670 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
enough for most occasions. If we don't we can 
drop back to kerosene again on short notice. At 
worst the dry time is for only a few weeks in Sum¬ 
mer, when we need but a few hours of light per 
day. and at the worst last year, we could have it a 
few hours per week. jared van wagenen, jr. 
R. N.-Y.—There are, no doubt, many places 
throughout the country where water power runs to 
waste. It might be saved and utilized for light and 
power. The picture, Fig. 389, shows a neglected 
fall in Michigan (Livingston County), and Ernest 
Burdick thus describes it: 
“What do you think of this picture of energy 
going to waste? It is a water power that years ago 
used to run a three-story mill, with two or three 
runs of stone. Now it is idle, and for the last 20 
years has been grinding feed a part of the time. 
There used to be a sawmill run in connection with 
it, but that is gone now. There is a 14-foot head 
of water, and the mill is equipped with three old 
turbine wheels that were put in 30 or more years 
ago. It is close to a railway station, and seems too 
bad to let so much power go to waste. I secured 
the picture when the water was high, a short time 
ago.” _ 
MILK STANDARD AND ADULTERATION. 
The Mark Lane Express contains an article headed 
“Fraudulent Cows,” in which it discusses a legal case 
in France. It is stated that a dairyman wanted to 
increase the amount of milk from his cows. 
Iiy an inspiration lie conceived ilie idea of supplying 
tlie cows with salted fodder so ns to induce a thirst, 
causing them to drink large quantities of water, and 
lie supplied them with copious water a short time before 
they were milked. In this way he attained his object, 
hut unfortunately for him. one of the local inspectors 
got wind of his intensive treatment, and made a report 
upon it to his superiors. As a result, the enterprising 
dairyman was summoned before the Eighth Correctional 
Chamber to give an explanation of his action. He was 
charged with having supplied to his cows nourishment 
of such a nature as to make them absorb large quantities 
of water, and further with having made them drink a 
short time liefore being milked, acts which were alleged 
lo constitute an illicit proceeding or an adulteration of 
the milk by the addition of water. Counsel for the de¬ 
fendant argued that there was no precedent for such an 
action, and that his client had delivered pure milk as 
received from the animals, and that the court had no 
jurisdiction to decide how a man should feed his cows. 
The court decided that the dairyman was guilty— 
lined him $75 and made him pay the cost of four an¬ 
nouncements of his conviction in the papers! If it 
were possible to adulterate milk in this way the 
verdict of the court would not be surprising; but the 
facts are that the quality of the milk is controlled by 
the individual cows, the season of the year and the 
length of time they have been in lactation, the feeder 
having very little control over this part of the pro¬ 
ceeding. However, the finding of this French court 
is not unlike some of the decisions handed down 
here in the United States, where it sometimes happens 
that a man is fined $100 for selling milk which con¬ 
tains less than the 12 per cent of solids required by 
the law in New r York State, though the milk is sold 
exactly as it is produced at dairy. That such decisions 
are unjust cannot be successfully contradicted. The 
question of a milk standard will never be settled un¬ 
til it is settled right, and the only way to settle this 
question right is to abolish all standards and sell 
all milk on a .positive guarantee of its butter fat con¬ 
tent. Every bottle or can of milk sold to be labeled 
the same as other articles of food sold under the pure 
food law. With this change made it would be easy 
to detect fraud of any kind, and the guilty parties 
should then be advertised at their own expense. This 
would reduce the number of frauds to the lowest pos¬ 
sible point. _ C. S. GREENE. 
MASSACHUSETTS ASPARAGUS GROWER’S 
NOTE. 
The work on the experimental grounds is pro¬ 
gressing and several acres have been added to the 
area in asparagus. The stock obtained from Eng¬ 
land and France shows up well, and gives promise of 
many rust-resistant selections. The season has not 
been an ideal one for asparagus growing, but the 
prices have been good, ranging from $4 to $7.50 and 
$:1 per box of three dozen. This is for green grass, 
and the bunches are supposed to weigh ip* pound 
each. There has been some Pennsylvania grass on 
the Boston market, put up in large bunches of 2]/ 2 
pounds and shipped two dozen in a 32-quart straw¬ 
berry crate. This grass has sold for $4 per dozen, 
and looked fresh and bright. 
We have discovered a wonderful help to us in 
fighting the depredations of the Asparagus beetle 
(Crioceus asparagi). This help comes iii the shape 
of a tiny fly, one of the Chalcid group of flies, con¬ 
taining 500.000 species, more or less. The beetles 
have been very numerous this year and some growers 
have had their crops ruined by them. Naturally, the 
eggs were in proportion to the beetles and we ex¬ 
pected a very large contract to keep the larvae from 
doing immense damage. But the eggs did not hatch, 
and at this date I have seen only one slug or lar¬ 
va on over 30 acres of asparagus. On examination 
we found that the fly spoken of above had destroyed 
the millions of eggs and had thereby been a great 
boon to us. The fly punctures the egg, abstracts the 
contents and the egg collapses, leaving the shell of 
the egg to dry up. I have never seen anything of 
this before, but some of your readers may have 
noticed it. c. w. prescott. 
Massachusetts. _ 
THREE OF A KIND. 
Planting Orchards on Contract. 
There is an apple tree agent In this section represent¬ 
ing a firm at Rochester, N. Y. They are selling only 
two kinds of trees, Arctic and Dudley Winter, anil are 
making great claims for what they will do. The agent, 
claims that they will care for the trees for .$12 an acre 
for the season, or they will*buy apples in the orchard at 
market prices. They claim that they hold them in cold 
storage houses, and ship to London in the Spring. I am 
acquainted with the Dudley Winter, hut do not know 
the Arctic. Can you tell me if these apples are good 
sellers in the general market, and if this firm is a reliable 
one? c. s. h. 
Wc do not know the firm mentioned. It has no 
commercial rating. Dudley Winter is a variety fa¬ 
miliar to the best Maine growers, and is being plant¬ 
ed by many. Arctic is not so well tested. We feel 
sure that either Baldwin or Northern Spy would 
prove more profitable in Maine. As for the scheme 
of planting on this contract plan we would not 
touch it. Again and again we have investigated 
schemes of this sort and never found one yet that 
was of any benefit to the fruit grower. It is a jug- 
handled scheme with the advantage going to the 
agent or nurseryman. You cannot expect to 'get 
fruit from these trees under eight years, at least. 
Thus you would have to pay $100 per acre before 
you had any returns from the fruit, and there is 
probably nothing in the contract which would com¬ 
pel the agent to keep up the work until the trees 
•fruited. No doubt the inducement held out is that 
you can keep at some other job and let these peo¬ 
ple make a good orchard for you to have later. Our 
advice is to “forget it,” and not plant any orchard 
until you can take care of it yourself. 
Planting Bananas in Mexico. 
Can you tell me anything about the .Tantlia Hantation 
Company, of Pittsburg, Pa.? 1 have just received some 
very alluring circulars telling all about the new Eldorado, 
Macinesso, Mexico. It is a banana enterprise. They sell 
you one five-acre orchard tract, and give you one city 
lot; also give you the privilege of paying for same on 
the instalment plan, $750 to be paid in five years; $5 a 
month for the first year, $5 a month for the second year; 
$10 a montli the third year. $15 a month the fourth year, 
$27.50 a month the fifth year. They claim the bananas 
will begin to pay for themselves in the third year. Do 
you think it would be a safe investment, or would it be 
a good thing to keep away from ? e. k. d. 
Cambridge, Mass. 
One of the best things you could do is to keep 
away from all such schemes. The very nature of the 
proposition ought to show its character. Iiundreds_ 
of just such schemes have been advanced. In prac¬ 
tically every case the promoters get hold of a tract 
of cheap land. Usually they do not even own it. As 
for the “city lot,” it cannot have any value until a 
large number of people can be induced to settle there. 
The plan is to offer this cheap land at an extravagant 
price as “orchards.” You do not know unless you go 
there whether the trees are planted or not, or how 
they are cared for. All that is expected of you is to 
put up your money month after month. We have re¬ 
peatedly called for anyone who can show that such a 
scheme, promoted in this way, has ever paid out, but 
in spite of the challenge no one has ever come for¬ 
ward. If you pay your good money to grow bananas 
in this way, you get as a crop a good-sized lemon. 
If during the next five years you expect to have $750 
to invest, put it into an apple orchard in New Eng¬ 
land, and keep away from Mexican bananas. 
“ Fortunes ” in Europe. 
About four months ago we were notified by a notary 
public that there was a society in New York City look¬ 
ing up heirs, and that our grandparents were heirs to 
a large fortune in Austria. We were asked lo send our 
names and ages, and the dates of death of those that 
had died. We did so, then about six weeks ago the 
same notary made inquiries in regard to the character 
and the financial standing of the different members of 
tlie family. One of the supposed heirs was in New York 
City and called on the society. They said that 51 .years 
ago the grand-parent borrowed money of some relative, 
and that if the heirs would bo willing to settle, they could 
give more information in regard to the fortune, for he 
said those who had the claim were holding back some of 
the most important information in regard to the foriune. 
One of the sons of Ihc grand-parents says they got money 
from those relatives, hut in exchange they left their home 
July 17, 
and all they had, and there was no such a loan as they 
claim. Can we expect anything, or is it a “gold brick - ’ 
scheme to get us in the end to pay in some money? c. 
Here is another case where our advice is “forget 
it.” This is a gold brick with the gold plate all 
rubbed off and the brass in sight. Some of the stories 
told about these “fortunes” in Europe are plausible 
at least, but this cfne is clumsy. To ask people to 
pay an old loan in order to obtain “information” is 
worse than organizing an expedition to dig for Capt. 
Kidd’s money. The latter would do a man more 
good, since the exercise would give him an appetite. 
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY. 
It is quite likely that you have at some time re¬ 
ceived a letter like the following, which was sent 
to one of our readers: 
I happened to see to-day a few cases of your eggs in 
our .market, which I found in a very good state of qual¬ 
ity and size, and am coming to ask you, as a favor, 
and induce you to try and to send me some of your eggs 
(white or browni, for which 1 have a proper trade and 
high demand. My returns for eggs are always prompt, 
net, without commission or reductions, and above top 
price of the daily quotation here, and will try my best 
to satisfy you in dealing with me. You will kindly in¬ 
quire at any house, in our market, as to m.v financial 
standing and honesty, and I hope tlie references will 
turn satisfactory. I hope to hoar from you soon, and 
am awaiting your shipment, and remain, ply b. knight. 
This is an old game often worked to good ad¬ 
vantage—to Mr. “Knight.” We hunted him up. He 
has desk room, -with several others, on one floor of 
an ordinary building. There is no evidence of stock 
or anything that could he called assets except a 
desk and a chair. As a rule, several parties occupy 
the same nest, each after what they can get, and 
all prepared to defend each other. If a stranger 
went there trying to obtain satisfaction the man he 
was after might be sitting in plain sight, yet the 
others would tell him the man was sick or had 
moved away. These people move about from place 
to place and often change their names to suit a new 
bait thrown to their old customers. They have no 
special trade as they claim; in fact, they are usually 
discredited in the trade. Their object is to get you 
or your neighbors to send a small trial shipment. 
They can afford to pay more than the market price 
for this first shipment, and they usually do it 
promptly—with many compliments for the goods. 
They are shrewd judges of human nature, and they 
figure that this will lead you to send more goods. 
Many people borrow money to go out to scour the 
neighborhood—thinking they have a chance of a 
lifetime to make a fortune. These rascals encourage 
the shipper, and when they think they have raised 
him to his limit they sell the goods and make no 
returns. Sometimes they even get more out of 
him, but they take pains to pocket the money and 
get out at the right time. We have exposed this 
game again and again; yet, still it is worked, and 
these fellows grow fat in person and purse. 
A “RESOLUTION” THAT RESOLVES. 
'1 he Guernsey Breeders’ Association of Northern 
Minnesota and Wisconsin met recently at Fond du 
Lac. The following resolutions were adopted: 
Whereas, It lias come to the knowledge of tlie North¬ 
eastern Minnesola and Northern Wisconsin Guernsey 
Breeders’ Association that the Liquor Dealers’ Association 
of Minnesota lias demanded the. removal of Prof. A. ,T. 
McGuire from the position of superintendent of the 
Northeastern Experimental Station, on account of pub¬ 
lications made by Mr, McGuire setting forth the injury 
tDe liquor traffic is doing the farming interests of the 
State, to which the liquor dealers take exception; 
Therefore, he it resolved, That this Association condemn 
the action of the Liquor Dealers or any other action that, 
will deprive us of the valuable services of A. .1. McGuire 
in the work which is being carried on so efficiently and 
faithfully by him at the Northeastern Experimental Sta¬ 
tion at Grand Rapids, Minnesota. 
Some one may start up and ask what business a 
Cattle Breeders’ Association has to bother with such 
a matter. The answer is easy and strong. Anything 
that receives the backing of a Liquor Dealers’ Asso¬ 
ciation may well receive the kicking of country peo¬ 
ple. Consider a glass of beer for five cents and a 
glass of whisky at 15 cents compared with milk at 
■two cents a quart. The money spent for whisky and 
beer would in large part go legitimately for the pur¬ 
chase of food—dairy products, meat and bread. The 
liquor dealer is the economic enemy of the farmer, 
and especially the dairy farmer, and should be publicly 
posted as such. And here is another side to it. Those 
Guernsey breeders cannot possibly do better than to 
stand up boldly and openly for their friends. If they 
are to have any power at all they should use it. We 
do not know Prof. McGuire, but if in his public work 
he has “set forth the injury the liquor traffic is doing 
the farming interests” he deserves the backing and 
good will of every farmer in the country. We wish 
we had a dozen such men in New York State. They 
would have a great army at their back. 
