35o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 6 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Elbert S. Carman, Editor-in-Chief. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Managing Editor. 
Frank H. Valentine, ) Associate Editors 
Mrs. E. T. Royle, f Associate Editors. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
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To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 82.04, equal to 
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Remittances may be made in money order, postal order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY , MAY 6, 1899 
Is it any wonder tliat, when those enormous milk 
yields, mentioned on page 345, were first reported, 
people refused to believe them ? Even now there 
are people who deny their accuracy. Just think of. a 
cow giving 12 to 20 times her own weight of milk in a 
year ! No wonder some of the dairymen whose cows 
give only 4,000 or 5,000 pounds per year—perhaps even 
less than that—are incredulous. Of course, these 
yields are phenomenal ones, obtained by high feeding 
and most exact scientific methods, and likely unprofit¬ 
able in themselves ; yet they show the possibilities of 
the dairy cow in her highest development. 
It is reported that a veterinary surgeon near Mont¬ 
real has discovered what he thinks is a case of so- 
called spontaneous cow-pox It is said that animals 
thus affected are very rare, and, of course, valuable. 
After .Tenner’s original stock of vaccine lymph was 
exhausted, he was unable to get any more. France 
and England have each supplied two or three such 
cows, and the United States one. The lymph now 
used is all far removed from the primitive, unmanip¬ 
ulated type, and it is generally held that change, if 
not deterioration, is produced by a long series of arti¬ 
ficial inoculations from animal to animal, even though 
no human factor is intruded into the chain. If this 
cow should prove to be possessed of the qualities 
claimed for her, she will, probably, prove a veritable 
bonanza for her owner, and be elevated to a high 
niche in the temple of cow fame. 
discuss it from this point of view, because no one 
seems to advance any serious moral reason why we 
should send our boys to kill men who want to be free. 
We can see no outlook for increased trade in the prod¬ 
ucts of the American farm. On the other hand, there 
is every reason to expect that the Philippines will 
greatly increase their exports of sugar, wool, rice, 
cotton and, probably, meat and hemp. Under pres¬ 
ent conditions, every pound of this increase will repre¬ 
sent a loss in the American farmer’s trade. Devote 
the money and energy now spent in chasing the Fil¬ 
ipinos, to jailing or branding the rascals who are poi¬ 
soning and adulterating our food, and you will reap 
10 times the harvest that will ever come from the 
Philippines. 
The authority given to a school committee to board 
a child near the school instead of carrying it to and 
fro, referred to on page 352, Beems like paternalism 
run mad. The tendency of some of the laws recently 
enacted seems to be to make the authority of the 
State paramount to that of the parent. In New York 
State, the compulsory attendance law has been 
enforced against parents of the highest standing who, 
because of some weakness or infirmity of their chil¬ 
dren, did not send them to school, though givingthem 
instruction at home. Some of these laws put into the 
hands of petty officials the power to harass unneces¬ 
sarily those far their superiors mentally, morally and 
socially. The intent of these laws is generally good, 
but their administration is often bid. When so en¬ 
forced, they outrage every principle of liberty so dear 
to every true American. 
Many northern dairymen find themselves in a quan¬ 
dary this year over the hay question. Now that the 
silo has been accepted as more useful to a cow than 
her horns or tail, most of the hay fed in the dairy is 
clover. The past hard Winter has completely killed 
out the clover on thousands of farms. What are these 
dairymen to do for strong hay ? By “ strong ” hay we 
mean some nitrogenous fodder that will equal clover. 
Millet or corn fodder may be readily grown, but these 
will not take the place of grain. Shall we use Soy 
beans, Canada field peas or southern cow peas? Dozens 
of our readers ask that question, and they muit dec.de 
quickly. We answer—Canada field peas by all means, 
and put them in at once. As a new crop on ordinary 
land, the Soy bean is not reliable. In our opinion, 
the southern cow pea is a manurial crop first of all at 
the North. The varieties that form seed at the North 
will provide hay not unlike bean-vine fodder. In the 
South, it is a good hay crop; at the North, it is, first 
of all, a manure maker. 
man ? The fact that a really practical milking ma¬ 
chine is not yet anywhere in sight. The human hand 
still rules in the dairy, and this fact is the salvation 
of the small dairyman ! 
The 4l gr. en goods” swindlers—scoundrels who offer 
to sell counterfeit money—and their modes of opera¬ 
tion, have been described over and over again. One 
wonders that any person may still be found, ready to 
part with good money, in the hope of receiving many 
times its face value in counterfeits. Yet, recently, a 
well-to-do Illinois farmer came to New York, and 
handed over $380 in good money for, as he believed, 
$3,000 in counterfeits. As usual, the swindlers whom 
he met upon appointment, gave him a box, presum¬ 
ably containing the counterfeits, warning him not to 
examine the contents until he got away from New 
York, for fear of police interference This dupe was 
put upon a western train, but at Poughkeepsie, ven¬ 
tured to open his precious box, to find nothing within 
except strips of paper and cardboard. He complained 
to the police, a course such victims usually avoid, and 
must go back to his home community branded as a 
dupe who was willing to cheat his neighbors and com¬ 
mit a crime against the Government, but who was 
overreached by more skillful knaves. If any green- 
goods circulars come your way, remember that the 
kitchen stove is their safest receptacle. 
In the Spanish-American war, 298 American soldiers 
were killed, and 1,645 were wounded. No one has 
tried to figure the tons of Spanish metal required to 
complete this slaughter. During the last fiscal year, 
1,693 railroad men were killed, and 27,667 were in¬ 
jured on American railroads. The greater part of 
this death and injury resulted from coupling and un¬ 
coupling cars, and this is much less than in the year 
1893. A law now compels the use of automatic 
couplers. Tae old link-and-pin attachment was a 
man-killer, which is now nearly crowded out of busi¬ 
ness. In 1897, there were 1,221,730 freight cars doing 
service on American roads, and they carried 741,705,946 
tons of freight. Each trainman represented nine 
freight cars and 5,587 tons of freight. The number 
of passengers killed during the year was 222, and 
2,795 were injured. Putting it another way, one pas- 
sanger was killed for every 2,204,708 carried, and 
one was injured for every 175 115 carried. The aver¬ 
age passenger was carried 55,211,440 miles before he 
was killed ! The greatest slaughter of human life at 
railroad crossings was naturally in New Jersey. In 
that State, the railroads and other corporations pay 
the State taxes, and of course, they claim to own the 
State! 
Reports from the Philippines indicate that the in¬ 
surgents are now acquiring more or better weapons 
and ammunition. Some may inquire whether this 
does not show a breach of faith on the part of nations 
supplying them. In answer to this, it may be stated 
that conditions are exactly the same as in Cuba, be¬ 
fore the war with Spain. The Cubans were not 
recognized as belligerents, hence there was no breach 
of international comity in supplying them with 
weapons, though, if fighting men accompanied the 
weapons, they could be punished as filibusters. 
Under existing conditions, the United States is at 
peace with all nations, the Filipinos not being recog¬ 
nized as belligerents, hence there is nothing to pre¬ 
vent the sale of weapons to them. It is not a pleasant 
state of affairs, but it enables us to realize Spain’s 
feelings towards those who supplied the Cubans 
before we stepped in. 
• • 
What are we fighting for in the Philippines? If 
there is any moral principle at stake, we have failed to 
observe what our boys are dying for. If we are fighting 
for conquest and to get the value of our $20,000,000, 
let’s see what there is at present in sight. The six 
largest islands comprise 59,800 square miles, with 
5,422,000 inhabitants. The State of Illinois contains 
56,000 square miles, with 3,826,351 inhabitants. The 
various other small islands will raise the population 
to about 8,000 000, a large proportion being heathens. 
Only one-ninth of the surface is under cultivation. 
Sheep, cattle and horses thrive well. Sugar, rice and 
hemp are exported. Coal and minerals abound. The 
entire year’s exports from the Philippines amounted 
to $19,702,819. The country imported only $9,174,093. 
If this country secured all this trade, it would mean 
less than eight per cent of our total export trade. In 
1898, we bought in the Philippines $3,069,673 worth of 
hemp, $381,279 worth of sugar, and enough other ar¬ 
ticles to make the total $3,830,415. We sent to the 
Philippines only $127,804 worth of goods—including 
$65,995 worth of mineral oil! So far as we can see, 
the conquest of the Filipinos will mean a distinct 
injury to the business of the American farmer. We 
We are informed that the three steamboat freight 
lines running between this city and Rondout, Pough¬ 
keepsie and Newburg, have consolidated, now being 
knovvn as the Hudson Central Steamboat Company. 
This consolidation ought to enable the fruit growers 
along the river to secure fairer rates of transporta¬ 
tion, because it will create more of a competition 
with the railroads and express companies. The thing 
most desired is a uniform rate for all kinds of small 
fruits. Now, a 32 quart crate of currants, gooseber¬ 
ries or cherries is counted to weigh 40 pounds, and 
the rate is $4 per ton, which makes eight cents per 
crate. The same crate with 32 quarts of strawberries 
in it, is carried at the rate of 75 cents per 100 pounds 
or 25 cents per crate. No extra care is necessary to 
carry and deliver the strawberries, and the average 
value of these fruits is nearly the same. The request 
that a uniform rate should be charged for eaeh, is no 
more than fair, and we hope that this consolidation 
of steamship lines will lead the way for such an ad¬ 
justment. 
• • 
• 
The work of the new buttermaking machine de¬ 
scribed on page 346, opens the way for vast possibili¬ 
ties in the dairy business. Many of us remember the 
coming of the centrifugal separator, and how it 
changed American dairying. If the “ Radiator ” prove 
as successful as it promises, the whole aspect of dairy¬ 
ing will be changed. A machine capable of handling 
the milk of 1,000 cows can be placed in one small 
room. It is practically automatic, and two skilled 
men can do all the work. An absolutely uniform 
product can be secured No ice is required except for 
storing the butter. The machine in this City uses 
the city water with a temperature of 54 degrees. 
There are few points in American dairy sections 
where deep well water will rise above 52 degrees. 
Fifty or more of these large machines owned by the 
farmers who supply milk to New York would settle 
the milk business, for it would be easy to turn enough 
of the milk into butter, and thus regulate the amount 
sent to theC.ty. We thiDk this machine will make 
good batter. What will be left for the common dairy- 
BREYIl IES. 
I hear the story of a Brahma hen, 
I know not where she lived—I do not care; 
I only know that there are grown-up men 
Just like this foolish biddy, everywhere. 
Upon her nest—the throne of all her sex— 
With 13 eggs this hen serenely sat, 
With nothing visible her soul to vex, 
With naught to do but sit there and wax fat. 
She raised her feathers with tremendous fuss, 
When some one put a crate of eggs beside 
Her nest—the foolish biddy reasoned thus: 
“ I’ve covered 13 eggs and not half tried, 
I want a bigger job, this one can wait! ” 
And puffed with foolish pride—the tale is told — 
Sie left her nest, and brooded on the crate; 
She never warmed an egg—her own grew cold. 
Yes, men are like the hen—give them a job, 
Humble, perhaps, but suited to their skill, 
Yet, to pursue some hopeless task, they bob 
Up from their nest—their honest chance to kill 
Lord, make us narrow in our self-.steem! 
Narrow enough to realize and know 
The shady line ’twixt common sense and dream 1 
Then let us settle on our nest and (/row ! 
A bad outlook for peaches. 
Last call for the kitchen garden. 
Thb hesitating man is fed on halt extract. 
Don’t make the wife grow in your shadow. 
A riding cultivator breeds hatred for a hoe. 
Tue rye face of Nature is handsome just now. 
The late worm gives the early bird his reputation. 
Keep toothpicks and pins out of your ears. You might just as 
sensibly poke them into your eyes! 
“I have kept the faith! ” Good—but why haven’t you given it 
to others, and thus strengthened your grip on it ? 
You could grow 10 successive crops from a strawberry plant. 
It would be one of the things that Paul called *• not expedient.” 
If you would write an article, and do your thoughts up brown, 
sit down and think, boil up your thoughts, and then just boil 
’em down. 
The latest fad is to use three sliced lemons and a quart of 
bran in a bath-tub of water. Well—it makes a market for fruit 
and grain ! 
We must remember that comparatively little potash is brought 
to the farm in ordinary grains and feeding stuffs. Wheat bran 
is richest in potash, but in all feeds, there is less of it than of 
nitrogen or phosphoric acid. A large proportion of potash in 
the manure escapes in the liquids. Thus on most dairy farms, 
potash is the most useful fertilizer. 
