!I1I1IH |1IU ^S 
£attry h 
Price Five Cents, 
$2.00 Pee Year. 
Vol. XXXIX. No. 24, 
Whole No. 1585. 
[Knterod according: to Act of Congress, in tlie your 1SSJ, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
are, in fact, half of them failures from one 
cause or another—generally because they are 
not adapted to the place or because they are 
inferior to old varieties of the same species 
wherever grown. And thus it is that curious 
visitors who indge of thiuga merely as they 
appear, while they overlook the necessities of 
the case, hold us or our poor judgment or poor 
farming, responsible for the failures which, as 
much as our successes, are the very objects of 
experiment grounds. If all experiment* weia 
as successful as the ordinary farm practice, 
while occasionally decided improvements were 
made, there can be uo doubt that experiment 
farming would be the rule and not the excep¬ 
tion. It is the cost in time, labor, patience and 
money that constrains the farmers, as a class, 
to hold on to that which is good or at least to 
that which is the best that they kuow of, and 
to leave experiments and their heavy propor¬ 
tion of failures to those who can afford to make 
them ;—to those wao can utilize them almost 
the same as If they were successes. 
In one sense, it matters very little to us 
which kind of our twenty-tWe varieties of 
wheat turns out the best; which of our seventy- 
five kinds of potatoes yields the best or is the 
best in quality ; which is the most profitable 
way to plant them, to single, double or triple 
eyes ; six inches apart or two feet apart, in 
drills or hills, ia ridges or flat, shallow or deep. 
We are interested iu the results whether they 
be good, Indifferent or bad. It may be as 
valuable to our readers to he informed that the 
much-praised Mold’s winter wheats are fail¬ 
ures iu our climate, as that Defiance wheat 
proves to be more valuable as a winter than as 
a spring wheat. When new varieties of seeds 
are extensively advertised, with what seem to 
he trustworthy reports of enormous yields, 
tempted, as our readers may be to purchase 
them, they would probably be deterred from 
doing so, or at least be induced to await further 
tests, were we to report the failure of such 
seeds after earetul trial at this farm. Indeed 
it is in this way that we have thought our tests 
have proven most serviceable to our readers. 
We have just completed planting a field of 
three and a-half acres. It had been in pasture 
for six years and was plowed under late 
last fall. We have used concentrated ferti¬ 
lizers only—a light sowing broadcast and a 
dressing in the furrows before planting. A 
part of the field has been planted to Blount’s 
corn, the seed saved only from the topmost ear 
of stalks which bore three cars or more ; a 
part to Chester Co- Mammoth, a yellow Dent 
with !.’0 or mote rows; a part to Queen of the 
Prairie (also a yellow Dent) which is said to 
mature if pluuted after the wheat crop is har¬ 
vested ; a part to several new sorts of sweet 
corn: a few hills to Cuzco" corn which from 
tests made several years ago, we are assured 
will not ripen in this climate. [Cuts, it will be 
remembered, wevo given in the Rural Nbw- 
Yoriucr of March 13 last, of ibe immense ker¬ 
nels which this corn bears. The several lots 
scut to us by friends have been distributed and 
planted in the South.—Eos J We have also 
planted many kinds of bush-freaus sent to us 
by seedsmen and iyeuds; also eleven varieties 
of the Southern eow-pea (DolSehos) ; also new 
squashes, melons, etc. A considerable part of 
the field, however, is given to experiments 
with potatoes. To ascertain the distance at 
which it is most profitable to plant potatoes in 
drills, cut to siuglu eyes, we have pursued the 
following plan, selecting the Beauty of llebron 
as the variety iu every drill: 
6*5 pieces weighing2 tbs. in drills 33 feet long. 
48 “ •• 1 to os. “ 
40 “ “1 6 “ 
33 “ “16" 
30 “ 1 3 “ 
28 “ “ 014*“ 
25 “ “0 U “ 
20 " “ U 14 “ 
cal Society his contributions to educational 
methods have mostly appeared in the ‘‘Illinois 
Teacher” and “Michigan Teacher,” while his 
articles for practical horticulturists are scat¬ 
tered through the leading agricultural period¬ 
icals since 1873, and some of the very best of 
them may be found in Ihe Agricultural and 
Poinologieal Reports of the State of Michigan. 
The readers of the Rural New-Yorker are 
especially indebted to him for valuable articles 
contributed to its pages during the past few 
years. 
Prof. Beal is a prominent member of the 
Michigan State Pomological Society and is 
Master of a leading County Orauge. Just now 
he is interested iu a scries of experiments sug¬ 
gested to him by Darwin’s work on “ Cross and 
Self-fertilization of Plants,” and he believes 
that many facts of great practical utility to 
the farmer aud fruit grower, may be worked 
out from ideas suggested in this book, if ex¬ 
periments are properly conducted. It is diffi¬ 
cult in a short article to indicate the lines of 
work followed ont by a busy investigator like 
Prof. Beal. At the age of 47, he is now in the 
midst of his usefulness, and if life and health 
are spared him, he will contribute largely to 
the horticultural progress of the next score of 
years. 
of the two departments up to the date of this 
article. During the years that. Professor Beal 
has heeu connected with the Michigan Agricul¬ 
tural College, he has had very tempting offers 
to go elsewhere ; particularly has the Chicago 
University striven to attach him to its Facul¬ 
ty, and in 1877, it gave him the honorary de¬ 
gree of Master of Science. 
Prof. Beal is aggressive in his methods of 
work; he believes iu keeping the institution 
with which he is connected in the minds of the 
people, and was influential in 1875, in starting 
theproject of holding Farmers’ Institutes about 
his State under the direction of the college, 
which have become so popular in subsequent 
years, lie ia often called out to lecture and, 
whenever possible, accepts the invitations. By 
this moans he has made a large, acquaintance 
and become deservedly popular. II is addresses 
are not rhetorical, but simple statements of 
observations and experience lie cares more 
for facts than fine figures, and there is nothing 
he enjoys better thau to auswer questions that 
bring out his knowledge of facts. He has 
worked hard to give his department of the 
college a good position and was instrumental 
iu securing a very attractive greenhouse as an 
accessory to his work, and recently projected 
a laboratory aud museum which the Board has 
lately erected iu accordance wiLh his plans. 
He takes copious uotes upon everything he ob¬ 
serves, and does not confine his observations 
to his own department. By this means he has 
become, very ready in conversation upon all 
rural topics, aud his counsel is sought in the 
purchase of stock and implements, and the use 
of fertilizers, etc., as well as in the naming of 
plants. He was married to Miss Hannah 
Proud iu 1803, aud has one little girl ten years 
of age. 
The published writings of Prot. Beal are 
found scattered through the leading educa¬ 
tional and agricultural periodicals of the past 
PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES BEAL 
BY CnARl.ES W. GAKFIEI.D, M. S 
as a field tor his special life-work. As a school¬ 
boy he was a favorite, because of his knowl¬ 
edge of all the peculiarities of the neighbor¬ 
hood and his inventive genius which brought 
out contrivances for the amusement of his 
* school-fellows and assistance iu their games 
1 1 and plans. From the common school he went 
j to the Raisin Valley Seminary. His earnest 
: advocacy of the labor system in Agricultural 
Colleges, did not originate in any admiration 
, for a similiar system practiced at this Semin¬ 
ary, for, it is said, he entortained as a student 
’ a wholesome dislike for it there. His kuowl- 
' edge of the trees, the plants, the stoues, and 
' the animals of the viciuity, made him a lead¬ 
er in this second stage of his education. From 
> this Seminary he went to the Michigan Uni¬ 
versity, taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts 
iu 1859 His college education was “ worked 
on.’’ Haviug very little means to assist him 
in his course, he had recourse to a variety of al- 
. teruatives to secure the uecessary luuds for 
his support. lie worked on the farm, taught 
country school, aud occasionally resorted to 
the vigorous driving of the buck saw in the 
i streets, to maintain himself, 
j For two aud one-half years after graduat¬ 
ing he taught iu Friends’ Academy’, Union 
Springs, Cayuga Co., New York. Desiring 
to have a broader training iu the natural 
Sciences, the youug teacher decided to make 
the best possible use of his funds accumulated 
'asan instructor, and betook himself to Har¬ 
vard University, where as a special student 
under Prof. Aggasslz aud Dr. Gray, he laid a 
broad fuuudatioo for future usefulness, aud con¬ 
ceived some of the methods of teaching which 
have iu his hands proved so successful. Two 
T ars after entering Harvard he took the de¬ 
cree of B. S. and for nearly five years there¬ 
after taught in Howland Institute at Union 
Springs, N. Y. 
I Early in 18(59 he moved to Chicago and was 
successful in teaching aud lecturing upou nat¬ 
ural history In the eeiuiuaries aud colleges 
about Chicago for nearly two years. In 1870 
he was first called to tho Michigan State Agii- 
cnltural College to teach Botauy, and was 
during that year elected by the Board of Agri¬ 
culture, Professor of Botauy. His method of 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL FARM 
We are sometimes asked questions like these, 
while explaining our experiments to frieuds 
“Why do you plant potato pieces six inches 
apart? Don’t you knmo without experiment 
that that is too close? Why do you plant 
single eyes two feet apart ? It is a waste of 
time and labor.” 
PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES BEAL.—From a Photograph 
Fig. 203. 
Here is a wheat plot that is burnt up. Here 
is another with heads scarcely over an inch 
long. Hero is another plot with barley, oats, 
rye mixed in with the wheat which itself is 
mixed, showing several different varieties. 
The crops grown upou our experiment plots 
decade. His best contributions to science may 
be found in the volumes of the “American 
Naturalist;” “ Proceedings of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Sciences 
“ American Journal of Science and Art,” and 
the "Proceedings of the American Pomologi- 
The following w T ith two pieces (each single 
eye) placed close together: 
66 pieces weiirkinv: 3 lbs. 2 oz. iu drill 33 feet lon>r. 
