;* - 
Voxj. XXXIX. No. 20. 
Whole No. 1581. 
NEW YORK, MAY 15, 1880. 
K Price Five Cents. 
{ $2.00 Pee Yeab. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1880, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
fomoloptal. 
LOQUAT-JAPAN PLUM. (ERIOBOTRYA 
JAPONICA.) 
On a visit to Charleston, 8. C., at the end of 
March, I saw a very fine tree of the above 
species, loaded with fruit just then beginning to 
ripen. The tree was some 12 to 15 feet high, 
with large, spreading branches, and the limbs 
were bending under their burthen of fruit. 
The exceptionally mild winter had been favor¬ 
able, and no extreme of cold had injured the 
young yield. 
The Loquat, or Japan Plum, is au importatiou 
from Japan, said to have been introduced by 
Commodore Perry’s Expedition—auother con¬ 
tribution from that prolific source of so many of 
our useful and ornamental plants. It is now 
propagated throughout the Southern States, 
and is valued not only as one of the most orna¬ 
mental of our broad-leaved evergreens, but also 
for its fruit. The tree blooms in November, 
and the young fruit is thus exposed to the cold 
of the winter. In New Orleans, Texas and 
along the Gulf Coast the fruit is rarely injured 
and is a marketable object inthe large cities. 
Asfar north as this latitude, it can only be used 
as an ornamental evergreen, except in Charles¬ 
ton, where, protected from cold winds and 
from severe frosts by proximity to the sea, it 
occasionally escapes. The fruit when ripe is 
of a bright golden yellow, or orange color, 
oval in shapo, from one to ono-and-a-half inch 
in length and nearly an inch in diameter, fleshy 
and well flavored, with a single large seed. It 
belongs to the natural order Rosaceiu. 
Aiken, S. C. H. W. Ravenei,. 
[The specimen from which our engraving was 
drawn was presented to one of our editors 
during a late visit to Aiken, by Mr. Ravenei. 
—Eds.] 
WESTERN FARMING.—V. 
W. I. OnAMUEItLAIN. 
Our Agricultural Colleges. 
It may not be out of place iu this series of 
articles, whose object is to learn what we can 
from a comparison of the agriculture of differ¬ 
ent sections of our country, to stu ly in the 
same way some of our schools of agriculture. 
If we, in one State, can learn anything from 
these schools in other States, we shall be the 
gainers. 
Agricultural Colleges arc not peculiar to the 
West, though the oldest and one of the best is 
in the West, and 1 propose to compare our 
own younger Ohio institution with this older 
one in Michigau, to see what we may learn from 
the comparison. 
The Michigan school is, beyond question, as 
its name indicates, an Agricultural College. 
Agriculture is the “ objective point" there. It 
is “the thing” in that school for the students 
to become farmers after graduation, and, in 
point of fact, just about one-haJf of all its 
graduates daring the nineteen years of its 
existence, have made agriculture or horticul¬ 
ture their calling, and most of the other half 
have gone to the “ mechanic arts." How 
different this is from the results in our ordi¬ 
nary universities and literary and scientific 
colleges, may be seen from very careful statis¬ 
tics which show that only one-and-a-half per 
cent, of their graduates become farmers. 
Onr 8tate agricultural schools are alike in 
this, that their funds come chiefly from the 
laud grants of the General Government. But 
Ohio and Michigan seem to have understood 
those grants quite differently. The law of 
Congress “ donating public lands to the several 
States and Territories which may provide col¬ 
leges for the benefit of agriculture and the 
mechanic arts," provides that the interest of 
the fund arising from the sale of such lands 
“shall be inviolably appropriated * * * * 
to the endowment, support aud maintenance of 
at least one college (in each State) where die 
leading object shall be, without excluding other 
scientific and classical studies, and including 
military tactics, to teach such branches of 
learning as are relative to agriculture and the 
mechanic arts, in such manner as the Legisla¬ 
tures may respectively prescribe, in order to 
promote the liberal and practical education of 
the industrial classes in the several pursuits and 
professions of life." 
Now, the Michigau Legislature understood 
this to put agriculture first in importance ; and 
the State law of 1861, submitted by a farmer, 
named the new school “ The State Agricultural 
College,” and declared that the new design of 
the institution, in accordance with the Con¬ 
gressional law, “is to afford thorough instruc¬ 
tion in agriculture and the natural science' 
connected therewith.” And that “ the mstitu 
tion shall combine physical with intellectual 
education, aud shall be a high seminary of 
learning in which the graduate of the commou 
school can commence, pursue and finish a 
course of study terminating in thorough 
theoretic and practical instruction in those 
sciences and arts which bear directly upon 
agriculture and kindred industrial pursuits.'; 
And among other studies specified, the law 
declares that the institution shall teach “espe¬ 
cially the application of science and the me¬ 
chanic arts to practical agriculture iu the field. 
The Michigan Legislature, Board of Agricul¬ 
ture, and Faculty of the College seem to have 
thought and argued in the matter very much 
as farmers everywhere naturally will argue 
JAPAN PLUM-Loquat. (Eriobotrya Japoniea.) — From Life. — Fig. 181. 
