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0 
FE8 3 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country s nd Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
fcltBBTS CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEvi-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY. FEB. 8, 18sS 
TO ADVERTISING PATRONS. 
We call attention to our changed ad¬ 
vertising rates for 1883 as presented on 
page 77. The change divests them of 
all discounts, presenting them in the 
simplest form so that they may be under¬ 
stood at a glance. We beg to assure 
those ■who would favor us with their ad¬ 
vertising patronage that these rates are 
invariaMt and that any correspondence 
looking to a change would under any and 
all circumstances prove ineffectual. 
To new subscribers we beg to say that 
the Seed Distribution will not be com¬ 
menced before February 10. 
We beg to inform our readers that we 
have a full supply of Rural Premium 
Lists for 1888 and we should be glad to 
send them to subscribers on application. 
-- 
It is gratifying to be able to report 
that English complaints of alleged adul¬ 
terations of American cotton have almost 
entirely ceased. This intelligence has 
been sent to the Department of State by 
Consul Shaw, of Manchester, who was the 
first to direct public attention to the evil 
persistence in which might have seriously 
affected American interests. There ap¬ 
pears to be but little doubt that the ex¬ 
tent of the abuse was considerably ex¬ 
aggerated at first, but the attention 
directed to the importance of the utmost 
care in ginning, grading and baling cot¬ 
ton, has led to considerable improvements 
in these operations and consequently se¬ 
cured a firmer hold on our foreign markets. 
The names of the three New York 
Railroad Commissioners nominated by 
Governor Cleveland are still before the 
State Senate awaiting confirmation. No 
objection has hitherto been made to Mr. 
Rogers or Mr. Kern an, but the railroad 
people, who are quite pleased with these 
men, are virulently opposed to Mr. O’Don¬ 
nell, and persistently urge various trivial 
accusations against him. This is natural. 
O’Donnell was named as an Anti-Monop¬ 
olist, and what more natural than that 
monopolists should be Anti-O’Donnellists ? 
But the Commission was appointed to 
regulate the railroads in the interests of 
the people, not to please the railroad 
magnates, and O’Donnell should therefore 
be confirmed, whatever may befall the 
other two. 
-» * ♦ 
A telegram from Richmond, Va., on 
January 24, announced that a few nights 
before a body of disguised men forcibly 
took from the jail of Russel Co. two men 
who had obtained $18,000 worth of cattle 
from farmers in that section on fraud¬ 
ulent pretences. Nothing is yet known 
as to the disposition made of the pris¬ 
oners, but it is generally believed that 
they were lynched by those whom they 
had swindled. There is a vast throng of 
adventurers throughout the country, es¬ 
pecially in the rural districts, who are 
trying every means of swindling and ex¬ 
tortion on "the community, and the pun¬ 
ishment of these should be more severe 
and certain than at present, but in the 
interests of public peace and morality we 
insist that the punishment of that brace 
of Virginia swindlers was reprehensible in 
that it was illegal, and too severe—perhaps. 
The House Agricultural Committee has 
agreed to report favorably a bill support¬ 
ed by Mr. Anderson, of Kansas, which 
empowers the President to appoint nine 
Commissioners at $10 a day whose duty it 
shall be to thoroughly investigate the 
movements of agricultural products from 
points where they are produced to their 
final markets, the actual cost of their 
movement to the “ common carrier,” the 
charges to the shipper by the carrier 
and all matters which practically affect 
the difference between the prices received 
by the producer of a given article and 
the price paid therefor by the consumer. 
Such a Commission would doubtless de¬ 
monstrate the extent of railroad extor¬ 
tions and of the overcharges of middle¬ 
men, together with the excessive number 
of the latter, but, alas 1 there’s a world of 
difference between the proof of the exist¬ 
ence of an evil and the application of an 
effectual remedy. 
--- 
Commissioner Lobing is reported to be 
of opinion that the sorghum-sugar indus¬ 
try has passed beyond the experimental 
stage, and that hereafter the business 
should be carried on entirely by private 
enterprise, hence no appropriation was 
asked of Congress for further experiments 
in this matter. The Senate, however, 
introduced into the Agricultural Appro¬ 
priation Bill an item of $10,000 to con¬ 
tinue the sorghum experiments under the 
direction of Dr. Collier. On the recom¬ 
mendation of the Agricultural Commit¬ 
tee, inspired doubtless by the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, the House struck 
this item out, but it was restored by the 
Conference Committee of both branches 
of Congress, and has just been adopted 
by the House. In this matter we are de¬ 
cidedly of opinion that the Senate has de¬ 
served well of the farmers of the country. 
■ --- 
As England consumes large quantities 
of honey, the home supply has to be 
largely supplemented from abroad. The 
inferior qualities are sent from Chili and 
Peru, the best from Narbonne in France, 
and from different sections of Switzer¬ 
land. The trade with America baa not 
been a profitable one. We learn that 
the most salable form in which Ameri¬ 
can extracted honey can be put up is in 
one-pound bottles, one or two dozen in a 
case, the bottles bringing $2 per dozen. 
There is a fair sale for extracted honey in 
two-pound hermetically sealed tins at 
$3.35 per dozen. Comb honey can also 
be sold in glass jars, the jars being filled 
with extracted honey, at about $4.75 per 
dozen, jars bolding two pounds net.; but 
this is liable to congeal. Comb honey 
will not stand shipment to England 
as a very slight jar is sufficient to break 
the comb, and the honey then leaks out. 
American extracted honey in bulk does 
not sell there, as the manufacturers use 
cheaper sorts. 
We have earnestly protested against 
the sale of spirituous and malt liquors on 
agricultural fair grounds as demoralizing 
to visitors and a source of disreputable 
gain to the promoters of the fairs. We 
are therefore pleased to learn that the 
Illinois State Board of Agriculture, for 
the first time in the history of Illinois 
State Fairs, has decided to exclude traffic 
in all sorts of intoxicating beverages 
from the grounds at the State Fair to be 
held next September. Another excellent 
measure decided upon is the raising of 
the price of special permits to pedalers, 
etc., to $25. This will exclude a lot of 
unmitigated nuisances to whose presence 
we, like all other decent people, have 
frequently objected. We strongly urge 
the managers of other State fairs as well 
as those of county and local fairs to fol¬ 
low the excellent example set by the 
Hlinois Board of Agriculture in the above 
instances, but we cannot advise them to 
follow the example set by the Board, in 
offering premiums for “hoss trots,” for 
which a prize of $200 will be given at 
the Illinois State Fair. 
The U. S. Senate has done a thing in 
the line of “protection,” which every 
sensible citizen who has the welfare of 
his country at heart will heartily approve. 
It has “protected” one of the greatest 
interests of the nation by putting similar 
goods on the “free list.” For a number 
of years a duty of $2 per 1.000 feet has 
been levied on imported pine lumber, 
thus taxing the people several million 
dollars a year for the benefit of a hand¬ 
ful of capitalists engaged in the timber 
business, and offering a premium t f sev¬ 
eral million dollars a year for the destruc¬ 
tion of what remains of our forests in 
Maine, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wis¬ 
consin, and Minnesota. Already most 
of the large pines and spruces have 
been disposed of and every year many 
thousands of young trees are sacrificed to 
the spirit of greed. At the present rale 
of destruction in ten years there will 
hardly be a pine tree large enough for a 
gate-post. The Senate has taken a com¬ 
mendable step in the way of lessening this 
unwise destruction by voting to admit 
rough lumber free of duty, and the bill 
ought to pass the House and become a law 
at once. Our “infant forests” need 
protection at least as much as our “in¬ 
fant industries.” 
THE CORN PREMIUMS. 
Revived LiBt of the Awards. 
We are now able to give the list of 
prize-winners in the corn contest as they 
are fiaally to stand. Some of the affi¬ 
davits were unavoidably delayed on the 
road, our request for one, in one instance, 
being delayed in the mails for a week, 
and in every case we felt ourselves justi¬ 
fied in awaiting until the present time 
before making the awards final. The 
right to do this we reserved, as has been 
previously announced. The revision, to¬ 
gether with the work previously done on 
the reports, baB given us an immense 
amount of labor, and while we could not 
hope to satisfy every one of the 1,000 con¬ 
testants, or over, we are well satisfied that 
the results as they now stand are as nearly 
correct and in accordance with the state¬ 
ments rendered us, as it is possible to make 
them. Hence we are satisfied with our 
part of the work. We have now to an¬ 
nounce the revised list, in which no fur¬ 
ther changes will be made, and to these 
several prize-winners their premiums will 
be forwarded at an early day. 
1st Prize:— Peter Theln. 
2d “ Alfred Rose. 
3d “ J. K. McManus. 
4th " A. F. Barnes. 
5th " W. S. Robinson. 
Nth ' .T. W. Good. 
7th “ J. H Van Neste. 
8th “ W. H Chamber¬ 
lain. 
9th " Daniel Steck. 
30th “ C. Pugh, 
llth “ Wm Dnrkee. 
12th “ P H. Conard. 
13t.h “ Nelson Slater. 
14th •' J. Sttnobeomb. 
lfith Prize:—IL P. Corey. 
16th “ Mrs. M. W. Var¬ 
ner. 
17th " J- M. Lydlck. 
Pth “ P- 8. Cross. 
19th “ Otis Ford. 
20th “ H. R Roberts. 
31st " R. J. McDonald. 
22d '■ A. L. Stutzman 
23d “ J. J Salter. 
24th “ Wm. Palmer. 
25th “ Enoeh Auten. 
26th *' W. H. Beebe. 
27th '* H.H. Clark. 
- *■ 
THE ENSILAGE CONVENTION. 
The second annual convention of those 
who s re interested in the ensilage ques¬ 
tion was held in this city Jan. 24th and 
25th, Francis R. Morris, of Maryland, 
was chosen president of the convention, 
and J. B. Brown, secretary. An interest¬ 
ing feature of the occasion w as the un¬ 
vailing of a bust of Mons. Auguste 
Goffart, the distinguished Frenchman 
who has done so much to bring the 
system into general use, especially in 
Europe. From the experience of the 
past year those who have silos were pre¬ 
pared to speak more definitely as to the 
real advantages of this system of pre¬ 
serving green fodder, and we heard no 
one say aught against it; on the contrary, 
all were well satisfied with the results 
obtained. The idea that costly silos are 
necessary to successfully preserve the en¬ 
silage seem9 no longer to prevail, and 
this, to the average farmer, is a matter 
of much importance. Silos that cost only 
from $10 to $20 have as effectually pre¬ 
served the ensilage as those which cost 
hundreds of dollars, the one important 
thing being to give sufficient pressure to 
exclude the air. Silos built in the ground, 
notably those of Mr. Morris, of Mary¬ 
land, at a cost of about $15 each, were 
favorably reported upon, and although 
located in a cold, mountainous region, 
the ensilage did not freeze. 
The fact that ensilage can be advan¬ 
tageously fed in the Summer, and in 
preference, as some claimed, to green 
fodder corn used for “soiling,” created 
some comment, and adverse opinions 
were expressed. All were willing, to 
admit, however, that for “ bridging over 
a drought ” ensilage was exceedingly ad¬ 
vantageous. As to the feeding value of 
ensilage, different results were arrived at 
from tests made, though there was a 
general agreement that there was a 
marked gain, in nearly every instance, in 
favor of ensilage over hay or hay and 
roots. Le Grand B. Cannon, of Vermont, 
who has made extensive and detailed ex¬ 
periments in feeding, claimed an economy 
of ensilage over hay of 25 per cent., and 
over hay and roots of 39 per cent. The 
experiments were made on a lot of Short¬ 
horn grades. Other experimmts showed 
similar results, but of these we shall 
speak more fully in detailed reports here¬ 
after. We quite agree with Mr. G. T. 
Powell, of Ghent, N. Y., that notwith¬ 
standing the array of facts and figures 
presented, which are good so far as they 
go, we have not yet had sufficient experi¬ 
ence to enable us to pronounce the ensi¬ 
lage system a success in every respect 
and beyond a doubt. 
THE LATE WESTERN BLIZZARD. 
The terrible blizzard that raged 
throughout the Northwest during the 
latter part of last week and the fore part 
of this, appears to have been in many 
wide areas the severest “ within the 
memory of the oldest, inhabitant ; but 
in many places there a residence of a 
few years would entitle one to the dis¬ 
tinction of being one of the first settlers. 
A considerable number of deaths from 
exposure to the icy blast are recorded in 
the papers of various places, and doubt¬ 
less many other solitary endings are re¬ 
corded only above. From Dakota and 
Northern Nebraska there are reports of 
heavy mortality among cattle, owing to 
starvation and excessive frigidity. Along 
the Platte and on the Plains west of 
Southern Nebraska and Kansas stock- 
men, having learnt a severe lesson by the 
disastrous losses two years ago, were 
pretty well prepared for cold weather, 
and accordingly the losses are sail to be 
inconsiderable; but if the cold continues 
they must inevitably be heavy. 
As far South as Abeline, Kansas, the 
thermometer was from 20 to 23 degrees 
below zero on January 22, and in many 
cases unsheltered stock were frozen to 
death. About Wichita, in Southern Kan¬ 
sas, the blizzard was the severest known 
for several years, but the losses of stock 
there and in the Cherokee country was 
small, as there was abundance of feed 
and stock* was gererally in good con¬ 
dition. In Northern Texas, whero snow 
fell pretty heavily, lambs and calves 
suffered severely, but among mature 
stock the losses were comparatively 
light. Colorado reports a temperature 
ranging from 27 to 42 degrees below 
zero in different places; but as the very 
cold snap was soon over, losses among 
stock were not excessive. In Wyoming 
Territory the cold was very seveie, rang¬ 
ing from 26 to 40 degrees below zero 
on Saturday last, but the blizzard did 
not last long, the temperature having 
risen to 36 degrees above zero last 
Tuesday, and accordingly the tosses 
among stock were not very heavy. Along 
the various lines of railroad transporta¬ 
tion, however, severe losses were incur¬ 
red, as the trains were blocked in all 
quarters and feed was unattainable, while 
the mortality was increased by the 
cramped and exposed position of stock 
in the cars, and even when these were 
disembarked their condition was little 
better. In the Chicago stock-yards, 
where animals were exposed unsheltered 
to the full force of the blizzard, 12 deg. be¬ 
low zero, sweeping unchecked over along 
reath of level prairie, the death roll espe¬ 
cially among swine, was very serious. 
BREVITIES. 
The Kieffer Pear does not do well on the 
quince. 
It is now time to sow the seeds of straw¬ 
berries—also of potatoes if we would raise 
new kinds. 
One of the finest lawn trees that grows is 
the Yellow-wood—Cladrastis tinctoriaorVer- 
gilla lutea. Try it. 
The price of the No. 2. Eureka Rap Spouts 
is $4.25 per hundred instead of $4.50 as stated 
in last week’s advertisement. 
The venerable Charles Downing writes that 
he is slowly getting better. He has returned 
home in safety. In spite of his accident he is 
full of hope and courage at eighty-two. 
“ Plant corn,” “plant trees,” “ plant small 
grains,” “ send the children to school"—excel¬ 
lent and pithy injunctions these, applicable 
to nearly every other Southern State as much 
as to North Carolina, in one of whose papers 
they appear. 
Last Tuesday week 20,000 bushels of Ten¬ 
nessee corn were shipped for Liverpool on 
board the steamer Marie from the new eleva¬ 
tor of the Georgia Central Railroad at Savan¬ 
nah, Ga. This is the first shipment of South¬ 
ern grain in bulk ever sent to Europe from a 
Southern-Atlantic port, and therefore it de¬ 
serves prominent record. 
There is nothing better for a horse that 
has been driven hard on the road in the Win¬ 
ter than a bran mash fed as hot as the horse 
can eat it. The inhalation of the steam from 
the mash, in connection with the eating of the 
latter, produces a warm glow throughout the 
system, and no serious results follow from 
the over-exertion. So says Mr. W. T. Mills 
of this city, who ib an experienced horseman. 
He remarked to us that more co re should be 
given tbe horse’s hoofs. He believes that in 
Summer the foot should be frequently washed 
and dried to prevent the hoof from becoming 
brittle and to prevent injury from the ac¬ 
cumulation of filth and dirt around the "frog.” 
The Florida Agricultural College has al¬ 
ready an income of $36,000 from the Govern¬ 
ment land grant, and tbe whole of the grant 
has not yet been disposed of: but although 
buildings have been erected several years no 
instruction has yet been given, and the un¬ 
used buildings are rapidly falling into decay. 
Mr. W. H Gleason, who gave 3,000 acres of 
land ustt building fund, urges the trustees to 
obtain an amendment to the law so that the 
College may be made a mnnuul-lubor institu¬ 
tion for the benefit of the colored raw. If 
the white men of Florida are too high-toned 
to care about the hard work of skillful agri¬ 
culture, in Heaven’s name let the “ niggers ” 
have a cbauce! 
Mrs. Annie S. Cabr is the name this time 
and tbe address is New Jersey. Now “she” 
is a “lone widder" who has made a comfort¬ 
able living by hatching chickens by means of 
an incubator easily made out of materials 
costing only six dollars. Beginning with 
240 eggs “she” now h«» 5,000 chicks and a 
snug sum of money besides, though in “ feeble 
health.” Others can do likewise, as in the 
kindness of “ her” heart “ she” will send full 
information as to tbe construction of the in- 
cul»ator on the receipt of “ so many" stamps. 
“Her" letter* have appealed for “stamps” 
sometimes from Ohio; sometimes from New 
York Btate, but from neither place have any 
instructions been forwarded in return for the 
“stamps" nor will any be sent from New 
Jersey unless, perchance in the way of 
“ throwing out a trout to catch a salmon.” 
