808 
7TIHK; X-tUKA.L NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A'Nntlonol Weekly Journal for Country anti Suburban Homes 
Established tsso 
Published weekly by llie Rural Publishing Company, 338 West 80th Street, New York 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
John .1. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon. Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Roylk, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries In the Universal Postal Union. S>2.01. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8>i 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 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 we will make good any loss to paid 
subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising m our 
columns, and any such swindler will be publicly exposed, we protect sub- 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trifling dinerences 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither will we be 
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 
the transaction, and you must have mentioned The Rural New-Yorkkr 
when writing the advertiser. 
There are thousands of R. N.-Y. readers who want 
a good family cow. Some are professional meii who 
have a small place in the country. Some are gar¬ 
deners or fruit growers who cultivate their land 
intensely and keep only cattle enough to furnish 
the best milk or cream. There are thousands of 
them, and they want the best. Letters come pour¬ 
ing in here asking where such a cow can be bought. 
Most of these men would willingly pay the price for 
a purebred cow if they knew where to find her. 
They believe in pedigree, and they want perform¬ 
ance. There are some breeders who seem to think 
the only outlet for their stock is through the demand 
for breeding purposes. The fact is that many of 
their best performing cows, both purebred and high 
grades, would find ready sale as family cows. Here 
is a field without limit which few seem to have 
considered. 
* 
The American Agricultural Commissioners, now 
in England, have listened to many large and strange 
stories. At a banquet in London they were told 
that English wheat averages 32 bushels per acre, 
while the American average is quoted below 14 
bushels. The soil upon which this great English 
average is produced has been under cultivation 
nearly or quite 1.000 years longer than ours. Most 
of it is naturally strong, the climate is moist, so 
that drought seldom prevails, and the land is regu¬ 
larly in sod. Live stock growing is largely respon¬ 
sible for the heavy English crops, but the chief 
factor is the tremendous use of chemical fertilizers 
with the manure. Great Britain scours the earth 
for plant food. Every corner of the globe is raked 
over for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, and the 
frir above is trapped to provide food for English 
crops. The English climate will not permit the 
profitable growth of Indian coru. If it could be 
grown there as here to provide cheap and abundant 
silage the world's agricultural history would take 
another turn, for Great Britain would be nearly 
independent as regards its meat and butter supply. 
* 
Permit me to congratulate yon on the magnificent 
tribute from Strout which you printed on page 859. I 
doubt if your dearest friend or most ardent admirer 
could frame the language to pay you a higher compli¬ 
ment. It must be most gratifying to you to feel that 
you have not “stood the gaff” (as I know you must 
have time and again) in vain. G. 
That statement of the case by Judge Hand is 
complete. It would be hard to frame a more crush¬ 
ing reply to the demand for a muzzle that would 
shut off free speech and fair publicity: 
“While editors are not exempt from the common 
motives of other men, they may, and in this case 
they do, entertain a genuine desire to help their 
readers and to expose sucJi as may practice upon 
their credulity. That is a very admirable purpose 
in a newspaper. The refusal of the plaintiff's adver¬ 
tising long before this controversy became acute it 
a corroboration of that motive." 
A wise man once evolved this advice to business 
men: “If your competitor will not talk about you 
hire him to do so!” Any man who is conducting a 
legitimate business wants all the discussion he can 
get. The more publicity you give him the better he 
likes it. A friend of ours began to lose chickens at 
night. He turned a savage watchdog into the lien- 
yard and two days later they found a strip of brown 
cloth by the fence. Then a man in town applied to 
the authorities for an order to keep that savage dog 
muzzled. Everyone knew his motive in demanding 
the muzzle! Some of our esteemed contemporaries 
say that we are too “combative” and really try to 
bite when it is much nicer to bark or growl at a 
safe distance. When we hear this talk we look for 
the muzzle. There are two kinds—one is the court 
injunction which the Strout people did not get— 
the other is the advertising contract. Look for your¬ 
self and see if it is fastened on. 
At its recent field meeting the New Jersey State 
Horticultural Society voted to labor for a bridge 
over the Delaware below Philadelphia, so as to make 
more direct shipment of farm produce. This is a 
good move. Such a bridge is needed. South Jersey is 
becoming a great garden and henyard, producing a 
large share of the food needed by Philadelphia peo¬ 
ple. A good bridge across the river would enable 
farmers to deliver their goods promptly and easily 
without change to steamer or transfer to ferry. 
Thus both farmer and consumer are interested in 
this development. Both States should join in build¬ 
ing the bridge or, if need be, the Federal Govern¬ 
ment should be interested. At any rate, the bxfidge 
is needed. 
* 
Congressman Carter Glass, of Virginia, says he 
is opposed to “gambling in farm products.” That is 
fine, and the wisdom of opposing such an evil is as 
clear and transparent as the Congressman’s name. 
There is often a wide difference between theory and 
practice. The National Grain Reporter points out 
that in a newspaper which Mr. Glass controls the 
following advertisement is printed: 
MONEY IN WHEAT. 
$10.00 Buys Puts or Calls on 10.000 bushels of 
wheat. No Further Risk. A movement of 5c from 
price gives you chance to take $500.00; 4c $400.00; 
3c $300.00, etc. Write for particulars. 
This is the advertising of an Ohio “bucket shop.” 
It does not handle any grain, but its business is a 
pure gamble—betting on the price of wheat, corn 
or oats. So here we have Glass, the Congressman, 
harvesting votes by publicly attacking “grain gam¬ 
bling.” Wearing the same clothes is Publisher Glass, 
harvesting dollars by printing advertisements of 
the meanest sort of small betting. For all we know, 
too, Mr. Glass “guarantees” the advertisements in 
his paper. We are not here to sit in judgment on 
Mr. Glass. It is easy to see through him. You 
might call the people who vote for him his right 
hand and those who will read this advertisement 
the left. Scripture tells us to keep the two apart! 
Such advertisements will be printed just as long 
as readers stand for them, and no longer. 
* 
A reader sends the report of an address said to 
have been delivered at the Auburn Seminary Sum¬ 
mer School by Prof. Warren Hastings Wilson. Here 
are a few gems of thought from this address: 
The American farmer is falling steadily short of the 
performance of his task to feed and clothe the American 
people. * * * * * Ministers of all denominations 
have a tendency to be indifferent to the moral duty of 
a farmer as a producer. State and national office-hold¬ 
ers who try to advance the interests of agriculture are 
for the most part sincere and religious but the farmer 
fails to yield to their evhortations. Inefficient farming 
is not the only cause of the high cost of living, but it 
is an important factor in that lamentable state from 
which we all suffer. The success in farming which a 
limited number of men achieve is often won by processes 
not at all admirable. The men who go ahead often 
carry a moral stigma. In every rural community the 
well-to-do and prosperous are declared by their neigh¬ 
bors to be miserly. * * * * Country life tends to 
make as ideals the traits which Christianity has always 
condemned. The speculator and miser prosper too well 
among rural folk. 
Of course we know that public speakers suffer 
from poor reporting. Sometimes words they never 
uttered are put into their mouths, or just enough of 
what they did say may be given to present an en¬ 
tirely false impression. We knew a man once who 
said: “I think this man lies under a mistake.” The 
report left out the first two and the last three words. 
So we wish to be charitable toward Prof. Wilson. 
Any man who would say what we have here quoted 
without qualification, is either a donkey or a dan¬ 
gerous trouble-maker. We can think of nothing 
more stupidly out of place at a seminary than such 
talk as this. It would appear that the moral duty 
of the farmer is to accept without complaiut his 
35-cent dollar. The men who by combining or by 
good management obtain 40 cents carry the extra 
five cents as “a moral stigma.” It is too bad that 
men who talk such stuff should be permitted to re¬ 
main at large. If they only had sense enough to 
appreciate the fact they could readily see that the 
moral side of the farmer’s problem consists in ob¬ 
taining for him a fairer share and hence a fairer 
opportunity. Unhappily we cannot give Prof. Wil¬ 
son the treatment which would cure his disease. 
Had we the power to do so we would put him out 
on a back bill farm with little capital or credit, poor 
tools and a good-sized family to provide for and edu¬ 
cate. Then, at the end of a pitchfork, let him be 
reminded of his “moral duty as a producer.” After 
a five years’ course on that farm let him come back 
to the seminary and show us whether “country life 
tends to make as ideals the traits which Christian¬ 
ity has always condemned.” We think he has some 
of those traits now and that farm life would cure 
them! 
August 2, 
The Montana solution for the problem of father 
and the farm family is to form, a corporation. The 
first page article this week tells how and why they 
do it. In Montana the farmers have been able to 
control legislation so as to secure suitable laws for 
organizing these farm partnerships, and they seem 
to be solving part of the problem of keeping the 
family at home. This gives a form of legal organi- 
zation under which the boy or girl may feel that 
they have a direct share in the business the same 
as if they bought stock in a small factory or store. 
Naturally a farm handled in this way would be bet¬ 
ter organized and worked, for the very fact of a 
strict business organization would lead all who were 
connected with it to take new interest in the work. 
There are many farms in the East where this same 
plan might be worked out so that father and the 
family could form a small corporation with wide 
powers to do business. 
* 
I was about 100 miles from here, and I telephoned 
home for 100 cigars. They were sent to me by parcel 
post, the postage being 14 cents. In telephoning I 
don’t think I talked more than a minute, and they 
charged me 40 cents. You have always been an advo¬ 
cate of parcel post, and now that we have that, don’t 
you think it would be a good idea to turn your atten¬ 
tion to the telephone? w. P. B. 
Massachusetts. 
We turned attention to the telephone long ago. 
Parcel post seemed nearer, and so we hung to that, 
for we have learned to work one thing at a time 
and do a thorough job. When it costs 40 cents to 
talk about cigars or any other goods and 14 cents 
to transport them it is time to make comparisons. In 
England it might have cost 10 cents to telephone 
and eight cents to mail the cigars. In that country 
the government controls a system of public tele¬ 
phone and telegraph service with rates correspond¬ 
ing to cheap postal service. The same thing must 
ultimately be given here, and the parcel post devel¬ 
opment is bringing it along. Just what we stated 
is slowly happening to parcel post. We could not 
hope to get all we needed at first. The thing was 
to take the poor privilege which was offered and 
make such full use of it that it would become a 
regular part of American business life. Then we 
knew the rest would follow. It is coming. The 
Postoffice Department orders that after August 15 
the weight limit is to be raised from 11 pounds to 
20, while rates up to 150 miles are practically cut 
in two. Every inch along this road makes the next 
foot easier. 
* 
A group of farmers sat in front of a country store. 
It was a rainy day, and they had been driven in 
from the field. One of them was reading from a 
daily paper about the investigation at Washington. 
A poor creature named Mulhall had been telling how 
he bought and “influenced” Congressmen so that 
certain manufactures might be favored in tariff 
rates. It was a disgusting picture of graft aud spe¬ 
cial privilege. These farmers saw- at once how 
some of them had been in part responsible for this 
national disgrace. Some of them did not even know 
the name of their Congressman, or how he came to 
be nominated. One or two had written him and re¬ 
ceived word that he would give their request “care¬ 
ful consideration.” Not one had any particular 
influence with him, or any power to make him 
realize that he must listen to what they wanted. 
A few shrewd men in each county of his district 
nominated him and then, with more or less growl¬ 
ing. all hands had turned in and voted the party 
ticket. When creatures like this Mulhall approached 
such a man they were far more likely to find a 
pliant tool than some big strong character of per¬ 
sonal integrity. For the man was not directly re¬ 
sponsible to the people, since the politicians nomi¬ 
nated him. Those farmers on that rainy day saw 
the point. Growling or cursing at these grafters did 
no good just as long as they sent men to public 
office who are out of the reach of the people. In 
public life a man serves one or two of these three— 
himself, the politicians or the people. Probably not 
two per cent of our public men will serve the people 
purely aud with courage of their own free will. The 
other 98 per cent must be made to do it, and the 
most effective force is exerted through the direct 
primary nomination. 
BREVITIES. 
When in doubt about drinking water boil it. 
The Eastern peach crop is heavy. Help out by 
buying freely. 
A New England Alfalfa club is to be organized. 
Suppose it had been organized 200 years ago and A1 
falfu had been put into all the soil suitable for it! 
We hope your farm will never be subject to mortgage 
foreclosure—hut read how they do it on page 890. 
You want to remember that a brick or charcoal filter 
will make water clear, but will not remove disease 
germs. Boiling the filtered water is a safe precaution. 
