1444 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
\ National Weekly Journal for Country nnd Suburban Home* * 
Established i860 
Published weekly by <he Rural Publishing Company, 833 West 30(h Street,New Yorlt 
n ERBKRT W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
John' J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
ffM. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Koylk, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. $2.01. equal to 8s. Cd., or 
8!$ 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 mtes, 75 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 paiior 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 
offices to this end, but such cases should not be confused with dishonest 
transact ions. 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 be sent to us within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and to identify it. you should mention Thk Rural New- 
Yorkkr when writing the advertiser. 
H OW do you like this for a motto? “Never sell 
anything so poor that you would not buy!” 
* 
S INCE the article on electric lighting from water 
power was printed we have had many questions 
covering details. They will all be carefully 
answered. Next week in the monthly Woman and 
Home magazine there will be a good article on the 
use of electricity for cooking, heating and household 
power. We shall do our best to induce country peo¬ 
ple to harness the water which has so long gone 
through its lazy course down hill. 
* 
O NE of the things hard to explain is why seekers 
after farm wisdom do not have greater faith in 
local authorities. Week after week we receive 
questions from the very towns in which our college 
nd experiment stations are located. Some of these 
questions are of such a character that only a resi¬ 
lient of the home section can answer them. In many 
cases, in order to be sure, we go to the experiment 
station within a few miles of the inquirer’s home for 
the facts. Now what is wrong? Do the people want 
to prove the station’s answer or does the station en¬ 
joy the reputation of the average prophet? 
* 
I HAVE an old farm—"an ill-shaped thing, but mine 
own”—from which I derive much pleasure and now 
and then a rabbit. Please toll ine how to make it 
pay without work. I don’t like work. j. m. 
Here is an honest back-to-the-lander. Most of 
them say they are willing to work long and hard. 
This man admits that work tires him and he wants 
pay—without labor. The enthusiastic scientist told 
the hard-headed farmer that in the future plant food 
would be so concentrated that he could carry enough 
to fertilize an acre in his vest pocket. “Well,” says 
the farmer, “when you do that you will carry the 
crop from that acre in the other vest pocket!” When 
a farm pays you a profit without labor on your part 
some one else will do the work. We know of cases 
where farms have been fenced in and rented out as 
pasture. If there is timber on it this timber can be 
sold. We know of men who rent hill property to 
campers. The greatest money returns from a dol¬ 
lar’s worth of labor that we have found came from 
planting apple trees in naturally moist grass land 
sod, piling the cut grass around them, pruning slight¬ 
ly and keeping them clean of insects and disease. 
* 
O UR good friend, J. H. Hale, recently made the 
trip to California and while there addressed the 
fruit growers at their convention. Hale rightly 
received an ovation. He carried the wit and wisdom 
and mellow philosophy of New England—a human 
nutmeg of the right sort of wood. Among other 
filings Hale carried a pocketful of New England 
Baldwin apples—some of them from a tree a cen¬ 
tury old. You know how those Pacific coast people 
brag about their fruit, yet this is what Parker Earle 
says about Hale’s Baldwins: 
“If gray old Connecticut, worn and exhausted by 
MOO years of farming, can grow such apples as these , 
right at the doors of the consumers, then let Oregon 
and Washington look out!” 
“Grey old Connecticut!” You spell the word 
wrong. Cut out your “y” and substitute “a-t,” and 
you have a truer word great! “Worn and exhausted 
soil!” Why, man, did you not know that some of 
the most productive farming in the world is done in 
the Connecticut Valley? Did you know that the 10- 
year average yield of corn in all New England was 
39.3 bushels at an average price of S3 cents. This 
average on the Pacific coast is only MO 1 /^ bushels at 
0 cents. The average for Illinois is S~)V> bushels at 
r>4 cents. “Worn and exhausted” Connecticut stands 
rt the head of the country in average corn yields, 
•vith 46 bushels. Did you also know that last year 
four New England States and New York and Penn- 
THE RURAIi NEW-YORKER 
sylvania produced 15,912,000 bushels of those beau¬ 
tiful Baldwin apples, and that they have only just 
begun to know how to do it? Our children will live 
to see the day when the apple orchards on those 
hills of gray New England will give larger annual 
returns than the orchards and vineyards of Califor¬ 
nia. Half a century ago New England could not 
dream of the possibilities of the Pacific coast. To¬ 
day California cannot dream of the possibilities of 
the upper Atlantic watershed. 
* 
T HE starting of the new Food and Market De¬ 
partment of New York State is one of the most 
hopeful things that has ever happened to both 
producers and consumers. It is the direct outcome 
of the long exposition of the 35-cent dollar. For 
many years consumers in towns and cities have been 
held up and forced to pay extortionate prices for 
their food, while farmers have been systematically 
robbed and forced to accept a mere pittance with 
no voice in fixing the price. These evils have long 
been recognized, and for years we have pointed 
them out. Now the talk and the thought has crys¬ 
tallized into action. The new department is a fact, 
and starts at once on a sure foundation to work 
out a remedy for those market troubles. It faces 
a large proposition. There must he such an elimin¬ 
ation of wasteful and extravagant distribution that 
the producer will receive more for his goods, while 
the cost to the consumer is reduced. Both these 
things must follow if the problem is to be worked 
out, for the consumer and the producer have inter¬ 
ests in common. They must understand tlieir mu¬ 
tual interests and work together. 
No one can expect instant relief from the evils 
of our present system. They have been growing for 
years—it will take time to organize even plans for 
changing them. From the start, however, farmers 
will have a representative in the New York mar¬ 
kets. He will develop trade in farm products and 
look after the interests of shippers. Later it is 
hoped that farm produce may be sold through this 
representative at auction or otherwise, with the 
power of the new department used to see that the 
money for the goods is promptly paid. The work of 
this department will he planned wisely and prompt¬ 
ly. It needs your help as a producer or a consumer 
in its efforts to obtain a square deal for both classes. 
We must develop a strong retail demand for the pro¬ 
ducts of New York farms. Both consumers and pro¬ 
ducers must help in this. The former must learn to 
feel a pride in using goods “made in New York.” 
The producer must also take pride in packing and 
grading his goods ,so as to suit this trade. This 
branding and grading is absolutely essential if we 
are to build up reputation and demand for New 
York State products. With such brands the con¬ 
sumer may be educated to demand them. The new 
department will furnish information and help in 
this grading and packing. We are now in a posi¬ 
tion to begin to add cent by cent to the 35-cent dol¬ 
lar. The department needs the cooperation of all 
people who wish to help settle the food and market 
problems. Help yourself by helping to make it suc¬ 
cessful. 
* 
L AST year was the first year I ever owned fruit 
trees, and, of course, I, being an amateur, did not 
know just wliat to do for aphides, as they ap¬ 
peared on peach, plum and apple, etc. Looking up 
some books on the subject I found three which said to 
use arsenate of lead, and all agreed that in any strength 
used in water, would not injure foliage. So I put about 
1 V-i tablespoonfuls in a quart of water and proceeded 
to rid the trees of aphides. It did. I killed one peach 
and very likely one Baldwin apple and about ruined 
two plums. o. B. 
New York. 
Is it possible that any reputable books on ento¬ 
mology advise a strong solution of poison for plant 
lice? This is the most remarkable advice we have 
heard of. The plant lice are sucking insects, and are 
to be killed by oils or other “contact” sprays which 
reach them from the outside of their bodies. Such 
a strong poisonous spray would blast young foliage 
like the hand of death! This may be a case of 
“take heed how ye hear,” for it is true that readers 
sometimes jump at conclusions. The author who 
would directly advise such spraying of trees in foli¬ 
age ought not to be left at large. It is poison for 
the leaf eaters, but fats or oils for the leaf suckers. 
* 
H ERE is a case which you may well consider. 
Two farmers offered homemade sausage for 
sale. These men did hard outdoor work in the 
cold, and preferred to have a large amount of fat in 
the sausage. They made it for sale just as they 
used it at home. There was a good demand for this 
sausage from people who lived in town. They did 
not work at hard labor outdoors, and the sausage 
Was too fat to suit them. They wrote and offered 
kindly criticism—telling what they wanted, tine 
December 12, 
farmer considered such criticism offensive. The sau¬ 
sage suited his family, therefore it was all right—he 
would not change it. The townspeople stopped buy¬ 
ing it The other man wanted to learn. Pie sent 
and bought several pounds of a brand of sausage 
which city people like, and saw that they wanted 
more lean meat. He studied it out and gave his 
customers what they wanted and to-day he cannot 
begin to fill his orders. This is a small thing, hut it 
stands for a great principle in direct dealing with 
the consumer. It is your business to give him what 
he wants. The buyer will decide the quality—not 
the seller. Unless the buyer can have this privi¬ 
lege he will not deal direct with the producer. 
* 
N OW here is a word to dairymen. How would 
you like to make a suitable Christmas present to 
the dairy business? Suppose you and every 
other man who makes a living milking cows were to 
walk right into the grocery store and speak this 
little piece so that the storekeeper had to under¬ 
stand it! 
"I believe in spending my money at home, and 
building up home trade, but I will not trade with a 
man who is taking away my chance of making a liv¬ 
ing. Cut out the oleo and I will trade with you. 
Otherwise I shall trade elsewhere.” 
Now would a dairyman be justified in taking such 
a stand? If he did, and this increased the sale of 
pure butter, would not more milk be required to 
make this extra butter? Would not the withdrawal 
of this milk from the city supply give you a better 
chance to obtain a fairer price for your milk? Is 
there any answer? 
* 
O NE of our readers attended the great potato 
growers’ convention in Wisconsin. When he 
got home he wrote us as follows: 
Those conventions of farmers are becoming very com¬ 
mon in our State, but there is one very serious fault 
with them, and that is this: It is the progressive ag¬ 
gressive farmers who attend, the men who are trying in¬ 
dividually to do a little better than the ordinary, while 
the self-conceited, indifferent man who most of all needs 
the help of these conventions, stays at home and finds 
fault with the conditions, the weather, the “party in 
power.” etc. Thus it “was, is, and always will be world 
without end.” 
Now the question to ask is this: Is it in any way 
the fault of the organizers of these conventions that 
the class of farmers mentioned does not attend them? 
We have often had this question up before. It is 
the biggest thing in farm education to-day. How 
can you get out into the highways and byways and 
“compel them to come in?” 
* 
F ROM the time when first the scientists began to 
tell us of the wonders of radium we felt sure 
that some one would come along to apply “radio¬ 
activity” to fertilizers. This has finally come in the 
crushed ores from which radium has been extracted. 
This crushed ore, used in pot experiments, seems to 
stimulate plant growth, but raising one plant in a 
pot is a very different thing from planting an acre. 
Figuring on the one pot is like arguing that because 
one hen under constant care makes a profit of $3. 
therefore 1,000 hens are sure to pay $3,000. There 
is less radium in this ore advised as a fertilizer 
than is actually present in an acre of average soil! 
There is also another substance known as uranium in 
this ore, and the effect of this substance upon plant 
life is not yet understood. Our advice is to let these 
“radio-active” manures alone and confine our activ¬ 
ity in ide the radius of known chemical knowledge. 
Let the chemists experiment with Uncle Sam’s 
money. Keep your coin for surer things. 
BREVITIES. 
Spread the truth! Can anyone spread it out too 
thin? 
Another college novelty is a free correspondence 
course in concrete making by the West Virginia College. 
Now comes the old demand for smaller coins—two 
and three-cent pieces. Making exact change means econ¬ 
omy. 
The latest thing in “short courses” is a cream tester’s 
course at the South Dakota Agricultural College, lasting 
four days. 
There has been a heavy purchase of seed wheat in 
the South. The crop may be seeded up to January in 
the lower Gulf States. 
When you load a wagon see that, the load is evenly 
distributed. Too much of the load resting on either 
front or back wheels or to one side will increase the 
draft. 
Timothy is called an exhaustive crop, yet at the 
North Dakota Station wheat following Timothy was in¬ 
creased over wheat following wheat. One great vain ■ 
of a rotation is the change of soil habits which differeni 
crops bring. 
Now they claim in Wisconsin that the annual dairy 
products of that State are worth more than all imported 
raw silk or all the combined imports of raw and manu¬ 
factured wool, or of all the tin, all the iron and steel 
and all the fertilizers combined as imports. The Wis¬ 
consin cow is some animal. 
