4=4:4= 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[December, 
Farm Wages nisist Come I>©vru.— 
" The laborer is worthy of his hire," and we are decided- 
ly in favor of paying all good, faithful workers the high- 
est wages that can possibly be afforded. But the employer 
Is equally worthy of his hire. The farm can not pay be- 
yond a reasonable per centage of its products for work- 
men. The cost of freightage and other marketing ex- 
penses is about the same for wheat at 75c. per bushel as 
for that sold at $1-50. But making no allowance for this, 
let us reckon the wages of laborers in wheat, or other 
produce, which he must buy for his family. Suppose we 
put the wages of a good workman at four bushels of 
wheat per week with board, or 5y z bushels without 
board. This, with wheat at $1.50 per bushel, is $25, or 
$34.37 per month, if the employer sells his wheat and 
pays money. Is it just that he should pay the same money 
■wages when his wheat brings only 75c.? The plain truth 
is, he cannot afford it. He canuot give 8 or 11 bushels 
of wheat for a week's work. If the laborer could feed 
his family two years ago on four bushels of wheat per 
week, he can get along on less than double that quantity 
now, while the employer is straightened for the means to 
pay interest, purchase machinery or implements, stock, 
etc. If laborers do not appreciate these facts, and moderate 
their demands accordingly, farmers will, from absolute 
necessity^ be compelled to shorten sail, and a large num- 
ber of laborers will be thrown out of employment. Every 
farmer will, of course, do the best he can to retain his 
well-tried men, and to keep some improvements going on. 
By the way, we would like to receive from some of our 
readers, in different parts of the country, statements as 
to the number of bushels of wheat, and of corn also, that 
have been equivalent to the average wages of farm hands, 
with and without board, during each of the years 1S65, 
1SG7 and 1869— we refer to men employed by the month 
for the entire year. 
The American ISortieu5*nrat An- 
nual,— This Tear-Book, ready early the present month, 
presents, in a condensed form, a great amount of infor- 
mation useful to the professional horticulturist or to the 
amateur grower of fruits, flowers, and vegetables. Dr. 
Warder furnishes an account of New Apples, giving espe- 
cial attention to the Crabs, which are now assuming so 
much importance to our North-western orchardists. Mr. 
Barry has an article on the New Pears. F. R. Elliott 
sums up the New Peaches and Cherries, upon which 
fruits be is our best authority. A. S. Puller gives an ac- 
count of the Small Fruits, and ag he is, as usual, severe 
on nominal varieties, his article will not be relished by 
the growers of such. Mr. Hoopes gives a description of 
some new Evergreens. Mr. W. G. Comstock, long known 
as one of our most reliable seed-growers, has an article on 
Seed Raising. New varieties of Grapes are described, and 
a distinguished amateur presents an article on Inarching 
the Grape. New Green-House and Bedding Plants are 
treated of by Peter Henderson, while the Annuals are 
discussed by James Tick. Notes upon New Vegetables 
arc furnished by Gregory and others. Besides these there 
is a large amount of editorial work, including references 
to the illustrations that have appeared in the various 
journals, List of Nurserynien and other dealers, Books of 
the Tear, etc., etc. The illustrations are prepared with 
gi«at care, and the volume is a handsome as well as a 
useful one. Price, by mail, 50c. paper, 75c, in boards. 
Terrible l>caths aud great destruction of 
property are occurring weekly, if not daily, in our country 
from the use of the various coal or kerosene oils. The 
inferior oils are so much cheaper, that they are used 
ten times as much as are the safe kinds. Accidents like 
the breaking of lamps, or upsetting them, or the firing of 
the gases, will occur among servants and children, and 
even with the greatest care of grown people. A sudden 
covering of the flame with a large cloth will frequently 
extinguish it, but most persons are too nervous or too 
frightened to do this in time. The only positive safety is 
in using the non-explosive kinds like the gennine 
''Pratt's Astral Oil." (It is offered as one of our premi- 
ums, No. 75). One of our associates had a glass wall- 
lamp, filled with this oil, fall from its fastenings last 
week. It broke, and the oil, with the burning wick in 
it, spread over the floor, but no burning of the oil occur- 
red beyond the wick. He would not use any other oil 
now if this cost $5 a gallon— nor would we. 
Sliimhiag* Advertisements in Ag- 
ricultural Papers.— Some of our correspondents 
have sent us advertisements of Gift Enterprises and the 
like, cut from the columns of other papers. We much re- 
gret that any agricultural paper should publish such 
things ; but would it not have more effect to express your 
disapprobation to the papers in which they appear, than to 
us ? .Whatever we say might have little influence with 
thera ; a word now and then from their readers would. 
To Thee, Reader, 
And not to Somebody Else, 
Thy Subscription Expires NOW. 
(Probably.) 
We every year receive severe com- 
plaints from subscribers because we stop 
their papers on expiration of subscrip- 
tion. — They say : " Don't you know us 
well enough as old subscribers, not to 
stop the paper, because we didn't hap- 
pen to pay up on the instant ?"■ — Hold 
good friends! If you send a dollar's 
worth of dry goods, or farm produce, or 
a ream of paper to a man, you don't, 
when that is gone, send another dollar's 
worth, until it is ordered. Neither do 
we. We can not say that every one 
wants the paper continued, any way. It 
is impracticable to write aud tell every 
subscriber when his time is up. This 
would cost thousands of dollars. (We 
furnish the paper now for less than it 
costs to make it, and every penny added 
to the cost of supplying it is a heavy 
matter.) Our personal friends suffer 
equally with others, because clerks must 
necessarily be employed to make up 
the mail lists, and they must work by 
the general rule, to enter in the mail 
books only the names of those paid up. 
To Start the Year Square, we say to 
the Reader, it is very probable that his 
subscription expires NOW- — with this 
last number of the volume. Those who 
have recently renewed will of course 
find the paper coming on regularly. 
We cordially invite every present sub- 
scriber to renew NOW. We know we 
shall make the paper worthy of con- 
tinued patronage, and it will help us 
much if renewals and new names are sent 
in at once — the first week in December — 
so that we can get them all well arranged 
in next year's books, ready for mailing the 
next number before the Holidays. It will 
take no more time to write the few words 
required to order a subscription continued 
now, than it will to-morrow or next week 
when it may be forgotten or overlooked. 
J^ So Please Renew NOW. _JF? 
Special Premium.— The Enmclan 
Grape.— This remarkable grape is now attracting much 
attention, being a beautiful black grape of the first 
quality, and ripening some time before the Delaware. It 
has already been planted in many different sections of 
the country, from the Atlantic to west of the Mississippi, 
and the promises of its success are most flattering. It 
has proved, generally, vigorous and hardy. The quality 
of the fruit is, in onr judgment, as good as any variety 
with which we are familiar, except it be the Iona. It has 
taken the highest premium for quality at many exhibi- 
tions this fall. We are convinced tliat this grape is 
worthy of general trial, and we shall take much interest 
in seeing its true merits developed. We have made ar- 
rangements with Messrs. Hasbrouclc & Bnshnell.of Iona, 
near Peekskill, N. T., who have the original stock of the 
vines, aud a very superior stock of the young plants, to 
furnish us a limited number of No. 1, and extra vines 
for the purpose of offering them as premiums, and we give 
our subscribers the benefit of our large purchase by fur- 
nishing the vines as premiums at the lowest rate per 
thousand. We furnish the American Agriculturist, with 
Eumelan vine*, as follows ; 
1 copy for one year and 1 No. 1. Eumelan vine for $2.50 
4 copies " " " " 4 " " » " 9.00 
10 " " " " " 10 ' • 23.00 
20 « •• " « « 20 " '• '• « 40.OO 
We will furnish an Extra quality 0/ Tine, as follows : 
1 copy for one year and 1 Extra Eumelan vine for $3.25 
4 copies " " ls " 4 " " " " 12.00 
10 " " " " " 10 " " « '• 20.50 
20 " '■ « " " 20 '■ " •■ » 55.00 
Or we will give 
One No. 1 Eumelan vine for 4 subscribers at $1.50 each. 
Or one Extra " " '• " " 1.50 '• 
These vines will be of really No. 1 aud extra quality, 
and will be sent by mail, postage paid, or boxed, by ex- 
press, the receiver paying express charges only. Orders 
received too late for sending this fall will be entered, 
and the viues forwarded as soon as it is safe in the spring. 
How does tlie Water get iinto Tiles? 
—It gets in through the joints. Jnst lay twenty or thirty 
rods of tiles and make the joints as tight as possible, then 
let a stream of water into the tiles and dam it up at the 
lower end, and see how fast the water will flow out from 
the joints between the tiles. Now, when the tiles are laid 
in the ground and they are surrounded with water, the 
water-will rush into the tiles through the joints nearly or 
quite as fast as the water in the other case would rush ont 
of them. But, perhaps, you mean to ask how the water 
that is in the land gets to the underdrain. In sandy or 
gravelly land it gradually soaks through the particles of 
soil for several rods on each side of the drain. But to 
many people it is a mystery how water can soak throngh a 
tenacious clay three or four feet deep to the tiles. Wet clay 
as it dries, contracts, and seams or pores .are formed. You 
will observe this on a piece of wet clay land. . In the dry 
weather of summer it splits open into cracks, not 
unfreqitently an inch wide. Well, when yon put tiles 
into such a soil, the water drains away for a few inches on 
the bottom and sides of the ditch, and as the laud becomes 
dry it cracks open, and the water from the adjoining land 
flows into these cracks and through them to the tiles. 
As more land flrys more cracks are formed, and so on 
until the whole soil, if the drains are sufficiently numer- 
ous, becomes full of these small fissures. When these 
are once formed, they wiil always continue open, and the 
water will pass off rapidly. We have heard old farmers 
declare that they knew water could not get through wet 
clay land, because they had seen a bole made by the foot 
of an ox not a yard from an open ditch, which would aud 
did hold water for several weeks, or until it was evaporat- 
ed. The explanation of this is simple enough. Notwith- 
standing the ditch, the land was saturated with water 
from the acres of land on each side of it. Had a couple of 
deep ditches been cut, say ten rods apart, the land be- 
tween the ditches would not hold water, at least not 
after a few months, when the soil had once become dry 
from below, and full of minute fissures or cracks. 
"Wliat Do You Mean by Faliovr- 
iug Laud ?"— Generally, we mean plowing land, and 
letting it lie a season without sowing a crop ; in the 
iheautime ban-owing, cultivating, plowing, and otherwise 
stirring the soil, for the purpose of mellowing it and de- 
stroying weeds. An ordinary summer-fallow is a piece 
of sward land, plowed in May, or early in June, and 
again plowed in July, and after each plowing the land is 
harrowed, aud rolled and cultivated at intervals of a few 
days or weeks, according to its condition : and then, in 
September, the land is plowed again, harrowed, aud 
drilled in with wheat. Another kind of summer-fallow 
is to turn over a clover sod in June, and sow it to wheat 
in September, without any more plowing, merely work- 
ing the surface with a cultivator, harrow, etc., during the 
summer, to keep down the weed6. Of late years, this 
