JUNE § 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT.' 
oar farmers seem to be testing the question 
pretty thoroughly. So far w« have seen but one 
beetle this year and that we found on a aide- 
walk In the city of Rochester, where he could 
not do any mischief; but, poor fellow, he died 
very suddenly after we discovered him. It may 
be rather too early to look for the beetle, but 
some early-planted potatoes are already up In 
gardens and no beetles have yet been seen. 
There Is a theory prevalent, for which the 
writer of this Is partly responsible, that the 
potato beetle will be less destructive in West¬ 
ern New York than In the West. We are not 
subject to the long-continued drouths which 
prevail In the West, and besides this the lusect 
enemies of the potato beetle are here very nu¬ 
merous. Some of our farmers propose hand¬ 
picking the beetle rather than using Parisgreen, 
In order to avoid destroying their Insect friends. 
If anything Is to bo applied to the vine to kill 
the Dorypbeu,they will use a decoction of man¬ 
drake root, as recommended by “Dally Rural 
Life" In the RURAL last summer. 
Experiments with 8mall Weeds. 
It Is a great mercy which farmers navehardly 
yet learned to appreciate, that almost all the 
annual weeds have the smallest kind of seeds. 
The result is that the bold of young weeds in 
tbesoll Is of the very slightest character. The 
least brush with a hoe or cultivator uproots 
aud destroys weeds which, when grown, a 
strongman can hardly pull from the ground. 
Gardeners take advantage of this in weeding 
their grounds, aud farmers do in cultivating 
tbeir corn, potato and onion crops. Hut me 
fact Is capable of wider application. A grain 
of wheat, of oats or of barley. Is much larger 
than any ordinary weed seed. It sends up a 
stronger and more robust stem, and sends down 
a deeper aud stllTer root. This Is a providen¬ 
tial arrangement not hard to understand. A 
scratching or scarify.ng of the surface which 
would entirely destroy the weed* would leave 
the grain uninjured. Spring harrowing of wheat 
would be even better to destroy young red root 
plants, which only start In the fall. Some 
farmers are trying an experiment In harrowing 
oats and barley about two wocks after drilling 
the grain In. This breaks the crust which forms 
on heavy soils after rains, and kills millions of 
infant weeds just heglnnlngto grow. The har¬ 
rowing is donewith a TnoMAS Smoothing har¬ 
row and does not appear to Injure Hie grain- 
makes It rather grow hotter than before. 
Mass., Is President, is organized for issuing a 
herd book, that shall be accepted as final 
authority in all questions of pedigree for the 
Ayrshire stock of this country and the Canadas. 
Broeders of Ayrshlres may be admitted by vote 
at any regular meeting arid payment made. 
The fees will constitute a fund for defraying 
the expenses of publishing the herd book. The 
charge for entering the animals in the herd 
book is only $1 for members of the Association. 
ence as farmers. The President of the Society 
la Hon. A. H. Colquitt, Atlanta, and the Sec¬ 
retary, Malcom Johnston. Macon, Ga. e. 
RURAL NOTES AND QUERIES 
A NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED 
Plonsnnt ami Healthy Country llomex.—The 
article on “Health and Farming," In a late 
Rural, has called out a rejolneer which wo 
were glad to receive and take pleasure In pub¬ 
lishing. Our fair correspondent (she must be 
both fair and clever, being an editor's daughter 
and having the good sense to marry a farmer 
and render bis home a paradise) Is assured that 
the writer of the article alluded to has been 
“among farmers for the last six or eight years" 
considerably, and therefore ought to be well 
advised. Indeed ho is now in the country, and 
may possibly tell where the unhealthy houses 
are located. Meantime we are rejotced to 
learn that there is one neighborhood (and we 
presume there are many, we hope myriads, In 
our parish) where both farms and homes are 
notably clean, fresh and sweet. But hear our 
correspondent, who dates at “Piueland, May 
22,” and writes In this style: 
“The issue of your ever welcome paper for 
May 22 came this afternoon: so, laying aside 
all work, I sought the coolest scat In oui pleas¬ 
ant sitting-room, and then found the Editorial 
columns firth as usual. Jt. just spoiled all my 
anticipated happiness 1 Where are the farm 
houses you wrote of ? I was born and raised in 
the city. You can imagine what my surround¬ 
ings were, when 1 tell you that my father was 
an Editor. The best books and papers, and 
many of the most intelligent men and women 
of our country, were at our pleasant home. 
Fifteen years ago I mairled a farmer. My 
city home wax attractive and pleasant ; but 
the home and farm of my husband is so deau, 
fresh and sweet.; and not only our own home, 
but so are those of our neighbors. There Is not 
such a cellar or pantry as you described In our 
neighborhood. Have you been among farmers 
for tbo last six or eight years? If not, I think 
you will find them greatly improved. There! 
—■perhaps I can take up the dear Old Rural 
again when John and the boys come In from 
work and school. 
Fanny Fern onco wrotetbftt‘Country women 
did not know how to wash decently, or to 
bake good bread.' I wonder If she believed It." 
A Ornssliopper Conundrum.—Why Is it that 
several of the leading daily papers of New York 
City have changed tbclr base on the grasshop¬ 
per question,especially as affecting the lines of 
the Union and Kansas Pacific Railroads? A 
friend at our elbow thinks It very strange that 
journals which were so sympathetic and phi¬ 
lanthropic only a few months ago, should now- 
bo so reticent in regard to announcing the re¬ 
appearance of the destroying grasshoppers in 
Kansas, Nebraska, &c. And our friend sugges¬ 
tively Inquires, “Can It be that Wall Street has 
a hand in the matter?" Which conundrum it 
Is possible that Jay Gould can solve,—but as 
for us w-e give it up, reluctantly. 
CHA8. D. BRAGDON, ANDREW 8. FULLER 
A-aHOoiate Kditorv. 
HENRY S. RANDALL LL, D., Cortland Village, N. Y. 
Editor or the Department or Shesi- Hvbbamdby. 
X. A. WILLARD, A. M., Little Falls, N. Y., 
Editok or »■ Dirimin or Dial Hdumhi. 
«. A. C. BARNETT. Publisher 
TERMS FOR 1870, IN ADVANCE, 
INCLUDING POSTAGE, WHICH PUBLISHERS PREPAY. 
Single Copy, $2.65 per Year. To ClubsFive Cop¬ 
ies. and one copy free to Agent or getter np of Club, 
for $13.40; Raven Copies, and one free, for 817.20; Ten 
Copies,and one free, |21.50—only $2.15 per copy. The 
above rates include po* tage (which we shall be obliged 
to prepay after Jan. 1, 18Tb, under the new law.) to 
any part of Ihe United btat.es. and the American 
postage on all copies mailed to Canada. On papers 
mailed to Europe, by steamor, the postage will be 96 
cents extra —or >2.50 in all. Drafts, Post-Office Money 
Orders and Kuiristeiwd Letters may be mailed at our 
risk. |jr Liberal Premiums to all Club Agents who 
do nut take free copies. Specimen Numbers Sbow- 
HiJIs. Ac., sent free. 
Speaking of Mowers and Reapers—A very 
seasonable subject, now that Summer has 
really come—that picture of the Buckeye, with 
Miller's Improved Table’Rake, as made by 
Aultman, Miller & Co. of Akron, Ohio, on 
page 374 of this paper. Is rather stunning. So 
at least thinks the man who edlta the adver¬ 
tisements,—but he fears our readers will not 
see the engraving and accompanying card un¬ 
less special attention is thereto directed. But 
be is mistaken, of course, and we omit special 
reference to a matter so conspicuous as to be 
seen and read by all Interested. 
protect the n uds! 
Protect the birds, protect the birds. 
Ye every son and daughter! 
They arc, you know, tne locust’s foe,— 
So give them food and quarter I 
Pout u. Dacca 
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|W~ No advertisement Inserted for less than *3. 
RURAL BREVITIES, 
The farmem of Maine predict a large hay 
crop throughout the State. 
Thousands nro forsaking the man - mado 
town lor the God- made country and Its de¬ 
lights. 
“Suburban Subshiber” will find the adver¬ 
tisement of,a good lawn mower in this or a late 
Rural. 
The Wood Mower and Reaper Co. of Hooslck 
Falls. N. Y„ turned out 033 machines week be¬ 
fore lust. 
Reader, keep a record of your experiments 
w it h new things and give the results at the close 
of the season for publication. 
Advices from various points In Nebraska 
represent the wheat, oats and fruit prospects 
as the finest ever known in the State. 
B. G.—We do not think you can obtain Dr. 
Fitch's Entomological Reports, though It is 
possible. They are out of [.riot, wo believe. 
Central Park, the great breathing-place for 
New-Yorkers, Is green, verdant and blooming 
at last. An oasis In the Desert Of Manhattan. 
Tnh production of poultry in the United 
ScateB is not less Mian 2o0,000.000 pounds annual¬ 
ly, worth $50,000,000, aud eggs worth as much 
more. 
The Kansas State Board of Agriculture pub¬ 
lishes a Monthly Report, showing the Condition 
of the Crops, Stock. Fruit Prospects, Grasshop¬ 
pers, etc. 
The average price of corn in Iowa i-s 43c.; in 
Illinois, 5tlc.; In Kansas, 91c.; In Missouri, 74c. 
It Is lowest in Iowa and highest In England, 
where it Is $1,18. 
X. A. Willard, E<q. of the Rural New- 
Yorker Is announced to dellvor the annual 
address at the Fair of the Cnautuugua Co. An. 
Society, which is to be held at Jamestown, 
Sept. 28. 
The Connecticut State Flab Commissioners 
report that 1,359,000 young salmon have been 
Introduced into the Connecticut River during 
the past year, and state that a like number will 
be put in this year. 
Mr. A. J. Alexander of Ky., has Bold two of 
his valuable Short-Horn cattle to Mr, Fox of 
England, viz., the twenty-fourth Duke of Ati- 
drleand the twentieth Duchess of Audrie, at 
$30,000 for the pair. 
MU. R. C. Hatton of Suffolk, Va„ has been 
appointed by the Virginia State Grange the 
Selling aud Purchasing Agent for the Patrons 
of that State—to be located In New York City, 
where he has arrived and will soon open an 
office. 
The Queens Co. Ag. Society Is to hold a 
Grand Spring Exhibition of Veget ables, Straw¬ 
berries, Hot-House Grapes and Flowers, on Its 
grounds at Mineola, June 23—4; and also a 
Market Sales Fair, comprising sales of stook of 
all descriptions. 
The “ Transactions of the Mass. Horticultural 
Society for 1875, Part 1,” just received from 
Mr. Secretary Buswell, Is a work of 127 octavo 
pages, cc -iprising the proceedings, discussions, 
etc., at the weekly meetings for tne first quarter 
of the year. A valuable record. 
PUBLICATION OFFICESi 
No, 78 Duane Street, New York City, and No. 67 
East Main St., (Darrow's Bookstore, Osburn 
House Block,) Rochester, N. Y. 
AGAINST HORSE-RACING FAIRS 
Is it the Flour or Flower City I—Forty years 
ago Rochester became celebrated for the pro¬ 
duction of choice flour, and hence was called 
the “ Flour City.’’ Liter It became the most 
noted place In the Union for Its extensive nur¬ 
series, greenhouses, and other floral establish¬ 
ments, so that very many citizens very properly 
changed the cognomen to " Flower City.’’ And 
yet the first named 6ynonyrn would seem to 
hold good, for It Is printed that “Rochester has 
sixteen flouring mills, which last year manu¬ 
factured 518,000 barrels of flour; bushels of 
wheat consumed, 2,331,000; men employed, 171; 
runs of stone, eighty-one. In addition to this 
COO coopers find employment In making barrels 
for these mills. Rochester claims to produce 
more flour to-day than she ever did before, and 
more of the higher grades than any other city 
in the United States." 
By which name, when both are good and ap¬ 
propriate, shall the beautiful Metropolis of the 
Eden of America be designated ? 
Another State Agricultural Sciety Is added 
to the noble list of those who are determined 
that an Agricultural Fair shall be agricultural 
and not “annual races,” a miniature Derby; 
shall be a congregation of respectable farmers, 
a piaoe for the interchange of opinions, the re¬ 
lation of experiences, the show of results, In¬ 
stead of the resort of horse-jockeys, pick¬ 
pockets and gamblers. The object of a State 
Agricultural Society Is the diffusion of intelli¬ 
gent information among the farmers of a State. 
The object of Its meetings and its Fairs to 
bring together farmers far distant from each 
other, having different soils and different cli¬ 
mates and seasons, that one may learn from 
the other, and each at least gain knowledge of 
the varied agriculture of his State, and mayhap 
some Ideas that be may turn to good account. 
Such Fairs may not he pecuniarily successful, 
but they will more than pay in the general 
aggregate of knowledge distributed and the 
increase of crops eventually their result.. 
In the city of Macon, Ga., was held perhaps 
the greatest Fair of the Georgia State Agricul¬ 
tural Society, but its glory wa3 blighted by the 
catcb-peuny races, in which jockeying was the 
rule aud the sight everyw here on the ground 
of the gambling wheels aud the like, main¬ 
tained from arrest by city and State law by the 
apparent protection of the Society, Atlanta 
last year, with the largest attendance ever at 
any Georgia Fair, was no better. The rea¬ 
son of this was that while the Fairs were 
apparently under the control of the 8ocIety 
they were really held by the cities, under con¬ 
tract, and their object the making of money. 
Some among the members of the State Agri¬ 
cultural Society fretted under beiug thus made 
a vehicle for the dissemination of sin Instead 
of morality, became restless that the annual 
shows of their great State, instead of bringing 
money and immigrant* Into Georgia, should be 
the means of carrying from It, In the pockets of 
hundreds of the vilest of blacklegs, the hard- 
earned money of their people deceived by show 
and lured by the hope, innate in all, wherever 
born, of sudden riches. Hence at the late 
Tbomasvllle meeting of the Society the execu¬ 
tive committee made a bold 6tep in propress by 
declaring that their next Annual Fair 6ball be 
held in the City of Macon, on the 18th of Octo¬ 
ber, under the exclusive control of the Society, 
and that it shall not be a nest for gamblers nor 
a school for horse-racing. They ask “the 
hearty co-operation of the people of Georgia to 
Insure Its success," and we earnestly ask for 
them the assistance of every man, farmer or 
manufacturer, In the United States w r ho be¬ 
lieves in genuine sgrlculture. They deserve It. 
for such a move requires nerve, as if in any 
part of our land horse-raciag has been deemed 
essential to thegatherlngof a crowd, one might 
have said it w’as in the South. With this step 
well might Georgia claim to be the Empire 
State of the South, and all honor to the execu- Ayrshire Herd Book.—The Boston Cultivator 
ttve committee who dared take suoh a move on states that the “Association of Ayrshire 
the road to greatness as a State and lndepend- Breeders,” of which Wo. Birnie, Springfield, 
friUORg’S 
SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1875. 
WESTERN N. Y. EDITORIAL NOTES, 
The Wheat Crop- 
Wheat is almost a failure through the best 
wheat growing section of the State. A few 
pieces on the easterly side of hills will give half 
to two-thirds a crop, but generally the plant Is 
either dead or dying. Probably the severe cold 
of winter killed many pieces; but.others, which 
looked well in the Spring, are now’ os dead as 
any. The Farmers’ Club In April adjudged 
wheat In Monroe and Wayne Count ies as good 
as usual, If not better; but the plant has stead¬ 
ily “gone back" every day. This Is due, In 
large measure, to poverty of the soil. Where 
manure was used last fall as lop-dressing, or 
superphosphate was applied with the drill, the 
wheat, is bright, aud growing rapidly. We have 
had numerous showers, favorable alike to wheat 
and the still more Important clover seeding. In 
fact, rains have come just right this spring- 
enough for crops and not enough to hinder 
farm work. 
Fruit. 
The Fruit prospeot Is good. Apples, pears, 
cherries and even peaches have bloomed abun¬ 
dantly, and only the more tender varieties of 
grape have been injured. In passing through 
the rows of grape vines the other day we fouod 
Salem, Groveling, Concord, Diana, Delaware and 
Hartford Prolific green even to the Ups of the 
branches. One alone was partly killed and an¬ 
other close by was not.; the latter being on 
dryer ground ripened its wood better. In tbe 
general scarcity of fruit which Is probable for 
this year, Western New York orohardista have 
additional encouragement to give extra care to 
tbeir trees and vines. 
Potatoes. 
It would astonish Western readers of the Ru¬ 
ral New-Yorker who have fought the potato 
beetle unavalllngly for years, to see how many 
potatoes are planted in this vicinity this Spring. 
Many farmers owning one hundred to one hun¬ 
dred and fifty acres of land plant twenty to 
thirty of It in potatoes. This Involves certainly 
a great deal of work and possibly a good deal 
of risk. The potato beetle haa been in Western 
New York two years, and last season not much 
more numerous than In 1873—neither year doing 
any Berious damage. Is Western New York to 
escape this scotu^ t Time alone can tell, and 
A Large Shipment of Ag’l Implements—la 
recorded by the Utica Herald of the20tl> ult., 
which tells of tbe arrival there of three hun¬ 
dred and seventy-seven Buckeye Mowers and 
Reapers from 1‘latt, Abidance & Co. of 
Po'keepsie, for .T. M. Childs & Co. of Utica,— 
and also that tbe latter firm received, the same 
day, seven car loads of Wlsner Wheel Rakes. 
The Herald says these are the largest consign¬ 
ments of agricultural Implements ever received 
by one firm in that city, and justly adds that It 
demonstrates the fact that Utica Is the center 
of a rich agricultural community. We learu 
that, though Childs & Co. deal largely In the 
Wisuer Rake, nearly as many are handled by 
each of the following-named firms:— Thos. W. 
Jaycox, Po'keepsie; Grant & Watrous, El¬ 
mira; A. F. Brown, West Lebanon ; Hkebner 
& Sons, Lansilale, Pa., and H. P. Underhill, 
Baltimore, Md. All which speaks well for the 
value and popularity of the Wlsner. 
Value of Our Crops for 1874—The total 
value of all agricultural products in the United 
States for the year 1874 (says the N. E. Farmer) 
was $2,447,538,659. The proportion derived di¬ 
rectly and indirectly from the grass crop Is es¬ 
timated at $1,292,000,000, itemized as follows: 
Hay, 27,000,000 tons, at $30 per ton, $500,000,000; 
live stock, $1,525,000,000; animals slaughtered 
for food, $300,000,000: butter, $514,000,000; milk, 
$25,000,000; wool, $25,000,000; cheese, $5,000,000. 
The estimated total derived from grass Is prob¬ 
ably too large, fur the reason that tbo hay crop, 
the value of which is given as one of the Items, 
must have been used to some extent In swell¬ 
ing the other values. Still it is doubtless safe 
to say, allowing more than half the value of 
the hay to go to this account, that In round 
numbers tbe value of the products depending 
upon the grass yeld for 1874 was $1,000,000,000. 
Consumers, when purchasing White Lead, should 
bear In mind that much of it sold as pure Is adul¬ 
terated. Every package of Eckstein, Hills & Co.’s 
“Phoenix” brand Pure White Leud Is war¬ 
ranted free from adulteration. 
We cheerfully call the attention of our readers to 
the merits of Dobbins’ Electric Soap, (made by Cra- 
gln & Co.. Philadelphia.) who confidently ask a trial. 
The soap will tell Its own story. We advise you to 
try It. 
