38 
JAN. 45 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
The farm is destitute of buildings and fences, 
but as soon as lumber is procured these will 
be erected, and entirely by student labor, with 
the exception of team-driving and the neces¬ 
sary superintendence of the work by a fox - e- 
man. All labor at the college will be perform¬ 
ed by students, even to building the barns and 
other rough work. After the Mechanical De¬ 
partment is started it is expected that the 
college buildings may be put up by students as 
fast as needed, and that the making of furni¬ 
ture, repairing, etc., can be done in the college 
shop. Students will receive a thorough course 
of study in the sciences and English, and in 
the theory and practice of agriculture and the 
mechanic arts. 
The college ha3 opened with llatteiiug pros¬ 
pects, is popular with the people, and numbers 
among its students the sons of some of the 
wealthiest and most prominent men of 
the State. It is located at Starkville, 
Oktibbeha County, on a branch of the 
Mobile & Ohio Railroad. The country 
around the town is high, undulating and 
healthful, making the location all that can be 
desired. Contrary to the opinion I heard be. 
fore coming South, I find that Southern boys 
are not afraid of manual labor or study 
Owing to the lack of schools, many of our 
students are backward in tbeiv studies, but 
from the way they go to work I can see they 
have the right stuff in them to make good men, 
Starkville, Miss. F. A. Gullet. 
Ulisrrilanfous. 
JOTTINGS. 
Pot-grown Viue». 
1 noticed Horticola's Rurulism on poi-growu 
vines, Henderson’s rejoinder, and Horticola's 
explanation. Now, if a vine grown in a pot 
i6 superior to oue grown out of it, why is it 
so? and in what respect? 1 am so much of a 
novice (!—Eds ) that I would like to learn the 
why and the wherefore. Does a cutting 
grown in a pot make more or better roots, or 
will they be in a more natural position than 
if grown otherwise. 
I have grown a good many vines and Iknow 
there is a good deal of difference in varieties 
in the way of making roots, and often in vines 
of the same variety. I have set vines grown in 
pots, the roots of which had run round the 
pots till they assumed a corkscrew shape and 
were difficult to straighten out, but it never 
occurred to me that such plants were any bet¬ 
ter for having their roots in such a shape. 
If pot-grown vines are really bettor than 
others let ua know why and in what re¬ 
spect. 
Plainness of Speech. 
The friendly criticism of your correspond¬ 
ent on the abstruse expression of ideas by 
writers for the press, as quoted in “Brieflets,” 
in a late issue, is very apropos. He hits the 
nail on the head squarely and deserves the 
thanks of all for so doing. An idea may he 
perfectly plain to the writer when written, but 
if afterwards he were to put himself in a posi¬ 
tion of one unfamiliar with the subject, and 
re-read it with a view to ascertain whether it 
was perfectly plain and free from any ambi¬ 
guity to otherB. changes would be very fre¬ 
quent. " Ton know how it is yourself.” 
THE TRUTH ABOUT IT, 
[The object of articles under this heading: is not so 
much to deal with "humbugs” aB with the many un 
conscious errors that creep into the methods of daily 
oountry routine life.—E ds.] 
CITY ALLUREMENTS. 
The country supports the city. The wealth 
of the cities and towne is all necessarily drawn 
from the farms and the farmers who " pay for 
all.” And not only in the way of legitimate 
business is rural wealth thus garnered into 
urban coffers, but by all sorts of fraudulent 
schemes and swindling devices are the coun¬ 
try people made to contribute to the capacious 
and greedy desires of the city sharpers. The 
“ lambs” from the green fields outside the city 
are shorn and fleeced by the speculators who 
offer five per cent, a month certain, and un¬ 
limited probabilities of extra profit from slock 
speculations, in which the certainties are 
wholly against the greenhorns who venture 
their money against the speculators’ exper¬ 
ience. Very soon the money and the exper¬ 
ience change hands, and millions of dollars’ 
worth of the latter commodity are yearly 
gathered in by hapless, rural victims. 
This is, howeyer, a virtuous transaction as 
compared with some of the nefarious schemes 
devised to entrap unwary country persons. If 
one should take up a city paper which has a 
large escalation and proportionate advertis¬ 
ing business, itB columua will be filled with the 
most palpably fraudulent announcements. 
Widows sorrowing over dearly loved hus¬ 
bands offer to sell, day after day for week9 
and months, the deceased man’s property, sold 
solely on account of the death. Broken down 
horses, irreparably damaged and diseased but 
guilefully gotten up to deceive, are the favor¬ 
ite subjects of these bogus widows, and farmers 
seeking horses are the prey prayed for. The 
household effects of a gentleman departing for 
Europe, which consist of gaudy and cheap 
furniture, put together with glue and which 
will fall apart In a few weeks; worthless daubs 
represented to be paintings by first-class art¬ 
ists ; pianos of similar character with the furni¬ 
ture, and made expressly for these sales, are 
forced on to unsuspicious rural purchasers, 
(desirous of making a show aud of astonish¬ 
ing the natives by their magnificence) by gangs 
of confederated swindlers, experienced in all 
the arte and wiles of the confidence games. 
Business opportunities of every kind are offer¬ 
ed by the hundreds to newcomers from the 
country who have more money than exper¬ 
ience, and all these are put forth in such allur¬ 
ing and seductive guise, as to deceive even 
some of the city residents, themselves. But 
the most abominable cheats are those which 
offer situations to poor men from the country, 
coupled with the demand of a deposit of a sum 
of money, merely as a guarantee of honesty in 
the absence of known references. “ The best of 
security,” generally a mortgage on imaginaiy 
property in a suburban locality, is offered to 
secure the deposit. A few dollars are paid as 
wages, when the UDhappv victim is on some 
early day astonished to find his employer van¬ 
ished aijd the tdace of business deserted. Oc¬ 
casionally one of these rogues is hunted down 
und punished, but usually the disheartened 
and perhaps ruined youth, robbed of his last 
dollar, is only too glad to escape from the city 
and go back to his home to hide hi6 wound, 
ancl to find himself a wiser and a sadder man. 
A recent case may be instructive, to those con¬ 
cerned. A young man came from the country 
to seek employ ment in New York. Looking 
over a leading advertising paper he read the 
following. 
“ Waited —A clerk for a safe and money¬ 
making business. Salary $l2 a week guaran¬ 
teed. Jones, 75 Center St." 
The young man applying at the place, found 
an old man (a smooth, plausible villain, how¬ 
ever) surrounded by a few barrels of apples. 
Mr. Jones required a deposit oi $300 from the 
stranger as security “ as a matter of form,” 
aud secured the money by a bogus mortgage. 
The money was deposited; the young man 
entered on hie duties, which were the sorting 
over of the few faded apples, aud looking out 
with vain hope and weary expectation for a 
customer, who came not. In the meantime he 
received but $3 on account of wages, while, 
as it afterwards turned out, his employer un 
dor other names and at other places was pur¬ 
suing the same spider-like hunt lor other prey, 
which as a matter of course he found. After 
a time the young man was amazed to find the 
place deserted, the apples had disappeared 
and Mr. Jones vanished. By good fortune the 
swindler was caught andothei victims appear¬ 
ed against him, all of whom had the same 
story to tell. The rogue was held for trial, but 
it is probable he may escape punishment on 
account of the difficulty of prosecuting such a 
case with all the delays of law, and through 
the obvious want of meaus on the part of 
the victims. The truth of the matter is 
that cities are overflowing with misery and 
wretchedness caused in this and other similar 
ways. They are swarming with harpies who 
prey upon inexperience, ignorance and too 
sauguine hopes, A stranger coming to the 
city cannot be too careful to keep his money 
at home and send for it as he may want it, and 
never never send money to be used in specu¬ 
lations. Tne more brilliant the promises of 
these, the more disastrous will be the disap¬ 
pointment. 
-- *-»- - 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
Hereford Cattle are, no doubt, exceed¬ 
ingly healthy aud extraordinarily good breed¬ 
ers, and it is very much in their favor that it 
is not customary with the breeders of them to 
feed in such a forcing way as is general with 
Short-horn men. 
Mr.Talcott’s queries respecting the effects of 
close, in-and-in breeding are very pertinent. 
It would be satisfactory at the present mo¬ 
ment to know the real cause why the Short¬ 
horn breeders in this country have been giving 
uo their herds one after the other for the past 
20 years. 
“True Percherons" are lauded by “West¬ 
erner.’’ There is not the slightest doubt 
about there being altogether a finer style of 
draft horse used in the great breweries iu Lou¬ 
don than iu any other part of the world. '• Bar¬ 
clay aud Perkins” employ competent and re¬ 
liable dealers to supply them with the very 
best to be found on the earth, and I believe 
their great number ot dray horses would aver¬ 
age, in their usual working condition, nearly 
2,240 pouuda each, and yet they are very 
handsome and superior animals. There are 
good horses imported from the Continent Into 
England, and Percherous, Normans, Belgians 
etc., are sold iu London, but it is useless to 
deny that they are all Inferior to Lhe “ Cart 
Horses” bred and raised iu the midland coun¬ 
ties of England. The PercheronB, the Nor- 
maus, etc., have been improved by tbe use of 
stallions purchased at the fairs in England, 
and within my memory there was a constant 
annual drain of splendid sialllonB of this 
sort half a century ago, cart horses being 
sought for by breeders of draft horses as 
eagerly as the sporting men looked out for 
thoroughbreds. 
Ducks.— 1 have raised a great many ducks 
and seen hundreds which have had access to 
water from the day they left the nest. Whether 
they should have this or not depends upon the 
kind ol stream and whether there are rats, 
large frogs or turtles. I lost 70 iu one day 
from turtles oue of which was a monster. 
These ducks were two weeks old. Where 
there is a nice, quiet, slow-running stream and 
there are no enemies to the ducklings, I am 
sure no harm is done to them by their swim¬ 
ming, waddling and wading from morning 
till night. They will eat grain of any kind, 
split corn, etc., and come to any place where 
It is always to be found and they will come 
home at night when they are a few days 
old. Hens will raise them well, but will for¬ 
sake them early, and in warm weather the 
little ungrateful wretches pay no heed to the 
poor auxiousmother. If the water is changed 
often, little ducks will do very well as stated 
by Mr. L. S. Hardin. 
Close Confinement of Sheep.— The Win¬ 
ter haviug set in early and the snow being 
deep, the sheep will have too much inaction, 
especially the breeding ewes. Many farmers 
are keeping a flock for the first time, and if 
theewesare injured by close confinement these 
men will for ever condemn sheep husbandry 
as a disappointment. To prevent ill effects 
from idleness I am driving uiy sheep every 
day, when not too stormy, to one or other of 
several pieceB of pasture on which there still 
remain uneaten some bunches of grass, twigs 
and various sorts of herbage grown after mid¬ 
summer. It is interesting to see the sheep 
paw aud pick out mouthfuls of grass and 
take bites of whatever they uncover, and after 
three or four hours of busy employment they 
come home looking bright and happy. 
G. Q . 
- ♦+« - 
The Price of the Rural 
I have been thinking over what you Bay 
about your mistake in putting the price of the 
Rural at $2 : yon had better in my j adgment 
go back to $2 50; it will then be cheaper than 
any of the monthlies. The reduction in price 
detracts from Its usefulness by forcing you to 
make advertising pay the loss. Bat the worst 
evil is, it forces you to depend too much for 
reading matter upon voluntary contributors, 
and to see your able corps of correspondents 
(the most of whom work for you for nothing (!)) 
find their own stationery, pay their own post¬ 
age, and “grub stakes," and the question iB, is 
it in human nature to do good work under 
those circumstances. 
Raise the price after February to $2 50; ex¬ 
plain frankly the reasons for it, and see if you 
be not sustained. d. s. m. 
RURAL BRIEFLETS. 
Mb. John B. Moore, of Massachusetts^ an¬ 
nounces conspicuously a “ New Cross-bred 
Asparagus.” Would he kindly tell us what is 
meant in this case by cross-bred ?” Accord¬ 
ing to our observation, the ovule of tbe aspar¬ 
agus flower is fertilized before it opens, and 
the male plant is of no service. What varie¬ 
ties were used to obtain the cross ? How does 
he know it is a cross ? We ask these questions 
in no Bpirit of incredulity, but merely for 
information. .. 
Mr. Moore in a letter to the Editor Bays: 
«• Our new white grape “ Hayes,” which was 
exhibited before the Massachusetts Horticul¬ 
tural Society in September last and awarded a 
first-class certificate of merit, is now iu course 
ot propagation. This grape is a pure native, 
fine in bunch aud berry, of excellent quality 
and extremely hardy. This last feature is 
particularly noticeable, the leaves hanging to 
the vine long after those of all other varieties 
have dropped. The “Hayes" cat) be recom¬ 
mended as a white grape especially suitable 
for the Northern and Eastern States and Can¬ 
ada. The dissemination of this variety cannot 
be accomplished for some years to come, and 
In the meantime all persons interested iu grape 
culture are invited to make a thorough inves¬ 
tigation ol the merits which are oiaimed for 
it. Hoping that you may sanctiou this at¬ 
tempt to place before the public a white grape, 
that can be profitably cultivated-’’. . . . 
We wish to ask Mr. Moore how “ all persons 
interested iu grape culture” can make “a 
thorough Investigation of the merits” of the 
“Haves,” G It is not to be “disseminated In 
some years." - , . .. 
It is proposed by the Editor of the Toronto 
Globe that, iu order to destroy the pea-weevil, 
it is only necessary that the bags containing 
the seed peas he brought into a warm room 
there to remain until the weevils come out of 
their boles. Once out they may be left to die. 
Beans and all leguminous seeds liable to be 
infested, might be treated in the same way. 
Prof. Comstock, commenting upon the above, 
admits that it Is a reasonable plan, but aBks 
why not use carbon bisulphide with which the 
weevils will be destroyed, whether they leave 
the beaus or not ? . . 
“ Reports of large yields are very common 
every year, but I must sav I am in some sense 
a ‘doubting Thomas.’ When I see it stated 
that oue hundred and fifty bushels of shelled 
corn have been gathered from an acre on Long 
Island, as 1 noticed some time since In a New 
York paper, I must be set down as a ‘doubting 
Thomas.’ To get a statement of such a crop, 
men take green ears and estimate with every 
allowance favoring the big story.” 
Thus Mr. G. W. Hoffman, of the Elmira 
Farmers’ Club, expressed himself at a late 
meeting, as reported in the Husbandman. Pre¬ 
suming that the New York paper referred to 
was the Rural New-Yorker, we would say 
that had Mr. Hoffman read the reports of the 
several committees who visited the fields and 
estimated the yields, there could be no room 
for doubt, proven as the results were by our 
own actual measurement. We extended a 
general invitation to all Interested In deter¬ 
mining the yields to visit the Rural Farm, so 
that our own statements might receive support 
which would place them beyond suspicion. 
What more could we do ? We regret we had 
not extended a special invitation to the mem¬ 
bers of the Elmira Farmers’ Club. Had they 
accepted, they could uo longer have remained 
among the “doubting Thomases,” while if not, 
it would have been the more ungenerous in 
them to have disputed the statements which, 
It will be admitted, we were at great pains to 
have trustworthy. 
The Backsets in Sugar Making — Thus 
spoke Mr. 1. A, Hedges before the third annual 
meeting of the Cane Growers’ Association, 
held In St. Louis December 21:—“Although 
sugar making is our great object, there have 
beeu more backsets caused by efforts to teach 
men to learn to make sugar before they had 
learned to make sirup than from any other one 
misdirection. I find those of most experience 
readily admit that alter good simp Is made out 
of well developed cane, sugar making is an 
easy matter. This conclusion leaves us only 
to devise the best meaus of accomplishing the 
work profitably. I have so freely given my 
views on this subject, through the organs of 
our Association, that it is only necessary for 
me to briefly recapitulate them here, viz. : 
Small workB do well as initiatory beginnings, 
but for perm&ueut mouey-making establish¬ 
ments capital Is essential, aggregated by asso¬ 
ciation of individual investment, and in all 
such cases I am convinced that the first season 
should be devoted to sirup making in order to 
educate a crew of men and fully test the entire 
apparatus, as well as to settle the results of 
the 6011 surrouuding the works. For this pur¬ 
pose careful polariecopic tests of the cane from 
all the varied Boils growing the same should be 
made. That the use of vacuum boiling paus 
will be the better method is scarcely disputed, 
hence the location should be selected with lhat 
Object in view. These considerations, as well 
as the ultimate results, will suggest the im¬ 
portance of the consultation of a competent 
person in the outset, so as to avoid mistakes. 
The lack of experts is the present great diffi¬ 
culty to the rapid advancement of this indus¬ 
try.” _ 
Sorgo Sirup. —Colonel Lamb, who resides 
about one mile from 8kaneateles, ha3 had sev¬ 
eral years' experience in tbe manufacture of 
sirup for home consumption, says Mr. Rose, 
in the Husbandman. For three years, pre¬ 
vious to the paBt year, he planted the Siberian 
Cane aud realized a good profit. This year he 
planted the Amber Cane, and from a few feet 
less than 100 rods of land had 275 gallons of 
Birup weighing 11 pounds and 14 ounces per 
gallon. He plants in rows 40 inches apart, and 
leaves the plants from three to four inches in 
the rowB. He prefers Amber Cane, as It ripens 
early. He sells the sirup at 50 cents per gallon. 
There is a yield of 440 gallons per acre, which 
shows what may be done under favorable cir¬ 
cumstances. 
A Hint to Farmers.— In some sections— 
and it would he a decided advance in thought¬ 
fulness aud kindness in all sections—farmers 
give each of their boys and girls, too, a strip 
ol ground to raise whatever they choose upon 
it, and dispose of the product for their own 
benefit. It is a favor that they all aporeclate, 
says the Germantown Telegraph, aud it Is a 
pleasant aud serviceable employment for them 
in their leisure hours. They will vie with each 
other in their skill at raising their little crops, 
