34 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[Marcli, 



forts that are used to induce the public to 

 subscribe to the stock of such enterprises are 

 well known, among which are the public ad- 

 vantages wliich will accrue to the landowners 

 through whose domain railroads are located. 

 As a general tiling, the stockholders know 

 very little about what dispasition has been 

 made of their money, or how the business is 

 conducted. The companies furnish con- 

 venient depots and station houses, comfort- 

 able and luxurious carriages, voluptuous and 

 enticing accommodations, and the piiblic be- 

 comes psychologised into blind acquiescence 

 in whatever may transpire, until some overt 

 imposition conflicts with its pecuniary in- 

 terest, and then only it becomes cognizant of 

 the prerogatives and franchises it has bartered 

 away. The public, as it is now constituted, 

 cannot'dispense with railroads and other cor- 

 porations ; they are ingrained into the warp 

 and woof of the body politic, aud it can't 

 forego them any more than a duck can water; 

 and the corporators knoiv this, and impuni- 

 tively presume upon it. It has become a 

 social aud commercial disease— not incurable 

 perhaps— the eradication of which will rack 

 the constitution of the patient. 



Notwithstanding the public convenience of 

 railroads, and the facilities they atford to 

 travel and ,; transportation, it' is altogether 

 wrong to endow or grant them powers and 

 privileges'so loosely defined that in their ex- 

 ercise they may become oppressive to the 

 people who are the legitimate source of power 

 in a republican form of government, or to en- 

 able them to build up irresponsible monopo- 

 lies ; or to unjustifiably discriminate in tlieir 

 schedules of freight and travel ; nor yet to ef- 

 fect those combinations and consolidations 

 through which they are enabled to subordi- 

 nate the entire production of the country to 

 their imperious will. America — or at least 

 the United States— has the skeleton of the best 

 government on this planet, and if that is de- 

 stroyed, it will cause a moral and physical 

 retrogression that will carry us back five 

 hundred years, because it is always easier to 

 gravitate backward and downward than it is 

 to progress forward and upward. We only 

 need contemplate the retrogression of Egypt, 

 of Asia, of Greece aud Rome, to apprehend 

 the extent of similar ictiogivs^ions, after the 

 downfall of their siil.iiiliil governments, 

 whether repuljlican. iii-'iiai'rhii'al, or mixed. 

 Every day as time nills reckli-ssly onward it 

 seems tliat the idca'of tlie inherent sovereignty 

 of the people is Itecoraing more of a farce. Men 

 are patriotic, deferential and conciliatory, only 

 until they have opportunities to be otherwise. 

 The farmers, through whose lands railroads 

 are located, and which could not be built 

 without traversing— or trespassing upon — 

 llieir property, are becoming bound hand and 

 foot, and it seems as if they had no rights that 

 are worthy of respect. They are becoming 

 like sheep led to the slaughter, and if things 

 continue as they are a few years longer, they 

 will become powerless before the Juggernaut 

 of monoply, notwithstanding the sustaining 

 freight of railroads is the product of their 

 lands, and without which, railroads would be 

 of little account. There are many respects 

 in whicli these corporations may work op- 

 pression to the people, e.specially that peculiar 

 dilution called " watering their stock" — to 

 which we have not referred because of their 

 complication, and the indirectness of their 

 operation, aud because of their remoteness of 

 action. The subserviency of legislatures is 

 another crying evil, and when these are prac- 

 tically bribed into quiescence by privileges 

 and .immunities, the case becomes more in- 

 tolerable. 



If anything is necessary to be done, and if 

 anything can be done, through legislation, it 

 is high time the farmers would take it in 

 hand. The tissues of our governmental 

 skeleton in order to be muscular and healthy 

 should be filled in by our farmers. They 

 should join in the "dance," instead of per- 

 petually "playing the piper." Tliey should 

 control, instead of being the victims of 

 monopoly. 



THE MAMMOTH PEARL. 



This new and wonderful medium early va- 

 riety of potatoes was originated in the State 

 of Ohio, and selected as the best of over 2, .500 

 seedlings: the aim of the originator was to 

 obtain a variety that would produce a crop- 

 in spite of the bugs— of the best table quality, 

 beautiful to appearance, free from rot or any 

 other disease, and never hollow; and that his 

 efforts were successful when tlie Mammoth 

 Pearl was produced, thousands of persons can 

 testify. 



In shape it is oblong, and usually a little 

 flattened, very smooth and uniform in shape, 

 eyes even with or slightly raised above the 

 surface, skin pearly white, flesh the whitest 

 of all varieties ; for the table it cooks like a 

 ball of flour and as white as snow, evenly to 

 the centre. The vines are, as Mr. I. E. Til- 

 linghast says, "without exception the most 

 rampant and strong growing of any variety 

 we have ever grown: they come up strong and 

 grow so fast, that the potato bugs have no 

 chance at all." 



If they are planted three and a half feet 

 apart each wa}', the vines will completely 

 cover every spot of ground, thus keeping the 

 • 1 t 1 1 11 f the 



hot ia\s of the suu Thtj upm ui August, 

 oi the hist of 'ieptcmljer, and can be dug any 

 time at your leisure ; and in the important 

 matter of productiveness, it will yield double 

 or triple any ordinary kind, and will sell for 

 more in market ; in short, the handsomest, 

 and by far the most productive potato in cul- 

 tivation, and it is confidently claimeu that its 

 equal cannot be selected — in all respects— /rom 

 all the varietiet under cultivation at the pres- 

 ent day. 



If any of the patrons of the Farmer desire 

 to secure specimens of this "King of the 

 Murphies " for cultivation in Lancaster coun- 

 ty, or elsewhere, we would advise them, by 

 all means, to address themselves immediately 

 to Mr. J. A. Everitt, Watsontown, Northum- 

 berland county. Pa., who makes potato-grow- 

 ing a specialty. Or, if they wish to know 

 more about this, and other varieties of pota- 

 toes, their origin, history, and cultivation, we 

 would advise them to send for Everitfs Cata- 

 Z»y«e of seeds, and seed-potatoes for 1881, a 

 notice of which will be found in our literary 

 and personal columns. The period in solani- 

 culture has arrived, when the best for cultiva- 

 tion should be selected ; not only for health 



and comfort, but also for pecuniary compen- 

 sation. The potato grower cannot realize 

 too soon that the best in not only the cheapest, 

 but also the most remunerative. 



CAPT. EADS' SHIP RAILWAY. 



"Sailing on the land as well as on the ocean." 

 The Illustrated Scientific News, for March, 

 '81, has an interesting article on this project, 

 which is elaborately illustrated by appropriate 

 engravings, and from which it seems manifest 

 that nothing more is wanting to demonstrate 

 the thing an accomplished /act, but time and 

 means. It only involves the principle of the 

 "Dry-Dock," where the largest seagoing ves- 

 sels are successfully "hauled out" on dry 

 land, when they need repairing ; and, if they 

 can be hauled away from the water's edge 

 ten rods, they can be hauled ten miles away, 

 and if ten miles, why not a hundred, or evena 

 thousand ? 



In the early history of the Pennsylvania 

 Railroad and Canal, there were modes of 

 transportation called "Section-boat lines" 

 between the cities of Philadelphia and Pitts- 

 burg, which practically embraced the same 

 principles involved in Capt. " Eads' Ship 

 Railway." These boats were cut in two, 

 three, or more sections to facilitate their 

 transfer from the water to car-truck, upon 

 which they were transported for many miles 

 over land ; and, at Philadelphia, Columbia, 

 Hollidaysburg, Johnstown and Pittsburg 

 there were docks erected for tlris purpose. 

 These boats were also taken beyond Philadel- 

 plna and Pittsburg, and therefore mer- 

 chandize sliipped at New York could pass 

 down the Ohio river and through the Ohio 

 canals without trans-shipment. Capt. Eads' 

 system is the same, only on a larger scale. 

 Four locomotive engines — two on each side of 

 the bow— constitute the propeHing power, 

 and the truck upon which the ship i* 

 mounted is so adjusted with numerous wheels, 

 pulleys and springs, that the passage overland 

 must be almost as free from friction or jarring 

 as the passage over water. To our feeble 

 perception the plan seems a feasible one, and 

 has its advantages over a canal. A canal 

 must be a dead level, or nearly so, and then a 

 great lift and delay to elevate the craft to an- 

 other level, whilst a railway will be able to 

 overcome gradually any grade it will be apt to 

 encounter, in passing from one ocean to the 

 other. We ourselves may never live to see it 

 accomplished, but depend upon it, if the 

 means are available it will be only a matter of 

 time. 



"BUTTER AND CHEESE AND I," 



In the estimation of the average individual,, 

 butter and cheese doubtless seems a small 

 item in comparison with the gi-eat bulk of 

 human aliment, and so perhaps it is ; bnt 

 when it is separated from the general volume 

 and stands out alone, so that its outline may 

 be distinctly apprehended, it assumes colossal 

 dimensions ; and not only this, but its magni- 

 tude is annually increasing. At jio previous 

 period of the world's history has there been 

 so much interest elicited in the manufacture 

 and consumption of butter and cheese, as 

 at the present period ; and this interest in- 

 cludes not only the kine that produce the 

 milk and cream, the manufactory, the im- 

 plements and utensils employed in its pro- 

 duction, and the skilled manipulation of the 

 elements out of which it is manufactured, but 

 also the substances and their conditions which 

 are anterior to these, and the subsequent 

 commercial distribution and disposal of the 

 mass. Immediately related to the foregoing 

 must al.so be reckoned the great army of em- 

 ployees involved, the high breeding of milk 

 producing animals, their care and culture, 

 their proper treatment, the chemical knowl- 

 edge exercised, the improved machinery used, 

 and " last not least " the rapidly increasing 

 aud upward tending literature on the subject, 

 and tlrrough wliich the process and its results 

 are more widely and intelligently diffused. 

 In alluding to the butter and cheese literature 

 of the country, we should stultify ourselves if 



