450 
THE RURAL WEW-lfORKER. 
JULY 9 
four ounces of Epsom salts and a handful of 
salt dissolved in it, will allay any feverish 
symptoms that may appear. But previous 
care will usually have avoided any risk of such 
trouble. If the cow has t een kept in good 
order, Bhewill come to her milk without diffi¬ 
culty. If the milk does not flow freely, she 
should be milked three limes a day and the 
calf be fed immediately. If the udder becomes 
hard it may be rubbed gently with the hand 
and Veterinary Cosmoliue (a most valuable 
preparation of crude petroleum) be applied 
and rubbed in liberally. I have never found 
this application fail to cure a case of gargei. 
and when it has been applied at once, one ap¬ 
plication has usually restored the udder to its 
healthy condition. The cow will never with¬ 
hold her milk for the calf, if the calf is rt- 
moved from her. One of my cows which has 
had three calves, and which has never 
been sucked and never 6ueked when a 
calf herself, takes no notice whatever of the 
removal of her calf and comes to her milk 
without the least trouble. This is a matter 
of training, of course, and it may not answer 
so well with old cowb not " to the manner 
born.” But in a dairy where the calves are 
raised and the cows are reared at home, very 
much depends upon a regular method of train¬ 
ing. This, however will be more fully consid¬ 
ered iu its proper place hereafter. 
When au attack of garget becomes serious, 
immediate and active remedies should be ap¬ 
plied, otherwise the cow may be spoiled for 
the whole season of milking, in addition to 
the use of the Cosmoliue, or even sweet oil, or 
fresh butter from the churn, without salt, 
and gentle and long-continued rubbing and 
kneading of the udder, a brick dose of 12 to 
16 ounces of Epsom salts should be given. In 
six hours after this one ounce of saltpeter may 
be given. Two quarts of sliced Poke Root, 
Phytolacca decandra, commonly called garget 
root—a tall plant with bunches of dark purple 
berries in the Fall—has been given wilh the 
best effect. The food should be suddenly re¬ 
duced, or even wholly withheld, for 24 or 36 
hours ; and only water with a handful of bran 
stirred in it be given, if milk fever should oc¬ 
cur by an unforseen accident, the same course 
of treatment will be proper, but copious bleed¬ 
ing, at the first attack, from the vein in the 
neck, will be advisable. The legs should be 
bathed and rubbed iu hot water with mustard 
stirred into it and the body be wrapped in a 
blanket, A rug dipped in hot uioslatd water 
may be laid aiong the spine and covered with 
the blanket, Fuller directions for treating the 
diseases incident to this condition of the cow 
will be given hereafter. Here it is sufficient to 
emphasize the fact that care to prevent it, at 
the right time, is more effective than treat¬ 
ment when the trouble has arrived. 
Jfifll) drops. 
CORK ON THE RURAL FARM. 
I bbgret to hear of ihe discouraging appear¬ 
ance of this up to the present time, and hope 
we may soon have warn, dry weather to im¬ 
prove it rapidly. But, thinking over this in 
contrast with roy own, perhaps a few observa¬ 
tions on the 6ut ject may be of advantage to 
some of the Rural's readers. My 601 I, us 1 am 
informed, is much like that of the Rural Farm. 
It is about the same distance from the ocean, 
but one degree farther Bouth. 
The first corn planted was the Minnesota 
and Crosby Early Sweet for the table and for 
soiling stock. This was in the latter part of 
April. It came up early in May, and, notwith¬ 
standing about half the weather since then has 
been unusually cold aud rainy, it has kept a 
deep green color and grown well. Much of 
this half time the wind has been a strong, raw 
northeaster, the thermometer ranging fiom42 
to 46 degrees at night and not over 52 to 5b 
degrees during the day. One-fourth of this 
whole weather was cloudy and misty, the other 
fourth sunny, several days being quite hot. 
This brings it to the 15th of June, at the time 
of my writing, when the corn leaves are gen¬ 
erally from two and a-half to three feet long, 
and it will probably tassel within a fortnight. 
It must be recollected that these two 6oris of 
corn are dwarfs. Tall field corn was not 
planted bo early and is not yet bo high, but 
will soon surpass the dwarfs. 
The soil here is a light, gravelly, yellowish 
loam and was treated in the following manner: 
Last November it was coated wilh coarse stable 
rnanuie at the rate of about 10 two-horse loads 
per acre, which lay on top of the ground all 
Winter. Just before the corn was planted this 
was plowed in, halt a shovelful of compost was 
put in each hill, two or three inches of soil 
were drawn over it,the corn was then dropped, 
covered well and spatted down. After the first 
hoeing, the crop being then.five to six iaches 
high, a tablespoonfui, moderately heaped, of 
guaranteed Peruvian guano was dag in an 
Inch deep or so around each hill, about three 
inches from the corn. The raw, cold, rainy 
weather has certainly been greatly against the 
corn, and I am surprised to see it of so deep and 
bright a green and growing so rapidly. 
A. B. Allen. 
Remarks. —Mr. Allen should bear In mind 
that though all of our corn is backward, we 
have thitflv alluded to that of the unmanured 
field. Now the soil of this field Is, without 
doubt, extremely poor, and the old, miserable 
sod turned under is the most the plants have 
to live upon. We had. proposed to cultivate 
this field well in order to show what cultiva¬ 
tion could be made to do for Indian corn. The 
system with most of our farmers is to manure 
well and to neglect cultivation. It is plain to 
our mind that better cultivation and less ma¬ 
nure would prove more profitable. Our read¬ 
ers are aBked to bear in mind that one acre of 
the main corn-field ia manured with 600 pounds 
of concentrated corn fertilizer, while plots are 
manured with different constituents and com¬ 
binations of concentrated fertilizers with a view 
to determine which is, for our soil, Ihe most eei- 
viceable. Again, as the present corn-field is 
much the same as last year’s “ Chester ’’ field, 
which gave the immense yield, we were anx¬ 
ious to determine, if possible, how much was 
due to the commercial fertilizer used upon it, 
viz,. 350 pounds to the acre. We would state 
that our bad stand of corn in the main corn¬ 
field is due in a great measure to the persistent 
depredations of black-birds, which have 
troubled us more than ever before.— Eds. 
-- 
THE FERTILIZATION OF WHEAT AND 
CORN. 
PROFESSOR A. E. BLOUNT. 
Wheats will not mix in the grain however 
closely they are planted. I do not say it is an 
impossibility for them to be crossed some¬ 
times. lusects may—when very small—carry 
the pollen of one kind Into the glumes of 
another variely, and a cross may in this way 
be produced. Bach cases are rare. Wheat, 
rye, barley aud many of the grasses are her¬ 
maphrodite, or bisexual, having both stamens 
and pistils in the same flower. The fertiliza¬ 
tion is accomplished before the anthers appear 
on the outside of the glumes, hence the pollen 
in every perfect specimen 1 b never found out¬ 
side on the anther in any but the dry (dead) 
state. I have never seen any Bign or «ffect in 
wheat growing and wheat fertilization, that 
would lead me in any way whatever to declare 
that wheats of, and in, Ihemseives will mix in 
the grain. They cannot cross. If new varie¬ 
ties are made they must be made, uot natur¬ 
ally, but by insects or mechanical processes. 
No cross can be i ffected after the anthers 
appear outside. Extracting the three anthers 
between the palets before they (the anthers) are 
ruptured, will produce an abortive head. The 
stamens are ruptured quite early while push¬ 
ing against the inside glume covers (palets), 
and, of course, to make a half-and-half per¬ 
fect cross they must be removed quite early- 
before the pollen in, or on, them is loosened. 
Corn mixes naturally and easily. It crosses 
by gravity and is crossed by insects and winds. 
The wind will effect a crosB half a mile away; 
insects (bees in particular) will carry the 
pollen of one to the eilk. of another variety five 
miles off. In no case whatever will Die tassel of 
a given shdk fertilize its oion silk. This is a 
bold assertion; but I shall stand by it until my 
own experiments prove the contrary. For 
four successive years have I covered given 
ears—in embryo—and prevented all but their 
own pollen from falling npon the silk—result, 
not a grain of corn in any case. The tassel 
and silk do not always ripen—do not come into 
"season” for fertilizing — simultaneously; 
hence the reason for so few ears on the stalks. 
I have many timee gathered pollen and put it 
npon silks of lower ears when " in season,” 
and found in almost every case a perfect ear 
from the operation. 
Colorado State College, Ft. Collins, Col. 
-- 
EXPERIENCE WITH RURAL SEEDS7 
The White Elephant Potato whieh the Rural 
kindly sent me weighed nearly 2£ ounces, con¬ 
tained 11 eyes and was cut into 11 plants about 
the 15th of March, and planted in 11 pots in my 
green-house. I propagated from these until 
I obtained 26 nice plants, and I transplanted 
them Into my garden about May 15. They are 
looking splendid and some of them have 
commenced to bloom. The package of 
Washington Oats contained 1,115 grains. 
They were sown abont the middle of April in 
12 rows, each row abont 17 feet in length, by 
the side of the same number of grains of the 
White Russian, but the latter have 14 rows in¬ 
stead of 12, though all the rows are of the 
same length. They are all looking fine ; are 
more than a foot high and about cover the 
ground; 1,014 grains of the Russian were equal 
in weight to the 1,115 grains of the Washing¬ 
ton. [We wish more of our readers would 
take pains to test the relative values of new 
seeds. Eds.] 
The two kinds of asparagus were sown in 
my onion bed. The seed was dropped abont 
six inches apart, making a row of about eight 
rods in length; the plants are looking fine. A 
box, two feet wide, three feet long and six in¬ 
ches deep, was filled half full with inverted 
sods, the surface made even and fine, and the 
seeds of the Rural Branching Sorghum were 
planted abont one Inch apart in the row, with 
the rows two inches apart. Fine rich mold 
was sifted over the seed, and then a sash was 
placed over the box, and the Boil kept mois¬ 
tened with water when becoming dry. The 
seed was sown early in May ; about one-fifth 
of it grew. On May 28 I transplanted toopen 
ground with a piece of sod to each plant; this 
was done to economize seed and plants, and 
also to plant out in freshly prepared soil. Since 
transplanting the weather has been remarka¬ 
bly cool, and one night we had a alight frost, 
so that the sorghum has not made mnch of a 
start, but nearly every plant is living, and 
seems to be waiting for warm weather to go 
ahead. I have a nice bed of pinks from the 
Rural seed; some of them will soon be 
in bloom. I sowed the carnations in eight- 
inch pots; I have only five carnations, the 
rest of the plants appear to be the common 
pinks, but I am much pleased with them. 
With one exception 1 have the best piece of 
corn in this section. I drilled in about 225 
pounds of phosphate to the acre with a common 
grain drill, then marked off and planted on May 
6, but most of the corn around here was planted 
late, and the cool, rainy weather has checked 
the growth of the corn and started the weeds, 
so that some corn fields are looking very bad. 
Wheat and Spring grains are looking well in 
this neighborhood, but the Hessian fly is doing 
considerable damage in some places. A neigh¬ 
bor sowed about 400 pounds of the Mapes 
phosphate to the acre with his wheat in 1879, 
and last Summer he hai vested a little over 46 
bushels of nice wheat to the acre. [What va¬ 
riety please? Eds ] A. F. 
Scipioville, Cayuga Co. N. Y., June 17. 
[We are much obliged to our friend for the 
pains he has taken wit h the Rubai, seed. Eds.] 
-*-»"*-- 
WHEAT IN VERMONT. 
Allow me to congratulate the Rural on its 
harvest reports. Newspaper men agree that 
they are more reliable than those of the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture. To think of private 
enterprise beating Uncle Sam ! But poor Uncle 
8, is sick. The politicians are killing him, or 
will unless the people squelch the politicians. 
This, though, is not what I took up my pencil 
to soy. Your Brandon, Vt., report says that 
owing to an unfavorable climate or soil, wheat 
cannot be raised there profitably, i think this 
is a mistake. Some eight years ago I had, 
while on a visit to Brandon, a conversation 
with one of the oldest citizens, now deceased 
(the late Judge Jane), who informed me that 
in his youth Brandon was a great wheat town, 
and that crops of 50 bushels to the acre were 
not uncommon. The climate has not changed 
since then more than in New York and other 
localities not far from Brandon, which still 
raise wheat successfully. The soil is changed 
from a new one to one more or lees injured by 
bad farming. A farmer may know how to 
grow wheat " on a bum,” or for a few years 
after clearing on strong Boil, and yet be en¬ 
tirely ignorant of the method of growing that 
crop on old land. That he does not succeed 
on the latter is no proof that success is impos¬ 
sible. It Is the " know how " that is lacking. 
The present generation of farmers in New 
York grow wheat as well as the first settlers. 
There was a time between the first generation 
of farmers there and the present when it was 
thought that wheat was a crop of the past. 
Then farmers of energy, or European training, 
showed the way to fit land for wheat, when 
and how to sow It to avoid insects and dis¬ 
ease, and the wheat crop again became a sta¬ 
ple. The glorious St. John Valley in Maine and 
New Biunswick (which is Central New York 
over again, only a little farther north,) is now 
going through the early experience of the On¬ 
tario and the Champlain Valleys. Wheat 
“ grows spontaneous”in ArooBtook, and crops 
of 40 bushels to the acre are common, while 
potatoes average 300 bushels, all without 
manure. Iu 20 years or less the *• bonanza” 
will seem to fail; but then, skill aud science 
being applied, a new generation of farmers 
will again see the old productiveness renewed. 
Doubtless it is to be so also in the Champlain 
Valley, which, being once the "garden,” 1 b now 
the most backward part of our State in agri¬ 
cultural Bklll. Too rich au inheritance has 
spoiled the farming in many places, so that 
the once best is now apparently the poorest. 
But it can all be restored. The *■ know how ” 
and the will are all that are needed. 
Orleans Co., Vt. T. H. Hoskins, M D. 
$arm ®ojirs. 
EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE. 
Our experience with ensilage is, briefly, as 
followsLate in the season last year we 
concluded to give this method of preserv¬ 
ing fodder a trial, and therefore, between 
July 1st and 17tb, plowed abont 12 acres 
of land from which the hay and wheat 
had been taken, and sowed it with corn, in 
drills 28 inches apart, ’using three pecks per 
acre. We sowed it with a wheat drill and cul¬ 
tivated once that portion sown after wheat. 
The other received no cultivation. We built 
two silos each 33x14 feet and 16 feet high, 
costing $500, and having a capacity of about 
300 tons. In September we cut the corn with 
a reaper and got enough to about half fill Ihe 
silos. Before the corn, we pnt in about 20 tons 
of freshly-cut rowen. 
From this we fed all onr cows aDd sheep, 
averaging say 12 of the former and 175 of the 
latter, from the time they were put in the barn 
until March 24th, besides about 100 lambs 
which came in Januaiy. We fed the cows 
four pounds each of cotton-seed or corn meal 
per day and cotton-seed to the sheep that had 
lambs. The cows were more thiifty than they 
have ever been when fed upon hay and grain, 
and the butter was as yellow as summer-made. 
The sheep did well. 
The net results in dollars and cents were 
about as follows:—We estimate the 150 tons 
of ensilage to have cost us $150, and the 
extra cost of feeding it was about $50. The 
hay crop being short we would have been 
obliged to buy. Bay, $300 worth of hay : we 
sold $400 worth, so we have $500 clear to pay 
for the silos which we expect to fill this year 
and to feed nothing but ensilage. Having 
thus put the money in our pocket, we do not 
trouble ourselves about theories—whether 
there are more albuminoids in ensilage than 
in the same corn dried aud cured as fodder, or 
whether chemical analysis shows much virtue 
in the material. So long as eminent chemical 
authorities admit that their analytical nrocess 
will show little, if any, difference between the 
nutritive values of grass freshly cut, and the 
same as hay, well cured, or the same as hay 
cured after exposure to the dews and rains 
tor a week, and while a cow fed upon the first 
will make yellow butter, upon the second 
white butter and a less quantity, and upon 
the third scarcely any butter, we prefer the 
practical test and leave theorizing to others. 
Coe Bkothehs. 
There has for some time been a difference 
of opinion as to whether Cereus M tcDonaldii 
and C. Regelli are distinct plants, in view of 
the great difference In the price asked for the 
two plants, there ought to be a marked dif¬ 
ference between them. Bat the plants are 
precisely alike in form and growth; the most 
critical examination of the plants, grown side 
by side for several years, has failed to discover 
any difference whatever. Two plants of the 
same age flowered with me at the same time, 
(June 10th.) I watched the buds and their 
opening from beginning to end ; compared all 
the different parts of the flower iu the minu¬ 
test manner, as well as ihe size (abont fonr- 
teen inches iu diameter), and failed to find any 
difference. It may be said that my plant is 
not true. In answer to this I have only to say 
that my plant is from a catting from the plant 
sent to Dr. Sledhof by Dr. Regel some years 
ago, and from which, so far as I can learn, 
all the plants of the so-called Regelli now in 
the country have been propagated. Some two 
or three years ago, In company with Dr. 
Kunze (whole well posted in thb OactuB family), 
1 examined the plants at Mr. Such's, and we 
both came to the conclusion that they were 
identical. Shortly after this Dr. Kunz.?, while 
traveling in the West, was asked eighteen dol¬ 
lars for a moderate-sized plant of Regelli. It 
may interest Western readers, therefore, to 
know that when they get MucDoualdii they 
get ltegeiii at the same time. It mast be un¬ 
derstood that Dr. Regel does not make this 
claim to distinctness; the name has become 
attached to the plant simply because it was re¬ 
ceived from him, and I have thought it just as 
well that this should be known. I will add 
that Cereus MacDonaldli Is altogether a more 
magnificent flower than C. grandlflorus, the 
old Night-blooming Cereus, and is worthy of 
a place In any collection. 
1am surprised and grieved to learn from the 
editor that the Japan Maples are not hardy at 
the Rural Grounds. 1 venture to hope that 
his experience with them may prove to be 
somewhat exceptional. Wilt not the readers 
of the Rural give us their experience with 
them, and be particular as to locality, expos¬ 
ure, etc ? Even if they should prove to have 
been generally winter-killed at the North, their 
dwarf habit and beautiful foliage will still 
