1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
<L5 
bushel off highest figures for Spring. Corn has been 
offered very sparingly, and with a brisk inquiry, largely 
speculative, has been quoted decidedly dearer. Oats and 
Barley have also been actively sought after, and prices 
have favored sellers, closing buoyantly Provisions 
have attracted more attention, but closed quiet and 
somewhat unsettled Cotton has been selling freely 
at buoyant rates Wool has been in more request at 
Improved prices, closing firmly Hops, Hay, Straw, 
and Tobacco have been selling moderately, on a general 
steady basis as to values. Seeds have been quoted 
higher, with a readier market noted, particularly for 
prime Clover for export purposes. 
New Vorli iJio-siook Markets. 
BECBTPTS. 
VRRK hndtno JJeeves. Cows. Calm*. Sheep. Swine. ToCl. 
December 15. 7,433 69 620 23,073 42.3SJ 73,533 
December 2! 7,796 61 670 25,001 40.8J8 74,416 
December 29 5,914 51 676 13,178 3"»,7G4 60.5P3 
Jannnry 5 7.217 «l 614 1(7,909 22,735 47,r,65 
January 12.... 6,8.>9 6S 653 17,373 3U.233 55,707 
Total/or 5 IF«e*s.. 35.219 310 3,233 101,093 171,942 311,80.7 
AQ.forprev.4Weeks2G,Qj2 311 4,514 9J t W)7 213,911 S37.5J3 
Beeves. Cows. Calves. Sheep, Swine. 
Average per Week ...7,042 62 G17 20,219 34,338 
do. do. last Month... 6,513 78 1.1S6 2J.674 53,333 
do. do. prev's Month.. 9,159 74 1,716 30,397 47,142 
Beeves.— The irregular receipts of last month have 
created a somewhat irregular market, and prices have 
Changed up or down with less or greater supply. The 
year's business closed np with receipts of 442,744 head, 
against 425,275 head for 1872 and 380,931 for 1871. The 
closing prices of 1873 were fully l^c, to 2c. lower than a 
year previous, and premium cattle dragged at the price 
of extra, bringing 13&G. against IBj^c. a year ago. Dur- 
ing the last month the prices have been maintained only 
by moderate supply, and gave way whenever the supply 
equaled the demand. Prices may be marked down fully 
>*C daring the month ; choice steers selling at the close 
atl2#c. @ 12^c. $ B). ; first quality steers at ll#c. @ 
12c.; native cattle, oxen, and cows, 9c. ©ll.'^c.; and 
Texans at T&c. @ 10#c. 
Prices for the past five weeks were : 
week ending Range. Large Sales. Aver. 
December 15.... 7 @V3y.c. 10K@llJ<c. 105/c. 
December 22.... 7 ®l3£c. 10 @ll c. lOJ^c. 
December 29.... ?M@l8jjc. 10;<@11V^c. 103^c. 
January 5 7'-©13 c. 10 ©11 c. 10Kc 
January 12 7M@l2MC 10 ©U c. lO^C 
milch Cows. — There has been fair inquiry for good 
cows, with light supply, and prices have remained Pt<?ady. 
$90 was paid for no extra cow and calf, but the range has 
been from $10 to $80 for cow and calf Calves. — 
For this stock we have no change to remark; the supply 
has fallen off since last month nearly one-half, yet there 
has been no advance in prices to notice. Fair milk-fed 
calves sold at the close for 8c. @ lie. ty lb., and grassers 
at $6@$12 ^ head. Dog-dressed calves arc arriving and 
selling at 10c. @ 13c. for milk and 5c. @. 9c. for grass and 
fed Sheep and Lambs.— The arrivals are 
below the average, and, with good demand, the quota- 
tions are advanced somewhat, but the market is dull. 
Prices at the close reached 5'iC © 7&c. $ lb. for ordin- 
ary stock ; 7,',iC @ iy % c. for selected ; and 8c. for fancy 
Canada wethers .Swine* — Prices have again ad- 
vanced, with ecu tinned light receipts, although the mar- 
ket has been constantly dull. Live hogs were quoted 
nominally, without sales, at the close of the week at 
Bj^c. @5%c. *$ 7b. Dressed hogs were moving uneasily 
in an unsettled market at 6J£c. @ S*(£c. for Western, and 
tttfe. © 7%c. for City. 
-•— « n ■ * 
containing a great variety of lfetns, including many 
good Hints and Suggestions wfdeh we throw into smaller 
type and condensed form, for want of space elsewlvere. 
Remitting; Honeys — Clicclis on 
New York City Banks or Bankers are best 
for large sums ; make payable to the order of Orange 
J ndd Company. Post-Office Money Orders 
for $50 or less, arc cheap and safe also. When these arc not 
obtainable, register letters, affixing Btamps for poet- 
age and registry ; put in the money and seal the letter in 
the presence of the postmaster, and take his receipt for it. 
Money sent in the above three methods is safe against loss. 
Postage : On American Agriculturist, 12 cent* 
a year, and on Hearth and Home, 20 cents a year, in ad- 
vance. Double rates if not paid in advance at the 
•fficc where the papers arc received. For subscribers in 
British America, the postage, as above, mnst be sent 
to this office, with the subscription, for prepayment here. 
Alao 20 cents for delivery of Hearth and Home and 12 
wots for delivery of American Agriculturist in New 
YoFk City. 
ISoiiiid Copies of Volume Xhirty- 
two arc now ready. Price, $2, at our office ; or $2.60 
each, if sent by mail. Any of the last seventeen volumes 
(16 to 32) will also be forwarded at same price. Sets of 
numbers sent to our office will be neatly bound in our 
regular style, at 75 cents per vol. (50 cents extra, if return- 
ed by mail.) Missing numbers supplied at 12 cents each. 
Clubs can at any time be increased by remitting 
for each addition the price pa' d by the original members: 
or a small club may be increased to a larger one; thus; 
a person having sent 10 subscribers and $12, may after- 
ward send 10 more subscribers with only $S ; making a 
club of 20 at $1 each ; and so of the other club rates. 
Our Fine Chromos- Read all about 
them on third cover page. It is easy to secure one or 
both. 
FREE.— Fine Gold Pens, witlt 
Silver Cases— The Best Silver-plat- 
ed Table Articles— Table Cutlery- 
Children's Carriages and Toys — 
Floral Sets — Garden Seeds and 
Flower Bulbs— Sewing 1 Machines- 
Washing Machines and Wringers 
— Foclcet Knives — Fine Gold and 
SilverWatchcs— .Tttelodeons— Pianos 
— Guns and Bines — Cultivators — 
Books — etc., etc., etc.; all these are among 
the valuable articles to bs found in the Premium List 
for 1874 on page 73. Any person can, with a little effort, 
secure one or more of these valuable articles. Thou- 
sands have done it. There is room for thousands more. 
It is very easy to obtain clubs of subscribers for the two 
popular papers, the American Agriculturist, and Hearth 
and Home. Try it. 
EI^~ See Pag;es 73 and 74. 
Tnk^ Both Pa.p«re. — If both the 
American Agriculturist and Hearth and Home are 
taken together they may be had for only $4, and $4.50 
pays for both papers and a Chromo with each. 
The German Agriculturist is pub- 
lished at the same price as the English edition, and is 
mainly a reproduction of that paper, with a special de- 
partment edited by the lion. F. Munch. Will our readers 
kindly mention this to their German friends ? Perhaps 
some who employ Germans as gardeners, laborers, .etc., 
would be glad to supply them with useful reading matter 
by subscribing for the German edition for them. 
Farnis for Premiums. — A most liberal 
offer of farm lands as Special Premiums is made by the 
Publishers to those who will secure clubs of subscribers 
for the American Agriculturist and Hearth and Home. 
See particulars on fourth cover page of this paper. 
Henry A. Dreer. — The announcement of 
the death of this most estimable man came upon his 
friends with a startling suddenness. He died at his res- 
idence near Philadelphia on the 21st of December last of 
a disease of the heart. Mr. Dreer was one of the leading 
seedsmen of the country, and at the same time an en- 
thusiastic lover and cultivator of plants. He was an in- 
fluential member of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Soci- 
ety, and as he was also eminently a working member, 
his helpful presence will be sadly missed by that body. 
Of a singularly even and genial temperament, lie made 
hosts of friends, and his strict integrity secured him the 
esteem of all who had business relations with him. We 
learn that the business will be continued under the Eaine 
name by Mr. Dreer's son, Wra. F. Dreer, and his nephew, 
Wm. II. Smith, who have been associated with him for 
several years. 
The Use of Postal Cards.— The Rus- 
sian who when he first saw a pair of snuffers thought 
them very handy, as he illustrated by snuffing the candle 
with his fingers and putting the snuff into the snuffers, 
has passed into history. He is rivalled in a degree by 
the American who found postal cards a great convenience, 
as he had only to write his message on it, put it. into an 
envelope and send it off without any trouble. We have 
a correspondent who excels both in ingenuity. He en- 
closes us six postal cards with a distinct question upon 
each, and asks us to answer " through the Agriculturist.' 1 '' 
To make the matter Fiire be scratches out his address 
from his letter and fails to put it on the cards. 
SI "YI>UY HUMBUGS.— A gentleman 
in Philadelphia incloses us a circular of the Louisville, 
Ky., Library Lottery, and asks us if it is a humbug. It 
is probably no more 60 than any other lottery. We hold 
that 
ALL LOTTERIES AJlB HUMBUGS, 
no matter how fairly managed. Their main object is to 
make money for their proprietors, and the pretense of 
benefiting some public or chariUble institution is a mere 
bait. Within the recollection of many, lotteries were 
tolerated, and even legalized, in almost every state in the 
Union, but of late years the moral sense of the commu- 
nity has demanded that they be suppressed, and now 
most states have laws prohibiting them. Take this 
Louisville affair, for instance, which seems to be profita- 
ble, or it would not be kept up so long ; we showed a 
year ago, in a quotation from a Louisville paper, that the 
purchasers of tickets paid nine dollars to put one dollar 
into the library fund. Then here is the Gift Concert for 
the Reform School of Leavenworth, Kansas, which we 
have already noticed, and which is mainly a plan to help 
the projector to sell his house at a good price, that being 
one of the prizes. Even Utah has gone into the lottery 
business, and proposes a " Gift Concert " fox the benefit 
of a free school in the city of Corinne. No matter un- 
der what pretense these things are advertised— and we 
consider those cloaked under charitable disguises more 
reprehensible than bold and barefaced lotteries— they all 
hold out temptations, that the few may get something at 
the expense of the many. It is gambling in its meanest 
form ; and no honorable man, whether he be governor, 
mayor, merchant, or priest, should allow his name»to be 
used to promote any such scheme. 
THE $4 GENEVA WATCH 
dealers have received a check. We have long had them 
in our list of humbugs, but now the law has interfered 
with their little game. The watches were advertised by 
J. Wright & Co., 009 Broadway, but the Post-office au- 
thorities found that letters thus directed were received 
by one Robinson at 599 Broadway, and that the real 
place of business— if business it could be called— was at 
49 Amity street. Here the letters were opened, the 
money taken out, and a circular dispatched informing 
the sender of the money that his order would be filled in 
turn, Robinson has been arrested and balled in $35,000, 
to appear for trial upon the charge of getting letters from 
the mail under false pretenses. 
DANGEROUS BURNING FLUIDS. 
We have before set forth the dangcrouB character of sev- 
eral of the articles offered as cheap illuminators. That 
these will give an excellent light and at a low cost, we 
do not doubt; but we feel it a duty to warn all our read- 
ers not to use benzine, naphtha, gasoline, or any of thes'c 
light oils in any form ; no matter how compounded or 
mixed up, they are dangerous in themselves and danger- 
ous in all their componnds. Nothing is safer than gun- 
powder in the hands of an old hunter, because he knows 
its danger; but he would not trust his children with it. 
These articles will not themselves explode, and those 
who sell them convince the ignorant that they are safe 
by showing that they will extinguish a lighted match. 
But the trouble is with the vapor which they give off at 
ordinary temperatures, and this, when mixed with air, is 
highly explosive and dangerous. No liquid is safe to 
bnrn that gives off a vapor that will flash at a lower tem- 
perature than 110". "I. I. A." sends us a circular of 
a "Chemical Fluid Gas Light, 1 ' and asks our opinion, 
but as he does not send the formula, we can only say 
that, from the circular, we infer it is no gas at all, but 
merely a contrivance for burning the vapor of some 
highly volatile and consequently dangerous liquid. 
DUBIOUS CASES 
are mere numerous this month than usual. We have a 
pile of circulars, in some of which goods are offered at 
remarkably low prices, generally requiring $5 to be sent 
with the order. In others all sorts of knicknacks are of- 
fered for sale by agents who arc requested to send a sum 
to procure an outfit, and others offer to sell at a very low 
rate the secret of making wonderful perfumes, medicines 
to cure various diseases, hair restorers, and the like. 
While it is probable that any one who invests in any of 
these enterprises will regret it, we can not show that the 
proprietors will not do as they agree to, and we are not 
warranted in setting them down byname as hnmbugs. 
Wo have complaints against one of these concerns from 
persons who write us that they have sent money to one 
of these "companies" and got no return. Not finding 
the name in the directory, we sent one of our associates 
to the place advertised, who found the "company" in an 
obscure upper room, with samples of the goods they send 
out, and several persons busy in preparing circulars for 
the mail After nil that has been said npon the mat- 
ter, we can not feel a -great deal of pity for persons who 
send money to unknown parties and receive no returns. 
People should recollect that no really good article is ever 
