910 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
The International Text Book Com¬ 
pany of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is hav¬ 
ing financial embarrassments. The com¬ 
pany has some 8,000 stockholders, and 
about 150 of these held a meeting last 
week, and a syndicate of Scranton bank¬ 
ers was appealed to for the loan of $500,- 
000. The bankers were elected directors 
and given control of the company. Presi¬ 
dent T. ,T. Foster, and some of the other 
members of the board, came in for severe 
criticism because of the subsidiary con¬ 
cerns that had been promoted and mixed 
up with the Scranton proposition, and it 
was made clear that none of the money 
loaned by the bankers could be used to 
help out any of the Foster subsidiary pro¬ 
motions. 
This- development brings no surprise to 
us. The methods of finance adopted by 
this company and its allies have been dis¬ 
cussed and criticised in this column be¬ 
fore. We then pointed out that the mere 
fact that the concern managed to pay div¬ 
idends on an inflated issue of stocks was 
not in itself sufficient to warrant an in¬ 
vestment. The promotion of this com¬ 
pany had all the earmarks of a gigantic 
scheme, and it is doubtful if any man ex¬ 
perienced in affairs of the kind looked for 
any other result. It is reported now that 
the stockholders may not expect any more 
dividends for a good many years, and 
holders of the stock would probably find 
it difficult to make r sale of the holding 
even ft heavy losses. We did what we 
could to keep our people out of this em¬ 
barrassment. \/c refused their adver¬ 
tising when other publications were ac¬ 
cepting it freely, because we did not want 
to give even an indirect endorsement to 
Mr. Foster’s promotion schemes. We re¬ 
ceived many bitter protests against our 
decision from interested parties. As 
usual, the results have justified our criti¬ 
cism and position, and we can only hope 
that The R. N.-Y. readers are spared the 
loss of a bad investment in its stock. 
Can you give any late information 
about the bonds of the American Real Es¬ 
tate Company of Mew York? The bonds 
are sold on the installment plan, and they 
are getting considerable ooiiey out of 
Lancaster County. Some bonds are be¬ 
ing cold to farmers who hav - mortgages 
on the farm, on the representations of the 
agents of the company that the accruing 
interest will make it easier for the farm¬ 
ers to pay the mortgages. What would 
happen if the purchaser were not able tc 
keep up the payments? w. R. K. 
Pennsylvania. 
The Building and Loan Commission 
of Connecticut has recently refused this 
company a license to continue the sale 
of bonds in that State. 
The real estate held by this company 
is estimated at $26,907,763. 
The mortgages against it are $11,710,- 
960. 
The debentures against the company 
are $13,692,124. 
There are other liabilities of $468,720. 
Making a total liability of $25,S71,S04, 
and on the best possible showing would 
leave a margin in the real estate of $1,- 
035,959. The statements, however, add 
some two and a half million to this on 
personal assets, all of which would hardly 
be allowed on a critical audit. 
The appraiser’s certificate indicates 
that the real estate was appraised as of 
the 1914 balance sheet, which to say the 
least is unusual for a city appraisal at 
this time. I am somewhat familiar with 
real estate appraisers in New York City, 
and in my experience property is ap¬ 
praised on the basis of earning power, 
from 10 to 40 per cent, below the esti¬ 
mates of one or two years ago. It is 
doubtful if a single piece of the property 
held by this company would be valued by 
a conservative appraiser for more than 10 
per cent, off the appraisement of a year 
ago. There is no market for the property 
at this time, and if forced to a sale at 
this time it would probably not bring 
within 30 per cent, of the present ap¬ 
praisal. 
The surplus shown by the statement is 
$1,610,555. If the real estate were ap¬ 
praised at 10 per cent, off the formal ap¬ 
praisal the company would be insolvent. 
The important thing to remember 
about these bonds is that they are a mere 
indebtedness against the company and not 
a lien on the real estate. An open ac¬ 
count against the company would be bet- 
THE RURAl> 
ter than one of these bonds because one 
could proceed to collect the open account 
at any time, while the bonds run for a 
definite number of years and payment 
could not be enforced until the time ex¬ 
pired. As it is now there is an equity of 
cnly about 4 per cent, in the real estate 
after taking out the mortgages, the bonds 
and the personal obligations. Even if the 
property were conceded to be -worth the 
appraised value, no sane man would put 
money into the equities on suck an ex¬ 
travagant basis. Second mortgages are 
eminently better investments than such 
bonds, and second mortgages on a much 
more conservative basis have been selling 
for the past year on a discount up to 50 
per cent, o 2 iheir face value, r 20 per 
cent, discount has been common. They 
draw 6 per cent, besides on the face value. 
If the payments are not kept up on the 
installment bonds, the investor forfeits 
nearly 20 per cent, of what he pays in the 
first year. The man with a mortgage on 
his farm, who puts his savings into an in¬ 
stallment note of any concern holding 
only equities in city properties, ought to 
have a commission appointed to inquire 
into his sanity. He certainly ought to 
have a guardian. There may be men so 
situated that they can gamble and take 
chances with their savings, but the man 
with a mortgage on his farm and a family 
to support is in no such position. 
Sometime ago my wife and I went to 
Los Molinos, Cal., and invested in some 
of Los Molinos Land Co. land, and when 
we found out we had been deceived, we 
started suit in the courts of Tehama Co., 
California, and the judge ruled against 
us. We have carried our suit to the Su¬ 
preme Court of the State and still have a 
chance of recovering our money, but so 
many people have gone to that locality, 
and after sinking all their money they 
have had to leave there without a thing. 
Their methods are to send out the books 
and letters through the mail and get peo¬ 
ple to come there and invest. They pay 
or.e-tenth of the purchase price down, and 
then go ahead and build a house and plant 
the land. After they have done this and 
bought the cows, most of the people who 
go there are broke. About that time they 
wake up and find out they have been 
stung. As you can see they have made a 
payment and improved the land so when 
they leave and the next victim comes along 
he has a chance to buy the land and has 
hat much more added on to the land. 
The people who have improved the land 
never get a cent of it, but the company 
add a lot more onto the land and sell it to 
the next sucker that happens along. 
Oregon. T. c. M. 
The above extract from the Oregon sub¬ 
scriber’s letter outlines the usual result of 
investments with land development com¬ 
panies whether the land is located in Cal¬ 
ifornia, Florida or elsewhere. The big ex¬ 
pense which these development companies 
incur for promotion work, to which must 
be added a large profit for themselves— 
all of which must be paid for by the mir- 
chasers—constitutes a handicap wnxet 
practically dooms the settler to failure 
from the start. The rule is equally good 
land can be purchased in the vicinity of 
these developments at a half or third of 
the price these promotion companies exact 
If anyone has ever found an investment 
in these propositions profitable, we have 
failed to hear of the case, while we have 
a bushel of similar experiences to that of 
T. C. M. c" Tie from those investing in 
land companies. 
I am not a farmer at present, but was 
one before becoming a railroad man, and 
have never been able to get along without 
Tite R. N.-Y. ever since leaving the farm. 
I am receiving some literature like the en¬ 
closures from Wm. T. Love of Lomax, 
Ill., advising the investment of $10 with 
him at once, so that he may double the 
amount a few times in the next five or six 
years, or until the investment is worth 
the modest amount of $10,240. This man 
seems to be very anxious to help the poor 
railroad men out of the rut, and more es¬ 
pecially the station agents, that they may 
be on easy street in a few years. I am a 
station agent and would certainly like to 
get out of the rut, but this looks to me 
like a scheme of some promoters to put 
themselves on easy street at the expense 
of $10 each from several thousand hard 
working men. I hope they are not issu¬ 
ing a farmer’s edition of “The New City.” 
New York. H. J. s. 
The literature describes what seems to 
be a purely visionary scheme to form a 
syndicate of railroad men to develop the 
town at Lomax, in the western part of 
Illinois. It is proposed to raise $500,000 
through the sale of shares of Lomax In¬ 
vestment Company stock. Just how the 
large profits for the investors are to be 
earned is not satisfactorily explained in 
the literature. In our opinion H. J. S. 
NEW-YORKER 
has sized this proposition up correctly 
when he says that these promoters are 
more concerned about an easy living for 
themselves for a few years on the savings 
of railroad men than they are to help 
them to get out of any rut they may be in. 
While perhaps The Rural New-Yorker 
does not reach any large number of rail¬ 
road men, it is possible, as this subscriber 
suggests, that after the promoters have 
exhausted their efforts on railroad em¬ 
ployees they will devote their efforts to 
securing easy money from the farming 
public. J. J. d. 
White Leghorns With Black Feathers. 
I keep a few White Leghorns. Last 
Fall, through a Mend, I bought what 
looks like an extra fine White Leghorn 
cockerel, but some of the chickens that 
I hatch have black feathers. Would you 
advise keeping these chickens for breed¬ 
ers if these feathers disappear? L. P. 
New York. 
The appearance of an occasional 1 lack 
feather in white fowls does not indicate 
impurity of blood and need not give you 
any concern. Crossing different strains 
of the same breed is likely tc bring out 
these reversions to characteristics of 
long forgotten ancestors and ^-ause con¬ 
siderable uneasiness among amateurs. 
II. B. D. 
Ailing Chicks. 
Tell me what is the matter with my 
two-weeks-old Barred Rock and Rhode 
Island Red chicks? They seem to be 
perfectly well and in about an 
hour two or three will close their 
eyes, gasp for breath and froth at 
the mouth, after remaining that way 
about eight hours they die. I have lost 
a number in this way and am beginning 
to think it is a contagious disease. Could 
that be possible? The chicks are kept 
out of doors and have plenty of good 
food and water. B. J. M. 
Maine. 
I cannot tell from your brief descrip¬ 
tion what ails these chicks. One should 
be opened and a careful examination of 
the crop, the intestines, and the wind¬ 
pipe made. If they are healthy up to 
within a few hours of death, it is not 
probable that any contagious disease is 
present. M. b. d. 
Feeding Young Chicks. 
Let me have a few words in reply to 
F. P. S., on page 817, who inquires about 
death of young chicks. I am not a “large 
breeder” but raise from 150 to 200 chicks 
each year and feel that I have learned a 
few things. It always seemed to me 
that if we are going to bring chickens 
up “by hand” we ought to imitate nat¬ 
ural conditions and certainly no “old hen” 
ever provided for her chicks hard-boiled 
eggs and oatmeal! Many people assure 
us that they always feed it. but I am 
convinced that their chicks live in spite 
of it—not because of it. Any chick that 
can stand a diet of hard-boiled eggs and 
rolled oats is like the man who, as the 
saying is, “if born to be hung will nev¬ 
er die any other way.” I often wish I 
could shout from the housetops “Don’t, 
don't don’t feed rolled oats!” There are 
almost as many chicken^ offered each year 
to that idol as there are served upon our 
tables. m. H. A. 
Vermont. 
Improving Coal-heated Brooder. 
I used to have difficulty with the coal- 
heated brooder. Many chickens become 
overheated. High authorities tell us that 
the chickens will move from the heat. 
When they have had age and experience 
they may be depended on to do this. An 
overheated chicken may not show damage 
for several days. These coal-heated 
brooder may do very well if located just 
right. I have tried several changes with 
mine and finally have something good. 
The base of stove is placed on a round 
block 10 inches high. A hoop or wire 
is run round the brooder five inches 
from the floor, and two feet larger than 
the deflector. Drive nails through bar¬ 
rel staves as near the end as possible, lay 
staves from wire to deflector, the nail 
resting against the hoop and preventing 
it from slipping down. Next cut seven 
panels from building paper three feet for 
bottom and 18-inch at the top. Lay the 
pieces of paper on the staves, tight to¬ 
gether or leaving openings as may be re¬ 
quired. We now have a brooder that 
will care for S00 or more chickens as 
well as 300 were cared for before the 
change. With the brooder so far from 
the floor extra heat may be more easily 
disposed of. By being enclosed we heat 
a large floor surface quite evenly, and the 
outside chickens do not crowd the others 
into the heat. Close air in incubator 
ruins many chickens. Sunshine through 
a crack or small opening in the building 
is sure to cause chickens to eat sand too 
freely. I would not give chickens a full 
feed of oat flakes after the first day; 
mix with finely cracked grain. 
New York. G. F. M. 
Your idea is evidently to make a larger 
hover by raising the coal heater a few 
inches from the floor and extending the 
“deflector” for two feet all around, and 
to within five inches of the floor. This 
extension is accomplished by laying one 
July 10, 1915A 
end of a barrel stave upon the edge of the 
metal deflector and the other end upon 
a wire hoop five inches from the floor and 
encircling the stove two feet from the 
edge of the metal deflector. Upon a num¬ 
ber of these staves, placed like the ribs 
of an unbrella, you place heavy paper 
panels, making, in effect, a paper umbrel¬ 
la about your stove. This idea looks 
practicable to me and may be very use¬ 
ful to some who are using the coal heat¬ 
ers for large flocks of chicks. M. B. D. 
Curing Roup. 
Can you tell me of something that will 
cure roup in chickens? G. G. 
New York. 
I know of nothing that will cure true 
roup, at least without going to more 
trouble than the ordinary fowl with roup 
is worth, but the common colds with 
roupy symptoms which are frequently 
called roup by inexperienced poultrymeu 
may be cured by removing from the 
flock all sick birds, cleaning up and 
whitewashing the interior of the poul¬ 
try quarters, disinfecting all utensils 
used by cleaning them with boiling water, 
letting the air and sunlight into the 
poultry house, and giving the fowls as 
much permanganate of potash in their 
drinking water as can be used without 
their refusing to drink it: a teaspoonful, 
or more, to the gallon. This should be 
given the well fowlc also. The severe 
cases which refuse to yield to simple 
treatment should be disposed of by kill¬ 
ing and burying. Trouble of this kind 
should be prevented by cleanliness, fresh 
air and sunlight as prevention is easier 
than cure. M. B. B. 
Aspergillosis. 
During the last week some of my hens 
and a few of my largest chicks have been 
making a rattling sound when they 
breathe. I tried putting a small drop of 
kerosene in each nostril but this did not 
seem to help. The hens do not water at 
the mouth and seem in pretty good condi¬ 
tion. This complaint appears to have 
spread. Will you give me what advice 
you can on this subject? H. H. B. 
Rhode Island. 
This trouble is very likely that known 
as aspergillosis; caused by a fungus, the 
aspergillus, which grows in warm, damp, 
weather upon straw and other vegetabl» 
matter and is sometimes inhaled by birds 
of low vitality to become fixed upon the 
lining membrane of their respiratory pas¬ 
sages. Here the fungus growth increases 
in extent, interferes with the breathing 
and finally may cause exhaustion and 
death, the birds “going light.” There 
is no cure, but the disease may be pre¬ 
vented by avoiding the use of moldy, 
musty, litter or food and keeping the 
poultry quarters dry and clean, and by 
using all other measures, as well, that 
promote strong vitality in the flock. The 
disease is one of warm, damp weather 
and chicks or fowls of less than normal 
vigor. The fungus is of a very low form 
of life and does not naturally choose an 
animal host. M. B. D. 
Trouble With Turkeys. 
I have lost a tom and hen turkey. 
The tom died about two months ago. 
He first refused to eat and would drink 
continually, had diarrhoea also and would 
stand around with wings drooped. He 
was sick a week. The hen turkey laid, 
and set, and when the young turkeys 
were a week old she became sick and 
died a few days ago. She refused to eat 
anything, did not care to drink, as the 
tom did, had no diarrhoea, but stood 
around in the same manner. Could you 
tell me what the trouble was and give 
any remedy if others should appear sick? 
New York. E. H. 
The most common cause of death in 
turkeys that show the symptoms that 
you describe is known as “black-head,” 
from the fact that the head turns dark 
before death. This is an infectious dis¬ 
ease of the liver and intestines for which 
there is no known remedy. It is so wide 
spread that it has become very difficult 
to raise turkeys in any large numbers in 
any of the Eastern States. Young tur¬ 
keys affected usually die before reaching 
maturity, the symptoms being diarrhoea, 
gradually increasing weakness, shown by 
lagging gait, drooping wings, sleepiness, 
stupor and death. Some infected birds 
resist the infection until maturity but 
finally yield to it. Hatching from dis¬ 
ease free, vigorous, stock and rearing the 
poults on ground that has not been con¬ 
taminated by other sick fowls, together 
with the feeding of sour milk from the 
start, seem to offer the most hope for 
success, but, until something is found 
that will destroy the infecting agent in 
the birds’ intestines, turkey raising will 
undoubtedly continue to be a precarious 
occupation. M. B. n. 
“My youngest son,” said Mrs. Twick- 
embury, “played mossbaek on his college 
team this Fall.”—Credit Lost. 
A friend, who in the family circle was 
termed a “jollier,” was saying pretty 
nothings to a little girl. After an hour 
or so, on being asked what she thought 
of the young man, she said : “I know now 
what a ‘jollier’ is. It’s a man what likes 
to say nice things to people what ain't 
nice, to make them think they is nice.” 
—Chicago Tribune. 
