August 18 , 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
636 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
EhleiTd at New York as Second Class Matter. 
HerbhrT Wi CoIjLING wood, Editor* 
i)n. Walter Van FLEET, I Associates 
Mas. K. T. Hoyle, f Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. 0d., or 8% marks, or 10 % francs. 
“A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is 
backed by a responsible person. But to make doubly sure 
v/e 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, AUGUST 18, 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. 
* 
Would you pay the price? You would better read 
the letter printed in Hope Farm Notes. One man said 
on reading Mr. Hartman’s articles that “it was as easy 
as rolling off a log.” Just about as easy as it would be 
if your very life depended on your staying on the log. 
Mr. Hartman feels at times as if the log were rolling 
on to him! You may rest assured that when a man 
works a success out with his hands he must pay the 
price for it. The coinage demanded is sweat and self- 
denial and fatigue. It is hard to think of those to 
whom nature has denied the strength of body and mind 
which would enable them to pay the price. 
* 
It cannot be said that The R. N.-Y. has neglected 
the ginseng growers. We have done our best to obtain 
information for them. They seem to be a hopeful class 
of people. When it becomes clear that nobody in par¬ 
ticular except the Chinese find value in ginseng the 
growers hear of new discoveries and new virtues in this 
root. Whenever they have these visions we feel it our 
duty to investigate for them, as we have done recently. 
Are they satisfied now. or do they think the men who 
testify in this issue are in the so-called conspiracy to 
corner the market in ginseng root? We felt sure from 
the 'first that ginseng culture would mean nothing but 
sad loss and disappointment to 99 out of every 100 that 
started it. We feel surer of it now than ever. To add 
to other troubles we are told that a disease is now at¬ 
tacking the ginseng, and bids fair to ruin whole tracts 
of it. 
* 
According to that recent ruling of the Postoffice 
Department, the farmer is at liberty to use any style of 
homemade rural mail box so long as it is one he can’t 
make at home. Can we prove any such statement ? 
Here is a letter from Washington: 
Replying to the Inquiry contained in your letter of July 
27 you are informed that Order No. 739 of the Postmaster 
Oeneral, pertaining to rural letter boxes, has been amended, 
effective August 1, 1906, to the extent that patrons may 
now make, or have made, boxes for their own use on rural 
routes, provided such boxes conform to the requirements 
as set forth in serial letter N-621, copy of which is herewith 
enclosed for your information. Very respectfully, 
c. A. CONRARP. 
Acting Fourth Assistant Postmaster General. 
This “serial letter N-621” states that these boxes must 
be made of galvanized sheet iron or sheet steel of not 
less than 20 gauge. Not one farmer in 500 has the tools 
or the skill to make a box of steel or iron. No wood is 
permitted, so that this wonderful “ruling” leaves the 
patron w'orse off than he was before. 
* 
The article on “Barn Pasture for Cows” shows what 
an acre of good level ground can be made to produce in 
one year. One acre handled in this way yielded eight 
tons of green rye, five tons green oats and vetch and 
eight tons of green cow peas, and was then seeded to 
another crop of rye. Compare this with the amount of 
forage possible on a single acre of pasture or of clover. 
That is one side of it. On the other is the labor and 
cost of fitting and seeding the ground three times in a 
year, and cutting the green forage every day. We must 
pay the price for this soiling system. Not long ago we 
were told how the farmers in St. Lawrence Co., N. Y., 
depend on pasture grass through the Summer and make 
but little milk through the Winter. That is one extreme 
—this soiling represents the other. One result of the 
extension of Alfalfa culture will be an increase of this 
“barn pasture” on high-priced land near the cities. It 
can be used for fattening cattle or sheep as well as for 
dairy cows, and we have little doubt that during the 
next 10 years it will be used largely by gardeners and 
fruit growers who need large supplies of manure. In 
this way they can, by giving a few acres to forage crops, 
produce a large amount of manure, and make a fair 
profit on stock of some sort. 
* 
merely Summer residents, while others live there the 
year around. Of course these new citizens and tax¬ 
payers are interested in the State, and they form the 
heart of the new social and political movement. In 
New Jersey there is a large class of people known as 
“commuters” who “work in New York and sleep in New 
Jersey.” Their business is in the city, and they take 
little interest in local affairs in the Jersey towns where 
their families stay. Many of them are renters, paying 
no taxes on real estate. It is easy to see how such a 
state of affairs complicates the situation and makes it 
easier for the politicians and corporations to control the 
State. We mention these things as matters of history. 
States and communities formerly controlled by farmers 
are slowly passing into the control of other interests. 
WHOSE BUSINESS IS IT? 
“What business is it of yours who we send to Con¬ 
gress? You do not live hi the district? 
That is about the strongest argument in favor of the 
election of James W. Wadsworth that has come to us 
yet. True, we do not live in Mr. Wadsworth’s district, 
though we would like to. We have hundreds of readers 
there, and, in any event, matters have so shaped them¬ 
selves that Mr. Wadsworth’s defeat is regarded as a 
necessity by thousands of farmers throughout the coun¬ 
try. As chairman of the Agricultural Committee of the 
House of Representatives Mr. Wadsworth has become a 
national figure, and he has proved a sad disappointment 
to the real friends of agriculture. He has persistently 
taken the ground that the Department of Agriculture 
should not attempt to develop the business of farming. 
Evidently through his influence needed appropriations 
have been held up. It is claimed that one reason why 
the condition in the packing houses grew so bad was 
because the Government did not have money enough for 
proper inspection. Mr. Wadsworth seems to have done 
his best to cripple this inspection by holding back the 
needed money. President Roosevelt knew what Wads¬ 
worth had done, and he had little confidence that the 
committee would help him, because he judged it by its 
chairman—Mr. Wadsworth. Before this campaign is 
over we shall tell the inside history of this inspection 
bill. The outcome was made possible only by the work 
of Congressman Adams of Wisconsin, a brave and 
patient man who untied the snarl which Wadsworth 
had created. The fact is that any praise given to Mr. 
Adams is condemnation of Wadsworth, for meaner and 
more unpatriotic actions for one who represents a 
farmers’ district than Wadsworth’s handling of the in¬ 
spection bill have rarely been seen in Congress. As 
chairman of that committee, Mr. Wadsworth becomes 
more than the representative of the Thirty-fourth Dis¬ 
trict. He is the highest legislative agent of agriculture 
in the Nation, and every farmer is interested in what 
he does. If he is worthy any farmer is interested in 
having him go back to do still worthier work. If he is 
unworthy any farmer is justified in doing what he can 
to keep such a man at home, where he will be powerless 
to damage a great industry. In our judgment, Mr. 
Wadsworth is not the man for this place. The cause of 
agriculture will be stronger with some one else in it. 
That is why we consider it some of our business 
whether Mr. Wadsworth be sent to Congress or sent 
back home. We shall do our best to help keep him at 
home, and hundreds of leading farmers all over the 
country take exactly the same view. It is not our busi¬ 
ness to tell those farmers who can vote for or against 
Mr. Wadsworth how to defeat him. That is their busi¬ 
ness, and they can be trusted to do it. Of course we all 
understand that he will try to crawl back by making the 
plea that the party will suffer if he is defeated. Non¬ 
sense—the man is not in sympathy with President 
Roosevelt anyway! Here is a note from one who 
knows the district well: 
As to Wadsworth, let me reassure you. The people are 
right at heart. Once they understand the issue, they will 
do right and vote right. Niagara county once dropped a 
nominee of the dominant party for sheriff who had heen 
implicated in the Bohemian oat swindle, like a hot potato. 
Will not the same thing he done to the sponsor for oleo¬ 
margarine and defender of the packers’ nastiness? 
We believe it will, and by doing so the voters will 
act for thousands of farmers outside the district who 
regret that they cannot get at Mr. Wadsworth with their 
ballots! 
* 
Readers of The R. N.-Y. have doubtless read about 
the efforts made in New Hampshire and New Jersey 
to bring new issues into State and local politics. It is 
said of both States that they are “owned by the rail¬ 
roads,” and to a large extent the saying is true. The 
railroads, having been granted special privileges and 
valuable franchises, have gradually gained more and 
more power, until their influence is felt all over the 
State. More and more people are realizing each year 
what a menace this power is becoming, and how it cor¬ 
rupts public men and affairs. New Hampshire, perhaps 
more than any other New England State, has been 
changed by the coming of town and city people. Many 
of these have bought farms and built houses. Some are 
Some of the newspapers in Georgia are bitteny com¬ 
plaining about the car service during the peach season. 
It is the same story we have so often heard from the 
South of delayed shipment, no cars and spoiled fruit. 
Last year there were fierce complaints from North and 
South Carolina over the shortage of iced cars for 
strawberries. Thousands of crates of fine fruit were 
ruined and the Armour Company was blamed for it. 
Now, in his new book “The Packers, the Private Car 
Lines, and the People,” J. Ogden Armour, on page 48, 
makes this statement: 
Because of the extreme congestion of traffic on a certain 
railroad our refrigerator cars were not at the shipping point 
of the North Carolina strawberry districts at the critical 
moment. Therefore the berries could not be shipped before 
they became damaged. Did the growers suffer from this? 
Not at all. They received the market price for their crop, 
even a higher price than if their berries had actually reached 
the market, for the market was short the number of car¬ 
loads for which we settled. We had contracted with the 
railroad tapping that territory to deliver so many cars to 
receive the ripened crop. Through no fault of our own the 
cars were not on hand, but we “made good.” 
We would like to know if any of our readers received 
the price for their ruined fruit! 
* 
Here is a note from the Northwest: 
I read The R. N.-Y. with great interest, and especially 
wljat you have to say about the “Spencer Seedless apple.” 
Poor Spencer, he is reaping the reward of one who tries to 
deceive. Such a course never pays. 
Of course not. We did our best to get Mr. Spencer 
• _r ‘- to tell where the Seedless apple same from. By his 
silence he seems to have convinced people that the 
authorities at Washington are right in saying that the 
Seedless is the same as the apple growing wild in several 
Southern States. If Mr. Spencer improved a wild seed¬ 
ling by good culture, why should he be ashamed to admit 
it? Many of the best apples now in cultivation came to 
us in that way! It is not yet too late to tell us where 
the Seedless came from! If asked what difference it 
makes anyway—we answer that if the apple which the 
Spencer Company is offering is the old seedling so com¬ 
mon in the South it is not worth the price. As. Mr. 
T. Greiner writes: 
Bloomless, seedless, worthless—this tits any of that kind 
of apple trees which I recently located in various parts of 
the country, in Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, etc., and for 
which nobody that can get a good apple lias any particular 
use. There are too many in the country to concede to them 
much value even as a curiosity. 
Now the highest fruit authority in this country, the 
pomologist at Washington, says he can find no difference 
between Mr Spencer’s Seedless and an old seedling long 
known in Virginia—the latter not being worth planting. 
Now we see what the silence of Mr. Spencer means. 
4 
BREVITIES. 
Take no thought for the morrow—and less of yesterday. 
A first rate wind brake—keeping Jour mouth shut! 
When you find a hired man who is a slave you usually 
find the one responsible for his slavery in the same clothes. 
Read how the Massachusetts woman started with Alfalfa, 
page 641. You need the same treatment on a large scale. 
When the worm really gets the spirit which prompts him 
to “turn,” we would advise the early bird to take another 
nap. 
Mr. Breyfogle, page 632, says that giving up the aspara¬ 
gus crop seems just like losing an old friend. We know 
just how he feels. 
Last year 415,740 boxes of apples were exported to for¬ 
eign countries from New York. This is 25,000 boxes more 
than in any previous year. 
This is the season when the experienced city buyer turns 
coldly from baskets of indestructible peaches that veil their 
emerald complexions under a covering of illusive red net¬ 
ting. 
British Columbia is receiving a large number of Hindoo 
and Sikh laborers, who will be employed in saw mills and 
logging camps. They are said to lie superior to Chinese anil 
Japanese, whom they are supplanting. 
The total apple crop in the Northwest may be short, but 
some growers are long. For example, Mr. F. Walden, of 
Washington, says: “I have a magnificent crop of apples, 
and will ship about 40 carloads of 500 boxes to the car.” 
It is reported that the Michigan peppermint crop will be 
short, as the open Winter and wet Spring injured the roots. 
Grasshopper injury is also reported. Possibly a reckless in¬ 
dulgence in other “garden sass” is causing the intelligent 
hoppers to turn to the soothing peppermint. 
