THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
JUNE 3 
T H .HI 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Jouraal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
XLBBBT B. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, Nkw York. 
SATURDAY, JUNE J, 1882. 
The interruption in Dr. Warder’s series 
of articles has been occasioned by illness, 
from which, we are very glad to say, he 
is now well-nigh recovered. The next 
article will appear next week. 
The illustrations presented this week 
of the New York Agricultural Experiment 
Station we have drawn from recent pho¬ 
tographs. Let us have an agricultural 
station and college in every State in the 
Union. 
-- 
Wk have just been estimating the num¬ 
ber of potato beetles we daily pick from 
our experiment plots. From one-fortieth 
of an acre, from the morning crop, w T e 
gathered 205; from the afternoon picking 
300, making in one day 571, or at the rate 
of 2 2 ? 840 per acre daily. 
It is easy to exaggerate such things; 
but it is our belief that we have never had 
so many potato beetles so early, and that 
they have never been so destructive as 
now. There is no use of applying poisons 
to shoots that are just appearing above 
ground. We often tind from two to a 
dozen beetles just covered by the soil 
about steins, just pushing through. And 
the beetles have not yet begun to deposit 
their eggs! 
-- 
John Bennet Lawes, F. R, S., F. C. 
8.,, L L. D., the Rtiral’s distinguished 
English writer and the recognized first 
agricultural chemist and experimenter 
in the w orld, has been created a baronet. 
We are glad of this, certainly, in so far 
as it is a recognition on the part of the 
English Government, of his valued ser¬ 
vices—but the title is insignificant enough 
were it to be viewed in any wuse as a 
measure of the great work of his life. 
-- 
Now, in this latitude, look out for the 
currant worm. There is nothing better 
than hellebore extended with plaster or 
coal ashes put through first an ash and 
then a flower sieve. Preserve this per¬ 
fectly dry and throw a handful up into 
each bush early in the morning. For the 
cabbage worm, before the plants begin to 
head, this is au excellent and safe appli¬ 
cation. For the striped huge which 
attack melon and cucumber leaves the 
ashes may be used alone— or in place of 
them fine plaster, dry or slaked lime, char¬ 
coal dust, soot or tine road dust. 
-- 
The South American guano and nitrate 
trade, which the Chili Peruvian war and 
the late Shipherd investigation in Wash¬ 
ington have brought prominently before 
the public, is of considerable account t.o 
American agriculture. The American de¬ 
mand for guano is supplied through an 
English firm, and since last December over 
14,000 tons have been imported, of which 
it is estimated that not over 6,000 tons 
have gone into consumption. Of this the 
South has taken the greater part. The 
prices have, hardly been affected at all by 
the Chili-Peruvian troubles, and range 
from $35 to $05 per ton, according to 
quality. Of the Tarapaca nitrates-up ward a 
of 50,000 tons are imported yearly, cost¬ 
ing from two-and-a-half to three cents 
per pound. 
THE IMPORTATION OF POTATOES. 
The outcome of the business of import¬ 
ing potatoes from Europe seems to be far 
from encouraging; in fact, it must be 
actually depressing. The shippers, the 
storers of the tubers, the consignees, and 
unfortunate neighbors of the latter are all 
disappointed and some are in trouble. 
The trouble lias grown out of the simple 
fact that the imported potatoes are not 
received with favor, and that thou¬ 
sands of bushels of them have remained 
on the docks of New York harbor rotting 
and tilling the atmosphere with the intol¬ 
erable stench of their decay. So large a 
quantity of them has met with this end 
that the attention of the police has been 
turned to the nuisance and the rotting 
potatoes have been put on returning ships, 
carried out. to sea and consigned to the 
depths of the ocean. It is not likely that 
the experiment will be repeated. Last 
year’s crop of potatoes in Scotland was 
enormous and wholly unprecedented and 
the price was very low in consequence, 
but the business of exporting them hither 
has been a losing one, and we may never 
see it repeated. One who has been used 
to the American Early Rose or Peachblow 
will never hanker after Scotch Champions, 
with their ungainly appearance and their 
flat, insipid flavor, or rather want of flavor. 
ANOTHER POSSIBLE ADVANTAGE 
FROM COTTON-GROWING. 
For some years Mr. Edward Atkinson 
has suggested at first, and then insisted, 
that the lint is the least valuable portion 
of the cotton plant, and from time to 
time he has presented facts in support of 
this opinion. Hitherto, the cotton stems 
have not only been considered worthless, 
but as adding to the expense of production 
by the cost of disposing of them. For 
each bale of lint there are 1,500 pounds 
of stems, and Mr. Atkinson now states 
that recent analyses prove that these con¬ 
tain more phosphate of lime and phos¬ 
phate of potash tlu«n the seed. Accord¬ 
ingly, he suggests that the stem* be ground 
and mixed with cotton-seed meal or other 
suitable forage, and used as stock feed. 
The mixture of ground stems would cor¬ 
rect, it is thought, the over-richness of 
the cotton-seed meal in large quantities as 
fodder. It is said that if ground stalks 
were mixed with corn ensilage, the com¬ 
pound would furnish all the elements for 
the production of milk, niBut and boue, 
so that the feeding of grain might be 
entirely dispensed with. To test his theory 
practically, Mr. Atkinson consulted Major 
Jones, of Georgia, a progressive farmer and 
stock raiser, and he has corroborated Mr. 
Atkinson in his claims. Should ibis new 
use for cotton prove practicable, we fully 
agree with Bradstreet that it will not 
only open the way for the establishment 
of another important industry in the South, 
and add greatly to the wealth of cotton- 
growers, hut it will also promote and 
cheapen the raising of stock in the North 
as well as in the South, owing to the con¬ 
sequent economy in the consumption of 
grain. 
AN ANTI-EXTORTION BILL. 
The bill introduced some weeks ago 
into the Lower House of Congress by Mr. 
Caswell, of the Committee on Patents, for 
the protection of innocent purchasers of 
patented articles, has just been passed by 
the House of Representatives by a vote 
of 155 to 48. As epitomized in a late 
Rural, the bill provides: “That no action 
for damages or proceeding in equity shall 
be sustained, nor shall the parly he held 
liable under sections 4,019 or 4,021 of 
the Revised Statutes of the United States, 
for the use of any patented article or de¬ 
vice, when it shall appear on trial that 
the defendant in such action or proceeding 
purchased said article for valuable con¬ 
sideration, in the open market.” 
An attempt was made to pass a similar 
bill in the last Congress; out although 
the country desired it, the influence of a 
strong patentees’ lobby and of organized 
capital triumphed over the wishes of the 
people. Since then public opiuiou has 
become louder and more emphatic in its 
demands for relief from the hardships 
inflicted on the people at large, and espe¬ 
cially on the farming community, by frau¬ 
dulent practices under the present patent 
laws, and it has become evident to Con¬ 
gress that, as Mr. Cassell asserted in de¬ 
fending the measure, unless some legisla¬ 
tion of the kind is secured, a popular 
uprising will overthrow the whole system 
of patent laws. In view of the vast 
benefits conferred on the country by the 
inventive ingenuity of its citizens, such 
an outcome is to be deprecated, not only 
by our patentees and inventors and the 
capitalists who secure the lion’s share of 
the profits from nearly every valuable 
patent, but also by the community at 
large, for there is a considerable amount 
of truth in the assertion of Mr. Reed, of 
Maine, iu opposing the bill, that we owe 
the cheapness of everything that enters 
into the production of our daily bread, of 
everything we wear, of everything we use, 
to the inventive power. 
But while quite ready to reward the 
inventive talent of a few, we are un¬ 
alterably opposed to the persecution 
of farmers and others in the West and 
in some parts of the East, by combi¬ 
nations who demand “royalties” for 
the use of articles bought by innocent 
parties in “the open market,” either in 
towns or from traveling salesmen. As 
stated by Mr. Burrows, of Michigan, in 
course of the debate, there is no doubt 
that some of the latter act in collusion 1 
with the owners of patents. The salesmen 
go ahead through the country selling 
patented devices, and arc followed by the 
patent owners or their agents, who give 
tht innocent purchasers the choice of pay¬ 
ing from $10 to $25 “royalty,” or being 
summoned to a United States Court, per¬ 
haps 200 miles away, to appear, at groat 
expense, in a suit for infringement,brought 
frequently as a “ bluff,” to extort money 
dishonestly, without any intention what¬ 
ever on the part of the plaintiff that the 
case should cornu to trial. The opponents 
of the bill rely on the Senate to defeat the 
measure, and, iu default of its doing so, 
they declare the United States Supreme 
Court will certainly pronounce it uncon¬ 
stitutional, on the ground that the Con¬ 
stitution provides that the inventor shall 
have an exclusive right to his discoveries. 
A measure of this kind is absolutely 
needed for the protection of the public ; 
the United States Senate cannot afford, 
any more than the House, to antagonize 
the reasonable demands of the people it 
represents; if the decision of the Supreme 
Court, is so certain to be against the le¬ 
gality of the measure, why all this anxiety 
on the part of the opponents of the law 
to prevent it from coming before that 
tribunal for settlement ? 
♦ »» 
THE WEATHhiR AND THE CROPS. 
That “ a mild Winter is the precursor 
of a tine, warm Summer” is a prognostic 
widely entertained in this and other 
countries, and on this basis British weather 
prophets are prognosticating a tine agri¬ 
cultural season this year for the “Nice, 
little, tight, little Island” and her Em¬ 
erald Sister. Meteorological records show 
that the Winter of 1881-2 in the British 
Isles has been equaled in mildness only 
eighteen times and surpassed only twice 
since 1704. From November last to 
March the temperature in the United 
Kingdom averaged nowhere less than tw o 
degreeB above the normal temperature for 
those five months, and in some places it 
ranged from two to even four degrees 
higher. From thermal data it is found 
that nineteen of the twenty Winters with 
a mean of unusually high temperature 
were immediately followed by Summers 
warmer than usual, which were very 
favorable to agriculture. The Summer of 
1790, though preceded by one of the ex¬ 
ceptionally mild Winters, was, we are told, 
an exception to the rule iu such cases, 
and it yet. remains to be seen whether the 
Summer of 1882 will he another exception. 
According to the latest cablegram, vegeta¬ 
tion had made little progress during the 
week ending May 22, and the Spring crops 
w'autcd rain. Previous cablegrams, how¬ 
ever, gave promise that the coming Sum¬ 
mer would be like those that preceded it 
under similar antecedent conditions. July, 
however, is the critical mouth for British 
crops. Then if the Bummer in the far 
north is unusually cold, chilly northern 
currents, producing excessive rain, mist 
and fog, arrest the ripening of grain. 
Across the Channel, in France, a severe 
drought hurtful to agriculture, is pre¬ 
dicted. There last Winter was very dry, 
and consequently, the streams, particu¬ 
larly in the north, are now very low, so 
that the municipalities of some cities— 
that of Paris among them—have already 
taken measures to meet a possible de¬ 
ficiency in the supply of water. It is 
upon this failure of Winter rains that 
meteorologists base their predictions of a 
droughty Summer. The occasional Summer 
rainfalls do not aid the rivers much and 
are wholly lusullicient for the needs of 
agriculture. It is the Wiuter rains that 
fill the springs and mainly supply the 
water-courses. But to this probable cause 
of approaching drought M. Blavier, in a 
uote to the Academy of Sciences, adds 
another due to what he looks upon ub a 
connection between the state of the 
weather and a supposed deflection of the 
Gulf Stream from its usual course. After 
enumerating several cogent reasons for 
his opinion as to the northern deflection 
of the warm Gulf Stream, he concludes 
that during the Summer seasons France 
will be visited by cool, dry winds from 
the northeast, instead of warm,moist winds 
from the southwest until the Stream shall 
have returned to its normal course. 
Hitherto the crops of France and Spain 
arc reported to have progressed favorably. 
In Germany and Hungary, although the 
weather has not been so mild as along the 
coast, the crop3 arc giving promise of a 
lino yield. No definite information with 
regard to Russian crops is yet at hand, 
although reports say the outlook is better 
than that of last year. 
Here, in spite of the unusual mildness 
of last Winter, Spring is backward over 
nearly the whole North, and frosts have 
fallen every week in nearly all the Western 
and Northwestern States, while the rain¬ 
fall has been ample if not excessive over 
the whole country. Fruits and vegetables 
have been greatly damaged in most places, 
and CDtirely ruined in a few, but hitherto 
grain lias not suffered materially, though 
a good deal of corn will have to be re¬ 
planted and Spring wheat will be back¬ 
ward in any event. At all the chief 
markets everybody is waiting to learn how 
the crops are likely to turn out. All cal¬ 
culations and speculations are based on 
the outlook for the next harvest. If that 
is abundant there will be another era of 
heavy trading and lively speculation, with 
a continuance of “good times.” Should 
the harvest be short or inferior it seems 
the universal opinion that u period of 
great depression will follow all over the 
country. The state of the weather during 
the next couple of weeks will go far 
towards deciding the question of agricul¬ 
tural and national prosperity. 
4 » »-- 
BREVITIES. 
“ The County of Cook Mutual Homestead 
Company,’, of Illinois, with D. R. Brewer, 
President, and Charles T. Drake, Secretary, 
is one of those bogus concerns organized to 
swindle farmers and others when they can. 
A great many $1,000 bonds of the scheme have 
been disponed of, especially it is said, here at 
the East, and those who hold them will be out 
the amount of the cost. 
In spite of favorable reports of the condi¬ 
tion of cattle on the great Western and South¬ 
eastern ranges, the price of meat everywhere 
still continues high. To the causes already 
mentioned in the Rural for this state of 
things, we may add the unusual prosperity of 
all claases, which enables them to use meat 
much more liberally than is usually the case. 
We still think, however, that there will soon 
be a fall in prices, beginning probably early 
in June, as the Western and Texan cattle 
come freely into market. It would therefore 
be well for our friends who have stock to sell, 
to anticipate this decline by marketing the 
animals as early as convenient. 
Some of our Agricultural Colleges might 
learn a useful lesson from a practice in vogue 
at the Massachusetts Agricultural College at 
Amherst. Prom the college nursery this Spring 
there have been sold 12,000 peach, 2,000 apple, 
and 500 pear trees, besides 2,000 other fruits 
and ornumental shrubs, and provision has been 
made for largely increasing the stock. Sales 
from the greenhouse have just begun. The 
method of raising these plants is a part of P e 
regular instruction given by the college ; by 
producing them in largo quantities they be¬ 
come a source of profit to the institution 
which is not over-burthened with money, 
while the students in packing and handling 
them acquire a practical knowledge of ihe 
nursery business. 
Talk about the high price of wheat during 
the past season in this country! Why, it was 
dirt-cheap iu comparison with the prices ruling 
now in Spain. The Spanish Secretary of State 
has just cabled to the Consul-General of Spain 
atthis port that the price of wheatut present iu 
Andalusia, ls$3.50l'£'f4.00; in Castile, Estrama- 
dura and Aragon, from $3 to $3 50; in A licante 
and Murcia, from 1-2.75 to $3 per “fanega.” 
Now, as the “ fanega” is one and six-tenths of 
a bushel, the price of wheat in the above prov¬ 
inces must range from $2 50 per bushel in An¬ 
dalusia, to $1.72 per bushel in parts of Alicante 
and Murcia. The inrush of wheat from neigh¬ 
boring countries as well as from this side of 
the Atlantic, ought soon to reduce these prices 
very materially, but owing to the very 
wretched and insufficient transportation facil 
ities in Spain, the price of foreign cereals must 
always bo high in parts of the country distant 
from sea-ports and the few railroads. 
Captain Payne, of Oklahoma notoriety, 
is a nuisance that ought to be suppressed, if 
for no other reason than because his vain ef¬ 
forts to seize upon what is not his, give to the 
telegraph and the press so many opportni 
of spreading abroad falsehoods of the most 
conflicting sort-. For instance: last Monday 
the news was llasbod from Parsons, Kansas, 
that at the head of 1,500 settlors he bad squat¬ 
ted on the coveted Territory. Next day came 
the report that a company of cavalry and a 
detachment of Indian scouts, after having 
thoroughly scouted Oklahoma at intervals of 
ten days for the last throe months, had 
found only ri little party of six whom they 
had arrested. Again, u telegram of the 20th 
from Chicago, savs that General Sheridan 
announces that Payne and twenty-nine other 
colonists while attempting to invade the In 
diau Territory, had been urrested by the 
troops, taken to Fort Reno, and sent back to 
Kausas. The authorities there are wild to find 
him and his followers so 'many “ white ele¬ 
phants” on their hands. 
Reports of numerous petty depredations 
and occasional gross outrages from all parts 
of the North, from Massachusetts to Iowa, tell 
us onoe more that that intolerable nuisance 
the “tramp” is aguiu multitudinously 
“on the road.” The Jaws that have boon 
passed against this social post iu some of the 
States appear to lie enforced with little vigor, 
and herds of the lazy, shiftless, ill thy, rugged, 
conscienceless rascals are again an annoyance 
arid danger on the highways, a terror to 
isolated homesteads and a plague everywhere. 
The feliowo are mostly Irish, English, German 
and French, with a small sprinkling of native 
rascality among them. There is no earthly 
reason (though there may be several infernal 
ones) why this nuisance should uot at length 
be abated with a vigorous hand. Every State 
which has anti-tramp laws should enforce 
them without pity; and iu States in which no 
such laws exist, they should bo at once enacted. 
In the Eastern and Middle States the fellows 
generally travel in couples, but “out West” 
they often go in gangs of from 50 to 200, spread¬ 
ing alarm before and carrying terror along 
with them. Just now Iowa appeal’s to be the 
paradise to w hich moat of them are hastening. 
