1884.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



121 



Entry cards must be attached conspicuous- 

 ly on the animals or articles exhibited. 

 Horses and cuttle not ready in time and place, 

 will be ruled out of competition. 



Competitors for premiums cannot be present 

 during the examination by the .Judges, unless 

 especially requested by the latter. 

 Instructions to Judges. 



1. You will receive your Committee ]?ooks 

 and enter upon the discharge of your duties, 

 at 10 o'clock on Wednesday, September 3d. 

 The Committee Books will refer you to the 

 number affixed to the different animals or 

 articles. 



2. Animals or articles which have no com- 

 petition, will be awarded a first or second 

 premium, according to merit. 



3. You will award no diploma, unless it is 

 especially named in the class you judge ; but 

 if you find anything meritorious in your class, 

 and not provided for, you will report your 

 opinion to the managers. 



4. Permit no person to interfere in your de- 

 liberations. Competitors attempting to in- 

 terfere with committees will forfeit their right 

 to a premium. 



5. The age of horses shall be computed 

 from the first day of January of the year in 

 which they were foaled. 



(Special Notice.) 

 iVb pools or games of chance of any kind will 

 be alhnved on the Fair Gi-ounds. 



CONTRIBUTIONS. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE CROPS OF 



1884. 



Our cereal and our fruit crops are generally 

 good: our wheat, oats and rye, about an 

 average; and 100 per cent, for corn. Tobacco 

 looks promising, apples, peais, plums, cherries 

 and grapes, are perhaps a little over an aver- 

 age crop. We have just secured one of the 

 very best harvests ; and, so far, have had 

 throughout one of the most prolific fruit and 

 cereal crops that we have had for many years. 



Notwithstanding the unfavorable character 

 of the weather at the last fall plowing and 

 seeding, the outcome has been satisfactory, 

 except among those who are hard to please, if 

 tliere be any such. 



The repojts of the yield of the wheat crop 

 per acre, are from twenty up to forty, and one 

 report fifty, bushel ; which is not in harmony 

 with the alarm of some of our older farmers, 

 about the impoverishment of our farming 

 lands. 



The burden of farm labor is greatly facili- 

 tated by the introduction of the most im- 

 proved reapers, and especially the self-binders, 

 which every year will become more in demand 

 and use. We hear of S1.25 per acre, as 

 the cost of putting the crops into sheaves, 

 which is clieap indeed. 



We have also other labor saving im- 

 plements, and, in some directions, there seems 

 to be no limit to the improvements. With 

 perhaps, a single exception, among the most 

 prominent implements, the difference between 

 now and sixty years ago, seems almost a 

 myracle ; and that exception relates to the 

 plow, and plowing. It is true, the Western 

 States seem to be running away from Penn- 

 sylvania (and especially Lancaster county) 

 with their sulkey-plow: still, that implement 



does not transcend the common plow by any 

 means, as far as the modern reaper does the 

 sickle, or the thresher does the trampiwj of 

 the horse or ox-team. 



Our tobacco crop will be an unusual one 

 the present year, on account of the free use of 

 the Havana seed. We might put it down as 

 an average of seventy-lire per cent ; although 

 some of it is ready to In)), others is still very 

 backward. 



Every body expects good prices. We have 

 already heard of 25 to :S0 cents, all round, 

 being offered for Havana. 



We have had copious showere of rain, and 

 most of them at the proper time — from three 

 to six inches — but just at the present time 

 (July 20) everything seems to indicate a " dry 

 spell." 



This thing of rain occuring just at the 

 proper time, involves more than our superficial 

 observations take cognizance of. Rains ac- 

 cording to their gentle or violent descent, 

 facilitate, or frustrate entirely, the fertiliza- 

 tion of all flowering vegetation. Fruit trees, 

 violently struck by a dash of cold rain or hail, 

 have become barren on the side stricken, 

 whilst on the opposite side there was an 

 abundant crop. Some of the oldest and mo.st 

 experienced fruit growers confidently believe 

 this to be a very frequent cause of the failure 

 in fruit crops. P. S. 11. 



LiTiTZ, July, 1884. 



HOW FARMERS SHOULD LIVE. 

 Rrookville, Ohio, July 1, ls84. 



Editor Lancaster Farmer — (Sir; I am 

 thinking that a communication on " how 

 farmers should live to avoid dymg prema- 

 turely " might be appropriate. Of all people 

 in the world farmers should live the longest, 

 because their occupation is the most useful. 

 The longevity of all other people depend 

 upon that of the farmer's longevity. A 

 farmers life ought and should, and can be 

 worth living, they have all the means of en- 

 joyment on their domains ; they are Lords of 

 all they survey. 



An ounce of prevention is better than a 

 pound of cure. If we understand the laws of 

 nature, so that we could accommodate our- 

 selves to them, it would save us a sea of 

 trouble. When one gets sick or dies the ques- 

 tion should be asked, as was once in the case 

 of blindness, " Who sinned this man or his 

 ancestors ?" Yes, some one or many at dif- 

 ferent times sinned either immediate or re- 

 motely, or very remotely in the case of many 

 deaths, thousands of circumstances contribute 

 to make it possible, I mean premature deaths, 

 and there are very few that are not of that 

 kind. All irregularities in life, including ex- 

 citements and emotions and passions of all 

 kinds have a morbific effect. Discontent that 

 comes from an inordinate desire to make 

 money, and the mental depression that comes 

 from the existence of debts, hits a deterior- 

 ating effect on the constitution, hence it is 

 said " owe no man." 



There need not be much said about the 

 necessity of farmers being out of doors in the 

 sunyner time, for there is where thej' gener- 

 ally are, but in the winter time they are too 

 much in doors, they should understand that 

 if they don't ventilate, they are breathing 

 a deoxidized and carbonated air. This, in 



an active and pa.ssivc way poisons the blood, 

 thereby predisposes to disease sooner or later. 



Every farmer should, on account of his 

 own health, and that of his stock, understand 

 the physiology of digestion. To understand 

 physiology, he nmst to some extent, under- 

 stand anatomy. Farmers should understand 

 the difference between what is disease, and 

 what is an effort of nature to rid itself of a 

 poison in the system. In many instances, 

 what people call disea.se, is only a conservative 

 opeiation of nature. Doctors, therefore, are 

 in many instances, only thwarting nature in 

 her curative tendencies. Pain, hard as it is 

 to endure hits its uses, it is conservative in 

 many ways. In view* of these facts, farmers 

 should eschew doctors and medicines, as they 

 ought to the evil one. An eminent authority 

 in medicine has written long ago, that medi- 

 cine had better be thrown to the dogs than Ije 

 used as it is; it is exceedingly doubtful 

 whether medicine prolongs life under any cir- 

 cumstances. It is only, at best, substituting 

 one kind of poison for another. 



An industrious and economiral farmer 

 don't need to and should not worry about 

 anything, if he is no speculator he will never 

 come to want, he will know that "Die 

 weishiet ist die warhiet, und die warhiet, ist 

 die friehiet, (wi.sdom is truth, and truth is 

 freedom). 



A fine crop of wheat, barley and grass; 

 barley is cut and hay is being made. Tobacco 

 is also planted. 



The currant worms and potato bugs are un- 

 usually numerous this summer. Although 

 the currants are now ripe; a second genera- 

 tion of worms arc now feeding on the leaves. 

 The cabbage worm has not appeared yet. 



Brookville, Ohio, July 28, 1884. 



Editor Lancaster Farmer— Sir; A 

 Mr. Freely, of Montana, writes you that he 

 has a calf 14 months and 20 days old that is 

 a mother. Mr. John John, my neighbor, 

 who never tells lies, for I have known him for 

 fifty years, says he not long since had a grade 

 Jersey calf that became a mother when it 

 was but 12 months and 7 days old. That is 

 a precocity that rarely occurs. Both calves 

 (mother and calf) did well. 



After a long continued drought we have had 

 within the last few days, a number of showers. 

 On this account "now is the winter of our 

 discontent over." The probabilities are that 

 we will have a good crop of corn after all. 

 Oats is unusually heavy. While the drought 

 lasted farmers had a fine time to get their 

 wheat and hay into their barns. Tobacco is 

 short, but these rains will compensate for 

 what was lost by drought. As we enjoy every 

 thing by contrast, so is our enjoyment now in 

 proportion to the durability of the drought. 

 New wheat, the best of it, is only selling for 

 80 cents. G. 



Selections. 



TRANSPLANTING TREES. 

 Statistics at our command plainly indicate 

 that only a very small proportion of the mil- 

 lions of young trees annually placed upon the 

 marketcvcr survive removal, and out of the 

 number that do live, very many eventually 

 die after lingering along for a few years 



