372 
The Rural New-Yorker 
TI1E BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home* * 
Established 1850 
riiMIuhrd weekly by the Rural Pnbllahinr Company, 338 West 30lh Street,New Vorli 
Herbert W. Coixinqwood, rt-csldent and Editor. 
Jolts J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Slits. E. T. Hoyle. Associate Ed it or. 
Subscription? one dollar a year 
To foreign count ries In the Universal Postal Union. $2.M, equal to 8s. 6d. t or 
8k. marks, or 10kj francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal cheek or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Oftico as Second Class Mattor. 
Advertising rates, 90 cents per agate line—7 words. Referenees n'qulred for 
advertisers unknown to us ; and cash must ocoompany transient orders. 
"A SQUARE PEAL” 
We believe that every advertisement in tills paper is backed by ^ n ' R P 0 "; 
sitile iH'inon. We use every possible precaution and admit the advertising e 
reliable houses only, lint to make doubly sure, we will make good any Iok 
to paid subscribers sustained by trusting any deliberate swindler, Irrespon¬ 
sible advertisers or misleading advertisements in our eolumns sml ftny 
such swindler will bo publicly exposed. We are nlso often called upon 
to adjust differences or mistakes between our subscribers and honest, 
responsible houses, whether advertisers or not. Wo willingly use o u good 
offices to this end, but such cases should not be confused with dishonest 
transnetions. Wo protect subscribers ngninst rogues but we will not bo 
responsilile for the debts of honest bank runts sanctioned bv the courts. 
Not ice of the complaint must lie se-iit to us within one month of the inip of 
the transaction, and to identify it, you sliould mention Tint Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
o N page 345 Mrs. Willcox starts a good question, 
which we would like to see discussed. Natural¬ 
ly, if a man has a car he wants to use it constantly, 
or as nearly so as possible. In the country, among 
the hills, artificial conditions are usually needed in 
Winter to fit the roads for car service. Long before 
there were any cars farmers knew how to utilize the 
snow for easy travel in the sleds <Tr sleighs, and they 
can do it now if need he. The question is. shall coun¬ 
try people admit that in a Winter like this one the 
car should give way to the sled, or shall they spend 
money to try to make an artificial track for the cai 
It’s a good question, and The It. N.-Y. opens its col¬ 
umns for the discussion. 
* 
W E never had so many questions about tanning 
skins or making leather at home. There is 
no disputing the fact that the fearful hold-up in 
retail prices is compelling many farmers to go hack 
to old practices and manufacture certain goods at 
home. We do not think this is any momentary idea. 
We think it will grow and develop more and more. 
If it will lead to a scattering of some lines of manu¬ 
facturing hack closer to the raw materials and to 
water powers now neglected, it will he an excellent 
thing. Modern industry is no longer dominated by 
steam. Secretary Lane says that the Germans wore 
able to fight over four years on the strength of great 
power plants which were ‘run by the melted snow 
on the Alps! With the development of American 
water power there should he a movement of manu¬ 
facturing back to the older days, when industry was 
nearer the farm home. It. has been a social and 
industrial mistake to concentrate power and manu¬ 
facturing in the big cities. That is as bad for a 
nation as a concentration of blood in Iho head of a 
human being. We should encourage by all means 
the scattering of many industries all through the 
country. 
* 
T HE retail Public Ledger of Philadelphia 1ms the 
boldest defense of the 35-cent dollar that we 
have yet seen. A recent advertisement showed a 
farmer receiving one dollar for potatoes, while the 
consumer paid .$3. Now the Ledger says: 
IIow can the farmer’s work ia caring for acres of pro¬ 
duce, which be sells in bulk, be compared to the work 
done by the wholesaler, the jobber and the retailer in 
bringing this produce to the kiteben of the consumer? 
The farmer relies mainly upon the forces of nature, 
cashing in on the fertility of the land and the natural 
physical benefits wliieh accrue from rain and sunlight, 
lb* assumes no risk which does not find its counterpart 
after his work has been completed, lie sells his produets 
in bulk, without the expense incident to delivery or the 
refund for goods which are not up to standard. 
No. it. cannot compare, because the farmer takes 
all the responsibility for growing the crop and de¬ 
votes an entire year to it. The jobber devotes a week 
or a day and handles his business so that he assumes 
little or no risk. We have hundreds of cases where 
commission men solicit consignments. The goods are 
damaged in shipment and sell for very little. The 
commission man takes out his commission and sends 
a hill to the farmer for balance due on freight! The 
cost of shipping always comes out of the price paid 
to the farmer. The middlemen carry the goods from 
one point to another and hand them out to the con¬ 
sumer. They charge two-thirds of the final price for 
doing it, and then begrudge the farmer his one-third ! 
One would think from the Ledger that the “forces 
of Nature” are always kind. The man who wrote 
that should he frostbitten, burned h.v drought, soaked 
by rain, eaten by bugs worse than he is now, blown 
by a tempest and well stung by scab and blight 
Potato-growers must endure all these things, and the 
middleman has nothing to compare with them. P.ut 
what is the use in attempting to argue with such 
people? They are openly and boldly advocating a 
form of robbery. There is only one cure. We have 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
got to do it ourselves! Do what? Handle our own 
goods and reach the consumer direct! 
As you scorn to modify what you formerly said about 
top-dressing of lime for lawns and meadows, do you 
think dry weather or a rainy day, or just before or after 
a rain, the best time for such lime top-dressing? I. c. 
E prefer a dry time for spreading lime. You 
get an evener distribution, and are not. so 
likely to have the lime form a mortar on the top of 
the soil. We willingly modify our opinion on any 
subject wherever convincing proof .is offered. Up to 
within a short time almost all there was in favor of 
top-dressing meadows or pastures with lime was 
opinion. Since then the ground limestone has been 
made finer, and practical experience has shown real 
results. Thus, of course, we modify our statements, 
though we still prefer to work the lime into the soil. 
* 
You state that probably the Congress is our own fault. 
Possibly it is. but not entirely. So long as there are two 
parties like the major ones of tday, and both equally out 
for their own, irrespective of what the country needs, 
both equally bad, and so long as people in general vote 
for the candidates they put up, no matter how bad they 
may be. the condition will stay the same. As far as any 
real difference in their principles goes today, they are 
only the difference between tweedledee and tweedledum. 
Neither lias any constructive program, and both are out 
for the dough. M. a. a. r. 
E waste no time talking about the impossible. 
Life (including Congress) Is wliat we make it. 
Many of the so-called remedies for agricultural 
troubles are just about as useful as beating on a big 
drum. They make a noise and drive away some 
people who might help. Most of the proposed reme¬ 
dies are impossible, because they are too far in ad¬ 
vance of what we call popular thought. No perma¬ 
nent reform can ever get more than one step in 
advance of the plain thinking of the common people. 
Now and then the people get excited over some extra¬ 
ordinary sense of wrong and rip up the political 
situation. When they must face the responsibility 
which means trouble and self-denial, too many of 
them cool off, particularly inside their shoes, and 
the politicians come hack stronger than ever. This 
is no time for wild talk or impossible dreams. Our 
political system, bad as it is, has put in our hands 
certain tools which we do not half use. The two 
old political parties are boss-ridden and mercenary 
because we. as voters, and citizens, have permitted 
them to become so. Our first attempt to institute a 
referendum of farm voters has succeeded far beyond 
our expectations. We now intend to enlarge and 
strengthen it until some public system of referendum 
voting can ho worked out. With a referendum to 
crystallize our desires and a fair primary to desig¬ 
nate candidates, we must reorganize the old parties 
or admit that we arc incapable of utilizing our own 
power. The New York primary must not he de¬ 
stroyed—it must he improved. Wo have never made 
proper use of it. Last year the total Republican vote 
for Governor in the primary was 414,350, while at 
the election Whitman received 050.034 votes. The 
Democratic primary brought, out 232,513 votes, while 
Smith received 1,000,030! The reason why we have 
been voting for men for whom we had no liildng or 
even respect is because we would not get together 
and select the men we wanted and then put them 
through at the primary. The farmers of New York 
may start now. agree upon candidates and nominate 
every one of them at the primary if they really want 
to do it! 
* 
W E have already several thousand new city sub¬ 
scribers—sent in by old readers who want 
their city friends to read the farmer’s side. These 
city people are reading the paper. We hear from 
them frequently. Perhaps for the first time they 
begin to realize just what the farmer's situation is 
and how he looks at public matters. We have it in 
mind to start a new department in which city people 
may state their case and toll us how we can got 
closer to them. There must he at least two sides to 
every big question. It can never he settled by view¬ 
ing one side alone. Every fruit grower finds trees 
in the orchard which have been girdled h.v mice or 
rabbits until there is no connection between root and 
stem. Then “bridge-grafting” is needed—one end of 
a long scion is inserted below the wound and the 
other carried over to the clean hark above. In this 
way the sap circulation may ho restored and the tree 
may he saved. It is true that in many eases the true 
circulation of thought between city and country has 
been broken off. The R. N.-Y. may serve as a 
“bridge graft” to restore understanding. 
* 
T HE R. N.-Y. lias tried to do its share in the plan 
to compel the daily papers to discuss the farm¬ 
er’s problem. It has been worked out very largely 
by farmers who have written these papers and told 
them just what they wanted. As a result many of 
the daily papers published in the interior cities have 
February 21, 1920 
greatly modified their views. They circulate largely 
among farmers within a radius of 25 miles of their 
city, and now they know, as never before, what these 
farmers want. The recent statement about the 
“farmers’ unrest” has stirred these daily papers up. 
Those printed in the large cities have generally 
sneered at the farmers, or abused them as profiteers. 
Usually the dailies in the second-sized cities follow 
the lead of New' York, hut this year it is different. 
The farmers have presented their case so well that 
many of these papers are now giving us a fair show¬ 
ing and a square deal. This is just as it should bo 
and is good evidence of what country people are 
capable of doing. In the old oleo campaign of 20 
years ago the slogan was “Liefc a stamp for bossy 
and the baby,” and how they did plaster these stamps 
on the Congressmen! Here is a new one for this 
year: “Irrigate the dry spot in the city editor's mind 
with a fountain pen!" The Democrat and Chronicle 
of Rochester, N. Y., has printed one of the ablest and 
fairest statements about, the farmers’ case that we 
have read. That paper deserves the thanks of West¬ 
ern New York farmers. 
* 
S OME of our back-to-tbe-landers will go to rented 
farms, and they should know some of the rights 
of the former tenant. Where farms are rented to 
different parties year after year there is often trouble 
over certain property.. A man may go to a new farm, 
this Spring and find several acres of wheat or rye 
growing there. Under the law such crops belong to 
the former tenant, and h' may come hack and har¬ 
vest them, unless ho has made a contract with the 
owner to leave them. Crops which develop their full 
life in one year or season are considered personal 
property, and the tenant may come hack and harvest 
them. Tn New Jersey this was tried out over a 
strawberry crop. The court decided that the tenant 
who sot out the plants had the right to come back the 
next year and pick the berries. We think the court 
was wrong in this, but that was the decision. The 
rule is that a crop which ordinarily requires more 
than one year for its development is real estate be¬ 
cause it is permanently attached to the soil. This 
would apply to trees, bush fruits, grass or shrubbery. 
Such crops ns corn, small grain or garden crops 
would he classed ns personal property. They belong 
to the tenant unless the contract states otherwise. 
* 
I N addition to this “scientific search for a peach,” 
New Jersey is developing the largest peach or¬ 
chards now growing north of Georgia. There have 
been tremendous plantings in recent years. Reports 
indicate a great loss of peach buds in New England, 
so that Jersey peaches should command a premium. 
It will be necessary for the growers to get together 
and organize some sort of co-operative advertising. 
The truth is that New Jersey has within the past few 
years made a wonderful development in gardening 
and fruit growing, as well as in general farming. 
The corn picture on the cover page shows wdiat 
“Jersey sand” can do. 
A 
O UR older readers will remember the hot con¬ 
troversy regarding the “mulch” method of car¬ 
ing for apple orchards which was waged some years 
ago. At that time practically all the “experts” ar¬ 
gued for intense cultivation of orchard fruits. The 
“mulch” advocates followed the plan of permitting 
a crop of grass or clover to grow in the orchard, cut¬ 
ting it once or several times during the season, and 
letting the hay thus made remain under the trees. 
In many cases manure, straw, weeds or trash are 
hauled into the orchard and spread under the trees. 
When the trees need fertilizing, nitrate and acid 
phosphate are scattered on top of the mulch. This 
soluble plant food finds it way down to the roots. 
Some beautiful apples arc grown in this way and, in 
many sections, it is becoming very popular in these 
days of labor scarcity. It is evident that under this 
system, outside of spraying and picking, one man can 
care for a large acreage. In our Horticultural Num¬ 
ber there will he a good article on the use of fertil¬ 
izers under this system. 
Brevities 
Knowledge is more than power—it is the machinery 
widen makes power. 
The price of pure vinegar is nearly out of sight. An¬ 
other star in the outlook for the apple business. 
There are cases where clover does not show the bac¬ 
teria on its roots, and unless well manured it will not 
thrive. Many of us can well afford to use the commer¬ 
cial bacteria on clover seed. 
As a general rule farmers are not advised to use nitro¬ 
gen on clover. The theory is that clover can provide its 
own nitrogen. Yet we have cases where nitrate of soda 
has made a good showing on the clover crop. 
These snow-tilled days are hard for people who have 
never gained the reading or the music habit. The snow¬ 
drifts make prison wnlls for them, while for the readers 
and pleasant thinkers they may be a blessing. 
