1880 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
419 
mar are not on very intimate terms. The “ Professor’s” 
circular is ornamented by what we take to be his portrait, 
and it also has, as a trade mark, a pig with a very lively 
curl to his tail. 
Regular veterinary practitioners, as well as other prac¬ 
titioners, do not advertise proprietary or secret medi¬ 
cines of any kind, nor do they avoid giving their loca¬ 
tion. At the bottom of this circular we read “ Patented 
June 11th, 1878.” What is patented, whether the por¬ 
trait of the “ Professor,” or the circular, or the curl in 
the tail of the trade mark, ws are unable to state; but it 
is a very pretty circular. 
VALUABLE REAL ESTATE. 
What is the use of having a gold mine while common 
dirt will bring $10 a pound. This is Real Estate worth 
having—worth more than corner lots even. But this 
valuable soil is away off in Brazoric County, Texas. 
The writer has been through Brazoric County, but he 
was not aware of the value of the earth upon which he 
trod. This earth is not thus valuable for builaing upon, 
but it is claimed to be a sure cure for scrofula, neuralgia, 
and all the rest of it. This earth does not appear to be 
applied after the manner of the true mud cure, in which 
the patient is plunged up to his ears and left to soak ; it 
is too valuable to be used in that way, but you take only 
a small spoonful of it and put it in a pint of water, and 
let it soak for ten hours, and then you take a teaspoonful 
three times a day and—it will do you just as much good 
as if you hadn’t taken it. There can be no doubt that 
the fellow who offers it for sale makes a pretty good 
thing of it. He knew human nature well enough to put 
the earth at a good price ; had it been $10 a cart-load, 
who would have cared to have taken it in teaspoonful 
doses ? It seems there can hardly be anything so absurd 
but it will find people to take and believe in it. We al¬ 
ways did have a good opinion of Texas, and now that 
we know that at least a portion of it is worth $10 a 
pound, we think more than ever of that beautiful State. 
PLANT PEDDLERS OR NURSERY AGENTS. 
With the autumn days come the Plant Peddler or Nur¬ 
sery Agent. One of these fellows with a glib tongue, a 
fast horse, or a highly varnished buggy, comes into a 
town, takes perhaps hundreds of dollars’ worth of orders, 
and after he has done all the mischief he can, some good 
person will sit down and write us about it, asking if 
such a man is likely to do what he professes, and various 
other questions that would be very properly put before 
the orders had been given; but after the Agent has taken 
the orders it will be a very difficult matter for them to 
refuse to take the goods However rascally such a man 
may be, it is hardly possible to prove it until the trees 
and plants come into bearing, and here is where these 
chaps have the advantage. They cannot be found out 
in most cases under several years, by which time they 
will have gone to some far off State and will be beyond 
reach. A little common sense would be a very conven¬ 
ient thing to have to use in these cases. If a man claims 
to be an agent of such and such a nursery, he will have 
proper credentials, and, if he is honest, he will be 
willing to substantiate his claims. If, however, he has 
no credentials it is very unwise to order of such a man, 
unless it is known that the trees, etc., will come from a 
nursery of good reputation; and it is very easy to ascer¬ 
tain this by writing to the nursery and making inquiry. 
But why the majority of those who buy of such per¬ 
sons do not deal directly with the nursery, is a matter 
that we are quite unable to understand. If trees are 
■ordered from a well-known nursery, and in the course of 
time proved to be not true to their names, one knows 
where to look for redress. Accidents may occur in even 
the best nurseries, and an honorable business man would 
make all the reparation possible should it be found that 
in fact trees were not as represented. These travelling 
chaps sometimes profess to sell fruits which have no 
real existence, or they describe well-known fruits in a 
manner which the facts will not warrant. 
RUSSIAN APPLES. 
For example, from Arkansas a man has been selling 
Russian Apples, claiming that they are imported from 
Russia and are better than others in every respect. Now 
there are Russian apples, and in far Northern localities 
some of them have proved of great value. As a general 
thing they are small and in some cases are not of high 
quality. But they are a great deal better than no apples, 
and our advice is always to plant the best that the climate 
will bring to perfection. Now, in Arkansas they have 
no more need of Russian apples than they have of snow- 
shoes, because these apples have no quality that make 
them especially desirable in a climate so mild as that of 
Arkansas. Then the agent had the Monarch of the West 
■strawberry, which he describes as being unlike others, 
standing upright and the fruit never getting on the 
ground; all of which is simply nonsense. The Monarch 
of the West in some localities is a very good fruit, and in 
others a rather indifferent one; but it don’t stand up 
high, and it does get on the ground. It seems that this 
man sold his stock much higher than it is quoted in 
the nursery catalogues. It may be well, as those who 
bought of him are learning a valuable lesson, that they 
should pay something for their schooling. Our Arkansas 
correspondent winds up his letter with “Ho you think 
he is a humbug?” Most decidedly we do. 
How to Dispose of Raw Bones. —“J. H. 
J.,” Mason County, Mich.—When bones can be ground 
of course they are made rapidly available as plant food, 
but at a distance of four miles they may gradually be 
made useful thus: Sledge up the bones as much as you 
can, and mix them with good active horse manure, two- 
thirds manure and one-third bones. The pile should then 
be covered with three or four inches of earth. It will 
heat, and when the heat has subsided the bones will be 
found very much softer. Shovel it over, throw out the 
big bones, and all that will break up, hammer again and 
compost them still further. Make a fresh pile of bones 
and manure, and throw in the hard cases of the former 
heap. Thus the bones will gradually yield to the 
ameliorating and persuasive influences of the compost 
heap. The outside layer of earth will prevent loss of 
ammonia during the fermentation of the heap. 
Tomatoes In Glass Jars.— ‘‘R. T. R.,” Henry 
Co., Ind., writes: “ I cook the tomatoes until the froth, 
which always rises when they first come to a boil, dis¬ 
appears, or about as much as if getting ready for table; 
then put them in glass jars like any other fruit—taking 
care to have the mouth of the jar perfectly dry, and the 
sealing wax not too brittle. Much of the sealing wax sold 
in sticks ready for use, needs a little beeswax melted 
with it, otherwise, when cold, it does not adhere to the 
jar,and the failure of fruit to keep is laid to other causes.” 
Nutriment in Fruit.— The mind grasps values 
by comparison. The chemist tells us that an egg weigh¬ 
ing an ounce and a half is equivalent in food material to 
17 ounces of cherries, or 22 oz. of grapes, 30 oz. of 
strawberries, 40 oz. of apples, G4 oz. of pears. We thus 
see that fruits are not very solid food. But we do not 
think any the less of cherries, apples, and pears, because 
they are not as concentrated in nutritive elements as the 
egg. They are no less a part of the best food of the 
human race, and most persons will continue to eat them. 
Crystals of Sugar.— “E. C.,” a subscriber in 
British Honduras, sends, by the hand of a friend, a sam¬ 
ple of beautiful clear sugar crystals or “rock candy.” 
“Not,” as he says, “such as we usually make. They 
were taken from a tin of sugar which was run off for 
syrup from a pan before it came to the point when we 
make sugar.” Any moderately strong solution of sugar 
—or syrup—will thus crystalize on cooling and standing. 
The slower the crystallization goes on the larger and 
clearer will be the crystals. This is an old process for 
obtaining refined sugar of the highest purity. 
Sowing Oats witli Wheat. —The theory is that 
when wheat is sown late, and not likely to make a stand 
sufficient to protect a light soil from wind and washing, 
a few oats—say a bushel or a bushel and a half to the acre 
—sown with it, by starting quicker and making more 
growth, will form a covering to the soil, which will 
hold the snow, prevent blowing and injurious washing, 
and die in the course of the winter and then form a 
useful mulch and manure for the wheat. Mr. O. Voight- 
lander, of Montgomery County, Pa., kindly reminds 
us that on such soil as his, a clay or clay loam, the 
growth of the oats may be so rampant as to smother 
the wheat. This we do not doubt, and wheat on such 
land would be least likely to be benefited by the oats. 
Confining Blackberry Roots.— Miss “G.,” 
Riley County, Kan. Such a cement wall as you make for 
a cistern, three feet deep, will keep your blackberry roots 
thoroughly within bounds, unless the wall is torn to 
pieces by the frost. This may probably be prevented by 
clearing away the earth on each side of the wall and lay¬ 
ing boards a foot wide on each side, edgeways, alongside 
the wall and in contact with it, the upper edges of the 
boards being put below the surface of the ground. The 
boards will be moved and the wall remain firm. 
Jerusalem Artichokes for Cows.— “ C. S.,” 
Tuckerton, Pa., writes that an acre of Jerusalem Arti¬ 
chokes with an average yield of 1,200 bushels will afford 
enough nourishment to sustain two cows, and with less 
labor than is employed in raising an acre of potatoes. 
“Pound for pound, they are equal in nutritive qualities 
to potatoes .. Since these roots do not keep over sum¬ 
mer, and as the cow will not thrive on them alone, it is 
necessary to supplement them with dry fodder during 
winter and to subsist her on other forage during sum¬ 
mer. With the aid of this plant, three-quarters of an acre 
of land under high cultivation will nourish a cow during 
the whole year, and the soil will become rich without 
any other manure than that derived from the cow.”—The 
roots of the artichoke should be planted in hills, three 
feet apart each way, and cultivated frequently to keep 
the soil in good tilth and free from weeds. A tuber, er 
piece of tuber the size of a hen’s egg, is sufficient for each 
hill, it being covered two or three inches. The plants 
will grow until frost kills the stalks. When fresh the 
whole plant, root, stalk, and leaves, may be fed to the 
cow. In winter she will need about a bushel of the raw 
tubers a day, with eight or ten pounds of hay. Arti¬ 
chokes can be fed from the 1st of October to the begin¬ 
ning of June, during which time 250 bushels will he con¬ 
sumed by each cow, together with about a ton of hay, 
“ A good way to keep Jerusalem Artichokes in winter 
is to place them on the ground in the field in shallow 
layers, covering them lightly with the stalks of the 
artichoke or with straw, and then with a little earth. 
If the rain wets them it will not injure them.” 
Wliat to Do with Apple Pomace.-The 
best disposition to be made of the pomace from a cider 
press is to encourage its decay as rapidly as possible, by 
adding it in thin layers to a compost heap; placing it in 
immediate contact with either animal manure, lime, or 
ashes. It may be utilized, or at least disposed of with 
some prospect of its being useful, by knocking it into 
pieces and shoveling it, a hundred weight at a time, into 
the pigsty. Thus it disappears and is returned to the 
earth for all it is worth—which is not a great deal. 
Swamp Muck.— “W. L.,” of Essex County, N. 
Y., writes: “I have read the article on ‘Swamp Muck 
—Its Value,’ on page 340 of September No. of the 
American Agriculturist. I have a three-acre bed of muck, 
six to ten feet in depth. Averaging it eight feet, and 
calling twenty-seven cubic feet a load, it figures up 38,- 
352 loads. This muck is pronounced superior to any 
known in Essex County. This is the starling point. 
Now, I have already in my barn-yard some twenty-five 
loads. I have drawn out and piled up about 180 loads. 
I have a seven-acre meadow that is to be turned over 
for corn next year. I have this muck, and at my com¬ 
mand lime, salt, ashes, and plaster. What is the com¬ 
bination to be made ?”—As soon as the muck is reason¬ 
ably dry lay a mass of it about a foot deep, six feet 
wide, and as long as you please upon a dry and con¬ 
venient place. Cover this with lime slaked with strong 
brine, to a dry powder, using enough to make the entire 
mass perfectly white. Cover this with four to six inches 
of muck, which lime again in the same way, and so on 
—each layer will be narrower than the first, so that it 
will hold its form. Thus, when three feet high, it will 
be about three leet wide on the top. The rain will 
not hurt it. It should be examined after about a month 
and worked over, making a new heap as close as possi¬ 
ble to the first, and adding more or less lime in the same 
manner as before. Such muck will be in excellent shape 
in March or April to apply directly to the land, or t® 
compost again with animal manure or anything of a fer¬ 
menting nature, and will, when this undergoes heating 
in the spring, be excellent for manuring corn in the hill. 
Weeds. —“ If weeds are left exposed in piles a year, 
will their seeds germinate?” asks a correspondent.—Cer' 
tainly; and some of them probably after ten years, if 
there were ripe seeds in the pile to start with. 
Composting; is the art of mixing organic matter, 
such as straw, muck, dead animals, etc., that must under¬ 
go decomposition before they become available as plant 
food, with inorganic matter that will absorb and retain 
the valuable gases that the organic matter would other¬ 
wise let pass into the air and thus be lost. Such a mixture 
must be kept moist, but not exposed to rains that would 
wash away the valuable soluble salts. Stable manure 
and muck make an excellent basis for a compost heap, 
with which ashes, leached and fresh lime, weeds (not 
in seed), waste matters, etc., can be mixed. 
Cochineal in Florida.— The Cochineal Insect, 
a sort of plant louse, which abounds on certain species 
of cacti, and with the bodies of which a beautiful scarlet 
dye is made, and from which carmine is extracted, is said 
to do well in Southern Florida, though its native country 
is Mexico and the Northern States of South America. 
This being a fact, ns stated by a Florida paper, it would 
seem worth while for enterprising people in Southern 
Florida to look into this matter. 
Plant Economy.— Plants, like animals, can live 
on inferior food, but where it is abundant will select the 
best. Where food is lacking in quantity plants will con¬ 
tract their growth and devote all the food that is possible 
to the production of the offspring—the seed. It is a well 
Known fact that anything which checks the growth of the 
plant tends to make it flower first, and if possible produce 
seed. It seems as if the plant realizes .that its own life 
is in danger and takes the shortest cut to the reproduc¬ 
tion of its kind ; and in so doing often pinches itself and 
is very economical for the sake of future generations. 
