672 
September 10, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The Rural JNew-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAVER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850 . 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
Or. Wai.ter Van Fleet,! 
Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, ^Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. S2.04. 
equal to Ss. (id., or 816 marks, or 10*6 franc.-.. 
“ 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 trifling differences between subscribers and honest, 
responsible advertisers. Neither will we be responsible for 
the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must be sent to us within one 
month of the time of the transaction, and you must have 
mentioned The Rural New-Youker 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 l’earl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1904. 
THE PRIZE CLIPPINGS. 
The first prize this week goes to Kansas, the second 
to Connecticut and the third to New York, as follows: 
Kitty H. Taylor, Jackson Co.. Kan. 
Mrs. J. A. Fairchild, Litchfield Co., Conn. 
L. B. Smith, Chenango Co., N. Y. 
We still offer weekly prizes of $1.50, $1 and 50 cents 
for the best clippings from local papers. 
* 
Why not make every station worker or agricultural 
scientist show the test of success before he is given a 
position at public pay? Make him prove that he has 
run a farm or garden at a fair profit. Some of them 
would regard this as quite uncivil service, but would 
not their work be better for it? 
* 
We are still of the opinion that Secretary of Agricul¬ 
ture Wilson should be left free to select a man for 
Assistant Secretary. In saying that we assume that the 
office is something more than a mere shelf for a figure¬ 
head. If, however, it is to be a mere political job, 
farmers would do well to have nothing to do with it. 
* 
Some weeks ago we printed as one of the prize clip¬ 
pings the story of the fruit grower who called a plaster 
model of the Ben Davis apple the best specimen of the 
fruit he had tasted. It was copied extensively in local 
papers, and four different people have clipped it and 
sent it in for a prize, credited to different country 
papers. A good thing should be pushed along, but for 
the reputation of the profession don’t change the labels 
or throw them away. 
* 
We have listened to a number of confessions by 
workers at experiment stations. I Iere is one : ‘T start¬ 
ed in to try to do good work, but I found that ‘hot air’ 
was the product most in demand.” Tt seems that there 
are politicians and “prominent citizens” in all the States 
who like to have a stream of this “hot air” constantly 
flowing upon their bump of self-esteem. They do not 
intend to have that bump frostbitten while others can 
warm the air at Government expense. We judge that 
there are very few station workers who have the nerve 
to cool this air off. Many of them are too anxious to 
hold their jobs, and they make this anxiety very evident 
What a shame that “politics” should put its fingers on 
scientific work in agriculture. 
* 
We are sometimes asked why we do not print more 
stories of novelties and great successes in farming! The 
chief reason is that we own a farm ourselves, and have 
to pay for what it costs. It is very easy to sit on a soft 
chair or move around among the more prosperous 
farmers and then tell others what to do. Farming seems 
easy to the chair farmer. It is hard for him to under¬ 
stand why all farmers are not “enterprising” and “wide¬ 
awake.” The best discipline for such a man would be 
to put him on a poor farm and make him work his way 
out. IIow such an experience would rub the bump 
which leads one to give advice off his head. Every 
time he saw a rainbow his legs would ache at the 
memory of the long tramp he had after the pot of gold 
at its end! There are some men who have made great 
and honest successes at farming. They deserve success, 
for they worked hard for it with head and hand. Re¬ 
cause they won it does not follow that all can do the 
same. A man may be neither a dunce nor a drone be 
cause he cannot do as these favored ones have done. 
Nature' favored them and they were born with the 
strength and power which drove them on. It is well 
to study their success, and to try to adopt their methods, 
but who can blame a farmer for objecting when some 
soft-handed observer tells him that he is far behind 
the age? The novelties and the great successes have 
their place. We do not offer them as models, but for 
study and analysis. 
* 
The annual production of cement in this country 
amounts to nearly 200 pounds for each man, woman and 
child. Some years ago people wondered what would be¬ 
come of us when the timber was used up. The question 
is answered by cement. Few of us have an idea of the 
vast use of this material. This use is extending to the 
farm. Through the Mississippi Valley, where lumber 
is scarce, floors, houses, fence posts, troughs and dozens 
of other farm appliances are made of cement and con¬ 
crete. The use of these new materials is first forced 
upon those who have greatest need of them, and then 
spreads to others. 
* 
The Postmaster-General of Great Britain is now dis¬ 
cussing the introduction of a “cash on delivery” pur¬ 
chase system into the postal service of that country, such 
as our express companies handle here. Opposition to it 
comes from local retailers, as was the case here, in many 
instances, when rural free delivery was proposed. The 
Postmaster-General observes, as to this: “I am by no 
means satisfied, so far as my inquiries have gone, that 
the apprehensions of retail traders in the country afford 
sufficient cause for withholding a convenience from the 
community at large.” These words seem to us to apply 
very well to the parcels post situation in this country. 
Do the apprehensions of the great express companies 
afford sufficient cause for withholding a great and 
needed convenience from the community at large? 
* 
American farmers won the fight against oleo. They 
combined and thus brought hard pressure to bear upon 
Congress. They must not break ranks now and give 
up the battle. The present law will not be fairly en¬ 
forced unless strong pressure is kept up. There is too 
much money in colored oleo. The manufacturers will 
resort to every possible legal technicality to gain the 
right to use some coloring matter. They must be 
watched and held in check. The court has not yet de¬ 
cided one case which covers the right of the manu¬ 
facturers to use palm oil for coloring. If the court 
were to decide that it is at present lawful to use this 
oil, the question must be fought over again until Con¬ 
gress shall make the law stronger. It is no time, there¬ 
fore, to scatter. It is a very cheap brand of liberty that 
is sold for the sort of vigilance which curls up for a nap 
after dinner. 
* 
Every year we hear the story of the gentle fraud prac¬ 
ticed by passing off the Kieffer pear under the Bartlett 
label. It is said that the Kieffers are canned and that 
Bartlett labels are pasted on the outside. Kieffer has 
such a poor reputation as a pear to eat out of the hand 
that few would buy it with the true name on the out¬ 
side. It is customary to heap reproach upon Kieffei 
for this shuffle, but why not consider the benefit Bartlett 
receives? While Kieffer as grown in most places is not 
fit to eat raw, it is a better canning pear than the Bart¬ 
lett. The worst enemy ot this much-abused fruit must 
admit this. Like many humans, it must get into very 
hot water before its good qualities come out. We have 
known people to smack their lips over canned Kieffer 
and say: “I always thought Bartlett was too sickish to 
make good preserve.” The fact is that Kieffer inside 
the can gives a good character to Bartlett when the 
latter label is outside. We wish we could say the same 
of some other mild frauds. 
* 
It is a compliment to the American farmer that the 
politicians make a direct appeal to him. Both parties 
buy postage stamps, hire halls and orators and pay 
express charges in order to put their arguments before 
voters. They now propose to appeal to farmers through 
advertisements in the agricultural papers. It is just as 
legitimate to advertise in this way as it is to mail a 
statement or paste it on a fence, provided it is recog 
nized as an advertisement. An advertisement of this 
sort will express the best argument for either party bet¬ 
ter than any campaign speech or pamphlet could. This 
has long been done through the city papers, but this year 
there is a direct effort to reach the farmers, because the 
party leaders know that they must appeal to reason and 
sound argument and not to prejudice. The Republican 
Campaign Committee buys space this week in which to 
present its claims. We understand that the Democratic 
Committee have the same plan under advisement, and 
will present the arguments of its party side by side or 
following the advertisements of the Republicans. Thus 
farmers will be able to read the best arguments which 
either side can present. It is, of course, understood 
that these advertisements arc in no sense an editorial 
expression of 1 iie R. N. Y. We simply sell advertising 
space to both or all parties as we would to a manu¬ 
facturer or nurseryman. 
* 
1 here are over 500,000 persons in New York City 
alone both of whose parents were born in Ireland! This 
gives us an idea of how during the past 50 years the 
Irish people have left their native land. The end of it 
now seems to be in sight. During the past six months 
only 18,370 emigrants left Ireland for all countries, 
14,889 of them coming to this country. This is 4,381 less 
than the record for the corresponding six months of last 
year. 1 his is but a small company compared with the 
army that in former years sailed over the sea. This 
result is due to improved farm conditions in Ireland. 
1 here is hope for the small land owner and for farm 
labor. 1 he Government is helping farmers, and private 
organizations are raising and lending money and intro¬ 
ducing new methods of farming. It is a good thing for 
Ireland—far better to keep men and women at home 
contented on Irish soil than to send them here to herd 
in the cities. 
♦ 
An Iowa newspaper, referring to the agricultural col¬ 
lege of that State, says: “It is something to have an 
Ames graduate in charge of the harbor improvements 
at Manila, but it is more to have hundreds of them 
raising splendid crops and breeding fine cattle and hogs 
in Iowa.” Here is a morsel of hard sense for teachers 
whose chief aim seems to be to educate into what they 
call professional life. There are farmers’ sons in towns 
and cities squeezing out a scanty unbalanced ration as 
second-rate professionals, who could have made the 
farm pay large dividends. They are intelligent, hard 
working men, yet not fitted by nature or inclination for 
the profession which parents or teachers have induced 
them to enter. One purpose of the agricultural college 
is to give a quite liberal education without leading the 
student to think that a diploma puts a great gulf between 
him and the farm. It is not wise to chain a boy to 
agriculture if he has a live ambition for some other 
work, but it is worse folly to entice him into a profes¬ 
sion for which he has no special aptitude, where he 
must compete with many much better equipped. 
* 
A writer in one of our contemporaries praises the 
peony at the expense of the rose, declaring that the 
garden rose is only attractive for two weeks of the year, 
while the peony excels it in fragrance and in beauty of 
both flower and foliage. J his assertion seems to us 
very misleading. In spite of Rose beetles and other ills, 
the suggestion that we may only expect two weeks of 
beauty and a long season of unhappy imperfection even 
from an average rose bush is surely unjust. We have 
not yet achieved Remontant or everblooming peonies, 
and though our own garden shows some beautiful 
clumps, now 15 years planted, few bestow a second 
glance upon their stout leathery foliage, once the sea¬ 
son of bloom is over. Among the roses we are still 
gathering great satiny blooms from La France and waxy 
buds from Perle des Jardins; Mrs. John Laing and 
others of that clasij continue to blossom at intervals 
since the full flush of June, while the smaller ever- 
blooming sorts are full of buds. The Hybrid Rugosas 
gives us a long season of bloom, together with ’robust 
habit and fine lustrous foliage. A garden without 
peonies misses much, but the time has not yet come 
when the peony may call for the abdication of Queen 
Rose. 
BREVITIES. 
Reports of a “frost scare" in the Northwest show that 
old Jack is getting ready. 
If the rye ground is to he seeded, harrow it once more 
after it seems mellow enough. 
Cube a little rowen nicely and see how the calves and 
hogs will enjoy it next Winter. 
That Quack grass, page (107, could not even say “quack” 
after Mr. Cook got through with it. 
If some of our office hunters remained out in the cold 
until the office hunted them they would freeze to death. 
The value of the oil and scythe stones produced last year 
in this country was .1306,857. The value of the grindstones 
was $721,440. 
It is reported that had boys have been made good by feed¬ 
ing them on a diet of prunes! Some bad habits need harsher 
methods of pruning. 
Even men of steel should have some putty in their make- 
up. Otherwise how can you mold them to their duty and 
let them harden around it? 
A swimming race in New York bar boy started with 32 men 
and two girls. The girls beat 30 of the men and the race 
was finally won by a man with one leg! 
The malaria mosquito flies after dark. Keep indoors be¬ 
hind a screen to avoid it. Oil of citronella will repel mos¬ 
quitoes. A fresh onion rubbed on the face and hands will 
help. 
The grain farmer can have no more profitable stock 
around the barns than half a dozen good cats. If they have 
a fair chance to get under mows and around the grain bins 
the crop of rats and mice will be lessened and much loss and 
annoyance avoided. 
1 
