5o 
THE RURAL NE W-YORKF.R. 
January 20, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established i860. 
Herbert w. Collingwood, Editor. 
DR. WALTER VAN FLEET, t Aimndat^a 
Mrs. K. T. Kovlk, ^Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. Od., or 8Vi marks, or 10Vi 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. JANUARY 20 , 1906. 
TEN WEEKS FOR 10 CENTS. 
In order to introduce The R. N.-Y. to progressive 
intelligent fanners 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. * 
* 
It is high time Uncle Sam joined the crusade for better 
metal. Some of the mail boxes “approved” by the 
Postoffice Department are made of steel so poor and 
thin that they fall open in a few years. One such box 
hanging in a New Jersey town was so rusty and thin 
that the mere weight of an ordinary newspaper burst the 
back of the box ! 
* 
Readers sometimes state their belief that copper 
sulphate used in making Bordeaux Mixture is adulter¬ 
ated. We are asked what form of copper is best to 
avoid such adulteration. The lump form is better than 
either the granulated or powdered, as it would be much 
easier to adulterate the latter. Chemists tell us that 
they rarely, if ever, find adulteration in the copper sul¬ 
phate offered for sale. About the only thing that could 
be used for such adulteration is sulphate of iron, and 
the color would quickly expose such a fraud. We have 
made arrangements to test samples of copper thought to 
be adulterated if readers will send such to us. 
* 
The National Department of Agriculture has im¬ 
ported 68 milch goats from Malta. Part of these (50) 
will be sent to the Connecticut Experiment Station, 
where experiments will be made with them to see if 
milch goats can be used for economical milk production 
in New England. The milk is valuable for cheese 
making and for feeding to infants and invalids. If the 
goat can be kept with profit on the rougher New Eng¬ 
land pastures it is possible that a new industry can be 
started. There has been much prejudice against the 
goat in this country, but it is a useful animal. Possibly 
we have reached a point in development where this 
humble four-footed friend can help us! 
* 
As we have several times pointed out, the everyday 
readers of The R. N.-Y. provide its strongest feature. 
We have tried the experiment of printing important 
questions in the smallest type, and tucking them away 
in corners of the paper. In every case some one has 
found them and given an answer from personal experi¬ 
ence. A reader wants to know where to get a “blanket 
sheet.” Several people at once come forward. Another 
wants to know how to lay out a straight line. Three 
men proceed to straighten him out. So it goes all 
through. We figure that at least 350,000 people read 
The R. N.-Y. each week. Most of them are active 
readers who like to give as well as receive. The help 
they give us in this way is beyond value. 
* 
The correspondence concerning Mr. Cosgrove’s ques¬ 
tion of conscience, printed on page 42. is extremely inter¬ 
esting, and noteworthy for the sympathy shown with 
the offender, and the desire for reformation rather than 
punishment. This makes us wonder, however, whether 
we do as much to keep the honest unfortunate, strug¬ 
gling against temptation, in the straight and narrow path, 
as we do to reform our erring brother who has fallen 
from grace. Too often a temporary lapse, on the part 
of a man otherwise of good report, brings out a storm 
of condemnation, while the idle ne’er-do-well, who has 
persistently violated every law that offered restraint, 
is excused on the ground that he has never had a chance. 
Let us endeavor, by all means, to reform the criminal, 
if he is capable of reform, but let us remember that 
the man who resists temptation may be equally in need 
of our brotherhood. We arc inclined to think that the 
plan of transplanting the sinner under discussion to 
the free air of the Montana plains, suggested by one cor¬ 
respondent, would be entirely effectual; he would be ex¬ 
ceedingly unlikely to make more than one error in the 
ownership of a horse in that latitude, and would doubt¬ 
less be permanently reformed in such case. 
* 
We have often said that one to succeed with poultry 
must be “half hen”—that is, a thorough student of our 
little friend in feathers. Some make a little mistake in 
the transformation, and become half rooster—in some 
respects at least. The hen seldom cackles or brags until 
the egg is actually laid, while the rooster is constantly 
crowing as if a challenge to fight were accepted as a 
signal of accomplishment. The men who are .half 
rooster will never admit that their hens do not lay. 
They think it is absolutely necessary to tell l>ig stories 
at all times. Even while everybody knows their hens 
are “on strike” they talk wisely about a “50 per cent 
yield!” These rooster-men should read the article by 
Mapes this week, and then go to the hen partner for 
humble wisdom. 
* 
There has been a falling off in our foreign exports 
of fruits and nuts. The following table will show com¬ 
parisons for the 11 months ending with November: 
1903 1904 1905 
Total.$10,408,100 $10,105,050 $13,247,804 
Dried Apples .... 1,674.510 2,112.772 1.307,826 
Ripe Apples . 4,741.851 3,772,391 3.470.434 
Prunes.. 2,183,349 3.204.481 1.582.273 
Canned fruit _* 2,461,147 2,108,807 2,019,074 
As compared with last year the greatest loss is in 
prunes and dried apples. The green apple trade has 
held up well, considering the short crop and high prices 
in this country. Our best customer for fruit is England. 
The English people bought from us during these 11 
months, $5,562,285 worth against $6,039,423 the year 
before. Our heaviest loss was in Erance and Germany, 
these two countries buying $1,847,562 less than the pre¬ 
vious year! This loss of nearly $1,000,000 of fruit trade 
with Germany is largely the result of the German tariff 
and the failure of this country to give fair reciprocity 
for German beet sugar. 
* 
The cost of keeping up the “franking privilege” under 
which public officials send mail free is over $19,000,000. 
This has grown to be one of the greatest abuses of public 
patronage. Congressmen send their old clothes, trunks 
and even live stock by mail. It is said that cows have 
actually been sent in this way. Tons of so-called 
“speeches” never delivered in Congress are printed at 
Government expense and mailed under some Congress¬ 
man’s “frank.” The political parties send millions of 
political documents in this way. Such matter often has 
the preference over that which is stamped in the regular 
way—the latter being left while the franked matter is 
carried. Thus this free mail cripples the postal service, 
and prevents it from becoming self-supporting. If noth¬ 
ing but mail which is legitimately paid for were carried 
by the Government there would be a large profit in the 
service. No one expects the Government to make money 
by serving the people, but when we are told that a 
parcels post is impossible because it costs too much, it 
is time to cut off the present abuses. We favor cutting 
off the franking privilege, and making all hands buy 
stamps or stamped envelopes for their mail. 
* 
Of course the disclosures of rascality and fraud in 
American life insurance and other business have attracted 
attention in Europe. Many Americans will say that 
they care little what Europeans say about us, yet they 
should care, for in a way our republican form of govern¬ 
ment is on trial now as never before. It has always 
been the sneer of those who believe in a monarchy that 
Americans will sooner or later prove unequal to the 
work of self-government. Many European critics see in 
the present exposure of “graft” and public crime evi¬ 
dence that the Republic is too weak to protect itself 
from public rascals, but they have not measured the 
moral forces which are quietly at work in thousands of 
homes. In a well-considered article on the trial of 
American morality Blackwood’s Magazine says: 
a % 
So long as tlie American woman holds her present position 
in her own household and in society there need he little fear 
as to the ultimate future of American morals. She is one 
of the sheet anchors of the country in every moral crisis, 
and her influence is again making itself felt to-day. There 
are many varieties of good women in tlie world: some 
passive and others active: some subjective and others ag¬ 
gressive. The good American woman is the most active and 
aggressive of her sex. She exercises the strictest discipline 
over her own family. She has the most decided convictions 
on social questions. In nine cases out of ten she is an 
anti-drinker, anti-smoker and anti-gambler. However much 
she may wish her children to succeed in life, she would 
not have them be “boodiers” at any price. 
All who know anything of American home life will 
endorse that statement as strictly true. The women of 
this country are doing far more than the men to main¬ 
tain high standards of morality. It is also true that 
woman’s best work is done away from the great towns 
and cities—in quiet rural villages and farms. The 
clubs and associations of the city women may make more 
noise and stir, but the silent, patient work in the farm 
home is what really counts. We never hear such things 
reported in the papers. People accept the patient service 
of Mother or “Aunt Mary” as a matter of course, when 
really it is far nobler work for the Republic than that 
of the soldier who fights in battle. The country woman’s 
work is most effective because, in her farm home, she 
can have control of her children and keep them away 
from many demoralizing influences until character is at 
least partly formed. There is no question about it—the 
farm home is the place to bring up a child, and hence 
the worthiest place in all our social economy. How 
our millionaires could serve the future if they would 
put their children away from wealth, and let them be 
brought up to manhood in the country amid humble 
surroundings, obedient to the laws of a good country 
home! 
♦ 
A Connecticut sheep man, who has suffered greatly 
from the depredations of dogs, is working for the en¬ 
actment of a law which will permit the killing, by any 
person, of a dog found without a custodian upon another 
person’s premises, or on a highway not adjoining the 
premises of its owners or harborers. He thinks it quite 
time that humane societies and business men’s associa¬ 
tions, to say nothing of the taxpayers themselves, did 
something to prevent the prolonged agony inflicted upon 
helpless sheep. If a community is not to be moved by 
considerations of humanity, the law should permit an 
appeal to the township’s pocketbook in a form that could 
not be ignored. We have nothing to say against dogs 
kept under proper control, but we see no reason why 
the canine hoodlum should be permitted privileges which 
would send a human law-breaker to the penitentiary. 
* 
The University of Illinois will start early in Febru¬ 
ary a special course of four weeks on “city milk sup¬ 
ply.” The object will be to teach the elementary prin¬ 
ciples which underlie the production and handling of 
clean, sanitary milk. In our cities and large towns the 
demand for such milk is far ahead of the supply, and 
people are being educated in a dozen different ways to 
demand a high-class article. We can see that, following 
other lines, agricultural education is breaking up into 
special departments. In the practice of medicine thou¬ 
sands of physicians confine their studies and their 
practice largely to a single organ of the body or to a 
single disease. We have consulted experts who con¬ 
fessed themselves ignorant regarding simple disorders 
or general practice, yet in their own department they 
were capable of doing the finest work. Their simple 
opinion regarding a case would be worth $250 or more. 
Agriculture of the future is evidently to provide places 
for experts. They will master a single department of 
providing the finer grades of milk, fruit or meat, and 
will find the necessary market provided for them. 
BREVITIES. 
Why not put up a signboard in front of pour farm? 
Have you tried to sell water glass eggs as “fresh?” In 
what respect do they fail? 
Better use your money to make farm and home comfort¬ 
able than to make the “grafters” rich. 
Who is the burden hearer of your family? No one? 
Then there is some other place like home ! 
Last year the city of Boston received 10,997,120 quarts 
of beans. Pretty good for a population of 560,892 ! 
Mr. Mapes shows how he Is short on Winter eggs, yet 
it must be remembered that one year with another his hens 
pay a good profit. It is not always the Winter egg that 
pays the year's bill. 
Hon. C. M. Depew says he will resign from 79 different 
corporations and give his full time to senatorial duties. 
Thus the State of New York has had only 1 1-5 per cent 
of his time thus far! 
Harrison Weir, the English painter of birds and animals, 
died recently, aged 82. He was well known as a poultry 
fancier, and his monumental work, “Our Poultry, and All 
About Them,” represents nearly 20 years’ work. lie helped 
in the making of more than 120 books, either with pen or 
pencil. 
It is reported that a London baker has invented a bread¬ 
making machine which grinds wheat, sifts flour, mixes, 
kneads and bakes bread without the aid of a human hand— 
turning out 300,000 pounds of biead per day! This is 
interesting, but a small, practical dishwasher would be 
better. 
Those little 10-cent envelopes of ours are going every¬ 
where. Here is what a New Yoik man says: “I was 
wishing to get a trial subscriber for you to put. in. A man 
came to-day from Morristown to bring me some apples, 
and as soon as I saw him I was sure he would give me the 
10 cents if I asked him, and please find it inclosed.” Some 
people go as far as the asking—and then stop. 
A noon many people, some in other States, ask how 
they can obtain a copy of “The Apples of New York.” There 
were 19,000 copies printed. The Geneva Station receives 
2,000 copies for distribution, the members of the Legisla¬ 
ture 10.000 and the Commissioner of Agriculture 7,000. 
with 5,000 of these for the Legislature's use. Thus mem¬ 
bers of the Senate and the House have control of 15,000 
copies. Tb#e is likely to be such a demand for the book 
that another edition will lie needed. 
