1909. 
THE RURAI> NEW-YORKER 
300 
THE NEW YORK BARREL LAW. 
We are asked to print the new barrel law proposed 
for New York State. The bill referred to is No. 
642 , introduced in the Assembly by Mr. Draper. The 
essential features of it are: 
A barrel of apples or potatoes shall be of the following 
dimensions: head diameter 11% inches; length of stave, 
28% inches; bulge, not less than 64 inches outside meas¬ 
urement, to be known as the standard apple or potato 
barrel Or where the barrel shall be made straight or 
without a bulge, it shall contain the same number of 
cubic inches as the standard apple or potato barrel. A 
barrel for pears or quinces shall be of the following 
dimensions: head diameter, 16Y4 inches; length of stave, 
28% • bulge not less than 62 inches, outside measure¬ 
ment, to be known as the standard pear or quince barrel. 
If the barrel shall be made straight or without a bulge 
it shall contain the same number of cubic inches as the 
standard pear or quince barrel. Every person buying or 
selling apples, pears, quinces or potatoes in this State by 
the barrel, shall be understood as referring to the quan¬ 
tity or size of the barrel, specilied in this section, but 
when potatoes are sold by weight, the quantity consti¬ 
tuting a barrel shall be 174 pounds. No person shall 
make, or cause to be made, barrels holding less than the 
quantity herein specified, knowing or having reason to 
believe that the same are to be used for the sale of 
apples, tpiinces, pears or potatoes, unless such barrel is 
plainly marked on the outside thereof with the words 
"short barrel” in letters of not less than one inch height. 
No person in this State shall use barrels hereafter made 
for the sale of such articles of a size less than the size 
specified in this section. Every person violating any pro¬ 
vision of this section shall forfeit to the people of this 
State the sum of $5 for every barrel put up or made up 
or used in violation of such provision. 
The trouble with this bill is that no appropriation 
is made for enforcing the law. Some excellent laws 
(on paper) have been enacted, only to fail because 
“there was no money with which to enforce them.” 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC—Chicago clergymen are endorsing a bill in¬ 
troduced in the Legislature, providing for line or imprison¬ 
ment for divorced persons who, by falsehood and misrepre¬ 
sentation prevail upon ministers to marry them. It is 
intended to remedy a defect in the State law, which pro¬ 
vides that no divorced person shall remarry within one 
year, and in some cases two years, after the decree of 
divorce. This act provides no means whereby the clerk is¬ 
suing the license or the clergyman performing the ceremony 
can ascertain the facts, except by inquiry of the prin¬ 
cipals to the marriage, and provides no penalty for their 
making false answers.A fire killed 10 persons 
and injured 15 or 20 more, including several firemen. 
March 2. in the tenement, at 374 Seventh avenue, New 
York. The five-story building that was wrecked was oc¬ 
cupied by Italian families, and all the dead were of that 
nationality. Much heroism was shown by the firemen in 
rescuing the people. Robert Nelson of Hook and Ladder 
24 started down from the fop floor with two children in 
his arms on a swaying extension ladder and was halted at 
the fourth floor by a glimpse of a man at a window a few 
feet away holding a baby in his arms and apparently 
about to drop it to the street. Nelson shifted the two 
children to one arm and shouted to the man to throw 
him the baby. He caught it by its clothes and carried all 
three down' safely. A fireman named Owens was on a 
ladder with one child in his arms when another fireman 
yelled from an upper floor that he had a child there but 
couldn’t reach a ladder. Owens caught the second child. 
Fireman Clarke of Truck 24 dived into a window of the 
top floor and did not reappear. Deputy Chief Langford 
sent, half a dozen firemen to the rescue and just then 
Clarke got to a window with a Mrs. Melano in his arms. 
Her clothing had been burned from her body and she was 
unconscious. Clarke dropped her into the arms of Fire¬ 
man McDonald of the same company, and then fell across 
the window sill. He was carried to the street, but re¬ 
turned to the work a few minutes later. The last of the 
rescue work was done with the aid of the life nets. Many 
of the dwellers in the house who escaped did so through 
their own nerve before the firemen arrived. Retreat by 
the stairways having been cut off and the fire escapes in 
the rear being filled up with everything from garbage to 
discarded bedding, nothing was left but, a six-inch cornice 
on which to crawl to the next building.Two 
persons were drowned, seven canalboats were sunk, the 
schooner Miles M. Merry, lying off Eastport, L. I., was 
beaten to pieces by the storm after her captain and men, 
including a number of wreckers, had been taken off in the 
breeches buoy ; the lighter Acme, driven ashore at: Coney 
island March 3, was dragged off by the police boat Patrol 
during the snowstorm March 4. The four-masted schooner 
Merry went ashore oil’ Eastport on February 17, and had 
been in the hands of wreckers since in the hope that she 
could be dragged off and saved. The gale put an end to 
that hope. The vessel began to break up, and Captain 
Farrow of the schooner, Captain Dennison, of the Mer- 
ritt-Chapman Wrecking Company, and 32 men, 11 of whom 
were members of the schooner’s crew, were rescued. Cap¬ 
tain Farlow was the last man to leave the ship. . . 
Two persons were killed and seven injured and removed 
to the Senoy Hospital as the result of a fire March 4 at 
No. 313 Seventh avenue, Hrooklyn, supposed to be of in¬ 
cendiary origin. The double fiats on either side of the 
burning building were burned out; loss $40,000. . 
t'uthbert, Ga., was struck .by a cyclone March 9. The 
'cyclone came without warning and in five minutes all the 
business part of the town was in ruins. It is estimated 
that the property loss will reach $200,000. The cyclone 
struck when hundreds of inhabitants were attending a 
great revival meeting. Their attendance at the revival 
saved scores of lives, as otherwise many would have been 
on the streets. One man is dead, and search, of the debris 
will be likely to reveal other bodies. The list of injured 
will be long.A tornado struck Brinkley, Ark., 
March 8, killing 22 persons, injuring many more, and 
causing a property loss estimated at $1,000,000. Fire fol¬ 
lowed the tornado. Brinkley was completely wrecked. In 
the town of approximately 3,500 people, not a house, 
business or dwelling and only one church—that a Catholic 
—escaped. Of the many hundred dwellings, not to ex¬ 
ceed half a dozen were left in a condition which would 
permit of occupancy for shelter, and even these six had 
suffered some damage. Business houses without excep¬ 
tion had suffered a like fate. Even the undertaking estab¬ 
lishments had been destroyed, necessitating the shipping 
of the dead to Forrest City and other points for prepara¬ 
tion for burial.In the United States District 
Court at Lynchburg, Va., March 9, a plea of guilty was 
entered by counsel for A. A. Luck, E. T. Edmunds, 
Samuel Butler, Robert Branathan and Walter Wildman, 
sub-contractors on the Virginian Railway, In April, 1907, 
to the charge of holding laborers in peonage. Luck was 
fined $1,000, Branathan $500, Edmunds $150 and the 
others $100 each. These contractors through labor agents 
got a number of Italians to work on the railway. Many 
of the laborers desired from time to time to leave the 
work, but were prevented by the gang bosses, who used 
threats and in some instances did actual violence to the 
men.Harold G. Meadows, of the brokerage 
firm of Meadows, Williatns & Co., of Buffalo, N. Y., which 
failed recently, was sentenced to Auburn prison March 
9 for not less than three years and six months and not 
more than six years and three months. Meadows was 
convicted of stealing $72,000 from William E. Silver- 
spoon, of Buffalo, in a stock transaction. He will ap¬ 
peal. 
ADMINISTRATION.—President Taft in his inaugural 
address, renewed his pledges, made during the campaign, 
to uphold and enforce the reform policies of the Roosevelt 
Administration. ITe said that he hoped to submit to Con¬ 
gress at its regular session in December suggestions for 
amendments to the anti-Trust and Interstate Commerce 
act, and the changes required in tire executive depart¬ 
ments charged with their enforcement. Currency reform 
was also indicated as work for the regular session. The 
matter of most pressing importance, Mr. Taft said, on 
account of the halt in business, is tariff revision. Re¬ 
garding the army and navy he said that they should be 
sufficient to resist invasion and maintain the American 
policy known as the Monroe doctrine. lie favored a 
strong navy as the best conservator of peace. On Asiatic 
immigration he said that he hoped that mutual conces¬ 
sions would avoid friction. The Federal government, he 
said, should have the power to enforce, in the Federal 
courts, the treaty rights of aliens. Local prejudice should 
not be permitted to expose the eounlry to a risk of war 
which might be avoided by legislation making proper as¬ 
sertion of Federal jurisdiction. President Taft said that 
the lock type of canal across the Isthmus of Panama had 
been definitely selected, and he proposed to have the 
work pushed with energy. The latter part of the address 
was taken up with a discussion of the rights of the negro, 
the practical nullification of the fifteenth amendment in 
the Southern Slates, and the appointment of negroes to 
office. Words of praise and encouragement for the negro 
race were accompanied by the statement that it might be 
doubted whether appointments to local office would be wise 
in the face of widespread-race feeling, which might inter¬ 
fere with the facility of the conduct of public business 
by the appointee, or revive the feeling which it is hoped 
will be gradually overcome. In closing Mr. Taft favored 
tin* enactment of an employers’ liability law, and the 
modification of the issuance of court injunctions, without, 
however, weakening the power of courts to enforce de¬ 
crees, or creating labor info a privileged class. 
FARM TRAIN IN NEW YORK.—-In co-operation with 
the New York State College of Agriculture the New York 
Central Railroad Company will operate a farm train over 
its lines in the near future. The train, which will be 
similar to that run over the Erie lines several months 
ago, will consist of a locomotive and several coaches. 
Lecture platforms and exhibits will be taken along. The 
train will be in charge of a corps of trained experts from 
the college. Stops will be made at a number of small 
towns and cities, where lectures will be given from the 
train. At night mass meetings will be held in cities. The 
Lehigh Valley and Delaware and Hudson are also consid¬ 
ering running these trains. The railroads will provide 
free transportation for the whole outfit. 
NEWS FROM FAKEVILLE. 
No doubt, many people have wondered why those 
extravagant advertisements of Alaska wheat suddenly 
disappeared hist Fall from the papers. It appears that 
complaint was made to the Post Office Department in 
regard to the claims made for this wheat, an order was 
Issued and the advertising was held up. The order still 
holds, otherwise the papers would, no doubt, have been 
flooded with the same -extravagant stories about this 
wheat. YVe understand that the wheat will be grown 
largely and that efforts will be made to sell quantities 
of it next Fall. The Company, as we understand, 
attempted to have the order removed, but without avail. 
YVe have letters from parties in the YVest who claim that 
this variety of wheat really has some merit, and that it 
will prove profitable in many parts of the country. The 
trouble is that too much was claimed for it, and as was 
the case with the seedless apple, the extravagant stories 
told by the promoters ruined the chance for a fair 
variety, which might have met with reasonable success, 
if the promoters had not been so greedy and so anxious 
to get more than the stuff was worth. 
YVe have had more or less to say about the Spineless 
cactus proposition. YVe understand that the original 
stock of this cactus was sold by Luther Burbank to a 
concern in Los Angeles for $30,000. This concern has 
propagated a quantity of the stock, and in order to 
dispose of it at high prices has boon tolling some remark¬ 
ably extravagant stories about it. The experts of the 
Department of Agriculture at YY’ashington, D. are 
confident that certain varieties of spineless cactus found 
in Southern California and in Mexico are practically the 
same as this variety now being boomed. The Post 
Office Department has been asked to investigate this pro¬ 
position with a view to issuing a fraud order against 
the same. From the evidence which has been submitted 
to the Department, the post office people may be war¬ 
ranted in sending inspectors to investigate the concern. 
A proposition of this kind in the hands of people who are 
simply out for the dollar may do great harm. The 
damage comes in the wild and improbable stories that 
are told about the product, which may itself have really 
a fair value if properly handled and grown. The trouble 
is that greedy promoters when they get hold of a matter 
of this sort are so anxious to make a fortune at once 
that they are willing to destroy the real usefulness of 
what they offer for the sake of getting rich in a hurry. 
The Government is fully justified in attempting to 
hold up such a proposition. 
It seems to be the opinion of many good judges that 
the recent disclosures in regard to the manipulation of 
stock in YY’all Street has induced many small investors 
to call in their money and invest it in saving banks or 
similar institutions. After holding these small earnings 
for a while in a safe place these people become uneasy, 
because they think the money ought to be earning larger 
interest. The usual four or five per cent of a safe 
investment looks small to them, and foolishly they un¬ 
ready to take large risks. A class of land features and 
so-called agricultural propositions* which are worse, o-r 
even more risky than the stocks are now getting too 
much of this hard earned money. 
One of the latest schemes for getting hold of the 
northern farmers’ surplus is a game for planting Citrus 
groves in southern Texas. Some of the most beautiful 
advertisements and circulars ever got out are going 
broadcast through the country. Some men in southern 
Texas claim that over a million Citrus trees will be 
planted in that section this year. The favorite plan is 
to work the contract game, which we have exposed so 
many times. The investors sign a contract with a com¬ 
pany, which for a sum of money agree to plant a certain 
number of trees under the contract. This concern also 
agrees to cultivate the trees and prune them until they 
come in bearing and then offers to take a share of the 
crop for the last payment. The investors put up a large 
sum of money to begin with, almost twice as much 
as the trees and the cost, of setting them and 
even the land thrown in would amount to. It is the 
same obi game that has been worked so many times in 
the North. The pruning is seldom, if ever, done; in 
fact it is doubtful if any attention will be given the 
trees after they are planted, and the first cost will, as 
we have said, be several times the value of the trees. 
The promoters get enough out of the first payment to 
pay them a wonderful profit, and they can afford to let 
the trees alone and thus fail to carry out their share 
of the contract. It is a shame that northern people 
should be induced to go into any such game. They will 
simply buy gold bricks with more than the usual amount: 
of brass in them. YVe understand that the danger is 
so great that the Government is considering the advisa¬ 
bility of issuing a pamphlet giving the facts and sound¬ 
ing a warning against this game. YY’e wish to advise 
our friends in the strongest way never to touch a pro¬ 
position of this kind. 
APPLES ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
Before me, February 9, on my desk, is one of our great 
daily publications, “The Morning Oregonian” and “The 
R. N.-Y.,” of which the writer has been a subscriber 
for years, and a letter from my sister in New Jersey. 
The daily says that a blizzard goes to the Atlantic, 
leaves Middle West towns isolated, and that traffic is 
stopped, while here we are in Washington, with our 
coats off, enjoying a climate tempered by the warm 
Japanese currants. In The It. N.-Y. on the first page, 
in the issue of January appears one of Mr. .1. H. Hale’s 
welcome letters, about the “Bashful State”—Vermont. 
Mr. Hale states that no State in the Union can fill tin- 
bill so completely or as cheaply, when it comes to fur¬ 
nishing good eating apples at all seasons of the year, as 
can Vermont. YVe can take the Gravenstein, Wealthy 
or the McIntosh, and plant them on our higher eleva¬ 
tions, so as to have them ripen later, and they will 
come in for early YVinter use. These apples and many 
other varieties for beauty and quality have not been 
surpassed by any grown outside of the I’aeific North¬ 
west. It may cost, us a little more to get them to the 
eastern markets, but: you must consider that we have 
our home markets as well as the Orient to supply. 
Mr. Hale states that within the last 12 years he has 
planted 300 acres of apples on the Connecticut hill 
lands, and from the specimens showing upon many of 
these trees the past year or two, he is fully convinced 
that be has a great and profitable investment that will 
stay with him through life. I take it from Mr. Hale’s 
remarks that his trees, set 12 years ago, have not as 
yet begun to bear a marketable crop. Now if Mr. 
Hale had come here 12 years ago he could have had 
government, land lying in the valleys between Mt. 
Adams in YVashington and Mt. Hood in Oregon, or 
he could have bought from some homesteader, a 
tract of 160 acres for a aw hundred dollars. If 
he had commenced to plant, his orchard here at that 
time he would have been shipping apples to New Y’ork 
six years ago, by the carload, and to-day by the train¬ 
load. YVe will consider that Mr. Hale has planted 25 
acres. YVe plant 50 trees to the acre, or 1250 trees. 
YVe will pick four boxes to the tree when it is six years 
old, 12 boxes to the tree when It is 12 years old, 
or an average of eight boxes to the tree for the 
last six years, making 10,000 boxes grown each year. 
Place the price at $2 per box, which is $1.25 loss than 
they sold for in 1907. This will give you $20,000 that: 
he would have been getting from his first year's plant¬ 
ing, for each year. If one of our Washington deer had 
trespassed in his orchard he would have bad a chance 
to cheat his butcher out of some meat, and had some 
fine venison steak. Some of our trees begin bearing 
when three years old,—such varieties as the Ortley and 
the Winter Banana. Tn the letter of which I spoke, 
from my sister in New Jersey, she stated that while 
attending the State Grange at. Atlantic City, she got 
YY r ashington apples to eat. The Delicious, of which she 
spoke in particular, she said were the finest, flavor of 
any apple that she had ever eaten. ciias. d. moore. 
Klickitat Co., YVashington. 
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STATION 290, COLUMBUS, OHIO 
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