JAN. 22 
THE BUBAL MEW-YOBKEB 
to put a limited number of them upon the 
market, confident that intelligent farmers can 
now use them successfully. This machine 
was thoroughly tested last season and made a 
good record. Its great utility will be recog¬ 
nized by farmers, as they cau now get a binder 
without discarding their old reapers, and also 
can buy a reaper and independent binder for 
about the present price of a self-binding har¬ 
vester. The orders for the line of regular ma¬ 
chines made by the Johnston Harvester Co. 
are already so large that the number of these 
new implements must necessarily fall short. 
They will be put out in connection with the 
celebrated harvesters of the company, who will 
also fill such outside orders as their capacity 
to manufacture will admit. 
noticed that if the hand be passed over the 
backs of cattle at this season, a greater or less 
number of bumps or swellings are perceptible. 
These bumps are always found to be] open, 
and inside is found a footless grub or maggot. 
These grubs are the cause of both the swell¬ 
ings and the holes, the latter of which cause 
the depreciation in the value of the hides, re¬ 
ferred to in the article mentioned. 
as between a cock of hay and a stack of hay. 
Intelligent corn-raisers, the States over, will 
concur in the foregoing signification of stooks, 
shocks and stacks. Oriticus. 
Courage under DlMnppolntiuent. 
In answer to a circular from a Philadelphia 
seed house I got from them a package of what 
hey called South American Corn—five kernels 
urianee of the plant, brougut aooui ny urn 
use of guano or other nitrogenous manure, 
was of itself a sufficient reasou why the potato 
rot fungus should develop more freely in such 
plants thau upon the less succulent vegetatiou 
of adjacent fields which had not been so 
strongly manured. It is a fact of familiar ob¬ 
servation that those mauures which contain 
much active nitrageu tend to develop the 
leafy parts of plants and to produce a rank 
vegetation of loose texture and iuicy charac¬ 
ter such as is particularly well-fitted for the 
growth of the fungus which causes the potato 
rot. The advocates of the latter view have 
always had in their favor the well known fact 
that the potato rot is specially liable to pre¬ 
vail when there is moisture enough either in 
the air or the soil to keep the plants in a suc¬ 
culent condition. The second view has the 
advantage, moreover, of being more general 
than the first, »ud indeed of ineluding it, since 
it is plain that the nitrogen in stable manure 
may make the plants grow rank and 3uceulent 
as well as that in the artificial fertilizers. That 
the second view is really the correct one seems 
to be borne out by some of the results of field 
experiments on potatoes made recently in 
Germany by Maercker, which show that the 
application of nitrate of soda tended very de¬ 
cidedly to increase the ravages of the disease. 
Thus, while the crops harvested from plots 
dressed with stable manure contained no more 
than five and six per cent, of diseased potatoes, 
crops takeu from plots dressed with nitrate of 
soda showed from 11 to 12 per cent, of the dis¬ 
eased tubers. 
No increase in the disease was noticed on 
plots manured with mixtures of stable manure 
and plain superphosphate of lime, and of 
stable manures and small quantities of am- 
moniated superphosphate, but when large 
dressings of the ammouiated superphosphate 
were used, In connection with stable manure, 
the proportion of diseased tubers was increas¬ 
ed. in 60 ine instances to eight per cent, of the 
total yield. 
In thpse experiments several plots manured 
in each of the different ways, were distributed 
and repeated iu different parts of the field, and 
the results obtained from the different plots 
showed a remarkable agreement, as above 
stated. The iullueuce of moisture was well 
6hown in uuother set of experiments, made 
in another locality, where the disease happen- 
In this case 
“TELL KNOWLEDGE—NOT GUESSES 
What's the matter with General Noble ? He 
writes under the above beading as if he was in 
“a real state of mind." He reminds me of 
that old hypoehoudriac writer, Montaigne, 
who once wrote as follows: " I would have 
every one write what he knows; and as much 
as he knows; and no more. For such a per¬ 
son, having some particular knowledge and 
experience, as to other things knows no more 
than what everybody knows; and yet to keep 
a clutter with this little pittance of his, he will 
undertake to write the whole body of physics.” 
etc., etc.—and yet he himself was full of 
whims and fancies. 
Now, on to the wickedness of that “ sap- 
sucker" writer, the General tacks a whole 
column of what I would fain call ill humor, 
only I cannot bring my mind to charge him 
with that. But he is mad about something 
evidently, or he would uot say that these per¬ 
sons who so well express their ideas in the 
Rural " write crudely and thoughtlessly.” 
There, I say. General Noble is mistaken. 
Further, I think he is mistaken when he says 
that "no one has any right to declare what 
follows an event is its logical result.” Be¬ 
cause a man killed bark lice un his trees with 
linseed oil, the General painted his trees from 
top to toe and killed them, as well as the lice. 
Weil, the logical result was proved, and the 
General ought to have been satisfied. That 
he laid it on too thick was his mistake. It 
reminds me of a mao w ho asked me if salt was 
good for pigs. I told him. ‘‘Yes; pigs’ need 
some salt aB well as oil **r animals and I al¬ 
ways put salt in their slop barrel." The man 
having a beef barrel to empty, poured the 
brine and salt from it into the pigs trough, 
and the pigs being starved for it, ate several 
quarts and forthwith died. And the man was 
mad with mo and talked precisely as the Gen¬ 
eral does. Was that my fault or the man’s ? 
He should have used his reason, and so should 
we all when any man tells us what be has done 
and the result of what he did. All experiences 
are valuable, but they must be applied ration¬ 
ally. And so I say. "tell us not only what 
you know, but what you think you know, and 
1 will consider over it and judge of it and 
make a sensible and rational use of it as far 
as possible.” But if we are to tell only what 
GOtiOuAt 
GLEANER AND BINDER OF THE JOHNSON HARVESTER CO 
I planted them in the gar 
at two cents each, 
den and nursed them carefully, but they turned 
out a failure. I also got a packet of " Canton 
Corn,” which proved to be what I call very 
"small potatoes,” Some *■ Uiawassie Corn" 
which the firm claimed to he " the most pro¬ 
ductive variety in the world," was a handsome 
white sort. For it I plowed up a piece of 
clover sod which was as rich as any soil on 
my farm—so rich that wheat or oats would 
have all lodged there. I put it in the best 
order and planted the corn, and tended it well. 
It grew 10 to 12 feet high without showing a 
sign of tasseling or earing. When my field 
corn—not over five ro Is from it—was in good 
roasting ears, there was not a sign of an ear 
on " the most productive corn in the world." 
My field corn gave 00 bushels per acre of as 
fine com as you would wish to see, while on 
the promised wonder there were only a few 
little nubbins. It was all stalk and no ears. 
A package of Spring wheat from the same 
firm was Bowed on a corner of the same piece 
of ground. It came up all right, bnt though 1 
kept the ground cleau not a stalk of it headed. 
Both the corn and wheat were put iu before 
my own corn in May. Last Fall I received 
from the same parties 105 kernels of Aus¬ 
tralian Winter Wheat for which I prepared a 
piece of ground very nicely, planted the stran¬ 
ger, and am now waiting the result. I also 
got some White Russiuu Oats from a firm of 
grain dealers in Buffalo, and have high hopes 
with regard to the yield. I am by no means 
discouraged at the failures I have met, for 
my motto is the Scriptural ii junction "Try 
all things and hold fast to that which is good. 
Dixon, HI. w. G. 
ed to be much more prevalent, 
the proportion of diseased potatoes varied 
from four and a half to 17 and a half per cent, 
of the total crops, on plots that bad been 
manured alike. But it was noticed that the 
cause of these variations could justly be at¬ 
tributed to moisture which had collected iu 
little hollowB or depressions in the soil of 
some of the plots. 
DeHlrabliity of Ktrouger Winter Wheats. 
As I am an old miller and still in the busi¬ 
ness, I wish to call attention to the import¬ 
ance of improving the quality of our wheat— 
Winter wheat. I think there has been too 
much attention given to increasing the yield 
regardless of quality. Our Winter wheats 
have been losing in strength, particularly the 
new varieties which are very deficient in that 
essential quality. If wc could get a variety 
of Winter wheat that would yield well, aud 
approximate in strength the hard Northwest¬ 
ern Spring wheat, it would be very desirable; 
and I have thought that this end might be 
accomplished by taking this Northwestern 
Spring wheat as a basis to start from, and 
either propagating new varieties from it or 
gradually changing it into a Winter variety. 
1 make these remarks merely to call attention 
to the subject. W. J. Me. 
Steubenville, Ohio. 
[Our friend will see that that is just what we 
are doing at the Rural Farm, —Eds.] 
STOOKS, SHOCKS, STACKS 
gavel aud bound at the tops. This cannot be 
properly denominated a stack, or a shock. 
A shock consists of a number of sheaves 
or bundles placed together on the butt 
ends, A shock may bo long, round or of a 
square form ; made up of a few, or a goodly 
number of sheaves. When buckwheat is raked 
up in gavels and placed on the butt .ends of 
the straw aud bound at the tops, the bunches 
are called stooks. A stack may be made of 
stooks, or shocks, or bunches, or sheaves, or 
of loose 6traw or haulms. Far mers do not 
call cocks of hay, stacks, bnt cocks. But if 
several cocks arc placed one above the other, 
the pile is called a Black. Yet, one may call a 
cock of hay a stack, although it would uot be 
using languuge in accordance with the most 
approved custom. Hence, persons who are 
accustomed to use the more appropr iate words 
in the right places, say stook for a collection of 
stalks of unhu6ked corn, or a gavel of buck¬ 
wheat, aud shock for a small number of sheaves 
of any kind, There is just as much difference 
between a stook of corn and a shock of corn, 
The Johnston Harvester Co.’* Gleaner and 
Binder, 
We here present to our readers what prom¬ 
ises to be one of the most valuable labor-siving 
machines in the country. As will be seen by 
the illustration, fig. 35, this is an independent 
binder aud gleaner, and has the advantage 
that the gram can be bound at once or left in 
the field until cured, or until a more conve¬ 
nient time for binding it. It is simple in con¬ 
struction, binds with twine, making a secure 
knot that will not slip or give out. It has an 
adjustable gathering apparatus that can be 
easily adapted to the varying conditions of 
crop or ground, aud it will bind after any 
reaper. We have watched the different suc¬ 
cessive improvements made in this implement 
until at last the manufacturers are prepared 
CESTKUS BOVIS—THE OX BOT-FLY. 
In the issue of the Rural for November 
27, reference is made to this insect, with an 
estimate of the annual loss occasioned by H 
to those who raise cattle or furnish bides to 
the tanneries. The same article spoke of the 
ease with which the injuries might be checked 
provided all would take hold of the job. This 
led me to think that something on the habits 
of this insect might uot be out of place. 
All who have had the care of them have 
