sands of cattle and millions of sheep subsist¬ 
ing on roots for six months, and in many in¬ 
stances, seven and eight months in the year, 
and when given without stint with hay 
enough to counteract the loosening tendency, 
they witnessed the great growth in young 
stock and the laying on of flesh and fat, they 
would see their effusions look very silly. 
Again, how was it the Irish themselves and 
their pigs lived almost entirely on potatoes, 
and at the present moment any mob of their 
descendants make the A mericans run out of 
their way, or, instead of trying the strength 
of muscle made from potatoes, resort to the 
pistol or knife. 
It is no wonder the young men educated 
in the agricultural colleges as they are now 
conducted take to other pursuits, not one in 
twenty following in an agricultural life. I 
think if these colleges were carried on with 
a large tract of land, and stock raising, and 
every style of farming was proceeding, 
young men who were never out of a city 
could know all about farming in one year, 
of course two years would be better, but 
give me 20 young gentlemen with average 
abilities, and I could make a thorough good 
agriculturist of every one with a taste for 
the occupation. 
The necessity for hard labor and for being 
able to perform all the operations themselves 
is not important, it is the knowledge of how 
it should be done, for many of the very high¬ 
est authorities in agriculture, and of those 
who have been successful, have been and are 
at the present moment unable to labor bod¬ 
ily. A good knowledge of feeding all varie¬ 
ties of stock is as essential as the knowing 
how to grow the crops, and when a proffisspr 
tells his pupils that potatoes, etc., are in¬ 
jurious, it is time a little light should be cast 
ou such darkness. At the present moment 
in England there arc hundreds of thousands 
of tegs and other sheep eating white turnips 
and clover hay with much clover mixed 
with it, and these turnips are more watery 
than potatoes and more prone to scour, yet 
these sheep, of all ages, including the tegs, 
which arc only seven months old, have as 
many turnips as they can eat and will gain 
in mutton and wool, and the young ones iu 
growth, to double what any sheep in the 
United States will which are kept on rich 
food without roots. A Won kino Farmer. 
than three-year-old natives would bring 
yet the neighboring farmers would not pay 
three dollars for a calf. The trifling amount 
to be invested would have doubled.the]value 
of their cattle at one year of age, and yet 
they growl about ‘ bard times,’ ‘low prices of 
stock,' etc. Their stock ought to be low. I 
can find an abundance of native yearling 
steers throughout the country that would 
hardly make a back-load for a good strong 
man. The large, mellow, meaty grades 
whi ch d rovers so delight to handle are not to 
be found”here~ but in their place (or in the 
place that should be occupied by such), are 
to be seen little skinny scrubs which at three 
years old average eight or nine hundred 
weight. Every native steer that is brought 
to maturity on our farms is raised at a dead 
loss of the amount which it costs to keep 
him for one year, which at a low estimate 
may be set at twenty-five dollars. Talk 
about hard times being caused by middlemen, 
when in the case under consideration, an 
outlay of three dollars would have yielded 
more than seven hundred per cent, interest. 
And I can point to examples where a similar 
outlay in the improvement of different 
flocks of sheep would have returned a pro¬ 
portionate profit upon the investment. 
“And these very prejudiced, one-sided 
envious men, who would not pay three 
dollars for a calf from a thoroughbred bull or 
half a dollar for a lamb from a Cotswold 
buck, are the men who are continually 
snivelling about high taxes, exorbitant 
tariffs and like nonsense. Hard times, in¬ 
deed ! You deserve to be made to squeal 
when you pinch yourseh \ ’ inch each 
other and try to pinch thi>M- >. ■ « <>uld 
delight in seeing a better class of stock upon 
every farm in the country. You ought not 
Co complain, for if you don’t get more than 
forty-five cents for your wool when your 
neighbors all about'you are selling for fifty 
five cents, or two dollars per head, while 
others can sell readily at twice that amount. 
You may have the consolation of knowing 
that the middleman makes the most on that 
he has paid the most for. Let it be hard 
times for such men. They are a damage in 
any community where those who would like 
to see progress and improvement are in the 
minority. Of course they do not see it in 
the light that pothers see it, and they never 
will—and why i For the simple reason that 
they stand just;where their fathers left 
them. They never read agricultu ral journals 
or books because it costs a few cents to pay 
thejsubscriptionjjrice, andJfanybody is so 
silly as to advise them to try some other 
plan, they believe nothing in it, and are 
ready to tell you so. Let them alone." 
I think'also the heavy dressing of salt and 
plaster applied to this field last year, though 
of no perceptible benefit then, is showing 
good results this year, acting in the soil as an 
auxiliary to the concentrated compost in 
producing the promising potato crop alluded 
to above. 
the order, with a deposit, and leave the 
plants in the nurseryman’s hands ready for 
shipment whenever the remainder of the 
purchase money is forwarded. Nurserymen 
in such cases usually take up the trees, heel 
in where they can be forwarded at a mo¬ 
ment’s notice iu spring, consequently the 
purchaser is benefitted by prompt shipment, 
if in no other way. 
Look over the advertising columns of the 
Rural New-Yorker and scud orders for 
trees and plants, whether iu fall or spring, 
direct to the nurseries, giving a cold shoulder 
to travelling tree peddlers of which you 
know nothing, and may wish, if you deal 
with them, that you had known less. 
SUGGESTIONS ABOUT GRASS LANDS, 
In answer to the question whether it is 
better]to sow clover seed in the late snow or 
to wait till the fall wheat can be run over 
with a harrow * and then sow the seed, 
Harris of the Agriculturist writes that he 
has his doubts, and says :—“ My own prac¬ 
tice is to harrow the wheat, three times in 
the spring. We go over the wheat both 
ways with the harrows, and then sow the 
clover seed and follow with the; harrows to 
cover the seed. If the ground is very hard 
the harrows do not break up the crust 
sufficiently to afford a good covering for the 
seed, and if dry weather follows we have a 
poor ‘'catch’.on these hard)spots. 1 have 
iny doubts as to which is the better plan, 
but am Inclined to think that so far as secur¬ 
ing a good catch of timothy and clover is 
concerned, it is better to give up harrow¬ 
ing winter wheat in the spring and to sow 
timothy seed in the fall aiul clover seed very 
early in the spring. It depends very much 
on the soil and season. The harrowing helps 
the wheat and kills a good many weeds, and 
on sandy loam the harrow leaves a good seed 
bed for the clover, and if we are favored 
with a few showers we are pretty sure of a 
good catch of clover. 
“ Last year all my clover failed. My 
wheat also is a poor crop. And I do not feel 
like giving advice. I am enjoying a short 
spell of humility. I have to whistle ami 
keep working. I try to look at the bright 
side. T have S3 acres of capital barley, 
seeded down with clover and timothy, 
which seems to be n good catch. But my 
clover last fall was just us promising and yet 
it was all winterkilled except along the 
fences and dead furrows, where the snow 
protected it. I do not like to own it even to 
myself, but I think I weakened the young 
clover plants hy letting my sheep and pigs 
pasture it too close last fall. I shall at any 
rate keep them out of my young clover this 
fall. 
“ I had an old timothy meadow which 1 
pastured last fall pretty close. This year 
the hay was not over half a ton per acre. I 
luul another meadow, which, owing to the 
fact that we sowed part of the field to rye, 
we could not pasture after the first of Sep¬ 
tember. The grass on this meadow was as 
thick and heavy as it could grow. We got 
more hay from one acre of this meadow 
than from four acres of the other. I have 
always thought that it did not hurt meadows 
to pasture them iu the fall, but last winter 
was so unusually cold and the soil go dry 
with little or no snow to cover it, that a 
slight coat of grass was of great value as a 
protection from the severe cold winds, and 
also probably proved useful as a mulch dur¬ 
ing the dry weather of spring, 
“ I have ulso 22 acres of good rye, seeded 
down last fall with timothy and the drier 
portions sown also with clover in the spring. 
The field has a cheerful look. Three or four 
acres, where I manured heavily for mangel* 
four years ago, is a particularly pleasant 
spot to visit during a fit of the blues. The 
rye is six feet high and as stout as it can 
grow. It is the cheapest and most profitable 
crop I have raised for years. It was a rough 
piece of low land which we sowed with oats 
two years ago and seeded down. But the 
seed did not take well, aud so I concluded to 
plow it up and seed it down again early in 
September with timothy alone. But after 
the field was all prepared the Beacon persua¬ 
ded me to sow rye and seed down with it. I 
am glad I took his advice, though 1 am not 
sure but I should have done better to have 
sown timothy alone.” 
SUCCESS IN COMPOSTING MANURES 
Royal Smith, Millington, Mass., describes 
in the New England Farmer a successful 
method of making good manure at small 
cost: 
It was composed of about two cords of 
good, green cow dung, made in the stable, 
under cover, mingled with ten bushels of 
plaster and five bushels of salt. The heap 
was cut over carefully four times during the 
summer, the lumps beat out, and the whole 
thoroughly intermingled, and, the last time 
it was cut over, two hundred and fifty 
pounds of Herman potash salts, said to eon- 
tain sixty per cent, of sulphate of potash, 
was also mingled with it. 
My object in getting up this compost heap 
was to teBt by experience, for my own bene¬ 
fit, what effect these different ingredients 
would have on each other, whether bene¬ 
ficial or otherwise, during the heating pro¬ 
cess the heap should undergo, in summer 
and early fall, before it was used on the 
land. I had used plaster before, in a limited 
way, aud had seen it used by others ever 
since I was old enough to be interested in 
the subject, by putting small quantities of it 
iu the hill at planting time and some in com¬ 
post recently, with the other manure for 
growing corn and potatoes, with very strik¬ 
ing effect, causing the crops to mature 
earlier, and produce a larger crop at the 
time cf harvest. 
The experiment has proved very successful 
with me. I used 170 bushels of it last fall at 
the rate of a bushel to the square rod, spread 
from the cart with my shovel, on a mowing 
field composed of a stiff, moist, sandy loam, 
but which had been underdruiued and had 
borne good crops of grass for several years, 
but needed topdressing. Its effect ou this 
land was very gnvtifyiug and satisfactory, 
the small amouut used producing as good 
results as a heavy topdressing of good com¬ 
post, and the surface, now the crop of grass 
Is mown off, presents a thick mat of grass 
that looks green and vigorous and very 
promising for a good crop of rowen, which 
is more than I can say of my other topdressed 
mowings just now. 
The balance of this concentrated compost 
I put in barrels over winter and have used 
the most of it on a patch of Early Rose pota¬ 
toes. The land on which these are growing 
is good, sandy loam and the second year it 
has been in a hoed crop. Last year the 
ground was indifferently plowed and at the 
rate of C bushels of plaster and 1 bushels of 
salt to the acre, sowed upon it broadcast, on 
the inverted sod and harrowed iu and planted 
to potatoes that were mapured lightly in the 
hill. Plaster was applied to the land at the 
time of hoeing but the crop, for some reason, 
was light and did not ripen well. The pota¬ 
toes were soggy, and their surface scabby, 
as if they had bsen guawed by worms, and 
all my other potatoes, last year, were similar 
to these. 
This piece of ground is occupied with a 
hoed crop again this year, a pare of which is 
in Early Rose potatoes, iu rows three feet 
apart one way and eighteen inches the other 
one whole potato of medium size, with 
about a pint of the concentrated compost 
applied to each hill, about two-thirds of 
which was applied ut the time of planting 
and the other third at the first hoeing, and 
no other manure has been applied to them 
during the season. The ground was cold in 
the spring, and when they were planted, 
they were a good while iu coming up, but 
their growth has bean steady, the plants 
appear healthy and vigorous, with a pro¬ 
fusion of blossoms rarely seen on a field of 
potatoes. The tubers are smooth and free 
from scabs or other blemishes, and, taken 
altogether, I think it promises the best crop 
of potatoes I ever remember to have raised 
with, perhaps, one exception. 
HARDY VARIETY OF GRAPES, 
The last few winters have been unusually 
severe, and have tested the hardiness of dif¬ 
ferent kinds of fruits as «never before. It is 
gratifying to lovers of the grape that this 
beautiful and luscious fruit is least in danger 
of destruction than any other. Some v arie¬ 
ties of grape vines are almost frost proof, 
withstanding any cold to which vines are 
ordinarily subjected. We found Creveling 
grape viues last spring alive, oven to the 
side shoots, which were not cut away the 
fail before. Salem, Delaware and even Iona 
were almost equally hardy, standing on the 
open trellis all winter, exposed at times to 
a temperature fourteen degrees below zero. 
For some reason our only Concord did not 
fare so well, and was pretty badly winter 
killed. Tliis variety is usually hardy, and 
the exceptional tenderness of this vine was 
probably due to an excessive luxuriance of 
growth from Loo late cultivation the previ¬ 
ous summer, which caused imperfect ripen¬ 
ing of wood. Where the wood is well ri¬ 
pened, any popular variety of grapes will be 
found sufficiently hardy to withstand our 
ordinary winter. Want of hardiness is in¬ 
deed most generally the effect of mildew or 
other disease of the vine, causing imperfect 
ripening of wood, and varieties most effected 
by disease are usually reckoned tender. In 
all cases where mildew appears on any va¬ 
riety, loosening it from the trellis aud lightly 
covering it is advisable as a precautionary 
measure 
How to Get Rid of Stumps.— Gen. Colquitt 
of Georgia, in a receut address, said to 
remove stumps from a field, all that is neces¬ 
sary is to have one or more sheet iron 
chimneys, some four or five feet high. Set 
fire to the stump and place the chimney 
over it, so as to give the requisite draft at 
the bottom. It will draw like a stove. The 
stump will soon be consumed. With several 
such chimneys, of different sizes, the removal 
of stumps may be accomplished at merely 
nomiual labor and expense .—Maryland 
Farmer. 
VALUE OF POTATOES AS FEED-EX¬ 
PERIENCE VS. UNSCIENTIFIC 
THEORY. 
TnE editorial criticism of Prof. Atwater’s 
conclusions, as published in the Rural New- 
Yorker of Sept. 25, has called out consider¬ 
able comment, of which the following from 
a practical farmer is a good specimen : 
Prof. W. O. Atwater should be sent to 
sebool, for his statements are absurd in a re¬ 
markable degree. W hy don’t these learned 
professors take a trip to England and not 
remain in the cities here. Fifty years ago 
potatoes were fed in much larger quantities 
than they have ever been iu the United 
States, for the poor mens’ fat pigs were 
fattened chiefly on potatoes and 3G years ago 
I kept a herd of dairy cows on chopped 
straw and pota toes all the first part of the 
winter and never had the animals do better 
on hay, and they gave more milk and the 
butter was first-rate—this was in conse¬ 
quence of a short cut of hay, for I generally 
fed the potatoes to hogs, keeping a man con¬ 
stantly employed iu steaming them. 
Of course potatoes and roots generally 
should have hay and grain or meat too, to 
finish off with for making cattle extra fat, 
SOME HINTS FOR FARMERS 
Grape Rot. —The rot ha3 been unusually 
severe in many places, and as it commenced 
in dry weather, it stopped at the commence^ 
ment of rain, and then became worse than 
ever after the long spell; we give up haviDg 
an idea of the main cause. But we have no¬ 
ticed one thing, and that is, that where the 
vine is bare of side branches from the ground 
for several feet, the ground clean underneath 
and the fruit hangs high and clear, the rot is 
not near so bad as under ordinary conditions. 
This suggests to us the idea of growing 
the fruit higher from the ground, with plenty 
of air passing underneath. One thing is cer¬ 
tain ; if this cannot be cured, grape growing 
with us is an uncertain game .—Rural World. 
