644 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKEE 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PARER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country nn<l Suburban Home* * 
Established tsso 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company. 409 Pearl St.. New York 
Herbert W. Colusgwood, President and Editor. 
John 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. S2.ft4. equal to 8s. fid., or 
8 $^ 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 80 cents per agate line—7 words. Discount for time orders. 
References required for advertiser unknown to us ; and 
cash must accompany transient order. 
“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 
subscriber 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 ho 
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 
tlie transaction, and you must have mentioned Tiie Rural New-Yorker 
when writing the advertiser. 
It does us good to see how people take hold of 
the cover crop idea. There is no reason why any soil 
should remain bare, except it be some old meadow or 
pasture purposely plowed in Fall, so that the frost 
can help tear it apart. We have many letters from 
people who expect to work land until the middle of 
Summer and then sow clover. Why not double up the 
cover crops? They may sow oats and peas as soon 
as the soil is fit to work. Plow this crop under in July, 
use lime, and seed to buckwheat and clover. This 
ought to put the soil into beautiful shape for a crop 
like potatoes for next year. If you do not care to let 
the soil go a full year without giving some returns 
the peas and oats can be cut for hay. But make the 
soil do something and stuff it with organic matter if 
you can. 
* 
After an experience of more than 20 years planting 
nursery-grown apple trees I have recently hit upon the 
scheme of cutting a few scions from each bundle of each 
variety as received, and then top-working these scions onto 
bearing trees, in two or three years these scions produce 
fruit, and it is then possible to know early in the game 
whether the trees purchased are true to name without 
waiting eight or 10 years for them to come into bearing. 
A. H. H. 
This is a simple way of testing the trees if you 
can be sure of your records and be able to identify 
both trees and scions. In case of trouble with a 
nurseryman over misfit trees you must be in a con¬ 
dition to prove absolutely that the scions were taken 
from a certain bundle, and that you know the wood 
was put into a definite tree. In a good many cases 
of complaint we find that the planter cannot be per¬ 
fectly sure of his trees, and, of course, this hurts his 
claim. 
* 
In drawing up a contract between the owner of a 
farm and a tenant there is often a question about the 
fair division between labor and capital. The simplest 
way of figuring this is upon the following basis: Let 
the land and buildings represent one-third; a fair 
and adequate equipment with capital another third, 
and labor the remaining third. Under equipment we 
should put stock, tools, feed, seed, fertilizer, and, in 
general, the personal property required to conduct a 
farm as distinct from the real estate. If the owner 
put up the farm alone on this basis he would be 
entitled to one-third. If the tenant did not share in 
the cost of personal property he would have one- 
third. If they divided the cost of personal property 
between them each would have one-half interest. 
Figuring on this basis and dividing the personal prop¬ 
erty in proportion as each side furnishes it will 
usually give fair equity. 
* 
We have tried to keep up with the developments in 
the use of Soy beans, but they come too fast. This 
bean changed Manchuria from a desert to a prosper¬ 
ous country' with large export trade. The bean oil 
has influenced half a dozen great industries, and the 
meal or ground bean cake after oil extraction has 
changed the basis of cattle feeding in Europe. Now- 
German chemists have learned how to make “plant 
milk” from Soy beans. This is a fluid with the com¬ 
position and many of the characteristics of cow’s 
milk—made right from the bean plant with no cow 
in between. We have no idea that the cow is going 
out of business, but here is another 'one for the Soy 
bean. It is beginning to do great things in this coun¬ 
try. Many farmers seriously claim that it will more 
than substitute for oats and leave the soil in fine 
condition. Corn in the silo is like bread and butter 
for the cow. Planting Soy beans with the corn and 
cutting all together into the silo is like changing the 
bread and butter to a ham sandwich. Soy beans will 
not take the place of Alfalfa, but the enterprising 
farmer has got to consider them as one of the chances 
which nature holds out to him. 
Here we come with our annual argument for more 
corn on the Eastern farm. General farmers or those 
who follow a rotation will be likely to raise a good 
supply, but some fruit or truck farmers think they 
can buy the grain cheaper. In most cases they are 
wrong, and good figuring will prove it. Corn can he 
grown on an old pasture or meadow if you will use a 
fair amount of fertilizer. It is a good crop for 
young orchards if you keep it away from the trees 
as you should. There is no farm on earth where a 
good supply of grain and fodder will not be like 
money in the bank. Break up that old loafer field 
and get it going with corn. 
* 
Some of our readers ask why the Hope Farm 
man talks of using 500 pounds of lime per acre, 
while most writers advise a ton or more. He is 
speaking of annual application of lime—with cover 
crops in an orchard. These crops are plowed under 
each year, and the lime goes with them. Where 
people talk of a ton or more they refer to a rotation 
of crops—the lime every four or five years in the 
clover or grass seeding. The annual use of 500 
pounds or a little more amounts to about tlie same 
in the end. There will be one or two crops in a 
rotation which would not be well suited to lime. For 
orchard work with rye or clover plowed under each 
year the annual applications are better. These crops 
plowed when in full sap into the warm ground might 
give considerable trouble without the lime which 
helps keep the ground sweet and helps the cover crop 
give up its plant food. 
* 
tVas It JVorth While? 
That thought came into the minds of thousands of 
middle-aged men as the death of J. Pierpont Morgan 
was announced—was it worth while to become the 
master of all the good or evil that may ga with 
$200,000,000? Men who have gray in their hair should 
have a better answer to the question than the young 
and untried. In most of the papers and magazines 
Mr. Morgan is pictured as a financial genius—a great 
organizer and history maker—his great success a 
model and stimulant for young men. In others he is 
pictured as a business pirate, a hard, brutal driver of 
special privilege and legal expedient. In truth tlie 
personal photograph would come between these two 
extremes. We are not concerned with Morgan the 
man either to praise or blame, but rather with the 
system or methods which he represented so well. In 
his “History of the Great American Fortunes” Gus¬ 
tave Myers tells of Mr. Morgan’s first business deal. 
This involved, with others, in 1861, the purchase from 
the government of 5,000 obsolete and dangerous car¬ 
bines or rifles at $3.50. Less than three months later 
those same rifles were sold back to the government 
on Gen. Fremont’s order for $22 each! To be exact, 
the government sold the rifles to Mr. Morgan and his 
friends for $17,486 and then bought them back for 
$109,912! The government refused to pay more than 
$55,550, but a suit was brought and the court gave a 
judgment for $58,175 more. We give this record 
without bitterness or feeling, though thousands of 
men whose fathers died fighting at the front came up 
through grinding poverty while “great organizers” 
were laying the foundation of their fortunes through 
just such deals. It was and is all a part of the 
“system” by means of which a few men grow enor¬ 
mously rich at the expense of the many on the farm 
and in the shop who toil and suffer and cannot help 
themselves. You notice that when one of these rich 
men dies the most extravagant writer never tries to 
show that the world was left richer in love, in charity, 
in higher ideals or in the touch of nature which gives 
true spirit to society. Such men could not adopt a 
child and make it into a true man or woman. The 
curse of the “system” must follow the multi-millionaire 
through life. That is a natural law and the sad part 
of it is that for 40 years and more after the war our 
teachers and our books and our schools held up the 
“captain of industry” as the model character for 
young people to follow. Think of it—while unknown 
men in humble walks of life gave far more of en¬ 
during character of the world. Now this idolatry of 
the rich man is passing out of literature and it is one 
of the most hopeful indications of the future. 
We could not hold the career of Mr. Morgan up 
to our boys as a model or as worth their life’s labor. 
Nor would we use such a career to arouse bitterness 
or envy. The man was not at fault so much as the 
system of politics and public ideals which make it 
possible for the strong and great to control money 
and legislation. Let us rather take this occasion to 
criticize ourselves—plain, common people who neglect 
our little public duties and thus become responsible for 
the larger public evils. 
April 12, 
Our old friend H. M. Whiting, the champion tree 
gnffer, is in trouble once more. The Grimsby (On¬ 
tario) Independent gives him this free notice: 
The Whiting Nursery Company will find a solid body of 
fruitmon arrayed against them if they are going to fill 
their orders through this section this year. Since wo 
last noted the stand growers were taking, cancellation 
after cancellation has been sent in to the company, not 
only from this vicinity hut throughout the whole Niagara 
Peninsula. Mr. John Konkle, who took charge of the 
signatures, was kept answering the ’phone and paying 
postage on replies until he nearly tired of the game. 
Year after year Mr. Whiting seems to face this 
situation. He can hardly claim that he is persecuted, 
for he does not seem to have changed his methods. 
Our standing advice is to let Whiting and all other 
gufF agents alone. We have said so much about this 
that no reader of The R. N.-Y. can fairly justify 
himself for signing such a contract as Whiting offers. 
We shall continue tb hit these guff agents whenever 
they show themselves. It is strange how different 
people may view tlie same thing. One local nursery¬ 
man writes that our campaign against guff agents 
has helped his business, since nearby planters have 
learned to come right to his nursery and examine 
the trees as they would the goods in a store. Another 
claims that our criticism of Whiting and similar 
dealers is an attack upon local nurserymen, or all 
who employ agents. How are we to account for these 
entirely opposite conclusions? Personally we have 
felt that the local nursery of good reputation was 
often an ideal place to buy plants or trees, except 
for the higher price which such a nurseryman must 
charge. 
* 
At this time you are likely to find in many dis¬ 
cussions on farming a good deal about the “law of 
diminishing returns.” Let us see if we can under¬ 
stand what that means. In farming, as in every 
other business, the object should be to obtain the 
fairest profit from the labor of each man or the 
investment of each dollar. Good farming does not 
mean the production of immense crops at a loss, or 
at a small profit, but such labor and management that 
each dollar and each man will give the largest income. 
Sometimes a man keeps on growing crops not suited 
to his soil or his capacity, when careful figuring would 
show he is doing it at a loss. He may change methods 
or crops and make far greater profit from his own 
labor. A dairyman may be milking a herd of 15 
poor scrubs—doing most of his work with old-fash¬ 
ioned, cumbersome machinery. He may start within 
his means and conservatively improve his stock, put 
up a silo and practice improved methods. With the 
same labor as before he may then milk 15 good 
grade cows and thus make more and better milk than 
before. In time that man reaches the limit of his 
capacity to increase profit. He may say that he can 
keep 60 cows and make four times as much as he 
now makes with 15. That man will find that as he 
spreads out on his farm there will surely come a time 
when the profit on the additional expense will begin to 
diminish. If he keeps on he will finally produce at 
a loss. This is called the law of diminishing returns. 
It is one of the hardest things for the amateur or 
back-to-the-lander to understand. It is easy to say 
that if a man can make $10 profit on 10 hens it stands 
to reason that he can make $5,000 on 5,000 birds. 
The world is full of people who do not understand 
this law. Most of us have a certain capacity for 
labor or management. Up to the limit of that we can 
make a fair profit, hut when we get beyond it we 
strike this law of diminishing returns and our profit 
fades away. In the face of the wondrous stories we 
hear and the still more wonderful advice so freely 
offered it is hard to realize that the best farming 
may not mean the largest yield—but rather the most 
profitable yield per man and dollar. 
BREVITIES. 
Test the seed corn. 
It will pay to name your farm and have it printed on 
your stationery. 
You may take this remark as a very safe bet: Alfalfa 
won’t grow where its feet got wet. 
Tighten the hoops on the stave silos at this season. 
Of course, the concrete men will say—why have hoops? 
We should try the liquid treatment of potato seed in 
formalin. The fumigation method does not seem so sure. 
The work of manuing a spray pump involves almost 
the motion of rowing in a racing boat. Spraying is use¬ 
ful—the other job is ornamental. In one case the boy 
who pulls thinks himself a hero—in the other a mere 
pumper. 
One of the experts of the Biological Survey. TJ. S. De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, points out the value of the 
guinea pig as an article of food. lie says that it is 
esteemed in South America, especially halted, and that 
the cleanly vegetarian habits of the animal make it en 
tirely desirable. There should be no food prejudice against 
rodents, he thinks. 
