882 
7ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
June 14, 1924 
vegetables and to do all of those many things which 
country women can do to economize and manage. 
One year is not too long, and surely he will be much 
wiser in the end. And then I advise him to place 
about $3,000 of his $5,000 in a farm, attempt to 
make ends meet on the income of that farm. Flace 
the other $2,000 in a bank or leave invested where 
it is, and only draw on so much of it annually as 
he finds necessary to make up for any possible 
deficit. 
A ROUGH ROAD.—At his age and with a per¬ 
fectly “green” family he will find any road back- 
to-the-farm a rough road. Perseverance, grit, will¬ 
ingness, and ambition are the things that will help 
carry him through. Delaware County offers many 
good cheap farms for sale now, and probably will 
for a long time. Some of them look shabby, but 
few are “worn out.” They need working. They 
need the kind of men who picked the stones, plowed 
the land, and built our stone walls long before the 
Civil War. 
1 have offered a lot of advice. P. P.'s success de- 
]>ends entirely upon himself. I wish to emphasize 
that the best advice I can offer to him is to be care¬ 
ful how he parts with that $5,000 or any part of it. 
Delaware Co., N. Y. wm. g. millek. 
Figures about American Institutions 
1. Please state the approximate number of rural popu¬ 
lation likely to have a vote the coming November, and 
their aggregate wealth? 2. What is the estimated 
wealth of the U. S. Steel Corporation, and about what 
portion of their working capital is borrowed? 3. What 
is the number and approximate value of all the princi¬ 
pal milling plants of the United States? 4. What did 
the government estimate the railroads worth, when taken 
< ver during the war? 5. When was the State Board of 
Education organization first employed, and were the 
members appointed? When was the Bible taken from 
Ihe schools of New York State? 6. Do all other States 
support a State Board of Education? Is it a safe and 
practicable plan to ship all small grain, flour and mill 
feeds by boat? s. E. I,. 
Pleasant Plains, N. Y. 
T HERE are in 1924, outside of the cities and large 
towns, about twenty-nine million people above 
voting age, according to a recent estimate of the 
Census Bureau. There is no separate estimate of 
rural wealth. In the census of 1920 there were 
fifty-one million rural population, of which thirty- 
two million lived on six and one-half million farms. 
These farms were worth, together with equipment, 
seventy-eight billion dollars, less mortgage debts of 
four billion dollars. 
2. The United States $teel Corporation owns net 
about $1,362,000,000* according to the latest report. 
This is what the stockholders own after taking out 
the corporation’s debt and borrowings. 
3. In 1921 there were 8,019 grain milling plants 
worth about $812,000,000, according to the special 
census of that year. 
4. The value of the railroads was over eighteen 
billion dollars on January 1, 191S, when most of 
them were taken over by the government. Note the 
commanding position of country voters and property 
_ owners. ^ * 
5. New York was the first State to establish a 
State Board of Education, the Board of Regents in 
that State having been created in 1784 as an ad¬ 
visory body to assist in the reorganization of what 
is now Columbia College. This body has been con¬ 
tinued to the present time. No information is at 
hand as to whether this body was--appointed or 
elected. All States have State boards of education 
designed to exercise more or less administrative con¬ 
trol over the schools except Illinois, Iowa, Maine, 
Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota. These six 
States have State Boards for the purpose of admin¬ 
istering vocational education. 
On June 5, 1872, the State Superintendent of Pub¬ 
lic Instruction of New- York ruled that the Bible 
could not be read in the public schools in school 
hours. On May 27,1SS4, State Superintendent Bug¬ 
gies rendered a decision of like nature. It is as¬ 
sumed. therefore, that the Bible has not been read 
in the public schools of New r York State outside of 
New- York City, where the charter permits such 
reading, since 1S72 or since 1884. 
6. In general it is safe and practicable to ship 
grain and mill products except as limited by facili¬ 
ties available. , g. b. f. 
w 7 e would be better off. And here comes the latest 
theory regarding the reason for the hen’s comb: 
I wonder if you have seen that they are pretty sure, 
from some late experiments, that the hen’s comb is a 
device to expose the blood to the ultra-violet and other 
sun raye in order that enough calcium may be taken 
up to make eggshells, and that leg-weakness of chicks 
is also lime-starvation due to lack of power to pick up 
the lime in the tissues when housed beneath ordinary 
window glass? I think there is a good deal in the 
idea. On account of the feathers, there is no other 
place but the legs, bill, and wattles which could pick 
up the rays. And the feather-legged, small-combed 
sorts are shy on eggs. F. D. c. 
Some of the pea-comb fowls are good layers al¬ 
though it is true that the heavy laying breeds all 
have good-sized combs. It is also true that the comb 
is at its largest size during heavy laying, and goes 
down with the egg yield. This theory is as plausible 
as any. Yet there are cases w-here Leghorns have 
been de-combed—that is the combs were cut off 
w r hile the birds were young. The object of this was 
to make the birds “frost-proof”—and they seem to 
lay as well as the birds with full combs! 
Psychology of a Goose 
T HE pictures at Figs. 331 and 332 might be called 
“Before and After in the Life of a Gosling.” 
In one a pair of Toulouse geese are seen chaperon¬ 
ing an African gosling around the yard, while in the 
other the gosling has grown up. The old folks now 
.... , r* 4^ 
< ^ f 
, ft y 
Before ihe Goose-child Grew Up. Big. 331 
After the Baty Grew Independent. Fig. 332 
realize that he can shift for himself and does not 
need so much of their care. Geese are nearer to 
humans, in their family habits, than any other farm 
animal, and they might, give many human parents 
sound advice on the methods of bringing up children. 
What is the Object of a Hen’s Comb? 
T HAT question was asked in good faith by one 
of our readers, and it simply caused a roar of 
laughter. The great majority of men and women 
seem willing to accept things as they are, without 
much question, though it is evident that if we could 
know more about the true need or function of things 
The Doings of an Auto Hog 
M R. H. B. TUKEY, our horticultural writer, 
tells this personal experience with a road hog: 
“My good intentions have been sadly disrupted. 
That is, they were disrupted when a Brooklyn sport 
came tearing up the road just outside of Hudson 
Sunday morning and sent my brother-in-law’s Mar- 
mon, in which we were riding, into the ditch a total 
wreck. The credit for our miraculous escape from 
serious injury goes to some other agency than man. 
The Marmon straddled a ditch, dumped us nicely 
into the ditch, and then rolled over on top of us. 
The ditch was deep enough to hold us all and leave 
us nothing more than bruises, minor cuts, and all 
that goes with such an experien.ee. We are unable to 
understand even now why we were hot all killed out¬ 
right. I can experience yet the elevator ride through 
the air—I was thrown about 30 feet—and the sick¬ 
ening sensation of that two-ton Marmon settling 
onto me and pressing me into the mud. 
“It makes my blood boil when I think of that chap 
out for a lark—absolutely without responsibility and 
respect for the rights of others—running out into 
the country and smashing us all into the ditch. 
Have you ever noticed how many irresponsible city- 
chaps like that it is who wreck many a peaceful 
family? Redress through the courts is long and # 
laborious and uncertain. Sometimes I think that 
we country folks ought - to get together and horse¬ 
whip a few of these chaps!” 
A Kennel License for Dogs 
A few days ago a friend of mine applied for dog 
kennel license. lie was informed by county clerk that 
in order to secure same it would be necessary for him 
to have kennel registered in the American Kennel 
Club. Why must his dogs be registered in the Ameri¬ 
can Kennel Club? I expect to apply for kennel license, 
buy my kennel will be registered in the United Kennel 
Club. Was county clerk mistaken, or can a kennel be 
reigstered in any kennel club? It is a very strange 
law that will compel a man to register his doge in one 
particular kennel when one is willing to pay for same. 
I am a breeder of United Kennel Club dogs, and be¬ 
lieve that I can register my dogs in said club. J. R. 
T HE Wicks law, so called, under which dogs are 
licensed and protected, contains the following 
statement regarding the kennel licenses: 
“The owner of a kennel may apply for and obtain 
a kennel license, which shall be in lieu of the license 
issued under this chapter* for each dog harbored or 
kept in such kennel. Upon the procuring of such 
license for a kennel, the owner or owners thereof 
shall be exempt from any further license fee in re¬ 
spect to such dogs for the year for which said license 
is issued. The applicant shall present with his ap¬ 
plication for a kennel license a registry certificate 
of the registry association registering the dogs in 
such kennel. A copy of such certificate shall be 
filed with the city or town clerk. If the owner of a 
kennel shall harbor or keep a dog which is not cov¬ 
ered by such a certificate, such dog shall be licensed 
separately and the same fee paid as in the case of 
other dogs. A kennel license shall continue for the 
same period as licenses under the preceding section.” 
This law does not apply to the cities of New York 
or Buffalo, but to all of the State outside these two. 
Thus the law does not require that dogs be regis- 
ered in the American Kennel Club. The applicant 
is expected to present a registry certificate of the 
club in which his dogs are registered. Probably the 
clerk of the county is not familiar with the other 
organizations. If you do not care to take a kennel 
license, you can register your dogs separately. This 
county clerk ought to get a copy of Wicks law and 
make a study of it before he makes any such de¬ 
cisions. 
This is the winner of the baby show at a Holstein pic¬ 
nic last Summer in Wisconsin. A fine product of 
Holstein milk. 
June Drop of Peaches 
We have quite a few peach trees on our place, and 
during the month of June the fruit all drops off. I 
believe that this is called the June drop. Can anything 
be done to prevent this? c. M. V. 
Port Jervis, N. Y. 
J UNE drop is not always caused by one or the 
same agency. Frequently the drop is due to lack 
of nutrition, so that the tree has not strength enough 
to hold its crop. Applications of from y 2 to 2 lbs. 
of nitrate of soda to the tree will often remedy the 
situation. Then again frost injury is often respon¬ 
sible for the drop, for which, of course, nothing can 
be done. Still another common agency is the fun¬ 
gus. brown-rot, which may blast the blossoms or so 
weaken the fruit that it drops from the tree. Brown- 
rot may be controlled by spraying the trees with 
self-boiled lime-sulphur (1) when the blossoms are 
showing pink, (2) when the shucks are off, and (3) 
two weeks later, and as often thereafter as weather 
conditions justify. h. b. t. 
