steadily on acquaintance, and I think if its 
good qualities wore better known it would be 
more largely planted as a market berry. From 
the first year’s growth of canes one might 
think it a weak and tender variety, but it came 
through the severe weather of last Winter un¬ 
injured, while the Turner was somewhat dam¬ 
aged. Then, too, the Caroline is immensely 
productive of fair-sized, good-quality berries, 
firm enough to ship well. Although in flavor 
it is not quite equal to i ts parent—the Brinckle’s 
Orange—yet, on account of its hardiness and 
productiveness, it is superior for general cul¬ 
tivation to any other yellow variety. 
A New Early Black cap.— On the 12th of 
May of last year I received from Messrs. Hale 
Brothers, of South Glastonbury, Conn., three 
plants of a new early Black-cap to test. The 
plants wore set in ordinary soil and only re¬ 
ceived ordinary attention. Though on an un¬ 
sheltered spot of ground, and in no way pro¬ 
tected through the Winter, not a cane was in¬ 
jured, while nearly all my othor Black caps 
were killed to the ground. When they came to 
fruiting I found them not only very early, but 
enormously productive. Such a quantity of 
berries I never saw before on year-old Black¬ 
cap raspberry bushes. If they yield propor¬ 
tionately as the plant attains age, a full-grown 
bush must bo a wonder to behold. The berries 
are of good size, fair quality, firm and solid, 
and black as jet. With mo it certainly prom¬ 
isee much better than the celebrated Gregg of 
the same age. W. M. Nash. 
Fairfield Co., Conn. 
I am really glad to learn that the Sharpless 
has not burned up at the Rural Ground?. 1 
shall know where to come for a few plants, 
for mine arc all gone, and 1 am sorry, for it is 
one of my favorites. 1 am afraid, however, 
that the editor did not quite understand me. 
I referred to tho terrible drought rather than 
the liability of tho plant to bum. The facts 
are now its follows:—First went the Sharpless, 
then the Red Jacket, next tho Lincoln, and in 
quick succession the Shirts, Horvey Davis, 
Triple Crown, Bldwell, and so on to the end, 
the Downing enduring the heat the longest of 
all—a few plants still alive, but looking very 
melancholy. “ Why didn’t you water your 
plants ?” Well, so I did as long as anything 
that looked like water was to be had; but 
even water got to be so dry at last thut it did 
no good; and, in fact, we have been glad to 
get enough to make a show of clean hands and 
faces. 1 am trying to look at the facts from 
the cheerful side, but the truth is I am very 
sad. If 1 had been a woman instead of a man 
I might have kept my plants alive with my 
tears. Both my experimental plots look do. 
plorable, even raspberries dropping their 
leaves. Blackberries look better, but have 
not grown an Inch in a month. If I have ever 
seen anything like this before it was so long ago 
that I cannot remember it. I have saved a few 
untried things by dint of mulching and a 
little water, and that is all. These are crema¬ 
tion days. 
My experiments in preparing strawberry 
plants for planting came to an end weeks ago. 
The drought wus too much for them, though 
not without its lesson in this direction. 
The drought and its eft'eets have been about 
the only things talked of lately, the drift of 
conversation being in the direction of prepar¬ 
ing for such a contingency in the future, and 
this certainly is wise. Farmers here and else¬ 
where began to out corn to feed to stock about 
the middle of August, and in passing through 
the State of New Jersey to the Delaware 
River and over into a portion of Pennsylvania, 
during the second week in September, I scarce¬ 
ly saw a Held of corn that was not either cut 
and stacked or being cut, the ears being about 
half formed. If there is half as much merit 
in the silo as is claimed for it, what an amount 
of fodder might now bu saved tlmt will go to 
waste. As far as 1 can learn, however, the 
silo, as at present constructed, is so costly us 
to cast serious doubts upon its economy, or at. 
least to put it beyond the reach of tho ordi¬ 
nary farmer. Is there no member of the 
Rural family who has experimented with 
the silo in this direction, and who can give us 
reliable data as to the least cost ? Every 
thoughtful man must see the wisdom of dis¬ 
cussing the best means for preserving green 
fodder under _ such deplorable conditions as 
are now upon us. “ In time of rain prepare 
for drought ” must hereafter be an axiom in 
agriculture. 
It may be useful to those who have but lim¬ 
ited space lor wintering plants to know that 
most, if not all, of the tuberous-rooted begon¬ 
ias may be kept in a dormant state during the 
Winter. The set I use for summer-blooming 
I gradually dry off late in the Fall, and put in 
the cellar for the W inter, where they keep in 
flue condition, with a little water not more 
than two or three times. They will keep with¬ 
out any, but not so well. They must be 
brought to the light as soon as growth begins 
in the Spring. They bloom stronger for the 
rest. If the plants have been grown in the 
bed or the border, they may be lifted on the 
appearance of cold weather and placed in 
boxes, If cuttings be put in pots during the 
Fall they will make smull tubers, varying in 
size from a pea to a hazelnut, and these, when 
well formed, may also be stored away till 
Spring, when they will make strong plants for 
Summer use. 
Some interesting and useful notes might be 
made on trees and shrubs in reference to their 
ability to bear a prolonged drought. In the 
midst of trees and shrubs going into “ tho sere 
and yellow leaf” almost before half their 
growth is completed, it is cheerful to sec one 
here and there which preserves its freshness 
and color, like a gleam of sunshine lingering 
on a scene of desolation. Such plants preem¬ 
inently are the Cords -Japonica, Sty t ax Ja- 
ponica, the Wisteria and the Ailanthus, all 
growing in a soil even lighter than that of tho 
Rural Farm, and yet with their greenness un- 
dimiuished by three months of drought. A 
few others could be added to the list, but 
these deserve to be specially mentioned, pre¬ 
serving, as they do, the spirit of life and 
greenness where almost everything else seems 
dead or dying. Horticola. 
4 4 4- 
Pokeweed Destructive to Apple Trees. 
From observing and experimenting I am 
convinced that poke, pokeweed, scoke or gar¬ 
get (Phytolacca docamlra) is highly poisonous 
to the apple tree. The result of my observa¬ 
tions and limited experiments may be the 
means of saving niAny valuable trees. In not 
a single instance where poke was allowed to 
grow within the i ootspread of an apple tree 
did the tree survive. Apple trees in stages of 
decay having poke growing within their root- 
spread, have been saved from further decay 
anil often rejuvenated, by the destruction of 
the weed. I think that most apple trees, once 
fairly grown, that die in this locality do so 
from the effects of poke growing near them. 
The time of an apple tree’s life after poke is 
once established beneath its foliage, is limited 
in proportion to the number of poke plants 
that become established—the greater the 
growth of poke the shorter the life of the 
tree. I think pear trees are also destroyed by 
poke. C. W. Good. 
FAIRS AND THEIR USES. 
R. GOODMAN. 
Autumn and the harvest turn men’s thoughts 
toward country occupation and sports in Eng¬ 
land, and it is considered a great hardship if 
even Parliament continues in session after the 
shooting season commences. It would be a 
greater grievance if there was not an adjourn¬ 
ment of the National Legislature so as to al¬ 
low the members to be present at tho “ Derby ,” 
where “all the world and his wife” iiave gone 
from time immemorial. Our ancestors who 
settled in this country on the shores of N ew Eng¬ 
land came over before the great revolution in 
public sentiment, effected by tho Restoration 
of 1060, when the Royalists came back as the 
party of reaction; when virtue was a public 
laughing-stock; when the “heroic ago of Eng¬ 
land had passed away, not by gradual decay, 
by imperceptible degeneration, but iu a year, 
in a single day, like the Winter’s snow in 
Greece.” They came during tho long-continued 
struggle for constitutional rights with an ar¬ 
bitrary king, and only desired a home whore 
they could “glorify God and enjoy tho pres¬ 
ence of their dearest friends” without hin¬ 
drance or persecution. The bulk of these em¬ 
igrants were farmers from Lincolnshire and 
the eastern counties of England, and they had 
been so harried under the Stuarts by the 
enforcement of games, bull-baiting and other 
harsh sports at unseasonable times, mid even 
pastimes on Sunday—every minister on cer¬ 
tain occasions being ordered to read the royal 
declaration in favor of such pastimes from the 
pulpit, under the penalty of being deprived of 
his living if ho refused—that our Puritan fore¬ 
fathers naturally passed to tho other extreme 
and avoided all those festive scenes so common 
at home. “Thanksgiving” was established 
very early as a season of prayer, church-going 
and moderate feasting, but the country had 
got well settled before the inauguration of 
“fairs.” 
Elkanah Watson, a merchant of Albany, N. 
Y., was the real author of the present system 
of fairs and cattle shows sustained and direct¬ 
ed by agricultural societies, and the first one 
was held under his direction at Pittsfield, 
Maas,, where he had a farm, in the year 1810. 
This was such a success that Watson soon 
after proceeded to organize agricultural socie¬ 
ties and to establish fairs and cattle shows in 
other places, and now in every State of the 
Union there are more or less of them, and 
many are supported in part by legislative aid. 
The word “fair,” kindred to the Latin 
feria, a “ holiday," has resumed with us its 
original moaning, and does not mean in the 
United States a mere temporary market for 
the sale of goods and merchandise, but a 
grand turn-out, for one or more days, of the ag¬ 
ricultural population and their neighbors to 
exhibit and be exhibited, to eat, drink and be 
merry; to scan everything new in the way of 
implements, vegetables and household goods; 
bring their own and examine others’ cattle, 
sheep, pigs and hens; try the speed of their own 
and their neighbors’ horses, and at the end hear 
from some selected orator somewhat too ful¬ 
some praises of agriculture and its operations. 
With most, even of the fanners themselves, this 
is about the beginning and end of the Autumn 
festival, and aside from the premiums they 
rnay obtain, the gratification of a reasonable 
curiosity, the excitement attendant upon all 
largo assemblages, and the enjoyment of the 
wives und children at tills annual outing, they 
return to their farms content to delve again 
until another twelvemonth firings round a 
repetition of the show, 
Allowing that the main purpose of these 
gatherings is, as it should be, the recreation of 
the hard-working class which composes one- 
half the population of the country and is the 
main-stay of its prosperity, the earnest fann¬ 
er, the young, progressive man will find in 
them something more than mere amusement 
and leave them with a store of information 
which he will put to good and profitable uses. 
The farmer is not on inventive person—every 
implement he uses has been created for him, 
and generally by those outside of his calling, 
and even the continued improvements in the 
machines adapted to his business are suggested 
by tho inventors or machinists who construct 
them. But the intelligent former can at these 
“ fairs ” not only learn something about the 
growth of crops of every kind, the varieties 
and improved breeds of cattle, but ho can 
discern the value of the newly-invented ma¬ 
chines and tools adapted to his business, which 
will not only make his personal labor easier, 
but obviate the necessity, in part, of that cost¬ 
liest of all of the expenditures on the farm— 
laborers' wages, Tho farmer who iu this age 
does not in this way take advantage of these 
annual fairs to improve his condition is be¬ 
hind it—is one of the old fogies whose succu¬ 
lence is diminishing, ami ho will soon be but 
a dried and poor stick compared with those 
about him, whose eyes and ears are opeu and 
who can catch fortune as it flies. Aside from 
the advantages above set forth, there is not 
much to be gained at fairs in the way of in¬ 
citing to intensive agriculture. 
The efforts to make experimental stations of 
them have proved a failure; the men who 
conduct them have not the scientific educa¬ 
tion needed to carry out any system of chem¬ 
ical tests, hardly the ability to weigh and 
measure the crops upon which premiums are 
bestowed. On the other baud, the indiscrim¬ 
inate bestowal of premiums has a uni versal 
mid somewhat degrading tendency, causing 
such slight jockeying as removing the best 
stalks of corn from different parts of a Held 
and replanting them in the acre to be re¬ 
viewed; denuding the rest of the farm of its 
proper proportion of manure so that the pre¬ 
mium acres should be enriched even beyond 
their good; bestowing unnecessary time and 
attention upon the crops and articles to bo 
entered for prizes, and making the acquisition 
of ‘ ‘ spoons ” the leading motive of the year’s 
work. 
But the crying evil of tho combined fairs 
and cattle shows is the improper selection of 
judges, especially iu the cattle departments. 
The New England Agricultural Society, 
which holds an annual fair in one of the East¬ 
ern States, and solicits contributions from tho 
whole country, has always had a pernicious 
system of appointing judges from among its 
own members, and most of them upon the 
grounds on the opening day of tho fair, when 
men are got in who may be more or less inter¬ 
ested, ami are usually incompetent, instead of 
selecting from States outside of New England 
breeders especially acquainted with the cattle 
they are to judge. The Now York State Ag¬ 
ricultural Society, on the other hand, is very 
particular in the selection of good judges from 
outside of the State to examine and award 
premiums upon thoroughbred stock, and con¬ 
sequently such awards have a value which ex¬ 
hibitors appreciate and purchasers rely on. 
At the local fairs in every State this evil of 
ill-selected judges is always prominent; but 
since tho great increase of valuable neat stock 
there is a movement for its eradication, and 
farmers of influence cannot better subserve 
tho interests of their sections than by inaugu¬ 
rating reforms in their societies, which will 
classify the cattle exhibited, apportion them 
in sheds, and provide judges for each breed 
competent to pass upon their merits. Horse- 
racing at fuirs will continue to be a prominent 
and attractive feature; but the horses should 
he owned within tho jurisdiction of the fair and 
a stop be thus put to the practice of allowing 
a vagrant, bony, leather-covered animal to 
come iu at the last moment, and carry off all 
the money, to the general disgust of competi¬ 
tors ami exhibitors. 
Our agricultural fail's are necessities—good 
safety valves for the whole population—and 
only need intelligent management to make 
them instinctive as well as interesting, and the 
farmer who fails to reap some advantage from 
them to himself and his occupation is wanting 
in intelligence and enterprise. 
Lenox, Mass. 
Covering Weeds with a Plow. 
The remarks of “8. T. T.” upon this subject 
(page 634) require some explanation. I have 
used this device nearly every year since 1850, 
and although it was patented in I860, “ S. T. 
T.” should have coupled with his statement to 
this effect that the Commissioner declared the 
granting of the patent to be an ignorant and 
egregious blunder of the Commissioner of Pat¬ 
ents, in view of the fact that the device was 
then an old one in common use. Farmers need 
havo no tears of claims for royalty growing 
out of this fraudulent patent-right after this 
statement of the Commissioner of Agriculture 
in the very year the device was putonted. The 
short drag chain mentioned by “ S. T. T," is 
totally useless. A trace chain with a piece of 
rope for the forward part of the loop is heavy 
enough unless the weeds are very stout, when 
two trace chains or a light ox-chain will be 
more than heavy enough. In the illustration * 
iu the Agricultural Report the chain is fast¬ 
ened too far forward on the plow-beam. If it 
be attached to the plow standard as described 
iu the Rural of August 20, it is just right. 
In fact, the Rural’s description is correct in 
every way, as “S. T. T." will find if he will 
try it and not mind the so-called invention in 
the Agricultural Report. H. s. 
Bocuiics, &jc. 
MICHIGAN STATE FAIR. 
[Special Report for the Rural New-Yorker.] 
The 33d annual fair of the Michigan State 
Agricultural Society was held at Jackson, 
Mich., Sept. 10 to 24 inclusive. The weather 
was all that could be desired and brought 
out large crowds, the attendance being over 
15,000 on Wednesday, and over 25,000 on 
Saturday. The receipts for the week ran up 
to over $28,000, leaving a handsome balance 
in tho hands of the Treasurer. The show in 
all the departments was very large, and the 
fair in every way u success. Against the 
wishes of a large number of the members of 
this Society, side-shows, chariot races, etc., 
were allowed, and it is to be hoped that at 
the annual meeting in January, enough mem¬ 
bers will turn out and protest against this 
so that another year this nuisance will be 
for ever banished. The constitution of this 
society does uot allow such exhibitions and a 
protest, if put in, can be enforced. 
The hoi-se element has a pretty strong hold 
and real agricultural horse trots took place 
every day; but as the premiums were what 
might be called breeders’ premiums, style and 
action in some cases offsetting speed. The 
show in this department was very large, there 
being 548 entries, and tho stock, especially the 
heavy draft animals, were good. 
In eattle there were 510 entries, including 
no less than 34 herd entries. The Short-horns 
made the largest showing, there being 10 herds 
and a large number of single entries as well 
as some remarkably fine Short-horn grades. 
Here they breed more for beef than milk and 
many fine, large animals were shown. Messrs. 
Wood, Brooks, Phelps Bros.; Mixou and Shaw 
were the largest exhibitors. Most of the herds 
were headed by young bulls, and I noticed a 
lack of due aged bulls not only in this but in 
other classes. There were only two herds of 
Devons, the show not being nearly os large in 
this class as at Elmira. Messrs. Loich and Bur¬ 
rows were the exhibitors. Holstoins showed 
up finely, five herds being entered and on the 
grounds were a number of smaller entries. 
The Holstein is growing in favor in this sec. 
tiou. Messrs. Phelps, Underwood and Smalley 
were the largest exhibitors. Messrs. White 
and Col. Rodgers showed line herds of Ayr- 
shi res and the entries in this class footed up 
well. The show of Jerseys was remarkably 
fine, but not as numerous as at Elmiiu. I hope 
to bo able to furnish tho Rural with a photo¬ 
graph for a picture of the Jersey bull Spirtea’a 
Lennox that carried off the first premium at 
the head of the Clover Lawn Herd. Meiers. 
Dean, Bates, King, aad Kingman, were the 
