86 
The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
January  20,  5P2.'> 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
THE  BUSINESS  FARMERS  PAPER 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  lor  Country  ami  Suburban  Homes 
Established  JtSSO 
K'ubtifchrd  wffklj  by  ihr  Uural  Publishing:  Company* *  333  b«t  30ih  Street.  »w  tork 
Herbert  W.  Colling  wood.  President  and  Editor. 
John  J.  Dillon,  Treasurer  and  General  Manager. 
Wm.  F.  Dillon,  Secretary.  Mrs.  E.  T.  Koyle,  Associate  Editor. 
L.  H.  Murphy,  Circulation  Manager. 
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*  “A  SQUARE  DEAL” 
We  believe  that  every  advertisement  in  this  paper  is  backed  by  a  respon¬ 
sible  person.  We  use  every  possible  precaution  and  admit  the  advertising  of 
reliable  houses  only.  But  to  make  doubly  sure,  we  will  make  good  any  loss 
to  paid  subscribers  sustained  by  trusting  any  deliberate  swindler,  irrespon¬ 
sible  advertisers  or  misleading  advertisements  in  our  columns,  and  any 
such  swindler  will  be  publicly  exposed.  We  are  also  often  called  upon 
to  adjust  differences  or  mistakes  between  our  subscribers  and  honest, 
responsible  bouses,  whether  advertisers  or  not.  We  willingly  »se  our  good 
offices  to  this  end,  but  such  cases  should  not  be  confused  with  dishonest 
transactions.  We  protect  subscribers  against  rogues,  but  we  will  not  be 
responsible  for  the  debts  of  honest  bankrupts  sanctioned  by  the  courts. 
Notice  of  the  complaint  must  be  sent  to  us  within  one  month  of  the  time  of 
the  transaction,  and  to  identify  it,  you  should  mention  The  Rural  New- 
Yorker  when  writing  the  advertiser. 
I  have  a  blind  brother  who  is  taking  training  in  poul¬ 
try  raising  at  the  Evergreen  School  for  the  Blind,  at 
Baltimore,  Md.  He  visited  me  during  the  holidays  and 
was  so  pleased  with  several  articles  read  to  him  that  he 
said.  “I  want  that  paper.”  I  thought  probably  you 
would  like  to  know  that  even  a  blind  man  can  see  that 
The  R.  N.-Y.  is  in  a  class  by  itself.  c.  a.  fowler. 
Pen  nsyl  vania. 
E  do  appreciate  the  fact.  It  may  be  interest¬ 
ing  to  say  that  we  have  many  blind  “readers” 
v.  ho  insist  on  having  the  paper  read  to  them. 
* 
NEWS  comes  from  the  State  of  Washington  of  a 
legal  decision  which  upsets  tradition  in  the 
seed  trade.  As  we  understand  it,  a  farmer  ordered 
2,500  lbs.  of  Spring  rye  seed.  The  first  1.000  lbs. 
were  delivered  and  sown.  It  proved  to  be  ordinary 
Winter  rye,  and  was  of  course  useless  for  Spring 
seeding,  the  object  being  to  produce  a  quick  growth  of 
liay.  When  the  remaining  1.500  lbs.  of  seed  came 
the  bags  carried  the  usual  no-guaranty  tags.  This 
seed  was  also  Winter  rye.  The  farmer  sued  for 
damages  and  secured  a  judgment  for  $900  for  the 
first  1,000  lbs.  The  lower  court  denied  recovery  for 
the  rest  of  the  seed  on  the  claim  that  the  no-guar¬ 
anty  clause  relieved  the  seedsman  from  liability. 
The  Supreme  Court  of  Washington  has  now  re¬ 
versed  this  judgment.  It  holds  that  the  fanner  is 
Entitled  to  recover  the  reasonable  value  of  the  hay 
crop  that  the  entire  2,500  lbs.  of  seed  would  have  pro¬ 
duced  had  it  been  Spring  instead  of  Fall  rye.  The 
lower  court’s  finding  that  the  first  1,000  lbs.  of  seed 
would  have  been  sufficient  to  cover  90  acres  and  should 
have  yielded  80  tons  of  hay  worth  $10  per  ton.  less  $4 
per  ton  for  harvesting,  was  affirmed. 
Under  this  decision  the  seedsman  seems  to  have 
been  held  responsible  for  his  mistake,  without  regard 
to  his  refusal  to  assume  a  responsibility.  The  court 
seems  to  have  held  him  responsible,  without  regard 
to  any  “disclaimer."  The  usual  statement  printed 
on  seed  packages  has  been  supposed  to  be  absolutely 
bullet-proof  in  a  legal  sense. 
* 
EARLY  every  day  we  have  letters  asking  for 
0 
the  Commercial  value  of  silage.  Formerly 
silage  was  rarely  sold,  except  at  an  occasional  auc¬ 
tion,  or  where  a  dairy  farm  had  changed  hands  in 
Winter.  Now  many  sales  are  reported.  What  is  a 
fair  price?  There  can  be  no  standard  price  as  there 
is  for  grain  and  hay.  except  by  comparison.  The 
usual  plan  is  to  figure  that  good  silage  in  the  silo 
is  worth  35  per  cent  of  the  price  of  good  hay  in  the 
mow.  Thus  if  hay  is  worth  $20  a  ton,  silage  will 
he  worth  $7.50.  and  so  on.  This  is  a  rough  estimate, 
which  seems  to  have  been  accepted  in  many  eases  of 
sale.  It  is  usually  estimated  that  in  a  well-packed 
silo  a  cubic  foot  of  silage  will  weight  about  40  lbs., 
which  means  50  cubic  feet  to  the  ton.  We  think 
that  as  the  years  go  on  silage  will  become  more  and 
more  a  commercial  product,  and  sold  as  feed  is  on 
Hie  basis  of  its  analysis. 
❖ 
T  is  now  thought  sure  that  some  sort  of  farm 
credits  bill  will  be  passed  by  Congress  during  the 
present  session,  .lust  what  form  it  will  take  cannot 
he  told  at  this  time.  There  will  be  wirepulling  and 
trading  on  it.  but  probably  its  chief  features  will  be 
longer  terms  of  credits  and  larger  loans.  This  will 
accommodate  Western  farmers  and  stock  feeders, 
who  are  often  obliged  to  hold  feeding  cattle  or  other 
stock  for  months  before  cashing  in.  We  cannot  see 
that  any  of  these  proposed  plans  for  credit  are  to  be 
of  any  great  service  to  our  Eastern  farmers.  A 
small  proportion  of  them  can  make  good  use  of  such 
credit,  and  their  organizations  will  find  it  useful. 
The  rank  and  file  of  our  farmers  will  be  better  off 
not  to  borrow  more  money.  As  a  class  they  are  far 
enough  in  debt  now.  What  they  need  more  than 
credit  is  a  market  system  which  will  injure  fair 
prices  for  what  they  produce.  Give  them  that  and 
they  will  take  care  of  the  rest.  The  danger  is  that 
all  this  concentration  of  thought  on  credits  will  ob¬ 
scure  the  bigger  issue  of  enforcing  the  laws  so  that  a 
better  system  of  distribution  can  be  worked  out, 
HE  legislative  situation  at  Albany  is  peculiar. 
There  never  was  anything  quite  like  it  before. 
The  season's  work  will  be  essentially  a  struggle  be¬ 
tween  New  York  City  and  the  up-State  or  rural 
counties.  On  the  figures  the  Democrats  control  the 
Senate  by  one  vote,  but  one  Senator  classed  as  a 
Democrat  really  belongs  to  the  other  party.  The 
Republicans  are  supposed  to  have  a  majority  of  12 
in  the  Assembly,  but  six  of  their  members  are  from 
New  York,  and  in  many  eases  can  be  counted  on  to 
vote  with  the  city  majority.  This  is  most  likely  to 
be  a  trading  Legislature,  with  not  much  chance  of 
getting  hills  through  on  their  real  merits.  There  will 
be  more  dickering  and  wirepulling  than  usual,  and 
too  much  grand-stand  playe  for  party  politics.  The 
Democrats  seem  determined  to  repeal  much  of  the 
legislation  passed  during  Gov.  Miller’s  term.  They 
will  be  obliged  to  do  this  in  order  to  satisfy  New 
York  City.  At  this  moment  it  appears  that  the 
direct  primary  law  will  come  back.  Nothing  par¬ 
ticular  has  yet  been  done  toward  agricultural  legis¬ 
lation,  but  it  does  not  seem  likely  now  that  any 
serious  effort  will  be  made  to  pass  a  new  rural  school 
bill. 
* 
HERE  is  good  prospect  now  that  the  Voight 
“filled”  milk  bill  will  become  a  law.  It  has 
already  passed  the  House,  and  the  agricultural  com¬ 
mittee  of  the  Senate  favorably  reported  the  bill  last 
week.  "Filled”  milk  is  one  of  the  meanest  frauds 
that  has  ever  been  imposed  on  the  food  consuming 
public.  It  is  made  by  first  taking  the  butterfat  out 
of  whole  milk,  and  then  replacing  the  butterfat  with 
a  cheap  vegetable  oil.  Of  course  the  main  purpose 
is  to  sell  the  cheap  vegetable  oil  disguised  in  skim- 
milk  on  the  credit  of  butterfat.  and  that  at  a  price 
that  the  vegetable  oil  would  not  bring  if  sold  on  its 
merits.  "Filled”  milk  is  a  cheat,  and  Congress  only 
does  its  duty  in  putting  a  stop  to  the  fraud. 
* 
“When  you  buy  oleomargarine  you  are  supporting 
the  Sultan  of  Sulu  of  the  South  Sea  Islands,  who  is  so 
lazy  he  lies  under  the  cocoanut  trees  and  waits  for  the 
cocoanuts  to  ripen  and  fall  so  that  he  can  gather  them 
and  ship  them  to  the  United  States  to  compete  with  the 
dairy  cow,”  states  P.  F.  Graf,  Grant  County  agricul¬ 
tural  agent. 
HAT  is  from  the  Press  Bulletin  of  the  Wisconsin 
University — and  it  is  right.  The  same  is  true 
when  you  fill  up  on  filled  milk.  What  do  you  stand 
for.  pure  butterfat  or  cocoanut  oil,  the  dairy  cow  or 
the  cocoanut  tree,  the  self-respecting  American  dairy 
farmer  or  the  half-naked  native  lounging  in  the 
shade?  It  is  about  time  the  American  consumer 
began  to  think  about  it.  If  the  consumer  does  not 
give  the  producer  a  fair  chance  he  will  be  consumed. 
* 
OME  one  asks  where  in  the  United  States  can 
be  found  the  greatest  road  jam  of  automobiles. 
We  can  hardly  see  the  advantage  of  getting  into 
such  a  crush,  but  we  think  one  of  the  shore  roads  in 
New  Jersey,  leading  to  Atlantic  City,  would  be  the 
place  for  it.  It  is  reported  that  at  oue  flag  station 
on  the  railroad  5.000  cars  and  95  trains  were  safely 
passed  in  four  hours  without  mishap  and  the  least 
possible  delay.  On  some  busy  days  there  will  be 
double  rows  of  cars  over  25  miles  long  passing  each 
other  in  regular  order.  Of  course  in  such  cases  a 
roadside  market  would  he  out  of  the  question,  except 
where  a  track  can  be  made  off  the  main  road.  One 
man  reports  that  it  has  sometimes  required  15  min¬ 
utes  to  get  out  of  his  own  yard  with  a  car.  and  then 
he  must  join  a  slow  procession.  Some  of  our  rural 
people  will  find  it  hard  to  realize  how  the  roads  are 
crowded  in  New  Jersey  and  Eastern  New  York  dur¬ 
ing  much  of  the  Summer.  New  Jersey,  in  particular, 
is  the  pathway  between  two  of  the  greatest  cities  in 
the  world,  and  the  gate  through  which  Western  and 
Southern  visitors  pass.  Each  year.  too.  millions  of 
people  come  down  out  of  the  interior  to  play  or  loaf 
on  the  Atlantic  coast.  Thus  the  car  is  changing 
New  Jersey  from  a  farm  to  a  garden  State,  and  this 
great  crowd  of  strangers  provides  the  finest  market 
in  the  world. 
THIS  baek-to-the-lander  discussion  takes  a  new 
turn  this  week.  A  man  at  the  age  when  he 
should  be  in  the  prime  of  life  lias  made  enough 
money  to  give  him  a  modest  income  for  the  rest  of 
his  life.  Shall  he  keep  on  working  in  the  city  and 
save  up  more  money,  or  shall  he  find  some  little 
place  in  the  country  where  he  can  live  in  content¬ 
ment  on  the  income  from  his  savings  and  what  he 
can  produce  with  his  own  labor?  This  is  not  the 
problem  of  one  who  goes  to  a  farm  to  sweat  and 
worry  for  a  chance  to  exist.  This  man’s  living  is 
fairly  secure.  Where  can  he  go  to  live  a  good  life 
for  the  remainder  of  his  years?  There  are  thou¬ 
sands  of  men  like  J.  B.  W.,  and  the  decision  they 
make  will  have  quite  a  little  to  do  with  the  future 
of  this  country.  In  the  city  they  can  never  hope  to 
be  much  more  than  a  cog  on  a  wheel.  In  some  rural 
neighborhood  they  may  become  a  wheel.  They  will 
prove  good  substitutes  for  some  of  the  country  people 
who  are  moving  to  town.  No  one  can  advise  such 
people  definitely.  They  must  decide  for  themselves 
where  they  can  best  live  a  good  life.  The  nation 
would  he  better  off  if  thousands  of  them  would  get 
out  of  the  big  cities  and  take  their  capital,  tlieir 
energy  and  business  experience  out  into  the  country 
and  use  them  all  for  rural  development. 
* 
T  is  some  years  since  The  R.  N.-Y.  told  its  readers 
about  “alumite,”  the  substance  found  in  parts  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  Now  the  papers  are  just 
about  beginning  to  describe  this  material.  It  is  a 
combination  of  aluminum,  potash  and  sulphur.  All 
these  substances,  and  especially  the  first  two,  are 
necessities  in  manufacturing  and  agriculture,  and 
at  present  both  are  practically  controlled  by  monopo¬ 
lies.  We  expect  that  back  of  this  new  effort  1o 
“boom”  alumite  will  be  found  some  propaganda  for 
selling  stock  in  a  mining  enterprise.  Our  under¬ 
standing  is  that  while  there  are  large  deposits  of 
these  minerals  in  the  mountains,  they  lie  in  such 
situations  that  mining  is  too  costly  to  pay  at  this 
time.  We  advise  our  readers  to  go  very  slow  about 
buying  stock  in  potash  mines. 
* 
E  recently  ran  upon  a  co-operative  plan  which 
might  well  be  imitated  in  every  rural  county. 
A  group  of  women  have  interested  themselves  in  a 
plan  for  securing  good  teachers.  They  raise  a  fund 
and  send  each  year  some  deserving  girl  to  the  State 
normal  school.  The  idea  is  to  select  some  girl  who 
could  not  otherwise  attend,  through  lack  of  financial 
resources.  The  girl  is  selected  on  the  basis  of 
scholarship,  character  and  natural  fitness  for  teach¬ 
ing.  She  is  required  to  give  a  pledge  that  after 
graduating  from  the  normal  she  will  come  back  to 
the  county  and  teach  at  least  two  years.  In  this 
way  deserving  girls  are  helped,  natural  teachers  are 
trained,  and  the  number  of  good  teachers  in  the 
county  is  increased.  The  amount  required  from  each 
member  of  such  an  organization  is  small,  but  tlie 
returns  to  the  community  are  great.  It  is  often  hard 
to  start  and  carry  on  such  enterprises,  for  all  people 
do  not  have  quite  the  vision  and  the  joy  of  service 
needed  to  see  the  full  glory  of  such  an  enterprise. 
Yet  the  success  of  all  our  larger  attempts  at  co¬ 
operation  will  be  determined  by  the  success  of  these 
smaller  efforts  which  do  not  have  any  great  mate¬ 
rial  gains  for  their  measure  of  success.  Like  the 
“little  drops  of  water,  little  grains  of  sand.”  of  our 
nursery  rhyme,  these  local  efforts  to  benefit  the 
community  combine  to  make  the  great  industrial 
movement  a  success. 
* 
E  understand  that  during  the  session  of  the 
next  New  York  Legislature  a  determined  ef¬ 
fort  will  be  made  to  disband  the  New  York  8tate 
troopers.  The  fight  against  the  troopers  comes 
largely  from  the  labor  unions,  chiefly  on  the  ground 
that  the  troopers  have  been  used  in  suppressing 
strikes  in  cities.  There  is  also  the  argument  of 
economy.  Three  years  ago  we  made  a  careful  can¬ 
vass  of  this  matter,  and  found  that  a  large  majority 
of  our  farmers  favored  the  troopers  and  wanted 
them  continued.  Many  of  our  readers  said  that 
these  officers  gave  genuine  protection  to  country 
people;  in  fact,  all  the  police  protection  they  had. 
As  the  question  is  sure  to  come  up  early  this  year. 
we  ask  our  country  friends  to  tell  us  just  how  they 
stand  on  the  question. 
Brevities 
A  “January  thaw”  is  reported  “up  the  State.”  It 
ought  to  help  fill  up  some  Of  the  dry  wells. 
The  wheel  that  squeaks  the  loudest  is  the  one  that 
gets  the  oil. 
The  Kansas  Experiment  Station  states  that  sawdust, 
mixed  with  soda,  is  a  good  extinguisher  for  oil  fires. 
Some  of  our  fastidious  friends  rather  object  to  the 
use  of  the  word  “sucker.”  The  dictionary  defines  it  as 
“a  person  easily  duped.”  There  seem  to  be  many  of 
them  ! 
It  seems  that  many  children  can  hardly  be  induced  to 
drink  milk  at  home — out  of  a  glass;  but  at  school,  the 
novelty  of  sucking  the  milk  through  a  straw  makes  them 
milk  drinkers. 
We  have  many  letters  from  people  who  ask  about 
cultivating  improved  elderberries.  There  is  not  enough 
of  it  done  yet  to  give  particulars,  but  in  general  way 
the  elderberries  are  planted  eight  feet  ear-h  way  and 
cultivated  much  like  blackberries. 
