854 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 25, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER . 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established isso. 
Hkkbkut W. Coi.unowood, Editor. 
DR. WAI.TKR VAN FLEET, (.Associates 
Mrs. It. T. HOYLE, £ Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in Hie Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. 0d., or 8 >4 marks, or 10Mi 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 trilling 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 lie sent to ns within one 
month of tlie time of tlie transaction, and yon 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. 
TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 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. 
* 
II you receive this paper as a sample copy, 
please turn to page and read the an¬ 
nouncement at top oi page. 
* 
The American Apple Consumers’ League is spreading 
to our new possessions. Last j’ear these shipments of 
apples were made: Alaska, $23,364; Hawaii, $29,277; 
Porto Rico, $6,693, and the Philippines, $479. We should 
all be thankful for this trade in American apples. A good 
apple will do much to make an islander see the stars 
and forget the stripes—unless it happened to be a Ben 
Davis! 
* 
Such poultry articles as that by Mr. Cosgrove on 
page 840 are useful because they state plain and simple 
facts. This is not the only way to take care of a “snow¬ 
bound hen,” but it is one way which has paid for a 
farm. Here are the facts, with a caution to those who 
might try to imitate this treatment. These gentle 
Wyandottes may be content in this small space, but the 
livelier breeds might rebel if crowded in this way. Peo¬ 
ple must remember those things when they read such 
articles. 
* 
So our friend Chilocorus similis has proved a fail¬ 
ure as a bulldog to catch the dreaded San Jose scale 
(see page 845). Like some other foreigners, lie or she 
found the American climate and manners too strenuous. 
Our scientific friends have held out great promises to 
us before now, but somehow the colors faded when 
washed in the sweat of practical experience. This expe¬ 
rience will probably kill off for some time the theory 
that this dreaded scale can be held in check by para¬ 
sites. Out of this experience we may take a grain of 
thankfulness that it is now settled that nothing will 
fight the scale for us! 
* 
Each year more and more of our contributors use a 
typewriter. This gives one reason for thankfulness. 
When a man uses a soft pencil and soft paper he does 
not always realize what a hard proposition he makes 
for the reader. The writer helps himself too when he 
gets away from the pencil. When he punches out the 
words slowly upon a machine he realizes what extra 
letters cost, and he fights shy of long words. Such a 
man will often be surprised when reading his own mat¬ 
ter to see how much clearer his thoughts are when 
expressed in short, simple words. 
* 
A man who moved away from the city to live on a 
farm says that his city job gave him practically no time 
for reading. The daily paper and perhaps a magazine 
were all that he could find time to look over. The rush 
and crowd of city work and the distraction of the life 
left him no time for reflection or really solid reading. 
In the country the long evenings and stormy days of 
Fall and Winter gave him a chance to absorb good 
books. The quiet of his country home carried him into 
another world, the world of literature and noble thought. 
There he learned, as he explained it, that “the Kingdom 
of God is within you!” This man has well expressed 
why it is that many of us are thankful that we live in 
the country. Tt is true, although some city people are 
astonished to be told of it, that the most thoughtful and 
earnest reading people in America arc to be found in 
farm homes. Amid the quiet of the hills and lonely 
places such people can read good books slowly and 
with understanding. In one way this studious use of 
spare time is of more value to the nation than the fierce 
money-chasing that goes on in the cities. The con¬ 
servative character thus being bred and developed from 
this “other world” of books will prove the saving power 
for the nation in coming years. 
* 
Over 10 years ago we told how French farmers were 
using electric power for running their machinery. This 
power was wired to them, often for several miles. It 
seemed like a dream to most American farmers, yet 
already the system is being worked in this country, be¬ 
ginning in the West. Power is furnished by the trolley 
lines, and electric motors transfer it to machinery which 
requires a turning wheel. In some places the power is 
generated on the farm by waterwheels, and wired to 
barn or other buildings. There are great possibilities 
for American farming in this new development, and we 
are to have full accounts of it. 
* 
“Do you really believe people ever pay any attention 
to your advice to vote with the postage stamp, and with 
letters to public men?” That question is asked by a 
despairing mortal who can see no hope for better things. 
Believe it? Why, we knozv it! Ask the Hon. Thomas 
C. Platt! Ask the wire fence manufacturers. Ask the 
men who supported oleo. Believe it? Why, it is one 
of the surest things on earth ! But even if there was not 
a farmer in the country brave enough to dip his pen in 
ink we should keep right on urging them to write out 
their wrongs. If drops of water can wear away a 
rock, drops of ink can make history. The postage stamp 
is mightier than the sword! 
* 
We invite a study of the correspondence with the 
Adams Express Company printed on the next page. 
Since the ease started we have heard of a number 
where just the same tactics are followed. The evident 
design is to bluff or disgust people until they grow tired 
of trying to collect what is due them. It took this 
company 159 days to find where that package, plainly 
marked, went to. It wouldn’t take that many seconds 
for them to figure their high rates of transportation 
Imagine what would have happened if we had taken 
the package away without paying the express charges! 
Well, it is a good thing to know that there is blood in 
a turnip if you know how to squeeze the drops out 
and will stick to the squeezer. 
* 
A few weeks ago one of our readers told of his efforts 
to obtain good farm produce in this city, and the prices 
demanded. Another reader about loo miles away saw 
the article and sent a package of produce to the city 
man. With it came a letter from which we are privi¬ 
leged to take this extract: 
Now you may not: know it, but you are a neighbor of mine, 
by virtue of reading the same old R. N.-Y'. if by no other 
means. Somehow it draws people together to compare notes 
(in print) and teil each other of their worries and experi¬ 
ences. It fosters a friendly and brotherly feeling. If you 
lived next door to me, and I had the garden that I gen¬ 
erally have and you had none, don't you suppose I should 
till up a basket with vegetables or whatsoever and take it 
over to your back door and say : “There. I thought you’d 
like a taste of garden stuff for dinner.” Or if you had 
the garden and I had none, wouldn’t you do the same thing? 
Of course you would, and I should be glad to get it. 
We are glad to print that in our Thanksgiving num¬ 
ber, and it doesn’t require much comment or rubbing 
in. You know how much better the world would be if 
we all lived up to that spirit. 
* 
The general outlook for dairying was never better 
than it is to-day. Prices for butter and cheese and for 
high-class milk are such as to offer encouragement to 
men who are willing to take advantage of opportunity. 
The cream separator and the gasoline engine have 
changed the entire character of many farms, and we are 
now promised a fairly successful milking machine. The 
last year has seen a great increase in the number of 
silos, and the use of Alfalfa is spreading east. Where 
this wonderful crop will thrive the cost of producing 
a quart of milk and a pound of butter will fall. Farm¬ 
ers too are learning to use purchased grain to better 
advantage, so as to save money. Last, but not least, 
the cattle are improving. The constant talk about the 
value of pedigree has had its effect, and animals of 
famous blood are appearing in many working herds. 
There never was a better time to huy pedigreed breeding 
animals than right now. There is every indication that 
prices for milk products and meat will continue fair, if 
not high. The great crop of corn means lower prices 
for feed. There never were more good breeding ani¬ 
mals offered for sale at fair prices—never a more hope¬ 
ful outlook for their use. Readers of The R. N.-Y. 
believe in improved stock, and know how the intro¬ 
duction of new blood into their flocks and herds will 
increase values. All things considered, right now is the 
best time to buy breeding stock that has been known in 
10 years. 
“WE HAVE MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR." 
The following extract from President Roosevelt’s 
Thanksgiving proclamation suits us very well as a sea¬ 
sonable text: 
We live in easier and more plentiful times than our fore¬ 
fathers, the men who with rugged strength faced the rugged 
days; and yet the dangers to National life are quite as 
great now as at any Hme in our history. It is eminently 
fitting that once a year our people should set apart a day 
for praise and thanksgiving to the Giver of Good, and at 
tlie same time that they express their thankfulness for the 
abundant mercies received should manfully acknowledge 
their shortcomings and pledge themselves solemnly and in 
good faith to strive to overcome them. During the past year 
we have been blessed with bountiful crops. We are not 
threatened by foes from without. The foes from whom we 
should pray to be delivered are our own passions, appetites 
and follies; and against these there is always need that we 
should war. 
The R. N.-Y. believes in celebrating Thanksgiving 
365 days in the year. This issue is not so much a for¬ 
mal acknowledgment of thanks as an overflow. We 
have so much to be thankful for that it is hard to find 
expression for it all. Health, home and loving friends— 
with these the human heart may well be thankful. 
Those who to-day are walking through the shadows 
have our sympathy and kindliest thoughts. Even to 
them is given the great legacy of hope and faith—the 
promise of a better to-morrow. Depression will only 
fatten itself upon hope if permitted to do so. 
Thanksgiving should not be entirely a day of satis¬ 
faction, but of hope and promise as well. The future 
holds the best of life. The home and the nation are 
in greatest danger when people forget that. That is 
particularly true of country homes, because they should 
be the places where the true conservatism of American 
society is bred and nursed. We are thankful that we 
live in the country and love to stay there, thankful that 
the children can grow up naturally among birds and 
flowers and trees and animals. We are thankful that 
we are glad to get away from town and city, thankful 
that when we drive out of the gate we begin to long 
to turn hack home. 
We are thankful that farmers are generally taking 
more pride in their calling, that they are willing to 
invest more of their earnings in home and farm, that 
they are placing “book farming” and scientific agricul¬ 
ture where they properly belong, that they are not 
sneering at science, but testing it by practical experi¬ 
ence. We are thankful that farmers and rural dwellers 
are coming to know more of their power, that they 
believe in evolution rather than in revolution, analysis 
rather than destruction. They went at the wire fence 
question in just the rieffit way. They have made the 
Government chemists analyze wire and find the defects 
in its manufacture. Now they will place the manufac¬ 
turers in a position which will make improved wire a 
necessity. They will win the parcels post in time by 
sheer force of personal influence. We are thankful that 
the privilege of voting with the postage stamp is not 
only gaining rights which belong to the farmer, but 
giving him greater independence and power. Yes, let 
us be thankful this year, not counting merely the dollars 
God has given us, but the character and spiritual power 
as well, so that we may use it for uplifting purposes. 
BREVITIES. 
See page 8515. 
“Pray heaven for a thankful heart.” 
Let the stock be thankful for food and shelter. 
Badly needed—strong character to stand prosperity. 
Read the suggestions about home reading on page 857. 
And don't forget to eat the three good apples every day. 
Is your wife thankful for all the shelves and closets she 
needs ? 
Baked beans and peace are far better than roast turkey 
and discord. 
Why yes—there are some good things out beyond the end 
of your nose. 
The legal standard for evaporated apples is not over 27 
per cent of moisture. 
Will you trust yourself to make a perfect mixture of 
theory and common sense? 
It’s a reason for thanksgiving if your wife is an expert 
loafer—that is a good bread maker. 
Everyone of our fields but one has a crop of rye, grass 
or clover covering it this Winter. 
Practical information about tile drainage is pouring in. 
It will put juice into tills usually dry subject. 
The manger of the robber cow is found within your 
pocket. You'll have to knock her on the head to find a 
key to lock it. 
We are thankful that so many contributors have stopped 
writing with a soft lead pencil on soft paper, and that so 
many more are to do it! 
Two weeks ago a reader regretted that the New York 
Senators could not “run for office” this year. Wouldn’t 
they have had a merry time? 
We are thankful for the best lot of practical articles on 
hand and provided for that we ever had at this season. 
You will get them in due time. 
Several manufacturers are hard at work trying to per¬ 
fect a milking machine. It is a question whether such a 
machine would be a reason for pure thankfulness. 
Much has been said about the King system of ventilating 
stables. Prof. F. IT. King, the inventor, will soon tell onr 
readers about his system. This is the clearest description 
yet printed. 
