7o9 
i89i ' T 
Business. 
THE GRAPE TRADE KNOCKED OUT. 
Just as the price of domestic grapes had reached a point 
that left little or no profit to the grower, and the heaviest 
shipments began to arrive, another snag is struck that 
threatens to destroy the trade completely. Many vine- 
yardlsts have for a long time been spraying with the Bor¬ 
deaux Mixture to head off the rot, and the New York City 
Board of Health has just discovered that “ four-fifths of 
all the Concord Grapes that come to this city are poison¬ 
ous.” A vigilant citizen discovered a suspicious green 
substance adhering to the stems of some grapes he had 
purchased and took them to the Chemist of the Board of 
Health. That gentleman on the spur of the moment, with¬ 
out any analytical test, decided that it was a salt of copper 
and poisonous. Then the inspectors started • ut on a raid. 
Analysis confirmed the Chemist in the belief that it was 
sulphate of copper, which is less poisonous than arsenite 
of copper or acetate of copper, though more soluble. Then 
it dawned upon that functionary that it was nothing 
more nor less than the Bordeaux Mixture, which Uncle 
Jerry Rusk has been advising grape growers to use “ for 
the destruction of phylloxera and other insects which at¬ 
tack the young and growing tendrils when very soft.” 
It is in fact used to destroy mildew ^nd rot. Some 
anxious vineyardist laboring under the belief that if a 
little is good, more is better, had made too heavy an 
application with the result of exposing his methods. The 
substance does not appear to adhere to the berries, but 
clings to the stems and betrays itself by its peculiar green 
color. 
Meantime the inspectors had made a round of a large 
number of fruit stands, wholesale and retail stores and 
commission houses, and wherever the objectionable fruit 
was discovered, it was either condemned and destroyed or 
put aside for further examination. The incoming fruit on 
trains and boats was inspected on arrival and wherever 
any traces of green were discovered it was immediately 
condemned. So far as this city is concerned no more grapes 
showing these traces can be sold. An effort has been made 
to connect the unusual amount of sickness in the city with 
the use of such grapes, but without success. The tabooed 
grapes coma mostly from the Hudson River Valley, prin¬ 
cipally from Marlboro, Highland, Milton and adjoining 
towns in Ulster County. 
A representative of The Rural made a tour of the 
larger commission houses and some of the retail stands 
and failed to discover any great amount of the objection¬ 
able fruit. Without a single exception, the dealers con¬ 
demn the action of the authorities as uncalled for and arbi¬ 
trary. They contend that there is not a particle of dan¬ 
ger in the use of the fruit. The Bordeaux Mixture has 
been freely used before and no one has been harmed. 
They say that it is necessary for the Board of Health to 
make a demonstration occasionally and it has taken this 
opportunity to do so. One merchant who also has a large 
vineyard where he uses the mixture, says that he eats six 
pounds per day of the sprinkled grapes and experiences no 
ill effects. All this may be true, but the market for these 
grapes in this city is killed for the present. The objec¬ 
tionable matter should be removed or the grapes not be 
Bhipped. So far, only Concord Grapes have been found 
affected. The fear is entertained that the grapes will be 
made into wines and j allies and thus be furnished to unsus¬ 
pecting consumers. It has been suggested that the State 
Board of Health should take up the matter. There will 
undoubtedly be further developments, and we shall follow 
up the matter closely for the benefit of our readers. 
MAKING BUSINESS IN AN “ ABANDONED ” TOWN. 
A friend sends us this editorial from the Rutland, Ver¬ 
mont, Herald. It seems to us like a sensible statement of 
an important fact. Young men who are seeking homes in 
the country will do well to investigate New England as 
well as the Far West: 
•‘There appears in this week’s issue of the We3t Ran¬ 
dolph News a very noticeable advertisement. It is an ad¬ 
vertisement of the town of Barnard. This town, as all the 
world ought to know, is distinctly of the * hill ’ kind; it 
lies on the ridge between Quechee and White Rivers, in 
the northwest part of Windsor County, and has excellent 
farming land. It has a local improvement society, and 
the organization puts out the advertisement, which covers 
more than a page of the paper. The advertisement is simply 
a well written statement of what Barnard is, what its 
people have accomplished and what opportunities it offers, 
followed by a detailed offer of a few farms for sale. The 
statement declares, and with perfect truth, that the soil 
will yield great crops, that the farmers of the town have 
always made money, and that there is an opportunity for 
making money now, but that so many young men have 
left the parts that farms are more plenty than buyers. Add 
a statement of the usual facts in regard to the abandoning 
of land which ought nev-r to have been cleared and the 
story is complete. Land of this class, it will be understood, 
is either too high and steep for profitable cultivation or too 
rocky. Barnard has some such land, as does nearly every 
town in the State, which the axe of the early settlers 
cleared of the only crop it ought ever to have had. 
“So much for Barnard, speaking a good word for itself 
and telling the truth instead of whining. And another 
matter with the same moral came to hand in Rutland this 
week in the exhibition at the fair by Mr. Etz, of Mendon. 
Mr. Etz bought a 51-acre farm of the distinctively and de¬ 
cidedly 4 abandoned ’ kind on a Mendon hill side for $51 
five years ago, and this year showed a great variety of 
products which would have been thoroughly creditable to 
the best farm in Vermont. There were fine potatoes in 
great variety and immense beets and handsome corn and 
wheat and oats, and so on through. And these things were 
HE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
raised on that soil, not by 4 fancy farming ’—by the pro¬ 
cesses of a rich man who seeks the largest possible crops 
without regard to their cost—but by a man who was work¬ 
ing for dollars and didn’t mean to let a single penny or a 
moment’s time go to the land that was not to promptly 
pay. The exhibition was a wonderful object-lesson. It is 
a pity that it did not go to all the fairs In the State. If 
a similar exhibition had come from Montana—if just such 
grain and vegetables and what-not had been shown pro¬ 
duced in Montana on land sold for $1 an acre—the whole 
farming population of Vermont would want to pack up 
and hurry to such a land of promise. And yet the things 
raised here are not only more valuable than In Montana, 
because they sell more readily and at much higher prices, 
but the climate here is much better to exist in, and the 
things Vermont has with its older civilization in a thou¬ 
sand ways make life better worth living.” 
. BUSINESS BITS. 
Mr. T. J. Dwyer, of Cornwall^ N. Y., makes a feature 
of the new, late strawberry, E. P. Roe, which, on his 
grounds, is a great success. 
Business is Taught by Bryant & Stratton, 415 Main 
Street, Buffalo, N. Y. The course of instruction is sound 
and practical. More people fail in this world from a lack 
of fair business education and habits than from any other 
cause. Send for terms and instructions and learn how to 
study at home. 
Good Business.— The St. Albans Foundry Company, 
the firm that makes that small thrashing machine, writes : 
44 We have been rushed with orders the past month and 
regret very much that it was impossible for us to spare 
any machines for exhibition at our own State Fair at Bur¬ 
lington. We have at last succeeded in getting the official 
freight classification committee to change the classifica¬ 
tion on tread horse powers from first to third class.” 
Hot Water Heaters.— In the fall the family man’s 
fancies turn to thoughts of economical heating. It is well 
enough to figure a little and see If you are not losing 
money running these big stoves I There was a time when 
the old fire-place was considered an economical arrange¬ 
ment. Then came the “air tight” stove In all its forms. 
Now most farmers use coal stoves and still are not satis¬ 
fied. No wonder 1 In nine cases out of ten a hot air 
furnace or steam or hot water heater will prove cheaper 
and three times as comfortable. Hot water gives the cheap 
est and best heat we have met with. Look Into the mat¬ 
ter. Send to the Herendeen Manufacturing Company, of 
Geneva, N. Y., for circulars of their heaters. 
Unleached Wood Ashes.— Nobody doubts the value of 
wood ashes as a fertilizer. One of the easiest scientific 
principles to understand is that the ash of one plant is 
useful to make another plant grow. It is easily compre¬ 
hended that all that fire removes from a plant can be re¬ 
produced by the sun, air, water and soil. Therefore thous¬ 
ands of farmers who use ashes will not use chemical fertil¬ 
izers. There are ashes and ashes. Unleached ashes should 
be [bought only on guaranteed analysis and of reputable 
firms. Chas. Allison & Co., 211 Fulton St., New York, 
have been in business many years. The experience they 
have accumulated from handling and selling a million or 
more ash heaps will be sent to those who apply to them. 
Jersey Cattle Sale.— It is quite remarkable how Jer¬ 
sey cattle are making homes for themselves in the West. 
First comes a man with a Jersey bull, to be laughed at by 
his neighbors. By and by the heifers from that bull begin 
to come in milk. They are gentle, harmless things, but 
they make the big beef cows very weary, and it is not long 
before 44 Jersey grade ” is but another way of saying 44 but¬ 
ter cow.” The prospects now are that both feed and but¬ 
ter will be high in price for several years at least. Dairy¬ 
men In that case need the cow that will turn most of the 
fat in the food into butter. Mr. L. P. Bailey, of Tacoma, 
Ohio, will sell 100 head of Jersey cattle on October 15. 
Here is a chance to get good Jersey stock at fair prices. 
We have always claimed that these public sales afford the 
best opportunities for the observing man to obtain bargains 
in cattle. The result of every sale has proved this fact. 
How to Ship Apples.— The fruit growers of New South 
Wales are trying to establish a market for their apples in 
England. Here is the advice given them by an expert 
packer: 44 After 15 years’ successive trials of various meth¬ 
ods, nothing superior has been found to the simple plan of 
wrapping each specimen in tissue paper, and packing each 
layer in the case firmly, filling the interstices with white 
paper shavings, and placing a sheet of white blotting paper 
over each layer of fruit as the packing proceeds, the case 
being well filled with white paper shavings over the last 
layer of fruit before nailing down the lid. When the case 
is shaken there should be no indication of loose packing.” 
There is not the least doubt that a good share of the 
prices of our fruits and vegetables is lost by poor sorting 
and packing. Time spent in wrapping the be3t specimens 
in tissue paper will pay 50 per cent interest. 
Yield from a Barrel of Seed Potatoes.— Until I 
read about it on page 666, I did not know that Mr. 
Smith, the noted Wisconsin gardener, had planted a barrel 
of the Freeman Potatoes, to see how many he could grow. 
I had had faint hopes that my yield would not be beaten, 
but they are all gone. Mr. Smith, with his lighter soil, 
and unlimited manure, (bought in Green Bay) and irriga¬ 
tion, too, ought to grow at least 500 bushels. And then his 
more northern location is in his favor. Well, mine are 
dug, and some Rural readers may be interested to know 
what I got, small as the amount is. I received last fall 
165 pounds of seed. The potatoes were too large to serve 
well for seed, and had exceedingly few eyes at that. We 
have dug and put in cellar, from this seed, 305 bushels, by 
measure in our bushel boxes. No manure or fertilizer was 
used except clover. There was no watering or fussing. 
We planted them by hand and then gave them the best of 
tillage. The season was only moderately favorable, not 
exceptionally so, as in 1883. The way we cut them was 
told in The Rural not long since. Now, friend Smith, 
end our anxiety and report to The R. N.-Y. promptly how 
many bushels you have. Like myself, doubtless you can 
see now where you could have done better, but the race is 
over. T. B. TERRY. 
IMPLEMENT NOTES. 
That Dumb WAITER —In describing Lane’s new dumb 
waiter, we stated that an extra brake rope Is required. 
This was a mistake. The beauty of the device is that no ex¬ 
tra rope is needed. 
Potato Diggers.— The Rural on page 660 states In ef¬ 
fect that there are several potato diggers that will do good 
successful work. I have seen only three patterns and know 
from the experience of myself and friends that two of 
them are no good, and I have not been convinced that the 
other is any better. Please name some kind that will dig 
clean and separate well on stony or hill-side land, and give 
the address of a farmer who is using it. 
R. N.-Y.—E. B. True of Newport, Vermont, claims that 
the Hoover does the work on such land. P. P. Burleigh, 
Houlton, Maine, makes the same claim for the Rigby 
digger. 
Be Your Own Cobbler.— In old times we used to 
make our own shoes. It paid then, but it does not now, 
because the machines in the big factories work cheaper 
than we can. But the changes that have driven the hand¬ 
made shoe out of business have made the cobbler or shoe- 
mender scarce. We mend clothes at home, and we might 
mend shoes there if we had & cheap outfit of tools and ma¬ 
terials. Just such a little kit of cobbler’s tools is sold by 
Root Bros., Medina, Ohio. 
Noyes Patent Leg Spreader.— The catalogue of the 
Kalamazoo Wagon Company, Kalamazoo, Mich., de¬ 
scribes the above named device, which is designed for 
the use of horse trainers in properly galting their 
horses and overcoming forging, “hitching,” etc. It is 
really a stiff rod attached to the shafts and reaching down 
to a level with the horse’s ankle. Straps connect with the 
lower end of the rod with suitable boots on the horse’s legs 
so that he cannot throw his feet inside or too far forward. 
This is the best galting device known. 
Hay Press Improvements.— Several desirable features 
have been added to the Hendrix hay presses, made by D. 
B. Hendrix, Kingston, N. Y. One is a track to guide the 
lever so as not to allow it to move to the right or left In 
operation. The track can be folded up so as to be out of 
the way in moving. Another Is an arrangement for open¬ 
ing and closing the bale bag. This makes the bale per¬ 
fectly smooth and does away with ragged-edged bales. A 
prominent feature claimed for this press is the slotted 
doors, which enable the operator to wire the bale before 
the door is opened, securing smaller and more compact 
bales. Mr. Hendrix is also perfecting a hand press which 
he will soon j>ut on the market. 
A New Tie.— The Tie Company, of Sidney, N. Y., ex¬ 
hibited at the New York State Fair a patent tie. It is to a 
rope what a buckle is to a strap. For a shoe only one lace 
is required, which is simply drawn over the slot, and it 
will stay without slipping. The hammock hook screws on 
to a post and the rope pulled through will remain at any 
place without a knot or any tying. The tie is also used for 
tying up corn. The shock need not be drawn up tight and 
will cure out better. When drawn to the barn, by slipping 
the rope along, the bundle can be made perfectly tight. 
After husking the stalks can be rebound and packed away. 
When fed out the bands are taken off and preserved for 
future use. In cutting corn for ensilage one band at each 
end of the bundle holds firmly and aids much in handling 
the bent wire, making a handle by which the thing can be 
carried. 
Horse Tools that Save the Hoe. 
I want the name and address of a dealer in tile draining 
tools, also the name of a good but inexpensive com planter 
with a fertilizer distributer. Can The Rural recommend 
any single agricultural implement that will dispense with 
the slow and expensive method of working corn with the 
hand hoe ? I use sweeps, but still the hoe is needed to kill 
weeds in the row. E. R. M. 
Flat Rock, N. C. 
Ans.— Jackson Brothers, Albany, N. Y., will supply tiles 
or tiling tools. Probably they can serve you through a 
near agent. The Ames Plow Company, of Boston, Mass., 
sell a small fertilizer distributer which can also be used as 
a planter. Hand planters are not used for distributing 
fertilizers—the weight is too great. On level, open land, 
fairly free from stones, we think Breed’s weeder would 
prove as effective in killing small weeds as any other one 
tool. An iron-toothed harrow Is also effective on soils 
where the weeder will not work. These are for killing 
weeds while they are small, before the useful plants are 
large enough to smother or shade them. The farmers who 
pride themselves on the fact that they 44 never use a hoe in 
the corn,” do not depend upon any single tool—they have 
different implements for killing the weeds of different 
sizes. A very large part of their work is done with the 
weeder and harrow before the corn is up or before it is so 
large that these tools would break it down or pull it up. 
When the crop is a foot or more high they begin work 
with a riding two-horse cultivator. This is better than 
the one-horse cultivator because it gives steadier work, 
with less jumping and jerking; it works closer up to the 
plants and every tooth is under quick control of the rider. 
Each tooth can be raised, lowered or taken entirely out of 
the soil at will. With such a tool the weeds are torn out 
or covered with but little trouble. But these tools must 
be used in time, in sunshine and when the weeds are small. 
