404 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
March 23, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A Katlontl Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home* 
Established fsso 
Published weokly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pear) St., New York 
Herbert W. Comjngwood, President and Editor. 
Johk J. UinnoN, Treasurer anti General Manager. 
Wm. F. I) rr.no k, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8}$ marks, or 10J4 francs. Remit in money order, "xpress 
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 by a respon¬ 
sible pci-son. 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- 
scribera against rogues, but we do not guarantee to ad j ust t-ifling differences 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither will we be 
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 
th© transaction, and yon must have ncntioned This Rural tikw-iorkkr 
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. 
* 
Last week we wanted to know why the beef breeds 
of cattle are not more numerous in the East. All 
the theory indicates that beef making ought to pay. 
One small fact seems to trip up most of the theory. 
Try to sell dressed beef to your local butcher and 
see what you get. In most cases he will not dare to 
buy. He must depend upon the meat trust for his 
supplies, and there are half a dozen ways in which 
they can shut him off if he begins to buy outside. 
The trouble is that owing to this monopoly the farmer 
with beef to sell must take what he can get, which 
is what the trust sees fit to pay him. 
* 
Our best compliments to Mr. Keach of Connecti¬ 
cut for the article on page 400. He has the thing right. 
There is far more to this parcels post battle than the 
mere fact of obtaining fairer postage rates. It goes 
beyond that into a genuine test of the power of the 
people. Mr. Keach is also right in saying that Con¬ 
gressmen must be put right up in printer’s ink. Again 
he is right in putting it straight to Senator Bran- 
degee. He knows whether he favors the principle of 
parcels post or not. Let him say yes or no without 
dodging or throwing dust in the air! Let us also 
thank readers who have sent letters from Congress- 1 
men. We have a great bunch of them here, and they 
all show that this pelting with letters is having its 
effect. Keep right at them. 
* 
Some time ago a reader sent us a question which 
while particularly interesting to him did not appeal 
to many others. It had been answered several times 
before. We printed a brief reply and referred this 
reader to previous articles on the subject. He comes 
back with a criticism that our reply was too short. 
He would like a full column. Almost in the same 
mail comes a criticism from another man who says it 
was a waste of space to print anything about the mat¬ 
ter. “Any person ought to know about that,” he says. 
“You have discussed it before. Why not give some¬ 
thing new?” We mention this to show something of 
the problem involved in giving all readers a fair 
showing. What seems hardly worth noticing to one 
man may mean a vital life problem to another. 
From choice we would take up these important ques¬ 
tions no matter how small they may seem whenever 
we are sure that they are vital to our readers. Last 
year we answered some 16,000 questions, and it re¬ 
quires something like instinct to know which are the 
most important. 
* 
In spite of all that can be said or done, people 
seem to be paying out their money for that Florida 
“Everglade” land. The most extravagant stories are 
being told. When once drained the swamp is to be 
like Holland, with great canals used for transporta¬ 
tion ! All this reads like a pleasant dream to the 
Northern man working in cold March wind. Who 
can prove to him that a March wind is far more 
merciful than the hot breath of a Florida swamp? 
He cannot afford to pay all his savings to find out. 
The decent Florida people know that these land liars 
who are booming the Everglades are injuring their 
State. 
I do know that it will never do to drain this land dry, 
as it would be like an ash bank, very light and loose, 
and must have moisture near the surface to sustain vege¬ 
tation. Again, if it is drained dry, and fire gets into it, 
it will burn like a sawdust pile, and will have to be 
flooded ta put out the fire. g. h. g. 
It cannot safely be drained dry, and if left wet a 
human must be part bullfrog and part alligator to 
stand the climate. 
We get hundreds of clippings about parcels post. 
Some of them are from papers which ought to know 
better and probably do, yet they “knock” the prop¬ 
osition as hard as their silly arguments permit. Here 
is one from the Dry Goods Optimist: 
The parcels post will take from the small city, town 
and village their very reason for being. The merchants 
and citizens generally or the small city, town and village 
will be forced into the great city—or starve. Destroying 
the trade and prosperity of the small city, * town and 
village means that the farmer within ten miles of those 
centers is deprived of his market. Inevitably, the parcels 
post will not only affect the trade conditions of the coun¬ 
try, hut it will upset the agricultural conditions of the 
whole country. It will go still further to centralize the 
trade, the wealth, the power of the country in the hands 
of the already fabulous rich and perilously powerful. 
That paper ought to change its name at once to 
pessimist! Parcels post has been in full force in 
Germany for years, yet the small cities and towns are 
still on the map and growing. The country merchants 
use the post for bringing in supplies and have pros¬ 
pered. Then, what about the trade from the country 
to the city? At present the producer gets 35 cents 
of the consumer’s dollar because, under present forms 
of transportation, the middlemen have control. Give 
us parcels post by which we can mail certain kinds 
of produce and we can get 90 cents of the dollar and 
the drain will be away from the city. Who made 
these men so blind that they cannot see the reason 
why the* wealth has been concentrated into the city? 
They have done all they could to grease the rails 
over which a dollar runs from the farm to the city. 
Now they fight when we try to make it possible for 
a half-dollar to run back! 
* 
WHO FOR THE WHITE HOUSE? 
We take little interest in so-called “straw votes” 
after having been counted in several of them. They 
rarely give a true line on real public opinion. We 
would like, however, to know who our readers favor 
for the next President, and what is of more impor¬ 
tance, why they do so. Who is your favorite—Taft, 
Roosevelt, Wilson, Harmon, Clark, Underwood, Bryan 
or any of the rest? We ask our readers to express 
their preference and to go on and tell us plainly zvhy. 
Make it short—you can do it in 150 words—but give 
the reasons for your choice. We cannot agree to 
print everything, but we will give all a fair showing, 
and thus be able to give the public a square statement 
of the farmer’s point of view. Talk right out and 
speak your mind; we want the true thought of coun¬ 
try people. If you can tell us how your neighbors 
feel also—so much the better. Bear in mind that the 
reason for your choice is of more importance than 
the choice itself. Do not attack other candidates— 
that will only waste your space, for we shall cut it 
out—but tell us w/tty your man should be next 
President. 
* 
That a patentee may effectively restrict the time, place, 
or manner of using a patented machine, so that a pro¬ 
hibited use will constitute au infringement of the patent is 
fully conceded. 
The conclusion we reach is that there is no difference 
in principle between a sale subject to specific restrictions 
of the time, place, or purpose of use. and restrictions re¬ 
quiring a use only with other things necessary to thq use 
of the* patented article, purchased from the patentee. 
That is the meat of a decision by the Supreme 
Court which will give monopolies a better chance 
than ever to squeeze the public. The case at issue 
was a small one. A woman in New York bought a 
patented machine for making duplicate copies of writ¬ 
ten or drawn papers. A “license restriction” went 
with the machine to the effect that this woman should 
use with this machine only the ink and other supplies 
made by the company holding the patent on the ma¬ 
chine. The ink itself was not patented, but the intent 
was to compel this woman to use a certain ink even 
though she could get just as good ink at a lower 
price. Another company supplied such ink and suit 
was brought to restrain them from “aiding and abet¬ 
ting” this woman in “violating a restriction.” What 
the court did was to decide that under our present 
laws the owner of a patent can actually enforce such 
a “license restriction”! A woman might buy a pat¬ 
ented broom and be compelled to use a certain kind 
of dustpan with it, though a satisfactory pan could 
be bought for half the price of the other. It is hard 
to think of more dangerous possibilities than those 
which are shown in this patent decision. It brings 
under our narrow patent laws questions which have 
nothing to do with patent rights, and more than 
doubles the monopolistic power of the owner of a 
patent. In very few cases does the actual inventor 
recover anything like fair compensation. The remedy 
for this outrageous condition is to change the patent 
laws. This is the duty of Congress, and it must be 
done at once. 
That article on Winter farm schools in Germany 
by Pcpf. Price on page 417 is a good one to study. 
Germany is evidently cihead of this country in con¬ 
ducting these smaller farm schools. She had nearly 
half a century the start of us for one thing. If one 
is to be fair he could hardly expect a system of edu¬ 
cation which is to revolutionize society to be per¬ 
fected in half a century. Yet that is the problem 
before our agricultural colleges. In some ways these 
colleges and what they represent have made great 
progress, and there is more to follow, but their real 
problem has yet to be faced. Now that they are 
safely on their feet they must learn how to get down 
to th# slow and plain people who most need their 
help. That thing must be done by someone. If the 
colleges cannot do it some other agency will learn 
how. By the way, we want you to watch that new 
department, “Large Public Questions.” 
* 
The Interstate Commerce Commission has pub¬ 
lished statistics of 13 large express companies doing 
business in the United States. For the year ending 
June 30, 1910, these companies owned real estate and 
equipment valued at $25,325,668.94. -At the same time 
they claimed a “book value” of their total assets of 
$204,710,036.91. This means that less than 12 y 2 per 
cent of their “assets” was actual property used in 
transportation. No wonder the Interstate Commerce 
Commission says: 
The significance of this fact should not escape attention, 
indicating as it does, the peculiar business conditions of 
express companies. Given express privileges over transpor¬ 
tation lines, the express business may be conducted with 
but small capital invested. 
These 13 companies took in $146,116,315.66. They 
paid the railroads, etc., for express privilege, $69,917,- 
561.83. After other expenses were taken out they 
showed a “net corporate income” of $17,988,557.20! 
As the value of the entire property used in operating 
the express business is about $25,000,000, you can fig¬ 
ure what per cent of profit these transportation rob¬ 
bers are holding us up for! Or suppose we take one 
express company alone, Wells, Fargo & Co., for 1910. 
This company had real property and equipment val¬ 
ued at $4,251,939.16. Their income from operating 
their business in that year was $27,178,651.94. After 
taking out all expenses they had a profit of $3,183,- 
474,56. In addition to this they earned $1,641,066.61, 
mostly in dividends on stocks and investments, all 
paid out of profits in former years! This company 
in one year paid 75 per cent profit on the property 
used in conducting the business! The Southern Ex¬ 
press Company is worse yet. These figures show 
that they had real property worth $375,954.33 and 
made an operating profit of $1,501,269.96! And here 
are a few more: 
Value real 
property & equipment 
Pacific Express Co. $650,477.99 
U. S. Express Co. 2,774,695.48 
Canadian Express Co... 410,808.13 
National Express Co.... 29,175.21 
Adams Express Co. 6,401,407.70 
American Express Co.... 9,940,977.38 
Net operat¬ 
ing income 
$1,103,423.94 
448,031.45 
258,322.48 
138,884.19 
2.027,528.27 
2,170,872.99 
This operating income means the total income from 
doing an express business with all operating expenses 
and taxes taken out. When we study these figures 
we can easily understand the opposition to parcels 
post. Here are 13 big leeches and national grafters. 
In this one year they made an operating profit of $13,- 
392,081.55 after turning over to the railroads $69,917,- 
561.83. No wonder they pull wires and pass dollars 
to kill parcels post. The shame of this thing ought to 
stir the American people into action if nothing else 
can do it. 
BREVITIES. 
The Scientific American reports that a firm in Argentina 
is purposing to make fertilizer from grasshoppers and 
their eggs, thus turning a crop menace into plant food. 
Under the new law for the protection of animals in 
Great Britain no child under 16 years may be admitted to 
slaughter yards, and no animal may be killed In the sight 
of another animal. No horse slaughterer or knacker may 
act as a horse dealer. All penalties for cruelty to animals 
are increased, and when an owner is convicted of ill-treat¬ 
ment the court may order the destruction of the animal, 
or confiscate it, this clause being due to the National 
Canine Defence League. 
As you know we have often stated that the hay from an 
acre of good Alfalfa would be like four {ons of wheat bran. 
Any farmer can understand what that means but can we 
prove the statement? Protein is the element which gives 
the greatest value to the bran. At the Connecticut Experi¬ 
ment Station the average of 26 samples of bran was 10.2 
per cent of protein or 324 pounds to the ton. One acre 
of Alfalfa yielded in three cuttings 4.8 tons of hay. This 
hay contained 1,320 pounds of protein or a little more than 
Is found in four tons of bran. Three tons of meadow hay 
(a very large yield) contained 474 pounds of protein and 
three tons of clover hay 90G pounds ! Dr. E. H. Jenkins, 
says that it has been proven that Alfalfa can be grown in 
Connecticut under proper conditions and on a variety of 
soik. That being so why buy wheat bran or Alfalfa meal 
from the West? We are now going to talk Alfalfa for the 
F’vst harder than ever. 
