The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 27, 1904, Page 14

14 — TMELY TOFIC&/’ 7 WFLD N Remarkable Work of the Government Agricultural Experiment OIREF G £ 7L | Stations. MRS FIER5 t afoot for the experiment in the country’'s ly ap- but HE new movemer of the a factor the is n arces, lated. It receives great amount of to fully discover a al remedy sublimate, forma- of them srrosive sub conseque pplied and h instead that r germination eated with for- than makes alent, it meant in price of at hel crop it this was loss from smut. b € para- . not always vil effects in alls in the wheat ry resulted in e plant from the gease vield was, in con- hels less per acre Fields were fre- e IOomPRESSED & N U quently and generally fou. with the straw badly infested with smut, but with little or no evidence of the disease in the form of developed smut balls in the head. A fleld of wheat so affected, it was carefully estimated, would yleld from three to four bushels less per acre than where the grain was free from the disease. Taking an average of but two bush- els less per acre on the whole crop, or four bushels less per acre on half the acreage sown annually, and we have a loss of 10,000,000 bushels for a single harvest. Ten million bushels of wheat at 50 cents per hel means a loss of $5,000,- 000, plus 0,000 loss from depression price, and we have a grand total of 500,000 loss per annum to the farmers of the State. Mdking any allowance one may wish from the above figures for extravagance of estimate, and still the saving to the wheat growers is enor- mous.” But the statement is not an extravagant one, in view of the rapid increase of the disease before a remedy nd to check it. ctive is the and cheaply remedy and so applied that the in disrepute if he One pound of easily farmer to-day grows smutted wheat. formaldehyde to forty gallons of water, applied to the grain with sprinkling can and shovel, is the remedy. The same solution with elight variation as to mrenglh is equally effective for pre- THE SA venting potato smut In oats or barley. This is only one instance where the experiment station Las come to the aid of the farmer. It has also, in other States, saved untold millions of dol- lars to the fruit growers, tobacco and cotton growers, and especially to corn growers, The improvements made in dairying, feeding and breeding live stock grasses and grains and the saving to.farmers through prover use of commercial fer- tilizers, suppressing destructivas Insects and cereal diseases, etc., have heen of untold value to the agricultural inter- ests of the country, The money expended by the Govern- ment by the States for the support of experiment stations partakes more of the nature of a profitable investment than of an appropriation. The money expended has brought wonderful cash returns, besides elevating and popu- ‘\\ \ \ FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. larizing the greatest vocation open to the rising generation. Congress could do mno better thing for this country than to increase the Government's an- nual investment in each State experi- ment station from $15,000 to $30,000. The returns on the Investment would be rich beyond comparison. Agriculture is the foundation, of our national prosperity. It is the prime source of our national wealth, and to increase the products of the sofl and yet conserve its fertility for future gen- erations is worthy the attention of statesmen. Can the Government afford to spend annually for the benefit of the farmers of the United States, in the form of increased experiment station work, & sum of money less than suffi- clent to build a couple of torpedo- boats?—Chicago Record Herald. e = \ Unique New Compressed Air Machine for Rapid ‘1 | Vineyard ' <« Pruning. — -—A_—_4+ RECENT new invention which has just been perfe and one will revolutionize orchard and vineyard work, is a vine and tree pruner, operated by com- pressed air. The idea originated with Wesley Young, an Ohio man, who came to California to develop it, knowing the great resou of this State and the opportunities the fruit industry here presented. The device is destined to revolutione ize pruning methods and will eradicate all laborious portions of this work. Three different length pruners are presented to accommodate the various heights of limbs; one that is operated in either hand, which is mainly for grapevines; the others are three and twelve feet long; these are operated by a trigger, an instantaneous cut re- sulting. Limbs can be cut clean, and as large as two inches, and will de away altogether with the laborious work of sawing. The apparatus, as described by M Rand of the Compressed Air Prune ing Company, is made light enough to be carried aboyt readily, and the ra- pldity with which the cutting knives are brought into action, is limited only by the speed of the operator in moving a lever which offers no more resistance than the turning of a door handle. Thousands and thousands of dollare are expended annually for pruniag orchards and vineyards, and at times {t has been hard to find labor to do the work when it is required; and as the above device will operate more quickiy than hand labor, it will certainly be & boon to the fruit growers and vine- yardists. The machine has been developed I keeping with modern progress and the power is furnished by a gasoline engine which operates' the compressor, devel- oping the air, and also by a system of gears propelling the vehicle containe ing the outfit; thus the generating outfiy can be run through the rows of an or~ chard and will supply power to operste shears in the hands of six men, three working on each side of the machine. These six men will easily accomplish the work of twenty hand workers. In California alone there are about 20,000,000 fruit trees and 200,000 acres of vines that must be pruned annually. This will give an idea of the work that must be done and the amount of money expénded for the labor. Trees are con- tracted to be pruned at from five to fifteen cents, and vines from two to three doliars per acre, so it will be readlly realized the great amount ex- pended yearly for this branch of or- chard work, and the amount to be saved by using an outfit as described above. JAPAN’S BAFF LING EMBARGO ON WAR CORRESPONDENTS t OMETHING of the un- precedented difficulties and iron-clad regula- tions that the wily, taciturn J military authori- ties are heaping upon the great army of war corre- spondents now fuming im- putently in Tokio is told in the following letter just re- ceived from O. K. Davis, the New York Herald and San Francisco Call’s correspond- ent. Never before were such stringent conditions im- lnN'(l. apanese TOKIO, Japan, Feb. 18. OING to war has various phases, some of them amusing as well enuous, and not at all dan- gerous, except to tempers, the same. Before the ctually begins there 1s venditure of effort and nerv- ¥ to take a regiment through. you go and promptly find that e wasted most of the strength rth. You throw away & good of the kit you have contrived much labor, thought and ex- ¢, and settle down to the unavoid- dship and discomfort, and are to find that in some way you r work done, not as well per- »u had planned to do it, cer- not as conveniently, but never- wa tainly sheless done. is a country of regulations and for rule is very high. When g is determined by regulation the way in which it must be r not at all. For instance, take The telegraphs of Japan are by the Government. For years th ule that all messages must No arrangement for send- ges collect was possible. Con- when a newspaper sent a here to cable stories he had to have a credit large enough to enable put down the money for every ge he sent. “ -+ “AN EASTER OFFERING.” A Beautiful Colored Art | Photograph by Tonnes- sen—One of His Best Creations—Will Be given — free — with the Next Sunday Call Easter Edi- tion. respect | { | One of the most surprising changes effected by this war has been an ar- rangement by which telegrams may be sent to newspapers and paid fcr by the recelver. This was effected only on the guarantee by the cabie company which receives the messages from the Japanese Government wires that it would be responsible for the charges. But here comes in the wonderful reg- ulation. A press telegram is a message intended for publication, and the rule is that it must be published in the next issue of the paper after it is Teceived and a copy of the paper sent to the delivering telegraph office. For such messages a less rate is charged than for ordinary commercial messages. There. is also what is known as the “urgent” rate. If a man is in a great hurry to get through an important message he may pay the urgent rate and have it take precedence of all other messages on the wires except urgents filed before his or Government business. The newspaper men out here have been n the habit of taking advantage of these three rates as circumstances war- ranted in order to catch editions of their papers. The time occupled in transmission by & message at press rates is known to them, as is that of a message at “full rate,” the ordinary commercial price and at urgent rates. By taking into account the difference of time between here and New York a man may gauge his chance of catching any edition of his paper, and if the im- portance of his news warrants he will send it at full rate or urgent. 4 But under the &apmue regulation there is only one rate for a press mes- sage, and that is the press rate. Mes- sages to mewspapers will not be ac- cepted, even if prepaid, at full rate or urgent. Accordingly, if a newspaper man wishes to send such a message to his office he must direct it to & private address and prepay it. No amount of argument has been able to effect a reconsideration of this decision. The Japanese Government is unable to comprehend the fact that a telegram for publication may be suffi- ciently valuable to warrant a news- paper in paying three times the com- mercial rate for it. Something of this spirit of regulation has been met by the newspaper men in their efforts to get to the front with the Japanese troops. Before the actual outbreak of hostilities special regula- tions were issued forbidding any men- tion of the movements of troops or ships. Simultaneously a secret cen- sorship was established over telegrams, and all reference to such movements were cut out. For some time nothing was said about such action to the men who had filed the messages, but recently, and after considerable criticism, the sys- tem was adopted of notifying the senders of messages that had been ex- cised of the words that had been cut out. These notices come in bunches sufficiently old to prevent any attempt to get out the thing that has been excised in a different way. All that care was undoubtedly jus- tified. The Japanese could not afford to have their enemy obtaln any Ink- ling of what they were doing in the ‘way of preparation for war, and at the earlier stages of the preparations their By O. K. Davis. movements might have been justly construed by Russia as unfriendly acts, and have precipitated what both sides then professed to be hoping by diplo- matic means to avoid. But the declaration of war removed that reason. Up 'to the time the cor- respondents here had been unable to obtain anything definite from any of- ficial source as to what their move- ments would be, or when they would be allowed to move at all. It finally was said that there were no regula- tions to govern the correspondents. That led to the information that in i issued. Meantime the correspondents possessed their souls in what peace they could, and worried about kit. In- cidentally more steamers arrived bringing more correspondents, and those who had come early in prder to avold the rush saw themselvifs oyer- taken by increasing numbers of their fellows, and all hope of “efirly bird” advantage vanished. All this and still no régulations. The; came, however, in the course of a lon time. There are fourteen sections, be- ginning with the provision that appli- cation to go to the fleld must be made panied by a sketch of the applicant’s life and a document of personal guar- antee, signed by the proprietor of the newspaper for which the applicant works. Foreign correspondents need __not sketch their lives and the guarantee I8 dispensed with. "Section 2 provides that the applicant must have done newspaper work for one year at least. No greenhorns are g to be permitted to spend their vaca- tions with the Japanese army. The third section provides that for- eigners may take an interpreter, for ‘whom they must give a personal guar- e due time such regulations would be to the War Department and be accom- amtee. By section 4 they are permitted ‘ Official War Ti Marching S 1 cia ar Time Marching Songs -— e N adopting an officlal marching song for the British army, the War Office has the support of modern military experts and immemorial custom. Music has always played a great part in fighting, and Lord Wolse- ley declares that “troops that sing as they march will not only reach their destination more quickly and in better fighting conditign than those who march in silence, but, inspired by the music and words of national songs, ‘will feel that self-confidence which is the mother of victory.” But whether Tommy Atkins will take kindly to the song composed for him may be doubt- ed. Such things do not come about by order and decree. The British soldier is musical only in a limited degree. Nor are the songs sung martial or national. There is no record that “God Save the King” or even the more stir- ring “Rule Bmmnl"' has ever been supg by our’ troops as a battle song. At Waterloo and in the Crimea there are stories of regiments breaking forth with the rousing “British Grenadiers.” But Tommy’s real favorites are senti- mental ditties of the order of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” That has been sugg more often by British soldlers as their hymn before action than any other song. The tune was formerly known as “Brighton Camp,” and, dat- ing from 1640 in Ireland, came to Eng- land about a century ago. In the Boer war Tommy solaced himself with music-hall songs, and that a more seemly composition, produced under the aegis and with the approval of the ‘War Office, will supplant them may be more than doubted. When the British soldier is fighting he fights so stifly that the inevitable reaction turns his thoughts to homely sentiment. In more than one veldt engagement he ‘was seen and heard pinging bullets into the Boer lines to the vocal accompani- ment, not of & lofty, patriotic measure, but with the philosophic assurance— You have all got to have "em, ‘Whetber you want “em or me. But the popular song of the war was a pathetic doggerel describing a sol- dier's dying message to his home; and at times every camp waa filled with the doleful, yet truly tender, refrain-— mxmunu d her that I loved her. The British navy has a treasury of seasongs, which require no official ad- dition. In a sense, indeed, Charles Dib- din, was the subsidized writer of songs for the admiralty. His naval ditties were so influential in assisting recruit- ing for the navy in the busy times of the. eighteenth century that the Gov- ernment gave him a pension of £200 a year. But there is only one national hymn which is also an accepted war- song. That is the glorious ‘“Marseil- laise,” ‘“the sound of which,” wrote Carlyle, “will make the blood tingle in men's veins and whole armies and as- semblages will sing it with eyes weep- ing and burning, with hearts deflant of Death, Despot and Devil.” How Rou- 8gt de I'Isle, an insignificant captain of the volunteers, marching to oppose the Duke of Brunswick's invading army, heard a comrade regret that the sol- diers had no battle-song, and there- upon returned. to his garret and under sudden inspiration wrote the ‘“Marseil- laise,” is history. “LucKiest musical —_— “THE QUEEN OF QUELPARTE.” By Archer Butler Hul- bert. - Mr. Hulbert’s novel, “The Queen of Quelparte,” is a story of Rus- sian intrigue in the Far East, founded upon the alleged will of Peter the Great, which is sald to Le dominant In Russia's terri- torial advance. Mr. Hulbert tells ment of the lease of Port Arthur. t After e.fl “'l‘Bo-efi{)nr;ow (] Sunday Call, Ap — compr\:)mon ever promulgated,” de- clared Carlyle. But it is notable that all truly national songs have had such lucky births; they have been written, like the ‘“Marseillaise,” by amateurs in fits of spontaneity. An otherwise un- known German schoolmaster, named ‘Wilhclm, wrote and composed “Dle ‘Wacht am Rhein.” This, not the “Hymn to the Kaiser,” was the “sol- diers’ song” during the war against France. Italy received its Garibaldian Hymn in the same spontaneous way. Its au- thorship is entirely unknown; probably it was written by some patriot in Gari- baldi’s army with the simple object of giving his comrades a tuneful and lively song to cheer the march. But it won the ear and touched the heart of Italy, and is more truly national than the anthem since officially composed and adopted by the Government. Again, in the American Civil War, the song of the troops was not the offl ly national “Hail, Columbia,” but the much more simple and thrilling John Brown's body lies moldering in the grave, And we go marching on. a In the Japanese army it is the cus- tom for the soldiers to sing as they g0 into battle and rush to the charge. The practice was remarked during the operations of the allied powers against Peking. Their favorite song is the “Kimi Gayo,” or national anthem, which has been Englished as follows: May our Lord's dominion last Till & thousand years have passed Twice four thousand times o'ertold! Firm as changeless rock, earth-footed, Moss of ages uncomputed. In the Russian army tests were made a few years ago to ascertain the value of marching songs, and the results so confirmed Lord Wolseley’s dictum that Thus to take also one servant, guaranteed like the interpreter. Then comes the prize, section 8: “The authorities, when they consider 1t necessary, may cause the selection of one person to act as joint correspond- ent for several newspapers.” Sections 6 and 7 provide that passes shall be given to those correspondents who are permitted to go to the front, and that they shall be attached to headquarters of the columns they ac- company. Section 8 says: “Correspondents shall always wear foreign clothes, and to their left arm shall be attached a white band, about two inches wide, on which the name of the newspaper rep- resented shall be printed in Japanese in red.” Sections 9 and 10 provide that the correspondents shall always carry their permits and shall show them to any Japanese officer who desires to ses them. They must observe any rules made by the commanding officers of thelr respective columns and may be set down for failure to do so. Section 11 provides for a fleld cen- sorate as follows: “The war corre- spondent will not be permitted to dis- patch his communications (whether they be correspondence for publication or private letters or telegrams) until atter their examination by the officer appointed by the commanding officer. No communication containing ecipher or symbols will be permitted to be dig- patched.” The remaining sections pmm!u that the army will do its best to facilitate the correspondents, and In case of nes cessity provide food and transportation. They also declare correspondents, their interpreters and servants subject to court-martial for violation of the crim- inal law, the military inal law or the law for the preservation of mili- tary secrets. There was nothing in these regula- tions to cause dismay, and, in fact, most of them had been foreseen. The Iimitation to one servant made it look as if a man would have to either do his own cooking or his own camp work, 'or it was unlikely that he could find a man who could or would do both for him. But that was not an insurmountable hardship, and the promise to provide transportation, by vessel if necessary, seemed to indicate a willingness to let a man go to the fleld with a suitable outfit so that he could make himself comfortable. Thereupon those who had not got tents went out and ordered them, and fur coats and robes and sleeping bags Increased correspondingly in number. For a day or two after these regula- tions appeared in the Official Gazette there was lively work among the news- paper men making what they then thought would be final preparations. The long expected and eagerly desired passes would surely be issued now in a day or so. They were certain of it when notices were posted at the hotel by the military attache of the British legation, *saying that the War Office desired to have all the applications pre- sented as soon as possible. But after a day or two of anxious expectancy the every corner and the business of the hour was the old petty discussion of minor detalls of kit, or hot urzumang‘ as to the value of this or that style eof an agceed on necessity. The siege of the War Office for im= formation was regularly laid. Every day sorties wers made, sometimes by detached parties, sometimes almost en masse. One by one little fragments of seeming information were picked up and the utmost was made of them. The wonderful conspiracy of silence with which the Japanese had cloaked thely earlier preparations for war was cone Then came the syusher. clally intimated to several same day that they would to take with them into the what luggage one servant couls Jupiter Pluvius, froges and fishest! tent, no sleeping bag, no fur rug, hardly even a fur coat, no cook stove, Do type- writer, not even a comfortable mess | g0 or make up your mind to nve ¥ 21! You might as well either not try in your saddle pockets and draw ra- tions from the army, which is likely te mean untold quantities of rice and plenty of hot water. But what does it matter? To-day comes the news that the Japanese have already got 20,000 men in Seoul, and the land/ movements we have been walting 80 long to see have begun without us. The general staff calmly announces that when “the two armies are In con- tact” the correspondents will be per- mitted to go to the front. There is no sign of the issuance of a pass, and the main business of the newspaper men has reverted to the selection of camp beds and the making of leather writing portfolios. ‘We understand there is a war on be- tween Japan and Russia. The only in- dication of the fact there is in Toklo is the presence of a large staff of high- ly certificated war correspondents, all busily inactive, occupled only In gen- eral discussion of detalls of camp gear and in replying to a multitude of invi- tations to luncheons, parties, dinners and evenings at bridge. ©Oh, for ten minutes of the man from Salamanca! —_— DIVINE CHILD WITH THE ST. JOSEPH LILIES Watch for the Beautiful Colored Art Photo- graphic Supplement —A Genuine Ton- nessen — free — with the Next Sunday Call Easter Edi- tion. <