20 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JAN 12 
the country in this respect the British Gov¬ 
ernment has expended some §200,000.000, and 
is annually adding millions more in works of 
irrigation. The great Ganges Canal is 10 feet 
deep and 170 feet wide and about 1,000 miles 
long. It was built at, a cost of about $12,000,- 
000, and is calculated to carry from 7,000 to 
8,000 cubic feet of water per second. In this 
country it ■would doubtless have cost $100,- 
000,000, for wages in India are extremely low. 
This is but one of many extensive works that 
have been recently built or repaired for the 
purpose of irrigation in that country. The 
government has either built or bought nearly 
all works for irrigating purposes throughout 
that land, believing that the management is 
more efficient and successful under Govern¬ 
ment control than in private hands. 
In Italy irrigation bas been in vogue since 
the early days of Rome, as Cato, the earliest 
Roman writer on rural affairs, gives us to 
understand that it was practiced in his day. 
More science is employed in the construction 
of irrigating works in Italy than in any other 
country on the globe, and as a result t here is 
in that country the most perfect system of 
irrigation m Europe, The whole business is 
regulated by law, aud government engineers 
superintend the construction of all works for 
such purposes. The entire system of irrigat¬ 
ing canals in Italy is estimated to furnish an 
aggregate of 24,000 cubic feet of water per 
second for irrigating purposes. About 1,600,- 
000 acres are supplied with water for irriga¬ 
tion by this system of canals. Some of these 
works are on a gigantic scale. The Ticino 
Canal in Lombardy was built in the twelfth 
century, aud has from that date conveyed a 
volume of water equal to 1,800 cubic feet per 
second. This water supplies, and to a great 
extent makes the country over which it 
spreads one of the richest and most densely 
populated in the world. The Cavour Canal 
built iu quite recent times, is 181 feet wide, 
six feet deep, and 55 miles long. Through en¬ 
gineering blunders, xt bankrupted the com¬ 
pany that built it, but it is doing great things 
in the country it covers. One cubic foot of 
water per second is said to be sufficient to ir¬ 
rigate three acres, aud as an evidence of the 
benefits of irrigation the meadows about 
Milan are cut seven times a year, and yield 
from 50 to 75 tons per aero per year: but we 
are also told that these meadows receive the 
sewage of the city in the waters of irrigation. 
Agriculture in Spain is more dependent on 
irrigation than in any other country of 
Europe. Some of the most extensive works 
for this purpose were constructed by the 
Moors duriug their occupancy of the country. 
A dam was built by them across the Guadal¬ 
quivir River between two steep mountains, 
that was 273 feet long, 70 feet thick and 156 
feet in bight. Laud under irrigation in some 
parts of that couutry sells at $400 to $000 per 
acre, while that not irrigated brings only 
about $80. 
It is said that In Spain “the water is more 
valuable than the land in the proportion of 
5 to 20.'* In dry seasons the prices paid for 
water for irrigation in that country are 
sometimes enormous. In the year 1861 the 
average price for one cubic foot per second 
was $11,000 for the whole year. The Ne- 
nares Canal may charge $1,875 per cubic 
foot per second. In most cases the irrigating 
works are controlled by the Government, 
but i u others they are in 'he hands of privats 
corporations. The old Moorish works are 
generally in the control of the irrigators 
themselves, who pay only enough to keep up 
the necessary repairs on their canals. 
Japan, so recently open to Western enter¬ 
prise, seems to have adopted a system of irri¬ 
gation at a very ancient date. That coun¬ 
try being very broken, the system consists in 
building dams across the raviues to secure 
and bold the water till used, and in terracing 
the hills so that their sides may be covered 
by the water. This is one of the means by 
which the dense population of those islands 
is maintained. 
All irrigating enterprises in France are in 
the hands of private corporations or indi¬ 
viduals, but the Government exercises a 
strict supervision over their construction und 
operation, aud they arc inspected at stated 
periods by Government engineers. Irriga¬ 
tion is employed quite extensively along the 
Rhine and Moselle for meadow lands, and in 
the south of France, it is used in the culture 
of grass, vegetables, madder, and occasionally 
on wheat and vines. 
In England irrigation is only occasionally 
employed on meadow-lands; but even iu that 
excessively wet climate it has been made to 
yield a very large profit over land not so 
treated. 
In all the above-named countries irrigation 
. has proved very beneficial, and in many ab¬ 
solutely essential to the well being, if not to 
the very existence, of the state anil people 
A candkl examination of the subject as ap¬ 
plied to the American continent will lead us 
to the same conclusion; but this must be de¬ 
ferred till some future time. 
NOTES ON BACK NUMBERS. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
land’s aristocracy is all “territorial,” while 
ours is all “urban,” perhaps it may be ac¬ 
counted for by their making their own fancy 
butter, especially as the Queen sets the exam¬ 
ple. But is this “good for trade.”—old Lug- 
land’s idol ? 
Rural, Dec. 1.—The Rural does well in 
keeping the facts in regard to the Keiffer Pear 
before the people. I incline to think it is to be 
the pear for canning, and perhaps, when 
grown iu a favorable location, a tolerable pear 
for the street fruit stands—in short, a good 
rival for the Vicar of Winktield, but for 
nothing better. 
E. Williams (p. 7881 says he fears some have 
forgotten the taste of the native strawberry. 
How many speak of this “ native strawberry 
taste,” ns though native strawberries all taste 
alike! You can find as many distinct varie¬ 
ties of strawberries—distinct, iu form, color, 
productiveness? and flavor—in a ten-acre field 
as you can find in the garden of any amateur 
grower of new cultivated varieties. 
Prof. Sheldon’s Dairy Notes (p. 788) are in. 
teresting. Mr. Jenuer Furet, editor of the 
Montreal Journal of Agriculture, writes me 
that the dairy farmers of England have been 
very prosperous for the last two years. Glad 
to hear that our hardly-tried English breth¬ 
ren are. any of them, making head against 
adversity. We of New England have long 
known the difficulty of standing up against 
Western competition, unaided by protection 
against either competition or railroad wars. 
I am glad Mr. Bliss has corrected the error 
about the specific gravity of milk (p. 788). I 
would like to correct another error, very 
prevalent, in the statement and proof that 
milk rich in butter is of low specific gravity. 
This may be occasionally true, but a large 
(very large) number of tests made by me, 
uuder due care as to temperatures, etc., have 
shown that the richest Jersey milk is as heavy 
as whole milk containing very' little butter. 
The reason for this is found in the fact that 
in Jersey milk the heavy solids are equally 
abundant with the light. This is proved not 
only by hydrometric tests but by practical 
results at the cheese factory run with Jersey 
mil k at Winthrop, Maine. 
“ Stockman” rather laughs at me ip. 823) 
when I say r that soiling didn’t pay with even 
three cows. Ho makes a very pretty point of 
it, the way he puts it, aud says it will pay' 
with a herd whenever land is worth more 
thau $50 an acre. 1 am now farming land 
worth $1,000 an acre (for house lots) and pay- 
iug a good interest on that price as a truck 
and fruit farm. I have no pasture, but keep 
two or three cows to eat up the waste, grass 
and hay from orchard, etc. But 1 know if I 
reckoned the actual cost of the labor in soil¬ 
ing, against the best and most costly pastur¬ 
age, there would be a big loss. And wheu I 
went to see Mr. Quincy’s operations in Mass., 
20 years ago, I came to the conclusion that a 
man less wealthy than Mr. Quincy would find 
it the same with his herd. It loill do for the 
“ village cow,” where all the milk is wortbsix 
cents a quart. I never heard that Mr. Quin¬ 
cy’s example spread much among his neigh¬ 
bors. 
THE INFLUENCE OF BOGUS BUTTERS. 
o. s. BLISS. 
The editor of the Kansas Farmer, as quoted 
in “ What Others Say,” (p. 789) misses an im¬ 
portant point iD his argument that few farm¬ 
ers are in office, ergo few' farmers are qualified 
for office. How mauy of the men who are 
in office, by virtue of political thimble-rig¬ 
ging, are qualified, except in a knowledge of 
ways that are dark and tricks that, unfortu¬ 
nately, are not in vain? There are enough 
well-qualified farmers to fill every office in 
this country, and have a good many over. 
But how to get them in nomination, is the 
question. The art of running the primaries 
has not yet been taught us. 
As to Mr. Lyon's question in the Michigan 
Farmer (p. 790), here is one vote for P. J. 
Berckmans, of Georgia. The horticultural 
genius of the South is entitled to such a recog¬ 
nition, and where can Mr. Berckmaus’s su¬ 
perior be found? But may it be long before 
that mantle falls to any one! 
Rural, Dec. 8. Handsome grape, that Vic¬ 
toria. as pictured ou p. 801. Is it going to 
beat Pocklington and Niagara t 
Mr. Harris wants (p. 803) the good qualities 
of “ native” and “ pure-bred” swine combined 
in one animal. It can be done, if he is not too 
greedy about the number of “qualities” he 
wants. The trouble has been thut no degree 
of perfection in form, in ease of fattening, iu 
early maturity, has made any breeder willing 
to stop, and say “ that is enough.” Therefore 
the whole thing is pushed clear over the edge 
iuto declension and destruction. You can’t 
have every point in perfection in one hog, or 
one rose. 
I don’t blame the old lady who kissed her 
cow, if her cow was as pretty and “sweet- 
looking - ’ as “ Mistletoe.” (p. 804.) 
The Rural’s “Eye-Opener” doesn’t take 
half its space to brag about itself; but it does 
the business, and does it well. “Worth a 
whole year’s subscription,” every week. 
Wouldn’t that Tuberous-Rooted Grape-vine 
of Cochin China, (p. 805) be just tbe thing for 
us, up here on the 45th parallel f Let the 
Rural include it in its next Free Distribu¬ 
tion. 
Rural, Dec. 15.—Isn’t It strange, as Prof. 
Sheldon tells us, <p. 822) that the best butter 
does not sell at a much better price thau 
middling butter in England? But as Eng* 
An agricultural contemporary says: 
“ It is undeniably the fact that the manufac¬ 
ture of butterine and oleomargarine has 
strengthened the price of fine, genuine butter 
and also discouraged aud drive j from the field 
hundreds of producers of low-grade butter. 
* * * in competition with lard and tallow and 
grease, the production of inferior dairy butter 
must be unprofitable. A rapidly-growing 
proportion of city and town populations de¬ 
mand choice, fresh, aromatic butter, and must 
pay accordingly. Such prices as fifty cents, 
seventy-five cents, or even a dollar per pound 
for butter of the right quality, will be more 
commonly obtained iu the future than in the 
past.” 
I do not know what genius is entitled to the 
credit for originally setting the following 
brilliant idea ou its travels, but scores of pa¬ 
pers have published it as their own, and 
thousands of persons have thoughtlessly ac¬ 
cepted it as au undoubted fact: 
“ Oleomargarine has compelled the cream¬ 
eries and dairies to make only first-class but¬ 
ter, as the bogus butter is superior to the poor 
genuine.” 
I do not charge anybody with intentional 
misrepresentation in this matter, nor do I de¬ 
ny that there is some truth in either of these 
statements, but 1 do deny the principal alle¬ 
gations in both. It may be true, and proba¬ 
bly is, that in most cases where there is a reg¬ 
ular understanding between a producer aud 
a consumer, either with or without au inter¬ 
medium, for a regulur, stated supply of es¬ 
pecially choice butter, there has beeu no 
special falling off in prices since the intro¬ 
duction of oleomargariue aud butterme. But 
lu every case where the best grades of butter, 
in common with all other grades, have beeu 
put upon the markets, to be sold on their mer¬ 
its, there has been a very decided falling off 
iu prices instead of the strengthening alluded 
to. There is not as much 50 cents or 75 cents 
or 100 cents butter sold now as there was then 
in proportion to the whole product. Indeed, 
mauy of the best-informed men in the trade 
believe that there is actually less sold, though 
it is very difficult to get at the exact pro¬ 
portions of the direct traffic, and the precise 
facta cannot be determined. 
There is a tremendous effort constantly be¬ 
ing made to mislead the public in regard to 
the direct influence of the counterfeit goods. 
They are persistently represented as helping 
the producers of good honest butter to keep 
up their prices, while they crowd the cheaper 
goods out of the market. These representa¬ 
tions are mere bosh. There have been no 
such results. There is always a demaud for 
the best goods. Jt will ulways be so, aud it is 
for every producer's interest to produce the 
liest, or at least what looks like the best, if 
he can afford to. Does auybody believe that 
when a man sets out to make counterfeit but¬ 
ter he will counterfeit a thirty-cont grade 
when he can just aseasily and just as cheaply 
counterfeit a forty-cent grade, and find a 
better market for it too? And yet the musses 
of the people in city and country are bliud 
to the fact thut the surest place to look 
for tbe counterfeit butters is nmoug the 
faucies, though they may undoubtedly be 
found among the lower grades too, occasional¬ 
ly. Perhaps the writers and publishers of the 
above extracts are innocent of any intention 
to mislead their readers by the insinuation 
that the grades of goods they make are never 
counterfeited. I am willing to believe they a re 
on a false track and misled themselves. '1 he 
most charitable thing that can be said of them 
is that they are blind leaders of the blind. All 
that kind of reflections on the subject owe 
their original conception to an interested el'- 
fort to turn public attention into a channel 
running by on the other side of the best pa v¬ 
ing fields. Of a piece, iu effect, with these 
comments is the practice of showing a cus¬ 
tomer a repulsive “sample” of butterine, 
never made for sale, but a blind, while a con¬ 
federate is putting up for tbe same customer 
a package of real butterine, sold, bought and 
paid for as genuine butter. Ir. is a well known 
fact, aud much boasted of, that a consider¬ 
able quantity of the best butter which comes 
on the general market is bought by the manu 
facturers of imitation goods. This is mixed, 
according to their own showiug, with two or 
three or four times as much of some cheaper 
foreign commodity, aud the whole returned 
upon the market in as merchantable and at¬ 
tractive a condition as at the first, aud often 
even more so. It is put up in every style that 
the choicest fancies are, from the large oaken 
firkin to the tidiest little print for the lunch 
couuter and the restaurant. Does it look rea 
sonable that extending a product like butter 
in this manner increases its price There wu- 
more “ butter” shipped out of Chicago Iasi 
year than was shipped in. That is, the but 
ter brought into Chicago was extended mor 
than the entire consumption of the city. I 
carefully compared the reports of receipts and 
shipments, and although I knew something of 
the operations there, I was astonished at that 
fact. 
It is not true that oleomargarine and it- 
congeners have ever caused any direct im¬ 
provement in true dairy products. On the 
other hand, they have actually lowered th - 
standard of excellence aud style, in in¬ 
numerable cases, as a direct result of 
the new education in which they have 
figured so prominently. Undoubtedly the 
largely increased production has Stiuni 
lated improvement, and so far as the imi 
tation goods have contributed to increase 
competition, they have probably had the 
same effect as other products. Nor is it tru 
as alleged, that the producers of low-grade 
goods are discovered aud driven from the 
field. Low-grade goods of the ringed, streak'd 
and speckled sorts, if sweet, are iu constant de¬ 
mand and largely purchased, though of 
course at lower prices, for the same purpo 
as the better goods before described. Tib ¬ 
ia fact enter iuto and form a part of most of 
the imitations, and they serve every purpo* 
of the fiuer goods except iu imparting aroma 
in this respect they will not generally 
quite so far, and it becomes necessary to u-> 
n larger proportion of butter. The fact b 
then, that, while the manufacture ol imitation 
goods does not offer a direct premium for low 
grades of butter, it does not on the other Lnusi 
discourage its production. No sample of i' 
not rancid, is so poorly thrown togothur that 
it is not available for the purpose, and salable 
at some price. The poorer it is the more 
profit there is in buying it, for it costs very 
little more to put a clean face on a bad than 
on a good article. But with all this in their 
favor, it may still be an open question windi¬ 
er the producers of low-grade butter him 1 
profited as much by the new uses to wliieli 
their goods are put as they have last by tin 
Increased production aud competition. It is 
impossible to say where they would stand 
now hut for the imitations. I shall uni 
undertake to explain how the producers d 
so much low-grade butter contrive to uud 
it pay, but. such people are not often drive 
from the field, and a groat many of them ■ 
contrive some way to make the ends mw 
and lap over too, and it would bo cruel < 
ask them to abandon the field now wheu tin' 1 
goods have just come to be appreciated. 
But, putting the best aud most charitabli 
construction possible upon the whole imi 
tiou butter business, it always and ever 
where militates against the Interests ol n 
producers of good, legitimate dairy butt? 
and it must ever be so until the prlucijte 
which have always controlled commerce 
transactions are reversed. To argue theta* 
increased supply of any commodity or of a»! 
substitute for thut commodity, luc rearer it 
market value contradicts all experience, 
am far from objecting to any honest in¬ 
stitute for butter. 1 believe the time i« 
come when a cheaper substitute for butte 
put on the market in its own name und cbm 
actor, so that people who, from necessity 
choice, preferred buying It to paying tb? 
price for the original genuine article, coni'' 
do so understandingly, would have beeu wj 
generally welcomed by most classes of v- 
sumers, though perhaps not patronized M 
