THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
JAN.20 
72 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT 6. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New Yoric. 
SATURDAY, JAN. 29 1881. 
The present Free Seed and Plant Dis¬ 
tribution of the Rural New-Yorker will 
be begun in a few weeks. It is our de¬ 
sire and intention to begin it earlier than 
we were enabled to do last year. We are 
now only awaiting the arrival of seed 
from France ordered a long time ago. 
We have already sent out the White Ele¬ 
phant Potato to many, availing ourselves 
of warm spells. If not received in a per¬ 
fect condition, friends will please notify 
ns by postal card. 
--*-♦-*- 
The Hardy Shrub and Tree Special 
will be (probably) the second number in 
February. In it we do not propose to 
speak of new plants—except incidentally 
—but merely of those good, well-tried 
hardy trees and shrubs which have 
proven themselves to be, for general pur¬ 
poses, the best in cultivation. 
The next Rural Special will follow in 
about three weeks. This will treat of 
Small Fruits—especially of strawberries, 
grapes and raspberries. 
The next Special will be our Wheat 
Number, to be published in August next. 
- ♦-*--* - 
LABOR AND CAPITAL AT THE SOUTH. 
The Mississippi Valley Cotton Plant¬ 
ers’ Association is marking out a newline 
of action for Southern planters and their 
hired help, that must commend itself to 
the judgment and good wishes of all. At 
the meeting of this Association held at 
Vicksburg, on the 18th, a paper was read 
explaining the effort the society is making 
to discard the present system of labor 
whereby the crop is raised on shares, and 
to adopt one of wages only. The former 
plan has always worked to the disadvan¬ 
tage of the colored laborer by encourag¬ 
ing his too willing disposition to discount 
his future prospects. The plau proposed 
to replace the present unsatisfactory labor 
system is to have each county bordering 
on the Mississippi lliver choose one white 
and one black man from among the ablest 
representative men of their respective 
classes to attend the May meeting. The 
other matters for consideration will be the 
best cotton machinery, and, above all, the 
best plan by wliich the white man and 
the black can make more money planting 
cotton. This Association was organized 
in May, 1879, lor the purpose of remedy¬ 
ing the existing evils in. the labor system 
of the South, and the members are to be 
commended for their good sense in 
adopting this truly American method of 
remedying existing evils by joint action 
between those who own and those who 
work the soil. 
-- 
DANGER FROM IMPORTATIONS OF FOR¬ 
EIGN CATTLE. 
FooT-and-mouth disease is again 
spreading in England. Stringent meas¬ 
ures of prevention have been adopted in 
Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex, 
forbidding the holding of the weekly 
fairs or the movement of live stock with¬ 
out license. It is feared the present out¬ 
break wil 1 prove the most memorable of 
epizootics. This disease, though not 
usually fatal, is highly contagious and 
belongs to the group of eruptive fevers 
of which cattle plague, small pox and pig 
typhoid are the more formidable and 
destructive members. When this malady 
once becomes epizootic, its march is 
almost irresistible. In the county of 
Suffolk alone in one week, 1264 head of 
cattle, 719 sheep and 157 pigs were re¬ 
ported as attacked. The number that 
died is not stated, but the loss to the 
farmer consists not so much in actual 
death as in great depletion of flesh and 
loss of milk. Every precaution consis¬ 
tent with the public interests should be 
taken by our law-makers to prevent this 
disease from reaching these shores. We 
understand that the consignment of Jer¬ 
sey cattle whose arrival in this port is 
mentioned elsewhere in this issue, show 
unmistakable signs of this disease, and 
they have been qut trait titled for 90 days. 
AN IMPORTANT PATENT DECISION. 
Experience has shown that by far the 
best method of conveying meat in refrig¬ 
erator cars or on board ship, is one by 
which the meat is subjected to a contin¬ 
uous and equable current of cold air. 
The Bate Refrigerator Company of this 
city claim the exclusive right, under their 
patents, to ship meat in this way, and 
some time ago instituted a suit against 
Toffey Brothers, the extensive Jersey 
shippers of dressed meat., for infringe¬ 
ment of their patents on the system. Last 
Wednesday, the 19th, Judge Nixon, in 
the United States Circuit Court of New 
Jersey, held that the Bate Refrigerator 
Company’s patent gives it the exclusive 
right to the above process, and entered a 
decree against Toffey Brothers. From 
this decision the ease may be taken on 
appeal to the United States Supreme 
Court, and in view of the vast dimensions 
which the transportation of moat on rail¬ 
roads and steamships has reached, and 
the large interests involved in the case of 
a multitude of shippers, it is not im¬ 
probable that an appeal will be made, 
should there be any hope of success. In 
any case, the Bate Company should 
charge only a moderate royalty for the 
employment of its process ; for any im¬ 
positions which would virtually give it a 
monopoly of the trade, would be against 
the public interest, to promote which is 
the design of our patent laws. Should 
the Company’s greed induce it to 
make any exhorbitaut. charges, the Courts 
should see to it that the public welfare 
is not injured by the Company’s rapacity. 
In eases where, ns in this, national inter¬ 
ests are involved, the patent laws should 
be so amended that the rights covered by 
a patent should become public property 
at once on the payment to the patentee of 
a fair compensation for his labor, outlay 
and ingenuity, out of the National Treas¬ 
ury. 
-» ♦ »- 
DESTRUCTION OF SEEDED WHEAT BY A 
FUNGUS. 
One of the most extraordinary cases 
on record of the non-germination of Win¬ 
ter wheat is reported to have occurred in 
Europe. A field of this grain, which had 
been sown the previous Autumn, having 
manifestly failed, the owner set about 
plowing the land in the Spring, and to 
liis surprise turned up ungerminated 
grains of wheat which were as large as 
horse beans—say more than half an inch 
long. Even after these great, swollen 
kernels had dried they were considerably 
larger than ordinary wheat, since they 
measured from one-third to one-half ail 
inch in length and two or three-tenths of 
an inch in breadth. ThiB abnormal grain 
was of a grayish-yellow color and was 
shaped something like an elongated pear, 
the thinner end or neck being sometimes 
a tenth of an inch long. It was easy to 
peel off the skin of the grain in spots, lu 
many cases a bundle of slender roots, 
half or three quarters of an inch long, 
were attached to the thin end of the grain. 
Under the microscope, it appeared that 
the mycelium of a fungus (that is to say 
the thread-like organ which is to the 
fungi what rootlets are to ordinary 
plants) had invaded the grains and con¬ 
sumed their gluten, starch, and other 
nutritive constituents ; and that the pres¬ 
ence of the great mass of mycelial threads 
had caused the wheat-kernels to swell to 
such unnatural size. There was reason 
to believe that the advent of dry weather 
in the Autumn had been unfavorable for 
the full development of the fungus so 
that its growth was arrested before it 
had reached maturity, otherwise the 
wheat kernels would have been more 
fully destroyed, and the mycelium itself 
would have shrunk away more or less 
completely when the fungus had reached 
the period of fruition and the object of 
its life had been fulfilled. 
--- 
AGITATION NOT ENOUGH. 
The adulteration of food has deservedly 
attracted a great deal of attention of late. 
Boards of Trade all over the country have 
been passing resolutions against the evil; 
associations have been formed in some of 
out chief cities with the special object of 
combatting it ; the National Board of 
Health has offered a premium for the 
best draft of a law to suppress it: the 
Governors of several States, in their mes¬ 
sages to the Legislatures, have urged 
more stringent criminal legislation to 
suppress it; a number of bills directed 
against it have been introduced into the 
Legislatures of some of the States, and 
others have already passed similar meas¬ 
ures ; Congress, too, has a couple of bills 
before it; but in the face of this 
widespread agitation the evil is iucreas- 
ing steadily and boldly. Oleomargarine 
and suine, its newly discovered con¬ 
gener, have been objects of special 
denunciation, but the manufacture and 
sale of both have been growing rankly. 
It is to be hoped that the present agi¬ 
tation will not subside until some effective 
method has been devised for punishing 
not only adulterations in jurious to health, 
but also the foisting upon the public of 
goods under false and deceptive names. 
The passing of laws, however stringent, 
is not enough tc accomplish this end, 
unless precautions are taken that they 
shall be rigidly enforced. In this State 
the law requiring the seller to have pack¬ 
ages of oleomargarine marked with the 
name of the concoction is virtually in¬ 
operative from negligence in enforcing 
it on the part of the officers whose 
duty it is to see that the require¬ 
ment shall be carried out. The dealers 
in genuine butter, also, should not con¬ 
fine their efforts against the fraudulent 
sale of the spurious article to mere de¬ 
nunciation and spasmodic prosecutions 
of offenders, but in every town they 
should imitate the example which, we 
learn, is now being set by all the reputa¬ 
ble butter dealers of Chicago, who have 
pledged their word not so sell a pound 
either of hog or bullock butter. 
--—-- 
THE FALL OF LIMA. 
Lima has fallen. The Peruvian capital 
has been captured by the Chilians after a 
fierce battle in the suburbs, and the vic¬ 
tors can now dictate terms of peace to the 
vanquished. At the commencement of 
the triangular contest between Chili and 
the allied republics of Bolivia and Peru 
in April, 1879, the population of Chili 
was only about equal to that of Bolivia, 
while Peru’s was considerably larger than 
that of either. The standing armies of 
the allies were double Chili’s. The navy 
of Peru was powerful in contrast with 
that of her opponent. Nearly every civil¬ 
ized nation had an interest iu the products 
of her miues and her niter and guano beds, 
and might be relied on to advance money 
liberally and to impede the success of 
her antagonist. 
It was doubtless these considerations 
that induced her to support Bolivia in 
her breach of treaty with Chili with re¬ 
gard to the Atacama niter beds and the 
guano deposits of the Bay of Mejillones. 
By a treaty, ratified in '74, both repub¬ 
lics were to share equally the guano de¬ 
posits, and for 24 years the Chilians were 
guaranteed the liberty of exporting niter 
and other minerals from between the 
latitudes of 23 and 24 witliout an increase 
of export duty. 
On the alleged failure of the Chilian 
contractors to comply with the terms of 
their bargains, the Bolivian Congress, in 
February 1878, laid an export duty of ten 
cents per 109 pounds, upon the Chilian 
exports of niter. The protests of Chili 
were disregarded, and the plucky little 
republic at once seized upon Antofa¬ 
gasta, the chief Bolivian port from which 
the nitrates were exported. Peru, jeal¬ 
ous of the spirited rivalry of Chili in the 
fertilizer trade, sided with Bolivia, in tl;e 
confident expectations of an easy victory 
and a monopoly of the niter aud guano 
resources of the country. Chili, not a 
whit daunted, promptly declared war 
against this new enemy, anxious to defer 
hostilities until she had made better 
preparations for the contest. 
From the ontset the armies of the Chili¬ 
ans have been uniformly successful on 
land, and, with the exception of the early 
brilliant achievements of the Peruvian 
iron-clad Huascar, and a few losses from 
torpedoes, their fleet has been equally 
victorious at sea. While their army pushed 
vigorously northward, gaining victory 
after victory and forcing the defeated 
Bolivians to seek shameful safety in their 
own country, the fleet devastated the 
Peruvian coast aud levied heavy contri¬ 
butions on its panic-struck inhabitants. 
Their brilliant successes, crowned by the 
triumph of January 17th, considering 
the poverty of tbeir resources aud the 
small number of their population, place 
the Chilians high among the military 
nations of the world, and give them the 
hegomony, or leadership, of all the South 
American Republics. 
A few months ago an attempt was made, 
through the mediation of the United 
States, to conclude a peace between the 
belligerents, but as the Chilians insisted 
on the cession to them of the territory 
of Atacama, about which the dispute 
arose, as well as on a pecuniary compen¬ 
sation for the expenses of the war, the 
terms were deemed too severe, and were 
consequently rejected. Although many 
of the wealthiest provinces of Peru are 
tMist. of the Andes, aud therefore still un¬ 
touched by the ravages of war, yet there 
is little doubt that peace will be soon 
forced upon the humiliated people. After 
the additional outlay and bloodshed the 
• 
terms imposed by the victors will be 
hardly less severe than those formerly 
offered, and will probably include the 
cession by Pern of the Province of Tara- 
paca, with its great mineral and fertilizer 
wealth, in addition to the annexation of 
the part of Atacama claimed by Bolivia, 
together with several of the Peruvian 
seaports. 
Such an agreement would give to 
Chili almost an entire monopoly of the 
vast nitrate resources of South America 
and a preponderating share of its guano 
wealth, and must therefore be of interest 
to the agriculture of the world. Foreign 
nations, however, may interfere iu the 
settlement of the terms of peace, in de¬ 
fence of the interests of their subjects, 
who have made large loans to Peru on 
the security of her nitrate and gnano de¬ 
posits. There is a report in this city that 
a syndicate of wealthy Speculators have 
within the last month concluded an 
agreement with Peru by which they ob¬ 
tain entire control of all her guano de¬ 
posits for a term of twenty years for 
twenty million dollars, five millions of 
which have already been paid. Should 
the report prove correct, as Americans 
we may rejoice that our own citizens have 
superseded the English in control of this 
lucrative business; but as farmers we 
shall probably have no cause for exulta¬ 
tion, as experience has taught us that 
American capitalists are as eager as tne 
greediest foreigners to wring the greatest 
profit from the American farmer. 
-*-•-»- 
BREVITIES, 
Correspondents will greatly oblige us if, 
by postal, they will stale what effect the ex¬ 
tremely cold weather of the past few weeks 
has had on fruit buds and trees. 
The Board of Control of the New York 
Agricultural Experiment Station at their 
meeting held at Albany ou the 19th inst.. 
adopted a report embracing the let ling of the 
Board to establish the station upon a farm, 
and to give field experiments a higher place 
than laboratory work. The Board is now 
ready to receive proposals from those who 
have farms to sell or give away. 
A new disease, locally called “black plague" 
is proving very fatal among hogs at Floyd’s 
Neck. Long Island, near thia city. None of 
the affected animals have hitherto recovered, 
all having died a few hours after the begin- 
ing of the attack. Some suppose it to be one 
of the several forms of disease grouped under 
the name "hog cholara;" while others prefer 
the expressive name of “black plague." It 
has created quite a commotion among neigh¬ 
boring farmers, who are taking stringent 
precautions to prevent it from spreading. 
Hildreth & Sons, large sugar refiners of Phil¬ 
adelphia, last year contracted with farmers 
of Cumberland and Cape May Counties. New 
Jersey.for250 ucres of Minnesota Amber Sugar¬ 
cane tor refilling purposes This was in ap 
experimental way only. The results were so 
favorable that they have Ibis year coutraeted 
for 8,600 acres more, and intend to plain 2 500 
acres ou their own account, and have put up 
new machinery for the purpose of working 
up this immense quantity of cane. They 
pronounce the. cane grown in New Jersey 
much sweeter than that grown at the West, 
and it can consequently be worked up more 
economically. 
Hot house Strawberries sold here at the 
opening of the season, a few days ago. at $7 50 
a quait wholesale; but they have since fallen 
to $0 wholesale and $8 50 retail. A cup con¬ 
taining about 80 berries sells for $2 wholesale 
and $2.50 retail. As sold in the stores, the 
berries cost about fifteen cents each. The fruit 
is raised chiefly in New Jersey and brought to 
market by special messengers, it being too 
precious to be trusted to the express compa¬ 
nies. Champion and Jueunda are the princi¬ 
pal varieties raised. The demand is greater 
than the supply just now, as may be inferred 
from the prices. Private citizens are the chief 
purchasers, as the best restaurants aud hotels 
will not buy until prices have dropped to about 
$3 per quart. The season is late this year, 
the previous one having opened about the 
middle of December. It will last until early in 
May, though Florida berries are expected to 
c true into competition about the first of March. 
Last year they came into market early in 
February, hut owing to the cold weather in 
th* 8outh, they will be later this year. 
Rumored “Corners ” There is a report in 
this city that a •* corner" in outs either has 
been completed or is in course ot formation. 
Prices, however, have not advanced as Iliey 
usually do wlieu the '* null” movemeuts which 
result in *' corners" occur. The price ot oats, 
however, is high now, and it may be that the 
upward rush may be deferred uutil the “ shorts" 
are being squeezed at settling time. All that 
is certain is thateeveral large operators jn the 
Produce Exchange have lately been heavy 
buyers of oats. This may have started an 
idle rumor about the “ corner"—or a correct 
report. From Chicugo comes another rumor 
about u prospective “corner"— in wheat this 
time. Now that the needs of (oreign mar¬ 
kets, and the surplus supplies of‘other coun¬ 
tries are pretty accurately estimated, it is 
thought that speculators have sufficient data 
on which to manipulate the market. There 
is a great deal of capital idle or drawing only 
a very small interest, the speculative feeling 
throughout the country is unusually lively, and 
both may find employment iu tryiug to corner 
wheat. It seems to us, however, that there is 
loo much of this still in the hands ol producers 
and dealers to be controlled by any syndicate 
Moreover, the outcome ol Iilm y ear’s corner, 
despite the short crops iu Europe, was not 
such as to eucourage a similar movement this 
year in face of au increased production at 
home and abroad, and hence a less demand. 
