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39a 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JUNE 40 
T H K 
RURAL- NEW-YORKER, 
a National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, Nrw York. 
8ATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1882. 
Next week will be our annual Crop- 
Prospect. Number. We have never before 
taken so much pains or incurred so much 
expense in collecting our reports, and we 
have only to hope that our forecasts will 
prove as trustworthy as their predecessors 
have proven. 
A correspondent intimates in anothe r 
column that we advise flat culture for po" 
tatoes as well as for corn. This is a mis¬ 
take. W< have never offered any advice 
from our own experience as to the cultiva¬ 
tion of potatoes, for the reason that our 
success has never been such as to warrant 
it. This yeur we are making many careful 
experiments. Let us hope something may 
come out of them! 
» » - ■ 
Postage on Newspapers, Etc. —Post¬ 
master-General Timothy Howe proposes 
to carry newspapers and magazines free 
through the mails all over the country. 
Under the law as it stands, newspapers are 
carried free within the counties in which 
they are published, and Mr. nowe pro¬ 
poses to extend this system to the entire 
nation. In proportion to their circulation, 
this would be a far greater boon to agri¬ 
cultural than to political papers, for while 
the vast bulk of the latter find circulation 
within the town or, at moat, the county in 
which they are published, as a rule, the 
circulation of agricultural papers is far 
more widely extended. In spite of this 
advantage to ourselves, however, we can¬ 
not honestly commend the proposed meas¬ 
ure. The Post-Office Department has 
never paid expenses ; there has always 
been a deficit, which has had to be made 
good by money taken in the shape of 
taxes from the people. If we don’t pay 
the postage on this paper, therefore, the 
public will have to pay it, and we do not 
think it just to shift our proper burthens 
on'other men’s shoulders. 
-- 
INCREASE OF COTTON MANUFAC¬ 
TURE IN THE SOUTH. 
A telegram from Philadelphia fhis 
morning announces that the textile mills 
in that city and its suburb, Manayunk, 
are running only half time on coarse cot¬ 
ton stuffs while generally busy ou high- 
class goods. The announcement has a 
significance which is not apparent on the 
surface. Inside the last 18 months it is 
carefully estimated that $12,182,750 have 
been invested in cotton machinery and 
operating capital in the South, 3(51,000 new 
spindles being consequently putin motion. 
These spindles spin chiefly coarse yarn. 
As labor and fuel are found to be cheaper 
in the South than in the North, and 
as raw cotton is received at the factory 
always from short, distances and in many 
cases direct from the neighboring fields, 
and as the uncompressed cotton is there 
in the best condition for manufacture, 
Southern cotton factories have certainly 
some decided advantages over their North¬ 
ern rivals. The tendency at present is to 
make coarse fabrics, such as osnabergs and 
shirtings and sheetings in the South, 
leaving the manufacture of finer goods to 
Northern skill and enterprise, and on ac¬ 
count of the rapid increase of factories 
for this sort of work in the South, North¬ 
ern factories are already beginning to feel 
the effects of this competition, and it is 
highly probable that the Cotton States 
will soon practically monopolize the manu¬ 
facture of this class of goods. Elsewhere 
a Georgia correspondent gives a good 
deal of information in this connection. 
--- 
A GREAT LAND SCHEME. 
The Canada Pacific Railroad obtained 
from the Dominion Government a grant 
of 25,000,000 acres of land, to aid in its con¬ 
struction, and of this vast area 22,000,000 
acres remained unsold until last Wednes¬ 
day, when 11,000,000 acres were purchased 
by the Duke of Manchester and Lord El- 
plnnstone, representing the Hartford Land 
Company of Scotland and several English 
and Canadian capitalists, who have com¬ 
bined to form a gigantic corporation with 
a capital of £3,000,000, or about $15,000,- 
000. The syndicate, it is reported, pro- 
| poses to buy $0,000,000 of the unsold 
bonds of the railroad company. In turn, 
the railway company agrees to accept 
these bonds, at the rate of 110, in pay¬ 
ment for lands, which are to be taken 
chiefly in the Saskatchewan country. 
The scheme is said to have been com¬ 
pleted on May 31, at Chicago, where the 
English notabilities and the Canadian 
capitalists and railroad authorities met, 
to wind up arrangements. The syndicate 
will also take $(5,000,000 of railroad bonds 
not yet in the market, these to be taken 
in payment of land, but at par. Tim 
contract will give the Land Company 
entire control of the land and development 
of the territory, and special efforts are to 
be made to secure a desirable class of 
Scotch, Euglish and Canadian emigrants. 
The valley of the main Saskatchewan River 
except in its lower course, is a fair agri¬ 
cultural country, with some tine cattle 
ranges, but the whole region is excessively 
cold during its long Winter, and far re¬ 
moved from markets, 
-> ♦ «- 
MORE LAND OPEN TO SETTLEMENT. 
When Senator Henry M. Teller, of 
Colorado, resigned his seat in Congress to 
accept the position of Secretary of the 
Interior, many prophesied that there 
would soon be a change in the national 
treatment of the Indian question. As a 
Far Western man it was presumed that 
he is imbued with Far Western views of 
the Red Man aud his relation to the 
“ pale faces.” This opinion is likely to 
be confirmed by his recent decision open¬ 
ing to entry and homestead settlement *he 
Turtle Mountain Reservation in Dakota. 
This Reservation embraces nine million 
acres of excellent land well adapted to 
agricultural purposes, especially to wheat 
growing and including all or portions of 
thecountiesof Pembina, Cavalier, Ramsey 
and Grand Forks. Until the date of the 
Secretary’s decision, published last Satur¬ 
day, May 28, this vast reach of country 
was held by a paltry handful of two 
huudred wretched Chippewa Indians, 
whose thriftless life was kept in them 
chiefly by government rations. Now 
that the “ pale faces” arc to have the in¬ 
heritance the Red Man failed to make 
any use of, it is to be hoped the latter’s 
rations will be increased—if not for his 
comfort, at any rate from a national 
sense of equity. This forfeited inheritance 
has rot as yet been surveyed, but will be 
speedily. Already there are huudreds of 
squatters on the land who have pushed 
as far west as Mouse River, and as far 
north as the Canadian boundary line, and 
it is predicted there will be 10,U00 people 
in the country within 90 days. 
The territory is traversed by numerous 
streams, but wood is not abundant until 
Turtle Mountain is reached. This moun¬ 
tain, lying partly within an i partly outside 
the United States, is heavily covered with 
many varieties of timber. It is expected 
that the Northern Pacific and 8t. Paul und 
Manitoba Railroad, now pointing that 
way, will push on rapidly to Devil’s Lake, 
in the new settlement. A heavy in-rush 
of immigrants is expected from Europe, 
the older-settled States, aud Canada. 
-- 
EA8T INDIAN WHEAT. 
English millers and grain dealers are 
at present paying a good deal of attention 
to India as a source of wheat supply; in¬ 
deed that country is often spoken as “the 
great wheat farm of Great Britain.” It is 
nowexpected that 45,000,000 bushels will 
be shipped to Europe during tire coming 
season from East. Indian ports. From a 
report on Indian wheat, published a cou¬ 
ple of years ago by Dr. Forbes Watson, it 
is learnt that over 1,000 samples of differ¬ 
ent wheats had been collected by the 
colonial government, and that the class¬ 
ification of these gave four distinct grades, 
ranging in value from 39s. 8d. to 41s. 9d. 
It is stated that many parts of India, es¬ 
pecially the higher lands, are admirably 
adapted to the growth of the finest quali¬ 
ties of wheat. The ehief wheat-growing 
province is the Pun jaub, which, it is said, 
grows as much wheat as the whole of the 
United Kingdom, and about one-quarter 
of all grown iu India. Indian wheat is 
excellently adapted for Hour-making with 
a mixture of some varieties of English 
growth. The chief objections to it at 
present are the mixture of various grades 
of hard and soft wheats, and often of 
grains of other seeds than wheat; aud 
the presence of dirt, chaff and other for¬ 
eign substances. With greater care in 
handling and grading the product, these 
objections can be easily remedied. With 
improvements in this directions, Mr. Wat¬ 
son thought that Indian wheat would find 
other markets in Europe beyond Great 
Britain, and experience has shown that 
this has occurred. Of the 15,500,000 
busheh exported to Europe in the nine 
months ending December 31, 1881, Eng¬ 
land took only 7,318,880 bushels, and the 
rest was divided between France, Bel¬ 
gium, Holland, Italy, and Egypt, with a 
small quantity for other countries. Labor 
iu India is extraordinarily cheap, according 
to American ideas, aud it is only very 
lately that labor-saving agricultural im¬ 
plements have been introduced. Im¬ 
proved plows, harrows and other culti¬ 
vating implements, as well as reapers 
and steam-thrashers have, however, been 
recently introduced in many places, to¬ 
gether with the improved methods of 
wheat growing. New railroads are also 
being pushed rapidly through the richest 
districts, thus affording transportation 
facilities, theabsmee of which has hith¬ 
erto not only prevented the profitable 
marketing of surplus products, but often 
led to disastrous famiue in one province 
while there might be a wasteful surplus 
in the next. With railroads offering cheap 
and convcnint transportation to the sea¬ 
board, and the Suez Canal greatly short¬ 
ening the ocean passage, the distance be 
tween Western India and Europe is not 
much greater than that between our 
Western States and Liverpool, and is very 
much less than that between California 
and England via Cape Horn. All infor¬ 
mation with regard to Indian wheat indi¬ 
cates that America is likely ere long to 
find in Indian a more powerful competitor 
than Russia in the wheat markets of the 
world. 
-- 
CONSULAR INFORMATION. 
The April volume of consular reports 
contains contributions from 50 Americau 
consuls and commercial agents stationed 
in various parts of the world. Some of 
the information and suggestions here to 
be found aro of interest to farmers. Our 
consul at Prescott, Canada, recommends 
that our tariff on several articles imported 
from the Dominion should be raised. For 
instauce, in the last fiscal year $1,200,000 
w orth of eggs were imported from Canada 
duty free, and he recommends that a duty 
of one per cent, per doz. be laid on eggs. 
Should American hens be thus “protected” 
is it not to be feared that they may become 
even more remiss than they are now in 
the paramount duty of egg-laying ? He 
also recommends a duty of $1 a ton on 
hay, four cents on railroad ties and sixeeuts 
on fence posts, all of which are now ou 
the free list. It will be remembered that 
about a twelvemonth ago a test case was 
brought before the United States Court 
in Western New York, by the Revenue 
officials, who claimed that hay was liable 
to duty as a manufactured article; but the 
Cuurt, decided that it wus a “ raw mate¬ 
rial.” The consul also recommends a 
duty of half a cent each on hop poles, 
instead of the 20 per cent, now charged, 
lie adds that butter and potatoes can be 
sent into this country at a profit under the 
present tariff, and insinuates a higher duty 
on these products also. 
Our consul at. Gustermende, Germany, 
reports still more serious injustice in the 
collection of duties on American goods in 
Germany. Some time ago we announced 
that meat packed iu tin cans was subjected 
there to the high duties levied on tine 
hardware, and now' we learn that the Cus¬ 
tom-house authorities have receutly de¬ 
cided that hams covered with cotton cloth 
must be regarded as coitou goods, on 
which a duty of 30 marks (about $7.50) 
per 100 pounds is charged. He advises 
American exporters to leave off the cover¬ 
ing, if it is not absolutely necessary for 
the preservation of meat. It is to be 
hoped the Tariff Commission that is to be, 
wull fix the duties on German importations 
into this country at figures that will force 
Bismarck to abrogate this ridiculously 
unjust di8crimination against Americau 
products, even at the risk of permitting 
his countrymen to fatten more freely on 
a hardware and cotton-goods diet. 
Our agent in Mayeuce, Germany, says 
that speculation in grain in New York 
and Chicago has diverted attention in 
Europe from the American market to those 
of Russia and Asia, where the offerings 
are so large that present prices are with 
difficulty maintained. Iu this direction 
lies a great danger for American cereal pro¬ 
ducts. In the five years ending March 31, 
1881, the wheat exports of British India 
to Europe increased only from 5,583,330 
bushels in 1870-7 to 7,444,875 iu 1880-1, 
while for the nine mouthsending December 
31, 1881, the exports reached 15,500,950 
bushels. This doubling of the Europeau ex¬ 
ports in a siugle year is, no doubt, due, iu 
a great measure, to the stimulus given to 
the cultivation of wheat by the dislike of 
European grain dealers to be dependent 
for supplies on the unstinted greed of un¬ 
scrupulous speculators in American mark¬ 
ets, and the same stimulus will probably 
be felt moie strongly in India .and else¬ 
where this year, but ( specially in India as 
the completion of the Pun jaub Railroad 
which runs through the finest, wheat re¬ 
gion of llindoostan, will afford cheap 
transportation to market. 
Our consul at Buenos Ayres announces 
that, a new industry—the manufacture of 
starch—has been established in the Ar¬ 
gentine Republic by persons of abundant 
enterprise and capital. Hitherto, all the 
starch used there has been imported, two- 
thirds of the supply being from the United 
States. As the staple agricultural pro¬ 
duct is potatoes, two crops of which are 
raised every year, there is certainly no 
valid reason why the home manufacture 
of starch should have been so long de¬ 
layed. Of course, this wull, to somo ex¬ 
tent, lessen the foreign demand for starch 
made in this country, where we have the 
two largest manufactories in the world— 
those at Oswego and Glen Cove, New York, 
each of which turns out between 20,000,- 
000 and 25,000,000 pounds a year. Any 
curtailment of this manufacture would, 
of course, be to some extent, an injury 
to agriculture, as agriculture furnishes the 
material for atatcli making. 
BREVITIES. 
Are your mowing machines in order? 
On the whole ensilag3 is gaining friends. 
We would again offer the suggestion to 
train a tomato plant or so up the barn, or any 
unused trellis. Such plants if cared for and 
confined to two or three main stems,will grow 
to the bight of from 10 to 15 feet. 
Give good attention to the melon vines. 
Really there is no more delicious fruit when 
properly raised from good seed. One may eat 
an inferior strawberry, ra*pt»erry, grape, 
apple or pear with some relish—hut a poor 
water or muskruelon is quite worthless. 
A letter from 8lrJ. B, Lawes to Dr Stur- 
tevantof the New York Agricultural Experi¬ 
ment Station,states that, his scientific associate, 
Dr. Gilbert, will probably visit Canada this 
season, and that he may cross over into the 
States and deliver a few lectures ou the com¬ 
position of soils. 
A decision of considerable importance to 
farmers and hired help was rendered by the 
Supreme Court of New Jersey the other day 
in the ease of Mather vs. Brokuw. Mather 
contracted to render service to Brokaw for a 
certain period, but before the expiration of 
the time agreed upon left his employment 
without the consent of his employer and 
without nny good cause. Being refused 
wages for the work done, he sued for them, 
but the Court, decided that the employ*? could 
not recover wages for the work which he had 
done under the contract,, for, having broken 
the contract, he could not maintain an action 
under it. 
In France, Austria. Italy and Spain the 
tobacco business is a government monopoly 
and the privilege of dealing in the weed is 
given to con tractors, under what is termed the 
Regie, on the payment of a royalty to the 
government, after which the contractor* con 
trol the tobacco business of the whole 
country. Under this system the largest 
single sale of tobacco ever made in tills coun¬ 
try,or perhaps in the world,was made here the 
other dav between a contractor representing 
the Dalian Government, Tobacco Bureau or 
Regie and Sawyer, Wallace A' Co., of this 
city. The representative of the Italian Regie 
purchased 12,244 hogsheads of leaf tobacco at 
the average rate of $150. t**r hogshead, making 
an aggregate bill of ♦1.839.(500. 
Last Sunday night a train of improved 
cattle car- cunt, lining 158 head of fine Western 
cattle arrived in this city from Chicago, 
which place it had left on the previous Friday 
at noon. As far as Buffalo the passage was 
slow'; but from that plac- to this the speed 
was from 85 to 45 miles an hour—the quickest 
time ever made by a cattle train. Each heaat 
had a separate stall in which it could lie down, 
t nd the stock could bo watered and fed with¬ 
out uuloading. Just before leaving Chicago 
the weight of the 158 head was22fi,098 pounds, 
or an average of 1,430 pounds per head, and 
on their arrival here the average weight 
was 1,410 pounds, showing an average shrink¬ 
age of only 20 pounds per head. Under t he old 
system of transportation the usual shrinkage 
is from 70 to 1(M) pounds per head. The 
animals were in much healthier condition also, 
and better able to withstand the hardships of 
an ocean voyage. 
W hktukr it is owing to the conjunction of 
an unusually large minder of planets, to spots 
iu the sun, to the new comet, or to some ter¬ 
restrial cause, the cyclones and tornadoes that 
have ravaged various parts of t-ho country 
during the last few months have linen excep¬ 
tionally numerous and destructive. Scores of 
lives h »ve been destroyed by them, und a 
great many buildings and farms have been 
wrecked, Indeed, the ravages wrought by 
these terrible agencies in a few hours have 
exceeded the damages done in the same local¬ 
ities by fire in a decade of years. A bill 
which has lately passed the New York Le¬ 
gislature, and which has just received the 
Governor’s signature, is therefore very timely. 
It authorizes joint stuck fire insurance com¬ 
panies to issue policies providing for reim¬ 
bursement for damages or loss by wind storms 
or tornadoes. It would Le well for our West¬ 
ern friends, living in regions especially liable 
to such ae.real visitations, to bear in mind the 
advisability of insuring against such losses. 
