desire to have the big end of every trade. It 
is this, and perhaps stfll more her evil reputa¬ 
tion in that respect, which makes other nations 
so loth to accept her teachings, or proposals. 
This experiments of the Rural in the deep 
plantirg of potatoes agree very well in results 
with the experience of farmers in this section 
wtio have made similar tests. Deep, rich, 
well pulverized soil, and deep planting to the 
extent of six or seven inches, have uniformly 
given the greatest yield. As to the fine point 
made by the Rural regarding different 
depths for different varieties, there is some¬ 
thing in it. yet I think it to the practical 
grower not very important. 
“ Dorset’s ” criticism of Mr. Brown’s use 
of wheat bran as a fertilizer is pertinent; yet 
as a matter of fact bran has been shown by a 
great many tests to be as sure a fertilizer as, 
say, cotton seed. The analyses of both show 
great fertilizing value, and experience con¬ 
firms the analyses. 
“Dorset” is right in inferring that by 
“fresh land” I meant land that had never 
been under cultivation. But it also means 
laud that has been but recently cleared. Old 
pastures do not give equal results. The re¬ 
markable excellence of the potatoes of the 
JSt. John’s Valley in Maine (Aroostook), as 
well as the great yields got there (averages of 
300 bushels per acre on large areas), is due to 
the fact that they are grown on recently 
cleared primeval forest laud. Of course such 
land is full of vegetable matter and the sur¬ 
face soil is strongly charged with leaf mold. 
And what, after all, is rotted bran, in sub¬ 
stance, but leaf-mold ? 
Rural, Oct. 31,—What a valuable article 
is that contributed by “Lson” upon Dutch 
bulbs, etc. It contains the substance of many 
treatises, all plain, simple and concise. A 
point of his let me emphasize—do not expect 
to succeed well with plants of this class in 
“ tree-root robbed soil.” Planting in such soil 
is the cause of much otherwise unaccounted 
for failure. And few realize how far the 
robbing tree-roots run. 
W ill Mr. Campbell, who gives us so much 
useful information in the Rural about grapes, 
tell us something of the Red Poughkeepsie I 
It pleased me best of all the new early sorts 
exhibited last year at the Montreal Horti¬ 
cultural Society’s Show, where, with the Rev 
Dr. Burnett (late of Ontario, now of Nova 
Scotia) and John W. Bailey of Platsburgh, I 
bad the honor and pleasure of serving upon 
the committee of judges in this class. Is it 
earlier than Delaware ? Why has the Rural 
not figured it 1 [We have only recently seen 
it, Eds.] 
And, speaking of grapes, what is the Wel¬ 
lington Grape, huge, many-shouldered 
bunches of which were shown at the same 
fair—a wonderfully distinct variety and, 
though not quite ripe, of apparently con¬ 
siderable merit I Why are these lights hidden ? 
Let me tell Edwin Nye, of Wisconsin, that 
he will never be sorry for planting the Wealthy 
Apple. My oldest treesarenine years planted, 
and boar os heavily a3 Baldwins, with not 
nearly the difference between the odd and even 
years. For every purpose, except cooking, it is 
a better apple than the Baldwin, and will grow 
300 miles, at least, further uorth. I Bee no 
difference between it and the Duchess of Old- 
enburgh in hardiness, and it is successfully 
grown a long way uorth of this, in Canada. 
It keeps, with me, all Winter; but not far 
outta of us, it is only un early Winter fruit— 
ust as the Baldwin is in New Jersey. 
Niagara, Prentiss, Poeklington, Duchess, 
Lady Washington, Hayes ! What an array 
of new white grapes, all promising, and every 
one an improvement upon anything before 
it I What a shame, and what a pity, if not 
oue of them should ever be as popular or suc¬ 
cessful as Concord or Delaware, the only sorts 
1 found for sale at the street corners on a re¬ 
cent visit to Boston. Let us hope they may 
all be best—somewhere. 
The farm laborers who, according to the 
Toronto Globe, are having such a slavish 
time, ought to cross the line and become citi¬ 
zens of this glorious Union, where farm handB 
work but ten hours by steam whistles, and 
turn up their noses at anything short of #25 a 
mouth, with pies and cake twice a day One 
of our best dairy farmers (President of our 
County Agricultural Society, in fact) told me 
yesterday, that after settling with his help, 
his net profits did not equal 3 per cent, on the 
cash value of his farm. And yet he keeps 30 
cows, and makes fancy cheese, for the whole 
of which he gets retail price. 
I am glad and proud that the Rural has 
none of the narrow jealousy toward competi¬ 
THE BUBAL 
tors that is shown so much amongst agricul¬ 
tural journalists. But, then, the Rural can 
afford to praise, and might be, even if it is 
not, conscious of it. In which case you are, 
of course, not entitled to so very much credit 
on this score. 
And have we (p. 717) a euro for snake-bite, 
with no alcohol in it ‘ Alas for its popularity ! 
But the worm of the still lays low its thou¬ 
sands to every one who is hurt by rattlers, 
moccasins and copperheads. The annual ac¬ 
cumulation of wealth in the United States, 
say9 the statistician, is $835,000,000, and the 
annual expenditure for intoxicants lacks only 
the odd millions of being a3 much. A writer 
in the Popular Science Monthly tries to con¬ 
sole us for this great waste by saying that it 
is the way natural selection takes to kill off 
and exterminate the moral weaklings of the 
race, and so advauce the status of the rest. 
According to Dio Lewis, tomatoes cause 
cancer ; and according to the Mark Lane Ex¬ 
press (p. 717), tomatoes cure liver-complaint. 
But shall we risk Scylla to escape Charybdis ! 
Such is “ popular science.” 
Rural, Oct. 28.—What have you done to 
your Lady Elgin crab tree ? In the Rural, 
Nov. 16, 1878, is a cut of the Lady Elgiu that 
exactly agrees with the fruit, as it grows with 
me. In this issue it is more than twice as big, 
and round instead of oval. Yet I must sup¬ 
pose it is the same tree, since both cuts are 
credited to the fruit of a tree from the Red 
Bank nursery. I am going to put a whole 
load of manure around my tree, and see about 
this thing. The L. E. is really a fine crab, as 
regards both beauty and flavor, and one of the 
very best for canuing or .jelly. If it were 
sof ter fleshed, it would be improved for dessert. 
[The last engraving was made from fruit 
grown upon the Lady Elgin upon the Trans¬ 
cendent Crab. The fruit varies greatly in 
size.—E ds.] 
Glad to learn through Mr. Blackwell, that 
the so called Dutch Mignonne, grown in this 
State, is discovered by Mr. Downing to be 
Blenheim Pippin. But how came A. J. Down¬ 
ing to make the mistake in his first edition, 
seeing that he also has the B. P. there t And 
why did he give the season of the latter as 
October to December, while he gives the sea¬ 
son of the supposed Dutch Mignonne as No¬ 
vember to February l Will Mr. Charles 
Downing please to tell us, so that we may be 
sure, at last, that our D. M. is really B. P. ? 
Has Mr. Blackwell the true Duchess of Old- 
enburgb, which he says is like Evening Paity, 
and too small for profit < Duchess of Olden- 
burgh has no superior in size here, except Al¬ 
exander and the new Russian Riabinouka, 
which may be identical with Alexander, 
though it seems of better quality. Downing’s 
description of Evening Party does not at all 
correspond with his description of Duchess of 
Oldenburgb, either in size, season or quality, 
or in the color of the young shoots, though the 
outlines are similar. One of the synonyms of 
Duchess is Smith’s Beauty of Newark. The 
Duchess loses its foliage early in the Fall, 
while Evening Party is described as being re¬ 
markably the other way. 
St. Lawrence, also, of small size ! Is this 
the effect of the removal of that big Montreal 
apple further south, or must we credit it to 
New Jersey sand ? St. Lawrence is a poor 
bearer here, but always large. In Montreal it 
is both large and productive. 
Secretary Garfield shows his good sense 
in trying to reach the farmers on educational 
topics through agricultural rather than edu¬ 
cational journals. The lat ter are read by very 
few except teachers, and are not read even by 
teachers as much as they deserve to be And, 
indeed, our friend Garfield gives us farmers 
the truth in cold, solid chunks. There is noth¬ 
ing in this reforming time that needs refor¬ 
mation more than the average free schools of 
the rural districts. The facts should be kept 
before the people by constant “ ding-dong,” 
and I hope the Rural will do its part of the 
diug-dongiug. The corruption of politics, and 
the oppressions of monopolies, and the om¬ 
nipotence of rum, are bad enough, but the 
stupidities and the degradations of our rural 
public school methods are worse In their evil 
effects upon the rising generation and the fu¬ 
ture of our republic, thau all these put to¬ 
gether. At least, it is so in Northern New 
England, to my certain knowledge; and 
the farmers are disgracefully indifferent to 
the evil. 
• - 4 > » 
RANDOM NOTES. 
W. Atlee Buruee & Co. in describing the 
Mountain Sweet Watermelon say : “This 
variety has run out. Seed, such as is usually 
sold as Mountain Sweet,” etc., etc. What say 
others i Most of the seedsmen are selling the 
“ Simon Pure ” Mountain Sweet without any 
“mental reservation or equivocation.” 
I AM badly bewildered over the “Ice-cream 
Melon.” Henderson's Gardening for Profit 
describes it as a round, white-fleshed variety, 
of good flavor, but not equal to the red- 
fleshed. It matures ten days earlier, however, 
etc. Henderson's Catalogue says of it: “ Fruit 
of medium size, nearly round, skin pale green, 
rind very thin, flesh scarlet, solid, crisp and 
delicious.” The Messrs. Landreth in describ¬ 
ing it say the “form is oblong,” and in their 
illustration it somewhat resembles a good fat 
cucumber. Is the Ice-cream watermelon al¬ 
lied to thechamelion ? 
Melon growers in this vicinity are very 
much divided in opinion as to the best early 
watermelon. The Icing appears to be quite a 
favorite among gardeners. What is the best 
melon in the East, the two chief requisites 
being extra earliness and productiveness, and 
a weight, say, from 10 to 15 pounds 1 We do 
not want them too large for a first early. Of 
course, size is no objection provided the vines 
bear just as many and just as early. Let the 
brethren arise and give their experience. [We 
shall give some of ours later.— Eds,] 
W hich is the better seed drill for the market 
gardener—Mathews’ or the Planet? I sup¬ 
pose they are somewhat like the Republican 
and Democratic parties—both have their fol¬ 
lowers. Will some one who has had ex¬ 
perience with different drills give us a com¬ 
parison of their merits and the reasons for 
his preference. 
In a recent number of the Country Gentle¬ 
man Hark Comstock tells of a $125 cow that 
made a 34-pound record two months after 
calving. Bhe did this on six quarts of bran a 
day. The Western Rural of September 23 
contains a statement to the effect that there 
are only eight registered Jerseys in the United 
States which have a record ef more than 20 
pounds a week. Probably it would take sev¬ 
eral thousand dollars to buy any one of these 
cows. Truly a cow’s pedigree, like a hired 
girl’s character, goes a long way sometimes. 
Have any of the Rural people tried the 
Italian onions ( I drilled five ounces of 
Neapolitan Marzajolas on July 15th, This is 
the wonderfully early onion; the catalogues 
claiming that seed " sown in July will mature 
a crop the same season.” I used a Planet Jr. 
combination drill, setting the indicator at “3," 
intending to make sets of them if th jy would 
do nothing else. When about the size of Navy 
Beans I thinned one bed to three inches in the 
row. Those that were not thinned look as 
though they would make some nice sets, but 
I don’t see any onions yet (Oct. 18). They had 
plenty of water, and didn’t have to fight weeds. 
Ib there no uniformity of color in the El 
Paso (Mexican) onion ? D. M. Ferry & Co. 
in describing it say: “Color variable from 
white to light red.” A neighbor of mine put 
in some seed that he bought for the El Paso 
this Spring, but thought the seed impure. 
The onions were of three types, a portion 
being a beautiful silver skin; more were about 
the color of Yellow Danvers, while others 
were a pale red. Now, if the silver-skin were 
selected, would not their seed produce a pure 
white onion, or will they do just as they please? 
The Rural New-Yorker’s remarks on 
horse racing at agricultural fairs have a 
pleasaut flavor; not so much from the 
opinions expressed as from the courage to 
have an opinion on this subject. Many of our 
agricultural editors who chance to differ with 
“ the patrons of the turf ” are unwilling to 
express their views for fear of treading on 
somebody’s corns. Whether or not horse 
racing is a cruel sport, there are doubtless 
just as many arguments against it as there 
are in its favor, and more especially at fairs. 
Mauy a man who goes to the county fair or 
an agricultural exhibition with his family 
may not want his boys to attend a horse race. 
The men interested in fast horses and the sports 
of the race-track are not those who originate 
new varieties or improved breeds for the 
benefit of the farmer. Clem Auldon. 
Dtrinj ijushantirv). 
THE TEUTH ABOUT IT. 
[Thu object of articles under this heading Is not so 
much to deal with “humbugs” as with the many un¬ 
conscious errors that creep Into the methods of dally 
country routine Ufe.—Ens.l 
PURITY OF MILK. 
HENRY STEWART. 
If all the chargee made against milk dairy¬ 
men by various Boards of Health and other 
persons, official and private, are true, a dairy. 
784 
man might reasonably be held to be a most 
foolish, unprincipled, reckless and pernicious 
person. He is continually being charged with 
the moBt flagrant violations of his own inter¬ 
ests; with conduct that befits a lunatic, rather 
than a sane man using his own property to gain 
a living for himself and his family; with the 
most atrocious and cruel neglect and treat¬ 
ment of his valuable cows, aud with a dis¬ 
honest and vicious disregard of all the prin¬ 
ciples of uprightness and common sense, in hia 
business. As a specimen of the common 
character attributed to him by the class of 
persons above noted, may be quoted the fol¬ 
lowing extracts from a paper by Dr. E. F. 
Brush, in the Medical Record, upon acute milk 
poisoning, as a specific disease, “the deaths 
from which should be registered as such in 
our statistics of disease.” 
In this paper the author states, (1) "There are 
certain causes which render milk poisonous, 
which are almost inseparable from the con¬ 
duct of a dairy farm.” (2) “Having been fed 
on dry food the whole Winter, animals are 
turned out in the Spring to subsist ou the full 
flush of grass, picking up green fruit, eating 
grains (?) that render the milk very albumin¬ 
ous and prone to putrefaction, cropping 
poisonous weeds,.as well as drinking water 
that is stagnant and poisonous.” (8) “These 
and other causes incident to the conduct of 
the dairy farm render the milk so abnormal 
that the butter makers will not receive it, so 
that it is sent to the city for sale.” (4) Nearly 
all the cases of infantine diarrhea and many 
of infantine convulsions are due to acute milk 
poisoning.” (5) “Traumatic garget is a very 
common trouble with cows ranging in pasture 
lands.” He proposes no means by which 
these faults may be remedied but calls atten¬ 
tion to them as facts which should enter into 
legislation on diseased milk. 
Now it is quite safe to say that all these 
statements are altogether mistaken and in¬ 
correct so far as their general, or even a 
narrow and circumscribed, applicability to 
milk dairymen is concerned. Aud it might 
be easy to show this by the very simple pro¬ 
cess of reductio ad absurdutn; tor if these 
statements are true, then it is quite impossi¬ 
ble to procure pure, wholesome milk upon a 
dairy farm; the creamery business would be 
a myth, a delusion and an illusion; and there 
is neither honesty, morality, truth nor honor 
among dairymen, and therefore they are 
worse than thieves, among whom there is at 
least some honor. 
It is very easy to make general charges 
and loose statements, such as the first 
in the list enumerated above; and it would 
have been judicious to have referred to 
these in detail so that both consumers and 
dairymen might have been put upon their 
guard. If the statement, number 2, is in¬ 
tended as a summary of these causes, it is 
quite easy to show that they are entirely im¬ 
aginary and untrue. For animals are never 
turned out suddenly upon a full flush of grass 
in the Spring, because, for one reason, there 
is not a full flush of grass in Spring and cows 
are turned out as soon as the grass is long 
enough to afford a bite, and are gradually 
brought from dry feeding to full feeding upon 
grass. After many years’ experience in sev¬ 
eral States as a farmer and dairyman, and with 
an intimate knowledge of farmers and dairy¬ 
men and of their methods, I assert that I never 
yet saw a pasture upon which cows could harm 
themselves by the full flush of grass when 
turned out in Spring; nor yet met a dairy¬ 
man so foolish ns to risk his valuable property 
by such conspicuously improper feeding and 
management as is charged against them. 
The dairymen of Connecticut, of whom T. 
8. Gold and Mr. Hart are representatives, and 
those who supply milk to the Echo Farm 
Dairy Company, those of Westchester County, 
N. Y., who are represented by Mr. Decker of 
23d Street, N. Y., Mr. Powell and Mr. Brady 
of Katonah, and others equally capable and 
sensible busiuess men, those of Orange County, 
New York, and those of New Jersey , of whom 
I am not ashamed to be oue, are not amenable 
to this sweeping charge in any manner what¬ 
ever ; and, in fact, the dairyman whose pas¬ 
tures should be covered with green fruit and 
with poisonous weeds would be starved out 
of his business aud in the sheriff’s hands in so 
short a time that he could never get a can of 
milk to the city. Nor are the stagnant and 
poisonous water holes mentioned to be found 
upon daily farms. A dairyman has some 
common sense, enough at least to know when 
his farm is fit for his business, and a supply 
of pure running water is the first requisite 
for profitable dairying; for the simple reason 
that stagnant and poisonous water constantly 
used would very soon be fatal to the cows and 
put an effectual stop to the production of milk. 
The third statement is equally erroneous, for 
not all the milk made can be turned into 
butter, and there are not creameries enough 
in existence to do it. As a rule, it is the beBt 
milk that is sent to the cities from dairy dis¬ 
tricts, because milk dairymen must feed well 
and keep their cows healthy and vigorous to 
