368 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A Notional Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Establixhed 1S50 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing: Company, 409 Pearl St., New York 
Herbert W. Collingwoor, President and Kditor. 
.Tony J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Royle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04. equal to 8s. fid., or 
8X marks, or 10>£ francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank 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. We protect sub¬ 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trifling differences 
between subscribei-s 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 Tiie Rural New-Yorker 
when writing the advertiser. 
Here is an instance of the way the consumers are 
trying to deal direct with producers. In this city the 
employees of the Mutual Life Insurance Co. have 
formed a cooperative association for buying produce. 
For example, there are enough of them to use about 
500 pounds of butter a week! They would like -to 
deal direct with some dairy or creamery which could 
supply such an amount. Eggs and other produce 
would probably be needed in the same way. In such 
a scheme the trouble will most likely come in distri¬ 
bution—for how can these amounts of produce be 
handled in small lots to say 100 different families? 
That is going to be the trouble in many of these 
plans for cooperative buying. We believe that dozens 
oi hundreds of just such buying organizations as this 
one can be organized, but how are they to distribute? 
The improved parcel post will help, but do not forget 
that the distribution problem is a hard one. 
* 
We have a letter from a man who says he has no 
faith in the ability or inclination of the public to get 
together and hang out for real reforms. This man 
says that if the express companies had promptly put 
down their rates they could have killed off parcel 
post before it was fairly started. Our friend makes 
this gloomy statement: “The average citizen will not 
spend 10 cents of his own money to tight a public 
abuse!” This man is wrong. It is no secret that the 
express companies held this same idea, and they ex¬ 
pected it to ruin parcel post. Their plan was to work 
up and develop discontent and criticism before this 
privilege had established itself and thus cripple it. 
That was why we did our part in urging our friends 
to make all possible use of parcel post, and avoid 
criticism at this time. You see the cynical express 
companies were mistaken about public sentiment. 
There are thousands of men and women now who 
have been trained to patient battle for popular rights. 
You cannot bribe or bulldoze or bluff them—and the 
army grows every day. Get into line! 
* 
The statement on page 338 puts the situation up to 
you squarely. We cannot get away from these facts. 
Here we are 365,000 farmers matched against 3,000 
commission men in a struggle over the bill to regu¬ 
late and control the commission business. It is no 
time to speculate or argue or play—the plain truth is 
that this small body of organized commission men 
will beat us unless the farmers exercise their power 
at once. With a proportion of 365 to three how can 
there be any doubt as to the result? In a popular 
election there could not be any doubt, but this is a 
contest of organization and money on one side and 
unorganized producers on the other. The commission 
men are willing to work 365 days in the year to pro¬ 
tect their privilege of handling produce about as they 
please. The farmers are likely to call three days 
more than they ought to give to their business. Now, 
the commission men have the money, but the farmers 
have the votes. It is a case of the ballot against the 
dollar. Let every farmer in New York State promptly 
tell his Senator and Assemblyman that this bill must 
be passed. Do not go hat in hand asking favors, but 
tell these men, so that they cannot fail to understand 
that you want this commission man’s bill to become a 
law. We shall print the name of every member of 
the Legislature with his record on this bill. If any 
man with a single farm in his district votes against 
this bill we tell you right now that we will post him 
all through the Summer, so that if he ever gets back 
into public life he will be so torn and tattered that 
he will look like a scarecrow. Now, gentlemen of the 
army of 365,000, do not let it be said that 3,000 com¬ 
mission men bought and sold your rights as they have 
done your produce. Do not sleep until you have made 
your members at Albany know that you mean busi¬ 
ness. 
THE; RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Did you read tlie editorial in ‘‘Saturday Evening Post” 
on what a city man did on the farm? Used muck for 
lime and cut Alfalfa in 40 days from seeding. Is muck 
an alkali? My impression was that it needed lime to 
sweeten the ground on jvhich it had been applied. 
New Jersey. w. c. B. 
Some terrible agricultural information is being 
handed out to farmers these days. Most likely they 
meant to say marl instead of muck. There is a great 
difference. Marl is a lime deposit which has much the 
same soil effect as ground limestone. It would be 
quite possible to use it for starting Alfalfa, but the 
“40 days” part of the story is too short. Muck is the 
black deposit in swamps or low places. It is nearly 
always sour and needs lime to sweeten it. It would 
be child’s prattle to talk of starting Alfalfa on poor 
soil with ordinary muck! 
* 
This year we get many letters from subscribers 
who say they will not accept seeds or documents 
from their representatives at Washington or in the 
State Legislature. The reason is that they “will not 
be considered under obligations to any public man.” 
Any system of distribution by public men who hold 
elective offices is more or less of a graft and is so 
considered. Take the case of the valuable fruit books 
issued by the State of New York. Why should these 
valuable books ever be sent out through the mem¬ 
bers of the Legislature? You cannot name a sound 
reason. The Experiment Station at Geneva could 
distribute these books fairly and would see that they 
went to actual fruit growers. There is no argument 
for letting the members of the Legislature act as 
“middlemen.” That turns what ought to be an honest 
gratuity into a graft. 
* 
I was offered a lot of apple trees “slightly affected 
with gall” at half price. Would you buy them? h. p. 
No—not in 1,000 years. We cannot understand what 
a sensible man is thinking of to consider such a 
thing for a moment. It requires “gall” which de¬ 
serves a crown to offer such trees in the first place. 
You might perhaps buy a horse with the heaves or a 
spavin at half price and call it a bargain. You would 
expect only a few years’ service from the horse. 
When you plant a tree you are supposed to put a 
permanent thing into the ground. It ought to last 
longer than you do. It is an even chance that a tree 
afflicted with crown gall will never live to fruit. 
What folly to buy a tree that you know is diseased. 
You plant a tree in order that it may live to pay the 
interest on $50 later on. What utter folly to prevent 
any such future value by saving a few cents on the 
young tree! Buy the best and strongest tree you can 
find. If any come carrying crown gall, sort them out 
and ship them right back to the nurseryman. 
* 
Mr. J. S. Woodward of Niagara Co. N. Y., is one 
of the last of the famous “old guard” who laid the 
foundations of organization and practical education 
for New York farmers. Younger men who see the 
swarming hosts which gather at the great Rochester 
fruit meetings will find it hard to realize that men like 
Mr. Woodward knew these meetings when only a 
few dozen farmers turned out. In a recent letter 
Mr. Woodward sends this bit of reminiscence: 
When my parents moved into this country with me in 
1832 we settled then in what was called the Great North 
Woods, near the shores of Lake Ontario. It was all woods 
and the woods were filled with wild animals. I have 
seen deer in the barnyard and the wolves were so plentiful 
that the only way we could keep any sheep was to house 
them every night in the old log barn. The only imple¬ 
ments for cultivation were the plow and harrow. Our 
first harrow was made of a crotched tree and had 17 
two-incli oak pins for teeth. We didn’t even know there 
was such a thing as nitrogen or phosphoric acid. But 
we knew all about potash, for that was the great money 
crop of those days. 
Now Mr. Woodward wrote that just after visiting 
the; extension farm school at Lockport. This school 
is the latest development in extension teaching of 
agriculture. It seems to be the best thing in the 
way of a traveling school for farmers that has yet 
been devised. There were about 80 students for the 
week at Lockport—most of them young men and 
boys. A small charge was made, the students gave 
close attention and it was voted a great success. We 
bring up this early experience of Mr. Woodward 
in contrast with this farmers’ school to show the 
wonderful development which has been worked out in 
one man’s lifetime. And this development has only 
begun, for the young man of to-day should he live 
so the ripe age. of Mr. Woodward, will look back 
to our present conditions and call them crude and 
far “behind the times.” Our great hope is that 
through the whirlwind of change which is coming 
upon us the farmers may still retain the sturdy char¬ 
acter and independence which has ever been our 
best national asset. 
March 8, 
No—gentlemen—with the latest news from Mexico 
we have no desire to invest in rubber or banana plan¬ 
tation schemes, located in that country. That is the 
same opinion we have held for the past dozen years 
or more. “Unit orchards” and similar schemes lo¬ 
cated farther north may not be shot full of holes by 
various sorts of “insurrectos,” but wc have yet to 
see one that held water. 
* 
At the request of several readers we have extended 
the time for receiving the prize photographs until 
June 1. It seems that the most characteristic scenes 
in the book could not be properly grouped during 
the Winter. Some of our people do not seem to 
understand the offer. They are sending us old pic¬ 
tures or photographs of children without any reference 
to the book. Let us all understand that we want 
pictures showing actual scenes from “The Child,” our 
new book. It will, of course, be necessary to read 
the book before grouping the characters What we 
want is a picture showing just your conception of 
the way these characters looked and acted. We 
have already received a number of pictures marked 
“Mother and the Child.” The children in these pic¬ 
tures are mostly too young to walk—while the char¬ 
acter in “The Child” was seven or eight years old. 
Of the women in these pictures one is exceedingly 
thin—while another is very much the reverse of that 
condition. 
* 
At Longmont, Colorado, the farmers’ institute 
passed, among others, the following “resolutions”: 
Resolved. That we patronize those papers whose editors 
recognize the rights of the farmers and are willing to 
give space to legitimate discussion of their side of every 
question, and that if we can take but one of our local 
papers it shall be the one that espouses the cause of 
the farmer. 
The average “resolution” does not amount to much. 
It is a convenient way for a company of men to as¬ 
sume a divided responsibility and shift it off upon 
others. When the resolvers really mean business, and 
let the people know it, we have united responsibility, 
which is all that is needed to accomplish things. If 
these farmers will stick to: this resolution about the 
papers they read they will help themselves and their 
business. There are many local papers which must 
depend for their very life upon the support of farm¬ 
ers. Yet when it comes to an issue between the inter¬ 
ests of farmers and the business of a few city business 
men these papers throw what influence they have to 
the latter. The “resolution” carried out to the letter 
would put a stop to such business. Right here in 
New York State some of the papers printed in farm¬ 
ing sections are arguing against the commission house 
bill. It is hard to think of a more stupid policy, be¬ 
cause this bill fairly enforced will give farmers a 
better chance in the markets. That means more 
money to spend in the home town or city, yet these 
papers are trying to prevent the very thing which 
would help their readers and supporters. We would 
apply that Colorado resolution to such papers with a 
very sharp pen. 
BREVITIES. 
We ask all readers who can do so to tell us how Fall 
grafting of apple and pear turned out. There are many 
fakes about “guaranteeing” such grafting—for big pay. 
A bill before Congress provides for the coinage of 
half-cent and three-cent coins. The English farthing 
equals half-cent in American currency. There are 211,- 
701,768 farthings in circulation. 
The Maryland Experiment Station finds that painting 
greenhouse hot-water pipes with concentrated lime-sulphur 
and evaporating the lime-sulphur iu open containers con¬ 
trols mildew on greenhouse roses. 
On page 163 Mr. W. J. Kimball of Florida told of 
trying to sell his fine oranges by parcel post. The rate 
was too high. When sold by commission men he received 
28% cents net per box. Mr. Kimball finally sold this 
splendid fruit for 50 cents a box in the orchard. 
“Pap, why is it that we can’t send seeds at the parcel 
post rate and the government sends us seeds free of 
postage and furnishes the seeds besides?” Pap: “Wa-al I 
duuno, my son, unless the seeds that our Congressmen 
send us are classed as ‘incapable of propagation.’ ” 
The U. S. Department of Agriculture has shown that 
Egyptian cotton can be grown on a commercial scale in 
the Salt River Valley of Arizona. Now conies a tush to 
“plunge” into this new crop. Keep out. Do not listen 
to land boomers who tell you of “millions in it.” 
If it pays Belgian truck gardeners to send witloof or 
chicory salad across the ocean, and after paying freight 
and a duty of 25 per cent, ad valorem, to sell it for 
nine cents a pound, why wouldn’t it pay some of our 
growers here ? 
The original ancestors of the sweet pea came from 
Sicily and Ceylon, and the first gardener on record as 
sending the seed to other growers was an Italian monk, 
Father Franciscus Cupani, who sent seed to England 
lti 1699. 
