THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



87 



furrow may be drawn for fifty miles across 

 the alluvial''prairie without meeting a hill, a 

 tree, or stone. Various estimates of the cost 

 of labor for tillage and harvesting have lately 

 been published. If these are correct, an acre 

 of wheat in America can be cultivated for 

 about one-half the expense in labor of culti- 

 vating an acre in England. AVe do not, 

 however, place implicit rehance on such esti- 

 mates. The American farmer, as a rule, 

 does his own work, or the greater part of it. 

 Tlie amount of wages paid in actual money is 

 comparatively small. If he cultivates fifty 

 acres of wlieat, and has growing sons, he may 

 manage without any help, except at harvest 

 time, when he hires an extra hand for a 

 month. If he has no family^to assist him, lie 

 will probably hire a hand for the year at 812 

 or $15 a montii. In all cases board and wages 

 are included, the hired men sitting down to 

 meals with the farmer and his family. We 

 may fairly estimate, then, the capital of £12 

 required by an Englisli farmer to cultivate 

 properly a single acre of land will not more 

 than suftice to purchase and cultivate the two 

 and a half acres which will yield the same 

 amount of wheat in America. Up to this 

 point neither competitor has a decided ad- 

 vantage, and, if anything, tlie difference is, 

 in our opinion, on the side of the home agri- 

 culturist. But the heavy yield in England is 

 only obtained by the application of costly 

 niauures, and this outlay is spared the Ameri- 

 can grower. At present only the richest 

 lauds are cultivated, and the earth yields her 

 increase without any assistance at her hands. 

 Of course this will not last forever. In twenty 

 years' time all the more fertile lands will be 

 taken up, and even these will be exhausted 

 by successive crops. In California the average 

 has already fallen from twenty to fourteen 

 bushels. In the Atlantic States it has long 

 been necessary to revert to a rotation of crops 

 and the application of fertilizers. But until 

 this stage of exhaustion is reached in the 

 Western States, the English farmer will re- 

 quire something more than the set-off of 

 freight against rent charge. This protection 

 the Americans themselves gave them uutil 

 recently. The Morrill tariff imposed an ex- 

 cessive duty on iron, and the construction 

 and maintenance of railways was thereby 

 rendered so costly that it was necessary to 

 mulct the producer in freight. Also, the cost 

 of living was artificially raised by duties im- 

 posed on every article of manufacture. Prior 

 to the war a comparatively free trade policy 

 existed in the United States. Had this been 

 continued, agriculture in the Mississippi Val- 

 ley would years ago have achieved the pros- 

 perous position it has at length reached by 

 the collapse of manufactm-ing industries in 

 the Eastern States. The prostration of every 

 branch of manufactures has been so great that 

 practically the tariff has been in abeyance for 

 the last few years. Should these revive the 

 cost of living will again be raised, and to that 

 extent the former protection restored to the 

 English producers. But this contingency is 

 too remote to arrest the impending fall in 

 rents. It lies entirely at the option of the 

 landlords whether this shall be wholly given 

 in abatement of rent, or partly take the form 

 of security of tenure and protection to the 

 occupier's capital. For the sake of the coun- 

 try at large it is to be hoped they will choose 

 the latter alternative. — London Economist. 



PLEURO-PNEUMONIA. 



Its Symptoms, Treatment, Causes and De- 

 velopment. 



So much is now being said and written 

 about this insidious disease, which is thinning 

 out the dairy stock in many sections of this 

 country that we have selected from the West 

 Chester Republican some explanation of the 

 nature of the epidemic, as given by Dr. J. B. 

 Raynor, a veterinary surgeon who has treated 

 numerous cases of this disease In all of its 

 various stages. 



The doctor says the disease which has now 

 assumed the title of pleuro-pneumonia is not 

 a new one, but has been known under various 



names for the last twenty or thirty years ; at 

 times devastating a whole locality, and at 

 others limiting its attacks to a few cases in a 

 neighborhood. 



Its appearance is manifested by the rough 

 appearance of the hair of the animal attacked, 

 followed by a general dullness, loss of appetite 

 and disinclination to move, the head drooping 

 as the disease progresses, and a short cough, 

 succeeded by a moan of suffering, until death 

 intervenes. This occurs generally about two 

 weeks after the sickness becomes apparent, 

 though prolonged in some cases to tliat of 

 many months; the blood quickly communi- 

 cates its infection to the lunge, and the filling 

 up process goes on, from day to day, until 

 breathing becomes impossible. 



The first stages of the disease are difficult 

 for the casual observer to detect, and the time 

 when treatment would produce relief fre- 

 quently passes by before the animal is known 

 to be afflicted, when it is then too late to 

 resort to any remedies. This irregularity of 

 the discovery of the disease has made it one 

 very diflicult to handle, and each case appears 

 to require special treatment, the only general 

 specific being in external application of 

 mustard, and with blistering in acute cases. 

 The internal treatment is then administered, 

 with reference to the condition of the bowels, 

 but in many cases, despite prompt attention 

 and good care, the remedies have uo effect. 



The primary cause of this scourge is due, in 

 the first place, to close confinement and want 

 of necessary exercise, it most frequently mak- 

 ing its appearance and doing the greatest 

 damage in herds of dairy cows which are 

 fastened up in the stable during the greater 

 portion of the time, with scanty ventilation 

 and forced by high feeding to their utmost 

 producing capacity. This establishes the dis- 

 ease, but its dissemination is brought about 

 by the unscrupulous conduct of persons, who, 

 finding their cows in this condition, have them 

 driven to a distance and sold, with the incipi- 

 ent seeds of pleuro-pneumonia in their sys- 

 tems, to farmers who thus unknowingly inocu- 

 late their healthy stock with the same malady. 

 Instances where this has been done have been 

 traced back to the guilty actors, and a law- 

 was passed a number of years back for Penn- 

 sylvania, and we think is still in existence, 

 making it a misdemeanor for any person to 

 sell or remove any cattle from a place where 

 the disease has raged, within six months after 

 it has been checked, and at the present time it 

 is evident that the only way to prevent a 

 general epidemic is by the enforcement of a 

 stringent.law of this nature, which should in- 

 flict severe penalties on parties guilty of such 

 an offence against the the general welfare. 



To accomplish this a committee of experts 

 in veterinary surgery should visitevery place in 

 the country where the disease makes its appear- 

 ance, and place it in quarantine for a certain 

 period, during which no stock subject to the dis- 

 ease should be allowed to leave 'the premises. 



The only preventive, so far known, which 

 has proved successful, appears to be pure air, 

 exercise and keeping the animal in a healthy 

 condition, by judicious feeding and absence 

 of overcrowding. 



The indications are, that unless precautions 

 of this nature are taken the disease will be- 

 come general in the country, and involve great 

 loss in many ways ; so it behooves all owners 

 of dairy stock to move in the matter, as .soon 

 as possible, for the adoption of measures of 

 defense and prevention. 



The knowledge of the inroads which the 

 disease has made in the dairies in the vicinity 

 of New York and Philadelphia has become 

 widespread, notwithstanding efforts to sup- 

 press it, and the fears of the residents of those 

 cities that they may be consuming the milk 

 and butter of infected cows, or the meat of 

 diseased cattle, which have been at once 

 marketed on the discovery of the evidence of 

 the presence of the pleuro-pneumonia, makes 

 the subject one of the utmost importance 

 to consumers as well as producers, and action 

 tending to extripate the disea.se would meet 

 with strong support on all sides. 



TOBACCO CULTURE IN PENNSYL- 

 VANIA. 



Employment it Indirectly Affords Women. 

 A writer in the Philadelphia Times, who 

 has evidently been suddenly awakened to an 

 appreciation of the magnitude of cultivation 

 of tobacco, says : 



The amount of capital employed in the to- 

 bacco trade of Pennsylvania is considerably 

 over five millions of dollars annually. Re- 

 garded in all its ramifications of extraneous 

 industries, this sum miglit be estimated at 

 little less than ten millions, an immense 

 growth of pro.sperity within the last thirty 

 years. There was a time within the memory 

 of the present generation when Pennsylvania 

 tobacco was only worth two cents per pound 

 in the market. Now the best Lancaster 

 commands from twenty to forty cents. This 

 astonishing advance in the value of an agri- 

 cultural product has been primarily brought 

 about by the sagacious foresight, enterprise 

 and public spirit of one Philadelphia mer- 

 chant, Mr. Raphael Teller, a member of the 

 firm of Teller Brothers. At an early period 

 in his business career, Mr. Teller, who i8 

 both an agriculturist and scientist, discovered 

 that tobacco raised in Pennsylvania was suit- 

 able for making cigars. At the risk of his 

 firm, he sent heavy consignments to California 

 and various foreign markets, and really intro- 

 duced this product, which bids fair to become 

 one of the staples of the Keystone State. The 

 immense benefit this has been to Lancaster 

 county, where the price of the crop is now 

 worth about as much as the price of tlie land 

 upon which it is grown, will be readily under- 

 stood. 



The writer refere in detail to the further 

 development of this industry by Mr. Teller's 

 improved system of sweating tobacco and pre- 

 paring it for the market in much shorter time 

 than was previously required. This process, 

 he says, consists simply in experienced and 

 skillful manipulation, and a proper adaptation 

 of artificial heat, backed by a determination 

 toapply skilled treatment of first-class tobacco. 

 From Messrs. Teller the Times writer ob- 

 tained other interesting data regarding the 

 tobacco trade : 



More than ten thousand persons earn their 

 living by making cigars. One-half of these 

 are women, the latter being the most skillful, 

 owing to their superior delicacy of touch. 

 The price of cigar-making ranges from two 

 and a-half to six dollars per thousand. A 

 skillful worker can make five hundred cigars 

 per day. Germany buys largely of Pennsyl- 

 vania tobacco. Women also find employment 

 in bundling, boxing and stenciling boxes. 



Tobacc J seed is sowed early in the season in 

 hot beds. From these the young plants are 

 removed to drills, where they grow rapidly 

 and require constant weeding. The country 

 giris of Lancaster and other counties are often 

 engaged in this business, which pays them 

 about seventy-five cents per day. AVhen the 

 plants are matured, they are cut and hung on 

 frames to dry or in some cases dried indoors, 

 and later the leaves are stripped off and pre- 

 pared for sweating. Frequently they are re- 

 sweated in order to produce a darker color, 

 which is now a fashion in cigars. The test of 

 good tobacco is the steadiness with which it 

 will burn to white ash. 



Through the courtesy of Messrs. TeUer, 

 several samples of tobacco leaves were brought 

 forth for my inspection. The soft, pliable, 

 semi-transparent texture of the leaf was in 

 curious contrast to the tensile strength of the 

 fibre and the effect of the re-sweating very 

 evident in the heightened color and more 

 delicate aroma. Forty thousand cases of 

 tobacco are produced annually in Lancaster 

 cpunty. 



Tobacco culture may be regarded as com- 

 paratively an innovation in this State, but as 

 a means of promoting industry, developing 

 agriculture and increasing wealth it is in 

 every sense an ascertained success, and will, 

 in the near future, be one of the chief factors 

 of Pennsylvania's prosperity. 



