6 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
Agricultural Stations and Departments. 
In an address before the “ American Agricultural Asso¬ 
ciation,” on Dec. 12th last, Prof. W. O. Atwater gave an 
account of the European Agricultural Experiment Sta¬ 
tions, and then contrasted our so-called Department of 
Agriculture with these useful institutions. Among other 
things he said:—“In 1876, the annual expenses of the 
Sixty Six German Experiment Stations was $156,750. 
Fifty-two per cent of this came from Governments, 
17% from societies and public-spirited individuals, and 
31% from fees for analyses. According to the report of 
our Commissioner of Agriculture for 1878, the running 
expenses of our Agricultural Department from 1839 to 
1878, forty years (exclusive of double this sum for cost of 
printing and buildings), were over $85,000 per year; total, 
$3,404,754.13. The current expenses of the last 
three years are: 1877, $174,680.96; 1878, $188,640.00 ; 1879, 
$204,900.00. The current expenses for 1878 included 
for salaries, $65,640.00; for collecting statistics, $15,- 
000.00; for laboratory, $1,000.00; for purchase and dis¬ 
tribution of seeds, $75,000,00. Roughly speaking, we 
may say that the system of accurate experimenting in 
agricultural science, whose results we have been con¬ 
sidering, dates from about the same time as our Agricul¬ 
tural Department, although the Experiment Stations com¬ 
menced a dozen years later. No exact figures of the 
whole expenses of the European Experiment Stations are 
attainable. It is safe to say, however, that they have 
cost the Governments very much less than our Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture has cost us— i. e., less than the cur¬ 
rent expenses of the Department. The printing of the 
Reports costs as much or more than the current ex¬ 
penses. That is to say, either item, Current Expenses 
or printing of Reports, has cost the U. S. Government 
more than the European Experiment Stations have cost 
their Governments. The best information—nearly all 
the definite, accurate information we have of Agricultural 
Science has come from this European work. How much 
has come from the U. S. Department, everybody knows. 
“ Look on this ■picture and then on that." 
The Prussian Government pays for its thirty Experi¬ 
ment Stations which include the most productive ones in 
all Europe, almost exactly the same sum per annum that 
the U. S. Agricultural Department has almost uselessly 
expended for the purchase and distiibulion of seeds. 
The Second International Dairy Fair. 
In January last, we gave an illustrated account of the 
Dairy Fair held in Dec., 1878. Though this was an im- 
promtu affair, its success was such that an Association 
was formed, which is now, Dec., 1S79, holding a second ex¬ 
hibition. As we go to press, the Fair is in its fourth day, 
and yet all the details are not complete, much of the ma¬ 
chinery is not in working order, and as the judges have 
not made their awards, the names of competitors are not 
placed upon their exhibits. The boy who boasted that 
he knew how butter was made, said : “ You take a long 
kind of pail, and swash a stick up and down in it. Then 
you want a cow.” We will, as a “condition peccdent,” 
put the cow first, and say that the exhibition of dairy 
stock is very much larger than at the former exhibition. 
The greater share of the animals are placed in the 
“ Machinery Annex,” and we think it a mistake not to 
have had all in the same place, as one can better com¬ 
pare the animals when close together, and the confined 
air of the main room, where the butter and cheese are 
to be judged, would have been free from that animal 
odor which cows, however choice and however well 
cared for, will give off. To begin with the cow. The 
largest number is exhibited by William Crozier, of 
Nortbport, L. I., who has in all 37 head, in which the 
Jerseys predominate; but there are also Ayrshires, and 
Gurnseys, including besides cows, bulls and heif¬ 
ers, and all the way down to the four-weeks calf. 
Some of the animals have a remarkable record. One of 
the bulls seems to us a perfect specimen of the Jersey 
breed. James Nielson, New Brunswick, N. J., exhibits 
about a dozen Dutch cattle, which he has labeled “ Hoi- 
steins,” although no such breed is known in Holland; his 
pens include a very fine bull, with the appropriate name 
“ Taurus.” Dr. A. D. Newell, of the same place, has 
some fine Jerseys, and so has John J. Holley, of Plain- 
field, N. J. S. M. D. Wells, Wethersfield, Conn , sends 
representatives of his noted herd of Ayrshires; Harry A. 
Weed, Stanford, Conn., and his neighbor W. H. Walms- 
ley, both show fine Devons for which they claim excel¬ 
lent milking qualities, and that they will turn off as ex¬ 
cellent beef animals; F. W. Decker, of Dutchess Co., 
N. Y.. has Shorthorns, two of the cows being white. 
In Cheese, Messrs. H. K. & F. B. Thurber & Co., whose 
pyramid we noticed last year, confront the visitor as he 
enters, with an obelisk of this edible, 40 feet in hight, 
built up of cheeses of various kinds, and embellished by 
quaint mottoes. The next most conspicuous object is 
the pyramid of bags of salt erected by F. D. Moulton & 
Co., of which it is not necessary to say more than it is 
“Ashton’s Factory Filled.” W. W. Ingraham, of Jeffer¬ 
son Co., Wis., has a handsomely arranged pyramid of 
red and white cheeses. A very attractive exhibit is 
one of imitations of the various European styles of 
cheeses by Roethlisberger & Gerber, New York; here 
are cheeses in all possible sizes, shapes, and colors. 
We notice that the Limburger is placed under glass, 
a rather frail inclosure for so strong a subject. Butter 
thus far is labeled by States, but the names of the 
makers will be given when the awards have been an¬ 
nounced. Dairy appliances, in the way of churns, to 
the very last step in packing and marketing, are nu¬ 
merous almost to bewilderment. It is interesting to 
note the great variety of devices for accomplishing the 
same end: the simple act of setting cream is made the 
subject of several inventions, while churns are proverbi¬ 
ally endless in styles. It would occupy pages to give 
even brief mention of these “appliances.” The machine 
for separating cream by centrifugal force, was not yet 
ready for operation at the time of our visit; much is ex¬ 
pected from this application of centrifugal force in the 
creamery, and it is thought by many that it will effect a 
revolution in butter-making in a double sense. Whitman, 
Burrell & Co., Little Falls, N. Y., have a cheese factory 
in full operation; it forms a most attractive feature of 
the fair to city visitors, who naturally have a curiosity 
to see how so generally an article of food is prepared. 
Sundry Humbugs. 
As the present num¬ 
ber of the American 
Agriculturist will be 
read by many thou¬ 
sands we have never 
before addressed, we 
would say a word to 
them. The exposure 
of frauds, especially 
those upon farmers and 
rural residents, has 
been for many years a 
ular department of the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist. It was nothing 
of our own seeking, but grew up 
spontaneously from the necessi¬ 
ties of the case. By far the larger 
share of the schemes intended to 
defraud country people, have their 
origin in cities, especially the City of New York, and 
it was very natural, when these were presented to the 
rural readers of this paper, that they should appeal of 
us, as we were in most cases the only persons in the city 
of whom they could inquire as to the proposed schemes. 
From small beginnings our correspondence relating to 
Humbugs has grown up to be something formidable; 
the amount of labor it entails is only compensated for by 
the abundant assurance, which comes to us from all 
quarters, of the great utility of our exposures. 
WHAT IS A HUMBUG ? 
We use the word “ Humbug” as a convenient term for 
every scheme to obtain money or its equivalent without 
making a fair and proper return, as well as for every 
other form of imposition and cheating. A very compre¬ 
hensive term it is, as the devices it includes are well 
nigh innumerable, and as the ingenuity of rascality is by 
no means exhausted, new forms of humbugs are con¬ 
stantly demanding our attention. While those who have 
long been readers of the American Agriculturist under¬ 
stand the matter, it may be well for us to say to new 
friends that this column is conducted solely with a view to 
THE GOOD OP THE COMMUNITY. 
It can not be made a medium for the settling of private 
grievances, and it will be of no use to send us a request 
to “show-up so-and-so as a humbug” unless accom¬ 
panied by full evidence that the parly accused is worthy 
of a place in such select company_There is perhaps no 
other subject upon which we receive so many letters as 
SPECULATIONS IN STOCKS. 
We had said all that was needed upon this matter, but 
many new readers have recently joined our circle, and 
frequent letters come from those who have not seen 
what has been stated. The country must be flooded with 
the circulars of parties who are, or who call themselves, 
“ stock brokers.” These present the case in a most per¬ 
suasive manner; they show how a small sum may become 
large, and a large one larger, by handing it over to the 
senders of the documents. Our letters of inquiry al¬ 
most invariably ask as to the character of the parties 
sending the circulars, asking if they will “do as they 
agree todo.” It is impossible to give a “confidential 
answer ” to any letter of inquiry, and we must here 
REPLY TO MANY LETTERS 
by saying that we have no little personal knowledge of 
any of the senders of the circulars, we have no rea¬ 
son to doubt that most will “ do as they agree to do.” 
—Let any one not infatuated by the idea of making 
money rapidly, read these circulars, and see how little 
they “agree to do,” except to take the money sent and 
speculate with it. The character and business responsi¬ 
bility of the parties are not in question with us in our 
objections to 
THESE STOCK SPECULATIONS. 
We advise our readers to avoid them, not because of 
the parties who carry on the business, but because of the 
character of the business itself. The fact that many bar¬ 
keepers are totally abstinent men does not prevent oppo¬ 
sition to liquor-selling. The opinion of the best business 
men, bankers, and merchants of all kinds, is, that the 
kind of stock speculation proposed in the circulars re¬ 
ferred to is pernicious iu its influence, that its effects 
upon those who practice it are similar to those of gam¬ 
bling, and that in the interest of 
SOUND BUSINESS PRINCIPLES 
it should be discountenanced and suppressed. Regard¬ 
ing success in such speculations as only more unfortu¬ 
nate than losses, on account of the infatuation it encour¬ 
ages, we have uniformly discouraged our readers from 
engaging in any of the schemes, no matter how attrac¬ 
tively they may be presented, or how great the prospect 
(or hope) they present of sudden gain. 
LOTTERY SCHEMES IN CONGRESS. 
The consternation among lottery men, caused by the 
enforcement of existing laws has been already mentioned. 
The Post-master General has in the second week of its 
session caused to be presented to this Congress an 
amendment to the law as it now stands, wtiich covers the 
defects of that law, and facilitates the exclusion of lot¬ 
tery matters from the mails. The lottery people are to 
make an appeal to Congress, and present theirgrievances; 
watch the votes when the bills come up, recollecting that 
the lottery chaps have money in plenty, and it is a question 
to them of life and death. Watch the votes! But if 
lotteries are to be excluded, why not the stock speculators, 
which offer the lottery, only in another form? Do not 
make fish of one and flesh ofanother_J. G. B., St. Louis, 
Mo., sends us a remarkable circular of a 
“ PASTOR-I-AL COLLEGE.” 
Now this is not, as some may suppose, anything like a 
theological school where pastors are educated—no—this 
“ Pastor-i-al College” guarantees “in a course of thirteen 
weeks, to teach any man of ordinary ability the business 
of raising cattle and horses, sheep,” etc., etc. Now here’s 
a college as is a college. It underscores the important 
assertion—” We do not teach from books ’’—probably not, 
and with good reason. It looks very much as if the aim 
and object of this circular was to sell a work for 75 cents. 
....Last month we gave the manner in which 
ROGUES WELCOME STRANGERS. 
There are gangs of rascals who hang about the streets 
leading to the principal depots, ferries, etc., to overhaul 
strangers, and they actually watch for their prey upon 
Broadway in broad day light. Their method is to pretend 
to know the stranger, be glad to see him, get at once into 
his confidence, and on one pretence or another, such as 
showing samples, etc., get him into some place where 
they can fleece him. Incredible as it may seem, this game 
is frequently successful. Soon after giving an account of 
this matter last month, a case was reported in the daily 
papers, in which a clergyman from Illinois fell into the 
hands of these chaps. One who pretended to know him 
induced him to go into a place to see some samples of 
tea. Here were several friends of the tea-man. One of 
these complained that he had lost a sum of money at 
cards, the others laughed at him, the minister “reasoned” 
with him, remarking that “he did not see how he could 
be so foolish.”—“ But did you ever see the game played ?” 
said Scamp.—“Never,” said Parson.—“Well, I should just 
like to show you how it was done. Have you any money ?” 
— “ Yes, 40 or 50 dollars,” said Parson. — Such was his 
anxiety to understand the matter that he 
ACTUALLY PUT DOWN HIS MONEY 
for two of the rogues to show how the game was played. 
They played, and in a short time one of the rogues won 
all the parson’s money and put it in his pocket. Of course, 
that was the last of that money. There was a row, arrests 
were made. Parson could not give bail for his appear¬ 
ance at the trial, and was locked up in the House of 
Detention—which is the next thing to a jail—with a 
prospect of remaining there until the trial, some two 
months off. Moral: 
AVOID ALL ADVANCES OF STRANGERS, 
if you are a stranger yourself in a strange city, especially 
in New York_ The “Chicago Tribune” has been show¬ 
ing up the operations of a chap with a 
“ MAGIC BONE DISSOLVENT ” 
not a dissolvent for converting dead bones into super¬ 
phosphate, but for curing spavin, curb, ring-bone, “ within 
thirty-six hours, without breaking the skin.” Quackery 
in horse medicine, is not so rare a thing, but we were 
attracted by the name “Horton.” Could it be our Hor- 
