THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Jarm Copies. 
RURAL TOPICS. 
BY T. B. MINER. 
LARGE POTATO CRCPS. 
It is surprising to see the quantity of potatoes 
that can be grown from one pound of seed Lari 
season parties that did their “ level bes*,” in 
competition for some tempting prizes, succeeded 
in producing from one pound of the Alpha po 
tato, from 1,280 to 1,982 lbs.! In these < X|.ni 
ments each eye was cut from the seed, and plant¬ 
ed in separate hi!it*; and ihe land was covered 
with an immense coat of stable ooug. and plow¬ 
ed or forked in. Then ashes, bent-du *t : lime 
and other fertilizers were applied Without atmt, 
at the rate of •'*'500 worth to the acre ; and wLcr. 
the clouds failed to supply suffloici.'t moisture, 
water was supplied from other sources. Thin it- 
“ hi'-h Jarmhig " ui reality—uo half-way work ; 
and it was shown that one cannot ea-Hy apply 
too much manure to potato land Potatoes rc 
quire a good deal of poiash, and farmers cannot 
no near neighbors, and sighing for the dear ones 
she left behind her. 
DON’T BORROW MONEY. 
Sometimes farmers require more manure than 
they can make, and not having tho money to 
spare to buy it, they borrow, and give their 
noteB, payable after the crops mature. I say to 
such men, ''Don't do it," as there are too many 
risks to run. You may have good crops, and 
you may not. Indeed, in a severe drought, the 
manure, or tho commercial fertilizers ibat you 
buy, may Hhow no vim bio benefit whatever, yet 
your notOM must be paid. Again, some improve¬ 
ments may be needed, ns new out houses, or 
otherwise, and farmers are petvusd »d or tempt¬ 
ed to pmt a mortgage on their farms that are free 
f incumbrance I **v emphatically ‘‘ Don't do 
it" as the times nre too precarious to admit of 
such risks; and the farmer who is out of debt 
would ho verv uowise to mortgage bis farm 
under any circumstances. Next, we hear of 
rarmors, who have all the land they can culti¬ 
vate, eager io obtain more ; and they are think- 
iog of buying land next to lb irs, and giving a 
mortgage for a goo i portion of the purchase 
money; and again I say, “ Don't do it." oeoanse 
quire a good deal of potash, and farmers cannot | > ou 11 ot uetd it, and your bond will cover oil 
rake a mistake In applying to the land on which u,e J uu ,jWn > although the mortgage will 
i iey are grown, either ashes or commeroia! for- | 00 ’ 4,1 only tho land bought. It i-> a great thing 
Jizers that contain a large percentage of pot- l oe ou * debt, ■ nd when once out, let no sane 
J k. It comes cheapest in muriate ot pots h, 
: dug fifty per cent, of actual potash, and at! ing 
at ©2 50 per 100 lbs. 
CLEAN PIG-PENS. 
It pays well to keep pig-pens clean, ai d with a 
warm sleeping apartment, with plenty of straw. 
Hogs will fatten much faster in n comfortable 
pen than in one that affords but little protection 
against cold winds and storms. 
‘‘Will you please take a look (it mv pigs?" 
said a farmer. “ I don’t know what ails them ; 
they don’t, grow much.” I took a look, and such 
a pen! The mud was eighteen inches dee", and | 
half of their feed was wasted in it. Tho sleep- \ 
ing place had no roof, excepting a few loose 
boards lying upon some poleB, and ihe poor pig* 
had to lie in the mud, with tho rains falling uq-on 
them in a deluge. 
farmer mortg ig Lia L.rm. 
- - - 
JJTIING3 AT KIkBY HOMESTEAD. 
BY COL. F. D. CUfiTIS. 
When we drew in the coni from the pear- 
orohard we found the uno* very numerous. The 
longer corn is left in tii« field after being cut up 
:;ud put into «took*, the utore mice there will be 
a* they come from the adjoining fields whore tho 
crops have been gathered, and make their homes 
under the corn. We often think how disap¬ 
pointed they must be when they find their homes 
g<"*n*j and their »tor> s so bsndy, gone with them. 
After the corn is taken away, and tho few scat¬ 
tering pumpkin need* are eaten up, the mice 
live on gras.. roots. When winter eo.nes and the 
1 My friend,” said I, ‘‘it is uo wonder thst I :rmind is covered with snow, they make roods on 
your pigs ‘don’t grow much.’ Such » pen a« 
this is a diegraco to any farmer. Clean out tin- 
mud, lay a tloor, and make a warm, ccmforiabk 
Bleeping place for them, and 1 nut guarantee 
that your pigs will grow as fast as n ino, as they 
are of tho same breed.” He promised in do as I 
suggested, and two weeks later I called to see 
how he got along with his new pen. li was ex¬ 
cellent ; a floor was laid, new troughs procured, 
find the sleeping apartment was warmly weather- 
boarded, a new shinglo roof was made, and his 
pigs lay ombeded in clean straw. 
“ Aii right,” said 1. '• Now give thorn all they 
will eat,—not corn on tho cob, but oooked i oed, 
as Indian meal, potatoes, pnmpldns, <tc., cooked 
together. He did so, and two months later he 
came to me exclaiming, “ Would you believe it! 
My pigs have gained, on an average, two pounds 
each a day, since I made my new pon ! ” 
COB MEAL. 
There is a class of farmers, who have been 
many years trying to persuade themselves to be¬ 
lieve that there is nutriment in dry corn cobs ; 
so they take their corn to milt in the ear, and 
the “ grist" they take home looks large; but 
they might as well go to a saw-mill, and bring 
home a load of sawdust to mix with corn meal, 
as mix cob meal with it. Nor has there ever 
been any proofs adduced that corn and cob meal 
is of the least advantage to stock over the pure 
article. It is true, it aids to fill up a cow’s stom¬ 
ach ; hut it is real nutriment that cattle require, 
and not to have their stomachs distended with 
that which affords uo nourishment. 
"TURNING FARMER.” 
It frequently happens that men who fail to 
make money at this or that business, conclude 
to “ turn farmer,” thinking that, as a last re¬ 
sort, they will be sure to make a living at titling 
the soil. But a man who has never worked on a 
farm will find that successful farming requires 
experience and drill. If he has money enough 
to buy eighty to one hundred seres of good laud, 
without running in debt, bis chances for “ keep¬ 
ing soul and body together,” for a goodly num¬ 
ber of years, would be fair; hut let him put u 
mortgage on his farm of half or three-fourths 
its cost, and his case w'ould he desperate. The 
only way a man with a family, but without cash, 
who moans to buy a farm, can succeed in this 
business, is by “going West ’ where the virgin 
Boil produces luxuriant crops cr many yearn 
without, manure. Here, hi ids log cabin, he oai. 
look out upon eighty or one Imudred and sixty 
acres of as good laud as “ lies uut-of-doois, and 
say “ Thin is mine—it is paid for;’’ and no nut¬ 
ter how little he may know about farming, uo 
would not starve. Bnt let no man take to those 
Western wil 3s a wife who was bred in refinement, 
till he has well considered the step he propose* 
to take. Many a poor woman has pined aw.°j 
her life in the far West, without friends, with 
the sip face cf the earth through the snow, eat¬ 
ing the roots of the grass as they go. If a vourg 
tree stands in the way they will nibble the burk. 
and if they chance to eat all around it and 
sever ihe bark next to tho body, so that the cir¬ 
culation is cut off, the tree will die although it 
may live and bear fruit one year afterwards. 
We once had a Flemish Beauty tree, several 
inches in diameter, w hich was completely girdled, 
produoe a fine crop of pears. Tpe next yew it 
dried up and died. A girdled tree will not grow any 
bat it may leaf out and bear fruit. No artificial 
covering will take the place of the inner bark, 
through which tho sap deaoends making its de¬ 
posits of new wood. A tree entirely girdled is 
worthless, and might as well be given up first as 
last. There are eight hundred trees in the pear 
orchard and something must be done to keep the 
mice from injuring them. In all of our experi¬ 
ence we have found a mound of earth around 
the base of the tree to he tho best protection. 
When trees stand iu the sod, a heap of fine ma¬ 
nure is tho best, as it proteats the tree, and when 
spread around, as it should he in the spring, it is 
an excellent tnuloh. The mice follow the sur¬ 
face, and when they come to the mouud around 
the tree they turn aside and go around it. This is 
the philosophy of it. Our pear orchard haB been 
banked, we think, most effectually. A man with 
a plow and horse and a short whiffletree did it 
In ft day by turning two farrows up against the 
trees on each side. Esquire Davidson thinks he 
killed a number of apple trees, two years ago, 
by heaping manure around them. They were 
newly set in sod In the fall, and his idea was that 
tho manure froze to the trees und lifted them 
up, so that the roots became loose ; any way, 
many died and others made a sickly growth. 
These trees were plauted on heavy soil, and on 
such soil trees never should be planted in the 
fall. Fall planting will answer on light 6oil 
whore the ground does not heave ; but where it 
does, trees should be put into the ground in the 
spring. Better heel them in, that is, bury the 
tools all in a muss, in the fall and leave so till 
spring. Trees heeled in will not start so early 
iu ihe spring, and may he left till late in the sea¬ 
son before Betting. Speaking of hard soils re¬ 
minds us of the fact that it is better to purchase 
for planting on such soil, trees which have been 
grown on hard land. The change is not so vio¬ 
lent slid, besides, hard land cannot be made into 
sue’.i a hot-bed as sand and sandy loam, ftud the 
t«es forced to such a soft and unnatural growth; 
such trees have spongy wood and after being 
trim-plauted into tho average farmer’s field*, 
i hey seldom roco. t-r; tho hear; turns Llack, and, 
after a sickly struggle for a year or two, they 
die. Of course it is for the iuieroet of nursery- 
-UeU to make LLtir ground asrioh as pooriole and 
to get their trees as big as they can in the 
shortest time. The nearer a hot- bed they can 
m .ke their ground, the earlier and longer is the 
growth they can get in the Beason. If a two- 
year-old tree can be made six feet high, so muoh 
the better for the grower,—he has big trees ; 
bat it would bo much better for the farmer if 
the same tree was no more than four feet. The 
slower growing tree will bo the healthiest, and 
when transplanted will keep on growing. 
Tho first week in November is our time for 
gathering roots. The beets and mangolds were 
pulled up in the lot and the tops twisted off. 
The ground being dry, they were thrown into 
heap* 88 fast as pulled. If the ground had been 
wet, they would have been placed in rows so as 
to lmve dried off more readily. The tops are 
wrung off by hand so easily that ft knife is use¬ 
less. All the little roots were put with tho leaves 
end when chovrn put and scattered in the 
pig pahtuie, they are greedily eaten by the store 
hogs. Tho turnips were pulled up and drawn 
und'.r cover, tops and all. The heaps wore kept 
as pmrtll a* possible by scattering them around 
to ]>r* veot he ting. Within a week they were 
* pped and safely stored in the pig-house 
ce’lar; but not uutil some of the larger heaps 
bad bad got quite hot. A load of leaves are fed 
to the coirs every day and the milk-pail is one- 
third heavier. We do not like tho yellow globe 
hi tt for field culture, as the tap roots are so short 
the least touch will knock them out of the 
ground. When baked in the stove-oven and 
served upon the table, they are excellent. This 
is the best way to cook beets for family use, and 
the same is true of winter squashes. The beets 
are baked whole with the skins on, and after¬ 
wards peeled. The squash should lie cut in two, 
and when baked, the meat should be scraped out 
of the skin. How large beets may be grown for 
profit is a question. Undoubtedly William Cko- 
zieb raised the largest mangolds as well as other 
roots in this country, as hiH field crop of man¬ 
golds will probably average twelve pounds each, 
hundreds of them weighing from twenty to 
thirty pounds. Such mammoth things mast he 
coarse and watery, but then the immense yield 
must go a groat ways to make up any deficiency 
in quality. A beet which will weigh about six 
pounds, has probably the largest percentage of 
sugar in it. A natural beet of this size would 
contain more of other nutritive matter, besides 
sugar, iu proportion to its weight than one of 
twelve or twenty pounds. The same law is true 
in regard to all largo vegetables as well as fruitB. 
Besides the actual nutriment contained in vegeta¬ 
bles when fed to animals, there is a value in 
the help which they render in assimilating other 
more hearty food, and thus increasing tho nu¬ 
tritive power of such food as weli as their own 
when thus combined. Large vegetables in this 
combination undoubtedly have a value beyond 
their actual analytical worth, and In this respect 
have a value superior to those of smaller size. 
Large beets have more fibrous matter owing to 
their increased cellular substance, and this will 
go farther in filling up an animal and distending 
the stomach and intestiues, which is necessary to 
promote health when fed on dry or condensed 
food. Big beets cannot be grown unless they 
are thinned out. Mr. Crozikk separates them 
about sixteen inches. It is muoh less work to 
boo beets thinned in this way, aR tho weeds 
can lie out out with a hoe much faster than if 
pulled with the fingers, as they have to he in a 
row thickly sot with young plants. It takes more 
m&nuro to produce the large beets. One reason 
why Mr. Cmozjjeu can get such a yield is because 
the season on Long Island is three weeks earlier 
than here, on account, of the difference in lati¬ 
tude, and the soil, the latter being gravel or a 
gravelly loam. This ground does not freeze so 
deep and settles much sooner than our clayey 
loam. It is a warm and quick soil, and when 
stimulated with plenty of manure, it is just the | 
thing for vegetables. 
To-morrow is garden day, when the grape¬ 
vines must be trimmed and laid on the ground. 
The vines which are laid on the ground in the 
fall and protected by the snow, will start to grow 
in the spring a full week sooner than when loft 
on the trellises. Tho buds on exposed vines 
are smaller and the vines themselves look dried 
up while those on the ground look fresh, and the 
buds axe full and plump. The asparagus bed 
must be cleaned np and stable manure a foot 
deep spread on it. This covering will keep the 
frost out, and the asparagus will 6tart up much 
earlier in the spring, and besides, the plants will 
be both protected and enriched. An asparagus 
bed cannot be too rich. The coat of manure 
will smother out the foul 6tuff and save the labor 
of weeding,and the asparagus coming up through 
the manure will have a longer and more tender 
stalk. 
The baby has been sick. The milk from the 
Jersey cows was too rich for her, and this with 
teething, brought on indigestion and constipa¬ 
tion with colic. The colic was cured by hot flan¬ 
nels laid on her stomach. Bags of sand would 
have retained the heat longer and so would an 
earthen plate. The sand is best as it adjusts 
itself to the stomach better. The hot applica¬ 
tions act as an anti-spasmodic. A gentle ca¬ 
thartic relieved the constipation and now baby is 
herself again. Her extra food since her sickness 
haB been oat-meal and Bweet cream with a little 
water. 
A favorite Jersey cow has a calf nearly a week 
old. We kept her in a warm stable several days 
before calving, and to-day is the first Bhe has 
been out. We did not think it prudent to expose 
her in the cold wind except for a few minutes, 
for fear she might take cold. Her bag is very 
much caked. We have separated her from her oalf 
and are milking her all we can before the calf 
sucks. Tho hunting of the calf will break up 
and remove cake out of tt cow’s bag the quickest 
of anything. Washing in water as hot as possi¬ 
ble is excellent. This cow has bad no cold water 
to drink, or extra feed to increase the flow of 
milk, and so she iR free from cold and fover, 
and wo expect she will do well. She was born iu 
the fall herself, and is but three yearH and two 
months old, and Ibis is her second calf. Jersey 
cattle are very precocious and our practice now 
is to let the heifers come in as soon as may be. 
It seems to be natural to the breed, and we think 
they make bettor cows ; any way, they grow up 
finer and more symmetrical, which is one of the 
pleasing characteristics of the Jerseys. 
It has been raining nearly every other day, and 
now all the swamps mid tho springs are full. 
We shall not have a dry winter, as we have had 
lor throe seasons past, and this will be a great 
blessing. Driving stock across the bleak fields 
in mid-winter to a distant spring is an affliction 
to man and beast. 
Mr. Connor gave us a good idea to-day. He 
wanted to borrow the dirt-scraper to scrape up 
the manure in his barn-yard. He said he could 
pile it up in this way in one quarter of the time 
it would take to do it with a shovel and hoe. 
*Saratoga County, N. V. 
Jam (Bronomij. 
DOUBLE CROPPING. 
BY AN OLD FARMER. 
There are many leaks and losses in farming, 
but few so large or universal as that of waste 
and unoccupied land. Most farmers are satis¬ 
fied to have their laud work for them three 
months and lie idle tho rest of the year, as if it 
were tired and needed rest. In fact, some far¬ 
mers do imagine that land needs rest, and that 
it is not good for if to crop too much. Now, let 
every man bullish at once and forover the Idea 
that land needs rest. It wants feeding, but rest 
—never. The most luxuriant growth in the 
world is in the tropical regions where vegetable 
growth never ceases day or night, winter or 
Bummer. It docs laud uo good to lie baking in 
the sun without cultivation, growing nothing 
except a small crop of indigenous weeds. 
Then putting aside the question of rest, which 
is very poetical, but not at all practical or profit¬ 
able, let ns turn to that of work. How shall we 
get the greatest amount of work, the longest 
period of growth from our laud ? The longer 
we can keep it at work the more it will earn ; 
and the more it earns, the more we can pay 
back in manures. Tho man whoso land earns 
him fifty dollars per acre, can better afford to 
pay twenty for mauures, than the man whose 
land earns him twenty-five dollars can spend five 
dollars for such fertilizers, and in the one case 
the land will grow richer, while in the other it 
grows poorer. Every farmer should so arrange 
his crops, that he can got a full season's growth 
from all his laud; and that means from the first 
of April to tho first of November, or seven 
months instead of throe or four—the time 
usually required to mature and harvest a crop. 
The larger the variety of crops that can be 
raised with profit, either for home consumption 
or for sale, the easier to seloct suitable crops to 
follow each other, and give to each its full and 
proper seasons. 
Few crops need the whole season for their 
growth, or so much of it that there is time for 
nothing else. Where there is not time to ma¬ 
ture a second crop, or the land is not in condition 
to make it profitable, a crop of green manure 
can be grown and plowed under with little cost 
of labor, and no loss of time to the land. But 
land should always bo kept in each condition that 
a second crop will prove profitable, and when¬ 
ever possible, a pilo of well rotted manure should 
be kept on hand to give it a top-dressing and in¬ 
sure a good start to the crop. It is better to 
harvest the second crop, even if doing so neces¬ 
sitates buying manure. But one need buy but 
little more manure for two crops than for one; 
for most crops make nearly as much as they 
withdraw from the soil. 
For an early manure crop, peas are best. 
