to market early and rapidly. Prairie hay 
eight dollars per ton ; corn, 70 cents ;oats, 45c; 
wheat $1.10 ; coal 15c. per bushel ; eggs, 25c : 
butter 30c ; 1200 children in school; 6000 peo¬ 
ple- or. B. 
Michigan. 
Mendon, St. J osepb Co., Dec. 17.-T received a 
small White Elephant potato which was cut 
to single eyes, making sixteen pieces, planted 
one eye in a hill 16 in. apart. Fifteen hills 
came up. which yielded 34Wf lbs. of very nice 
tubers. A few were baked and pronounced 
splendid. I value them highly. The Wash¬ 
ington Oats grew rank and lodged badly, but 
I thrashed 15 lbs. from two packages of seed ; 
they are a heavy oat, I like them and shall try 
them again. More than half of the asparagus 
seed failed to grow, but what I have is doing 
well. The flowers from the seed sent were 
very nice I consider the seeds worth the 
price of the Rural, but I can ha rdly estimate 
the great value the Rural is to me. o. a. a. 
Three Rivers, St. Joseph Co., Dec. 17.— 
We are having a very open Winter so far, 
but very little snow. The ground has been 
frozen so that it would bear a team only for a 
few days. Plenty of rain. Wheat got a good 
top, but looks somewhat yellow at, present. 
Corn was a fair crop, considering the long 
drought. Oats good Potatoes rather scarce, 
they brought a good price in the Fall. Butter 
20 cents. Eggs scarce : worth 22 cts. a doz. 
Buckwheat a total failure. s. m. s. 
Jloniniia. 
Stevensville, Missoula Co.. Dec. 15,—The 
small White Elephant Potato I received from 
you last Spring contained 19 eyes. I planted 
them in one row. one eye in a place, about IS 
inches apart, making 19 hills, Thev did not 
grow well in the fore part of season as the 
ground was too dry. It was not manured. 
They received no unusual cultivation—were 
plowed once, hoed twice, irrigated twice. 
Four hills were accidentally plowed up from 
which no potatoes grew. From the 15 hills I 
dug 84 pounds of tubers. The two largest 
weighed exactly seven pounds.—exactly t.hree- 
and-one-half pounds each. The ten largest 
weighed 20 pounds ; the 20 largest 32 pounds : 
the 30 largest, 40 pounds, and the 40 largest 
ju«t 50 pounds. The handful of Washington 
Oats I received from you l planted in t.wo 
drills about one foot apart, the kernels from 
three to six inches apart in the drills. The 
oats were hoed once, and irrigated twice : no 
manure was used. There was considerable 
smut. The blackbirds took a great many. 
Those working for me said not fewer than t n 
pounds were wasted in various way. I ha ve 
thrashed and saved 101 pounds of good, clean 
Washington Oats, Thev are as early ns the 
common oat. I like them better because they 
are more plump. To prevent smut the seed 
should be vitrioled, R. Parkhurst. 
Ohio. 
Coe Rtdoe, Cuyahoga Co., Dec. 20,—The 
White Elephant Potato was cut into pieces 
of one eve each, and they were placed in a 
box of sand and leaf mold, in a hot-bed, on 
April 4, and after they were well rooted they 
were potted in four-inch pots. The stalks as 
they grew' were cut into pieces of one bud 
each, and propagated as florists propagate 
plants. When rooted they were pricked out 
in shallow' boxes of soil about two inches 
apart, and were planted out in the open 
ground about June 1, making about 240 hills 
in all, planted one foot opart in the row, the 
rows two-and-one-half feet apart, in good 
gravelly soil, well manured. I dug on Octo¬ 
ber fit.h 208^ lbs of tubers. One weighed 27 
ounces; some were quite small. Owing to 
the extremely dry weather and the cuttings 
being planted shallow, there was not more 
than one-third of what there should have 
been. The tops were not entirely ripe when 
dug. T think perhaps the Elephant will be a 
good potato, but one season as dry as the past 
is not enough to test it thoroughly. One good 
thing about tbe potatoes is that they grow 
close together in the hill, which is not the case 
with St Patrick and others. The Washing¬ 
ton Oats were sown the first w eek in May, in 
rich, sandy soil. They lodged badly. After 
the turkeys and mice had got their share T 
had one pound of seed; they smutted some¬ 
what. I planted the Rural Branching Sor¬ 
ghum on rich, sandy soil; more than three- 
fourths of the seed came up; it grew about 
seven feet high. I was intending to have it 
made into sirup, but when 1 came to cut it 
there was scarcely any juice in the stalks, ex¬ 
cept in the branches and some green stalks. 
[We never recommended the Rural Branching 
Sorghum for sirup-making, knowing quite 
well that several other varieties of sorghum 
excelled it for this purposo. It is as a fodder 
plant only that we recommend it.—Ens.] 
It was too ripe, I think. I don’t think it will 
pay for making into sirup, as there are much 
better varieties. I did not try it for fodder. 
Several heads of seed ripened, but the spar¬ 
rows took the best of it. The asparagus has 
done well: from the name I should think 
the “Giant Purple Dutch ” is the same that 
James Vick sends out as Giant Ulm, which is 
an excellent variety. [They are not the same, 
however.— Eds. ] From the packet of dianthus 
I got 12 plants of Japan pinks, one carnation or 
picotee and three plants that look like the 
Florists’ or Paisley Pink. From the packet 
of carnations and picoteos wo had seven car¬ 
nations or picotees and 11 Japan Pinks. The 
Japan Pinks have flowered and are good vari¬ 
eties. The carnations, picotees and Paisley 
Pinks have not bloomed yet. Altogether, we 
have been well pleased with Rural seeds, and 
and also with the Rt/tia l. A. M. Coe. 
Prnnsylvnnln 
Brodheapsvillk, Monroe Co., Dec. 14.— 
My White Elephant was cut in six pieces and 
planted in six hills; but owing to the very se¬ 
vere drought it did not yield very well—only 
about eight pounds, mostly small. One thing 
I noticed, the bugs did not trouble the plants. 
I found n few on w'hen the Hants were small; 
these I killed und was not troubled with any 
more. Early Rose and other varieties they 
nearly destroyed. Many wells and springs are 
dry yet, causing much trouble to many farm 
ere. Wheat and hay crops were quite good; 
com, rye and potatoes very poor; buckwheat 
almost a failure. Prices of everything high; 
Wheat, $1.40 @1.50 per nushel; rye. $1; corn, 
80c.; buckwheat, $1; potatoes, 85c.; butter, 
30c.; eggs, 30c., —good for those who have any 
thing to sell. e. p. a 
Saegkrtown, Crawford Co., Dec. 19.—We 
are having splendid Winter weather now. No 
snow; ground frozen hard; but it is pleasant 
getting around. My little Elephant had eight 
eyes, and I planted it in eight hills on very 
dry, gravelly soil, so it did not have a very 
good chance; but 1 had 11 pounds of tubers. 
The Washington Oats grew finely but smut¬ 
ted badly. Our crops were all reasonably good 
and commanded a fair price: Wheat, $1.40; 
corn, 75c.; potatoes. 75@80c.; oats, 50c.; hay, 
$10 per ton at the barn; pork, 7%c. per 
pound. D .' A . k . 
Vermont 
Vernon, Windham Co., Dec. 17.—The 
White Elephant Potato I cut into 10 pieces, 
which made as manv hills. When I dug them 
a few had rotted. I have saved nine pounds 
at this writing, although about half of the 
yield have decayed. The Washington Oats 
grew find v, but were partially destroyed by 
a storm when in the milk, I sowed a piece 
of land to Mold’s Ennobled Oats: when in the 
milk these, too, were badly lodged by a hail 
storm, but I harvested 2 5 32 bushels, which 
weigh 80 pounds per bushel—yield at the 
rate of 80 bushels per acre. j. e. a. 
Washington Territory. 
Dwamish, King Co , Dec. 18 —The climate 
in this country is not adapted to the growth 
of the Rural Branching Sorghum ; only six 
stalks came up from the seed ; and they did not 
grow over a foofcin bight. The White Elephant 
Potato did very well ; mine had nine eyes, and 
I cut it it nine pieces, and put one in a hill 
and dug 22 pounds of very nice tubers. The 
Washington Oats wore also quite a success ; 
they grew to the hight of six feet had very 
large straw and stood up well until ripe. I 
saved ten pounds of fine, plump oats. The 
flower seeds did not come up. The asparagus 
came up very well. Crops in general were 
good throughout this country, e. l. r. 
Wisconsin, 
Greenfield, Milwaukee Co., Dec., 20.—The 
[last season was very wet and cold in the first 
part and wet and warm later on, but the 
farmers are very well content with the sea- 
Bon. My little White Elephant increased to 
a peek. The Rural Branching Sorghum seed, 
all rotted except one hill that ripened its seed 
but some horses got at it and ate it up. The 
Washington Oats were the best show of oats 
I ever saw; although planted late they 
yielded half a bushel weighing 14 pounds. 
The asparagus came up niceJy, but owing to 
the wet did not make a large growth. The 
Rural New-Yorker was the first paper 
I ever subscribed for ; that was more than 30 
years ago. 1 have taken a great many ditfer- 
ent ones since, but 1 think the Rural lieats 
them all. One word to the Rural family: 
Without much effort I have sent two new 
subscribers. Now if all the family will do 
likewise, we will have a paper that will dis¬ 
tance all competitors. a. l. s. 
[Should our other subscribers follow so ex¬ 
cellent an example we shall certainly do our 
share towards realizing our friend’s promise. 
Eds.] 
Menomonee, Dunn Co., Dec. 19.—The En¬ 
nobled Oats rusted badly, but the straw was 
stiff and stood well. Last Spring I sowed the 
seed I saved from them, and never had better 
oats. I think them “number One” for this 
timbered land. The mangold did well, I had 
seven bushels from the seed sent me. The 
Blount’s Prolific Corn I planted in my garden. 
It grew to lie very large but did not ripen. 
It induced me, however, to send for some seed 
last Spring; I also sent for some Chester Mam¬ 
moth. I planted both on June Grass sod 
on May the 9th, 1881,'three kernels in a hill 
three by four feet apart. There was about 
one-fourth of an acre—half of it being given 
to each sort. The Blount Prolific ripened 
September 15. It Is rightly named: it bad 
three to five ears well filled on a stalk; one 
stalk bad eight ears, but they did not all fill. 
The Mammoth had generally only one ear, 
rarely two; but they were very large. One 
ear measured 18 inches in length and had 18 
rows—good, sound corn. It ripened at fhe 
same time as the Prolific. From both I had 
40 bushels. Ears of both were about tbe 
same. We had a very wet time from the last 
week in August until the third week in 
October, which kept Fall work hack. The 
cow-peas grew to cover the ground, but did 
not ripen seed, Tbe flower seed did not ger¬ 
minate. So much for 1880. Now for 1881; The 
Washington Oats did well; I sowed them on 
good garden soil; they stood well; straw good: 
but the small birds like them too well to be 
profitable for this country. The White Ele¬ 
phant Pot * to had 11 eyes; I cut it into 11 pieces 
and planted them in 11 hills, and obtained a 
good bushel of tubers by measure; one meas¬ 
ured 13 inches in length and 12 inches in cir¬ 
cumference. The asparagus grew well; I have a 
fine bed of it -I think every seed grew. Some 
of the flower seeds grew and did well; some 
of t.lie pinks were the finest I ever saw, and I 
have seen a good many, hut never such Hue 
ones Could not get along without the 
Rural New-Yorker. e. w. 
[Thanks lor tbe above report. It answers 
many questions we have received as to wheth¬ 
er the above mentioned varieties of field corn 
would mature so far North. We should 
much like to see the ear of Chester County 
Mammoth measuring 18 inches in length.— 
Eds.] 
(ihc (fitterbi 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
[Every query must he accompanied by tbe name 
and address of the writer to Insure attention ] 
DIARRHEA IN A nORSE. 
J. A. W,, Lansing, Mich., has a mare with 
foal that has been troubled with diarrhea for 
a month: all remedies known to him have 
failed, and he asks what treatment would he 
likely to succeed. 
Ans. —There are practically three forms of 
this disease—superpurgation,diarrhea and dys¬ 
entery—and each is best remedied by a 
special line of treatment. From the lack of 
full information as to the aause and symp 
toms in the present case, it is doubtful to 
which form to assign it. The principal causes 
of the malady are over exertion, exposure to 
cold, drinking too freely of cold water, and 
heavy doses of physic. To whichever of these 
causes the present disease may be due and 
whatever form it may have assumed, the fol¬ 
lowing treatment must do good mid cannot 
do harm. Give every two hours: prepared 
chalk, half an ounce; catechu powder, one 
drachm; powdered opium, ten grains; tinc¬ 
ture of ginger, one ounce. Mix and give as a 
djrench. During the action of the remedy tbe 
body must be kept, warm by proper clothing 
ami the legs should be encased in flannel ban¬ 
dages previously made hot before tbe fire a d 
renewed when cold, in cases of protracted 
diarrhea, rice water is an excellent drink and 
the liberal use of charcoal has a very benefic¬ 
ial effect. A nutritious diet should always be 
given in cases of prostration and debility. 
A BUSHEL BOX OF APPLES. 
IF. C. G., Mentor, 0., asks what should be the 
dimensions of a box to hold a bushel of apples, 
even full, so that one box could be placed on 
another without bruising the contents, 
Ans.—A heaped bushel contains 2,750 cubic 
inches. A box 18j-j inches long 15 wide and 
10 deep will hold exactly a heaped bushel. If 
made in the manner here shown one can be 
placed upon another and leave a small air 
space. The boxes should lie made of narrow 
5^-inch strips, with spaces of one inch between 
them.. 
APPLE BOX.— FIG. 5. 
The engraving shows how the side of the 
box is made, all that is required is to make 
two sides in this way and then put on the ends 
and the bottom in the same style. Hand holes 
should be cut in tbe ends in the top strip to 
lift them by. In setting one box upon another 
the feet of one rest upon the tops of the posts 
in the lower one. The boxes made even full 
will hold just one heaped bushel In cutting 
the pieces, the end strips should be made 1 
inch longer than the above measure, that is, 
16)^ inches, so as to allow for the lap of three, 
quarters of n inch on each side. If made 
of one-inch stuff the said strips should be cut 
17 inches long. 
BURRY WOOL : SHODDY. 
“A Reader," Huntingdon, Pa., asks, 1, how 
to get rid of burrs in wool ; 2, whether cheap 
clothing is made of rags, domestic and im¬ 
ported. 
Ans — 1 , The only way to get burrs and 
other hooked seeds from wool is to put the 
wool through a burr-picki ng machine, which 
separates them by a process of carding. This 
can only be done by the manufacturer, as it 
is one of the processes in cleaning the wool 
for making yarn and doth. Burry wool sells 
at a reduced price because of the cost and 
waste incident to this process. 2, A vast 
quantity of old rag's ; or, as they are called, 
“shoddy” is used up in the manufacture of in¬ 
ferior clothing and some of the highest priced 
woolen goods contain some shoddy. There 
are hundreds of factories in this country 
which use nothing else and some faint idea of 
the character of the material may be gathered 
from a visit to such a factory in which the 
foul odors from the filthy rags which have 
seen service in the most wretched places are 
almost insupportable. 
GAS LIME. 
C. Ill I'., Stratford, Canada, asks what shall 
he do with gas lime to render it a fertilizer, 
and whether it would be beneficial on a stiff 
clay soil. 
Ans.—F resh gas lime contains sulphuretted 
hydrogen, which it removes from the gas as 
this is passed through a mixture of it with 
water, and in the state known as milk of lime; 
it also removes the carbonic aeid from the 
gas, and, combining with this, b comes car¬ 
bonate of lime. This carbonate of lime holds 
the sulphuretted hydrogen loosely mingled 
with i r s moisture. As it dries the sulphuret¬ 
ted hydrogen evaporates with (lie moisture, 
and after six or eight months the lime is 
wholly freed from this poisonous gas. It is 
then in the condition of mild lime, having lost 
its causticity by absorption of carbonic acid. 
Its effects upon soils then are a boost wholly 
mechanical, excepting to some extent that the 
lime contains some sulphate derived from com¬ 
bination with sulphuric acid produced from 
the sulphuretted hydrogen. For use upon a 
stiff clay soil, or upon a light sand, gas lime, 
purified by long exposure to the atmosphere, 
would h ive a beneficial effect, but would not 
be equal to pure lime. 
A MARYLAND COLONY. 
A. IS., Plank Road, N. Y., referring to a 
notice of Clej Grange Colony, Worchester 
Co., Maryland, in a late issue of the Rural, 
asks, 1, is the land cleared or forest; 2, the 
]irice per acre: 3, the fare to the settlement 
from this city by steamer, and from Philadel¬ 
phia by the cheapest route; 4, what are the 
markets for the produce of the settlement. 
Ans. —1. The land is about half cleared. Set¬ 
tlers can obtain land either entirely c eared, 
partly cleared, or altogether under timber, to 
suit their wishes or means. 2. The price will 
range from $5 to $15 per acre, according to 
location ami improvements. I f desired, it can 
lie bought partly on tithe, with interest at six 
per cent, ou the unpaid purchase money. 3. 
The fare for the round trip, to and from the 
colony, by the Old Dominion steamship line 
from this city is $4.30. The fare from Phila¬ 
delphia is $5. 4. New York, Baltimore and 
Philadelphia. 
QUACK GRASS AND BERMUDA GRASS. 
N., Nashville, Venn , asks for descriptions 
of Quack Grass and Bermuda Grass, if they 
are not the same. 
Ans. —They are very different. Quack is 
really a wheat, each culm bearing a single 
spike, as shown in our illustration a few weeks 
ago. Bermuda Grass bears from three to five 
spikes to a culm—the flowers are small and 
closely set. The flowering stalks or culms are 
only about a foot high, while those of “Quack” 
are several feet, according to soil. We need 
not enter into particulars. See the illustra¬ 
tions referred to. We shall ere long present 
engravings, from nature, of the Bermuda. 
Miscellaneous. 
S, M. J., Cleveland, Ohio, asks, how the 
nutritive ratio is obtained in the German feed¬ 
ing experiments; 2, what is the price of 
muriate of potash in this city and who is a re¬ 
liable party from whom it can be obtained. 
Ans. —J. The normal nutritive ratio as fixed 
by the German chemists is one of flesh-form¬ 
ers, albuminoids, nitrogenous matters, pro¬ 
tein, or whatever these may be called, to five 
or six of carbo-hydrates, fat-formers, or oil, 
starch, sugar, gum, and digestible cellulose. 
If a substance contains eight per cent, of the 
former and 40 to 48 of the latter the nutri¬ 
tive ratio is one to five or six, and such a food 
is considered as a perfectly balanced food. If 
it has five of the former and 60 of the lat- 
