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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
DOMESTIC.—Tbe Cunard steamer 
Lusitania, which sailed from New York 
May 1. was torpedoed. May 7, off Old 
Head of Kinsale, Ireland, by German 
submarines. The attack was made with- 
out warning. The ship sank within 15 
minutes. Two torpedoes are said to have 
been fired, both of which burst inside the 
big liner. The dead of the Lusitania re¬ 
mained, May 31, at 1,150. of whom 114 
were proved American citizens. There 
are 707 survivors, 405 passengers and 
502 crew, and 176 bodies, nearly all of 
which were buried at Queenstown, May 
10. There were 47 injured in the hos¬ 
pitals, 30 of whom are passengers and 
17 crew. There are many young children 
among the victims. 
Four bills wiping out all political party 
lines in State elections and leaving the 
party label only to candidates for Con¬ 
gress, both House and Senate, were the 
most important legislation enacted by 
the forty-first California Legislature. Un¬ 
der the non-partisan act voters will reg¬ 
ister without naming any partisan affilia¬ 
tion. At primary elections when candi¬ 
dates for Congress are to be nominated 
there will be only one ballot. Voters 
when handed their ballots will declare 
their party, and the names of all candi¬ 
dates of other parties for Congress will 
be stamped out. In place of the present 
method of selecting delegates to the 
State party conventions committeemen 
will be picked by Congress districts, and 
they, with the party nominees for Con¬ 
gress. will compose the State conventions. 
Postmaster-General Burleson has been 
asked by the Merchants Association to 
seek amendment of the postal conven¬ 
tions with foreign countries so that 
liquids may be sent abroad by parcel 
post up. to the weight limit of eleven 
pounds. He has promised to try to bring 
about the change. There is at present 
some confusion in the situation. While 
Austria, Brazil, Germany, Great Britain 
and Norway permit the shipment of 
liquids by parcel post, other countries 
prohibit such shipment, but allow liquids 
to be mailed as samples, with a limit of 
12 ounces. 
William .T. A. Bailey, president and 
treasurer of the American Hardware 
and Machinery Export Corporation, and 
Chauncey Holt, Jr., secretary of the 
Chauncey Holt Company, printers, at 
227 West Seventeenth Street, were ar¬ 
raigned, May 7, before United States 
Commissioner Houghton, at New York, 
charged with using the mails for fraud¬ 
ulent purposes. They are said to have 
defrauded persons acquiring territorial 
agencies in the United States and foreign 
countries for the sale of an automobile 
called the Carnegie. Two men, arrested 
in Kalamazoo, Mich., are also said to be 
involved in the conspiracy. To persons 
in the South and West, and in South 
America, South Africa and Australia, it 
was represented that the Carnegie com¬ 
pany was known throughout the world for 
its soundness, and that in addition to the 
Carnegie automobile it manufactured the 
Carnegie tractor, sharper and planer, in¬ 
dustrial locomotive, steel well drilling 
machine and wire rope. 
Snow fell in northwestern Kansas, a 
section of the Panhandle district of Texas 
and at Denver, May G. Killing frosts 
nipped Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana 
and Wyoming, while Oklahoma, Texas, 
Iowa, Missouri and a large portion of 
Kansas shivered under cold rains. Good- 
land, Kan., was covered with an inch of 
snow, while flurries fell in the northwest¬ 
ern part of the State. Dalhart, Tex., re¬ 
ported a white blanket covering that sec¬ 
tion of the Panhandle. It is feared the 
fruit trees are seriously injured. 
Fifteen persons were killed and more 
than two-score injured by a tornado, 
May 6, which passed through the west¬ 
ern' part of Acadia Parish in Southern 
Louisiana. Three persons were injured 
and much property damaged at Ardmore, 
Okla., the same day by a heavy wind 
storm. In the Petrolia oil fields, near 
Wichita Falls, Texas, 25 derricks were 
wrecked and several houses damaged. 
The ward school was partly unroofed 
and several children were injured. 
The city common council of Detroit, 
Mich., has unanimously passed a meas¬ 
ure adopting Eastern time as the stand¬ 
ard for Detroit. 
Harvey E. Brewer, Jacob L. Brewer, 
John A. Gembei’ling and other residents 
, of New Jersey who say they are lineal 
descendants of Anneke Jans Bogardus 
began suit in the United States District 
Court, New York, May 11, to recover 
from Trinity Church Corporation the 
property on the lower West Side which 
was the “land and bowery” of Anneke 
Jans Bogardus and her husband when 
Wouter van Twiller was Governor of 
New York. It is the contention of Van- 
dervoort II. Downes, attorney for the 
plaintiffs, that Frau Bogardus had the 
property deeded to her on January 20, 
1633, by Gov. van Twiller and that the 
title has never left the Bogardus family. 
Therefore he holds that Trinity Church 
Corporation occupies the grounds unlaw¬ 
fully. A number of similar suits have 
been brought in various courts from time 
to time, but according to Jay & Candler, 
attorneys for Trinity Church, all have 
been dropped or dismissed for lack of evi¬ 
dence. So extensive was the attempt to 
interest lineal descendants of Anneke 
Jans Bogardus that Elmer E. Good, a 
^Buffalo lawyer, and John H. Fonda, pres¬ 
ident of the Union Association of Heirs 
of Anneke Jans Bogardus, were indicted 
on the charge of using the mails to de¬ 
fraud. They were tried before Judge 
Learned Hand in the United States Dis¬ 
trict Court and were acquitted. The 
Jans farm included property which. 
Toughly bounded, would now lie between 
Fulton and Christopher streets, west of 
Broadway to the Hudson River. 
A criminal relationship between union 
leaders of the garment and other workers 
of New York on the one hand and hordes 
of gunmen on the other side, whose daily 
business it has been for years to hire 
themselves out for a few dollars a day 
to these leaders to kill and injure work¬ 
men and destroy the property of employ¬ 
ers, became known May 11. Almost two- 
score men and women were indicted as 
the result of a city and county investiga¬ 
tion stretching over months. Numerous 
arrests were made and the criminal trials 
for crimes that run from murder down 
to intimidation will disclose, the authori¬ 
ties are confident, a working agreement 
by which during the almost constant suc¬ 
cession of labor troubles in garment and 
other factories throughout Manhattan 
union labor leaders hired gunmen and 
assigned them to do criminal acts as their 
own employers might engage workmen to 
cut and stitch garments. Men affiliated 
with the joint board of the cloak and 
skirt makers’ unions, white goods 
workers' unions, bakers’ organizations, 
rag picking unions and other work¬ 
ers are accused of hiring thugs by the 
day to commit at least one murder and 
almost countless crimes ranking less only 
than murder in the eyes of the law. 
FARM AND GARDEN—Members of 
the National Commission of Milk Stand¬ 
ards and manufacturers and distributers 
of milk, butter, ice cream and condensed 
milk met at the Biltmore Hotel, New 
York, May 7, to discuss plans for the 
labelling and standardizing of all the 
ice cream, butter and condensed milk sold 
in the United States according to a san¬ 
itary degree. So far this commission has 
had the cooperation of the departments 
of health in the various cities and States 
throughout the country in attending to 
the proper sanitary conditions and grade 
of all the milk sold in this country, but 
no attention has been given to the sub¬ 
ject of ice cream, butter and condensed 
milk. According to members of the com¬ 
mission, which is composed of many 
medical experts, attention toward these 
products is quite as important. Dr. M. 
J. Rosenau, head of the Harvard depart¬ 
ment of preventive medicines, presided 
May 7. Dr. Carl Alsberg, successor to 
Dr. Wiley, in tbe National Department 
of Agriculture, spoke in behalf of the 
commission’s object. The departments 
of health in all the principal cities of the 
United States will probably undertake 
to see that the standard of grade and effi¬ 
ciency adopted for the products of ice 
cream, butter and condensed milk by the 
commission is carried out by manufactur¬ 
ers and dealers as it is with the sale of 
milk and cream. 
The Summer meeting of the New Jer¬ 
sey State Horticultural Society will be 
held at the Seabrook Farms, near Bridge- 
ton, Cumberland Co., N. J., June 9th, 
(Wednesday). This will be an excep¬ 
tional opportunity to see an up-to-date ir¬ 
rigation plant, for market garden crops 
and strawberries. Their special berry is 
the Chesapeake and it will be at its 
height near that time. The day promises 
to be a very interesting one. 
The chestnut bark disease has become 
so serious that in the opinion of the 
United States Department of Agricul¬ 
ture it is desirable to quarantine New 
England, New York, New Jersey, Penn¬ 
sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, 
West Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, 
Iowa, and Nebraska, or such portions 
thereof as may be found to be essential. 
A public hearing on this question was 
held in Washington, May IS. The pro¬ 
posed quarantine will restrict the move¬ 
ment from this territory of chestnut nurs¬ 
ery stock and chestnut lumber with the 
bark on. 
Bulletin No. 395 of the New York 
Agricultural Experiment Station deals 
with a method of treatment for Hop mil¬ 
dew that has proved successful in gen¬ 
eral practice. Owing to its applicability 
in so few localities this bulletin will not 
be issued in “Popular Edition,” nor gen¬ 
erally distributed outside the State, but 
will be sent, on request, to any Hop 
grower. 
Prof. N. E. Shaw, chief of the Ohio 
State University bureau of nursery and 
orchards, has been assigned by the State 
Agricultural Commission to install the 
agricultural exhibit of the State at the 
Panama-Pacific Exposition. 
The Mailbag. 
Hardwood Ashes and Nitrate of Soda. 
I am using hardwood ashes on light 
sandy soil, broadcasting them now 7 . How 
would you use nitrate of soda, dry or a 
liquid? j. j. H . 
Oconto Falls, Wis. 
You can use the wood ashes just as you 
would lime. Broadcast them on the soil 
after plowing, and harrow them care¬ 
fully in. You will get good returns from 
them in that way. There are various 
ways of handling nitrate; you can crush 
the lumps up fine and mix the nitrate 
with four or five times its bulk of dry 
soil or fine sand. Make a thorough mix¬ 
ture and broadcast the whole thing as you 
would any fertilize!’. This makes an even 
distribution, better than where you try 
to use the small quantity of nitrate alone. 
Another way is to dissolve the nitrate in 
water and pour this liquid over coal 
ashes or sand, wetting it all down 
through. Then after it is dry again you 
can broadcast the whole thing as you 
would a fertilizer. This makes a good 
way to distribute the soluble material, or 
in addition to these methods you can dis¬ 
solve the nitrate in water and apply it to 
the grass or grain out of a tank or 
sprinkler. The dry method, however, is 
probably as good as any. 
Destroying Peach Borers. 
Can you give me any information re¬ 
garding borers in peach trees? Is there 
anything to kill them in the tree, or any 
other way of getting them out besides cut¬ 
ting them out? Last year I thoroughly 
cleaned out my trees and this year found 
them as bad as ever. t 1 . it. 
Pennsylvania. 
We know of nothing surer than dig¬ 
ging the borers out. A wash or swabbing 
with lime-sulphur mixture—about one to 
10 will help. It will probably kill some 
of the borers and repel the. moth which 
lays the egg, but the. only sure way is to 
dig or cut the borers out. 
Mines at Sea. 
Can you tell me anything about the 
mines which are located in the North 
sea and near by during the present war? 
s. K. 
This question was sent to the Navy De¬ 
partment at Washington. We received 
the following reply: 
“Inasmuch as the details of the mines 
used by the European nations now at war 
are kept confidential the Bureau cannot 
give you the information requested, as the 
details of these mines are not definitely 
known. 
“In general the mines are anchored 
contact mines, moored about 15 feet be¬ 
low the surface of the water, carrying an 
explosive charge of from 200 to 500 
pounds each, and are exploded by contact, 
i. e., by the vessel striking the mine. The 
explosion of 400 or 500 pounds of explo¬ 
sive such as used in these mines when in 
contact with the bottom of a ship is gen¬ 
erally sufficiently destructive to sink a 
merchant vessel.” 
May 22, 1915. 
Steam-boiling Maple Sap, 
An inquiry in The R. N.-Y. about 
boiling maple sap with steam brings up 
the fact that there are quite a few steam 
rigs in this vicinity, but the number is 
not increasing, if actually holding their 
own. It takes a lot of steam boiler pow¬ 
er to boil the sap from 1,000 trees, and 
no end of water and fuel. But it is not 
possible to make a finer quality of syrup 
or sugar than by this method, as burn¬ 
ing, side-scorching and the like are im¬ 
possible, and the boiling pan (?) of ma¬ 
ple plank has no rival. Near me is a 
1.600 bucket camp and it hustles a 40 
horsepower boiler and much good fuel 
to “keep up” in a good run. There must 
be a strong steam pressure to cause rapid 
evaporation of the sap. You must boil 
a good many barrels of water to make 
one barrel of sap boil, and that alone 
takes as much fuel as the iron firebox, so 
shallow pan evaporator is practically in 
universal use here. john gould. 
Black Oil. —W. H. II., Massachu¬ 
setts, inquires in a recent issue for black 
oil. It is a crude petroleum product 
from Northern Indiana; sells at nine 
cents per gallon by the barrel, one-gal¬ 
lon cans 21 cents. It is a successful 
remedy for roup, and is used as paint 
to rid poultry houses of mites 
New York. F. d. w. 
Destroying Tent Caterpillars. —To 
fight tent caterpillars take your 10-foot 
pole and bore a small hole through end. 
Put there, its neck through hole, a small 
oil-can filled with kerosene and put a few 
drops on the nest when the worms 
are small. J. c. P. 
Altmar, N. Y. 
Protecting Beans Against Rabbits. 
—Several weeks ago I saw an inquiry re¬ 
garding some means of keeping rabbits 
from injuring Lima beans. As I have 
seen no reply I venture to suggest as a 
remedy dusting the foliage with air-slaked 
lime, preferably in the evening. We 
found this satisfactory in our home gar¬ 
den, after losing tw r o plantings of beans, 
and are told that it is practiced by mar¬ 
ket gardeners near here. Unless there 
are frequent rains to wash off the lime, 
two or three dustings w’ill be sufficient. 
Vienna, Va. CL. s. 
“Our dairyman’s cows look very de¬ 
jected.” “Maybe that is why our milk is 
so blue.”—St. Paul Dispatch. 
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