here. I can take the most common hogs of 
our country and in five years 1 can raise hogs 
that will compare with the best pure-breds, by 
carefully selecting and using the best for 
breeders, and being careful to feed regularly, 
feed well, keep clean and in well- ventilated 
quarters. On the other hand, I can buy the 
purest thoroughbreds and in five years, by 
neglect, they will be as bad as, or worse than, 
our most common stock. Good blood is all 
right, but in my opinion there is more in good, 
careful, regular feeding, thorough cleanliness 
and good ventilation than in anything else 
with all kinds of farm stock. 
Harford Co., Md. James Harry. 
farm (Tomes. 
THE TRUTH ABDUI IT. 
The object of articles under this heading Is not so 
much to deal with “humbugs” as with the many un¬ 
conscious errors that creep into the methods of daily 
country routine life.—E ds.] 
THE VALUE OF MUCK. 
How doctors differ I A few years ago Dr. 
Dana wrote a Muck Manual in which he made 
some enthusiastic but erroneous statements in 
regard to muck and manure. It is but a short 
time ago that the Rural New-Yorker was 
taken severely to task by a correspondent who 
had more faith in Dr. Dana’s theories than 
truth would justify, for stating that Dr. Dana’s 
work on muck was full of errors. But now 
comes another doctor, Dr. Nichols, editor of 
the B iston Journal of Chemistry, who backs 
up the Rural and says “that book (Dana's 
Muck Manual) is full of errors and absurdi¬ 
ties.” Hero is a justification of the editor of 
the Rural New-Yorker, which is certainly 
gratifying because we who pin our faith upon 
its s atements are glad to see it vindicated 
when these are questioned. But, alas! Dr. 
Nichols falls into the same muck delusion, as 
he calls it, but in a contrary direction, in re¬ 
gard to muck. This gentleman even fails to 
realize the difference between muck and mud, 
for he talks about “ a substance bolding TO per 
cent of clear sand and 30 per cent of black 
mold " as being muck; and also of “a fanner 
digging muck out of a mud-hole.” Again he 
says muck “ holds no available plant food al¬ 
though it contains some nitrogen,” 
Now the editor of the Boston Journal of 
Chemistry should know what muck is. I could 
send him a sample dug from a depth of five 
feet, that- he would suppose was rotten cow- 
dung, and that contains nothing but decayed 
vegetable matter and which smells so strongly 
of ammonia as to be pungent to the eyes and 
nose when freshly dug. When burned, this 
muck leaves less than two per cent, of a light 
ash. In color it is brown ; in texture it is 
fibrous and cuts under the spade precisely as 
well decayed manure made of straw and dung 
would do. It loses precisely TO per cent, of 
water when dried at 300 degrees. Now this is 
what 1 call muck and what I know 7 to be a 
valuable fertilizing material. I can see it 
forming every year under my own observa¬ 
tion. An uncleared part of my swamp is now 7 
covered with a dense growth of weeds and 
bushes, which would amount to probably :io 
tons per acre. The leaves and stems of these 
plants fall down and decay and have doubtless 
grown and fallen and decayed in this manner 
for centuries, making a bed several feet deep. 
There is no mineral matter in it but what has 
been derived from the ashes of the burned 
herbage when it has been occasionally con¬ 
sumed, for in the bottom even 1 find, when 
digging, charred fragments of stems and thin 
layers of black, carbonaceous material mixed 
with greyish, ash-like matter among the brown 
mass. 
If Dr. Nichols is right, then a reclaimed 
meadow must be a useless piece of land. Every 
farmer knows different. The riehest onion 
beds in existence are made from such swamps 
reclaimed and cultivated, and it has passed 
into a proverb—vizi “as rich as un onion 
bed ”—that rich land is required for ouious. 
The best corn and flax lands and the richest 
meadows are made from reclaimed muck 
swamps and the muck carted from the ditches 
has helped to fertilize the uplands. 
Now what are plain farmers to do w'hen 
doctors disagree so ? Here is Dr. Dana w 7 ho, so 
far as I know, w 7 as equally competent to form 
an opinion as Dr. Nichols who, I believe is a 
druggist just as Dr. Dana was, and he says 
muck is very valuable, and Dr. Nichols, on the 
other hand, says muck is worthless. What 
are we to do ? Are we farmers to put our 
thumbs in our mouths aud wait for tlu> doctors 
to settle this mutter, which, alus ! they never 
will. We cannot wait for that. We have our 
muck swamps to drain and ditches to dig aud 
we want to use the muck. A plain farmer, 
too, can tell Dr. Nichols something in regard 
to handling muck; for he does not draw it to 
the barn when it contains 90 per cent of water, 
but digs it hi the Fall when it is driest,aud leaves 
it in heaps until it contains less water than 
common manure; and then he hauls it to the 
barn-yard and fills the pens and yards and ma¬ 
nure cellar and stables with it and saves all the 
urine of his stock by this means. And the 
plain farmer knows that the true value of muck 
is actually known among farmers, however it 
may be among chemists. In fact, when the Bos. 
ton Journal of Chemistry says “thetrue value 
of muck is well understood among chemists or 
at least it ought to he," it admits that some 
chemists know nothing about it. And “ which 
of these chemists are which ?” How are we to 
distinguish those that know from those who 
ought to know, bub don’t ? In the mean time 
we farmers think some of us know as much as 
some chemists do about the practical working 
of our farms ori which we have spent our lives. 
An old and contemptibly ignorant and con¬ 
ceited pei-son once wrote “How can he be wise 
whose talk is of cattle ?” and some persons in 
these days are apt to think very much the 
same. But there was a wise man who once 
wrote, “Doth the plowman plow all day to 
sow I Doth he open and break the clods of the 
ground? When he hath made plain (smooth) 
the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the 
vetches ami the wheat and the appointed bar¬ 
ley and the rye in their place ? For his God 
doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach 
him." And if we consider that the universal 
mind, the intelligence of a thoughtful and ob¬ 
servant human being is here referred to as the 
teacher, is not the farmer so endowed with 
discretion and taught, able to distinguish, 
after years of practical experience, what is 
good and useful in his own business as well as 
another man who never plowed a furrow or 
never put a spade iuto a bed of muck, or used 
a load of manure in a field and closely ob¬ 
served its effect ? 
The truth—which alwa 3 7 s lies between ex¬ 
tremes—is, that real, genuine muck—decayed 
vegetable matter, which contains two or three 
per cent, of nitrogen —can be made to yield 
up its value to the soil und is so made every 
day by farmers who know that it is a manure 
as much as straw is, or leaves from the woods 
are, when it has been brought iuto the right 
condition as straw and leaves are, in the yard 
or manure heap, and the cornfield will prove 
it every time to a farmer who has muck and 
uses it. s. 
The “ Muck Delusion.” 
I was sorry to see an article in “ W. O. S.,” 
September 31, under the head of “Muck De¬ 
lusion,” in a measure indorsed by the Rural, 
as I think it will do harm in giving lazy peo¬ 
ple an excuse for not composting their manure 
with muck or peut when they can get it. 1 
know by experience that it makes extra work 
to put two loads of muck with every load of 
farm manure, and have nearly three loads of 
manure to haul and twice the amount of crops 
to hai-vest. I have been under the “ muck de¬ 
lusion ” more than 30 years, and am more de¬ 
luded than ever. I could not account for the 
corn at the second hoeing being a foot taller 
in rows manured in the hill with a compost of 
one-third manure and two-thirds muck, than 
in the alternate rows manured with the same 
quantity of barnyard manure, until Professor 
S. W. Johnson found twice the amount of am¬ 
monia in peat that he found in barnyard ma¬ 
nure. I believe, with General Noble, of Con¬ 
necticut, that the only hope of a man on a 
sandy farm is his muck swamp, and I aim to 
compost all the manure I make, and I succeed 
in deluding the crops as much as 1 do myself. 
Oswego Co., N. Y. S. M. Jewell. 
[The Rural bj 7 no means indorses all that 
appears under the heading “ What Others 
Say. ” It merely wishes in that department to 
tell its readers the chief matters of interest or 
importance discussed by others.— Eds.] 
-- 
Cheap Ensilaging. 
In the Rural of October 8 , Horticola asks 
whether any experiments have been made in 
m iking cheap silos, and in reply 1 would say 
that Dr. Faxon, of the Sailors’ Home, Quincy, 
Mass., ensilaged a large quantity of corn last 
Fall simpl}- by digging a trench six feet deep 
by eight wide and as long as he required. 
The corn was not cut up, but laid in all one 
way and well trodden down. Before he com¬ 
menced putting in the corn he set posts 
against the sides and ends of the trench or 
pit. Against these he laid rough boards; put 
in his stalks which held the boards in place. 
The earth was packed in between the boards 
and the ground. When the pit was filled four 
feet above the top, it was thatched by putting 
straw on top, auTl the rest of the dirt was put 
on it. The silo was opened in March, and the 
Doctor said that for all he could see it was as 
good as Dr. Bailey’s of Billerica, Mass. This 
year he has put in a lot lu the same way. 
E. BENNETT. 
- ♦ ♦ » - 
Covering Weeds with a Plow. —Mr. A. 
E. Boyce writes us from Hennepin Co., Minn., 
that the chain attachment to a plow, for cov¬ 
ering weeds, described in the Rural of 
August 20, and in the Rural of Sept. 17 said 
to have been patented in 1866, and again re¬ 
ferred to in our last issue, was fully described 
as longago as June and July 1851 in the Wis¬ 
consin and Iowa Farmer and Northwestern 
Cultivator, published at Racine, Wis. 
fifltl Crops, 
THE POTATO CROP. 
The Potato Crop fob 1881 is estimated by 
the Department of Agriculture at about 68 
per cent, of a full yield. South of latitude 40 
potatoes are almost a failure, and even 
in some parts of Illinois and Kansas 
t here will be scarcely enough for home con¬ 
sumption. Siace a comparatively small area 
is ever planted to this crop, any shortage, 
caused by insect, pests, drought or rot is all 
the more severely felt. The fact that there is 
oftener a scarcity of this crop th/m of almost 
any other and a consequent higher price, 
should encourage a larger cultivation, and 
thus, in unfavorable seasons, we should escape 
positive want in this important article of food, 
While there has been a great improvement in 
machinery for the cultivation and harvesting 
of other crops, there has not been so great 
progress in adapting labor-saving machinery 
to the cultivation of potatoes, and in this fact 
we may find one reason why a smaller acre¬ 
age is devoted to them, than to corn, wheat or 
rye. There is a great deal of manual labor to 
be done in the potato field if one would attain the 
best results, aud the average farmer prefers 
to raise those crops in the cultivation and 
harvesting of which he may have more aid 
from horse or steam power. Notu ithstamling 
the labor required and the injury to the crop 
from insect pests, etc., in view of its im¬ 
portance as an article of food, of its frequent 
scarcity and consequent high price, it would 
seem to be to the farmer’s advantage to in¬ 
crease the acreage of this crop wherever land 
is well suited to its growth. 
The value of the potato crop may be seen by 
comparing the average value of the yield per 
acre for ton years from 1810 with that of corn, 
wheat, rye, oats and bailey. The U. S. Sta¬ 
tist ieal Abstract gives the annual average value 
of the corn yield per acre os $11.54; of wheat, 
$13; of rye, $9.92; of oats, $10.03; of barley, 
$16.27 and of potatoes, $49.31. This showsthat 
the potato crop will return the farmer a much 
larger sum per acre than any other of the 
crops mentioned, and that is an item to be 
considered. A word on the 
Gatueuing aud storing of the potato crop 
is now in season. I have quite frequently met 
men who seemed to think that the potato pos¬ 
sesses some Inherent quality which will pre¬ 
serve it sound and healthy for an indefinite 
time under any conditions or circumstances. 
Such men will, perhaps, go. into the potato 
field just after a rain, throw out the tubers 
from the ground, muddy aud wet, remove 
them to the cellar or elsewhere in a damp con¬ 
dition and, naturally enough, their potatoes 
decay before the Winter is fairly begun. 
Then down come execrations on the potato 
bugs, the weather and even the variety of the 
potato itself, which should have possessed 
better keeping qualities. It is a mistake to 
dig potatoes when the soil is wet, and then 
store them iu such condition, It is time and 
money lost in the end. I speak now of those 
farmers (and they comprise a very large class) 
who raise only enough for their own use, or 
who dispose of what they happen to have left 
over early iu the Bpring, Dampness favors 
the potato rot, and if this one trouble can be 
cheeked it will make a very noticeable differ¬ 
ence in the marketable potato crop through¬ 
out the country. 
Carelessness in digging is another thing to 
be avoided; when potatoes are all backed up 
with the hoe or fork, they are on the way to 
the pig-trough; that is to say, they will soon 
begin to decay and will be assorted out for the 
pigs during the Winter. The proper time to 
assort them is when they are picked up, and 
unsound ones should not be placed in the bin or 
trench with the sound ones under any circum¬ 
stances. They will prove to be bad company 
and, like bad human company, they will cor¬ 
rupt their associates. A little care in placing 
the fox-k, in digging, will prevent much mis¬ 
chief later. Of course, where the plow or po¬ 
tato digger is used, similar care will he profit¬ 
able, but these have not, as yet, superseded 
the old, back-breaking hoe. Potatoes, dug 
with care aud when the soil is dry and re¬ 
moved to the cellar or pit without too long 
exposure to the sun, may 7 be said to have a 
good start for the Winter. 
Storing. —Those men who do not make it a 
practice to market their potatoes iu the Fall, 
are often nonplussed as to how to store them 
so as to insure the most perfect results. The 
mound system has its advocates, so has the pit 
or trench method, but if a man has a good 
cellar under house or barn, frost-proof yet 
cool and dry, in my opinion he has a good 
place to store his tubers. The cellar has cer¬ 
tainly this advantage, that in case the potatoes 
do rot, it may easily be known and the offend¬ 
ing members may be removed, whereas the 
trouble may not even be surmised, and, if so, 
not remedied, until Spring, if the tubers are 
out-of-doors. It is not very satisfactory to 
find, on opening a mound in the Spring, a 
reeking, odoriferous mass of rotten potatoes, 
many of which might have been saved if the 
difficulty had been known. I do not say that 
potatoes never decay hi the cellar or that they 
never keep well in a mound or pit, but th 
chances for keeping are, in m 3 7 opinion, in 
favor of the cellar. With proper care, the 
potato crop, though a hard one to raise, is, 
nevertheless, as a rule, a paying one, and is 
worthy of more extended cultivation. 
j. w. D. 
-♦ ♦ ♦ 
TOBACCO-GROWING NOTES. 
Tobacco stalks make an excellent fertilizer 
for general farm crops. They are most con¬ 
veniently utilized by applying them broadcast 
over pasture lands where their influence may 
be clearly seen from the increased vigor of the 
grass growing about the stalks. This grass is 
greedi I 3 7 eaten by most kinds of stock and seems 
to be relished in preference to that grown 
where other manure has been used. The stalks 
muy be spread evenly over sod ground to bo 
plowed down for corn or potatoes. When 
applied to tobacco ground, they should be cut 
up with a hatchet or feed-cutter and applied 
as other manure. In order that all of the 
strength from the stalks may be utilized, they 
should be applied to the soil in the Fall or as 
soon as they are freed from the leaves. When 
piled up in t he open air exposed to storms, tho 
elements most valuable as fertilizers are read¬ 
ily washed away. 
When it is desired to use coarse manure 
for tobacco, it should be applied as early as 
possible in the Fall and plowed under before 
Winter. Two additional plowings in tho 
Spri lg, making three in all, mix the manure 
thoroughly with tho soil. If the manure is 
well rotted, it ma 3 7 be applied as a top-dress- 
ingin the Spring with bettor results, I believe, 
after the soil lias been plowed and harrowed 
and preparatory to the final fitting for the 
plants. 
A tobacco grower in Tioga County, Pa., 
reports to me favorably of the use of hide 
scrapings or tanners’ refuse as a tobacco fer¬ 
tilizer. A personal examination of his tobac¬ 
co grown on soil manured with tho scrapings, 
revealed no unfavorable symptoms in the 
quality of the leaf. The growth of tho plant 
was large, but I was informed that there was 
danger of applying it too thickly when the 
tobacco is in a green state, as ni>* friend had 
found from experience. The best results had 
bfeen obtained from the refuse when mixed and 
applied with stable manure. 
It is generally advisable to plow under 
manure that is applied in the Fall. If left on 
the surface it is liable to become leached and 
washed b > 7 the heavy Autumn and Spring 
rains or during the “ break-ups ” of Winter. 
I have frequently seen water made black from 
having leached through manure, running in a 
stream from a Fall manured tobacco field. 
The loss at such times is great and should 
never be allowed a second time. 
It is not best to be in haste to take tobacco 
from the poles or laths, and to strip the leaves 
from the stalks. Let the natural juice from 
the’caves escape and the butts or stems be¬ 
come thoroughly cured before taking down 
the plants. This will avoid danger of stem- 
rot while the tobacco is in the “ pack," pro¬ 
vided the stripping is done as soon as the plants 
are taken from tho poles. G. a. g., jr. 
Chemung Co,, N. Y. 
Flax Raising in Kansas. 
I have had experience in flax culture both 
in Illinois and Kansas, and find the soil of 
Northeastern Illinois and this Southeastern 
part, of Kansas is well adapted to flax raising. 
I prefer new land, say the second or third 
sod, so as to have it free from weeds. I plow 
my ground as early in the Spring as possible, 
(but one should not plow it when too wot); 
then I harrow and roll until it is free from 
clods; then I sow about the middle of April. 
I always sow 19 quarts per acre with a broad¬ 
cast seeder. It will mature in about 09 days. 
When iead > 7 to cut, the bolls will be brown, 
and the straw of a yellowish cast. I always 
reap with a self-rake reaper; lot it lie half a 
day in tbe suu; then it is ready to stack. I 
let it stand in the st ick until about tbe first 
of October when I thrash it an l keep my seed 
until Spring, as I can generally get a better 
price about sowing time. The average yield 
per acre is about 19 bushels. Of late 3 7 ears the 
price per bushel in the Spring is from $1 to 
$1.23. Tbe cost per acre for raising, count- 
