1058 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TIfK BCfiJNESH FARUF.R'S PAPF.R 
A XntlonnI AVcfkly Journal for Country and Suburban llonicn 
Established tsso 
Pnbl!<thrd wrrkly by fbe Rural Publbbint; Company, S83 Wrat 30th Strrrt, Now York 
Herbert W. Coujnowood, I’residpnt and Editor. 
.JoHV J. DrLLON, Troosurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dii.ixtS, Secixdary. Mr.s. E. T. Royle, Associate Etiitor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, equal to 8s. 6d.. or 
Sij marks, or lO)^ francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at Xew York Post Olllce as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates, T.'i cents per agate line—7 words. References required for 
advertisers unknown to us ; and cash must accompany tiansient orders. 
“A SQUARE DEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in this paper is backed by a respon¬ 
sible iterson. We use every itossiblo precaution and admit the advertising of 
reliable bouses only. But to make doubly sure, wo will make good any loss 
to paid subscribeia sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler, irrespon¬ 
sible advei-tisei-B or misleading adverti.sements in our columns, and any 
such swindler will la; publicly expos*^!. We are also often called upon 
to adjust diffei'ences or mistake,s between our subscribers and honest, 
responsible houses, whether advertiseia 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 bo 
res)s)nsible 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 TiiK Rl’kal New- 
Yorker when wilting the advertiser. 
The ivorHt illness is idleness. The road leading 
straif/ht to the residence of Satan is not opened and 
hnilt hij hard labor, hut hg the sloth and slackness 
of id I (01 ess! 
* 
F ew f;inii(M-s would like to be known ns junk deal¬ 
ers, but the liguresou jmge 1051 indicate tliat 
there would be i^ouie profit in collecting the old 
metal of any country community and. .ship¬ 
ping it in Inilk. This ought to be a good way to 
help a church, a Grange, or a farmers’ club. The 
world needs all old metal and rubber right now. 
* 
T his lU'W dog law is certainly stirring up about 
as much excitement as a dog fight. Some of 
our readers .^ay it means the extermination of all 
excejit the' “rich man’s dog.” Others say it is a 
farce—that it will 7 )roduce revenue hut do no good 
at iirotccting sheep. “You pays your tax money— 
and you takes your choice.” The onl.v Avay to jirove 
any law, good or liad, is to enforce it up to the 
last letter, and this should be done with this dog 
law. If it jirove to be a farce, we can soon take the 
fun out of it—but enforce it and give it a fair trial. 
T he war has taught English farmers many new 
things about farming Avhich pi-ejudice had kept 
them from learning. Last Sjiring there was a great 
demand for an increa.se of oats and jiotatoes. There 
was no land for growing them except pasture or 
meadows, and English farm opinion had decided that 
these crops will not do well on sod. They had al- 
waj^s been jnit <ui ojien land. War has no respect 
for prejudices and the .sod was plowed and .seeded 
to oats or jilanted to potatoe.s. Ilarve.st finds good 
cro]).s—in many cases superior on the sod. It is 
said that knowled,ge creates an atmosphere in which 
prejudice cannot live. We think this war will create 
such knowledge in raan.v lines of thought and en¬ 
deavor, and many old ideas much larger than this 
.Mid jilanting will have to “go.” 
* 
M .\.\Y farmers a.'^k just what is meant by the 
“minimum guarantee” of .$2 per luishel on wheat 
contained in the new food control bill. The U. S. 
Government guarantees that every bushel of the 
1918 croj) shall sell for at least .$2. It may bring 
more than that, but the price will not go below that 
figure. 'Fhe Government will have to support wheat 
at that ju-ice, no matrer what hajjpens. Should the 
war end suddenly, great stoi'cs of wheat now in Ku.s- 
sia and .\ustralia would be dunijicd into the world's 
markets, but under this guarantee the price of .?2 
would hold. The President now has authority to 
change the tariff on wheat if need be so as to keep 
up the level of this $2 price, and thus limit the 
buying at this high ])rice to Amei-ican wheat. Thus 
the guarantei' of this price is as strong as it can be 
made, and (*ver.v faianer who seeds wheat will know 
just what he is doing. 
A mong other big jiroblems this country has a 
new one in the movement of Negroes from the 
.Southern States to the North. At the last cen.sus 
Vermont and New Hamii.shire bad a combined 
population of a little less than 800,000 people. Sup- 
]) 0 se every jiersou now living in these States moved 
away fi'om their homes and went to the We.st or 
.'<oU‘th. The.>ie States would he de.serted, aiid the 
entire woi-ld would be studying the rea.sons for such 
an exodiLS. Yet close to s00,000 Southern Negroes 
have already left the South to locate permanently in 
the Noi’th and West. Little has been said about 
this iniblicly, but now the nation will be forced to 
face the facts. There is no need here to discuss the 
reasons for thi.s migration. We con.sider it unfor¬ 
tunate; for the South ought to offer the best op- 
ji.ivfvuity for P’o iiiori- 70 ,on, Jt is evident, however. 
ZS/ye RURAL NEW-YORKER 
that this movement is not to be headed or diverted 
by ordinary means. These people are as determined 
to seek new homes as were the farmers of New 
Yoiic and New England who .years ago swarmed into 
the Ohio Valley and beyond. They will suffer for 
a time, hut we feel convinced that most of them 
will never willingly return to the South, while thou¬ 
sands more will come, and thus a great new social 
jiroblem is ojiened. Where shall the South look for 
new supjilies of labor? Can the Negro acrpiire the 
thrift and character needed to make him a jier- 
manent fixture in the busy industrial life of the 
North? Can he hold his own in the bitter labor 
strugjjle whicli is coming after the war? We surely 
do not Jieed to hunt the world over for a great social 
or labor jiroblem. “The Greeks are at your door I"’ 
* 
It is to the advantage of lawyers to make laws dif¬ 
ficult to understand, thus forcing people to employ law- 
yi'r.s to explain them for pay, while laws should be so 
jilain everyone could know their meaning and avoid e.x- 
pensive litigation. e. r. R. 
HAT is fi-om a reader who has long claimed 
that one great trouble with our h'gislation is 
that there are too many lawyers. He is right, and 
(here should be promptly organized an association 
jdedged to vote against lawyers. There is a great 
difference between law-making and law administra¬ 
tion. When, as is now the case in New Y'ork, less 
than 18,0(X) lawyers have about four times as much 
legislative power as half a million farmer.s, it is 
time to get busy. Time and again have we seen 
hiwyers put through new laws or amend old ones 
just for the sake of making new legal liusiness 
through red tajte and complications. It has come 
to a point where a large share of the session of 
any lawyer-ruled legislature is devoted to making 
li'gal jobs and fees for the legal iirofe.ssion. The 
only remedy is to kecj) the lawyers at home. Make 
needed laws simple and clear and use the State's 
legal rejiresentatives to make sure they are consti¬ 
tutional, and then let the lawyers .stay at home and 
administer the law. 
* 
W E can always tell the thought that 
is uppermost in the minds of farmei-s 
from our correspondence. Our people write 
us about it. Judged by this test, the great¬ 
est trouble now is the draft and the i-efusal to 
grant fair exemption to needed farm workers. It 
is a contemptible falsehood to assert, as some are 
doing, that farmers as a class ai-e slackers or 
shirkers. They have never been anything of the .sort. 
In every time of National trouble our farmers have 
given more than their full .share of money and 
manhood and labor to their country. From the very 
nature of thm'r business there must be many cases 
where a strong and vigorous young farmer can 
do far more for his country on the farm than in 
the arm}'. We, personally, can tell of at least 50 
cases where taking the strong worker of the fam¬ 
ily would drive the faian out of food jiroduction, 
since the women and old p(‘oi)le, left at Inune, 
••ould not possibly keep up the work. In such cases 
ihe woi'ker should be exemjjt ami .should be honored 
as a man .serving his country as faithfully and 
well as any soldier in the trenches. Or, take tlui 
(ase of the farmer who tells his story so clearly and 
well on jiage 1(1.59. It Avill be a national crime to' 
compel such men to leave their civijis in the tield 
and their grain lields unjilantml. This man lias 
done a wonderful work on that farm. He can he 
10 times as cliicient at home, jmtting in wheat and 
rye, as he could be marching or idling at some 
training camp during the Autumn. This man is not 
afraid to go, but the plainest common .sense t(dls 
him that the country needs him on the farm. In 
every such case where the attempt to niaki^ a sol¬ 
dier means the ruin of a working farm exenijition 
should be gi-anted as a natural necessity. 
* 
'fiiE fanner appears to be piling u]i a gnod many 
millions of dollars in the way of war jn-ofits. jmst as the 
makers of ammiinitiou, arms, etc., have been and are 
doing. No one begrudges them fair jirotits any more 
than fair profits are begrudged the others. But why is 
it iKM-essary for Gongri'ss to continue to handh' the 
farmer as though he were a baby? Why must every- 
thing else give way to the wishes of the farmer? He 
certainly does not need tp he done un in cotton and 
handled with such care any longer. He ajijiears to be 
<iuite able to toddle along by himself. 
H.\T is about the limit, and it is jirintcd in the 
Buffalo Evening News. The neuler who .seijds 
it to us says: 
“What I would like to know is who got my share 
of all those “millions in war protits.” 
We cannot tell him, and under ordinary circum¬ 
stances it would seem foolish to reply to such haliy 
talk. It is read by city people who, through it. ai-e 
led to think that farmers are entirely responsible 
for any high prices. The object of it all is to re- 
jieat this talk over and over like a bajiy nr a jiarrot 
September 8, 1917 
until the city people really believe the farmers are 
alt getting I'ich. Now the farmers never want to 
be “done up in cotton” or handled with care. They 
do not want to be “advised"’ or over-e<hicated or 
fus.sed over, and they do not want more than their 
share. They are willing to put up more than their 
share of lalxu* and money and men and self-denial 
whenever those are needed, and all they want in 
exchange is a fair showing. They have never had 
that in the markets during the past 50 years. The 
time has now^ come when if Congress undertakes to 
handle the farmer like a baby it will find on its 
hands the worst kicking and biting infant that ever 
brought its nurse to good behavior. 
W E are told that at the beginning of the war, 
the Germans actually believed that their en¬ 
emies would be driven to tei'ms through a failure to 
obtain potash for fertilizer. It was figured that 
farming in this country would fail if potash sup- 
jilies were cut off, and that America therefore could 
not feed the woidd. It is true that some fruit and 
vegetable farms have suffered, and that .some crops 
do begin to show the need of pota.sh, yet this country 
is too lai'ge and its soil is too varied to suffer any 
serious total loss. We could go on for a century 
feeding the world, even if all the potash mines in 
Germany were blown out of existence. In that 
(went we should find new potash .supplies in this 
country—in fact, they are already being found. 
When this war is over and German potash once 
more comes in it will be welcomed and used freely, 
but there is nothing to the idea that Amex'ica can¬ 
not feed the world without a shovel in the German 
jiotash mines. Make the American farmer believe 
that he will be fairly paid for his labor and he will 
jirodiice all the food this w-orld needs. 
T here is a big fat cow standing in a pasture on 
a hill farm in New York. She is not a jmre- 
bred, but has some of the marks of a scrub. When 
Fall comes she will not give much milk. In Winter 
her calf will he just a “veal,” with no great promise 
of performance. Beef is high, and that cow will 
bidng a good price as she stands. If her owner 
.should keoji her over he mu.st feed .silage, hay and 
high-priced grain, and if he figures on it carefully 
he will find it doubtful if the milk that cow gives 
will pay for her food. As a bu.siness proposition 
milk must sell for a pHce large enough to pa.v a 
jirofit on that food. If not, it is better business to 
beef the cow before Winter. There is no law which 
could otherwi.se make it an economical proposition 
to feed that cow. The bankei’s, merchants, railroad 
men and others who in.sist that the farmer must 
feed that cow, even at a los.s, never would conduct 
their own business on any such basis. If a certain 
ji.art of their machinery or of their stock would sell 
at a profit now, while they knew that holding it 
ov('r would jirobalily mean a los.s, they would .sell 
now and call it good bix.sine.ss to do .so. Why do 
they not remember this when they call on dairymen 
to keej) cows over Winter at a loss? Every move 
in this war game makes the foundation fact clearer. 
The way to obtain an abundance of food is to make 
sure that the farmer will get a living price for px’o- 
ducing it. The surest way to intx'oduce famine is 
to deny the farmer .such a living jxxlce. 
Brevities 
The lazy man is labor’s liar. 
T.-vivE a (lay off and selfict seed corn in the field this 
Fall. 
TifE honest |)ig will never .squeal if he can have .an 
honest deal. 
A WON'DER—tin; man who will feed high-priced gi'ain 
to the siirjilus I'ooster, 
The man with the .small flock of poultry and no land 
for growing grain is hit hard. 
We have been buying chicken manure at 50 cents a 
barrel. At fertilizer prices it is a fair bargain. 
In Engliind th(\v claim that the middleman gets (he 
jdunder and the farmer gets the blame for high prices. 
The old question is up again—will it pay to rai.se 
beef steers in New I'lnglaud with silage and Soy beans? 
There has been much delay this year in moving 
seed, lime and fertilizer, and some Alfalfa seeding will 
be late. In most localities in this latitude this can 
wait until .Sei)tember 10 . 
Exgi.i.sh farmers are suffering from a great cloud of 
sjjarrows. This pest is worse than ever known, and i.s 
making great ti'ouble in the ri])eniug wheat. This 
scourge has brought a new farm laborer into action— 
the “bird scarer”—usually a girl or woman. 
Some of our readi'rs do not quite under.stand what 
the new food control bill does to the liquor interests. It 
forbids the use of “foods, fruits, food materials or 
feeds” for making distilled liquor.s. As to beer and 
wine, the I’resident may stop their manufacture or cut 
down their per cent, of alcohol whenever he thinks it 
necessary to do S(>. He may also have all liquors now in 
stock redistilled into iudu.sti’ial alcohol if he thinks it 
necessary. 
