666 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S FABER 
A National Weekly .Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established fSSO 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 4#9 Pearl St., New York 
Herbert W. Coixixgwood, President and Editor. 
Jons J. im.LON, Treasurer and General Manager. 
TTm F. Ditaon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Rott.e, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign connti-les in the Universal Postal Union, $2.M, equal to 8s. 6d-, or 
marks, or 10*4 franc*. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal cheek or hank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates 60 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 backed by 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. Y e protect sub¬ 
scribers against rogues, but we do notguaraatee to adjust trifling 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 
the transaction, and you must have mentioned Tiik Rubai, New-\oi.klb 
when writing the advertiimr. 
TEN WEEKS FOR 10 CENTS. 
In order to introduce Tiie 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. 
* 
Under the new school code of Pennsylvania, all 
county high schools must add agriculture to the list 
of studies if they wish the State’s appropriation. That 
is a good move, provided the “agriculture” they teach 
can pass an examination by expert farmers! In the 
early days when certain universities and classical col¬ 
leges were after appropriations, they tacked on a 
small appendix and went after the money. The “agri¬ 
culture” they taught was fearful and wonderful. The 
school was merely a suction pipe for drawing money 
from the public treasury into the university! Make 
these high schools do the real thing or refuse to feed 
them! 
* 
You see the farmers have their side of this college 
student labor proposition. That statement by Mr. 
Cornwall on page 661 will provide thinking for sev¬ 
eral Sunday afternoons. The college student will do 
better to forget his sheepskin and get out his overalls 
when he goes hunting a farm job. Many of them do 
this, and can and will earn all the money a farmer will 
pay them. Of course the argument that the college 
vacation comes at the wrong time on a fruit farm is 
a good one. In regard to “rural uplift”—’twas ever 
thus! The rural people naturally want to know who 
is going to uplift them and how far they are going 
from the ground. 
* 
People are really beginning to grasp the main issue, 
namely, whether we shall have more “government, by the 
people and for the people”—or less. We can’t “stand pat.” 
We must progress or fall more and more under government 
by a “representative” class, which people are beginning to 
realize means a leisure class, a privileged class, an aristoc¬ 
racy, with ultimately an oligarchy. 
The above is written by a New York farmer—nat¬ 
urally Republican in politics, but one of the thousands 
who have broken the old party collar in order that 
they may think freely. You cannot put the real issue 
clearer. These men support Mr. Roosevelt for what 
he represents. They are not blind to his faults or 
failings, but he stands for what they believe. Men 
have come before with much the same message, but 
the people were not quite ready. They had not grown 
away from the old issues and party ties. Now they 
come with a rush. The politicians are sitting on the 
lid and think they can hold it down. They have done 
it before and think this is simply another of those “re¬ 
form” waves which have always flattened out and 
run back to the ocean. They might as well realize 
that this is no wave, but the ocean itself rising at last 
in its angry might. Our canvass has proved con¬ 
clusively that the Republican farmers of the country 
want Mr. Roosevelt nominated. There is absolutely 
no question about that. The Ohio primary election 
clinched the argument, for the Taft managers fool¬ 
ishly telegraphed all over the country that they were 
praying for a clear day so the farmers would stay 
at home and not vote! Another thing which seems to 
be clear is that the demand for Mr. Roosevelt is not 
so much one of personality as the fact that he stands 
definitely for certain positive things. Let the farmer 
who is quoted above express it: 
Our rallying point at present is Roosevelt. He stands 
for what we want and what we believe. We are not blind 
to his faults, and we are for what he represents rather 
than for him personally. It required a man of marked 
courage and ability to take the position he has taken, to 
join in the attack on the entrenched powers of class and 
privilege and to crystallize the dissatisfaction and unrest 
concerning prevailing conditions. 
In this primary campaign The R. N.-Y has en¬ 
deavored to give a fair statement of the wishes of 
country people. When the real campaign opens we 
expect to discuss principles in the same way. 
tPHE) RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
An honorary title is often very much like a sore 
thumb—it gets in the way of a man’s natural ability 
and work. The average “LL.D.” will not be likely to 
doctor any of the laws of nature or man. This title 
should belong to one personage, however—the Moses 
who is to lead the South into the promised land. In 
this case Moses must carry the true LL.D.— lime, le¬ 
gumes and drainage, and must drive his flocks and 
herds. For the salvation of the South lies in a change 
to live stock and food production, with dairying and 
meat making as a foundation. Cotton and all other 
crops may be increased. Cash will flow into the 
South and not be tied up in the towns and cities. Free 
of the slavery of cotton growing the smaller Southern 
farmer will gain in independence and grow in power. 
Lime is the foundation, and the legumes and drainage 
will build up the soil. As we have so often pointed 
out the South should as soon think of chopping off its 
toes as to legislate against the dairy industry. 
* 
Here is the photographic copy of a characteristic 
letter: 
For the benefit of people with poor eyes, we re¬ 
peat the germ of this remarkable document: 
“Correspondence with you is not worthy of our 
consideration.” 
Whew! To change a classic remark by Cassius, 
upon what “system” doth this our Philo feed that 
he is grown so great ? The average Congressman 
will give “careful consideration,” but Philo does not 
have to give consideration at all. You will find the 
reason for all this on page 673. Mr. Schedler claims 
that he has “two flimsy patched-together coops, a 
hatcher that is entirely worthless, a brooder of little 
account, three birds that I could buy elsewhere for 
less money, a Standard of Perfection and 10 lessons 
that they advertise for $5.” On the other hand, the 
Philo people have $72.50 of Mr. Schedler’s money. 
In other words, Philo has the money and Schedler 
has the experience with appropriate trimmings. For 
nearly four months Philo, having obtained the $72.50, 
seems to have considered Mr. Schedler “not worthy of 
our consideration.” It was Schedler’s business to go 
ahead and make a living with six hens in a back yard 
—for did not this “institute” show him the way? How 
much longer this silence would have continued if 
The R. N.-Y. had not come in we do not know. We 
are not worthy of consideration, hut there has come 
a sudden rush of letters to Schedler from a very 
smooth individual who has suddenly become very 
anxious to settle the matter. Contortionists who tie 
themselves into knots and crawl through small holes 
say that snake’s oil enables them to do it. You might 
take the oil from a dozen snakes and rub it on an eel. 
It is our opinion that even then the eel could learn 
something of his wriggling art by attending this Na¬ 
tional Institute. At any rate, while we are not worthy 
of consideration we seem to have brought Mr. Sched¬ 
ler into the worthy column. He has now received an 
affectionate letter from Mr. Philo himself. The In¬ 
stitute has an intense desire, since the unworthy R. 
N.-Y. took a hand, to do everything that is right. 
That is surely the limit of human endeavor, and we 
now wait with interest to see just what the Institute 
will do with the $72.50. 
* 
Referring to parcels post, I wrote our Congressman 
asking his attitude. He replied he would give the matter 
his “careful consideration.” It would seem that after all 
the fun that has been made of these “careful considera¬ 
tion” men, they would have the ingenuity to invent some 
new phrase to conceal their hostility to parcels post, be¬ 
sides that threadbare parrot-like “careful consideration.” 
Oregon. o. H. c. 
We doubt if they can help it. It has become a fixed 
habit, as much a part of them as a wart or a scar! 
We have seen parents try to cure a child of being 
June 1, 
“left-handed” by tying his hand and compelling him 
to use the right. The hand was not to blame. One 
lobe of the brain was larger and more fully devel¬ 
oped. The hand obeyed—it did not dictate. These 
“careful consideration” men cannot help talking that 
way. Their brains have been trained to think that a 
nice “jolly” or a good sample of “guff” will keep their 
people quiet. So they say “careful consideration” 
without expecting to be bothered again. The only 
cure for them is a surgical operation. The ballot is 
the only way to cut “careful consideration” out of 
them. 
* 
I have read some reference to the “two> blades of grass 
theory.” What is this theory, what does it mean, and who 
started it? b. j. c. 
Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 
1667. He was a noted writer and churchman, author 
of Gulliver’s Travels and many books and essays. He 
stated that the most useful and noted citizen was he 
“who made two blades of grass grow where only one 
grew before.” This was accepted as a great truth, 
and has been quoted perhaps more than any other 
agricultural maxim. It zuas true nearly 250 years ago, 
when Swift wrote it. England at that time was at 
war, and the food problem was a fierce one. The 
wisest men feared famine. America had not begun 
to supply the home country—at times it needed help. 
Anything which added to the productive power of the 
soil in England and Ireland was a godsend. Swift’s 
“two blades of grass” theory was true, for the farmers 
of that day obtained all or nearly all of the consum¬ 
er’s dollar. 
The trouble with this theory is that after 250 years 
some of our thinkers and teachers attempt to apply 
it to our changed conditions. Our American farm¬ 
ers obtain, on the average, 35 cents of the consumer’s 
dollar. A large share of what they now produce is 
wasted owing to the high cost of handling and ship¬ 
ping it. There are combinations among the handlers 
and buyers of meat, grain and other produce, so that 
both producer and consumer are held apart and thus 
held up. And now come the “two blades of grass” 
advocates who tell us to produce more as a cure for 
the present evils of distribution. Their own figures 
prove that whenever a crop is doubled the farmers 
get less than for the smaller crop; the consumers pay 
about the same for food, while the railroads and the 
middlemen receive about twice as much as they did 
before. 
This “two blades of grass” was a beautiful theory 
in England during the wars, but it does not work 
well with a 35-cent dollar. Far better for our farmers 
to obtain a fair price for one blade before they add 
to their expense by growing two blades. Let some 
way be made for them to obtain 15 cents more of the 
dollar and the extra blades will soon be forthcom¬ 
ing. Right now this fair price for one blade theory is 
the livest thing in all agriculture. Consumers are or¬ 
ganizing to buy and producers are organizing to sell. 
Let them get together and the blade of grass theory 
will be settled. The great thing for farmers to do 
is to organize small packing and selling organizations. 
Make them small to begin with, so they will hang 
together. Learn how to pack a uniform product and 
how to guarantee a steady supply. Then go out for 
more of the consumer’s dollar. That is the only way 
to obtain it. The thing has already been done by 
many, and we want all possible reports from societies 
that have organized. The more publicity these rec¬ 
ords can have the better for all, for many consumers’ 
clubs are waiting for a chance to buy. 
BREVITIES. 
Hay is cured by wind or air circulating through it. 
The hot sun does not cure it—it is the hot wind. 
Therefore it is better to keep the hay in tho swath or 
the cock if possible. 
Try to cure it so as to keep the leaves green as long as 
possible. Much of the moisture will pass off through the 
leaves. 
Many a proposition is very sound iu theory but mighty 
silent in practice. 
Top-i corking —using your head. “Grafters” rarely work 
with their hands. 
Money talks—but it has talked too much of late and 
told too many of its future plans. It is time for men to 
talk more. 
With one million cubic centimeters of anti liog-cholera 
serum iu storage the Kansas Agricultural College is ready 
for an outbreak. 
The Ontario, Agricultural College sends experts to sur¬ 
vey and plan drainage on farms when the owner will pay 
carfare. The railroads charge only one cent a mile for 
this service. 
During the past 11 years the expediture per capita for 
liquors in Great Britain has fallen from $23 to $17.50, 
this being laid chiefly to such substitutes as cocoa-rooms 
and moving-pictnre shows and the increased interest in 
athletic sports. 
