80 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S PAPER 
A Notional Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Home* * 
Established iSSO 
rublbhrd nrrkly bj tb» Rural Publishing Company, 333 Wrst 30th Street,Sew York 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
Jons J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Boyle, Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION : ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. 82.04, equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8 y 2 marks, or 10Vj francs. Remit in money order, express 
older, personal cheek or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates, 11.00 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 tlie advertising of 
reliable houses only. 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 
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 
resiionsible 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 notice in The R. N.-Y. your “Primer of Economies.” 
I have with great interest perused the article, aud trust 
you may proceed further, striking deep for bottom facts 
in this great question that should interest all thinking 
and fair-minded men. One great trouble is the public 
does not investigate personally the great forces that 
move the world's commerce with economy. Trust that 
you may continue. I notice you refer to Adam Smith, 
John Stuart Mill and David Ricardo. Such must be of 
interest. Where could I get such books? s. g. 
New York. 
HE interest in the “Primer of Economics” is 
most gratifying. We began the subject with 
some hesitation. We, of course, knew that it would 
interest some of our people; but we were not so sure 
that we could present the subject so as to interest 
enough of our readers to justify the publication in a 
periodical that which is usually and more conveni¬ 
ently treated in a book. Heretofore the farmer has 
given his best thought to production. He begins to 
see now that he must give more thought to the prob¬ 
lem of selling, and a primary knowledge of the prin¬ 
ciples of economics will be extremely helpful to him 
iu this departure. The subject of co-operation takes 
us out of the beaten track, but it is properly a part of 
production. Later on the laws of distribution of 
wealth, as distinct from marketing or selling, will 
open a new vision to those who have not previously 
pursued the subject. The books of the authors re¬ 
ferred to may be ordered from any bookstore, or quo¬ 
tations will be made from this office on request. 
* 
C ONGRESS passed a resolution reviving the War 
Finance Corporation for the special purpose of 
aiding agriculture. President Wilson vetoed the bill. 
His chief objection may be summed up as follows: 
Under the law, if the activities of the corporation 
were resumed, no direct advances could he made to 
producers, and if they could be, they would not accom¬ 
plish the objects in view. They would not create de¬ 
mand for our products. They could be made only to 
exporters or to banks engaged in financing exports, and 
if they did in some measure stimulate exports they 
would probablv not have the effect, apparently most 
desired, of substantially increasing those of agricultural 
commodities. 
After listening to the President’s objection, the 
Senate promptly passed the bill over his veto by a 
vote of 53 to 5. The House has done the same. No 
progress has been made with the “emergency tariff. 
Some of the Eastern Senators are afraid of it. They 
fear that if the farmers get high tariffs on agricul¬ 
tural products there will be little to trade with later 
on when the manufacturers demand their share. 
Every bill for a high tariff is finally a compromise— 
the result of trading between the manufacturing and 
the..agricultural interests. The manufacturers fear 
that if this “emergency” tariff goes through the 
Western States will be indifferent. They will have 
obtained what they want for their own products, 
and will not he interested in protecting Eastern in¬ 
dustries. What the latter want is a chance to dicker 
and trade over a complete tariff bill. 
* 
T HERE are two things about common plant food 
which all farmers should remember. Ordinary 
stable manure is really a potash fertilizer, there 
being usually more potash than nitrogen in the aver¬ 
age sample. This potash is almost entirely con¬ 
tained in the liquids. If these can be saved by ab¬ 
sorbing them or draining the liquids into concrete 
pits, there will be potash enough for most soils in 
the manure. For lighter soils, or for crops like 
potatoes or vegetables or fruit, or where most crops 
are sold without feeding, it may be necesrary to 
buy some potash, but on most dairy or stock farms 
but little will be needed. The other thing is that 
on most of our Eastern land phosphorus is the 
most-needed plant fool e’ement. It is usually lack¬ 
ing in the soil, and manure contains but little of it. 
The sensible thing to do, therefore, is to save all 
liquid manure wherever possible and add phosphate 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
to the manure. That manner of fertilizing is the 
most economical and sensible plan that our Eastern 
live stock farmers can adopt. For those who do 
not keep live stock the best plan is to use cover crops 
whenever possible and to fertilize the cover crop 
with potash and phosphates. Then with a small 
quantity of manure to hasten decay of the cover 
crop, they will have about all the benefits that come 
from heavy manuring. 
* 
HIS week the Hope Farm man suggests that we 
start the year with a new item in our farm 
accounts. We are to charge the farm each month 
with a fair and reasonable salary for the farmer 
and his wife. If Aunt Mary does productive work, 
“for her board” allow her at least as much as you 
would pay a hired girl! Put it all down as a legiti¬ 
mate expense which the farm must pay for, and 
make the total expense the basis for figuring the 
cost of producing a quart of milk or a bushel of 
potatoes or a ton of hay. But where is the money 
coming from? Right out of your farm as a result 
of closer figuring and better prices. For years our 
dairymen took what was handed to them, largely 
because they had no way of figuring out the cost of 
milk or butter. Father and mother and the boys 
worked for board and clothes and interest on the 
mortgage, and could not prove that they were en¬ 
titled to wages. All will agree with us that dairy¬ 
men could not enforce their demands until they 
were able to show the actual figures of production 
cost. They could not do that until Dr. Warren and 
his helpers collected thousands of statements from 
farm accounts. The way for the farmer to collect 
wages for l.imself and wife is to show by actual 
bookkeeping what happens to his business when he 
charges them up as other business men do. How 
much are you and your wife worth to another man’s 
business? Go ahead and charge your own business 
with the same amount, and you will get it in time. 
* 
ENMARK is sending potatoes to New York. 
There recently arrived 20,000 sacks of 165 
pounds each, with many more to come. These sold 
at $2 to .$2.25 per sack, which means 75 cents to $1 
below prices for American potatoes. These Danish 
potatoes are above fair quality, and are useful for 
restaurant or hotel trade. There are 19,000 res¬ 
taurants in this city; some of them average several 
barrels of potatoes each day. These shipments of 
foreign potatoes have hardly begun. It is the won¬ 
der of American farmers how small countries like 
Belgium or Denmark can produce such quantities of 
food for export. It creates something more than 
wonder when we realize that while Americans are 
entreated to send food with which to feed the starv¬ 
ing people of Europe. Denmark and other European 
nations close to the distressed regions can send large 
quantities of food to he sold here in competition with 
our own produce. 
* 
NE way to handle the fertilizer situation this 
year is to “take to the woods.” On nearly 
every farm may be found a swamp or old pond-hole 
or a low place in the woods. There you will find 
an accumulation of leaf mold or muck. Nature 
tucks away her treasure of plant food and fuel in 
such places. Our coal beds were formed from 
swamps through thousands of years of chemistry 
and change. If the great Dismal Swamp in Virginia 
were left alone for ages it would no doubt in time 
change into coal deposits. The nitrate beds in South 
America, the phosphate in the South and the potash 
mines in Germany have all come from matter de¬ 
posited and condensed in low places. The pond-hole 
or swamp on your farm is the beginning of such 
an enterprise. You cannot live the thousands of 
years required for nature’s chemistry to work out. 
You must make use of it now, if at all, and there 
can be no better time than the present. Some of 
these muck deposits contain as much nitrogen as 
stable manure. This nitrogen is not quickly avail¬ 
able, but by mixing lime with the muck you will 
make at least part of the nitrogen into time plant 
food. This muck, well limed and with phosphate 
mixed through it, will prove the foremost substitute 
for high-priced fertilizers you can use this year. 
* 
OU may prepare your mind for a great story of 
skill in planting strawberries when D. L. Hart¬ 
man gets to the figures (see page 63). lie is on the 
way in his article this week. We know Mr. Hart¬ 
man, and believe what he says, though we hasten 
to add that we could not half keep up with him at 
the job of setting out plants. This in an example 
of what they call “efficiency”—a word much abused 
in these exciting times. Any man who can “set” 
190.000 plants in a short season and get in 1.000 in 
January 15, 1921 
one hour is certainly “efficient”—“and then some.*' 
It is probable that every man or woman who reads 
this is “efficient” to the extent that he can do some 
job, large or small, a little faster or better than 
others can. The “efficient” man seems to he the 
one who masters details and then has the imagina¬ 
tion to control and organize them. If any reader 
wants to race Mr. Hartman in putting out 50,000 
plants, he has our permission, but hardly our back¬ 
ing. As for us, we frankly decline to enter the con¬ 
test. 
O N December 15 four men entered the basket of 
a balloon anchored on the southern shore of 
Long Island. At a signal the fastenings were cast 
off and the balloon sailed up into the air, was caught, 
by the wind and darted away to the north. Like a 
straw tossed in the tempest, the balloon disappeared 
from sight, and for 18 days no word was received 
from its passengers. Then out of the frozen North 
came the report that they are alive and well. In 
a single day the fierce wind carried its plaything 
far up to James Bay, and then dropped it in the 
desert of ice. The passengers, after wandering 
among the snowdrifts, found a trading post, where 
they were sheltered, and are now on their way back 
to civilization. In all the record of strange travels, 
there is nothing more remarkable or thrilling than 
this wild journey through the air in the northern 
ice and snow. Tf one had imagined such a thing 
50 years ago he would have been laughed at as a 
more or less harmless lunatic. Yet this wild and un¬ 
controlled voyage into the wilderness may be com¬ 
pared in a way to the voyage of Columbus into un¬ 
known seas. It will he followed in due time by 
fully regulated traffic in the air. The very heavens 
above us will be charted and marked until our chil¬ 
dren will rightly consider a journey in a flying ma¬ 
chine as safe and commonplace as our present travel 
in a car. Think how the world has grown, and how 
society has stretched out its hands when even the 
tempest and the frozen desert cannot hide man from 
his fellows. 
* 
Raleigh, N. C.. Dec. 23.—A terrific racket last night 
in the barn of A. Johnson, a farmer near here, an¬ 
nounced that a milk thief had met his Waterloo at the 
business end of a farm mule. Johnson had planted the 
mule in the stall of a cow which the thief had been 
milking at night. When the farmer reached the barn 
last night, shotgun in hand, he found a battered milk 
pail, a wrecked milking stool, a hat, but no thief. 
HAT newspaper report may or may not be true, 
but the story might make a good text for a ser¬ 
mon in some dairy district. We may take this homely 
story as an indication of what may happen in the 
business of selling milk some day. For many years 
the distributors have succeeded in milking the cow. 
By methods resembling those of this “night milker” 
they have taken out more than their just share. 
The “cow” has been patient, and though she kicked 
at times, as all cows will when abused, it has not 
been her nature to strike hard enough to hurt. But 
now through the work of the Dairymen’s League and 
the education of dairymen, there has been developed 
a stubborn spirit of determination which we can, 
without offense, compare with the way a mule re¬ 
sents injustice or interference with his right. And 
that mule is now in the cow’s stall. Some day the 
distributors will try their old tactics once too often. 
When you search for them after the performance 
there will be less evidence of their identity than was 
reported in the above-mentioned case. For many 
years now the prophecy has been that we shall beat 
our swords into plowshares. It may he wise to beat 
a few plowshares into swords in order to win the 
share which belongs to the plow. 
Brevities 
Better days are coming—get ready for them. 
The man who has no hobby is simply hobbled in the 
pasture of life. 
The average bulletin does not hit the mark because 
there is no bullet in it. 
Ox the Pacific Toast nearly all kinds of fish are pre¬ 
served by salting and smoking the same as ham and 
bacon. 
Here is a get-ricli-yuick scheme—buy some men at 
their true value and sell them for what they think they 
are worth. 
They tell of rich men who would give up all their 
money for youth and health—but did you ever see one 
who would do it? 
Ix the parcel post directory of supplies for San Fran¬ 
cisco we found dressed rabbits quoted at 60c each, and 
rattlesnake hides at $1.50 to $4. 
We would like you to meet our latest European sub¬ 
scriber. Ilis name is Jordbnikstekniska Bryan, astra 
Hamugatan, Sweden. You may pronounce his name 
for us. 
The Oregon Station found that where sulphur was 
used in fertilizing Alfalfa, the nitrogen nodules on the 
Alfalfa roots were more numei’ous than where no sul¬ 
phur was used. 
