1060 
THE R.TJR.A.L, NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home* 
Established iSSO 
Published weekly by the Rnral Publishing Company. 333 West 30th Street, New fork 
Herbert W. Colling wood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manag er. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Royle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. $2.04, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8l£ marks, or 10S$ francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class 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 paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible person. We use every possible precaution and admit the advertising of 
reliable houses only. But 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 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. 
A T noon on Friday, August 20, we received the 
following telegram from the egg-laying contest: 
Tilly's record to last night (Aug. 19) 202 eggs! 
W. F. Kirkpatrick. 
Thus Tilly, the favorite hen, has passed the 200 
mark. Tilly did not lay during the first five weeks 
of the contest, therefore she has laid 202 eggs in 227 
days! Hats off to Tilly. The R. N.-Y. has found, on 
a plain New York farm, a strain of White Wyan- 
dottes that will make the leaders hustle! 
* 
A WAVE of invention seems to have swept over 
the country. We never had so many people 
write to say they have invented some new device 
and want to obtain a patent. Many of them suggest 
that we may want to put up the money to patent 
and float these untried devices. Of course The It. 
N.-Y. cannot do that. The first thing for an inven¬ 
tor to do is to write to the Commissioner of Pat¬ 
ents at Washington for a printed list of instructions. 
This will tell just what to do in order to start right 
A search must be made in order to show that the de¬ 
vice has not been registered or patented before. Get 
the instructions from the Patent Office first of all 
and study them carefully. 
* 
C ONSUL JOHNSON of Kingston, Ontario, reports 
that 5,000 Ontario fruit growers are this year 
cooperating with retail merchants: 
This year these fruit growers got together and sub¬ 
scribed jointly to a campaign of advertising, the object 
of which was simply to urge consumers to see their 
fruit dealer and have him make provision for them by 
securing fruit in advance. The fruit dealer himself 
was provided with the same information through the 
trade press. This plan has worked so successfully that 
consumers all over Canada are today able to secure 
plentiful supplies of all fruits, and the retailer has in¬ 
creased his business, his fruit in many instances being 
sold in advance of its arrival at his store. 
This is what we have long preached for local 
markets. During each year thousands of carloads 
of fruit are sent to the great cities, distributed and 
often sent back near where it came from for sale. 
A lively advertising campaign right at home would 
dispose of a good share of such fruit and save all 
the trouble and waste of long shipment. 
* 
T HE New York constitutional convention engaged 
in a bitter fight over a proposition to submit 
to the people this amendment: 
The Legislature shall not pass any bill granting 
hereafter to any class of individuals any privilege or 
immunity not granted equally to all members of the 
State. 
The effect of such an amendment to the State 
constitution would be to prohibit the Legislature 
from passing such laws as workmen’s compensation, 
widow’s pension or other acts which are known as 
social justice legislation. Under such a constitution 
laws of that character could only be passed by a 
direct vote of the people. The power of the Legisla¬ 
ture and to some extent that of the Governor would 
be curtailed. The advocates of this amendment had 
two plausible arguments -which will appeal to prop¬ 
erty owners, and “old-fashioned” people generally. 
Our younger generation is not as self-reliant or en¬ 
ergetic as their fathers and grandfathers. There is 
more and more of an inclination to stand still and 
wait for the government to come in and help in 
some way. This class legislation is openly designed 
to take money from one class through taxation, and 
use it for the relief of another class. If this process 
is made too easy thousands of people will soon be¬ 
gin to argue that there is no particular reason why 
they should work (hard or practice 'selif-denlal. 
Again, at the close of the European war, we are like¬ 
ly to have a flood of immigrants rushing to this 
country to escape the terrible war taxes and the 
hardships of building up what has been destroyed. 
These people, most of them irresponsible and with 
little sympathy for American ideals, will settle large¬ 
ly in the cities, where they can easily control the 
Legislature, while they could not control the popu¬ 
lar vote. Such in brief were the arguments advanced 
in favor of such an amendment, and it was a curious 
thing to see the old-time machine politicians arguing 
in favor of popular elections. The convention de¬ 
feated the amendment and the Legislature will still 
have the power to grant social justice legislation. 
How public sentiment regarding such things has 
grown since the constitution was last amended! 
* 
N O one should ever object to a fair discussion 
of the auction system of selling fruit. When 
this plan was first proposed for New York apples 
the dealers in this city simply denounced it without 
stopping to present real arguments. When they 
found that farmers and fruit growers were de¬ 
termined to try it, the dealers saw that they must 
come to fair argument and sound reasoning in or¬ 
der to reach the public. Thus we have had recently 
a number of statements from leading dealers. Mr. 
It. S. McCormick is secretary of the Advisory Com¬ 
mittee of the market district of New York. In a 
recent interview he is credited with saying: 
“If Western apples are handled in preference to 
New York State fruit, it is due to the fact that 
Western produce is shipped in carload lots, which 
alloics more profitable business than the small parcel 
shipments from np-State farmers .” 
Granting that to be true, it should be easy for 
anyone to see that the auction system carried out 
fairly will lead to similar large shipments of New 
York apples. A part of this system is the co¬ 
operative work of organizing such shipments. It 
is the present system of buying and shipping which 
breaks up shipments and makes uniform packing 
and large shipments so difficult. The auction system 
ought to remove that objection. Again Mr. Mc¬ 
Cormick says: 
“The auction may give higher prices to the ship¬ 
per but will undoubtedly raise the cost to the con¬ 
sumer. In some instances the auction system has 
proved'■ itself popular and is steadily practiced by 
private concerns.” 
These admissions, together with the statement 
about Western apples, are very important. They 
show that the preference has been given to the West¬ 
ern fruit, while the dealers have made no effort to 
improve methods of handling the Eastern crop. The 
auction will, in the long run, give better prices to 
producers both directly and indirectly by establish¬ 
ing open, standard figures for sales. This does not 
prove that the consumers will pay more because 
there will be a direct saving in the useless or ex¬ 
tortionate charges for handling the goods. 
* 
I F the agitation of an auction market for the sale 
of New York apples does nothing more, it has at 
least demonstrated that dealers will pay a price for 
apples when they know they must. Only three weeks 
ago, the trade papers were advising caution in the 
buying of apples and insisting that $1.50 to $2 would 
be the top prices per barrel. That was some weeks 
after the Department of Foods and Markets had ad¬ 
vised growers that the indication warranted the con¬ 
clusion that No. 1 fruit would sell in the orchard for 
$2.75 to $3 per barrel, and No. 2 for from $2.25 to 
$2.50. A representative of the Department has been 
followed into the Hudson River fruit section recent¬ 
ly by a drove of buyers, and they are now offering 
prices that makes the Department estimate sound 
very conservative. When the representative of the 
Department went into the territory, one grower at 
New Paltz was asking $6,000 for his orchard on 
the trees. At the suggestion of the State agent he 
increased the price and now reports that he sold 
the fruit of the entire orchard for $8,000. Some of 
the fruit of this orchard was estimated at $4 a 
barrel on the tree. If the mere suggestion of a 
competitive market works such results, we certain¬ 
ly may hope to experience nothing less satisfactory 
from the auction market in full operation. 
* 
W E take off our hat to “A Country Woman” 
who tells us on page 1072 of her encounter 
with Whiting the tree agent. We had not heard 
of Mr. Whiting for some time, and thought perhaps 
he had reformed, but here he is again at the same 
old games of hypnotizing men and trying to bluff 
women. In this case his bluff did not work, and we 
desire publicly to thank this, woman for taking the 
course she did. If there were more such people in 
the world the dead beats and the gold brickers would 
have to go to work. No woman likes to take such 
action. Of course people shake their heads and say 
this is not dignified or “ladylike.” Well, in dealing 
August 28, 191o. 
with some of the elements now at large in society, 
ladylike methods would simply convert one into a 
human doormat. In explaining her feelings in this 
matter our friend writes: 
Sometimes in casting about for a precedent for my 
action other than my own inner conviction of right, I 
was not sure I found anything but “The female of the 
species is more deadly than the male.” 
She need not feel at all troubled about it. She 
did well. As for Mr. Whiting, of course he knows 
it was a case of trespass for him to go on the prem¬ 
ises, take that spade and dig. Under the circum¬ 
stances this woman was clearly justified in cancel¬ 
ling. the order. We have advised her to pay no at¬ 
tention to Whiting’s bluffs or demands. If he un¬ 
dertakes to sue for the amount The R. N.-Y. will 
defend the suit, as this case is typical of many of 
Whiting’s sales and we shall be glad to show up the 
incidents in court if Whiting thinks he can stand 
for them. It is something of a pity that this woman 
did not keep a good-sized Airedale terrier on the 
premises. 
* 
W E have among our readers people who think 
they have discovered px-oducts of great value, 
in old coins, mines of gold or silver or odd wastes. 
Here is a case of what we mean: 
I have about 150 pounds of 30 calibre blank brass 
shells and clips. They were left in the trenches after 
sham battles on the farm by soldiers from Camp Whit¬ 
man. Where can I dispose of them to the best ad¬ 
vantage? c. A. F. 
New York. 
Many of the papei’s have been filled of late with 
stories of great million dollar oixlers for ammuni¬ 
tion and the gi*eat shortage of copper and brass. No 
wonder our friend thinks there may be a small for¬ 
tune in these old cai'tridges. The fact is, however, 
that this material is salable only for old bi’ass, and 
will bring seven to nine cents a pound. During the 
year we must have at least 500 similar letters from 
people who think they have struck a bonanza. The 
truth is that, in these days, manufacturing is run on 
such a close margin that very little of gi'eat value 
is wasted. 
* 
T HE New York State Foods and Markets De¬ 
partment has now ari*anged a new departure in 
the auction plan. A large number of growers in 
the Hudson Valley did not care to ship to New York, 
yet, for various reasons, did not wish to store the 
fruit. It was ready for prompt sale. Buyers were 
at work picking up orchards of fruit—sometimes 
as low as 90 cents a barrel. Wherever the grower 
was ignorant of ci-op and market conditions these 
buyers were practically stealing the fruit! The De¬ 
lia rtment therefore promptly conceived the plan of 
holding an auction right in the orchard. A start was 
made at Red Ilook, N. Y., and the gi*owers quickly 
pledged 30,000 barrels to be sold in this way. The 
first auction of this sort will be held on the fai'in of 
W. S. Teator, Red Hook, N. Y., on September 1. 
About 10 orchards will be combined in this sale— 
all good fruit. The sale will be advertised fi'eely in 
New York, Chicago, St Paul—wherever New York 
apples are known and appreciated—and samples 
of the fruit will be sent for examination. The auc¬ 
tioneer will go right into the orchard and offer the 
fruit, and buyers will go where the fruit is on 
the tree rather than to the city market. There ought 
to be at least 500 buyers at this sale, and no more 
orchards should be given away at low prices until 
this fruit is disposed of. Let every man in the Hud¬ 
son Valley talk up this sale and help make it go. 
This is making history in the apple business. The 
city auction sales will go on anyway, but this or- 
chai'd auction will help those who cannot well send 
to the city markets. The first oi’chard auction at 
Red Ilook, September 1. All push for it! 
Brevities. 
Who can tell us the truth about willow culture? 
A thankless child! Any connection with “spank¬ 
less?” 
Can anyone tell of practical use to which wood¬ 
chuck’s hide has been put? 
How would you like that. Paterson police woman's 
job? Would you deny her the right of suffrage? 
Suite thing—whenever a clay soil bakes hard at dry 
weather ;t needs lime. A little sand or sifted coal 
ashes plowed in would also help. 
It is said that the Germans have discovered an 
economical method of extracting fats from city sewage. 
The total amount of this waste from Gex*man cities is 
valued at $14,000,000. 
We have been telling what would happen to Cali¬ 
fornia Alfalfa when the Panama Canal opened. A Cal- 
ifornia company has contracted to deliver $50,000 worth 
of Alfalfa in New York. 
Showing the possibilities of Southern farming one 
of our readers will seed wheat in the corn before cut¬ 
ting and clover later. The wheat can be cut next June 
and the clover plowed under for another corn crop. 
