408 
THE RURAL WEW-YORKER. 
JUNE 47 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal to r Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1882. 
NOTICE. 
We hope to print our annual Fair Num¬ 
ber rather earlier this year than last. We 
shall again guarantee an issue of 100,000 
copieB. As usual, it will present our Free 
Plant and Seed Distribution for another 
year. In the list we hope to offer a new 
potato, intermediate hb regards earliness, 
which, judging from its yield at the 
Rural Farm and its quality, will at once 
take rank with the very best potatoes in 
cultivation. All communications for the 
Fair Number, of whatever character, should 
reach us as early as August 1. 
■ -♦ + + - 
Fine Hungarian Grass seed is selling at 
$1.50 per bushel in quantities. 
Those sending us articles intended for 
the Fair Number will please so mark 
them. 
-M-4- 
A private letter just received from 
Sir J. B. Lawes, (“ Rothamsfced” Eng¬ 
land) concludes as follows: “We are 
having a very fine season and crops are 
looking better thau I have seen them look 
for years. ” 
-- 
Magnificent specimens of the Great 
American Strawberry from Delaware have 
been offered on our markets the past 
week. They are of the largest size and 
of a fine bright crimson color. Without 
doubt this berry is a favorite among 
strawberry growers for market, though it 
»o signally fails in many places. 
We beg to tender the Rural’s best 
thanks to those who have so promptly 
and fully answered our questions as to the 
crop prospects. A great many of them 
kindly offer to contribute useful and in¬ 
teresting information to our “ Every¬ 
where Department” if desirable: for all 
■uch contributions we shall be thankful, 
as we desire practical notes from every 
part of the country. 
It may be worth while again to call at¬ 
tention to the fact that such raspberries 
as we desire to increase our Btock of, may 
be propagated by digging up the suckers 
with a piece of root and setting them 
where it is desired they should remain. 
They should be well watered and shaded 
for several days until the green, tender 
shoot which wilts and droops from re¬ 
moval, becomes upright. 
- 
Most writers now advocate planting 
celery on the surface the same as one 
would set cabbage plants. The old plan 
of digging pits and trenches is now 
deemed an old-fogy method which with¬ 
out adequate results cosls very much 
more than the modern system. Our own 
plan is one between the two. It is to 
set the celery plants five or six inches 
below the surface, having first highly 
enriched the soil beneath. 
A NOBLE SUGGESTION FROM EX-GOV. 
FURNAS. 
To the Editor of the Rural New- 
Yorker: — Having known Jas. Vick 
intimately and continuously since his first 
public appearance in this country, I long 
since learned to regard him as an extra¬ 
ordinary man in almost all respects; 
especially as a public benefactor. Now 
that he is dead, and his work with us 
is ended, it seems to me fitting that the 
hundreds of thousands of his admirers 
ahould in some way show their appreci¬ 
ation of the man and his labors. 
No one man, perhaps, has done more to 
instruct, beautify and adorn than James 
Vick. None was ever more ready and 
free to relieve the distresses of his fellow 
men. 
A very small contribution from each of 
those who knew him would create a fund 
with which a testimonial monument of 
some kind could and should be erected to 
perpetuate the memory of a man who has 
done so much good in the world. Such 
an act, too, should have the effect of in¬ 
citing others “to go and do likewise.” 
The world has too few such men; to in¬ 
crease their number should be an object. 
What think and say you ? Yours, 
Robt. W. Furnas. 
Brownsville, Nebraska, June 5, 1832. 
[We say that this suggestion of Gov. 
Furnas is one that will commend itself to 
all who knew James Vick and the good 
he has wrought through a life of benevo¬ 
lent industry, and the Rural would 
gladly aid in the work. Eds.] 
-- 
SILK CULTURE AND THE CENSUS. 
In view of the growing interest felt or 
expressed within the last twelvemonth in 
the home production of silk, the results 
of the investigations of the Census Bure iu 
in this connection possess considerable 
interest. From these it appears that al¬ 
though efforts and experiments in pro¬ 
ducing silk have been made here for about 
200 years, yet in 1880 native silk was 
used in manufacture in two places only—at 
William8burgh, Kansas, and at Salt Lake 
City, Utah. I’hat year Kansas produced 
500 pounds, and no other State over 250 
pounds. As long ago as 18G8 California 
produced 1,900 pounds, and iu 1870 up¬ 
wards of 1,000,000 mulberry trees were 
growing in the State, yet. eight years 
later—in 1878—the industry there was 
nearly extinct. If the experience of 
the past is any guide to the future, the 
prospect of silk culture here is therefore 
not very bright. Yet as a means of mak¬ 
ing pocket-money, the industry may attain 
considerable dimensions here in the hands 
of women and children who have some 
leisure time at their disposal, for there is 
a large and rapidly increasing market 
here for raw silk. The value of our im¬ 
ports of this sort has increased from $53,- 
350 in 1843 to $12,024,099 iu 1880, and 
ever since 1875 30 per cent of the whole 
quantity of silk used iu the country has 
been manufactured here. In 1880 there 
were, in all, 380 factories employing 34,- 
521 hands to whom over $9,000,000 were 
paid in wages; the capital invested 
amounted to $19,125,300. There has 
lately been considerable talk here and 
there about imposing a heavy duty on im¬ 
ported raw silk to encourage home pro¬ 
duction. The present movement looking 
to the production of raw silk enough to 
supply our home manufacturers appears, 
in reality, to be due almost entirely to the 
efforts of a few enthusiasts, though quite 
a considerable number of people in va¬ 
rious States are interested in cocoon pro¬ 
duction to a small extent. Specimens of 
the practical results of the labors of these 
are now displayed in the first American 
Silk Rearing Exhibition, which was 
opened last Thursday in this city. Here 
are exhibits from Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, 
Nebraska, Utah, Pennsylvania, New Jer¬ 
sey, New York an J the District of Colum¬ 
bia. The promoters of the enterprise 
state that 25,000 people arc now engaged 
in silk raising, and promise that this 
number will be raised to 50,000 within 
a twelvemonth. Who must not wish 
“God speed 1” to silk raising here, if as 
the president of the newly-incorporated 
North American Silk Exchange declares, 
the industry will keep at home the $35,- 
000,000 now sent abroad for raw and 
manufactured silk. According to the 
same authority silk culture will enable 
every woman, child and old man to be¬ 
come a producer, thus adding to the 10,- 
000 producers of America 5,000,000 women 
and 10,000,000 children now classed as 
non-producers. Without interrupting the 
husbandman’s other crops we are told silk 
culture will yield $140 to $200 an acre as a 
surplus fund for the American housewife. 
Truly there is always something refresh¬ 
ing if not “fresh” in such enthusiasm; 
but we haven’t yet forgotten the Moms 
muMicaulis craze of a few years ago, 
which, as we are assured this movement 
is going to do, “ran like a prairie fire all 
over the country.” 
-♦-*-*- 
BLUNDERING LAW-MAKERS. 
A telegram from Boston received here 
Saturday June 3, and condensed in our 
Agricultural News of that date, says that 
a recent decision of the Lmited States 
Supreme Court remitting a specific duty 
of 50 cents per pound heretofore collected 
on imported hosiery and fancy knit goods 
in addition to 35 per cent, ad valorem, 
will, it is believed, lead to curtailment in 
the home manufacture of such goods and 
consequently to a smaller demand for the 
wool of which they are made. If this 
specific tax of 50 cents per pound be not 
levied on goods of this class, then they 
can be imported cheaper thau they can be 
made in this country and the home market 
for the Merino wool of which they are 
chiefly made will be somewhat curtailed. 
Since the decision the home manufacture 
of this line of goods, in which a capital of 
about $16,000,000 is invested, has there¬ 
fore been suspended. Moreover, all im¬ 
porters who have been paying the specific 
duty for the last nine years under protest, 
will be entitled to a rebate for all the 
money paid in excess of the ad valorem 
duty. The aggregate of this amount lias 
been variously estimated at from three to 
eleven million dollars, some importers 
being entitled, it is said, to sums ranging 
all the way from $100,000 to $500,000 
each. The shrewd lawyer Hugh J. Begly 
of this city, who discovered the blunder 
in the tariff laws, gets half of the entire 
rebate—the heaviest fee ever secured by 
a lawyer in this or probably any other 
country. 
In a clause of the tariff laws (schedule M) 
the word “wool” wap twice omitted “evi¬ 
dently by a clerical eiror,” in enumerating 
the articles on which a specific duty of 50 
cents per pound was levied in addition to 
an ml valorem duty of 35 per cent. 
The context plainly showed the omission 
was an oversight. It was noticed, how¬ 
ever, as long ago as 1873 by Begly who 
communicated with the leading importers 
and agreed to take the case and bear all 
the expenses for a contingent fee of 50 
per cent, on all amounts that he might 
recover from the Government, Since then 
the duty has been paid under protest by 
most of the iL. porters, one of whom 
brought a test case before the United 
States District Court to have as much of 
the duty refunded as was claimed to have 
been illegally exacted. After dragging 
along for several years, the Court decided 
that it had no right to go behind the word¬ 
ing of the section, and therefore that the 
over-tax must he refunded. The case was 
then carried to the Supreme Court of the 
United States which, in March 1881, 
affirmed the decision of the low er Court, 
The Treasury Department at once issued 
circulars exempting the goods in question 
from the specific duty of 50 cents per 
pound. The manufacturers thus aroused, 
brought such influence to bear that the 
operation of the Treasury circular was 
suspended and the Supreme Court was 
induced to have the case reopened for a 
rehearing; but about four weeks ago it 
unanimously affirmed its former decision. 
Out of 369 Senators and Representa¬ 
tives in Congress 254, or over two- 
thirds, are lawyers. The only possible 
excuse for such an enormous ex¬ 
cess of legal representatives is that 
in the making of laws it is well that 
there should be a large body of lawyers. 
We have always believed that this excuse 
has been grossly abused in our State and 
national legislatures. Isn’t it strange 
that not one of these 254 legal luminaries, 
presumably among the best in the land, 
detected the flaw in the bill before it be¬ 
came law! Such blindness happens so 
frequently in all our legislatures that one 
is almost tempted to believe that our law¬ 
makers have no objections to frame laws 
so loosely that their brethren of the bar 
shall make fortunes or at least a good 
livelihood by finding blunders in them. 
Of the Congressional lawyers 57 are 
Senators drawing $5,000 a year each and 
197 are Representatives drawing $5,000 a 
year each; ytt in spite of this $1,272,000 
worth of legal talent the country loses 
millions and an important industry is 
greatly injured by a legal blunder these 
lawyers are paid to prevent. 
-- 
CROP PROSPECTS. 
In no former year has so much careful 
and pains-taking attention been paid to 
the collection, from all parts of the coun¬ 
try, of data for forecasting the harvest, 
alike by the National aud State govern¬ 
ments, by commercial associations and by 
enterprising journals. More vividly than 
ever has the truth come home to every 
soul that the prosperity of every industry 
and of every class depends greatly upon 
the prosperity of agriculture. As among 
the first of agricultural papers, if not the 
very first of them, to collect such infor¬ 
mation systematically, we this week pre¬ 
sent to our readers specimens of upwards 
of 4,000 reports already received concern¬ 
ing the area and condition of the crops in 
all parts of the country. In making the 
present selection, our only guide has been 
the desire to represent fairly the reports 
from every district. These, with all the 
others will be carefully analyzed, and dur 
final conclusions from the entire number 
will be given to our readers iu our next 
issue. 
Meanwhile certain obvious inferences 
with regard to the crops as a whole cau 
be drawn, without special analysis, by the 
careful reader of these pages. Down to 
the early days of April the season nearly 
all over the country was unusually early 
—probably at least a fortuightin advance 
of the average of 10 years. From that 
date till about the middle of the past 
week the weather has been unusually cool 
for the time of the year. Heavy frosts 
on April 11 and 12 and later did consider¬ 
able injury to fruits all over the North and 
towboat east of the Mississippi from the 
Lakes to Tennessee. Until early in this 
month frosts were frequent all over the 
Northwest, while heavy cold rains over 
most of the country rotted the early 
planted corn and greatly retarded all farm 
operations. On the whole, however, the 
weather has been very favorable to wheat, 
rye, Winter oats and grass, while greatly 
circumscribing the area of seasonably 
planted ctrn and seriously damaging that 
already in the ground. Telegraphic re¬ 
ports just to hand, however, give as¬ 
surance that a very large acreage has been 
planted to corn in the great corn-pro- 
dueiug States and that, the last few 
warm, sunshiny days have had a marve¬ 
lous effect in improving the condition of 
the crop everywhere. It is also remem¬ 
bered that in 1878 half the great corn belt 
of Illinois was reported to be unplanted 
as late as June 13, yet that year gave a 
heavier corn crop than any ever grown in 
the United States in previous years. 
Throughout the great Spring wheat re¬ 
gions of the Northwest, in spite of the 
backward Spring, our latest reports and 
advices tell of an unusually large area un¬ 
der wheat, especially in Northwestern 
Minnesota and Dakota, and although the 
nights are still chilly, the stand is re¬ 
ported quite thrifty aud highly promis¬ 
ing. In the South au unusually large 
area has been put under grain crops, part¬ 
ly because the people are realizing that it 
does not pay to raise so much cheap cot¬ 
ton to be exchanged for dear corn and 
other breadstuff's, and partly because the 
floods and unfavorable weather have pre¬ 
vented mauy from raising as much cotton 
as they would have done under favorable 
conditions, aud the land that then would 
have been put under cotton is now used 
tor corn. The yield of cereals, too, is ren¬ 
dered considerably larger by better modes 
of culture, and this seems to be particu¬ 
larly the case in Arkansas. Still the ce¬ 
real production of the entire South is so 
moderate that it would require a very 
large increase indeed to affect the aggre¬ 
gate production of the country ap¬ 
preciably. Accordi g to the Census 
the entire yield of wheat in the thir¬ 
teen Southern States in the year 1879 was 
only 43,579,489 bushels, while Illinois 
alone produced 51,136,455 bushels and 
Indiana 47,288,989 bushels. The yield 
of corn of the same States was 355,- 
413,082 bushels, and that of Illinois 
327,790,895 bushels, while the aggregate 
yield of wheat, rye, oats, corn, buck¬ 
wheat and barley in the entire South was 
only 443,300,199, while Illinois produced 
444,520,002 bushels. From these figures 
it is evident that there is a great deal of 
room for “mixed farming” in the South, 
and it is to be hoped that the expected 
shortage in the cotton crop this year will 
be “a blessing in disguise” by inducing 
planters to continue the cultivation of 
cereal crops more extensively than they 
have hitherto done. 
- 
BREVITIES. 
“ Horticola,” whose articles have been 
interrupted by sickness, will, we trust, soon 
be able to continue them. 
The opinion in England is pretty freely 
expressed by independent, appreciative men 
that J. B Lawes honors the baronetcy more 
than the baronetcy honors him. 
We again ask for the name and address of 
our subscriber that last year sent us what he 
called the “ Blush’’potato. The letters which 
have passed between him and the Rural have 
been mislaid, and we desire to ask him several 
questions. 
The Board of Managers of the New York 
Cotton Exchange has just adopted a report 
concerning the widespread comulaints as to 
the deterioration of last year’s cotton crop, and 
intend to distribute it throughout the Cotton 
Belt in the form of a printed circular letter. 
It states that sand and dust have been found 
in our crop this year more than ever before, 
and a reduction of price has been made on 
that account. No doubt the dry season aud 
other unintentional causes had considerable to 
do with their presence; but it should be widely 
known that a difference of two to two-and- 
half cents per pound has been made between 
dirty and clean cotton of the same grade. 
India is our great rival in cotton, as it threat¬ 
ens to be in wheat, and of late years great im¬ 
provement has been made there in the staple, 
whose inferiority to American cotton has 
hitherto been the ouly reason why it has been 
less sought and has brought lower prices. Al¬ 
though it is grown ou very srnall-si/. 'd plants 
aud therefore Is more liable than ours to be 
defiled with dirt, yet it is found remarkably 
free from sand and dirt. Friendly words 
of warning like these should he looked at iu 
the light of a kindness, not as an offense, by all 
the honest cotton-growers whose prosperity 
threatened by cotton adulteration. 
