246 
March 17, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
UR. WALTER VAN FLEET, I 
Mrs. K. T. Hoyle, ( Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Busiuess ManaKer. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. 0d., or 8Ms marks, or 10Ms francs. 
“A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper Is 
backed by a responsible person. Put 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, MARCH 17, 1906. 
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. 
* 
By all means send us copies of the letters you receive 
when you write to Congressmen about the parcels 
post! Publicity will do these men good. 
* 
Early in the year we announced a series of articles 
by Mr. M. Garrahan of Pennsylvania. They have not 
been forgotten. Mr. Garrahan has been sick, but is 
now preparing the articles. We are safe in saying that 
they will tell the story of restoring a worn-out farm 
as it has never been told before. 
* 
Congress may freeze out the free seeds after all. 
The House Committee of Agriculture voted eight to 
seven not to ask for the $250,000 needed to provide the 
seeds. This means that seeds cannot be sent unless 
Congress override this committee and tack on the 
needed appropriation. In order to do this an amend¬ 
ment must be voted in both Senate and House. We 
hope such an amendment will be killed, yet we know 
how the average Congressman calls for these seeds. 
Here is hoping the farce will be ended this year. 
* 
The Mark Lane Express tells an amusing incident 
that occurred a short time before the last British elec¬ 
tion. A candidate was holding forth on agricultural 
politics at a meeting in a farming district, when a local 
farmer stated that he wished to ask a question. Per¬ 
mission being given, he produced three small sacks con¬ 
taining, respectively, wheat, oats and barley, and re¬ 
quested the candidate to tell which was which. The 
farmer evidently “knew his man,” for the speaker was 
unable to identify the grains, and the audience at once 
saw the point. 
* 
Many western men are quite surprised when we tell 
them of the possibilities in handling cheap eastern land. 
They have an idea that the increased cost of fertilizer 
or manure in the East offsets any market advantage. 
At a point in Indiana corn was selling at 52 cents per 
hundred. On the same date we were paying $1.10 per 
hundred in Jersey City for ton lots. On Long Island 
or in New England the price was still higher. In some 
parts of New Jersey farmers grow larger yields of 
corn than are generally grown in the Central West. 
This point of local market is of far more importance 
than many western farmers realize. 
* 
It is said that the lawyer, the doctor and the min¬ 
ister see sides of life that do not come to the notice of 
ordinary people. It is true, and The R. N.-Y. begins 
to think it may help make out the quartette. One of 
the pleasantest things connected with our work is the 
confidence with which many readers approach us for 
help or advice. Things work out strangely at times. 
Here is a sample case. One of our readers asked a 
question about sheep. This was answered—only the 
initials of the questioner being printed. Shortly after 
publication this farmer received a letter from a seaman 
who said he had won several fine sheep in a game of 
cards, and having no use for them wanted to sell. He 
named a wealthy man as the person from whom he had 
won the sheep. Our reader was afraid it might be a 
scheme to defraud him, but our investigation showed 
that the story was true, that the sheep were of good 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER: 
quality and ready for delivery! This is but one simple 
illustration of the way printed words may bring people 
together from strange places. The kindly, neighborly 
feeling which prompts readers to send help or ask for 
it is the pleasantest and also the strongest part of a 
paper. 
* 
In speaking of power outfits for spraying, on page 
172, we referred to the weight of these outfits as an 
objection. It is not fair to say that the modern gasoline 
engines are as heavy as the steam outfits. Air-cooled 
engines are now made which weigh 350 pounds and 
give power enough for from 100 to 150 pounds pres¬ 
sure. Thus such an engine will weigh no more than 
two good-sized men who work a hand pump, and still 
give a better and more even power. In this respect 
the gasoline engine has an advantage over steam which 
will only be realized in a soft time in Spring, when 
spraying must be done and every extra horse is busy. 
* 
Readers are writing us notes like the following: 
Please look at a recent Issue of the - - and 
see the half page advertisement of the Spencer Seedless 
Apple Company of Grand Junction, Colorado. I wonder 
why the-accepts such advertisements and yet 
claims to l>e so zealous for the farmers’ interests. There 
are other advertisements that it carries that I consider just 
as bad, if not worse. n. j. p. 
There is only one thing which anyone who under¬ 
stands the facts can think. Charles Waters has shown 
that he found the original Seedless apple growing wild. 
He gave some of the wood to John F. Spencer, and what 
the company is now offering appears to be nothing but 
this old fence-corner seedling. Since the discussion be¬ 
gan we have heard reports of a dozen “seedless” apples 
found growing wild. Several of them we have sam¬ 
pled. They were as good as the Spencer apple, but 
inferior to ordinary sorts long in cultivation. The 
paper in question knew the facts about this effort to 
sell trees of this character at an extravagant price. It 
has a poor memory, for last year it denounced “seed¬ 
less” apples as a hoax. The R. N.-Y. refused this 
advertising both because of the character of the fruit 
and the methods employed in booming it. In the ad¬ 
vertisement in question a specimen of an apple has been 
cut in two—the inside apparently coated with wax and 
then photographed. Of course no core is shown, yet 
anyone can see through the fraud. No one is de¬ 
ceived, who knows the facts, for all understand w r hat is 
under the wax. The paper mentioned knows; therefore, 
it is a fair inference that the advertisement is accepted 
because “the farmer’s interests” are eclipsed by a dollar! 
* 
The State of New Jersey is pretty much owned by 
the railroads. They, with other corporations, pay the 
State taxes and in return demand privileges which drain 
from the people of the State $50 for every one paid 
into the treasury. Florida is another State where rail¬ 
road robbery of another sort keeps the people poor. 
The Florida Agriculturist makes the following state¬ 
ment which, we are forced to conclude, is a fair one: 
When the companies will bring a barrel of potatoes down 
from New York at a certain rate and then when you fill the 
same barrel with Florida grown potatoes they charge you 
about double the rate paid coming south, there does not 
seem to be a fair deal. As a rule, Florida produce of all 
kinds sells for good prices in the markets of the North, but 
at present rates for transportation, there is no profit left 
for the grower. It is not worth while to bring more settlers 
here to be robbed. Ilomeseekers, with large bank accounts, 
who do not need to consider ways and means cannot find a 
more desirable location for a home either for the Winter or 
for the whole year. If from failing health or on account 
of the infirmities of age it seems necessary to seek a milder 
climate, then by all means come to Florida. There is also 
plenty of work for laboring men, but we long ago ceased 
to advise those in moderate circumstances, who were making 
a living at the North, to break up their home and come 
here in the hope of bettering their condition, financially. 
It is humiliating to be obliged to make such a state¬ 
ment, for, under other conditions, many parts of Flor¬ 
ida would offer home and opportunity to many people 
at the North. The railroads seem to fee doing most 
of the soliciting for new settlers in the far South. It 
would seem to their own interests to give at least 
reasonable service on north-bound produce, but, year 
after year, the complaints about “robbery” grow 
stronger. Through their inferior and expensive service 
the railroads are doing the South great injury and will, 
if they keep on, shut off the most desirable class of 
home-seekers from the North. 
* 
North Dakota has a law to prevent adulteration 
and deception in the sale of paint. This is the first 
State law of the kind, and it is a good one, for farmers 
have lost thousands of dollars in trying poor paint, 
thinking they were receiving a first-class lead and oil 
mixture. Of course if a man wants to buy a superior 
form of whitewash it is his privilege to do so, but if 
lie wants good paint he should have a chance to know 
what he is doing, Under the North Dakota law the 
experiment station is to investigate and enforce. No 
money was given for enforcement, but the chemists 
of the station are prepared. Such a law naturally fol¬ 
lows a fertilizer law in principle. It is necessary first 
to know what a paint ought to be, what the adulter¬ 
ants are, and then to compel manufacturers to print 
a guarantee on each package. A standard paint of the 
best quality is composed of pure linseed oil, turpentine 
and white lead or zinc. For purposes of adulteration 
barium, chalk, or whiting, plaster, clay and silica are 
often used. Such adulteration is profitable, since white 
lead costs seven cents a pound, while whiting can be 
bought for less than one cent. Inferior oils are some¬ 
times used in place of pure linseed—in fact the paint 
business seems to offer even greater chances for fraud 
than the fertilizer trade did before laws wer^ made to 
hold it down. Specimens of so-called “white lead” 
were analyzed in North Dakota which really contained 
less than five per cent of that substance! One paint 
supposed to be pure lead contained 34 per cent of 
chalk, another 50 per cent of chalk and plaster, with 
others nearly as bad. The oil was also adulterated in 
many cases. The North Dakota law will compel manu¬ 
facturers to print the analysis of the paint on the out¬ 
side of the package, as is now done on the fertilizer 
bag. The station will then buy paint at random, ana¬ 
lyze it and print the analysis. Then if a man guaran¬ 
tees “pure lead and oil” and his paint shows chalk and 
sand he can be spotted and held up where all can see 
him. This seems to us like a good law—a step in the 
right direction and other States ought to follow. 
* 
On page 83 we printed a note from Oregon showing 
how some fruit dealers presented a State fruit inspec¬ 
tor with a new silk hat. We never heard of such a 
thing being done on the Atlantic coast, and so we said 
the Pacific coast people do such things better. It 
seems there are several sides to every story. Here is 
one: 
Don’t be so sure that “they do things better on the 
Pacific Coast,” when a fruit inspector is presented with a 
new silk hat by the fruit merchants. When our railroad 
companies, as their custom is, give free passes to our 
legislators and public officials who can do them some good, 
we all know the reason why. So also when our fruit com¬ 
mission merchants and nurserymen give silk hats and gold¬ 
headed canes to a fruit and tree inspector we have our 
ideas of the transaction, and also of the recipient. It has 
been claimed out here that in some cases wHen infected fruit 
was “condemned and destroyed,” that the grower and shipper 
of the fruit got the certificate of the inspector to that effect 
for his return, while the merchant got the fruit, disposing 
of the same by shipping fo another point. As to that, how¬ 
ever, we do not know personally. But we do know of cases 
where nurserymen received signed certificates by the hundred 
from fruit inspectors, to be attached to shipments setting 
forth that such shipments of trees were free from insect 
and fungus pests, when in fact the nursery was fairly 
swarming with these pests. And, of course, such nursery¬ 
men were found on the head of the list of the donors of 
the hats and gold-headed canes. Some of these certificates 
also pretend to set forth the fact that the frees composing 
such shipn.ents are "all true to name.** But these last 
certificates come from inspectors yet young In the art of 
graft. The common stock interrogation, “What are we 
here for,” is yet too much in evidence “away out West” to 
lead us to think that such transactions are of a much 
higher character here than in the East. j. f. Cass. 
Skagit Co., Wash. 
So is seems the fruit inspector needs inspecting as 
well as the fruit. We believe some of them are honest, 
and richly deserve silk hats and canes. Others seem 
to need a spraying with lime, sulphur and carbolic acid. 
Before we can hope to get rid of the big “grafts” each 
of us must cut out his own little ones. 
BREVITIES. 
Read the article on farm hands, page 239. 
The more you strain relations the coarser they become. 
A man should have cool judgment to run a gasoline en¬ 
gine properly. 
The clover seed should be ready to put on the cracked 
ground some morning. 
About time to level the little mounds of earth put around 
the young trees last Fall. 
Making butter without churning is the latest dairy 
scheme. We stick to the churn. 
Why should a man be pointed out as a brave citizen 
when he admits an honest failure in public? 
Which is better—to keep one breed of poultry and put 
all your energies to it, or keep several breeds? Why? 
About the greatest dairy scheme we have heard of yet 
is the use of a milking machine iu a dairy herd witli the. 
motive power provided by the bull. 
Our reports are generally that Ivieffer pear is a failure- 
as stock for top-working with better pears. Too bad that 
this vigorous tree will not make a better host. 
There Is to be an experiment station in Greenland, The- 
Danish government will attempt to Introduce vegetables* 
and hardy grasses which will mature in the short northern 
Summer. 
How would you like a good farm with such soil as that 
Kentucky field is composed of? Most of us would think our 
troubles are all over. Why is that soil better than others? 
It was made so, and we shall try to explain why and how. 
Lime and sulphur is suggested as a remedy for Pear 
blight. Four years ago D. R. Pease suggested sulphur 
spraying for this disease, but the scientific men seemed 
to think little of it. Now they are investigating, with good 
chances of success. 
That hay swindle mentioned on page 223 seems to be a 
hardy perennial, as we noted it 20 years ago in a section not 
more than 30 miles from where it is now reported. Quite 
likely the sons and grandsons of the elder scalawags are now 
trying to work the same game on the children of their former 
victims. Give them the cold shoulder. 
. 
