364 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Pabllahed weekly by the Rnral Pnblishlng Company, 409 Pearl Street, Few York. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor, 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Roylk, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, equal to 
8s. 6d., or 8Hi 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. 
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 swindler will be publicly ex- 
Posm. 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 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. 
* 
We understand that there are patents pending on a 
light motor tool to take the place of hand pushed 
garden cultivators. It is light and runs with a four 
horse-power used on a motor cycle. Others with a 
stronger power will run tools like a horse cultivator 
in narrow rows. Of course a patent does not prove 
that a tool is practical, but we hope some inventor 
will succeed with this idea. 
* 
Some agents of “horse companies” have appeared 
in New England trying to organize farmers and sell 
shares in a horse. At every point they seem to strike 
subscribers to The R. N.-Y. who cheerfully point 
them to the recent articles. Well, gentlemen, if we 
can have our way we shall print the truth about horse 
companies, creamery sharks, land frauds and fake 
schemes generally so that the country will be plastered 
by the record. Our friends will do the plastering 
and we will do the printing. 
* 
There was a hearing at Albany on March 8 on 
what is known as the Collin bill—which aims to 
record and regulate sales by commission men. We 
printed the original bill on page 329. It has since been 
made stronger by amendment. Nearly 100 farmers 
attended this hearing, and their case was well pre¬ 
sented. The fight for the bill will come in the Senate. 
It is time to get into the battle at once. Do not delay 
a moment, but write your Senator and Representative 
at Albany and urge them to work for Assembly bill 
590. 
* 
We have some articles on “back to the land” com¬ 
ing which will cause much thought and discussion. 
These articles give the facts just as the authors see 
them. Some are the record of plain failure—told 
freely and without complaint. Others are hopeful and 
record a success or at least a hope. Such success 
will be won if at all only by a hard struggle—too 
hard and fierce for many people to enter into. We do 
not join the cry of “back to the land” for all city 
workers. That is about as foolish and harmful gen¬ 
eral advice as could be given, because it conveys the 
idea that anyone, deformed or foolish, or strong or 
wise, can run a farm, so as to make a living. The 
fact is that farm management requires skill and study 
three times as exacting as the average clerk or sales- 
riian was ever called upon to exercise. We intend to 
tell the truth about “back to the land”—the plain truth 
without prejudice or poetry. 
* 
I think I can tell of a more unreasonable charge than 
did Mr. T. H. King on page 168, with his half bushel of 
apples. I own an ice cream factory in Hillsboro, Ill., and 
five miles from the town on an electric line is a Chautauqua 
grounds. During the assembly there last Summer I sent 
ice cream there and the express company charged me 90 
cents expressage for a 10-gallon packer weighing about 200 
pounds. The railroad company would haul a man of about 
the same weight and furnish him an upholstered seat for 
7% cents, so if the parcels post would take away some of 
the express companies’ business I do not think anyone 
would feel sorry for these greedy corporations. Give us 
parcels post which will be of great good to the greatest 
number. jesse w. osborn. 
Illinois. 
You might figure on this proposition: The express 
company charges 90 cents for carrying 200 pounds of 
ice cream. The railroad carries a young man and his 
girl weighing 300 pounds for 15 cents, and this couple 
eat ice cream. Who gets the consumer’s dollar in this 
case? These practical illustrations help more than 
anything else to show some of the outrageous charges 
made by the express companies. The trouble is that 
most of these arguments have been given in a general 
way—not so as to interest the people who are being 
held up. When the fact is brought right home to 
them through an overcharge to themselves or in some 
incident which is a part of their everyday life, they 
see the point, and each one becomes an active parcels 
poster. 
* 
The absurdity of the division of the city by the “ex¬ 
press trust” was never better illustrated than in the case 
of a man in Dorchester who bad two trunks to send to 
a house in Roxbury, only eight blocks away, perhaps 15 
minutes’ drive at the outside. The express concerns in¬ 
sisted on hauling them into Boston, then out to Roxbury. 
And the charge was $1.70 .—Boston Evening Record. 
Next time, perhaps, the Dorchester man will borrow a 
wheelbarrow and do his own expressing. 
This advice from the Boston Globe is worth think¬ 
ing about. The wheelbarrow we want is parcels post. 
Farmers will take that, put the special privilege of the 
express companies into it and wheel them off to the 
dumping ground, or political ash heap. Take it from 
us—this job will not be done until we first wheel off 
the “careful consideration” Congressmen and bury 
them like the “babes in the wood.” We must use 
ballots instead of leaves. 
* 
It is reported that a leading 'politician was asked 
last Fall if there was any way of preventing the peo¬ 
ple from forcing Congress to give them the reforms 
they had demanded. His answer was: “Only by 
creating a war scare and waving the starry banner!” 
Just before the new Congress is to meet there is a 
great concentration of the American army on the 
Mexican frontier. The possibilities of this “waving 
the starry banner” are very great. Even Senator 
Lorimer might deliver a “patriotic” speech and ex¬ 
pect by doing so to make the public believe that his 
coat of lime-sulphur wash is pure gold surmounted 
by a halo. It is too late. The people know that 
parcels post and fair tariff revision must not be ob¬ 
scured by a war bluff with Mexico. This “war talk” 
method of dodging responsibility is as old as the 
country. When John Adams was President the Fed- 
erals talked war with France and England until it 
seemed as if they were secure in power for years. 
Then they went too far with arbitrary laws and out¬ 
rageous disregard of rights, and even the war talk 
could not save them. 
* 
Reference has been made to a visitation of locusts 
to be looked for this year. The insect is known as the 
periodical cicada, which every 17 or 13 years sud¬ 
denly appears in certain sections, performs its work 
and then disappears. The adult insect cuts little slits 
in the small twigs or branches and lays its eggs in 
them. These eggs hatch in a few weeks and the 
young insects fall to the ground. They burrow into the 
soil and remain there for 13 years in the South and 17 
years at the North. Their food is probably obtained 
from the humus in the soil. There will be two “crops” 
of these locusts this year. One brood will be found 
in Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, Long Island, New 
Jersey and down through eastern Pennsylvania, Dela¬ 
ware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. The 
worst of it will come in New Jersey. The other brood 
will be found in parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, 
Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Ten¬ 
nessee. The insect does not eat plants. The damage 
is caused by cutting and slitting. Heretofore no 
efforts seem to have been made to fight them. We 
shall try a weak solution of lime-sulphur with extra 
hme added to make a thick wash on the fruit trees. 
In the localities named this is one of the things to 
provide for this year. If the locusts are very thick 
they may cause considerable damage to young trees. 
We advise as little trimming as possible when the 
trees are set out, and Summer pruning after the 
locusts disappear. 
* 
CANADIAN “RECIPROCITY.” 
No. 5. 
Congress adjourned without settling the “reci¬ 
procity” question. A new session has been called, 
and the prospects are for a long-drawn-out tariff 
fight. We have tried to present the farmer’s side. 
We believe that the proposed scheme of admitting all 
farm products free, while retaining a tariff on manu¬ 
factured goods, is unfair and against the true interests 
of the country. Historically the argument is broad 
and clear. 
I heartily wish American farming could assume some of 
the solidity of the English type; that farms could descend 
from father to son in some way so that the improvements 
would accumulate. This would result in better culture, 
better buildings and the better standing of the farmer. 
We would not be jumping from place to place. J. D. 
New Hampshire. 
That is what we all wish, but American History for 
the past century shows one long succession of opening 
up for gift or sale at a low price cheap and rich 
new land. Under this policy, which drew away the 
March 18, 
strong and ambitious, there has been little incentive 
for farmers in the Eastern States to handle their 
land and develop it as is done in Europe. Within the 
past 10 years we have come closer to it than ever be¬ 
fore because the new land is largely taken up. A few 
years more and systematic plans for permanent im¬ 
provement of Eastern farm lands would have been 
common. The opening of the rich and cheap lands of 
Canada will, unless all history is disproved, bring back 
the old menace which for a century has hung over our 
older farms. We have insisted and still insist that 
the farmers of the Northern States are chiefly respon¬ 
sible for the high tariff and its outcome: 
I want to point out that you are overlooking the mighti¬ 
est factor in the depression of values following the Civil 
War. That was the work of Wall Street in inducing Con¬ 
gress to call in millions on millions of non-interest bearing 
notes, circulating as money. These were destroyed and 
interest-bearing bonds put in their stead. You cannot 
afford to overlook that part of the history of the war 
period, and the years immediately following. e. l. s. 
Massachusetts. 
We do not overlook it, nor do we forget how it 
was done and how these same Northern farmers voted 
for it and permitted it As boy and young man we 
were raised among farmers, and like other young 
men were interested in politics. The political thought 
of this country was dominated by two things which 
time has proved to be scarecrows, “war issues” and 
“tariff.” Politicians who never went near a battlefield 
fought the war over and over whenever they wanted 
to work through some public steal or special privilege. 
When this began to wear out the tariff was taken up. 
A man could not be elected to the school board in 
some New England towns unless he made high tariff 
his leading issue. The money monopoly, the railroad 
grants, public franchises and the whole long list were 
tacked to a high tariff “platform”—and they went 
through. The workmen in towns might go from one 
side to the other, but the northern farmers stood like 
a rock through all the years and believed what was 
told them about the benefits of protection. They were 
like men who robbed their own pockets, tied them¬ 
selves hand and foot and delivered themselves over to 
servants on the promise that the “American market” 
would be preserved for them. The time has come for 
blunt if not brutal truth telling. Let any man of 50 
who is capable of original thought tell us if this is 
not true! 
Canadian “reciprocity” breaks the charm at last. 
The farmer finds that he has fostered high tariff 
until he has made his “infant industries” rich and 
strong beyond competition. These “infants” jump out 
of the cradle and kick the old man out of the house! 
The last patch and shred of direct benefit from pro¬ 
tection is to be taken from the farmer. What should 
he do? Here is the conclusion which thousands of 
them have come to: 
Perhaps I may reason all wrong, but I believe that this 
reciprocity agreement will eventually help us all. Why? 
Well, we all know that in some cases the physician will 
give a medicine to clear out the system before the real 
remedies are given. So here the farmer has been hood¬ 
winked and given so often fake protection to keep him in 
line so the manufacturers cun count on his help in their 
getting real protection. This is cleaning out our system, 
and will show just how much the “powers that be” care 
for the farmer. Now it is up to the farmer to join with 
the consumer and compel real reciprocity with our next- 
door neighbor in every manufactured article. Can we 
do it? f. q. w. 
There is no doubt that the people of this country 
. want a fair reduction of the tariff. Farmers, as a 
class, will gain by such fair reduction, and they would 
support it. The proposed “reciprocity” is so unfair 
that it will rank as class legislation. Farmers should 
stand for fair protection the same as is given manu¬ 
facturers, or insist that we have absolute free trade 
with Canada— everything to pass freely from one 
country to the other! 
BREVITIES. 
Like a dog on a chain—the man who tries to spray 
with a 10-foot hose. Bug and blight may fool him. 
That is a good, practical article by Mr. Rogers on 
page 370. This is a new scheme for handling oats and 
peas. 
The latest is an insurance agent who threatens one 
of our readers with arrest if he does not renew an ex¬ 
pired insurance policy! A great bluff that! 
No—the Florida land companies are not trying to sell 
the Hope Farm man any land. Their “prospects” read 
like the claims of the “three-gallon cow” man—and are 
about as near the fact. 
At Concord, Mass., a bed of asparagus was set in the 
Spring of 1909 and cut profitably last year! That meant 
ideal soil preparation and “pedigreed seed.” No one can 
do it with scrub stock and scrub care. 
A number of people write to ask why there is a picture 
of a rooster on “The Business Hen” cover. We consider 
the husband of the hen a useful member of the hen yard. 
In fact “the old man” often receives less than half the 
credit due him. 
“The farmer may receive only 35 cents of the con¬ 
sumer’s dollar, but he receives tenfold for his money when 
he takes The R. N.-Y. if he reads it, and thinks. I con¬ 
sider any copy worth the price of one year’s subscrip¬ 
tion,” says H. W. T., of Massachusetts. 
