3o6 
THK RURAL NEW-YORKER 
APRIL 18 
“ Common School Education.” 
W. C., Springfild, Oh o —A short note 
from J. M. Rice in the RURAL of February 
21, speaks of difficulties meeting him from 
want of scientific education in youth. The 
present system of common school educa¬ 
tion was established about the time rail¬ 
ways began to be built in the United 
States, and bears on it now the stamp of 
increasing age and infirmity, due to over¬ 
balance of grammatical and ornamental 
knowledge in the text-books. Respect for 
the teachings of the past ages seems to be 
all that keeps the present generation down 
to the ‘‘Three R’s; ” and while Science 
seems to be self assertive in all the practi¬ 
cal walks of life, she is still excluded from 
the common school, and regarded with sus¬ 
picion there. In this city there is a popu¬ 
lation of 32,000 on an area of 3,700 acres of 
land (tax list), while in the county there are 
20,000 people on 246,000 acres. Does it not 
appear evident that the city is unduly 
crowded, while the county lands are being 
neglected ? The tax list of 133,000,000 valua¬ 
tion is divided equally between city and 
county at $16,500,000 each ; and the value 
of farm buildings is $6.67 per acre. There 
are some very nice farm houses and barns 
in the county, but not many. Large tracts 
are still in the hands of men who have 
held them for 30 years and more without 
much change. The city has increased in 
population 55 per cent and the county has 
decreased 5 per cent in the last decade. 
The suspension and failure of the Whiteley 
Machine Co. was a severe blow to the city’s 
growth. But while the rich and fertile 
lands of the county are so imperfectly de¬ 
veloped and improved it seems there is no 
expectation of great things for the city, 
except in manufactures, which also have a 
limit as regards profit and development. 
Higher scientific opportunities for the 
coming generation of farmers are very 
desirable in order to give them power to 
appreciate new inventions in machinery 
and complicated methods in improved 
farming. Elementary instruction in nat¬ 
ural history and natural philosophy, with 
anatomy and physiology, and chemistry 
and mineralogy, as well as in botany, would 
develop and enlarge the farmer boy’s mind 
to a great extent and render his future 
progress in the walks of Nature pleasant 
and successful, while the effect of instruc¬ 
tion in grammar, arithmetic and penman¬ 
ship is sometimes such only as to insure 
his becoming a loafer in the busy streets 
of the city. 
“Farmin’ Don’t Pay!” 
W. F. Massey, Raleigh, N. C.— So Mr. 
Bull (page 243) thinks “farmin’ don’t pay.” 
I would like to ask Mr. Bull if he calls it 
“ farmin’ ” to live on 150 acres of land on 
which he produces nothing but what five 
cows yield, although he has invested $1,000 
in stock and tools. What does he do with 
the tools that they should yield only $41 37 
against the yield of $203.97 from the stock. 
His 100 acres of mountain must be fearfully 
poor if it will not pasture more than five 
cows, and his 50 acres must be as had if they 
will not furnish winter feed for five times 
as many cows and leave room for buildings, 
truck patch and orchards. Mr. Bull does 
not say how much his family got off the 
farm outside of the amount charged as 
“ living expenses,” but it is to be presumed 
that this sum merely represents what he 
had to buy for his family, which must be 
a very small one if it did not use more than 
$314.77. He has an investment of $4,000 and 
his sales show an interest of six per cent 
on it, if we make his family consump¬ 
tion offset the labor account. Could 
Mr. Bull put his $4,000 out at interest and 
support his family on it in a town ? I trow 
not. He would find it a harder road to 
travel than even such farming as his own 
account shows. If I had $4,000 invested in 
such a place I should sell It as quickly as 
possible and invest half of it in a North 
Carolina farm that would bring more 
money from one acre in truck or tobacco 
than he gets from 150. Why, right here in 
poor old North Carolina I have seen the 
produce from two acres of tobacco sold at 
public auction for $996 60, and know of one 
man who cleared $14,000 on 45 acres of land. 
Why, Mr. Bull, any of our darkies with 
one mule and a cotton patch on shares, and 
nothing on earth but that mule and a plow 
and his two hands, with not a dollar in¬ 
vested in land, would make more out of 
one season’s cotton crop than you show up 
on 150 acres, and $1,000 worth of stock and 
tools. Your kind of farming “don’t pay,” 
but good farming on good land on an aver¬ 
age pays better for the money and labor in¬ 
vested than most other lines. Even your 
Investment pays, but not as well as it 
ought. Come South out of the cold, Mr. 
Bull, and see if you cannot keep more than 
five cows on 150 acres of land. 
Sulphur for Sweet Potato Rot. 
A. M., Farmington, Del.—I n regard to 
the sweet potato rot question, I would say 
that a plentiful sprinkling of flowers of 
sulphur over the potatoes after they have 
been placed in the hot-bed, prevents or does 
away with the “rot.” The sulphur is 
volatilized by heat and its fumes are a 
fungicide. The best place to begin the war 
against “ rot ” is In the hot-bed. 
Another Iowa Farmer Talks. 
O. E. F., Renick, Iowa.—The Rural 
on page 148, tells us that it has learnt that 
some Iowa farmers are a good deal exer¬ 
cised over the speech of Governor Boies at 
a recent dinner in New York, and J. F. 
Pitts, Allamakee County, Iowa, on page 
146, speaks of the same subject. Having 
long known The Rural’s integrity for 
fairness and justice to all parties without 
regard to politics or political variances, I 
inclose the speech referred to, hoping the 
editor will read it and point to a line or a 
word disparaging to Iowa as an agricultural 
State. All parties have a right to criticise 
the governor’s speech; but to call it a libel 
and abuse when it is the truth, only serves 
to show that those who make such charges 
care more for party than principle. I am a 
Republican and have voted the Republican 
ticket since I was 21. I believe in free trade, 
provided others will trade freely with us. I 
do not want to abuse any one, or be abused 
for political variances. 
R. N.-Y.—The speech is a forcible argu¬ 
ment from the standpoint of the tariff re¬ 
former or “ free trader,” showing that Iowa 
not being a manufacturing State, is de¬ 
prived of the much lauded “ local market” 
and is called upon to pay “protected” 
prices for manufactured goods. The criti¬ 
cism we have for the speech is that Gov. 
Boies attributes all the troubles of the 
Iowa farmer to the tariff directly or indi¬ 
rectly. The tariff should not be called 
upon to shoulder the troubles caused by 
poor crops or bad management. 
Buckwheat Hulls as a Food for Stock 
and as a Fertilizer. 
J. W. Ingram, Bradford County, Pa. 
—Living near a grist mill where large quan¬ 
tities of buckwheat hulls could always be 
obtained free of charge, I have for many 
years fed them to all kinds of stock, and 
have used them for bedding horses and cat¬ 
tle. The statement of The R. N.-Y. that 
they have only one-fifth of the feeding value 
of wheat bran, is only true of the hulls 
made from grinding damp buckwheat. The 
hulls from dry buckwheat, cleaned by the 
shuckers used by the mills in this part of 
Pennsylvania, are nothing but hulls, with¬ 
out any pieces of “meat” mixed with them, 
and are entirely worthless for feed. Cattle 
must be very hungry to touch them unless 
moistened and sprinkled with a little meal. 
Even in that case it is doubtful whether 
they are worth as much as cut straw. Being 
hard and as tough as leather, they cannot 
be well masticated, are not digested, and 
pass away unchanged. There is no question 
that hulls from damp buckwheat are valu¬ 
able. I* have seen hulls made by cleaning 
wet buckwheat so full of pieces of “ meat ” 
that they were worth nearly as much, pound 
for pound, as wheat or buckwheat bran, and 
it is a pity that they should be wasted, as is 
generally the case, by being blown into the 
tail race to be floated off by the water, or 
into the engine house to be consumed 
as fuel. No doubt they have some 
value as a fertilizer, for all vegetable sub¬ 
stances have a manurial value when de¬ 
composed ; but their greatest benefit is ob¬ 
tained by using the m as bedding for stock, 
and as an absorbent for liquid manure. 
They are not so easily rotted as straw. I 
have plowed them up after they had been 
in the ground for a year, and they were 
still sound and undecayed. Sawdust does 
not rot so quickly as straw, and hulls do 
not rot so quickly as saw-dust. I mean to 
try how they decompose in a compost heap, 
as the warmth and moisture would be 
likely to hasten their decay. I think it 
would pay farmers living near mills to ar¬ 
range with the millers to get as many 
as they could use. The time has come 
when we must endeavor to get as much 
fertility back to the farm as is sold off every 
year in the crops disposed of. 
About A Name. 
Wm. Falconer, Queens County, N. Y.— 
The Rural asks who gave Malus Hal- 
leana the name of Malus Parkmannii and 
wherefore? If I mistake not, botanically 
both of these names are incorrect, and as 
popular names neither should be Latinized; 
plain Hall’s or plain Parkman’s is good 
enough for plain folks like me. The proper 
botanical name is Pyrus baccata, var. 
floribunda flore pleno. Nearly 30 years 
ago Mr. Francis Parkman of Jamaica Plain, 
near Boston, got a plant of this lovely shrub 
from Mr. F. Gordon Dexter, from Japan, 
and this plant, now grown to be quite a 
little tree, is still alive and flourishing in 
Mr. Parkman’s garden, and from it have 
been obtained the buds and scions that have 
enabled the Boston nurserymen to get up 
such a large stock of it. Some time after 
Mr. Parkman received his plant Dr. G. R. 
Hall, a resident of Japan, sent the same 
variety to Messrs. Parsons’ nurseries at 
Flushing, L. I., where it was named in com¬ 
pliment to Dr. Hall. But don’t let us 
wrangle over the name; get the plant, and 
I can assure you, you will have one of the 
loveliest shrubs you ever introduced into 
your garden. It is in full bloom with us 
about the first days of May and its unopen 
buds are prettier than its open blossoms. 
Plants no more than a foot or two in height 
produce flowers quite freely. 
The R. N.-Y assumed that Dr. Hall sent 
it to this country before Mr. Parkman re¬ 
ceived his plants. It must be nearly 10 
years since we received a single plant from 
the Parsons. Mr. Falconer, in our opinion, 
does not praise it too highly. 
Barn-Ripened Tomatoes. 
H. A. W., Chicago, III—Several years 
ago we had an early frost that injured 
tomatoes and tender garden “sauce.” 
Having one vine of the Mikado Tomato 
that was very fine, and being anxious to 
see its best fruit ripen, I pulled the vine 
and hung it in my wagon house, so that in 
the middle of the day, for about three 
hours, the sun could strike it. We had 
fine ripe tomatoes from this vine up to 
November 10, and on that day I took a very 
fine one, just ripening, and saved seeds 
from it, which I planted by the side of the 
Livingston’s Perfection, the Hathaway and 
the Acme. The plants from the seeds 
showed the green above ground two days 
before Livingston’s Perfection and four 
before either of the others. It blossomed 
fully one week before any of the others, 
and the fruit ripened fully 10 days earlier. 
(Continued on next page.) 
Advertisers treat all correspondents 
well if they mention The Rural New- 
Yorker. 
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