948 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS HA EMEU'S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home* 
Established iSBO 
Published weekly by the Rural Pnblishln? Company, 333 W est 30th Street, New Fork 
Herbert W. Colling wood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary._ Mrs. E. T. Hoyle. Associate Ed itor. 
SUBSCRIPTION ; ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, §2.04, equal to 8s. Gd., or 
marks, or 101* francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, 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 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 lie 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 of 
the transaction, and to identify it, you should mention Tiik Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
“Why not tell us just what a wav can raise on a 
small piece of landf M 
T HAT question is often asked by out renders, but 
it is harder to answer than it is to ask. No 
man lias ever reached the full limit of production 
on an acre of land. The Japanese and Chinese have 
done wonders, hut the limit has never been reached. 
Many a rich backyard is made to produce more than 
some 10-acre fields. We are likely to have some facts 
worth reading in the articles by L. B. Pierce, which 
begin this week. Here is a man of 80 starting out 
to show what close planting and thorough work can 
accomplish on a limited area. We shall try to fol¬ 
low this up through the season. If there ever was 
a time for practicing intensive farming, it is in this 
good year of 1920. 
continued high prices for grain have renewed 
X interest in growing Alfalfa, clover and Soy beans 
on bur Eastern farms. It is evident that unless 
milk prices to producers can he increased the cow’s 
ration must be cheapened or the cow will auto¬ 
matically pass out of business. Most dairymen 
seem to believe that they cannot keep in the busi¬ 
ness unless they feed heavily on grain—at any price. 
That seems to be the general conviction, but here 
land there are dairymen who feed but little grain. 
They have good silage—in some eases with Soy beans 
or sunflowers cut up with the corn. In addition 
they feed heavily of clover, Alfalfa or Soy bean 
vines cut fine, with perhaps a small amount of feed 
added. They do not get the largest yield of milk, 
and it is not perhaps possible to push the eow to 
full production on this feed. But such milk is pro¬ 
duced cheaply, since all the feed is produced on the 
farm. Now we think there will be more of this 
kind of feeding in the future. It is not now popu¬ 
lar, because most dairymen feel that the feed must 
be used. The time must come, however, when farm¬ 
ers can no longer afford to push a cow to full produc¬ 
tion if the cost is greater than the price. We think 
the most practical way to reduce feed cost is to 
grow more of the legume crops. 
* 
T HE potato situation has come to he a national 
question. Thousands of people have not tasted 
potatoes for weeks—and they are people who have 
regarded potatoes as necessary as bread in their 
daily diet. Rice and cornmeal never will fully sub¬ 
stitute for potatoes. It has been almost impossible 
tor many farmers to obtain seed. One New Jersey 
dealer states that he had $00,000 worth of seed 
somewhere on the cars between Maine and Jersey 
and the cars could not he located. The bite season 
will hold back the early crop, and in South Jersey 
and some other sections farmers are changing from 
the early to the late planted crop. So there seems 
nothing in sight now to suggest any drop in prices 
for the Summer. No one can tell about the Fall 
crop. Our reports vary. In some sections farmers 
are planting simply for home use, which, of course, 
reduces the crop to be offered for sale. In other 
sections there is increased planting—even the little 
potatoes which pass through the grader being used 
for seed. There never was such a situation before. 
Yet we can easily remember the fat years when 
potatoes could hardly be sold at 10 cents a bushel 
on the farm. 
* 
There should be a revision in Federal tax law, by 
which a tax of one per cent is added to all sales. The 
sales of farm products by the grower should not be 
taxed under this plan. It means more bookkeeping 
ar.d trouble for farmers, as well as more taxes. But 
while farmers are willing to pay their share of taxes, 
it is the question of keeping records which .would make 
cine out. of 10 farmers unavoidable law-breakers to a 
more or less degree. If a mart sold $100 worth of ap¬ 
ples, he would pay $1 tax. and if he bought a $100 
cultivator, he would pay the dealer another dollar of 
taxes, because the farmer cannot add the tax to the 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
price, whereas the machinery dealer can. So, in ef¬ 
fect. it means that the farmer will pay two per cent. 
j. E. M. 
ANY acts of injustice result from the fact that 
a farmer cannot pass the increased expense 
or tax on to the final consumer as the manufacturer 
can. A good illustration of this is found in the sale 
of hides or wool, as compared with the sales of 
shoes and clothing, or in the sale of potatoes or 
i pples by a farmer as compared with retail sales of 
I he same goods. Here is a thing for loaders of the 
farm organizations to take up and remedy. It can 
he done by clearly showing the injustice of the pres¬ 
ent system. 
* 
T UESDAY, September 14. will be celebrated as 
Farm Bureau Day at the New York State Fair. 
A strong committee will have charge of the program, 
and we may safely guarantee a strong and fitting 
celebration. The Farm Bureau has come to he a 
great force in agricultural affairs, and it is well to 
get together in this public way. 
* 
T HE price of nursery trees is very high this year. 
It is almost impossible to obtain trees of 
standard varieties. The nurserymen are not to 
blame for these conditions, because the labor trou¬ 
bles and lack of material have hurt them the same 
as all the rest of us. They are to blame, however, 
when they put diseased or inferior trees in with the 
good specimens, and attempt to work them off at the 
full price. In the southern counties of New Jersey 
alone 128,124 trees were inspected this year, and 
7.309 were rejected on account of crown-gall and 
hairy root. Of course we know that the nurserymen, 
or many of them, claim that crown-gall is rarely if 
ever dangerous. After our own experience in plant¬ 
ing trees carrying this disease we want no more of 
them, and we strongly advise our readers to reject 
every tree with a suspicious root. Do not plant 
them until an inspector or the Farm Bureau agent 
says they are fit. We consider it great folly to plant 
any tree witli a diseased or abnormal root. Throw 
them out! The nurseryman has no more business to 
ship them than a poultryman would have to ship 
diseased poultry—at the full price for good stock. 
We have received trees which had been “operated 
on.” The crown-gall had been cut off with a sharp 
knife and the cut spot smeared witli dark-colored 
mud to conceal the wound. Most of our nurserymen 
are as honorable as any other class of business men, 
and in normal times they have the moral courage to 
plant the galled trees where they belong—on the 
brush pile! It takes a large-sized man to burn up 
the culls in a time of shortage and strong demand. 
Personally we think it is the crowning act of gall to 
assert that galled trees are “as good as any.” 
* 
T HERE will he a hearing on the daylight saving 
hill at Albany on May 17 before Governor 
Smith. This hearing will witness a mighty contest 
between city and country. Whenever they have lmd 
any chance to express themselves the farmers have 
voted almost unanimously for repeal of the law. 
The Legislature has passed the repeal bill and Gov. 
Smith must now decide. There can be no question 
about the way farmers feel on the subject. They 
have demonstrated that the so-called new time causes 
them loss and trouble, and that it interferes with 
production. Admittedly the chief city argument for 
daylight saving is that it gives workers an extra 
hour for pleasure. There is no proof that this extra 
hour is employed in useful production, or that 
industry is increased or made more eflieient by means 
of it. Therefore, taking the nation as a whole, it 
seems clear that daylight saving lfas resulted in a 
loss in production. Under the repeal law the cities 
have the power to pass and enforce daylight-saving 
ordinances within their own limits if they care to 
do so. This is all they are fairly entitled to, for 
what moral right has the city to enforce an industrial 
hardship upon the rural districts? Governor Smith 
faces a hard political situation at this hearing. 
Should he veto the repeal hill he may at once hid a 
long farewell to any friendliness lie may now think 
he lias from working farmers. Should he sign 
the bill lie will be cursed by the daylight savers in 
this city. It seems to us that very few city people 
realize the intensely bitter feeling which this con¬ 
troversy lias aroused among country people. The 
following letter well represents the way most of them 
feel: 
I have been wondering what the effect would he if 
farmers and others who are penalized by' this freak idea 
should divert their purchases as much as convenient to 
localities which line up with their own interests. I do 
not mean any cutting off of noses to spite faces, or 
withdrawing of trade from firms whose sympathies are 
on tin 1 farmers’ side, although living in daylight-saving 
(?) localities; and there are very, very few of those; 
'Pub ]{ X -Y., for example, is one. Take it in this 
locality. The hulk of the trade hits been going imnnes- 
May 15. 1920 
tioned to New York City, while Philadelphia is equally 
convenient, is at least equally as anxious to extend its 
trade, and it might very well happen that a change of 
relations would work to mutual advantage. I mention 
Philadelphia merely as an instance; there are many 
places in what might be called friendly territory—even 
inside the State of New York—that would be glad to 
line up with the farming interests, once the situation 
was impressed upon them. Why isn’t the idea worthy 
of consideration ? p. m. h. 
* 
I N many parts of the country the greatest pest 
during the Summer months is the mosquito. It is 
the direct cause of malaria, and a nuisance and dan¬ 
ger generally. Yet there are many cases where the 
fanner and his family are as much responsible for 
this post as they would he for a bad sink drain, or 
for a foul well. At about this season the mosquito 
comes out of Winter quarters and prepares for busi¬ 
ness. The eggs are hatched in stagnant water. Un¬ 
less such water is found about the premises there 
will he few if any mosquitoes, except what are blown 
in from some swamp or distant pond. The greater 
number of these mosquitoes are hatched in little 
undrained puddles, or in cans ok buckets left partly 
filled with water and forgotten. Half a dozen old 
tin cans half filled with rain water and left out be¬ 
hind the shed or barn will stock up the entire prem¬ 
ises and keep the supply all Summer. The remedy 
is to drain or fill all stagnant puddles and make sure 
that no can or pail is left partly filled with water. 
The prompt observance of this simple rule will save 
much misery this year. 
* 
T HERE are hundreds of State laws, excellent in 
theory, but apparently never enforced. Here is 
a case: During the past year nearly a dozen cases 
were reported to us from Connecticut where farmers 
picked up stray cattle. They advertised the ani¬ 
mals in local papers, hut found no owners. What 
then? We gave such advice as we could, and at 
once had attention called to an excellent Connecticut 
law which states in detail what must be done 
through the town clerk in such cases. It seemed 
so good that we wrote to the town clerks of 50 
towns to learn more about it. We have not been 
able yet to find a single case where this law has 
been enforced, though apparently hundreds of such 
stray cattle are found in Connecticut every year. 
What is the matter with that law—or the cattle—or 
the people? It seems like a good law, but, like 
many others, never enforced! 
* 
S OME years ago The R. N.-Y. began talking about 
the Soy bean crop. We were led to it by reading 
about what this bean did for Manchuria. At the 
time of the war between China and Japan this prov¬ 
ince was poverty-stricken in soil and in people. Ap¬ 
parently it had no distinct and popular crop which 
could bring in money. The Japanese introduced the 
culture of Soy beans, and the industry grew. The 
crop brought nitrogen and humus to the soil, and the 
oil and feed in the bean made the province rich. 
There are few more striking instances in history 
where the introduction of a new crop lias brought a 
country from poverty to affluence. We believed that 
something of the same tiling would work out in parts 
of our own country through the use of Soy beans, 
and that is evidently happening. On the Pacific 
coast, in parts of the Central West and also in some 
sections of the South this crop is working in, and its 
culture has hardly begun. Before many years the 
process of producing Soy bean oil, with the crushed 
beans for stock food, will become a great industry, 
und where it is started you will find a rich com¬ 
munity. 
Brevities 
A “st* \t” on (lie New York Stock Exchange recent 1> 
sold for $102,000! 
Gtve us a rest! Give us a rest! On this claim tba! 
Sweet clover is only a pest. 
Take it from us. you’ll he laid on the shelf unless 
you get busy and do it yourself! 
Soy beans will make a fair growth in soil that is 
mildly arid—or too sour to produce good Altana or 
Red clover. 
In spite of the fart that modern enmiou carry a shot 
75 miles or more, there is still a strong demand toi 
bows and arrows. 
Salt 
you will have 
the bird to 
is recommended for killing fleas, but we think 
to apply it to the flea as you would to 
catch him. 
The latest proposition we read 
on sweet corn and thus produce 
u cake without the use of sugar! 
about is to feed hens 
eggs which will make 
Thousands of city folks have taken to wearing 
alls. The more they do it, the higher goes the prut 
people who are obliged to wear these garments. 
There are people in this big city who are throwing 
half a loaf of bread into the ash can and peeing * 1 
potatoes half an inch thick. When the food shortage 
strikes them, how they will curse the farmer as 
profiteer! 
