•418 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[October, 
Tenant Farming Again. 
The able remarks about Tenant Farming in the 
August number of the American Agriculturist attracted 
my attention, and, as it so well accorded with my own 
views, I thought I would give you my ideas of the cause 
of failure of agreements between landlord and tenant. 
I am a tenant farmer, and I frequently hear intelligent 
people talking about the rescue of certain lands from the 
“careless hands of tenants.” I also see occasional arti¬ 
cles to the same effect; but, as you say, why have not 
these things a remedy ? and if so, why has the remedy 
not been applied ? There are many tenants, who have 
the right kind of landlords, that do succeed, and their 
landlords find a handsome return for all they invest on 
their farms ; but I regret to say that such is not gener¬ 
ally the case. The tenant system of farming in this 
country is generally defective, but that it is all the fault 
of the tenants is not true. No doubt there are careless 
tenants as well as careless men engaged in anything else, 
but an individual class should not shoulder all the blame, 
when the defect is from general causes. Tenant farmers 
are, as a rule, men of ordinary intelligence and moderate 
desires, and generally disposed to act fairly and honestly 
towards the owners of land, but when they find no dis¬ 
position on the owners’ part to help shoulder the bur¬ 
dens, they are apt to try and make it as light as possible 
for themselves, and where one landlord does not please, 
another is looked for. Therefore, to be brief, I would say 
that the root of the evil lies in short leases , when, under a 
better understanding, we might have our differences ad¬ 
justed without changing landlords. The cause, I think, 
of short leases is generally a want of confidence in each 
other. Many owners of land get good tenants, but the 
reputed carelessness causes distrust, and that distrust 
often engenders selfishness. The tenant has but a short 
lease, and cannot afford to put on more than he expects 
to get off the land, for he may have to leave at the end of 
the year, and let some one else reap the benefit of his la¬ 
bor ; whereas, had he the assurance of a longer tenure, 
he might go on improving, with proper assistance from 
the owner, from year to year, feeling that he was not only 
working for the benefit of the landlord, but that he was 
doing the best for himself at the same time. In chang¬ 
ing, the landlord often gets a worse tenant, and the ten¬ 
ant a worse landlord, and both are dissatisfied. 
I am on a small farm, and know I could do better on a 
larger one, but, because of the bad system of farming 
here, and more especially the bad tenant arrangements, 
I shall be careful how I change, as I might do worse. In 
this section the landlords do not like to do anything for 
their lands, except to be sure that the tenants sow and 
reap, and the tenants try to sow as little as possible for 
the owners’ benefit. This is all wrong, and there is no 
real reason for it. Let the owners of land make up their 
minds to have longer leases and better tenants, and do 
what they ought for their lands, not expecting tenants to 
do all, and be assured that it will not be long before the 
discord and carelessness of to-day will be forgotten. I 
admit that the present state of affairs has gone on so 
long that, like all other evils, it will have to be gradually 
rooted out, as no arbitrary or forced measures would 
ever be able to eradicate it. “Tenant,” TalbotCo.,Md. 
Spring and Fall Pigs.— Pigs littered in the fall 
or early winter, owing to the cold weather, lack of green 
food, etc., seldom make a good start, and in many cases 
are eaten so soon as dropped by their voracious dams. 
Pigs for the greatest profit should come about the open¬ 
ing of spring, with its fresh grass and warm sunshine; 
they can then be ready for the market by fall, and very 
few risks will be run. For this end sows should be bred 
in December or January. At one time large hogs were 
highly prized in the market, but now smaller ones are in 
demand, and such pork can be produced at less expense 
per pound than that of large hogs. Young hogs are the 
most profitable, bom in spring and marketed in the fall. 
■White or Yellow Corn for Feeding.— 
“N. W. Y.,” Hunterdon County, N. J. After studying 
all the analyses of corn we have access to, we cannot 
find that color is an indication of quality which can be 
depended upon at all. The Flint corns, however, have a 
slightly higher average value than the Dent corns. 
Wheys Mow to Use It.— Whey is milk minus 
the cheese that lias been removed. As cheese is the most 
highly nitrogenous portion of the milk,it follows that 
whey is comparatively weak in these important albumi¬ 
nous food elements. Milk being a perfect food, whey is a 
liquid lacking in nitrogen to make it complete as a food. 
In feeding whey to the best advantage this loss of nitro¬ 
gen should be made- good—as far as such a loss can be 
made good—by using some substance rich in the ele¬ 
ment in conjunction with the whey. This maybe lin¬ 
seed meal, oatmeal, wheat middlings, or some such like 
substance. Whey thus supplemented will be found to 
be an excellent food for calves or pigs. For young pigs 
—shoats—such a mixture gives very excellent returns, 
the food seeming to furnish all the elements necessary 
for the best growth of the animal. The great objection 
to whey has come from feeding it alone, and especially 
when its sugar had turned to acid by long standing. 
Apple Pudding.— “After what is said in March 
No., 1880, about apple dumplings, I would like to say, 
we make apple puddings that “grandmother appears to 
like as well as the dumplings she used to make,” and 
paterfamilias, who is authority on this question, fears 
no consequent danger to the digestion, the only objec¬ 
tion being the crust will allow of all the good cream you 
choose to put on it. I use a gallon milk pan similar to 
fig. 3. page 181 of American Agriculturist for May. It 
should be heated gradually and a little ashes put on the 
stove to prevent breaking. Work some good butter in 
sufficient light dough (yeast bread, no lard or soda) to 
make a cake nearly as large as the pan, and one inch 
thick. Set it where it will rise. Fill the pan half full 
of apples, pared and cut in eighths. Add water to cook 
them and set on the stove. Lay over them the cake, 
which should be quite light and gashed. Cover tightly. 
If the apples cook quickly it will be done in half an hour. 
Turn quickly on a large plate—sugar and cream.” * 
Sundry Humbugs. 
Medical matters have 
always formed a large 
share of the contents 
of our humbug column, 
for the reason that we 
look upon fraud in med¬ 
icine, as one of the 
most pernicious. A- 
mong the most danger¬ 
ous of medical hum¬ 
bugs, are those who 
pretend to be regularly educated 
practitioners. The absolute quack 
will, by his pretensions, disgust 
intelligent persons, but where one 
professes to be a regularly edu¬ 
cated physician, and to have a 
diploma, there is no method by 
which one can readily satisfy himself that the so-called 
physician has a right to his claims. It is unfortunately 
the fact, that a number of persons who have attended 
medical lectures and have, perhaps, even graduated, 
should, failing to become established as regular physi¬ 
cians, fall into the practice and way of quacks and be¬ 
come venders of nostrums and practitioners of some 
Pathy or other. These persons have a regular issued 
diploma, and we have at present no law which can deprive 
them of it. Besides these, there is another class who 
have diplomas, who have not gone through the trouble of 
studying or even attending lectures. For a long time it 
has been known that medical diplomas could be pur¬ 
chased for a moderate sum. In Europe it is vastly more 
difficult for one to obtain a medical diploma, than it is in 
this country, and the fact that an American diploma will 
allow one to practice in Europe has given encouragement 
to this sale of false diplomas. In this country one can, 
in most medical colleges, procure a diploma after two 
years of study, but this is not the case in Europe. Five 
years at the least, are required, and the examinations 
there are vastly more severe than in our colleges. In 
view of the higher standing of physicians in Europe, 
and the greater difficulty in becoming qualified to prac¬ 
tice, many pretenders there have availed themselves of 
the opportunity to purchase diplomas which have been 
offered by a pretended medical college in Philadelphia. 
The Philadelphia newspapers, especially the “ Record,” 
which deserves a great deal of credit, have taken the 
matter in hand, and fully investigated the sale of bogus 
medical diplomas It was found that a young man with 
sufficient money, could be made a full-fledged doctor and 
receive his diploma with as much Latin in it as in a 
regular one, in about twenty-four hours, ft appears that 
one Buchanan was the chief operator in this diploma 
mill. He had associates, but they appear to have played 
a subordinate part. After much, investigation and ac¬ 
cumulation of evidence, this Doctor Buchanan was 
arrested, but before his case came to trial he is supposed 
to have committed suicide by jumping from a steamer. 
But even in his death (?) as in life, he practised deceit, for 
now it appears that Dr. Buchanan did not kill himself, 
nor did any one commit suicide, but an expert swimmer, 
hired for the purpose of representing Dr. Buchanan, 
pretended to destroy himself. It is estimated that 
thousands of these diplomas have been sold, each serv¬ 
ing as a black flag to some piratical chap who is preying 
upon the health and pockets of the community. 
While it is gratifying to know that this diploma mill 
has been closed, the fact that it could have gone on suc¬ 
cessfully for so iong a time, shows that our laws in such 
matters are not so strict as they should be. Indeed the 
sale of false diplomas might have continued for a long 
time to come, had not the number of American diplomas, 
in possession of foreigners, aroused the attention of 
European authorities and the matter was made a subject 
of complaint to our Ministers abroad who communicated 
the facts to our own government. It would be better 
for the health of the community were the laws regulat¬ 
ing the practice of medicine and the sale of drugs vastly 
more stringent than they are at present. Indeed in some 
States there can scarcely be said to be any laws on the 
subject. While the possession of a diploma is not abso¬ 
lute evidence of skill on the part of its possessor, yet it 
shows that the holder has had opportunities to qualify 
himself to practice medicine; while the possession of 
one of these bogus documents merely shows that a man 
had money enough to purchase it. 
HUMBUG LAWYERS. 
There are some lawyers who are in very small busi¬ 
ness, and we would suggest to one in particular who is en¬ 
gaged in wiitiDg threatening letters in behalf of a quack 
medicine vender, that he must be careful not to write 
anything that he wouldn’t like to see in print. We do 
not know that we can prevent his writing such letters, 
but we can shame him out of it by publishing some of 
them. He had better take this as a warning. 
GAMBLING IN WHEAT. 
Since the closing up of the swindling stock broker 
establishments, other ways of speculation appear to have 
been found. The desire to engage in a game of chance 
(the spirit of gambling) appears to be more general than 
people are aware of. Lotteries, though positively for¬ 
bidden by law, flourish in all our cities, there being a 
large portion of the community who are not only not 
opposed to them, but who participate and take the 
chances in them. Indeed it seems very difficult to con¬ 
trol this matter by law, there being so many ways to 
evade what appears to be very strict legislation. In a 
New England town a local law was very strict for the 
suppression of gambling of all kinds. The various 
games by which the people had been accustomed to 
gamble, being enumerated in the law. It was supposed 
that every known game was prohibited, but one day two 
men were seen at a table each with a dollar bill in front 
of him, and upon each bill was a lump of sugar. The 
owner of the lump of sugar upon which a fly first lighted, 
won the game and took both bills. 
When stock gambling was suppressed, other methods 
of speculation appeared. Operators, even if not the 
same, evidently of the same class as the “Putand Call ” 
brokers, are now sending their circulars over the coun¬ 
try giving people an opportunity to bet upon the price 
of cotton and of grain and other commodities. 
Look out for the New York Seed Company, a name 
taken by one of these speculating concerns. They send 
out blanks which allow one to bet upon the price of 
wheat at some future day. One of our friends who re¬ 
ceived a blank of this kind, writes to us in astonishment 
that the parties do not state what variety of wheat the 
Seed Company propose to deal in. There is no danger 
that any one will get taken in by these wheat and cot¬ 
ton speculators, who does not really desire to gamble in 
this manner. 
PEDDLING CLOCKS. 
The business of peddling clocks did not die out with 
Sam Slick. Clock peddlers are said to be especially 
numerous in some of the Southern States. One of Sam 
Slick’s methods was to ask to be allowed to leave a 
clock until he came that way again. Sam had an acute 
knowledge of human nature; he knew that if persons i 
once became accustomed to the clock, they would not 
readily part with it, and whenever he received permission 
to leave a clock, he was very sure that he had made a 
sale. When he came around after a few months, it was I 
very rare indeed that he would be allowed to take the 
clock away. 
The clock peddlers of the present day, however, leave 
the clock, but at the same time take a note for two or 
three times the real worth of the time-piece. Trouble 
has already come from some of these clock trades, es¬ 
pecially in States in which the law on the collection of 
notes is very stringent. Those who follow our repeated ' 
advice, to give no note whatever to an unknown person 
for any article whatever, or under any possible circum- j 
stances, will avoid all difficulty. One can now buy a 
good clock very cheaply, and there is no need of pur¬ 
chasing one that cost more than a few dollars, or more 3 
than can be readily paid for at once. 
VETERINARY QUACKERY. 
There is not only quackery in regular medicine, but 
also in the treatment of animals. One of our subscrib¬ 
ers sends us a circular which purports to come from the 
Veterinary University of Medicine in New York City. 
There isno such university in New York City and the so- 
called Professor is very careful not to give the street 
upon which that remarkable institution is located. The 
title shoivs ignorance in the use of language, and his cir¬ 
cular indicates that the “ Professor ” and English gram- 
