1166 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKRR 
December IT, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established, 1850. 
PoUlihed weekly by the 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. Royle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR. 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.01. equal to 
8s. 6a., or 8hj 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 SO cents per agate line—7 words. Discount for timi 
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 onreolumns, and any such swindler will be publicly ex¬ 
posed. Wo protect suberibers against rogues, but we do not guarantee 
to adjust trifling differences betweon 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. We depend on our old friends to make this 
known to neighbors and friends. 
a 
I believe that the reason with most boys who get into 
trouble is because they do not have anything normal upon 
which to expend their energy and interest. This boy of 
mine will never take kindly to indoor work, I can see that 
already, and he is very fond of apples. IIo asks for an 
apple the first thing every morning. 
That is written by the man, who, on page 1163, tells 
how he will plant an apple orchard for the little boy. 
He could hardly do a better tiling for the child, and 
he talks gospel truth when he says that idleness leads 
most boys into trouble and mischief. Think of a boy 
starting apple eating early in life and early in the 
morning, and growing up with an apple orchard! 
He ought to be a President some day, with such a 
start as that! 
* 
1 think it might be a good thing to take up at the in¬ 
stitutes this Winter the question of raising good heavy 
horses in New York State. A good many dairy farmers arc 
milking more cows than they ought to, and they might well 
ent down the dairy a little and raise a few good colts, and 
thus save paying $500 or $000 for a team, and even if 
they did not need to keep the colts the money would be 
quite as good as if it were made by pulling teats. 
J. G. M. 
That’s a good subject. There is no fair reason on 
earth why New York should not produce fine horses. 
There is a great demand for the best. The army and 
the police departments in the large cities demand thou¬ 
sands of good horses and find it difficult to procure 
them. By all means talk horse—good horse. That’s 
horse sense. 
* 
The cow ration you gave me last Winter gave such good 
results that I come again for information, as I have 
different feeds this Winter. 
That is what a Pennsylvania reader writes us. Now 
that the Winter season has come we take up the 
study of cattle feeding once more. It is not pretended 
that we can tell a man just exactly what is best for 
his cows. That will depend on the cows, the man and 
the food. The latter can be analyzed and thus put on 
something of a definite basis, but the cow and the man 
are different. We shall try to suggest fair rations 
for farm animals. Tell us what you have of home¬ 
grown food and we will help you buy the “balance.” 
As usual people come forward asking what is meant 
by a “balanced ration.” In “The Business Hen” Prof. 
F. H. Stoneburn has given one of the most compre¬ 
hensive, brief statements about this that we have 
ever read. While he discusses the subject from the 
poultry-feeding standpoint, the principle will be un¬ 
derstood by all who feed animals. 
* 
If the Republican party has been chastened in the 
slightest degree by recent events, or if the new Congress 
has a drop of red blood in its veins, we shall get the 
parcels post as a token of triumphant insurgency and a 
guarantee of good faith hereafter. This is the least 
that can be asked of a government making a 
slightest pretense to put down special privilege in the in¬ 
terest of the general welfare.—Syracuse Journal. 
There you have a barrel of wisdom is tabloid form. 
If the Republican Congressmen had shown the most 
ordinary intelligence regarding the feeling about par¬ 
cels post, they never would have lost Congress. The 
people were prepared to forgive many things, but when 
grown-up men acted like simple children and fell back 
upon that insane expression of “careful consideration” 
the end came for them. Our endeavor is to make 
this fact so clear and rub it in so hard that every 
public man in America will realize tht he must support 
parcels post or carry on his body the brand of special 
privilege. President Taft now realizes the situation. 
On the next page is printed what he says in his mes¬ 
sage to Congress. This is not all we want, but it is 
a beginning. Give us a chance at this and the people 
will prove every argument we have advanced. We 
regard this as the beginning of the end of the long 
fight We honestly believe that if the farm papers had 
all come into the battle with us last Spring Congress 
would have acted then. 
* 
The more I see of political life, the more I am con¬ 
vinced of the power of a postage stamp judiciously applied, 
and I got my first ideas along that line from The R. N.-Y. 
Hope you will keep us going with such valuable educa¬ 
tional work. 
That is from a man who has licked many a stamp 
for farming. The more he licked the more he learned 
that the politicians are good judges of human nature. 
They know where there is nothing but froth on the 
stamp. You cannot fool them with “resolutions” or 
timid letters which show a man standing hat in hand 
like a beggar. Nor can you fool them long with a 
bluff or fierce abuse, for they know that a barking 
dog cannot bite and bark at the same time. What 
gets them is the plain cold statement of facts from a 
man who knows his rights and who controls his own 
vote. There is not a politician in the land who will 
ignore such a letter, or deny the power of a postage 
stamp. Let no man feel that he is too small to make 
his influence felt. There are at least 50 Congress¬ 
men who might have saved themselves if they had 
realized three months ago what they now know about 
this postage stamp vote. 
* 
The one unforgivable sin in religious life is being in 
earnest. Every other shortcoming is reckoned venai by 
the side of the cardinal transgression of being in earnest. 
Every intellectual hqresy, every moral lapse can hope for 
pardon, but let him not sue for merry who has committed 
the crime of being in earnest in a world in which forms 
and shams and words and names and terms count for 
everything. 
These words were spoken by a Jewish rabbi, Stephen 
S. Wise. He might well have broadened his state¬ 
ment to include political, social and industrial life. If 
any man wants proof let him try the experiment of 
being openly and sincerely in earnest for high ideals in 
his relations to other men. Start right out and try it 
in your own town. You know what is wrong in poli¬ 
tics and public affairs. Pull off your coat and sail 
right in to state the truth and pull down the evils. 
You know much of the shams and folly of social life. 
Plunge in and state them as earnestly as did the old 
prophets. In brief, get right out and live in your own 
life the real spirit of the Golden Rule and see where 
the earnest man comes out! A brief season will con¬ 
vince you that the Jewish rabbi knows what is coming 
to the earnest man. Then you will ask why this is so. 
We can tell you that There are not enough earnest 
men. Many of them try, but become discouraged and 
sit down and wait for others to endure. It is hard 
ior some people to be called a “crank” when it has 
ever been true that the world is moved by cranks. 
You cannot expect to reform the world in a bunch. 
You must take it by units, and the unit over which 
you have control is yourself. Those who would like 
to be in earnest are in the majority. The world will 
follow them just as soon as they can get together and 
endure. 
* 
A young farmer in Vermont has been working his 
way along with tile drainage. Inclined to be cautious, 
he went slowly, used tile as he could afford it, and 
watched results. The soil responded so quickly and 
well that he now plans to use at least 100,000 tile, buy 
a machine and develop an entire farm This is on an 
old farm in New England with soil much like thou¬ 
sands of acres now standing idle. When we tell him 
be must have nerve to think of such a scheme he 
makes this characteristic reply: 
You say I must have nerve to think of putting in 
100,000 tile, hut how can 1 help having it when the land 
has more than justified all the faith I have ever put into 
it? In fact it puts me to shame for not having had more. 
This man has just bought 90 acres of land which 
has been “rented and skinned” for a quarter of a 
century. It cost about $40 per acre. It will cost about 
$50 to drain, and will then be worth at least $200 in 
productive power. Not one business man in 20 could 
take $200 and make it earn larger or steadier divi¬ 
dends than this farmer will earn from bis acre of 
land. For this man in “cold Vermont” sold from 24 
acres about $4,000 worth of farm produce! We tell 
these true stories now and then to show what can be 
done on old land if the farmer knows how to do it 
and can, like our Vermont friend, have the faith to 
invest his earnings right in his own farm. One great 
trouble with some farmers is that they give their farm 
a double skinning. They get all they can out of it 
md put nothing back, and then take what little money 
they make away from the farm for investment. Every 
man should have faith enough in his farm to give it 
the title of LL.D. This title applied to a man may be 
less appropriate than a sore thumb. To a farm it 
means Lime, Legumes and Drainage, and there is now 
no stronger title to be given to old land. 
We have said that the Democratic part)' in New York 
will meet its first great test in the selection of a new 
Senator. In New Jersey there will be an even stronger 
test. A primary election was held at which voters 
gave an expression of their choice for United States 
Senator. There was nothing legally binding about this 
election, but it was considered a fair and honorable 
test of the primary system of selecting candidates. A 
fair vote was cast and James E. Martine received a 
majority over the other Democratic candidate. It is 
doubtful if, at that time, the Democrats expected to 
control the Legislature. When it was found that they 
had swept the State politicians who ignored the pri¬ 
mary started in to defeat Mr. Martine by working upon 
the Legislature. Without discussing the quality and 
strength of the men except to say that Mr. Martine 
is fully competent to serve as Senator, it is clear that 
the Democratic party of New Jersey cannot afford 
to make such a blunder as it would be to ignore the 
results of that primary. Such popular expressions of 
choice of candidates are to be the salvation of the 
common people. There is no other way for them to 
get rid of such leeches or incompetents as John Kean 
or other corporation tools. They should insist upon 
the principle of primary nomination and never sur¬ 
render a single item of it. Demand the election of Mr. 
Martine. The result will be a stronger primary elec¬ 
tion law and a principle of popular nominations which 
cannot be broken down. 
* 
One of the most interesting and important bulletins 
issued of late years is the one on “Experiments in 
Blueberry Culture,” by Prof. F. C. Coville. These ex¬ 
periments not only show how we may add another 
fruit to our cultivated garden list, but it points out a 
new theory of how certain plants are nourished. Much 
has been said in favor of the use of lime. It has 
been demonstrated that such crops as clover. Alfalfa, 
beans and others which have the ability to obtain nitro¬ 
gen from the air through bacteria must have an alka¬ 
line soil in order to thrive. An acid soil is death to 
them, or rather to the bacteria which work on their 
roots. This idea has been presented so often that 
most people have concluded that all plants need lime 
and an alkaline soil. We know that this is not so 
with the cranberry and strawberry. Prof. Coville found 
that the blueberry always fails when the soil is alka¬ 
line. It can only thrive in a sour soil where most 
other plants fail. For instance, it grows well in 
peaty or swamp soil which contains acids which poison 
most plants. How can the blueberry obtain nitrogen 
and live in such places? It is found that nature has 
provided both protection from the poisonous acids and 
power to obtain nitrogen through a fungus. The blue¬ 
berry plant has no root hairs, and therefore cannot 
absorb soil moisture rapidly and thus take up too much 
of the poisonous acid. On the other hand, it is some¬ 
what like a desert plant in transpiring or giving off 
moisture, so that the small amount of moisture it 
takes up is sufficient for its needs. Some of the bog 
plants with this restricted feeding power obtain their 
nitrogen by catching or closing upon insects and ac¬ 
tually absorbing the nitrogen in their bodies. The 
blueberry obtains its nitrogen through a fungus which 
in turn takes it from the air or from organic matter. 
This fungus is able to take nitrogen in the most acid 
soils and pass it on to the plant without a large amount 
of poisonous soil moisture. It evidently occupies a 
position in acid soils comparable with bacteria on the 
roots of legume plants. Many of the plants known to 
ornamental horticulture may be grown more profitably 
by working on this theory. This is but another in¬ 
stance of the wonderful knowledge which is coming 
to the farmer of the future. 
BREVITIES. 
How many liens to equal a cow in profit? 
There is an increased demand for cement drain tile. 
“There ain’t nothin’ that’s got as many aliases as n 
Ben Davis apple,” says Abe Martin in the Indianapolis 
News. 
One English fox hunting association was obliged to pay 
$1,125 as poultry bill for fowls killed by the foxes which 
the “hunt” had the pleasure of chasing. 
The Eastern States with unoccupied farms have Issued 
lists showing what the lands are. South Dakota now has 
a list of unmarried men in a certain district—giving their 
qualifications and possessions. As a rule the land of un¬ 
occupied farms is also the region of unmarried ladies. 
The legumes or pod-bearing plants take nitrogen from 
the air and hold it. It is often asked if other plants 
growing with these legumes can make use of this nitrogen, 
as it is obtained. The answer is yes. For example, a 
crop of oats growing with vetch will look as if it had 
been fertilized with nitrate, as compared with oats grown 
alone. 
And furthermore, when you wrap up your Christmas 
presents, and proudly affix 64 cents to a four-pound 
package, think of those submissive subjects of a haughty 
monarchy who can send 11 pounds from Europe to Kala¬ 
mazoo or Medicine Hat for a postal charge that fills a 
free and independent American express company with 
scorn and indignation. 
