424 
THE RURA& NEW-YORKER 
March 22, 
THESE CONSUMERS CO-OPERATE. 
A Co-operative Buying Club. 
In reply to your first editorial of 
March 7, on page 356, I wish to say 
that the employes of the Flatbush Gas 
Company, to the number of 60, have had 
in operation for the past two Winters, 
a sort of co-operative association, which 
disposes of butter, eggs, honey and 
maple syrup to its members. The plan 
is that each member gives the buyer 
notice of his wants for the previous 
week, and that amount is ordered. We 
deal with one man only. The butter is 
shipped in wooden boxes holding five 
pounds each, and 12 boxes to a crate. 
The extracted honey is shipped in three- 
pound cans, the comb honey in neat 
one-pound paper boxes; the maple 
syrup in one-gallon cans. The eggs are 
shipped by the crate. 
Our plan of distribution is for each 
man to deliver his own order. One 
man does the buying and collecting and 
the dealing out of the products is done 
by the company’s storekeeper. The sur¬ 
plus from each week’s sales is kept un¬ 
til there is enough to pay express charge 
on a shipment, and that shipment is 
sold at cost. 
Our payments to the producer are 
about $100 per week. I have never seen 
the shipper, but he promised to send 
first-class products, and I promised to 
pay. The plan has worked fine; we 
have always received good articles and 
he has always received his money the 
same week goods were shipped. Per¬ 
haps this plan is not elaborate enough, 
but it is one way of getting closer to 
the producer. The point with us is 
that we get better products at a lot 
lower price. Anyway, if the farmer 
and the consumer will give each other 
a square deal the plan will work out 
well. 
Brooklyn, N. Y. E. c. hollis. 
i delivery of goods. They divided that 
. by the number of deliveries, and figured 
that each one cost the company about 
ten cents. Thus, if Smith had made 
the company deliver goods to his house 
100 times during the year, they took $10 
out of his rebate. The object of this 
is to induce stockholders to go to the 
store and carry their own goods. home, 
for it has been found without question 
that the cost of delivering small ar¬ 
ticles is one of the chief troubles in 
the high cost of living. This Mont¬ 
clair store appears to have found a 
new track, and is giving a first-rate 
illustration of what an organized com¬ 
pany can do. If this store can cooper¬ 
ate with actual producers in the com¬ 
pany to buy dairy products, vegetables 
and fruits, or poultry and eggs, it can 
easily be seen how great an advantage 
it will prove to both consumer and 
producer. 
THE GUFF THAT FAILED 
During the past three months at least 
fifty people have sent us circulars from 
the Gardner Nursery Company. Gard¬ 
ner is the well known Blizzard gentle¬ 
man—the liberal soul who wants to 
make you a present. This is what he 
says: 
Gift for Quick Reply. 
A personal gift will go to you by return 
mail, if you will accept our offer and fill 
out tbe card and return to us at once, pro¬ 
vided you have not already done so. Have 
not room to describe the gift here, but it is 
something that will please you and that 
every member of the family can use the 
year'round. If you want it put an x here ( ). 
Accompanying this is a letter con¬ 
taining a quality of guff which scores 
up to 95 on our “scale of points”— 
within one point of the high score of 
the Luther Burbank Society. It is fine 
guff, but somehow it does not attract as 
it used to. Most people are growing 
wise. For example, Gardner sent some 
of his “blizzard” guff down to a reader 
in Alabama. You can judge from this 
letter how long the “blizzard” blizzed: 
I enclose a circular received to-day from 
the Gardner Nursery Co., offering me a 
gift (?) in exchange for ten bucks. It ap¬ 
pears “fishy” as a proposition in any sec¬ 
tion, but ’way down on the Gulf of Mexico 
it is ridiculous: In the first place no spe¬ 
cial varieties are named, and in the second 
place, most of what is offered would not 
even make good shade trees or firewood ; to 
analyze the offer. Cherries are. a dead fail¬ 
ure. Apples, excepting several inferior 
sorts, are ditto. Plums, certain sorts do 
well, others not. Raspberries are not worth 
the room they occupy. Asparagus makes 
practically nothing. Rhubarb is practically 
worthless. Flowering plants, evergreens 
and shade trees are ditto. English hazel¬ 
nut has been tried and is a failure, as is 
the Spanish chestnut. Currants will not 
bear aud seldom survive. Grapes are doubt¬ 
less worthless, as few aside from the Ro- 
tundifolia amount to anything (native 
muscadine type). They also inclose adver¬ 
tisement of — —, which I subscribed to 
to get an egg book (and got soaked on both 
propositions), and they evidently furnished 
Gardner their “sucker list,” and while I 
doubtless am on it, yet like the calf, my 
sucker days are over, I hope, and will be 
glad when my subscription automatically 
terminates itself and I shall not be alluded 
to as “One of Our Folks” and be the re¬ 
cipient of valuable (?) propositions, like 
the above. I know I am not quite as big 
a fool as I look, and as these folks never 
saw me nor my picture, it is strange they 
should send me such dope, and it is only- 
surprising they did not include cranberries 
and arctic moss in their offer, with a polar 
bear as a watch dog, a few penguins for 
egg producers and an ermine for a house 
pet, with plans for an icehouse and direc¬ 
tions for storing. Doubtless plenty of suck¬ 
ers will take the hook. m. a. p. 
No—not as many as you think, the 
“guff” business has been overdone and 
we think Gardner will turn off his bliz¬ 
zard before another season. You see, 
we are very hopeful for him. 
FERTILIZER FOR POTATOES. 
IT. H. 8., Ferndale, N. IT .—How many 
pounds of nitrate of soda, muriate of pot¬ 
ash and acid phosphate should be used on 
one acre of potatoes, also how much fine 
ground bone and muriate of potash to use 
in connection with hen droppings, about 
1,000 to 1,200 pounds? 
Ans. —You can use the following 
combination: 450 pounds nitrate of 
soda, 1,200 pounds acid phosphate and 
350 muriate of potash. This will give 
about seventy pounds nitrogen, over 160 
of phosphoric acid and 175 of potash to 
the ton, and we should use at least 1,200 
pounds per acre. This is not the best 
mixture, for those chemicals will not 
drill or spread well. You would do bet¬ 
ter to use 250 pounds nitrate and 200 
ptmnds dried blood and sulphate in¬ 
stead of muriate of potash. We should 
complete the ton of hen manure by 
using 600 pounds bone and 200 of muriate 
of potash. Be sure and have the ma¬ 
nure crushed fine and sifted. 
' When you write advertisers mention Thb 
R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a quick reply and a 
“square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
with a Cyclone Tile Ditching Machine and 
end your ditching troubles at once. When 
you’re through with the work on your land 
you can earn many dollars by cutting ditches 
for your neighbors. The 
Tile Ditching Machine 
—cuts tile drains quickly, easily, cheaply? 
—cuts 300 to 400 rods of ditch in a single day; 
—saves its cost every 10 days you use it; 
—is guaranteed to live up to all our claims 
and save enough in cutting drains to pay 
for the tile you put into them; 
—price places it within reach of the average 
farmer. 
You know the benefits and advantages de¬ 
rived from tile drainage. Don't put the 
matter off any longer. Hundreds of farm¬ 
ers are using Cyclone Ditchers to dig their 
ditches. You ought to get busy with a Cy¬ 
clone at once. A Cyclone will do for you 
what it is doing for hundreds of others. 
Write A Postal 
for full information that explains how you 
can make and save money with a Cyclone 
Ditcher. Address 
THE 4ESCHKE MFG. CO. 
A Co-operative Store. 
The papers report the first year’s op¬ 
erations of a cooperative store at Mont¬ 
clair, N. J., which has some features 
out of the ordinary. A men’s club, com¬ 
posed largely of people who are not 
supposed to worry over the high cost 
of living, started the store as an ex¬ 
periment. It opened last May with a 
capital stock of $6000 and 200 stock¬ 
holders. A stockholders’ meeting was 
held recently, attended by 314 members, 
and they received in addition to a divi¬ 
dend on their stock, a five per cent, re¬ 
bate on the gross amount of their pur¬ 
chases. In starting the store a general 
manager was engaged. He divided his 
business into two departments, one for 
groceries, and another for fruit and 
vegetables. A meat department was 
added lated. The object was to elimi¬ 
nate the middlemen as far as possible 
in buying, but not to offer such low 
prices as to drive others out of busi¬ 
ness. The customers paid cash, no 
credits being given. A committee was 
appointed to inspect the sources from 
which food came; they looked into fac¬ 
tories, bakeries and meat stations, and 
other sources of supply, and bought 
nothing except sanitary goods. About 
one-third of the customers were out¬ 
siders; that is, not members of the com¬ 
pany. These gain nothing from then- 
purchase except that they know the 
goods are pure, and that they are not 
cheated in weight. The store is not 
run for profit, but their sales at starting 
amounted to $2500 a month; the busi¬ 
ness has now increased to three times 
that sum. The board of directors de¬ 
clare a dividend of six per cent, on the 
capital stock, then they lay aside five 
per cent, of the earnings for a reserve 
fund. They then divided up what was 
left in the form of a rebate somewhat 
like the “divi” which was mentioned in 
our recent articles on English coopera¬ 
tion. They figured up the actual pur¬ 
chases by each stockholder and paid 
back to that stockholder five per cent, 
of this amount. For instance, if Smith 
bought $500 worth of goods during the 
year, they handed him $25 in addition 
to his dividends. 
Another curious charge was made. 
The directors figured out as nearly as 
they could the actual cost of making 
AI Q A I r SECOND-HAND 
^UlvN J/\LL MOTOR CARS 
You Get First Choice of 
the Biggest Automobile 
Bargains of the Year 
Every Spring we hold a quick sale of our entire stock of second¬ 
hand cars—the one big, genuine bargain sale of the year. Prices 
are rock-bottom, and buyers get heaped-up value for little money. 
When we announce this sale in New York 
daily papers, New York people always rush in and 
get first pick of the big bargains. That’s hardly 
fair to people outside of New York. So, this year, 
we are giving you first chance. We shall not 
advertise this sale in New York dailies for two 
weeks : you know about it now. 
So, if you want a car of any kind or size, better 
see our stock at once and make your selection. You 
can select a car and, if you don’t need it right now, 
we’ll hold it for you until you are ready to 
use it. 
But don’t delay. If you can’t come to New 
York, write us. Say what sort of a car you want, 
how much horse-power and what seating capacity, 
and we will tell you what we have. 
We have cars of many makes and sizes—cars 
taken as part payment on 1913 Winton Sixes. 
Every car a bargain. Many of them have been 
thoroughly overhauled and repainted, and are as 
perfect as new cars costing twice as much. 
The reputation of the Winton Company for 
honesty and fair dealing is back of every car we 
sell. We are the oldest automobile manufacturing 
company in America, and any banker can tell you 
how responsible we are. You can count on a 
square deal every time you do business with us. 
Some of our very best customers are those whose 
first car was one of our second-hand bargains. We 
know that if you get one of these cars, we shall 
get a satisfied customer, and you will get a mighty 
good car at a mighty low price. ' 
Come in this week if you can. If you can’t come, 
write. We want you to have one of these splendid cars. 
The Winton Motor Car Company 
Manufacturer of Automobiles 
Broadway at 70th Street, New York 
