1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE DAIRY LABORATORY AT GENEVA. 
HOW XT WAS DEDICATED. 
An Event in the State’s History. 
[editorial correspondence.] 
A Completed Building - . —Two years ago, I told 
The R. N.-Y. readers something about the Experiment 
Station at Geneva, N. Y. At that time, Director \V. 
H. Jordan said that, among other things, he wanted 
a complete laboratory for dairy investigations. On 
Wednesday, September 21. this building was dedicated 
—the State of New York having erected it at a cost 
of $41,000. Such buildings are not built every year, 
and it was right to make its dedication an event in 
the history of New York State. At an early hour, the 
crowds began to gather. They came on every train, 
on bicycles and in wagons, until the grounds were 
well filled. The early hours were spent in looking 
over the new building, which was pronounced by ex¬ 
perts to be, probably, the most complete dairy labora¬ 
tory in the world. At 10:30, the company gathered in 
a great tent to listen to the speaking. The day was 
bright and clear, with just enough snap to the air to 
make Fall clothing comfortable. 
Story Of a House. —Prof. W. H. Jordan makes a 
good presiding officer. Many of our readers know 
him. He is a man of ordinary size, with a large, well- 
formed head. His face is dark and strong, 
and his black eyes are keen and expressive. His 
black hair covers but a part of his head, and a 
laugh ran through the audience when, in the 
afternoon, Prof. Jordan said that the time is 
coming when a man must have “ hayseed in his 
hair in order to pass muster! ” Prof. Jordan 
opened the speechmaking by describing a 
house, saying how, in after years, its walls 
would retain and bring to mind the memories, 
good or bad, of those who have occupied it. 
Even ruins tell their story. Thus he said the 
abode of the virtuous man seemed to stand as a 
monument to his virtues, while the home of the 
evildoer would stand apart in suspicion as long 
as the evil story lasted. So it would be, he 
said, with this new building. It would only 
reflect the work and the character of those who 
made use of its facilities for spreading knowl¬ 
edge and mastering the forces of nature. It was 
a high thouffm, and well expressed. Rest of all, 
he stopped talking just at the right time—when 
his thought was ripe. 
We Are Welcomed. —Then a portly,well- 
fed man, with a smooth face and the manner, 
speech and hat of a politician, arose to welcome 
the people in behalf of the Station Board of 
Control. This was F. C. Schraub, who was the 
first agricultural commissioner of New York 
State. He made us very welcome, and branched 
off into many things which seemed to me to 
have little to do with this dedication. Among 
other things, he gave figures showing the vast 
amount of farm produce (food and fiber) which 
American farmers sent abroad last year to 
foreign countries. This, he thought, proved 
that the farmer must be prosperous. Now 
and then he heard farmers say, “Farming 
don’t pay,” but that, he thought, must be 
“a glittering generality,” when our farmers sent 
$800,000,000 worth of farm produce out of the land. 
Some of us would like to see Mr. Schraub try a term 
of years on a 100-acre farm without capital, giving 
to the middleman what most of us do, and then tell 
us honestly how his generality glitters ! 
Mr. Schraub also spoke of the work of our soldiers 
at Santiago, and how a great foreign trade was to be 
opened to our farmers. Other speakers harped on this 
string later, and what the newspapers call “loud ap¬ 
plause ” always followed. I have never believed that 
farmers generally are in favor of a great colonial 
policy. During the dinner hour, I went about and 
interviewed as many farmers as I could talk to. It is 
a fact that I could not find one single practical farmer 
who thinks the trade of China or the islands of the 
sea will warrant the cost of getting and holding it. 
Honored at Home. —Dr. Jones, the president of 
Hobart College, told us how much the people of 
Geneva think of Dr. Jordan and the Station. Some 
public officials must look to those who never see them 
for good repute, but in this case, good reputation be¬ 
gan at home—among those who saw the Station and 
its people every day. Dr. Jones went on to say that 
the fundamental principle of civilization and life is 
the food supply. The world wants the price of food 
reduced. This, while true of the consuming classes, 
will hardly satisfy farmers who now find the prices 
for the food they have to sell too close to the actual 
cost of production. Dr. Jones well said that one ob¬ 
ject of a good experiment station is to make farmers 
join hands and get together intellectually. 
Mr. A. G. Chase, of Geneva, chairman of the build¬ 
ing committee, told us how the building was built. 
Senator Raines said later that he wished that same 
committee could have had charge of the building of 
the State Capitol at Albany. 
The Secretary of Agriculture .—We all felt wel¬ 
come by this time, and when a tall, gray-bearded man 
stood up and adjusted his spectacles, we knew it was 
Secretary of Agriculture .lames Wilson. Naturally, 
people are curious to see a man who sits in the Presi¬ 
dent’s cabinet, and whose advice has something to do 
with determining great National events. Most of us 
thought of this rather than the fact that he is the 
head of our great Department of Agriculture. Mr. 
Wilson is a tall, well-built man, with the dress and 
manner of a prosperous western farmer. The pictures 
of him, which are printed in the papers, are good. 
I never saw him before, yet I recognized his face 
at once. It is a strong Scotch face, with a kindly, 
merry look about the eyes. He has a habit while 
listening to a speech or conversation, of closing his 
eyes and dropping his head at one side. He read a 
carefully-prepared paper, telling something of the 
work of the Department and the outlook for the 
future. 
What He Had to Say. —He says that agents of 
the Department are searching all the life zones that 
have been marked out for special plants. It is under¬ 
stood, now as never before, that plants or varieties 
require special conditions of climate, soil and alti¬ 
tude, to do their best. Men are at work studying 
these things so that we may better suit varieties to 
place. 
The Secretary says that we must capture the foreign 
markets. At present, Americans sell cow feed to 
European dairymen, without which they could not 
compete with us in the English markets. We cannot 
stop the exports of cow feed, but we can use more of 
it at home, and ship butter and cheese abroad. Mr. 
Wilson wants a big navy to protect our commerce in 
the East. For years we had $40,000,000 in trade there, 
but not a warship. Now, he says, “we have graduated 
to larger responsibilities.” You could not match our 
70,000,000 people with any other 70,000,000 picked 
from the world at large. He said that younger men 
would go to the agricultural college, but that older 
men must learn from the experiment station. We 
will improve the methods of the Cubans and the 
Filipinos, and show them how to improve varieties of 
coffee, sugar and other plants. We have the best in¬ 
ventors, the best investigators, and the best home 
markets. Now, we must reach out and take our share 
of the world’s trade. 
Educate the Home Market. — Congressman S. 
E. Payne came next, and told us about filled cheese 
and the fight against it at Washington. He took issue 
with those who wanted new trade at the ends of the 
world, and sensibly said that the best trade for the 
American farmer is right in our own towns and cities. 
There are thousands, yes, millions, of Americans in 
these towns who may be educated to buy finer and 
better food. “Why,” said Mr. Payne, “should we go 
to China to try to teach rice-eaters to eat wheat flour, 
687 
when thousands of Americans don’t appreciate the 
finest and purest milk, butter and fruit ? ” 
I got a good point on this during the dinner hour. 
A lunch was sold on the grounds for those who did 
not bring along their fried chicken. I wanted to buy 
some grapes. Geneva is noted for fruit growing. I 
would rather have had some good fruit than anything 
else—so would hundreds of others. Yet the only 
fruit offered for sale was a bunch of bananas. It 
struck me as a singular thing that, in that beautiful 
fruit country, only bananas, carried thousands of 
miles from where they were grown, could be bought. 
It is like the mistake the farmer’s wife makes some¬ 
times when she has company. She will cook up some 
great, elaborate dinner when her guests would much 
prefer a dish of fruit and a bowl of cold milk and 
bread. It is all well enough to go thousands of miles 
aw.ay to improve varieties of coffee, but there are 
thousands of people nearer home who ought to be 
taught how to boil the coffee we now use. h. w. c. 
(To be continued.) 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
Pension Law. —A reader in Massachusetts who says 
he has a pension claim now pending for eight years 
for which he has filed “ evidence enough to hang a 
man who might be on trial for murder, three or four 
times over,” quotes the following law which he 
says ought to go with the editorial on page 6G0, 
as it gives the commissioner the right to correct 
such abuses: Section 4,745, title 57, of the Re¬ 
vised Statutes of the United States, reads as 
follows : “Any pledge, mortgage, sale, assign¬ 
ment or transfer of any right, claim or interest 
in any pension which has been, or may here¬ 
after be, granted, shall be void and of no effect, 
and any person who shall pledge or receive 
as a pledge, mortgage, sale, assignment or 
transfer of any right, claim, or interest in any 
pension, or pension certificate which has been, 
or may hereafter be granted or issued, or who 
shall hold the same as collateral security for 
any debt, or promise, or upon any pretext of 
such security or promise, shall be guilty of a 
misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall 
be fined in a sum not exceeding $100 and the 
costs of the prosecution.” It is submitted that 
the Commissioner of Pensions has the law in his 
own hands. Why doesn’t he stop the abuses of 
which he is so much afraid of results ? 
Life of Fence Posts. —We have heard a good 
deal about setting posts this or that end up ; 
the top end of the timber as it grew in the tree 
down having been alleged to be the best way to 
set them. Seven years ago I sawed out a lot 
of chestnut posts five inches square at the bottom 
and 5x3 at the top. Of course in the sawing 
the cuts were reversed, thus making half the 
posts with the grain of the timber going up, 
and the other going down, due to the alternate 
setting of the log on the carriage. Curiously, 
exactly one-half of these posts have rotted off 
at the ground, and one-half are still sound. I 
have thought of the philosophy of this. The 
sap of the wood of course rises in the tree from 
the ground, hence the absorbent function of 
the timber has this course, and necessarily a post 
set with the bottom, in regard to the tree, in the 
ground will absorb moisture through the cells, while 
one set the top (as to the tree) down is not absorbent, 
hence there is no rotting of the wood just above the 
surface of the ground. I think this matter is worth 
study from a scientific point of view, for a post and 
board or wire fence is costly, and to double the life of 
it is a great saving, especially when one has a good 
deal of fence to keep up, and timber is not cheap. 
North Carolina. h. stewabt. 
Sod forNukseky Stock. —On June! and 5, we broke 
about three acres of our meadow, the grass then being 
about 14 inches high. You can imagine how heavy 
the sod was, as 2 3-5 acres adjoining yielded over eight 
loads, sold to an outside party by the load (you can 
judge he hauled large loads). Farmers passing by 
said we could not rot the sod this Summer. July 15, 
we sowed the piece to buckwheat to turn under. We 
were told this could not be done. September 16, we 
began plowing it again, cross plowing this time, first 
going over the field with a clod crusher, breaking the 
buckwheat down and plowing a little deeper than 
before. We found the sod was well rotted, and we 
have an excellent piece of land. We are having a 
heavy rain to-day, thoroughly soaking the newly - 
plowed piece, so in about two weeks we hope to find 
the buckwheat is all rotted, as it was very green when 
plowed under, the first-formed berry just beginning 
to turn brown. If it has then rotted, or as soon there¬ 
after as it does, we will pl:w it again, following up 
with a subsoil plow. If this do not make a good 
piece on which to grow nursery stock, we shall miss 
our guess—heavy sod and tall grass turned under in 
