FES. 4 
77 
late Rural. In addition to the remedy then 
mentioned, H. N. D., Uvalde, Texas, says he 
has broken the worst cases of pulling at the 
halter, in this way: If the horse is tied to a 
manger, pass the end of the halter through 
the hole from the inside, and wind it once 
around the horse’s fore-leg just above the 
knee and tie it there. The hole in the manger 
should be high enough to allow the rope to 
lift th« fore leg from the floor when the horse 
pulls at the halter. [We should think that 
such tying would be a serious objection to a 
horse’s lying down, as he is liable to do any 
time when in the stall.— Eds.] 
f lonailiiiral. 
WILD FLOWERS IN SPRING. 
How delightful it is to ramble through the 
woods and meadows in early Spring, before 
the trees assume their leaves, or rank-growing 
w eeds bare risen from their beds, upon a sod 
all speckled over with little flowers of many 
hues and forms. The dandelion blooms upon 
the bank, the meadows are sheet? of Little In¬ 
nocents in flower; violets, blue and white, are 
everywhere: Skunk Cabbages prevail in cold, 
w et meadows, and Marsh Marigolds, or “Cow¬ 
slips,” glitter in the streamlets. We find 
Spring Beauty blooming by the margin of the 
Wood and underneath the trees, the Adder’s 
Tongue or Dog’s-tooth Violet in densely mat¬ 
ted sward in some rich hollow, wide spread 
colonies of Wind-flowers, or Wood Anemones, 
among and underneath the bushes, the gay 
white Blood-root in a sunny opening or under¬ 
neath a shady bush, it seems to matter little 
which, and scattered all around upon the 
slope the Hepaticas, or Liver-leafs, from little 
tufts send up their cheerful blooms. Behold 
the group of the large-flowered white triilium, 
represented in the illustration, Fig. 39; what 
& handsome, showy flower it is, and how 
pretty it appears as seen there by the wood- 
side in the grass! It loves to grow in just 
such a place, where the tree leaves fall in 
quantity and lie upon the ground and rot and 
form a bed of open vegetable mold. The Eng¬ 
lish people call it the American White Wood 
Lily—a happy name enough, for, although not 
a true lily, it does belong to the great lily 
family. And there are other species of tril- 
lituns, large and small, white, purple and 
painted, and which enjoy equal natural con¬ 
ditions, except, perhaps, the Nodding Tril¬ 
lium, which likes a wetter place. And along 
with trilliums, in rich woods we find beil- 
worts in scattered tufts or mats, clumps of 
Twin leaf and Mandrake, Solomon’s Seal and 
spreading Star Flowers, and 
many others. Aud in the open 
or rocky places are little Sax¬ 
ifrages, Canada Columbine^, 
Glaucous Coi'ydales or Pale 
Fumitory, Pennsylvania Pinks, 
and yellow Krigias. Aud still 
these are but a few of the multi¬ 
tude of pretty wild flowers thut 
adorn our land in Spring. 
Now many of the above 
plants, although wild in our 
woods, are well dseivitig of a 
place within our gardens—the 
trilliums, for instance. They 
grow and bloom well in cul¬ 
tivation and spread consider¬ 
ably. They love some cool and 
eosy nook, among the bushes or 
elsewhere, that is somewhat 
moist ami not too much exposed 
to scorching Summer sunshine. 
The great point to be observed 
in the cultivation of our wood 
plants, and indeed in the case 
of many others, is, when once 
planted, leave them undisturbed 
for years to come; never dig the 
earth about their roots, but keep 
it free from rough weeds, and annually add a 
top-dressing of half-rotted tree leaves. 
Cbcnjuiljcre. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Arkansas. 
Altus, Franklin Co., Jan. 15.—The weather 
is balmy and the farmers are availing them¬ 
selves of this splendid opportunity to plow. 
Already much of the soil is plowed both for 
corn and cotton. In this climate no time 
has been lost for out-door work on account 
of bad weather, and everything is advanced 
beyond any precedent, in the way of get¬ 
ting ready to plant during the coming sea¬ 
son. Two weeks more aud the seed for the 
oat crop will be cast into the earth. What 
a delightful climate, and how fortunate the 
man who has been born here or who has im¬ 
migrated to this land of mountains, hills, 
valleys and streams, where delightful Sum¬ 
mers are only interrupted by short intervals 
of cool, bracing breezes 1 Our young apple 
and peach trees still show on their tips 
bunches of green leaves as relics of recent 
Autumn. These linger as if loath to drop 
their beanty in honor of Winter’s winds. 
Our fruit men are fearfully apprehensive 
that the mouth of February may develop 
the enormous crop of buds now dormant, to 
be bitten by the frosts of the Equinox. I 
see in the Rural inquiry and discussion about 
Bermuda Grass. Here it is regarded as one 
of the most valuable of grasses, although not 
extensively grown for the reasons, first, that 
this is comparatively a new' country, and, 
second, its great tenacity and its tendency 
to spread rapidly. For grazing or hay it is 
unexcelled. Cotton is king here, and is likely 
to hold dominion until the soil becomes to¬ 
tally exhausted, when other generations will 
necessarily resort to stock and grasses. Then 
Bermuda will wield the scepter. Gregory. 
In (liana. 
Forney, White Co., Jan. 20.—We are now 
having our fir-t Winter weather. There is a 
prospect this morning, however, of a “break 
up.” Corn, 50 to 00 cents; oats, 40@45; pota¬ 
toes, $1.50; apples, $1 @2; and no potatoes or 
apples in the country. k. c. 
(own. 
Cherokee, Cherokee Co., Jan. 21.—We are 
having a delightful Winter. Roads unsur¬ 
passed. Plenty of land unoccupied yet, al¬ 
though it is settling tip fast. Plenty of good 
schools and churches; the latest organiza¬ 
tion is a United Presbyterian. Hogs, 5j^c.; 
cattle, 4c.; corn, 41c.; wheat, $1; flax, $1; 
oats, 38c. K. e. w. 
Kansas. 
Wichita, Sedgwick Co., Jan. 20.—The corn 
crop In four counties or more in this Arkan¬ 
sas Valley is making more money this Winter 
for the farmers than they ever had before. 
Trade is lively and many mortgages are being 
paid off. Corn is worth 50 cents a bushel or 
more. No snow or ice to skate on yet. Nice 
weather to husk corn, plow and do 
other farm work. It is claimed that 100,000 
sheep are now in this county and more com¬ 
ing. Cattle and sheep are doing well, except 
that occasionally herds of cattle are attacked 
by some unknown disease, which has so far 
affected only those ranging corn fields. c. 
Missouri. 
Pleasant Mount, Miller Co., Jan. 20.—If 
we are to judge the future by the past so far, 
we shall have an exceptionally mild Winter. 
So far we have had no cold to speak of. Pas¬ 
tures are good, considering the time of year, 
and everything is doing reasonably* well. 
Stock, if w’e except hogs, are doing well, not¬ 
withstanding the short supply of feed. Had 
we had a severe Winter like last, considerable 
stock must have perished from starvation. 
The open Winter has proved a blessing to far¬ 
mers so fur. Wheat is looking llrst-rute, but 
everything in the shape of feed is high and 
scarce. Those who have sufficient to carry 
their stock over are feeding very carefully for 
fear of what the future may be. All surplus 
stock was sold as short, as possible in order to 
be able to winter the remainder. n. j. s. 
Ohio. 
Grenford, Highland Co., r Jan. 19.—Winter 
very open and. mild; very good for out-door 
work, though there is plenty of mud. Wheat 
fields look remarkably green and promising 
considering the alternate freezing and thaw¬ 
ing. Last Fall was a splendid one for sowing. 
The drought ended about Sept. 15, affording 
farmers a fine chance to put out their wheat 
crops in good season. Acreage above the av¬ 
erage. Clover took well and yet retains its 
hold, so far giving good promise of a good 
crop. Corn scarce and high, bringing as much 
as 80c. per bushel. Very few farmers got 
more than half a crop last season. Very 
few are graining sheep heavily, or cattle 
either. D- c, 
Tennessee. 
Knoxville, Knox Co., Jan. 15.—Market 
prices here are very good: Wheat, $1.40; oats, 
50c. per bushel; hay, $20 per ton; Irish and 
sweet potatoes, k0c.(?$l per bush.;butter, 25c. 
per lb.; egg, 20@30e. per doz.; hogs, gross 6@ 
6JtjC. per lb. Winter warm and rainy so far. 
Wheat looks very well. J. L. A.s. 
Vermont. 
Brandon, Rutland Co., Jari. 21.— Some en¬ 
terprising farmers in an adjoining town have 
experimented with sorghum for sirup-mak¬ 
ing, and have succeeded in producing an arti¬ 
cle much cheaper and better for culinary pur¬ 
poses than maple sugar. Of course, it can 
never rival the delicious flavor of properly- 
made maple sirup, but if it can be grown and 
prepared as easily aud cheaply as they repre¬ 
sent, it will be a decided acquisition. The 
season has been fairly prosperous. Small 
fruits were very abundant. The hay ere p, 
although damaged by worms, was better 
than we expected. These worms or grnbs 
promise to become an unmitigated nuisance. 
Not content with cutting the roots of whole 
acres of grass, they attack the oat roots, and 
destroy both straw and grain. A part of my 
meadows, which are infested with the “ var- 
n.ints,” I have plowed and shall re seed. A 
part I heavily top dressed, and am awaiting 
the result. Late potatoes were abundant and 
brought exceptionally high prices. The large 
crop of apples found ready sale at good fig¬ 
ures. Two silos have been built and filled 
the past season, and their owners report fav¬ 
orably, but our farmers generally, although 
acknowledging that the system of ensilage 
may possess some merit, accept it with great 
caution. And this is undoubtedly wise for 
those having homes to establish, children to 
educate, and the thousand and one require¬ 
ments of our advanced civilization to meet— 
ami only the farm. An experiment may be 
grandly successful and terribly expensive. 
’Tis well to dilute one’s enthusiasm largely 
with common sense, and leave all such experi¬ 
ments to those having either a bank or a large 
deposit as a base of supplies. n. b. 
-- 
RURAL SPECIAL SEED REPORTS, 
Canada. 
Mount Erwin, Peterborough Co., Jan. 21. 
—All my seeds did well except the White 
Elephant which failed owing to the drought; I 
have confidence in it for another year, as I 
have quite a number of little elephants. The 
pinks and picotees were beautiful. We had 
such a nice lot of beautiful double flowers of 
all colors. 1 have also a large number of fine 
asparagus plants; I had only very few plants 
of Rural Branching Sorghum, all the seed did 
not germinate, but what there was shows that 
it is a splendid fodder plant, as it was green 
when corn and everything else was dried up. 
Washington Oats were very smutty. We all 
like the Rural. It is a paper every one 
ought to get. I would not like to be with¬ 
out it. J. B. 
Colorado. 
Golden, Jefferson Co., Jan. 16.—The Wash¬ 
ington Oats grew well, but smutted badly; 
yield, 10 pounds of clean oats. The Rural 
Branching Sorghum was a failure. The as¬ 
paragus enme up scattering; 1 have 2o plants 
that look well. The White Elephant Potato 
weighed two ounces, and wai cut into 16 
pieces, which were planted two feet each way, 
one eye to the hill. On October 20 I dug 31 
pounds of nice tubers; but instead of being 
white, mine are all red, nearly the color of 
Clark’s No. 1 Seedling. s. B. 
Villa Grove, Saguache Co., Jan. 20.—I 
think the White Elephant Potato will prove a 
good one for this climate. The Washington 
Oats turned out half smut. Our elevation is 
about 7,800 feet.* r. b. 
La Porte, Lorimer Co.,Jan. 17.—The White 
Elephant Potato was frozen when received; 
the oats never came up, but the asparagus did 
well. E. E. w. 
Illinois. 
Peoria, Peoria Co., Jan. 20.—Notwith¬ 
standing the drought and bugs, I dug 14 
pounds of good tubers from my White Ele¬ 
phant Potato. The Washington Oats rusted, 
smutted and fell down, and the chickens fin¬ 
ished them. The Rural Branching Sorghum 
grew very welL The asparagus failed to come 
up because the weather was so dry. I have 
taken the Rural for over 30 years, and I am 
well pleased with it, and wish it great suc¬ 
cess. G. M.gj 
Iowa. 
Burlington, Des Moines Co.. Jan 13.—My 
two small White Elephant Potatoes I cut into 
eighte *n pieces and planted in as many hills. 
Sixteen hills grew, from which I dug about 
a peck of medium to small-sized tubers, 
which was a very good yield, considering 
that the potato crop was almost an entire fail¬ 
ure in this section owing to dry weather and 
to the innumerable hosts of potato bugs with 
which the vines were infested. The pests 
were so numerous that they came into the 
houses in many places, but I noticed that 
they did not trouble the White Elephant as 
much as the Roses which were planted along¬ 
side. The Washington Oats grew very rankly 
and rnsted badly, but I did not see any smut. 
I think I had them sown on too rich ground. 
I measured several heads that were over a 
foot long. The asparagus seed grew finely 
and l have a nice bed of plants. The flower 
seeds were an entire failure, as I did not get 
a plant. w. p. p. 
Kansas. 
West Asher, Mitchell Co., Jan. 19.—I cut 
my White Elephant Potato into 16 pieces and 
planted one piece in a place. They all came 
up except one, and grew very nicely, but ow¬ 
ing to the very severe drought, I only har¬ 
vested four small tubers. The Washington 
Oats grew very rank until they began to head 
out, when the chinch bugs attacked them in 
great numbers and killed them in about a 
week. The asparagus came up finely, but 
owing to the drought, made very little growth. 
The Branching Sorghum came up poorly and 
shared the same fate as the oats. i. n, h. 
Michigan. 
Montgomery, Hillsdale Co., Jan. 20.—My 
White Elephant Potato was small, but I gave 
each of the 11 eyes a small piece to live upon. 
The results was, every piece grew, and in spite 
of the most severe drought for many years, 
I have 100 tubers, any one of which is as big 
as the one I planted, while 60 of them are of 
good size for cooking. As to the quality, I 
am disposed to take what others say and 
keep all of mine to plant next year. The Ru¬ 
ral Branching Sorghum was a grand success. 
A few hills were allowed to grow for seed, 
which ripened well. Between the smut and 
the hens the oats were a total failure, c. H. E. 
Union City, Branch Co., Jan. 19.—The 
White Elephant Potato I cut into 16 pieces 
with an eye in each, and planted one in a hill, 
and dug 40 pounds of very nice tubers. The 
Rural Branching Sorghum I cut back in July 
when about four feet high, and the second 
crop was about the same; it makes very good 
feed for cows. The other seeds did very 
nicely. e. l. 
New Jersey. 
Deckkrtown, Sussex Co., Jan. 20.—My 
White Elephant Potato had 13 eyes. I planted 
them in a row about five inches apart. I dug 
74 tubers that weighed 22 pounds : one weighed 
1} 4 pound, one, one pound, and 21, 12 pounds. 
The oats grew well, but I could hardly thrash 
them on account of the straw. j. y. l. 
Harbortown, Mercer Co., Jan. 20,—We 
had a very severe drought the past season— 
122 days without rain enough to wet the top 
of the dust. It cut all our middle and late 
crops very short. The Washington Oats I 
planted in drills; it grew four feet, with a 
strong straw, and long, big heads well filled— 
very few smut heads. The White Elephant 
Potato I cut into 10 pieces; yield as good as I 
could expect owing to the drought. The 
asparagus came up well, but the dry weather 
destroyed some of it. The pinks grew nicely, 
but did not bloom. e. h. b. 
New York. 
Attica, Wyoming Co., Jan. 22.—I cut the 
White Elephant Potato into 11 pieces and 
planted one piece in a hill in good soil; the 
tops grew stout, and gave promise of good 
yield, but 1 only got about half a peck— 
quality excellent. The Washington Oats did 
very well; some smut; have a kind I like better. 
The flower seeds gave us flowers of all shades 
Large-flowered White Trilliums.—Fig. 39. 
•• 
