THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MAY 21 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
A National Journal for tho Country and Suburban Home. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
E L B E It T S . CABMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1881. 
A farmer friendand neighbor, who has 
known the Rural Farm for many years, 
and who is quite familiar with the field 
upon which we have plantedour main crop 
of corn, was greatly surprised upon being 
informed that, except upon one acre, no 
fertilizer of any kind had been used, 
“ How many bushels of shelled com will 
you give us per acre," we asked—“40 
bushels ?” “No,” he replied, “ not 25.” 
• «-- 
Small Savings — Small Losses.— 
The man who saves something every 
year is on the road to prosperity. It may 
not be possible to Rave much. If not, 
save a little. Don’t think a dollar or a 
dime is too small a sum to lay by. Every 
body knows how little expenditures get 
away with large sums. But few seem to 
know that the rule is one that works both 
ways. If a dime spent here and a doUar 
there soon make a large hole in a man’s 
income, so those dimes and dollars laid 
away soon become a visible and respecta¬ 
ble accumulation. Iu this country any 
man may make himself independent, or 
keep himself under the harrow for life, 
according as he wastes or spends his 
“ small change.” How many things do 
individuals and families buy that they do 
not need, or cannot afford. Think twice 
before you spend that small coin. Don’t 
be stingy or meau, but also don’t be fool¬ 
ishly self-indulgent. The self-indulgent 
person is far more likely to be ungener¬ 
ous than the self-denying one. The 
money wasted on hurtful things alone— 
the drugs and medicines we mingle with 
our diet in the forms of tea, tobacco, al¬ 
cohol and the like,—stand on the very 
threshold of prosperity, and bar the way 
of thousands to a home in their old age. 
■ - - 
THE GREAT COTTON EXHIBITION. 
The success of the great exhibition of 
cotton and other agricultural products 
of the South, to be held at Atlanta next 
October, seems already assured. Thus 
far, $200,000 have been raised toward 
meeting the expenses of the undertaking, 
and advices from all the chief Southern 
cities tell of enthusiastic co-operation 
everywhere. Last Monday 300 men were 
set to work on the main building, which 
will occupy the race-course in Oglethorpe 
Park, and be 750 feet long by 90 wide 
with a transept 500 feet long. This will 
be devoted to exhibits of textile fabrics 
and the machinery for producing them. 
Another building 250 feet long and 100 
feet wide will be filled with maohinery 
for preparing sugar, rice and similar 
products, and a still larger one will con¬ 
tain all varieties of tobacoo, its products 
and the machinery used in connection 
with it. Another large structure will be 
devoted to a comprehensive display of 
the agricultural produce, minerals and 
woods of the South, An annex to the 
main building will be known as the For¬ 
eign Department, and will be a bonded 
warehouse under charge of a Treasury 
Special Agent, for the display of foreign 
exhibits on which the proprietors do not 
wish to pay duty. Thirty acres of the 
park have been laid out in half-acre lots 
and assigned to as many different plant¬ 
ers for competitive trials of skill in the 
cultivation of cotton. Great efforts have 
been made to make this a display of every 
variety of cotton in the world, seed hav¬ 
ing been imported from Egypt, Guinea, 
British India and other cotton-cultivating 
parts of the globe, sometimes at great 
expense, a single half-pound of one rare 
sort having cost $200. This plantation 
has already been seeded down, and is 
expected to be a peculiarly attractive ex¬ 
hibit. If this enterprise shall be carried 
out, as now designed, it will be the most 
important measure accomplished by the 
South since the war, and as a stimulant 
of fraternal feeling and good-wili, it must 
be a Bource of gratification aDd advantage 
on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line. 
-♦ ♦ »- 
INJURY TO RARE PLANTS BY THE PAST 
WINTER. 
With regret we are obliged to state 
that the Japan Maples, or such of them 
as we have been testing at the Rural 
Grounds—have not proven hardy during 
the past Winter. We regret this the 
more, inasmuch as the Rural New- 
Yorker has made a pet of these incom¬ 
parable little trees and has praised thorn 
from the beginning as their beanty richly 
deserves. We took for granted that they 
were hardy, having been told years ago 
that trees, t,en years old perhaps, in 
suburban grounds of New York city had 
never been harmed. Upou careful ex¬ 
amination we find that the Fur pie dis- 
sected-leaf Japan Maple (Acer polymor¬ 
ph um dissectum atropurpureum), really 
the handsomest of all, and the Yarious- 
colored (A, p. versicolor) are killed back 
to half their bight. The Red-margined 
Japan Maple (A. p. roseo-marginatum) 
is killed to within five inches of the graft; 
while the species, Acer polymorphnm, is 
killed to the ground, and we are not con¬ 
fident that even the roots are alive. 
We have also to report that Retinispora 
pisifera, which has never before been 
harmed here, and R. plnmosa aurea (the 
Golden-plumed Japan Cypress of which 
so mucli has been said) are seriously 
harmed half way to the ground; while 
the beautiful Golden Fine which we have 
alluded to as the finest variegated ever¬ 
green in cultivation, is harmed in many 
parts, though the buds—we are glad to 
say—are intact. 
We are inclined to think of evergreens, 
os of raspberries, that there is no kind 
which may be called perfectly hardy. 
They may stand many seasons without 
injury, but, sooner or later, a year will 
eome to kill or disfigure them. Not so, 
however, with deciduous trees, some 
kinds of which are absolutely hardy, if 
that word can be said to have any well- 
defined signification. But among these 
the Japan Maples—as they grow at the 
Rural Grounds—should not be placed, 
though we doubt not they will endure 
in this climate, eight years in nine. 
COMPETITION IN FREIGHT ROUTES FROM 
THE WEST TO THE SEA. 
New Orleans reports that a grain fleet 
of 29 steamships and 19 sailing vessels left 
her levee in April, carrying out for foreign 
markets an aggregate of 1,427,200 bush¬ 
els of corn and fcG6,000 bushels of wheat, 
making the grand total export thence from 
September 1,1880, to May 1. 1881,5,906,- 
000 bushels of corn and 4,267,300 bushels 
of wheat, against 6,483,300 bushels of the 
former and 2,713,100 bushels of the 
latter for the corresponding eight months 
of 1879-’80. This is an aggregate in¬ 
crease of 977,500 bushels of grain ; quite 
a respectable increase, to be sure; but 
hardly large enough to justify the cry of 
alarm raised within the last week by 
some of our great dailies about the dan¬ 
ger to the commerce of this port threat¬ 
ened by the diversion of the exportable 
grain of the West from the route to mar¬ 
ket by way of tho Atlantic ports to that 
by way of the Mississippi. 
Upwards of a month ago we told 
of the departure from St. Louis for New 
Orleans of 680,000 bushels of grain in 
one day—April 9. Our city dailies seem 
to have only lately heard of this shipment, 
as some of them have, within the week, 
printed the figures in large capitals at 
the head of alarmist articles on the pros¬ 
pective decadence of the commerce of 
New York. We wonder whether their 
anxiety that the legislature should de¬ 
clare the Erie Canal free, had anything 
to do with their fear for our commerce. 
There is no doubt, however, that ship¬ 
ments of Western exportable grain by 
way of the Mississippi will continue to 
increase in any event with the enlarging 
area under cultivation in the West; and 
this increase will be rapid and to the det¬ 
riment of the commerce of Atlantic ports, 
so long as the railroad charges to the 
seaboard are so exorbitant as they are at 
present. Last Thursday Mr. Joseph J. 
White, of the Committee on Legislature 
of the Board of Trade and Transportation 
of this city, presented to that body a 
report of his personal investigation of the 
transportation business of the United 
States. According to this report grain 
can be shipped from St. Louis to Liver¬ 
pool, via New Orleans for 17 cents per 
bushel, while the rate via New York is 
29J cents. The rates from St. Paul, 
Minnesota, too, show a difference of 15£ 
cents per bushel in favor of the CreBoent 
City. Unless railroad charge b on the 
surplus agricultural products of the West 
on their way to tide-water, are greatly 
reduced, New York, Boston, Philadelphia 
and Baltimore are pretty sure to suffer 
on account of much of the products that 
should appropriately puss through them, 
seeking a cheaper outlet to market not 
only by way of the Mississippi River, 
but also by way of the Lakes, the Wel¬ 
land Canal and the St. Lawrence. 
DUTY OF INCREASING OUR FOREIGN 
MARKETS. 
“ The capacity of this nation of ours 
for production is unlimited, but the mar¬ 
ket for these productions is limited,” 
said Secretary Windom last Tuesday 
night at a banquet given here on the 
113th anniversary of the foundation of 
tne Chamber of Commerce, and he in¬ 
sisted that it is the duty of the Govern¬ 
ment to aid in enlarging our ireseut for¬ 
eign markets and in opening new ones. 
In this opinion we heartily coincide. It 
is by such policy, vigorously and often 
unscrupulously carried out, that Great 
Britain has become the foromost com¬ 
mercial nation in the world. Not only have 
her agents been constantly ami labori¬ 
ously eager to extend the sales of her 
wares in all civilized lands, but tha bay¬ 
onets of her armies have often opened the 
road to markets for them in savage and 
semi-civilized countries. It is by such 
energetic and far-sighted policy that to¬ 
day she rules the markets of the West 
Indies, Mexico, South America, China 
and Japan, whose needs ought, geograph¬ 
ically, to be supplied from this country. 
What has the Legislative or Executive 
Department of oar Government done to 
secure to our agricultural and manufac¬ 
turing industries their fair share in the 
trade of these and other lands ? 
In this connection not only has the 
Government left undone many of those 
things it ought to have done, but it 
has done at least one of those tilings 
it ought not to have done, and on one 
point, at least, helped to curtail instead 
of to enlarge the foreign markets for our 
products. One of the most effective 
meanB adopted by Great Britain and 
most of the other prominent European 
powers for the increase of their export 
trade has been the encouragement given 
to the growth of their mercantile marine ; 
whereas since early during our civil 
troubles the policy of this Government 
has tended directly to lessen the number 
of American vessels afloat on the ocean. 
Before the late war our mercantile navy 
was second only to that of Great Britain ; 
to-day, so far as the ocean carrying trade 
is concerned, we have none—worth men¬ 
tioning. This is well illustrated by the 
fact that during tho first four months of 
the present year not a single American 
vessel was loaded with grain at New York 
for any foreign port. During January 
there were shipped from here 3,371,744 
bushels, in 106 vessels ; during Febru¬ 
ary, 4,213,863 bushels, in 125 vessels; 
daring March, 6,645,712 bushels, in 173 
vessels ; and in Apnl, 6,752,680 bushels, 
in 171 vessels ; or a total of 20,983,999 
bushels, in 575 vessels, not one of which 
bore the Stars and Stripes ! 
Not only are our citizens not allowed 
to bny ships where they are cheapest, on 
the plea that home ship-building must 
be “ protectedbut American ships have 
been subjected to taxes from which com¬ 
peting foreign vessels have been exempt. 
For eighteen years a mere semblance of 
life has been kept in the ocean ship¬ 
building industry of the country at thecost 
of the extinction of life in its ocean ship- 
owning interests—isn’t it about, time to 
put vigorous life into the latter even at 
the risk of endangering the moribund 
existence of the former ? Already the 
prophets of evil are foretelling another 
era of national adversity ; but when thiB 
comes it will be when we fail to find a 
market for what we have to sell. Then 
there will be a glut at home, prioes will 
go down, and the sun of our prosperity 
will be overcast. The best way to defer 
that evil day is to enlarge our foreign 
markets, and one of the most effective 
means towards this end is to increase the 
number of American ocean-going vessels. 
Away, then, with all legislative obstruc¬ 
tions on the road to this object! 
BREVITIES. 
We are sorry to say that of our Black-caps, 
the Gregg—the best of all—1 b the one most 
harmed by the past Winter 
Or all our wheats Shumaker at this time 
(May 12) looks the best. Thai is, it is the tall¬ 
est, thickest, and bears the broadest loaf. 
We have received from Dr. M’Aboy of the 
Thermal Belt, N. 0., a sprig of the peach six 
inches long and bearing 13 peaches the size of 
peas. ThiB does not look ub if the peach crop 
had been seriously harmed ill that genial re¬ 
gion. 
Oca very much esteemed contemporary, the 
American Dairyman, objects to our equanimi¬ 
ty under what it considers the great misfortune 
of the projeeted World’s Fair fiasco. It doeB 
not see wnere the fun to the farmer comes 
In, nor can we see where the sorrow to the 
furrner comes in. What profit did the farmer 
derive from the Philadelphia Show ? What 
glory did the dairyman roup there ? Still, in 
view of the possibilities of benefit to the far¬ 
mer therefrom, we did our share towards help¬ 
ing the project along, but we believe it better 
to laugh than to cry over “spilt milk." 
Sealed milk-cans or jars, wherever they 
have been Introduced, have inspired city people 
with a good deal of confidence in the parity of 
their contents, but of late this confidence is 
being rudely shaken by the bluish tinge the 
milk often presents at breakfast, and its 
streaky, queer appearance when it has rested 
Borne time. Water is more plentiful and there¬ 
fore cheaper than milk on some farms, and on 
a few of them it is to be feared more of it gets 
into the milk-can than ever passed through the 
cow. Moreover, a ^ood deal of the milk gold 
in these receptacles is put into them at the va¬ 
rious milk depots, and tho folks there know 
the right proportions of milk, water, chalk 
and flour to make a salable article. It is a 
misfortune to farmers as well as to all other 
classes that the dishouesiy of a few among 
them is likely to bring blame and loss ou many 
of the best of them. 
The shipments of flour from New York dur¬ 
ing last March exceeded those during March, 
1880, bv 1 500 000 barrels, and there are strong 
indications that, ere long, exports of flour will 
supersede those of wheat to Europe, South 
America and especially to China, It Is esti¬ 
mated that by sending flour instead of wheat 
from the West across the Atlantic about SO per 
cent of the weight and consequently of the 
freight charger arc saved. If, therefore, the 
freight of wheat to Liverpool, Glasgow, or 
Bremen be reckoned at Me. per bushel, the sav¬ 
ing would render tho wheat worth about 16 
cents more where it Is produced. This calcu¬ 
lation may be a trifle high, but we may safely 
consider the increase in its worth at 10 to 12 cts. 
a bushel—an important margin to the farm¬ 
ers of the country and one wlileh would give 
us a strong hold on our foreign markets. So 
great is the increase that is being made iu our 
milling capacity that by next harvest there 
will be facilities for grinding a large propor¬ 
tion of the wheat crop. 
The wretchedness of our mercantile navy 
saves us from some disgraceful losses incurred 
by ovur-covetous or dishonest British ship¬ 
owners. Lately four Euglish grain-laden ves¬ 
sels were sent to the bottom by their excessive 
loads. Last April the Belize, with a regis¬ 
tered tonnage of 1,768 tone, put to sea from 
Halifax with a cargo ol 2.330 tons, and found¬ 
ered, as might have been expected at that 
stormy equinoctial season. The steamer 
Marlborough, Bgaln, left this port with a load 
of 8 370 tons, though her registered tonnage 
wan only 2 808, and went to the bottom during 
the first gale. Across the Atlantic, the steamer 
Constance, put out from Cardiff with a load near¬ 
ly double her registered tonnage and foundered 
and the Kensington with a registered tonnage of 
1,401 and a load of 2,058 tons shared the same 
fate. The greed for high freight returns or 
for insurance money must have been the cause 
of over-loadiog these vessels and there is evi¬ 
dently need of more stringent legislation to 
prevent not only the inevitable loss of property, 
but also the probable loss of life consequent 
upon such reckless greed. 
Pellagra is a disease which of late has be¬ 
come unusually prevalent in some parts of 
Italy, especially in the provinces of Brescia, 
Padua, Piacenza and Ferrara, the ratio of 
those afflicted in Brescia being about eight per 
cent, of tho population. Sardinia und Sicily 
are exempt from it, and it seems to have been 
unknown before the middle of last century. 
Even now its ravages are confined to those of 
the rural laboring population who are ill-fed 
and over-tasked—people morally reduced to 
the level of brutes and physically rulnod by 
the inhuman severity of thuir labor, the infa¬ 
mous quality of their food and tho utter 
wretchedness of their lodgings. The earliest 
symptoms of the disease are an itching and 
redness of the hands aud feet, and a scaliness 
of the skin. The body gradually wastes away 
and dries up until the patient becomes a mere 
listless, insentient mummy. Great efforts have 
been made to discover the cause of the evil, 
which has been assigned mainly to poor food. 
Its unusual ravages of late having aroused 
the attention of the government and of the mu¬ 
nicipal authorities of some of the chief cities, 
further investigations as to its origin have 
been made, which have resulted in what is 
considered ft solution of the mystery Indian 
corn meal, or maize flour, is the staple food of 
the smitten peasants who rarely use it in a 
wholesome state, but when more or less fer¬ 
mented make it into bread which even the 
pigs refuse. This is washed down with un¬ 
wholesome water aud is now considered the 
main cause of pellagra. 
Telegrams from Omaha dated the lllh and 
from Chicago dated the 12.h, unnounce that 
Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa are suf¬ 
fering great losses by a disease which veterin¬ 
ary surgeons pronounce to bo malignant an¬ 
thrax, a highly contagious malady known also 
as carbuncular erysipelas, ebarbon, bloody 
murrain, black-quarter, black-leg,black-tongue 
and by several other names according to the par¬ 
ticular form in which it becomes manifest. The 
chief causes are : pasturing on swampy lands 
in Spring or Summer, drinking stagnant water, 
change from scanty, dry feed to abundant, suc¬ 
culent pasture. Young cattle are especially 
liable to It and those in prime condition. The 
attack is frequently so speedily fatal that the 
dead bodies of the animals seen in the pasture 
in the morning often give to the owner the first 
intimation of the existence of the disease 
among his herd. Ou the firstdiheovery of this 
malady In a herd the Sound auimals should be 
at once removed to fresh pastures where there 
is pure water und where the usual remedies 
should be promptly UBcd. It should be borne 
in mind that the poison of mallguaut anthrax 
can be carried to healthy animals iu any part 
of an affected one, even in the excrement, or 
by flies, etc. It is also communicable to man 
either by eating the diseased flesh or i y the 
blood or saliva of an infected beast coming in 
contact with a sore, no matter how small. 
Should this occur the sore should be at once 
cauterized with lunar caustic. The carcasses 
of infected beasts should be buried so that pigs 
and dogs cannot get to them to spread the 
malady. Owing to the late severe floods on 
the bottom lauds throughout the West, ibis 
disease is likely to bo very prevalent there this 
Beason among herds feeding ou the swampy 
pastures dotted with stagnant pools—hence 
this early note of warning to our readers. 
