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THE RURAIi "MEW-YOR KER 
July 11, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TIIE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal lor Country and Suburhnn Homes 
Established tsso 
Published ireekly by the Rural Publishing Compnnv. 888 West 30th Street, New York 
Hf.rbekt W. Collinowood, President and Kditor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wsl F. 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. 6d., or 
marks, or 10tA francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Oflice as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates, 00 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. We use every possible precaution and admit the advertising of 
reliable houses only. But to make doubly sure, we will make good any loss 
to paid subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler, irrespon¬ 
sible advertisers or misleading advertisements in our columns, and any 
such swindler will be publicly exposed. We are also often called upon 
to adjust differences or mistakes between our subscribers and honest, 
responsible houses, whether advertisers or not. We willingly use our good 
oflices to this end, but such cases should not be confused with dishonest 
transactions. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we will not be 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned bv the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must bo sent to us within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and to identify it. you should mention The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
B Y general agreement among practical farmers 
tlie Fall is considered the most profitable time 
for seeding Timothy and Red-top, the two most 
popular grasses in this latitude. Fall is the natural 
time for such seeding, yet it would often be more 
convenient to seed in the Spring with oats or barley. 
Yet probably SO per cent, of such seeding is done 
in September. We understand that a number of 
farmers have made very careful experiments at 
seeding grass in Spring. Will they tell us the re¬ 
sults? 
* 
A GREAT poultry convention will he held at the 
Massachusetts Agricultural College at Am¬ 
herst on July 22, 23 and 24. One of the 
most practical programmes ever suggested has been 
prepared. Among other important things D. J. Lam¬ 
bert of Rhode Island will tell how to select the 10 
best hens or pullets from a flock of 100. It seems 
to he the general opinion that if Mr. Lambert can¬ 
not select the best hen there is no use asking anyone 
else to do it. The Business Hen is the coming farm 
food manufacturer for Massachusetts or New Eng¬ 
land. A hen convention is the place to learn and 
unlearn. The latter is hardest. Who likes to pull 
the tail feathers out of his own theories? Yet that 
is the way theories are made workable. 
* 
T HE newspapers have recently printed lively 
stories about gold discoveries in Arkansas. 
Some of our people have talked of going to 
the new “diggings,” while others have considered the 
plan of buying stock in Arkansas gold mines! The 
U. S. Geological Survey got on the job and took 
fair samples of ore for examination. Their report 
states: 
Despite the high returns claimed, the gold shown by 
assay of these official samples in no case exceeds 52 
cents a ton. and in most of the samples it is six cents 
or less. No more than a trace of silver was found in 
any of the samples. The material as shown by these 
assays is far from being ore, although it probably repre¬ 
sents fairly well the average run of the veins. 
Paying your money for stock in six-cent gold is 
surely buying a gold brick. If you want to dig gold 
out of the soil why not dig ditches through that wet 
spot on your own farm? 
* 
W E have hardly known a season when it was so 
difficult to obtain reliable facts about the 
peach crop. Never before in our memory 
has this crop been so “spotty”—good in one locality 
and light or poor in a section only a few miles 
away. The Southern crop has started to come North 
and here is a characteristic report from J. II. Hale 
in Georgia: 
Just in from the orchard where the black boys and 
girls are happy chatting as they harvest the most beau¬ 
tiful peaches we have ever produced here, and I can’t 
help wishing you were here to see what can be done in 
“dry farming.” Up to last Friday practically no rain 
for over three months, yet culture, culture, culture, has 
kept trees and fruit growing and now that rains have 
come the crop is maturing in fine shape except about 
two weeks late. Just now well under way with Wad¬ 
dell and Carman; Hiley will be on next week. Belle of 
Georgia about July 12, and Elberta July 15 to IS and 
run till August 1 this year. 
* 
W E have been waiting patiently for some one to 
come forward with proof that those English 
Wyandottes are cross-bred birds or not true 
to breed. Thus far there has been no evidence what¬ 
ever except that these birds do not look like the 
“standard.” Mr. Barron says he has simply selected 
as breeders the hens which gave best performance 
in the trap nest. The Wyandotte was originally a 
“made” breed produced by mixing several breeds 
together and then breeding to a certain type. The 
latest theory is that the process of trap-nesting 
which Mr. Barron has carried through has brought 
out the best egg-laying strain in the old Wyandotte 
mixture. But why are these birds not Wyandottes? 
Suppose you took the Dutch Belted cattle with their 
peculiar white marking. Through a series of genera¬ 
tion you select for breeding the heifers which show 
the best milk production, paying no attention what¬ 
ever to the white belt or its location. The chances 
are that you would have finally an improved dairy 
cow, but the white belt around her would be changed 
or spotted with black. Yet she would still be a 
Dutch Belted cow. Or take Jersey, Guernsey, Ayr¬ 
shire and Swiss cows and breed for a number of 
generations, selecting only the best butter producers 
on both sides without much regard to other consider¬ 
ations. At the end of 10 generations the cows of the 
four breeds would be much alike except for colox* *. 
Their general shape and type would be much the 
same, for no matter what her breed the superior 
butter making cow has a peculiar and characteristic 
shape or build. Yet all these cows would still be 
purebred, since we have not gone outside of their 
true “breed” to produce them. If these English 
Wyandottes have been selected and bred for per¬ 
formance why are they not still Wyandottes? This 
and the problems which we can all see sticking out 
of it is the big question in this case. Who is to tell 
us what a Wyandotte really is? Shall we accept 
his dictum even when we know that a bird of an¬ 
other type is better for our purpose? 
W E have had high “authorities” say that the tar¬ 
iff on food stuff will have nothing to do with 
prices. Other “authorities” w T ho l’ank even 
higher say tariffs have everything to do with high 
cost of living. Now what have these wise owls to 
say to the following from Julius D. Dreha, U. S. 
Consul at Toronto, Canada? 
While Great Britain has to import most of its food¬ 
stuffs, Canada has a surplus for exportation, and yet 
the prices of foodstuffs are cheaper in England than in 
Ontario. It is asserted on good authority that bread 
made from Canadian wheat is sold at a lower price 
in London than in the larger cities of the Dominion. 
While the removal of the duty increased the exporta¬ 
tion of cattle to the United States, it had the effect of 
raising the price of beef cattle in Ontario, so that the 
prices in Toronto became about as high as those pre¬ 
vailing in the Buffalo market, and all meats became 
dearer to housekeepers in Ontario. 
Think of growing wheat in Canada, sending it 
4.000 miles for grinding and then selling the bi*ead 
for less than the Canadian people pay! In this 
country the price of meat lias steadily increased. 
Thus the effect of free trade in Canadian cattle thus 
far has been to increase prices on both sides of the 
liue. For some 40 years now the “statesmen” have 
kicked this tai*iff question about like a football. 
Now we begin to see what a small thing it really is 
compared with the 35-cent dollar of the farmer. We 
do not want more tariff tinkering—we do want a 
new system of distribution which will give the 
farmer a fairer share of the consumer’s dollar. 
* 
“Many Men of Many Minds!” 
E may go a century from childhood and still 
find truth in the old nursery rhyme. We find 
evidence of it here every day. Not long since the 
following came from a reader who does not want 
liis name printed: 
I want to enter a protest against the horse pictures 
you have been publishing in your paper. White-faced 
horses are not desirable; a big per cent are soft horses. 
The Clydesdale colt, pictured recently in The R. N.-Y., 
valued at $5,000, is worth about one per cei t. of that 
sum. These big soft horses are many of them worn out 
at 12 years of age. There is one thing to be said in 
their favor; their bones are big and they are worth 
more for fertilizer and knife handles when no longer 
useful. Were I the editor of The R. N.-Y. no white¬ 
faced horse pictures would be printed. Do not lend 
your influence in this direction; bar out such pictures 
along with the fakes not for publication. 
We find that what various gentlemen would do if 
they were editor to be among the wonders of the 
world. We have a brewer who protests at every 
reference to temperance, and many who want three 
pages on Prohibition in each issue. At a fruit grow¬ 
ers* meeting a well-known farmer cursed the dairy 
cow and never wanted to hear of her again. On the 
same day another man said he wanted nothing but 
cow. One man said his wife disliked Tiie R. N.-Y. 
because it contained the picture of a hog. Another 
woman said the hog had paid the mortgage on 
her farm. The fact seems to be that if all these 
would-be editoi’s had their way there would be 
nothing at all printed in the paper. Our people 
are generally broad-minded and fail', l'eady to think 
and conduct a fair discussion. As for white-faced 
horses, we have three on the farm that are very 
satisfactory. Here in New York, out of about 500 
colored horses examined, over 400 had a star, a 
stripe or a full white face. On referring the matter 
to Dr. Alexander. w r e l'eceived the following: 
Since time immemorial white-faced, “bald” or 
“blazed” horses have been popular in Europe. It is 
characteristic of the heavy draft stock of Great Britain, 
founded with blood of the ancient “black horse” of 
Flanders, and it no doubt is the origin of the “stax*” 
or “stripe” and “snip” in horses of other bi'eeds, not¬ 
ably the Perehei'on. All of the farm work and heavy 
hauling on the streets, and about the railroad stations 
and docks of England and Scotland, and most of the 
work of the same sort in Canada, is done by grand 
draft horses of this origin. The accusation of your cor¬ 
respondent is unjust, prejudiced and not based upon 
intimate knowledge of the facts. A few hours upon a 
street corner in Toronto, Melbourne, Glasgow, Liver¬ 
pool, London or Dublin would be likely to change his 
opinions. 
* 
S OME great stories ha've been told about the 
motor-car as a jack of all trades. We hear how 
it carries the entire family to church, or busi¬ 
ness or pleasure in sober style, or how, in time of 
need, it flashes off for the doctor like a tireless race 
horse. Then it goes into the hayfield and crawls in 
front of the mower or hay loader, or pushes the 
load in through the barn door. Then it nins up to 
the feed grinder or saw or grindstone, kicks xxp its 
hind feet and turns the wheel which runs farm ma- 
chinery. We are doubtful about these “jack of all 
trade” stunts, but they are constantly being re¬ 
ported. Here is a new one, however—the automo¬ 
bile as an insecticide—from Kansas: 
Never in history has there been such a promise of a 
record-breaking wheat crop as in Kansas this year. 
Corn is also looking fine, especially as in the last few 
days good rains have fallen. The army worm, however, 
has in certain sections proved very destructive, and it 
remained for a Kansas farmer to devise a new method 
of killing them. One of his fields was paralleled by a 
public road and along this road he ran out a furrow or 
ditch with a plow. Army worms were crossing from 
one field into the next and dropping into the ditch. # He 
brought out his automobile and kept it constantly ’run¬ 
ning up and down the road, with two of the wheels in 
the ditch, and in this way millions of worms were 
killed. The ditch finally became so clogged that in 
places it had to be cleaned out, when the murderous 
procedure continued. 
Those who have seen a horde of army worms 
march over a field and attack the crops will ap¬ 
preciate this story. 
♦ 
S OME men go to school to Prof. Adversity; others 
are instincted by Dr. Experience or Mr. Pub¬ 
lic Opinion. Now comes a new' educator who 
has gathered a large school of “statesmen” and 
“thinkers.” This new comer is the Hon. Bumper 
Ci*op, and he is turning some petrified and pre¬ 
judiced brains inside out in a way that is miracu¬ 
lous! For example, here comes the Hon Sei'eno E. 
Payne of New York, author of the Payne tariff law. 
Mr. Payne is talking to the voters of his district: 
We are now told that the bumper crops are to lift 
the cloud which hangs over the industries of the coun¬ 
try and times ai’e to be better. They seem to forget that 
bumper crops result in lower prices, and thus the farm¬ 
er does not get much more money for what he sells and 
he will have substantially no more money with which 
to buy, especially under a tariff law which takes off 
practically all protection on agricultural crops. 
No use talking, the lion. Bumper Ci'op is a gi’eat 
educator. We can easily remember when such a 
crop was attributed, by the party in power, to their 
“w’ise statesmanship.” In those days we never were 
told the truth, which was that a “bumper ci'op” gave 
every handler except the farmer better pay for his 
laboi'. If Mr. Payne and his friends wei'e wise they 
would hardly admit this fact about the bumper 
crop. What is to prevent some critical fai'mer from 
asking this question: “If what you say is true, what 
have you been doing for the past 20 years to make 
the conditions which bump the fai'mer iu this 
way. What do you offer as a remedy now?” Thex’e 
is the point in the entire discussion. It is not a 
question of producing more or selling more, but it 
is a question of handling and distributing farm pro¬ 
ducts so that the producer will receive a larger share 
of the consumer’s dollar. We hope the Hon. Bump¬ 
er Crop will hold his pupils in school until they go 
through with the problem, and tell us how to in¬ 
crease that 35-cent dollar. 
BREVITIES. 
Give attention to the colt’s feet. 
Is there anyone left who thinks spraying does not 
pay a fruit grower? 
No—demanding interest oh your money is not the 
highest principal of life. 
The “June bug” crop is reported heavy in Wisconsin 
This means a post of white grubs next season. They 
can he partly cleaned out by Fall-plowing old meadows 
and clearing up brush and trash. 
The West Virginia Experiment Station will help 
farmers locate local deposits of time. It is claimed 
that every countv of the State contains lime ledges, 
while nine-tenths of the unproductive laud is deficient 
in humus and lime. 
The Florists’ Exchange tells of a swindler who 
recently cleared about $2,000 by selling four-leaved 
clover seed to hopeful Californians. The purchasers 
probably begin to doubt the efficiency of lucky signs. 
In Ontario, Canada, there is more than enough good 
land to support several times the present population. 
The government is paying money to induce foreigners 
to come in and take up land, while the present rural 
population is going to town to live! Here is a double 
problem which comes to every community after the 
pioneer generation. 
