1904. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
513 
Events of the Week. 
DOMESTIC.—The General Slocum disaster Is being inves¬ 
tigated by the local authorities, by the Federal Department 
of Commerce and Labor and by the Society for the Preven¬ 
tion of Cruelty to Children, which is prepared to conduct 
prosecutions because of the many little ones thus killed. 
Up to June 23, 908 bodies were recovered and 200 were still 
said to be missing. Failure to pass laws to improve the 
steamboat inspection service so long demanded has been laid 
at the door of the House of Representatives and “important 
steamship interests.” A bill with this object in view was 
prepared by Secretary Cortelyou last Winter, inlroduced by 
Secretary Frye, passed by the Senate and held up in the 
Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House. 
Efforts at reform were started by Mr. Robert B. Armstrong, 
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, when the steamboat ser¬ 
vice was included in his bureau. He took office March 4, 
1903, and first of all devoted himself to this service, which 
was found to be antiquated and a quarter of a century be¬ 
hind the advance made in steamboats themselves! A special 
conference of all the supervising inspectors of the country 
was called and they were in session for 40 days during the 
early Summer last year. While this was going on the steam¬ 
boat inspection service was transferred from the Treasury 
Department to the new Department of Commerce and Labor, 
and the reports and recommendations were made to Secre¬ 
tary Cortelyou. The officials of the Steamboat Inspection 
Service state that the worst violators of the law are the 
owners of the excursion boats. Th&y say they often take on 
too many passengers, and the precautions required for the 
safety of human life are in many cases only the barest apol¬ 
ogies for compliance. It is asserted that in many cases, and 
possibly the Slocum is one of them, political influence is em¬ 
ployed to restrain the Federal officials from forcing steam¬ 
boat owners to comply strictly with the law, and in conse¬ 
quence there is a feeling in the Department of Commerce 
there is a special responsibility resting on the inspection ser¬ 
vice for the catastrophe. One fault found with the present 
law is the system by which inspectors are paid in proportion 
to the number of boats inspected in a year. For instance, 
if an inspector certifies he has inspected from 150 to 200 
vessels, lie gets $1,800. If he certifies he has inspected from 
300 to 500, he gets $2,250. This is what Mr. Cortelyou 
said of this system when he asked Congress to pass his bill 
fixing the salaries according to the importance of each dis¬ 
trict: “The result lias been that inspectors have in some 
cases given their chief attention to the mere matter of get¬ 
ting vessels to submit to inspection regardless of whether 
such inspection was properly made or whether their other 
duties were properly attended to. The vice of this system 
is, of course, obvious. It puts a premium on lax inspection.” 
. . . United States Circuit Judge Thayer, June 15, grant¬ 
ed a writ of habeas corpus to have Charles H. Moyer, pres¬ 
ident of the Western Federation of Miners, brought before 
him on July 5. Moyer is confined in “the bull pen” at 
Telluride, Col. There were still in the city and county jails 
and the military guard houses at Telluride and Victor, June 
15, about 75 union miners, against whom no charges had 
been filed. Many of these men will, it is said, be charged 
with murder, rioting and inciting to riot, and some are held 
as witnesses. Eighty-seven warrants, charging murder, 
have been placed in the hands of the sheriff to be served on 
union miners, many of them leaders in the Western Federa¬ 
tion, who are accused of complicity in the dynamite outrage 
at the Independence station and in rioting at Victor. Among 
the men wanted are Sherman Parler, secretary of the Alt¬ 
man union, who was acquitted after having been held in 
the bull pen three months on a charge of wrecking a train 
near Cripple Creek; E. L. Whiting, secretary of the Engi¬ 
neers’ Union at Cripple Creek, and W. F. Davis, president of 
the Altman Miners’ Union. Secretary Ileywood and other 
officers of the Federation say many of the accused men were 
delegates to the miners’ convention at the time of the Inde¬ 
pendence explosion, and were present in that gathering. 
Some of the men have left Colorado to avoid arrest. . .. . 
The most expensive mess of trout ever enticed from a stream 
at Middletown, N. Y., was that caught by Mrs. John Tebo 
and her young son, who landed 65 in Potato Creek, and were 
sentenced June 19 to pay $10 each for the trout—$650 for 
the lot—or spend a day in jail for each dollar of the fine. 
Mrs. Tebo and her son were caught fishing by the Fish War¬ 
den, who was suspicious that they had taken undersized 
fish. Thirty little trout w'ere found in the boy’s creel, but 
Mrs. Tebo did not seem to have any. The Warden, how- 
ever, thought her shirtwaist was too full, and upon examina¬ 
tion found 35 fish inside, whereupon he arrested her and hei 
son. They were unable to pay and went to jail. 
ADMINISTRATION.—Mr. Cortelyou has resigned as Sec¬ 
retary of Commerce and Labor, the President has accepted 
his resignation, to take effect June 30, and it is definitely 
declared that Paul Morton, of Chicago, son of the late Secre¬ 
tary J. Sterling Morton, will succeed Mr. Cortelyou. No change 
will be made in the Department until after the close of the 
present fiscal year on June 30. Mr. Cortelyou will conclude 
the work of the year, as several matters of importance which 
he has initiated are pending. It is his own desire and it is 
the desire also of the President that Mr. Cortelyou should 
finish the w'ork before he finally turns over the Department 
to his successor, . . . The State Department is deter¬ 
mined that systematic discrimination of the Turkish Govern¬ 
ment against American citizens shall cease, even if it be nec¬ 
essary to send the combined battleship and European squad¬ 
rons to Turkish waters. Minister Leishman has encountered 
a singular and disagreeable reluctance on the part of the 
Porte to enter upon negotiations looking to the removal of 
discrimination against American citizens, professional and 
business men. The citizens of European Powers are permit¬ 
ted sundry privileges that are denied to American citizens, 
and for three or four years our State Department, through 
its Minister, has striven vainly to remove this discrimina¬ 
tion. A characteristic Turkish method of blocking attempts 
at negotiation is a declination to accede to the request of the 
State Department that the Turkish mission in Washington 
be elevated to the rank of an embassy, so that Minister 
Leishman at Constantinople might attain a similar rank and 
thus be able personally to approach the Sultan. Being kept 
in his grade as a Minister, he Is prevented from reaching 
that personage and finds it almost impossible to do business 
with the Porte. 
CUBA.—The worst storm that has taken place in Cuba in 
the last 10 years began June 10 and culminated June 13 in 
14 inches of rain, which fell in five hours, and which jvas 
accompanied by a hurricane. The lower village of El Cobre 
has been destroyed. Forty-five persons arc known to be dead 
and scores are missing. Bodies are floating in the Cobre 
River. Twenty bodies have been recovered by boats patrol¬ 
ling the bay. All the bridges on the Cobre Railway were 
out of place and many bridges have been lost in the Cuba 
Railway. A relief train bringing mail and passengers was 
wrecked at Moron. The fireman and mail agent were killed 
and two of the employes injured. The mines at Daiquiri 
are crippled, and six of the employes have been drowned. 
The pier has been damaged. The city's property loss is 
heavy. All telegraph and cable lines were disabled. 
WALLKILL RIVER GRANGE. 
Wallkill River Grange, Orange County, N. T., held one 
ol’ its most interesting and profitable meetings June 20. The 
topic for discussion was “The Raising and Harvesting of the 
llay Crop.” No subject is of more importance to the 
dairy farmer. The presence on the lecturer’s desk of sam¬ 
ples cut from fields of grass, portions of which had been 
properly treated and portions not, added interest to the 
discussion. Soluble nitrogen appears to be the crying need 
of the grass plants, in spite of the claim by agricultural 
chemists that farm manures contain an excess of nitrogen, 
it is so locked up with other combinations of matter that 
plants cannot feed on it. Samples cut from a field of 
Martin L. Mapes, to part of which had been applied 200 
pounds of nitrate of soda per acre were a revelation to 
most of the farmers present. A poor workman had sowed 
the fertilizer “streaked,” fairly cutting the field into rib¬ 
bons. It is newly seeded, on which the oats grew so large 
last season that it lodged badly. The ribbons where the 
nitrogen touched are now fully two feet tall, and as 
thick as grass can stand, while the spaces between are 
not over six inches high. 
O. W. Mapes showed samples from a field that was top- 
dressed with stable manure last October. An average por¬ 
tion of the field cut on June 10, showed five tons per acre 
of green grass. Strips across the field had been treated 
with nitrate, and these strips showed twelve tons per acre 
on the same date. J. T. Townsend reported that in the 
test on his farm with different kinds of plant foods, under 
the auspices of the Grange, the potash and phosphoric 
acid failed to show any good effect on grass, while the 
strip sown with soluble nitrogen was so satisfactory that 
he soon applied a dressing of nitrate of soda to the balance 
of the field with like good results; this in spite of the fact 
that in his paper last season on “Soil Fertility,” he 
claimed that farmers could not afford to buy plant food 
in the form of nitrogen. It is evident that there are thou¬ 
sands of acres of mowing land in this section producing 
from one-half ton to one ton of hay per acre that would 
produce from two to three tons of hay if a dressing of 
soluble nitrogen costing $7 or $8 per acre had been used. 
OUTLOOK FOR APPLES IN CENTRAL WEST. 
The first days of May it was generally announced that the 
prospects for a great harvest of apples had never been 
more reassuring. Within the last three or four weeks, how¬ 
ever, the prospects for the apple crop have changed. The 
bloom set during a period of cold, rainy weather, thus 
preventing proper pollination. Another reason for the 
shortage of the crop is owing to the fact of the lack of 
vitality in the bloom. Last year it will be remembered 
that there was a heavy freeze in the early part of May, 
but nature came to the rescue by sending a succession of 
cold rains, which drew the frost from the little apples, and 
in such instances where a tree was full of life and vigor 
the results were satisfactory; where the trees had been 
neglected, blight, bitter rot and all sorts of fungus dis¬ 
eases followed. Some of the same results will surely be 
seen this year where there has been a lack of vitality in bud 
and bloom. Another reason for the shortage in some or¬ 
chards for the present year is owing to the fact that last 
year such orchards were greatly affected with scab, and 
every common-sense apple grower very well knows that if 
ids orchard is full of scab in any one year, it is not possible 
to expect a crop the following season. The scab is one of 
the worst enemies the orchardist has to fight. Like all 
other evils, it can be overcome, but requires the most earn¬ 
est and persistent effort in tfie proper way of spraying. It 
may be estimated that the outlook for an apple crop at the 
present time In the Middle States may be placed at some¬ 
where near one-half a crop. The Missouri Horticultural 
Society claims that its State will have a full crop, but it is 
possible that some changes in this estimate may be made 
before September. The fact must not be overlooked, how¬ 
ever, that during the past few years very many thou¬ 
sands acres of orchards have been planted in the Middle 
States, and many of them will bear for the first time this 
season, so that anywhere near a half crop will mean a 
great supply of apples; probably sufficient for the needs 
of the market. j. h. 
Illinois. 
We have had several thousand barrels of thinned apples, 
and the satisfaction in handling and selling them will 
convince a thoughtful grower that it pays. Some of our 
Rome Beauties that were immediately put In cold storage 
last Fall were sold at $5 per barrel the middle of May 
without repacking. The buyer told a friend of mine that 
they dumped 40 barrels and did not get a peck of bad ones 
out of the 40. We have a nice crop of apples coming on 
again, about two-thirds of a crop, but there will not be more 
than a fourth of a crop in this part of the country. The 
scab caused them to drop off badly, and what are left on 
the trees are somewhat scabby, except where well sprayed. 
I have lots on the trees that I shall have thinned. The 
early ones have been thinned, and soon will finish the 
peaches and then the late apples. There is lots of work 
doing here, and it takes money, but I hope to get it back. 
No risk, nothing made. We have the most peaches we ever 
had here, and the plums were overloaded, but thinned now. 
No cureullo to amount to anything this year. The Ensee 
apple tree is full again, but no fruit on the young trees 
that have been set out two and three years. Prof. Green, 
of the Ohio Experiment Station, was here recently to see 
about making some tesis with mulching in the orchards. 
I had eight tons of straw spread In different places to 
test it. Besides that there is a fair growth of clover. Or¬ 
chard grass and some weeds that is being cut and placed 
around the trees'or left on the ground as a mulch. 
Lawrence Co., O._ u. t. cox. 
CAYUGA CO., N. Y.—We had a late Spring to begin with, 
and a great amount of wet weather, very heavy rains every 
week, which has retarded farm work to such an extent that 
there is corn yet to put in, and on account of poor seed 
and wet weather many had to plant over, which makes the 
future corn crop very uncertain. Early-sown oats and 
barley on well-drained soil are exceptionally heavy. Grass 
is very uneven; many old meadows will not cut over one 
ton of cured hay per acre, while pieces of new seeding will 
harvest two tons or more per acre. Wheat, as far as I have 
seen, has not been so poor in this county in many years: 
many pieces would have been plowed up but for scarce help 
and the seeding, the farmer preferring to get what he 
could and let it go at that. Some pieces of Alfalfa were 
frozen to death: one farmer near me had two fields, one 
he clipped off and left the clippings right where they fell, 
and the other lie left with the late growth standing. Where 
he did not clip he has a fine growth, and the one clipped 
entirely destroyed, except near the fence*, where the snow 
drifted and lay on the ground until late. The past Winter’s 
experience will keep many from seeding with Alfalfa. Pas¬ 
tures are very fine, and cows doing well, but few are mak¬ 
ing any preparations for a drought, which is quite sure to 
come. Alfalfa haying will begin very soon; in fact, some 
pieces have been already cut. Red clover haying should be¬ 
gin by June 25: a few will be ready. Help is scarce and 
high; just, how the hay and harvest will he secured remains 
to be seen. I am afraid many pieces of hay will get over¬ 
ripe. At present fruit of all kinds except cherries looks 
like a full crop: something has stung the cherries, and 
they are very poor and ripening before they should. Upon 
the whole, we are In a fair way to prosper, but hard work 
and plenty of it is before the farmer for 1904. a. d. b. 
Cayuga Co., N. Y. 
EFFECT OF THE OleO DECISION. 
What Butter Dealers Say. 
In your opinion, will the recent decision of the United 
States Supreme Court on oleo have the effect of stiffening 
the prices of butter? The Court has decided that Con¬ 
gress has the power to put a 10-cent tax upon colored 
oleo, and It seems probable that this will, to some extent, 
lessen the manufacture of that article. 
We are satisfied that this decision will certainly help 
butter; to what extent we do not know. f. e. bobekts. 
Chicago, III. 
Oleo has long since ceased to cut any figure in the butter 
market. There has been very little colored oleo on sale 
In the last 15 months, and, besides that, butter has been 
so cheap that oleo was practically barred out during that 
time. We have no fear of oleo in any way, shape or form. 
People who want to eat it will now be able to buy it at 
just what it is, and colored oleo will be a thing of the 
past. F. W. BROCKMAN COMMISSION CO. 
St. Louis, Mo. 
The recent decision of the United States Supreme Court 
regarding oleo affects us very little, owing to the fact that 
for the past several years there has been a gradual reduc¬ 
tion of consumption of oleo in our city, there having been 
a decrease from about 500,000 pounds per month to about 
20,000 pounds approximately. We have very little faith as 
to the high prices on account of the 10-cent tax on oleo. 
It seems to us as if the production of butter is certainly 
on the increase, and there is a sufficient amount being made 
to meet the demands from all sources. 
Washington, D. C. golden & company. 
We believe the decision will help the butter business very 
materially. There have been millions of pounds of oleo 
made in the United States every year for the past few 
years, and every pound of this certainly takes the place of 
a pound of butter. While we believe that New York State 
handles less oleo than any other State in the Union, we 
also feel that regardless of where oleo is made or where it 
is shipped, it takes the place of butter, and in that way feel 
somewhat encouraged, and believe that the butter prices will 
be better maintained if the 10 cent a pound tax is placed 
on oleo. This tax will not alone help the farmer, but will 
also help the merchant and the consumer also. 
New York. geo. h. beifsnidbb. 
I do not think that the oleo decision by the United States 
Supreme Court will influence the price of butter this season. 
The decision, no doubt, will curtail to a marked degree the 
output of oleo, but from the present outlook there will be 
enough butter made this year to more than make up the 
difference caused by the tax on colored oleo. Present pros¬ 
pects show a very heavy make of butter all over the coun¬ 
try, and with conditions abroad as they are at present, 
prices have got to get very low in this country before butter 
can be exported, and unless we have an export demand there 
will be more than enough butter made in this country to 
supply the entire country’s wants, and a good bag bunch 
left over. r. e. cobb. 
St. Paul, Minn. 
You ask: “Do you think the recent decision of the 
United States Supreme Court on oleo will have the effect of 
stiffening the prices of butter?” That depends entirely 
upon what the output of butter will be this season, but we 
have every prospect of having the heaviest make that has 
been known in the history of the butter-making industry. 
The United States cannot use all the goods that will be 
made unless they have much lower prices than have been 
prevailing the past few years, and in order to open up an 
export outlet lower prices must prevail. We do believe that 
the 10-cent tax will have a tendency to prohibit the manu¬ 
facture of colored oleomargarine to a great extent, and It 
cannot be made profitably unless butter sells at or above 
23 cents. Oleo has been a very small factor in the Phila¬ 
delphia market for the past two years, and while we do 
not handle nor never did handle it, we think that the tax 
will prohibit its manufacture to a great extent. 
Philadelphia, Pa. w. r. brice & co. 
In our opinion, this decision will have no Important 
effect upon the present butter market, nor will it stimulate 
the demand at the moment. We have been doing business 
under this law since July, 1903, and it has proven con¬ 
clusively that the value of butter depends entirely upon 
the supply and demand for it for consumptive purposes. 
The law itself created a very much larger demand for butter, 
as Is apparent by the decreased sale of oleo. There Is no 
danger of any extreme price for butter, even If oleo were 
not made at all, as the facilities for turning our fine table 
butter have been so greatly increased during the past few 
yearsthat the supply has kept ahead of the demand along 
this line. We do not have any doubt In regard to the unde¬ 
cided case before the Supreme Court, as we believe there is 
only one conclusion it can come to, judging by Its relation 
to the text of the cases already decided. The only real 
effect of the decision rendered is to give the butter trade 
in general a better knowledge of what their trade require¬ 
ments will be during the Winter, against which they should 
all protect themselves by carrying a reserved stock. 
Chicago, Ill. MERRILL & ELDREDGE. 
DAMAGE TO PEACH TREES.—Your item on page 480 
in reference to fruit growers beginning to realize the dam¬ 
age done to trees last Winter prompts me to say a word. 
I have been asked many times this Spring in regard to my 
peach orchard whether any damage was done by the severe 
Winter. I have not said anything before, as I was “called 
down” several times last year for writing in a rather pessi¬ 
mistic vein after our May freeze. Now perhaps everybody’s 
else peach trees stood the Winter all right, and may give 
a good crop, but out of 350 trees In my orchard, 100 
Elberta arc entirely dead, 50 Crosby are half dead, hardly 
fit to leave in. Mountain Rose about the same; 100 Cham¬ 
pion have leafed out, and set some fruit, the best in the 
lot; Hill’s Chili and Keyport White have lived and set 
about one-third of a crop. These trees were headed low, 
and were in a good thrifty condition last year, giving a 
fair crop. No yellows or leaf-curl. 
Wayne Co., N. Y. 
Prospects for a crop of peaches here are not as good as 
at time of bloom. The effects of Winter show more than 
expected, and a long storm when in full bloom probably 
affected the set of fruit, as the sound fruit nnw on the 
trees is a very small proportion of the blossoms. Cherries 
are not a full crop, and unless some practical method of 
controlling the Pear psylla is found pears will soon cut 
a small figure here. Prospect for apples on the average is 
good. o. M. 
Worcester Co., Mass. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
The benefits and protection of life insurance appeal to 
most people at this season because of the prevalence of death 
by sunstroke and lightning. Besides being a protection 
there is no safer investment than the endowment pelieies 
issued by a strong company. There’s nothing better than an 
Equitable policy—if interested look up the announcement of 
this company in another column. 
We are just in receipt of the Summer catalogue from T. J. 
Dwyer & Co., Orange County Nurseries, Cornwall, N. Y. 
This is a neat little booklet and has the advantages of being 
confined entirely to plants suitable for Summer and Fall 
planting. It contains a personal word about pot-grown 
strawberries that will appeal to those who want a prompt 
crop. Mr. Dwyer is one of the best as well as one of the 
largest growers of pol-grown plants in the country. 
Rural housewives are often impressed by the convenience 
of the kitchen in a modern city flat, where “very appliance 
required is close at hand. It is quite possible to bring this 
convenience into the rural kitchen by investing in a Hoosier 
kitchen cabinet, which forms a store room, work table and 
pantry in one. It is well made of hard wood, and Is dust 
and insect proof. Being shipped direct from factory to pur¬ 
chaser, the price is lower than when bought from a dealer. 
Write the Hoosier Mfg. Co.. P. O. Box 126, New Castle, Ind., 
for their catalogue: in addition to these cabinets they make 
sewing and other folding tables. 
