1914. 
THE RURA.I* NEW-YOKKHR 
1060 
The City Housewife’s Problem. 
T HE food question does not greatly 
trouble the farm housekeeper who 
has access to a good garden and orchard, 
a cow and a yardful of chickens. It does 
loom large to the city housekeeper, and 
her country sister will be interested in 
knowing what becomes of the floods of 
food which start for the city. A writer 
in the New York Sun speaks of the out¬ 
cry over the high cost of meat: 
Yet there are hundreds of tons of the 
finest vegetables grown that are selling 
for less than freight charges, and con¬ 
sumers don’t seem to want them, or else 
they don’t know that present conditions 
exist. Just think of it, green peas are 
selling at 10 to 30 cents a bushel bag. 
These peas will shell out at least six 
quarts to the bag. Jersey tomatoes are 
selling at 30 to 40 cents a bushel crate; 
cantaloupes are 30 to 60 cents a crate of 
45 to 60 count, while the crates contain¬ 
ing 100 melons are seldom bringing over 
75 cents. The writer pays 20 cents for 
half of one of these melons in a small 
restaurant in the very centre of the mar¬ 
ket. Assuming that these cantaloupes 
cost .$1 a crate the restaurant gets a 
profit of $16 to $18 on one crate of 
melons with an investment of $ 1 . 
Much the same is true of beans, let¬ 
tuce and other foods. When it comes to 
poultry this correspondent says: 
We have an abundance of dressed poul¬ 
try, frozen last year, at a cost of 18 to 
22 cents a pound, and now wholesaled 
at three to four cents less than the cost 
price last Fall and Winter. We received 
and unloaded 116 carloads of live chick¬ 
ens, numbering fully 650,000 bead. 
These broilers and fricassee fowl are 
used almost entirely by the Hebrew 
housewives. The wholesale market on 
broilers was 17 to I 8 V 2 cents, while fowl 
sold at 14% to 16 cents. Consumers get 
this poultry at two cents per pound over 
wholesale price. 
This fearful waste goes on week after 
week largely because the machinery of 
distribution is defective. 
If there was some agency by which in¬ 
telligent housekeepers could find out what 
is being produced and on the present 
market the high cost of living would be 
the least of their troubles. Newspapers 
are teeming with accounts of the high 
cost of foodstuffs, and at the same time 
hundreds of tons are gorng to waste be¬ 
cause consumers don’s ask for it. Con¬ 
sumers pay no attention to anything un¬ 
til they read it in the newspapers. 
It is a fact that most city buyers rare¬ 
ly think and investigate for themselves. 
They are guided almost entirely by what 
the newspapers tell them. If half the 
space now given to guessing at the war 
news were devoted to telling city people 
how and what to buy as food both the 
consumers and the producers would be 
far better off. 
Odd Things About Poison Ivy. 
Y OU say it’s a new one to you anent 
goats and poison oak or ivy. Per¬ 
haps it may further surprise you to learn 
that the omnivorous goat is not the only 
animal with an appetite for that vicious 
plant. At least it did me when I first 
came to the camp. The dairyman, who 
is an expert stockman, said that horses 
considered the tender leaves and sprouts 
a great delicacy, as did other stock; that 
it was a remedy for colic in horses and 
that when colicky if on range they would 
hunt out and eat the plant more than at 
other times; furthermore, that lurnber- 
men in this section and also stockmen and 
others who are liable to come in contact 
with it secure immunity from the poison 
by occasionally eating a handful of the 
tender leaves of the plant. Proving his 
words he reached up into a wayside tree 
and brought down in his bare hand some 
sprays of the poison and passed them to 
his team. 
Our camp, as a part of the great red¬ 
wood timber country of the State, is head¬ 
quarters for poison oak. It seems to take 
a fiendish and almost human delight in 
“soaking it to” the city tenderfoot who 
overruns the solitudes each season. Here 
near-tragedies are enacted. Two Sum¬ 
mers ago a couple of nature-hungry youths 
from the city took in the camp. One of 
them became so badly poisoned that from 
the top of his head to the sole of his feet 
his flesh was like a boil. He couldn’t 
bear even a light garment and for several 
days, naked and suffering, swearing and 
groaning, he was a prisoner in his room. 
There are as many remedies as victims 
and if used in time any of them will 
prove effective; but after the poison gets 
into the blood it will run its course and 
the best one can do is to apply some pal¬ 
liative to ease the intolerable itching and 
burning. For this purpose the hot water 
treatment is most effective, followed by a 
thick dusting of medicated powder or 
baking soda while the skin is wet. Worm¬ 
wood tea used internally as a tonic and 
externally as a hot application is said 
to be very efficacious. It is an excellent 
practice to fortify the skin by an appli¬ 
cation of cold cream or any sort of 
grease with a dusting of talcum powder or 
starch before going on a tramp. This 
also protects the skin from insect bites 
and sunburn. A rind of bacon is good 
to take along in case of contact with 
poison. I would suggest to your inquirer 
who wants something to kill the poison 
plant on his acre, that lacking a goat the 
action joining all the heirs of the former 
owner as parties defendant, but this is 
quite an expensive proceeding and the 
former method is more simple. m. d. 
A Travelling Table. —Passing through 
furniture stores we note among modern 
conveniences tea-tables on rubber-tired 
wheels. These, although very convenient 
in some homes, did not seem to fit our 
need, which was to set table, serve meals, 
and handle dishes with the fewest steps 
and in the shortest time for a very large 
family, and besides they were expensive. 
We studied on it for some time, when the 
handy man of the family evolved the fol¬ 
lowing: We had an old-fashioned table, 
which was originally a drop-leaf, but 
being choice wood had parted with its 
leaves for bracket shelves, leaving the bed 
“IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS. 
best plan is to grub out the roots himself, 
or if he has not time, to go over the 
ground frequently with the hoe and cut 
down the sprouts. In that way I have 
about exterminated the pest from a wood¬ 
ed corner of my grounds. 
California. m. russel jajies. 
Life Insurance Policy. 
HEN a man holds a life insurance 
policy, “Self” being the beneficiary, 
at death of insured, what claim 
would wife have on policy if there are no 
children living? 
Where the insured himself is named 
os beneficiary, the insurance money be¬ 
comes a part of his estate in the hands 
of his executor or administrator, and 
would be used in the payment of debts, 
etc., and be distributed the same as other 
personal property. The wife would have 
the same interest in it as she would have 
in respect of the rest of his personal 
estate, which in New l r ork, if there were 
no children, would go, after the payment 
of debts, etc., one-half to the widow and 
the other half to the next of kin, such 
as brothers, sisters, nephews, etc., or if 
none of these, all to the widow. ii. D. 
Who Has the Title ? 
and four legs. He took the top off, nail¬ 
ing three-eighths inch hard pine matched 
boards beneath the frame crosswise. The 
hollow bed thus made was then lined 
with zinc, reaching over edges to make 
waterproof, fitted, soldered and smoothed 
down at the corners. A fine set of ball¬ 
bearing castors with fibre cover, to pre¬ 
vent scratching, were added, then a coat 
of paint was applied to the wood surface. 
Now we have a table that can be moved 
by a touch of the finger. It will carry 
the whole dinner or dessert for a large 
family from kitchen to dining-room at 
one trip, or carry a bushel of soiled dish¬ 
es from the table. Clara t. sisson. 
About the best joke on Jim Crow, and 
it is true, too. We have a one-eyed farm¬ 
er whose young chicks the black crows 
were catching for meals faster than was 
at all profitable. So, as it was doubtful 
if he could shoot a crow, he took down 
his trusty gun and went over to his grain 
barn, and sighting a common barn pigeon 
he blazed away, and down came the pig¬ 
eon. When secured he next hunted up 
his good wife’s stove brush and blacking. 
Soon the pigeon was as black as a verit¬ 
able crow. This transformed dove-crow 
was then hung up in the chicken yard 
to scare away the chicken thieves—the 
crows—and proved to be efficacious. This 
is the first instance coming to my observ¬ 
ation where a barn dove was used to 
scare away crows. It is well known that 
a dead crow hung up in a cornfield or 
chicken yard will keep crows away, and 
is a practice we often resort to. 
New York. f. m. p. 
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Write our office nearest you and get our 
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W IIAT can be done to acquire posses¬ 
sion of property of which no deed 
can be found on record, a son having 
lived on same until death and the widow 
continuing to occupy and pay taxes, hav¬ 
ing paid the taxes for 50 years? The 
other sons and daughters being all dead, 
can it be held by quiet possession or a 
bill for the taxes and interest? I am 
very anxious to get a title to same. 
Maine. b. l. e. 
You do not give the name of the per¬ 
son who last had a deed to the property. 
Presumably it is the father of the son 
whose widow is now on the property and 
the property, on the death of the father, 
descended to his wife, if then living, and 
his children, and they, and their wives 
and children are now the legal owners. 
If this presumption is correct, the way 
for your inquirer to get legal title is to 
buy out the interest of these heirs, or to 
ge: them to sign a quit-claim deed to her. 
Their interests would not be large, as 
they Would have to pay their share of the 
taxes for the past 50 years. If the heirs 
R. N.-Y.—We have long heard of the 
“dove of peace.” Here is a new use for 
her. She usually is a scarecrow. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 W. 30th St., New York City 
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enn be got hold of they ought to give a 
quit-claim deed without any trouble or 
expense. If they cannot be found, there 
appears to be no harm in the present oc¬ 
cupant giving a deed to a purchaser, al¬ 
though the purchaser would not have a 
legal marketable title. In a few words 
then, the present occupant, who has paid 
the taxes for 50 years, must acquire in 
herself the interest which the other heirs 
of the former owner now have, and the 
quit-claim deed signed by all of them 
would seem to be the simplest method. 
Inasmuch as she has occupied the prem¬ 
ises claiming title as against all the world 
for 50 years, she may claim ownership 
by adverse possession, and might start an 
SYRACUSE, AUG. 31 -SEPT. 1.2.3.4.5 
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