The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. RATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., MAY, 1880. 



Vol. XII. No. B. 



Editorial. 



THE STATE AND THE COUNTY FAIRS. 



By icference to onr "Literary and Per- 

 sonal" columus our readers will observe that 

 the Stale Agriculliaal and Stock E.xhihition 

 will be held in the main Centennial BuiUlinj;, 

 Fairmount Park, from the Ot.i to the ISth of 

 Sept'r next, and that the International Ex- 

 hibition of sheep, wool and wool products will 

 open on the 20tli of the month at the same 

 plai-e, thus making the two exhibitions almost 

 continuous. A |)reliminary abstract of the 

 list of premiums for horses, cattle and swine 

 has already been issued; complete lists to he 

 issued at an early day. The premiums, so far 

 as published, are very liberal, and no doubt 

 they will be so in other departments. Of 

 cour.sc there will be a line dis|)lay, aod "every- 

 body and his wife" will be there, but this 

 should not in the least detract from their par- 

 ticipation — either as patrons or exhibitors — 

 in their local county or district fairs. 



In our June issue we will be .able to an- 

 nounce the date of our own county fair, au- 

 thorized by our Agricultural and Horticultu- 

 ral Society. As our own fair will only con- 

 tinue from Wednesday morning to Saturday 

 morning — a period of three days — it will not 

 at all interfere with those who may desire to 

 visit or exhibit in the State fair. At the 

 present writing the world of nature at least 

 seems propitious, and, therefore, if we do not 

 get up a grand county exhibition it will be 

 due to our own apathy or indifference alone, 

 unless some extraordinary contingency should 

 supervene. This event .should be thought 

 over and talked over, at our outgoing and our 

 incoming, at our uprising and our down sit- 

 ting, between our door posts and by the way- 

 side, and should be constantly kept as front- 

 lets before our eyes — in short, just as a to- 

 bacco grower thinks about and talks about, 

 and also ads about the various phases of his 

 crops of the great "King-weed." When a to- 

 bacco grower deposits bis "grain of mustard" 

 in the ground he does not fold his hands in 

 apathy nor turn the key to the lock of his mind, 

 if he expects to realize a crop — not he — he es- 

 tablishes a base, line and tights it out on that 

 line, until his. crop is housed, packed and sold. 

 In a similar manner the managers and mem- 

 bers of a society must act, and the people 

 must reciprocate their action in getting up a 

 successful county fair. 



"EPHRATA PUBLICATIONS." 

 We make room in this number of The 

 Farjier for a Very able and interesting essay 

 on the subject of the early publications of 

 Lancaster county, notably those of the ancient 

 village of Ephrata ; written, and read before 

 the Linnseau Society, ^larch 28, 1880, by 

 Prof. .7. H. Dubbs, of Franklin and Marshall 

 College. Althougli not exactly gerraain to 

 the objects of our journal, yet in view of its 

 local character, and its relation to the early 

 history of our county, we believe it will inter- 

 est our agricultural, as well as our historical 

 and scientific readers, and this must sutBce as 

 an apology for placing it thus irrelevantly be- 

 fore them. Indeed, we happen to know 

 personally that there are quite a number of 

 our rural patrons and readers who would 

 rather, occasionally, peru.se such a paper than 

 the most elaborate essay on Agriculture, and 

 to those who have time and inclination to 

 make historical literature a collateral study, 

 it will prove a fortunate "send." The history 

 of Lancaster county has never yet been pro- 

 perly written up, and when the time comes 

 for that, this will be an important auxiliary 

 paper. 



THE BROWN THRUSH. 



This bird has a variety of common names, 

 and also several scientific names, but is is best 

 known in I>ancaster County as the "Hrown 

 Thrush." "Ferruigiuous," "Fox-colored" 

 and "LongtaiUd Thrusli" are some of its 

 common names. It is the Tardus ru/us of 

 Liini. altho.gh it has been recently removed 

 to the genus liarporliiinclius, but most of our 

 readers, no doubt, would prefer the shorter 

 luime, which simply means Brown thrush. 



This bird arrives iu Lancaster county as 

 early as the middle of April wh<ui the weather 

 is favorable, but the present season it was too 

 cold for him during tlie greater part of April, 

 and he came a little later. He is a splendid 

 singer and imitator, and hence has been also 

 called the "Fox-colored mock-bird." Wilson 

 says — "About the middle or 20th of April, or 

 generally about the time the cherry trees 

 begin to blossom, he arrives iu Pennsylvania, 

 and from the tops of our hedge-rows, sassa- 

 fras, apple or cherry trees he salutes the open- 

 ing morning with his charming song, which 

 is loud, emphatical and full of variety. At 

 that serene hour you may plainly distinguish 

 his voice half a mile off." Notwithstanding 



its singing characteristics, it is perhaps miu-e 

 interesting to the farmer and fruit-grower in 

 another more important respect, namely, 

 what he lives on? Mr. Gentry, who has 

 made the life-history of birds a specialty for 

 many years, says, "an examination of the 

 stomachs of many individuals showed that its 

 diet during the three or four first weeks of its 

 visit is of a very decided coleopterous char- 

 acter." .He has found 10 species oi' coloeptcra, 

 4 of other types, 1.5 of Lcpidoptera, and dif- 

 ferent kinds of berries, constituting the luxu- 

 ries upon which this bird habitually feeds. 

 The names of these insects are given, and 

 among them we recognize several of o'.ir 

 most common and destructive species. They 

 begin to pair about the 2.=)thof May, and after 

 building a proper nest and lining it with fine 

 soft grass, the female lays four or five while, 

 marked with reddish brown, eggs, which, in 

 about 14 or 15 days bring forth a brood of 

 young birds. The young are fed mainly on 

 grubs and soft caterpillars, embracing about 

 10 species of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera. The 

 bird is one brooded, and destroys an immense 

 mumebr of insects in its lifetime, besides mil- 

 lions of pjossihiliiies, although as a change it 

 will also appropriate berries. 



CEREALIA CALIFOKNICA. 



We have before us three specimens of Cal- 

 ifornia's most prolific cereals, sent over by 

 Mr. F. II, Russel, of Sacramento, to his 

 brotlier Mr, A, W. Ilussel, of Lancaster city, 

 and as they may Ijc of interest to the farmers 

 <jf Ijancaster county, we essay a brief notice 

 of them, mainly drawn from the illustrated 

 catalogue of Mr. AV. A. Sanders, of Sanders 

 P, O,, Fresno Co., California. Mr. Sanders 

 has long been in the successful cultivatiou of 

 beautiful and rai)id growing evergreens, rare 

 tropical and s(!mi-tropical fruits, bamboos, 

 sugar canes, tea trees, ginger roots, shal-lae, 

 jujube and many otiier new and valuable 

 trees and fruits; and, moreover, belongs to a 

 well known family, including some of the 

 most enterprising and practical men in the 

 country. 



The first we shall notice is the "East India 

 Millet," (Pmcillaria spicata,) a single head of 

 which bcfbie us is fourteen inches in length 

 and three in circumference, solidly studded 

 with well filled seeds or grains from the base to 

 the apex. This plant has been long culti- 

 vated, not only for its seeds, but for its im- 

 mense yield of forage in the hot, dry regions 

 of Asia and Africa, and like many other 

 plants long under culture, it has developed 

 into as many varieties as there are of wheat 

 and corn. On the dry "sand plains" of 

 Fresno, Cal,, with only moisture enough to 

 cause the seed to germinate, it grows to the 

 height of twelve feet, and so dense that a 

 horse can barely force his w.ay through it — a 

 perfect mass offender foliage and stalks of 

 the greatest value as a fodder for live .stock of 

 all kinds. In California it requires 178 days 

 to mature its first crop of seed. From every 

 point it sends out a shoot bearing a seed head 

 each yielding an immense and constant 

 amount of seed ripening daily until its growth 

 is arrested by frost A single seed is capable 

 of producing 100 stalks, and forming a clus- 

 ter three or four feet iu diameter. For hay 

 it is usually cut when four feet high, and it 

 can be cut every thirty days until frost. In 

 rich soil it has been known to produce at the 

 rate of 2,000 tons of green fodder to an acre. 

 As nearly as we can get at it, by counting 

 the seeds in a single circle, and the number 

 of circles in an inch, there are about 4,000 

 seeds in the head before us. If any of our 

 readers desire to experiment they should get 

 the instructions how to cultivate when they 

 order the seed. 



A second is called the "White Egyptian 

 Corn" [sorylium vidgare.) ^Ir. Sanders says 

 that this is the most valuable grain ever in- 

 troduced into California, There are several 

 varieties of thissorsjhura, but the white solid- 

 headed variety introduced by himself is, ia 

 all respects, esteemed the most valuable. It 

 is from the interior of China, and was intro- 

 duced many years ago. It will make a crop 

 on the poorer kinds of land, and with lefs 

 moisture than other kinds of grain, being 

 more valuable, pound for pound, than barley 

 or Indian corn as a feed for horses; [while for 

 swine and fowls nothing of the grain kind 

 ('(pials it. Mr. Sanders remarks that by high 

 culture he has realized at the rate of nine 

 tons ol seed per acre, and cut seven crops of 

 heads, extending over a period of six months, 

 harvesting a crop every 30 days. On the 19th 

 of ,Iune, 187'J his ditch 'broke and overflowed 

 a large piece of laud. This he plowed as soon 

 as it was dry enough, dropping the sorghum 

 seeds in every third furrow. It never had any 

 care, water or culture, and in 117 days from 

 the day of planting he gathered sixty bushels, 

 or 3,000 pounds of beautiful grain per acre; 

 and in 1878 Mr. Burke of Yolo, Cal., formerly 

 living in Ohio, raised 140 bushels per acre. 

 We can fully reahze the beauty of this grain, 



