The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. RATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., NOVEMBER, 1880. 



Vol. Xll. No. U. 



Editorial. 



"TRADE AT HOME." 



" Buy yoiu- s;(i(iil.s at tlie home stoics ; allow 

 a niniKin to tlic mcrrliaiit over city liriccs to 

 l>;iy tVciglil aiiil cartage. 11 you liou<;lit y:oo(ls 

 in the city, it would cost you Violh lime and 

 money to gel tlicm home. The prolit on 

 your hade will enable the merchant to keep a 

 iarser stock and variety, and will hell) to 

 build up liis liusiness. This will help other 

 branches of l)nsiness, make your town a mnrc 

 desirable place of residence, and indirectly 

 benetil all the country round." 



We copy the foregoing; from the colnmn.s of 

 that sprii;htly deini-quarto the Fdrtn Journal, 

 pulilLshed by' Wilnier Atkin.son, of Philadel- 

 phia, because, on tlie whole, we. believe it 

 good doctrine, and believe, also, that the best 

 way to throttle the enterprise and impoverish 

 a town, a village, a hamlet or a district is fur 

 every one who has money to rush into some 

 other place — the larger and farlher away the 

 better — and there spend it with strangers. 

 AVe believe, also, that the ambition to do the 

 " 6i'(/(/e.s( business," wells up from the domin- 

 ions of Lucifer, and is Inciferian in its incep- 

 tion, in its practical operation, and in its 

 aims and ends. Many of the.se hiij establish- 

 ments have subsidized the country press in 

 tlie form of sensational advertisements, in 

 order to persuade the jieople not to buy at home. 

 Railroad excursions are now perverted to the 

 same end. We believe in smaller farms, 

 smaller corporations smaller manufactories, 

 smaller business establishments (oul more of 

 them, as most conducive to the happiness, the 

 contentment, the indepeiidcnee, and the pros- 

 jierity of a free people. A great many people 

 buy away from lionie, and out of big establish- 

 ments as long as they have money ; and when 

 they have no money they condescend to buy 

 at home, and oul of smaller establishments, 

 which is an intensitication of the, effect to 

 make "the poor poorer, and the rich richer." 



Just now the "C'obden Club," of England, 

 is flooding our country with sensational 

 pamphlets and circulars, which have for their 

 object the i>eisuasion of the American people 

 not to buy at home, but from our disinterested 

 foreign cousins, and, of course, many will be 

 persuaded simidy becau.se they want to be. 



Of course this is a free country, and in the 

 distribution of the peojile's patronage they 

 will act "in freedom according to reason," .so 

 far as they are capable of appreci;iting that 

 homely maxim ; but apreiionderating seeking 

 of self is very liable to lead to its perversion. 

 For- instance, there are cases constantly oc- 

 curring in this country of circumstantial 

 changes, where these who commence on 

 small means hiially, through the liberal 

 patronage of the community become prosjier- 

 ous, aiiti in lime are able to retire from busi- 

 ness with a comiieteiicy which has been the 

 result of local patronage. 15ut after that they 

 are of but little advaidage to the community, 

 buying everylliing they iio.ssibly can abroad, 

 aiul at wholesale or reduced prices. Of course 

 this is also their inalienable right, but does it 

 not illustrate that self-aggraudizemenl, rather 

 than sympathy with the community may 

 be the coutroling business motive from be- 

 ginning to end. Ill prsent practiie they are 

 pro'eiioniM:! be;'ause it is tliiir intei-e.st to be 

 so, but in ultimate aims they are veritable 

 free traders from the same motives, from 

 whence it would appear that n itwithstandiiig 

 all (uir professions, wlieii self is involved 

 ]/rinci2iJes arc aiit to be subord nate interest. 



There are those whose products have little 

 or no market in the community where tliey 

 reside, and it would not be surprising if thes- 

 were to make their purchases in liie localities 



where they make their sales; but it often lia])- 

 peiis that these per.sona are better patrons of 

 their connnunities than those are wlio depen'l 

 on said communilies for subsistence. Se!f 

 manifests itself in a myriad of phases and 

 each |ihase is but an extra exhibition of pure 

 human naiure. The very individuals who 

 demand the largest price for their own pro- 

 ducts will iialroni/.e those of other callings 

 from whom they can procure other iiroducts 

 at the smallest |)rice ; and even after they 

 can afford to .abandon their former occupa- 

 tions tiiey are ninvilling to pay the prices 

 they themsehes demanded whilst theif were 

 in the same liusine.ss. 



A BIG LIVER. 



"We have received from Miss AnnaHuber, 

 of I^andisville, the liver of a rooster recently 

 killed. The chicken weighed about eiglit 

 pomids, while the liver tipped the scales at 

 1 th. 1 oz. This is a very avoirdupoisy liver. 

 Such enlargement by disease of some nature 

 or other is, however, not unusual, and in 

 France they are .sy.stematically enlarged by an 

 artiticial )n-ocess, making an appetizing dish 

 for epicures. Dr. Rathvoii is i)reserving this 

 specimen in alcohol." 



A wag once remarked, on viewing the bare 

 feet of a huge boy, " Well, now, those are the 

 biggest things without entraiU I have ever 

 seen," and, with one exception, we might 

 have made the same remark in regard to the 

 onj'Ui alluded to in the above extract from the 

 Inquirer of the l.'5th inst., and that single 

 exception was the testes of a hybrid between 

 a Guinea-fowl and a common barnyard fowl, 

 which \vc received from the jiroprietor of the 

 Fountain Inn, South Queen street, Lancaster, 

 about three years .ago, and which weighed 

 one pound and three ounces, altlunigh the 

 bird itself did not weigh more than four or 

 live pounds. Of course these are abnormal 

 developments of the enlarged organs — the re- 

 sult of physical disorder or derangement. 

 But whatever the causes may be, it has long 

 been the practice of the versatile (•(((.snie.s of 

 France— and doubtless, also, of other Euro- 

 pean nations to produce an avtifK^ial enlarge- 

 ment of the liver f(U- the jiurpose of gratifying 

 the gastronomical tastes of their patrons. We 

 ourselves confess a preference fin' "chicken 

 liver, "but we think our appetite would revolt 

 against it if we knew it was diseased. The 

 liver alluded to in the above paragraiih 

 appears to be diseased. 



^ 



LEOLINE ON THE LATE FAIR. 



She liad not visited Lancaster for seventeen 

 years, but she thought she would like to visit 

 it during the advent of the fair. Well, she 

 cam(% she saw, and was almost overcome. 

 AVhen, on her return home, lier husband 

 asked her what she thought of the fair, she 

 replied that "it was good what was of it, but 

 there was so little of it that the farmers of 

 this great county ought to be ashamed of it and 

 try to hold a good old-fashioned fair. But I was 

 says she, more sorry for my son's .sake thiiii 

 for my own. He expected to see horses and 

 cattle there, and I would rather have paid .")(! 

 cents than 20 cents to liave seen a really good 

 fair for his sake." "In fact a fair without a 

 horse race is like a circus without a clown. 

 Peoi)le attend fairs not only to see agricul- 

 tural and nieihani<'al productions, but also to 

 lie amused. Tliey only occur onci' a year, and 

 they afford an outlet for those emotional char- 

 acteristics of isolated lunnan nature, which 

 accumulate during the long intervals between 

 them. It is questionabU^ wlietlier well-ordered 

 races do not attract ten times as many peoi)le 

 to a fair as they drive away." 



We hope those who have it in their power 



will respond to the following queries of Leo- 

 LI.VK, through llie coluiuns of TiiK Faumer, 

 or otherwise. 



"I would like to have sonic of those pota- 

 toes I saw at the late fair— those blue ones 

 from I'erry county. I don't know that I have 

 ever seen any like them before, they were so 

 very large." 



"f.'an you tell me where the apple trees 

 called ' fHoriaMnndl ' are kept for sale? I 

 would like to have a least one of them." 



We cannot tell. Mr. .lolin O. I.inville liad 

 aljout the finest specimens of the fruit on ex- 

 hibition. Perhaps he could tell ; or perhaps 

 might furnish scions for budding or grafting. 

 His address is Gap P. O., Lancaster county, 

 Pa. 



NEW MEXICAN ITEMS. 



From the All.liqu.rqui' Review of O -tober 30, 1850. 



" We had the jdeasure of meeting, the other 

 day, Messrs. IT. A. Rathvoii and A. B. Robin- 

 son, of th Pitkin district, Colorado. They 

 arc very intelligent men, and fine specimens 

 of the hardy and honest miner. They speak 

 well of Pitkin's future, as a mining camp, but 

 the many rumors of new linils of precious 

 metal bearing ores of New Mexico, and a 

 knowledge of this delightful climate, where 

 they can work quite as well throuirhout the 

 fall and winter as they can through the spring 

 and summer, has brought them down to see 

 us. Colorado is a lirsl-rate country to spend 

 three or fo .r months of the year, but the 

 balance of the time it is too cold for anything 

 but a polar bear or a Ijaplander. " 



It ai)iiears that an interesting di.scovery has 

 been made in the Manzana Mountains of New 

 Mezico, or rather, i)erliaps, a re-discovery of 

 mines worked by a pre-historic race. Intelli- 

 gent prospectors have found the ruins of two 

 towns (or Pueblas) not far distant from each 

 other, whose aggregated i)opulation must 

 have reached twenty thousaiul, an .astonish- 

 ing large poiiulatimi in such a locality, and at 

 such an early jieriod. Twenty-two smelters 

 were discovered in one line, wlio.se height . 

 must have reached thirty lu- forty feet ; only 

 a portion of the wall, however, is left stand- 

 ing here anil there, but the signs of a once 

 active industry are regarded as indisputable. 

 The ruins of an aqueduct of cut stone were 

 also found, leading from a perennial spring. 

 .Some portions of this aqueduct are in good 

 condition yet, and with slight repairs might 

 be utilized. A worked road wa.s traced from 

 these smelters to the month of an extensive 

 mine, some seventy feet deep, a mile or more 

 away. This road is tortuous, and winds for 

 nearly live miles over ravines and through 

 canoiis, althomzh, as already stated, the mine 

 is but one mile from tlie smelters. This 

 sounds very like a pha^e of that aboriginal 

 ctmning which enters so largely into the 

 mining stories of the middle ages, or even since 

 the discovery of America. What could a 

 detour of five miles to reach points that were 

 onlv one mile asunder mean, if it were not 

 intended to mislead or deceive those intruders 

 wliich have doubtless existed in all ages of 

 the world, and probably will exist as long as 

 a grain of gold remains in the earth. 



It is further reported that the old road al- 

 luded to is only about five feet wide, and that 

 the method of transportation over it was evi- 

 dently not of carts or wagons. On it are 

 trees "growing as close together as tliose of the 

 surrotmding forest, with trunks two and a 

 half and three feet in thickness, which we 

 presume means diameter otherwise they 

 might have srown u)i within a natural life- 

 time. The mines, the ores of which have 

 evidently been worked in the smelters refer- 

 red to, have apparently been abandoned bur- 



