764 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established 18S0 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl St, New York 
Herbert W. Coi.t.in'owood, President and Editor. 
.Ton-* J. Pilion, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. I)u,t.on\ Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Roylk, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION; ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. §2.04, equal to 8s. Cd., or 
gii marks, or 10J4 francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, persoual check 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 j and 
cash must accompany transient orders. 
“A SQUARE DEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a respon- 
•» i_T>% 1 4- 4-^ o*L -n wo will TOfl,k6 COOci anV lOS8 to DRICl 
columns, ana any such mviuumr no publicly exposed. M e protect 
scritiers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trifling diITerences 
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 
the transaction, and you must have mentioned The Rural New-Yorker 
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. 
* 
Wjtiiin 50 days we shall have many questions about 
killing insects in grain. Begin now and get ahead of 
the bugs. There are many of them hiding in the 
cracks of the grain bins. Do not wait until the grain 
is thrashed but fumigate the bins now. Clean out 
all dirt and trash in bins and building. Then use one 
pound of bisulphide of carbon to 500 cubic feet of 
space. Make bin or building airtight, put the bisul¬ 
phide in a shallow pan and get out, and the vapor will 
do the rest. 
* 
. Yesterday as we ate our dinner the good old R. N.-Y. 
of Juno 22 arrived, and as usual I leaned back and looked 
it through. I came to editorial No. 2. I looked down at 
my knees—big long patches, good! I carefully felt ’way 
round back. What! Ah, but the editor does not spend 
three hours per day, 21 hours per week, on a milking 
stool, no, no! F - N. adams. 
Ohio. 
The rural poet apologizes, and will do it in rhyme 
if need be. The cow is the farmer's best lady friend, 
and she can give character and honor to any patch. 
The trouble is that some lazy chair warmer might 
hold up his patched overalls as a badge of honor and 
proudly say —“I am a dairyman!” That is about the 
way oleo would like to point with pride at its yellow 
color. 
* 
We have become very much interested in this 
proposition of ‘‘six hens in a back yard. The 
“wonderful Philo system” is said to show how these 
six hens will earn a living for an average family! 
Mr. Philo evidently has his opinion of The R. N.-Y., 
but we are not disposed to have that stand in the 
way of those six hens. We try to be thorough in 
all our investigations, and so we shall do our utmost 
to find the facts. Will any of our readers who have 
made a living from six hens speak up and tell when 
and where they did it? In order to get it all in 
suppose those who have tried the wonderful Philo 
system and failed to get a living from the six hens 
tell us how far they fell short? We have already 
received some 25 reports, but no champion of the six 
hens has yet appeared with the goods. 
* 
It is evident that farmers all over the Eastern 
States are looking for bargains in plant food. Ashes, 
muck, wastes of all sorts, are being examined with 
a view T to buying if values warrant. This is right, 
for thousands of dollars are lost through failure to 
utilize these wastes. It is a familiar story how, before 
the Civil War, tons of cotton seed were thrown into 
rivers in order to get it out of the way. Now the 
seed and vine are worth more than the lint—they 
provide oil, food for stock or for man, plant food 
and paper. This idea of utilizing the wastes of civili¬ 
zation to feed our crops has been wonderfully de¬ 
veloped by the fertilizer manufacturers. They hunt 
for every scrap of plant food which will serve their 
purpose, yet there are vast stores which they cannot 
use. These wastes will be used directly by farmers, 
and they will be bought more and more freely as 
soon as accurate analysis can be made at a low figure. 
It is mere guesswork buying any form of plant food 
unless the buyer can know how much nitrogen, pot¬ 
ash, phosphoric acid or lime he can get for a dollar. 
The only safe way is to have a fair sample analyzed 
and then figure on the commercial value of the plant 
food. The trouble now is to obtain such an analysis 
at a fair price. The experiment stations cannot do 
it at all, and the commercial chemists charge too 
much. 
THE RUKAE NEW-YORKER 
The Housewives’ League of this city is now in 
correspondence with the New Jersey State Grange, 
regarding the possibility of establishing a farmers’ 
market near the Fort Lee ferry, where wagons may 
cross the Hudson from New Jersey, entering the 
city at 129th street. This would give a promising 
outlet for produce from Northern New Jersey, to be 
sold directly to the consumer. The smaller towns 
in Northern New Jersey are disposed to assert, how¬ 
ever, that it is hard to get local produce; it is not 
unusual to see farmers drive through a town with 
a load of produce for a New York commission man, 
who will later ship similar material back to the town 
it has been driven through. While conditions in this 
line are improving, there are a good many farmers 
within the commuter belt who have not sought to 
supply the market nearest them. 
* 
Twenty years ago The R. N.-Y. said that the 
Populist idea of arranging loans to farmers under 
government supervision was at heart sound and 
true. What a chorus of hoots and catcalls followed! 
We have repeated this conviction with each year, 
and this chorus has grown fainter and fainter. Now 
comes the Republican party with this plank in its 
platform: 
To Aid the Farmer. 
It is of great importance to the social and economic 
welfare of this country that its farmers have facilities for 
borrowing easily and cheaply the money they need to 
increase the productivity of their land. It is as important 
that financial machinery he provided to supply the demand 
of farmers for credit as it is that the hanking and cur¬ 
rency systems he reformed in the interest of general busi¬ 
ness. Therefore, we recommend and urge an authorita¬ 
tive investigation of agricultural credit societies and cor¬ 
porations in other countries and the passage of State and 
Federal laws for the establishment and capable supervision 
of organizations having for their purpose the loaning of 
funds to farmers. 
In a hospital in Kansas, slowly dying from the in¬ 
firmities of age, lies an old man who will read, that 
plank with strange emotion, William A. Peffer, once 
Senator from Kansas and the last of the old Popu¬ 
lists. They called him crazy, and for lack of other 
arguments ridiculed his beard and appearance. Yet 
he never stole a dollar, dies a poor man, and lives to 
see his bitterest critics admit that his idea of money 
loans to farmers was right. This “plank” simply 
means that public men recognize the power of 
the demand for fair financial opportunity for farmers. 
The party never would have made any such declara¬ 
tion had not popular sentiment- demanded it. Left 
to the politician this proposition would die or be 
worked out so that the bankers and money brokers 
•would manage and control farm loans. Having made 
the idea “respectable,” as they have, the farmers 
must now stand by it and demand a fair system of 
farm loans without humbug or special privilege. 
* 
Germany was cultivating its land before America was 
discovered, yet its average yield of wheat last year was 
2914 bushels to the acre; ours was 14 bushels. If our 
farmers had farmed and treated their soil as the Germans 
did, last year’s wheat crop would have yielded them $600,- 
000.000 more than it did, and we would have raised 209 
bushels of potatoes to the acre instead of only 107. 
That is taken from an article by B. F. Yoakum. It 
is true, but there are several more things to be said. 
The German farmers have improved their methods 
because such improvement has been made profitable. 
Population increased faster than farm production, 
and thus the price of food naturally rose. The Ger¬ 
man farmers have been protected by heavy tariffs 
which have prevented world-wide competition. The 
Germans have had the advantage of cheap transpor¬ 
tation, cheap fertilizers and direct markets. Parcels 
post and low freight rates with public markets enable 
the German farmer to obtain about twice as much of 
the consumer’s dollar as the average American farmer 
receives. Not only all this, but these German farmers 
have had a double advantage over Americans. They 
can borrow money from the government at low inter¬ 
est and long time. They can also buy their goods 
cooperatively at a large saving. Thus, protected agri¬ 
culturally and in a business way, of course they have 
taken good care of their farms and kept their soil 
productive. Let our American farmers stand on even 
terms as regards money and business privileges, and 
no argument would ever be needed to induce them to 
increase crops and improve their farms. Suppose 
they had made their wheat crop worth $600,000,000 
more. Taking out the increased cost, how much of 
this would the farmer have saved? What has hap¬ 
pened in former years when the wheat or potato or 
corn crop has proved unusually large? The farmers 
have actually received less for the big crop than they 
did for one of medium size. The advantage of a 
“bumper crop” goes to the middlemen and the rail¬ 
roads. Give our farmers the business and financial 
advantages which Germans enjoy and no one will 
need to worry about the increase of farm production. 
July 6, 
A GooD-natured critic says we do not give the whole 
of this “two blades of grass” theory. He wants us 
to quote the whole of Dean Swift’s saying. Here 
it is: 
‘•And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could 
make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow 
upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would 
deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service 
to his country, than the whole race of politicians put 
together.” 
Xo one can object to that. We are not responsible 
for the pruning which was made to suit the people 
who want to double production and give no particular 
thought to distribution. Swift was right in his day. 
Food was running short and the common people had 
no way of reaching the politicians. It is an open 
question whether the race of politicians has improved 
in the last 200 years. We doubt it, since such para¬ 
sites usually increase through inbreeding. The 
farmer who spends his entire time and thought in 
trying to produce the extra blade of grass plays right 
into the hands of these politicians. Of course they 
want a division of society which will lead the farmers 
to produce, the middlemen to handle and the poli¬ 
ticians to control! Swift states a great truth, but 
we favor putting action into that truth. As matters 
stand the two blades of grass will fatten the politi¬ 
cians, for they are part of the crowd who divide up 
65 cents of the dollar. Grow one blade of grass 
well, and spend the spare time saving waste and cut¬ 
ting out ueless middlemen, and the politicians will 
have to go to work for a living. Starving out the 
“whole race of politicians” is far more “essential 
service” than the empty labor and honor of doubling 
crops. 
* 
We are not surprised at the outcome of the Chicago 
convention. Whenever politicians can sit in the dark 
and work the wires the man who must work for a 
living out in the sunshine might as well get out of the 
race. Thousands of good men are cursing the politi¬ 
cal bosses and blaming them without reserve. Look 
a little nearer home, gentlemen. This “outrage,” if 
you call it such, never could have happened had there 
been in New York a primary election law such as is 
enforced in New Jersey! Are you in part responsible 
for the failure to back up Gov. Hughes when he tried 
to push that law through the legislature? Let us not 
get excited or talk violently about what we will do 
now. There are some 120 days before the election in 
which to plan the most effective blow. Evidently both 
of the old parties are to be dominated by the “stand- 
pat,” hidebound, cold-blooded, unprogressive political 
elements. Wait until we know just how the lines are 
to be drawn—then get together and strike hard. Keep 
cool, get in line with neighbors and friends and wait 
a little while! Here are three things which should 
make the foundation for any new political movement. 
1. The political division in this country must be clear 
cut between the “conservative” and radical forces. 2. 
At present there can be no such clear division. Both 
parties contain these antagonistic elements and the 
only real battle is inside the party. Having exhausted 
our spirit in this preliminary conflict we turn in and 
support arguments which do not represent our real 
conviction. 3. This will continue to be so just as long 
as the present party lines are drawn. So long as there 
are conventions with secret wire pulling and unlimited 
money the “conservatives” will control. The first rem¬ 
edy is complete primary nominations. 
BREVITIES. 
The political talker will settle no great issue—the 
worker will do it. 
If you expect to cut back any high-headed trees next 
Winter—study them now while in full foliage and see 
where to cut. 
In Kansas millions of ants have been at work eating 
the seed of Kaffir corn. The remedy proposed is dipping 
the seed in crude carbolic acid before seeding. 
Do all you can to get organic matter into your fruit 
soil. The cover crop system puts this organic matter In 
and then burns it up by culture. The mulch system puts 
it in and keeps it there. 
The Oregon Agricultural College reports that plain 
cake is a “concentrated food”—“the average slice contains 
as much food as iy 2 glasses of milk.” This will interest 
the children. Let them argue in favor of cake! 
Going through the busy corridors of the New York post 
office one sees a placard announcing in large black letters. 
“Parcels post to foreign countries 12 cents a pound.” And 
then the meek American citizen affixes 16 cents to a pound 
of merchandise for transmission through domestic mails, 
and thinks, and thinks and thinks ! 
August is the month to plant the old-fashioned Madonna 
lily. Lilium candiduni. The bulbs of this variety are re 
ceived by dealers earlier than other sorts, and all lily 
bulbs suffer loss of vitality if permitted to dry and 
shrivel. Other lily bulbs are received later, and are 
planted from late September through October. Native 
tiger lilies may be marked where they grow wild, and 
dug later for garden planting. 
