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The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
August  11,  1923 
The  Rural  New-Yorker 
THE  BUSINESS  FARMER’S  PAPER 
A  National  Weekly  Journal  lor  Country  and  Suburban  Homes 
Established  isso 
*  "  L 
Publish'd  wrrkly  by  the  Rural  Publishing  Company,  333  West  30th  Street,  New  York 
Herbert  W.  COllingwoOd,  President  and  Editor. 
John  J.  Dillon,  Treasurer  and  General  Manager. 
Wm.  F.  Dillon,  Secretary.  Mrs.  E.  T.  Royle,  Associate  Editor. 
L.  H.  Mitrpiiy,  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.  Rut  to  make  doubly  sure,  we  will  make  good  any  loss 
to  i>aid  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  diirerences  or  mistakes  between  our  subscribers  and  honest, 
responsible  houses,  whether  advertisers  or  not.  We  willingly  use  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. 
Can  you  tell  us  the  amount  of  money  spent  in  this 
country  for  liquor  last  year,  as  compared  with  the 
years  before  Prohibition?  Also,  what  revenue  does  the 
government  receive  from  so-called  luxury  taxes? 
i.  R.  P. 
T  would  be  impossible  to  answer  the  question  ex¬ 
actly.  The  following  figures  show  the  amounts 
collected  as  tax  on  distilled  liquors,  including  wines 
and  fermented  liquors,  for  the  past  eight  years : 
1015  . $223,948,646.09  1019 . $483,050,854.47 
1016  .  247,453,543  52  3920 .  139.871.149.80 
1917  .  284,008.512.62  1921 .  82.623.428.83 
1918  .  443,838,544.98  1922  45,609,436.47 
Figures  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1923,  are  not 
yet  ready.  This  merely  shows  the  comparative 
amounts  of  legalized  liquor  put  on  the  market  dur¬ 
ing  these  years.  There  is  considerable  “moonshine” 
or  contraband  liquor  now  made  in  the  country,  and 
some  brought  in  by  bootleggers.  No  fair  estimate  of 
the  amount  can  be  made.  The  Prohibition  officers 
figure  it  at  about  5  per  cent  of  sales  before  the  law 
went  into  effect.  As  this  is  distributed  among  about 
15  per  cent  of  our  total  population,  it  jnakes  a  large 
local  showing.  As  for  other  taxes  collected  in  1922, 
here  are  a  few  of  them : 
Soft  drinks . .  $33,489, 1S5.82 
Cigars,  tobacco  and  manufactures .  269.770,959.64 
Stamp  taxes  .  58,799,435.65 
Theaters  and  concerts .  73,373.937,47 
Candy  . 13,592,045.69 
Among  smaller  items  are  chewing  gum,  $742,870; 
sporting  goods,  $2,213,307;  playing  cards,  $2,880,- 
441.65. 
* 
OUR  Eastern  poultrymen  can  help  out  the  wheat 
situation  a  little.  There  is  no  better  single 
grain  for  hens  than  wheat.  During  the  war  wheat 
prices  soared  to  a  point  beyond  profitable  use  for 
feeding,  and  most  poultrymen  went  hunting  for  sub¬ 
stitutes.  Most  of  us  had  an  experience  with  war 
bread,  and  so  did  the  hens.  When  the  war  ended 
most  humans  forgot  the  advantage  in  using  war 
substitutes  and  went  back  to  wheat  flour.  The  poul¬ 
trymen  have  not  gone  back  to  wheat,  as  they  might 
have  done.  Now  they  will  have  a  chance  to  do  so 
with  profit  to  themselves  and  help  to  Western  wheat 
growers.  Every  little  helps,  and  the  millions  of 
fowls  now  being  fed  in  commercial  plants  on  the 
upper  Atlantic  coast  could  take  care  of  a  good  share 
of  the  reported  surplus.  It  did  not  seem  possible  10 
years  ago  that  we  should  ever  again  reach  a  point 
when  it  would  be  necessary  to  feed  wheat  to  live 
stock  in  order  to  dispose  of  the  crop.  It  seemed  as 
if  this  royal  grain  must  be  reserved  for  human  con¬ 
sumption.  Yet  now  we  may  ask  even  the  hens  to 
help  take  care  of  the  crop. 
* 
THERE  is  a  story  told  of  Horace  Greeley  which 
fits  in  with  present  political  conditions.  While 
Greeley  was  capable  of  giving  sound  financial  advice, 
he  was,  personally  very  “easy”  for  borrowers.  He 
could  not  seem  to  refuse  his  friends,  and  they  came 
to  him  in  swarms  to  indorse  their  notes.  While 
Greeley  knew  better,  he  was  constantly  putting  his 
name  on  such  paper,  and  a  good  share  of  it  came 
back  on  him.  He  had  to  pay  so  many  of  these  notes 
that  it  pinched  him  financially.  One  day,  in  desper¬ 
ation,  he  met  a  member  of  the  New  York  Legislature 
and  asked  him  to  put  through  a  law  making  it  a 
felony,  with  life  imprisonment,  for  any  man  to  in¬ 
dorse  another  man’s  paper !  Of  course,  Greeley 
spoke  under  the  sting  of  heavy  financial  loss,  but. 
at  the  moment,  he  wanted  that  mysterious  power 
known  as  “government”  to  do  what  he  ought  to  have 
done  himself;  that  is,  refuse  to  give  dangerous  or 
undeserved  credit!  There  seem  to  be  thousands  of 
people  who  want  the  government  to  pass  new  laws 
for  their  protection,  when  the  trouble  which  con¬ 
fronts  them  is  a  personal  one  which  no  other  person 
can  settle.  We  have  too  manj"  laws  now — enough,  if 
fairly  enforced,  to  give  us  protection.  No  law  can 
or  will  be  enforced  by  leaving  it  to  paid  officials. 
Public  sentiment  is  the  power  back  of  every  law. 
and  public  sentiment  is  the  relation  between  you 
and  your  neighbors  and  friends  raised  to  the  n/7; 
power.  That  is  what  we  mean  by  doing  it  ourselves. 
* 
CANADIAN  paper  prints  the  following  under 
the  heading : 
“The  World’s  Ingratitude” 
Luther  Burbank,  at  the  age  of  74.  is  obliged  to  sell 
his  experimental  farm  because  people  have  not  appre- 
cialed  his  work.  Everyone  has  heard  of  his  spineless 
cactus,  hybrid  fruits,  and  other  botanical  wonders,  but 
nobody  wants  them. 
M!r.  Burbank  modestly  asserts  that  his  13-acre 
garden  would  be  worth  tp  the  world  a  billion  dol¬ 
lars  an  acre  if  all  its  new  creations  were  intro¬ 
duced  to  the  world  and  put  to  use !  We  do  not 
understand  that  Mr.  Burbank  is  in  poverty  or  within 
1,000  miles  of  the  wrant  and  worry  which  has  dog¬ 
ged  the  path  of  most  of  the  men  like  Bull,  Moore, 
Tibbetts  and  others  who  have  given  the  world  new 
fruits  and  other  forms  of  plant  life.  In  fact  we 
think  the  world  has  given  Mr.  Burbank  just  about 
full  recompense  for  all  that  he  has  done  for  society. 
If  he  now  complains  that  nobody  wants  his  new 
creations  he  must  realize  that  there  is  a  reason  for 
it.  There  is  a  great  army  of  us  who  have  come  to 
the  public  with  poems,  novels,  histories,  acres  of 
advice,  offers  to  fill  government  positions  and  all 
sorts  of  inventions.  It  has  become  clear  to  us  that 
“nobody  wants  them.”  The  world  has  not  called 
us  “wizards”  or  given  us  a  fortune.  Mr.  Burbank 
should  remember  that  “there  are  others.”  We  think 
he  has  fared  very  well. 
* 
RS.  W.ILLCOX,  in  her  story  of  a  farm  day,  on 
page  1047,  tells  of  serving  unlimited  supplies  of 
ice  cream  during  the  hot  days  of  haying.  Well,  why 
not?  Why  should  not  a  farmer  or  a  dairyman  sit  at 
the  first  table?  What  is  there  about  ice  cream  that 
can  be  said  to  be  unhealthy?  It  is  one  of  the  best 
foods  we  have,  and  very  comforting  on  a  hot  day. 
When  made  in  a  modern  freezer  it  does  not  require 
much  more  work  than  making  a  pie  or  a  pudding ! 
It  saves  other  food,  and  to  some  little  extent  keeps 
milk  off  the  market,  and  thus  helps  regulate  sup¬ 
ply.  The  best  ought  to  be  good  enough  for  a  farmer's 
own  table.  Then  again,  you  notice  that  farm  work 
is  being  done  without  hired  help.  That  would  lie 
impossible  without  a  full  set  of  farm  machinery. 
Milking  machine,  side-delivery  rake,  hay-loader  and 
hay  unloaders  must  be  used  in  order  to  multiply 
man  power.  This  same  thing  is  working  out  every¬ 
where.  Some  men  find  themselves  with  a  great 
acreage  of  hay  which  they  cannot  handle.  They  cut 
a  small  part  of  it  and  buy  a  flock  of  sheep  to  eat  up 
the  rest.  We  know  of  a  man  of  middle  age  left 
without  labor  on  a  grain  farm.  Last  Spring  he 
hatched  a  great  brood  of  chickens  of  a  meat  breed. 
He  will  cut  what  grain  he  can  and  let  the  chickens 
harvest  the  rest.  They  will  get  every  kernel  in  time, 
and  they  will  be  sold  for  meat  before  Winter.  Thou¬ 
sands  of  acres  of  corn  will  be  harvested  by  hogs  this 
Fall.  All  this  is  not  high-class  or  scientific  farming 
as  we  understand  these  terms,  but  by  cutting  down 
the  “overhead”  and  wages  there  may  be  a  little  profit 
in  it.  At  any  rate  it  is  happening  all  over  the 
country. 
* 
I  saw  an  article  on  milk  stands  in  The  R.  N.-Y.,  and 
I  wish  to  say  that  men  in  the  Navy  have  got  the  habit 
to  the  extent  of  about  400  pints  per  day  on  this  ship 
alone.  L.  c.  b. 
IIIS  means  one  warship  of  medium  size,  located 
near  a  navy  yard.  The  sailors  drink  milk 
when  they  can  get  it,  and  it  is  both  food  and  drink 
for  fighting  men.  One  of  the  big  prizefighters  uses 
•milk  in  training  for  a  battle.  The  other  man  in  the 
ring  finds  him  no  milksop,  after  well  sopping  in 
milk.  “Strong  water?”  Milk  is  the  strongest  water 
known  to  the  world,  and  we  can  prove  it  by  analysis. 
Whenever  milk  can  be  put  freely  on  sale  wherever 
crowds  gather  or  people  feel  a  thirst,  it  will  be  de¬ 
manded.  At  some  of  the  great  baseball  games  15,000 
bottles  of  “pop”  are  sold  in  one  day.  Why  not  milk? 
* 
N  a  lonely  section  of  Central  New  York  two  farms 
lie  side  by  side.  The  boundary  line  runs  through 
a  swamp  and  an  old  pasture  grown  up  to  brush  and 
scrub  trees.  The  land  along  this  boundary  has  prac¬ 
tically  no  value.  Years  ago  a  survey  was  made,  and 
the  line  marked  out  with  stakes  and  stones.  Fences 
have  rotted,  walls  have  fallen,  great  trees  have 
grown — most  line  marks  have  been  lost.  A  new 
owner  comes  to  one  of  these  farms  and  hunts  for  the 
boundary  line.  The  other  owner  claims  that  certain 
marks  indicate  his  line,  but  a  new  survey  locates  it 
about  3  ft.  over  on  his  property.  The  two  men  can¬ 
not  agree.  The  more  they  argue  the  more  they  drift 
apart,  and  their  disagreement  grows  into  hatred. 
The  strip  of  land  in  question  is  not  worth  $5  for  any 
practical  purpose,  and  there  is  no  chance  for  it  to 
rise  in  value.  Yet  both  men  refuse  to  arbitrate  or 
discuss;  both  say  they  will  spend  every  dollar  they 
possess  before  they  will  surrender  title  to  this  worth¬ 
less  piece  of  land.  One  points  to  the  new  survey; 
the  other  to  long-established  possession.  There  has 
been  started  a  family  feud  which  is  likely  to  be  car¬ 
ried  down  to  coming  generations.  Now,  can  you  ex¬ 
plain  why  it  is  that  men  ordinarily  sensible  and 
kindly  will  act  this  way  over  a  worthless  strip  of 
land?  Both  say  they  are  defending  their  rights. 
Do  they  ever  stop  to  think  what  would  happen  if 
farmers  could  only  drop  these  petty  quarrels  and 
get  together  with  equal  determination  to  fight  for 
the  larger  rights  of  agriculture? 
* 
npHE  New  York  Herald  discusses  the  question  of 
A  modern  rural  schools.  It  mentions  the  case  of 
Weld  Co.,  Col.,  where  it  says  85  weak  country 
schools  were  abandoned  and  26  modern  schools  sub¬ 
stituted  for  them.  Eighty  vehicles  pick  up  2,500 
children  each  day  and  deliver  them  to  school  and  re¬ 
turn  them  home!  Of  course  these  vehicles  do  not 
perform  that  apparently  simple  operation.  The 
children  come  to  some  appointed  place,  often  taking 
quite  a  journey  to  reach  the  transporting  bus  or 
vehicle.  But  the  Herald  is  bound  to  make  its  point 
and  therefore  says : 
l\hat  applies  to  Colorado  applies  to  New  York  and 
to  other  Mates  where  rural  school  concentration  has 
been  adopted.  In  the  days  of  a  not  distant  past  this 
system  would  have  been  unavailable.  With  country 
roads  often  next  to  impassable  and  with  the  horse  and 
wagon  the  only  means  of  transportation,  schools  far 
distant  from  the  homes  of  their  pupils  were  not  prac¬ 
tical.  That  was  the  day  of  the  “little  red  school- 
house. 
But  good  roads  and  the  automobile  have  changed  ail 
that  Good  schools  in  modern  buildings,  with  well 
trained  teachers,  now  have  come  within  the  reach  of 
everybody. 
Now  the  writer  of  this  has  lived  in  Weld  Co.,  Col., 
and  he  is  here  to  say  that  in  making  the  above  state¬ 
ment  the  Herald  does  not  know  what  it  is  talking 
about.  Weld  County  lies  on  the  prairie  just  outside 
of  the  foothills.  There  are  no  such  hills  and  valleys 
as  we  have  in  New  York,  the  climate  is  far  more 
even— the  conditions  are  entirely  different.  The 
gently  rolling  country  around  Greeley,  Col.,  is  as 
different  from  the  rough  surface  in  Ulster,  Delaware 
or  Schuyler  counties  as  the  gentle  surface  of  a  mill¬ 
pond  differs  from  the  ocean  in  a  storm.  There  are 
many  places  in  New  York  State  where  the  mail  car¬ 
rier  could  not  make  his  way  for  a  month  last  Win¬ 
ter.  There  are  many  well-meaning  men  and  women 
who  want  to  improve  our  rural  schools  by  knocking 
them  on  the  head,  as  they  would  some  inferior  farm 
animal.  There  are  some  locations  in  New  York 
State  where  consolidation  would  be  best  and  where 
school  patrons  realize  it.  In  the  great  majority  of 
cases  consolidation  is  not  Avanted  and  would  not 
work  successfully.  The  proposed  new  school  law  is 
a  consolidation  measure;  not  openly  so,  perhaps,  but 
given  the  power  which  this  new  law  would  carry, 
most  of  the  rural  districts  would  find  themselves 
headed  that  way.  That  is  the  question  at  the  heart 
of  this  rural  school  bill,  and  we  must  all  understand 
it.  Do  you  Avant  consolidation  and  rural  high 
schools  or  not? 
Brevities 
Who  has  tried  the  moth  ball  remedy  for  squash  bugs’ 
Did  it  work? 
There  has  been  an  over-production  of  hogs  in  the 
West.  But  will  retail  pork  be  cheaper? 
They  say  that  you  cannot  make  a  dotted  line  hold 
water.  Well,  just  sign  your  name  on  the  dotted  line 
below  some  agreement  to  buy  stock  or  some  article,  and 
see  whether  it  will  hold  you  ! 
The  State  of  Ne\v  Jersey  will  insist  hereafter  that  all 
cars  must  carry  special  headlights.  There  are  19  of 
these  approved  lights,  and  car  drivers  from  other  States 
must  use  one  of  them  or  run  the  risk  of  arrest. 
One  of  our  readers  puts  it  this  way :  “My  wife 
says  it  is  a  sure  sign  one  is  getting  old  when  they  want 
to  be.  working  all  the  time.  I  am  sure  I  enjoy  it.”  If 
that  is  true  we  know  some  people  who  are  very  young. 
Under  the  Pennsylvania  agricultural  dog  law  no 
allowance  is  made  for  sheep  “not  visibly  injured.”  That 
is  a  mistake.  Many  sheep,  when  chased  by  dogs,  are  so 
frightened  that  they  never  recover.  They  are  as  bad 
as  a  shell-shocked  mim. 
Samuel  Hopkins  Adams  says  the  mosquito  is  the 
great  American  murderer.  Right ;  he.  or  she,  has  car¬ 
ried  more  deadly  disease  and  punched  it  in  than  any 
other  single  thing.  The  mosquito  is  cradled  in  water. 
It  cannot  breed  and  start  except  in  stagnant  liquid.  A 
half-filled  tin  can  out  back  of  your  barn  will  fill  your 
place  with  mosquitoes.  Do  not  give  him  any  chance. 
Empty  every  can  or  dish  and  try  to  drain  the  puddles. 
