788 
THE RURAL HEW-YORKER. 
©EC. M 
have been greatly increasing of late, have 
convinced the email farmers that they 
must avail themselves of the best labor- 
saving devices to be able, with any chance 
of success, to hold their own against com- 
petiton from this side of the Atlantic. 
barn-yard at all. The yard is no plaoeto 
rnilk cows in, and the man who will per¬ 
mit a woman to hunt a cow around a 
filthy yard, carrying her milk pail and 
vainly calling “so bossy!” is nob the 
farmer we have reference to, nor is that 
woman the one we think of as our dairy¬ 
maid. The fact is, when everything is 
well arranged about the stable, when it is 
sweet and clean, when the cows are clean 
and are comfortably secured in their 
stalls, then a girl may very aptly go in 
and do her share of the milking, without 
offense, and, after washing her hands and 
doffing her apron, may take her morning 
music lessons or help her mother in 
household duties, 
Then the talk about filthy yards, kick¬ 
ing and goring, etc., etc. is all out of 
place, because there would be no suoh 
things to fear. Indeed we pity the farm¬ 
ers’ wives and daughters who have to 
the public that they must inevitably be 
made. . , ,, 
Our pages this week oontain a full ac¬ 
count of the Fair from every point of 
view; while our artist has illustrated 
(necessarily in a hurried manner) in our 
first-page engraving the most prominent 
features of the exhibition. In view of 
its being the first attempt of the kind ever 
undertaken, and in order to give a clear 
description of it so as to lead to improve¬ 
ments in any future undertaking of the 
same nature, we have devoted to it 
more space, perhaps, than its actual 
merits entitle it to ; but we trust that 
our readers will agree with us that our 
object justifies our liberality. 
TABLE OP CONTENTS, 
BREVITIES 
Kvcrv-Sav NoteA-Samnm parson*. 
Tre« Snrjsery—G»n. W. II. Noble .. -0 
Van’a Visw*....................121 
TVxse Indian Aprlo-Wtn Falconer.. 
Wiresap Apple—Illustrated.. — - — 
Plan for an lee Houon-Wm. Kobort BrooVs-ll- 
International Dairy F»lr.■ ••••••■ .ix? 
Combine*! Millaml Corn Sheller-Illustrated.TO 
pro'rreMsipe Feature* of the Big Ball H-... 
Tie International Dairy Fair. .. ‘Si 
Implements. &c„ at tbefDfriry Fair.. • to 
i.lst of Awards.... 
Boerywhert: > 
Notes from N. W. Pa. ™ 
Huron Co.,Ohio.. L* 
Howard Daks- Minn. . 
Cumberland Co., Me.-. ‘JJ* 
Burllnston Co., Kan. LJ* 
Mill Bridge, N. .. 
Alton. Iowa—.... 
Biilleyville. til. L\J 
Bryunt, Iowa ..... 
Arkansas City, Kan. 
Atlanta .. irj 
Oakland, Oregon. 
Near Montreal. Canada.is* 
Arcadia. Wts... iJJ* 
Salem. Win.Jlii 
Wellington. Ohio. 
Cnrriwal ts. N. 8. ‘“J 
Waukegan. Ill... n't 
Pine Bluff. Ark. 
ATi&nere 00 Correspomlents: 
Raising Potatoes In a Greenhouse ..784 
Feeding Oil Meal....... 1“ 
inonniprsliertslble Growth of Celery. “to 
Fish fora Stagnant Poad.JJJ ? 
Hulled* Oats . . .— “jv 
Treatment of Various Flowers.7Wj 
Making an Arhor-Vllw Hedge... ...... . ‘.to 
To Remove a Superfluous Hole In a Cow e Teat.. TO 
Wintering Various Flowers..... TO 
Alfalfa Sued.. .. . to 
Borrowing Money on Life Insurance Policies,... TO 
Treatmentof Semis for a Nut Grove...Tito 
Pluming Seeds ol Free Seed Distribution. TO 
Detlanee Wheat.•••'•:.Tito 
Miscellaneons... ... to 
Communications Received....,. to 
Domestic Economy: 
Mop-Handle Papers—May Maple. 800 
Holiday Recipes. 800 
Doraestlo Recipes.gJJJ 
Quesiiona Answered.8tw 
EDITORIAL PAOZ: 
The International Dairy Fair... TO 
Neces>ity of a Notional Veterinary College.796 
Apropos of Dairymaids. TO 
Value of Pent and Muck...TO 
Labor-Saving Machinery In France.70i 
Brevities ...7% 
LIT ERA HT ; 
Poetry.797 799, 802 
How Our Book Was Robbed . 797 
Weaker Than a Woman. 797 
•• Standing Treats ".788 
Facts. 798 
Recent Literature. 782 
Magazines... 
Letters fioiu a Countrv Girl—Margaret B. Harvey 799 
Our Libniry—Mrs. L. K. K. Turner. 799 
Have Women a Monopoly of Weak Nerves?— 
Jtrks . 799 
Who Will be Crowned In Heaven.. 
Note..799 
Erratum.. 7S» 
Veruena Sachet Powder. 710 
Reading tor the Tming: 
Chemistry of Metals. 802 
Parental Affection in Sparrows. 802 
Puzzler.-••• MB 
News of the Week—Herman.800, 8U2 
Markets. SOI 
Personals . 80d 
Wit an.l Humor... 804 
Advertisemcuts. 801,808.804 
veterinary scienoe. and no nation in 
Christendom in wiiioh Government pays 
lees attention to those demands. Accord¬ 
ing to the latest census, there were in the 
United States, three years ago, 11,149, 
800 horses and mules; 27,870,700 cattle ; 
35,935,300 sheep, and 25.726,800 swine. 
Prussia has a little over one-third of this 
number of live stock, and Great Britain 
and Ireland considerably less than one- 
half, yet while there is not in this oountry 
a single veterinary school of national rep¬ 
utation, there are five veterinary colleges 
in Prussia and four in Great Britain, all 
of European renown. The former, how¬ 
ever, are strictly governmental institu¬ 
tions, while the latter are either personal 
ventures or maintained by private en¬ 
dowment, and the groat superiority of 
the former was apparent during the late 
European outbreak of rinder-pest,which 
was extinguished in Prussia within a 
week, whereas iu England its ravages 
contined for months. 
The great advance made of late yeai'B 
in this oountry, in the quality of ail kinds 
of live stock, would now vastly enhance 
the losses to our farmers and breeders, 
should a plague similar to the rinder-pest 
or foot-and-mouth disease break out on 
this side of the Atlantic. The great ex¬ 
tent of the losses from such a disease among 
thoroughbreds is well illustrated by the 
testimony of the late T. O. Booth, of 
Warlaby, before a committee of the 
House of Commons last year. He swore 
that his losses within a few years from 
deaths among his Short-horns by foot- 
and mouth disease alone, amounted to 
£30,000 or $150,000. 
Our comparative immunity hitherto 
from such scourges has made us negli¬ 
gent in providing against their possibility 
or rather probability in the future. It 
would be folly to await the advent of such 
a calamity to provide means for combat¬ 
ting it, and, moreover, so great is our’ an¬ 
nual aggregate of preventable losses from 
ordinary diseases of live stock, that 
measures should be promptly taken to 
relieve the agricultural classes and con¬ 
sequently the people at large, from this 
persistent drain on their resources. 
VALUE OF PEAT AND MUCK. 
Chemical analyses give a varying 
value to peat and muck deposits, con¬ 
sidered as fertilizers ; but in rune cases 
out of ten, we find that these analyses, 
made by competent chemists, show a 
percentage of ammonia far iu excess of 
that contained in common yard manure ; 
sometimes four or six times as much. 
As ammonia is the most costly of all fer¬ 
tilizing materials, ana at the same time an 
absolute essential for all grain and most 
forage crops, it is plain that there must 
be great value in muck and peat when 
rightly prepared and applied. What 
muck is usually deficient m, compared 
with yard manure, is potash and phos¬ 
phoric aoid. Therefore, when it is pro¬ 
posed to apply muok to land without 
first using it as an absorbent in the sta- 
blee or composting it with dung, it should 
have added to it woo.l-ftnhes and bone- 
dust. These, when properly mixed and 
combined, will make a fertilizer that will 
produce the best results, especially upon 
our lighter soilB. The proportions should 
bo about ten bushels of good, unleached, 
hard-wood ashes and two bushels of 
bone-dust to two cords of muok that has 
been dug long enough to have parted 
with its surplus water by drainage. 
Such a compost, if the muck is of av¬ 
erage quality, ought to produce as much 
effect as an equal quantity of the best 
stable manure upon crops of gram, pota¬ 
toes or grass. For the best results, it 
should lie six months, or a year after mix¬ 
ing, and be shoveled over several times 
during that period. If peat is used, it 
should lie long enough to become 
thoroughly rotten and fine. We should 
preier to mix half the ashes with the 
bone, wet them thoroughly, and let them 
lie two or three weeks before mixing them 
with the muck. The rest of the ashes 
should be added at the same time, and 
by the union of its potash with the or¬ 
ganic acids that hold the ammonia in un- 
soluble combination, it sets that Bub- 
stanoe free to be absorbed, in an active 
state, by the pile. The bone-dust and 
ashes will cost about five dollars, and the 
heap, when finished, will give six loads. 
HURAL HEW-YORKER 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY 
Addreat. 
RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
78 Duane Street, New York City 
SATURDAY DEC. 14, 1878. 
Octh readers are particularly requested to read 
the particulars of our free seed distribution on 
p 800, under publisher’s notices, before ordering 
seeds. We thought we had made the postage 
particulars very plain—but many are sending ub 
too many stamps. A ono-cent stamp sufilceB 
for all except three —the Beauty of Hebron re¬ 
quires a two-cent extra stamp, and the Defiance 
Wheat and Pearl Millet, together, require a two- 
cent extra stamp. 
AFB0P08 OF DAIRYMAIDS 
THE INTERNATIONAL DAIRY FAIR. 
The first International Dairy Fair ever 
held in this oountry closed last Saturday 
night in this city. Although we fully 
realize that from the conception of its 
name to its close, there were few things 
connected with it that were not capable 
of obvious improvement by those with a 
single eye to the advancement of the 
dairy interests of the country, still we 
must confess that we regard the exhibi¬ 
tion as a move in the right direction. 
Through the large number of visitors to 
the show and still more through the press, 
the general public has learnt much of the 
importance of tbo dairy business in par¬ 
ticular and of the agricultural interest 
in general. Many mistakes and short¬ 
comings in suoh undertakings have be¬ 
come so glaringly apparent that their 
avoidance in futuro has become impera¬ 
tive. The necessity for many changes in 
the management and oonduct of future 
exhibitions has been so Btrougly forced on 
“ Rural Jb. ” who writes many sensi¬ 
ble things in the Weekly Chicago Trib¬ 
une and who frequently quotes approv¬ 
ingly from the Rural New-Yorker, ob¬ 
jects to some of our recent remarks as to 
dairymaids. He says: 
*' Wo are on the side of the girls. We 
do not believe it is woman’s business to 
milk the cows. Woman is entirely out of 
place in the barn-yard, and she should 
not be called on to go there, except in 
cases of great necessity. We frequently 
read of accidents to women while engag¬ 
ed in milking; in faot, we are personally 
acquainted with several worthy ladies who 
have been either seriously injured or 
rendered cripples for life by being kicked 
or gored while milking. ” 
Let us say that Rural Jr. is altogether 
wrong here, as may very easily be shown. 
If it is not woman’s business to milk cows 
because she is entirely out of plaoe iu a 
barn-yard, then let her not go into the 
We earnestly request that all tetters containing 
money, or any communication intended for the 
Businkss Department of the paper, be addressed 
to the Editor, the Publisher , or The Rural New- 
Yorker, and not to any individual. We cannot 
otherwise guarantee the prompt entry of names 
upon our books, or the acknowledgment of money. 
Labor-saving Machinery m 
France.— French farms are usually so 
very small that the possession of a reap¬ 
er, mower, or other ooBtly labor-Baving 
implement is out ,of the question with 
most individual landowners. Of late 
yours, however, the hiring of suoh agri¬ 
cultural machines has become a regular 
business, and so much attention was 
paid to implements of this kind at the 
lato exhibition, that this branch of indus¬ 
try has received a strong impetus. The 
importations of American grain which 
We offered, some time ago, to Hell the cuts 
used in this Journal for ten cents the square 
inch. Many have requested ua to bend 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. 
