<884 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
781 
most favorable symptoms appear—viz.: th P 
detaching of the spurious membranes, the 
moisture of the mucus, and the result is a per¬ 
fect cure in the majority of cases. This treat¬ 
ment, however dirty and strange, has been 
experimented on man and beast with great 
success. New trials are about to be made on 
a number of subjects. As soon as the results 
are known, we shall be happy to communicate 
them to our readers. 
Gluten Meal as Feed fob Milch 
Cows.—Dr. Goeesmann, of the Massachusetts 
Experimental Station, has been experiment¬ 
ing with gluten meal as a food for milk pro¬ 
duction in connection with shorts and English 
hay. He succeeded, in one case, with gluten 
meal, at $22 50 per ton; wheat bran, at 825; 
and hay, at $15.00 per ton, by feeding in the 
proportion of 3.1/ pounds of gluten meal, 8% 
pounds of bran, and 20 pounds of hay, in pro¬ 
ducing milk of good quality at 1.68 cent per 
quart. In another trial, when he used 
pounds of gluten meal, Sj/ pounds of bran, 
and IS 4 7 pounds of hay, the milk cost 1.82 
cent per quart. He also found that another 
cow with the feeding ratio first mentioned, 
produced milk that cost 2 24 cents per quart; 
and still in case of anot her, fed the same ra¬ 
tion, the milk cost 2.81 coats. Altogether, the 
Professor concludes that gluten meal is a 
valuable and economical food. This is not 
the refuse of the starch and sorghum sugar 
factories sold iu a moist state, but the finer 
parts obtained in the manufacture of those 
articles, thoroughly dried and ground. 
Women in German Agriculture.— The 
London Echo, as copied by our excellent con 
temporary the Orange Co. Farmer, says that 
women on German farms are occupied 
in driving wagons, cutting the huy, spreading 
the dressing on the land, planting and digging 
the potatoes, bare-footed and bare-headed, 
carrying on their beads or their backs the 
farming tools and the sweepings of the road, 
harnessed to a cart with a dog! Each must also 
tend her babies, cook her food, and bear sons 
to be compelled to do military service when 
most she needs them to rest her weary hands. 
No wonder she cannot tidy her house, dean 
her children, make her own person womanly 
or smart. She merely exists to labor, and to 
labor till age has bent her double. 
SHORT AND FRESH. 
Mr. Beecher says: “What a rush there is 
for gold! How impatient are men become of 
homely industry; how eager for unearned 
properties; how eager for speculation, which 
is, in the main, an attempt to cheat the devil.” 
Prof. Bunn remarks that in France and 
Germany one does not alight from the ruil- 
road cars amid shanties and dark, suspicious- 
looking saloons. The scene is park-like, with 
good buildings and wide streets aud prome¬ 
nades. Iu Russia, if the traveler wishes a 
pleasant stroll, he finds, adjoining the depot, a 
small and well-kept park oelonging to the 
railroad company. There seems to exist a 
rivalry among the station agents in the mutter 
of trying to excel in gardeu management. 
Hundreds of these gardens are found along the 
Russian railways. 
The Western Rural would have farmers 
positively refuse to buy licensed barbed wire. 
“Give the nog a cold shoulder,” it says. 
Mr. J. H. Sanders, the Editor of the 
Breeder’s Guzette, says that several exebauges 
speak of him as an officer or agent of the Gov¬ 
ernment in the Bureau of Animal Industry. 
Mr, Sauders says emphatically that he holds 
no government office of any kind. He was a 
member of the Treasury Guttle Commission; 
but that expired July 1st of this year. 
The sprightly and well-edited monthly, 
Our Country Home, says, “The Rural New- 
Yorker is vexed because some contempora¬ 
ries do not meutiou its accession of Mr. J. 8. 
Woodward, of whom it has good reason to be 
proud ” That is a mistake on the part of our 
contemporary. Mr. Woodward’s connection 
with the Rural has been very kindly noticed 
by many of our best farm journals. It was 
the fact that our new grain, produced by 
crossing wheat and rye, was not commented 
upon by the farm press iu general, that “riled” 
us up a little. But we are happy now. 
The Lowell Courier suggests that we call 
Wyandotte fowls “Y&.” for short.. 
Our friend. Orange Judd, now that he 
edits a weekly instead of a monthly, has dis¬ 
covered that eleven numbers of his journal 
i which gives considerable less reading matter 
than the Rural New-Yorker) contain quite 
as much real information as can be found in an 
entire year’s issue of most monthly journals.” 
This may be true enough, because we have 
52 issues of a weekly against 12 of a monthly. 
But Oh! J! did not you talk very differently 
while conducting the American Agricultu¬ 
rist before your failure?... 
Mr, P. J. Berckmans, foreign Commission¬ 
er tor the great New Orleans World’s Ex¬ 
position, tells the Dixie Farmer that in Eu¬ 
rope horticulture is regarded as the refinement 
of civilization. Where wealth accumulates 
and tastes expand, and education reaches its 
highest development, horticulture finds its 
best cultivation, its most elaborate advocacy. 
It is as true as can be, and it is necessarily 
true....... 
The Rural New-Yorker never sells any 
of the premiums offered for clubs. It is not a 
trade or trading journal. Its advice is disin¬ 
terested. The safest thing for readers to do 
who really appreciate sound, impartial agri¬ 
cultural teachings, is to send for specimen 
copies of all the farm papers; compare them 
carefully and— subscribe for the best.. ........ 
W® are gathering the falling leaves and 
spreading them a foot deep among our rasp¬ 
berry plants, as far as they may go. A little 
manure or soil thrown on the top, will com¬ 
pact them sufficiently to prevent their being 
blown away...... 
Prof. Budd, of the Iowa Agricultural Col¬ 
lege, says that tho stories here told, as to the 
value of the timber of the Russian Mulberry 
were laughed at by Russiati foresters. It is 
used in Russia, us it will be here, merely as a 
small-sized, ornameutal tree, of some value as 
a fruit producer. It is worthy of trial, but 
not of the fnss which is made over it by in¬ 
terested parties.... 
It appears that tho beautiful fir tree, Abies 
Sibirica or Picoa Piehta, seeds of which were 
sent out in our Free Seed-Distribution years 
ago, grows luxuriantly about Moscow, in 
Russia. Prof. Budd says that, on the average, 
it is far more beautiful and perfect than our 
common fir. Our owu specimen in the 
Rural Grounds, eight years old, is densely 
clothed with loaves which are longer than 
those of the commoti fir. 
The apple crop of Europe is short. The 
supply of flue apples must be shipped from 
America..... 
Delphiniums and aquilegias—take the im¬ 
proved kinds—are there any more effective, 
hardy herbaceous plants?. 
We repeat Mr. Meehun’s advice: plant a 
Japan Judas Tree now, or make a note to 
plant it in the Spring....... . 
The Prentiss Grape is not, as a general 
thing, giving satisfaction. We wanted to 
praise it when it was so Literally advertised; 
but resisted—and now we are glad of it. Tell 
us of a grape, or Indeed, any small fruit that 
we have roundly praised, that has proved in¬ 
ferior! We do not recall any. You see, 
readers, the value of experiment grounds, 
carefully and faithfully conducted. 
njto I)£r2. 
TRANSCONTINENTAL LETTERS, XVI. 
MARY WAGER FISHER. 
It was about the middle of September when 
we left Seattle for Portland, with a trip 
through Oregon and Eastern Washington In 
view, including, of course, a view of the 
Columbia River as far as The Dulles. We hud 
had a delightful mouth at Seattle, boating on 
the Sound and the fresh-water lakes, myself 
gaining daily in strength aud eudurance, so 
that we started with renewed vigor for what 
we were pleased to term our “Oregon Cam¬ 
paign.” Anaximander had already been over 
much of the ground; but had not seen the 
Williamette Valley, which is, iu fact, the Gar¬ 
den of Oregon, and the finest apd largest tract 
of agricultural laud west of the Cascade 
Rauge. As I desired to see all the country 
we were to travel over, we found almost at 
the outset, that we would be obliged to journey 
at times in freight cars, and stop over-night at 
whatever poiut the Jarkness might overtake 
us. But we found the caboose attached to 
freight cars, not an uncomfortable vehicle by 
any means, and as we invariably enjoyed the 
courtesy of seats In the caboose-tower, or out¬ 
look, we had a much better chance to see the 
surrounding country than if we were in a 
passenger car, and moving with “express 
speed.” A11 in all, we enjoyed our eaboose- 
rides greatly—a privilege, I believe, that is 
not generally allowed to passengers on railway 
cars east of the Mississippi. As the fare is 
the same by freight as by express, very few 
people make use of the former, seeming to 
prefer night travel by express, to freight 
travel by day, even for short distances. 
We stopped at Tacoma in order to see some¬ 
thing of the Puyallup Valley and the Indians 
in the hop fields. It was about six o’clock in 
the morning when the train left for Puyallup 
—a cold, misty morning, no fire in the car 
when we entered—and, for all the discomfort 
we suffered, we had to pay at the rate of ten 
cents a mile each for every mile we rode. It 
was the regular fare. The mist lay too heavily 
for us to see much, and at the end of eight or 
' ten miles we alighted from the train and 
walked a little distance to a hundred-acre hop 
field, where at the entrance, we found quite a 
party of white pickers, the force of Indians 
not being over a hundred, and the prospect of 
a large waste of hops throughout the valley 
was inevitable from lack of pickers. The 
Indians are the best of all pickers, but they 
come and go as they please, and little depen¬ 
dence can be placed upon them. The Chinese 
are dirty pickers, putting in leaves aud stems, 
but none of tbj picking is as clean as in Ger¬ 
many, where the hop farms are small, and the 
work is done by the members of the families 
owning them. The soil iu the valleys formed 
by the small rivers flowing into Puget Sound 
seems to be well fitted for hops, fine, loose, and 
porous, like old gardeu soil, aud tho hops are 
rated high as to quality; but I failed to see 
that they were any more productive than my 
one solitary hop vine in Pennsylvania, that 
takes care of itself. For several years the 
hop producers have sold their crops at high 
figures; but they have had their reverses, so 
that now the ehnuee for timkiug a fortune 
out of hops is not much greater than in legiti¬ 
mate agriculture or dairying; for I must con¬ 
fess that as tho hops find a market chiefly at 
the hands of the manufacturers of lager beer, 
1 take neither pride nor satisfaction iu their 
cultivation, although I heard of several 
“temperance” men who were engaged in hop 
culture. We visited the drying house, in 
which the hops are dried for 80 or 40 hours, 
saw them baled, and f noticed that au Indian 
who sewed at one side of the sucks inclosing 
the bales, worked faster than the white mau 
opposite. The Indians have small families, 
and the children are so meagerly clad that it 
is amazing any survive. The ‘ laddie” had 
the felicity of seeing a pappoose asleep in a 
hanging cradle, the deftly woven basket being 
suspended from a bop pole. One of the su¬ 
perintendents told me Guit when un Indian 
has a scratch or wound on his face he endea¬ 
vors to conceal it by painting his face, and 
we saw some illustrations of this practice. 
When one of their number dies they make a 
great ado, adding tho clinking of tin pans to 
their howling to increase the confusion. The 
body is immediately put into a canoe and 
transported to its former camping ground for 
burial. Tho Indians will not work on Sun¬ 
day, but Spend the day in games—the favorite 
one being foot races. 
The laud in the Puyallup, as iu other val¬ 
leys about the Sound, costs about $45 per 
acre uncleared, and it costs fully that much 
more to clear it for farming purposes. By 
the time tolerable buildings and fences are 
put up, the farm is considered worth $100 per 
acre, and from that price up to a still higher 
figure. Of course, t his is for good laud, as the 
soil varies Iu quality us everywhere else. 
Where the land is heavily timbered the cost 
of clearing it is even greater. In one of our 
rambles a few miles from Seattle, we came 
upon a party of two men who were engaged 
iu clearing 11 acres, for which they were to 
receive $500. Their work consisted only of 
removing the timber, which hudulready been 
cut, and fencing the laud from material 
found ou it. This will give you an idea of 
what It costs to clear land for agricultural 
purposes in the “Sound Country.” 
In traveling south from the Sound, through 
Washington to the Columbia River, our road 
—the Northern Pacific R. R.—carried us 
through a very picturesque and somewhat di¬ 
versified country as to soil, but very level. 
A short distance south of Tacoma, the forests 
give way at intervals to “open prairies,” as 
they are called; but a more fitting name 
would be “parks,” for they are, in fact, nat¬ 
ural parks, beautifully wooded with clumps 
of low firs of great elegauco of form; just 
such ornamental trees in appearance as are 
seen in the best-kept lawns or the East. These 
parks are level, and have a very sparsegrowth 
of light brown grass—in some places none— 
the soil consisting almost entirely of gravel, 
and absolutely worthless for agricultural pur¬ 
poses, A few sheep graze on them, and since 
the Hudson Bay Company grazed sheep on 
these prairies fifty years ago, no better use 
has been found for them. A very old Indian 
who died here a year ago, was wont to say 
that he remembered when tide-water was 
over all this land, and it is the opinion of 
persons best fitted to judge of it, that it was 
at one time, long ago, covered with water. 
The ground has no solid bottom, comparative¬ 
ly speaking, and there is but small hope of 
reclaiming the soil. .As grimly remarked, “it 
is excellent for race-courses, carriage roads 
and graveyards.” Nothing about the country 
looked new; the few houses and out-buildings 
that we passed or saw in the distance located 
on more fertile spaces, were old ami dilapi¬ 
dated—scarcely a vestige of prosperity and 
thrift. Then there would be miles of burnt 
forest—always a sad sight. 
We passed a pretty little lake called Ishino, 
and when we had passed Chehalis, some 50 
miles on our way, we found quite a fertile 
valley, and a pretty little town, with almost 
as many churches as houses. Further on, 
along the Cowlitz River, were some rather 
attractive farms, good for grazing at least, as 
the grass was beautifully green; but the un¬ 
healthy look of trees with moss-covered 
bodies and limbs, was general. We were told 
of better farming laud to the westward; but 
for purely farming purposes. I doubt if there 
is much to bo said in favor of Western Wash¬ 
ington: good, arable land is scarce, and com 
mauds a very high price. The names of the 
stations at which we stopped are Lakeviow, 
Hillburst, Media, Yoirn Prairie, Rainier, 
Tenino, Seatoo, Skookem Chuck (au Indian 
name signifying “strong water”), Centralia, 
Chehalis, Newuukim, Napavine, Winelock, 
Mill8witch, Little Falls, Oequa, Castle Rockl 
Stockport, Cowlitz, Wallace's, Monticello, 
Carroll’s, and Kalama. The Territorial Peni¬ 
tentiary is nt Son Leo, and the prisoners, with 
manacled feet and in care of an armed guard, 
were employed in removing a considerable 
quantity of freight from tho cars. I was 
forcibly reminded nil the way of the remark 
made to me by a man at, the outset of the trip 
—a resident of the Territory since ’65—“No 
mau can make money here farming simply— 
he must chisel around generally.” 
At Carroll’s, where we touched tho Colum¬ 
bia. a woman came into the caboose to ride 
to the next station. She wore a worried look, 
and after a little time 1 asked Imr some ques¬ 
tion which led her to talk almost, incessantly 
for the remainder of the way-sho seemed 
more than delighted to huve a woman to talk 
to, and almost her first remark was to beg me 
to send her some neighbors—but not bache¬ 
lors! (There seems to bo an overstock of 
bachelors here, and they do not always seem 
to possess those radiant qualities of neighbor- 
liuess, sociability and agreeableness.) The 
woman told me that she had a disagreement 
with her husband, who had gone to British 
Columbia; that he drank, and that he had 
obliged her to move upon several occasions 
from different places in California; that in so 
doing they hud failed to aci iimulateuuytbing; 
that they had “homesteaded” a place here, 
and she was going to stick to it, with her child¬ 
ren, and the live years would expire this Fall. 
Her boys, 18 aud 18 years of age, liked the 
farm, and she had been getting along for two 
years without her husband. One of tho boys 
had accidentally shot her baby girl, and tho 
doctor’s bill of #80 she hud fully paid. She 
lmd two good cows, for which she would not 
take $00 each. She had hens, and she had a 
market for everything In the logging camps 
right at home. She was going to the next 
•stattou to see about a market for her logs; she 
said she had #3,000 worth of them. She would 
be entirely contented If she only had some 
neighbors; but l bolstered up her courage as 
well as I could, and advised her to stick to her 
homestead. She said she was a UHtive of Kan¬ 
sas—ami she looked well and strong, although 
toothless, as so many comparatively young 
women on this coast are. At Kalama, wo 
went on board a steamer, went to bed and to 
sleep, and next moruiug awoke in Portland, 
Oregon, 
-—-- 
NOTES FROM MISSISSIPPI. 
The Mississippi Agricultural and Mechani¬ 
cal College, located at Starkville, has about 
250 students In attendance. Recently the 
Board of Trustees have decided to admit 
young ladies, and eight have already matri¬ 
culated. Labor is compulsory with all tho 
male students. This plan, siuce thB organiza¬ 
tion of the college four years ago, has worked 
splendidly. The college owns 1,900 acres of 
land—over two-thirds of which are used for 
pasturage. There are about 200 head of cat¬ 
tle on this place, mostly native and grade 
stock. The college also owns small herds of 
HulJund, Devon, Galloway, Ayrshire and 
Hereford cattle. 
For three years the college has been put¬ 
ting up and feeding silage with satisfactory 
results. This year three silos each holding 
over 100 tons, have been filled with corn, 
sorghum aud pea-vines. Last Winter a small 
quantity of hay and 20 pounds of silage per 
head, carried the cattle through in splendid 
condition; the stock not only kept iu good 
health and flesh, but continually improved in 
general condition. Mr. John Harvey, a grad¬ 
uate of the college, will soon assume tho Pro¬ 
fessorship of Dairying. He has just returned 
from an extensive tour through the West and 
East, having visited tho most noted dairies in 
this country in order to prepare himself for 
the duties that lie before him. He has been 
pursuing, alBO, through the Summer, a rigid 
course of study. 
Mississippi holds three prominent fairs au- 
uually, which are well patronized, one each 
at Aberdeen, Meridian and Jackson. Auction 
sales of thoroughbred stock are a prominent 
feature of all three. Tho stockholders of the 
Meridian Fair Association are almost entirely 
