4S6 
THE RURAL -NEW-YORKER. 
JULY 49 
crops were also badly injured. It rained very 
hard for three hours on the Fourth, and again 
next day. so that the ground is well saturated, 
and we can consider the drought fully broken. 
Those farmers who are wide-awake and up to 
their work, had nil their bay in barns or 
stacks, though n considerable quantity is still 
uncut, nearly ripe, and bo badly dried up as to 
l* but lit tle better than straw, and the proba¬ 
bility is that the weather will not be as well 
fitted for hav-making as before the rain. 1 he 
dry. hot weather bad also affected the or¬ 
chards bv causing much dropping of apples. 
Early planted and well worked corn is fully 
knee-high, which is large for this country at 
this season, and it is looking remarkably fine: 
that planted late on poorly-fitted late-plowed 
land, is very spotted, and, as before said, a 
good deal is not yet up, and, of course, this 
can’t amount to very much. The second crop 
of clover is showing a good bloorn—better 
than for three years—and I am inclined to 
think the midge has passed away, and that we 
shall once more have some clover seed. Wheat 
Is nearly ripu and is looking well, and now my 
thin seeded 1 1 bushel per acre) is much the 
best. The Cross-bred Diehl Mediterranean is 
showing its sujwriorjty after these heavy 
rains; while Clawson and other varieties are 
badly lieaten down and tangled, this variety 
stands as straight as 1 can wish, although 
thicker und heavier than the Clawson. The 
rain will materially help the oat crop, and 
will help the barley to fill, though it cannot 
now cause those stalks not more than half 
grown to perfect heads; it will just save the 
seeding, which, In a short time longer, would 
have been completely killed. The main crop 
of potatoes is fine, and no bugs so far have put 
in an appearance, and this raiu will insure a 
good yield. H. m - 
North Carolina. 
Henderson, Vance Co., June 30.—Wheat 
all harvested, though much still stands in the 
shock, where it has been exposed to soaking 
rains fora whole week. Corn above an aver¬ 
age; growing rapidly, but rains interfere with 
proper cultivation. Cotton less in acreage; 
two weeks late in condition, and at present 
suffering severely from too much wet. Wiu- 
ter oats fine; spring, short and thin. Tobac¬ 
co acreage increased 25 per cent, over lust year; 
a good stand and growing finely. Peaches 
rotted badly. Some indications of rot among 
grapes: vinos heavily sot with fruit. A good 
show of apples and pears. Blackberries never 
bettor. Melons are being literally drowned. 
I have been bagging a few grapes, and find 
that 1 can gel two, sometimes throe or four 
clusters in the size of bag recommended in 
the lit’ kal. The few 1 bagged last year were 
very fine and kept longer after ripening. 
M. B. P. 
M cores vILLE, Iredell Co.. July 4.—I have 
just had my Surprise Wheat thrashed. I grew 
from the first 40 grains 1% pound: this I 
planted, as before, in drills one foot apart and 
from four to five inches iu the drills It came 
up badly on account of chickens, etc.; but, 
after all, it made bushels, or 330 pounds. 
1 have now got enough to experiment with 
next year. Who can beat this? s. a. l. 
Vlralnln. 
Buforpyillk, Bedford Co., June 30.— 
Wheat nearly all in the shock; early sowed 
good; that sowed late, light. Coni came up 
well, and promises well. Oats, although the 
weather has beeu favorable, are not doing 
well; winter oats nearly all killed out Hay 
below an average crop. Tobacco a full crop 
planted. Cattle and hogs scarce and high. 
We have had a very wet Spring ami Summer 
so far; raiding now, and there is danger of 
wheatsproutiugin the shock. G. P. L. 
Dalton, Hanover Co., June 28.—Our Spring 
was so late, cold nud wet, that all gardening 
work was at least six weeks late. April 5 was 
the first day 1 was able to plant green peas. I 
then planted the Cleveland R. N -Yorker, the 
Horsford Market Garden, in contrast with 
Lamireth’s Extra Early for the crop; seeds 
planted April side by side; first bloom, on 
each, May 14; pods ready for gathering May 
30, on both—and no apparent difference in 
yield. The Market Garden seems to lie a stout 
dwarf, of no particular value, and later than 
Champion of England, planted on the same 
day. The Black Champion Oats were sown 
April 12 iu contrast with Welcome and Wash¬ 
ington. They tiller greatly, but are very late. 
The other varieties allowed heads 10 days ago; 
the Champion has little appearance of head¬ 
ing still—I fear it will bo too late in this very 
late season. If it would stand our Winters it 
would be a most valuable variety, with its 
abundant foliage. C. W. D. 
West Virginia. 
Kearnkysville, Jefferson Co., July 1.—We 
are iu the midst of our wheat harvest. The 
crop is a good one. Wheat is not very thick, 
but it is extra finely beaded and well filled 
It has been badly beaten down by heavy rain¬ 
storms, however. J. A. B. 
CATTLE QUERIES. 
O. H. P. L., Troy, W. Va.—l. One of my 
cows dropped a calf one evening, and- could 
not get up next inorniug; she threw her head 
from side to side, and moaned and groaned ail 
day, and would neither eat nor drink. I gave 
her a quart of lard, 1% pint of flaxseed oil, 
and two ounces of aloes, and produced an ope¬ 
ration. She got easier in the evening, and 
ceased to groan. On the second morning she 
was helped up, and walked to ft stream close 
at hand and drank, but would not. eat. I gave 
her three-quarters of a pound of Ejwoin salts 
and three injections of soap suds Bhe then 
had an operation; but continued to complain 
till the fifth day, when she died at about 3 I* M. 
On a postmortem examination, I found her 
gall as large as a quart measure, and her lights 
and lungs were nearly of the same color as 
her liver. W bat ailed herf 2. Whatiswolf- 
in-tlie-tail? 3. What are false or wild calves? 
4. What are hooks in cattle? 5, Is poke root 
good for murrain in cattle? 
A ns.—The cow died of milk fever, induced 
by a too full and bilious condition. Bhe would 
probably have been saved had she been given 
twopouudsof Epsom salts instead of 12 ounces, 
and been kept very quiet in a darkened stable. 
The active purgative would have emptied the 
gall bladder and cooled the fever, while the 
quiet, would have, eased the nervous disorder. 
2. Wolf in-tbe tail is the common popular 
name for softening of the bone and inflamma¬ 
tion; it may Ik* cured by applying turpentine 
or any strong liDiment, and prevented by 
judicious feeding. 3. False or wild calves are 
irregulur and shapeless, lifeless growths of 
fleshy or fibrous matter in the uterus, und 
which, for some unknown causes, take the 
place of the properly formed calf. They are 
called “moles”; irregularly formed but gener¬ 
ally living births are called monstrosities. 4. 
Hooks is the popular name for inflammation 
of the membrane nictitaus, or loose covering 
of the eye or inner eyelid, which serves ani¬ 
mals as a protection or means of clearing the 
eye from foreign or injurious particles. When 
this membrane at the inner corner or the eye 
is inflamed and swollen, some persons who do 
not know- what it is, imagine it to be some 
improper growth, and cut it off, and give it 
the name of “hooks” and sometimes “haws." 
5, Poke root, or Phytolacca deeandru, is often 
used as a remedy for garget. The root has a 
purgative and cooling effect, hut for the vari 
ous diseases commonly called murrain it is of 
no use whatever. 
BET) HOGS, ETC. 
C. li. 11., E. K., Philadelphia, Pa, —1. How 
many sows, “with their get.” can be kept on 
the product of 10 acres, the sows to be bred 
twice a year, and the young to be sold at from 
five to seven mouths old? 2. Brewers’grains 
can be bought here for a few cents a bushel; 
are they good food for hogs? If so, what is 
the best way to use them? 3. “Amateur,” in 
a late Kurai., states that the best hogs for the 
fanners of the Eastern and Middle States, are 
the Small Yorkshire, Essex and Suffolk, as 
they com® to maturity, and are tit for the 
butcher much soouer than the Jersey Red, 
Chester White, etc. Is there not some mistake 
about this? 4. Certain New Jersey parties 
claim to be breeding Jersey Reds from the de¬ 
scendants of the original stock of red hogs 
imported some 45 years ago, and that their 
hogs are entirely distinct, and <n no way rela¬ 
ted to the Durocs, or Saratoga Reds, and that 
all persons selling such hogs for “genuine im¬ 
proved Jersey Reds,” are imposing on the 
public. Is this true? 
Airs.—I. Ten acres of good land, well 
stocked in Rod Clover, should graze 50 full- 
grown hogs, if fed liberally on other food. 2. 
Brewers' grains, if fresh and swoot, are good 
food, if mixed with a quarter of their hulk of 
middlings. 3.The trouble with the large breeds, 
in our experience, is that they do not fatten 
readily until they are too large for profitable 
nse in cutting np on the block. The smaller 
breeds should be sold before they have become 
so heavy, and many more of them can he kept 
iu the same lot aud fed on the same food. 4. 
We are inclined to the opinion that all the 
red hogs we now have, are from the original 
Red Berkshire, imported into this country at 
different times by different individuals. They 
all have ihe same general characteristics, aud 
any claim put forward by special breeders is 
quite likely to be made for the purpose of ef¬ 
fecting sales. Col. F. D. Curtis, who for 
years has made a specialty of hreeding red 
swine, has several times discussed this question 
in the Rural, aud it was exhausted at tne 
Convention of Breeders of Red Swine, held at 
' Indianapolis last July, where the uameDuroc- 
Jersey was given to red hogs previously 
known as Durocs, Jersey Reds, or Saratoga 
Reds. If the breeders referred to by our 
friend had any claim to make, they should 
have urged it then. 
terracing vineyards. 
F. C., Macon , Ga .—Some of my farm in 
upper Ge-orgia is quite hilly, and is kept from 
washing out by hillside ditches, for which I 
desire to substitute terraces; what is the best 
way of doing the work? The land is in orchard 
and vineyard. 
Ans.—T he proper way to arrange the rows 
is to put them horizontal or parallel with the 
surface, with but a slight descent toward one 
end, just enough to cause the water to run 
w ith a slow motion and discharge into a ditch 
partly filled with rocks or properly paved, so 
as to carry the water discharged from all the 
row-s, down the hillside without cutting a bad 
go^ge. The terraces will be made if you con¬ 
tinue to plow at all times down the hill toward 
the row with a side hill plow, so as to keep the 
surface of each row nearly level, or sloping a 
very litt le toward the side of the hill. The sur¬ 
face of each terrace may be allowed to become 
sodded, as what little grass would grow- on 
the perpendicular face would do no material 
harm to the vines. The hillsides of the grape 
regions of Central Western New York, of the 
Piedmont section of Virginia, and of the bluffs 
of the Missouri, are nearly all treated in this 
manner with good results. 
PITER FOR CONVEYING WATER 
L. 1). E ., No Add reus, —W bat kind of pip¬ 
ing is best for conveying water for house¬ 
hold use, and what is the address of the manu¬ 
factures in Philadelphia or Pittsburg? 
Ans.— The kind of pij*e that muy l»e used 
depends a great deal upon the kind of water 
to be convoyed. If it is perfectly pure, It 
would very rapidly oxydize lead pipe, aud it 
would not be safe to use it; but if it contains 
only a very small amount of lime, It would be 
perfectly safe to use lead; but galvanized 
iron pipe is so much cheaper that no one would 
think of using lead, and the zinc used iu coat¬ 
ing the iron would not be affected unless there 
w as sulphur in the water. Plain iron pipe is 
hut very slightly acted upon by the water 
that passes through it, and if coated on the 
outside, as was recently recommended in the 
Farmers’ Club, would be a first-rate pipe to 
use, and, besides, there is nothing at, all un¬ 
healthy in the amount of iron that would bo 
dissolved in pure water. Of course, if it could 
be obtained at moderate prices, there would be 
nothing better thuu tin-lined iron pipe, if 
such a thing is made. It would be simply per 
feet. Tin-lined lead pipe is very excellent, 
but expensive. 
HANDLING CREAM FROM A DEEP CREAMER. 
S. B., Newton, Conn .—What is the best 
way of handling cream raised iu a deep 
creamer? 
ANSWERED BY HENEY STEWART. 
Just at this season one experiences the ad¬ 
vantages of the deep setting creamer, iu the 
safety of his milk, the even quality of the 
cream, and the saving of the skimmed milk 
in a sweet condition to rear his calves upon. 
The manner of handling the milk under this 
system is as follows:—The milk is strained from 
the milking pail into the deep pail, and it is 
advisable to use a second strainer into which 
the milk is poured aud which rests upon the 
run of the deep pail. The pail is at once set in 
the creamer in the cold water, or if one has a 
cool spring, it is set in the spring water until 
it has cooled dowu as far as it can, and it is 
then set in the ice water in the creamer. 
This saves some waste of ice. In 24 hours the 
cream is skimmed off. It. is well to leave the 
cream as long as this, as it then has less milk 
in it and wilt have just about as much 
as is required for churning iu the best man- 
tar. The cream is skimmed off by means of 
a shallow dipper having a handle slightly 
curved, so that the edge of the dipper can be 
put under the cream without forcing it dowu 
through the latter, by inserting it at the edge 
of the pail. The cr earn is put into an earthen¬ 
ware jar l w hich is better than tin), and is kept 
in the milk house, but not put iu ice. Iu 36 
hours, at a temperature of 62° or 65°. the 
cream will be in the right condition for 
churning: that is, slightly acid and somewhat 
thicker than it was when skimmed. If the 
skimming is done immediately after milking 
and while the milk is cooling, the empty puil 
cau be cleaned and used at once for setting 
milk, and thus only two sets are required, the 
morning milk being strained into the pails 
from which the previous morning's milk has 
just been skimmed, and the same with the 
evening’s milk. If the temperature of the 
creamer is kept always the same and the times 
of skimming the cream and of keeping it before 
churning are kept regularly, aud the cream is 
put into the churn at the same temperature 
every time, there is no reason w T hy the butter 
should not always be precisely the same, and 
always good. 
PROPORTIONING DRAINAGE TILE. 
S. (address mislaid ).—In a late Rural, Prof. 
Carpenter gives a plan of the drainage system 
at t he State Agricultural College, Lansing, 
Mich ; area drained 12 acre*; main drain 12 
rods long, made of four-inch tile; 26 laterals 
three, and t wo inches in diameter. Now it 
doesn’t seem ^jossible that the four inch tile 
could carry off all the water discharged into 
the main by these 20 laterals from 12 acres. 
J. H. Klippart, in his book on drainage, gives 
the average rainfall in Ohio at 40 inches in a 
year, which would give 3,000 hogsheads of 
w ater for every acre of soil. A four-inch tile 
would therefore have to carry off 36,000 hogs¬ 
heads annually. Four inch tile, with a fall of 
niDe inches to the 100 feet, will discharge in 
24 hours, 2.230 hogsheads, with a smooth bore 
and in a straight line; but when obstructed by 
20 arms, I don’t think it would carry off half 
that quantity. J think a five-inch tile would 
not be a whit too larger 
ANSWERED BY PROF. R C. CARPENTER. 
I would say that Mr. 8. has some strange 
ideas in regard to the proportioning of drains, 
and as many more people may share the same 
idea, I w ish to say a word or two on that sub¬ 
ject. His first proposition seems to be that 
the area of the main should be equal to the 
sum of the areas of all the branches, or, in 
this case cited, he would use for the drain¬ 
ing of 12 acres, a tile of eight inches in 
diameter. This proposition, I am sorry to 
say, has beeu put as an axiom by some 
writers on drainage, but it must have been 
done without any conceptions of the true 
conditions under which water flows through 
under drains. In the case cited we have 26 
branches, some two. aud some three-inch tile, 
or, on the average, one for each half acre. Now 
with the fall actually found in that case, these 
tiles are not working at any t ime to more than 
one-fourth to one eighth of their capacity. 
Smaller tiles would have answered could we 
have been certain of good construction, and 
could they have been obtained. I have taken 
occasion to remurk very often that, on account 
of poor construction, it is somewhat risky to 
depend on a line of tiles loss than two-and a- 
balf or three-inches in diameter keeping open. 
Now Mr. S.’s reasoning would be this: that 
since you have had to use larger til03 than is 
necessary for the branches, you must do the 
same thiug by your main. As a matter of 
fact, the united size of the branches has very 
litlle to do in determining the size of the 
main. The amount of water to be carried is 
the important thing; if the main will carry 
that, it makes no difference whether it l>e 
gathered from 26 branches or from six 
brauches. 
Another new idea in hydraulic engineering 
is that the flow from the branches must of 
necessity obstruct the main current. They 
cau no doubt be constructed in such a way as 
to make a serious obstacle; but on the other 
baud, if joined to the main at the proper 
angle, the current of the branch will impinge 
on the current iu the main drain and actually 
hasten its flow instead of retarding it. The 
water and steam injectors ure machines that 
lift water against a great pressure on this 
principle of one current aiding auother. 
As to the capacity of drains, I know nothing 
as to the origin of Mr. Klippart’s tables for 
capacity; but the tables of Latham, which are 
the most reliable published aud are found to 
agree with actual trials, would give four-iueb 
tile, with the fall mentioned, a capacity of 
18,150 cubic feet of water per day, or 2,018 
hogsheads. This would correspond to a depth 
of one-half inch of water over the entire 12 
acres. Now iu Michigan such a drain is ample. 
Our rainfalls very seldom exceed an inch in 
24 hours, and the soil will usually retain one- 
half. I have no doubt that a large portion of 
Ohio may need to provide tiles for a somewhat 
larger rainfall. The average rainfall is of no 
value iu determining the size of tile; it is the 
large, heavy rains that must be provided for. 
A three-inch tile would be of ample size for 
that area, if it were only required to convey 
one-third of an inch of rainfall per day, or 
33 inches in 100 days. 
An application of Mr. S.’s own figures 
would have shown substantially the result as 
claimed. But after all, the ’-proof of the pud¬ 
ding is in the eating;” that drain constructed 
eight years ago, has done its work efficiently 
and well. After the heaviest rains the ground 
has always been in fit condition for cul¬ 
tivation. 
A DEVICE FOR CUTTING STRAWBERRY RUN¬ 
NERS. 
J. J., Toronto, Can .—Is there no device by 
, the use of which one can avoid back ache in 
, cutting strawberry runnel’s? 
Ans.—A very convenient little instrument 
; for cutting strawberry runners can be made 
, after the fashion of those wheels we all used 
to play with when we were young. Get a 
t piece of steel like a saw blade, about one- 
eighth of an inch thick; have it .cut round 
