The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 5, February 2,

[Transcriber’s Note: The Table of Contents was originally located on page 72 of the periodical. It has been moved here for ease of use.]

THE CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER.

Agriculture—Selection of a Site for a Park, Page 65; Fresh Meat for the Farm, 65-66; Farmers’ Communicative Society, 66; Botany for Farm Boys, 66; Diogenes in His Tub, 66; How He Likes Dakota, 66; The Use of Salt, 66-67; Woven Paling Fences, 67; Illinois State Fair, 67; From Central Kansas, 67; Field and Furrow Items, 67.

Horticulture—The Farmer’s Garden, Page 70; Our Future Orchards, 70-71; The Model Illinois Nursery, 71; The Basket Willow, 71.

Poultry Notes—What Ails the Pullets? Page 74; That Duck Farm, 74; From New Hampshire, 74.

The Apiary—Corn-silk Protection, Page 74; Feeding Back, 74; Bee Pasturage, 74.

Literature—Logic, Poem, Page 78; Don’t Wait, Poem, 78; The Curfew Heroine, 78; Items, 78.

Humorous—Old Shoes, Poem, Page 79; An Obstinate Wife, 79; Wanted Weather Strips, 79; It’s a Telephone, 79; An Emergency, 79; Items, 79.

Live Stock—Items, Page 68; A Scare in Missouri, 68; Public Sales of Stock, 68; Remedy for Foot-and-Mouth Disease, 68.

Editorial—Items, Page 72; Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society, 72; When It is Time to Resign, 72; Locating the Minnesota State Fair, 72-73; Wayside Notes, 73; Letter from Champaign, 73; An Eloquent Tribute, 73; Selection of Site for a Park, 73.

Household—An Humble Confession (Poetry), Page 76; Pyramidal Women, 76; Give the Babies Water, 76; Work for Little Fingers, 76.

Young Folks—The Legend of the Stork and the Babies (poetry), Page 77; A Chat About Halifax, 77; The Little Legislatures, 77; Walking Canes, 77; Items, 77.

Agriculture

Selection of a Site for a Park.

Few persons think of a park as anything but a place of recreation, a pleasure ground, and an ornamental appendage of a city.

As a consequence, if it is proposed to create a park in any city, every suggestion that is offered in regard to its location is based upon the fact of its superior natural advantages; its picturesque character; its command of fine views, or the features of attractive interest it combines.

Without denying the value of any of these elements, I wish to call attention to other objects which are rarely thought of, and yet are deserving of careful consideration in determining the location.

Almost every city comprises within its limits some portion of territory which is not adapted for business purposes, and is not attractive to that class of inhabitants who can afford to choose the location of their residences. Such localities are at first left vacant, but as population increases they are occupied first by squatters, then by those who can afford nothing better, and finally become the site of tenement houses, or dens of resort for the worst class of human beings, male and female, that the city contains.

The original cause of the avoidance of the place may have been that it was low and subject to malarial influences, or of such topographical character that it could only be adapted to residence purposes at very great cost.

In either of these cases it is obvious that the first cost of the land will be far less than that of a tract combining all the features which render it most attractive as a site for residences. Let us now consider some of the effects of improving such sites:

Suppose the area to be low and wet, an unsightly tract, suggestive of chills and fever, and too extensive for improvement by its individual owners. Instead of suffering it to become the plague spot and breeding place of moral and physical diseases, as it certainly will if left to itself, let the city purchase and improve it as a park, first, by thorough drainage, and then by such artistic arrangement as shall make it an attractive resort, and it is obvious that the result will be not only the securing of a charming place of recreation and ornament to the city, but the conversion of a threatening danger to health, into a chief source of its promotion. The creation of such an improvement also invariably changes the character of its surroundings by rendering them desirable as residence sites, and thus repaying the cost by the increased taxable value of adjacent property. It often happens, however, that large areas are comprised within, or adjacent to, a city, which even if unobjectionable on the score of health are not available for residence on account of their topographical character.

At the time of its first inception in 1857—the whole of that section of the city was a series of barren ledges of rocks of such forbidding nature that no individual proprietor could afford the expense of preparing an area for residence and providing himself with the simplest necessities of comfort. The land had only a nominal value, and its only occupants

Fresh Meat for the Farm.

One of the greatest banes to the proper enjoyment of country life is the almost constant use of salt meats. It is ham for breakfast, salty, oh, how salty! Then for dinner it is salt pork, boiled or fried. Then for supper a cold slice of ham, or boiled cold shoulder, varied a little by chipped dried beef, which is within itself a “piller of salt.” Then it is drink, drink, from morning to night without abatement.

Now, I know the great difficulties that lay in the way of a farmer, located miles from city or town, to procure a daily supply of fresh meat from the markets, to say nothing of the unbearable cost of such a proceeding to those who live close enough to market to procure a daily supply. Just think of it; we sell our beef cattle to the butcher for, say three cents on foot, and pay for the article on the hook from twelve and a half to twenty cents per pound, and our mutton and pork in the same ratio. It is not my purpose, in this article, to show the relative losses and profits in these transactions, but to show my brother farmers how they can have fresh meat on their tables every day of the year, and every meal of each day if they will, and that at their own first cost prices. This plan of mine is not new; yet, I am safe in saying that it is not practiced by one per cent of the farmers in the nation. Why is this? Ignorance of the way to do it. It can be nothing else. For there is less labor and work attending the process of preserving the meats put up for home consumption, by keeping them fresh, than there is by salting, smoking, wrapping in canvas, and packing away, as now practiced. A second great advantage is, that the curing of meats in a fresh state can be accomplished at any season of the year, no matter how hot, and that without ice.

Then, a third consideration is the saving of labor to the farmer’s family during the hot sweltering summer months, in fact, all through the year.

To enable any person to understand the matter, I will explain by briefly stating what we are now doing in the way of preparing our fresh meat for next summer’s use. In the first place, we have as many lard or pork barrels as will be necessary to hold a supply of meat for the family. These barrels are clean, sweet, and tight, one end taken out. They are arranged on a bench in the cellar, open end up. The pigs are killed and cooled in the usual way. When the animal heat is all out they are cut up, cutting off the sausage and lard, the lard cut up ready to be rendered out. The shoulders and sides are then cut up into such sized pieces as may be convenient for table use. These pieces are washed cleanly, and boiled in large kettles, seasoned with salt and pepper to make palatable, and when sufficiently boiled for table use they are placed in a barrel closely together, but not pressed or mashed, thus leaving each piece as near in the shape cut as possible. When the barrel is filled within two inches of the top, we then pour in warm lard until all the crevices between the pieces of meat are filled up, covering the top with one or two inches of the warm lard. Next day we find that the lard has settled down; we fill up again to the top and keep filled until all has become a solid mass of meat and lard. This is the whole secret. You can fill any tight vessel from a one gallon jar to a forty-five gallon barrel in like manner, and{66} if properly done, and kept in a cool place the meat will keep fresh and sweet the year round.

The advantages of this process of keeping meat are manifold. You can kill a fat hog at any season of the year, and its own fat can preserve it, and the fat can be used for culinary purposes just the same as when put up in cans for home use. The shoulders can be thus prepared, and when cold are far superior to salt meat, even after being boiled. The sides when cut in square pieces, with the ribs on, are just as good as when cooked fresh in the fall of the year. Hams, whole, when well cooked and seasoned, retain all their sweetness, and that without being impaired by the excess of salt necessary to keep them. Then, there is no trouble with flies, bugs, or skippers; the meat remains sweet, wholesome, and palatable until the last piece is taken from the bottom. All the care necessary in taking the pieces from the barrel is to press the lard down closely over what is left, and thus exclude the air.

There are two great advantages in this mode of keeping meat; one is, it is fresh, easily digested, and consequently more healthy, and decidedly more pleasant to the taste; and it does not create that burning thirst that is so hard to quench on a hot harvest day. Then it is always ready for table use, and that without requiring your wives, daughters, and house help to melt over a hot stove when the mercury is up among the nineties, a no small saving in threshing time.

The only great drawback that I have found to this plan is, that I can eat twice the amount that I can of salted meats; and, therefore, it requires double the quantity for family use than under the salting process; but I am persuaded that the difference is made up in better health, and smaller doctor bills. Try it on a small scale, and you will always follow it.

Farmers’ Communicative Society.

I am now fifty-five years old and have always lived in a good agricultural country. Having had no rich friends to draw on for supplies I have had to look to Mother Earth for my living. Hence I feel that I should pay homage to the Great Creator of all things for that fair capacity which has enabled me to select good lands and grow crops well adapted to the soils.

While my work has been arduous in the main, I have not felt it drudgery. In fact, my farm has not only furnished me a good living, but in its productions and developments I have been highly entertained.

I am not different from most of my fellowmen. I like to manage and dictate, and have my own way. I manage so as to bring my lands into subjection. I do it by making them better. I cultivate and dress them until they look better and feel better, and I know they are better.

When I plant my crops I give them such attention that it seems they have every confidence that I will remove all obstructions to hinder their growth, and the young and tender plants seem to avail themselves of the situation and spring up as by magic. In their prosperity I rejoice.

I take a half dozen farm journals and a few newspapers so as to learn what others are doing without going from my home, especially in the winter season. For I find that when I go from home I can’t always get delicious fruits and vegetables that I have learned to be so fond of in my riper years.

Now I come to a point where I will venture a proposition to my brother farmers: That we organize a—well I don’t know just what to name it, but say Farmers Communicative Society. I mean by this that we select some farm journal that seems most fitting and send in our names and addresses, agreeing to write once a month a short and candid statement of our plans and successes and failures in our agricultural and horticultural pursuits. I am of course intending to get the best of the bargain as I always try to do in business. But it must be apparent to all that we, as farmers, can be more benefited by commingling our interests together in the developments of the farm, and learn from one another in a few years what it will take each one of us a whole life time to learn in case we continue to “go it alone” as in olden times.

Now Mr. Editor, I think you can afford to second the motion to help organize these practical old farmers and get them to write for your journal. I feel that we can give your readers many practical ideas of benefit to all, and you agree to clothe our crude thoughts and make them appear intelligent before the public, so that no one need be embarrassed to “speak out in meetin’.”

Now the benefits to be derived from an association to communicate through the paper are to my mind much greater than from conventions. All admit that farmers’ conventions have accomplished great good in the different interests, and that they are indispensable. I am indebted to these conventions for much of my success in farm life. But I conclude that as great good, or even greater good, can be accomplished at much less cost. For a few hundred farmers can communicate to each other through a good farm paper like The Prairie Farmer, so paged that it can be filed for future reference, and we can, as it were, have our meetings every week at our homes and with our families, and impress the lessons upon our children’s tender minds so they will not have to wait until they are of mature age before hearing discussions as to the best modes practiced in agriculture and horticulture. I have felt in attending these conventions like asking those old veterans who must soon pass away, where are the young men of our country? For very few seem to attend these interesting gatherings.

Another reason why I suggest we adopt The Prairie Farmer is, that The Prairie Farmer company sends to each of their patrons a large map of the United States, which would enable us to know the exact locality of parties giving useful information, which is always more satisfactory.

Now I am always trying new things and looking after new industries, and I have made a great many observations, some of which I shall promise to give in farmers’ communications, in case we can get a fair start so as to get others to give me their observations, for that is my prime object, as I stated in the outset. I am like my Irish friend “I want a little more than I give.” I am developing our sweets in Kansas. I have also the finest fruits of the land and succeeded in both, and I will tell how I did it.

Botany for Farm Boys.

This time I would like to call your attention to the subject of botany. It might seem rather odd at this time of year, but you know that the farmers have more time now than in summer to read The Prairie Farmer. It is better for the farmer’s boys to become acquainted with the laws of nature than to spend their time in reading novels, or other books, which bring them little information. A little knowledge of the nature of plants is worth infinitely more to the farmer’s son or daughter, or even to the farmer himself, because it has special relation to his calling. And in order to obtain a practical knowledge it is best to study the plants themselves, their structure, their habitat and peculiarity of growth, etc., and in order to do so, it is best to have some apparatus for the purpose, requisite for the accomplishment of this object.

The student in botanical science should give early and persevering attention to the collection and preservation of specimens of as many species of plants as he can procure. The advantages to be derived from such collections, either in refreshing the memory by reviewing them, or in instituting a more thorough examination at one’s leisure, are such as will afford an abundant compensation for all the labor requisite in preparing them. Such a collection of dried specimens of plants is called an herbarium, or by the more significant title, hortus siccus (dry garden).

The apparatus requisite for the accomplishment of this object is, first, a close tin box, twenty inches in length, and of a portable form; second, a portable press, consisting of two boards of light material, twelve by eighteen inches, opening and shutting by hinges, like the cover of a book, and secured by springs (even a large book is a good substitute); third, a quantity of smooth, bibulous paper, of large size (a dozen or more quires of printing paper); fourth, eight or ten boards of the same size as the paper; fifth, a small screw press, or several lead weights of various sizes, from fifteen to thirty pounds each.

In gathering plants for this purpose, or specimens, as they are called, the smaller and herbaceous plants should be taken up with a portion of the roots, while from larger plants there should be selected a shoot, with complete representations of the leaves and flowers. They may be preserved for several days, without withering, in the tin box, or they may at once be laid between several thicknesses of the paper and inclosed in the portable press. It is always desirable that they be gathered on a dry day; if not they should be freed from dampness before being committed to the paper and press.

In drying the specimens, great care is required, that they may preserve well their natural appearance, form, and color. It is generally recommended that they be carefully spread out, as nearly in their natural position as possible, between eight or ten thicknesses of paper, and then submitted to pressure between the boards. The degree of pressure should never be such as to crush their parts, and may be easily regulated by the screw, or by the number and size of the weights used. Cotton-batting may be used to equalize the pressure.

As often as once a day they should be taken from the press, transferred to fresh and dry paper, and returned, until they are thoroughly dried, when they are ready to be transferred to the cabinet. The true secret of preserving specimens with all their colors is to extract the moisture from them by pressure in an abundance of dry, bibulous paper as soon as possible.

The next object with the collector is the arrangement of his specimens. For this purpose each one is first to be fastened to a sheet of firm white paper, about ten by eighteen inches, either by glue or with loops of paper of the same kind, or they may be stitched to the paper with a fine needle. The latter mode, if done skillfully, is preferable. Then let all those specimens which belong to the same genus be collected together and placed within a folded sheet of colored paper, with the name of the genus and each species written on the outside. Each sheet should also be labeled with the names of the plants, the locality, time of gathering, habits, etc., etc.

The genera are next to be collected together into orders, each order being wrapped or folded in a still larger sheet, of a different color from that which enfolds the genera, having the name of the order with a catalogue of its genera on the outside. Thus arranged, the orders are to be laid away upon the shelves of a cabinet, or packed in a chest. To protect the plants from the attack of insects pieces of camphor gum are to be laid among them, or a piece of sponge saturated with the oil of turpentine. To save them from decay they should be kept dry and well ventilated.

Fruits and seeds which are too large to be pressed with the plants, and also truncheons of wood, are to be pressed separately in a cabinet. In the above I have closely followed the directions of Professor Wood in his excellent work on Botany, which would prove a profitable pastime for those desiring to improve their knowledge in this direction.

Diogenes in His Tub.

Diogenes in this desires to call the attention of all readers of The Prairie Farmer to what he deems a very important subject and a great wrong—one to which they have heretofore seemed strangely indifferent.

The papers teem of late years with accounts of sharks passing about among farmers and others, and under various pretences, obtaining their signatures to documents, innocent in themselves—but which eventually turn up as notes of hand in possession of third persons. And the result (it is always so stated) is, that the note is collectable and has to be paid.

And the papers with one voice unite in warning their readers against using their signature in such a way.

Now, Messrs. Editors, and fellow readers, is it possible that there is such a principle in our laws—common or statute—that makes such a thing possible; that legalizes such a fraud? If so, it is not only unsafe for a man to sign a contract of any sort, but to write a letter to a friend. And while I am loth to believe there is any statute justifying it, I feel sure there is no common law principle that will sustain it; or if there is, it is a relic of barbarism that common sense and common justice ought long since to have swept into oblivion.

The theory seems to be acquiesced in on the ground that innocent parties must not be made to suffer. But this theory will not hold good. Thousands of cases occur in which innocent persons do, and are compelled by law and by right as well, to suffer loss from just such frauds. A rogue may steal or borrow my horse and sell him to a neighbor, who buys in good faith. The law, and right and justice, instead of compelling me to lose my animal, permits me to replevy him and take him home, and my neighbor pockets his loss. And this is done daily over the land without objection; and we hear no newspaper cautions to the “gullible” farmers not to lend horses. So with every other species of property; one can take his own legally wherever he may find it—in the hands of a rogue or of an innocent purchaser.

It is strange to me that this thing has been permitted to go on so long unchallenged. I do not know whether the courts have ever sustained such a principle; if they have, unless there be much more cogent reason for it than I can conceive of, the sooner it is reversed the better for honest men and good government. Will you allow me, through your widely read pages, to earnestly call the attention of your readers to the subject matter—and not only your readers, but your cotemporaries of the agricultural press as well. Let the principle be ventilated.

How He Likes Dakota.

In passing through Chicago last spring on my way to Dakota, I called at your office and paid for The Prairie Farmer. The gentleman in the office requested me to write you about Dakota. I have delayed doing so until now to learn about the winters here, and as it is now on hand, I write.

The last half of December and the first half of January we had the cold wave, the mercury going below zero from 8 to 40 deg. We have from six to seven inches of snow on the level. Thermometer now ranging from 10 below to 20 above. We have had some windy days that make the snow fly. I was in Illinois before leaving for Dakota some forty-five years, and I did not in all that time see a more pleasant winter; but a very few days that a man could not be at work if he choose. The wind is no harder nor more frequent than in Illinois—just the same as near as could be made. Now for the land, etc.:

Here in Brown county, about twelve to fifteen miles from the 46 parallel (south) the land is nicely rolling, just about as any one would wish. There is very little choice in location, only as distance from railway stations. The soil is black sandy loam, good for small grain, and, judging from experiment in sod corn, we can raise corn and a good crop mature if put in in good season, and of an early variety.

I never say anything against Illinois. It is good enough, and Dakota is just as good, and in one-quarter of the time that Illinois was in developing, Dakota will be up even with her, the facilities being far in advance of those of early Illinois. Then we had to team all of our wheat into Chicago by wagon for nearly twenty years before we had a canal or railroad. But here we have the railroads to start with, and if emigration is as large next spring as it was the last there will not be a foot of land to be located. There is not a quarter section left now in Brown county, unless it has been overlooked. Towns are growing up as fast as toad-stools in summer. We are located six miles from Frederick (600 inhabitants), seven miles from West Port (200), ten miles from Ordway (500), twenty miles from Aberdeen (2,000), twenty from Columbia (1,000), county seat. The land is watered about the same as Illinois, with the elm and maple along the Jim river. For wells we dig from twenty-five to forty feet and get the best of water.

I think Dakota as good a place for a young man of small means as can be found. There are some counties where the land has not been surveyed yet, where good location may be made. Our crops were short last year in Brown county, caused by a short time of dry weather in June, just as the wheat and oats were in blossom, at which time these crops require rain in order to “fill” well.

The only drawback we have is in the matter of fuel as yet. Soft coal sells at from $7 to $8 per ton: hard, $12 to $13. Dry-goods and groceries are as low as in Illinois. Lumber from $2 to $4 higher. Our vegetables can not be beaten.

Just a thing or two more. I want to ask you what are the best kinds of timber for us to put out on our tree claims. Will the black walnuts, black and white oaks do well as far north as we are? How will the Scotch and Norway pines do? I wish to put out such timber as will make good lumber when grown. Cotton wood, box elder, etc., will just answer the law, that is about all.

The Use of Salt.

In The Prairie Farmer of January 5th, in report of Illinois Horticultural Society, Mr. Earle is made to say he used salt on asparagus and it killed the weeds and most of the asparagus. This is different from my limited experience; I have used lake salt at the rate of one ton to the acre and did not kill either weeds or asparagus. I am now making arrangements to use about three and one-half tons to the acre from the refuse of pork packing houses.

Will Mr. Earle please give particulars in The Prairie Farmer: The kind of salt, time of year it was used, amount per acre,{67} nature of soil, etc. By so doing he will confer a favor on many readers.

Woven Paling Fence.

A Washington firm of patent solicitors write us, as we suppose they have all the agricultural papers, warning readers against persons claiming of them a fee of $500 and upwards for alleged infringements of a patent upon a so-called “Wire and Picket Fence.” Our informants say that, “It is quite true that there are a number of patents for wire and picket fences, or so-called ‘woven paling fences,’ but all these patents are limited in their claims to the detailed construction of the woven fence, and there is no broad patent on this class of fence. Indeed it was invented as long ago as 1829, when Chauncy Hall, of Meriden, Ct., on November 27th, of that year, obtained the first patent for a wire and paling fence. All recent applications for patents which have endeavored to claim the woven fence broadly have been rejected, as we find by an examination of the records of the United States Patent Office, on the old patent to James Moore, of Pittsburg, Pa., for a woven picket fence, which was granted June 30, 1857, and therefore, expired in 1871, so that it is now public property. There is another patent of the same year granted to J. B. Reyman, of Bloomington, Ill., No. 18,301, dated September 29, 1857, which, also, shows a paling and wire fence, or picket and wire fence. This patent has, also, been frequently cited as a reference against applications of subsequent patentees who endeavor to claim broadly the invention of the combined wire and picket fence. In 1849, one, Lucius Leavenworth, obtained a patent for a method of constructing a fence by fastening pickets or palings upon the wires by means of a series of links formed on the connecting wires and adapted to receive or hold the pickets or palings. All of these patents have long ago expired, and are now public property, so that no person can claim to have a broad patent on the, so-called, woven picket fence, and any man who, by virtue of a pretended claim covering broadly that class of fences, asserts such a right may be put down as an impostor, and should receive treatment as such. Of late years a number of patents have been granted for this class of fences, but, as soon stated, the claims of all these patents are confined to the detailed construction of the fence, i. e., the precise weaving of the pickets between the wires. A number of machines have, also, been patented for constructing this kind of fence, one of the first being that which was patented by Fletcher on Nov. 17, 1868.”

We have heard of no trouble from these patent agents in the West, but give our readers for what it is worth the information vouchsafed by the Washington firm.

Illinois State Fair.

This fair, as we have before announced, begins at Chicago on the 8th of September. The Superintendents of Departments for 1884 are as follows:

Class A, Cattle, Mr. Reynolds; Class B, Horses, Mr. Lewis; Class C, Sheep, Mr. Vittum; Class D, Hogs, Mr. Gore; Class E, Poultry, Mr. Griffith; Class F, Mechanics, Mr. Chester; Class G, Farm Products, Mr. Skeavington; Class H, Horticulture, Mr. Haskell; Class I, Fine Arts, Mr. Pearce; Class K, Textile Fabrics, Mr. Savage; Class L, Science and Education, Mr. Rush; Class M, Speed, Mr. Lewis; Class N, Farm Machinery, Mr. Schuttler; Marshal of the Ring, Mr. Judy; Superintendent of Grounds, Mr. Gillham; of Forage and Stalls, Mr. Virgin; of Press Department, Mr. David; of Permits and Privileges, Mr. Washburn; of Purchasing Department, Mr. Pullen; of Gates and Tickets, Mr. Dysart. Auditors, Messrs. Funk, Pearce and David; Committee on Reception, Fair—Messrs. Landrigan, Scott, Gillham, Reynolds, Judy, Pearce, Washburn and Vittum; Com. on Arrangement, Fair, Messrs. Landrigan, Scott, Gillham, Reynolds, Vittum, Gore, Haskell, Pullen, Dysart, Washburn, Lewis, Virgin, Schuttler and Fisher; Com. of Arrangements, Fat Stock Show, Messrs. Landrigan, Gillham, Reynolds, Gore, Pullen, Dysart, Vittum, Funk, Virgin, Schuttler, Savage, Scott, Washburn and Judy; Com. on Printing, Messrs. Savage, Dysart and Fisher; Com. on Finance, Messrs. Pearce, Pullen, Gore, Lewis and Chester; Com. on Crop Reports, Messrs. Gore, David, Skeavington and Fisher; Com. on Agricultural and Industrial Education, Messrs. Scott, Reynolds, Washburn, David and Rush; Com. on Museum, Messrs. Gillham, Scott, Haskell and Savage; Com. on Library, Messrs. Haskell, Rush and Fisher; Com. on Transportation, Messrs. Landrigan, Vittum, Judy, Schuttler, Griffith and Fisher. Jury on Pedigrees, Class A, Messrs. Reynolds, Dysart, Judy, Funk and Skeavington; Class B, Messrs. Lewis, Virgin, Griffith, Pearce and Chester.

The same arrangement of Superintendents and Committees is followed in the management of the Fat Stock Show which takes place at Chicago in November.

From Central Kansas.

Mild, open winter in this the central part of Kansas. Very little cold weather. Wheat and rye looking fine, and very large acreage sown the past season. Stock doing finely; but little fodder used as yet. In about ten days plowing will begin.

We need more settlers of energy and thrift to fill up the large scope of unoccupied lands. No homestead lands here but plenty railroad lands yet for sale. The price ranges from $4 to $8 per acre on long time, with a discount for cash or short time.

This is a good place for a man of small means to get a home. Having been here six years I know whereof I speak.

In The Prairie Farmer of January 5, 1884, I noticed an article on Meadow Oat Grass, by J. W. Robson. I would like to know where the seed can be obtained.

—We presume you can get the grass seed from all our reliable seedsmen. In a few days The Prairie Farmer will doubtless be favored with plenty of their advertisements.—[Ed.

Field and Furrow.

Secretary W. A. Armstrong reports that all the kinds of commercial fertilizers applied to the alluvial soils cultivated by members of the Elmira Club proved in every instance to be “practically worthless.” The best that can be said is that “some of them used on uplands in which clay is a constituent, have fair probability, at least, of yielding satisfactory returns.”

At the Mississippi Valley Cane-Growers’ meeting at St. Louis, delegates from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Michigan gave their experiences in growing cane and making sirups. In Illinois, Kansas, and Nebraska good results were generally obtained, but the season was bad in other States and expectations were not realized. All concurred, however, in the belief that the cultivation of sorghum was a good thing, and would yield handsome profits.

The New York Tribune: The animated discussion of the subject at the recent meeting of the Connecticut Board was unfavorable to ensilage. Exhibition of a sample of clover put in a silo when wet called out the query whether it was fed to cows to make Limburger cheese. One reporter says it “fairly howled” through the City Hall, echoing and reverberating a fearful smell. President James A. Bell, of the State Agricultural Society, is quoted as declaring that the free talk of the occasion “will save the farmers thousands of dollars by keeping them out of the silo system.”

At which end should a hoe-handle be the larger? At which end should a pitch-fork be the larger? It is not every farmer that thinks of these things until his attention is called to them. As Mr. J. J. Thomas remarks, the laborer who makes with a common hoe 2,000 strokes every hour should not wield a needless ounce. If any part is heavier than needed even to the amount of half an ounce only, he must lift this needless half ounce 2,000 times every hour. A hoe-handle should be smallest near the hoe and largest near the other end; a pitch-fork handle the reverse. Oughtn’t it?

A member of the Oxford (Ohio) Farmers’ Club recently said: We know something how soil was made, if we do not know much. The soils in the forests and untilled lands are better than they were a century ago, or in the days of our fathers; but, alas, it is not so with the soils man has cultivated. He thinks the term “cultivating” means to improve, make better. We may make our soils better, but so few do that that we ought never to use the term “cultivating the soil.” We harass, and torture, and murder, and starve the soil. By withholding more than is meet we rob our best friend.

New York Times: Tobacco is a universal insecticide. It kills ticks upon sheep; the troublesome scab insect; its related species which produces mange and itch; lice, fleas, and all other insect parasites which infest and annoy animals; and root-lice, leaf-lice, and all other pests which injure plants. Just at this season an application of fine tobacco dust or snuff may be used effectively to relieve calves and fowls from the vermin which keeps them poor and wretched, and a decoction of tobacco, applied to house or greenhouse plants with a brush, will destroy the pestiferous green fly and all other insects which infest them. The same liquid may also be poured around the roots of house plants that are infested with the small white worms which are the larvæ of a small black fly that may be found in the pots and upon the soil in them.

The town of Amenia, in Dutchess county, N. Y., has tried, with marked success, the plan of keeping a force of four or five men at work on highways through most of the year under the supervision of an experienced and skillful builder of roads, who gives his attention constantly to the work. Every part of the seventy-five miles of highway in the town is in good condition, and the expense of keeping it so has been much less than it could have been by the old method. The new plan has greatly relieved the farmers, who have not been called to work on the roads at a time when other duties demanded their attention. New York has a law which directs that the voters of any town may elect to adopt this plan of hiring a force of men and a competent commissioner to make and keep in repair the roads of their town, but the plan, once adopted, must be followed for not less than three years. It has been found that by the method described the roads have been kept in better condition than ever before, and that the cost of the work has actually been less than that of road-making by the old way.

Correspondent Ohio Farmer: In 1882 I raised a piece of Hubbard squashes. The ground was manured very heavily with rich rotten compost, probably at the rate of fifty tons or more per acre. It is necessary to make the land very rich to succeed with this crop, but that isn’t the point I am after. That same land last year was planted with potatoes, and it was there that they rolled out so large and numerous as to yield at the rate of 500 bushels per acre. Just over the fence, on a part of another lot, where no manure had been applied for many years, there were only 200 bushels per acre. Difference in soil and kinds of potatoes might account for some of this great variation in yield, but I think it fair to say that 200 bushels per acre of the best yield was owing to the manure put on the ground for squashes the previous year. The potatoes were none of them sold for less than forty cents a bushel, so we have at least $80 per acre cash benefit from that heavy manuring the second year, to say nothing of $240 an acre which the squashes brought. It was, of course, a little more trouble to pick up and market the larger crop, but enough of the potatoes were sold for over forty cents per bushel to pay for that.

Brown’s Bronchial Troches for Coughs and Colds: “There is nothing to be compared with them.”—Rev. O. D. Watkins, Walton, Ind.

The difficulty with most people is that they want to sit in the sunshine and have good fortune come tumbling into their laps. Nature is an odd dame, however, and does not give even half a loaf to a man who can do his own loafing. You must get your spindle and distaff ready and then Providence will send you the flax to spin.

GREAT SAVING FOR FARMERS.

THE Lightning Hay Knife!

(Weymouth’s Patent.)

Awarded “FIRST ORDER OF Merit” at Melbourne Exhibition, 1880.

Was awarded the first premium at the International Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876, and accepted by the Judges as Superior to Any Other Knife in Use.

It is the BEST KNIFE in the world to cut fine feed from bale, to cut down mow or stack, to cut corn-stalks for feed, to cut peat, or for ditching in marshes, and has no equal for cutting ensilage from the silo. TRY IT.

IT WILL PAY YOU.

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FOR SALE—One-half interest in a thoroughly equipped CREAMERY located in one of the best dairy districts of Wis. J. G. Snyder & Son., Mt. Hope, Wis.

LIVESTOCK DEPARTMENT.

Leland Stanford, Palo Alto Stud, Mayfield, Cal., has sold to H. J. Agner, Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, seven head of young thoroughbred horses.

Col. Charles F. Mills, Springfield, Ill., informs The Prairie Farmer that his Elmwood herd of Jerseys are going through the winter in excellent condition.

H. K. Lewis, and John Cotton, Boyle county, Ky., have sold to G. L. Chrisman, Independence, Mo., a nice lot of pure-bred Southdown ewes, yearlings, at $12 per head.

T. D. Chestnut, Danville, Ky., recently sold to Simon Johnson, Garrard county, Ky., ten Cotswold ewes at $6 per head, and fifty head of Cotswold ewes to Robert Collier, Garrard county, at $5.50 per head.

Breeders of Short-horns in Scotland are to meet in Edinburgh next week for the purpose of furthering the movement in aid of centenary prizes for Short-horns at the forthcoming show of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland.

Mr. Charles H. Walker, President of the Nebraska Stock Breeders’ Association, writes The Prairie Farmer that the association will meet at Lincoln, February 13-14. He adds: “This meeting is not in the interest of any one breed; but is intended to help all persons engaged in breeding, feeding or marketing cattle, horses, and swine.”

The Nebraska State Wool-Growers’ Association will hold its annual meeting on Friday, February 15, at the Senate Chamber, in Lincoln. Every sheep man in the State should be present, as matters of great importance to this large industry will come under discussion, and especially the present unsatisfactory state of the tariff. So writes the President, Mr. P. Jansen, of Fairbury, Neb.

The collective shipments of live stock and fresh meat from the United States and Canada landed at Liverpool during the first week of the present year amounted to 861 cattle, 850 sheep, 100 hogs, 7,598 quarters of beef, and 1,906 carcasses of mutton. The figures show a large falling off in the arrivals of both live stock and fresh meat when compared with the imports of later weeks of the preceding year, more particularly with regard to live stock, which arrived in very small numbers.

Chicago Evening Journal: “The prospect is that the little ring of political office-seekers who want Congress to make places for themselves as “inspectors” of cattle and hogs will succeed in defeating the proposed measure of retaliation against those European countries which, without good reason, are discriminating against imported American pork-products. The producers of and dealers in Western cattle and hogs should take instant measures to head off Sanders and his gang.”

The flock belonging to the estate of the late K. W. Gentry, of Sedalia, Mo., was disposed of at auction last week. The unregistered Merinos were disposed of in lots of fifty at from $3.25 to $4.50 per head. Grade lambs brought $2 to $3. The registered Merinos were sold by sixes and sevens at from $17.50 to $60 each. The best rams brought from $20 to $101, and a few of the ram lambs sold at from $18 to $46. Samuel Jewett bought largely. On the same occasion the Berkshire hogs sold at from $20 to $43; one pair of mules brought $205; the yearling Jersey bull Elmwood Favorite, bred by Col. C. F. Mills, Springfield, Ill., sold for $165.

The Inter-State Short-horn Breeders’ Association held a meeting at Kansas City last week to adopt rules to govern the sales of breeding Short-horns at the next Fat Stock Show in that city. After considerable discussion it was resolved that the pedigrees be submitted and cattle ready for examination on or before the first day of June, and that the committee be requested to visit and inspect, some time in June, the cattle offered for the sale. The executive committee was given plenary powers in regard to deciding what animals are to be admitted in the sale, and authorized to have the catalogues compiled and published. So far over one hundred head have been entered for sale.

The stockmen of Rush county, Kan., have organized an association to be known as the Rush County Stockmen’s Union, and adopted a constitution. The objects of the association are set forth in the following therefore of the preamble to the constitution: “In order to protect ourselves from persecution and to secure for ourselves all possible legitimate advantages, and in all proper ways to promote the interests of those in our country engaged in the production of any kind of live stock, we, a number of the stock growers of Rush county, have formed an organization known as the Rush County Stockmen’s Union.” It is said there exists in Rush county an element of society which is violently antagonistic to the stock interests.

While at Elgin last week we accompanied Dr. Pratt to his home to take a look at his herd of Holstein cattle. The sight of the long rows of stalls filled with this young breeding milk stock was a surprise. Counting a new arrival of twenty-five during our visit the Doctor now has about 130 head—certainly one of the largest as it is one of the best herds of Holsteins in the country. The Doctor breeds and buys to sell again, and his trade is large, as he does not demand fancy prices but simply a fair return for his investment, care and labor. The famous bull Cyclone heads the home herd. The females are generally from a year and a half to three years old. Duchess of York is his brag cow, though he has other strains nearly as famous for milk. The young bull, Berkhout, a prize winner in Holland, is a capital animal. Though a dull season of the year shipments from this herd are numerous. A bull and three heifers go the present week to J. J. Conklin, Valley Creek, Texas. H. H. Bissell, Navasota, Texas, takes a bull and two females. The promising bull Duke, of Oak Hill, goes to A. H. Woodruff, Lansing, Iowa. Mr. W. also takes a yearling heifer. The Duke weighs 1,650 pounds, and was but two years old the 17th of June last. The Doctor reports the demand from the South as wonderfully increasing. In 1883 he had orders from Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee. He will stock his ranch in Kansas this spring and summer with a view to supplying the West and Southwest with grades and full bloods.

A Scare in Missouri.

Information was received at the Department of Agriculture, at Washington, last week that a new and heretofore unknown cattle disease has broken out in various parts of Missouri. It was reported most prevalent in the vicinity of Mexico.

As is usual in such matters when first brought to public notice the facts have been greatly exaggerated. Dr. Salmon, Chief of the Government Veterinary Bureau, who was in Chicago this week, says that as presented to him at Washington he did not consider the outbreak a very serious one. The trouble so far as he knows exists in but a single herd, and that near Mexico. He promptly sent a veterinarian to the spot to investigate and report. He judges from the information he has received that the disease is simply the impaction of food in the stomach, something far from uncommon at this season of the year. It results generally from eating the dried fodder of the corn-fields. It is in no sense contagious.

Perhaps our veterinary editor will give us something regarding the treatment of this trouble. In the meantime we give a remedy suggested by a Missouri gentleman who called at this office last week: Keep in a trough before the cattle at all times, a mixture of slaked lime and salt, and let them have free access to good water.

Public Sales of Stock.

So far as they have come to our notice the following are the principal stock sales announced thus far to take place in 1884:

Remedy for Foot-and-Mouth Disease.

Rev. F. H. Brett, Carsington Rectory, writes as follows to the English agricultural papers:

Some few years ago, when the foot-and-mouth disease was prevailing, I gave a farmer in this parish, who had the disease among his cattle, some sulphurous acid, and advised him to make trial of the following treatment: To put about two ounces of the acid into a quart bottle and fill up with water, and then give about a tablespoonful of this dilution three times a day to the diseased cattle. He acted upon my advice, and the result was that his cattle were quickly cured of the disease. Again, two or three weeks ago one of my parishioners came to me to inform me that one of his cows was affected with this disease, and to ask me if I could give him anything for it. I gave him some of the same acid, to be used as above stated, and advised him also to burn a little sulphur in the shed in which the diseased cow was kept, two or three times a day. He followed my advice, and three or four days after I was informed that the cow was doing nicely, and was giving her milk again. My confidence in the remedy is therefore confirmed, and I think I am in duty bound to make it as widely known as possible. In addition to giving the acid internally, I advised the moistening of the affected feet also with the same dilution with a sponge.

The sulphurous acid acts remedially, I conclude, by being destructive of the life of the microbes, or exceedingly minute animaculæ, that gives rise to the disease; and I feel persuaded that, if the owners of cattle would take the trouble to burn a little sulphur once or twice a week in their cattle sheds, they would not only protect their cattle from attacks of foot-and-mouth disease, but have them also in a more healthy and vigorous condition, especially in the season of tying-up and confinement.

I have underlined the last syllable of sulphurous to guard against mistake. Sulphuric acid would only be productive of mischief. Sulphurous acid may be obtained through any druggist in sealed stoppered bottles at a small expense.

The simplest way of burning sulphur in the cowsheds is as follows: Take a slip of cardboard, or of extra stout brown paper, about a foot long and two inches wide, and place on one extremity about as much coarsely-powdered brimstone as would lie on a penny piece, hold it by the other end, and apply the flame of a candle till the sulphur is ignited, and then wave it about in the shed, in order to disperse the vapor among the cattle; if there be straw, or anything else inflammable about, hold a tile, or something of the sort, in the other hand, under the burning sulphur, to catch any that may drop.

The Dairy.

The Wisconsin Dairymen.

The papers and discussions at Lake Mills comprehended quite a range of topics, and they were handled with marked ability. Three of the essays have now appeared in The Prairie Farmer in full. They were too good to slaughter by abridgment, and the same remark applies to other papers, yet our space is too limited for an unabridged report.

THE ROAD TO THE FACTORY,

by Robt. Fargo, showed the people how much they are losing by persisting in having poor roads, when by a small expense they might have good ones. The road tax is improperly applied. He thought that a good gravel road in most localities could be made for $1,000 per mile, the road-bed to be graveled one foot deep and twelve feet wide.

CANADA VS. WISCONSIN.

Mr. Harris’ paper, printed in last week’s Farmer, elicited considerable discussion. Members desired to know if, in the essayist’s opinion, Canadian dairy management was superior to that of the States, and especially of Wisconsin. The reply was in the affirmative. There seems to be more thoroughness on the part of Canadian dairymen. They have no better grass, nor water, nor cows. They discriminate more rigidly between good and bad patrons. They sometimes bring the law to bear against those who water milk or skim it. The factories there are mostly owned by stock companies. When tainted milk is discovered in the vat, it is traced back as soon as possible to its source, and the patron bringing it is excluded. The law there is similar to that in New York and was founded upon that law. Mr. Fish related an instance where a fraudulent patron in Herkimer county, N. Y., had been detected, sued, and heavily fined for his practices. Mr. Harris said as inspector of factories, he always refused to receive milk from cows allowed to feed on slough grass or drink stagnant water. Such milk would always prevent the manufacture of good cheese. He wants no milk from cows forced to feed on marshes. When a man applies to a factory to sell his milk, he looks the man over, he visits his farm, he looks at the stables and all the surroundings, and he can generally tell whether or not it is safe to receive that man’s milk.

COMPETITION.

It cropped out in this discussion that in some parts of Wisconsin and Illinois there are too many factories. Competition leads factorymen to often receive milk that should be discarded. To offend a man by enforcing strict cleanliness, non-skimming, and stripping was to drive him to a neighboring factory and his custom is lost. It is hard to make owners of cows honest when dishonest or selfish factorymen encourage them in selfish and fraudulent ways. Mr. Harris said at some of the best Canadian factories patrons were refused the privilege of taking home the whey in their milk cans. He would have no objection to their taking the whey if all would cleanse their cans properly. But this could not be depended upon.

WATER IN MILK.

He detects water in milk by means of a little German instrument called Horren’s Milk Tester, patented in Hanover. They cost fifty cents each by the 100. They are for sale by Cornish & Curtis, Ft. Atkinson, Wis., and by some others of the dairy supply concerns. This little instrument is invaluable to the factoryman.

PRIDE IN BUSINESS.

Another thing about the Canadians is they take such pride in their business that they are not given to adulterating their butter and cheese. They make a cheese that sells as the best cheddar in the English markets. The best Wisconsin cheese that Mr. Harris saw at the Milwaukee dairy fair was several points below the best Canadian article. The difference lies in the want of skill in the maker, and the greed of the patrons which often leads them to skim and to withhold the strippings.

SKIMMING.

There were those present who claimed that more money can be realized by making both butter and cheese than from cheese alone, though its quality makes it bring a higher price. So long as this is the case such will continue to make skim cheese. They say a man must be governed by the market he is to supply. If one makes for a home market where skim cheese is liked it is all right to make butter from the same milk. It was replied that as our dairymen in general must look abroad for their market, that good, straight, full cream cheese is bound to win in the long run. When the foreign market for{69} the Wisconsin product is destroyed it will take years of honest effort to rebuild the old reputation.

THE CHEDDAR.

The cheddar cheese of Canada is made by drawing off the whey while it is sweet, the curd being allowed to sour afterward. It takes too long to make this cheese to suit the Western cheese-maker. But you can not make the best cheese in a hurry. There is more nutriment in the cheddar than in the common cheese of the States.

BY THE ACRE.

Mr. Hiram Smith said in his paper that he computes his butter and cheese by the acre, meaning that his effort is to see how much dairy product he can get from an acre of ground. The herd of cows that can produce the most from a mow of hay or a given amount of pasturage is the best herd. That system which will take 1,000 lbs. of feed and get the most from it is the best system. He plows up about four acres of pasture every year, and proposes to reduce the acreage of his pasture thus gradually to the end. He grows feed for the cows on the acres plowed up. It is the cheapest method. He uses green feed, bran, straw, roots, etc. This gives the most milk at the least expense. He uses the submerging system of butter-making. A bushel basket full of pounded ice twice per day will keep milk cool regardless of weather. Cool the milk suddenly no matter what the system. Four pounds of butter from 100 pounds of milk is all he expects to get in summer. In fall, perhaps another pound, but it will not be of so high a grade.

THE HOLSTEINS.

Mr. Curtis, of New York, said a good word for the Holsteins as dairy stock. At the Cornell University farm they come in at two years, are milked seven or eight years, and then fattened for beef. He would not recommend this system for all breeds.

CALVES.

Mr. Northup said he can raise better calves on skimmed milk than on whole milk. Others agreed with him, and a few differed, asking what the Lord put the cream in milk for. Reply: to mix with butterine.

ITEMS.

Professor Henry mentioned some of the experiments now being carried on at the State University to show the value of different stock foods, tile, drainage, etc. He is feeding cotton seed meal, malt, sprouts, oil cake, ensilage, etc. Cotton seed meal induces a very rich flow of milk.

Mr. Smith thinks skimmed milk worth 35 cents per 100 pounds for cheese-making, for those who have a demand for that kind of cheese.

Mr. Favill, of Walworth county, set the teeth of the dairymen on edge, by asserting and proving by figures that he could make more money from same outlay in beef making in six months, than any of them could in a year from the dairy. Mr. F. will write out his experience in this line for The Prairie Farmer at an early day.

We cut short our notes of the discussions somewhat, to make room for Mr. Smith’s instructive essay on

NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES.

So long as it is true that the average yield, per cow, in milk that is taken to the factories is less rather than more than 3,000 pounds per season, and so long as it is true that there are dairymen whose cows yield from 4,000 to 5,000 pounds each per season, it will be easy to make it appear there are neglected opportunities on the part of most dairymen which, if availed of, would greatly augment the annual yield, and consequently make larger the profits.

One of the fundamental truths in stock-raising, and in profitable milk production, is, that it takes a given amount of food to support the animal’s existence in such a way that it will simply maintain its status; and that growth in flesh or yield in milk, above an evenly balanced existence, must come from the food given to cause an increase of weight in flesh, fat, or milk products. Hence, all the profit must come from that excess, and is large or small just in proportion as the animal is capacitated to utilize and digest it, within the bounds of healthy, judicious feeding. So that farmer was sound who, when he fed up to the very verge of that limit, and was told by a skeptic that he did not believe high feeding paid, replied he was only sorry that his cows could not healthfully digest more. The capital invested in the cows, in the soil, in the barns and stables, in the care and time devoted to milking and waiting on them, is very nearly the same, whether they produce 3,000 pounds each per season, or 5,000 pounds. At first it may be granted that if a farm is stocked to its capacity in feeding a herd of 3,000-pound cows, that some outside food must be imported from other soil to enable the same herd to yield 5,000 pounds each. But the enriching of the manure through high feeding, and the consequent enriching of the land, will soon obviate the necessity of the importation of outside food. If this is not true, I admit that my opinion is based on false premises; and that the opponents of high feeding have the best of the argument, as well as a majority of the disciples, and a majority of the thinly-covered bones of the so-called dairy stock of the State. In support of the idea that there is an added value to the manure through high feeding, it may be stated that there are many places in the Eastern States in which in estimating the earnings of the cow each year, that the milk, or butter and cheese, the calf and the pork are not only counted, but $10 per well-fed cow is added for the increased value she has put upon the soil, deposited it in a bank that never breaks. What is true of the old East is fast becoming true of the soil of the older settled portions of Wisconsin. To augment the productive capacity of a given number of acres, that will now support in semi-starvation a given number of cows, to a point in fertility that will add 2,000 pounds of milk per annum to each cow, milk worth, say $20, is to have the funds in hand to pay the sum of $400 as interest on the added value to an ordinary farm of eighty acres that is made to well keep twenty cows, instead of keeping them in the usual way. Four hundred dollars will pay 5 per cent interest per annum on an added value of $100 per acre to the farm. This can be done without adding a cow to the herd. All done by a simple expansion, through better use of the capital already in the hands of many who work on the semi-starvation plan.

The very first neglected opportunity of the mass of farmers is, that they do not see, and do not make much effort to see, that there is a better way than to plow, and plow, and plow, seldom seed down, keep a few head of spindling cows, mostly to give birth to spindling calves, that by a stretch of the imagination may be called cows when five or six years old; sell such cows, instead of selling butter and cheese to buy their clothes and groceries, sell hay to buy their whisky, and their farms by the bushel to pay for them if in debt, or to add some improvements in buildings if they are not. It would be useless to further describe them—they are not here, as they never go to dairy conventions, or even to county agricultural meetings or annual fairs; and so any rebuke of their methods would not reach their ears. Let them pass; the chief regret for their fate being that their name is legion, and that they seem to be beyond the reach of mercy.

The next class, and the one for which this association has much missionary work to do, is the one that has shown some signs of progress; that is still in unbelief of the radical truth, but yet seems to be uttering the invocation of doubting Thomas, of old. The most marked neglect of opportunity by this class is in not accepting the truth alluded to previously, that it pays to transform 2,500 and 3,000-pound cows into 4,000 and 5,000-pound ones, through the process of more generous, and better paying feeding. Many of this class know that a paying flow of milk comes only from food judiciously given; but who have not yet learned the programme by which such food can be ever on hand, or do not possess the intelligent enterprise to put forth the means to obtain it. As this is, largely, the hopeful class, we may well pray for their growth in dairy grace, in the knowledge of the truth, as it is exemplified in the reliable experience of the few saints in the business, who know how to make good common cows earn $50 and $60, and more, each, per annum.

Observation and my factory books for a series of years, teach that persons of this class start out well in the spring, and have cows that maintain the flowing stream for awhile, so that the four-and-five-thousand pound yield would be obtained if they did not suffer it to come to grief, by not providing means to hedge against the immediate and consequent influences of the first serious check in the supply of palatable and easily digested food in the pastures. This is the great fatality of the whole business—a tolerated calamity as we may call it, for it endures a lapse that can not afterward be made good, the same season. It is to the paying yield of the cow what an untimely frost is to an unmatured corn crop. It is my firm belief that this is the great sin of the medium good dairyman of this and other dairy States,—the cause of the low average earnings of the cows; the reason why so many dairymen work so cheaply; the promoter of infidelity in the mind of the dairyman as to whether he has not made a mistake in entering upon the dairy business at all; in short, it is the chief “neglected opportunity” to get upon the highway to success. That opportunity, when interpreted, means that when the chief available supply of food fails, or lessens, or becomes unpalatable or undigestible, that a substitute previously provided should be immediately supplied. Let the substitute be early rye, clover, oats, millet, corn, or other fodder, grown for the purpose, according to the time in the season in which the pressing need comes; and if neither are in available time, then let the substitute take the form of ground grain in larger measures than should be given to every cow in milk, every day, even when feeding on the flushest and choicest of grasses. That is the way the 5,000-pound to the cow dairymen do; and they win in doing it. But the blighted class seem to look upon it as they would on an accidental fire, an untimely death, an early frost, an unavertable calamity; a kind of Providential dispensation, the superstitious regard it. The latter class betake themselves to prayer for rain, instead of taking the scoop-shovel to the provender, and distributing it to their famishing herds. Troops of them don’t know that they are suffering any but present loss in weight, and delude themselves into thinking a blessed rain will restore their cows to the position they fell from. They don’t seem to comprehend that they thus lose their grip on the $50 and $60 per annum prize, and their uncertainty of getting it. The result is, they have their big flow of milk at the season of the year in which dairy products are ever the cheapest; and their cows are crippled for good performance at the pail, when ever-returning good prices in the fall and early winter show them what golden opportunities they have lost.

Now I can look over my list of patrons and see in my mind’s eye the men who practice both the systems I allude to. One is the discomforted, doubting dairyman with but too little to show for his hard work; and the other has a good bank account, or a plethoric purse, and his sharpest look is given in search of more good cows, whose owners don’t know any more than to sell them. There is not a whine about them, nor do they go into a decline because another half-cent could not be squeezed out of the cheese market. Their talk is, content with “well done,” and their cure for hard times is, “more milk.”

The most manifest loss, as it appears to one taking note of merely dollars and cents, in the prosecution of any special pursuit comes to light in the dairy business, from this the chief neglected opportunity of the dairymen to gain more wealth.

There are other neglected opportunities,—minor matters in themselves—that if improved would make the goal of the enterprising dairymen easier of attainment, and are, therefore, desirable adjuncts in accomplishing his purposes, and they seem to be concomitants of measurably high success. One is in not properly testing the real profit-earning capacity of each cow, and weeding out those that are not only not profitable but are actually, year after year, eating into the profits derived from other, and it may be not so good appearing cows. Profitable performance not only at the pail, but at the churn and the cheese-vat, should alone give a cow respite from coming, in her youth, to the butcher’s block.

Another, is that there is a woeful benightedness in providing stables suitable to milk in, and easy and healthful for the cows to live in, as they should be allowed to do for more than half of the hours of the year. The advanced dairymen who have plank floors daily littered, cleaned, and cleansed, drops in the floor, and clean walks in the rear of the cows, well-ventilated, but warm, non-freezing stables, would be amazed and disgusted to enter what I greatly fear are a majority of the stables of the State, in which the cows are thrust to endure a painful and filthy existence. When purity of product has a great influence in gauging the price, and the health of consumers is at stake, this neglect in providing better and more cleanly stabling is one of the crying ills of our dairy system. I am glad to know that the supervision of the health officials of Milwaukee extends to the stables of the cows that produce the milk that is allowed to be sold in that city. It would be well if it was made the imperative duty of the health officials of every town to forcibly establish the blessings of a decent civilization in the cow stables of more than half of the farmers of Wisconsin. I am moved to thus speak because of what I have seen—and smelled. I will not quarrel with a man who claims the unalienable right to rot, as a hermit, but I deny his right to freely make and sell to others, unwholesome food, into which he has mingled filth and the germs of disease and death. It is shameful to neglect to provide good and healthful stables for food-producing dairy stock—one that calls for vengeance on a criminality.

Another neglected opportunity of the dairymen to increase the number of head their farms might subsist, and thus increase their profits, especially those who occupy our highest priced lands, is in their declining to adopt the system of soiling. I do not know of a highly successful dairyman in the State who has not adopted it, in part, at least—enough to save his cows when famine is in sight. Neither do I believe there is one who would not be more successful if he should practice it more. The arrived-at goal of the select few who keep as many cows as they have acres of land, has been reached by and through the soiling process; and approximate successes like theirs must be achieved by traveling the same route. There are those who are ensmalling their pastures, and at the same time, increasing their herds, because the lands taken from the pasture and devoted to soiling crops produce more than the old herds can consume. The wandering cow feeds herself, in fact, from what might be the choicest product of her own milk, tramps the life out of much more, and tosses her head in disdain at much that if cut and properly fed in the stall, she would eat with a relish; so that it may be safely said that two, and some practical men say three, cows might be well-fed through soiling, on the same land that one is by the system of exclusive pasturing.

Another, it may well be called the lost opportunity—that grows out of the neglected ones alluded to, is that the cows are not kept in good milking condition more of the time of the year. The men who seize and utilize the few opportunities I have mentioned very soon learn that they have an almost perpetual fount of wealth; and that they can not afford to dry it up, and wait for spring. Putting in more time for the cow to produce, inevitably convinces them of the fact that the larger part of the cow’s earnings are made when dairy products are high in price; and they are dull, indeed, if they do not see in that a revelation that more winter dairying would pay. I am aware that the flippant answer made by those disinclined to adopt soiling and winter dairying, is, that they involve employment of more manual labor on a given number of acres, and that reliable farm labor is hard to get and troublesome to keep. This is the first superficial pretext of nine-tenths of those advanced enough to ever give these subjects a serious thought. Nevertheless, the practice of these innovations are essential in the higher grade of farming; and that practice, instead of being an ill, is a blessing to the farm, to the farmer, to his older children, and to the hired laborer; for it gives all of them steady and profitable employment, while the present system requires the far greater proportion of labor in the spring and summer months, and furnishes less to do in winter for the hired man and the grown-up boys and girls. They thus lounge, often, in debasing idleness, or are early weaned from the farm, and go away, never to return to partake of its real, invigorating life, its independence, and its joys. The dairy, with the accompaniment of soiling and more production of dairy products in the winter, would make the farm more like a factory, with every wheel in motion almost the entire year. The home and the family of the dairy farmer should be as large as the capacity of the man and the woman at the helm; and as steady employment as that which must be given to the store or shop would go a long way in developing and increasing the capacity of the whole force to manage more. Giving regular employment to good men on the farm makes it far easier to get and to keep them; and it retains a more brawny set of men, who are otherwise enticed to the factories and railways that give steady work, and so have the pick of the intelligent and most reliable ones. It is an accomplishment in a farmer and his wife to know how to get, and how to keep good, faithful hired men. I know of those who are slaves, because they don’t know how. Many of them ascribe it to the men, when they themselves are principally at fault. There is a mortal dread of “tramps,” especially among the more ignorant farmers. But I aver that the common system of almost exclusive grain farming that crowds most of the labor of the year into a few spring and summer months, is a direct cause of much of the tramp evil of which so many farmers complain. It manufactures the tramps who rove from necessity, and even drives out their own children to swell the ranks of those in search of a job. On the other hand, a large increase of milk-stock kept on the farm necessitates the retention of most of the manual force of the summer months. Not how to dispense with hired labor or the labor of his children, but how to profitably employ and elevate it, and make it inviting, rather than abhorrent and slavish, is the problem the progressive farmer should study to solve. The manufacturer counts upon additional gains through the addition of well-employed laborers. The farmer could do the same if he used more educated brains and a little less over-taxed muscle in his business. The bulk of every fortune steadily acquired, consists of the success of its possessor in getting, honestly or dishonestly, a profit from the labors of others. This must be so, so long as it is an axiom in political economy that labor is the basis of all wealth. The owner of the soil can succeed in winning more than a pro rata proportion, just in the ratio of his ability to make his brains help the work of his hands.

I know of whole sections, and even contiguous miles square, on which the system of farming prevails that I have condemned—the hired man is unknown, save only for short periods of the year—the children gone to the cities, to the factories, the railroads, or to the West—the land denuded of stock, almost, as well as of the rightful ones to care for it; and half-impoverished farms, half farmed by the old folks, or continuously cropped on shares by more indigent neighbors. Possessions that by nature are as fair as ever the sun shone upon, that do not, and can not now pay five per cent interest on $25 per acre; when well managed dairy farms in the same county pay more than that per cent on a basis of $100 per acre. In view of these patent facts that stare us in the face, is it any wonder that some of us feel we have a loud call to dispense the pure dairy gospel to these perishing sinners who thus neglect their grand opportunities.

In some one of the first sentences of this paper I alluded to the influence of good and profitable farming in improving the condition and standing of the farmer, as a man among men. This, after all, is the crowning objective point, or should be, of all those who make the most of the opportunities the great mass neglect. If with all his getting a man does not get some real wisdom, some development in stalwart morality, and a higher cultivation of the mind, it needs no Solomon or Bible to tell the on-lookers that he is a comparative failure; and it ought to be apparent to himself. The legitimate profits of a higher grade of farming ought to be expended to elevate the farmer, his wife, his children, and all the attendants whom he directs. Part of them should appear in the form of better and more comfortable houses and barns, finer stock, better horses, better roads and school-houses, a larger list of newspapers and periodicals, better libraries and better housekeeping, and more cheery houses in which intelligence and music are not strangers. It is as important that a man should spend his earnings aright, as that he should use his energies and talents to earn. It is not a manly element in a man whose chief forte is that he can hold all he can get. A clam can do that, and not suffer much, either, in a comparison of brains with the groveling getter of mere wealth. The high behest to earn much, by and through grand opportunities to labor and direct labor, blossoms into blessing in its best sense only when the earnings are spent to increase the intelligence, add to the comforts, and aid men to discharge their private and public duties more nobly than it is possible for a man to do with an income that simply gives him bread.

Because the earnings of the farm are not more frequently spent in thus installing a section of paradise on the farm, is the real cause of the stampede therefrom of many of the smart ones who deem the struggle for elevation there a hopeless one, and, catching an inspiration from the shriek of civilization that announces each swiftly flying train, they turn their backs on what have been to them farm dungeons, and mingle with the surging throng in quest of a better condition. That they are often mistaken and baffled in taking such a route, does not deter a new crowd from going. They fly from what they dread, as much as they are inspired by what they hope to win. These things ought not so to be; and a wise improvement of the many neglected opportunities on the farm would go far to rectify the ills they fly from, but from which yet few escape.

Say what we will about all its defects, its uninviting toil, and low wages, agriculture disenthralled of its ignorance is the basis rock of our hope; and he is a slanderer of the noblest occupation who raises the veil to expose its defects and servility for any other purpose than to help make greener its verdure, and brighten its bloom.

REMEMBER that $2.00 pays for The Prairie Farmer one year, and the subscriber gets a copy of The Prairie Farmer County Map of the United States, free! This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country.

Horticultural.

The Farmer’s Garden.

A few years ago it was necessary for me to call upon a gentleman upon some business. After my business was completed and I was about to leave, I started toward the garden. He called to me saying, “Do not go there—you can not get through the garden.” I arrived at the border and stopped. He had evidently complied with one of the necessities of a good garden, viz., plenty of manure, for it is simply impossible for weeds to grow at the rate, or attain the size they had there, except upon very rich land.

Rabbits would have been perfectly secure from foxes, and foxes from dogs, in that immense and tangled growth of weeds.

The owner of that garden was one the best and most enterprising farmers in the State. He had at one time been president of his State agricultural society.

Many years ago I visited a friend living upon a 160 acre farm. It was one of the most beautiful section farms that I have ever seen either in this or any other State. While there I was speaking of a splendid crop of melons that were then just ripening. He said, in rather a fretful manner, “I do not see why my melons do not grow. I know the land is rich, and there are no weeds in the hills. I hoed them all up only a few days ago.” I walked out to his garden with him, and there were his poor, puny vines struggling for life. As he said, there were no weeds in the hills, a little circle of perhaps two or three feet in diameter had been hoed out, and the balance of the land was covered with a dense growth of weeds from two to six feet in height.

He had a most industrious and refined lady for a wife, and young children growing up around him, and, as before stated, a most excellent as well as valuable farm. Yet not one early pea or one ear of sweet corn; not even early potatoes or a tomato, or, in fact, anything that by any stretch of the imagination could be called a garden bed—yet the man has been to college.

Another gentleman said in my presence, “In the spring, at the proper time, I purchase cabbage seed and sow them; when it is time to set them out I buy the plants and plant them; when it is time for cabbages they are there, and so I always have cabbages.”

He is among the very best farmers in the State. He teaches others how to farm, and does it well. The man who attacks him in a convention needs a strong cause and a ready tongue, or he will be apt to consider his own cause a very poor one before he gets through with it. This man has been president of a State dairymen’s association.

One case more: Another gentleman, who is far above the average farmer, and who has also been president of a State dairymen’s association, as well as a public teacher, as he was going out to attend a farmers’ meeting or convention, where he was expected to be a teacher, happened to look out over the place where his garden should have been, and saw an immense growth of weeds going to seed. He said to his sons and hired men, “Boys, bring out a team and hitch to the mower, and mow off the garden; I can not conscientiously go and teach others how to farm with that crop of weeds going to seed in my own garden.” The work was done. “There,” said he, “I can now go and teach without a troubled conscience. There are no weeds going to seed in my garden.”

I have strong hopes of this gentleman. He has a conscience. He attends church; and although I consider him intellectually as far superior to most of the preachers of the day, yet if the right man should become his pastor, I fully believe that there is salvation for him even in this life.

As to the other three the case seems at least to be a very doubtful one. One can not but be reminded of the anecdote of the three little boys who had commenced studying the catechism. Some one asked them if they had learned any of it? “Oh, yes,” says one of them, “I am past justification.” A second one says, “I am past sanctification.” The third jumps up and says, “I have beat them all; I am clear past redemption.” It is much to be feared that the three first described gentlemen are all of them clear past redemption.

Let us turn for a moment to a farmer’s garden of another order. He has a beautiful as well as an excellent farm. Around his house are quite a number of handsome trees that stood there when the Indians were the proprietors of the soil. The present owner has added such other trees as he thought would add both to its beauty and comfort. The house is a number of rods from the highway, and in the summer is one of the most beautiful rural homes that I ever saw. Back of, and near by, the house is his garden. It is so arranged that most of its crops can be cultivated with a horse and cultivator. A nice asparagus bed furnishes not only himself and family an abundant supply of this the first as well as one of the best of the products of the outdoor garden, but also a quantity to sell. His strawberry beds, containing only a few of the standard varieties and a very few plants of some of the most promising of the new ones, were models of both beauty and economy in their arrangement for cultivating both well and cheaply. The same was true of his peas, beans, sweet corn, cabbages, potatoes, etc. His raspberries, both red and black-caps, furnished an abundant supply for the family during their season. The same is true of his blackberries and grapes.

A short distance from these well cared-for necessaries and luxuries of his farm is a moderate-sized and well cared-for orchard. I have no doubt he can, if he wishes, have some of the products of his orchard or garden, or both, upon his table every day of the year.

The gentleman who owns and controls this farm has never been president of any State dairymen’s association, nor has he ever been sent to Congress. But, gentlemen, he is one of the most thoroughly wide awake and enterprising, as well as one of the very best farmers that Wisconsin can boast of; and we have some good ones.

The question very naturally arises, Why is it that so many, not only of our common, but of our very best farmers, fail to have anything that can be called even a poor garden? It is not because they do not like its products.

Time and again have men who were good farmers, when looking over my grounds, said: “Well, it is too bad that I have not had a decent garden; but I am determined to have one after this, and will neglect it no longer.” I have no recollection of any farmer’s family among my acquaintances who would not enjoy its products. Perhaps the best reason, and often the only one, that can be given for so many almost entire failures in this respect is the want of time. It is a well-known fact that almost all of our farmers are short of the help they really need to keep their farms in good condition. Something is sure to be neglected, and, in three cases out of four, if not in nine out of ten, the poor garden is the first thing that is left to care for itself, which it generally does by growing a tremendous crop of weeds.

It is perfectly useless to attempt to have a respectable garden, unless arrangements are made in the spring for its planting and cultivation with the same care that arrangements are made for the care of the wheat, oats, corn, or potato crop, or the care of the dairy.

When these arrangements are made and faithfully carried into execution during the season, then shall we see good gardens upon our farms; and not only that, but, as a rule, they will be the best paying pieces of land upon the farm, not only in the comfort they give to the family, but in the profit as well.

I do not propose at this time to give you a treatise upon gardening. A few hints that may be of value to those who wish to make some improvement, is all that will be attempted.

In the first place, select, if you can have a choice, a piece of light, loamy soil, with a little sand, if you can get it. A heavy clay soil will raise as large a crop as the one above mentioned, but it is not as early, and is much more expensive and different to work. In laying out a garden on a farm take plenty of room, and arrange the goods in such a manner that the greatest possible amount of work can be performed with the horse.

The selection of seeds is to me the most annoying and perplexing job of the season. The circulars come pouring in, and are filled with the names of new varieties of this and that and the other, each better than any other of its kind, and so very desirable that you are apt to think that you must have a few of the seeds just to try them.

Of course, there is occasionally some improvement made in vegetables and plants but it is safe to say that in nineteen cases out of twenty the farmer or the amateur who invests in some new varieties of seeds or plants upon the recommendation of his circular, loses both money and time by the operation. If I should record my own experience in this line during the past twenty-five years, the result would show that I have drawn an occasional prize and a marvelous number of blanks, and some of them very annoying, as well as expensive ones.

I will give you a list of such seeds as have proven themselves to be about the best that I can find, after years of experience:

Asparagus—Conover’s Colossal.

Beets—Early Egyptian for first early; Early Blood Turnip for fall and winter.

Carrots—Early Scarlet-Horn.

Parsnips—Common Dutch Hollow-crown.

Ruta Bagas—American purple top, imp.

Turnips—Flat Dutch.

Bush Beans—German Dwarf Black Wax.

Pole do.—Lima.

Cucumbers—White Spine.

Cabbage—First Early Jersey Wakefield; Fall and Winter, Prem. Flat Dutch.

Celery—Golden Dwarf.

Muskmelons—Early White, Japan, and Hackensack.

Watermelons—Mountain Sweet.

Cauliflower—Early Dwarf, Eurfart.

Peas—Extra early Dan O’Rourke, American Wonder, Champion of England.

Summer Squash—Round Scallop, American Turban, Hubbard.

Lettuce—Curled Simpson and Boston Market.

Pepper—Large Bell and Butternosed.

Tomato—Trophy and Acme.

Sweet Corn—Early Minn., Crosby’s Early, Stowell’s Evergreen. These if planted at same time will give proper succession.

Radishes—French Breakfast, and Covent Garden.

When we come to the small fruits I will recommend as follows: Strawberries—Wilson’s Albany seedling for main crop. If a few very large ones are wanted try the No. 30, and the Sharpless. With me they are both worthless except for the purpose of producing a few very large berries. To lengthen out the season the Kentucky is the best of any that I know of. Downer’s Prolific is also a fair bearer, of excellent quality. I am constantly trying those of the new varieties that seem to me most likely to do well, but almost invariably lose both time and money. I have some twelve or fifteen varieties of these now on trial, but presume the result with nearly or quite all, will be the same as with hundreds of others I have had during the last twenty-five years, viz., after two or three years of trouble and expense plow them under for manure.

For raspberries, the Doolittle and the Mammoth Cluster have done nicely among the black-caps. The Gregg is also highly recommended by those who have tried it. I have not tried it a sufficient time to tell what it will do with me. The Philadelphia is a standard among the reds, and justly so. After two or three years’ trial I think very highly of the Cuthbert, although with me it is not as hardy as the Philadelphia. In fact, they all do better for being covered in winter.

Blackberries. For this portion of the State I know of nothing that I believe would give better satisfaction than Stone’s Hardy.

The Concord grape is yet among grapes about what the Wilson is among strawberries—the standard for the million. The Worden, a seedling of the Concord, is very promising, and may yet prove to be a strong competitor in the race. The Delaware does splendidly in the Fox River Valley, but is not as reliable in all parts of the State as the above-named varieties.

I have tried to recommend nothing but what will do well with good fair cultivation upon any good soil. Yet you will often be annoyed in selecting seed, from the fact that the same seed is sent out by different seedsmen under different names. For instance, I have had early peas sent to me under different names and by different seedsmen and all planted on the same day, side by side, all cared for precisely alike, and all alike claiming to be remarkably early and prolific as well as excellent in quality, and yet every one of them precisely like the old extra early Dan O’Rourke that I used to grow, I do not know how many years ago.

The American Wonder is the only one of the new varieties that I have tried in many years that really seems to be an acquisition to our list. It is a dwarf about second early, and with me a good bearer, and of excellent quality. I mention this to show the farmer that as a rule it is better for him to rely upon the old standard list, until some grower with whom he is acquainted has fairly tested the new variety, and ascertained whether or not they are worthy of cultivation, and some good common sense are all that is needed to insure a good farmers garden. In twenty-five years I have failed but once to harvest at least a paying crop of strawberries, and most of the time they have been both large and profitable. During that time I have failed once to have a corn crop, and have a number of times failed to have a paying crop of potatoes; in fact, I have failed oftener with my potatoes than with any other of the long list of crops that I attempt to grow. Yet if I should say to the farmers of this audience that they did not know how to grow a crop of potatoes, they would consider themselves insulted, though I presume that not one of them has had complete success with them for any long series of years.

Peas and onions should be put in as early as the land is in good condition to work in the spring. If the ground freezes hard soon after they are sprouted it will not injure them. Parsnips, beets, carrots, radishes, turnips, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, and salsify will all bear a little frost after they come up, but not much.

Corn, beans, peppers, tomatoes, vines of all kinds, require a warm soil and will do their best in no other.

A place for the wife and children’s flowers should not be forgotten or neglected. Give them a place, furnish help to prepare and care for it, and do not complain about the little time and expense it takes, either. Probably you will neither eat nor sell the flowers, but they will pay you better than a few extra bushels of wheat would. We are apt to hear complaints at our conventions that the young men will persist in leaving their farm home and seeking a new one in some of the towns or cities. Well, when I am traveling in our own and in other States and see so many desolate, dreary places that are called farmhouses—no trees, no shrubbery, no fruit, no flowers, no garden, in fact, nothing but a shell of a house, and some land, and it is fair to suppose that it is about as cheerless inside the house as it is dreary outside of it, I often wonder how, or why, any bright, active, wide-awake young man can stay there one day after he is at liberty to leave.

Gentlemen, I know that there are many beautiful exceptions to the above described homes, and that they are yearly becoming more numerous. If the exceptions could become the universal rule, what a glorious Northwest we should have! Presidents of State agricultural societies would not have to warn their friends against attempting to get through the tangled mass of weeds called the garden. The man who has been to college would no longer fret because his vines could not grow. The President of the State Dairymen’s Association would no longer buy cabbage plants or cabbage. Neither would he be compelled to order out his team and mow his garden before his conscience would allow him to teach others how to farm.

Instead of these, should be homes beautiful, homes bright, homes happy—so happy that the young would be loath to leave and glad to return. As our Northwest is the grandest portion of our republic, so should our homes be the most beautiful, and the inmates thereof the most intelligent as well as the happiest and most contented citizens of our wide domain.

Our Future Orchards.

Number Four.

In the first place, it may be well to enlarge a little on the subject of deficient moisture the average orchard is liable to on prairie and all other Western soils of a drift origin, where the strata lie nearly parallel to the plane of the earth’s surface. Here there are, therefore, few, if any, of those springs or fountains of water which often supply abundant moisture to land of considerable slope and elevation. If this difference in geological conditions is taken into account, it will explain why, in many sections, orchards often do quite remarkably well on hillsides and mountain slopes.

There is little or no resemblance between the apple tree and the orange tree, when both are botanically considered; but considered from the point of view as a source of fruit, the one is the best product of warm climates, and the other of cold ones; both being esteemed nearly universally. The orange being a very juicy, and at the same time, a fruit in which sweet and sour are equally blended, requires a moist soil and a large supply of water, in addition to a relatively high temperature. Accordingly, when grown in warm but dry climates, as in Spain and along the north shore of the Mediterranean, the ground bearing orange trees is uniformly copiously irrigated two or three times a month, during the warm season, and every two months in the winter. The orange-producing portion of Louisiana is mostly confined to the sixty or seventy square miles of cultivatable land along the Mississippi river banks, south of New Orleans. Here the soil is alluvial and{71} sandy, the rainfall sixty or seventy inches per annum, and the state of the atmosphere so continuously humid, as to drape all arboreal vegetation with moss. Florida has the same rainfall, the same humid atmosphere, the same moss, with the advantage of a soil quite as sandy, in which, as constitutes elements, phosphoric acid and potash abound in far greater proportions than in the alluvial of the Mississippi. And it is probably due to this happy association of heat, humidity, a sandy soil, rich in the phosphates of lime and salts of potash, that Florida oranges really are, and are regarded the best in the world. But in spite of these advantages, and another, no less important—that by capillary attraction, through the sand—the orange roots have direct and easy access to water beneath; it is found that the trees do better if mulched to prevent evaporation during the cool months—they being the dry season, while the summer months are the wet. The Louisiana orange-growers go farther; they not only mulch liberally with rice straw every year, but in addition, every third or fourth year, from eight inches to a foot of the earth under the trees is removed and new earth put in its place.

From these statements we get some idea of the amount of water the orange tree demands in the soil, and the measure of moisture in the atmosphere, to supply evaporation from its large evergreen leaf surface and fill its fruit with juice. An apple tree is not an orange tree, to be sure, but when in leaf, and bearing a heavy crop of fruit, the farmer must necessarily make large drafts on the soil to meet the surface evaporation and supply the required juice to its fruit. Every tree in leaf is a pump, constantly drawing on the soil and drying it, and in all reasonable probability the drafts are in proportion to fruit and foliage. Has any body calculated the daily demand for moisture a twenty-five-year old Northern Spy, or Baldwin, carrying twenty or thirty bushels of apples makes on the soil beneath and around it during the hot and dry months of August and September? The quantity probably is largely in excess of the common estimate, and perhaps not half required by the orange—but it is so much it affords a sufficient reason why such trees grow faster, are healthier, and bear more and better fruit, on lands that are moist, than on lands that are dry.

But orchards on high lands, or on slopes, or on slopes and ridges, suffering for moisture, can not be removed to low lands, nor can they be irrigated, except at an enormous expense. What then can be done? In the first place, the annual rainfall can be held to the space it falls upon, under the tree, by the throwing up a furrow or ridge around it, as far out as the limbs extend, where the ground is level, and by a dam on the lower side, when the ground slopes. The latter could also be made to stay a portion of the rain falling on the higher ground above. Further: a general system of mulching ought to be adopted; not for the purpose alone of keeping the surface moist, but also for supplying food to the roots as the mulch decays. If the orchard is in grass, clover, or weeds, they should be mowed at least twice a year, the burden suffered to lie on the ground and rot, or be thrown under the trees. After pruning, the wood removed should either be left where it falls, or piled in heaps about the orchard and suffered to rot as in the “hammock” land orange groves of Florida, where the under brush and extra timber is rarely burned, but piled in heaps to rot away.

If it is desirable to bring barren trees into bearing, or to rescue them from decay and death those in an unhealthy state, measures of a more radical and expensive character must be taken, measures similar to those which have been practiced for centuries with the grape vine, with complete success. These measures consist either in removing the earth under the trees and putting new and fresh earth in its place, as practiced with orange trees in Louisiana, and on the coffee plantations in the tropics, or in digging a deep and wide ditch around the tree, inside the outer diameter of the branches, and refilling it with near half the earth removed and half such mineral fertilizers and amendments as tree leaves and refuse decaying vegetable matter of any sort for the other half.

But nothing more than a general outline of the course to be pursued can be indicated here; and nothing more is necessary for the intelligent amateur, fruit-grower, or orchardist, who feels the strength of the proof, and accepts the situation.

In these latter days most of the diseases which afflict humanity are believed to be attributable to improper nutrition and faulty hygiene, and are relieved or cured by a more or less radical change in food and habitat.

In the animal world, the truth appears in a still stronger light; while in the vegetable kingdom, nutrition counts for almost everything. Still, in the case of the peach yellows and pear blight, both appear, on first sight, to be distinct diseases, neither yielding to any remedy yet applied to them, and both being attended with the present fashionable bacteria, which are made responsible for many diseases and all epidemics. But has anybody yet made the experiment whether water supplied copiously to the spare and thin roots of the pear will or will not prevent the blight, or tried the same thing with the peach? We all know the gigantic and venerable pear trees of the Wabash and Kaskaskia country were planted on the sandy second bottoms of the rivers named, where in their early youth, if not in their mature age, water was always within easy reach of their roots; and we have seen the item in the agricultural papers telling how one experimenter at least, has saved his pear trees from blight by copious watering. The prairie and timber country both are drying out and losing soil moisture very much faster than we have any conception of. Situations where moisture in the soil was abundant enough for all crop purposes twenty-five years ago, suffered quickly after a brief drought now, and would be benefited by irrigation where it would have been injurious fifty years before. Beside, we have borrowed many of our ideas from the fruit-growing experiences of the East, and they from the cooler and moister countries of Europe. And in that way the amount of right teaching has been too attenuated, until it is in many respects practically worthless.

The Model Illinois Nursery.

We have visited in our time very many nurseries both East and West. We have seen those East where the elaboration of landscape gardening was made to add effect to and set off the nursery stock grown. We have seen West hundreds of acres covered with stock in a single nursery. Yet we have never seen the perfection of details coupled with strict accuracy as to name in the varieties of stock grown, united to evenness and vigor in growth, nor a stricter method displayed in adaptation of varieties suited to the climate of the West, added to the most perfect cultivation and handling of stock, than at the premium nurseries of Spaulding & Co., near Springfield, Ill.

These nurseries, covering 375 acres originally, of first-class land, were thoroughly tile-drained, at heavy expense before anything was planted thereon, the land having been first cleaned and stumped of its timber. Thus, the groundwork having been laid for a great and model nursery, under the management of Mr. J. B. Spaulding, a well-known nurseryman of many years’ standing in Illinois, and whose practical experience from a critical standpoint is perhaps broader than that of any man in the West, it is not strange that whenever entered for premium before the State Board of Agriculture, such should have been unanimously awarded by the committee of examination. This, however, the records of the board will show.

In speaking of the artistic adornment of some old and extensive nurseries East, we find this difference: In the nurseries of Mr. J. B. Spaulding the useful is never lost sight of. Mere ornament is not what strikes the visitor, and yet the nursery is one beautiful picture in its varied and blending colors of fruit, flowers, and foliage; for the orchard and garden are by no means neglected—the visitor can find the fruits themselves, the crucial test. It is worth the journey to see.

The immense stock, the ample building, the splendid drives, the office connected with the Western Union Telegraph lines by telephone, and everything pertaining to the great nursery, is kept in the most perfect condition. Blight and borers are strangers to their 10,000 orchard trees of pear, peach, chestnut, and apples, all of varieties unexcelled, and adapted to the soil and climate of the West. The real gist of the whole, however, lies in the record of sales of this nursery for the fall delivery just closed, which amounts to nearly $120,000.

The most gratifying success has attended the efforts of this firm in growing stock. Of 150,000 buds set the past season, comprising cherries, pears, plums, and peaches, almost no rebudding has been required, and their stand is unexampled. It is not strange that the firm have the approval of the State Board of Agriculture and nurserymen of experience East and West, especially from the large nurseries proprietors of Western New York. All unite in saying Spaulding & Co.’s grounds, comprising upward of 375 acres, thoroughly tile-drained, for the growing of nursery stock, are unsurpassed. The 1,500,000 one, two, and three-year old apple trees, and 175,000 one, two, and three-year old cherry trees—the latter budded on Mahaleb roots, imported from France—together with their enormous stock of evergreens, pears, roses, shrubs, etc., are matchless in their perfection of growth, whether it be from an Eastern or Western standpoint.

In driving through the nursery we were shown a large block of American chestnuts, from five to eight feet high, and thence were driven to the chestnut orchard nearly all in bearing. The chestnut here seems fully as much at home as any other plant cultivated.

For the protection of their patrons against outside imposition, each of their nearly one hundred selected salesmen are accredited with a certificate of agency.

The long experience of this firm, being nearly thirty years in the business at Springfield, Ill.; the reputation they enjoy; the approval and indorsement they receive from the State—all commend this nursery to the favorable attention of those who have ground upon which to plant shrubbery or trees.

The Basket Willow.

A correspondent wishes some information about the basket willow. In Onondaga county, Central New York, this willow is cultivated and manufactured on a large scale and is, in fact, a leading industry. The cultivation is increasing very rapidly and is a great benefit to this and neighboring counties. The baskets made from this willow are better and cheaper than the splint basket, and raising the stock is found to pay much better than other farm crops, while the manufacture gives employment to hundreds of men, women, and children, who would otherwise have nothing to do during the winter.

These willows are grown on high land and on low land, on wet and dry land, and on very cheap land, and on land that is worth one thousand dollars per acre. The crop needs to be planted but once, and an average yearly crop can not be worth less than one hundred dollars per acre. As the timber suitable for baskets is getting scarce and dear, it is plain that the demand for willow will increase every year. In most parts of the country are Germans who understand working the willow, and it is a great benefit to them and to their neighbors to have this industry introduced. Not one farmer in a dozen has on his place as many baskets as he needs, for the reason that they are scarce and dear. This willow is the easiest thing in the world to raise, and yet we import from Europe $5,000,000 worth a year.

About two hundred tons of willow are manufactured every year in one little village in this State. One man in Syracuse told me he should send to New York this winter one hundred and forty tons of peeled willow, mostly of his own growing. In all the large cities more or less willow is manufactured every year, and the amount thus worked in the city of Milwaukee is very large. This industry is a benefit to the whole community and deserves to be encouraged, and the West especially should take a deep interest in extending it. The fact that it gives employment to poor during the winter, thus making comfort take the place of want, should exert a great influence in its favor. Here then is a means by which the farmer can put money in his pocket and help his poor neighbor at the same time. I have no interest in this matter as I do not raise, buy, or sell, but I do know it has been a great blessing to our State. There is one variety grown here that is much preferred to any other, but I can not find out the true name for it. Even the man that brought it here does not know its name.

VICK’S
FLORAL GUIDE

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Address.
JAMES VICK,
Rochester, N. Y.

Will be mailed FREE to all applicants and to customers of last year without ordering it. It contains illustrations, prices, descriptions and directions for planting all Vegetable and Flower Seeds, Plants, etc. Invaluable to all.

Illustr’d Garden Manual of VEGETABLE and FLOWER SEEDS, ready for all applicants. Market Gardeners
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The best variety of Prairie Wheat known. Yields largely and is less liable to blight than any other variety.

SEEDS Our Large GARDEN Guide describing Cole’s Reliable Seeds is Mailed FREE to all. We offer the LATEST Novelties in Seed Potatoes, Corn and Oats, and the Best Collection of Vegetable, Flower, Grass and Tree Seed. Everything is tested.
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60 newest varieties of potatoes. Garden seeds. Seed Grain, etc., at lowest prices. Illustrated catalogue and treatise on Potato Culture, free. J. W. WILSON, Austin, Ill.

Our Annual Catalogue, mailed free on application, published first of every January, contains full description and prices of Reliable Vegetable, Tree, Field and Flower Seed, Seed Grain, Seed Corn, Seed Potatoes, Onion Sets, etc; also Garden Drills, Cultivators, Fertilizers, etc., with full information for growing and how to get our Seeds.

Dealer in Timothy, Clover, Flax, Hungarian, Millet, Red Top, Blue Grass, Lawn Grass, Orchard Grass, Bird Seeds, &c.

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Revised, extended, and properly illustrated will this week be sent to every subscriber. There must be something offered in it that every one needs or would like to have. The terms are the most liberal ever offered. All readers are hereby constituted agents to solicit subscriptions to The Prairie Farmer. If those who can not enlist in the work will hand the Premium List to some person who will do so, they will confer a great favor upon the publishers and editors. What we all want is to double our present list before the first day of April.

Remember that every yearly subscriber, either new or renewing, sending us $2, receives a splendid new map of the United States and Canada—58×41 inches—FREE. Or, if preferred, one of the books offered in another column. It is not necessary to wait until a subscription expires before renewing.

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Editorial

Here is a little Prairie Farmer toast that we like, and though we get such often, we never tire of it. It was prepared by Mr. J. W. Hall, of Bates Co., Mo.: “The Prairie Farmer, the Western man’s friend. It grows better all the time; may it continue the good work.” We respond to all such toasts by striving to better deserve them every week in the year.

Our esteemed correspondent, Alex. Ross, this week tells farmers how they may keep their pork fresh for summer use. It will be generally regretted, we fear, that Mr. Ross did not contribute this article earlier in the season. It is timely to those who have not yet salted their pork, and for those who have, the recipe will keep, as well as the pork, until another season. Do you all file The Prairie Farmer?

The Smiths have it this week! We mean J. M. and J. A., one in the Horticultural and the other in the Dairy department of The Prairie Farmer. If any agricultural paper of this week contains two more valuable essays than these two, that is the publication we should like to see. The dairymen have a little the best of it, for dairymen all need good gardens, and hence both essays meet their cases, but the “Farmer’s Garden” is alone worth the subscription price of the paper to every farmer. Ought not the dairymen to subscribe for two copies?

If you are an active young man or young woman, or if you are not so young and active as you used to be, do not sit down and say to yourself that you can not secure some prize as offered in our premium list. There is hardly a present subscriber who may not get others to subscribe, or interest some one else to do so. We propose to give away a great deal of money value in these prizes, and the more we are called upon to give the better we like it, for we know that while increasing our list we are at the same time widening the influence of the paper and conferring benefits upon the country. Be assured that we offer no “snide” or worthless articles. We give genuine goods for genuine work.

They have a barbarous way of testing the comparative strength of draft horses in some parts of England. At Huddersfield the other day two owners secured the tail-ends of their carts together and then put their teams to the draft to see which would give way. First one and then the other was drawn backward, “while the macadam was torn up to the depth of five inches by their struggles.” The horses were kicked and beaten to make them do their best. The London Live Stock Journal says the brutes, the men we mean, not the horses, were arrested and fined $5 each for their fun. It should have been $500 apiece and imprisonment. The whipping post is none too severe for such criminal inhumanity to man’s most useful animal.

France has about one-half the agricultural implements in use that England has, though the cultivated acres in France are greatly in excess of those of England. The reason, doubtless, lies in the fact that French farms are very small and do not warrant the purchase of the larger labor-saving machines. The manual labor of the members of the family is often sufficient to carry on almost all the operations of the little farm “patches.” The late French census gives the following list of implements: 4,800,000 plow and diggers of various kinds, 1,650,000 harrows, 20,000 drills, 15,000 mowing machines, 18,000 reapers, 60,000 chaff-cutters, and 55,000 root-cutters. As compared with our own country this is indeed a small showing. We have dozens of reaper factories that turn out yearly more machines than are owned in all France.

Our readers will notice that in our premium list, as sent out last week, the Saskatchewan fife wheat is among the prominent offers. Here is a pointer showing the estimation in which the wheat is held by those who have grown it. We take it from the Detroit Record: “Last Spring twenty-six members of the Becker County Farmers’ Union clubbed together to the extent of $5 each for the purpose of giving the Scotch fife wheat (as grown in the Saskatchawan Valley) a trial, and the result has been most satisfactory. Thirteen bushels of the wheat were bought at $10 per bushel, and Iver Christianson, of Richwood, sowed it on thirteen acres of new land, for one-fourth of the yield. The wheat was threshed last Wednesday and divided among the stockholders yesterday, each receiving twelve bushels for his investment of five dollars, the total yield being 403 bushels, 61 pounds to the bushel, of the finest quality of No. 1 hard. Mr. Wellman, of whom the said wheat was purchased, began growing the wheat several years ago from a few kernels received in a letter from the Saskatchawan Valley, and the grain has been hand picked and kept perfectly clean each year.” The members of the club express themselves as perfectly satisfied with results and indorse the wheat in the highest manner. In all our premiums we have aimed to select useful articles, and such as are calculated to meet the wants of farmers and friends.

The Northern Illinois Horticultural Society held an interesting meeting at Elgin last week. The attendance was not large, but included such life long leaders in Illinois horticulture as A. R. Whitney, S. G. Minkler, J. W. Cochrane, D. C. Schofield, A. Bryant, Jr., Dr. Slade, Wm. Kellogg, of Wisconsin, D. Wilmot Scott, H. Graves, A. L. Small, L. Woodard, and others. The papers read were brief and excellent. Robert Douglas, O. B. Galusha, and Samuel Edwards, who were not present contributed instructive essays. The election for the ensuing year resulted in the choice of S. M. Slade, Elgin, President; A. Bryant, Jr., Princeton, J. V. Cotta, Mt. Carroll, and David Hill, Dundee, Vice-Presidents; D. Wilmot Scott, Galena, Secretary; E. W. Graves, Sandwich, and J. S. Rodgers, Marengo, Recording Secretaries. The society voted to hold its next annual meeting at Elgin. We will give a digest of proceedings in next week’s paper.

The alleged operations of certain patent sharks as recorded on third page of this paper reminds us of a couple of swindling operations humorously noticed in a late New York Tribune, viz: Certain Michigan farmers gave their notes, ranging from $50 to $500 each, for “hulless oats,” payment to be made out of the crop produced at $1.50 per bushel. But the I. O. U.’s were promptly sold on liberal terms at the bank or elsewhere. The persuasive agent “lighted out,” and the victims now think they perceive symptoms of the cutting of belated teeth, of the eye variety. Another interesting “little game” is this: Two men, apparently strangers, meet at a farm-house; get acquainted; arrange to stay over night. During the long evening they make a bargain with each other for some piece of property, draw writings, and ask their host kindly to append his name as witness. Just as might have been expected, the farmer’s signature turns out to be the most important of the three, since the document is so artfully constructed that by cutting it in two pieces one of them becomes a promissory note, which is subsequently negotiated, and, under the present bad law, has to be paid.—In view of such occurrences as these (still astonishingly common after years of repeated exposure by the press) the aggressive “Jabez” of the Tribune maintains that the countryman who doesn’t treat as frauds all tramps, no matter how well dressed, who seek his autograph, under any pretense whatever, would better have given his time to reading and not learned to write, for these bad signs indicate that he will never be forethoughtful enough in such emergencies to make his mark.

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HORT. SOCIETY

The fifth annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society held at Kansas City, Mo., January 22-25, was the most interesting and profitable ever held by this vigorous and valuable organization. Delegates were present from fourteen States, covering the great water-shed embraced by the “Father of Waters,” and its tributaries—in and of itself, an empire. The personnel of this body was excellent; it was a convention of practical, brainy men, alive to the interests of one of the most important pursuits in range of the rural industries. The essays, and the discussions they provoked, were full of interest, and highly instructive. We have attended scores of such assemblies during the last quarter of a century; none of them equaled this, all things considered, and we think this opinion was shared by the oldest and most prominent among those in attendance.

Our columns, as we find on our return home, are too crowded this week to admit of publishing a synopsis of the proceedings, but will make room for the eloquent, touching, and well-deserved tribute of the society to the memory of Dr. John A. Warder. Next week an epitome of the work of the convention will be given, and two of the papers that were read will also appear, to wit: “The Best Fruit Packages,” by E. T. Hollister, of St. Louis, Mo., and “The Educational Influence of Horticulture,” by Mr. G. A. Lyon, of Galesburg, Ill. Other valuable and interesting papers read at this meeting will soon appear in The Prairie Farmer; among them, Prof. S. A. Forbes’ paper on “Insects Affecting the Strawberry” (which is supplemental to a former paper which we published last year); another by Prof. John W. Robson, of Cheever, Kansas, on the “Circulation of Sap,” and others which are very useful, on various leading horticultural topics.

The re-election of Parker Earle, as President, W. H. Ragan, Secretary, and T. C. Evans, Treasurer, was a fitting indorsement of the faithful and efficient services of these officers.

WHEN IT IS TIME TO RESIGN.

We observe a general tendency this winter to re-elect about all the old officers of the various dairy, horticultural and other meetings, and this regardless of age or previous terms of office. While this practice is highly complimentary to men who have held the positions, and is a recognition of services well performed, we think the more frequent infusion of new blood an excellent remedy for stagnation and other ills liable to creep into association management. At several meetings this winter writers and speakers have expressed regret that more young men were not in attendance. Perhaps if the old members were a little more willing to give young men a fair proportion of the management there would be less cause of complaint in this direction. We have often wondered at the tenacity with which some old and otherwise sensible men hold on to offices in State agricultural societies. They indeed seem to think it a personal slight if they fail of renomination. We have in mind one clever old gentleman, now in almost every way ill-fitted for the position, who has for long years held the office of president of a State Association. Every member of the organization is aware that the days of this old gentleman’s usefulness in the position have long since passed away, yet he was re-elected almost by acclamation at a late annual meeting. It was remarked, in our hearing, that some younger, more vigorous and active man should be selected, “but,” it was added, “it would break the old man’s heart to put another man in his place, and that is the way all feel about it.” Such a sentiment speaks well for the hearts of the members with whom the old gentleman is associated, but less can be said of the judgment that is manifested. We respect age, especially if it has been attained while doing good service for the public. But something is due to the present and the future as well as to the past. It is to be regretted that men do not better recognize the fact that these little affairs of the world would move along just about as well if their management were sometimes resigned to other hands before death compels the change. But such is seldom the case. We have known a man, once a president of a State Agricultural Society and long one of its vice-presidents, who has really felt that many of his old friends and associates became his personal enemies the moment they aided in electing another man to his position. He thinks them so still, yet the fact is he has no more faithful, well-wishing friends on earth. It was one of those cases where public good demanded the sacrifice of private preference. It will be better for all our organizations when such adherence to correct principles universally prevails, or when failing faculties bring with them self-consciousness of weakening powers.

LOCATING THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR.

The Minnesota State Agricultural Association is now working under the provisions of the new law passed by the Legislature last year. This law entitles to vote delegates in the management of the State Society, from each county association holding a fair and paying premiums to the amount of the donation by the State to these local organizations. At the late meeting at St. Paul over twenty county societies were represented. It was also decided to allow one vote each to the State Horticultural Society, and to the Southern Minnesota Fair Association.

The financial report showed that the State Society received from all sources in 1883 the sum of $14,068.78. The disbursements amounted to a little less than this sum. As it is a matter of interest everywhere to know what it costs, by items, to run a State society, we here give them for Minnesota: Salaries of officers and assistants, $3,601.39; printing and advertising, $1,415.65; general expenses, $2,520.97; special ring purses, $2,434; premiums, $3,945.50.

It will be seen that a little over sixty-one per cent of the whole amount of prize money went to the fast horse interest. Thus it is considered in Minnesota that racing is worth{73} more money to the State Fair, that is, it brings more money from attendance and “privileges,” than all the cattle, farm horses, swine, sheep, fowls, farm products, vegetables, flowers, machinery, fine arts, domestic products, and everything else that can be brought out at the State exhibition. We do not take Minnesota as an example because it is any better or any worse than other States in this respect, but to show to the farming people of this country wherein lie the attractions of the modern agricultural fair. They are at liberty to draw their own conclusions. These fairs are in their own hands, or should be, and if reforms are needed it is from them that they must emanate.

For several years there has been a feeling of intense rivalry between the Fair Association at Minneapolis and the State Society. The rival fairs have been held at the same time, and the result has been detrimental to both organizations. We suppose the feeling had its birth in the commercial rivalry between the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. However this may have been, or whether good or ill has resulted, the State Society and the farmers of the State are to be congratulated that a movement is on foot to obliterate all differences, and to establish somewhere between the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis permanent fair grounds that shall secure to Minnesota one of the greatest fairs of the Northwest. At the meeting, about which we began to write, it was resolved to instruct a committee, appointed for the purpose, to negotiate with the citizens of the two cities for eighty or one hundred acres of land for a permanent location of the State Society. It was also advocated to call upon the Legislature for appropriations for the construction of permanent buildings.

Wayside Notes.

I can’t help remarking to myself as I read my two or three foreign agricultural papers, how great is becoming the influence of American agriculture upon the farming of Great Britain. Our ways are gradually insinuating themselves into British practice and it will not be long before our respected “cousins” will be ready to acknowledge that we have in great part paid off the debt we owe them for the many lessons in methods of thorough culture and intelligent breeding they have given us. What has led me to mention this matter is an item in a London journal showing a tendency to bring beef stock to the block at an earlier age than has formerly prevailed in that country. It was not until inaugurated at the Chicago Fat Stock Show, I believe, that the English ever took it into their heads to make a record of average daily gain of bullocks for their Fat Stock Shows, or of the amount of food it took to bring them into show condition. It is only lately that stock raisers there have thought about selling by weight instead of the “guess” of the buyer. Farm scales are not half enough in use here, but we are manifold ahead of the farmers of Great Britain in this respect. It was only after Americans had pronounced upon the benefits of the silo that British farmers thought it worth their while to experiment with the innovation from across the channel. But about this early maturity question: I notice that a correspondent of the Yorkshire Post mentions that at the late Fat Stock Show two Prize Hereford bullocks weighing (dressed) 896 pounds, and 700 pounds, were aged respectively one year, nine months, and five days, and one year, seven months, and twenty-two days. At the Grimsby show there were two Short-horns weighing 14 cwt. and 13¾ cwt. live weight, the first being one year and nine months old, and the other one year, nine months, and fourteen days. They took the second prize as grazing steers. I don’t need to mention anything about the new farm implements we have given the old country, nor the many modifications that her own implements, wagons, etc., are undergoing, especially in the way of lightness in construction, that are directly traceable to the influence of American manufacture. Indeed, if the intelligent and unprejudiced Englishman of to-day who is familiar with our agriculture will sit down and reflect upon the subject he will readily acknowledge that the influence of the United States upon the political ideas of England has not been more marked than it has upon her agricultural ideas and practices.

And while I have strayed so far away from home for a subject for a “note” I may as well stay there long enough to say that the English dog is not a whit less fond of mutton than is the average canine of this country. And further, it does not seem that British law regarding the protection of sheep is at all in advance of ours, either in its provisions or the manner of its enforcement. In Cheshire, for instance, dogs, in the course of the first two weeks of this year, killed 140 sheep valued at $1,500, and the most that was done about it was to hunt up the offending cur—no it was not a cur but a Retriever—and kill it. The dog is a great favorite in England, certainly he seems there as here to have more friends than the sheep that clothes and feeds. When will man, anywhere, become fully civilized and humanized?

I met a Wisconsin tobacco and corn-grower the other day, and he was bluer than a pipe stem. The frost last fall cut off both his corn and his tobacco. He said he had actually nothing to sell but a little wrapper tobacco which grew in a protected place, and now the Government had nipped his hopes for this in the bud by declaring that Sumatra tobacco should be admitted into the country on a duty of 35 cents per pound, while it is acknowledged that it is worth at least five times as much as the best Wisconsin with which it competes. Probably a later decision by Secretary Folger that this Sumatra leaf must pay 75 cents per pound has done one of his sores some good. The only thing I could then, or can now, recommend as good for the other—caused by the untimely frost—is, that he no longer put all his eggs in one or two baskets. I am convinced that for farmers of moderate means through the acceptance of the doctrine of diversified farming alone lies their permanent and universal salvation from financial hades in this world.

In the Punjaub, British India, there was last year an outbreak of the cattle plague. The authorities took hold of the matter, and by means of isolation of affected cattle and the prescriptions of the veterinarians, the disease was completely eradicated. The authorities were jubilant over their success. The natives were congratulated on being ruled over by a Government which kept such excellent watch over their interests. But the natives, while they admitted the existence of the disease, wherein they were more intelligent or less prejudiced than are some of our citizens regarding pleuro-pneumonia, did not have a much better opinion of the vets and commissioners than your correspondent, B. F. J., seems to have. They said to an official: “Yes, sahib, the isolation of cattle gave great trouble, and the salutries’ hunger was difficult to appease. When they had left the village, we got a holy man, who drew a line on the ground round the herd. Then he got on horseback and rode round the herd, sprinkling water and repeating the creed. It was that which cured the cattle.” What we farmers want is the isolation and the vets.’ advice, and if Mr. Allerton and Gen. Singleton have a “holy man” at command to draw a line about the infected herds, perhaps we can get rid of the disease, and thus all parties will be satisfied.

Letter From Champaign.

We have now (January 25) had forty days of snow, and nearly uninterrupted good sleighing, and the end is not yet—neither of snow nor sleighing, for there is fully a foot of the former now on the ground, and few, if any, bare spots. But the steady cold is quite as uncommon as the snow or sleighing, and will make the winter of 1883-84 a memorable one. Another remarkable feature is the low range of the thermometer where mild winters are thought to be insured by the latitude. Thus, Central and Southern Kansas and Missouri have had as cold weather as Central Illinois—a good example of which was the 27 degrees below zero registered at Makanda, a few miles north of Cobden, Ill., while the lowest point reached, 200 miles further north, was only a degree or two lower. It may be winter will break up soon—and it may be deeper snows and intenser cold are in store for us, as in some other winters of great severity.

At any rate, the protracted cold and snow which takes all pasturage out of the account in carrying stock, is making very heavy drafts on hay, grain, and fodder of all kinds and it looks now as if the big hay crop of this section will be fed out before spring. As for corn, the most of which is soft and has no grade and no sale as a merchantable commodity, except for feeding where it grew—is being very lavishly fed to stock of all kinds, as the most profitable way to get rid of it. Accounts from Nebraska and Northwest Kansas report corn in very little better condition than in Central Illinois, and dealers who bought and cribbed it early in the season are reputed badly caught.

There is nothing new to report in respect to the condition of winter wheat. So long as snow covers the ground it is safe; and after, it will come through if the weather is warm, or cold and wet, and there is little freezing and thawing to thaw it out of the ground. It is thought by those who have given the subject some attention, that though the buds of fruit trees may be killed or badly damaged by the intense cold, and though the wood was not thoroughly ripened last year, the ground not being frozen and the earth being covered by snow at the time, the vitality of the trees will remain unimpaired. It is the experience of Vermont and Maine orchardists, that if snow falls before the ground freezes to any considerable depth, apple trees effectually resist any degree of cold.

The latest contribution of facts going to establish the new departure in respect to the location of orchards, comes from a farmer of Geauga county, Ohio. He writes to the Country Gentleman of a late date as follows: “There was little fruit the past season, and as in many former years, orchards on high lands bore only a few defective apples. Such orchards have not borne much for several years, while orchards on low lands, somewhat protected, have borne large crops of fair fruit. My orchards on low land, protected by evergreens, have brought me several hundred dollars a year for several years, while the orchards on high lands, a little west, have not borne enough for family use for some years.” Who will tell The Prairie Farmer about the many orchards of Livingston county, Ill., which produced, last year, very remarkable crops of fine apples—a fact which raised the value of land in that county several dollars per acre?

An Eloquent Tribute.

The following eloquent tribute to the late Dr. John A. Warder was written by ex-Gov. J. Sterling Morton, of Nebraska, chairman of the memorial committee at the late meeting of the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society at Kansas City. In its estimation of the man and his work it is appreciative and just: Ingersoll himself could not surpass it in the sublimity of its pathos. To be thus commemorated in the minds and words of men is the lot of few, and those only who have lived exalted, useful lives, and whose glowing hearts have kindled the fires of friendship and love in the breasts of friends and associates in life’s cares and labors. Mr. Morton said:

As guests register their names at a hotel, depart, and are forgotten, so humanity, stopping for a short time on the earth, makes its autograph upon the age and sets out upon its returnless journey to that realm whence come neither tidings nor greetings.

Each individual of the race leaves some trace of his existence on the generation in which he lives, and considerable numbers transmit their names to posterity italicised in good deeds or embalmed in noble and elevating thought.

The desire to be remembered and esteemed by those who come after us, seems to be, with the better and more exalted minds, a greater inspiration to high intellectual effort than the mere plaudits of cotemporaries. As on the stage, those actors who play best their parts are recalled and applauded after the curtain has fallen, so those in the brief drama of life, who have best performed their duties are, after their mortal costumes have been forever laid away in restful graves, again called out by their admiring cotemporaries, and thus their intellectual and moral personalities reappear before the lights, amidst tumultuous and emulative applause.

It is the duty and pleasure of your committee, gentlemen of the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society, in harmony with this line of reflection, to bring before you the character and services of the recently deceased Dr. John A. Warder, of Ohio. His naturally strong mental faculties were led out and trained, in school and college, to a full and vigorous stature. His chosen profession of medicine, in the earlier years of his manhood, occupied his entire thought and stimulated him to untiring labor of mind and body, and, at the same time, gave him also that culture of the heart which, through his refined, emotional nature, was ever incarnating itself in delicate acts of kindness and generosity toward those who needed sympathy or friends.

But he turned at last from his professional studies—from the books in his library—to those broader investigations of the mysteries of life and growth of flowers, fruits and forests, to which the fields, orchards, and wild woods of Ohio ever allured him. His childhood and youth had passed amidst the rustic scenes of a home in the country, on a farm; and as the seashell, though ever so long and far away from its home in the surf, will, when placed to the ear always moan of its ocean home, so his great and tender soul ever yearned for a life among the flora and sylvia of youth. His brave and benignant spirit explored all avenues of knowledge which led into flowering fields and orchards. To his eye every blossom was a poem; to his quick perception every tree a book full of useful and agreeable teachings. And to the study of these volumes—these continued annuals—fresh in new binding, embellishment, and gilding every summer and autumn, Dr. Warder devoted the choicest years of his mature manhood.

It is the enthusiast of a cause who gives vitality and propulsive power. Dr. Warder was an enthusiast in horticulture and in forestry. To advance the race in those two vocations no labor was too great for him to undertake, no sacrifice too severe for him joyfully to make. At his own expense he went into fresh territories and States, preaching, as a missionary of a new gospel, the importance and necessity of orcharding and tree planting. His thoughts were strewn, like precious seeds, among the dwellers on the prairies of Nebraska, Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota and the Northwest. And they took root, so that the concepts of thousands of groves and orchards, which now stand as living monuments to his useful life, came from his own philanthropic brain. In his mind miniature forests grew on every prairie, and golden fruit flashed in the autumn sunlight of every hill-side. He knew no limit to his love of horticulture and arboriculture. He was earnest; he was active, sincere, and his vitægraph is written wherever flowers bloom, fruits ripen, and forests wave all over the country he loved so well and served so modestly, efficiently, and faithfully.

His example is worthy of the emulation of our sons and of their sons. And standing at his grave it is meet and proper for this society to recall his noble services to its cause, to wish that, with each recurring year his memory may, like the flowers and foliage he studied so well, be clothed in new verdure and its fragrance perpetuated as a grateful perfume.

Resolved—That the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society deplores the death of its friend and active member, Dr. John A. Warder of Ohio; that our sincere condolence is extended to his family, and that we recommend to kindred societies throughout the Northwest the planting of memorial trees and groves to commemorate his labors, his achievements, and his philanthropy as a skilled orchardist and forester.

Selection of a Site for a Park.

were squatters of the lowest class living in hovels. The construction of the Central Park, and the opening of the streets in its neighborhood, changed the whole character of the surrounding region. In the ten years succeeding the commencement of work upon the park, the increased valuation of taxable property in the wards immediately adjacent was no less than fifty-four millions of dollars, affording a surplus of three millions after paying the interest on all the city bonds issued for the purchase and construction of the park, a sum sufficient if used as a sinking fund to pay the entire principal and interest of the cost of the park in less time than was required for its construction.

A similar instance of the profitable conversion of a deserted and forbidding region into a rich and elegant quarter of a city, is afforded by the Park des Butte Chaumont in Paris.

It occupies the site of old abandoned slate quarries, the precipitous walls and rough excavations of which have been converted into picturesque scenery by judicious treatment and tasteful planting, so as to give it the appearance of a wild mountain gorge. The result has been that its vicinity has become a rich and elegant quarter, simply because it has been made attractive to the large and constantly growing class who are seeking pleasant residence sites within easy access of their places of business.

These illustrations will suffice to prove the truth of my assertion, that the objects of most essential importance to a city in the creation of a park will be attained by selecting for its location a site which is naturally undesirable or even repulsive and converting it into an attractive quarter, rather than one which combines all the elements of beauty and health, and as a consequence is so desirable for residences, that it can only be had at great cost.

The Illinois State Dairymen’s Association will hold its next annual meeting at Champaign, December 17-19, 1884. Champaign County Agricultural Society has adopted a resolution, pledging aid in getting up a first-class meeting.

Poultry Notes.

What Ails the Pullets?

Dear Fanny Field—Please be kind enough to tell me what ails the pullets? We have fifty or sixty spring pullets hatched in April and May, from which by this time we expected to get eggs plentifully, and it stretches our patience to get only from one to five eggs per day. They have an underground room with only the front exposed, well lighted, and we have fed them till they are fat.

We feed them a warm breakfast of potatoes and bran, or oats ground, with a little pepper occasionally, then an hour or two later oats, and again at night oats or corn, about three times a week. Plaster, coal, and gravel are liberally supplied. They have milk and now and then powdered bones, or refuse meat, cooked.

By an accident a fine one of over four pounds’ weight was killed, and I had supposed she ought to lay as she was one of my earliest, but on investigation I found eggs from a hickory nut down to shot eggs, that were black or dark and hard, and I readily conjectured if the rest were like her it was not strange we had no eggs. Please tell us the cause and cure.

Our fowls are mixed, light and dark Brahmas, Leghorns and everything you would get by changing eggs with the neighbors. We have added Plymouth Rocks of late, having more of them than any other. We save the best Rock roosters each year. It is the more surprising as our fowls usually lay well.

That Duck Farm.

Dear Fanny Field—I have often thought I would write you through our dear old Prairie Farmer, but the old thief, procrastination, stole my time. But reading your description of “A Duck Farm” aroused all the ambition I have, and the editor willing (I not being one of the number knowing your private address) would like to ask a few questions I consider “necessary,” and will promise to abide by the terms given in “Chats with Correspondents” of January 5th, as near as possible.

I don’t wonder the woman owning the “duck farm” wished to withhold her name and whereabouts from the public generally, besides guarding her pen with “well-trained dogs” if she has ducks she can induce to lay 125 or even 100 eggs per season, nine and one third of which will hatch out ducklings that will all live to be grown ducks.

Take an average of 113 and the ducks will lay 1,808 eggs per season, and she sells $100 worth at $3 per doz. making 400; then she sends 24 doz. to New York, then raises “1,100 ducks on the place,” making in all, 1,788, which, taken from the 1,808 leaves 20 eggs for non-hatchers and dead ducklings. This I call pretty close work.

I have had some little experience with ducks, and I can only get them to lay from sixty to seventy eggs per season, and about one eighth of the eggs don’t hatch (from various causes) and about the same amount of ducklings die. Now if you will be kind enough to reveal the woman’s whereabouts to me I would like to invest if she will warrant them to come up to your figures; also, is the said woman a widow?

Now Miss Fanny (if such you are) please excuse my familiarity. As I have perused your writings with such pleasure, I feel well acquainted, so strike me as hard as you please, but remember there is a hereafter. I have several facts in regard to my fowls for another time providing I gain admission.

From New Hampshire.

Eggs are worth thirty-three cents per dozen here. The hens are not laying nearly as many as they were at this time last year. Can any one tell the reason? Farmers ought to pay more attention to the hens. They do pay, and pay big if properly cared for. Give them hot feed in the morning, consisting of bran, corn meal, beef scraps, a little salt and a little cayenne pepper. Don’t make them drink ice water these cold days. Give them wheat and oats at noon, and whole corn at night. The warmer your house is the more profit you will reap. I don’t care whether your fowls are pure bloods or not, if you take good care of them they will give you eggs. A good neighbor of mine says that his pure Plymouth Rocks do not lay as many eggs as his common “old fashioned” fowls.

The Apiary.

Corn-Silk Protection.

A correspondent of “Gleanings” writes: I winter on the summer stands, and pack them a little differently from most persons. I spread the combs so that eight or nine will fill same space occupied in summer by ten. Then placing sticks crosswise of the frames, to allow a passway for the bees, I spread a cloth above them, and pack on the top of this two or three inches of corn-silks. For packing, these are superior to anything I have yet seen or heard of. They are clean, and excellent non-conductors, and will more readily absorb the moisture than either chaff or saw-dust, and yet remain perfectly dry. They are easily collected by a boy when men are husking in the fields; and when taken off in the spring can be stored away for another winter. Knowing the value of them by experience, I hope that many of our brother bee-keepers will give them a fair trial.

Feeding Back.

The question of “feeding back” honey to bees was discussed at the Michigan State Convention at Flint. W. Z. Hutchinson had had a poor season; but as he had mentioned incidentally that he had practiced “feeding back,” it brought down upon him a shower of questions. In feeding back 1,000 pounds of extracted honey, he had received 800 pounds of comb honey. Had tiered up the cases of sections until they were three or four cases high. Had fed the honey as fast as they would take it. Looked the sections over about once a week, and removed the full ones. Some colonies did much better work than others. After the first trial, selected the best. No honey was coming in at the time of the feeding; did not weigh the hives; weighed only the sections and the amount. He had a friend who had fed back upon exactly the same plan, but his friend had not found it profitable. He thought that to know just how to feed back, at a profit, was not yet positively known.

D. A. Jones: The question of feeding back has but few advocates, for the reason that the majority have failed to make it profitable. To be successful in feeding back there must be no place in the hive in which the bees can store honey, except in the sections. Those hives must be selected that contain the most honey, or else those having but few combs. My plan of feeding is to elevate the hives in front and pour the feed in upon the bottom-board. The bees do not carry the honey out of the hives; they must store it somewhere. Bee-keepers fail to make it pay, because the bees had an empty brood-chamber. Section boxes filled with foundation had been given a colony at 9 A. M.; feeding commenced, and the next day, at evening, the bees had commenced capping some of the sections. Fifty-two pounds of honey was fed, and forty-four pounds of comb honey obtained. To get unfinished sections filled, and at the same time have the honey removed from some other unfinished sections, I put the sections that I wish emptied, over the hive, and the ones that I wish finished, in the main body of the hive, keeping the queen out of them by using perforated zinc.

D. A. Jones: I do not pour it in at the entrance. I pour it down inside the hive at the back.

W. Z. Hutchinson: You speak of using perforated zinc. I should like to know something about that. Do the bees work through it freely? Is there any objection to its use, except its cost? And where is the expense? Is it in the material, or in the preparations?

D. A. Jones: It is in no way detrimental. The bees work through it freely. I see no objection to its use except its cost, and its cost is the preparations. Tin would be no cheaper, for the reason that it comes in smaller sheets, and the waste would be greater.

W. Z. Hutchinson: I have used honey boards the past season made of wood, the slats of which were 5-32 of an inch apart, and they answered every purpose; and are cheaper than zinc.

S. T. Pettitt: I can hardly think the wooden boards would be better than the zinc. It would take some time to make them, while the zinc is all ready, and so lasting.

W. Z. Hutchinson: The wood boards cost only a third as much as the zinc and I prefer them.

Bee Pasturage.

At the late Nebraska Bee-keepers’ Convention Mr. Ballard spoke very highly of dandelion and alsike clover, stating that he had seen four or five bees on one blossom of dandelion, and recommends alsike clover, as it will take root on the prairie.

G. M. Cooper, Beatrice, gave it as his opinion that white clover did not secrete any honey last spring, on account of the cool weather.

P. M. Aldrich said that his bees worked on rape long after frost. No one present had ever seen rape fail.

Mr. Colwell sowed the roadside twice last year, and had a continuous bloom all summer, and late in the fall; puts one peck to the acre on the roadside.

Mr. Hawley has sown rape several times, but the bees only gathered fast enough to build up; he can tell when his bees are gathering rape honey, by the odor.

C. C. Turney, Ceresco, had seen bees work very extensively on the blackberry, both blossom and fruit, and also on parsley.

Wm. Sutton, Elk Creek, saw his bees on raspberry and alsike clover; they did a great deal to stimulate his bees, although the quantity is limited in his locality; they bloom about the middle of June.

The ancient Egyptians of the Nile had floating bee-houses, designed to take advantage of the honey harvest. They were warned when it was time to return home by the depth to which the boat sank in the water under the weight of the cargo of honey. That the bees might not be lost, they were obliged to journey during the night-time.

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Scientific.

The Brilliant Sunsets.

Few of our readers, probably, have failed to note the fact that brilliant sunsets have been unusually frequent since the latter part of November. Now a highly colored sunset is not, in itself, a remarkable phenomenon, and it may occur at any time of the year, and owe its origin to any one of several causes, very simple in themselves, as refraction by the atmosphere of the sun’s rays, which are thrown upon the sky after the orb itself has passed from sight, or a peculiarly humid condition of the upper air, or a remarkable electric condition, such as sometimes precedes a thunder storm. But the late brilliant sunsets do not belong to the category of ordinary phenomena. In the first place, they have not shown gorgeously hued clouds, as in usual sunset displays, but skies of dazzling tints and colors. In the second place, they have been prolonged for weeks, and have been seen, at intervals, over nearly every part of the globe. Evidently, some unusual circumstance must have given rise to these unwonted phenomena, and scientists in both hemispheres have been interested in seeking an answer to the problem. As it seemed very plain that no condition of humidity could account for such remarkable refraction, it was universally concluded that some substance, as dust, must exist in the upper air regions. This being accepted as probable another theory was needed to account for the presence of this dust. The first theory put forward by scientists in this country suggested the hypothesis of meteoric dust.

Meteors are gaseous bodies, which move through space in immense numbers, and in definite orbits. Drawn astray from these orbits by the attraction of the earth, they are set on fire on contact with the atmosphere, this ignition producing the phenomena of shooting stars. The product of this combustion is sometimes heavy enough as to fall rapidly, in the shape of stones, to the earth. More often it is an impalpable substance, which filters slowly down through the air, and is found in the shape of metallic dust, on the summits of snow-covered mountains and in the Arctic regions. About the middle of November the earth passes through a meteor zone—that is, an immense swarm of meteors revolving around the sun—and during this month there are always vastly more shooting stars to be seen than in any other month of the year. The brilliant sunsets being first seen in the latter part of November, their near coincidence in time with an unusual display of brilliant meteors, seemed to substantiate the theory that they were of similar origin. It is known that the telescope reveals immense numbers of these meteors too small to be seen by the naked eye, and it seems very probable that millions more are too small to be seen even with the telescope, mere meteoric dust that can only announce its presence to the eye by its refraction of the sun’s rays as they pass through it. When this dust falls it becomes visible otherwise, perhaps. We have spoken of its appearance on snow-covered hills. Sometimes it appears as a haze or dry fog. At least the appearance of any very remarkable haze, like that which obscured the light of the sun for weeks over Europe, in 1783, is now ascribed by science to the dust of enormous falls of meteors.

Had this theory of the cause of the bright sunsets been the true one, however, there should have been unusual displays of shooting stars visible as soon as darkness came on after the sunsets, for meteors are always ignited by the friction of the earth’s atmosphere. As these were not seen, the meteoric dust theory did not gain a very general support, and the opinion of many scientific men was that we must wait for a more probable theory. When it came to be known that these remarkable appearances of color in the sky had been visible from different points of the earth’s surface ever since last September, a theory was offered by Prof. Lockyer, the well-known English astronomer, and the editor of Nature, a leading scientific periodical, which is now generally accepted as solving the problem.

Mr. Lockyer thinks that these remarkable sunset glows are the late, but direct effects of the great volcanic eruptions which occurred in Java, last August. He believes that the enormous volumes of fine volcanic dust thrown out by these eruptions were carried into the upper air, and being borne by prevailing winds around and above the earth, the reflection of the sun’s rays upon them have produced the phenomena witnessed at so many different points.

The adequacy of this supposed cause seems plain, when we remember what a mighty convulsion of nature occurred at Java. Earthquake and eruptions followed one another with such force that they were felt for hundreds of miles distant. Large islands sunk from sight and new land appeared and the entire conformation of the Archipelago in that locality was changed. The great volumes of mud thrown out of the volcano Krakatoa fell in showers for over three hours in localities more than thirty miles away. With volcanic forces at work on this mighty scale, millions of tons of earth must have been hurled into the upper air. Of this the coarse and heavy material would naturally fall at once, but vast clouds of impalpable dust would be borne upward by the heated air, until they reached the region of the upper trade-winds, by which they would be borne westward in the circuit of the globe. Each evening these immense dust clouds would give a novel brilliancy to the skies, by reflecting the light of the setting sun, and during the day an unusual hazy appearance of the sky would probably be perceived.

This hypothesis of Mr. Lockyer was remarkably borne out by facts that actually occurred. The Java eruptions occurred August 26 and 27. On August 28, from the islands in the Indian Sea, near the African coast, Mauritias, Rodriguez, and the Seychelles, very singular sunsets and sunrises were observed, though not directly resembling those seen later, and a strange haze appeared, through which the sun seemed to be white and dim as the moon. On August 31, in the same latitude as these islands, in North Brazil, remarkable sunlight effects were observed, the sun appearing of a deep blue tint; the next evening similar appearances were seen in Venezuela. On September 1, also, a remarkable sunset was reported visible from the Gulf Coast, and one from Trinidad, Spain, at the same date. September 5, another was seen near Honolulu, in the Pacific ocean. This line of strange sunsets ran directly east and west. Another line ran from southeast to northwest, beginning with Ceylon and Madras and ending with England. Following this, the phenomena seemed to spread themselves over the whole portion of the earth’s surface, appearing at various points during four whole months. The points of difference between the earlier and later appearances were closely defined by Mr. Lockyer. At first the coarse particles suspended in the air obscured the sun’s light entirely, as was the case in the neighborhood of Java immediately following the earthquake. These disappearing, the sun seemed white and dim; the dust being still more thinned out, the blue and red molecules caused the appearance of a blue sun, and at last there was just enough of the finest dust left suspended to be carried by the various wind currents hither and thither and produce at the time of the setting of the sun, those singular reflected lights, which, at first almost unnoticed, became, when observed, the wonder of the world.

It may be admitted that there are gaps in the evidence supporting this last hypothesis, but it has the merit of probability, and must be accepted as the best theory of the brilliant sunsets yet offered.

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CONTAINING Practical Observations on the Causes Nature and Treatment of Diseases and Lameness in Horses, by Geo. H. Dadd, M. D. Will be sent upon receipt of price, $1.50; or free to any sender of three subscribers to this paper, at $2 each, by

For Sale and Exchange. ☞ Write for free REAL ESTATE JOURNAL.
R. B. CHAFFIN & CO. Richmond, Virginia.

Practical Arithmetic made Easy, Simple, and Convenient for all, by this unique and wonderful work. Is worth its weight in gold to everyone not quick in figures. Contains nearly 100,000 Business Calculations, Simple and Practicable Rules and Original Methods—the CREAM of this great and useful science—which makes it possible and EASY for any one, even a child, to make CORRECT and Instantaneous computations in Grain, Stock, Hay, Coal, Cotton, Merchandise, Interest, Percentage, Profit and Loss, Wages, Measurement of Lumber, Logs, Cisterns, Tanks, Granaries, Wagon-beds, Corn-cribs, Cordwood, Hay-stacks, Lands, Carpenters’, Plasterers’, and Masons’ work, besides THOUSANDS of other practical problems which come up every day in the year. Will prove of GREAT BENEFIT, almost a necessity, in the hands of every Farmer, Mechanic, and Tradesman.

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A new work by a Practical Painter, designed for the use of Tradesmen, Mechanics, Merchants, Farmers, and as a guide to Professional Painters. Containing a Plain, Common-Sense Statement of the methods employed by Painters to produce satisfactory results in Plain and Fancy Painting of every description, including Formulas for Mixing Paint in Oil or Water, Tools required, etc. This is just the book needed by any person having anything to paint, and makes

Full directions for using White Lead—Lamp-Black—Ivory—Black—Prussian Blue—Ultra-marine—Green—Yellow—Brown—Vermillion—Lake—Carmine—Whiting—Glue—Asphaltum—Pumice Stone, and Spirits of Turpentine—Oils—Varnishes—Furniture Varnish—Milk Paint—Preparing Calcimine.

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A guide to the amateur in the Fruit, Vegetable, and Flower Garden, with full directions for the Green-House, Conservatory, and Window Garden.

Author of “Walks and Talks on the Farm,” “Farm Crops,” “Harris on the Pig,” etc.

While we have no lack of treatises upon artificial fertilizers, there is no work in which the main stay of the farm—the manure made upon the farm—is treated so satisfactorily or thoroughly as in this volume. Starting with the question,

the author, well known on both sides of the water by his writings, runs through in sufficient detail every source of manure on the farm, discussing the methods of making rich manure; the proper keeping and applying it, and especially the

and the effects of different artificial fertilizers, as compared with farm-yard manure, upon different crops. In this he makes free use of the striking series of experiments instituted years ago, and still continued, by Lawes and Gilbert, of Rothamsted, England. The

in which the results of these experiments are given, are here for the first time made accessible to the American farmer. In fact, there is scarcely any point relating to fertilizing the soil, including suitable manures for special crops, that is not treated, and while the teachings are founded upon the most elaborate scientific researches, they are so far divested of the technical language of science as to commend themselves to farmers as eminently “practical.” It is not often that the results of scientific investigations are presented in a manner so thoroughly popular. 12mo. Price, postpaid, $1.50.

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NOW Is the time to Subscribe for The Prairie Farmer. Price only $2.00 per year is worth double the money.

REMEMBER that $2.00 pays for The Prairie Farmer one year, and the subscriber gets a copy of The Prairie Farmer County Map of the United States, free! This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country.

Household.

AN HUMBLE CONFESSION.

Pyramidal Women.

It has long been a social mystery, over which conservatives and radicals have puzzled alike, why the gifted men and women of our race should spring almost exclusively from the intermediate ranks of life. The solution is found in Piazzi Smyth’s metaphor of the Great Pyramid. A circumscribed routine of pleasure on one hand, of toil on the other, equally engrosses the time and thoughts of the dwellers at either end. It is only in the middle of the pyramid that one is free to live up to the standard of the hideless coffer, the sarcophagus measure, the measure of a man!

Of the feminine attainers to this measure, says a writer in the American Queen, the women who are taking up their lives and living them fully in all their length and breadth and dignity, as lives must be lived to reach the cosmic standard of the pyramidal man, there is found one pre-eminent type in that woman of letters against whom a hard battle is being waged to-day.

To woman emancipated, freed from veil and harem, elevated from her primal position when she was but the toy and tool of man’s passion, this age of civilization points with a pride whose justifiableness has yet to be proved. Exterior liberty she has gained indeed; but in the face of the fact that this universal crusade against women of letters is but the determination to hold the old shackles on heart and brain, what is her alleged emancipation but a lengthening of the chain which still binds her in moral and mental bondage.

“The shrieking sisterhood,” be it said in justice to the sex, represent a small minority. Few and far between are the women who would usurp man’s place on platform or at poll; still fewer and farther apart the advocate of woman’s right to drop her petticoat for the untrammeled freedom of the trousers. But the great-hearted woman, yearning for recognition as paramount forces of social regeneration—the great-minded women taking up the problems of life and grappling with them for the sake of their weaker sisters—these are many, confined and silenced within the gilded bars which society is daily drawing closer and stronger about them. This narrowing of woman’s sphere, this withholding her from anything but a mission purely physical, is but a different form of the old barbarism whose alleged destruction is the boast of the present day; and the time is not far distant when the wrong must be acknowledged and amended, or retrogression brand the age for which we so proudly claim progression! Let the hackneyed cry of woman’s intellectual inferiority prove its truth, conclusively, as it has not yet been proved, or let it be silenced forever! The cranial differences existent between the sexes, upon which the theoristic foundation of their respective superiority and inferiority of intellect has been laid, are, in truth, the exponents of sexual intellectual equality, science having proclaimed them the visible proofs of that mutual dependence and adaptability which, sexually, mind has for mind, as body for body. Let this truth be no longer denied; let present social theories hold their sway, and in a generation of pigmies, moral, mental, and physical, our race, in all its glorious potentialities, must sink ignominiously into oblivion. This is an important fact, of which society seems to have lost sight—that upon the women of to-day and of to-morrow the coming man is wholly dependent, type being the transmitter of type, according to its kind. The increase of female education has naturally awakened women to a recognition of all her latent intellectual possibilities, and hence the growth of feminine ranks in that wide field whose battles are fought with a weapon “mightier than the sword.” The recruits of to-day are not all Mrs. Brownings nor George Eliots, but the world will lose infinitely in good and strength and sweetness if the budding Adelaide Proctors and Mrs. Burnetts are blighted by the propagation of that harsh masculine doctrine which, stripped of its pretty sophisms, is resolved into the bare assertion that a woman of talent is a woman unsexed! This doctrine, false, shallow, and unjust, is the enemy with whom woman is battling to-day.

May the pyramidal prophecy soon be verified when “all things shall be compared in pure truth and righteousness.” Then the conflict shall be ended and the intellectual growth of woman be revealed, the heightener, enricher, purifier of that emotional development which is the essence of ideal womanhood—an essence thrilling as deeply and tenderly the hearts of the humble followers in her footsteps as it thrilled the hearts of that greatest of woman poets, who sang:

pointing in the zenith of her fame to the divine right of maternity as the supreme, holiest and sweetest potentiality of womanhood.

Give the Babies Water.

A recent editorial article in the New York Medical Record contains the following pertinent remarks on the value of water in the treatment of sick infants:

“With the exception of tuberculosis, no disease is so fatal in infancy as intestinal catarrh occurring especially during the hot summer months, and caused, in the majority of cases, by improper diet. There are many upon whom the idea does not seem to have impressed itself, that an infant can be thirsty without, at the same time, being hungry. When milk, the chief food of infants, is given in excess, acid fermentation results, causing vomiting, diarrhœa, with passage of green or yellowish-green stools, elevated temperature, and the subsequent train of symptoms which are too familiar to need repetition. The same thing would occur in the adult, if drenched with milk. The infant needs no food, but drink. The recommendation of some writers, that barley-water or gum-water be given to the little patients in these cases, is sufficient explanation of their want of success in treating this affection. Pure water is perfectly innocuous to infants, and it is difficult to conceive how the seeming prejudice to it ever arose. Any one who has ever noticed the avidity with which a fretful sick infant drinks water, and marks the early abatement of febrile and other symptoms, will be convinced that water, as a beverage, a quencher of thirst, a physiological necessity, in fact, should not be denied to the helpless member of society. We have often seen an infant which had been dosed ad nauseam for gastro-intestinal irritability, assume, almost at once, a more cheerful appearance, and rapidly grow better, when treated to the much-needed draught of water. If any prescription is valuable enough to be used as routine practice, it is, ‘Give the babies water.’”

Work for Little Fingers.

To make a pretty little pitcher, cut off the small end of an egg, then carefully remove the yolk and white of the egg; next take a narrow strip of colored paper and paste it around the edge of the opening, making the paper pinked in one place so as to look like the mouth of a pitcher. Then paste a strip around the other end of the egg so that it will stand alone; to finish the pitcher paste on a strip of paper bent in the shape of a handle. Cups may be made in the same manner by cutting away more of the shell than would be cut in making a pitcher. Pretty air castles are made by cutting egg shells in half, building the cut edges with colored paper or cloth, and fastening to them bright colored cord or silk by which to suspend them. These air castles look pretty when suspended from brackets, hanging lamps, etc. The pitchers, cups and air-castles may be improved by being ornamented with small pictures pasted on them.

Breakfast Cocoa, as a beverage, is universally conceded superior to all other drinks for the weary man of business or the more robust laborer. The preparations of Walter Baker & Co., have long been the standard of merit in this line, and our readers who purchase “Baker’s Breakfast Cocoa” will find it a most healthful, delicious and invigorating beverage.

A man passes for what he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people’s estimate of us, and idle is all fear of remaining unknown. If a man knows that he can do anything—that he can do it better than any one else—he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of the fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment days, and into every assembly that man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped.

UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
AMERICAN
Veterinary College,

141 West 54th St., New York City.

The regular course of lectures commences in October each year. Circular and information can be had on application to

The following list embraces the names of responsible and reliable Breeders in their line, and parties wishing to purchase or obtain information can feel assured that they will be honorably dealt with:

SCHEIDT & DAVIS, Dyer, Lake Co., Ind., breeders of Victoria swine. Originators of this famous breed. Stock for Sale. Write for circular A.

mostly imported direct from Holland. These choice dairy animals are for sale at moderate prices. Correspondence solicited or, better, call and examine the cattle, and select your own stock.

Dana’s White Metallic Ear Marking Label, stamped to order with name, or name and address and numbers. It is reliable, cheap and convenient. Sells at sight and gives perfect satisfaction. Illustrated Price-List and samples free. Agents wanted.

All of fine quality, solid color and bk. points. Ages, from six to eighteen months. Sons of Mahkeenae, 3290; brother of Eurotus, 2454, who made 778 lbs. butter in a year, and out of cows of the best butter blood, some having records of fourteen and fifteen lbs. per week. No fancy prices.

N. B.—If I make sales as formerly will send a car with man in charge to Cleveland, getting lowest rates.

SCOTCH COLLIE

SHEPHERD PUPS,

—FROM—

IMPORTED AND TRAINED STOCK

—ALSO—

Newfoundland Pups and Rat Terrier Pups.

Concise and practical printed instruction in Training young Shepherd Dogs, is given to buyers of Shepherd Puppies; or will be sent on receipt of 25 cents in postage stamps.

For Printed Circular, giving full particulars about Shepherd Dogs, enclose a 3-cent stamp, and address

All farmers have had trouble with their Coulters. In a few days they get to wabbling, are condemned and thrown aside. In our

we furnish a tool which can scarcely be worn out; and when worn, the wearable parts, a prepared wood journal, and movable thimble in the hub (held in place by a key) can be easily and cheaply renewed. We guarantee our “BOSS” to plow more acres than any other three Coulters now used.

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We claim our Seeds are Unsurpassed. Their vitality and purity being tested before sending out. We OFFER $665.00 IN CASH PRIZES FOR 1884 Competition open to all. See Catalogue for particulars. We desire that all may compete for these prizes, and give our seeds a fair trial, feeling sure of making a permanent customer of every purchaser, and to introduce them into thousands of new homes will send free by mail on receipt of ONE DOLLAR amounting at regular prices to $2.65, OUR SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BOX OF SEEDS, containing large size packets of all best new and standard varieties, as follows: 3 Remarkable Cabbages. Johnson & Stokes Earliest, 10 days earlier than any other, Early Favorite Savoy, richer than Cauliflower. J. & S. Premium Flat Dutch, the standard Winter Cabbage. $80 CASH PRIZES for heaviest heads. 2 Handsome new Beets. Eclipse and Philadelphia Perfection, $10 PRIZE for the best. 3 Delicious New Melons, Golden Gem—Musk. Boss, and Sweet Icing—Water. $50 CASH PRIZES for best Melons. 3 Superior Onions, our Pedigree stock. Southport Red Globe, Extra Early Red, and Yellow Danvers. Livingston’s New Favorite Tomato, New Ne Plus Ultra Sweet Corn, best of all: New Lemon Pod Wax Bean. American Wonder Pea. Philadelphia Prize Head and New Satisfaction Lettuce. Green Prolific Cucumber. Improved Long Orange Carrot. Sugar Parsnip. New Dwarf Extra Curled Parsley. Mammoth Etampes Bright Red Pumpkin. Early French Breakfast Radish. New White Strasburgh Summer Radish. California Mammoth Winter Radish. Long White Salsify. Perfect Gem Squash. New Extra Early Munich Turnip, and a trial packet of the Wonderful New Welcome Oats. We will put in each box, free of charge, 3 packets of Choice Flower Seeds as a present to your wife, mother or daughter, in all 32 Packages. Send a $1 BILL, postal note, or stamps, in an ordinary letter, and you will receive the box by return mail, and if not satisfied we will return your money. 3 Boxes mailed for only $2.50 OUR FLOWER COLLECTION comprising 10 Packets of the Choicest Flower Seeds, each beautifully illustrated in colors, with full directions for culture, sent postpaid for 25c. in stamps. FIVE COLLECTIONS, $1.00. ORDER NOW, and get our NEW AND COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE. Mailed FREE. Address,

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OUR YOUNG FOLKS

THE LEGEND OF THE STORKS AND THE BABIES.

A Chat About Halifax.

Halifax is, as you all know, the capital of Nova Scotia, which is one of the provinces of British North America, and thus is under the dominion of the Queen. It is just what I should imagine a real old English city to be—very odd and antiquated, and yet picturesquely beautiful, and altogether a most charming place in which to spend a summer.

Never shall I forget the stroll I took alone the second morning after my arrival. The day was one of those rarely perfect ones in July. All nature seemed wrapped in a dreamy repose; the heat of the sun was tempered by the soft sea breezes blowing from the grand old ocean not many leagues away, whose roar sounded like the voice of many waters, soothing, restful, and sweet.

It happened that my wanderings led me in to some of the older portions of the city where the houses are many of them two hundred years old. And such funny, queer old houses. They seemed, somehow, to have a slanting look to them; it may have been, however, that it was because the streets were so hilly, and such a contrast to our flat, level prairies.

Right in the midst of the city, among the stores (shops they call them) and houses one comes suddenly upon the graveyards—some of them not now in use, but still left there. What interested me was the flat tombstones. When a little girl my father used to tell me of how the children would take their dolls to the cemetery and play upon and under the grave stones. Do I hear you exclaim, “What, play under a grave stone!” I do not wonder, for it seemed a funny thing to me, but it was quite clear when I saw how the marble slabs were placed. Instead of standing in an upright position, as you have always seen them, they were laid flat and raised some distance from the ground (high enough for a child to crawl under comfortably) by means of little marble posts. I used often to roam through these cemeteries with a dear old gentleman who would tell me stories of the brave young sailor boys buried there, far away from their own loved English homes.

Halifax is one of the most strongly fortified cities in America, and at every turn one meets the red coated soldiers in the streets—when they are not on duty. What would interest our boys would be to see a sham battle; the officers and soldiers all in uniform, eager and active as for a real encounter with the enemy.

One day I went to visit the strongest fort the city contains. It is called Citadel Hill, and overlooks and commands the harbor; which by the way, is considered one of the finest in the world. This Citadel is merely an immense hill, covering nearly half a mile of ground and situated in the very heart of the city. When you have climbed to the top you come upon a large opening, and looking down see a long flight of iron steps leading to the ground, many, many feet below. The hill is excavated and stored with arms and ammunition of all kinds, and great cannons, that look so cruel. All along the outer edge of this excavation were little rooms in which the married soldiers lived with their families. I pitied the little children that had to live in this way, without any home feeling—never knowing at what moment their father might be called away, for a soldier’s life is necessarily a roving one.

This hill would make a grand coasting place in the winter, and one which I have no doubt the little Blue Nose boys and girls often avail themselves of. In Halifax not only the boys and girls, but the men and women also, make much more of winter sports than we do. The large and elegant skating rink I hear has just been opened and, the regimental band have given a grand concert in honor of the occasion.

Snow-shoeing used to be indulged in largely, but in the city the custom is, I believe, somewhat falling off. I do not think you Western boys and girls could hardly imagine what odd, pretty suits the girls make to go skating and snow-shoeing in. The one I saw was made of two large white flannel bed-blankets, with a bright scarlet and blue border. The suit consisted of a skirt, circular-like cloak, and cap with a long side flap to it, which hung nearly to the shoulder. My cousin dressed herself all up in her pretty rig and then got down her wooden snow-shoes and buckled them on. She looked like a winter fairy all ready for an Arctic expedition.

I must confess I could hardly understand how she could manage to walk in the great unwieldy looking shoes, which were nearly five times as large as an ordinary shoe, but she assured me it was great fun and easily done.

I heard an amusing story there about a minister who wished to be married, but who lived a long distance from the neighboring minister, and the snow was very deep, and there was but one pair of snow-shoes. Not wishing to wait until spring he hit upon a novel plan which was this:

That his ladylove should stand upon the back of his snow-shoes, clasp her arms tightly around her future lord’s waist, and thus be carried safely to the neighboring kirk, which she accordingly did. You see this required no real effort on the lady’s part, only, I should judge, a great deal of pluck and nerve power, as well as love. However the story is that they accomplished the journey in safety and were duly married.

One of the prettiest drives in Halifax can be had in a place called the park (what we would call a park proper they call the gardens). This park, situated in the southern part of the city and overlooking an arm of the ocean, has twenty miles of smooth, beautiful roads winding around, and circling in and out among the trees. The roads were made by the soldiers, who received for their work twenty-five cents a day besides their regular army pay. There is also another strong fort in this park. There are, I think, nine forts, strongly garrisoned in and about the city.

I wonder if any of The Prairie Farmer boys and girls have the same desire that I had when living away out West, where I never saw water, much less a ship, to go through a large ocean steamship. If you have I hope that some day you may be able to have your wish gratified as I had mine.

One morning my friend said, “Will you go to a concert this afternoon or go and visit the ships?” “The ships of course,” I cried, and to the ships we went. The “Scotia” was just in on her way from Liverpool to New York, crowded with passengers. It was noon when we went on board, and the long tables were being laid out in the salon. Most of the cabin passengers were out “doing” the city so we saw only the steerage passengers. Now I had heard much of the steerage passengers, but really never imagined them to be such a poor, miserable looking set of beings. They sat around almost anywhere with a plate of soup or a dish full of other unpalatable appearing food and ate as though they did not care much whether they lived or died. I longed to speak to the children and the downcast looking mothers, but they were nearly all of foreign birth, and would not have understood me if I had.

Many of the better class of passengers were in the little side rooms at their private meals, but we only caught side glimpses of them passing through. It was a very pleasant sensation to sit in the handsome saloon and almost imagine yourself to be sailing, sailing away in the great noble ship to the land of your dreams and fancies.

There are many more things of interest about this pretty city I would like to touch upon, but I fear my space is already occupied, so will have to say good-by for this week.

The Little Legislatures.

Most of these are in session again over the land. I do not mean those law-making bodies which meet annually at the State capitols to undo what they had done before, or otherwise make work for the courts and lawyers. But I allude to those little assemblies of young folks—lads and lasses—that weekly meet in the winter season in all the thousand and one school-houses and rural halls throughout our country. Legislatures did I call them? Not quite legislatures; but training schools in which legislators are made; and it is in these that our rising youth are qualifying themselves to govern the country that is so soon to be theirs.

Little as we may think of it, these assemblies, under whatever name they may be known—lyceums, societies, clubs, or “legislatures,”—are a power in the land; they do far more than most people think in forming the characters and fixing the opinions of the great multitude of boys and girls who participate in them. They are to-day more numerous than ever before, though they have been abroad in the land for more than half a century. Many of the leading actors on the world’s stage at the present day owe their position to the influence of one or more of these little associations of which they formed a part in their boyhood days. The writer of this could not count on his fingers the number of his associates in boyhood, who have risen out of these schools to positions of honor and trust in the country.

But there is a marked feature belonging to them now that did not exist a half century ago, the result of a vast change that has been made in public sentiment within that period. Then they were confined only to the boys; now the girls participate in them almost, if not quite, as freely as their brothers; and it must be confessed that in a great majority of cases the result has been beneficial to both sexes. The fogyism of that day stoutly protested that hens should not be permitted to crow, yet they persisted in learning the art, and conservatism has been forced to acknowledge that they can crow vociferously and to good effect. And these institutions have proven to be good crowing schools to girls.

Let these associations be encouraged in every school district; but care should be taken by the elder class that they be properly organized and conducted in an orderly manner. Youthful zeal and ardor will be apt to break out into rudeness and disorder, unless held in check by the aged and experienced. Let the older, then, wherever these associations exist, see to it that they are prudently managed—else instead of blessings they will become evils in the community.

The points to which these efforts should be mainly directed, should be—first, plain rules for their government; second, a strict adherence to them when adopted; a diversity of exercises—not too much debate, and not too many essays; fourth, the avoidance of all personal matters; and fifth, a judicious selection of subjects. With these points held well in view, and with a serious desire for improvement, these institutions can not but be useful; otherwise they should be discontinued.

Farmers everywhere ought to encourage the formation of these institutions in their respective neighborhoods, and aid their sons and daughters in carrying them forward. Give them your countenance and your counsel.

Walking Canes.

The material of which walking sticks are made is as various as can well-nigh be conceived of. Many are imported woods—some from the tropics, China and the East Indies. The celebrated Whongee canes are from China, where they are well known and celebrated for the regularity of their joints, which are the points from which the leaves are given off, and the stems of a species of phyllosiachys, a gigantic grass, closely allied to the bamboo. The orange and lemon are highly prized, and are imported chiefly from the West Indies, and perfect specimens command enormous prices. The orange stick is known by its beautiful green bark, with fine white longitudinal markings, and the lemon by the symmetry of its proportions, and both prominence and regularity of its knobs. Myrtle sticks also possess a value, since their appearance is so peculiar that their owner would seldom fail to recognize them. They are imported from Algeria. The rajah stick is an importation. It is the stem of a plant and a species of calamus. It is grown in Borneo, and takes its name from the fact that the Rajah will not allow any to go out of the country unless a heavy duty is paid. These canes, known as palm canes, are distinguished by an angular and more or less flat appearance. Their color is brownish, spotted, and they are quite straight, with neither knob nor curl. They are the petioles of leaf stalk of the date palm. Perhaps the most celebrated of the foreign canes are the Malacca, being the stems of the calamus sceptonum, a slender climbing palm, and not growing around Malacca, as the name would seem to indicate, but imported from Stak, on the opposite coast of Sumatra. Other foreign canes are ebony, rosewood, partridge or hairwood, and cactus, which, when the pith is cut out, presents a most novel appearance, hollow and full of holes.

Shortly after Miss Alcott’s “Little Women” was published a quiet-looking lady entered a Boston circulating library and asked a lady clerk to pick her out “a good book that would rest and amuse her.” Naturally “Little Women” was offered, and declined. “It’s very nice; you’d like it,” urged the clerk. “I should not care to read it,” said the other. “But at least look at it.” “No,” came the answer, firmly and with an odd smile; “it is not a book that I should care to read.” Then the clerk, pretty angry, walked away to the chief librarian and cried: “There’s a woman down there wants a book, and if you want her waited on somebody else must do it. I won’t.” “Why, why not?” “Why, she says ‘Little Women’ isn’t good enough for her to read.” “Do you know who that lady is?” “No, and I don’t care.” “Well, I’ll tell you. That is Louise M. Alcott. Now go and get her a book.”

A Michigan girl told her young man that she would never marry him until he was worth $100,000. So he started out with a brave heart to make it.

“How are you getting on George?” she asked at the expiration of a couple of months.

The girl dropped her eyelashes and blushingly remarked: “I reckon that’s near enough, George.”

The elegant equipment of coaches and sleepers being added to its various through routes is gaining it many friends. Its patrons fear no accidents. Its perfect track of steel, and solid road-bed, are a guarantee against them.

Sows perfectly all Grain and Grass Seeds. Hand Machine sows 4 acres while operator walks or rides a mile.

sows perfectly all Garden Seeds. Chicago Market Gardeners prefer it to all others, calling it Best in the World. Do not buy without investigating the Matthews. Beware of Worthless Imitations. Send for circular and prices. We are General Western Agents. SPECIAL PRICES TO THE TRADE.

TOOLS and IMPLEMENTS. We carry a large and complete stock for the Lawn, Garden and Greenhouse.

Philadelphia LAWN MOWERS Are used on all the celebrated Chicago Parks. They are light running, clean cutting, and are the BEST Lawn Mowers made. Write for descriptive catalogue and prices. We are the General Western Agents.

CARDS 40 Satin Finish Cards, New Imported designs, name on and Present Free for 10c. Cut this out. CLINTON BROS. & Co., Clintonville, Ct.

Literature

LOGIC.

DON’T WAIT.

THE CURFEW HEROINE.

The story that is the basis of the well-known poem, “Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,” told in prose is as follows:

It lacked quite half an hour of curfew toll. The old bell-ringer came from under the wattled roof of his cottage stoop and stood with uncovered head in the clear sweet-scented air. He had grown blind and deaf in the service, but his arm was as muscular as ever, and he who listened this day marked no faltering in the heavy metallic throbs of the cathedral bell. Old Jasper had lived through many changes. He had tolled out the notes of mourning for good Queen Bess, and with tears scarcely dry he had rung the glad tidings of the coronation of James. Charles I. had been crowned, reigned, and expiated his weakness before all England in Jasper’s time, and now he who under army held all the common wealth in the hollow of his hand, ruled as more than monarch, and still the old man with the habit of a long life upon him rang his matin and sorrow.

The wall of his memory seemed so written over—so crossed and recrossed by the annals of the years that had gone before, that there seemed little room for anything in the present. Little recked he that Cromwell’s spearsmen were camped on the moor beyond the village—that Cromwell himself rode with his guardsmen a league away; he only knew that the bell had been rung in the tower when William the Conqueror made curfew a law, had been spared by Puritan and Roundhead, and that his arm for sixty years had never failed him at even-tide.

He was moving with a slow step toward the gate, when a woman came hurriedly in from the street and stood beside him; a lovely woman, but with a face so blanched that it seemed carved in the whitest of marble, with all its roundness and dimples. Her great, solemn eyes were raised to the aged face in pitiful appeal, and the lips were forming words that he could not understand.

“Jasper, for sweet heaven’s sake—for my sake—for one night in all your long life forget to ring the bell! Fail this once and my lover shall live, whom Cromwell says shall die at curfew toll. Do you hear? my lover, Richard Temple. See, Jasper, here is my money to make your old age happy. I sold my jewelry that the Lady Maud gave me, and the gold shall be yours for one curfew.”

“Would you bribe me, Lily De Vere? Ye’re a changeling. Ye’re na the blood of the Plantagenets in ye’re veins as ye’re mother had. What, corrupt the bell-ringer under her majesty, good Queen Bess? Not for all the gold that Lady Maud could bring me! Babes have been born and strong men have died before now at the ringing of my bell. Awa’! Awa’!”

And out on the village green with the solemn shadows of the lichens lengthening over it, a strong man awaited the curfew toll for his death. He stood handsome, and brave, and tall—taller by an inch than the tallest pikeman who guarded him.

What had he done that he should die? Little it mattered in those days, when the sword that the great Cromwell wielded was so prone to fall, what he or others had done. He had been scribe to the late lord up at the castle, and Lady Maud, forgetting that man must woo and woman must wait, had given her heart to him without the asking, while the gentle Lily De Vere, distant kinswoman and poor companion of her, had, without seeking, found the treasures of his true love and held them fast. Then he had joined the army and made one of the pious soldiers whose evil passions were never stirred but by sign or symbol of poetry. But a scorned woman’s hatred had reached him even there. Enemies and deep plots had compassed him about and conquered him. To-night he was to die.

The beautiful world lay as a vivid picture before him. The dark green wood above the rocky hill where Robin Hood and his merry men had dwelt; the frowning castle with its drawbridge and square towers, the long stretch of moor with the purple shadows upon it, the green, straight walks of the village, the birds overhead, even the daisies at his feet he saw. But ah! more vividly than all, he saw the great red sun with its hazy veil lingering above the trees as though it pitied him with more than human pity.

He was a God fearing and a God serving man. He had long made his peace with heaven. Nothing stood between him and death—nothing rose pleadingly between him and those who were to destroy him but the sweet face of Lily De Vere, whom he loved. She had knelt at Cromwell’s feet and pleaded for his life. She wearied heaven with her prayers, but all without avail.

Slowly now the great sun went down. Slowly the last rim was hid beneath the greenwood. Thirty seconds more and his soul would be with God. The color did not forsake his cheeks. The dark rings of hair lay upon a warm brow. It was his purpose to die as martyrs and brave men die. What was life that he should cling to it? He almost felt the air pulsate with the first heavy roll of the death knell. But no sound came. Still facing the soldiers with his clear gray eyes upon them he waited.

The crimson banners in the west were paling to pink. The kine had ceased their lowing, and had been gathered into the rick yards.

The bell-ringer, with his gray head yet bared, had traversed half the distance between his cottage and the ivy-covered tower when a form went flitting past him, with pale, shadowy robes floating round it, and hair that the low western lights touched and tinted as with a halo.

“Ah, Huldah, Huldah!” the old man muttered; “how swift she flies? I will come soon dear. My work is almost done.”

Huldah was the good wife who had gone from him in her early womanhood, and for whom he had mourned all his long life. But the fleeting form was not Huldah’s. It was Lily De Vere, hurried by a sudden and desperate purpose toward the cathedral.

“So help me God, curfew shall not ring to-night! Cromwell and his dragoons come this way. Once more I will kneel at his feet and plead.”

She entered the ruined arch. She wrenched from its fastening the carved and worm-eaten door that barred the way to the tower. She ascended with flying and frenzied feet the steps; her heart lifted up to God for Richard’s deliverance from peril. The bats flew out and shook the dust of centuries from the black carving. As she went up she caught glimpses of the interior of the great building, with its groined roof, its chevrons and clustered columns; its pictured saint and carved image of the virgin, which the pillages of ages had been spared to be dealt with by time, the most relentless vandal of all.

Up—still—up—beyond the rainbow tints thrown by the stained glass across her death-white brow; up—still—up—past open arch, with griffin and gargoyles staring at her from under bracket and cornice, with all the hideousness and mediæval carving; the stairs, flight by flight, growing frailer beneath her young feet; now but a slender network between her and the outer world; but still up.

Her breath was coming short and gasping. She saw through an open space old Jasper cross the road at the foot of the tower. Oh, how far! The seconds were treasures which Cromwell, with all his blood-bought commonwealth, could not purchase from her. Up—ah—there, just above her with its great brazen mouth and wicked tongue, the bell hung. A worm eaten block for a step, and one small white had clasped itself above the clapper—the other prepared, at the tremble, to rise and clasp its mate, and the feet to swing off—and thus she waited. Jasper was old and slow, but he was sure and it came at last. A faint quiver, and the young feet swung from their rest, and the tender hands clasped for more than their precious life the writhing thing. There was groaning and creaking of the rude pulleys above, and then the strokes came heavy and strong. Jasper’s hand had not forgot its cunning, nor his arm its strength. The tender, soft form was swung and dashed to and fro. But she clung to and caressed the cold, cruel thing. Let one stroke come and a thousand might follow—for its fatal work would be done. She wreathed her white arms about it, so that with every pull of the great rope it crushed into the flesh. It tore her, and wounded and bruised; but there in the solemn twilight the brave woman swung and fought with the curfew, and God gave her victory.

The old bell-ringer said to himself: “Aye, Huldah, my work is done. The pulleys are getting too heavy for my old arms; my ears, too, have failed me. I dinna hear one stroke of the curfew. Dear old bell! it is my ears that have gone false, and not thou. Farewell old friend.”

And just beyond the worn pavement a shadowy form again went flitting past him. There were drops of blood upon the white garments, and the face was like the face of one who walked in her sleep, and her hands hung wounded and powerless at her side. Cromwell paused with his horsemen under the dismantled May-pole before the village green. He saw the man who was to die at sunset standing up in the dusky air, tall as a king and beautiful as Absalom. He gazed with knitted brow and angry eye, but his lips did not give utterance to the quick command that trembled on them, for a girl came flying toward him. Pikeman and archer stepped aside to let her pass. She threw herself upon the turf at his horse’s feet; she lifted her bleeding and tortured hands to his gaze, and once more poured out her prayer for the life of her lover; with trembling lips she told him why Richard still lived—why the curfew had not sounded.

Lady Maud looking out of her latticed window at the castle, saw the great protector dismount, lift the fainting form in his arms and bear her to her lover. She saw the guards release their prisoner, and she heard the shouts of joy at his deliverance; then she welcomed the night that shut the scene out from her envious eye and sculptured her in its gloom.

At the next matin bell old Jasper died, and at curfew toll he was laid beside the wife who had died in his youth, but the memory of whom had been with him always.

Work every hour, paid or unpaid, see only that thou work, and thou canst not escape thy reward. Whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought. No matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

No one loves to tell a tale of scandal but to him that loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and silence the detracting tongue by refusing to hear. Never make your ear the grave of another’s good name.

There is nothing by which I have through life more profited than by the just observations, the good opinions, and sincere and gentle encouragement of amiable and sensible women.

Self-control is promoted by humility. Pride is a fruitful source of uneasiness. It keeps the mind in disquiet. Humility is the antidote to this evil.

Those beings only are fit for solitude who like nobody, are like nobody, and are liked by nobody.

A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate.

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Be sure and get the New Edition, with Doyle’s Log Table. Price, 35 cents, by mail, postpaid.

OLD SHOES.

An Obstinate Wife.

The other night a policeman who was patrolling High street east, heard a whistle blown, followed by shouts for “police!” and after a run of half a block he came to a halt in front of a house where a second-story window was raised and a man had half his length over the sill.

“No! no! I tells my vhife to go, but she won’t stir! She shumps into bedt und covers oop her headt, und I vhas left to do all der fighting und be kilt! Dot’s der kind of a vhife she vhas!”

The officer investigated, to find that cats were responsible for the noises, and as he retired the householder was calling to his wife:

“Mary, if you go down I shtand on der stairs mit a light und a shot-gun und shoot eafery burglar like tunder.”

Wanted Weather-Strips.

“Didn’t I leave an order here three days ago for weather-strips?” demanded an indignant citizen of the proprietor of a Woodward avenue store yesterday.

“On the doors—of course—who in Halifax ordered them on the doors of the house? I wanted them strips for the barn doors!”

“Certainly I did. Do you suppose I want draughts of air sweeping in on my poor horses this kind o’ weather?”

It’s a Telephone.

A well-to-do but unsophisticated back-woodsman was in the city lately, attending the Fat Stock Show, and brought along his wife and daughters to see the sights and do some shopping. Among other places they visited was Mandel’s new store, and after wandering around the first floor for a while the party came to a stop near the elevators.

One of the daughters was first to discover the cars moving silently up and down, receiving and discharging their cargoes of passengers. She jerked her father’s coat sleeve to direct his attention to the phenomenon, and in a tone that was audible to the clerks in the neighborhood asked:

The old man gave the elevator a long, calm, deliberate, scrutinizing stare, and exclaimed with joy:

An Emergency.

A few days ago a man with a weak and humble expression, and wearing a summer suit of clothes, applied to one of the railroad passenger agents for a dead-head pass to Toledo.

“Hadn’t you better be worth your fare to Toledo before taking a wife on your hands to support?”

“You don’t understand the case,” protested the man. “I’m going to marry a widow worth at least $5,000, and the first thing I shall do will be to remit you the price of a ticket. I’m poor, and the widow knows it, but she marries me for love.”

He protested so long and earnestly that he was finally passed down the road. Two days elapsed, and then a letter was received from him saying:

“Heaven bless you for your kindness? Reached here all right, and married the widow according to programme. It turns out that she isn’t worth a copper. In this emergency may I ask you to pass us both to Detroit, where I have hopes of striking a job?”

The fellow who went into a sink hole clear to his nose remarked that it wasn’t much, as he had only gotten in up to his sneeze, and he had gum boots on.

“We have struck smoother road, haven’t we?” asked a passenger of a conductor on an Arkansas railway. “No.” replied the conductor. “We have only run off the track.”

Has it ever occurred to you that the initials N. J. stand not only for New Jersey, but New Jerusalem? There’s the same uncertainty of significance in certain words beginning with H—one of which is Heaven.

“You are the most stuck-up chap I ever saw,” remarked a young lady to a youth whom she met at a taffy pull. To which he replied: “And you are just as sweet as you are candid.” Another leap-year horror.

“Rebecca,” said Mose Schaumberg, an Austin merchant prince to his wife. “I vants you to gif me your photograph.” “Und vat in the vorld do you vant mit mine photograph?” inquired the wife. “I vants to paste it on mine pipe. Times vas so pad dad I vants to preak mineself of smoking,” answered Mose.

“Your visits remind me of the growth of a successful newspaper,” said Uncle Jabez, leaning his chin on his cane, and glancing at William Arthur, who was sweet on Angelica. “Why so?” inquired William. “Well, they commenced as a weekly, grew to be a tri-weekly, and have now become daily, with a weekly supplement.”

They were returning home from the theatre and had nearly reached her home, when the young man observed: “Isn’t the weather cold and raw?” She must have misunderstood him. “Raw,” she said, rather hesitatingly. “Yes, I like them raw, but,” she continued, looking sweetly in his eyes, “don’t you think they are nicer fried?” What could he do?

One more unfortunate: Mamma (a widow of considerable personal attractions)—“I want to tell you something, Tommy. You saw that gentleman talking to grandmamma in the other room. Well, he is going to be your new papa. Mamma’s going to marry him.” Tommy (who recollects something of the life his old papa used to lead)—“D-d-does he know it yet mamma?”

“Doctor,” said our young man to a jocular dentist, “I hear you’ve been saying that I’ve got a mouth that always reminds you of the mouth of the Mississippi. Is that so?” “Of course not, my dear boy,” said Burton. “I never said anything so cruel. All I said was that when I was reaching for one of your rear snags I always felt safer when I had a life-preserver around me.”

Queen Victoria took the second prize at the York show with a yearling heifer from her Balmoral farm, and she kicked like a steer because she didn’t get the first. The heifer did, not Victoria. Er himperial majesty kicked too, because the first prize is one shilling thruppence, while the second is only one shilling tuppence happeny, but her protest of course was made in a most majestic and lady-like manner.—Hawkeye.

Some of the richest men in Austin started in life in a very modest way, and are still plain, unpretentious people, but their sons put on a great deal of style. One of the latter, who was better posted about other people’s affairs than his own family’s remarked sneeringly to an acquaintance: “Your father was nothing but a simple stonemason.” “I know where you got that information,” quietly remarked the other. “From whom did I get it?” “From your father.” “How do you know that?” “Because your father used to be my father’s hod-carrier.”

It is a base slander upon the goat to say he eats tomato can labels and circus poster and old hoop skirts and things because he likes them. He is driven to this coarse, and not very nutritious fare, by hard times and destitution. When he can stand on his hind legs and eat his luxurious way along a clothes-line, all the circus posters in the world can’t lure him away from the night shirt and the par boiled sheet. Be just to the goat. And how he does love a coil of manilla rope or a rubber door mat. The fact is, the goat is gifted with a fine rather epicurean taste, and if we could afford to feed him the things he is fond of he would never touch a tomato can.—Hawkeye.

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GENERAL NEWS.

Gould is reducing the pay of employes along his Southwestern system fifty per cent.

The Virginia House has passed the joint resolution asking Senator Mahone to resign.

The Russian authorities have refused to allow a monument of Luther to be erected at Riga.

The lines of the National Telegraph Company have been absorbed by the Baltimore and Ohio.

Last Saturday night Europe experienced one of the severest gales ever known on that Continent.

The issue of silver dollars for the week ending Jan. 26, was 110,000; corresponding period last year 263,000.

E. M. W. Mackey, the Republican Member of Congress for South Carolina, died at Washington, Monday morning.

Mr. Blaine has introduced into the Senate a bill for the free circulation of newspapers within the States where published.

Fred Douglas, the eloquent African, has astonished the natives by marrying a white woman. He is about 70, she 46 years old.

The bodies of the Jeannette victims have reached Moscow, where the American residents placed flowers and wreathes on the biers.

The Chicago Opera-House Company, with a capital of $600,000, has been incorporated at Springfield by Charles Henrotin, Edward Koch, and others.

The Brigham Young Academy, at Provo, Utah, valued at $30,000, was burned Sunday evening. There were four hundred students in the building. No lives lost.

There are now 7,794 ocean steamers belonging to the different nations. About one half the ocean sailing vessels belong to England. Their total number is 36,194.

The famous Smithson college building at Logansport, Indiana, which is said to be the handsomest structure of its kind in the State, is to be purchased and turned into a normal school.

Articles of incorporation have been filed at New York for the Merchants’ Telegraph and Cable Company; capital stock $13,000,000, with power to increase that sum to, but not beyond $20,000,000.

The discovery of tin at King’s mountain, Cleveland county, N. C., is announced. This is the first discovery of this metal in the United States. The State chemist will make a careful examination.

O. A. Carpenter, suspected of the murder of Zora Burns, at Lincoln, Ill., has been indicted by the grand jury, and is now in jail. It is said that sufficient new evidence to convict him has come to light.

It is believed that an agreement has been reached at Pittsburg between the striking glass-workers and the employers. Great concessions are said to have been made on both sides. The strike has lasted five months.

The sergeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives presents bills for $3,461 for escorting the remains of Representative Haskell to Kansas. Among the items is one of $201 for a lunch before starting from Washington.

The newspapers say that one of the jurors in the Emma Bond case spends considerable time in crying; another runs from his house when visitors approach it, and a third has been dismissed by a beautiful woman to whom he was engaged.

The Hay-Shippers’ Association is getting up a petition to the Canadian Government in regard to the excessive duties charged on hay exported to the United States. It is understood that the Government will present the matter to the Washington authorities.

In the French Chamber of Deputies, Monday, Minister Ferry expressed the opinion that to ameliorate the labor crisis in Paris would be a difficult task. The exports were 1,200,000,000 francs in excess of the imports, he said, and within five years 6,000,000 francs had been expended on buildings for which tenants could hardly be obtained.

Young James Nutt was acquitted of the murder of Dukes on the ground of insanity. An after examination of his condition resulted in a declaration that he is no longer insane. The case is one of wide celebrity. Public opinion justifies the verdict. The President, Secretary Chandler, and ex-Secretary Blaine, also indorse the action of the jury.

FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL.

Business at the Chicago banks is by no means brisk, and it is not anticipated that it will be until after the first of February.

Bonds and stocks are more active than for some time. In New York there has been a great boom in what are known as the Villard stocks. It is said that Gould and associates are boosting these stocks and squeezing the shorts unmercifully.

The number of failures reported in the United States during the past seven days was 287, and for Canada 30, a total of 317, against 425 for the previous week, a reduction of 108. The greatest reduction in failures is at the East.

GRAIN AND PROVISIONS.

The Chicago grain markets were quiet on Monday. Wheat took the lead and the market closed about half a cent higher than on Saturday. Foreign advices were favorable; rain was reported in California, and the New York quotations were better.

Wheat.—Red winter, No. 3, 90½; car lots of spring, No. 2, in store sold at 91@91¼c; No. 3, do. 85@86.

Corn.—Moderately active. Car lots No. 2, 52½@52½c; rejected, 43@44; new mixed, 48@50c.

Provisions.—Mess pork, February, $14 75@14 78 per bbl; Green hams, 10½c per lb. Short ribs, $7 65 per cwt.

COUNTRY PRODUCE.

Note.—The quotations for the articles named in the following list are generally for commission lots of goods and from first hands. While our prices are based as near as may be on the landing or wholesale rates, allowance must be made for selections and the sorting up for store distribution.

Butter.—Dull and without change. Choice to extra creamery, 33@36c per lb.; fair to good do 25@32c; fair to choice dairy, 23@28c; common to choice packing stock fresh and sweet, 18@22c; ladle packed 10@13c; fresh made, streaked butter, 9@11c.

Broom-Corn.—Good to choice hurl 6½@7½c per lb.; green self-working 5@6c; red-tipped and pale do 4@5c; inside and covers 3@4c; common short corn 2½@3½c; crooked, and damaged, 2@4c, according to quality.

Cheese.—Choice full-cream cheddars 13½@14c per lb.; medium quality do 10@11c; good to prime full cream flats 13½@14c; skimmed cheddars 9@10c; good skimmed flats 7@9c; hard-skimmed and common stock 3@4c.

Eggs.—In a small way the best brands are quotable at 34@35c per dozen, fresh; 25@28c for good ice house stock; 20@25c per pickled.

Feathers—Quotations: Prime live geese feathers 52@54c per lb.; ducks 25@35c; duck and geese mixed 35@45c; dry-picked chicken feathers body 6@6½c; turkey body feathers 4@4½c; do tail 55@60c; do wing 25@35c; do wing and tail mixed 35@40c.

Hay.—No 1 timothy $ 9@10 per ton; No 2 do $8 00 @8 50; mixed do $7@8; upland prairie $8 00@10 75; No 1 prairie $6@7; No 2 do $4 50@5 50. Small bales sell at 25@50c per ton more than large bales.

Hides and Pelts.—Green-cured light hides 8¼c per lb.; do heavy cows 8c; No 2 damaged green-salted hides 6c; green-salted calf 12@12½ cents; green-salted bull 6c; dry-salted hides 11 cents; No. 2 two-thirds price; No. 1 dry flint 14@14½c. Sheep pelts salable at 28@32c for the estimated amount of wash wool on each pelt. All branded and scratched hides are discounted 15 per cent from the price of No. 1.

Hops.—Prime to choice New York State hops 25@26c per lb.; Pacific coast of 23@26c; fair to good Wisconsin 15@20c.

Honey and Beeswax.—Good to choice white comb honey in small boxes 15@17c per lb.; common and dark-colored, or when in large packages 12@14c; Beeswax ranged at 25@30c per lb., according to quality, the outside for prime yellow.

Poultry.—Prices for good to choice dry picked and unfrozen lots are: Turkeys 13@14c per lb.; chickens 9@10c; ducks 12@13c; geese 9@11c. Thin, undesirable, and frozen stock 2@3c per lb less than these figures; live offerings nominal.

Potatoes.—Good to choice 30@34c per bu. on track; common to fair 25@28c. Illinois sweet potatoes range at $4@5 per bbl for yellow.

Tallow and Grease.—No 1 country tallow 7@7¼c per lb.; No 2 do 6¼@6½c. Prime white grease 6@6½c; yellow 5¼@5¾; brown 4½@5.

Vegetables.—Cabbage, $12@18 per 100; celery, 25@35c per doz bunches; onions, $1 25@1 50 per bbl for yellow, and $1 for red; turnips, $1 35@1 50 per bbl for rutabagas, and $1 00 for white flat.

Wool.—from store range as follows for bright wools from Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Eastern Iowa—dark Western lots generally ranging at 1@2c per lb. less.

LIVE STOCK MARKETS.

Cattle.—The receipts have been large for a few days, and prices have declined about 25 cents per hundred since Thursday of last week. The grade has been far from first-class, but few of them weighing over 1,400 lbs. The export demand for really choice stock was greater than the supply. Common to choice lots sold to shippers at $5@6 70, with some sales as low as $4 75.

Hogs.—Most of the packing houses are closed, yet there are a few packers competing with the shippers. Prices are now about 30 cents lower than last year at this time. Receipts were about 16,000 head on Sunday and Monday. The number of hogs left over last night was very small. The market, however, was rather weak, except for choice, well-fattened hogs. Sales of rough packing hogs were made at $5 50@5 95; good to choice heavy, $6@6 55; light, $5 40@6; skipps and culls, $3 75@5 35.

Note.—All sales of hogs are made subject to a shrinkage of 40 lbs for piggy sows and 80 lbs for stags. Dead hogs sell for 1½c per lb for weights of 200 and over and [Transcriber’s Note: blank in the original] for weights of less than 100 lbs.

Sheep.—The supply was good, yesterday, and also on Sunday, there being 7,500 head, against 3,400 for the same days a week ago. The average grade was poor. Sales ranged from $3 05 to $6 for common to prime. Common lots suffered a decline.

The 1st claim of the Chicago Creamery and Rectangular Can is, that the can has from 250 to 332 more of cooling surface than any round can in use.

3d. It will raise all the cream in ten hours with the water 50 to 55 degrees; no round can can do this in ten hours with ice.

4th. No round or square can containing 4½ gallons of milk, or over, will give as much cream from 100 pounds of milk as this Rectangular.

WE WARRANT all this, and will test the same before any chemist in Chicago, paying all expenses of the test, if any competing Creamery can show as good results.

Are reasonable. We solicit the attention of all butter-makers, confident that we can aid them in getting more profit from their cows than they are now doing.

To aid animals in giving birth. Send for free circular to Wm. Dulin, Avoca, Pottawattamie Co., Ia.

Do you want to change your run-out seed-wheat for something fresh and vigorous? Then try the

An improved variety of the old Scotch Fife, a spring wheat grown from seed brought down from the Saskatchawan Valley in Manitoba. It is enormously productive. Everywhere it has been exhibited it has taken the highest premium for excellence as a pure, hard milling wheat. The Hon. C. A. Pillsbury, at the head of the great Pillsbury Flouring Mills, Minneapolis, says of it:

“I consider it the best and purest Fife Wheat to-day in the Northwest. No such milling wheat has been received at our mills since we have been in the milling business.”

Originators and Proprietors, for their 16-page pamphlet, giving its history and prices.

The quality is the first consideration secured by the most careful selection. The prices, the lowest consistent with sterling merit. Dreer’s Garden Calendar for 1884, offering Vegetable, Flower and Field Seeds, Plants, Bulbs, and everything for the garden, mailed Free. HENRY A. DREER, 714 Chestnut Street, PHILADELPHIA.

First, second and third sizes all splendidly rooted. The two smaller sizes well adapted for distant shipments. Also a full assortment of Nursery Stock, including GREENHOUSE PLANTS,

Catalogue free; send for one. Correspondence solicited. 30th Year. 500 Acres. 21 Greenhouses.

I offer a large stock of Walnuts, Butternuts, Ash, and Box Elder Seeds, suitable for planting. All the growth of 1883. I control the entire stock of the

a valuable, new, hardy variety. Also a general assortment of Nursery stock. Send for catalogue, circular, and price lists. Address

IT WILL PAY TO GET our 1884 catalogue of Small Fruits, all kinds. Ford’s Early Sweet Corn, sweetest best. Early Colton Apple, best quality, hardy in Wisconsin.

OUR NEW POTATO Lee’s Favorite, extremely early, best quality, most productive, 265 lbs. grown from one. Catalogue free.

Send $1 for a new Spanish recipe for preserving eggs, guaranteed to keep them two to three years. Address

Early Mammoth double-eared yellow Field Corn, the Best of 20 years’ selection. 3 lbs by mail, paid, $1; one peek here, $1; 1 bus. $3; 5 bus. $10; 100 bus. $150. Sample 10c.

200 bush. Onion sets, 20,000 Asparagus roots, Raspberry and Strawberry roots, and Champion Potatoes. Italian Bees a specialty. Send for price list for 1884.

NORTHERN GROWN, THOROUGHLY TESTED. Flower Vegetable and Field. 20,000 Catalogues free. Send names of your friends.
FRED. N. LANG, Baraboo, Wis.

Send to the originators for history and terms. A. S. Caywood & Son, Marlboro, N. Y.

COCOONS AND RARE INSECTS bought. Write to K. H. SCHURICHT, 112 Monroe St., Chicago.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRAIRIE FARMER, VOL. 56: NO. 5, FEBRUARY 2, 1884. ***

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	SWINE.
	Chester Whites.
W. A. Gilbert		Wauwatosa Wis.

Phila. Lawn Mowers.	Hedge Shears.
Matthews’ Seed Drills.	Border Shears.
Cahoon Seed Sowers.	Pruning Knives.
Hand Cultivators.	Budding Knives.
Lawn & Garden Rakes.	Hand Weeders, etc.

Volume I	$2 00
Volume II	1 50

Warehouses {	115, 117 & 119 Kinzie St.
	104, 106, 108 & 110 Michigan St.

4’s coupons, 1907	Q. Apr.	123¼
4’s reg., 1907	Q. Apr.	123¼
4½’s coupon, 1891	Q. Mar.	114¹/₈
4½’s registered, 1891	Q. Mar.	114¹/₈
3’s registered	Q. Mar.	100

Choice to favorite white winters	$5 40@5 50
Fair to good brands of white winters	4 75@5 00
Good to choice red winters	5 25@5 50
Prime to choice springs	4 75@5 00
Good to choice export stock, in sacks, extras	4 25@4 50
Good to choice export stock, double extras	4 50@4 65
Fair to good Minnesota springs	4 50@4 75
Choice to fancy Minnesota springs	5 25@5 75
Patent springs	6 00@6 50
Low grades	2 25@3 50

Short dimension, per M	$ 9 50@10 00
Long dimension, per M	10 00@11 50
Boards and strips, No. 2	11 00@13 00
Boards and strips, medium	13 00@16 00
Boards and strips, No. 1 choice	16 00@20 00
Shingles, standard	2 10@ 2 20
Shingles, choice	2 25@ 2 30
Shingles, extra	2 40@ 2 60
Lath	1 65@ 1 70

Coarse and dingy tub	25@30
Good medium tub	31@34
Unwashed bucks’ fleeces	14@15
Fine unwashed heavy fleeces	18@22
Fine light unwashed heavy fleeces	22@23
Coarse unwashed fleeces	21@22
Low medium unwashed fleeces	24@25
Fine medium unwashed fleeces	26@27
Fine washed fleeces	32@33
Coarse washed fleeces	26@28
Low medium washed fleeces	30@32
Fine medium washed fleeces	34@35

	Received.	Shipped.
Cattle	37,991	19,093
Calves	405	102
Hogs	114,732	38,855
Sheep	19,746	14,806

Fancy heavy fat cattle	Nominal.
Choice to prime steers	$ 6 70@ 7 15
Good to choice steers	6 25@ 6 65
Fair to good shipping steers	5 65@ 6 20
Common to medium steers	4 75@ 5 00
Butcher’s steers	4 65@ 5 10
Cows, common to good	3 25@ 4 70
Common canning cattle	2 25@ 3 20
Stockers	3 80@ 4 50
Feeders	4 50@ 5 10
Milch cows, per head	25 00@55 00
Veal calves, per 100 lbs.	4 00@ 7 50


BEFORE.		AFTER.

Lowest grades	14@16
Low medium	18@22
Medium	22@26
Fine	16@24

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 5, February 2, 1884.

The Prairie Farmer

Agriculture

LIVESTOCK DEPARTMENT.

The Dairy.

The Wisconsin Dairymen.

THE ROAD TO THE FACTORY,

CANADA VS. WISCONSIN.

COMPETITION.

WATER IN MILK.

PRIDE IN BUSINESS.

SKIMMING.

THE CHEDDAR.

BY THE ACRE.

THE HOLSTEINS.

CALVES.

ITEMS.

NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES.

Horticultural.

The Farmer’s Garden.

Number Four.

Editorial

Selection of a Site for a Park.

The Brilliant Sunsets.

Household.

OUR YOUNG FOLKS

Literature

HUMOROUS

MARKETS

FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL.

GRAIN AND PROVISIONS.

COUNTRY PRODUCE.

LIVE STOCK MARKETS.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE