128 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
FEB. 14 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK. 
\ JVntionnl Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
ELBERT S. CARMAN, i EDITORS 
HERBERT W. COLLINQWOOD, 
Rural Publishing Company: 
-AWSON VALENTINE, Piesident. RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN, 
ED3AR H. LIBBY, Manager. OUT-DOOR BOOKS. 
Copyright, 1891, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1891. 
Sir J. B. Lawes's long-continued experiments 
show that only a small proportion of the nitrogen 
of farm yard manure is taken up by crops during 
the year of application. 
The wife of a near neighbor—a well to-do farmer— 
remarked to the writer a few days ago that she had 
rather die than live in New York. We regard 
New York as one of the most healthful and suffer¬ 
able cities in the world. Still we respect the 
sentiment of the wife of our neighbor. 
Readers of The R. N.-Y. are solicited to send for 
all the catalogues announced and reviewed in 
other columns from week to week, and to examine 
them carefully ere lists of seeds or plants or both 
are made out. It is the desire of The R. N.-Y. to 
guide its readers in making such selections in so far 
as its experience enables it so to do. 
For a long time the leaders of the Knights of 
Labor and other organizations of workingmen have 
been striving in vain to secure a political alliance 
with organized agriculturists. There is little prob¬ 
ability that such an alliance will be effected. 
While farmers and laborers have many things in 
common; while they have a mutual and undying 
hatred of all things monopolistic and are all fighting 
the power of organized capital, they have at the 
same time too many divergent interests to permit 
of such a harmonious union as would insure success 
to a political party. Some of the fundamental 
principles of the labor organizations are directly 
opposed to the traditions of the farmers, and the 
interests of the two classes are irreconcilable unless 
one or the other will abandon the principles for 
which it is fighting. Will either do this? We 
doubt it. 
The Bryophyllum (or Cotyledon) calycinum is 
now being advertised in some catalogues as a rare 
if not a new plant of wonderful parts. It is as old 
as the hills, as many of our readers should know, 
and is really interesting only to those who are not 
aware that when the leaves are placed upon any 
damp substance, or even suspended in the air on a 
string, tiny little plants issue from the margins. 
These are provided with roots, and will grow rapidly 
if cut out and placed in soil. The flowers, which 
are odd rather than pretty, are borne in large 
panicles. The name is derived from bryein, to 
swell or sprout, and phyllon, a leaf. Its leaves are 
fleshy like those of most crassulaceous species. In 
youth it is symmetrical and well clothed with 
foliage. Later it loses its lower leaves and becomes 
unsightly. This, however, is no serious objection 
in view of the ease with which new plants may be 
propagated. 
There appears to be a notion abroad that the 
government has money galore to lend to anybody 
who will put up security for it. The vast surplus 
that could scarcely find room in the National 
Treasury two years ago, however, has so nearly 
vanished that the next payment of pensions will 
absorb it all. The Omaha Convention of the 
National Farmers’ Alliance passed a resolution in 
favor of lending government funds at a nominal 
rate of interest on real estate security, and the 
opponents of the Alliance ask whether the govern¬ 
ment shall borrow money from others at three or 
more per cent per annum interest, in order to lend 
it to the farmers at two or less per cent. The 
question does not worry the Alliance a particle. 
It would supply the needed funds by the unlimited 
coinage of silver to be paid for by government 
legal-tender certificates, or by the unlimited issue 
of paper money. 
The number and activity of ‘ ‘ Investment Fund ” 
swindles have vastly increased since the sup¬ 
pression of the lotteries. Over 100 different 
fraudulent schemes of the kind are in active opera¬ 
tion in the New England States alone. In them the 
gambling propensity of the public has found a new 
means of employment. Though authorized and 
encouraged by the States, often urider corporate 
charters, these devices, with their false and alluring 
promises, are more demoralizing in their influence 
and less honestly conducted than were the lotteries 
which have been sternly barred by the law. Their 
schemes have been mathematically demonstrated to 
be fraudulent; why then does the law tolerate them, 
while it suppresses the less harmful thimble-rigging 
and other forms of gambling? At the very best, 
while the managers of the frauds richly feather 
their own nests, in their dealings with all their 
patrons they rob Peter to pay Paul. 
Not long ago a Pennsylvania farmer said he did 
not like The R. N.-Y. No. 2 Potato because the vine 
was an upright grower and would not smother weeds 
as a bushy vine would. Now comes another Penn¬ 
sylvania farmer who likes the “ No. 2” because it is 
an upright grower and gives him a better chance to 
get at the weeds and kill them with his horse and 
hand tools. Certainly one can work closer up to 
an upright vine with the horse and hoe than to one 
which sprawls out all over the ground. But will 
the heavy, bushy vine smother the weeds ? Brow¬ 
nell’s Winner gives about the heaviest vine of any 
variety. By the middle of June, for the past two 
seasons, our potato field was covered with vines, 
preventing a needed cultivating. In early August 
the blight killed the vines to the ground. By 
September 1 the field was a forest of weeds, many 
of which, doubtless, would not have matured if the 
potato vines had remained strong and green. 
While potato vines may smother many weeds, if 
permitted to live till frost, the only sure way to 
kill them is to cut them out with steel. If you 
wish to exterminate an enemy get to close quarters. 
While the old political party papers are can¬ 
vassing the prospects of this and that Presidential 
candidate for the next campaign, the Alliance men 
are not idle. The sweeping victory achieved by 
Senator-elect Peffer of Kansas, combined with the 
signal victories of other Alliance candidates in the 
same State, naturally turn the attention of slate- 
makers in that direction. Kansas is the geographi¬ 
cal center of the United States. During the pro¬ 
tracted anti slavery struggle “Bleeding Kansas” 
was the arena where many of the most sanguinary 
conflicts took place which hastened the solution of 
that question. During the Prohibition agitation 
Kansas was in the forefront of the conflict and did 
more than any other State to awaken the public 
mind to the great evils of the liquor traffic. 
Kansas seems to be a pioneer reformer. She 
stands at the head in the Alliance movement. Be¬ 
fore the party was a year old the State had elected 
a United States Senator, five Congressional Repre¬ 
sentatives and a majority of the State Legislature, 
a record unequaled by any other new party in any 
other State. This naturally brings this State and 
its new Senator into prominence in this connection. 
The three principal demands of the National 
Farmers’ Alliance at its convention the other day at 
Omaha, insisted on the free and unlimited coinage of 
silver, the placing of paper money on an equality 
with gold, and the increase of the currency from 
$24 to $50 per capita or a total circulation of $3,000,- 
000,000 instead of $1,525,756,251 on February 1, ac¬ 
cording to the latest Treasury report. The silver 
coinage bill now before Congress would have many 
more friends all over the country, but especially in 
the East, if it provided for a government dollar con¬ 
taining 100 cents’ worth of silver instead of 80 cents’ 
worth, and if it compelled the purchase of the silver 
product of our own mines alone, which has in¬ 
creased from $100,000 in 1859, to an average of 
$55,000,000 in the last five years, instead of forcing 
the government to pay for the surplus silver of the 
rest of the globe also,a price considerably higher than 
its value in the bullion markets of the world. While 
the unlimited coinage of the white metal has friends 
and opponents in all parts of the country, the 
former greatly preponderate in the West and South 
and the latter in the East and, perhaps, Middle 
States, the former among the poor and debtor, the 
latter among the rich and creditor classes. The 
ultimate fate of the measure will decide, once for 
all, whether political power has really passed from 
the periphery to the center, from the seaboard to 
the Mississippi Valley. 
From all parts of the country we learn that in 
view of the possible results of the free coinage of 
silver, large loan companies and others who lend 
money or give credit, are making contracts for 
the payment of the principal and interest of each 
debt “ in gold or its equivalent.” It is said that in 
many sections of the country 75 per cent of the 
mortgaged indebtedness lately incurred has been 
made payable in gold. ’ Eastern investors in 
Western mortgages have already given positive 
instructions to their agents to take no mortgage 
which is not to be satisfied in the yellow metal. It 
is alleged that many of the farmers whose property 
is encumbered never detect this provision in their 
mortgages, if it exists, or pay any attention to it 
if they notice it ; but should gold rise to a premi¬ 
um of 20 per cent as a consequence of free coinage, 
they would sadly regret their carelessness. Such 
contracts would bind the contracting parties in 
honor, but whether they would be upheld by the 
courts is doubtful. It would undoubtedly be 
claimed that the tender of silver, which would be 
legal money on the same basis as gold, would dis¬ 
charge the debt. But in 1868 the United States 
Supreme Court held that a mortgage note in which 
payment was promised in “gold and silver coin,” 
could not be satisfied by the payment of the 
amount in legal-tender Treasury notes. Again, in 
1871, the Court decided that a promise to pay “ in 
specie ” could not be discharged by an offer to pay 
in legal-tender notes. These decisions create at 
least a strong presumption that contracts for pay¬ 
ment in gold could not be settled by the tender of 
depreciated silver currency—an important con¬ 
sideration for indebted farmers. 
BREVITIES. 
You’ll only show folks you art silly 
By taking time to “ paint the lily.” 
They who to big success point noses, 
Will ne’er be found adorning roses. 
How do you like “ Woman and the Home ?” 
Prickly Comfrey may justly be called “ a voluminous 
plant.” 
You get a big price for water when it is sold in the form 
of eggs. 
A saloon keeper is the only man who fills a bank book 
over a bar. 
We want a record of your farm cash sales similar to 
those on page 123. 
How many teeth of your Cutaway harrow have you 
broken on hard, stony ground ? 
Never forget that urine is digested manure, while 
“ yard manure ” has never been digested. 
Be sure that the cow’s manger is low enough. It is 
natural for a cow to feed from near the ground. 
So long as any trust does not oppress the people, they 
will not oppose it. Opposition springs from oppression. 
As your teeth give out you are obliged to give up hard 
food or train your stomach for dyspepsia. When the 
teeth on your harrow wear out does not your soil suffer ? 
There is a chance that the Satsuma Orange, grafted on 
Citrus trifoliata, which is now offered by many Northern 
florists and nurserymen, will prove hardy in parts of North 
Carolina. 
Dr. Hoskins’s motto for the American people : “All for 
each and each for all,” breathes the spirit of a broad en¬ 
lightenment and benevolence. It might well be inscribed 
upon the banner of the Great People’s Party. 
As set forth in another column, Mr. Samuel Mills last 
season ground 75 bushels of the much talked of Japanese 
Buckwheat and sold it to his neighbors. They report that 
it makes the best cakes they have ever eaten. 
A short-handled steel rake, about the width of a hoe 
and with 10 teetb, will kill more weeds around growing 
crops at the riyht time than any other hand tool. It does 
with the hand what Breed’s weeder does by horse power. 
Some dairymen complain that they are “tied to a cow’s 
tail.” We have traced a few of these complaints and 
found that the tail was fastened to a third-rate cow. 
When a man has a herd of first-rate coivs he is generally 
proud to speak of his “ partnership ” with them. 
Iron roofing is an excellent house covering, and farmers 
should use more of it. One trouble is that carpenters and 
builders in the country do not care to introduce this roof¬ 
ing, as it would lessen their woodwork. We advise farm¬ 
ers, in spite of their carpenters’ advice, to investigate this 
metal matter. 
We find the new Eulalia (E. gracillima vittata) a valu¬ 
able addition to hardy ornamental grasses. Its leaves are 
narrow and delicate looking, but they are wiry and strong, 
nevertheless. A distinct stripe of white runs through the 
middle of the leaves and the plant is notably graceful, 
airy and beautiful. 
Many a feeder of cattle has brought a mortgage upon 
his farm because he kept his animals beyond the point of 
profit. There is a time when anf animal is at its best. Sell 
it then at a fair price and there is a profit. Beyond that 
point the food needed to make a pound of meat is worth 
more than the meat. 
Apropos of the illustrated article on the same sub¬ 
ject, full of excellent practical suggestions to intending 
house-builders, elsewhere in this issue, isn’t it true that 
While baselesscastle9 In (he air 
Barmecide feasts alone are rich In, 
They dainties spread and banquets rare 
When their foundation's In the kltchln’? 
A Mississippi planter tells us how oxen helped his negro 
renter to make a crop. When the negro worked a mule he 
spent most of his time in town, because it was easy to ride 
there. It was not easy to ride on an ox, so when oxen 
took the place of the mule, he stayed at home and worked. 
There are lots of white farmers whose profits grow slower 
as their horses increase in speed. 
It seems a trifle odd to read of selling beets by analysis, 
and yet that is the only way California beet sugar factories 
will buy them. One schedule of prices offers $3.50 per ton 
for beets containing 12 per cent of sugar, with 25 cents per 
ton extra for each one per cent over 12. After all, what 
fairer way of proving value could be devised ? No dead 
beets will share the profits of the sweeter beets ? 
Now that the green louse begins to infest our house 
plants, The R. N.-Y. recommends, above all other 
remedies, the use of tobacco soap dissolved in water. This 
soap is sold by all seedsmen. Or, steep half a pound of 
tobacco stems in a gallon of water and syringe this upon 
the plants. The remedy is safe and efficacious, as The R. 
N.-Y. can testify from its own oft-repeated experience. 
A NOTION is offensively abroad that to win favor, and 
especially political honors, from farmers, the aspirant must 
pretend to be rustic and careless in dress, speech and be¬ 
havior-must, as it were, imitate these supposititious boor¬ 
ish characteristics of the tillers of the soil. But, while 
farmers despise “ dudism ” of all sorts, and the deceit and 
pretense often veneered by It, they thoroughly appreciate 
true refinement and sincerity and honesty of purpose, and 
No friend of the farmer need ever eschew 
Bright polish of manners, of language and shoe. 
The R. N.-Y. is slow to commend any new raspberries—or 
any other new fruits for that matter—which it has not tried. 
Judging, however, from what has been said by those who 
have tried them, the following varieties of new blackcaps 
are certainly worthy of trial in a small way. The Progress 
or Pioneer is said to be earlier than the Doolittle, while it 
fruits more abundantly. The Older is said to be of large 
size, jet black and very hardy. It ripens after the earliest 
kinds. The Lovett is notable for size, quality, firmness, 
earliness and hardiness. 
The writer, when a boy, had his full share of spankings 
—perhaps more than his share. Most of them were de¬ 
served, but there was one thing he never could understand. 
The man who did the spanking was guilty of acts of mean¬ 
ness, cruelty and disobedience, before which our little sius 
were not worth considering. Yet nobody spanked him! 
We did not understand why he should punish us and 
escape all punishment himself. Who shall spank the 
spanker ? That was what we wanted to know. Do parents 
realize that their children cannot understand why a little 
sin is punished and a big sin is unpunished ? 
How often do we hear that farmers are, par excellence, 
the debtor class, and how many crocodile tears at their 
sad plight are shed by other classes in simulated sympa¬ 
thy. Farmers may be more deeply in debt than other 
classes here and there within circumscribed areas; but can 
this be truthfully said of the farmers of the whole coun¬ 
try t Certain it is that farmers give better security for 
their debts than any other class, and though for this very 
reason their burthens may for a time be particularly 
grievous, fewer of them than of any other class, in propor¬ 
tion to their respective numbers, are forced into bankrupt¬ 
cy, that final resort of all disastrous indebtedness. Ought 
not an emphatic negative therefore meet the question 
Should farmers ’bove others their calling regret. 
Because above others In life they’re In debt ? 
