6«i2 
THE RURAIs NEW-YORKER 
give us good service, and reasonable rates generally, 
and the express companies also reach most central 
points with their collection and delivery system, and 
so facilitate our lighter traffic and that requiring 
dispatch; though their rates might be much lower. 
Fresh vegetables that we gather early in the morning 
can from our part of the State be sent by express 
to reach Boston customers by nine or ten o’clock. 
Should we break a farm machine in the morning, we 
can send in by express (or go to the city by trolley) 
to get the needed part, and be at work with it 
again in the afternoon. The main roads in our sec¬ 
tion are largely macadam, and the less used highways 
graveled and kept well, so that teaming and driving 
are facilitated in every direction between our larger 
and smaller cities, numbering about 25, and their 
closely surrounding towns. In Boston the sale of 
produce is made from teams, coming over these good 
highways, often for long distances, to Quincy Market, 
where they are packed solidly in the nearby streets 
and sales of produce made from them direct—if not 
left with commission houses to be disposed of. In 
other cities, sales are made at the different markets 
and stores, or for small trade direct to the families, 
and our conditions favor a large amount of direct 
dealing of to is sort between producer and consumer, 
to the advantage of both. Thousands of cars of stable 
manure are sent out from Boston annually all over 
our district (bringing to our farms the fertility taken 
from the Western prairies) the cost upon the land 
ranging from $5 to $6 per cord, and chemical fer¬ 
tilizers are delivered to our stations at from $1 to $3 
per ton more than their cost at tidewater. With 
intensively cultivated land near the cities, and here 
and there where high farming is profitable, still about 
us and generally through our farther districts is 
considerable wooded land. This gives Winter business 
in handling fuel and lumber, and is evidence that our 
population can be still further increased and our 
farming extended by the clearing up of this forest 
territory. To show the blending of things of city and 
country about us (and it is this blending that 
gives us our chief advantage in my view) I will 
instance this: Our village has most modern benefits, 
fine public buildings, town water, street lighting, etc., 
yet, a mile away a 50-acre blueberry swamp last 
Summer yielded scores of bushels of berries, many 
coming on the electric cars that ran alongside to 
spend the day gathering them. Groups of wood- 
choppers in Winter used these same cars to go to 
and front their work wood-cutting here. True, our 
smooth, level fields here in Massachusetts are not 
often of large extent. Here other sections have their 
advantage over ours, but we have much soil practi¬ 
cally as good as there is for crops, when fair quan¬ 
tities of fertilizer is used, and poorer ground can be 
made good by right handling, or put to uses that 
favor its lighter character. True also, we have to 
use fertilizers in liberal quantities on our ground 
generally, but moisture seldom fails to be provided 
by nature there, rather than by the hand of man, as in 
the Far West irrigation country. In the mid-summer 
season, the prices of many of our vegetable and fruit 
products will run low in market, and our four 
counties surrounding the metropolis will in a sense, 
be “bigger than Boston,” but for an average the price 
realized here for products of the farm (especially fancy 
grades) are the highest in the country, and our best 
gardeners plan their crops so as to avoid seasons of 
over-supply. Seasons, yields, and prices vary here, 
as in all farming sections, and we will not claim that 
all our farmers become wealthy; that all, even are 
prosperous, but we have none who farm with judg¬ 
ment and industry, and fail, and there are thousands 
who realize a fine success, who have modern homes 
of the good New England type, liberal bank accounts, 
who educate their children broadly, add recreation 
and culture to their own industry and thrift, and lead 
altogether as full and independent and happy a life 
as the world can show. e. f. dickinson. 
R. N.-Y.—The two pictures show typical farm homes 
within the district descr'bed by Mr. Dickinson. 
A HUMBLE FARMER’S NOTE. 
My wife and I are trying to get a living out of 
farming. With sickness occurring at an inopportune 
time, and debt to start on, we find ourselves about 
$300 worse off than nothing, and that after having 
spent my entire life on the farm except perhaps 18 
months spent at business college and working for a 
big insurance company. I think I know considerable 
about farming, have a “hand-shaking” acquaintance 
with most crops grown in this latitude, but circum¬ 
stances will transpire to set at naught all knowledge 
at times, and I know enough about farming to know 
that I have not all knowledge of the subject, and I 
doubt if there is one person in the world who has. I 
know this; I had 70 bushels of fine Prizetaker onions 
one time, and my home merchant would not offer more 
than he could buy common red onions for on the 
Buffalo market, 50 miles distant, and I must deliver 
mine at his door. This Fall I was selling butter at 
32 cents per pound, when suddenly I found no de¬ 
mand. The cheese factories had closed, some butter 
was on the market at 30 cents, but oleo had taken 
the town. Only one merchant in the bunch stood out 
and refused to handle it; may God bless and prosper him. 
Occasionally a very cutting communication appears 
in our local papers about sending money away to 
catalogue houses for goods “your home merchants 
could duplicate for the same (?) or less (?) money, 
and thus keep the money in your home town.” Could! 
Would he? Does he produce the wealth, or only 
centralize it? I think I like my home town as well 
as any merchant that ever moved into it (I was 
born here and here I am), and then out—by the way, 
did he -leave his wealth behind? If I sell my farm 
to an outsider and move out, how much wealth do 
I remove from the town after my debts are paid? 
It has always required about as much skill to be a 
good farmer as to be a good doctor, and it’s getting 
worse, but give me farming, if only I had a ready 
market near. a. p. f. 
THE PARCELS POST IN GERMANY. 
Consul-general R. P. Skinner, of Hamburg, Ger¬ 
many, gives the following facts about the German 
parcels-post. What a commentary this is upon the 
American hold-up! 
“In all European countries parcels have been handled 
A YEAR’S GROWTH OF CATALPA. Fig. 238. 
by post for so long a time that no arguments for or 
against this service, such as one hears in the United 
States, are ever raised. If it should be proposed 
in Germany to abolish the parcels post (a most un¬ 
thinkable proposition) loud complaint would, no 
doubt, be heard immediately from the people of the 
small towns and the farming population, who ship 
to the cities their butter, eggs, vegetables, and flow¬ 
ers to actual consumers, thus competing directly 
with the retail provisioning establishments of every 
city. Thousands of Hamburg families probably re¬ 
ceive their daily pat of fresh butter from the parcels 
postman, whose existence renders it possible for the 
farmer in Mecklenburg to visit the city once a year 
for finding customers, returning to his home with the 
knowledge that his trade will be served just as 
conscientiously as though he were located in the heart 
of Hamburg. 
“The rates charged by the German Government 
for the shipment of parcels within its own territory 
and to Austria, which have been effective since 1873, 
vary according to the length of the haul. In France 
an unvarying rate is charged, whether the parcel be 
transported one mile or 600 miles. Within the limits 
of Germany and Austria the rate charged for trans¬ 
porting a parcel not exceeding five kilos (11.02 
pounds) in weight a distance of 75 kilometers (46.6 
miles), which constitutes Zone I. is 25 pfennigs 
($0,059). Above the distance named the rate for 
the first five kilos is 50 pfennigs ($0,119). When 
parcels exceed five kilos in weight, the original 
charge for the first five kilos increases for each addi¬ 
tional kilo according to the following scale. 
Added cost per 
Distances. kilo. 
Zones. Kilometers. Miles. Pfennigs. Cents. 
I 
Up to 74.2_ 
5 
1.2 
11 
74.2 (o 148.4. . . 
... .46.1 to 92.21 . 
10 
2.4 
III 
148.4 to 371 . ... 
. . .92.21 to 230.52 . -* 
20 
4.8 
IV 
371 to 742. 
30 
7.1 
V 
742 to 1.113_ 
40 
9.5 
VI 
Over 1.113. 
50 
11.9 
“The first German post was established in 1615 
between Vienna and Brussels. The first mention 
the writer finds in regard to parcels goes back to 
1782, when postmasters were required not to accept 
packages in localities in which contagious diseases 
May 21, 
prevailed, suggesting that they must have been trans¬ 
ported during a long time prior to the year named. 
The business has continued to increase until it has 
reached enormous proportions. The most recent 
available statistics are as follows: 
Parcels with¬ 
out declared Parcels with declared value 
value. (including letters). 
Total 
Total 
Total Value per 
Year. 
number. 
number. 
value. 
capita. 
1903.... 
197,500.000 
1 2.50! .000 
$4,367,300,000 
$74.49 
1904.... 
205.400,000 
12,484.000 
3.333.028.000 
72.S3 
1905.... 
213,300.000 
12,552.000 
4,386,340.000 
72259 
1906.... 
220,700.000 
12.914,000 
4.489.870.000 
73.30 
1907.... 
22S,000,000 
13,179,000 
4,962,300.000 
79.73 
THE COST OF A CROP. 
No. 7—An Ohio Oat Crop. 
Relative to the cost of production I send you actual 
cost of producing oa'ts in 1909 on Maple Creek farm. 
The field contained 30 acres, and was in potatoes the 
year before. It was not plowed but fitted by thorough 
disking. The figures are accurate and actual. They 
allow $4 per day for man and team, $1.50 for man, 
20 cents per meal for hired help, $1 per acre for 
binder, 70 cents per bushel for seed; other expenses 
actual: 
April 17 Disking. 40 cents per hour for team.... 
April 19 Disking, 40 cents per hour for team.... 
April 20 Disking, fitting and drilling. 
April 21 Disking, fitting and drilling . 
April 24 Disking, fitting and drilling. 
April 20 Disking, fitting and drilling . 
90 bushels seed . 
August 4 Binding . 
Twine .. 
Shocking .. 
August 10 Hauling and thrashing. 
Thrashing bill .. 
Board of hands . 
Rent of land, $5 per acre . 
ss.oo 
10.50 
5.50 
0.00 
12.00 
8.00 
63.00 
30.00 
8.00 
9.00 
45.00 
31.00 
7.40 
150.00 
Total expense .$393.40 
Receipts. 
1,550 bushels oats, machine measure, worth at thrash¬ 
ing 40 cents .$620 
16 tons straw (estimated), at $5 . SO 
$700 
Deducting value of straw from expense we have 
1,550 bushel oats, costing $313.40 or 20 cents per 
bushel. No fertilizer was used directly on the oats; 
a little was used in the drill for potatoes. It is 
always a question how much one should allow for 
fertility. This crop, grain and straw took from the 
30 acres 965 pounds of nitrogen, 431 pounds of phos¬ 
phoric acid and 804 pounds of potash. This would 
cost in a high grade fertilizer over $200, and if this 
should be added to the cost of production would 
make the oats cost a little over 33 cents per bushel. 
Trumbull Co., Ohio. f. l. allen. 
GETTING RID OF FREE SEEDS. 
Can you tell us how to stop this free seed nuisance? 
We have already had 39 packages, and still they come. 
My husband complains hens are getting sick from eating 
so many radish seeds. You see, I don't want to throw- 
seeds out to grow as weeds, so I put them in liens’ 
kettle to cook. When wo last went to Grange meeting 
there was over a peck of seeds officers were trying to 
find owners for. R. F. D. carrier has a lot he leaves, not 
even addressed, but is anxious to get rid of them. Just 
one package of sweet peas will be used. s. 
Belknap Co., N. II. 
The best remedy we have yet heard of is the one 
printed on page 548 : 
Government seeds do not come my way this year. I 
have always had a surplus of them before*, but my name 
was scratched off the mailing list this Spring. T pass 
my receipt on to others who may desire to abate the 
nuisance. Protests did not seem to do must good, so I 
wrote our Congressman that I had voted for him at 
every opportunity, and had been heartily with him in 
the course he had taken in Congress, but that if he 
ever sent me another packet of free seeds I would vote 
for the other fellow every time 1 had a chance. 
If that plan were well lived up to for a few years 
there would be freedom from free seeds. One of 
our readers in the 31st District of New York sent 
the following letter to Congressman Sereno F.. Payne: 
The We Butter No You sabe? 
worm want protected more want 
has parcels against free our 
turned post oleo seeds votes 
Lettuce Turnip Radish Brussels Sprouts 
Packets pasted on here. 
RIon. C. A. Sulloway is a member of Congress from 
New Hampshire. In a letter to one of our readers 
Mr. Sulloway said among other things: 
While the variety sent out by the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment Is not always what I would like, and what I would 
select. I want to loll you that this distribution has saved 
you and every other farmer and every man with a garden 
about 50 per cent in the price of his seeds, and, if we 
cut it out you will find you will have to pay a lot more 
money for your seeds. The very fact that it has been 
the seedsmen themselves who have been the bitterest op¬ 
ponents, and who have had a lobby here time and time 
again 1o defeat the free distribution of seeds, taking 
your own arguments about (lie “interests,” ought to be 
enough to convince you that this seed distribution has 
been a pretty good thing for the farmer. 
If Mr. Sulloway really believes that he should be 
credited with carrying the most brilliant imagination 
ever nursed at Washington. Look over the seed cata¬ 
logues and you will find that some dealers charge 
less than half what others charge for the same variety. 
The difference is in quality, and the higher priced 
dealers do the heavier business. The objection to 
the free seed distribution is that it is a mean and petty 
political graft—a little sop thrown to farmers to keep 
them quiet. Mr. Sulloway ought to go home and 
attend some country school where they try to teach 
the elements of agriculture, plain arithmetic and ordin¬ 
ary common sense. The people of New Hampshire 
need the latter more than they do “free seeds.” 
