812 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER'S FA PER 
K National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Ilomcn 
Established iboO 
Published weekly by the Rural Publishing: Company, 333 West 80th Street.TSew York 
Herbert W. Collingwoop. President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Koyle. Associate Editor. 
SUBSCRIPTION : ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union. ?2.04. equal to 8s. 6d., or 
8^4 marks, or 10*$ francs. Remit in money order, express 
order, personal cheek or bank draft. 
Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. 
Advertising rates. 81.00 per agate line—7 words. References required for 
advertisers unk.iown to us ; and cash must accompany transient orders. 
“A SQUARE DEAL” 
1Ye believe that every advertisement in this paper is hacked by a respon¬ 
sible person. We use every possib! piecaution 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 be 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 Thh Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
The librarian of our public library has just asked me 
if I know of a real agricultural journal, not the -- 
-. or anything of that type, but something a bona- 
fide farmer would find worth while. I told him 1 was so 
sure of the faet that there was such a paper (The It. 
N.-Y.) that I would contribute a year's subscription 
to prove it. So here is the dollar, and send the paper 
to Waltham Public Library, Waltham. 54, Mass. 
FRANCIS E. WEBSTER. 
HAT seems like a good suggestion to us. All 
sorts of jeoidc visit tlie public library. It is 
an excellent place for putting the farmer’s side be¬ 
fore them. At the New York Public Library copies 
of The It. N.-Y. are worn out by handling. 
.* 
HEN the great World War suddenly ended 
there were several mysterious buildings in 
New Jersey, closely guarded and tightly closed. Few 
knew what was going on inside, but now it is under¬ 
stood that millions of cubic feet of deadly gases 
were being prepared for war use. Dr. Edward E. 
Slosson, the author of “Creative Chemistry,” now 
states: 
If the great war had continued a year longer, it 
would have been fought with quite another set of 
weapons than those that began it. In our own country, 
and we may presume in others, more advances have 
been made since the cessation. It is now possible to 
send an airplane, with or without a pilot, by day or by 
night, over the enemy’s country to sprinkle the ground 
with a liquid so deadly that a whiff inhaled or a few 
drops touching the skin will cause death. 
The airships or self-propelled projectiles will simply 
move over the land, as a farmer’s potato bug sprinkler 
goes over a field, and a certain strip of territory, say -a 
mile wide and 100 miles long, will be instantaneously 
depopulated and will remain uninhabitable for days to 
come. 
That is very true. Another year of the war would 
have witnessed a slaughter of human beings that 
would have made 'previous efforts seem like child’s 
play. The inventive American mind had hardly be¬ 
gun work when the war ended. Another world war 
would he too horrible to contemplate. Yet when 
gunpowder was first used in clumsy cannon and 
muskets, it was considered that so powerful a force 
would end war forever. The development of gun¬ 
powder and firearms was slow, and the world grew 
in moral power about as fast as did the power of 
destruction. It is different with the frightful de¬ 
velopment in the use of poison gis and modern ex¬ 
plosives. It is doubtful if mankind is yet fitted to 
make full use of these terrible forms of destruction. 
* 
Congressman Gould says the farmers are trying to 
raise the price of food. Some of them who are dump¬ 
ing cabbage and onions in the field should dump a few 
loads in front of his residence to give him a free taste. 
Hut has anyone observed Congressman Gould’s employ¬ 
ees dumping any unsold pumps out in the back yard of 
bis factory? Seneca County, N. Y., farmers, speak up. 
Don’t confine the dumping process to farmers only ; pass 
it along. j. d. 
E VERY “good tliing” should he passed along. No 
question about the onions, potatoes, cabbage 
and other food that have been thrown away or 
plowed under for fertilizer. Mr. Gould is a good 
letter-writer—perhaps he will tell us about the 
pumps and other manufactured goods. It is about 
time we found out just where we are. Manufactur¬ 
ers combine to regulate output and standardize 
prices. If farmers are to be denied the same priv¬ 
ilege, it is about time we found out the reason. It 
is getting things down pretty fine when we must- 
have one sauce for the goose and another for the 
gander. 
* 
E VERY year at this time there are many ques¬ 
tions about emblements—that is, crops left 
growing on a farm when the tenant leaves it. A 
typical case is where a tenant lived on a rented 
farm for several years, and then left when his lease 
expired this Spring. Last Fall he seeded four acres 
of rye, as he expected at the time to remain another 
■year. The new owner wants to know if this tenant 
has the right to come on the farm and cut this rye. 
He has—unless some definite arrangement was made 
to the contrary. The new owner bought the farm 
subject to such an obligation. He should permit 
the tenant to harvest the rye or pay for his share. 
This right usually extends to any crop which is 
seeded and harvested inside of one year. That would 
include grains, potatoes or truck crops, but would 
not include grass, trees or shrubs. A New Jersey 
court decided that strawberries should be included 
in the list, but we think this was wrong. Bush 
fruits, trees or shrubs become a part of the real es¬ 
tate. and are not to he taken away. The trouble 
usually comes over rye or wheat, and these crops 
belong to the tenant for at least, his share of them) 
unless the contract states differently. 
* 
N the new book on “Denmark,” by F. C. Howe, 
we find the following: 
The American farmer produces for an unknown mar¬ 
ket. He has to sell through a hostile agency interested 
in buying at the lowest possible price. This is true of 
almost every product of the farm. It. is true of wheat 
and of cattle. It is true of corn and oats. It is time 
of truck farmers, of egg and poultry raisers and of fruit 
growers as well. Food passes through the hands of a 
series of middlemen whose power is maintained through 
their identity with the railroads, terminals, banks, and 
especially the packers of Chicago and the West, which 
control slaughtering, cold s-torage warehouses and ter¬ 
minal facilities. Even the banks are involved in this 
system. They, too. are owned or controlled by the pack¬ 
ing syndicate and middlemen. These middlemen and 
speculators fix the prices which the farmer receives; 
they then fix the prices which the consumer pays. 
For many years The R. N.-Y. has pointed out 
these very things, and no one has ever successfully 
denied it. This system has become so inseparably 
mixed with party politics that it lias been impossible 
to separate the question and handle it properly. 
Just as soon as the people really begin to understand 
the question, it has been possible heretofore for 
someone to stand up and yell “Democrat” or “Re¬ 
publican” and immediately the great majority of 
men will fiock under the old party standards. They 
realize the need of action, but they cannot bring 
themselves to independent action—the party must 
do it for them. We hear intelligent men who say: 
"I agree with you —ire lnicc (jot to do it ourselves,” 
hut when the real test comes they conclude that the 
party must do it for them. The politicians fully 
understand that, and thus it is that the system has 
been permitted to develop until it reaches out to 
every little market town, and in return for its priv¬ 
ileges pays the debts of our political managers. Dr. 
Howe, in his book on “Denmark,” tells how the 
Danes worked out of this system by learning how 
to do it themselves. When they started they were 
worse off than our own farmers. They were saddled 
and bridled by a class of parasites, and under a 
monarchy it is always harder to work out co-opera¬ 
tion than is the case in a republic. They have suc¬ 
ceeded in taking the business of handling farm pro¬ 
duce out of the hands of the middlemen, and doing 
it through their own agents. This has made agri¬ 
culture the leading business of Denmark, while 
farmers are recognized as the most important class. 
And all this has come about through a simple change 
in handling and distributing farm products. So 
long as the farmer is content to produce food and 
permit a small class of handlers to distribute and 
sell it for him, the man on the farm will he essen¬ 
tially an underling, taking of money and social place 
about what his masters are willing to give him. 
AY hen the farmers are ready to combine their efforts, 
take distribution and sale out of the hands of the 
leeches who have lived upon them so long, and learn 
to do it themselves, they will have "first place at 
the table” and occupy the place in national life which 
the Danish farmers have gained. The problem here 
is more difficult, for Denmark is a small country, 
and her people are much alike in ideas and senti¬ 
ment. In this great country there are wide differ¬ 
ences in farm practice and needs, yet by developing 
local or sectional markets and uniting them under 
a federation, the work can be done. It will have to 
he done if anything like the fine old-fashioned farm 
life is to he preserved. 
* 
P to within a short time, if you wanted to make 
a AA’estern farmer laugh all you had to do was 
to talk about farming in New Jersey or on Cape 
Cod. In some way Western people formed the idea 
that Jersey is a place of alternating layers of light 
sand and salt marsh, where they raise nothing but 
mosquitoes and trusts. The truth is, that New 
Jersey contains some of the best soil and some of 
the most profitable farms in the world. A ton of 
plain Jersey dirt scraped out of the green sand 
marl and scattered over an acre in Iowa or Illinois 
will increase the yield of corn by 10 bushels or more. 
As for Cape Cod. it is not a land of salt fish and 
jack-knives exclusively. Tb<v-e is one farm down 
June 11, 1921 
there of 15.000 acres where they use tractors and 
plow furrows a mile long. They may not grow 
corn to compete with the Central West, but they 
can beat them out of sight with Asparagus, straw¬ 
berries and poultry. Never laugh at the farming 
possibilities of any country. Wait till the right man 
with the right crops strike it. Alaska will yet. help 
feed the world. Labrador will drive her reindeer 
into the dairy business. The despised salt marsh 
will be drained and made into miniature Hollands. 
Water will change the cactus desert into a garden. 
Your own rough and sterile farm can be made to 
bloom like the rose. 
* 
HESE New Jersey hen men are doing the right 
thing in organizing their marketing organiza¬ 
tion. The New Jersey hens produce as good eggs 
as are produced anywhere. You cannot find a spot 
in the State that is over half a day's travel from one 
of the largest cities in the world. Yet with all these 
natural advantages the Jersey hen men find train 
loads of California eggs pouring into these markets 
and actually outselling the local eggs, even after 
their long journey. A Jersey man is just as good as 
a Californian—just as good a man when it comes 
to exercising body or brain. But when 5.000 Cali¬ 
fornians combine to do business they will prove su¬ 
perior to 5,000 Jerseymen each acting as an indi¬ 
vidual. So the Jerseymen will organize and develop 
the California plan of selling. They will have the 
advantage in being close to the market, and with a 
fresher article. They hope to control the output 
of 350,000 hens. With that number they can do a 
business large enough to warrant them in employing 
every successful business device. It will be possible 
to establish retail stores in the large cities, where 
eggs may be sold direct to consumers. In time this 
will lead to the sale of other farm products. It is 
a great plan. New Jersey is a small, compact State, 
virtually an island, and such a thing can he made 
successful where it might fail in a larger territory. 
We would like to see every hen man in the State 
interested write to Harry Ober, Lakewood, N. J., 
for particulars. 
I see that Georgia is delivering potatoes to the New 
York market at $4 a barrel, and that doesn’t look very 
good for Virginia’s and New Jersey’s early potato crop. 
The peaches of_ the southern half of New Jersey, where 
the main crop is grown, will amount almost to nothing. 
A. 
DUALLY when prices start low at the opening 
of the season it. is very difficult to raise them. 
There is something all wrong with the potato mar¬ 
ket. At the present retail prices in this city there 
should he a great demand for potatoes. We often 
see peddlers offering 15 pounds for 25 cents, and 
they are good potatoes, too. At that retail price it 
is not likely that farmers received over 25 cents a 
bushel. Yet city people are not buying as they 
should. The truth seems to he that during the war, 
when potato prices soared, many families acquired 
new food habits. They began eating rice, macaroni 
and cornmeal in place of potatoes, and have now 
gained a taste for these foods. These substitutes 
do not requiring cleaning and paring, and there is 
little or no waste or danger of decay. This is a 
new situation which farmers must meet. AA T e have 
evidently got to go all through the old work of edu¬ 
cating the public to understand the true value of 
potatoes. 
* 
ARLY in (he season the official reports predicted 
a heavy yield of wheat with consequent low 
prices. Every daily paper rushed in to circulate this 
report. The evident purpose was to frighten farmers 
into selling the old wheat at a comparatively low 
figure. We stated then that we did not believe the 
report,, and that the facts would show a considerable 
decline from last year’s figures. It now seems to be 
true that the earlier reports were inflated, and the 
crop will be shorter than we expected. Prices are 
slowly rising, and we think the harvest will show the 
total crop considerably under the first estimates. No 
one who has travelled extensively or collected re¬ 
ports from reliable farmers will ever believe any 
stories about a bumper crop of wheat. 
Brevities 
The flies seem to love the bald-headed man. 
The asparagus patch beats any pill box you ever bad 
in the house. 
Gockle seed found in wheat screenings is said to be 
poisonous to chickens if eaten freely. 
There is a case on in Boston to determine whether 
chocolate bars are to rank as food. If they are “food.” 
several million dollars in taxes will be. returned to man¬ 
ufacturers. 
Tiie Black Jersey Giants grow up to be a solid black 
with a beautiful glitter or sheen. When small the little 
chicks are not a solid black—there is lighter color on the 
nock and breast. As they grow older this lighter color 
changes to a solid black. Do not worry if the little 
birds show this lighter color. 
