T'HIS RURAL NEW-YORKER 
«■ ,U 
191 .". 
THE STROUT COMPANY LOSES. 
The E. A. Strout Company has lost in 
its injunction suit against Tiie Rural 
New-Yorker. lion. D. J. Hand, in the 
United States District Court, handed 
down a decree last week denying the mo¬ 
tion to restrain The R. N.-l\ The de¬ 
cision is a very comprehensive paper; 
and next week we will give the essential 
features of it. In the injunction pro¬ 
ceedings they set up the claim that:— 
Previous to the publishing of these 
complaints, beginning January 18. 1913, 
no paper with the exception of The 
Rural New-Yorker itself had refused 
to accept their advertising; that since 
the publication of these complaints in 
The Rural New-Yorker the Country 
Gentleman, the Saturday Evening Post, 
the Practical Farmer, the Southern Cul¬ 
tivator, the Farmer’s Advocate and the 
Farmer’s Guide, had already refused 
their advertising; that these papers re¬ 
fused to investigate the Strout business 
for themselves, but because of their con¬ 
fidence in The Rural New-Yorker rely 
upon its publications in justification of 
their position, and the Strout Agency ex¬ 
press the belief that still other publica¬ 
tions will refuse to accept their adver¬ 
tising if the publications in reference to 
them is permitted to continue in The 
Rural New-Yorker, for the reason that 
if other publications continue the adver¬ 
tising in the face of the criticism they 
are likely to suffer thereby. 
They set up further that "Publisher’s 
Desk,” containing one full page, has been 
devoted exclusively to the pretended pur¬ 
pose of warning subscribers against deal¬ 
ing with any of the persons or firms 
named therein. 
That this page is generally known as a 
"rogue’s gallery or black list of danger¬ 
ous criminals and swindlers, with whom 
it is dangerous to deal or patronize, and 
that a large number of the subscribers of 
the paper systematically refuse to deal or 
have business relations with any person 
or firm so published.” 
That in proof of this cards sent out by 
the Strout Agency to farmers requesting 
blanks to be filled, giving desired in¬ 
formation concerning the farm, have been 
returned not filled out as requested but 
endorsed as follows: 
"I read The Rural New-Yorker. S. 
B. Evans.” 
That as another example of the similar 
result of a similar postal card, the card 
came back filled out but endorsed as fol¬ 
lows : 
“I read The Rural New-Yorker.” 
(repeated four times.) 
Another contention of the complaint is 
that: 
Previous to these criticisms the Strout 
Agency had contracts with many farmers 
for the sale of their farms with the stip¬ 
ulation that in case the farm was sold 
direct by the farmer, or through other 
agents, or withdrawn for any reason, that 
the "Said owners would pay forthwith to 
the plaintiff a withdrawal fee therein 
stipulated not exceeding 2% of the sale 
price, and not less than $25. the amount 
varying in the different contracts, and 
during all of said time and at the present 
time, there were and are in existence and 
in full force and effect a great number of 
said contracts between the plaintiff and 
a large number of its said customers sit¬ 
uated throughout all of the territory 
herein described, and that said contracts 
were and are valid and subsisting and 
enforceable contracts, and had been uni¬ 
formly upheld in the courts of the States 
and Territories herein described, and at 
the time of the commencement of this 
action there was and still is a large ag¬ 
gregate sum of money due the plaintiff 
thereon, all of which was well known to 
the defendant; that said claims are small 
in amount, ranging from $25 to $60 for 
each claim, but that the aggregate 
amount of them is very great and the 
loss thereof to the plaintiff would seri¬ 
ously cripple the plaintiff and the cost of 
Collecting said claims in case the defend¬ 
ants should abide by their agreements to 
contest in court such claims and litigate 
the same to the higher courts, would be 
entirely out of proportion to the amount 
ot said claims, and as plaintiff is informed 
and believes the cost of collecting the 
said claims and the delay in collecting 
the same would exceed the amount that 
would be actually recovered therefrom, 
ail of which is well known to the defend¬ 
ant; ’ and that by advising farmers to re¬ 
sist such payments and offering to pay 
the expense of an attorney in defending 
tho tust suit. The Rural New-Yorker 
has maliciously and wickedly contrived 
to induce the Strout customers to violate 
their contracts. The complaint further 
states in effect that The Rural Nkw- 
Iorkkr has published matters calculated 
to deceive the persons who bought farms 
through the Strout Agency and make 
them believe that they were legally en¬ 
titled to recover from the plaintiff in 
stuns paid to the plaintiff by the sellers 
ot the property in excess of 5% of the 
selling price, less tho commission, all for 
the purpose of putting the plaintiff to the 
great expense and annoyance of litigation 
o\er numerous claims to such an extent 
that plaintiff will be tillable to continue 
its said business. 
1* or this and other reasons set up in 
the complaint the Strout Agency asked the 
court to issue an injunction restraining 
tit: Rural New-Yorker from publish¬ 
ing in the paper, or circulars, or letters 
to its subscribers, or verbally any advice 
or information that would lead such per¬ 
sons or readers of the paper to refuse 
payment of its claims or disregard of its 
contract or refusal to negotiate business 
transactions with them. 
It is well to have the situation so well 
defined by the Strout Agency themselves. 
They admit that the publication of farm¬ 
ers’ complaints without any further in¬ 
vestigation has induced many of the best 
farm papers in the country to refuse their 
advertising, and they express the fear that 
if the publication of these complaints 
continue, other papers will not be able 
to carry their advertising without suffer¬ 
ing from the protests of their farm sub¬ 
scribers. They allege further that they 
will not be able to continue business if 
these complaints are continued by their 
customers and made public. They frankly 
admit that they have a large number of 
small claims against farmers aggregating 
large sums for withdrawal fees and they 
admit that in at least one case in Maine 
the higher courts decided a claim for 
withdrawal fees against them. Farmers 
who are interested in the matter should 
preserve the above complaint, and read 
it again next week in connection with 
the decision of the court. 
“SOFT AND ROTTEN” PEACHES. 
We shall give from time to time dur¬ 
ing the season brief statements of actual 
experience in shipping produce to com¬ 
mission men. Some of these will give 
the bright side of such business, and 
others will tell some of the tricks re¬ 
sorted to in order to evade payment, or 
get control of a shipment. The first one 
refers to a shipment of peaches from a 
fruit farm in New York State to a con¬ 
cern in Philadelphia. Two growers unit¬ 
ed to fill a car with peaches. They had 
been shipping through the season, and 
knew how to handle and pack their fruit. 
Other shipments had arrived in good con¬ 
dition and had brought good prices. One 
of these men shipped something over 300 
baskets as his share of the car, and he 
received a statement as follows: 
272 bkts. peaches, 14(650 $7.00 
130(640 52.00 
“Soft and rotten” 
73(630 21.90 
55(625 13.75 
$94.65 
$3.63 
23.73 
8.16 
9.47 
- 45.01 
$49.04 
As will be seen, this meant an average 
of a little over 17 cents a basket net, 
and out of this our friend was obliged to 
pay for the packages, cost of growing, 
picking and packing. There were also 
33 baskets unaccounted for. Similar 
peaches had been bringing 65 cents and 
over in this same market. All these 
peaches were picked, packed and loaded 
the same day. The car was cold before 
it was loaded, and was re-iced on the 
way. A car handled in exactly the same 
way three days before contained the same 
grades of fruit, and went to the same 
market, and the following statement was 
returned for it: 
36 baskets . 
.@90 
$32.40 
315 baskets . 
.(6 65 
204.75 
IS baskets . 
.@40 
7.20 
$244.35 
Freight . 
Cartage . 
. 11.07 
Commission . 
. 24.44 
74.37 
$169.98 
The commission 
man claimed 
that the 
peaches were “soft and rotten” when they 
arrived, and to prove it he called in the 
salesman who had sold the ear, and this 
man also claimed that the peaches were 
rotten. He claimed that when signing 
for them he had told the manager to 
write on the book that the condition was 
bad, but he was unable to show this rec¬ 
ord on the books. In the meantime the 
peach grower went to the freight office 
of the railroad and saw the company’s 
books. These show a clean receipt for 
the peaches. The railroad freight agent 
also wrote that the peaches were deliv¬ 
ered from the car without exception in 
apparently good order, and they have a 
receipt for clean delivery of the goods. 
When the peach grower in order to trace 
the matter further asked to whom these 
peaches were sold, so that he might learn 
further about them, he received the fol¬ 
lowing reply: 
"That is our business. If you think 
you have not had a square deal, you 
know how to get it.” 
Rut this peach grower has not been 
able to learn how to get his square deal 
yet. He wrote to the commission man, 
who still insisted that the peaches were 
soft and rotten when they arrived, in 
spite of the fact that the railroad com¬ 
pany have a receipt showing that they 
were received in good order. This com¬ 
mission man refused to do anything fur¬ 
ther about it. The peach grower claimed 
that he should be paid the difference be¬ 
tween what he received for his carload 
and the average price for which other 
carloads had been sold. This difference 
would have amount to over $60, but the 
commission man refused to do anything 
about it. The matter came to us, and 
we wrote this commission man regard¬ 
ing the matter, but he paid no attention 
whatever to the letter, and it has been 
impossible to obtain any satisfaction 
from him. Nothing could be obtained 
from him except through a suit for dam¬ 
ages, and it would be difficult in a case 
of this sort to show to a jury the price 
at which these peaches ought to have 
been sold. The commission man and his 
lawyer, of course, recognize that fact, 
and thus they have refused to pay any 
further attention to the complaint. We 
give this as a sample case of what is 
quite likely to occur in the rush of ship¬ 
ment. There is no real remedy in a mat¬ 
ter of this kind except through commu¬ 
nity shipping or co-operative selling. Un¬ 
der such a system the growers could 
have an inspector in the market who 
could examine the car at the time of its 
arrival, and make a fair statement as to 
its condition. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
DOMESTIC.—Fuel oil tanks exploded 
June 27 in the hold of the Standard Oil 
Company’s steamer Mohawk anchored in 
the lower bay between Stapleton and 
Tompkinsville, Staten Island. Five men 
were killed and six were injured. It 
was generally said that a mechanic had 
flicked a cigarette butt into the boiler 
room, and that gases which had formed 
became ignited and exploded, thus setting 
fire to the oil tank of the vessel. Capt. 
Smith of one of the Merritt-Chapmau 
vessels thought the salvage would be 
about $60,000. The Mohawk was built 
at Kiel, Germany, and her tanks have 
250.000 gallons capacity. 
Two cars crowded with immigrants 
on their way to the West toppled into 
the Ottawa River .Tune 25 when the 
Winnipeg Express on the Canadian 
Pacific Railway was wrecked, owing, it is 
believed, to spreading rails. Eight per¬ 
sons were killed and more than fifty 
injured. 
Two women, a mother and daughter 
were arrested at their home in Jamaica, 
L. I., June 27 by post office inspectors 
on a charge of using the mails to defraud. 
According to the postal authorities, the 
tw T o women have been carrying on a 
countrywide campaign of answering ad¬ 
vertisements for wives and housekeepers, 
getting money for carfare and other 
purposes and never making good in the 
way the senders of the funds had wished. 
The post office has complaints of three¬ 
score or more alleged victims who claim 
to have sent in this way anywhere from 
$2 to $55- 
After a conference by the industrial 
board of the State Labor Commission, 
with representatives of 75 canning fac¬ 
tories, the State officials unanimously 
adopted at Utica, N. Y., a resolution 
changing the maximum number of hours 
a week that women may be employed in 
canneries from 60 to 66, under certain 
conditions. The resolution provides that 
women eighteen years old and over may 
be employed in canning factories between 
June 25 and August 5 1913. in excess of 
10 hours in any one day, or 60 hours in 
one week, but not in excess of 12 hours 
in any one day or 66 hours in any one 
week, or six days in any one week, if not 
continuously standing, or if the floor is 
properly drained. 
Five men, a woman and a child lost 
their lives in a fire at midnight June 30 
in a building at No. 6(5 Greenwich Street. 
New York, occupied by Till’s Employ¬ 
ment Agency and as au immigrant lodg¬ 
ing house. More than a score of per¬ 
sons were injured by burns and leaps 
from windows. The police believe that 
the blaze was incendiary. It was re¬ 
ported that an unsuccessful attempt to 
set the place afire was made the previous 
night. 
Eleven boys and possibly more, all lads 
S to 12 years old and the children mostly 
of poor working people, lost their lives 
in the Merrimae River at Lawrence, 
Mass., June 30. A runway leading 
from the river to a municipal bathhouse 
collapsed under the combined weight of 
about fifty youngsters who crowded 
eagerly upon it anxious to get out of 
the hot sunshine and be the first to get 
undressed and dive into the cooling 
stream. 
272 
Idng ............a...... 
Freight .. 
Cartage . 
Commission . 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The Bureau 
of Agriculture has fully developed its 
plans to establish experiment farm sta¬ 
tions throughout the provinces of the 
Philippines. Carrying out this plan on 
a larger scale was made possible by an 
appropriation of $75,000 by the last leg¬ 
islature. The bureau has cabled to the 
United States for 12 inspectors, who 
will be put in charge of the demon¬ 
stration stations. 
The Supreme Court of New Jersey 
decided July 1 that Frederick Bealaman, 
a farmer of Somerset County, must pay 
.Tames Van Nest, his next door neighbor, 
for the death of a cow, owned by Van 
Nest, which broke into the neighbor’s 
cornfield, ate some of the corn and died. 
The liability of Bealaman for the loss 
of the cow was affirmed by the court 
upon the theory that Bealaman was 
charged with the duty of maintaining his 
fences in such repair that his neighbor’s 
cows could not gain access to his corn 
crop. Van Nest’s cow broke through a 
portion of the fence which Bealaman 
should have kept in repair, and ate abund¬ 
antly of his green and unripe corn, and 
then died. 
The thirty-eighth annual convention of 
the American Association of Nurserymen 
was held at Portland. Ore., June 17-21. 
The following officers were elected: 
President, J. B. Pilkington, Portland, 
Ore.; vice-president. Henry B. Chase, 
Chase, Ala.; secretary, John Hall, Ro¬ 
chester. N. Y. (re-elected); treasurer, 
Peter Youngers. Geneva, Neb.; executive 
committee, three year term, Thomas B. 
Meehan, Dresher, Pa.; two year term, 
J. II. Dayton, Painesville, O.; one year 
term, P. A. Dix. Roy, Utah. The 1914 
convention will be held in Cleveland, O. 
Report of Treasurer C. J. Maloy show¬ 
ed a balance on hand of $6,316.79, indi¬ 
cating that the society is in a most 
prosperous condition. 
The seventh field meeting of the N. J. 
State Horticultural Society will be held 
Wednesday, July 16th. 1913, 11 A. M„ 
at the home of Granville W. Leeds, near 
Rancoeas, Burlington County. Trains 
from Trenton, 9.40 and Camden, 9.47 will 
be met at Beverly 10.20 A. M. Auto¬ 
mobiles can reach the farm via Bur¬ 
lington, Mount Holly or Moorestown. 
At 11.30 Milo R. Williams, Engineer of 
Irrigation, will explain the very interest¬ 
ing systems now in service on this farm. 
The Federal Grand Jury handed down 
ten indictments June 20 under section 
10 of the interstate commerce act in¬ 
volving three large New York wholesale 
egg concerns, charging collusion with 
railroad inspectors to rob railroads by 
putting in fradulent damage claims for 
eggs broken in transit. It is alleged 
that the railroads have paid out $80,000 
in excessive damage claims over and 
above the amount received for trans¬ 
porting eggs last year. The indictments 
are against R. B. Shimer & Co., of 336 
Washington Street. Harry C. Shimer, a 
member of the firm, who was released 
on $3,000 bail; Adolph Fortgang, a 
salesman for the same firm, released on 
$2,000 bail; De Winter & Co., of 31 
Jay Street; John C. De Winter, Edward 
M. Garrison and Harry D. Wheeler, 
members of the Jay Street firm for whom 
bail was furnished at $5,000 each ; George 
Miller, of De Winter & Co., who has not 
yet been arrested, and Willard P. Brown 
and William H. Stanford, trading as W. 
P. Brown & Sons, at 139 Reade Street, 
who furnished $2,500 bail each. All 
pleaded not guilty to each of the fifteen 
counts but reserved the right to with¬ 
draw the plea and put in a demurrer by 
July 9. These are among the largest egg 
firms in this country. It is said that the 
Shimer firm does a business of $3,000,- 
000 a year in eggs and butter. It has 
been in Washington Street for fifty-three 
years. The several counts tell about 
shipments of eggs from the West and 
South upon which damages for broken 
eggs were claimed by the consignees. 
OBITUARY.—Abel B. Makepeace, the 
best known and most prominent cran¬ 
berry grower in the United States, and 
one of Cape Cod’s leading business men, 
died at his home in West Barnstable, 
Mass, June 24. in the eighty-second year 
of his age. Mr. Makepeace—who was 
born in Middleboro. Mass., in 1832—was 
one of the pioneer growers of Cape CodL 
He. more than any one man. helped to 
make cranberry growing the Cape’s 
greatest industry. In the early 70’s, 
when the industry began to attract gen¬ 
eral attention and prices of cranberries 
were high he began to reap large profits 
from the considerable area that he had 
under cultivation in the town of Barn¬ 
stable. At that time he purchased heavily 
of the swamp lands of what is now known 
as the cranberry bogs in Plymouth 
County. He built large warehouses in 
Wareham. He interested large capital 
in his enterprises and became truly en¬ 
titled to the appellation of the cranberry 
king. Some years ago Tie turned his at¬ 
tention to New Jersey swamps and 
bought large bogs in that State near 
Mays Landing. The cranberry lands that 
he controlled aggregated thousands of 
acres, and his own crops yielded as high 
as 60,000 crates in a single year. There 
was no part of the cranberry industry 
in which Mr. Makepeace was not heavily 
interested. He invented, manufactured 
and sold improved implements for cran¬ 
berry harvesting, made barrels, and built 
a big plant at Wareham for the evapo¬ 
ration of cranberries—a method of prepa¬ 
ration which seems destined to become a 
prominent feature of the industry. 
