976 
The  RURAL.  NEW-YORKER 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
THE  BUSINESS  FARMER’S  PARER 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  for  Country  and  Suburban  IIomH 
Established  tsao 
PnblUbed  nukljr  bj  the  Rural  Publishing  Company.  S33  West  80th  Street,  New  York 
Herbert  W.  Collinowood,  President  and  Editor. 
John  J.  Dillon,  Treasurer  and  General  Manager. 
Wm.  F.  Dillon,  Secretary.  JIrs.  E.  T.  Royle,  Associate  Editor. 
L.  H.  Murphy,  Circulation  Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTION  t  ONE  DOLLAR  A  YEAR 
To  foreign  countries  in  the  Universal  Postal  Union,  $2.01.  Remit  in  money 
order,  express  order,  personal  check  or  bank  draft. 
Entered  at  New  York  Post  Office  as  Second  Class  Matter. 
Advertising  rates.  11.00  per  agate  line — 7  words.  References  required  for 
Advertisers  unknown  to  us  ;  and  cash  must  accompany  transient  orders. 
"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  gooa 
offices  to  this  end,  but  such  cases  should  not  be  confused  with  dishonest 
transactions.  We  p.otect  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  or 
the  transaction,  and  to  identify  it,  you  should  mention  The  Rural  N,yw- 
Yorker  r/hen  writing  the  advertiser. 
Recently  on  a  motor  trip  we  reached  a  “detour” 
sign.  This  detour  took  us  through  the  wilds  of  New 
York,  I  am  sure;  at  any  rate,  while  we  were  making  it 
the  thought,  came  to  me  that  a  law  providing  for  a  coat 
of  oil  before  any  country  road  could  be  used  for  detour 
purposes  would  be  a  great  relief  to  the  motorist,  as  well 
as  the  farmers  along  the  way.  It  would  save  the  road 
as  well.  Thought  you  might  be  interested,  so  have 
written  to  see  if  it  could  not  be  done. 
New  York.  Robert  m.  potter. 
E  are  interested ;  so  is  everyone  who,  when 
skimming  along  over  a  good  road,  is  sud- 
dently  confronted  with  the  sight  “Detour.”  It  cer¬ 
tainly  does  put  the  “D”  in  tour,  for  you  are  often 
forced  to  crawl  slowly  and  bumpingly  over  a  miser¬ 
able  road,  tired  in  body  and  mind,  retired  from  your 
hope  of  making  time,  and  in  need  of  retiring  before 
you  finish.  When  the  .State  drives  us  off  the  road 
in  this  way  it  should  give  us  a  fair  chance  to  get 
around.  Oiling,  to  keep  down  dust,  is  the  least  it 
can  do  to  help. 
* 
WE  have  a  letter  from  a  farmer  who  says  he 
made  good  silage  out  of  pigweed  and  rag¬ 
weed  !  They  were  cut  into  the  silo  with  a  little 
grass,  and  packed  well.  We  have  had  letters  from 
people  who  were  greatly  troubled  because  weeds  had 
got  into  the  corn.  These  men  were  afraid  to  cut  the 
weeds  with  the  corn.  But  why?  What  harm  can 
the  weeds  do?  Some  of  'them  have  something  of 
medicinal  qualities,  and  cattle  frequently  nibble  or 
eat  them  in  the  pasture.  Instead  of  injuring  the 
silage,  we  think  many  of  these  weeds  add  to  it,  just 
as  some  of  the  fine  herbs  add  to  a  soup  or  stew.  A 
good  cook  will  put  all  sorts  of  things  into  her  soup 
kettle  and  blend  them  into  a  delicious  mixture.  A 
silo  is  something  like  a  soup  kettle  in  this  respect. 
* 
FEW  farmers  on  the  Atlantic  slope  realize  what 
Sweet  clover  is  doing  for  the  Northwest.  As  a 
pasture  plant  and  soil  improver  it  is  changing  the 
entire  system  of  farming.  Through  parts  of  Min¬ 
nesota  and  the  Dakotas  continuous  wheat  raising 
without  fertilizers  or  manure  had  greatly  reduced 
the  power  of  the  land  to  produce  crops.  Farmers  in 
these  sections  could  not  have  continued  to  compete 
with  men  in  more  favorable  soils  and  climates  had 
it  not  been  for  the  help  given  by  Sweet  clover.  This 
quick-growing  crop  has  provided  pasture  for  cattle 
and  built  up  the  land  when  used  as  green  manure. 
One  strange  thing  about  it  is  that  cattle  and  hogs 
must  be  educated  to  eat  Sweet  clover,  just  as  horses 
in  California  are  educated-  to  eat  Timothy  hay! 
They  never  forget  their  education,  and  thrive  on  the 
new  diet.  At.  any  rate,  Sweet  clover  has  done  a 
wonderful  work  in  the  Northwest,  and  there  is  no 
good  reason  why  this  plant  should  not  do  equally 
great  things  in  New  England,  except  the  apparent 
fact  that  the  “leaders”  do  not  seem  to  care  much 
whether  New  England  agriculture  gains  or  not. 
* 
HE  Department  of  Agriculture  has  sent  out  its 
annual  July  forecast  of  farm  crops  and  prob¬ 
able  income.  Of  course  this  is  only  a  guess,  more 
or  less  accurate.  A  dozen  things  may  happen  to 
upset  it  Figures  about  a  crop  which  will  not  be 
harvested  for  several  weeks  or  months  are  not  sure 
enough  to  base  hopes  on.  In  general,  the  Depart¬ 
ment  estimates  that  this  year’s  crops  will  be  worth 
over  one  billion  dollars  more  than  last  year.  While 
production  will  be  lower,  prices  seem  to  be  running 
higher.  We  are  not  to  have  a  “bumper”  crop,  except 
perhaps  with  corn,  cotton  and  tobacco.  These 
promise  to  be  equal  or  better  than  last  year.  Wheat 
will  he  a  little  short,  and  hay  considerably  behind 
last  season — with  the  old  crop  well  cleaned  up.  Ap¬ 
ples  and  potatoes,  two  crops  which  especially  inter¬ 
est  our  readers,  are  reported  short.  With  the  pres¬ 
ent  dry  weather  it  is  not  likely  that  these  crops  will 
make  any  great  gain  during  the  balance  of  the  sea¬ 
son.  There  ought  to  be  fair  prices  for  apples,  pota¬ 
toes  and  hay.  We  do  not  accept  the  Department’s 
figures  except  for  just  what  they  are — a  good  guess 
at  the  outcome.  Most  of  the  daily  papers  are  print¬ 
ing  big  headings  about  the  gain  of  a  billion  dollars 
for  farmers.  That  is  not  available  for  spending  yet. 
Many  of  us  will  hunt  for  some  time  before  we  can 
finger  our  share  of  the  billion,  but  if  we  look  at  it 
fairly,  the  market  for  our  staple  crops  looks  better 
than  It  did  last  year  at  this  time,  and  we  think  it 
will  improve. 
* 
THERE  is  a  plan  on  foot  to  erect  some  sort  of  a 
memorial  to  the  Rhode  Island  Red  hen.  It  will 
be  placed  in  what  is  known  as  the  Little  Compton 
district  in  Rhode  Island.  The  plan  is  a  good  one 
and  we  want  to  help  it  along.  Of  all  the  so-called 
American  breeds  the  Red  is  perhaps  most  typical. 
It  came  from  a  mixture  of  the  blood  of  feathered 
immigrants  and  was  produced  to  meet  the  demand 
for  a  general  purpose  farm  fowl.  For  years  the  Red 
hen  was  forced  to  run  the  gauntlet  down  a  long  line 
of  experts  and  authorities,  who  called  her  scrub, 
mongrel,  and  similar  names,  but  with  the  utmost 
good  nature  our  red  barnyard  friend  has  stuck  to 
her  job.  She  had  good  blood  in  her,  and  through  the 
long  years  she  has  gained  standard  shape  and  color 
and  a  more  than  honorable  place  in  the  egg-laying 
contests.  And  she  is  painting  many  a  barnyard  with 
her  bright  colors.  Go  to  any  market  where  live 
poultry  is  handled  and  see  the  dashes  of  red  running 
all  through.  The  red  hen  has  come  up  from  a  hum¬ 
ble  origin  to  occupy  a  large  place  in  feathered  farm 
life.  She  deserves  a  memorial  and  it  does  all  of 
us  good  to  go  back  and  mark  the  origin  of  things. 
Come  in  and  help  on  this.  W.  II.  Card  of  Manches¬ 
ter,  Conn.,  is  the  Red  man  in  charge. 
* 
FOR  a  person  who  is  interested  in  the  human 
side  of  recent  history,  “My  Memories  of  Eighty 
Years,”  by  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  is  an  interesting 
book.  Among  other  things,  Mr.  Depew  says  that  in 
1S65  Gov.  Horatio  Seymour  was  enthusiastic  over 
the  coming  prosperity  of  farmers.  He  based  his 
opinion  on  the  probable  great  demand  for  cheese. 
Seymour,  a  great  man  of  his  day,  argued  that  cheese 
was  sure  to  be  the  great  protein  food  of  the  future. 
He  did  not  say  ’‘protein,”  for  the  word  was  hardly  in 
the  dictionaries  at  that  time.  He  claimed  that 
cheese  must  take  the  place  of  meat  in  the  American 
diet,  and  that  since  New  York  was  a  dairy  State  she 
would  lead  in  food  production.  At  that  time  no  cat¬ 
tle  had  been  driven  up  from  Texas ;  there  were  no 
railroads  west  of  the  Missouri ;  no  one  dreamed  of 
the  great  boundless  Alfalfa  fields  which  now  sweep 
over  millions  of  acres.  The  coming  of  Western 
wheat  and  meat  and  the  wonderful  development  of 
transportation  have  destroyed  the  cheese  visions  of 
Horatio  Seymour,  but  the  immense  development  in 
the  sale  of  liquid  milk  has  given  a  value  to  New 
York  farms  which  he  hardly  dreamed  of.  We  be¬ 
lieve  that  value  can  be  doubled  with  proper  milk  dis¬ 
tribution. 
* 
WE  know  a  man  who  is  having  a  desperate 
struggle  to  pay  for  a  farm.  Fate  seemed  to 
fight  against  him,  but  he  has  kept  working  on.  His 
farm  was  taken  on  contract,  and  he  must  pay  a  cer¬ 
tain  amount  before  he  can  get  a  deed.  There  are 
many  such  people.  They  will  know  what  it  means 
to  struggle  against  fate,  with  sickness,  debt  and 
poor  equipment  as  handicaps.  Such  men  have  need 
of  the  strongest  character,  for  temptation  comes  to 
them  when  the  flesh  is  weak.  Read  what  happened 
to  this  man : 
Last  night  a  man  drove  into  the  yard  in  a  high- 
powered,  expensive  car,  and  offered  me  $100  a  week  for 
the  use  of  two  attic  rooms  to  make  “moonshine.”  He 
has  purchased  police  protection,  and  it  would  be  abso¬ 
lutely  safe.  Only  a  person  who  has  been  in  our  posi¬ 
tion  can  realize  what  it  meant  to  refuse.  A  few 
months  of  that  and  we  would  be  independent  of  every¬ 
one.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  most  people  would 
say  we  deserve  to  be  in  hard  luck.  At  any  rate,  we 
did  refuse,  and  started  up  the  old  grindstone  this  morn¬ 
ing. 
A  man  like  that  deserves  to  succeed  if  ever  a 
farmer  did.  He  ought  to  be  put  in  a  position  where 
he  could  obtain  a  deed  for  his  farm  and  be  left  free 
to  pay  for  it,  which  he  will  do  if  given  a  fair  chance. 
If  the  Hope  Farm  man  had  that  million  dollars  to 
invest  he  would  start  with  this  case.  Such  a  man 
should  never  be  permitted  to  lose  his  farm  through 
his  inability  to  make  a  small  loan !  That’s  the  sort 
of  men  we  want  in  the  country, 
July  21,  1923 
T  is  evident  that  the  battle  over  the  soldiers'  bonus 
will  be  fought  over  again  during  the  next  Con¬ 
gress.  As  the  nation’s  financial  condition  improves 
the  bonus  boomers  feel  that  the  arguments  against 
them  are  weakened  and  they  become  more  insistent. 
The  truth  seems  to  be  that  a  majority  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  people  feel  that  some  sort  of  recognition  is  due 
the  soldiers.  Most  of  these  soldiers  and  their  im¬ 
mediate  relatives  feel  that  way  and  this  number  will 
include  many  millions  of  our  people.  We  are  op¬ 
posed  to  the  payment  of  this  bonus  as  it  was  de¬ 
manded  last  year,  but  we  must  recognize  the  fact 
that  it  is  a  popular  measure — a  legitimate  child  of 
the  pension  act  passed  shortly  after  the  Civil  War. 
We  had  two  boys  who  enlisted  for  the  Great  War, 
and  we  were  partly  responsible  for  the  enlistment 
of  several  others.  None  of  these  boys  favor  the 
bonus  legislation,  but  we  talk  with  many  young  fel¬ 
lows  who  demand  it  as  their  right.  They  say  that 
most  of  those  who  oppose  it  never  went  near  the 
army,  endured  no  sacrifice  and  made  money  out  of 
the  conflict.  We  can  see  no  real  argument  in  that, 
but  the  fact  remains  that  such  line  of  thought  is 
what  moves  majorities  in  these  days. 
* 
_  On  page  833  you  say  that  Governor  Smith  of  New 
York  says  the  proposed  new  school  bill  is  a  consolida¬ 
tion  measure.  What  is  your  authority  for  such  a  state¬ 
ment?  v.  A.  E. 
ET’S  get  this  right,  as  we  go  along  with  it.  On 
page  833  we  said :  “It  is  our  understanding 
that  Governor  Smith  at  a  hearing  last  Winter  ex¬ 
pressed  the  same  opinion.”  Our  authority  for  the 
statement  was  a  report  in  the  Rochester  Herald. 
Members  of  the  Committee  of  Twenty-one  called  on 
Governor  Smith  and  asked  him  to  favor  the  hill. 
This  is  what  followed  : 
Prof.  George  A.  Works,  chairman  of  the  Committee 
of  Twenty-one,  and  other  speakers  argued  that  a  unifi¬ 
cation  of  the  taxation  for  school  purposes  would  bring 
about  consolidation  of  schools  without  compulsion.  They 
advocated  compulsory  taxation  unification,  but  were 
opposed  to  compulsory  consolidation. 
The.  Governor  said  he  did  not  see  how  they  could  get, 
one  without  the  other,  and.  he  told  them  he  wanted  to 
see  the  one-room  school  wiped  out.  The  reply  of  the 
committee  members  to  this  was  that  one,  taxation, 
would  undoubtedly  bring  the  other. 
'We  think  Governor  Smith  sized  this  bill  up  right. 
While  ostensibly  opposed  to  compulsory  consolida¬ 
tion,  there  are  several  provisions  in  this  bill  which 
will  bring  consolidation  about.  You  may  try  to  drive 
people  with  a  club,  or  you  may  entangle  them  in 
laws  and  rules  and  get  them  securely  where  they 
cannot  be  driven.  We  are  going  to  get  this  discus¬ 
sion  down  to  rock  bottom,  and  one  of  the  foundation 
objects  of  this  bill  is  to  bring  about  consolidation 
wherever  possible.  That  may  or  may  not  be  a  de¬ 
sirable  thing.  It  is  open  to  discussion;  but  that  is 
the  object  of  the  bill. 
* 
I  do  not  believe  you  have  sized"  up  all  the  Ford  senti¬ 
ment.  I  do  not  believe  he  is  fit  for  President  but  a 
hard-headed  successful  lawyer,  a  hotel  man,  and  other 
things,  who  is  very  wealthy,  told  me  he  was  for  Ford 
because  Ford  would  dam  every  stream  in  America 
where  power  could  be  produced  and  give  us  cheap  lights 
and  power.  a.  c. 
E  do  not  attempt  to  minimize  the  sentiment 
for  Ford.  There  is  much  of  it.  No  one  can 
travel  through  the  country  and  talk  with  people 
without  realizing  that  Ford  has  gained  a  following. 
Some  of  the  arguments  advanced  for  him  seem  to  tis 
ridiculous,  but  there  can  be  no  question  about  the 
earnestness  of  those  who  advance  them.  Many 
couple  their  great  praise  of  Ford  with  violent  de¬ 
nunciations  of  the  rich.  Now  Ford  is  one  of  the 
richest  men  in  the  world ;  probably  few  men  have 
gained  their  wealth  more  directly  from  farmers  than 
he  has.  What  reason  is  there  to  suppose  that  he 
will  use  his  wealth  more  directly  in  the  interests  of 
farmers  than  other  rich  men  would?  How  could 
Ford,  as  President,  do  any  more  to  utilize  water 
powers  than  others  have  done?  The  Ford  “boom” 
has  not  passed  beyond  the  talking  stage  yet.  It  has 
not  crystallized.  There  is  a  mystery — a  sort  of  in¬ 
dustrial  romance — about  the  man  that  undoubtedly 
attracts  many  people,  but  what  has  he  ever  said  or 
done  which  justifies  your  belief  that  he  would  make 
a  good  President? 
Brevities 
Milk  is  cow  juice. 
Co-operation  means  a  contract  not  to  fight  among 
members. 
We  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  real  rat-killing 
cats  are  rare.  “Good  mousers”  seem  to  be  as  scarce  as 
boys  who  like  to  work. 
A  cheap  fly  poison  is  made  by  pouring  a  tablespoon¬ 
ful  of  formaldehyde  in  a  cup  of  milk.  But  keep  it 
away  from  the  baby. 
A  case  is  reported  where  a  German  was  charged  with 
food  adulteration.  He  was  clearly  guilty,  but  was  dis¬ 
charged  because  “such  adulteration  was  made  in  Ger¬ 
many,” 
