1013. 
THIS RURAb NEW-YORKER 
069 
GET AFTER THESE MEN. 
The following-named Senators in the 
New York Legislature voted against the 
State-wide Direct Primary Bill intro¬ 
duced by Governor Sulzer. We give 
their names and addresses below. Each 
reader should promptly write the Sen¬ 
ator who represents him at Albany, and 
tell him squarely that he must go back 
to Albany and vote for a fair primary 
bill. An honest direct primary law 
will prove the greatest political weapon 
ever put in the hands of New York 
farmers. It is the great thing they need 
to secure proper representation at Al¬ 
bany, and any man who stands in the 
way of such reform is not a friend of 
the New York farmer, and the quicker 
he finds it out the better for all con¬ 
cerned. A number of these men are 
really in favor of primary reform, but 
they are so tied up to the politics of 
their party that they are apparently 
willing to prevent the passage of a 
good bill simply because their own party 
will not obtain the credit for it. Get 
right after these men and make them 
understand that you did not send them 
to Albany to play politics, but that you 
did send them there to do honest work. 
If these men can be made to under¬ 
stand just how you feel on this sub¬ 
ject, they will go back to a special ses¬ 
sion and do their duty. We print only 
the names of those men who have any 
fair number of farmers in their dis¬ 
trict. These are the men our people 
can reach and influence. Let us get 
right after them at once and accept no 
excuses or compromises. 
Geo. A. Blauvelt, Monsey, N. Y. 
John F. Healy, New Rochelle, N. Y. 
John D. Stivers, Middletown N. Y. 
Henry M. Sage, Menands, N. Y. 
Loren H. White, Delanson, N. Y. 
Seth G. Heacock, Ilion, N. Y. 
James A. Emerson, Warrensburgh, 
N. Y. 
Herbert P. Coats, Saranac Lake, N. Y. 
Elon R. Brown, Watertown, N. Y. 
Wm. D. Peckham, Utica, N. Y. 
Ralph W. Thomas, Hamilton, N. Y. 
J. Henry Walter, Syracuse, N. Y. 
Charles J. Hewitt, Locke, N. Y. 
John F. Murtaugh, Elmira, N. Y. 
Thomas B. Wilson, Hall. N. Y. 
Tlios. H. Bussey, Perry, N. Y. 
Geo. F. Argetsinger, Rochester, N. Y. 
Wm. L. Ormrod, Churchville, N. Y. 
Geo. F. Thompson, Middleport, N. Y. 
John F. Malone, Buffalo, N. Y. 
Samuel J. Ramsperger, Buffalo, N. Y. 
Frank N. Godfrey, Olean, N. Y. 
THE FARMERS' INSTITUTE PROBLEM. 
The Michigan Situation. 
I have kept track of farmers’ insti¬ 
tutes in this county for the past 15 
years. I have introduced all the speak¬ 
ers who came here, and have used the 
time this year in introducing speakers 
by relating that some 15 years ago one 
of these speakers, who was as good as 
any sent here, talked for one hour on 
the inadvisability of growing Timothy 
and the wisdom of growing clover. In 
the census of 1910, 10 years after this 
talk was delivered, there were but two 
acres of clover grown, in the entire 
county, and that by a man who had not 
heard this talk. I have been telling 
this same man that his time was wasted 
in making that talk, as was also the 
wear and tear on the people who listened 
to him. 
Last year in introducing a speaker 
who was going to talk on concrete in 
cow barns I asked those in the audience 
who were interested in dairying and 
would put concrete floors in their barns 
if they had the money to put them in 
to raise their hands, and everyone in 
the audience who was interested in 
dairying raised his hands. Now the sit¬ 
uation for those was how to get the 
money to enable them to put in concrete 
floors. To talk to them about the ad¬ 
visability of having concrete floors was 
absolutely a waste of time. The insti¬ 
tute worker fails to appreciate the vital 
wants of the farmer. I cannot see that 
the farmers’ institutes have done any 
good in this county, and though elected 
president of the county institutes for the 
next year I do not expect to hold any 
institutes next year. Contrary to the 
usual belief, I believe that the American 
farmer to-day is reading more about his 
business than any other class of busi¬ 
ness men. He reads his farm journals 
much more carefully, and reads more 
°t them, than does the average lawyer 
pertaining to his business, the average 
doctor, the average storekeeper or any 
other class of professional or business 
men. The question with the farmer 
las been, not that he does not know 
enough, but that he does not have the 
initiative or does not have the means to 
carry out what he does know. The aver¬ 
age farmers’ institute has been more a 
matter of entertainment than a matter 
of efficiency. I. w. byers. 
Iron Co., Mich. 
Loyal to New York Institutes. 
I read with interest “The Future of 
Farmers’ Institutes” and “The Rush to 
Educate FTirmers.” As the wife of a 
young farmer now modestly situated, 
but with prospects of a bright future 
ahead, I wish to “speak up” for what 
New York institutes have done for us. 
To be sure, we have only attended two, 
but the following up and the advice we 
were given there when we could best 
adapt it to our own conditions with little 
expense, more effort and better profits, 
have made us look forward eagerly to 
future sessions in this neighborhood. I 
am also quite aware that these insti¬ 
tutes are most shamefully neglected by 
the majority of the farmers, modestly 
successful, who live hereabouts., I have 
noticed in every locality that there are 
one or two men who are not afraid of 
learning and trying out some of the 
new methods, that in father’s day would 
have been considered mere folly, and in 
the course of three or four years it 
dawns upon the neighborhood that these 
people are making money and names 
for themselves in spite of the advice 
and discouragements that have been so 
freely offered. When urged to attend 
institutes many of the good old con¬ 
servative kind invariably decline with 
the superior smile that no one can 
“teach an old dog new tricks.” I don’t 
believe that it is because farmers’ in¬ 
stitutes are above their heads; or that 
too much money and labor is demanded. 
No one can make them spend or labor, 
and the farmer who is too absolutely 
indifferent to attend an institute when 
it’s sitting right under his nose, in case 
he should learn something which he 
might apply, I feel is just what he de¬ 
serves to be, a poor, hard-working lab¬ 
orer with a good prospect of growing 
poorer and poorer if he xoon’t Le shown. 
Ifeel like asking our broad-m ded R. 
N.-Y. if the future of the institutes 
doesn’t lie in the hands of the farmers 
themselves. Surely we shall be given 
in them what we need and demand, and 
like the parcel post, the better they are 
attended and used the more practical 
and necessary will they become. Re¬ 
forms will follow, and I’m willing to 
bet with you that the sons of these 
same farmers, who through apathy or 
“know-it-all” attitudes, remain behind in 
the trend of the times, will profit and 
live as their fathers never did, through 
opening and working out for them¬ 
selves the best of what our State is 
offering to-day. “None so blind as they 
who will not see.” 
HELEN S. K. WILLCOX. 
Chenango Co., N. Y. 
The Institute Speaker. 
While reading an article on “The Fu¬ 
ture of Farmers’ Institutes” on page 
563, the truth of some of the statements 
struck me with much force. “It is dif¬ 
ficult to find out just why those farm¬ 
ers who might have attended and did 
not stayed away.” Not long since I at¬ 
tended an institute and for a speaker 
to “educate the fanners in the ways 
to raise poultry” was a well-educated, 
wealthy man, who manages or owns a 
large poultry plant. I say he was out 
of place. Why? Well, in the first 
place, farmers who need to make a 
living do not have the money to invest 
in expensive buildings, incubators, brood¬ 
ers, shipping crates, egg boxes, etc., be¬ 
side the patent feeds, bone mills, root 
grinders, and so on. Sum up and see 
what it would cost. Take this same 
man without capital or say $10 and a 
few old boards, outside of a small hen¬ 
house and flock of hens, and see him 
make a fizzle. Remember he has no 
credit, just his hands. I’d like to see 
him set his brain to work to adapt his 
plans to his outfit at hand. Yet this 
is what the farmer or his wife want 
to know and this is the only practical 
way. No farmer can farm and run a 
large poultry plant, but he can raise 
from 500 to 1,000 chicks each year from 
125 to 150 hens kept over Winter, and 
use very little food outside of what 
he produces on his farm, with eggs to 
market the year around and poultry 
all Fall and Winter when main crops 
are all put away. He wants to know 
how to make this poultry fit into his 
daily and yearly routine, how he can 
use the surplus about the farm, his own 
raising of grain with as small an out¬ 
lay for extras as possible? 
I do not so much criticize the speaker 
at this particular institute as the man 
or Department of Agriculture who se¬ 
lected this type of man. Would you 
send a practical baker from a factory 
to teach a farmer’s wife to bake when 
to save his life he could not do the 
task with the implements at hand, or 
the practical creamery man to make 
the farm butter with an old-fashioned 
dash churn, a bowl and paddle? You 
say get better implements. Ah! there it 
is. “The average farmer has his money 
to make and wants to know how to 
make more than expenses with the 
means at hand.” 
What farmer could not drill in his 
crops if he had the drills? To make 
his crops better with only stable man¬ 
ure, plow, harrow and broadcasting 
grain until he can make the money to 
buy expensive machinery, lime, phosphate, 
etc., is what the farmer wishes to know. 
When you put men on the institute 
platform who can tell the farmer prac¬ 
tical things along with big things, then 
you will find the audience is there, but 
as long as the speakers talk clear over 
our heads about things not useful to us 
we’ll stay at home and attend to our 
business. s. A. 
Washington Co., Pa. 
OHIO FLOOD NOTES. 
It is estimated by the Department of 
Agriculture that Ohio farmers have 
lost from the great storms and floods 
the last of March something near $16,- 
000,000, and estimates made on total 
loss, in the State average around $50,- 
000,000. The farmers come in for more 
damages than I had supposed. The rail¬ 
roads are getting their tracks in fair 
shape except some places where bridges 
were taken out and generally they go 
around on another road to "put their 
trains through where they cannot go 
on their own. The spirit of grit and 
helpfulness has made a great change 
in the appearance of things in three 
weeks, as houses have been put back on 
their foundations, wrecks have been 
cleared away, drift burned up, mud 
cleaned up or dried up and all lab¬ 
orers needed engaged in remuring and 
putting on the finishing touches to 
houses and business places. While the 
flood caused a week’s cessation of busi¬ 
ness, it is reported by merchants that 
the amount of business done since then 
has amounted to more than was done 
last year for the same month. 
When one cons'ders how little water 
there is n the Oh? a River when it is 
very 'ow, even less than two feet deep 
in the channels, and it mounted to more 
than 66 feet along here March 31, sur¬ 
passing all previous records by at least 
a foot and a half, and some places it 
was four to six feet higher than ever 
before. When one considers the great 
amount of water it takes to make a foot 
in depth on top of a big river which is 
so wide when up high and narrow when 
very low, it is not to be compared to 
the same depth by considerable. When 
the river is low it is less than a half 
mile wide and when high it is much 
wider in the banks and also spread out 
over the low bottoms sometimes as 
much as a mile or two wider, and also 
backs up the tributaries many miles and 
out over the small valleys along the 
streams. Two creeks near here had 
back water out 10 miles from the river, 
and over the low bottom farm lands 
as much as 35 feet deep, and much sedi¬ 
ment was deposited and some crops 
covered up entirely. Water got over 
the tops of telephone poles and lifted 
many of them clear out of the ground 
and many people have no wire service 
yet. Some villages that were settled in 
olden times suffered worse than the 
cities. Many houses had water in the 
second stories and hundreds of them 
washed away but usually they settled 
nearby, as the owners had them an¬ 
chored. People are now building on 
higher ground. I hear of one Italian 
who moved upstairs with his fruit stand 
when the water ran him off the first 
% floor and when it came into the second 
story he moved out on the roof. It 
is remarkable that no deaths occurred 
along here from, the flood. In this part 
of the State we had less than four 
inches of rain that week, while they 
had from eight to 11 inches in the cen¬ 
tral part. We had warning in time 
to move most things out of the way, 
but many people thought it was useless 
to move above certain height, and left 
their things, but the water came so fast 
they could not get them out when it 
came to the test. Boats were not to be 
had, and thousands were made in a 
hurry to help in emergency. In one 
city of 35,(XX) it is reported that $25,000 
worth of pianos were in the water. 
Some people lost all they had, others 
lost some furniture and are able to 
stand the loss, and some old people or 
some not able to work much will never 
be able to own their homes again or 
build up a business. Many firms that 
sold in the stricken district will never 
be able to collect many of their bills. 
One draft I heard came back marked, 
“Mr. -, his wife, children and 
some relatives were washed away and 
drowned in the flood.” Another man 
write back in response to a bill, “I lost 
my house and most of the stock of 
goods and can’t pay it. I am not able 
to replace my house and the stock of 
my store.” Thousands of others are so 
situated. Many cannot pay, some may 
refuse who can. Many have been re¬ 
lieved of their distress by donations 
from a sympathizing public. 
Lawrence Co., O. u. T. oox. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
DOMESTIC.—The award of the arbitra¬ 
tion board appointed urn^r the Erdman 
act, to hear the demands of the firemen on 
the Eastern railroads, was made public April 
23. It is considered a victory for the em¬ 
ployees, who will get wage advances aggre¬ 
gating between $3.500,000 and $4,000,000 a 
year. The firemen do not get their demand 
for an extra man on engines weighing 200,- 
000 pounds and over, and the request that 
the award be made retroactive was not con¬ 
ceded. The wage advances average from 
10 to 12 per cent on present wages. The 
increase granted in the arbitration of the 
engineers’ demands on the same roads was 
only about five per cent. The firemen also 
won their contention that the rates of wages 
should be based on weight of locomotives 
on drivers. This was opposed by the rail¬ 
roads as an inequitable method of estimat¬ 
ing the wages and value of the services of 
firemen. 
Louis Kunert, manager for the Steel- 
Drake Baking Company, of No. 42 Wall- 
about Market, Brooklyn, was sentenced 
April 24 by the Court of Special Sessions 
to pay a $500 fine for having 121 pounds 
of bad liquid eggs in the factory in which 
he bakes cake. 
The textile strike at Paterson, N. J., en¬ 
tered on its ninth week April 25. There 
has been much disorder, the I. W. W. 
being in conflict with both emplovers and 
labor unions. Several I. W. W. agitators, 
including W. D. Haywood and Elizabeth 
Gurley Flynn, were indicted by the Passaic 
Grand Jury. Efforts at conciliation were 
made by employers and labor unions, with¬ 
out any reference to the I. W. W.. whose 
interference was equally resented by both. 
An explosion in the Cincinnati mine of 
the Pittsburg Coal Company, on the Monon- 
gahela River near Washington. Pa., April 
24. probably caus4f the death of about 100 
men. The cause *>f the explosion is not 
known, but it is believed that it resulted 
from gas. 
The most important of several score of 
progressive bills now pending before the 
Wisconsin State Legislature is generally 
conceded to be Gov.McGovern's bill creating 
a State market commission. Its purpose pri¬ 
marily is to reduce the cost of living. The 
principal duties of this commission, which 
is to consist of three members, with the 
State Dairy and Food Commissioner as an 
ex officio member, each to receive a salary 
of .<5,000, are to prosecute monopolies and 
unfair methods of trade and promote co¬ 
operative associations. The bill carries an 
appropriation of §75,000 to pay the salaries 
and expenses of the commission. 
Pennsylvania has passed the mothers’ 
pension law. There is to be a pension 
commission composed of women in each 
county, and these commissioners will in¬ 
vestigate cases eligible to pension. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Charles Hall 
Davis, a lawyer of Petersburg, Ya., has sub¬ 
mitted to the Southern Commercial Congress 
a plan for the organization of a rural bank¬ 
ing system for his own State which, with 
modification, he believes could be adopted 
by any State. This plan is designed to 
foster the establishment of rural banks 
to bring together the neighborhood funds 
and to make them available for the develop¬ 
ment of farms and the financing of co¬ 
operative purchase and distribution of farm 
supplies at the lowest possible cost as 
well as the financing of the marketing 
of farm products to advantage. The 
scheme contemplates in general three insti¬ 
tutions, a State department, having super¬ 
vision over rural banks; a central rural 
bank for each county and local rural banks, 
the latter to be incorporated on the proper 
application and compliance with regulations 
of any ten or more residents or real es¬ 
tate owners in any community. 
The books of about seventy wnolesale egg 
dealers in this city have been subpoenaed 
by the Federal Grand Jury in an investi¬ 
gation of claims made against the rail¬ 
roads for damage done to eggs in ship¬ 
ment. The investgiation is based on re¬ 
ports of organized fraud in the collection 
of damages. Dishonest egg merchants have 
been able to collect large sums rrom the 
railroads through the connivance of the 
railroad inspectors, it is understood. The 
inspectors are said to have allowed claims 
as high as 50 per cent, in excess of actual 
damage to shipments. Oue railroad is re¬ 
ported to have lost §80,000 over and above 
its freight receipts for egg shipments dur¬ 
ing the last year in payment of damage 
claims. 
The Florists’ Exchange announces that 
florists and floriculturists generally who 
have any suggestions to make as to changes 
in the present Tariff Bill which is now 
before Congress, should send in sugges¬ 
tions at once (if they have not already 
done so) to the chairman of the tariff 
committee of the S. A. F. & O. H., Wm. 
F. Gude, 1214 F St.. N. W„ Washington. 
D. C- Mr. Gude will be pleased to do all 
that he can to further the interest of 
the florists and horticulturists, and mem¬ 
bers of the kindred organizations, but is 
at a loss to know what action to take 
until the parties interested make com¬ 
plaints or suggestions. 
