§64 
THE RURAL 
THE 
RURAL NLW'YORKER, 
A National J ournal for Country and Suburban Home*. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT B. C A 11 II A I 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY MARCH 25, 1882. • 
A SUPPLEMENTARY SEED DISTRIBU¬ 
TION. 
All of our readers have, heard of the 
Hardy Catalpa—C. speciosa. If they 
have not, back numbers of this journal 
may be consulted or any current horti¬ 
cultural literature. It is altogether proba¬ 
ble that the timber from this tree will 
command a profitable market in the near 
future. Its ability to resist decay has 
been thoroughly tested and is on all 
hands admitted. The wood is light 
and for this reason it is remarkable enough 
that it should have a power of resisting 
decay, which seems equal to that of the 
heaviest woods. As an ornamental tree, 
it is also desirable, as it grows rapidly, 
bears large leaves and handsome racemes 
of light-colored flowers. S. Brock, a Ru¬ 
ral friend, has kindly supplied us with a 
quantity of seed for free distribution 
among our* subscribers, to which we are 
enabled to add by purchase euough to 
supply any probable demand. A small 
packet will be sent to those of our sub¬ 
scribers who apply. A postal application 
only will be required, as the Rural bears 
the expense of mailing. All applications, 
however, must be made within two weeks 
after this date. 
- »«■ ■«- 
Hops will be discussed in next week’s 
Rural New-Yorker, and cranberries 
and their culture the week after. It ■will 
be necessary to issue a four-page supple¬ 
ment next week. 
■ - - 
Ip the number on your wrapper after 
the name is 1678, your subscription ex¬ 
pires with this week’s paper ; if the 
number is 1679, next week, and so on. 
See page 208 for full explanation. 
NOTICE. 
All who—having applied for our pres¬ 
ent Seed Distribution inclosing two 
three-cent stamps or an equivalent—have 
not yet received it, will now kindly ad¬ 
vise us by postal card. Those who have 
gubscribed for the Rural in connection 
with the Inter-Ocean, Detroit Free Press, 
World, or other journals which club 
with us, are not required to pay any 
postage. We stand ready to rectify any 
and all mistakes upon notification by 
postal card. 
- 4 - 4-4 - 
Accokdjng to a late analysis of marine 
mud made, by Prof. S. W. Johnson, it 
appears that, as compared with stable 
manure, it is as rich or richer in lime, 
magnesia, potash, soda and sulphuric 
acid. It contains but one-third as much 
nitrogen, however, and is quite deficient 
in phosphoric acid. It would serve ad¬ 
mirably to complement fish manures, 
which supply little besides nitrogen and 
phosphates. 
Strange what a furore the Russian Mul¬ 
berry is exciting. We know not how 
many questions we have received regard¬ 
ing it. It is our impression that all who 
plant this tree will be disappointed—the 
fruit being inferior in size to those of 
kinds offered by our nurserymen, and 
judging from young specimens in 
our own grounds, the tree is no hardier. 
It grows very easily from cuttings, and 
its hardiness is not fully tested. Should 
it be able to endure high latitudes it will, 
of course, prove valuable in spite of its in¬ 
ferior fruit. 
-- 
Professor McBryde, of the Univer¬ 
sity of Tennessee, when he began his ex¬ 
periments to ascertain the best amount 
of seed wheat to sow to the acre, was pre¬ 
judiced in favor of thin seeding. His 
careful experiments—the most carefully 
executed of any we know of—show dur¬ 
ing the two years they have been con¬ 
ducted that one and three-quarters bushel 
produce the heaviest yields. Our older 
readers will remember that this was the 
result of a series of experiments carried 
on at the Rural Farm. Our words were: 
“ We therefore conclude that for this 
farm from one-and-a-half to one-and-three- 
quarters bushel per acre will produce the 
heaviest yield of grain.” 
We suppose we may be permitted to 
say, as other journals do, that good ad¬ 
vertisements really make up an instruct¬ 
ive and entertaining department. This 
is certainly true within limits; but we are 
at present conscious of transgressing 
them. All of us can rejoice, however, in 
so far as they are solid evidences of the 
general prosperity of the country and of 
that particular prosperity for which the 
Rural New-Yorker is indebted to its 
good friends. It will appear that if, at 
the usual reduced rates, wc accepted a 
page or so of stockmen’s advertisements, it 
would be very necessary to enlarge the 
paper permanently. But as it is, we 
think that our occasional supplements 
will sullice to carry us through the busy 
seasons and, for the rest, the Rural is as 
large as it needs to be. The quality oi the 
contents of the paper has not yet grown 
so very concentrated as to need dilution, 
and we yet prefer to devote ourselves to 
refining rather than to extension. 
- 4-*~4 - 
The old Massachusetts Society for 
Promoting Agriculture oilers ‘ ‘ to supply 
thoroughbred imported rams to anj T work¬ 
ing farmer in the State, who shall ap¬ 
ply on or before April 1,” communica¬ 
tions to be addressed to E. F Bow- 
ditch, South Framingham. For such a 
measure the Agricultural Society de¬ 
serves well of the farmers of the old Bay 
State, in which sheep husbandry is just 
now attracting a lively interest. The Ag¬ 
ricultural Committee of the Legislature, 
having questioned farmers by circu¬ 
lars, find a very general dissatisfaction 
with the present dog law. There is a 
strong conviction of the necessity of more 
stringent laws regarding sheep-killing 
dogs—laws providing for the prompt 
slaughter of such pests and for the prose¬ 
cution of their owners, who should be 
compelled to indemnify all losses. A ques¬ 
tion commonly asked is, “ Why shouldn't 
dogs be confined like other domestic ani¬ 
mals ?’’ 
- 4 -»-4 - 
In the case of Wilson vs. the Southern 
Pacific Railroad Company, lately decided 
by the Supreme Court of California, the 
facts are these: Wool belonging to the 
plaintiff was stored in the railroad com¬ 
pany’s warehouse aud was destroyed by 
the burning of the building. The owner 
sued the company for the value of the 
wool on the ground that the fire was 
caused by the negligence of the employes 
of the corporation, and judgment was ren¬ 
dered in his favor. The company ap¬ 
pealed, but the court affirmed the judg¬ 
ment through Judge McKee, who said: 
“An apparent case of negligence is made 
out against a warehouseman when he re¬ 
fuses to deliver property stored with rim, 
upon proof of a demand for the goods, 
and his refusal to deliver them. But if it 
appears that the property, when demand¬ 
ed, was consumed by fire, the burden of 
proof is then on the owner to show that 
the fire was the result of the negligence 
of the warehouseman. It is incumbent 
on the owner to prove that the warehouse¬ 
man had by some act or omission, violat¬ 
ed some duty by reason of which the fire 
originated; or that some negligence or 
want of care, such as a prudent man would 
take under similar circumstances with his 
own property, caused or permitted, or 
contributed to cause or permit, the fire by 
which the property was destroyed.” 
- ■ - 
IRISH AGRICULTURE. 
The condition of agriculture and also 
of the owners of land—the landlords—in 
Ireland, may be partially realized from the 
following statement made by the owner 
of 1,500 acres. The rent is or was, $5. 
per acre. But the tenants have paid no 
rent for a year and a half and, refusing to 
pay, are dispossessed. The costs of dis¬ 
possession of the 100 small farms into 
which the property is divided are §45. for 
each, in all .§4,500, in addition to §75. for 
constables’ fees. For taking care of the 
100 farms for half a year §3,940 were ex¬ 
pended. Back taxes, for which of course 
the land is held, amounted to §2,250 and 
some other charges swelled the whole ex¬ 
penses to a sum of $10,851. The unfor¬ 
tunate land owner who had to meet this 
large sum found his source of income to 
be cut off and himself without any means 
of procuring the money excepting by 
borrowing. But in the unsettled condi¬ 
tion of Irish agriculture no capitalists will 
loan money on the security of Irish land 
and to borrow is equally impossible as to 
pay. Furthermore, if the. owner of the 
land should attempt to take possession of 
his estate and to farm it for himself, lie 
finds it cut up into 100 small holdings 
which cannot be worked until a large ex¬ 
pense has been incurred in removing 
fences, cottages, pigsties, and the various 
outhouses and rubbish of a hundred 
wretched homesteads. Besides, he finds a 
hundred enraged, dispossessed tenants, 
with each a hundred more sympathizers, 
lurking about intent upon executing 
summary vengcncc upon him. It has 
been supposed heretofore that the most 
illusive example of real estate was a 
Spanish castle; hut an Irish farm seems 
to he a more precarious and unsatisfactory 
possession than even a Chateau d'Ksjia/jne. 
RAILROADS AND THEIR BENEFITS. 
To some extent there is a popular feel¬ 
ing against railroads, and tbe term “mo¬ 
nopolies” is freely used against them. 
While it is true that a rich and powerful 
railroad company can exert a vast influ¬ 
ence for good or evil upon the public in¬ 
terests, yet the term monopoly can hardly 
apply when there are a large number of 
these companies competing tor business in 
the most lively fashion. Just now, when 
a bushel of grain is carried a thousand 
miles for 10 cents, the case is very differ¬ 
ent from that when two bushels of corn 
were required to bring three to market. 
Competition has changed that, and the 
dissatisfaction is confined to the rates 
charged for local service where there is 
no competition; and in this there is 
just cause for grumbling loud and deep. 
But we wish to refer to one fact newly 
made public in the recent report of the 
United States Government. Directors of 
the Union Pacific Railroad, to the effect 
that the local earnings of this road are now 
equal to 90 per cent, of its income; while 
a few years ago the through freight 
amounted to 70 per cent. This shows an 
amazing impulse given to the settlement 
of the country by the building of this 
road, and a consequent enormous gain to 
the public wealth and prosperity. The 
same fact is apparent as regards other 
roads. There would be no “ bonanza ” 
farming without the Northern Pacific 
Railroad; no vast herds of sheep or cattle 
in Nebraska, Dakota or Montana, no Col¬ 
orado, no Kansas, no Texas, Arizona or 
New Mexico without the other Pacific 
roads, and none of the myriads of home¬ 
steads which dot over the trans-Missouri 
region or the valleys and parks of the 
mountain ranges were it not for the rail¬ 
roads which have made these regions hab¬ 
itable. And the East flourishes with the 
great West, aud as the hand of the child 
grows and thrives with the foot, so the 
whole Union increases in wealth and pros¬ 
perity with every local increase. Let us 
not forget to what enterprise much of this 
increase is due. 
- 4 - 4-4 - 
OUR NEW INLAND SEA. 
An inland sea 1,160 miles long and av¬ 
eraging 40 miles wide, covering therefore 
an area of nearly fifty thousand square 
miles, yellow with the mud of nineteen 
Statesand three Territories, its swift tide, 
ever rushing southward, swollen with the 
drainage from melting snows and heavy 
rainfalls from a million and a-quarter 
square miles, bearing along on its turbid 
bosom the wreck of dwellings, barns, 
workshops, fences and crops, dead ani¬ 
mals and dead, down-faced men, together 
with the wrack of lumber, timber and 
mighty-rooted trees, dot ted here and there 
witli long, thin ridges and variously shaped 
other elevations thronged with shelterless 
people and starving domestic animals, 
such in a broad way is the sight now 
along the Mississippi bottom lands from 
Cairo to the Gulf. Already the dam¬ 
age from the overflow in loss of crops, 
stock and buildings, as well as from 
the injury to other property, and the 
delay in Spring work on farm au J in work¬ 
shop, is moderately estimated at $40,000,- 
000—$7,000,000 more than the Missis¬ 
sippi River Commissioners’ estimate of the 
cost of a complete system of levees from 
Cairo to the mouth of the river. There 
is little doubt that, just as in all other 
great calamities, the loss and damage are 
at. the outset considerably overestimated, 
but at the best this overflow, the widest 
and most disastrous on record, has inflict¬ 
ed on the riparian States a loss which 
would pay high interest for a generation 
on the outlay necessary to confine the 
Father of Waters, in his maddest, fullest 
stage, within prescribed limits. Who 
shall undertake this great work—a corpo¬ 
ration, the riparian States, or the Nation? 
The Commissioners’ plan for the pre¬ 
vention of such disastrous overflows and 
the creation of a permanent, navigable 
channel in the stream is to construct, at 
the national expense, solid levees wherev¬ 
er needed on both sides of the river from 
Cairo to its mouth, confining it to an ap¬ 
proximately uniform width of 3,000 feet, 
with a minimum channel depth of ten 
feet at low water. Several other plans 
have been proposed, some entailing a 
heavier outlay than tlie Commissioners' 
estimate of $33,000,000, and some less. 
Many engineers, however, are of opinion 
that it will be useless t^ try to imprison 
the Father of Waters in bis turbulent 
moods, while not a few planters and oth¬ 
ers in the South say that it would be wis¬ 
er to use these annual overflows for ferti¬ 
lizing purposes, just as those of the Nile 
have been utilized for ages, arrangements 
being made for the removal of live stock 
and inhabitants to places of safety on the 
approach of the floods. The whole ques¬ 
tion is a worthy subject for the immedi¬ 
ate and careful consideration of Congress, 
of the riparian States and of the people 
at large, whose prosperity is seriously af¬ 
fected by so widespread a disaster, 
- 4 - 4-4 - 
BREVITIES. 
Oats should now be sown in this latitude. 
Clover seed also should be sown at once. . 
The article “ Onion Sets ” is written by one 
who for years has followed this business suc¬ 
cessfully. 
The definition which Prof. Huxley gives to 
science is one which every farmer will readily 
accept. It is, he says, “ perfected common 
sense.’’ 
Mr. Barry says that the Highland (Rick¬ 
etts’s) Grape appears to be very late. It is 
too late to ripen at the Rural Grounds, and so 
we said two years ago when two vines fruited 
with us. 
The Kieffer Pear, even were its fruit is 
worthless, as it is in some places, is worthy of 
a place for ornament. Its leaves distinguish 
it from other pear trees—they are very glossy 
and handsome. 
The unopened blossom of a tree is more 
hardy than the leaves. But when the petals 
expand and the tender stigma is exposed, 
it is easily parched or frozen although t he pe¬ 
tals around it may remain bright and entire. 
It- is often the ease that the blossom endures an 
actual frost unscathed, and the fruit sets and 
begins to swell, but eventually drops off be¬ 
cause its stem has been pinched too hard. 
Mr. E B. Underhill, of Poughkeepsie, N. 
Y. writes us that the peach crop is entirely 
ruined. Small fruits are coming out well. 
He mentions Bidwell, Sharpless. Miner and 
Mt. Vernon among the newer kinds. Cuth- 
bert proves as hardy as Turner and “ four 
timesas valuable otherwise.” Gregg is equally 
iu advance of all other blacks, now that its 
hardiness Is proven, while the Snyder Black¬ 
berry is in every wan superior to Kittatinny 
except in size of berry. 
O wing to the ravages of the cabbage worm 
during last year, many will be dissuaded from 
planting for market, and all farmers should 
at, least raise enough for their own families; 
for it, is comparatively easy to rid such a 
patch of this pest by carefully going over it 
twice with a pair of' scissors jti the hand. If 
one has more cabbages than he needs, it will 
probably be easy enough to sell the surplus or, 
if tbe price should be low, to feed them to the 
cows. 
A member of the Elmira Club said that he 
had the off er of several wagon-loads of leather 
shavings from a boot and shoe manufactory, 
and asked if they would be worth the draw¬ 
ing. He was answered by another member 
who made the trial years ago. He said that 
the leather was in much the same condition 
as when put on the soil. Our readers may 
recall the article by lTot. F. II. Storer, in 
this journal several 'months ago, which fully 
answers the inquiry. Leather contains five 
or six per cent of nitrogen, but owing to its 
insolubility it is practically worthless. Many 
think that grape-vines are greatly benefited 
by throwing about them old boots or scatter¬ 
ing these about in the trenches iu which they 
are to be planted, It is reasonable to suppose 
that grape-vines never received any benefit 
therefrom. 
A SPECIMEN OF MANY, 
During the 25 years (more or less) in which 
I have acted ns agent for the Rural I have 
received, as premiums, four sewing machines, 
one ‘‘Randall's Pulverizing Harrow,” and 
two watches. These premiums have been all 
they were represented, and in some instunces 
better than 1 expected. The watches, one of 
which I received more than a year ago, aud 
the other some two months since, are both 
splendid time keepers. Neither has varied 
more than a minute in two months. I had 
hoped to secure a much larger club for the 
Rural this year, but the competition of cheap 
papers (cheap in price and in material and 
matter) is great. I am certain that the issue 
of March 4 is worth the year’s subscription. 
Success to the Rural! F. B. Weed. 
Jouesville, N. Y. 
