74 
January 12, 1924 
W* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
Could you help a poor needy man, from 
the hands of the Gearhart Knitting Ma¬ 
chine Co., Clearfield Pa.? I am a 
widower and have a poor mother and 
child to support. I am not very strong, 
and wanted to do some light work at 
home. I saw the advertisement in the 
Christian Herald. A good friend loaned 
me the money so I could get the knitter. 
I have told the company there is very 
little chance to be able to operate it. 
New York. H. W. 
We have' written Gearhart Knitting 
Co. twice in behalf of this poor man, 
but our letters remain unanswered. The 
circular letter sent this man to clinch 
the sale, which caused him to borrow 
the purchase money, contains the fol¬ 
lowing money-back guarantee: “In fact 
we guarantee you will master the knit¬ 
ter quickly or we shall offer to take it 
back and refund its price promptly f o 
you.” There can be no two ways of in¬ 
terpreting this guarantee and yet the 
Gearhart Knitting Machine Co. has 
ignored the appeals of the customer and 
ours in his behalf, asking that the firm 
make good that guarantee. Further 
comment is not required. 
I have not heard anything from the 
Gem Poultry Company, Mason City, la., 
in regard to my turkeys. If they do not 
straighten up the matter I am going to 
turn it over to the Post Office Depart¬ 
ment. Thank you for the interest you 
have taken in the matter. M. J. H. 
New York. 
The above refers to an order and remit¬ 
tance sent the Gem Poultry Company, 
Mason City, la., during the early part of 
1923. The Post Office Department is the 
only agency that can reach this class of 
poultry “gyps.” This warning, we hope, 
may save others from dealing with the ir¬ 
responsible concern. 
Every once in a while I see in The It. 
N..-Y. something about the United Fer¬ 
tilizer and Dime Company not being reli¬ 
able, and wish to state that you are abso¬ 
lutely correct. I gave them my note for 
.$100 Sept. 1, 1922. When it came due I 
discovered my mistake, but they had sold 
the note, so I paid it, the purchaser of 
the note having bought it in good faith. 
I have not received the stock, but that 
doesn’t matter, as it is worthless. 
It w’as understood by all of the stock¬ 
holders that whenever they wanted any 
kind of fertilizer they could go to their 
plant at Richland and get it in any quan¬ 
tity they desired. This plant has not had 
a pound in it yet, and the chances are ft 
never will have, because a business con¬ 
cern in Richland that furnished the ma¬ 
terial for the plant offered to sell me the 
plant so they could get their money. 
In regard to the lime, no one has ever 
got any they put out by themselves, only 
some they bought of some other company 
for sucker bait. The wife of one of the 
agents said they had rented a place up 
in the northern part of the State to put a 
sign on and then tell the people they were 
going to put out lime for immediate ship¬ 
ment. AY. O. Paddock is one of the 
brains of the business; he formerly kept 
store in Orwell. N. Y., where he went 
bankrupt; also he was the president of 
the Paddock Motor Sales Corp. of Syra¬ 
cuse, N. Y.. which went bankrupt. There 
are a lot of people here w r ho got stung, 
many of them too ashamed to have people 
know how they got stung, so they are 
keeping quiet. The above company makes 
a practice of getting rid of all notes be¬ 
fore they come due. H. L. 
New York. 
It is a serious question whether the 
purchasers of these notes bought them in 
“good faith.” We should like to see 
some of these cases tested out in court, 
and determined from a legal standpoint 
whether there was a conspiracy between 
the promoters of this enterprise and the 
holders of the notes. In some cases the 
courts have decided that it was the’busi¬ 
ness of the purchaser of a note to know 
whether it was secured by fraudulent 
means. The Empire Fertilizer Co., Onei¬ 
da, and Syracuse, N. Y„ is being pro¬ 
moted along the same lines as the United. 
During September. 1922, I sent two 
crat s of eggs to I. Sklutli, 1761 Weeks 
Ave., New York City. He received the 
eggs, and after compelling me to ,send to 
him five or six times he paid $15 on ac¬ 
count of the bill of $43.50, which he 
acknowledges. The last time when my 
nephew called on him he offered to pay 
$15 more and wanted a receipt in full 
which my nephew refused. He makes a 
claim for five dozen broken eggs which 
he should have collected from the express 
company, and I would be willing to make 
allowance for this to get through with 
him. He has sold the store, but owns the 
house, and lives above the store. His 
reason for failing to pay in full is that I 
stopped sending any eggs during October. 
The fact is, I sent him eggs as long as 
I could get enough to send, and cut off 
other customers to supply him. h; o. 
New Jersey. 
The debtor ignores all demands for pay¬ 
ment and paid no attention to a sum¬ 
mons served on him by our attorney. It 
is another case of loss because the rating 
was not looked up in advance. Mr. Skluth 
may be out of business now, but it will 
be well to remember the name in the 
event he solicits any business later on. 
We believe it puts money in our pocket 
to treat people as we would like to be 
treated, and only regret that our customer 
thought it necessary to write to you with¬ 
out taking the matter up with us first. 
Pennsylvania. c. Y. H. 
This is a comment by one of our ad¬ 
vertisers in connection with a little 
misunderstanding and complaint from a 
subscriber. We refer to it because it is 
exactly in line with our own opinion. 
The Golden Rule still has power, and is 
the best precept for the guidance of peo¬ 
ple generally. 
Cattle and the Soil 
Last Summer I shipped $24 worth of 
day-old chicks to W. C. Kingsbury, man¬ 
ager of Grocers’ Co-operative Co., Ine., 
123-125 Court St., Binghamton, N. Y. 
As Kingsbury claimed a good rating, I 
neglected looking him up ; also neglected 
the little detail of collecting that $24 in 
advance, and I am still looking for it, 
notwithstanding Kingsbury has promised 
to send check in a few weeks. Has 
Kingsbury any property on which this 
amount can be collected? a. e. h. 
New Jersey. 
We have been unable to collect the 
amount from Mr. Kingsbury, and our at¬ 
torney sends it back with the information 
that he cannot make the collection, and 
reports that it is alleged there are many 
judgments against Mr. Kingsbury. This 
shows the advisability of verifying rat¬ 
ings where parties are unknown. 
Reports from Utica indicate that an¬ 
other band of pirates has revived the old 
“U. S. Government Indian land scheme” 
which was exposed in The R. N.-Y. a 
number of times some years ago. The 
perpetrators of the former swindle under 
the name of the McAlester Real Estate 
Company were finally prosecuted by the 
government, convicted and jailed. The 
recent revival of the scheme to swindle 
Utica people was frustrated by the Utica 
Press and the Better Business Bureau. 
The Pullman car which is a part of the 
scheme to impress prospects was held at 
Utica, and the promotors, N. C. MacNab 
and A. M. Champion, who are said to 
have been connected with the McAlester 
fraud, have departed for parts unknown. 
Should the fakers appear at some other 
section, the reception given them at 
Utica should be repeated. 
Enclosed find some circulars which I 
have been receiving from the Bossard 
Railway Signal Corporation, Troy, N. Y. 
While there is no danger whatever that 
1 would bite I thought maybe it would 
be all right to let you know how these 
sharpers are working their game all over 
the country. h. g. 
Illinois. 
The above is one of the dangerous 
stock selling schemes that has been go¬ 
ing the rounds for some time. There 
have been several promotions floated on 
the basis of railway signals, in which the 
dear public has been invited to risk their 
savings. The railway officials do not 
seem to show any excitement over these 
patented device which the promo¬ 
ters claim will revolutionize the present 
system. If the devices had merit it 
would not be necessary to appeal for 
capital to finance the company controll¬ 
ing them, from country people or others 
of small means. 
The post office department, Kansas 
City, Mo., has sent out a description of 
Herschell H. Mason in an effort to locate 
him. Mason is the individual who 
swindled the poultry public under the 
name of King Hatchery, Cleveland, O., 
in the early part of 1922. He is the same 
who operated a baby chick swindle from 
Kansas City, Mo., in 1921. under the 
name National Chick Co., and from Des 
Moines, Iowa, the year previous. He 
will probably bob up again under a new 
name during the coming season, and it 
behooves poultrymen to be on their 
guard and refuse to send orders and re¬ 
mittances to unknown hatcheries. 
M EN who were brought up on farms in the 
very districts served by the New York 
Central Lines now compose the Agricultural 
Relations Department of this railroad system. 
A thorough knowledge of the farmers’ problems 
as well as those of the railroad enables these men 
to work for the common good of these two inter¬ 
dependent interests. 
To improve soil conditions the Agricultural Re¬ 
lations Department has established 525 limestone 
demonstrations in cooperation with county farm 
bureaus and experts from various colleges of 
agriculture. 
The department has materially assisted in estab¬ 
lishing a Better Sire Campaign for the introduc¬ 
tion and breeding up of dairy cattle. 
It is the task of the department to foster co¬ 
operation between agriculture and transportation 
and to bring an ever-better service to the farmers 
of the country. 
i 
f NEW YORK 
Central 
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