336 
P UBLISHER’S DESK 
Will you give information regarding 
the Coal Lands Securities Company, of 
Scranton, Pa? F. H. P. 
Massachusetts. 
We have long tried to reach some in¬ 
telligent understanding of the affairs of 
the bunch of Scranton financiers who 
dominate this and other concerns, issu¬ 
ing securities to the public, but we about 
give it up in despair. This coterie of 
financiers is headed by one T. J. Foster, 
whose son acquired some newspaper no¬ 
toriety recently through an elopement 
with the young daughter of a New Jer¬ 
sey family. The girl finally returned to 
her home, and Foster was held by the 
authorities and if we remember rightly 
serious criminal allegations were pending 
against him. 
In addition to the Coal Lands Se¬ 
curities Company the promoters referred 
to are the International Text Book Com¬ 
pany ; the Colliery Engineer Co.; the In¬ 
ternational Correspondence Schools; the 
Technical Supply Co.; the International 
Educational Publishing Co.; the Inter¬ 
national Correspondence Schools of Lon¬ 
don ; the International Poultry Co.; 
Hoover Incubator Manufacturing Co.; 
and the International Poultry Sales Com¬ 
pany. There may be others, but this is 
sufficient for the present. These finan¬ 
ciers always deal in millions, and all of 
them are so intermixed and interwoven 
that we have not been able to tell where 
one begins or where the other leaves off. 
Take the Poultry Company. A New 
Jersey farm of 241 acres was the founda¬ 
tion, and our information is that the 
price was around $15,000. It was put 
into the company for $100,000, and a fin¬ 
ancial structure of $500,000 in stock and 
$300,000 of bonds raised on the premises. 
Some chickens and equipment were 
added, and the assets figured at nearly a 
million. If we understand the compli¬ 
cated report, this whole business has now 
been taken over by the Hoover Incu¬ 
bator Mfg. Co., with a capital stock of 
$1,500,000; but whether there has been 
a new writing of securities since or an¬ 
other coming we know not. This 241- 
acre farm may or may not be worth a 
million and a half. The other concerns 
may be worth all the securities that are 
out against them, but we have not been 
able to satisfy ourselves that they are; 
and consequently we would not put our 
own money into them. 
But we go a little further; we would 
not directly or even indirectly endorse 
them. Recently w r e refused a large order 
for advertising the Scranton Correspond¬ 
ence Schools, because if we advertised 
them we would give direct endorsement of 
their methods of securing scholarship con¬ 
tracts, which we could not and do not 
approve. Besides this, we would in¬ 
directly endorse these financial proposi¬ 
tions, and as seen above we have been 
unable to do that. The representative of 
the company asserted that Tiie R. N.-Y. 
was the only paper that refused the ad¬ 
vertising, and it is a fact that many, if 
not all the others, do carry the 
advertising at one time or another. 
f HU RURAL NEW-YOHKBR 
February 28, 
What is the commercial rating, relia- 
b'lity, etc., of the Exchange Corporation 
of Lackawanna, N. Y., a firm selling 
silos, seeds, etc.? E. c. c. 
The Exchange Corporation, Lackawan¬ 
na, N. Y., is no doubt the same concern 
that R. N.-Y. readers have known as 
Equitable Audit Co. of that place, pro¬ 
moted by J. W. Woodruff of American 
Farms Co., formerly of Buffalo, N. Y. 
More recently Mr. Woodruff has been 
operating from Columbus, Ohio, under 
the title of Universal Exchange Corpora¬ 
tion. Last season he promoted a scheme 
to build a silo factory at Hampton, N. 
J. A number of people in that com¬ 
munity subscribed to stock before learn¬ 
ing the history of Mr. Woodruff’s previ¬ 
ous promotion schemes. A trail of com¬ 
plaints and trouble have followed Mr. 
Woodruff and his silos wherever we have 
heard of them. 
Referring to your correspondent who 
has had goods mailed to him which were 
neither ordered nor wanted, it is useless 
to write to the Postoffice Department 
about this variety of fraud, as it advises 
you to refuse to receive the mail, which 
is obviously impossible as one does not 
know what it is until he opens the pack¬ 
age. So the remedy is to rewrap the arti¬ 
cle, address it to the sender, take it to 
the express office when convenient and 
ship by express, collect, taking and pre¬ 
serving the express company’s receipt for 
it. Pay no attention to threatening let¬ 
ters. If litigation is started the express 
receipt ends it, and the schemers must 
pay the express. h. f. 
This is a good suggestion. The 
practice of sending cheap goods by mail 
to country people, without order or sug¬ 
gestion, and then demanding pay, has got 
to be a nuisance. Of course, the threat 
to sue on such accounts is pure bluff, but 
the experience is annoying to say the 
least. No one wants threatening letters 
fired at them by a collection agency, even 
when there is no legitimate account to 
collect. The practice is followed by 
purveyors of cheap razors, cheap per¬ 
fumery concerns, and I am sorry to say 
by cheap farm papers. The papers send 
a bunch of cards or other premiums, and 
then place the account for collection with 
a browbeating collection agency. The 
suggestion in the above letter is the best 
we have yet seen for the treatment of 
such cases. Return the stuff promptly 
by express, marked collect, and pay no 
attention to threatening letters. 
Last Spring I purchased an incubator 
from Charles Cyphers, known as the 
Buffalo Big 4, capacity 1,2G0 eggs. He 
sent h;s printed matter to me recommend¬ 
ing this machine. I purchased a ma¬ 
chine, paid him $00 for same in advance. 
This machine is not worth a lead dollar 
as a hatcher. We cannot regulate it at 
all, and he could not himself. Now I 
wrote him a number of times and cannot 
get a reply from him. Last Summer he 
wrote he would exchange other machines 
for it and take it back at his leisure, but 
since has refused to answer. Please take 
the matter up and let me hear through 
your paper. g. w. b. 
Mr. C. A. Cyphers has been conspicu¬ 
ous as an incubator manufacturer for a 
good many years, and more lately as a 
promoter of various enterprises at Buf¬ 
falo, N. Y., including a poultry establish¬ 
ment in which he sold stock to the pub¬ 
lic. The poultry project has since gone 
out of existence. It is Mr. Cyphers’ con¬ 
tention that these incubators were sold 
without any guarantee expressed or im¬ 
plied, and therefore he is under no obliga¬ 
tion to the purchaser to take the ma¬ 
chine back and refund the purchase price, 
lie admits, however, that as many as 10 
purchasers of the incubator did not get 
what might be considered fair results, so 
that poultrymen can draw their own con¬ 
clusions as to their prospects for success 
with machines put out by Mr. Cyphers 
under the name of the Buffalo Incubator 
Company. 
^ December 24 we received check for 
$64.50 from Adams Express Company, 
the full value of the corn shipped to New 
York last July. We thank you very 
much for the part you have taken in it 
and enclose a year’s subscription to your 
valuable paper. h. d. w. 
Through some carelessness the car con¬ 
taining this corn was run off the regular 
track and left standing on the siding so 
that the shipment did not reach New 
York until it was spoiled and also too 
late for the market. The claim as entered 
by the subscriber was allowed to drag, 
and he could get no advice as to why it 
was not adjusted. Some smaller claims 
were settled, but the larger ones were 
overlooked. Five weeks after we took 
it up settlement was made. j. j. p. 
AT 
/A l_ 
Drawn from a Photograph 
While you’re cross-breeding for a 300 egg hen, 
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Why not take a crop of lumber off the farm 
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1 
