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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
•Tune 3 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TEE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home*. 
Established 1850. 
Elbert S. Carman, Editor-in-Chief. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Managing Editor. 
Frank H. Valentine, 1 . „ , . 
Mrs. E. T. Royle, [Associate Editors. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 82.04, equal to 
8s. 6d., or 854 marks, or 10i4 francs. 
ADVERTISINGS RATES. 
Thirty cents per agate line (14 lines to the inch). Yearly orders 
of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 25 cents per line. 
Reading Notices, ending with “Adv.," 75 cents per 
count line. Absolutely One Price Only. 
Advertisements inserted only for responsible and honorable houses 
We must have copy one week before the date of issue. 
Name and address of sender, and what the remittance is for, 
should appear in every letter. 
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. 
SATURDA Y JUNE 3, 1899. 
All communications intended for E. S. Carman 
should, until next October, be addressed to River 
Edge, Bergen County, N. J. 
We will send The Rural New-Yorker for the 
remainder of this year to any address for 50 cents. 
You have a neighbor who needs the paper. This is 
the time to get him started. Send his subscription 
this month. For your trouble, we will send you that 
great historical romance, Quo Vadis, in paper cover. 
Attention is called to the article by Mr. C Wood 
Davis, on our first page. The R. N.-Y. is constantly 
printing a class of articles that wou]d add interest 
and strength to the best of the great magazines. We 
have others coming that will strike at living questions 
with great power. There is no reason why the farmer 
should be fed on trash. Good, sound mental grain of 
the highest quality is none too good for him. 
Is the “hired girl” a boarder ? If the law decides 
that she is, a New York man will be prosecuted for 
using oleo in his family. The law permits a man to 
feed his own family on oleo, but doesn’t allow him to 
give it to his boarders ; consequently, the prosecution 
of the case in point depends on the legal and domestic 
status of the family servant. Are the authorities as 
rigid in enforcing oleo laws in the case of big offenders? 
Twenty years ago, milkmen were greatly bothered 
by customers who demanded the milk from one cow 
regularly. They thought this insured a more uniform 
sample of milk. That idea is now pretty well ex¬ 
ploded. Herd milk, or the milk of all the cows thor¬ 
oughly mixed, is safer and more uniform in the long 
run than the milk of any single cow. How the retail 
milk trade has been upset and turned over during the 
past 10 years! No other food has been so guarded 
and investigated. We want the same guard and 
scrutiny over other prepared foods. That is the way 
to get rid of the frauds and poisons that fill the market. 
Thebe has recently been held in Cincinnati a 
National Conference of Caarities and Correction. The 
Superintendent of the Illinois State Reformatory 
made an address on The Relation of the Cigarette to 
Crime. He says he is sure that cigarettes are destroy¬ 
ing and making criminals of more boys than the 
saloons. In his reformatory now there are 278 boys. 
Of 63, averaging 12 years of age, 58 were cigarette 
smokers. Of 133, averaging 14 years of age, 125 were 
cigarette smokers. Of 82, averaging 15 years of age, 
73 were cigarette smokers. At least 92 per cent were 
cigarette fiends at the time of committing crimes for 
which they were committed to the reformatory. A 
general discussion disclosed the fact that a similar 
condition was the experience of others connected with 
reformatories for boys. These facts demand serious 
consideration by parents and guardians, and by boys 
themselves. 
• • 
We were told the other day of a man who had made 
a specialty of bean raising for a great many years, 
and had been very successful. He has always made it 
a point, in years when beans are high and the demand 
for seed is good, to curtail his own planting, and sell 
most of his seed. In years when prices are low, he 
plants largely, while many of his neighbors do the 
opposite. By pursuing this plan for a long series of 
years, he has usually had large quantities of beans to 
sell when they are high, and fewer when they are 
low. The present position in the horse market is an 
example of the ruling tendency in human nature—the 
direct opposite of this man’s course. The tame is true 
of sheep and cattle. Hops are another example. 
Many predict that potato prices will be ruinously low 
this year ; good seed was very scarce and high, and a 
large area was planted. The tendency of the average 
man seems to be to rush into growing a crop when 
the price is high ; but there are so many average men 
that the business is overdone, and when his crop is 
ready for market, prices fall. The thinking, calculating 
man adopts the opposite course, and has goods to sell 
on an advanced market. Which is more profitable? 
We have received a circular which states that Dela¬ 
ware has “ just adopted the most favorable of exist¬ 
ing general corporation laws—one marking a forward 
step in the evolution of the corporation”. This means, 
we suppose, that Delaware will attempt to capture 
some of the business that now goes to New Jersey. 
That State sold out to the railroads and corporations 
years ago. They pay the State’s expenses, and in re¬ 
turn, appear to hold a mortgage on every legislature. 
One would think that it would be a great help to the 
average tax payer to be relieved of a State tax, yet 
the local and county taxes are usually piled up so that 
the Jerseyman has more than he wants to pay. It is 
a shameful thing for a State to sell its self-respect in 
this way. That is just what it amounts to when the 
State runs out and asks the corporations and trusts 
to use its State house for an office ! 
• 
Southern men who were brought up with the 
negro, mostly defend the lynchings which have re¬ 
cently horrified the country. It is true that people in 
most northern communities do not understand what 
it means for a white farmer of small means to live in 
a community where the negroes outnumber the 
whites. The haunting terror of women left alone at 
home in such places is awful to think of. It must be 
admitted, however, that lynching, burning and tor¬ 
turing have not put down the evil. In fact, we are 
told that these crimes are sometimes committed out 
of revenge. They have not made country life safer 
or more desirable. If the present condition of affairs 
be kept up, and the situation do not improve, we do 
not see but that southern farming must be socially 
changed. The country will be given up to the ne¬ 
groes—the white men and their families keeping close 
to the towns for protection. In some sections of the 
South, something of this plan is already followed. 
Thoughtful southern men must regret such a state of 
affairs. Is there no remedy for it ? 
One of the Chicago witnesses before the Senatorial 
Committee now investigating food adulterations de¬ 
clared that many wealthy persons buy oleo because 
they like it better than real butter. He said that they 
would buy it furtively, and then smuggle the stuff 
home, to offer it on their luxurious tables in the guise 
of genuine butter, for which they have lost the taste. 
The idea of a Chicago millionaire slinking home 
through the back streets with a pound of oleo con¬ 
cealed under his costly overcoat, is a very impressive 
one, and no one will object to it, so long as the hum¬ 
bler workingman may satisfy his unsophisticated 
taste for real butter. Let the millionaires have the 
oleo, if they have acquired the taste; we wouldn’t 
think of interfering with it, any more than with the 
Piute’s taste for baked grasshoppers, or the Thlinkii’s 
affection for a riotous potlatch on decayed salmon 
heads. All we ask is that the commodities be prop¬ 
erly branded when offered for sale, or otherwise con¬ 
trolled and restricted, so that the buyer who has not 
attained a luxurious taste for oleo may buy butter, 
knowing that it is the product of the cow, and not 
the refuse of her beef brother, the steer. 
• 
• • 
Gov. Roosevelt has just shown the country that 
the governor of a great State need not be a mere ex¬ 
ecutive. The bill which taxes public franchises passed 
the New York Assembly, but at a hearing given those 
who opposed it, Gov. Roosevelt became convinced that 
several changes ought to be made in it. The chief 
change was as to who should assess the value of these 
franchises. The original bill placed this assessment 
in the hands of the local authorities. It was con¬ 
sidered fairer to all that this should be done by a 
State Board, and one or two other minor changes were 
suggested. The Governor said in effect: “If the 
legislature will agree to make these changes and then 
go home, I will call it together ; if not, I will sign the 
bill as it is ! ” There was a struggle, but the Governor 
held the whip end, and the legislature did as he sug¬ 
gested, and went home. This shows what a governor 
can do if he gets public opinion back of him. The 
people felt that Gov. Roosevelt believed in the honesty 
and wisdom of this franchise tax. Believing that, 
they were ready to back him up in his ideas about de¬ 
tails. It is a victory for the Governor—well earned. 
But we would like to call his attention to the fact that 
Hamilton Busbey still holds his office. Why does the 
Governor dodge a fly while he shows that he can whip 
a lion ? 
New York has been excited lately by a case of kid¬ 
napping, which is still a mystery, at time of writing. 
A family in comfortable circumstances advertised fer 
a nurse, and received a response from a young woman 
whose appearance was so respectable that she was 
promptly engaged, though unable to give any refer¬ 
ences. Two or three days later the new nurse took 
the 20 months-old baby Marion out for an airing in 
Central Park. Several hours afterwards, the baby’s 
parents received a note, stating that the child was 
held for ransom, and would be killed if the money 
were not forthcoming. The deserted baby-carriage 
was found in the Park, but nurse and baby have 
utterly disappeared. The point most strongly im¬ 
pressed upon us is the danger a mother faces, when 
she hands her children over to a stranger in this way. 
Child stealing is now a rare crime, but many a care¬ 
less or vicious nurse gives the child a permanent in¬ 
jury to health or morals, and changes the course of 
his whole future life. Better the open fields or shady 
orchards of a quiet farm, where even the loneliness is 
an added safeguard. As for the vile creatures who 
have, in the case described, put a price upon the blood 
of a helpless baby, no punishment upon our statutes 
can be too severe. In the last case of this sort in 
New York State, the two conspirators, who retained 
possession of the child for a few hours only, each re¬ 
ceived a sentence of 15 years in State prison. 
BREVITIES. 
What shall we do for Dewey 
When he comes home again ? 
Knock off and play—the livelong day, 
And fill up on champagne ? 
What shall we do for Djwey ? 
Pass ’round the hat you say ? 
What ? Frame with gold the tale he told 
Off in Manila bay ? 
What shall we do for Dewey ? 
Just open your lungs with zest. 
Let out one cheer when his ship comes near, 
With flag in the sky and tear in the eye; 
With throb in the heart—he’s done his part. 
So welcome him home across the foam— 
Tnen give him a good long rest! 
A self fertilizing crop—laziness. 
“ Soft soap ” never made a clean man. 
A tremendous apple crop is promised in Kansas. 
When is a cold spring most appreciated ? On a hot Summer day. 
Unlike some workmen, a clock is on strike when it doesn’t 
strike. 
“ A stitch In time saves nine ! ” That adage was never truer 
than in the killing of weeds. 
It is customary to wear “ weeds ” for the dead. The country 
graveyard generally overdoes the business. 
The man who sows clover seed hides his brains in the sand, 
and they shall return unto him with interest 
The scientists generally agree that formalin is better than 
corrosive sublimate for preventing potato scab. 
A man never knows what he can do until he tries, and he then 
devotes much of his leisure to wishing he hadn’t done it. 
One event at an Australian poultry show was “ a 15-minute 
crowing contest, for which five roosters were entered.” 
If clothes don’t make the man, there would be precious little 
of some men when separated from their gaudy raiment. 
The Connecticut Experiment Station found samples of cheap 
wheat bran which were adulterated with ground corn cobs. 
Last year this country exported only $27,961 worth of mutton 
against $448,370 worth of eggs. What ails American mutton ? 
The main difference between cow peas and rape for green 
manure is that the cow pea always draws interest on its first 
investment. 
The crop of war heroes seems to be growing. How about the 
heroes who staid at home and toiled and suffered, but of whom 
the world never hears ? 
We never met any one yet who could be a man and an angel at 
the same time. Still it would hardly do to say that manliness is 
discredited among the angels 
We observe that most of the smaller towns are supplied with 
ice cream from city factories. Name a good reason why a dairy¬ 
man should not get part of this trade. 
Seedsmen say that, never before, have they sold so many seed 
potatoes as during this past season. The higher the price, the 
more anxious people seem to be to buy. Strange, isn’t it ? 
The highway commissioners of Genesee County, N. Y., have 
ordered the destruction of Wild cherry trees along the road. These 
trees are nests for insects, and are poisonous for live stock! 
A broom that formerly cost us 25 cents now costs 35. Still 
we ar; told that combinations render possible great savings. 
Evidently the purchasers don’t profit much by these savings. 
No doubt about it—lots of western stockmen are going to 
breeding horses again. Now the thing to find cut is what 
stock are they giving up. That will be the stock to sell five years 
hence. 
Burglar insurance is the latest. Certain companies will in¬ 
sure your goods against robbers! This beats a burglar alarm or 
a bu'ldog. Many farms lose quantities of nitrogen because the 
soil lies bare during the Fall rains C. Clover & Co. will insure 
against this loss. 
