1008 . 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
50© 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—The Red River has made a new channel, 
transferring many Texas farms to Oklahoma and submerg¬ 
ing 50,000 acres of farm lands. The town of Key, east 
of Denison, Tex., has been washed away, and Delaware 
Bend is reported gone. The Washita and Blue Rivers and 
the Boggies have also submerged many thousands of acres 
of crops in Southern Oklahoma. The railroads of Texas 
estimate the damage to their property by the floods as 
not less than .$10,000,000. . . . Ten dead. 12 injured, 
hundreds of cattle killed, a vast acreage of crops de¬ 
stroyed and many buildings wrecked are the results of a 
series of tornadoes that visited Alfalfa County, Oklahoma, 
May 26. The storm seemed to enter Alfalfa County from 
the west, north and northeast simultaneously. Every ob¬ 
struction was levelled. The McDonald family, living near 
Ingersoll, sought safety in a eyclonS cellar. This was 
unroofed and the occupants were buried under debris. 
The Boston fishing schooner Fame, commanded by 
Captain Thomas Fahey, was run down and sunk on 
Chaspes Bank May 26 by the Dominion Atlantic line 
steamer Boston and 17 of the schooner's crew of 19 men 
were lost. . . . Judge Burnett at Salem. Ore., May 
28, sentenced .T. Thorburn Ross, the Portland banker, to 
five years imprisonment and to pay a fine of $576,000. 
Ross recently was convicted of the wrongful conversion 
of State school funds in his capacity of president of the 
Title Guarantee and Trust Company. . . . Lightning 
struck a barbed wire strung on a rail fence near Prince¬ 
ton, Ind., May 27. and killed .36 sheep and three cows 
six miles southwest of there. The animals were stretched 
along in the shade of the fence for 50 yards. . 
Weather Forecaster Eben H. Emery of New York says 
that the month of May holds the record for inches of 
rain over every other May for 38 years back. In addition 
to that a new 24-hour record has been hung up. The 
total rainfall for the month was 9.1 inches, and of this 
amount 4.16 inches fell on May 7. The nearest approach 
to this May record was made in 1901, when 7.1 inches 
fell. ■ . . The vicinity of Ely. Nevada, had the heav¬ 
iest snow of the year May 31-June 1. when 12 inches of 
snow fell. Reports from the country around show that 
the storm was general, approaching the proportions of a 
blizzard in many places. ... A Federal grand jury 
at Ixjs Angeles, June 1, returned numerous indictments, 
including three against the Southern Pacific Company 
for alleged rebating in violation of the Sherman anti¬ 
trust law. Twenty-nine counts are included in the three 
indictments, citing specific instances of alleged unlawful 
refunding of charges to customers. Officers of the rail¬ 
road company were ordered to appear in court June 15 
and make answer to the charges. The railroad companv 
is charged with rebating on shipments of oranges and 
lemons from Riverside, Cal., to various eastern cities, and 
also on shipments of rice from San Francisco to Los 
Angeles Chinese merchants and on shipments of hides from 
Texas and Arizona points to Los Angeles. . . . The 
disorder that has marked the strike of the Chester, Pa., 
Railway Company for several weeks was renewed .Tune 2, 
when three of the company’s trolley cars were blown up 
by dynamite. . . . Penalties may be imposed upon the 
Standard Oil Company that will make the twenty-nine- 
million-dollar fine of recent memory appear paltry when 
plans under way by the Department of Justice are‘carried 
out. Preparations are being made now in Chicago by Dis¬ 
trict Attorney Sims, acting under directions from Attorney 
General Bonaparte, for the beginning of new prosecution 
that may cost the big corporation $68,000,000 if the 
maximum fine is imposed. It is understood that the pre¬ 
liminary work of arranging evidence is almost completed. 
The last fine was imposed for 1.462 cases of rebating. 
The new case will involve over 3.400 counts. Of these, 
2.000 are accredited to shipments of tank cars on the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the remainder having 
passed over the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, a part of the 
Rock Island system. . . The two new Cunard steamer?; 
Lusitania and iPauretania having made two trips across 
the Atlantic at an average speed of 24% knots, they will re¬ 
ceive the British government’s subsidy of $750,000 per 
year. ... It is reported that John Ilavs ,11am- 
mond, mining engineer, whose reputed salary is about 
$1,000,000 a year, has an ambition to be nominated fob 
Wee-Presidency by the Republican National Convention. 
Mr. Hammond argues that he should be nominated be¬ 
cause he is a citizen of Massachusetts, maintaining a 
residence at Gloucester, but has lived in California and 
other western States, is well-known all over the country, 
and is on especially good terms with organized labor 
through his relations with miners. Mr. Hammond was 
formerly connected with the Guggenheim Mining Com¬ 
pany, but had no connection with the Smelting Trust. For 
the last year he has been engaged independently in his 
professional work as mining engineer without any con¬ 
nection with mining companies. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The College of Agriculture at 
Ithaca, rs. Y., isued two leaflets on “Some Essentials in 
Cheese Making/’ and “Directions for Using the Acetimetc* 
in Cheese Making and Butter Making.” They will be 
mailed to all cheese factories. 
The New England Federation of Agricultural College 
Students at present embraces a total undergraduate mem¬ 
bership of 176, representing the State Agricultural Col¬ 
leges of all six States of New England. The honorary 
ambers number 26, the majority of whom are members 
of the faculty of the various colleges represented. The 
college year closes with sufficient money in the treasury 
to go a long way toward sending a representative to a 
meeting of the National Federation of Agricultural Stu- 
December ^ Intornational stock Show at Chicago next 
I ro 1 f - C. L. Beach, who for nearly two years occupied 
tne chair of dairy husbandry of the University of Ver¬ 
mont and acted as dairy husbandman of the Vermont Ex¬ 
periment Station, was elected some time ago president of 
the Connecticut Agricultural College. The vacancy thus 
made in the Vermont faculty lias been filled bv the election 
or Hon. Robert M. Washburn, State Dairy and Food Com¬ 
missioner of Missouri. 
Mr. C. A. Wieting, Commissioner in charge of cattle, 
tw P + , ancl f viao at the New York State Fair, announces 
rnat the entry fee m those departments has been changed 
I hls „ < y e t! r from 10 P pr cent on the first prize competed for 
to $2 for each stall occupied, and $1 for each pen for 
sheep or swine This should insure a very large entry. 
The dates of the Central New York Fair. Oneonta, N Y" 
Direct WU1 be September 21-22-23-24 ; D. A. Diefendorf 
A QUESTION OF DAMAGES. 
He Sold the Entire Farm. 
Z 0 o D0t tbat an - v money consideraton can recom 
L, ' a after he has lived on a place a good man 
jears, planted fruit and ornamental trees, fixed up hi 
has , a home t° his liking, and then to have ai 
«r!“’l der sa y : , Here, we want some of your land to rui 
I™. ov f r or ] ay a water pipe or build a railroad,” but i 
' a Pe ‘'one, and as a rule I think corporations are dis 
!3 ed it°, . a l fairl y> although their agents are very smootl 
talkers. I had a little experience. I owned ; 
-mail tarm of 10 acres, of which two were wood. The 
surveyed through m.v place to straighten their line. Whei 
rne buying agent came along he had a blue print with th 
nne all mapped out and the amount of land they wanted 
lie came to me and said : ‘‘We would like just a little stri] 
'"rough your place.” The number of acres they wantei 
was 3% out of eight, and cut it through the middle. IT 
t’ 1 i' a V*? w mu °h will you take for this little strip?’ 
I asked him if he wanted all the land the print called for 
if® ? a f L y°, 8 ‘ I t°'d him I did not care to sell. He toh 
me to think it over and he would come again. He cam 
again and urged me to set a price. I would not tell him 
l had been to a good deal of time and expense to get th 
place where it would yield me a good profit, and takinj 
o A acres out of the center of the place spoiled it, and 
would sell the whole place or not anv. He tried ever 
way he could to make me set a price on the little strip 
out i said no, all or none, and I would say right here don’ 
ever get mad in dealing with such people; you will lose 
every time. He came a good many times and I sold the 
whole place to him, and will say right here that he treated 
me nicely, and was a gentleman, but one experience is all 
I want in selling a place to men like him. They do not 
go to law about it if they can settle without it; the cost 
is not all on the side of the land owner. It sounds big to 
tell about condemnation proceedings and law and a good 
many times has the desired effect. I learned a lot seeing 
my neighbors sell their little strip. Some went to law, 
some got mad, but they all came to time, and the company 
got the land, and those who went to law did not get as 
much as the agent offered them. The damages are more 
on a farm under high cultivation than on cheap or brush 
land. I do not think that it is so much paying them all 
the same price for the land as it is getting the right of 
way at the lowest possible figure. Yankee. 
CROP PROSPECTS. 
Prospects are good for a big fruit crop at the present 
time: peach buds begin to show the bloom, wheat and 
meadows look fine. Considerable land lias been plowed 
for corn. There will be a lot of strawberries and toma¬ 
toes planted this Spring. R. d. t. 
Purdy, Mo. 
We cut the rye for hay this year on May 27 (in north¬ 
ern New Jersey). It was then in bloom. An early dress¬ 
ing of nitrate of soda had pushed it to a quick growth, 
and it stood over the shoulders of a good-sized man. 
This makes a hay that is eaten clean by horses. It pays 
us better to make hay of such rye than to let it go to 
straw. 
Since my last report the outlook for fruit has developed 
about as follows: Apples, pears, peaches and bush fruits 
will, I think, be an average crop. Cherries and straw¬ 
berries will be a partial failure. A few days of ex¬ 
tremely hot weather following a long wet period devel¬ 
oped blight astonishingly. Clover is now knee high. 
Archbold, O., May 29. J. D. p. 
The rains have stopped at last, and we are getting 
a little order into things. We have all planted heavily 
of corn, and my corn looks fine. One-third of the plan¬ 
tation is planted in it. With dry weather we can get 
our cotton crops in order in about 10 more days. Along 
the Mississippi River the seep water is doing tremendous 
harm, but we are back three miles. sam ii. james. 
Louisiana. 
There never was a better prospect for all kinds of fruit 
in the early part of the Spring, but at present nearly 
everything in the fruit line looks like a total failure, 
especially apples, plums and cherries. Kieffer pears 
promise a fair crop. I think the cold and wet weather 
was the main cause of the failure. This has been the 
wettest Spring ever known in this part of the country. 
Vigo Co., Ind. t. j. w. 
We have bad a cold wet Spring. Crops are looking well, 
although late; wheat a good crop; oats and grass doing 
well, corn late and not a very good stand, not much of it 
worked over yet. Pastures good and stock doing well; 
prices good. Wheat $1.10 per bushel, corn 80 to 90 cents; 
potatoes 75: eggs 12% ; butter 20: wool 18 cents per 
pound. Apples, prospect for a good crop; peaches also, 
cherries not so good I’lums all killed by frost. The coun¬ 
try is looking beautiful. j. r. 
Speedwell, Va. 
Apples in this county a failure, also cherries; pears a 
partial crop. Plums a partial crop, except Japans, which 
will be very large. Peaches the biggest crop in the county 
history. Strawberries small crop. Raspberries and black¬ 
berries large. Wheat looking fine, except where it was 
covered with water. Oats only half usual acreage sown, 
but looking well. Scarcely any corn so far planted, but 
everybody busy breaking ground where dry enough. This 
has been the wettest, most backward season ever known 
here. B. 
Clay Co., Indiana. 
Corn is about all planted and is coming up nicely. It 
was planted about two weeks late, but warm weather 
will probably make up for lost time. Wheat and mea¬ 
dows are looking well, and rather forward. Alfalfa pros¬ 
pects are not bright, but more trials will be made. Pas¬ 
tures are excellent and stock doing well. About the usual 
acreage of corn, oats, wheat and meadow. Lots of fruit 
on the trees but dropping badly, owing to the cold, 
stormv weather after blossoming, perhaps. w. E. d. 
Hillsboro, O., May 25. 
We are through with our first cutting of Alfalfa; it 
went about one ton to the acre. Some sold at $10 a 
ton, f. o. b., baled 33 bales to the ton. Prices have 
dropped and now there is no demand, with thousands of 
tons in sheds, cars, and piled up in open. This is caus¬ 
ing growers to organize to find out what the causes are, 
as we suspect commission merchants and jobbers in Texas 
(which is our main market) are “liearing” the price. The 
second cutting is due in two weeks. All kinds of fruit 
will give a full crop; we shall have lots of apples to 
ship. . A. D. 
Dexter, N. M., May 28. 
We have had a very rainy season; last Winter was 
very rainy followed hy heavy rains in the early Spring, 
and up to the present time there is half of the time that 
the ground is too wet to work. The Spring was very early 
and most farmers have done planting corn. There seems 
to be an effort to grow more com than last year. There 
appears a good prospect for a crop of apples and some 
peaches this year; of course we have no large commercial 
orchards, but there is a demand for fruit along Kanawha 
and New rivers at the various coal works that is largely 
supplied by Nicholas and Fayette counties when we have 
a good crop. Wheat is heading out, and looks well. Win¬ 
ter oats are also showing the heads, and promise a heavy 
crop. The local produce market is dull; eggs are selling 
at 12 cents per dozen, butter at 12 cents per pound. 
Nicholas Co., W. Va. a. j. l. 
The prospect for good crops is better this Spring than 
for many years. The warm, moist weather has been 
very favorable for the growth of grass and grain. Oats 
have made an exceptionally fine growth. Fruit prospect 
is also good. Apples, pears, plums and peaches have 
a good setting of fruit upon them as yet; cherries are 
not so full. Berries and small fruit give promise of a 
good crop. Asparagus has proved a profitable crop, sell¬ 
ing at 15 to 30 cents per bunch. Increased acreage is 
being planted of it and berries. Corn planting is now in 
full swing, after being delayed by the rains. Prices of 
grains are high, except wheat. Oats 60 cents per bushel; 
corn from 70 to 80 cents per bushel shelled. There is 
practically no corn or oats in the county to sell at the 
present time. Everything now seems favorable for a 
prosperous year. e. d. o. 
Somerville, N. J. 
We are in the edge of the great Norfolk truck belt. 
Most farmers grow radishes, peas, beets, snap beans, and 
early potatoes for the northern market. Strawberries are 
also grown by many. Yields of the above named crops 
have hardly been up to the average, and prices have 
been low on all except strawberries, which, although 
hardly a full crop, brought good prices. Potato digging 
has just begun, and both yield and price promise fair. 
Corn, peanuts and cotton are making a fine start, and 
the acreage of cotton is larger than last year. At Oak 
Knoll we began cutting oats and vetch for hay May 25, 
and will at once plant the ground in corn, peanuts or cow 
peas, either of which will have time to make a full yield 
and come off in time to reseed to oats and vetch. ‘ We 
have oats and vetch waist high, and so thick it would 
puzzle a rabbit to get through it. j. b. l. 
Norfolk Co., Va. 
It seems to me that the fruit outlook in this section 
is very good so far. Tree are not so full of blossoms as 
sometimes, but with very warm weather the bees are able 
to do their part. Rainy weather has hindered planting 
very much; little had been done to May 23; in fact, lots 
of oats not yet sown. About the usual amount will be 
planted if weather permits. Shortage of seed potatoes 
will curtail the acreage here very much ; none to be had, 
which will mean more beans. Meadows show much more 
sorrel than usual; pasture good, cows scarce and selling 
for $35 to $50 for grades ; horses plentiful and slow sale. 
Day help, while a little cheaper than last year, is no.t 
very plentiful. Your fertilizer talks are both interesting 
and profitable. A striking illustration of the benefit of 
fertilizers is shown in my rye field ; where it was used rye 
is now 40 inches high and headed ; in same field all other 
conditions the same it is only 21 and no sign of heads. 
I am also making some experiments on top-dressing mea¬ 
dows. c. I. HUNT. 
Livingston Co., N. Y. 
The high price of grain seems to cause more corn to be 
planted than for many years. More potatoes are being 
planted also and large areas of oats have been sown. To 
sell milk at car or take cream to a creamery is one of the 
questions of importance to farmers here, the feeding value 
of skim-milk being the argued point. From one man's 
standpoint it seems one must pay for the fun. He has 
just sold his five pigs; they were worth to start with 
$2.50 each. $12.50. He fed skim-milk and grain, buying 
2,000 pounds at an average of $1.50 per hundred, $30, 
making the cash cost $42.50; sold delivered for $43.60, 
leaving him $1.10 for the labor of feeding for seven 
months, and the milk thrown in. Tell the Hope Farm man 
that the way to keep other folks’ hens at home is easy 
and cheap. Feed them abundantly, furnishing grit and 
oyster shells, taking care to look pleasant; make nest 
boxes and make a great show of bringing in eggs, even if 
you have to buy them. It never takes long to fix things 
this wav and there are no loud words and the bad feelings 
are where they ought to be. c. ji. 
So. Royalton, Vt. 
By June 1 everything was just “hopping” that was in 
the ground. Some farmers had not all their oats and 
barley sown, and about half of the corn is planted, but 
is being rushed in now. Wheat, Timothy and clover are 
better than usual on the average, though some of the 
old meadows are not very good, being veritable flower- 
gardens, if you can call the dandelion a flower. All kinds 
of stock have wintered well, and wfth fine pastures are 
putting flesh on their bones and filling the milk pails 
full. Nine days of Summer weather, following a copl, 
wet, backward Spring have changed the prospects of farm¬ 
ing and horticulture wonderfully. This is getting to be 
quite a fruit section on the west bank of Cayuga Lake. 
Several farms have changed hands this Spring and the 
new owners are setting them largely to peaches and 
apples. All of the bearing orchards here give promise 
now of an abundant crop. There has been some spray¬ 
ing done already, and most of the apple growers are pre¬ 
paring to spray their orchards. We have sprayed our 
vineyard, and our Elberta peach trees for the curl leaf: 
have quite a lot of it on some parts of the orchard, and do 
not see much difference between the sprayed trees and 
some that were left for a check. The spraying was done 
early and thoroughly; one part of our orchard where we 
had a lot of chickens last year is particularly bad. 
Tompkins Co., N. Y. t. h. king. 
The apple crop of the Middle West is almost a failure 
again this year. Excessive rains during the blooming 
period, frosts, freezes, hail and wind have all contributed 
to the destruction of the crop. Perhaps the most de¬ 
structive agency was rain. It rained almost constant¬ 
ly during the blooming period, and in fact the wet weather 
continued throughout April and May. The record of the 
U. S. Weather Station at Bentonville, Ark., shows 8.22 
inches of rain for April and 7.72 inches for May to date 
(May 29). Similar conditions have obtained throughout 
the Missouri Valley, and in many localities the farmers 
were unable to plant corn. A freeze on April 3 killed a 
large percentage of the southern Missouri apple crop; 
another freeze on April 30 contributed further to the loss 
in that State, and damaged the Arkansas crop. The 
orchards of northwest Arkansas set a very light crop of 
fruit in the first place and then the freeze caught most of 
it. The Ozarks, therefore, have scarcely 10 per cent of 
a crop. The crop in southeastern Nebraska was largely 
killed by a freeze on May 2, but the fruit on high ground 
partly escaped so that orchards favorably located have 
considerable fruit. Southern Illinois escaped the freezes 
and has a fair crop of apples, but the rains, hail and 
wind have made life hard for the young fruits. The 
conditions have been ideal for Apple scab and the scab 
fungus has certainly improved the opportunity. Unfortun¬ 
ately the rains prevented spraying at the proper time and 
both fruit and foliage are badly affected. It is reported 
that portions of northern Missouri and eastern Kansas 
have a fair crop but those sections have also been badly 
damaged by adverse weather conditions. - w. m. s. 
Bentonville, Ark. 
.Tune opens with a splendid outlook for the farmers of 
Wayne County. For several weeks the continued rains 
and cold weather made everybody think that the Spring’s 
work would be very backward, but a sudden warm spell 
and frequent warm showers have produced a transforma¬ 
tion, and now everything is much in advance of last sea¬ 
son at this time, and vegetation is fairly jumping. The 
main crop which the farmer scans with closest attention 
is the fruit outlook. From present indications this will 
be all that could be desired. Plums, pears ,and cherries 
were simply one solid mass of bloom, and have set well. 
The main fruit is the apple, which this year blossomed 
about two weeks earlier than last season, and the flowers 
did not remain on the trees only about half as long, for 
the weather was favorable to their ranid development. 
The bloom was a heavy one, but it was far from a full 
crop. Most trees that bore last year will not boar this 
season. Greenings are blossoming full, while Baldwins, 
the main variety, are not so heavily loaded. Oats were 
sown through a long period this vear. and many fields 
were up and had made a good growth before others were 
sown. Corn planting is now being rushed; a few pieces 
are up and looking well. Meadows are looking excellent 
and the hay crop bids fair to be a big one. On the ex¬ 
tensive muck lands south of Wolcott a full acreage of 
onions has been put in, and the first weeding has already 
taken place. An unusually large crop of peas has been 
sown for the local canning factory, as farmers find this 
a good paying crop, and it affords an income early in the 
season, when money is scarce. Sheep shearing ‘ is now 
nearly over, and the price of wool only about 17 cents. 
Wolcott, N. Y., June 1. c. J. a. 
TRESPASSING HENS AND HOGS.—I have read the 
wail of the man over his neighbor’s chickens. Neighbors 
are often too scarce to “get out” with for any little 
neighborhood bickering, and I should go very slow in 
encouraging neighborhood quarrels ; but when a man rolls 
up his sleeves and dares me I should feel like calling his 
bluff, but might not, as I am a small man; but I should 
lie awake nights thinking out a plan of action. A two- 
foot roll of chicken. wire along the line fence might 
work wonders, and is quite inexpensive; a hen is not 
apt to fly much from one field to another. When I was 
young and more reckless than I am now, an old woman 
used to toll her hens in front of my store in Nevada 
to pick up the grains scattered about, and incidentally 
they made a nuisance of themselves by trying to appro¬ 
priate the store and contents. I tried soaking wheat in 
whisky without results. Then I tried tying a small piece 
of beef to each end of a common cotton string; it 
worked to perfection. I rigged up a quantity of them one 
day and it took the old lady half the time pulling strings 
out of the lions’ gullets and abusing me. It didn’t hurt 
the hens either. Another scheme I should try would be 
to hold out inducements for biddy to lay some eggs on 
my land. Down in Florida they have a hog law or lack 
of law, and in places where there are many hogs it is a 
great expense to fence against them. One ingenious 
trucker solved the problem, and it hinged on the alleged 
fact that strychnine will not poison a hog, but will 
poison a human being who has eaten the meat of a doc¬ 
tored hog. This man had a largo field of sweet potatoes: 
he opened up his fences, posted notices of “No trespass,” 
and gave out that he bad doped his field with strychnine. 
Of course no one would eat local pork. The hog men did 
not dare to trespass to drive off their hogs. The hog 
business became suddenly very unprofitable and ended in 
a complete victory for the truckers. frank Howard. 
