1884 .] 
AMERICA!^ AGRIOULTIJRIST, 
391 
Mesmerism Did It! 
If a signature is wanted by a swindler, he has only to 
Mesmerize his victim, and down goes his name; swin¬ 
dler takes his note, sells it, and all is easy. Several par¬ 
ties in the interior of New York State, who bought cloth 
and clocks which they did not want, giving notes in pay¬ 
ment therefor, now claim that they were Mesmerized 
when they did it. One old lady says she “was bewitch¬ 
ed into doing it,” which we take it amounts to about 
the same thing. If this Mesmer dodge becomes popular, 
we shall be obliged to hang out our old warning. 
“ 'I’he Stiiii4la,i-d Jewelry Com* 
paiiy.” 
A Postmaster in Fulton County, Ill., writes fis that 
several parties in his vicinity have sent money to the 
■“ Standard Jewelry Company,” in New York City. 
That the money reached its destination is shown by the 
return registry cards, but no jewelry, ‘*Standard,” or 
other, has been received in return. This “ Company ” is 
said to be composed of former clerks of the notorious 
Tiffany & Co. It will be recollected that the business of 
that concern was so large they could not possibly fill the 
orders, and they sold out. The purchaser found he had 
made such a bad bargain, that he got rid of the business 
by making an assignment. 
“ Ca^li Paid for Stories, Slcetclies, 
Etc.” 
Is the purport of an advertisement that appeared in 
Eastern magazines and journals of good standing, from 
a party in a Western city. A young lady, in Plymouth 
Co., Mass.., forwarded her Mss. In a few days a letter 
came from the advertiser, very elaborately stating, that 
the Mss. “ is really very good, only it needs a little re¬ 
vision,” to make it acceptable to the hard-to-suit 
editor. Ten dollars is mentioned as the price asked 
for the revision, but a buyer stands ready to take 
it at sixty dollars as soon as revised, who will not 
take it at any price unless it has been, etc., etc. 
Young writer sends ten dollars. Neither Mss. or 
money are heard of again. The advertiser sets his trap 
for another victim. It does not appear to occur to either 
party, that a very simple way would be to touch up the 
story, get the sixty dollars, and forward the author fifty 
dollars. The advertiser would not be quite so sure of 
his ten dollars, if matters took that course. Writers 
should avoid this “CashPaid for” chap. 
Policy Playinjar s*- Earge Scale. 
Policy playing, or “ Poke-a-Moke,” is regarded as the 
meanest of all forms of gambling. It has great attrac¬ 
tions for the ignorant, who are influenced in their in¬ 
vestments by their dreams, or by numbers they may 
chance to see on carts and elsewhere in the streets. Per¬ 
sons of this class are not likely to have much money, 
and Policy allows them to gamble with dimes and half 
dimes—in fact as low as a single cent. These small 
sums are staked upon certain numbers, or combinations 
of numbers, and the result is claimed to be decided by 
the numbers drawn in the Kentucky or other lottery. 
Of late, it is said that the drawing which decides the 
fate of the players, is only a pretence. There is now an 
imitation of the Policy game in 
“ THE LITTLE HAVANA LOTTERY.” 
The tickets in this have numbers corresponding to 
those on the tickets of the Royal Havana Lottery of 
Cuba, but the prizes being smaller, the tickets cost less 
than those of the original affair. The drawings of the 
“Royal,” which it is claimed are received twice a week 
from Cuba by steamer, determine the drawings of the 
“Little Havana.” This appears to differ from Policy 
only in the amount required to play it; tickets and 
halves being two dollars and one dollar. A concern in 
Indianapolis is sending the circulars of this “ Little 
Havana” gambling scheme all over the Western 
States. It is really more pernicious than the “Royal 
Havana ” Itself, as it tempts young people by the low 
price of its tickets. A parent in Ohio writes us that the 
circulars of the ” Little Havana ” were sent to his son of 
seventeen. The headquarters of the concern are in 
New York City, and the correspondent requests us to 
investigate “ Shipsey & Co., General Agents.” These 
people know altogether too much to be found in when 
wanted. They can be reached by correspondence, but 
no one as yet has succeeded in reaching them in per¬ 
son. Arrests have been made at the place, but the 
parties always proved that they were somebody else. 
Payiii"- lor Adverlisims' in Eonies. 
To judge from the number of his letters to country edi¬ 
tors, that are sent to us, VanRaub can not be succeeding 
very well in his pony dicker. He writes to the country 
editor:—“I desire to introduce the sale of my fancy 
ponies and horses in your locality. I have no money to 
invest in advertising, but if you will insert the enclosed 
advertisement six months in a good position in your pa¬ 
per, and call attention to it editorially, 1 will ship you, 
fi’ee of freight, one or a pair [what’s a pony or two more 
or less?] of beautiful ponies for your wife or little folks, 
in the first car-load lot that goes near your place. If ac¬ 
ceptable, insert, send copy of paper for six months, and 
write wliat kind of ponies you desire. 
(Signed) B. H. VanRaub. 
A very money-saving proposition is the above. The 
advertisement would cost from five to eight dollars in 
in the average country paper, while the freight on the 
ponies would be about twenty-five dollars. One Ver¬ 
mont editor writes us that in spite of the transparency 
of the fraud, “ a good many editors have sw.allowed the 
bait.” VanRaub is on the safe side, as the “ first car-load 
lot” is not likely to be soon seen rushing around in the 
valleys of the Green Mountains. What a pathetic pic¬ 
ture could be made of the editors who have published the 
advertisement, waiting and watching for the “first car¬ 
load lot! ” 
A VICTIM TO A SMALL EXTENT. 
Lancaster, Ohio, July 29, 1884. 
American Agrieultunst: 
My Dear Sir: As you are exposing the fraud Byron 
Van Raub, I hand you my transactions with him. He 
got a dollar out of me, but that was all. He was quite 
profuse in “ thanks,” but I never bought any of his fine 
(?) ponies. Give it to him. Your emurdns devoted to 
Humbugs interest me very much. 
Y'ours, very truly, 
Wm. L. Martin. 
Ei-eserving' Eftjgs—Xlie llavnua. 
Method. 
Bledsoe Co., Tenn., July 30, 1884. 
To the American Agriculturist. 
Gentlemen: Last mail brought me the enclosed circu¬ 
lar. Cannot tell how he got my address. When I read 
it, I noticed that J. W. Spencer made it quite plain 
where his address is. Mr. Robinson is a moving planet, 
and of course can not be found. The others all at letter 
carrier offices, and no street or number. I remarked 
that it looked like a fraud on the face of it. My daugh¬ 
ter asked what it was. I said the Havana method for 
preserving eggs. Why, she said, the last Agriculturist 
says that it is a fraud. We looked and found it so; but 
do as you please about it. 
Yours truly, Lewis Boynton. 
The recipe for preserving eggs by the “ Havana 
method,” was originally offered for one dollar in the 
remarkable “Poultry Adviser” published in Ohio. 
Since then others have offered to send the recipe for the 
same price, the latest being from Branch County, Mich. 
That eggs may be preserved by the “ Havana recipe,” 
we do not doubt, as it is not essentially different from 
the lime and salt pickle we have published without any 
price for these many years. The important portion of 
the Havana mixture is lime and salt; to this are added 
several other articles in small quantities, and of a kind- 
that neutralize one another. For example. Cream of 
Tartar (Bitartrate of Potash), and Bicarbonate of Soda, 
are used in the liquid. The merest smatterer of chemis¬ 
try knows that these, when put together, result in Tar¬ 
trate of Soda, and (neutral) Tartrate of Potash, neither 
of which is known to have any preservative qualities, 
and if they had, they are present in quantities too small 
to have any effect. We regard it as a fraud to sell a 
recipe, different only from one in general use by the 
addition of ingredients which do not essentially alter or 
improve it. Farmers and others should stick to the old 
lime and salt method until some better substitute is 
offered than this so-called " Havana Method.” 
Earmei's Eook out lor “ llroittli- 
Erool' 
One J. W. Walker, Frankl'.n County, N. C., wrote to a 
St. Louis paper an account of “a valuable perennial 
grass, valuable for hay, for grazing, and its roots furnish¬ 
ing a beautiful supply of excellent hog food.” We are 
told that “ its roots are white, tender, from the size of a 
goose-quill to that of one’s finger, go down three to 
twelve feet deep after moisture, and yield over one thou¬ 
sand bushels of hog-food per acre.” This grass is 
abundant in its roots, and not slack as to its hay. We 
are told it “ may be cut not less than three times a year, 
making all the way from one to eight tons per acre at a 
cutting.” Twenty-four tons of hay to tlie acre, is a good 
deal of hay, but this is a good deal of a country ! As we 
read about the many bushels of roots we thought of the 
WONDERFUL “ GREEN VALLEY GRASS OP THE WEST 
INDIES.” 
But Walker could not conceal his science, and lets it 
out that his “Drouth-Proof Grass ” is Sorghum llalc- 
2Knse, and the jig is up. This “ Drouth-Proof,” with its 
muchness of roots, is the “ Green Valley Grass,” only 
the picture of that had a man reading a newspaper, with 
his chair tilted up against a stalk of it. It is not neces¬ 
sary to give this grass a new name, and make a talk over 
it as “ Droutli-Proof.” It is already well known, and 
has been cultivated for years in some localities as “ John- 
son-grass” and “ Means-grass.” It is valuable for some 
uses; it has long been profitably cultivated for baling in 
Georgia, and is now successfully grown in Alabama, for 
just what it is, aud it requires no cock-and-bull stories of 
twenty-four tons of hay to tlie acre, with a thousand 
bushels of bog-feed added for good measure. Mr. 
Walker is no novice in 
THE WONDERFUL PLANT RUSINESS. 
Mr. W. A. Garrett, Henry County, Mo., writes us, that 
in the spring of '82 he saw, in the “ South and West ” of 
St. Louis, a communication from said J. W. Walker, 
describing another wonderful plant, the Japan Clover. 
Mr. Garrett being interested in Walker’s article, wrote 
him, making some inquiries, Walker sent a price-list, 
quoting tlie seed of Japan Clover at five dollars per 
bushel. Mr. Garrett sent seven dollars for seed. In due 
time a box came, the express cliarges on whicli were 
seven dollars more. “ I opened the box aud found that 
it contained not a seed of any kind, but was full of sand. 
I wrote to the sender, but never received any reply.” 
HERE IS A PORTION OP MR. GARRETT’S LETTER, 
which we commend to those wlio ask us to show up this 
or that as a Humbug, and add : “Do not make use of 
my name in any manner.” Mr. Garrett writes : “Ashe 
(Walker) has entered the field again, doubtless with a 
view to catcli others, as he did me, I deem it my duty to 
show him up in ids true colors, so that I may save some 
brother farmer from investing fourteen dollars in sand.” 
Observe Mr. Garrett does not say: “ I deem it the duty 
of the Amencan Agriculturist to show him up,” but “I,” 
and “my,” as if he had duties in the'inatter, besides that 
of being willing “ to sacrifice all of his wife’s relations.” 
Cautionary Signal. 
“Tine <jJoldew ISee Hive.” 
Professor A. J. Cook, the eminent apiarist of Lansing, 
Michigan, sounds a shrill note of warning in the Detroit 
“Daily Post,” which should reach bee-keepers every¬ 
where. He writes: “I am told that I use the‘Golden 
Bee Hive;’ that he (the patentee) has sold hundreds 
about Lansing ; that the hive will surely winter bees, 
etc... .1 never used said hive; I do not know of one 
used around Lansing, and the hive so far as I know 
is not used by a single prominent bee-keeper in the 
United States.” Professor Cook further states, that 
“any bee-keeper has a perfect right to use all the valu¬ 
able features claimed for the ‘ Golden Hive.’ The Lang- 
stroth is free to all; and would be preferred by every bee¬ 
keeper of experience to this so-called patented hive.” 
Concerning the wintering of bees. Professor Cook writes: 
“ When the bees are dead next spring, as they surely 
will be in this hive, if we have a severe winter and his 
directions are followed, the ‘ patentee ’ will be in his 
southern home, and his warrant will be utterly worth¬ 
less. He says it secures more honey. This is absurd. 
Bees gather all they can in any hive, if given room, 
livery hive of this kind sold in the country is a damage. 
.This man, I am told, has taken four hundred dollars 
from the farmers around Lapeer, Mich.”—It would seem 
from the words of a leading apiarist, above quoted, 
that the “ Golden Bee Hive ” is something for all bee¬ 
keepers to let severely alone. 
The Campaign Opened. 
We give special inducements to all sub¬ 
scribers and friends of the American. 
Agriculturist,” who propose to raise clubs 
this season, and afford such facilities as 
will enable them to readily procure sub¬ 
scriptions. Please immediately write us 
for full particulars, addressing your let¬ 
ter, Subscription Department, American 
Agriculturist, 751 Broadway, New Yorlt. 
SEE PAGES 394 and 395 FOR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS REGARDING NEW SUBSCRIBERS 
