1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
4:5 
Xo l*e Slad willioiit Money.— There 
will be found upon our Premium List (see page 73) a 
large number of most useful and valuable articles, all of 
which are new and of the best manufacture, and any of 
which can be obtained without money and with but a lit- 
tle well directed effort. Among these are: Beautiful 
Silver-Plated Articles — Fiue Table-Cut¬ 
lery—Gold Pens witli Silver Cases—Chil¬ 
dren’s Carriages, Swings, etc.—Watches— 
Pianos — Itlelodeons — Pocket-Knives — 
Guns—Cultivators—Sewing', Knitting, and 
Washing' Machines—Books, etc., etc.— 
Read all of page 73, and see how easy you can obtain one 
or more of these good and desirable articles. 
containing a great variety of Items, inflicting many 
good Hints and Suggestions which we throw into smaller 
type and condensed form, for want of room elsewhere. 
Remitting Money: — i'iiccks on 
New York City Banks or Bankers are best 
for large sums : make payable to the order of Orange 
Judd Company. Post-OJhce Money Orders 
for $50 or less, are cheap and safe also. When these are not 
obtainable, register letters, affixing stamps for post¬ 
age and registry ; put in the money and seal tiie letter in 
the presence; of the postmaster, and talcs his receipt for it. 
Money sent in the above three methods is safe against loss. 
ESP N.B.—Xlae New Postage Law. 
—On account of the new postal law, which requires 
pre-payment of postage by tine publish¬ 
ers, after January 1st, 1875, each subscriber 
must remit, in addition to the regular rates, ten cents 
for prepayment of postage by the Publish¬ 
ers, at New York, for the year 1875. Every 
subscriber, whether coming singly, or in clubs at club 
rates, will be particular to send to this office postage as 
above, with his subscription. Subscribers in British Am¬ 
erica will continue to send postage as heretofore, for 
pre-payment here. 
Boiiml Copies of Volume Thirty- 
three are now ready. Price, $2, at our office ; or $2.50 
each, if sent by mail. Any of the last eighteen volumes 
(16 to 33) will also be forwarded at same price. Sets of 
numbers sent to our office will be neatly bound in our 
regular style, at75 cents pervol. (50 cents extra, if return¬ 
ed by mail.) Missing numbers supplied at 12 cents each. 
©in* Western Office.—Our friends in 
the West are reminded that we have an office at Lake¬ 
side Building, Chicago, Ill., in charge of Mr. W. H. 
Busbey. Subscriptions to American Agriculturist are 
taken there, and sample copies of the paper and chromo 
are delivered, and orders received for advertising on the 
same terms as in New York. All our books are on sale 
at tiie Western Office. Please call and examine, buy, 
subscribe, and advertise. 
I5ai«sy—BSiisy— Busy, —Those in charge of 
the Premium Department in this office have been wonder¬ 
fully busy, for over a month past, in sending off a very 
large stock of the splendid articles offered in tiie Pub¬ 
lisher's Illustrated Premium List. (If any reader has 
failed to get u copy of that extra sheet, send for it without 
delay.) The 15,000 men, women, and children, wiio 
have received these various premiums, have been delight¬ 
ed with them in almost all cases. February is a capi¬ 
tal season for a multitude of others to get, free, their 
choice out of a large variety of first rate useful articles. 
You, reader, may as well be one of the fortunate recipi¬ 
ents of these premiums, and do it this month. See 
page 73, and also read over the Illustrated Premium Sup¬ 
plement—sending for it if you have not a copy at hand. 
Changes anil Improvements.— No 
doubt that to many constant readers this issue of the 
paper will wear a slightly unfamiliar look. If they try 
to find why this is, the most that they will discover is 
that the different departments arc not in precisely the 
same places in which they have been accustomed to see 
them. Change is of hut little use unless it brings im¬ 
provement, and in this case we think the improvement 
very material, Formerly each department was within a set 
boundary, but now while each has more reading matter 
than ever before, and the Boys and Girls columns twice 
as much, they are so arranged that they can be made 
larger or smaller, to meet the need of each month. In 
certain months in the year we are pressed for room for 
advertisements, but wo could not formerly add a single 
leaf to a number without so increasing the weight that 
the subscribers would he charged double postage. Now 
that postage is paid here and by the pound, we can add 
as we please, and in arranging so that any amount of 
advertising can bo accommodated, we have been able to 
give more room to reading matter, and thus every one is 
benefitted. The newness of the mechanical arrangement 
will wear off with a single month, and each reader will 
have very much more than we have ever before given. 
Xiaai EBoaailcei*, Esq. —Those who have read 
the Agriculturist these many years, have of late felt the 
loss of the teachings of the Hookertown Squire. Though 
the same pen has given them good articles in another 
form, they have not recognized him, and have often asked ' 
for Tim Bunker. The old gentleman has been a great 
traveler of late years, and now that he has once more 
quietly settled down, we have reason to hope that his 
letter in the present number is but a renewal of his for¬ 
mer series. To our newer readers, those who only now 
make the acquaintance of Squire Bunker, w’e can say , 
that he is one of the best farmers in tl^e country, and ; 
that, under his quaint way of putting things, there is al¬ 
ways a great deal of sound practical sense. And wc may 
add just here, that the collected “ Tim Bunker Papers,” 
published by the Orange Judd Co., (See Book List,) are 
not only entertaining reading, but contain the most solid 
sugar-coated instruction, and every farmer hoy, and 
every farmer man too, will be profited as well as amused 
by reading the hook, and ought to do it. 
B. M. Bliss <fc Sons’ F’rizes. 
—Last spring these enterprising seedsmen made the 
very liberal offer of $1,500 in prizes for the largest yield 
of potatoes grown from seed purchased of them. Of 
this amount $750 was for the largest yield from one 
pound of seed, and $750 for the largest yield from 
one quarter of an acre. A committee of three was 
appointed to decide upon and award the prizes. The}' 
made their report in December last, from which we are 
only able to give the names of the winners of first prizes 
in each class. For the largest quantity of Extra Early 
Vermont, from one pound of seed: 1st prize of $100 to 
A. K. Titus, Wilmington, Vt., yield, 703 lbs. For the 
largest quantity of Compton's Surprise from one pound : 
1st prize of $100, to P. C. Wood, Esther, HI., yield, 900 
lbs. For the largest quantity of Brownell's Beauty from 
one pound: 1st prize of $100, to H. C. Pearson, Pitcairn, 
N. Y., yield, 1,018 lbs. For the largest quantity of Extra 
Early Vermont, grown on one-quarter acre : 1st prize of 
$100, to D. Steck, Hughesville, Pa., yield, 0,247 lbs. For 
the largest quantity of Compton's Surprise on one- 
quarter acre: 1st prize of $100, to Mrs. M. A. Royce, 
Home, East Tenn., yield, 7,350 lbs. For largest quan¬ 
tity of Brownell’s Beauty on one-quarter aero: 1st prize 
of $100, to A. Rose, Penn Yan, N. Y., yield, 8,899 lbs. 
A Pig-eon Show. — The National Colum- 
barian Society, whose first show last year was such a 
success, will hold its second exhibition in New York 
City, on the 25th inst. The. Secretary is L. Burlingame, 
14 Murray street, who will furnish prize lists. 
Aid for Kansas.—We are requested to 
state that women and children’s clothing and money 
will he needed for some months yet in Kansas. Mem¬ 
bers of Granges that desire to assist their brethren in 
Kansas, may communicate direct with John G. Otis, 
State Agent of the Patrons of Husbandry, W. P. Pope- 
noe, or Halstead Johnson, Topeka, Kansas. 
XBiat “GSRANB BAZAAR.”—We 
have before spoken of the assortment of goods, wares, 
seeds, implements, animals, books, etc., etc., etc., arrayed 
in our advertising columns, as a “ Grand Bazaar,” where 
the reader is introduced directly to a very great variety 
of articles brought together by a multitude of dealers, 
all of whom are believed to be men who will do what 
they promise. (Those in special charge of that depart¬ 
ment are instructed not only to shut out quacks, medi¬ 
cal or other nostrums, etc., hut to admit no advertiser 
whom they would not he willing themselves to send an 
order to with cash in advance, if necessary.) This de¬ 
partment is a great convenience to our hundreds of 
thousands of readers scattered all over this country, and 
in many other lands. It will pay them to carefully exam¬ 
ine all the advertisements, for many business hints and 
suggestions will thus he gathered. They will also find 
what is for sale, and where. The present Mail facilities 
for cheap carriage of seeds and many other articles gives 
almost equal advantage to the remotest dweller in the 
distant territories, and those near populous centers. 
We Introduce our Readers to these Dealers ; they invite 
you to examine their offerings, to send for their circu¬ 
lars, etc. When writing to them, please let them know 
you belong to the great American Agriculturist family, 
and you may expect and will receive good treatment. 
SUNBBRX HUMBUGS.—Last month 
we gave, especially for the benefit of the many new 
friends who make our acquaintance with the new year, 
an outline sketch of the Humbug family, with indica¬ 
tions of some of tiie more prominent genera and species. 
We might in that article have discussed the geograph¬ 
ical distribution of humbugs, for they spread from the 
point where they originate—usually from east to west, 
hut not always, at a rate of progression which is inter¬ 
esting to those who are obliged to observe them. As 
one who goes from a city to some distant and secluded 
village finds that the fashions in the village are just 
what were in vogue in the city two or three years ago, 
so our humbug files of to-day show that Salt Lake City 
and the mining towns of Colorado and Nevada are being 
infested by the same humbugs which but a few years 
before were making New York and Chicago the scene of 
their operations. Requests come, as heretofore, to ex¬ 
pose this or that person who tire writer thinks is engag¬ 
ing in some swindle. It is very easy to write to us 
“show him up,” 
and it would he equally easy for us to act upon this re¬ 
quest, but that is not the way in which these coiumns 
are conducted. While we take much responsibility in 
protecting the public from loss by exposing frauds, we 
take also the greatest care that no innocent person shall 
be injured. It is only those who pursue a systematic 
and persistent course of fraud whose portraits are re- 
garded as worthy a place here_Some of our corre¬ 
spondents think we are too lenient with the 
RE AT, ESTATE AGENTS 
of whom they have complained. This is one of those 
cases in which, while we have no doubt that deceit is 
practiced by the holding out of extravagant promises, 
we have no actual proof that fraud has been committed. 
We have, some months ago, given extracts from the let¬ 
ters of these real estate chaps, and left our readers to 
draw their own conclusions. The plan of operations is 
this. You, the reader, advertise a farm or other prop¬ 
erty for sale: in all probability you will receive a letter 
from one of these New York concerns guaranteeing to sell 
your property before a given date, for a commission of 
2J per cent, but for preliminary advertising and other 
expenses, they wish you to remit $10 or $5, as the case 
may ho. The complaints made are that tiie agents get 
the $5 or $10 and do not sell the property. The strange 
part in ail this is, that anybody can he so innocent as to 
believe that they would. An agent can no more guar¬ 
antee the sale of real estate than he can the drawing of a 
lottery ticket, and the very fact that one promises the 
impossible should deter all sensible people from trusting 
; him... A cold climate does not seem very favorable to 
the growth of humbugs, but we now and then get one 
from in Canada. This time it is a remarkable sale of 
FLASH JEWELRY AND OTHER GOODS, 
on the old plans of “anything on this board fora shil¬ 
ling,” owing to “financial embarrassments,” “great 
depression of business,” and all that, “ an immense 
quantity of the choicest articles of European manufac¬ 
ture,” have been sent to Durand, James & Co., Montreal, 
for sale at the uniform price of $2.75 currency, and 25 
cents for postage and packing. “Coupons” or tickets, 
each enumerating some article are indiscriminately 
mixed, and one by paying 25 cents (or 5 for $1) can get a 
coupon telling him what he can buy “for his $3.” 
Lovely little hit of machinery. Charming Durand. James 
& Co. Silly, stupid fools that get caught in such a net¬ 
work_The area of semi-official lottery gambling has 
extended, and now we have the 
TEXAS GIFT CONCERT, 
which has all the wonderful inducements to invest in 
this form of gambling that we have become wearied of 
reading in the circulars of that lovely perennial tiling, 
the Kentucky Library concern. Texas lias made such 
wonderful strides ill improvement within a few years, 
that we regret to see lier follow the example of the older 
1 States for evil as well as for good. 
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SELLING THINGS 
are always to be looked upon with distrust. If one has 
a good article to sell, he requires no machinery to help 
get rid of it. Paper is one of the commonest articles of 
commerce, and that of a given quality has a regular 
price as mucli as coal, flour, or iron, and any unusual 
methods of disposing of it are to be regarded with 
caution ; If one advertises a staple like paper in an ex¬ 
pensive manner and sends out circulars, the cost of doing 
this will he paid by the purchaser in the increased price 
provided he ever gets his paper. We say, “provided he 
