438 
FEB. 28 
(ftogtojjm. 
NOTES FROM WESTERN ARKANSAS. 
The total area of this State is 52,198 square 
miles, making’ a total in acres of 33,406,720, of 
which 16,257.641 acres are ou the tax books, 
leaving the enormous amount of 17,147,187 
acres whicli is non-taxable, and affords no 
revenue to the State. Of this large amount, 
the United States Government owns 7,000,000 
aces, which are subject to homestead, in quan¬ 
tities of 40, 80 aud 100 acres, according to loca¬ 
tion. under government laws, or for sale at 
$1.25 per acre; much of which is valuable and 
will be made a source of revenue to the State. 
The greater portion of these lands lie in the 
west, northwest and southwest sections of 
the State, and it only requires the small sum 
ot $14.25 to secure a home of 160 acres. The 
school lands arc the 10th section of each town¬ 
ship, comprising 610 acres, which are set apart 
for school purposes and for sale at 50 cents 
per acre. Of forfeited lauds, there are over 
3.000,000 acres, which have been forfeited to 
the State for taxes, and are for sale at 50 cents 
per acre, or subject to donation to heads of 
families in quantities of 160 acres, the fees for 
which amount to $0 00. No other State offers 
such a munificent donation, or such splendid 
opportunities for heads of families to acquire 
a home. The person applying for a donation, 
must accompany the application with the sum 
of $5, take an oath that it is for his own use 
and not for speculation, and within eighteen 
months present to the land department, proof 
that ten acres have been cleared and put in 
cultivation, accompanied by a fee of $1, and 
he will secure his deed to the land. No build¬ 
ing is required. Thus, in our State a bead of 
a family, if he be a citizen of the United 
States, if he finds United States Government 
and State lands lying side by side, can home¬ 
stead from the Government 160 acres of land, 
by paying say. $15 in money, and secure a 
donation of 160 acres more from th'‘ State of 
Arkansas, by paying $6; making in all 320 
acres of land, such as may be secured out of 
millions of acres, for the sum of $21. What 
country on earth offers such a grand induce¬ 
ment to the home-seeker ? In addition to these 
lands, there are the railroad lands, which are 
offered to the immigrant on terms as favora¬ 
ble as any one can ask. These lands can be 
purchased on seven years’ time, at six per 
cent- interest, and heavy discounts are made 
for part or all cash. If none of these lauds 
suit the purchaser or home-seeker, he can 
usually find improved lands for sale at prices 
ranging from five to fifteen dollars per acre. 
Agriculturally viewed, western Arkausas 
has no superior. We can grow of cotton over 
500.000 hales, worth over $20,000,000. The 
State stands first as to growing hay and tobac¬ 
co per acre, second as to cotton, third as to 
oats, and grows equally with other States, 
almost all the cereals and small grains, grass, 
etc. In fruits we stand behind^ none; raising 
the finest peaches, apples, plums, cherries, 
apricots and all kiuds of berries. In most 
parts of western Arkansas stock-raising is 
profitable, and can be made equallv so with 
the famous blue-grass regions of Kentucky. 
We have natural pastures both summer and 
winter, aud whenever there is a scarcity of, 
feed, the winters are so mild and short that 
stock is put through till spring with but little 
expense. In no part of the world can the labor¬ 
ing man and the poor man more easily support 
and educate his family than here. Such are 
our advantages, that with moderate means and 
energy, all prosper. 
The mean temperature at Little Rock, the 
geographical center of the State, for the twelve 
months ending July 81, 1879, was 56 deg. Fah. 
The highest thermometers were July 14, and 
15,1878. which reached 99 deg. Fah. The lowest 
mean, January 5,1878. 12 deg. Fah. The rain¬ 
fall throughout the year is more uniform, 
owing to physical causes, than in adjoining 
parallels. Thus, western Arkansas ie exempt 
from the extreme and suffocating heat of more 
southern latitudes, or the extreme and severe 
cold of sister States in more northern latitudes. 
While there has been no rapid influx of immi¬ 
gration to our State, such as has been expe¬ 
rienced by Kansas and Texas, yet there has 
been a constant, steady flow of a more certain, 
steadfast and profitable class of settlers, than 
to either of the States mentioned. r. b 
Sebastian Co. 
- 4 ■» »- 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Arkansas, Greenwood, Sebastian Co., Feb., 
9.—Since the first of January the weather has 
been like May. Farmers have been busy 
plowing for oats and spring crops. Making 
garden is now the order of the day. Cotton 
holds its own at lie. and ll£c. a pound. The 
recent warm weather has damaged considera¬ 
ble quantises ot pork: consequently the price 
of bacon has increased to 11c; corn has fallen 
to 60c ; flour per 100 lb. $4; salt per bbl. $3.40 
oats 60c; butter, 22e@40c; eggs, 20c; Irish 
potatoes $1@1 25 ; sugar, 9@13c ; coal oil, 30c; 
onions $2.50; wool 44@48c. B. r. 
Ilk.. Dixon, Feb. 5.—White Russian spring 
wheat has been found not to answer in this 
part of the country. I’ve tried i! three times. 
It is too late, however, and blights in the head. 
Last fall I thought I would try it as a winter 
wheat, it looked and grew so much like that 
sort. I drilled it in but it is dead. I also drilled 
in 16 bushels of Odessa wheat, which looks all 
right although it is used as a spring wheat. 
W. G. 
Iowa, Brooks, Taylor Co., Feb. 12.—It ha6 
been quite spring-like all winter, only one cold 
week and that in December. Not any snow to 
speak of. Quite a large amount of winter 
wheat was sown here last fall. I cannot tell 
yet how it will stand the sudden changes of the 
weather: I have fears it will not be a paying 
crop. Corn is our staple crop, yielding 
from 40 to 75 bushels per acre, aud farmers 
that are not troubled with hog cholera are 
making money even at the low prices we are 
getting. We grow almost all kinds of fruit in 
abundance. Land is cheap—wild laud $8 aud 
$10 per acre; improved from $10 to $20 and 
$25, all well watered with streams and springs. 
Farm products have for the last few days 
dropped off paying prices. Wheat is worth 
from 70c, to 80e.; corn, 20c.; oats, 25c.; of rye 
aud barley not much was grown last season; 
potatoes 40c.; ‘butter, 20c. per lb.; cattle, from 
$3 to $4; hogs. $3,50. 
I wiBb to say one word to my brother far¬ 
mers that raise large crops of potatoes. In 
my mode of planting I use a riding corn culti¬ 
vator; attach the fifth tooth. Make a small 
conductor large enough to freely pass pieces 
of potatoes and long enough to reach from be¬ 
hind the middle tooth to the 6eat, or forward 
of the seat; place an old boiler ora half-bushel 
or auy thing that will hold from half to 
one bushel of seed potatoes, forward of 
the conductor; put a board across forward of 
that for the boy that drives ; set the teeth ou 
both 6ides to turn the 6oil ou the potatoes, and 
turn the measure down towards you wheu 
you are on the seat, so that the top of the 
measure will be even with the top of the spout 
so you can pass the seed into the spout w ithout 
taking it up in the hand. Have the ground 
well pulverized before plantiug. The wheel 
track will guide you for the next row r . After a 
little practice one can drop as fast as the team 
will >valk. I have planted eight acres per day 
with it. 3. t. s. 
Iowa, Davenport, Feb. 12.—I was very r-*eh 
pleased with the Rurar’s remarks ou the 
Mexican sweet corn, in the issue of Jan. 24. 
I have raised it for my own use for the last 10 
years. Discarding all others I plant it in succes¬ 
sion three or lour times during the season, the 
last time from the 20th of July to 1st August. By 
this means one can have green corn until frost 
kills it, and it is the best of all the sweet corn 
for a person’s own use; but it Is not a good 
market corn ou account of its color. We are 
having a very remarkable winter here. It has 
been like spring ever sinee Ckri&fmas. Roads 
are very bad. Farmers cauuot come in, con¬ 
sequently produce is very high for this place: 
wheat, No. 3, spring, $1.10; winter, $1.18; 
corn, nothing doing in the way of shipments, 
24(2)27 cts.; barley dull at 57 cts.; oats, 36 cts.; 
potatoes, Early Rose, 40 cts., Peachblows, 55 
cts.; onious, I.5ll@$2 per bUB.; butter, 25 cts.; 
apples, light in supply, 3.75@$4 per bbl.; cab¬ 
bage, 40c ts. per doz.; chickeus. 7eta. per pouud; 
turkeys, 10 cts.; geese, 10 cts.; ducks, 8 cts.; 
eggs,20 cts. Everything is high; hut would be 
cheaper if roads were good. a. vv. s. 
Iowa, Felix, Warren Co., Feb., 5th.—The 
present winter has been very pleasant; very 
little suow or rain, ground frozen almost all 
the time. Our country is mostly prairie with 
plenty of timber along thestreams. Improved 
farms sell for $20 to $30 per acre. It is a 
good corn, oats and grass country. Spring 
wheat is raised, yet it fails some years. Ten 
times more fall wheat was 6own last fall than 
ever before, but it is the general opiniou that 
the most of it is winter-killed; wheat is bring¬ 
ing in market from 90c. to 95c; corn, 22c; 
oats, 26; potatoes, 80c; cord wood $1 to $1.25; 
hogs, $3.75 to $4 per 100 lbs. J. h. a. 
Iowa, Washington, Feb. 9.—We have had a 
very mild winter so far. A part of the time it 
was very disagreeable ou account of mud. For 
the past two weeks it has been April weather 
without the showers. Fall wheat will un¬ 
doubtedly be a failure in this section of the 
country on aeeount of the alternate freezing 
and thawing. w. b. b. 
Kansas, Edgerton Feb., 11.—We are having 
a mild open winter. The weather for the 
past six weeks has been delightful. Wheat 
is generally lookiug well throughout the 
State, (as / know by personal observation), 
and there is u much larger acreage sown than 
usual. Farmers can now 6ee the difference 
between early aud late sowing. While the 
former is green and well rooted, witn every 
prospect of making a good crop, the latter is 
brown, and considerably thrown out by the 
frost. The fruit prospect 60 far is good. If 
the warm weather does not swell the buds 
too much before late frosts, we shall probably 
have a large crop, as the crops for the last 
two seasons have been light. This is a health¬ 
ful country, and a good climate We have 
good markets, good land, and cheap, good 
schools, churches enough and good society, 
and it is a good place for any honest, indus¬ 
trious man to secure a home. A. b. d. 
Mich., Cleon, Feb. 12.— We are having what 
the local papers here call a kangaroo winter, 
I suppose because it jumps from one month to 
another with a short cold spell in each. Farm 
crops were very good here last season. Com 
was cut short somewhat by a drought in July 
aud August, which lasted about six weeks. A 
neighbor told me to-day he was offered 50 cents 
a bushel for his oats at his granary. Corn is 
selling for 50 cents for 70 pouuds of ears; wheat, 
$1.12 per bush, in market; hay, $15 to $18 per 
ton in baru or stack. Good wild land can be 
bought for from $3 to $8 per acre. j. s. g. 
Mien., South Lyon, Oakland, Feb., 7.—No 
snow; weather very mild; winter wheat look¬ 
ing well; clover killed out; wheat—Clawson— 
worth $1.15; com, 50c; oats, 30c; buckwheat, 
80c; potatoes 40c; butter, 16c; eggs, 12 ; live 
hogs, 4c; fat cattle 4c. to 4£c; fat sheep 5c; 
stove wood $1.00 A. b. 
Mo., Springfield, Greeno Co.—It is extraor¬ 
dinary that while portions of this country have 
been visited with heavy enow and most in- 
tenselycold weather,wehere on top of theOzark 
Mountains have had comparatively no winter. 
Up to the end of January the ground had not 
been covered with snow, nor had the frost been 
sufficient to prevent the plow, excepting a small 
portion of the time. Wheat and blue grass 
have been growiDg all the winter. Sheep are 
happy with green pasture and ignore dry food. 
•All stock have a good time, so dry and warm 
is the season. Cattle and hogs have gone upon 
the market in better shape from less food and 
in shorter time thau usual. Of course, we en¬ 
joy it too, but with some fear that our absent 
snow aud frost may com - home in March or 
later. Never before had we such promise of a 
large fruit crop of all fruits common here. 
The dry summer and autumn prevented the 
usual growth of wood in our orchards, and in¬ 
stead every tree is full of fruit buds. We have 
feared the buds would be so advanced by ab» 
sence of cold weather as to be killed by frost, 
but all is right yet. Nothing is lost but the 
bees. They have nearly all died iu this locality ; 
we think it is from the effect of long and severe 
drought. There was a very large acreage of 
this county sown to wheat last fall, perhaps 
never so much before, and as the season for 
the work was favorable, it was well done, 
and the many, many broad green fields at 
this time look very beautiful, promising a 
large yield. Business in Springfield is much 
improved; merchants are busy and happy 
Receipts of cotton from the western border of 
our sister State, Arkansas, are unusually 
heavy. Wagon trains, laden with this Btuple, 
are upon the road and streets every day in 
large numbers. We think this a most lovely 
part of the •* Great West,” but we need more 
transportation—more railroads, and they are 
coming. Jot. 
Pa , New Lebanon, Mercer Co. Feb. 7.—The 
winter in these parts has been very open end 
warm. We had a good, deal of rain and mud up 
to February. This month so far has been quite 
cold. The wheat crop, owing to the start it got 
iu the fall, aud the mild winter, looks well and 
promising thus far. The crops of last year 
were good,taking them all together. Fruit was 
plentiful, especially apples. Prices; wheat, 
$1.10 per bus.; oats, 38 cts.; corn, 28 cts.; 
apples, 50 cts.; potatoes, 35 cts.; butter, 20 cts. 
per pound ; eggs, 20 cts. per doz. B, o. 
Tenn., Hnmboldt>Feb.8 .— Our flrstsnow this 
winter now covers the ground 12 inches, an 
unusual phenomenon for this section at this 
date. Wheatlooks well—tllleriug finely. Owing 
to wet weather and the eottou ••boom” uot 
half the usual area has been sown. b. f. t. 
Wi8., River Falls, Pierce Co., Feb. 16.— 
Crops la6t year were, on au average, pretty 
fair. Wheat averaged about 15 bushels to the 
acre; but was not of the best qnality; corn, 
150 baskets per acre; oats, 64 bushels per acre. 
The fruit crop was very fair. We had good 
yield of currants, raspberries, grapes and ap¬ 
ples. Our standard apples are the Red Astra- 
chan, Bummer Rose, Rawlo’s Genet, Johuathan, 
Rhode Island Greening, Rock Russet, Beu Da¬ 
vis, Goldeu Russet. Early Harvest, Duchess of 
Oldenburgb. Gen. Grant (?) and Wealthy, and 
these are all doing well. Our staudard Grapes 
are the Isabella, from which I gathered 200 
pounds; Delaware, 156 pounds; California 
raisin grapes, 15 pounds; Clinton, 75 pounds; 
These are ull doiug well and stand the winter 
admirably. G- w. h. 
Wis., Wiota, Lafayette Co., Feb. 10.—We 
have had a remarkably open winter. The 
ground is now bare and we have not had a day 
of passable sleighing yet aud probably not six 
inches of suow iu all, aud but a very few days 
of severe cold. Generally we have had freez¬ 
ing of nights and thawing Blightly during the 
day, as is usual in November. A much larger 
area of wheat than has been sown for many 
years was put in last fall, and such weather 
must be very trying to it, especially to the late 
sown. Mine was sown the first week in Sep¬ 
tember and doesn’t appear to have suffered 
any yet. w. F. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
When to Thrash Wheat. 
C. R., Highland, III., asks some information 
as to the best time for thrashing wheat—either 
from the field a few weeks after it has been 
harvested, or from the stack. In that part of 
the country the majority of the farmers find 
that thrashing from the field saves a great deal 
of trouble without causing auy injury to the 
wheat either in weight, soundness, plumpness, 
or keeping properties of the grain in the gran¬ 
ary, which has never heated at all, although 
the thrashing has sometimes been done within 
15 days after harvesting. The cause of the. 
practice of thrashing thus early was the dam¬ 
age done by the weevil to the wheat in the 
stack aud afterwards in the granary, and 
experience thereabouts proves that wheat 
thrashed from the field hardly ever suffers 
from insects, while if stacked its value is often 
lessened one-fourth by these pests. 
Ans-No one is be'ter able than ourcorrespon. 
dent to answer for bis locality the questions he 
asks. If the facts are as he states iu regard to 
weevil—aud we see no reason to doubt it—and 
if there is not too great a risk to the wheat from 
storms, then wl should say the best way would 
be to thrash from the field as aoou as the 
wheat is dry enough not to damage by heating 
iu the bin. The practice, however, of leaving 
wheat in the shock till thrashing time, has 
been mostly abandoned in the wheat regions of 
N. T., Ohio aud Michigan, on account of the 
uncertainty of the weather. Often iu those 
localities heavy fains after harvest sprout the 
wheat badly, if left long in the field, no matter 
how well it may be shocked. The plan of 
thrashing from the shock often involves delay 
at thrashing time, too. If the wheat is in the 
barn or even stacked, the thrashing need be in¬ 
terrupted only during the actual continuance 
of a shower. But if it is iu the shock, the ma¬ 
chine and mau may have to wait a day or more 
for the wheat to dry. Again, one steam 
thrasher often thrashes rnauy thousands of 
bushels in a season. But this would require 
some of the wheat to bo left in the shock sev¬ 
eral weeks, which is quite unsafe except with a 
climate, like that of California, free from rain, 
The general practice, therefore iu the States 
named, is to put the grain iu the barn or stack 
about four or five days after it is cut, and let 
it remain till the sweating process is over, aud 
hot weather aud burry about plowing and 
seeding wheat are over too, aud thou attend to 
the thrashing. But each locality must decide 
for itself what is best for its own climate aud 
circumstances. 
Brnin Bladder Worms in Sheep. 
F, E., Fairvieio, IF. Va., asks what is the 
matter with his lambs. When first attacked 
they go round aud round with the head ou one 
6ide, as if there were something iu the ear. 
This lasts for one or two days, wheu they get 
too sick to walk, aud when lying dowu. their 
eyes keep rolling rapidly. 
Ans —If you open the head of one of the 
lambs by sawing carefully around the skull 
and lifting off the bone, so as to expose the 
brain, yon will probably find some parasitic 
worms. These consist of bladders filled with 
fluid in which the worms exist. The worms 
are known as brain bladder worms (Ca-uurus 
cerebralis). and the pressure and irritation on 
the brain produced by them, cause the *hoep or 
lamb to turn round in one direction, holding * 
the head on one side or downwards meanwhile. 
They are tape-worms in an embryo tic con¬ 
dition, and are introduced into the sheep ou 
hay or grass upon which eggs are adhering; 
these being dropped by dogs iu their excre¬ 
ment. In the sheep these parasites never ma¬ 
ture, but arrive at their final growth m the 
intestines of dogs. The bladders are from the 
size of a pea up to that of a hickory nut or 
even a heu’s egg. As a relief, (there is no 
cure) give a dose of two ounces of linseed oil, 
give some light but uutnrious feed, aud keep 
the stomach aud bowels free from repletion. 
When the head of a sheep coutaiumg these 
bladder worms is devoured by a dog, the larva; 
are transformed within hhu into tape-worms. 
These worms at maturity, or the eggs, having 
been voided by the dog on the pasture, are 
swallowed by the sheep, hatched iu the stomach, 
and penetrate to all parts of the body, perish¬ 
ing everywhere except iu the brain, their usual 
habitation. One dog wilt void thousands of 
eggs, some of which attached to the anus 
are dropped iu a multitude of places. Old 
sheep are seldom attacked. To prevent the 
spread of the disease, therefore, it is only 
necessary to prevent dogs from devouring the 
heads of affected sneep, or to keep them from 
