TIIE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 27 , 
Boo 
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. Collinqwooii, Editor. 
Dr. Walter Vax Fleet. 
Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, 
Associates. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, 
equal to 8s. Od., or 8'/ a marks, or 10 */ a francs. 
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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
409 Pearl Street, New York. 
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 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. 
\Ye depend on our old friends to make this known to 
neighbors and friends. 
* 
It is reported that corn-fed fish is being fattened for 
the Chicago market, up in Wisconsin. Carp are netted 
in the river, and then placed in pens in small streams, 
where they are grain-fed. There is nothing very new 
in this, however, for our European ancestors used to 
fatten carp on bran balls, the fattening fish being put 
in a bag of wet moss to keep him from running bis 
fat off, and no doubt the flavor of the fish is improved 
by keeping him out of the mud. We may yet bear of 
some enterprising western man who drives a herd of 
carp into a pasture lot, and fattens them on grass. 
President Roosevelt will, it is said, issue an order 
withdrawing from public entry all public lands containing 
coal. This means that no one can take up such land, 
and by paying a small price control it as has been done 
in the past. The object of this move is to keep the re¬ 
maining coal deposits in the bands of the people*. If 
this is not done the railroads will have them, and thus 
increase the monopoly of fuel which they now enjoy. 
In fact suits are now in the courts to compel railroads 
to give up their pretended right to some of this land. 
All this is just as it should be. The Government should 
hold every square mile of coal land left to it in the 
interests of the people. This good work is largely the 
outcome of tlie efforts of Secretary Hitchcock of the 
Interior Department. Tn his quiet, effective way, Mr. 
Hitchcock has been of great service to the country, and 
the President deserves credit for supporting him in the 
face of opposition from land thieves and other rascals. 
* 
That machine for extending the power of a gasoline 
engine pictured on page 758, seems to have hit the fancy 
of many readers. This is what one writes about it: 
You have not begun to mention llie many uses to which 
such a machine with a small gasoline engine can lie put. 
In connection with a proper elevated track and carrier (lie 
stables could lie cleaned and manure carried out. grain 
carried from the wagon to any desired bin and dumped, the 
root and potato cellar tilled and emptied, coal for the 
furnace put where desired and (lie ashes carried out—it 
could even lie used to operate a small homemade pile driver 
mounted on a lumber wagon to drive fence posts. 
No doubt an ingenious man could rig up devices for 
doing such work, and we feel sure that something of 
this will be the outcome. No use limiting the power of 
the gasoline engine to a few jobs like sawing wood and 
pumping water •when it can do other work. We would 
like to hear from farmers who have been able to har¬ 
ness their gasoline engines so that they do unusual 
work. What do the}- do, and how do they make them 
do it ? 
* 
The California Fruit Grower describes the shortage 
of fruit box material as serious. Most of the lumber 
in California seems to have been rushed to San Fran¬ 
cisco, where it is used in rebuilding the city. This has 
made a shortage in box material, and fruit growers 
cannot get packages at any fair price. As a result 
many packing and curing houses have shut -down, 
throwing many hands out of employment. Dried fruit 
like prunes might be shipped in bags, but the rate on 
bag shipment is $t.2o per 100 pounds, while on boxes 
the charge is one dollar. The outlook for fresh fruit 
shipment is bad enough, but that on canned goods is 
worse because the cans must be shipped in boxes, and 
must be sent early in order to compete with eastern 
goods. 1 his hold-up is a serious thing. The shippers 
made the mistake of waiting until the last minute before 
stocking up. It is not likely that the price for boxes 
will go back to the old figure for some years. This in¬ 
ability to ship canned goods will affect the prices in 
the Fast to a considerable extent, as it removes one 
form of competition. Here again we see the great ad¬ 
vantage an eastern fruit grower can obtain if he will 
pack his best fruit perfectly. These California growers 
must serve a market thousands of miles away. The cost 
of transportation and now the box shortage all make it 
harder to reach their market, while the eastern grower 
is close to his customers and is saved much expense 
in this way. 
* 
A majority of the voters in the Thirty-fourth Dis¬ 
trict have promised themselves to vote against James 
W. Wadsworth. We feel very safe in making that 
statement, yet there is danger that some strong party 
men will weaken at the last moment. That is what Mr. 
Wadsworth and his friends are banking on, for they 
recognize the weakness of man’s political nature. The 
arguments against Mr. Wadsworth seem satisfactory to 
farmers, and it is well understood that no harm will 
be done to the party by Mr. Porter’s election—still 
there is the voting habit, which is hard, as we know, to 
overcome. We would like to talk straight at you farm¬ 
ers who are troubled about this thing. Do not, we 
beg of you, play into Wadsworth’s hands in this way. 
It is much better for you to be masters of your party 
rather than to lie servants of it. You have now your 
first and only chance to master the situation! Ben 
Franklin is reported to have said, when the Declaration 
of Independence was signed: “If we do not hang to¬ 
gether we shall all hang separately.” Think that say¬ 
ing over. No one will hang you, no matter how you 
vote, yet you must know that the election in your dis¬ 
trict will have a great influence upon agricultural legis¬ 
lation. Political rewards come to those who show 
mastery—not to those who show that they prefer to 
serve. You can name a dozen things which injure your 
business as a result of unfair legislation. You think 
other classes of workers receive greater attention from 
Congress. Did you ever think why these people get 
what they want? It is because they work together, strike' 
hard when the chance offers, and stand loyally for their 
business. You good people in the Thirty-fourth Dis¬ 
trict have the one chance of a lifetime to show Congress 
that farmers will lie just as loyal to their business as 
union workmen, manufacturers or railroad men. Yes, 
just as loyal as the “oleo” men who are backing Mr. 
Wadsworth. If you fall down when the test comes can 
you not see how you lose an opportunity for yourselves 
and farmers everywhere? In some districts a campaign 
like yours fails because it is unorganized and not clearly 
defined. You cannot say this, for you have a combina¬ 
tion of successful elements which rarely come together 
twice in 50 years. Lose this chance and it is doubtful 
if your children will ever see another like it, for Fate 
has only contempt for men who idly throw her chances 
away. Do not let the faint hearts lose this fight. Let 
us have a special word with those men who think the 
sun will stop shining if they split a ticket! When it is 
over you will feel even better than the man who fell 
into the pit on his way home. It was pitch dark, but 
as he went down he caught hold of the root of a tree. 
There’ he hung in the darkness, as he supposed, with 
a fall of 50 feet, to sure death, below him. He cried, 
for help, but no one came. His life passed before him 
in review. “The terror that flieth by night” encom¬ 
passed him. He hung until his hands, failed, and then, 
with the first prayer in years upon his lips, he gave 
way and fell —just six inches! All his terror was 
groundless. There never was any danger. 1 fe gained 
new courage and self-reliance. These men who find it 
so hard to vote for agriculture and thus make their 
party follow them are like that man. The act will do 
them no damage. It will glorify the cause they hold 
dear! 
* 
The daily papers reported fearful damage to the fruit 
crop in western New York as the result of the early 
snowstorm. We have learned to discount these reports, 
and waited for information from our own correspond¬ 
ents. It seems that the damage was not by any means 
as serious as reported. Some trees were broken and 
many apples blown down, hut as the weather was not 
cold the damage was not extreme. The following re¬ 
port from J. S. Woodward, of Niagara County, is like 
many others: 
We hart but little snow here, and it did but very little 
damage, breaking now and then a limb from a: tree. But 
down by the lake where m.v farm is located there was no 
snow of any account, not enough to whiten the ground, but 
rain enough to make up. I noticed what local papers said 
about the havoc made to apple trees, but do not think it was 
half as bad as represented. The fact is,-tip south where the 
snow was heaviest there is but little fruit and trees would 
have to bear only Ihe snow. The dealers are now convinced 
that there not near as many apples as have been claimed 
ail Summer, and they are now running to the country to 
buy, paying 82 per barrel, and glad to got thorn at that 
price.. I have never seen a year when there was such a 
condition. Now and then an orchard has a good crop, and 
all around it orchards with very few and many with no 
apples. 
We hear of other sales at $2 a barrel. It seems that 
we (lid not make so much of a mistake in trusting to 
reports from our own correspondents after all. 
* 
It would not only he unjust, but also maliciously un¬ 
true, to credit the Hon. J. W. Wadsworth with respon¬ 
sibility for the increase in appendicitis, which makes 
the operation for this disease such an everyday affair. 
Mr. Wadsworth's favorable attitude towards the meat 
packers related to meat inspection, which must be con¬ 
sidered as quite distinctive from the food inspection 
law. It is under the latter law that some of the Chi¬ 
cago packers must explain the subject of borates in 
ham, and this brings us back to the subject of appen¬ 
dicitis. Says the New York Evening Post: 
The troublesome problem of the use of boric acid as a 
food preservative, for instance. ■ has just been brought to 
tlie attention of the medical world once more by the appear¬ 
ance in a recent number of (lie Lancet (London) of an 
article in which such an authority as* I>r. Reginald Harrison, 
past vice-president and Hunterian professor of pathology 
and surgery a< the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 
repeats his declaration that tlie increase of appendicitis 
and related diseases is directly traceable to the employment 
of boric acid and other chemicals for the preparation and 
preservation of food. He points out that the death rate 
from enteritis, appendicitis, and perityphlitis increased in 
Great Britain during the twenty-year period of 1885-1904 
from 122 to 205 per million. According to Dr. Harrison’s 
theory, the process by which the boric acid produces appendi¬ 
citis is mechanical and indirect, the first step being the 
development of flatulent dyspepsia—now recognized as being 
an almost inevitable- effect of the presence of such preserva¬ 
tives in the food—and the second stop being the entrance 
of gas into tHo appendix. Dr. Harrison says: “The initial 
lesion which probably renders appendicitis possible is the 
opening or blowing out. of the appendical canal to such a 
degree as to render it accessible to the contents of the 
intestines. . . . When this condition has thus been 
fairly well established, the ease and life of the appendix, 
not to say anything of the individual, are liable to become 
precarious." 
According to this, tlie users of such food preserva¬ 
tives not only rob us of our money, but deliver an un¬ 
derhand blow at our health at the same time. Madame 
de Brinvilliers, who smiled at her victims while present¬ 
ing her deadly aqua Tofana. has a modern counterpart 
in the manufacturer of “doctored” food products. Just 
as (he mediaeval poisoner’s victims died of some ap¬ 
parently well-known disease, the modern victim suffers 
from dyspepsia, gastritis or appendicitis, when his case 
might he more accurately diagnosed as embalmed 
victuals. _ 
BREVITIES. 
There arc 99.777 miles of road in Pennsylvania. 
Not too late to sow rye on the bare ground. Ho it! 
Several readers come forward to tell how they poisoned 
foxes. 
Now don’t you wish you had 10 tons of good Alfalfa hay 
in your barn? 
Lampas is a disease of ihe horse's mouth—behind tlie 
front teeth. One way to help it is to feed ear corn to the 
horse. 
“Back to the land and 1 Ho simple life” is what one 
reader says lie hopes will ho the destination of Mr. Wads- 
wo.rtli! 
The drug known as pink root (Spigelia Marilainlica) is 
useful as a vermifuge. The Department of Agriculture has 
issued a little pamphlet about it. 
The average “chick feed” seems to be a mixture of corn, 
wheat, barley, buckwheat, oats, millet and Kaffir corn—the 
larger grains crushed—and charcoal and shells. 
The proper sort of a “gold brick” is the friend of solid 
worth who stays by you. However, a good share of human¬ 
ity run to the other kind—with confidence and money. 
It may have been a small insect which caused that apple 
pictured on first page to change its shape. With some 
men only a very small blow is needed to knock their am¬ 
bitions out of shape. 
There must he certain amounts of potash, nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid in a soil before it can yield a fair crop. 
Less of this plant food will lie required when there is a 
large proportion of lime in die soil. 
A “garden sass” trust lias been indicted in Ohio, the 
Ashtabula Lettuce Growers Association being charged with 
unlawful combination to control the price of crops grown 
under glass, especially lettuce, tomatoes and encumbers. 
Perhaps tHe cucumber eaters have been irritated by contact 
with the peppermint trust. 
An Ohio farmer asserts that Nature has produced on his 
farm a combination of pumpkin and tomato, with the 
result that while preserving (heir usual outward appearance, 
the pumpkins taste like tomatoes, and tlie tomatoes like 
pumpkins. How are thpse misguided fruits going to square 
themselves with the Pure Pood Commission? 
In a soil known to contain considerable iron It would 
he a mistake to use acid phosphate. The soluble phosphoric 
acid in it will lie quickly changed to ferric phosphate, 
which is quite insoluble. Such fertilizers as hone meal 
or basic slag would be safer on such iron soils because 
these forms of fertilizer will not unite with the iron so 
quickly. s 
