1910. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
426 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—After listening for three 
days to the arguments of counsel the Su¬ 
preme Court at Washington March 16 took 
under advisement the appeal of the Stand¬ 
ard Oil Company from the decree of the 
Federal Court at St. Louis ordering the 
dissolution of that corporation because of 
its violation of the Sherman anti-trust 
law. Because of its importance the court 
enlarged the time for arguments from the 
four hours usually allotted to eleven and a 
quarter hours, the time being equally di¬ 
vided between the attorneys for the Stand¬ 
ard and the Government. David T. Wat¬ 
son, of Pittsburg, for the Standard Com¬ 
pany, devoted himself largely to the legal 
side of the case, contending that the com¬ 
pany was not a violator of the anti-trust 
law and that it was never intended to 
prevent the combinations of capital which 
were necessary under modern business con¬ 
ditions. 
Two street cars were wrecked, their pas¬ 
sengers endangered and one woman was 
slightly injured at widely separated places 
in Philadelphia March 18 by bombs of high 
explosive power, supposedly made of gun¬ 
cotton. The sympathetic strike was re¬ 
garded as at an end March 2.8. when the 
leaders of the striking carmen approached 
agreement with the company, through the 
efforts of men prominent in State and local 
politics. 
Attorney-General George T. Simpson, of 
Minnesota, has decided not to accept the 
offer of the administrators of the estate of 
J. S. Kennedy, of New York, to pay $137,- 
000 in settlement of the State's claim of 
.$450,000 inheritance tax on the property 
of Mr. Kennedy in Minnesota. The legal 
department of the State has been working 
upon the matter for several months and 
knows that the value of the holdings of 
Mr. Kennedy in the Great Northern Rail¬ 
way, a Minnesota corporation, is about 
$14,000,000. This is the basis for a test 
to be made whether the estate can be 
made to pay its inheritance tax upon this 
amount, which brings the taxes up to ap¬ 
proximately $450,000. The litigation will 
test the State's inheritance tax law. inas¬ 
much as it will involve the question whether 
the State has power to reach property out¬ 
side of Minnesota. 
J. O. Mabray and 13 of his associates in 
the famous Big Store gang of swindlers 
were found guilty March 11) at Council 
Bluffs, la., of conspiracy to use the United 
States mail to defraud. There yet remain 
67 members of the gang to be tried and 
many of these will be placed on trial in 
Omaha in April. The prisoners were ac¬ 
cused of conducting a vast swindle game 
through the aid of fake prize fights, fake 
wrestling matches, fake horse races and 
oilier confidence games. Thirty-two of their 
victims testified to having lost $1,183,275 
in the deals into which they were in¬ 
veigled. The Government has the names 
of 108 additional victims, many of whom 
will be on the witness stand at the Omaha 
trials. During the trial, which lasted two 
weeks, one of the leaders testified that 
something over $5,000,000 had been se¬ 
cured on the schemes. The case against 
John It. Dobbins, who was arrested in 
New York City and charged with swin¬ 
dling V. Bellew, of Missouri, was contin¬ 
ued. Dobbins is under sentence in the 
State courts for the swindle. 
Indictments were returned March 21 at 
Chicago against the National Packing Com¬ 
pany and 10 subsidiary concerns by the 
Federal Grand Jury which has been in¬ 
vestigating for the last three months al¬ 
leged violations of the Sherman anti-trust 
law. The indictments were returned be¬ 
fore Judge Kenesaw M. • Landis. Besides 
the National Packing Company the follow¬ 
ing concerns—all branches of the National 
Packing Company—were indicted: G. H. 
Ilammond Company, Michigan; Anglo- 
American Provision Company, Illinois; 
Omaha Packing Company, Illinois; Fowler 
Packing Company, United Dressed Beef 
Company, New York; St. Louis Dressed 
Beef and Provision Company, Western 
Packing Company, Denver; Colorado Pack¬ 
ing and Provision Company, Denver; New 
York Butchers’ Dressed Meat Company, 
New York; Ilammond Packing Company, 
Illinois. Simultaneously with the announce¬ 
ment of the indictments came the filing of 
a suit by the Government seeking the dis¬ 
solution of the National Packing Company. 
The action is known as a suit in equity 
and is believed to mark the beginning of 
the end of any open combination of the 
packers under the guise of a single com¬ 
pany. 
Assemblyman Foley’s proposition to re¬ 
quire personal registration in rural dis¬ 
tricts, which has been thrashed over re¬ 
peatedly in the New Y'ork Legislature in 
recent years, was defeated again in the 
Assembly March 22, after a long debate, 
43 to 84. Five rural Democratic Assembly- 
men voted no with the Republicans. Mr. 
Foley’s idea was projected in an amend¬ 
ment to a pending constitutional amend¬ 
ment proposed by Assemblyman George A. 
Green, of Kings, to provide that absent 
Government employees be permitted to vote 
without returning home for registration. 
The Green amendment was approved, SO to 
49. In the debate on the Foley amend¬ 
ment Assemblyman Chanler taunted the 
majority with the fear of insisting on per¬ 
sonal registration throughout the State be¬ 
cause, he declared, the Republican major¬ 
ity up State would fade away if the rural 
voters did not have this discrimination as 
opposed to city residents. 
A Rock Island train was wrecked near 
Marshalltown, la., March 19, 45 persons 
being killed and 31 injured. It is believed 
that the death list may reach 60. The 
wrecked train was formed of two regular 
•trains. The leading engine left the track 
and stuck in the bank in a deep cut at the 
top of a hill while going at the speed of 
twenty-five miles an hour. The second 
engine hurled itself on top of the other, 
crushing it further into the earth. The 
sudden impact caused the Pullman sleeper 
to telescope the smoking car just behind, 
driving the sleeper clear through the car. 
The smoker in turn telescoped the women’s 
day coach. In these two cars the death 
list was large, there being 80 passengers 
in the women's coach and almost as many 
in the smoker. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—The Farmers’ 
Wholesale Company was incorporated at 
Trenton, N. J., by the Secretary of State 
March 17. It has an authorized capital 
stock of $100,000 and is to buy and sell 
on commission all kinds of farmers’ products 
and supplies. The charter also gives it 
the right to conduct abattoirs and cold 
storage plants. The incorporators are: 
James T. Zane, of Blackwood ; Harry B. 
Macklin, Calden ; Ellis Rudderow, John 
Howard Lippincott and Charles Dudley, 
Morristown ; Herbert Zane, Mount Ephraim ; 
Alfred C. Jaggard, Sliminossin; Horace 
Roberts, Moorestown ; A. L. Ritchie, River¬ 
ton ; and Joseph Barton, Marlton. 
There have been 202 judgments in favor 
of the National Department of Agriculture 
in the enforcement of the pure food law, 
according to a statement made at the De¬ 
partment March 21. The pure food act 
has been in force a little less than three 
years. Of the total suits brought so far 
the department has lost only three. The 
prosecutipns have covered everything from 
cattle food to patent medicines. One class 
of cases that were very numerous but that 
seem from the records to be decreasing in 
number are the underweight packages. 
These have included flour, canned goods, 
preserves and all sorts of package goods. 
Stephen Francisco, of Montclair, N. J., 
at a meeting of the New York milk com¬ 
mittee on March 21, introduced a resolu¬ 
tion that all changes in the price of milk 
ought to be considered by a board in which 
the producer has an equal representation. 
He is president of the National Certified 
Milk Producers’ Association. 
COST OF LIVING INQUIRY.—Govern¬ 
ment regulation and inspection of meat 
packing industries was named as one of the 
causes for the increased cost of living by 
George L. McCarthy, of New York, sec¬ 
retary of the American Meat Packers’ Asso¬ 
ciation, March 17, when he followed the 
president of the organization, Charles 
Rohe, as a witness before the Senate com¬ 
mittee that is probing the problem of high 
prices. Mr. McCarthy declared that, while 
there were more than 900 slaughtering 
establishments in the United States doing 
an interstate business at the time the meat 
inspection law went into effect, only about 
300 now have Government inspection. Over 
600 packers, he said, stopped doing an 
interstate business rather than subject 
themselves to Federal inspection and meet 
the expenses necessitated by the recon¬ 
struction of their plants according to gov¬ 
ernmental regulations and the losses in¬ 
curred through the condemnation of live 
stock which they had purchased that might 
be adjudged unfit by the inspector. Sen¬ 
ator Smoot read from a speech made by 
Mr. McCarthy at the first meeting of the 
association, held on the day the meat in¬ 
spection law went into effect, in which Mr. 
McCarthy expressed the opinion that the 
law was passed for political effect. The 
witness said that was his belief at the time 
and he still adhered to it. However, he 
said, he believed the law was a good one. 
“Our association has done everything in 
its power to support the law aud to assist 
in its enforcement,” he said. “We believe 
in it, and, if you can find any way to 
extend your law to concerns doing only a 
State business, you ought to do it. State 
laws do little or no good. It is the con¬ 
cerns that are not subject to Government 
regulation that slaughter tuberculous ani¬ 
mals, chiefly dairy cows. Statistics show 
that 10 per cent of dairy cows have tuber¬ 
culosis, and tuberculosis infection may be 
transmitted not only through meat, but 
through dairy products. Governmeut con¬ 
demnation for tuberculosis amounts to $3,- 
000,000 to $4,000,000 annually, and the 
Department of Agriculture estimates that 
there is a further loss through that disease 
of $13,000,000 every year. Do away with 
tuberculosis and there will be a saving of 
$17,000,000 annually.” 
THE ALBANY INVESTIGATION.—Supt. 
William II. Hotchkiss, of the New York 
State Insurance Department, startled the 
fire insurance world March 18 by begin¬ 
ning an investigation of the legislative rela¬ 
tions of the fire insurance companies, par¬ 
ticularly as conducted through the New 
York Board of Fire Underwriters. Befcre 
he finished for the day he had produced evi¬ 
dence that in 1901 $13,311 was spent in 
Albany in connection with the passage of a 
bill to circumvent a decision of the Court 
of Appeals relative to the taxation of the 
re-insurance reserves of fire insurance com¬ 
panies. E. It. Kennedy, member of the fire 
insurance brokerage firm of Weed & Ken¬ 
nedy, of 29 Liberty street, was the man 
who did the work for the New York Board 
of Fire Underwriters. After several hours 
of questioning he admitted that $5,000, ap¬ 
proximately, of the total sum went in con¬ 
tributions to up-State Republican politi¬ 
cians who had influence with legislators; 
that $5,000 was a contribution of gratitude 
to the Republican State Committee made 
on the advice of the late Reuben L. Fox, 
then Assistant Secretary of the committee, 
and that the balance went for miscellaneous 
disbursements, including dinners at the 
Hotel Ten Eyck and at a well-known road 
house on the outskirts of Albany. The 
guests at these dinners were not confined to 
the political leaders, but included members 
of the Legislature. One of the documents 
produced March 19 was a letter to Kennedy 
from Timothy L. Woodruff, then Lieutenant- 
Governor and now chairman of the Repub¬ 
lican State Committee, who said that the 
bill then pending to reckon unearned 
premiums as liabilities, and, therefore, not 
subject to tax would not be “unduly re¬ 
pressed.” It was passed. Odell, who had 
already written a veto, changed his mind 
and signed the bill, the State committee got 
its $5,000 and Monroe its $1,000 and Mr. 
Kennedy can't remember who got the other 
$4,000. _ 
LIME SULPHUR VS. SOLUBLEOIL. 
At most of the horticultural meetings 
some one asks this question: “What are 
the comparative merits of lime-sulphur 
and oil for spraying to kill the scale?” 
At the Virginia meeting Dr. S. W. 
Fletcher gave the following answer: 
The lime sulphur and the oil both kill 
when they hit the scale, if properly made. 
There is no great difference in effective¬ 
ness, all things considered, if the applica¬ 
tion is thorough. There is a difference, 
though, in the residuum value of sprays. 
The lime sulphur, when applied, stays on 
the branches, and it is difficult for a young 
scale to fix itself on the branch which 
has been sprayed with lime sulphur. The 
oil, on the other hand, has no such value. 
That is one of the great points of lime 
sulphur. Y'ou will notice, on peaches espe¬ 
cially, that the young scale coming out in 
May and June cannot settle on twigs 
where they are covered with lime-sulphur. 
They could if oil had been used. As to 
the ease of application, the oils are easier 
and pleasanter. The oils, however, eat 
rubber, and the lime-sulphur is very caustic 
and unpleasant to use, both for the men 
and for the horse, unless protected. I 
think there is this great difference between 
the two, if I were to compare the two for 
practical use,—that the oil is a creeping 
spray. Many of the apple growers here 
have perhaps noticed that when they used 
lime-sulphur, on old apple trees especially, 
while the large twigs and the branches 
were clean of the scale, yet there were 
young scales left on the ends of the twigs, 
under the fuzzy last year's growth, to spot 
the fruit. That is the great advantage of 
the oil spray, in that it creeps down under 
the fuzz on the end of the apple twig. So 
I have come to the conclusion that for 
spraying apples, aud especially old apples 
that are affected with scale, the oils are 
preferable because they will get (town. 1 
where the lime-sulphur will not work. On 
the other hand, for spraying peaches, or 
pears, or plums, which are smooth twig 
fruits, that would not have any value, and 
the fungicidal value of the lime-sulphur 
would more than compensate for what you 
lose the other way. In brief, then, I be¬ 
lieve that for spraying apples, if you spray 
for the scale and not for any fungicidal 
value, I would use the oil. In spraying 
peaches especially, and perhaps pears and 
plums, I would use the lime-sulpliur. 
SPRAYING NOTES FROM VIRGINIA. 
At this time we are very busy getting 
on our lime and sulphur spray. We had an 
extremely cold and snowy Winter, and we 
scarcely had a day fit for spraying until 
the first of March. Since that time we 
have had some nice weather. The com¬ 
pressed air apparatus is working fine. We 
were somewhat uneasy that the homemade 
lime and sulphur would give us trouble as 
to agitation, but so far we have had no 
trouble. We have put out about 4,000 
gallons in the last week. Another set of 
100-gallon tanks have been ordered, but 
it seems difficult to get them. With two 
sets of tanks we could keep the two men 
with the rods in the orchard all of the 
time, have one man to cook mixture and 
load, and with a boy to take out the full 
tanks and bring back the empty ones, we 
could do twice as much as with one set of 
tanks. The air compressor is run by water, 
and, as some of the orchards are quite a 
distance from the power, considerable time 
is consumed on the road. We cook the 
lime and sulphur in a large kettle, and all 
of the loading is done by gravity. While 
air tank is being pumped up to about 180 
to 200 pounds pressure, the solutions are 
run into liquid tank. It takes about 15 
minutes to load. 
This is the first season we have ever 
used any of the prepared lime and sul¬ 
phur ; it works nicely, but costs too much, 
and makes too much hauling over our mud¬ 
dy roads. We work it to advantage by 
loading with the prepared mixture the 
first time, in the morning and in this way 
there is no delay in getting to work. By 
the time the first load is out the mixture 
in kettle is ready to go into tank. As the 
trees (5,000) get older and larger, there 
seems no end to this spraying business, and 
it looks now as if we would never get 
through with the work. Our trees look 
well and have lots of bloom buds, but this 
is not the year for a crop. We have more 
or less scale, but that is not so difficult to 
keep down as the scab and bitter rot. Last 
season we succeeded in burning some of 
the fruit with the Bordeaux Mixture, and 
this year we expect to use the diluted pre¬ 
pared lime and sulphur, or the self-boiled. 
Last season we made an attempt at box¬ 
packing. We had wraps printed with the 
name and address. Some of the boxes sold 
for $3.00 on the New York market. We 
expect to box some more next season if 
there is any suitable fruit. As a side line 
this Winter we have been cutting scions 
for grafting; shipped a nursery to-day 
4,400 switches. There is a great demand 
for nursery stock in .this State ; indeed you 
ctRi scarcely get first-class trees at any 
price. s. s. guerrant, * 
Brest. Virginia Horticultural Society. 
DECAYED WOOD FOR FERTILIZER. 
What would be the best use to make of 
decayed wood? I have many loads of this 
on the place; old logs so far decayed that 
they are as fine as powder. Last year I 
put about 20 loads on four acres of po¬ 
tatoes, but saw no results for my labor. 
No doubt, on account of the long drought. 
These four acres were seeded to wheat last 
Fall, and the stand seems very good. 
Itingtown, Pa. * e. r. L. 
The best use we have found for such 
waste is for mulching around trees or bush 
fruits. It is apt to be sour. It could be 
used in the stable or in the manure, but 
mulching will make it useful. 
The Milk Situation. —Milk contract 
time has come again, and here we are sell¬ 
ing at an average price of a trifle less than 
three cents a quart, with cows, feed and 
labor as high as ever. It is discouraging. 
We are so careful to have stables clean 
and airy. We brush and card cows and 
clip their hind quarters, and our milk 
stands 4 per cent and a little over, and 
when strained at the station only a few 
cow hairs appeared on the strainer cloth, 
and yet that milk goes in with the rest to 
help out that milk that comes from some 
filthy stable aud stands low. People com¬ 
ing into our stables say, “How clean, but 
what’s, the use?” It is enough to make 
one desperate; labor, day in and day out, 
aud a bare living in return. Will farmers 
never get together? If cooperation has 
been the salvation of apple and fruit grow¬ 
ers, why do dairy farmers hesitate? And 
with eggs just as with milk. Here are 
our city cousins longing for fresh eggs and 
paying high prices for indifferent ones, 
while I have a flock of hens giving me 
four dozen a day, aud there are others 
right near doing just as well, and eggs at 
the stores 20 and 25 cents in trade. I 
wish city people would awake and pay us 
direct for fresh eggs and get their money’s 
worth. Some of them have eaten storage 
aud stale eggs so long they don’t know what 
fresh eggs are. Sometimes I think I will 
not try to have so many hens, and then 
I think mayhe things will change. There 
is no use asking farmers to work harder 
and produce more till they can see better 
prices for what they now have to sell. We 
can't fertilize our farms on no capital, and 
we present the middlemen with plenty now 
without adding to their wealth, at the 
expense of extra labor and longer hours. 
Dutchess Co., N. Y. ir. n. h. 
All Summer crops were a a failure in 
this section last year on account of drought; 
grain was fairly good, also hay. Prices as 
follows: Corn and potatoes, 75 cents; 
oats, 65; wheat, $1.20; rye, 85: clover 
seed, about $9 ; hay from $18 to $25 ; pork, 
14 cents; beef, five to seven; eggs, 30, and 
butter, 32. o. g. r. 
Line Mountain, Pa. 
