160 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S TAPER 
A National Week!' -Journal for Country an<l Suburban llomea 
‘■'hashed 1850 
Published weekly by the Rnral Publishing- Company, II1! 11 tVest 30th Street, New fork 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Hoyle, Associate <wt---> 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, §2.04, equnl to 8s. 6d, or 
8!-A marks, or 10 1 * * 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 , anti 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 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 or 
the transaction, and to identify it, you should mention The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the ad, vrtiser 
I'm merely that thing that’s anathema to you real 
farmers, namely, a backyarder. Wouldn’t be without 
your paper for anything—unless for a better one— 
which I haven’t seen. You print so many things with 
which I can honestly and happily disagree that it’s a 
real mental stimulus to read it. d. n. darling. 
Maine. 
T HE R. N.-Y. works for all—the man with only 
a backyard or the man with a farm so large 
that it would take a day’s journey to reach the back 
fence! All men who can put their hands and feet 
into a piece of the soil have things in common. Our 
business is to find and print these things. How 
much better to feel that the man who lias views 
opposed to your own gives you a “mental stimulus” 
than to call him a fraud or a humbug because he 
honestly differs from you! 
$ 
M ANY of the higher class hotels and restaurants 
in New York are offering “Idaho potatoes.” 
These potatoes are baked, and sell freely at from 
25 to 30 cents each. They average about eight 
ounces and are of a long, narrow variety. It is 
claimed that they are of very superior quality- 
being grown in light soil with just enough irrigation 
to make them light and “mealy.” These potatoes 
are packed in boxes like apples—or at least are 
supposed to be—and are said to be the finest thing 
in baking potatoes. The final consumer pays at the 
rate of about $120 per barrel. Last week the writer 
of this went to talk before the New Jersey farmers 
at Trenton. We bought one of these baked potatoes 
—for 25 cents—and took it along to show the fine 
class of food which New York people demand. After 
telling the story and telling about the fine potato, 
we broke it open before the crowd as proof of its 
quality! Imagine the roar that went up when we 
found inside a black and brown “heart” as large as 
a walnut! It was just a plain black-hearted fraud 
sailing under its trademark name “Idaho.” On any 
farmer’s table it would have been promptly fed to 
the hogs! At their best these Idaho potatoes are 
good, although just exactly as good tubers can be 
grown and selected in Monmouth County, N. J., if 
the farmers there would develop the name of their 
county as a trademark—as Idaho farmers have done. 
But who put. that black-hearted fraud into the box? 
We doubt if it was done by any Idaho farmer. More 
likely it was done by some of the handlers who re¬ 
pack boxes, just as they “stovepipe” barrels of apples 
and throw the discredit upon the grower. 
*S» 
L AST week a judgment of $600 was directed 
against the Fairmount Creamery Company of 
Buffalo, N. Y., by a jury in the Supreme Court. The 
fine was imposed to cover 12 cases of complaints by 
farmers to the effect that the creamery company 
gave the farmers short fat test on cream sent to the 
company’s creamery. The verdict in these 12 cases 
was based on the complaint that the farmers were 
credited with five or more per cent less than the 
cream actually tested. In all there were 62 com¬ 
plaints; but the jury held that in 50 cases the evi¬ 
dence was not sufficient to convict. The complaint 
was that the test in these cases ran from 1 to 10 per 
cent below the actual fat test of the cream. 
The action was brought under the State law 
which requires purchasers of cream to make pay¬ 
ment on the exact percentage of fat contained in the 
shipment. The evidence was presented by Mr. E. 
F. Burke, head of the dairy bureau in the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, and Leon F. Spink, an assis¬ 
tant. They testified that they took samples of 
cream in transit and secured tests by the faculty at 
the State College at Cornell. This is good work. 
There is need for more of the same kind in the 
State. 
‘Ihe RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
We will put yon out of business! Wo have your 
reeord and know you arc a faker. Our organization 
will take care of you! 
T HAT, ill effect, is the cheerful message we receive 
from agents of a concern which we believe is 
comprised of “crooks.” The message sounds like the 
• wr : ee received from the late Judge Ward. It 
wcu:u seem hard to be put out of a business which 
we have seen develop for the past 35 years. During 
that long period one crook after another has been 
searching The R. N.-Y.’s record with a searchlight 
and a microscope. Somehow they seem to have put 
some of those vitamines into it. for the business has 
grown steadily and surely. It seems to he something 
like a snowball—'the more you try to roll it over the 
bigger it gets. So we conclude that the “organiza¬ 
tion” is taking good care of us. It is an old proverb 
in the newspaper business: “If your crooked critic 
trill not talk about you—hire him to do so!” 
* 
T HERE seems to he little doubt that the poli¬ 
ticians laid a fine little trap for the New York 
Farm Bureau Federation. A resolution endorsing 
the Agricultural Council was offered with very plausi¬ 
ble arguments for its passage. If the Federation 
had passed it. not only the council would have been 
endorsed, but also the political issue into which the 
council has been grafted by the recent report of 
George Gordon Battle. That report makes it impos¬ 
sible to separate the council from the old issue be¬ 
tween the two big parties. The Federation saw the 
point and very wisely tabled the resolution. We ai’e 
now told that the same thing will he tried at the 
coming meeting of the New York State Grange, and 
certain politicians think they can put it through. We 
doubt it, since the situation is now such that an en¬ 
dorsement of the council is also an endorsement of 
politics, and the Grange would better keep out of 
that. 
* 
W HILE we are thinking about that “Scientific 
Search for a Peach” in New Jersey, let us 
not forget the excellent work done at the Geneva 
(N. Y.) Experiment Station in .producing new va¬ 
rieties. Last year we mentioned the Ontario red 
raspberry. Now. on page 142, is a note about the 
Tioga apple. This is a child of Sutton and Northern 
Spy—two fine old parents, both time-tried and tested. 
With such a parentage, Tioga ought to he worthy of 
the good solid county for which it is named. They 
have done great work at Geneva in working out these 
new fruits and now the public will have a chance to 
share in the distribution. lie who can give to the 
world a new apple worthy to be called a child of 
Northern Spy gives more than any millionaire can 
ever bestow. 
* 
Y OU have not asked us to give our idea of the 
most useless man in modern society, but we ven¬ 
ture the information. He is the man of over 50 
years who has stopped growing and devotes all the 
experience and observation of his long life to the 
cultivation of a “grouch.” This man has seen the 
seasons come and go and the years pass on, each one 
hopefully fulfilling the promise of the one which 
caiue before. He might use the experience of his life 
and the lessons of the changing years in making the 
world better than he found it. The sunset to which 
he travels ought to be far more hopeful and glorious 
than the sunrise of his youth. And yet this man, on 
whom the years have cut their notches, to whom life 
has given its legacy of experience, can only use his 
powers to cultivate a “grouch.” Do you know any 
such men? If so, are we not right in classing him as 
the most useless element of modern society? 
* 
T HE State of New York, under its new income tax 
law, will undertake to collect taxes on people 
of other States who draw salaries or other income 
here. There are many such—probably half a million 
at least. They are commuters who live in New Jer¬ 
sey or the New England States, but work in New 
York. The tax is hardly fair, since these people are, 
as a rule, of but moderate means, and they trade 
freely with New York merchants. They must pay a 
double tax on incomes in ease their own State fol¬ 
lows New York with an income tax law. We do not 
believe the present law will hold water, but it is 
proposed to change it this Winter. This attempt of 
one State to collect a tax from the citizens of another 
takes us hack to the controversy of 1787—before our 
present Federal government was organized. At that 
time a good share of the food and fuel for New York 
was brought in sailboats from New Jersey. These 
boats, loaded with vegetables, meat, hay or cordwood, 
sailed across the river and unloaded on Manhattan 
Island. The New York Assembly claimed that this 
deprived the Hudson River farmers of a market, and 
January 24, 1920 
they passed a law that every such boat must he 
cleared at the custom house, the same as vessels 
sailing from a foreign port. The result was that 
these customs duties took all the profits from the 
Jersey farmers. They went to the New Jersey Legis¬ 
lature for redress or revenge—and got the latter. 
The corporation of New York owned four acres of 
land at Sandy Hook in the State of New Jersey. 
There was a lighthouse there then, as there is now. 
The Jersey Legislature got square by taxing New 
York $150 per month for this lighthouse. That was 
the way they did it 133 years ago. Now the two 
States are trying to get closer together through tun¬ 
nels so that trade may be promoted rather than 
prevented. New York’s tax on Jerseymen is like go¬ 
ing hack to the old policy of holding up a neighbor! 
* 
Bran weevils and caftle lice! 
T HESE are two enemies which present greater 
personal problems than the League of Nations 
to the average farmer. Every week brings com¬ 
plaints about beans badly damaged by little bugs, or 
cattle suffering greatly from vermin. The remedy 
for the bean weevil is bisulphide of carbon. This 
evil-smelling stuff forms a gas which spells death to 
all breathing creatures when it once reaches their 
breathing machinery. Put the beans or wheat into 
an airtight box or barrel. Put a deep dish on top of 
the grain and pour in the bisulphide at the rate of 
1 lb. to each 1,000 cu. ft. of space. Cover at once 
with some tight cover like a blanket or sack, and 
walk away. The gas will do the rest. Remember 
that you are a breathing creature and do not inhale 
the fumes. Remember, too, that the gas will take 
fire from a blaze or flame. Keep fire away from it. 
As for the cattle lice, probably the simplest remedy is 
to smear raw linseed oil around the back of the head, 
along the rough hairs on the back of the neck and 
shoulders and where the cow cannot reach. Rub the 
oil in and keep the cattle out of the direct sunlight 
for a while. Judging from correspondence, the wee¬ 
vil and the louse are the most common comrades of 
the high cost of living that our people must fight on 
the farm. Gas and oil them out! 
* 
T HE Detroit Free Press prints a statement of the 
way the Farm Bureaus are being organized in 
Michigan. Each member puts up $30 for three years’ 
fees in advance. In three months 13,000 members 
have enrolled and 100,000 are expected. These men 
intend to do it themselves, including the financing. 
The Free Press says: 
It scarcely need he pointed out that when a farmer 
hands over $30 for membership in an organization, he is 
interested, in fact, determined concerning the matter in 
hand, whatever it may be. And if 100.000 farmers in 
Michigan perform such an act, it means that, in common 
parlance, they’ll got somewhere. A significant feature of 
the new work is that none of the old-time so-eallcd 
“farmer leaders” and none of the political lights of past 
and present Michigan history are concerned. Back of 
the Bureau are a number of big farmers and business 
men. The constitution of the Bureau provides that any 
officer who becomes a candidate for a public office or 
appointment, loses liis position with the Bureau auto¬ 
matically. So strongly impressed was the Michigan 
Coalition Committee, composed of business men, manu¬ 
facturers and farmers, that it loaned the Farm Bureau 
funds with which to begin organization. 
It looks like a new deal and a new lot of leaders— 
both of which were needed. “It is not so much who 
is Governor, as what that Governor trill do.” That 
seems to he the way these Michigan Farm Bureau 
men are going after what belongs to them. Sooner or 
later this thing of financing their own work will have 
to become a part of the Farm Bureau business in all 
parts of the country. Whenever a farmers’ organi¬ 
zation begins to show genuine power the politicians 
will try to bribe or bluff it. They will not bribe or 
bluff any organization which insists upon paying its 
own way. Every organization which must shuffle 
and beg for public funds must feel something of the 
humiliation of the “deadhead” or poor relative. We 
have got to do it ourselves. 
* 
Brevities 
Fine weather for the ice harvest. 
Health— a cold room and a warm bed. 
There is huuger of the heart as well as hunger of the 
stomach. 
Are you convinced yet that phosphorus should be 
used with manure? 
Never knew so many great private records of poultry 
as are now coming in. 
Wori.DST learn the road to happiness? Come on, I’ll 
point the way. Believe that each tomorrow will be bet¬ 
ter than to-day. 
If you want the chicken manure to talk crops next 
year, make it dry up now. Scatter plaster, road dust or 
sifted coal ashes over it as taken from the henhouse. 
This will hold the ammonia, which is the tongue of 
growing crops. 
