228 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
APRIL 2 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, APRIL 2 , I SSI. 
We have greatly desired ere now to 
place before our readers the truth, in so 
far as it can be told, regarding the ensi¬ 
lage question—that is the value of pits or 
silos for preserving corn-stalks, etc. in a 
Bucoulent, green condition. A good deal 
of what has been printed on this subject 
has been written by those who are in one 
way or another interested in exaggerating 
the advantages of the system. At our 
request Professor E. W. Stewart has 
furnished us with the whole story as he 
views it—the first part of which is pre¬ 
sented this week. We have only to add 
that his views are entitled to muoh re¬ 
spect, as he has investigated the matter 
very thoroughly ; neither has he any 
motive in distorting the truth, nor is he 
oapable of so doing if he had. 
Clethra alnifolia- --sometimes called 
White Alder and Pepperbush —is found 
wild in damp woods, from Maiue south¬ 
ward near the coast. It bears pretty ra¬ 
cemes of heath-like white flowers in July 
and August, and iB well worth a place in 
every garden. Besides its beauty as an 
’ ornamental shrub, attention is called to 
it as a forage for the honey bee, bloom- 
iug as it does when few honey-yielding 
flowers are in bloom. The honey from 
this plant is said to bo nearly white and 
of the best flavor. It is easily trans¬ 
planted at almost every season and thrives 
in dry as well as in wet places. We have 
cultivated the plant for years. 
-»♦ » 
Corn. —The final estimate of the com 
crop for 188® in all the States is placed 
by the Agricultural Department at 1,- 
507,530,040 bushels. Excellent unoffi¬ 
cial estimates put it at 1,537,535,940, or 
about 30,000,000 bnshels more. While 
the aggregate yield of the Western States, 
according to the latter calculation, is con¬ 
sidered to have been 77,147,710 bush¬ 
els less in 1880 than in 1879 ; that of the 
Middle and Southern States is thought 
to have been respectively 27,720,040 and 
40,880,620 greater. Thus the total short¬ 
age in 1880 from the yield of 1879, would 
be less than 10,000,000 bushels according 
to good unofficial estimates and about 
40,000,000 bushels according to the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture — closely eon- 
liiming our prediction in the Rural of 
last September 4th. At present it iB 
highly probable that the supply of corn 
for the remainder of the year will be un¬ 
usually small; for, in addition to the fact 
tha*- the demand for it both at home and 
abroad yearly increases while the supply 
i Liis year was originally less than last, 
a considerable amount of the crop, espe¬ 
cially in the Northwest, was left in the 
fields JaBt Fall, owing to the early arri¬ 
val of severe weather, and much of this 
tho storms have beaten down into the 
mud where it has become frozen, so as 
to render it unmerchantable. Vast quan¬ 
tities, too, have been used for fuel, espe¬ 
cially in Iowa, and the other Northwest¬ 
ern States, while owing to the unusual 
severity of the Winter and the shortage 
of hay in many sections, a greater than 
ordinary amount has been used as stock 
feed. Of course, there will still be a 
vast quantity of corn in the country, 
yet the supply will be moderate in com¬ 
parison with that for the Just few years. 
THE VALUE OF ENSILAGE. 
An esteemed correspondent writes us 
as follows respecting ensilage : 
“No doubt Professor Johnson is cor¬ 
rect when he says that if corn were cut 
at the same time and properly cured, it 
would be just as valuable, for it is sel¬ 
dom properly cured and the labor of so 
cuting it is greater than of preserving it 
in silos. Besides, the system of ensilage is 
very much broader than merely preserv¬ 
ing green corn. It certainly appears to 
be appropriate for preserving all the 
grasses and for rendering soiling a prac¬ 
tical system, which it never has been for 
the general farmer. It is unfortunate 
that its enthusiastic advocates have oon- 
fined it to the one partial food of green 
corn. By applying it to the various 
grasses, a complete ration for milk or 
fattening may be fed from the silo, Win¬ 
ter and Summer. This will solve Winter 
dairying and render the farmer indepen¬ 
dent of purchased grain. The whole 
system is not understood even by its ad¬ 
vocates. The wings of some of the en¬ 
thusiasts of the system, who figure out 
impossible profits should be clipped ; but 
there is much to be said in its favor utter 
all the drawbacks are considered ?” 
- — -- 
A MISLEADING DEFINITION. 
In the new Supplement to Worcester’s 
Dictionary we notice that the word En¬ 
silage is defined as follows:—“ A mode 
of preserving vegetables fresh, as green 
corn fodder, sugar-cane, and other arun- 
dinaceous plants, by burying them in the 
earth in a silo or trench,” Now in point 
of fact ensilage does not and cannot pre¬ 
serve vegetables fresh. We are told in 
this very dictionary that the proper use 
of the word fresh is as in the terms 
“fresh news” and “fresh vegetables,” 
and why in the world is so much stress 
laid on “ arandinaceons plants”? On 
turning to the body of the work we find 
that the word arundinaceons means “of, 
or like, reeds.” Bat the method of ensi¬ 
lage has for many years been practised 
for preserving clover, lucerne, the tops 
of root crops, chicory leaves, mashed 
r -. te, brewers 5 grains 'and in general all 
sort* of forage that cannot readily be 
dried, no matter whether the plants be 
graminaceous, leguminous, chenopodia- 
ceous, or what not; in view of which 
faot, the limitation of the lexioographer 
is somewhat amnsiDg. If the iutention 
had been to imply that thus far ensilage 
has been commonly applied to the pres¬ 
ervation of fodder corn in this country, 
assuredly something would have bean 
said of plank and stone coverings, as well 
as of earth ; and of structures above 
ground and underground. It was well 
enough perhaps to grant, unreservedly, 
papers of naturalization to this French 
word and to direct, as haB been done, 
that it should be pronounced as if it were 
of English invention ; but it would cer¬ 
tainly have been better for the perman¬ 
ent credit of the dictionary if the mean¬ 
ing of the word had been less incorrectly 
denned. The dietionary-maker, of all 
persons, should never do work in a burry. 
He should most carefully guard himself, 
withal, from the delusion that pedantry 
can by any possibility take the ?*iaoe of 
precision. 
CROP PK0SPECT8 IN THE WEST. 
A few of our contemporaries in differ¬ 
ent parts of the land have already, 
in answer to inquiries, received a large 
number of reports from various parts of 
the country with regard to the condition 
of the lull-sown grain. The Cincinnati 
Price Current published last week re¬ 
ports from 409 different points chiefly in 
the West aul Northwest, and on March 
26, Bradstreet published reports from 18 
cities in the same region, the senders 
having beforehand gathered telegraphio 
information from various trustworthy 
parties in the tributary territories. Inas¬ 
much as most of the oountry covered by 
the inquiries is still covered also by 
slow, very little definite information has 
been obtained. Comparing both the 
above reports with some others of a lo¬ 
cal character, it appears that in Ohio the 
prospect for wheat was fair with no in¬ 
crease of acreage from the previous sea¬ 
son. la the Northern part of the State 
the outlook for oats was poor ; as was 
that for barley in the Southern part. In 
Indiana, the outlook for wheat was less 
favorable than last year ; the acreage 
about the same. In Illinois favorable re¬ 
ports predominate with regard to wheat; 
tiiere has been an increase of acreage 
under it, and the aggregate yield is ex¬ 
pected to equal that of last year. In 
Missouri and Kansas, the outlook for 
crops is highly promising, and there is 
a considerable increase of acreage under 
wheat. In both States the severe Win¬ 
ter has left the ground in better condition 
than usual for Spring work. In Texas, 
Arkansas and; Southern Missouri plow¬ 
ing is now going on, and in the two 
former States there will be a consider¬ 
ably larger acreage under cotton. In 
Michigan, much uncertainty prevails 
with x ga d to wheat, but the general im 
pression is that wniie the acreage is 
about the same the jield will be less 
than last year. There will be little plowing 
before April 20. From two to four feet 
of snow cover the crops in Wisconsin, 
but the prospect for wheat is unusually 
good. Montana' farmers are reported to 
have begun seeding a week ago, and 
Dakota farmers will begin in about two 
weeks—April 9tb. The Missouri River 
is breaking up, and an immense wheat 
crop is expected on the “ Bonanza” farms. 
In Southern Minnesota there will be a 
large increase of acreage under crops; 
but seeding will not begin for three 
weeks. The prospects for wheat in Ken¬ 
tucky are lees, and those in Tennessee 
more, favorable than *at this time last 
year. None of the reports indioate any 
aggregate inorease of wheat acreage ; but 
the Department of Agriculture estimates 
that this amounts to four per oent. on 
last year’s area. 
■■■ ■ ' 
SHOULD THE INNOCENT SUFFER T 
A little over a week ago some of the 
leading members of a gang of land swin¬ 
dlers were arrested in St. Louis Cleve¬ 
land and PittBburg, and a number of 
others are still at large in other plaoeB. 
Their operations are said to cover from 
one to three million acres in Missouri 
and to have been oarried on since 1854. 
The ring engaged in the fraud is be¬ 
lieved to have included several govern¬ 
ment officials, one of whom used to be in 
charge of a Missouri land office, by which 
means the swindlers obtained possession 
of a large quantity of genuine "United 
States land patents, which were sold to 
innocent settlers accompanied by forged 
deeds that pretended to give complete 
titles to the property. These deeds were 
often given the appearanoe of age so deftly 
by the use of smoke or coffee, that no one 
ever suspected the deception until about 
14 months ago, when a private letter 
gave an inkling of the matter to Secre¬ 
tary Schurz. Special Treasury agents 
have been investigating the swindle ever 
since with the results of the above ar¬ 
rests. That this swindle should have 
been aided at the outset, if not start¬ 
ed, by government officials, and that it 
should have remained undetected for 35 
or 36 jeirs, argues gross carelessness—lo 
put it mildly—on the part of the respon¬ 
sible offioers of the government In the 
meanwhile thousands of innocent settlerB 
have invested their money and labor in 
lauds to which they hare no legal title, 
and the question arises—what should be 
the action of the Government under the 
circumstances ? In view of the faot that 
the swindle was perpetrated through the 
dishonesty of the Government’s own of¬ 
ficials; that it flourished for upwards of a 
generation through the gross carelessness 
of successive incumbents of government 
offices, and that the present occupiers of 
the land, having paid for it in goed faith, 
were swindled through the Government's 
own fault, we believe that only one np- 
right course now lies open to it-~to pun¬ 
ish the swindlers as severely as the law 
allows, and to give clear titles to their 
holdings to the present oocupiers of the 
land. While we insist on the punishment 
of the guilty, we are equally emphatic in 
our opinion that for their crimes the in¬ 
nocent should not be made to suffer. 
i - ♦»< - — — - 
CULTURE ON THE FARM. 
Agri-culture, horti-culture, flori-cal- 
ture are the kinds of culture we keep 
most before our readers, and we feel at 
times guilty for leaving it to so great an 
extent to others to talk of homo-culture, 
or the culture of man. For, after all, 
what is everything and anything with¬ 
out Man, the thinker, Man, the worker. 
To be sure, we have not failed to urge 
the proper education of the young; but 
we have not done what we Bhould to per¬ 
suade the elder people not to neglect 
that cultivation of the mind which iB 
necessary to enable them to keep pace 
with the progress in every department of 
this great world in which we live. The 
boy who leaves the school-house early in 
life, and takes up farming as his avoca¬ 
tion, Bhould no more think of neglecting 
his study aud reading than should a phy¬ 
sician on the receipt of his diploma from 
the medioal oollege that graduated him. 
But we are sorry to say it is often done. 
A ease in point: The writer being in 
want of some information concerning 
matters of long ago, of which he sup¬ 
posed an old school-mate was possessed* 
wrote him a letter asking a tew simple 
questions, to which no reply came. The 
matter was not of sufficient importance 
to warrant another request in the face of 
such apparent neglect. A year after the 
{ larties met in their native country vil- 
age, when an apology and explanation 
were offered thus: “I reoeived your 
letter ; but I don’t write letters any 
more. I have got out of the habit of it, 
and I always get my neighbor to write 
for me. t told him what to write, but I 
guess he didn’t do it. ” 
Now this man in his youth was equal 
to the average of his mates as a scholar, 
and could have been, if he would, the 
equal in intelligence and information of 
most of those about him. But what kind 
of a farmer has he made ? The same as 
his father before him. He is honest, in¬ 
dustrious aud frugal and his form is well 
kept, after the same plan as a hundred 
years ago. There is no “ book farming ” 
about him, you may be sure. 
We cite this man as an illustration. 
The conntry is full of such, and it ought 
not to be so. But how is the evil to be 
remedied ? By the introduction in every 
village and hamlet of Farmers’ Clubs, 
that shall be debating societies, taking 
up as questions matters both on the farm 
and off it; of circulating libraries, from 
which books may be taken at small an¬ 
nual expense, that treat chiefly but 
clearly on all subjects of interest; of 
newspapers and magazines that shall be 
read and talked about, and by bringing 
forward anything and everything that 
shall keep alive and in action the think¬ 
ing power. Interest the young men and 
the young women in these things, and 
aB they grow older let not the interest 
flag ; and the next generation of farmers 
and farmers’ wives will be wiser, better 
and happier than the present one. 
BREVITIES. 
Oub choice of green peas for family nee 
from careful test« of aU the leading varieties 
la for earliest Alpha; for next early McLean's 
Little Gem; for the main and late ciop two 
sowings of Champion of England. 
Mb Charles Downing writes ua, and our 
readere will please make a note of it, that 
apples sent to be named, Bhould be of aver¬ 
age size, color, form, etc., snch as will give a 
fair representation of the variety.” 
Pboctor Knott. Congressman from Ky., 
in a late House debate on the proposal to Errant 
!?10,000 for further investigation of tbe ways of 
the cotton-worm, estimated the comparative 
value of turkeys and government bugologists 
thusly :—" There would he more propriety In 
an amendment voting $10,000 to buy tuikeys 
to catch tbe tobacco worms in my district, 
for I am sure a single turkey cock is worth 
more in the extermination of insects noxious 
to agriculture than all tho entomologists the 
government has employed in the last ten years." 
Wonder whether It was this curious comparison 
of the irreverent Knott that caused the defeat 
of the proposed appropriation ! 
A bill is now before the Committee on Agri¬ 
culture of tho Massachusetts Legislature the 
decision with regcud to which la of interest to 
our agricultural colleges in so far as a prece¬ 
dent may bo established in a matter wh’ch 
should closely affect the interests of these in¬ 
stitutions. It is proposed with regard to ihe 
agricultural college at Amherst, to adopt the 
policy now common in nearly all the New Eng¬ 
land colleges, by giviug Its alumni ashare in its 
government instead of the self-perpetuating 
Board of Trustees who have now control of 
tbe institution. Should the bill be passed 15 
members outside of tho ex-efflelo trustees are 
to be chosen for five years—one-third by the 
Board itself, one-third by the State Board of 
Agriculture aud one-third by the graduates. 
The fourth Fat Stock Show at Chicago will 
open lo the public on Monday. November 7:h, 
next, and continue open daily until 10 p.m. 
the following Saturdsy. There will be prac¬ 
tically no changes in the regulations that have 
been in force at former exhibitions. The pre¬ 
miums already decided on amount to $4 675 
against $8,455 last year. For cattle the pre¬ 
miums will aggregate $2.775: for sheep, $920; 
for swine, 879 ': for poultry, $190. A consid¬ 
erable sum is also expected to bo offered as 
special premiums by private individual-*, one 
gentleman having already promised $700 for 
that purpose. In a Fat Stock show horses, of 
course, have no legitimate place ; but a6 the 
majority of visitors are interested in flue 
horses as much as in other kinds of farm 
stock, the State Boaid of Agriculture has de¬ 
cided to partially open the doors of the exhi¬ 
bition to breeders and importers of horses. Of 
course, no premium will be offjred in the 
equine department, but tho excellent, oppor¬ 
tunity there afforded for the display and sale of 
choice stock will doubtless induce owners to 
make a flue show, as each horsemen will have 
the privilege of txhibHing any number of 
horses up to ten. 
Reports from Sonthern Texas and the Gulf 
indicate a rapid breaking up of the Northern 
Winter. The sun huvmg in his course north¬ 
ward passed tbe equator on March 20th, tbe 
warm winds from the Gulf are already 
preceding him northward. Late telegraphic 
reports to New York City say that the 
season in Texas, Arkansas ana Southern 
Missouri is no later than the average, and al¬ 
though in Northern and Western Kansas. 
Northern Missouri, Southern Iowa and South¬ 
ern Illinois telegrams say the season is a week 
or two later, the prospects are fair for a rapid 
advance of Spring. In the Northwest, how¬ 
ever, Winter still appears reluctant to depart, 
for on Friday, March 35. the Signal Service 
telegraphed to this city that for the previous 
five days the temperatures had averaged be¬ 
low the tree zing point as follows:—Dakota 
seven degrees; Minnesota, nine j Wisconsin, 
six; Michigan, ten; Iowa, five; Nebraska, 
three; Illinois and Missouri, one, with Kan¬ 
sas at freezing point. The condition in the 
last five States was favorable to the rapid dis¬ 
appearance of 8DGW- This morning’s tele¬ 
grams announce disastrous floods with grtat 
destruction of property In Nebraska, uurl 
should the enormous deposits of snow ineit 
rapidly, similar floodB must occur all over the 
West. Farmers should prepare, as well as they 
©an, In advance for Buch a contingency. 
