676 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Octobers 10 
The Rural New=Yorker. 
TEE BUSINESS FARMERS' PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Elbert S. Cabman. Editor-in-Chlef. 
Herbert W. Coi.lingwood, Managing Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
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PRICE, ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
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8s. (Id., or 8!4 marks, or iO‘,4 francs. 
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of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 25 cents j>er line. 
Reading Notices, ending with “ Adv.," 75 cents per 
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Ad vertisements inserted only for responsible and honorable houses 
We must have copy one week before the date of issue. 
Be sure that the name and address of sender, with utme of 
Post-office and State, and what the remittance is for, appear in 
every letter. Money orders and bank drafts on New York are the 
safest means of transmitting money. 
Address all business communications and make all orders pay¬ 
able to THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
Corner Chambers and Pearl Streets, New York. 
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1896. 
15 F0R 1. 
Fifteen what ? 
Why, 15 months of The R. N.-Y. ! 
One what ? 
Why, one dollar ! You may take new subscriptions 
from now until January 1, 1898, for one dollar ! You 
may retain the usual commission, and have a fair 
chance at the premiums ! See page 680 and start. 
O 
The bulletin on tuberculosis, mentioned by Mr. 
Newton on page 682, is issued by the Massachusetts 
Station (Amherst). It is a very valuable pamphlet, 
and we advise all readers who are interested in the 
subject, to send for it. It is, certainly, a strong argu¬ 
ment against the plan of slaughtering cattle when¬ 
ever they react from the tuberculin test and yet show 
no outward signs of the disease. 
© 
Horace Greeley used to say that an inch board 
was not enough between a cow and zero weather. 
Old stables have not grown any warmer within the 
last 25 years. Many farmers seem to think that, if 
they cannot build a fine new barn, it is not worth 
while to do anything. If they would put in new win¬ 
dows, with wide jambs coming out even with the 
nailing girths, sheath up the whole inside surface with 
one-inch hemlock lumber, and stuff the inside space 
with chaff well rammed in, then finish by spraying 
the whole surface with whitewash, they would have 
comfortable and neat-looking stables. It is better to 
do this now, than to wait three months before starting. 
O 
American farmers are too likely to regard the Short¬ 
horn as a beef-making breed, regardless of the fine 
showing made by a herd of Short-horns at the World’s 
Fair. The Mark Lane Express says that, if the Short¬ 
horn breeders of England were polled, it would be 
found that the pedigree herds that, through being 
subjected to the high-feeding system, have had the 
milking property sacrificed, form only a small section 
compared to those that cultivate milk. It appears 
that an immense proportion of English butter is still 
made by Short-horn cows. In fact, the dairy Short¬ 
horn seems better suited to the conditions of the Eng¬ 
lish dairy farmer than any other breed of cows. 
O 
The law that permits taxpayers to work out their 
road taxes is a poor one. The farmers are losers 
thereby, and should ask for its repeal. No class 
needs good roads more than farmers, and good roads 
are rarely obtained by such a system. The efficiency 
of a road supervisor is nearly as important to any 
community as that of the President of the United 
States. He should be a man of more than ordinary 
natural ability, and should be endowed with good 
road sense. Then he should have all the tax in 
money, and apply it in a business-like way. An 
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and in 
hilly districts, the supervisor should have a man on 
the road during every rain turning little streams of 
water out of the wheel tracks into the ditches, watch¬ 
ing culverts, and otherwise protecting the public 
highway. He should go over the entire road district 
once every month, removing all loose stones larger 
than one’s fist. He should see to it that no water 
ever stands in holes on the highway. Were these 
things done, country roads would be vastly better. 
After this, the surplus money should be used in 
making a piece of permanently good highway, how¬ 
ever short, every year. If all wagon tires were four 
inches wide, and one axle were six inches longer than 
the other, so that the wheels would not track, they 
would act as rollers, and assist in making the high¬ 
way better instead of nearly ruining it, as narrow 
tires do when roadbeds are soft. The best man in 
the district should be elected road supervisor next 
spring, the taxpayers should pledge themselves to 
pay all their road tax in money to him, and should 
agree to use wide tires as soon as practicable. Then 
that supervisor should be expected to use the same 
judgment in the expenditure of the money as he does 
in his private affairs. Can this not be done in hun¬ 
dreds of districts in those States that have faulty 
road laws now ? R. N.-Y. readers are good people to 
inaugurate such a reform. 
O 
Some days ago, we sent an important letter to a 
farmer in Ohio. In answering it, he says : 
I am sorry that I could not answer this communication sooner; 
we have been so rushed w-ith work the past week, that no one went 
to the post office all the week until Saturday evening. None of 
the neighbors that usually bring the mail, went last week, so I 
did not get your letter early enough. Why city merchants get 
their mail carried to them four or five times a day, and the farmer 
not even once a week, seems to me a question that needs some 
consideration by our Post Office Department. 
Certainly, it does, but it is not likely to receive any. 
This administration is, evidently, opposed to any 
attempt to bring about any great improvement in 
rural mail service. The wonder to us is that city 
merchants can’t see beyond the end of their nose, and 
understand that anything that increases a farmer’s 
ability to do business by mail, is a good thing for the 
town or city merchant. One would think that city 
business men would be the first to work for free de¬ 
livery of mail in the country ! 
© 
In our city parks, men are employed to pick up the 
pieces of paper that are scattered about. Probably 
150 men are employed in New York City at this work 
alone. Formerly, they went about stooping down for 
the paper, or even getting on their knees for it. One 
day, one of these workmen conceived the idea of driv¬ 
ing a sharp brad into the end of a cane and using this 
to pick up the paper without stooping. All he had to 
do was to stick the brad into the paper, lift the cane 
and put the paper in his basket, without bending his 
back in the least. This plan has spread all over the 
city, until most of the backache has been taken out of 
this job. The original cane man may have been lazy 
or afflicted with a kidney trouble or something else ; 
but whatever his motive, he did a good thing for his 
fellows. There is no reason why a man should be 
ashamed to do hard work in the easiest way. Human 
flesh and bone are worth more than wood or steel. Let 
us not despise any honest arrangement for making 
wood or metal add to our comfort. 
o 
On page 675, B. T. W. speaks of robins not destroy¬ 
ing insects. He must have a peculiar kind of robins. 
If there is anything that will eat a greater number and 
variety of worms and insects of almost all kinds than a 
nestful of young robins, we have yet to see it. And 
the parent birds are kept busy, early and late, in 
supplying the demand. Their food during the spring 
and early summer, is almost entirely of this charac¬ 
ter. Talking the other day with an old Connecticut 
farmer who is a great lover and observer of birds and 
their habits, he expressed a great liking for nearly 
all birds except crows and English sparrows. His 
grievance against these is that they destroy the nests 
and young of other birds. He says that the sparrows 
will drive off the old birds, even of robins, and feed 
upon their eggs. The sparrow seems to have few re¬ 
deeming traits, and his persistent, discordant chat¬ 
tering is enough to make his best friends hate him 
In regard to other birds, the question is simply 
whether the good they do overbalances or equals the 
destruction they entail. 
0 
What with onions growing among strawberries, 
and the outside surface of an ordinary barrel produc¬ 
ing more fruit than can be packed inside of it, our 
readers certainly have a dose of intensive culture this 
week. These articles show something of the possi¬ 
bilities of comparatively small areas of land. We find 
farmers everywhere who are spreading their opera¬ 
tions over too much land. They seem to feel that 
the outlying fields must be cultivated anyway, and, 
therefore, they spread their time and labor over 40 
acres when 20 would yield a more profitable crop in 
return for an equal amount of energy. Some of the 
most enterprising farmers of whom we know are turn¬ 
ing the outer fields into meadows, pastures or or¬ 
chards, and concentrating their work upon a few well- 
located acres near the barn. While the total crops 
on the fewer acres may not be so large, they cost 
less, and there is generally more profit in them. Up 
to the present time, a good deal of our American 
farming has been conducted on the principle that, 
when one farm has been exhausted, there is always 
cheaper land somewhere that can be exhausted in the 
same way. We are getting near to the end of the 
cheap land, and, from this time on, farmers must 
give more study to the problems of soil restoration. 
They must now stay by the old farm and build it up, 
rather than pass on to a newer one. 
O 
Jared Van Wagenen Jr., says, on page 670, that, 
probably, the typical dairy barn should take the form 
of a cross. Nearly four years ago, The R. N.-Y. 
described the immense barn on Mr. Havemeyer’s 
Mountainside Farm at Mahwah, N. J., which is in 
this form. It differs in several respects from the one 
outlined by Mr. Van Wagenen, and is, we think, 
superior in some ways, at least. In Mr. Havemeyer’s 
barn, the main entrance is at the end of the longer 
arm of the cross, and the feeding alleys are in the 
middle between the rows of cattle which face this 
alley, both arms of the cross being filled with cattle. 
The whole barn is low, but the main part is used for 
storing hay and dry fodder, which are elevated from 
the wagons driven right up the alley, by means of a 
fork operated by steam power into the lofts directly 
over the cows. At the end opposite the main 
entrance, is another arm of the cross, and here are 
immense silos, the engine and storage rooms, ice 
house, cold storage and dairy rooms, etc.—all under 
the one roof. It is an admirable and economical 
arrangement. 
© 
“ The dirty milkman’s makeshift !” That is what 
Prof. W. A. Henry called “ Preservaline” some years 
ago. A company was formed to sell this stuff, and 
they did manage to dispose of large quantities of it. 
The R. N.-Y. showed repeatedly that it contained 
borax, and we pointed out the danger of using this 
substance in milk, as well as the folly of paying an 
extravagant price for it. Finally, the “Preservaline” 
advertisements disappeared, but in their place came 
offers to sell a secret method of preserving fruits by a 
“ cold process.” This was but a new dodge to dis¬ 
pose of more borax at a high price, and it finally 
failed. Now we see that an English milkman has 
just been fined for using borax in milk. The chemist 
found 30 grains of boracic acid in a pint of the milk. 
Medical authorities say that 10 grains of boracic acid 
is the largest amount that may safely be given to a 
child inside of 24 hours. Think of the consequences 
to a child from drinking a full pint of such milk. 
Men who would use drugs in this way, should be sent 
to prison. There is no need of using such a drug, 
for milk that is properly cleaned and cooled will 
keep sweet, at least five days. 
0 
BREVITIES. 
THE ABANDONED FARM. 
It stands upon the hilltop, with its face 
Turned eastward to the sun—rough boards are nailed 
Upon its windows—all about the place 
Brood the sad spirits oi a home that failed. 
The path is lost in weeds—the flower and shrub 
Of old-time days have disappeared from sight. 
Two leafless elms like hateful furies rub 
Their gaunt, dead hanos together day and night. 
The fields, grown up with brush, spread out before 
With useless walls of stone—the orchard trees 
That years ago bent with their fragrant store, 
Now stretch dry arms up to the wandering breeze. 
A curse rests on the place—a broken home— 
Abandoned to tue elements—no more 
The scattered children of the house shall come 
And kindle memory’s altar at the door. 
• Poor monument of humau hate and strife, 
Abandoned to its past of doubt and pain, 
Stand grimly—till some newer, sweeter life 
Shall make the old farm blossom once again. 
Read the horse article—page 670. 
The best “side show” a dairy cow can make is a mellow, 
golden hide. 
You can’t be rightly called a “brick” until you are baked in the 
fire of experience. 
Sound the alarm! Sound the alarm! Kill every scrub that is 
found on your farm ! 
Don’t worry about the future of your grandchildren—attend to 
the present of your wife. 
Happy the pasture that is covered over with Mr. Farmer’s 
sweetheart, Miss White Clover. 
Have you noticed that water sinks into sod more rapidly than 
into bare ground with equal drainage ? Why ? 
The barn is as much a butter factory as is the creamery. 
That’s right—read Mr. Van Wagenen’s article, page 670. 
We are using Parker Earle strawberry plants dug with a Rich¬ 
ards transplanter, for filling our barrel strawberry bed. 
With that barrel strawberry bed a success, no farmer can have 
any excuse for not supplying his family with berries. Start this 
fall. 
Take a good-sized Spitzenburg apple, cut out the core, fill with 
sugar and bake in a hot oven. There you have a dish fit for a 
king. 
Mb. Mapes, page 682, finds it better to sell butter fat on a calf’s 
bones than in a butter tub. It may not pay you to do the same, 
but have you figured on it ? 
Pull up the big tomato vine before the first hard frost, and 
hang it in the barn or in the shed. The fruit will color slowly, 
and your work will not be lost, though everything outside is bare 
and dead. 
Mr. Edwin Hoyt, of Connecticut, gives this as his idea of a 
model cow barn: “One that may be kept so clean that, when the 
milker comes into the house, the women folks won’t have to say, 
‘ Whew ! go out and change your clothes 1’ ” 
