•JUNE 14 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW'YORKLR. 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
ELBERT B. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE HURAI. NEW YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1884. 
Mr. Bkrckmans, of Augusta, Ga., 
shipped four crates of Alexander Peaches 
to New York, May 27. These were the 
first in the market, and sold for $25 a 
bushel. 
-*-*-♦-- 
In our corn experiments of last year, 
it will be remembered that a part of the 
field was hilled up and plowed until it 
was laid by, while the other portions were 
not billed up, hut were given shallow 
cultivation. The latter endured the 
drought much better and yielded more 
grain than the former. Any farmer may 
try the experiment and judge for himself. 
Under the title of the paper “Rural 
New-Yorker,” and under the bull’s head 
thereof, will be seen the volume (XL11I.) 
and number (1764.) One unit is added to 
this every week. When it is the same as 
the number on your address wrapper, your 
subscription expire*. If there is m 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. 
Mr. Ira E. Benton, of Illinois, writes 
as follows: “Thanks for publishing in 
the Rural of May 31, the grand editorial 
entitled, Ts it Bigotry?’ To my mind, it 
has the right ring on the question of the 
saloons being open on Sunday. A great 
army of the Rural readers will indorse 
what, the Bubal has said on this matter. 
Such words are bound to win and exert a 
mighty influence for good, especially when 
published in a journal with the immense 
circulation that the Rural has.” 
The very best advice that we can now 
give for the growing corn is to destroy the 
weeds and keep the surface soil mellow. 
Then the soil underneath will take care of 
itself. Tt. matters not whether the land is 
heavy or light, it is our belief, from years 
of experiment, that, plowing or hilling- 
up, after the plants are six inches high, 
is disadvantageous. Another thing, sec 
that the plants are not too close together. 
If they grow 10 feet high,‘then see that 
in drills they arc not less than 16 inches 
by four feet apart; or, if in hills, the same 
distance proportionately. That is to say, 
if three plants grow in a hill, let the hills 
be four feet by four feet apart; if two in a 
bill, 32 inches by four feet, and so forth. 
The Rural’s great yield of corn (con¬ 
sidering the expense of manure and cul¬ 
tivation, t he greatest yield on record) was 
drilled nr—the drills four feet two inches 
apart, the plants 16 inches apart. 
We have always believed until lately 
that different, varieties of wheat, though 
growing side by side, could not cross. 
During the past few days, while crossing 
our wheats of this season, we have had 
occasion to change our opmion. In a 
number of cases we have seen the floral 
envelopes gaping apart, while the stigmas 
seemed to be ripe and the stamens were 
freely shedding their pollen. There can 
be very little doubt that the wheat flower 
is self-fertilizing, still, in such instances 
as those mentioned above, it is possible 
for pollen from other plants to be carried 
by the wind to the open flowers, where 
foreign pollen would perhaps prove as 
potent as their own. Generally speak¬ 
ing. anthers of the flowers of wheat have 
discharged their pollen and the ovules 
have been fertilized before they appear 
outside of the glumes and palets. Then 
wheat is said to be in bloom. Jn reality 
the blooming period has passed. In rye 
it. is somewhat different. The anthers, 
after they appear, are often laden with 
ripe pollen, which may often be seen 
floating in the air the same as corn pollen 
is seen, though, of course, in a smaller 
quantity. 
For ten years we have had the Scarlet 
Double-flowering Thorns, but have never 
had a good chance to see their full beauty 
until the present, season. Our plants are 
about 12 feet high, and began to bloom 
late in May, continuing for two weeks or 
more. The flowers are Dut a half-inch in 
diameter, but are borne lu such quantities 
that in looking at the little tree one sees 
I more red than green. Generally, they 
grow in close umbels of 15 or more, each 
umbel resting upon bright green leaves, 
and forming a perfect little bouquet of 
roses in itself. It is too late now for our 
friends to plant this handsome tree, and 
they are apt to forget about it. before an¬ 
other Fall or Spring. Nevertheless, it 
should he remembered and, though it does 
not bloom as early as many other shrubs 
or trees of small size, it is fully worthy of 
a conspicuous place about our homes. 
There are many kinds of thorns. We 
arc now speaking of that known botanic- 
ally as Crataegus Oxyacantha coccinea 
flore-pleno Paulii, or, in English, as Paul’s 
Scarlet Double-flowering Thorn. The 
Double Scarlet Thorn differs from this 
only m the shade of its flowers, being a 
little lighter. Both are very hardy, and 
will grow with as little pettiDg as any 
other plant. 
TnE Ninth Annual Meeting of the 
American Association of Nurserymen, 
Florists and Seedsmen, will be held at, 
Chicago, June 18 to 21 inclusive, com¬ 
mencing at 10 o’clock, AV ednesduy, the 
18th. Headquarters will be at the Sher¬ 
man House. The Secretary is D. Wilmot 
Scott. It seems to us that, these very use¬ 
ful classes of our people should not fail 
to attend these meetings for several rea¬ 
sons:—By attending, they form many 
pleasaDt. acquaintances with each other; 
they study up the best means of propaga¬ 
tion and cultivation; study the merits and 
learn the characteristics of the new fruits, 
etc., ami they should strive to invent some 
method by which they can protect them¬ 
selves from being misrepresented and their 
patrons and friends, the planters and 
fruit growers, from being swindled. 
The programme of the meeting, which 
Secretary Scott, has prepared and sent out. 
is very attractive, and contains many top¬ 
ics of very great interest to every nur¬ 
seryman and every fruit grower as well. 
Inasmuch as the railroads centering at 
Chicago have agreed to return all mem¬ 
bers attending, for one-third fare, and the 
wives and daughters of the members are 
made honorary members, who will, of 
course, be entitled to the same reduc¬ 
tions, we hope our nurserymen friends, 
within a reasonable radius, will all turn 
out, and have a pleasant and profitable 
time. The nurserymen arc entitled to 
great credit for the perfection to which 
our fruits uud flowers have been brought, 
and also for the great improvements of 
the lawns and home surroundings, and no 
one should begrudge them a holiday; 
and, besides, Chicago is one of the widest- 
awake cities in which a convention ever 
met, and she always treats the nursery¬ 
men as they deserve, with much cordiality. 
We are quite sure the gathering will be 
very pleasant, and that tliqse who stay at 
home will greatly regret it. 
--- 
As the time approaches for the World’s 
Cotton Exposition at New Orleans next 
Winter, it becomes more and more evi¬ 
dent that it is going to prove a magnifi¬ 
cent affair. Already it has become 
evident that the Exhibition buildings, 
though more commodious than any 
ever before erected, are inadequate 
to meet the demands for space, and 
the citizens of New Orleans are raising 
an additional sum to provide other build¬ 
ings to meet the increasing demand. The 
horticultural exhibit will greatly exceed 
anv predecessor. The largest number of 
plates of fruit ever shown was 11,000; 
but the very liberal premium list, and the 
applications already received, make it 
reasonably sure that at this exhibition 
there will be fully 22,000, or twice as 
many as ever before. Adjoining Hor¬ 
ticultural Hall, Mexico will establish a 
garden of over four-and-a-half acres, and 
the Central American States one of nearly 
six acres. Florida and California will 
each occupy nearly as much space. Forty 
acres have" been laid off for miniature 
model farms, experimental and vegetable 
gardens, and 40 acres more will be pro¬ 
vided with buildings for the accommoda¬ 
tion of live stock, poultry, birds and 
dogs. Extensive accommodations for the 
display of all kinds of machinery in mo¬ 
tion will be provided. The grounds will 
be embellished with six lakes, and with 
beautiful fountains and groves of pome¬ 
granates, magnolias, lemons, oranges, 
palms, cocoanuts, bananas, etc. Alto¬ 
gether, all trades, callings and interests 
will be provided for and represented. 
The completion of the buildings is being 
pushed as rapidly as possible, and as 
much as 400,000 feet of timber and lum¬ 
ber are used in a single week. 
The railroads have responded very gen¬ 
erously to the call of the managers, and 
assurance is given that fares will not ex¬ 
ceed one cent per mile in going and re¬ 
turning from all parts of the United 
States, and in many instances excursion 
rates will be even much lower than this. 
This exhibition will very properly cele¬ 
brate the centennial of the first exporta¬ 
tion of cotton from this country, as the 
first shipment ever made was six bales in 
1784. Now the cotton States supply 85 
per cent, of all raised in the world. 
-♦ ♦ * 
SCIENCE AND FARMING. 
The greatest obstacle in the way of 
man’s improvement and the most difficult 
to overcome, has been ignorance. Placed 
here at the beginning with no experience, 
anil totally without knowledge of the laws 
which governed nature in the growth, 
perfection and decay of vegetable and ani¬ 
mal life—in fact, totally ignorant ot the 
laws which governed his own existence, 
he was like a man in the dark; he groped 
about, stumbling and falling many limi-s 
before he learned the roads that were safe 
and practicable. To-day, even with all 
our advancement, the “don’t know” of 
nur farmers alone, costs the country much 
more than would support all the educa¬ 
tional institutions in existence. Knowl¬ 
edge adds so much to the power uud effi¬ 
ciency of its possessor, and elevates him 
so much, that ignorance is always jealous 
and suspicious of it, aud of its possessor; 
and for this reason there is always a prej¬ 
udice in the common mind against so-called 
science, and especially is this the case 
among farmers. Not very long since, to 
call a man a scientific farmer, was at once 
to make him the butt of all the jokes of 
the neighboi hood, aud to set all eyes watch¬ 
ing, in hopes he might make some failure. 
This is a grave mistake, for there is 
no one more dependent for success upon 
science and scientific practices, than the 
tiller of the soil. 
Nature has certain fixed and immutable 
laws that regulate aud control all her ope¬ 
rations, as well the growth and devel¬ 
opment of the tiniest seed into the living 
plant, and this to its full maturity and 
the production again of its seed, as of 
the creation and movements of the planet¬ 
ary system. Would the farmer achieve 
the greatest success, he must work in uni’ 
son with, not antagonistic to these laws. 
The study and investigation of these laws 
as they relate to agriculture, and the ap¬ 
plication of the knowledge so obtained 
to its practical operation#, is science, aud 
that is all there is of scientific farming. 
We can not see anything in this that 
should frighten or antagonize the farmer; 
but, on the contrary, it is the greatest in¬ 
centive for bun to become a student ot 
the science of agriculture,and of all science 
that in any way relates to it. 
For the sake of convenience, wo talk 
about ttie science of chemistry, of bot¬ 
any, etc.: but these are only names of 
different branches of science, and these arc 
each and all useful to the farmer in many 
ways, in which they enable him to better 
know Nature’s laws. For instance, chem¬ 
istry seeks to know the cause of things 
by tearing down or pulling apart; if a 
field fails to produce a satisfactory crop 
of wheat, chemistry would take the soil 
and pull it apart by analysis, to ascertain 
what it contains; it takes the wheat plant, 
and pulling leaf, stem and grain apart, it 
ascertains of what each is composed, la 
other words, it asks the wheat what it 
needs and must have in order to produce 
the best crops. It asks the soil what it. 
has in its store-house aud within the 
reach of the growing plant, which it will 
contribute to its use, aud by comparing 
their answers, it is enabled to tell tiie 
farmers what the wheat plant must have, 
what the soil will contribute, aud what 
he must supply, in order to grow crops 
that shall be remunerative. We fol¬ 
low those instructions and carefully watch 
’•esults, and when the results corroborate 
:hc teachings of chemistry, wc call it an 
igricultural fact, and carefully record it, 
md records of all these facts form our 
text-books, and are the admitted laws of 
science. Through our imperfect knowl¬ 
edge and methods, we sometimes mis¬ 
take these teachings, and guess at the 
results, and call a fact established, and in 
our haste proclaim it as a scientific prin¬ 
ciple, when it is only guess-work, thus 
bringing ridicule aud disrepute upon 
science, when the error is chargeable only 
to our ignorunce, as, for instance, the 
theory once universally taught that the 
earth was the stationary center of the uni¬ 
verse. Increasing knowledge showed this 
not to be true, neither was it scientific, 
but only a blunder of ignorance. Science 
is knowledge; the correct interpretation 
of Nature’s laws; and of course, it is 
always true, reasonable, fixed, immutable. 
It is only our ignorance that causes us to 
mistake its teachings, or which prevents 
us from correctly translating its language. 
The same power, based on the same 
scientific principle, was hidden in the 
union of heat and water, since the foun¬ 
dation of the universe; but man went on 
in ignorance unassisted by this mighty 
power, until Watt complied with the 
scientific law which enabled him to apply 
and control this power in the construc¬ 
tion of the steam engine. The same laws 
governing the development and improve¬ 
ment of plants and animals, have always ex¬ 
isted, and yet it is only very recently that 
man has understood and taken advantage 
of them, and wc already see wonderful 
results. Surely any one so dependent on 
Nature’s laws for his complete success as 
the farmer, cannot afford to be ignorant 
of them, and the more perfectly he un¬ 
derstands and complies with them, the 
greater will be his success. 
We may call it gumption, shrewdness, 
luck, or by any other name, the success 
of the successful farmer is attained by a 
compliance with the scientific principles 
of agriculture, and by this means only, 
and the better these are understood and the 
more closely they are followed, the great¬ 
er will be his success. Then we say, that 
if these can be more quickly aud perfectly 
learned from the text books than from 
long and costly experience, by all means 
study the books. Science and farming 
go well together, and we cannot well 
have too much of true science in our 
fanning. 
-» ♦ ♦- 
BREVITIES. 
Work goes on in a most gratifying way at 
the Rural Experiment Grounds. 
Our young cabbage plants were at once rid 
of the cabbage flea by one spraying of the 
kerosene emulsion. 
Take a jug of milk with you to the hay 
field. Put it in the spring, or. if you have 
none, dig a hole im lor a shadv tree and bury 
it up totbecork. Drink of thislittle and often. 
We again ask the indulgence of those who 
have asked questions. We hope to be able to 
catch up in two or three weeks. If then auy 
questions have been overlooked, our friends 
will kindly repeat them. 
Dear city farm editors, don’t tell your read¬ 
ers that the best way to kill the cabbage worm 
is by sprinkling upon them hot water. It is a 
rcrit absurd remedy, and progressive farmers 
smile at the senseless advice. 
Is a farmer who lias good implements mean 
if lie refuses to lend them to his neighbors? 
Implements are an esserit.in I part of a farm¬ 
er’s capital. Hie interest on their cost, to¬ 
gether with the wear and tear, is a consider¬ 
able item of expense. When, therefore, a 
farmer lends his implements, lie lends his 
money. When a farmer borrows implements, 
he borrows money. 
A good way to use corn drills for sowing 
corn for fodder is to remove the brush or iron 
regulator, as the ease may bo, and use the 
largest plates, or the plates having the largest 
holes, and then drill in the corn three feet 
apart. AYitb double-row planters that drop four 
feet apart, the machine may be run half way be¬ 
tween the first drills, thus planting drills two 
feet apart. A cabbage plow will serve to cul¬ 
tivate between the rows and keep down the 
weeds. The Black Sweet Corn, or Stowell’s 
Evergreen, is excellent to plant for this pur¬ 
pose. 
Knowlegk is power. There is an immense 
difference between brain aud muscle. The 
one lifts by main force, the other uses machin¬ 
ery to do the lifting. The man trudging along 
on foot, with the bundle on his buck, is muscle; 
the lightuing traiu is braius; the man labor¬ 
iously cutting the wheat with a sickle is 
muscle; the self-bindiug reaper is bruins. 
There is no place where brains, educated, 
thinking brains, pay better than ou the farm; 
often a moment of brain-work saves a whole 
day for the muscles. Learn to use the brains. 
We are using Bubach, the California “Per¬ 
sian Insect Powder,” in this way: To one 
pound of the powder, one pint of alcohol is 
added. This remaiiiB over-night, and then 
three gallons of water are added. This is 
sprayed upon plants through spraying bel¬ 
lows^ Gooseberry bushes were tnus soon rid 
of the currant worm, and cabbage plants in¬ 
fested with fleas are cleured of them at once. 
Potato beetles, in bores, are stupefied in a few 
minutes, aud die in about 30 hours. Whether 
it will kill the beetles ou the vines we have not 
yet ascertained. 
Several Notes from the Rural Grounds. 
_Our potatoes under experiments with dif¬ 
ferent fertilizers attract attention, because 
they differ notably in growth. The question 
is often asked: “What fertilizer is that?” 
pointing to plots that are more vigorous than 
others. At this time (June 4| the plots fer¬ 
tilized severally with (1) stable manure, i2) 
a mixture of dissolved boue, sulphate of pot¬ 
ash aud nitrate of soda, and (3) Mapess 
Potato Fertilizer, are ahead of the others in 
growth of vine. The “nothing”-plots are de¬ 
cidedly behind most of the others, though 
there is little difference between them aud 
those fertilized with lime, coal-ashes, plaster. 
Of the. new strawberries, Cornelia (some¬ 
times pistillate—sometimes perfect in flower), 
Crawford's No. 6, Atlantic (perfect). Iron- 
Clad (perfect), Junior Queen (perfect), Daisy 
(perfect), Hathaway’s No. S (perfect). 5 and J 
(pistillate), Ladies’ Pine (pistillate), Pnnce of 
Berries (sometimes pistillate—sometimes per¬ 
fect), Jewell (pistillate). Amateur pistillate), 
Lovett’s Splendid (perfect), are all vigorous 
plants. The most vigorous are Amateur, 
Junior Queen, Dai&y, Hathaway’s u and o, 
Crawford’s -No. 6 and Cornelia. The weak 
est plants are Big Bob, Nigh’s Superb, Mrs 
Garfield and Walter. 
