1880.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



85 



iind everything we can produce, so that we 

 occupy one of the largest market gardens in 

 the State and may l)o progressive people after 

 all. 



The anxieties entertained by some people 

 about "wearing out" our lands are mainly 

 groundless when considered in connection 

 with our facilities to recuperate them. The 

 Chinese haye been cultivating rice and a multi- 

 tude of other vegetable products, century 

 after century, for four thousand years, and 

 their lands are not yet worn out. Tliey i)ur- 

 sue a rigid system of recuperation which it 

 would be well for those in this country, who 

 possess sucli lands, to imitate. It is true that 

 unforseen contingencies may occur, such as 

 drought, through which calamities may fol- 

 low, but the great famine in China was not 

 the ettect of a failure of her staple crops so 

 in\ich as it was from the want of means of 

 transportation. Our country, like China, is 

 vast and diversilied in domain, but one advan- 

 tage is that ours is becoming a gigantic net- 

 work of railroads, which enables us to antici- 

 pate adver.se contingencies, while in China 

 one district may be famishing and another 

 luxuriating, without their condition being 

 known to each other or being able to lielp 

 each other. — Wancick, June, 1880. 



Fon The Lancaster Farmkh. 

 LETTER FROM NORTH CAROLINA. 



Salisiiury, N. C, June 1, 1880. 



Editor Lamc.\.ster F.^RMER : The wheat 

 crop, generally, looks promising, and bids 

 fair to turn out well, more than was expected 

 some weeks since ; .some will be ready to 

 harvest this week. AVe had dry weather here 

 the latter part of April and lir.st three weeks 

 in May ; within the last ten days we had 

 heavy rains, and a tine season for all vege- 

 table matter. Oats is doing well, and will 

 make a good crop. Grasses are good. Corn 

 and cotton looks well. Some farmers have 

 planted tobacco. 



Garden truck, such as cabbage, lettuce, 

 radishes, onions, peas, beets and Irish pota- 

 toes have been on tables of good liousewives 

 for more than a fortnight past, all grown in 

 the open air. Squashes, cucumbers and toma- 

 toes are growing finely and in bloom, and will 

 be ready for use in a short time if the season 

 proves good. Apples and peaches will be 

 short in some localities, while in others the 

 trees are heavily laden, so much so tliat the 

 limbs will have to be propped up to keep the 

 trees from breaking down. Pears will be 

 scarce. Damsons, gages, prunes and plums 

 will not be very plentiful. Grapes will be a 

 heavy crop. I speak of all croi)s above named 

 in this county (Rowan,) and so far as I have 

 seen and heard. 



More fertilizers have been sold here this 

 season than were ever sold here before in any 

 one season. Some kinds are applied to cot- 

 ton ; others for tobacco ; some to wheat. 

 Many farmers use it, while a great number of 

 planters have no faith in it, and do not use it 

 for any crop. — M. Ji. 



For The Lancasteb Farmer. 

 THE PLOW. 

 Has the plow been much improved in fifty 

 years ? In 1828 I saw some plows still lying 

 about with wooden mould-boards, and with a 

 coulter and plowshare of the simplest struc- 

 ture. The coulter was fastened below to the 

 point of the plowshare, running up through 

 the beam of the plow. It was not many years 

 before that time that the cast-iron mould- 

 board was invented. That was an improve- 

 ment on the old Adams and all other kinds of 

 plows. On several occasions I helped to take 

 home plows from " Lampeter Square," (as 

 the place was then called,) from a plowmaker 

 by the name of Shultz. lie was a small man, 

 as I recollect him, but he made an excellent 

 plow. We called it the " Shultz plow." It 

 was rather low from top of beam to bottom of 

 plow.share. The mould-board was rather 

 longer than they were made at that time 

 generally, and also longer than they are made 

 at this time, but it was one of the plows to 



thoroughly turn the .soil, or any ground, u^i.-ttVZc 

 down; you could turn every particle of manure 

 under ground. You could score, easy, one- 

 half more than you could by any of the i>lows 

 put out a? the latest improvements, for the;/ 

 were not as good as the Shullz plow of tifty 

 years ago. Shultz moved to the west nuiiiy 

 years ago. Then followed the Spiclman, 

 Minich, Root, Hupp, Wallace, and many other 

 plows within my recolU'ction, and some that 

 I cannot recall. Tlic Pittsburg plow was at 

 one time higlily extolled, but was (inally laid 

 away as old iron, among many others of the 

 so-called improvements on the Spielman. 

 Shultz and Root plows, whicli had been no- 

 thing but earth-scrapers; many of them rot- 

 ted in fence coi-ners, and some were stored 

 away in old sheds as relics of the past. I 

 believe some of Shultz's old neighliors will 

 bear me out that his was as good a plow, if 

 not better, than most plows since claimed as 

 improvements. I would like to have the 

 oi)inion of U. Ilerr, of Pequea, who was some- 

 what of a machinist in his time, or lion. 

 John Strohm, who certaiidy must recollect 

 the Shultz plow as a good one. Well, with 

 all the inventions in plows it is still only a 

 plow, and nothing else but a plow. It is but 

 an implement to overturn tlie soil, aiul so 

 much the better if it can be made easy, with 

 a light draft, as we have many two-horse 

 farmers, and are getting more every year, 

 so that any improvement in that direction 

 would be very desirable. I followed the plow 

 for many years, and conceited that if a plow 

 could be made to work well at all, I could 

 regulate it to work as well as any other man. 

 Tlie Wallace plow was so much used and 

 talked about, and had been brought so con- 

 spicuously before the public, and advertised 

 through lawsuits and collections of royalty, 

 ju.st as if it had been the first improved plow ; 

 yet it was only an ordinary affair — not any 

 better than the Shultz after all. 



A plow factory and foundry has been started 

 in Warwick, Lancaster county, that manu- 

 factures a new plow which is of easy draft, 

 and has a cutter in front of the moidd-l)oard. 

 It turns the sod down as nice as the 

 old Shultz plow did, and it runs itself at a 

 regular depth without any one holding it, 

 turning the ground smoothly upside doicn. It 

 seems to have an easy draft, and is one of the 

 best plows that have been recently introduced. 

 It was only in lightness of draft that the plow 

 has been improved during the last fifty years, 

 but it is still a plow, and very probably will 

 remain so for many years to come ; notwith- 

 standing, it is far behind any other implement 

 used in agriciUtural labor. Steam plows em- 

 brace no new princi|ile, so far as turning the 

 soil is concerned ; it is only the application of 

 an old motive power, whereby the number of 

 furrows can be increased — an aggregation of 

 old plows pushed or pulled by steam. ]5ut 

 they are too expensive for small farming, and 

 too impracticable for hilly lauds. — Old Ploa-- 

 boy. 



For The I.anoastf.r Farmer. 

 STILL HARPING ON THE MOON. 



Editor Farmer : I observe in the May 

 number of your journal that my last year's 

 sarcastic critic, "ASeeker After Truth," who 

 gives us plainly to understand that he, at least, 

 is no "self-opinionated wiseacre," would like 

 to renew the discu.ssion in regard to the al- 

 leged influence of the moon's changing signs 

 on the weather, the growth of crops, &c. He 

 asks if "our amateur farmer" has "made no 

 new discoveries on his eight by ten farm?" 



Now, in TnE Farmer for September, 1870, 

 I answered iirelty fully, and in my own opinion 

 conclusively, the various statements and argu- 

 ments which had been adduced by our 

 "Seeker after Truth" in sui)i)ort of the sign 

 theory ; and as in the nine months that have 

 since elapsed, with the columns of ytmr jour- 

 nal all the time open to him, he has ma(le no 

 attempt to dispute or controvert the facts 

 there set forth, or the inferences drawn from 

 them, it seems hardly necessary to call ujion 

 me for any "new discoveries" on the subject. 



If he wants exercise for his controversial 

 talent and inclination let him go back and try 

 his hand on the September article referred to. 



As respects his late visit to see the floral 

 treasures of "a lady who is a firm believer" 

 in "stellar iutluences" and who attributes the 

 freedom of her plants from in.sect pests to the 

 simple fact that she transi)lauls or shift.s 

 her iJants "during certain signs or posi- 

 tions of the moon in the zodiac," no 

 particular remarks are necessary, especially 

 as we are left in ignorance not only of the 

 name and residence of the the lady, but even 

 what those ".signs or positions of the moon in 

 the zodiac" are that we arc asked to believe 

 have such a potential effect on the animal as 

 well as the vegetable kingdom. The lady, we 

 are told, "never smokes with tobacco to kill 

 the aphids, nor evaporates sulphur to destroy 

 the red spiders," &c. — her exemption being 

 entirely owing to her care to transplant in 

 the right sign. What appears strange in this 

 account is that j'our correspondent does not 

 inform us what the sign /.•>■ that is so powerful 

 and wonderful, in order that all your readers 

 might hasten to avail themselves of the ad- 

 vantages to be therefrom derived. To be sure 

 "Seeker" says the lady was not at home, but 

 then it seems the rest of the family were, and 

 as her husband and daughter were able to fur- 

 nish the information contained in his article, 

 one would think they might have told him 

 the most important point of all. 



If I am not mistaken, "Seeker" referred to 

 this same lady and the wonderful freedom of 

 her plants from insect pests in one of his com- 

 munications in The Farmer, nearly or quite 

 a year ago. I recollect he then stated that 

 the lady attributed her exemption entirely to 

 the fact that .she always transi)laiited when 

 the moon was in the sign Libra. Yet, not- 

 withstanding his possession of this knowledge 

 of an all-snllicient and infallible preventive, 

 what do we find ? In his last communication 

 to The Farmer he says he keeps a 

 few pot plants and his "greatest bother is 

 with insect pests. I use tobacco smoke for 

 aphids, for plant lice — evaporate sulphur oc- 

 casionally to destroy red spiders — hand-pick 

 the mealy bugs." Alas, alas I when will a 

 stiff-necked generation of scientific unbelievers 

 in the potency of the moon's signs be con- 

 vinced of the error of their skepticism, when 

 they thus see the chief i)rophet and apostle in 

 modern times of "Stellar Influences" forget- 

 ting to depend upon the right sign of the 

 moon for |)rotection against noxious in.sects, 

 and falling back on such vulgar expedients iis 

 tobacco smoke, sulphur, and "hand-iMcking 

 the mealy bugs. "Seeker" adds that "thous- 

 ands of persons still plant their root crops 

 when the sign is down, and kill their pork and 

 beef in the increase of the moon," and asks 

 if this belief is "moonshine or superstition," 

 confessing he is at a loss to know. In view 

 of what I believe is the fact that except him- 

 self no close student of nature or .scientific 

 agriculturist in Europe or America for the 

 last fifty years has found reason for retaining 

 the smallest belief in the eflicacy of the 

 "signs," &c., and of the further fact that 

 "Seeker" himself abandons the attempt to 

 sustain the theory by any new or sulistantial 

 facts or reasons,^! think that in the course 

 of another generation it will be acknowledged 

 by all that his question must receive an affir- 

 mative answer, viz : "It is merely moonshine 

 or superstition." — Amateur Farmer. 



Selections. 



THE HYGIENE OF THE EYES. 

 The following hygienic rules are compiled 

 and condensed from eminent French and 

 En;:lish authorities. For the worker the 

 lisrht should come as much as possiljle from 

 the left side, that is to s<vy, from the side 

 toward which one turns in working. Day- 

 light is the best ; but direct sunlight and that 

 rellected from miiTors should be avoided. 

 The aspect should he northern and the light 

 should come a little from above. White walla 



