1086 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BZ'SINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Connfry and Suburban llmnm 
Eslabli.sh-rri 1SR0 
Pnbllslied weekly by tile ltnr.'il Puhlisbin? Company. 333 West 80th Street, New Torts 
Herbert W. Coli.ingwood, President and Editor. 
John* .1. On.T.ON, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Diixon*, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Royle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION r ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in tile Universal Postal I’nion. 32-01. equal to 8s. fid., or 
1 C* marks, or 10 1 * francs. Remit in. money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates. 75 cents per agate line—7 words. Refercnees required ftr 
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 pond hie 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 
sueh swindler will be publicly exposed. We are also often called upon 
to adjust differences or mistakes between our subscribers and honest 
responsible, bouses, whether advertisers or not. We willingly use our good 
offices to this end, but such eases 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 by tlie 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 Ri ral New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
N OW comes tlie season for proving the nursery¬ 
man—running his trees through a Babcock 
test! Some of them will come into bearing 
this year. A very large proportion will lie true to 
name, but there will be "misfits" or cases where the 
label does not tit the tree. Then there may be older 
trees which we want to identify. The way to be 
absolutely sure about these things is to send a fair 
sample of fruit to the United States Pomologist, De¬ 
partment of Agriculture. Washington. D. C. This 
official makes it his business to identify and name 
fruits. He has laboratory, models, pictures and 
hooks complete, and his word will be final. He will, 
on application, send you boxes in which your fr* *t 
will be mailed free of charge- Our advice is to go 
direct to headquarters with your samples. We make 
use of this service and find it true. 
s 
W ILL not the European War cause a shortage in 
next year’s grain crop in Europe? If so would 
you not advise American farmers to turn over 
every acre they can this Fall and put in Fall 
grain crops? I. N. B. 
No one can tell how long the war will last. It 
may be all over by Thanksgiving, or it may last a 
year or more. Thus far the fighting has not serious¬ 
ly interfered with the harvests. The grain in both 
Germany and France has been cut by women and 
old men. and the same workers will put in a new 
crop as best they can. There will he a shortage, of 
course, and Europe must look to Africa, Australia, 
South America and this country for part of its food. 
It is not likely that the English grain crops will he 
smaller. They may he larger. To the second ques¬ 
tion, as it is put, we answer No! It will never pay 
to turn over old or unsuitable land, give it a hasty 
fitting and then sow grain .just for the sake of ob¬ 
taining a large acreage. The thing to do is to in¬ 
crease the grain acreage a little, and work the land 
just as well as you possibly can before putting in the 
seed. Try to grow more grain to the acre rather 
than to scratch over more acres. Time spent in war 
talk at the village store raises no wheat. The same 
time spent in one extra harrowing will mean more 
grain, and Europe will need every bushel of it. 
* 
I T is maddening to think a handful of individuals can 
set all Europe at each other’s throats. It is also in¬ 
tensely irritating to realize how much we here are 
at the mercy of a comparatively few commercial au¬ 
tocrats of the brigand type, men who produce nothing, 
who rentier no service except that which could be better 
given at much less cost in other ways, and yet who ex¬ 
act in toll twice the value of the product as it leaves the 
farm of the producer. 
This from the Bristol (Conn.) Press expresses 
the opinion of millions of our people in the Eastern 
States. With the largest crops on record, and Europe 
shut off from export trade, a gang of food pirates 
proceeded to boost the price of flour, sugar, meat and 
other necessities. No one thinks of claiming that 
farmers gained a penny by this rise in the price of 
necessities. They lost money as a whole, for the rob¬ 
bery of the public, through these hold-up prices, in¬ 
jured the trade in fruit, vegetables and similar goods. 
The Government is trying to probe into this outrage 
and find the rascals who are responsible for it. Each 
time this bold robbery is attempted we become more 
and more convinced that the Government must step 
in and protect the people by regulating prices. 
Through the Interstate Commerce Commission it 
regulates the price of transportation of freight and 
passenger traffic on the railroads. The price of food 
is of far more importance than the price of trans¬ 
portation. A commission with power to investigate 
and fairly regulate food prices to consumers would 
quickly prove that the 35-cent dollar is a reality and 
it would shut off the food sharks and useless mid¬ 
dlemen through its exposures. Can anyone give a 
sound reason why such a commission should not be 
created ? 
THE RURAL NEW-VORKER 
N page 1032 we printed a statement from an in¬ 
surance company regarding an accident to a 
farm laborer. After accepting a premium to 
cover such insurance the company appeared to argue 
that it was not lialde because the new law exempts 
farm laborers. One of our readers makes this point: 
I carry a compensation policy on my farm labor, and 
as I understand the point in question, while the law 
does not compel a farmer to carry compensation insur¬ 
ance on his labor, at the same time there is a rate issued 
for same, and anyone who wishes can voluntarily place 
his employees under this protection, and that any in¬ 
surance company accepting his premium for same is 
bound to pay in ease of an accident on the same basis 
as would be paid on other classes of employees on which 
the law demands insurance. 
That seems to he common sense no matter what 
the law may he. If the insurance company agrees to 
pay in case of accident to a man the agreement 
onght to he kept regardless of the exemption in this 
new law. 
* 
I HAVE seen a good many “hen stories” in Ttie It. 
N.-Y., and I know many claim that .$1 per hen per 
year is about the best yon can expect. What 
would they say of making $1,000 a year from 50 
hens? We have a man here who wants to wager $100 
that he can make $1,000 per year from 50 hens. If 
this wager could be made and successfully carried out. 
wouldn’t it be a great “eye opener” to the poultry 
business? This man stands ready, so he says, to place 
the $100. and cost of supervision to fall on the one who 
loses. S. J. V. 
Vermont. 
We must not let this egg-laying contest run away 
with us. The air is full of these propositions. One 
man offers to bet $1,000 that 10 of his hens can out¬ 
lay any other 10 in the country. When this gentle¬ 
man is asked to get into the next poultry contest 
he makes it clear that his $1,000 is bung up on the 
home henhouse—not in public! We have had several 
propositions like the one mentioned T>y S. J. V. Usu¬ 
ally the plan is to take a flock of high-class hens 
and feed and keep their record at home. It is ex¬ 
pected that the advertising gained through public 
announcements of the contest will develop a high 
price for hatching eggs and baby chicks. Such a 
trial would not represent the conditions under which 
the average henkeeper must work, and would really 
do more harm than good to the general poultry bus¬ 
iness. It would develop into another “big story,” 
and every man with a “system” or some other scheme 
for making a hen lay golden eggs would use it as 
“sucker bait.” We have one reply to these poultry 
bluffers —“Get into an egg-laying contest /” Let, 
such a man select 10 hens which he will bank on 
and enter them on even terms with the other pens. 
He may he the most honorable person on earth, but 
the public will never accept his word for a record as 
it will an official statement from one of the regular 
contests. It will, of course, be answered that the 
official contest does not give the hen man a chance 
to show his skill as a feeder and seller. That is 
true, but the public cannot buy skill and business 
ability in eggs and stock. The foundation of success 
in the poultry business must ever be the hen. If a 
man will prove by the official figures that his hens 
are what he claims for them the public will be likely 
to accept his other statements. 
* 
T HE Board of Trade of Gainesville, Florida, is 
doing great work in trying to head off the 
land swindlers. A letter is being sent to the 
papers which starts off as follows: 
In a few weeks the fake land companies who adver¬ 
tised five, 10 and 20-acre get-rich-quick tracts of Flor¬ 
ida lands will begin sending their people down. These 
swindling concerns usually start their advertising and 
circular work in the Fall of the year, just about the 
time the Northern and Eastern crops begin to move. 
Every class of people is caught in this systematized 
dragnet that is thrown out by unscrupulous individuals 
operating under the name of land companies. Count¬ 
less thousands of small wage earners, men and women, 
have been induced to buy acreage in our State, be¬ 
lieving that they have only to move down, plant them¬ 
selves in a portable bungalow, and sit under the shade 
of a live oak tree while watching the soil produce a 
stream of golden dollars. It is both a pity and a shame 
that these Northern syndicates have been permitted to 
rob a class of people who can least afford to separate 
themselves from their savings. 
F. M. Runnells, the secretary of this Board of 
Trade, says Florida people are constantly being 
called upon to take care of families who have bought 
small patches of land, and who found themselves 
cheated and abandoned. 
Those people have our greatest compassion and our 
people cheerfully contribute to their relief, but always 
with a feeling of outrage that these unsuspecting men 
and women have had such unfair advantage taken of 
them. Florida is a land of golden sunshine and promise, 
but, as in every State in the Union, it takes brains and 
some capital to get results. 
We have long claimed that the people of Florida 
are the ones to rise up and smite these land sharks. 
None can do it more effectually, and none can be 
more interested because these land frauds do great 
injustice to Florida and her people. We have for 
years fought and denounced these land schemes al¬ 
most alone among Northern papers. Some of our 
September 5, 
Florida friends have grieved because we drove the 
knife into these fakes without reserve. We had to. 
There was no other way when the honest people of 
Florida did not take effective steps to shut off and 
punish the land liars who will steal a man’s home. 
Now the Florida people are awake, and they can do 
effective work. 
* 
L AST week a woman told of her “table on wheels.” 
She can wheel this table close to or into the 
kitchen, put the food on it. and then wheel the 
entire thing to her dining room. Formerly she made 
probably 50 trips; walking perhaps one-fifth of a 
mile to carry the food and the dishes back and forth. 
Similar contrivances can be thought out on many a 
farm by which, crude labor is saved. There may 
have been times in the past when crude labor seemed 
hardly worth saving. That time has now gone. We 
have come to a time when about the only profit 
comes through saving labor. The man who can do 
this is called “efficient.” 
* 
O UT in the Dakotas the agricultural teachers as 
well as the thinking farmers, are advocating 
live stock and dairy farming to take the place 
of grain growing. Among other arguments tlie fol¬ 
lowing is presented by Prof. C. Larson. He says it 
will cost a day’s wages for man or team to haul a 
load of grain or hay to the railroad. The freight to 
Chicago will be $3.40 per ton for grain and $4 for 
hay. 
During the Winter months a dairy cow will eat 
about three tons of hay and one ton of grain. To get 
this feed for one cow from the farm to Chicago market 
costs: 
Hauling from farm to shipping point, three loads 
of hay, at $4 per load.$12.00 
Hauling from farm to shipping point, one load of 
grain . 4.00 
Freight on three tons of hay from shipping point 
to Chicago at 20c. per cwt. 12.00 
Freight on one ton of grain from shipping point 
to Chicago at 17c. per cwt. 3.40 
Total.$31.40 
A fairly good dairy cow is able t > change this feed 
into 300 pounds of butter. Shipping 300 pounds of but¬ 
ter to Chicago costs about $1.35. Adding $2 for haul¬ 
ing, makes a total cost of $3.35. The dairy cow has re¬ 
duced the cost of marketing from $31.40 to $3.35, or to 
about one-ninth as much. 
Putting the thing in this forcible way makes a 
strong mental picture for the average farmer. Why 
should he work to provide freight for the railroads, 
when the cow will stand as a machine to give him a 
home factory? If he says that dairying is too con¬ 
fining there are beef cattle, sheep and hogs to con¬ 
sume the feed at home and do most of the work of 
taking care of themselves. Take it any way you will, 
live stock offers these farmers a chance to be more 
independent. In addition to this is the fact that the 
plant food in the hay and grain is kept at home, 
where it is needed, when these crops are fed to 
stock. The Dakota farmers have only to consider 
the history of Wisconsin's agriculture to see what 
the change from grain growing to dairying has done 
for a great State. The substitution of the cow for 
the grain sack has had more to do with Wisconsin 
prosperity than any other one thing. 
BREVITIES. 
Poultry need shade—as sheep do. 
Castes of dub-foot disease on Brussels sprouts have 
been found. 
When beef and mutton climb up the scale of prices 
Mrs. Business Hen becomes a great farm companion. 
The high cost of meat should teach us not to worry 
off our own flesh. It will cost too much to put it back. 
Tiits thing is older than the hills, if yon, sir, only 
knew it; the way to go and do anything is just to go 
and do it. 
“Don’t rock the boat,” they toll us. Good advice, but 
a few solid rocks in the bottom of the boat as ballast 
will steady it. 
Tiie man who would try to “stovepipe” apples or 
work off poor stock this year ought to go to an asylum— 
in addition to jail! 
When a man, knowing nothing of farming, takes a 
farm and expects to get rich quick the lines of his ter¬ 
ritory enclose a graveyard of big schemes. 
Soy beans! They make great feed for the stock. We 
think it will pay better to feed them dry with corn 
silage rather than put them into the silo. 
The best time to cut corn into the silo is when the 
cars are “glazed-” That means when tin' kernels are 
firm and solid, with a glazed covering, but not dry and 
hard. 
The value of grindstones produced last year in the 
United States was $855,627—which was $60,712 less 
than the year before. Have you met fewer people “with 
au ax to grind?” 
Among other things increased in expense by the Euro¬ 
pean War is cost of educational institutions in this 
country. Scientific instruments and chemicals are 
mostly imported. 
We think it pays to let all farm animals have access 
to powdered charcoal. They will usually eat it freely. 
Most of the so-called stock foods contain charcoal as 
one of the most useful ingredients. 
