THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
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Events of the Week. 
DOMESTIC.—The track on the Lucin cut-off on the 
Southern Pacilic across the Great Salt Lake, Utah, is 
settling again in several places, and this has caused a 
postponement of the date for running regular trains over 
the cut-off, which had been set for January 1. Announce¬ 
ment of the opening day was made by B. H. Harriman 
on Thanksgiving Day, relying on the assurance of en¬ 
gineers that the apparently bottomless lake had finaljy 
been conquered. The track has since sunk much in 
several places, and it is feared to permit the passage of 
regular trains. Many men are at work trying to check 
the sinking of the roadbed.The State Depart¬ 
ment at Washington has for some time been receiving 
inquiries from people of moderate circumstances and 
some apparently almost in poverty as to the operations 
of some one known as George W. Thatcher, who has 
addressed notes to various persons, representing him¬ 
self to be the administrator of vast estates in England, 
in which those addressed were informed they had an 
interest. Some of those written to paid fees to Thatcher, 
and, receiving no interests in the alleged estates, 
inquired of the State Department for information as to 
the estates. Acting Secretary Loomis has just received 
a report from London that Thatcher had been prose¬ 
cuted for fraud and forgery in London before the Chan¬ 
cery Court in 1899, had pleaded guilty and has been 
sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. A great many 
of the inquiries came from Dayton, Ohio, and its vi¬ 
cinity.For 12 hours, December 29, 13 engine 
companies battled with a stubborn fire in a six-story 
storage warehouse at Pittsburg, Pa. The loss, accord¬ 
ing to James F. Keenan, president of the company, will 
not fall below $200,000, and may reach $700,000. The in¬ 
surance will not cover more than one-tenth of the loss. 
Mr. Keenan blames the steel shutters and doors, which 
are approved by the fire underwriters, for most of the 
damage. He contends that if the firemen had been 
able to open these doors and shutters the flames would 
have been under control long before they were. The 
building is a solid brick structure, equipped for a ware¬ 
house and constructed of slow burning material. It 
was supposed to be practically fireproof. Its solidity 
and protected character were the means of making the 
fire one of the hardest to fight the department has had 
for years.December 30 fire occurred in the 
Iroquois Theater, Chicago, started by an electric appli¬ 
ance, and during the panic that ensued 591 persons 
were killed, chiefly women and children. It was during 
a matinee performance. The asbestos curtain in the 
theater w'ould not work, and the flames swept at once 
to the pit and adjoining w r alls. All the exits were soon 
choked by frantic women and children, and those on the 
inside, terror-stricken at the advancing flames and 
smoke, were unable to move either way. For an instant 
the stairways leading from the balcony were a mass of 
struggling people, with scores behind constantly push¬ 
ing closer and fighting to get out. Those in the van, 
unable to keep their footing, fell headlong. Those be¬ 
hind fell over their prostrate forms, crushing and suffo¬ 
cating them. Most of those who were suffocated were 
in the balcony, where they succumbed to the gases 
which arose from the burning plush seats when they 
caught fire from the curtain, which fell forward as it 
was burned from its fastenings. The theater had been 
constructed but a short time, and all its equipment was 
not yet in place. This was, unfortunately, the case with 
a fire-escape in the rear of the building. The small iron 
balconies, to which the iron ladder was to be attached, 
were up, but the ladder had not yet been constructed. 
When the panic was at its height a great number of 
women ran for these fire-escapes, only to find as they 
emerged from the doorway upon the little iron plat¬ 
form that they were 30 to 50 feet from the ground, a 
fire behind and no method of escape in front. There 
was, according to law, an asbestos curtain, which, if 
lew'ered, would have confined the flames to to the stage, 
for a time at least. This curtain was not lowered. Ed¬ 
die Foy, the principal comedian, says he called again 
and again for the curtain to be lowered and got no 
answer. Others say some sort of ap. attempt wps made 
to lower the curtain, but that it stuck part way down. 
It is now asserted that this so-called fireproof curtain 
was totally burned. The exits which were provided by 
law' for just such emergencies were blocked by iron 
doors, and these doors were locked. The struggling 
victims strove to batter them down with their naked 
fists. There was no fire alarm box in front of the 
theater, as customary. A man had to run some dis¬ 
tance and turn in an alarm by word of mouth, losing 
time of inestimable value. There was no shaft or flue 
at the back of the stage for carrying the smoke and 
flames away from the auditorium, such as are in use 
in other big structures of the kind, according to criti¬ 
cism of the construction of the building published in 
the Fireproof Magazine some time ago. The method of 
fireproofing the balcony and gallery is declared to have 
been defective because metal lath was used in exposed 
construction instead of being buried in concrete, it is 
stated that the means of exit from the balconies and 
galleries were not adequate. A spirit of unreasoning 
panic seemed to possess almost everybody. The in¬ 
stances in which it did not were so rare as to seem 
about miraculous. The loss of life is greater than that 
of any other theater fire on record in this country, and 
is only exceeded by the holocaust of the Ring Theater, 
Vienna, in 1881, when 900 lives w'ere lost. At the 
memorable fire in the Brooklyn Theater, 1876, 294 were 
killed. The property loss at the Iroquois only amounted 
to $20,000, but it is said that $100,000 in property was 
stolen during the excitement. January 1 Mayor Harri¬ 
son closed 19 theaters in Chicago, none of which was 
provided with a fireproof curtain. A number of persons 
connected with the Iroquois Theater have been arrested 
on charge of manslaughter.Iowa’s handsome 
$3,000,000 State House at Des Moines was gutted by a 
fire that started January 4 from an improperly insulated 
electric light wire in the attic of the building. Eleven 
fire companies w'ere called out, but were unable to pre¬ 
vent the spread of the flames on account of insufficient 
water pressure and the height of the capitol. Gov. Cum¬ 
mins headed a rescuing party that did splendid work 
in saving State records and many volumes in the State 
library. The loss is estimated at $500,000. 
Under the proclamation issued by Gov. Peabody, of 
Colorado, declaring San Miguel County to be in a state 
of insurrection and giving the military full power to use 
such measures as they deem proper to restore peace. 
Major Zeph T. Hill, commander of the military at 
Telluride, has established a strict press censorship and 
taken control of both telegraph and telephone lines. 
Major Hill rounded up 25 of the leading union agitators, 
including President Miller, of the Miners’ Union, Janu¬ 
ary 4, and marched them to the railroad station. A de¬ 
tachment was sent to the office of Eugene E’ngley, ex- 
Attorney-General of Colorado and now representing 
members of the Miners’ Union. He was arrested and 
ordered deported. All were warned not to return to 
Telluride. 
ADMINISTRATION.—During the present session of 
Congress there will without doubt be a renewal of the 
attempt which has been made annually for the last 10 
years to secure a repeal or modification of that section 
of the Rush Treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain that limits the use of naval vessels on the lakes. 
Representative William Alden Smith, of Michigan, has 
taken a particularly advanced position in this matter, 
and his activity has, it is said, caused a corresponding 
move in Canada. He has heard from some quarter that 
he believes to be trustworthy a statement that the 
Canadian government is about to enter a formal pro¬ 
test against the location of the proposed United States 
naval training station on the Great Lakes, according to 
the plans of the Taylor board, to which Congress is ex¬ 
pected to give effect in the present session. Anticipat¬ 
ing such protest, Mr. Smith already has prepared him¬ 
self to renew the attack upon the Rush Treaty, holding 
as he does that it has had a paralyzing and disastrous 
1 ‘ffect upon the important shipbuilding industries of the 
Great Lakes, as they would otherwise be in position 
not only to supply themselves such naval vessels as 
might be needed for training purpose on the lakes, but 
could also enter into competition with the deep sea ship¬ 
builders for larger naval construction.The 
President sent to Congress January 4 a special message 
telling what the Administration had done to carry out 
the act for the construction of an Isthmian canal, deny¬ 
ing that anybody connected with the United States 
Government had any part in inciting the Panama revo¬ 
lution and urging the ratification of the treaty with the 
Republic of Panama. Two notes from Minister Buneau- 
Varilla were also transmitted by the President. The 
first related to the decision of the Panama government 
to assume one-fifteenth of the exterior debt of Colombia. 
The other was a note to Secretary Hay, suggesting 
that only $2,000,000 of the amount to be paid to Panama 
be drawn from the Treasury, leaving $8,000,000 in the 
United States Treasury to the credit of Colombia, this 
sum to draw interest at 8 per cent, amounting to $240,000. 
. . . . January 5 the House, by a vote of 111 to 104, 
refused to pass Representative Hay’s resolution pro¬ 
viding for the appointment of a special committee to 
investigate the charges in Gen. Bristow’s report that 
members of Congress had violated the_law in connec¬ 
tion with the frauds revealed in the Post Office Depart¬ 
ment. The division was along party lines, with the ex¬ 
ception that seven Republicans joined the Democrats in 
voting for the resolution. These were Messrs. Cooper 
and Miner of Wisconsin, Prince, Smith and Warner of 
Illinois, Wanger of Pennsylvania and Young of Michi¬ 
gan. The situation in the House regarding the Post Of¬ 
fice scandals, revealed by this action, is one that is 
giving the leaders much concern, for the indications are 
that unless the Committee on Post Office and Post 
Roads, to which all resolutions touching this matter 
have been referred, does not speedily make some report 
upon them, a sufficient number of Republicans will 
join the Democrats in a movement to discharge that 
committee from the further consideration of the reso¬ 
lutions and order an investigation by a special com¬ 
mittee. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Suits will shortly be brought 
against dining car proprietors operating on railroads in 
Pennsylvania by Dr. B. H. Warren, State Food and 
Dairy Commissioner, for supplying their patrons with 
impure, preserved or adulterated food. The suits had 
their origin in the analysis of samples of butter ob¬ 
tained in a dining car in October. Of these samples, 
one of cooking butter and another of table butter, upon 
analysis, proved, it is alleged, to be oleomargarine. 
The first inaugural meeting of the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society under its new by-laws was held 
January 2 at Horticultural Hall, Boston. 
The tenth annual meeting of the Ohio Dairymen’s 
Association will be held at the State University, Colum¬ 
bus, O., January 27-29. 
The Maryland State Horticultural Society will hold its 
sixth annual meeting at Baltimore January 14-15. 
The seventeenth annual meeting of the Peninsula 
Horticultural Society will be held at Cambridge, Md., 
January 19-21. 
The annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Live Stock 
Breeders’ Association will be held at Pittsburg Febru¬ 
ary 10-11. 
James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, was elected 
president of the American Breeders’ Association, re¬ 
cently organized at St. Louis as a section Qf the Asso¬ 
ciation for the Advancement of Science. The other of¬ 
ficers are: H. L. Kerrack, Bloomington, Ill., vice-presi¬ 
dent; Prof. W. M. Hayes, Minnesota Agricultural Col¬ 
lege, secretary; Prof. Oscar Erf, Kansas Agricultural 
Experimental Station, treasurer; Dr. H. J. Webber, 
United States Department of Agriculture, chairman, of 
Plant Section; Prof. N. E. Hanson, South Dakota Agri¬ 
cultural College, secretary Plant Section; John Dryden. 
minister of agriculture of Ontario, chairman Animal 
Section; Prof. M. B. Mumford, Missouri Agricultural 
College, secretary Animal Section. The constitution 
provides for a council of seven made up of all the of¬ 
ficers named except the president. Dr. Webber was 
chosen chairman of the council, and Prof. Hays secre¬ 
tary and general executive officer. 
The annual meeting of the South Dakota State Hor¬ 
ticultural Society will be held at Madison, S. D., Janu¬ 
ary 19-21. 
The forty-fifth annual meeting of the Pennsylvania 
State Horticultural Society will be held at Lancaster, 
Pa., January 19-20. __^ 
INFORMATION ABOUT CANADIAN LAND. 
1. What amount of capital would be required to take 
up two quarter sections, 320 acres, of farming land in 
Canada? 2. Where could one get instruction in up-to- 
date farming in the Dominion? 3. Would it be difficult 
to get a competent manager, and what would be his 
pay, either wholly in coin or partly in coin and partly 
in kind or perquisites? 4. In what section of the Do¬ 
minion are the Winters less severe? tv. d. 
British West Indies. 
1. The amount of capital required to take up two 
quarter sections, 320 acres, of farming land in Canada, 
would depend very much upon the plans of the pur¬ 
chaser and the price paid for the land. When your 
correspondent has decided which part of Canada he is 
going to settle in he may obtain all necessary particu¬ 
lars from the Department of Agriculture of the several 
provinces. Good land can be had at from $5 to $8 an 
acre in the Northwest Territories, but if your corre¬ 
spondent intends settling in a warmer and more settled 
part of Canada he will have to pay more. In Ontario, 
good land would run from $59 to $60 per acre, and up to 
$100. 2. The reports of the Dominion Experimental Farms 
we shall be pleased to send free to your correspondent. 
They contain a vast amount of instruction in up-to-date 
farming. Further information may be obtained from 
the Dominion Immigration Department, Ottawa, Out.; 
Department of Agriculture, Winnipeg, Man.; Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, Regina, N. W. T.; Department of 
Agriculture, Toronto, Ont., and the Department of Agri¬ 
culture, Victoria, B. C. 3. It would be difficult to pro¬ 
cure a competent manager who would remain for any 
length of time, as good men in this country are anxious 
to obtain land of their own, and will do so^as soon as 
they can. Laboring men get from $1.50 to TUTo a day, 
without board, in the Northwest, and a good manager 
would have to get considerably more than that. 4. The 
Winters are least severe in British Columbia, southern 
Ontario and Nova Scotia. Of these three sections, land 
is cheapest in British Columbia. 
Ottawa, Ont. [Prof .] w. t. macoun. 
NOTES BY AN OLD FARMER. 
Tn some farmers’ institutes I see more farmers over 50 
than under 35 years; is it because the old ones are in 
their dotage and have need to learn more? The new 
year is at hand; what experiment are you going to 
make this year, and how? Some of you will hear of a 
new grain that gives large yields; will you pay a big 
price and sow largely, or try a small amount to see how 
it does on your ground? Will you buy largely of some 
new fertilizer without knowing what your land needs? 
A load of burnt horse manure gave in two crops and 
good stand of clover the kind that I needed; potash and 
acid more than high-priced nitrogen. Have you tried 
separately some form of nitrogen, potash and acid 
phosphate, then each two in combination, and then all 
three, or are you like the man who said he knew bag 
fertilizer was good for buckwheat as he had tried and 
had a big crop? I asked him if he left a strip with none 
on; he said no. Did he know that the money spent did 
him any good? A farmer about 60 years ago, wishing 
to know if it paid to cross-plow the Fall-plowed ground 
in the Spring, told his boy to arag a narrow strip 
through the field. The boy put a board on the A drag 
and rode; result, not one-fourth crop oats, that it 
would pay $10 a day to plow; cost to find out, a few 
bushels of oats. Was not that better than to leave a 
whole field unplowed to find out? Try new ways and 
new seeds on a small scale. 1 asked a farmer if he was 
going to. the farmers’ institute, about three minutes 
away; he said: “No, I went to one once and followed 
the advice of one of the speakers, and it proved a 
failure, so no more institutes for me!” One should re¬ 
member that what will be best on one soil will not 
always do well on a different one. Years ago 1 obtained 
the seed of the best tomato I had ever seen at that 
time from a friend; he said: “Some do not like tills 
kind, and their ground is gravelly, like yours. My ad¬ 
vice is try a few plants.” On 200 plants 1 did not get 
a bushel of ripe tomatoes; they would check and rot 
while green, and only a mile away on loamy soil they 
were first-class. When you go to plowing, take your 
drag, and each morning go over the ground plowed the 
day before and see how the lumps crumble. E. w. b. 
NEW HAMPSHIRE NOTES. 
We have been having some cold weather for a month 
past. Wells are very low, and some farmers have had 
to haul water for stock. We are fortunate by having 
a good supply of spring water; 13 years ago this month 
I brought water from a powerful spring over 400 feet 
from the barn and about 16 feet lowec .The supply of 
water was smaller than now. Water is brought into the 
house from a well which was then dry, which was 
something very uncommon. For the spring water I 
used one-quarter-inch galvanized pipe; laid it 3% or four 
feet deep, straight and of an even grade so I could let 
it run down if I wished; used a No. 2 copper pump. I 
put on a piece one side the tie-up similar to a bay win¬ 
dow large enough for tank and pump; have a tank 
which holds V /2 barrel which is kept about full all the 
time. I water twice a day. I unhitch a cow at a time, 
and while she is drinking I keep pumping so that when 
I get the cows watered I have my tank full again. 
Sometimes I think I would like a w'indmill, but I can 
pump a pailful in 10 or 12 strokes and do not have to 
look after a mill. It never freezes in my barn in the 
coldest weather. w. e. r. 
Dover, N. H. _ 
RESULTS OF RURAL FREE DELIVERY. 
Free delivery does not hurt the business of the retail 
stores; their trade is hurt by the electric lines. There is 
a great deal of business done with department stores, 
but it is not on account of free delivery. m. m. 
Oaklandon, Ind. 
I do not think the rural delivery in this neighborhood 
hurts business of the retail stores. The people here have 
dealt with the department stores for years, and I do 
not think the free delivery has had anything to do with 
that, either. r. a. 
Necedah, Wis. 
There is one retail store at Riggston, our nearest town. 
There are rui-al routes on both sides of it; it is doing as 
much business as before they were established. On 
Route No. 2, Winchester, there is considerable dealing 
with department stores—mostly buying what cannot be 
obtained at the home stores. j. j. e. 
Winchester, Ill. 
I do not think the rural free delivery is anything 
against our local storekeepers. Very few articles are 
ordered from department stores in this neighborhood; 
no more than would be ordered if we did not have the 
rural delivery. The delivery is a great convenience *0 
the farmers in this section, and we could not well do 
without it. c. m. k. 
Delmar, Del. 
In answering, I refer you to my individual case as to 
what effect free delivery has had on the’country mer¬ 
chant. I live iy 2 mile from a village which was formerly 
my post office, where there is a general stock of mer¬ 
chandise. I take eight or nine daily and weekly papers, 
w'hich took me to the post office every day. While there 
I made some purchases. Since the establishment of free 
delivery I am not at our village once a month, but do 
my trading at Indianapolis, which is 10 miles away. 
Clermont, Ind. w. w. m. 
With the free delivery of the mail came its twin 
brother, the rural telephone. The two have wrought the 
greatest beneficial change ever experienced by the farm¬ 
ers of our locality. The establishing of free delivery 
was strongly opposed by all dealers and citizens of vil¬ 
lages, town and country storekeepers, as the parcels 
post is now opposed by the express companies and their 
allies. The change has put new energy into the farmer, 
and the parcels post w'ill sooner or later add to it. The 
country post office is gone; the country store almost a 
thing of the past, and our town and village merchants 
are becoming less in number, increasing their stock and 
selling on closer profits than in former years. The farm¬ 
ers sell their produce at their door, or ship it to custo¬ 
mers in the larger towns. Trading out their butter and 
eggs and other marketing at a general store is no longer 
practiced as in former years. There is no question that 
the rural mail delivery has assisted the farmer in pur¬ 
chasing to better advantage. FRE PATTON. 
Harrison Co., O. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
The Kelly duplex grinding mill has iriany features 
which commend it to stock feeders. Rapid grinding is 
one of them and it will grind ear or shelled corn—it will 
even grind ear corn without husking if you prefer it. 
It is manufactured by the C. S. Kelly Co., Springfield, 
O., who will be pleased to send you catalogue fully de¬ 
scribing to anyone writing for it. 
Owing to the great popularity of the Victory feed mill, 
the manufacturer has been obliged to erect a new and 
more commodious factory. This mill has given excellent 
satisfaction to hundreds of our readers, and no one can 
go far wrong in securing one for either home or custom 
work. For free catalogue and full information address 
Thos. Roberts, Box 92, Springfield, O. 
The automatic watering bucket eliminates the water¬ 
ing question from the daily chores. This is sufficient 
reason for every dairyman to equip his stable with them 
without considering at all the extra milk which is a 
sure result of having clean pure water constantly before 
the cows. F. H. Chace, Sherman, N. Y., offers to send 
one of his basins on approval to any dairyman. Write 
for catalogue and price list. 
There’s no make of plows of wider adaptability and 
of more general all-round excellence than those manu¬ 
factured by the Syracuse Chilled Plow Company, of 
Syracuse, N. Y. All kinds of walking, disk sulky and 
gang plows, disk, spring and spike-tooth harrows, culti¬ 
vators, w'heel hoes, haying tools, etc., are in their line. 
In order still further to popularize the goods or this 
old reputable factory, the company will send a beautiful 
souvenir and their catalogue describing fully all their 
plows and cultivating implements to anyone writing 
for them. 
The Williams Mfg. Co., Kalamazoo, Mich., was one of 
the first manufacturing concerns in this qountry to ap¬ 
preciate the value of the silo in connection with our great 
national forage crop, Indian corn. Being in the tank 
business they naturally took the silo proposition at an 
early stage of its development, and produce a thoroughly 
first-class stave silo. We have had so many occasion/; 
to criticise a certain concern in western New Yom 
w'hich sold cheap but comparatively worthless silos, that 
it is only fair w'e speak favorably of the responsible and 
reliable houses which send out really first-class goods. 
If you'address these people as above, they will send you 
free information about their silos, and a copy of their 
paper on the subject. 
