220 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
APRIL 5 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
<34 Park Row, New York), 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban 
Homes. 
ELBERT S. CARMAN, [ EDIT 0 RS. 
HERBERT W. COLLINQWOOD, ) 
SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1890. 
Clover 1 b life! Clover Is life ! 
Farmer should love it next bist to his wife. 
Sluggards may sleep 
Lazy folks cr^ep, 
Clover keeps working through rainy and fair 
R ght up its sleeves 
With its broad leaves 
Passing the nutriment out of the air. 
Grit from its collar 
Down to its boots, 
JTanv a dollar 
Did in its roots. 
Clover is work ■ Clover is life 
Farmer should love it next best to his wife. 
Every law that affords general 
protection to life and property 
cuts off a little of our individual 
liberty. The law is made power¬ 
ful for good in proportion as Ave 
contribute our bit of self-denial 
willingly. 
The R. N.-Y. ascertains that W. F. 
Massey, the Horticulturist of the 
North Carolina Experiment Station, 
had nothing whatever to do with and is 
in no way responsible for the late blun¬ 
derbuss bulletin so severely criticised 
in these columns two weeks ago. The 
responsibility falls entirely upon the 
Botanist, Mr. Gerald Me Carthy, a 
communication from whom on the 
subject appears in this issue on the 
following page. 
What with the anti-trust bill and 
the bill levying a tax upon dealers in 
options and traders in puts and calls, 
Congress seems to be waking up to 
the fact that something must be done 
to satisfy the farmers. The Farmers’ 
Alliance has opened headquarters in 
Washington. Possibly this fact has 
something to do with the anxiety of 
our legislators to put themselves right 
with the farmers. Of course, there 
are plenty of men to say that the pro¬ 
posed new measures are unconstitu¬ 
tional and unsound generally. It 
makes all the difference in the world 
whether we regard the constitution as 
capable or incapable of growth. 
We sent a request to the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture for an assortment 
of its seeds and they have come. 
Am ong flowers are such old friends as 
zinnias, cockscombs, petunias, mig¬ 
nonette, poppies, cannas—all of the 
well known kinds. There are two 
packages of the “Angel of Midnight ” 
Corn which theR. N.-Y. disseminated 
some six years ago to find that it was 
no better than Longfellow. We also 
find the Champion of England Pea, 
the Crosby Sweet Corn, Yellow Globe 
Onion, Fottler’s Brunswick Cabbage, 
and other standard varieties of vege¬ 
tables. Upon most of the packages 
the following sentence is printed : 
“Please report results.” Secretary 
Rusk is a far-seeing man with a keen 
sense of humor. 
Over in New Jersey the farmers are 
after information regarding the pres¬ 
ent condition of their business. At 
the last meeting of the New Jersey 
State Board of Agriculture, Governor 
Abbott asked for the appointment of a 
committee to co-operate with him in 
investigating the causes which have 
led to the depressed condition of farm¬ 
ing interests." Another committee, to 
be appointed by the legislature, will 
act with them. This committee send 
out a list of questions bearing upon 
the values of farm lands, difficulties 
in the employment of labor, taxes, 
prices for produce and railroad rates. 
There is a very evident feeling of dis¬ 
content among New Jersey farmers at 
the present time, which in the writer’s 
art of the State, is being caused largely 
y the discouraging weather for the 
past three seasons. It is undoubtedly 
true that the value of farming lands 
has declined and that taxes are now as¬ 
sessed on the old values. The ques¬ 
tions are interesting and important 
and the writer will endeavor to make 
a canvass of the New Jersey township 
in which he lives and publish the re¬ 
sults. This may stimulate others to 
undertake similar work. Let us 
know the facts. 
Mr. J. R. Dodge of the Department 
of Agriculture, gives the public his 
views on the present ‘ ‘ hard times ” or 
depression in agricultural matters. 
Low prices and a feeling of discour¬ 
agement rule everywhere, he says, in 
Europe as well as in this country, and 
the depression is less severe here than 
abroad. Mr. Dodge seems to think 
our farmers are raising too much of 
some crops and not enough of others. 
Take corn and wheat and a few other 
staples for example. Our crops of these 
are too large, and with an insufficient 
export market, what little profit 
there might be on these products goes 
to middlemen and gamblers in fu¬ 
tures. Again, s: ys Mr. Dodge, we 
import each ^ ear $240,000,000 worth of 
agricultural products which should be 
produced here. Among these prod¬ 
ucts he mentions sugar, barley, ani¬ 
mals. fibers, etc. Why, he says, 
should wheat-growers insist upon 
going to the antipodes for binder 
twine while a million acres of flax 
fibers are wasted, and we could grow 
hemp enough in six months to bind 
all the wheat in the world ! 
Many of these things are very true. 
In almost every community you will 
find a farmer who has discovered the 
way out of this depression, by grow¬ 
ing the most salable crops in the most 
economical manner and selling them 
to the best advantage. What law 
will force or what instruction will 
lead his neighbors to follow his lead? 
Mr. Dodge says that “the curse of 
speculation blights and consumes the 
result' of honest industry.” Right, 
but it always will blight and consume 
until the promoters of the honest in¬ 
dustry put a stop to it. We cannot 
expect the class of men who are grow¬ 
ing fat on speculation to ruin their 
own business. The liquor traffic is 
another evil that works to the detri¬ 
ment of the farmer. Close up the 
rum shops and the headquarters for 
produce gambling, and agriculture 
will right itself. Who is to do this 
closing up? Who will be most bene¬ 
fited by it? In answer to both ques¬ 
tions—the farmers. 
SOUTH CAROLINA LEADS. 
OR a number of years the farmers 
of South Carolina, under the 
leadership of B. R. Tillman, have been 
denouncing the State Government 
and demanding a share in the man¬ 
agement of affairs. A striking and 
important point in this agitation was 
reached last Thursday when Tillman 
was nominated for Governor, with J. 
C. Coit for Lieutenant-Governor, by a 
convention of farmers which made 
specific demands and charges. This 
step of organizing an opposition party 
in a Southern State is a very serious 
matter, not easily understood by one 
who has never lived among the South¬ 
ern people. The “independent” is 
at once accused of trying to break up 
the only party which guarantees or¬ 
der and civilization and all the hor¬ 
rors of “Negro rule” are pictured to 
frighten these “ independent ” voters 
back to the party fold. The fact that- 
intelligent, Southern born men have 
gone into this movement with a full 
knowledge of the consequences to 
them is proof of the dire necessity of 
a shaking up of public affairs. 
These farmers demand primary 
nominations for county offices, the 
abolition of the State Board of Agri¬ 
culture and that the University shall 
be conducted only as a classical insti¬ 
tution. Rigid economy in public 
affairs, reduction of salaries and the 
abolition of useless offices, a constitu¬ 
tional convention and greater power 
for a railroad commission are de¬ 
manded with other minor matters. 
The R. N.-Y. does not pretend to 
know all the local needs of the farm¬ 
ers of South Carolina. We know it to 
be a State of “family connections” 
where hundreds of useless offices are 
held by useless men for useless 
reasons. On the general principle 
that in these times the farmer will get 
just what he pulls out of the fire him 
self, we are glad to see this movement 
started, and we hope it will be honor¬ 
ably and fairly pushed to the end. 
This farmers’ nominating convention 
in South Carolina is the first of its 
kind. It should not be the last. 
There is not a State in the Union that 
would not be helpfully stirred up by 
a similar meeting. 
STATE SCHOOL BOOKS. 
HALL the State print, bind and 
supply school books ? This 
question is being asked in many States 
just now. There is a bill betore the 
New York State legislature which 
provides for the publishing and sale 
of text books on the part of the State. 
As with every other measure this has 
both friends and foes. A brief epito¬ 
me of the arguments which some of 
our subscribers have sent us will be 
of interest to those who are investi¬ 
gating the matter. 
Nobody seems to be in favor of free 
text books. Free literature, as a rule, 
is not held in high esteem. Those 
who demand the passage of such a 
bill as is now before the legislature, 
base their main arguments on the 
fact that at present text books cost 
more than they should. If the State 
would provide these books at cost, a 
saving of at least 50 per cent, would 
be made. The present system of 
supplying these books is denounced 
as “legalized robbery ” a system par¬ 
ticularly hard on the poor who are 
called upon to make many changes 
of costly books. The reports of the 
Court of Appeals in this State are fur¬ 
nished at cost by the State at less 
than half what similar volumes cost 
when purchased from book-sellers. 
There is no reason why State officials 
cannot be secured who can prepare 
proper text books. Many school offi¬ 
cials state that they have been ap¬ 
proached by book agents with bribes 
to secure the introduction of new 
books into the school. 
On the other hand, we are told that 
the farmers want no such “paternal 
government rule ” in our schools. A 
uniform set of books would make 
study monotonous ; scholars like to 
change from one set to another. A 
book well adapted to a city school 
would not be adapted to a country 
school. Teachers can do better with 
text books which suit them than they 
can with books that they may not like, 
etc., etc. The proposed measure 
would be only another “State job” 
and we have no proof that the books 
would be furnished for less money 
than those we get now. 
These are some of the arguments 
sent us. The R. N.-Y. knows that 
good books can be provided for less 
money than pupils are now called up¬ 
on to pay; whether, under State super¬ 
vision the business would become only 
a political job, we cannot say. There 
is no argument advanced by those 
who oppose the measure that could 
not be met if able and honest men 
had charge of the work. 
“ LESS WASTE ” 
F late months questions similar to 
the following have frequently 
reached us : 
‘ ‘ If there is an overproduction of 
farm products, why does theR. N.-Y. 
try to induce people to farm and raise 
more produce ? ” 
Suppose we grant that there is an 
overproduction, or rather, an imper¬ 
fect system of distribution. If farmers 
all over the country were to stop work 
for one year, many of us would come 
close to starvation. We never have one 
full year’s supply of food laid aside as 
a surplus, in spite of our immense 
crops. It is imperfect distribution 
rather than overproduction that hurts 
us. While Western farmers are re¬ 
ported as burning corn for fuel, 
thousands in this city are without suf¬ 
ficient food. But be the trouble what 
it may, it must be admitted that many 
farmers find themselves confronted by 
a market offering prices below the cost 
of their products. The history of ag¬ 
riculture reveals the fact that there 
never was a nation that did not, at 
some period of its history, come to a 
time when farming apparently failed 
to pay. What was the inevitable re¬ 
sult ? A change of methods and crops, 
a desertion of unprofitable land, more 
thoughtful men—in two words less 
waste. The full volume of crops was 
grown, but they were grown at less 
cost. 
This experience must be repeated in 
America. Good farming, as the R. 
N.-Y. understands it, is not measured 
by the quantity of the crop alone, but 
by the price obtained for it, less the 
cost of producing it. Up to the 
present time farmers have paid 
more attention to the selling price 
than they have to the produc¬ 
ing price. The time has come when 
this must be changed and the keenest 
attention given to the cost of the crop. 
This is what the R. N.-Y. means by 
urging the adoption of methods that 
will increase the average production 
for each acre, each cow or each sheep. 
The majority of farms East as well as 
West are too large. There is hardly a 
farmer who could not make more 
money by giving up a portion of his 
farm and condensing his labor, his 
thought and his manure on the re¬ 
mainder. This is the hardest lesson for 
American farmers to learn, but it is a 
lesson that must be learned sooner or 
later. We must make our “head 
save our heels.” One of the most suc¬ 
cessful general farmers on Long 
Island said to the writer recently: “I 
have 100 acres and it is too much 
forme to handle.” This man is not 
a market gardener. He keeps cattle, 
sheep, and hogs and raises the same 
crops that are grown in Wisconsin. 
The pith of the matter is that a man 
can do just about so much work. He 
can keep himself busy on one acre if 
he tries, or he can spread his labor 
over 100 acres. In many cases farm¬ 
ers attempt too much, and, as the re¬ 
sult of half tended crops and stock, 
produce inferior products which, for 
lack of time, they cannot sell to the 
best advantage. The R. N.-Y. would 
not have farmers double their pro¬ 
ducts, hut it would have them plan to 
do business on principles that will en¬ 
able them to cut down the cost and 
the waste, two elements which are 
bound closer together than the Siam¬ 
ese twins. 
BREVITIES. 
The country is about to suffer from a bad 
attack of the hen fever. 
If you feed whole corn to old horses, let 
the ducks run on the manure pile. 
Let us know what shoes you use on the 
horses when plowing swamp lands. 
Can bran ever be profitably used as a 
fertilizer without first passing it through 
an animal ? 
Will the proposed tariff on hides bene¬ 
fit the farmers, or the big packers and 
slaughterers? 
It seems to be quite easy to preserve 
whole corn-stalks in the silo, but it is a bad 
job to get them out for feeding. 
Will some of the experiment stations 
tell us just why a hydrangea bears blue 
flowers one season and pink flowers the 
next ? 
Have our sweet potato friends ever 
thought of sowing 100 or 200 pounds of 
powdered sulphate of copper to the acre for 
the “soil rot ” ? 
Every one that has seen and eaten the 
Paragon Chestnut speaks of its size and 
quality in much the same terms as the R. 
N.-Y. has so often done.' 
SPRING is late. You will have to hurry 
on that manure pile. The corn-stalks 
stick to the fork. Don’t you wish they had 
been chopped before they were fed ? 
We learn of a number of farmers in 
Southern New Jersey, who have filled their 
ice houses with snow, tramping it solid 
and closing the house as for ice. The R. 
N.-Y. will watch the outcome of these ex¬ 
periments with much interest. 
There is a great deal of nonsense writ¬ 
ten about the “tenderness” and general 
lack of vigor of the Jersey cow. Jerseys 
are “ hot-house pets” only when thev are 
made so by their owners. The R. N.-Y. 
has a Jersey that is as tough and hardy as 
any native cow in the neighborhood. 
Farmers who grow sweet corn for can¬ 
ning factories are sure to miss a portion of 
their profits if they neglect to utilize the 
nubbins and stalks in the best manner. 
Next week we shall begin the discussion of 
methods of saving this fodder. It is hoped 
that those who have succeeded in saving 
aud feeding it will tell us how they did it. 
The peach cauners have sent represen¬ 
tatives through the peach growing districts, 
and they are said to cojne back with a 
strong conviction that there is good cause 
to anticipate a short crop of peaches. The 
Californians will doubtless pack a good 
proportion of their crop, particularly if the 
present reports concerning the Eastern 
crop prove correct. 
The Botanist of the Department of Ag¬ 
riculture, Dr. Geo. Vasey, says of Johnson 
Grass (Sorghum halapense) that it is prob¬ 
ably too tender for the Northern States, 
but “ further trials are needed.” We can 
assure Dr. Vasey that no further trial is 
needed on Long Island or Northern New 
Jersey. The roots are not hardy and its ap¬ 
pearance, here and there, year after year, 
is from seed self-sown the previous year. 
YOUNG Game roosters seem to have a 
special instinct for eating eggs. The R. N.- 
Y. has had many complaints of this char¬ 
acteristic. A neighbor tried Games and 
gave them up in disgust. “ Why” said he, 
“ the x-oosters would wait by the door un¬ 
til they heard a hen cackle and then run 
like deer lor the nest to eat the egg.” Such 
animals are about as profitless a- a dairy 
steer which looks to his little sister for 
fame and dignity. 
