ACS 12 
1 
more attention, however, they might have 
produced moro peas to a pod, If any of the 
readers of the Rural have ever tried any ex¬ 
periments in this line I should like them to 
report the result. 
[Our Fair Number will show that we have 
this season shelled and counted not less than 
2,000 pods. Ten perfect seeds in a pod are the 
most we have found.— Eds.] 
For the late crop no pea has ever given 
me more satisfaction than the Champion of 
England. With me it has been remarkably 
productive this season, and I may add the 
flavor seemed much sweeter than usual. In¬ 
deed, I have almost come to the conclusion to 
sow no other sort for the main crop hereafter. 
The Champion is one of our old standard sorts 
and is deservedly very popular, It grows 
from five to six feet in high t, is remarkably 
produc f ive, and is of remarkably sweet flavor. 
While speaking of peas, I may remark that 
Carter’s First Crop proved to be the earliest 
with me this season. This variety grows 
about two-and-a-half feet high and is very 
productive. Saxton’s Alpha is the best va¬ 
riety l know of to succeed this. It ripens 
about the same time as Daniel O’Rourke, to 
which variety it is far preferable (for garden 
cultivation) on account of its excellent 
sugary flavor, With me it has proved to be 
the earliest wrinkled peain cultivation. It is 
very productive, the pods being of good size 
and well filled. It attains a bight of about 
three feet. 
In sowing peas it is well to remember that 
all the wrinkled varieties are not as hardy as 
the other sorbs are, ami if they are planted 
very early should be given a light sandy soil, 
otherwise they are liable to rot. 
Queens Co , L. I. Chas. E, Parnell. 
MANAGEMENT OF THE CANES AND 
BUSHES OF THE SMALL FRUITS. 
Two years ago I read in some paper an 
article from an experienced writer, who pre¬ 
tended to know all about this. He said that 
only three or four canes should be left to 
grow and bear fruit from blackberries, rasp¬ 
berries, currants, and gooseberries. This may 
do very well in a clay or quite rich loam; but 
it does not ans« er at all for a poor, sandy, or 
fine gravelly soil, except in the case of black¬ 
berries, and even these had best be left with 
half-a-dozen canes to grow up together. For 
years I had lefb from eight to twelve canes to 
grow up in bushes of all the above, except the 
blackberries, and they bore fruit abundantly, 
and of fully medium size. After reading what 
this writer had to say ou the subject, and 
being desirous to increase the size of my ber¬ 
ries, I adopted his recommendation of only 
letting three to four canes stand together. 
The result is that several of the bushes died, 
and not one bears as many or as large berries 
in proportion to the canes left as they did be¬ 
fore, so I shull go back after this unfortunate 
experiment to my former method. 
The canes should be pinched off at the 
hight of two to three feet, according to the 
soil and the sort of raspberry grown; but 
blackberries may be left three to four feet 
long. Let the currants aud gooseberries grow 
as high as they will. By keeping the canes so 
short they do not require staking, uud by 
having so many grow together they shade the 
ground, and add to its moisture aud coolness, 
which are essential to prevent injury from a 
hot sun. A. B. Allen. 
Experiment With Peas. 
I read in the Rural of July 22, a report 
on peas, and having tried the same kinds this 
year, I thought to write you my experience. 
You speak only of one kind of American 
Wonder Pea, but I had two kinds named 
thus: one I bought from B. K. Bliss & Co., 
and another was sent me by the Agricultural 
Department of Washington. Those from Bliss 
& Co. are earlier and more dwarf than the 
others, but I can’t find any difference in the 
quality; both are good aud prolific. I planted 
Bliss’s peas on April 4, and the others two 
days afterwards, and I picked the first Bliss’s 
peas on June 15, the others were 12 days later 
on the same ground. They were almost two 
feet high while those of Bliss were a little 
over one foot. 
I had another sort of peas very good 
and prolific and earlier than the Wonder 
Pea, but not wrinkled; it was sent by the 
Agricultural Department, and called the 
Extra-early Dexter; I could not find that 
name in any catalogue; I planted them April 
5 and picked the first June 8; they grow four 
feet high and require brushing. They are 
smooth but very good and more prolific than 
the Dau O’Rourke, Is it a new kind or an old 
one with a new name? [We do not know it. 
Eds.] I sowed some Blue Imperial Peas later 
in April, and they mildewed so badly that 
they had hardly any pods. Can you tell me 
the reason? [No. Eds] Every year I plant 
that kind of peas, and generally they bear a 
geo rop. J. Balsiger. 
Madison Co., Ill. 
farm (Topics. 
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO AID THE 
FARMER? 
ROB’T W. FURNAS. 
What can be doue for the farmer? How 
can the toil incident to his vocation be dimin¬ 
ished? How may his yield per acre he in¬ 
creased? How may impositions encountered 
in placing products in mouths and on backs of 
consumers b9 obviated? These together with 
a multitude of other similar queries have been 
propounded from earliest recollection. As if 
to afford relief, conventions have been held, 
resolutions passed, and platforms made; Al¬ 
liances and Granges have been organized; 
“our neighbor Jones, known to be a plain, 
practical farmer, an honest man,” has been 
elected to the Legislature, and afterward to 
Congress; laws have been passed ‘‘regula¬ 
ting” trade and transportation. Still the evils 
complained of exist about as before. 
Facts are said to be very stubborn things— 
are! This may as well be understood first, as 
last. Resolutions, platforms or enactments, 
Legislative or Congressional, of themselves 
never made an honest man of a rogue, or a 
sober man of a drunkard—never will. Nor 
will they cure the ills narrated, incident to 
agriculture and the farmer. These things are 
well enough in their places; but at best, they 
are simply evidences that something is wrong 
and needs to be righted. The real practical 
and substantial remedy is indicated in a short 
article printed in the Rural of date July 22, 
under the head: ‘“Intelligeuce is the Measure of 
Success.” When we find that a population with 
28 to S6 per cent, illiterate, produces but 14.2 
bushels of corn.per acre, while another, with 
but two to three per cent, illiterate, produces 
30.5 bushels per acre, we come in contact with 
one of the most stubborn of stubborn facts. 
Whoever dreamed of one engaging in any of 
the professions or any branch of meehanics ? 
without first obtaining a special education for 
that special calling! When we consider the 
fact that all we eat, drink or wear, comes 
directly or indirectly from the soil, may we 
not consider it important that we be fitted 
by education to till it intelligently and ad¬ 
vantageously ? Dr. Johnson I think it was, said 
in some of his lectures on agriculture—in sub¬ 
stance—that on it “a thousand millions of 
men are dependent for their very sustenance; 
io its prosecution nine-tenths of the fixed 
capital of all civilized nations is embarked; 
on it probably two hundred millions of men 
expend their daily toil!” If the half even of 
this l>e true, why is not agriculture—the farm¬ 
er’s vocation—equal in importance with any 
other of the factors that combine to make a 
prosperous people? Why should not the same 
intelligence and qualifications be requisite? 
There always has beeu, and still is to an 
alarming extent, a lack of appliei intelligent 
labor to agricultural pursuits. The less intel¬ 
ligent always in all things, fall a prey to the 
more intelligent. 
For the condition indicated, there is a sequel 
in part at least. The farmer parents too 
often apportion the brightest boy, or boys to 
the professions, giving the benefits of educa¬ 
tion in that direction, while the dull ones, and 
that because, perhaps, they are the most 
sturdy physically, are kept on the farm with¬ 
out education, bone and muscle being con¬ 
sidered the only essentials. This line followed, 
and a race Of the less intelligent will be found 
at the plow. 
A “ better time is coming ” however—near, 
at haud. Our agricultural colleges, and 
other means of imparting agricultural knowl¬ 
edge, and an increasing disposition on the part 
of young men to qualify themselves for this 
pursuit, coutribute to other desirable and 
more beneficial results. “Time was when 
philosophy marched along highways, wrapped 
in lordly pride, which disdained all associa¬ 
tion with labor. If it deigned to cast even a 
look across the hedge that divided, it was to 
vent its scorn on the dusty and less intelli¬ 
gent brain there engaged. But within our 
memory all this has been changed! The white 
hand has clasped the brown; the teeming 
brain has grasped the plow, the pruning hook 
and sickle, aud with what glorious results,’’ 
approprialely says another. 
Brownville, Neb. 
Pig-Killing Sows. 
There is nothing on earth that will make a 
man feel so much like indulging in profanity 
as on going to his hog-house where he has an 
extra nice hog from which he expects to raise 
some extra-nice pigs, to find that the sow has 
had pigs and killed them all. Now that man 
might have raised his pigs if he had thought 
in time. The man who loses his pigs in this way 
has kept his sow shut up all Winter or Sum¬ 
mer in a pen with a tight floor where she 
could not root the ground, and the beast has 
a very natural hankering after something 
fresh. If a man wishes success with his pigs 
(and all men do) he should let the sow run 
out on the ground, if it is only a yard 10 feet 
square, where she can root, and get worms 
and roots, and she will not kill her pigs. 
Steuben G'o., N. Y. Bertly Wilder. 
(Tlje Pmiltnj l)ftur. 
POULTRY KEEPING-No. 2. 
COMMENCING THE BUSINES8. 
After a person has decided to keep poul¬ 
try, either for pleasure or profit, the first 
consideration is the building of a poultry- 
house, if there is not one already. As no single 
plan for a poultry'-house could be given which 
would answer the best purpose in every case, 
a few general hints, which may serve as a 
guide to the novice, are all that shall now be 
attempted. Architectural style is of little 
importance as compared with good location 
and convenient arrangement. 
In choosing a location for a hennery let it 
be such that the poultry-house may face either 
east, south or southwest, but not the other 
points of compass. A place that can be easily 
protected from harsh winds in Winter and 
yet such that the full benefit of the sun’s rays 
may be had on the front of the poultry house, 
is the best situation. The yard in which the 
fowls are to run should have a naturally dry 
soil, or such as may be made so by drainage, 
aud it should contain, if possible, uo uneven 
places or hollows into which water may settle. 
It is always well to give the fowls as large a 
range as possible in the Summer, and if one 
does not care to devote a very large space 
exclusively to a poultry-yard, fruit trees may 
occupy it to a good advantage. 
In erecting a poultry-house it is well to 
make it a little larger Chau seems necessary at 
first. The tendency is to add to the stock of 
fowls whenever a promising new variety 
comes before the public, or when some pecu¬ 
liar attractions are set forth by those breeds 
not “ on hand” when business is begun, and 
unless there is a little surplus space ora “thin- 
niug out,” overcrowding will follow. About 
four square feel of ground space are desirable, 
if not essential, for each fowl, though if the 
out door range is unlimited less space in doors 
will do. 
Not over 30 or 40 fowls should be kept in 
each pen 12x14 feet in size, though of course 
more than that have been housed together in 
a single pen without serious results. However, 
the safost way is to provide plenty of room 
and then carefully watch the wants of each 
bird. It is sometimes said that the more fowls 
a man has the worse off, in that respect, he is; 
but if they are kept in separate peus iu about 
equal divisions, a large number can be kept 
as well as a few. The great difficulty in con¬ 
fining many together is the liability of a sin¬ 
gle diseased fowl infecting the whole flock. 
If one wishes to go to the expense and trou¬ 
ble, foundations and walls of stone and mor¬ 
tar will give the best satisfaction doubtless, 
making the house cool in Summer and warm 
in Winter. Concrete is also used with suc¬ 
cess by some, but wood is the most common 
building material for poultry-houses. When 
they are sided up with boards, tarred paper 
or felt should be placed between the weather- 
boarding and inside sheathing, ana if the in¬ 
side can be lathed and plastered so much the 
better. AVindows should be movable, so that 
iu Summer any or all may be replaced by 
slats or screens for ventilation. This point of 
PROPER VENTILATION 
is too often overlooked in building or repair¬ 
ing poultry-houses, and yet upon it will largely 
depend the health of the fowls. A ventilator 
should be made in the peak of the roof if the 
rooms are not ceiled above, and if they are, 
openiugs, provided with shutters, should be 
made near the ceilings on opposite sides, in 
order to have a circulation of air, care being 
taken to build the perches so that the fowls, 
at night, may not be in the draft. Alt venti¬ 
lators should be arranged to close tightly in 
case it is desired to fumigate the apartments 
in order to destroy the vermin that prey upon 
fowls 
As to the material for the floors, wood is the 
least desirable, since vermin And in it so 
mauy crevices and holes in which to conceal 
themselves and thus escape the effects of 
fumigation when it is practieei. Cement 
makes a good flooring, though somewhat ex¬ 
pensive. Probably the ground itself, when it 
is perfectly dry, is about as good a “ flooring” 
as any, and this may be improved by a layer 
of ashes worked in with the soil and every 
year removed and renewed to the depth of 
four or five inches. All the 
INTERIOR FIXTURES 
should be so arranged as to be easily removed 
for the purpose of cleaning; the perches 
should he movable and flat, or nearly so—never 
round—and set at such a distance apart that 
the fowls will not touch one another when on 
them; ladder ways should be provided to ena¬ 
ble the fowls to reach the perches without 
flying, as they are liable to injuries from falls 
in missing their hold; nest boxes should be 
conveniently arranged so that the eggs may 
be removed from without bo as not to disturb 
the fowls; the feeding-boxes and water-pans 
should be arranged so that the fowls cannot 
get into them, thus preventing a mingling of 
dirt with feed, by which the germs of disease 
are often conveyed from the ground to the 
feed-boxes and then swallowed—one of the 
most common methods of spreading the fatal 
chicken cholera. In the arrangement of all 
these mterior fixtures, a little common sense 
can be used to advantage toward making the 
house comfortable, healthful and convenient. 
No arbitrary directions need be given; cir¬ 
cumstances must govern largely. 
In “commencing the business” novices 
should be warned against breeding fowls with 
the idea of making money simply from selling 
eggs and fowls at fancy prices for breeding 
purposes. Such an idea has brought failure 
to more than one would-be poultryman. It is 
well enough to get $25 for a pair of fowls 
when you can afford it, but those who get 
these prices have, in most cases, worked up to 
them gradually, whereas the enthusiastic 
poultry fancier wants to do the same thing at 
a single stroke. 
The only safe way is to raise poultry and 
eggs for market purposes, and not count on 
much besides. The object should be not to 
increase the selling price but to reduce the 
cost of production; then if we'are fortunate 
enough in time to make sales of superior fowls 
or eggs for breeding purposes, the receipts 
therefrom will be “clear gain,” but we should 
not place an extra dependence upon snch sales. 
Again, if one is starting “new” in the 
business and buys his fowls, and wishes to 
have pure breeds, he should find responsible 
dealers, and from one procure his hens or pul¬ 
lets and from another the cocks or cockerels, 
and it may then be well to ascertain' if they 
are closely related. In-breeding has its advo¬ 
cates, but the inexperienced had better not try 
it. The months of August and September are 
the best time to buy stock cheap, as many 
breeders have stopped breeding for the season 
and wish to make room for new stock, and 
others may have a surplus of young cockerels 
and will dispose of them at a low price. 
In the next article, the best breeds of fowls 
for the farmers’ use will be discussed. J. w. d. 
-♦- 
HOW TO MAKE HENS "PAY-” 
“You’ve a mighty purty gang of hens and 
chickens,” said neighbor Perkins, as we were 
on the way to take a look at the garden, “and 
they do say Mrs. Cornplanter beats the whole 
neighborhood at making ’em pay.” 
“Well, yes, we make them pay a little 
profit; besides, it is a great convenience to 
have an abundance of fresh eggs on hand or a 
fat chicken when we need it.” 
“Somehow or ’nother” said Perkins, “our 
hens seem to be more plague than profit.” 
(And so it is with many another man, and in 
other things besides poultry raisiug.) By a 
few well-directed questions I learned that 
neighbor P.’s poultry were fed corn during 
the Winter, shifting for themselves two- 
thirds of the year; that no attention is given 
to the lice with which they are continually 
infested; that they were dogged out of the 
garden, out of the orchard, and away from 
the kitchen door, and when one was wanted 
for the dinner table, there was a grand rally 
of all the forces, aud poor “Biddy” was cor¬ 
nered or “run down.” 
But by the time we had reached the gar¬ 
den Mr. Perkins had found another surprise, 
aud his first exclamation, before taking any 
notice of the “stuff” we caoie to examine,was, 
“I should think your chickens would destroy 
your garden; I see them all over the place.” 
“They are weil fed twice daily," I replied, 
“and the younger chicks with their mothers 
three times, and though sometimes a little 
damage is done, with a full supply of food 
they are not very troublesome. We are care¬ 
ful not to frighten them, but let them come 
and go as they please. We are satisfied that 
the insects destroyed more than pay for the 
few berries, peas, tomatoes, etc., eaten.” 
“But how do you manage to raise early 
chickens? The hawks take nearly all of oars.” 
“Those are not early hatched. About May 1 
is early enough; at that time we have warm 
weather; the young hawks have left the nests 
and do not i equire chickens for breakfast, and 
by the first of August our May chicks are 
about as large as those hatched in March. We 
find more profit in the sale of eggs than chick¬ 
ens, as in the present condition of our village 
market a chicken is a chicken, and we can’t 
afford to sell in a market where such a senti¬ 
ment prevail 5 We sell our eggs directly to 
the consumers, delivering once or twice a 
