1907. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
7o5 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.-—Seven men were killed and twenty injured 
September 4 when lightning struck the I’hoenix Construc¬ 
tion Company’s plant at Buekliorn, Chatham County, N. (!.- 
The men were killed in the cement house, which was some 
distance from the main plant. They had assembled there 
presumably to seek shelter from the storm. . . . Louis 
Class, vice-president of the Pacific States Telephone and 
Telegraph Company, of San Francisco, convicted of having 
bribed Supervisor I.onegan to vote against granting a fran¬ 
chise to the Home Telephone Company, was sentenced 
September 4 by Superior Judge I.awlor to five years’ im¬ 
prisonment in the State prison at San Quentin. 
’the commission to investigate the Torrens system of regis¬ 
tering land titles, appointed by Governor Hughes of New 
York under an act of the last Legislature, was announced 
at the Executive Chamber September 4 as follows : Allan 
Robinson, Alfred G. Reeves. Henry Pegram, and Ralph 
Folks, all of New York City: Gustave W. Thompson, of 
Brooklyn: T. Winthrop Weston, of Liberty. The commis¬ 
sion is directed to investigate the expediency of the adop¬ 
tion by the State of the Torrens system of registering land 
ititk's, and if it shall approve the adoption of the system, 
<to> ‘draft bills for submission to the Legislature. It is re- 
‘^u’tftl'ed to report by January 1, 1908. . . , The Inter- 
trdi'tiional Harvester Company of Wisconsin September 5 
pleaded guilty in the anti trust suits instituted against it 
by the State of Texas, and paid the fine of $35,000 as¬ 
sessed by the court. The company also subscribed to the 
iperpetual injunction forbidding it from operating in any 
way in Texas. , . . Fire in a hotel at Shelton, Wash., 
September 5, caused the death of 15 persons. . . . Fres- 
ijfleixt Roosevelt sent a telegram September 5 to Surgeou- 
•Geuenal Walter Wyman of the Public Health and Marine 
lliospiittsll .Service, directing him to take charge of the epi- 
tdejvdic of 'bubonic plague now prevalent in San Francisco 
:an<jl to send a sufficient number of marine hospital sur¬ 
geons to San Francisco to prevent the spread of the dis¬ 
ease. This action was taken at the request of the Mayor 
of San Francisco. The first cases of bubonic plague ap¬ 
peared in San Francisco about the middle of August, when 
several patients who lived within two blocks of that part 
of the city which before the earthquake and fire was 
known as Chinatown, were reported. A general disinfec¬ 
tion of the suspected districts was made and the State 
Board of Health ordered the fumigation' of all vessels 
lying in the harbor. Dr. Wyman has issued orders to all 
quarantine officers on the Pacific Coast to inspect all ves¬ 
sels from San Francisco and to fumigate them for the 
destruction of rats, which are known to be a medium for 
the transmission of the disease. Arrangements were also 
made for the destruction by fumigation of all rats on ves¬ 
sels lying in the harbor of San Francisco. August 29 last 
the total number of cases of bubonic plague in San Fran¬ 
cisco had reached nine, and there had been six deaths. 
. . . The barns of the new agricultural college at St. 
Anne de Bellevue, near Montreal, Canada, were struck by 
lightning September 5 and destroyed. The college is being 
erected by Sir William MacDonald at a cost of $3,000,000. 
The loss on the barns is $50,000. . . . Twelve persons 
were killed and a dozen were injured September 6 when 
a northbound Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific passenger 
train left the rails at Norris. Iowa, and crashed into a 
southbound freight train standing on a siding. All of the 
dead and injured were in the smoking car, which was 
immediately behind the baggage and mail cars. The 
smoking car was demolished. 'The northbound express was 
ten minutes late at Norris, where the freight train was 
waiting. The express came along at terrific speed in an 
effort to make up time. . . . The factory of the Wem- 
ple Gravely Tobacco Company, manufacturer of chewing 
and smoking tobacco, at Danville, Va., was destroyed by 
fire September 7. Loss about $75,000. The plant of Swift 
& Co., and the factory owned by Mrs. F. K. Burton, ad¬ 
joining, were damaged about $5,000. . .. . Fire in the 
Arlington apartment hotel, on Montague street, Brooklyn, 
N Y., September 9, caused a loss of $75,000 on the 10- 
story building, while the tenants lost $100,000. . . . 
September 7-9 race riots oeeurred at Vancouver, B. C., 
and Bellingham, Wash., directed against Chinese, Japanese 
and Hindus. At Vancouver the mob damaged the foreign¬ 
ers’ property to the amount of $50,000. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The national irrigation congress 
began its sessions in Irrigation Palace. Sacramento, Cal.. 
September 2. Governor Chamberlain of Oregon, president 
of the congress, gave the address of welcome. Vice-Presi- 
dent Fairbanks delivered an address, speaking on the ex¬ 
tension of irrigation, the preservation of forests and the 
improvement of rivers and harbors. Gifford Pinehot, gov¬ 
ernment forester and representative at the congress of 
President Roosevelt, read a telegram which the President 
sent to the delegates. 
The American Veterinary Medical Association began its 
44th annual meeting at Kansas City, Mo„ September 10, 
with 400 delegates from 35 States present. William Her¬ 
bert Lowe, of Paterson, N. J., the president, made the 
annual address. The convention remained in session four 
days. John It. Mohler, chief of division of the laboratory 
bureau of animal industry, discussed the subject, “Per¬ 
taining to Meat Inspection,” 
FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT LIFE 
INSURANCE , 
I notice what you say in The R, N. Y, about life insur¬ 
ance. I have had several small experiences, Many years 
ago I was persuaded into taking a $1,000 endowment policy 
with the usual promises, etc. The payment was to be $30 
per year. In the course of a few years there came dividends 
of from $6 to $8 per year. I could use these in reduction 
of payments or to buy additions to the policy. Sometimes 
I did" one way and sometimes the other. In 15 years, I 
think the term was, I got some $1,200 in cash and had 
protected my family all that time for $1,000 from the mo¬ 
ment I made my first $30 payment. That was a compar¬ 
atively small home company, and I was well pleased with 
the transaction. It was a profitable combination of insur¬ 
ance and savings—I would not have accumulated that $1,200 
unless in that way. Soon after taking the above policy the 
agent of one of the big New York companies, which has 
been under fire of late, teased me into taking a $2,000 policy, 
with lots of talk about semi-tontine, deferred dividends and 
other stuff which I didn't understand. This policy was to 
cost, me $56 per year, and I made my last payment last 
March, and next March comes the time for settling. In 
order that I might vote intelligently (?) in the recent elec¬ 
tion I asked the old officers for an account of their stew¬ 
ardship—for a statement of what would be the condition 
of my account with them on the maturity of my policy. I 
was told that the precise condition of that kind of policy, 
at a future date, could not be stated, but that they had 
just settled a similar policy which had recently terminated 
on the following basis, and mine would not vary much from 
that: Deferred dividends, which I could draw, and continue 
the policy aS before, $405: surrender value of policy, $650; 
in other words, if I wished to surrender and cancel the 
policy there would be due me deferred dividends $405, plus 
surrender value, $650, making $1,055, in addition to the 
protection which fny family had received during these 20 
years. Or I could have a paid-up policy of about $1,800. 
The last option does not seem to me to compare with the 
others. Somehow I don’t feel quite satisfied with the prob¬ 
able outcome of this policy—probably all my own fault in 
not getting a clearer understanding of what I was doing 
when I started : but I got it into my head from the repre¬ 
sentations of the agent that I would get much more than 
the above figures at the end of 20 years. One more experi¬ 
ence. I took an old-fashioned straight life policy at $18 per 
thousand, with the usual promise about dividends. Soon the 
payments began to diminish on account of the dividends, until 
now I pay only about $10 per thousand, unless I choose to use 
the dividends in purchasing additional insurance. I am 
perfectly satisfied with this investment. The amount has 
not been large, the protection has been just as good as that 
furnished by the policies that were costing $28 and $36 
per thousand. g. m. w. 
A Believer in Life Insurance. 
I was much interested in what the Hope Farm man said 
about life insurance on pages 511 and 591, because I carry 
life insurance, and have for 20 years. I insured with the 
first agent who ever asked me to do so, because of his 
“palaver” about the “little wife,” etc. I have never re¬ 
gretted it. I have taken several policies since that, and 
would do so again if I could pay for them. By all means 
advise your correspondents to keep up their payments if the 
policies are in regular “old line” companies. On page 511 
the Hope Farm man says he carries a 20-year endowment on 
which he has paid 13 years, and can only loan one-half 
what he has paid in. He could have taken his 20-year en¬ 
dowment in some other company and now he able to loan 
an amount equal to all he has paid In. The trouble seems 
to be that in the conduct of Ills farm he uses his brains, 
hut when it comes to taking life insurance he doesn't think 
it worth while to do that. He says “he gives the most 
unhappy five minutes he can to those who ask him to take 
out a larger policy.” I am surprised that he, who says so 
many wise and pointed things during the year, should so 
far forget himself as to say so unwise a thing. He says 
“if he had bought a plain life insurance and put the dif¬ 
ference in the bank he would be much better off.” That 
may be true, but his “if” is in his way. He wouldn’t have 
done so, and he doesn't know of anybody who hag done so. 
It’s a fine theory that’s never been put in practice. He 
says his policy does not guarantee any real earnings. I 
think it must. His statement that “our accumulations 
may he loaned and manipulated so as to do us no end of 
damage,” only applied to funds in the hands of a few New 
York companies, the investigations showing them to be the 
only sinners. The exposed rottenness put Hughes in the 
Governor’s chair, and he got up against it good and hard 
when he tried to remove Superintendent of Insurance Kel¬ 
sey. Keep the names of the men who opposed him at the 
masthead, and tell the people why they’re there. The farmer 
isn’t the only man who should do his utmost to bury that 
clique. 
Regarding Hope Farm man’s inquiry on page 591, here’s 
his information : Twenty years ago two friends insured on 
the 20-year endowment plan for $2,000, each paying about 
$97.50 per year. One of them recently settled for $2,688 
and the other will settle in a few days for $2,659.88. He 
is my grocer, and showed me his figures this week. I carry 
now two policies: have settled some. The last one I took 
is eight years old, $2,000 plain life. I pay $72.94 per 
year. Dividends are declared every time I pay, but I do 
not take them. I have just received notice of the pay¬ 
ment which comes due the last of this month, and I can 
reduce my payment $21.20, to $51.74. I shall pay it in 
full, and the company will add $36 (about half my pay¬ 
ment) to my policy. I am very well satisfied. Of course, 
this policy is a poor one compared with that of the Hope 
Farm man’s, because he gets his money if he lives seven 
years longer, while I pever will get mine, as it is only due 
at death. Of course, I knew I'd have to pay a great army 
of employees and a great parade of new business, and I hope 
I shall live to do this a good many years after the Hope 
Farm man gets his money. \Ve must all live, and we farm¬ 
ers must not only feed ourselves, but all the rest of the 
tribe as well. This includes editors. Let’s show our fellow 
man that there is still within us the “milk of human kind¬ 
ness” left, and not give the life insurance agent a hot re¬ 
ception, because he wants us to buy a new or a larger policy. 
Many a man’s family \yould be in the poorhouse to-day 
had it not been for the “palaver” of the life Insurance 
agent. He has l|is mission in life, and it is a commendable 
one. The Hope Farm man speaks of the new Massachusetts 
law. which allows savings banks to issue life insurance 
policies for $50Q. God pity the man who is not worth 
insuring for more than $500. No decent community has 
any room qr use for him. But suppose this law provided 
for larger policies, who would buy them? Is the man who 
is lying in wait for the opportunity to give an agent of a 
life insurance company a “hot or cold” reception going off 
voluntarily by himself to get a “new or larger policy?” 
Not much. lie will die uninsured. If every savings bank 
in Christendom sold life insurance policies in any amount 
desired from five cents to $5,000, not a solitary one would 
ever be issued. Man is selfish. He hustles around and gets 
his buildings, stock and all else that is burnable, insured at 
the earliest possible moment. Tl)at’s primarily for bep.r 
efit; but insuring himself for the benefit of his wife and 
children, that’s another matter. lie has to be coaxed, 
threatened, driven, even swindled (if that were possible) 
into it, before he will act. Hope Farm man says: “There 
ought to be some form of building and loan association 
iosprance.” I opce invested in a loan and building asso¬ 
ciation, the lafgfist id the New England States, and about two 
years after its demise I received 10 per cent of m.v deposits 
from the receiver. A few days since one of my neighbors told 
me he had been assessed all his last year's interest at 6 
per cent to make good the rascality of the manager. That 
meant $60 on $1,000 deposits. One other I know here in 
town had to put tip nearly $150. My first and only experi¬ 
ence was sufficient for me. Since then I’ve bought life' 
insurance. f. e. h. 
Westbrook, Maine;__ 
AGRICULTURAL TROUBLES IN FRANCE. 
A Frenchman States the Case. 
You ask me to give you some information respecting thd 
causes of the trouble among the vine growers of the south 
of France. I must tell you that I live in the northwestern! 
part of France, differing" entirely from the south as to popu¬ 
lation and agriculture. However, I may say that, from mV 
point of view, the trouble has two main causes, one economic 
cal, the other political. As you are aware, some few years 
ago, the French vineyards were gradualy destroyed by the 
phylloxera. Wine was then produced in small quantities and 
prices ruled high. The advent of American vines changed 
the face of things. Vineyards were replanted where they 
had been destroyed, and a large acreage of new land was 
set to vines. These American plants thrived well, and 
being very hardy and prolific are now yielding large crops 
of rather inferior wine. On the other side, Algeria being 
specially adapted for the production of grapes, this colony 
is now covered with vineyards, and the Algerian wines 
being of good flavor and rather rich in alcohol are bought in 
large quantities by our merchants, who mix them with the 
lighter French wines. Land being cheap in Algeria, the wines 
produced there can be had at very low prices, often not more 
than one cent a quart, and the French growers paying more 
rent and more taxes have there a hard proposition to meet. 
Now for the political side of the question. A few years 
ago the grape crops being rather poor, a good many farmers 
bought sugar and used it in connection with marc (grape 
pomace) raisins or dried grapes for the fabrication of adul¬ 
terated wine. Of course this is forbidden by law, but the law 
has never been enforced, and the small revolution we have 
had was made in order to oblige the government to enforce 
the law. Some growers whose crop could not possibly amount 
to more than 100 barrels, have been known to ship from their 
cellars 200 and more barrels of more or less adulterated wine. 
Large wine merchants have done the same thing on a more 
extensive scale, buying, for instance, 5,000 barrels of pure 
wine and sending out double that quantity of adulterated 
stuff. Some of them have been prosecuted, fined heavily and 
even condemned to prison, but they had friends among the 
high officials of the government, and as a rule they got out 
without paying the fine or entering the prison gate. The 
quantity of wine drunk in France is about the same as ever, 
but the adulteration has increased the production in such a 
proportion that thousands of barrels of good wine are left ifi 
the hands of the small growers who cannot find buyers for 
It. This state of things has exasperated them, and as they 
are in that part of the country rather quick-tempered, they 
have had meetings in which they threatened the government 
that they were going to refuse to pay their taxes ; the mayors 
and councils have resigned; all public affairs have been 
stopped; public buildings have been set on fire, soldiers have 
shot some of the rioters and at the present time the question 
is not yet settled. The remedy to that situation is hard to 
find. The ingredient used for adulterating the wine is sugar, 
and if the law be enforced, the sugar-beet growers of the 
north of France will also have reason to complain when they 
will find that ope of their best markets is taken away from 
them. 
Some authorities have advised the growers to graft their 
vines to good eating grapes, as there is a good market for 
them both in France and ip Germany, but our railroad com¬ 
panies are hardly organized for the transportation of fresh 
fruit in large,quantities, and it is likely that every seasou part 
of the crop would spoil in the stations or on the railways, 
as is too often the ease with our apples that are bought by 
the Germans in Brittany and Normandy, I doubt that the 
problem in your country will ever be the same as here. Your 
vine growers are not liable to increase their output, knowing 
well that they cannot compete with France, Spain or Italy, 
for the production of wines at a low price. Your people are 
not wine drinkers like the French, but they eat much more 
fruit than we do, and as long as you will produce good table 
grapes, you will always have markets for them, your facili¬ 
ties for transportation being considerably ahead of what 
exists in this country, where refrigerator and ventilated cars 
are totally unknown. The situation is also interesting the 
Germans. __ Raphael barbe. 
Friday night, August 23, it rained here moderately—very 
moderately—during the whole night, and remained cloudy 
until about noon Saturday. This rain dampened down in 
oat stubble just about plow deep in loose slate land. Sat¬ 
urday evening, the 24tli, we had quite a hard, though nice 
thunder shower. Twice as much water fell as fell the pre¬ 
vious night, but much of this ran cff. In hard soils it was 
not damp down plow deep after the second rain. Breezy 
weather followed, but the ground did not get so hard nor 
the corn did not roll after*1:11111. Yesterday morniijg we had 
a little rain, about 5 p. m., a half hour's rain and it rained 
a good part of last night. About 4 this p. m. we had a 
spurt and from 5 till half past a niye thunder shower. 
This will help late potatoes and late corn and late buck¬ 
wheat and if we can have more spon, pastures will grow 
Sussex Cq., N. J. q. g. 
It seems gs though our August weather has arrived; 9Q 
degrees or oyer nearly every day. Two or three very hot 
days right after July 4 and following local showers and the 
unusually cool Spring weather, seemed to scald the oats, and 
turned many of the tender blades a greyish color |n a few 
hours. Now at thrashing time we find the grain a poor vteld 
• and very light weight; will hardly average 20 bushels per acre 
by weight. Corn promises well at present. We have a cow 
that is dark red on back and white half way up side and a 
day or two ago, being very sultry, 1 noticed the sweat from 
hep back had run down over the white parts, coloring them 
quite a noticeable pink. Did you suppose there was so much 
soluble color in red hair? There has been no drought here 
this season so far. Grass is as green and fresh as in Spring 
all the time. I am afraid potatoes will rot or start a second 
growth if this weather continues long. w s s 
Stockton, Ill. 
v 
MONEY LOST IN JOLTS 
Can you estimate how much your wagon—and loads of stock, fruit and produce—are injured 
by lack of springs? 
It may not seem much when only given a passing thought—but those who have tried 
bolster springs know that it is considerable. 
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