1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
7i3 
WHAT I SEE AND HEAR. 
Many live chickens are sent in which are too small. 
There isn’t such a demand for small chickens as 
there is early in the season. Roasters are wanted 
now, $nd they should weigh not much less than 
three pounds each. 
t X X 
Before fresh northern vegetables have ceased to 
arrive, supplies begin to come in from the South, so 
that New York is furnished with produce fresh from 
the ground continually. We are still receiving green 
peas and string beans from Long Island and other 
nearby points, but the South is already sending them, 
and the supply from now on will be constant. Other 
vegetables will, also, soon make their appearance, and 
we shall have a great variety, both of the old and the 
new. 
t X X 
Large quantities of New York State grapes are 
still being sold at auction, one man saying that the 
quantity this week would exceed 100 car-loads ; 21 
car-loads were advertised on Friday alone. Some of 
the commission merchants say that prices received 
are less than those received by the regular old-line 
dealers, but the grapes continue to come. We would 
be glad to know from our readers who have had ex¬ 
perience in shipping to the auction sales, their experi¬ 
ence in the matter. 
X X X 
One commission merchant was too busy to talk, 
and could spend time to answer hardly a single ques¬ 
tion. Lie said that he came to his office at 3 o’clock 
in the morning, was away behind with his work, and 
seemed to be getting further behind. How many 
farmers are so driven ? Yet many of these commis¬ 
sion merchants are in their stores at midnight or 
shortly after, the heaviest part of their business 
being done before daylight. Especially is this true 
of those who handle fruit. 
X X X 
I noticed a lot of grapes that had been dumped 
into barrels from a lot of badly smashed baskets, 
and which were offered in bulk at 1)4. cent per pound. 
It struck me as curious that any one would buy them 
in this shape at that price. They were fine grapes 
originally, but were badly broken and loosened from 
the stems. At the prices at which grapes in baskets 
in good condition were selling, there didn’t seem to 
be much excuse for buying these. But they were 
offered as a bargain, and some people are always 
looking for bargains. 
X X X 
In walking through Washington Market, the large 
retail market of this city, I have been struck with 
the great difference between the appearance of the 
different stands. Every product of farm, garden or 
orchard, fish, flesh and fowl can be found here. Some 
of the stands are so neatly and attractively arranged, 
that they cannot help draw trade. On one stand, 
among numerous fancy packages of butter and cheese, 
was a beautiful bouquet, while many of them have 
their goods arranged as artistically as are many of 
the windows in the great dry-goods stores. Still we 
often wonder why some people succeed in business 
while others fail. 
X X x 
An extensive butter dealer who has j ust returned 
from the West, where he visited a great many cream¬ 
eries, tells the New York Produce Review what he 
discovered in relation to the moldy butter which has 
given dealers so much trouble the past summer. He 
claims that the trouble is in the tubs and not in the 
parchment paper. In fact, some of the moldiest but¬ 
ter he has seen was in tubs in which no paper was 
used. Some dealers have claimed that the creamery- 
men did not soak their tubs enough before filling, re¬ 
lying on the use of parchment paper to do away with 
the necessity of soaking. But this dealer says that 
the trouble comes from the use of poor wood in the 
manufacture of tubs in the effort to cheapen them. 
Butter tubs are supposed to be made of White ash, 
but it has been discovered that the tub manufacturers 
have been using hackberry instead, a wood which 
closely resembles ash, but of much coarser grain, and 
which absorbs and holds moisture longer, therefore 
will cause mold more quickly. These tubs cost about 
two cents each less than good tubs, but if the makers 
were obliged to pay for the butter which has been 
spoiled by them, they would soon conclude that it is 
poor economy. One buttermaker told the dealer that, 
if he soaked his tubs all night, he wouldn’t have a 
whole tub left in the morning, and others complained 
of many hoops bursting. This dealer says that, with 
a well-seasoned ash tub, thoroughly soaked before 
using, there will be no trouble from mold. 
X X X 
I saw a lot of inferior quinces—by the way, most 
quinces in this market this year Seem to be inferior— 
put up in neat handled baskets holding about a peck. 
They were covered with neat stamped papers, with a 
fancy design, and then covered with slatted covers. 
It doesn’t pay to put up inferior products in this fancy 
style. In fact, it doesn’t pay to send such to market 
in a year of plenty any way. Put fancy goods in 
fancy packages, send them to a fancy market, and 
fancy prices are likely to result. In one commission 
house, I saw a lot of fancy apples from a nearby 
grower, in half-bushel peach baskets. Ordinarily it 
wouldn’t pay to use such packages for apples, but the 
grower brought these in himself, and as they sold for 
good prices, the results were satisfactory. 
t X X 
A large number of commission men agreed on the 
fact that, while last week trade was good and busi¬ 
ness brisk, this week, sales are slow. But only one 
of them had an explanation to offer. He said that 
the reason was because of the heavy frost in this 
vicinity on Monday and Tuesday mornings. This had 
killed all the perishable stuff, prices on other lines of 
goods had gone up in consequence, and people 
had largely stopped buying, expecting them to go 
down again shortly. This is a unique explanation, 
but it is a fact that after an advance in the price of 
any commodity, sales will drop off largely, while 
generally a drop in prices will stimulate sales. This 
is especially true of those products which are bought 
for the export trade. While prices are low, there is 
profit to the exporters, but a slight advance destroys 
their chance for profit, hence they do not buy. 
X X X 
Most of the wine grapes received here come in 
bulk, in board trays holding, probably, 30 or 40 pounds 
each. This fall, a good many have come from west¬ 
ern New York in packages like that shown in Fig. 
299, holding something over 30 pounds of grapes, and 
THE LOOP TRAY FOR GRAPES. Fig. 299. 
called loop trays. The end pieces and one piece in 
the middle, are made of half-inch stuff, the lower 
corners being rounded off as shown. The sides and 
bottoms are made of a thin veneer of wood, and the 
whole is finished with a handle and covered with a 
slatted cover. Some wholesalers say that the new 
packages seem to please dealers, and they think 
highly of them. But I have seen several of them 
that, apparently, were not strong enough for the 
handling they received, and had gone to pieces badly. 
The sides and bottoms should be a little thicker, and 
be nailed on more firmly, and the handles should be 
a little heavier and more securely fastened, f. h. y. 
CUT AND SHREDDED. 
Gold has been discovered recently at Cook Inlet, 
which is called the garden spot of Alaska. This is 
much more accessible than the Yukon region, being 
11 days by sea from Sitka, and the journey may be 
made at any season. Agriculturally, the Cook Inlet 
region is the most promising in the Territory. 
The Government seed circular recently sent out by 
the Department of Agriculture, calling for bids on 
about 13,000,000 packets of seed, has been a matter of 
much interest to the seed trade. The time allowed 
for making the bids was very short, only about eight 
days. Though the list contains a large percentage 
of common seeds, rather more of the rarer field seeds 
were called for than before. The flower seeds com¬ 
prise about five per cent of the list. 
This seems to be the harvest season for the State 
Fish and Game Protectors, in this vicinity. One of 
them with an assistant captured 15 men on Staten 
Island who had been violating the law by catching 
lobsters under the legal limit of nine inches. These 
were fined $5 for each baby lobster in his possession, 
those who could paying the fine, the others going to 
jail. Then the officers went to St. George, where pas¬ 
sengers take the ferry for New York, and compelled 
every man with a fishing outfit to show his catch. 
About a dozen more were captured. Most of these 
people were poor cigarmakers from this city, and 
their fines were a great hardship to them. They 
pleaded ignorance of the law. The section violated 
prohibits the taking or having in possession of lobsters 
measuring under nine inches from the tip of the tail 
to the tip of the nose, exclusive of claws or feelers. 
The minimum fine is $5 a fish. How is it that, in nearly 
all cases, poor men are the ones that are caught ? 
Business houses in the large cities having made 
many complaints to the Post Office Department re¬ 
garding the lack of money order facilities at the vil¬ 
lage post offices, there is likely to be a general exten¬ 
sion of the money order system, it being considered 
by the Department that any office desiring such facili¬ 
ties should be given them. This extension would be 
viewed with satisfaction by business men, because it 
encourages mail-order business. During the past 
year, almost 27,000,000 money orders were issued, 
amounting to a little less than $200,000,000. 
And now Ireland has another grievance against 
England, and all because of the eggs which the 
former has been sending to the latter country. The 
English dealers claim that the eggs are more ancient 
than honorable, and have held a meeting to express 
their views. The fault is not with the hens, but with 
the owners who, loath to part with the eggs, keep 
them so long that they are fit only for campaign pur¬ 
poses The result is that dealers are buying Canadian 
and Continental eggs, and the Irish farmers are to be 
instructed by circular that they must mend their 
ways or keep their eggs, Here’s another opening for 
the American business hen. 
The Kansas City Live Stock Association has been 
declared illegal by Judge Foster of the United States 
District Court. This exchange is an organization of 
commission men who seem to control the sale of live 
stock in that market. Not only is this declared to be 
an unlawful combination, but the judge also said, in 
denouncing the trusts and combines that prey upon 
the products and industries of the country, that many 
of the so-called stock and produce exchanges are 
among the most potent instrumentalities for the 
accomplishment of these purposes by speculators and 
adventurers, It’s a pity that we couldn’t have more 
such judges and public officials. 
An immense quantity of Danish butter is con¬ 
sumed in Great Britain and, at the present time, argu¬ 
ments regarding the cleanliness of Danish farms 
occupy a good deal of space in the English papers. 
Complaint is made that the sanitary conditions are 
bad on most of the farms. On the other hand, one 
writer states that, as the butter is made at the cream¬ 
ery, and not at the farm, the unsanitary state of the 
farms from which the milk is obtained is immaterial 
—a view which would not be concurred in by up-to- 
date American dairymen. It is stated that, at one of 
these Danish creameries, the milk is Pasteurized by 
passing through 800 feet of tubes heated to 85 de¬ 
grees ; in another, all the milk is filtered through 
sterilized gravel. 
Shortly after his inauguration, President McKinley 
sent three commissioners to Europe to try to arrange 
some basis for international bimetallism between this 
country, France, Germany and England. The French 
seemed favorably inclined to agree to a larger use of 
silver, but the English government declines to enter 
into any agreement. This, probably, ends the matter 
for the present, though it is a fact that a large pro¬ 
portion of the farmers in both England and Germany 
favor an increased coinage of silver. No one seriously 
expected that those who control the politics of Eng¬ 
land would pay particular attention to the wants of 
English farmers for, year by year, English agriculture 
is losing its importance. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
It is claimed that you can cut off any size or shape of horn 
without crushing it, with the convex blade dishorner. It is made 
by Webster & Dickinson, Christiana, Pa. 
A spring shade roller is about the meanest thing in the house 
when it gets out of order, and some of them have that faculty to 
perfection. The Hartshorn Co. seem to exercise unusual care 
in putting up their rollers. They have met with a success that 
would have a tendency to cause some makers to be careless, 
but we are told that this company are as careful now about the 
quality of each roller as when they were building up their repu¬ 
tation. Stewart Hartshorn appears on each roller. These rollers 
may be had at most dealers. 
Tun Silver Mfg. Co., Salem, Ohio, have added some new 
features to their Ohio ensilage cutters this year that seem most 
desirable. One of these features is a spiked feed roller, which 
does away with the blocking of the feed when two or more ears 
of corn get crosswise in front of the roller; it also lessens the 
labor of feeding, and draws the corn through better. They also 
added an extended feed table, throw-off lever, and traveling feed 
apron, making a positive self-feeder in connection with the 
spiked roller. Full particulars may be had by addressing the 
Arm as above. 
Any farmer who has not a pair of scales on the farm should 
lose no time in getting them. Without going into details, we 
think this point will be admitted by every one. The next thing 
is to get scales that are accurate and will stay so without get¬ 
ting out of order. “Jones he pays the freight” is an expression 
associated with scales, and Jones’s scales are recognized as stand¬ 
ard the country over. We are using two pairs—a large and a 
small one—and could hope for nothing to work better. If you 
get a Jones scales, you will have correct weight and no trouble. 
They are made in all sizes from the platform and stock to the 
smallest in use. The address is Jones of Binghamton, Bingham¬ 
ton, N. Y. 
