672 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A Natlonnl Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established isso 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 333 >Vrst 30th Street, Jtew York 
Herbert W. Colling wool, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wti. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. t>2.01, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
marks, or 10J4 francs. Remit in money 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 us ; 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 sin e we will make good any loss to paid 
subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler advertising in our 
columns, and any' such swindler will lie 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 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 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 week¬ 
ly. We must depend on our old friends for this in¬ 
crease. To make it easy for these friends to intro¬ 
duce the paper to other farmers who do not now 
take it we will send it 10 weeks for 10 cents for 
strictly introductory purposes. We will appreciate 
the interest of friends who help make up the needed 
increase of subscriptions. 
* 
The Rural New-Yorker has, at its command, the 
largest and most efficient corps of correspondents 
and advisers ever gathered by any farm paper in 
the world. Thus we can obtain for you the last 
word on any subject relating to the soil, its cultiva¬ 
tion or its products, or the human life of the farm. 
This service is yours for the asking. 
* 
I have just closed the most prosperous season I 
have ever had in the pecan business. The parcel post 
has worked greatly in my favor, and is far safer than 
shipping by express. I have shipped as far as the 
Hawaiian Islands by parcel post, and when the pack¬ 
ages are insured there is no loss. When shipping by 
express there was constant stealing and fraud. 
Louisiana. sam h. james. 
Mr. James conducted an organized campaign for 
selling the nuts, just as though he had a manufac¬ 
tured article. He found the papers which are read 
by people likely to buy high-priced nuts. Then he 
advertised, paying in some cases over $2 for a 
single line. Then he made use of parcel post and 
took in some 100-cent dollars. It seems that some 
people thought parcel post was to help them wheth¬ 
er they used it or not. Give a man a chance to 
borrow a hoe and it would not insure him a garden 
full of vegetables unless lie worked that hoe hard. 
Parcel post means opportunity for many—a chance 
to develop some little business or save transporta¬ 
tion charges. There are thousands of our readers 
who may do on a smaller scale what Mr. James did 
with the nuts. We are going right after this thing 
earnestly and patiently until our people see the 
point. 
* 
In one way and another the New York daily 
papers are learning that there is such a thing as a 
35-cent dollar. In the New York Times Thomas M. 
UPP gives this story by a worker on a daily paper: 
His mother, a poor Jewish widow, made what are 
called “hickory” shirts, which farmers wear in the 
fields. For this work she was paid 35 cents a dozen, 
furnishing her own thread. The farmer paid 50 cents 
for the shirt. The poor woman paid nine cents a 
quart for milk which the farmer sold for 2*4 cents. 
To get one quart of milk the woman must make three 
shirts. To get one shirt the farmer must sell 20 
quarts of milk. 
This incident could be duplicated thousands of 
times to show how producer and consumer are kept 
apart in order that the middlemen and carriers may 
reap the profits. The widow certainly secures her 
mite with the corners cut off when she must make 
three shirts in order that the farmer may secure 
2y 2 cents. Or the farmer must pay 50 cents in 
order that this woman may be able to buy one pint 
of Ms milk. Such a system of distribution as this 
means is responsible for the 35-cent dollar. The 
agitation and battle over this clipped dollar has 
for its object a reorganization of this old system 
into more direct dealing between consumer and pro¬ 
ducer. What is needed most of all is understand¬ 
ing on the part of city people that the farmers are 
not responsible for high prices. The farmer is 
robbed worse than the consumer is held up. The 
poor widow making shirts at three cents each, and 
the dairyman selling milk at 2% cents have inter¬ 
ests in common. They should be friends and busi¬ 
ness partners, for in no other way can the 35-cent 
dollar be increased and the 190-cent dollar be re¬ 
duced. 
THE RURA.L, NEW-YORKER 
Prof. F. C. Minkler of New Jersey is justified in 
“feeling good” over the sale of that $5,000 colt (see 
page 676). When the New Jersey Live Stock Com¬ 
mission decided to import heavy draft horses for 
breeding purposes there was much criticism from 
breeders of the lighter driving or carriage horses. 
These men seemed to think that the natural place 
for the big draft horse is in the West, while for 
some reason the Atlantic Coast is better suited for 
drivers. But did they stop to think that the great 
market for draft horses is in the great importing 
cities on the Atlantic? Why not follow the general 
advice, and get close to your market with what that 
market calls for? Again, it does not matter where 
a horse is produced provided he has the desired 
quality. And so New Jersey comes forward with 
a $5,000 colt, and there may be more to follow. 
Keep your eye on New Jersey, some of you gentle¬ 
men who think she has no purebred stock except 
mosquitoes! 
* 
I suspect that a very great part of the trouble in 
our cherry and other trees going up in the air is that 
a tree has to grow in some direction, and if we plant 
so close that it can't grow in all directions, it has to 
take the only one left open, and go up. I have now 
a cherry orchard that, for the benefit of my grand¬ 
children, I have no doubt I should thin out half the 
trees and let it spread. M. 
This suggests a number of things. Most of us 
plant the trees in our orchards too close. There is 
a rage for “fillers,” so that the land may produce 
fruit early and pay its expenses. Yet who ever 
saw a first-class orchard of well-shaped trees which 
was started with “fillers,” and kept crowded through 
its early life? On the other hand, how much does 
a man owe to his grandchildren, anyway? What 
have they done for him, and to what extent is he 
under any obligations to them? It is human nature 
for a man of middle years in planting an orchard 
to wish to see the fruit and to make the enterprise 
pay. Thus he usually crowds the trees close and 
makes an acre produce all it can. We have no 
doubt that at 30 years old 25 apple trees to the 
acre would be more satisfactory than 40, but it 
takes a strong man to wait 30 years. 
A 
One thing we may surely thank the experiment 
stations for—that is the improvement in the quality 
of mixed feeds. A few years ago some of these 
feeds were awful. The “molasses feeds” were 
worst, because a sweet taste may disguise the poor¬ 
est trash. There were vital weed seeds, splinters, 
dirt and stuff put into these feeds—enough, in some 
cases, it would seem, to make an ostrich sick. 
Samples were found containing 3 per cent, or more 
of sand and grit. Such stuff must have contained 
sweepings which were half sand. The experiment 
stations year after year printed just what they 
found in these feeds. This publicity has driven the 
worst of them out of the market. The weed seeds 
are now usually ground or cooked before mixing, 
and the “screenings” are of better quality. The 
poorest of the molasses feeds have been driven out 
of business. Those now sold are of very much 
higher quality than the poor stuff which formerly 
disgraced the trade. In this ease the stations have 
done tine work. If farmers would read the anal¬ 
yses printed on the tags and sacks they could pro¬ 
tect themselves to a large extent. 
* 
Those who like to consider large figures will be 
interested in this: 
The volume of the saline matter in the ocean is a 
little more than 4.800,000 cubic miles, or enough to 
cover the entire surface of the United States, exclusive 
of Alaska, 1.6 miles deep. The volume of the 10-mile 
rocky crust of the earth, including the mean elevation 
of the land above the sea, is 1,633,000,000 cubic miles. 
One per cent, of the contents of the oceans would cover 
all the land areas of the globe to a depth of 290 feet.— 
United States Geological Survey. 
The ocean lias for ages received the washings of 
the earth. Vast quantities of plant food have been 
leached out of the soil and sent to the ocean, where 
most of it has been kept. Part of it has been stored 
up as food in the billions of tons of fish which in¬ 
habit' the ocean. The quantities of lime and phos¬ 
phates which have been built up in the ocean are 
beyond the power of the average mind to compute. 
The ocean water contains in solution every sub¬ 
stance which the earth has known, from gold to 
sand. The ocean holds these great stores in re¬ 
serve, waiting the time when man shall need them 
so badly that necessity will force him to find a way 
to extract them. A century ago farrners thought 
they could afford to throw ashes and cotton-seed 
into the river, and burn straw. To do so now 
would be to throw away money. Two centuries 
hence, and before, the treasures of the ocean will 
be needed, its food for plant and for man will be 
utilized and the power of the waves will he used to 
heat and light and move the world's machinery. 
May 2, 
The U. 8. Supreme Court has upheld a law which 
gave the State of Kansas the right to regulate the 
life insurance business. The Kansas Commissioner 
of Insurance, under this law, ordered certain in¬ 
surance companies to reduce their rates. Those 
companies brought suit to prevent such reduction 
on the ground that the State has no right to inter¬ 
fere with private business in this way. One ques¬ 
tion involved was whether selling a man an insur¬ 
ance guarantee was to be considered the same as 
selling him merchandise. The court was divided— 
the majority holding that under the Kansas law the 
Commissioner has the right to regulate these insur¬ 
ance rates when it is evident that such rates are 
too high. The insurance business has developed in 
a way which gives it a public rather than a private 
character, and thus the court holds that it is, with¬ 
in certain limits, subject to State control of its 
rates or prices. Some of the lawyers think that 
this decision opens the way to State regulation of 
prices of merchandise or rates of labor and trans¬ 
portation, but a study of the case does not seem 
to warrant that opinion. Undoubtedly, however, 
the tendency is toward giving the State the right 
to prevent extortionate charges. 
* 
The R. N.-Y. still sincerely hopes there will be no 
war with the people of Mexico. The blood-stained 
murderer and traitor who now calls himself Presi¬ 
dent of the Mexican Republic should be punished, 
but this country has no quarrel with the Mexican 
people. They need our friendship and our help. 
We have no right to absorb their territory or to 
interfere with their real government. The situa¬ 
tion is not unlike that in which many a good man 
has found himself. Over the fence, in the next 
house, lives a hateful, overgrown bully of a boy. He 
has mastered a good-natured father and a doting 
mother, and terrorizes the neighborhood. He whips 
your children, insults the women and throws stones 
at you when you talk to him about it. He isn’t 
your size, and you are supposed to have some dig¬ 
nity and character; but one day you get hold of 
that boy. You forget your dignity and you put a 
shingle to him until he roars for mercy. Ilis pa¬ 
rents will probably both turn on you, when they 
ought to make you a present. The mother runs out 
to shod tears over the “angel child,” and the father, 
insulted and bullied by the young imp, rushes to 
defend his heir. But you are more of a mau be¬ 
cause you gave way to honest indignation. No one 
wants war with the Mexican people except three 
small classes of people: the crack-brained jingoes, 
who light mostly with their mouths; those who in 
one way and another might make some money out 
of a war, and those who believe that a good “war 
scare” will take the minds of the people away from 
vital reforms of politics and social problems. The 
clear-sighted men, who really wish well for their 
country, understand that a war right at this time 
wcuid do more than anything else to stop the prog¬ 
ress which has been made during the past few 
years. 
BREVITIES. 
“Hot air” is natural gas, but it runs no honest 
business. 
The farmer who will lie abed will see the weeds and 
worms upliead. 
Love in a cottage is all right when the rent for the 
cottage is in sight. 
Fresh American asparagus has reached the Liver¬ 
pool, England, market. 
It is just as easy to teach an old dog new tricks as 
to break a new dog of old tricks. 
In spite of the hard Winter, Lake Superior will be 
open to navigation earlier than usual. 
Last year little Denmark exported $123,317,000 
worth of provisions and imported $7,213,500 worth. 
This is the season when “gentle Spring” tarries on 
the way, and asserts her “rights” to do as she pleases. 
The largest strawberry fields in the world are said 
to be in Hampshire, England. From this district last 
year 1,300 tons of berries were sent. 
It is not strange to learn that these Hampshire 
berry growers have organized to build a basket factory 
and buy their fertilizers. 
This Fall the voters of Wisconsin will vote on the 
proposition to “recall” unsuitable public officials. This 
has passed two legislatures by great majorities. 
In Alaska the great sporting event of the year is 
a dog team race. The run is 412 miles over the frozen 
snow. This year the race was won by a team of 
Siberian wolves. 
In Australia “rabbit freezing works” seem to be 
operated somewhat like our creameries. They buy the 
rabbits from hunters, freeze them and ship to England. 
The price for a rabbit is eight cents, for a “kitten” 
two CPU ts. 
