792 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 4 
The Rural New-Yorker. 
BHE BUSINESS FARMERS’ PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Elbe irr S. Cabman. Editor-In-Chief. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Managing Editor. 
Jobs J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS. 
PRICE, ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries In the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, e^ual to 
8a. 6d., or 8*4 marks, or 10*4 francs. 
ADVERTISING RATES. 
Thirty cents per agate line (14 lines to the inch). Yearly order* 
of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 26 cents per fine 
Reading Notices, ending with “ Adv.,” 75 cents per 
count line. Absolutely One Price Only. 
Advertisements inserted only for responsible and honorable houses 
We must have copy one week before the date of issue. 
Be sure that the name and address of Bender, with name of 
Postoffice and State, and what the remittance is for, appear in 
every letter. Money oi ders and bank drafts on New York are the 
safest means of transmitting money. 
Address all business communications and make all orders pay- 
able to ' THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
Corner Chambers and Pearl Streets, New York. 
SATURDAY , DECEMBER 4, 1897. 
Many readers are writing us concerning the new 
List of Fruits which has been prepared by Mr. T. T. 
Lyon. This pamphlet is issued by the Department 
of Agriculture at Washington, D. C., and costs five 
cents. Applications should be made directly to the 
Department. The list is an excellent one, and 
will be useful to all fruit growers. 
© 
At a certain New Jersey farmers’ institute last 
year, one solitary woman was present at the day ses¬ 
sion. This year a woman was on the programme to 
speak on poultry. The meeting was well advertised 
in the local paper, and the women were urged to 
come as a woman was to speak. The result was a 
good proportion of women, even at the morning ses¬ 
sion. The general complaint of institute managers 
has been that the women don’t come out. The largest 
number of women is generally found where there is 
a flourishing Grange. Give the women an incentive 
for attendance and they will respond. 
© 
Five car-loads of apples have been shipped from 
Kansas to the London market. They are now in 
cold storage in this city awaiting shipment. The 
varieties are Willow Twig, Missouri Pippin and Den 
Davis—the last particularly large and of a rich 
color. The idea of sending Ben Davis apples from 
Kansas to England for sale is calculated to take one’s 
breath away ; yet these Kansas men know what they 
are about. They go upon the principle that the 
color of the skin will sell the fruit. Experience with 
the Ben Davis apple, the Keiffer pear and the Cali¬ 
fornia peach seems to confirm this theory—much to 
the disgust of those who try to breed and feed for 
quality in fruits. 
© 
In many parts of Australia where drought has 
prevailed, it is possible to obtain a plentiful supply of 
salt or brackish water, which is, of course, useless for 
watering stock. One of the Australian papers de¬ 
scribes a condenser built by a farmer in one of these 
districts, where salt water was obtained in abundance 
from a shaft 30 feet deep. A square 200-gallon tank 
was built upon limestone, and connected with an¬ 
other tank by 250 feet of zinc piping. A very crude 
fireplace heated the water in the first tank, and wood 
being abundant, an ample supply of good water was 
obtained by condensation. This crude appliance 
would prove of great value where these Australian 
conditions prevail. It goes to show how science and 
thought are being utilized in agriculture as well as in 
other industries. 
© 
The methods of assessing taxes in New Jersey have 
been notoriously unjust to farmers. Millions of dol¬ 
lars’ worth of property have been exempted. For ex¬ 
ample, veterans of the late war, firemen, and mem¬ 
bers of the militia are exempt from payment of taxes 
on $500 worth of property. On this account alone, 
$10,132,392 worth of property escapes taxation. Hun¬ 
dreds of men join local fire companies chiefly to dodge 
their taxes. Other exempt property in the State com¬ 
prises $30,061,169 in church and charitable institutions, 
$26,965,950 in public buildings, $17,430,392 in schools, 
and $3,803 286 in cemeteries. A large amount of bank 
stock also escapes because of lax assessments. The 
State Board of Taxation now advocates the abolish¬ 
ing of exemption for firemen, veterans and militia. 
Where church property is rented out for revenue, or 
where cemeteries are run for private gain, the Board 
favors their taxation. It would, also, compel bank 
officials to render statements showing the name and 
residence of each shareholder, with the amount of 
his holding. Farmers generally will favor these 
changes. They will all add to the amount of taxable 
property in the State, and to that extent will relieve 
the burden now resting upon the farmers. 
© 
The Department of Agriculture is going still fur¬ 
ther into the business of the agricultural paper. It 
now calls for articles on the growing, marketing and 
export of tobacco, and promises to pay for the best 
articles at the rate of $15 per 1,000 works. It must 
be remembered that the Department charges a fixed 
price for many of its publications, so that it is now 
in direct competition with our agricultural papers. 
Possibly the next step will be to attempt to secure 
advertisements for the bulletins and reports ! This 
is done in the publications of the so-called Bureau of 
American Republics, and a suit is now being brought 
to determine the right of the Government to go into 
such business. It seems to us that some of our agri¬ 
cultural papers will be obliged to get up and dust 
themselves if they expect to hold their own against 
the competition of the Department. 
© 
The New England Live Stock Insurance Company, 
doing business in Boston, is in trouble. Owing to 
hard times, it has not attempted to collect dues, and 
has thus injured its credit. It is reported that the 
Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner has applied 
for a receiver for this company. Somehow, live stock 
insurance has not become popular in this country. 
There are several other companies left, but they are 
seldom heard from. One would suppose that it would 
be quite possible to work up a good business in insur¬ 
ance for horses and cattle ; but experience does not 
show any such results. One thing that hurt the busi¬ 
ness was the fact that frauds and swindlers went 
about offering extravagant rates. Their companies 
secured a few premiums, and then “failed.” So much 
of this business was done that the really reliable 
companies found it hard to place insurance at legiti¬ 
mate rates. 
© 
It is said that the climate of Oregon is unusually 
favorable to the cultivation of flax of a very fine 
quality, the fiber being particularly long and lustrous. 
This is especially valuable for making hand-woven 
damask and other textiles, and a number of enter¬ 
prising women in that State have formed a stock com¬ 
pany for the purpose of promoting both the culture 
and manufacture of flax. The weaving of fine damasks 
upon hand looms has been re-established as a home 
industry in England, Germany and Sweden, and is 
likely to be encouraged in this country. It calls for 
the highest artistic skill in designing, since it is ex¬ 
pected to appeal to the most fastidious buyers, and 
the women who are trying to encourage this work, 
expect to form schools of domestic weaving, in which 
technical instruction will be given, in conjunction 
with the art training of other institutions. Efforts 
in this direction will forward a valuable home in¬ 
dustry, as well as an important agricultural crop. 
© 
When will our experiment stations begin giving 
the starch content of potatoes as well as their yield 
per acre ? The French have studied the potato as a 
starch and albuminoid-yielding machine. In a re¬ 
cent number of Annales de la Science Agronomique, 
we notice that the French prize those potatoes most 
that do not break up when boiled. The “ soggy ” 
potato lends itself to making salad. Such potatoes 
are found to contain a larger amount of proteid sub¬ 
stances, and relatively less starch than those which 
“cook to pieces.” The latter, if split open, show a 
thicker cortical layer than the others. This layer, 
just beneath the skin, and of varying thickness up to 
about one-half inch, is found to be richer in starch 
than the pithy part of the potato inside it. The 
authors suggest that one can select the kind of pota¬ 
toes desired by observing the extent of the cortex 
while he is cutting his seed. As we want starch, we 
should have an eye to this starch-bearing cortical 
zone when selecting seed from which to grow seed 
potatoes. The wider the zone, the better for our 
purposes. We bake potatoes, and want them mealy. 
Is Mr. Ballou too severe in his strictures on the pot¬ 
hunters—page 787 ? This question has already be¬ 
come a very serious one, and is bound to become more 
serious as time goes on. Some kinds of game, like 
deer and rabbits, have received so much protection at 
the behest of so-called sportsmen, that they have be¬ 
come costly nuisances to truckers and fruit growers 
in some localities. Then these freebooters, some of 
them, at least, that go forth with dog and gun, seem 
to labor under the impression that they own the earth 
and the fulness thereof. Ihey destroy the farmer's 
property, light fires which devastate his woods and 
fields, steal his vegetables and fruits, and frighten 
and annoy his live stock, even though they do not 
maim and kill it, Frequent instances are reported, 
too, where these hunters have shot human beings 
through their recklessness. Only a few days ago, a 
couple of rabbit hunters in New Jersey shot two 
little girls while trespassing in a farmer’s field, and 
when they discovered their mistake, took to their 
heels and left their victims to their fate—so far as 
they were concerned. This business is becoming 
serious. What will the farmers do about it? 
© 
A few weeks ago, we gave some figures showing 
the amounts of certain food articles consumed each 
year in New York City. The figures showing the ex¬ 
tent of the trade in luxuries are equally startling. 
For flowers alone, New York pays $12,000,000 each 
year. The violet leads with $3,000,000, and the rose 
comes next with $2,500,000. The following compara¬ 
tive figures indicate the magnitude of this business : 
Value of flowers used in New York. $12,000 000 
Total rye crop of United States (1895). 11.904 826 
Total buckwheat crop of United States (1895). 6.936,525 
Total imports of tea (1896). 12 704.440 
Value of all lead mined (1895). 11.220.000 
Value of all natural gas (1895>. 13 0C6.650 
Expenses on all telegraph lines (1896). 16,714 756 
The money paid for these flowers in one year would 
pay all the farm mortgages in the following States, 
all put together: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Ken¬ 
tucky and Mississippi 1 It would buy the entire farm 
property in either Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico 
or the District of Columbia. It would pay the entire 
net State debt of Massachusetts. The money spent 
for roses and violets alone would pay for ail the 
cement mined in this country during 1895. It is also 
stated on good authority that, in New York State, 
there is more money invested in growing chrysanthe¬ 
mums than in growing peaches ! 
© 
BREVITIES. 
The millionaire’s cow chews a patent cud, 
And lives in a patent stall; 
She drinks from a patent water trough 
That never freezes at all. 
Poor cow ! Poor cow ! 
Never a bite of straw on the snow, 
Never a scramble before the rain, 
Never sweet grasses and clover in blow, 
But silage and mill feed and silage again, 
For the millionaire’s cow, poor cow ! 
I’d rather be just a common cow, 
And rustle a bit, now and then, 
Than have my lovely horns snipped off,| 
And be stood in a patent pen, 
Like the millionaire’s cow, poor cow ! h. b. c. 
Pen up the pennies. 
Don’t fall in love—rise in it. 
In pence ive thought —the miser. 
Of course, hair pulling is a lively top pick. 
If you must use whine, keep it unfermented ? 
No gold in the cold hoof. Keep it on the move. 
Prof. J. Troop is State Entomologist of Indiana. 
Husbandry cannot succeed without good wifery. 
Our cows are taking roots now—through the mouth. 
“•Chicken food ” is a bill of fare for the bill of the fowl. 
Yes, sir, the mustard plaster “gets after you with a sharp stick. 
Angora goats produce mo hair—good stock for a bald-headed 
man! 
Bliss was secretary of the boy’s interior department on Thanks¬ 
giving day. 
A frozen comb is carried to its legitimate conclusion—a rest 
but not to the nest. 
Do you smell ammonia over the manure ? You are losing cents 
in every such scent. 
“Bad luck” kills the goose that cannot see the golden egg 
right under his nose. 
Cram belly sauce was the baby’s appropriate pronunciation on 
Thanksgiving Day. 
Railroads are now demanding steel freight cars in place of 
wooden ones. A wooden railroad conscience will make them 
steal cars. 
When, in the course of humane events, it becomes necessary for 
a man to separate himself from some evil habit, we advise him 
to cut it off at once with a sharp knife. 
The good farm team should be laying up steam for their next 
spring’s work these days. Give them exercise, don’t feed to their 
eyes, and keep their coats smooth—it pays. 
The Delaware Supreme Court decides that women cannot prac¬ 
tice law In that State. They will continue to “lay down ” the law 
to th -ir male relatives, even though they cannot take it up. 
The Ontario Agricultural and Experimental Union will meet at 
the Agricultural College, Guelph, on December 8-10. This union 
has succeeded admirably in bringing practical farmers into close 
relations with the college. 
Frozen cream has been sent from New Zealand to England in 
excellent condition, being made into butter which sold for 26 
cents a pound. A large company is to be formed to work this 
undertaking. Don’t try to freeze it in the cow by exposing her to 
a cold crack. 
Several of the larger cities report a marked decrease in num¬ 
bers of the English sparrow. This is, probably, due to the in¬ 
crease in asphalt pavements, and the greater cleanliness of the 
Btreets, which have caused the birds to seek better pastures. 
Where have they gone ? 
