The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. RATHVON. Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., APRIL, 1884. 



Vol. XVI. No. 4. 



Editorial. 



APRIL. 



' Then emerged from a rock bound i;.ive— 



With lordly mien and brow — 



A haughty man whose preeence maile 



The head— not heart— to bow . 



His looks, though not forbidding, yet, 



Had no inviting power, 



One moment he was bright sunshine, 



The next a frowning shower, 



One day he'd wear a nosegay of 



Spring-blossoms, and then, lo ! 



The next, their place was flll'd with flakes 



Of winters drilting snow. 

 i A crocus wreath his brow bedecked 



I Crowned by a daffodil. 



This vaccinating elf was called 



" Spring's first-born child," April. 

 The name April is derived from the Latin 

 term (qierire, to open. It is, practically, the 

 opening mouth of the year, when trees unfold 

 their foliage, and the womb of nature opens 

 with young life. The first day of April has, 

 by common consent, or perhaps traditionally, 

 become '■' all-fooVs day.'" This was supposed 

 to refer to the uncertainty of the weather, or 

 to the mockery trial of the Saviour ; but in 

 Hindoostan similar tricks were played at the 

 Hull Festival, which occurred on the 31st of 

 March; therefore, it more probably has a 

 pagan or heathen origin. Some are inclined 

 to think that the custom refers to traditions 

 of the flood, wher the "foolish" were left to 

 the pelting of the pittiless rain. In France 

 the April foul is called tm poisson d^Avril— 

 that is, an "April fish," and in Scotland a 

 yovk, or cuckoo. The wedding day is .some- 

 times significantly called, "Jfy Ajml morn,'' 

 and alludes to the custom of making fools of 

 each other on the first of April." 



The Latin name of this month is Aprilis, a 

 contraction of Aperilis from Aperire, as stated 

 above: French, Avril ; old French, Ahreen; 

 Prussian, Spani.sh and Portugese, Abril, and 

 Italian, A2)rile. By our present computation 

 of time it is the fourth month of the year, but 

 anciently, and for reasons indicated above, it 

 was considered the first or opening month. 



The meteorological, romantic, and poetical 

 characteristics — " Bowery, showery, flowery" 

 —usually attributed to the month of April, 

 could be more appropriately traiisfeired to 

 the month of May ; for, although it is usually 

 showerji enough, it is very seldom howri/ and 

 lloicery enough, to entitle it to such a marked 

 distinction. Nevertheless, it is always — 

 "from first to last"— a busy month to the 

 farmer, the gardener, the fruit-grower, the 

 florist and the housekeeper. As the days ad- 

 vance and lengthen, and the temperature 

 " warms up," it presents scenes of both out- 

 door and indoor activity. In Pennsylvania 

 at least, and especially in Lancaster county, 

 it is the great financial epoch of the year, a 

 period of leasing and releasing ; the dis- 

 charging of old obUgations, and the contrac- 

 tion of new ones ; the vacation of old premises 

 and the occupancy of new ones ; a general 

 effort to "make both ends meet," and the 



starling point of a new annual career, and 

 the anticipation of those "coming events," 

 which now seem to " cast their shadows be- 

 fore" — in short, a season of prolific hopes in 

 the realization of future possibilities. The 

 thrifty farmer will now be engaged in cleaning 

 up and clearing up ; in finishing what he may 

 have begun in March, but wiis thwarted in 

 finishing, through the boreal ravings of that 

 fickle and most capricious division of the year. 

 The opening buds and expanding foliage will 

 now reveal what has passed the previous win- 

 ter unscathed or undamaged, and the time of 

 sowing, planting, hoeing and weeding will 

 have begun. Let the weather be as it will, 

 and the warfare of the elements be ever so 

 ungracious, before the end of the month it 

 will become manifest that April has made its 

 mark upon the escutcheon of progressive 

 vegetation. April may obscure, but it cannot 

 obliterate the development of the latent mer- 

 chandize of nature. When the "full time" of 

 the earth has come, meteorological adversities 

 may retard, but they cannot defeat the oper- 

 ation of natures laws. The intervals between 

 "sunshine and shower" will furnish those 

 states of preparation which preceed earth's 

 prolific " bringing forth" the fruits of her 

 womb. 



ABOUT DOGS. 



" Well, Johnny, it seems to me you keep 

 too many dogs about your house, if you de- 

 sire to feed, clothe, and educate ybur large 

 family of children with any kind of efliciency. 

 Don't you think so ¥" 



"Why, no! Dare is only de Bull, Spring, 

 Ring, Towser, und de Wasser; de Bitch, de 

 seven Bups, und de Ben, dats not many 

 Togs." 



Johnny was a poor, hardworking indus- 

 trious man; the possessor of a large family, a 

 half-starved horse, a very lean cow, and a 

 dozen dogs — "more or less" — but his ruling 

 love culminated in dogs; mainly, perhaps, be- 

 cause he thought dogs could "hoe their own 

 row," that is, make their own living by 

 stealing; and, inasmuch as they often "snuck" 

 the children's bread, he only gave their steal- 

 ing exploits the mild name of "sneaking." 

 This is not a mere fancy picture, it has been 

 realized in the past, and no doubt continues to 

 be realized in the present, with a probability 

 of being transmitted to the future. If a man 

 desires to be poor and hard working, under 

 compelled industry, it seems to us that 

 .lohnny's course ought to furnish him a first- 

 class example. 



But the keeping of a pack of worthless 

 thieving curs about a house, is not only an in- 

 jury to the householder himself, but it reaches 

 out and effects the interests of the community, 

 for no matter how useless or insignificant a 

 dog may be, he is still a consumer, whether 

 by foul means or fair means ; and, not only a 

 consumer but also a destroyer. Granting 

 there may be some good and useful dogs, 

 their cost to a community, a county, a State, 

 or a nation may be inferred from the follow- 



ing, clippi'd from the columns of the iVeto 

 Emjlaml Farmer. 



The Cost of Dogs. 



An lo^a man has figured up the cost of 

 keeping dogs in his State, and finds that they 

 eat enough annually to feed 100,000 working- 

 men, and counting ui the damage they do the 

 sheep farmers, the dogs cost the State 

 S»,000,000, while the education of all the 

 children in the State is less than half that 

 sum. 



A Tennessee man makes out a similar con- 

 dition of affairs in his State. He finds there 

 are 300,000 worthless dogs, which consume 

 food enough if fed to hog.s, to make 30,000,- 

 000 pounds of bacon, which would be equal to 

 feeding meat to 100,000 able bodied men a 

 whole year. At ten cents per pound the 

 bacon would be worth »3,0(X),000, and if in 

 silver would load down 94 two-horse wagons, 

 and make a wagon train more than half a 

 mile long. Again the worthless whelps pre- 

 vent farmers from keeping 2,000,000 sheep, 

 the mutton and wool from which would be 

 worth 1.5,000,000. Including the sheep now 

 annually killed, the whole expense of keeping 

 the dogs of the State amounts to the pretty 

 sum of »0,000,000. Tennessee expends 83,- 

 000,000 for educating her children. Three 

 dollars for dogs I One dollar for children. 



Another writer, after making careful esti- 

 mates of the damage done by dogs in the 

 Northern States alone, finds it costs not less 

 than $33,000,000 annually to support our dogs, 

 a sum that would buy 105,000 farms at gov- 

 ernment prices for land, or it would purchase 

 132,000 neighborhood libraries of -JOU volumes 

 each. 



"THE BEAUTIFUL SNOW 

 It, perhaps, would he inipo.<sible for any 

 one to substantiate, that the winter of lSs3-4 

 was the most remarkable on record, or even 

 the most remarkable they had ever experi- 

 enced or witnessed. In the present heat or 

 cold, we are very apt to forget what they had 

 been in the past ; nevertheless, it is not often 

 we have such a snow-storm in Lancaster 

 county, as that which occurred Wednesday, 

 April 0, lf<S4. It snowed without percepti- 

 ble abatement from "morning till night," 

 commencing about 7 o'clock A. M., and con- 

 tinued until about .5 o'clock P. M., during 

 which time there fell, at least, twenty inches 

 of snow. It would be impossible to state ac- 

 curately the number of inches that fell; for, 

 it began in a rain and ended in a rain; and 

 during the whole day the snow was not en- 

 tirely unmixed with rain : but from our per- 

 snixd observations, made about mid-day, in a 

 place uninfluenced by storm-drift, there 

 could not have been less than twenty inches, 

 that remained unmelted after the fall. But 

 this is not unprecedented, neither as to date, 

 quantity or continuation. We can distinctly 

 recall a suow that fell on Easter .Sunday, as 

 nearly as we can locate it, in the year of our 

 Lord l><-20. On that occasion it snowed all 

 day, the peach trees were in bloom, and the 



