700 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established isso 
Published weekly by the Hural 1'iihiiKiiing Company, 833 West 80lh Street, Itew York 
Herbert W. Collinowood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dili .on, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mas. E. T. Roylk, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION : ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, il2.ru. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
!<}«,' marks, or 10>$ 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 DEAI." 
We believo that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible person. Rut to make doubly sure we will make good any loss to i»aid 
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 w ill we l»e 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the eourts. 
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 It. 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 (lathered bp 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. 
* 
The present Indian Commissioner has issued in¬ 
structions to superintendents which begin as fol¬ 
lows : 
I greatly desire it to be understood throughout the 
service that the present administration of Indian af¬ 
fairs is determined that every Indian shall have oppor¬ 
tunity and encouragement to accomplish industrial bet¬ 
terments. 
Good. Let every Indian have such opportunity, 
and do not stop there. Take in the white men, the 
black men and those of various shades of brown. 
Why give the Indians any special privilege? Also 
include the women, and particularly the children, 
while we are at it. “Industrial betterment” is good. 
* 
Since the first of March there has been great 
complaint about the poor hatching of eggs. Early 
in the year hatching reports were very favorable. 
Then came the delayed hard Winter. There were 
many frozen combs and the vitality of breeding 
stock was greatly impaired. With all this some 
breeders made the mistake of forcing breeding pens 
for high egg records. The result has been many 
very poor hatches. Conditions are better now, hut 
it looks as if the early chick crop will be light. 
Many breeders tell us they will continue to hatch 
much later than usual, but from present indications 
good pullets will he scarce and high next Fall. 
* 
I am sending my milk to a cooperative creamery, 
where they sell by test, and do not think I get the test 
that I should. I think that I could get a sample from 
the creamery. Is there any way that I could get it 
tested by the State, and where should I send it. I have 
saved samples from my milk at home and had it tested 
as an individual cow. and they made it test higher than 
at the creamery. s. 
Under the New York law the Commissioner of 
Agriculture is authorized to make independent tests 
in a case of this sort. If you think you are not re¬ 
ceiving a fair test write quietly to Hon. Calvin J. 
Huson, Department of Agriculture, Albany, N. Y., 
and tell him what you suspect. He will send an in¬ 
spector to take samples and make tests. Do not tell 
the creamery what you are doing. It will be an 
advantage to have this inspector come without warn¬ 
ing and take samples without any preparation. 
* 
I want to expivss my appreciation of your views 
on Mexican war talk, as expressed in editorial on page 
672. I am rather inclined to be hot-headed and do rash 
things, but I admire the man who can first take sober 
second thought. I believe, as you do, that this is a 
disreputable quarrel, and if persisted in will be terrible 
in its consequences. There are nobler battles to be 
fought, which, if not accompanied by so much of “shout¬ 
ing and flag-waving” have infinitely greater prospects 
in leading the millions of our poor, oppressed people up 
onto higher ground and teaching them to demand their 
right as citizens of this grent country. e. n. p. 
We are safe in saying that this note expresses the 
sentiments of the great majority of our readers—and 
thoughtful people generally. Here and there are 
noisy shouters and fire-eaters—who may he trusted 
to keep far away from any firing line. The great 
'I'M LC RURAL NEW-YORREK 
body of sober and sensible Americans do not want 
any war or any war scare. Representatives of the 
South American republics have offered to mediate 
and help settle the difficulty. We hope they will 
succeed, not only for the sake of honorable peace, 
but because a settlement arranged in this way will 
have a permanent effect upon the future of this 
continent. What are known as the La tin-American 
Republics have long distrusted this country and 
its policy toward them. The prompt acceptance of 
their offers to help settle this Mexican trouble will 
go far to give them a kindlier feeling atid greater 
respect for us. No finer thing could have happened 
in this unfortunate situation, and we sincerely hope 
that these republics will be able to arrange for a 
lasting peace. 
* 
Some of the real estate agents and boomers do 
not think much of our general advice to back-to-tlie- 
landers. It is somewhat like the famous advice 
about marriage—“Don't.” We qualify this, how¬ 
ever, by adding: “Until you know what you are 
doing, and have money enough to provide fair cap¬ 
ital.” A man may obtain the capital, but knowledge 
comes only through raw blisters. Here is one con¬ 
clusive argument from a real estate dealer: 
“What do you know about going back to the land 
anyway?" 
Why—very little. We went back ourselves, 
bought a rough hillside farm and have kept quite 
accurate accounts. Of course that experience is a 
very poor qualification beside the brilliant imagina¬ 
tions of some of these modern writers, but it is 
the best we have. Then during the past 20 years, 
beginning with Geo. A. Cosgrove’s story, The It. N.- 
Y. has printed more actual true accounts of back-to- 
the-landiug than all the other farm papers put to¬ 
gether. We might be said to have made this a spe¬ 
cialty, having been through the mill ourselves. 
* 
The U. S. Census Bureau has made a new esti¬ 
mate of the country’s population. This gives New 
York City a total of 5,333,537—a gain in four years 
of 786,047. The State has now a population of 
nearly 10,000,000, and the entire country, not includ¬ 
ing territories, is 98,731,324. Every State in the 
Union except Iowa has gained. All the large cities 
and towns show great, gains. Our farmers are in¬ 
terested in this last fact, for upon the water-shed 
draining into the upper Atlantic may he found the 
finest markets of the world. Here are two of the 
world’s largest cities and six averaging more than 
half a million each. There are 26 with more than 
100,000 and averaging nearly 200.000. This vast 
army of consumers must he fed, and at least half a 
million of them never stop to ask the price of food 
which pleases their eye. This Atlantic coast terri¬ 
tory is to remain the great headquarters for Ameri¬ 
can shipping and manufacturing, and thus it affords 
the greatest market future for our farmers. Organi¬ 
zation and cooperative work have enabled the pro¬ 
ducers in distant States to supply much of the food 
sent into this great section. The same agencies 
worked out by our own farmers will enable New 
England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania 
to supply the finer and higher-priced food which 
these rich markets demand. That is why the young 
man growing up on our Eastern farms today has a 
better opportunity than any other section of the 
country can offer him. 
* 
The larger this country grows the closer its cor¬ 
ners seem to lie pulled together. Twenty-five years 
ago the average person on the Atlantic coast had 
but a dim notion of the northwestern part of this 
country. Had anyone stated at that time that ap¬ 
ples from Oregon and Washington would top the 
market in New York and he found on sale in every 
New England city he would have been, voted a hare¬ 
brained dreamer. Yet for the past six years or 
more these apples have actually set the price for fruit 
in our Eastern ma - kets. It is probable that the 
presence of this fine, graded fruit has done more 
than anything else to compel our eastern growers 
to improve their methods. Or California! Men are 
now alive who remember when some of our wisest 
statesmen argued that the State was not worth tak¬ 
ing or occupying. These men claimed that the des¬ 
erts and the mountains would forever hold the At¬ 
lantic and Pacific coasts apart. Yet this year fresh 
asparagus was sent from California across the con¬ 
tinent and over the ocean to Liverpool, England, 
and sold at a profit. A man representing a fruit 
growers' association in Puyallup Valley, Washing¬ 
ton. lias just visited New York, where he took or¬ 
ders for many carloads of dried raspberries and 
blackberries. This fruit is to he grown and evap¬ 
orated in a valley 4,000 miles from this market. 
This will be done while thousands of acres of exeel- 
llay I), 
leut berry land lies idle within 150 miles of New York. 
Formerly the ends and corners of this great coun¬ 
try were held apart by steel bars. Now they seem 
to he at the ends of a rubber band. What mighty 
force has brought these wonders about? One word 
tells it—cooperation. The farmers on the Pacific 
coast have been able to get together, standardize 
their products, and do their business as an organiza¬ 
tion. Individual effort could never have carried 
their products half way across the continent. Be¬ 
yond that all profit would have been swallowed up 
by middlemen. No greater argument for organiza¬ 
tion and cooperation among farmers was ever given 
than this wiping out distance in continental trade. 
* 
Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National 
City Bank, recently addressed the cotton manu¬ 
facturers. He expressed the opinion which some of 
our city fianciers have of the farmer. It is a poorly 
disguised contempt and anger that the farmer will 
not mind his own business and go on taking his 35- 
cent dollar in silence. Here is a sample: 
If a railroad manager is culpable and is answerable 
to society for anything less than 100 per cent, of effi¬ 
ciency, what of the farmer and planter, holding the 
great agency of production—land—and utilizing it with 
hut 40 per cent, of efficiency? That is the indictment 
that stands against no small part of the agricultural 
community—a conduct *of their business on a basis of 
40 per cent, of efficiency. 
Mr. Vanderlip forgets or does not know the sim¬ 
plest thing in this entire business. When the rail¬ 
roads are asked to be “efficient” they immediately 
demand the right to charge higher rates. They de¬ 
mand five cents more of the consumer’s dollar as the 
price of “efficiency.” That is just what the farmer 
demands, and he has just as much right to it as 
the railroads or any other interest. Give him five 
cents more of this dollar and “efficiency” will soon 
take care of itself. He cannot buy the things needed 
to make him efficient, until he obtains his fair share. 
Cannot the wise Mr. Vanderlip see that the purchase 
of these things by the farmer would do more than 
anything he can mention to create markets and im¬ 
prove business? He suggests a national inquiry 
into the efficiency of farmers. Why not? The more 
you look into it the more the public will see that 
there will be no true “efficiency” until the farmers 
can enlarge that 35-cent dollar! Just think for a 
moment! “Efficiency” always costs money—for new 
materials and equipment. Do these bankers and 
statesmen expect the farmers to perform miracles? 
It would seem so, for they want farm efficiency on 
a 35-cent dollar, while all other interests are allowed 
a larger income in order to become “efficient.” 
♦ 
Henry Wallace, the acknowledged leader of farm 
journalism in this country, recently celebrated his 
seventy-eighth birthday. Among other things Mr. 
Wallace said: 
I have 10 years of work planned ahead of me. I may 
not do it all; I may not do any of it, hut I am pre¬ 
pared to do it and feel thoroughly able to. Old age is 
the best part of life. The battles of life are past and a 
nmn has little to worry him. lie has more control of 
himself. He knows just what he is capable of doing 
and is less likely to go astray in his plans. His long 
experience gives him an advantage, and he sees the 
world more accurately and with a keener perspective. 
Henry Wallace is a great man. Any man who 
can talk in this way and view life with this cheer¬ 
ful philosophy when close to four score has somehow 
managed to drink from the fountain of perpetual 
youth. We have seen too many men at 60, or even 
at 50, grow sour and cynical as the years leave them 
behind. The best years of life are yet to come. 
“The years no charm from Nature take, 
As sweet her voices call. 
As beautiful her mornings break, 
As fair her evenings fall.” 
Henry Wallace is a great man because he has 
found the true greatness of life. That is the power 
to keep faith and hope and good cheer in his heart 
so that the young may know the blessedness of 
growing old. 
BREVITIES. 
Try the moth-ball treatment for repelling squash hugs 
this year. 
The advice to cotton mills is to burn Egyptian cot- 
ton-seed found in imported hales. This cleans out the 
pink boll-worm—very destructive to American cotton. 
A “MODEL dairy” lias been established in Paraguay 
—about the last civilized place one would expect to find 
model dairying. It is a country where even now “but¬ 
ter” is made by putting milk or cream into a skin bag 
and trailing it over the ground behind a horse. 
Bulletin No. 84 of the U. S. Department of Agri¬ 
culture is entitled “Experiments with Udo, the New 
Japanese Vegetable.” Udo is Aralia cordata, which is 
grown here as an ornamental plant. The blanched 
shoots, treated like asparagus, are highly recommended. 
A shipment of 2,000 apple and pear trees was re¬ 
cently made from Oregon and California to Portugal. 
They arrived in good condition, and started growing at 
once. The ends of the world were formerly separated 
by iron bars. Now they seem to be at the end of a 
rubber hand. 
