76S 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
NOV. 42 
THE! 
RURAL NEW'YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes, 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT 8. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No, 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, NOV. 12, 1881. 
Seven Yearly Subscriptions with $14 
ENTITLE THE SENDER TO THE RURAL 
New-Yorker for One Year Free. 
We would remind those who kindly 
propose to solicit their acquaintances to 
subscribe for the Rural New-Yorker 
for another year, that the present is really 
in some respects a more favorable time 
for such endeavor than later in the season. 
The weather is now generally more pleas¬ 
ant than in December and January and 
the competition from professional agents 
far less keen. We beg to say that we 
shall at all times be very glad to send 
posters and specimen copies for this pur¬ 
pose (including the Fair Edition) free of 
all charge to all who apply. Moreover, to 
each new subscriber for 1882, who sub¬ 
scribes before New Year’s Day, we will 
send theRuRAL New-Yorker free for the 
remainder of 1881, beginning with the first 
issue after the receipt of his subscription. 
We ask every subscriber, now that the 
subscription season for 1882 is upon us, 
to speak of the Rural New-Yorker to 
his neighbors and friends in such terms 
as he may think it deserves. Such words 
have more effect than anything that the 
newspaper agent or advertisements can 
state. We respectfully submit that our 
friends may in this way serve the cause of 
agriculture, the true interests of which 
the Rural professes to have at heart. 
- « - 
White Grubs as they are commonly 
called—the larvae of the May Beetle—are 
becoming the most formidable of our in¬ 
sect pests. The worst of it is that no 
practical means of destroying them are 
known; for we deem the'method some¬ 
times advocated—that of destroying veg¬ 
etation by frequent plowing and thus 
starving the grubs to death -quite im¬ 
practicable. Upon our strawberry beds 
we have applied sulphur, salt and' helle¬ 
bore in as large quantities as we dared; 
nevertheless, the grubs are at present 
quite as destructive as ever. 
- ♦ ♦ » - 
Potatoes are rotting badly in the Ru¬ 
ral Farm country, Long Island, N. Y., 
and farmers are getting rid of them as 
fast as possible. The same state of things 
exists about the Rural Experiment 
Grounds in Bergcu Co., New Jersey. In 
view of this, we should advise those of 
our Western readers whose potatoes are 
keeping well to hold them. Potatoes 
imported from Ireland are now selling 
in this market—for the first time within 
our remembrance, or that of “ the oldest 
inhabitant,” within our acquaintance. A 
couple of 3 r ears ago during the period of 
Irish distress, America presented a large 
quantity of potatoes for seed to the Eme¬ 
rald Isle, and now the progeny of these 
have come to their ancestral home bring¬ 
ing several native varieties with them. 
-♦- 
The Mock-Orange illustrated on page 
763 of this issue—re-engraved from the 
London Gardeners’ Chronicle—is often 
called syringa, which is the botanical 
name for the lilac. The name of Mock- 
Orange is also misleading since, aside 
from a faint resemblance ni the odor of 
its flowers to those of the orange, t here is 
no resemblance or relationship. Phila- 
delphus is its botanical name, and it were 
better to make that its familiar name as 
well. Let us assure those of our readers 
not acquainted with this old-fashioned 
plant that it has claims to rank among the 
first of our hardy shrubs. It begins to 
bloom iu early June aud its flowers are 
beautiful, fragrant and borne in profu¬ 
sion. It is extremely hardy—it thrives iu 
almost any soil or situation, and grows to 
the hight of fro m six to ten feet. 
The Proposed New York Experi¬ 
ment Station. —A meeting of the or- 
anizers of this project was held the other 
ay at Albany, but beyond the closing of 
the career of the old Board of Control 
and the inauguration of the new f Board, 
nothing was done. However good the 
intentions of the old body, it was unable 
to do anything decisive towards establish¬ 
ing the station, and it is certainly to be 
hoped that its successor will have better 
luck or more energy. About, two years 
have now elapsed since the appropriation 
of $40,000 to meet the expenses of the 
Station for the first two years. That any 
doubt should at an} r time have been pos¬ 
sible as to legality of the appropriation 
reflects small credit on the friends of the 
measure in the Legislature. Surely there 
has noiv been time enough not only to re¬ 
move all doubt on this point by appro¬ 
priate legislation, but also to have at 
least started the Station. The farmers of 
the State expect the new Board of Con¬ 
trol to take prompt action in the matter. 
- »«♦ - 
We have been censured by a number 
for giving expression to the opinion that 
“ Golden Grains” and Black-bearded Cen¬ 
tennial Wheats are the same. The doubt, 
however, seems now to have been re¬ 
moved. We have no reproach to cast 
upon S. Y. Haines & Co., of Philadelphia, 
and are willing to suppose tkat they were 
imposed upon and that iu selling Golden 
Grains as a new wheat, they did not know 
it was Black-bearded Centennial. It is 
our duty, as it is our pleasure, to expose 
such mistakes whenever we are enabled to 
do so, notwithstanding some firm or indi¬ 
vidual may suffer pecuniarily thereby. 
Black-bearded Centennial, as our readers 
are aw’are, took the first Rural New- 
Yorker premium, the kernels of the aver¬ 
age head sent by Professor Blount, of 
Colorado, weighing 107 grains. Where, 
as in Colorado, it thrives well, either as a 
Winter or Spring wheat, it must yield 
heavily, as the kernel is very large and the 
spikclets grow close together. From the 
appearance of the grain, how’cver, we 
should not suppose it would make good 
flour, though, as to this, little if anything 
is known. 
♦ » » - 
.In a private note. Professor Beal of the 
Michigan Agricultural College says:— 
“ Our Bermuda Grass has spread and 
grown wonderfully this year.” He pro¬ 
poses to bury a little to keep it. Late in 
June Prof. Beal received some rhizomas 
of Johnson Grass. It has done well and 
ripened seeds. How far North the roots 
of this grass will prove hardy has not, as 
yet, been ascertained that w r e have heard 
of. The late M. B. Batehain wrote the 
Rural six months previous to his death, 
that he thought they would prove hardy 
in Paineaville, Ohio, where in his own 
grounds he was testing it. We saw this 
grass (Sorghum halepense) growing in a 
garden at Aiken, S. C., where the ram¬ 
pageous root-stocks were fast taking pos¬ 
session of the soil to the exclusion of all 
else. Our readers will remember that this 
Johnson Grass was much talked of three 
years ago as “ Green Valley Grass.” It 
was illustrated in the Rural New- 
Yorker of April 24. 1880. The root¬ 
stocks are perennial and endure any 
amount of drought. It may be cut sev¬ 
eral times in a season and is relished by 
stock either as green food or hay. As to 
the Bermuda Grass at the Rural Farm, 
we may say it is still green and growing 
rapidly. It has blossomed freely all Sum¬ 
mer though no seeds have been formed. 
THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION. 
A great and lasting benefit which the 
South will derive from the Atlanta Expo¬ 
sition will be the revelation of itself to 
itself, or, in other words, the revelation 
of its own resources and capabilities for 
industrial advancement, winch have not 
heretofore been fully recognized or appre¬ 
ciated. The “ Dark Ages’’ of the South 
are past; a new era of industrial pros¬ 
perity has dawned ; new ideas and new 
methods are superseding the old, and 
the immediate and highly important ques¬ 
tion for the indu°trial classes of the 
South now to determine is, How shall we 
obtain the most and best crops with the 
least outlay? The present exhibition will 
do much to place the Southern planters 
in a new and true light before the peo¬ 
ple. It will show not only that the South 
has produced goods of such a nature and 
such quality, but also that there are unde¬ 
veloped resources which, in the near fu¬ 
ture, will be developed, if the new spirit 
of enterprise which is now exhibited be 
lasting, as no doubt it will. While we 
look with pride on the rapid advance 
which has been made throughout the 
country in industrial and mechanical im¬ 
provement during the last fifty years, the 
South seems not to have kept pace with 
the other sections of the country; but the 
progress which it is destined to make in 
the next half century, will, we believe, 
surprise even the most sanguine. The 
Atlanta Exposition is the right thing at 
the right time, and its success will not be 
measured simply by the extent of the dis¬ 
play, but rather by the stimulative effect 
which it will have upon Southern in¬ 
dustries. 
A GLANCE AT THE HOG CROP. 
TnE Summer hog packing season, in¬ 
cluding the eight months from March 
1st, to November 1st, having closed, a 
brief review of the work done is in order. 
Special reports from all the packing points 
in the West show that t he number of hogs 
packed through the season amounted to 
4,772,934 against 5,823,898 for the same 
period last year—a decrease of .750,964; 
while for the twelve months closing with 
October 31, the decrease was 680,000, the 
aggregate for the past year being 11,695- 
000 against 12,275,000 last year. Chicago 
falls short about 270,000 ; Indianapolis, 
215,000 ; Cleveland 90,000, and St. 
Louis and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 60,000 
each, while at several other points the 
shortage is smaller. On the other hand, 
Cincinnati has gained about 35,000, and 
Milwaukee 23,000, while Omaha has 
packed nearly 50,000 against none last 
year. The ill effects of the European 
movement against American hog products 
are shown very plainly by the statistics of 
our exports during the past twelve 
months. From November 1, 1880 to 
March 1, 1881, our exports were 110,000,- 
000 pounds more than during the pre¬ 
ceding Winter packing season, yet now, 
at the close of the Summer packing sea¬ 
son, there is a decrease of 170,000,000 
pounds in the year's exports as compared 
with those of the previous twelvemonths. 
This shows that since the first of March 
our foreign exports have been 280,000,000 
pounds less than during the correspond¬ 
ing eight months last year. This falling 
off is equivalent to the dressed product of 
about. 1.600,000 hogs since March 1. 
As the decrease iu the number of hogs 
packed during the Summer season was 
550,964, and the decrease in our exports 
for that period equal to 1,600,000 hogs, 
if the former number be taken from the 
latter we shall actually have an increase of 
the product of upward of 1,000,000 hogs 
for home consumption or storage during 
the last eight months as compared with 
the corresponding period last year. Dur¬ 
ing the past season the prices of hogs 
have been much higher than during the 
summer season of 1880, though the ani¬ 
mals have averaged somewhat lighter. 
At present the average prices of hogs and 
hog products at Chicago, the principal 
hog market iu the country, as compared 
with those at the corresponding date last 
year, are : 
1881 
1880 
Increase. 
Per cent 
Hoks. 
_$6.25 
$4.65 
$1.60 
32 
Mess Fork. 
14.00 
2.50 
18 
Lard. 
. 11.40 
8.10 
3.20 
40 
s. c. Sides... 
. 8.70 
7.15 
1.55 
21 
The average weight of the hogs re¬ 
ceived at that point last month was 242 
pounds against 247 for October 1880. 
Now a few words as to the prospect for 
prices during the Winter packing season, 
which begins to-uorrow, Tuesday, No¬ 
vember 8, at Chicago. The State Audi¬ 
tors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Mis¬ 
souri, Kansas and Nebraska furnish an¬ 
nual statements of the number of hogs 
reported to them for taxation, and these 
statements put the hog crop of 1881 at 
about 800,000 less than that 1880. All of 
them report a decrease except Missouri 
which reports 3,639,279 this year, against 
3,309,279last year, making an increase of 
270,000. It will be noticed that the fig¬ 
ures are the same, but the 3 and 6 iu 
thousands are transposed. Inasmuch as 
all other reports from that State go to 
show a decrease in the number of hogs 
this year, there is certainly a mistake in 
this return. Considering 270,000 as a de¬ 
crease instead of an increase, the total de¬ 
crease iu the above seven States this year 
would be about 1,300,000, and it is not 
unfair to conclude that there will be a 
corresponding falling off in the other 
States which produce a far smaller pro¬ 
portion of hogs, so that the aggregate le- 
crease cannot be far from about 2,000,000 
head. Although the hog crop is short, 
however, it is not unlikely that owing to 
the deficiency in the corn crop and the 
h’gh prices for both hogs and corn, far¬ 
mers will push their hogs to market early 
in the season, to save their corn, in which 
case prices are pretty sure to fall until the 
supply becomes lighter. 
BREVITIES. 
The year 1881 has been so short that we 
have scarcely grown accustomed to writing it. 
And now we must prepare for 1S82. 
Attention is called to the communication 
of A. J. Cay’wood in the Entomological De¬ 
partment, as of importance to peach growers. 
B. F. Johnson remarks, truly enough, in 
another column, that a very fat corn - fed 
hog is little more than a ball of lard and 
grease. 
Send for the Fair Number of the Rural 
New- Yorker and the new poster for 1882. 
Roth will be forwarded gratis to all appli¬ 
cants. 
The appointment of Mr. F. D. Coburn as 
Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture of 
Kansas, in place of Mr. J. K. Hudson, seems 
to give very general satisfaction, Mr. Coburn 
is spoken of as a thorough farmer. 
Wk have raised quite a number of phila- 
delphuses (Mock-Oranges) from seed, but no 
changes either in flower, leaf or habit have 
been noted. Seed collected now and sown in 
pots will soon germinate. See Mr. Falconer’s 
article, p. 763. 
In the last, article on the Dairy Cow, page 
746, cuts 508 and 509 were transposed at the 
last moment before going to press, and it was 
forgotten to make the corresponding changes 
in the text. Accordingly where reference is 
made in the text to Fig. 508, it should have 
been 509, and vice versa. 
According to experiments made at the 
Illinois Industrial University it appears that 
the safest wav to secure the full benefit of 
either the Early Amber or Orange Sorghum 
cane crop for sugar manufacture, is to begin 
cutting the canes when the seed is iu the 
“ dough,' and to grind them as soon as pos¬ 
sible after cutting. It seems to Professor 
Morrow that the manufacture of sugar from 
sorghum is the most promising new branch of 
agriculture for Illinois. 
A new Society has just been formed at Bur¬ 
lington, Vermont, with the brief title “The 
Vermont, and New York Lake Shore Associa¬ 
tion fur the Promotion of Agriculture and 
the Mechanic Arts.” Its promoters are en¬ 
terprising men in Western Vermont and 
Northeastern New York who have deckled to 
fix its capital at $25,000, and subscriptions, it is 
said, are pouring in satisfactorily. One of the 
foremost objects of the Association will bo to 
hold an annual fair at Burlington, as it is al¬ 
leged that ever since the State fair has been 
held elsewhere it has not prospered, while it 
was always a success when held at Burling¬ 
ton. 
W mile until the past week the East lias 
been suffering severely from drought, the 
West has been suffering grievously from a 
deluge. Both conditions have equally re¬ 
tarded Fall work <m the farm; but in addition 
to this, the Western down-pour has inflicted 
heavy losses on the fanning community by de¬ 
structive floods along the river bottoms and 
damage to imlh cashed grain. Dalrymple, the 
Dakota wheat king, for example, had t hrashed 
one-third of his wheat before the w et weat her 
began, but the remainder, he says, has been 
injured to the extent of one to three bushels 
per acre and one or two grades in quality, the 
loss being 15 per cent. The aggregate of a 
loss anything like this over a w ide territory, 
would be enormous. 
Probably there is no country in Christen¬ 
dom In which the Condition of the peasantry 
is so wretched us in sunny Italy. Not only 
have they generally to drag out a hard, cheer¬ 
less existence on the scantiest and ]>oorest 
faro, but they are often subjected to the most 
galling humiliations—or what would be humili¬ 
ations if centuries of oppression bad left them 
spirit enough to feel indignities. Last year 
the prefect, of one of the chief cities, an 
owner of extensive vineyards, obliged his la¬ 
borers to wear iron masks during harvest 
time to prevent them from eating the grapes. 
This barbarous custom lias been in vogue in 
some parts of Italy ever since feudal days, 
and although it was denounced by the news¬ 
papers last, year, it is still practiced—and that 
prefect is st/ill in office.. 
Owing partly to the high price of wheat 
and partly to the scant supply of it, a large 
number of flouring mills are shutting dow n iu 
the Northwest and as far south as St.. Louis. 
At. the latter milling center fully half the 
mills—and the largest, among them—have sus¬ 
pended work, and the same is the case at Mil¬ 
waukee. The stock of flour throughout, that 
section, too, is so very large that it is desir¬ 
able to reduce it, and it is said that a lower 
w heat market iu Ohio and Indiana is enabling 
the millers of these Btates to take almost exclu¬ 
sive i>ossession of ( he Southern trade. Mills at 
interior points in Tllinuisaud Iowa are reported 
to be buying considerable supplies of wheat 
from Chicago and St, Louis, which shows 
either that local supplies are inadequate or 
that the farmers are holding their grain for 
considerably better prices than those now rul¬ 
ing at the collecting centers. 
Governor Cult.Om’8 Proclamation 
against the importation into Illinois of cattle 
from those sections in which some herds are 
reported to lie infected with pleuro-pneu- 
monia in Connecticut, New York, New Jer¬ 
sey, Pennyslvania, Delaware and Maryland, 
is a timely and praiseworthy measure, if the 
f rounds on w hich it is bused are real The 
Yeasury Cattle Commission at first, recom¬ 
mended that the entire States should be 
scheduled in nnv part of which the disease ex¬ 
isted; we protested against such an embargo 
as too sweeping, and we are pleased to see that 
Governor Gnllom has prohibited importations 
only from the infected counties, thus greatly 
diminishing the embargoed area. It, isfnOt un¬ 
likely that, tli© constitutionality of the act of the 
Illinois Legislature authorizing his action, w ill 
be tested before the U. S. Supremo Court For 
our own part, in view of the urgent need ot ef¬ 
fective legislation for the protection of live 
stock from contagious diseases, we trust the 
act will either be sustained or not questioned. 
