1690 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
K National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Domes 
Established isso 
Pnhllihrd wrrkly by the Rural Publishing Company, 3.13 We«t 80th Street, New fork 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
W». F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Koyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION : ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2.04, equal to 8 s. 6 d, or 
8>4 marks, or 10 U francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal check or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter 
Advertising rates, 76 cents per agate line—7 words. References required for 
advertisei-s 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 bo 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 or 
the transaction, and to identify it, you should mention The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the ad.crtiser 
As District Leader for the District of Basking Ridge 
I do not know a single farmer in my district who does 
not already have The R. N.-Y. coming into his home. 
G. S. VOORHEES. 
N OW, why can we not “make it unanimous” in 
many other places? In order to do that some¬ 
one must make the motion and then second it. We 
should feel honored to have you make the motion in 
your district. 
* 
N OW and then someone claims that the signs 
which Farm Bureau members put up in front 
of their farms are illegal. The question was submit¬ 
ted to the Attorney General of New York, and he 
gives this opinion: 
Section 1423, Sub-division 11, of the penal law for¬ 
bids the placing of any business or commercial adver¬ 
tisements within the bounds of a public highway. You 
state you have posted signs by the roadside bearing the 
following words: “Farm Bureau Member, 1919.” I 
assume that these signs refer to the Farm Bureau con¬ 
ducted under the supervision of public authority. In 
my opinion, these are not business or commercial signs. 
While these signs are not commercial we think 
they mean “business” in the best sense of the word 
and are to be encouraged. A sign for the Farm 
Bureau is like putting up a flag for good farming, 
and there might well be a continuous row of them all 
along every country road. 
* 
L AST week we printed a correspondence between 
two bankers. One wrote from New York City 
with the city man’s view carried out to its logical 
conclusion. The other, being close to the farmers, 
and knowing their thought, expressed it in his views 
on financial questions. . The city man evidently be¬ 
longs to that class of people who believe that the sun 
“rises and sets” over Manhattan Island. Such men 
seem to believe that practically all that is worth 
while in America has been drawn into New York and 
the other big cities. Following this they seem to 
think that the rest of the country should esteem it a 
privilege and duty to finance these big cities. Thus 
the New York banker wants farmers to invest in city 
mortgages—bringing their money away from home 
investments—so that more people can be housed in 
the city, and, of course, drawn in from the country. 
This man does not seem to realize the grim humor of 
his proposition. The great trouble with the rural 
districts now is that they have drained themselves 
of men and money, blood and treasure, in order to 
build up the cities. The more they have given of 
their money the bigger they have made the magnet 
which pulled their boys and girls away from the 
farm. Tt is but human nature that the young people 
should follow father’s dollar. If it goes to the city 
they will go after it. If he invests it at. home they 
will be far more likely to stay with it. It is true 
that the city needs the country dollar, but the coun¬ 
try needs its own dollars far more. In our judgment 
the country banker has the better of this discussion 
because he knows that country people now realize 
some of the financial mistakes they have made in the 
past. They are not going to make the same mistakes 
in the future. They will have a larger share of the 
consumer’s dollar and then invest that share nearer 
home. We cannot think that all city bankers hold 
this extreme view. It should he easy to see that $100 
of the countryman’s money invested in needed im¬ 
provements for farm or home will provide markets 
for manufactured goods that will be of far greater 
benefit than the same $100 invested in city mort¬ 
gages ! 
» 
I T is 10 to one that you have had thoughts about 
quack grass (and expressed them, too) which 
you would not have in print. Whether you call it 
quack or witch or twitch or crab or couch grass, it 
is a pest and a nuisance everywhere except in an 
apple orchard. Now listen to something else about 
•ft* RURAL NEW-YORKER November 15, 1916 
it. In medicine this pest is known as Triticum 
repens or dog grass. It is a useful diuretic or blad¬ 
der remedy. We know people who are in the market 
for several tons of dried quack grass roots, and they 
offer $140 to $200 per ton! The roots are simply 
pulled, washed, dried, baled and shipped. We have 
seen potato fields so rank with this grass that it 
looked as if the roots would bring more money than 
the potato crop. We have heard this pest called “bad 
medicine.” It looks like good medicine at $140 per 
ton! 
L AST week we printed an article taken from a 
Mississippi bulletin telling how a farmer in¬ 
vested $1,600 which he obtained as a Federal farm 
loan. We Avould like to have similar records showing 
how Northern farmers have used such money. In 
many cases we know these loans have been used to 
take up old mortgages, thus obtaining an easier rate 
of payment and preventing danger of foreclosure. 
There must, however, be cases where farmers have 
obtained money from the Land Bank and used it as 
capital to improve their farming business. We want 
the facts about some of these cases. 
* 
I T is hard for most Americans to understand 
Canadian politics. The issues and political par¬ 
ties are peculiar to the country. On this side of the 
line our political differences have been very largely 
based on the fierce conflict inherited from the Civil 
War. The Canadians had no such social or indus¬ 
trial earthquake to disturb them. So that when we 
are told that elected farmers are combining with 
Liberals, Conservatives and others, we do not fully 
understand. What we do know and understand is 
that the Canadian farmers got. together, worked out 
a fair programme, forgot their former differences 
and voted solidly as farmers. We understand that 
every one of their candidates wrote out his resigna¬ 
tion in advance and filed it where it can be enforced 
in case he falters or proves false. Evidently it is 
somewhat along that way that our farmers must 
work. 
* 
T HE South Dakota Agricultural College has issued 
a bulletin on “Advertising Farm Products.” 
This is one of the best little documents on advertis¬ 
ing we have seen. It tells farmers how to write an 
advertisement, what to advertise and how to do it— 
all the way from the signboard in front of the farm 
to the card in the magazine. We have rarely seen 
more sensible advice, and it is all true. Twenty 
years ago few farmers even considered the possi¬ 
bility of advertising what they had to sell, or asking 
publicity for what they wanted. It. has now become 
a part of life to reach out for business—'far beyond 
the district or township. The car and the telephone 
have brought the world closer together. This has 
not only created confidence, but also given honest 
men a certain pride in offering their goods. Some of 
the stories told by advertisers of the way they have 
picked up customers and sold goods in unexpected 
places would read like a romance. For example, 
The R. N.-Y. is read each week by more than 600,000 
people. Take all the possessions of that great com¬ 
pany, and there is not one single article, however 
useless to the owner, that is not needed and desired 
by some other reader—who would gladly buy it if 
he knew where it could be found! 
* 
M ANY Old-timers who read this will remember 
the great excitement when the horse Dexter 
trotted a mile in 2:19! That was supposed to be 
the limit of speed. It seemed impossible that any 
combination of flesh and blood could move its legs 
so as to cover more than 40 feet each second! No 
one had then dreamed of the modern car or the 
telephone. In order to get to the doctor or negotiate 
any other quick country transportation there had to 
he some horse with nerve and speed of high order. 
Dexter’s performance started an immense demand 
for fast roadsters, and it looked like a mighty future 
for farm-raised colts. As it has turned out the 
light, long-legged trotting colt of today is about the 
least desirable specimen of farm stock that one can 
think of. But how the world went wild at Dexter’s 
performance! Now there is far greater reason for 
excitement in the performance of Underhill’s Bed 
hens! They have just finished their year at the 
Vineland contest with a record of 2,431 eggs in one 
year! No freaks or accidents there. Their mothers 
laid 1,966 eggs in their pullet year, and now come 
these daughters beating their parents by about 25 
per cent! These birds laid 20 in their first week 
and 25 in the fifty-second week! The car, the tele¬ 
phone and the flying machine have put the trotting 
horse out of business, hut nothing present or to 
come can ever substitute for the egg. Next to milk 
Jjit is the great essential human food, carrying its 
share of vitamines and iron, and providing not only 
for the strong but for the invalid and the child. So 
that this performance of the Red hens is far worthier 
of comment than Dexter’s record ever was! There 
are hens which average more than 20 dozen each, 
while the average hen lays barely eight dozen during 
the year. Tt is the biggest thing yet done with 
poultry in America, and yet these Red hens at a 
poultry show and scored by expert judges would not 
be considered for an instant on the prevailing “scale 
of points.” Tom Barron brought his Leghorns and 
Wyandottes from England and was hailed as a 
“wizard” because of their record. The Underhill 
Reds have laid rings all around what the best Bar¬ 
ron Wyandottes ever did in this country, and we 
think the story of their development and breeding 
is fit to rank with the other big things which 
America has given to the world. And nobody ques¬ 
tions the truth of their record. They did their work 
without any of Charlie Cole’s cream-bag perform¬ 
ance. The world needs eggs about as much at it 
needs anything, and therefore it opens wide the door 
of welcome to these Bed hens. The final score of 
the leaders in this egg cracking contest was: 
Underhill Brothers. R. I. Reds. 2,431 
Fred J. Mathews, White Leghorns. 2,289 
Prospect. Poultry Farm, "White Leghorns. 2,288 
Lusscroft Farm, White Wyandottes. 2,225 
Mount Hope Farm, White Leghorns. 2,224 
C. S. Greene, White Leghorns. 2,223 
Garrett .T. Buck, Barred Rocks. 2,222 
Pinehurst Poultry Farm, Leghorns. 2,222 
* 
A MONG the other frauds and thieves working to 
get their teeth into the fruit grower’s property 
are the meadow mice. There will be a perfect 
scourge of them in some parts of the country this 
year. Unless they are fought they will ruin entire 
orchards of young trees. As they work partly under¬ 
ground you may not know you are entertaining them 
until many of your trees are ruined. Clean the 
grass and brush from around the tree trunks and dig 
down to the roots. Swab on the lower trunk a thick 
smear made by thickening lime-sulphur mixture with 
lime. Clean up a space at least two feet around the 
tree trunk and pile a little mound of coal ashes or 
dirt around it. The mice do not usually work where 
there is no cover near the tree. You may think a 
mouse is too small to consider as an orchard pest, 
but there will be armies of mice in many places this 
Winter. Prepare for them now—do not wait until 
Spring and ask how to repair damages. 
* 
"I)o Wayne County farmers want to be repre¬ 
sented by Charles H. BettsV' 
BOUT all The R. N.-Y. fried to do m the Wayne 
County election was to ask that question. We 
had faith to believe that the farmers of that county 
knew what they wanted, and that they would 
answer. They did answer. They do not want Mr. 
Betts, but he has been fastened upon them by a 
small plurality. Whereas last year the party candi¬ 
date for the Assembly had 5,718 majority, this year 
Mr. Betts crawled through a small knothole with 
377. Eight out of 15 towns of Wayne County voted 
against Mr. Betts. A good majority of the farmers 
repudiated him. lie was only saved by the town 
vote, and w are told how in one case attempts were 
made to register 500 or more Italian women—tran¬ 
sient workers in the fruit factories! Considering 
all the conditions of this trying year, the intense 
feeling against the National Administration and the 
traditional feeling against cutting a party ticket, 
this action of Wayne County farmers is the finest 
exhibition of political independence that New York 
has ever seen. We shall give fuller particulars next 
week. Mr. Betts and the politicians thought they 
had Wayne County spiked down as a doormat with 
10-inch spikes. They woke up to find, themselves 
barely hanging to a broken safety pin. They called 
for a showdown—and they got it 
Brevities 
. liE who would force a boy to go to college would lack 
the elements of simple knowledge, for youth that can’t 
the worth of wisdom see will be more like to study 
deviltry. 
When you come to mulch the strawberry plants, re¬ 
member that you are not trying to keep the frost away 
from them, but rather to keep the frost in the soil 
around them. 
Our advice to those who ask about transplanting as¬ 
paragus roots is to leave them in the ground until Spring 
and then plant where desired. The big roots may be 
broken into several pieces, each with a bud. 
The chances are that many a citizen will this Winter 
be forced to burn more or less wood in his house heater. 
A flat piece of steel with holes punched through it. put 
on top of the coal grate will permit a wood fire that 
will keep. 
