58o 
August 23 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Colling wood, Editor. 
On. Walter Van Fleet. I .__ 
Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, ( Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in tho Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. 6d., or xy 2 marks, or 10Vfe 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 check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
' ' - ~M - ‘ 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1902. 
Tile fruit growers will do well this Winter to have 
boxes of Pacific coast fruit on exhibition at all large 
meetings. Let the people see how the far western 
growers pack and ship. We shall have to meet them 
with similar packages. There should also be fair 
samples of boxed eastern apples side by side with the 
western fruit so as to compare them for quality. 
Government has not included Panama hats, sewing 
machines, or rare and costly samples of anthracite 
coal. The country girl will receive material to make 
her garden gay, but her city sister is entirely neglect¬ 
ed, instead of being presented by the grace of Congress 
with soda water checks and sash ribbons. To speak 
seriously, the original purpose of the law providing 
for the distribution of rare and unusual seeds and 
plants was an excellent one; the abuse that causes it 
to be referred to as Uncle Sam’s gift enterprise is the 
work of professional politicians. Thoughtful farmers 
and gardeners realize this fully, and it is they who 
should be most acti-ve in reform. Persons who have 
no facilities for handling plants or seeds can hardly 
be blamed for looking upon the matter as class legis¬ 
lation or discrimination against other taxpayers. 
* 
The most expensive things on the farm are not 
seeds, fertilizers, teams and tools, buildings or hired 
help, but blunders. We do not mean that farmers 
are so deficient in judgment that they are more likely 
to err than others, but farming in its best sense is 
not a mechanical business. No two weeks or seasons 
have the same conditions of weather, soil and work. 
Decisions on new and hard questions must constantly 
be made. Making shoes, clothing, lead pipe, or steel 
billets are different matters. The trade once learned 
is learned, and variations in material are about the 
only new things that workmen must look after. No 
man ever learned the farming trade. If he could in 
one year, it would have to be learned over the next. 
There is little excuse, however, in making the same 
mistake twice. Every blunder should be a rock- 
founded insurance policy against making it again. 
• 
* 
We expect, as usual, to meet many old friends at 
the New York State Fair (September 8-13). We look 
forward with much pleasure each year to these little 
“round-ups.” The R. N.-Y. likes to meet readers face 
to face and become acquainted with them. That is 
the way to learn their wants and ambitions. All are 
welcome at the R. N.-Y. tent. That will be a good 
place to rest and leave your baggage or lunch basket. 
* 
The officials of the Treasury Department have 
finally decided that if palm oil is used to color oleo 
the makers must pay the tax of 10 cents a pound! 
This decision seems to head off any attempt to use 
any vegetable substance that will give oleo the stand¬ 
ard color of butter. Hoard’s Dairyman states that 
Senator Foraker, of Ohio, is the man who caused all 
this trouble about “coloration.” He introduced an 
amendment at the last moment which seems to be 
clearly in the interests of the oleo makers! 
* 
Most of our readers are well enough acquainted 
with The R. N.-Y. to know that its columns are not 
used for grinding axes for other people. We have 
strong opinions regarding various public matters, but 
we would never think of printing them for the pur¬ 
pose of gratifying any personal feeling or aiding any 
politician. We believe that those who advertise in 
The R. N.-Y. are doing a legitimate business. Their 
place is in the advertising columns. If an editor is 
to have any opinion at all he must keep the axes 
away from the grindstone. 
* 
Our apple reports continue to indicate a doubtful 
outlook. Fungus diseases are doing great damage in 
some sections of western New York, where apple 
growing is the chief industry. There will be a fair 
crop in these places, but most of the fruit is stunted 
and scarred. It may develop so as to be fit for boxing 
or barreling, but the chances are against it now, as 
apples less than half grown are already warped out 
of shape. We feel sure therefore that the supply of 
first-class fruit will be light. What about prices? 
Buyers are making cautious offers running from $1 
to $1.50 per barrel. Our conviction is that the situa¬ 
tion warrants a higher figure for really good apples, 
and our advice to growers is to be in no hurry to sell. 
The crop situation is not likely to improve. 
* 
The Department of Agriculture intends to begin 
work upon the free seed distribution about September 
1 this year, so that the recipients of Uncle Sam’s 
bounty will receive their gifts in time to start the 
seed next year. Indeed, the partisan press unkindly 
states that interested legislators want to get the seeds 
started in time to warm the recipients up to enthusi¬ 
astic response at the polls next November, but this 
is a narrow and sordid view. It requires $270,000, the 
assistance of 451 Senators, Representatives and Con¬ 
gressional Delegates, and the directing intelligence 
of Secretary Wilson’s department, to distribute about 
40,000,000 packets of seeds and plants. For plants are 
to be issued also this time, but so far the paternal 
Some of the daily papers are making much of the 
startling figures on American agriculture taken from 
the last census returns. Here they are: 
1890. 1900. 
Number of farms. 4,564,641 5,739,657 
Total acreage . 623,218,619 841,201,546 
Value of farm property. .$13,279,252,649 $16,674,690,247 
Implements, live stock.. 2,703,015,040 3,839,311,591 
Value of farm products. 2,460,107,454 4,739,118,752 
The “gross income on investment” in agriculture 
is given as 18.3 per cent! Now some of the great 
political papers say that this startling array of figures 
answers all the arguments against trusts and com¬ 
binations of capital because it shows where the wealth 
of the country is located. It is really no answer at 
all, for the reason that no effective combination or 
general agreement is possible among 5,000,000 land 
owners. The farmers who prouuce annually about 
$5,000,000,000 worth of food and fiber support, out of 
the proceeds from their toil millions of other work¬ 
men who merely handle or make over what the farms 
produce. The “combinations” which send prices up 
or down are not engineered by those who produce 
food, but by those who buy and sell it. The farmer 
not only “feeds them all,” but provides a job for most 
of them! 
The question of child labor, in the new cotton fac¬ 
tories of the South, is attracting attention from hu¬ 
mane people everywhere. Briefly stated, the charge 
is about as follows: Northern States having passed 
laws prohibiting what is known as child labor—that 
is, the working of very young children in the mills— 
the owners of some of them built factories at the 
South where young children can be legally secured. 
This child labor is cheap, and the grinding up of this 
tender flesh and blood enables the factories to pay 
larger dividends to the stock owners. We are told that 
most of these little ones are obtained in the country 
—from the homes of small farmers. Agents go out 
among the farmers and practically buy the services ot 
wife and children for a term of years. The entire 
family moves to town and the husband and father 
lives comfortably on the earnings of the little ones. 
The Dry Goous Economist of this city has investi¬ 
gated the matter. Its desire evidently was to prove 
the stories false, yet here is part of its report: 
One told me that he had $36 coming in every fortnight, 
the proceeds of four children’s and a wife’s earnings. 
Two children each got 40 cents a day, two got 60 cents 
and the wife $1 a day. I asked him why he didn’t turn in 
himself and allow the wife, at least, to remain at home. 
“That’s my business, sah,” was the reply, accompanied 
by a look and gestures which boded little good to the 
questioner. Undaunted by this ebullition of temper, I 
further inquired what he would do should his children 
slip their cables and make for parts unknown. “I’d get 
them back, sah; don’t you forget it, and when I did they’d 
be taught a lesson they’d never forget. The boys are 
mine till they’re 21 and the girls till 18, and the law will 
uphold me in my rights.” 
We purposely avoid giving the revolting stories 
told by eye witnesses of the condition of these baby 
slaves. Poor innocent little ones whom God intended 
for the pure air of the country are shut up in factory 
prisons amid the dust and the whirl of machinery— 
crowded hard upon the treadmill before their baby 
feet are strong enough to endure, and why? In order 
that northern stockholders may obtain a few cents 
more in dividends, and in order that the South may 
have an “industrial development!” If there is any 
other reason for permitting this child labor in the 
States of Georgia, South Carolina and Texas we have 
never seen it stated—we would be glad to have it! 
It may be asked why an agricultural paper should 
concern itself, particularly with this thing. We con¬ 
sider that the American child crop is the noblest pro¬ 
duct of the soil. No man or set of men in this coun¬ 
try should have legal permission to dwarf the body 
and stunt the mind of a little child. If the farmers of 
these States are willing to permit this thing because 
it brings blood-stained dollars into the State for the 
erection of a cotton factory we have one of the most 
melancholy evidences of the decay of southern agri¬ 
culture. The farm has already given too much of its 
blood and treasure to the factory. To throw tender 
children into the scale of competition is going too far. 
It is time for the farm to call a halt on the factory 
when it demands the life of a little child. The mills 
of South Carolina cannot grind up the child crop 
without injuring the agriculture of every State in th-e 
Union. 
The great coal strike now on is forcing its disagree¬ 
able consequences on many who probably imagined 
they would be little disturbed by a distant labor 
struggle. Coal as a concentrated fuel is such a vital 
need to our hustling civilization that its increased 
price and threatened scarcity blocks the wheels of 
industry, and soon raises the cost of many necessities 
of life. Even the farmer with a comfortable supply 
of fuel in his woodlands is obliged to pay more for 
certain commodities and accommodations, but the 
pressure is most severe on those of limited incomes 
who cannot escape in any degree the extortions of the 
mine owners who deliberately refused disinterested 
arbitration of the miners’ demands. The strained 
situation which possibly may at any moment degen¬ 
erate into civil war, could be averted if we had ef¬ 
fective compulsory arbitration laws such as have been 
found to work well in New Zealand and other South 
Pacific British colonies. In the event of serious dis¬ 
putes between employer and employees the argu¬ 
ments of both sides are submitted to arbitration com¬ 
missioners, acting as a court with power to enforce 
decisions, and work goes on without interruption, 
thus obviating the distress, misery and often violence 
of a strike to the finish. The result of these laws, 
after several years experience, appears to be very 
satisfactory all around, greatly diminishing friction 
between labor and* capital, and substituting calm 
judicial decisions, based on a full knowledge of both 
sides of a given question, to the bitter and disastrous 
labor wars lately so common. In the present case the 
miners were willing to submit their claims to argu¬ 
ment and adjudication, but the capitalists would not 
hear of it, so it is easy to infer which side had the 
most to conceal. The public has rights in the pro¬ 
duction and distribution of any natural resource 
above those of all monopolizing owners, and it is not 
probable any set of individuals, however powerful 
they may be in a financial way, will always be per¬ 
mitted to bring about at will such intolerable condi¬ 
tions as now confront the coal consumers. 
* 
BREVITIES. 
Is it not a fad to use a collar pad? 
Plain living for body—high living for mind. 
“The professional weed hater” makes a good farmer. 
Who claims that a robin will not eat beneficial insects? 
Sad tales of flood and storm come from central New 
York. 
Over $35,000,000 worth of pianos were made in this coun¬ 
try in 1900. 
Easier to get a light crop on heavy soil than a heavy 
crop on light soil. 
Will a hen begin to lay when she weans her chicks 
in the early Fall? 
Better buy live stock by picture. Have the breeder 
send a photograph before you buy. 
Does ambition, habit or necessity make you work to 
more than supply the actual needs of life? 
Will the oleo men use palm oil on the politicians to 
grease the track for its admission into their product? 
Voting should be regarded as a moral duty. Still, if 
men exercised it as they do some other moral duties, 
would the world be any better off? 
The National Board of Education of Great Britain now 
requires that nature study shall be taken as one of the 
subjects of examination in rural schools. 
Now don’t say that The R. N.-Y. advises all to rush in 
and use 3,M0 pounds of fertilizer per acre! We do not 
give any such advice. We only tell what the successful 
farmers do. 
John M. Jamison, of Ohio, writes: “I wish you could 
see a 12-acre field of rye that I am ‘hogging’ and ‘sheep- 
ing.' They are all thriving. I have finished with a 
spreader covering the field, rye, clover and all, with 160 
loads of manure.” That is what you may call being good 
to your land! __ _ __< 
