654 
‘Ihe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
April 12, 1924 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
All letters to Publisher’s Desk depart¬ 
ment must be signed with writer’s full 
name and address given. Many inquiries 
are answered by mail instead of printing 
inquiry and answer, hence unsigned let¬ 
ters receive no consideration. 
It may be that William Orr did not 
get his full share of the profits of the 
illegal prizefight picture shows, as he 
claims; but friends of the farm who re¬ 
member his insolence and contempt for 
everything pertaining to agriculture while 
secretary to Governor Whitman will feel 
no regret that his pals in alleged crime 
give Bill Orr the small end of the bar¬ 
gain in swapping political gold bricks. 
In .January 19th issue in discussing 
the indictment of the promoters of the 
Standard Food and Fur Association, we 
referred to George C. Booth as the ori¬ 
ginator of the “buy back” swindle, hav¬ 
ing operated under the name of United 
Food and Fur Association, and was pro¬ 
secuted for fraudulent use of the mails 
in 1920. Booth was fined .$1,000 and dis¬ 
continued the business. But the swindler 
who once gets the taste of “easy money” 
will never quit the game. George C. 
Booth is now advertising as Mutual 
Products Food Co., 1400 Broadway, New 
York City—“Make money quickly rais¬ 
ing guinea pigs, squabs, etc.” The same 
old game! Standard Food and Fur As¬ 
sociation is closed up by the post office 
and Booth revives the swindle under an¬ 
other name and seems to have no diffi¬ 
culty in getting his advertising printed 
in farm papers that “guarantee” their 
advertising. It is always the policy of 
The It. N.-Y. to label a fraud as soon as 
it appears, rather than wait until the 
culprit is in jail to expose him. 
As I read Publisher’s Desk each week 
with much interest and appreciate the 
wonderful work you are doing in saving 
your readers from impostors and swin¬ 
dlers, I was naturally much pleased with 
reference made to it by our pastor in his 
sermon, Sunday, March 9. The subject 
was “Heroes,” and in the course of the 
sermon he said : 
“There is a certain newspaper that 
comes to my home every week that stands 
back of every advertisement in its pages, 
and often gives a whole page to showing 
up crooks who have robbed or attempted 
to rob its subscribers. It took moral 
courage to begin exposing the robbers, but 
the editor has gained more than he lost 
by his courage. There is no finer test of 
moral courage than that which challenges 
one to fight wrongs that are entrenched 
in respectable places.” 
Thinking this word of appreciation 
from the pulpit might be welcome to you, 
I am sending same. H. E. M. 
Massachusetts. 
Publisher’s Desk endures because there 
are, comparatively speaking, few crooks. 
The great mass of the American people 
are honest and want a “square deal ’ for 
all. The minister who denounces the 
wrongs that are “entrenched in respect¬ 
able places” may cause uneasiness in a 
front pew; but the more conscious he is 
of the punishment he inflicts the nearer 
he approaches the ideal moral hero him¬ 
self. 
On March 22. 1922. a bulletin was is¬ 
sued on “Hicks’ Licekill,” a preparation 
taken internally, to prevent chickens from 
becoming affected with various forms of 
parasites, in which the opinions of gov¬ 
ernment scientists were mentioned, and 
at that time it was stated that tests were 
being made. . . . , t> 
The Dallas, Tex., Division of the Bu¬ 
reau of Entomology under recent date ad¬ 
vise us that they, together with the In¬ 
secticide and Fungicide Board, have car¬ 
ried out a number of tests with the use ot 
These various internal remedies against 
lice and other external parasites,of chick¬ 
ens, and that all of the products tested 
have proven inefficacious. 
The matter is still under investigation 
and thev have not yet issued a final re¬ 
port. However, they feel that these tests 
have been carried far enough to indicate 
that these sulphur compounds, and in fact 
all other remedies applied either to food 
or drinking water, have no practical value 
in the control of external parasites. 
NATIONAL VIGILANCE COMMITTEE. 
March 24, 1924. 
This only confirms what common sense 
dictates regarding these advertisers 
claiming to kill lice on chickens by put¬ 
ting some “dope” in the drinking water. 
Such advertisements have been denounced 
•' SM ' 5? '• > i 
as a fraud several times in the columns of 
The R. N.-Y. 
I received a paper through the mail 
published by Burnham Chemical Co., 
Reno, Nevada, called Desert Treasure , 
purporting to have holdings at Searles 
Lake for getting from same borax, pot¬ 
ash, soda, sulphate, and rock salt. Is it 
at reliable organization? How about it 
for an investment? b. p. 
We have no definite information re¬ 
garding this project. The prospectus 
of the Burnham Chemical Co. makes 
some very fine estimates of the deposits 
of chemicals in Searles Lake, but it 
makes no pretense of controlling the de¬ 
posits. We should regard investing money 
in the enterprise on the basis of the in¬ 
formation containing the prospectus a 
reckless gamble indeed. 
I had packed in my common storage 
cooler 24 bushels pears. 19 Seckel and five 
Bartlett, when Mr. Relir, of the firm of 
Rehr & Badler, Newark, N. J., called, be¬ 
ing around buying fruit. He said he 
would give me $1.75 per bushel, or $42, 
and would pay when delivered at the car. 
When the fruit was delivered he was not 
around. When he purchased the fruit he 
spoke of buying my Bartlett crop. I would 
not sell at that time, but asked him when 
he would be around again, and he said 
the following Wednesday, but he did not 
show up until a week later. In the mean¬ 
time another buyer called and I sold out. 
This made Mr. Rehr angry and he re¬ 
fused to pay for the fruit. Will you ad¬ 
vise standing of these people, and can 
this be collected? I understand he had 
trouble up here with other people. 
New York. c. M. R. 
We have taken up the matter *of the 24 
bushels of pears with Rehr & Badler. The 
concern does not deny having received 
the pears, and refuses to pay for them. 
The contention of Mr. Rehr is that at the 
time he purchased the 24 bushels of pears 
he also purchased C. M. R.’s entire crop 
of Bartletts at $3 per barrel, in bulk, and 
on account of his violation of the contract 
refuses to pay for the 24 bushels received. 
On the other hand. C. M. R. claims no 
definite bargain was made for his Bartlett 
pears, and that when Mr. Rehr of the 
firm called again he had sold his Bartletts 
at $2.25 per bushel, which is quite dif¬ 
ferent from $3 per barrel. If Rehr & 
Badler expected to get the pears at the 
$3 per barrel price, they would at best be 
driving a hard bargain. No doubt the 
firm did purchase fruit from other grow¬ 
ers on this basis, taking advantage of 
the growers’ ignorance of the market.. 
We have presented the contentions of 
both parties to the controversy. We be¬ 
lieve the farmer could collect for the 24 
bushels of pears by legal process, while it | 
would no doubt 'cost more than the i 
amount involved to contest the case in 
court. This history of the transaction 
may prove valuable to fruit growers of 
the Hudson River Valley when the time 
for marketing another fruit crop rolls 
around. 
In February 2 issue we published a 
statement of the charges of using the 
mails to defraud brought against Edward 
R. Tryon, Harry P. Doherty, F. G. Leary 
and W. C. Gray of Lowell, Mass., operat¬ 
ing as Tryon Knitting Company. We 
now learn that the case of these gentle¬ 
men was presented to the Federal Grand 
Jury during the early part of March with 
the result that the individuals were dis¬ 
charged. The R. N.-Y. is not surprised 
that the charges were not maintained. We 
doubt if any of the four other promoters 
of similar work-at-home schemes could 
be legally convicted on such charges; but 
the fact remains that all of them got 
money from poor and deserving women 
for a knitting machine, leading them to 
believe that with the machine they would 
be able to earn a considerable amount of 
money in their spare time at home. A 
large number of the women, after deny¬ 
ing themselves of real necessities, are un¬ 
able to operate the knitter. The knitter 
company has the money and the woman 
has the experience. These are the facts, 
but we do not pretend to say whether 
such transactions constitute “fraudulent 
use of the mails.” 
are Busy T)ays 
The chickens aren’t the only ones that have to make the dirt fly if 
the important early season tasks are to be done on time. 
There’s a lot of satisfaction in knowing that the farm tools are fit 
for their task. For excellent work under the many varying crop 
and soil conditions, the Oliver No. 32 Cultivator has proved itself • 
remarkable implement. 
The combined pivot pole and axle make its work unusually good for 
practically all row crops on level or hilly land, in straight and 
crooked rows. 
For full information and name of your Oliver dealer write your 
nearest Oliver branch. 
Cultivator No. 33 
OLIVER CHILLED PLOW WORKS 
ROCHESTER, N. Y. HARRISBURG, PA. 
Send for this Book. Wilmington Delaware 
It is free. 
HERCULES 
DYNAMITE 
“What, today is no more a legal holi¬ 
day than it is day before yesterday!” 
snarled a disappointed motorist who had 
stopped at the crossroads store and post 
office. “ 'Tis, too !” responded the com¬ 
bined merchant and postmaster. “I made 
it one, and so ’tis. If I can’t make my 
own holidays, what in thunder am I post¬ 
master for?”—Kansas City Star. 
f o 
ADVENTURES IN SILENCE 
By HERBERT W. COLLINGWOOD 
This is the first serious attempt to interpret the peculiar and adventurous life 
of the hard-of-hearing. Beautifully bound in cloth, 288 pages. $1.00, postpaid. 
The Rural New-Yorker, 333 W. 30th Street, New York City 
