i ' 1 'y;:?. 
[Enters d according to Act of Confess, in the year 1880, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
^arra tapirs. 
WESTERN FAB MING.—XIV. 
W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Bonanza Farming— III. 
It is, I think, an important question whether 
Dakota is likely to be a desirable home for 
“ small farmers;” for, as I have tried to show 
in former articles, farming on the immense 
scale on which Messrs. Dalrymple, Cass, 
Cheney and Grandiu do it, is not likely to be 
permanent or long continued. Nor, I think, 
do these gentlemen so regard it themselves. 
Nor will farming probably be permanent on 
the smaller but still very large scale of the 
Messrs. Williams, Steele, Vaudettsen. Clark 
and others, each of whom has a thousand 
acres or more in wheat and oats. For with 
farms even of this size or with so much under 
cultivation, it seems well-nigh impossible, 
under the present system, to restore the di¬ 
minishing fertility, aud wheat after wheat 
exhausts it much more rapidly than corn or 
vai ied crops. Smaller farms, with a recuper¬ 
ative rather than an exhaustive system of 
agriculture, will in time, then, be a necessity in 
Dakota as well as elsewhere. The land must 
' be farmed by men who live upon it and intend 
'■ to make it their future homes, aud not by 
' those who go there year by year in Summer 
time and strip it of one more year’s crop and 
then retire to warmer climes for Wiuter. 
What, then, are the obstacles or objections 
to Dakota us a place of permanent residence 
for‘‘small f-Kmers”; how serious arc they, 
aud how far can they be overcome? They 
seem to me to fall chiefly under the head of 
•climate and lack of fuel, good water and 
fruit. 
The Winters are long and severe. But so 
far as suff-iriug personally from cold is con¬ 
cerned, that Is a mere comparative matter. The 
people of oue latitude always think it too cold 
a little further towards the pole. New Or¬ 
leans pities shivering Ciuclunati In Wiuter, 
and Cincinnati wouders how they live at all in 
Cleveland and Chicago. Chicago says, “ We’re 
all right, but, bless us, they catch It in 8l. 
Paul I’ And St. Paul says, “ It’s quite mild 
hero, but they do freeze up in Fargo and Win¬ 
nipeg." Immigrants usually follow nearly 
the same parallel of latitude or temperature in 
moving. Those who come to Northern Dakota 
are largely from Canada, Northern New York, 
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, Minne¬ 
sota or Wisconsin, or from Norway and 
Sweden; and they expect aud are accastomed 
to the cold. Personal inconvenience from the 
Winter cold will not be a serious obstacle. But 
will the cold entirely suspend profitable la¬ 
bors or prevent mixed husbandry ? It will 
certainly suspend tillage. That it will prevent 
the raising of clover and Timothy and the 
profitable keeping of stock I am not at all sure. 
Stock are absolutely essential to permanent 
success In agriculture. They are Nature's 
condensers of coarse products and of values 
aud restorers of fertili ty. Oats and vegetables 
grow most luxuriantly la Northern Dakota, 
and" the early-maturing corn will do pretty 
well. But long distances aud the necessary cost 
of freight make it unprofitable to raise much 
for shipping except the higher-priced wheat. 
But, now, if domestic animals can ho profit¬ 
ably kept, they will condense these crops for 
market, and in addition furnish the very means 
needed for retaining aud restoring the fertility 
of the soil. 
Whether clover and Timothy will really 
thrive in northern Dakota I am not sure, but 
believe they will. I saw both thriving in small 
plats of an acre or so near Fargo, and see not 
why they should not grow as in Northern Ver¬ 
mont, except that the snow-fall is so light and 
the winds so high as to leave the fields less 
protected. If they will thrive, the problem of 
Dakota mixed agricultnre is solved. The fer¬ 
tility can be maintained with a much smaller 
amount of stock comparatively. Grass and 
especially clover, even without stock, recup¬ 
erate the soil for wheat by those processes of 
nature which «ven yet we do not fully under¬ 
stand. At all •events, there Is no doubt that 
potatoes, beets, carrots and Hungarian Millet 
will thrive, and on these and on corn and oats, 
with their stalks And straw, flattie and sheep 
can be Btable-fed or corral-fed in Winter, 
while the native grasses will furnish pasture 
in Summer, even if clover kills in Winter. 
And by proper management the immense 
amounts of manure made from these and from 
the judicious rotting off the wheat straw used 
as litter or bedding, can be drawn and spread 
upon the fields when they are so frozen as to 
prevent tillage. With this Winter care of 
good herds of cattle, sheep and horses, the 
long Winter will not be the dulf and unprofit¬ 
able season it now is, when farmers, as Mr. 
Dalrymple says, “crawl into their holeB for 
five or six months and pull the holes in after 
them.” Thonsands of horses are broaght into 
the Territory now each year. The long Win¬ 
ter of almost entire rest for teams would 
greatly favor the breeding of colts, the snares 
being worked in Summer. Thus the mere 
coldness of the Northern Dakota Winters need 
not prevent a profitable mixed husbandry by 
“small farmers.” 
The question of fruit, fuel and water must 
go over to another article. 
$loriraltiiral. 
THE SWEET-SCENTED SHKUB. 
(Calycanthus floridus) 
! - 
A familiar-soon ding name, known indeed 
to many, but seeming more familiar still from 
the natural homely snggestlveness of its simple 
terras. Many shrubs, it is true, are sweet- 
scented. We almost expect every flower to be 
sweet-scented. Why, then, distinguish this 
one shrub by an agreeable title which applies 
to many others ? Simply because it bears the 
palm, in its way, for fragrauce among all 
shrubs. Spicy, sweet, penetrating, poignant, 
one breathes its odor, especially when crushed, 
with no thought of comparing its delicious 
peculiarity in this respect with that of any 
other plant. It is simply, from very excel¬ 
lence of odor, the sweetscented shrub. The 
flower, however, which is so distinguished in 
odor, is very unpretending in appearance, iet 
there is something very quaint and attractive in 
its simple foliage and pure outlines as well as in 
its solid, reddish-brown self-color. At a little 
distance these attractions arehardly noticeable 
and serve the purpose only of relieving the 
rich green foliage with dark, reddish spots of 
solid tint. These flowers are also valuable be¬ 
cause they bloom in July and August. 
The Sweet-scented Shrub is termed, botani- 
cally, Calycanthus from the two Greek words 
Kalyx, a calyx, and Anthos, a flower, in allu¬ 
sion to the attractive, flower-like color of the 
brown calyx. In foliage, the Calycanthus flor¬ 
idus—for we speak of the species best known 
as the Sweet-scented Shrub—t” decidedly effec¬ 
tive. The leaves are large for a shrub, ovate 
and shining. Their texture is firm and their 
color an agreeable lively green, while the con¬ 
tour of the bush itself is roundish and at the 
same time picturesquely Irregular. Indeed, it 
is well worthy, for its leaves alone, of a place 
in any collection of choice Bhrnbs. Its posi¬ 
tion in shrub groups should be somewhat in¬ 
termediate, or among the larger-growing 
plants. 
Although the Calycanthus floridus is well 
suited to an isolated position on the lawn, we 
should generally prefer to plant it near the 
outer line of the group, where its decided at¬ 
tractions can be more readily seen and effect-... 
swbkt-soknthd SHHtna.- 
limes to group together 
scented Shrub. The eff< 
ively blended in their peculiar manner with 
surrounding foliage. It is a good plan some- 
picturesque contours thus blended, ia fine, al¬ 
though other shrubs, the althea, for instance, 
present a stiff, monotonous appearance when 
treated in like mauner. Calycanthus floridus 
transplants easily, like most decidnouB shrubs, 
and is entirely hardy. For years It was con¬ 
sidered somewhat difficult to propagate ex¬ 
cept from seed, and elaborate operations in 
the way of layering were undertaken. Of late, 
however, it is propagated with comparative 
ease from cat,tings of its own roots stuck in 
sand. 
The other species of Calycanthus, laevigatas, 
glaucns, etc., do not materially differ from C. 
floridus in their appearance as members of the 
shrub group. Minor distinctions exist in the 
narrower and perhaps more shining leaves 
of the Laevigatas and also, perhaps, in the 
lighter color and later appearance of the flow¬ 
er of the same species. C- glaucns differs from 
C. floridus still less. Virtually, therefore 
Calycanthus floridus is the Sweet-scented 
Shrub which forms lawn-planting material of 
excellent character, whether we consider its 
habit of blooming In Mid summer or its attrac¬ 
tive foliage and spicy odor. 
Jfiellr Crop, 
FLAX CULTURE. 
The soil that will produce a good crop of 
grain is suitable for flax; but the best is a 
deep, rich, mellow, clayey or sandy loam free 
from wet. On cold, wet low-lands and river 
bottoms and also on dry sandy soils flax will 
prove a failure owing chiefly to mildew. 
Heavy, slippery clay soils will yield only a 
light crop, unless thoroughly underdrained, 
well pulverized and fertilized. River bottoms 
and uplands in which a black mucky soil pre¬ 
dominates, if well drained and rich enough to 
produce a good crop of grass, will yield a good 
crop of fiber and a small one of seed, but if 
the soil is sufficiently fertile to produce a good 
crop of potatoes, corn, oats or rye, it will also 
give a large crop of both seed and fiber. In 
the West less attention is generally paid to 
selections of suitable soU thanin the older-set¬ 
tled States, and it is there found that fair crops 
can be grown on nearly any kind of land, if It 
is dry and free from weed6. The manuring, 
too. which is needed elsewhere, isunneccesssry 
on the naturally feitile soils of the trans-Mies- 
iaslppi States. Land that has been under heed 
crops the previous year is most suitable for 
flax, as it can be kept freer from weeds than 
other sorts, and the previous manuring will 
render an application of the fertilizers to the 
flax unnecessary. A clover or rich pasture 
sod, however, as well as a wheat, barley or oat 
stubble, or laud that has been under corn, if 
free from weeds and sufficiently rich, will all 
produce good crops of flax. 
The preparation of the son,, if heavy, 
should be begun at least as early as the pre¬ 
vious Fall, by plowing it thoroughly and deeply 
in late October or early November for this 
latitude, so that the action of the frost dur¬ 
ing Winter may mellow it before Spring. If 
the land ia not sufficiently rich from the 
manure applied to previous crops—which is 
always a desirable condition—and barnyard 
manure is to be used, it is better to plow it 
under in the Fall, so that the different ingredi¬ 
ents may become diffused in the soil before 
Spring. For this purpose thoroughly rotted 
manure only should be U6ed, that from sheep 
and hogs being the most suitable. If weeds 
appear before Winter, they should be destioy- 
ed by the use of the harrow or cultivator. 
When the soil is light and porous Fall plowing 
is not advisable. In the Spring so soon as the 
ground has become dry enongb, it should be 
again plowed deeply, cutting thin furrow 
slices; then harrowed twice and rolled. The 
finer the soil, the better the crop, the more 
