1386 
lht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S TAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country ami Suburban Homes 
Established <SoO 
r-ih'itheil weekly by the Rural Publishing Company, 833 West 30th Street. Now Pork 
Herbert W. Coixxnowood, President and Editor. 
John J. Diu-on, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dm, on, Secretary. Mbs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
. To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.(H. equal to 8s. Cd. or 
marks, or 10?^ 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 t ransient orders. 
“A SQUARE PEAL" 
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 pood 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 bouses, 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 he 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 Rurai, Nkw- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser 
T hat “scientific search” for a new peach variety 
which will suit the climate and soil of New Jer¬ 
sey (see first page) is the most interesting horticul¬ 
tural event of recent years. We think the peach has 
been found, and it will he worth uncounted millions 
to Jersey fruit growers during the next. 50 years. 
This is one way in which our scientific investigators 
are to help those who work on the land. Such work 
ranks with flint of the inventor who discovers the 
secret of economizing or concentrating power. Un¬ 
like the inventor, the scientist who produces a new 
fruit or grain works for the public good, and not for 
private gain. There can he no monopoly in the dis¬ 
tribution of a new variety. Personally, we think the 
world would lie better off if more of that principle 
were applied to inventions. We think the Govern¬ 
ment might well he given the power to buy the patent 
covering a necessity, paying a fair price to the in¬ 
ventor, and making its manufacture free. 
* 
Gan you give us country people any light on why we 
cannot share in the distribution of army surplus food and 
blankets as well as the city people? Shall we be exempt, 
from the taxes levied to pay the loss on this stuff? 
New York. j. n. c. 
E think you can share in this sale if you will 
apply through the local post office. The Gov¬ 
ernment provides printed forms which can be filled 
in and signed. Form a buyers’ club and make a de¬ 
mand for the food and you will get it. The method 
of distribution adopted for the city is better suited 
to conditions here, but we do not understand there is 
any discrimination. Any community that can organ¬ 
ize a fair-sized group of buyers will get "the goods. 
We hear some criticism of the army bacon. Soldiers 
say it is too fat to suit anyone except, hard workers 
who prefer fat meat. 
» 
T HE Atlantic Monthly is about the most solid and 
sensible magazine in the country. It is a maga¬ 
zine of sober thought, without any of the foolisli 
frills or tricks designed to make readers play with 
life or think they are thinking, when in reality the 
mind is playing. Therefore we are g’ad to see the 
Atlantic printing some letters from a Western farm¬ 
er's wife that cut right down to the heart of the sub¬ 
ject. For instance, this evidently intelligent woman 
says: 
Why doesn’t our good old Government ask us farmers 
what we want, instead of assuming that superior pater¬ 
nal attitude, as much as to say. “You farmers are all lit¬ 
tle children. We know what is best for you. Just be 
good and do what we tell you. and by working hard, 
some day you can have a few dollars in your old age— 
oh, not much; but you won’t need much, because we 
shall teach you how to live all these years on so little 
that you can get along on very little when old age grips 
you.” 
That is right! Why not? Can anyone tell why tin* 
farmers themselves should not know best what they 
want and what they need? They work out their own 
lives to better advantage than any other class. Why 
not go to them, find out what they want and then 
search the eartli to obtain it? We have, personally, 
put that question up to the “highest authorities,” and 
never got any answer. But it is good to see the 
magazines taking it up soberly. All our readers can 
help in this by putting their story into the papers 
over which they have influence. Keep it up. The 
idea will finally rise, like water creeping up a cloth, 
and become popular thought. 
* 
O N November 1 a new egg-laying contest will he 
started at Vineland, N. J. There will be 20 
pullets in each pen, and the contest will run for 
three years, covering a breeding experiment. This 
will give a year’s record for the pullets, a year for 
their two-year-old form and one for their daughters. 
One rule covering this contest is that eacli contestant 
must enter birds of his own breeding. They must 
represent fairly what he has in liis own flock. This 
is fair and reasonable, and should he enforced. It 
would he comparatively easy for some poultryman to 
spend several hundred dollars picking up superior 
pullets wherever lie could find them, and enter Ihein 
ns his own pen. An expert might find in this way a 
pen of birds that would make a great record, yet 
they would not in any way represent what ibis man 
had to sell. On the strength of the record made by 
his pen people would order slock or eggs, and receive 
something in no way like the record-making birds. 
The rule is a good one. We can all remember how 
some years ago Tom Barron’s birds came over from 
England and won at the egg-laying contest. We do 
not consider their performance as remarkable as that 
of Underhill's Bods, hut there was a craze to buy 
Barron stock. Someone lias said that six months 
after Barron won his first American record “there 
'ircrc more Barron hints in this country than Tom 
Barron ever aimed." They certainly did sprout up 
like mushrooms. It is to cover just such work that 
this Vineland rule about, making the contest pen fit 
the home stock has been adopted. 
* 
T HAT question about apple varieties on page 3380 
is open to all. We would like a full discussion. 
The answers this week'are confined mostly to New 
York State, hut we would like a wide distribution of 
reports if possible. Tell us what you would plant for 
your section. As our own orchard comes well into 
hearing we see where we made mistakes in planting. 
We took what we called good advice at the time, hut 
experience has proved the best teacher, and if we 
were doing it over we should discard several vari¬ 
eties. So tell us what experience teaches you in your 
neighborhood. 
* 
A LL over the country farmers are hunting as never 
before for natural supplies of fertilizer. There 
will he more swamp muck than ever before used this 
Fall and Winter. Some of these samples of muck or 
black soil are rich in nitrogen, but are too sour to 
give up their plant food. If this soil can he dried and 
mixed with lime it will make a fair substitute for 
stable manure. Thousands of tons of it will lie 
hauled out and used on corn land this Winter. De¬ 
posits of marl or shell lime are being opened here 
and there. At one point, in the Hudson Valley is a 
good-sized pond underlaid with a thick deposit of 
shell marl. This is very rich in lime, and can he 
taken out at a low cost. On the hills around this 
pond are thousands of acres of poor pasture. As it is 
these pastures give only a poor yield of inferior grass. 
When this shell marl from the pond is spread over 
tliip hill land, clover will come in. the good grass will 
revive, and the value of the pasture will he more 
than doubled. Nature took the available lime from 
these hills and tucked it away, with other supplies, 
in the bed of this pond. Now man takes it out and 
puts it hack where the clover needs it. That is mod¬ 
em farming—making use of nature’s work. 
* 
Von arc right about weeds; here the planters do not 
use manure or fertilizer (except for tobacco), for they 
let the fields after corn rest one and two years and then 
plant again. The great amount of herbage—weeds— 
seem to get available food for the grain ready. I have a 
field now rested two seasons, and the herbage is so lux¬ 
uriant that it is difficult to get through. Another field 
lias wild carrot nearly if not quite five to six feet. The 
seed falls on the surface, the root runs down a foot, rot¬ 
ting each year, and bringing potash available to that 
depth, and making the soil friable. E. W. 
Maryland. 
HAT will comfort some farmers and fruit grow¬ 
ers who have been literally chased out of their 
fields this season hv the weeds! The long wet period, 
the labor shortage and the absolute necessity of gel¬ 
ling the early harvest off has driven many of ns to 
.—n eeds. In some of our orchards we have them head 
high. No use denying it—there they are. And we 
look at the situation with much philosophy. It all 
makes organic matter for the soil. It is more fash¬ 
ionable to use legitimate cover crops in the orchard, 
hut in a wot season where there is no danger from 
“stealing moisture,” few cover crops are more truly 
useful than ragweed and some of its brothers. Either 
plowed under or cut and used as a mulch, this weed 
growth will do nearly as much good as clover or 
small grains. These weeds are potash diggers, and 
they have their uses. Yet it is considered a disgrace 
for a farmer to let the weeds beat him. hut may we 
not wipe out part of that disgrace by putting the 
weeds at work as manure or mulch? 
* 
I N the Republican primary in Wayne County, N. Y.. 
Mr. Betts won by a majority of about 1,200. 
Practically all of this majority was gained in the* 
two towns of Lyons and Newark. Five towns, where 
farmers are in a large majority, went against Mr. 
Betts, and his majority in several others was very 
small. It seems to he clearly demonstrated that the 
balance of power in this election lies in the hands of 
September 20, loin 
farmers who ’did not vote in tins primary. * Some of 
them evidently kept out of the primary in order that 
they might be free to vote as they please in the regu¬ 
lar election. Mr. Belts is opposed by Fred W. Corn¬ 
wall, a lifelong farmer and fruit, grower, a member 
of the Grange, and a high-class citizen. One would 
think that a man wilh these qualifications would he 
just the one lo represent an agricultural county. An 
admirer of Mr. Belts tells us that he knows more 
Wayne County people than any other man in the 
State. Exactly so. They know him thoroughly, and 
that knowledge makes them fully qualified lo decide. 
If Mr. Betts suits the people of Wayne Oounty, who 
can find fault? Do the people of W uyw County irant 
lo be represented by Charles JT. Ileits? Wo never 
knew such a question to he put s<> squarely up lo any 
community before. 
* 
H ERE is a new one which may fit your case. A 
certain hack-to-the-lander bought a farm and 
started farming. He had abundant capital, hut no 
experience. When it came to surveying or draining 
his farm lie hired an engineer, and of course paid 
cash for the service. Tn order to make his title clear 
he employed a lawyer, who charged a round sum for 
the service—which was willingly paid. A landscape 
gardener “laid out” the grounds around the house, 
and charged a good price for doing it. All these 
charges were cheerfully paid because they all repre¬ 
sented professional service—and that stands for cash. 
But when it came to arranging and working the farm 
our friend evidently expected to gel advice or experi¬ 
ence for nothing, or to take it from hooks and bulle¬ 
tins. You cannot irrigate potatoes with a fountain 
pen, or breed prize dairy cattle with a bulletin. Our 
friend found this out. and for several years he lost 
money at his farming. Then he conceived the idea 
that successful farming is ns much a trained profes¬ 
sion as tlie law or engineering or medicine. 8o he 
went to a practical farmer who had made a success 
of his business and hired him to come and organize 
his farm for him. lie gave that farmer's experience 
the same financial value as he did the knowledge of 
the lawyer, doctor or engineer. As a result of this 
bargain the farmer has been aide to organize that 
farm so that it pays a profit. The farmer simply 
comes at intervals, as a doctor would do, plans the 
work and explains it fully. The point, is that the ex¬ 
perience of a good practical farmer has as solid a 
commercial value as the advice of a lawyer or en¬ 
gineer. Too much of our farm advice is given by 
people who have a good idea of theory hut little if 
any successful practice. The world would soon be in 
a hopeless tangle if its affairs were conducted by 
business and professional men of that stamp. We 
all need the advice of the plain, practical man. who 
knows how to make a living on the farm. 
* 
W E have been waiting patiently for the directors 
of the Holstein-Friesian Association to take 
definite action regarding the ease of Charles Cole 
and those dairy tests. If Cole did the fraudulent 
work which he admitted most men will view his 
former work with suspicion. Any suspicious test 
guaranteed by the Association will injure the repu¬ 
tation of the breed. Therefore the Association should, 
come out openly and squarely and either repudiate 
these tests or stand for them. The air is full of 
rumors concerning this dirty business. We are told 
that Cole has now repudiated his confession and 
denied that he ever committed the fraud or that he 
confessed it. At best he seems to he a very poor 
creature. We should think that a world-record test 
built on the performance and character of such a 
man would he more unstable than a house built on 
shifting sand. We are also told that the directors 
are to he restrained by injunction from throwing out 
any of these tests. In view of all these complications 
it seems to us that the time lias come for those 
directors to come out of their secret sessions and 
cut boldly down to the very quick of this dirty and 
dangerous business. This is no time for delay or 
dawdling. The vast majority of Holstein breeders 
are honest and upright men who want this smut- 
wiped off the record of their breed and want it done 
at once—no matter who is hurt. 
Brevities 
Your really great man never realizes that lie is great. 
PRACTICALLY every day brings questions about devel¬ 
oping a water supply for the house. The water fixtures 
will follow. 
This Fall is bringing up hundreds of the old partner¬ 
ship troubles where two men start with only a verbal 
understanding and things do not go as expected. 
“I have just been reading of a cure for poison ivy. 
It is to rub oil of wintergreen on the affected parts 
times daily; one ounce or less usually gives a conuilete 
cure in four or five days,” says P. Holmes. New line’" 
shire. 
