168 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 11, 
THE FARMERS’ SHARE. 
On page 72 we made some statements 
regarding the sort of education which 
farmers need. The Syracuse, N. Y., 
Post-Standard is supposed to be high 
authority on farm education, so it printed 
the following: 
A “Personal Opinion.” 
It is a pity to see so reputable and in¬ 
fluential a farm paper as The Rural New- 
Yobker lending its columns to such clap 
trap as: 
“Our ‘personal opinion’ is that the farm¬ 
ers of this country do not need that edu¬ 
cation which shows them how to produce 
more, half as much as that which will 
show them how to get a larger share of 
the consumer’s dollar.” 
Certainly, Mr. Farmer. 
Never mind finding out why your wheat 
land which used to produce 20 bushels to 
the acre now produces 12 bushels. 
Don’t pay any attention to the cranks 
who would induce you to spray your or¬ 
chards and have something better than 
cider apples to sell in the Fall. 
Don’t inquire whether the old general 
purpose cow is netting you a loss or a 
profit. 
Don’t bother with Alfalfa. 
Don’t learn anything new. 
Don’t study. „ , ^ , , 
Sit around the box of sawdust and de¬ 
bate the best means of getting the con¬ 
sumer’s dollar. Work up a good high tem¬ 
perature by saying all the mean things you 
can about the middleman and the railroad. 
Don’t give anything to your profession. 
Take all you can. 
Write to your Congressman for more free 
seed. , , . . 
That’s the way to succeed—in driving 
your sons to the city. 
The ink was hardly dry on this bunch 
of wisdom before our readers began 
sending us copies of it with barbed wire 
comments: 
I enclose you a “personal opinion” pub¬ 
lished in last Saturday's I’ost-Standard. I 
was ashamed of the paper for publishing 
such a silly article, but think Ella C. 
(Joodell has' made a good answer to it. 
That woman is all right and knows what 
she is writing about. J. h. betts. 
Oswego Co., N. Y. 
The article to which Mr. Betts refers 
is as follows: 
The Farmer of Today. 
The type of farmer you mention in your 
editorial criticism, “A Personal Opinion, 
who is "sitting around the box of saw¬ 
dust ” must be a vision of the past, for the 
farmer of to-day is debating questions per¬ 
taining to his business in the Orange, the 
farmers’ institute or studying his problems 
with the aid of the experiment stations or 
the agricultural schools. lie is finding out 
also in these latter days that if he is pro¬ 
ducing a crop at a loss, the more he raises 
the worse off he is. , , 
We are learning to look for the leak 
between three-cent milk to us and 10 -cent 
milk to the consumer. New York State is 
largely a dairy State, and especially the 
counties in this section. When the farm is 
turned to dairying it is not possible to 
raise grain to any extent, and this must 
he bought. Not all farmers will raise Al¬ 
falfa, but many are trying to secure it, 
though with seed at $13 a bushel it must 
be slow seeding. Added to all these handi¬ 
caps are the up-to-date barns required by 
the city boards of health, often putting the 
small farmer deeply in debt. Most farm¬ 
ers are buying expensive stock, high-grade 
or registered herds headed by thorough- 
bred males in their efforts to increase the 
yield of milk. The cost of all this is 
proved by records kept by expert farmers, 
and the facts brought out in some late in¬ 
vestigations, that such milk cannot be pro¬ 
duced for less than 3% cents per quart. 
The highest price paid in this section this 
vear has been just 3% cents per quart and 
that for only one month, when the mem¬ 
bers of the New York Milk Exchange got 
together and declared there was a surplus 
of milk and made a “gentleman's agree¬ 
ment” to keep within the law, and dropped 
the price to 3% cents, but they forgot to 
drop anything off from the consumer’s 
Shall we redouble our efforts to make 
more milk at a loss? It means more ex¬ 
pensive cows, more feed. Or shall we be¬ 
gin to look after our share of the con¬ 
sumer’s dollar? The city farmer does not 
seem to realize that it costs any more to 
double the crop. There must be more work 
in preparing the soil, more fertilizer used, 
more help to do the work. More help is 
the great problem. This is hard to obtain 
and the wages are prohibitive. Hand is 
lying idle in central New York for lack of 
help, and what the farmer and his family 
cannot do from before dawn until after 
dark must go undone. Immigrant help, ex¬ 
cept in gangs under a boss, has so far not 
been very satisfactory. The average farmer 
has no idea that he can run a department 
store or edit a paper, and he is equally 
skeptical of advice from those engaged in 
other occupations. , , _ 
He is not sending to his Congressman 
for more free seed, but oftener returning 
them and informing the honorable gentle- 
man that it is up to him to legislate for 
the interests of the farmer or lose his 30 b. 
Too long has the farmer worked to increase 
th / ' crop that others might grow rich 
thereby. To-dav he is organizing and 
watching his interests outside the farm. 
What he needs is less advice how to do the 
work and more help that is willing to get 
right down in the dirt and help do it. 
b ELLA C. GOODELL. 
Out of a dozen other letters sent us 
we may take the following: 
I am enclosing a clipping from my daily 
paper that I thought might interest you. 
I think you are right in your personal 
opinion. Take the dairy farmer, for in¬ 
stance ; he is producing too much hmk, 
any more would reduce prices which with 
the average producer’s methods makes the 
consumer’s dollar look like less than 30 
cents. He buys western grain, pays rail¬ 
road freight, grain combine prices, retail 
dealers’ percentage at one end, and milk 
station operation, railroad freight, milk 
dealers’ profits, and peddlers’ expenses at 
the other end, and to this add labor, in¬ 
terest and taxes that are continually go¬ 
ing higher. He would be better off to sell 
half his cows, raise the feed for the other 
half on his farm, get what he wants to eat, 
a. . let the other fellow do the same. 
FRANK D. HAMILTON. 
Madison Co., N. Y. 
Ground Bone Top-dressing. 
E. J. (No Address). —How would ground 
bone do for top-dressing ground sown to 
rye and grass last Fall? If not suitable 
to use alone, what should be added and in 
what proportions, also for a general fer¬ 
tilizer? Can you tell me anything of the 
Peter Cooper bone? 
AnS. —Ground bone supplies phosphoric 
acid and nitrogen, but no potash. Use 
three parts by weight of bone to one of 
muriate or sulphate of potash for grain. 
On poor land it would pay to add one 
part of nitrate of soda, which supplies 
available' nitrogen to quicken up the 
grass. The “Peter Cooper bone” means 
bone which has been used for glue mak¬ 
ing. The nitrogen is taken out of it, 
leaving a very fine product containing 
phosphoric acid and lime. 
Reo Proof 
Absolute proof of the qualities you want in a motor 
car — the io^ day-and-night record of the Rco from 
New York to San Francisco. 
Reliability — the first and most important. Half of the 4000 miles 
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at all. A car that can keep on going at such a rate over those roads will do 
anything you can ask of it. 
“I told dat feller I was so flat broke 
I had to sleep outdoors,” said Plodding 
Pete. ‘‘Did it touch his heart?” asked 
Meandering Mike. “No. He said he 
was doing the same thing, an’ had to pay 
de doctor for tellin’ him what a blessin’ 
it was.”—Washington Star. 
When you write advertisers mention The 
R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a quick reply and 
“a square deal.” See guarantee page 16. 
f PHILADELPHIA. PA. 
Stand for Purity and Quality. The result 
of 38 years’ experience in testing, and 
proving the best. Our GARDEN AND FARM 
MANUAL for 1911 tells all about them. 
Mailed tree to seed buyers who write for it. 
JOHNSON SEED COMPANY, 
217 Market St, Philadelphia. Pa. 
WeOrowandTest 
OurSeedatHome 
Nearly all our seed is grown right here on our own farms. 
We could buy seed a lot cheaper, but we can’t afford to do it 
_neither couldyoa afford to plant such stuff, even though 
you bought it for a few cents less—because nobody can ever 
tell how much of it will grow. 
Our method makes it easy for yon to grow good crops. 
We watch the seed plants In the fields all summer, to 
make sure that they grow true to ty)>e, uninixed with other 
seed; then we carefully clean and thoroughly test it, so that 
When You Plant Harris’ Seed You Can 
Tell Just How Much of It Will Grow 
On every package of our seed is a label telling just how 
much of that seed will germinate. If you aren’t in the habit 
of buying seed that's as carefully grown as tliat, try our 
seed this year; it won’t cost you much, if any, more, but , 
your crops will be far better / Catalogue free. 
JOSEPH HARRIS COMPANY 
Mortfon Farm, Box 31, Coldwater, N. Y. 
MAULE S SEEDS 
ONCE GROWN ALWAYS GROWN 
Is the reason why for many years past I have 
done such an enormous seed business. 79,430 
customers In Pennsylvania alone, with almost 
half a million the world over. My New Seed Book 
for 1911 is a wonder; contains everything in 
seeds, bulbs and plants worth growing. Weighs 12 
ounces; 600 illustrations, 4 colored plates, 176 
pages. Any gardener sending his name on a 
postal card can have It for the asking. Address 
WM. HENRY MAULE 
1707-09-11 Filbert St., Philadelphia, P«. 
_ S end B cents (stamps ) and mention this 
paper and 1 will enclose in the catalogue 
a packet of seed of the above choice pansy. 
Power. The Rocky and Sierra Mountains, and the desert in between 
gave the Reo lots of stiff and rough climbs. You’ll never find 
a harder or stiffer climb in all your motoring. 
Speed. The car that held the previous record was a 
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We have plenty more proof of the solid motoring 
qualities of the Reo, if you want it; but this is absolute. 
Send for catalogue and “ Reo and the Farmer ”, Plain facts. 
R M Owen & Co Lansing Mich Reo Motor Car Co 
Licensed under Selden Patent 
You can 
do it 
with a 
Rotten Potato es, Culls&Trash 
make mighty poor stuff for planting. If through unfavorable weather conditions or 
adverse circumstances, your potato crop was a failure last year, do not think of planting 
the stuff you have on hand, but, sell all that is salable and convert the culls and refuse 
into ten-cent pork and get a new start. There is nothing truer under the sun than the 
old adage, “Like begets like,” and to grow a good crop of potatoes one must plant 
GOOD SEED. 
Dibble’s SEED POTATOES are GOOD SEED POTATOES, and the best 
possible proof that they ARE good is found in the fact that 20 years ago—the first year 
we started in business—our sales were less than 500 bushels, and last year over 100,000 
bushels. 
Dibble’s Seed Potatoes especially adapted to each va- 
riety, and from carefully se¬ 
lected seed. After harvest they are stored in our own specially constructed warehouses, 
360 feet in length, and kept, at an even temperature of around 38 degrees, so as to hold 
the tubers firm and hard till spring. We catalog 31 varieties, all that is newest and best, 
as well as the old standard sorts of value, and we are sure that some of our varieties, 
both early and late, MUST he adapted to the soil on your farm. Numbers of farmers 
have written us that Dibble’s Seed Potatoes have outyielded their home grown seed two 
to one, others that they have doubled their crops. Why not on your farm ? 
We Are Headquarters for Seed Potatoes 
Have over 60,000 bushels in store, and our prices are lowest possible consistent with high¬ 
est possible quality, as we ship direct from our 16'0-acre seed farms to yours. 
Our Farm Seed Catalog foi\l!)l 1 contains more pages devoted to seed potatoes than 
any other we have seen, and Mr. Dibble has written a little book entitled, piAPP 
“ Dibble on the Potato,” giving 20 years’ experience in potato growing. LULL 
If you are interested in Good Seed Potatoes and want to learn all rnrr 
about potato culture, send for the Catalog and the book. They are I 11 fea 
-address- 
EDWARD F. DIBBLE, Seedgrower, Box B, Honeoye Falls, N. Y. 
Dreers Garden Book 
THE 1911 edition is larger and more comprehensive than any 
x former issue and the most helpful single volume ever pub¬ 
lished on garden subjects. 288 pages, nearly 1,000 illustrations, 
8 color and duotone plates. Describes over 1,200 varieties of 
Flower Seeds, 600 kinds of Vegetables, 2,000 varieties of plants, 
llundredsof cultural articles by experts telling plainly just how 
to grow flowers, vegetables, plants, climbers, shrubs, aquatics, 
roses, etc. These arranged conveniently with pictures, prices 
and descriptions. 
Mailed free to anyone mentioning this publication. 
DRKKK’S OKCHID-FLOWKHED SWEET PEAS 
These arc the aristocrat* of the Sweet Pea family am! just as easy to grow 
as the ordinary sort. Flowers of extraordinary size, with wavy petals, 
usually borne four to a spray. A mixture containing all colors, 10c per 
packet; 15c per oz. "Garden Book" free with each order. 
HENRY A. DREER > PHIL ADEL ITHA 
Northrup, King & Co.’s 
LINCOLN OAT 
THE LARGEST AND HEAVIEST YIELDING VARIETY 
75 to 90 bushels per acre. Early, rust resistant , strong, stiff straw, thin 
hull, heavy meat, soft nib, white berry. We offer hardy, Canadian grown 
seed, weighing 44 lbs. to the measured bushel-. The finest variety and best 
quality of seed obtainable anywhere. Don’t sow ordinary seed when our 
Lincoln Oats may tie obtained at the following reasonable prices: Bu. of 32 lbs., 
$1.25; 2 bu. at $1.10; 10 bu. at $1.00. F.O.B. Minneapolis, bags free. Special 
prices on large lots. Story of record yields and other information on this 
remarkable oat in our 27TH ANNUAL CATALOGUE FOR 1911 
Beautifully illustrated with photographs true to nature. It gives accurate 
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NORTHRUP, KING & CO., s.-d.„,en, 
i^aa—BMgw— m.ipi IMIII ■! 11—wa<i 
