1908. 
890 
- THAT OHIO FERTILIZER FIGHT. 
In discussing the unfortunate and unnecessary fer¬ 
tilizer fight in Ohio we have told the truth about 
the farm papers which circulate in that State. We 
have good authority for every statement made. The 
most influential members of the Ohio State Board of 
Agriculture have said that if the Ohio farm papers 
had taken the course which The R. N.-Y. did trouble 
would have been ended long ago. We have made that 
statement several times and we now repeat it. It is 
also true that in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and 
Pennsylvania—all bordering on Ohio—the fertilizer 
sold by the Smith Company made a miserable show¬ 
ing at the experiment stations. The Ohio Farmer 
knew this, yet it never gave these facts, but printed 
the Smith advertising. Again, it is true that there were 
many farmers in Ohio who felt that because no bold 
and outspoken defense of the State Board was made 
that organization must be guilty of misconduct. The 
Board was tied up by injunction, and we claim that 
the Ohio Farmer and other papers should have de¬ 
fended it at any risk if they believed in its integrity. 
The Ohio Farmer doesn’t like this form of the 
truth. In a recent issue it prints a long editorial from 
which we take the following: 
There is nothing more despicable in journalism than false 
accusations and misrepresentations against competing con¬ 
temporaries for the sole purpose of injuring them by divert¬ 
ing patronage. This is just what the editor of a New 
York farm journal has been guilty of for several months 
past. Ilis selfish object is so apparent as to disgust in¬ 
telligent farmers who are well posted on the situation. 
This editor seized the fertilizer trouble in Ohio as a lever, 
but instead of directing his attacks toward the Smith fer¬ 
tilizer concern, he has been constantly hammering at Ohio 
papers, accusing them of not placing the facts in the 
case before their readers. Yet he knows this is false, 
as far as the Ohio Farmer is concerned. It has published 
every fact that has been brought out in the controversy, 
has defended the State Board of Agriculture without hesi¬ 
tation or reserve, and has condemned the accused fertilizer 
concern for every act that was in violation of law, and 
especially for its “hold up” method of fighting the Board. 
Before we saw the paper in which this editorial 
appeared a well-known farmer in Ohio sent us a copy 
of it with the following letter. We do not see that 
any further comment is needed: 
“Editor Rural New Yorker:—I have just read the 
attached clipping, which is a recent Ohio Farmer 
editorial. I do not think anyone will be fooled by 
this sort of thing, not I, anyway. While' attending 
the State Fair this year I talked with an Ohio Farmer 
editor, and while he outlined no policy in regard to 
this matter, yet I gathered from what he said that he 
was inclined to regard the matter libera’ly, and, per¬ 
haps, from a fear of damage suits or loss of adver¬ 
tising was not going to take an active part in the Ohio 
fertilizer fight. However, as this man is in the em¬ 
ploy of a mercenary corporation, perhaps, he deserves 
some leniency on our part. While a paper may give 
all the facts in a case, they may be given in such a 
mild way that the disclosures fail to do any good. I 
will say that you deserve to get and keep thousands 
of subscribers because of the fights you have made in 
the behalf of farmers, and that they are ingrates if 
they fail to support you. I write this because I 
resent the Ohio Farmer’s vei'ed criticism and to show 
that I am glad that there is one paper in America that 
is not afraid to make the kind of fights you have 
successfully made in the past.” 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Charles W. Morse, who, according to bis 
own assertions, possessed a fortune of $20,000,000 less 
than two years ago, was sentenced at New York November 
6 to serve 15 years in the Federal prison at Atlanta. Ga. 
Alfred H. Curtis, the co-defendant, and former associate 
of Morse in the wrecking of the National Bank of North 
America, was sentenced for five years, but sentence was at 
once suspended. A 10-day stay in execution of the sen¬ 
tence of Morse was allowed, so that the notice of appeal 
could be filed. Charles W. Morse is a native of Maine, 
lie was born at Bath in 1856. After attending the public 
schools he was allowed to become a bookkeeper in the 
shipbuilding firm of his father. Deciding he needed more 
education, however, he went to Bowdoin College, from which 
he was graduated before his twentieth birthday. With a 
cousin he then embarked in the ice business, at first on a 
small scale. At the same time he shipped lumber to the 
New York market. Ilis resources grew rapidly, and after 
a few years he had a number of vessels plying between 
Maine and various .ports southward. In 1885 Morse came 
to New York to live. Continuing in the ice trade, he 
acquired plants at the variods points of supply until he 
dominated the situation both in Maine and on the Hudson 
River. As a climax of his successful operations he devised 
the plan of forming the American Ice Company, better 
known as the Ice Trust, in 1897. Through the Tammany 
Mayor, Robert A. Van Wyck, and another Tammany poli¬ 
tician. John F. Carroll, the Trust man got the city dock 
privileges he wanted. The Trust was launched formally 
in 1899. Prices have been at its mercy ever since. Morse 
had become a director of several banks in the course of his 
rise in New York business circles. Having perfected the 
ice plan, he set for himself the task of controlling many 
banks. Undoubtedly he saw the broad possibilities of oper¬ 
ating numerous banking institutions in connection with 
industrial enterprises. The banks would be available for 
handling whatever promotions and flotations of securities 
might become necessary. That is what the “Morse banks” 
did. He soon had his chain in control, and they loaned 
money to his trusts or bought his trusts’ stocks and bonds. 
The iatest great combination perfected by Morse was the 
Consolidated Steamship Company. it was a merger of 
coast transportation lines. In the merging there was 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
“watering” without -stint. Its • reorganization, after the 
1907 panic, began with a petition in the Maine courts for 
the appointment of a receiver to rehabilitate several con¬ 
stituent companies of the discredited corporation. Since 
then it has led the precarious existence of a disjointed 
trust. . . . Mount McCulloch, a peak 800 feet high 
west of Unalaska, has dropped into the sea following a 
volcanic eruption, according to information brought to 
San Francisco by the revenue cutter McCulloch. Officers 
of the Government boat say that instead of the mountain 
there is now a landlocked hay three miles wide, into which 
the cutter sailed and in which she made soundings. The 
water showed a depth of from eight fathoms at the edges 
to 25 fathoms in the center. Mount McCulloch was 
first seen a year ago, when the cutter after which it is 
named arrived off the coast. . . . The Government’s 
contention that the American Tobacco Company, capitalized 
at $18,000,000. is a trust operating in restraint of trade 
and in violation of the Sherman anti-trust law, was sus¬ 
tained in decisions handed down by Judges Da combe, 
Coxe. Noyes and Ward in the United States Circuit Court 
at New York November 7. Judge Ward dissented. The 
Government’s suit against the American Tobacco Company 
included also the Imperial Tobacco Company, the Rritish- 
American Tobacco Company, the United Cigar Stoi'es Com¬ 
pany and 59 smaller corporations, but not all of these 
are included in the Court’s decision. The complaint against 
the Imperial Tobacco Company and the British-American 
Tobacco Company was dismissed. . . . Ralph Blaisdell, 
auditor for the Harriman system of railroads in the North¬ 
west, has, for the “good of the service,” Issued an order 
forbidding employees in his department visiting saloons 
or liquor houses for any purpose whatsoever. The order 
affects about 500 employees. Several months ago Rlais- 
dell discharged all the women clerks and stenographers 
in his department and replaced them with men. The 
women were dismissed on ihe ground that men are more 
efficient. . . . Six workmen were killed, one was fatal¬ 
ly injured and four slightly hurt November 7 in an ex¬ 
plosion of a boiler at the Wisconsin Central round house 
at Superior, Wis. The boiler was used in well-drilling. 
Postmaster Edward M. Morgan of New York, 
was shot October 9 as he was starting from his home in 
West 146th street for the Post Office, by Eric IT. B. 
Mackay, a stenographer in a law office. Four years ago 
Macka.v escaped from an insane asylum at Worcester. Mass., 
where ho had been confined for a year after waylaying and 
shooting a man in Roxbury, Mass., in precisely the same 
manner as he waylaid Mr. Morgan. Mr. Morgan is ex¬ 
pected to recover. His assailant had a fancied grievance 
about the delivery of his mail. . . . Edward Ward 
Carmack, former United States Senator and editor of the 
Nashville Tennessean, was shot and killed at Nashville, 
Tenn., November 9, by Robin Cooper, son of Col. Duncan 
B. Cooper. Young Cooper was accompanied by Col. 
Cooper at the time of the shooting. Carmack was alone. 
Mr. Carmack was on his way to his home when shot. He 
drew a revolver and fired one shot. Robin Cooper has a 
slight flesh wound on his shoulder, supposed to have been 
caused by Mr. Carmack’s bullet. Col. Cooper was the 
chief anti-prohibition leader in the recent Democratic pri¬ 
mary when Carmack was defeated for the Gubernatorial 
nomination by Gov. Malcolm R. Patterson, who was the 
candidate of that faction. Recently Carmack had written 
several editorials for the Nashville Tennessean, in which 
Col. Duncan B. Cooper's name was mentioned in connection 
with the Democratic machine. Threats were made by Col. 
Cooper that Mr. Carmack must cease to mention his name 
or pay the penalty. Mr. Carmack paid no attention to 
the warnings. The shooting occurred on one of the city’s 
main streets, only one square from the State Capitol. 
. . The steamer Temiskaming was approaching the 
landing at Temiskaming, Ontario. November 10. at 6 o’clock 
when the boiler exploded, wrecking the steamer and caus¬ 
ing the death of five persons by the explosion or drowning. 
Several passengers and the crew were hurled into the water 
by the shock and many are injured. . . . The Gov¬ 
ernment’s petition for a rehearing of the case in w’-u-'i 
the United States Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the 
trial court in fining the Standard Oil Company of Indiana 
$29,240,000 for alleged rebating, was denied in the Court 
of Appeals November 10. The Government in its petition 
for a rehearing intimated that if the opinion of the Judges 
of the Appellate Court—Grosscup. Seaman and Baker— 
were allowed to stand it would nullify nearly all the rate 
reformatory legislation accomplished by the Roosevelt Ad¬ 
ministration. Immediately upon the overruling of the 
petition District Attorney Sims applied for a stay of man¬ 
date, which was granted, thus leaving the case still before 
the Court of Appeals pending the Government’s attempt 
to have the case taken before the Supreme Court of the 
United States on a writ of certiorari. It was announced 
in the office of District Attorney Sims, following the de¬ 
cision of the appellate court, that additional suits against 
the Standard Oil Company of Indiana were fully prepared 
and that trials may be demanded within two weeks. Two 
of the suits charge rebating in connection with shipments 
on the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad and two with 
shipments on the Evansville & Terre Haute Railroad. The 
cases cover almost 1,800 counts, on which indictments 
were returned by Federal Grand Juries. Cases in which 
charges of rebating are made in connection with shipments 
over the Chicago & Alton Railroad also are being prepared 
by the assistants of Mr. Sims, and scores of witnesses in 
these cases already have been examined. . . . Miners 
and prospectors are fleeing from Death Valley, in south¬ 
eastern California, because of daily earthquakes in the 
Funeral Range the last three weeks. They fear another 
Salton Sea disaster. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The annual meeting of the 
American Shropshire Registry Association will be held 
December 1 in the Dive Stock Records Building. Union 
Stock Yards, Chicago; secretary, Mortimer Levering, Da 
Fayette, Ind. 
The annual meeting of the American Shetland Pony 
Club will be held Wednesday evening, December 2, 1908, 
at 7.30 o’clock at the Dibrary of the Saddle and Sirloin 
Club, Records Building, Union Stock Yards, Chicago. Ill., 
during the time of the great International Show. Morti¬ 
mer Levering, secretary, DaFayette, Ind. 
The fifty-third annual convention of the Illinois State 
Horticultural Society will be held in the Agricultural 
Building, University of Ilinois, Champaign, Ill., December 
8-18. 
A meeting of the Brown Swiss Cattle Breeders’ Asso¬ 
ciation is lo be held at the Transit House, Chicago. Decem¬ 
ber 5. 1908, at ten o’clock a. m., for the choice of officers 
and to ratify constitution and by-laws as amended, and do 
any other business for the interest of the Association. 
Secretary, Charles D. Dixon, Owego, N. Y. 
The plan this year for arranging farmers’ institutes in 
New York is for Commissioner Pearson or a representative 
to meet leading farmers of a county or section and discuss 
the needs of the place with them. In this way it is possi¬ 
ble to learn what topics are best suited for the institute 
and which speakers are most desirable. Such conferences 
have been held already in most of the counties, and plans 
for the Winter campaign have been well laid. We believe 
the coming institute season in New York will be the most 
successful in the history of these meetings. 
GLASS GARDENERS ORGANIZE.—At Cleveland we 
had a good turn out of gardeners from Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky. Ohio. Indiana. Illinois 
and Michigan to the number of nearly 200. We organized 
the “Association of Greenhouse Vegetable Growers and Mar¬ 
ket Gardeners of America.” A rather ambitious title, hut 
with the large nucleus present at the. organization there 
is a prospect for a great national organization. I visited a 
number of the growers about Cleveland, and was rather 
surprised at the acreage of lettuce under glass there, nearly 
all of which is Grand Rapids, which is in demand in the 
West, but which we could hardly sell in the eastern cities. 
I grow it in my own frames, because I like it better than 
head lettuce, but the eastern markets demand head lettuce. 
The officers of the new association are E. W. Dunbar, of 
Ohio, president: S. J. Perry, of Michigan, vice-president; 
S. W. Severance, of Kentucky, secretary, and T. B. Chester, 
of Ohio, treasurer. w. F. M. 
VERMONT AN APPLE STATE. 
The Vermont Horticultural Society held a good meeting 
at Montpelier, November 4-6. There was good attendance 
—the first snowstorm of the season making little differ¬ 
ence )o the hardy Vermonters. The writer remembers 
attending a meeting in Delaware some years ago. There 
was a light fall of snow—but it was so unusual that few 
If any would venture out from home. The chief horti¬ 
cultural problem in Vermont, as in New Hampshire and 
Maine, seems to be centered upon apple culture; 
how to grow the crop to best advantage, what varieties 
are best and how to obtain most for the apples. Without 
doubt many sections of Vermont are admirably suited to 
apple culture. On the islands in Lake Champlain and 
down through the valley are produced some of the finest 
fruit to he found in the world. There could be no question 
about the truth of that statement in the mind of anyone 
who saw the display of apples at Montpelier. Some of the 
speciments of McIntosh could be ranked as perfect. In 
many other parts of the State the apple grows naturally 
and with good care could be made very profitable. Last 
year Mr. G. W. Perry in reporting conditions in Windsor 
Co., said : 
“Every pasture land grows up naturally to fruit trees, 
and if the cattle didn’t gnaw them off, our hills would be 
filled with such trees; as it is now, we produce the great¬ 
est number of cider apples; we can load a car with them 
every second day and it is no uncommon sight to see loads 
driven on to the scales and shoveled into the cars at 30 
cents a hundred. It is easier to shake the apples off the 
trees than to pick them. If one could get at the crop 
before the fruit is shaken from the trees, he could 
pick out a good many barrels of No. l’s. We used to have 
an apple factory and some of the people who worked 
there used to get their Winter apples—good Baldwins and 
Greenings—from the fruit sold at this price.” 
Skilled apple growers who would take this cheap land 
and develop it properly would make fortunes. Vermont is 
close to the best markets, and can produce higher class 
fruit than Oregon and Washington, while the land on 
which to do it can now be bought for a few dollars an 
acre. 
•T. II. Hale of Connecticut gave a strong talk on the 
future prospects for New England farmers. Hale is al¬ 
ways hopeful, and he painted a bright picture of the possi¬ 
bilities ahead of those who are ready to grasp the situa¬ 
tion with energy. Prof. Hedrick of Geneva gave a report 
of the experiments in that Western New York orchard 
where culture is being tested against sod mulch. Prof. 
Hedrick's figures show good profit for thorough tillage on 
that soil. It has also been shown that there was more 
moisture and more humus in the cultivated part. There 
was a lively debate between Hale and the Hope Farm man 
over the question of tillage. The latter advocated for hill 
lands a method of mulching where mulch material could 
be obtained and plowing part of the land where mulch 
was scarce. Ilale attacked this plan. The facts were 
well summed up by Prof. ,T. L. Hills, who stated that it 
was largely a matter of locality. On hilly or rough farms 
he thought the mulch or partial tillage suitable, while on 
the level rich valleys the thorough tillage would be better. 
That is about the size of it. The Vermont people seem to 
be prosperous, well kept and well content. Farming seems 
to be the chief business, and is therefore highly respect¬ 
able. The Legislature is large, and every town" seems to 
he represented, so that country people have full chance 
to assert themselves if they care to do so. 
GOOD CORN CROP.—On November 9 the Department 
of Agriculture made this estimate of the corn crop. “The 
preliminary estimate of the average yield per acre of corn 
is 26.2 bushels, which compares with 25.9, the final’esti¬ 
mate in 1907, and 25.6, the average of the past 10 years. 
The indicated total production of corn is 2,642,687,000 
bushels, as compared with 2.592,320.000, the final estimate 
in 1907. The quality is 86.9, compared with 82.8 in 1907, 
and 84.3 the 10-year average.” About 71,124,000 bushels 
of the old crop were estimated in the hands of farmers 
ou November 1 against 130,000,000 bushels last year. Iowa 
has the best crop compared with former years. The De¬ 
partment figures on potatoes are as follows: “The prelimin¬ 
ary estimate of average yield per acre of potatoes is 85.9 
bushels, as compared with 95.4, the final estimate in 1907, 
102.2 in 1906, and 88.6 the 10-year average. A total 
production of 274,660,000 bushels is thus indicated, as 
compared with 297,942,000 in 1907. The quality is 87 6 
per cent, against 88.3 last year and 87.6, a 10-year 
average.” 
FREAKS OF THE WIND.—A severe windstorm swept 
through our section September 28 and at first sight we 
thought great damage must have been done. Later we 
found that the damage was only in narrow strips. The 
wind came from the southwest and the worst of it passed 
southeast of my house. On my farm oak, hickory, wild 
cherry, chestnut and apple trees are broken down or blown 
over. Some of the trees are literally torn in pieces, and 
large limbs blown one hundred yards. Three large stacks 
of rye straw that I put up when straw was cheap, have 
blown down and bundles carried nearly across the next 
cornfield. About one-third of my cornlieid had every shock 
blown down, and the rest of the field had the larger part 
of them standing, the division being in a straight line. A 
farm about a mile southwest of us had four trees blown 
down in the dooryard, and a piece of large timber terribly 
broken and blown down on one side of the farm, and ou 
the other side of the farm is a wood with no damage done 
at all. I have six acres of timber one-half mile from the 
farm and no damage was done there. I drove to Ushers, 
four miles northwest of here, with a load of straw, and 
after going half a mile from here I did not see a limb 
broken from a tree, though the people said they had quite 
a hard wind, but did not know that anything' had blown 
down except some fruit. jt. p. 
Waterford, N. Y. 
THE CHAMPION WOODCHOPPER. A few years 
since we told the story of a man who went into an Iowa 
cornfield and did a great stent at husking corn. Now 
from Vermont comes the tale of a man who cut and 
split five cords of wood from standing trees in less than 
10 hours. Ed. Moot is the man who swung the ax. The 
contest was the result of a wager made by prominent men 
in Washington and special trains and automobiles carried 
spectators to the woods where Moot tackled the job. Moot 
used several axes—his sou keeping them sharp and hand¬ 
ing them as desired. 
“At eight o’clock Moot had cut down six trees, chopped 
and split the greater part of the wood, about a cord and 
a half, in a little more than two hours. Moot up to 10 :30 
o’clock had cut down 18 trees, ranging in length from 
60 to 70 feet and from nine to thirteen inches in diameter 
at the base. He had chopped and split three and a half 
cords, and he said that his muscle was as good as when 
he began. lie believed that all of the five cords would be 
chopped and split by 2 o'clock in the afternoon at which 
time he was to begin piling it. Moot chopped vigorously 
during the forenoon and succeeded so well that he had 
four cords cut up and three cords split by noon and was 
considei'ed well ahead of the record. Moot said he had 
no doubt of his ability to chop and split the remainder 
before 3 o'clock. 
At 4 :15 o’clock the measurer announced that Moot had 
not only finished his five cords but had cut half a cord 
extra for good measure.” 
