JUNE 16 
1 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
OONDCOTKD BY 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 26. 1880. 
WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE1 
Upon the receipt of this number of the Ru¬ 
ral New Yorker, we would be glad if our 
readers would advise U3 at once of the condi¬ 
tion of the leading crops of their respective 
districts—wheat, corn, cotton, potatoes, hay, 
apples, pears, etc., etc. We are now at work 
upon the What-will-the-Harvest-Be number of 
this journal, and desire to make it as explicit, 
trustworthy and valuable as possible to our 
readers, to whom, in a great measure, we must 
look for the information sought. 
The first brood of grubs from the Po¬ 
tato Beetle is now hatching out. Many 
of our farmers may not be aware that 
these larvte cannot endure the contact of 
ashes, plaster and the like. If knocked 
off the leaves many of them fall on the hot 
soil and perish. 
--- 
We shad soon begin the publication of 
strawoerry portraits of new varieties. 
Many of the originals have been kindly 
furnished by Peter B. Mead, E. P. ltoe 
and ,T. T. Lovett. The others have been 
raised at the Rural Grounds the present 
season. These portraits are true like¬ 
nesses, We have not selected the largest 
fruit, as those engaged in the trade are 
too prone to do, but the average fruit, by 
which alone a strawberry or any other 
fruit should be judged. 
We have found it quite serviceable to 
go over grain infested with the Army 
worm and knock the pests off. The 
slighest touch dislodges them. A rope, 
as a clothes line, may be drawn over belts 
20 feet in width by men each taking hold 
of an end. Thus thrown to the ground 
they begin their travels instead of at 
once returning to feast upon the gi'ain or 
stalks about them. If trenches are dug 
about such fields, vast numbers may be 
captured and destroyed in this manner. 
Within a few years past the problem 
of increasing the yield of corn by im¬ 
proved methods of cultivation, has been 
warmly discussed, and, no doubt, with 
benefit to the farmers of the land. The 
average farmer will not raise one hun¬ 
dred bushels of shelled com per acre, 
but the successful efforts will, at least, 
induce him to strive to increase bis yield. 
It would be well if a great deal more 
thought and investigation were given to 
increasing the yield of potatoes—looking 
to which we shall have a few words to say 
in our next “ Free Plant and Seed Dis¬ 
tribution,” which will be announced in 
the Fair Number of the Rural New- 
Yorker, soon to be issued. 
The Beet Sugar Industry. —The beet 
sugar industry seems at last to have 
taken a permanent footing in America, 
A thriving factory is at work in Maine, 
another in Delaware, two in California, 
one is seriously proposed to be built at 
Oswego, N, Y., and one is to be built in 
Missiquoi Co., Canada. The State of 
Delaware offers $3,000 in premiums for 
the best crop of sugar beets for the en¬ 
couragement of the culture, aDd in one 
year the Agricultural Department dis¬ 
tributed 4,764 quarts of sugar beet seed. 
The general iuterest taken in this sub¬ 
ject may be destined to result in a vast 
benefit to agriculture. We know that 
sugar can be profitably made from beetB; 
we know that beets can be grown; all 
that seems to be needed is to bring farm¬ 
ers and manufacturers into practical 
business relations with each other. 
-♦-»+- 
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS IN TRANSIT. 
If it be true that “man’s inhumanity 
to man make countless thousands mourn,” 
it may be held to be small matter for 
surprise that man should inflict still 
greater inhumanity upon the inferior 
brufes. Nevertheless the fact of this 
greater inhumanity and cruelty, beyond 
expression in its atrocity, ought to be 
made known that the better instincts of 
mankind may be awakened in regard to 
it. Although man has lawful dominion 
over the beasts of the field and may le¬ 
gitimately use them for his purposes, 
even to the extent of slaughter, yet cruel¬ 
ty in the exercise of this right is to be 
reprobated in the severest manner. In 
general, personal interest is sufficient in¬ 
ducement to prevent injurious treatment 
of auimals, but in the commercial hand¬ 
ling of live stock the miserable beasts 
are put into the hands and charge of per¬ 
sons who have no interest beyond doiug 
their work in the most easy and rapid 
manner, that their pay may be made as 
remunerative as possible. Here personal 
interest operates against the natural 
sentiment, and that, added to long usage 
and familiarity with cruel devices for the 
management of frightenedand uuruly ani¬ 
mals, is the cause of practices most abom¬ 
inable and cruel. 
Without going int > particulars, one 
pertinent fact wmch is made public in a 
mere business way. may be cited as an il¬ 
lustration. For a long time paBt pork 
packers have complained of the damage 
done to shoulders and hams by the cuts 
and stabs inflicted upon the hogs by 
means of brads and spikes used by 
persons engaged in driving and load¬ 
ing the animals, and tauners have 
complained iu regard to the injuries 
to hides from similar causes, to say noth¬ 
ing about those from excessively deep 
and unnecessarily large brands burned 
into the flesh of cattle. New York pack¬ 
ers’ losses and complaints have at last 
become so serious that the attention of 
railroad agents has been called to the 
abuses, and their interference to prevent 
them demanded. The extent of the abuse 
may be imagined from the statement 
made, that of one lot of 3,500 hams sold 
recently by a Chicago packer only 1,400 
could be snipped, owing to the damages 
caused by cuts, stabs and bruises upon 
them. Taree-filths of tnese hogs had 
been so cruelly abased that the hams 
were unsalable except as damaged ones. 
If one-half the hogs were iu j ured on the 
hams, doubtless a large majority of the 
remainder were ill-usedin other ways, aud 
the total misery inflated upon the whole 
nine million of hogs packed in 1879, must 
have been appalling iu its enormity. 
Fortunately tile cruelty takes on a final 
form of a loss of 25 cents per ham, which 
is sufficient to force the packers to the 
help of the Humane Societies which are 
without much credit in the estimation of 
railroad employes and hog-drivers. The 
packers’ complaints will be listened to, 
else the loss will fall where it will finally 
have the effect of stopping the cruel 
practices. But what an amount of mute 
and helpless suffering is represented by 
those 25 cents. 
TRIAL OF WHEATS AT THE MISSOURI 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 
Last y> ar, upon the farm of the Mis¬ 
souri Agricultural College (Columbia), 
Professor Tracy tried upwards of fifty 
different kinds of wheat, and his report, 
we should suppose, would prove of much 
value to farmers in general, as well as to 
those of Missouri. Among the varieties 
tried, we select the folio wing as having 
yielded the largest quantities of grain 
per acre : 
1ST8. 1S79. 
Amber . 
33.03 
Smooth 
Arnold’s Hybrid . 
. 33 23 
38.58 
*» 
Clawson. 
39.42 
Delhi. 
.14.42 
39.00 
it 
Dou. 
36.40 
Bearded 
Egyptian. 
32.19 
Fultz. 
.15.23 
35.9U 
Smooth 
Gold Medal. 
34.68 
At 
Jennings Wfilte.,.. 
.24.95 
35.90 
Bearded 
Michigan Wick. 
34.71 
*• 
Muskingum. 
.21.92 
83,78 
Smooth 
N ursery .. 
38.62 
Polish . 
35.20 
it 
Post . 
34.04 
Bearded 
Red May . 
. 27.52 
82.40 
Smooth 
Shumaker . 
37.20 
D 
Sliver Chuff . 
. 17.82 
38.47 
it 
Treadwell . 
. 19.82 
52.38 
H 
White Rogers . 
38.74 
Bearded 
Zimmerman . 
. 18.32 
32.U5 
Smooth 
Russian No. 3 . 
. 8.30 
35.60 
Russian No. 12 . 
37.48 
ti 
Professor Tracy says that the laud, a 
clayey loam sloping to the south, was 
plowed about September 1st six inches 
deep. On September 25 it was thorough¬ 
ly pulverized three inches deep with a re¬ 
volving harrow, and on September 28 
the seed was sown with a drill at the rate 
of one and one-third bushel per acre. 
No after cultivation was given to the 
crop. In August, 1878, a portion of the 
land was manured witn slaughter-house 
refuse, which was composted with earth 
iu 1876, and w’as applied at the rate of 
five two-horse wagon loads to the acre; 
the remainder of the land was manure d 
with stable manure at the rate of twenty 
loads to the acre. The wheat was sown 
so that each variety was grown on laud 
having each kind of manure. The 
slaugnter-houae refuse gave the largest 
straw, but the brightest and the plump¬ 
est grain came from the land having tiie 
stable manure. 
Through the courtesy of Professor 
Tracy we shall be enabled to give our 
readers engravings of several of the above 
wheats which produced the heaviest yields, 
together with all the information we may 
be able to glean respec.ing them. 
•-- 
THE RISE OF SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 
Among the most assuring and encour¬ 
aging signs of the return of national 
prosperity are the rapid strides which 
Southern agriculture is making. Every 
one of the Southern States is increasing 
the area of cultivated crops. The neg- 
lectedplautations are again being brought 
under cultivation; the cattle interest is 
growing iu importance ; new settlers are 
taking up land and raising it in value; 
the lumber business is assuming pro¬ 
digious proportions in wooded districts. 
Georgia aloneproduced.300,000,000 feel, of 
lumber during f lie past year, worth more 
than $5,000,000—handsome proceeds 
from a single industry. The cultivation 
of vegetables for Northern markets, es¬ 
pecially in Florida and Georgia, is devel¬ 
oping in a highly gratifying manner. 
Where a few years ago the exports 
amounted to a few hundred crates, the 
shipments may now be numbered by as 
many car-loads. But perhaps no State 
is growing in wealth more rapidly than 
the Lone Star State. Secretary Sher¬ 
man asserted in a recent public speech 
that three years ago Texas yielded barely 
enough revenue to meet current expen¬ 
ses, whereas, without increasing the rate, 
the surplus for March and April last 
amounted to $26,000,000, and there is 
every reason to suppose that the total 
surplus for the present yea in that State 
will not be less than $100,000,000. The 
tide of financial prosperity indicated by 
these figures must enricli the farmers 
and ranclimen as well as the Treasury aud 
the capitalists. 
It is mainly to the heavy immigra¬ 
tion into the State aud the enormous 
development of its agricultural resources 
that these encouraging results must be 
accredited. Not only has the Lone Star 
State, ever since the war, been receiving 
large additions to her population from 
Europe and the North, but some sections 
of several of the other Southern States 
have been nearly depopulated of all their 
best citizens who have abandoned their 
worn-out lauds aud gone to build new 
homes on the virgin soil of Texas. But 
although this State has had the advan¬ 
tage of a heavier immigration than any 
oi her sisters, the energy which has been 
the chief motor in her advancement is 
not confined within her borders, but in 
late years has been more or Jess charac¬ 
teristic of the entire South, especially in 
the direction of its cluef industry—agri¬ 
culture. The farmers or planters have 
f it assured tbat theirs is a paying busi¬ 
ness, rightly conducted. It is to be hoped 
that S jutheru agriculture may continue 
to grow as it lias begun, till all tho rich 
resources of tbe country shall have been 
fully developed. Let the several States 
make suitable provisions for their agri¬ 
cultural colleges. These institutions are 
proving themaeiv. s to be of great value 
iu the North as teachers aud champions 
of agriculture, and there is no reason 
why they should not be as available in 
the South. They should not merely be 
schools in which youug men are taught 
the science of farming, but they should, 
by experiments and investigation, pene¬ 
trate into the unknown fields of agricultu¬ 
ral research and throw light on the many 
puzzling questions that now perplex the 
farmer. 
-- 
BREVITIES. 
There were some remarkably fine Petunias 
shown at the late exhibition of the N. Y. lfoi t. 
Society. The flowers were large and delicately 
fimbriated. 
We are glad to know that Mr. Russell P. 
Eatou, so long of the New England Farmer, 
is now editor of me Mammae Journal, of 
Fraukliu Fads, New' Hampshire. 
We are trying the experiment of raising 
tomatoes from seeds sowu iu the open ground. 
We think that the advantages of raising plants 
iu the house or frame, and Irausplauung iu 
late May or early June are somewhat over¬ 
estimated. 
The turf of the grounds of the Miueoia Fair 
Association is always green—even in fieat and 
drought such as we have of late experienced, 
‘his turf is made up mostly of Datnhouia 
spieata (White Dal grass), a hue, wirj grass, 
cotumou iu dry aud huff-sterile sods. 
June 21. A note from the Rural Farm in¬ 
forms us that rain is sadly needed, but that 
wheat is looking splendid. Ol all our varie¬ 
ties Shumaker is the tiist to ripen. This is a 
bald variety. The neuds are as large as thoee 
ol (Jlawson, though lire gram is somewhat 
smaller. We know nothing as to its quality. 
Now is the time to get rid of a large second 
brood ol peitato beetles, by destroying the eggs 
of the firbt brood, ins ol little aecouut to kill 
the early beetles if the eggs deposited upon the 
underside of the leaves are lei t to hatch. Where 
potatoes are given hard cultivation, the egg 
masses can be easily removed at the same time, 
leaf and all, with little extra labor. 
The Army-worm is fast disappearing. As 
in all such excitements, the damage actual y 
done has been greatly exaggeratid One of 
the silliest recommendations lor its destruction 
by tbe press has been that of rolling infested 
grain-fields. This would surely ruiu the grain 
crop, and three-quarters of the worms would 
escape unharmed. 
Wk are sad to hear of the death of M. Sou- 
ctaet., of Fi ance For the improvement of the 
Gladiolus, now one of our most beautiful and 
pm- d bulbous plants, the world is more in¬ 
debted to him than to auy other person. As 
we remember, it must have been eleven or 
twelve years ago that we imported one dozen 
conus of his theu new varieties, for which we 
paid $24. 
The Beurre Clairgeau pear is often spoken 
of as worthless. The Gardeners’ Monthly 
(April) says of it: " This pear is voted in the 
United States as not fit for any mouth.” Our 
contributor, Gen. Noble, commenting upon 
this, says that it is by rnauy considered not 
only haudsome, but iu *• itB season about as 
good as any." la some soils and situations 
this is true. We have eateo Clairgeau peais 
tbat were buttery, rich, nelting. Neverthe¬ 
less, according to our best pomological author¬ 
ities, it is, as grown in most piaees, of poor 
quality. 
A few days ago the President of tbe Cal¬ 
cutta Chamber of Commerce, addressing a 
meeting of that body, said that he feared that 
India, with its iguoraut population and crude 
methods and machinery, could not compete 
with this country in the production of wheat. 
From Russia a Jike opinion reaches us « ith re¬ 
gal d to that country, ard for the same reasons. 
It is out to any superiority of our soil that 
these two rivals attr ibute their own poor pros¬ 
pects in the competition, but to the greater 
intelligence of olir tariuiug population, and 
the greater efficiency ol our agricultural im¬ 
plements. It's well to bear this iu mind, and 
to begrudge no effort to Increase both. 
The ways of the Aimy worm are uot easy to 
find out. Last week our farm was alive with 
them, while there were comparatively few in 
the fields ol our neighbors. Now we have com¬ 
paratively lew, while our neighbors' fields are 
infested. As we write this note, some of our 
neighbors are picking i he worms off of their 
corn by hand, while others are plowing and 
digging trenches bo as to cut off their retreat 
or advance into other fields. But really the 
actual damage thus lar wiought, great as it 
has been, if wo may judge from our own obser¬ 
vation, has been tnucli exaggerated. It is a 
rascally ill that brings no good whatever. 
Our cherries are as aouudant this season as 
ever before. Usually lire crop is shared with 
buudreds of Cat-birds and Robins. This sea¬ 
son these friends seem to be feasting upon the 
Army worms and ibe cherries, save for the 
Rosebng, are felt to ripen. 
Before the incumbency of the present Com¬ 
missioner of Agriculture it bad been, toryears, 
a reproach to ihe Department that it was 
merely a seed-store for supplying Congressmen 
and their friends with choice seeds aud piauts 
gratuitously. Gen. Le Due, breaking through 
the old time custom of his Department, dis¬ 
tributed the seeds directly to applicants, much 
to ihe discontent oi not a few members of both 
Houses of Congress, but especially of those of 
the House of Representatives. Besides the 
pleasure of making presents to their friends 
at the People's expense, these genilemeu bad 
been iu the habit of usiug the government’s 
seeds for electioneering putpo*es (or the pur¬ 
pose of bribing their constiLueuts to retaiu them 
iu office. Not uuualurally therefore they re¬ 
sented the innovation I lithe mode of distributing 
the largess, and lust Thursday it was euaelud 
that the distribution of at least two-thirds of 
the $80,000 worth of seeds aud plants in the 
gift of the Department of Agriculture must 
be made through the members of bom Houses 
of Congress, to each of whom a proproliouate 
share was to be assigned. Although we doubt 
the morality of using these seed? tor political 
purposes, still as our coucern is much less 
with the morality of our legislators than 
with the interests of our farmers, we shall not 
be loud iu our Objections to ibe receut innova¬ 
tion, if tbe seeds are distributed in the most 
efficient maoner—placed where they will do 
the most good, not to the poiiticlau, out to the 
agriculturist. 
A telegram from London, of June 14, Bays 
that au rffoit was ubout to be made to induce 
tbe House of Commons to alter the existing 
regulations regarding tho importation of for¬ 
eign cattle into Gicai Biitain. It will be con¬ 
tended that the condition of the trade neither 
justifies nor excuses the present restrictions 
upon it. Moreover, the truoi worthiness of the 
veterinary examinations at the pons of de- 
barkaliou will be impugned, and a recent ease 
will be cited where iu pieUl’O pneumonia was 
declared to exist among the cattle iu Epping 
Forest, where nine ben*is were destroyed, and 
iu w hich the chief Government Inspector sub¬ 
sequently, after a minute examination of the 
carcasses, declared that lie could liud uo trace 
of disease. We heartily wish well to this move¬ 
ment; but we can bardiy hope for its success. 
While it is more than doubtlul whether the 
present restrictions would have beuu placed 
upon importations of cattle, under a Liberal 
Admimbiratiou. yet., under the circumstances 
it is hardly likely that the present Liberal Ad¬ 
ministration will, iu this matter, undo tbe 
work Ol its Conservative predecessor. Tfie 
British farmer is still too much straitened to 
endure the pressure of competition with unre¬ 
stricted importations of foreign ealtle—or he 
thiukb he is, aud the exisleuce among us, here 
and there iu the Aliumie States, of a tew scat¬ 
tered cases of plcuro pneumonia affords him a 
plausible pretext for exaggerating tbe risks of 
eeuiugiou to his own herds Horn lreo importa¬ 
tions ol cattle from this side Of the Atlantic. 
For the present, at least, tho government is 
pretty certaiu to turn a favorable ear to his 
complaints, aud the surestand speediest means 
by whiou we can insure uuresineted cattle 
trade with our traus-AUautic friends is to ex¬ 
tirpate tfie last traces of pleuro-pxteumouia 
from among our own herds. 
