576 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 3fl, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Coi.i.ingwouij, Kditor. 
Dr. Walter Van Fleet, I ._. . _ 
Mrs. K. T. Uoyi.e, ( Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
eijual to Ss. tid., or 8% marks, or lU ] /& francs. 
“A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that: every advertisement in this paper is 
backed by a responsible person. But to make doubly sure 
we will make good any loss to paid subscribers sustained 
by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising in our col¬ 
umns, and any such swindler will be publicly exposed. We 
protect subscribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee 
to adjust trilling differences between subscribers and honest, 
responsible advertisers. Neither will we be responsible for 
Ihe debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must be sent to u's within one 
month of the time of the transaction, and you must have 
mentioned The Rural New-Yorker when writing the adver¬ 
tiser. 
Name and address of sender, and what the remittance 
is for, should appear in every letter. 
Remittances may be made in money order, express order, 
personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1904. 
don school treat. The Queen inquired sympathetically 
into the small sufferer’s sorrow, whereupon the boy's 
mother responded, philosophically: “Well, your ma¬ 
jesty, a body can’t eat nine buns, five sponge cakes, and 
two jam tarts and feel just the same.” There is a good 
deal of wisdom in the old saw that declares most people 
dig their graves with their teeth, and there is good 
sense, as well as good morals, in remembering that in¬ 
temperance in eating is one of the physical sins whose 
punishment is quite certain, though it may seem de¬ 
layed for a time. 
* 
Our friend “Mapes, the hen man,” may soon appear 
in a new act. In a report of the Wallkill Grange we 
find the following: 
There Is talk of some experiments in which Jesse Bull is 
to take half of one or more fields, and superintend the 
production of a crop of hay, using stable manure at $1 
per load, and O. W. Mapes is to take the other half of the 
same fields and see what can be done with commercial 
fertilizers. In view of the fact that farmers have been 
reared in the belief that dairying is necessary in order 
to maintain the productiveness of the soil, such an experi¬ 
ment will be of intense interest not only to members of the 
Grange, but to the entire community. 
We surely hope that Mr. Mapes and Mr. Bull will 
carry their experiment through. It would be very inter¬ 
esting to farmers of Orange County as well as else¬ 
where. That is the way to conduct practical experi¬ 
ments, provided they are carried on with exact accounts 
and within business-like limits. 
* 
is greatly inferior to that formerly employed. We ex¬ 
pect to be able to demonstrate this—if any proof beyond 
the actual appearance of the fences should be needed. 
It is also quite evident that since the manufacture of 
wire fell into the hands of a trust the quality of the 
wire has steadily declined. There seems no reason to 
doubt that while the wire trust has held prices up to 
an extortionate figure they have actually given the pub¬ 
lic a poorer quality—stealing even the pittance saved by 
inferior work in galvanizing. We shall give the facts 
as we have found them, and see if American farmers 
cannot prevent this outrage. 
* 
Some curious things have been brought out by our 
clipping contest. In several cases clippings made direct 
from The R. N.-Y. have been sent for the prize. “Plate 
matter” made up from our columns has also been en¬ 
tered. Some readers may not know that tliere are firms 
in this city which make a business of supplying a “Farm 
Department” for local papers. Clippings are made from 
the farm papers, and are put in type; so that all the 
local printer has to do is to put the matter on his press 
and print it. 1 he selections are usually made by people 
who never saw a farm. They usually take what seems 
to them most reasonable, and readers would be amused 
to see how many of such articles taken originally from 
The R. N.-Y. are sent to us for a prize. Another lot 
of prize clippings shows a worse fault. It seems that 
quite a good many editors take an article which seems 
appropriate, write it over, or add a few trimmings and 
print it as original. This contest gives us a chance 
to see how much of our own copy serves in this way. 
Dozens of institute speakers make great use of the 
jokes printed in our humorous column. We hear these 
jokes made over and prefaced by “when I was a boy,” 
etc. We have long since given up feeling bad about 
these things, for it is impossible to head the practice 
off. It is better to accept such petty stealings as a com¬ 
pliment, and consider that no one would attempt to 
father an idea if he did not think highly of it! 
* 
Neither of the great political parties had anything 
definite to say about a parcels post. One party seems 
to be afraid of giving large powers to the National 
Government, while the other hesitates about taking 
large powers away from large corporations! In one 
way it is a good thing that the political parties do not 
take sides on this question. It thus comes out of poli¬ 
tics, and we as farmers can all unite in demanding it. 
We are learning how to do things all the time. Here 
we have a light from Pennsylvania: 
The reason why free rural delivery was so slow about 
coming was because every village postmaster opposed it. 
Ills office was in a store, and his customers were those 
principally who had to come there for their mail. These 
postmasters have political patronage at their back, and 
the Congressional representatives from their districts are 
generally in mortal fear of the postmaster. They rule the 
district “boss,” and he manipulates the representative, who 
is generally some little fellow (t.ie smaller the better for 
their purpose) who has little to do at the Capitol but 
gather crumbs for hungry constituents. We have had the 
experience to go through, and won after a long fight, but 
our Congressman proved himself a smaller man, even, than 
we had supposed him to be, and that was useless. 
Why, of course—come to analyze your Congressman 
and in's power and you will find that it all breaks up 
into small pieces. You arc one of the pieces—just as 
large and strong as any other. The thing for farmers 
to do is to shake themselves apart and thus get a fair 
idea of what political power is. Then get together 
again for a worthy object. Make your Congressman 
understand that he must support the parcels post bill or 
step down! 
BREVITIES . 
Tiie corn crop is gaining! 
Loose stones in the road—lame horses. 
Fast friends—poison Ivy and stone fences. 
Give the young trees a chance in August. 
How the Crab grass enjoys a hot, wet July. 
The farm boy should be the buoy of agriculture. 
That thrasher’s ring in Indiana seems like a good thing. 
New York City’s egg bill for one year is figured at 
$7,500,000. 
Mrs. Howland’s day is made easier because she has a 
good kitchen. 
IIay making in hot weather is not a business to make 
men “look pleasant." 
Tiie problem of farm labor is said to he a serious ques¬ 
tion in the Philippines. 
A blunder ! A blunder! To imagine that the power 
of the storm’s in the thunder. 
We are receiving some excellent letters about the chances 
for a city man on a small country place. 
“The autos have come to stay," they tell us. We will 
make them stay inside their speed limit. 
Wiiat about that nursery patch of wild parsnips, carrots, 
etc., that is going to seed beside the road? 
Farmers who formerly bought waste molasses from the 
New York beet sugar factories want to know where they 
can get it now. 
Golden Bantam sweet corn, sown April 23, was ready to 
pick July 10 this year; it was on cold, late soil. The qual¬ 
ity of this little corn is delicious. 
THE PRIZE CLIPPINGS. 
Tiie first prize this week goes to Delaware, the sec¬ 
ond to Illinois and the third to Pennsylvania, as fol¬ 
lows : 
Mrs. Lucy E. Horton, Sussex Co., Del. 
G. A. Holden, McLean Co., Ill. 
A. B. Walter, Columbia Co., Pa. 
We still offer weekly prizes of $1.50, $1 and 50 cents 
for the best clippings from local papers. 
* 
When we said two weeks ago that new and more 
modern ideas are coming into agriculture we did not mean 
that older men are of necessity retiring. The most forc¬ 
ible presenting of the new ideas is made by men of 
middle age or older. These men are yet tender enough 
to grow. Experience gives them hindsight, but they see 
that it is useful only when in line with foresight. 
* 
People sometimes ask advice about starting what to 
them is a new business. They want to build a hot¬ 
house, a brooder house, a barn or some other thing 
requiring care and judgment. We always give the best 
advice we can, but, in addition, insist that the only sure 
way is to visit some place where such things are done 
properly and actually sre how they are done. We 
recognize the difference between teaching by printed 
experience and by actual observation. Both methods 
are useful, and both should be employed if possible. 
* 
Each year the question of compelling farmers to take 
out a license comes up. Some of the points about the 
legal right of a community of license or tax are dis¬ 
cussed on page 577. In the case mentioned we do not 
think the heavy tax will stand the test of law. A sim¬ 
ple statement of a much discussed matter is that when 
a farmer undertakes to sell his own produce in a town ■ 
the authorities have no legal right to make him pay a 
license fee. Where he buys from others and sells again 
he becomes a hawker or peddler, and is liable to such 
a tax. 
=1= 
The “beef strike” is over. An arrangement has been 
made which for the time at least settles the trouble be¬ 
tween the packers and the workmen. We did not be¬ 
lieve the packers would risk a long strike. The Amer¬ 
ican people believe that the present monopoly of the 
meat trade has treated them outrageously. It has come 
to the point where the average meat buyer has become 
desperate. An inch more and there will be such an outcry 
that the trust will be obliged to put its trust in something 
stronger than the moral cowardice of those who ought 
to stop the present system. 
* 
The stockyards strike is giving point to the argu¬ 
ments of the vegetarians. There is no doubt that many 
persons of sedentary habits eat more meat than they 
should, especially in warm weather, and numerous ills 
result from this cause. The vegetarian movement has 
spread widely of late years, and just as homeopathy is 
credited with teaching allopathy to lessen its doses, so 
vegetarianism is teaching meat-eaters to increase their 
variety of vegetable foods. Many growing children 
would be far healthier in Summer if their meat supply 
was materially lessened: indeed, after viewing the food 
offered to some children we are reminded of the small 
boy whose anguished wails, according to the story, at¬ 
tracted the attention of Queen Alexandra at some Lon¬ 
The daily papers have been telling pleasant stories 
about the cotton-oil crushing business at the South. 
It was stated that thousands of small mills have been 
built by farmers—through co-operation so as to get out 
of the clutches of the trust. It was said that cotton 
farmers used the profits from the last crop to build 
these mills. There is something in this story, as is seen 
from the following note from a reader in Georgia: 
For a number of years past the building of co-operative 
cotton-oil mills has been going on. The purpose of these 
farmers’ companies seems to be not so much to compete for 
the handling of the general supply of cotton seed, but to 
secure for themselves a better share in the division of the 
side products of the seed, the meal and hulls. Practically 
these farmers’ mills have but one, or, at most, two com¬ 
mercial products; viz., the crude oil and the “linters," the 
farmers supplying the seed taking all the meal and hulls. 
By this plan they seek to render themselves, in a large meas¬ 
ure, independent of the oil mill trusts. 
We do not understand that there has been such a 
large increase in the number of these mills during the 
past year, but the plan seems a good one. Anything 
that will enable farmers, North, South, East or West, 
to co-operate and save for themselves part of the 
tribute they now pay to the trusts is a good thing. 
* 
East week we paid our respects to the young people 
who are afraid or ashamed of hard work. There are 
enough of such people in the world, but they are in the 
minority still, and we hope society will keep them there. 
The class seems larger than it really is, for such people 
carry the evidences of their folly around with them, 
while those who work make less noise. There are plenty 
of strong characters left. Here is the true story ot 
one family: 
A farmer died, leaving a young wife, six sons and two 
daughters; a farm of 100 acres of good land, GO acres 
cleared, 40 In timber, $300 in bank; no debts. Ills last 
words to her were : “If you only could manage as a man can !" 
She gave the $300 to the eldest son, saying, “Go to college, 
earn the money and give it to John." In this way all the 
children were educated. One entered the ministry, four are 
doctors, one an editor of a city paper, one daughter the 
wife of a good doctor. When the youngest child was 21 
all were educated. She bought a nice home in town, had 
$1,000 in bank. All the work was done by the family. 
Thus the $300 cash capital was handed from one child 
to another until all had been educated. We have no 
doubt that just such a story could be taken from the 
records of many an American farm family. The differ¬ 
ence between an education earned in that way and that 
which some young people take off a silver plate is the 
difference between wrought and cast iron! 
* 
Go about the country and look at the wire fences. 
Millions of dollars have been spent by farmers and 
others for the various combinations of wire—coiled, 
riveted, twisted or tied. These fences were put up in 
the hope that they would be permanent—they cost 
enough to stand for a generation. Look at them after 
a few years of service! You will find many of them 
rusted out—so badly eaten that they will not hold large 
stock. Others have actually given way, the wires Bay¬ 
ing rusted until they broke. All through the Eastern 
States are wire fences, representing large outlays in 
money, which are actually worthless because of rust. 
Yet they were made of “galvanized” wire, which we 
are told cannot rust! Farmers paid the full price for 
first-class galvanized wire that ought to last a lifetime. 
Yet in a few short years the fence is ruined. This is 
a serious matter, and we have spent much time in mak¬ 
ing an investigation of it. The conclusion we are 
forced to is that the galvanizing on the wire now used 
