1906. 
445 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Events of the Week. 
DOMESTIC.—Representative Hearst of New York, has in¬ 
troduced in Congress a bill appropriating $50,000,000 toward 
the building of good roads for the purpose of extending the 
postal service and lessening the dependence of the agricultural 
and industrial interests on railroads. The plan proposed is 
that not more than $10,000,000 of the amount shall he ex¬ 
pended in any one year. When a country road is built 
for a distance of ten miles or more, the Government is to 
pay half the cost. . . . New York witnessed such scenes 
May 11 as the city never before saw when the strike of the 
Funeral Drivers’ Union got under way. Several funerals 
were abandoned by strikers when the dead were between 
the church and the grave. One funeral party which did 
reach its destination went with the hearse and coach horses 
bearing gaudy streamers betokening a victory of the union 
over an employer. One coffin was carried on the shoulders 
of men to a railroad train. Others were taken to cemeteries 
in automobiles, while the mourners went in trolley cars. 
The police were called out several times to check disorder 
in front of stricken homes and at the churches where the 
last sad rites for the dead were being pronounced. Of 103 
funerals that had been set for May 11 in the city only 23 
were finished. The carriages of some of those were stoned 
by the strikers or their sympathizers. This strike was car¬ 
ried on by Local 643 of the Funeral Drivers' Union of 
Manhattan and the Bronx, a branch of the International 
Brotherhood of Teamsters. It was fought by the employers 
who call themselves the New York Coach Owners’ Associa¬ 
tion. The union demands $14 a week for each of its drivers 
and “the closed shop,” and also made several other demands 
as to time off and extra pay for extra work. The strike 
was declared off May 13. the employers acceding to prac¬ 
tically all the demands. . . . The Federal Grand Jury 
at Roswell. >j- M.. has indicted the Pecos Valley and North¬ 
western Railroad for unlawfully granting rebates apd for 
unlawful discrimination against shippers. The indictments 
are brought under the Elkins act. It is alleged that Charles 
Debremond, C. C. Martin and other sheep owners whose 
ranges lie west of Roswell and near the line of the Rock 
Island and who have made some shipments over the latter 
road were induced to bring their wool to Roswell, a distance 
of from forty to seventy miles, and ship it over the Pecos 
Valley and Northeastern road by reason of extra inducements 
offered by said road: that said railroad paid to the Roswell 
Wool and Hide Company the storage and warehouse charges 
of the said shippers, amounting to $102. and, when their 
wool was shipped over the line of the Pecos Valley road, 
it unlawfully gave them rebates. It is also set out that the 
Pecos Valley road refused to grant such rates or favors to 
other shippers whose wool was transported over the line, 
only making such concession to dealers who were really in 
Rock Island territory. The Pecos Valley road Is part of the 
Santa Fe system. . . . The explosion of 30,000 pounds 
of powder stored in four magazines near Bridgeport, Conn., 
May 14, caused $25,000 damage. No one was hurt. The 
explosion was felt 45 miles away. . . . Carl Schurz, 
editor, statesman and soldier, died in New York May 14, 
aged 77. Mr. Schurz was a newspaper editor at 19 and a 
leader of the revolution of 1848 at the same age. The 
downfall of liberal ideas in Prussia sent Mr. Schurz with 
other young Germans to this country. He became in turn 
here an editor, a Major-General of the United States, editor 
again. United States Senator, Cabinet officer. Until the 
day of his death, almost, he was hale and mentally vig¬ 
orous. He retired from active participation in public af¬ 
fairs in late years, but was keenly engrossed in intellectual 
matters. At: the last he was engaged in writing his auto¬ 
biography for McClure’s Magazine. He was born in Liblar, 
near Cologne, Prussia, March 2, 1829. His parents were 
middle class Catholics. lie had the customary education of 
the gymnasium and in 1846 entered the University of Bonn. 
When Schurz was 19 the French Socialists and the Paris 
editors, uniting, sent Louis Philippe to the right about, 
and brought upon Europe a series of little revolutions. 
At Bonn at that time was a professor of the name of 
Gottfried Kinkel, who held the chair of rhetoric, an ardent 
tempered man, revolutionist to the backbone. He caught 
the imagination of young Schurz, who started a newspaper 
with him. Schurz and Kinkel attempted to revolutionize 
Prussia from their editors’ office at Bonn. Kinkel was sent 
to the Prussian Legislature. Then he and Schurz, failing 
in an attempt to raise an insurrection at Bonn, were driven 
out of Prussia. They joined an insurrectionary force in the 
States between Prussia and Switzerland, and threw them¬ 
selves into Rastadt. Already a distinguished soldier, Franz 
Sigel. afterward a Major-General in the Federal army dur¬ 
ing the civil war, was leading the revolutionists. Beaten 
by the Prince of Prussia, he withdrew to Rastadt, where, 
there was a strong fortress. There he was invested. Schurz 
took part in the defence of Rastadt. and when the city 
fell escaped over the frontier into Switzerland, but Kinkel 
•was arrested and sent to a fort, from which his friends 
rescued him. Mr Schurz came to this country in 1852, went 
to Wisconsin in 1855, and took a prominent part in the 
Lincoln-Douglass campaign. He became a Minister to Spain 
in 1861 : was made a Brigadier-General of Volunteers in 
1862 and took part in the second battle of Bull Run, under 
his old commander of Prussian revolutionary days, Franz 
Sigel. A year later he was commissioned Major-General 
and led the Eleventh Army Corps at Chancellorsville. He 
took part in the battles of Gettysburg and Chattanooga, 
having temporary command of Gen. Howard’s corps at 
Gettysburg. President Johnson appointed him a special com¬ 
missioner in 1865, sending him through the South to report 
on political and social conditions. 11 is report was an im¬ 
portant factor in shaping the policy of the National Govern¬ 
ment, being the result of a three months’ careful inspection 
of the Atlantic and Gulf States. He was Secretary of the 
Interior in Hayes’s Cabinet. During his term as Secretary 
of the Interior and after his retirement from public life 
Mr. Schurz was an enthusiastic advocate of civil service re¬ 
form. in support of which he wrote many articles and reports 
and delivered many speeches. lie was one of the founders 
of the Civil Service Reform Association, of which he was 
elected president a week before his death. . . . Five 
men are dead and 19 injured as the result of a Hungarian 
mine laborer dropping a can of dynamite May 15 on the first 
lift of the East Buck Mountain vein in the Shenandoah 
City mine, Mahanoy City, Pa. The explosion took place 
about 200 yards from the slope. Five mine laborers, all 
Hungarians, were literally blown to pieces. 
THE TRUSTS.—That more than 530 miles of the pipe line 
of the Standard Oil Company leading from the Kansas 
fields to the East are on the right of way of the Santa Ft? 
Railroad, and that shortly after the line was put in opera¬ 
tion the railroad advanced the freight rates on crude oil 
from the fields to Kansas City and to St. Louis, and reduced 
the rates on refined oil within the State of Illinois, was 
elicited from E. P. Ripley, president of the Santa F<5, on 
the witness stand before the Interstate Commerce Commis¬ 
sion at Chicago May 10. The commission learned much of 
the alleged methods of the Standard Oil Company in dealing 
with its competitors and in trying to force them out of busi¬ 
ness. One witness, E. M. Wilhoit of Topeka, Kan., formerly 
an employee of the Standard Oil Company, testified that 
prior to 1898 the company furnished him with an expense 
account which he was to use in bribing clerks and truckers 
for the railroads to furnish the company with information 
concerning the customers of independent dealers. Another 
former employee, Maynard Maxon. said that in Illinois State 
inspectors had been bribed to condemn the oil of independent 
dealers and compel them to ship the consignment beyond 
the boundaries of the State. This same witness said that 
the employees of the Standard Oil Company were provided 
with annual passes on the railroads in their districts and 
thus saved thousands of dollars annually to the company, 
which entered as an item of expense in the accounts of their 
competitors. F. S. Hibbs, the “lamp expert,” as attorney 
F. L. Monnett, former Attorney-General of Ohio, who is 
conducting the examination, called him, was called May 12 
and explained the tricks he employed in showing consumers 
that the oil sold by the independent dealers was not of good 
quality. Mr. Hibbs said lie was with the Standard for 
13 years, but he is now connected with an independent com¬ 
pany. He said: “In testing the oil of a rival company we 
used a new chimney, and the magnesia in the glass made the 
chimney look cloudy. For our own oil we used an old chim¬ 
ney. Then we always had our wick perfectly dried out and 
not too long—just so it would reach the bottom of the oil 
bowl. We rubbed a moistened finger tip across the wick of 
our rival, and after it had burned a little time the damp 
spot was reached and the light grew dim and there was a 
spluttering. In the meantime our light burned brightly. 
We also trimmed our wick so as to make a thin flame, and 
the wick of the rival was trimmed so that it would make 
a thick flame. The thicker the flame the yellower the light. 
Our thin flame always gave a clear white light. We often 
bent down the lower part of the burner, which let air in 
under the chimney and caused the lamp to smoke. Some¬ 
times we filled up some of the ventilating holes around the 
burner with wet flour or chewing gum. I only resorted to 
the tricks when a competitor was selling oil in a town and 
I wanted to get rid of him.” The witness named five towns 
in Illinois where he used these deceptions to convince the 
consumers that the oil of the rival company was of an in¬ 
ferior quality. He said that as a matter of fact the quality 
of all the competing concerns was better than that of the 
Standard Oil Company. Hibbs then described an ingenious 
scheme which was worked in a number of cities to annoy 
the Standard Oil Company. He would go to friends and 
leave a fake order for oil, and when the Standard agent 
came along later the merchant would receive a certain 
amount of cash to cancel the order to the rival concern and 
give a genuine order to the Standard Oil Company. He 
worked this with success till agents of the Standard were 
unable to tell when an order was genuine, and as a result 
the company was mulcted of a large sum by means of the 
cash presents. _ 
DAIRY CONDITIONS IN ALBANY CO. N. Y. 
The farmers of Albany County have never been extensive¬ 
ly engaged in dairying, at least not for the past 50 years. 
West Albany was one of the stations where all live stock 
shipped from the West was unloaded and fed. This created 
a great demand for hay and grain, and those products have 
been cultivated almost to the exclusion of dairying. In 
those days almost any farmer could press and sell one hun¬ 
dred tons of hay. and when he could draw it to West Albany 
and get $12* $20. or $25 per ton for it, that was obviously 
the thing to do, and they did it. Since the cattle have been 
slaughtered before being shipped that demand has ceased, 
and those prices are never realized any more. The habit, 
however, of selling hay was formed, and they have gone 
on raising and selling hay ever since. Hay has been drawn 
to the railroad and sold as low as $4 per ton. During the 
period of low prices several shipped to commission men. 
and the returns brought them in debt. Besides, almost every 
year or two the farmers in some section of the country have 
been flim-flammed out of a hay crop by a buyer who ab¬ 
sconds or gives worthless checks, or goes broke, or in some 
other way beats the farmer out of his crop. The farmers 
are scarce in this county who have not at one time or an¬ 
other lost the whole or a part of a crop in this way ; $10 
per ton at the station seems to be about the ruling price 
this season, and there have been thousands of tons sent 
from this county this season at that price. It does seem 
too bad, doesn’t it, when that amount can easily be realized 
by feeding that same hay to a good cow, and still have the 
full value of the hay left to put back on the land? For 
the last 10 years, however, a gradual change has been com¬ 
ing about. Many farmers are awakening to the folly of 
drawing their farms away and getting nothing in return. 
Seven or eight creameries have been established in different 
parts of the county. Farmers are putting in cream sepa¬ 
rators and making good butter, and selling it in the neigh¬ 
boring cities. Indeed, we have a fine market for butter, 
and almost everything else for that matter. The Albany 
Market Square is just another such market as was pic¬ 
tured in The R. N.-Y. a few weeks ago. An entire square 
in the very center of the city has been asphalted and made 
as convenient as possible for the farmers. Here the pro¬ 
ducers and consumers meet, and the one obtains a price and 
the other an article much superior to what either would 
have obtained if compelled to deal with one or two middle¬ 
men. Good butter has sold readily on this market all Win¬ 
ter at 25 cents per pound; indeed, it is not at all difficult 
to secure customers who are willing to pay that price all 
year ’round for a good article. Very little milk is shipped 
from this county, but of course much is peddled in the cities 
of Albany, Watervliet, Troy, Cohoes, and Schenectady, and 
always has been. Those farmers who live near enough to 
the cities for that keep large dairies, have silos and are 
up-to-date dairymen. From five to seven cents per quart is 
usually obtained for milk delivered in this way. The cows 
they keep are usually some of the large milking breeds with 
just enough Jersey blood to keep the quality of the milk 
up to the standard. They buy their cows when they are 
fresh, grain them to the limit, and when they are milked 
out they are fat and ready for the block, and they buy 
fresh milkers again ; except now and then, when they hap¬ 
pen to get hold of a particularly good animal, they do not 
breed them. This creates a good demand for that kind of 
cow, which cannot all be supplied locally. From $40 to 
$50 can usually be obtained for a cow that will please such 
a milkman. From $30 to $40 will buy a good grade Jersey, 
one that can easily be made to produce 300 pounds of butter 
in a year. The supply is quite equal to the demand, and 
that is another of the strange things that are constantly 
happening. Isn’t it strange that a man will sell a cow for 
$35 when he could keep her and make $75 and have the 
cow left? What she would eat during that time would not, 
exceed $40 if it were all purchased. However, the farmers 
of Albany County can be depended upon to discover those 
things for themselves after a while; in fact, many of them 
are already convinced, and are giving their attention to pro¬ 
ducing those things for which there is a good demand in 
the nearby cities; fruit, vegetables, butter, milk, cream, 
eggs, fowls, etc. h. a. g. 
‘Dairy Talks by the EMPIRE Dairy Maid— 
Whatever Else You Do 
Don’t Buy a 
Hard-to-Turn 
Separator. 
T HERE’S a big difference in the way 
cream separators turn—a big def¬ 
erence in the amount of effort on 
your /art that they require. 
You want the easy-turner, especially 
when it will do as good or better work 
than the hard-turner. 
You use a cream separator twice a 
day, week-day and Sunday, the year 
round. If it turns hard, it gets to be a 
mighty disagreeable task before you have 
done with it. 
The thing for you to do then, is to 
get an 
Improved 
Frictionless 
Empire 
There’s no doubt about the kind of work it will do for you. It gets } tactically all the cream— 
no separator can do more than that—and it turns with just one-half the effort required for 
turning other separators. This is why: 
In the first place, the EMPIRE bowl is smaller than other bowls having the same capacity. 
Then instead of being filled with heavy discs and complicated parts, 'it has only a few simple, 
light cones inside it. 
Being smaller and lighter it does not require nearly the power to turn it. That’s plain. 
And that is not all. The spindle of the EMPIRE bowl revolves with practically no friction. 
The lower end of the spindle rests in a three-ball bearing upon which it spins like a top on its 
point. Around the upper neck of the spindle s another bearing which prevents all friction and 
all vibrations so noticeable in other bowls. If you will examine these bearings, you will under¬ 
stand why the EMPIRE bowl runs so easily. No other separator ever made is so free from fric¬ 
tion. We hold strong basic patents on this method of construction. 
This easy-running Is only one feature in which the EMPIRE excels. If you are thinking of buying 
a new separator- orif you have one of the back-breaking, hard-to-turn, hard-to-wash kinds of separator, 
just send a postal card, telling how many cows you keep and what you do with the milk, and learn more 
facts about separators. You will be interested in our free Dairy Books. Just address 
EMPIRE CREAM SEPARATOR COMPANY, BLOOMFIELD, N. J. 
A Dollar Game Free 
For postage. Send eight two-cent stamps and tell 
how many cows you keep and what you do with your 
milk and we will send you the “Game of EMPIRE Suc¬ 
cess’—the most amusing, attractive and fascinating 
game ever invented. Old and young can play. Bush¬ 
els of fun for all the family. Handsomely litho¬ 
graphed in colors-, mounted on heavy binders’board 
12x16 inches. 
Get the Empire Books. 
Ask for the one you want.— 
1. Full catalog und price list. 
2. “The EMPIRE Dairy Maid.” 
3. The Switching of Hiram, (story.) 
4. “Figger it out for Yourself.” 
5. A Gold Mine for Butter Makers. 
6. Dairy Uesults=DoHars. 
7. Money and the Way to Make It. 
names 
There is no gas engine as simple as an Olds—compare it with others and 
this statement is proved. The repairs cost practically nothing . Every 
adjustment is very simple to make. Exact duplicates of any part can be fur¬ 
nished at once, perfectly machined and ready to put on. This is important in 
case of accident. 
The Most Economical Engine 
For threshing, sawing wood, churning, feed grinding, pumping, running cream 
separator, etc. 
Our reference—The User—The Man with an Olds. 
The reason why is interestingly told in our catalogue mailed on request. Tell us your 
requirements and we will help you figure out what you need. Send for our catalog 
showingType A (2-8 h. p.), Type G (8-50 h. p.). Type K and N (12-1200 h. p. used with 
our Gas Producer, it will reduce the fuel cost 75 per cent). 
Celebrated Picture Free. 
For 4c. in stamps to pay cost of mailing we will also send you Rosa Bonheur’s “Horse 
Fair” the most celebrated animal picture in the world, size 16x20, beautifully colored, 
suitable for framing. 
OLDS GrAS DOWED CO. 
(Formerly Olds Gasoline Engine Works) 
908 CHESTNUT ST„ LANSING, MICH. 
I 
Name 
Make Your Own Light 
The Fairbanks-Mobse Electric Light Outfit gives 
plenty of good light at a moderate cost. 
Gas, Gasoline or Kerosene Engines for all purposes, 
from 2 h. p. up. 
Cutout complete advertisement and send to 
Fairbanks, Morse 6* Co., 
Monroe St., CHlca.go, Ill. 
Please send me Illustrated Catalogue No. C 598 
Gasoline Engines. 
I may want..h. p. to run_ 
_Street No- 
Town 
State. 
