730 
and Tetofskys, for instance, grown here in 
Northern Vt,, are *o far superior to the same 
sorts in Southern New England and New 
York, as hardly to be known for the same 
fruit. To fill up a box of samples sent to Mr. 
Downing, I once put in a Duchess that was so 
large and handsome that he doubted its being 
the same, amj asked for cions to test it. I 
have every year Tetofskys that nobody recog¬ 
nizes elsewhere, so large and magnificently 
colored are they. The Wealthy often grows 
hern ns large as the Alexander figured in the 
Rural of Oct. 11. * 
I am with F. L. W. (p. 681) in strongly de¬ 
siring Mr. Rogers’s consent to the publication 
of his portrait in the Rural. I am not good 
at coaxing, and will not try it here; but won’t 
the grape loviug lady correspondents of the 
RURAL beg the old gentleman to grant this 
favor? 1 think they might succeed. There 
is nobody who has eaten the Saletns, the Mas- 
sasoits, the Merrimacks, and all that noble 
tribe of Mr. Rogers s productions, which fruit 
so abundantly, look so grand, and are so good, 
who will not wish to see the face of their 
originator. 
There is no more promising field in the pro¬ 
duction of uew small fruits than the growing 
of seedling gooseberries of the American 
species. What we want is a Downing berry 
on a Houghton bush, or something still better, 
if we can get it. At present 1 grow the 
Houghton exclusively for market, because it 
fruits 80 abundantly,dnd is so easily gathered. 
Rut even with the best culture it is too small, 
and the least neglect brings it below a mar¬ 
ketable size. Ten times as many could be 
sold if they were twice as large, for goose¬ 
berries have to be handled one by one in pre¬ 
paring them for cooking. So I am glad to 
note the new gooseberry of Mr. Roesch 
(p. 684). _ 
How much wo all owe the Rural for the 
careful experiments of which those on the fer¬ 
tilization of potato ground (p. 082) are types 
And how this trial explodes the idea that 
nitrogen is not needed as a commercial fer¬ 
tilizer. Rut as stable manure has too much 
nitrogen for potatoes, and probably quite 
enough potash, 1 believe that a half dressing 
of stable manure, in combination with hone 
dust or a plain acld-ph jsphate, will be found 
good for a potato field. The less manure 
used the smoother the potatoes are likely to 
be, on old ground, however. 
Col. Curtis (p. 683) expatiates on the 
merits of sweet corn as a forage crop, and 
especially insists that it sbull be so grown as 
to have "an ear on it.” Everybody who is a 
farmer knows how good this is. The cows 
and the pigs begin to grow aud rejoice when 
the sweet corn comes iu. It makes good milk 
and the best of pork. But—oh these buts!— 
but who kuows by actual experiment, with no 
admixture of guessing, that sweet corn is 
really any better for these uses than flint 
corn or dent corn? Who knows it, I say? 
Lots of us think it is, but which cue so knows 
it that he can make others know it? I think 
we shall have to have some pretty exact test¬ 
ing before anybody cun do that. 
One of the most vexatious questions ad¬ 
dressed to agricultural editors is such a one as 
"Are ashes as good a fertilizer as superphos¬ 
phate?” which is about equivalent to the 
question, "Which is best fora man, meat or 
drink?” And yet (p. 684 ) Our Country Home 
is quoted as saying that the neglect to save 
wood ashes compels the purchase of phos¬ 
phates. True, there is some phosphoric acid 
in wood ashes, but it is the error of ail errors 
iu the farming community to think that one 
partial fertilizer may be substituted for an¬ 
other, or for a complete fertilizer; and it is 
the hardest of all errors to correct. I have 
worked at it. as an editor, these 20 years, yet 
continually am asked these stupid, stupid 
questions. Certainly the agricultural journ¬ 
als ought ne t to fall into the same error. 
Why does Mr. Felch (p. 684) advise the burn¬ 
ing of carbolic acid iu the hen-house, with 
sulphur aud turpentine, before whitewashing? 
Both the carbolic acid and the turpentine have 
all their disinfecting and insect-destroying 
qualities destroyed by combustion. Better 
burn the sulphur alone, and mix the acid and 
the turpentine with the whitewash. [We 
have found that spraying the hen-houses with 
kerosene once a week in Summer, and once a 
month in Winter, will keep them entirely free 
of lice. The spraying is easily done and quick¬ 
ly through spraying bellows.—E ds.] 
Does Prof. Shelton, as quoted on p. 6S4, 
know that 99 per cent, of the seeds offered as 
novelties or specialties every season are 
"worthless to the majority of the farmers ?” 
truth, many of them are no better than 
s already in use, and some are only bet- 
i certain places or under certain condi* 
, yet to say that 99 per cent, are "worth- 
THE RURAL WEW-YORKER 
a 
less,” even with the qualification used, is say¬ 
ing a good deal too much. I spend a great deal 
for novelties, and am often disappointed, but 
I am far from agreeing to the proposition of 
the Professor. Newport, Vt. 
farm topics. 
NOTES FROM EASTVIEW FARM. 
WALDO F. BROWN. 
I believe that droughts have their com¬ 
pensating advantages, I have noticed in 
former years that the land seems to be vital¬ 
ized or enriched by a long drought, and that 
when the fall rains came, the wheat made a 
wonderfully vigorous growth. Is it that 
nitrogen accumulate* iu the soil, or is there 
some other cause? 
Another compensation is that, though the 
yield is decreased, the quality of many of the 
crops is enhanced. Our sweet potatoes are so 
dry and rich that, for family use, one bushel 
of them is worth more than two in a wet year. 
/ ! 
Our peas and beans, of which we grow 10 or 
12 varieties, are almost perfect; while in a 
wet season we sometimes must hand pick 
them and reject nearly a third; but now they 
come from the fanning mill clean enough to 
paper. I notice, also, that crops are much 
earlier in u dry season. Our sweet corn, 
planted on the Fourth of duly, where a crop 
of seed peas had matured, was ready for the 
table in less than 10 weeks from planting, and 
was more than two weeks earlier than the 
same variety in previous years. 
Seasons like this show the difference be¬ 
tween good and poor farming. The farmer 
with good soil, who prepared it well and 
planted good seed, early, has an average crop, 
notwithstanding the drought; while his ad¬ 
joining neighbor, with precisely the same 
quality of land, but who has exhausted it by 
overcropping without rotation, and who 
planted with poor seed, which caused late re¬ 
planting; or who put in his seed on an ill- 
prepared seed bed, has less than a fourth of a 
crop. These sharp contrasts are frequently 
seen in fields separated only by a division 
fence, and they emphasize the adage, "There 
it more in the man than there is in the land.” 
Seeds matured well this Fall, and the farmer 
who, after the disastrous experience of the 
last two years, did not select and cure a 
supply of seed corn early, should have a 
guardian appointed to manage his business 
for him. There are several of my neighbors 
who would have made money last Spring had 
they paid $30 a bushel for reliable seed corn. 
The breadth of wheat sown is much less 
than usual, and a larger per cent, than usual 
has been sown on corn land, for it was exceed¬ 
ingly difficult to plow, and many farmers did 
not attempt it at all. 
Butler Co., Ohio. 
THE QUESTION OF CONTAGION. 
B. F. JOHNSON. 
Why is it, many thoughtful persons inquire, 
if the disease, lung plague, is as contagious as 
it is represented to be by foreign and home 
veterinarians, thntit has made such slow prog¬ 
ress and has at tacked aud killed «o few cattle in 
the six months it has been prevailing in the 
country West of the Alleghanies. While it is 
by no means certain that the disease is true 
lung plague or contugious pleuro-pneumonia; 
if it Is, the explanation of the difference in de¬ 
gree of virulence or contagiousness between 
cases here and on the other side of the Atlan¬ 
tic, may be owing to the difference in the hy¬ 
gienic conditions of the surroundings of cattle 
in England and the United States. In Eng¬ 
land, if we accept as true the report of a 
French breeder, cattle and even the best stock, 
are still bred and fed where they have been 
quartered for centuries, and during the w inter 
seasou stay, move and sleep iu mud, mire and 
manure up to their knees generally, and fre¬ 
quently up to their bellies. Considering that 
the Winters there are rarely cold enough to 
destroy the germs of disease, or the Summers 
warm or dry enough to evaporate or 
kill them, the entire environment m which 
stock live aud feed becomes a focus for con¬ 
tagious. It is easy to see t hat where a con¬ 
tagious disease, like lung plague or apthous 
fever, appears, the contagion spreads like 
yeast in dough, and it becomes almost impos¬ 
sible to arrest it, until the food it feeds upon is 
consumed. 
On this side wholly different conditions ob¬ 
tain Even if stock had been quartered in 
one spot for centuries, the heat of Bummer 
would evaporate aud dispel that poison which 
the previous Winter had not destroyed, and 
there would be, if not a semi-annual renewal 
of healthy stable, yard and field conditions, 
an annual one, sure. Assuming there was true 
foot-and-mouth disease in Kansas last Winter, 
and the cattle disease in the West was true 
lung plague, it is not difficult to account for 
the difference in the degree of contagiousness 
between this side aud the other, nor for the 
effectiveness of measures aud remedies iu the 
United States, which would amuunt to little or 
nothing in England. The contagion of Texas 
fever is conveyed from Texas cattle to North¬ 
ern stock, but the latter do not convey it. to 
their fellows; that is, the contagion dies iu 
one transmission. May not the same thing 
be true, iu a measure, with foot-aud mouth 
disease aud contagious lung plague? 
Champaign, Ill. 
UNFAVORABLE TO FREEZING. 
HON. F. D COBURN. 
The tender lambs, pigs, colts and calves 
of this year's crop have so far known no 
weather except the warm sunshine of Summer 
and Autumn; but the days are now at hand 
when, unless protected, their bodies will be 
pierced to the quick by t he cutting blasts that 
visit with such disagreeable frequency aud 
fierceness the farms of more than half the 
American States. No animal, even though 
matured aud of the sort called "tough,” can 
hold its own, much less thrive or fatten, 
when iu a condition of perpetual discomfort 
arising from any cause, and it is doubtless 
true that the Winter’s cold causes not only 
more discomfort but actual suffering to farm 
stock than all other causes combined. It is 
equally true, if past experience has proved 
anj' thing at all, that warmth serves, to a 
certain extent, the purpose of food, or, that 
a considerable per cent, of food may be saved 
if its use is not a necessity for maintaining 
animal beat that could be much more econom¬ 
ically conserved by suitable shelter. Those 
who make every animal belonging to them as 
comfortable and contented as kindly shelter 
and well filled stomachs imply, are the people 
who, in the long run, find themselves possessed 
of the contentment which is supposed to be 
the child of prosperity. 
" Weather-boarding animals on the inside” 
with grain is far superior to no protection at 
all; but a portion of that protection which 
every animal that yields a profit must have, 
can be afforded more economically by the use 
of some other material. It is both folly and 
cruelty to permit animals to shiver away in 
Winter the Bummer’s accumulation of flesh 
and strength, aud every reader of the Rural 
should make sure that Thanksgiving and 
Christmas do not come and find his animals a 
part of the great throng of half-frozen and 
half fed sufferers. [Amen!—Eds.] 
Kansas City, Mo. 
Dainj 
THE DAIRYMAN’S BEST WAY FOR 
ENHANCING PROFITS. 
PROF. L. B. ARNOLD. 
Of the various ways through which it is 
possible for the average dairyman to enhance 
his profits, the most effectual is to reduce 
the cost of producing his milk. This he can 
do in a variety of ways. One means of doing 
so lies in the improvement of his milking 
stock. This is a certain but slow way, and 
must be the work of years. A more rapid 
way, and one that can be at once made avail 
able, consists in reducing the cost of keeping 
bis cows. This he may do iu different ways: 
first, by securing greater warmth aud more 
comfort for his herd in Winter. The heaviest 
item of expense which he incurs consists in 
the cost of wintering his cows, and the more 
they are exposed to the cold, the heavier that 
item becomes. Animals eat more in Winter 
than in Bummer, simply because moro heat 
is absorbed from their bodies by the colder 
air, just asa hot Iron will cool faster on a cold 
day than on a warm one. As the animal belt 
must be kept up to a uniform standurd, the 
extra loss of warmth must bo restored by 
tuking in more fuel in the form of food, aud 
this increases the cost of keeping and the cost 
of producing the season’s milk. Koep the 
cow s warm, and they will eat no more in Win¬ 
ter than iu Hummer; and they will require 
less aud less extra food for Winter, just in 
proportion as they are made warm and com¬ 
fortable, and by just so much they will turn 
out milk at a reduced expense. 
There is profit in keeping cows warm In 
Winter, it costs much less to tone down the 
cold of our severe climate by providing warm 
buildings for the herd once iu a life-time, 
than to furnish extra food year after year to 
restore heat needlessly lost by exposure to cold 
air. I do not know of a dairyman who could 
not do something in this direction toward 
reducing the cost of his milk, aud 1 believe it 
is possible for most dairymen to reduce the 
cost of winter keep one third. 1 have seen 
this done by several men who thought they 
were treating their stock pretty well before 
they begun making a special effort in this 
direction. 
There is but oue other source of ueedless ex- 
peuse iu the production of milk, which ap¬ 
proximates in magnitude the waste of fodder 
from exposure to cold; and that is, the lack 
of a full and steady supply or good milk-pro¬ 
ducing food through the w hole of the milking 
season, less thau ten per cent, of the very in¬ 
telligent dairy public of New York huviug 
foresight enough to provide against even a 
short midsummer drought. Between a lack 
of food in Bummer and insufficient protection 
in Winter, the cost of milk is made something 
like twice as great as it need be. Let the 
cows be so well fed in Summer that there shall 
be no shrinkage in their milk, except from the 
natural decrease due to the time of coming in; 
and reduce their keep to a mioimum by com¬ 
fort in Winter, and there is money in dairy¬ 
ing. It is a better, as well as a more effectual 
way of enhancing profits, then by endeavor¬ 
ing to raise the price of dairy products, as 
f.his diminishes consumption by increasing the 
burden of consumers; and a very much better 
way than by waging a war of doubtful justice 
with cheap substitutes for dairy products, 
which could not exist if the bottom cost of gen¬ 
uine products were touched. It is a good time 
now to think of this matter before it is too 
late to prepare for the coming Winter. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. 
PERSISTENCY IN MILKING. 
MAJOR HENRY E. ALVORD. 
Assuming that every cow-owner will, as i , 
should, insist upon a reasonable quantity and 
satisfactory quality in the product of every 
cow he keeps, the next point of importance is 
persistency in milking. Indeed, 1 place this 
habit, or attribute of the cow, first of all in 
the case of the family cow, or wherever only 
