1084 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TfTE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A. National Weekly tlournni for t'oiintry and Suburban Ilomefi 
Establinhed /WO 
Pnblbbrd weekly by lb* * Kiirnl PablUhlne Company, 333 Woat 80lh Sireet, Xrw fork 
Hf.rbkkt W. Cot-MN'owood, IVesidentand Editor. 
.Joii.M J. Dillo.v, Tre,’«urer and Genei-al Mana<?cr. 
Wm. F. Dii.ixjn, Secretary. Mii-s. E. T. Royle, Associate Editor. 
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“A SQUARE DEAL’' 
We believe that evei 7 advertisement in this paper is backetl by a re.apon- 
sible person. We use every possible prcc.autiou and admit tlie auvertisiiiK of 
reliable houses only. But to make dout»ly sure, we will make pood any loss 
to paid subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler, iiTesj/on- 
elbfe advertisers or misleatlinp advertisements in our columns, and any 
such swindler will be publicly exposed. We are also often cnJled upon 
to adjust dllTerenecs or mistakes l/ctween our pubscrlbcrs and honest, 
resj/onsiblc houses, whether advertisers or not. We willinply use our pood 
olliees to this end, but such cases should not be confused with dishonest 
transactions. We protect subscribers apainst ropues, but we will not bo 
r^xtn.sible for the debts of honest bnnknints 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, yoii should mention The Rurai, Nkw- 
Yobkek when writinp the a<lvertiser. 
Tiiistbs iii-t; looking up in this section. Such crops 
as could he idanted are looking well and only a short 
acTcage will cut down the ordinary supply. Corn has 
shown its wonderful recuperative ability, and potatoes 
seem to have )iretty well escaped the blight. Oats are 
heavy and wheat much better than the Spring outlook 
giive iiromise of. We’ll lick the Oermans yet. 
T hat comes from the Soutlieni tier of New 
York counties, where u month ago the out¬ 
look was glcmmy enough. It is Avonderful what a 
few Aveeks of sunshine will do, and Avhat a friend 
of humanity our good old stand-by corn i.s. It Is a 
Avonder to “come back” Avheu the sun ri'ally g<*ts a 
chance at it. Take it all through, there is no ]dant 
knoAvn to agriculture Avhich can fjuite «*qual corn. 
Itight noAAf millions are looking to the big corn crop 
to reduce the price of food and feed, and praying 
fhiit .Tack Frost will jihiy the gentleman this year 
and keep off until the grain is ripe. 
* 
T lIEllE Avill he a demonstration of farm tractors 
at I’lain.sboro, N. ■!., on Sept. T8, 10, 20. Work 
Avill be done on the Walker-dordon farm and at 
least 12 differiuit machines Avill he operated. I'his 
Avill give many Eastern farmers a good chance to see 
Avhat the tractors can do Avhen put right out at farm 
Avork under common conditions. We have had many 
questions about the various machines, but it stands 
to reason that the best ansAver c-iin bo given in the 
field Avhere the tractors are Avorking side by side. 
The inihlic may be assured that this demonstration 
Avill be fair and couqilete, and there should be a 
crowd of .Jersey and PenusylAuinia farmers on hand. 
There are many places in N<‘av .Jersey and in the 
Delaware I'alley Avh(*re farm tractors Avill pay 
This demon.stration aaIU bring it home to us. 
* 
Men mibst be trained and rigorously trained to light 
effectively together. And if they are not trained, dis¬ 
aster follows. But no U-iiining will avail Avhero the 
soul of the army is Avanting. Men without training but 
possessed of that soul may be butchered. Men with the 
finest training but lacking that soul fall short, surrender 
or shamefully flee. 
T he Ncav York Run in-lnts these words in refer¬ 
ring to the drafted men Avho recently mai-ched 
through this city. The Avords are true of all sol¬ 
diers, Avhether they fight in the trenches or do their 
Avork in the quieter farm fields and homes. The 
thought may bo applied Avith great aptituui. . 'd 
poAver to the movement noAV started by the farmei's 
of NeAA'^ York. At a meeting held in Ryracuse, August 
81, this resolution Avas adojited: 
That the time is noAV riije for a federation of all 
farmers’ orgiinizations in Ncav York, and a committee 
be appointed to map out the program. 
We knoAV that in the past many resolutions have 
been adojited, and then disoAvned, In the pjist men 
haA’e m(*t Avith hot indignalion and then suddenly 
cooled off. That Avas because they did not cai’ry in 
their organizatictn “tlie soul of the army.” Nothing 
can long endui’e Avhich is not tired and iusTiired by a 
determination to see justice done, and a sjiii-itual at¬ 
tempt to march up to higher ground. That is Avhat 
we call “the soul of the army,” and it has come to 
the sti’oug farm organizations of New York. The 
events of the past month have fanih’d it into tlame. 
Nothing can stop it uoav. It Avill be sloAver than the 
movement in North Dakota aj’<T different in its 
methods, but the da.y of holloAV "re- lutions” and 
politic.al servitude for some petty ollice h.is ended. 
There mu.st be at Urast t'O farmers in the Nv.w York 
Legislature.- We may not gid them all thi< a _:ar, 
but the campaign Avill be started noAV. 
* 
T he price of Avlieat for this yeai’‘.s crop has been 
put at .$2.20 liy the price-making Itoard. This, 
of course, Avas a compromise. The Wtrstern farm¬ 
ers Avauted .$8 per bushel and the Eastern buyers 
Avanted .$1.60. We must i*emember that high-priced 
wheat does not benefit all the farmers of this coun¬ 
try. On the -\thmtlc slo)>e tin' majority of the 
R U RAL N EW.YO R K E R 
farmers buy flour and many of them buy wheat for 
feeding puiToses. This is the fact Avhich most of the 
people Avho are settling these things for us fail to 
understand. Why then does not every farmer grow 
his own wheat and stop buying flour? In many 
neighborhoods there is no longer any mill for grind¬ 
ing Av’heat. It hiis lieen stated that the cost of grow¬ 
ing an Jicre of Avheat in Noav Y'ork State is .$81 and 
the average yield is 15 bushels. Thus at .$2 a laishel 
there is little chance that a farmer will get rich. 
♦ 
I NSECTS destroy 10 times as much food in this 
country each year as can*be destro.A’ed liy the 
Uerman submarines. This loss occurs mostly in 
grain, flour, meal and beans, and may all be pre¬ 
vented. The Connecticut Rtatlon has issued a good 
bulletin showing Ibjav to destroy these insects. 
There .are three principal agencies—heat, lime and 
fumigation. FeiA” of the .gi’ain-eating in.sects can 
endure a temjierature of 12.6 degrees. By heating 
grain or its products to this temjjerature and then 
sealing in close packages the insects are destroyed. 
The u.se of air-slaked lime is a neAv one, but is said 
to be effective with ]jeas, beans and similar seeds. 
YY)U simjily mi.Y one pound of lime Avith each Iavo 
pounds of seeds when storing them. It ran do no 
hiirm and does desti-oy the insects. The most effect¬ 
ive treatment for be.qns, peas and grain is to fumi¬ 
gate AAdth bisulpluTle of carbon. I’ut the seeds in an 
airtight barrel or box .and jilace the bisuliihide in 
.‘I shalloAV di.sh at the top. Then coA'er so as to 
make it airtight and then walk off, letting the pjick- 
age alone. For a barrel of b(>ans about half a cuj) 
of the liquid Avill ansAV'er. The usual rule is one 
pound for each IdO cubic feet of si«ice. This treat¬ 
ment is the best one for beans to destroy the Aveevil, 
and every year AA'e have at least 250 questions about 
it. Why toll to produce grain or beans and then feed 
them to insects? The annual loss from this souree is 
figured at .$200.0<)0,0C>0. .\ big bill for fattening 
bugs. 
O N the nextpageisa diseussion of tin' milk sit- 
mition as Ave se<} it. In addition to Avhat is 
there stated the folloAving ideas should be a part 
of the contracts: Any contract made betAveen pro¬ 
ducers and distributors this year should include a 
stijmlation as to the jirice to be paid by the con¬ 
sumer. If the deahu’s ai’o to be ]>m‘mitt<‘d to 
charge the consumer three cents increa.se for every 
one cent advance to the producer, the consumiition 
of milk AA'ill be dc-creased, and the dairy industry 
of the State avIII decline. The inti*rests of producer 
and consumer as classes are identical, and the 
producer is particularly concerned to .see that the 
consumption of milk is eucourag«Hl by a reasonable 
cost to the consumer for the distribution of it. 
There is no surer Avay to produce a surplu's and 
discourage production then by continually increas¬ 
ing the dealers’ profits through an unreasonable 
high cost to the comsumer. We have already rec¬ 
ognized this principle, and Ave may as Avell face 
the neces.sity of settling it now as at any other, time. 
❖ 
G OV. Whitman of Ncav Ybjrk nominated as mmu- 
bers of the new food commission Oeo. . W. 
Perkins, President .1. G. Schurman of Cornell and 
Chas. Wieting of Cobleskill, The Legislature has re- 
iiirned to Albany that the Renate may act upon 
these nominations. The opposition to Mr. I’erkins 
is pronounced and .strong, but the following disjiatch 
from Albany probably tells the story: 
“Although a majority of the Republican Reuators 
were opposed to the appointment of Mr. Perkins on 
the commission, no Avell-informed person at the Capitol 
is betting against a Renate ratification of the ap¬ 
pointment. 
You may di-aw your oavu conclusion from that. 
These “Avell-informed persons” knoAV the poAver of 
the machine, and the contempt it has for unorgan- 
ize<l opposition. The Renate finally voted 25 to 
IS against confinniug Mr. I’erkius. It then ad¬ 
journed until Rejtf. 25. The Governor aa’III then 
probably nominate Mr. Peikins again, ami the 
Renate may yet confiim him! Watch the sieijs of 
liour tsciwtor. As for the commission us 
nominati'd we do not think Gov. Whitman, hud 
he l>een put to it to s.ive his life, could have possibly 
selected cjiiididali's so eomjiletidy out of sympatliy 
Avith the real farm interests of gcmulne farmers. 
M K. Hoover, the National Food .Vdininistrator, 
announces th.-it there Avill be no attempt to 
lixe places for meats or dairy jn-oducts. He says re¬ 
garding Avheat prices: 
“We had the fixing of wheat prices thiust upon 
us, as it is our duty to purchase 80 )><‘r cent, of 
the crop for export and we had the wheat committee 
name a inice as a guarantee to producers and to 
stop sjjeculiitiou.” 
In firactically eviu-y Citse Avhere Eurojte.an 
September 1017 
countries huA'e tried to fix prices the scheme has 
failed. Et'eryone now realizes that peace or the 
failure of the subiffarines would bring floods of 
Avheat out of Russia, Australia and Routh Amer¬ 
ica, and that prices Avould go flat in this coun¬ 
try Avithout the national guarantee. Witii meiit 
and dairy products the case is different. There 
is a Avoiid shorta.ge of live stock, and years must 
pass before it can be relieved. 
Having been found .guilty of selling .seed potatoes at 
prices in excess of those set by the GoA’ernment, Little 
& Ballahtyne, Carlisle, Eng., Averc recently fined flO on 
each of eight transactions. 
T hat clipping from the “American Flori.st” 
shoAvs hoAv far England has gone along the 
Avjiy of price-fixing. The Government has named a 
jtrice at AA’hich seed potatoes must be sold. It cost 
this firm .$.50 fine for each time they were caught de¬ 
manding more than the Government price. Had 
there been such .a rule enforced in this country last 
.Spring the fines AA’ould have gone far toward paying 
Avar expenses! Hoav far will the United States Gov¬ 
ernment go in its poAA-er to regulate prices? We 
have this letter from a point in Central New York; 
Fiirtncrs around here are compelled to pay ,$8 per 
ton for soft cojil for thrashing purposes. I got this 
price over the ’phone about five minutes ago. I reph'e<l 
that the President evidently had nothing to do about the 
prices of coal in this toAvn and received an emi»hafie 
reply that “he did I Avould like to “put .i 
luck” Avhere it Avill hurt, but there is no remedy, and 
I’m simply writing to you to relea.se the lu'essurt? of 
pent-up feelings; .$8 coal, 22o binder twine, .$4.50 per 
lOO lbs. for cornm.'al, .$8 to .$4 and board for day labor 
and .scarce at that, and .$2 Avheat. c. R. At. 
The Government Avould not bo likely to enforce 
retail ]irice-fixing Avithout fair Avarning ba.sed on tln^ 
former cost of coal. It has l>egun by fixing ijrices 
at the mine and stating Avhat dealers may take as a 
fair profit. Wo think coal as it hoav comes from the 
mine Avill be folloAved up Avith retsiil ijrices fairly 
stated. Iliiving put the price of this year’s wheat 
crop at .$2.20 jjor bushel, the Government is prevent¬ 
ing siieculators or dealers from paying more. In 
England and France the priucijile of price-fixing is 
moving along in the direction of setting retail jirict's 
of necessities by grade. 
* 
O N ])jige loJO is a letter Avhich avus sent to Presi¬ 
dent Wilson by a young farmer AAdio states his 
case clearly and Avell. The President has had many 
siinil.ar letters and must understand the .situation 
AVidl. We are told, hoAvever, that he has decided not 
to change the army ruling, except to git’e .some farm¬ 
ers until about October 1 to arrange their plans. If 
this is true Ave think the President has been pooriy 
advised, and that he has made a mistake. It may 
luiA'e been reported to him that these fanners are 
slackeiAs—trying to evade a seiwice from tiiiAA'orthy 
motives. There is absolutely nothing of the sort 
about the young men Avho haA'e Avritten us. They are 
loyal and ready to serve, but plain common sens»‘ 
tells them, as it should everyone else, that they can 
do the country fjir more good by staying on the 
farm until its cro)is are safe for this year and the 
next. This ordi'r is so clearly against fair treat¬ 
ment and sensible economy that it Avill do more than 
an.vthing else to lessiui the acreage in next year's 
grain crojis. For the.Mj crojis are to be gi*oA\'n by 
actual farmer,s—mtt by committees and organizing 
conventions. 
Brevities 
Hoav hogs do enjoy “jjursley” or pur.slaue. 
Do not dig the potatoes until they iire fully matured. 
Have any readers beeji made sick by .spraying AAuth 
tobacco e.xtract? 
Thorough drainage'—the art of getting water out of 
the soil Avhen it is a nui.siinco and holding it in the soil 
Avhen it becomes a blessing. 
Available phosphorus used a.s a fertilizer Avill helii 
start the crop off quickly and ha.sten maturity. Nitrogi'ii 
acts to prolong seeding or fruiting. Phosphorus hastens 
it. 
Corn in Avhat is cjilh-d the “dough” stage Avill uuike 
good sc'od if carefully handled, but it should Iha at least 
Avell glazed over. Of course, first-class s<'e<l -should nni- 
ture on the stalk. 
Goon Alfalfa Imy b'd in place of Avheat bran means 
a decrease of about Id per cent, in milk and a decreasi’ 
of about 40 jier cent, in cost. When the Alfalfa is 
cliopped or crushed the cows do bettor. 
There is genuine need of rye meal in European coun¬ 
tries, so tliat the ryt' crop Avill indirectly help out the 
AA’heat supply. (5>runieal will not suit the Europeans sn 
wi'll, as they jire not accustomed to the food. 
E.ngl.vnd has a hiAV under which a committee c:in 
compel a fanner to plant such crojis as the Govern¬ 
ment demands. An English farmer had 200 acres— 
mostly pasture hind. The Government directed him to 
jjIoav up five acri's and plant to potatoe.s. He did not 
do it, and was brought to trial and fined ,$100 for his 
failure to obey orders. England, and Germany, to an 
even greater extent, has been forced to adopt such ' 
iron methods in order to be sure of food. There Avill 
be 3,000,000 neAV acres in grain for the next Briti.sli 
harvest. There is a six-years’ gtiarautee for grain 
jiiices, and also a guiir:intee of farm labor wages! 
