828 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
Dec.  17 
men  and  two  lG-year-old  boys,  running  five  plows,  he 
taking  one  and  leading.  His  wife  has  retired  from 
field  labor,  having  with  their  increased  stock  of  cattle, 
hogs,  poultry  and  household  duties,  her  time  fully 
occupied,  at  and  around  the  house.  He  now  has,  at  31 
years  of  age,  paid  for  180  acres  of  land,  five  head 
of  mules,  costing  from  8150  to  8195  each.  He 
has  135  acres  on  which  he  has  paid  8600  of  the 
81,200  purchase  price  ;  126  acres  on  which  he  has  paid 
8300,  and  an  abundance  of  cattle,  hogs,  poultry,  corn 
and  other  supplies  “  to  run  ”  his  place  next  year. 
Sim  does  not  feel  “  bigoty  ”  from  his  success,  but  his 
respectful  manner  and  steady  application  cause  every 
one  who  knows  him  to  be  more  than  willing  to  aid 
him,  knowing  that  his  prudence  and  industry  will 
enable  him  to  work  out  success.  When  asked  how 
long  it  would  take  a  young  man  to  pay  for  a  place, 
he  replied,  “  Four  or  five  years.”  I  said,  “  Why,  Sim, 
you  pay  for  it  in  three  years  or  less.”  “Yes,  sir,  but 
they  don’t  work  like  I  do.”  The  whole  secret  lies  in 
work,  economy,  judgment.  All  three  Sim  has.  He 
cannot  read  or  write,  but  when  you  make  a  statement 
and  he  says,  “  Yes,  sir,”  or  “  That’s  it,”  he  clearly 
understands  it.  Where  is  the  worthy  young  white 
farmer,  who  has  industry,  energy  and  judgment  who 
will  not  say  “  I  can  and  I  will  do  as  well  ?  ”  Sim  does 
not  tell  his  plows  to  go ,  but  with  his  own  leads. 
Americus,  Ga.  _  A.  w.  smith. 
Only  a  few  of  the  “specials”  have  yet  been  called 
for.  Farmers  have  been  too  busy  to  begin  the  work 
of  club  raising  in  earnest.  Will  you  win  one  ? 
*  *  * 
LEAVINGS. 
A  Woman’s  Work. — Farmers  are  advised  to  keep 
books  so  as  to  see  what  they  have  done  and  what  they 
haven’t.  This  advice  does  not  always  include  the  far¬ 
mers’  wives,  but  it  seems  that  some  of  them  go  ahead 
and  keep  the  books  on  their  own  hook.  For  example, 
here  is  the  year’s  work  record  of  a  lady  in  Kansas. 
You  big  men,  boasting  about  your  big  performances, 
which  of  you  can  equal  this  ? 
“  We  lived  on  a  200-acre  farm  in  northern  Iowa  eight 
miles  from  town,  on  the  bleak  prairie,  but  very  close 
to  The  R.  N.-Y.  and  a  few  good  magazines.  I  per¬ 
formed  all  the  following  work  with  my  own  hands,  as 
the  children  were  too  small  to  help  much.  I  have  six 
children  and  the  eldest  at  the  time  was  10  years  and 
baby  two  years.  We  had  one  man  hired  for  the  year, 
and  during  harvesting  and  thrashing  extra  hands. 
Bread  baked . 
590  loaves 
Doughnuts . 
800 
Pies  ,,  . 
Chickens  ate . 
288 
Eggs  ate . 
200  dozen 
89 
Strawberries  ate 
500  quarts 
Apples  . . 
Crackers  bought . 
4  bbls 
Potatoes  „  . 
50  bushel 
1 
Pork  ,, 
800  pounds 
Biscuit  ate . 
20  meals 
Beef  „ 
600  „ 
18  ., 
400 
Pancakes . 
24 
50  loaveB 
Asparagus  and 
ve^e- 
Brown  bread  baked... 
tables  of  all 
kinds. 
Cakes . 
Cookies .  . 
44 
iOO 
and  to  give  away. 
We  ate  the  following  canned  fruit  in  winter,  which 
I  had  put  up  in  the  fall  : 
Tomatoes . 
. ...  50  quarts 
Garments  made.... 
...  103 
Strawberries . 
....  70  „ 
Chickens  raised . 
. .  225 
Preserves . 
....  22  „ 
Made  calls . 
20  times 
Jelly  . 
. . . .  19  ,. 
....  6  gals. 
Went  to  church _ 
...  25 
Pickles . 
Washing  done . 
,..  75  „ 
Five  children  sick  at  the  same  time,  six  weeks  in 
bed.  I  picked  most  of  the  strawberries,  and  worked 
most  of  the  garden,  and  raised  50  kinds  of  flowers, 
extra  fine. 
BOUGHT. 
Sugar . 
Tea  . 
.  3.55 
Shoes . .  . 
Dry  goods  . 
..  25.00 
.  40.00 
Coffee . 
.  6.65 
Farm  Expenses . 
..  825.00 
Gasoline . 
.  6.00 
Hired  labor,  men  only... 
.  276.21 
Coal . 
.  28.00 
Household  . 
..  140.20 
For  the  farm  income  I  refer  to  the  head  of  the  house. 
These  figures  are  exact  in  every  particular  for  one 
whole  year,  commencing  June  1st  and  ending  May  31st. 
Harvey  County,  Kan.  mrs.  e.  e.  white. 
A  New  Fraud. — The  English  papers  are  now  hav¬ 
ing  a  tremendous  run  over  a  new  scheme  for  petty 
gambling.  It  is  called  the  “  missing  word  craze.”  A 
sentence  is  left  uncompleted  and  the  public  are  invited 
to  send  their  idea  of  -what  the  missing  word  is  with  a 
shilling.  These  shillings  are  put  in  one  big  pool  to  be 
divided  among  those  who  guess  the  right  word.  A 
cablegram  says : 
One  pool  alone  received  during  the  week  ending  on 
last  Tuesday  more  than  217,000  shillings,  each  accom¬ 
panied  by  a  guess  as  to  the  missing  word  in  a  phrase 
printed  the  week  before.  The  sentence  occurred  at 
the  end  of  a  paragraph  describing  the  practice  of  the 
Romans,  who,  when  they  invaded  Britain,  are  said  to 
have  beaten  their  bare  legs  with  nettles  in  order  to 
neutralize  the  effect  of  the  cold.  The  closing  sentence 
was  :  “  To  our  minds  such  vigorous  treatment  hardly 
seems  - ”  The  854,000  in  the  pool  was  divided 
among  the  370  individuals  who  sent  in  the  word  enjoy¬ 
able,  each  receiving  the  snug  sum  of  8145  for  one  shil¬ 
ling  risked.  It  looks  like  an  easy  trick,  especially  if 
one  makes  judicious  use  of  a  book  of  synonyms  and 
sends  in  15  or  20  words  with  as  many  shillings.  At 
all  events,  the  little  game  has  captured  John  Bull’s 
rapacious  heant,  and  from  Aberdeen  to  the  Lizard  the 
silver  streams  are  pouring  into  London.  The  pool 
mentioned  is  but  one  of  a  dozen.  The  amount  paid 
in  for  the  current  week  will  probably  exceed  half  a 
million  shillings,  or  8125  000  here.  Here  is  a  great  fad, 
almost  unknown  a  month  or  six  -weeks  ago,  suddenly 
developed  into  national  importance,  and  of  all  others, 
slow,  conservative  John  Bull  is  the  victim. 
The  paper  offering  the  guess  makes  its  money  by 
retaining  a  percentage  of  the  funds  and  insisting  that 
all  who  try  must  be  subscribers.  It  is  the  cleverest 
scheme  of  petty  gambling  yet  tried  and  will  probably 
be  “boomed”  in  this  country  before  many  weeks.  Let 
it  alone  unless  you  are  a  gambler  and  want  to  be 
known  as  such. 
Few  Sweet  Potatoes. — In  digging  my  sweet  pota¬ 
toes  I  found  that  in  nearly  half  the  hills  there  were 
no  potatoes — only  fibrous  roots — while  the  others 
yielded  heavily.  Many  single  potatoes  weighed  from 
three  to  five  pounds,  and  were  of  good  quality.  I  have 
surmised  that  the  cause  of  the  failure  was  too  thick 
planting  and  too  little  cultivation.  They  were  planted 
12  to  15  inches  apart  in  the  row  and  were  worked  but 
very  little.  If  this  was  not  the  cause,  what  was?  Sweet 
potatoes  usually  do  well  here,  but  I  have  had  only 
three  seasons’  cultivation  to  judge  from.  o.  f.  r. 
Clifford,  Texas. 
R.  N.-Y. — What  do  our  sweet  potato  growers  say  ? 
HORTICULTURAL  GOSSIP. 
The  farmer  who  can  put  on  his  Christmas  dinner 
table  a  plate  of  handsome,  well-grown  and  well- 
ripened  Lawrence  pears,  deserves  well  of  his  wife  and 
children.  I  do  not  know  any  fruit  which  more  accept¬ 
ably  rounds  up  a  meal  in  the  holiday  season  than  a 
fine  pear.  By  the  way,  I  have  found  it  pays  to  pick 
out  the  pears  that  are  nearly  ripe  and  bring  them  from 
the  cellar  or  store  room  into  a  warm  room  for  a  few 
days  before  putting  them  on  the  table.  The  heightened 
temperature  seems  to  add  materially  to  their  sweet¬ 
ness,  probably  converting  some  of  the  starch  in  the 
fruit  into  sugar.  Further,  I  think  the  aroma  of  the 
fruit  is  more  notable — more  pronounced  when  the 
pear  to  be  eaten  is  somewhere  near  the  temperature  of 
the  living-room.  Take  a  pear  from  a  very  cold  room 
and  eat  it  in  that  condition,  and  you  can  scarcely  tell 
the  difference  between  a  good  and  a  poor  one.  Your 
wine  drinker  has  found  out  this  trait  of  fruits  and  he 
wants  his  red  wine  about  60  degrees  ere  he  drinks  it. 
To  ice  it  would  be  a  barbarism  in  his  estimation  and 
utterly  conceal  its  bouquet. 
After  the  Lawrence  comes  the  Winter  Nelis,  a 
delicious  pear  rated  by  Mr.  Downing  among  winter 
pears  like  the  Seckel  among  autumnal  varieties.  This 
keeps  easily  until  the  middle  of  January;  some  will  be 
thoroughly  ripened  by  Christmas,  and  often  before. 
Every  farmer  should  have  at  least  one  tree  each  of 
these  two  sorts,  the  fruit  of  which  should  be  carefully 
put  away  for  family  use.  It  makes  one’s  mouth  water 
to  think  of  having  an  ample  supply  of  these  fruits, 
slowly  fitting  themselves  for  the  table.  Who  would 
do  without  them  when  they  are  so  easily  grown  ? 
Speaking  of  fruits  and  Christmas  reminds  me  that  I 
ate  excellent  Sal  way  peaches  in  Niagara  Co.  a  few 
year’s  ago,  on  Christmas  Day,  which  had  been  carefully 
picked  and  kept  in  an  outhouse,  where  they  were  safe 
from  freezing,  but  were  quite  cold.  It  is  not  always 
practicable  to  thus  keep  them.  The  ability  to  do  it 
depends  somewhat  on  the  nature  of  the  season.  But 
in  cold  storage,  they  can  be  kept  for  the  holidays  with 
but  very  little  loss. 
On  November  26th  we  covered  up  our  garden  patch 
of  strawberries  with  coarse  manure,  the  ground  being 
frozen  hard  It  would  probably  have  been  better 
could  the  work  have  been  deferred  until  a  little  colder 
weather  had  come,  as  they  may  get  thawed  out  under 
the  mulch  and  that  is  undesirable.  The  value  of  the 
mulch  consists  in  keeping  the  soil  about  the  plants 
from  frequent  freezing  and  thawing,  not  in  keeping 
frost  from  them. 
The  writer  received  a  box  of  Anjou  pears  a  few  days 
since  from  Ellwanger  & 'Barry,  the  noted  Rochester 
nurserymen.  I  wish  some  of  the  fruit  growers  who 
complain  of  the  prices  they  receive  for  their  fruit  and 
who  growl  at  the  net  results  of  their  fruit  growing, 
could  have  seen  this  box.  It  held  about  half  a  bushel 
of  pears.  Each  was  separately  wrapped  in  paper  and 
there  was  not  a  gnarly,  wormy  or  unsound  pear  in  the 
box.  A  half  bushel  of  such  fruit  would  sell  for  more 
cash  in  our  New  York  markets  than  a  barrel  full  of 
fruit  as  we  generally  see  it.  The  specimens  were  all 
large  and  handsome  and  the  quality  superb.  If  the 
members  of  the  firm  could  have  seen  the  delighted 
faces  of  the  office  force  as  each  one  received  a  speci¬ 
men,  they  would  have  had  an  added  pleasure — a 
pleasure  we  assumed  as  their  proxy.  F. 
*  •  * 
Another  box  of  the  Anjou  was  received  by  the  editor 
and  eaten  by  14  persons.  The  minority  decision  was 
that  they  had  never  eaten  a  better  pear,  the  majority 
decision  being  that  they  had  never  eaten  one  so  good. 
The  fact  is  that  we  do  not  know  how  to  ripen  Anjou 
pears,  and  hence  it  is  that  their  quality  is  narrowly 
estimated.  Such  perfectly  ripened  Anjous  would  prove 
a  revelation  to  many. 
[Every  query  must  be  accompanied  bv  the  name  and  address  of  the 
writer  to  insure  attention.  Before  asking  a  question  please  see  If  it  is 
not  answered  in  our  advertising  columns.  Ask  only  a  few  questions 
at  one  time.  Put  questions  on  a  separate  piece  of  paper.] 
A  Home  Mixed  Potato  Fertilizer. 
L.  B.  JET.,  Landis  Valley,  Pa. — What  does  The  Rural 
think  of  superphosphate  and  nitrate  of  soda,  half  and 
half,  for  potatoes,  which  are  to  follow  corn  which  re¬ 
ceived  a  good  coat  of  manure  on  the  sod  last  spring? 
Would  600  pounds  of  the  mixture  be  about  right? 
Ans. — It  would  be  a  poor  combination.  There  is  no 
potash  in  it  which  the  potatoes  need.  We  suppose  you 
mean  bone  black  superphosphate.  In  that  case  a  ton 
of  your  mixture  would  contain  160  pounds  of  nitrogen 
and  160  pounds  of  phosphoric  acid  and  no  potash.  Such 
a  combination  would  cost,  in  small  quantities,  at 
least  845  besides  the  mixing,  and  would  not  be  as  use¬ 
ful  for  potatoes  as  a  manufactured  complete  fertilizer 
costing  842  per  ton.  A  standard  potato  fertilizer 
should  contain  80  pounds  of  nitrogen,  160  pounds  of 
phosphoric  acid  and  120  pounds  of  potash.  By  sub¬ 
stituting  300  pounds  of  sulphate  of  potash  for  500  of 
the  nitrate  of  soda  you  will  have  a  fertilizer  with  a 
higher  analysis  than  the  purchased  fertilizer  and  cost¬ 
ing  at  least  five  dollars  less.  You  must  haye  potash 
in  your  potato  fertilizer  and  you  can  make  a  cheaper 
mixture  than  that  here  given  if  you  want  to  do  your 
own  mixing.  For  example,  here  are  two  potato 
mixtures  given  in  the  report  of  the  New  Jersey  Ex 
periment  Station. 
Pounds.  Pounds. 
250  nitrate  of  soda.  250  nitrate  of  soda. 
200  Bulphate  of  ammonia.  500  tankage 
200  dried  blood.  800  bone  black  superphosphate. 
900  bone  black  superphosphate.  450  sulphate  of  potash. 
450  sulphate  of  potash.  - 
-  2000 
2000 
The  materials  in  No.  1  cost  836.76  and  freight  and 
moving  cost  82.  The  analysis  showed  that  it  was  worth 
840.03  at  the  standard  prices  for  plant  food.  No.  2 
cost  833,  with  freight  and  mixing  82  more.  Its  analysis 
showed  a  value  of  839. 19.  Or  here  is  one  simpler  yet. 
250  pounds  nitrate  of  soda. 
400  pounds  sulphate  of  ammonia. 
800  pounds  bone  black  superphosphate. 
675  pounds  double  sulphate  of  potash. 
500  pounds  plaster. 
2625 
One  ton  of  this  cost  827.74  with  82  extra  for  freight 
and  mixing,  while  it  was  valued  at  832.49.  The  double 
sulphate  of  potash  is  a  combination  containing  only 
about  half  as  much  potash  as  the  sulphate.  While  its 
retail  price  is  low — a  pound  of  actual  potash  costs  more 
in  this  than  in  any  of  the  other  potash  salts.  It  is  not 
a  good  form  of  potash  for  potatoes  either — the  sulphate 
being  better  by  far  for  this  crop.  It  is  always  better 
to  use  several  different  ingredients  in  mixing  a  fer¬ 
tilizer  ;  for  example,  a  combination  of  blood,  nitrate 
of  soda  and  sulphate  of  ammonia  would  be  better  than 
all  nitrate  of  soda,  because  we  thus  have  different 
forms  of  nitrogen.  It  will  certainly  pay  you  better  to 
buy'the  manufaeturemfertilizers  than  to  mix  nitrate 
of  soda  and  superphosphate. 
Some  Cow  Airing:  Questions. 
Subscriber. — My  cows  will  stand  day  and  night  on  a 
grate  over  a  cement  gutter  deep  and  wide  enough  to 
hold  the  liquid  and  solid  droppings  for  about  two 
weeks.  The  stable  is  nearly  air-tight  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  a  flue  or  conductor  18  inches  square,  running 
from  back  of  the  cow  to  the  cupola.  Is  such  a 
stable  unhealthy  for  cows  in  winter  ?  What  could 
I  use  that  would  be  worth  its  cost  as  a  fertilizer  and  at 
the  same  time  absorb  foul  air  ?  Would  South 
Carolina  rock,  kainit,  or  land  plaster  answer  the  pur¬ 
pose  ?  Would  it  pay  to  draw  coal  ashes  four  miles 
to  put  into  the  gutter  ? 
Ans. — These  questions  have  many  points  to  be  con¬ 
sidered.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  cows  stand  over 
the  grating  to  get  fresh  air  in  a  stable  nearly  air¬ 
tight  and  ventilated  in  the  way  mentioned.  The  cur¬ 
rent  of  fresh  air  may  go  right  over  the  cows  to  the 
cupola,  for  it  is  evidently  insufficient  for  more  than 
four  or  five  cows,  if  for  so  many.  It  would  be  much 
better  to  have  several  small  sliding  doors  near  the 
floor  in  the  walls  on  both  sides  and  regulate  these 
according  to  the  weather.  And  if  the  gutter  is  open 
anywhere  air  can  get  in,  it  is  probable  that  this  air  is 
what  the  cows  are  after.  It  may  also  be  possible  that 
the  manure,  being  in  a  fermenting  condition,  is  warmer 
than  the  air  and  this  warmth  is  what  the  cows  are 
after ;  and  this  may  occur  in  a  stable  that  is  too  warm 
as  well  as  in  one  that  is  too  cold.  Any  animal  may 
easily  feel  chilly  in  a  warm  room  when  the  air  is  im¬ 
pure  and  has  not  enough  oxygen  in  it  to  aerate  the 
blood  and  consume  the  excess  of  carbon  in  it,  and  thus 
warm  the  body.  Coolness  is  refreshing  to  all  animals, 
and  excessive  warmth  is  enervating.  Every  person 
knows  a  mouthful  of  fresh  air  is  enjoyed  after  being 
