3z4 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
May 3 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
I)h. Walter Van Fleet, t As , ociat(1 <. 
Mrs. E. T. Boyle, f Associates. 
Joun 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% marks, or lOVfe 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, and any such swindler will be publicly 
exposed. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we 
do not guarantee to adjust trilling 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 cheek or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York- 
SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1902. 
We learn of various people and organizations that 
have pledged themselves to eat no meat during May. 
They do this to injure the beef trust. Most of them 
will find that they not only hurt the trust but help 
themselves by going without meat. They heip them¬ 
selves not only in pocket-book but in stomach. We 
hope the month’s experience will lead them per¬ 
manently to cut the meat bill in two. 
* 
Government by injunction appears about to invade 
the oleo fight. In accordance with a clause in the new 
Pennsylvania law, the attorneys of the Dairy and 
Food Department will ask for an injunction prohibit¬ 
ing an oleo dealer from trafficking in any artificial 
butter products. This is an entirely new procedure, 
and its effect will be watched with interest. Perhaps 
the oleo man will reciprocate with an injunction re¬ 
straining the State from interfering with his business 
affairs. 
The recent articles by I. A. Thayer have stirred up 
a great correspondence. We knew before that hun¬ 
dreds of city men long for a home in the country. 
This discussion brings out a new side. The number 
of people who are fertilizing imagination with hopes 
of a home in the country is startling. We learn also 
of plenty of bargains in farms. There are men who 
for the best of reasons find it necessary to sell farm 
property at figures which make it a great investment 
to one of these would-be fanners. This shift from 
city to farm may mean ruin to the man or a blessing 
to both man and country. It depends upon the man! 
* 
drink or its equivalent if he expects them to work; and, 
as it is illegal to give them intoxicants in part payment, 
he will have to give an increase of wage corresponding 
with the value of the beer or cider which would other¬ 
wise have been allowed for each man. The only alterna¬ 
tive is to become a disciple of total abstinence. 
Before we would be at the mercy of men who re¬ 
quire three quarts of cider per day we would let the 
farm go to grass and get on with dumb brutes who 
will at least keep sober. The barrels of “hard cider” 
in farmhouse cellars do more steady work for the 
devil than their owners can. ever offset by eloquent 
lip service. 
* 
Why did the beef trust wait until just this time 
before raising the price of meats? If the “shortage” 
theory is correct the rise should have come earlier in 
the season. We believe that this rise was planned so 
as to affect the oleo bill. The beef men favor oleo. 
Their evident plan was to raise a storm of protest 
from city consumers which should strike Washington 
just at the right time—for tneir interests. They ex¬ 
pected a contest between the House and the Senate 
over certain amendments. They had these amend¬ 
ments tacked on to the bill in order to give a chance 
for just the tactics they are now playing. What a 
slippery rogue an oleoist is! 
« 
Even the paper which is known as the organ of the 
Mint Exchange fails to respond with melody when a 
hog puts its paws on the keyboard. It says; 
in announcing the decline in price to take effect April 
l(i, the Milk Exchange committed an act of unpardonable 
folly, winch goes lar to justify the charge of being a 
“cheap John,” and seems to have gone out of its way 
to qualify itself for pleading guilty. Professedly, its 
prices are determined by market conditions. Judged by 
this standard, its latest performance places it in the 
position of one "weighed in the balance and -found want¬ 
ing."’ No one can afford to or will sell milk except at a 
price which is considerably in advance of its worth for 
butter, for the simple reason that it contains other valu¬ 
able solids. 
Oleo men in Congress quoted this reduction in price 
as evidence that the price of butter was put up by a 
trust! If it be true that a “fair exchange is no rob¬ 
bery” we must conclude that the Milk Exchange is 
as foul as it well can be. It is time to turn every 
gun upon this so-called “regulator of prices!” 
Two weeks ago we mentioned a scheme for selling 
fountain pens. We have been Hooded with letters 
from friends who want to know about it. In brief, 
the scheme is as follows: You receive a letter—per¬ 
haps from some friend—containing a contract which 
you are to sign. You are to send $2.50 in return for 
which you are promised a fountain pen and a chance 
to earn money by writing letters. You are to write 
10 letters every day, each one containing a certain 
number of words. In these letters you invite your 
friends to sign the contract and send for the pen, so 
that they, in turn, will write letters to others. You 
are also to write the following on another slip of 
paper and enclose it in the letter: 
Illinois always makes special efforts in the observ¬ 
ance of Arbor Day, and some of its cities have tried a 
plan which deserves much commendation. Local 
nurserymen contribute trees, mostly fruit varieties, 
which are offered as prizes to pupils of the public 
schools for the best essays on familiar topics, es¬ 
pecially those relating to plant and animal life. The 
prizes are distributed on Arbor Day, when the trees 
are planted with considerable ceremony. The chil¬ 
dren take great pride in the planting of the trees, and 
watch over their progress afterwards with much 
solicitude. The plan seems likely to be productive of 
much good, since it inevitably arouses an interest in 
growing things. 
* 
An English law prohibits farmers from paying their 
workmen except with cash, although a contract may 
be made to provide food and non-intoxicating drink 
or rent of a house in addition to money wages. An 
English farmer agreed to pay a teamster $3.50 a week 
and free rent of cottage and garden. The man was 
also to have three quarts of cider a day! The man 
was finally discharged and brought suit for wages 
and $1.66 for cider which he did not receive. The 
courts refused to allow this cider claim, but actually 
fined the farmer for giving cider in part payment of 
wages! In referring to this decision the Mark Lane 
Express says: 
It strikes a staggering blow at the very prevalent, and 
almost unavoidable, custom of giving casual laborers 
their “’lowance” at hay time and harvest. It will still 
be lawful for a Piaster to stand his servant an occa¬ 
sional drink, for a genuine gift made by an employer 
out of kindness cannot be treated as payment of wages; 
but it will be almost impossible for a farmer to contend 
that the customary “’lowance” is not a part of the bar¬ 
gain. If he thinks he can do so, let him try it 15y stop¬ 
ping the beer, and see how long his “datal” men will stop 
with him. He will soon find that he must give them a 
Dear Friend: I am in the employ of the company. I 
have found that they fulfill all they promise. They pay 
$1.50 the fix'st week for expenses; after that $6.50 per week. 
An idea of tbe possibilities of such a scheme may 
be seen from the following letter from one who ought 
to know: 
Everyone about here who can write is working. They 
pay as agreed and get the names and pens around all 
O. K. There are over 4,000 now writing. Other com¬ 
panies are selling watches on the same plan. The pens 
cost 38 cents each, and the people are working for the 
wages. My hired man and his wife make $10 a week 
writing nights. Each person writes 10 letters per day. 
Just figure for a few minutes and you will see it will 
run into millions in a few weeks. The company makes 
$2 on each pen sold, and gets the first weeks’ letters free. 
When the craze is over and the field worked out, they 
will discharge their writers. Whether they will pay up 
the two or three weeks they are back when they stop we 
will know later. The 4,000 writers have sent out 240,000 
letters this past week. If one in 10 should accept the 
offer and buy a pen there would be 24,000 pens sold and 
the profit $48,000, less $7,S00 for the pay of the writers. 
Next week there would be 24,000 more writers, making 
28,000 and they would send out 1,680,000 letters. But they 
would not have to pay the 28,000 writers for the first 
week, and make the sales clear. 
Several people tell us that “the whole town” is 
writing the letters. Several local dealers started the 
scheme but were frightened away from it—issuing the 
following circular to their agents: 
Some agents for fountain pens being sold by the letter¬ 
writing scheme have failed to keep their agreements as 
to paying wages, and thus caused complaints to be made 
to the Attorney General, not only against the agents 
but against the system, and on his decision rests the 
future of the business. Owing to the above we deemed 
it advisable to cancel all contracts and discontinue busi¬ 
ness for the present, or until the Attorney General has 
rendered his decision. 
We are opposed to any plan for selling goods on 
this “endless chain” principle. It has been used for 
good purposes, but in the hands of rogues it can do 
great damage. If a company wished to do a fraudu¬ 
lent business it could well afford to send out 2,000 
fairly good pens and pay wages to a few thousand 
writers who started first. We object to the plan of 
writing these letters of recommendation for people 
about whom we know little. This habit of giving 
cheap and easy endorsement is one of the worst that 
a letter writer can pick up. It is only a question of 
time before the authorities will stop the scheme. 
They have already suspended the Wilkesbarre con¬ 
cern and stopped the delivery of their mails. The 
company doing business there started with nothing. 
They borrowed a desk, sold an old horse to raise a 
little capital, and started selling pens which are ex¬ 
pensive even at $1. The craze will now quickly blow 
over, and thousands will find themselves left with a 
cheap pen and some costly experience. They will find 
their names and those of their friends on mailing lists 
which will be sold to all the rogues and immoral 
scamps who have filthy or bogus circulars to send out. 
The following note from Florida will interest many 
northern farmers: 
There is a dearth of labor here. It simply can’t be had. 
The season is at hand for shipping vegetables, and the 
question now comes: “Who is going to pick them?” Of 
course we manage some way to go through it, but very 
often at the expense of health (overwork). No starving 
wages here, and not even possibility of starvation for 
the lazy. 
Let this man leave Florida and go north to the 
farthest corner of Maine. Then let him go west as 
far as the Pacific, through Washington, Oregon and 
California, and east until he finds himself once more 
in Florida. He will find that at every point of his 
journey farmers are making nearly the same com¬ 
plaint. “There is a dearth of farm labor!” At some 
points there will be found less trouble than he de¬ 
scribes, but everywhere farmers are calling for help 
in the field and in the house. Let him cross the ocean 
to England and in some of the farming counties he 
will find even a worse situation—with old men and 
girls in the field! The cities and towns are filled with 
stout men—some of them barely scraping up a living, 
while the farm would afford them an abundance. 
Florida may be a land where even the lazy have no 
fear of starvation, but even that attraction will not 
overcome the craze for city life. It is a strange feel¬ 
ing which prompts a man to prefer pinch and priva¬ 
tion in the shadow of a great city building to comfort 
and sunshine on the country hills, but it is one of the 
things that must be considered when we wonder why 
our farms lack labor. One trouble is that except in 
the South we have no class yet in this country that 
looks upon farm labor as a regular business or profes¬ 
sion. The expert hired man expects to own a farm— 
the shiftless man works chiefly for his dinner and his 
bed. What part of our agricultural educational sys¬ 
tem is developing the hired man? Is American agri¬ 
culture profitable enough to enable the average farmer 
to pay for such help as Prof. Waugh refers to on 
page 318? 
• 
BREVITIES. 
Life is what we live. 
Mr. Mapes says that a dozen kernels of corn beat all 
the clubs he ever saw for driving a hog. 
Hard when one must tiyn necessities into luxuries; 
soft when luxuries can be made necessities. 
Lacking in sense! The man who uses a “moth trap” 
instead of a spray pump after all that has been said 
about it. 
Chickory culture was started by Long Island farmers 
several years ago, but we learn that it did not pay, and 
has been abandoned! 
Do not try rape as a Spring manurial crop. While it 
makes a rank growth it adds nothing to the soil that 
will make another crop grow. 
An Illinois justice decides that a man’s wife is entitled 
to the money paid for eggs laid by their Hens. This is a 
grand recognition of the rights of feminine labor. 
O. W. Mapes writes that on April 21 his hens laid 824 
eggs, which brought $15.75. Now, let some hen expert 
figure that this means a sure income of $5,748.75 per year! 
Will some one please name even a small locality in 
this great country where the Potato beetle does not need 
fighting? If we find that place, should we run upon some 
greater evil? 
There will be a large acreage of corn in South Dakota 
this year. It was not thought that corn could be grown 
successfully in that State, but since high prices have 
made it a money crop everywhere farmers have learned 
how. 
It has been found necessary in England to pass a law 
restraining teamsters and hired men from giving arsenic 
and similar drugs to horses put in their charge. These 
drugs are administered to give the horse “life” or im¬ 
prove his coat. 
We are often asked whether when we fumigate a room 
with hydrocyanic acid gas we will not kill the rats in the 
walls and then make a bad nuisance! It is not likely. 
At the first faint whiff the rats run, and all rat holes 
should be plugged before starting the gas. 
