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The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established fsso 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl St., New York 
Herbert W. Colli ho wood, President and Editor. 
Johj, J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, 8eeretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. $2.04. equal to 8s. Cd., or 
8% marks, or 10K francs. Remit in money order, “rpress 
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 ordei-s. 
References required for advertisers unknown to us j and 
cash must accompany transient orders. 
“A SQUARE DEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is hacked hy 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 t>-ifling differences 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither will we lie 
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. 
* 
Talk about your “silent industrial revolutions,” few 
of them can equal the steady growth of Alfalfa culture 
in the Eastern States. This Winter brings hundreds 
of farmers to the institutes with reports of great suc¬ 
cess with Alfalfa. Thousands of acres are going into 
this crop and in every instance it proves a blessing 
and a leaved missionary for better farming. Grain 
bills are cut down, the soil improves and sales in¬ 
crease. We are glad to have had our share in the 
Alfalfa campaign—it has only begun. 
* 
The annual horticultural number this year will 
be the best we have ever issued. Self-inflicted bou¬ 
quets are generally long on thorns, but we will stand 
for the above statement. We feel like making it be¬ 
cause our readers are helping us as never before, with 
the records of garden and orchard work. You have 
some experience in spraying, cultivating, selling, fer¬ 
tilizing or pruning that ought to go on record. Why 
not send us 30 lines or more about it? We want all 
such notes we can get and of course we want it at 
once. 
* 
Do you know anything about peat for feed? Note sam¬ 
ple and circular enclosed. g. 
All we know at present is that certain feed dealers 
are trying to sell ground peat or black muck for 
“blending” or adulterating ground feed. A sample 
we have seen looks just like the stuff used as a 
“filler” in mixed fertilizers. We do not know yet 
how common this practice is of mixing dry swamp 
muck with grains and selling at grain prices, but 
we will find out the facts. We hope feed dealers will 
let this stuff alone. It is a dirty trick to stuff the 
cow’s ration with dirt. 
* 
We want to organize a new “anti” society in this 
country. Let us call it “anti-careful consideration.” 
Unless we do it soon some of our Congressmen will 
become wooden men, if they are not so now. A wooden 
man can “consider” a thing about as carefully as any¬ 
thing on earth. All you have to do is to turn the 
wooden face at the object and let him alone. These 
“careful consideration” Congressmen want to do that 
with parcels post. They could stand and consider it 
with great care for 10 years, and never make a move. 
The “anti-careful consideration” club is greatly needed. 
The object is to build a fire under every wooden Con- 
rressman who uses those words. Consider them with 
care—and fire. 
* 
The time is now near at hand when the farmer, as a 
consumer, as well as a producer, is interested in the ques¬ 
tion of the consumer’s dollar as presented by comparison 
of retail and wholesale prices of clover and Timothy seed. 
The present retail price per 100 pounds of No. 1 seed is: 
Medium Red clover, §24.15 ; Alsike, §21.65, and Timothy, 
§18.56. The present wholesale quotation is: Clover seed, 
§13.05; Alsike, §11.20; Timothy, §7.35. The retail price 
is about the same at the local store as at the nearby 
seedsman’s or the large dealers near the producing section. 
It would be interesting to know what the producer re¬ 
ceives for these seeds, and how much is the cost of re¬ 
cleaning and grading these seeds ready for distribution. 
Also whether any producers who clean their seed would 
like to sell direct to consumer and divide with him the 
difference between producer’s and consumer’s prices. 
Long Island. E. R. 
That’s a fair subject for investigation. Suppose we 
run it down and find if we can just what our readers 
get for their clover and Timothy seeds. We can easily 
understand that this seed must be cleaned and graded 
and that this costs money—but let us see what part 
of the consumer’s dollar goes to the seed grower. 
There are many of them among our readers. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Next week we begin the publication of the most 
striking article yet printed on parcels post. Prof. Price 
of Ohio is in Germany, and he will tell us in a plain, 
practical way just how the German parcels post is 
conducted and what it does for the German people. 
The time is just ripe for this, for now is the time to 
move upon Congress. There is a Presidential election 
this year. As they stand both of the old parties are 
discredited in the eyes of the public. The leaders 
know this, no matter how they may bluff and bluster, 
and one side will outbid the other for popular favor if 
the demand can only me made clear. Here then is the 
opportunity for parcels post. If Congress can let it die 
there will be two or four years more of inaction. Right 
now, at the opening of this Presidential year, is the 
combination of time and the hour. Let every reader 
of The R. N.-Y. realize this. It is the time to strike. 
Do not pass “resolutions” or sign petitions, but spend 
20 cents or more in postage stamps and go right at the 
two Senators from your State and the Congressman 
from your district and tell them what you want. Do 
not threaten or make any promises. Treat them as 
men—a little more prominent than you are but still 
men with a good judgment of human nature. They 
will know when you mean business or when you are 
chicken-hearted and they will give you business or 
“taffy” as they size you up. No one can win parcels 
post for you without your aid. It will do little good 
to curse these men at home or at the store. Use the 
talking tongue to stick a stamp on a parcels post letter. 
* 
We hoped that the New York State Grange would 
he able to settle its troubles without publicity. Appar¬ 
ently the big fight in the National Grange is to be re¬ 
newed on a smaller scale at Auburn, where the Grange 
meets on February 6-9. We publish the letter from 
Senator Gardner of Maine on page 133. There is evi¬ 
dently a hitter feeling against the political gang which 
has for some years held up and made a mockery of 
the National Grange. Our sympathies have from the 
first been with the “insurgents,” or the minority, who 
have tried to bring about some measure of reform. 
There are among them some who have tried to ad¬ 
vance their own interests hut on the whole the move¬ 
ment is controlled by earnest and sincere men, and 
should he pushed through to a finish. The master of 
the New York State Grange has made the issue dear 
hy seeking a re-election. He has served his allotted 
lime and we think reached the end of his real useful¬ 
ness as master. Had he been wise he would have re¬ 
fused to stand for re-election, and left the Grange free 
to settle its difficult problem. Coming straight from 
the National Grange meeting, where he was identified 
with the faction which we believe has worked great 
injury to the order, Mr. Godfrey forces an issue which 
should not have been brought up now. We still hope 
that he will realize the situation and withdraw. In 
any event the strongest men in the Grange should go 
to Auburn and help settle the gravest crisis which the 
order has yet faced. This is no ttime for personal feel¬ 
ing or recrimination. We must drop politics or play¬ 
ing for personal advantage and get together like 
grown-up men and find a man large enough for the 
occasion. 
* ' 
It must be admitted as you go out among farmers 
that the feeling toward the scientist at college and sta¬ 
tion is changing. It has taken some years to place 
the scientists where they can do most good. Some 
years ago they were looked upon as leaders in all 
sorts of movements for better farm conditions. Thus 
they were usually placed at the head of organizations 
and put forward whenever any demand was made for 
legislation or industrial rights. Experience has shown 
that the scientific men are helpers and teachers, but 
not leaders in the broadest sense of the word. They 
may teach in thought but not in action. They are pub¬ 
lic servants, paid by all the people to do a certain work 
which they are narrowing down to research or scien¬ 
tific instruction. They know many things about public 
evils and the industrial wrongs of farmers, but the 
people have found them slow and shy about using this 
knowledge to put up a real fight. They dig out the 
facts and provide the ammunition, but from the very 
nature of what their work and position have grown 
into they cannot get into the fight and take the blows. 
We find that farmers recognize this position and ac¬ 
cept it without much criticism. They wisely conclude 
that men of their own class must do the fighting and 
organizing and leading—with the scientists following 
as a recognized branch of the army. This is good, 
and farmers will do well to keep on and dominate the 
movements for reform. They must now understand 
that no one is going to fight their battles for them. 
They must not be satisfied with scientific education 
alone, but develop the business side of their work. The 
colored people in the South had a song, “Give me my 
religion and you may have the rest.” A colored man 
February 3, 
said the only trouble with it was that the white man 
took them right at their word and took all the rest. 
You may put us down as opposed to the plan of hav¬ 
ing farmers sing “give me scientific education and you 
may take the rest.” The geqtlemen who secure the 
65-cent part of the dollar may be trusted to take the 
rest. 
* 
The oleomargarine publicity bureau is grinding out 
large quantities of matter, which finds its way into 
the daily papers as news. We are told that owing to 
the great scarcity in production, butter is likely to 
wholesale at 60 cents before Spring, unless “relief” 
can be had by getting bills through Congress to reduce 
the tax on oleo. But what about the large profits that 
have recently been taken by butter speculators? One 
concern has just cleared out the last of 240,000 pounds 
of butter at a net profit of nearly 10 cents per pound, 
and this is but one of several similar cases. The oleo 
bureau has nothing to say about such things. Of 
course butter is scarce when it is taken off the market 
and hidden in storage until prices can be forced up to 
the limit that consumers will pay, but to hold short 
production or the oleo tax as responsible for such 
artificial scarcity is as absurd as to lay it to the moon 
or floods in Borneo. 
* 
There are a lot of people in this world who start 
in now and again to help out some reform. These 
people recognize the evil and would honestly like to 
put it down. They work for a while and then stop 
to see what results have been produced. As they see 
none they get discouraged and quit, begin to blame 
others who are slower to see the need of reform, and 
go back to the old parties or to old methods. We have 
watched such people for years. Their life runs in a 
series of small circles, usually ending about where they 
start, but a little higher up. The trouble with these 
good people is that they lack patience and a broad view 
of history. The very evils which they want to fight 
have been growing for years—some of them for cen¬ 
turies. Prejudice, suspicion, and dozens of habits 
which have come down through centuries of narrow 
living, have made it hard for the plain people to see 
the outcome of many of the tilings which you and I 
believe will make mankind happier and better. How 
can you expect to get true results except through long 
years of slow and patient growth? There are many 
farm homes before which stand giant trees. Within 
these homes children have been born and have grown 
to manhood, yet they cannot remember when these 
great trees seemed smaller—in fact,they could not tell 
that the trees have grown at all. Yet those trees have 
grown, as any stranger returning from a long visit 
could tell. Now the growth of any reform which has 
within it anything of hope for mankind must be as 
slow and imperceptible as that of the trees. How can 
it be otherwise from the very nature of life and its 
many-sided conditions? If men would only consider 
these things they would not become discouraged when, 
as it seems, the shadow of sinister political power falls 
upon their hopes and plans. We are not speaking of 
the people who are usually in reforms for revenue 
only, or to boost themselves into power. We speak of 
the thousands of plain, earnest people who have 
thought out hard problems in solitude oi; through suf¬ 
fering, and who sincerely hope for a fairer chance for 
the common man. Let them not feel discouraged, 
though the future seem a stone wall. As we get nearer 
it will prove but a thick, gray shadow which human 
character can and will, in good time, penetrate. We 
are well satisfied to go on doing our share of what 
seems the obligation of those who receive education 
or fair opportunity. We may not live to see great re¬ 
sults. If they come we shall probably consider them 
small compared with what the future still offers. If 
our children and those who follow them can find the 
world a little better for our efforts we should fight on 
content and hopeful, with the same faith that comes 
to us when we put the seed in the ground. 
BREVITIES. 
It looks as if most of our peach buds were dead. 
The value of the open-front house is still au open ques¬ 
tion. 
Not much hope for a man who signs a tree agent’s con¬ 
tract without even reading it. 
To those who talk of sowing a legume in the Spring to 
provide nitrogen as green manure, we say Canada field 
peas. 
We have a reader who asks how he can clean the Alfalfa 
seed out .of clover and grass. That is the last thing we 
should try to do. 
Large tracts of idle land in Minnesota, held by specula¬ 
tors, afford a fertile breeding ground for grasshoppers, and 
hard-working farmers suffer that these absentee owners 
may be enriched. The State Experiment Station says they 
need a more stringent grasshopper law, like that of North 
Dakota, obliging large land-owners to bear the expense of 
fighting the insects. 
