150 
THE RUR-AIk 
1ST EW- YORKEH 
February 3, 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
Albert B. Kerr has been appointed re¬ 
ceiver of the National Post Co. in in¬ 
voluntary bankruptcy proceedings insti¬ 
tuted by creditors in the sum of $10,445. 
This is the company that published Suc¬ 
cess Magazine for the past year, the old 
company having failed at that time; 
$400,000 of bonds were sold subscribers 
in the old company, and considerable 
stock of the new company was also sold 
subscribers. 
We have a rather lengthy, not to say 
polite, letter from The Oxypathor Co., 
Buffalo, N. Y., which concludes thus: 
You can. accept oxypathy if you like, oth¬ 
erwise it will -wipe its feet on you. Good 
day. THE oxypathor co. 
All this because we advised a sub¬ 
scriber in a private letter that in our 
judgment he would be wiser to employ 
a physician to treat himself or his fam¬ 
ily if sick, than to trust to the magic 
influence of the Oxypathor. Having no 
use for that healer of the ills of man¬ 
kind, we cannot accept it. The R. N.-Y. 
has, we hope, served many purposes, 
but this is the first suggestion to use it 
as a doormat. 
I have just received a check for .$20 from 
Thomas M. Seeds for use of bus. It is 
amusing to see how quickly he changed his 
mind about paying me when you appeared 
on the scene. You saved me $20 in clean 
cash, as he refused even to answer my let¬ 
ter before you took hold of the matter. I 
am enclosing you $5 as a small token of 
my appreciation. May all of your efforts 
be as successful as this one has been. 
Vermont. L. w. J. 
This seems to be a sample of many 
instances where a practically responsible 
city concern feels that a just country 
claim may be entirely ignored because 
the creditor has no reasonable means of 
enforcing payment without going to 
greater expense than the claim amounts 
to. It is not a particularly pleasant duty 
to be obliged to interfere in matters of 
the kind, but where a subscriber can 
get redress in no other way, we do not 
hesitate to take up a claim and are glad 
when we can render as righteous a serv¬ 
ice as was evident in this case. The $5 
is credited to a five years’ subscription. 
We accept no pay for such service. 
Do you think there is any chance for me 
to get my money on my Lewis Pub. Co. 
stock after the sale of the company build¬ 
ings, etc., or will there be others to come 
in first? A. B. 
New Jersey. 
As we understand it, there is $900,000 
of notes against this property, with over 
$50,000 of accrued interest. There are 
$600,000 of these mortgage notes and 
these would come first. Lewis admits 
there are $1,500,000 of debts against the 
company; and now says the unsecured 
claims, including about a half million 
notes, are all wiped out with the $3,500,- 
000 of stock; but when the notes and 
mortgages were sold, he said they were 
all gilt-edged, and the safest investment 
in the world. When land is bought for 
$170,000 and capitalized for $1,000,000, 
and other mortgages and notes piled on 
top of that, there can be but one final 
result. The receiver has completed his 
schedule of assets and liabilities for 
these properties, but for some reason 
has not made them public. When he 
does we can form some idea of the pos¬ 
sible returns for the various classes of 
holdings. It looks now as if there is 
precious little of all the millions left for 
anyone. The only value some of them 
had was the excuse they gave Lewis to 
collect more money on their worthless 
paper certificates. 
The Home Correspondence School of 
Springfield, Mass., is offering for sale shares 
of their capital stock and guaranteeing six 
per cent. Is this stock good or is it best 
to leave it alone? m. w. 
New York. 
The above inquiry was made some 
time back. It was answered at the time 
in a private letter, and the investment 
discouraged. We do not know that any 
of this stock is being offered at the pres¬ 
ent time, but the school recently affiliat¬ 
ed itself with one of the E. G. Lewis 
schemes, and the common interest of 
stock selling to the public may have 
suggested the affiliation. Mr. Metcalf, 
the manager of the Home Correspond¬ 
ence School, found the connection a 
source of patronage, if not of revenue. 
The Lewis schemes secured in it an ele¬ 
ment of respectability through the teach¬ 
ers of agricultural colleges whose names 
were used by the Home Correspond¬ 
ence School as its teaching faculty. It 
was held that the affiliation gave Lewis 
the right to use the names of Cornell 
and Amherst Colleges also in his lit¬ 
erature to allure money from confiding 
people. The question is whether agri¬ 
cultural teachers are justified in allow¬ 
ing their names and the names of their 
colleges to be so used in the further¬ 
ance of schemes, which result in indict¬ 
ments by a Federal grand jury against 
the promoter for alleged fraudulent use 
of the mails? If the teachers or college 
management think they have had right, 
we would gladly grant them any reason¬ 
able space in this paper to defend the 
position. Now, gentlemen, come on with 
your argument. 
Will you favor me with your opinion 
of Orange Judd Company and Mr. Myrick, 
tlie president and editor-in-chief? He has 
offered me some' stock in that company, 
and if I come in with them by January 31 
I am to have a six months’ dividend Feb¬ 
ruary 15. IIow can he afford to do it and 
.be fair to the other stockholders? 
Minnesota. farmer. 
The accompanying literature shows 
that the offer of sale was for Orange 
Judd Northwest Homestead Co. stock, 
interest and principal guayanteed for 
five years by the Orange JuT d Co. Our 
information is that the former com¬ 
pany has an authorized capital stock of 
$1,000,000; that its principal asset is the 
Minnesota & Dakota Farmer, bought 
by Mr. Myrick about a year ago and 
changed to Northwest Farmstead; that 
application was made for entry to mails 
at Springfield, Mass., for about 70,000 
copies; and that the claimed circulation 
at the time was 100,000 copies. The De¬ 
partment, however, after giving Mr, 
Myrick two hearings, held that 32,469 
of the 70,000 was not legitimate as not 
coming within the law, and they were 
denied second-class mail privileges, so 
that according to the Department the 
legitimate circulation did not exceed 
40,000 copies. A Federal Grand Jury has 
returned indictments against Mr. Myrick 
and his subscription manager on allega¬ 
tions of furnishing false information to 
the Department in connection with ap¬ 
plication for second-class entry to the 
mails. It is our information also that 
$750,000 of the stock was issued to one 
of the other Myrick concerns, and is 
held by it as consideration for the old 
business, which is reported to have cost 
less than $5,000. Before we could pass 
definitely on the value of the stock we 
should want tabulated statements of as¬ 
sets and liabilities, and of earnings and 
expenses during the past year. If Mr. 
Myrick were buying stock himself we 
think he would require this; but he fur¬ 
nishes no such statement to this farmer. 
The fact that the stock is guaranteed for 
five years is in itself an admission of 
weakness. 
As to the guarantee, on April 15 last 
in one of the hearings referred to before 
the Third Assistant Postmaster General, 
Mr. Myrick is reported as follows: 
We are not represented by counsel. The 
margin of profit in the agricultural business 
does not authorize nor enable us to employ 
counsel. We have to present our case as 
best we can. 
It was also stated in the public press 
at the time in an alleged interview with 
Mr. Myrick that to comply with the Post 
Office requirements as insisted upon 
would cost him $18,000 a week and drive 
him out of business. We believe the 
statements exaggerated. We believe 
Mr. Myrick was abundantly able to hire 
counsel, and if he complied with the 
postal regulations there was no such ex¬ 
pense and no danger of his being driven 
out of business; but it is proposed to 
increase the postal rate, and the regula¬ 
tions are being more strictly enforced, 
and in the present condition of the pub¬ 
lishing business we think few experi¬ 
enced investors would be willing to risk 
their money on a five year guarantee of 
a publishing company. A new man may 
be in control of the company in five 
years, and the investor may be obliged 
to go to court to enforce the guarantee. 
Again, if interest be paid regularly for 
five years, you may get a sense of se¬ 
curity and neglect to demand the money. 
This would relieve the guarantee, and 
you would then have nothing but the 
original stock. 
As to the dividend, if the stock has 
already been issued to Mr. Myrick or 
to one of his concerns, it is the property 
of himself or his other company, and 
the holder of it may make any terms for 
it that will effect a sale. If it is 
treasury stock the dividend belongs 
to the company, but the management 
may decide to offer such a bonus to in¬ 
fluence sales. The man who controls 
75 per cent of the stock usually decides 
such matters for himself. 
As we view it, the stock itself is pure¬ 
ly speculative, and we have no hesita¬ 
tion in advising farmers to leave specu¬ 
lative ventures alone. j. j. d. 
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NOW 
ARE YOUR GROP YIELDS SATISFACTORY7 
They are certainly not what they would be if you used Gark’s Double Action 
"Cutaway” Harrow. It requires thorough cultivation to make the soil fertility avail¬ 
able for your crops. “Thorough Cultivation,” and “Clark’s Double Action ‘Cutaway’ 
Harrow” are synonymous. The entire machine is made of steel and iron, except the 
pole, which is jointed so that there is no weight upon the horses’ necks, and can be 
removed in one minute and used as a tongueless, as shown in cut. This is a big feature 
in moving from field to field, insuring safety to horses. The disks are of cutlery steel, 
shaped and forged in our own shops, where the only genuine “Cutaway” disks are 
made. The Double “Cutaway” does twice as much as an ordinary disk harrow and 
better at the same cost. The inflexible frame holds the gangs rigidly in their places, 
and compels them to cut high, hard ridges, carrying the soil into the hollows and 
leaving the ground level. With the flexible or tandem harrows the gangs conform to 
the surface and do not cut and level the hard, irregular places. Clark’s stir every 
leaving a finely pulverized seed bed. By setting the inner gangs straight on sharp 
turns, the Disk turns easily, leaving the ground even. No interlocking of gangs. 
Modern farmers disk before they 
plow their land. It puts fine soil in 
the bottom of the furrow, where other¬ 
wise would lie loose clods that make a 
strata through which the sub-moisture 
can not rise. For this no other disk 
equals Gark’s. 
What Prof. Bailey Sayss 
“The Double Action ‘Cutaway’ Harrow has 
been satisfactory. 1 use it almost continu¬ 
ously on our hard clay land with good results.’ ’ 
If your dealer can’t supply the genuine 
“Cutaway,” write us. Satisfaction guaran¬ 
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every sale. Prompt Shipments. Get our 
booklet “Intensive Cultivation.” It's free. 
We make a special tool for every crop. 
CUTAWAY HARROW CO. 
839 Main Si., Higganum, Conn. 
