1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
139 
AMONG THE MARKETMEh. 
WHAT I SEE AND HEAB. 
I notice artichokes in market occasionally ; there 
is little demand for them, and the price received is 
usually low, too low, it would seem, to pay the ex¬ 
penses of packing, shipping and selling, to say noth¬ 
ing of the growing. 
A good many opossums come to this market. 
There is always a sale for them, but the price is not 
high. They are usually and properly 
sent whole, but I have seen some which 
had been skinned, and they sold very 
poorly in consequence. Shippers should 
learn just what the market demands be¬ 
fore shipping. 
Commission merchants have their own 
trouble these times, and they say that 
they can’t tell half of the time whether 
their customers are worthy of credit, and 
if they are, how long they will be. It is 
a time of great uncertainty, and often 
selling the goods is much easier than get¬ 
ting the pay for them afterward. 
The accuracy of the so-called news¬ 
papers is again illustrated by an account 
published last fall in one of them of the 
shortage in the cranberry crop, and the 
inevitable high prices consumers would 
be forced to pay. This was about the 
middle of October. The fact is that cran¬ 
berry prices were never before known to 
be so low to the consumer, and the mar¬ 
ket is, and has been, amply supplied with them. 
Berries of good quality have sold for as low as five 
cents per quart, and can be bought for that to-day. 
The extremely low price of capons has led many 
who don’t usually indulge in such luxuries, to try 
them, and finding them extra good eating, new cus¬ 
tomers may be made, so that the low prices may be 
an advantage in another direction. But their cook¬ 
ing has disclosed a curious state of affairs in the 
culinary department. Many good cooks have never 
cooked capons, and on referring to the cook-books 
to learn whether any special processes were needful, 
discovered that almost none of the cook-books men¬ 
tioned capon at all, though abounding in recipes for 
the cooking in various ways of all other kinds of 
poultry, game, meats, etc. Evidently, the cook-books 
don’t yet fill the bill. But the capon makes very fine 
eating cooked the same as the turkey. 
Plenty of southern vegetables are in market, but 
many of them are in very poor condition. Cauli¬ 
flowers, lettuce, and beans show the most injury. 
DRAWN UP FOR REVIEW! Fig. 73. 
Some have been injured by frost, others have suffered 
damage in transit. Some are so poor that they won’t 
sell for enough to pay freight. But with it all, choice 
stuff sells for good prices, and is in good demand. 
An inquirer wishes to know how it would do to put 
up fancy Baldwin and Spitzenburg apples in baskets 
for this market, guaranteeing every specimen sound 
when packed, giving the date of packing, and, per¬ 
haps, wrapping each apple in paper. I asked a 
number of dealers their opinion. Without exception, 
they discouraged the plan, especially for this year, 
some of them very emphatically. Their reasons are 
that most buyers prefer the regular packages, which, 
for apples, are barrels; that such packages would 
cost too much in the first place, and for freight, in 
proportion to what they hold, and that apples are too 
plentiful and cheap to be trying fancy packages. The 
results will be much better if the apples are carefully 
and honestly assorted and packed in standard barrels, 
and guaranteed choice. As glutted as the market has 
been this winter, there hasn’t been a time when such 
apples wouldn’t sell quickly and well, 
and they would have sold still better if 
the market hadn’t been so filled up with 
poor stuff that never should have been 
shipped anywhere. In relation to using 
small packages for apples, most of the 
dealers said that, if small packages were 
to be used at all, they would prefer boxes 
like those used for pears, holding about 
one bushel. 
Many of the city grocers sell sugar 
already put up in packages. You ask the 
price of sugar, and they will tell you, 
3% pounds for so much, or seven pounds 
for so much. Why do they have that 
size package instead of 5 or 10 pounds ? 
The latter would seem to be the most 
natural. These weights are one-fourth 
and one-half of a stone, the English 
weight, and this commodity is said to be 
the only one in which this weight is 
still retained. Two great companies, 
popularly known as the Coffee Trust and 
the Sugar Trust, are now at war, and the prices of 
these two staples are being slaughtered. Each 
corporation has begun dealing in the other’s product 
The coffee men have an automatic machine that 
weighs and sacks sugar the same as coffee is 
sacked, and they are to put sugar on the market 
in two and five-pound sacks so tightly closed up 
that the sugar can’t leak out and the ants can’t get 
in. This will do away with the old one-fourth and 
one-half-stone packages, so far as this firm is con¬ 
cerned, at least. f. h. v. 
_THE BEST ONE YET. 
Maule’S Early Thoroughbred Potato. 
Perfection at last attained. As fine flavor as the Freeman, as great a cropper as the Irish Daisy. 
mum 
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.-$4 -mV A t, Vv 
125 to 150 to 1 the reported yield of hundreds of my cus« 
tomers who planted Thoroughbred last season. 
Already hundreds of progressive potato planters, 
many seedsmen and others interested in improving the 
potato, recognize the superior merits of Maule’s Early 
Thoroughbred. Thousands more will do so in 1897. 
Thorough bred, besides beiug so early, is of handsome appear¬ 
ance, superb quality, an enormous yielder ; in fact, all who have tried 
it consider it a perfect potato. No customer w ho purchased from me 
Freeman or Irish Daisy but made a profit on the transaction. To 
every one I have to say that the profit on Thoroughbred will equal 
the combined profit made by my friends on Freeman and Irish 
Daisy. Every bushel of Thoroughbred raised this Spring should 
readily bring big prices for seed in 1898. Remember, the boom in 
Thoroughbreds is just starting. 
The illustration herewith is taken accurately from an average 
specimen. In a bin of Thoroughbreds you can find thousands the 
exact counterpart of it. Think the matter over whether you want 
one barrel or ten barrels, and let me have your order at your earliest 
convenience. Remember, the first three years of the Freeman and 
the Irish Daisy, thousands of dollars had to be returned to disap¬ 
pointed customers. History will repeat itself in Thoroughbreds. 
Read what Mr. Terry has to say about Thoroughbreds in The Prac¬ 
ticed Farmer of October 5th, 1895 : 
BLOOD WILL TELL. 
Yes it will, no matter whether it is in stock or seed. Last Spring, Wm. Henry Made, 
the great seedsman, sent me two small tubers of a new early potato to test. They weighed 
less than half a pound, the two together. There was nothing in their appearance to indi¬ 
cate that they were better than any ordinary potatoes one could pick up in any farmer’s 
cellar. I have a good many potatoes sent ine to test in this way, and often find that they 
are no better than old varieties. We had a number on trial this year. To make the trial 
more complete, I got two tubers of about the same size from an old farmer’s stock, and 
planted them by the side of the others. He said they were Early Rose. I can’t say about 
this, but they are an early kind that he has grown a long time without any change of seed. 
All these potatoes were cut to one eye and planted precisely as the rest of our field crop was 
planted. They were put right in the field, and not on selected ground, but on average. No 
manuring or fertilizing whatever was done on the land where they grew. Nor did they 
have any extra tillage. We dropped these pieces in drills made the same as all over the 
field, and then treated all the field alike till digging time. I took a fork and threw out the 
hills planted with Mr. Maule’s new early potato, and I never was so surprised in all my life 
at any results obtained in potato culture. In every hill there were great, large, beautiful 
potatoes, such as I have never seen since the first year the old Early Rose came around. 
There were practically no small ones, or medium sized ones, just enormous ones, such as 
you might perhaps look for under very favorable conditions in a wet season. Now I am 
not exaggerating a bit. The first year I grew the Early Rose there were a good many tubers 
as fine and large as these. I have never seen any early potatoes on my farm since, as line, 
Mr. Terry was offered $10.00 for a Single Tuber in the Fall of 1895. 
Sold last year at 825.00 per barrel, 5 barrels 8100.00, and no discount allowed any one 
on any consideration, when other seed potatoes would not bring 82.50 per barrel, and 
when other so-called Thoroughbreds were offered at less than one-half our prices. 
The supply of genuine Thoroughbreds in 1896 was limited to less than 
1,000 bushels, every one of which was sold before the season closed. 
Maule’s Early Thoroughbred is bound to have the greatest run of any new va¬ 
riety, At the time the above mentioned article of Mr. Terry’s was published in The Prac¬ 
tical Farmer this potato was not even named, as I did not name it Maule’s Early Thorough¬ 
bred until the latter part of October,’ 95 , numbered samples being sent out for trial last 
bpring to a few of the largest potato growers in the country, and also to the different Ex¬ 
periment Stations. Notwithstanding these facts, however, from our past experience with 
the Freeman and other varieties, I have no doubt ’ . — - ■ 
Address all orders to 
until I dug these. There were 45 pounds. They resemble the Rose in shape, color and qual¬ 
ify very much. They are quite early and were ripe entirely before the rains came, so this 
great growth was made with little chance. The tops were not large. They were not as 
thrifty and promising as the Freemans, hence my great surprise when I dug them. 
The two tubers obtained from a farmer’s cellar, gave me fifteen pounds of rather small 
potatoes. There were hardly any that you could cail medium and many small ones. The 
two lots were each given about three hills less than half a square rod to grow in. The yield 
per acre of Wm. Henry Maule’s potatoes was over 240 bushels. The yield of the others a lit¬ 
tle over 80. Here was a difference of 160 bushels per acre, due entirely and only to blood. 
In others words, the vigor and vitality of the new seedling enabled it under precisely the 
same conditions to grow three times as many bushels. Now don’t think this is an adver¬ 
tisement of Wm. Henry Maule’s potato. He has never written me a word about it. When 
I planted the tubers 1 thought in all probability I should never have any occasion to men¬ 
tion it. But there is a great lesson taught by this little experiment. Thousands of farmers 
are using seed that has so run out that there is no profit in growing the crop. I would not 
be rash. I am pretty careful myself. But you will make a mistake if you don’t change 
seed occasionally and get the benefit of new blood. In this line of new' potatoes we are con¬ 
stantly testing and quick to change when it will pay. We raised the Early Rose largely for 
years; but careful tests made us change to 
Early Beauty of Hebron, Snowflake, Monroe (S/' 
Seedling, etc., as these newer varieties came out.i / 
^ 3 . 
(7^ 
potatoes which they claim to be Maule’s Thoroughbreds at auy prico you are willing to pay 
for them. They may be Early Rose, Hebrons, Norther or anything else. But of one thing 
you may rest assured—they are not the potato which I have raised and am selling as 
Maule’s Early Thoroughbred. If you wish the genuine Maule’s Early Thoroughbred, you 
must lend to 1711 Filbert St., Philadelphia, or If you buy from others be sure to 
get stock raised from seed obtained from me lust year. 
Prices of Maule’s Early Thoroughbred Potato for 1897. 
Pound, 50 cents; 3 pounds, $1.00; 10 pounds. $2.50, by mall, postpaid. By 
express or freight, at customer’s expense, half peck, 75 cents; peck, $1.25; 
half bushel, $2.00; bushel. $3.75; bbl„ $7.50; 2 bbls., $12.50; 10 bbl., $50.00. 
Remit by P. O. Money Order , Express Order , Bank Draft or Registered Letter. 
there will be dealers willing to sell you 
WM. HENRY MAULE, 1711 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
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