964 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Rural New-Yorker 
THE BUSINESS FARMER’S PAPER 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Established i860 
P ibllsbtd weekly by the lineal Pnblinhing Company, 338 Went SOth Street, New fork 
Herbert W. Collingwood, President and Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Treasurer and General Manager. 
Wm. F. Dillon, Secretary. Mrs. E. T. Royle, Associate Editor. 
L. H. Murphy, Circulation Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
To foreign countries in the Universal Postal Union, 82.01. Remit in money 
order, express order, personal check or bank draft. 
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the transaction, and to identify it, you should mention The Rural New- 
Yorker when writing the advertiser. 
E LBERT S. BRIGHAM, for ll years Commis¬ 
sioner of Agriculture of Vermont, is a candi¬ 
date for Congress in the First Vermont District. 
This district covers the western side of the State, 
and includes the counties of Grand Isle, Franklin, 
Lamoile, Chittenden, Addison, Rutland and Ben¬ 
nington. Vermont is an agricultural State ; her chief 
industries are now and ever will he dairying and 
fruit growing. Vermont is largely a State of rural 
homes, peopled by a strong and sturdy race, thrifty, 
intelligent and dependable. Such a State should be 
represented at Washington by a typical Vermont 
man, and if one were to go through the district with 
a fine comb he could not find a finer or more appro¬ 
priate candidate than Elbert S. Brigham. He comes 
from good stock. He was raised on a Vermont farm 
and knows the life and the public needs of the Ver¬ 
mont farmer. He is an educated man who has used 
his college training, not in any selfish or narrow 
way, but for the benefit of agriculture. He has done 
great work as Commissioner of Agriculture—not as 
a politician, but as a man with vision to devise a 
progressive program, and the courage to stand for it 
in the face of opposition. Add to this strong per¬ 
sonality, high character, success as a practical 
farmer, and a thorough knowledge of the State, and 
Ave have indeed an ideal representative for Ver¬ 
mont. And Mr. Brigham is known outside the State, 
for his work has made him something of a national 
character. His influence will be felt in big national 
questions. He is a big enough man to handle any 
of them. There has been some criticism of late 
about the size and quality of the men who represent 
the people in Congress. Some of them are not in 
any Avay representative, and there is a general de¬ 
sire to All the capital with bigger and stronger men. 
The voters of the First Vermont District have a 
chance to lead the way in this improvement by elect¬ 
ing Elbert S. Brigham. 
F ROM our reports it seems that the plan of using 
limestone, ground phosphate rock and clover for 
maintaining the fertility and crop-producing power of 
soils has proved a success in Illinois. There has 
been a hot controversy between the advocates of this 
method and those who say that acid phosphate 
should be used. Let us understand that acid phos¬ 
phate means the phosphate rock, ground to a line 
dust and then treated or “cut" with sulphuric acid, 
to make it more available. The raw ground phos¬ 
phate is this fine' dust Avithout the use of the acid. 
There seems to be no question about the results 
which many Western farmers obtain with the use of 
limestone and ground phosphate. At the same time 
the experiments seem to prove that the acid phos¬ 
phate is more valuable and quicker in its action and, 
dollar for dollar expended, a more profitable invest¬ 
ment. The freight on the ground phosphate is very 
heavy, and unless heavy crops of green manure are 
ploAved under with it, results are slow. Most East¬ 
ern farmers Avho keep live stock can hardly bring 
themselves to plow under full crops of clover. Ex¬ 
perience in the West sIioaa's that unless limestone is 
used heavily with the ground phosphate the results 
are not satisfactory. In many parts of the East, 
AAdiere the soil is more or less acid, it Avould seem 
to be better practice to use Soy beans or Alsike 
clover with acid phosphate, in place of Alfalfa or 
Red clover. We doubt if this Hopkins method will 
fit well into most of our Eastern farm practice. 
* 
T HERE are some pessimistic people who seem to 
think that the old-time spirit and power has 
departed from rural neighborhoods. Such people 
should have been at the gathering of country folks 
in Jackson Township, Washington Co., N. Y., on 
June 21. It would have done them good through a 
revival of spirit. Jackson Township has less than 
1,000 inhabitants, and is an agricultural district. 
There Avere over 600 people at the meeting. A few 
came from outside, but the great majority live right 
in the township. It was as fine a body of country 
folks as you can find anywhere; solid, serious, sin¬ 
cere people; men and women of simple, earnest lives, 
who still believe in old-fashioned ideas of duty and 
national obligations. There Avas a fine picnic dinner, 
an entertainment by local people, and a general get- 
together, like some great family come for a reunion. 
There was every evidence of the most skillful man¬ 
agement in the gathering of this company. There 
Avere two women in each school district who devel¬ 
oped local interest and helped bring out the com¬ 
pany. We could not help thinking that the real 
future of agricultural New York lies in just such 
township gatherings. That is the Avay to start or¬ 
ganizing. That is the way to amalgamate our pi-es- 
ent farm organizations and get them together fox- 
team work. Suppose there could be had just such 
informal gatherings in every rural township in the 
State, with a possibility of federating them into 
some simple organization under an entirely new set 
of leaders? Who can doubt that the milk question, 
the school question, and dozens of other farm prob¬ 
lems would be settled? Public opinion, which Avould 
be only an expression of country common sense, 
would force such settlement. There never was such 
an opportunity for true leadership as is now offered 
to men in country neighborhoods Avho are content to 
work quietly at home oi-ganization. 
I* 
HE Journal of the New York State Teachers’ 
Association gives the Commissioner of Educa¬ 
tion some advice about preparing a new school bill. 
Among other things he is advised to: 
Summon the 20S district superintendents of the State 
to a conference in Chancellors’ Hall and stay in con¬ 
ference day in and day out if necessary until substantial 
agreement is reached upon the terms of a bill for re¬ 
organizing the rural school system, and real assurance 
given of genuine co-operation. 
This seems like abandonment of the homeless 
child of the Committee of Twenty-one. At the last 
moment of the legislative session for 1924 an effort 
Avas made to pass the bill by making it “permissive," 
so that on the face of the laxv its provisions Avould 
not have been adopted by any district Avithout a 
majority vote of taxpayers. It is not likely that 
5 per cent of the rural districts would have voted to 
accept the law, yet this offer Avas rejected on the 
px-inciple that Ave should “beware of the Greeks 
when they come offering gifts.” And now the Teach¬ 
ers’ Journal proposes to let the Commissioner and 
the superintendents settle it. What has become of 
the Committee of Twenty-one? What about the 
Home Bureau, the Farm Bureau and other 
organizations whose leadex-s lined up at Al¬ 
bany without any following among the rank 
and file? Are they to be counted out of the dis¬ 
cussion? It is characteristic of these educators to 
assume that they are the only people who are quali¬ 
fied to prepare a new bill. The country people, Avho 
pay taxes and provide the children, are not to be 
consulted, according to this program. What do they 
know about schools? Who cares what they want? 
They are not educators, and if what they desire for 
their children is not scientific and up-to-date, let 
them stand aside and give the educators a chance to 
experiment. Now one Avould think that the experi¬ 
ence of last year ought to have taught these edu¬ 
cators a thing or two, but the education of an edu¬ 
cator is something like drilling a hole into a block of 
granite. We can tell them one thing. The rural 
school bill can never be made into law and properly 
enforced without the sympathetic backing of the 
country people. The educators might just as well 
go out and butt their heads against the Educational 
Building at Albany as to prepare a bill without con¬ 
sulting the country people, and then try to force it 
upon the rural districts! 
* 
ROM South Africa to Alaska this question about 
the i-elative importance of the farmer and the 
professional man has become a living (or dying) 
issue. Here is something from Die Boere Kocrant, 
a farmers’ paper at Pretoria, Transvaal. That is the 
little country Avhicli fought the British Empire—and 
died hard: 
Should a man have three sons and decide to make one 
a doctor, one a lawyer and the other a farmer, he will 
have to spend more money to really establish the farmer 
than either the doctor or lawyer, and having done so 
w-ill discover that the government considers one lawyer 
worth two and a half farmers, and one doctor no less 
than three and three-quarters farmers. 
It seems that a farmer was called as a witness in 
July 5, 1924 
a farm case He was paid $2 a day. Lawyers on the 
same case Avere paid $5, and doctors $7.50. It is not 
likely that their testimony was worth more than 
that of the farmer, but it seems to be the universal 
habit to rate the farmer as half a man when it comes 
to dividing up the returns from labor. One would 
naturally look upon South Africa as a territoi-y 
where farming would stand at the head of the pro¬ 
cession, yet this same farm paper goes on to say: 
Perhaps this is one reason why young South Africans 
appear to go in for the five professions, namely, doctors, 
lawyers, dentists, parsons and schoolmasters, all very 
excellent in their special line, but unproductive. 
They cannot all be called unproductive, though 
some of the products they turn out haA-e no real 
value, but at any rate this idea of the lower social 
value of the fanner extends from “Greenland’s icy 
mountains to India’s coral strand,” and if he ex¬ 
pects to go up higher he must do it himself. This is 
a case Avhere men must lift themselves by pulling 
at their own boot-straps. 
It seems strange that children and wealth never go 
together, but then again it has never been demonstrated 
that they mix well. l. r. p. 
T is probably true that families in homes where 
wealth abounds are seldom large. Most of the 
large families that we know of are in homes xvhei-e 
strict economy is required, and Avhere labor is not 
regarded as a penance. There ax-e, of course, excep¬ 
tions, yet it is quite true that children and wealth 
do not mix well. Most wealthy people seem to con¬ 
sider child beai-ing and training as something i*ather 
beneath their dignity. It is quite true that the child 
brought up with all the luxux-ies that money can buy 
cannot seem to acquire the solid and substantial 
character which can only be gained through self- 
denial and struggle. We have known men who 
pulled themselves up out of poverty to competence, 
who foolishly think they can buy for their children 
the discipline and character which made them suc¬ 
cessful. There are some essential things which 
money cannot buy. 
* 
A S an illustration of how chemistry is becoming 
a factor in the great events of human life, Ave 
are told that the Gei-mans have discovei-ed a cure for 
African sleeping sickness. Fully distributed, this 
Avould, in time, make half of a great continent hab¬ 
itable, and open even greater oppoi*tunities for the 
surplus population than the discovery of America by 
Columbus ever did. There might even be a new 
migration into the rich African interior if this dis¬ 
ease could be conquered. It is said, however, that 
the manufacture of this cure is held a closely guard¬ 
ed secret because of its trading value. There is a 
great struggle now on for colonial possessions. The 
Eui-opean nations Avould caxwe up the continent of 
Africa as grandfather carves the Thanksgiving tur¬ 
key, but entirely without the spixfit which is in his 
heart. Yet these vast tracts of rich land are of little 
real value without cures for the diseases which in¬ 
fect the people. Thus in the French and British 
laboratoi’ies chemists are Avorking to rediscover the 
secret which the Germans refuse to reveal. Such 
things will mean much to all of us in the future. A 
habitable Africa seems too far away for most of us 
to considei-, yet it Avould represent vast productions 
of cotton, sugar, gx*ain and meat, or dairy products, 
besides the usual pi-oducts of the tropics. That Avill 
mean increased competition in the pi-oduction of food 
—and all depending, at this moment, not upon actual 
cultivation of the soil, but the fine work of micro¬ 
scope and test tubes in a laboratory. And all these 
things should shoxv our farmers the absolute neces¬ 
sity of dropping their personal quarrels and differ¬ 
ences and getting together for business. 
Brevities 
We have seen specimens of the Coi'tland apple kept in 
common house storage which show remarkable keeping 
qualities. 
Too much codliver oil fed up to the time of killing 
will give a fishy taste to broilers. Fattening for the last 
10 days, without the oil, will overcome the trouble. 
One of the best things your town can do would be to 
organize a hunt for wild cherry trees. All turn out 
and kill every tree, thus preventing tent caterpillars. 
We have another letter from Uncle Joe Mather, the 
“happy farmer” from Pennsylvania. Now he says this 
is the worst time in history to try to sell a farm, but 
the best time ever knoAvn to buy one at a bargain. 
The owner of an automobile is liable for damages 
Avhich occur as a result of his negligence, when he is 
driving the car himself, and also when his agent or ser¬ 
vant is operating the car for the benefit of the owner. 
Can one make hay by cutting buckwheat green and 
curing it, as we Avould oats or wheat? It can be done, 
and has been done, but it is poor stuff—about the poor¬ 
est of any of the grain hays. There would be no danger 
in feeding it. 
