224 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TIIF. BUSINESS FARMERS PATER 
\ Nnllomil Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home# 
Established iSoO 
PiiblUhrd weekly by the Rnral Publishing Coin puny. 883 West 80tb Street, Sew Tor* * 
Hkrbekt W. Colungwood, President and Editor. 
John' J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
'V*. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Rovle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
marks, or franca Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post OiTlco as Second Claes Matter. 
Advertising rates. 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 pajier is backed by a respon¬ 
sible person. We use every possible precaution and admit the advertising of 
raiahle houses only. Hut to make doubly sun;, 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 n|Kin 
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 cases should not lie confused with dishonest 
transactions. We protect subscribers against rogues, but we will not be 
responsible for the debts of honest bankrupts sanctioned by the courts. 
Notice of the complaint must be sent to us within one month of the time of 
the transaction, and to identify It, yofl should mention The Rural New- 
Y oiikkk when writing the advertiser. 
The farmer feeds them all. He can do it, but 
there is no use ashing him to hug a silver spoon for 
the feeding and then throw in the spoon—all on a 35- 
eent dollar. 
* 
T HE report that the German government has 
placed an embargo on potash exjiorts has been 
confirmed. This is evidently a war measure, 
since potash is used in making black powder, and 
Germany would prevent her enemies from using it. 
Since the war broke out imports of potash have been 
small, and there is without question a serious short¬ 
age. We predicted it last Fall, and gave our read-^ 
ers the best advice we could obtain about how to 
meet this condition. 
* 
S INCE we printed the egg figures of these two 
leading pens in the egg-laying contest there have 
been many calls for further details. So we 
shall soon give the quantities of food which each 
pen consumed and the cost—also the gain in weight 
of the hens. And those “favorite hens” too. One of 
them shows the highest score of standard points out 
of 190 It. 1. Reds. Up to Feb. 1, or 92 days from 
the start, one of these favorite hens laid 50 eggs, 
another 47, and another 40. Not so bad for plain 
farm birds. Keep an eye on these “favorite hens.” 
They are worth watching. 
* 
S INCE the middle of December at least 100 peo¬ 
ple have come asking us to outline plans for a 
partnership for working a farm or conducting 
some business. The point usually is, what share of 
proceeds should the worker receive? In one case a 
party owns an expensive loom and will furnish rags. 
The other party is to weave carpets. What share 
should she have? In another case a man is to work 
a garden—providing hotbeds and his labor—the 
farm being owned by a man who has one-third in¬ 
terest, while two sisters own the rest—all to live to¬ 
gether! What share should the first man have? 
Now every such proposition will be controlled by 
personal elements which we know nothing about. 
Of course we cannot give definite advice. There is 
cnly one general rule for such contracts. Make an 
exact division into three parts. Let one represent 
real estate or fixed property, another labor and the 
other money or personal property. Let the division 
l»e made on this basis as fairly as it can be figured 
out. 
* 
A WRITER in the New York Sun states the ease 
of the small investor in stocks and bonds, lie 
works hard, saves his little surplus dollar by 
dollar, and puts liis earnings into the stock of some 
great company because it is safe and sound. 
All big industrial concerns and railroads court us. 
They want our money. After investigation, when we 
think something looks like a good investment, we hand 
over what to us seems so tremendous, our little sav¬ 
ings. Gladly do the corporations accept them, and 
then promptly cease to consider us at all. It is true 
we are presented with statements regularly; but if we 
are perplexed about some news concerning “our” com¬ 
pany and get up the courage to write, we receive a 
very prompt, very courteous reply, in which what one 
reads between the lines is of far more importance than 
lhe text, and it is invariably the same, “mind your 
business.” 
Then it will happen that when the small investor 
is depending on the interest or dividends to pay his 
dues he gets a notice that the company will “pass 
its dividends” this year. There is no redress— 
nothing to do but take what comes or what does not 
come, for the small investor is only an atom in the 
) ig corporation. At the same time he gets his no¬ 
tice of no dividends the small investor is told that 
wages of workmen have not been reduced or even, 
have been advanced. The labor of a single work¬ 
man does not mean as much to the big company as 
ihe amount of capital which the small investor 
furnishes. The labor, however, represents an or¬ 
ganization, while the small investment represents an 
individual. Here we have one of the strongest ar¬ 
guments for cooperative saving. If this small in¬ 
vestor could unite with 999 others in a system of 
banking which would enable them to combine their 
savings they would have an amount for investment 
which would give them standing with the largest 
corporation. As individuals no one pays much at¬ 
tention to them. Combined—with the same amount 
of money they hold as individuals—they would have 
something to say about dividends and management. 
During the past 20 years it has often come to pass 
that a million small investors have given their 
money as individuals to big corporations as an in¬ 
vestment. This very money thus combined into 
a huge total has been used in ways which were di¬ 
rectly against the personal and business interests 
of the individual owners. Now comes the Land 
Bank with a new plan for cooperative saving and in¬ 
vestment. This bank can handle some of the sav¬ 
ings of small investors so that they can have some 
say about their money, and know that it has been 
put into true and needed investments—based upon 
land. 
* 
EMEHBER THE POTATO. We mean business 
in this campaign to increase the consumption 
of potatoes. It comes right at a needed time. 
City people feel the pinch in their food supply, and 
potato growers are face to face with loss through 
inability to sell their crop for what it cost them. 
Wheat bread is called the staff of life. The high 
price has made the staff so short that the loaf of 
bread can hardly touch the ground. In such case 
the potato must come in as the crutch of life. It is 
worse than a crime—a sin, to have those beautiful 
stored potatoes bring ruin, through their low price, 
while city people cannot afford to buy them or do 
not realize their food value. Years ago we started 
cur campaign for the Apple Consumers’ League. 
Accepted as a pleasant joke it has grown until the 
city consumption of apples has doubled. When we 
started hardly a dozen New York restaurants made 
a feature of serving baked apples. It is now a 
leading dish—great pans are displayed as adver¬ 
tisements. Now we can if we all work together do 
much the same thing with potatoes. Let us all get 
busy and save the present crop. Eat potato, talk 
potato, write potato, put potato into the stomach 
and the imagination of the American people. We 
can do it if we try. 
* 
S HORTLY after the war broke out some one start¬ 
ed the story that meat would go to 50 cents a 
pound and shoes to $10 a pair. This was based 
on the theory that our cattle are falling off in num¬ 
ber. The Department of Agriculture now shows 
that cattle have made a gain. There are now more 
cattle than at this date last year. The gain is 
small, but it is a gain, and we shall not have to 
come to the old-time sandal yet There is just one 
thing about this beef and hide business. Let farm¬ 
ers once see how it will pay them to raise more 
calves and fatten more stock, and they will prompt¬ 
ly do it. They will not do it until they know it will 
pay them. No one has any right to expect a farmer 
to raise stock at a loss in order to keep down tho 
price of meat to the consumer. There are thousands 
of fruit and gardening farms all over the Eastern 
States which would be benefited by keeping small 
herds of stock. Just make conditions which will in¬ 
sure a fair market for this stock and the herds will 
appear. 
* 
F OR centuries in England the great struggle in 
farming was over what was called “enclosure.” 
For many years great tracts of land had been 
held in common. There were no fences, live stock 
roamed at will, and each farmer cared for his own 
small piece of land as best he could. The argu¬ 
ment for this system was that it gave all a chance 
to work a piece of land. The time came when the 
English people could not be fed and clothed under 
any such system. Where stock all ran together no 
such thing as improvement through selection was 
possible. A rotation of crops could not be followed 
and clover and turnips for improving the soil could 
not be grown when cattle and sheep roamed at 
large over the commons. Then began the fight for 
“enclosure,” which meant compelling each farmer 
to fence in his land and thus get rid of the common 
pasture. Evidently this was the only way to im¬ 
prove a piece of land or a herd of cattle. Unless 
a man could control the operations on his own farm 
lie could not follow a rotation, use green manures 
or select and mate his cattle properly. On the other 
Land, there was violent opposition to “enclosure.” 
The argument was that many small farmers could 
not. afford to fence their piece of land, and if they 
February 1«, 
had no right to a common pasture they could not 
keep any stock. One side predicted that the smaller 
individual fields would enable English farmers to 
increase their yields and feed the nation. The 
other side claimed that enclosure would drive the 
little farmers out of business and create a class of 
peasants or landless workmen, who could never 
hope to be anything else. In a way both prophecies 
came true. The smaller pieces of land, properly 
handled, produced far more than the large “com¬ 
mons,” and English farming as a whole became 
more prosperous. At the same time the poorer 
farmers, deprived of their common pastures, were 
obliged to give up their land and go to work for the 
others. Now in our country the object should bo 
to avoid as far as possible the mistakes of history 
in planning for the future. A large proportion of 
the farmers in our Eastern States are descended 
from the stock of Great Britain. Our ancestors 
came here with many of the old traditions and 
practices which English farmers have struggled 
with. It has been one mistake on the part of our 
farmers to try to handle too much land. A man 
has spread his work over 100 acres when 40 acres 
thoroughly tilled would have given him more. The 
old time argument for “enclosure” now comes to 
convince our American farmer that he would be 
better off to work thoroughly one-half his farm and 
let the rest, go—to grass or even to forest. This 
is the sort of “two blades of grass” theory which is 
sensible and true. It will enable our farmers to 
produce the needed food on fewer acres and at less 
cost. The extra land can be left until other work¬ 
men need it. 
♦ 
S OME of the foolish red tape and nonsensical re¬ 
strictions connected with the foot-and-mouth 
quarantine are enough to make a man use his 
mouth and his foot freely at “kicking.” The worst 
of it comes over shipping poultry. Even our genial 
friend Brother Cosgrove has his day of trouble. 
I sent a bird to the station to go to a point five miles 
over in Massachusetts. The express agent ’phoned me 
that the coop must be disinfected with a solution of 
chloride of lime, carbolic acid and water, and marked 
“Disinfected.” A brand new coop made out of a crack¬ 
er box! I must hire some one to bring that bird back 
(two miles) send sind buy those ingredients, and hire 
the bird carted back, all for no possible good. I had 
just got another bird boxed for New York State; agent 
said I couldn't ship it without a permit from the New 
York Commissioner of Agriculture so I wrote Commis¬ 
sioner Iluson for a permit, and quoted the other case. 
I know I ought to he ashamed, hut I wasn’t. That 
“cuss word” seemed to relieve me immediately. Mr. 
Iluson sent me a very nice letter saying no permit 
was necessary unless the fowls were coming from an 
infected district, etc. I wrote the New York party 
to return the empty coop. He writes that the express 
agent won’t take it without a permit. 
Is America adopting European interference with ill! 
life’s details? 
The remarks which we omit were very mild and 
could in no way he called sinful. The folly of acting 
in any such way over a hen that never came within 
50 miles of a case of the disease is monumental. 
The average American is quite willing to submit to 
inconvenience or even loss in order to help protect 
the public from danger. When it comes to “rubbing 
it in,” however, it is a case not of foot-and-mouth 
disease, but of foot and tongue health. 
* 
W E have many letters from farmers in the East¬ 
ern States who think of seeding wheat in the 
Spring. The high speculative prices reported 
in the papers lead these farmers to attempt a gam¬ 
ble in wheat seeding. Most of them speak of seed¬ 
ing Winter wheat in April—others will try one of 
the Spring wheats. Our general advice is—do not 
try it. In any event do not seed the Winter wheats 
There are some reports of success with Spring wheat 
in New York, but as a general proposition such seed¬ 
ing will not pay. It Is easy to get excited over 
wheat growing in these times, and think we can 
apply the “two blades of grass” theory 
with success. 1 >o not fool yourself a 
There will be a tremendous seeding of Sp 
in the regions where such seeding is natural. This 
will boost the crop and you, where wheat is a 
Fall-sown crop, cannot compete. If you want a 
Spring grain other than oats, try barley. It may 
pay to fertilize your Fall-sown wheat this Spring, 
and make it produce the largest possible crop. In¬ 
stead of making two blades of grass grow make 
the one blade do its full duty. 
BREVITIES. 
The law of supply and demand. The middleman 
seems to be the lord of it. 
Since the oubreak of war deposits in the Postal Sav¬ 
ings Banks have increased over $50,000,000. It is now 
planned to develop the bank more fully. 
It is said that when the Turks marched for the Suez 
Canal they compelled anyone on the route to contribute 
at least one tin can and one bag. The tin cans were 
to make floating bridges—the bags to be filled with sand 
to throw in and clog the canal. 
