372 
THE RURAL NEV'-YORKEP. 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
ELBERT S. CARMAN, 
HERBERT W. COLLINQWOOD, 
EDITORS. 
Rural Publishing Company: 
LAWSON VALENTINE, President. RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN, 
EDGAR H. LIBBY, Manager. OUT-DOOR BOOKS. 
Copyright, 1890, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
tions of your customers. A good deal is being said 
about the South American trade just now. It ap¬ 
pears that the firms who secure this trade are not 
those who send the “ most improved ” goods, but 
those who come the nearest to matching the goods 
wanted by the people. Agents go through the 
country and pick up samples of tools or products 
used by the common people. These are imitated 
as closely as possible and the result is a profitable 
trade. It may be said that such practice keeps 
people from using implements that would enable 
them to do better work—encourages the use of old- 
style tools and methods. To this we say that when 
manufacturers show a desire to give farmers just 
what they ask for, they will find the ‘ * old- style ” 
tools disappearing faster than ever before. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1890. 
Speech is silver; silence is golden. The 
present ratio between the two metals is 
about one to 16 . Mix the two by saying only 
what is worth saying. 
Have you, young man, sent in your application 
for the R. N.-Y. circulars offering a, free education 
to you ? There is no time like noiv. John Prompt 
wins m the race with Jerry Putoff, every time. 
It is with alarm and a feeling of helplessness that 
the R. N.-Y. finds that rye, oats and wheat in 
many fields are alive with aphidse. A few days 
ago as we were walking along an oat field, it was 
observed that many of the blades were brown at 
the tips and downward. An examination showed 
that the injury was being done by the lice. Further 
on a rye field was examined. From two or three 
to 30 were found on nearly every head, which they 
evidently preferred to the leaves. The injury that 
such fields will sustain from these insects remains 
to be seen. If they merely feed upon the outer 
husks of the heads, the grain may escape material 
injury. It is probable, however, that as the glumes 
become firmer and less tender with age, the lice 
will attack the stems and leaves. Tobacco water 
and the kerosene emulsion will kill them by con¬ 
tact. The question (unanswerable as yet) is how 
may they be economically applied ? 
For at least the next decade the legislation with 
regard to silver to be enacted by the present Con¬ 
gress is certain to form a topic of frequent discus¬ 
sion and constant interest, not in this country alone 
but in others also. Indeed, it is doubtful whether 
there is any other question, except, perhaps, those 
affecting the labor and socialistic problems, which 
excites such a general interest, all the world over, as 
that relating to a double standard of value—bi¬ 
metallism. Just as in the case of free trade, some 
of the clearest intellects and best trained specialists 
of the age take diametrically opposite views with 
regard to the matter ; while the people at large, as 
a rule, know too little about it to be able to form 
any reasonable opinion with regard to the merits of 
either side of the question. There is not one of our 
readers, however, whose welfare will not, with ab¬ 
solute certainty, be more or less seriously affected 
by the congressional silver legislation now under dis¬ 
cussion ; hence we have attempted to give a brief 
statement of the entire case in our last issue and 
elsewhere in this. 
The writer well remembers a picture exhibited 
some years ago in one of our large cities. The theme 
was Decoration Day and the memories that cluster 
about it. An humble soldier’s grave in a quiet 
country churchyard, bore the wreath, the flowers, 
and the little flag which comrades had placed there. 
There were but two mourners—a woman and her 
little son, the wife and child of the dead soldier. 
The woman’s sad, thoughtful face sho wed that her 
thoughts were of the past, with hopes, ambitions 
and dreams buried in the lowly grave before her. 
War was a terrible reality to her. She had given 
more than her share for freedom and national honor. 
The boy’s bright, eager face showed that his 
thoughts were all of the future. The grave meant 
to him but a dream, a dim memory, an inspiration. 
At each succeeding Decoration Day the ranks of 
those who took an actual part in the war grow 
weaker and thinner. Younger men, who were 
children while their fathers fought at the front, are 
now taking an active part in public affairs. The 
old war memories are fast losing the last tinge of 
their bitterness. It is well that this should die out 
and leave us only the inspiration that prompted our 
fathers to heroic deeds. This is the true lesson of 
Decoration Day._ 
Mr. Macomber, on the next page, touches a very 
important point, which manufacturers ought to 
heed. Do manufacturers make the machines that 
will sell the best, or do they make just what farm¬ 
ers need and ask for? The time is coming, gentle¬ 
men, when you will be very glad to come to farmers 
and ask them what they want. The blacksmiths 
of the country, who are called upon to mend 
broken machines, could give you a good many use¬ 
ful hints if you desired them. You can tell the 
good points of your implements, they can show you 
the weak uoints—the places that break and wear 
out. _It wilTnot do tojgnore the wants and sugges¬ 
Since our last issue there have been some new 
developments in relation to the obnoxious questions 
by the census enumerators. A resolution has been 
introduced in the House of Representatives directing 
the Census Committee to make inquiries in relation 
to the objectionable questions. Superintendent 
Porter, also, anticipating opposition, has instructed 
enumerators to enter that -tact opposite the names 
of persons refusing to answer, and that all “legal 
proceedings will be instituted by the Washington 
office through the Department of Justice.” The 
Superintendent is reported to have said, however, 
that all persons refusing to answer will be given an 
opportunity to furnish the information directly to 
the census office. A tacit admission of the Census 
Bureau’s lack of confidence in the results to be se¬ 
cured through the enumerators is shown by circu¬ 
lars which have been sent to physicians asking for 
the names of their patients and descriptions of all 
their ailments. This has met an indignant remons¬ 
trance from the medical fraternity whose profes¬ 
sional knowledge of patients is a secret with which 
no court has any business. Such statistics, if com¬ 
plete. may be of value, but those likely to be se¬ 
cured, are likely to be so fragmentary that little 
good can come from them. A large part of the 
people, to say nothing of the census enumerators, 
have so little knowledge of diseases that the replies, 
even if given in good faith, are likely to be mislead¬ 
ing and unreliable. The intentions of the census 
officials were doubtless good, but their plans are 
liable to miscarry. 
The farmer who is instructed to “write to his 
Congressman and urge him to vote in the interests 
of agriculture ” will have little time for raising a 
crop if he follows up all the bills that are pouring 
into Congress. Many of these bills, ostensibly in 
the interests of farmers, are glaring specimens of 
demagogery and humbug. None knows this better 
than the men that introduce them. Why then are 
they introduced? Simply to “keep the farmers 
quiet.” Not one of these wild cat bills can be passed 
through this Congress—they will only injure the 
chances of the few wise and conservative measures 
that are being discussed." Some Representative 
whose present object in life is to secure a re-election, 
may be able to have a roaring speech printed and 
distributed at Government expense; that’s about 
all that will come of it. Farmers, don’t waste your 
powder. Keep cool. No truer words ever were 
spoken than these by Secretary Rusk : 11 No pos¬ 
sible relief can come to farmers or to the country, 
no permanent remedy for present ills is to be found, 
in measures which are rather the outcome of resent¬ 
ment tha n the product of reason. I would say to 
the farmers , stand firm as the everlasting hills in 
demanding what is right , and resisting any possi¬ 
ble infringement on your rights as citizens by any 
other class or combination of people, but beware lest 
in your just eagerness to secure your oum rights, 
you seek to infringe upon the rights of others. No 
measure that conflicts with the rights of any one 
class of citizens, but what is sure to follow the 
course of the boomerang and return to injure the 
hand that shapied it." 
The R. N.-Y. knows a farmer who made arrange¬ 
ments to begin his spring plowing on Monday morn¬ 
ing. Upon dragging his plow from under a pro¬ 
tecting tree, where it had been stored during the 
winter, he discovered that it must have a new point 
before any work could be done with it; so a jour¬ 
ney to the nearest town, several miles away, was 
made, and a single point was purchased. A little 
foresight would have enabled him to buy the point 
on Saturday, while in town, instead of wasting a 
half day of valuable time when the soil was in fine 
condition for plowing. Further, should that one 
point be broken, another trip to town would be 
necessary, while it is only a question of a few days 
before the point will become so worn as tobe worth¬ 
less. Another farmer, in a former year, cut sev¬ 
eral acres of clover and had it cured before securing 
a rake. But for the accommodation of a thrifty 
neighbor in lending him a rake, his hay might have 
been ruined before he was able to secure one ; it 
certainly would had he been obliged to order a rake 
of the manufacturer, several hundred miles away. 
Another farmer made a hay rack after his hay was 
ready to be drawn to the barn. Such farmers 
never can do without middlemen. Should mer¬ 
chants or manufacturers use so little foresight, and 
show so little plain business sense, 99 out of every 
100 would fail in less than a decade. While the R. 
N. -Y. repeats that such farmers as these cannot get 
along without middlemen, we would like to make 
it clear that they alone are responsible for their 
plight. They tie themselves up ; will middlemen 
voluntarily cut them loose ? 
JUNK 7 
CENTRAL PARK AND ITS LESSON. 
Six hundred cords of wood cut out of Central 
Park (N. Y.) last winter ! This to many is an 
alarming destruction of the trees planted 30 years 
ago. The pity is that more trees were not des¬ 
troyed, the destruction having begun 15 years ago. 
In the wild woods one does not look for symmetri¬ 
cal specimens. It is there a struggle for life, a sur¬ 
vival of the fittest, and those that do survive give 
the woods its chief charm—a resort planted and 
cared for in nature’s own way. In Central Park 
there are 40 acres of such land—a forest which on 
the part of pleasure and sight-seekers is but excep¬ 
tionally resorted to. They prefer the improved 
parts made lovely by single specimens, by patches 
or far-reaching areas of lawn, shrubbery planta¬ 
tions, rock work, lakes, hills and vales, drives and 
shady, well kept walks. In so far as this part of 
Central Park is concerned, the trees, originally in¬ 
tended to develop their fullest beauty as single 
specimens, have been allowed to become so crowded 
that a well-grown tree is the exception, while 
thousands of one sided, distorted, half-dead, 
scraggly things are struggling with each other for 
air and light to succumb, year after year, to this 
impossible condition of a vigorous existence. Nor¬ 
way and Hemlock Spruces, Balsam Firs, Scotch, 
Austrian and Stone Pines are jammed together 
with maples, elms, horse-chestnuts, ashes, birches, 
magnolias, beeches, hornbeams, dogwoods, paulo- 
nias, oaks and lindens, as if all were alike fitted by 
nature to endure, to survive and thrive in the un¬ 
equal contest. There is not one decent specimen of 
the Norway Spruce in the park. All are brown 
with red spiders, or distorted from over-crowding. 
Most of the hemlocks are half dead, one-sided, or 
leggy. The specimens of evergreens which have 
been given space to develop their characteristic 
charms are very few. We look in vain for single 
trees or shrubs of any of the rarer, choicer kinds 
which, in a great park so situated, should consti¬ 
tute the foremost attraction. Still there is material 
enough in Central Park to have made it, in an 
arboricultural way, all that it is by nature—one of 
the most beautiful resorts in the world. And all 
this has been defeated by ignorant directors, who 
look upon a tree as a tree, and the more the merrier. 
The present Superintendent—an experienced nur¬ 
seryman—is doing all he can, though in the face of 
persistent opposition from political ignoramuses, to 
repair the injuries which years of neglect and in¬ 
efficiency have effected. Years will be required to 
do this great work. In many portions it can 
be effected in no other way than by rooting out 
every tree and shrub and replanting the land again. 
A single specimen of a tree grown in a situation 
and with the care which its fullest development 
needs, is beautiful beyond comparison. But we may 
not hope that two trees or a thicket of trees can 
develop their individual perfection if growing where 
there is room for but oue. The very day, or week, 
or season on which two fine specimens interfere 
with each other, destroy the less valuable tree; and 
this advice may well be heeded, not only by the 
management of every park in the country, but also 
by the owners of ornamental grounds wherever 
situated, however pretentious or humble. 
BREVITIES. 
Lots of us (trowl and grumble that the world Is made up wrong, 
That most of us must turn the wheels while rich folks ride along. 
Now stop your growling long enough this little fact to learn 
Our wages cover every cent we earn. 
Dame Nature knows her calling, her scales turn to a lialr, 
For every dollar that we earn ► he coins an honest pair : 
And If we work or If we shirk, with Justice strict and stern 
Our wages cover every cent we earn. 
And Nature holds the power to say Just what our pay shall be, 
And health and hope and happiness must pass as currency. 
And love Is legal tender, as we all will surely learn 
Our wages cover every cent we earn. 
The nearer the stone, the better the soil. 
It is not all of good farming to raise big crops I 
Be snre to credit health and a clear conscience with their 
real value. 
Do not forget it: The day when two ornamental trees 
begin to crowd one another, destroy the less valuable. 
The dreaded flea-beetle appears on the potato vines 
in greater numbers than ever before thus early in the sea¬ 
son. 
There may be thousands of things that are beyond our 
comprehension. There is nothing we cannot think about, 
however. 
A “SCRUB” hen that will lay ISOee'gs a year is worth more 
than a “ throughbred” that will not lay 75—that is, if you 
are in the egg business. 
Industrious efforts on the part of the R. N.-Y. this 
spring, as in past springs, to cross the currant and goose¬ 
berry have failed. The same may be said of tho Missouri 
Currant and gooseberry. 
The entomologists tell us what will kill the plant lice 
which are destroying our oats and rye, but they fail to tell 
us how the remedy is to be applied without crushing a 
good proportion of the grain. We all know that the best 
way to do away with drunkenness is to stop drinking 
liquor. How are we to make people stop ? 
Are quail done up in “ original packages?” In a suit 
brought by a Pennsylvania game association agaiust a 
dealer, for selling quail out of season, the defendant’s 
lawyer argued that the quail were killed in Missouri and 
shipped in the original package to Pittsburgh. In dead 
quail one very important element of the “orginal pack¬ 
age” is missing, viz.:— life. 
If the McClammy or Stanford Agricultural-land Loan 
bill should become law, what woula hinder the men who 
borrow money from the government at one or two perceut. 
per annum interest, on real estate security, from lending 
the money at higher and higher rates of interest in accord¬ 
ance witli the degree of risk, to persons having no real 
estate to mortgage? Are we to have an era of such 
abundant cheap money that the poorest of us may easily 
become rich and happy ? 
