12 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country nml Suburban Homes 
Established tsr.o 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl St., New York 
IIerbkrt W. Colungwood, President and Editor. 
•Foil! 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. $2.0-). equal to 8s. Cd., or 
8>4 marks, or IO 34 francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates fiO 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 hacked by a respon¬ 
sible person. Rut 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 subscriber and honest, responsible advertisei-s. Neither will we bo 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must bo sent to us within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and you must have 1 tentioned 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 want you to read that statement of a milk 
dealer on page 17. Some of us wake up after a great 
trust or monopoly has grown to gigantic size and is 
crushing us out. We then wonder why it was not 
handled while it was small. Here is a new form of 
monopoly just starting to still further depress the 
milk business. The “pasteurizing” outfit is controlled 
by a monopoly, and the enforcement of its use will 
enable the men with capital to organize another mon¬ 
opoly—with no possible benefit to the farmer. 
* 
There is another “Back to the Land” article on 
the first page which really does get back there. We 
are glad this one is written by a farmer’s wife. We 
know just how she feels now that home has been 
paid for and the farm is prospering. How they 
worked for that home! The labor was well spent and 
worth while, and it is a pleasure to see worthy peo¬ 
ple enjoy their reward. Now let the city back-to-the- 
lander size up the situation and count the cost of labor 
and hang-on spirit. You will need it all. 
* 
You see from the announcement that the New York 
Agricultural Society is planning things for its annual 
meeting in Albany January 18. It is a very ambitious 
programme—more in the line of cost of production 
and business farming than anything before attempted 
in New York. Now let practical farmers help. How 
can they do it? By attending the meeting. No mat¬ 
ter what the speakers say the character of that meet¬ 
ing will be determined by the audience. If it can be 
filled with plain working farmers so that they out¬ 
number the teachers and “agriculturists” it will be 
one of the most influential meetings ever held in the 
State. Come out and help. 
* 
The U. S. Geological Survey does not stop to play 
when it has work to do. It surveys and survives. 
Congress put up $20,000, told the Survey that there 
must be deposits of potash tucked away in American 
soil and then said in effect: “Gentlemen, find it!” 
And they will find it. They are boring and scraping 
and testing everywhere. At one salt works they find 
conditions much like those at the German potash 
mines. In northern Ohio the “bittern” from the salt 
works certainly contains potash. This bittern is the 
strong brine or liquid left after extracting the salt. 
The potash is there—some method of extracting it 
must be worked out. In Utah a large deposit of 
alunite has been discovered. This mineral, also known 
as alumstone, contains a little less than 12 per cent 
of potash. Other deposits are known to exist. The 
hunt for potash certainly has a keen scent. 
* 
The oleo people seem to have decided to push what 
is called the Burleson bill which was introduced De¬ 
cember 2. This repeals the present law regulating and 
taxing the manufacture of oleo, and substitutes a 
manufacturers’ tax of one-fifth of a cent per pound 
with regulated taxes for selling. The most significant 
thing about this bill is that the name is changed. 
The “oleo” is dropped and the stuff however made to 
imitate butter is to be called “margarine.” They are 
ashamed of their name! Mr. Burleson, of Texas, 
who fathers this bill, is understood at Washington to 
be very close Jo the beef trust, and this is a beef 
trust measure, though its backers are trying to pose 
as great friends of the workingman. They are now 
working through the labor organizations and urging 
them to demand that Congressmen vote for this 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Burleson bill. This with the advertising which we 
mentioned last week makes a strong combination. The 
beef trust, the cotton-oil interests at the South, and 
tile oleo dealers will attempt to work the “high cost 
of living” argument. We have no doubt that the pres¬ 
ent high price of pure butter has been worked up by 
the oleo and cold storage men to influence the public. 
The oleo men want the tax removed and the other 
crowd want the storage laws repealed. There will be 
a hot fight in Congress. It is time to line up for 
the cow. 
* 
A LITTLE THINKING ABOUT LAND. 
Suppose we begin the year with a little new think¬ 
ing on an old subject. On page 1234 Mr. Doubleday 
analyzes the recent articles on Texas farming by a 
“Victim.” What he says is true. “A Victim” did not 
always show good judgment. That was one reason 
why we printed the articles. “A Victim” seemed like 
a typical “sucker”—the class of man who would be 
quite likely to invest in such a scheme. There was an 
element of human nature which made these articles 
valuable. Mr. Doubleday gets down to the bottom 
in showing how the land tax properly applied would 
shut off the land boomers and land liars, since they 
could not afford to speculate. In a private letter he 
says: 
Even the temporizing suggestions that are sometimes made 
in tiiis connection seem to me to be not only utterly inef¬ 
fectual hut positively harmful. The licensing and inspec¬ 
tion of land agents for instance as a cure for the evils in¬ 
volved in land speculation and land booming is a good deal 
like proposing to put down intemperance by licensing and 
inspecting bar-tenders. Licensing them, not simply as clerks 
or salesmen, for which of course they should not be re¬ 
quired to pay a license fine, hut licensing them specifically 
to do what should not be done at all, and inspecting them, 
after first determining who is to be trusted to do the in¬ 
specting, to see that they wear perhaps white linen .jackets 
of a certain cut and do not hand out a whiskey bottle to 
a customer when rum is asked for. Tinkering things is 
always poor business, and it is suicidal socially, and has 
no justification when simple and effectual remedies are at 
hand. Just because a remedy is a real remedy most peo¬ 
ple, most publications, are afraid of it, which fact itself 
is full of significance. We know that practically every 
great economic injustice is readily traceable back to an 
inequitable system of land tenure. That every scheme of 
monopoly and extortion rests upon it, either directly or 
indirectly. That it is the one groat simple means by 
which labor on the farm and off of it is robbed of all but 
a baro existence. 
Now is there any sense in that? Let us think. Sup¬ 
pose we take the growth of one great American 
fortune—that now held by the Astor family. Reject 
all ill feeling and review the cold facts. In 1773 John 
Jacob Astor, a German butcher boy, came to Amer¬ 
ica. He first peddled cakes and then bartered cheap 
jewelry for furs, gradually building up a business. He 
certainly was not satisfied with a 35-cent dollar. A 
beaver skin cost one dollar at the Indian trapper’s 
hands. It sold in London at $6.25. Astor cut out all 
middlemen, himself sent the skins to Europe, and with 
the $6.25 bought English goods, which sold in this 
country for $10, or bought 10 more beaver skins! In 
those early days the government often favored certain 
importers by giving them a year or more to pay the 
tariff. Thus those who enjoyed this special privilege 
had a trade advantage. It was soon found that by 
giving cheap whisky to an Indian the beaver skin 
could be obtained for 50 cents or even less in cheap 
goods, while it still sold at the same old price! Astor 
spread out his operations. We might follow through 
a long career of sharp practice, political pull and priv¬ 
ilege, but the thing to think about now is that the 
money made in this way was invested in land on 
Manhattan Island! It was then cheap farm land. 
Many acres of swamp land along the rivers were prac¬ 
tically given to the Astors and filled and graded at 
public expense. This land, now covered with ex¬ 
pensive buildings, still belongs to the Astor family. 
Not one of them does a hand’s turn of work for it or 
on it. Some have renounced citizenship but still han¬ 
dle their American rents! The property is said to 
yield in rents alone about $30,000,000 per year. The 
Astors cannot possibly use it all; it goes on increasing 
like a snowball because it is based on land—just at 
the point where in this country human beings most 
need land. There are dozens of other families doing 
the same thing in a smaller way in all the large cities. 
They do not pay adequate taxes, they do not give 
their share to charity, they simply squat on this valu¬ 
able land, which their ancestors obtained through ques¬ 
tionable means, and hold up the public for extortion¬ 
ate rent. And it is this fearful rent which robs the 
consumer through high prices and, both directly and 
indirectly, enables a certain class of middlemen to 
rob the farmer and producer. This is enough to start 
one thinking. We shall go on later and elaborate and 
prove these statements. 
January 6, 
Last week we mentioned the report that Connecti¬ 
cut Congressmen were insulted because a Pomona 
Grange directed them to support parcels post. One 
of our readers wrote Congressman E. J. Hill and 
told him what the farmers wanted. Mr. Hill sent the 
following reply: 
Yours of the 15th received. The Republican Representa¬ 
tives from the State of Connecticut are for a parcels post, 
and do not need the threatening character of the com¬ 
munication which you send. I have a suggestion, however, 
to make to you. that you send it to the Democratic Rep¬ 
resentative from Meriden, as the Post Office Committee is 
in the control of the party which he represents, and if 
you do not get a parcels post at this session it will be the 
fault of the Democratic party rather than the Republican. 
E. J. HILL. 
Our reader took the suggestion and wrote at once 
to this Democratic member. We thought Mr. Hill 
was nearer a mountain in size than this childish and 
petulant letter classes him. Does he think the Con¬ 
necticut farmers are a lot of wooden heads? What 
have he and the other Republicans been doing for the 
last 20 years? If a failure to get parcels post at this 
session is the fault of one party the other party has a 
dozen similar faults to answer for. If these men 
are in favor of a parcels post what on this earth have 
they ever done to give evidence of it? Mr. Hill dis¬ 
played great energy in working for Canadian reci¬ 
procity—why did he not get equally busy for parcels 
post? The trouble with these gentlemen seems to be 
that they cannot possibly realize that at last .he farm¬ 
ers mean business. If nothing but political dynamite 
will blow the truth into them we favor the dynamite. 
* 
Just after the New York State Fair we spoke of 
the resignation of Dr. L. H. Bailey as head of the 
Agricultural College of Cornell. The alumni of that 
college organized and began an active campaign based 
on the proposition that since Dr. Bailey’s work was 
not finished every possible effort should be made to 
induce him to remain. The first step was to place 
the government of the college on a sure and inde¬ 
pendent foundation. This has now been done, the 
Cornell Trustees having passed the following resolu¬ 
tion : 
Subject to the approval and 'control of the board of 
trustees of the university, the immediate supervision and 
government of the State College of Agriculture shall be 
vested in a committee of eleven persons to be known as 
“The Agricultural College Council,” and to be composed 
of the following persons, viz.: the five trustees appointed 
by the Governor, the president of the university, the 
trustees elected by the State Grange, the State Commis¬ 
sioner of Agriculture, the president of the State Agricul¬ 
tural Society, two trustees to be elected by the board of 
trustees, one of whom shall be one of the trustees elected 
by the alumni. 
The details of this scheme of government have been 
worked out so that we understand both Dr. Bailey 
and the alumni are satisfied. It now remains to re¬ 
organize the college, and of course no one can do this 
as well as Dr. Bailey. He cannot be insensible to the 
extraordinary evidence of confidence shown by the 
Cornell trustees. They accepted the plan he offered 
without question. It now becomes a public duty for 
him to remain at his post and direct the growth of the 
college into the most useful institution in the State. 
Such are its possibilities, and a man with boundless 
ambitions could find no more promising field for the 
exercise of all his powers. It is our hope and belief 
that Dr. Bailey will remain and give his working life 
to the College of Agriculture. 
BREVITIES. 
Come gentlemen—line up for the old cow ! 
It requires skill to give much shape to a side line. 
On page 6 we begin to discuss the value of waste 
substances as plant food. Glad to have your experiences 
with those named or unnamed. 
. Every Winter we have to attend to the horse’s teeth. 
They grow too long, and the horse cannot chew his food 
properly. Have them filed down. 
Read what Prof. Paddock says on page 4 about that 
potato disease in Colorado which drives the potato plants 
to big tops—with small tubers. You see it is not lack 
of plant food. We have seen men afflicted with big 
head from the disease of self esteem—no cure for it 
usually. 
Mayor Shank of Indianapolis sold a ton of English 
walnuts, 400 Christmas trees and several barrels of mince¬ 
meat in the City Market December 21, and had another 
sale that included poultry December 23. We are told that 
the crowd blocked the entrance to the market. Apparently 
the only people who do not sympathize with Mr. Shank 
are the middlemen. 
New York had a surplus of turkeys for Christmas trade. 
Late in the week, however, a strong demand developed from 
New England, which was short of turkeys, and upwards of 
20 carloads were shipped to Boston. This left the New 
York market well cleared of grades from good to fancy. 
Inferior birds, and those damaged by warm weather on 
the way were sold low, down to 10 and 12 cents in some 
cases. . 
