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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
j.ney can be sown as soon as the frost is out of 
the ground, and Canada peas can be bought at 
such rates, by tie barrel, as will make the seed 
economical, For this purpose they should be 
sown considerably thicker than when they are 
raised for the peas. Sowed corn also makes a 
good crop for green manure, and may be sown 
in the spring, or after early harvest. In the 
latter case, it will often mature enough to be cut 
for fodder, and can bo used as fodder first and 
as manure afterwards. 
Buckwheat may also be sown after early har¬ 
vest, and if it fails to mature it can bo turned 
under. Winter rye makes one of the best crops 
for green manure, but it re¬ 
quires so much time that it can 
seldom be raised without inter- 
fering with other crops. Gro w- 
ing grain can be plowed under 
easily by dragging a stick or 
chain just ahead of the furrow. 
A chain attaches;! to the wiilf- (CTaWL-iYo.>t 
manuring, but I am going to tell a part of the 
story any way. I wish first, to call the reader's 
attention to our natural advantages, that bo 
may take in the entire case. 
We have here on these western prairies, as nil 
must know, a deep, rich soil. Generally the coun¬ 
try is undulating, rendering it easily drained. 
To supply large herds with an abundance of 
ready water is no trouble. There are bodies of 
timbered lands in sufficient quantity to afford 
every farmer an ample supply of timber for all 
farm uses. Land has been cheap, too cheap for 
the good of the country, as men have in ninetv- 
nine cases out of a hundred, bought from twice* 
other garden vegetables to supply him half the 
fall, to say nothing at all of winter. Here they 
regard time spent in raising these as time thrown 
away. There is not a farmer, to my knowledge, 
here who takes an agricultural journal—notone. 
Think of that Mrs. Annie Jack, W. II. White 
aud Col. Curtis! Do you wonder that they 
complain of hard times? Agricultural papers 
are regarded as worthless, aud characterized as 
‘•hifalntin city farming in up stairs offices." 
ihoy do not know they are edited and contribu¬ 
ted to by scientific, practical, every-day farmers, 
for they do not take them, or read them, and 
how aro they to know ? They talk of tho “ good 
LARGE ELMS 
from n-7 ! *° h W ° givo an frustration 
from natnro) 18 one standing iuthe market-place 
nthflT 01 ? <,0rmany ' Its bea «ty of form, 
rathe, than its enormous sizc-it is not the larg¬ 
est el. n in Germany i« that for which itiset 
peciaHy worthy of notice. Hchinsheim is a little 
v llago near \Vorstadt, in the Grand Duchy of 
Hosse i he stem is hollow, but tho outer wood 
is quite sound and healthy. The circumference, 
__ olosoto the ground, is fifty feet, 
an d near tho low.-r i,™ 
LAWN TOPICS, 
BY SAMUEL PARSONS. 
The season, this fall, has been 
u nusually fine, almost too warm. 
Rich green grass and leaves on 
the trees, retained weeks later 
than usual, have rendered tho 
sunny days delightful and valu¬ 
able i„ 0 very way, It is only a 
wonder that people do not take 
more advautago of such weather 
to ornamont and otherwise im¬ 
prove their grouuda. Habit 
seems to lend them to do all 
such work in spring. Fail, they 
foci, is the season for cratherimr 
a second crop, making three j 
crops in two years. But as win- '.“'TV, jf 
ter wheat and rye aro the best f f ’ 
crops to seed with, tho farmer 1 •...-•• • 
will usually bow his grass seed 
with them—timothy in the fail, 
and clover in the spring. Where (...!• •(•! 
plenty of well rotted manure C 
can be harrowed in, tin-nips are Jj 
one of the best crops a farmer ~^ ==r ; ■ 
can raise, and they oan bo sown ® ' M 
as lato as tbo middlo of Aug- i T^i l 
ust. But great care should be 
used in selecting the seed, and - 
when it can bo purchased direct 
from tho grower, it is safer to 
do so. Every farmer should got 
a seed catalogue. They can be 
had for the asking. Ho will find 
many suggestions of value in 
them, and can thus got fresh 
need direct from the grower. 1 ~~ " 
Turnips may bo sown broadcast X 
and covered by a very light har¬ 
row, or by a roller, but a better way is to sow them 
in drills; it requires less seed aud produces a bet¬ 
ter crop. With a seed-sower a man will sow 
three or four acres per day, and cover them at 
tho same time. Where early potatoes are plant¬ 
ed. all the extra work of tho second cron can be 
LIV 8HEIM, GERMANY. 
old way” as being good enough for them 
I am regarded as “ 
for throwing i- 
especially so as I am not 
Now, with theso facts before 
prised to know that there 
< 
is not 
Peach or G 
oept those which belong to the" fellow who 
foolish enough to take agricultural p— 
There is not a raspberry, blackberry, or straw¬ 
berry patch for miles around. Nb interest at 
| ah is taken in county fairs, which aro alBO re¬ 
garded as too foolish to be tolerated. There is 
not even a good common bull, to my knowledge, 
to say nothing at all of the improved blooded 
stock, such as Short Horns, etc. It is bo with 
hogs ; well—not quite so had with them, per¬ 
haps, hut tho sheep are the same old hairy 
dromedaries they raised forty yeai-H ago. They 
don’t want any of your “Liralutin" wooly sheep. 
Now ail this condition of affairs is accounted for 
by the land being so very fertile, and so cheap 
in an early day, and producing without much 
labor largo crops of corn for a few years. These 
circumstances combine to blind men, and cause 
them to purchase more land than tliov needed. 
[ to often ten times as much as they could under¬ 
take to “ handle” properly. To be as brief aB 
possible, I will take the case of one farmer who 
shall ho a representative of the “ninety and 
nino. He begins by spending every dollar 
he can raise, to buy laud, its fertility, produc¬ 
ing immense crops with hut little cultivation 
for a few years, being the incentive. Usually 
ho mortgages it to get money, occasionally to 
improve it, but generally to buy more land. Be¬ 
ing over-burdened with land, all improvements 
he puts upon it, are cheap and, of course, soon 
begin to need repairs, which they don’t get. 
The land is planted to corn, year after year, and 
it is a very common thing for one man to under¬ 
take to cultivate thirty-ilvo or forty acres and 
frequently more, ‘ 
And 
fanciful” and even “ foolish" 
away money for such papers, and 
-j engaged in fanning. 
.. j you, aro you sur- 
is not a good, well- 
cared for orchard in the whole county ? There 
a bearing Pear, Quince, Tlum, budded 
— Irapc-vine in tho neighborhood, ex- 
—> is 
papers. 
If it is worked twice, it is con¬ 
sidered to bo cultivated pretty well; of course, 
the ground soon becomes foul; crops soon be 
come scanty and tinremunerative. Little or no 
attention is given to manuring laud. A compost 
heap is unknown here. Mannro is allowed to be 
scattered all over the feed and barn lots, and 
these soon become half-leg deep in mud. manure 
and water. Every farmer expects and looks for 
all his horses to have the scratches every spring. 
It is the unsurpassed fertility of our soil that 
leads to all this. It needs no mannre for its first 
crops, and the few years iu which it produces well 
without it, are just sufficient time for farmers to 
acquire lazy, improvident habits about taking 
care of their manure. It is a common thing 
to hear them ridicule eastern folks about their 
eoonomy in saving, composting, and applying 
their manure to their lands. Another trouble is. 
there are too many producing corn, and the sup¬ 
ply seems to be greater than the demand in 
about five years out of six. Every farmer 
hero is expecting to make money to pay his tax¬ 
es. improve his farm and pay the accumulated 
debts of years, by growing on half worn-out soil 
should try to handle all in corn, relying ail the 
while on the fertility of the soil to help them 
out. 'thus, as I stated, 1 believe such fertile 
soil has proven to be a drawback ultimately to 
tho country. If men were compelled to farm 
poorer land, and manure, aud economise, it 
would have been better for them and the coun¬ 
try. They would then learn to grow less com, 
aud more profitable crops, such as are grown in 
the Last, and not make a hobby of a cereal of 
has already boon produced to be 
condition' 1 d ° I10t 8ay aU the Wertt irt 111 thifl 
THE WEST AND SOME OF ITS FARMERS 
fertile land sometimes a drawback to aqriqulture 
BY DR. ARATUS C. WILLIAMS. 
I AM almost persuaded that the rich black 
soils of our western prairies have been a great 
drawback to skillful farming. If I were to tell 
the truth, as it is iu regard to manner and style 
of farming iu this, one of the finest portions of 
the grand prairie, I certainly would not be be¬ 
lieved by those who are not blossed with fer¬ 
tile lands to till, unless made so by judicious 
Many farmers in tho vicinity of the Rural 
A gricultural Grounds, who previously sowed 
Mediterranean, have during the past year tried 
Clawson wheat. They all report favorably as to 
