1902 
399 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
HOT FACTS FOR FARMERS. 
Selling Goods from the Wagon. 
A few years ago a farmer in my vicinity, upon ap¬ 
proaching the keeper of a market in his town relative 
to disposing of surplus vegetables after his route was 
covered, was treated to a harangue more forcible than 
elegant, commencing with the words, “You - 
farmers.” The gist of the matter was the alleged fact 
that the farmer would first glut the market and then 
offer the cull end of his load to the legitimate pur¬ 
veyors. Nearly 20 years ago I first began to do a lit¬ 
tle commercial gardening, especially in the line of the 
most perishable, or most quickly deteriorating vege¬ 
tables, such as peas, sweet corn and a few others, 
those specified being my staples. My first offering of 
these met with prompt discouragement. But before 
leaving the market, I had a sort of a half-hearted 
offer couched in the inquiry: “What will you take?” 
which resulted in my finally taking less than half the 
retail price, and for goods which fairly outclassed 
those he was stocked with. But so general was the 
unqualified refusal to buy that I was perforce driven, 
much against my inclination, to peddle my wares. 
Now, 1 hold that the farmer in the East makes his 
greatest blunder in neglecting opportunities to deliver 
his wares direct to consumers. The retailer’s profit is 
generally the largest profit. The town is full of 
tradesmen making a living as retailers; and too 
often, as in the instance at the opening of this 
article, they arrogate to themselves the exclu¬ 
sive right to retail. If there is a producing pro¬ 
fit for our eastern farming it is apparent that 
the farmer who is sufficiently business-headed 
lias an opportunity before him to oust the mid¬ 
dleman, and that this would be to the manifest 
advantage of consumer cannot be denied. How 
often have we seen the choice peas, picked in 
the nick of time and conscientiously hurried to 
market, put away to grow stale until the stock 
on hand should first be worked off, or worse 
still, deliberately mixed with the already spoil¬ 
ed stuff. In my experience the farmer receives 
a warmer welcome at the houses than formerly. 
The market keeper who so profanely accosted 
the farmer now conducts an extensive farming 
business as an adjunct to his town trade. 
Any resident of an eastern town can hardly 
refrain from noticing a wide change in the con¬ 
ditions of the trade in eatables. The meat mar¬ 
kets and groceries have lost their distinguish¬ 
ing marks. It is upon the lines of economical 
handling that the same visiting tradesman will 
take orders for sugar or meats. But to go one 
step further, the wellnigh universal custom has 
become the trade at the house, superseding the 
visit of each housekeeper to the store. In one 
case in my own town, a stranger hired a small 
house and barn at the end of an unfrequented 
lane in the suburbs. He departed from the 
two-visits-a-day plan by having a house wagon, 
carrying for immediate uelivery all the ordinary 
meats and groceries. A firm of about 30 years 
standing, centrally located, had been gradually 
running behind, and finally went out of busi¬ 
ness, and its popular clerk was at once claimed 
by the owner of the house-wagon. The above 
example illustrates my argument. This revolu¬ 
tion in the handling of grocers’ wares has left 
the eastern farmer the opportunity of his life. 
He may as legitimately appropriate the trade 
in eatables as for the non-property-holding stranger 
to do it. He can both live and keep his team at less 
cost than he who either hires or pays taxes on real 
estate in town. I affirm that the farmer deserves to 
handle the trade in all eatables, and I venture the pre¬ 
diction that the completion of the first quarter of the 
new century will see a large proportion in his hands. 
Economy demands it, and the farmer deserves it. But 
it must be deservingly won, through the adoption of 
business principles, including promptness, neatness 
and integrity. 
The foregoing conclusions have been forced upon 
me through my experiences of the past season, rather 
than by the means of idle theorizing. The failure of 
my apple orchard left me without occupation or in¬ 
come for the Winter. How to live without going off 
the farm was the problem, so I took a few lessons in 
the trade of hulling corn, and was soon selling a 
bushel of corn, costing me $1, at a profit of $9. A 
neighbor makes a specialty of horse radish, and was 
needing help in retailing, so I took this along. Being 
a bee-keeper, I sold honey also. Then I gradually 
added one commodity after another, always asking 
whether in each instance the benefit would be mu¬ 
tual. Olives are a high-priced luxury, and many do 
not buy, from economy, so I handled them in bulk, to 
my customers’ delight. The Winter trade in bottled 
maple syrup is large, so I got an approved brand from 
a firm which gives full quarts—a rarity. Then there 
are novelties constantly coming out which deserve a 
place, reluctantly granted by the average grocer. 
These continually give the peddler an excuse for call¬ 
ing in unaccustomed places. The gradual changes in 
the conditions of trade constantly open opportunities, 
and the farmer has the best chance of all if he will 
but seize it. Probably the best one of all I have yet 
to mention. The increase in the popular use of ice 
cream amounts to little less than a revolution. The 
farmer should be able to produce the materials cheap¬ 
er than the town vender can buy them, and especially 
he can know absolutely of their purity. He can har¬ 
vest his ice at 50 cents per ton, as against three to 
five times that cost to the buyer in town. A fine out¬ 
fit is not needed to sell anything a farmer may carry. 
In fact, last season I saw an ice cream farmer whose 
outfit bespoke the farm, run out of business a fine 
team purchased especially for that trade. You see, it 
was ice cream that the farmer was selling. 
Massachusetts. f. w. froctor. 
CHEAP SHADE TREES. 
I notice what Prof. Craig has to say on this topic 
on page 319 of The R. N.-Y. I fully agree with him as 
to the undesirablity of box elder as a roadside tree. 
It may do in the West where any tree is an acquisi¬ 
tion, but here in the East it is simply a nuisance. It 
wardness of the young. This may in a measure ac¬ 
count for its want of popularity: but when seen its 
extreme grace and beauty always captivate, and nur¬ 
serymen should be able to supply calls for both these 
very desirable trees. j. s. woodward. 
COW PEAS ; FERTILIZED PLANT IN RIGHT HAND. Fig. 157. 
has all the undesirable qualities Prof. Craig mentions. 
In addition it scatters its seeds and the seedlings are 
an bad as Canada thistles. 
One of the finest of all roadside trees is almost en¬ 
tirely unused. I allude to the Hop hornbeam (Ostrya 
Virginica) iron-wood, lever-wood. It is known by all 
these names in various parts of the country. This is 
a slow-growing tree, but of very clean foliage. It is 
of symmetrical form, pyramidal in shape. It grows 20 
to 40 feet high and often eight or 10 inches in diam¬ 
eter. Its young limbs are quite long and flexible; 
leaves are two to four inches long, serrated, on short 
stalks and of very fine green color. Its leaves appear 
quite early in Spring and remain until late in Fall. 
With its hop-like fruit it is quite ornamental. It is 
never attacked by insects or disease. While young 
the tree grows reasonably fast but afterward more 
slowly, and makes a very dense shade. I can show 
specimens that are the envy of all who look at them. 
Another fine but much neglected street shade tree 
is the Black birch (Betula nigra), sometimes called 
Red birch. It is a beautiful tree of fine shape and 
clean foliage, often growing 40 to 50 feet high. We 
sometimes see its near relative, the Paper birch (Be¬ 
tula papyrifera), the only recommendation of which 
is the white color of its bark. While the birch is 
young, its branches are long and flexible and were 
once much used by pedagogues to correct the way- 
A FIGHT AGAINST MOSQUITOES. 
At the last session of the New Jersey Legislature a 
bill was passed authorizing the experiment station to 
investigate the life history, breeding places, etc., of mos¬ 
quitoes, so as to learn the best methods of fighting them. 
There being some mistake about the money to be appro¬ 
priated, Governor Murphy assigned $1,000 from his emer¬ 
gency fund, so that an organization might at least be 
effected. We give below a statement by Professor J. B. 
Smith, showing what may be done. 
Though the mosquitoes do not directly injure the 
crops grown by the farmer, they are real detriments 
to agriculture in many localities. Nobody works 
well when fighting mosquitoes; nobody sleeps well 
when these pests are not carefully screened out. 
Where mosquitoes are plentiful, cattle do not do well, 
and their influence is directly felt in the milk pail. 
Localities badly infested are not settled up readily, 
and land values remain low. As it has been definite¬ 
ly proved that certain species of these insects are in¬ 
termediate agents in the transfer of the micro-organ¬ 
isms causing malaria, they become of direct import¬ 
ance from the sanitary point of view, in which the 
farmer is at least as much interested as any 
other citizen. In New Jersey mosquitoes are 
locally very abundant, and their importance is 
relatively greater than in some other States, 
because they prevent the development of great 
areas of shore property which would, but for 
them, become of immense value. They are a 
positive detriment to the agriculture of the 
State, because the development of this shore 
property would afford local markets of the most 
profitable kind for the truck and dairy products 
of the upland just west of the shore. So the 
mosquito problem is not improperly within the 
scope of the work ot an agricultural experiment 
station. The writer has, during his work in the 
State, made many interesting observations on 
mosquitoes and, after the publication of Dr. L. 
O. Howard’s book on the subject, he devoted all 
the available time during 1901 to the closer 
study of the mosquito problem in the State. 
The result convinced him that ridding the State 
of the pest was by no means an impossibility, 
and perhaps not even very difficult or expensive. 
A circular has been prepared giving concise¬ 
ly the methods to be adopted by individuals and 
local bodies who may choose to take the matter 
up. These will be distributed to any who may 
request them. During the Summer a specialist 
will be stationed in a malarial region, and he 
will devote all his time to a study of the con¬ 
ditions favoring the spread of this disease, and 
the development of the parasite causing it. 
There are several unsolved problems in this 
connection. Incidentally, as breeding places for 
these parasites are discovered, local boards of 
health will be notified and remedial measures 
suggested. The objects to be attained contem¬ 
plate the permanent control of the mosquito 
pest—not the mere temporary measure of kill¬ 
ing off the larvae, etc., with oil, which would 
have to be frequently repeated; therefore a 
study of the natural enemies of the insects be¬ 
comes important. Stocking a permanent breed¬ 
ing piace with the proper kinds of fish, for instance, 
would be much more satisfactory than covering it 
with oil. This branch of the subject will be in the 
hands of a former member of the United States Fish 
Commission. As some killing agent other than oil 
is desirable in some cases, experiments will be carried 
on to test the effectiveness of all such materials as 
may offer any chance of success. The salt marsh 
problem, though in one way the most important, 
since more than half of the mosquitoes in the State 
breed there, is too large to be included in the scope 
of this year’s work; but a careful preliminary survey 
will be made, that when a sufficient sum does become 
available no time need be lost in putting survey par¬ 
ties into the field. It is not intended to make a 
splurge, but to study the problem in a thoroughly 
scientific and practical way, that a permanent good 
effect may be obtained. john b. smith. 
NO POTATO BUGS.—On page 324 you request some one 
to “name even a small locality in this great country 
where the Potato beetle does not need fighting.” Oregon, 
Washington and so far as I know, Idaho, Montana and 
California have no Potato beetles. This Is by no means 
a small locality. I have raised potatoes in Oregon for 30 
years, and with the exception of one year, where a species 
of cutworm did considerable damage, have not had to 
fight anything to get a good crop. We sometimes have 
a small black beetle, but it never does serious harm. 
Garden Home, Oregon. t. p. 
