December 21 
856 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PARER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Uekbeht \V. Coi.LiNGwooi>, Kditor. 
l)u. Waltek Van ^ 
MU8. K. T. Uoyi.E, jAbsociaujs. 
John J. Dii.lon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. 6d., or marks, or 10>4 francs. 
spent the best part of his life at a trade should sud¬ 
denly find that the inventor has hatched out a ma¬ 
chine which does more work than he can, and at less 
cost, but this is one of the results of living in a coun¬ 
try where progress and free thought are permitted. 
Any man, whether farmer, mechanic, editor, or states¬ 
man, who resists real improvement, will find himself 
swept aside. It is a wise plan for one to try to adjust 
himself to such new conditions rather than fight 
them; and better still, by looking ahead, to see the 
conditions and do the adjusting before they arrive. 
* 
“ A SaUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is 
backed 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 columns, 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 lionest responsible advertisers. Neither 
will we be responsible for the 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- 
Yorker w'hen writing the advertiser. 
Name and address of sender, and w'hat the remittance 
is for, should appear in every letter. 
Remittances may be made in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAI, NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1901. 
We Are All Ready 
to fill your orders for any papers or books you may 
need for next year’s reading. We have taken a great 
deal of pains to develop a system by which we can 
send orders for other papers the day we receive them. 
Make out a list of what you want and send us with 
your order for The R. N.-Y. We can save you money 
by sending the whole order to us in one remittance, 
and there will be less chance of errors and delays 
than if you send separate orders to the different 
papers. Orders for subscriptions should, however, al¬ 
ways be sent as early as possible, as most large pub¬ 
lishers get a week or two behind after the first of the 
year. We have perfected our system and have a 
trained force of assistants, and are prepared this year 
to care for every order the day it is received; but to 
secure other papers promptly orders should be in 
from one to two weeks in advance. 
* 
Consumptive immigrants are now debarred from 
entering the United States, a consumptive pupil was 
recently ordered out of the public schools of Greater 
New York, and several States are said to be consid¬ 
ering legislation which will prevent tuberculous per¬ 
sons from entering their borders. According to these 
indications, the consumptive will soon be ordered to 
get off the earth. 
♦ 
A GOOD friend says he regrets that the farmers of 
the country do not take a more dignified way of mak¬ 
ing their wants regarding oleo known! With some 
people dignity becomes a disease. It would probably 
please the politician better if the farmer would take 
off his hat and stammer out a half-hearted request 
for a vote in favor of the anti-oleo bill; according to 
some standards that might be dignified, but the farm¬ 
ers know that it digs up very few votes. We admit 
that it will take most of the dignity out of an oleo 
Congressman to plaster him from head to foot with 
postage stamps, but he may bring it back with inter¬ 
est if he will support the bill. 
* 
We have referred to the future of the automobile 
as a farm machine. We learn of cases where these 
vehicles, after doing their work on the road, have 
been used for turning farm machinery by raising the 
hind axle and running a belt from the wheel. The 
makers of automobiles, with one exception, discour¬ 
age such double work. They say that the auto was 
made for speed and light travel—not for work that 
should be done by an engine costing less than one- 
fourth as much. As well put a light, swift trotter on 
the plow or heavy wagon when a stout heavy horse 
will do such work much better. It seems true that 
the present autos are not well fitted for farm use. 
• 
The present high prices for grain come hard on 
the man with idle horses to feed. The cow gives her 
daily mess of milk and we feel that we are receiving 
immediate returns for the money spent for grain. 
With the horse we must often wait weeks or months 
for our return, and then receive it indirectly, often 
through the cow, sheep or hog! That is no reason 
why the horse should be starved, for we must keep 
him in good condition through the Winter if we ex¬ 
pect him to do our work in the Spring. We must, 
however, feed him a less expensive grain than oats 
if we can find a grain that will keep him in good 
spirits for less money! We are gathering facts from 
horse feeders and would like to have your experience. 
What is the cheapest horse dinner at your barn 
boarding house? 
A TELEGBAM from Washington states that Speaker 
Henderson has organized the Committee on Agricul¬ 
ture so that it stands 12 to 6 in favor of the Grout 
anti-oleo bill. We do not yet know the exact make¬ 
up of the committee, but it is evident that one great 
point has been gained at least. The R. N.-Y. returns 
thanks to the thousands of its readers who evidently 
voted with the postage stamp. Now keep it up until 
the victory is won! 
* 
We are still receiving questions about the use of 
dry corn fodder in the silo. In theory it would seem 
as though dry stalks after husking might be cut into 
the silo and wet down with water so as to start a 
mild fermentation and make a sort of silage. We 
have repeatedly asked for experience in this line, but 
it is not forthcoming. We conclude, therefore, that 
this shock silage will shock a cow about as a dried- 
apple pie shocks a pronounced pie eater! 
« 
At present bricklayers in London, England, lay 
one-third the number of bricks that they did for a 
day’s work 30 years ago. The policy of some labor 
unions has been to reduce the day’s work to the small¬ 
est possible amount and discourage the use of ma¬ 
chinery that would displace hand work. The result 
has been to send large quantities of work out of that 
country. Speaking of this the Journal of Commerce 
says: 
Germany and Belgium have not only been gett’ng iron 
and steel business that England used to have ir foreign 
countries, but have been underbidding Englishmen In 
England itself. If this were due to the fact tnat the 
Germans were willing to work unreasonable hours at 
starvation wages one could regard the resistance of the 
English workman with high respect. But that is not the 
reason for German success, which is mainly due to the 
willingness of the German workman to use machinery, 
and, without working harder himself, to turn out a larger 
product. Machinery which is being rapidly introduced 
into American yards can either not be got into English 
yards without a strike, or can only be got in subject to 
conditions which reduce the work done by the men and 
do not increase the output. 
Of course it seems very hard that a man who has 
What is the value of a five-year-old child? In 
New Jersey the courts held that one dollar was fair 
value for a child that was killed by a trolley car. 
The plea was that the child had no earning capacity, 
and hence had no pecunary value to its parents! In 
New York City a jury allowed ?300 for a little child 
killed by a cable car. The judge set this verdict 
aside. He said that the funeral and other necessary 
expenses cost $181, which would leave a trifle over 
$100 as the price of a human life! This, he said, was 
so low as to shock the moral sense. It is said to be 
almost impossible to obtain anything like a fair 
verdict for damages against one of the larger trans¬ 
portation companies in the great cities. As a rule 
they enjoy franchises which the people have given 
them, and which are worth millions. Yet, they will 
fight the payment of just damages in case of an acci¬ 
dent with every trick and quibble of the law. 
• 
President Roosevelt in his message to Congress 
argues strongly in favor of Government irrigation of 
the arid lands of the Far West. In this he takes di¬ 
rect issue with the National Grange and the vast 
majority of farmers east of the Mississippi River. As 
most of our readers know, there are great tracts of 
desert land in the Far West where the rainfall is so 
scanty that cultivated crops will not grow without 
irrigation. Some of these lands are sterile or clogged 
with alkali, but if water were available for irrigation 
millions of acres would become productive. Through 
these lands run streams of good size, and irrigation 
is followed to some extent along the borders of these 
streams. If the water could be held back in storage 
reservoirs in the mountains and applied systematical¬ 
ly to the land the area under irrigation would be vast¬ 
ly increased. The President favors the construction 
of such reservoirs at public expense, and, as we have 
said, thus places himself in direct opposition to the 
expressed wishes of a large majority of American 
farmers. If this land were actually needed by any 
generation now in sight there might be an excuse for 
some such scheme. Farm lands in the older settled 
parts of the country are now cheap enough—far 
cheaper in fact than good land would be on these irri¬ 
gated plains. Those who desire farms can now ob¬ 
tain them, and we submit that it is far better from 
all points of view to repopulate and revive our pres¬ 
ent agricultural communities before we jump across 
the continent to build new ones. The opening of this 
arid land to productive culture would flood the country 
with food products far in excess of our present needs. 
That would mean further depreciation of our eastern 
farm lands which are now gaining in value. The 
building of these reservoirs and the sale or disposal 
of the irrigated lands would give occasion for one of 
the greatest political “jobs” in the world’s history. 
The chances are that in the end the greater part of 
the lands would be controlled by great corporations, 
thus bringing the direct competition of the trust into 
the business of farming. For these and other rea¬ 
sons The R. N.-Y. opposes Government irrigation— 
but chiefly because it is not necessary. We shall do 
our best to argue the matter in a fair and conserva¬ 
tive way. 
• 
The latest agricultural “fake” is the story of an 
Italian in New Jersey who tapped a trolley line and 
applied the electricity to his garden. It was said thqt 
he had “a vast net-work of wires” running all through 
the ground. According to the tale the trolley cars 
lagged, but the cabbage and potatoes jumped three 
weeks ahead of those in other gardens! People who 
would be tempted to take a nap if you talked the 
principles of plain agriculture to them jump at this 
story as a sure cure for their troubles. For example 
here is part of a note from New Hampshire: 
Give us the cost of any old dynamos and fixturer suit¬ 
able for water power. There are hundreds of brooks 
among our New Hampshire hills that are murmuring 
and shouting to work for us farmers; gurgling and sing¬ 
ing to grab the lightning and fling it into these rocky 
flelds if that is the stuff which corn and onion.'i want 
for dinner. 
Investigation of the case mentioned shows that 
there is no trolley within thi’ee miles of the farm 
mentioned. The “electricity” used by the Italian 
seems to have been generated by a mixture of elbow 
grease and brain sweat! It is safe to say that there 
is at present no practical way of utilizing electricity 
to promote plant growth. That it will do this under 
ideal conditions seems to be demonstrated by experi¬ 
ments in greenhouse culture. We feel quite confident 
that some day the electric current will be used in a 
practical way for obtaining fertilizer nitrogen from 
the air. At present its use for agriculture appears to 
be limited to lighting, heating and providing power. 
« 
BREVITIES. 
Let’s be loyal to our calling. 
Thus may we make farming pay. 
So spell out your agriculture 
With your very biggest A. 
Boiled oats for the colt—page 850. 
Are hide growers joining the Free Hide League? 
Cut hay early for cow feed—later for horse or market. 
How would you like to be a Kansas natural-gas farmer? 
It is given to every man to live so that he need never 
fear the face of any other. 
Prof.' C. L. Beach (page 851) found too much fat in the 
skim-milk. How the true “separator” did shake the fat 
out of its rival’s work! 
The woodpecker has an elongated tongue with barbs 
at the end. We meet people who appear to have tongues 
of the same variety, but they use them to destroy char¬ 
acters rather than caterpillars. 
A DISTINGUISHED entomologist says that the native New 
Jersey mosquito does not bite. Jersey men should get 
out Federal Injunctions compelling other States to keep 
their venomous insects at home. 
Owing to delay In obtaining an engraving, the article 
on Mr. Mapes’s plan of feeding hens will be held until 
next week. His conclusions will probably startle many 
good hen men. 
Last week we described a new plan for warming a hen¬ 
house. Mr. Mapes writes that he recently tested the 
device on a very cold night. The mercury stood at seven 
degrees below zero out doors and at 43 in the hen roost! 
The sugar refiners are said to be making overtures to 
the fruit growers in their efforts to obtain a repeal of 
the duties on raw sugar. They point out the fact that 
cheap sugar means an Increase in the preserving indus¬ 
try, and a larger outlet for fruit. Beet sugar seems to 
have a chastening effect on the aforetime haughty sugar 
octopus. 
Slippery pavements in cities make poor footing for 
draft horses, and we frequently see them fall so heavily 
that it seems as though bones must be broken. The ani¬ 
mals, often fine specimens of horseflesh, know their help¬ 
lessness, and usually lie still until the harness is loosened. 
Then they scramble to their feet and go on as though 
nothing had happened, but there is no doubt that they 
carry lame spots for several days as a result. The look 
of fear on tne face of one of these big horses when he 
feels that he is losing his footing and is about to fall, is 
pitiful. Many unnecessary accidents of this kind are 
caused by drivers who carelessly drive on dangerous 
places. 
