1913. 
697 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
THE PIG TREATMENT FOR TREES. 
The picture of part of a tree shown 
at Fig. 197 gives an idea of the new 
growth on an old, neglected Baldwin, 
which stood on a Massachusetts farm. 
On many of these New England farms 
one may find these old apple veterans 
scarred and battered, having practically 
stopped their growth. They are usually 
sod-bound, with rough bark, and fre¬ 
quently well plastered with the scale. 
As a rule they have stood still for years, 
making but a few inches of growth and 
yielding only a small crop of wormy and 
miserable fruit. Our friend, H. B. Glee- 
zen, found some of these old veterans 
when he bought his farm in eastern 
Massachusetts. They were of no value 
as they stood, and the general advice 
was to chop them down, as it was not 
thought worth while to bother with 
them. Mr. Gleezen tried his hand at 
giving new life to an old tree. ITe had 
built a little pen around each tree, and 
turned in some lively pigs. These pigs 
were well fed and supplied with wood 
tion had ever been thorounghly dis¬ 
cussed by such papers as The R. N.-Y., 
many of those rotten laws could never 
have passed. 
Thoroughout the State the general 
property tax rate averaged $23 per 
$1,000 valuation. Of course that meant 
that every bit of the farmers’ fixed capi¬ 
tal in the shape of his farm buildings 
and improvements took the $23 rate. 
At the same time any manufacturer could 
get from 10 to 20 years’ exemption on 
his buildings and machinery, merely for 
the asking. Then when the exemption 
period was over, the assessed valuation 
was generally little more than nominal. 
r \ he transportation companies paid a 
State tax of 5% on their gross earn¬ 
ings, equivalent to about $9 per $1,000 
on the market value of their stocks 
and bonds. While the farmer’s wood 
lot was loaded down with the full local 
rate, the timberlands of the big corpora¬ 
tions in the undeveloped townships were 
taxed only $7.50 per $1,000. Savings 
bank deposits were taxed $5 per $1,000, 
while the investor in stocks and bonds 
could simply keep his mouth shut tight 
and pay absolutely nothing at all. The 
Keep Railroad Time 
in Your Pocket 
“Railroad time” is accurate time. 
Railroads spend thousands of dol¬ 
lars a year to keep their employes’ 
watches correct. But few makes 
of watches can meet the require¬ 
ments. All South Bend watches 
keep railroad time. 
This is the watch that takes six 
months to make and another six 
months to test betore it is what 
we call pocket-fit. Each must keep 
perfect time in a refrigerator and 
in an electric oven. Each must 
“make good” 
under 411 in¬ 
spections and 
the master 
inspector’s 
tests. 
You need 
such a watch in 
catchingtrains, 
keeping ap¬ 
pointments in town, going in from 
the fields for dinner, getting up in 
the morning, and doing countless 
things each day. 
The South Bend is sold only by 
expert retail jewelers — never by 
mail. You get the jeweler’s regu¬ 
lation with the South Bend. That 
is important, for watches don’t run 
the same for everybody. They 
must be regulated to the buyer’s 
personality. Ask the jeweler why. 
Write for our free book, “How 
Good Watches Are Made.” If you 
are going to buy a watch now or 
in the future, you owe it to your¬ 
self to first get this book. 
THE SOUTH BEND WATCH 
COMPANY 
42 Rowlsy street, SOUTH BEND, IND. 
NEW LIFE TO AN OLD 
ashes. They rooted and tore up the 
ground around those trees, as we all 
1 now pigs will do when they get a 
chance. We have seen such pigs dig 
down into the ground hunting for white 
rubs until you could see little more 
than their tail above ground. When 
hey had torn and shaken up this soil 
thoroughly they were taken out and put 
: round another tree, while grass seed 
was sown where they had worked. The 
trees themselves were dishorned severely 
nd thoroughly sprayed and scraped. 
The result was that the trees took on 
new life, made a remarkable growth and 
have given large crops of most excel¬ 
lent fruit. In fact, instead of being a 
nuisance, they are now reckoned as 
among the most valuable assets on the 
larm. The picture shows the growth 
on one of these trees which has now 
had a chicken yard built around it. In¬ 
stead of being high in the air with the 
iruit up among the clouds, this tree 
has now been headed down reasonably 
low and it is a pleasure in every way 
to take care of it. Many “back-to-the- 
landers” find these feeble old veterans 
on their farms and they have all sorts 
of advice about handling them. This 
plan of Mr. Gleezen’s of letting the pigs 
get down to the root of all tree evil 
and dig out the grubs and worms is as 
good a suggestion as we can make in 
the treatment of these old veterans. 
the problem of taxation. 
A hen A. C. H. asked about the 
future of the small farmer (page 338), 
why didn t you “call a spade a spade” 
•uul say that it is all but hopeless, so 
long as we maintain a set of tax laws 
1 'at persistently drive capital away from 
agriculture, and send the best of the 
country boys and girls to be swallowed 
up in the economic maelstrom of the 
|'tics? It is high time for us to be 
looking the facts in the face. This 
much-heralded problem of “farm fin¬ 
al ce will solve itself quickly enough 
whenever we abolish the statutory dis- 
• rimination against agricultural invest¬ 
ments. 
Not long since I had occasion to in¬ 
vestigate the tax laws of an Eastern 
• tate, where with few exceptions the 
‘.’"cultural towns are distinctly deca- 
'icnt, despite the fact that the balance 
n ; Political power in that State is and 
always has been in the hands of the 
oners. When I had finished, I could 
S( e plainly that if the subject of taxa- 
APPLE TREE. Fig. 197. 
same money invested in stock and tools 
to run a farm would of course get 
“soaked’’ the full local rate. Now is it 
any wonder that about every man with 
money to invest, looked for something 
besides an agricultural investment? Of 
course the boys and girls left the farms, 
because labor seeking employment al¬ 
ways follows capital. 
Now when a few of us who realized 
the situation went to the Legislature to 
get some of these things changed, the 
representatives from the farming towns 
fought us to the last ditch. They all 
admitted that the farmers were getting 
a raw deal in taxation, but they couldn’t 
seem to see the only way out. One 
senator was especially opposed to the 
exemption of farm loans from taxation, j 
because there were two or three men 
in his town who had a few thousand | 
dollars invested that way. In general 
the rural legislators seemed obsessed 
with the idea of putting taxes on to 
somebody else, instead of working to 
reduce the excessive burdens under 
which the farmers are laboring. 
I maintain that if the buildings and 
machinery of the manufacturer are to 
be exempt or given a nominal rate of 
taxation, then the buildings and tools 
of the farmer are entitled to the same 
kind of a deal. If $5 per $1,000 is all 
that a savings bank deposit ought to 
carry, then it is unfair discrimination 
to tax personal property (bought per¬ 
haps with the same money) any higher. 
Twenty-three dollars per $1,000 might 
be a confiscatory rate if applied to the 
timberlands of a great corporation, but 
if so, why apply it to the farmer’s wood 
lot ? 
It was easy enough to get the farm¬ 
ers to see that these things should be 
equalized, but not the way to do it. 
They were too much confused by that 
old legal fiction which classes as “real 
estate” the land and everything appur¬ 
tenant thereto. They had yet to learn 
the relation of those totally different 
factors, “natural values” and “labor 
values,” which go to make up the sell¬ 
ing price of all real property. I might 
have thought them stupid, 'had I not 
realized that taxation is a subject never 
studied in school, and an too infre¬ 
quently discussed in either news or 
farm papers. Seems to me that a 
thorough discussion of the problem is 
the first step along the way out. 
CHRISTOPHER M. GALLUP. 
Windham Co., Conn. 
^j oirthi R end** 
• * Watch. 
TILE DRAINED LAND IS MORE PRODUCTIVE 
Earliest and easiest worked, 
< arries off surplus water; 
, creases the value. Acres of swampy land reclaime.f'and made’ter.Ule’ 
ROUND TH F 1 ', , > acks ,? n ," K ? , *" d Wraln 1 He meets every requirement. W e also make Seva? 
V I W t r 1 r 7 Pipe, Red and Fire Iirick, Chimney Tops, Encaustic Side Walk Tile, etc W rite 
for what you want and prices. JOHN H. JACKSON, 89 Third Ave., Albany, N S? 
I F your home is on a good road you are interested 
in keeping the road good; if you live on a bad 
road you are interested in making the road better. 
In either case, you are sure to be interested in 
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