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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FA HUE It'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established, 1850. 
Pabtlibed weekly bj the Kural Pnbliiblng Company. 409 Pearl Street, New York. 
HkkbkbtW. Colijngwood, President and Editor, 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. 
Dr, Walter Van Fleet and Mbs, E. T, Royle, Associate Editors. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, equal to 
8 s. 6 d., or 8*2 marks, or 10*2 francs. Remit in money order, 
express order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates 50 cents per agate line— 7 words. Discount for time 
orders. References required for advertisers unknown to 
us; and cash must accompany transient orders. 
"A SQUARE DEAL.” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a 
responsible person. But to make doubly sure we will make good any 
loss to paid subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler 
advertising in our columns, and any such swindler will be publicly ex¬ 
posed. We protect subcribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee 
to adjust trifling differences between subscribers and honest, respon¬ 
sible 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 Nkw-Yokker when 
Writing the advertiser. 
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 pur¬ 
poses. We depend on our old friends to make this 
known to neighbors and friends. 
* 
Tins is the way they begin to figure on express 
rates: 
From Akron, O., to Sharon Center is 12 miles and a 
first-class ticket for a 300-pound man costs 25 cents. The 
American Express Company charges 52 cents for carrying 
a 10-pound rooster on the same train. Now, wouldn’t that 
jar you? e. w. 
It would ! We should have to argue that the roos¬ 
ter was worth more than the man—a more useful 
citizen generally. Give us all the facts you can about 
express rates compared with other transportation. 
What is needed now is the truth expressed in print¬ 
er’s ink. 
* 
The American Sugar Refining Co., or ‘‘sugar 
trust,” has been fined $134,000 for using false 
weights. It was claimed that vast quantities of 
sugar have been coming into New York free of 
duty, because the scales on which this sugar was 
weighed were tampered with. This is a sort of 
“free trade” which enables the trust to cheat both 
the Government and the public. This fine is but 
a small part of the sums that have been stolen 
from the people. We believe the tariff system is 
honeycombed with just such frauds. There could 
be no more profitable business than this scheme 
of getting goods in duty free, and then using the 
tariff to keep prices up. and there are other scales 
that need overhauling. Try weighing the goods you 
buy and see! 
* 
During the last few years a good many com 
plaints of differences between apple growers and 
buyers have come to us. A recent case tried in 
Maine will, therefore, interest our people. In the 
Fall of 1907 the Conrad-Shoop Co., of St. Louis, 
contracted to take 7,000 barrels of apples at $2.90 
per barrel from points in eastern Maine. A cer¬ 
tain quality was agreed upon, and an agent of the 
company rejected 1,500 barrels—claiming that they 
were frozen or partly decayed. The trial came 
down finally to the question as to why the buyer 
rejected the fruit. The buyer claimed the apples 
were unfit, while the seller claimed he had carried 
out his contract fully, that he delivered good ap¬ 
ples, and that the buyer rejected them because he 
saw he would lose money, since the panic had sent 
the price down. On this issue the jury brought in 
a verdict of $2,416.11 for the apple growers. It 
will be well for apple growers to keep this de¬ 
cision in mind. Buyers can be held to their con¬ 
tract if the grower will deliver the fruit as agreed. 
* 
When, last year, the Standard Oil Company was 
fined $29,000,000 there was great rejoicing. We did 
not join in it, because no public victory could be 
recorded until the fine was paid. As we expected 
it would, the Standard Oil Company now goes free. 
On the second trial the judge ordered the ‘ury to 
bring in a verdict of not guilty. No one will deny 
that the Standard Oil Company paid only six cents 
for carrying its oil when the regular rate, which 
competitors paid, was 18 cents. It was guilty of 
rebating. The judge, however, says that since the rates 
fixed by the Interstate Commission were not prop¬ 
erly filed by the railroads, it cannot be demonstrated 
that cutting under them to favor the Oil Company 
was a rebate. Under this decision a monopoly might 
combine with a railroad to hold up the legal ac¬ 
ceptance or filing of rates, and then safely take 
advantage of its rivals by having its goods carried 
for less money than was charged the others. That 
looks like crawling out of a very small hole, but 
the larger the offender the smaller the legal hole 
need be. The only thing to do is to plug up the 
hole, and that is what the American people will 
compel Congress to do. 
* 
Those Michigan farmers who are writing us seem 
to he pleased with sugar beets as a farm crop, 
and satisfied with the treatment they have received 
Thus far we have called in vain for any disinterested 
New York farmer to come forward and show that 
he can advise beet culture in New York. On the 
other hand, we have many letters from farmers 
who express dissatisfaction, both with the crop and 
the treatment from the beet sugar company. Why 
this difference? We think much of the soil on these 
Michigan farms is better adapted to beets. As a 
rule, we doubt if such land is worth as much as 
some of the land in New York where beets were 
grown. Most of this beet land in Michigan is 
closer to the factory than that described in this 
State. We also believe that the climate and con¬ 
ditions in the sugar belt in Michigan are more favor¬ 
able to the crop. The chief advantage which these 
Michigan growers enjoy is a more favorable con¬ 
tract and fairer treatment from the sugar compa¬ 
nies. They are paid for the sugar they sell, and 
not by the dead weight of beets. The Michigan 
contract is simple and clear. Let a man go out 
among those Michigan growers with such a contract 
as the Lyons Beet Sugar Co. offers, and they 
would probably hoot at him! We are still waiting 
for some one to demonstrate why New York farm¬ 
ers should stand for a tariff on sugar! 
♦ 
A reader in Monmouth Co., N. Y., sends this 
clipping from his local paper: 
Free Garden Seed. 
Through the courtesy of Congressman Howell we have 
a mall sack full of Government seed packages for distri¬ 
bution, each package containing five or six kinds of seeds. 
The quantity is limited and to give all who may desire 
them an equal chance to obtain a package we will start 
giving them out at i) o’clock Monday morning and con¬ 
tinue as long as they last. Requests by mail for them * 
will be filled, if they are not all gone upon the receipt 
of the request. 
Our friend wants to ask the following question: 
What good are they? Why does Congress insist on 
sending this trash out every year, spending money and 
taking up the time of our Post Office Department: when 
there is a big deficit in the department’s revenue? 1 
know of several who have received the package of seeds 
and have deliberately walked and threw them in the 
stove. The best place for them, 1 think, as there would 
only have been disappointments if they were planted. 
w. h. s. 
These seeds are much like what you buy at the 
grocery store. Their distribution is merely a petty 
form of “graft.” These Congressmen and editors 
seem to think that a few cents’ worth of seed will 
measure the price of a farmer. By peddling out this 
small graft the politicians hope to keep farmers 
quiet while the larger slices of graft are being dis¬ 
tributed. Again and again the better class of Con¬ 
gressmen have tried to shut off this free seed dis¬ 
tribution, but they are outvoted by the demagogues, 
who believe they can buy a farmer with 10 cents’ 
worth of seeds. The proper thing would be to 
send these seeds right back to Congressman Howell 
and tell him you have no use for them, and want no 
more of them. If the manager of that paper had 
sent the bag back by express C. O. D., Mr. Howell 
would be working overtime for a parcels post. Send 
the seeds right back to your Congressman! 
* 
On page 191 a citizen of Florida wrote what 
seemed to us a very fair statement about his locality 
It is so seldom that people are willing to write a 
fair criticism of their own country that many of 
our readers are amazed at this man’s candor. We 
doubt if The R. N.-Y. has ever printed a state¬ 
ment that has called out more forcible protest, and., 
at the same time, more earnest approval. 
“Dear old Florida—she means health and home 
to me!” 
That is the way one man puts it, and nearly 
in the same mail comes this: 
“Florida is the most God-forsaken place 1 ever 
was in!” 
This ‘last man makes definite statements after 
'12 years’ residence—and offers proof! Between 
these two extremes come all sorts of opinions and 
experiences. One man seems to get close to it when 
he says, “Florida is a mystery.” We speak of 
this to point out the difficulty which the ordinary 
man experiences in giving a fair statement of the 
conditions which exist in his own section. He may 
be entirely familiar with them, and he may desire 
March 20, 
to be fair, yet, in spite of himself, his personal 
views will color the report. Some people are will¬ 
ing to sell their home and go to a new location on 
the strength of reports sent by strangers. They 
run a tremendous risk in doing so whether it means 
going north, south, east or west. We speak of 
this because hardly a week passes that we do not 
hear of some one who, lured on by strangers, is 
ready to sell his home and go to some distant sec¬ 
tion to begin life again. 
* 
President Taft has called Congress together for 
March 15. The sole business for this session will 
be a revision of the tariff. Among other things the 
President says: 
It is thought that there has been such a change in con¬ 
ditions since the enactment of the Dingley act, drafted on 
a similarly protective principle, that the measure of the 
tariff above stated will permit the reduction of rates in 
certain schedules and will require the advancement of a 
few, if any. The proposal to revise the tariff made in such 
an authoritative way ns to lead the business community to 
count upon it, necessarily halts all those branches of busi¬ 
ness directly affected, and as these are most important, it 
disturbs the whole business of the country. It is impera¬ 
tively necessary, therefore, that a tariff bill be drawn in 
good faith in accordance with promises made before the 
election by the party in power and as promptly passed as 
due consideration will permit. 
President Taft favors a tariff for revenue. He 
says duties should be arranged so as to yield an 
adequate income, but rather than make such duties 
too high he favors a graduated inheritance tax “as 
correct in principle and as certain and easy of 
collection.” We hear nothing from the President 
about “infant industries.” That and other worn- 
out phrases seem to have lived out their time, and 
no longer appeal to intelligent people. We think 
that President Taft knows that the people have 
analyzed this tariff question down to a fundamental 
belief. They believe that the tariff has been a 
great direct profit to the manufacturing and hand¬ 
ling classes, and but a small, indirect benefit to pro¬ 
ducers. Under the present tariff has grown up a 
business system which compels most farmers to sell 
at wholesale and buy at retail prices. A protective 
tariff would have been impossible but for .he support 
of northern farmers, and during the years since the 
Civil War they have had a good chance to see the 
size of the protection accorded to them. Mr. Taft 
is closer to the people in this matter than is Speaker 
Cannon and the rest of the “stand-patters.” These 
men will find that the old game of swapping one 
form of protection for another will not work this 
year. In former years it has been the custom to 
talk to farmers about this way: “You consent to a 
high tariff on steel, lumber and similar things, and 
you may have a tariff on sugar, hides, wheat and 
other farm products.” It looked plausible and 
farmers have given their support to a protective tar¬ 
iff through just such swaps. They have seen the 
cost of public and private living increased, and 
a larger share of the consumer’s dollar going to 
the handlers. The farmers are now convinced that 
they ought to have cheaper building materials, cheaper 
clothing and shoes, and fairer prices on hundreds of 
other things they buy. As never before in their 
history, they hold the high tariff levied on the goods 
manufactured by the trusts and large corporations 
responsible for the increased cost of their living. 
Northern country people made high tariffs on neces¬ 
sities possible—they are now ready to make them 
impossible. 
BREVITIES. 
Several British women have applied for patents on fly¬ 
ing machines. 
It is now found that horses in low, swampy places may 
suffer from swamp fever, or a form of malaria. 
A trick in planting early melons is to throw up ridges 
and drop the seed on the south side of the ridge. 
Experiments in Connecticut show that infertile eggs 
are infected by bacteria as well as fertile ones. What be¬ 
comes of the ‘‘germless egg” theory? 
On his seventy-first birthday E. P. Weston will start 
on a walk from New York to San Francisco. What about 
the men under 60 who are ready to quit “active labor?” 
The Argentine Republic has sent 2,000 tons of oats to 
tills country. The world is now one great market and 
when prices in one country warrant it goods will come 
from another to fill the demand. 
In Germany a great scheme for utilizing peat or muck 
is discussed. The dry peat will be used for fuel to provide 
electric power and the nitrogen from the burning saved as 
sulphate of ammonia for fertilizing. 
From a Florida reader: “Your late articles on reclaim¬ 
ing muck and liming soils has convinced me that I would 
bettor take off a part of the seven hours that I have al¬ 
lowed for Bleep than to give up the paper.”— g. e. c. 
‘‘Farming is a side issue with me, as I work for a 
family of seven, and have been “whistled in” and 
“whistled out” of a shop for 20 years, hut I am a farmer 
at heart and a real Granger, and hope to spend my last 
years on a farm. My only regret is that my children 
couldn’t have been brought up on a farm,” says J. W. O. 
