©02 
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, New Pork, 
Hkkbkrt 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 
8s. 6d., or 8 k! marks, or lOk: francs. Remit in money order, 
express ordeT, 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.’’ 
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 our columns, and any such swmdlerwill 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 wo 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. We depend on our old friends to make this 
known to neighbors and friends. 
* 
Milk producers in Massachusetts and New England 
seem to have won their battle for fair transportation 
rates. The Boston & Maine Railroad has cut rates to 
one-fourth the present high tariff. This means that 
the rate on one or two cans alone will be the same as 
when a carload is carried. These new rates are tem¬ 
porary, and will be revised by the State Railroad 
Commission, but they will probably not be greatly 
raised. This outcome is due to the “milk war” of 
last Spring and legislation resulting from it. It shows 
that farmers can still accomplish things when they 
mean business and have the facts to prove their case. 
* 
This question of substituted trees is coming up 
larger than ever. We usually have several cases on 
hand where a large proportion of trees bought for 
standard varieties proved untrue. In some cases the 
bogus trees represent a large loss—in others the sub¬ 
stituted varieties are fairly satisfactory. Last year 
the New York State Fruit Growers’ Association started 
a plan of giving some protection to tree buyers. It is 
now proposed to poll the society and get members to 
state the extent to which substitution has been prac¬ 
ticed on them, and the names of nurserymen who did 
it. Such data could be used to aid the members in 
buying. 
* 
The automobile is changing the character of Sum¬ 
mer meetings of fruit growers and farmers. Formerly 
such meeting were pretty much tied down to one spot. 
There was a gathering on one farm or at a hall in 
some village, but it was hard for the company to get 
about and compare the methods of various farms. 
Now, at such meetings many automobiles are on hand. 
A fair proportion of the audience come in their cars, 
as was the case at the recent meeting of the New 
York Fruit Growers. These cars are pressed into 
service so that hundreds of people can be. carried 
rapidly about the country from farm to farm. This 
gives the best sort of instruction, and has only been 
made possible by the automobiles. 
* 
“All we ask is let us alone!” 
That is what you may always expect to hear when 
you turn the light on certain men or classes of men. 
When men enjoy special privilege of any sort they 
do not want to be disturbed. A full exposure would 
take the privilege away from them. Of course they 
want to be let alone with their pet graft or pet method 
of getting other people’s money. We find this old cry 
coming from E. G. Lewis and the women who seem 
ready to worship him. Instead of coining out openly 
and squarely, answering the question put so forcibly 
by Mrs. Tener, Lewis and his ladies say in effect that 
we should mind our own business and let Lewis alone. 
And the saddest part of it is that these good women 
seem to think this, combined with glorification of 
Lewis and abuse of The R. N.-Y., is conclusive argu¬ 
ment. There is no effort to tell what has been done 
with the League’s money, or to answer the plain 
charge that "The Final Plan” puts the management, 
the property and the business of the League out of the 
members’ hands. Nothing except “Let us alone—it's 
none of your business what we do.” It is our business 
when some 50 of our readers ask us to collect $20,000 
of their money which Lewis holds and will not give 
up. Every rogue, fraud or humbug in the country 
would be let alone if they could have their own way 
and secure dupes enough to keep them going. We 
make it our business to strip the disguise from them 
whenever we can, and we are able to do it in this case. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
What can the farmers of New York State do toward 
tn< passage of a bill compelling produce commission men 
t> give a bond? Do you consider this the best way to pro¬ 
tect the shipper? What about the Grange and local news¬ 
papers as agents on this agitation? F. w. c. 
They can demand that the members of the Legisla¬ 
ture vote for a bill similar to the one introduced last 
year by Mr. Lupton. This bill provided that commis¬ 
sion men must give bonds and submit to inspection. 
It was a goojl bib and would have helped. It was 
referred to a committee composed chiefly of lawyers 
and city men, and “held up” in committee. When it 
was seen that the bill was buried a new one was intro¬ 
duced. This was to be enforced by the Agricultural 
Department, and was therefore referred to the agricul¬ 
tural committee. It was then too late in the session 
to force the bill through. It is time now to take up 
the matter and pledge every country member to the 
support of this bill. It will be a hard matter to force 
it through, since out of the 201 members of the Legis¬ 
lature New York City and Buffalo alone have 94. 
The city members as a rule will support the commis¬ 
sion men. Realizing this we must work hard at every 
member who depends at all upon votes of farmers. 
i 
* 
Every now and then it seems necessary to print a 
picture of some rocky New England pasture, such as 
is seen on first page. There are many men of middle 
years in the West who never saw a good-sized rock. 
Their parents came from the East, and in many cases 
were raised on just such farms as that shown in the 
picture. The children cannot realize how such fields 
look or how it is possible to make a living on such 
farms. Yet, the fact is that it was the money made 
and saved on these farms which, in large part, built 
up the West. Several generations of stone pickers and 
wall builders on these hillside farms saved money 
which gave farmers on the rich soils of Kansas or 
Iowa their start. And now, after “resting” for half 
a century some of these old stony farms offer about 
the best bargains in farm lands that this country has 
to offer. Forty years or more ago men went west 
and took public land at $1.25 per acre. They needed 
capital and often borrowed New England money in 
order to start. Now much of this land is worth $150 
per acre. Some farmers are selling at that price and 
coming back to buy eastern land. They may strike 
the very farm which furnished the money to start the 
western land. 
* 
For more than two years we have talked and ana¬ 
lyzed the 35-cent dollar. What sort of a dollar is 
that? It is the sort of a dollar that gets to a farmer 
when the consumer in town pays for food. We have 
shown over and over that when a housekeeper in the 
city buys one dollar’s worth of food the farmer does 
very well if on the average he gets 35 cents out of it. 
The middlemen and handlers get 65 cents. We have 
made this statement many times and given figures to 
prove it. No one has been able to disprove the state¬ 
ment. The significance of this 35-cent dollar is evi¬ 
dent without any thought. The farmer is expected 
to feed the world, and also to pay a lot of handlers 
for giving him the privilege of doing so. A change 
that would make the average 50 cents instead of*35 cents 
would give the country the greatest business boom 
ever known. There are 8,000,000 or more farm homes, 
each one of which needs manufactured articles, and 
these articles would be ordered at once if the “farmer’s 
share” could be increased. That increase would go 
right into the country’s business more rapidly than any 
other similar sum of money that you can think of. 
Thus giving the farmer a fair share of what his 
produce brings is not only a matter of justice, but 
one of the most important business moves that could 
be? made. 
* 
In Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, California 
and other Western States direct primary nominations 
have made it possible for the people to overcome the 
political bosses. Our eastern newspapers do their 
best to belittle this political revolution, ridicule it and 
hide the true cause of it. The truth is that the West 
has broken away for good from the old hide-bound 
political traditions. New York State and New Jersey 
are coming, too, and would be very much further along 
the way if we had strong and fearless men to lead 
and fight. It may well be asked at this time why there 
are no such men. New York has made marvelous 
gains in wealth and power. Why are there no such 
men as those who have fought the good fight in the 
West? Our politicians went to the wrong school. 
We are now reaping the crop which was sown during 
the 20 years of such masters as Platt, Depew, Odell 
and their lieutenants. No young man ever learned 
true patriotism or self-sacrificing public service from 
these “leaders.” On the other hand, thousands of 
clean, bright young men, full of honorable ambition, 
were taught that only by wading through dirty politics 
could they gain office or power. They waded, for 
those who would not do so were soon lost from sight. 
September 24, 
The leaders of the “machine” who corrupted those 
young men and taught them only a cynical view of 
public service are responsible for the fact that we 
have so few strong men who are willing and able to 
fight for a principle. That is why New York is be¬ 
hind Iowa and Kansas in the new movement for politi¬ 
cal freedom. The State will not remain in the rear. 
The rank and file of the army is already in line. 
Where are the leaders? 
* 
“Maine has gone Democratic!” This announcement 
will shock some of our complacent citizens about as 
much as would the statement that the earth has refused 
to turn. Farming is the chief business in Maine, and 
farmers are noted for “conservatism.” Therefore it 
was argued there could not be any change, no matter 
what the “ring’’ might do. We were told several 
weeks ago what was coming. There were half a dozen 
issues which influenced the result, but the deciding 
thing was the fact that the “insurgents” in the Repub¬ 
lican party had no way of expressing themselves ex¬ 
cept by voting the Democratic ticket. In Kansas and 
Iowa the progressive Republicans fought for the con¬ 
trol of their party and changed its policy. In Maine 
the “ring” influence was too strong for that, and the 
progressives had nothing to do but put the party out 
of power. Attorney-General Wickersham in a recent 
speech said that if men were not satisfied with his 
brand of Republicanism they should get out. Maine 
progressives took him right at his word. If men like * 
Mr. Wickersham would do the same they will come 
back. In New York the blind and stupid bosses will 
not, if they can help it, heed even this lesson from 
Maine. The truth is we are rushing to the point 
where there will be no political parties. A man must 
favor either the “interests” or the people, unless the 
politicians get wise. 
* 
When Mr. Roosevelt refused to sit at table with 
Senator Lorimer of Illinois he did what seems to us 
one of the best things of his public career. Senator 
Lorimer stands for the crooked things in politics. 
Farmers remember him as the champion of oleo and 
for his work with Wadsworth in trying to kill the meat 
inspection bill. Mr. Roosevelt had been talking about 
political crooks in general and the need of clean poli¬ 
tics. He was suddenly called upon to act as well as 
talk. He believed Lorimer to be a political crook, 
and he refused to be connected with him in any way. 
We believe in this action for two great reasons. This 
is the only way to put such crooks out of the game. 
Just as long as we have two standards for treating 
them they can never be permanently kept out of public 
life. When they understand that so long as they are 
crooked they will be treated like men with some hide¬ 
ous social disease, then the end of their influence will 
begin. Let respectable men shun them everywhere and 
public sentiment will do the rest. Again, we believe 
in making the warfare against crooks and fakers 
direct and personal. Hundreds of men get on the 
stump and shout against rascals in general. When 
the one particular rascal comes before them they 
dodge and falter, and thus make their strong words 
weaker than milk and water. It is a new thing and 
a good one to have a public man come out openly 
and brand the crook personally. We have had much 
the same experience in exposing business fakes and 
frauds. No real progress can be made until you name 
the faker publicly and chase him down. Talking about 
general rascality or discussing fake schemes in general 
will win applause even from the fakers who are not 
named, but it never does any good. The only way to 
get results is to come right out openly, name the fraud 
or fake or scoundrel and keep on naming him until 
he is branded. 
BREVITIES. 
Winter’s in sight. Get the stoves ready ! 
Some men keep hens—some hens keep men. 
American canned sweet corn has worked into Russia. 
Make no verbal agreements regarding property or labor. 
Put it in black and white. 
The high schools are supposed to prepare children for 
college. Why do they not prepare them for life? 
What is the largest mower you ever saw in successful 
operation? Have you seen any with a cutter bar over 
Six feet long? 
New Jersey is to have the 17-year locusts again next 
year. We can endure them with greater philosophy if we 
can get rid of Senator Kean in the same year. 
Every year that goes by makes it clearer that good 
apples are “safe as a Government bond" as an investment. 
Not one person in 10 ever has enough good apples, and tho 
demand is growing all the time. 
If you have any idea of gathering ferns and evergreens 
for sale, read that article on page 894, and then corre¬ 
spond with some florists’ supply house with a good rating 
and reputation. Don’t expect to find a fortune in the 
business, either. 
If you want exact information about the value of weeds 
and barks used in medicine, you will find it in two inter¬ 
esting Government bulletins, Farmers’ Bulletin No. 188, 
"Weeds Used in Medicine,” and Bureau of Plant Industry 
Bulletin No. 139, “American Medicinal Barks.” 
