March 12, 
319 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl Street, Hew Pork. 
Herbert W. Colli ngwood. President and Editor, 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, equal to 
8 s. Gd., or 8*12 marks, or 10*2 francs. Remit in money order, 
express order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates 50 cents per agate line—7 words. Discount for time 
orders. 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 
responsible person. But to make doubly sure we will make good any 
loss to paid subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler 
advertising in ourcolumns, and any such swindler will be publicly ex¬ 
posed. We protect suberibers against rogues, but we do not guarantee 
to adjust trifling differences between subscribers and honest, respon¬ 
sible 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-Yorker when 
writing the advertiser. 
TEN WEEKS FOR 10 CENTS. 
In order to introduce The R. N.-Y. to progressive, 
intelligent farmers who do not now take it, we send it. 
10 weeks for 10 cents for strictly introductory pur¬ 
poses. f We depend on our old friends to make this 
known to neighbors and friends. 
★ 
Well, gentlemen, there is one way to get $1.10 of 
the consumer’s dollar, and that is to eat the best of 
our produce at home. 
We are content to let the New York Senate settle 
the alleged bribery case after hearing the evidence. 
Should there be any whitewash applied to either ac¬ 
cuser or accused, the people will soon take it oil. 
One thing must be evident to all. The politician is a 
failure as a legislator, while the “business man” seems 
to buy what he wants. \\ hy not try a few more 
farmers? In the last Legislature of 201 members there 
were only 20 men who gave farming as even part of 
their occupation. There were 91 lawyers and actually 
more real estate and insurance men than genuine 
farmers! 
* 
Mr. Graff tells us on page 298 how farmers are 
learning wisdom about dealing with fakers. One of 
our Maryland subscribers received that famous propo¬ 
sition from the “Glpbe Association.” This is the way 
he bit at it. If there were more like him most of 
those rogues would find the price of living so high 
they would have to go to work. 
Dear Sir; Your card received, offering $S0 per month 
and expenses to distribute circulars, and how you can 
sell 100 pounds of sugar for $1.75, the same you pay 
$6 for elsewhere. I think I can answer how you do it: 
If you can sell it at that price, you surely must steal it. 
You are too cheap. I cannot trust you, unless you send 
on your sugar, which is the best way to prove it. I 
will pay the freight. If it is as you say, you get your 
money. I think that is fair. It is a poor rule that don’t 
work two ways. H - M - 
* 
Growers who live where late frosts are likely to 
occur should study the article on page 299. The 
coal and oil pots have saved many a Western orchard 
when used in time. The Missouri Board of Agri¬ 
culture has figured out the following danger point 
for peaches. When the temperature drops to those 
points the oil pots •should be lighted: 
Buds appreciably swollen : zero. Buds showing pink, 15 
above zero. Buds almost open. 25 above zero. Flowers 
newly opened, 26 above zero. Petals beginning to fall. 28 
above zero. Petals off. 30 above zero. Shucks (calyx 
tubes) beginning to fall off the young peaches, 32 degrees 
is the danger point. 
The same rule will apply for apples. This frost 
fighting is actually being done in large areas and in 
a practical way. Drainage gives man dominion over 
the soil, irrigation permits him to command the rain 
and the oil or coal pot lets him defy Jack Frost. 
On page 194. J. D. G., of Indiana, seems to want to 
put in a few licks for the express companies and their 
ilk. It does look to an inhabitant of the Ozarks as 
if the whole outfit at Washington, from President Taft 
down, were trying to discredit the Post Office Depart¬ 
ment. How long could an individual or a corporation 
do business with 40.000 mail wagons, losing $40,000 a day, 
and how long would it take a corporation to hustle for 
more freight to carry in -those wagons? I once asked a 
Congressman why he was opposed to parcels post. His 
reply was that it would destroy our towns and small 
cities. If that would hold good. Europe must be without 
any towns now, for they have enjoyed the blessings of a 
parcels post for. lo, these many years. Let us keep after 
them until we get it. H - H - 
Neosho, Mo. 
We have rarely seen the case put better in a few 
words. This “inhabitant of the Ozarks” knows just 
what he is talking about. Do you. as a country 
dweller, want any better argument than that? Keep 
after them? Well rather! We haven’t really begun 
to chase them yet! 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
High prices for any farm product ought to encour¬ 
age production—if the producers could be sure of 
getting a fair share of the dollar. Take the price 
of meat. One reason for the high prices is said to be 
a short supply. This is caused in part by farmers in 
the Middle West who dropped stock feeding and went 
to growing grain. They did this because the packers 
and the railroads took about all the profits. They 
can make more money for the next few years raising 
and selling grain. In theory this ought to give other 
sections a new chance to make meat, bor instance, 
in the Colorado plains there are 25,000,000 acres of dry 
land where little is grown. Prof. Cottrell shows 
that Milo maize will grow in this dry climate and 
make good crops of grain and fodder. This with 
Alfalfa, another “dry crop,” wiH turn these unused 
lands into a great beef-fattening section. In the East, 
too, on many of the old farms, and on present dairy 
farms, corn and Alfalfa would make beef production 
profitable. There are great possibilities in developing 
new crops to revive old industries, but first of all 
a farmer must know that he is to receive a fair share 
of the price of what he sells. 
* 
Saturday, March 12 
“And it came to pass, when the people heard the 
sound of the trumpet and the people shouted with a 
great shout, that the wall fell flat and the people went 
straight up into the city .'’—Joshua vi :20. 
Sacred history is filled with occasions when great 
things were done to strengthen the faith of the people. 
The walls of Jericho were strong and well manned. 
In an ordinary siege the Hebrew army would have 
fared hard. Its soldiers were in a strange country and 
had before them the heart-breaking task given to 
nation builders. It was necessary that they should 
realize that a greater than human power was with 
them. You will observe that all these great acts were 
accomplished through the common things which all 
men may do, strengthened and glorified by a sublime 
faith. We take this old story of the fall of Jericho 
for a text in making the last appeal for those letters 
to Congressmen and Senators. To the average farmer 
it appears that Congress is surrounded by a wall 
stronger than that which protected the mocking hosts 
of Jericho. Yet your Congressman does not sit upon 
a throne, but upon a pile of votes which you and 
your neighbors have built up. The political Jericho 
wall is built upon bluff and the insolent belief that 
you and others like you lack the moral and political 
courage ever to make independent use of your vote. 
We have tried to give you a chance to “shout with 
a great shout” by all writing together before the walls 
of the political Jericho. Do not be deceived by those 
who say “you cannot do anything.” 1 he time to 
make these walls tremble is right nozv, when Congress¬ 
men must soon face renomination and election. Have 
faith in the power of common things, and help do 
great things with your pen. 
* 
One of the most discouraging things connected with 
this “Wonderberry” campaign is to find the advertise¬ 
ment in 
THE OUTLOOK, New York 
This dignified magazine is read by thousands of 
country people, and presumes to lay down in a man¬ 
lier usually didactic and often pompous high moral 
ideas of living. We can imagine the feelings of the 
editors when the true character of this advertising is 
made known to them. We may illustrate by a fair 
comparison. Suppose some one came to The Out¬ 
look” with a well-bound volume of poems. It is 
praised as “the finest and best work” of a well-known 
author, and is said to be “endorsed ’ by the librarian 
of the Boston Public Library. The editors of "The 
Outlook” never look into this volume at all, but accept 
the copy and the money for the advertisement without 
investigation. After advertising it they find that the 
well-bound volume is practically a reprint of some 
vulgar old book rejected by every reputable bookseller 
and librarian in the country. They find that all there 
was to the .famous “endorsement” was that some 
man connected with the library said the book was 
“strongly bound.” Now, such a discovery would “jar” 
us, and we assume the same word, put in more dig¬ 
nified language, would describe the feelings of able 
literary critics. Yet that is exactly what this Wonder- 
berry advertising means. It contains the lying state¬ 
ment that E. S. Miller is “director of the New York 
Experiment Station.” Mr. Miller is not the director, 
and we proved last week that this title was used 
without his consent. This advertisement puts the 
New York Station in a false position for. as we have 
shown again and again the Wonderberry is repudiated 
by the Department of Agriculture and government 
horticulturists. It has also been repudiated by every 
seedsman in the country except Mr. Childs and a few 
small concerns. The analogy between the book and 
the Wonderberry is exact, and we may leave imagina¬ 
tion to picture the feelings of the dignified Outlook. 
The Montana Horticulturists at their recent meet¬ 
ing carried the banquet idea a little further along. 
There was a prize of $10 for the best and largest 
basket of food. The women competed and they served 
the banquet from what they brought. The towns¬ 
people were invited in and hundreds came and were 
fed. No use talking, this banquet idea at a fruit 
meeting is a fine thing. If you want to get on good 
terms with your neighbor—eat apples with him. 
* 
On the first page is a plain statement of the out¬ 
rageous treatment to which some New York dairy¬ 
men have been subjected by inspectors working for 
the New York Board of Health. Here are only 
two instances of a great many. In one reported case 
an inspector called while the farmer was away. His 
wife properly refused to gp to the barn with him, and 
he went off and advised that the milk from that farm 
be rejected! Next week, in another article, we shall 
show what it costs to attempt to follow out the Board 
of Health regulations. In many cases this system of 
inspection is an outrage and a farce, and we do not 
believe it will stand the test of law. We are glad 
Mr. Bellows and Mr. White brought suit to see 
whether their milk can be rejected in this arbitrary 
manner. They have good cases which must be car¬ 
ried through. 
* 
Last Fall, in discussing the question of railroad 
fires, we gave the rule adopted by local courts in 
New Jersey. When -suit was brought by a citizen to 
recover damages from fires starting from locomotive 
sparks the railroad companies offered evidence to 
show that the screens in the smoke stack were properly 
inspected. In such event the local court usually threw 
the case out of court as “proper inspection” was 
called a full defense. The Court of Errors and Ap¬ 
peals has now decided that such evidence may be 
overcome by proving either of the following: 
1. That fire was caused by a particular engine. 
2. That other fires were caused by a particular engine. 
3. That other fires were caused by other engines about 
the time of the fire in question. 
4. That sparks of size too large to be passed through 
a proper screen were thrown from engine at or about the 
time of fire in question. 
The effect of this will be excellent. If the facts 
here stated can be proved the case can be put past 
the judge and reach the jury. We believe the screen 
inspection law should be repealed, but this decision 
will greatly help New Jersey farmers in adjusting fire 
claims. 
* 
Quite a number of people have asked us about the 
new law covering berry baskets. Some of them have 
large numbers of these baskets on hand left over 
from last year. They are now classed as “short” under 
the new law. What can be done with them? This 
new law is to be enforced by the Superintendent of 
Weights and Measures, and some of his deputies 
have been very active of late. In reply to our re¬ 
quest for information, Dr. Fritz Reichmann, the 
Superintendent, says: 
This law was passed in the Spring of 1909, and did 
not go into effect until the first of October, in order to 
give those who had short baskets an opportunity to dis¬ 
pose of them. This office will make every effort to en¬ 
force the present law, which applies to small fruit. A 
person who has short baskets can use them for \aiious 
purposes, especially for pansy boxes and plant boxes, or 
for the sale of other commodities than small fruit, but 
if used for small fruit or sold for the use of small fruit, 
the law strictly applies, and there is no reason why they 
should he used. The enclosed circular was sent out to as 
many commission merchants as we could get the addresses 
of, to manufacturers of berry boxes and to a number of 
growers, and besides was officially published in every 
county of the State. As stated above, I will make every 
effort to see that the law is complied with. 
The laws regulating “short” packages have never 
been heretofore enforced in this market there being 
no one to enforce them. Dealers have recognized such 
packages and simply paid less for them than for the 
standards. We doubt if Dr. Reichmann realizes yet 
the size of the job he has undertaken during the height 
of the berry season. 
BREVITIES. 
Do not, oh, do not, sow Crimson clover with oats. 
Be sure to read Mr. Wing’s article on Sweet clover, 
page 332, 
There is reported a great demand for Sweet clovei seed 
this year. Marty dealers are sold out already. 
If as Mr. Black says on page 301, there is not now 
a single tree of the original Red Cheek Melocoton in any 
peach nursery, is there any valid reason why it should 
ever be catalogued? 
We get all sorts of questions—one being, "How do peo¬ 
ple, when up in a balloon, heat food or liquid? V* o under¬ 
stand it is carried in metal pails and packed in quick¬ 
lime. Water is put on the lime and the heat warms the 
food ! 
The Indiana Station reports that this season s seed 
corn is far below the average in germinating power. The 
peculiar season last Fall is responsible for it. Advice is 
to test a few kernels from each ear selected for seed. 
Sprout them in a piece of damp paper. 
