748 
October 6, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. ' 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Entered at New York as Second Class Matter. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Editor. 
Du. Walter Van Fleet, I 4 
Mrs. K. T. Kovle, ^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>/ a marks, or Ulj/ a 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 he responsible for 
the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned bv 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, OCTOBER 6, laoG. 
TEN WEEKS FOR 10 CENTS. 
In order to introduce The R. N.-Y. to progressive 
clligent farmers who do not now take it, we send it 
weeks for JO cents for strictly introductory purposes, 
c depend on our old friends to make this known to 
ighbors and friends. 
* 
PRIZES FOR PHOTOGRAPHS. 
$5, $4, $3. 
We offer these cash prizes for the best Thanksgiving 
photographs. '] hey must be original, picture scenes of 
country life, and represent the spirit of Thanksgiving. 
1 he size does not matter. The pictures must be in our 
hands by November 1. We will pay for all pictures 
used, and photos not used will be returned if desired, 
postage fully prepaid. 
* 
Prices of apple boxes have been advanced 40 per cent 
in California. This will make a great difference to 
growers. There seems to be an advance in prices for 
fruit packages everywhere, and it will have considerable 
effect upon the trade. For one thing, it will encourage 
bulk shipment of apples, carried loosely in the car. This 
demoralizes the market by filling it with an inferior 
grade of fruit. The increased cost of crates and pack¬ 
ages will in some seasons wipe out any profit on fruit 
shipped long distances. All of which proves what we 
have always claimed—that the cheap hill lands near to 
markets are to be the profitable fruit sections of the 
future. 
* 
In a recent bulletin from the Nebraska Experiment 
Station we find the following: 
A field near Harvard, Nebraska, which has been in grain 
the past 2(1 years, has produced during the last three years 
a total of 31 bushels of wheat to the acre, an average of 
10 1-3 bushels per year. An adjoining field owned by the 
same man and cultivated in the same manner, but one 
which has been manured and has been in clover part of 
the time, produced 90 bushels in the same three years, or 
an average of 30 bushels per acre. 
Suppose the average man was assured that there was 
a gold mine on his farm that would yield him $1,000! 
How he would dig and toil in order to find it. Yet the 
chances are that the same man would hardly be induced 
to do one-quarter of the work in order to make clover 
and Alfalfa do the digging for him. 
* 
One of the latest swindles brought to our notice is 
the work of bogus tailors’ agents, who have been operat¬ 
ing in Indiana. The fakers visited rural districts, armed 
with samples and order blanks, representing themselves 
as agents for a Chicago tailor who would make suits to 
order for $10. The goods were selected, the order 
taken, the $10 collected, and a date fixed for the custo¬ 
mer to visit an adjacent town, where an agent would 
take the measurements, after which the clothes would 
be sent by express. Of course no agent could be located 
when the confiding customer went to be measured, while 
the spellbinder with the $10 had folded his tents like 
the Arabs, and as silently stole away. In some cases 
the swindler made a special proposition which sepa¬ 
rated his victims from $50, asserting that if they would 
order three suits and two dress patterns, the whole 
amounting to $50, a $10 suit would be given free as a 
premium. While we sympathize sincerely with those 
whose own honesty prevented any suspicion of this 
cheat, we must remind them once more that if local 
merchants do not supply their needs, there are reliable 
mail-order houses whose methods are honorable and 
whose goods are of the best, and though we have not 
yet attained the parcels post we should all work for, 
it is possible to order goods by mail, and thus avoid the 
self-appointed agent whose only assets are a monu¬ 
mentally mendacious tongue and a total deficit of ele¬ 
mental honesty. 
* 
Ten years ago the scientific men were worrying about 
the future bread supply of the world. They saw a grad¬ 
ual falling off of the wheat crop through a lack of 
nitrogen. Since then the situation has changed. All 
who go to the great wheat lands in western Canada 
come back sure that the bread supply for the next cen¬ 
tury at least is secure. The wealth of plant food in this 
vast tract of new country is almost beyond compute. 
And while it feeds bread to the world it will do much 
to change history also. The hardiest and strongest 
picked men of thousands of communities are going to 
western Canada. In making a new State and learning 
to govern with justice they will come close to moving 
the world. 
* 
The Hope Farm man has had much to say about the 
influence of child life in the home. There is no ques¬ 
tion about the cheer and brightness these hopeful young 
lives can bring to a lonely farmhouse. There are many 
who cheerfully toil for their little ones, because they 
know how hopeless life would be without them. As the 
Winter season comes on we always feel like speaking 
straight to childless people who have comfortable homes 
and fair prospects. Why not share your home with 
some little outcast—in other words, why not take a 
young child and bring it up? It would seem at times like 
a sacrifice to you, yet the chances are that you would 
live to find it a blessing. And think what he does for 
his country who takes some poor waif to a farm home 
and starts it on the way to good citizenship! 
* 
Now we have a report on the Spencer Seedless apple 
and tree, from an eye-witness (page 743). Mr. Fletcher 
went to the home of the apple. It is said that the char¬ 
acter and reputation of many great men will change 
from gold to brass if you go and look into their homes. 
It cannot be said that this glance at the Seedless at 
home is edifying or promising. Repudiated by those 
who know most about it, the promoters seem to be try¬ 
ing to unload upon strangers! At any rate, it makes a 
good shade tree—on irrigated ground. We might im¬ 
agine Mr. John F. Spencer singing the popular song, “In 
the Shade of the Old Apple Tree,” as lie continues his 
delicate and mysterious process of taking the seeds from 
standard varieties. I hat is certainly an operation which 
is done best in shade—“loving darkness rather than 
light.” 
* 
The following statement is made by a farmer in Con¬ 
necticut : 
What can the town offer more than I have now? Why 
should I want to sell out and get some business in town? 
I have all the city conveniences, and none of its draw¬ 
backs. A half mile brings me to railway station, a quarter 
mile to the irolley. Mail is delivered tlaily. Telephone 
is in the house, by which I can send or receive telegrams. 
The house—well, it is heated by hot water; two bath 
rooms with hot and cold water; set tubs with the same 
conveniences. The house is lighted by gas, could have 
electric light if desired. What more could I desire? Fric¬ 
tion and worry of town life is eliminated, and many of 
its conventional expenses. Could I live better, more eco¬ 
nomically, in town? Not much! No, sir! Give me the 
good farm. 
1 he facts are as he states them. A few years ago 
this farm was considered out of the way. In many 
localities in Eastern States the same things are found. 
J he comforts of civilization have come to the farm. 
* 
The article on the next page shows what the oleo 
men think of James W. Wadsworth. They recognize 
him as their friend, they thank him for help in the 
past, and support him because they expect his help in 
the future. Nothing could be clearer than that, unless 
it be the duty of a farmer who realizes what untaxed 
colored oleo would mean to his business. This issue 
alone ought to defeat Mr. Wadsworth in an agricultural 
district, because another fight is coming in the next 
Congress. The oleo men will endeavor to have the 
tax removed from colored oleo. At the last session of 
Congress Mr. Grosvenor of Ohio introduced such a 
bill. This championing of oleo was one of the chief 
reasons why Mr. Grosvenor was not renominated. The 
farmers of his district recognized him as a dangerous 
man where their interests were at stake. The bill was 
not reported, but will be introduced once more, and 
strong efforts will be made to pass it. By their efforts 
in his behalf the oleo men show that they expect Mr. 
Wadsworth to support such a bill. That is why they 
want him in Congress—at the head of the committee 
on agriculture. Now, suppose, after all'this has been 
made clear to them, the voters of the Thirty-fourth 
District see fit to send Mr. Wadsworth back to Con¬ 
gress! He would naturally point to such an election as 
an endorsement of his record. We should hardly blame 
him for saying to the Speaker and to Congress: “I did 
what I reasonably could to prevent the passage of the 
anti-oleo bill until I was forced into it. I am not in 
favor of the oleo tax. The oleo men openly selected me 
as their friend and champion. These facts were made 
clear to my constituents and as a result they voted to 
send me back here. It is therefore clear that the farm¬ 
ers of my district are friendly to oleo and are willing 
to have the tax removed!” 
Now, if you men of the Thirty-fourth District vote 
to send Mr. Wadsworth back to Congress, knowing, as 
you must, what the oleo men expect of him, would he 
not be justified in taking that position? As there is no 
other district in the country where this oleo question is 
the one, clear-cut issue would not President Roosevelt 
and Congress be justified in concluding that farmers 
were willing to throw away the rights they won through 
long years of fighting? We ask you that as man to man 
■—not as Republicans or Democrats, but as farmers who 
have, as it is, all too few of the common rights which 
belong to you. Perhaps you never thought of it in just 
this way before. It is time you did think and exercise 
the right which this year, for the first time, is yours! 
* 
It is now 146 days since we first asked John F. Spen¬ 
cer where he got the Seedless apple. We figure that 
in this time Mr, Spencer has enjoyed 327,760 waking 
minutes, if he takes a fair amount of sleep. A single 
one of these minutes would have given him time to an¬ 
swer the question, but be has let them all go by. We 
told him plainly what people would think of his silence, 
and now lie must know that wc are right. For example, 
here is our old friend F. Walden—known all over the 
West: 
Prof. Van Deman’s article on the origin of the Spencer 
Seedless apple must be a bitter pill for poor Spencer. 
There is no chance for the Seedless apple men to do any¬ 
thing where the people are informed. But many who do 
not read the papers, or read those that will advertise 
anything for the money that is in it, will doubtless buy 
more or less of these worthless trees. You are to be com¬ 
mended for what you are doing in warning the people. 
What an uncomfortable thing it must be for any man or set 
of men to be engaged in any business that they know must 
be ruined by having the light turned on it. If they are 
not devoid of feeling they must feel somewhat like the 
criminal who dreads detection and arrest. 
We have pretty well given up trying to analyze mo¬ 
tives and feelings of dollar chasers. Some of them are 
so tough that nothing short of dynamite will blow 
them open. By the way, the bitterest pill is usually 
most effective. 
BREVITIES. 
How can you get trade if you constantly show that you 
don’t deserve it? 
Equal parts of sand and cement are used to make a 
liquid coating somewhat like whitewash. 
Alcohol from green cornstalks and corncobs seems a 
step nearer towards a farmer’s production of his own 
power. 
It is said that a so-called cement shingle is now made, 
consisting of metal covered with cement, thus forming a 
durable tile. 
That was a very good answer Mr. Bryan made to the 
man who said he hoped to see Mrs. Bryan the first lady 
of the land! “She is already the first lady of the land!” 
A Jersey reader says the first letter that went into his 
rural delivery box was a request for 50 sample copies of 
The R. N.-Y.—50 of those little envelopes. That a good 
start! 
Experiments at the Indiana Experiment Station with 
fertilizers on wheat show that the greatest gain was made in 
naturally poor seasons. Then there was greatest need of the 
fertilizer. 
The skin of a horse or a man acts to regulate 'the bodily 
temperature through radiation and perspiration. The skin 
of a hog Is built not to regulate bodily heat, but to pre¬ 
vent its escape. 
Let’s all unite to settle international differences by arbi¬ 
tration instead of using the back-number argument of war. 
One of the factors causing increase in prfee of nitrate of 
soda is the fact that it is taking the place of nitrate of 
potash in making high explosives! 
According to the Boston Advertiser, the Attorney-Gen¬ 
eral of Connecticut has been wrestling with the question 
whether peaches are crops. He decided that they are, and 
now some of the farmers will begin efforts to collect 
damages from the State for peaches eaten by deer, which 
are becoming a greater nuisance than ever. 
The Atchison Globe says that the fashion in sleeves 
does not change oftener than the fashion in rural mail 
route boxes. The Government has just sent out an order 
describing what the latest style is to be. These Govern¬ 
ment orders changing the styles of mail boxes are becom¬ 
ing ridiculous. Some one in Washington seems to be issu¬ 
ing a Rural Mail Box Fashion Book. 
A four-story farm is reported in Missouri. An apple 
orchard is bearing a good crop above a luxuriant growth 
of clover; under the clover is a rich vein of coal, while 
beneath that is a bed of shale from which fine brick is 
made. The owner will have as much trouble as Andrew 
Carnegie to avoid dying rich. We saw another four-storied 
farm or garden in New Jersey. Strawberries were grow¬ 
ing among rows of currants. Above the currants were 
trained grapevines, with pear trees headed high above the 
grapes. 
