1010 
The  RURAL.  NEW-YORKER 
July  28,  1022 
Recollections  of  Public  Men 
PUBLISHER’S  DESK 
All  letters  to  Publisher’s  Desk  depart¬ 
ment  must  be  signed  with  writer’s  full 
name  and  address  given.  Many  inquiries 
are  answered  by  mail  instead  of  printing 
inquiry  and  answer,  hence  unsigned  let¬ 
ters  receive  no  consideration. 
Columbus,  O.,  July  14. — The  It.  L. 
Dollings  Company  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and 
Pennsylvania  and  the  International  Note 
and  Mortgage  Company,  a  Dollings  sub¬ 
sidiary  for  which  between  $75,000,000 
and  $80,000,000  worth  of  stock  is  said  to 
have  been  sold  to  more  than  80,000  per¬ 
sons  throughout  the  United  States,  were 
faced  with  receivership  proceedings  to¬ 
day. 
Thirteen  stockholders  of  the  companies 
bought  action  in  Common  Pleas  Court 
here,  asking  that  a  receiver  be  appointed 
for  the  four  companies. 
The  International  Note  and  Mortgage 
Company  of  Ohio  is  capitalized  for  $10,- 
000,000,  the  petition  states,  and  a  com¬ 
pany  %  the  same  name  with  a  capitali¬ 
zation  of  $2,500,000  has  been  incorporat¬ 
ed  in  Indiana.  Proceeds  from  the  sale  of 
this  stock,  it  is  alleged,  have  been  loaned 
the  It.  L.  Dollings  Company  of  Ohio  and 
Indiana,  with  security,  and  by  them 
loaned  to  subsidiary  companies. — Colum¬ 
bus  Dispatch. 
It  is  alleged  among  other  things  that 
the  R.  L.  Dollings  Company  has  paid 
dividends  out  of  capital  assets  in  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  profits.  The  full  situation  cannot 
be  ascertained  until  the  hearing  set  for 
July  20  has  taken  place.  The  situation 
within  the  company  and  its  subsidiaries 
may  not  affect  those  who  have  invested 
in  outside  securities  through  the  Dol¬ 
lings  organization. 
Inclosed  find  letters  from  James  Krejci, 
Cleveland,  O.,  in  regard  to  chicks.  Upon 
inquiry  at  post  office  1  find  the  chicks 
were  received  at  this  end  June  16,  one 
month  from  date  on  notice  that  they  were 
to  be  shipped.  After  getting  notice  that 
they  were  to  be  shipped  week  of  May  14 
we  were  at  postoffice  two  or  three  times 
a  day  for  the  rest  of  the  month.  The  or¬ 
der  was  cancelled  before  that  time.  We 
gave  up  looking  for  them  after  June  1. 
I  am  inclosing  label  from  box ;  it  is 
not  correctly  labeled  or  I  should  have  re¬ 
ceived  them  anyway.  All  other  letters 
from  Mr.  Krejci  have  correct  address. 
Chicks  were  shipped  from  Ivillbuck,  O. 
The  postoffice  clerk  said  Route  1  is  from 
a  sub-station  outside  of  city,  and  as  they 
were  received  late  Saturday  something 
had  to  be  done,  and  rather  than  let  them 
die  he  called  Mr.  Hall,  who  took  them. 
Rhode  Island.  b.  m.  c. 
The  chicks  were  mis-addressed  and  were 
delivered  to  a  local  buyer  of  chicks  to 
save  them  from  an  entire  loss.  Mr. 
Krejci  ignores  our  letters  asking  for  an 
adjustment  in  behalf  of  the  subscriber. 
Shipment  was  delayed  for  a  month,  which 
is  a  common  complaint  of  baby  chick 
buyers.  Then  shipment  was  made  from 
a  hatchery  at  a  distance,  as  it  appears 
Mr.  Krejci  is  only  a  dealer  or  broker. 
Such  transactions  tend  to  destroy  all  con¬ 
fidence  in  the  baby  chick  industry.  Tiif. 
R.  N.-Y.  is  endeavoring  to  eliminate  such 
objectionable  practice  in  the  interests  of 
legitimate  poultrymen  and  hatcheries, 
quite  as  much  as  in  the  interests  of  the 
buyers. 
I  purchased,  July  1,  1920,  from  the 
Kirstin  Company  of  Escanaba,  Mich., 
one  stump-puller,  guaranteed  to  give  sat¬ 
isfaction  or  to  be  returned.  The  puller 
was  unsatisfactory  and  was  broken  once. 
The  company  replaced  the  broken  part. 
The  machine  was  still  unsatisfactory  and 
the  company  agreed  to  take  it  back  and 
refund  the  money  I  had  paid  them.  The 
machine  was  lost  and  on  April  13,  1921, 
the  company  wrote  me  for  the  bill  of  lad¬ 
ing  so  they  could  file  claim  for  same.  On 
June  24,  1921,  the  company  wrote  that 
they  received  the  bill  of  lading  and  as 
soon  as  they  had  settled  with  the  railroad 
company  they  would  in  turn  settle  with 
me.  I  have  never  received  any  settle¬ 
ment  and  cannot  hear  from  the  company 
since  they  received  the  bill  of  lading,  al¬ 
though  T  have  written  them  two  or  three 
times.  j.  p. 
Florida. 
Wo  have  written  the  A.  J.  Kirstin 
Company  and  received  reply  Feb.  22, 
1923.  to  the  effect  that  refund  would  be 
made  the  subscriber  as  soon  as  settle¬ 
ment  is  made  by  the  railroad.  Subse¬ 
quent  letters  have  remained  unanswered. 
Slow  as  the  railroads  sometimes  are,  it 
doesn't  require  three  years  to  get  a  de¬ 
cision  on  a  claim  for  lost  goods.  There 
is  evidence  of  rather  gross  carelessness 
in  prosecuting  the  claim,  or  bad  faith  on 
the  part  of  the  manufacturers  of  the 
stump-puller.  The  record  of  the  company 
is  such  that  The  R.  N.-Y.  has  refused 
its  advertising. 
I  am  begging  of  you  a  favor.  Have 
been  an  interested  reader  of  your  Pub¬ 
lisher’s  Desk.  Seeing  that  you  have  given 
advice  to  others  I  thought  I  would  write 
to  you  about  my  investment.  In  Jan¬ 
uary,  1921,  I  purchased  35  shares  of  com¬ 
mon  stock  of  the  Czecho-Slovak  Trading 
Co.,  incorporated  under  the  laws  of  Dela¬ 
ware.  but  doing  business  in  Philadelphia, 
1’a.  An  agent  representing  this  com¬ 
pany  induced  me  to  buy  35  shares  of 
common  stock  at  $10  a  share  and  five 
shares  of  preferred  stock  at  $50  a  share, 
the  interest  to  be  8  per  cent,  payable 
every  year.  To  date  of  writing  I  have 
not  received  a  penny  interest.  I  have 
written  several  times  to  this  concern  and 
have  received  no  reply.  The  agent  said 
I  can  have  my  principal  back  on  the  pre¬ 
ferred  shares,  $250,  in  two  years ;  have 
also  written  about  this,  but  get  no  an¬ 
swer.  I  wish  you  would  let -me  know  if 
this  stock  is  worth  anything  or  not.  Am 
enclosing  a  stamp  for  a  personal  reply. 
Anything  you  can  do  for  me  in  this  case 
will  be  appreciated.  c.  G. 
Connecticut. 
The  above  is  typical  of  the  experience 
of  those  who  buy  stock  of  any  kind  from 
traveling  agents.  Stocks  that  have  any 
definite  value  are  not  sold  in  this  way. 
The  representation  of  the  salesman  that 
investors  would  get  their  money  back  on 
preferred  stock  in  two  years  is,  of  course, 
pure  sucker  bait. 
I  see  on  page  890  a  complaint  of  R.  L. 
J.  of  the  way  he  was  treated  by  H.  W. 
Cobb  of  the  Glen  Rock  Nurseries,  at 
Ridgewood,  N.  J.  I  wish  to  state  my  ex¬ 
perience  with  the  same  firm.  I  ordered 
200  Barred  Rock  chicks  and  150  S.  C. 
Black  Minorca  chicks  to  be  delivered  dur¬ 
ing  the  latter  end  of  March,  date  to  be 
set  by  the  hatchery.  I  thought  wdien  I 
ordered  these  chicks  they  were  coming 
from  Ridgewood,  N.  J.  You  can  imagine 
my  surprise  w’hen,  the  first  week  of  April, 
I  received  200  Barred  Rock  chicks  from 
Independence,  la.,  and  in  zero  weather. 
Consequently,  67  were  dead  on  arrival ; 
at  the  end  of  18  hours  147  were  dead.  T 
was  not  able  to  raise  a  single  chick  of 
that  lot.  Mr.  Cobb  very  considerately 
offered  to  replace  chicks  dead  on  arrival, 
lie  did.  They  came  from  Van  Wert,  O. 
I  then  canceled  my  order  for  the  Minorca 
chicks,  and  had  him  send  me  100  Minorca 
eggs  for  my  deposit  ($10).  The  eggs  ar¬ 
rived  some  time  later,  packed  in  one-half 
of  .a  30-dozen  egg  case ;  just  plain,  or¬ 
dinary  common  fillers  and  flats  for  great 
big  Minorca  eggs,  sold  at  a  price  of  10 
cents  each.  You  can  imagine  the  mess 
they  arrived  in;  43  out  of  100  were 
broken;  the  tops  shoved  right  down  into 
the  insides.  T  should  say,  from  my  ex¬ 
perience.  that  he  (Cobb)  is  “some”  poul¬ 
try  and  business  man.  f.  w.  a. 
New  York. 
■  We  do  not  want  to  appear  as  criticiz¬ 
ing  any  poultryman  for  the  loss  of  chicks 
shipped  in  zero  weather.  We  desire  those 
ordering  chicks  in  any  weather  to  realize 
that  they  are  assuming  a  risk.  If  the 
chicks  are  either  chilled  or  overheated  in 
transit,  loss  is  the  result.  But  where  we 
hold  Mr.  Cobb  guilty  is  in  soliciting  or¬ 
ders  by  advertisements  giving  address  as 
Ridgewood,  N.  J.,  and  having  the  orders 
filled  by  some  hatchery  in  Iowa.  There 
is  altogether  too  much  of  this  sort  of 
“jockeying”  in  the  baby  chick  business. 
Find  inclosed  literature  from  the  Mil¬ 
ler  Strong  Drug  Company,  which  I  think 
will  be  self-explanatory.  I  am  the  owner 
of  one  share  of  preferred  stock,  for  which 
I  paid  $100.  and  one  share  of  common, 
$25.  You  will  see  what  they  are  going 
to  do  now.  They  demand  $18.75.  Is 
there  any  way  for  me  to  get  my  money 
back?  I  mean  the  $125  which  I  paid  for 
the  Miller  Strong  stock,  or  must  I  send 
them  |lie  $1S.75  and  take  a  chance  on 
being  able  to  sell  the  new  stock  when  I 
get  it,  in  one  vear’s  time?  p.  f. 
New  York. 
The  Miller  Strong  Company,  Buffalo. 
N.  1\,  we  have  regarded  as  a  question¬ 
able  promotion,  on  which  dividend  pay¬ 
ments  have  ceased.  The  corporation  now 
announces  that  it  has  consolidated  with 
the  Co-operative  Drug  Company  and 
American  *Drug  Stores  of  Philadelphia. 
Investors  in  Miller  Strong  Company  are 
asked  to  exchange  their  holdings  for  stock, 
of  American  Drug  Stores,  Inc.,  with  the 
provision  that  the  investor  subscribe  to 
15  per  cent  of  additional  stock  of  the 
American  Drug  Stores.  We  cannot  sug¬ 
gest  how  P.  F.  can  get  his  money  out  of 
the  proposition,  but  we  do  advise  him  not 
to  put  any  more  in. 
A  young  Swede  appeared  at  the  coun¬ 
ty  judge's  office  and  asked  for  a  license. 
“What  kind  of  a  license?”  asked  the 
judge.  “A  hunting  license?”  “No,”  was 
the  answer.  “Aye  tank  aye  bane  hunt¬ 
ing  long  enough.  Aye  want  marriage 
license.” — Credit  Lost. 
For  those  who  like  to  read  the  lighter 
or  more  personal  form  of  historical  writ¬ 
ings.  the  book  by  Chaunce.v  M.  Depew* 
entitled  “My  Memories  of  Eighty  Years” 
will  prove  very  entertaining.  Mr.  Depew 
has  been  a  public  character  for  more  than 
60  years.  He  has  seen  much  of  life,  and 
has  met  all  sorts  of  people,  many  of 
whom  were  of  large  account  in  making 
history.  His  comments  regarding  some 
of  these  characters  are  very  entertaining. 
Some  of  our  people  who  appear  to  be¬ 
lieve  everything  they  see  in  print,  do  not 
understand  how  propaganda  is  distribut¬ 
ed.  Every  large  corporation,  and  usually 
every  prominent  public  man,  has  some 
personal  method  for  getting  information 
into  the  press,  and  this  has  become  some¬ 
thing  wrorse  than  a  science  with  many  of 
them.  Mr.  Depew  gives  one  incident 
which  illustrates  something  of  the  way 
this  is  done.  He  says  that  one  night, 
long  ago,  after  he  had  retired,  he  was 
called  up  and  told  that  a  man  was  very 
anxious  to  see  him.  He  knew  the  man 
to  be  a  newspaper  reporter  with  whom 
he  had  talked  on  former  occasions.  This 
man  frankly  told  him  that  he  was  in 
trouble.  His  wife  was  sick  and  the 
physicians  had  told  him  that  she  must 
be  taken  to  a  Western  State  at  once, 
but  he  had  no  money  to  pay  the  bill. 
“Now%”  he  said,  “Mr.  Depew*,  I  have 
not  come  here  to  beg  or  borrow,  but  I 
want  you  to  give  me  some  kind  of  a 
story  or  interview.  I  will  take  it  dowm 
and  sell  it  for  what  I  can  get?’-’’- 
Mr.  Depew*  said  that  he  gave  the  man 
a  sort  of  veiled  interview,  talking  gen¬ 
erally,  or  hinting  at  things  without  ap¬ 
parently  saying  any  thing  definite.  On 
the  strength  of  Depew’s  reputation,  this 
man  sold  the  story  for  enough  to  more 
than  pay  for  taking  his  w*ife  away  to 
safety. 
Probably  that  is  a  fair  illustration  of 
the  wmy  many  of  these  stories  with  big 
black  headings  are  prepared. 
In  another  part  of  his  book  Mr.  Depew 
said  he  talked  w*ith  Gladstone,  w’ho  was 
at  that  time  Premier  of  England,  the 
greatest  man  in  the  British  Empire.  Glad¬ 
stone  asked  many  questions  about  the 
large  fortunes  in  the  United  States,  and 
he  wanted  to  know  all  about  the  man  who 
was  then  reputed  to  be  the  richest  Amer¬ 
ican.  Mr.  Depew  told  him  that  this  man 
was  probably  worth  at  least  one  hundred 
million  dollars.  Then  Gladstone  wanted 
to  know  how  this  money  was  invested. 
The  ’answer  w*as,  “In  fluid  securities, 
which  can  be  turned  into  cash  in  a  short 
time.”  Mr.  Gladstone  became  quite  ex¬ 
cited  and  said  that  such  a  man  was  dan¬ 
gerous  not  only  to  his  own  country,  but 
to  the  world.  With  that  amount  of  ready 
money  he  could  upset  the  exchanges  and 
paralyze  the  borrowing  powrer  of  nations. 
Depew  referred  to  a  w*ealthy  Englishman, 
but  Gladstone  replied  that  his  property 
w*as  in  lands  which  he  could  not  sell,  and 
which  were  burdened  with  settlements  of 
generations  and  obligations  which  could 
not  be  avoided.  The  Rothschilds  were 
at  that  time,  the  richest  family  in  the 
world,  but  Gladstone  said  their  fortunes 
were  scattered  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
it  impossible  for  them  to  unsettle  the 
world’s  market.  Gladstone’s  objection  to 
great  fortunes  lay  in  the  fact  that  they 
w*ere  invested  so  as  to  be  immediately 
available  by  a  single  man  for  specula¬ 
tion.  Since  his  day  these  great  for¬ 
tunes  have  accumulated  so  that  a  few 
men  have  it  in  their  pow*er  to  control  ab¬ 
solutely  the  world’s  money  and  markets. 
Yet  the  great  majority  of  people  do  not 
seem  to  realize  that  there  can  be  any 
danger  in  this. 
Mr.  Depew  tells  a  story  of  Samuel  J. 
Tilden,  w*ho  was  a  great  leader  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  New  York  State, 
and  in  the  nation.  Mr.  Tilden  was  an 
exceedingly  wealthy  man.  He  had  the 
reputation  of  being  very  “near,”  or 
“close.”  A  Methodist  church  in  one  of 
the  mining  district  of  Pennsylvania  was 
burned,  and  the  preacher  came  to  New 
York,  hoping  to  raise  money  enough  to 
build  a  new*  church.  In  some  way  he  was 
able  to  get  into  the  house  of  Mr.  Tilden, 
and  laid  his  case  before  the  Governor. 
Tilden  told  him  that  he  was  overwhelmed 
with  applications,  and  did  not  think  he 
could  do  anything,  but  when  the  preacher 
told  him  that  the  most  of  his  people  had 
formerly  been  Republicans,  but  had  all 
voted  for  Tilden  at  the  last  election,  the 
Governor  became  interested,  and  he  final¬ 
ly  got  to  the  point  where  he  told  this 
preacher  that  he  thought  so  well,  of  his 
story  that  he  would  give  him  all  he  had. 
The  preacher  for  a  moment  had  a  dream 
of  building  a  cathedral,  but  he  came  down 
to  earth  when  Tilden  produced  $2.50, 
which  proved  to  be  all  he  had  with  him. 
Mr.  Depew*  has  been  a  railroad  man  all 
his  life,  and  naturally  takes  the  railroad 
side  in  transportation  discussions.  To 
make  his  point  he  tells  of  an  agricultural 
district  where  farm  lands  were  worth 
barely  $2  an  acre,  and  where  it  was  prac¬ 
tically  impossible  to  sell  grain  or  similar 
farm  produce  because  they  could  not  be 
transported  properly.  Then  there  came 
a  railroad,  built  through  that  section,  and 
opening  it  up  so  that  before  many  years 
all  the  farm  land  was  worth  $200  or 
more  per  acre,  and  farm  crops  rose 
greatly  in  value.  Depew,  of  course, 
claims  that  this  was  all  due  to  the  rail¬ 
roads,  and  he  says  that  this  vast  increase 
in  agricultural  value  was  due  to  trans¬ 
portation.  while  backers  of  the  railroad 
lmd  only  received  annually  5  to  7  per  cent 
on  their  investment.  That,  of  course,  is 
a  very  pretty  way  of  putting  it,  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  once  heard  an  old 
farmer  in  the  Hudson  Valley  put  it  this 
way : 
Pwo  lines  of  iron  and  steel  were  run 
between  -New  York  and  Albany.  The 
people  of  the  valley  gave  much  of  the  land 
free,  and  contributed  in  every  way  to 
have  the  railroad  start,  and  these  two 
line  of  rusty  rails  are  worth  more  than 
all  the  farms  in  the  valley  combined.” 
Conflicting  Feeding  Formulas 
The  Pennsylvania,  New’  York  and  New 
Jersey  stations  and  The  R.  N.-Y.  recom¬ 
mend  100  lbs.  each  of  bran,  cornmeal, 
middlings,  ground  oats  and  beef  scraps. 
For  baby  chicks  add  another  100  lbs.  of 
bran.  In  the  April  and  June  issues  of 
the  Poultry  Item ,  B.  F.  Kauff  savs  we 
feed  too  much  bran ;  that  it  is  low*  iu 
digestibility.  His  mash  formla  is  25  lbs. 
of  cornmeal,  ground  oats,  middlings,  20 
lbs.  beef  scraps,  4  lbs.  bonemeal.  and  his 
scratch  is  60  lbs.  corn.  10  lbs.  wheat,  30 
lbs.  oats.  I  wras  under  the  impression 
that  wheat  was  good  for  chickens  and 
that  corn  was  heating,  to  be  used  more 
in  the  cold  w*eather.  c.  j.  b. 
Newtown.  Pa. 
If  you  attempt  to  follow  outfall  of  the 
conflicting  ideas  in  poultry  feeding  and 
raising  that  you  can  find  in  print,  you 
will  be  very  likely  to  find  yourself  lost 
in  a  maze  of  knowledge,  semi-knowledge 
and  absolute  ignorance.  Better  adopt 
some  simple,  and  what  appears  to  you  to 
be  sensible,  plan  and  be  a  little  slow  to 
make  changes  without  good  reason.  The 
recommendations  of  the  various  poultry 
stations  may  usually  be  relied  upon,  and 
the  fact  that  they  are  not  uniform  simply 
shows  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  follow 
any  single  hard  and  fast  method  to  be 
successful.  There  can  yet  be  found  flocks 
of  good,  healthy  chicks  that  have  never 
had  anything  to  eat  but  the  old-fashioned 
cornmeal  mush,  but.  under  the  conditions 
of  the  commercial  poultry  plant,  an  at¬ 
tempt  to  raise  chickens  upon  cornmeal 
alone  would  probably  result  disastrously. 
Bran  is  not  indigestible,  though  it  con¬ 
tains  a  greater  proportion  of  fiber  than 
many  other  concentrates.  It  is  rich  in 
other  needed  food  elements  and  its  fiber 
may  be  an  advantage  rather  than  other¬ 
wise.  Corn  is  suited  to  warm  weather 
as  w*ell  as  cold  weather  feeding;  in  fact, 
it  is  probably  the  best  single  grain  at  the 
poultryman’s  command.  This  does  not 
mean,  however,  that  it  is  not  best  to  add 
other  grains  and  foods  to  the  poultry  ra¬ 
tion.  M.  B.  D. 
Policeman  :  “When  you  brought  the 
would-be  suicide  from  the  w*ater,  w*hat 
did  he  do?”  Rescuer:  “As  soon  as  I 
had  turned  my  back  he  hung  himself 
from  a  tree.”  “But  why  didn’t  you  cut 
him  down?”  “I  thought  he  had  hung 
himself  up  to  dry.”  - —  Kasper  (Stock¬ 
holm). 
