1874.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
285- 
SPECIAL PREMIUMS 
STILL OFFERED. 
"MJA 
MCLTUM IN PARVO KNIFE, OPEN — WEIGHT 2 OZ. 
The General Premium List closed July 1st. The 
following Special Premiums are contiuued until 
further notice : 
Xlic MitUum in Parr* Knife for 8 
subscribers to American Agriculturist at SI. 50 each 
a year. (Knife sent post-paid.) 
Tlie Beckwitli Improved $13 Sew. 
iu^f-^Ineliiiic for 10 subscribers to American 
Agriculturist at 51.50 each a year. 
Tkc Beckvith P«.(al>le I'amily 
Sc-»ving-»Macl»iiie, price $30, for 30 sub- 
scribers to American Agriculturist at 51.50 each 
a year. 
BECKW1TII PORTABLE ?20 SEWING-MACHINE. 
To secure the Chromo, mounted and prepaid, 
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for American Agriculturist. 
Hf. 11. — Two lialAycar subscribers in all 
the above cases may count for one full year in a 
Premium Club List. 
Please tell your Friends 
THAT THEY CAN SECURE THE 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
Six Months for only 75 Cts. 
In order to enable many persons to become acquainted 
■with this valuable Journal, who have not hitherto taken 
it, the Publishers will receive subscriptions for it for the 
months commencing with July and ending with Decem- 
ber, 1874, at seventy-five cents each. Will not each of 
our present subscribers speak "a good word" to friend 
or neighbor?— Please note: We will send the American 
Agriculturist for six mouths, beginning with July, 1874, 
for seventy-five cents. This offer, of course, does not in- 
clude the beautiful chromo "Up for Repairs," which is 
offered to all yearly subscribers free, when taken at 245 
Broadway, or twenty-five cents extia when sent prepaid. 
Give the paper a six month's trial trip, or better still, 
try it a year. 
• < • Jr» ^» • • • 
Better Still! 
BEAUTIFUL $5 CHROMO, 
AJTD 
Half a Year's Subscription, 
ALT, 
For a Single Dollar. 
Considering the hardness of the times, and 
in order to meet the -wishes of a great number 
who desire to have our beautiful chromo, 
"UP FOR REPAIRS," but who did 
not feel able to pay the $1.75 required to 
get it, the Publishers have decided to send 
the American Agriculturist , from July 1st 
to the end of the year, and to deliver, free 
of postage, a mounted copy of this beautiful 
CliroEBio, which has given so much pleasure, 
all for $1, if promptly called for. 
$3^* Please make this known to all your 
friends and neighbors. 
containing a great variety of Items, including many 
good Hints and Suggestions which we throw into smaller 
type and condensed fomi, for ivant of space elseivhere. 
Remitting' Money: — Checlis on 
New York City Banks or Bankers are beet 
for large sums ; make payable to the order of Orange 
Judd Company, Posl-Office Money Orders 
for $50 or less, are cheap and safe also. When these are not 
obtainable, register letters, affixing stamps for post- 
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 issafe against loss. 
13^ H»\B.— The i\ew Postage I^aw. 
—On account of the new postal law. which requires 
pre-payment of postage by tlie publish- 
ers, after January tst, 1S75, each subscriber, 
whose subscription runs over into the next year, must re- 
mit, in addition to the regular rates, one cent for each 
month over which his subscription extends in 1S75, or 
ten cents for the whole year 1875. Every 
subscriber, whether coming singly, or in clubs at club 
rates, will be particular to send to this office postage as 
above, that is, at the rate of ten cents for the 
year, additional to the regular subscrip- 
tion. Subscribers in British America will continue to 
send postage as heretofore, for pre-payraent here. 
RoiiimI Copies of Volume Thirty- 
two arc now ready. Price, $2, at onr office ; or $2.50 
each, if sent by mail. Any of thelast seventeen volumes 
(10 to 32) will also be forwarded at same price. Sets of 
numbers sent lo our office will be neatly bound in our 
regular style, at 75 certs per vol. (50 cents extra, if return- 
ed by mail.) Missi. numbers supplied at 12 cents each. 
Onr W tern OtHce.— Our friends in 
the West ar:- reminded that we have an office at Lake- 
side Builuirg, Chicago, 111., in charge of Mr. W. H. 
Busbcy. Subscriptions to A?nerican Agriculturist ara 
taken there, and sample copies of the paper and chroma, 
are delivered, and orders received for advertising on th^ 
game terms as in New York. «A11 our liooks are on sale, 
at the Western Office. Please call and examine, bny r 
subscribe, and advertise. 
Catalogues and Reports.— Several ot 
these must wait until another month, as our crowded- 
columns will not allow us to do justice to them* 
"The Acrobats." — Look at the figures. 
of CrandalPs Acrobats, on paires 316 and 317, the mog'c 
amusing toys ever invented for children. A good laugh, 
now and then, never hurts fathers and mothers any mora 
than it hurts hoys and girls. 
Aliotit Manuscripts.— It has been de- 
cided in law that an editor or publisher is not responsible 
for a manuscript sent to him without solicitation. The 
English papers, and some of the New York dailies, give 
notice that no manuscripts will be returned. This rule 
is no doubt necessary in a daily, but as far as we are «on- 
cerned, we endeavor to return unaccepted articles when 
stamps are sent for that purpose, but it is a little too 
much to expect ns to pay 20 or 30 cts., for reading an 
article that we do not want— still some are so ineon 
eiderate as to require this. 
Nameless People. — We have said in al-^ 
most every issue that anonymous letters would not be 
answered, and that matters of interest to the writer only, 
could not take up space in the paper. If " A Farmer's Boy 
that is fond of work and pleasure," had taken half the 
space required for that signature, to write his own, we 
should have sent him a catalogue of the machine ho 
wants. As it is, his letter goes to the waste basket] 
The " hoy " should learn while young that it is impolite 
to write any one an anonymous letter upon any subject 
whatever "Subscriber 11 in Suffolk Co., N. Y., cnir 
get our Onion pamphlet for 20c., but under our rule? 
we can not answer his other matters. Again we repeat, 
" sign your name." It will not be published if another 
signature is used with it, or a line is drawn across it. 
Grasshoppers in Minnesota. — -»' 
eerioiifl calamity has Tjcmilcn several nf the newer 
counties of Minnesota ; they have been visited by grass*- 
hoppers, in such quantities as to completely Iny bare 
large districts, and by eating up every green thing, have 
brought mnch suffering, and even ruin in their train. 
Those who have never seen a district that, has beeu 
devasted by this sconrge, can form no idea of the com- 
pleteness of the destruction. So sudden, severe, and 
wide spread has been this affliction that the Governor of 
the State has called for aid, both from the residents oJ 
Minnesota and from others. It is expected that the 
Patrons of Husbandry will extend some relief through 
their organization, but there will be plenty of oppor- 
tunity for the exercise of benevolence by others. Fooo\. 
or the money to purchase it, is the pressing wan* 
Though the severity of the calamity will have bee 
relieved, by the time this reaches our readers, there wil 
still be a great need of food and seed for nest seas* 
Contributions may be sent to Gov. C. K. Davis, or Geit 
H. H. Sibley, St. Paul. 
Other Basket Items on page 313. 
SIJHtt>RY Hi;i»IBrCJS.-The honesty 
of farmers as a class is proverbial, and being simple- 
hearted and honest themselves, they are slow to suspcot 
others of dishonesty or wrong intent. Hence it is that 
humbugs and swindlers of all kinds find their moat 
numerous dupes among agricultural communities, and a 
list of the names of the well-to-do farmers in every thriv- 
ing section of the country is something that these sharp- 
era are willing to pay well for. And circulars of :Al 
kinds, from those of counterfeit money venders to the 
latest quack-medicine maker, find their way to the post- 
offices in every rural district. Besides these general hum- 
bugs, there is a class relating particularly to matters con- 
nected with farming, which we may class as 
AGRICULTURAL HUMBUGS. 
We have exposed from time to time the tricks of ths 
rascally venders, who sell farm-machinery, and take notes 
which arc so ingeniously worded, that the buyer finds 
his name affixed to & very different document from that 
he supposed he had signed. One of the minor annoy- 
ances, not only to farmers, but to every one who lives 
in the country, arc 
THE LIGHTNING-ROD MEN. 
These glib-tongued fellows delight to find only women: 
at the house, for they think they can soon so work upon 
their fears, as to make them feel that their safety not on- 
ly depends upon having a lightning-rod, but the per- 
