1502 
December 2(i, 
The Rural New-Yorker 
Till: BUSINESS FA IiMEll' .S' PAPER 
A. National Weekly journal l'or Country and Suburban Homes 
Established isso 
Published arclily by tlie Knnil PnblisHnc Company. 333 Ursi 801 h Struct, Now Yorft 
Herbert W. Collingwooh, President and E<litor. 
John J. 1'u.i.on, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. nnxoN, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Royi.k. Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal 1‘ostai Union. $3.01. equnl to 8s. Gd., or 
s ] j marks, or 10** francs, liemit in money order, express 
order, personal clieek or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates, 7u cents per agate line—7 words. References required for 
advert i.-ers unknown to us ; aiid casli must accompany transient orders. 
“ A SQUARE DEAL” 
Wc 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. Rut 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 tliies end. but such eases should not lie confused with dishonest 
transactions. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we will not he 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must he sent to us within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and to identify it. you should mention The Ui kai, New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
C AN any reader give us tlie facts showing clear 
and undoubted damage to crops by wild game? 
We want particularly facts about such damage 
in New York—they must he clear-cut and exact evi¬ 
dence showing actual loss. 
T HIS question of “misfit” trees is a mighty one 
for fruit growers. On page 141)0 you will find 
a lawyer's statement of such a ease recently 
tried in Western New York. There lias got to he 
some definite rule for legal action in cases of this 
sort. We think farmers are now more determined 
than ever before to carry them through. We have 
asked the nursery company in this case if they care 
to make any statement. 
* 
H ERE is one thing about this “farm manager’ 
business. There are a good many farms which 
do not do enough business to support a “mana¬ 
ger.” The owner may think so. but when lie pays 
a man simply to “manage” the overhead charges be¬ 
come so heavy that they cave the entire roof in. 
Such farms need a working foreman—that is, a 
man with shrewd common sense who can and will 
do actual farm work with the other men. Do not 
hunt for a “manager” until you get more than a 
working foreman can attend to. 
♦ 
S OUTH CAROLINA has a remarkable law de¬ 
signed to control the acreage of cotton. It was 
passed in October. The first section of this law 
is as follows: 
Bo ii enacted, etc., that it shall be unlawful for any 
person bv himself, his agents or employes, to plant or 
cultivate in this State in any year, a greater number 
of acres of land in cotton than 0110 -third of the total 
acreage of land planted and cultivated in all erops^ by 
such person in said year, including grain_ and Fall- 
sown crops planted the preceding Fall or \\ inter. 
There is a penalty of $25 to $100 for each and 
every acre planted in excess of the number men¬ 
tioned—such penalty to be a lien upon the cotton 
crop. The object of this remarkable legislation is 
to cut down the output of cotton and thus help to 
regulate prices. Of course no one can now tell 
what its effect will be. or whether llio courts would 
uphold it. We may ask ourselves what we should 
think if the New York Legislature undertook to 
penalize us for planting as many peach trees as we 
saw fit. It merely shows the desperate condition 
of Southern cotton farming. A canvass of our 
South Carolina readers indicates strong opposition to 
the law and the hope that the next Legislature will 
repeal it. 
Y OU may be interested to know that two years ago 
I owned two cows and made butter, in fact owned 
those two only one year, and kept them around 
on a fruit farm when some of ray friends wanted 
bottled milk. 1 tried out your theories of soiling and 
feeding cows, and have increased ray herd to 12 cows, 
three yearling heifers and a registered Guernsey bull 
advertised in The It. N.-Y. Now these cows have in 
the two years fed themselves, bought and paid for the 
herd, put up a 10x30 silo, paid for a cutter and blower, 
and many other improvements. Before April. 1012, 
I never owned a cow. never raised anything but a gar¬ 
den and fruit, and on this farm had no standing grass. 
My farm contains about GO acres, the greater and bet¬ 
ter part of which is filled with fruit. M. C. 
Hudson Valley, N. Y. 
We print that as uidicating what we feel sure Is 
coming in the dairy business. There is to he a re¬ 
adjustment, and it will go on rapidly. Hundreds 
of farms which have for years been used for milk 
production are going out of business. Changed mar¬ 
ket conditions have made it impossible for their 
owners to keep up with the requirements of milk 
inspection and pay the increased prices for feed. As 
these farms pass out of (lie business, smaller herds 
of cattle are appearing on fruit and truck farms to 
supply needed milk. These small herds are usually 
very choice, containing purebred animals of good 
breeding. Every fruit grower knows that he must 
have high class varieties, well adapted to his soil 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
and conditions. lie cannot afford to keep scrub 
trees in bearing, and so he knows that scrub cattle 
will not pay. On every fruit and truck farm there 
are many wastes in fruit, cornstalks, cover crops, 
etc., which may be fed to cows as roughage in milk 
production. If tb lord is kept down to about, the 
limit of this ch;, odder, and only good cows are 
kept, the milk is ». educed at a low cost. This dairy 
addition gives profitable Winter work and much- 
needed manure. In these times it would hardly he 
possible for a small herd to earn all that, is men¬ 
tioned above, except where extra good animals are 
kept, so that the business is a side line for fruit 
growers or gardeners. There will he much more of 
this done in the future. Tt is the coming great 
change in dairying. 
a jEW YEAR'S GREETING! The year has 
/V swung around once more, and the time has 
come for our little annual talk to readers. 
It has been a busy year, and it seems to have gone 
more rapidly than any that have passed before. 
Busy hours are best. The R. N.-Y. Inis gained in 
size at least. During lf>13 we printed 1396 pages 
with 559 pictures. With the close of this year we 
show 1512 pages and 601 pictures. We have an¬ 
swered over 20,000 questions by mail in addition to 
those put into print. As to the quality of this work 
we must leave that to the judgment of 160.000 and 
more keen and kindly critical families who follow 
us each week. One thing we are sure of. Never 
before during all these long years has the feeling 
of friendship between the paper and its readers 
been truer or more beautiful or more enduring than 
right now as we pass on into another hopeful year. 
While such friendship and kindly feeling exists we 
have no misgivings regarding the future, but go 
hopefully on. sure that our people will go with us. 
Needless to say that we wish you all the happiest 
and best that your life can produce in 1915. 
It is to he a notable year, and we think one with 
great opportunities for the American farmer. The 
world is looking to this country for the necessities 
of life—bread and meat and clothing. Out of this 
world necessity will come our great material op¬ 
portunity. Our farmers will learn how to organ¬ 
ize and conduct their business so as to obtain a 
fairer share of what belongs to them. And the 
world’s necessities are not confined to material 
things. The awful European War is destroying 
property and human life, and filling the world with 
sadness, but it is also doing the impossible—chang¬ 
ing human nature. Out of the horror of it all. out 
of the great national sacrifice, there is growing a 
more thoughtful and serious France, a more liberal 
and freer Germany, and a truer and better Eng¬ 
land. And so this nation, and our farmers in par¬ 
ticular, must meet these world’s great necessities— 
not only for the material things of life, but for those 
greater things “not made with hands.” They are 
charity, brotherhood, fair dealing, self-restraint, and 
eternal, enduring faith in the power and integrity of 
tlie common people. 
* 
H ERE is a problem for you to solve and publish, if 
von think it will interest any of your readers. 
The street on which my property is located runs 
parallel with the Hudson. My neighbor on the 
opposite side of tlie street wishes t<> sell and the pur¬ 
chasers desire me to lease to them the view from their 
piazza. Should I plant a row of tre< . along my fence 
it would obscure the view. The distance is 150 feet, 
involving about three acres. I .and now^ used for pas¬ 
ture and valued at $500 per acre. W hat price per 
year would you charge? I should never interfere with 
this view unless to huil I a house, but they do not trust 
me. h. ii. s. 
New York. 
This is one of tlie most remarkable propositions 
wo ever had put to us. The general use of flying 
machines lias brought up points of law regarding 
the use of the air, but the actual value of looking 
out over a field is surely a new one. We print it to 
show what a wide range of human life our read¬ 
ers cover and also to see if any such problem has 
come up before. What would you charge for guar¬ 
anteeing the right to look across your pasture? 
Thousands of our readers can look far off across 
the liills and valleys with no neighbor in sight. It 
will seem strange to them that people are willing 
to pay for a lease on scenery! 
* 
~r^\ ARMING is unusually profitable at present 
jP <ix everybody is paying sky-high prices for 
farm produce.” 
We find that bit of childish reasoning in the Jer¬ 
sey City Journal—a paper usually very sensible and 
sound. It is childish reasoning, because any adult 
ought to know that the price charged for a peck 
of potatoes by a grocer is no evidence that the 
farmer who grew those potatoes is prosperous. To¬ 
day, while city people are paying at least $1.25 
:i bushel for potatoes, farmers in the interior are 
selling or trying to sell at 30 cents! These sky- 
" - in-ices dissolve into thin air before they get. to 
e farmer. For years we have stated that on the 
average the farmers of this country receive 35 cents 
of the consumer’s dollar and no one has disproved 
the statement. Usually when retail prices are 
boomed “sky-high” the farmer receives less than 35 
cents. It is surprising that really intelligent pa¬ 
pers should continue to argue that high retail prices 
for food must mean prosperity for farmers. If 
kerosene went up 10 cents a gallon they could right¬ 
ly connect it with Standard Oil prosperity. If the 
street cars doubled their rates we would know the 
stockholders were more prosperous. In these cases 
the connection between “sky-high prices” and pros¬ 
perity is clear and exact, because there are no mid¬ 
dlemen to stand between. In the ease of high re¬ 
tail prices and farmers there is no such connection 
because both the consumer and the farmer must 
feed a lot of parasites in addition to the necessary 
middleman. Why cannot papers like tlie Journal 
see this, and help their readers by pointing out the 
fact? 
A T this season of the year we have all sorts of 
communications from readers. It is a sort of 
general winding up of the mainspring that 
keeps the works going. Here is a rather unusual 
proposition which will interest some of our people: 
Please send me a good fish market if you want me 
to keep on taking this paper. If you can send me a 
fish market that I can make something in I will send 
on the money for paper as soon as I can get fresh fish 
in the Winter. If you cannot send a good place I shall 
not take this paper any longer. •>. T. 
Finding fish markets when they are needed is part 
of our business, and this was sent to one of our 
big army of helpers. He found the market and told 
O. T. about it. In his report to us he writes: 
I am reminded of the verse that reads, “He that is 
greatest among you is servant of all.” Tiie Rural 
New-Yorker is truly a great paper, and it is the spirit 
of service that has made it great. This man is paying 
tribute to that greatness, even though he does couple 
a threat along with his request. 
That is a very happy and good-natured turn of 
this request. We do not regard this as a “threat” 
at all. It was only a way of showing that this fish 
market was the most important need—here at the 
end of the season. We try to meet all our friends 
with good-natured and helpful service. At this New 
Year’s let us remind you once more that The R. N.- 
Y. has at its command the largest and most com¬ 
plete corps of farm helpers and advisers ever gath¬ 
ered by any paper since the world began! 
BREVITIES. 
Put no claws on Santa Claus. 
Charcoal for the pigs—all the “stock foods” con¬ 
tain it. 
“Soft soap” is tlie wax most politicians use in 
“grafting.” 
Those who live in a progressive age need a strong 
brake when riding in the stage. 
We should think rye would he a good crop at the 
South to lead to other kinds of grain. 
“Back to the woods!” is good advice for many a 
farm or township. Plant trees. Many a hillside should 
never have been cleared. 
The European War is likely to affect prices for the 
cranberry crop. Many growers believe tlit* * European 
supply will he badly cut oil'. 
Let us again call attention to the incongruity of giv¬ 
ing “loving cups” as prizes for farmers at farm shows. 
Why not give them the cash? 
The U. S. Geological Survey states that “wild eat” 
oil promoters are working in Northwest Missouri. 
There is little hope for profitable oil and gas there. 
The Massachusetts Forestry Association offers as a 
prize the planting of 50 acres of White pine, to the 
town which gains first place in a eoi test for town 
forests. 
The New Jersey Experiment Statio. finds dynamite 
very useful in blowing out old orchard trees. Pear 
trees owing to their peculiar root system are hardest 
to dislodge. 
Prof. Kirkpatrick of tlie Connecticut College figures 
that at this year’s egg contest it will be necessary to 
operate the trap-nest some 200,000 times in order to 
care for every hen. 
A few years ago our scientists were scouring Asia 
and Siberia for hardy varieties of Alfalfa seed. Now 
a sample of hardy Alfalfa seed has been sent to 
Turkey for trial. 
Our advice is not to make any New Year’s resolu¬ 
tions based on the belief that bad habits can be shed 
like a hen’s feathers. Begin to dig them out and keep 
at the job humbly and silently. 
Concord. Mass., is celebrated for asparagus culture. 
One of tlie cornerstones of successful culture is sowing 
a cover crop like Crimson clover or vetch in late Slim¬ 
mer right in the crop. This, plowed under in Spring, 
keeps up the humus supply and adds nitrogen. 
If every little brook were to dry up and refuse to run 
down hill because it is so small, what would become 
of the big river? If you and your neighbor quit trying 
to improve conditions because you do not hold high 
office—what becomes of the country? 
Last year heavy shipments of eggs and poultry were 
made from China to the Pacific Coast. These became 
so heavy that American poultry men became dubious. 
This year these shipments will fall off. They were not 
all profitable and freight service cannot he had. 
