372 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
May 24 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FAliMER’S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Coining wood, Editor. 
Hr. Walter Van Fleet, l AsBOclates 
Mrs. K. T. Boyle, ^-associates. 
Joux J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 52.04, 
equal to 8s. 6d., or 8}& marks, or 10V£ 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 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, MAY 24, 1902. 
$ 10 , $ 7 , $ 5 , $ 3 , $ 1 . 
Why I Take The Rural New-Yorker. 
We offer five prizes for the best answers to the 
above question from our readers and subscribers. For 
the best answer we will give $10; second best, $7; 
third, $5; fourth, $3, and fifth, $1. We want the story 
you would tell a friend or neighbor who asked you 
why you take the paper. What has it done for you? 
What departments are most useful, and why? We 
do not want “taffy” or fulsome praise, but a serious 
and fair review of the merits and demerits or the 
paper, considered as you would any other product 
that you obtain in exchange tor a dollar. The article 
should not contain over 200 words. Original ideas 
and expressions will be considered especially valuable. 
A picture or yourself or some member of your family, 
or of some feature of your home or farm work would 
add value to your letter. All letters must be in our 
hands by July 15, 1902. Subscribers only will be per¬ 
mitted to compete. Names of successful competitors 
will be published. Address all letters to 
CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT, 
The Rural New-Yorker, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
A serious disaster has befallen the fruit growers of 
northern and western New York. The freeze of May 
11 caught small fruits, plums, peaches and early 
apples in their Summer clothes, and in some localities 
the damage is heavy. The real extent of the loss 
cannot be told for several days yet, and we hope for 
the best, for many fruit growers are not prepared to 
lose their crops in this way. On the next page will be 
found reports from various points. 
* 
No use talking, those corn-breeding associations in 
the West have done much to give the farmer better 
grain. Corn breeding! Why not? We may trace and 
control the parentage of corn as well as of cattle. By 
selecting seed corn with great care, selecting a stand¬ 
ard and sorting up to it the corn breeders have made 
it possible for the farmer to add bushels to his crop 
without using more manure or giving extra tillage. 
If such work pays in the West, it will pay better in 
the East where corn is worth more! 
• 
Some things in politics are done in open view, like 
the hands moving around the clock. Others, and the 
most important, are out of sight, like the “works” in 
the clock that turn the hands! Take the oleo bill. 
President Roosevelt signed it; that was the hand on 
the clock. The influences that fought for and against 
a veto were like the “works,” out of sight, yet con¬ 
trolling the hand! The oleo men did not really ex¬ 
pect that the Senate would ever pass the bill. When 
it did go through, they concentrated their fire upon 
the President. We are told that in one day he re¬ 
ceived nearly 800 telegrams urging him to veto the 
bill! Washington was crowded with oleo men, and 
the President gave them a personal audience. They 
made the strongest plea that was possible for their 
side, and it is no secret that they made a deep im¬ 
pression, for they represented large monied interests 
and concentrated political influence. The tiling went 
so far that finally the effect of a veto upon party po¬ 
litical prospects had to be considered. The Presi¬ 
dent’s political advisers doubtless reasoned in about 
this way: “In the Senate this measure was decided 
by practically a party vote. The action of the beet 
sugar men shows that there is trouble head of us in 
the Congressional elections from farmers. If, now, 
this bill is vetoed, thousands of farmers will consider 
it a personal injury. It will never do to disappoint 
them, for they will begin another campaign at once!” 
That was probably the reasoning that decided the 
matter. It is a good thing that the farmer’s strength 
is recognized in this way. His slice of justice will be 
larger when he can demand his rights than when he 
must beg for what the rich and strong are willing to 
leave for him. 
* 
One of the worst things a farmer can do is to pro¬ 
vide liquor for the hands or in fact, willingly to per¬ 
mit any liquor on the farm! Some men say they 
cannot do a full job without daily doses of rum. We 
have no patience with such stories. Some one wrote 
Admiral Dewey asking whether it were true that at 
Manila Bay all hands drank grog. Here is his answer: 
As a matter of fact, every participant, from myself 
down, fought the battle of Manila Bay on black coffee 
alone. The United States laws forbid the taking of 
liquor aboard ship, except for medicinal uses, and we 
had no liquor that we could have given the men even 
had it been desired to do so. 
If a sailor can face shot and shell without liquor, a 
farmer can face his duties in the same way. It 
wouldn’t hurt our feelings if the laws included farm 
buildings as well as ships in this enforced temperance. 
• 
In former discussions we have seen that gifts of 
nature, labor and capital are essential to the creation 
of wealth, and that, when natural gifts are available 
to labor at all times, and competition in transporta¬ 
tion and distribution is unrestricted, prices are regu¬ 
lated by the law of supply and demand. Combina¬ 
tions of capital have found various ways to nullify 
these economic laws of trade. The object is always 
to obtain control of the product or of the market—to 
form a monopoly—and thus to secure for capital a 
larger share of profits than would come to it under 
normal conditions. The simplest way to form these 
monopolies is to get possession of practically all the 
natural gifts essential to the particular business. This 
has been effected in the control of the oil fields by the 
Standard Oil Company, in coal fields by the railroad 
companies, and in iron ores by the steel trust. It has 
also been effected in the control of the salt wells of 
this country, the nitrate beds of South America and 
the potash mines of Germany. In agriculture, tillable 
and grazing lands are nature’s gifts, and as it is not 
practicable for a few capitalists to appropriate all 
these lands as was done by political favorites in Eng¬ 
land after the Norman conquest, other means are re¬ 
sorted to in order to control the supply and fix prices. 
This manipulation of products and markets is appar¬ 
ent in the milk trade of New York and other large 
cities, and in the effect on prices of wheat, corn and 
oats, which are sold on the boards of trade of cities 
months before the grain is harvested. Just now we 
are experiencing the effect of a monopoly of the meat 
trade of this country, which will be referred to next. 
* 
The recent awful catastrophe in Martinique, one 
of the most attractive of the Carribean Islands and 
the chief French colony in the western hemisphere, 
by which more than 40,000 human lives were lost in 
a rain of fire caused by the sudden explosion of a 
volcano long thought to be inactive, is a forcible re¬ 
minder of the puny weakness of man in the presence 
of great natural forces. The beautiful city of St. Pierre 
had grown to commercial and political importance 
over a century ago, and was historically the most in¬ 
teresting port in the West Indies. It seems to have 
been wiped out of existence almost in a flash, and 
practically all the inhabitants quickly perished. The 
writer recalls coasting past St. Pierre one brilliant 
moonlight night many years ago. Nothing could ap¬ 
pear more calm and peaceful than the cone of Mont 
Pelee, the sleeping volcano lying a few miles inland, 
as we rounded the headlands, and none could dream 
of the terrific latent energy that has just burst forth 
in such horrible destruction. We are prone to think, 
as we read of great historical eruptions and earth¬ 
quakes, that nature had quieted down and these 
dreadful visitations are not to be of our day, but 
geological science gives us no such comforting con¬ 
clusion. While often separated by long intervals of 
time and wide extent of territory these immeasurable 
forces exist and manifest themselves with little warn¬ 
ing. This frightful upheaval at our very doors has 
made it the nation’s duty to extend every aid and 
possible comfort to the stricken survivors. Congress 
and the executive department of our Government have 
already taken measures to assist these unfortunate 
wards of ever-friendly France. The dispatch of war¬ 
ship and merchant steamers with public and private 
contributions to the desolated islands of Martinique 
and St. Vincent is a pleasing evidence of the real 
brotherhood of man. 
We do not belong io the class of people who grieve 
because a single printed aiticle does not kill off a 
rogue or a wrong! For every man killed in battle 
150 pounds of bullet and shell must be fired away. 
Y’ou must use the same weight of ink on some men 
before you can make them do what you conceive to 
be their duty as citizens. The only thing to do is to 
keep at it faithfully and cheerfully. The chances are 
fair that after you have worked to stir up a wave of 
public sentiment some one will get on the crest and 
claim all the credit. What if they do? Is that any 
reason why you should stop working? 
* 
The following report seems to kill one needed re¬ 
form: 
Washington, May 8.—The House joint resolution for a 
constitutional amendment providing for the election of 
senators by uirect vote of the people, to which has been 
attached Mr. Depew’s amendment for fair elections, was 
apparently shelved to-day by the Senate Committee on 
Privileges and Elections, which declined to report it to 
the Senate with either a favorable or adverse recom 
mendation. For a favorable report the committee stood 
three to seven and then refused four to live to report 
tile resolution adversely. 
Why is the American Senate so jealous of its own 
privileges? It does not want to belong to the com¬ 
mon people who cast what is known as the popular 
vote. The Senate must have royal rights in its pedi¬ 
gree—what did it start from? As a separate institu¬ 
tion it may be said to have been started by a hog! 
Who will believe such a statement? Any one who 
will study the history of New England! In the early 
history of Massachusetts, after a hard struggle, the 
people secured the right to elect deputies to repre¬ 
sent them in the local legislature. Before this a board 
of “assistants,” not responsible to the people, had 
controlled legislation. At first the “assistants” sat in 
the same chamber with the elected deputies. Finally, 
in 1644, a rich man named Captain Keayne obtained 
a stray pig. This pig was claimed by a poor woman. 
1 he church of Boston decided against the woman 
and so did a jury. The woman found friends, how¬ 
ever, and carried her case to the legislature. The pig 
represented the old question of property rights as be¬ 
tween the rich and poor and “got into politics.” After 
seven days of debate seven of the “assistants” and 
eight deputies voted for the rich man’s claim, while 
two “assistants” and 15 deputies voted for the poor 
woman, seven deputies not voting. The final result 
was that the assistants” separated from the deputies 
and formed an upper or so-called aristocratic house 
of legislation. Our present Senate is the legitimate 
heir of this contest over the ownership of a pig. It 
is the belief of most common people of to-day that 
the Senate may be trusted to look after the interests 
of the rich and strong and give the pig to the man 
who has least need of it. There are a dozen good rea¬ 
sons why senators should be brought within reach of 
the common people. With such an animal in its pedi¬ 
gree one can hardly expect the Senate to be generous 
with its so-called privileges. 
BREVITIES. 
Jack Frost is the great fruit thinner. 
What a cold and uncomfortable Spring! 
Its tough—when frost kills even the clover. 
Better to produce a thought than to kill one off. 
A soft answer sometimes encourages a bully to use 
hard words. 
English farmers and millers praise the new English 
grain tariff. 
Ihey have gone so far in England that oleo is actually 
“adulterated”—with water. 
It never would suit! It never would suit! No matter 
how useful—a farm without fruit! 
The best way to improve the general citizenship of this 
country is to start with yourself. 
What do you call the weight limit in a hog? Does it 
pay to feed him past 150 pounds? 
A writer on page 373 says that a trip through England 
and Fiance induced him to settle upon a Maine farm. 
That was a long lane to a farmer’s life! 
The statement is made that the savings banks of New 
York State have enough deposits to pay the entire Na¬ 
tional debt and leave $200,000,000 over. 
Over 178,000 foreigners entered the port of New York 
the first four months of the year. Most of them were 
Italians and Huns, who remained near the sea coast. 
An Ohio farmer who died recently had such an intense 
hatred of weeds that he left $4,000 to be used solely for 
the purpose of keeping the cemetery in which he is buried 
free from weeds. 
This season we receive quite a good many reports like 
the following: “No peaches, except the fence corner seed¬ 
lings.” Now, gentlemen, why should the “fence corner” 
trees be hardier than the others? 
