19i2. 
THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
206 
\ 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—The United States Govern¬ 
ment began January 31 a national inquiry 
into the alleged egg pool which exists in 
every large city, according to Federal in¬ 
vestigators. •The investigation is being 
made by the Department of Justice as a 
result of the increased price of eggs. Dis¬ 
solution proceedings begun in Chicago by the 
Federal authorities against the Chicago 
butter and egg board is believed to have 
started the national investigation. 
Fire February 1 destroyed the Woodside 
plant of the Acadia Sugar Refining Com¬ 
pany at Halifax, N. S., causing a loss esti¬ 
mated at more than $1,000,000. One em¬ 
ploye in the refinery is believed to have 
been burned to death. The fire started in 
a large wooden warehouse on the waterfront, 
where ten thousand barrels of sugar were 
stored. Besides the refined sugar destroyed, 
more than twenty-five thousand bags of raw 
sugar were consumed. A number of loaded 
Intercolonial Railway cars were on a sid¬ 
ing at the refinery, but no engine could be 
obtained quickly enough to haul them out. 
and they were burned. 
The British steamer I’omeran collided 
with the Alleghany of the Hamburg-Ameri- 
can Line 75 miles east northeast of Cape 
Henry February 2, and the Alleghany went 
to the bottom a short time afterward. 
The two passengers and crew of 50 men 
of the Alleghany were picked up. by the 
Pomeran. 
Charged with conspiracy on two counts 
in connection with the alleged “planting” of 
dynamite in the homes of textile strikers at 
Lawrence, Mass., John J. Breen, an under¬ 
taker, who is a member of the Lawrence 
School Committee, was bound over to the 
grand jury February 2 after a hearing in 
the police court. He furnished bail in the 
sum of $2,000 on each count. Seven other 
persons, arrested when police detectives 
made a descent upon the foreign quarter 
and found several packages of dynamite, 
were released on charges of keeping dyna¬ 
mite without a license, having proved to the 
satisfaction of the court that they were not 
responsible for the presenec of the explosive 
in their apartments. 
One woman and two men who had ven¬ 
tured to cross the river near Niagara Falls 
on the ice bridge February 4 were lost in 
the tumult of waters in the whirlpool rapids, 
two miles below the waterfalls, to which 
point they had drifted on the ice in full 
view of thousands who were quite helpless 
to render aid, even though every effort 
was made. When the ico started out there 
were at least eight persons on it, but five 
of these gained the shore in safety, some 
of them a mile below the falls and midway 
to the rapids. A similar passing out of an 
ice bridge took place on January 22. 1899, 
when three persons were caught on the ice, 
but all escaped. The going out of an ice 
bridge loaded with humanity has long been 
predicted. Had the ice started in midafter¬ 
noon many more lives would have been lost, 
for the Sunday afternon ice bridge crowd is 
always very large. 
With the Federal Government and other 
agencies helpless to relieve Nome’s coal 
shortage 2,000 people on Bering Sea might 
freeze to death before June if the Standard 
Oil Company and Union Oil Company had 
not large amounts of fuel oil stored at 
Nome. Just why Nome’s coal supply should 
be smaller than usual has not been satis¬ 
factorily explained. To supply dredges 
and vessels using oil fuel the Standard and 
Union Oil companies have sent several tank 
steamships to Nome yearly with oil. This 
supply must now keep Nome warm until 
navigation opens next May. The Govern¬ 
ment has a reserve coal supply at Dutch 
Harbor, but nothing short of ice breaking 
steamships like those used at Vladivostok 
or on the Baltic could get it to Nome before 
the ice naturally moves out of Bering Sea. 
The hundred tons of coal taken from the 
dredges at Solomon must be transported 
to Nome, nearly 100 miles, by dog team 
at a cost of four to six cents a pound. The 
Winter has been unusually mild at Nome 
and along the entire Alaskan coast. Feb¬ 
ruary 4 the Nome temperature ranged from 
34 to 40 above zero. 
Fire in Philadelphia, Pa., February 4, de¬ 
stroyed three large factory buildings in the 
block bounded by Wood, Vine, 8th and 
Franklin streets, causing a loss of more 
than $1,000,000. The principal loser was 
the Hensel-Colladay Company, manufactur¬ 
ers of millinery and dress trimmings, which 
occupied two large factory buildings. Mem¬ 
bers of the firm estimate their loss at more 
than $800,000, covered by insurance. 
Fire at Alpha, N. J., February 4, resulted 
in the death by burning of three children, 
the severe injury of five men and the de¬ 
struction of six houses and a barn. A dozen 
men received minor injuries in a vain at¬ 
tempt to rescue the children. But for the 
fact that the breeze blew the flames in an 
opposite direction from adjoining structures 
the whole town might have been destroyed. 
The property loss is $20,000, partly covered 
by insurance. 
Harry E. Wilson, receiver of the Washing¬ 
ton Irrigation and Fruit Company and of • 
the Columbia River Orchards Company, 
said February 4 he had no trace of W. H. 
Delarm, of Seattle, and Allen Jay Biehl, 
of Portland, Ore., sellers of bonds of the 
foncertns. Mr. Wilson /has 'been unable 
to discover any assets. The holders of bonds 
will get nothing, attorneys say. It is esti¬ 
mated that Seattle investors will lose $1,- 
000,000. The Columbia River Orchard Com¬ 
pany is alleged to have sold bonds of the 
face value of $4,250,000 to investors all 
over the United States. The Washington 
Orchard Irrigation and Fruit Company 
guaranteed the bonds and the Oregon-Wash- 
ington Trust Company of Portland, Ore., 
was trustee for the bondholders. An at¬ 
torney interested in the suits against the 
Orchard companies said to-day that a capi¬ 
talist of Worcestei*, Mass., was about to buy 
$80,000 of the bonds and that he had given 
assurances of investing $150,000 more when 
the exposure of the company’s methods was 
made. 
That the National Cash Register Company 
of Dayton, Ohio, has a “lawful monopoly” in 
the business of registering devices, secured 
to it by the patents of the United States 
itself, is the answer which the company 
filed February 5 in the United States Dis¬ 
trict Court to the proceedings brought 
against it a few weeks ago, charging it 
with monopoly and violation of the Sher¬ 
man anti-trust law in restraint of trade 
and the destruction of competition. The 
answer is made ixx the name of the presi¬ 
dent, John B. Patterson, and the directors 
and managers of the company. It does not 
enter specifically into the accusations of the 
government relating to the harassing of 
competitors and the alleged means taken 
for driving them from the business field. 
All these charges are met with the general 
denial that the company has gone outside 
the law in the course of extending its 
business. 
Additional information regarding the 
method used in figuring the test cost of 
beef, which the government contends was 
an important part of the system by which 
the packers maintained a combination in 
restraint of trade, was heard by the jury 
in the packers’ trial February 5. William 
T. Sheehy, who figured the test cost of beef 
for Armour & Co., in the period covered 
by the indictment, explained the system. He 
said a killing charge of $2.75 a head was 
addl'd to the live cost of the cattle and 
allowance made for the by-products to as¬ 
certain the test cost of the dressed beef. 
The prices for the by-product credits were 
enumerated as follows: Hides, 2V> to four 
cents a pound, according to quality! fats, 
three cents a pound ; tongues, 35 cents each. 
The witness admitted there was a period 
in 1908 when no allowance was made for 
hides by Armour & Co. in figuring the test 
cost of beef, but he was unable to remember 
the exact length of time this continued. To 
show that the packers frequently curtailed 
shipments to certain points to increase 
prices and give stability to the market, a 
number of dispatches which Isaac C. Snyder, 
manager of the National Packing Company 
of Boston, sent to the National Packing 
Company at Chicago were read to the jury 
while Snyder was on the stand. In the 
messages he complained that certain con¬ 
signees threatened to buy from other firms 
unless shipments were increased. Counsel 
for the defence objected to the introduction 
of the dispatches, but were overruled by the 
court. 
THE EXPRESS INVESTIGATION.—That 
the various express companies began with 
comparatively small original investments 
and everything they have was contributed 
by the public was indicated by statistics 
compiled by the Interstate Commerce Com¬ 
mission and placed in the record February 
3 concerning the finances of the principal 
express companies. One fact is recognized 
in the statement that the property and 
equipment with which the companies operate 
amounts to only 12 per cent of their assets. 
The total dividends and assets that have 
l*een disbursed by the 10 companies under 
investigation amount to $212,085,392. their 
property and equipment is $26,065,711, 
stocks owned $50,575,881, funded debt 
owned $54,416,468, other permanent invest¬ 
ments $15,611,311. cash and .current assets 
$36,574,253, other assets $2,324,842, total of 
dividends and assets disbursed to share¬ 
holders and property owned stock, bonds, • 
etc., $397,653,862. The statistics show 
current liabilities of all the companies 
of $37,277,847. The statement filed shows 
in detail the net assets accumulated as divi¬ 
dends and disbursed to stockholders by each 
company. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—A member of the 
New York Mercantile Exchange, the organ- 
lzation which the District Attorney has 
been looking up in connection with his in¬ 
quiry into the high price of butter, has pre¬ 
pared statistics showing the result to the 
consumer of the conviction of 13 members 
of the live poultry trust last August. The 
poultry dealers were prosecuted by Assistant 
District Attorney Do Ford, who has charge 
of the butter inquiry. The figures show 
that the difference charged by the slaughter 
house and the market people to the con¬ 
sumer in 1910 over and above the quoted 
market price in carload lots was about 
six cents a pound. Now and for the last 
four months it has not averaged over two 
and one-half cents a pound. That leaves a 
net saving to the consumer. without any 
injury to the producei\ of $700 a carload. 
Taking the receipts for the month of Janu¬ 
ary as a criterion and the increased per¬ 
centage of receipts this January over those 
of January, 1911, there will be handled in 
New York' this year 7,000 carloads of live 
poultry. That will mean a saving to the 
consumer of $4,900,000. The saving dur¬ 
ing 1911 on the 4,928 carloads was equally 
great a car, aggregating $3,449,600. 
Further introduction of agricultural in¬ 
struction in the public schools; development 
of farmers’ institute work by providing 
expert advice to be available at central 
points throughout the State, and a cessation 
of the establishment of special State agri¬ 
cultural schools are recommended by the 
State Agricultural Advisory Board in a 
repoi’t made to Governor Dix February 5. 
The board, which" was created by the Legis¬ 
lature of 1911 “to consider plans for the 
promotion and dii'ection of agricultural edu¬ 
cation and the advancement of interest in 
country life,” says it interpreted its organi¬ 
zation law to cover all kinds of agricultural 
educational work, “it being the duty of the 
board to shape up underlying policies.” The 
board agrees that if the policy is adopted of 
providing federal funds for agricultural work 
in States the different States should have 
the same liberty in the application of these 
funds to the purposes named that they enjoy 
in the use of their own funds. In reference 
to a further intorduetion of agricultural in¬ 
struction in public schools the report says: 
“Plans should be perfected as rapidly as 
possible for maintaining agricultural in¬ 
struction with larger allotments, and an 
allotment should be provided for each union 
or high school teaching a class of not less 
than 10 in agriculture and for the common 
district school giving an approved course in 
nature study.” 
An animal hospital which will be the 
last word in modern construction and equip¬ 
ment, and will possess an ambulance service, 
a perfectly equipped operating room, lethal 
chamber, electric elevators, pharmacy, isola¬ 
tion ward for contagious cases, kitchen, an 
exercising runway and resident physician’s 
quarters, is in course of construction for the 
American Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals at the southwest corner 
of Avenue A and 24th street, New York. 
The new building will be a combination of 
three structures of varying heights. The 
one story structure on the corner will con¬ 
tain kennels and cages for abandoned dogs 
and cats, and a lethal chamber, where the 
unwanted and diseased animals will bo pain¬ 
lessly destroyed. It will be built entirely 
of concrete and will embody the latest ideas 
in sanitation and animal comfort. The 
operating room for horses will be connected 
with the stalls by an electric trolley, so a 
horse unable to walk, may be taken in on 
a sling or resting on the moveable bottom 
board, or in an ambulance. All medicines 
and advice will be free to those who can¬ 
not pay. 
The twenty-first annual meeting of the 
Michigan Improved Live Stock Breeders’ and 
Feeders’ Association was held at the Agri¬ 
cultural College at East Lansing on January 
17 and 18. The first day was taken up 
with soctional meetings of the various 
breed associations and the general session 
occupied all of the second day. The attend¬ 
ance was very gratifying, there being be¬ 
tween 300 and 400 present at one or more 
of the various meetings. After President 
R. C. Reed gave his annual address, Prof. 
W. J. Fraser of Illinois spoke on “Some 
New Phases of Dairying.” Dean .T. H. Skin¬ 
ner addressed the meeting on “The Farmer 
and the Cattle Feeder.” The last speaker 
in the afternoon was lion. A. C. Cartor, 
Secretary of the Public Domain and Immi¬ 
gration Commission, who spoke on "Reme¬ 
dies for the Farm Labor Problem.” A 
prominent feature of the meeting was the 
organization of “The Pure Sire League.” 
Members pay one cent dues and sign an 
agreement not only to use purebred six’cs, 
but to endeavor to suppress the use of 
scrub stock. 
In view of the prevalence of the deadly 
chestnut tree bark disease among the native 
chestnut of Pennsylvania and adjacent 
States, Governor Tenor has issued a call for 
a convention to be held in the State Capi¬ 
tol, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, February 20- 
21. 1912. to consider the problem of the' con¬ 
trol and eradication of this destructive 
fungus disease, which has already entailed 
such heavy losses upon lumber owners and 
others. In 1911, the Pennsylvania State 
Legislature passed a bill authorizing the 
Governor to appoint a commission of five 
citizens for the purpose of thoroughly in¬ 
vestigating the disease which is rapidly de¬ 
stroying the chestnut trees of the common- 
lyumlth. The act placed an appropriation of 
$2 1 000 at the disposal of the commission 
for the investigation and scientific study of 
the problem, and more especially to ascer¬ 
tain the exact extent of the blight, and to 
devise ways and means through which it 
might, if possible, be stamped out. The 
commission was appointed in June, 1911 
and. after organization, began its work im¬ 
mediately by sending a large force of ex¬ 
perts into the field. The reports of these 
experts together with the results of the 
work of the pathological staff, will, among 
other matters, be preesnted for discussion. 
SOUTH FLORIDA NOTES. 
1\ bile the Northern farmer finds snug 
comfort by his fireside, at this time of the 
year, the farmer, or rather trucker, here 
has to be up and doing, for to many of us 
it is harvest time. VVo have heard of bliz¬ 
zards and rumors of blizzards and the 
truth is from about the 10th to the 15th of 
January we kept a wistful eye on the re¬ 
ports of the weather man. On the morn¬ 
ing of the 16th we thought the danger 
past, when suddenly word went around that 
it would become much cooler, but possibly 
might moderate before night came on. It 
was quite cool then, the thermometer regis¬ 
tering 46 degrees several mornings previous. 
Sure enough, at about eight o’clock a few 
fleecy clouds came scudding out of the 
northwest, and after them a stiff breeze 
that certainly made itself felt. The sun 
shone brightly, but for all that the ther¬ 
mometer at noon stood at 54 degrees, and 
that spelled danger, for be it remembered 
Winter nights are long even in FloridaT 
The growers joked grimly among themselves, 
and some of us who had tomatoes ready to 
pick concluded they would be just as safe 
indoors. There was nothing of such gen¬ 
eral interest that afternoon, as the direc¬ 
tion from which the wind blew. About two 
o’clock it shifted fitfully to the north, and 
then a trifle eastward. Soon a few friendly 
clouds drifted in from the sea, and we 
knew all was_well. That may seem puzzling 
to the believers in the boomer’s myth, “be¬ 
low the frost line,” hut it will 'be more 
clear when I state that at least once or 
twice within the last 15 or 20 years prac¬ 
tically all tender vegetables were killed to 
the extreme southern limits of the State, 
and more frequently there has been quite a 
little damage. The risk may not be much 
greater than exists in some form or other 
in all sections, but hardly a Winter passes 
but we are keenly reminded that the risk 
is very real. 
Perhaps a sketch of another day’s work 
on the farm may be of interest. Thursday 
morning, January 25, four of the men are 
told to continue pruning in the field of 
young tomatoes. These were set about 
seven weeks ago, and have made a fine 
growth in spite of some cool weather, show¬ 
ing a spread of more than two feet along 
the row. Another man with a mule is sent 
to work up a seed-bed which had been 
cleared of overgrown tomato plants the day 
before. This done he continues cultivation 
in the field where the other men are prun¬ 
ing. After seeing the work under way I 
hitch the other mule to the wagon, go to 
the packing-house near by, where I have 
my tomatoes packed on contract, load 68 
field boxes and distribute them in the field. 
By this time the dew is well off and I call 
the men from pruning to pick tomatoes the 
remainder of the day. I now procure rake, 
marker, garden-line, seed drill and tomato 
seed, determined to shape that seed-bed and 
sow it before noon; for I have promised 
myself the pleasure of a trip in the after¬ 
noon to see what is doing in a trucking 
center some distance north. The strawber¬ 
ries, which have been very tardy, in fact 
more than a month late as compared with 
last year and the season before that, give 
promise of making things lively in the near 
future, so I realize if I mean to do any 
rambling I must do it at once. Noon finds 
the seeding finished, the last of five or six 
sowings for the season. These are not in¬ 
tended for planting, hut rather as insurance 
in case of frost. That risk ends about 
February 20. 
After dinner I mount my wheel and am 
off for my stroll to see what the “other 
fellow” is doing. The road is almost as 
smooth as pavement, and in less than an 
hour I have covered about 10 miles, and 
reach a tract of between 250 and 300 acres, 
lying in a body, but under different man¬ 
agements, and devoted almost entirely to 
tomatoes. This acreage is not at all un¬ 
usual ; in fact there are as many acres more 
grown in the immediate locality. There 
are thousands of acres devoted to tomatoes. 
About 20 miles south from here there are 
400 acres under one management. The 
crop at the point visited was not so far 
advanced as in my home locality, but 
Tangl'd from some just planted to some 
approaching first picking. In general the 
crop looked rather more promising than the 
average, which owing to climatic conditions, 
is rather low this season. What would sur¬ 
prise, yes, even astonish the careful trucker 
from the North, is the rough-and-tumble 
method of setting the crop. Much of it is 
planted just as if you were to follow out 
this programme : Select a swampy piece of 
land covered with coarse grass. After it 
becomes dry enough, cut the grass and burn 
it; then with a light plow throw two fur¬ 
rows together where each row is to be six 
to seven feet apart. At proper intervals 
on this ridge, witli your heel or with a hoe, 
make holes to receive the plants. Set the 
plants, using a small handful of wet well 
composted manure, also a little commercial 
fertilizer close to, but not touching the 
roots. Now go off and forget them for 
about two weeks, then side-dress in the fur¬ 
rows with one-half to three-fourths of a 
ton of commercial fertilizer per acre; cover 
this by plowing another furrow on each 
side of the row, run over with a scratch 
harrow, then go off and forget them again 
for from two to four weeks, according to 
your convenience; then repeat the fertiliz¬ 
ing, plow out what is left of the middles, 
harrow down and forget them until you 
think it is time to pick the crop. Now 
there is no exaggeration in that, except 
possibly the forgetting part. It is hardly 
too much to say, that is the orthodox 
method of growing tomatoes in south 
Florida. Often when the crop is half 
grown before the middles are plowed out, 
looking across the field the plants are only 
dimly distinguishable among the grass and 
weeds. Really the surprising part is how 
well the crops finally succeeds. From what 
I can gather the average crop is near 250 
crates per acre, just about half of what 
might be called a real good crop. But then 
the same may be said of average crops in 
every line, everywhere. 
The most unique sight I came upon that 
day was what might be truly called po¬ 
tatoes in a forest. There were 15 acres, 
and I feel quite sure there was an average 
of at least 100 pine trees of moderate size 
per acre. The pines here grow with rather 
light open top. The soil was quite well 
prepared, considering the obstacles in the 
way and that it was newly broken. The 
potatoes, which were planted quite close 
in the row, and rows not much over two 
feet apart, looked very well indeed, with 
every promise of a good crop. 
I had heard of a 25-acre field of cucum¬ 
bers in that locality, which was the chief 
object of my visit, but on inquiring I was 
told it was three or four miles from the 
rock road, and as I could not ride the 
wheel through the sand, I found the day 
too short to go afoot. 
From what I have said about slack 
methods of culture let no ambitious reader 
feel called to come down here and “show 
’em” for the chances are the first “show¬ 
ing” would be to himself. Not that there 
is not room for improvement in methods 
hero as elsewhere, but conditions are so 
utterly different here from every other sec¬ 
tion of the country that the newcomer can 
use all his energy and if he is inclined to 
be reckless may lose all his capital in 
learning that he is in no position to “show.” 
Florida. d. l. hartman. 
YOURS FOR PARCELS POST. 
No agricultural paper in the land has 
worked more forcefully for a general par¬ 
cels post than The R. N.-Y., and now the 
light seems about to break. I believe this 
in spite of the fact that according to the 
Associated Press dispatches, Congress has 
received 25,000 petitions on parcels post, 
less than one per cent of which are in favor 
of it. The petitions in opposition- plainly 
show the ear-marks of a guiding selfish in¬ 
terest—they are machine-made, as it were. 
On page 115, the article “Get Going for 
Parcels Post” hits the nail squarely on the 
head. Signing petitions to Congress is the 
lazy man’s way of quieting his conscience 
on the duties of citizenship. A 20-word 
hand written letter by a farmer to his Con¬ 
gressman is worth more than 20 petition 
signatures. 
On the other hand, I agree with Mr. 
Datus C. Smith that Grange resolutions 
are valuable, because this means that the 
Grange has talked the matter over, and 
expresses its wishes in that form. Still; 
the Grangers should not stop with resolu¬ 
tions, but should also fire letters at their 
Congressmen. 
Next Spring, on a given day, announce¬ 
ment of which will appear in duo time, 
thei farmers will expected, all on one 
day, to write letters to their Congressmen, 
asking for a parcels post. This will be 
called the “Farmers’ Parcels Post Letter 
Day.” Send in the letters now, and then 
a broadside on that day. The forces 
against parcels post are well organized, 
and they have the money, but the farmers 
can best them by the simple process of 
writing letters. If 10 per cent of the 
energy that our farmers are spending in 
telling their neighbors about the wicked¬ 
ness of the express companies were spent 
in writing letters to Congressmen, some¬ 
thing would be accomplished besides talk— 
and talk is cheap. 
During January I spent several days in 
Washington attending the hearings given by 
the Senate Committee on parcels post. Sen¬ 
ator Bourne is our main reliance. He is 
strongly backed by Senator Bristow, who 
was for a long time Fourth Assistant Post¬ 
master-General, and so his knowledge 
counts largely. 
The R. N.-Y. has been right from the 
start in its insistence on letter writing as 
the most effective means of getting the 
parcels post. The man who will not spend 
six cents on postage stamps—four cents on 
his Senators and two on his Representa¬ 
tive, must not complain if we should lose; 
but we will not, for there are too many 
farmers in dead earnest. w. a. henry. 
Madison. Wisconsin. 
