218 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[Jtxnis 
voted to the new raspberry, “The Queen of the 
Market.” This variety is found to be specially 
adapted to this region of country, and promises to 
supersede all other varieties. Wyoming is mostly 
a settlement of Northern farmers. 
The Ross Farm. 
From Woodside, large shipments of fruit are 
made to Western buyers. At Felton, we passed 
another settlement of Northern families. Bridge¬ 
port is also a large shipping point, beiug the center 
of an extensive fruit district. A few miles further 
on, we visited the large farm of Ex-Governor Wm. 
Ross; it is now managed by his son, Mr. Jas. A. 
Ross, who, after being educated abroad, has be¬ 
come a practical farmer and fruit-grower. This is 
one of the model farms of Delaware, numbering 
over 1,200 acres. It embraces, among other things, 
ii50 acres of peaches, 75 acres of blackberries, 40 
acres of pears and apples, 25 acres of strawberries, 
etc. There is a very fine flock of Cotswold sheep 
on this farm. At Seaford there are a number of 
oyster packing houses. After crossing Nanticoke 
River, which is generally regarded as the dividing 
line between the peach and small fruit districts, we 
passed on beyond the Delaware boundary to the 
quaint old city of Salisbury, Maryland. Proceed¬ 
ing eastward we tarried a short time at Berlin, 
which is also an interesting old place ; in this por¬ 
tion of the Peninsula many of the former large 
plantations remain undivided. Lemuel Showell (a 
popular farmer), owns 10,000 acres. His father-in- 
law, Col. Jacobs, has 15,000 acres. Land ranges in 
price from $10 to $50 an acre. 
A New Watering Place. 
From Berlin, we rode a few miles further eastward 
to Ocean City, a new watering place on the Atlantic 
Ocean beach ; it was started five years ago, and now 
embraces five hotels and three boarding houses. 
After spending the night here, we returned through 
Berlin to Salisbury, and taking the railroad South, 
proceeded to Crisfleld. Here large numbers of 
people are engaged in the oyster business, and there 
are many acres of new land made entirely of oyster 
shells, extending into the Tangier Sound. On our 
way, we were shown the farm of Ex. U. S. Senator 
Dennis, lying near Kingston, and comprising some 
1,500 acres. Dr. Dennis is a practical farmer and 
his broad acres present a very handsome appearance! 
Close by, is the old Washington Academy, which 
has educated many of the leading men of the South; 
the building, however, is now in ruins and is occu¬ 
pied by negroes. 
The Westover Estate. 
Leaving Crisfleld, we proceeded northward to 
Westover, on one of the inlets of Tangier Sound 
in the Chesapeake Bay. The old Westover estate, 
numbering over 1,000 acres, was, a few years ago, 
one of the leading plantations of Maryland. After 
the war it changed hands, and came into the pos¬ 
session of a gentleman from New Jersey. Four 
years ago Mr. I. N. Mills, the General Agent of the 
Delaware Division of the Philadelphia, Wilmington 
and Baltimore Railroad, came down here from Wil¬ 
mington and bought 350 acres of the last purchas¬ 
er. This Mills’ farm is now under a high state of 
cultivation, and pays a veiy handsome investment 
on the purchase money. The splendid peach and 
berry crops which it produces shows what can be 
done by energetic management in this part of the 
Peninsula. What is now needed for the growth 
and development of this region is to break up all 
of these plantations into small farms. Owing to 
the direct railway communication, fruits and vege¬ 
tables are quickly transported to New York and 
Philadelphia, and other northern markets. 
Princess Anne. 
Leaving Westover we tarried a short time at the 
interesting old village of Princess Anne. There is 
a good deal of wealth in this place, and it figured 
prominently during the war. The leading citizens 
with whom we conversed, stated that the outlook 
for all crops was good, and that they were anxious 
to have men with northern capital settle among 
them. Having made the circuit of the Peninsula, 
we returned to Wilmington, well pleased with the 
appearance of the country, and convinced that it 
presents a a inviting field tor those who would like 
to engage in the raising of fruits and vegetables. 
The peach season of Delaware generally continues 
about forty-five days, beginning usually from the 
15th to the 20th of July, or 10 days earlier than in 
New Jersey. Strawberries, especially the early ones, 
were somewhat injured, and they are not in 60 for¬ 
ward a condition as last year at this time. As a 
whole, however, the peach and berry crops are 
most promising, and it is computed that there will 
be close upon 5,000,000 baskets of peaches shipped 
to market. The railroad company is doing all 
in its power to assist the owners of the old farms 
and plantations who are willing to cut up and sell 
their lands to northern buyers. Mr. J. T. Budd 
has been placed in charge of this work of encourag¬ 
ing the development of the Peninsula, and can be 
communicated with at Middletown, Delaware. 
Valuable Dairy Prizes. 
The business rivalry of the leading English salt 
manufacturers, in their endeavors to secure a prom¬ 
inent position in the American market, and the en¬ 
terprise they show in their efforts to this end, in¬ 
dicate the importance of our market to their trade. 
While their efforts are made with a view to their 
own profit, they cannot fail to have an effect upon 
Americau Dairy products, as the means taker, to 
bring their salt into notice, by offering premiums to 
makers of butter and cheese, must incidentally tend 
to improvement in those articles. We last year 
noticed the money premiums offered by one house 
in the salt trade. Another establishment, Messrs. 
Thomas Higgin & Co., of Cheshire and Liverpool, 
England, has chosen a different method of calling 
attention to their salt. Instead of money, they offer 
medals of gold, silver, and bronze. In doing this, 
they incidentally call attention to another in¬ 
dustry in which this country is not excelled by 
an other—the manufacture of gold and silver. 
Instead of sending the medals from abroad, the 
Messrs. Higgin & Co., have properly recognized 
the fact that American artizans can produce what¬ 
ever may be required in this line, and through their 
representatives in this country, gave an order for the 
medals to Messrs. Tiffany & Co., of New York, a 
house with a world-wide reputation. The medals, 
which we have examined, sustain the reputation of 
the makers for the production of artistic work. 
Those only who are familiar with the processes by 
which medals are produced, are aware of the diffi¬ 
culties attending them. Whether there is to be 
one medal or a thousand, a die has to be sunk. A 
block of steel is made as soft as possible by anneal¬ 
ing, and in the smooth surface of this, the design 
for the medal has to be made, by cutting away and 
punching away the steel. This requires great skill 
on the part of the workman, as the whole design 
has to be reversed —what will be upon the medal the 
highest, or the portion the most raised above the 
general surface, must be, in the die, sunk the deep¬ 
est. A glance at a coin—a half-dollar, for example, 
will make this plain. The eagle and the lettering, 
which appear raised above the surface on the coin, 
have, in the die, to be correspondingly below the 
surface. When the die is perfected, the soft steel 
is hardened, and is ready then to be used for 
Fig. 1.— the higghn’s medal—obverse. 
stamping the medals. But the medal, like a coin, 
has two si dee,, and each requires two dies. When 
both are ready, they are arranged in a powerful 
screw press, and a blank of metal of the right size, 
is placed on the lower die, and the upper -one 
brought down upon it with such force as to squeeze 
the metal into the depressions of the die, so that 
when taken out it will show raised upon its sur¬ 
face, that which was below the surface in the die. 
Whoever has stamped a pat of butter, can under¬ 
stand this. The stamp represents the die, with the 
design below the surface ; the butter—unlike it in 
every respect save the qolden yellow—will stand for 
the metal. Imagine a force as much greater than 
is used for the butter, as the metal is harder than 
butter, and no difficulty will be found in under¬ 
standing how the medals are “struck up.” There 
are 72 of these medals ; 24 each in gold, silver, and 
bronze; the silver and bronze medals are alike in 
size, the gold medal being perhaps one-fourth 
smaller. These in sets of three, are to be offered as 
the first, second, and third prizes for butter and 
cheese in the principal dairy States. We under¬ 
stand that these will be competed for at the State 
Fig. 2. —THE HIGGIN’S MEDAL—REVERSE. 
fairs, and we presume that special notice will be 
given when the details are fixed upon. To give an 
idea of these premiums, we present here engrav¬ 
ings of both sides of the silver medal. One side 
represents such a scene as may be noticed on any 
farm, with two cows in very life-like positions of 
repose. On the margin is the legend, “The Hig¬ 
gin Medal for the Improvement of American Dairy 
Products.” The reverse of the medal has an en¬ 
circling olive wreath, with the words : “Presented 
by H. K. & F. B. Thurber & Co.” Below, is a 
blank space in which is to be engraved the name of 
the fortunate winner of the medal, and the pro¬ 
duct for which it was awarded. Such prizes are 
well worth striving for, and while they are offered 
in the way of business, their results will be none 
the less beneficial to our dairy interests, and it is 
but just to say that Messrs. Higgin & Co. have 
chosen a method to forward their own interests, 
which will benefit others as well as themselves. 
Pearl Millet—How to Dry. 
BY PETER HENDERSON, JERSEY CITY HIGHTS, N. J. 
— 
Since I published the result of our experiments 
with Pearl Millet last season, in your issue of Nov., 
1878, I have had scores of letters enquiring the best 
manner of drying it for “hay.” Our crop was 
sown in a solid block, so that when cut it had to be 
removed from the land where it grew, and tied in 
sheaves and hung up on extemporized single rail 
fences. This plan of course would not answer 
when grown on a large scale, for the yield is 60 
enormous that such an expedient for drying would 
be too expensive both for the labor and rails—and 
as it is too heavy and succulent to be dried like 
Timothy and Clover on the ground where it is cut, 
it must be removed, as the attempt to dry it where 
it grows would destroy the second crop. Circum¬ 
stances of course must, in a great measure, be the 
guide, but I would suggest that when grown for 
the purpose of being dried, that it be sown in beds 
say 12 feet wdde, with alleys of six feet between, 
on which it may be dried ; this would be a loss of 
one-third of the land for the first crop, but there 
would be little or no loss in the second crop, for 
the Millet unsold spread so as to fill up the alley. 
