724 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 25 
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. 
John J. Billon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to Ss. 6 d., or 8 V 2 marks, or 10 Ms 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, OCTOBER 25, 1902. 
IQ Weeks for lO Cents• 
We must have more names to keep this new press 
busy. It takes 7,000 names to keep it going one hour 
a week. Now is the time to interest your neighbors 
in the paper. To give everyone a chance to get ac¬ 
quainted with it, we will send the paper now 10 weeks 
for 10 cents. Perhaps you can get up a club. If so, 
write for terms and cash prizes. 
* 
We learn that at several canning factories the re¬ 
fuse from peas and sweet corn is cut into silos, making 
a fair silage. This silage is sold to dairy farmers at 
$2 per ton. It is hauled away each day in wagon or 
sleigh, and is said to be a popular feed. This refuse 
was formerly a nuisance—but now a source of income. 
* 
We shall soon begin a little series of articles on 
peddling farm products which will, we feel sure, in¬ 
terest many of our readers. There are farmers who 
say: “Whatever happens I won’t peddle!” Some of 
these men are standing right in their own light by 
taking such a position, and they cannot, to save their 
lives, back themselves with sound argument. 
* 
The other day a big package of plants came to us 
by parcels post from Trinidad, W. I. It was delivered 
promptly and without trouble for half the cost of 
sending it an equal distance in this country. What a 
shame that foreigners can enjoy postal facilities with 
Americans that are denied to people of our own coun¬ 
try. We must have a parcels post. The only way to 
obtain it is to keep after your Congressman till he 
votes for it. 
* 
The latest effort at organization among farmers is 
a Sweet Corn Growers’ Union in Maine. As most corn 
consumers know, vast quantities of sweet corn are 
grown and packed in the Pine Tree State. The pack¬ 
ers seem to have had the best end of the business and 
now the growers purpose to organize and act in con¬ 
cert. What does all this organizing mean. Simply 
that the farmer now sees that he cannot, as an indi¬ 
vidual, hope to hold his own when every other busi¬ 
ness that touches his is organized. 
* 
lx nearly every State some man has been nominated 
for public office who is admitted to be an enemy of 
farmers. For example, here and there men who did 
their best to defeat the various State and National 
anti-oleo bills are asking farmers to vote for them. 
There are so many of these cheeky individuals that 
we find it impossible to name them all, but they all 
deserve one fate—political oblivion. All things are said 
to be possible to a politician, but how any man bear¬ 
ing the smear of oleo can have the face to come and 
ask a farmer for his vote is more than we can under¬ 
stand! There can be no reason or logic in the argu¬ 
ment of a man who aims an unfair blow, at my busi¬ 
ness, and then comes and asks me to put him where 
he can strike another. Down with every one of them! 
We do not say this in any spirit of revenge, but purely 
as a matter of business. You cannot convert an oleo 
champion. Place him once more in power and he will 
accept his election as evidence that farmers lack the 
force and character needed to make them vote for their 
own interests. Who can blame such a man for being 
holder than ever when after openly defying the ex¬ 
pressed opinions of farmers he is reelected by their 
votes? Some men are put in a hard position when 
asked to cut their party ticket—but the road that 
leads to duty has never been macadamized! If any 
man with oleo in his record has crowded his name 
upon your ticket, cut him at the polls, and do your 
best to leave him at home. Why, even the patient old 
cow would rise and put both hind feet into the milker 
who lacks the nerve to kick with his ballot! 
* 
A New York man has been investigating the possi¬ 
bilities of burning petroleum in an ordinary stove, 
and finally settled upon a brick as a suitable medium 
for handling the oil. He says: 
I took a porous, hollow brick measuring 8x3%x2!4 inches, 
and soaked it for a few seconds in common kerosene. I 
then ignited it. The brick burned for fully 40 minutes, 
giving out a bright flame and emitting great heat. The 
latter was sufficient to cook a meal and heat the boiler, 
and cost about one cent. 
Most people who intend to burn oil will prefer to 
use it in a stove made for the purpose; still this ex¬ 
periment possesses some value in suggestion. Cer¬ 
tainly no one but a person abnormally fond of excite¬ 
ment would care to keep up heat by putting a second 
oil-soaked brick into the stove still heated by the 
first; it would be wise to conduct the operation at long 
range. It should also be remembered that if an oil- 
soaked brick be placed in a stove it must be lighted 
at once; if left long in the stove without burning there 
would be an escape of inflammable fumes which, when 
a match was applied, might cause an explosion in the 
close firebox. A big department store in a neighbor¬ 
ing city recently had a sale of porous bricks to be used 
in this way, an enormous number being sold one cold 
and rainy day, when everyone thought of his empty 
coal bin, for five cents apiece. 
* 
The following statement is made in an Illinois 
paper: 
Cy Howard, an eccentric farmer of Henderson County, 
committed suicide last week by hanging himself to a 
harness peg in the barn. The only known reason for his 
rash act was that he had recently been swindled by a 
couple of fruit-tree peddlers to the tune of about $1,500. 
In order to meet this obligation he had to mortgage his 
farm. This so preyed on his mind that he was probably 
mentally unbalanced when he committed the rash act. 
This is the first instance we have heard of where 
a tree peddler drove a man to suicide! The “rash act” 
which proved this man’s undoing was committed 
when he signed a contract with these tree rogues. 
The victims of these rascals do not usually go and 
hang themselves to a harness peg. Some of them 
have a happy time bragging about the wonderful 
fruits they are to raise—until the fruit itself gives 
them the lie. The remedy for all this is simple—use 
common sense enough to understand that no wan¬ 
dering tree man can teach the honorable nurseryman 
with whom you have done business a thing about new 
varieties. No reader of The R. N.-Y. need have occa¬ 
sion to hang himself to a harness peg with a tree 
peddler’s contract around his neck! 
* 
Just before the recent great strike of the anthracite 
miners was declared the writer placed an order with 
a local dealer for a supply of coal for the coming 
Winter. The order was accepted at the local current 
price of $5.75 a ton, the dealer ordering two carloads, 
aggregating nearly 90 tons, from an operator’s agency 
at the tidewater terminus of several coal-operating 
railroads. The dealer’s order was duly honored and 
the cars promptly dispatched, but before the train 
had proceeded many miles on its way the coal cars 
were “cut out” of the way-bill by telegraph, at once 
side-tracked, and quickly returned to the storage 
yard. The local coal dealer thus left in the lurch has 
practically no redress from the railroad coal-owners, 
as any protest against the high-handed proceedings 
would likely submit him to such future discrimina¬ 
tion in prices, rates and car delays as would drive 
him out of business. He is left to face his exasper¬ 
ated patrons as best he may, and witness, with empty 
yards, coal climbing in price to $26 a ton. His patrons' 
may freeze if they cannot get oil or wood, as no coal 
is to be had at any price. The 90 tons thus withheld 
for apparently purely speculative purposes would tide 
this little community over a substantial portion of 
the coming cold weather, and possibly avert much 
real distress and danger. The railroad-coal operators, 
if put to proof, would probably claim the coal was 
their property until actually delivered to the dealer, 
and they were within their rights in recalling it while 
in transit even after the order was accepted, but their 
powers of intimidation are so great that such acts are 
seldom questioned. The National Government or the 
government of any of our several States would scarce¬ 
ly venture on a course so near unrecompensed appro¬ 
priation of private property, as their various consti¬ 
tutions specially provide against such proceedings, 
except under due course of law, but our railroads, 
chartered for public service, do not bother over such 
trifles as a due regard for the spirit as well as the 
letter of the law. Our railroads as a whole are ex¬ 
cellently well conducted in a physical way, but every¬ 
one having contact with these domineering corpora¬ 
tions is aware they do not render the public a frac¬ 
tion of the beneficial service such a complete system 
of transportation should if really conducted for the 
public benefit. If an individual or corporation mails 
one or 50,000 yetters yearly, he is charged the same 
rate, and his offerings receive precisely the same care 
and attention in either case by our postal authorities 
and employees, but it makes a vast difference whether 
one ships or receives a single carload, a hundred or a 
thousand carloads of merchandise yearly. This sys¬ 
tem of railroad discrimination and favoritism is so 
gross as to undermine all ideas of business morality. 
If the report to Congress of the late Industrial Com¬ 
mission is to be relied on, the abuses almost pass 
comprehension. To such extremes has it been carried 
that one great oil company is credited with not only 
receiving a rebate, amounting to almost the entire 
charge on its own shipments, but in the past has been 
favored with a rebate on shipments of its competitors, 
which, it is needless to say, were charged rather more 
than “the traffic would bear.” Already there is a 
strong demand for the public ownership of the an¬ 
thracite fields, and this important advance will doubt¬ 
less come in time, but the chief source of our great¬ 
est public ills lies, in the belief of many, in our un¬ 
scrupulous and short-sighted monopolies of transpor¬ 
tation. Give us just and equal management of the 
transportation of commodities and intelligence, and 
most of the trusts and corners will fall of their own 
weight. 
* 
Among other questions recently at hand are the fol¬ 
lowing: 
What has become of the American Apple Consumers’ 
League? Has it been disbanded, or are its members dis¬ 
couraged? 
What questions these are for a genuine apple eater 
to ask! The true apple taste would crowd such sug¬ 
gestions off any man’s tongue. What has become of 
the League? It has grown so fast that this great 
country has been unable to hold it. In Cuba, England, 
France, Germany and even in Brazil and China its 
members are going about calling “Apple! Apple!” 
whenever they eat a meal at a public table. Frost 
and fungus did something toward raising the price of 
fruit this year, but the Apple Consumers’ League is 
to be accorded a good share of the credit? Disbanded? 
What faint-heart is it that asks this question? Has 
he eaten his two big apples every day? Has he hunted 
out restaurants where apples were not on the bill of 
fare and asked “Why not?” Has he scolded his land¬ 
lady or gently suggested to his wife when the apple 
barrel ran dry? Discouraged? Why the members of 
the League are so busy eating and advocating apples 
that they have no time to lose heart You might just 
as well ask if Americans are tired of singing “The 
Star Spangled Banner!” 
* 
BREVITIES. 
Are the silos full in your neighborhood? 
Soft coal has helped many out of a hard situation. 
For “general debility” in horse or human—look at the 
teeth! 
We understand that crude petroleum is being used suc¬ 
cessfully for heating greenhouses! 
The forbears of the farmer fed the world for many a 
day, and for all these years of boarding Modern Farmer 
wants his pay. 
The mayor of Hammond, Ind., is urging young people 
to marry. His appropriate name is Knotts, and appar¬ 
ently he wishes to tie them. 
When you feel unhappy, just ask yourself whether you 
are not adopting the same expression of countenance as 
that worn by an old family horse. 
Reports are that Potato beetles are paying more at¬ 
tention each year to other crops than potatoes—eggplants, 
tomatoes, turnips and even cabbage! 
The chemists find little feeding value in pumpkins, but 
stock of all kinds reject the chemists’ analysis, and pro¬ 
ceed to give value to the pumpkin crop. 
When a man says that his milk utensils are “well 
cleaned” it makes some difference whether you take his 
definition of the word “well” or the inspector’s. 
Where there is no separate root cellar, strong-smelling 
vegetables should always be pitted; those who must 
breathe their odor are to be pitied when they arc stored 
in the house cellar. 
A Pennsylvania college football team was recently 
chased out of a pasture and down a long road by a bull, 
•who resented their brilliant sweaters. It was a case 
where the “flying wedge” actually flew. 
The Iowa Agricultural College has an “Excursion Day” 
each year. The railroads give special rates, and farmers 
from all over the State visit the College. This year 
nearly 10,000 came and w r ere well received. 
Lime, sulphur and salt make a deadly mixture for scale 
insects in climates so dry that the coating will not wash 
off. In the California climate this wash slowly decom¬ 
poses and gives off poisonous vapors which destroy the 
insects under it. Rains spoil this effect and leave on the 
trees only a coat of ordinary whitewash. 
