1007. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
926 
GENTLEMANLY REMARKS FROM THE 
“COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.” 
Most of us have read the old fable of the mountain 
that labored and brought forth—a mouse. Our genial 
friend, The Country Gentleman, after wearing a 
muzzle for some months, has labored hard and 
brought forth the following: 
Irritated by its inability to attract the attention of the 
breeders of dairy cattle in any other way, The Rural 
New-Yorker has for months been snarling at the heels of 
the County Gentleman in a vain effort to get us into a con¬ 
troversy over certain charges against Mr. F. E. Dawley, 
and particularly to place us in the position of defending 
the correctness of the Jersey pedigrees furnished by that 
breeder. Readers know, of course, that we have never 
undertaken any such defense. We have printed all the 
facts in full, generally if not always a week before The 
Rural New-Yorker has had them, and let it rest at that. 
The Country Gentleman has little space for the rehearsal 
of even perfectly legitimate personal grievances, and still 
less for the tittle-tattle of dishonest and discharged stable¬ 
men that The Rural New-Yorker delights to collect. We 
do not consider the newspapers the proper place to try a 
breeder accused of cheating his customers, when the in¬ 
dictment relates to matters of which cognizance is taken 
by such an association as the American Jersey Cattle 
Club. And that is just where the difference between the 
two papers comes in. The Rural New-Yorker insists 
that the management of the club is utterly unworthy of 
confidence—implying, of course, that no Jersey pedigree 
can be trusted, and that you might far better buy grade 
animals at grade-animal prices than fool yourself by 
buying registered Jerseys. It tells President Darling to 
descend to its own level of vituperation : “Get down off 
your perch,” is one of its speeches addressed to him edi¬ 
torially. It maintains that it is the persistent policy of 
the management of the Club to “whitewash” every member 
who is accused of wrong doing and to smother all such 
charges by making merely an insincere feint at investiga¬ 
tion. More than that, it charges Mr. Darling and his 
immediate associates with deliberate trickery and lying, 
in falsely representing to the Club, at the last general 
meeting, that the report of the Rogers-Dawley investigating 
committee was somehow delayed by an express company, 
the fact being, according to The R. N.-Y., that it was 
purposely concealed by Mr. Darling, in order to prevent 
discussion in the open meeting. This charge, very natur¬ 
ally, is not made in manly fashion, but by sneaking in¬ 
nuendo—innuendo, however! too plain to be misunderstood 
by the most careless reader. The issue is plainly and 
sharply drawn and no compromise is possible. Either Mr. 
Darling and his associates are liars and tricksters and 
all Jersey pedigrees are worthless, or else The Rural 
New-Yorker editorials are ignorant, or malicious slanders. 
Readers who know the parties will form their own con¬ 
clusions without suggestion from us. 
Talk about “irritation!” Still, we must be char¬ 
itable with Brother Tucker for this outbreak of tem¬ 
per. He has had much to trouble him. First of all, 
Bro. Tucker personally believes that the charges 
against Dawley arc most likely true. Otherwise he 
would long since have proved them false, as he would 
like to do. He personally and his paper are under 
little obligations—mild forms of “help”—to the State 
Department of Agriculture at Albany—his home town. 
Hence he feels that he must support every feature of 
the Department—right or wrong. This has led him 
into a virtual defense of Dawley, while he hoped to 
maintain the appearance of neutrality. Farmers have 
regarded what he said during the controversy as an 
indirect defense of Dawley’s cattle transactions. Not 
being mind readers, they do not know what else it 
was printed for. Such stupidity is irritating. 
Mr. Tucker also likes to appear as the special 
mouthpiece of the A. J. C. C. In trying to defend 
their first refusal to take up the case Mr. Tucker em¬ 
barrassed the Executive Committee and compromised 
himself by insisting that “there is nothing to investi¬ 
gate.” The first investigation showed that one cow 
at least was wrong, but Tucker has never admitted it. 
Then he likened The R. N.-Y. to a cow on the track 
in danger of being smashed by a trainload of regis¬ 
tered cattle interests. Somehow we have not been 
smashed, but farmers who did not like Bro. Tucker’s 
attitude wrote him very plain and vigorous letters. 
We have seen some of them, but we had no idea they 
hit onr genial friend so hard. 
Then, in a further defense of the Department, Mr. 
Tucker laid down a remarkable proposition. He said 
Mr. Dawley is the best institute director New York 
ever had—the others being J. S. Woodward, George 
T. Powell and the late Col. F. D. Curtis. For that 
reason we were left to infer that it made no differ¬ 
ence to the institutes whether Dawley bought grade 
Jersey heifers of F. D. Squires and sold them as 
purebred cattle to Rogers and others! That prop¬ 
osition brought more letters of protest than the others, 
but with his usual philosophy Brother Tucker might 
have endured them had not “the child of his love and 
care” gone back on him. You see he had settled it 
that “there was nothing to investigate.” Of course, 
therefore, the A. J. C. C. must not reopen the case. 
Our good friend exhausted all his influence and his 
larg’e capacity for scolding and protest in an effort 
to prevent the Club from investigating Dawley, 
which ended in the most irritating humiliation. The 
A. J. C. C. actually disregarded him, and voted to 
take up the matter again and thoroughly investigate 
Mr. Dawley’s cattle transactions for the past six 
years! You see we are justified in asking our friends 
to be charitable with Bro. Tucker. Put yourself in 
his place. You are very anxious to be known as the 
guide, philosopher and friend of certain people, but 
they turn around and ignore your protests and do 
just the thing you don’t want them to do. Now 
wouldn’t you in such a case get mad enough to froth 
at the mouth? If Bro. Tucker felt that he could not 
afford to relieve his feelings upon the real cause of 
his humiliation, it is natural that he should turn upon 
a humble submissive creature like The R. N.-Y. 
Right here is another reason for your charity. We 
want this cattle case settled and settled right. We 
wanted Mr. Tucker to help settle it. We have the 
facts and we have offered them to The Country Gen¬ 
tleman. Many have been given to representatives of 
that paper. We know the sound moral principle 
which underlies this case, and we know that prin¬ 
ciple will surely triumph in the end. We have fought 
the fight alone without flinching, but it would have 
been easier and shorter if The Country Gentleman 
had fought with us, and not against us. We ap¬ 
pealed to Mr. Tucker personally to do this—insisting 
that his duty to farmers is the same as ours. If, as 
he claims, The Country Gentleman is the only agri¬ 
cultural newspaper he should take this case up as a 
matter of news, if not one of principle. We tried 
to show him that if his paper is the organ and cham¬ 
pion of live stock interests, he should investigate this 
case as we had done and either defend Mr. Dawley 
openly or help clear the A. J. C. C. records of error 
or fraud. Flis answer was “there is nothing to inves¬ 
tigate !” Unable to coax him into doing his duty, we 
undertook to drive him out into the open—and here 
he is! It took over a year to do it—a year hard and 
galling to a gentleman of Mr. Tucker’s naturally 
cheerful disposition. This fruitful result justifies the. 
means, but let us be charitable, and though we de¬ 
plore the folly of that equivocal editorial let us also 
remember the irritating circumstances which led to 
the outburst. 
While we invite a charitable consideration toward 
what Mr. Tucker, in his self-imposed humiliation, • 
pours upon the head of The R. N.-Y., we denounce 
the attempt to discredit any honest workman. On gen¬ 
eral principles this is unworthy of any so-called farm 
paper, and in this particular case the statement is 
false and malicious. In no case does the information 
upon which we rely come from a discharged employee 
of Mr. Dawley. It comes from men who in their own 
locality and among their own neighbors enjoy as 
high a reputation as the unquestioned standing of Mr. 
Tucker at Albany. Moreover, our facts are all cor¬ 
roborated. 
As for giving “all the facts in full!” When Mr. 
Rogers offered to state his case in full The Country 
Gentleman had only insult to offer him ! It took a 
part of his letter, threw out punctuation marks and 
printed what it called “a string of words” in an effort 
to make him appear ridiculous. That is the meanest, 
most contemptible trick that a newspaper can play— 
the next meanest being to follow it with the claim 
that all “the facts have been given !” 
Nine out of 10 Jersey breeders disagree with the 
Country Gentleman on this subject. We have 
seen how the A. J. C. C. repudiated Mr. 
Tucker’s “nothing to investigate” proposition. They 
are not likely to extend him a vote of thanks for this 
outbreak. We have frankly criticised the decisions 
of the Executive Committee. If need be, we can and 
will do it again. What we have said is in print where 
all may read it. Here is part of it (page 702), per¬ 
haps, according to Bro. Tucker, “ignorant or malic¬ 
ious slander”: 
We are now fully satisfied that the report was mislaid 
or delayed in this way. It was without doubt a source 
of great annoyance to President Darling that such delay 
occurred, but there is no question but that his explanation 
was correct. As a whole, there is no more honorable 
body of men in the country than the members of the 
A. J. C. C. We have frankly criticised the actions of the 
executive committee and may continue to do so if such 
criticism seem justified. We wish, however, to thank the 
Club for the great courtesy extended in permitting us to 
examine their records and make copies of pedigrees, etc. 
This proved of very great value to us in our recent in¬ 
vestigation. and the Club officials certainly gave us oppor¬ 
tunity to obtain what was needed. 
We believe that Mr. Darling and his associates are 
abundantly able to take care of themselves. From the 
records in the case we do not believe they will be 
anxious to assume the alternative which Mr. Tucker 
makes for them. As soon as Mr. Darling and others 
of the A. J. C. C. came to understand our position 
they said frankly that our contention was just and 
fair. They told us that our interest and the interests 
of the Club are identical, and the committee is now, 
in spite of Mr. Tucker’s protests, preparing to inves¬ 
tigate all the charges. We have felt impatient of their 
delay, but we believe it is due to a cautious effort to 
do a thorough job this time. The failure to do so 
before we believe may be credited to Mr. Dawley’s 
clever ability to bamboozle the investigating com¬ 
mittee at Dansville. The members of this committee 
were no match for Mr. Dawley’s plausible diplomacy. 
If Bro. Tucker will, even at this late date, come 
in and help settle the case right, we will give him all 
the facts in our possession. If we may judge from 
the past, however, we fear he will never do so will¬ 
ingly, but wait until he is driven to the front by the 
hot iron of public opinion. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Official circulars from Union Pacific head¬ 
quarters December 4 announced that the ITarriman system 
will begin the construction of a number of branch lines to 
the Wyoming coal fields, with the object of vastly increas¬ 
ing the coal output of western mines. Within a year the 
production of soft coal from the Wyoming mines is expected 
to increase 100.000 tons a day. As another measure to 
prevent further coal famines, the Union Pacific is estab¬ 
lishing immense storage grounds iu Omaha, Council Bluffs 
and other points along its eastern end. . . . Fire in 
a big furniture establishment in the upper part of New York 
caused a loss of $100,000 December 4. . . . The San" 
Francisco grand jury, which has been investigating condi¬ 
tions there for 110 days, has returned 441 indictments 
against 47 persons, chiefly involving charges of participa¬ 
tion in the profits from vice. The report declares that it 
would not be possible even to outline the corruption of the 
lowest kind, involving the participation of former Mayor 
Schmitz in the profits. Every property holder, it is de¬ 
clared, was robbed after the fire by connivance of the 
police. . . . An explosion of black damp in two mines 
belonging to the Consolidated Coal Company at Monongali, 
W. Va., December 6, imprisoned 406 men. It is not be¬ 
lieved than there are any survivors, and this is considered 
the worst disaster that ever occurred in the history of 
American bituminous coal mining. After the recovery of 
42 bodies fire broke out, preventing further attempts at 
rescue until it could be extinguished. Up to December 12 
283 bodies had been removed. . . . U. S. troops were 
sent to Goldfield, New, December 6, to suppress alleged 
violence on the part of striking miners. . . The St. 
Paul railroad entered pleas of guilty at Chicago December 
7 in seven cases in which it was charged with violating 
the statute providing that live stock must not be confined 
in cars without rest, food and water more than 28 hours 
The penalty for the violations is a fine of not less than 
$100 and not more than $500 for each offence. It is said 
to be the first conviction under the law. . . . The open 
navigation season on the Great Lakes this year cost 135 
lives and property loss aggregating $2,598,000. The wreck 
of the vessel Cypress caused the greatest loss of life, only 
one of the crew of 23 escaping when it went down in a 
Lake Superior gale on October 12. The steamships Spo¬ 
kane and Cypress were the largest property losses, the 
former being valued at $160,000 and the latter at $275,000. 
The most serious collisions have been those of the Queen 
City and Moore in the Detroit River and of the Reis and 
Smith iu the St. Clair River, the losses on which were more 
than $100,000 each. . . . John W. Reeve who was 
convicted at Boulder, Col., of sotting fire to freight cars 
which caused the explosion of dynamite, resulting in the 
death of several persons, and the destruction of the Col¬ 
orado and Southern freight station during the recent 
switchmen’s strike, has been sentenced to not less than 
ten nor more than 15 years in the penitentiary. Passing 
sentence District Judge Harry P. Gamble said that he had 
no doubt of Reeve's guilt, but. believed the crime would 
never have been committed if Reeve had not been under 
the influence of liquor. ... In an effort to suppress 
the terrible outrages of the night riders at Hopkinsville, 
Ky., Gov. Beckham, through Adjutant-General Henry Law¬ 
rence, has placed the entire State militia of Kentucky, 
consisting of four regiments, at the disposal of County 
Judge James Breathitt of Christian county. Five hundred 
“night riders,” masked and heavily armed, marched into 
Hopkinsville December 7 and destroyed property valued at 
over $200,009, while the citizens, in terror of their lives, 
feared even to so much as open their windows, and the 
police, fire department, telegraph and telephone offices and 
even the railroad stations were in possession of a wild mob 
shooting right and left. Night riders were active in 
Owen County December 6, when they visited the home of 
Pearl Wilhoit and killed every head of stock on his farm 
because he shipped his tobacco to Louisville, disregarding 
their warnings to pool it. Ten hogs, three cows and five 
horses belonging to Wilhoit were found dead by him in the 
barn lot, where they had been found driven and slaughtered 
by the riders. Not since Kentucky was upset by the 
tollgate raids have the conditions approached those in the 
State now. . . . The House of Providence, an orphan 
asylum just outside Syracuse, N. Y., was burned lo the 
ground December 8. As (lie result of the fire 150 children 
and 14 Sisters of Charity are temporarily without a home 
The only salvage was the clothes the children and sis¬ 
ters had on their backs. Other institutions opened their 
doors to receive the homeless waifs, part of them going to 
the St. Vincent de Paul Asylum and some being taken in 
private families. The county has donated the old court 
house, where the children will be quartered until other 
arrangements are made. The loss on building and con¬ 
tents was $150,000 and there was but $20,000 insurance. 
It was a Catholic charity. , . . The 605-foot steel 
steamer Legrand S. DeGraff of the Western Transit Com¬ 
pany of North Tonawanda arrived at Buffalo December 
9 from Superior with 421,000 bushels of wheat, the largest 
cargo ever loaded on the Great Lakes. It smashes the 
record held by the steamer William M. Mills of the same 
line since November 27, when she arrived in Buffalo with 
416,000 bushels of wheat. The value of the DeGraff's 
cargo is $500,000 and her owners got 2% cents a bushel 
for carrying it from Superior to Buffalo. 
CONGRESS.—Representative Kipp of Pennsylvania in¬ 
troduced December 5 a bill making national bank notes 
legal tender and authorizing national banking associations 
to include such bank notes, except those of their own is¬ 
sue, in making up the amount of lawful money reserve. 
Among the other bills introduced December 5 were the fol¬ 
lowing : By Mr. Acheson of Pennsylvania—Providing that 
no intoxicating liquors shall be transported from one State 
or Territory to another in interstate commerce and fixing 
the penalty for violation at confiscation of the spirits add 
a fine and imprisonment for the offender. Also itnposiug 
an additional tax of $1 a barrel on beer, the revenue thus 
derived to be used in improving internal waterways. Mr. 
McHenry of Pennsylvania—Placing lumber on the free 
list. By Mr. Lamb of Virginia—To enable the citi¬ 
zens of the District of Columbia to vote biennially on 
the question of an excise law. By Delegate Cale of Alas¬ 
ka—Providing a territorial government for Alaska. . . . 
A bill amending the Sherman anti-trust law was intro¬ 
duced in the House, December 9, by Representative Sa- 
bath (Dem.). It proposes to make the “public policy” 
of a State, whatever that may be, declaratory and decisive 
as to what constitutes a trust or monopoly in restraint 
of trade. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The annual meeting of the 
American Devon Cattle Club will be held at the Mansion 
House, West Chester, Pa., January 15. 1908, and the day 
following, weather permitting, at Fernbank Stock Farm, 
Birmingham Road, near West Chester. 
The forty-second annual meeting of the Iowa State 
Horticultiual Society was held in the Horticultural Room 
in the Capitol, Des Moines, December 10, 11 and 12. 
The International Live Stock Show which closed at 
Chicago December 7, has been the greatest ever held in 
the country, according to officers of the association. The 
total attendance wall, it is estimated, surpass the record 
of 400,000 of last year, and the value of live stock on 
exhibition is placed at $1,800,000. 
Morrill Agricultural Hall, the gift of the State of 
Vermont to Agriculture, in honor of Justin Smith Mor¬ 
rill, was dedicated at the State Agricultural College De¬ 
cember 11. The dedication was under the auspices of the 
Vermont State Grange. Addresses were made by the 
Governor, ex-Governor N. J. Bachelder, Master of the 
National Grange, Dr. Tv. H. Bailey of Cornell; President 
Buckham of the University, lion. II. S. Stone, State Su¬ 
perintendent of Education. 
PROBLEMS FOR THE NEW YORK DAIRYMEN 
Here are a few more suggestions of suitable topics from 
practical dairymen for the New York State Dairymen's 
Association : 
1. Shall we submit to the rules and regulations of the 
Board of Health of New York City in regard to the ship¬ 
ping of milk? There is no State law that compels us to 
comply with them. 2. With the present prices for feed, 
the cost of production of milk is too great to allow the 
farmer a reasonable compensation for his time and labor. 
3. Farmers, "get together” and set the price on your milk 
and other produce; then let the city buyer pay what you 
ask or let it alone. f. l. s. 
I-ewis Co., N. Y. 
1. The increased cost of production of milk for the city 
markets under present sanitary regulations. 2. The breed¬ 
ing of cows for amount of milk alone, and its effect upon 
their vitality. 3. Ignorance of the average dairyman, as 
regards the diagnosis of the more common diseases of dairy 
cattle, and their cause and treatment. 4. The introduc¬ 
tion of text books on agriculture and dairying, and the 
teaching of same in our country schools. f. h. 
Jefferson Co., N. Y._ 
On the first and third of December we had a pretty heavy 
fall of snow. The farmers at the south end of the county 
have about one-third of the corn crop to husk yet. The 
potato and apple crop alone reached $220,000, and’ with the 
other products reached $226,000, as near as can be reported 
at present. The corn crop is very good. Some did not, 
have the opportunity to ripen, but there is a good yield of 
good quality. Cabbage yielded about 16 tons to the acre, 
the price being $6.50 per ton. e. d. k. 
York Co., Pa. _ 
NEW JERSEY STATE GRANGE.—The State Grange 
opened its annual session at Atlantic City December 3. 
Among subjects discussed were the parcels post, the right 
of the farmer to produce denatured alcohol from the 
waste products of the farm, the postal savings banks, and 
various other topics of interest to farmers and members 
of the Grange. The Grange wants Congress to increase 
the parcels post weight from four to eleven pounds in 
its delivery. The matter, while advocated by Granges all 
over the country, has never got before Congress on a vote, 
because Senator Platt and a number of others interested 
in the express business have thus far succeeded in keeping 
it from the members on the floor. But this time the 
farmers say they will be able to get their bill out of the 
musty pigeonhole and that Platt and his cohorts will not 
be able to send it back again until the members have 
had an opportunity of voting for or against it. The 
Grange is unequivocally opposed to child labor and stands 
for an absolutely closed Sunday; it stands heartily in 
favor of the Bishops’ bill, and will solidly oppose any 
efforts on the part of any party to repeal or modify the 
present New Jersey law. 
