984 
7h* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
TRY THEM ON 
IN YOUR HOME 
BEFORE PAYING 
(Not a C. O. D. Offer) 
Genuine kid uppers, HAND TURNED BOLES (the 
only process producing a real comfort shoe.) Cats- 
paw rubber heels, cushion in-soles spell foot-ease 
Postage Pairf 
$ 2*59 
If you prefer little narrower toe and higher 
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price—same quality. 
SAVE TWO MIDDLEMEN'S PROFITS 
As manufacturers we can cut your shoe bill almost 
in HALE. 
^ Mail Coupon To-day—Sizes 254 to 9 Jp 
Velva Shoe Mfg. Co., Dept. R-3, Lawrence, Mass. 
Send me comforlsiippers. If satisfactory I will send money 
by return mail. If not I will return shoes. 
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CIDER PRESSES 
Work up your apple culls Into profitable cider,also 
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Our high pressure construction gets all the 
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and Instructive new booklet I 
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Cultivators, etc. Write 1 or 
descriptions. 
A. B. FARQUHAR CO., Ltd., Box 130, York, Pa. 
■r 
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’S 
DRY FRONT 
Poultry House 
10% Reduction from Prices in 1921 Booklet 
Note the features of the overhang roof, absolutely 
ram proof; also, ventilator above the swingiug win¬ 
dow. Ihe above is the type that Prof. Harry R. 
Lewis, head of the Vineland Egg Laying Contest, is 
equipping his new farm with, at Davisville, Rhode 
Island. Made in all sizes. Write for free booklet, 
showing forty different cuts. 
E. C. YOUNG CO. 16 Depot St„ Randolph. Mass. 
SAVE PACKAGE COSTS 
9 FIRST CLASS SECOND-HAND 
Peach Carriers, Berry Crates, Onion 
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THE EMPTY PACKAGE SUPPLY CO. 
Dept. R, 301-303 Johnson Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Our New Handy Binder 
Sides are heavy Book Board, Imita¬ 
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Inside of Cover Neat Lining Paper, 
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Will hold 52 issues, or more. 
Sent prepaid upon receipt of 
price, 65c. 
THE [RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 West 30th St. New York City 
Nature Notes 
No Danger from Snowshoe Rabbits 
I saw a note regarding snowshoe rab¬ 
bits. Being a naturalist, and having lived 
all my life in the Adirondacks, where 
these animals have their home, I feel that 
I have learned much regarding them. 
There need be no fear whatever that lib¬ 
erated snowshoe rabbits will ever become 
a pest in Connecticut, nor any other place 
where they may be planted, for they will 
never settle themselves to cultivated dis¬ 
tricts. nor breed in open country. They 
are strictly a mountain or swamp va¬ 
riety, and while they may for a time, after 
liberation, stay about some secluded 
places, yet they will mighty soon migrate, 
or disappear, and that will be the end of 
them. They are not destructive to farm 
or fruit, nor will they eat gardeu truck, 
unless forced to it. 
Connecticut never need lose any sleep 
over what will be the result of this at¬ 
tempt to stock with snowshoe rabbits. 
Many well-meaning sportsmen have tried 
the trick in open country, and I person¬ 
ally know that none ever stayed in these 
sections long enough to breed. They have 
absolutely no comparison with the cotton¬ 
tail, which is a well-known pest, and will 
never damage anyone, no matter where 
liberated. Those sportsmen are simply 
wasting their dollars, willet bandaix. 
New York. 
Our Friend, the Toad 
The picture below shows a good friend of 
the gardener—Mr. Toad. 'Some of the 
English gardeners say that an active toad 
in a good garden is easily worth $20. He 
will clean out insects of all sorts, and he 
has the most remarkable appetite. It is 
probable that the toad takes 90 per cent 
The Gardener's Policeman 
of its food in the form of insects. When 
picking is good he will eat several times 
his weight in a day, and then look around 
for more. It is doubtful if any other 
creature is more useful iu the garden, 
and at the same time less harmful. We 
have seen people who felt it their duty 
to kill toads the same as snakes. It 
would he hard to think of a more sense¬ 
less thing to do. Give every toad a 
chance. He will make good as a hug 
eater. 
How to Kill Woodchucks 
We have printed all sorts of plans for 
killing woodchucks, and probably the most 
effective way is to employ some good 
sharpshooter with a rifle to camp on their 
trail. The woodchuck is a stupid animal, 
strongly given to habits. He goes out to 
feed early in the morning and late in the 
afternoon. If some good marksman would 
wait in the field about this time he cau 
get a shot at a number of woodchucks 
and in time he would kill them all. Both 
a case they either get away or the gas 
will escape. Where it is possible to con¬ 
fine the gas iu the hole the woodchucks 
will usually he killed. 
Bees, Woodchucks and Robins 
Gn page 889, in regard to removing 
bees from pole. I suggest that a hok> be 
made in the bottom or back of the hive, 
so that the bees in leaving the pole pass 
through the hive. In this way you may 
even get the queen sometimes. The hole 
in the hive can afterward be plugged 
when no longer needed. 
'•Speaking of bees, I wonder whether 
anyone ever tried to hunt woodchucks 
with a bee smoker? “Take a rubber hose 
and run one end down the woodchuck 
hole. Pack wet bags around the hose to 
close the hole. Now for a smoke through 
the ,hose. Mr. Woodchuck will soon 
emerge through the other exit to his dug- 
out.” That is what the paper said. We 
tried it. but Mr. ’Chuck didn ’t emerge. 
Did we kill him. or were we wasting 
time? Someone else tell us, please. 
lias anyone tried using rubber hose to 
scare robins out of the cherry tree? Our 
doctor read about it and tried it with 
good success. He takes a piece of hose 
about 3 ft. long, fastens one end around a 
limb and lets the other hang down. Mr. 
and Mrs. Robin see what appears to be a 
snake and do not care to even investi¬ 
gate. He also tried rope and strips of 
wire screen with equal success. I hope 
this will save the lives of a great many 
robins. I cannot help being a bit suspic¬ 
ious of a man who would kill a robin, 
even to save his cherries. I always place 
him in the class with a mau who kicks a 
cow or a dog. “joe.” 
The Robber Robin Once More 
The New York Times tells the follow¬ 
ing story. It seems that the robin steals 
other things besides cherries: 
“The squirrels and robins in Eleventh 
avenue, Mount Vernon, have declared 
war on each other and the daily battles 
are 'becoming fiercer. Eleventh avenue 
residents have been throwing peanuts on 
their lawns ifor the squirrels and bread 
crusts for the birds. A week ago a 
few robins, after eating the bread, helped 
themselves to the peanuts, and the squir¬ 
rels ran away. The same thing hap¬ 
pened the next day and the next. On 
Monday a few squirrels attacked the rob¬ 
ins and there was a short hut furious 
fight, in which the squirrels saved their 
supplies. " 
“On Tuesday about 20 robins swooped 
down and the squirrels were routed. Yes¬ 
terday the squirrels returned reinforced 
by an equal number and there was a bat¬ 
tle royal for a quarter of an hour. It 
was a drawn battle, both sides leaving 
most of their peanuts and crusts on the 
field.” 
Barrel Trap for Skunk 
About two years ago you had a picture 
of a barrel trap poised on the end of a 
plank, just so as to balance nicely. WUien 
an animal went in to get the bait the bar¬ 
rel would tip and stand on its bottom 
between three stakes, and thus you would 
have the skunk, and without odor. Could 
you print the design once more? I have 
told several about this trap or dead-fall. 
Hood River, Ore. g. b. e. 
The article and picture are reprinted 
here : 
The little picture shows bow to take 
skunks from the house, barn or cellar 
with no odor. Near the end of a board, 
as in rough sketch, place beneath a block 
of wood; anything to raise the board 10 
July SO, 1921 
fish also in the brook if they can get 
there. If there are no dams between the 
brook and the lake and no other obstruc¬ 
tions that the fish cannot get over, we 
must look for some other reason. 
C’qtfish.will not run up into a stream 
unless it is deep, muddy and. with a slow- 
current. If the brook runs through open 
fields it may be too -warm for the trout. 
8mall eels might be in the stream in large 
numbers without being seen. 
If the stream flows rather slowly, is 
rather warm, and the bottom is cohered 
with a thick growth of red. brown or 
rusty-looking slime, it is probably not 
suited for fish life. 
If the stream is cool and the plants 
growing in the water are some shade of 
green or greenish brown, and especially 
if various kinds of small living creatures 
cau be found hiding in the mass of water 
weeds, the stream is probablv suited for 
fish life. 
It does not always follow that there 
are no fish in a stream because none can 
be seen there. In a good trout brook, 
the pool where no fish are ever seen is 
usually the place where the very large one 
lives. A pool which has a lot of minnows 
swimming around does not usually have 
trout in it. 
If there are no fish in the brook because 
it is not able to support fish life the only 
thing to do is to clean it up. We must 
get at the causes before we can get re¬ 
sults. I know- of oue stream which was 
barren of fish life for several years be¬ 
cause the spray rigs were filled and 
cleaned at the brook.' and some of the 
poisons washed into it. Since providing 
better ways of handling the spray water 
have been provided the brook has started 
to come hack. 
If the brook is formed by cold springs, 
but is too warm because it flows through 
open country, it will help to plant trees 
along the bank. It may be worth while 
to make this row of tree willows or cot¬ 
tonwoods, and provide wood for fuel or 
other use while keeping the water fit for 
fish. There are several species of wil¬ 
lows which form good-sized trees very 
quickly. 
If the stream has been killed by pollu¬ 
tion it may be necessary after removing 
the source of the trouble to restock it 
with the plants and animals necessary for 
■the life of the fish. One of the best ways 
to do this is to go to some other suitable 
stream and briug back a tubful of the 
plants that grow under water in the 
sitme kinds of places as it is wished to 
place them. The small plants and ani¬ 
mals will he carried with them, and the 
stream will soon he stocked again. 
A. C. W. 
Killing the Robber Robin 
An article in The R. N.-Y., page 704. 
directs those wishing to murder robins and 
thus cause thousands of baby robins to 
perish from starvation, to address E. W. 
Nelson. Albany, N. Y., for permit to do 
so. “The robin is a thief—a State’s 
prison bird. He should be shot. He has 
been known to leave grubs, cutworms, 
snails and angleworms and eat a cherry.” 
God intended cherries for birds as well 
as man. Robins eat 1,000 worms to one 
cherry. 
The robin is first to warn us of Spring. 
They choose their mate for life—no di¬ 
vorce. fHumans, take notice.) Robins 
have been known to mourn themselves to 
death at loss of mate. He and she dress 
sensibly, no low necks nor high heels, no 
had habits. They do not strike nor ask 
for an eight-hour day, but work from 
early morn till late at night. Yet they 
must be shot for eating cherries, cursed 
for all time. 
How much more human it would be to 
plant mulberries, chokecherries, Juneber- 
ries, elderberries, etc., by the roadside 
where the birds could eat, nest and sing— 
not jazz music—hut their own sweet, 
melodious songs. Oh. no! We will not 
field traps and box traps are used in 
catching them. Several of our people 
have advised loading a shotgun quite 
heavily with black powder and pointing it 
down into the hole and firing both barrels, 
but we Avould not advise that. Some 
of our people report using a car or truck 
as a woodchuck killer. Ou level fields, 
the car is backed up, with a hose. A rub¬ 
ber hose is attached to the exhaust pipe 
and thus the gas is forced down into the 
hole. 
Another good method is found in the 
use of bisulphide of carbon. This is done 
by wrapping rags or cotton hatting around 
a stone. These rags are then saturated 
with the chemical, and with a stick the 
mass is pushed down as far as possible 
into the hole, and the opening is then 
closed. This will work well iu places 
where there is only one hole. Wood¬ 
chucks frequently have two or more open¬ 
ings through their burrows, and in such 
in. or 1 ft. from the ground. At this cud 
place a barrel, as in sketch, just so it 
will stay on the board and not balance 
off. Bore a hole near the top edge of 
head to tie the bait on the inside of bar¬ 
rel, or it may he nailed on. You will find 
the gentleman in the morning in barrel, 
which may be carried anywhere without 
any odor. m. c. B. 
West Pawlet, Yt. 
Fish in a Brook 
I have a nice brook on my farm which 
runs into a lake belonging to me. The 
lake is full of fish—trout, eels, catfish— 
but there are no fish in the brook. Is 
there any way to coax the fish from the 
lake into the brook up stream? Maybe 
there is some kind of bait or fish lure. 
If this is the case, let me know. H. B. 
Greeley, Pa. 
On the face of it, it would seem that 
H. B. was stating an impossible condi¬ 
tion. If there are fish of suitable species 
in the lake, and the brook is able to pro¬ 
vide food and shelter, there should be 
ask a permit to shoot robins; no, never! 
. Ten years ago we planted on our farm 
110 cherry trees—100 for self, 10 for 
birds; 2.000 raspberries and an extra 100 
for the birds ; three mulberries, elderber¬ 
ries, chokecherries and other shrubs, and 
trees especially for the birds. We expect 
to meet these birds in heaven. We love 
the birds. No, we will not shoot. 
Allegany Co., N. Y. p. l. vabs. 
Iiie Colonel’s negro orderlv was con¬ 
fined to quarters as the result of a fight. 
Ihe old man went, to see him and de¬ 
manded an explanation of his dilapidated 
condition. “Well, sub, last night me and 
Napoleon Sims gets into a li’l friendly 
argument over a crap game. Gunnel, be- 
fo I knows it he hits me in de mouf and 
he knocks out ifo’ teef, and he hits me in 
de eyes and closes deni up, and he blame 
near busts mull nose and muh jaw. Den 
he gets me down on de floor and stomp * 
on me and cracks three ribs. Fo’ God, 
cunnel. Ah never got so till’d of a man in 
all of inuk life!”—Everybody’s Magazine. 
