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THE RURAL N E W -YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal lor Country ami Suburban Homes 
Established ISSO • 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 383 West 30th Strcot, New York 
Herbert W. CoLunrowoOD, President and Editor. 
John .1. 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.M. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8K marks, or 10>/ francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Offioe as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates 60 cents per agate line—7 words. 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 wo 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. v*e protect sub¬ 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trill ing differences 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither u ill v e be 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupt* 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._^ i ^___ 
It is evident that we are to have a good discussion 
of that conservative father and progressive son ques¬ 
tion. There are already many letters and articles from 
both sides. As one gray-haired man says: 
This is a great big question and some frank discussion 
of it won’t hurt. I wish the old man back on the farm 
could tell frankly what is in his own heart in this experi¬ 
ence. 
It is probably true that in most cases of this sort 
“everybody writes but father,” yet he is the man 
whose point of view is most important. 
* 
Never forget it! The time to keep out of a bad 
contract is before you sign it! Some people even sign 
a contract without reading it. Take a contract with a 
tree agent, for example—honest, now, after all we 
have said, has any reader of The R. N.-Y. the right 
to say he did not understand the game? This thing 
comes to mind forcibly when we learn that the 
Whiting Nursery Co. has landed three carloads of 
nursery stock at Beamsville, Ontario. This is in spite 
of the fact that hundreds who signed Whiting’s con¬ 
tracts cancelled their orders and notified the company 
that they would not accept the goods. 
* 
We often have questions from farmers who want to 
know the cheapest place to buy lime. With a product 
like lime, naturally sold at a low figure, the chief 
expense comes in freight and handling. It will usually 
cost about as much to haul a ton of $4 lime as a ton 
of $40 fertilizer. Hence the main thing is to find 
the location of the nearest limekiln and then learn 
about the quality of the limestone. Many States like 
Connecticut have located most of these kilns and 
analyzed the lime. The experiment station will usually 
send a list of these kilns with printed facts. You can 
often save half the cost of freight by knowing where 
the lime is to be found. It will pay many a farmer 
who has a deposit of limestone to buy a crusher and 
supply the dust to people within eight to 10 miles. 
This, we believe, is one of the farm industries which 
ought to be developed. 
* 
We told you our people would bite down to the 
core when they got started at this farmers’ institute 
question. We have had many letters. We judge that 
some of them were written in an effort to “get square” 
with some institute speaker. None of that in The 
R. N.-Y.! That is not helpful discussion, and who 
wants anything else? We assume that all intelligent 
farmers agree that the right kind of a farmers’ meet¬ 
ing would be helpful and ought to be encouraged. 
The point is not how can we kill the farmers’ institute, 
but how can we put new and vigorous life into it? 
There is much truth in what Mrs. Willcox says on 
page 659. The farmers can have almost any sort of 
an institute they see fit to demand. The trouble is 
that most of them are not enough interested to care. 
We believe, however, that there never was a time 
when the American farmer read and thought as much 
as he does now. 
* 
We should have little excuse for again referring to 
Secretary Bryan and his “grape juice” banquet except 
for one thing. As was to be expected, there were 
many sneers and considerable cheap wit from people 
who seem to think the custom of serving wine is a 
sacred part of the United States Constitution. There 
was so much of this talk that Mr. Bryan made a pub¬ 
lic statement: 
Believing that the issue should be met frankly in the 
beginning, I told them when we sat down to table that 
Mrs. Bryan and I had been teetotalers from our youth, 
as were our parents before us, and had never served liquor 
at our table; that when the President was kind enough 
to tender me the portfolio of State, I asked him whether 
our failure to serve wine would be any embarrassment to 
the Administration, and that he generously left the matter 
to our discretion. 
Many of you will say this is a very small matter, 
yet it is this frank and square way of meeting small 
matters that gives confidence in big ones. 
Mr. H. O. Daniels, of Middletown, Conn., started 
in as farm adviser for the Connecticut Agricultural 
Society, and had made a number of engagements. 
On April 19 Mr. Daniels’ house was burned and all 
records were destroyed. Some of our readers have 
corresponded with Mr. Daniels about his farm con¬ 
ferences. As his letters were all burned it will help 
mattters if these people will write him again about 
dates. This work is so important that we can all 
afford to help start it anew. 
* 
I note the Hope Farm man paid $18 per ton for hay. We 
just loaded two cars of good Timothy hay for New York. 
The local buyer gave us $0 per ton, and we coaxed him to 
take it at that. He said he would take the rest, about six 
more cars, if he came out whole on what he bought. You 
see we don’t get 35 cents on the dollar. The farm expert 
might say feed the hay; but wc have nothing to feed it to 
and need the money. wm. a. olds. 
Ingham Co., N. Y. 
This is something we know all about. The hay 
cost $18 per ton in Jersey City. The Erie Railroad 
charged $3.60 per ton for hauling it, less than 25 miles 1 
Thus the hay cost delivered $21.60. It was not the 
highest priced hay at that. Here is a man who re¬ 
ceives $6 per ton after paying all expenses of pro¬ 
ducing and baling the hay. He thus received 27 
cents of the dollar. You cannot get around this, or 
under it or over it, and it is only one of hundreds 
of cases. Think of advising this man to spend more 
money to increase his yield 1 Give us more of these 
actual figures. Be careful to get them right and we 
will use them where they will do the most good. 
* 
As we pointed out last week, every voter who cast 
a ballot for a member of the present New York 
Legislature went on record in favor of a fair primary 
election law. All the parties were “pledged” to give 
the people such a law. What then is all this trouble 
about? Gov. Sulzer wants a law that will carry out 
the wishes of the people—the politicians in the Legis¬ 
lature will try to put over a law that means nothing 
and accomplishes less. That is the situation in a few 
words. The fair-minded people of the State, re¬ 
gardless of party, should get back of Gov. Sulzer and 
support him, in this battle. If your member of the 
Legislature tries to sneak around his “pledge” drive 
him into the open where we can all see him. The 
fight has begun; we shall stay right in it until New 
York has a fair primary election law. The New York 
Senate rejected the bill prepared by Gov. Sulzer 
42 to 8. On the next page will be found a list of 
Senators who voted against this plan for primary 
reform. These are the men who can be reached by 
farmers. Some of them favor a fair primary bill, 
but they cannot get away from their party. They 
all need attention. Get right after them and tell 
them what you want. A fair primary law will be of 
greater benefit to farmers than to any other class. 
* 
Wuy do you always discourage the use of the various 
health remedies offered for sale or the remedies or medi¬ 
cines which have been found useful by correspondents? 
s. B. K. 
We do not “always discourage” such use, though 
our advice is not to try them without consulting some 
good physician. Some of us have been obliged to 
listen to imaginary stories of disease from people who 
are just as well as they deserve to be—in fact, better 
than one could expect them to be with their personal 
habits of eating and exercising. For example, who 
could advise his friend to take drugs as a “rheumatism 
cure” when he knew that this trouble was largely due 
to improper diet? Take the case of a “retired 
farmer.” This man worked hard for years and con¬ 
sumed large quantities of meat. He sold out and 
moved to town, where he does little or no work. He 
sits around and talks, but continues to eat meat as 
before. This man does not need drugs or “treat¬ 
ments.” He needs more work or less meat, yet the 
fakers who sell “rheumatism cures” and other stuff 
make their fortunes out of such people. Let such a 
man put in his time digging a garden and then live 
chiefly on the asparagus, rhubarb and other vegetables 
which have been watered by his sweat, and he will 
not need medicine. Then there is the drug habit. We 
know of cases where men and women have been made 
slaves to drugs through their long and persistent 
dosing. Beyond that comes drunkenness. It is known 
that several of the so-called “patent medicines” are 
whisky or brandy with the taste changed and enough 
drugs to make them a mild laxative. The belief that 
some wise owl at a distance can cure a chronic dis¬ 
ease through correspondence is one of the frailties of 
human nature which never should he encouraged. 
Hypochondriac is a nice long word which means one 
who spends much of his time imagining he is sick. 
For many of the unfortunates we have sympathy 
which leaks like a sieve. Somehow the doper and the 
hypochondriac dry sympathy like a desert: 
May 10, 
Many a young fellow thinks he is IT. When he 
gets up against the real thing he glances around 
and sees that he is far from home and friends. Then 
he finds that as compared with the real It he is a 
small i without even the dot on. Then the quality 
of the boy is tested. He must first put the dot on the 
i and then struggle with the It, until he can rub 
that dot off and win the right to use the capital letter. 
It is hard while you are doing it, but there is no 
other way, for father cannot do it for you. 
* 
The Cole commission man’s bill passed the New 
York Senate on May 1 without a dissenting vote. It 
now goes to Gov. Sulzer, who has agreed to sign it. 
Briefly stated, this bill aims to regulate the commis¬ 
sion business in the following ways: 
1. By permitting the Commissionir of Agriculture to 
refuse a license to a produce man whom he is convinced 
does not do business “on the level.” 
2. By compelling from each merchant a fidelity bond 
of $3,000, any part of which can be collected by the farmer 
for money not honestly accounted for to him in payments 
for produce shipped to the city. 
3. By providing hearings before the Agriculture Com¬ 
missioner at which grievances may be made public and 
penalties assessed against the fidelity bond. 
4. By empowering the Agriculture Commissioner to 
take sworn testimony and examine any portion of records 
relating to transactions in dispute. 
We regard this bill much as we do the present parcel 
post law. It is not all we need or deserve, but it estab¬ 
lishes a principle which never can be taken out of law. 
We fully realize the hard struggle which the backers 
of this bill were forced to put up. Assemblyman 
Marc W. Cole, Senator C. L. Wheeler and a host of 
others did valiant service in the Legislature. And 
now what? The way to make this law truly effective 
is to use it —just as in the case of parcel post. The 
first thing to do is to prevent any of the dishonest 
snides from obtaining a license. You can help in this 
part of the law. Send us at once any record of- dis¬ 
honest treatment at the hands of a commission man. 
Give us the facts at once and we will put them where 
they will bite. 
Investigate any great national question and you 
find a trail leading back to a seat in the school room. 
The present race struggle in California is no excep¬ 
tion. In the development of the State’s fruit and 
farm industry there was no one to do the heavy hand 
labor. There were plenty of white men and boys to 
handle all this work, but they would not do it. These 
preferred to be clerks or “professional people” or 
plain loafers. Therefore the Japanese came in to 
handle this work as naturally as water runs down 
hill or air flows into a vacuum. The Japanese did 
the work well, did it cheaply, and, as laborers, be¬ 
came indispensable. As land owners they are ob¬ 
noxious because their habits of life and their his¬ 
torical traditions are different from those of their 
white neighbors. If the loafers who hang about town 
and city or if the strong young men who are doing 
woman’s work in office or store would get out and do 
work on the land there would be no Japanese question, 
for these Asiatic laborers would never have been 
needed and thus would not have mastered the situa¬ 
tion. These young and strong white men refuse to 
get out and work on the land because they have been 
taught that manual labor is degrading. They do not 
want to soil their hands. With an education barely 
skin deep they can have no heart in any real hard 
work. This situation is not confined to California, 
but is found wherever a high school education be¬ 
comes the ideal of the plain people for their children. 
Such education draws young people away from hand 
labor, and it is responsible for the fact that so much 
of the strong, useful labor of the country is passing 
into the hands of ambitious foreigners. We believe 
that no class of people can hope to retain permanent 
control of the land unless they are educated to wprk it. 
BREVITIES. 
It is the idle horse that “ eats his head off.” 
An hour’s work in May is worth a Winter’s day. 
“Defense not Defiance” is the motto of an English farm¬ 
ers’ union. 
“The conservative father and the progressive son.” The 
first opinion on that subject takes the side of “the old 
man.” 
Guebnhouse insurance against tornado and windstorm 
Is now offered by insurance brokers. Many florists suf¬ 
fered terrific loss during the recent western storms. In 
Europe it is possible to secure insurance against storm 
on some specified date when bad weather would result 
in business loss. 
Investigators in the botanical laboratory of the Uni¬ 
versity of Chicago are making a study of gas Injury to 
living plants. Both shade trees and greenhouse plants 
often suffer from leaking gas pipes, causing considerably 
loss. The sweet pea appears the most sensitive of ab 
plants to this poisoning. 
