f 28a 
iVlOOBE’S BUBAL NEW-YORKER 
NOV. 8 
verted into a place for setting milk for 
butter during Spring and Fall, A piazza 
runs along the sides of tbe store room and 
room for making cheese, rendering these 
parts cooler in Summer, and affording a 
convenient place for drying and sunning 
utensils. The upper part of building, 
the cheese-curing room, twenty-four by 
thirty foot, eight feet high, studded, and 
lathed and plastered. 
A ventilator runs from ceiling in center 
of room above the roof, terminating in 
usual form with arrangements at ceiling 
for closing draft entirely, or conducting 
larger or smaller quantities of air as de¬ 
sired. Air is admitted under the roof 
(where it joins the sides of the building) 
into the garret, so that by opening slides 
inside the ventilator above the ceiling, a 
current of air may bo maintained in the 
garret part. Openings, with wickets, arc 
placed at the bottom of the room, and 
along and through the sides of the build¬ 
ing, to the open air—three or more on a 
side. These openings are ten by twenty 
inches; the wickets close tight or admit 
more or less air as desired at pleasure. An 
ice reservoir or refrigerator on rollers can 
be set in the room in which ice may be ex¬ 
posed if necessary, in extremely hot 
weather. A good coal stove, tables with 
hcmlncli bed-piece, for holding the cheese, 
thermometer and platform scales. These 
are the general features of the dairy house 
suggested. The whole will be readily un¬ 
derstood by the cuts:—O, O, openings with 
wickets; 0, chimney; E, elevator; D, door 
for delivering cheese; A, alleys; W, win¬ 
dows; V, vat and heater for making 
cheese; P, cheese press; E, elevator for el¬ 
evating cheese; 8, stairs; P, cistern pump. 
THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY. 
Hygienic Juftormatio*. 
INFLUENCE OF MARRIAGE UPON 
HEALTH. 
M. Berttllon, lately having had to draw 
up a paper for the Academy of Medicine of 
Paris on the influence of marriage on mor¬ 
tality, consulted the registers of the only 
three countries in Europe which were care¬ 
fully enough kept to give him a reply to his 
question—those of France, Belgium, and 
Holland, lie shows that if the male sex be 
first considered, we find Hint, from 25 to SO, 
1,000 married men furnish (5 deaths; 1,000 
unmarried, 10 deaths; and 1,000 widowers, 
22 deaths. From 30 to 35, of 1.000 married 
men, 7 die; of 1,000 unmarried men, 11}^ 
dio; and of 1,000 widowers, 10 die. From 
35 to 40, of 1,000 married men, 7}4 die; of 
1,000 bachelors, 18 die; and of 1,000 widow¬ 
ers, 47 )a.' die; and so on at all the following 
ages, married men continuing to live with 
greater facility than the bachelor. If has 
been said that since only the most fortunate 
men can afford to marry, it is not astonish¬ 
ing that these persons should livo longer. 
But tills will not, of course, account for the 
Very great mortality of widowers at all ages, 
which, indeed, surpasses that even of bach¬ 
elors. 
However, it must be noticed that 8,000 
young men marry in France yearly, under 
tho age of 20. This is very fatal to such 
young men, for M. Berttllon finds that, 
whilst 1,000young men from 15 to20 furnish 
7 deat hs, when unmarried, no less than fifty 
deaths occur among l.(MM) young married 
men under 20. Women seem to reap less 
advantage from marriage than men, and 
there is but litt le difference in the mortali¬ 
ty of unmarried and married women before 
the age of 25. It is but little marked even 
between 25 and 30. 
HOW TO CURE A COUGH. 
Last Spring I dressed myself to corre¬ 
spond with the weather, and taking my 
dinner with my husband and several of the 
hands, started for the farm. A part of my 
work was to help lay off tho ground for 
house, yard, garden and orchard, and then 
we commenced the work. I assisted hus¬ 
band in setting fruit trees of all kinds and 
shrubbery in abundance; then assisted in 
the garden us long as was necessary; and 
while at such work I found it was just what 
1 had ought to have been doing for years 
back; for 1 have had a severe cough from 
infancy, oougliing almost day and night; 
but after working a few days out of doors 
I stopped cough ing at night; then I coughed 
very little through the day. My general 
health has been so much improved by it, 
that i feel like telling others to try it, and 
I feel so prmul of it I want to tel I every one 
of tuy mends that I have found a remedy 
for my cough. 1 think the Rural New- 
Yorker will take to have a part of the 
Af 1,0 I,’ ... 
credit. 
Davi* Oo„ Iowa. 
Mas. K, Vermilya.. 
r Seeing W, H. C.’h inquiry in the Rural 
y of Oct. 12, relative to the Shenandoah V al¬ 
ii ley of Virginia, I concluded (having been 
there for many years) to give such general 
, r information as I possess upon the subject, 
n at the same time advising all interested in 
j, this section to pay it a visit and judge for 
K themselves. I would add that I have no 
v ax to grind, nor any land for sale in that sec- 
tiou. The Virginias have within themselves 
r j the elements of an empire. No country 
’ g possesses superior advantages for agricul- 
R ( oral pursuits. No 8tut.es in the Union are 
more varied In their productions; none 
, 0 richer in natural resources; none more 
(J abundantly supplied with the readiest and 
[_ best channels of communication; none af- 
a fording greater facilities for manufacturing 
y operations of every sort, and none, it may 
t be said, which exhibit over their broad sur- 
, face such pleasant variety of the wildest 
and most lovely scenery. A fid yet in agri¬ 
cultural, and every species of industrial 
( enterprise, and in that advancement and 
li prosperity which characterize our nation, 
, the Virginias have been, and still are, far 
( ’ in the rear of the Eastern and Western 
e States, which are greatly inferior to them 
in natural advantages. 
[j Tho causes of this comparative stagnation 
r are happily removed, and the two Virginias, 
. mother and daughter, under wise and per- 
g manant governments, are now prepared, no 
. less by their oivil and social than by their 
physical condition, for the activities and 
- energies of a population educated under a 
less genial climate and upon harder and 
scantier resources, which they now invite 
* from abroad. 
These States have fortunately enjoyed 
managing their own affairs by their own 
people in the work of reconstruction, and 
, under a wise and conservative administra- 
l> tiou of their own affairs, they are far in 
advance of any of the Southern States, es- 
T pecially in tho securities and blessings of 
stable, just and economical governments. 
, Thus of tho Virginias in general. Now 
I of the Shenandoah Valley in particular. 
, This valley extendi from the Tennessee 
, line on the south to tho Potomao IhK-t-r on 
) tho north. The same valley, under the local 
name of Cumberland Valley, Lancaster 
Valley, Lebanon Valley, and Lehigh Val¬ 
ley, extends through Western Maryland 
and Central Pennsylvania, it lies between 
■ the Blue Ridge and the Nort h Mountains, 
the hitter one of the Alleglienj’range, com¬ 
prising the following counties—viz.: Berks, 
Lebanon, Lancaster, Work, Dauphin, Cum¬ 
berland and Franklin, Penn.; Washington, 
Md.; Berkeley and Jefferson, West Vu., 
and Frederick, (’lark, Shenandoah, Page, 
Rockingham, Augusta, Highland, Rock¬ 
bridge, Bath, Botetourt, Allegheny, and Ro¬ 
anoke, Va. This comprises the “ Great Val¬ 
ley,’’ for such it most emphatically is. 
There is no such vallej' In the known 
world, lying, as it does, between two moun¬ 
tain ranges, with the climate so healthy and 
salubrious, with soil so rich and diversified, 
producing all kinds of cereals, vegetables, 
and fruits; with springs and living streams 
of the clearest and best water everywhere; 
timber and stone, for fencing and building, 
enough to last for ages to come, and miner¬ 
al wealth surpassing everything that has 
yet been discovered. 
There is, probably, ten times the amount 
of limestone land in this valley, through 
Virginia and West Virginia, than there is in 
the same valley through Pennsylvania. 
A railroad through the entire valley is 
completed, and a second one is under con¬ 
struction from Harrisburg, Penn., to the 
Tennessee line, with a number of railroads 
crossing the valley, or running out of it to 
tho different Atlantic markets; so that 
every portion of thiR valley lias an outlet to . 
near and good markets. 
The price of land In the Southern or Vir- , 
ginia and W. Virginia portion of the Great f 
Valley (improved farms) is from *$20 to $00, j 
and in the Pennsylvania section from $75 to j 
$400 per acre. f 
Tho land in the latter portion of the val- 1 
ley is iu a much higher state of cultivation, s 
and has, generally, better improvements, g 
Yet Hie Shenandoah portion possesses many - 
natural advantages over the other seot ions 
of the Great Valley. The great difference 
in the price of lands in tho same valley is p 
apparently uuacoouutable; yet, when tho q 
blight of slavery is understood, the cause - 
of such great disparity is plain enough. o 
The labor is gone; the owners impover- I d 
ished by the war; many cannot and will 
not work, at least as it should be done. 
Land there is not as high as any of the im¬ 
proved portions of the West, while the im¬ 
provements are just as good, and good mar¬ 
kets much more convenient. There is every 
reason to believe that, the price of land in 
the Valley of Virginia will advance much 
faster in the next ten years than in any 
portion of tho West and South; and even 
if it should not, there can bo no finer and 
more desirable farms obtained anywhere 
than can ho made in that valley by tho ex¬ 
penditure of a little money for improve¬ 
ments, and the right kind of farming for a 
few years—farms that would compare fa¬ 
vorably with tho host in any section of the 
SHAD FISHING WITH HOOK. 
United States. 
Lebanon Pa. 
Pennsylvanian. 
officii fifrap. 
' COTTON IN CALIFORNIA. 
^ The Pacific Rural Press of a recent date 
lias the following:—We have received from 
1 W. G. A lt.f.n, Jr., Bakersfield, three sam- 
1 pies of cotton, the growth of the present 
* year. There are three distinct varieties, 
r the Dixon, the Texan and the Golden ProlL 
1 lie. There is nothing more needed to es- 
1 tablish tho fact that we are a cotton-grow¬ 
ing people; and because we are, and with a 
i climate proven to be second to none for 
, cotton production, we are from this time 
on to be made rich by the extension of this 
> one industry. 
This remark of course applies to those 
1 particular sections of the State where soil 
1 and climate, or immunity from frosts, per- 
^ mit its culture. The growing of cotton is 
5 an industry that employs a large number 
of hands in the preparation of the ground, 
' the sowing of the seed, the culture of the 
1 crop, to the final picking of the cotton from 
the bursting bolls; is a business full of in- 
dustr)', and yet comparatively light and 
unlaboriwus. 
, It is a crop that comes in admirably along 
with the culture of hops, both as regards 
tho hand culture and the final picking, the 
hop crop being ent irely secured just imme¬ 
diately before the cotton picking begins; 
80 that the hands required for the former 
need not bo discharged before commencing 
on the latter. And though a largo number 
are required where the crop is largo, there 
is a satisfaction in knowing that tho crop 
will surely pay. 
-+♦♦- 
CAUSE OF POTATO DISEASE. 
In Rural New-Yorker of Oct. 12, on 
page 234, I notice an item from I)r. Kuiin 
on “ Potato Disease.” I have been watch¬ 
ing tho potato disease with interest for 
years. 1 am satisfied that the potato rot in 
this locality is caused by a small white 
insect eating through the skin of the potato 
during the growing season; it is too email 
to be seen by the naked eye, T have no¬ 
ticed when the rot is worst the potatoes 
are covered with little white specks; ap¬ 
plying tho microscope to these, they looked 
as if they were cut and chewed potato and 
pushed out in order to make an entrance 
for the little intruder. I took my knife 
and gently pared the skin away, watching 
all the time with the glass; my expecta¬ 
tions were realized. I saw a small grub 
come out backward; with my knife 1 moved 
him on a piece of glass which I bud ready, 
to examine him; ho never ceased kicking 
and flouncing till he died. I repeated it 
several times with the same result, con¬ 
cluding that the light caused almost instant 
death. H. k, 
(Quaker City, Ohio. 
—---♦♦♦- 
FIELD NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Potatoes Diseased.—It would be both 
interesting and profitable if your corre¬ 
spondents who grow potatoes would give 
their experience with varieties the past 
season, bot h as to comparative yield and 
healt-hfulness. Notes giving a list of those 
most diseased — if any are — would be of 
great use to those who desire to plant 
largely next seasou. Let tliose who write, 1 
state the kind of soil in which crops were 1 
grown and what kind of manure was used. 
—Samuel J. Richards. 
" < 
Castor Beans in California have not t 
proved remunerative — even where a fine ] 
quality of oil was manufactured from them ] 
—and farmers who entered largely into its t 
culture the past season are going to aban- ] 
don it henoeforth. j 
, Wk have received the following letters 
j from Mr. Sktu Grkkn, tho well-known fish 
T propagator and fisherman, which will prove 
j interesting to all who love sport. They tell 
j the story without farther explanation: 
Friend Moore: —Inclosed please find a 
. copy of a letter from Mr. Van Wyke of 
. New Hamburgh. It is something new on 
i shad. 8had were caught In Juno last year 
and year before in the Connecticut River 
j at Holyoke Dam, with a fly. T never heard 
of any being caught with any other bait. 
The letter explains itself. The shad he 
- sent me weighed two pounds and n-half, 
and the young shad ho sent me, hatched 
last Spring, are about four months old and 
2>2 inches long. I took twelve young shad 
: out of the stomach of one of the old shad 
and eight oat of the other. They were both 
males, two years old. I do not think the 
> females came in the river at the above age. 
I In the year 1827 Henry Willis of Battle 
Creek witnessed a haul of shad made with 
, a seine owned by Thomas Stump, at Havre 
, de Grace, Md., of so mauy shad that it took 
. three.days to get them out of the net. Mr. 
Willis bought 5,000 of tho largest shad for 
$3 per hundred. Now they cannot take 
i enough on the same ground to pay for fish- 
• lug. Shad can be made as plenty in three 
i or four years as they were in 1827. 
i Seth Green. 
Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 31. 
Mr. Seth Green: — Here I am again! 
This time on the shad question. I send 
you by express two shad caught by me 
to-day with rod and reel. I send them so 
that you onn see them and eat them, to sat¬ 
isfy yourself that they are genuine shad. 
1 also send you some little shad taken out 
of soino shad caught by me. These little 
shad are what the larger shad (same size as 
I send you, and the bass we catch) feed on. 
I have heard for some time past that these 
shad were being caught on the reef at Now 
Hamburgh where we have been catching 
bass: so to-day two of my brothers and 
myself went for them, and we caught 
fifteen. Baited with live halt —a small 
shiner. Never bad such sport in my life. 
Wo catch them on tho full run of the tide, 
obb or flood, just about dusk in tho eve¬ 
ning; and a more game tlsli I have never 
taken, Just at dusk you should see them 
play! They skip on top of the water and 
jump clear out of the water in pairs or 
more; and sometimes you can see 20 or 30 
jump clear out of the water at once. Two 
• or three when caught, and on taking the 
hook out of their mouths, ejected or spit 
out five or six of the little shad, same size 
as the samples I send you. 
Here is something new—a nut for the 
Naturalists to crack—shad subsisting on 
themselves the same as brook trout. You 
should have seen the people start when we 
brought them ashore*and told them how 
wo caught them. They would hardly be¬ 
lieve it; never had heard of such a thing 
in their lives! 
1 read of a man down in Connecticut last 
Spring taking full-grown shad with an ar¬ 
tificial fly. Next Spring, if 1 live so long, I 
am going for some of the full-grown ones 
with the rod and reel. 
I have caught hundreds of bass since 1 
wrote yon last; caught a fine mess to-day; 
but this fishing can’t last much longer, as 
the water is getting oold, and as soon as we 
get a good rain to roil the water the jig will 
be up with us. 1 could have caught you all 
the bass and white perch you wanted for 
stocking your ponds and rivers, only our 
fishermen say they won’t live; and when 
they catch them they never put them in 
fish-cars with other fish to keep alive, as 
they say they won’t live; but I believe they 
can be transported w ith care, if managed 
right. The bass we now take run from 4 oz. 
to lbs., sometimes two pounds. We use 
for bait a squid made of tin or zinc—not a 
trolling spoon, same as used for pickerel 
and black bass, but a squid of our own get 
up; and we also take them with livo bait. 
Have discontinued tin foil, but believe we 
ooulil catch shad with it. It is too soft, and 
soon gets out of shape by the action of the 
tide; hence the squid. 
1 believe these shad could he caught with 
a tiy, but have none at present except somo 
smull trout flies, and they soon make mince 
meat of them. I use a good-sized Kirby 
hook, and generally hook them firmly in 
the lower jaw; and they make splendid 
play. P. A. M. Van Wyke. 
New Hamburg, N. Y., Oet. 18. 
