1880. 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



187 



Faillires in tree i>lantiiig ton often ariBc 

 from tlie mistaken notiim that wlieii the roots 

 of a tree arc once in tlie "jrouiul. tlie work is 

 done. After a tree is carefully i)lante(l it 

 sliouUl iie mulclied witli leaves, straw, tail or 

 any similar materinl. not so thick as to ex- 

 clude the air, but sulticicnt In retain the mois- 

 ture in the soil ; lor although there may he 

 plenty of rain early in the season, the chances 

 are that a drouth more or less severe will 

 follow. 



The Prairie Farmer .says: "In Southwestern 

 Russia, between the Baltic and the Black 

 Seas, tlie sunflower is universMlly cultivated 

 in fields, gardens and borders, and every part 

 of the plant is turned to practical account. A 

 hundred pounds of the seed yield forty pounds 

 of oil, and the pressed residue forms a whole- 

 some food for cattle, as also do the leaves and 

 the green stalks cut up small, all beiiig eagerly 

 eaten. The fresh llnwers, wlien a little short 

 of full bloom, furnish a dish for the table 

 which bears favorable comparison with the 

 artichoke. They contain a large ipiautity of 

 honey, and so lu'ove an attra<'tioii to bees. 

 The "seeds are a valuable food for poultry ; 

 ground into flour, pastry and cakes uin be 

 made from them ; au<l boiled in alum water, 

 they yield a blue coloring matter. The care- 

 fully dried leaf is used a.s tobacco. The seed 

 receptacles are m.-ule into blotting paper, and 

 the inner part of tlie stock into line writing 

 paper : the woody portions are consumed as 

 fuel, and from the resulting ash valuable 

 potash is obtained. Large plantations of 

 them in swampy places are a protection 

 against intermitting fever." 



OUR GAME FOOD. 



An article in the International Keview for 

 August, (A. S. Barnes & C<i., Ill William 

 St., Kew York), opening with the remark 

 that "the amount and value of the game food 

 of America are much underestimated, "oilers a 

 strong plea for the preservation of our edible 

 birds and animals before it shall be too late. 

 Ruin almost irreparable has already been ef- 

 fected : 



So long as America continued in the occu- 

 pation of the aliorigines, the order of nature 

 was apparently but little disturbed. The 

 buffalo and deer, the wild fowl and turkeys, 

 furnished abundant food to the savages with- 

 out serious encroachment upon the fertility of 

 nature. In savage life there apiiears to be no 

 wanton or iinuecessary destruction of the nat- 

 ural means of support. It was reserved for 

 the civilized white man to carry on a wanton 

 war against the the bounty of nature and to 

 kill and destroy, without thought or .study of 

 those imperative laws under which nature 

 holds in trust the food and supply of man. 

 From the first settlement of the country, the 

 process of eradicating and annihilating the 

 useful animals, birds and lishes natural to the 

 country has been carried on with an energy 

 and success, but too characteristic of the Sax- 

 on race. Large tracts of land have been en- 

 tirely depopulated of thi'ir animals and useful 

 birds. The buffalo on his native |>laiiis has 

 become an object of rare curiosity. Deer are 

 limited to the remoter mountain-ranges or 

 extensive tracts of barren woods. The wild 

 fowl, which swarmed in New Fngland during 

 the first settlement of the country, and for a 

 long time afterwards, have almost di.sappear- 

 ed. The last wild turkey was kil'ed in ^ias- 

 sachusetts nearly half a ceutuiy ago. There 

 is probaby no sportsman living who has killed 

 a grouse on ^lartlTs "\'iin-yai(l, the last refuge 

 in the northeast of that most valuable bird. 

 Plover still migrate, though in diminished 

 numbers from their breeding places in the far 

 North to their winter homes In the .South, but 

 they carefully avoid the northeastern coasts. 

 No one in this generation has seen a wild 

 swan alight on the waters of Massachusetts 

 They once abounded there. Even the wild 

 geese find no resting-place here, but are ex- 

 pelled as if they were tramps and vaga 

 bonds. 



In regard to a remedy for this deidorable 

 state of affairs, the author offers only general 



suggestions, which are certainly good bo far 



as they go: 



"No doubt the habits of food-birds need to 

 be much more thoroughly observed and stud- 

 ied before the laws and customs for their 

 ]ireservatioii can be perfected. This can be 

 l)ro|)erly done only by scientific men trained 

 to observation, who, acting under government 

 as ciininiissioners of game, may suggest the 

 requisite laws, and .see that they are enforced. 

 That it is for thr interest of the public to do 

 this IS evident from the fact that the game 

 food of the country is one of its most valuable 

 crops, amounting to many millions of dollars 

 annually. But our legislatures and our peo- 

 ale generally have hitherto regarded the siili- 

 Jectas a matter not concerning public welfare, 

 but merely alleetiiig the gratification and 

 whims of sportsmen and gunners, who, as a 

 class, are looked upon, in most New England 

 communities at least, with a contempt inher- 

 ited from Puritan times. It would be advisa- 

 ble, therefore, to raise the money for the olli- 

 cial expenses of game commi.ssioners and the 

 cost of the proper execution of the laws by a 

 moderate tax or license for people wishing to 

 shoot, whether for sport or for the market. A 

 tax of three or I'm' dollars would be qiiile suf- 

 ficient for the purpose, and would enable an 

 intelligent game commissioner in each State 

 gradually to establish a system which should 

 |>rotect and niuUiply the game, and yet allow 

 the jirivilege of shooting to be free to every 

 one during the brief season in which the game 

 crop could be secured. 



No doubt the season of shooting allowed 

 by the law is far too extended, especially in 

 the Northern and Eastern States. If we wish 

 to preserve game for food, or for sjiort, its de- 

 struction by shooting should be limited at the 

 outside to four weeks; and this jieriod, as to 

 liirds of passage, should be so arranged that, 

 alighting on their feeding ground, they should 

 be uumolested for at least a week or more. A 

 little careful observation and gathering of 

 statistics would show whether the period of 

 shooting might safely be extended or needed 

 to be curtailed, or, in exceptional years, 

 omitted. The matter might be aided by re- 

 ipiiring a small license fee from iiersous sell- 

 ing game, under the condition of monthly re- 

 turns of the game sold by them, and of the 

 places where it was killed. 



"What we want to aim at is absolute har- 

 mony and familiarity between birds and man 

 during the clo.se season, and a gradual ex- 

 tinction of the instinctive habits of pursuit 

 and destruction which is so inherent in 

 the American people in their relations to 

 nature. Nor is this question one of economy 

 merely, or of adding to or maintaining the 

 desirable variety of food for our table. — a 

 (pieslion which enters, by the way, very 

 largely into the subject of the indulgence in 

 spiriliious liquors; for men not well fed will 

 drink— but it is a question of national self- 

 education, and is moreover one step, and an 

 important one, in the elevation of our jieople 

 by self-re.straint to a higher scale of national 

 civilization than the world has yet seen." 



BUSINESS HABITS FOR FARMERS. 



There is probably not one farmer in ten 

 thousand who keeps a set of account from 

 which he can at any moment learn the cost of 

 anything iie may have produced, or even tlie 

 cost of his real property. A very few fanners 

 who have been brought up to business habits 

 keep such accounts, and are able to tell how 

 their affairs progress, what each crop, each 

 kind of stock, or each animal has cost, and 

 what each ])roduces. Knowing these i>oints 

 a farmer can. to a very great extent, properly 

 decide what crops he will grow, and what 

 kind of stock he will keep. He will thus be 

 able to apply his labor and money, and where 

 it will do the most good. He can weed out 

 his stock and retain only such animals as may 

 be kept with jirolit. For the want of such 

 knowledge, farmers continue, year after year, 

 to feed cows that arc unprofitable, and fre- 

 quently sell for less than ber value one that is 



best of the herd, because she is not known to 

 be any better than the rest. 



Feed is also wasted upon Ill-bred stock, the 

 keep of which costs three or four times that of 

 well-bred animals, which, as has been proved 

 by liguii's that cannot be mistaken, pay a 

 large profit on their keeping. For want of 

 knowing what they cost, poor crops are raised 

 year by year at an equal loss, provided the 

 (ariiii-r's labor, at the rafes current for 

 comiiiou labor. Were charged against iliem. 

 To learn I bat he has been working for fio cents 

 a day, during a number of years, while he has 

 been paying his help twice as much, would 

 open the eyes of many a farmer who has 

 ai tually been doing this, and it would con- 

 vince him thiit there is some value in figures 

 and book accounts. 



JEALOUSY OF BIRDS. 

 A singular incident in natural history oc- 

 curred lately at Chester, Kngland. A thrush 

 in a happy state of freedom was trilling its 

 notes in the orchard below the walls, near the 

 "wishing steps," when its musi(' excited sim- 

 ilar ellvrfs from a caged bird of the same 

 species, whidi was suspended in front of the 

 adjacent houses. These feathered songsters 

 per.severed in raising their melodies to higher 

 eflbrts, as if in earnest rivalry, when suddenly 

 the bird among the tribes darted fr iiii its perch 

 upon the vicar cage of its competitor, broke 

 the bars, entered it. and commenced an as- 

 sault upon the musical ca|)tive: the owner of 

 which, hearing the unusual noise, canu! out, 

 took the aggressor prisoner, and .sold it into 

 bondage. The ill-tempered ihriish had there- 

 fore paid the penalty of sacrificing its freedom 

 to its jealousy. This anecdote is slated as a 

 fact, and not written, as it might .seem to be, 

 for the iinriiose of pointing a moral against 

 musical jealousies among human vocali.sts. 



INTERNATIONAL POTATO SOCIETY. 

 The exhibition of this society was held a 

 few Weeks since at the Crystal Palace, Lon- 

 don, and was so extensive tliat -J.-odO di.slies of 

 nine tubers each were shown iiy one hundred 

 exhibitors. Many jirizes were awarded, and 

 among tlio.se for new varieties, tile first was 

 given for a long Hound Kidney, raised from 

 the Belgian Kidney crossed "by the Early 

 Rose ; the second to a .seedling of the Early 

 Rose crossed with Fenn's Early Market, and 

 the third to a round white variety, not crossed. 

 A writer in the Oarrloi says that althoiigli 

 some collections embraced hundreds of sorts, 

 yet only thirty inchnled about all that are 

 commonly cultivateil. Of rei^ognized .sorts, 

 America fuinished about fifty ; and one ex- 

 hibitor who bad a very line lot of twenty-four 

 sorts, included among these no less than sev- 

 enteen that were American. Engli.sh culti- 

 vators find a great advantage in employing 

 the American varieties to cross with their 

 own. 



Our Local Organizations. 



LANCASTER COUNTY AGRICULTURAL 

 AND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Tlie ronular iiieetinireftlic Laiitastur Counly Ag- 

 ricultural and Iloniiuliural Society wae held in 

 their room over City Hall, on Monday afltTDoon, 

 December fi, President Joseph F. Winner in the 

 chair. 



The followiui; nienil)er8 and visitors were picscDt : 

 Joseph F. Winner, Paradise; M. D. Kendit', Manor; 

 Daniel Smeyeli, city; J. H. Lniidis, Manor: J. M. 

 Johnston, city; W. W. Griest, eily; F. H. Diffen- 

 derlfer, eily: C. .\. (iasi, ell y; W. Hollintrer, War- 

 wick; .tolinson Miller, Warwicl<; J. C. Linville, Gap; 

 Dr. C. A. Greene, city; Wiiliain .MeComsey, cily; 

 Klias Ilershey, Leamaii Place; L. Hunsecker, 

 Manhiim; Peter S. Kcisi, Litilz; Peter S. Hersliey, 

 eily; Calvin Cooper, Bird-inHand; James Wood, 

 I.itlle Britain; J. 11. Hersliey, liulirerstowo; J. L. 

 Laiidis, city. 



On motion the rcadinir of the minutes of the pre- 

 vious meeting were dispensed with. 



.Mr. Bfillinger re|)orle<l tlie grain crop in his neli;h- 

 horhood to l)e eepeeiaiiv poor — tlie early sown wlieat 

 lieinir nearly eaten up with the fly. lie measured 

 otT one acre of ground and sold oil 11.5 bushels and 

 li pounds of corn — 72 pounds to the bushel. 



