THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
NOV. 26 
THE 
RURAL NEW'YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes, 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
KLBKHT 8. CAliMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, Nkw York. 
SATURDAY, NOV. 26, 1881. 
ANNOUNCEMENT. 
We have in preparation a series of arti¬ 
cles upon Bonanza Farming in Dakota, 
with original illustrations. 
Also, a farm story entitled “ The 
Story of Stony Brook Farm,” by our dis¬ 
tinguished contributor Henry Stewart, 
M. D. Our readers are sufficiently famil¬ 
iar with Dr. Stewart’s writings to know 
that a rare treat is in store for them. The 
story is founded upon the truth, and 
will be commenced when our present 
story is concluded. 
Seven Yearly Subscriptions with $14 
ENTITLE THE SENDER TO THE RURAL 
New-Yorker for One Year Free. 
The Rural will be sent to new sub¬ 
scribers from now until January 1, 1883, 
for $2.00, that is, the balance of this year 
free. The Rural New-Yorker has no 
club or second price. It is the same to 
all. 
Our crop of celery is the best, without 
exception, we have ever raised. The 
season West and Fast lias been very un¬ 
favorable to the cultivation of this tine 
Winter vegetable, and it is, therefore, 
generally poor in quality and high in 
price. To make a long story short, we have 
raised our fine crop by giving the plants 
plenty of water daily. Whether it pays 
or not to do this depends upon the water 
supply and the distance it has to be 
carried. 
Native white grapes this year scarcely 
made an appearance in the leading mar¬ 
kets West or East. At this time the 
Catawba is the only native that can now 
be purchased in a good, sound condition. 
We fear it will yet be a long time ere the 
markets will be bountifully supplied 
with a white grape as good in quality as 
the Catawba and that will keep as well. 
A white grape no better than the Con¬ 
cord and that will keep no better is 
really no acquisition. The color is popu¬ 
lar at present, and that is all that can be. 
said in its favor. Gratify this popular 
demand for mere color, anil a white Con¬ 
cord is all that remains. 
--— ■ -- - 
The Cheapest Method to Make 
Beef. —On rich soils this is best, done by 
taking the largest and most improved race 
of cattle, like the Short-horns, for exam¬ 
ple, and pushing them from calfhood to a 
reasonable state of maturity for the sham¬ 
bles. This is done by the time they are 
two to three years old, and not by over¬ 
feeding, but by giving the auimals all 
such food as is most suitable for them, 
and which they can digest well. On 
rough an 1 poor soils a smaller and more 
active race of cattle is most proper to 
breed and rear for feeding off the scantier 
herbage produced there. These do not 
mature so early, and arc generally left 
till three to four or even five years old, 
according to circumstances, and are then 
brought on to rich pastures in the Spring, 
when they thrive rapidly, and are fitted as 
grass beef for the market by Autumn. 
Sometimes it is profitable to' keep and 
stall-feed these on through Winter and 
market them in the Spring. This will 
depend, however, on the thriftiness of 
the cattle, and the price to be realized for 
beef. 
- ♦ - 
OUR FUTURE GREATNESS. 
census. A decennial increase of 20 per 
cent., er less than two per cent, per 
annum, will bring the number to over 
250,000,000 before the next centennial of 
our Independence. What then will be 
the condition of our descendants in whom 
at least, although so far removed, we 
should take the most lively interest? Will 
they have degenerated to the condition of 
the East Indian ryot or the Chinese 
cooley? Or will our country now pos¬ 
sessing and exhibiting every element for 
the existence of so vast a number of per¬ 
sons, in an equally favorable condition 
as that of ourselves, have advanced in 
due proportion in all the arts of peace 
and all the enjoyments of wealth? This 
depends altogether upon the continued 
maintenance of our liberal institutions; 
upon public liberty and private virtue; 
upon the careful fostering of those 
principles of government and social 
order, not. forgetting the family discipline 
and careful training, which have, led us so 
far in safety and prosperity. It cannot 
be believed or supposed that with so 
glorious a history as lies behind us, the 
future course of our country can take any 
other direction than that in which our 
fathers have led and we have followed. 
The p ospeet may seem to be exaggerated 
by some who are cribbed up in the nar¬ 
row East, but the mind expands and views 
enlarge when one stands upon the borders 
of the vast Western country and sees, yet 
unoccupied, a country to which the most 
populous of European nations might be 
transferred with plenty of room around 
them to spread in; the richest fields, as 
yet idle, and untilled; vast ranges of 
mountains in which are locked up treas¬ 
ures incalculable, and the nucleus of a 
population eminently fitted to deal with 
these elements of wealth, and turn them 
to the best uses for mankind. 
THE BURDENS OF EUROPEAN 
FARMERS. 
The recent census taken in British 
India shows the population of that em¬ 
pire to be more than 250,000,000. 
The supposed population of China is 
put down at twice this enormous num¬ 
ber. India contains five times and China 
eight or ten times as many persons as the 
United States. But the steady growth of 
our population goes to indicate that some 
persons yet living may see our popula¬ 
tion reach the figures of the East Indian 
While we cannot dispute for a moment 
tiie fact shown by Mr. Eawes that the 
purchased fertility of English farms 
against the natural fertility of American 
lands is one great element which enters 
into the question of competition in the 
production of food, yet there is one other 
point which has an important bearing 
upon this subject. This occurs to us in 
considering the proceedings of the Con¬ 
gress of German agriculturists, which has 
recently been discussing the alarming 
condition of German farmers in view of 
the large importations of American provis¬ 
ions and breadstuff*. The existing and 
the inevitable further competition seems 
to make the case of European farmers 
desperate. There is no disguise which 
can cover up the conspicuous fact that 
American farmers can undersell the Eu¬ 
ropeans in every kind of agricultural pro¬ 
duce. In the discussion of the subject 
one very important element has been 
ignored by the Germans, although proba¬ 
bly it has been all the time very apparent 
to their minds. This is (lie enormous 
public burdens to which agriculture is 
there subjected. There is no truer or 
more indisputable fact iu existence than 
that “the farmer pays for all.* 1 The soil 
bears all the burdens. Europe is a vast 
military camp. Five millions of men and 
as many horses are kept idle nd unpro¬ 
ductive, but yet expensively consumptive, 
in the armies and navies of Europe. A 
numerous aristocracy and a most costly 
royalty arc maintained at a vast expendi¬ 
ture of the earnings of the farmers. 
The soil pays for the whole of it. And all 
this man and horse power is withdrawn 
from agriculture. The German farmer 
sees his son taken from him by force of 
law and made to serve iu the army or the 
navy, and the poor old man is taxed for 
his support and the costly trappings, 
“pomp and circumstance of war,” by 
which he is accompanied. The effect is 
doubly disastrous. The German farmer 
who flees from his fatherland, and be¬ 
comes an American, has the help of his 
son on his farm here and has no onerous 
taxes to pay to support an army and a 
royal establishment. What is the ques¬ 
tion of the fertility of the soil as com¬ 
pared with these burdens! It is the same 
in England and France, and the settle¬ 
ment of the “ Band Question ” in Ireland 
is fast, developing the fact that this great 
evil was precisely what was the matter 
with that unhappy country. Here is the 
great point of the question to be consid¬ 
ered, and it is one which seems to make 
the case of the European farmer hope¬ 
less and that of the American farmer im¬ 
pregnable. No law can long stand that 
increases the prices of bread and meat. 
This fact was settled in 1840 in the repeal 
of the Corn Law's in England and the 
entire freeing of the trade in food from 
taxation. Without taxation, American 
bread, meat, butter and cheese cannot be 
kept out of European ports, and the 
question remains, how long starving pop¬ 
ulations will submit to the taxing of their 
food to maintain the despotic power of 
their rulers, whether these be soldiers, 
kings, emperors or nobles—all idle, un¬ 
productive and wasteful. Truly, there 
seems to be a great political shadow fall¬ 
ing across those countries, and it is east 
upon them by American agriculture, free, 
unburdened and prosperous. 
HAVE WE DONE AN INJUSTICE ? 
After stating our rea- 
the above States, 
sons for believing that the rinses of the 
disease were few and far between within 
their borders, we said: 
“ If the disease is so prevalent in the Atlan¬ 
tic States as to justify such a sweeping meas¬ 
ure as that recommended by the Commis¬ 
sioners, in justice to the farmers of the conn 
try these gentlemen should specif\ the places 
in which it prevails, Isolate affected herds or 
even sections rigorously; but for the sake of a 
sick cow or two at long intervals is it neces¬ 
sary or just, to quarantine all the herds of so 
vast a territory.'' The Western herds must ln.» 
protected at any cost, but Justice and expedi¬ 
ency demand that the cost should he made as 
light as nosslI ilc to the stoek-ow ners of the East 
who wish to sell their cattle, and to those of 
the West who wish to buy them.” 
It, will )>e seen that if in that “Brev¬ 
ity ” wo were wrong in our statement of 
the recommendations made at Jirnt by the 
Commissioners to (Jovernor (’ullom, we had 
only repeated what we had said much 
more, prominently nearly two months 
before and again a month later, so that 
the correction of our error 
time coming. 
But were we in error? Did we make 
a misstatement? On September 11, a 
special dispatch from Springfield, Illi¬ 
nois, the political capital, to the Chicago 
Tribune, gave eight points urged on the 
Governor by the Commissioners. The 
first six of these stated briefly the rea¬ 
sons for the seventh and eighth, which 
are the first published recommendations 
of the Commissioners. The seventh, 
which alone bears on the question, says: 
was a long 
O 
The following note from the Secretary 
of the Treasury Cattle Commission 
reached us just too late for publication 
in our last issue. 
U. S. Treasury Cattle Commission, i 
Chita 00 , Ills., Nov. Ill, lMHi. f 
^ Referring to your paper of Nov. 12, page 
768, bottom of last column, permit me to say 
vou are greatly mistaken as to what Ibis 
Commission recommended to the Governor of 
Illinois, and your article does us injustice. 
We recommended to the Governor just what 
he has done, no more and no Ess. We never 
thought Of urging him to schedule any State 
entire. J. H. .Sanders. 
Reference is here made to a “ Brevity " 
in which occurs this sentence: 
“ The Treasury Cattle Commission at first 
recommended that the entire States should be 
scheduled in any part of which the disease cx- 
i-ted; we protested against, such an embargo 
as too sweeping, and we are pleased Iosco 
that Governor Cullom has prohibited importa¬ 
tions only from the infected counties, thus 
greatly diminishing the embargoed area.'* 
Our protest here alluded to was made 
in an editorial in the Rural for Septem¬ 
ber 24) in wide >, after stating some 
cogent reasons why restrictions should lie 
placed on the Western movement of 
cattle from plcuro-puuumonia infected 
districts in the East, we said; 
Accordingly the Commissioners strongly 
urge the Governor to prohibit at once tin- ini- 
poitation of all cattle from New York. Nee* 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware 
and Virginia, or '* it it can be legally done.” 
from “ so much of these States as lies east of 
the Alleghany Mountains." In order to pre¬ 
vent the hardship that, would be caused by iu- 
terlei cnce with the sale, of calves ni Eastern 
pui e bred herds, it is proposed that cattle 
from infected States may be admitted on the 
certificate of the Stale Veterinarian that the 
herd and district from which they came have 
been free from contagious pleuro pneumonia 
for at least the last, sjx months. 
We commented on 'bis as follows; 
“All reports of past investigations of 
pleuro pneumonia in the above infected States 
go to prove that when most prevalent it was 
confined to very limited districts; that its 
area has been greatly restricted, ami Mint it 
has not been nearly so contagious ns the 
European type. While very anxious-us our 
record amply demonstrates -that all needed 
measures should Vie laketi to prevent danger 
from t his fatal disease to the vast herds of the 
West, it seems to us that the proposed meas¬ 
ure is a trilie too sweeping iu its nature. 
Before the appointment of the Commission 
we would have made no objection to its adop¬ 
tion: but we had hopes Unit the investiga 
tions of i his body would have discovered 
some less sweeping means of effecting the ob¬ 
ject.” 
Having been accused by the Chicago 
Tribune of personal feeling in our re¬ 
marks in the above article, we disclaimed 
any feeling of the .sort, in an editorial in 
the Rural for October 22, still further 
emphasizing our objections to the proposed 
Western general embargo on cuttle from 
“The State law empowering the Governor 
to schedule infected States and districts and 
debar all cattle drawn from such districts 
from entering Illinois, seems especially a< apted 
to meet the present emergency, and the Com¬ 
missioners believe that the Governor would 
confer a priceless boon on the West, and in¬ 
directly on the whole United. States, in sched¬ 
uling the States of New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Vir¬ 
ginia, or, if it. can tie legally done, ro much of 
those States as lies east of (he Alleghany 
Mountains. The grout objection to such ac¬ 
tion, sa\ the Commissioners, is that it would 
intefen* w ith the sale of breeding-stock from 
the thoroughbred herds of the infected dis¬ 
tricts. To obviate such a hardship, they sug¬ 
gest that, the provision need not be made 
absolute, lint that provision might, lie made 
for the admission of cattle from the scheduled 
States on the certificate of the State Veteri¬ 
narian that to his personal knowledge the 
herd and district from which they come have 
been free from contagious plonro-pneumonia 
for the six months last past.” 
Our readers will see that in our article 
of September 24. in stating the gist of 
this recommendation, we adhered closely 
to the 44 wording ” of it. A glance at 
the proclamation of Governor Cullom, 
given in full on Page 772 of the Rural, 
shows that instead of scheduling the 
entire States as above recommended, he 
has scheduled only a few counties in 
each: and that instead of the State Vete¬ 
rinarian's certificate being needed to ad¬ 
mit cattle from any pari of the State, the 
certificate of a duly authorized veteri¬ 
narian alone is needed to admit eattle. 
from any part of the scheduled counties, 
w ilc those from the rest of the State 
arc admitted without any restriction or 
trouble. • 
But perhaps the dispatch of September 
II to the Chicago Tribune did not truly 
represent the suggestions of the Commis¬ 
sioners to the Governor? Inasmuch as 
Mr. Sanders is a resident of Chicago and 
an editor, to boot, it seems hardly possi¬ 
ble that lie could have failed to see this 
dispatch in one of Chicago’s principal 
papers, especially as it professed to give 
(lie opinions of the Commission of which 
In* was a member. Having seen the dis¬ 
patch, if it misrepresented the sugges¬ 
tion- of t he Commissioners, it seems to us 
lie would certainly have corrected the mis¬ 
representation there prominently spread 
abroad, inasmuch as after this long in¬ 
terval he has thought it worth while to 
correct our statement in the matter 
founded on that dispatch and the general 
tone of the Western press in discussing 
t he embargo. Since the receipt of Mr. 
Sanders's note, we have carefully looked 
over tiles of the daily and weekly Chicago 
Tribune from the date of the dispatch, 
but in neither have we been able to find 
any correction of it. If we have done 
an injustice to the Commission it has cer 
tain I y been involuntary on our part, and 
the members themselves are more to 
blame for it than we, through their neg¬ 
lect to correct t he first misrepresentation— 
but have we done an injustice? 
BREVITIES. 
W by are farmers so negligent as to provid¬ 
ing themselves with strong, warm mittens or 
gloves for Winter' 
We particularly cull attention to Dr. Hos¬ 
kins's article upon Apples .Suited to Northern 
States. We receive many inquiries from Min¬ 
nesota, Wisconsin, Btc r , which this article 
fully answers. 
The Rural will be sent to new subscribers 
from now until January 1, 1883, for *2; thut is 
the balance of this year free. The Rural 
New- YOttKKR has no club or second price. It 
is the same to all. 
We are sorry to see the title of the Journal 
of the American Agricultural Association is 
to be changed to the Agricultural Quarterly 
and Journal of the A. A. A. The title was 
good enough and long enough. 
Prof. Blount, of Colorado, expresses his 
thanks in kindly words for the little present 
sent to him by the Rural for his premium 
wheat heads. Prof. Blount is doing right good 
work, and we wish him a happy, loi g life. 
The insect recently received from a sub¬ 
scriber, and descrilx'd as infesting peach trees, 
is a new species. It has been forwarded to an 
eminent entomologist, who is devoting special 
attention to these wood boring species of in¬ 
sects. We shall given full description of it 
soon. 
“ We wish you could impress on all your 
readers the great importance of putting the 
names of their post-office, cou ty and State 
virurlu on all their letters,” write our friends, 
J. A. Field & Co., of St. Louis, Mo. “ Every 
day we have to throw aside letters that we 
would gladly answer lint, for our inability to 
ascertain the address, or, sometimes, to read 
the names of the writers," and several in¬ 
stances are given. As our readers are aware 
from our previous cautions, carelusanees about 
writing the name and add reus clearly oil each 
letter is a frequent, source of inconvenience to 
us and of delay to our friends in getting the 
paper for which they have subscribed or the 
answer for which they have written. This 
verv morning a letter has come from 
“ Fulton,” the name of the State Ix*iug omit¬ 
ted. Now there are 17 Pultuns in as many 
different States—from which of them has this 
letter come { Unfortunately the post-mark 
on the envelope iB too indistinct to give a clue. 
