684 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
OCT. 26 
TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
Practical Departments : 
Ricketts’s Grapes—(Illustrated). 687 
Notes on Varieties of Grapes—D. 8. Marvin.07 
Grape Notes from North Carolina—M. B. Prince. 677 
Evils of Sollimi Unripe Or ipes—Nelson Kilter... 678 
Grapes of Southeastern Texas- G. Marti.578 
Experience with Grapes In Michigan — 8. B Peck. 678 
Grape Leaves-No. 1! IV. C. Bellamy. 679 
Prentiss Grape—(Illustrated)... 678 
Shelburne Urapo (Illustrated).. 679 
Waverley Grape—(Illustrated). 679 
Grapes in Western N. Y.—W. j. Fowler.679 
Grape Items. 679 
Vermont Fruit Jubilee ~T. tl. £1. 680 
Notes from Rural Grounds.680 
Gooseberries in California—W. C. L. Drew.680 
Wild-Goose Plum—K. R.. . 680 
Tree Planting -G. K Needham.......680 
Large Leaf of Tulip Tree. .680 
Bulbs and Planting Them—VYm. Falconer.680 
Hardy Bulba—Mrs. H. W- B.680 
Hard Labor and Machinery.. 681 
What Others Say . . .. ... 681 
Catalogues Received. 681 
Leghorns vs. Plymouth Rooks—Anon... 681 
Great St. Lon is Fair. . 682 
Vermont Cheese Dairy T. H Hoskins—M. D _ 682 
Coiumumoutlons Received.683 
Silver and Derning Feed Cutter—(Illustrated). 683 
Everywhere: 
Corning. N. Y. 
Owensboro. Ky. 
Jones ville, N. Y_ 
Pensacola, Fla. 
Wexford Oo., Mich. 
Brighton. Md. 
New Richland. Ohio 
Palnesville. Ohio .. 
Arkansas, City. Kan 
Cambridge. Mass .. 
6S2 
683 
683 
683 
683 
683 
083 
683 
08.3 
683 
Answers la Correspondents: 
Grasses for Permanent Pasture.683 
Works on Farriery . 083 
Germination of Seeds. 683 
Making Hard-stlek Candy. 683 
When to Plant Strawberries. 683 
Is There® Mole Exterminator ?.683 
Miscellaneous. 683 
Editorial Page: 
Country Roads .„. 
Cleanliness of Stables. 
Value of Hen Manure . 
Our Exports. 
Good Laws Upon Land Drainage. 
Mildew... 
Brevities. 
684 
684 
6S4 
6S4 
684 
681 
684 
Domestic Economy . 
Mop-Handle Papers—No. 7—May Maple.6SS 
Oat Meal. Cracked Wheal, &c.—Mrs. Murv Olin. 688 
Domestic Recipes.688 
i.lTKRAItV t 
Poetry... .. 
Onamentsl and Useful—(Illustrated). 
Our New Serial. 
Weaker Than a Woman. 
September in China— E. F. Mosby. .’. 
Ihurch Fairs-L. A. K. 
Recent Literature. 
Magas,nes. .. 
Bric-a-Brao... 
Reading for the young : 
Talk of One who Traveled to Learn what 
eriog .Meant—Grimm. 
Sabbath Reading: 
.690 
.085 
.685 
.. 086, 686 
.587 
.787 
.6"7 
.68? 
.687 
Shlv- 
.690 
A Happy Sunday. 
News i/t the Week—Herman 
Mamets. . 
Personals . 
Wit an i Humor . __ .. 
Advertise is. 
.690 
. 688 
.. 689 
.... 691 
. 6(42 
689. 691 692 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY 
Address 
RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
/8 Duane Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY OCT. 26, 1878. 
We offered, some time ago, to sell the cuts 
used in this Journal for ten cents the square 
inch. Many have requested us to send proofs 
of our cuts. As we have upwards of ten thou¬ 
sand, we could not undertake to do so. Persons 
wishing to purchase, must select from files of 
the Rural New-Yorker. 
COUNTRY ROADS. 
Road-making as an art is but poorly 
understood by the majority of our high¬ 
way surveyors and road-masters, and 
what they do know is not always well 
oarried out. There is, no doubt, a grad¬ 
ual improvement in our highways. The 
loss and injury occasioned by gullying 
and wash-outs are so great that those 
means by which stability of the traveled 
way is secured, are getting to be tolera¬ 
bly well understood. But the other 
points, such as securing easy grades, con¬ 
ducting a road over a swamp, the man¬ 
agement of clayey or mucky soils, and 
the removal of stones, both fixed and 
loose, are all matters in which our rural 
road-builders may easily improve their 
methods. In every farmers’ club, grange 
and agricultural gathering for the discus- a 
sion of rural affairs, road-making should 
be made a matter of frequent considera¬ 
tion. 
The losses by reason of bad roads are 
very lurge—far greater than the cost of 
maintaining good ones. But they are 
so uncertain as regards particular instan¬ 
ces, and so divided among all hands, that 
the sum of them is not realized as it 
ought to be. The load that can be drawn 
over a road is limited by the load that can 
be drawn over the worst places, just as 
the strength of a chain is only the 
strength of its weakest link. The strains 
thrown upon the different parts of a wag¬ 
on or carriage, upon the bolts and braces, 
the wheels, axles, pole, shafts, and on the 
harness, (to say nothing of the horses), 
by steep grades and the unevenness of the 
road-bed, by deep mud, and by stones, 
are also matters that are large enough in 
detail, but form a monstrous aggregate 
far beyond the conception of those who 
do not figure in regard to them. We be¬ 
lieve that there are few traveled roads in 
the country on which the unnecessary 
injury to vehicles alone would not pay, 
and more than pay, for the cost and 
maintaiuance of a flrst-olass turnpike. 
There is one thing, in particular, which 
would cost but little to remedy, that iB 
very destructive to wheels, the most cost¬ 
ly parts of every vehicle, and which iB also 
the canse of very great injury to horses. 
We refer to the loose Btones left upon the 
surface of the roadway—thrown upon it, 
in fact, when the roads are repaired, and 
left there the whole season afterwards. 
These stones could be all thrown off in a 
very short time and at very little expense, 
but. they are very rarely attended to. 
How many loosened and broken tires 
they cause, and how many horses' feet 
are injured by these provokiugly loose 
stones in the road ! 
Other bad things, easily remedied, are 
the holes and hollows worn in the road 
by wheels, aud rapidly increased in depth 
by the softening caused by the collection 
of water in them after rains. These 
boles break more axles, bolts, braces 
and spokes, ten times over, than the cost 
of filling them up would amount to. A 
“ Btitch iu time” is here most important, 
but few road-masters will attend to the 
matter as they should. 
We repeat that these are things worthy 
of frequent discussion among farmers, 
so that knowledge regarding the proper 
remedies may be disseminated, and, above 
all, a public opinion be created in favor 
of good roadB, The civilization of a 
community is alrncst as well guageu by 
the condition of its roads as by the quan¬ 
tity of soap it uses. 
— ♦ ♦ » 
CLEANLINESS OF STABLES. 
We frequently come across remon¬ 
strances against keeping harness in 
stables, the reason give being that the 
ammonia prevalent thei rots the leather 
and soon destroys the harness. Now, 
this is beginning at the wrong end to re¬ 
medy an evil. We may talk aud advise 
“ year in and year out” about this mat¬ 
ter, but harness will be kept in the stable 
in spite of all. Where else ean the ma¬ 
jority of people who keep horses hang 
these trappings ? A rich man may have 
a closet in which the harness may hang 
safely from fear of ammonia and all 
other dangers; but the average horse- 
owner will have his peg behind the beam, 
because he can have no other way of dis¬ 
posing of the harness. But the trouble 
would end if the production of ammonia 
in the stables was prevented. Enter an 
ordinary stable at any period, but espe¬ 
cially in the winter when every cranny 
through which the wind can come in is 
carefully stopped, and what a pungent 
odor offends the nostrils and irritates the 
eyes ! Is this odor of ammonia, strongly 
alkaline and irritant, injurious only to 
the harness? What of the horses and 
the tender membranes of the eye, the 
throat and the nasal passages ? Do you 
think they are less sensitive than oak- 
tanned harness leather, well greased and 
preserved, as it is ? By no means. If 
the prevalent odors injuriously affect the 
leather, you may be sure the eyes suffer ; 
the throat and lungs are irritated and the 
nasal passages become inflamed. Then 
occur the frequent moon blindness; 
ophthalmia , weeping of the eyes, follow¬ 
ed by inflammation, white specks, clouded 
cornea, and finally loss of sight; then 
follow coughs, bronchitis, pneumonia, 
heaves, catarrh, nasal gleet; and by and 
by, when the blood has become poisoned 
by the absorption of diseased matter from 
inflamed and suppurating membranes, 
farcy and glanders—dreadful and fatal to 
beast and man, too—result. And while 
we think of saving the harness and re¬ 
moving that to a purer place, the beast, 
which is worth a dozen sets of it, is left 
to rot from these pungent gases without 
any help. Clean the stubles and the 
harness may hang in them Bafely ; and 
be sure, if the stable is not a fit place for 
the harness, it is no place for the horse. 
A barrel of plaster can be procured for 
about one dollar. It is worth that as a 
fertihzer. It is worth ten dollars as an 
absorbent of ammonia, and u hundred as 
a health preserver to the horses; not 
counting the saving to the harness. 
Sprinkle it everywhere and be liberal 
with it. 
THE VALUE OF HEN MANURE. 
There is hardly a subject upon which 
more is written, by the correspondents of 
the agricultural press, thau this. Every 
novice in gardening and farming, espec¬ 
ially, is enraptured^by the fertilizing 
vigor of this kind of dressing for the soil. 
And they are right,—the dung of fowls 
is a valuable manure. We want to say 
here, briefly, jnst how and why it is val¬ 
uable, and draw .i little moral at the end. 
A great many, but not all, know that 
the urinary secretions of birds is dis¬ 
charged, not externally as in mammals, 
but into the bowels in a semi-solid form, 
and passes off mixed with the dung. 
There is, therefore, no loss of what we call 
the “ Liquid manure ” in the case of fowls. 
All the valuable fertilizing salts, the 
potash, the phosphoric acid and the am¬ 
monia, which the kidneys excrete from 
the blood, are contained*in the dung of 
fowls. They are there in a very concen¬ 
trated and yet. very soluble form, ready 
to yield a potent nourishment to the 
young plant,—too potent, without consid¬ 
erable dilution. Then again, our fowls 
live mostly upon a concentrated diet, 
chiefly seedB aod insects in the summer, 
grain and meat in the winter; and the 
result of the digestion of this strong, 
rich food iB a strong, rich manure. Fowls 
fed upon potatoes do not yield a rich ex¬ 
crement. 
Aud, finally, our hen manure is made 
and preserved under cover, Buffering no 
loss from the leaking or fermentation 
which always occurs when more or less 
water has access to any fertilizing sub¬ 
stance of animal or vegetable origin. 
“This fable teaches" the importance 
of preserving the urinary excretions of 
all domestic animals, as well as the solid 
manure, and of protecting both from loss 
by leaching or fermentation. Were this 
attended to, the manure of all grain-fed 
animals would be nearly as strong as that 
of fowls, aud as valuable for fertilizing 
purposes. At the present price of com¬ 
mercial fertilizers, the like ingredients in 
a cow’s urine are worth at least twelve 
dollars a year. It is a great loss on a 
stableful of animals when all, or most of 
this goes to waste, as is too commonly 
the case. 
OUR EXPORTS. 
An enumeration of some of the ex¬ 
ports from the port of New York in a 
single week, will give a very clear idea of 
the wonderful wealth of resources and 
material, and the extent of the foreign 
traffic of the United States. For in¬ 
stance, in one week in September there 
were two million bushels of wheat ship¬ 
ped abroad. Manufactures and pro¬ 
duce were sent to 57 foreign ports. Of 
these the largest business was done with 
Liverpool, the amount being $1,667,360. 
This included 300 tous of fresh meat, 360 
kegs of tongues, oysters, toys, chromos, 
shoe-polish, $62,000 worth of butter,' 
nearly $300,000 worth of baccm, $283,000 
worth of tobacco aud $223,900 for wheat. 
Loudon took $500,000 worth of goods, 
among which were 300 sewing machines, 
730 packages of wooden ware, 500,000 
lbB. of cheese, 156,000 bushels of wheat, 
and 4,515 cases of canned goods. Glas¬ 
gow took 42 obis, of shoe pegs and 1,200 
cases of canned goods and other merchan¬ 
dise to the value of $200,000 ; $58,211 
worth went to Japan ; $500,000 to Aus¬ 
tralia, which took 1,397 packages of agri¬ 
cultural implements, 125 bbls. of shoe 
pegs, a lot of wind-mills, pumps, etc. 
-- 
Good Laws on Land Drainage. 
—A proposed amendment to the constitu¬ 
tion of the State of Illinois, which has to 
be voted on by the people at the coming 
fall elections, provides that the general 
assembly may pass lawB permitting the 
owners of laud to construct drains, dit¬ 
ches and levees, for agricultural, sanitary 
or mining purposes, across the lands 
of others, and provide for the organiza¬ 
tion of drainage districts, and vest the 
corporate authorities of suoh organiza¬ 
tions with power to construct and main¬ 
tain levees, drains, aud ditches and to 
keep iu repair all suoh improvements 
heretofore constructed under the laws of 
the State, by means of special assess¬ 
ments upon the property benefited there¬ 
by. The enactment of such laws as this 
amendment authorizes, would be of vast 
benefit not only to Illinois, but to many 
othes States in the Union. For not the 
least of the difficulties individuals and 
communities encounter in carrying plans 
for drainage into execution lies in the 
opposition or the lack of co-operation of 
other parties interested. 
■-- 
Mildew.—It has been remarked by 
one of our contributors, that the leaves 
of those grape - vines whose fruit buds 
were killed by the late Bpring frost, have 
not been injured by mildew. Iu so far 
as we can recall, they are seldom attacked 
before the fruit begins to form. It is the 
same with the leaves and fruit of the 
Gooseberry. Whether fruiting so weak¬ 
ens the plant as to present conditions 
more favorable to the growth of this fun¬ 
gus, or whether the time for its germina¬ 
tion is not until fruit begins to form, we 
cannot say. It is a fact, however, that 
thrifty plants, both of the Grape and 
Gooseberry, are attacked by mildew during 
some seasons when no fruit is borne. 
BREVITIES. 
Plant a Grape-vine. 
The best frnit to plant in City gardens— 
Grape-vines. 
Probably one of the very best deodorizers is 
fine dry earth. 
Which grapes suffer most from rot—the white, 
red or black varieties ? 
From many different parts we hear good ac¬ 
counts of the Lady Grape. 
Ai.l of our Grape portraits we have had drawn 
from life—and they are true portraits. 
Among Rogers’ Hybrids, Salem (red) and 
Goethe (yellowish-green) are among the best. 
May not the Delaware be said to occupy 
about the same place among Grapes that the 
Seokel does among Pears ? 
Witeout regard to their manufacture into 
wine, do not our hardy Grapes at the present 
day rank next in importance to the Apple ? 
Messrs. Ellwanger & Barry send ns a box 
of Bonne du puits Ansault pears, of which we 
gave a drawing from life Nov. 10, of laBt year. 
The Massachusetts Ploughman, in its issue of 
Oct. 5, gives a picture of “ Moore’s Early Prize 
Grape.” As represented it is the largest hardy 
grape we have ever seen. 
Mr. Marvin’s classification of Grapes most 
suitable for the latitude of northern New York, 
given elsewhere in this issue, is the result of no 
small amount of care, judgment and experi¬ 
ence. 
Mr. Rogers is, we believe, entitled to the 
credit of first attempting upon an extended scale 
the hybridization of our native with the foreign 
sorts of GrapeB. Many question whether they 
flre,hybrids. since the marks of the foreign spe¬ 
cies are rather feeble. 
The Rural of next week will present a large 
engraving of the “new” fodder plant Pearl 
Millet. Some of our readers may doubt that bo 
many stalks proceed from one seed. We Bhall, 
perhaps, be enabled to give them the oppor- 
tuniiy of testing it for themselves. 
8eedilng Graves will generally bear fruit the 
third year sometimes the second—sometimes 
not at all. If our friends plant seeds now, taken 
fresh from the grape, they will germinate in a 
few weeks and make plants a foot or more high 
by next spring, when they may be thumped 
out of the pots and set in the soil where they 
are to remain. 
Alfalfa Troubled by Dodder.— Alfalfa does 
well in California as a forage plant, aud is much 
liked where it has been tried—in Kansas and 
neighboring Statee. Farmers are cautioned 
about selecting the seed, as much of it in Eu¬ 
rope and California contains seeds of a kind of 
parasitic vine or dodder called Cuscuta racemosa. 
This vine is a great pest. 
Cuttings of grape-vines may be taken now 
and either planted iu the open ground in rich, 
mellow soil, six inches apart, and covered with 
leaves or some other protection, or they may be 
buried in a dry place and then planted in the 
spring. There is no reason why every farm or 
garden should not have grape-vines. Those 
who are too poor or too mean to buy vines may 
procure cuttings from their neighbors. 
The Weekly Tribune, referring to exhaustive 
cropping, year after year, without rotation, 
without Sabbath reBt of laud, without even util¬ 
izing natural resources of manure, says that it is 
little less than pitiful to him who looks on rich 
soil as one of tbo best of God’s temporal good 
gifts to men. It is not legitimate farming—it is 
land-slaughter in the first degree, aud a crying 
injustice to Bucoeeding generations. 
East and west, men of experience and sound 
sense denounce the practice of selling grapes 
before they are fully ripe, a practice wbioh is 
the abortive offspring of avarice and improvi¬ 
dence—of avarice, because the greed for petty 
gain gives birth to it; of improvidence, because 
a lack of foresight prevents those who are guilty 
of it, from seeing that thereby they are perma¬ 
nently injuring their own business by producing 
with their immature fruit a popular distaste for 
their wares. 
Mu. T. B. Miner devoted many years of his 
life to seedlin*-grape culture. Out of some 15,- 
000 seedlings he produced, less than a dozen 
were selected by him as worthy of general cul¬ 
tivation, but several of these he believed would 
i.e aooepted as improvements upon any previ¬ 
ously known. A few months before his death, 
these varieties were sent to us for trial. We are 
glad to be able to say that they have made a 
strong, healthy growth, and we hope they may 
prove of sufficient merit to justify Mr. Miner’s 
opinion of them, and that they will serve for all 
time to come, to keep his memory green in the 
minds of those, who, having labored in the Barne 
field, can appreciate the slight reward that gen¬ 
erally attends original research in the world of 
horticulture. 
There is a good deal of disquiet at present 
among extensive vineyardists in California and 
elsewhere at the prospect of a new reciprocal 
troaty with France, which would permit the free 
importation of French wines into this country. 
It seetnB hardly fair that while our manufact¬ 
urers are guarded from foreign oompetition in 
our home markets by a protective aud, iu some 
oases, a prohibitory tariff, so important a branch 
of husbandry as viticulture should be exposed 
to ruin by the removal of the present duties on 
foreign wines. This would be a poor reward for 
the labor and research which have produced our 
present excellent varieties of Grapes which prom¬ 
ise within the next five years to yield in Califor¬ 
nia alone 60,000,000 gallons of first-class wine 
instead of the 10,000,000 gallons there produced 
yearly at present. 
