ro 
60 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JULY 24 
The consideration of “Geraniums gener¬ 
ally, ” which we promised in the introduction 
to these articles, will be published under 
special headings from time, to time. We 
have sought to induce our readers to begin a 
specific floriculture! pursuit aud have offered 
crossing Pelargoniums and raising seedlings 
as practicable alike to rich and poor and eap- 
ti vating to all. But it seems to us sometimes 
that it is of little consequence what branch 
of information we study so that we study it 
respect the existence of other living, creep¬ 
ing things, as we learn the essential parts 
they play in nature’s machinery. Thus we 
are constrained to think less of ourselves as 
we find t-hat we are but one of many remark¬ 
able existences. 
But to return and conclude our subject. 
We believe that if the path to Heaven were 
a material path, it would lead through for¬ 
ests of trees and shrubbery—through arbors 
and vistas and bowers and nooks of the col- 
wintering horses, $48 per head, is in New 
Jersey ; next in order stand Delaware, .$43, 
New York, $37, and Pennsylvania, $30. 
Delaware farmers, last year, received the 
highest average price for hay, $20 per ton, 
and those of New York the lowest, $13.10. 
New York received the maximum price of 
corn, 93 cents per bushel, and Delaware the 
minimum, 70 cents. The price of oats 
ranged from 53 cents in Delaware to 60 in 
New Jersey, Averages of Eastern States 
were as follows : Maine $37 ; New Hamp¬ 
shire $37 ; Vermont, $38; Massachussets, 
$45, Rhode Island, 43 ; and Connecticut, $45. 
West of the Mississippi the average cost of 
wintering ranges from $9 in Kansas, to $23 
in Minnesota. Iowa averaged $16 ; Missouri 
$13, and Nebraska $13. Farm prices of hay 
vary from $3.86 in Kansas, to $12.05 in 
Missouri. The cheaper hay of Kansas and 
Nebraska is mostly made from the wild 
grasses of the prairies. Corn ranges from 43 
cents per bushel in Iowa to 01 in Kansas, and 
oats 38 cents per bushel in Iowa to 53 cents 
in Kansas. 
SPECIALTIES IN FLORICULTURE-VII 
BY E, fi. CABMAN 
[Concluding Article.] 
Op the Pelargoniums called golden Selfs, 
we need say but little, and they are scarcely 
worthy of that. Their faded, sickly, 
yellowish - green or greenish - yellow, 
(whichever .is the sicklier color,) zone¬ 
less leaves, ephemeral trasses of loose, 
narrow-pctaled, butterfly-shaped flow¬ 
ers, condemn them as the least desira¬ 
ble of those Pelargoniums cultivated 
chiefly for their pretty foliage. Of 
many Self seedlings, we spared the life 
of but one on account of its unusually 
tough, thick leaf and liveliness of gold- , 
en hue. It is, however, the crossing of ( 
the Self with the Zonale that has pro- I 
duced the bold and rich Bronze that, as / - 
a bedding plant, stands perhaps in this / 
section unrivaled. ( "" 
While the golden Self has neither fo- / 
liage nor flower to commend it, the \ 
f Snnn 4 ti ft /"till IlnnnrfA n*«A Kirn 
CARE OF HORSES 
The London Horse Book saysAll horses 
must not be fed in the same proportion, 
without regard to their ages, their constitu¬ 
tion and their work ; because the impro¬ 
priety of such a practice is self-evident. Yet 
it is constantly done, and is the basis of dis¬ 
eases of ev*ry kind. 
Never use bad hay on account of the cheap¬ 
ness, hecaiLse their is no proper nourishment 
in it. 
Damaged corn is exceeding injurious, be¬ 
cause it brings on inflammation of the 
bowels and skin diseases. Chaff is better for 
old horse* than hay, because they can chew 
and digest it better. 
When a horse is worked hard its food 
should be chiefly oats; if not worked haid 
its food should chiefly be hay, because oats 
supply moi'ft nourishment and flesh-making 
material than any other kind of food ; hay 
not so much. 
Rack feeding Is wasteful. The better 
plan is to feed with chopped hay, from a 
manger, because the food is not then thrown 
out, aud is more easily chewed and digested. 
Sprinkle the hay with water that has salt 
dissolved in it, because it is 'pleasing to the 
animal’s taste and more easily digested. A 
teaspoonful of salt in a bucket of water is 
sufficient. 
transitions to the full Bronze are like-' 
wise inferior. The Bronzes themselves 
are never notable for perfection of \ 
flower, and we should doubt whether f 
in this department of Pelargoniums I — 
anything of the kind will ever be pro- . 
duced—suffering, as it appears all flow- v 
or* of variegated plants do, for the de¬ 
parture of their foliage from the nor¬ 
mal color. 
The accompanying engraving fairly 
represents the matured leaves of sev¬ 
eral seedling Bronzes, our success in 
which we attribute rather to crossing 
the darkest zones we could procure 
witli the deepest Bronzes, like “Mac 
Mahon,” than to having mixed the 
Bronzes with each other. 
The zones of the finest specimens 
among them are of a chestnut color, 
th© width of which is not exaggerated 
by the cut. The ground is a yellowish-green 
somewhat mottled with the goldcu color of 
the Self. The edges display this golden tint 
strikingly, and the entire plants are lustrous, 
heavy, bushy, vigorous and altogether capti¬ 
vating. 
Another Bronze was peculiar in that the 
zones of the topmost leaves as they opened 
were a bright bronze-bed, changing 10 a very 
dark color in the central leaves and disappear¬ 
ing entirely in the lower ones ; so that In look¬ 
ing down upon it, three distinct sets were 
discernible —viz., red zones, dark zones and 
Zoneless. Ill the SUI), however, these distinc¬ 
tions disappear. 
Among the plain Zonales we have several 
plants with zones remarkable for their width, 
blackness and for the narrowness of the belt 
of green between the zone and the edge of 
the leaf, which in one plant is uot over the 
sixteenth of an iucli. 
Our plain Zonales are now massed in a 
round bed about IS feet diameter, and num¬ 
ber upwards of 500. They vary from six to 
18 inches in bight, arranged according to 
size, the smaller nearer the circumference. 
Their mode of growth, as might be supposed, 
is far more symmetrical than that of those 
Which are raised from cuttings. The habit 
is more conical—tile leaves much larger ; the 
stem does not throw out lateral shoots until 
it has attained some bight, aud like all seed¬ 
lings—and, indeed, living things—they do 
not bloom or develop the generative power 
until the period of adolescence has been 
reached. This bed, after having been well 
weeded and pulverized was, after a gentle 
though steady rain, covered with newly-cut 
grass so as to conceal the ground in every 
part. For several days it presented an un¬ 
sightly appearance, certainly ; but the grass, 
after awhile, settled to a uniform surface and 
changed to a darker color even than the 
earth when dry ; while, therefore, the weeds 
are greatly suppressed and the necessity of 
artificial watering overcome, the bed for the 
most part may be considered as having re¬ 
ceived its quota of care for the season. 
These seedling Pelargoniums were placed 
rather closely together, with the object that 
a little Inter the leaves would touch each 
other, forming an unbroken mass of beauti¬ 
ful foliage and (lowers. Our interest in this 
bed is hightened by the hope—slight though 
it be—that, with the breaking of every bud, 
a rare or at least a novel flower is about to 
unfold ilself. Should this occur, we think 
the “ Old Rural” might purchase a “lot” of 
botuouses, propagate the novelty a(l infini¬ 
tum, aud send a well grown plant to every 
one of its subscribers ! 
JjTCA.F 1 OF 1 SEEDLING BRONZE 
with a good heart. We had better make a 
“ hobby” of toads than to have no hobby at 
all. Those who idle life away in a dignified 
listlessness—indifferent to this, indifferent to 
that, indifferent alike to all things, are tlje 
people who, though they embellish romances 
as the characters who are forever being 
“ bon'd,” are the pests of everyday life. Life 
itself is to them a bore, and it is not the 
easiest tiling to tell why they live. A man 
wbo sets his heart upon any one pursuit—let 
it seem ever so trivial—is never bored. Time 
—its quick flight—is his terror, and life is but 
far too brief. 
Entomology, but a few years back, was 
deemed an odd, puerile study, and those who 
would sit for half a day watching the trunk 
of some old tree fora rare specimen, or who 
would ride through the country with their 
butterfly nets in hand ready to stop the horse 
ami race over the field in a butterfly chase, 
were deemed eccentric, nne idead people. 
But those “oue-idcad” people have finally 
SHOULD HORSES WEAR BLINDERS 
This is still a mooted question among 
horsemen. The following from a foreign 
paper makes some good points on the nega¬ 
tive side : 
We never could see what vice or deformity 
lay in a horse’s eye, that should make it 
necessary to cover it up and shut out its 
owner from at least two-thirds of his right¬ 
ful field of vision. The poets say that old 
age looks backward ; but we never heard 
such an idiosyncrasy charged upon the 
horses. The theory that a horse is less apt 
to be frightened when shut out from every¬ 
thing behind him, we suspect to be a fallacy, 
else saddle-horses and wfir-horses would be 
duly blinded. Every horse is as familiar with 
his own carriage as with liisown tail, and, as 
far as his “personal” fortitude is concerned, 
is no more disturbed at being pursued by 
one than by tbe other. As for other scare¬ 
crows that come behind, they are mostly 
so familiar u> the animal, that the more fully 
the horse can perceive them, the more quiet¬ 
ly does he submit to their approach. Then 
it is such a pity to cover up one of the most 
brilliant features of this most brilliant 
creature. The horse has borne such a hand 
in the civilization of this rough-and-tumble 
world, that it seems not so much a cruelty as 
a discourtesy, as well as a disgrace to hide 
his form with embarrassing toggery. No 
wonder we estimate the force in the world 
as horse power ; no wonder the Romans and 
the Germans, each in their own languages, 
designated their aristooraey as riders ; no 
wonder their descendants made chivalry a 
synonym for their highest virtues. Let the 
horse be given his due, ami unblinded. The 
check-rein is another nuisance iu harness- 
wear which has almost entirely disappeared 
from England, the army having at last given 
it up by order of the commander-in-chief, 
Sir George Burgoyne. 
EASTERN VIRGINIA 
One of our correspondents, E. E. Barron 
of Spottsyl vania Co., Va., writes a most en¬ 
thusiastic report of farming lands and pros¬ 
pects in bis section. He is a Northern man, 
a former resident of Oneida Co., this State, 
and has always been a farmer. Mr. Barron 
assures us that the land in Spottsylvcinia Co. 
is naturally os good as auy in the North ; all 
it needs is the same care and manuring given 
by Northern farmers to produce as good 
crops. We have not a doubt of it. Good 
farmiug and the dissemination through the 
South of the Rural New-Yorker and other 
agricultural papers is all that is needed to 
make the South agriculturally prosperous. 
Take your own Southern papers for the 
Southern methods of farming, and then take 
as many Northern agricultural journals as 
you can afford, and get your neighbors to 
take them also. The South needs more good 
farmers, as do all sparsely-settled sections. 
There are two ways of attaining the end de¬ 
sired. One is to bring good farmers to the 
South, aud the second, equally as important, 
is to improve those who are there. With 
this suggestion we cheerfully point out 
some of the advantages which our corre¬ 
spondent finds in Virginia. 
Our correspondent's neighborhood, Spott- 
sylvania Co., Va., is only 20 miles from 
Fredericksburgh, where there are railroads 
and steamboats to convey farm produce m 
every direction. Baltimore is 100 miles dis- 
, * -» itr - ..a __S TK..1.iv.v/l PJ1 
COST OF RAISING HORSES, 
The Agricultural Department having made 
inquiries as to the cost of raising horses in 
each of the various States, reports as 
follows : 
In the Middle States, the maximum cost of 
