1112 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country anil Suburban Homes 
" Established isso 
Fnblishod weekly by the Rural Publishing Company. 333 Host 30th Street, Now York 
Hekbkrt \V. Comjngwood, President and Editor. 
John .1. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
YVji. F. Dii. lon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Royle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. 02.01. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8K marks, or 10J4 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” 
YVe 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 in our 
columns, and any such swindler will be publicly exposed, Y\e protect sub¬ 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trilling dilferences 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither w ill we be 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of th complaint must lie sent, to us w ithin one month of the time or 
the transaction, and you must have mentioned The Rural New-Yorker 
A vhen writing: the advertiser. _^ 
We favor a registry of merit for grade cows which 
give a good performance under a guaranteed test. 
Such cows deserve recognition. In a way they are 
even more a credit to a breed than the purebred 
specimens. For example, suppose a Jersey grade 
cow, daughter of a purebred bull and a common cow, 
makes a high test of milk or butter. Slie stands as 
the most practical argument possible for the value 
of Jersey blood in producing a business dairy herd. 
The fact that the Jersey blood predominated over 
the blood of the common cow and produced this fine 
animal is a better argument with a plain dairyman 
than if both ancestors were purebred. Such a man 
cannot afford the purebred cows. He lias the com¬ 
mon cows, and a liigb-testing grade eow prompts 
him to buy a purebred bull. The registry for supe¬ 
rior grade cows is wise, but the father of these grade 
coyvs should also be i*ecognized. Here is a breeder's 
suggestion. 
The thing to do in the matter of registering grades 
is to give the registered bulls that get daughters of 
advanced registry quality, advanced registry. This 
keeps the breed pure; but restores to the valuable sire 
the standing he now loses in the grade herd. The State 
cattle clubs could well undertake the records of the 
grades sired by registered bulls. This would give a 
great impetus to the ownership of purebred bulls. 
AVe think this is a good suggestion. If certain 
bulls were successful in producing these superior 
grade daughters it would be safe to assume that 
their families were particularly adapted to such 
breeding. We must always remember that the grade 
cow is the business dairy animal, and every superior 
grade is a standing argument for a pure-blood sire. 
* 
The Wall Street Journal recently contained the 
following: 
Instead of beseeching farmers to raise more cattle 
(to save their own business), packers might try the 
effect of a distribution of a part of their surplus, in the 
way of better prices. 
The beef packers have for some months been 
blaming the farmers for the high cost of beef. Now 
they are begging these farmers to raise more cattle 
—so as to reduce the price for live animals and thus 
maintain the 35-cent dollar. AA'e call it a good thing 
Yvlien AA r all Street begins to realize what this 35-cent 
dollar means. Every dollar which flows through 
Wall Street came originally either directly or indi¬ 
rectly out of the soil. Put Wall Street off the map 
and after a readjustment of financial operations the 
Nation would still go on in prosperity. Shut off the 
farms and Wall Street, with all its wealth, would 
beg like the merest mendicant for food! And A\ r all 
Street evidently begins to see another tiling. Its 
railroads and great commercial enterprises find the 
germ of their existence in the hands which pick the 
cotton or fruit, milk the cows or work the grain and 
grass on lonely farms. Many Wall Street men own 
farms, and when they balance the farm business as 
they do their other investments they find this 35- 
cent dollar staring at them. Then they realize that 
the life of their stocks and bonds must depend on 
the share of the consumer’s dollar which the farmer 
receives. It is in the country, on the farms, that the 
real trade necessities are to be found—rather than 
in town or city. The farmhouse and those who live 
in it have hundreds of requirements—running from 
paint to pianos. Practically all of them will be 
bought, if at all, out of the 35-cent dollar. Make 
this a 45-cent dollar and close to one billion dollars 
will be put into circulation for country people to use 
in buying necessities or comforts. Now Wall Street 
is beginning to find out that the spending of this 
great sum of money would do more than anything 
else to increase the trade which would benefit honest 
industrial securities. This is but one illustration of 
the way this 35-cent dollar affects the Nation’s 
business. 
THIS RURAL NEW-YORKER 
It looks as though Mr. Stubenraucli, in bis article 
on page 1102, was getting down close to the cradle 
in which some of these “drone trees” are started. 
He would be a strange mau wlio denied that there 
are now in every orchard a proportion of inferior 
trees. They may grow to large size, but they are 
drones so far as production goes. A study of any 
fair-sized orchard will prove this statement after 
discounting injury from borers, scale, girdling or 
similar unnatural causes. Prof. Shamel hopes to 
get rid of these drones by making sure that our buds 
are from trees which naturally produce superior 
fruit. AVe think such naturally superior buds will 
help cut out the drones. It does not follow that 
buds from all strong and productive trees will do 
this. A tree might owe its superiority to some nat¬ 
ural cause, like deep moist ground or extra manur¬ 
ing. Buds from such a tree could not carry any 
superiority caused by location or fertilizing. They 
can only carry such superiority as is natural to the 
tree. Yet this bud question is not all, for if the stock 
or root is grown from an inferior or half-developed 
seed it is not likely to produce a superior tree any 
more than a dwarf root will produce a standard 
apple or pear. 
* 
Thousands of school teachers have married 
farmers. They make the finest of wives and usually 
carry the order and the authority of the school¬ 
room into their household. Some of them are not 
very strong, and not well fitted for the harder farm 
work. They could care for one or several children 
besides their own, and do it well. The work would 
be congenial and useful. The State is pouring out 
millions of dollars to provide for orphan or aban¬ 
doned children. Private charity gives millions more, 
yet a large share of this is lost because the children 
for whom it is spent lack home influence and indi- 
vidual ’training. Our reform schools and semi-public 
“homes” do not turn out children, but rather make 
little machines. Now if a good share of this money 
could be spent in sending small groups of these 
children to these farm school teachers there would 
be a far better investment of the funds. AVe would 
pay these women well, and let them care for the 
little ones. The cost to the State would be less in 
money, while the gain in citizenship would be be¬ 
yond computation, and it would provide these farm¬ 
ers’ wives with a cash income far greater than they 
can earn by physical labor. There are well-to-do 
women who would like to help the children. How 
could they do better than to support the little ones 
iu the family of one of these school teachers? 
* 
Last week we referred to the case of John Camp- 
man of Passaic, N. ,T., who shot and killed a chicken 
thief. This young man is in great distress. He is 
of good family and reputation—about the last per¬ 
son to think of committing murder.' The mother 
and two boys were roused at night to find two men 
prowling about. John fired one shot from a gun 
at random into the air. One man climbed the fence 
—tlie other seemed to run behind a building. The 
boy then made the mistake of firing again—this time 
on a level—and killed the man. There had been a 
number of thieves about recently, and, we under¬ 
stand, other random shots have been fired. John 
Campman is held on the charge of murder. Under 
the law a man is justified in shooting a thief or 
burglar in self-defence, but lie must prove that he 
was iu actual danger, or felt that he was, in order 
to justify such a killing. In this case the thief was 
probably trying to escape and had little thought of 
fighting. This boy must have a fair trial and ade¬ 
quate defence. The poultry organizations should 
take charge of the case and see that it is properly 
handled. Dr. Gilbert Johnson, of Paterson, N. J., 
is secretary of the local poultry association, and we 
urge all interested poultrymen to communicate with 
him. The It. N.-Y. is to help in this case. 
What shall we do in the case of these night prowl¬ 
ers? That becomes a hard problem—especially to 
feeble men or to women who are in the poultry 
business. Personally we should shoot only as a last, 
inevitable resort. No doubt many will justify shoot¬ 
ing to kill, but Yve knew of a case Yvhere a deaf man 
and another where a sleep walker were shot dead 
because they did not answer when challenged “Speak 
or I'll fire!" The risk of taking human life is too 
gmit. A\ T e think this correspondent has a better way: 
AA'e would never shoot except as a last resort—then 
with salt instead of shot and aiming straight up in the 
air. The best antidote for chicken thieves is a good 
Airedale dog. AA'e have one whose relatives went hunt¬ 
ing with Roosevelt in Africa, and she gets the prowlers 
every time. 
That dog’s relatives were surely in good hunting 
company. AA'e should consider Airedale teeth more 
effective and safer than buckshot. 
October 11, 
In putting up barrelled apples for market be sure 
they are packed tightly enough to avoid going slack 
on the way. Thousands of dollars are lost every 
year because of this defect. The apples rattle about, 
hitting each other and the sides of the barrel, so 
that from one-half to two-thirds have bad bruises, 
and the whole barrel lias to be sold at the price of 
Yvindfalls. Shaking dOYvn the barrel sufficiently on 
a hard surface will prevent this. If packing in the 
field have a plank at hand to shake on, as the ground 
is not hard enough, and do plenty of shaking. 
* 
We are deeply interested in anything which will 
put the consumer in closer touch Yvith the producer. 
There are dozens of ways of getting past the middle¬ 
man. Let the consumer have the floor and tell his 
story: 
AAYiile taking a little motor trip here on the “island” 
yesterday I saw an idea being Yvorked out that struck 
me as a good one. Iu front of a farmhouse, quite near 
the road, so it could be seen readily by autoists, was 
a little fruit and vegetable stand. Here is a list of 
the things on sale: Bakhvin apples, a good SYveet 
apple for baking (I could not name the kind), grapes, 
pears, cucumbers, beets, Lima beans, tomatoes. The 
apples Yvere 40 cents a 14-quart basket, and the Bart¬ 
lett pears 50 cents. Other things were in proportion, 
judging from prices here at the stores and on peddlers' 
wagons. AA'e made some purchases, stowed the stuff in 
the car and resumed our ride rather proud of the fact 
that we had cheated the middleman out of having any 
share at all in the money Yve paid for those goods. 
AA’hy not more of this sort of thing, all around New 
York and all around every town of any size, wherever 
people motor to any extent? The woman who Yvaited 
on us reported that she oYved the idea to her children, 
and that she had done business away beyond wlmt she 
expected to do when she began. s. Y. 
Why not, indeed? Our experience is that a sign 
in front of the farm or a display of the goods near 
a public highway will surely attract trade. It cer¬ 
tainly has done so for us. We must not expect the 
consumer to make all the advances. Go after him. 
We have heard farmers say that it is like a peddler’s 
business to put up a sign. We notice that great 
lawyers or doctors or even ministers use various 
kinds of ink to let people know what they have to 
offer. Why not farmers? 
* 
Last Spring Yve farmers bought seed oats from our 
local dealer. When they came up we did not have half 
a stand of oats. On examining the seed in the ground 
1 find that they never sprouted. Before our oats had 
fully headed out some of our fields Yvere so yellow Yvitli 
wild mustard that we could not see the oats. The 
result was that some of us had a very poor crop of 
oats. The question has been asked whether the farm¬ 
ers can come back on the local dealers for damages? The 
seed Yvas recommended as No. 1 oats. farmer. 
New York. 
A'ery likely these oats were “sulphured”; that is. 
treated Yvith sulphur fumes to brighten their color. 
This is often done when the grain has been discol¬ 
ored by wetting. The process often kills the seed 
germ, and such oats never should be sold as seed. 
Poultry keepers who use “sprouted oats” for green 
food usually find that the sulphured grain is dead. 
Can you find any of the original seed which you can 
identify? If so keep it for testing. If you can prove 
that this dealer guaranteed or recommended the 
oats as good seed and you can prove, as seems 
likely, that the seed was “dead,” you will certainly 
have a case. As for the mustard seed, tlie dealer or 
the seedsman yvIio supplied him will have to make 
good if you can prove that the mustard was mixed 
Yvith the oats. Be careful and get full proof of 
this. There have been cases of this sort Yvhicli failed 
because the farmers under cross-questioning could 
not be positive that tlie mustard came in the oats, 
and in no other way. Be sure of your facts and 
settle out of court if you can. Your mistake was in 
not sending saihples of the seed to (he experiment 
station and to AA'asliington. Tlie seed testers there 
would have found the weed seed and the dead oats, 
and you could have made the dealer take them back. 
BREVITIES. 
AA'hy not handle a young Alfalfa crop—a little feeble 
—like a strawberry bed, and give it a mulch of stable 
manure? 
AA'e should begin to feed the dry corn fodder early 
this year. It never contains more nourishment than 
during November. 
AVno can tell us Yvhy the Post Office Department 
should charge so much more for carrying potatoes as 
seed than for potatoes as food? 
The University of AViseonsin has received $1,000 to 
iiid in the search for back files of American papers. 
The true record of history is found iu printer’s ink. 
There will he plenty of beef when you can convince 
farmers that there is real profit in feeding beef cattle. 
The packers think it is the farmer’s duty to make more 
beef. Many of us think it is the manufacturer’s duty 
to make more rubber boots and thus reduce the price! 
Female immigration from Great Britain to Australia 
is being tried. A sample “shipment” of 20 widows with 
one child and 20 Yvaiters Yvill be made. “These widows 
must not be over 35 years, must be able to produce 
marriage certificate, evidence of their husband’s death, 
good personal references, and a medical certificate ot 
sound health.” 
