154 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 25, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
Dr. Walter Va.v Fleet, ( Assoclate8 
Mrs. E. T. Koylk, t Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. (id., or S 1 /-! marks, or IOMj francs. 
“A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is 
backed by a responsible person. But to make doubly sure 
we will make good any loss to paid subscribers sustained 
by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising in our col¬ 
umns, and any such swindler will be publicly exposed. We 
protect subscribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee 
to adjust trifling differences between subscribers and honest, 
responsible advertisers. Neither will we be responsible for 
the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must be sent to us within one 
month of the time of the transaction, and you must have 
mentioned The Rural New-Yorker when writing the adver¬ 
tiser. 
Name and address of sender, and what the remittance 
is for, should appear in every letter. 
Remittances may be made in money order, express order, 
personal check or bank draft. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1905. 
TEN WEEKS FOR 10 CENTS. 
In order to introduce The R. N.-Y. to progressive 
intelligent farmers who do not now take it, we send it 
10 weeks for 10 cents for strictly introductory purposes. 
We depend on our old friends to make this known to 
neighbors and friends. 
* 
Let us not make any mistake about the danger to fruit 
growers from the Gypsy moth. It is coming. We must 
not sit down and fold our hands, and wait till our 
orchards are destroyed. There is better use for our 
hands. Pull Uncle Sam’s coattails until he wakes up 
to the situation. The general Government must take 
a hand in fighting this pest. 
* 
We repeat here the advice of the Hope Farm man 
about cheerfulness. These are trying days in some farm 
homes. Snow and cold crowd the family into small 
compass. The children are noisy and full of life—the 
old people are fretful and inclined to be discouraged. 
All the more need of some one to be cheerful and happy. 
It is usually expected that mother will assume this in 
addition to her other duties, but there is no reason why 
father should not help. You may say that the cold and 
snow have so upset your plans that you have nothing to 
be cheerful about. What nonsense that is when you come 
to think about it. Come now—there are many public 
duties that a farmer should join, but not one of them 
can be said to be more important than the private duty 
of keeping all the gloom and unhappiness that he possi¬ 
bly can out of his own home. Be cheerful! 
* 
The latest argument about regulation of railroad rates 
by the Government is that it will hurt the common 
people. It is claimed that the people have invested 
money in the railroads, both directly and through their 
savings in banks or trust companies. Now, if the busi¬ 
ness of the railroads is injured so that their incomes 
fall off, these same common people will suffer! Hence 
—the railroads should he left alone! I hat is a fair sam¬ 
ple of the arguments which are responsible for the con¬ 
tinuation of the “rebate” system. The common people 
have no desire to profit by injustice or criminal dealings. 
No more dangerous suggestion could be made to the 
small investor than that he can make a few more cents 
or dollars by acting as a silent little partner in great 
frauds. There is no injustice about the plan to prevent 
unjust and unfair rates. If there is any danger that 
small investors will be paid lower dividends some of 
the high or useless officials could more than make 
it up by a voluntary reduction of salary! 
* 
The meeting of the New York State Grange at Og- 
densburg was a great success. The Grange is strong in 
the northern counties and in spite of the cold and 
deep snow there was a large local attendance. We 
would like to take a company of the city men who dread 
the future of this Republic to such a meeting as was 
held at Ogdensburg. If they were able to recognize 
hope at all they would see it in this gathering of strong, 
earnest, well-dressed men and women of the farm. It 
was one of those meetings in which one could start sing¬ 
ing “America” without words or notes and find 90 per 
cent of the audience capable of singing every line! We 
always come away from such meetings convinced that 
while true to its fundamental principles, the Grange is 
capable of doing better work for America’s civilization 
than any other fraternal organization in the land. This 
is not because of its political or business power, though 
these are considerable, but because of its quiet uplifting 
work in the home or in the rural community. The 
Grange may elect governors or Senators or Presidents, 
yet we can see that a political victory of this sort might 
he won in such a way that it would be a moral defeat for 
the order. The Grange will make a vital mistake if it 
permits a few shrewd politicians to use it as a mouth¬ 
piece for their personal desires. Its strongest power 
is moral and social. Its best work is done quietly in 
the farm home, where every member tries to live up 
to the principles of the order. 
* 
A matter now before the bakers’ unions in this city 
is almost as complicated as the question whether a 
woman without membership in a tailors’ union could be 
permitted to put an illicit non-union patch upon her hus¬ 
band’s unionized trousers. The bakers’ unions and the 
employers have reached a deadlock on the question of 
putting the union label upon loaves. The employers 
say they are willing to pay union wages and grant a 
10-hour day, but that their customers draw the line at 
buying loaves with union labels pasted on them. It is 
stated that even when a woman is a strong union sym¬ 
pathizer she balks at the pasted label, on the ground 
that it may be accidentally eaten. We think that the 
strongest objection to the label would be the extra 
handling of the bread in putting it on, which, when con¬ 
sidered in all its possibilities, does not increase one’s 
appetite for bakers’ bread. The way bread is sold ordi¬ 
narily, especially from the wagon, when the driver han¬ 
dles the horse and handles the bread with equal impar¬ 
tiality, is not appetizing either. We used to buy bread 
in Chicago which was neatly wrapped in paraffin paper 
as soon as it came from the oven, and exposed for sale 
in that transparent wrapping, and we consider that all 
bread publicly sold should be so treated. If the bakers 
choose to paste a label upon such wrapping no one could 
object, and the union would then assist in promoting a 
higher standard of sanitary cleanliness. 
* 
The correspondent who, referring to New England 
farm life on page 139, describes the impression made 
upon the farm boy by the well-dressed and pleasure¬ 
seeking Summer visitors, might easily carry the con¬ 
trast still further. The boy who hoes his way along 
a dusty row, barefooted and toil-stained, may look 
enviously upon his compeer in white duck and canvas 
shoes, with no other heavier burden than a tennis racket. 
He may—moved by this feeling—decide that there are 
better places than the farm, only to find the same con¬ 
ditions increased a thousandfold in city life. The city 
worker sees evidences of luxury on every hand—of ease 
and pleasure in which he has no share. If he is suffi¬ 
ciently philosophical to regard all this as the passing 
show he will take pleasure in it; if he resents his posi¬ 
tion as a looker-on he will find far more material upon 
which to feed “envy, hatred and malice, and all un¬ 
charitableness” in city than in country. It is this spirit 
that makes the girl in business pledge her earnings in 
advance to buy upon the installment plan such clothes 
as she sees worn by the rich man’s daughter; it lures 
the trusted employee to squander the money of others in 
forbidden pleasures, or to recoup his losses in devious 
paths of speculation. We may change the skies, without 
changing the heart; if duty wears a frowning face in one 
place, she is not likely to turn toward us with a smile 
in another. The whole sum of personal happiness is 
best expressed by a great man, who, after tasting all ex¬ 
tremities of misery and danger, says: "I have learned, 
in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” 
* 
When we began to talk about the poor quality of 
fence wire, we told our readers frankly that the remedy 
lay with them. We make no mistake in locating the 
true power of a paper or magazine. It lies with the 
readers, aud it will be great or small in proportion to 
the earnestness with which readers follow up the paper’s 
suggestions. We said at the beginning that it was pos¬ 
sible for the readers of The R. N.-Y. to compel manu¬ 
facturers to offer a better quality of wire, nails and 
pipe. As is well known, we have received practically 
no help from the other agricultural papers. We are not 
sorry for this, since it has shown what the earnest 
readers of a single paper can accomplish. Our readers 
have been writing letters by the thousand. Every manu¬ 
facturer of fence wire in the country has heard from 
them, and most have received an invitation to sell goods 
on a guarantee. It has been found that some dealers 
in roofing iron and eaves troughs are willing to guaran¬ 
tee their goods and give bond for 15 years’ service! 
From the first we have insisted that some public insti¬ 
tution should take this matter up in the interests of 
both manufacturers and consumers, and define a stand¬ 
ard product, so as to make fair basis of guarantee. 
Readers have plastered the experiment station with 
postage stamps, and have even reached higher up. 
Secretary James Wilson now announces that as the 
result of continued request he has established in the 
Department of Agriculture a Division for the study 
of wire, nails and pipe. Able chemists will begin at 
once an examination of samples and investigation of 
manufacturing. It means much to have the National 
Department take hold of this subject. No one expects 
that within a few weeks or months we are suddenly 
to have better wire at a lower price. We believe, how¬ 
ever, that as a result of these investigations farmers 
will be able to buy good wire at a fair price, and under 
a guarantee. The best thing about it all is the ex¬ 
pression of power on the part of readers of The R. 
N.-Y. Alone, with no political wire pulling, and no 
weapons but printers’ ink and the postage stamps, they 
have started a useful and business-like reform, which 
they will carry through to the end. Others will now 
straggle into line, as they always do after some one has 
given life to a cause, but readers of The R. N.-Y. 
have the satisfaction of knowing that they have done 
the real work. Let no honest man hereafter say that 
the farmer, as a class, is forever obliged merely to take 
what others give him. 
* 
We have had quite a number of letters from people 
who want to know how Senator Thomas C. Platt, of 
New York, stands on the question of providing a par¬ 
cels post. As Senator Platt is connected with an ex¬ 
press company it has been assumed that he opposes 
postal reform. In order to make sure we asked him 
for an expression of his views, and received the follow¬ 
ing polite reply: 
I have your letter of the seventh instant asking me to give 
you an expression of my opinion regarding the desirability 
of establishing parcels post in this country. I have never 
given any serious consideration to the subject, for the reason 
that there has appeared to he no such sentiment in favor 
of the proposition as to warrant my giving the subject much 
thought. I have been busy with matters of greater and more 
immediate consequence. I have received quite a number of 
letters from various people on the subject, and I should 
judge that the sentiment favorable to the proposition is 
about equal to the sentiment antagonistic to it. Those who 
favor it seem to reside in the rural districts: those who 
oppose it appear to be chiefly small merchants and store¬ 
keepers who fear that the establishment of parcels post 
would divert trade from them to the large department stores. 
Very likely, some time—perhaps after I am dead—this sub¬ 
ject may become one for thorough consideration. 
T. C. PI.ATT. 
Of course, we take the Senator right at his word. 
He is simply waiting to have public sentiment take him 
by the arm and lead him to one side or the other. In 
order to compete with the “greater matters” he men¬ 
tions we must make the parcels post seem a little larger 
in his eyes. The best way to increase the size of this 
proposition is to stick postage stamps over it. A single 
stamp might not add much to its bulk, but 50,000 
stamps would make Senator Platt realize that he had 
a package on his hands too important to send by ex¬ 
press. You see what the Senator says! He is just 
waiting to go with the crowd as soon as he can make 
out where the crowd is. Why not show him? If 
there is any living man who is under obligations to the 
farmers of New York that man is Senator Platt. No 
class of people in the country will profit more by a 
fair parcels post than New York farmers. The Senator 
doesn’t think this is a subject for “thorough considera¬ 
tion,” because not enough farmers have told him so. 
It isn't often that a plain farmer has a chance to in¬ 
struct a Senator, but this is one of the rare occasions. 
Let every farmer sit down at once and write Hon. 
Thomas C. Platt, Washington, D. C., what he thinks 
about the parcels post. Do it at once! The Senator 
needs information! _ 
BREVITIES . 
Ax open fire helps the “shut-in” to he content. 
A good little book to read, “What Men Live By”—Tol¬ 
stoi. 
Read a little good poetry every day. Good poetry is the 
concentrated essence of the best there is in life. 
The man who cannot take pleasure in the honest success 
of others is “fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils”—and 
little else. 
Eating your cake and having it—means taking 15-cent 
eggs out of water-glass for your own use and selling 40-cent 
fresh eggs! 
Ever know a man who developed stock of any sort so that 
it was superior to the average to be obliged to sell it at an 
average price? 
When we have a National Apple Day what do we suggest 
for Ben Davis? Why not make every man who needs pun¬ 
ishment. eat three dry specimens, and then drink a glass of 
water? 
“Angel Food" was printed on the bill of fare of a hotel 
where a farmer’s convention was held. “What is that?” 
asked an investigator. “Baked apples!" promptly replied 
a member of the Apple Consumers’ League! 
Mr. Cosgrove, of Connecticut, who left the city at past 50 
to make a living on a run-down farm, says: “I never cease 
to be thankful that I left the city when 1 did, and wonder 
what my cTcumstances would be now if I had remained 
there.” 
Whatever the trials of our hen men, they are saved 
some of the afflictions visiting Malaysian poultry keepers. 
A Singapore paper tells of a marauder shot by a policeman 
in the Chief Justice’s henhouse, which proved to be a 
six-foot tiger. One would infer from this that the life ol 
a Singapore policeman is also quite free from monotony 
