1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
291 
“ French -willows,” or pear-trees on the maple, or any 
such stuff, don't believe him about these, and be very 
sure that whatever else he may have is likely to be bo- 
gna _Here comes a complaint all the way from Vir¬ 
ginia about a 
DOLIfAR-STORE IN BOSTON. 
The writer’s daughter sent $21, and “received a misera¬ 
ble lot of cheap stuffs and imitations, any and all of 
which can be bought at any cross-roads store for the 
same, or less”—then there was the cost of freight and 
boxing added. The letter, and the New York references 
given, show that the writer is a gentleman of intelli- 
.gence and good social standing. Now, when such as he 
can be induced to suppose that any one can sell more 
than a dollar's worth for a dollar, we do not wonder that 
the less intelligent are so often swindled. We do not 
see how we can help our friend ; his money is past re- 
•covery, but he can console himself with the thought that 
the lesson may be worth all it cost to the daughter. 
There is at least one family in Fairfax Co. to whom all 
-such schemes will hereafter appeal in vain... .The alert¬ 
ness with which the sharps seize hold of every possible 
bait to catch the flats, is shown in the case of a 
BLACK HILLS MINING COMPANY. 
The vague reports that gold had been found in the 
Black Hills were enough. Notwithstanding that the 
government had given warning that all whites would be 
kept out by the military forces, the word “gold” was 
sufficient to start with. Circulars containing every report 
and guess at its occurrence in the Black Hills, are sent 
out, inviting subscribers to a mining company—only $10 
a share, and “ Fortunes for the Original Subscribers 
and we hope they may get them—the fortunes we mean. 
The latest account from the Black Hill3 does not much 
-encourage this little scheme for getting $10 out of the 
credulous_A friend in Kansas who received one of the 
■Geneva watch circulars—by the way, Geneva watches 
“ is riz,” they used to he only $4, but now $8—says that 
if the vender will take dead grasshoppers for a watch, he 
will trade. Don't do any such thing, Mr. Kansas man. 
In time of scarcity you could eat the grasshoppers, but 
we don’t know what earthly use the watch would be. 
MEDICAL MATTERS 
are not at all lively under a July sun. Several have in¬ 
quired about one “Dr.” Price, who is sending around 
circulars, setting forth, though not in the precise words, 
that he is “death on fits,” accompanied with a form of 
agreement that he will return the $20 if the patient is 
not cured. We are asked if he is responsible, and will 
Teturn the money in case of failure to cure as agreed. 
We do not know, and look upon that as a matter of sec¬ 
ondary importance. The great point is, what kind of a 
41 Doctor” can one he who will “guarantee” a cure of 
■any disease f or who will say of any medicine, “ it will 
surely cure any case,” and all this without even seeing 
the patient. If one who does this was educated as a 
doctor, he has lost all claims to the title. 
ABOUT PATENT MEDICINES. 
A correspondent, “M. N.,” Crawford Co., HI., writes 
that he considers our humbug exposures of great value, 
but cannot agree with us in denouncing all “Patent 
Medicines” as humbugs, and mentions some which he 
thinks should be excepted, especially a certain “ Pain 
Killer.” As our friend may be taken as a representative 
of a class of intelligent persons, who hold similar no¬ 
tions, we give his letter the respectful consideration its 
evident sincerity deserves. We may state that hut few 
of the so-called patent medicines are patented at all. If 
it were so, every one could know their composition, and 
all secrecy—in which their great value to the proprietor 
•consists—would be at an end. Our objections to these 
secret medicines are several, hut first and mainly because 
they are secret. We object to taking or giving anything 
whatever, the composition of which is not fully known. 
We would not treat a dumb animal or a plant with an 
unknown drug, much less a human being. These medi¬ 
cine* may be divided into two classes ; those which pos¬ 
sess really active properties and have a positive effect 
when administered ; and those which are practically 
inert, or consist of some stimulant or tonic, and act 
more upon the imagination through the remarkable 
•circulars which accompany them than by virtue of any 
medicinal agent they contain. This last class are the 
worst swindles, as they give a stuff that costs a mere 
trifle for a high price, but many of them are so nearly 
nothing that the harm they do is more to the pocket 
-than to the system. The whole class may be set down 
.us worthless trash, and in the main are agents to draw 
money from the nervous, timid, and credulous for the ben¬ 
efit of a few ignorant pretenders, who, with their flashy 
■diamonds, fast horses, and fast life generally, are a sad 
blotch upon our civilization. As to the other class, those 
medicines which have some potency, we object to these 
because they are powerful, and those who use them are 
working in the dark. Morphine is a useful remedy, but 
■should always be given knowing that it is morphine, and 
just as dangerous as it is useful. Not one mother in a 
hundred would apply a solution of morphine to the 
mouth of her teething babe did she know that it was 
morphine, hut mix it up with sugar, and call it some¬ 
body’s “ Soothing Syrup,” it is used without a question, 
and thousands of little white gravestones all the way 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific attest its soothing power. 
Certain worm lozenges were popular 30 years ago, and 
their advertisement was headed “ Children Cry for 
Them,” and hundreds of parents who would have been 
horror-stricken had their physicians prescribed a dose of 
calomel, fed their children on these lozenges. The wri¬ 
ter, at a public lecture exhibited the quantity of calomel 
he had separated from a box of these lozenges, and had 
the satisfaction of checking their sale in that city. Now 
while we do not deny that in some cases these remedies 
may be useful, we emphatically and wholly object to 
them on account of their secrecy. They may be hurtful, 
and are always needless. When we say needless, 
we mean in the secret form in which they are 
put up. None of this active class of secret medi¬ 
cines contain anything of any medicinal value that 
is not to be found at all decent drug stores, or which 
is not at the command of every one. Compounds of 
common drugs put up as secret remedies, are sold at a 
very high price, as they must be to pay for the enormous 
advertising and all the machinery of agents and circulars, 
and the customer buying them in this form pays many 
times more for them than he would to get them under 
their proper names. Take the “Pain Killer” in ques¬ 
tion. The writer was for many years a druggist, and 
sold the original maker of the stuff the drugs from 
which he compounded it, and knows that there is noth¬ 
ing in it that is not within reach of every one. Every 
family should have a few of the leading simple remedies 
at hand to use in an emergency, and all intelligent per¬ 
sons should know their properties as well as what to do 
in ordinary illness, but we do not think any one has a 
right to administer to another an article of unknown 
composition. These are in brief some of the reasons 
why we class them all, and without any exceptions, as 
humbugs_We quite agree with what our correspond¬ 
ent says about 
SELLING LIQUOR IN DRUG STORES, 
which is undoubtedly a great and growing evil, but this 
hardly comes under the head of humbugs....Medical 
humbugs have been distressingly tame of late; we 
were looking over our budget, thinking how refreshing 
it would be to get hold of some “ soul-harrowing ” nar¬ 
rative, something say in the Eddie Eastman style, that 
would make cold shivers run dosm one’s back, and his 
toes to tingle, when we came across the next best thing 
to a new friend, a long absent old one. 
OLD MOTHER NOBLE, 
bless her dear old heart, turned up once more! We 
thought the good old critter had gone the way of all good 
old mothers, but here she is as fresh as she was in 1888, 
and tells the same dear, delightful story. There is the 
same picture of the old stone-wall where this remarkable 
discovery was made, with the well-sweep in the distance. 
Ah that we should have had to dispel all this romance 
and tell what the stuff was made of! So Huyler still 
waves, but Clark Johnson, M. D., where is he? 
Plants Mamed.— B. Hassett, Iowa. The 
grass sent is Poa pratensis , or Kentucky Blue Grass. 
You are right in supposing it would make a good lawn. 
It is one of the best lawn grasses we have_“A. D.,” 
Port Huron, Mich. The plant is a Meadow-Rue, 
Thaiictrum purpurascens, and very common. 
An Erratic ISose.— “ P. R.,” Saugerties, 
sends a specimen for ns to “ make out what it is, and 
give the cause.”—It is a rose, on which the end of the 
stem not content with producing one flower, has pushed 
upwards and has prepared to produce another flower. 
This is not at all rare among roses; we see more or less 
cases of it among our own every year, and a few years 
ago we gave a figure of one which had repeated this, and 
might he called a three-storied rose. Some bushes do so 
habitually ; we once knew one which bore no other roses. 
As to the cause—we can no more tell that than we can 
why the rose is double. In cultivation we have encour¬ 
aged ail nnnatnra! condition, as we like double roses 
better than we do those id their natural state, which is 
single; hut it is no more strange that the stem should 
take on an unnatural development, than that, the stamens 
should turn into petals, as they do in double roses. 
Value of Goat Manure. —“ B. P. T.,” 
Placer Co., Cal. The value of goat manure so far as we 
know, has not been thoroughly investigated. So far as 
it has been experimented with, it has been found very 
similar to the manure of sheep, and it is probably of equal 
value. Sheep manure is rich, and readily ferments and 
decomposes. When fresh, it consists of 68 parts of wa¬ 
ter, 19.3 per cent of organic matter, and 12.7 per cent of 
salts in 100. Payen & Bonssingault estimate that equal 
effects are produced by 36 parts of sheep manure, 54 of 
horse manure, 63 of pig manure, and 125 of cow manure. 
In field experiments sheep manure has given a nine-fold 
increase of crop, and horse manure, seven-fold. It has 
also been found in effect to come next in value to ox 
blood. In our own experience we have found the manure 
from the sheep-yard to give better crops than any other. 
ILeafiMolcl as Manure. —“T.,” New¬ 
castle, Cal. Leaf-mold is of no use unless thoroughly 
rotted. It is then cool and moist and very suitable to 
mix with the soil about the roots in planting fruit-trees. 
Rotted cow manure is very useful for this purpose. Al¬ 
falfa can scarcely be grown in an orchard without injury 
to the trees. It is a deep-rooted and long-lived plant, 
and will exhaust the subsoil too much for the good of 
the trees. Where clover cannot he grown, we would 
keep the soil of an orchard clean, or in hoed crops. 
Tlte “ Wyamlof le ” Corn.—“ T. A. 
B.,” Little Rock, Ark., writes that some years ago he had 
a kind of corn known as the Wyandotte, which produced 
six or seven stalks, each bearing an ear, from one grain. 
He wishes to know where he can procure seed of this 
corn now. As we are not acquainted with this com, 
which should be a very valuable kind, we should be glad 
to hear from any of our readers who may know of it. 
Vo Train. a Horse to Trot.—“ H. H. 
R.,” Peekskill, N. Y. The Orange Co. Stud Book con¬ 
tains many useful hints as to training and managing 
horses. It can he had at this office, or sent by mail, for 
$1.00. The information contained in this book, may 
perhaps answer yonr purpose ; if not, and you believe 
your horse to be worth the cost, the best plan would be 
to employ a professional trainer. 
Drilling’ Grass Seed. —“ W. E.,” Cecil 
Co., Md. It is a saving of trouble to drill the grass seed 
along witli the grain, but we do not like the plan, as it 
crowds ttie young grass too much. We would rather take 
the extra trouble to sow the grass by hand or by broad¬ 
cast sower, immediately after the ground is harrowed, 
and while the soil is fine and mellow, and then drill the 
grain and roll. We have always got a better stand in 
this manner, than by sowing witli the drill. 
Poisoned Cats.—“A Mississippi Subscri¬ 
ber.” The symptoms described, viz., dullness, loss of 
appetite, moping, vomiting of offensive matter, would 
lead to the supposition that the cats were poisoned by 
some means. Cats have few or no diseases, except in 
their early life, and are remarkably hardy; nor do we 
know of any reason except the one indicated, for the 
unhappy fate of your seven pets. There is no book 
known to us which treats of ihe management of cats. 
The only remedy we ever heard of being given to these 
animals, is Sulphur in milk, at the period when they are 
passing through their youthful troubles. A few pinches 
of flowers of sulphur is stirred in milk and given to them. 
Slow to Use a Wead Morse.—“ J. E. 
E.,” Carrollton, Ga. A dead horse or other animal should 
be skinned, and roughly cut up into as many small pieces 
as possible. A plot of ground a few rods square, 
should then be plowed deeply, and the carcass thrown 
upon the soil in the center of the plowed ground. Some 
freshly dry-slacked lime should then lie scattered upon 
the heap, so as to cover it thinly but wholly. The loose 
earth is then to be heaped over it a foot in depth, and 
the pile covered with boards, so that dogs can not get at 
the heap and tear it up. If the least smell is perceived, 
more earth should be thrown upon the heap. In three 
months the heap may be dug over or turned over with the 
plow, and well mixed. The hones that can not he broken 
up should be taken from the heap, and the fine matter 
will be worth at least $20 per ton, to use in the hill for 
corn or cotton. The larger bones may he broken up 
and buried among the roots of grape vines or fruit trees. 
Time for Cutting Timber.- “A. 
W.,” Cecil Co., Md. We have found that timber cut when 
in full leaf, and rot trimmed, hut left with the leaves upon 
the tree until they are dried, will he more durable than 
when the trees are cut in the winter. This is the case 
with pine as well as hard wood. In sawing into lumber 
an extensive wind-fall, which was blown down in August 
and lay for several years, the timber was found per¬ 
fectly sound, while some logs which were cut in the win¬ 
ter, and lay for two years only, were considerably affected 
with dry rot. If the loers are thrown into water soon 
after they are cut, the lumber is much improved as to 
durability, and will season very quickly after it is cut. 
Basket Items con¬ 
tinued on page SI 7. 
