□ 
BE©. 12 POORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
ofaijm (Bjoitomw. 
REMUNERATING FARMING. 
When farming fails to bo profitable, some¬ 
body has been, or is, in fault. The flock 
master, the owner of herds, the graziers and 
the duirymen always did well in days of 
yore ; and at the present day, in Europe, we 
hear of no complaining beyond the common 
murmuring of those who are always grum¬ 
bling ; consequently, wherever the farmers 
are losing their time in unprofitable cultiva¬ 
tion and cannot make their live stock pay 
for the food they consume, depend upon it 
there is, or has been, gross mismanagement. 
The most miserable poverty of soil exists 
in the oldest States, and, strange to say, 
those parts near to good markets are the 
least remunerative, which cannot but show 
clearly to every unprejudiced mind how ig¬ 
norant of the art of successful husbandry 
those must be who enjoy the advantage of 
protection from excessive freight, and, in 
fact, from expense of delivery of every kind ; 
for the Western farmers and all at a distance 
have so much to pay that really it appears 
incredible that those who are in the imme¬ 
diate vicinity of Buch comparatively good 
prices for their produce should not be 
ashamed to complain that farming is not 
remunerating. 
Again, read any of the agricultural or 
other papers, when mentioning aught rela¬ 
tive to farming, and note how every scrib¬ 
bler lays stress on economy, on bodily labor 
on the part of the proprietor himself, with¬ 
out which it is Impossible to succeed, cutting 
chaff, steaming food, and, above all, the 
early rising and labor, making longer days 
in the summer than are made at any other 
employment whatever, which, all combined, 
seems to imply that farming is the hardest 
occupation any man can enter on ; that un¬ 
less a man works everyone in his employ¬ 
ment longer each day and works himself 
with his men, saying, u Come along, boys,” 
and so forth, he cannot get along. Now, we 
all see that in other business there is not this 
necessity for the principal to moil and toil, 
nor any occasion for working the employes 
so many hours, and though what is done is 
so much lighter, yet there is neither coaxing 
nor driving, as is the case on the farm. Yet, 
with all this exertion of muscle and the 
wakefulness at break of day, hurrying the 
laborers out before the townspeople are out 
of their beds, and with the farmers’ untiring 
labor in leading the men along, “farming 
don’t pay.” How, then, is “remunerating 
farming” to be attained ( 
A first-class store has generally a fine stock 
of first-class goods, and they meet with a 
ready sale at a good profit, thus enabling the 
principal to keep up a gentlemanly standing 
in the community; and In such stores the 
employes are superior men uud receive good 
pay, and there is never any curly or late at- 
^ndance, for the principal is above resorting 
to the meanness of keeping business about 
for the sake of the profit gained at the ex¬ 
pense of his clerks, &e., thus preventing them 
from having any evening for recreation. 
Now, why can’t a first-class farm have a fine 
Stock of first-class animals, so that they may 
meet with a ready sale, at a good profit, thus 
enabling the proprietor to keep up a gentle¬ 
manly standing i And why cannot his em¬ 
ployes be superior men and receive good 
pay i and why cannot he allow them to leave 
work, so as to have a comfortable evening 
for recreation, the same as other workmen 
have { 
Because his stock is not of the right kind, 
because he does not understand the necessity 
of keeping a variety for the sake of each 
other (for a good and genuine farmer, who 
understands grazing, knows the folly of such 
advice as is often given by prominent men— 
prominent because they happen to possess 
wealth or standing, not on account of their 
reliable knowledge—to make a specialty of 
one kind of animals, as if farmers had not 
minds with any capacity to look after and 
study the welfare of horses, cows, sheep and 
swine !) 
Agriculture is really not understood in the 
United States, otherwise the soil would not 
be run down in the disgraceful manner it is, 
for even the [estates belonging to the gentle¬ 
men farmers in the very midst of those who 
claim superiority over others have not so 
much fertility in the soil, as exists on the 
tenant farms in England ; nor do these men, 
owning their farms and possessing independ¬ 
ent incomes, crop with a view to enrich the 
land and keep it up to the point of producing 
heavy yields, the same as tenant farmers in 
England do. Oops are not taken in rotation 
for the purpose of renovating every alternate 
year, as the four-course system does in En¬ 
gland. There the root crop eaten on the 
land returns more to the soil than the pre¬ 
ceding crop of wheat had taken out, and the 
clover benefits again after the. crop of barley 
or oats which came the year before that; 
while heavy wheat would be taken after 
oats and corn, oats and wheat follow sod, as 
if the chief object was r.o take all the fertility 
out of the land, and, in fact, that is the main 
point with many, and if they can devise any 
means of setting free any latent matter lying 
dormant, lime will be used, and then the cli¬ 
max of good farming will be attained, for 
there is uaught more left and the soil will be 
too poor to grow clover, and the owner, 
probably having read of the beautiful per¬ 
manent pastures and grass land generally 
in England, and despairing of ever making a 
crop again which will pay for the cultivation, 
magnanimously resolves to seed down with 
the good varieties of grass and become a 
grazier and hay farmer combined ; and be¬ 
cause the best grasses, for wan L of support, 
die away, and weeds and a wilderness as¬ 
pect appears, the disappointed owner de¬ 
clare* the climate of the United States is 
not suitable for perpetual grass land. 
Remunerating farming demands a soil 
teeming with plant food ; in short, it should 
be so that the only fear is the lodging of the 
crop from over luxuriousness, as thon the 
cultivation and current expenses are the 
same as on farms which grow only one-third, 
or perhaps only one fourth, of the quantity 
per acre. This is the art of farming remuncr- 
atingly, while, the smartest farmers, as they 
are called in the Stales, are those who cun 
continue cropping and contriving to grow 
corn and grain, years in succession, regard¬ 
less of the consequences to the richness or 
poverty of the land. 
Then with regard to live stock, the keep¬ 
ing of a few fancy cows does not constitute 
a stock raiser, excepting on the. limited scale 
on which he proceedst and, according to 
precedents, the accidents and bad breeding 
qualities incident to the close breeding and 
unnatural management, takes off all the gain 
from the high prices of a few particular ani¬ 
mals. A farmer who makes farming remu¬ 
nerating in the long run, and who keeps his 
farm, or farms, in as good heart as now vir¬ 
gin soil, is a real patriot—a blessing tu his 
country, and it will always be found he is a 
live and let live man—none of the pinching, 
driving kind, who are mere apologies for 
farmers. a. w. f. 
- 
SOILING STOCK. 
Eds. Rural New Yorker This matter 
of soiling stock deserves more attention than 
it has receiven at the hands of practical far¬ 
mers, especially of dairymen. My own ex¬ 
perience the past year as a butter maker has 
proved to me that it will be profitable for me, 
both as a dairyman and farmer, to go a point 
beyond that hitherto practiced in soiling. I 
have growu rye (winter) and sowed corn and 
fed it to my eows with profit—not only in 
the way of securing more uud better butter, 
but in the thrift of my eows uud the increase 
of my manure heap. But I have not soiled 
my stock exclusively. I arn satisfied that if 
L had done so, i would not only have in¬ 
creased my profits from my cows (taking 
into account the increased amount and ex¬ 
pense for labor) direct in the shape of butter, 
but 1 could have increased the number of 
cows kept on the same area and the px-oduct- 
ive power of my farm as regards field crops. 
I say I am satisfied of this. Perhaps I 
should modify the statement by saying that 
so far as my experience and observation go 
they tend to this conclusion. My practice 
and figures do not entirely assure me, and 
that 1 may not ret unwisely, l beg those of 
your readers who have had experience in 
soiliug stock, exclusively, to help mo with it 
—to overturn or confirm my own opinions. 
By the way, I have been told or have read 
somewhere (perhaps in the Rural Nkw- 
YorkbR) that some cheese manufacturers 
refuse to receive at their factories milk from 
cows fed with sowed coni—that they exact 
as a eondltiou of receiving It that no sowed 
corn shall be fed. Can any one tell me why ! 
To me this is a most extraordinary rule to 
adopt, and I should like to know the reason 
for it, if there is one. W. R. s. 
Chautauqua Co., N. Y. 
- ■*--+-*— -- 
The Real. Waste Among Well-to-do Farm¬ 
ers, the Boston Journal of Chemistry says 
“is in the throwing away of house slops, and 
in allowing the liquid excrement of animals 
to be lost. It. is better to advise farmers to 
save every drop of the liquids of the house 
and barn, than to urge them to pile up huge 
heaps of inert substances to be used as fer¬ 
tilizers. A heap of (try muck or peat, which 
in itself has no special value, may be used 
advantageously to absorb the valuable li¬ 
quids of the house and barn, and in this way 
a farmer may largely increase Ids mauurial 
resources without incurring great expense.” 
BREEDING EELS. 
We have a millpond and we would like to 
have eels in it. Our pond is about a mile 
long and t.ou feet deep. We would like to 
get a start of eels in it. Would you or some 
of your readers tell how to do it ? Would 
Seth Green furnish us the eels to do it I or 
would he tell us how eels breed and how they 
can be bred artificially ? If so, let us hear 
from him. 1 read in the Rural of July 18, 
page 48, an article entitled “Eels in Wiscon¬ 
sin waters.” JOBEPH Bobbins, Madison, Wis¬ 
consin, writes to the Western Farmer that 
he has made several efforts to introduce eels 
iuto the waters about that city, but luis been 
assured by Seth Green that owing to being 
so far removed from salt water, the eels 
would not prepagate there, and they would 
take out of their waters only the eels they 
put in them. 
Now, by this, Mr. Green must think the 
eel will only propagate in salt water, but 
that it not so. I have known small streams 
in Pennsylvania, hundreds of miles from salt 
water, that fell over high rocks over which 
no eel could get; but at the head of the 
stream there were eels, both old and young. 
There are some eels in some streams in Wis¬ 
consin and in this State—in Rock River, up 
north, and as far down as Sterling, Illinois ; 
there are eels m a stream about Freeport, in 
this State, that never smelt salt water. 
I notice, also, in Rural New-Yorker of 
May 16, an article by Prof. Ebkkiiahdt. lie 
says students of natural history, from Aris¬ 
totle even to the present time, have sought 
to discover, among other characteristics of 
the fish tribe, the manner of propagation of 
the eel without, however, being able to sub¬ 
stantiate their views by actual, indubitable 
facts. Nevertheless, it is surprising that 
he* etofore so little has been decided by actual 
experience relative to the mode or life of so 
common a fish as the eel. Neither the rela¬ 
tion ol' the female or male to the function of 
propagation has yet been possible, even to 
distinguish with certainty the male from the 
female. 
According to this, the oel is and has been 
a great question. I agree with Prof, Ebkr- 
harut that the eel is either male or female. 
1 think I know how they do breed. But to 
prove it, would be to breed them artificially, 
which 1 would attempt to do if there was a 
prize offered if one proved successful. But 
when the Professor speaks of the eel having 
young eels or eggs in it, he is mistaken ; for 
an eel never has eggs or young eels inside its 
body. 
In the Rural of June page 364, Spencer 
F. Bard gives us an article on the eel, but he 
don't agree with Prof. Eberhardt. He says, 
“ The eggs are probably fertilized within the 
body and laid in the sand or mud ol’ the sea 
coast.” Thus is wrong, as the eels never lay 
eggs. Now, if 8. F. Baird or Setii Green 
or any other naturalist or scientific society 
will offer a reward that will pay expenses, I 
would meet them somewhere or place where 
eels conld be got to try the experiment. 
Ml. Carroll, Ill. Benjamin Strickler. 
-■*-*-♦>- 
OYSTER CULTIVATION IN FRANCE. 
Prof. Lockwood, in Popular Science 
Monthly says Formerly France possessed 
a great abundance of native oysters. But 
this industry was without regulation, and 
the French natives, like our Northern natives, 
came near being exterminated. A few years 
ago Prof. Coste of the French Academy, 
called attention to the fact that the French 
oyster was becoming extinct. He took up 
the study of this mollusk in earnest, and 
learned many important facts concerning 
its nature. He even went to the Neapolitan 
oyster-park, and observed how the fishermen 
there saved the young ones. He then ap¬ 
pealed to the government, which put means 
in his way for experimenting, and, in a short 
time, he had a successful oyster-plantation 
under way. It is in France as elsewhere, 
“seeingis believing,” and “there is nothing 
that succeeds like success.” Under the wise 
direction of this learned naturalist the new 
industry, oyster-planting, became a furor in 
France. “In two years 1,200 capitalists, 
associated with a similar number of fisher¬ 
men, occupied a surface of 088 acres.” By 
which is meant the area of shore-line exposed 
at low tide. And what labor ! so thorough 
and scientific. The isle of Re, with its un¬ 
suitable, muddy shores, had ull that sea- 
bottom altered. In two years twelve miles 
of sea-coast thus changed was planted, with 
1,200 parks in operation, and thousands more 
projected. Now, oyster-culture is conducted 
in France on better principles than any where 
else. And all of this great additional wealth 
to the nation comes out of the applied 
science .of a man “ that studied shells and 
worms,” as is often said In derision. In 
France scrupulous provision is made for 
husbanding the fry. In America no effort 
is made in this direction, and the time is not 
far off when the nation will wake up to a 
serious calamity in this respect. 
--- 
TRANSPORTING TROUT! EGGS. 
Dr. W. A. Pratt, a fish culturist of Elgin, 
Ill., writes the Prairie Farmer as follows : 
As the season is fast approaching when per¬ 
sons are desirous of hatching their own trout 
from the egg, it is of special importance that 
all persons who are, to engage in trout cul¬ 
ture should know that the egg of this fish 
cannot be transported for some 40 days after 
they are taken and impregnated. To carry 
these eggs twenty miles twenty days after 
impregnation would result in a loss of at least 
ninety per cent.; but if they are allowed to 
remain for forty days after impregnation 
the eyes of the embryo trout can be readily 
seen through the shell, and the egg will 
stand a two weeks' journey with safety, 
provided they are properly boxed and 
packed. 
The reason for this statement is, that I am 
informed that a man in a neighboring State, 
who is engaged in fish culture, ha3 notified 
or informed one whom he has an order for 
trout from that he will ship them this week. 
The first indication we have of trout spawn¬ 
ing is the 1st of November, and no one can 
receive trout eggs tiiJ from the first to the 
middle [of December, that are in a suitable 
condition to be shipped. These eggs must be 
from the early spawning fish, as the trout 
spawn until into January. 
Let me offer a word of advice :—Do not 
seek to buy trout eggs where, you can buy 
cheapest, but buy where you have the most 
confidence in the man’s practical judgment 
uud knowledge of fish culture. A thousand 
trout eggs, properly impregnated and shipped 
at the right time, should, with any reason 
able amount of care, hatch and grow 900 fish, 
while if they are not properly Cared for one 
loses all his money and time and is one year 
behind in his fishery ; and the growth for 
one year is ten times the cost of all the eggs. 
FISH BREEDING IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS. 
The 8t. Louis Republican says :—A society 
was formed in Belleville, Ill., a short time 
ago, consisting of some of its most prominent 
citizens, for the purpose of propagating fish, 
such as speckled trout, black bass, salmon, 
etc., and [with this object in view a tract of 
land consisting of fifty acres, near Falling 
Springs, was purchased, on which are located 
two fine springs of pure fresh water. The 
society has already commenced excavating a 
large pond for bass and salmon, and is also 
erecting a house and is otherwise improving 
the grounds. The place chosen for the pur- 
purpose is a very beautiful one, and will, no 
doubt, in course of time, prove a favorite re¬ 
sort in the summer season, especially after 
the completion of the Carondelet wnd Belle¬ 
ville Railroad, which will run within one- 
quarter of a mile of the tract. The company 
is an incorporated one, with a cash capital 
of <6,000. The Board of Directors is com¬ 
posed of E. L. Thomas, Louis C. Starkel, 
Charles P. ICnispel, G. F. Hilgard and Casi- 
mer Andel, with Louia C. Starkel, President, 
Charles P. Knfepel Secretary, and Casimer 
Andel Treasurer. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Frogs In New Fork.— W© find the follow¬ 
ing paragraph in a Philadelphia paper :—“ It 
is asserted that five hundred pounds of frogs 
are consumed daily, in Now York. They 
are caught chiefly in Canada, and are sent 
here in salt sacks, laid flat on the floors of 
freight cars, and containing each about a 
hundred frogs. An average of five per cent, 
die in the train. Each female frog is said to 
spawn over a thousand at a time, but not 
more than fifty of that number live to attain 
fall growth. They are often eaten by their 
own Species, or by birds and snakes. They 
are usually taken" with the hook, but bite at 
it only when their heads are above water. 
A bait is often unnecessary. The frog catcher 
frequently brings his hook under the jaw of 
the frog "without creating alarm, and jerks 
its point Into the flesh. Jde is then easily 
lifted into the boat.” 
Chineese Fish-Hatching.—A curious mode 
of fish-hatching is said to be followed in 
China. Having collected the necessary spawn 
from the water’s edge, the fishermen place a 
certain quantity in an empty hen’s egg, 
which is sealed up with wax and put under 
the sitting hen. After some days they break 
the egg, and empty the fry into water well 
warmed by the sun, and there nurse them 
until they are sufficiently strong to be turned 
into a lake or river. 
