1912. 
801 
LARGE PUBLIC QUESTIONS. 
[Editor’s Note.—U nder this heading we intend to 
have discussed questions which particularly interest 
country people. We do not agree with all that our 
correspondents say, but we shall give men and women 
who possess th#courage of conviction an opportunity to 
say what they think about certain things which interest 
country people]. 
The Progressive Voter. 
Like thousands of R. N.-Y. readers. I find 
it hard to decide what course to take po¬ 
litically. My vote is the best public weapon 
I have. I want to use it for the best in¬ 
terest of the farmers and plain working 
people of this country. I have voted for 
seven different Presidents, and as a boy I 
marched and paraded for three others. I 
was brought up to believe that one of thq 
old parties was almost a God-given organ¬ 
ization. I became convinced that it was 
thoroughly corrupt, and I left it. After a 
fair study. I became convinced that the other 
old party was just as bad. Both of them 
are too old in prejudice and political habit 
to be really changed. The Socialists and 
Prohibitionists have good issues, but their 
fierce and extravagant abuse of all who 
will not see things as they do, will prevent 
their doing the work which some party 
has got to do. 
I do not want to vote for Taft. Grant¬ 
ing that he is personally a clean and able 
man. he is at the same time, from my 
standpoint, narrow, obstinate and too con¬ 
servative. He was not the choice of the 
majority of his party, but rather the choice 
of the conservative elements of both par¬ 
ties. No man who believes in the rule of 
the people can stand for the methods of 
Mr. Taft’s nomination. We are told that 
his platform is the best one the Republi¬ 
cans have ever made, and that if elected, 
he will recognize the lesson he has learned. 
I do not see that this follows. Should he 
be elected I think he will accept the fact 
as an endorsement of his methods and ob¬ 
stinate views on public matters. 
What then shall I do, support a third 
party and vote for Mr. Roosevelt, or vote 
for the Democrat, Mr. Wilson? On gen¬ 
eral principles I would rather support a 
third party. A new political party is needed. 
It could not win this year, but like the 
old Republican party, it would lay the 
foundation for the future. While Mr. 
Roosevelt voices many of the things which 
1 believe in, I do not care greatly for him 
personally, and I do not think he is the 
wisest leader for such a movement. I am 
opposed to a third term. I think Mr. Bryan 
had it right when he said at Baltimore 
that lie had too many enemies to qualify 
him to lead a party or a new movement. 
It seems to me that the third party will 
help Taft rather than hurt him. though 
that is not the popular view. It will split 
up the progressive forces, for, without 
question, there will be a Democrat nomi¬ 
nated on the ticket with Mr. Roosevelt. 
The one element in American political life 
which cannot be easily broken up, is the 
so-called conservative vote. This vote will 
be solid for Mr. Taft. 
At the same time I feel the need of a 
clean new party is so great that I would 
like to help start it. The greatest objec¬ 
tion is the fact that it might hurt the 
chances of a clean, capable and thoroughly 
worthy man like Mr. Wilson. It would be 
a great experiment to try the scholar in. 
politics, something that has never been pos¬ 
sible yet. I have no confidence whatever 
in the old Democratic party, which Mr. 
Wilson will be obliged to fight as Bryan 
did, before he is done. He will have to 
fight it as Roosevelt fought the old Re¬ 
publican machine from beneath the steam 
roller. We need a clean-up iu this coun¬ 
try. The question for us to answer is 
whether we can get it best through Roose¬ 
velt or Wilson, as tilings are now working. 
I can easily get the views of partisans 
and those who have prejudice or personal 
feeling. They answer quickly, because they 
do not really think the question out. The 
real independents have got to settle this 
thing, and we must be “shown” with real 
argument and solid thought. 
farmer. 
Compared With Germany. 
Your editorial on Germany, on page 764, 
does not give all the reasons, nor to my 
mind the most important reasons, why our 
farmers are not holding their place in the 
competition. The German farmers have not, 
like their American prototypes, voted with 
a whoop and a hurrah for a lot of poli¬ 
ticians who misrepresent them, as witness 
the neglect in your State of La Follette, 
the only Presidential candidate on the Re¬ 
publican side who has worked for sensible 
control of the railroad and transportation 
problem. They are whooping it up now 
for Roosevelt, who approves of the present 
iniquity called our tariff and is silent as a 
clam on railroad control. The trouble lies 
elsewhere in the main. Germany uses 
about twice as much grain as she raises; 
she also imports over a billion pounds of 
oilcake and other food stuffs, and exports 
of products of the soil practically nothing 
but beet suger, which contains no mineral 
plant food. Her supremacy in the latter 
article will be seriously curtailed in the 
very near future, and one source of wealth 
taken away. But the German farmer has 
another asset the American farmer lacks, 
and that is much better training in his 
chosen calling. It would be a sad day for 
most American farmers were they called on 
to pay .$30 an acre rent for land, for in¬ 
stance. a common enough rate in European 
countries. When American farmers will 
know enough to use that one great re¬ 
source of this country, finely ground raw 
phosphate rock, in connection with proper 
rotation of crops, and cut out the high- 
priced mixed soluble fertilizers excepting 
iu special cases where they are wanted, 
when the government will have men at the 
head of the Agricultural Department who 
will load instead of misleading, we will be 
nearer the millenium. Whitney and Cam¬ 
eron, of the Bureau of Soils, are doing in¬ 
calculable damage preaching the doctrine 
that no plant food need ever be added to 
the soil; that a suitable rotation will keep 
up the fertility of the soil at top notch 
forever. And this right in the face of the 
great series of experiments made at the 
Illinois Station showing that an addition 
of raw phosphate on the clover sod every 
fourth year has doubled the yield in the 
third- rotation, and also in the face of con¬ 
clusive evidence in Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
Rotharusted, England, and elsewhere, all 
pointing in the same direction. c. l. m. 
Wisconsin. 
THE RURAL 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Forty-six persons were 
killed and more than 50 injured as the 
result of a tail end collision between the 
Buffalo Limited of the Lackawanna Rail¬ 
road and a train of express cars in a thick 
fog above Gibson Narrows, two miles from 
Corning. N. Y., July 4. Trainmen say that 
the accident was caused by tile careless¬ 
ness of the engineer ->f the express train, 
who ran at terrific speed past a signaling 
flagman and the warning of a set semaphore 
arm into the passenger train standing still 
upon the track, with its hundred or so sleep¬ 
ing passengers. The engine of the express 
train ripped its way through the two day 
coaches at the rear, killing instantly every 
one in them, plowed on through half of a 
steel Pullman, throwing the sleeping car 
off the track, and then came to a standstill 
with the green carpet of the Pullman flung 
about its pilot. 
Two deaths and 160 injured is the record 
of Philadelphia’s celebration of the Fourth. 
A negro. John Book, 89 years old, was sit¬ 
ting under a tree witti a volume of “Pil¬ 
grim’s Progress” opened before him when 
a bullet killed him instantly. It was fired 
accidentally by a negro boy. Ten persons 
were hit by stray bullets in New York, 
but none fatally hurt. 
Twenty-three persons were killed and 
many others injured .July 6 on the Ligonier 
Valley Railroad when a passenger train 
carrying picnickers was backing into Wil- 
pen, Pa. The accident was due to a mis¬ 
understanding of orders. It happened at 
the fair grounds, about one and a half 
miles from Ligonier. The accident was 
caused by a double header freight, which 
crashed into the rear coach of the passenger 
train, telescoping several cars. The coach¬ 
es contained a large number of children 
who were being taken by Miss Matthews, a 
nurse at the home of George Senft, presi¬ 
dent of the Ligonier Valley Railroad, for 
a day’s outing. All the children were 
either killed or sustained severe injuries. 
The freight engines plowed through the 
wooden coach, crushing it as it would an 
eggshell. The coach was ripped to pieces. 
All the occupants were hurled to the road- 
jed, some fell iu the path of the engines 
while others were imbedded partly iu the 
cinder and stone ballasting. 
duly 4 flood damage around Petersburg, 
Md., reached $20,000, the Patoka River ris¬ 
ing as the result of cloudbursts. 
A six-cylinder automobile, being tried out 
by Robert King and a party of friends, 
plunged through the railing of a bridge 
over the Hempfield branch of the Pennsyl¬ 
vania Railroad at Greensburg, Pa., July 4, 
carrying four men, including the driver, to 
the tracks 45 feet below. The dead are 
Robert H. King, Pittsburg, aud William 
Cooper, of Sewickley. 
Fire completely destroyed the oil refining 
and manufacturing plant of L. Sonneborn 
Sons, at Belleville, N. J., July 7. Three 
buildings, a laboratory, the main factory and 
a paint shop—as well as a number of sheds, 
in which oil was stored in barrels, and two 
tank cars, all of which covered approxi¬ 
mately an acre and a half of ground, were 
converted into a mass of burning wood and 
oil less than half an hour after the firo 
was discovered. The loss is said to exceed 
$ 200 , 000 . 
IT. D. Reynolds, an Alaskan promoter, 
with offices in the Forrest Building, Phila¬ 
delphia, had his mail stopped by the postal 
authorities July 6. Reynolds has had a 
meteoric career. After an alliance with 
former Governor John G. Brady of Alaska, 
Reynolds organized the Reynolds-Alaska De¬ 
velopment Company, Reynolds-Alaska Home 
Railway Co., and the Reynolds-Alaska Home 
Bank. They all went up at the same time 
in 1907. Reynolds came east and was ar¬ 
rested by a United States Marshal in Bos¬ 
ton in 1908. He was tried and instead of 
being sent to jail he produced three ex¬ 
perts to prove that he was insane, and he 
was committed to the Kings Park State 
Hospital, at Kings Park, L. I., in the latter 
part of 1908. Since that time, on Decem¬ 
ber 8, he was thought to have been under 
lock and key, when to the amazement of 
the Federal authorities he suddenly ap¬ 
peared iu Philadelphia, and the offices 
which he has opened have no less than 10 
branch telephone exchanges. In the latest 
telephone directory are these 10 companies 
listed: Reynolds Alaska Lumber Co., Rey¬ 
nolds Alaska Mines Co., Revnolds-Alaska 
Railway, Reynolds-Alaska Ships Co., Rey- 
nolds-Alaska Smelters Co., II. A. Reynolds, 
banker; H. D. Reynolds & Co., Henry D. 
Reynolds, banking, and Martin Reynolds, 
banking. 
Fire at Marquette, Mich., July 5, de¬ 
stroyed three business blocks, anil caused 
a loss of $150,000. 
The rotten boards of a pier at Point 
Breeze on Plum Island between Manhattan 
Beach and Rockaway Beach, N. Y., gave 
way July 7 while 50 persons were shoulder¬ 
ing each other to go down the pier and 
board a launch to take them to Sheepshead 
Bay. Three of the 50 floundering in 15 
feet of water were drowned. 
The most violent earthquake ever known 
in Alaska took place July 6. the earth 
rocking continuously for 40 seconds. Less 
violent shocks occurred throughout the 
night. Louis Anderson, foreman of a mine 
on Dome Creek, was suffocated beneath a 
huge slab of earth loosened by the quake. 
This is said to lie the heaviest quake on 
the coast since the San Francisco disaster. 
Tonopah, Nov., was swept bv fire July 
8. Starting in the Knights of Pythias 
Hall the _ fire rapidly gained headway, 
spreading in all directions, consuming the 
Bonanza newspaper plant, two storv busi¬ 
ness houses and many smaller places. The 
fire department was unable to cope with 
the flames and confined its efforts to pre¬ 
venting the fire from spreading to the 
residence section. Late estimates of the 
fire loss place it at $250,000 or more. Three 
business blocks are in ashes. The heaviest 
loss was that of the Bonanza newspaper, 
$33,000 with no insurance. 
A fight between union and non-union 
sawmill workers at Grabon. La., July 7, 
caused the death of four men. fatal" in¬ 
juries to two others, and injuries to 18. 
Fire at Thousand Island Park. Alexan¬ 
dria Bay, N. Y„ July 9, destroyed the Co¬ 
lumbian Hotel and more than 100 cottages 
and small business buildings. The Welles¬ 
ley Hotel was considerably damaged. The 
loss is roughly put at $500,000. Several 
NEW-YORKER 
persons were injured, but none was hurt 
fatally. The park’s fire fighting equipment 
was entirely inadequate and the engines and 
men summoned from nearby resorts were 
little more successful in their attempt to 
stop the sweep of the flames. 
Fruit packing schools will be held at four 
centers of Virginia, openiug as follows: 
Roanoke and Charlottesville, August 19; 
Staunton and Winchester August 26. Not¬ 
ices will be distributed by the local commit¬ 
tees. 
WASHINGTON.—Impeachment of Judge 
Robert W. Archbald of the United States 
Commerce Court “for misbehavior and for 
high crimes and misdemeanors” is recom¬ 
mended in the report of the Committee on 
the Judiciary submitted to the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives, July 8, by Chairman Clavton. 
The report is signed by the Republican as 
well as the Democratic members. The 
Archbald case, under the Constitution, will 
go to the Senate and preparations made 
for a trial before that body. Present indi¬ 
cations are that action by the Senate will 
be postponed until the December session. 
The report on the case of Judge Arehbald 
represents the ninth impeachment of a civil 
or judicial officer of . the Federal Govern¬ 
ment and is the first since the trial of 
Judge Charles Swayne of Florida, who was 
acquitted in a trial before the Senate on 
February 27, 1905. There are 13 accusa¬ 
tions against Arehbald, each of a serious 
character, according to the committee re¬ 
port. The language of the report is severe. 
Attorney General Wickersham has ren¬ 
dered an opinion which will extend the 
eight-hour labor law to every mechanic and 
laborer employed by the United States. Pre¬ 
vious interpretations of the law confined its 
operation mainly to “public works,” such 
as fortifications, buildings, etc.. The ques¬ 
tion was raised in connection with the 
1,000 laborers at customs ports. 
OBITUARY.—William R. Smith, superin¬ 
tendent of the National Botanic Garden at 
Washington, died July 7, aged 84 years. 
Mr. Smith, who was a Scotchman, had been 
head of the garden for 60 years. During 
that time he had known many statesmen 
and other notables, and was also widely 
known among commercial florists. He 
was an enthusiastic admirer of Robert 
Burns, and possessed a collection of books, 
manuscripts, pictures and other matters 
of interest connected with that poet, that 
is said to be the finest in the world. Mr, 
Smith bequeathed this collection to a “board 
of trust” that includes among others, An¬ 
drew Carnegie, Secretary Wilson and 
Speaker Clark. 
John A. Pettigrew, superintendent of 
Boston parks, died at Jamaica Plain, Mass., 
July 2, aged 68. Mr. Pettigrew, who was 
a native of Great Britain, was one of the 
most famous park superintendents in this 
country. His landscape genius is shown 
iu the beauty of Lincoln Park and Lake 
Shore Drive, Chicago, in the later develop¬ 
ment of Brooklyn parks, and in his great 
work at Boston. Mr. Pettigrew was identi¬ 
fied with many organizations. He was the 
organizer and first president of the Amer¬ 
ican Association of Park Superintendents; 
president of the Gardeners’ and Florists’ 
Club of Boston for two terms; trustee of 
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society ; 
member of the Society of American Florists, 
the American Forestry Association, the 
Appalachian Mountain Club and the Hor¬ 
ticultural Club of Boston. In addition to 
wide knowledge and intellectual gifts he 
possessed a charm of personality that en¬ 
deared him to a wide circle of friends in 
two hemispheres. He is survived by a 
widow aud four children. 
NOTES ON AN EUROPEAN TRIP, 
Part I. 
Hast year I took a three months’ trip to 
Holland, Germany, Austria aud France, and 
thought you might be interested in know¬ 
ing conditions abroad. When it comes to 
quality of land, the United States is far 
ahead of Europe. The large percentage of 
the land has little soil on top, underlaid 
with sand aud gravel; consequently they 
cannot plow very deep. When it comes to 
the cultivation, however, we are away be¬ 
hind, and the crops over there on this 
seemingly poor land are almost twice as 
much per acre as we could obtain on an 
average throughout the United States. This 
is due to intensive cultivation and fertiliza¬ 
tion, and the main thing, rotation of crops. 
You do not see any weeds ; the land is thor¬ 
oughly cultivated like a garden. They use 
a spear-pointed hoe, and the bulk of tho 
work is done by hand. They never raise 
the same crop twice on the same ground. 
Even the Alfalfa is plowed up after four 
y ears and rotated with other crops 
of different chemical requirements, giving 
the soil a chance to renew the proper in¬ 
gredients for the proper growth of the next 
crop. All of their barn manure, when the 
ground is free, is immediately plowed un¬ 
der, and if the standing crop prevents that, 
they pile it in a pile, throw a little earth 
over it, and then as soon as the crop is 
harvested, it is spread upon the land and 
plowed under. In this way they do not use 
so much manure as we suppose, and keep 
the land thoroughly cultivated. 
When it comes to covering, or rather 
Winter covering the ground, that Is an ex¬ 
ploded idea and they pay no attention to 
it. Of course, in certain sections, depend¬ 
ing upon the land, where it is extremely 
sandy, or the wind blows away the top soil, 
they put oil a Winter covering, but this is 
only in rare instances; in Hungary they do 
not practice Winter covering; they claim 
that if the land is plowed in the Fall and 
harrowed over, it lets the air through and 
aerates the soil, which causes a chemical 
change that is beneficial to the land, and 
the snow and rain have a better chance to 
soak in, which is also a great benefit. 
The greatest point in raising crops is the 
rotation of crops. When you consider that 
this poor land has been cropped hundreds 
of years, and immense crops in comparison 
to our standard have been raised, it is sur¬ 
prising to know that the main cause of these 
big crops is rotation. Of course they use 
phosphates, potash and Chile nitre to fer¬ 
tilize their fields and certain crops when 
necessary, but they do not put it on every 
year. What they depend on mostly is barn 
manure, but every bit of this is saved and 
spread on thinly and plowed under. The 
main object is to get it under ground where 
it can ferment and go through the chemical 
changes beneficial to the next crop. Leav¬ 
ing it out and exposed to the air without 
b£* n S covered with earth causes great loss, 
where our farmers make too great a mis¬ 
take is that they wish to cultivate too much 
land, forgetting that if they take good care 
ol 10 acres it is much better than if they 
had 160 and indifferently cultivated same. 
The trouble with our farmers has been in 
the past, like mauy iu other lines, they 
have tailed to realize that they cannot con¬ 
tinuously rob the soil without suffering the 
consequences, not only in the depletion of 
their bank account, but in depreciation of 
them assets and values of land. Nowadays 
the value of property is figured on the net 
income basis, and if a farmer can increase 
Ins net incomo off his land 100 per cent, 
naturally that laud is worth to him just 
100 per cent more. If our farmers now, 
who have run-down farms, would only try 
to increase the richness of their soil—that 
is, a small percentage of their farms one 
year after another—it would not be long 
before they would have the whole farm in 
such shape that by producing rotation of 
crops they would have twice the Income 
they at present can expect. There has been 
a great deal written about “back to tho 
laud. Most farmers do not realize how 
happy they should be iu the possession of 
their farms, and the cause of so many 
farmers’ children going to cities is that the 
farmers themselves are to blame by not let¬ 
ting their children understand, or rather, 
teaching them tho proper cultivation of soil, 
why it should be rotated, the propagation 
ot trees and shrubbery and flowers, and 
making it interesting for them like an in¬ 
teresting continued story, in the growth of 
various crops. They do not seem to realize 
why they do this particular work, and con¬ 
sequently become tired of the drudgery, 
which becomes a pleasure when they know 
why it is being done. l. f. lieberhardt. 
Colorado. 
heat and drought as we have uever known 
before. We have had no rain since thg 
first of June, over five weeks now, and yes¬ 
terday the thermometer hung in the sun, 
free from any building, on north side of 
house, registered 112 degrees. Lawns are 
as parched and brown as an old pasture 
at close of Summer. We had an extremely 
cold Spring with four frosts during the 
first two weeks iu June and a cold, fierce 
northwest wind that whipped the leaves of 
the frost-bitten plants until they were 
bleached and dry. Potatoes aud beans were 
cut badly in places. This suddenly changed 
to drought and intense heat. Peas are 
turning yellow and pods are filling slowly 
and poorly. Berries are drying up and 
early planted potatoes that are setting now 
can be but a failure. In some places the 
vines of later planted are burning brown. 
Beans put in the ground three weeks ago. 
when dug up, are as dry as ever; a Dahlia 
root when accidentally dug up was sound 
but the eyes were not started. Where 
cultivation has been kept up weeds can be 
puHed that are deep in ground as easily as 
If in dry sand. Ou every side of us there 
have been heavy storms with terrible elec¬ 
trical accompaniment, but as yet we have 
not had a shower. Corn is growing where 
it, a s * ai 't a pd the frost did not cut it. 
Meld corn germinated poorly on account of 
COl T^ * XT X. H ’ L ' «• 
Eaton, N. Y. 
Walter Whateley, Secretary of the Vir¬ 
ginia Horticultural Society, 1ms Issued an 
early report on the apple situation. “Since 
the issue of our last report on May 16 
there has been complaint from some sec¬ 
tions of apples dropping heavily during 
Juno, also that in some orchards there has 
been some damage done by aphis which 
have appeared in large numbers. There 
have been severe hailstorms in some sec¬ 
tions, and some damage has been done to 
apples though it has been confined almost 
entirely to parts of orchards here and there, 
the Rockfish \ alley in Nelson Co. is reported 
as having suffered more generally than 
anywhere else. As a whole the crop looks 
decidedly more promising than after the 
bloom fell, trees are healthy and vigorous 
and apples smooth, though our crop will 
not be as large as two years ago, yet it 
pi onuses to be a good one, pretty evenly 
distributed through the State. The Govern¬ 
ment Crop Report for June, 1912, gives 
Virginia an average of 75 per cent against 
o3 per cent in June, 1911. I have the fol¬ 
lowing from secretaries of horticultural so¬ 
cieties in other States: Connecticut, 70 per 
cent ; Michigan, 80 per cent; New York, 
70 per cent (heavy in West, short in East) ; 
Ohio, 50 per cent; Vermont, 75 per cent 
Canada, 75 to 80 per cent; Delaware, 77 
per cent (mostly early apples) ; Missouri 
80 per cent; Pennsylvania, 50 per cent; 
West Virginia, .0 per cent; Great Britain, 
medium to large. United States Govern¬ 
ment report, June, 1912—72.3 per cent 
June, 1911, 68.5 per cent.” 
Crop Reporting Board of the Bureau 
of Statistics of the United States Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture estimates, from the 
reports of the correspondents and agents 
of the Bureau, that the number of acres 
of cotton in cultivation this year (1912) in 
the United States is about 93.0 per cent 
of the area planted to cotton last year 
equivalent to about 34,097,000 acres as 
compared with 36,681,000 acres indicated 
by the Bureau's revised estimate of last 
£o £ i r jLP lanted area > a decrease of about 2,- 
584,000 acres, or 7.0 per cent. The condi- 
tion of the growing crop on June 25 was 
80.4 per cent of a normal condition, as 
compared with 78.9 on May 25, 1912 88.2 
0n vJH ne 1911, and 80.7 the average 
condition for the past 10 years on June 25. 
Here in northern Illinois there will be 
out few apple barrels needed as compared 
with last year, which was an exceptional 
crop year. Uncared-for orchards, of which 
there are many, will not do much, so far as 
I can learn. Some varieties in our own 
orchards are doing finely, but the average 
will not be over 40 per cent of a good 
crop. The southern part of the State, 
where the crop was generally light last 
year, I understand has a good crop this 
year. In regard to barrels, coopers are talk¬ 
ing shortage of material, and while urging 
their customers to order early are shy of 
naming prices for future delivery So far 
we have had no quotations. Certa'inly every¬ 
one who uses many barrels should either 
order his supply in good season or make 
sure just where he can get them when 
wanted. In the long run he will be ahead, 
though of course there may he seasons when 
he may purchase cheaper later. Prices here 
last year from 35 to 40 cents according to 
S rad< r . T „ h. R. BRYANT. 
Princeton, Ill. 
