864 
DEC. 24 
T HEI 
RURAL NEW'YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes, 
PUBLISHED EVERT SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
SLBXRT 8. CARMAN. 
I 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. S4 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, DEC. 24, 1881. 
Address 
A merry, merry Christmas to all! 
——■ 
ANNOUNCEMENTS. 
TnE Bonanza Farm series of articles 
and illustrations will be begun in our first 
issue of January, beginning with the por¬ 
trait of Mr. Oliver Dalrymple and a sketch 
of his life. The portrait will be printed 
upon heavy supercalendered paper as a 
supplement. The second of the series of 
illustrations will be Breaking; the third 
Backsetting; the fourth, Seeding; the 
fifth, Harrowing; the sixth, Harvest¬ 
ing, and the last Thrashing. Mr. Dal- 
rymple informed our special corres¬ 
pondents that this is the first time 
he has ever given comprehensive notes of 
his methods of farming to the public, and 
that all other writings upon the subject 
have been from desultory information, 
and most of it wide of the truth. 
We take much pleasure in announcing 
to our readers that the distinguished 
American horticulturist, Dr. John A. 
Warder, is preparing a series of articles 
for the Rural New-Yorker on Forestry. 
The following subjects will be specially 
treated: 
Water-Supply of a Country—How af¬ 
fected by Forests ; Results of Clearing. 
Torrents; Overflows. 
Where to Plant—Preparation of the 
Land. 
Planting -What and How ; Massing; 
Mingling; Grouping. 
Cultivation—Protection—Fencing— 
Fires. 
After-Treatment—Thinning, &c. 
Felling—Harvesting. 
Systems of Management. 
Secondary Products—Bark, Pitch, etc. 
Conservation or Planting Anew. 
Natural Reproduction. 
Coppice Wood—Management ; Time 
for Cutting. 
Cheap and Hardy Trees—Pioneers for 
the Prairies. 
Soft-Woods—Poplars, Willows, etc. 
Catalpas. 
Hard-Woods—Oaks, Hickories, Wal¬ 
nuts. 
Maples, Ash, Cherry, Elms, Button- 
wood. Beeches, Birches, Iron-woods, Al¬ 
ders, Honey-Locust, Ailanthus, Black- 
Locust, Chestnuts, Magnolias, Tulip-Tree, 
Sassafras, Sumac, Thorns, Plums, Crabs, 
Viburnums, Mountain Ash, etc., etc. 
Miscellaneous and Novelties from 
Abroad. 
Conifers and Evergreens. 
Our Pines; Spruces; Firs; “Cedars;” 
Larches; Cypresses; Thujas, etc. 
Undergrowth—Dogwood, Hazel, etc. 
Insects and Enemies. 
Local Plantations already started— 
Larch Dale, Illinois; Messrs. Fay’s Es¬ 
tates in Massachusetts; Pine Forests of 
1 a j 
Cape Cod; Scofield’s, Elgin, Illinois; 
Larch Wood, Iowa; Col. Whiting’s, Iowa. 
Shelter Belts—Wind-Breaks. 1 
Black-Locust Groves of Ohio. 
Dr. Warder’s Experiments, etc., etc. 
especially for the corn farms of the West. 
Breeds and Crosses. 
Recollections of Hog Driving. 
Mr. IIknry Stewart, as has already 
been announced, will begin his farm nov¬ 
el, founded on fact, entitled “The Story 
of Stony Brook Farm,” as soon as our 
present story closes. 
The well-known Professor A. J. Cook 
begins with the New Year a series of ar¬ 
ticles on bees and honey. Professor Cook 
has for 14 years been an earnest student 
of apiculture, carrying forward for the 
entire period experiments that had for 
their object the development of the sci¬ 
ence and improvement of the art. For 
the past thirteen years he has been a lec¬ 
turer on bee-keeping at the Michigan 
Agricultural College, Superintendent of 
College Apiary, which has paid from 
100 to 500 per cent, on the capi¬ 
tal invested ; President of the Mich¬ 
igan State and of the National Bee- 
Keepers’ Associations. He is the author 
of what everywhere is acknowledged sb 
the most complete work on apiculture in 
the world, and his Manual of the Apiary 
is thought, both in Europe and America, 
to be the most complete work extant on 
this subject. 
-» ♦ » 
WHAT ARE WE COMING TO ? 
Professor A. E. Blount will com¬ 
mence early in the New Year a series of 
articles on Colorado farming, wheat 
growing, etc. 
Mr. Waldo F. Brown, the veteran 
farmer of Butler County, Ohio, will short¬ 
ly begin a series of articles in the Rural 
New-Yorker upon the following topics: 
How to Raise Pigs—Illustrated. 
How to make Cheap Pork, adapted 
A thoughtful person may well put 
the above stated conundrum to himself. 
For indeed the progress of invention and 
enterprise is such that one stands be¬ 
wildered when he considers the changes 
that are daily and hourly occurring. If 
one should study the records of the 
patent office, or spend a few hours in the 
office of a patent lawyer, or rather a law¬ 
yer who devotes his attention to the busi¬ 
ness of procuring patents for inventors, 
he will speedily come to the conclusion 
that the two great productive arts of in¬ 
dustry in the future will be electricity 
and chemistry. Hitherto chemists have 
been analyzing, and now they have 
taken to synthesis; that is, while hereto¬ 
fore they have been taking things apart 
and discovering the elements of which 
they are made, they have now turned 
their attention to putting these elements 
together and producing substances from 
them. They have produced diamonds 
from carbon; and other gems from their 
elements; they are making sugar and 
sirup from C 12 II 20 O 10 by the addition of 
2H 2 O, materials which are abundantly 
found in nature and by-and-by they may 
be able to produce these elements without 
the intervention of the farmer who at 
present supplies them in the shape of 
corn, or the lumberer who furnishes them 
in the form of sawdust. Butter is no 
longer necessarily the product of the cow, 
nor, for that matter, of the ox or the pig 
either, which at present furnish the re¬ 
quisite C. H. O. in the desired propor- i 
tions. 
But even this indirect aid from the 
farmer may be found unnecessary and 
the injuer may gather from the bowels of 
the earth what is now scraped from the 
bowels of animals, and the agriculturist 
find his occupation gone to this extent. 
We cannot doubt that science, having con¬ 
quered this difficulty,will continue to make 
further discoveries; indeed it has already 
found a substitute tor milk, and as milk 
is a complete food and mankind could 
exist comfortably and healthfully upon it 
without any other nutriment, the only 
question which now distresses the chemist 
is how to procure enough of it. This diffi¬ 
culty may vanish in time before enter- 
prize and perseverance. We see an ap¬ 
proach to this consummation in the present 
production of meat. Formerly we waited 
five to six years for our ox or steer to 
reach maturity, and now two years are 
found ample time; and even one-year-old 
beef was found at Chicago cattle show to 
be all that could be desired. So that we 
have already nearly eliminated time as an 
element in producing beef and that little 
difficulty, too, may soon be disposed of. 
All that then remains is the bread ques¬ 
tion. This may be thought to be a poser. 
But one Tanner recently showed that it 
was possible to live 40 days without food, 
and how' many Tanners would be required 
to show how a man can live for a who’le 
century without nourishment, excepting 
the chemically combined milk and but¬ 
ter, and, of course, cheese, with sugar aud 
glucose sirup and honey, to help to 
sweeten the uses of any adversity which 
might happen, is only a question of fig¬ 
ures. But we see no reason for borrow¬ 
ing trouble in regard to this business. It 
may, after all, be but the approaching per¬ 
iod which some persons believe in as the 
millcnium, when all trouble and sorrow 
and labor will be banished, and all that 
mankind will be called upon to do will 
be to enjoy themselves, practice all the 
virtues and be happy. 
-*-•-♦- 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 
We frequently feel indignant when 
reading the flippant, ignorant, and unjust 
remarks in undeserved derogation and 
contempt of Professors of Agricultural 
Colleges, that are far too commonly made 
by writers and some editors of so-called 
agricultural journals. An agricultural 
college, and, indeed, any other institution 
intended for the benefit of agriculture, 
and the gentleman placed in charge of 
_I. •_!• i _ 1 .1 l . . m 
ber 25, 1881, he says : “I am willing, in your 
case, to change the date of the compliment 
to the present." 
Will our friends, in making application for 
seeds, kindly state which variety of corn they 
i_ j._. j . .i ... 
we send the variety which, in our opinion, is 
beat adapted to any given locality, but. we pre¬ 
fer to have our subscribers designate their 
choice. 
We have been much pleased with a visit 
from Mr. R. S. Saunders of the Southern 
Planter, who has lately bonght the Southern 
Cultivator and Dixie Farmer, which will in 
future be united with his former paper under 
the name of the Southern Planter and Far¬ 
mer, published weekly at Richmond, Va., 
and the Southern Cultivator at Atlanta, Ga., 
and under the genial and able management 
of Mr. Saunders they have a blight prospect 
of success. 
Until the accession of the Gambetta Min¬ 
istry to power a single Cabinet Minister rep¬ 
resented Agriculture and Commerce in the 
such institutions, are made the butts for resented .Agriculture and Commerce in the 
weak pleasantries and pitiful sarcasms by 
persons who are themselves totally mca- assigned to M. Rouvier the portfolio of Com- 
pable for a moment of filling any of the 
responsible positions in these educational 
institutions. They are comparatively new, 
and no precedents exist by which their 
control and management could be organ¬ 
ized and made effective. A new field, 
like an uncleared farm, was to be occu¬ 
pied and reduced to profitable culture. 
By untiring and skillful labor an inchoate, 
if not chaotic condition of affairs has been 
brought into order and actual work; and 
several of these institutions have become 
models of success. The professors de¬ 
serve the greatest credit for what they 
have achieved, and for the modest and 
disinterested manner in which they 
have worked an 4 surmounted obsta¬ 
cles and difficulties which can be 
realized by few persons who have not 
given much thought to the subject of 
teaching agricultural practice and science. 
That many farmers may not have sprung, 
all armed, as it were, for the fray, from 
these colleges, is no cause for objection; 
for the truth is, there is such a general 
demand for agricultural teachers that 
many of the graduates have been drawu 
into this useful industry and most of them 
are doing good service in it. One of the 
most serious drawbacks which the colleges 
and the professors have had to con¬ 
tend with, has been the constant 
carping and unfavorable criticisms to 
which we have referred. It is a satis¬ 
faction to know that this unjust treat¬ 
ment is not now so common as it has 
been, but still there are persons who lose 
no opportunity of demanding why the 
colleges do not do this thing or that 
thing, and of hinting that the reason is 
that the professors know nothing about 
their business. There is no class of use¬ 
ful men that are more deserving of praise 
for what they have done under much dif¬ 
ficulty than the professors of agricultural 
colleges, andwc take pleasure in thus ex¬ 
pressing this as our sincere belief based 
on a knowledge of what they have done 
and are doing. We know something our¬ 
selves of the time and labor required for 
experimenting and its necessarily slow 
process, and also how little time can be 
spared from the arduous work of teaching. 
-- 
We find that several seed houses have 
sent out what they call “ Branching 
Sorghums ” siuce the Rural Branching 
Sorghum was announced. We have tried 
them and find that after being cut back 
their growth is entirely checked ora fresh 
shoot appears only here and there. Most 
of them bear droojnmj seed heads. Our 
readers may accept this one characteristic 
as positive evidence that the variety is not 
the Rural Branching Sorghum, as the seed 
heads of this variety are always upright. 
TnE Rural New-Yorker of next next 
week will contain a second article upon 
ensilage by Dr. J. B. Lawes. It throws 
a wetter blanket upon the “new dis- 
f sensation ” than did his first. Dr. 
jawes in a private note accompanying 
the article remarks that “although en¬ 
silage is perhaps useful for some pur¬ 
poses, it does not merit the extravagant 
praises which it has received.” 
-♦-*-*- 
BREVITIES. 
Of late a great deal of capital is being in¬ 
vested in sheep and Cattle raising in Cuba, 
and the importation of choice sheep, cows 
and bulls for breeding purposes is largely in¬ 
creasing, no less than 1,000 bead having been 
lately delivered ut Gienfuegos alone in a sin¬ 
gle week. 
Professor Budii, of the Iowa State College, 
writes us that his offer to send his pamphlet 
on forestry has brought out over 100 applica¬ 
tions from parties in Dakota end Nebraska 
who report seeing the notice in the Rural 
New-Yorker. 
“The Rural is now the best paper.’’ 
So said Prof. Beal of the Michigan Agricul¬ 
tural College in 1878, Under date of Septern- 
asRigned to M. Rouvier the portfolio of Com¬ 
merce alone, intending to press the passage 
of a law creating two new Cabinet officers— 
Ministries of Agriculture and Fine Arts. 
Dost Thursday the French Senate voted to 
create both, and as the Ministry have a 
larger majority in the lower than in the up- 
jier House, there is little doubt that Agricul¬ 
ture will soon have a separate representative 
in the French Cabinet. 
There is a good deal of agitation among 
millers at the West, with regard to grading of 
wheat. Lust Wednesday an important meet¬ 
ing was held at Indianapolis composed of the 
grain dealers of Indiana and representatives 
of the Millers’ Association for the purpose of 
securing a stricter grading and greater care 
in buying wheat at the elevators and to 
prevent loss from having t he grades of wheat 
reduced when it reaches (.'hieftgo. On the 
same day a meeting of the representatives 
and millers of Minnesota took place at Minne¬ 
apolis to adopt a system of grading uniform 
with that at Chicago. It is not at ail im¬ 
probable that a very decided discrimination 
will soon be mudo against soft wheats also. 
Forest T .eaves.—B efore the ground is 
Covered with snow, the leaves in the wood 
lots, should be raked up and either brought 
to the barns and put under cover or left in 
heaps to be drawn as soon os possible. Now 
that the leaves are slightly moist from rain, 
they can bo raked and carried with ease. 
An easy way of handling them is to gather 
them in a basket made of gunny bagging 
sown a little loosely around a light hickory 
hoop pole. A large q. entity can be lifted at 
once in such a basket and turned out into a 
wagon. Leave® make the best and safest 
possible litter for brood sows with young 
litters, and are useful for 1 ittering other ani¬ 
mals and in the poultry house. The value of 
leaf mold is well known and leaves used for 
litter are the raw' material of leaf mold and 
therefore well worth gathering. 
Mr. n. I. Kimball, Director General of the 
Atlanta Cotton Exposition, announces that 
the great show will close, without fail, on the 
evening of December 81, although hundreds 
of letters ure received daily begging the man¬ 
agers to keep It open through January. The 
lust week is expected to be the most interest¬ 
ing and important of the exposition, and we 
would urge all our friends who have not yet 
seen this grandest show of the kind ever held 
anywhere, not to lose tins opportunity of see¬ 
ing it at its best, if they cun make the trip 
without too much inconvenience. Mr. Kimball 
exultingly proclaims that it has been a mag¬ 
nificent success, which be gratefully attributes 
more to the untiring and mistimed support 
of the Press than to all other causes com¬ 
bined. Well, yes, we have certainly done 
what we thought for the best Interests of the 
country in the matter. 
We loum from Washington that owdng to 
the vast number of encroachments by home¬ 
steaders on the public timber lands between 
Wyoming and Duluth, Minn., the government 
bus sent agents throughout the country to 
moke up COSOS Of trespass. Although urgently 
in favor of the conservation of our timber 
lands, still we strongly deprecate the adop¬ 
tion of any harsh measures against the 
pioneer cultivators oil our Western frontier 
for having used timber from the public land* 
for buildings and other improvements on their 
own homesteads. Honest homesteaders have a 
hal'd battle to fight i i extending the limits of 
civilization and husbandry ami should receive 
every reasonable indulgence from the general 
government. While the first settlers endure 
the greater part of the hardships incident to 
the opening up of a new country, it is seldom 
they reap the reword of their labors to the 
sun in extent as those who come later. For 
those w'ho engage In stealing the public timber 
to sell it, however, we have no more sym¬ 
pathy than for other dishonest depredators. 
Nearly a year ago we spoke here of vast 
frauds in forging titles to Missouri lands, and 
told of the arrest of some of the conspirators 
who had been guilty of the crime. One of 
them was convicted ut St. Louis about a 
month ago. and is now in the State Peniten¬ 
tiary at Jefferson; two others, William and 
Aduison F. Burns, were tried last week at 
Clarion, Pa. They were the most extensive 
dealers in the country in the fraudulent titles 
byjwhich the Government was swindled out of 
upwards of 000,000, unless it decides to ex¬ 
tort from the innocent purchasers of the lands 
the amount lost in part by' its carelessness. 
The evidence showed that the income of the 
accused from this dishonest source during the 
past eight years had been over $ 800 , 000 , Ev¬ 
ery luonus that money and influence could 
command, from employing the best legal 
counsel to tampering with the witnesses for 
the prosecution, was used in favor of the de¬ 
fendants, but both were convicted on every . 
count. The trials of three more of the gang, 
D. 8. Bingham, J. F. Richards, and S. L 
Custer, will begin at St. Louis on Dec. 20. 
