228 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TIIE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established iSSO 
Published weekly by the Kural Publishing Company, 333 West 30th Street, Hew York 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
Joint J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wsl F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 82.01, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8>£ marks, or 10K francs. Remit in rqpncy order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates 60 cents per agate line—7 words. References required for 
advertisers unknown to ws j and cash must accompany transient orders. 
“A SQUARE DEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible 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 swindler will be publicly exposed. We protect sub¬ 
scribers against rogues, but we do not guarantee to adjust trilling differences 
between subscribers and honest, responsible advertisers. Neither will we be 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must bo 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 maintain the improvement and enlarge¬ 
ments that we are now planning for The R. N.-Y., we 
should have a circulation of 200.000 copies weekly. 
We must depend on our old friends for this increase. 
To make it easy for these friends to introduce the 
paper to other farmers who do not now take it we 
will send it 10 weeks for 10 cents for strictly intro¬ 
ductory purposes. We will appreciate the interest 
of friends who help make up the needed increase of 
subscriptions. 
* 
Fob the past few years we have been talking of 
increased corn production in New England. As a 
result much more corn is now grown than formerly. 
Now comes Kansas preaching “a rival of corn 
growing.” It seems that the boom in wheat and 
Alfalfa has actually reduced the production of corn! 
* 
Tiie most important house in this country is the 
farm home. The most important inmate is the 
farmer’s wife. Her most important room is the’farm 
kitchen. The most important asset for the equip¬ 
ment of that kitchen is an unlimited supply of dry 
fuel and pure water. Now gentlemen, you know how 
to touch the most important things of life with your 
own hands. 
* 
Whenever you sow clover seed in soil which you 
feel is likely to be acid we advise mixing seed of 
Alsike with Red. On our own soil the Alsike is a 
surer crop, as the land is naturally sour. The Al¬ 
sike does not give as heavy a crop as the Red or 
the Mammoth, but it grows in well with the other 
sorts and adds to the feeding value. Mixing in Al¬ 
sike in this way is much like adding Red-top to a 
seeding of Timothy. Both Alsike and Red-top are 
acid-soil plants. 
* 
We may get this egg-laying contest Into the line 
of sport yet. The Hope Farm man now hears of a 
breeder who says he will back a pen of his birds 
against any other pen in the country for .$1,000. We 
will try to hunt him up and see what strings are 
tied to that offer. Another man offers to hatch 50 
eggs from blue-ribbon, high-scoring stock and enter 
a pen of the pullets. Our object is to bring out pens 
of definite breeding and definite methods of hand¬ 
ling, so that the results will teach us all definite 
things. 
* 
We are experimenting in every possible way with 
parcel post—chiefly in buying farm-raised food. 
Thus far we have bought a great variety in this 
way. The quality has been excellent, and the price 
is such as to give an average saving of at least 20 
per .cent over retail prices. The farmers who ship 
the food claim to obtain more for it than from 
ordinary trade. Those who have sent us food thus 
far surely seem to have what the Hope Farm man 
calls “joy in the job.” We believe that this direct 
trade in certain kinds of food is sure to grow into 
a tremendous volume as time goes on. 
* 
For a current topic Mr. Harry Demarest talked about 
the problem of the farmer, the two spears of grass, and 
the consumer’s dollar. When a man pays a dollar for 
something produced on the farm it appears that only 
?>P cents of the amount gets into the pocket of the 
farmer. Where the other 05 cents goes to is not clear. 
It also appears that the farmer reaps no advantage 
from a large crop of anything; he gets just as much 
money for small crop; and the consumer pays a high 
price in any event. There was some discussion by Mr. 
•T. II. Crissey, Mr. Henry Pelton, and others, but the 
hole in the skimmer was not discovered by all present. 
That is taken from a local paper printed in the 
Warwick Valley, N. Y. It is part of the report of a 
meeting of a local club. We print it to show how 
this question of the 35-cent dollar is being torn 
apart and analyzed, while five years ago few peo¬ 
ple would pay any attention to it. Now’ you cannot 
find a gathering of country people- at which the 35- 
cent dollar is not discussed. And in all this discus¬ 
sion no one is able to prove that this clipped dollar 
is not a real tliiug. This is what we have called 
making the 35-cent dollar “a part of popular 
thought.” That is the only way to doctor this dol¬ 
lar, for when people really think about it they will 
find a way to change conditions. 
* 
Many of our readers must be of an inventive turn 
of mind, for we have hundreds of questions about 
how to obtain patents. One man says he wants a 
manufacturer to make a model of the invention be¬ 
fore it is patented, and he is afraid the manu¬ 
facturer may rob him of the invention. An inventor 
should file with the U. S. Patent Office in Washing¬ 
ton, a preliminary application before turning over 
to a manufacturer his plans for a model. The pat¬ 
ent office only occasionally requires a model on final 
application. In any event the preliminary applica¬ 
tion protects the inventor. 
* 
On page 1G4 II. C. T. writes about sulphured oats. I 
wish to commend most sincerely your note. I came 
to this place to start my chicken business, and of 
course was not thinking that I would got handed such 
a lemon out in a country village 78 miles from New 
York city. I got four bushels of oats from the mill 
here, and they knew that I wanted them for sprouting. 
They never said a yjord about sulphur to me, knowing 
well, as they later admitted, that they were sulphured 
and would not sprout. I think that fake sulphured 
oats should he aired most thoroughly. h. w. P. 
Dutchess Co., N. Y. 
You will have to blow air through it to drive the 
sulphur out. These are little frauds, but the big 
ones rest upon them. The sulphur is used to make 
the blackened and damaged oats look like fresh new 
grain. Of course the dealers who sell them know 
the life has gone from such oats so they will not 
sprout Of course they know what the poultrymeu 
waut them for. It is a mean, dirty little fraud. The 
man who does this ought to go where a double dose 
of his sulphur will be applied! > 
* 
The Department of Agriculture, in arguing for 
better household conveniences, and management re¬ 
lates the following incident: 
One of the specialists of the Office of Farm Manage¬ 
ment learned from a woman in Pennsylvania, who had 
broken down from overwork, that she had been carrying 
coal from the barn for years. When the husband was 
asked if there was any reason why a coal bunker could 
not have been provided near the cookstove, and filled 
directly from the wagon, be answered there was none, 
but that no one had ever thought of it. This one de¬ 
tail has been found neglected in other cases where it 
could have been easily remedied, if only some one had 
thought of it. 
It is probable that this same explanation would 
be given in many other similar cases. “Mother” is 
often patient and uncomplaining and the habit of 
doing hard and unnecessary things becomes fixed be¬ 
fore she or the rest of the family realize it. It is 
human nature to think of the so-called “great” 
things in the world, while we forget the smaller yet 
more essential things. They are “more essential” 
because the great things grow from them and are 
flavored by them. Do you know of people who give 
time and money to missions, temperance and simi¬ 
lar things while “mother” has to get her own fuel 
and draw water out of a distant well? Think a 
moment and you will see that every one of these 
“great” things would be advanced if the fuel and 
water problems were settled. 
* 
During the four years since January 1.-1910, there 
has been a decrease in this country of 7,305.000 meat 
animals. At the same time we increased in popula¬ 
tion nearly 7.000,000 people. To put it another way, 
the Department of Agriculture shows that as com¬ 
pared with 1010, we are short nine beef cattle, seven 
sheep and more than three hogs for each 100 persons. 
Year by year, therefore, the available supply of 
home-grown meat is growing shorter. There should 
be over eighteen million more meat animals in this 
country to make the same proportion to the number 
of inhabitants that we had in 1910. There is a 
slight increase of dairy cows, horses and mules in 
numbers, but the meat problem is now harder than 
it was ever before. Among the reasons given for 
this decrease probably the most important is the 
following: 
The decline in stockraising on farms in the Fast and 
South because of poor marketing facilities, resulting 
from many local slaughtering establishments having 
been driven out of business b.v the competition of the 
great central slaughtering establishments of the West 
and Central West. 
This is unquestionably true, for if it had been 
possible during the past 20 years to seep up the lo¬ 
cal slaughter-houses and meat markets which were 
found through the Eastern States, millions more 
of calves would have been kept and grown for 
market purposes. The increase of meat production 
of our eastern farms will not lie felt until better 
February 14, 
market facilities are worked up. We believe that 
this problem will be solved in the future, so that 
local meat producers will be able to turn off their 
stock at profitable prices. There will be direct trade 
more and more with consumers, and local markets 
either under Federal or municipal control, where 
stock can be slaughtered and distributed with some 
show of competition. When that is done the trouble 
will begin to correct itself. Until these marketing 
facilities are developed, it is idle to ask eastern 
farmers to increase their meat supply. Here is one 
of the most thoughtful situations ever known in 
American trade. Under the unrestricted law of 
supply and demand beef making should provide a 
profitable enterprise for thousands of Eastern farm¬ 
ers. The operations of the beef trust have upset this 
law, paralyzed the industry and left this nation in 
the way of depending upon foreigners for more of 
its meat. 
* 
Since we printed a statement of the Employer’s 
Liability law in Connecticut there have been many 
requests for the facts about the New York law. 
Does it make farmers and housekeepers liable for 
injuries to servants or workmen? The attorney- 
general declines to make a ruling on this point, be¬ 
cause the law is in charge of a commission whose 
duty it is to interpret the law. He points, however, 
to a paragraph in Section 3, which reads as follows: 
4. “Employee” means a person who is engaged in a 
hazardous employment in the service of an employer 
carrying on or conducting the same upon the premises 
or at the plant, or in the course of bis employment away 
from the plant of his employer; and shall not include 
farm laborers or domestic servants. 
This makes it clear and there wan be no question 
about it, for the law states that the word employee 
under the law “shall, not include farm laborers:' 
Thus farm laborers and domestic servants are ex¬ 
pressly excluded, and farmers are not made liable. 
When the Connecticut law was passed it was thought 
that employers who had less than five hands were 
excluded and small farmers were told that they 
were exempt. When the law comes to be enforced 
the lawyers found a “joker” in it which made farm¬ 
ers liable the same as other employers. In Con¬ 
necticut farmers are generally taking out insurance 
for protection in case of injury to hired men. 
* 
The Attorney-General has given his opinion on 
two disputed points under the Commission Men’s 
law. Various commission men claim that where they 
were subjected to the discipline of an association, 
a board or an exchange, they are relieved from the 
necessity of giving a bond and taking license under 
this law. The Attornew-General decides that this 
does not relieve them of the legal responsibility. 
These commission men claim that the shipper is 
amply protected when they belong to an exchange. 
The Attorney General rules as follows on this point, 
which would seem to settle it conclusively: 
The fact that the consignor lias in a measure pro¬ 
tected himself by the use of a draft or because the com¬ 
mission man lias subjected himself to the control of his 
exchange or association would not place the latter out¬ 
side. the purview of the statute. Such precautions and 
discipline may add greatly to the safety of the transac¬ 
tion and secure the credits of the merchant, but such 
private arrangements are not recognized as supplant¬ 
ing the law. 
The same thing applies to a case where the ship¬ 
per attaches a draft to the bill of lading and for¬ 
wards it with the grain or other produce. Iu such 
a case the dealer must pay the draft before he can 
obtain possession. 
The Attorney-General holds, as is seen in the 
above, that .this does not place the commission man 
outside the law. and he will be noliged to subject 
himself to bond and license. In auotlier case the 
claim is made by grain and hay brokers that they 
do not combine the business of the commission mer¬ 
chant, and therefore they claim that they should 
not be licensed or give a bond. The Attorney- Gen¬ 
eral gives a long opinion to show the difference be¬ 
tween a broker and a commission man, and he con¬ 
cludes that whenever such a broker combines with 
his business in any way that of tlie commission mer¬ 
chant, he must take out a license. When he does 
a grain brokerage without any commission whatso¬ 
ever or without dealing in commissions, it seems 
doubtful if he could he made to give a bond and take 
out a license. 
BREVITIES. 
Time to get out the knife and saw for pruning. 
“I had thought I would have to do without The R. 
N.-Y". for the first time in 35 years, but my scrub hens 
came to the rescue and laid me some three-cent eggs, 
so here is your dollar for another year. May the Hope 
Farm scrubs do as well,” says E. M. C., of Kansas. 
The Hope Farm scrubs have not paid for many sub¬ 
scriptions yet. hut they are young and so is the contest. 
