Ih* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1397 
Report of a Destructive Stor 
m 
W E have seen no account in The R. N.-Y. of our 
recent storm. It always pains us to read the 
harrowing tales about a cyclone and its ravages in 
another State, but you can never get the real “thrills" 
out of it like you do when you feel your own house 
“spinning like a top," as one of our neighbors puts 
it, and find yourself jarred out of bed, stunned and 
drenched, and your home scattered to the four winds. 
Such an experience was brought to our very doors 
when a tornado struck the towns of Amity. Scio. 
Ward, Alfred and Andover. N. Y.. at 10 o’clock on the 
evening of July 23. Many farms were swept clean 
of every building. Whole neighborhoods were wiped 
out. A number of people were badly injured, while 
two were killed outright. The wonder is that so 
many escaped with their lives. Orchards were up¬ 
rooted, acres and acres of sugar maples and other 
timber were blown down, or the trunks broken off 
part way up and left with the tops hanging. Fences, 
telephone poles, beautiful elms and other choice 
trees that had been landmarks were ruined in places 
by hail that fell with the downpour of rain, 3*4 
inches of water having 
fallen while the storm 
held us in its clutch. 
Lightning flickered al¬ 
most constantly, and the 
peals of thunder were 
something to remember. 
Surely the Prince of the 
Power of the Air was 
on a rampage that night. 
The villages of Scio and 
Andover met with some 
loss, but the country 
and the farmers are the 
greatest sufferers, be¬ 
cause so many of their 
buildings cannot he re¬ 
placed owing to expen¬ 
sive material and labor. 
Men from all classes are 
giving of their time and 
means. The Red Cross 
and Salvation Army are 
helping, and it is said 
the State will be ap¬ 
pealed to for aid. 
A freak of the wind 
was to swoop down and 
clean up a strip, skip 
over the next or maybe 
hit a chimney, lift a 
roof or blow in some 
windows; then down 
again to sweep every¬ 
thing in its path. Val¬ 
leys were hit harder 
than the hills as a rule. 
A family were trapped 
under their house when 
it fell, and the wind, 
swinging around to the 
south, lifted the wreck 
and let them out. The 
storm blew in from the north. Near this home a 
man and wife had their feet caught when the build¬ 
ing fell. The building took fire and they were in 
danger of burning up with it, when the same friendly 
[The pictures at Fig. .'i32 shoic the ruin and havoc 
found in the wake of a recent cyclone in Central New 
York. The notes are from a near resident.] 
New York State that is just as good land as lies out¬ 
doors anywhere for corn and other crops, and gener¬ 
ally at much lower prices than lands in the “ortho¬ 
dox corn belt." Probably not many of your readers 
are aware that New York actually raises more bush¬ 
els of corn to the acre than they do in the crack 
States of the corn belt. Below are some comparative 
figures for a 10-year average, taken from the Year 
Book of the United States Department of Agricul¬ 
ture for 191S: 
Corn—10-vr. 
1909-15)18, bu. 
average, 
per acre. 
New York. 
35.8 
Iowa. 
o- o 
OD.O 
Illinois. 
91 •> 
O-x.o 
Then, too, the Eastern farmer gets a far greater 
price per bushel for his corn—mostly by reason of 
saving that 1.000-mile freight haul—though our flint 
corns command a premium at the mills over the soft 
Western dent varieties: 
This yearly saving alone, put at interest, would 
pay for the farm in less than 10 years, without com¬ 
pounding. Taxes are somewhat less in New York 
than in most of the corn belt States, but they vary 
so from year to year that comparative estimates 
cannot be made with the exactness of the fixed in¬ 
terest rates. 
FIGURING THINGS OUT.—Mark Twain once 
said: “The greatest obstacle to human progress is 
man and his inability to cipher." Perhaps the West¬ 
ern farmers are better at figures than us poor chaps 
down East. We think their land booms are crazy 
schemes, when, as a matter of fact, they are only 
trying to keep up with the “spiral procession" in 
prices that has been going on since the world war 
began. To illustrate: I know of a good farm that 
was sold last year for ,$20,000. This sale was re¬ 
garded by the “Rip Van Winkles" hereabouts as a 
“top-notcher." As a matter of fact, this man did not 
get his purchase money back, for he paid $11,000 for 
it more than 10 years ago, and he cannot now buy 
as much with his $20,000 as he could before the war 
with the $11,000 that he 
paid for the farm. We 
forget that we now only 
dollars! 
measure 
to ask: 
buy with 
If this 
House 
In Center—Damaged Timber 
Effects of the Storm in Central New York. Fig. 432 
New York. Iowa. 
10-yr. average price on farm for corn. 
1909-1918 .$1.01 $0.65 
The difference in prices on the farm for 
1918 were only. 1.75 1.22 
have 35-eent 
The only true 
of value is 
“What can ire 
our dollars ?” 
man now goes out to 
buy the proverbial 
“shoes and ships and 
sealing wax and cab¬ 
bages and kings," he 
must give up about $3 
now for what he could 
have bought before the 
war for $1. Postage 
stamps are the only 
things that are as cheap 
now r as before the war 
—but probably he does 
not wish to invest his 
$20,000 in postage 
stamps! 
VALUE OF BUILD¬ 
INGS.—Another item is 
the matter of buildings. 
Many a good farm has 
been sold in New York 
State for less than the 
buildings are worth. 
Few men can “cipher" 
well enough to realize 
that the increase in the 
prices of materials and 
labor has more than 
made up for the de¬ 
crease in the wear and 
tear for the past 50 
years! But such is the 
fact. Buildings that 
were put up over 50 
years ago are actually 
worth more now than when they were built. I know 
one man who got to thinking about his insurance and 
went to see a builder about costs to replace his 
buildings in case of loss. His hair stood up straight 
gale set them free. A woman whose baby was blown 
out of her arms and killed groped her way barefoot, 
covered with cuts and bruises from flying hits of 
wreckage, for more than a mile, to find a place 
where she could have shelter and care, every house 
in the neighborhood being down. 
A number of horses were killed in their stalls. 
' ows in the pastures fared somewhat better, though 
one dairyman lost six out of his herd with lightning. 
A team of horses met the same fate. The animals in 
both cases were close to a wire fence. ir. c. s. 
In Defense of Eastern Farms 
IELDS AND PRICES.—There have been so 
many articles published in various magazines 
'hiring the past 15 years about the wonderful corn 
lands in the Middle West that Eastern people are 
leally beginning to think that corn and other crops 
cannot be raised down East. It is about time that 
something was done to offset this Western “propa¬ 
ganda. ’ We have thousands of acres in the valleys 
ot the Hudson and Mohawk rivers and elsewhere in 
The same relative difference exists, too, in the 
prices for pork, hay, oats and other staple crops. 
INTEREST CHARGES.—Then there is the great 
difference in the interest charge on the capital in¬ 
vested. in favor of the Eastern farm. The legal rate 
in New York State is 6 per cent. It is not less in the 
corn belt States, and in some of them it. is higher— 
going as high as 8 per cent in Ohio—by contract be¬ 
tween the parties. In many eases the saving in in¬ 
terest will pay for the farm in a few years—depend¬ 
ing on whether it is $400, $500 or $700 an acre in 
Iowa, or only $100 in New York. For instance, I 
know of a 260-acre farm good for corn, hay, tobacco. 
Alfalfa and other staple crops, near good markets, 
IS buildings and well watered, that can be bought 
for $100 an acre. Hence we have at, say only $250 
pei» acre: 
260 acres in New York X $100 = 
$26,000 at 6 per cent yearly 
charge .-.$1,560.00 
260 acres in Iowa X $250 = $65,000 '• ' 
at 6 per cent yearly charge.... 3.900.00 
A yearly saving in interest alone 
for New York of. $2,340.00 
when he got the figures for the cheapest possible 
structures that could be made: and upon going 
further into the subject he was amazed to find that 
he had actually been offering his farm—buildings 
and all—for less money than the bare frames in the 
buildings are worth just where they now stand! 
One of the greatest philosophers of modern times 
said: “Man has no ideas, and can have none, except 
those suggested by his surroundings. He cannot 
conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has 
seen or felt." The plain English of that is that we 
are born in a rut and we stay in a rut. Is this 
everlasting game of the honest farmer selling some¬ 
thing for nothing never to stop? Will he ever wake 
lip? FRANK WHALEN. 
Saratoga Co., N. Y. 
Tins is said to be a good seed year for white pine 
in New Hampshire—the first good one since 1914. 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste 
its sweetness on the desert air; but that's not proof 
that you are a has-been, or that with euersr>* you can’t 
get there. 
