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riciilturist 





Vol. 6. 



SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, JANUARY, 1875. 



No. 1. 



Wire in Dried Apples. 



Eds. Aoeiculturist : — Consignmenta of 

 Alden dried fruits have lately been received 

 by our grocers, which are highly approved 

 of by the honse-keepera of San Diego. 

 There is, however, one drawback to the 

 dried apples, and I wish to know if it is 

 an accidental one, incident to the quantity 

 shipped here, or whether it is a usual de- 

 feet in the preserving process. I find 

 minute pieces of wire about the thickness 

 of medium cotton thread, and from an inch 

 to half an inch in length, imbedded in the 

 slices, necessitating the overhauling of every 

 single piece preparatory to cooking. I 

 think it about as safe to swallow a needle 

 or a pin as one of these slight but tough 

 pieces of wire. A busy housekeeper who 

 has little time to spare grudges the bestow- 

 al of so much of it upon a mess of apple- 

 sauce. Mrs. J. P. RowE, 



San Diego. 



We think that the pieces of wire spoken 

 of by our correspondent must have come 

 there by the scaling off of particles of the 

 wire meshes upon which the fruit rested while 

 drying, owing to the action of the heat of the 

 furnace and acids of the fruit upon imperfect 

 ■nires. We never before heard of such a 

 thing. 



Battle Mountain, Nev., I 

 December 20th, 1874. j 



Ed. Agricitltubist. Dear Sir: — Please 

 forward me your valuable paper; enclosed 

 please find price of same. Will you have 

 the kindness to inform me if hogs will do 

 well on raw artichokes, or what general in- 

 formation you may have in relation to feed- 

 ing and fattening hogs on same. Also, if 

 they will do well, whore I can obtain % 

 ton and at what price. Yours Kesp'y, 



H. C. Emmons. 



Wo have seen hogs fatten on the ground 

 artichoke on Spoon River, Illinois. The hogs 

 run in the pastures where they were grow- 

 ing, and rooted them up as they wanted 

 them. We do not know where the roots 

 can be obtained nor at what price. Will 

 some reader who has cultivated them here 

 answer and give their experience. 



Best Advertising Mediums. 



The Agricultural Journals find their sub- 

 scribers mainly among the best class of the 

 country population. They necessarily em- 

 ploy a good deal of various and special 

 talent, and expend on themselves a larger 

 amount of money than other journals, and 

 must therefore obtain a larger circulation to 

 live and thrive. Thus they form a highly 

 important and influential class of news- 

 papers, and have a peculiar value to adver- 

 tisers. Perhaps no others are read so care- 

 fully and thoroughly, and so much pre- 

 served for re-reading and reference. — Ad- 

 vcrtwers' Magazine. 



The mind advances by steps: some men 

 take one, some two, some three. 



The San Jose Society for the Prevention 

 of Cruelty to Animals, has just issued from 

 our ofiice, 1,000 Constitutions and By-laws 

 and the Act under which the Society was in- 

 corporated. It is a 16-page pamphlet, 

 pocket size with a colored cover, and 

 is published for gratuitous distribution. Per- 

 sons wishing to organize snch a society, or 

 feeling an interest in this one should send for 

 a copy. Every humane person must approve 



of its objects. ;■,.;,, ..;;; 

 *-•-> ' - ^ 



Lottery Advertisements-— We have just 



received two grand schemes for swindling the 

 unweary, and been offered great inducements 

 to advertise the same. We wish there was a 

 simple, plain law against advertising such 

 abominations. No decent paper will do it to 

 be sure. It should be reason enough why a 

 paper should not be patronized by respectable 

 persons when, for money, they ■will encourage 

 so shameful a vice as the lottery business. 



Mr. J. J. H. Gregory of Marblehead, 

 Mass., has his annual advertisement in our 

 columns. He was the original introducer of 

 some of the best vegetables now found on 

 every table. He comes this season -nath a 

 new squash, and a number of tempting 

 specialties, some of which are finely illus- 

 trated from engravings taken from photo- 

 graphs. The fact that so many of his 

 varieties of seed are of his own growing, 

 is a golden fact for farmers and gardeners. 

 .•-•-» 



The California State Grange has never 



authorized or given official recognition to any 

 paper in this State as an organ of the Grange 

 movement. Whatever has been published 

 has been done as private speculation by 

 Individuals, at their own discretion. The 

 idea has prevailed that certain papers are 

 Grange organs, and should be respected as 

 such. Patrons should not allow themselves 

 to be humbugged. 



• — < • > 



Sugar Beets for Stock. 



In a paper before the Little Falls, N. T., 

 Farmers' Club, Harris Lewis said: " I have 

 concluded that the best varieties of the 

 French and German sugar beets are the most 

 nutritious, the most acceptable to the cow, 

 and produce the best flavored milk of all the 

 roots I ever fed. But all these sugar beets 

 go down to the crown in the soil, and cost 

 three or four times as much labor per ton to 

 harvest them as it does to harvest any one of 

 the kinds of beets known as the mangold 

 wurzel. Again, the sugar beets seldom yield 

 more than 20 tons per acre, while the man- 

 gold wurzel often j-ields over 40 tons per 

 acre. I would recommend the large wurzel, 

 such as the Norbiton giant, long mammoth, 

 red, yellow ovid and yeUow globe, for gen- 

 eral cultivation, as those kinds that will give 

 the greatest yield per acre, and as cattle food, 

 give entire satisfaction to all dairymen or 

 cattle feeders, who maj- grow and feed them 

 in connection with hay, or other dry forage, 

 during the winter. The more I feed beets to 

 cows the greater value I place upon them, as 

 good, nutritious, health-promoting food. 



LOCAL MO VEMENTS IX BUSINESS. 



A fine, large, new jewelry store has been 

 opened at 324 Santa Clara street, San Jose, by 

 L. Houriet & Co. It is ahead of anything in 

 San Jose in the magnificence of its appoint- 

 ments and amount of stock. 



Business is extending up First sWeet quite 

 rapidly. San Jose seems to be in a prosper- 

 ing condition — more so than for several years 

 past, if we are to judge by the growth of 

 business. 



John Rock has opened his yard in San Jose 

 for the sale of all sorts of fruit, ornamental 

 and shade trees, plants and vines, etc., both 

 out of door and green-house. Mr. Henu is 

 his salesman again this season, and the stand 

 is at the same place, near Wells, Fargo & 

 Co's., First street. 



Our old friend and partner, Mr. L. H. Hol- 

 loway, has sold his grocery store to a gentle- 

 man named Huff, who takes possession the 

 first of this month. Mr. Holloway goes to 

 San Francisco to engage in the same business 

 in connection with a publication to be devoted 

 to the grocery trade, so we understand. 



A new glove factory has opened attractively 

 at 330 First street, under the new Odd Fel- 

 lows' HalL This is an enterprise that is 

 bound to succeed, as already the demand for 

 California made gloves has run out the cheap 

 trash that is imported to make money on. 



Refonn Journals. — Says an exchange: 

 "Journalism in the line of reform is very 

 difiicult business. Somebody has to make 

 sacrifices, and generally the last ones who are 

 willing to make them are those who are most 

 to be benefitted by their being made." The 

 reason why this is so seems to be this: the 

 majority of men and women prefer amusement 

 to Instruction, and would sooner be flattered 

 in their vices than to listen to reproof or 

 make an eflbrt at correction. It is more con- 

 venient to run in the ruts of social opinion 

 than to stem the current in pursuit of some- 

 thing better. The majority of mankind dis- 

 like to reason or act out of the narrow circle 

 of conventional ways and ideas. 



The Santa Clara Valley Agricultural 



Society hold an annual meeting for the elec- 

 tion of oflicers on the 7th of this month. An 

 attempt will be made by those opposed to re- 

 form to perpetuate the horse racing, and pool 

 selling, and liquor selling features, while 

 those who would see the society conducted 

 \nth the object of advaucing the faa*mera' 

 interests and not as a horse race, will oppose 

 it. The life membership is $50, which is so 

 high that but few farmers can afford to take 

 memberships. This gives the jockeys, who 

 can, for the "benefits" derived from their 

 ' ' avocations ' ' afford to join, a chance for a 

 majority. 





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