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The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Ilomcs 
Established iSso 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl St„ New York 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor 
Join. J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. $2.01, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8'A marks, or W'A francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter, 
Advertising rates CO 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 hy a respon. 
Bible person. But to make do lbly 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 bo 
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 Tiie Rural New-Yorker 
when writing the advertiser. 
TEN WEEKS FOR 10 CENTS. 
In order to introduce 1 he 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 have had more or less to say about Congress¬ 
man E. J. Hill of Connecticut and his position on 
parcels post. We are glad to state that in a letter 
to one of our readers Mr. Hill now says: 
“I am in favor of an effective parcels post—and the 
more effective it is the more I am in favor of it. 1 
expect to support any reasonable and proper movement 
in that direction. 
* * 
Fruit growers of Eastern New York must remem¬ 
ber the great meeting at Poughkeepsie, February 22 
and 23. This is the Eastern meeting of the New 
York State Fruit Growers. The original meeting 
was held about IS years ago when a handful of 
us met at Cornwall and started. Now the handful 
has grown to a houseful, and it requires a big house, 
too. You ought to be there. 
* 
On account of the prevalence of the boll weevil. Southern 
farmers are taking up dairying as a lucrative business un¬ 
affected by the pest, and are learning to rotate crops so as 
to prevent the spread of the weevil. Dairying furnishes 
a means of profitable use for the crops. 
That is what the Department of Agriculture says, 
and we know it is true. That story of Lespedeza 
growing (page 162) is an instance. For years we have 
claimed that no section of the country needed dairy¬ 
ing and what goes with it as badly as the old cotton 
States. Yet strange to say the Congressmen from the 
South have lined up on the side of oleo—against the 
most useful department of farming that their section 
could introduce. ' Dairymen at the North who are 
fighting a hard battle may well ask —What is the mat - 
ter with these men? 
* 
Every week several people come to us in trouble over 
what they call a contract either to do something or 
to give possession to certain property. Trouble has 
arisen between the parties and one side or the ocher 
must enforce their “rights.” In many of these cases 
analysis shows there is no contract at all. The parties 
agreed verbally or signed some indefinite paper with¬ 
out any “consideration” or legal value. We have tried 
hard to show our people the almost criminal folly of 
signing a contract with a stranger, or of making one 
with friends except upon the advice of a good lawyer. 
The agent who presents a contract for you to sign 
has you tied up the moment you sign your name, be¬ 
cause great lawyers have worked over that contract 
until it cannot be broken. That alone ought to make 
you shy of signing it. When it comes to making a 
contract in which you must defend your rights do not 
try to write it yourself unless you have had long ex¬ 
perience. Go to some good lawyer and have your in¬ 
terests fenced in with barbed wire. You would quickly 
do this if you could see the record of loss and trouble 
which pours in here from people who “thought it was 
all right” 
* 
I notice also that the “interests” are evidently after 
the repeal of the oleo tax. They are following their maga¬ 
zine articles by boosting the price of butter so that our 
representatives may have an excuse to help the “poor 
laboring man” by removing the tax on oleo. j. d. s. 
Our friend gets the situation right. It is the shrewd¬ 
est political game yet attempted to pass the oleo bill. 
There are articles and editorials in the magazines and 
papers praising oleo as food. The Times and Tribune 
of New York are praising butter substitutes. We ex¬ 
pect this to be followed by great advertisements prais- 
ing oleo directly. Now the oleo men do not need 
to advertise their stuff. They are not selling—they 
are buying space in these papers to develop what they 
THE RTJR.A.I> NEW-YORKER 
call “public sentiment” among consumers of butter. 
The scheme has been worked like a charm. The price 
of butter has been forced up just at the time when 
the oleo men are ready to urge Congress to remove 
the tax on colored oleo. We are morally sure that 
the oleo men themselves are largely responsible for 
the high prices by holding butter off the market. They 
are working just as the stock gamblers do when they 
force the price up or down in order to compel their 
rivals to sell or buy. And the reason for this is easy 
to see. In former years Congressmen would not vote 
to remove the oleo tax because it was a case of the 
dollar against the man. Farmers and country people 
generally made life a burden to the Congressman in 
personal letters telling him to vote for honest butter. 
He got few if any such personal letters on the other 
side, and he did not dare oppose the letter writers. 
The oleo men intend to get workingmen in town and 
city to write their Congressmen demanding a repeal 
of the oleo laws. That is why they are working the 
daily papers. It is a slick scheme and calls for harder 
work and stronger letters from farmers. 
* 
We have begun the investigation of rural life problems 
out here in the Middle West with the hope of accomplishing 
something for the farmer and his family. We propose to 
lay down gently for a time the two blades of grass propo¬ 
sition, and see if we cannot learn how to get a better price 
for the single blade. Our people arc now asking this 
question, “ What is the use of groxcing txvo blades of grass 
tchere one grexc before if we cannot get as much for txco 
as we did for the onef” “Big business” does not like such 
questions. Of course farmers have no right to ask such 
things. They are not supposed to know enough to discuss 
economic questions. Nevertheless in their recent conven¬ 
tion they passed a resolution providing for the appoint¬ 
ment of a committee to draft a plan for agricultural credits 
that will work in Nebraska. w. s. delano. 
Mr. Delano is Secretary of the Nebraska Farmers’ 
Congress. We knew him 30 years ago at the Michi¬ 
gan Agricultural College. At that time our agricul¬ 
tural education was based almost entirely upon the 
famous saying of Dean Swift that the most useful 
citizen was he who made “two blades of grass grow 
where one grew before.” Slowly but surely the farm¬ 
ers are coming to see that this is a beautiful theory 
for the gentlemen who transport and handle our crops, 
hut with its drawbacks for the producer. During the 
past quarter of a century we have seen several so- 
called “gluts” in the market, caused by the production 
of that extra blade of grass! For instance, a few 
years ago there was a big crop of potatoes. Many 
farmers were obliged to sell at 10 or IS cents a 
bushel—many carloads were fed out or thrown away. 
The extra potato brought disaster to the farms, but 
the railroads cheerfully charged as much for hauling 
a 10-cent bushel as for one which brought a dollar. 
Nor did the consumers greatly profit, for the retail 
price of potatoes did not fall in anything like the pro¬ 
portion that the farmers’ price went down. This thing 
has been repeated again and again, so that the “two 
blades” proposition is getting a little shopworn. Let 
us see what can be done with the single blade. And 
who is to find out for us? In Nebraska the farmers 
have requested that the State University establish a 
department of agricultural economics. The University 
can no doubt do much to learn the cost of crops and 
the comparative share of the consumer’s dollar, but 
the problem of the single blade of grass must be set¬ 
tled by the farmers themselves. No one is going to do 
it for them. In Germany the agrarian party did such 
work, but that was largely landlordism. We do not 
want the landlords to control agricultural politics. 
* 
We will go on record as opposed for the present, 
at least, to establishing any more secondary farm 
schools in New York. Bills providing for several 
of these schools are already before the Legislature, 
hut they should not be pushed. We know that the 
school at Canton has started well. Reports from 
Alfred and Morrisville are that these schools are 
very promising. Yet the plan is an experiment, and 
nothing more as yet. This may not prove the best 
way, and the State of New York should not spend 
more money and dot its surface with these schools 
until they have time to prove themselves. We believe 
they will earn their right to live and grow by doing 
sensible and practical work. Let them have a fair 
chance and let us watch them before New York 
plunges on farm schools. As stated on page 166 the 
country schools in which farmers’ children are to be 
trained to enter these farm schools must be made 
stronger. These farm schools can give a boy a fair 
drill in agricultural science, but they should not be 
expected to train him to think or give him the 
mathematics needed to figure out farm problems, or 
teach him how to write a good letter or read easily. 
All these things are necessary, but the farm child 
ought to be able to get them before he goes to the 
farm school to study agriculture. 
February 10, 
Frankly I believe there are a lot of honest nurserymen, 
whether from a change of heart or policy, we will not 
stop to discuss. In my mind there is absolutely no ques¬ 
tion but that in the last five years there has been a 
great awakening or a realization on the part of the nursery¬ 
man what disastrous results ho has been stretching out 
behind him. I speak partly from personal experience. 
We get that from an old personal friend—a nurs¬ 
eryman who is honest and conscientious. Yet he has 
criticised us hotly for discussing the tree agent ques¬ 
tion, ‘misfits’ and the problem of guaranteed trees. 
\\ e have great faith in the power of honest printer’s 
ink to settle these hard commercial questions. That 
is why we have brought the nursery problem out into 
the light and aired it. We intend to keep on shaking 
it like a dusty carpet, but let no man misunderstand 
the motive in this. Evils have crept into the nursery 
trade, and all honest nurserymen admit it. The public 
want to know just how trees are grown, handled and 
sold, and they have a right to the knowledge. It is 
of first importance to them as tree planters, and we 
intend to get it for them'. Tha£ is all there is to it. 
This sort of education patiently drilled into the people 
will be a help to planters and honorable nurserymeq 
as well, and, frankly, we want the respect and support 
of both classes. As for the fakers and snides, they 
know us and we know them—they will get the prun¬ 
ing knife as close to the root as we can drive it. 
* 
The U. S. Government maintains a seed-testing 
department where seeds may be examined by buyer 
or seller. Tests are made for adulteration and also 
for vitality. This department encourages farmers to 
have seed examined before planting, and also to 
learn if possible where the seed was grown. Both 
things are important, and it has become a good prac¬ 
tice with many farmers when ordering seed to ask 
questions about it. Last year such a buyer wrote a 
seedsman as follows: / 
Kindly send me at once samples and prices of your 
Ited clover, also state if you guarantee this seed free of 
dodder and other noxious weeds. Where was this seed 
grown? An early reply will oblige. 
That is a fair question, for it is a first principle 
of good farming to try to obtain clean seed. Yet 
this seedsman made the following reply: 
We have yours asking us to mail you samples and quote 
you prices of Red clover. However, from the contents of 
jour letter we do not feel justified in mailing you samples 
and making you prices. You first state, “Do we guarantee 
this seed to be pure and free of dodder and other weeds?” 
also you ask where this seed was grown. We do not 
guarantee any seed whatever, nor do we give our cus¬ 
tomers the information as to where the seed was grown. 
If you can find a seed house in the United States that 
will guarantee seed or will tell you where it was grown, 
we would be pleased for you to give us the name of this 
fiim, as we never heard of any seed house to guarantee auv 
seed, or to tell where it was grown in the field seed line; 
second, there is no seed that is pure and free of all other 
substances. So we do not care to quote you prices and 
mail you samples. 
We do not believe that this attitude is shared by 
the seed trade in general. We know that some seeds¬ 
men at least are glad to tell where the seed is grown, 
because they try to use such care that the knowledge 
would be an asset to them. We also know that (he 
best seedsmen make a fair statement about the purity 
of their seed. Personally we would not buy seed 
from a man who refused to give any information 
about it, for we think the buyer has the right to such 
information. 
BREVITIES. 
This is good buckwheat cakes weather! 
It l'ooks like a contest between the two p’s—penny post¬ 
age and parcels post. We are for the latter. 
Now we are told they have a vaccine to prevent grippe ! 
What shall we put into men to get them to maintain their 
grip when they start in to do things? 
Tell us about the peach buds. Every peach grower is 
interested. Of course you cannot tell surely how they are 
until blooming time—but how do they look? 
On January 1, 1910, there were in American institutions 
187,454 insane persons—a gain of over 37,000 in six years. 
Massachusetts had 344.(5 insane to each 100,000 of popula¬ 
tion—New York 343.1. 
The French gave up the Panama Canal because it was 
a “pest hole” where white men could not live. During last 
November out of a white population of 11,900 there were 
two deaths from disease—one malaria and one cancer. 
This result is due largely to killing out mosquitoes. 
You might not think it, but it is often bard to get the 
true facts about a section or a method. Curious, but most 
people seem to think they must either “knock” or “boost” 
a proposition. Thus one is likely to get an extreme criti¬ 
cism or some extravagant praise. We do not want cither, 
though sometimes both must be presented in order to 
strike a fair statement. 
An automatic water finder is made by an English firm 
which, according to the Agricultural Journal of India, has 
been used with some success in Bombay, instead or tnr 
“water witch’s” hazel or peach rod, this instrument works 
by measuring the strength of the electric currents which 
flow between earth and atmosphere. These currents are 
most powerful in the vicinity of subterranean streams. 
