©80 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKSR 
September 21. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A .national Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established 1850 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl St., New York 
Herbert W. Coi.unowood, President and Editor. 
JOHN J. Dittos, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wn. F. Dillon, Secretary. Hits. E. T. IiOYLK, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 32.04, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
XJ4 marks, or 10)4 francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal 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 DEAR” 
V7e believe that everv advertisement in this paper is hacked by a respon¬ 
sible person. Rut to make doubly sure wo will make goou any 1<> s to paid 
subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising in our 
columns, and any such swindler will bo publicly exposed. We protect sul>- 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trilling differences 
between subseriliei-s and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither will wo bo 
responsible for the debt? of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must Vie sent to us within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and you must have mentioned Tub Rural New-Yorker 
when writing the advertiser. 
It seems to be evident that, thus far, the most suc¬ 
cessful cooperative societies are those organized to 
buy goods rather than to sell them. In Europe and 
England apparently farmers have met with consider¬ 
able success in combining to buy, but have not been 
equally successful in disposing of their products. In 
other words, the consumer is the real foundation of 
cooperative work, unless the producer can make some-’ 
thing of a monopoly so that the consumer must buy 
from him. Thus the interests of farmers and con¬ 
sumers are mutual, and the latter must be shown 
that it will pay him to deal direct. 
* 
You will see on the next page that one of the first 
things to come up under direct legislation in Cali¬ 
fornia is a law creating a State Produce Exchange. 
Should this legislation become law California will 
enter the produce business. State agents will act as 
middlemen and take charge of sale and distribution. 
It is remarkable that about the first use which Cali¬ 
fornians seek to make of their new power is to try 
and cut into the 65 cents which has been lost to them 
between the farms and the consumers. It shows, as 
we have so long claimed, that this is one of the great¬ 
est questions before farmers. The California remedy 
is radical hut is justified by the conditions. 
* 
The new Progressive party nominated Oscar S. 
Straus for Governor of New York. This is a strong 
nomination and a very shrewd political move. Mr. 
Straus is a successful business man of high character 
and long experience. He will poll a tremendous vote 
in" New York City, and careful investigation at the 
State Fair shows that farmers are prepared to sup¬ 
port him. The feeling of unrest among the farmers 
is far beyond anything known since the Civil War. 
The new party missed an opportunity in not putting 
some representative farmer on the State ticket. Out¬ 
side of the head of this ticket the only hope for suc¬ 
cess lies in the farm and country vote—for there is 
where the real power of this movement lies. 
* 
We never had so many letters as now from women 
who have been left with a farm. Usually the death 
of husband, father or brother leaves them with land 
and stock. What can they do? Most often it is a 
case of selling the stock and the hay for cash or 
trying to hire a man to do the work for them. We 
are not considering the cases where some relative 
might come and help. There are women of extra¬ 
ordinary ability who might be able to manage such 
an enterprise, though with most of them hired labor 
would be costly and unsatisfactory. In the majority 
of cases we think it would be better to turn the stock 
and feed into cash and try hay farming. The prospect 
for hay prices is good, and this crop can be handled 
as well as any other. 
* 
One thing which surprises me is that nearly all the 
newspapers these men read are “organization” and over¬ 
flow with abuse and misrepresentation of Roosevelt and 
the Bull Moosers, and yet the anti-Republican machine 
sentiment grows in intensity and determination, u. h. a. 
That report comes from a county in central New 
York. We are not surprised, for we have known 
for some time that the average newspaper is steadily 
losing its influence. People still read it for news and 
entertainment, but as a “moulder of public opinion” 
it has little more strength than putty. The fact is 
that the country people have learned to think for 
themselves, and the newspapers do not seem capable 
of realizing it. In a way scientific agricultural edu¬ 
cation is responsible for this. The man who learns 
to analyze and understand why his crops go down 
with disease and how to combat that disease will soon 
learn to analyze and think out the blights and diseases 
of public and political life. With such thinking you 
cannot fool him with the old tirades about political 
parties and worn-out issues. The ostrich with his 
head in the sand is considered the model for stupid 
ignorance of public opinion. He must now give place 
to the newspaper man with his head hidden in old 
and dead issues, thinking that his load of abuse 
deceives anyone except himself. Most of the local 
newspapers in New York act like a blind man with 
one leg trying to lead an army of sharp-eyed men who 
know they will not follow him. 
* 
Among the fool things found in the papers printed 
in small cities and large towns few equal in folly 
the treatment of the market question. There is 
usually a loud protest at the high cost of living, and 
right alongside efforts to keep up that cost. The 
high prices are attributed to the farmers, yet these 
papers do their best to prevent farmers from selling 
direct to consumers. They oppose public markets, 
and support ordinances which would compel farmers 
to take out a license or submit to almost prohibitive 
restrictions. These things are evidently done to 
please the local storekeepers, who do not want the 
farmers to sell direct. A few papers give the farmers 
a chance, but most of them put the storekeeper above 
the ‘producer or consumer. These two classes ought 
to know what to do to such papers. 
* 
On page 932 we printed a short note from a man 
in New Jersey who was anxious to find his niece. 
He had exhausted every means in his power and 
came to us as a last resort. His niece had married a 
man who was once a farmer. The man said that all 
farmers knew The R. N.-Y. and all readers of the 
paper are willing to help. This form of logic did not 
seem very convincing, and we feared our friend had 
set us an impossible task. We tried it, however. The 
paper was dated September 7. On Monday, Septem¬ 
ber 9, the woman so much desired walked into our 
office in response to the call. She is not a reader of 
The R. N.-Y., but the woman who acted as her 
bridesmaid and who lives in Sullivan Co., N. Y., saw 
the notice and notified her friend at once! Here were 
these people living 100 miles apart, yet utterly unable 
to find each other until The R. N.-Y. brought them 
together. The R. N.-Y. is a great human comb or 
rake. It reaches everywhere and seems to be able 
to pull thousands of invisible strings. It is a great 
pleasure for us to feel that this great power may he 
used for worthy purposes. If you will stop to think 
what this incident stands for you will realize what 
the paper must mean to farmers and their families. 
* 
The River Nile is famed in song and story as the 
life-giver. It spreads its waters over vast farm areas 
and waters and revives the soil so that it feeds and 
clothes a nation. We have in this country a river, 
the Colorado, which may he called the American Nile 
in its possibilities for sustaining agriculture. This 
river runs from the highlands of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains through hills and across deserts to the southwest 
corner of this country. Part of its course lies 
through narrow valleys or gorges in which the water 
may be quite easily held back and stored for use, 
both for power and irrigation. In its highest flood 
the Colorado discharges 70,300 cubic feet per second, 
at its lowest 4,300 feet. During the year the river 
discharges water enough to cover 14,300,000 acres one 
foot deep, or a lake of 1,000,000 acres over 14 feet 
deep. Imagine what it would mean if a fair share of 
this water could be spread over the quick, sandy 
soil of the desert with its bright sunshine, and you 
have the possibilities of the “American Nile.” Our 
children will live to see the desert bloom and what 
is now a dreary track of death-dealing sand become 
a prosperous State. And in a smaller way they will 
also live to see the brook which runs through your 
farm made into a smaller “American Nile” by utiliz¬ 
ing its waters in time of drought. 
* 
Yes, our friend Philo has bought the tract of land here 
called the Jupiter Gardens; this is the second time this 
piece has been bought to be colonized. I hardly think he 
will colonize it; it will cost so much to drain it properly. 
For nine or 10 months of the year the land is fine, but 
the other two or three months it is only inhabitable on 
the high spots. Here is a notice you should give your 
readers: Don’t buy Florida land without seeing it, and 
the proper time to see it in South Florida is during the 
month of October. It is a funny thing how Florida is 
being blamed for all of this land sticking business, 
whereas most of it is being done by northerners. 
Florida. s. h. eennock. 
Quite likely our friend does Brother Philo a little 
injustice in half suggesting that he will try to “colo¬ 
nize” it. We call “hardly think” a half suggestion. 
It seems to. us more reasonable to suppose that 
Brother Philo intends to demonstrate the “six hens 
in a back yard” proposition so there can be no ques¬ 
tion about it. Some of us, who frankly confess our 
inability to do it, do not believe that the average 
person can make $1,500 out of poultry kept in a hack 
yard. We think it most likely that Brother Philo 
is preparing to expose our ignorance and lack of skill 
by doing the thing on a large scale. Allowing 10 
back yards to the acre, we have 420,000 Florida back 
yards in this tract. At $1,500 each we have the neat 
sum of $630,000,000, which represents the possibilities 
of the “system”—on sandpaper. For the “uninhabit¬ 
able” months very likely some of the breeders of 
Indian Runner ducks can supply stories large enough 
to complete the record. If Brother Philo works this 
out we will support him as the man to work up the 
scheme of agricultural assets. Wall Street will move 
to Florida and the seat of empire will use the mud 
of the Everglades as a chair cushion. 
* 
What is to be done with all the apples? Now is 
the time to ask that question—not 10 years hence, 
when the millions of trees now being planted come 
into hearing. Of course only a small proportion of 
these young ones will make good business trees, yet 
there is sure to be an immense supply in the future. 
Most people content themselves by talking of the 
“export demand,” as if they thought that belonged 
to Americans without serious competition. The fact 
is that apple culture is crowding into almost unheard- 
of corners of the world—all looking to Europe and 
England as the market for their surplus. We have a 
subscriber in Patagonia who is growing fine apples. 
It is not at all unlikely that Argentina may compete 
with us in apple culture as she now does in meat and 
wheat. Tasmania is also developing as a fruit coun¬ 
try. Here is the record of one shipment: 
On one trip this season the Essex carried a cargo 
of apples from Tasmania to London. The liner, said the 
Shipping Gazette, carried the equivalent of an apple each 
for the combined populations of Greater London, New 
York, Paris, Chicago and Tokyo, and then had a balance 
over of some 207,000—in all, 19,500,000 apples. This 
apple freight alone was worth something like $50,000. 
Our American farmers have long felt secure in a 
monopoly of cotton, corn and apples, but now serious 
competition is threatened in the world’s market. This 
year a great apple crop is promised, and if it should 
all be thrown upon the general market prices would 
rule low. The best way out this year is to exhaust 
the resources of the local market and direct trade 
before shipping. As a rule the people who live within 
20 miles of your fruit farm do not have half the 
apples they want. When they do buy they are quite 
likely to get fruit which has been shipped 100 miles 
or more, while you sent your fruit right through their 
•town. The best way to relieve the big markets is to 
fill up the local ones first. 
BREVITIES. 
The lazy man’s resolutions are can’t goods. 
A man is known by the company he keeps away from. 
Very frequently the lion’s share turns out to be the 
liar’s share. 
Now we are advised to humanize the hired man—give 
him human treatment. 
We lcaru of a hoy at a county fair who ran up a hill 
of $4.90 throwing balls at a mark ! 
Do not let a cow go into Winter quarters with her bones 
sticking out. Get hqr iu good flesh for Winter. 
How can the consumer even surmise that you have the 
goods which he’s sure to prize unless you get busy and 
advertise? 
One of our writers puts it well when he says a hired 
man is not a mind reader, and cannot tell by instinct 
what the boss wants done. 
When Hairy vetch first comes out of the ground it 
does not look like a “wonderful thing.” It’s about as 
puuy a start as you can think of. 
IIow England does scour the world for food and fer¬ 
tilizer. Butter is even sent her from Siberia, while cattle 
food comes from Japan, Argentine, Calcutta, Morocco and 
Australia. 
In carving the comfort for Winter—be nice and hand 
our good friend the hen a thick slice. So put lime and 
sulphur on roost and on run, and into the limelight Miss 
Biddy will run. 
In France it is suggested that the government pay a 
pension to all people who bring up two or more children ! 
An English farm laborer recently won a prize for bring¬ 
ing up 12 out of a family of 1G children ! 
This plan of using the hog’s snout to cultivate a tree 
has merit if you do not carry it too far. It is said there 
are enough old veteran apple trees in New England to 
feed her people on apples—if the veterans were given 
new life. 
Ohio is sa*d to lead all other States in the production 
of ferrets. While many States no longer permit these 
animals to be used in catching rabbits, there is a regular 
demand for them as rat-catchers, especially around 
wharves and shipping. 
The Museum of Natural History in this city will exhibit 
before long the oldest known picture of a horse. It comes 
from a cave in the Pyrenees recently explored by scientists, 
and the age of the picture is reckoned between 20,000 and 
25,000 years, dating hack to the Stone Age. 
Bradstheet’s says that up to date $431,801 have beim 
paid into the U. S. Treasury as a “conscience fund.” It 
comes from people who have cheated the Government and 
made restitution. Multiply the sum by 1,000 and you 
would not have all the money still due. The first restitu¬ 
tion was made in 1811 . 
