628 
SEPT. 48 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY SEPT. 18, 1880. 
The Rural New-Yorker has never 
up to this time exhibited any of the pro¬ 
ducts of its farm at the fairs, for the rea¬ 
son that such exhibitions require an 
amount of time and labor that we could 
not spare. We shall make the present 
season an exception, however, at the 
pressing request of several friends. The 
Queen's County Agricultural Society will 
hold its annual fair at its grounds at 
Mineola on the 28th, 29th, aud 30th inst. 
As these gronnds are but a few mileB dis¬ 
tant from the Rural’s Farm, we have de¬ 
cided to make an exhibit of our Branch¬ 
ing Sorghum, Blount’s Corn, seedling 
potatoes and of several different kinds of 
wheats. This fair is always ably man¬ 
aged aud attended by thousands of peo¬ 
ple. We hope that any of our Western, 
Northern or Southern readers who may 
be visiting Now York at that time, will be 
pleased to spend a few hours at the Miu- 
eola Fair, Persons may leave New York 
and return by railroad at almost any time 
they may desire. 
■ — ♦♦ ♦ - 
FULTZ WHEAT. THIN SEEDING. 
We may now report the results of our 
experiments with Fultz wheat. One plot, 
33x33 feet, was sown in drills 12 inches 
apart—seeds dropped two inches apart. 
Bone Superphosphate was sown at the 
rate of 500 pounds to the acre. It 
was cultivate d once in November. The 
yield was 38 pounds, or at the rate of 
25 1-3 bushels to the acre. A second plot 
of the same size was sown in drills six 
inches apart, and no fertilizer of any 
kind was used. The yield was 37| pounds, 
or at the rate of 25£ bushels per acre, 
The unfertilized plot showed that it was 
inferior to the other, as is evident from 
the fact that, being sown ouly half the dis¬ 
tance apart, the yield was nearly the 
same. Had the plot been fertilized, it is 
fair to suppose that the yield would 
have been greater. Tims our tests for 
three years in succession have shown that 
the cultivation of wheat and thin seeding 
do not pay. 
The straw of Fultz is uot so heavy as 
that of Clawson, but it stands up quite 
as well. 
--- 
GRAPES AT THE STANDS. 
The fruit stands of New York City 
may often prove profitable instructors to 
fruit growers. During the past tan days 
we have noticed among grapes that some 
of Rogers’s Seedlings have been offered 
in larger quantities than ever before. 
They are extremely showy if not of the 
first quality and have sold readily at from 
10 cents per pound for black—such as 
Wilder—to 20 cents for white—such as 
Goethe. Rebecca (white) is now sell¬ 
ing in immense quantities at form 15 to 25 
cents the pound. This, owing to its firm 
skin aud compact bunches, is at present 
our beBt market white grape, and it is to 
be regretted that it thrives over so re¬ 
stricted a part of the country. Dela¬ 
ware, the cream of grapes, brings at the 
stands 10 cents, while Concords—and 
they were never larger or of better quali¬ 
ty—bring five. We always associate the 
Delaware grape and the Seckel pear. 
Each is the prince of its kind. 
Grapes, grapes everywhere ; and it is 
a pleasure to see that many of the poorer 
classes of people who in past years have 
rarely induigedin these luxuries, eat them 
freely now. Thus with increased sup¬ 
ply come lower prices and an increased 
demand. 
■> » » - - 
A MYSTERIOUS BEETLE VISITATION. 
What the Rocky Mountains are at in¬ 
tervals to our Western States as breed¬ 
ing places of countless locust swarms, 
the Biack Sea is yearly to the Southern 
pnmuces of Russia as the mysterious 
source of innumerable myriads of har¬ 
vest beetles. It is now 15 years sinoe 
the waves of that inland sea washed 
on the Russian shores thick swathes of 
the eggs of the pest, and every year since 
then tne visitation has been repeated. 
Whence they come nobody seems to know. 
The eggs are first seen floating on the 
waves and as soon as they get stranded 
the larva? come forth, and soon swarm 
after swarm of beetles pass over the Cri¬ 
mean valleys into the interior, ravaging 
the rich grain fields and lessening or au- 
nihilatiug the scanty earnings of the 
peasants. Machines of all sorts have 
been used against them in vain, which 
was to be expected in view of the calcu¬ 
lation that a single ordinary field near 
Ilbarkoff contained last Spring 350,000,- 
000 insects. 
A late Kharkotf paper contains a long 
continuation of a list, published every 
week, of the amount of beetles collected 
by the peasants for doing which the lo¬ 
cal authorities grant small subsidies. 
Frotu this we learn that two tons were 
gathered during the previous week in 
the commune of Yeselaudskij; five tons 
at Vasilievsky; seven tous at the Ger¬ 
man colonies of Eigenfeld; ten touB at 
Belozersk, while the inhabitants of Pris- 
hilsk were particularly active, or the 
beetles were there especially numerous, 
inasmuch as fifteen tons were harvested. 
Indeed this beetle harvest is said to 
be nearly the only harvest gathered in 
that section this year. There is a report 
that a fly that preys upon the pests has 
lately made its appearance there, and on 
the labors of this friend the peasants’ 
hopes are now centered, in the absence 
of birds from the Russian steppes. 
-♦ — — 
A PROSPECTIVE IMPROVEMENT IN 
PLANTING COTTON SEED. 
Gen Le Due thinks a valuable disoov- 
ery has been made by Prof, T. Taylor 
the microscopist of the Department of 
Agriculture in relation to the planting 
of cotton. While investigating the sit¬ 
uation of the oil cells in Indian corn, he 
was led to experiment on the resistance 
offered by seeds to agents generally con¬ 
sidered destructive of organic life, cot¬ 
ton seed being used in the experiment. 
To remove the list from the seed he em¬ 
ployed concentrated sulphuric acid, 
which removed it entirely without ap¬ 
parently affecting the outer brown shell. 
Mr. Saunders, the horticulturist of the 
Department, planted some of the seed 
thus treated and afterwards washed, and, 
lo! it sent up plantlets five days earlier 
than seed in the natural state. To learn 
whether this was due to the soaking it 
had received, some of it was kept dry for 
some months, and then planted along 
with seed of the same crop unprepared ; 
and the result was the same. To pre¬ 
pare the seed, it is placed in an earthen¬ 
ware or glass vessel and ordinary sulphu¬ 
ric acid is poured over it until it is en 
tirely covered. It is then stirred until 
all the lint is removed from the seed. 
The acid is next poured off to be used 
for the same purpose again, and the seed 
is washed until all traces of acidity dis¬ 
appear, when it is dried. 
The Department of Agriculture is 
about to prepare a large quantity of 
cotton Beed in this way, and distri¬ 
bute it among planters for experiment 
next season. Should experience in the 
fieJd oonfirm the results of these exper¬ 
iments in the garden, the advantages to 
the South will be very considerable. 
Besides the benefit of five or six days’ ad¬ 
vance in the growth and maturity of cot¬ 
ton, by which early frostB can often be 
forestalled, seed thus cleaned can be sown 
with any planter used for corn or other 
clean seed, securing greater regularity in 
growth and facilitating cultivation. 
Hitherto cotton seed has had to be sown 
by hand, as it could not be used in any 
planter owing to the adherent list pre¬ 
venting its uniform deposition. 
---♦■»»- 
THIN-6EEDING OF WHEAT, 
As readers of the Rural New-Yorker, 
know we have for three years past experi¬ 
mented to ascertain the amount of seed 
wheat that should be sown to produce the 
greatest yield. Our cultivation of wheat 
has twice proven a comparative failure, 
so that we are obliged to condemn this 
method which is now being advocated by 
a number of agricultural journals. Thin 
seeding without cultivation has also 
proven unprofitable with us, aud we shall 
uot the present season drill in less than 
a bushel and three quarters per aore. 
Touching this question, Mr. 0. E. Thorne, 
the farm manager of the Ohio State Uni¬ 
versity, writes tothe Husbandman as fol¬ 
lows: 
“ The heresy of thiu seeding first made 
its appearance in England, if I mistake 
not, many years ago ; and it is upon the 
rich, garden soils of that oouutry, where 
crops of 50 and 60 bushels per aore are 
as common as those of 30 and 40 bushels 
here, that we should look for the success 
of such seeding, if it has any merit. Hear, 
then, what J. B. Lawes says in the “ Fair 
Number” of the Rural New-Yorker, for 
1879, (page 576.) ‘No one here cultivates 
wheat, nor has thin seeding ever made 
much way. At the present moment the 
great buik of the wheat grown in this 
country is drilled in rows about five in¬ 
ches apart, and the seed used is about 
two bushels per acre. It stands to rea¬ 
son that if one plant of wheat has pos¬ 
session of one or two square feet of soil, 
its power of growth must be increased ; 
but except upon garden soil, or upon 
farms in exceedingly high coedition of 
cultivation, I feel sure that thin seeding 
will never be successful. 
In further confirmation of my faith I 
would refer to the field experiments of 
Prof. I. P. Roberts of Cornell University, 
who obtained increasing cropB until three 
bushels of seed were reached. It will be 
noticed that our crops diminish after 
passing two bushels. I suspect, the ex¬ 
planation of this to be that Prof. Roberts’s 
wheat was sown on very thin land, while 
ours was sown on a rich bottom, capable 
of producing 25 to 40 bushels of wheat 
or 50 to 80 bushels of com for an indefin¬ 
ite period, and without manure.” 
A full report of Prof, Roberts’s experi¬ 
ments are given in this issue of the 
Rural New-Yorker. 
RELIEF FOR BRITISH AGRICULTURE. 
The Hares and Rabbits bill, after a 
bitter opposition of outspoken antagon¬ 
ism aud insidious amendment in the 
House of Commons, has at length be¬ 
come a law iu Euglaml, not a little to 
the relief of British agriculture. It was 
feared that after its passage through the 
lower House, the House of Lords would 
either extend to it the same harsh treat¬ 
ment given some weeks ago to the Com¬ 
pensation for Disturbances bill, or else 
destroy its vital principles by cunning 
amendments. The Peers, however, un¬ 
willing to weaken their influence amoDg 
the agricultural classes, and conscious 
that the English farmer is a more formid¬ 
able adversary than the Irish peasaut, 
and that their former action had aroused 
against them a public sentiment it might 
be perilous to inflame by a fresh display 
of aristocratio disrsgard of the general 
weal, suffered the bill to pass without 
opposition in their own House, after 
having used their best efforts to defeat 
it in the House of Commons by means of 
the votes of theii numerous sous, rela¬ 
tives, connections, dependents, toadies 
and friends who hold seats in that body. 
The declared object of the bill is the 
better protection of occupiers of land 
against damage to their crops by ground 
game—a term applied to hares and rab¬ 
bits. The general definition of “game” 
also includes pheasants, partridges, 
grouse, heathcocks or moorcocks, 
blackcocks, woodcocks, snipes, quails, 
landrails or corn-crakes and bustards, 
against whose ravages the bill still leaves 
the farmer without protection. In other 
respects, too, the relief afforded by it is 
limited, as it only bestows on the tenant 
the inalienable right to kill ground game 
on his own farm by himself or his agents 
concurrently with his landlord, but does 
not compensate him for the incursions 
of the pests from neighboring preserves, 
nor does it check their increase on adja¬ 
cent land. How rapid this increase may 
be can be inferred from the calculation 
that in four years a single pair of rabbits 
may, if unmolested, become the progen¬ 
itors of 1,250,000. Knowing well the 
dominant influence of the landlords, the 
framers of the bill wisely incorporated in 
it the provision that every agreement, 
condition, or arrangement purporting to 
convey away the rights conferred by it, 
should be void. It would have been a 
mockery to have given the tenant any 
option in this matter, for many of the 
landlords would then certainly have given 
him none. 
On reading over even sparse extracts 
from the mass of evidence given, seven 
years ago, before the Committee of the 
House of Commons on whose report the 
bill is based, with regard to the oppres¬ 
sive character of the British game laws, 
it is not easy to understand how such 
persistent grumblers as the English 
farmers could have tolerated the evil so 
long, unless on the supposition that the 
discontent that should have been utilized 
in action was frittered away in fatile 
words and heartburnings. It was then 
shown that in some instances ground 
game destroyed as much as half the 
crops, and were in nearly all cases a 
grievouB loss and nuisance ; that the 
preservation of game kept large tracts, 
aggregating millions of acres, out of cul¬ 
tivation ; that oould the pests be kept 
within reasonable bounds, 40,000 more 
sheep could be maintained in the country; 
that the 10,000 tons of ground game an¬ 
nually brought to market represented a 
clear loss of $20,000,000: that for the 
last few years 10,000 convictions annually 
took place under the cruel provisions of 
the game laws. 
The severity of these laws may be in¬ 
ferred from that which enacts that any 
person convicted of killing a rabbit, a 
woodcock, or any other sort of game, even 
on uninolosed land or the pnblio high¬ 
way, from the end of the first hour after 
sunset to the beginning of the first hour 
before sunrise, shall be punishable, for 
the first offence, by three months’ impris¬ 
onment with hard labor, at the expira¬ 
tion of which he must find sureties for 
his not so offending again. For a second 
offence the penalty is six months’ impris¬ 
onment with hard labor, and an addition¬ 
al twelve months in default of sureties ; 
while for a third offence of killing a hare 
or rabbit the monstrous wretch is punish¬ 
able by two years’ imprisonment or seven 
years’ penal servitude. In nearly all oases 
the committing magistrate is the next 
landlord who happens to be a justice of 
the peace; perhaps the very man ou or 
near whose territory the heinous crime 
was committed, and who is pretty sure to 
be righteously wrathful at the criminal's 
atrocious rascality. Moreover, any oon- 
stable has power to stop and search, by 
day or night, in any highway, street or 
public place, any person whom he may 
suspect of coming from any land where 
he may have been in search of game ; 
and also to stop and search any vehicle 
in which he may suspect that game may 
be carried. 
These laws are still in full force, except 
with regard to hares and rabbits; but 
the day cannot be far distant when the 
last vestige of such feudal legislation shall 
be swep + from the statute books, whose 
pages such mediaeval enactments be¬ 
smirch in this nineteenth oentury. 
- ♦ » - 
BREVITIES. 
We learn that at this season of the year th* 
old stock of peas is sold to coffee houses to 
mix with their coffee. 
We have received from West Virginia a 
crate of beautiful plums, and shonld he glad 
to know to whom we are indebted for the 
same. 
Frteni> farmers—prepare your land for 
wheat better than you have ever prepared it 
before. Harrow, harrow, harrow. If the soil 
is sandy, roll after sowing or drilling in. If 
at all inclined to be clayey, roll before sowing. 
See if the results of this careful preparation 
do not more than repay its cost. 
In th© few thousands first printed of our 
Fair Ivuuiber for the current year, on page B88, 
the subheads, “ Mn.K'* aud “Cukbse/’Iu the 
article ••Small Cheeses for Home Use,” were 
inadvertently mode to interchange places, 
after the •' proof" had been read. The slip 
was corrected as soon as detected, and those of 
our readers who may have received the copies 
first taken from the press, can from the con¬ 
text easily make the necessary transfer of 
subheads. 
Tuk National Fair Association gives $8,000 
not $11,300. in purses for trotters at the an¬ 
nual fair to be held in Washington from 
October 6 to 10. 8t. Julien the reigning 
“ King of the Turf,” will try to beat his best 
record of 2 111. for ® purse ot $3,500, on Octo¬ 
ber 8. Our readers can have no doabt of the 
strength of our objections to trotting at ag¬ 
ricultural fairs; but If the evil must be endured, 
it is certainly more satisfactory that a '* King” 
rather than au ordinary brute should be the 
culprit. 
Strange that in a country *o densely popu¬ 
lated as China vast tracts of good land should 
remain uncultivated; yet the Governor of the 
Province of Cbe-Kiang lately proclaimed that, 
though seventeen years have elapsed since the 
Taiplng civil war ravaged the country, large 
areas have since remained nntilled In three 
named departments 1.600.000 acres are idle, 
aud in three others 0.000,000 acres. Some of 
the land is poor, but at least 5,500.000 uncul¬ 
tivated acreB are rich and fertile. Surely here 
is a big opening at home for every Mongolian 
in this country. 
Mu, Charles Downing writes from New¬ 
burgh, N. Y., “Plums have been very abund¬ 
ant here and fine." That is the report from 
many localities where, owing to the cureulio, 
the crop is generally light or a failure. Mr. 
Downing also writes: * Unless it rains soon, 
vegetation will be dried up. AU kinds of fruit 
is "ripening very early—even apples will soon 
have to be gathered if the drought continnes, 
or else they" will shrivel on the trees, as there 
is apparently no moisture in the ground to the 
depth of four feet. The late peaches will be 
small and poor." 
During the eight first months of this year 
the aggregate rainfall has been several inches 
lees in this section than the average for the 
corresponding months of the past 4Lyears. Ac¬ 
cording to Prof. Daniel Draper, of the meteor¬ 
ological service In Central Park, this city, the 
rainfall gradually increased from 1835, when 
his record began, until 1869, since which time 
it has shown a tendency to decrease. He has 
little faith iu the theory that forest deuudatioa 
affects the amount of rainfall; but he has a 
theory of his own to the effect that there are 
cycles in rainfall as there are iu sun spots aud 
other astronomical and terresti iui phenomena, 
aud a cycle of rainfall he estimates at 60 yearB, 
and according to bis calculations we may ex¬ 
pect a gradually decreasing rainfall for seve¬ 
ral years to come. 
