472 
THE) RURAb NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal l'or Country and Suburban Homes 
Established isso 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl St., New York 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Rotle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, §2.04, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8K marks, or I0;4 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 j and 
cash must accompany transient orders. 
“A SQUARE DEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible person. Rut 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 subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither will we bo 
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. 
When I read you had bought the old Chelsea Methodist 
Church a flood of recollections came up before me, and 
my mind went back to T>1, when I played ball, shot mar¬ 
bles, played “red lion,” “I spy,” and “fox and geese" in 
front of the old church, and often had a scrap with the 
“10th Avenue gang,” who annoyed us by breaking up our 
games, stealing our marbles, etc. F. M. goman. 
We have no doubt there will be many more “scraps” 
in the future. The “gangs” are not all out of busi¬ 
ness. They are still trying to break up the farmer’s 
games and steal his marbles—and dollars. We have 
a notion that this old church will be a fine place in 
which to organize a few scraps with the gang, which 
will help send them to the scrap heap. 
* 
The long trouble over nursery trees that do not fit 
into the label has come to a head in New York 
through the Vert bill now before the New York 
Legislature. The original bill required nurserymen 
to-label each tree and it provided damages of $5 for 
each tree which proved untrue to label. At a con¬ 
ference attended by both nurserymen and fruit grow¬ 
ers it was found that neither side was satisfied with 
this bill. The better class of nurserymen must feel 
that some fair regulation must be provided to protect 
them from the fakes and snides. Some well-known 
fruit growers stated that the bill under discussion was 
not entirely fair. As a result of this a committee 
representing both sides was appointed to prepare a 
new bill. As we write this new hill has not been 
offered, but we understand that the seller must label 
each tree or each bundle of trees of the same kind. 
If several varieties are in one bundle they must all 
be labeled. The sale contract must state in what 
county the trees were grown. An action for damages 
must be begun within three years from September 
of the year in which trees first bear fruit. It will be a 
tough problem to make a reasonable law of this sort, 
though it is greatly needed. In the case of apple 
trees the planter must usuall 3 T wait six years or more 
to be sure his trees are wrong, and he must keep 
the identified labels and prove that the misfits are 
the identical trees he bought. This might be easy 
with the large planter, but the smaller man with a 
mixed orchard must be very careful of his records 
if he expects to prove his case. 
* 
Some of our readers may think we do not mean 
business when we promise to post the names of New 
York legislators who refuse to vote for the com¬ 
mission man’s bill. Well, here is the first name: 
THOMAS B. CAUGHLAN NEW YORK 
Mr. Caughlan lives in New York City and is chair¬ 
man of the committee on affairs of cities. One of 
our readers in this city wrote Mr. Caughlan a strong 
letter asking where he stood. Here is an extract 
from Mr. Caughlan’s reply:— 
I beg leave to inform you that after an experience of 
30 years buying products from commission merchants in 
the City of New York, I am of the opinion that if the 
farmers were as just and honest as I have found the 
commission merchants, the high cost of living, which 
now prevails, would be considerably reduced. 
I sincerely trust that the Roosevelt-Cole Bill will not 
pass the Legislature this year or any other year. 
Mr. Caughlan got a broadside in reply which has 
silenced him. Here is part of it:— 
Just what—and I ask it in all sincerity—are your 
real reasons for opposing this hill? Tell me why a com¬ 
mission man should not let the producer know to whom 
, he sells the produce and at what price? 
No reply from Mr. Caughlan. Perhaps we can 
substitute for him. He buys from commission men 
and sells again. What does he want of a law which 
might show that he bought goods for 35 cents and 
sold them for a dollar? There may not be many 
farmers in Mr. Caughlan’s district, but his name goes 
into our list as No. I. Probably Mr. Caughlan never 
sat down on adhesive printers’ ink before. If so, 
we guarantee him a new experience. 
The New York fire horse is to be fired. Orders 
have been issued that no more horses for the Fire 
Department will be bought. Those now in service will 
be worked off as fast as possible. The automobile 
truck takes its place. This truck gets under way in¬ 
stantly at the fire alarm, runs at the rate of 40 miles 
an hour and sets the pump at work regardless of 
steam or boiler. Here we have another development 
of power which throws the horse out of a job. Yet 
prices for good horses are higher than ever. If you 
do not believe it, try to buy a good farm team. There 
will still continue to be a demand for good horses, 
and our Eastern farms should produce them. 
* 
The “agricultural expert” is a much discussed in¬ 
dividual just now. We are to have him in counties 
or districts or townships, financed and backed in all 
sorts of ways. They are going at it in Connecticut 
in a way that will get results. The Connecticut State 
Agricultural Society has secured the services of Mr. 
H. O. Daniels for expert service. Mr. Daniels is known 
as a good farmer and dairyman. He knows how to 
run a New England farm, he knows how to talk, and, 
what is better, he knows enough of human nature to 
make the advice fit the farmer. He has been engaged 
by the year and there will be no charge for his serv¬ 
ices. He will not attempt to volunteer advice or tell 
people what they ought to do, but when any Connecti¬ 
cut farmer asks for help Mr. Daniels will give him 
what he can out of years of sound experience. This 
is first-rate work and we hope the farmers of Con¬ 
necticut will help make it successful. There is no 
attempt to dictate to them, but a square-toed effort to 
give them farm advice which will rank with the 
opinions of a great lawyer if they were in legal 
difficulties. 
* 
The discussion of “stone meal” fertilizer on page 
461 brings up an old problem. Here is a rock contain¬ 
ing a small amount of potash crushed to'a meal and 
offered for sale. The price is $20 per ton, but the 
chemists value it at $4 or less, judged by the stand¬ 
ards so long employed in valuing fertilizers. It is 
easy to say that our chemists are all wrong and have 
been working on a false basis for years, hut a vast 
business has been built up on these standards and a 
good share of our people are fed and clothed through 
the fertilizers used on food and cotton crops. Further 
than this, history shows that as soils grow older in 
use the workers invariably come to the use of avail¬ 
able plant food. We long ago recognized the futility 
of arguing with the enthusiasts who come forward 
with these new notions. You can have no basis for 
argument with them, for they are prepared to sweep 
aside at one blow all the conclusions which honest and 
patient men have reached through long years of 
study. Give them the arguments which successful 
farmers have found true and sound, and it is easy 
for a man with some new theory to accuse oAr scien¬ 
tific men of ignorance or "grafting.” It is a very 
plausible argument to challenge a doubter to try a 
ton or more of the new material at $20 or more for 
stuff which the chemists value at a quarter of that 
sum. With a few hundred experiments of that sort a 
profitable business would be developed. We stick to 
old-fashioned ways, and advise our readers not to 
buy “unavailable” plant food. 
* 
We see less this season than ever before in the 
schemes for booming “unit” or stock propositions in 
fruit culture. We think there are less of them afloat 
and it is a good thing. Here is a report from one 
of these schemes which has been highly blown and 
colored: 
The stumps are not taken out, and if one is where an 
apple tree should be planted the tree is set at one side 
of the stump two or three feet out of line. Very steep 
hillsides are being planted, some of these are so steep 
that when being planted a team could not be safely driven 
over them to distribute trees, so men carried the trees over 
the steepest places. Frost traps or pockets are planted 
regardless of their unsuitableness for the purpose. In the 
newly cleared ground, holes are dug and trees planted, but 
in most clearings no cultivation was given, a little hoeing 
was done and the trees grew about three inches in 19f2. 
The planted clearings are covered with underbrush and one 
must look for apple trees to find them. The underbrush 
problem is a tough one up there. 
To be charitable we think some of the persons who 
went into these schemes did not intend to deceive 
their friends. They were over sanguine and were led 
on by shrewder men. The end is sure. And even if 
these orchards were carried through to fruiting, what 
is there in the present outlook to justify the belief 
that these small blocks of fruit could be made profit¬ 
able? Let a man consider such a proposition reason¬ 
ably and he cannot fail to be convinced that only the 
personally conducted orchard, well located, has any 
show for the future. 
March 20, 
Last week Julian Hawthorne, Dr. W. J. Morton 
and Albert Freeman were sentenced to Atlanta prison 
for defrauding the public in selling worthless mining 
stock. Hawthorne is a son of the great novelist, Dr. 
Morton is the son of the man who first made use of 
ether as an anesthetic. These men promoted Canadian 
mining stocks. Hawthorne, who is a novelist, wrote 
glowing circulars which were the best samples of 
literary “guff.” The stock was largely sold to people 
of scant means—’Widows, teachers and army officers— 
just the class of people likely to be attracted by Haw¬ 
thorne and Morton, yet least able to lose their savings. 
These promoters actually sold $600,000 worth of the 
stock and used’only $176,000 in developing their mines. 
It was a mean, hateful swindle in which men of sup¬ 
posed character sold their reputation and dragged 
honorable names in the dirt. It is reported that Dr. 
Morton, while waiting to be taken to prison, made 
this singular remark: 
“The American nation allowed my father to die penni¬ 
less at the age of 48 and I had to take care of life family. 
They took from my father the gift of the discovery of 
ether; they fought the Civil War on ether and they gave 
my father nothing. If every man, woman and child who 
lias been and is being saved from pain through ether were 
to give us our due the Mortou family would be the richest 
in the world.” 
Suppose we grant the truth of all this—what has 
it to do with the robbery of confiding people? Haw¬ 
thorne certainly did his best to administer literary ether 
to a share of the American people so that they would 
not feel the pain of having their life’s savings pulled 
out by the roots! Far better for the Morton family, or 
any other family, to cherish the glory of their ancestor 
in honorable poverty than to use the alleged injustice 
to him as an excuse for genteel robbery. When men 
of this sort are sent into a prison to have their just 
deserts fitted to them the common people may feel 
more hopeful. 
* 
“For the Lord's Sake Pass the Bill!” 
No, this was not the fervent prayer of some states¬ 
man or inspired advocate pleading for some world¬ 
shaking piece of legislation. It was the heartfelt and 
earnest remark of Hon. A. E. Smith, leader of the 
New \ ork Assembly. He referred to the famous 
commission man’s bill. But why has this influential 
gentleman come over upon the Lord’s side with a 
rush? Is he a farmer who has seen his dollar bill 
fade away to 35 cents? No; hut he knows what it is 
to he a well-cultivated crop with several thousand 
sharp hoes cutting the weeds out of his mind. The 
farmers have stuck postage stamps on Mr. Smith's 
back until he can hardly get his coat on. So many 
pen points have been put into him that Mr. Smith 
begins to feel like a tattooed man. The letters have 
come into Albany like a blizzard. There has never 
been anything like it, and it is an eye-opener to many 
a tough old politician who never before knew the 
biting power of a postage stamp. You see it is a 
fact that for 50 years or more the politicians have 
been disposed to say nice and perfunctory things about 
farmers before election. When they once get in the 
dear old ’farmer can get what lie can dig out with 
a pickax—and no more. The fanners have usually 
lent their pickaxes to a lot of politicians and cannot 
dig. This year it is different. The politicians sud¬ 
denly find that "the farmers have sternly taken them 
right at their word. “For the Lord’s sake pass the 
bill!” These seven fateful words tell the story of 
an infant revolution that has come to life in New 
York State. Keep right at them, gentlemen. The 
work you are doing is for the sake of the Lord. Stay 
right by them on this commission man’s bill and make 
them give it a full set of teeth. Every letter you 
write now is a new brick in the platform. Tell your 
member of the Legislature for us that if he votes 
against this commission man’s bill we will post him 
and his record and fight him to the end of the chap¬ 
ter whenever he comes up for any public office. We 
do not care who the man is. We do not say this with 
any vindictive or boastful spirit. This bill is an essen¬ 
tial thing for our farmers. He who gets in its way 
must expect to get hurt. 
BREVITIES. 
A good swarm of bees will help you sting the sugar 
trust. 
Some at least of the high cost of living is due to low- 
down practices. 
The “new administration” cannot do you half as much 
injury as no garden this year. 
An English farmer recently brought suit against a local 
district council to recover damages for the pollution <>l a 
stream running through his farm. The stream was con 
taminated by matter flowing from the council's sewage 
farm, causing, it was said, sickness and death among cat¬ 
tle. One distinguished expert testified that sewage pollu¬ 
tion of water was injurious to cattle, another that it was 
not, but the jury gave the farmer a verdict assessing dam¬ 
ages at £341 and 12 shillings. 
