280 
March 4 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
PabUikad <mU; by the Rnrsl Publishing Company, 409 Pearl Street, Hew York, 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor, 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wii. P. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Roylk, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, eqnal to 
8 a. 6 a., or 8*9 marks, or 10 '2 francs. Remit in money order, 
express order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates 60 cents per agate line—7 words. Discount for timi 
orders. References required for advertisers unknown to 
ns; and cash must accompany transient orders. 
“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 our columns, and any such swmdlerwill be publicly ex¬ 
posed. We protect suberibers against rogues, but wedo 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 New-Yorker 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. 
* 
The annual Horticultural Number of The R. N.-Y. 
was started with 24 pages. This year’s issue contains 
52 pages and we now regret that we did not add 
more. Whatever gets into print must speak for itself. 
Our people are abundantly able to decide for them¬ 
selves about the value of printed matter. We hope 
this one is the best number we have yet issued—but 
"you are to be the judge.” 
* 
No one can overestimate the importance of having 
an established standard for commercial lime-sulphur. 
This material as a Summer spray marks the greatest 
advance horticulture has made in 20 years. The great 
demand for it opens an inviting field for fakers and 
snides to offer a dishonest product. By using salt 
they can cheat the hydrometer by showing a specific 
gravity not due to sulphur. By using an injurious 
caustic they may pad out their “guarantee” to the in¬ 
jury of trees where the stuff is used. These'things 
are even worse than selling bogus fertilizers. The 
State or the Federal Government should establish a 
standard, sample the various mixtures and hold the 
manufacturers right up to time. The great majority 
of them offer honest goods. So much the more de¬ 
sirable to duck the fakes in their own mixture. 
* 
In Michigan, at least, the courts have pretty well 
settled the matter of damages in substituted tree cases. 
There is a clear distinction between damages arising 
from using substituted or untrue seeds and those from 
trees untrue to label. In an annual crop the measure 
of damages is the difference in value between the 
value of the crop from inferior seed and that of seed 
true to guarantee. With fruit trees the added value of 
the land if planted to trees true to name is the meas¬ 
ure of damage. Testimony may be offered to prove 
such damage. In one Michigan case the nurseryman 
claimed that since many of the trees had been frozen 
and killed after suit was brought, the fruit grower 
had suffered no loss through the nurseryman’s failure 
to keep his contract. The judge dismissed this plea. 
Had they been destroyed before the suit started the 
case would have been different. The law is clear re¬ 
garding the damage caused by misfit trees. The 
R. N.-Y.’s position' on this question has been often 
stated. If only a few of the trees proved untrue we 
should be lenient. If, however, the great majority of 
a large order proved untrue and unsatisfactory we 
should make the nurseryman pay the damage if it 
were possible to stay by him until he made good. 
* 
It is interesting to watch the evolution of a “careful 
consideration” Congressman when his people get after 
The theory of evolution was that constant use 
of a faculty or organ tends to develop it until im¬ 
provement of the function becomes a part of the sys¬ 
tem. The average Congressman says he will give 
“careful consideration,” because those words are as 
much a part of him as his hand or his nose. One 
of our readers wrote to ask Congressman Rodenburg 
of Illinois where he stood on parcels post. Back 
came “careful consideration.” The farmer wrote him 
again, sharper than before, and this time he was told 
that “your views will be given consideration. Here 
is a little gain in evolution, but not much. Stick the 
pen into him once more and see what follows. Our 
friend “Mapes the Hen Man” wrote his Congressman 
and got “careful consideration.” Then Mapes sharp¬ 
ened his pen and tried again. This time it was sym¬ 
pathetic interest,” which is a slight gain. Now the 
truth is that we shall get from our Congressmen just 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
what we put into them, and not much more. There 
is no evolution in this theory of sending these men 
to Washington to use their “best judgment alone and 
unaide'd. Your judgment as to what you need is as 
good as theirs, and good, strong words which carry 
the weight of sincerity will do more to “evolute” the 
careful consideration man than anything else in the 
world. 
* 
CANADIAN “RECIPROCITY.” 
No. 3. 
In 1910 this country imported from Canada $97,- 
892,684 worth of goods. Of these $52,103,938 paid 
duty while $45,788,746 worth came in free. The larg¬ 
est items under free trade were copper, wood pulp, 
furs and hides, nickel ore, silk, lobsters, chemicals and 
asbestos. Farm products all paid a duty and with the 
possible exception of the tariff on European potatoes 
this was the only direct benefit the high tariff system 
has ever given our farmers. In exchange for this 
poor and puny benefit they have given the manufac¬ 
turers and railroads license to build up vast monopo¬ 
lies and control legislation. We say this advisedly 
and shall continue to repeat it until farmers realize 
just what it means. It is well understood of all 
men that our present high tariff system would never 
have been developed had not the farmers of New 
England, New York and other Northern States con¬ 
tinued to support it. The New England people con¬ 
tinued to vote for it under the implied promise that 
they were to have first right to the markets which 
“protection” developed. 
The proposed “reciprocity” destroys every possible 
advantage which the tariff could give our farmers 
without any compensating returns. Such things as 
hay, potatoes, milk products, live animals, fruit and 
grain are admitted free. Here is direct and ruinous 
competition for our farmers, especially those near the 
border, while the things which these farmers are 
obliged to buy are still “protected” by a tariff. Take 
the case of a dairy farmer in New England. Right 
over'the line in Quebec is a strong, natural grass sec¬ 
tion. In the last tariff bill a clerical error made the 
tariff on cream read five cents a gallon instead of 
pound. This error, overlooked, caused imports of 
Canadian cream to the value of $1,401,324 last year, 
and where is the consumer who was helped by it ? 
Canadian farmers in this district bought wheat bran 
at $18 per ton last year. Over the line $22.50 was the 
lowest price reached, with nearly as large differences 
in other feeds. While wheat and other entire grains 
are on the free list, bran and other feeds are taxed 
$2.50 per ton. Thus the Canadian farmer will have 
the advantage of cheaper feed and hay while his milk 
comes freely in to compete with our dairymen. The 
Canadian farmer also receives direct financial help 
from his government. He can, for example, borrow 
money on long term public loans and use it for drain¬ 
ing. The milk contractors will have it in their power 
to offer farmers what they please. Should these 
American farmers organize like men to resist, these 
contractors have only to send over the line, buy milk 
of the French Canadians and laugh at the milk pro¬ 
ducers. Meanwhile the consumers in town and city 
will still pay the old prices for milk. 
This is but one illustration of 50 which might be 
given to show the injustice of this scheme. In the 
West, Canadian sheep could be driven over the line 
and then sheared. In such case this wool would 
come into free competition with our own. Live ani¬ 
mals come in free while dressed and canned meats 
are protected. Thus the beef packers will have access 
to the Canadian cattle grown on cheap pasture. Yet 
with their tariff on dressed meat they will keep up 
their monopoly and their prices. In like manner wheat 
will come in free to cut down the price of our grain, 
as it already has done. Yet flour and other forms 
of grain which the people cat are still protected. The 
entire scheme robs the American farmer and gives 
the manufacturer and the middleman the same old 
opportunity to keep out competition and hold up 
prices. The cowardly policy of the high tariff bene¬ 
ficiaries at this crisis is almost past belief. They 
owe what they have to the farmers who are now being 
betrayed, yet they stand feebly by and let these farm¬ 
ers fight alone. They cannot be so blind as not to 
see what is coming to them from this. Let us look 
next at the business and political results of this 
“reciprocity.” 
Upon what food do the potato diggers of northern 
Michigan feed that they have grown so great? 
I see by your issue of February 18 you consider it a 
joke that one of us Michigan fellows dug 105 bushels of 
potatoes in eight hours by hand. The. writer last Fall 
dug, picked up and hauled one-half mile to house and 
put in cellar alone 95 bushels in nine hours 30 minutes, 
which is just considered a fair day’s work. The time of 
digging the potatoes alone was 5% hours. The writer 
dug in the same manner as Mr. Garthe, with a hook, two 
rows at a time. The potatoes were Empire State, planted 
with a hand-planter in hills 30 inches apart each way, 
the field of four acres averaging 250 bushels per acre. 
Charlevoix Co., Mich. fred falting. 
This is getting to be anything but a joke. In New 
Jersey we have often paid $1.50 a day to men who 
dug 30 bushels of potatoes and then bragged about 
their day’s work! From these figures Michigan beats 
us on both men and potatoes. We surely hope the 
breed will not run out. 
* 
In a speech at the National Corn Exposition Presi¬ 
dent Taft made this astonishing argument: 
If the argument as to the disastrous effect of admitting 
the crops of the Canadian Northwest to our markets upon 
the values of our farm land is correct, then the opening 
of lands in Kansas, Nebraska, and the two Dakotas in 
the two decades from 1890 to 1910 should have had a 
similar effect upon the land of the older States. Now, 
what was the effect upon the farm lands of the older 
States of the competition of these newer States? The 
land in the older States became more devoted to corn 
and cattle and hogs, while the wheat and other cereals 
were left to the now lands. The effect was that the 
values of the lands in the older farming States were in 
most cases more than doubled. 
We wish to show the greatest respect for the 
President of the United States, yet where can you find 
a more misleading statement of the case than is here 
given? The last census shows that the farm districts 
of such States as Iowa and Missouri actually lost in 
population, through competition with our Pacific 
States and Western Canada. The true comparison 
is the condition of Eastern farming as affected by 
the opening of the Western lands shortly after the 
Civil War. Those of us who were forced away from 
New England farms at that time know the terrible 
injury that was done, and know what will follow if 
the new Canadian land is to pour its products in an 
unrestricted stream into our markets. If history re¬ 
peat itself, as it ever has done, there will be another 
movement of young men away from the older land, 
and another ruinous drop in price. Here is a typical 
letter from a young New England farmer who saw 
the old farm slowly recovering from the competition 
with new land: 
The worst effect will be upon the future of our agricul¬ 
ture, and as a young man I am at a loss to know what 
to do. I have been reasoning that our new land was 
about all taken up, and that very soon our farming 
must be put on a permanent basis with prices for farm 
products which would enable a man to farm in such a 
way as to keep up the fertility of his soil. I have begun 
a system of drainage which will cost quite a sum of 
money to complete. Is the opening up of this large 
territory of rich soil and giving its products free access 
to our markets going to have the same effect on our 
agriculture that the opening of our West had? If so, 
the best thing I can do is to put my money somewhere 
else. I knew a man who bought a fine farm soon after 
the war for $13,000. He worked hard all his life trying 
to pay for that farm, aud died $5000 in debt, while there 
were times when his farm would not have sold for the 
$5000. Old land cannot compete with new laud in the 
production of crops, and are we farmers of the East 
going ahead, or are we going to mark time while the 
lands of western Canada are being robbed? 
It is reported that President Taft told the fisher¬ 
men of Gloucester, Mass., that they simply saw 
“ghosts” in the danger from reciprocity. 
“There need no ghost come from the grave 
To tell us that, Horatio !” 
Every Eastern farmer will know how true that line 
is when he reviews the history of his farm. 
BREVITIES. 
British India has two agricultural colleges. 
Lend a hand! To the big-headed chap who goes “back 
to the land.” 
North Dakota has the seed testing business down to 
practical work. 
No, we would not plant trees largely where the 17-year 
locusts are expected. 
That is an interesting statement on page 273 about a 
contract for spraying. 
The Hope Farm man does not expect a large vote from 
the Florida laud boomers. 
A good way to raise pneumonia is to plant au over¬ 
heated frame iu a cold bed. 
Prof. Minkler’s article, page 296, will answer about 
50 questions on pasturing hogs. 
Mr. IIotaling’s article comes as the next thing to 
having the spray rod and nozzle in your hand. 
Irrigate a few well prepared acres and get more out 
of it than from an entire sunbaked and rough farm. 
You might not believe it, but quite a majority of our 
legal questions refer to the rights of a husband in his 
wife’s property! 
In spite of all we have said, people still send letters 
signed only “Reader,” “One Who Knows,” etc. They go 
into the waste basket. 
The largest melon story comes from Consul Madison 
of Ilarput. He claims that watermelons grown in Diar- 
bekir are as large as flour barrels! Next! 
Cattle from the Himalaya Mountains are suggested for 
Alaska. Crossed with the Galloway breed it is probable 
they would produce a fine and beautiful fur animal. 
Probably few of us will ever try to climb the Alps. We 
may console ourselves with the report that 90 of such 
climbers lost their lives last year, while 80 more were 
seriously hurt. 
