‘i 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JUNE 45 
TABLE OF OONTEHTS. 
Practical Departments: 
Bulbs for the Flower Garden—W. L. C. Drew ... 373 
Couuectlout Avrlotiltnral Experiment Station— 
Prof. S W. Johnson. 373 
Btruwborrv Blteht . 373 
FroneU Kxposltlon; Financial Considerations— 
Threher... 374 
JOttUHS at Kirby Ilornostend -Pol. K. D. Curtis... 374 
Van’s Views. 374 
ilow Cultivation Warms the Boll - S Rufus 
Mason.. . 374 
Furm Accounts—Prof, Levi Stocktiriclcc. 373 
About Pasturing Land—W. J. Fowler.376 
The Imaginary Diseases ot Animals : No. 1—D. K. 
Balm on. D. V. M.375 
Selection or Varieties of Fruits to be Planted— 
T. T. Lyon....3 75 
PubilcauoDs Received.878 
t!»Wl icueH, BIO.. Received.376 
Larches, Concluded.... 37R 
TlioG. UIen ltetinosporii as a Hardy Evergreen— notiUK tllO WOiclit 
Is this a New Horae Disease ?—T. 37H 
The Hessian Fly's Favorite Wheal—W- L. Dcver- 
eaux. ..378 
Rye and Outs lor Winter Pasture.. 377 
Thresher. The Improved “Sweepstakes” (Illus. 
tratort' .. 377 
nor*e-Piiwers. Gray’s (Illustrated). 377 
TubJe-Rake. Miller* (Illustrated). 877 
KntfeGrimier. Livingston A Co.'s.. 377 
Lawn Mower, “ PMUdelphla. 377 
Answers to Correspondents: 
Experiments with Commercial Fertilizers and 
Seed Potatoes. 318 
Treatment ot Palms; Growing them from Seed 378 
Cost of a Nioe Green-House. 378 
Locusts and Barberries. 378 
Paving Irish Potatoes... 378 
Grass Seeds for Name... 378 
Blaek-Lcg in Catilo. 378 
Erert/intiere: 
North Carolina Notos-M. R. Prluco. 378 
Notes from Texas -G. Marti.378 
Rockford, la. . 373 
Barrington, N. Y. 378 
Atlanta. Gn. 878 
RrookSton, N O. ....378 
Warren Co., N. C.378 
Springfield, Mass. 878 
Ithaca, N. Y. 378 
What They Say of It... 378 
Domestic Economy: 
How to l.anndrv nine Linen Suite; “Doing 
Up” Straw llate -Mary Wagor-KIsher...... 381 
Preservation of Clothes Lines and Pins—A. E. 
, M. C.884 
Domestic Recipes... 384 
Queries Auswered. 384 
Markets..... 385 
Kiiitouial PAOE: 
Work for Agricultural Colleges.380 
Is a Turkey an Animal?. 38U 
Thomas B. Miner.. 8S0 
Whv ?. 3*li 
Brevities. . ..... 38'J 
LlTMiAitv ; 
Poetry.381,384, 38« 
< ora. 381 
Siesta (Illustrated) . 3*1 
Picture cf Constantinople.381 
Recent Literature. 382 
Mauuitlno Notes. 3 go 
Brio-a-Brnc. 8 g 3 
Women in Connell. . 383 
Woman’* Woik—Grandmother. 383 
Items for Correspondents . .383 
Nows of the Week — Herman. 384 
IteaA lug for the Young: 
Pocket-Money for Voting People: No. 6—Corn 
planter..... 
Self-Helping Boys—Mary Wager-Fisher. 
Scholastic Scraps—A l»Ua Bela Gumma. 
Letters from Bo.vs and Girls.. 
Sabbath Reading: 
Short. Biographies of Eminent Preachers. 386 
Personals.387 
Wit and Humor. 388 
Advertisements.379. 38), 387, 3*8 
mentors have worked out a better way, 
they may be prevailed upon to adopt it. 
Agricultural colleges were endowed by 
the uatiou to extend just this aid to agri 
culture, to become the investigating, in¬ 
forming mind of the industry. The col¬ 
lege farm is expressly for experiment, and 
iB intended to lie equipped with all the 
applianoes necessary for illustrating the 
specialties in agricultnre carried on in 
the region whore it is located. Ilere are, 
or should be, all the facilities necessary 
in the dairy region, for determining, by 
accurate experiments, the comparative 
value of the different breeds of cows, 
of the animal, the 
amount of food consumed, per-ceutum of 
weight, the milk yielded per day, and for 
a given quantity of food, the milk re¬ 
quired from each breed for a pound of 
butter and cheese, the relative proportion 
of butter and casein in the milk of each 
breed, the effect of various foods upon 
each breed in the laying on of ffosh and 
production of milk, the effect of different 
conditions of food, cooked or raw, succu¬ 
lent, partially or wholly cured into hay, 
as well as the economy of pasturing or 
soiling animals, considered with refer¬ 
ence to the quantity of land, capital and 
labor required by each system. Iu 
short, here should be taken into consid¬ 
eration every fact which will test, the pro¬ 
ductive value of each breed for the pur¬ 
poses of the dairy under precisely the 
same circumstances. This system, car¬ 
ried ont at a dozen experimental farms 
for a few years, would effectually settle 
the comparative value of the diffureut 
breeds for the dairy, and the most eco¬ 
nomical manner of breeding and feeding 
them. These experiments alone would 
be worth more to practical agriculture 
than the whole cost of tho endowment of 
the colleges. 
A like system of experiments should 
also be oouduoted in tko breeding and 
feeding of animals for beef, pork and 
mutton—with accurate incidental experi¬ 
ments showing the physiology of animal 
digestion, and thence the true scientific 
method of feeding to produce the highest 
result with a given amount of food. 
When will our agricultural colleges begin 
these experiments which shall be a vindi¬ 
cation of the wisdom of their endowment ? 
386 
380 
386 
386 
IS A TURKEY AN ANIMAL? 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
AddresB 
RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
78 Duane Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1878. 
WORK FOR AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 
Agriculture, of all industrial pur¬ 
suits, most needs the knowledge gained 
through accurate experiment. Farmers 
have been so long accustomed to follow 
more traditional routine, with no accurate 
investigation of the basis on which it 
rests, that real progress has been slower 
than iu any other department of human 
labor. The rearing anti feeding of stock 
for all the various purposes relating to 
human welfare, form an interest so large 
and of such vital importance, not only to 
our home interests but to our foreign 
commerce and the balance of trade, that 
tho most accurate scientific and practical 
experiments are required to determine 
the physiological and economic laws that 
govern animal nutrition. 
The two great, classes of animal pro¬ 
ducts that, swell our foreign commerce— 
cattle aud swine—produced lor the year 
ending June 80, 1877, an aggregate ex¬ 
port of $129,382,202—that, is (tattle pro¬ 
ducts, including the daily, $47,029,980; 
and swine products, $82,352,222. This 
is nearly ono-fourth of all our exports, 
aside from coin and bullion, and, under 
good management in tho future these pro¬ 
ducts are likely to reach much greater 
proportions. The cattle products espec¬ 
ially, may be doubled in a few years. 
Tho value of these produets, for export, 
depends so largely upon quality, that 
only the best beef pays any profit. The 
most, economical method of growing and 
fattening these animals, of producing 
butter and cheese, is the important mut¬ 
ter now to be discovered. 
Farmers, as a class, uo not investigate ; 
they do not now even see the necessity 
for such investigation; but after experi- 
We remember having been taught, 
years ago, that all created thiugs were di¬ 
vided into three great classes or king¬ 
doms—known and denominated as the 
animal, tho vegetable and the mineral. 
Certain tilings, it is true, are so constitu¬ 
ted as to render it difficult to decide to 
which of two kingdoms they belong, 
standing as it were so nearly on the di¬ 
viding line as to raise doubts on which 
side is their proper place. Others pos¬ 
sess all the attributes belonging to one 
kingdom, and none of those of the other 
two, rendering it easy to decide where is 
their place iu nature. Thus, none would 
hesitate before declaring an iron bar to 
be mineral, a tree or shrub to be vegeta¬ 
ble, and, up to a recent date, that a tur¬ 
key belonged properly to the animal 
kingdom, 13ut the law decides different¬ 
ly, and have we not always been taught 
that tho very foundations of law are laid 
in oommoa sense ? That a turkey is not 
an animal has been declared by the Court 
of Hartford county, Connecticut, in a re¬ 
cent decision of one of its Judges. 
It seems, from the record, that two 
neighbors, or perhaps we should say par¬ 
ties whose farms were adjoining, living 
in Bloomfield, in said county, became uu- 
neigbborly. A sow, with her infant 
progeny, belonging to A, trespassed on 
the domain of B. Search being made 
the animals—no question about pigs being 
animals has been raised—were found ami 
returned to their proper quarters, but on 
counting them it was found the number 
was one less than it should be. Search 
being made the future promise of bucou 
and sausages was found snugly stowed 
away in a box on B.’s premises. B, de¬ 
nied tliat the pig belonged to A., aud 
there were no distinguishing marks upon 
it by which A. could identify it. 
Soon after some of B.’s turkeys, leav¬ 
ing their native habitat, strolled through, 
over or across the fence, and were found 
regaling themselves on the fruits of A.’s 
labor. A. saw his opportunity. The law 
made and provided for protection against 
trespassers, gave him, as he supposed, 
permission and authority to impound the 
intruders, which he proceeded to do 
forthwith, sending notice to B. of what 
he had done, and adding that he could 
have his turkeys when tho pig was re¬ 
turned, and one dollar paid for damages. 
B. was wroth, aud refused to comply with 
the demand. Contrary wise he sued out 
a writ of replevin for tho turkeys and 
brought the matter beforo tlio court. 
Tho facts in the coso wore not disputed, 
but long and able were tho arguments of 
learned counsel. Tho words of tho stat¬ 
ute wore discussed in their various bear¬ 
ings. Had the intruder been an ox or a 
liorso, or even a goose, so the judge de¬ 
cided, the action of A. in Impounding it, 
them or eithor of them, would have been 
legal, but nowhere and in no way in the 
law relating to tho case, was turkey men¬ 
tioned or oven referred to. Consequently 
verdict was rendered for B. who was ad¬ 
judged one dollar damages and costs of 
suit. We are anxious to know what be¬ 
came of the pig. 
--- 
THOMAS B. MINER. 
On Wednesday, June 5th, at his beau¬ 
tiful home in Linden, N. J., Tiios. B. 
Miner, Esq., one of the oldest agricul¬ 
tural and horticultural editors of this 
country, paid the debt of nature, after a 
brief illness. As Mr. Miner was to a 
large degree a public benefactor, it may 
not be out of place at this time to give a 
brief history of his career. 
Ho was born at Colchester, Conn., in 
the year 1808. At the age of sixteen 
years lie left home for New York City, 
where he engaged in commercial pursuits 
until 1849 when he removed with his 
family to Clinton, N. Y., and at onee be¬ 
gan to develop those agricultural and 
horticultural tastes which culminated in 
such a grand success in after life. Then, 
in 1852, he established a monthly paper 
called tho Northern Farmer, which be¬ 
came so rapidly popular in the country 
districts, that it had a circulation of 30,- 
000 iu the second year of its publication. 
It was while publishing this journal that 
he wrote several works of much practical 
value on different branches of husbandry, 
the best known of which immediately 
became authority on bee-keeping and 
poultry-raising. Encouraged by his suc¬ 
cess with the Northern Farmer, Mr. 
Miner subsequently merged it into a 
semi-monthly paper called the Rural 
American, which proved financially a 
very profitable investment, Finding, 
however, that the severity of the climate, 
and the shortness of the season, greatly 
interfered witli his successful propaga¬ 
tion and distribution of small fruits, in 
1867 he purchased a large farm within 
the city limits of New Brunswick, N. J., 
whither the following year he removed 
with his family amT business. But 
whether it was owing to the change to a 
new place, or the fact that by this time 
nearly every paper, both religious aud 
secular had adopted the plan of publish¬ 
ing an agricultural and horticultural de¬ 
partment, the Rural American failed to 
prosper iu its new home ; and after a 
brief struggle with adverse circumstan¬ 
ces, its publication was discontinued. 
Always frail in health, Mr. Miner now 
began to feel the weight of advancing 
age, and though his capacity for mental 
labor still remained unimpaired, bodily 
infirmity forbade his well-digested plans 
with reference to the cultivation and 
propagation of small fruits, aud an oppor¬ 
tunity offering, ho sold his New Bruns¬ 
wick farm, and in 1872 removed his family 
to Linden, N. J., where lie continued to 
reside until the timo of his death, which 
occurred as stated on Wednesday, June 
5th. Few men of his generation accom¬ 
plished so much of thorough, earnest, 
literary work. His mind was quick to 
conceive and quick to execute, aud its 
versatility was truly marvelous. It 
mattered little to him whether tho sub¬ 
ject was religion, politics, letters, or his 
more chosen pursuits. His readiug had 
been so extensive ami his practical knowl¬ 
edge with reference to the great questions 
of tho day, was so exhaustive, that what¬ 
ever left liis pen would generally challenge 
the severest criticism. 
But his chosen field was rural writing, 
and here he had few equals. He wrote 
rapidly, seldom revised his work, and 
some of his best literary efforts were ac¬ 
complished while he was carrying out the 
details of a vast aud complicated out-door 
business. But it is not so much to his 
literary work that the public, aud par¬ 
ticularly the rural portion of it are in¬ 
debted, as to what ho was able to accom¬ 
plish in the way of originating and dis¬ 
seminating valuable varieties of vines, 
fruits, potatoes, etc., aud ol'improving on 
well-known and long-cultivated varieties. 
Hero he was eminently at home, and no 
year was allowed to pass by without his 
developing in this direction some practical 
result of general value to the commun¬ 
ity. This was especially true of the last 
few years of his life ; and up to the week 
prior to his death he was actively en¬ 
gaged iu bringing ubout results from 
which the homes of our lund will yet re¬ 
ceive a substantial benefit. 
Mr. Miner has contributed regularly to 
ouroolumuB during the past year and our 
readers will join with us in deeply re¬ 
gretting his loss. 
■- +-*-* - 
Why ?—A music teacher in a Penn¬ 
sylvania Female College kissed oue of his 
pupils. The young lady was taken home. 
The rest of the young ladies wont in a 
body to the President and demanded the 
dismissal of the offending Professor. 
Were they indignant at having been 
slighted ? This Professor could not have 
been well versed in the way of women- 
kind or he would have known enough to 
have served them all alike. He should 
have remembered— 
“ Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” 
-- 
BREVITIES. 
Young chickens like radish tops. 
We call attention to what G, Marti says of 
Pearl Millet in Texas. 
Houston (TexaH), is going to have a horticul¬ 
tural exhibition during July or August. 
Arran the Scotch, Austrian and White Spruce, 
the Golden Rotinospora is tho hardiest of ever¬ 
greens on the cliffs of Newport in the sea air. 
Mn. Leach, a progressive farmer within ten 
miles of the Rubai, grounds, destroyed 504 nests 
of Tent-cutorpUlars t hree years ago. Two years 
ago he destroyed 122 hohIb. and this year, thus 
far, 54. 
We do not know of any plant whose leaves at 
this timo tire as goldou-hued as those of Sambu- 
cus aurea. The leaves of the golden-leaved 
Niuobark are bright when they lirst unfold— 
hut tho color soon fadoH away. 
Rural Grounds .June 10.—Gold nights con¬ 
tinue, Strawberries rotting. Melons in statu 
quo. Many potatooH were too much injured by 
the late frost to make further growth. We have 
hud very little sunshine since last week, and 
rather more rain than lias been needed. 
It is bocoining apparent that something has 
destroyed tho eggs of the potato beetle in this 
section of country (Bergen Co., N. J.) Some 
attribute it to our sharp frost—others to wet, 
olourty, cold weather- Thero are so few either 
of tho larvro or old beetles that the use of Paris- 
green is unnecessary. 
Touching upon tho strawberry disease referred 
to elsewhere, we find the following in the semi- 
weekly Tribune of tho 4th inHt. ; Would-bo 
strawberry-raisers are sad in southern Illinois 
In cause t heir plants are visited by a deadly 
disease, which some call “rust” and others 
“blight,” something similar to pear-blight or 
rot iu grapes. The cause, it is popularly thought, 
may be “ weather " or “ insects.” 
Experiments made upon tho Oolorado potato- 
beetle iu its perfect state in summer and fall, 
analogous to those which should be made upon 
tho wintered beetle in spring, show that it lives 
from a month and a half to two months in tho 
beetle condition. Mr. Shinier, of Illinois, kept 
some soven months and a half, or six months 
after they had got through laying their eggs, 
and only lost them then by accident. 
Wk are convinced from experiment* of our 
own and those of others that if Paris-green is 
thoroughly mixed with a divisor, let it be flour, 
plaster or any other, tho proportion of Paris- 
green need not be nearly as groat as that com¬ 
monly deemed necessary. We know that one 
part of t’aris-green to fifty parts of plaster will 
kill the beetles aud a friend tells us that oue 
pound to a barrel of plaster, if only it ho thor¬ 
oughly intermixed, has proven effectual with 
him. 
A corbksvondent of tho Germantown Tele¬ 
graph supposing that sorrel was induoed by a 
sour soil, applied lime, ashes, soda aud every¬ 
thing ho could think of to neutralize tho sup¬ 
posed acidity, without avail. As sweoto mug tho 
soil availed nothing, he tried the effects of ren¬ 
dering it more sour by applying apple pomaco 
from the cider mill. Then ho harrowed it in 
and sowed to grass seed. The sorrel disap¬ 
peared. lloro is a clear case for the Homeo- 
pathlo doctrine “ sluiilia similibus ourantur.” 
Now wo should thin out our Apples and 
Toars if it has not already been done or if there 
is uny intention of doing it. Few farmers are 
willing to take the pains to thin tho fruit, 
though few t here are who do not think that over¬ 
bearing injures tho trees. Mr, Tuomas says 
that the farmor who takes care not to have 
more than four stalks of corn in a lull aud who 
would oousider it folly to have twenty, never 
thins any of the twenty peaches on a small shoot. 
The gardener who would allow twenty cucum¬ 
ber vinos in 6 hill, would lie called an ignoram- 
ns by his neighbor, while at tho samo timo 
ho suffers a dwarf Pear to bear five times as 
many pears as it could protilably mature. If 
we would plant two Duchess dwarfs—side by 
side—thin out the fruit of one and leave tho 
other to bear ail that it would, wo should, in a 
few seasons, be convinced for over afterwards of 
the desirability of the practice. 
Du. Btubtevant speaks thus free-heartedly 
respootiug tho retirement of his late associate 
from the Scientific Farmer : — “ Mr. E H. Libby, 
tho founder, and until reooutly oouuooted with 
tho Scientific Fanner as editor, has severed his 
connection with us, and taken possession of a 
larger field, where his sterling qualities will tell 
on a larger constituency. He takes the position 
of managing editor of tho American Agricul¬ 
turist, a paper already widely kuowu for itB 
gooti wort, aud which under tho now manage¬ 
ment cannot fail to continue its oareer of useiill¬ 
ness under the auspices of a young aud vigorous 
mmd, fully alive to the necessities at«l demands 
of tho age. We regret his loss to us, as will 
our readers; but wo cannot but rejoice in the 
opening to him of a career full of responsibili¬ 
ties and promise. He has our heartiest wishes 
for his success, and carries with him our belief 
aud faith that iu this new position he will meet 
the high expectation of his many and warm 
fnonds.” 
