* 
AU5 42 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal ..or Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S C1RMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 8-1 Park Row. New York. 
A struck table«poouful of Russia tur¬ 
nip seeds to 50 feet square, is a neighbor’s 
rule for sowing. He wants the turnips 
from eight to twelve inches apart. He 
prefers the latter distance. 
Successful farming will depend, in 
the future, largely on avoidance of waste. 
We are learning how to make land pro¬ 
ductive; how to market crops advantag¬ 
eously; wheu to sow and when to reap,— 
are we learning how to suve? We lose 
from negligence, from unskillful manipu¬ 
lation of farm products; from keeping 
unprofitable stock; from wastefulness in 
feeding; from hiring cheap and insuffi¬ 
cient help. These losses seem intangible, 
but they represent “ hard casn.” 
corn-worm which also feeds upon toma¬ 
toes, ihe cotton boll and tobacco plant is 
Heliothis armigera. B ick numbers of the 
Rural will give- its entiie history as well 
as illustrations showing its different forms 
from the moth to the pupa. 
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 18t2. 
FIFTY DOLL IRS IN PREMIUMS! 
The Rural Neav-Yoiiker hereby offers 
$50. CO in premiums for the best series of 
articles on 
“ Profitable Farming for a Poor 
Man.” 
FIRST PREMIUM, - - $25.00 
SECOND PREMIUM, - 15.00 
THTRD PREMIUM, - - 10.00 
The object cf such articles will be to 
assist those farmers who have limited 
means; those with a small capital who 
are about to engage in farming; those 
Avho have farms which arc* not prying the 
owners. We do not limit the writers to 
any special branch of farming, oil or any 
branch may be considered dairy, stock, 
field crops, market gardening, small fruits, 
large fruits— one, any or all. The Rural 
hopes, by this course, to place before its 
readers the best guides for the poor farm¬ 
er, while such information must prove of 
value to the successful farmer as well. 
All valuable articles sent, to the Rural 
New-Yorker under this offer, will be 
printed sooner or later, while the prizes 
will be awarded by disinterested and 
capable judges on or before the loth of 
December next. The competing articles 
should reach this office not later than 
November 1, 1883. 
The writers are not restricted as to the 
length or number of the articles consti¬ 
tuting the series. They will be judged 
not by length, not by fine lunguage or 
handwriting or grammatical construction. 
They will be judged simply by the value 
of the subject-matter, whether short or 
long, whether written on white or brown 
paper, so that tee writing itself be easily 
legible . The Rural expresses the hope 
that those farmers w'ho have passed the 
trying ordeal from poverty to comfort¬ 
able circumstances by the SAveat of their 
brows, Avill be the first to enter this contest 
and tell how they did it. 
Here is an item that.is “ goitig the 
rounds:’’ ‘‘The meat production of 
Great. Britain and Irelaud has falleD off. 
In 1808 there were for every head of the 
population 30 cows, 116 sheep, and 11 
pigs, or 157 of all cattle. In 1883 the 
total was only 115. While this d-eline in 
cattle has taken place the consumption of 
meat his increased to £16 9s, 6d. in 1881, 
from £10 2s. per head in 1850.” About 
the alleged increase in the consumption 
of meat we IiaA’e nothing to say, but in 
the alleged number of cattle per head 
there is a blunder so p ilpable that anyone 
should be able to notice it. This can 
be easily shown by taking the case of 
England alone. According to the statis¬ 
tics next at hand, the population of that 
Kingdom in 1871 avhs 21.487,688. To 
allow' the above number of animals to 
each head therefore there ought to have 
been in the Kingdom 644.G30.040 rows; 
2,490,571.708 sheep and 236.394,568 
swine. In 1872, however, the actual num¬ 
bers were 5.634,994 cattle, 27,921,507 
sheet', and 2,771,749 swine. In Scotland, 
Wal s and Ireland the proportion would 
be about the same. We have seen this 
misleading item in half-a dozen papers, 
and to-day, In I it holds a prominent place 
ii one of out* foremost New Yotk dailies! 
EXPERIMENTS WITH PYRETHRUM. 
Continuing our experiments with Pyre- 
thrum powder, we have found that sev¬ 
eral kinds of caterpillars found on pine 
aud apple trees are destroyed by it, if 
blown upon them through a bellows. 
This is a most economical way of distrib¬ 
uting it, tiucu a very sma’l quantity may 
be made to go a long Avny. A gill, for 
instance, would suffice for nu infested 
tree ten feet high. It the air is quiet one 
can force a spray of powder through the 
bellows to a distance of six feet easily 
enough, while the pow der a\ i 11 prove more 
effectual than if the im-ect receded it 
nearer ihe nozzle of the bellows. 
We may now teport, and we do so with 
muchs itisfaction, that the smallest quin- 
tity blown into the forming heads of cab¬ 
bages will kill the destructive cabbage 
worm in from twelve to eighteen hours. 
The lightest puffs blown in r heir teuts 
will kill the tent caterpillar in about 
twelve hours. At first they do not mit d 
it in the least; then they begin to worry, 
and in five minutes are in a state of 
agony or at least of great excitement. In 
ten minutes they begin to drop to the 
ground. Avhere in a few hours they will be 
found dead and dying. 
The price of fresh, pure Pyrethrum 
powder is very high, but used through 
bellows, a small quantity may be made to 
do such effective service that the saving 
of time renders its use economical. Speed 
the day that Ave may grow our own plants 
and manufacture our own Dalmatian In¬ 
secticide! 
ENFORCE THE LAWS. 
The corn-worm is increasing to an 
alarming extent. Our own early sweet 
corn and that of our neighbors are so in¬ 
fested the presentseasou that, on an aver¬ 
age, every other ear has a worm and 
sometimes two AA'Orins are found in the 
same ear. What is to be done? No 
practicable remedy has yet been fouud or 
even suggested, since the eggs are depos¬ 
ited upon the silk, and the grubs boou 
fiad their way to the tender kernels upon 
which they live, securely sheltered by the 
hunk s , The entomological name o i the 
Taa'o of the laws passed by the last 
Legislature of this State relating to oleo¬ 
margarine and kiudied concoctions, went 
into operation lately. One imposing a 
fine of not less than $50 nor more than 
$200 on everyone who sells any of these 
products exetpt under its proper name, 
went into force on July 38. The other, 
preventing the coloring of bogus butter 
or cheese, under the same penalty, took 
effect on August 1. The latter, however, 
sa explained in the Rural a couple of 
months ago, will bo inoptrative, owing 
to the insertion of a c ause providing 
that the bill shall Dot interfere with righis 
protected by a patent. The proper en¬ 
forcement of the law regulating the sale 
of the products would accomplish all that 
can at present be hoped for from legisla¬ 
tion in this State. Will il be* properly 
enforced ? We fear not—not from lack 
of opportunity, but. from iack of efficiency 
and honesty in those whose duty it is to 
see to its enforcement. All over tins and 
oilier cities in the State the bogus concoc¬ 
tions are being sold fraudulently by the 
great majority of retail bill ter* stores. 
Lrrge coucerus, like the Commercial Man¬ 
ufacturing Company', no doubt, are rea¬ 
sonably c ireful as to the health fulness of 
the ingredients and cleinliness in the 
manufacture. (Smaller concerns, however, 
are vastly less careful. No less than 
eight of the latter have just been discov¬ 
ered in the low r er patt of this city. They 
work quietly, chiefly, at night,'and the 
repotfc to the Health IDepu-rtgieet states 
that “large quantities of the vile com¬ 
pound, made of the lowest grade of 
impure and rancid fats,” are turned out 
every trght, and “next day packed in 
heavy tin boxes labeled ‘Pure Orange 
County Butter,’ and forwarded to hotels 
for innocent dupes to feast on.” The 
method of making the nox ouscompound 
is described as highly disgusting. Now 
that we have laws regulating the rale of 
this stuff, cannot fraudulent sales of it 
be prevented or punished ? 
’ HOPS IS HOPS.” 
In 1879, at this tunc, prime to choice 
hop3 sold for 14 to 18 c -nts per pound, 
now prime hops sell readily at 50c to 52c 
per pound. Some growers in Central New 
York ha\ r e refused 00c per pound for the 
new crop still on the bines, and others 
are reported to be resolved to accept no‘h- 
ing under 65c. Throughout Central New 
York, the chief hop-growing section in 
this country, the growers estimate the 
shortage of the crop this year at about 25 
per cent., but buyers place it at from 15 
to 20 ptr cent of last year’s crop. The es¬ 
timate in the different counties varies 
6"mewbat. In Oneida Couuty the short¬ 
age is estimated at 15 percent.; in Otsego 
County at all the way from 25 to 
to 40 per cent.; in Madison County at 30 
per cent; and in Chenango and Herkimer 
at about 25 per cent. There are few old 
hops in the hands of groAvers, and pick¬ 
ing of the earliest hops—the Humphreys 
—Avill 1 egin about August 18 to 20. The 
extraordin ry rise in the price, boAvever, 
is not due to the shortage here, but to the 
almo-t entire ruin of tbe E iglisli crop and 
the great diminution of that on the con¬ 
tinent. Owing to the fly, lice aud blight, 
it is thought the English crop Avill be the 
worst since 1840. The crop there varies 
greatly accoiding to ihe weather. In 
1859 the crop was 30,260,000 pounds; 
in 1850, 29,010,000 pounds; in 1870, 44,- 
350,000 | omid*; in 1879,only 11,125.000; 
this year the crop, it is thought, will not 
be over 10,000,000 pouuds, while the re¬ 
quirements of the trade are put at 68.750,- 
000 pounds. The totsl Americanavorage 
crop has been about 100,000 bales, and a 
shortage of 20 per cent, would leave this 
year an aggregate crop of only 80,000 
tales of 200 pounds each or a total of 
about 16,000,000 pounds. Late mail ad¬ 
vices say the B lgian and Dutch crops 
Avere full of vermin and the bine back¬ 
ward. Bavarian reports speak of a clean, 
healthy, but very short bine, and a some- 
Avhat short crop Avas expected. On the 
whole, this year, “ hops is hops,” as sure 
as “eggs is eggs.” 
RAILROADS. 
Feav of us give intelligent thought to 
the subject of railroads. Still fewer have 
sufficient knoAvledge of the enormous 
magnitude of the railroad interest to give 
the subject any adequate consideration 
Avhatcver, or to be able to form any just 
opinion about it, either in its present or 
future state. Let us consider a few 
things in regard to these modern engines 
of industry and civilization. There are 
now in existence more thuu 100,000 miles 
of railioads in the Unit< d States. 1 hesc 
roads have cost $6,000.000,000—six thou¬ 
sand million dollars. They employ 1,200,- 
000 able-bodied men iu their operation, 
aid 400,000 more are engaged in building 
newro ds or extending those nowmexi i- 
enco. Altogether 1 OuO.OOO adult men are 
engaged upon the roads, and as the ratio 
of adult men to the whole population is 
one to live, these men represent 8,000,000 
of souls, or about one-sixth part of the 
whole population. The gross income of 
the railroads in 1881 reached $725,335,- 
119, or about 12 per cent, upon tluir cost. 
Of this $450,000,000 were paid out in ex¬ 
penses, in leality iu wages, or au average 
of nearly $400 for each employs for the 
year. The balance of $275,000,000 Avent 
to pay interest and dividends upon the 
capital invested, or four and one-half per 
cent, on the average. The Avhole freight 
carried by the railroads iu the year was 
$12,000,000,000, or equivalent to the 
value of every farm in the country at an 
average value of $30 an acre, or $3, 000 for 
each 100 acres. 
Now, if these figures a’e compared 
•with those relating to agriculture and 
other industii. s, we find thut the lailroad 
interest stands next to and surprisingly 
near to the agricultural interest. The 
4,000,000 farmers iu America represent 
20.000,000 per.-ons, or tvvo and one-half 
times as many as are identified with rail¬ 
roads. The value of all the railroads i 
about one-half that of alt the farms in 3 
the country. The amount of busme. g 
duoe, bowovet'i is oge of the moot amaz¬ 
ing in its effects upon the popular wel¬ 
fare. What, for instance, would be the 
cost, of carrying twelve thousand million 
dollars’ worth of property by anv other 
means of transport than the railioads? 
This one question staggers the compre¬ 
hension, because it opens up such a vast 
A'iew of disorganization and destruction 
of society that one cannot have any ade¬ 
quate conception of what condition the 
country must, fall into were it by any pos¬ 
sibility deprived of the service of the 
railroads. At the rite of increase for 
the p«8t ton years, the total mileage of 
the railroads, and, of course, the number 
of men employed and all the other figures 
involved, Avill double in the next decade; 
and as the agricultural interest cannot 
possibly increase in nearly so great a 
ratio, the railroad will then be but little 
behind it in its comparative importance 
as a social element. 
-♦ » ♦- 
BREVITIES. 
Drought. 
Late potatoes are suffering. 
Wk heg to state, with many thanks to our 
contributors. that the Fair' Number of the 
Rural Neav-Yorker is now full to over- 
floAving 
The Young Folks must pardon us for tres¬ 
passing on their page this week, but Fair 
Lists, like some other good things, “ come but 
once a j ear.” 
W ill each of our friends, in sending in¬ 
fects, plants, flowers, etc., for name, mark 
his name and address on the package some¬ 
where. so that we may be at lo to place pack¬ 
age and letter together without error? 
A note from Houghton Farm, Orange Co., 
N. Y , reads: “We are very dry here—more 
than suffering. Rpv^re loss must result, unless 
we have rain within 4S hours. Tbe damage 
already done cannot be remedied by water 
even now.” The same may be said as to the 
Rural Ex. Grounds. 
Professor Forbes, who haR succeeded Pror. 
Cyrus Thomas as Slate Entomologist of Illin¬ 
ois, has been experimenting for some time 
upon the eh inch-bug, and is reported to have 
di-covered a certain remedy for this destruct¬ 
ive pest, which is now doing a world of mis¬ 
chief in the Northwest. Tbu nowlv discovered 
insecticide is a solni ion of water, kerosene and 
milk, to be applied by means of a simple ma¬ 
chine. The stu IT costs one-half a cent a gallon, 
and it is reported to have proved thoroughly 
effective wherever tried. 
The outlook for crops in England is nearly 
OB gloomy as in any of the late disastrous sea¬ 
sons Although meteorologists say that July 
furnishes more rain\' da\s there than any 
other month except February, still its genial 
heat makes up to the earth for the excess of 
moisture, end the glorious sunshine makes 
people forget the abundance of rain. Instead 
of befriending the farmer, however, July 
this yenrhtts greatly injured him. According 
to latest mail accounts, much of the grass at 
the end of July lay unesred for in the wet 
0-lds, rust was beginning to show itself on the 
wheat., the black aphis was multiplying in the 
moist, sultry air, and altogether the outlook 
was dreary. 
According to a report lately published 
under government, auspices, th«total rental of 
agricultural land in Ireland iu I8SO was es¬ 
timated at. $57.591.960, and for the ten pre¬ 
ceding years the average venriv outlay for 
liquors in the island whs flili.l 15,510. A com¬ 
parison of English and Scotch statistics shows, 
it, is ••Jainud. that. in spite of the dbpnri'v of 
population, the eases of punishable drunken¬ 
ness are more numerous in Irel md than in 
England ami Scotland put toeethor, while 
petty drunken offenses are twice as numerous 
in Ireland as in Great Britain. Strange 
that England should s'ill insist on clinging to 
so sinful a consort in spite if all the latter’s 
efforts to sever the connection! 
Wiiat rabbits have become in a few years 
to the colon i-ts of Australia, sparrows threaten 
in an equally short time to t«*com« to the 
farmers of this country. In both cases the 
first importations of what have since proved 
odious pests met with praise rath< r than rep¬ 
robation; but now the matter is looked upon 
from a very different point of view. A Cana¬ 
dian farmer, living near Montreal, is about to 
sue the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals for having imported sparrows. 
He declares they have already eaten up 30 
acres of barley, destroyed his potatoes, and 
in general made havoc with h ; s early vegeta¬ 
bles. Sperrcws multiply almost as fast as 
rabbits. This farmer—which his name it is 
Dennis Dir e^n—estimates the number on his 
land at 5,000. 
Tbe u«e of wire fences as telephones is the 
latest suggestion for tbe alleviation of the 
loneliness of farm-life in thinly-settled parts 
of the country. In some parts of the Great 
West farm h mses nro mi’es apart, while wire 
fences are abundant. The idea has struck 
some genius, therefore, that the “plant” for 
several private telephones is already in posses¬ 
sion of every farmer, so that terminal fixtures 
aloue are reeded for a free interchange of 
gossip iu all weathers. With such a con¬ 
venience the isolated fanner’s wi o, In her 
fpare rnom-nts, could chat cheerily with a 
distant neighbor as she took a ro>t iu her rock¬ 
ing c-iair; could learn the fastairmsat tl u near¬ 
est village, and order groceries and “things” 
from tbe cross-roads store, while her husband 
could exchange crop reports with the lolfes on 
all sides, and refuse tbe lo»n of a plow or a 
mowiiig-machiue to an unthrifty neighbor. 
Then, what a godsend such a convenience 
wou d be toUalhe and Jack iu the days of 
their courtship ! Don’t laugh ! Stranger things 
have happened than tbe utilization of fcooa 
fur tato jffi ooio purposea. 
