588 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
SEPT. 6 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
who appear in defense of the Station to get behind 
the Board of Control for shelter and responsibility. 
As the Board seem to thoroughly believe in a polic3 r 
of “ dignified silence,” this is not very satisfactory 
to the public. The simple fact of the matter is that 
the Station needs a new director. 
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 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1890. 
To make the hide and leather business 
boom, let us pass a law compelling everybody 
to wear high boots ! There are more foolish 
laws than this on our statute books ! 
Teach your boy the reading habit, 
Show nljn how to think : 
Lean him up to wisdom’s fountain, 
Tell him how to drink. 
All perishable articles for trial (plants, fruits, 
etc.,) should be sent direct to River Edge. Bergen 
County, New Jersey, and not to this office. 
In the Publisher’s Desk is an attractive offer for 
the energetic reader who may desire to extend his 
subscription to The R. N.-Y., or to get The Amer¬ 
ican Garden for a year without money cost, and to 
win a neat little cash prize at the same time. 
Secretary W. W. Farnsworth sends the 
following note. It is brimful of good sense and 
contains more meat than many a so-called oration: 
“The financial and social salvation of the farmer 
depends largely upon organization not for offence , 
but for defence against animals of prey both insect 
and human.” 
The Conger lard bill has passed the House. This 
bill is very similar in principle to the “01eo”bill 
passed three years ago. Its design is to force a 
distinction between pure hog lard and lard mixed 
with cottonseed oil. The “Oleo” bill made it a 
legal offence to brand any mixture of fats—no 
matter how wholesome they might be—as butter. 
If sold at all such mixtures must be sold under 
their true name. In like manner mixtures of lard 
and cotton seed oil must be sold under the name of 
“compound lard ” when the present law, after it 
has been signed by the President, shall go into 
force. This bill was opposed mainly by the Southern 
Representatives, who claimed that it unjustly dis¬ 
criminated against a Southern product, and by 
those who represented the manufacturers of the 
“compound lard.” Let the lard tub stand on its 
own bottom. Cotton-seed oil may be, and doubt¬ 
less is, a cheap and healthful food, but it is not 
“lard.” 
In an English agricultural paper we find a ques¬ 
tion from a correspondent, who wants to know 
“ what equivalent he should offer for a customary 
two quarts a day of beer, extra beer on hay carting 
days, and extra beer as well as food during 
harvest ?” Imagine how you would look or feel 
after drinking two quarts of beer with “ extras !” 
Yet we are told that this is the “ usual allowance 
per day ” in many parts of England. The editor of 
t he paper spoken of says : 
“ The amounts which men will drink are truly marvel¬ 
ous. We have heard ol 19, 20 and 21 quarts per day, and 
the record was reached in an alleged case in which a 
brewer’s drayman was stated to have drunk the whole 
of a nine-gallon cask in one day. If any of our readers cau 
beat this record we shall be obliged for the information.” 
No reader of The R. N.-Y. will probably try to “beat 
this record.” There are various ways in which a 
man can make a beast of himself, but very few of 
them can come out much ahead of the skillful 
handling of a beer keg. 
In reading the opinions concerning American and 
Canadian barley—see page 584—we are reminded 
that chemists as well as doctors differ. The brewers 
too are divided. While most of them demand Cana¬ 
dian grain, it is evident that good beer is made 
from the American barley. As a personal matter, 
we may state that if this tariff adds anything to the 
price of beer our own pocket-book will not suffer. 
It is probable, though, that instead of charging more 
for their beer, brewers would use more corn 
meal and thus produce a cheaper though inferior 
article. 
A number of our subscribers say that they fre¬ 
quently see their cows chewing bones in the yard 
or pasture. This, they think, indicates the fact 
that bone meal would make a suitable and valuable 
food. This is a natural supposition, but we do not 
think it is entirely correct that the bone chewing 
indicates a desire for phosphates alone. From our 
own observation we have concluded that this desire 
to chew bones, paper, or old wood indicates a de¬ 
praved appetite, which can usually be remedied by 
feeding plenty of silage, roots, oil-meal or salt. 
There may be cases where rations very deficient in 
phosphates bring about this condition of the sys¬ 
tem ; but we have found it most frequently due to 
constipation. The true use for bone meal or other 
phosphates seems to be as an aid to a ration weak 
in these substances, rather than as a medicinal 
agent. _ 
There seems liille room for doubt that the potato 
disease in Ireland is very serious. Undoubtedly 
the most unfortunate season for Irish potato growers 
during the past 10 years has come. While no 
national famine like that of ’48 is threatened owing 
to a failure of this crop, the loss will fall heavily 
upon the farmers and poor people at large in many 
sections of the country. Potato specialists in Eng¬ 
land seem to ascribe the trouble mainly to what they 
term “in-and-in breeding” of the potato. Far too 
many Irish farmers have used potatoes of one variety 
and of their own raising year after year. This has re¬ 
sulted in a weakening of the variety and a conse¬ 
quent susceptibility to disease under the right cli 
matic conditions. Irish farmers were taught this 
same lesson 12 years ago. They must have forgotten 
it. In this connection, attention is called to the 
discussion on page 58G regarding the comparative 
resisting powers of broad and narrow-leaved 
varieties. 
We learn that Governor Hill has appointed 
Adrian Tuttle, of Schuyler County, and Philip 
Nichol, of Geneva, as trustees of the Geneva Ex 
periment Station. We are informed that Mr. 
Nichol is a lawyer; we do not know Mr. Tuttle’s 
business. This institution ought to be in the hands 
of farmers. We have just received from our corres¬ 
pondent Mr. Dibble, a defense of the Station, which, 
we understand, embodies the facts and arguments 
furnished by the Director and the Board of Control. 
We shall print it with comments as soon as pos¬ 
sible. There is a very general desire among all 
Three weeks ago The R. N.-Y. referred to the 
change of sentiment on the tariff question that is 
very noticeable among many farmers who have al¬ 
ways been found among the strongest supporters of 
a protective tariff. In a recent address issued by 
the executive committee of the New York State 
Grange, we find the following: 
“ We ask that the farmer have the privilege of exchang¬ 
ing the cereals he grows for articles he must buy in all 
markets of the world where fair treaties of reciprocity cau 
be made for the articles exchanged. Our home market is 
good, and will always be ours for the products ot our 
farms, whether a high or low tariff shall prevail; but if 
we have no other market and grow enough to feed twice 
the number of our people,—as we could hardly prevent 
being done,—and have no outlet for our large surplus we 
would then begin to understand what real poverty was.” 
The address goes on to say that a certain amount 
of tariff tax on luxuries or other articles that can¬ 
not be considered “necessaries of life,” forms a 
useful means of collecting money with which to 
carry on our government. We thus see that these 
men do not abandon the spirit of “protection,” but 
that they rather desire to modify and rearrange 
the tariff so that the farmer may receive a direct 
benefit from it instead of an indirect one. Whether 
these men will eventually go a step further than 
this and declare for “free trade,” is a question. 
At present it is evident that they propose to stop at 
‘ ‘ reciprocity ” or tariff trading. 
During a debate in the House of Representatives 
at Washington the present week a most disgraceful 
scene was enacted. A leading Representative who 
had been a promient candidate for Speaker, applied 
language to another of such a character that many 
respectable journals refused to publish it, character¬ 
izing it as unfit for publication. This led to con¬ 
fusion and disorder, in which more language was 
used of such a character as to be designated in the 
newspaper reports by dashes, and which was so 
vile as to cause ladies to leave the galleries, the 
whole terminating in personal encounters which 
were suppressed only by the appearance of the 
Sergeant-at-arms with his mace. It is incompre¬ 
hensible that men who are elected to positions of 
such dignity and honor should so far forget the re¬ 
sponsibilities of their positions and misrepresent 
their constituents as to indulge in language and 
actions usually expected from the lowest corner- 
loafers, and even the latter generally respect them¬ 
selves enough to curb their language in the presence 
of ladies. The first requisite in a ruler is the 
ability for self-government. No man is fit to rule 
others until he can rule himself. The self respect¬ 
ing citizens who have been so grossly misrepre¬ 
sented should never cast another vote for such 
foul mouthed blackguards as these. If they do, 
they will disgrace themselves, their families and 
the districts they inhabit, as well as offer an insult 
to the dignity of the American Congress and the 
people it represents. Such men need a severe 
lesson. It is an outrage upon the American people 
that such vulgar, indecent conduct should occur in 
its halls of legislation. It is high time for the 
“farmers in politics” to make themselves heard. 
The ballot is a weapon with which this stain can be 
removed and it should be used effectively. There 
may be no connection between these occurrences 
and the question of stopping the sale of liquor in 
the Capitol; but the question presents itself, 
whether it isn't about time that prohibition were 
enforced in that building. 
Since the above was written news comes that the 
person chiefly responsible for the disgraceful scenes 
referred to, has been renominated by acclamation. 
This in an agricultural district of a great agricul¬ 
tural State ! We are ashamed of those electors and 
we hope their sense of shame will be so aroused be¬ 
fore election day that this Representative will never 
again be placed in a position he has disgraced. 
There is a disposition in some quarters to find 
fault with the officers of the recent farmers’ eon 
ventions in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas and 
other States, because they did not deem it wise tor 
the conventions to express their views on the tern 
perance question. Let us stop fault finding and 
pull together. The R. N.-Y. thoroughly believes in 
temperance. As at present conducted, the saloon 
causes more misery, more poverty and crime than 
all other agencies combined. This we know, but 
we are forced to confess our inabilty to propose a 
practical means of overcoming the evil. If all men 
felt just as we do it could be done. We would be 
willing to sacrifice quite a good deal of our “per¬ 
sonal liberty ” in other things if the saloon could be 
abolished. But we meet people at every turn who 
say in substance: “My way or none at all.” 
Now we must learn the lessons and the duties of or¬ 
ganization before we can work together. Let us 
know each other first. Let us learn how to meet 
fairly and justly, how to give up and sacrifice our 
own personal views when that sacrifice is de¬ 
manded by the public welfare. Remember that 
the strength of any great measure of reform is 
made up of thousands of bits of practical self de 
nial and concessions welded firmly together. This 
is the lesson we must learn, farmers, before we can 
handle this temperance question. On the whole, 
The R. N.-Y. thinks the Ohio and the other 
farmers’ conventions did a wise thing. 
BREVITIES. 
Do something; 
Do it now : 
Do It with vour might. 
Push It hard, 
study It. 
Try lo do it right 
Finish it 
Erf you quit, 
Polish It up well. 
Hang to It 
Till It’s done. 
That’s the work to tell. 
Be a law to yourself. 
Try some new wheats. 
Disease loves a privy vault. 
There is milk in sweet corn-stalks. 
The Geneva Experiment Station needs a new director. 
Salt in the silo will give the cows “ too much digestion,” 
according to an Ohio friend. 
Try Prof. Henry’s experiment of cutting the stalks into 
different lengths before they go into the silo. 
There is no sense in creating a big surplus simply for 
the sake of devising wild schemes for spending it. 
The Mossberry, Rubyberry or Wineberry begins to lose 
the purple color of the hairs of its canes about the middle 
of August. 
One of the best station workers in the country writes : 
“ I am glad that our stations are coming to realize that 
they are being watched : honest criticism can hurt no one.” 
They are now talking about prosecuting the man who 
sells milk out of a big can with a spout to it, because, 
since the cream rises to the top, he cannot possibly pour 
“legal” milk out from the bottom. 
In TnE R. N.-Y.’s humble opinion—and it judges from 
its own experience—if wheat ground is to he rolled at all, 
the roller should be used before the last harrowing, not 
after. We would on no account roll after seeding. 
ONE kernel a foot apart each way of THE R. N.-Y. wheats. 
Try It, readers, for the once, and favor us with your reports 
next August, please. Give each plot a slight mulch of old 
manure after the grouud is frozen hard euougn to bear. 
Dr. Groff tells us that foul rain water may be deodor¬ 
ized, or rather the foulness will not be observed, if the 
water is drawn from the surface. It seems to be the water 
below the surface only which contains the odor. The 
proper thing therefore would be to draw the water in a 
bucket. 
Dahtel, purchased in France; Naples, purchased in 
France; Sonora, raised at Las Cruces, New Mexico, and 
Mediterranean, also raised at Las Cruces, N. M., are the 
kinds of wheat sent to us by the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture for trial aud report. We shall plant (in our usual 
way) a small plot of each. 
Why not send to the publisher for sample copies of 
The R. N.-Y., get 15 trial subscriptions, 10 weeks for 25 
cents, and so have your own subscription extended fora 
full year from the time of its expiration ? 
Why not try it this month, and so perhaps win one of 
the cash prizes offered for the 10 largest clubs of 25 cent 
trial subscriptions sent in before October 1 ? Why not ? 
The matter of fighting frosts which is referred to oil 
page 587 is well worthy of attention. Who has really ever 
tried the smoke protection ? Why not plan to try it this 
year. In a matter of this kind the widest possible range 
of experiments is desired. Probably the methods planned 
by Mr. Harder would have produced a sufficient amount of 
smoke. Try it this year. Let our experiment stations 
give attention to it also. 
A little time ago the Rural Grounds were visited by a 
well-knowu farmer and farm writer and his wife, both 
elderly people. They were as attentive to each other as if 
enjoying a honeymoon trip. Guests and hosts were sitting 
under an apple tree gaily talking when the farmer ^ isitor 
said: "Well, as I grow older I believe I think more aud 
more of my wife, and I am a trifle afraid that I am in dau- 
ger dually of making an old fool of myself.” " Not in the 
estimation of your wife,” replied his loving companion, 
simply. "Love ye one another,” Rural readers. It will 
help more than all else to make farming pay. 
