SEPT.48 
MOORE’S RURAL WEW-YORKER 
proved itself quite as hardy us any. and has 
yielded well; it is rather more liable to rust 
than the Scott wheat: nil that have it ap¬ 
pear highly pleased with it. The Silver 
Straw is ft new variety, which wo know but 
little about ; it was imported from New 
York state, and is a bald, white wheat; the 
report about its yield mid quality are good, 
but we have no information regarding it 
from Canadians, nor have we tried it our¬ 
selves ; therefore, it may be well to leave 
further remarks until it is tested in our coun¬ 
try. The Scott wheat and the Seneca wheat, 
are the two varieties we most highly com¬ 
mend this season.” 
-- 
BLUE GRASS WITH WHEAT. 
Editor Rural, New-Yohkuk :—Will you 
or some correspondent having experience in 
raising Blue grass (Poo. pratenpis) please an¬ 
swer the following—Will Blue grass sown 
from the Ifith to thelSth of September, with 
wheat, grow rank enough to injure the 
wheat * The laud is very rich. Would it be 
advisable to mix clover, timothy or orchard 
gra*s seed with the Blue grass ' I wish to 
make a pastur e to remain in grass three or 
five years. What amount of seed should be 
used per acre ?—A Friend. 
Our experience with Blue grass is that it 
is much easier to grow it than to get rid of 
it. Unless our friend wishes to make a per- 
mament pasture, not for t hree or five years 
only he had better seed with something else 
than Blue grass. It, is especially t roublesome 
ou good wheat land in grain growing dis¬ 
tricts, running out clover and timothy after 
the first year and requiring a thorough sum¬ 
mer fallow or well cultivated, hoed crop to 
subdue it. Blue grass is not overpraised as 
a grass for pasture for the dairy, hut is a 
nuisance for cultivated fields. It probably 
would injure wheat if sown early in the fail. 
We would wait two or three weeks after 
sowing wheat before sowing timothy, as that 
sown too early will also sometimes injure 
wheat. Clover seed should not be sown be¬ 
fore next spring, as soon as possible after t he 
frost is out of the ground—or better still, on 
the last snow, if you can guess when that is. 
- — - 
EXPERIMENTS WITH OATS. 
Mr. John J. Carter, of West Grove, Pit., 
reports some very interesting experiments 
made this season on the Eastern Pennsyl¬ 
vania Experimental Farm, 
Ah to Quantity of Seed.— The oats drilled 
in one-eighth acre plots April 24, on stalk 
ground. 
Plot a. Bushels. 
1. Two bushels of seed per acre. 94,V 
2. Three bushels of seed per acre.100 
As to drilling and broadcasting : 
1. 2Y t bushels drilled in (Bickford & 
Huffman’s drill). .. 137 
3. 2 i 4 bush, broadcast and harrowed in 118*4 
Fertilizers, drilled or surface sown : 
1. Fertilizer drilled In with seed.124 
2 . do, sown on surface «Y harrowed in 104 
Productiveness of barley and oats : 
Per acre. 
1. Two bushels barley per acre, sown.. 10 40 43 
2. 2 Yu bushels oats per acre, sown. 20 24-32 
Fertilize,™, —These fertilizers were applied 
in the Spring of 1ST I oti >£ acre plots and 
plowed down for corn, ground re-plowed for 
oats this Spring. , 
Plot- Pounds. 
1. Nitrate of soda, $J0 worth per acre. 81 
2. No fertilizer. . 74*4 
8. Sulphate of ammonia, $10 per acre. 80 
4. Barnyard manure. 100 
5. Pure ground bone, $10 per acre.105 
B. llone superphosphate, do.. .115 
7. Acidulated B. Oar. rock, ilo.118 
8. Night soil, 8 bushels.127 
Varieties .—The ground used for these ex¬ 
periments was in corn last year; was plowed 
for oats April 14 aud 15 ; oats sown broad¬ 
cast April 24 at the rate of bushels per 
acre. 
Variet ies or 
When 
Pounds 
Bushels'. 
Ao. Oats. 
ripe. 
of straw. 
peracre. 
1. Surprise. 
..July 23 
2,080 
31 R 
White £choenen. July 25 
3.240 
H ouch ton. 
. July 22 
2.320 
3441 
4. Fellow. 
..July 22 
2.900 
•40‘,4 
5. Lurly Yellow. 
..July 25 
3,440 
44 
«. Hulless . 
. July 28 
1,000 
15 
7. Black Norway . 
July 28 
2,986 
35 
8. Canadian . 
. July 23 
1,560 
30 
. Somerset. 
. July 22 
1,968 
82 2 
Potatoes in Drills.—A correspondent in 
Rural Home writes “ To test the difference 
in yield between planting in drills or in hills, 
1 planted six rows across the field H}4 feet 
apart, and hills 2% feet in the row, and by 
the side of them six rows in drills, with seed 
once in 20 inches and rows about the same as 
the other. The yield by weight proved to bo 
bushels or 12}.., bushels to the acre in favor 
of the drills, although they had been dam 
aged some by the. horse having to turn around 
on them when cultivating those in hills. A 
former year 1 had JO bushel* to the acre more 
in favor of the drill planting This experi¬ 
ment was with Early Rose.” 
<Jsti[m <Bcoucimi|. 
CAPITAL IN AGRICULTURE. 
No kind of business demands closer atten¬ 
tion to details than that of farming. Hence 
many farmers are over economical, saving 
where wise economy requires investment. 
This subject is well handled ill the following 
article by Judge French in the Vermont 
Record and Farmer : 
In the middle counties of England, where 
ordinary fanning is done, aud where the 
principal products are wheat, barley, wool, 
turnips and grass, it is usually estimated 
that a floating capital of fifty dollars an acre 
is necessary to cultivating it to good advan¬ 
tage. In New England if a farmer has 
$1,000, he either puts it in the saving’s bank 
or buys more land, and rarely considers how 
ho can use. it as capital to make his farm more 
productive, 
l have heard of a man who, when advised 
to sow winter rye, objected, that he wanted 
to get his return the same year he planted, 
that ho did not exactly like to trust Provi¬ 
dence through a whole winter. Many farm¬ 
ers act, on this principle, if they do not openly 
avow it. They know perfectly well that 
market gardeners, near the city, put $100 
and often $200 worth of manure on the acre, 
with large profit, and that in their own ex¬ 
perience, the more they have put ou their 
land the greater their profit, and yet they do 
not exactly like to take $500 or $1,000 out of 
the. savings bank' and invest if in drainage or 
manure, though they will readly admit that 
they would get a larger interest by so doing. 
No farmer can reasonably expect, to realize 
more than five Or six per cent, from invest¬ 
ment of money in bonds or stocks. If, by 
the fa vor of some speculating friend, he is al¬ 
lowed the privilege, of taking a few shares in 
u proposed railroad, or copper mine, or coal 
company, sure to pay ten per cent, at least, 
he w ill be lucky if he does not lose liia money 
and have to pay an assessment. 
If, by spending $1,000 in drainage and other 
product improvements, he permanently in¬ 
creases the income of bis field only sixty dol¬ 
lars a year, it is a good investment, and lie 
need not look anxiously every morning in 
the daily paper to ascertain whether it is 
lost or not. In annual crops, like market 
truck, if the use of $100 worth of extra ma¬ 
nure will raise $100 worth of extra produce, 
it is a fair buisness transaction, as good as 
the savings bank, but a market gardener 
expects, and often realises, six times six per 
cent, on such an investment. 
An acre of asparagus or strawberries, 
established aud maintained at an annual cost, 
Including rent for the land, of 8200 an acre, 
and yielding an income of $400. gives 0,200 
per cent, per annum, and beats out of sight 
the promises even of railroads and coal com¬ 
panies ; yet if you are not yourself doing 
this, some of your neighbors are, and more 
too. 
Put your money where it will do the most 
good—into your best land close at home—in 
such a way that it will yield an income. If 
you invest $50 in a weathercock ou your 
barn, it may gratify yourself and the passers- 
by, but will not add much to your income. 
A horse that earns nothing, costs $150 a year 
at least, and this is the interest on $2,500 
capital, Expensive dwellings and furniture 
are not good investments of capital. 
While every fanner should expend accord¬ 
ing to his ability for the comfort and pleasure 
of his family, he should not count as capital 
in agriculture, either the cupola on his house 
or the piano in his parlor. 
Time is money, and labor is money on the 
farm, and an investment that brings water 
to your house and barn, that provides for 
storing fuel close to your fire, that makes the 
washing aud drying of clothes easy, and 
makes everything convenient out-doors, is 
always profitable. 
A friend ol miue visited his father who 
was a farmer in New Hampshire. For thirty 
years he had brought water from a spring in 
buckets for household use. The son proposed 
to put in an aqueduct, but the father thought 
it hardly worth while. He asked the old 
gentleman how many times a day, on an 
average, he had brought his buckets from 
the spring to t he house, and then measured 
the distance and found he had traveled one 
mile a day, computed the whole utuount of 
travel, and showed him that ho had already 
performed the labor of carrying his two 
buckets ten thousand nine hundred and fifty 
miles, and that an aqueduct would cost 
about $50. This pilgrimage, nearly half the 
distance round the world, was not economi¬ 
cal. 
Capital is well invested in good farming 
implements, such as are of constant use. 
Isaac Walton says ” Whoso bos where¬ 
withal to buy a spado, yet prefers rather to 
borrow Ins neighbor’s and wear out that, is 
covetous.” in fact, no man can afford to live 
by borrowing common small tools. The time 
spent in getting and returning them is worth 
more than their cost. Indeed, the whole 
system of borrowing, as a rule, is a bad cue. 
With expensive implements, like mowers, 
owners of small farms may often provide 
themselves by hiring the machines, or hav¬ 
ing their grass cut by those having teams and 
implements. 
While I would not usually be a borrower, I 
would always cultivate such relations with 
my neighbors that we should at all times 
borrow and lend freely in any emergency ; 
but borrowing may become an imposition. 
One of my neighbors has a field roller, which 
I have no doubt is worn out twice a* much 
by being hauled over the highway from farm 
to farm as it is by use in the field. One such 
implement, expensive to repair and trouble¬ 
some to house, is enough for a ncigborhood, 
but its use should be paid for by all borrow¬ 
ers. 
“ The destruction of the poor is his pover¬ 
ty,” and this applies to a farmer who is poor, 
as fully as to other men. Buying and selling 
well and at the right time form an impor¬ 
tant element of success in all farming,and this 
requires capital. We need ready money 
to buy when cattle and corn are cheap, and 
to he able to hold our hay and such other 
articles as are not perishable, for a 1'air price. 
Some of our farmers bought $300 and $400 
worth of com in the fall of 1873 at Cl cents 
a bushel, while we poorer men were obliged 
to pay 90 cents a bushel for it, and the same 
is true of all the grain and feed for our cows. 
No man can make money off poor land* As 
you travel, you have usually observed, other 
things being equal, that good land makes 
thriving farmers, while families brought up 
on hard, poor land arc generally poor. Many 
men have spent tlieir lives in plowing around 
stones, and dv:d poor, who, on good land 
might with the same labor have been in¬ 
dependent, With us no land which does not 
produce a large crop is worth cultivating. 
Small or even middling crops will not puy 
for the labor and manure. 
The point which L urge is to apply your 
capital so as to raise large crops, whatever 
they are, because only largo crops are profit¬ 
able, and it your field is not hi proper eondi 
lion to produce large crops, make it so, or 
buy a better farm. Do not spend your life 
in the unprofitable business of raising small 
crops. 
What we can reasonably afford to expend 
for books, for works of art, for traveling, for 
rational amusements for ourselves and fami¬ 
lies, though not capital that yields a cash 
return, is yet a good investment. And this 
is especially true of what wo devote to mak¬ 
ing our homes pleasaut to our families and 
friends, 
It has been said that no man is so poor 
that he need have his pig-trough at the front 
door ; and 1 may add that no farmer among 
us is so poor that he cannot have, not only a 
pleasant house but pleasant surroundings, 
with a neatly kept door-yard or lawn, with 
shade trees and fruit trees and flowers—and 
finally such [attractions, as well as conveni- 
encies about home, that farmers’ daughters 
need not resolve, as has been so often stated 
in our club that many do, that they will 
never be farmers’ wives. 
-- 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
Renovating Southern Lands .—A Tennes¬ 
see correspondent of the Southern Farmer 
renovates worn-out lands by sowing peas on 
them and feeding off. This is done two or 
three years in succession, until enough fer¬ 
tility is gained to grow clover. Then plenty 
of clover seed is sown from December to 
February, and a good catch is aiways se¬ 
cured. Wherever the laud is rich enough to 
grow clover, the farmer has the ascendancy 
and can soon make his fields produce any 
crop he wishes. The difiiculty is in getting 
a start, and for this purpose the Southern 
field or cow pea is unrivaled. 
Comparative Value of Foods. —Taking 
timothy hay as the standard of comparison, 
it requires 100 pounds of it to supply a cer¬ 
tain amount of nourishment. It is estimated 
by careful experiment that the same amount 
Of nourishment can be obtained by using 
the following I quantities of other food: 
Clover hay, 95 lbs. ; rye straw, 355 lbs. ; oat 
straw,220 lbs.; potatoes, 195. lbs. ; carrots, 280 
lbs. ; beets, 340 lbs. ; ruta bagas, 202 lbs. ; 
wheat, 43 lbs. ; peas, 44 lbs., beans, 40 lbs. ; 
rye, 49 lbs. ; barley, 51 lbs. ; corn, 50 lbs. ; 
oats, 59 lbs. ; buckwheat, 04 lbs. ; and oil 
cake, 04 lbs. 
®It(f DLpitmn. 
PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF HONEY. 
The season for honey-making seems to be 
nearly as unfavorable in England as in this 
count ry, and of what is gathered only a very 
small quantity comes from the garden or 
cultivated plants. The London (Eug.) Gar¬ 
deners’ Chronicle says: 
The chief sources of honey in this country 
are the White or Dutch Clover and the 
Heather; the Buckwheat yields a large 
quantity, but it is not cultivated sufficiently 
largely to make the supply good. The honey 
gathered from the Heather is dark-colored, 
tut of a rich, wild llavnr ; this is principally 
collected in the autumn. Our stocks are 
now known to have the finest honey in April 
and May ; this is more pure, and better fla¬ 
vored than any other, and is procured from 
t he Clover. Bees kept on open downs or in 
tlio neighborhood of extensive pasture lands 
always pay the best in a pecuniary point of 
view ; they feed principally on the Clover. 
We spoke recently to a poor widow who 
gains the best part ol' her living from bee 
keeping - nay, it is her great boast that she 
has never troubled the parish for a penny, 
btiL her bees have been a sure source of in¬ 
come. When wo have hoard nothing in 
other quarters but complaints about the 
wretched honey harvest, she can often glean 
about 40 lbs. of rich white honey from each 
stock. So we asked her opinion as to where 
her bees pastured i Her reply was quite 
characteristic ; pointing bo the long, level 
stretch of sheep lands lying before ua, sLio 
said, “Ah 1 If I kept a cow, 1 could not even 
be allowed to turn her in the lanes, and if I 
allowed her t .0 stray in the fields I should be 
fined, but they cunuot fine my bees, and 
these can pasture uponall the Duke’s lands.” 
The Borage, Mustard and Raspberry are also 
excellent honey plants, still, being limited in 
cultivation, the supply of honey from them 
is uncertain. 
We once tasted a beautiful sample of honey 
in Liverpool, and upon inquiry we found it 
came from near New Brighton. Going after¬ 
ward over the extensive sand hilts on the 
coast, we found them covered with a large 
quantity of wild Thyme. This gives a richly- 
flavored honey, but not so white aud clear 
as that of the white Clover. Mr. Pettigrew 
makes a calculation that a twenty-acre field 
sprinkled with Clover will yield 100 lbs. of 
honey per day. This may appear to many 
persons slightly exaggerated. We hope to 
refer again soon to this interesting subject, 
one, too, of vast importance in a commercial 
point of view. 
--- 
HOW FAR WILL BEES GO FOR HONEY 1 
TnE above question, wo believe, has never 
been satisfactorily answered. A bee keeper 
once tried the old experiment of dusting bis 
bees with flour as they left the hive, then 
rode to a heath seven miles away, where he 
discovered bis while bees busily engaged in 
collecting honey. This experiment, however, 
cannot be relied 011 , for the simple reason 
that pollen, with which bees are frequently 
completely covered, bears a close resem¬ 
blance to llomq and might readily be taken 
for it when the bees are on the wing. It is 
our belief that they seldom venture more 
than three miles from home, for we have 
known them to be in a starving condition 
when another apiary only four miles away 
was flourishing and gathering stores rapidly. 
It has in recent years be*-n proved by Italian 
hybrids that queens have met with drones 
which wore known to be at least three miles 
away, but this will scarcely apply to worker 
bees flitting about from flower to flower ; 
they must become weary before they are 
four or even three miles from home. 
-■*-*-*- 
PROPOLIS, OR BEE GLUE. 
This is a resinous gum collected by the 
bees from the leaves, buds and trunks of 
trees and plants. The horse chestnut and 
holm trees yield a large amount of propolis, 
and should be cultivated by all apiarians to 
accommodate the natural wants of tho bee, 
as propolis appears to bo os Indispensable as 
honey or pollen. It is used for coaling over 
uneven surfaces aud filling holes and cracks 
in the hive and honey draws ; also for mak¬ 
ing steps on the bottom board and other parts 
of the hivo for their convenience. When 
cold it is very hard and brittle, being quite 
a different substance from wax, of which 
the combs arc built. Ido the bees are not 
only skillful architects, but able to make 
their own cement. 
