the; rural new-yok.k:er. 
September 13, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country anil Suburban lloinci 
Established >850 
Published weekly by the Bunsl Publishing Company, 383 West 30th Street, New York 
Herbert W. Colungwood, President anti Editor. 
Jons J. 1)11.1.os, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. DUsUon, Secretary. Mrs. K. T. Hoyle, Associate Kditor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreitrn countries in the Universal Postal Union. t»2.04. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8W marks, or \0'A francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal cheek or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates 80 cents per agate line—7 words. References required for 
advertisers unknown to us ; and cosh 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 ad'ert lsing m our 
columns, and any such swindler will be publicly exposed, n e Ijroje*® 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust ttIfling diffci cnces 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. jN !' 1 | 111 , , 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the oui ts 
Notice of the complaint must be sent to us within one n 
tlio transaction, and you must have mentioned Till. Rural Netw-Yorkkr 
when writing the advertiser. 
We have referred several times to the contest 
over the public market at Tyrone, l’a. r lhe grocers 
and liverymen apparently control the town council, 
and through it endeavor to compel farmers to stay 
on the public market during the best hours for sell¬ 
ing. The farmers claim the common right to sell 
their own goods when and where they please on 
public highways. Now we find this in a local paper: 
There are still a few parties who persist in selling 
where and when they please, but their names are being 
taken with dates, etc., and prosecutions will lie brought 
in every case. Do the parties making purchases from 
those people realize that they also are breaking the law 
and are subject to the same lines as the seller of the 
goods? 
Naturally in this business we see many samples 
of acute “nerve” and aerated gulf, but this may take 
the gold medal as a business threat Why not tell 
these customers that they handle stolen goods when 
they patronize a farmer They do—for they get part 
of that G5 cents on the dollar which the farmer has 
seen slipping away from him. 
* 
North Dakota has a law under which the State 
Seed Commissioner is to publish a list of the farm- 
Tiiroughout the Middle West farmers live in 
constant dread of hog cholera. Let a peach grower 
realize how he would feel if brown rot swept sud- 
dently through his orchard, or a poultryman think 
of having his flock quickly wiped out by some rapid 
disease, and he can realize how these farmers feel. 
As is usual in such cases, fakers and quacks make 
the trouble of the hoginan a tempting bait for their 
schemes. At this season in Indiana and Ohio agents 
are at large trying to sell hog cholera remedies. 
Some of them borrow and elaborate the tricky guff 
of nursery agent, and guarantee to save the hogs 
under almost impossible conditions. It is no wonder 
that farmers in their desperation are tempted to 
contract with these agents, but they should never 
do so without advice from the State veterinarian or 
the experiment station. The Indiana laws cover 
such things and the State veterinarian has the 
power to see that cholera remedies are genuine. 
Make these agents show their authority from the 
veterinarian or the experiment station before they 
touch your hogs or before you contract with them. 
* 
Any farmer with a fair-sized farm to work may 
well study Mr. Bomberger's article on page 1029. 
Here is a sound and practical argument for well- 
bred live stock. Try it anywhere and see if the 
farmer, his boys and the hired men do not all feel 
better when they handle horses or cows or hogs of 
high grade. This is aside from the fact that well- 
bred stock is more profitable than scrubs. There 
is something about the persu pride in owning and 
developing high-class farm ‘animals which is sure 
to make better farmers and a more satisfactory 
home. There never was a time in American farming 
when the outlook for fine stock breeding was better 
than it is right now. As population increases the 
demand for milk, meat, eggs and horse labor will 
go on increasing even faster than population, for 
the latter increases not only in quantity, but in 
quality and discriminating purchase as well. Every 
enterprising farmer knows that he must make use 
of improved varieties and machinery in order to 
ers and others who claim to be growing pedigreed 
or improved seed. The object is to make a list of 
such growers and have it printed for distribution 
among buyers. There are many farmers naturally 
expert and interested in seed selection. They have 
for years picked out varieties or types, exactly suit¬ 
ed to their needs, and in this way have developed 
pedigreed or improved strains. Some of them do 
not even know the value of the work they have 
done in this line. The North Dakota law is de¬ 
signed to help both ways,—benefit the men who 
have developed these seeds and also to let other 
farmers know where the seeds can be obtained. The 
State Seed Commissioner will take samples of these 
pedigreed seeds and test them for variety and free¬ 
dom from weeds. If they prove satisfactory, the 
names of the growers will he listed and distributed. 
In theory, this is an excellent plan, for there is no 
question but that many farmers are naturally 
adapted to this work of breeding seeds. With en¬ 
couragement of this kind it would be possible for 
them to develop a good trade. 
* 
A reader of Tiie It. N.-Y. receives a card from his 
commission man with the following printed in red 
ink: 
We reserve the right to purchase all or part of ship¬ 
ment for own account at net wholesale prices. 
What does this mean? It is part of a well- 
hatched plan to avoid the new law. Under this law 
the dealer is held responsible under his bond for 
goods sold on commission. If they can avoid actual 
commission sales these dealers think they cannot 
be legally held. Their lawyers will evidently claim 
that unless the shipper expressly orders them to 
sell on commission they are free to handle the goods 
as they please—after printing this notice on their 
stationery. Thus, if you send a shipment to one of 
these men and give no directions about the method 
of sale they will claim the right to buy the goods on 
their own account and return you what they see fit 
without charging any commission. If you are not 
satisfied with these returns the dealers will refuse 
to make good on their bond because you did not 
order them to make a commission sale. Quite a 
number of our people have received such direct re¬ 
turns at a few cents below the quoted market price, 
and no commission charged. It is a very smart 
trick to discredit the new law by evading commis¬ 
sion sales. This is why we keep right at the sub¬ 
ject, and urge our people to order commission sales 
carefully for all their shipments, and demand that 
tiie dealer show his license. The fact that he has a 
license does not make him an honest man, but it 
shows tliat there is some money safely held where 
you can get it if you can prove that ho cheated you. 
keep up with progress. To an even greater degree 
he should study to improve his live stock. The 
“high cost of living” extends to brutes as well as 
humans, and there must be greater returns from 
grain and feed. This must come from better ani¬ 
mals through the introduction of improved blood 
and through careful selection of the mothers. 
♦ 
Some time ago you spoke of the farmer’s 35-cent 
dollar. Yesterday our pastor hud occasion to refer 
to it, and started quite a little flurry. lie will finish 
his sermon next Sunday. Have you changed your mind 
at all to date? If not, could you give us some good 
proof? G. s - 
Vermont. 
So it seems the 35-cent dollar is getting up into 
the pulpit—where it belongs, for it is a great moral, 
industrial question. Some men have one ambition- 
some another. Our ambition is to be able to make 
this 35-cent dollar a part of popular thought in pul¬ 
pit, platform, press, public, private and politics! 
For larger proof the U. S. Department of Agricul¬ 
ture has stated that the annual output of the Ameri¬ 
can farms is worth on the farms about $6,000,000,000, 
while it costs the consumers about $16,000,000,000. 
Let your pastor take any of the products which his 
people raise and trace them through to the final con¬ 
sumer. He will find that some of these products 
sell at a closer margin, while others are wider. We 
speak of the average. For direct proof take this 
letter which came in the very same mail that 
brought the one from Vermont. The man who 
Writes this is a back-to-the-lander—formerly a city 
workman: 
I am sending you a watermelon, crated, by express 
prepaid. I raised several hundred of these this year. 
We are only able to get seven cents each for these here, 
weighing 20 pounds and over. I have lived and Worked 
in several of the largest cities in the United States, and 
have often paid 10 cents for a piece of melon about 
one-sixteenth of the size of this one. Who gets the 
money? There is some difference in laying brick for 75 
cents per hour, and raising melons for seven cents each, 
cantaloupes for 50 cents a crate, and cucumbers for 
20 cents per hamper (bushel). c. w. davis. 
Delaware. 
When this melon is cut the seven cents looks like 
a small part of the rind. You may say it is a long 
distance from Vermont to Delaware, but just as 
long as any farmer anywhere is forced to work for 
slave’s wages it is a thing for you to consider. For 
the 35-eeut dollar represents slave’s wages. It is a 
line tiling for your pastor to help start the thought, 
which will make the slave free. May we suggest a 
text for his sermon taken from Isaiah, chapter 42, 
verse 22? 
“Bwt this is a people robbed and spoiled, they 
are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid 
in prison houses; they are for a prey, and none de¬ 
livered). for a spoil and none saith — restore !” 
The farmers’ institutes have their troubles no 
matter where they are held. The old trouble of 
lack of interest and low attendance is hard to over¬ 
come. In one county of Western Nebraska the 
county agent is holding picnics and farm gatherings 
at which there are great crowds of practical farm¬ 
ers. The subject may be Alfalfa or dairying or 
orcharding, but the meetings prosper because the 
farmers feel that they control them. One of our 
readers in speaking of this county agent says: 
lie seems to be able to get larger crowds and more 
interest at these farm meetings that at the ones held 
in town even though the local commercial club freely 
donate the use of their fine rooms any time. I fancy 
that that is just the trouble. Their rooms are too fine 
and too exclusive and the farmers feel that they are 
looked down on but tolerated, and will not stand for 
such conditions." 
There is a bit of human nature which gets down 
to the germ of the trouble. There is no man on 
earth who will stand for being patronized with 
poorer grace than an intelligent farmer. 
* 
Now and then we are mildly criticized because 
we do not print some of the great stories of success 
with fruits and vegetables which float through the 
papers. For example, take this: 
In “Green’s Fruit Grower” for August, page 3, is to 
be found a reference to the rather astonishing gross 
return of $6,400 from four acres of apples. This result 
was gained by Collamer Bros., of Western New York. 
Can you tell us something more about this orchard? 
A. c. 
This is surely enough to make a back-to-the- 
lander, dreaming at his city desk, wake up and do 
some figuring. Here you have $1,600 per acre. Put 
in 50 acres of apples and you have the nice little 
yearly income of $80,000! Surely The R. N.-Y. is 
pretty slow in not “booming” apple growing harder. 
Well, it seemed fair to write our old friends the 
Collamer Brothers for their side of the story, and 
here it is: 
We own some orchards that run us in debt each year. 
About 25 years ago our father grafted 49 Baldwin 
trees to Alexander apple.* Three years ago 47 of the 
trees had apples and our sales from the above trees 
were around $1,650. The above kinds do not bear 
only every other year. We plow every Fall, work un¬ 
til July 20, spray four times, trim each year, manure 
every other year, pick apples twice. 
COLLAMER BROS. 
These trees, we understand, are 40 feet each way, 
or 27 to the acre. Each tree gave about $35 gross 
returns or $945 per acre every two years. This 
means $473 per year. But, on the other hand, the 
Collamers admit that with all their skill and ex¬ 
perience some of their orchards are conducted at a 
loss. Out of thousands of trees these 47 tell their 
great story—and they waited 25 years for the story 
to be told. The manager of a “unit orchard,” try¬ 
ing to sell stock in his enterprise, could grow a 
large crop of guff from this report, but when it is 
simmered down what do we learn except that a 
great expert in apple culture can make a small pro¬ 
portion of his trees yield a great income? We 
have a number of trees on our own farm which will 
this year give over $25 worth of apples apiece, but 
they have cost someone all they will bring—in work 
and worry and care. 
BREVITIES. 
Two apples a day—drive care away. 
Tiie tooth of Jack Frost on the corn will take a 
large bite. 
What will you take for your stock in Mexican rub¬ 
ber plantations? 
Here it is again, a patent wash to kill peach borers. 
We dig them out as the best way we can find. 
Hundreds of pit silos are being built in Western 
Kansas. You might say the country is being pitted 
with pit silos. 
Now Kansas farmers are working for “a pond on 
every farm” campaign. This does not meun a mud- 
hole, but a pond. 
No time now to slacken up on the lien’s feed. In a 
way she is like an asparagus plant, storing up power 
while idle to do her duty later on. 
Deposits of potash have now been found in Arizona. 
There evidently is potash as well as nitrate scattered 
through the deserts, but the problem is y<» nnd them 
in paying quantities. 
Yes, rotation of crops helps kill off fungus diseases 
by starving them out. Where melon wilt is very bad 
a few years in (iotatoes or corn would make the soil 
again fit for melons. 
The government of Argentina will only permit pota¬ 
toes to enter that country when accompanied by cer¬ 
tificates proving their freedom from wart disease, blight, 
eel-worm, potato moth, scab and dry rot. 
At law a man’s wife is the head of his home, and his 
mother, unless she own the property, is not legally the 
"boss.” Strange to say we have had a dozen questions 
covering this point. There should never »e argument 
about it. 
In our little book, “The Child.” reference is made to 
the money which school children in towns and cities pay 
for their lunch. The total amount of money spent in 
this way is surprising and much of it is practically 
wasted. It lias been estimated that school children 
in New York City spend over $1,000 each school day 
in buying lunches. Most -of this goes to peddlers who 
: 1 very poor and expensive food. 
", 
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