6*8 
September 13 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Hehbeht W. Colling wood, Editor. 
I)H. WALTER VAN ELfcKT, |Associates 
Mrs. E. 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 its. Oil., or marks, or 10% 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, anil 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, SEPTEMBER 13, 1902. 
It is better to expose the rogue and save the farm¬ 
ers’ money than to send the thief to jail after he has 
secured the plunder. 
* 
Beef cattle have been selling in the Chicago mar¬ 
ket at $9 per 100 pounds live weight. Where, oh where 
are the oleo men who told us that the beef cattle in¬ 
dustry would be ruined if they were denied the oppor¬ 
tunity of selling suet for butter fat? They should 
come forward and explain! 
• 
The apple situation still favors the grower. Many 
growers in western New York are holding out for 
$2.50 per barrel, with a good chance of obtaining it. 
Suppose the apple shippers had had reports all their 
own way, as was the case a few years ago. “Big 
crop” stories would have frightened many growers 
into giving away a good share of their fruit! We fol¬ 
lowed the crop through from the time of the great 
freeze and no reader has been deceived. 
* 
The trolley car is no respector of persons. It runs 
over the President of the United States or a humble 
foreign laborer, if either happen to be in its way. 
Some communities have gone “trolley mad.” In their 
eagerness to secure rapid transportation citizens have 
ruined their streets and roads by giving electric rail¬ 
roads right of way. It is hard to wake up too late and 
find that the electrics have crowded you off your own 
highway. They should have been sent through the 
fields in the first place. 
• 
The New Jersey Experiment Station has found two 
things that are being used to adulterate stock feeds. 
The hard, flinty hulls of the rice kernel are sold as 
“rice meal,” and the inner hulls of the coffeeberry 
are known as “cornaline.” When some fraud mixes 
this “cornaline” with good corn and oats and sells it 
as horse feed he is not trying to give the horse a cup 
of coffee—he is just trying to palm off worthless stuff 
for the horse’s ribs and the owner’s purse alike to 
grow thin on. What a shame that the food frauds 
can’t let even the dumb brutes alone! 
* 
It is not generally known that about 50,000 citizens 
of this country will cross the line to Canada for per¬ 
manent settlement this year. It is an exodus of farm¬ 
ers into the rich land of the Canadian Northwest. For 
many years the value of this section for farming was 
hidden by the great fur-trading companies. They 
wanted it left undisturbed. The truth came out at 
last that here are the richest grain lands on the con¬ 
tinent. About all the cheap lands on this side of the 
line have been taken up. Now, the Canadian wilder¬ 
ness is to be settled and the granary of the world 
moved farther north. 
* 
Mb. Mapes refers to “wide” and “narrow” rations 
for hens. The wise men will doubtless say that every 
farmer ought to know at once what this means. That 
is true, perhaps, yet how many of these same wise 
men live up to their oughts? A “wide ration” does 
not mean too much food, as some people believe, but 
it means a large proportion of the food elements that 
provide fat and animal fuel to those that make muscle. 
The chemist picks apart the substances which Nature 
puts together as food, and classifies them as they pro¬ 
duce muscle or fat and fuel. The hen does the same 
thing, and proves her chemistry by packing these ele¬ 
ments in fair proportions into her egg or upon her 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
bones. The theory of a balanced ration is to mix the 
food so that the hen will have enough of each sort 
of food without wasting either. When Mapes talks 
of a “wide ration” he means a mixture containing five 
parts or more of fat-making food to one of protein or 
muscle makers. A “narrow” ration is one with a 
smaller proportion. It seems necessary to repeat 
these things frequently. We agree with Mapes that 
a hen beats a chemist in telling what food she should 
have to make an egg, yet a man can cross-question a 
hen much better if he knows the facts. 
* 
Fob three years past The R. N.-Y. has been talking 
boxed apples for eastern markets. We have seen the 
steady stream of Pacific coast apples pouring into this 
great market in neat boxes which are taken eagerly 
by the best customers. The western growers have or¬ 
ganized the market for these small packages, and we 
have been sorry to see our eastern growers so slow 
to take advantage of it. For a time we talked to dull 
ears, but all of a sudden, this year, there is a remark¬ 
able demand for information. We are sending empty 
California boxes to growers so that they may see just 
what the market demands. These boxes will be used 
as models, with such changes as Yankee ingenuity 
can suggest. The apple box has come to stay, and it 
is high time the eastern grower understood that the 
barrel is not a retail package for the city. The flat- 
dweller in the city has no room for a barrel in his 
small apartments, but he can handle a bushel box. 
The question is—will the grower pack in retail pack¬ 
ages or sell in barrels and let the middleman repack? 
* 
The evaporators mean everything to the fruit grow¬ 
ers of Wayne Co., N. Y. Thousands of barrels of 
apples must go to the driers to obtain any reasonable 
value. The evaporators are held up by the coal strike. 
No fuel, no fire. This will mean great loss to the fruit 
growers. The supply of dry fruit in the country is 
small—the per cent of culls in the orchard large! 
Like our friend whose note was printed last week, 
these fruit growers want to know “what screw to turn 
on” in order to settle the strike. They are not dis¬ 
posed to let their fruit rot while miner and coal 
baron starve each other out. They got up a strong 
petition to their Congressman, Hon. Sereno E. Payne, 
stating their needs and urging him to use his influ¬ 
ence to bring about a settlement. The farmers in 
every county where hard coal is burned ought to fol¬ 
low this example. Few Congressmen own coal mines 
and may have no direct influence with mine owners, 
b it at present they represent the best bugle through 
which the farmer is to sound his note of protest. Drop 
ink on them and it will reach the powers than can 
end the strike! 
* 
The relations between the reader of a paper and 
the editor or publisher should be confidential. The 
reader should give his confidence when he pays his 
subscription price. The editor should justify that 
confidence. The reader has a right to expect that 
when a paper pretends to be his friend, or the friend 
of his business, it will faithfully guard his interests. 
He also has a right to expect that his paper will give 
him the truth. He frequently lacks time or opportu¬ 
nity to discover the truth himself. No doubt he rea¬ 
sons that his paper has, or ought to have, public 
facilities for finding what he needs to know. From 
the standpoint of a subscriber these are common 
rights which the editor is bound to satisfy if he is to 
carry out his part of the bargain. The truth should 
be made public while it is timely—a guide to action 
rather than a record of it. How may these general 
statements be applied to a farm paper—published as 
the friend and champion of farmers? What forms 
of truth should such a paper seek for its readers— 
what do they most need? The experiment station and 
agricultural college are constantly studying what we 
may call the natural enemies of agriculture. Insert* 
pest, plant or animal disease, unscientific methods of 
culture or fertilizing, all make the farmer’s lot hard¬ 
er and more difficult. The reader naturally expects 
that his farm paper will bring these scientific truths 
nearer to him—simplifying and testing and adding 
the discussion of practical men. "While the college 
and station may justly say that their duty to the 
public ends with this class of work, the farm paper is 
not restricted in its functions. There are other truths 
besides those which concern the direct handling of 
the crop which the reader needs, and has a right to 
expect from his paper. In buying or selling, or in¬ 
vesting his savings, the farmer often needs informa¬ 
tion regarding the character of those with whom he 
is to deal. He does not know the true value of what 
is offered him, and how is he to know except through 
the advice of some trustworthy friend who can inves¬ 
tigate and render a fair report? The dollar to be in¬ 
vested is just as important to a farmer as is the dollar 
to be made on the farm. It is the peculiar function 
of the farm paper, distinct from all other departments 
of agricultural education, to investigate the methods 
of those who do business with farmers. The R. N.-Y. 
recognized this when it made its promise of “A square 
deal” with advertisers, and in the future as in the 
past, it will endeavor to live up to its implied and 
direct agreement, justly and without fear. 
* 
The need of making accurate statements and the 
danger of handling storage substances are both illus¬ 
trated in the following experience: 
I know of an instance in which a farmer either read 
about the use of yellow prussiate of potash in making 
Bordeaux Mixture, or heard the same described at insti- 
tues. Apparently he was a man who either thought he 
knew it all, or thought he could make no mistakes. He 
went to the local druggist and instead of asking for 
yellow prussiate of potash he asked for cyanide of pot¬ 
ash, assuming that both were the same. The test did 
not work, and that is how I came to get hold of the 
fact. Of course you know that yellow prussiate of pot¬ 
ash can be handled with very little danger from poison¬ 
ing, while it is dangerous to even inhale the fumes given 
off by cyanide of potash, let alone handling it. 
Think of the risk this man ran in handling a dead¬ 
ly poison without knowing what it was! A careless 
writer may twist up a statement so that the reader is 
sure to go wrong if he follows the advice as printed. 
The most accurate scientific man may be unable to 
make himself clear because he does not realize how 
little his readers really know about scientific terms. 
* 
Still another letter writing scheme has been start¬ 
ed. This time you are asked to write letters to friends 
advising them to buy shares of stock in a new oil 
company. This is part of what you are expected to 
write: 
The work is pleasant and does not occupy me but a 
short time, about an hour each day, and the remunera¬ 
tion is good for the actual labor performed. The com¬ 
pany have fulfilled their agreement with me to the letter 
and I will recommend them to you. I enclose one of 
their circulars and advise you not to delay one moment 
but start at once, as the sooner you begin the sooner 
your pay commences, and the longer it will last. There 
is no possible chance for you to lose a cent, for they will 
either send you outfit and set you to work at once, or 
refund you every penny sent them. Trusting you will 
see the advantage of grasping this opportunity at once, 
believe me, I am, 
Now what moral right have you to send letters of 
this sort to friends who have confidence in your 
word? The company mentioned claims to have con¬ 
trol of several thousand acres of land in the oil fields. 
They want to raise money for drilling, and otter their 
stock at $3 a share. You are to send them the $3 and 
they promise to send you a share of their stock and 
a contract to work for them at $6 per week. This 
work consists of writing 10 letters each day to your 
friends urging them to buy the stock and write the 
letters. There are several reasons why no honest 
person should go into such a scheme. The same thing 
was recently tried with selling fountain pens. The 
Government authorities stopped it—thus branding the 
plan as illegal. You surely do not want to be mixed 
up in a scheme that is against the law. Again, what 
right have you to ask your friends to pay money for 
shares which you know nothing about? Does any 
sane man believe that a company of this character 
can live in the heart of territory controlled by the 
Standard Oil Company? You may say that in this 
letter you do not really aslc your friends to buy, but 
you do worse, for a suggestion of this sort is often 
more dangerous than downright advice. 
* 
BREVITIES. 
Thought without action is naught. 
The R. N.-Y. is printed for the benefit of its readers 
and, in a way, by them. 
The law steps in and says you shall not do it—sell it 
for butter when it’s lard and suet! 
There'll be some special punishment to vex the man 
who clips and signs his clipping “Ex.” 
What is the temperature of your do point? How much 
warming is needed to get you to do something? 
Never criticise unless you can suggest a cure. Think 
of tearing character apart and leaving it in a rough 
heap! 
The oleo men hoped that palm oil would enable them 
to palm off their mixture as butter.. Their hopes are 
blasted! 
Ordinarily the “blower” carries little of the world's 
burden, bui when attached to a silage cutter the blower 
carries its share. 
The shipment of Georgia peaches to Europe was, on 
the whole, satisfactory. Hale will ship Connecticut 
peaches abroad in September. 
The apple situation is such that the grower with a 
crop may be saucy—all but those who depend on evapora¬ 
tors. The coal strike hits them hard. 
A western New York reader tells of his team of 
western horses that will not eat fruit while working in 
an orchard! They must have been raised in a section 
where the Ben Davis apple is grown! Now for a hen 
that won’t scratch in the garden! 
