330 
MAY 22 
THE B U 1R A L NEW-YORKER. 
drlifriitobm. 
’■c D 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Canada. South Monaghan, Ont., May 10.— 
Nine-tenths of the winter wheat has been 
killed in this section, and farmers are plowing 
it up and sowing barley principally in its place. 
Some are harrowing in spring wheat. The 
acreage sown to wheat last fall was larger by 
far than for years before. We have heard no 
news about the Hessian fly so far. 
w. n. s. m 
Fla., Starke. Orange Co., May 0.—We had a 
very warm winter here, iu fact uo winter at 
all. Wc have had strawberries ever 6ince 
Christinas, and many have had ripe tomatoes 
all winter. Through January we had no rain 
at all. and have had but little since, so that the 
ground is very dry. Iu some localities uot far 
from liere there has been no rainfall at all for 
a long time and people are losing most of their 
newly set orange trees. The long-continued 
dry spells, which are usually followed by just 
as long wet spalls, are great drawbacks to gen¬ 
eral farming in this country. The last of 
March and first of April we had very cool 
weatlio", with light frosts, doing no barm to 
anything, however, except to young cotton 
plants; they will not stand much cold, and 
many had to be replauted. Most of the far¬ 
mers in this section are planting more cotton 
than usual. The peach crop is an entire fail¬ 
ure in this section. Plums aud quinces are 
nearly so. It is an unusual thiug for peaches 
to fail entirely here, and no one seems to have 
any idea as to the cause. Our Bananas are 
already putting out buds and fruit; they, as 
well as Guavas, have been growing all winter. 
Our Guavas were killed to the ground a year 
ago last January. They were then two years 
old from seed. They are now eight feet high, 
loaded with fruit and still blooming. I think 
the fruit is the most delicious we have, but it 
must be eaten where it grows, as it will not 
bear transportation except converted into jelly. 
It is rather early to judge of the orange crop, 
but it promises well at the present time. I at¬ 
tended the State fair at Jacksonville in Febru¬ 
ary, and should have sent you an account of it 
at the time only that the exhibition was so 
meager it seemed hardly worth while. But 
there was one exhibit- sent in which deserves 
mention. It was sent by a lady in Gadsden 
Co., and consisted of 360 sorts of preserved 
and canned fruits, vinegar, wineB, jellies, etc. 
The exhibit Included:—of brandied fruits 13 va¬ 
rieties; of wined, 11: of cordials, five; of wines, 
nine; of catsups, 27 ; of sirups, 11; of vinegar, 
five; of pickles, 69; of canned, 15; of jellies, 
81; of preserves. 115. They were elegantly- 
put up, and were all made within five months 
from fruits produced on her own estate. 
i. s? 
Illinois. Ludlow, Champaign Co., May 6.— 
The month of April was lavorable to wheat, 
grass aud the spring crop6, which here con¬ 
sist of oats and flax. There has been an un¬ 
usual number of hard “ blows” accompanied 
by thunder, and on the night of April 84 a 
hail storm with heavy rains, which made the 
ground too wet to work for the first half of 
the week. No material damage has been done, 
however, in this vicinity. A large breadth of 
flax was sown which geneially is above 
ground, and low every available bor6e is at 
work plowing for corn. There were while 
frosts on the last night of April and the night 
before, but they were too light to do any dam¬ 
age. There are still promises of abundant 
fruit. Peach trees bloomed very full and are 
so far advanced as to endare pretty hard 
frosts. Cherry trees are a mass of bloom; 
and apple trees, except a few of the latest va¬ 
rieties, are out in pink and white. But if 
‘•figs in January betoken frosts in May,” the 
fruit has still a narrow gauntlet to run. Some 
blossoms might be spared, however, and still 
a large crop remain. " g.” 
Kan., Parsons, Labette Co., May 5.—Corn 
planting is over. Four-fifths of it has been 
done two weeks. Owiug to an unusual spring 
drought there is little of it out of tbe ground, 
and that little got damaged by frost, of which 
wc had a touch several nights last week. 
Wheat and oats have been seriously damaged 
by drought, assisted in some cases by chinch- 
bugs. Rye is headed out. Our pastures have 
been as 6ere as in August. We had three- 
quarters of an inch of rain on Monday the 3d, 
which, with a temperature of 80 ©, has imparted 
verdure and growth to grain, grass and trees. 
Our farmers are selling the balance of their 
corn at 85 to 87 cents. It all goes to Texas. 
Tho Texaus failed to raise a grain crop last 
year; but by the enhanced value of cottOD, 
they are in a mueh more prosperous Btate than 
usual. It is intelligently reported that while 
they have paid three millions of dollars for 
grain and flour, they have received twenty 
millions additional for their cotton crop. By 
the way, there are unfavorable reports of in¬ 
jury to the wheat crop in Texas from rust. If 
I remember rightly, we have been out of the 
track of the several cyclones which the Rural 
has reported as having prevailed in Kansas, 
Arkansas, Missouri, etc. In relation to the 
one that wrought such terrific destruction at 
Marshfield and neighborhood, in Mo., I have to 
say: On tbe Sunday evening on which this 
disaster occurred, I was sitting outside my 
house and noticed in the southeast continuous¬ 
ly intermittent flashes of lightning. This I 
have learned is a sure sign ot great atmospher¬ 
ic disturbance. At this moment a very violent 
wind that set in from the northwest, made me 
feel certain of a storm in the southeast. I deter¬ 
mined, then, to see if a storm did occur at this 
time. I fixed the lime at 7:30 r. m., aud located 
the storm aboutSpringfield, Mo., or iu northern 
Arkansas. On Monday evening 1 was just ex¬ 
cited when, at supper, one of our girls being 
just home from school, said. “ Papa, there 
was a gieat stonn at Marshfield 5n Missouri, 
last night; two to three hundred lives were 
lost.” Where is Marshfield? I asked. “Fifteen 
miles from Springfield,” she said ; of course, I 
had for once made a prediction that was veri 
fled. I have scanned closely the time the cy¬ 
clone passed Springfield, and think the time is 
not 15 minutes different from my observation. 
Of course. I could have no idea of tbe extent 
of the calamity. Two years ago, a tornado 
that occurred iu Wisconsin, gave the same in¬ 
dications I have given, tbe electricity being 
fuinter from being more distant, but accom¬ 
panied by a most violently heavy wind from 
the south, which continued all night. The 
wiud, of course, indicated a vacuum north¬ 
ward. By the way, nearly everybody here is 
exceedingly in dread of these thiugs, which is 
quite unreasonable, as a cyclone is not fatally 
destructive outside of a space of, say, 100 to 
2,500 feet. j. b. 
Kansas, Everett, Woodson Co., May 2.—The 
spring was cool, dry aud backward; but 
wheat is in fine condition—from six to eight 
inches in bight. Oats need rain, but arc not 
damaged by the drought yet- Corn planting 
ia mostly finished and some fields are np. Tho 
prospect for an abundance of all kinds of 
fruit never was better. All young apple trees 
that are three and four years old have blos¬ 
soms on, and small peach trees that were 
planted last year blossomed this spring. Stock 
is in good condition and in fair demand. The 
sheep craze has struck some of our farmers, 
and they are selling off their cattle, intending 
to buy sheep, after shearing, aud get rich (?) 
in short order. j. J. d. 
Kr., Milton, Trimble Co., May 12.—We had 
a sharp frost this morning, which will about 
finish the fruit- crop of this vicinity. The Ohio 
River is almost bankfui. Wheat in 6ome 
places looks quite yellow ; but generally it 
offers the best prospect we have had for years. 
We are about half done planting cjrn; ten 
days earlier thau usual. Distillery hogs are 
dying rapidly wilh the Bo-called hog cholera. 
Stock of all kinds ou pasture are doing well. 
B. B. H. 
Minn., St. Paul, Ramsey Co., May 3.—Wheat 
seeding in the southern part of the State has 
been generally accomplished in good shape. 
The ground was pulverized nicely and the 
generous rains which fell during the past week 
have started tbe growth of the grain sown. 
Farmers are eheerful and hopeful. The acre¬ 
age of wheat sown is fuJJy equal to that ot any 
year in the past. Alongihe liueof the.St. P. and 
Sioux City li. R., a road which traverses the 
State in a south westerly direction from St. 
Paul, there will be a large iucrease iu flax aud 
Amber cane planted—it is safe to assume au in¬ 
crease of 100 per cent, over last year. Both 
linseed mills and individuals nave loaned to 
farmers flax seed, and the favorable results of 
last year in special directions, have stimulated 
the farmers to turn their attention and energies 
to stock farming and to the cultivation of flax, 
Indian corn, oats, and Amber cane, and less to 
uiheat, j. b. c. 
N. Y., Greenwich, Green Co., May 3,—I have 
just returned Lome from a trip to the State of 
Nebraska where I spent a number of days at 
sundry places along the Union Pacific R. R. 
in the Great Platte Valley, visiting people for¬ 
merly from Washington Co.,N. Y. All seem 
to be pleased with the country, calling it 
the Garden of Eden of America. While at 
Waterloo, Neb., I met an old neighbor who 
went there last spring, and began to raise 
seedB. He raised, on one acre, 820 pounds of 
cucumber seeds; and what was remarkable to 
me, his squashes when eaten by the maggot in 
the root—which is sure death to them in the 
East—would root down at the Joluts and pro¬ 
duce good seeds. He raised 2,200 pounds of 
squash seed. He said that by actual meas¬ 
urement the vines grew 14 inches in 24 
hours, and that it was the finest country for all 
kinds of vegetables in the world. The immigra¬ 
tion to that country this spring was immense. 
During the month of February last, 152 car¬ 
loads of stock and household goods and 132 im¬ 
migrant teams, averaging lour persons to each 
team, crossed the Missouri River bridge at 
Ouiahagoing west to settle. The Laud Depart¬ 
ment of the Northern Pacific R. R. sold over 
26,000 acres of land to 259 purchasers for over 
$126,000, at the average price per acre of $4.81; 
and since then the immigration and sales of 
land have been constantly on the increase. I 
don’t wonder that Horace Greeley, after riding 
over, and taking a view of that great val¬ 
ley, said: “ Go West, young man, go West, and 
grow up with tbe country ;” for if a man can't 
make money iu that country, ho deserves to 
etarve. o. K. B. 
N. Y., Starkey, Yates Co., May 3.—After an 
unusually mild winter we got to work in earn¬ 
est Wheat on open soils is looking fine; on stiff 
soils it is not doing so well; on hard, clayey 
knolls, it is badly out; but if nothing adverse 
occurs, a better than average crop may be 
looked for. Tho breadth sown last fall was 
greater than usual. In this vicinity fruit blos¬ 
soms seem all right. Peaches are forward and 
blossomed early. Grape vines seem all right, 
and grapes are a staple crop iu this section. 
The subject of drying fruit by rapid evapora¬ 
tion, is receiving a good deal of attention - 
but not greater than it deserves. If the 
demand for this kind of dried fruit is to con¬ 
tinue—and I do not see why it should not—it 
would be well for fruit-growers to cultivate 
varieties of fall apples on purpose for drying. 
Among the best, if uot the be6t variety for this 
purpose, is the Clyde Beauty. It is not growu 
H6 much by nurserymen ns it deserves to be. It 
is a large, fair apple: color, light straw, 6triped 
with red ; flesh, very white, tender and crisp. It 
makes a much better dried apple thau any 
winter apple I know of. Some seem to think 
that the dsmand for dried apples will soon be 
met, so that It will not be safe to extend it 
much. That may be true of apples dried in 
the old-fashioned way, but not of those dried 
by artificial heat. w. h. o. 
Ohio, Westfield, Morrow Co., May 6.—On 
the last day of April we had a sharp frost 
which killed some fruit, but enough for home 
use is left. Wheat still looks fine. Young grass 
has come up and looks promising. Planting 
corn and potatoes is now the order of the 
day. i. b b. 
Pa-, Corry, Erie Co., May 10th.—At present 
it is warm and pleasant, and farmers are busy 
putting in their crops. Fruit trees of all kiuds 
are coming out in full bloom, and everything 
looks promising. Hay is worth $10 per ton; 
oats, 50c per bushel; potatoes. 25 to 30c; butter 
18 to 23c per pouud; eggs 10c per dozen, and 
the market is not over-stocked at present 
prices. c. d. s. 
Texas, Waco, McLennan Co., May 5.— 
Within the last week or ten days we have had 
exceedingly fine rains, and all kinds of vege¬ 
tation are growing rapidly. Until then the 
wheat aud oats began to show the need 
ot raiu, and a week more of dry weather 
would have cut off the oats almost entirely. 
8ome oats in the sheaf are already on the mar¬ 
ket, and it is hoped it will bring down the 
price of corn, which sells at 60 cents per 
bushel. My Ennobled oats is growing finely, 
being now about 15 inches high; it was planted 
on the 1st of April, in drills, and it, tillers be¬ 
yond anything 1 ever saw in a grain. I counted 
as many as five shoots from one stalk. My 
mangels all came up, but I have lost all but a 
few from the ravages of worms aud insects. 
My garden—the vegetable department—has 
been literally destroyed by them. Every im¬ 
aginable kind of worm, bug, fly and flea, both 
great and small, seemed to Bweep down on me, 
and to cut and slash until they ate everything 
worth eating in the vegetable garden. Then 
they made a detour uoon my flower garden 
and left me there only a few Pansies and 
Phloxes. My choicest flowers seemed to be the 
daintiest dish for them. 1 have need every 
preventive 1 ever heard or read ot to stop or 
check them, but they seemed bent on destruc¬ 
tion, and no single article or appplication 
amounted to anything. I had a struggle to 
save my Cuthbert Raspberries and fine Grapes 
and Coffee plants., aud only did so by covering 
them with gauze. My Strawberries were not 
interfered with, and are growiug beautifully. 
Gen. Le Dac, our worthy and efficient Com¬ 
missioner of Agriculture, sent me a few of the 
“Sharpless” and “Forest Rose” on Feb. 20, 
aud on the 20th of April I plucked a few hand¬ 
fuls of large, lnscious, berries from the vines. 
A Sharpless measured over five inches in cir¬ 
cumference from a plant two months old from 
the pot. The planters are joyous over the 
prospects of large crops this year, as they 
have never had a more propitious season thus 
far. My Blount’s corn is nearly head-high and 
still going up. A. 8. 8. 
Washington Territobt, White River, 
King Co., April 30.—No winter wheat is raised 
in this section; double last year’s area of 
Bpring wheat will be put in. e. h. a. 
Wis., Necedah, Juneau Co,, May 3.—SpriDg 
grain about all sown. Season three weeks 
late. Had considerable cold rain. Grass 
coming on slowly, but cattle doing well, graz¬ 
ing—came through the winter in good condi¬ 
tion. This is a great lumbering center. Cran¬ 
berries are largely cultivated. 8tnall fruits of 
all kinds do weli upon our intervale lands. 
This region is especially a grazing district, 
while “considerable” of the land will make ex¬ 
cellent farms. This is especially the case 
along Yellow River, from eight to twenty miles 
north of this village. We are building a school- 
house, but we have but few neighbors, so I 
have concluded to donate 40 acres of land each 
to persons with families who will build and 
live upon the laud—all convenient to school, 
rail-road station sir miles off. Men and larger 
boys find employment in lumbering camps 
north of ns all winter at good wages, young 
women and girls command from $1 to $3 per 
week and are scarce. Net cost of raising a 
three-year-old steer, about $15. They gen¬ 
erally sell at from $30 to $35. Sheep are 
healthy and pay well. Hay is excellent and 
cheap—pasturage free. Timber of all kinds 
plentiful and to be had for little more than the 
hauling. We have no ague; no chills and 
fever; health proverbially good. Wheat, 
$105; oats, 40c.; corn. 50c.; rye, 70c.; barley, 
60c.; potatoes. 30c. to 40c.; butter, 20c. to 25c.; 
eggs, 15c ; wild hay in stack $3 to $5; timothy 
and clover bay at Necedah, $8 to $10; com¬ 
mon lumber, $8 to $10. Tho. McConnell. 
[We are assured by the donor that the above 
is a bona fide offer, and therefore think it 
worth publishing ; but we have no personal 
acquaintance with the writer or bis belong¬ 
ings.— Eds) 
Wis., West Salem, La Crosse Co , May 5 — 
In regard to the device for preventing cows 
from sucking themselves, illustrated in the 
Rubal of April 17, and its being patented by 
some Yankee, I would say that I made and 
used a similar device more than 25 years ago 
to prevent calves from sucking cows. Winter 
wheat here is badly winter-killed—heaved out. 
There was a good deal sown last fall. Very 
little old wheat still remains in farmers’ hands. 
Early-sown spring wheat looks good. w. j. 
Wis., Louisville, Dunn Co., May 4.—Weather 
warm—87 deg. in the shade. Small grain 
nearly all sown. Winter grain all dead. Clover, 
ditto, except Borne of last year’s seeding. Help 
plenty at $16 to $20 per month for the season. 
Wheat, $1 05@90c ; corn, 40c; oats, 30c; pota¬ 
toes, 40c ; butter, 20c; eggs, 10c. Not as much 
wheat sown as last year. A great many 
farmers are sowing 6alt on their wheat. l. 
®i)f $iunst. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
[All queries must bo accompanied by the name and 
address of the writers to insure attention.] 
How lo Rear a Motherless Colt. 
W. II. B., Brydges, Ont., Canada, asks how 
lo rear a colt whose ram died shortly after 
the little one’s birth. 
Asa.—There is considerable difference of 
opinion, and consequently of practice as to this. 
But the most successful way according to our 
experience, is to give it a sufficient quantity of 
cow's milk, fresh drawn and warm from the 
bag, to keep it thriving welt. How much of 
thi will be necessary per day, can only be as¬ 
certained by experience, as colts differ so 
much in Eize. As mares’ milk is richer than 
cows’milk, the richest kind of common cow’s 
milk should be sought for, to feed the colt. If 
it cannot be found sufficiently rich, a little pure 
sugar enonld be mixed with it, and always 
feed the milk warm. Perhaps Guernsey or 
Jersey cow’s milk might be found too rich, and 
therefore be apt to make the colt too loose in 
the bowels. It used, and this Bortof milk does 
this, change for that of a poorer quality. A» 
soon as the colt can be tempted to eat 
oats, give a half pint mornings, doous and 
nights, and gradually increase this quantity 
to two or more quarts per day. After a 
few weeks, one-fifth of the quantity of wheat 
bran may be added to the oats, gradually in¬ 
creasing till mixed half and half. Some pre¬ 
fer oat-meal to whole oats, which may be bet¬ 
ter, if it docs not scour the colt. To the above 
—for the first few weeks—add a tablespoon¬ 
ful of oil (linseed) meal, if to be had unadul¬ 
terated; if not, then flaxseed; pour hot water 
enough on this to make a thin gruel; beat up 
an egg and mix it in. This is to be used every 
day, adding one-sixth of it to the cow's milk; 
which should be fed six times per day. If the 
colt scours, add a little more oil meal to its 
feed each day. The col t can be taught to d rink 
the milk In the same manner as a calf. After 
being kept as above a mouth or so, 6ome peo¬ 
ple boil clover hay and feed the water in which 
it is boiled to the colt. Always have it milk- 
warm when fed, and have it made fresh every 
day. Begin sparingly, lest it Bhould scour the 
colt. Turn it out to rather a short, sweet pas¬ 
ture as soon as you please, and let it learn to 
nibble tho grass; but be careful It doesn’t eat 
much to begin with; gradually accustom the 
colt to it, or this will scour him. Never feed 
sour milk; always have it fresh and sweet, 
and see that the water used for the oil-meal 
gruel is pure and fresh, and also when the colt 
is old enough to crave it for drinking. When 
it rains or a strong, raw wind blows, shelter 
the colt well. When three or four months old 
warmed 6kim-milk can probably be gradually 
substituted for new milk. 
