kinds there, and of cattle in the Channel 
Islands, as a whole, at least 50 per cent, and 
in many instances doubled, trebled and even 
quadrupled the prices. One would think there 
was some reciprocity in this.and that it will go 
a little way in compensation to British farmers 
for the beef, pork and mutton we pend to feed 
their artisans, which if not attainable now a 1 
our moderate prices, they could not afford to 
purchase at all out of their scant wages; and 
thus they would be rendered much less effi¬ 
cient workers than at present. 
In the Rural of August 20th, page 564, 
Prof. J. P. Sheldon of England, brings a 
severe and I cannot think, on the whole, a 
correct accusation against us. After speaking 
of the liberal admission of our meats into 
Great Britain, he says: 
“In this respect you will admit that we are 
here more magnaimous than you are; for you 
do all you can—your Government does I mean 
—to make 3'our people the poorest imaginable 
customers to ua, while we are the best imagin¬ 
able customers to you. Surely this sort of 
thing is very uufilial conduct to your aged 
parents.” 
As a triumphant answer to the above, I beg 
to call Professor Sheldon’s attention to the 
statistics of our importations from abroad, 
during the fiscal year ending the 30th of the 
past June. (See the Rural New-Yorker of 
August 19th page 552.) There the importa¬ 
tions are set down at the enormous amount of 
seven hundred and twenty four million of 
dollars. Doubtless the largest items costing 
this great sum, would be found to come from 
the i T nited Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland, of which Professor Sheldon is a native 
and inhabitant. 
In addition to the above, we have given up 
almost our entire ocean carrying trade. We 
have heard this stated to be worth not less 
now for freight and passengers than from 150 
to 200 millions of dollars. Now think of the 
men employed to mine the coal and iron 
necessary for these ships; the artisans for 
their construction; laborers to load aud un¬ 
load them; seamen for their navigation; and 
merchants and clerks for the management of 
their business. Then think of ^he materials 
for the merchandise which these ships bring 
to us, and the artisans employed in manufac¬ 
turing them. We in reality pay not only for 
the materials and labor of them all, but also 
lor the profit, a large one I presume in the 
aggregate, which is charged over and above 
the cost. A. B. Allen. 
Breeding Stock at Fat Stock Shows. 
In the Rural for Sept. 16 “Stockman” is at 
a loss to perceive the pertinence of a ques¬ 
tion I had asked, or its appositeuess to any¬ 
thing he bad said. That question was, whether 
he supposed prize-winners at fat stock shows 
were afterwards used for breeding purposes.’ 
It was asked after reading io the Rural for 
July 29, the following comment by "Stock¬ 
man,” after quoting the remarkably large 
weights of several lots of sheep and lambs ex¬ 
hibited at the Smithlield Fat Stock Show last 
December: 
“No wonder that animals so ruinously fed 
should be diseased and should rear a weak and 
diseased progeny. And yet these prize-win¬ 
ners will be sold aud bought at enormous 
prices because of their unwholesome prize 
winning.” 
I heartily agree in deploring evils which re¬ 
sult from the use of excessively fat animals 
as sires and dams, but I could not see what in¬ 
jury would result in breeding if certain animals 
were overly fed, exhibited at a fat stock 
show and then slaughtered. I do not under¬ 
stand that breeding animals are expected to 
compete for prizes at the fat stock shows, and 
asked if “Stockman” had a different idea. 
Writing this makes one feel much as he does 
when asked to explaiu a joke, but one may 
prefer to do even that rather than be thought 
utterly stupid. G. E. Morrow. 
iann Series, 
(■'wperimcut (S rounds ov Ilic plural 
flnv - U endin'. 
RESULTS OF PLANTING POTATOES 
AT DIFFERENT DEPTHS. 
The pieces in the following experiments 
were cut two eyes to a piece, the weight of all 
the pieces for the diffeient depths being the 
same. The trenches were dug spade wide, the 
pieces covered with soil, and Baker’s potato 
fertilizer was strewn upon the soil at the rate 
of 600 pounds to the acre. 
Test No. 31.—Variety, McCormick. Pieces 
planted nine inches deep. Yield 253.86 bushels 
to the acre. Large and small 119,064 potatoes 
to the acre. Largest average five potatoes 
weighed two pounds seven ounces. 
Test No. 32.—Variety, McCormick. Pieces 
planted seven inches deep. Yield 266.20 bushels 
MEW' 
©CT K 
to the acre. Large and small 87,120 potatoes 
to the acre. Largest average five weighed 
two-and-a-half pounds. 
Test No. S3.—Variety, McCormick. Pieces 
planted five inches deep. Yield 217.80 bushels 
per acre. Large and small 70,368 potatoes to 
the acre. Largest average five weighed two 
pounds four ounces. 
Test No. 34.—Variety, McCormick. Pieces 
planted three inches deep. Yield 3S7.20 bushels 
per acre. Large aud small 101,640 potatoes to 
the acre. Largest average five weighed two 
pounds eleven ounces. 
Test No. 35.—Variety, McCormick. Pieces 
planted two inches deep. Yield 290 bushels 
per acre. Large and small 60,984 potatoes per 
acre. Largest average five weighed two 
pounds twelve ounces. 
DUPLICATE. 
Test No, 36.—Variety, White Elephant. 
Pieces planted nine inches deep. Yield 475 34 
bushels per acre. Large and small 68,410 per 
acre. Largest average five potatoes weighed 
four pounds four ounces. It will be seen in 
this case that the potatoes are few to the acre 
and as the yield is large, the average size of 
the potatoes is very large. The tubers in this 
test, as in No. 31, formed deep in the ground 
and it was difficult to dig them without stick¬ 
ing the fork into almost every one. 
Test No. 37.—Variety, White Elephant. 
Pieces planted six inches deep. Yield 310.42 
bushels per acre. Large and small 65,340 
potatoes per acre. Largest average five 
weighed two and a half pounds. 
Test No. 38—Variety, White Elephant. 
Pieces planted four inches deep. Yield 423 50 
bushels per uere. Large and small 79,860 
potatoes per acre. Here we have a larger 
yield than where the nieces were planted six 
inches deep, and about the same size of 
potatoes; a smaller yield than nine inches 
deep and smaller potatoes. 
remarks. 
T. H. Hoskins, M. D., says, on page 548, 
in speaking of Northern Vermont: “Our land 
in its fresh state is ‘natural potato laud,’ 
yielding from 250 to 350 bushels to the acre.” 
By “fresh” I presume he means land that 
has never been under cultivation. In that 
case the soil must be composed largely of 
mold, or decomposed vegetable matter. If 
virgin soil will yield after that manner, it 
would be interesting, as well as profitable, to 
know if bran would increase that yield, or 
maintain it for a series of years. It is not 
idle curiosity that prompts this, but a desire 
to know the facts about bran as a fertilizer. 
My trial of the Rural’s method of corn 
culture proved a partial failure. The corn 
grew off finely, and seemed to stand the 
drouth better than any other, but when the 
rains set iu the reverse happened. That in 
hills then grew fast and developed fair ears, 
but the drilled corn seemed to have lost its 
vitality, and scarcely any corn will be gath¬ 
ered from it, while the contrast between the 
foliage is as great as in the grain, that in drill 
being yellow and “fired,” while that in hill is 
green. What caused the failure 1 do not 
know, but at any rate I propose to try agaiu. 
The cultivators in use here have teeth shaped 
like a “ double mold-board ” plow, and they 
leave the soil in ridges about three inches 
high. This may have been the cause of failure, 
because of the furrows left near the roots. 
Reading in the Rural last Spring that gas 
lime would keep off worms aud insects, I ap¬ 
plied some to. a three-acre patch of water¬ 
melons. The cut worms paid no attention to 
it whatever, and I concluded that it was an 
injury rather than a benefit, because many 
plants died, and I failed to find any cause. 
Moles worked great injury fo the water¬ 
melons by burrowing under the hills. Nearly 
every vine so undermined, died. The manure 
used was full of grubs, which doubtless was 
what the moles were after. 
I succeed in keeping bugs at a distance by 
a liberal use of plaster. Melon bugs I sup¬ 
pose are identical with the squash bugs of 
further North, but as we grow melons instead 
of squashes (excepting Summer squashes,) we 
call them melon bugs. This insect rarely be¬ 
comes a great pest in this section, and a liberal 
use of plaster prevents its depredations. 
Dorchester Co., Md. Dorset. 
LARGE OR SMALL SHOCKS. 
Unless it be a thorough summer fallowing 
(and a thorough summer-fallow is rarely seen) 
there is no better, or, at least, no more cer¬ 
tain way of eradicating weeds iu a foul piece 
of land than to cultivate it in tobacco two or 
more seasons. The advantages in this crop 
over most other hoed crops for destroying 
weeds is in the fact that it occupies the soil 
but a few weeks, during most of which time 
it completely shades the ground, thus giving 
weeds little chauce to obtain a foothold. The 
time while the soil is free—which is usually 
up to June 1 and after September 1 or 10— 
gives excellent opportunity for the tillage 
best calculated for killing weeds, alternate 
plowing and harrowing—and the thorough 
cultivation which the crop receives during its 
earlier stages of growth makes the growing 
of a tobacco crop—provided the requisite 
thoroughness is exercised—an excellent means 
of eradicating weeds on soil and in sections 
suited to tobacco culture. Another feature 
which makes this crop especially valuable for 
this purpose and superior to an ordinary 
summer-fallow is that during the season 
when the average fanner cannot find time to 
work in the fallow and when the weather is 
most favorable to weed growth, the tobacco so 
completely covers tbe ground as to make 
weed production out of tbe question. 
It is by no means my aim to advocate the 
growing of tobacco as a general farm crop> 
but from my own experience I am led to be 
lieve that few crops leave the soil in better 
condition for future general cropping than 
tobacco. Of course, the tillage must be good 
and the soil on which the crop is planted fer¬ 
tile and well manured. Winter wheat rarely 
fails to yield a profitable crop when it follows 
tobacco,even when tbe latter is grown on sod or 
under other conditions of soil not best adapted 
to the crop. Tobacco drains heavily from the 
fertility of the soil, yet clean fields and profl t- 
able crops invariably follow it. On fertile 
farms, by judicious management—which 
means good tillage, economic use of fertil¬ 
izers, and the free use of clover—tobacco may 
be a benefit rather than an injury to tbe soil. 
I am aware that my views on this subject 
will meet with opposition from some, yet I 
sincerely believe that what I have advanced 
is true, and that more has been said regard¬ 
ing the injurious effects on soil than has been 
corroborated by experience. G. A. G,, JR. 
Elmira, N. Y. 
» » ♦-- 
Roots of Corn. 
I notice in the Rural of Sept., 23 under 
head “ Experiments in Corn Planting,” that 
some one claims that the roots of corn 
growing in an unraanured plot reached out 
eleven feet to a manured plot, in search of 
food, aDd obtaining it, three rows of the un¬ 
manured plot “approached in appearance 
those of the manured plot,” and you seem to 
indorse the idea that the roots did extend 
eleven feet. 
Now is it not more probable that the man¬ 
ure upon the one plat, being soluble, might 
have been carried by the rain, or moisture of 
the soil to the roots of the corn, than that 
these should extend eleven feet in search of 
food l I guess those eleven-foot roots might 
be cut off fully seven feet without any injury 
to the corn. L. w. B. 
White Co., Ark. 
Some Nebraska Products. 
Reading the note in a late Rural about 
the large ears of Rural Flint corn, I am in¬ 
duced to send you some notes taken at the 
Buffalo Co., Neb., Fair, which I had occasion 
to visit three days ago. Shelton, where the 
fair was held, is 178 miles west of Omaha, and 
not far from the site of old Fort Kearney. 
The following figures give the circumferences 
as measured with a tape line: Turnips 32 
inches; sugar beets 25 in.; cabbages 40 in.; 
onions 14 in.; squash 42 iu.; common yellow 
pumpkins four feet. A common blood beet 
was found 28 inches long, and a watermelon 
21. I counted 12 varieties of potatoes; nine of 
corn; four kinds of grapes, three of crab ap¬ 
ples, six of peaches, and ten of apples. 
R. R f Thompson. 
Ag’l College, Lincoln, Neb. 
MULCHING STRAWBERRIES. 
The sowing of oats among straw berry vines 
in August and letting them die down by 
tbe early Fall frosts has often been recom¬ 
mended as a very cheap aud easy method of 
mulching; but the earliness of the season at 
which they must be sown to secure a suffi¬ 
cient growth stops all seeding aud hoeing by 
the middle of August and the rapid growth of 
weeds during September and October has 
been and always will be the one great objee 
tion to oats as a strawberry mulch. Rye, how¬ 
ever, being sown at the last weeding or hoe¬ 
ing In October, may possibly be used to ad¬ 
vantage. I have never tested it here at 
“Elm Fruit Farm;” but I shall make a trial 
of it this Fall; for while in Ohio last June 
I visited Mr. Geo. W. Trowbridge, of Glen¬ 
dale, aud found him making a trial of it iu a 
half-acre field of Rharpless. 
What the effect on the crop was neither he 
nor I wus able to judge; for owing to very 
severe frosts just at the time when his berries 
were in full bloom none of his beds were car¬ 
rying more than half a crop. 
It certainly gave the field a very neat and 
attractive appearance: having been sown 
To make a test of this kind valuable, not 
only should the tests be repeated many times 
—say not less than 50—but different kinds of 
2 iotatoes should be used, because we are satis¬ 
fied that some-potatoes will yield better than 
others the seed pieces being at different depths. 
The McCormick, whatever it may do else¬ 
where, is not suited to the soil and situation 
given it. The vines grow to a prodigious size, 
the main stem of remarkabletbiekness branch¬ 
ing two or three inches above the soil into two 
or three side branches and forming bushes 
five feet high that did not fall until late in the 
season When dug (Sept. 27,) the vines were 
thoroughly green and growing. All were 
cultivated perfectly flat. 
--- 
FARM NOTES. 
Everything that Mr. Waldo F. Brown 
contributes to the Rural interests and in¬ 
structs me, but I am a little doubtful as to the 
specific efficacy of bran as applied to his potato •* 
crop. What the fertilizing properties of bran 
are I know not, but he uses two other sub¬ 
stances that constitute a good potato manure 
—leaf mold and leachings from manure heaps. 
Whether the bran performed an important 
part, or whether it stood in the relation to the 
others that the tramps’ soup stone did to his 
pot of soup, I cannot say, but I believe that 
tbe mold and liquid manure from the barn¬ 
yard were sufficient to account for the in¬ 
crease. I do not criticize in an uncharitable 
spirit, but to call Mr. Brown’s attention to the 
other ingredients of his mixture, and to elicit 
further explanations and information. 
My brother-in-law, a potato grower re¬ 
siding in the Old Dominion, informs me that 
he has raised one hundred barrels of sweet 
potatoes to the acre on very poor land, with 
no other fertilizer than a heavy coating of 
leaf mold. A near neighbor has a small patch 
of very nice potatoes growing on land that 
barely raises enough corn for seed, and to 
which he applied no fertilizer of any kind. 
This land has been cleared about three years, 
and contained a thick growth of pines of 
probably forty years’ standing. Woods’ mold 
is considered, hereabouts, to be good manure 
for sweet potatoes, and so is wood pile dirt. 
Manure water is frequently used for “setting” 
sweet potato plants and in gardens for stimu¬ 
lating Irish potatoes. 
Our farmers cut up a large amount of corn 
for fodder every Fall. This is done as early 
as possible in order to make the best feed 
possible, so that the corn is fully ripe. a« corn 
fodder is the main reliance of most farmers 
for wintering stock. 
A large number in order to save labor and, 
perhaps, time in the Fall when cutting, usually 
cut and put up iu small shocks, twelve hills 
square being the average. This in ordinary 
corn makes rather a small shock, especially 
wheu corn is cut as high as a majority of our 
farmers cut theirs. Accordingly when it 
is cured it shrinks together so that in the 
center there is very little corn that is really 
good fodder, especially in the after part of 
the Winter or early Spring after the corn has 
been well washed and beaten by rain and 
snow. Of course, a cutter can cut and shock 
up more corn in a day where he has but a 
short distance to carry the stalks than where 
the shocks are cut larger; but I cannot believe 
that the time saved iu this way compensates 
for tbe fodder that is wasted where so many 
small shocks are made. 
Then corn that is put up in such small 
shocks will not stand up nearly so well and as 
a rule has to be tied to keep from falling 
down. Where it is not the rule to tie iu 
small bundles convenient to handle, I believe 
(and my experience proves it to me conclu¬ 
sively) that large shocks are much the best 
and I usually put in shocks at least sixteen 
hills square. This is wheu I cut and shock 
up in the field, and when 1 cut the corn and 
haul off the ground and shock all together in 
one place I put all a team can pull at one load 
in one shock. If the com is in the right con¬ 
dition to cut and is shocked up as it should be 
the fodder is far better, as there is less quan¬ 
tity exposed to the weather. The shock can 
be made to stand up straighter and better and 
is far less liable to fall down than when put 
in small shocks. 
In sowing corn stubble to wheat I have 
proved by experience that it pays to cut aud 
haul the corn off the ground rather than cut 
and shock up in the field to be hauled out dur¬ 
ing tbe Winter. And when I do this I always 
set the com up in good large shocks and find 
on opening during the Winter, that the fodder 
is much better in the large than in the small 
shocks. N. J. Shepherd. 
Miller Co , Mo. . 
-» ♦ ♦ --— 
TOBACCO FOR DESTROYING WEEDS. 
