824 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 7 
The Rural New-Yorker 
ItlJi liUtHNEHS FAlt MEW S PAPER. 
National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Humes. 
Establistud 1850. 
llEUBEllT W. COLI.INOWOCD, EdltOn 
Du. Walter Van Fleet, / 
11. K. Van Deman. VAssoclates. 
MUS. K. T. UOVLE, \ 
JouN J. Dillon, Busines.s Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to Ss. Gel., or 8Vz marks, or lOVz francs. 
“ A SaUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is 
backed by a responsible person. Hut to make doubly 
sure we will make good any loss to paid subscribers 
sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising 
in our columns, ami any such swindler will be publicly 
exposed. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we 
do not guarantee to adjust trilling differences between 
subscribers and honest responsible advertisers. Neither 
will we be responsible for tlie debts of honest bankrupts 
sanctioned by the courts. Notice of the complaint must 
be sent us within one month of the time of the trans¬ 
action, and you must have mentioned The Rural New- 
YouKEU when writing the advertiser. 
Name and address of sender, and what tlie 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 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1901. 
The New York Milk Exchange is making something 
of a record by advancing the price to the producer 
twice in one week. This brings the gross price de¬ 
livered at terminals here to $1.71 per 40-quart can, 
which nets shippers in the 26-cent freight zone about 
3% cents per quart, except where extra charges are 
made at shipping stations. These advances are made 
on account of the shrinkage in receipts, amounting to 
nearly one-fifth. The high prices of feed of all kinds 
have made it impossible to produce milk at a profit, 
and many farmers have been selling cows or feeding 
less grain. 
• 
“The well-known farmer” is at it again acting as a 
small-sized Judas to betray his neighbors. He drives 
around with the creamery shark or promoter, intro¬ 
duces his friends and tells great stories of what the 
new enterprise will do for the neighborhood. His 
name heads the list for a good-sized bunch of stock, 
but he pays nothing for it. That is the price he re¬ 
ceives for selling out his neighbors. There are cases 
where such work is perfectly legitimate and helpful, 
but to give character in this way to a stranger who 
tries to promote a wildcat scheme is nothing but clear 
betrayal. 
♦ 
On page 801 Mr. Hitchings tells how he starts and 
cares for his apple trees. We venture to say that 
very few fruit growers will have the courage to follow 
the practice he advocates. They will not have the 
nerve to cut that fine growth of grass and leave it to 
rot on the ground. They will want to cut it and use 
it for hay, thus upsetting the very foundation of Mr. 
Hitchings’s system. Don’t! Don’t! DON’T attempt 
any such scheme with this mulching left out. Far 
better set your trees in the good old way—which has 
given good resuits for years. Why then do we ever 
refer to these new or strange things? So that people 
may study them and see whether they fit the home 
farm. They are never designed or recommended for 
general application! 
* 
It sometimes happens that a pubiic man takes a 
position which is directly opposed to the best inter¬ 
ests of the farmers of his State. Such cases are not 
by any means rare. The man may be a strong poli¬ 
tician who has reasoned shrewdly that there are no 
forces among farm organizations strong enough to 
injure him politically. Thus he feels secure and 
ignores the protests of individual farmers. Who is 
to fight the battle of the farmer in such a case? Sup¬ 
pose he appeals to the director of his experiment sta¬ 
tion. The answer would probably be about like this: 
“This is outside of my business. The station is sup¬ 
ported by public funds. If I attacked this man he 
could probably defeat the appropriation for the sta¬ 
tion or college. This would cripple our work, which 
really has nothing to do with politics!” Let us sup¬ 
pose the farmer recognizes the justice of this and 
turns to the large State society to which he belongs. 
Here he receives much the same answer. “We can¬ 
not afford to attack this man, because we must have 
our State appropriation! If we lose this appropria¬ 
tion we cannot hold our annual meeting.” The farm¬ 
er then turns to the Department of Agriculture of his 
State. He is told that it was organized to “dissemi¬ 
nate wisdom,” and that it is not a part of wisdom to 
gain the ill-will of a strong politician. The farmer 
finds plenty of people anxious to hand him out large 
doses of knowledge, but what he wants is somebody 
to kick for him. Who is to do it? We believe this 
is one legitimate mission of the independent agricul¬ 
tural paper. We do not mean petty nagging, or ill- 
tempei’ed general fault finding, but strong, well-con¬ 
sidered and fair criticism. The farmer can only ex¬ 
pect this service from a paper which derives a good 
share of its income from its subscribers. The paper 
which cuts its price far down below the cost of pro¬ 
duction and then depends upon its advertisers almost 
entirely for support cannot afford to be truly inde¬ 
pendent where the interests of its subscribers are 
concerned. Where the paper’s support comes from 
there will its heart be also. The paper that charges 
a fair price, and is so well supported by farmers that 
it does not need to crawl after political patronage or 
shaky advertising wears no padlock on its pen or 
tongue, and can afford to fight the public enemies of 
agriculture. 
* 
We reprint the picture of our postage stamp man 
on page 818. This is the way he looked at the close 
of the last session of Congress His constituents had 
been votiny with the postage stamp. Every mark you 
see on him represents a good letter of protest against 
oleo or some other evil which threatened the farmer. 
This is the way the man looked last Spring, but dur¬ 
ing the Summer he has rubbed most of the stamps off. 
We must put them on again at once. A man weigh¬ 
ing 200 pounds will require $64 in postage to send him 
through the mails. That will mean 3,200 two-cent 
stamps, and that number of strong, earnest letters will 
bag him. This is the rate for first-class matter. An 
oleo Congressman can hardly be said to come under 
this class, but let’s pay full postage on him in order 
to make sure. Just now we advise stiCKing every 
stamp that can be used on the Hon. D. B. Henderson, 
Washington, 1). C. Write to him at once and say that 
you oppose the reappointment of J. W. Wadsworth as 
chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture on 
account of his stand on the oleo bill. Come now— 
lick a stamp for bossy and the babies! 
A seizure of eight “burrs” or prickly devices at¬ 
tached to the bit of driving horses, intended to tor¬ 
ture the unfortunate animal into champing his bit 
and tossing his head in a stylish manner, was made 
one afternoon from the carriages of society people 
attending the late very fashionable horse show in 
New York. These burrs are leather pads nearly three 
inches in diameter, studded on one side with stiff 
bristles, or even tacKS and sharp nails, and are placed 
on the bits with the sharp points next the tender skin 
outside the lips. When the lines are pulled or the 
horse moves his head to one side the irritation 
causes him to jerk about in a way considered very 
“swell” by the cruel or unthinking owner. The sei¬ 
zure was made by agents of the Society for the Pre¬ 
vention of Cruelty to Animals, and in every case the 
horses belonged to wealthy patrons of the horse show. 
The use of these torturing burrs is said to be an of¬ 
fence under the penal code of New York, and it is 
hoped prosecutions will follow. Poetic justice might 
require the horse owners and their coachmen to lunch 
on a chestnut burr or paper of carpet tacks, but a few 
convictions, with fines or imprisonment and the ac¬ 
companying publicity, will go far to stop the detest¬ 
able practice. 
• 
Tins is a great big country. There was a time when 
the States were put together like the big stones in a 
farmer’s stone wall. Within the last 25 years all this 
has changed. Trade and competition have bound the 
stones together as with cement, and no farmer can 
say any longer that he does not fear the competition 
of distant farms. Farmers east of the great lakes 
know that products from every State in the Union 
come into their markets to compete with those grown 
on their own farms. California fruit, southern vege¬ 
tables, western hay, grain and meat are all crowded 
upon them. The wisest of these farmers are tracing 
back these distant-grown products to see how they 
are able to compete after a journey of hundreds or 
thousands of miles. In this way they have iearned 
about the California box for apples, and California 
methods of packing. They are using this knowledge 
to better their own business. Othei'S have traced 
back the cheap fruit or other products from the South, 
and thus learned the true value of cow peas. Crimson 
clover and other plants. This knowledge has enabled 
them to reduce the bills for manure or fertilizer, and 
restore waste lands at a reasonable expense. Who 
will say that this knowledge of what their distant 
competitors are doing has not been useful to them? 
Twenty years ago a farmer could afford to narrow his 
methods and experiments down to the practices of 
the best farmers in his own State or county. At that 
time competition was also limited and narrow. Now 
competition has widened and become more fierce, and 
the farmer must aiso widen in his study and observa¬ 
tion. We have spoken thus far of what the Bast may 
Itarn of the South and West. There are those who 
say that the West has no need of eastern methods or 
farm experience. Here is a letter which seems to us 
a compiete answer to that argument; 
This used to be considered the garden spot for corn 
raising, but like some other things, it is worse for the 
wear. On the average cornlleld you do not see two or 
three joints abo\e ground thickly studded with brace 
robts. The land needs a tonic to thicken up its blood of 
fertility. That is the reason I take The R. N.-Y., for 1 
know we are treading the same path our forefathers in 
the East have trodden. e. h. t. 
Hates, 111. 
It is well known that there are farms in New Jer¬ 
sey which have been under the plow for 150 years, 
producing now more corn per acre than 90 per cent of 
the corn farms in the Western States! 
It is easy to remember when the annual report of 
the Secretary or Commissioner of Agriculture was re¬ 
garded by the daily papers as a joke, or dismissed 
with a few lines. City people were then uisposed to 
laugh at the efforts of organized agriculture to gain 
dignity and business standing. We realize what a 
gain has been made in the minds of those same people 
when we see how Secretary Wilson’s report for this 
year is received. The leading papers devote coiumns 
to a synopsis of it, and discuss its suggestions seri¬ 
ously. The National Agricultural Department, once 
laughed at, is now respected, and its value is ad¬ 
mitted. The careful work of the present Secretary is 
responsible for this gain in dignity. The common 
farmer may say that all this means nothing to him. 
He is wrong, for as the general business of farming 
gains in character and the power to command respect, 
the poorest man on the farm will find it a worthier 
profession. 
• 
The statement of that "seed case” printed on our 
first page will attract general attention. Readers 
must bear in mind that it is quite possible to clean 
the weed seeds out of grain. There are machines for 
doing this which wiil leave the grain perfectiy clean. 
That being the case, no seedsman has any right to 
state that he has “exercised every care” when any 
number of such seeds are left in the grain, because it 
is possible to take them out. In most cases the trou¬ 
ble comes in selling seeds without inspection. The 
seedsman buys from the farmer, and with scarcely a 
glance at them turns them over to his customer under 
hi.s so-called “guarantee.” We have received nursery 
stock which came in the original packages through 
three different hands without inspection or any effort 
to show that the stock was clean and true to name. We 
are glad that the courts give the farmer a chance to 
hold the dealer on his warrant. The principle is a far- 
reaching one. If wild mustard seeded on the farm 
gives just cause for damages, the introduction of the 
San Jos6 scale, being even more dangerous, may ren¬ 
der the nurseryman liable unless he use great care 
in his guarantee. Of course the trouble is that most 
farmers will not press cases of this sort through the 
courts, though we believe that there would be a 
wholesome effect if more of them would follow Mr. 
Bell’s example. The Grange or some other farm or¬ 
ganization might well establish a legal department, 
and put good lawyers on the trail of some of these 
careless dealers! 
* 
BREVITIES. 
Surplus roosters are crow curs! 
No—don’t get your mind set on infertile ideas. 
A VIGOROUS constitution is required to stand a rigorous 
climate. 
Who blames turkey for taking French leave at Thanks¬ 
giving time? 
Works without faith—the drudge; faith without work¬ 
ing—the crank. 
“Thrashing” stone is the latest name for flitting stone 
for road metal. 
A WORD to the whys! Write your questions on one 
side of the paper. 
You do not need to be a crank in order to do your 
friends a good turn. 
Have you had any trouble with adulterated stock food? 
If so, let us know about it. 
Some folks would be better off if they stopped exercising 
care and exercised their muscles a little. 
Paper from cornstalks doesn’t seem to be a very solid 
proposition yet. However, there are plenty of other uses 
for cornstalks. 
Secretary Wilson suggests that it would be wise for 
this country to imitate England and prohibit the impor¬ 
tation of live stock. 
A BLACK heart is worse than a black skin. Would that 
we could make a majority of the men of this country be¬ 
lieve that. Do they not believe it now? Do you think 
they act as though they did? 
