1264 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 4, 1924 
Keeping the Telephone Alive 
Americans have learned to depend on the telephone, in 
fair weather or in foul, for the usual affairs of the day or 
for the dire emergency in the dead of night. Its continuous 
service is taken as a matter of course. 
The marvel of it is that the millions of thread-like wires 
are kept alive and ready to vibrate at one’s slightest breath. 
A few drops of water in a cable, a faulty connection in the 
wire maze of a switchboard, a violent sleet, rain or wind 
storm or the mere falling of a branch will often jeopardize 
the service. 
Every channel for the speech currents must be kept elec¬ 
trically intact. The task is as endless as housekeeping. 
Inspection of apparatus, equipment and all parts of the 
plant is going on all the time. Wire chiefs at “test boards’* 
locate trouble on the wires though miles away. Repairmen, 
the “trouble hunters,” are at work constantly wherever they 
are needed in city streets, country roads or in the seldom- 
trodden trails of the wilderness. 
Providing telephone service for this great nation is a 
huge undertaking. To keep this vast mechanism always 
electrically alive and dependable is the unending task of 
tens of thousands of skillful men and women in every state 
in the Union. 
American telephone and Telegraph Company 
And Associated Companies 
BELL SYSTEM 
One Policy, One System, Universal Service 
ROOT BORERS 
Peach, Prune & Apricot; also Pear & 
Apple Aphis and Grape Phyllox¬ 
era. Killed with PARAFIX, (Pure 
Paradichlorbenzene recommended 
by U. S. Gov. & State Exp. Sta.) 
Full instructions, results guaran¬ 
teed or money back. Booklet FREE. 
Treat 10 trees $1 — 60 trees $3. Post¬ 
paid or C. O. D. The Parafix Co., 
Grand Central P.O. Box 273, N. Y .C, 
ASPARAGUS ROOTS-Dewberry Plants 
CALIFORNIA PRIVET HEDGE, Elc. 
Send for free wholesale price list. 
M. N. B0RG0, Est. - Vineland. N. J. 
( SPARAGUS crowns and seed. Palmetto & Washington Rust 
** Resistant. Booklet free. T. R. PENDER, Wlllislon, S. C. Boi C 
G.L.F. Quality HAY 
First and second cutting Alfalfa, 
containing some mixture of other 
grasses. Good values. 
Write for quotations 
COOPERATIVE G. L. F. EXCHANGE 
307 S. Franklin St., Dept. A, Syracuse, N. Y. 
ERR Y 
>LANTS 
STRAWBERRY, RASPBERRY, 
BLACKBERRY, LOGANBERRY, 
GOOSEBERRY, CURRANT and 
GRAPE plants; ASPARAGUS and 
5UBARB roots ; Hardy Perennial flower plants for 
ptember and October planting. Catalogue free. 
ARRY L. SQUIRES Hampton Bays, N. Y, 
00,000 Fruit Trees certified true to name by the Mass. Fruit Growers’ Association, 
work being done by Dr. J. K. Shaw of the Mass. State Experimental Station, Am¬ 
herst, Mass., and guaranteed by us. Our stock is sold to you direct at cost plus 
one profit only. 40 years of active nursery experience is back -vrarv 
of every tree. 
* Send for Our Big FREE Catalog Today 
It shows that we recognize our responsibility to the man who vsSSggw* 
plants. 
i FALL PLANTING PAYS 
■» for the uniform moisture and temperature of the ground are feSjSj 
4 . more favorable to root formation, the root action being well es- 
tablisbed long before the ground is fit for planting in the Spring. 
Small or large orders get the same attention. It will pay you to 
. 6end for our Free Descriptive Catalog. It contains valuable in- JgWg&AlW 
* formation on fruit and shrubs and saves you money—write today. bCK 
!£),.«r We Prepay Transportation Charges. See Catalog •—flwaj 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
DOMESTIC.—Federal Judge Carpen¬ 
ter at Chichgo, Sept. 19, overruled the de¬ 
murrers of Col. Charles R. Forbes, for¬ 
merly Director of the United States Vet¬ 
erans’ Bureau, and J. B. Thompson, sen¬ 
ior member of the Chicago-St. Louis con¬ 
cern, Thompson-Black Company, to the 
indictment charging them with conspir¬ 
acy to defraud the government, and said 
that on Oct. 14 he would set the date of 
trial. 
Almost all of the 150 guests who fled 
from flames that destroyed the Oedney 
Farms Hotel near White Plains, N. Y., 
Sept. 21, lost clothing and jewelry of an 
estimated total value of $250,000. Loss 
to the hotel company will amount to 
about $750,000. of which $450,000 is cov¬ 
ered by insurance. Believing the flames, 
discovered on the fourth floor, could 
easily be extinguished, few of the guests 
went to their rooms when the alarm was 
sounded. Firemen apparently had the 
blaze under control about midnight, when 
the fire suddenly spread to the wings of 
the hotel. 
Fifty-eight persons are reported dead 
and an equal number injured in violent 
storms that swept Minnesota and Wis¬ 
consin Sept. 22. The wind reported in 
places as attaining a velocity of 80 miles 
an hour, was accompanied by torrential 
rains. Wisconsin bore the brunt of the 
fatalities, reports from that State indicat¬ 
ing 50 dead and probably as many more 
injured. Minnesota’s known dead are 
five. The monetary losses will be heavy 
as houses, barns and growing crops were 
levelled by the violence -of the wind. 
Property losses are reported also from 
South Dakota and Iowa. 
One-third of the village of St. Con¬ 
stant, 22 miles from Montreal, Canada, 
was destroyed early Sept. 22 by a fire 
which caused damages estimated at $500,- 
000. More than 100 persons of the vil¬ 
lage’s population of 400 were made home¬ 
less by flames, spread by a high wind. 
St. Constant has no fire department and 
a young woman telephone operator re¬ 
mained alone at her post until she had 
called aid from Montreal and St. Lam¬ 
bert. She finally was forced to flee when 
the flames reached the Exchange Build¬ 
ing. 
Mrs. Maria Santillo, 55, of Huntington, 
Conn., died Sept. 23 in the Bridgeport 
Hospital of poisoning caused by eating 
toadstools which she mistook for mush¬ 
rooms. She is the second victim in her 
family to succumb, a son, Nazarene San¬ 
tillo, 18, having died previously. 
The day when the Postoffice Depart¬ 
ment will spend a billion dollars a year 
is not far distant, Postmaster General 
New told members of the National Asso¬ 
ciation of First and Second Class Post¬ 
masters, Sept. 23, at the opening of their 
convention. The Postmaster General dis¬ 
closed that revised estimates for the fiscal 
year 1926, to be submitted to Congress in 
December, will call for $636.S60,000 for 
the postal service. That is $25,000,000 
more than appropriated for the fiscal year 
of 1925, which began July 1. 
A village church standing among ruins 
was all that remained Sept 23 of St. Ur- 
bain, Quebec, which was swept by 
flames between midnight and dawn. The 
homes of the 50 inhabitants had been de¬ 
stroyed, as well as the village hostelry, 
the carriage factory, two general stores 
and other business places with an ag¬ 
gregate loss of $150,000. 
WASHINGTON. — American insur¬ 
ance companies received awards totalling 
$66,000,000 Sept. 18 from the Mixed 
Claims Commission, which is dealing 
with claims against Germany arising out 
of the World War. The awards, the 
largest yet made by the commission, were 
chiefly for losses on hulls and cargoes. 
Certain claims arising from the sinking 
of the Lusitania were dismissed as a re¬ 
sult of the findings of the umpire of the 
commission, Judge Edwin B. Parker. 
Ten life insurance cases had been pre¬ 
sented through the American agent, Rob¬ 
ert W. Bonynge, on behalf of 12 com¬ 
panies seeking to recover alleged losses 
under the terms of 18 policies covering 
the lives of 11 of the passengers lost on 
the ship. The two national commission¬ 
ers had been unable to agree on the 10 
eases, the American Commissioner. Chan¬ 
dler P. Anderson, holding the claims jus¬ 
tified, and the German Commissioner, Dr. 
Wilhelm Kiesselbach, holding the reverse. 
The cases thereupon went to the umpire. 
Expansion of the air mail service to 
Central American capitals and the Pana¬ 
ma Canal Zone is under consideration by 
officials of the State Department, Post 
Office Department and Army Air Service. 
The project of mapping mail airways be¬ 
tween New Orleans or some other Gulf 
port to the Central American countries 
is regarded as practical and desirable. 
Preliminary plans for the new mail ser¬ 
vice provide that the Army Air Service 
pilots and equipment would be used in 
co-operation with the Post Office Depart¬ 
ment. The service later would be trans¬ 
ferred to the Post Office Department or 
to some commercial enterprise. The pro¬ 
posed service must be approved by the 
heads of six governments, and the State 
Department will sound out the Central 
American Foreign Offices. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Sacrophagid 
or horsefly armies, now invading Mon¬ 
tana grain fields, are killing grasshoppers 
with such rapidity that within a short 
time the insect pests will be virtually ex¬ 
terminated, according to entomologists of 
the State Agricultural College at Boze¬ 
man, so says an Associated Press dis¬ 
patch from Helena, Mont. The flesh- 
fly invasion, coming at the height of the 
State-wide grasshopper poisoning cam¬ 
paign, has accounted for millions of “hop¬ 
pers,” the college experts report. 
The production of crystalline levulose, 
one of the sweetest and most nutritious 
members of the sugar group, as well as 
one of the most expensive (selling as it 
does at from $30 to $110 a pound), from 
Dahlias or Jerusalem artichokes, at rela¬ 
tively low cost, has been accomplished by 
experts at the Bureau of Standards. The 
artichokes, it is declared, serve as a par¬ 
ticularly promising source, since it is ex¬ 
tremely prolific and since its agricultural 
requirements are simple. 
There are at least 4,000 deer roaming 
the woods of Atlantic County, N. J., and 
even more in Burlington, according to 
William A. Faunce, a member of the 
State Fish and Game Commission, who 
addressed the local Iviwanis Club at 
Hammonton, N. J., Sept. 18. The com¬ 
mission does not approve of increasing 
that number, Mr. Faunce said, but on the 
other hand, will not permit an open sea¬ 
son on does for fear of mortality among 
the hunters. The law prohibits a hunter 
from firing before he sees the horns of 
the buck. In this way there have been 
few accidents among hunters, and few 
victims among the deer. 
One of the novel attractions at the 
State Fair in Syracuse was the New 
York Central-Ameriean Railway Express 
Exhibition train. The powerful locomo¬ 
tive weighed 350,000 lbs. on the drivers, 
and was under steam and in charge of 
an engineer and fireman. In one of the 
passenger coaches, the lecture ear, inter¬ 
esting motion pictures were shown out¬ 
lining many features of the science of 
modern transportation. A fully equipped 
mail car was used as a post office sub¬ 
station with mail clerks distributing mail 
in the regular way. Motion pictures of 
the handling of the mails were shown in 
the lecture car. The express company 
also presented a modern refrigerator car, 
equipped for high speed, loaded with sam¬ 
ples of approved crates, boxes, hampers, 
baskets, tubs, and other carriers for safe 
and careful packing of fruits and vege¬ 
tables, fish, lobsters, crabs, and other 
foods transported under refrigeration. 
Making a Husk Mattress 
Pull off eornhusks, keeping them 
straight, until you get about what you 
think will make two mattresses. Fasten 
a hackle to something heavy and firm, 
take a medium handful, hackle one end, 
then turn and hackle the other end. After 
this is done fill a large iron or copper ket¬ 
tle two-thirds fujl of water; when boiling 
put husks into water, a bunch at a time. 
Lift them, put on boards. After drained 
and cool, spread on grass in sun, turning 
until perfectly dry; then they are ready. 
Put. in tick, leaving an opening in mid¬ 
dle. Place them through opening as you 
want them, keeping middle a little higher, 
using plenty. Get your cord and a tuft- 
ins- needle. Tie from center to edge, up 
and from center down, then go over it in 
rows 6 to 8 in. apart. w. F. s. 
The Lady: “I gave you a piece of pie 
last week, and you’ve been sending your 
friends here ever since.” The Tramp: 
“You’re mistaken, lady. Them was my 
enemies !”—Birmingham Weekly Post. 
CONTENTS 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, OCT. 4, 1924 
FARM TOPICS 
Raising a Barn Roof .... 1256 
Notes from Oregon ... 1259 
Hope Farm Notes .1266, 1267 
Reconstruction of Silo ... 1267 
Green or Frosted Corn . 1275 
LIVE STOCK AND DAIRY 
Cheaper Roughage for Dairy Cows . 1256 
Figuring Economical Ration . 1272 
Grain With Legume Crops .1272, 1274 
Simplifying Ration . 1274 
Cow Has Udder Trouble . 1274 
Partially Paralyzed Pig . 1274 
Discussion of Mixed Feed . 1278 
THE HENYARD 
Peddling Eggs in New York City . 1256 
Mixing Thoroughbreds .1275 
New York State Egg-laying Contest . 1280 
Outlook for the Poultry Business . 1280 
HORTICULTURE 
Essential Features of the New York Apple 
Grading Law . 1256 
Fruit at New York State Fair .. 1256 
Everbearing Strawberries . 1257 
WOMAN AND HOME 
Talks With a Trained Nurse . 1265 
From Day to Day . 1270 
The Rural Patterns . 1270 
Uncooked Pickles .1270, 1271 
Tennessee Notes . 1271 
Uncooked Jackson Pickles . 1271 
MISCELLANEOUS 
Radio That Is Understandable .1255, 1256 
The Cemetery Law of New York State .... 1256 
Settling a Fence Problem . 1257 
“A Gasoline Improver” . 1257 
The Pastoral Parson . 1260 
Line Fence of Barbed Wire . 1260 
Advice About Setting Traps . 1262 
Fighting the Gray Squirrel . 1262 
Making a Crow Talk . 1262 
Senator LaFollette’s Chances . 1269 
The Child Labor Amendment . 1269 
Will It Be a Hard Winter! . 1275 
Clogged Water Pipe . 1275 
Countrywide Situation . 1277 
Publisher’s Desk . 1282 
