162 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FA EMEU’S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home*. 
Established 1860. 
FublLheil wci-kly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl Street, New 1'ork. 
Herbert W. Cobbing WOOD, President and Editor, 
John J. DibbON, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. P. Dibbon, Secretary. 
I>R Wa btkr Van Fbeet and Mrs. E. T. Roybe, Associate Editors. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $ 2 . 04 , equal to 
8s. (id., 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 Glass Matter. 
"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 ourcolumns, 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-Yokkkr 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. 
* 
We have now done everything we can to force Mr. 
Dawley into court with his libel suits for the March 
term. We are thus obliged to force a trial against our¬ 
selves. We have the right to expect that Governol 
Hughes will compel Mr. Dawley to come into court 
without delay. We pledge ourselves to be ready at 
any time on 10 days notice. It is now their movel 
* 
If “The Bag of Fertilizer” was not picked apart 
fine enough it is your privilege to say what chunks 
you want ground up. It is like the insoluble phos¬ 
phate rock. Tell us what part is not dissolved and 
we will try to put on more acid. 
* 
When the secretary of the New York State Fruit 
Growers’ Association told the truth in his report 
about that fertilizer contract, he did a good job. 
When F. D. Squiers gave the story of his part in 
that famous cattle deal he used one sentence that 
people will always remember: 
If it is not for the agricultural papers to expose 
frauds and more especially when they are working 
their nefarious games through the columns of said 
papers, then what in God’s name are they for? 
Some of the agricultural papers will no doubt say 
that their mission is to give news and information 
along lines that never could get them into trouble. 
* 
We have been urging farmers to use the seed test¬ 
ing laboratory of the Department of Agriculture. 
They can send fair samples of their farm seeds, and 
learn what proportion will be likely to sprout and 
what weed seeds are present. What good will that 
do, we are asked? The seedsmen do not guarantee 
their seeds anyway. We think there are few reliable 
seedsmen in the country who would refuse to make 
good if the Government found their seed full of 
weed seeds and more or less dead. The seed from 
the best seedsmen never would be found in such con¬ 
dition anyway. We believe this seed testing will in 
time help get rid of a lot of the foul stuff which is 
seeding our farms to weeds. 
* 
As we intimated last week he would do, Governor 
Hughes again asks the New York Senate to remove 
Insurance Commissioner Kelsey. For a year we have 
kept standing under the head of “Farmers’ Club” the 
names of Senators from rural counties who opposed 
the Governor in this matter. We now advise our read¬ 
ers who are represented by these Senators to go right 
at them with postage stamps. The R. N.-Y. takes 
pleasure in supporting the Governor in this contest. 
Whenever he is right he can count on every ounce of 
force we can muster to help him. In this matter of 
an investigation of Mr. Dawley we believe the Gov¬ 
ernor is wrong, and we shall use all honorable means 
to convince him of it. More than 100,000 farmers, 
scattered all over the country, will help us do it. 
* 
One of our readers in central New York sends 
this suggestive little note: 
I send you a Country Gentleman that has been sent to 
me as marked. I am a subscriber to The Country Gentle¬ 
man and think they must go to considerable trouble to 
mark and send these copies to many others and subscrib¬ 
ers, too. You will undoubtedly be ahead. You have the 
good will of many readers. 
This copy of The Country Gentleman contains one 
of those famous articles in which Bro. Tucker comes 
as close as he dares in defending Mr. Dawley and 
yet thinks he stops in a position where he can offer 
any man a life subscription if he can “point to a line 
where we have defended Dawley’s cattle transac¬ 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
tions.” Right in this connection perhaps Bro. Tucker 
did not read what we said last week. Here it is 
again for his personal edification: 
We ask you now, Mr. Tucker, if Dawley is buying copies 
of your paper which contain articles in defense of him? 
If so, is he paying for them with State money? We ask 
these questions advisedly, because as you know, Mr. 
Tucker, he has at different times in the past bought copies 
of your paper, and paid for them out of State money on 
vouchers signed by you or your authorized employees. 
You know this to be true, Mr. Tucker, and we note chal¬ 
lenge you to deny it. 
* 
Is he a farmer? We are glad to see that this ques¬ 
tion is beginning to make some of the people in pub¬ 
lic life take notice. The following letter comes right 
to the point: 
The New York papers are making the statement that the 
farmers are against the Governor in his fight against gamb¬ 
ling at race tracks. The mistake made is in assuming 
that the county fair agricultural associations are made up 
of farmers, and represent us. They do not. They are 
almost exclusively politicians. Many of the fair associa¬ 
tions have not a single bona fide farmer among their offi¬ 
cers or directors, and refer to us privately as “hayseeds,” 
except when they want something from the State. Will not 
The R. N.-Y., that so truly represents the farmer, put 
this in its true light before the Governor? 
FLOYD Q. WHITE. 
Wherever we go and ask people whether the 
county fair officers are farmers, we get much the 
same statement as that made by Mr. White. We have 
already tried to put before the Governor this differ¬ 
ence between farmers who dig a living out of the soil 
and those who dig it out of the pockets of other 
farmers! Of course he will want to know why the 
soil farmers send the pocket farmers to represent 
them. We shall need help in explaining that. Briefly 
stated this race track gambling matter is as follows: 
The Constitution of New York states: 
Art. 1, Sec. 9: “Nor shall any lottery or the sale of 
lottery tickets, pool-selling, or any other kind of gambling 
hereafter be authorized or allowed within this State; 
and the Legislature shall pass appropriate laws to prevent 
offenses against any of the provisions of this section.” 
This has never been fully carried out, the Legisla¬ 
ture having evaded its plain duty. There is now no 
effective penalty against gambling at horse races. 
Gov. Hughes wants a law which will make such 
gambling a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment. 
The agricultural societies in New York receive a 
share of the gate receipts of race tracks. This helps 
carry on the county fairs. These societies go so far 
as to say that they will oppose the anti-gambling 
laws unless they are “taken care of.” They think the 
abolition of gambling would cut down racing receipts 
so that they would lose their slice. To keep these 
people in line it is proposed to make a State appro¬ 
priation of $250,000 for the county fairs. The men 
Mr. White refers to tell the Governor that the farm¬ 
ers would rather have gambling continued than lose 
their share of the gate money now going to the asso¬ 
ciation. Those men have no business to put New 
York farmers in any such position, and they should 
be repudiated when they do it. If these fairs are 
really educational in character the State can well 
afford to support them. If they are not truly educa¬ 
tional not a cent of tribute should go to them. That 
is the heart of the whole thing. Gov. Hughes will 
also find when he gets away from those pocket farm¬ 
ers that the real men who grow crops have little con¬ 
fidence in his State Agricultural Department to handle 
money or organize work which might touch politics. 
It should be thoroughly cleaned out before it handles 
any more “appropriations.” 
* 
When the writer was a boy he went to a picnic 
in the woods. Just as the company was sitting down 
to dinner three tough-looking men appeared. They • 
had been drinking and in a short time they had the 
crowd in an uproar. They insulted women, terrorized 
children and cowed the men. The minister expos¬ 
tulated, but they waved him aside. Several dignified 
citizens tried “moral suasion,” but were kicked out 
of the way. These rascals expected that the men 
were too nice and ladylike to fight as they were in 
the habit of fighting. Attracted by the women’s screams 
two husky farmers came running from a nearby field. 
They didn’t pretend to be ladylike or dignified, but they 
grappled these toughs in a rough-and-tumble. It was 
a savage fight. The men rolled and twisted on the 
ground, kicking, striking and choking in the dust. 
Women fainted and men stood back disgusted because 
that was not the way “a gentleman ought to fight.” 
But the farmers fought on until they kicked and 
choked those brutes into submission. Then they kicked 
the rascals off the ground, bathed their bruises in the 
brook and went back to work. Those toughs left 
town in a hurry. They were not afraid of ladylike 
men who fought with their tongues, or. of those who 
fought by certain rules. When they found a man 
willing to get right down on the ground in a clinch 
and smash them with their own methods they were 
February 22, 
filled with terror. We have lived to find that picnic 
fight like thousands of other battles. Evil comes with 
a bold and hideous face, confident of its power because 
the ladylike men are too nice to grapple with it. The 
rough-and-tumble man must if need be get down into 
the mud and clinch its throat until the repulsive life 
is choked out of it. Then when he gets up to clean 
off his clothes the ladylike men who benefit most from 
his struggle, are most likely to say he fights like a 
backwoodsman. ’Twas ever thus and ever will be. 
* 
The Connecticut Pomological Society held a lively 
evening session at Hartford this year. J. H. Hale 
presided, and the evening was devoted to a discussion 
of improved varieties of apples and methods of reach¬ 
ing consumers. During the evening apples were 
passed around in the audience and for some 15 min¬ 
utes there was a lively munching of raw fruit. There 
were 15 different varieties sampled, including a box 
of western Ben Davis for comparison. This little 
apple-fest was one of the best features of the meet¬ 
ing, as many city people attended. Next year the 
society will try to give an apple supper to the public. 
It is planned to spread tables with baked apples, apple 
sauce, apple pie and other delicacies, and call in the 
people! That is an advertising scheme worthy of a 
Connecticut Yankee and no more need be said. If 
this plan is carried out, Hartford will call for more 
apples in the month following the meeting than in 
any previous month of her history. 
* 
Herf. is a bit of constructive criticism of some of 
the larger fruit growers’ meetings: 
I would like to see one of these meetings given over en¬ 
tirely to the question box, and a competent conductor put 
in charge with the skill to sift the unimportant questions 
and repetitions out of the practical ones. Too many do not 
half pay attention. Most of the formal papers are merely 
old ground thrashed over, and those who are in the habit 
of attending these meetings know the end of the speaker’s 
sentence by the time he has spoken the first three words. 
Occasionally a speaker hits a new point, but it could be 
brought out in less lime in the question box. I believe 
these meetings can be made twice as valuable to the aver¬ 
age fruit grower, and trust they soon will be. 
It takes an expert to conduct such a meeting prop¬ 
erly. lie should have a chance to study the ques¬ 
tions before they are given out, and he should know 
the men most capable of giving information. It re¬ 
quires considerable knack to get the most out of 
these discussions, but they are the real blood of a 
meeting. The long, formal addresses are well enough 
in print, but as most people read them in public they 
are pretty dry. 
* 
We shall probably have to print a series of “letters 
from great men” before this parcels post is settled. 
Readers who write to their representatives in Congress 
send us the answers they receive. This week it is 
Senator Kittredge, of South Dakota. You don’t seem 
to catch him either going or coming. This is what 
he says: 
Concerning the parcels post I wish you would advise me 
whether you favor the passage of this bill in its broadest 
sense or along the lines suggested by the Postmaster Gen¬ 
eral and the President. In the matter of the free distri¬ 
bution of seeds I will be very happy to have your views 
regarding this subject. Until the receipt of your letter I 
have supposed that the farmers were in favor of seed 
distribution by the Government. I will, however, be glad 
to bear your argument upon the subject. Sincerely yours, 
A. B. KITTREDGE. 
Very innocent. You’ve got to “show him” at every 
step. Our advice is to tell him you want that parcels 
post just as broad as it can be, but that if he can’t 
do any better to begin with what the Postmaster- 
General suggests. As for free seed—Mr. Kittredge 
must have been asleep during the former hot debates 
on that subject. A good way to wake him up would 
be to get about 1,000 South Dakota farmers to send 
their packages of seeds back to Mr. Kittridge by ex¬ 
press—at his expense! 
BREVITIES. 
Now for the hotbed. 
Who said farmers would not take interest in a principle? 
Conservatism is a good thing when it doesn’t spell 
cowardice. 
Let the young calf run and kick up its heels. Don’t 
keep it tied. 
An honest defense of hard-cider drinking would be inter¬ 
esting at least. 
Which will pay best, good fruit poorly packed or poor 
fruit well packed? 
Who ever expected a land agent to point out the plague 
spots in his landscape? 
We remember how this discussion of farm localities was 
beguu by a city man who had $2,000 to invest. lie has 
gone to the Pacific coast to look about. 
A new york reader says: “A leopard can’t change his 
sjT Ots, but a man can his habits if he so desires.” We will 
back the leopard to change easier than some men we know. 
J. H. Hale reports the loss of over GO per cent of peach 
buds in Connecticut from cold. The live buds are well 
scattered and will yet make a fair crop if Jack Frost has 
had enough. ..... . 
