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The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
, Established. 1850. 
FobHibcd weekly by tke Rural Publishing Company, 409 Pearl Street, New York. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor, 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. P. 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. 6 d., or 8*2 marks, or lO^ 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 
ns; and cash must accompany transient orders. 
"A SQUARE DEAL. 1 ' 
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 swindlerwill be publicly ex¬ 
posed. We protect suberibers against rogues, but we do not guarantee 
to adjust trilling 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-Yobker 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. We depend on our old friends to make this 
known to neighbors and friends. 
* 
Would it not be a very poor specimen of a man who 
would wish or pray for an easy job where he would 
have no’ responsibility, be in no danger and not be 
forced to exercise bis powers of body or mind? No 
one who has really faced the storm could have respect 
for a poor creature who craved a job that would not 
require half his powers. The man who is worth while 
takes the job that is given him, and if it is a hard 
one prays not that the work may be made lighter, 
but that he may be given the strength to conquer. 
And he usually is given the power if his faith be 
strong enough. 
* 
The “Little Alfalfa Sermons” will help us get the 
crop started right. Men often ask why should we take 
all this care when clover and grass give us fair crops? 
These men lack faith or have not been able to realize 
what a crop of Alfalfa will mean to them. At the 
Illinois Station six cows were fed as an experiment to 
compare Alfalfa hay with wheat bran. The food was 
clover hay, cornmeal and silage. One lot had eight 
pounds of bran and the other eight pounds of Alfalfa. 
The result “shows Alfalfa equal to or a little better 
than bran for milk production, under the conditions 
which are the same as those existing on most dairy 
farms.” Now when you begin to grow weary of the 
effort to start Alfalfa stop and think what it would 
mean to receive an annual present of 16 to 20 tons of 
wheat bran. That grain is something we can all ap¬ 
preciate and understand. With five acres of good Al¬ 
falfa that is just about what you would receive. 
John B. Coleman, who conducted the milk investiga¬ 
tion in New York last Winter, favors a plan of fixing 
the price of milk by law. This includes the price 
which dealers can charge and the minimum price which 
they can pay the producers. He would have the prices 
decided by a jury trial or a milk commission. The 
reasons for this radical step are; Milk is an absolute 
necessity. Anything that interferes with its fair 
handling and sale is a public menace. At present 
farmers are producing milk at a loss. On any fair 
valuation and figuring the milk costs more than is 
paid for it. The dealers and contractors are making 
far more profit than they deserve. Through a “gentle¬ 
man’s agreement” they form combinations to reduce 
prices to farmers and hold them up to consumers. 
Under these conditions the State has the right to inter¬ 
fere and see that farmers secure fair prices for their 
milk, and that consumers are not robbed. Mr. Cole¬ 
man makes a strong argument in favor of this propo¬ 
sition, and that the State has the right to regulate 
prices. Before the Legislature .meets we intend to 
analyze this argument and show the force of it. The 
point now is to be able to show by the most solid proof 
what a quart of milk costs. 
* 
Some of our readers are receiving circulars from 
Albany, N. Y., which offer “The opportunity of a life¬ 
time.” For one dollar in cash the benevolent gentle¬ 
man who sends out this circular will give you “the 
only proper and satisfactory method of preserving 
eggs.” We have no doubt that what this man has is 
the old water-glass method which we have described 
for years. You take one part of water-glass and mix 
or dissolve it with nine parts of water. Put it in a 
stone jar, place fresh, clean eggs in it and keep them 
down in the liquid. That is all there is to it. The eggs 
will keep—and you may keep your dollar. Other 
benevolent gentlemen are offering a great secret which 
will show you how to kill weevils in grain. No doubt 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
they will tell you to use bisulphide of carbon. We have 
been telling about that for years. You put the grain 
in an air-tight box or barrel and on the top put a deep 
bowl or soup-dish. Into this pour a quantity of the 
bisulphide. Then cover tight with a blanket and go 
away. The liquid will turn to a poisonous vapor which, 
being heavier than air, works down into the grain and 
kills the insects. You are expected to pay a dollar for 
the preserving and the killing formula. We give you 
the facts so you may preserve your dollar and kill the 
desire to part with it 
* 
Among the many communications called out by The 
R- N.-Y.’s “Fraud and Fake work” is the following 
post card: 
Editor R. N.-Y.: Now, then, all together: 
Here’s to such sleek chaps as Lewis 
Who are trying hard to do us 
With their promises of dividends immense, 
May The R. N.-Y. go to ’em, 
Let the bright, clear daylight thro’ cm. 
And hang their blasted hides upon the fence. 
. G. A. LYTLE. 
At the People’s University we understand they offer 
to teach music by correspondence. The above post 
card will show how to swell the chorus by mail. Mr. 
Lewis is a man of promises, if not of poetry. He 
turned the life of Mr. Reed Verguson into the hard¬ 
est kind of prose when good cash was transmuted into 
an “interim receipt.” A wise man once said that if 
you would let him make the songs of a nation he 
would write that nation’s history. He was right. 
Music lias power as well as charms. The R. N.-Y. is 
now fead by over 250.000 people. Get them all to 
singing Mr. Lytle’s little song and the “bright, clear 
daylight” will certainly shine through the fakers. The 
R. N.-Y. will continue to “go to ’em.” That is what 
we are here for. 
* 
“If the public had left me alone on my Alfalfa ranch, 
where I was contented and happy, and where I was 
making money, I would not have fallen into this defeat 
and disgrace.”—James J. Jeffries. 
The poet advises us to find “sermons in stones, 
* * * *and good in everything.” This surely includes 
Alfalfa and prizefighters. We formed no part of that 
“public” which urged Mr. Jeffries to leave his Alfalfa 
and try conclusions with the colored man and brother. 
There is a great sermon to be preached from the career 
of this bruised and beaten prizefighter. Any man who 
would not be content on an Alfalfa farm deserves all 
he gets upon wandering away from it. If such a 
man left his farm so that he might spread the knowl¬ 
edge of Alfalfa growing he would be a public bene¬ 
factor. When he goes out for some evil purpose, no 
pounding or jarring is too severe for him, but the 
Alfalfa farm will take him back and heal the wounds 
of body and mind as few other things can. “Contented 
and happy and making money!” Mr. Jeffries got into 
that enviable condition through raising Alfalfa. He 
got out of it through trying to raise buried youth. 
Let us all fight the prizefight against Nature and soil 
until we get Alfalfa in our corner. Then, unlike Jef¬ 
fries, let us stay on the farm. 
* 
The average boy spends much time in dreaming of 
fighting wild animals and wild men. How he would 
kill the lions and grizzly bears if you would only let 
him at them. It is a cruel fate which keeps him 
sawing wood, hoeing corn or going to school. The 
chances are 1,000 to one that the boy will ever see a 
dangerous wild animal, but he could do no end of 
good if his thought and energy were turned to killing 
mosquitoes! If he would make sure that every mud 
puddle near his home were drained or oiled and every 
tin can, or anything that might hold stagnant water 
were emptied, he would save the entire community 
from great annoyance. This would be useful work, 
within the boy’s powers, but “mosquito killer” does 
not convey a “large” idea of valor; so the boy dreams 
of killing lions and lets the mosquitoes go. 
We think of this when, as sometimes happens, we 
are mildly criticized for the work we try to do in 
exposing frauds or evils in public life. The chief 
criticisms are that we select one thing or one fraud 
and stick to it, when there are dozens or hundreds 
of others evidently just as deserving of censure; also 
that we select small things and say less about the large 
evils in public life. It is true that our plan is to 
select one man or one thing and stick to the job until 
the offender is cornered and branded. We do not 
select men as individuals, but because they represent a. 
type or a practice which has grown to be an evil. In 
the cases of Dawley, Burbank and Lewis this is clear. 
Here we have the politician, the “originator” and the 
speculator all using the confidence which their public 
position had given them to work their own schemes 
for public or personal advantage. Suppose we did 
dodge from one to another of a dozen men in the 
same class 1 It would he like firing a charge of road 
dust at a rhinoceros. By chasing the one single ex¬ 
August 6, 
ponent of a false or evil system until he is branded 
we can fix public attention to what the man stands 
for. The people who follow this work know what 
it means and what we are after. As for taking up small 
things we would kill mosquitoes rather than dream of 
killing lions. There are great evils in the world which 
must be overcome and*remedied. Every one of them 
has its root in smaller things, and until these smaller 
things are improved, fighting the large evils will be 
much like cutting off their tops and leaving them to 
grow out larger than ever, like a tree that* has been 
pruned. For example, how are the common people to 
overcome the evils in the tariff system, railroad service 
and franchise crimes unless they can have direct con¬ 
trol of the men who represent them? How are they 
to have such control unless they have fair primary 
election laws? How can they use such laws with any 
effect unless they in their own lives can feel that they 
are doing some unselfish work for their country? That 
is why The R. N.-Y. tries to help men to love the 
land, to be not. only better farmers, but better men 
and better citizens. The small things are within our 
grasp and through them when honestly and fearlessly 
brought out we reach the larger ones. We do not 
dream of killing lions, though we know the lions must 
be killed. We do urge men to destroy the little things 
which are within their power. 
* 
The article on farm drainage by Mr. White is one 
of the most important we have printed in a long time. 
Ditching is now done by machinery—done rapidly 
and well. Later we shall give some pictures of large 
stones dug up by this machine to show that the work 
can be done in stony ground. There can be no ques¬ 
tion about the great need of drainage on most of our 
eastern farm land. Thousands of wet, soppy acres are 
now worthless for crop production or are farmed at a 
loss. Underdrain them and take out the surplus water 
and they will become equal in crop producing power to 
the virgin land of the Northwest. There are no bet¬ 
ter agricultural bargains anywherfe than some of the 
wet eastern land at present prices. Drain and fit such 
land and it will produce as much grain or hay or 
potatoes as the best western land, while each bushel 
or pound of the crop will bring at least one-third more 
than in the West. While the benefits from drainage 
are about the surest thing in farming the cost is be¬ 
yond the reach of most farmers. There are thousands 
of farmers who fully realize what tile drainage would 
do for their farms. Yet they arc handicapped because 
they cannot obtain money on long time and easy terms 
with which to do the needed draining. A manufac¬ 
turer or a traction company can usually borrow money 
by showing how certain improvements would give a 
greater earning capacity. The farmer could guarantee 
such improvement, yet it would be impossible, in most 
cases, for him to make the loan for draining. Thus 
the question of drainage loans is important. In Eng¬ 
land, Canada and some European countries special 
loans of this sort are made to farmers. In Norway 
we understand that companies operating under the 
government are draining swamps and meadows for 
agricultural purposes. It is a fact that the wet lands 
of the East are far more important to the nation than 
the dry lands of the far West. If public money is 
spent to irrigate the latter it should be spent to drain 
the former. The money to be thus spent ought to be 
put out in the form of small drainage loans, so that 
individual farmers may improve their own farms. 
BREVITIES. 
Yes, sir, the side lines may be made into life lines. 
Somehow we do not seem to get accurate information 
about cement drain tiles. 
Remember that in a bard drought no cultivation at all 
is better than deep working. 
A curious season this. One county drying up and the 
next one soaked. What causes it? 
Now it is a “Gravenstein train” to be run through Cali¬ 
fornia to ‘‘boom” a well-known apple. 
The dishonest agent is worse than a sheep-killing dog, 
since the former can pull the wool over your eyes. 
Never- —do not plant a peach orchard in a cold “pocket” 
where the hills shut out air drainage. Cold air and frost 
will roll down and get the fruit in such a location. 
The high price of meat in England has started a trade 
form China. An American is curing bacon and hams 
from Chinese pork and shipping it to England, where it is 
sold for over 1% cent per pound cheaper than Danish 
bacon Chinese poultry is also sent to Britain. 
Evi.tY few years we have reports of a disease among 
grasshoppers which can be spread artificially and used to 
clear out the pests. A new report now comes from Colo¬ 
rado. The hoppers are certainly dying, but Prof. Gillette 
offers no hope that spreading the disease by using dead 
hoppers will do any good. 
Since printing the article on vetch last week we have 
been asked when Mr. Smythe sows the seed. He says in 
reply: “I sow the vetch usually at the last cultivating 
time, but it can be sown any time from July 3 5 to Octo¬ 
ber 1. I would advise the earlier sowing when possible. 
It is so dry here at present that we cannot sow until 
after it rains.” 
