134 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMERS PAPER 
\ Notional Weekly Journal lor Country and Suburban Homes 
Established iSSO 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 833 West 30th Street, New York 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
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. (id, or 
8'-n marks, or 104 a francs. Remit in money order, express 
order j 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 pei-son. 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. 
We gave the last dollars we had to the Red Cross. 
This is the first money we have had. I do not want to 
miss one Rural New-Yorker. Our bov was in the big 
battle that ended the war. He is seriously wounded, 
cannot come home, my only child. wm.” H. husten. 
Schuyler Co., N. Y. 
E wish it were possible for us to express just 
what we feel on receiving such a letter. It 
is the most beautiful part of this business to idealize 
that our old friends can come to us with this con¬ 
fidence and genuine affection. Such letters make us 
know that the affairs of The R. N.-Y. are more 
than a business—more like the family relations of 
a group of old and sincere friends. Nothing could 
be finer or more thoroughly appreciated than the 
sentiments expressed in that letter, and it is only 
one of many which come to us at this season. 
* 
Nine years ago, when I bought this farm, the mea¬ 
dows were covered with redweed or paint-brush, as it 
is sometimes called, and we cut less than 20 tons of 
hay the first year. I bought a carload of lime each 
Spring, and about 100 loads of manure around town 
until I had the meadows all plowed and rCseeded, and 
then I top-dressed with the stable manure drawn out 
each day, and now the red posies have all disappeared, 
as they seemed to be completely smothered out by the 
tall and thick Timothy and clover that made hay coils 
so thick you could scarcely drive between them. I had 
to enlarge my barn to make room for more cows and 
the 70 to 75 tons of hay instead of the 20 that I for¬ 
merly cut. It took a lot of work and money, but lime, 
manure and work are a sure cure for the redweed 
nuisance. r. J. n. 
Sullivan Co., N. Y. 
T is hard to beat lime, manure and work as a 
booster for played-out land. This redweed is 
known as devil’s paint-brush, and any farmer who 
sees it creeping in upon his farm will admit that it 
is well named. All through Southern New York 
there are thousands of acres of natural grass and 
clover lands—gone out of usefulness into weeds and 
brush. Lime, manure and work (the last in big, 
sweaty doses) will bring them hack as was done by 
our friend. We have seen such soils producing 
heavier crops of clover than you can find in Iowa 
or Illinois, and any farmer knows that when you 
can make soil grow clover you can do anything you 
like with it. 
* 
E VERY year about this time we begin to talk 
about Alfalfa and asparagus. A farmer should 
have each of these in his mind with a capital A. 
An acre of good Alfalfa is much the same as three 
tons or more of wheat bran in the grain bin. Any 
man can understand what that means. A good patch 
of asparagus in the garden ought to save at least 
five doctor’s visits or a dozen bottles of medicine, be¬ 
sides adding 50 per cent to the family spirit. Alfalfa 
will not grow well on much of our land as it is now. 
but, with draining and liming and fitting, thousands 
of acres now thought unsuitable can be covered with 
this crop. No one should stop trying until he has the 
crop going,* or knows that his land is unsuited. As 
for asparagus, it will grow practically anywhere if 
given anything like a fair chance. It is the easiest 
vegetable to raise, lives for years when once started, 
and, take it altogether, is the most useful vegetable 
in the garden. Alfalfa and asparagus. They are 
both A No. 1. 
* 
N institute lecturer in Ohio gives the following 
incident: 
A butcher offered my neighbor 7c per lb. for his cattle, 
and in almost the next breath asked him 40c per lb. for 
steak. My neighbor promptly asked him what he cut 
his steak out of. And yet there are a lot of people in 
towns who do not know who to blame for the high cost 
of living. 
Yes, the great trouble is that the consumers have 
been systematically taught to blame the farmer for 
the 40-eent steak, the 20-cent milk ir the $6 shoes. 
The distributors have always been prepared with a 
long list of figures which could be used to prove al- 
S he RURAL NEW-YORKER 
V.- . * * * * * *- • «-* «. V ***** 
most anything. Up to a recent date the farmers have 
had few actual figures to show the cost of their 
goods. Now 'they begin to come up with figures 
which cannot be disputed. For many years The R. 
N.-Y. was practically alone in discussing the 35-cent 
dollar. We had ridicule, abuse and all the other 
favorite weapons turned on us, but we kept right on 
exposing this 35-cent dollar as best we could. Now 
the scientific men are proving everything we have 
claimed, and they go beyond it and show the cost of 
producing the goods which bring this 35-cent dollar. 
This is the most useful work our college and stations 
have yet attempted, and there will be great results 
from it. As for our institute lecturer, let him go 
out in every town he visits and buy samples of any 
prepared food. State what he pays at retail and 
figure what the farmer actually receives for the 
original goods. This is great work for the institutes. 
* 
Dairymen Win Again 
W E open this space in the forms to announce 
the settlement of the milk fight after we had 
prepared this issue for the press. The price is fixed 
to April 1st. For the remainder of January, $4.01, 
the original League demand; February, $3.54, and 
March, $3.31, per 100 pounds. In one of the most 
stubborn fights ever waged by farmers, dairymen 
have established the principle that they are entitled 
to the cost of production for their goods, and they 
set the price themselves. 
* 
W E are receiving a good many letters and re¬ 
ports about the State police in New York. 
Thus far a large majority of country people who 
write us favor the police and want the force main¬ 
tained. As a matter of interest we give here the 
first two letters received from readers, one for, the 
other against: 
IN FAVOR OF THE I’OLICE 
In response to your request that farmers give expres¬ 
sion to their opinions regarding services rendered by 
the .State police, would say that of all the new activities 
entered upon by the State for many years there is none 
that have given, for the money expended, the people at 
large a better return than the department of State 
police. In this (Madison) county there are evidences 
of their good work, and so far as we are able to learn 
there is no one willing to have the force abolished. Gov¬ 
ernor Smith will do the Empire State much harm if he 
succeeds in his design. We certainly need the State 
troopers. L. w. griswold. 
OPPOSED TO THE POLICE 
We traveled some 3,000 or more miles in our car last 
Summer, crossing the State twice from east to west by 
different roads, and we saw only one State trooper, and 
he was in a small city or large town, doing work which 
the local police were too lazy to do. In this section 
there were plenty of law violations, such as rigs and cars 
without lights, infants and drunks driving cars, cam 
bringing booze into dry territory, etc., but the troopers 
saw none of it. So, as they do not work in the country, 
and the State will soon be dry, they might as well be 
abolished. s - s - 
Clinton County. 
Thus far a majority of our reporters agree with 
Mr. Griswold. The It. N.-Y. is after a fair expres¬ 
sion of opinion from country people. We believe they 
know what they want, and we stand for the ex-' 
pressed desire of the majority. That is why we 
offer this chance to give such expression. 
* 
T IIE milk strike has done one thing which is 
greater than any of the plans which either 
side had in mind when the battle started. The dis¬ 
tributors were playing a much deeper game than 
appeared on the surface. While ostensibly fighting 
for a few cents on the quart or can their real object 
was to prejudice the consumers against the farmers. 
They played all the tricks which money and power 
and cunning can employ to poison the consumer’s 
mind with the belief that the farmers are robbers, 
profiteers and chikl-killers! They succeeded only 
too well, as the work of the city authorities will 
show. It was also a part of their plan to disor¬ 
ganize the farmers and create differences among 
them which would finally break up the League. 
These distributors have always had a sneering con¬ 
tempt for country people, and they have claimed 
that at a crisis the farmers would not hang together. 
They expected to smash the League, and then have 
things all their own way. The great and glorious 
thing is that this programme, built on a cynical 
disbelief in faith and loyalty, has utterly failed. 
There have never been finer instances of loyal sup¬ 
port than these shown by dairymen in holding back 
their milk and utilizing it at home. The orders to stop 
shipping came suddenly and found many dairymen 
unprepared. They never faltered or grumbled, but 
fell in like good soldiers and obeyed orders. We 
know what it must have meant to many farm fami¬ 
lies to have this nouu of milk turned back upon 
them. What seemed at first to be a penalty proved 
to be a blessing, for that flood of milk washed away 
January 25, 1919 
prejudice and jealousy and reserve which had held 
many farmers too far apart. Caring for that milk 
developed a spirit of sacrifice and loyalty which 
nothing else could have done, and it is just the 
spirit needed to carry the League on to a point 
where it can reap the full benefit of its great organ¬ 
ization. This experience has made it possible for 
the farmers to combine their capital and their 
credit and put up the outfits needed to collect and 
clean and grade and fit the milk for distribution 
direct to consumers. That will be the final result, 
and only the trials of this battle, bravely and loyally 
endured, could have made it possible. 
* 
T HAT article by Mr. Mapes on page 116 gets us 
up against one foundation of modern farm life. 
You cannot make a farmer in one generation. It 
usually takes three. During the past 30 years too 
many young farmers have left the farm. Now the 
elder generation is passing away, and the problem 
of reoccupying these farms has become vital. Who 
are to live in the country and take the place of the 
fine class of citizens who, in former years, formed 
the very backbone of the nation? Back-to the-land- 
eis and city men might possibly succeed in making 
these farms pay a profit, but they are not true farm¬ 
ers, and no one knows it better than they do Who, 
then, ought to have these farms? We think they 
ought to go largely into the hands of the better 
classe of hired men and tenants—men with good 
families who are farmers by training and breeding. 
We have got to look to this class for the men and 
women who are fitted to take farms now going out of 
use, and make them what they should be. That can¬ 
not be done unless such men can obtain cash or 
credit in terms which accept their character as an 
asset. The contract plan described by Mapes 
would work out in the dairy business, where there is 
a regular cash income, but it might not work so well 
in other kinds of farming. But what we need most 
o f all right now is some system of farm loans where 
an honest, industrious man can use his character 
and experience as his chief asset. 
* 
S OME of our people find fault with the advice to 
plant 100 fruit trees on every farm. They come 
with two arguments. One is that the surplus of such 
fruit competes with the product of regular fruit 
growers and injures their trade. The other argu¬ 
ment is that farmers will not Care for the trees. 
They will simply be neglected and die. One would 
think the second argument, if true, would dispose 
of the first one, but in our experience we have not 
found either entirely true. We can see no reason 
why a farmer should deprive his family of a supply 
of fruit simply because the surplus might get on the 
market. In our part of the country this surplus of 
small orchards finds a sale and can never compete 
with the crop from commercial orchards. These 
small lots of “neglected” fruit seem to advertise the 
superior and well-grown fruit of the commercial 
orchard. Can anyone name a farmer who ever 
fought all the fruit his family craved? We have 
heard of such farmers, but we never yet saw one. 
There are thousands of them who need the orchard 
and will give the trees good care. We are quite 
willing to let the objectors argue, but we go right 
ahead urging the planting of fruit trees on the farm. 
In the great majority of the homes into which The 
R N.-Y. goes there is at least one member of the 
family who will see that the trees have reasonable 
care. We like Mrs. Wood's argument, on page 137. 
Brevities 
The frying pan may see hot at times, but the fire is 
hotter. 
The bumper crop usually bumps all the life out of 
farm prices, and lands them in the lap of the middleman. 
“The little end of the horn!” We call it better as 
an entrance than as an exit. 
Cool head and warm feet represent a successful com¬ 
bination. Hot head and cold feet mean failure. Turn 
on the heat at the right place. 
At a Government demonstration in Texas a yearling 
steer was killed, cooled and put into cans inside <> 10 
hours. This included the tripe, heart and liver. The 
entire steer went into cans—all the way from roasting 
pieces to soup stock. 
Since our people have read about the “Oregon” poul¬ 
try, some of them propose to cross the Barred Rock on 
the Leghorn, expecting to have the new “breed.” They 
will not succeed in this way beyond the first cross, for 
there are many years of selection for a type in the Ore- 
gons. 
The Agricultural Department claims that woolly 
aphis may he destroyed by using bisulphide of carbon. 
One-half ounce of the bisulphide to four gallons of water 
is the formula. About three quarts of this mixture is to 
he sprinkled over each square foot of soil under the 
trees. 
