1896 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
469 
REDUCED RAILROAD RATES FOR FARMERS. 
The R. N.-Y. has several times called attention to the 
way in which railroads in New York State have 
dodged the law which orders them to sell books good 
for 1,000 miles travel at the rate of two cents a mile. 
Some of the railroads disregarded the law so deliber¬ 
ately that the matter came up in the last legislature, 
and resulted in the passage of the following law : 
AN ACT to amend Chapter ten hundred and twenty seven of the 
1 aws of eighteen hundred and ninety five, entitled “An act in rela- 
tion to the issue of mileage books by railroad corporations,” 
Became a law May 22, 1896, with the approval of the Governor. 
Passed, three-fifths being present. 
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
Assembly, do enact as follows : 
Section 1. Section one of chapter ten hundred and twenty seven 
of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety five is hereby amended 
so as to read as follows : 
Section 1. Every railroad corporation operating a railroad in 
this State, the line or lines of which are more than one hundred 
miles in length, and which is authorized by law to charge a maxi¬ 
mum fare of more than two cents per mile, and not more than three 
cents per mile, and which does charge a maximum fare of more 
than two cents per mile, shall issue mileage books having one 
thousand coupons attached thereto, entitling the holder thereof, 
upon complying with the conditions thereof, to travel one thou¬ 
sand miles on the line or lines of such railroad, for which the 
corporation may charge a sum not to exceed two cents per mile. 
Such mileage books shall be kept for sale by such corporations 
at every ticket office of such corporation in an incorporated 
village or city and shall be issued immediatel y upon application 
therefor. The holder of any such mileage book shall be entitled, 
upon surrendering, at any ticket office on the line or lines of such 
railroad, coupons equal in number to the number of miles which 
he or any member of his family or firm, or salesman of such firm, 
wishes to travel on the line or lines of such railroad, to a mileage 
exchange ticket therefor. Such mileage exchange ticket shall 
entitle the holder thereof without producing the mileage book 
upon which such exchange ticket was issued, to the same rights 
and privileges in respect to the transportation of person and 
property to which the highest class ticket issued by such corpora¬ 
tion would entitle him. Such mileage books shall be good until 
all the coupons attached thereto shall have been used. Any rail¬ 
road corporation which shall refuse to issue a mileage book as 
provided iu this section, or, in violation thereof, to accept such 
mileage book for transportation, shall forfeit fifty dollars, to be 
recovered by the party to which such refusal is made; but no 
action can be maintained therefor tiuless commenced within one 
year after the cause of action accrues. 
Section 2 . This act shall take effect immediately. 
This seems to be about as clear as it can be made ; 
yet when a representative of The R. N.-Y. applied 
for a mileage book from the Erie R. R., the agent re¬ 
fused to comply with the law, and declared that the 
books were not for sale at that office. They evidently 
expect to go through the old process of annoyance 
and delay in order to deter people from buying these 
mileage books. This matter will be tested in the 
courts, and we shall see whether this selfish corpora¬ 
tion cannot be forced to obey the laws of the State. 
This wholesale rate of two cents a m ile would prove 
a great boon to thousands of farmers in New York 
State, and would tend to increase railroad travel as 
nothing else would do. It seems as though the Erie 
managers ought to have sense enough to see that it is 
to their interest to make these books as accessible as 
possible, and thus increase their long-distance passen¬ 
ger traffic. It is evident that the courts must rub 
this sense into them if they are ever to have it. We 
believe that it will cost the Erie R. R. $50 for every 
refusal to sell a book on demand ! 
HORSE SHOE FARM NOTES. 
AN EXPERIENCE WITH EN8ILAGE. 
Search for Succulence Ends at Si/o. 
On page 293, S. C. H. says that it will not pay to 
build a silo for eight cows, and then gives directions 
to convert corn, by steaming, into something that 
“ comes near being ensilage, if not better, and, I 
think, is cheaper.” I suppose, from the article, that 
he has no silo, and I know that his method is a great 
deal more work, and, therefore, costs more. No one 
can afford to winter cows on hay ; and while his 
method is an improvement on dry fodder, I have not 
found it equal to ensilage. Even if it were, but few 
can find room to store successfully sufficient corn to 
feed the stock from November to June and during hot 
weather in July and August. Many people are 
deterred from using a good thing, by advice given by 
those who have never tried what they condemn. 
For years, I have been trying to get a supply of 
food which would keep the cows from drying up after 
calving, before they could get grass. When once the 
mess is reduced from any cause, it cannot be fully 
restored by any system of feeding. For that reason, 
fall calves were impossible, and we had a constant 
struggle to counteract the shrinking effect of dry hay 
and corn meal. Beets were grown, but that means a 
good deal of hard work, and our cows give more milk 
from four bushels of potatoes than six of beets. Pota¬ 
toes are, usually, too expensive to feed. Turnips are 
easily grown, but the greatest care is required to pre¬ 
vent harm to the product. Some succulent, milk-pro¬ 
ducing food—something palatable—must be provided. 
The cutting of corn fodder, heating of water, etc., 
for eight cows, make a slave of a man, and do not 
fill the bill, or pay the added cost. The silo is the 
only source of which I know, which provides the food 
needed to keep up the milk supply, cheaply, and as 
long as needed. The cheapness is, now, I believe, con¬ 
ceded by all well-informed men. The whole cost of 
harvesting the corn and filling the silo is less than the 
cost of husking and cutting the dry fodder. Where 
several siloes are built in the same neighborhood, a 
small sum from each owner will buy a cutter, and an 
engine to run it may be hired for $3 per day. By 
changing works with each other, the entire crop is 
disposed of in a few days, and gives no further 
trouble. It is in out of the wet, secure from freezing, 
and will not rot or mold. 
Last year, we had a heavy freeze, and much corn 
was nearly ruined. The stalks were black, and the 
leaves were slippery on corn grown on low ground. 
Such foliage, if cut and shocked in the ordinary man¬ 
ner, would spoil. The stalks only would be left, and 
they would be woody, unpalatable and wasted. It 
was my first year, and I was assured by every one 
that, in three weeks, it would be nothing but a 
manure heap. This badly-frozen corn was put in the 
bottom of Ihe silo, and made about 10 feet in depth. 
On top of this was some good field corn, well eared, 
and last, some eight feet of late-sowed, immature 
dent corn just in tassel. As this was frosted, too, the 
most of the ensilage was a pretty poor lot of roughage 
before it went in. 
The silo is 13x14 feet, and after settling for four 
weeks, the ensilage was 14 feet deep. I fed eight 
cows from November 1 to March 25, and not a particle 
was left in the mangers ; they did not need cleaning 
out once in that time. For a long time, no other 
coarse food was given, and I did not feed a ton of hay 
or straw in the whole time. I have enough hay now 
to sell, to pay twice for the silo, or enough to buy the 
whole outfit—cutter, carrier and silo. 
By this method of covering, feeding and filling, 
there was not a bushel-basketful of waste. The cows 
began to improve in appearance and milk yield at 
once. Being kept in a warm barn continuously, and 
gaining in flesh, they shed their hair early, and were 
as smooth in hair as a race horse, in March. They 
were milked 11 months, and gave larger messes of 
milk than ever before. When the ensilage was gone, 
the amount of milk kept decreasing in spite of a ra¬ 
tion of beets, potatoes, oil meal and clover hay. Just 
why rather poor corn fodder will produce such good 
results, after being cooked tender in a silo, I can no 
more tell than I can tell why two quarts of strawber¬ 
ries (mostly water) per day give me more ability to 
work than baked beans. There is a saying that “From 
nothing, nothing comes.” Yet I know that we have 
more butter, stock in better condition, and wintered 
at smaller cost, than ever before from a quality of 
corn that, ordinarily, would be almost worthless. It 
does not seem reasonable ! 
I did not believe half that had been said and printed 
in favor of ensilage, when I built my silo. I see now 
that more ground must be planted to corn, and less 
to grass ; that more stock can be kept, as much by 
reason of change of crops, perhaps, as from the silo, 
and that I cannot afford to grow root crops for cattle. 
I would not sell the silo for any reasonable amount, 
if I could not get another. The cost was about $75 
and some labor for the silo ; a No. 13 Ohio cutter and 
carrier cost about $100. So much more food value can 
be stored in a silo, that, in many eases, it can be built 
in part of the bay, and in many others, the expense 
of building a new barn for additional storage, can be 
avoided. c. e. chapman. 
SOME HORTICULTURAL NOTES. 
WII.L WINTER ANI) SUMMER APPLES MIX ? 
1. Will the pollen of summer apples affect the keeping qualities 
of winter apples, if the tree is surrounded by summer apple 
trees ? 2. Is it better to keep summer and winter apple orchards 
separate, or to mix them ? j. l. hook. 
Pennsylvania. 
1 . No. This brings up the same old theory that has 
been advanced over and over, in which it is affirmed 
that the pollen of one variety of fruit transfers the 
peculiarities of that variety to the fruit of another. 
The supposed examples given in evidence are usually 
so far fetched or lacking in exactness, that they are 
of little service in determining the matter one way or 
the other. On the other hand, the careful experi¬ 
ments made by some of our most thorough students 
of plant life, have invariably failed to show any signs 
of “ the immediate effects of pollen” in transmitting 
varietal peculiarities. A thing of this kind that is sup¬ 
posed to happen in nature, ought, if true, to be done 
under the hands of the most skillful and painstaking 
scientists. The series of experiments conducted by 
my friend, M. B. Waite, of Washington, D. C., in 
which he clearly proved the impotency of the pollen 
of certain pears, the Bartlett for one, and the potency 
of the pollen of others, and, in many such cases, the 
positive proof that there was an “ immediate effect ” 
upon the fruit, is in no whit pertinent or confirmatory 
of the contested theory. He did prove, that a Bart¬ 
lett pear, as it is when produced by Bartlett pollen, is 
not a perfect Bartlett pear, because its seeds are usually, 
partially or wholly imperfect, and the fleshy part of 
the fruit partakes, in a measure, in quality, size and 
shape, of the imperfection ; but, if the other and 
potent pollen had come in contact with the stigma at 
the right time, there resulted a perfectly developed 
Bartlett pear. It, therefore, had a larger size, broader 
shape, and, in some degree, richer flavor than one 
which lacked perfect or truly normal development. 
Mr. Waite determined, to the satisfaction of himself 
and many others of us who watched the matter, that 
the pollen of several widely different varieties that 
were alike potent upon the flowers of another infertile 
variety, did not cause the fruits to follow or partake 
of their peculiarities of color, size, shape or flavor. 
However, the seeds did, doubtless, contain the germs 
of some of these peculiarities, which could only be 
determined by growing them into bearing trees. This 
part of the disputed question is more easily settled 
by noting the variations in the size, color, etc., of 
grains of corn on an ear that has been grown near 
another variety, or the seeds of a melon grown 
under like conditions. But the cases of pears and the 
grains of corn are not correlative, because they are 
not the same parts of the plant, hence the lack of 
corresponding effects. 
2. Nothing that I have ever seen or heard that was 
entirely reliable, would deter me from mixing sum¬ 
mer and winter apples in an orchard, if I wished to 
do so. Neither will be affected in the keeping quali¬ 
ties, so far as I now know. H. E. van deman. 
Best Late Strawberry. —The Brandywine is, in 
my opinion, the most desirable late berry now before 
the public. It succeeds on any soil, needs no special 
culture, and is fine for home use, for market or for 
exhibition. The Gandy has done well here on both 
light and heavy soils, but it is not, usually, a great 
yielder. It seems to me that the Brandywine will 
produce one-half more with an equal chance. The 
Parker Earle, if grown in hills or very narrow, 
matted rows, will do well on any land that is deep, 
rich, and moist. I would prefer the clay land be¬ 
cause of its fertility. It is not likely to fail just 
when the crop needs an abundance of plant food. On 
the other hand, a lack of winter covering is much 
more serious on clay. On account of late frosts in low 
land, it is advisable to leave the covering on as late 
as possible to retard the blooming. It must, how¬ 
ever, be removed before much growth takes place 
under it. m. crawford. 
Best Grapes for Virginia. —In answer to A F. A., 
Claremont, Va., page 453, we have had experience for 
the past 15 years shipping Concord. Hartford, Moore's 
Early and others of the dark varieties of grapes, to 
the Pittsburg market, with good results in former 
years, but not so good later, as the competition is 
becoming greater each year and prices are dropping 
lower. Three or four days often diminish the price 
one-half, so that it is of great importance to get the 
grapes in very early to secure a high price. High- 
priced grapes have a limited market, as but few want 
them. Jf A. F. A. is so located that he can get his 
grapes ripened very early, puts them up in five-pound 
baskets in the best condition, and the express charges 
are not too great from his place to market, he may 
make it pay very well. We would set the Niagara 
in preference to any of the others, for a market grape, 
as it is a good producer, well known in market, and 
quite a showy grape when properly grown. 
Holliday’s Cove, W. Va. t. s. c. * son. 
BUSINESS BITS. 
Fruit evaporators will be glad to know that they can get a 
supply of galvanized wire cloth of superior qutiiity, and of any 
size, direct from Wriglit & Colton Wire Cloth Co., Worcester, Mass. 
Belle City is an ensilage and feed cutter that always gives 
satisfaction. It is made in all sizes, and for hand or power. The 
manufacturers also supply the powers when needed. Their full 
catalogue will be sent on application to Belle City Mfg. Co., Box 
23, Racine, Wis. 
Tub spring gang cultivator, made by John Moore’s Son Com¬ 
pany, Raritan, N. J., seems to possess many desirable features. 
We have not seen it in practical operation, but from description, 
and information received, we are inclined to think it a most de¬ 
sirable implement, and one that will be extremely popular. They 
will send illustrated catalogue on application. 
We have refused to run an advertisement sent us, with cash in 
advance, for an implement called the Queen Butter Maker, which, 
it is claimed, will make butter in tsvo minutes. The butter may 
come in two minutes as claimed; but we do not believe that the 
quality would be good enough to justify the purchase and use of 
the churn. It is made in Cincinnati, O. We see that other farm 
papers are running the advertisement. 
The consensus of testimony of those who have ever used a 
manure spreader, is that the spreader does better and cheaper 
work than can be done by hand. The Kemp spreader has now 
been in use 15 years, and having kept up to the times in improve¬ 
ments, is to-day used successfully in all parts of the world The 
Kemp & Burpee Mfg. Co., Box 38, Syracuse, N. Y., will send cata¬ 
logue, and they will do just what they say they will do. 
We suppose that all R. N.-Y. readers know that the purpose of 
“ Business Bits” is to call special attention to some features of 
goods or machinery, or to the goods or machinery themselves, 
that are advertised iu other columns. It is frankly a courtesy to 
our advertising patrons, though we hope and try to make it a 
source of reliable information to readers. Such houses are 
always glad to send catalogues of their goods to intending pur¬ 
chasers, whether the inquirer mention the paper in which the 
address is found or not, though some papers seem to want read¬ 
ers to believe that they can get the catalogues only by mentioning 
the particular paper iu which the address is foun d . We would be 
glad to have inquirers mention The R. N.-Y., aud advertisers are 
always anxious to have the paper mentioned ; but the reader 
will get the catalogue just the same if he mention no paper. 
