596 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established isso _ 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing Compnny, 388 West 80th Street, New Sorb 
Herbert W. Coli.ingwood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Roylk, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION ; ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, $2,04, equal to 8s. 6cL, or 
8k marks, or 10k 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, 90 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 pereon. We use every possible precaution and admit the advertising of 
reliable houses onlv. Rut'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 
euch 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 bo 
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. 
I could hardly tell you liow to improve The R. N.-Y. 
We have taken it since 1S84, 36 years, and hope to live 
long enough to become your oldest subscriber. 
Long Island. L. M. YOUNG. 
E have many long essays on how to improve 
The R. N.-Y. which contain less constructive 
help than this short note. When you are the oldest 
subscriber may we still be connected with the paper! 
* 
N EW JERSEY and Jerseymen generally owe 
much to the Crawford peach. In these days of 
scientific searching for new varieties we must not 
forget the practical old-timers. It will tax the full 
resources of science to find a variety to take the 
place of the old peach which William Crawford gave 
to New Jersey years ago. It is a good thing in every 
way to pay due honor to these old-timers, and we 
are glad to learn that Prof. M. A. Blake is to try 
and locate, on the old Crawford farm, the exact sit¬ 
uation of the original tree. We hope the State Hor¬ 
ticultural Society will erect a suitable marker on the 
spot It is a great thing to remember these old- 
timers and keep their memory green. Too many of 
our modem heroes will dry up. 
* 
The New York Times, under a dispatch from Wash¬ 
ington, headed “Farmers’ Unrest,” quotes a member of 
the United States Agricultural Commission as stating 
that the farmers’ replies to a circular sent out by the 
Postoffice Department “seemed to have come mostly 
from a bunch of Bolshevists.” Can you not obtain the 
name of this windbag with a puffball head, and publish 
it for the benefit of his constituents in particular and 
farmers in general? britton davis. 
E can, and here it is, as reported by our rep¬ 
resentative in Washington. It was Senator 
Lawrence C. Phipps of Colorado. We have a copy 
of what was said at the hearing when this matter 
came up. Mr. Blakslee of the Post Office Depart¬ 
ment showed by many letters that farmers were dis¬ 
contented and had real cause for complaint. Then 
.Senator Phipps remarked: 
“77iis is the Bolshevist you brought out.” 
As we understand it, Senator Phipps considers 
that farmers who tell the truth when they are asked 
by the United States Government to state the facts 
about their business ai-e Bolshevists! By the way, 
does anyone really know what this unpronounceable 
name means? The politicians have a way of apply¬ 
ing it to anyone who shows any independence of 
thought. 
* 
T HE “pure fabrics bill,” mentioned on the next 
page, starts a new form of legislation in New 
York State. Nothing like it has ever been started 
here. Yet. in its way pure fabric legislation is as 
Important to sheep growers as oleo legislation is to 
dairymen. The two run along similar lines. Oleo 
hurts the dairy business by substituting inferior fats 
for pure butter. “Shoddy” worked into cloth hurts 
the sheep men, because it introduces a substitute for 
virgin wool. “Shoddy” is reworked wool derived 
from rags, tailors’ clippings or refuse woolen ma¬ 
terial. Just as “oleo” frequently masquerades in the 
guise of pure butter for the sake of obtaining better 
prices for inferior fats, so “shoddy” is worked off in 
“all wool” goods in the hope of obtaining for rags 
and refuse the price of pure wool. The dairy indus¬ 
try in New York is much larger than that of sheep 
husbandry, and thus there has been greater demand 
for oleo legislation. The “shoddy” fraud, however, 
comes into the life of every person who wears woolen 
clothing, and it is high time the State started after 
it. This bill marks the beginning of a campaign for 
honest cloth. 
* 
L AST Fall we mentioned the high price which 
herb dealers would pay for dried roots of quack 
grass (Triticum repens). They now offer 15 cents 
a pound, or $300 per ton, and there is an immediate 
Vie RURAL NEW-YORKER 
demand for 25 tons or more. It is used in making 
a remedy for bladder trouble, and the demand for 
the true root is real. What is a nuisance to the 
farmer becomes a necessity to the medicine manu¬ 
facturer. Many a farmer has paid a great price for 
medicine made from quack grass, while the pest was 
driving him out of his own cornfield. Of course, no 
one can go out and dig quack grass now, but Spring 
will finally come—and so will the quack. You can 
probably make a contract now for Summer delivery. 
You may have cursed the weed—why not cash in 
on it? 
* 
O N the next page is printed a copy of a bill be¬ 
fore the New Jersey Legislature, designed to 
protect the farmers and fruit growers from the work 
of wild animals. It provides that whenever farmers 
find any wild animal destroying their crops it is 
lawful to shoot and kill such vermin—whatever they 
be—woodchucks or deer. The bill also provides a 
way for collecting payment for damage done to crops. 
There is no State in the Union, with the possible ex¬ 
ception of Rhode Island, where farmers suffer 
greater loss from wild game than in New Jersey. 
Here is a chance for Jerseymen to abate this nui- 
sanca 
* 
A MICHIGAN reader sends the following from the 
Grand Rapids Press. That paper in speaking 
of the recent report of the Postoflice Department re¬ 
garding farm production, said- 
If three-fourths of the force of a Grand Rapids furni¬ 
ture factory should quit, to take more lucrative employ- 
ment, and other workers could not be obtained, that fac¬ 
tory necessarily would have to reduce its production 75 
per cent, or perhaps suspend operations altogether. If 
a farmer is operating a large farm with the aid of three 
sons, and the boys leave for city jobs, the production of 
that farm will be reduced approximately 75 per cent. A 
notable instance of this came to attention last week. An 
Ionia farmer, visiting in the city, told that bis two boys 
had been offered $7 a day for work in automobile fac¬ 
tories. “Go ahead and take it, while the taking is good.” 
he advised them. “I’ll get along the best I can alone.” 
He owns 100 acres, keeps about 30 cows and produces a 
good deal of food for market. That farm can produce 
this year only about one-third of what it did last year. 
With thousands of other farmer boys doing the same 
thing, the inevitable answer is plain. Relief from high 
food prices must come from changes of policy in cities, 
it cannot come from effort of owners of farms left hope¬ 
lessly undermanned. 
It is a hopeful sign when city papers talk that 
way, because this puts the question so that any 
workman can understand it. At the present time 
some two dozen more or less “receptive candidates” 
for the Presidency are going about telling where 
they stand on public questions. They attempt to 
appeal to brain and heart and pocketbook, but the 
greatest question of all has to do with the stomach. 
Where is the food of the future to come from? Our 
national policy has stimulated and protected the in¬ 
dustries of the town. This has enabled city em¬ 
ployers to outbid farmers for labor. As a result 
farmers, left without labor, cannot produce food up 
to the farm’s capacity. The inevitable result will be 
food shortage and several steps toward starvation. 
Most of the candidates seem to think fixing a low 
price for farm products will remedy this evil. It 
will only make it worse by causing farmers to aban¬ 
don production still more. Which candidate will be 
first to cut down to the heart of the subject and 
admit that the nation cannot be fed and clothed un¬ 
less agriculture can be made profitable enough to 
compete with other industries in the labor market? 
* 
Where can I purchase, with full instructions for mak¬ 
ing attachment, a snowplow which can be attached to 
suburban car? I understand such snowplows are iu 
existence, and will appreciate very much any informa¬ 
tion you can give me regarding same. G. P. M. 
E would like to know ourselves. After dili¬ 
gent search we have been unable to get on 
the track of any practical device of this sort. In¬ 
ventors claim great things for their models, but the 
job of digging or pushing snow off and out of a 
country road is no child’s play. Yet a machine or 
“plow” of that sort has become a necessity in many 
localities. We live in a country neighborhood where 
the cars are so abundant that the country black¬ 
smiths have been driven out of business. Not 
15 per cent of the horses are left; most people have 
come to depend on the ear alone for traveling about. 
This Winter it. has been next to impossible to use a 
car for the past six weeks, and that means walk or 
stay at home. The few work horses left have earned 
extravagant wages trying to clear the roads for the 
cars. Thus some plow or other device which may 
utilize the power of the car for thinning out the snow 
becomes a necessity. We may never have another 
such Winter, but we must have an auto snow¬ 
plow. We do not like to see the car and the truck 
sleeping in the shed when the power of their engines 
might be employed at shoveling snow! 
March 20, 1920 
We are getting some of our politicians trained so they 
will listen to public opinion and act on it. If we can 
“put the fear of God” into the heart of a politician and 
make him work for us, will be not make a - more useful 
candidate than a clean and straight man who knows 
nothing about political work? o. w. E. 
O, we do not think so, though it is a plausible 
argument—advanced by the politicians. In the 
first place, you never can put “the fear of God” into 
a genuine politician—not while he is living. The 
heart of the man who makes his living through pol¬ 
ities has too many other things in it. lie is afraid 
of your club while you swing it, but when you go 
back to work for your living, as you must sooner or 
later, the politician gets over his fear. There is not 
one chance in 10 that you can scare him into perma¬ 
nent honesty or patriotic self-denial. And we do 
not subscribe to the theory that we must “fight the 
devil with fire.” Why give him the choice of his 
favorite weapon? If you will back up and support 
the clean, honest man in office, as thoroughly as we 
sometimes fight the politicians out of office, we can 
get a square deal for them and help them clean up 
the system. 
T HE R. N.-Y.’s remarks about Cornell and Dr. 
L. H. Bailey apparently fell like a bombshell 
upon the university campus. We have at least 
started an excellent discussion in the Cornell Sun, 
the daily paper published by stiff ent. The R. N.-Y. 
wishes to be absolutely fair and accui’ate in this 
important matter. We are now told that the agri¬ 
cultural college does not dominate Cornell, and that 
it is not the largest college on the campus. When 
we spoke of agriculture dominating Cornell we were 
not speaking of student life or student numbers. We 
referred to the vast power and influence which stand 
back of the Agricultural College in the homes and 
on (he farms of the class of people which has always 
in the long run dominated the nation. No other 
college at Cornell can ever have the solid backing 
of a strong and powerful class. No other college at 
Cornell is known throughout the country and 
throughout the world as is the Agricultural College. 
No other college has ever given the university one- 
tenth of the advertising or brought to it the strong 
moral support which the Agricultural College has 
done. No art or science represented on the campus 
can possibly compare in importance or necessity with 
agriculture. Had it not been for agriculture and 
the original land grant fund made available through 
the shrewd foresight of Ezra Cornell there never 
would have been any Cornell University. If in this 
showing, and in the larger meaning, agriculture does 
not dominate the spirit of Cornell, it ought to, and 
New York and the nation will he better off when it 
does. The farmers of New York must see to it that 
the Agricultural College is fully equipped and main¬ 
tained. As'for the new president of Cornell, the 
discussion will go on, and will lead to the selection 
of the greatest man obtainable. In view of his long 
service, knowledge of the university and high char¬ 
acter, the logical man for the position is Dr. Liberty 
Hyde Bailey. 
* 
M OST Eastern men who travel through the 
Pacific coast States notice the fine school 
buildings in every town or city. The town may he 
small or straggling, but the schoolliouse is always 
large and well appointed. These Western people 
evidently realize the full value of a child, and they 
are looking to the future when the children of today 
will be the men and women who are to control the 
nation. The child of today decides the destiny of 
tomorrow. The finest schools and the best teachers 
should he within reach of the farm child. 
Brevities 
You cannot abate a nuisance by bailing it. 
More about vitamines in our victuals next week. 
A very sensible ami considerate article on R. I. Reds 
and their brown egg on page 613. 
It seems as if Nature never intended _ that Long 
Island people should eat many sour cherries of then- 
own growing. The soil is not suited. 
The recent remarks about census enumerators have 
called out a great volley from those officials. They are 
not all to blame for mistakes in the figures. Few 
farmers seem to be ready with their facts. 
One of our readers says she would like to see the 
Pastoral Parson exchange pulpits with some minister 
on Fifth Avenue, New York, We wouldn’t mind seeing 
the Fifth Avenue man out on “the Lonely Road.” It 
would do him good. 
Never before have we had so many reports of trouble 
from leaking stovepipes and chimneys. In 75 per cent 
of cases this trouble is due to a combination of poor 
draft and burning damp wood. Dead chestnut wood 
may seem to be dry, but often contains moisture enough 
to make the stovepipe drip. First of all, make sure that 
the chimney is clean, and that the stovepipe gives a 
clear draft. Sometimes a hole in the pipe or a loose 
joint lets in air enough to prevent draft anil cool the 
damp smoke. 
