THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal ior Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
KLBKRT S. CiKMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. St Park Row, Nkw York. 
SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1884. 
The first report of the Rural New- 
Yorker Pea will be found under, “Every¬ 
where.” 
Please address all communications of 
a pressing or personal nature to E. 8. 
Carman, River Edge, Bergen Co., New 
Jersey. 
--- 
Ora best crops of Lima Beans are here 
produced by planting early (last year May 
7), but one inch deep, four feet apart, four 
beans about the pole. 
We beg to state that our test grounds 
are full. This is to prevent our friends 
fiom sending us any more seeds or plants 
to be tested during the present season. 
♦ ♦4 - 
We have tried the several methods of 
raising celery, and much prefer setting the 
plants in shallow trenches six inches deep. 
These are better, all things considered, 
than deeper trenches; belter than flat or 
surface culture. 
Speaking of Rosa rugosa on page 304. 
we forgot to mention one of its chief 
attractions, viz.: the showy, large, red 
fruits which succeed the flowers, and last 
a long time. There is a pure white as 
well as a red variety (alba and rubra). 
They bloom from June until frost. It is 
altogether a unique and beautiful plant. 
We crossed the Lady Washington on 
the Cottage Grape. The result was nine 
seeds. These were planted in pots just as 
as soon as the grapes ripened. One seed 
sprouted the 5th of April; the others are 
just beginning to sprout. Some grape' 
seeds will grow in three weeks; others, as 
in the above case, in not less than six 
months. 
Under the title of the paper “Rural 
New-Yorker,” and under the bull’s head 
thereof, will be seen the volume (XLIIL) 
and number (1789.) One unit is added to 
this every week. When it is the same as 
the number on your address wrapper, your 
subscription expires. If there is ho num¬ 
ber following the name, the subscription 
expires at the end of this year. Please 
examine, and renew’ a week or so in ad¬ 
vance. 
The ornamental plants now (April 30) 
most enjoyable at the Rural Grounds 
are violets, hyacinths. tulips, the 
Golden-leaved Spiriea, the Purple-leaved 
Barberry, the Purple-leaved Hazel, the 
early-blooming magnolias, Forsythias or 
Golden Bells, and Spirrea Thunbergii. 
Others are about to bloom, ns the Japan 
Quince. It is a never-ceasing wonder to 
us that so many farm door-yards are seen 
without these Spring treasures that, at a 
trifling cost, add so much to the delights 
of home and life. 
Mu. William Walker, of Illinois, 
writes us that Learning Corn did not 
ripen with him in 150 days. The cobs of 
some saved for seed were so wet that the 
grain molded. He sends us an account of 
other similar instances: A farmer of Craw¬ 
ford County, 111., planted it May 10 on 
high ground; it grew well, but frost took 
it in October; it was just out of roasting 
ears in 150 days. Another farmer of 
Denison planted it May 15, and harvested 
scarcely one sound ear. Another of Coun¬ 
cil Bluffs planted it May 18, and found it 
two weeks too late. 
For the third year we have gathered 
sap of the Yellow-wood (the Cladrastis 
tinctoria, or Virgilia lutea of botanies)and 
boiled it down to sugar. The sap will 
flow earlier, in larger quantities, and con¬ 
tinue later from the Yellow-wood thau 
from the maples, and, as we believe, will 
give more sugar. The Rural people, all 
of whom have eaten this sugar, say that 
in quality it is as rich and buttery as 
maple sugar. Of course, it does not pos¬ 
sess the peculiar maple flavor, but, instead 
of it, an acid flavor resembling sweet lem¬ 
onade, quite agreeable to most of those 
who ate it. In texture and color it close¬ 
ly resembles the finest maple sugar. We 
are in hopes that our experiments with 
this American tree, will lead others to fol¬ 
low our example on a larger scale. 
Abcad, Arabskoe, Arabka, Anisooka, 
Antonovka, Sennkea Titouka, Skianka, 
Bogdanoff, SkrischafTel, Doory Krestian- 
en Koritsclinovoic, and half a dozen others 
we dare not attempt, are a partial list of 
Russian apples soon to be offered the 
American public. What are wc coming 
to, and where are President Wilder and 
the American Pomological Society? Talk 
about abominable names applied to our 
fruits, (and, goodness knows, some are 
bad enough); but what is Big Bob beside 
Skrischaffel, and Koritsehnovoie makes 
Jumbo perfect euphony. We move a 
prohibitory tariff on the whole lot. Rus¬ 
sian apples may be good enough, or even 
perfectly delicious, but, goodness gra¬ 
cious! what is the use growing them, 
however good, if in pronouncing their 
names, we put our mouths so out of shape 
as to be unable to tell by the taste, wheth¬ 
er they are apples or persimmons? 
The Plcuro-pneumonia Bill, which adds 
to the Department of Agriculture a Bu¬ 
reau of Animal Industries, whose charac¬ 
ter and duties have already been set forth 
here, passed the Senate last Tuesday, after 
several amendments had been made in it 
as it came from the House. Iu its present 
form, it gives the Chief of the Bureau a 
salary of $8,000, and one of $1,500 to a 
clerk, and the total number of employes 
is not to exceed 20. Two competent 
agents, who shall be practical stock-raisers, 
or men experienced in commercial trans¬ 
actions affecting live stock, are to make 
reports as to the best manner of transport¬ 
ing and caring for auimals, and the best 
means to be adopted to suppress and ex¬ 
tirpate pleuro-pneumouia and other con¬ 
tagious or communicable diseases. The 
compensation of these agents is to be $10 
a day, and expenses while actually em¬ 
ployed. Transportation companies are 
forbidden to transport cattle affected with 
any contagious or communicable disease 
from one State or Territory to another; 
but, as a sop to the Chicago protesting 
cattle-dealers, the so-called splenetic, or 
Texas fever is excepted from the category 
of communicable diseases. Violation of 
this provision is declared a misdemeanor 
on the part of the manager of a railroad 
or the captain of a vessel, punishable by 
fine not to exceed $5,000, or imprisonment 
not to exceed one year, or both. We are 
glad to see that the sum appropriated for 
the purposes of the act has been reduced 
to $150,000 instead of the $250,000 ap¬ 
propriated by the House. The present 
appropriation is ample for experimental 
purposes, and if honest, earnest men shall 
be appointed to the offices created by the 
bill, and a vigorous effort shall be made 
to eradicate all contagious stock diseases, 
further appropriations can be readily made. 
TURNING STOCK TO GRASS. 
From the barns or yards, where they 
were fully fed on good hay made from 
mature grass, and usually got a daily feed 
of grain, the stock, as soon as the grass 
will afford a full bite, are turned into the 
pastures, and from that time forth they 
receive nothing except what they pick; 
the grass is full of juice, with hut a 
meagre amount of nutriment, and, as a 
matter of course, the animals are inade¬ 
quately nourished, unless they so gorge 
themselves with this succulent food as to 
produce hoven or diarrhma. This season, 
which should be the most healthful and 
invigorating, is, through the carelessness 
or thoughtlessness of the owner, made the 
most trying of the whole year, and it is 
several months before the stock fully re¬ 
cover from the shock. 
The better way is to make the change 
very gradually. The first day, after they 
have eaten the morning meal and the dew 
is fully dried off, turn the animals out 
for not more than one hour; the next day, 
under the same treatment, leave them out 
two hours; the third, half a day; the 
fourth, after a full morning’s meal, they 
may be left out for the whole day; 
but so long as they will eat it, they 
should be fed good hay every night 
and morning, and also, uutil the 
grass is fully grown and has become 
nominally nutritious, the daily grain 
ration should be continued, gradually 
growing less and less, as it is to be dis¬ 
continued. If farmers would give this 
matter a little more thought, the stock 
would be saved much misery, and the 
owner no small loss. 
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SIGN. 
With the advent of Spring, the confi¬ 
dence sharpers who prey upon the farmers, 
come out of their winter-quarters and begin 
active, operations. The lightning-rod man 
will be closely followed by the clerical¬ 
looking personage, who is supplied with 
a large amount of check and a book of 
ehromo representations of new and won¬ 
derful flowers and fruits. After a few 
days, the man with the Egyptian powder 
that is death to all buggy posts, will wait 
upon you, and as harvest draws on apace, 
you will be favored with a call from the 
smooth tongued individual who wishes 
you to take on agency for a new and mar¬ 
velous sickle-grinder. It matters not 
w’hat schemes he theirs, they all have traits 
in common. All are sleek in dress, face 
and speech; all (latter; all propose to give 
you more than your money’s worth; all 
have something new and marvelous; all 
are frauds. 
Never buy on the recommendation of a 
stranger alone; and if that stranger prom¬ 
ises to give you much for little, set him 
down as a fraud. Men do not do charity 
in that way. Perhaps the meanest and 
most audacious of all these pleasing thieves, 
is the one who asks you to sign a paper. 
It may appear to be only an order the 
most safe and harmless; it may appear to 
be only a contract for a small amount of 
goods; be sure it is some scheme to de¬ 
fraud. Don’t sign it! The advice wc 
give is sweeping:—Don’t sign any paper 
for a stranger! It is the only safe rule. 
Of course, the fraud is hid; of course, the 
project is put in a charming light; if there 
■were any show of dishonesty, you would 
not be swindled. It will be something 
new, for the sharper well knows that it 
you have heard of it you ■will not be duped. 
It will appear all right; but don’t sign 
the paper! 
These men are adepts in swindling. 
They have brains and shrewdness, and 
put them to disreputable use. Their 
stories are plausible, because they have 
cudgelled their brains to make them so. 
They w-ill cover flattery with a show of 
sincerity. They will even use the cloak 
of religion to clothe their vile schemes. 
Yes, they’ll convince you iu spite of your¬ 
self. You will be sure it is all right. 
Stop! Before you sign that paper, remem¬ 
ber never sign a paper for a stranger. 
Don’t do it! 
Don’t let a scoundrel dupe you! Show 
that you have common sense, You have 
been warned time and again; are you to 
he pitied if, in spite of these warnings, 
you make a fool of yourself ? You sign 
the paper because you expect to obtain 
more tnnn you give. You certainly know 
that if a man gives you in a business 
transaction more than he receives, it is 
because of his necessity or lack of sense. 
If you try to take advantage of his neces¬ 
sity or mental weakness, arc you to be 
greatly pitied if the biter gets bitten ? Be 
a man; a sensible man; an honest man. 
THE WHEEL HOE IN THE GARDEN. 
Four things are requisite for a really 
successful farmer—good soil, good seeds, 
plenty of manure, and good culture. The 
garden being usually in close proximity to 
the barn, there are few farmers who do 
not apply sufficient manure; but, as a 
rule, it is put on green, and is often full 
of weed seeds. It is very seldom that 
good seeds are not sown, and rain enough 
falls; but the culture 1 Here is the 
t rouble. This causes failure nine times in 
ten. No matter how favorable all the 
o'ther conditions, if the ground is allowed 
to become packed and hard, no garden 
crop can fully develop, and if weeds are 
allowed to take possession, utter failure is 
the only result. 
The garden is properly planted, and 
possibly'at the proper time it is partially 
hoed and weeded, but field work presses, 
and the garden is neglected. Weeds take 
full possession, and the farmer in disgust, 
declares that a “garden don’t pay on a 
farm,” and his family get scarcely any 
vegetables, except such as are grown as 
field crops. The trouble is that the farm¬ 
er does not realize that, the best time to 
kill weeds is really before any are in 
sight. Nearly all weeds have, for¬ 
tunately, a very feeble existence at. 
first; even the most pernicious are, 
at first, so small as to be seen 
only jby the closest observation, and can 
be then destroyed by the merest brush of 
hoe or rake. What we need then is some 
sort of tool that works easily, fast ami 
shallowly, enabling a man to get over a 
large surface in a short, time, keeping the 
surface mellow, killing the multitude of 
little weeds, but leaving the plant roots 
undisturbed in the moist soil beneath. 
The hoe is very good, the steel-tooth 
garden rake is much better, but it is too 
hard work t.o use either, and they are far 
too slow. In the garden wheel-hoes, or 
hand cultivators, wc have by far the best 
implements we have ever tried ; with one 
of these a man is master of the situation. 
It can be set to cultivate wide or narrow, 
thus filling the whole row space, and if 
properly worked, by a pushing and pull¬ 
ing motion, nothing escapes death where 
it goes. If the garden is planted com¬ 
mon-sense fashion, in continuous rows, a 
smart man can easily go over a garden of 
half an acre in a day, and, if used as often 
as it should he—once a w’eek—he can 
easily do twice that amount in a day. 
Wc have used several of the different 
makes—those with two wheels, and with 
one, those with live teeth or blades, those 
with two, and those with only one; and 
though there is a difference, still any man 
who buys even the poorest one in the 
market and works it so as to familiarize 
lumself with its use, would not part with 
it for any money, if he could not get an¬ 
other; and can have no excuse for not keep¬ 
ing his garden clean. It is only a few years 
since the implement was first invented, 
but already there are thousands in use. 
Still, it is surprising in how few farmers’ 
gardens they are to he found, whereas no 
garden of any extent should be without 
one. 
With one of these the garden can he 
run over as soon as the rows can be fol¬ 
lowed, and they can be run so accurately 
and close to the rows as to kill all weeds 
outside of a strip not more than an inch 
wide. Again in a week the same opera¬ 
tion can be performed, and with the per¬ 
sistent use oi this little tool and with not 
more than twice weeding about the rows, 
the garden can he kept entirely clean, and 
would add more to the health and happi¬ 
ness of the family than any five acres on 
the farm, and pay better, too. We have 
not written this to boom wheel hoes, but 
to call the attention of our readers to 
their worth, compared with the few dol¬ 
lars which they cost. 
BREVITIES. 
Oh! we are working very hard at the Rural 
Experimental Grounds. 
Impure air, foul water, and untidiness— 
the three unpardonable sins of the dairy! 
The cow is the foster mother of the family. 
See that she is kindly treated, and well fed. 
Tt doesn't take much blundering to lose a 
dime, but, remember, ten dimes make a dol¬ 
lar. 
According to our notes, this Spring is 
fully one week earlier than that of 1882, and 
much the same as last Spring—perhaps a day 
or so earlier. 
No one can afford to so conduct his business 
as to annually lose 10 percent., and yet the 
annual loss of lambs is a little over one in 10, 
or 10 per cent. It would pay to look after the 
ewes a little more closely, now-. 
Mr. T. E. McCook, or McCoole, states that 
he has written us three times for our Seed Dis¬ 
tribution, each time inclosing stamps. No 
address (8 given in his last letter, and we may 
presume that ho was equally forgetful in his 
previous applications. 
One of the best bits of advice one sees, was 
in our last prize essay: "Don't hireevery vag¬ 
abond that happens to come along, regardless 
of Ms habits and morals, simply because you 
can get him cheap. Nover tolerate a man 
who abuses your team, or who would teach 
your children bad habits.” 
OcR esteemed friend, Mr. J. B, Olcott, of 
Connecticut, writes us as follows, touching a 
subject iu which every farmer should feel a 
deep interest: "In looking among the agricul¬ 
tural journals I don't find many, or scarcely 
any, knightly lances in defence of our streams. 
The Rural’k course has been chivalrous from 
the start, but 1 can only guess whether it feels 
like touching this hyura headed monster of 
pollution. It’s a plaguey old chore—1 know 
that, and It is vary curious to find how people 
are related to it. The bowels of my town are 
running black vomit. With 500 or 600 acres 
of land in my family, I haven’t looked at my 
Jersey cattle In 15 years as a possible source 
of market profit. A Newington man placed 
on the State Committee with mo at Water¬ 
bary, is selling milk in New Britain while that 
place is fouling his cow's’ drink with sewage.” 
TnK Secretary of the luterior has transmit¬ 
ted to the Senate Committee on Public Lunds 
report* from special ugeuts, showing the 
method adopted for the unlawful acquisition 
of t itles to public lands in the interest of for¬ 
eign capitalist*. The Kstes Park Company, 
“organized under the laws of Eugluud and 
doing business in Colorado.” holds 38 claims, 
30 of which were secured by people who never 
were iu the Park, and the eight others by 
people w ho made occasional visit*. In no case 
was the law' complied with. With regard to 
Bell & Co., an English house, with a capital 
of $10,000,000, doing business iu California, 
an agent secured complete evidence in 16 cases, 
proving that the entry men took timber lauds 
utuler agreement to transfer them to the 
agents of the syndicate, un receiptuf $50 each. 
Further investigations were stopped by the 
henchmen of the syndicate, who surrounded 
the hotel and prevented all who had made an 
entry from approaching the agent’s room. 
