4r8 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[February, 
pigeons” in their swindle, but we are glad to know of 
Borne cases in which “ tee putty did not stick.” We 
have devoted more space than usual 
TO LOTTERT SCHEMES, 
as they are the most fascinating of all forms of humbug. 
Many think that they are fairly conducted games of 
chance, and if they invest, they only “take their 
chances ” with the others—while the fact is they have 
no chance at all. These lotteries are rotten through and 
through, and the prizes pretended to be drawn, are 
generally “ put up jobs,” and given out merely as bait to 
catch others. Let them alone in all their manifestations, 
of “Gift Concerts,” “Distributions,” “Legal De¬ 
cisions,” and every other form, shape and style. 
THE “BUTTER-COMPOUND" CHAP, 
whose powder will enable one to turn out no end of 
butter at “Four Cents a Pound” seems to have ex¬ 
hausted the “ Great West ” and to be working eastward. 
The butter stuff “takes its way” in just an opposite 
direction to Bishop Berkley's “Course of Empire.” The 
butter-compound man at one time hailed from a town in 
Ohio. Then Western New York was his dwelling place. 
At last he located in Hartford where wc were sure we 
had him. One Hartford friend called on him and found 
the door shut, but with a hole for letters. He called 
again and again, but no butter-compound man could he 
find. Now the chap turns up in Middlesex Co., Mass., 
and within about 20 miles of “ The Hub.”—If w'e do 
not mistake the Massachusetts dairy people who pride 
themselves on the excellence of their butter, this “ four 
cents a pound” fellow will have a hard time of it. 
THE EXERCISE OE COMMON SENSE 
in the matter will show its utter absurdity. The circu¬ 
lars of this butter-compound man, actually shout and 
shriek for people to come and buy his stuff, which will 
allow them to make butter at “ four cents a pound,” and 
the “ best of butter,” “which cannot be detected from 
pure cream butter.” Just look at it from a business 
point of view; “the best of butter” retails in Boston 
any where from 50c. to $1.25 per lb. But suppose we 
put the “ best of butter ” at the low price of poor butter, 
20c. per lb., 100 lbs. would sell for $20. It is claimed 
that it can be made for 4c. a pound, or $4, leaving a profit 
of at least $16 on every hundred pounds. If this could 
be clearly shown at the Merchants' Exchange on State 
Street, this butter powder man could raise a million of 
dollars in one day, to go into the manufacture of this 
butter. He could get independently rich in a year. 
Yet, instead of doing this, he sends out his circulars, 
fairly beseeching other people to get rich by buying his 
stuff at $1 per box (to make 100 lbs. of butter) at retail, 
or $6 per doz. Now, look here, farmers, isn't this just 
altogether, quite absolutely too thin ? Wc do not under- 
standthe •• glamour” which all such propositions seem 
to fix upon the eyes of ordinarily shrewd people. Hun¬ 
dreds fall underit, else these humbugs could not flourish. 
With regard to Hhis “ Butter Humbug,” right in your 
own precinct, we call upon you gentlemen of the 
“Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,” and you 
gentlemen of the “Massachusetts Society for the Pro¬ 
motion of Agriculture,” who are doing so much good in 
other directions, to take up this vile fraud upon your 
farmers. Skin it of all its specious fallacies, and show 
up its naked carcass as a thing to be avoided. 
MEDICAL MATTERS 
are duller than we have known them in a long time; even 
the old things seem to have lost their vitality, and the 
“7 Barks "chap offers premiums of cake baskets and 
things to those who make the quickest sales. Some of 
these medical chaps send out circulars with the taking 
titles of “The Art of Money Making,’How to Get 
Rich,” and the like, but we soon come to the same old 
story—sell their stuff, and make money.We may as 
well say here to one very earnest person, who, to judge 
from his long letters on many foolscap pages, must have 
been badly handled by various quacks, and wishes us to 
help him expose them, but gives no name and address, 
that this is not our style of doing business. If he, or 
any other, has a complaint to make, we must have a 
PULL AND SUBSTANTIATED ACCOUNT. 
We pay no regard to anonymous letters, and can not 
make these columns a medium through which to redress 
private grievances.Our friend at Oakland, Ill., has 
fallen in with the enemy, and it is 
THE SAME OLD, OLD STORY. 
Having some pulmonary trouble, he writes to those 
quacks, who propose to send a “ Recipe Free ”—but they 
take care to accompany the recipe with a circular, saying 
that their recipe did not do its work, because the herbs, 
as kept in drug stores, were not fresh. Of course, it fol¬ 
lows that the “ Doctor ” who sends the recipe, can fur¬ 
nish his medicine all right for $3, or some other sum. 
This is one of the oldest of quack medicine tricks. Our 
Oakland friend seems to have thought that there was 
safety in a “ multitude of counsellors,” so he consulted 
one quack in Rochester, and another in Philadelphia, 
each of whom wrote him a letter, which was in both 
cases the same, word for word, and both of the “Doc¬ 
tors” wind up with precisely the same P. S., except 
the slight changes noted in brackets, saying: “If you 
desire [if desired] and [you] will give [send] me your 
symptoms in full, I will prepare a [the] remedy to suit 
your special [exact] case.”—Perhaps this may be taken 
as an illustration of the saying that “great minds run in 
the same channel,” but more likely it shows that quacks 
everywhere are up to the same tricks. 
DIPHTHERIA REMEDIES, 
In our January number we gave the best possible sug¬ 
gestions we could in regard to Diphtheria, on page 25. 
On page 8 we advised those who “ get an alarming circu¬ 
lar headed ‘Diphtheria, Suffering and Death,’ to put it 
in the fire,” etc. We have been called upon by a gentle¬ 
man who issues a circular with a similar heading, who 
brings abundantly signed certificates from judges, cler¬ 
gymen, editors, and other prominent citizens, showing 
that the physician who gave the prescription for manu¬ 
facturing the medicine he sells, is of the highest stand¬ 
ing and Character, and also in commendation of the 
medicine itself. We accept all these statements, and do 
not call them in question. The ground we take in re¬ 
gard to this and all similar advertised remedies, is this, 
that no medicine should be advertised and recommended 
to be used by the public at large, except under medical 
advice. We exclude all secret remedies of every kind 
from our advertising columns, and invariably urge our 
readers to shun all such remedies, and to throw all medi¬ 
cal circulars of every kind into the fire, without reading, 
and not have their fears or hopes worked upon. On these 
general principles, which we act upon always, we wrote 
what we did last month. Of the particular parties who 
applied it to themselves, we knew nothing until they 
presented the certificates above referred (o. We have no 
reason to doubt that the medicine has cured many cases 
of Diphtheria, and for aught we know, may bo the best 
remedy ever brought before the public; yet we say, 
neither this nor any other similar or other medicine 
should be offered to the general public, as this is offered, 
that is, as a Specific, or Sure Cure, or for universal use, 
without good medical advice. “ What is one man’s meat 
is another's poison.” 
—---—=>.<»» -- 
Catalogues have come in so slowly that our 
acknowledgments ate deferred until next month. Dealers 
in general, try to have their catalogues ready for Febru¬ 
ary, and as we go to press on the middle of January very 
few have thus far reached us. To avoid disappointment, 
we will say that to be noticed in March, all catalogues 
must reach us by February 12th. 
ew Spring' Wheats.—Mr. Pringle, of 
Vermont, whose success in producing new varieties of 
the potato is well known, has been quietly at work for 
some years past at improving varieties of spring wheat. 
By continued crossings and selections, he has succeeded 
in producing varieties, which if they do as well else¬ 
where, as upon his own farm, can not fail to be of great 
value. In size of head, and beauly of grain, they are 
really remarkable. 
Maple Sugar.— It is impossible to make the 
finest product without observing the utmost cleanliness 
at every step. This should begin with collecting the sap, 
and the covered buckets made by C. C. Post, Burlington, 
Vt., will exclude all foreign matter. 
The Florida State Fair will be held at 
Jacksonville on the 12th to 15th of the present month. 
Our old friend, Doctor J. C. Kenworthy, is President of 
the Society, and matters are likely to be lively. 
Asbestos Faints.— One can not give a final 
opinion upon a kind of paint until it has been worn for 
several years. The Asbestos Paints made by the II. W. 
Johns Manufacturing Co., are a comparatively recent in¬ 
vention, and we have them under trial; thus far we can 
say that they promise exceedingly well; the colors are of 
pleasing tints; the paint dries with a smooth hard surface, 
and, what is of importance to those who use it, it covers 
well ; we have used it upon old and somewhat weather¬ 
worn siding, and the man who applied it, being used to 
painting, called our attention to this fact. We shall use 
it upon various work, new and old, and report results. 
Fine Oi£n«‘se F rim roses. — Whether 
the amateur has a greenhouse, or cultivates plants in a 
window only, nothing will afford him more satisfaction 
than Chinese Primroses. They have the fault of not be¬ 
ing readily propagated from cuttings, but this is more 
than compensated for by the satisfactory results from 
seed. If one needs cut-flowers, the double whites are 
among the most useful of white flowers, but if one wishes 
to make a show on the plant, the single sorts are pref¬ 
erable. With a good strain of seed, each plant as it comes 
into bloom is a surprise, as they pressnt pleasing differ¬ 
ence in foliage as well as in flowers. The finest single 
Chinese Primroses we have ever seen, were some raised 
by William Barkhain, gardener at Hohokus, N. J., to Jos. 
Jefferson, Esq., who is eminent in more than one depart¬ 
ment of art, and whose rural tastes are manifested in 
Louisiana as well as in New Jersey. Mr. Barkham’s 
plants have elegantly formed leaves, and flowers, some 
of which are two inches across, with beautifully crimped 
or fringed edges, and a large, bold, yellow eye, and show 
by their vigorous development, careful culture. 
“ Querist,” Washington Co., R. I., and 1,492 
others. If you do not care enough about your letters to 
sign them, it is just as well not to write them. New 
subscribers should understand, what our old friends are 
well aware of, that we do not notice anonymous letters. 
We do not publish names, if a wish is expressed that we 
should not do so. This can be done by signing the letter 
with whatever name you choose, but the real name must 
be given to insure attention. 
Bommer’s Method, of Malting 1 Ma¬ 
nure.—“G. G. P.” The method of making manure, de¬ 
tailed in the pamphlet entitled as above, is by no means 
obsolete, although the book is somewhat old. On the 
contrary, the practice is very general, and thousands of 
farmers use some modification of the plan, if not the pre¬ 
cise plan itself. The method is valuable and practicable 
on a small or a large scale, upon every farm in existence. 
A Catch Crop of Turnips.—“J. G. 
Q.," Tioga, Pa., plowed four acres of stubble land after 
the grain was harvested last summer, brushed in 75 cents 
worth of flat turnip seeds, and in November pulled 1,310 
bushels of turnips,some of them weighing 9% pounds each. 
“Uplaiul (huuc Birtlm and Water 
Fowl of the United States,” by A. Pope, Jr., is the title 
of a remarkable work now in course of publication by 
Scribner, Armstrong & Co., N. Y. The work is to be 
published in ten parts, each part at $2.50, giving two 
plates 22 x 28 inches, after water-color sketches from life, 
by Mr. Pope, with descriptive text from the best authori¬ 
ties. We style this as a remarkable work, and it is so in 
two respects: In the first place it manifests on the part 
of the publishers a confidence that the public will sustain 
a really good thing, and secondly, it is remarkable as 
showing the great perfection to which color printing has 
reached in this country. The plates are perfect repro¬ 
ductions of water-color drawings, presenting all the 
breadth and freedom of the originals—indeed there is 
nothing about them that suggests mechanical work. By 
all sportsmen and naturalists, the work will be highly 
esteemed. The plates are well worthy of frames, if one 
chooses to dispose of them in that manner, or they may 
be kept in a portfolio, or be bound, as one may prefer. 
Not only the plates, but. the text and cover are marvels 
of elegance and perfection, and reflect great credit upon 
the house of Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 
Special Fertilizers are now receiving 
much attention from farmers, and we are in a fair way to 
soon know how far we can profitably apply fertilizers, 
specially prepared to meet the particular requirements of 
various crops. The experiments given by Prof. Atwater 
on another page, show in a most striking manner the 
value of experiments in this- direction. Those who wish 
to test the value of fertilizers prepared for special crops, 
after the method proposed by Yille, and others, will find 
much to interest them in a recent circular issued by the 
“Mapes Formula and Peruvian Guano Co.,” 158 Front 
Street, N. Y. City. This circular shows a great amount 
of pains-taking labor, and gives the requirements as to 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash, of each of the lead¬ 
ing farm crops, and in another table shows the prices at 
which these constituents may be supplied. There is no 
secrecy about these formulas, and one can purchase the 
special manures ready mixed, or, the constituents of each 
formula being given, he can procure them in any form 
he may prefer, and mix them himself. 
Nebraska. I.and. —Attention is directed 
to the advertisement of lands for sale in Nebraska by a 
New York gentleman. The party is reliable. 
Absorbent for Liquid Manure.— 
“ E. C. N.,” Elizabeth, N. J. The method of saving the 
liquid manure from the stables, and carrying it by drain 
to a cistern, is to be commended. A convenient manner 
of using the liquid is by mixing some absorbent material 
with it. Cut straw, leaves, road sweepings, sods, waste 
of different kinds, such as that from shoddy mills, or tan¬ 
neries, and even earth from a garden or a field, all make 
excellent absorbents! Anything will answer, excepting 
such as would neutralize the valuable properties of the 
manure, or would add some injurious constituent to it. 
