804 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established isso 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl St,, New York 
Herbert W. Coluxowood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Royle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. $2.04, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
marks, or 10$^ 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 time orders. 
References required for advertisers unknown to us ; and 
cash must accompany transient orders. 
"A SQUARE DEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible 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 exposed. We protect sub¬ 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trifling differences 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither will we be 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must be sent to ns within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and you must have i icntioned The Rural New-Yorker 
when writing the advertiser. 
TEN WEEKS FOR 10 CENTS. 
In order 1 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 do not know how often it is necessary to re¬ 
peat that no attention is paid to anonymous letters. 
We get some of them. The more important the sub¬ 
ject the more some people seem to be afraid of stand¬ 
ing by their own opinion. The record of The R. 
N.-Y. stands like an open book. We are not greatly 
impressed by people who attempt to criticize it and 
then hide their identity behind “Subscriber,” “Old Ob¬ 
server” or “One Who Knows.” The waste basket is 
a good place for offspring of the brain whose parents 
disown them. 
* 
I have at hand a page of The R. N.-Y., April 8, 1911. 
I picked it up in a packing case I received some goods in 
from New York State, just one page, but I read an 
article about Baldwin apple trees on that page, and if the 
paper is all like that I think I would like to try it. 
Massachusetts. B. e. m. 
Hardly a week passes without a note like the above. 
People find The R. N.-Y. or parts of it in all sorts 
of places—bales of hay, packages; by the roadside. 
Like the man who writes the above, they found some¬ 
thing of vital interest—and come for more. The other 
farm papers seem to have abandoned the short term 
subscription. We find it more profitable than ever. 
Give us 10 weeks at a man and if we cannot give him 
something that is indispensable—he will be too wise 
for us! 
* 
Our good old friend Luther Burbank is out in the 
limelight once more. He has issued a pamphlet at¬ 
tacking the Department of Agriculture for saying 
things about the “spineless cactus.” A “plant crea¬ 
tor” in his rage might well keep in the shadow. In 
the limelight he looks wrinkled and shopworn. It 
would be better to pull down the blind on Brother 
Burbank. The New York World does him justice: 
“Such language hardly befits a scientist who lives 
among flowers and whose wrath .should be as spineless as 
his cactus. An experimenter who delights in novelties and 
has a genius for producing them ought to invent new 
words and develop new phrases. Mr. Burbank might 
have made his controversy with the Department the occa¬ 
sion of a public benefit by the production of a new con¬ 
troversial epithet. That ho has gifts in that line is 
shown by his statement that his cactus “is the most 
valuable improvement in vegetable life during the cen¬ 
turies, fully equal in importance to the discovery of a new 
continent.” That is a fine sentence, worthy of a poet. 
But any inventor of a patent medicine, soap or corset can 
denounce as ‘pinheads’ the fellows that dare to offer 
something else as being ‘just as good.’ ” 
* 
The last Democratic convention in New York 
State adopted a “platform” containing the following: 
We favor a State-vide direct primary to insure to 
the people the right to select political committees and 
nominate public officers. 
After one of the longest sessions on record the 
Legislature has gone home without giving the peo¬ 
ple any such primary law. What they tried to do 
was a farce—even more so than the Republican Legis¬ 
lature last year to evade the expressed desire of the 
people. It must now be evident to everyone that 
the politicians of the old parties will not give us a 
fair primary nominations bill. The Republicans are 
afraid of it. They know well enough that every 
rural county in the State is the mouth of a political 
volcano ready to burst out at the first opportunity. 
In the present feeling of New York farmers there is 
no doubt of what would happen if we had such a 
primary law as is now working in Oregon or in Wis¬ 
consin. With such an opportunity for direct nomina¬ 
tion or selection President Taft would lose half the 
THE RUEIAL NEW-YORKER 
delegates to the next national convention. They would 
go to men like La Follette or Garfield. The Demo¬ 
crats understand the feeling among farmers and it is 
astonishing that they did not rise to the occasion and 
give the people a primary law. It merely shows that 
the Democratic “leaders” are even more afraid of 
such a law than the Republicans are. Neither set of 
political grafters will commit political suicide. Now 
the entire hope for genuine reform and clean politics 
rests upon some form of direct control of candidates. 
It is now evident that the politicians will not give it 
to us. We must make them do it. This can be done 
if we can organize and make the Legislature under¬ 
stand that we mean business. The New Jersey peo¬ 
ple did this and the same thing can be done in New 
York if a few thousand fighters will join us for an 
open battle to the end. 
* 
The U. S. Senate finally passed the Canadian reci¬ 
procity bill by a vote of 53 to 27. It had previously 
passed the House 221 to 93. Considering party lines, 
there were 21 who call themselves Republicans and 
32 Democrats in favor, and 24 Republicans and three 
Democrats opposed. Most of the Republicans who 
opposed are in favor of a lower tariff but considered 
this bill unjust to farmers. Geographically the op¬ 
position comes mostly from the Far West. Only 
two New England States, Vermont and New Hamp¬ 
shire, opposed. Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin di¬ 
vided. This was practically all the Senate opposi¬ 
tion east of the Mississippi. We were informed six 
weeks ago that the bill was sure to pass by a vote of 
two to one, and we told our readers the truth about 
it. Some of the farm politicians have been telling 
farmers that the bill would surely be beaten. They 
either knew nothing about it, or else they willfully 
deceived their people, for anyone who has been at 
the capital during the past month must have known 
that there was no possible chance of defeating the 
bill. 
As it stands alone this reciprocity agreement is un¬ 
just to farmers. It takes from them the only “pro¬ 
tection” that ever did or ever would do them any 
good, while it retains the tariff on manufactured 
goods. Standing alone it would compel our farmers 
along the border to sell in a free trade market and 
buy needed goods at high tariff prices. But it will 
not stand alone! Our desire is to give readers the 
facts without personal feeling or prejudice. We have 
interviewed many Congressmen so as to learn their 
personal reasons for supporting this bill. Many of 
them agree that the border farmers are justified in 
feeling that they are unfairly treated. They say, 
however, that a vast majority of the American peo¬ 
ple demand a fair, downward revision of the tariff. 
Of all the methods for starting such revision there 
was nothing practical except this Canadian reciprocity. 
Any other method would simply have started us on 
another round of low and high tariff such as we 
have always had before. That was the argument ' 
which carried this bill through Congress, and it will 
be followed by a general revision which will, we be¬ 
lieve, help us all. 
We give you what we have found to he the truth 
about the passage of this hill. The R. N.-Y. is not 
known as a quitter, and we think we have proved our 
willingness to stand for farmers’ rights, but we will 
all do well to face the fact that the days of high 
tariff are numbered. We shall learn how little this 
tariff has really helped us after all. Our advice is 
to accept the situation, give the new law a fair trial, 
and devote our energies to the middleman question. 
We must make a fight for a larger share of the 
consumer’s dollar, and we can get it; while a return 
to a high tariff is now out of the question. 
* 
A recent strike gave the English people a notion 
of what would happen if in case of war or labor 
troubles imports of food were held up. A strike of 
the laborers who unload vessels made it impossible to 
land shipments of grain. As a result the price of 
bread rose steadily—there being but a few days’ sup¬ 
ply of grain and flour in all England. The Mark 
Lane Express says: 
But the chief lesson of shipping strikes appears to be 
that it is exceedingly unwise to let farmers’ grain hold¬ 
ings run down to practical depletion just for want of a 
small payment by the State for the grain held by the 
farmer in stack. This payment would be the most ef¬ 
fective of all methods of keeping a standing grain re¬ 
serve. No warehouse charges would be entailed, no cost 
of turning the grain or of its periodical ventilation. The 
distribution all over the country -would make for even 
supply when wanted. There is little doubt that farmers 
would be encouraged to grow more wheat and to hold it 
more firmly; the rush to sell which occurs every Autumn 
nowadays would be much abated. 
Thus we find everywhere the same idea expressed. 
Farmers are at a disadvantage because their land and 
August 5, 
their crops are not considered full security for private 
loans. With government aid they could improve 
their farms and handle many of their products to 
better advantage than now. On one side of the St. 
Lawrence River a farmer can borrow money from 
his government with which to drain his land. The 
payments are made like taxes, scattered through 20 
years. Across the river in this country a farmer on 
the same kind of land cannot obtain a drainage loan 
from the government or in most cases from banks. 
If there is any force in drainage arguments, the 
Canadian farmer has a great advantage. 
* 
Last year we told of the fine work done by the 
Minnesota Experiment Station in studying the cost 
of producing crops. The Nebraska Station now re¬ 
ports some figures from that State. They took 
figures from farms located in different parts of the 
State and averaged them. For example, 344 farms 
reported on corn. For two years the cost of grow¬ 
ing an acre of corn averaged $11.62. The yield was 
39.3 bushels, so that the cost per bushel was 29.6 cents. 
The heaviest charge was interest and taxes (or rent), 
amounting to $4.93. In getting this item five per 
cent of the market value of the land was added to 
the taxes. The average yield of corn in Nebraska 
is 25.8 bushels. If we take this same average cost 
per acre this would mean 45 cents per bushel, and 
you must add five cents per bushel as the cost of 
marketing! An average of 31 reports showed that 
the yield was 34J4 bushels per acre when planted be¬ 
fore seeding to clover or Alfalfa, and 68.2 bushels 
when planted on clover or Alfalfa sod. The cost per 
acre was about the same in each case, as were also 
the fixed charges of fitting the land, interest and taxes 
and seed. If by giving better culture or using needed 
fertilizer we can increase the yield we cut down the 
cost of pound or bushel. 
* 
There seems to be no doubt that farming- condi¬ 
tions in Great Britain are better than in years. For¬ 
merly there was a steady increase of the land in 
meadows and permanent pastures. This meant more 
and more land taken from the production of grain or 
vegetable food and a great increase of imported food. 
Now more of the grass lands are being broken up 
and going back to the production of grain, potatoes, 
vegetables and fruit. There are many reasons for 
this improved condition. Perhaps the most important 
is the change in the English system of collecting pub¬ 
lic revenues. At intervals there have been move¬ 
ments among the English farmers to start what they 
call “fair trade.” This means a tariff on grain and 
other food for the avowed purpose of increasing the 
price of the product of British farms, and thus en¬ 
courage British farmers to grow more food. Prob¬ 
ably nowhere in the world could such arguments be 
used with greater force than in Great Britain and 
Ireland, yet the people as a whole have never seriously 
listened to them, but have gone steadily on closer to 
a free trade basis. This means more and more a re¬ 
sort to direct taxation in order to raise public reven¬ 
ues. They are apparently coming nearer and nearer 
to the principle of the Henry George theory of taxa¬ 
tion of land values. As a result of this many of the 
old English land proprietors are unable to hold their 
large estates in the form of parks or pleasure grounds, 
These are therefore being broken up and sold. This 
gives many tenant farmers a chance to own their 
farms—a chance denied them under the old system. 
Town people are also buying land—in fact the change 
in the British system of taxing land values has 
started a “back to the land” movement. Thus the out¬ 
look for British farming was never better, while this 
direct taxation has made a surplus of public money. 
BREVITIES. 
The first woman to practice law in Argentina has qual¬ 
ified. 
A train of 130 cars carrying 1,000,000 pounds of canta¬ 
loupes recently left California for Chicago. 
The olive crop of Spain is short. Now watch for news¬ 
paper stories of “olives” made of unripe plum and peach. 
Now we learn that women farmers are to hold a con¬ 
vention. Ten to one there will not be a genuine “Nell 
Beverly” in the lot. 
Co-operation ! In California the packing houses join 
in the fight against insect pests. At Redlands nine such 
houses join growers in fighting scale. 
It is stated that the first veterinary school was estab¬ 
lished at Lyons, France, in 1761. Since then many na¬ 
tions, including Abyssinia, have started schools. 
The English farm papers advertise a tool apparently 
somewhat like a post hole digger for boring down into 
stacks or mows of hay. . It cuts out a round six-inch hole 
or well. 
For many reasons late Summer and Fall is the best 
season for draining land. The land is dry, and after the 
harvest there is usually a lull in farm work. Ditches 
dug now give heavy land a good chance to dry out. 
