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The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
June  28,  192:5 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
THE  BUSINESS  FARMER'S  PAPER 
A  Natlonul  Weekly  Join-mil  for  Country  and  Suburban  llomei 
Established  is.w 
Published  weekly  by  the  Knrel  Pnbli* *hin*  Company,  S3S  Weil  SOth  Street.  New  fork 
Herbert  W.  Colling  wood.  President  and  Editor. 
JOHN  J.  DlLtOH,  Treasurer  and  General  Manager. 
Wm.  F.  Dillon.  Secretary.  Mrs.  E.  T.  Hoyle,  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  houses,  whether  advertisers  or  not.  We  willingly  use  our  good 
unices  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. 
Anyone  doing  as  good  work  and  giving  suck  excel¬ 
lent  service  in  many  directions  as  Tiie  R.  N.-Y.  should 
receive  a  word  of  appreciation  from  its  beneficiaries, 
and  1  am  pleased  to  say  that  at  the  age  of  54.  I  find 
myself  anticipating  and  receiving  my  R.  N.-Y.  with 
i he  same  delight  and  real  pleasure  that.  I  received 
“(J olden  Days,"  a  boy’s  paper.  40  years  ago.  1  reserve 
my  R.  N.-Y.  strictly  for  leisure  reading  after  the 
garden  work  is  done,  and  I  am  enjoying  my  relaxation. 
WILSON  I).  YOUMANS. 
T  54  one  must  indeed  lie  enjoying  “Golden 
Days.”  But  remember  that  the  “diamond 
days”  of  75  are  on  ahead  and  after  that  they  ap¬ 
proach  the  value  of  radium.  Our  wish  for  all  is 
“Happy  Days!” 
* 
IT  looks  like  a  great  increase  of  trade  at  the  road¬ 
side  markets  this  year.  The  things  most 
needed  to  increase  this  trade  are  honest,  clean  serv¬ 
ice  and  uniform  goods  and  prices  a  little  under  what 
the  retail  stores  charge.  No  one  can  ever  give  any 
reason  why  a  city  man  should  drive  out  to  a  farm¬ 
er’s  stand  and  pay  as  much  as  he  does  at  the  cor¬ 
ner  store.  Farmers  should  be  fair  in  their  prices. 
We  think  it  is  a  mistake  to  try  to  combine  the  sab' 
of  cigars,  tobacco,  candy  and  “hot  dogs”  with  farm 
produce.  Better  stick  to  the  farm  goods  alone. 
Several  new  schemes  will  be  tried  this  year.  In 
some  cases  a  group  of  farmers  on  side  roads  Avill 
combine  and  open  a  stand  on  the  main  road  where 
all  can  be  sold  co-operatively.  Another  plan  is  to 
select  some  central  place  where  there  is  a  good 
lawn  and  have  a  regular  market  twice  a  week.  The 
farmers  will  bring  their  produce  to  this  central 
point  and  advertise  in  the  local  papers  what  they 
have  to  offer.  Customers  will  come  and  buy  if 
they  can  be  assured  fair  treatment  and  reliable 
goods.  All  these  tilings  are  developing  and  will  help 
keep  goods  off  the  wholesale  market. 
* 
I  did  not  write  tins  long  letter  to  "get  into  the  pa¬ 
per.”  but  just  because  I  wanted  to  talk  to  some  one. 
vv.  a. 
IIAT  is  taken  from  a  recent  letter  sent  us  by  a 
farm  woman.  It.  was  a  rather  cheerless  day. 
Work  is  behind,  the  season  late  and  prospects  not  of 
the  best.  This  woman,  like  thousands  of  others, 
felt  that  she  must  express  her  feelings — talk  to 
some  one  who  would  listen  with  sympathy  and  un¬ 
derstand.  There  did  not  happen  to  be  anyone  at 
home  who  could  quite  fill  the  place,  so  she  sat  down 
and  wrote  to  The  B.  N.-Y.  It  was  a  good  letter,  as 
such  compelling  talks  are  sure  to  be.  It  gave  us 
a  view  of  human  life  and  its  surroundings  which  we 
needed.  We  appreciate  the  letter  and  the  feeling 
that  tbe  paper  seems  near  and  friendly  at  such  a 
time.  Aside  from  every  other  consideration,  it  is 
,the  greatest  asset  which  any  paper  can  have — this 
feeling  of  confidence  and  trust. 
THE  success  of  the  book  “Main  Street”  led  to  a 
flood  of  somewhat  similar  volumes — all  an¬ 
alyzing  and  discussing  life  in  tbe  small  country 
town.  A  few  of  them  are  gentle  and  true  pictures 
of  life;  others  are  sarcastic  or  even  malignant  in 
their  social  butchery.  On  the  whole  they  have  done 
much  harm,  with  little  compensating  good.  We 
hear  of  one  case  where  a  young  woman  was  en¬ 
gaged  to  be  married  to  a  lawyer  in  a  rural  town. 
After  reading  several  of  these  “life  pictures.”  she 
broke  the  engagement  rather  than  “live  in  such  a 
place.”  Such  a  thing,  of  course,  is  of  minor  import¬ 
ance  compared  with  the  disinterested  view  of  rural 
town  life  which  careless  books  of  this  type  convey. 
There  is  enough  of  ill-feeling  between  city  and 
country  town  already,  without  all  this  tiresome 
analyzing  and  cartooning.  What  we  expect  will 
follow  is  a  similar  attempt  to  “analyze”  country 
life.  Following  “Main  Street”  we  may  perhaps  have 
“The  Spring  Valley  Road”  in  some  similar  attempt 
to  burlesque  or  belittle  farm  life  and  country  char¬ 
acter.  Well,  we  seem  to  have  grown  away  from 
tbe  old  “hayseed”  pictures,  and  real  country  life  is 
sweet  and  true  enough  to  rise  above  any  new  at¬ 
tack. 
* 
Can  you  cite  any  other  measure,  passed  by  the  Legis- 
■  lature  in  recent  years  that  received  one-t  nth  of  the 
attention  and  publicity  that  this  scdiool  bill  has?  We 
have  spent  three  years  digging  up  the  facts  and  getting 
the  viewpoint  of  the  rural  people  and  the  bill  has  been 
drawn  in  the  light  of  all  the  evidence  with  two  chief 
objects  in  view  ;  better  schools  and  more  equitable  taxa¬ 
tion.  Are  you  in  favor  of  these  two  objects? 
MEMBER  of  flic  Committe  of  Twenty-one  asks 
these  questions.  It  does  not  seem  to  us  that 
any  comparative  statement  about  publicity  covers 
tlie  question.  When  we  send  out  4,000  letters  at 
random  to  country  people  asking  without  any  preju¬ 
dice  for  an  opinion  on  this  school  bill,  and  f-50 
reply  that  they  know  little  or  nothing  about  it,  and 
ask  for  information,  we  conclude  that  the  three 
4 
years  of  digging  require  additional  work  with  a 
spade.  Of  course,  we  are  in  favor  of  “better  schools 
and  more  equitable  taxation.”  Who  is  not?  Can 
you  find  any  sane  man  who  opposes  these  desirable 
things?  Rut  the  point  at  issue  is — will  the  pro¬ 
posed  bill  bring  these  things  about  in  the  fairest 
way?  Has  the  proposed  system  worked  out  in 
other  States  and  places?  If  so.  where?  We  all 
want  to  he  shown — not  pushed  along  without  ques¬ 
tion. 
sk 
I  sold  a  hog  to  a  local  butcher.  He  kept  the  hog  10 
days  and  then  slaughtered  and  found  that  it  had 
tuberculosis.  The  carcass  was  condemned  by  a  veter¬ 
inarian.  The  butcher  refused  to  pay  for  the  hog,  and 
says  I  can  be  prosecuted  for  selling  diseased  meat.  Is 
that  so?  h.  K. 
E  have  50  such  letters  every  year  and  it  is 
hard  to  answer  them.  In  New  York  there 
is  a  section  of  the  penal  law  reading  as  follows: 
“A  person  who  with  intent  that  the  same  be  used  as 
food,  drink,  or  medicine,  sells,  or  offers  or  exposes  for 
sale,  any  article  whatever  which,  to  his  knowledge,  is 
tainted  or  spoiled,  or  for  any  cause  unfit  to  be  used  as 
such  food,  drink,  or  medicine,  is  guilty  of  a  misde¬ 
meanor.” 
Under  this  law  the  farmer  could  not  be  prosecuted 
if  he  did  not  know  the  hog  was  diseased.  If  the 
butcher  had  sold  the  meat,  after  inspection,  he 
would  have  been  liable.  Our  understanding  is  that 
when  an  article  is  sold  to  be  used  as  food  there  is 
an  implied  warranty  that  the  article  is  wholesome 
and  fit  for  food.  On  this  theory,  when  a  farmer 
sells  a  live  animal  to  a  butcher  he  gives  this  implied 
warranty  that  the  meat  is  .wholesome — unless  it -is 
distinctly  understood  that  the  butcher  buys  on  his 
own  responsibility.  If  on  slaughter  the  animal 
proves  to  be  unfit  for  food  and  the  butcher  loses 
his  money,  we  think  tlie  law  would  hold  that  the 
farmer  could  not  recover  his  price.  It  would  de¬ 
pend  on  any  agreement  the  two  men  made  in  sell¬ 
ing  the  live  hog. 
* 
The  district  superintendent  of  schools  for  the  east¬ 
ern  part  of  this  county  advised  her  teachers  to  read 
The  R.  N.-Y  as  the  best  information  on  the  new 
school  bill.  Our  teacher  wishes  the  paper.  f.  w.  h. 
New  YTork. 
ET  we  are  told  that  everyone  fully  under¬ 
stood  the  bill !  As  we  go  into  the  subject 
deeper  it  is  surprising  to  find  what  a  small  propor¬ 
tion  of  country  people  know  what  will  happen  to 
their  school  under  this  proposed  law.  We  are  going 
ta  make  it  understandable  if  such  a  thing  is  pos¬ 
sible.  As  one  man  put  it :  “They  came  within  the 
space  of  a  hair  of  putting  this  law  over  before  we 
ever  knew  anything  about  it.’  The  Committee  of 
Twenty-one,  will  of  course  reply  that  people  ought 
to  have  known  all  about  it — but  evidently  they  did 
not. 
* 
MOST  Southern  men  realize  the  fact  that 
negroes  are  leaving  the  South  for  the  North. 
These  is  no  use  in  trying  to  deny  the  fact  of  this 
migration.  It  is  evident  to  all.  and  the  effect  upon 
Southern  agriculture  will  be  serious.  We  think 
many  of  these  colored  wanderers  would  be  better 
off  to  remain  in  the  South.  They  are  suited  to  that 
country ;  they  understand  its  people  and  its  forms 
of  labor.  On  talking  with  some  of  them,  however, 
we  find  they  are  determined  to  come,  and  that 
most  of  them  will  never  go  back  permanently.  It 
seems  to  be  one  of  those  waves  of  unrest  which  from 
time  to  time  have  swept  over  the  world,  driving 
the  races  before  it  to  seek  new  locations  or  homes. 
No  one  can  tell  where  this  migration  of  colored 
laborers  will  end,  but  looking  at  it  without  preju¬ 
dice  we  think  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
more  intelligent  and  enterprising  negroes  are  likely 
to  leave  the  South.  This  is  quite  likely  to  be 
offset  by  a  counter  movement  of  white  immigrants 
from  the  North  to  the  border  States.  We  think 
they  will  go  in  large  colonies,  settling  first  in  States 
like  Virginia  or  North  Carolina  and  gradually  work¬ 
ing  farther  South.  In  the  two  States  mentioned 
there  are  millions  of  acres  of  land,  naturally  tbe 
best  in  the  world,  but  now  undrained  and  useless. 
This  land  can  be  restored  only  through  large  opera¬ 
tions  of  drainage  and  cleaning.  It  is  not  well 
suited  for  individual  pioneer  work,  but  when  han¬ 
dled  in  large  combined  units  it  will  make  good 
homes  for  people  of  moderate  circumstances.  Tlie 
Southern  States  and  tlie  Southern  i>eople  must  aid 
in  this,  but  there  are  great  possibilities  in  plans  for 
transferring  a  certain  type  of  white  people  to  these 
lands.  Just  now  the  rush  is  all  to  the  cities,  but 
wc  expect  to  see  that  changed  in  the  future,  and 
then  will  come  a  new  distribution  of  population. 
<1; 
FOREIGN  news  reports  describe  a  revolution  in 
Bulgaria.  The  army  seems  to  have  given  its  aid 
to  a  new  set  of  officials,  and  deposed  the  old  ones. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances  such  a  flash  in  the 
Balkans — well  named  the  powder  magazine  of  Eu¬ 
rope — would  be  of  little  interest  to  farmers.  In  this 
case,  however,  we  have  another  outburst  of  the 
world-old  conflict  between  city  and  rural  population. 
A  dispatch  from  Europe  states: 
Although  before  the  World  War  SO  per  cent  of  the 
Bulgurs  were  agriculturists  they  were  completely  con¬ 
trolled  by  the  industrials  and  capitalists  of  Sofia  with 
their  means  of  •  transportation  and  their  interests  in 
foreign  markets. 
That  is  the  old  story  of  handing  control  and 
Power  to  the  middlemen  and  handlers.  The  war 
changed  that.  The  farmers  combined  and  gained 
control  of  the  government.  Land  and  labor  laws 
were  passed,  and  the  former  privileged  class  found 
it  necessary  to  go  to  work  or  starve.  What  they  did 
was  to  gain  control  of  the  small  army  and  organize 
a  revolution.  It  will  not  be  likely  to  succeed.  This 
privileged  class  may  gain  some  legal  advantages,  but 
the  Bulgarian  farmers  will  not  go  back  to  conditions 
as  they  were  before  the  war.  Ever  since  the  world 
began  there  has  been  this  everlasting  conflict  be¬ 
tween  farmers  and  rural  people  on  one  side,  and  a 
well-organized  group  of  city  interests  on  the  other. 
We  have  it  in  this  country  today.  The  struggle  has 
gone  on  all  through  history,  with  varying  success, 
but  finally  the  farmers  and  rural  dwellers  always 
control.  People  may  deplore  this  everlasting  con¬ 
flict  between  city  and  country,  but  they  cannot  pre¬ 
vent  it.  so  long  as  the  small,  well-organized  groups  of 
city  interests  attempt  to  control. 
Brevities 
Not  much  use  of  feeding  extra  milk  to  a  child  that 
does  not  have  enough  sleep. 
Now  they  tell  us  that  whale  oil  is  being  used  in 
making  oleo.  Another  whale  of  a  competitor  for  the 
cow. 
The  canning  factories  expect  to  plant  4 y2  bushels 
of  peas  to  the  acre,  and  grow  from  them  about  one  ton 
of  shelled  green  peas. 
There  are  forty  million  acres  of  cut-over  land  in 
Michigan,  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota.  They  are  being 
added  to  faster  than  settlers  are  clearing  them.  What’s 
to  be  done  about  it? 
On  June  1  there  were  in  New  York  cold  storage 
houses  2.947,409  lbs.  of  turkey  meat,  against  1,747,596 
lbs.  one  year  ago.  In  view  of  all  the  talk  about  “black¬ 
head”  giving  a  black  eye  to  the  turkey  business,  where 
do  they  all  come  from? 
There  has  been  some  little  discussion  about  how 
the  Wealthy  apple  got  its  name.  Mr.  Gideon  who 
originated  the  apple,  named  it  after  his  wife,  who  was 
Miss  Wealthy  Hall.  One  of  our  readers  gives  this 
version :  “Mr.  Peter  Gideon  and  his  wife  were  both 
from  Clinton,  Ill.,  and  moved  to  Minnesota  where  he 
propagated  the  apple.  My  mother  attended  his  wed¬ 
ding.  and  he  said  :  ‘Some  men  get  rich,  but  I  got 
Wealthy.’  ” 
The  plan  for  using  imitation  snakes  for  driving  the 
birds  out  of  cherry  trees  does  not  get  much  backing  in 
the  following  report  from  “Dad  Bailey”  :  “I  have  been 
reading  about  artificial  snakes  in  Tiie  R.  N.-Y?  and 
wish  to  say  that  I  tried  it.  out  to  my  satisfaction.  I 
am  a  snake  admirer,  and  make  the  fake  snakes  look 
almost  alive.  The  birds  would  pick  a  nice  large  berry 
and  fly  to  one  of  my  snakes  and  sit  on  it  and  eat  the 
berrv.  You  can’t  fool  the  birds.  The  fake  snakes  are 
N.  G.” 
