THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
SEPT 43 
THE 
RURAL- NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Horne 
to distribute among our subscribers, 
which in quality arc unsurpassed, and they 
promise to yield well also. They com¬ 
bine the kidney shape with the mealiness 
and nuttiness of the best Peachblow. 
Conducted by 
E. 8. CARMAN, 
Editor. 
3 . 8. WOODWARD, 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1844. 
The R. N.-Y. will feel deeply obliged 
to any of its friends who, at the fairs, 
will interest themselves in extending its 
circulation. Our special and regular Pre¬ 
mium Lists will be mailed to all of them, 
without application, in due time. Any 
subscriptions sent to us now, whether one 
or a dozen, will count for premiums, the 
same as if sent later. As an additional 
inducement, our subscribers may offer the 
Rural New-Yorker from now until 
January 1, 1880, for the regular price, viz., 
$2; thatis, the paper will be sent from now 
until next January, without any charge 
whatever. 
■-- 
“Judicious fertilizing,” like “ judicious 
advertising,” is easily spoken of; but we 
have not yet seen the individual that 
knew just how to practice it. 
We are growing very fond of Moore's 
Early Grape. It is no better than Con¬ 
cord iu quality; but it ripens up fully 
before any other of our grapes, and we 
eat it and enjoy it, because we have no 
better grapes to eat and enjoy. 
In our potato experiments tbe past sea¬ 
son, the White Star in two plots was 
planted in trenches six feet apart, and in 
another plot in trenches three feet apart. 
It is an interesting fact that the latter, 
with the same fertilizers, yielded one- 
quarter more, and the tubers were much 
larger. Our explanation would be that 
in the three-feet plots, the vines soon 
covered the soil and arrested evaporation. 
We have spoken of the wonderful 
effect, of nitrate of soda upon a part of 
our corn; we have advised our readers to 
try it, at the rate of 200 or 300 pounds 
per acre, on small plots. But we desire 
to say to our readers most, emphatically, 
that we do not advise its use upon any 
land that is not already supplied with 
phosphoric acid, potash, etc. Were we 
desirous of exhausting the available sup¬ 
ply of plant food in any Held, we should 
give it nitrate of soda year after year, and 
that alone. 
A few heads of our hybrids between 
wheat and rye were sent to Professor 
Thomas Meehan, editor of the Gardener's 
Monthly. In a comment following our 
remarks, he says: “The specimens raised 
from wheat, have so many eharaeteristics 
of rye, that, we arc led to believe that it 
is a genuine ease of hybridity, and it is 
the more interesting because it is between 
two genera. Still more interesting is it 
to note that, though between two dis¬ 
tinct genera, it is not sterile.” 
Let us hope that the discussion as to 
whether the fruit of pistillate varieties of 
strawberries is modified as it receives pol¬ 
len from different bisexual kinds, will 
soon cease. Nothing can be gained by 
a mere ducustion of the subject. We 
don’t want any opinions unless they arc 
based upon tests. Tests are easily made. 
Let- us plant, in separate frames, the Man¬ 
chester or other pistillate varieties, with 
the SharplcsB, Charles Downing, James 
Vick, Parry, etc., and give them the same 
soil, exposure and treatment. By such 
means the question can easily be answered, 
and it can be answered in no other way. 
For four years we have tried to obtain 
a seedling from the English Magnum Bo- 
num Potato that would he worth some¬ 
thing. So far as yield is concerned, we 
have succeeded; in other respects we 
have failed. The quality is poor and the 
shape not desirable. This kind was se¬ 
lected for seed, because of its well-known 
keeping and disease-resisting powers. 
We have other seedlings which we hope 
We have received the following pleas¬ 
ant letter from Mr. Beecher:—“The Ru¬ 
ral New-Yorker has ceased to come 
here. No doubt, the subscription has run 
out. Do you never give a fellow warn¬ 
ing? Banks always do. My tank also 
gives an alarm when running low. I am 
too mad to be Bafe at large. You wanted 
an article for your Summer No., or some 
other one. Smarting under the depriva¬ 
tion, do you suppose T would write? 1 
have loads and stacks of good things, not 
one of which you shall have—except upon 
speedy repentance, and then, 1 will see 
about St. What is the price of your paper, 
anyhow? If necessary, I will take up a 
collection to pay for it. I want it from 
the point at which it stopped, and inclose 
$2 as a retaining fee. 
HENRY WARD BEECHER.” 
From six hills of one of the Rural’® 
seedlings of the English Magnum Bonum 
Potato, we harvested 152 tubers, large 
and small, or 25 1-3 to a hill. Of this 
great number, about half were of market¬ 
able size. The weight was 30 pounds, 
or five pounds to the hill, showing a 
small average size. The best five weigh¬ 
ed but one pound 13 1-2 ounces. This 
yield would lie at the rate of 1,210 bushels 
to the acre. The skin is very white, the 
flesh yellowish and salvy. Ol all our po¬ 
tatoes, whether our own seedlings or 
those which we have tested, this seems 
most effectually to resist the attacks of 
wire-worms, grubs, rot., etc. It is also a 
first-rate keeper; but the poor quality 
renders all these virtues, so valuable in 
themselves, of little account. 
It is rather singular that the white-skin 
potatoes are less liable to the attacks of 
the wire-worm (the hard, brown, horny- 
ringed worm that coils itself up when 
touched) than the purple*skin potatoes. 
We have many different varieties with 
purple skins, and all of them are more or 
less eaten or scabbed by this pest, while 
the light skins are rarely harmed. We 
do not presume to doubt the statement of 
Prof. Cook, of the Mich. Ag. College, or 
other entomological authorities; if, how¬ 
ever, these worms (lulus or Julusi do not 
cause scab in potatoes, we simply have 
never seen true cases of scab, and do not 
know what it is. 
LOSSES ON EXPORTS OF CANADIAN 
CATTLE. 
ALTnouo ii it is estimated that the ab¬ 
sence of all restrictions on their importa¬ 
tions, affords shippers of Canadian cattle 
to Great. Britain an advantage of at least 
$15 per head over their competitors in 
this country, still the business, during the 
past year, has been far from profitable 
to most of those engaged in it. So 
heavy, indeed, have been the Iobscs of 
some* of the shippers, that they are either 
going out of the business altogether or 
greatly curtailing their operations. Ling- 
ham, of Montreal, the most extensive 
Operator, who began the business three 
years ago with a capital of nearly a million 
dollars, confesses that he has lost the bulk 
of his fortune by unfortunate ventures. 
Johns & Johnston, second on the list of 
great operators, have found the trade 
equally unrenmnerutive; while the losses 
of Morgan & Co, have been extremely 
heavy, and a number of smaller operators 
have been forced to abandon the business. 
Several banks iu the Dominion, which 
made advances to these firms, arc, it is 
reported, likely to suffer considerable loss, 
as the collaterals they hold will, when 
realized, probably fall short of covering 
the suras advanced. Moreover, the large 
cattle salesmen in Liverpool, London anil 
Glasgow, who acted as agents for the ex¬ 
porters and made udvauces on the ship¬ 
ments, are also largely involved in the 
disastrous results. It must not he sup¬ 
posed, however, that all shippers have 
been losers; for some who have ac ted pru¬ 
dently and conservatively, have saved 
themselves from loss, even if their gains 
have been small. The raisers of beef in 
Canada and the consumers of beef in 
England, have been the chief gainers by 
the losses of the exporters, for the former 
have got high prices for their cattle, and 
the latter have paid low prices for their 
meat. With greater caution in buying on 
this side of the water, and keener fore¬ 
sight as to the extent of the demand on 
the other, there is not a particle of doubt 
that the Canadian cattle trade is capable 
of large and profitable development. 
THE PORK CORNER OF 1884. 
Last Saturday, the last trading day of 
August, the great pork corner of 1884, 
after running through June, July and 
August, came to a formal end in Chica¬ 
go. The origin of this corner dates back 
to the time when Grant & Ward’s failure 
precipitated a panic here. Wall Street 
was wild with excitement, and New York 
speculators thought that all sorts of prop¬ 
erty would be greatly depreciated. At 
that time pork was about $ifi a barrel, and 
speculators here began selling it with a 
rush. Armour & Co., of Chicago, were 
carrying at the time about $12,000,000 
worth, which was threatened with a 
depreciation of between $3,000,000 and 
$4,000,000, if the market broke. To pro¬ 
tect this property, Phil. Armour began to 
buy against New York’s selling, taking 
in over 100.000 barrels in one day, and 
finally becoming the possessor of all the 
“regular” mess pork in the country at a 
time when speculators had sold 300,000 
barrels, which they could not get any¬ 
where except from his firm. Then he put 
the prices up at the rate of about 50 cents 
per day until the figures for August pork 
had skipped to $20 and $27. finally 
reaching $27.50 at the close of the corner. 
The pork had been bought in at prices 
ranging from $10 to $18 per barrel, aver¬ 
aging about $10.50. During the progress 
of the corner a good many “shorts,” find¬ 
ing they could get the pork they had 
sold for August delivery only from 
Armour & Co. at whatever price they 
might put on it, settled when pork was 
at from $22 to $28, paying Armour <fc Co. 
the amount of the advance- say $0 to $7 
per barrel. Many held out to the last, 
however, the average settling price being 
about $25.60 per barrel, which left a 
margin of profit of about $0 per barrel, 
Armour & Co.’s gain beiug between 
$2,500,000 and $3,000,000. 
During the struggle, mess pork for con¬ 
sumption was sold at the ordinary prices, 
say $17.50. To prevent it from coming 
hack on the market and being resold at 
“corner” prices, however, the barrels were 
opened and the pieces cut into, so that it 
could not pass inspection, as the rules 
limit the number of pieces in a barrel of 
mess pork. In this way legitimate trade 
was left undisturbed, while the manipu¬ 
lators of the “corner” got rul of part of 
their load without loss. Some of the 
“shorts” tried, in vain, to have summer- 
packed pork declared “regular;” because 
they could easily fill their contracts with 
pork parked from March 1 to November 
1, as “regular” pork must be packed in 
the winter months; others attempted to 
deliver “rejected” on their contracts; but 
the scheme was only partially successful, 
and those were finally forced to settle at 
the top of the market. As soon as the 
cornering clique had thoroughly squeezed 
the “shorts,” who had sold what they did 
not possess, pork dropped to $23; then 
to $20, and finally to $18. Armour now 
holds a vast amount of pork, and like all 
“cornerers,” after successfully squeezing 
the “shorts,” he is principally concerned 
in disposing of his accumulated stock, 
and with this end in view, it is supposed 
he will keep pork a trifle above tbe legiti¬ 
mate price until the opening of the win¬ 
ter packing season, on December 1. The 
shorts were squeezed so badly that it is 
supposed they will be slow to expose 
themselves to a similar ordeal hereafter; 
but gamblers soon forget the sorrows of 
reverses in the hopes of retrieving them. 
POLITICIANS AND PRICES. 
Nearly every farm product, except 
stock, is unusually low this year; yet ac¬ 
cording to candidate Blaine, at the New 
England Fair on Thursday, “the total 
value of the products from the farms and 
lloekB in the United States will exceed 
$8,000,000,000, an amount brought forth 
in a single year vastly in excess of the 
National debt at its highest point.” All 
the Presidential candidates—Blaine at the 
New England, Cleveland at the New 
York, and Butler at the Minnesota Fair— 
are loudly extolling the occupation of 
the farmer as the basis of all wealth; and 
declaiming on his intelligence, indepen¬ 
dence and the honor due to him for be¬ 
longing to the oldest, most extensive and 
most necessary vocation in the world 1 
Each has lots of figures—compiled by 
Government clerks—at his tongue’s end 
with which to tax the admiration and 
memory of the granger, whose vote he is 
anxious to secure; but has any of them 
any useful, profitable information to give 
him? Should he, for instance, sell his 
wheat at the present low prices or hold it 
on the chance of obtaining better figures 
a lew months or a few years hence? 
Wouldn’t a few shrewd hints on this and 
similar subjects, be more acceptable to 
the vast majority of keen-witted, thrift y 
farmers, than the adtffatory platitudes 
and the interminable statistics with whic’ 
the visitors to fairs are sure to be delugcc 
by candidates for office and their long- 
winded supporters during this Presiden¬ 
tial year? Why don’t the various orators 
“cram” beforehand on this subject as 
they do on others lc9s useful? Is it be¬ 
cause they do not. wish to make a record 
which shall mean something, to which fu¬ 
ture reference can be made as to a definite 
statement, preferring to confine them¬ 
selves to generalities which make a loud 
noise but mean nothing; or do they mere¬ 
ly shrink from the uncertainty of prophe¬ 
cies concerning the prices of grain and 
other agricultural products in “the here¬ 
after?” 
For a person who is not as careless as 
Wiggins or Devoe with regard to the 
outcome of hi9 prophecies, forecasting 
the future price of wheat is, just now, a 
subject to be avoided. Experience in past 
years tells us that the extent of the crops 
of the world is usually exaggerated by 
speculators at the time our harvests arc 
moving to market; is that the case this 
year, and are the present unprecedentedly 
low prices the results of a false or a true 
conception of the relations of demand and 
supply ? Farmers who have held back 
their wheat from last )*our’s crop would 
have done considerably better had they 
sold it a year ago. Can the same remark 
be true a twelvemonth hence ? The 
prompt marketing of agricultural pro¬ 
ducts for the prices they will bring, is a 
necessary preliminary to the restoration of 
husiuess and manufacturing prosperity. 
Shall the farmers sell their goods at any 
price to set the wheels of enterprise in 
motion, in the hope of ultimately gaining 
thereby ? This would give to a host of 
consumers the means of purchasing more 
liberally. Then, low prices for food en¬ 
courage consumption, and an increase of 
consumption increases the demand, and 
creates a better market for any commodi¬ 
ty; who will be the public-spirited farm¬ 
ers to sell their wheat at the present low 
prices ro that their neighbors may get 
better figures later on ? 
But arc better prices probable in any 
case ? The t wo leading authorities in the 
grain trade in England, J. E. Beerbohm 
and E. Kains-Jackson, have made up 
their minds that low prices will prevail in 
the future, at least for some time. Is 
there any indication in any wheat-produc¬ 
ing part of the globe that a smaller area 
will be sown for next year’s harvest than 
for tbe harvest just over ? From present 
reports it would seem that the area will 
be considerably increased, in spite of the 
low prices. Is the decline in prices con¬ 
fined to agricultural products; or isn’t it 
a fact that business men generally arc 
making smaller profits than in former 
years, and that manufacturers, too, are 
selling their products at unusually low 
figures. All aim to make a profit, how¬ 
ever; can the farmer do so by selling his 
wheat at present, prices ? Finally, is it 
true that the larmer should not be a 
speculator, and that the best policy in the 
long run is to clear out each year’s crop 
as it is garnered ? 
-» » ♦ 
BREVITIES. 
Mr. J. E. Floak, of Franklin Countv. O., 
sends us a photograph of a Sharpless Straw¬ 
berry measuring eight and one-third inches 
around, and weighing three ounces. 
Mr. J S. Woodward, of the It N.-Y.. will 
attend th*- most Important of our fairs during 
the month. Our readers should hunt him up, 
and see what sort of a mau he is. 
Of farm animals, the ox contains in propor¬ 
tion to its weight., a very large percentage of 
nitrogen and a much larger percentage of 
phosphoric acid and lime than either the pig 
or sheep. The pig. it seems, contains the 
smallest amount, of ash constituents. 
Save the seed-balls of vour t>est kinds of po¬ 
tatoes. Let them partially rot. and then wash 
out the seeds Potato seed will germinate and 
grow as reudilv as cabbage seed. Sow them 
in pots next February. The plants will bo 
ready to set out in the open ground by the 
middle of May. 
Wk have just picked a cucumber with a 
tendril growing out of it the same as if it were 
a stem. It grows out of one of the sutures. 
We have found many above-ground potato 
stems tills season with enlargements in vari¬ 
ous stages of growth, from the tirst swelling to 
perfectly-formed tubers. 
Our cOUSttlS across the border in Ontario. 
Canada, are bestirring themselves in good 
time for the conservation of their timber. In 
that Province tbe total area of timber land 
runs up to 180,00(1,000 acres. OF this only 
ubout. 10.000,000 have been partial! v cleared; 
yet there is a hill now before the Canadian 
Parliament for tbe encouragement of tree 
planting, offering a bonus of not over 25 cm its 
for each of certain specified sfiecies planted 
along a highway or a farm boundary line, or 
within six feet of such line. The trees along 
the highways are to be the property of the 
owners of the land, but they must not be re¬ 
moved without permission from the authori¬ 
ties. There are some things which even we 
Americans can learn from our neighbors. 
