1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
461 
Events of the Week. 
DOMESTIC.—The trial of Ferdinand E. Borges, business 
manager of the Ubero Plantation Company and Consolidated 
Ubero Plantation Company, corporations organized about 
six years ago to raise coffee, rubber, pineapples, etc., in 
Mexico, began in Boston May 15. He is accused of con¬ 
spiring to steal $550,000 from the first-named company and 
$700,000 from the second-named. The indictment, besides 
charging Mr Borges with larceny, charges William D. 
Owen, former Secretary of State of Indiana, and president of 
the collateral corporation, with similar offenses. Mr. Owen 
left some time ago and his whereabouts is unknown. District 
Attorney Chase said that the Ubero Plantation Company was 
located in Boston because there were a great many savings 
banks there, and, to use a phrase of the defendant, “Boston 
was a good place to catch suckers.” The company got lo¬ 
cated there and began to sell stock. It was a scheme to 
catch the savings of independent women, he said. It devel¬ 
oped that the land in Mexico was wild and tropical, and the 
pictures of buildings supnosed to be on the plantation were 
not there at all. . . . The Grand Jury at Sioux Falls, 
S. D„ has handed down another batch of indictments as a 
result of the land frauds recently unearthed in that State. 
Those indicted were: John Q. Anderson, four separate indict¬ 
ments for subornation of perjury; Carl Pilan. eight separate 
indictments for perjury; John I. Newell and Thomas II. 
Ayer, officers of the Gas Belt Land and Abstract Company 
of Pierre, S. D., and John McGuire Howard, A. Binford and 
Carl Pilan, one indictment of twenty-three counts for con¬ 
spiracy to defraud the Government; Hans Jacobson, John C. 
Dodge and Frank S. Schwallen, one indictment each for per¬ 
jury; A. IT. Cobb, one indictment for forgery: Royal B. 
Stearns, one indictment for forgery. Carl Pilan was ar¬ 
raigned and pleaded guilty to conspiracy in connection witli 
the Gas Belt Land and Abstract Company, and was sentenced 
to one year's Imprisonment and to pay a fine of $1,000. . . 
The merchants of Chicago, through the Chicago Commercial 
Association, have decided that that city is to have a Corn 
Exposition. It will be Held from September 20 to October 
13, at Tattersall’s. The association has voted to spend 
at least $50,000 on the exposition, although it is believed 
that a much larger amount will be necessary, owing to the 
probability of other attractions being added. . . . Fire, 
started from a spark by a sawmill at Stanley, Wis.. May 18, 
burned 100 residences and a dozen business buildings, en¬ 
tailing a loss of $200,000. Six blocks were burned out. 
The flames were blown by a high wind from the west, and 
so rapid was the progress of the tire that little was saved 
from the bouses. The public library was on fire several 
times, but the walls of the building and most of the books 
were saved. Engines and firemen from Thorpe, Eauclalre 
and Chippewa Falls kept the flames out of the main busi¬ 
ness quarter. . . . Four known dead, a score or more 
persons missing, hundreds of families homeless, several mil¬ 
lions of dollars of property burned, four towns wiped out 
entirely and a dozen more partially, five counties devastated 
and 100 square miles of territory laid waste is the record 
of the forest fire that swept northern Michigan penin¬ 
sula May 18-19. The country swept by the flames varies 
from pine timber lands to barrens. Part is iron mining 
country, and the district includes immense tracts of hard 
wood which lias never been touched by the axe. . . . The 
big garbage reduction plant on Barren Island, New York 
Bay, which has given that famous place some of its most 
distinctive smells, was destroyed by tire May 20. The plant 
belonged to the New York Sanitary Utilization Company, 
and the total loss was placed by the police at $1,000,000. 
The plant has taken all of the garbage collected from 
Ureater New York for several years. The destruction of the 
plant will mean that until another one can be built the 
garbage will have to be taken out and dumped at sea. It 
was the objection of the Summer resorts to this method of 
disposing of the garbage that greatly increased the fame 
and the smell of Barren Island. . . . Fire started in 
two storehouses on docks at Tompkinsville. Staten Island, 
May 21. destroving baled cotton to the value of $350,000. 
. . . The Supreme Court May 21 affirmed the judgment 
of the United States Court for the eastern district of Mis¬ 
souri convicting United States Senator Joseph Ralph Bur¬ 
ton of Kansas and sentencing him to six months’ impris¬ 
onment and barring him from the right to hold any office 
under the Government. The court was divided in its opin¬ 
ion. Chief Justice Fuller, Justices Harlan, Brown, Holmes 
and Day uniting in the majority and Justice McKenna con¬ 
curring' in part, while Justices Brewer, White and Peck- 
ham dissented. Justice Brewer, who delivered the dissent¬ 
ing opinion, took the ground that the statute did not apply 
in the present case, for the reason that the Government was 
not pecuniarily interested in the case in which Burton acted 
as counsel before the Post Office Department. The word 
“interested” applied only to pecuniary profit and loss ac¬ 
cording to all law books, and if Congress had intended It 
to apply otherwise it would have made its meaning clear. 
. . . Indictments for violation of the anti-trust law 
were voted against 13 officials of the ice companies in 
Cleveland, O., Mav 18. They are charged with having 
formed a combination for control of sales and with de¬ 
manding exorbitant prices. When the news was announced 
leaders of the combination blatantly boasted that the public, 
not thev. would be the sufferers. Although well supplied 
with Michigan ice, the combination set up a cry of famine 
this Spring, and prices were raised from 30 to 66 per cent, 
the independents charging exactly the same as the allied 
companies, or 44 cents per 100 pounds. Popular protests 
and demands for an investigation led to the indictments. 
THE TRUSTS.—Frank H. Wigton of Philadelphia, man¬ 
ager of the Morrisdale Coal Company and a large operator 
in the bituminous fields, testified before the Interstate Com¬ 
merce Commission at Philadelphia May 17 that as late as 
1902 or 1903 he had received thousands of dollars In re¬ 
bates from the Pennsylvania Railroad. He named W. H. 
Joyce, former superintendent of transportation of the Penn¬ 
sylvania Railroad, as the man who had handed him over the 
checks for these sums. Vice-rresident Thayer had previ¬ 
ously testified that no rebates had been given by the Penn¬ 
sylvania since 1899. From Wigton it was also brought out 
that at the present time the Pennsylvania Railroad, by its 
manner of distributing orders and cars for coal for its own 
consumption, directly discriminates against _ certain mines. 
By giving coal to the railroad at a low price the fayored 
mines get in many cases many times the number of cars 
they would lie entitled to under any equitable distribution. 
In other wo'fds, they pay the railroads with coal to secure 
cars to carry on their business. Wigton’s testimony came 
after another chapter of official grafting had been revealed 
by R. L. O’Donnell, general superintendent of the Buffalo 
and Allegheny division, and after Charles E. Pugh, second 
vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, had confessed 
that for the sake of companies in which officials of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad had been interested he had refused 
to allow competing companies sidetracks from their mines, 
thus keeping them out of the market. 
ADMINISTRATION.—The Railroad Rate bill was passed 
by the Senate May 18 by a vote of 71 to 3. the Senators 
who voted against it being Foraker. Morgan and Pettus. All 
three have been aggressively hostile to the bill from the 
first. Foraker has borne his share in trying to improve 
it according to his ideas, but Morgan and Pettus have con¬ 
sistently voted against all amendments, and have maintained 
an attitude of unflinching hostility to the whole thing and 
everything connected with it. It was just 81 days since Mr. 
Tillman reported the bill out of the Interstate Commerce 
Committee to the Senate on Feb. 26. In those 81 days 
there has been such a debate as has no precedent in recent 
years. The early part of the day was spent in voting down 
amendments and in the passage of one amendment which is 
of the highest Importance. ’Hie compromise agreement be¬ 
tween the Roosevelt and Aldrich Republicans was violated, 
and the control of the courts over the Inter-State Commerce 
Commission, begun by the Allison amendment, was com¬ 
pleted. This was done by striking out of the bill the words 
“in its judgment,” which by the terms of the compromise 
were to stay in. The striking out of those words, coupled 
with the jurisdiction already given by the Allison amend¬ 
ment, reduces the Inter-State Commerce Commission to a 
mere registering machine. It is now the courts, and the 
courts alone, which are to decide the reasonableness of 
rates. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The American Royal Live Stock 
Show will be held at the Stock Yards, Kansas City, Mo., 
October 6-13. There will be a big show of breeding swine, 
a contest for milking Short-horns, and a students’ live 
stock judging contest. The premiums in all departments 
aggregate $28,000. For premium list address Jno. M. Hazel- 
ton, 166 Live Stock Exchange Bldg., Kansas City. Mo. 
The semiannual meeting of the Missouri State Horti¬ 
cultural Society will be held at Moberly, Mo., June 12-14, 
THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTIC HELP. 
Much has been said about the difficulty in obtaining help 
for outdoor farm work. The indoor problem seems to be 
harder yet, as the following notes from women who write 
from various parts of the country will show. 
7he Situation in Idaho. 
Female help is employed quite extensively in the farm 
homes during the busy season, especially during harvest. 
Domestic help is very difficult to obtain in the rural districts 
for the following reasons: In the West girls marrv early 
and seek homes of their own. There are a considerable 
number of young women taking up land as homesteads. 
Many girls and women prefer employment in fruit packing 
houses and hop fields to cooking in farmhouse kitchens, 
and still others seek employment on cook wagons in the har¬ 
vest season ; $16 and $20 per month are the usual wages. 
Both native and foreign born are employed, principally 
Swredes, Norwegians and Germans. It seems to me that the 
main objections made to farm employment by women lie in 
the fact that the work is uncongenial in the following ways: 
Isolation from town; in country homes it is difficult to regu¬ 
late hours for rest and labor; homes are unmethodical; 
more money can be made with fewer hours of work in 
packing houses and hop fields, or at the sewing machine. 
Twenty-five years ago the rural districts were exceedingly 
sparse of settlement in this part of the West; a whole civ¬ 
ilization has sprung up within that period, conditions have 
certainlv—advanced—perhaps would be the more correct 
word. Domestic help of either sex is far from competent. 
Nez Perce Co., Idaho. may g. evans. 
Old Times in Connecticut. 
There is no indoor help hired in my vicinity. When 
needed, they get some farmer’s daughter to help for a few 
days at a time, give her a dollar a day and board. Some 
would hire if they could get good help, but it would have 
to be foreign, and they do not like to go out so far in the 
country. I live four miles from the center, but on the main 
turnpike, and girls think that is a long way from the 
village. When I came here 37 years ago, in a circuit of two 
miles in all directions from my place were 37 families, and 
In those 37 families were 83 children from one to 20 years 
old, not married; 52 boys. 31 girls, from one to five in a 
family; three families had no children. Now, in those 37 
homes, the older folks are gone, one or both are dead, (ex¬ 
cepting in four homes), the rest have been sold, a goodly 
share of them to foreigners, and these children are scattered 
far and near, mostly in villages and cities; only 12 or. 15 
are getting their living wholly by farming. Many of them 
have gained high positions of honor or trust while others 
barely get a living. The farm was too slow, and hard work 
for them. The dollar, or dollar and half a day, looked like 
big money till they found out what it costs to live and dress 
on it. Many of us would cling to the farm, and let them 
out on shares, if the houses were in any way convenient 
for taking another family wdthout too much outlay, but a 
very few can be so fixed, so they have to go. Many of the 
foreigners make good neighbors, and some of them are very 
smart, but are not just like our own folks. Where we used 
to keep few cows and make butter, they nearly all sell 
milk, keeping a lot of cows for that purpose and say that 
there is more money in it, as they find a ready market for it. 
Litchfield Co.. Conn. h. s. 
The Competition of the Town. 
Domestic help is not generally employed in this vicinity 
because of its scarcity. We are located within a few miles 
of a large college town where there is a constant demand for 
bright girls as waitresses and for other light work, and 
where a good cook can obtain from $4 to $4.50 per week 
without doing laundry or other heavy work. The wages 
in farm households average $2.50 to $3 weekly, and this 
difference, along with the isolation, heavier labor, and less 
convenientlv arranged houses in the country, causes the 
women and girls to gravitate steadily to the town. Few 
foreigners are employed, and farmers’ wives do without 
help, or emplov those who are unable for some reason to 
get awav. Such help is seldom entirely competent. The 
change in the last score of years has been for the worse, 
for manv more ways are now open to women to earn a live¬ 
lihood than formerly, and in a choice between acting as 
saleslady at $6 per week, and wrestling with milk utensils 
at $3 and board in a country kitchen the attractions for a 
lively young girl are decidedly towards the former position. 
Tompkins Co., N. Y. m. e. c. 
No Help in West Virginia. 
Very few of us keep help; we cannot get It, no matter 
what the circumstances are. We have a good many for¬ 
eigners about here, but get no domestic help from them. 
They are mostly miners, with their wives and little children- 
They generally go back to their native land when out of 
work long; they are considered an element of discord in this 
vicinity; drink so much bad whiskey and beer, have so little 
control over their bad passions, steal our fruit; we have no 
use for them. In the matter of wages for girls we pay from 
$2 to $3 per week. We live about three miles from New 
Cumberland ; there is a large pottery where they employ a 
good deal of female help. The young girls who have to earn 
their living prefer going there rather than to a farm. Then 
we have East Liverpool, about 10 miles from us, a large 
pottery city, so many of our girls go there. 
Hancock Co., W. Va. a farmer’s wife. 
Hired Help for Country Kitchens. 
If. here in southern Connecticut, a housekeeper were to 
remark among her friends that she was in dire need of a 
girl to do her housework, a wave of pity would be likely to 
sweep across the hearts of her hearers. When dire necessity 
lays its grip upon a New England farmer’s wife she hires 
help, in any conditions short of that she does her own 
work. No sweeping assertion but has Its exceptions, and any 
Connecticut woman will tell you of farm homes in her vicin¬ 
ity where female help is always employed. Y'et ten against 
one there could be instanced homes where faithful service 
would be cheerfully paid for if it could be secured, yet 
“Mother” puts out her washing, hires an occasional day’s 
work done, and depends upon “Father” and the boys to 
lighten her work what they can in order that she may escape 
the necessity of having a hired girl. Is this because help 
is of an incompetent character, or because it cannot be se¬ 
cured? Both. When compelled to employ help we first 
search every family in our locality where there Is hope 
of finding a'girl or woman who would consent to come to us 
in the capacity of helper. Girls bred in country homes 
are more likely to be content on a farm ; they understand 
conditions there and have not become tainted with the crav¬ 
ing for excitement and the tonic of the crowd without 
which those city bred pine and grow restless. Here and 
there some farmer’s wife has in her home a girl not quite 
capable of self-direction from whom, by dint of patience and 
good managing, she secures the assistance about the house 
which her care and motherly oversight well earn. One 
is tempted to say that such are the only cases where a 
country housekeeper keeps the same girl year in and year 
out. She herself will tell you. perhaps, that the care and 
annoyance are quite equal to the. gain, Why none of the 
emigrant labor, coming in endless procession across the 
Atlantic each year finds its way into farm kitchens is past 
comprehension.’ Probably many of the women have hus¬ 
bands, others have waiting lovers, and nearly all have 
friends. All. we may be sure, come with minds full of the 
great rewards their labor is to win for them. Big pay and 
all the emoluments of which their friends boast are the 
prizes on which their eyes are set. In the kitchens of city 
cousins you will find strong-armed daughters out of almost 
any corner of northern or central Europe, but the writer 
has never chanced to know of any girls of this class being 
secured as farm helpers. Yet wages do not materially differ; 
at least one going to a city agency would probably need 
to offer more, rather than less, if it was to be added that 
the worker must go into the country. You will hear of 
village homes where the wages are but three dollars a week, 
but the girl is not a competent cook—-or very competent at 
anything. Your city cousin will tell you she pays four, 
and she will sigh as she relates how scarce are the general 
housework girls, how many employ a separate laundress, 
while no giri looks after the furnace, or renders any 
assistance in the care of young children. She will tell you, 
moreover, that if she take a “green” girl and train her 
with endless pains and kindness, that girl will count the 
weeks till she can leave her to demand more wages as a 
competent cook or waitress. The girl who can cook barely 
well enough to content her family will, after a year’s prac¬ 
tice at her expense, scorn her four dollars a week and easily 
secure a position where two servants are employed and 
where she will get five dollars a week, recommending herself 
as a first-class cook. 
A young girl helper on a farm will, of course, have less 
responsibility than rests upon the general housework girl, 
or the city servant. Two dollars a week or two and a half 
are as much as It would be worth while to offer, for one 
must work with her and usually do the cooking oneself. 
Where one must have help, and is so fortunate as to secure 
a girl of her own locality the question of the girl’s social 
needs has usually to be indulged past the employer’s prefer¬ 
ences or tastes. No girl can live alone in any kitchen, 
her natural cravings for diversions of some sort must receive 
due regard. She must be kept happy and content. Hidden 
in this innocent looking statement may lie one heavy 
reason why our housekeepers prefer over work and letting 
some things go undone to having some one always about 
whose moods must be endured and whose likings must often 
be considered before those of the family. For “one of the 
family” the farmer’s help must in some measure be. Back 
in 1894 The R. N.-Y. printed a paper on this subject written 
by our old friend Alice E. Pinne.v, which anyone having old 
files of the paper and interested in this subject will find 
good reading to-day. It cannot be recalled that the con¬ 
ditions governing farm help were much more favorable to 
employers twenty-five years ago. In one family it is re¬ 
membered that the forced dependence upon a city “intelli¬ 
gence office” at that time brought one incumbent who seemed 
to sup day and night on ink-black tea. and who somehow 
discovered a cask of wine set away to ripen and left it 
empty on her departure, while her successor took advantage 
of the housemother’s Illness to carry off the choicest of the 
family linen. “Help” of this sort is that which ever gravi¬ 
tates from city agencies toward the farmer's household when 
he must yield to necessity rather than choice. Forty years 
ago the daughter from a neighboring Irish family was con¬ 
tent and gave good satisfaction at a dollar and a half a 
week. But this has long been a locality where the hum of 
factories was not far to seek, and the comparative inde¬ 
pendence of even 10 hours amid the whirring wheels will 
always win girls from the more isolated tasks of the 
kitchen. 
Though a dolorous view the above is not written with any 
Intent to blame either housekeepers or househelpers. The 
girls from foreign countries are surprisingly honest as a 
class, and if their only thought Is to do well for themselves 
they have already grasped the American spirit, and in so 
doing will in a large sense do well for the nation. As the 
servant problem stands, there are far more waiting kitchens 
than available kitchen girls. Therefore the girl has It all 
her own way. Why remain long suited in one place when 
twenty more doors stand open? Why go into the countrv 
when asked to stay where companionship is close at hand, 
where gas ranges, faucets and wash trays make work light, 
and where shopping and trolley rides can be indulged In 
every afternoon out? prudence primrose. 
New Haven Co., Conn. 
FROM SOUTHWESTERN MICHIGAN. 
The greatest interest in this part of the State Is fruit, 
while many are following general farming, with a small 
quantity of fruit for diversion. Many are giving their en¬ 
tire time and land to some kind of fruit culture. Some 
even are undertaking to grow fruits upon soil wholly un.- 
adapted to this crop. While great notice is taken of sprav- 
ing, the Michigan fruit grower has much to learn along tins 
line, as well as in the way of culture, thinning, sorting 
and packing. Another item of great importance is main¬ 
taining the condition of the soil. Many are giving this no 
attention whatever, and our soil is not a strong one; we 
have extra natural surroundings, and when we learn to 
give our work systematic attention from time of setting to 
finish of product in soil culture, care and marketing, there 
is no fruit section of our land where greater results can be 
secured with the fruits adapted to our location. The pros¬ 
pects are extra for a good crop this season; peaches, cher¬ 
ries and berries will not be as overproductive as last year, 
yet there will be a fine yield. Apples promise a good har¬ 
vest, quite a contrast to last year, when we had practi¬ 
cally none. Arrangements are being made to use up a large 
percentage of our fruit. We have two extensive canning 
factories now ready to start, and another large one will 
be ready for later fruits. These factories are so conducted 
that our best women are perfectly willing to work in them. 
This makes it easy to get help to carry on this industry. 
The culture of grapes has not takeD as strong a hold about 
Hartford as in other parts of Van Buren Co., yet we have 
some fine young vineyards. Undoubtedly In the future this 
branch will receive more attention, for we have some 
valuable tracts for grapes. j. b. r. 
CROP PROSPECTS. 
Fruit prospects on the plateau lands of Lincoln Co., 
Ky., are as follows: At this date. May 15, we are just com¬ 
mencing to gather the strawberries. Have a full crop of 
fine berries, a hungry market, plenty of pickers, only lack 
the acreage. All tree fruits promise a full crop. Early 
cherries are beginning to ripen, and we will have them un¬ 
til September. Plums, peaches, grapes, pears and apples 
all promise a full crop. j. a. m’k. 
As to present prospects for fruit, cherries, both sweet 
and sour, have an abundant bloom, and appear to have set 
a full crop. Plums, most varieties, show a very moderate 
blossom, and will undoubtedly set a light crop. Peaches 
have enough blossoms for a fair crop, and some kinds 
have set majiy times more fruit than they should he al¬ 
lowed to crop, and so far show no indication of curl-leaf. 
Pears are full of bloom, and Dwarf Duchess are showing 
far too many blossoms, as I have noticed that with such 
an excessive bloom they are quite sure to be so exhausted 
that a very moderate set will follow. Apples of most vari¬ 
eties have a good healthy bloom, enough for a full crop. 
Baldwins are, on the other hand, rather shy in most or¬ 
chards, though a few that did not bear last year are making 
a better showing. But such a large proportion of the trees 
are Baldwins that the crop in the aggregate cannot be large. 
It is, however, yet too early to prognosticate very safely 
as to the outlook, because the trees are not yet out of bloom. 
Last Thursday and Friday (May 17-18) were very warm for 
the season, and had the heat continued I fear it would have 
so hurried the blossoms that only very imperfect fertiliza¬ 
tion would have been the result, but fortunately it turned 
cooler Friday night, and now conditions could not be more 
favorable. Weather moderately warm, clear sky and a light 
breeze blowing, everything just right for full pollenization, 
and if we do not get a crop it can’t be laid to the present 
weather. But It is four weeks too soon to bank on the 
crop. j. s. WOODWARD. 
Niagara Co., N. Y._ 
BUSINESS BITS. 
The Rochester Vehicle Co., P. O. Drawer 1002, Rochester. 
N. Y., have a line of first class carriages which they sell 
direct, thus saving all agents’ and middlemen’s prices. Write 
them for full information about their spindle seat runLbout 
at $36.50 and other special bargains 
A first class silo and a light, strong, handy hay-rack are 
essential to the equipment of a hay or stock farm. The 
Abram Walrath Co., Box 83, Weedsport, N. Y., have worked 
up a large trade in silos and racks, owing to the excellent 
quality of the good made and moderate price charged. Full 
particulars of prices, styles and sizes will be given on re¬ 
quest. 
