentment in commercial and Ad¬ 
ministrative circles over the recent action of the Ger¬ 
man government in prohibiting the importation of 
American pork products preserved with boracic or 
salicylic acids, formalin or similar deleterious chemi¬ 
cals. There is great talk of tariff reprisals against 
adulterated wines and other German commodities. 
This is fair enough. If any foreign country is send¬ 
ing us injurious food products the fact cannot be 
known too soon, but it is idle to criticise the Germans 
for shutting out adulterated American meats, nor may 
we insist that our export meats, as packed by the 
meat combine, are entirely wholesome. It is no fault 
of our hog and cattle raisers that American packed 
meats are rated as unhealthful in some foreign coun¬ 
tries. The animals as delivered to the buyers of the 
packing trust by the farmer or feeder are perfect 
specimens of their kind, developed and fattened on 
wholesome and abundant food. No better or healthier 
hogs and beeves are produced anywhere, but on 
emerging from the packing houses, with their oleo¬ 
margarine annexes, who can say what harmful ma¬ 
terials have been added to preserve the products for 
an extended voyage? Where greed for high profits 
is the dominant factor all considerations of morality 
are likely to give way. The price of domestic meats, 
entirely under the control of the combine known as 
the beef trust, has been arbitrarily forced beyond the 
means of a large portion of the laboring community, 
and within the last two weeks many retail meat shops 
have closed from the inability of their humble cus¬ 
tomers to pay the increased prices, yet these same 
American dressed meats are sold abroad at similar or 
even lower prices, notwithstanding the added cost of 
transportation to distant countries. If this German 
exclusion throws out only fetid and unwholesome 
meats, or those treated with harmful chemicals, it 
will in the outcome be an actual benefit to the farmer, 
who is the real meat producer, as well as the laborers 
who are now unable to buy proper food to sustain 
their working power. 
* 
Chicago women have formed a society, members of 
which will attempt to prevent the wearing of plumage 
of song birds on women’s hats! These women will be 
known as a watch committee of the Illinois Audubon 
Society. Women who sell or wear such feathers are 
liable to fine and imprisonment. These watchers 
should go further and encourage the wearing of 
feathers from our domestic fowls. From the white 
of the Leghorn to the black of the Minorca one can 
find a perfect variety of colors. The use of such 
feathers would not only do away with the slaughter 
of song birds, but help make the chicken business 
more profitable! In this cold age sentiment must be 
backed by business! 
* 
Some years ago certain farmers in Michigan signed 
notes in payment for goods which were promised by 
sharp agents of a “cut-rate” firm. When the goods 
came many farmers were dissatisfied, and refused to 
accept them, though some did so. Those who refused 
to accept the goods let the notes they had given go 
to protest. Suit was brought for collection, and some 
of these farmers joined forces and fought the suit. 
The Michigan Farmer states that the first case—a 
test—has been decided against the farmer, who must 
pay his note of $136. It is reported that the other 
farmers will settle without further contest. That is 
a costly way of finding out that it does not pay to 
sign notes in payment for unseen goods! 
* 
The same old situation comes up on most farms 
every Spring. The ghost of last year’s failures comes 
to most of us with a clear statement of the reason 
for placing a tombstone instead of a monument over 
success. Most of us tried to spread out too much. 
Had we concentrated our work and plant food upon 
fewer acres—even to the extent of letting part of the 
farm lie idle—we would have been better off at the 
end of the season. That is the conviction that every 
thoughtful farmer must come to if he will face the 
situation honestly. Yet the tendency to spread out 
and attempt to cover too much ground is one of the 
hardest things to overcome in all farm practice. 
There never will be a better year for concentration 
than this one. 
* 
The oleo people have picked up the plan of voting 
with the postage stamp. While the Grout bill was 
before the Senate every medical man in New Jersey 
received a polite note asking him to urge Senator 
Dryden to vote against the bill because oleo is such a 
remarkably healthful food! This may have been 
what captured Senator Dryden—but he will be attend¬ 
ed to in due time! Just now the oleo men are ad¬ 
vertising in the New York papers urging city people 
to write New York Congressmen in protest against 
“the 10-cent tax.” Every man has a right to use the 
postage stamp ballot, if he wants to, but there will be 
little heart in such letters. No man shoulders a gun 
in defence of a boarding house, and no man fights 
strongly for a fraud unless he is in league with it! 
Of course these oleo people point with pride to Hon. 
James W. Wadsworth as their friend and champion! 
That gentleman is merely a living postage stamp. He 
has been plastered with old and new stamps until 
he looks like a railroad train badly mixed up with 
a grave and patient face, that protected many a letter 
on its way to him! Another sort of ballot is now in 
store for Mr. Wadsworth. 
* 
The experiments in pinching raspberries detailed 
by Prof. Cranefield on page 286 seem to dispose of 
the only remaining feature of the Summer or soft¬ 
wood pruning so freely advocated by the earlier hor¬ 
ticulturists. Pinching and Summer pruning of tree 
fruits, except in occasional instances of abnormal late 
growth, have long been abandoned, and even native 
grapes are found to succeed best when allowed un¬ 
checked growth after the new canes are thinned and 
tied. Now the utility of pinching the canes of rasp¬ 
berries is assailed. This procedure is still recom¬ 
mended by most growers, but these experiments re¬ 
sulted mainly in dwarfing the plants and reducing the 
succeeding crop. In the coast region of New Jersey 
pinching has been often found objectionable in both 
raspberries and blackberries by favoring the develop¬ 
ment of a stiff cane with a bushy top that is liable to 
injury at the collar by strong winds, especially when 
the ground is frozen or covered with ice, but it was 
thought a better crop would be insured if the canes 
escaped mechanical injury. The slender canes of 
natural growth yield more easily to high winds, and 
with raspberries are often anchored at the tips. Per¬ 
haps we shall find it of advantage to interfere less 
with root and top during the active growing season, 
when energy for next season’s crop is being stored. 
Summer pruning is undoubtedly useful with many 
flowering shrubs when it is desired to dwarf the sub¬ 
ject and favor the development of much bloom with¬ 
out reference to seed or fruit production, but when 
the latter is the main essential the utility of the 
proceeding becomes very doubtful. 
♦ 
Some enthusiastic readers believe that the passage 
of the Grout oleo bill will mean a great and perma¬ 
nent advance in the price of butter. We doubt it. 
The expressed object of the bill was to force a fraud 
into fair competition, and not to bring about an arti¬ 
ficial inflation of prices. Had the bill not been pass¬ 
ed we believe that the dairy business as at present 
conducted would have been slowly ruined. With this 
bill honestly enforced dairymen have a fair chance to 
hold their own and live. Our fight was against the 
fraud in oleo. The surest way to get the people to eat 
uncolored oleo is to force the price of butter too high. 
* 
We have paid our respects at various times to a 
certain seed company said to have headquarters at 
Buffalo. Its agents are now reported at work trying 
to sell seed of a silage corn that “will produce 40 tons 
per acre!” A wonderful silo is also guaranteed 
against freezing. One correspondent writes us: 
I understand they agree to take one-fourth purchase 
price on arrival of silo; remainder to be paid within one 
year, or they claim to allow 10 per cent discount for cash. 
I also am told that this verbal agreement does not appear 
in their contract which they send from their office for 
signature. 
“A verbal agreement not in the contract.” That is 
the snare that has caught hundreds of farmers who 
pride themselves upon their shrewdness. One man 
comes and promises everything. Another man comes 
to collect the bill, and he blows the other man’s prom¬ 
ises away. Your signature is on the paper, and you 
must back it up with the cash. Do not under any cir¬ 
cumstances sign a contract with this company. Put 
your hand in your pocket and hold on to your money. 
* 
BREVITIES. 
HEY’LL do us again, 
Those law-making men,” 
Said the Oleo to the Chinese. 
“While I’m better than butter, 
’Tis libels they utter, 
For they say 1 am common as 
grease.” 
Then said the Chinese 
To the protesting Grease, 
“I know just the reason, poor 
fellow; 
Tho’ American born, 
You are treated with scorn, 
Because, like myself, you: are yellow.” 
_—Indianapolis News. 
The “moth trap” is made to sell! 
An express agent on eggs—page 287. 
Ever see cut-rate goods that were first rate? 
We expect to hear of large planting of sugar beets for 
stock food. 
Did you ever buy a “sore” horse in New York? If so, 
please tell us how he came out. 
Senator Depew, of New York, redeemed his promise, 
and made a good speech for the oleo bill. 
The experiment stations will probably try some new 
experiments with sod culture for apples! 
It’s a well-packed egg that makes a clean home run 
after the express agent plays ball with it. 
It is evident from the letters about silage for hogs 
that the silo is unknown in many western sections. 
The cold-storage men say that apples grown in sod 
orchards are best for late keeping. What have the cul¬ 
tivators to say to this? 
“Pencelaria,” the wonderful fodder plant, seems to 
be one of the things which require a lively lead pencil 
to do justice to its performance. 
Last year 30,000 horses were slaughtered in Paris for 
food purposes, and there are now 250 shops devoted to 
the sale of horseflesh in that city. 
A Texas paper printed a story to the effect that all 
milkmen at Binghamton, N. Y., were compelled to 
shave off their whiskers! Think of it! Certain agricul¬ 
tural papers actually copied the item as solemn news! 
The German Reichstag has put a tariff on all foreign 
fruit except bananas, which will be felt by American 
producers endeavoring to cater to the German market 
with both fresh and dried fruits. 
The daily papers assert that Long Island farmers 
have found that air-slaked lime is a sure cure for As¬ 
paragus rust. Wonderful farming is done with printer’s 
ink in the city, but the farmers themselves are about a 
century behind on some of these wonderful things. 
