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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
All Sorts. 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT 
STATIONS. 
Recent Experiment Station Bulletins. 
[Readers wanting any of these Bulletins should write to the 
secretary of the experiment station in each case.] 
Insect Life reports a bot fly which is injuring hogs in 
West Virginia. The insect “ eats in from the outside of 
the neck clear through the wind-pipe.” 
A Gentleman in England is interesting himself insend- 
ing parasites of the Hessian fly to countries infested with 
that iDsect. Those sent here died on the way. 
Wire worms are reported as destructive to onions in 
Washington. 
I)R. Kedzie, of the Michigan Station, has visited the Ne¬ 
braska sugar works. He says that if Michigan farmers 
can raise beets at $3 per ton, there is no reason why Michi¬ 
gan cannot just as well have some of these large factories 
as not. Experiments with sugar beets will be begun at 
the station 
Prof. J. B Smith (New Jersey Bulletin 75) reviews the 
whole subject of insecticides and the methods of applying 
them. Here are a few things not usually found in such 
reports. Potash salts, kainit and muriate of potash gave 
excellent results in destroying grubs and cut-worms. 
Kainit seems better than muriate. It is best to apply it 
broadcast just before or during a rain. A good many ex¬ 
periments with tobacco as a fertilizer were made, a de¬ 
coction being made by boiling a pound of tobacco down 
to a pint of liquid: finely ground stems, “Nicotinia,” a 
coarsely ground tobacco, and “X. O. Dust,” which seems 
to be tobacco, carbolic acid and whiting. One pint of the 
decoction in a gallon of water killed or drove away flea 
beetles on potato vines. “Nicotinia” steeped in water had 
the same effect. In fact, Prof. Smith seems to regard 
tobacco water as a sure remedy for the flea beetle. Per¬ 
fectly fine “tobacco dust” used dry gives good results: but 
“Nicotinia” is too coarse to sift or blow well. “It will not 
do nearly what is claimed in circulars.” “X. O. Dust” 
proved “much the most effective of all the tobacco prepar¬ 
ations.” Carbonate of lime, put on the market as “Sun- 
derlin’s Insecticide,” is advertised to kill all sorts of in¬ 
sects, but its price is altogether out of proportion to its 
cost. The “Eureka Insecticide” (a sulphur preparation) 
failed on all sorts of insects except “red spider,” for 
which it proved a specific. “Sludge Oil Soap” is made at 
the Columbia Chemical Works, Brooklyn. It seems to be 
a powerful insecticide and nob injurious to the plants. 
Prof. Smith is inclined to think it a very valuable addi¬ 
tion to our list. The common insecticides are all well de¬ 
scribed in this excellent bulletin. 
Professor Comstock of the Cornell Experiment Sta¬ 
tion, has obtained excellent results by taking bunches of 
clover dipped in a moderately strong solution of Paris- 
green or London-purple and placing them in different parts 
of the infested fields. These baits should be renewed once or 
twice a week during the early part of the summer, or the 
period during which the eggs are deposited. 
Paul F. Kkfauver (Tennessee Bulletin No. 4), gives 
some experiments in reclaiming “galled” or washed lands 
—what we call gullied hill-3ides. All over the South 
may be seen these scarred and broken hill-side fields where 
the heavy rains have washed out great water courses, and 
most of the good soil is at the bottom of the hill. Mr. 
Kefauver concludes that the only suitable treatment for 
these fields is to get them into permanent sod. Sixteen 
experiments with different grasses and methods of sowing 
were concluded. The ground was first plowed and leveled 
with a fair dressing of manure worked into the soil. On 
some of the plots Bermuda Grass was then planted by 
making shallow furrows two feet apart and dropping in 
them small pieces of sod, covering and pressing them with 
the foot. When well mulched this answered fairly well, 
but the best result was obtained with a seeding of six 
pounds of clover, one bushel of Red Top and one bushel of 
Blue Grass per acre, with 100 pounds of fertilizer and a 
thick mulch of weeds, sedge grass, etc., in May. This gave 
a dense, heavy mat of grass, and a coating of manure in 
the fall will carry them through to a permanent and pro¬ 
fitable pasture. Another method of stopping gutters is to 
fill them with brush, stumps, trash,etc., and sowRed Top in 
the gulley. Clover haulm has been used for mulching 
wheat in the fall with great success, shielding the wheat 
and seeding the ground, so that a fair stand of clover was 
obtained. Damaged ensilage makes a good mulch for straw¬ 
berry beds, etc. Weeds, straw and coarse grass can all be 
used to advantage on newly seeded hill sides, as it is neces¬ 
sary to protect the young plants from the hot sun. 
The California Station, Berkeley, California, main¬ 
tains a seed and plant distribution of its own. Bulletin 
89 tells all about it, This year’s distribution will consist 
of several varieties of wheat, rye, oats and barley, ten 
varieties of tobacco, eight of olives, six of date palms, ten 
of osier willows and grape vines, mulberries, cotton, jute, 
and other fiber plants with grasses and a few new vegeta¬ 
bles. The plants and seeds are sent by express, charges to 
be paid by receivers. 
Jesse Collins, the “English Henry George,” the apostle 
of the allotment system, whose “two acres and a cow” is 
as popular as our “40 acres and a mule,” finds the following 
in the old English Book of Common Prayer: “We heartily 
pray Thee, to send Thy Holy Spirit into the hearts of 
them that possess the grounds and pastures of this earth, 
that they, remembering themselves to be Thy tenants, 
may not rack or stretch out the rents of their houses or 
lands, nor yet take unreasonable fines or moneys after the 
manner of covetous worldlings, but so let them out that 
the tenants thereof may be able to pay their rents and to 
live and assist their families and remember the poor.” 
SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS. 
England has a National Footpath Preservation Society 
for the purpose of maintaining the rights of foot 
passengers. 
We have a copy of a proposed road bill for the improve¬ 
ment of the public roads of Ohio. Briefly the features of 
this bill are as follows: Full control of county roads by 
the Board of Commissioners; an accurate road map to be 
maintained; roads to be built and repaired by contract 
controlled by the board; road funds may be raised by levy¬ 
ing a special tax not to exceed three mills on the dollar of 
assessed valuation of county property, or by issuing 
county road bonds not to exceed one per cent of assessed 
value. The Board of Commissioners are to appoint a 
competent engineer who shall have charge of all roads and 
bridges. All repairs to the value of over $50 are to be 
done by contract. Each township board is to appoint a 
highway overseer, who shall let by contract under written 
specifications all work at grading, repairing, etc., etc. The 
township board is to set aside each year a portion of the 
tax for draining, grading and macadamizing, and nothing 
in the act shall prevent persons worklng’out their tax at 
the rate per day which the contractor pays in cash ror such 
service. 4 
“The Montgomery County Council of Granges adopted 
among other resolutions, the following: 
“Resolved, That we desire each County Council of 
Granges throughout the State of New York to select one 
member as a delegate to attend a convention to devise a 
just, comprehensive and effective law upon the matter of 
taxation and that this committee invite cooperation from 
and with a similar committee from the State Farmers’ 
League, also that they seek cooperation with a committee 
from the State Legislature. 
The Farmers’ Alliance, Colored Farmers’ Alliance and 
Farmers’ Mutual Benefit Association have all petitioned 
Congress to defeat the Conger Lard Bill and to pass in its 
place the Paddock Pure Food Bill. Among the many 
resolutions passed by these organizations are the following. 
“Believing in the doctrine of ‘equal rights to all and 
special privileges to none,’ we demand that taxation, 
National or State, shall not be used to build up one 
interest or class at the expense of the other. We believe 
that the money of the country should be kept as much as 
possible in the hands of the people, and hence, we demand 
that all revenues, National, State or county, shall be 
limited to the necessary expenses of the government, 
economically and honestly administered.”—Farmers’ 
Alliance, 1889. 
Armour & Company are by far the largest manufac¬ 
turers of compound lard in the country, or Indeed in the 
world. In their business they use nearly one half of all 
the cotton seed oil made in the country to adulterate their 
product, which is “compound lard” though it is generally 
sold as pure leaf lard. It is composed of lard, cotton-seed 
oil and beef fat. The other manufacturers of lard, es¬ 
pecially a big Boston firm, protested against this compound 
article which looked so much like the genuine product 
that it readily sold for it, and insisted that this bogus 
product was depreciating the price of the genuine article 
and driving it out of the market, just as oleomargarine 
was injuring the sale of genuine butter. It is often 
charged that the Conger Bill was formulated in com¬ 
pliance with the demands of these people, and that 
the farmers of the country had really little interest in the 
matter. The bill proposed to do for bogus lard what the 
anti oleo bill has done for bogus butter. The cotton 
planters of the South have been bitterly opposed to it 
because its passage would be likely greatly to curtail the 
sale of cotton-seed oil and thus lower the price of cotton 
seed which has recently become an important source of 
revenue to them; hence very naturally the Farmers’ 
Alliance, which is controlled by the oldest and most 
numerous branch of it, the Southern, is also strongly 
opposed to the measure. The Farmers’ Mutual Benefit 
Association has its chief strength in Illinois, and ex¬ 
perience has shown that Illinois farmers are strongly in¬ 
fluenced by the Armours in live stock matters, hence it is 
not at all unnatural to find this organization indorsing 
the hostile opinion of the Farmers’ Alliance with which it 
will probably be soon amalgamated. The following con¬ 
demnations of the bill are therefore easily intelligible. 
“ The Conger Bill levies a bounty on the industry of com¬ 
pound lard for the benefit of the Squires, the Big Fours, 
and the pork packers generally of the country. A govern¬ 
ment which assumes control of the people’s industry, and 
thus kills competition is an autocracy injurious to pork 
packers of that city (Chicago). Your memorialists were 
not aware, previous to its introduction that farms and 
farmers flourished in Boston, Mass., nor that the agricul¬ 
tural interest of this country was under the guardianship 
of a Boston pork packer.”—Farmers’ Mutual Benefit 
Association. 
“A tax on compound lard is a tax on cotton-seed oil, 
raised by the cotton planter of the South. A tax on 
compound lard is a tax on beef fat, a product of the cattle 
raisers of the West. The Conger Lard Bill taxes cotton¬ 
seed oil and beef fat In order to enhance the price of hog 
lard. It arrays the farmers of the North against the cot¬ 
ton planter of the South and the cattle raiser of the West. 
It is sectional legislation, and therefore the industrial 
movement declares its open and unceasing hostility to it. 
In the war which has been declared by us against section¬ 
alism, the farmer and his fireside is the citadel around 
which the heaviest battles are fought. We are not content 
in simply shaking hands across the bloody chasm. Our 
duty is to fill up and efface the chasm. We are many as the 
waves, but one as the sea. Sectionalism must not, shall 
not, live.”—Farmer’s Alliance. 
“ No legislation ever introduced into Congress, with the 
exception of laws fastening slavery upon us, has been so 
JAN. 3 
injurious to the colored race as the so-called Conger Bill. 
At the beginning of the regular session of the Fifty-first 
Congress, one year ago, cotton seed, the colored man’s 
crop, sold at from $12 to $14 per ton ; now it brings only 
$6 to $9 per ton, the decrease in price commencing with the 
introduction of the Conger Bill. Please state for us and 
in our behalf to your committee that with the new tariff 
law raising the price on our blankets, clothes, boots, shoes, 
hats, farming utensils, and all other necessary articles 
used by the colored people, and with the Conger Bill de¬ 
pressing the price of the only articles they have to sell, 
their condition is not far removed from actual abject 
slavery.”—Colored Farmers’ Alliance 
READER’S NOTES. 
There is a good deal said about “ class legislation ” now¬ 
adays : just as if such a thing was unheard of in old 
times. Legal history contains some curious facts. For 
example, Henry VIII. of England wished to encourage the 
breeding of large horses for saddle and cart. He made his 
standard for the size of stallions and then made a series of 
laws compelling certain persons to keep such stallions for 
public service. Archbishops, dukes, earls and the like 
were obliged to keep stallions, and also rich men without 
titles. Judging from the following statute, a man’s wealth 
was indicated by his wife’s dress in those days of sumptu¬ 
ary legislation: 
“If the wife of any person or persons wear any 
velvet in the lyning or any other part of her goun, 
other than in the cuffes or purfels of such goun, or else 
wear any velvet in her kyrtle, or wear any petticoat of silk, 
that then the husband of every such wife shall find a 
stoned horse of the stature above in this act recited, or 
shall incur the above said penaltie of £10 to be levied and 
recovered as aforesaid ; provided that this Act, or anything 
therein contained, shall not extend to charge any person 
or persons whose wife or wifes shall wear any of the ap¬ 
parel or things above rehearsed during the time such wife 
or wifes shall be divorced from her or their husband or hus¬ 
bands, or shall willingly absent herself from her said hus¬ 
band, and during such absence shall wear any of the ap¬ 
parel before recited.” 
The Rev. J. B. Dev of Ocala, Fla., in a recent sermon 
said this: “I heard a gentleman say some months ago it 
was no uncommon sight In some sections of New Jersey to 
see several farms all equipped, situated near together and 
all deserted, the owners finding it more profitable to leave 
their farms and get employment in the cities, or finding it 
necessary to do so in order to make a living for dependent 
loved ones.” The writer lives in New Jersey. In his 
township—18 miles from New York—not half the land is 
tilled and many entire farms stand idle, being not even 
pastured. Why? Because the younger men prefer to work 
in New York city, while the older men have money at in¬ 
terest and are waiting to sell their land for building lots. 
It is only a question of time when their farms will be 
needed for suburban residence sites. A short connecting 
railroad would double the selling value of many of the 
farms in a year. “ Farmin’ don’t pay ” because it is sup¬ 
posed that prospective building lots pay better. 
Almost every day in spring and summer a band of 
“ Dagoes ” can be seen passing up Broadway—short, 
sturdy men, with dark, sullen faces, bearing great bundles 
or packs of tools. The Dago is becoming a recognized 
feature of American railroad enterprise and there is no 
foreign element taken into our society that does us more 
harm. “ Dago” is not wholly a slang term. Appleton 
Morgan.in the Popular Science Monthly, tells us it is but 
a corruption of hidalgo, a Spanish word. The Dago comes 
to us from the northern shore of the Mediterranean in 
Italy. He is a natural railroad man. Victor Emanuel 
put him to work in the Mont Cenis Tunnel and since then 
he has been worked on railroads in every country but 
Russia. He will be found in gangs on every main road in 
the United States. The D*go has added to the creative 
wealth of the country by driving out of railroad work a 
higher class of workmen. But he has brought in the most 
vicious element that we have In the country. The Dago 
has no respect for law, morals or even decency. Mr. Mor¬ 
gan gives this true incident: A small circus and menagerie 
exhibited at where some Dagoes were at work. Meat was 
bought to feed the lions and tigers. These animals gnawed 
the bones. When the circus moved away the bones were 
left in piles and the Dagoes boiled them for soup ! What 
is to be done with such human beings ? They are sullen, 
sulky, treacherous and cruel. We have absolutely no place 
for them in this country and their importation should be 
stopped at once. A number of them are engaged in this 
city “trimming” the scows that convey the city garbage 
to the ocean, just outside Sandy Hook, and dump it there. 
“Trimming” the scows means sorting out all the old car¬ 
pets, rags, bones, etc., that may be dumped with other ref¬ 
use on the scows by the cartmen, who carry the stuff to 
the dumping piers along the rivers. These Dagoes live in 
the rudest sort of structures under the reeking dumps, 
are dressed mainly in tatters collected from the garbage, 
sleep on rags from the same foul source, and live almost 
entirely on dirty broken food and soup bones gathered 
from the same malo dorous heaps. 
SOCIETY MEETINGS TO COME. 
American White Wyandotte Club, New York, Ifebruary 
6, 1891. 
American Poland China Record Company, Cedar Rapids, 
la., January 21, 1891. 
Illinois Dairymen, Ashley, Ill., January 7—9, 1891. 
New York Shropshire Breeders, Rochester, N. Y., Janu¬ 
ary 7, 1891. 
Kansas Board of Agriculture, Topeka, January 14, 1891. 
