42© 
1 
JUNE n 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes, j 
Conducted by 
KLBKUT B. CillHAS. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY. JUNE 28, 1884. 
•June 20. Our Haneell berries are be¬ 
ginning to ripen before any others begin 
to color. We have tried nearly every va¬ 
riety of raspberry, and do not hesitate 
now to pronounce this the earliest of any 
in our own grounds. It may be different, 
in other soils and climates. 
An Important Fact. —Several refer¬ 
ences huve been made to our hybrid grain 
produced by crossing rye with wheat. 
Ten grains were produced, nine of which 
grew. Of these nine plants, one having 
eight heads, is plainly neither wheat nor 
rye, and we find it. to be utterly sterile. 
The other eight, plants seem to be filled 
with grain, though a careful examination 
has not yet been made. They vary in a 
marked manner; some are more bearded 
than others (the wheat-mother was beard¬ 
less) ; some are narrow, some broad. 
. -»♦» 
Remember the bow that is always bent 
soon loses its elasticity, and the arm 
with a constant load soon gets tired. So 
if you would have the boys lively and 
interested in their work, don’t fail to give 
them a play spell often. Let them go 
fishing, or swimming, or boating in any 
good place so they cun have a rest, audit 
won’t hurt you to go with them cither. 
Try it, and see how much good it. will do 
you, and them, too. A day’s good romp 
with the children will take five years from 
your age. 
We are glad to have received the fol¬ 
lowing note from Mr. Wm. B. Alwood, 
the Superintendent of Field Experiments 
at the Ohio Ag. Ex. Station: “In the 
Rural of June 14, on the editorial page, 
appears an article on the possibility of 
wheat crossing without artificial means. 
My observations completely corroborate 
the editorial statement, and, in fact, I 
should go farther and say that I believe 
many rimes a flower may be fertilized by 
pollen from another flower on the same 
head, and just as readily from a neigh¬ 
boring head, if in close proximity. My 
observations were sufficiently extended 
to cover the whole period of develop¬ 
ment and fertilization, and i observed 
many curious and interesting things. I 
felt much disappointed when I saw that 
the Rural bad forestalled me, and that 
now mv observations must come as second 
hand. " It is the first time I ever saw such 
a statement in print. We have 170 va¬ 
rieties (so-called) upon the experiment 
grounds, and much other work ; all looks 
well.” 
--- 
From June 24th to the 28tb. Montreal, 
Canada, will be excited by a gay carnival, 
which will be entirely a French affair, just 
as the ice carnival of the past two Winters 
has been wholly a Scotch and English ex¬ 
hibition. The 60th anniversary of the 
founding of the Society of St. Jean Bap¬ 
tiste has been made the occasion of a fes¬ 
tival in which all the French societies in 
the Dominion and many from this country 
will participate. They will all be repre¬ 
sented in a congress, which will meet, 
every day to discuss such serious subjects 
as the moral and religious needs of Cana¬ 
da, the future of the Province, and the 
union of all the French societies in a con¬ 
federation. The public displays will lie 
fine, consisting of a “steamboat proces¬ 
sion;” horse races; tournuys; a “royal 
cavalcade," the costumes alone for which 
will cost $10,000; and various other forms 
of pageantry. We trust our Canadian 
friends, English, Scotch, Irish and Ger¬ 
man, as well as French, will make it a 
point to attend this festivity. 
-- 
Every farm should be an experiment 
station,' and every farmer an experimenter. 
We don’t mean by this that, the whole 
farm and the whole time of the farmer 
should be devoted to making experiments; 
but we do mean that the farmer should 
have plots on which to try the different 
manures, different seed* and different 
modes of cultivation. Farmers are far 
too apt to take information at second 
hand; too apt to jump at conclusions. 
Because a neighbor may feed more stock 
and feed richer foods and make better 
barn-yard manure, and for that reason a 
farmer who uses special fertilizers can’t 
see any special benefit from their use, it 
won’t do for him to conclude that such 
fertilizers will not pay him. ITc must 
know for himself and on his own soil, 
wliat manures pay, and what pay best. He 
must know what crops are beat adapted 
to particular fields; whether hill or drill 
planting pays him the better ; whether 
hill or flat culture is the more profitable; 
in short, there are a thousand questions 
constantly arising that every farmer must 
settle for himself, and that no one else 
can settle for him to a certainty. Far¬ 
mers, “Prove all things, and hold fast 
that which is good.” 
We hear a great deal about the difficul¬ 
ty of making poultry pay when kept, in 
large numbers, and numerous failures to 
do so serve as warnings to novices think¬ 
ing of undertaking the really difficult, 
though apparently easy enterprise. That 
with the right sort of knowledge and a 
fair amount of gumption it can be done is, 
however, shown by the example of D. 
W, Andrews, of Essex County, Mass., 
who, in a note to us. thus epitomizes liis 
experience: “I started poultry keeping in 
1808, and it took me a lew years to ‘get 
the hang’ of the business; but now I am 
master of it, and can make it. always pro¬ 
fitable. In 1872 T had 500 bens, and my 
total receipts from them were $2,296.40, 
while their feed cost me $1,099.78, leav¬ 
ing a clear profit of $1,190.62 over the 
outlay for feed. In 1881 I had 1,500 
hens; my total receipts were $4,425; the 
feed consumed cost $1,056, leaving a 
clear profit of $2,769.02 for my labor. 
The profit depends on the grain market, 
the egg market, and the skill of the poul¬ 
try raiser.” He closes with the remark, 
which has more than once been made in 
our columns, that it is absurd to be send¬ 
ing abroad every year vast sums in pay- 
meqt for eggs, while the business of pro- 
ducingthem at home “is perfectly simple, 
honest, healthful and profitable.” 
-£ - ♦ » » — 
TnE destruction of the primeval forests 
has been going on in Australia as rapidly 
as in the United States in comparison with 
the population of both countries, and 
there, too, loud complaints are now being 
made of this wholesale and indiscriminate 
denudation of the laud of its trees. Among 
us such complaints are loudest after the 
damage done by sudden floods, or during 
long periods of drought, when the streams 
and springs have dried up; and a recent 
drought in Australia has emphasized the 
denunciation of the reckless deforesting 
there. The chief agricultural industry of 
all the Australian colonies is sheep hus¬ 
bandry, and during the recent drought 
there was a loss ol at least eight million 
sheeji. Large rivers approaching the 
coast were reduced to a chain of stag¬ 
nant. pools unfit for use either by man 
or beast; while further inland both rivers 
and their tributaries, great and small, dis¬ 
appeared entirely, and water could be 
obtained only by digging deep wells. 
Owing to the cutting down of the timber 
and the fine natural drainage there, the 
water, after each rainfall, rapidly finds its 
way to the rivers and the ocean, so that 
the streams and springs soon become dry. 
In view of the rapid deforesting of this 
country and the great yearly increase of 
artificial drainage, is there not a growing 
danger that we may, ere long, experience 
such droughts as those that frequently 
cause a world of loss and suffering to our 
antipodes? 
LEGISLATION AGAINST FOREIGN CON¬ 
TRACT labor. 
One of the chief reasons assigned by 
employers of labor in favor of a high 
tariff. is that it protects the workingmen 
oi this country from competition in wages 
with the poorly paid laborers of Europe. 
There may be some doubt about the valid¬ 
ity of this argument so long as the poorly- 
paid laborers of Europe can, at a trifling 
expense, come to this country to compete 
with our “protected” workmen; but there 
can be no doubt as to its untenability so 
long as the employers of labor here are in 
the habit of contracting for cheap labor in 
Europe and importing it into this country 
to force down the wages of American 
workmen. The very men who claim “pro¬ 
tection” for their goods on the plea of 
thereby being able to pay better prices for 
the labor expended in making them, hav¬ 
ing secured “protection” for their wares 
against competition with foreign manu¬ 
facturers, go abroad for labor to compete 
with domestic labor in making those 
goods. This abuse has been growing 
rapidly of late, and has become so serious 
as to call for legislative Intervention. 
Accordingly the House of Representatives 
has just passed a bill prohibiting the im¬ 
portation and migration of foreigners and 
aliens under contract to perform labor, 
making it unlawful to enter into an agree¬ 
ment or contract with any foreigner or 
alien to perform labor or service of any 
kind in the United States, or to prepay 
the transportation or in any other way to 
assist or encourage the importation or 
migration of any person under contract 
or agreement, parol or special, express or 
implied. The bill declares all such con¬ 
tracts void and of no effect, and makes it 
a crime punishable by fine and imprison¬ 
ment for any master of a ship to land such 
aliens or foreigners in any port of the 
United States. The act, however, is not 
to apply to contracts for skilled workmen 
in any new industry not at present estab¬ 
lished here, provided that skilled labor 
for that business cannot be otherwise ob¬ 
tained, nor to professional actors, lecturers 
and singers. This is a step in the right 
direction so long as a high tariff is in 
vogue; but should the measure become 
a law, the difficulties in the way of its 
enforcement in the face of opposition 
from the greed and chicanery of capital, 
will probably be found so great as prac 
tically to defeat its purpose. 
OUR EUROPEAN CATTLE TRADE. 
At present the trade in American cattle 
and fresh meat in Europe is extremely 
dull. In both these branches the trade 
is couflued almost exclusively to Great 
Britain. Russia, Germany,France, Spain, 
Italy aud Ireland are exporters of cattle, 
Great Britain being the chief market for 
the, surplus stock of these countries, as 
well as for that of Canada, the United 
States, Australia, New Zealand, and, ex¬ 
perimentally, Buenos Ayres and Brazil. 
Moreover, the import duties of Conti¬ 
nental countries greatly discourage or 
entirely prohibit importations. In France, 
for example, it costs half a cent a pound 
to get meat into the country, and an addi¬ 
tional cent to get it into Paris, the best 
market, and there would be little or no 
profit on a shipment after paying a ccnt- 
and-a-half apound toll. In other countries 
the duties are even heavier. In England 
and Scotland the iron trade, which em¬ 
ploys a vast number of hands, is excep¬ 
tionally dull, and many other industries 
share the same fate, and consequently the 
operatives are not making money enough 
to buy beef as liberally as usual, a large 
proportion of them being happy if they 
can get bread and cheese. The imports 
of frozen Australian mutton, too, are ac¬ 
quiring great proportions, and as the Eng¬ 
lish are a mutton-consuming almost as 
emphatically as they are a beef-eating 
race, the growing supply of mutton from 
the 'east tends to check the demand for 
beef from the west. A curious feature 
of the trade is that good beef is cheaper 
in England than here, while poor beef is 
dearer ; because the working people, the 
heavy consumers, buy the latter, and by 
creating a demand, keep up the price; 
while owing to the limited demand for 
the finest roasts, they have to be sold 
cheap. 
Another cause of transatlantic dullness 
is that the trade has been overdone by 
American importers. Owing to the speed, 
regularity and safety with which steamers 
at. this season transport live stock, an un¬ 
usually large number have been shipped 
of late, and any temporary check to the 
trade on the other side creates great dis¬ 
order and loss, on account of the regula¬ 
tions which require that all cattle from 
the United States must be slaughtered at 
the port of debarkation within 10 days 
after landing. An instance of this kind 
of embarrassment occurred at Glasgow, a 
few weeks ago. The local meat trade was 
deranged, as so many artisans were out of 
employment, or working less than full 
time. The demand for meat, therefore, 
was so slack that there was at one time 
an accumulation of 1,400 head of Ameri¬ 
can cattle at the Foreign Wharf depot on 
the Clyde. No more could be accommo¬ 
dated ; and one steamer that arrived later, 
had to keep in her hold 470 cattle for 
three days and 285 for five days after 
arrival, while another was delayed several 
days because she could not get rid of her 
consignment of 460 head. Naturally 
enough, under such circumstances, the 
prices for American stock ranged irom 
$70 to $115—a reduction of $20 to $35 on 
each animal from values recently current. 
Were it not for the existence of conta¬ 
gious cattle disease here, and the conse¬ 
quent restrictions on importations on the 
other side, these cattle w ould have been 
taken to succulent pastures, where they 
would have been kept until the glut in 
the local market was over, or good prices 
could be obtained for them elsewhere; 
and thus not only would the loss of $20 
to $35 per head have been avoided, but 
the beasts would have brought considera¬ 
bly higher prices, after having recupera¬ 
ted from the exhaustion, feverishness and 
loss of flesh inseparable from a long, cruel 
journey by rail here, followed by a rough 
passage across the Atlantic. The loss due 
to the legal necessity of killing the stock 
in a glutted market, and also that arising 
from a failure to get, tlie best prices from 
animals fresh from the fatigues of a long 
and wearisome journey, ultimately fall in 
an exaggerated form on the cattle raisers; 
for to counterbalance the loss on the other 
side of the water, the shipper wifi pay a 
lower price than he otherwise would have 
paid for all animals he may buy on this 
side; so that the loss incurred by the 
shipper on a hundred head in gTcat Bri¬ 
tain, is likely to entail a loss on ten times 
that number on the cattle raisers in 
America. Small wonder that the stock- 
men of this country, especially those of 
the West, who are the chief sufferers, 
should he anxious for the prompt eradica¬ 
tion, at auy cost, of contagious pleuro¬ 
pneumonia, from the few places where it 
is said still to exist in a few of the Atlan¬ 
tic States Unless this is done completely 
and at once, the restrictions on our im¬ 
portations of live cattle into Great Bri¬ 
tain, which at present cause such serious 
losses, will soon he succeeded by harsher 
regulations, w'hich will be equivalent to 
actual prohibition, as provided by the re¬ 
cent action in Parliament. 
BREVITIES. 
On the night of June 16th, a slight frost oc¬ 
curred at the New Jersey Experimental 
Grounds of the R. N-Y. 
We have found a horse that likes Prickly 
Comfrey. What a grand plant this would be 
for ensilage! 
The second combination sale of Jersey cat¬ 
tle, so extensively advertised, took place at 
the American ilurse Exchange, in this city, 
Jane 17 to 19, under the management of Peter 
C. Kellogg & Co. It was well attended; but 
though Mr. Kellogg, the most, genial and skill¬ 
ful of auctioneers, worked very hard, the 
prices realized were anything but satisfactory ; 
201 cattle were sold for the aggregate sum of 
$56,570, or au average of about $282 ouch. 
The animal bringing the highest price was 
Nymph of St. Lamberts. 12968, sold by T. 
A* Hnvermeyer to Valancey E. Fuller for 
$1,500. The only others reaching as htgh as 
$ 1,000 were Ha t i n, 10829, for $1,030, a ml M atch 
less, of St. Lamberts, 9778. for $1,000. Prices 
ran down as low as $70. It, was quite evident 
to au on-looker no way interested, that the day 
of extremely high prices for Jerseys has 
passed, aud that people will soon have an op¬ 
portunity to buy Cbaunel Island cattle at a 
price reasonably within the reach of ordinary 
farmers for practical use. 
Under data of the 18th inst., Mr. William 
Parry writes as follows: “Knowing you to be 
very much interested iu new fruits as they 
appear, 1 take great pleasure in sending you 
by to-day’s mail, a box of ripe Marlboro 
Raspberries, some of which measure 23-32 of 
an inch iu diameter—nearly three-quarters of 
an inch. I also inclose two small branches of 
green fruit, ou which are berries non* measur¬ 
ing 23-82 of an inch iu diameter. We expect 
to have them au inch iu diameter before the 
season is over. We picked some yesterday, 
all ou heavy soil. 1 suppose they would 
be still earlier on sandy laud." The berries 
were found to be in good condition, and as 
above described. Our own are not yet begin¬ 
ning to ripen. 
What bas become of Moffat! Is he dead, 
discharged, or sleeping! About 18 months 
ago the Department of Agriculture sent him 
to Europe, to collect and report informatiou 
with regard to the condition of foreign crops 
and markets for the benefit of American far- 
mere. It was loudly proclaimed that prompt 
and accurate information about foreign agri¬ 
cultural products and prices would enable the 
farmers of this country to market their own 
products to better advantage: and believing 
this, Congress increased the appropriation de¬ 
manded by the Department of Agriculture for 
collecting informatiou about crops, freights 
aud markets. Has any single farmer iu the 
United States been hitherto benefited in tbe 
slightest degree by the information furnished 
by Moffat through the Department or other¬ 
wise? Wbat’s become of Moffat anyhow f 
Last Winter, a considerable amount of 
wheat waa cut down to tbe grade of ''re¬ 
jected” by the St. Louis inspectors, because, 
although in appearance tbe grain was full and 
bright, equal to No. 3, it was more or less 
mixed with what is known as “mow-burnt 
wheat, which, to the smell, made it unsound. 
Millers bought a good deal of it as No. 2; but, 
ou grinding, found it made unsound flour. In 
order to protect the standard grade of No. - 
wheat, ami vet hot subject to a heavy loss 
the country shippers, who honestly thought 
they were sending No, 2 wheat to market, the 
Wheat Inspection Committee of the St. Louis 
Exchange ordered: “that wheat iu appearance 
and character equal to No 2 wheat, but slight 
ly mixed with mow-burnt or unsound wheat 
to an extent to classify it with 'rejected 
should be made a special wheat, and be ordered 
by inspectors into special bins,” The quantity 
of this wheat received increased towards the 
end of the season, and should much of it be 
marketed after the present harvest, doubtless 
considerable loss will fall upon farmers, as tbe 
wheat inspectors at the receiving centers ate 
very likely to lower the grade of wheat in 
which “mow-burnt” grain is found. It would 
be well for our friends to remember this contin¬ 
gency in stacking and marketing the product. 
