848 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 21 
" WILDNESS 
When I got to the office on the Monday 
following Thanksgiving, I found my 
chair occupied by an immense turkey in 
all the glory of its fine plumage, and 
wrapped up nicely in a cloth sack. In 
the mail was the following note : 
I send you an 18-pound wild gobbler from the 
Virginia woods, and I hope that the R. N.-Y. will 
sample it in a satisfactory manner, m. b. rowe. 
It was a little late for the regular Thanks¬ 
giving Day, but, as you know, we are 
ready to crowd thanks for a turkey into 
any day of the year’s 365. We put that 
big gobbler right into the hands of the 
office boy. This young man went about 
his work in a business-like way. He 
“ passed around the hat ” and collected 
dimes and nickels from the 20 or more 
people in the office. With this fund, he 
went out and made a good bargain with 
a German who runs a small restaurant 
near by. This man agreed to pick, dress, 
stuff and roast the gobbler. The boy 
had money enough to pay for this and 
also buy two loaves of bread and some 
butter. There wasn’t a hitch in the pro¬ 
gramme, and promptly on time, a score 
of hungry people proceeded to gobble 
up that gobbler. The only complaint I 
heard the office boy make, was that the 
bird didn’t weigh 28 instead of 18 pounds! 
As it was, there was nothing but a col¬ 
lection of dry bones left on the platter. 
We can’t pay any higher compliment to 
its quality. We “licked the platter 
clean.” 
* 
And now for the application. The 
most remarkable things about that gob¬ 
bler were the wonderful proportion of 
breast meat, and the toughness of the 
bones, muscles and joints. What caused 
that ? The life and habits of the bird 
enforced exercise and “hustle.” It had 
to fly and run about for its food. It 
slept in exposed locations. It supported 
itself and was, in fact, a self-made bird. 
The exercise of flying developed its 
breast just as the exercise of a prize 
fighter develops his chest and shoulders. 
“Wildness” gave that turkey a tough, 
vigorous constitution that would throw 
off disease, and make the best of hard 
fare and tough keeping. Your tame 
turkey is often a poor, pampered thing. 
A wet blade of grass will almost kill a 
little one, and whole droves often die 
off with some mysterious disease. Do 
you know what they need ? It is a touch 
of “wildness”—some of the blood of 
the wild turkey. That is why breeders 
bring wild and half-wild gobblers into 
their flocks so that the young birds may 
inherit this power to fly and develop the 
breast, these sturdy legs and muscles to 
enable them to hunt for food, and that 
“gamey” flavor that caused our office 
boy to long for 10 pounds more meat to 
surround. You see the point is that, 
when too close inbreeding, or poor feed¬ 
ing, or some of the many demoralizing 
effects of civilized life, run down the 
turkey’s constitution, the thing to do is 
to bring m a drop of “ wildness ” with 
the health and vigor of new and un¬ 
poisoned life. You see the point with¬ 
out further remark ! 
* 
Now this matter of degeneration is 
not confined to turkeys by any means. 
There are lots of farmers—good, sound 
men in their way—who have allowed 
their farms and fortunes to run down at 
the heel, because they have gone along 
in the good old way without drawing in 
a drop of “wildness” in the shape of 
ideas or theory. For example, here is a 
man with a good stream running through 
his farm. It never fails, yet two years 
out of three his crops dry up for lack of 
moisture. Theory says, lift that water 
and let it irrigate those upper fields. 
That’s a bit of “wildness” that thousands 
of farmers have tamed so that, to-day, 
they enjoy a drought, because their 
crops have both sunshine and water at 
the same time. Here’s a man who grows 
no clover — here’s another who keeps 
scrub poultry, here’s another who has 
not learned to spray his trees. So we 
might go on. These men are more or 
less like the tame turkeys. They are in 
a rut. Life is lean for them. The joints 
of progress are shaky. There is mighty 
little breast meat on their profit, and no 
stuffing at all. What they need is the 
“ wildness ” of a new idea. Their farm 
practice needs a theory well worked out 
and applied in practical form. This 
“ wildness” will make their thoughts 
and aspirations fly higher, and develop 
the “breast meat” of gray matter in the 
brain. Your methods are inbred too 
closely with mere practice, and you need 
an outcross of sound scientific theory. 
* 
Weld, where are you to get this out¬ 
cross ? A young man in Indiana, a col¬ 
lege student, has solved this problem to 
his satisfaction by sending $1 and asking 
us to send The R. N.-Y., one year, to his 
grandfather ! If any one has any better 
plan, we are ready to hear it now. Of 
course, we don’t expect that every one 
of our readers will send us a wild tur¬ 
key for Christmas ! There would be too 
much “wildness” in that for our tame 
digestion. We would like to suggest, 
however, that you know a farm family 
where a little more mental white meat 
would be acceptable. During 1896, we 
hope to keep Tiie R. N.-Y. filled with 
things to think about. A friend in Massa¬ 
chusetts says that our paper “ seems to 
try to help rather than merely interest 
its readers.” That is true, and during 
1896, it is our plan to secure strong, 
helpful and suggestive articles that will 
force people to think and study out some 
better way of conducting the farm and 
the home. We would like to try to bring 
the vigor and strength of “wildness” 
into that home you have in mind, and, if 
you will make us a Christmas present of 
a subscription that will give us a chance 
to get into it, we will put you on our 
list of heroes—men who have the best 
interests of their country at heart. 
Here is a man, now, who “talks turkey,” 
as the saying is. 
I have always thought a great deal of The R. 
N.-Y., but after getting your personal letter of 
October 16, I feel as though I had a personal in¬ 
terest in you and your paper, for the reason, I 
suppose, that “like begets like.” You so kindly 
interested yourself in iny ice cream inquiry, and 
got such a fund of information, and are still after 
more, that I feel as though I must write and thank 
you for the efforts you have made, as it seems to 
me, for my personal benefit. The farmer or 
dairyman who is stumbling along in the old rut 
of his father’s experience, is having a hard hill 
to climb to keep up with the procession of steam, 
electricity, and silos. But if a man is so bull¬ 
headed that he won’t pay two cents apiece for 
The R. N.-Y., and get the knowledge acquired by 
the experience of some of the best men of our 
country, he ought to have a hard time. 9. B. w. 
We don’t know about that last sen¬ 
tence—at this happy season of the year 
—but there may be something in it, for 
all that. At any rate, we are always 
glad to secure reliable facts whenever 
it is possible to do so. That is the 
“ wildness ” we have talked about. 
Our old friend, N. Ohmer, of Ohio, 
went to the Ohio State Horticultural 
Society, and this is what he says : 
I heard The R. N.-Y. named as the best paper 
of its kind published in the United States by 
members attending our meeting, all of which I 
indorse. 
The R. N.-Y. has some good friends in 
(Continued on next page). 
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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, New York. 
ONE FOR ONE. 
You want some good books for winter reading 
and you can get them without a cent of expense. 
You have at least one neighbor who ought to 
have The Rural New-Yorker. Now, haven’t 
you ? Well, send us his name and his dollar, and 
we will send you postpaid your choice of the fol¬ 
lowing books. If your neighbor hesitates, tell 
him that he can have his dollar hack, at any time 
that he is not satisfied with his bargain. Don’t 
put this off; pick out the neighbor who wants 
The R. N.-Y 7 ., and the book you want; and let us 
hear from you. Don’t forget the dollar. Here 
are the books with their regular prices: 
American Grape Training. Flexible cloth.. $.75 
Fruit Culture. Cloth. 1.00 
Annals of Horticulture. 1892 edition only. 
Cloth. 1.00 
Ensilage and the Silo.20 
The Nursery Book. Paper.50 
Chrysanthemum Culture for America. Paper .60 
Canning and Preserving Fruits and Vegeta¬ 
bles, and Preparing Fruit, Pastes and 
Syrups. Evaporation of Fruits. Paper. .20 
The New Potato Culture. Paper.40 
Chemicals and Clover. 20 
The Business Hen. Cloth.40 
Horticulturists’ Rule Book. Cloth. .75 
Spraying Crops. Paper.25 
First Lessons in Agriculture. Cloth. 1.00 
Cooking Cauliflower. Paper.20 
How to Plant a Place. Paper.20 
Tuberous Begonias.20 
The Modification of Plants by Climate.25 
Landscape Gardening.50 
The New Botany.25 
Accidents and Emergencies.20 
Milk: Making and Marketing.20 
My Handkerchief Garden.20 
Fertilizers and Fruits.20 
A Fortune in Two Acres.20 
Fertilizer Farming.20 
Trees for Street and Shade.20 
Sheep Farming.25 
Fisher’s Grain Tables.25 
Lumber and Log Book.25 
A B C of Strawberry Culture. Terry. 140 
pp.;ill. Paper.40 
Asparagus Culture. Barnes & Robinson.50 
Cabbages, Gregory. 25 pp.30 
Cabbage and Cauliflower, How to Grow, 
Burpee.30 
Carrots and Mangold Wurtzels. Gregory... .30 
Fertilizers. Gregory. 116 pp.40 
Melons—How to Grow for Market. Burpee. .30 
Onion Culture, New. Greiner. Paper.50 
Onion Raising. Gregory.30 
Onions, How to Grow. Burpee.30 
Squashes. Gregory.30 
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CONTENTS. 
Rural New-Yorker, December 21, 1895. 
FARM TOPICS. 
Raising the Value of Low Lands.839 
12 Pouuds of Potatoes for One Cent.840, 841 
A Circular Barn and Silo.841 
Value of Soot for Fertilizer.841 
Does It Pay to Cut Corn Fodder ?.841 
Why Use Gasoline Engines ?.841 
Another Potato Estimate.842 
July-Sown Rye.842 
Recuperative Forces of the Soil. V.845 
Curing a Sour Soil. Part VI.850 
LIVE STOCK AND DAIRY. 
A Talk About Short-horns.837 
Hens by the Acre Once More.838 
For Buttermakers to Remedy.839 
A Lesson from a Hog.840 
Heaves in Horses.841 
The Color of Eggs Again..'.842, 843 
The Old Farm Horse.850 
Dishorning.850 
Oil Costs Too Much.850 
Grundy’s Poultry Grist.850 
What Pig to Fatten ?.851 
HORTICULTURAL. 
Subirrigation in the Greenhouse.839 
Facts About Keiffer.839 
Some Undervalued Features of a Horticul¬ 
tural Education.840 
A Showing of Good Fruit.840 
A Wash for Peach Trees.841 
The Story of the Apple Rust.841 
Pears and Peaches for Cold Countries.841 
New r York’s Latest Flower Show.845 
WOMAN AND THE HOME. 
Editorials. 846 
One Girl’s Career (To be Continued).846 
A Chapter of Don’ts.846 
“ Ready for the Press”.846 
A Veteran Reformer. 847 
Patterns for R. N.-Y. Readers.847 
Printed Patch w'ork.847 
Good Effects of Coeducation.847 
An Early Conversion.847 
MISCELLANEOUS 
The Cost of Fire Insurance. 838 
Why the Pork Spoils.842 
Ruralisms.843 
Editorials.844 
Brevities.844 
Business Bits.845 
As We Go to Press.848 
Markets.849 
Crop and Market Notes. 849 
Humorous. 852 
