660 
OCT. 2 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, OCT. 2, 1880. 
Mr. Henry Stewart writes us from 
his farm in New Jersey: “ Rural Branch¬ 
ing Sorghum 11 feet high, and if it 
doesn’t freeze it will ripen seed. Second 
growth by Aug. 5 six feet high ; third 
growth, two feet. It is the boss fodder.” 
We have jnst sent three of our own 
plants to the Queens County Agricultu¬ 
ral Fair. The firBt, though* planted late 
upon poor, hot soil without manure, is 
ten feet liigh. The second, cut August 
5th, is four feet high. The third, cut 
August 25th, is 18 inches high. 
The English Sparrow. — We have 
always felt a great fondness for animals— 
especially birds, which we could never 
feel reconciled to see shot upon our prem¬ 
ises. We were among those years ago to 
praise the English sparrow and to advo¬ 
cate its protection. But we now warn 
farmers against this bird as a formidable 
enemy—more formidable than the insects 
he is supposed to kill by his staunchest 
friends. We have already remarked 
upon the serious damage which our 
wheat fields sustained by its ravages, and 
we have now to speak of the injury it has 
done to corn. It is found, upon a care¬ 
ful examination of our fields, that as 
many as one ear in every three has been 
damaged—sometimes only at the very 
tip ; sometimes as far as six inches down 
the ear, or as far as the sparrow could 
separate the husk so as to eat the kernel. 
Those farmers who are benevolent 
enough to share their crops to this ex¬ 
tent with this unruly, greedy bird, may 
do so of course, though it is hard to tell 
how severely their benevolence may be 
tested in a few years, so rapidly does the 
sparrow increase its numbers. But we 
think such kindness might more wisely 
be extended to many of our native song 
birds which seem to have been driven 
away to the fields or woods or to other 
arts where the sparrow’s yelp is not yet 
eard. 
--- 
Is it A Fact ?— A short time ago a daily 
paper in this city remarked that dealers 
here who handle large amounts of West¬ 
ern butter had lately noticed that the 
50-pound tabs which usually weigh from 
50 to 52 pounds each when full, fre¬ 
quently weighed from 50 to 60 pounds. 
It was said that this increase of six to 
eight pounds in the same bulk was no¬ 
ticed only in Western packages; but 
even skillful buyers failed to detect any 
foreign substance in the suspected article. 
The paper went on to say that recently a 
prominent butter and cneese dealer in 
this city discovered the fraud during a 
Western trip. A Cincinnati company is 
largely engaged in the manufacture of 
powdered soapstone, and it was asserted 
that this shrewd dealer discovered that 
some farmers and butter packers in that 
section used it to adulterate their butter, 
it being impossible to detect the cheat by 
any ordinary test. This report has pro¬ 
duced a good deal of excitement among 
the butter dealers in Cincinnati and the 
farmers of the adjoining country, and a 
number of prominent dealers have pub¬ 
lished a card emphatically denying that 
soapstone is used for any such purposes 
by them, or, according to their belief, by 
anyone else in that city. This is a mat¬ 
ter which should be promptly and care¬ 
fully investigated, and should any be 
discovered guilty of the fraud, they 
should receive the severest legal pnnish- 
ment possible, besides getting the unen¬ 
viable notoriety attached to the widest 
publication of their names in the public 
press. Even the rumor of such a swindle 
tends so greatly to injure the butter in¬ 
terest in that section, that already a 
report is out that the scandal is the work 
of the oleomargarine men to injure the 
Bale of genuine butter. 
-- ■»»♦ ■ ■ - — 
A NEW USE EOR DYNAMITE. 
It has occasionally been suggested that 
the severe frosts of our Northern Winters 
would be likely to seriously interfere 
with the process of preserving green fod¬ 
der by burying it in pits. It has been 
supposed indeed by some persons that, 
in order to prevent the soil from freezing, 
it would be necessary to cover the pit 
with some kind of a house or shed; 
though it stands to reason that the action 
of the frost might be hindered, if need 
were, by covering the earth above the pit 
with straw or leaves. It is of interest to 
note in this connection that in some parts 
of Germany the farmers are familiar with 
the freezing of the earth used to cover 
the pits in which beet roots are stored, 
and that latterly a plan of opening the 
frozen ground with dynamite has been 
put in practice. It is stated that for 
opening a trench forty feet long, eight 
holes of a foot or more in depth were 
bored with a wheelwright’s anger and 
cartridges placed in each. After the ex¬ 
plosion, a oouple of men removed the 
fragments of frozen soil in less than an 
hour, aud none of the beets were harmed. 
This method of opening is said to be not 
only easier than the old system of digging 
a small hole, with pick and bar, at one 
end of the trench and creeping in be¬ 
neath the frozen roof,—but much safer, 
since the earth was liable to fall unex¬ 
pectedly. As applied to the opening of 
pitted fodder, the nse of dynamite would 
have the merit of encouraging the estab¬ 
lishment of small pits by farmers unable 
or unwilling to go to much expense 
for special constructions. It lends itself 
to the policy of cautiouB experimenting 
with ensilage which has been advocated 
by several of our correspondents. 
-♦-*♦>- 
OUR WASTE LANDS. 
Now that the wave of emigration has 
found a western shore upon which it re¬ 
coils, the current must stop or find some 
other direction. The limit of successful 
agriculture iu the West seems to have 
been reached, for already thousands of 
settlers have found that they have gone too 
far and have actually penetrated the arid 
districts where no vegetable growth can 
thrive without irrigation, although it may 
exist without it. It. is therefore well that 
attention should be called to the vacant 
lands in the East, and South, where there 
are millions of acres which need only 
cheap reclamation to become productive. 
The broad Alleghany ranges, with their 
outlying spurs and parallel ridges, are all 
but unoccupied, and land on those hills 
and in the valleys between them can be 
purchased iu large tracts for nominal 
prices. Whole counties in Maine, New 
York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ten¬ 
nessee and Kentucky large tracts in oth¬ 
er States and smaller tracts almost every¬ 
where, are ready and waiting to be 
reclaimed. Parts of them may be profit¬ 
ably turned to timber culture and the 
remaining portion, the better share of 
the land, is admirably adapted to grass 
and grazing either for lighter and more 
hardy beeves or the hardier kinds of 
sheep. The attention of those philan¬ 
thropic societies, whose aim is to encour¬ 
age the seating of industrious meu of 
small means upon farms of their own, 
might be turned to these tracts, upon 
which the annual fires now purposely set 
every Spring, destroy the young timber 
and kill the grass and so keep back their 
reclamation. 
-♦ • ♦ 
THE EFFECT OF MANUFACTORIES. 
If the whole community were engaged 
in raising food there would be no mar¬ 
kets, excepting foreign ones, to which 
the surplus would be sent to be exchanged 
for manufactured articles. But it is con¬ 
venient and economical to have markets 
near to the producer to avoid the cost of 
carriage for long distances. This becomes 
very conspicuously true and plain wheu 
a factory or other industrial enterprise is 
operated in a community of farmers ; and 
it is beyond question that nothing more 
rejoices a farmer than to see mills built 
and operated and a village growing with¬ 
in sight of his farm. The remarkable 
growth of the manufacturing industry of 
the United States cannot fail to have a 
most beneficial effect upon agriculture. 
One instance may suffice. 
Paterson in New Jersey had in 1873, 
30 silk manufactories within its limits. 
Its population was then about 30.000. 
Now it has 102 faotories engaged in the 
silk industry, which employ 12,599 opera¬ 
tives, who earn in wages more than four 
million dollars per annum, or $80,000 
weekly, or more than $13,000 daily; and 
which turn out an annual product valued 
at over twelve million dollars. The pres¬ 
ent population of that city is over 50,000. 
The farmers for miles around find a good 
market for their products there, and 
eager buyers for hard cash at prioes 
considerably higher than are current at 
the not-far-distant New York markets. 
Every where throughout our land there are 
sneh busy centers of industry springing 
up, which provide markets for agricultu¬ 
ral produce. These markets are daily 
increasing, and this fact ought to be a 
matter for congratulation by farmers 
who are benefited, and by those who 
hope to be. 
. ♦ ♦ » 
GERMS AND THOUGHTS GERMANE. 
Recent investigations have very much 
added to our knowledge of contagious 
diseases of men and animals. Since the 
discovery of infusorial life and its propa¬ 
gation in liquids containing organic mat¬ 
ter in solution, and which at first was 
supposed to be spontaneous and self- 
productive, a great number of oareful 
investigations have been made. The 
most accurate and successful investigator 
in this line has been that accomplished 
chemist, M. Pasteur. The result of more 
than 30 years’ constant work in this 
direction has been to greatly simplify our 
knowledge of virulent diseases. In a 
practical manner it has been first sur¬ 
mised and then proved, that the fatal 
epidemics which from time to time de¬ 
stroyed many thousands of human beings, 
sweeping in a steady wave over countries 
and continents, were occasioned by the 
presence of filth, and that the human 
system, enfeebled by unhealthful condi¬ 
tions, offered every convenience for infec¬ 
tion and contagion. 
Sanitary measures afforded relief, but 
the precise means by whioh the infection 
was conveyed were not understood until 
after the discovery of the existence of 
peculiar organisms existing in the blood 
of diseased persons and the fact that 
these organisms had specific differences 
and could be cultivated aud reproduced 
with all their specific variations and pe¬ 
culiarities. The results of many investi¬ 
gations have Bhown, for instance, that 
such diseases as small pox, yellow fever, 
cholera-morbus, malaria, and even boils, 
in mankind, are occasioned by the pres¬ 
ence in the blood of certain distinctly 
different parasitic organisms, each oue 
peculiar in its own specific developments 
and each one re-productive of its own 
kind by inoculation or contagion. 
So in animals, it has been found that 
the fatal hog-cholera, the parturient fever 
of cows and the frequent and as fatal 
chicken-cholera and other similar epi¬ 
zootic diseases are caused and spread by 
means of specific germs which can be 
bred or cultivated in watery solutions of 
organic matter, one drop of which infect¬ 
ed matter injected into the veins of any 
animal liable to that particular disease, 
is sufficient to produce that disease in its 
most virulent form. It is a vast help in 
combating disease, in man or in animals, 
to know its character. That is the main 
part of the battle. That provides us with 
means for prevention and suggestions as 
to successful treatment. But prevention 
is the best cure. Aud it is a wonderful 
help that we know that the germs of the 
most virulent diseases enter the system 
either by the stomach or the lungs, or by 
contact with previously diseased aud ex¬ 
posed surfaces. 
This knowledge, therefore, should put 
us on our guard against filth and foul¬ 
ness of air, of food, of water, and every 
one of our surroundings ; moreover, it 
should caution us to maintain the most 
perfect health possible by the use of the 
most nutritious food, abundant water, 
the avoidance of all weakening excesses 
of whatever kind, either negative or posi¬ 
tive ; for it is very certain that although 
these germs may be present, yet in sys¬ 
tems fortified by vigorous health they 
find no acceptable resting place, and are 
disorganized and disappear, unless they 
find such conditions as favor their enor¬ 
mously rapid production in the blood. 
-- 
INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO THE FARMERS. 
Very recently there appeared in our 
columns a pertinent protest against the 
clothing of common facts in such lan¬ 
guage as may be beyond the comprehen¬ 
sion of ordinary readers, and the under¬ 
standing of which is a task and labor, 
irksome even to those who can compre¬ 
hend it, but who have not the time to 
spare for the mental operation required 
for the necessary consideration. Lan¬ 
guage is to be used for the conveyance of 
thoughts and ideas; and in these days 
when rapidity of execution is the first 
requirement in work of all kinds, whether 
of the hand or the mind, the language 
used should be such as to strike the mind 
instantly and produce immediate effect. 
Our time is too short even for study, ex¬ 
cept with those whose business is study ; 
and even these have no time to waste in 
acquiring knowledge more slowly than 
iB absolutely necessary. The best writers 
are those who are the most easily under¬ 
stood and who use the fewest and simplest 
words to communicate their ideas. As a 
curious example of a very simple truth 
that has been often expressed and is by 
no meanB unknown to persons of very 
moderate comprehension, we might pre¬ 
sent the following remarks made by no 
less a person than the Duke of Argyle, in 
one of his recent publications in England. 
The Duke who is an accomplished agri¬ 
culturist and a scientific man Rays : “Out 
of the chemical elements of nature, in 
numerous but definite combinations, it is 
the special function of vegetable life to 
lay the foundation of organic mechanism, 
while it is the special function of animal 
life to take in the materials thus sup¬ 
plied, and to build them up into the high¬ 
est and most complicated structures. 
This involves a vast cycle of operations, 
as to the unity of which we eannot be 
mistaken—for it is a cycle of operations 
obviously depending* on adjustments 
among all the forces both of solar and 
terrestrial physics—aud every part of this 
vast series of adjustments must be in 
continuous aud unbroken correlation with 
the rest.” 
If this was intended for the instruction 
of plain farmers, how much easier it 
would have been to have said that vege¬ 
tables nourished by the soil, supply food 
to animals; and animal substance, return¬ 
ing to the soil, furnishes the nourishment 
for a succeeding growth of vegetables ; 
and in this manner the vital forces of na¬ 
ture operate continuously. The same 
truth has been put even more forcibly 
by a farmer who said, “ more grass, more 
cattle; more cattle, more manure; and 
more manure, more grass ;” thus signify¬ 
ing the natural sequences of the mineral, 
vegetable and animal functions. We 
might here pertinently refer to the aggra¬ 
vating difficulty iu reducing the metric 
weights and measures, of grams and cen¬ 
timeters, into the common grains and 
inches of daily use, in those instances 
where reports of chemists are published 
for popular information. The whole 
value of these is lost to those persons 
who are unacquainted with the value 
of the metric tables, but if the writers 
would add the common values, in paren¬ 
theses, to their tables—a very small 
trouble to them—the usefulness of their 
work would be complete. Public teachers 
of whatever kind should aim to be the 
most widely effective, and nothing is lost 
in any way, but much is gained in every 
way, by being plain and simple. 
-♦ ♦ ♦-—■— 
BREVITIES. 
We shall bi able to report the yield of our 
Chester County Mammoth and Blount’s corn, 
shortly. 
Tub bushel of Clawson wheat which we 
cleaned out for the Queens Co. Fair weighs 6(5 
pounds. We think its weight will average 63 
pounds. Nevertheless, this is our last year 
with Clawson. Our fiialn crop will be Silver 
Chaff, which we believe will yield more and 
make a better flour. Let us see. 
The production of sufficient sugar for the 
wants of the people of the United States, if 
not for export, now seems to be a fact to be 
counted upon at no distant day. One of the 
greatest drains of wealth from this country for 
the past half century has been to purchase 
sugar, at one time as much as $100,000,000 
going abroad annually for that purpose, and 
there was on onr part at one time a serious 
consideration of purchasing Cuba to save that 
outgo. But in the sugar cane, sorghum and 
beet root there are now probabilities that the 
ceusue will show a beginning which will war¬ 
rant the hope of the production of all onr own 
sugar ttlno distant day. Besides, the patrouage 
of Cuban sugar growing is one of the greatest 
aids to keeping slavery alive in that island, 
and America lias now grown past that relic of 
barbarism, and it is with great pleasure that, 
the efforts to produce our own sugar will be 
contemplated. 
A keward of $5,000 has lately been offered 
for a stock-car which on experience shall 
prove the most suitable, humane and com¬ 
fortable as well os economical for the trans¬ 
portation of cattle, sheep and hogs from the 
western prairies to the Eastern markets. The 
main requirements in the stock-car of tho fu¬ 
ture must be an economical arrangement. 
Years ago palace Btock-cars were invented 
with partitions betweeu the animals, fodder 
racks and water tanks, bnt the railroads de¬ 
clared they could not afford to use them. The 
animals on them, it is true, arrived at their 
destination in a condition so much better 
than usual that the owners could well afford 
to pay the trifling extra cost of transporta¬ 
tion, owing to the larger space allotted to 
each animal and the outlay for the various 
conveniences ; bnt the carB had generally to 
go back empty, or the fixtures had to be re¬ 
moved and carried back on top of the cam. 
Either some acceptable form of car should 
soon be devised, or laws should be passed com¬ 
pelling the railroad companies to use greater 
care aud humanity in transporting stock. 
These are absolutely needed, not only for the 
sake of the poor, ill-used dumb bruLes, but 
also for the 6ftke of the public who eat the 
meat rendered unhealthful by the fever and 
suffering often now endured by the animals 
during their transportation. Wo have fre¬ 
quently protested against the cruelty to which 
animals are subjected on shipboard during 
their passage to Europe; but there arc multi¬ 
tudes of well authenticated instances where 
sufferings quite a8 great, and almost as pro¬ 
tracted are endured by stock during their 
travels by railroad, and these are capable of 
much more easy amelioration than those by 
sea. For animals intended for export, the pre¬ 
vious hardships by rail, often predispose them 
to disease on shipboard and not a few of the 
cases of disease aud death among Block on the 
transatlantic voyage are due to tide cause, 
