448 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 4, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S RARER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country a-.i Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
TIeubekt W. Collingwood, Editor. 
On. Walter Van Fleet, i . . 
Mrs. K. T. Bovlk, ^ Associates 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. $2.04, 
equal to 8s. (id., or 8 >4 marks, or 10*4 francs. 
“A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is 
hacked 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 lie sent to us 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 hank draft. 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1904. 
THE CUPPING PRIZES. 
This week prizes are awarded to the following 
persons: 
O. F. Wilcox, Pawnee Co., Kansas. 
Mrs. H. C. Mills, Pocomoke Co., Maryland. 
L. B. Smith, Chenango Co., New York. 
The contest is still open. We will award the prizes 
each week until further notice. 
♦ 
Tiiref. weeks ago reports from the Middle South indi¬ 
cated a fine crop of strawberries. Now we have the 
following from Maryland: “Very hot and dry; sun is 
ruining our early berries. It is actually cooking them 
on the vines.” Thus, in a few days, the best of pros¬ 
pects may be upset. Every man must remember that 
the finer and more delicate the crop lie tries to grow 
the more risk there is, and the harder to bring it to 
perfection. 
* 
You cannot name questions of greater importance to 
you as a farmer than the following: 
Good Roads. 
A Parcels Post. 
Interstate Commerce Control. 
Less Money For Rum . 
The political parties will go on talking with oiled 
words about what they have done or what they are 
going to do with various “issues,” but what will they 
do about these four vital questions? 
♦ 
The prospect now is for a wheat crop considerably 
below the average. The hard Winter ruined many fields 
in the Central West, and millions of acres were plowed 
up and put in oats or corn. The wheat shortage will 
mean continued high prices for bran and middlings, 
-whic.i are already too high. With the present weather 
the chances are good for a heavy corn crop, for a large 
area has been planted. In the East many old meadows 
and pastures have been turned over and planted to corn 
with fertilizers. The country will need a heavy corn 
crop to feed the stock. 
* 
Gov. Herrick, of Ohio, is getting what he deserves 
from the agricultural papers for vetoing the appropri¬ 
ation for agriculture and horticulture. The Ohio 
Farmer prints figures to show how other appropriations 
were cut. It looks as if the Governor deliberately sin¬ 
gled out agricultural education as the easiest mark for 
his veto ax. If we had a man in New York State who 
did such a thing, the political managers would never 
dare to nominate him for an elective office again. He 
would sleep in the political graveyard with. 
VETOED BY THE PEOPLE 
on his gravestone! 
* 
At the Maine Experiment Station “trap nests” have 
been used for some years in the hope of selecting a 
strain of laying hens. As readers know, a “trap” nest 
is a place where a hen cannot get away from her record. 
She goes in to lay and is boxed there with her egg 
until she is let out. The hens are marked so that it is 
possible to know just what each bird does. At the 
Maine Station 1,000 hens have been watched in this 
way. Out of this large number 35 have laid from 200 
to 251 eggs each in a year. Several have laid only 60 
nr less, while three have never laid an egg. All these 
hens were selected in the first place from a standard 
“type;” that is, close to the shape, size and appearance 
which are thought to indicate a good laying hen. By 
using marked eggs for incubating it was also found 
that the hens varied greatly in the proportion of hatch- 
able eggs which they laid. The object in- using the 
trap nests was to select breeding hens of known capacity 
for laying. All other animals have the ability to trans¬ 
mit these qualities of production to their daughters. 
Why not the hen? It has not yet been demonstrated 
that a “pedigree’ of this sort is as useful in a hen as 
it would be in a cow, but in theory it ought to be. 
In the poultry department at Cornell similar tests are 
being made, and Prof. Rice has an ambition to develop 
a “Cornell strain” which will be famous as layers. If 
the daughters from these tested birds are superior the 
sons should be also, and it would seem like good and 
practical work for the stations to produce cockerels 
from the best of the hens for sale at a fair price to far¬ 
mers. Here is one way to increase egg production! 
* 
So it seems some cultivated ginseng has been sent 
to market and sold at high prices. How does it feel 
to have your predictions knocked out in this way? 
Our ginseng predictions are still very much in the ring. 
Tea has been grown in South Carolina. Cotton has 
been ripened, we are told, in Connecticut, we have rip¬ 
ened Velvet beans in New Jersey, and yet we still pre¬ 
dict that such crops will not be found safe. Our pre¬ 
diction about ginseng is that should the millions of 
plants now growing come into bearing you will not 
be able to give the roots away! 
* 
Some districts near New York show a surprising in¬ 
crease in Italian greenhouse labor. This is not because 
Italians are preferred by rose and carnation growers, 
but because other labor is too expensive. One florist 
questioned on this point asserted that better induce¬ 
ments are now offered on private places than ever be¬ 
fore, and that more places are open to skilled gar¬ 
deners, who are thus withdrawn from the ranks of 
trade growers. As a rule we think gardeners are un¬ 
derpaid for the amount of intelligence and wide range 
of information that their work demands, and the high 
wages received by most mechanics and artisans are 
likely to cause dissatisfaction. The Italians are not 
regarded as specially intelligent in the greenhouse, the 
main inducements for employing them being that they 
are available and cheap, but they may in time become 
as marked a feature in growing flowers as the Greeks 
are in selling them. 
* 
The following clipping is taken from a reliable paper 
in Pennsylvania: 
Tenerine Noverina, an Italian of Jersey Shore, killed a 
robin Sunday, and Monday morning he was arrested and com¬ 
pelled to pay about $75 for the offence. He had the money, 
and being able to settle he was not locked up. 
That certainly was expensive killing. We favored the 
bill which was before the New Jersey Legislature last 
term to permit fruit growers to shoot robins when 
caught stealing fruit. The bill was defeated by an out¬ 
cry from people who thought it meant the extermination 
of the robin. This was a foolish argument, for anyone 
who is able to understand the English language could 
have seen that the bill gave no privileges to “sportsmen” 
or to those who killed robins to eat or sell. Under such 
a law the man mentioned in the clipping might have 
been convicted and fined. We know nothing about the 
circumstances of this case, or why the Italian killed the 
robin. If the bird was stealing fruit we do not see that 
it was any more entitled to protection than the cat which 
kills chickens or the dog that kills sheep. 
♦ 
\ou paid out a lot of money the past Winter for 
grain in order that the cows might give more milk. 
When you went to the miller, your only excuse for so 
doing, though you may never have thought about it, 
was to get digestible protein. Whether or no you got it 
in the cheapest form is another matter, but there are 
some things you can do this Summer to increase your 
stock of protein so that less will have to be purchased 
next season. Early-cut hay contains twice as much di¬ 
gestible protein as the same hay late cut. Don’t wait 
until your grass is all ripe before you begin cutting. 
Get the bulk of it just as it is coming into bloom. It 
will be more work and the first crop may not be quite 
so large, but you will have something that has milk in it 
when you get that kind of hay in the barn. If you 
had any clover hay cure it in the heap, so that the leaves 
will not all dry up, drop off and be lost. You are rais¬ 
ing some oats for feed. Do not wait until they are 
almost ripe enough for thrashing, you will never get 
much of the grain when the cow can make use of it. 
Cut them so as to get all the protein in them that is 
possible, and do it by cutting them just as they come 
into milk. You have been talking about a silo. Better 
not wait until the corn is ready to be cut. Have it all 
done before August 1. If you have been in the habit 
of starting your haying after the Fourth of July, sup¬ 
pose this year you get most of it in the barn before that 
date. Then you will really have something to celebrate. 
THE AMERICAN FARM COMPANY LOSES. 
For several years past the American Farm Company, 
through its agents, has attempted to organize “co¬ 
operative societies” and sell seeds or other things in 
New York and other States. From the evidence at 
hand it did not seem to us that its offerings of stock 
or goods would prove a good investment for farmers. 
We stated this, and the American Farm Company 
brought suit against The R. N.-Y., claiming damages 
for $100,000. This case was transferred to New York 
County, but the plaintiff has not yet moved for trial. 
When working in this State, agents of the company 
claimed, among other things, that one of their establish¬ 
ments was in successful operation at Linesville, Pa. 
This was their trump card, and it is likely that many 
farmers were induced to buy stock because they be¬ 
lieved this Pennsylvania branch had proved a great suc¬ 
cess. The facts are that this Linesville branch was 
never a success. The Company agreed that all the 
money secured by stock to be subscribed at Linesville 
would be invested there. This was not done. Only 
a cheap building was erected, and in course of time the 
whole thing was sold out by the sheriff. Ralph Van 
Winkle, among others, bought stock in this enterprise. 
He took 20 shares, for which he paid $1,000 and be¬ 
came manager. Mr. Van Winkle became satisfied after 
a time that the large claims made by representatives of 
the American Farm Company were fraudulent. He ap¬ 
plied to the courts to cancel the contract under which he 
subscribed for the stock, and to compel the agents of 
the Company to pay back his money with interest. The 
case was heard, and Judge Thomas, of Crawford 
County, after reviewing the facts, reached the following 
conclusions of law: 
The shares of stock having been procured through the 
false and fraudulent representations of defendants, Wood¬ 
ruff and Spaulding, officers of, and acting in the behalf of 
the American Farm Company, the complainant is entitled, 
upon the discovery of such fraud, and the company being a 
going company, not claiming or shown to be insolvent, to 
have said shares cancelled and to recover the price paid 
therefor, with interest thereon, from the parties participat¬ 
ing in said fraud, and at the costs. 
The American Farm Company brought suit against 
Mr. Van Winkle and others for slander. When the 
cases came to trial the Company failed to appear, thus 
throwing up the sponge. Among others sued was 
Chas. N. Crosby, who has been interested in eight 
suits against this Company—beating them at every point. 
These proceedings appear to settle the question of lia¬ 
bility of stockholders, who agreed to buy stock on the 
strength of these big stories and promises. Two years 
ago, when farmers in Greene Co., N. Y., were in trouble 
with this Company, these farmers took the position that 
they could not be forced to pay for the stock since it had 
been obtained under false pretenses, and refused to 
pay. Mr. Van Winkle’s suit settles that. There is no 
doubt that the prompt exposure of their methods saved 
many communities from a repetition of the Linesville 
fizzle. 
BREVITIES. 
J. FT. Hale says he has had 200,000 peach trees thinned 
by hand. 
Too often it is the gun behind the man that is responsible 
for results. 
A few pounds of blood meal would change “bob” to a 
Robert veal. 
Did you ever use a hay cap? What is the best kind and 
do they pay? 
"Wiiat Is the use in a trunk on a tree anyway,” says 
J. H. Hale. A good question. Head ’em down ! 
Note what Mr. Barden says about the control of the 
Grape root-worm in his crop report on next page. 
Japan has placed a large loan in this country. It will be 
used mostly in buying food and war material for export. 
Reports from parts of New England show that farm prop¬ 
erty is gaining. It is easier to sell and brings better figures. 
The attorney-general of Kansas decides that a school 
teacher has no right to compel one child to tell tales on 
another. The “tattler” is a poor citizen, anyway. 
“I am very much gratified to see how willing your readers 
are to help a neighbor out,” writes a Connecticut friend. 
We should have a hard row to hoe without this friendly 
good nature. * 
According to one of our trade journals the seedless apple 
of which we have heard lately, is also blossomless and 
wormless. This is very interesting, though so far all the 
blossomless and wormless apple trees we have met have 
been appleless also. 
The boys at home have two young crows. They are fed 
chiefly on worms. If all young crows eat as much as these 
do and the old birds feed them one worm at a time they 
have'not many hours left for mischief. What do young 
birds do for water? 
“Those stingy farmers,” says the warm-hearted city man : 
“they won't let a little bird take a few cherries or straw¬ 
berries." How generous some folks are with the property 
of others! Go into their store and take a handful of pea¬ 
nuts and see what they say. 
The State chemist of Nebraska describes some strawberry 
jam analyzed by him as consisting of pumpkin, stained with 
aniline dye, and preserved by a chemical, further adorned 
by grass seeds for the purpose of giving realism. Can’t we 
grow enough Simon Pure strawberry jam to feed the multi¬ 
tude? 
