836 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
DEC. 6 
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, Pretident. 
EDGAR H. LIBBY, Manager. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN, 
OUT-DOOR BOOKS. 
Copyright, 1890, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1890. 
'Tis Time To Tell The Truth. 
The farmer hath been “feeding all ” 
For many a weary day. 
It should cause no surprise at all, 
That he now demands his pay. 
i This iveek to every subscriber of The 
Rural New-Yorker will be mailed a 
copy of The American Garden. We ask for it 
only a careful examination. If you get more than 
one copy, please give the extra one to some friend 
who is interested in horticulture. 
That the extension of the roots of trees (apples, 
for example) in the soil is often greater than the 
extension of the branches over the soil is shown by 
the fact that growing crops (corn, wheat or pota¬ 
toes) are less vigorous and productive, not only as 
far as the branches shelter them, but for a consid¬ 
erable space beyond that This outside band of less 
fertility can be explained in no other way than by 
assuming that the soil is robbed of its moisture by 
the tree roots which penetrate it, many of which 
are too fine and deep to be noticed when plowing. 
Mr. Francisco, whose bottled milk dairy was de¬ 
scribed in The R. N.-Y. some weeks ago, has an 
original idea about corn fodder for the silo. All 
the scientists, and most of the experienced siloists, 
agree that the corn stalks should mature a good ear 
before going into the silo. For this reason they 
advise thin planting. Mr. F., on the other hand, 
makes his ground so rich that he is afraid to sow 
small grain or grass and then sows the corn thickly 
in drills. This corn grows so as to make weeds 
ashamed of themselves. It cannot hear the protests 
of science, for it has no ears. “Let the West grow 
grain, give me the stalks.” What a crop of dark 
green stalks it produces and how the cows like it! 
Now for Mr. F.’s original idea. He believes that he 
puts so much manure in his soil that the strong, 
rank stalks contain more nutriment than stalks and 
ears could draw out of poorer soil. In other words, 
no single stalk could possibly utilize the manure 
which he puts in three square feet of soil. The 
stronger the soil the stronger the stalk. With thin 
manuring thin seeding is necessary. With thick 
manuring thick seeding alone will pay. So says 
Mr. Francisco. Do you say so ? 
One of the most telling lessons drawn from the 
career of Birchall, the Canadian murderer, is the 
fact that he learned little beside bad habits at 
college. Does this prove that a college is a bad 
place to send a boy? Not necessarily.. It does 
show, though, that a school of any sort is a bad 
place to send a child or young man simply to get 
rid of him and keep him out of the way. Birchall 
had no taste for literature, yet he was sent to a 
classical college because the institution was a fash¬ 
ionable one and because his parents were either too 
indolent or too weak to handle him properly. 
There was nothing in the college course that at¬ 
tracted him and he simply drifted into the “fast 
set” where he remained. Had he been put at some 
useful trade or business, or had he been sent to 
some school where the course of study attracted 
him, his natural talents might have been diverted 
into useful and honorable channels. By far coo 
many boys are forced by their fond parents into 
schools where there is nothing for them to take 
hold of and grow to but that which will injure them. 
How about your boy? 
One of the strongest arguments made by the pro¬ 
moters of the numerous trusts and other combina¬ 
tions organized within the past few years, is the 
great economy of manufacture and consequent 
cheapening of products rendered possible by the 
association of capital and effort. According to 
their reasoning, the savings effected should make 
all the conspirators independently wealthy within 
a comparatively short time. None of them has 
yet, however, ever been detected in an explanation 
of the reason for an almost invariable advance of 
prices to the consumer shortly after such an organi¬ 
zation is perfected. We have just been furnished 
with another illustration of this uniform practice in 
the case of the recently-formed glass trust, which 
has given notice of a five per cent advance in the 
price of window glass. To be sure, this trust does 
not call itself by this unpopular name—the recent 
unpleasantness between the late unlamented Sugar 
Trust and the courts may have had its effect in the 
choice of a name—but the principle of its organiza¬ 
tion and its effect appear to be the same. The 
manufacture of glass has heretofore been very 
profitable, both as to the capital and labor em¬ 
ployed, and there would seem to be no valid reason 
for any advance in price. The new tariff increased 
the duty on glass, and it may be that it became 
necessary to add the cost of “protection” to the 
cost of manufacture. If this is the case, a new ele¬ 
ment must hereafter enter into the cost of manu¬ 
facturing protected goods. Meanwhile the defunct 
Sugar Trust goes bravely on with its work of reor¬ 
ganization under the laws of New Jersey, a State 
whose laws with regard to corporations are so lax 
that almost any organization, for almost any pur¬ 
pose short of downright crime, may obtain a char¬ 
ter there. It really seems as though the General 
Government should have the power of enacting and 
enforcing uniform laws for the regulation and con¬ 
trol of such matters that affect the people at large. 
A good many of our old friends, for whom we 
have the highest possible respect, are coming at us 
with both fists because of our remarks on the 
result of the elections. It seems hardly necessary 
for us to state that The R. N.-Y. is not a “free 
trade paper.” We doubt if there are 100 people in 
the country who believe in an absolute removal of 
all duties on imports. Even England does not 
believe in that. At the same time we have no hesi¬ 
tation in saying that under existing tariff laws the 
farmer receives only an indirect benefit, while the 
direct benefit goes to the manufacturer. It is a 
slow road to permanent prosperity when John 
makes 10 cents only by permitting Henry to make 
75 cents. Anything wrong about that? The time 
has come when the farmer must reverse the present 
conditions, or John’s 10 cents will be sucked out of 
existence by Henry’s 75 cents. Neither of the old 
parties has yet touched the right key. The policies 
of both of them are dictated by men who simply 
cannot put themselves in the places of debt-bound 
and interest-eaten farmers. One of the old parties 
must formulate a tariff “for the people only,” or 
the people will do it for them. Make no mistake 
about the “ farmers’ movement.” It has been long 
in coming; but it has come to stay. Many of the 
schemes are wild, unreasonable, reckless if you 
will, but they will settle and purify as clear as 
crystal. The Rural New-Yorker is a farmers’ 
paper. It has nothing to hide, nothing to dodge. 
It will give every side a hearing. Any man with 
an idea in his head that will contribute an atom to 
successful agriculture can have a hearing in our 
columns. We cut off no man while our space holds 
out. A glance at our “ Farm Politics ” page this 
week will convince any reasonable man that we 
are making no special plea for anything but a free 
and frank discussion of what the farmer needs. We 
open this page wide to the high tariff man, the low- 
tariff man, the Henry George man, the temperance 
man, the Prohibitionist, the Bellamy man, or any 
other man who will speak his Honest convictions. 
In order to do this without curtailing any of the 
practical features of the paper, we have added four 
extra pages. Now, then, do you want to see these 
matters discussed more fully and frankly from the 
standpoint of the farmer alone than they have ever 
been before, or do you want special pleading with 
no remarks from ‘ ‘ the other side! ” We are in for 
the discussion, confident that the right will rise to 
the top as the result of a thorough stirring. We 
had as soon score one party for its misdeeds as 
another. The R. N.-Y. is for agriculture above po¬ 
litical party. _ 
If you are born In poverty. 
Why - that's no sign 
That you should quit the battle 
Ana sit and pine; 
For God has built a ladder, boy. 
Up to the stars, 
And If you labor patiently 
He’ll drop the bars 
It is seldom that any political party or organiza¬ 
tion has any cause to regret too great a measure of 
success in its efforts, yet this is at present the case, 
to a considerable extent, with the Farmers’ Alliance 
and the other agricultural organizations that took 
an active part in the recent political campaign. 
The main national object of all their endeavors was 
to secure the balance of power in the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives in the Fifty-Second Congress. They 
would then be in a dominant strategical position 
which would give them command of the issues in all 
the struggles between the two great parties and en¬ 
able them not only to shape the legislation of the 
next Congress, but to force one or both the parties 
to make sweeping concessions to them in the cam¬ 
paign of 1892. To effect this purpose they exerted 
themselves to accomplish two main objects—to in¬ 
crease their own direct representation as much as 
possible and weaken that of the dominant party 
even to the advantage of its opponent. In the first 
they met with a fair measure of success, for, accord¬ 
ing to the latest trustworthy estimates, they can 
command about 50 votes in the next House on all 
important questions, and may have four representa¬ 
tives in the Senate. In their efforts to diminish the 
Republican representation, however, they greatly 
underrated their own strength throughout the coun¬ 
try. The Alliance knew pretty well the extent of 
its influence in the South, and exerted it from the 
start at the primaries, but the agricultural leaders 
did not expect that the Farmers’ League would 
cause such a revolution in New England and New 
York, that the Patrons of Industry would pro¬ 
duce such an upheaval in Michigan, or the 
Farmers’ Mutual Benefit Association do nearly the 
same in Illinois, or that the combined agricultural 
and industrial organizations would display such 
strength in the Northwest and Kansas. Hence 
they 'lent their influence so much in favor of 
the Democrats that they not only destroyed the 
Republican majority, but helped to create so great 
a Democratic one as to outnumber their own votes 
combined with those of the Republicans in the next 
Congress, and thus they lost the tremendous influ¬ 
ence on national legislation possessed by the party 
firmly holding the balance of power, irrespective of 
its numerical strength. The more the results of the 
recent campaign are studied, however, the more 
marvelous appears the perfection of organization 
among the farmers, accomplished often in a very 
brief period, and as the work is still being diligently 
prosecuted and the membership of the various as 
sociations is rapidly increasing, there is no doubt 
that they will exercise a potent influence on national 
legislation, not only in the next Congress, but prob¬ 
ably during the final session of the present one also. 
It is reported that Mr. Powderly will either go 
himself to Ocala when the meeting of the Farmers’ 
Alliance is held, or send trusted lieutenants to 
represent him. For the past few years the Knights 
of Labor have been losing strength. Needless 
strikes and boycotts have destroyed the sympathies 
of the public. Mr. Powderly sees that he must 
make some grand and startling step or witness a 
further decrease in the influence of the Knights. 
He proposes to try to join hands with the Farmers’ 
Alliance, forming one vast confederation of 
workers. The scheme is a shrewd one, but it can 
hardly be accomplished. One of the first things to 
be done after such a consolidation was effected 
would be the forming of a combination of hired 
farm hands. Think of the effect of a general strike 
of such a society at harvest, at corn cutting, or at 
cotton hoeing time! The farmers are capitalists 
and manufacturers—on a small scale perhaps, but 
none the less so in fact. Their business is of such a 
nature that a perfect combination of hired men 
could hold them completely at their mercy. The 
farmers understand this perfectly well and look in 
vain for any compensating advantage which a union 
with the remaining handful of Knights would bring 
them. 
BREVITIES. 
Lives of Kreat men all remind us, 
That their greatness grew from work, 
Age will kick us If It Mud US 
Showing evidence of “ shirk.” 
Open the silo. 
Cultivate a climb. 
Read “Black Beauty.” 
Bone meal saves bog’s squeal. 
The slow tongue keeps out of trouble. 
An idle Sugar Maple tree is like an Idle cow. 
The war ou the “ useless ” fence begins this week. 
Does your blacksmith know how to shoe a horse ? 
Corn alone, small bone; corn with ash, can’t smash. 
Spend a dollar on the hen house and save $3 worth of 
eggs. 
Has the hired man cleared more money out of your farm 
than you have ? 
How many seed-bearing stems did you ever cut from one 
grain of wheat ? 
Why stab your friend, the Sugar Maple tree three times 
when ODce will answer? 
What farmer is greedy enough to cut down Sugar 
Maples to sell for cash ? 
Hay dealers say: “ We need prime hay.” The trouble 
is that too many are sending inferior grades. 
WnAT about the farmers who cheerfully admit that they 
“ don’t know how to farm,” and are too old to learn some 
new trade ? 
It is surprising how many farmers’ wives have raised 
“about 50 turkeys” this year. Let us hope the cold 
weather this Thanksgiving will help warm up the pockets 
of the turkey wives. 
Are you one of those who are plodding along without 
making much progress either iu saving money or in en¬ 
larging your sphere of work so that you may see light 
in the near future ? Read the leading article under 
“ What Others Say ” in this issue. 
If the General Government can legally build irrigation 
reservoirs in the Territories under its control, and make 
land valuable by putting water on it, it can as well drain 
land in the same sections and add to its value by taking 
water out of it. The area of wet land is greater than that 
of dry laud. 
The good John Burr, of Leavenworth, Kansas, as we 
learn from a letter received a few days ago, has placed all 
of his seedling grapes in the hands of nurserymen, to be 
propagated and disposed of. With sincere regret we learn 
that his sight has so far failed that he can not read ordi 
nary print. “I can not see what I now write” are the 
words which close his note. 
To have good, capable farmers hold the balance of legis¬ 
lative power, to put it in another way, is the basis of The 
R. N.-Y.’s politics. This would menu the greatest good to 
the mass of the people, for that which helps the farmer 
helps the world. The converse of this proposition Is 
equally true. That which is harmful to farm interests is 
harmful to every other industry whatever. 
Those who intend to plant evergreen trees or shrubs 
next spring will do well to study them in the winter. 
Their color varies from December until April even more 
than from May to November. No one, for example, can 
half appreciate the Golden PIdo (Massoniaua), that does 
not see it in its bright yellow winter dress which it loses 
in early spring. The Blue Spruce, so charming in its steel- 
blue early growth, is not conspicuous for brightness of 
color during nine mouths of the year. We want greens 
and the brightest of greens to help make the dreary sea¬ 
son less dreary, and a little attention to these seemingly 
trifling considerations as one selects his plants from time 
to time will insure a whole of rare and striking beauty. 
