684 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
\ Natlomil Wfclly Journal for Country nnd Suburban Home* 
Established tsso 
I'liblblicd wrrkly by til® Rural Publislilni- Company, 333 >T«t Stub Strut, Nfa Vorti 
IT Kit BERT W. Coli.i.nowood, President and Editor. 
Joh.v J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Ws. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION : ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. $2.04, equal to Ss. 6d., or 
tti£ marks, or 104$ francs, ltomit in money order, express 
order, personal cheek or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates, 75 cents per agttte 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 paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible person. We use every' possible precaution nnd admit the. advertising of 
reliable houses only. Rut to make doubly sure, we will make good any loss 
to |iaid 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 
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, you should mention The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
T HE first part of that discussion of small farm 
or bonds as an investment is printed on page 
USO. Something like 50 letters have already 
!>een received. The majority urge “C. F.” to hang 
to his job until he has ample capital for his new 
venture. This back-to-tlie-landing is getting upon 
saner ground each year. People recognize the two 
essential questions. Have you money enough for 
capital and reserve? Do your wife and daughters 
realize what they are really going into? 
* 
N EW JERSEY lias a law which aims to prevent 
misleading advertisements. A poultry breeder 
in Jersey makes use of this law by inviting his 
patrons to come after him if they find he has mis¬ 
represented. This is what he prints: 
If I have misrepresented anything, or do so. 1 am 
amenable to this law. I invite investigation. 
EXTRACT. 
LAWS OF NEW JERSEY. 
Session of 1913, Chapter 318. 
Be it enacted, etc. 
1. Any person, firm, corporation or association who, 
with intent to sell or in anywise dispose of merchandise 
* * or anything offered by such person * * directly or 
indirectly, to the public for sale or distribution, or * * 
to induce the public * * to acquire title thereto * * 
makes, publishes, disseminates, circulates or places be¬ 
fore the public, in this State, in a newspaper * * or in 
the form of a * * circular, pamphlet or letter or in any 
other way, an advertisement of any sort regarding mer¬ 
chandise * * or anything so offered to the public, which 
advertisement contains any assertion, representation or 
statement of fact which is untrue, deceptive or mislead¬ 
ing shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon convic¬ 
tion thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding one 
thousand dollars ($3,000) or imprisonment in the coun¬ 
ty jail for a period not exceeding one year, or both such 
fine and imprisonment. 
The public is waking up as it never did before to 
this matter of clean advertising and personal re¬ 
sponsibility. 
* 
We are planting trees with root galls on them in our 
permanent orchards. Older trees known to be diseased 
are growing as well and bearing as well as those in 
which the disease did not show at the time of planting. 
So long as there is doubt in the matter we should prefer 
to plant the healthy trees, that is. entirely free from the 
gall, and then try to keep them from getting infected 
later, but we have the trees of suitable size for planting 
and many of them show the disease. In fact, the dis¬ 
eased trees average at least as large as the “healthy” 
ones. We have rejected some trees which showed very 
large galls at the union of stock and scion. The main 
question seems to be whether or not the gall affects the 
proper tissue and will grow large enough seriously to 
girdle the tree. One affecting the wood would seem 
likely to be less dangerous than one affecting the cam¬ 
bium. I should try to avoid very large soft galls at 
the union of stock and scion unless the tree could be set 
deep enough to develop a good root system from above 
tin* stock. __ A. c. w. 
W E know, of course, that some excellent fruit 
growers do not seriously object to the galled 
trees. With all respect for their judgment 
we would not plant such a tree if we could avoid it 
As for giving any compromising advice about this, 
we consider it dangerous to do so. A student of 
plant diseases, as a man of great experience, might 
know which trees to reject and which to plant, but 
the average planter would not have this experienced 
judgment Tell him that root gall in some locations 
is harmless and he would soon be planting worthless 
trash. Some men say they had a case of scarlet 
fever and took no precautions to separate the patients. 
Others tell how they fed the milk of tuberculous 
cows to children and had no trouble. Such men may 
be willing to take personal risks, but no one in his 
right mind would advocate their personal opinions 
for general adoption. No root-gall for us. 
* 
(( t BELIEVE that where one person embarks in 
J the Belgian hare business and fails, more 
than one hundred lose out on the poultry 
game. 1 keep both hares and poultry and know 
something whereof I speak.” 
That is taken from the sensible letter of a man 
who thinks we do not give Belgian hares a square 
deal. What he says may be true, but is it not also 
probably true that 500 have started with poultry 
where one started with hares? We do not want our 
readers to think that The R. N.-Y. is a sour old pes¬ 
simist starting out to “knock” every new proposition 
on general principles. We know how our readers 
regard what we say about these new or untried 
things, and whenever there is a chance to put any 
“hot air” or promoter’s guff into a project we do 
our best to stamp it out. We could not kill off any 
really worthy thing with such methods, even if we 
tried to. 
The Great Questions of Farming. 
“Iu a multitude of counsellors there is safety,” ami, 
if so, there should be wisdom. I would like the judg¬ 
ment of the multitude upon the following: 
1. If every farmer would double his production for 
five years, would his income at the end of that time be 
greater than at present? 
2. If by this means, the high price of living would be 
materially reduced, would labor be benefited, and, if so, 
for how long? Or would wages be correspondingly re* 
dueed ? 
3. If any benefit would result from such increased 
production, who would get it? R. W. s. 
Pennsylvania. 
TIE readers of The R. N.-Y. constitute the mul¬ 
titude. We print the questions so that they 
may furnish the wisdom. We cannot use long 
articles, for there will be many to discuss these ques¬ 
tions. Better take the one which appeals to you 
most forcibly and give us a strong note on it. These 
suggestions will help. 
1. The farmer cannot double his crops without add¬ 
ing at least 75 per cent, to the cost. He must borrow 
this capital. Certain charges, like harvesting, haul¬ 
ing. thrashing and selling are fixed. The more you 
handle the more it will cost, to do so. An extraor¬ 
dinary demand like the present war may for a time 
increase prices, as it has for wheat or beans. In a 
course of years, doubling crops would result just 
as a 10 per cent, increase in potatoes has done— 
reduce the price paid to the farmer below the cost of 
production. The government figures show that in 
years of peace so-called “bumper crops” have brought 
such low prices that returns for them were less than 
what the farmers received for a smaller crop. 
2. The high cost of living would not be “materially 
reduced.” It will not he reduced under the present 
system of distribution which gives to the handlers 
05 cents of the consumer’s dollar. We can cite many 
cases where food has been destroyed or permitted 
to waste by the middlemen rather than permit it to 
be sold cheaply. “Labor,” by which we assume you 
mean city labor, would not Ik* greatly benefited by 
doubling the food supply, for city wages are not con¬ 
trolled by the laws of supply and demand. We have 
heard it argued that by doubling the food supply 
farmers could compel city wages to fall and thus se¬ 
cure cheaper farm labor. This seems to us nonsense, 
as under the present system of distribution, the 
farmer has no control over the prices which his pro¬ 
ducts will bring. He is forced to take, what other 
classes see fit to offer him and year by year he sees 
more and more people trying to make a living 
through handling and selling his crops. 
3. The benefit would go to the railroads, transpor¬ 
tation agents and handlers and dealers who carry 
the food to the consumers. Many or most of these 
receive fixed charges for their work, if they carry 
and handle 20 packages instead of 10 they will re¬ 
ceive twice as much money, no matter what the 
packages sell for, or even if they result iu a loss 
to the farmers. The demand for doubling crops or 
producing “two blades of grass” comes from trans¬ 
portation people, dealers or agents who handle farm 
products, oi- from “thinkers” who never grew a crop 
in their lives and are in no way dependent upon 
farm labor for support. A few men with special 
crops or localities would be benefited, hut 99 out 
of 100 actual farmers know that there is food enough 
now wasted through lack of profitable sale to feed 
25,000,000 additional people. These questions are 
more important to our farmers than any ever raised 
by political parties since the Civil War. The future 
of American farming depends upon their fearless 
and honest discussion—not by “thinkers” and edu¬ 
cators, but by farmers themselves. 
$ 
E ACH year at least 250 men and women ask us 
to write essays for them, give all the points in 
a debate or give an opinion on some farm topic 
which they are to discuss at the Grange or some 
other meeting. For example, a farmer’s wife, evi¬ 
dently an intelligent woman, wants us to tell her 
how the Department of Agriculture can help women 
on the farm, so that she may write out what we 
say for a Grange address. We always try to help 
our people, but consider this thing for a moment. 
How can the Department or anyone else help farm 
May 8, 101.". 
women unless these very farm women can think 
out clearly what they need and let the need be 
known? As a rule the people who write about farm 
housekeeping have very little knowledge of the true 
conditions in country homes. The woman who asks 
us to give an opinion which she can use is 10 times 
as well qualified as we are to answer the question. 
She, being a farmer’s wife, knows from her own life 
what is needed, and if she will speak freely and out 
of her own heart she will give her Grange just what 
it ought to have. It is becoming a habit for fann¬ 
ers to conclude that the government should think 
and act for them. It is a bad habit—the worst 
thing that can happen to us, for we need above all 
things to know how to think clearly so as to state 
our own ease in our own words. 
* 
W E used to call them “robber cows"—a plain, 
blunt and truthful title. We meant the cows 
in the dairy barn that gobble up their own 
share of food and then get down on their knees—to 
prey upon what their neighbor has left uneaten! 
These frauds consume the lion’s share of the food 
and then give the liar’s share of the milk and but- 
terfat. Many a new dress for the wife and dollars 
and schooling for the children have gone into the 
greedy mouth of these robber cows. The Cornell 
Experiment Station wants to he more polite and 
calls them “lady hoarders." We have known "la¬ 
dies” who came to the farm to “rest.” They re¬ 
mained in bed until late in the morning and expect¬ 
ed the farmer's wife to wait on them. They were 
robbers like tlie frauds out in the barn. Call them 
what you will, Cornell shows that at least one-eighth 
of the dairy herds in New York give their owners 
nothing but a chance to make good on a loss. These 
“lady boarders” are responsible for it. Failures at 
milk and fat, try the ax test on them for meat and 
hide. 
♦ 
L AST week we spoke of the great popularity of 
the Rural New-Yorker No. 2 potato. The Wis¬ 
consin Experiment Station reports the names of 
47 potato growers who have received certificates of 
potato seed inspection. Of these 47, 32 men handle 
the R. N.-Y. No. 2, Green Mountain coming next with 
11. When you can find pure seed the old “Rural -1 
is still the most profitable medium late variety in 
the country. 
* 
O N the next page is a personal statement by 
John J. Dillon, N. Y. State Commissioner of 
Foods and Markets. We ask you to read it care¬ 
fully. The political leaders at Albany, not caring 
to assume responsibility for abolishing the Depart¬ 
ment, provided just about enough money to let it 
linger along in a perfunctory and harmless manner. 
That would be a good way to kill it off without 
shouldering any political discredit. We shall make 
this very clear a little later. Mr. Dillon is not sat¬ 
isfied to draw a salary and then stand still without 
the means to develop practical working plans. 11c 
therefore proposes to do the work without drawing 
a salary, but to devote the money which would go 
to him in organizing such work as is possible with 
these funds. This offer is sincere and straight, and 
the plan will be carried through. Next week we 
shall begin to show you how all can help. 
Brevities. 
No—your true pathologist does not stay in a beaten 
path just because it is a path. lie makes new ones 
when they are needed. 
Give us the power to make every farmer see the ad¬ 
vantage of having a good garden and we will do agri¬ 
culture more good than has come from half the laws 
passed by the last Congress. 
Many acres of corn land were plowed last Fall. lr 
should not stand untouched until planting time. Disk 
or harrow it now. This will help hold the moisture in 
it. 
♦ 
If a person asked for “a few pointers covering all 
the things about poultry” what would you say? It is 
better to have the actual point presented to you so you 
can sharpen it. 
South Africa is using large quantities of fertilizer. 
In addition to home supplies there were 65,000 tons 
of chemicals imported in 1913. Of this 40,000 tons 
were acid phosphates. 
Never let a stranger walk off with your signature at 
the bottom of any paper, or at the top of it, at the side 
or on the edges. Have an attack of pen palsy whenever 
asked to sign a strange document. 
Many farmers who have a limited quantity of wood 
ashes write asking how they can use it to best advan¬ 
tage. We should scatter it around the hills of corn 
at the first hoeing and work well into the soil. 
They say “any boy can run a tractor.” So he can, 
but where will it run to? It needs a full-sized and 
active brain to handle such an expensive machine. Do 
not fool with it! 
It is encouraging to have so many questions about 
pasturing hogs. For years. Eastern farmers thought 
the hog must be caged in a filthy pen and not permitted 
to exercise. Now we sow oats and peas, rape and sor¬ 
ghum, and turn the hog out to graze and pick up two- 
thirds of his food in this way. 
