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frarg of a pluralist. 
DAILY RURAL LIFE. 
From the Diary of a Centleman near New 
York City. 
THE FIRST BUFFALO. 
July 28. — This morning we are nearing 
Denver, and the Rocky Mountains in sight. 
Pike’s Peak on the left, and probably 75 
miles away, shows its snow-capped summit. 
A large herd of buffalos were passed a few 
moments since, the first we have seen. They 
bounded away, and gave us the “ good-by ” 
without delay. Antelope appear on all sidos, 
frequently turning about to look at the train. 
We are constantly in sight of buffalo carcasses , 
in all stages of decay; hundreds cab be count¬ 
ed from the car windows, showing what a 
fearful slaughter has been going on here for 
several years past. It is really too bad to 
kill this noble animal merely for its hide, 
which is only worth about 85. At some of 
the stations there are cords Of buffalo hides 
piled up, awaiting shipment east. Everyone 
except, the hunters regret this perpetual 
slaughter ; but there appears to be no power 
or authority t.o check it short of extermina¬ 
tion. 
GARDENS ON THE PLAINS. 
Gardens and gardening are not at home on 
the plains, although attempts are seen on 
every side to grow some of the common veg¬ 
etables and a few fruits. Whore there are 
facilities Cor irrigation, the growth of plants 
of all kinds Is healthy and luxuriant. Cattle 
do well, for the small nutritious grasses are 
abundant, and the water in the streams is 
sufficient to supply animals with nil they re¬ 
quire. Meat and hides must continue to be 
the chief products of this region for many 
years to come, and I have no doubt that, 
large profits are realized by those who own 
the great herds seen in every direction. 
AT DENVER. 
As we arrive in sight of Denver the city 
appears to be right among the foot, hills of 
the mountains ; but when we reached the 
hotel the hills were still fourteen miles away. 
This new city has disappointed me, inasmuch 
as it is larger and more substantially built, 
than l expected to find. There are scores of 
large brick blocks that would not be out of 
place or disgrace Broadway. Everybody 
seems to be in a hurry to get rich, still there 
are no signs of shoddy ; everything shows a 
substantial wealth and a permanence ft r be¬ 
yond many of what were called Western 
cities twenty years ago. I expected to see 
cheap structures made for the occasion, and 
such as a man would not regret to leave in 
case the tide of speculation took another 
course; but there is nothing of the kind, and 
Denver is not only now a great and beautiful 
city, but its future is certain to be a glorious 
one. 
The American House, at which our party 
stopped, is a large and handsome structure, 
which might shame many an Eastern city a 
hundred years old. It is furnished with nil 
the modern improvements, and in setting 
down at the table one might well imagine he 
was dining at the Fifth Avenue or Delrnoni- 
co’s. The tables are supplied with all the 
luxuries of the season, which come mainly 
from California, although splendid vegetables 
are grown here in abundance. 
Having arrived too late to get the morning 
train to Golden City, where Mrs. “ Ruralist” 
wished to go to see an old uncle, aunt, and 
cousin, I went t.o a livery stable for a horse 
and carriage, and found a large, substantial¬ 
ly-built brick structure filled with as elegant 
turnouts as are seen in any of our older cities. 
The chorges for livery are really no higher 
than at the East, for I only paid ?8 for a span 
of horses and carriage for the. day. 
A DRIVE TO GOLDEN CITY. 
A qjde over the road from Denver to Gold¬ 
en City, a distance of 14 miles, gave me a 
good opportunity of seeing splendid fields of 
oats, wheat and other grain grown under the 
irrigating system, which is the only safe one 
for this region. The wheat was very short, 
the straw seldom more than two feet high, 
but the heads were plump and large. The 
yield of grain will average more than in the 
Eastern States, and the quality unsurpassed. 
Ever since we have been west of Kansas 
City, the bread upon every table has been 
excellent, and far better t an I ever saw at 
any eating house in the Eastern States, and 
its superiority is owing entirely to the wheat 
from which the flour is made. Good bread 
is the rule and poor bread the exception. 
Mrs. “Ruralist” is quite in love with the 
country, and I think the excellent flour is the 
cause. About one-half the land between 
Denver and Golden City is under cultivation, 
and more ditches being dug to irrigate the 
remaining portion. About noon wo reached 
Golden City, and soon after sat down to din¬ 
ner with our old friends, five in all, just as 
we had many times 21 years ago. Twenty 
years had made very little change in any of 
us—a veiy few more white hairs, otherwise 
very much the same. This new city, right 
among the toot, hills of the Rocky Mountains, 
has a great future before it; rich coal mines, 
in addition to gold, copper, silver and other 
precious metals, abound in the vicinity, and 
are now being brought here for smelting. 
Substantial brick and stone buildings are 
being constructed on all the principal streets 
as well as in the suburbs. 
The school houses show that the people are 
not neglecting the education of their chil¬ 
dren even among the rash attendant upon 
mile or more of this exceedingly greasy road. 
Late in the evening we reached our hotel, 
satisfied that thunder storms In the Rocky 
Mountains are about as good things of their 
kind as found elsewhere, and must be expe¬ 
rienced to be appreciated. 
^krtcultitral 
Fig. 1.—Visiting Card Stand.—P age 137. 
the settling and money-making of anew min¬ 
ing region of country. Prof. Randall’s 
Divinity Schools are located here, also the 
School of Mines. The buildings of those two 
institutions cost 8125,000. 
A MOUNTAIN THUNDER STORM. 
This is often referred to as an almost rain¬ 
less region; but. we have scarcely been out 
of sight of a shower in the past two or three 
days ; and tills evening, while driving back 
to Denver, Mrs. R. and myself had a little 
practical experience in the way of a Rocky 
Mountain thunderstorm. When about four 
miles from Golden City, the heavens sudden¬ 
ly darkened, and the rushing wind, the con¬ 
stant peals of thunder and flash of nature’s 
fireworks forhoded anything hut a pleasant, 
ten miles’ ride to Denver, especially as it was 
getting late in the evening. We stopped at 
the first cabin on the rood, which proved to 
be that of Steve Eldred, one of the old 
pioneers of this region. Steve very kindly 
loaned us a ponMio, to cover our carriage in 
front; and after making everything as secure 
as possible, we again started. Very little rain 
had as yet fallen ; but it soon came down in 
torrents, and the pyrotechnic display which 
accompanied this mountain storm beat any¬ 
thing I ever saw at home. There is no dis¬ 
count on the thunder showers of this region, 
and the scores of shivered telegraph poles 
show that the electric fluid as well as the one 
known as water, is no stranger here. 
A BARRIER TO PROGRESS. 
In such a storm as we were passing through, 
I did not feel inclined to drivo very slow, al- 
THE TREATMENT 
YOUNG HEDGES. 
TnoMAS Meehan, in the Weekly Press, 
says Of late years a discovery has been 
made in the treatment of hedges, of supreme 
importance. It was the universal advice, 
and the general practice, to cut the plants to 
the ground at planting, and this part is st ili 
right. But the practice* went further. The 
following svunmar the growth was out back 
to make the shoots sprout, and perhaps the 
succeeding winter they were cut again, and 
the next summer and winter, and so on ; but 
this we now know is ail wrong. Not only is 
it wrong so far as the making of a good, stout 
hedge is concerned, but it takes a good deal 
of money and labor to attend to It.; audit 
was very natural for the farmer to say that 
labor was his great bugaboo, and if he was 
to be continually bothered in this way ho 
would rather pay double or treble for a lum¬ 
ber fence and be done with it. 
Many who kept to the faith in constant 
trimming in the hedge’s youthful period, 
found to their sorrow that with all their 
labor there would be holes which would 
admit dogs, and in time larger animals ; and 
only those who had knowledge, and skill 
enough to hoot, to look well after their 
hedges, kept on with this way of making 
them. 
The plashing system followed this. In this 
way the plants were allowed to grow 
straight up for three or four years after 
planting, and then each one cut half through 
near the ground and bent. over. This pre¬ 
sented a series of horizontal stems along the 
hedge line, and made a successful barrier 
against, intruders. Only half cut, they live, 
although making of course a weakened 
growth ; and from below the cut, a lot, of 
sprouts come up, which help to thicken the 
whole mass. But although this way is much 
superior to the old-fashioned plan, in this, 
that it involves no labor for the first two or 
three years, the plashing itself is a laborious 
process, and, moreover, the result does not 
always prove a perfect hedge. 
The new plan was foreshadowed in a speech* 
by the agricultural editor of the Press at 
Harrisburg some six years ago, and of which 
an abstract is given in the Pennsylvania 
Fruit Growers’ Society's report,. It. was 
there shown that the old idea that pruning 
strengthened a tree was wrong. The branch¬ 
es seem to grow more vigorous after a prun¬ 
ing, It is true, but a few years of this treat¬ 
ment show the true state of affairs. A dozen 
willows left to grow unpruned will make 
trmiks of enormous size, mul probably last 
fifty years ; while the same willows annually 
cut down for basket-making purposes, die 
out iu twenty-five, and hardly ever make a 
trunk more than a foot or so in diameter. 
Knowing, then, how pruning weakens, we 
apply the knowledge to hedge culture. We 
want to weaken it after it has been made 
into a perfect hedge, but not before. For a 
few years we desire to give it, all the vigor 
possible. This is obtained by letting it 
entirely alone. Tn this way the roots become 
Fig. 2.—Be ad-Work for Card Stand. 
though the road was not very distinct, there 
being no fences to guide us across the prai¬ 
ries ; but all at once my horses came near 
falling, and I discovered that we had struck 
a clay soil which, when the surface became 
wet, was like grease ; and it was as much as 
our horses could do to keep their feet without 
trying to move faster than a walk. This, of 
course, was an unlooked for barrier to our 
progress, and we had to patiently wait until 
our team, could wriggle their way across a 
Fig. 3.—Bead Work for Card Stand. 
very strong after a growth of four or five 
years. Then in the winter, or in the spring 
before the leaves have pushed, we saw or 
chop it off close to the ground. The result 
is a mass of strong, vigorous growth which 
surprises every one. It can lie mowed into 
shape with a scythe the next summer, and a 
perfect hedge is made at small cost. 
-- 
How ARE THE Trees Doing that you 
planted last spring ? Let us here about them. 
ARBORICULTURAL NOTES. 
Osage Orange Hedges. —A. Yanoy, Mount 
Pleasant, Iowa, says, in Prairie Farmer :—I 
would gtat i there are plenty of Osage hedges 
in Southeastern Iowa over twenty years old, 
and as yet they show no signs of decay. Tt, 
is true, however, that the Osage needs a well 
drained soil, and will not, stand any great 
amount of tramping. Hence it is not very 
well suited for a barnyard fence, or where 
cattle congregate in large herds and tramp 
the ground very hard. I have had some 
killed in this way. But for ordinary pur¬ 
poses as a field fence it is too late in the day 
for any reasonable man to claim the Osage 
is a failure. 
Transplanting Tamaracks, —A. A. Me., is 
informed that the best time to transplant the 
American Larch or Tamarack is in early 
spring, when other deciduous trees should be 
transplanted. 
florntrlirpcal. 
A SEEDLING RASPBERRY. 
W. 8. Carpenter writes to our associate, 
Andrew 8. Fui,i,er, who is absent in Colora¬ 
do, under date of July 29, as follows:—“You 
will find iu this box a seedling rtvspberry of 
mine. It is the second season of fruiting. I 
have but ono stool of it and a few scattering 
suckers of last year’s growth. It is a very 
strong grower. The ennoa are at least, eight, 
feet high aud quite hardy, as it was fully ex¬ 
posed last winter ; and it was alive to the tip 
this spring. It, appears to be very product¬ 
ive, and the frail, very large. We have been 
picking from this stool nearly three weeks, 
and it will last a week or two more, from 
present appearances. Wa have had a fearful 
drouth, which has caused the fruit to be 
much f mailer than last season. This seed¬ 
ling has not been watered or treated differ 
ent from my othor berries, and alongside I 
have the Herstine, which is not more than 
half the size of this seedling ; and the Hers¬ 
tine and Clark are nearly done fruiting. 1 
sent a specimen to our mutual friend, On as. 
Downing, about two weeks ago. Do you 
think it worth taking care of ? Is there any 
merit, from what you ean discover, over 
other new varieties ? If I should be satisfied 
there is I should take good care of it. We 
have a good crop of apples and pears this 
season. We were favored wi ,, : show¬ 
er on the 97th, Otherwise but little ruin I . 
fallen since the middle of May.” 
If our associate, Mr. Fuller, had been 
here, he could have judged little of the fruit, 
for there was not an unmashed berry on the 
branch sent. The flavor of the raspberry 
juice received is not equal to other red rasp¬ 
berries we have— the Clarke, for instance. 
Beyond that we can say nothing, for the 
fruit was not in condition to judge of. The 
foliage seems healthful. 
gflrsemnn. 
HOW THEY CATCH MUSTANGS. 
The editor of the Pleasanton Stock Journal 
gives the modus openmdi of capturing wild 
horses in Texas, which will no doubt prove 
instinctive to many. It will be perceived 
that all the popular notions in which the 
lasso and fleet-footed charger play an import¬ 
ant part, have little foundation in reality. 
As soon as a herd of horses is discovered, 
the party of hunters divide, one portion 
striking camp while the other sets off in 
pumiit of the herd. The frightened animals 
go bounding across the prairie through the 
prickly pear and dense cbapparrel, leaving a 
trail which the hunters steadily pursue at a n 
easy gait until they come in sight of the herd 
which scampers off as before. Thcso tactics 
are kept up by pursuers and pursued for 
days, the mustangs returning to their first, 
starting point—which they are sure to do— 
when the camping party takes the place of 
th.e tired pursuers, and thus follow the herd, 
until the poor, wearied, and half starved 
creatures, with swollen and bloodshot c*-es, 
give up the struggle and submit to bo driven 
anywhere. The object of the hunters has 
been merely to keep close enough to the mus¬ 
tangs to prevent them from grazing. Starv¬ 
ation soon brings them to terms, and the 
prairie monarch, with drooping crest and 
deject look, leaves his native wilds henceforth 
to become the slave of man. This is what 
hunters call “walking mustangs down.” 
