JULY 44 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Merriatn, Geneva Lake. Wisconsin; F. D. Cur¬ 
tis, Charlton, Saratoga Co., N. Y. 
Statements are required for entry of founda¬ 
tion stock, with enumeration of sires and 
dams, and breediug hi conformity with the 
standard adopted. 
Thus a foundation has been laid and an or¬ 
ganization effected which will be instrumental 
in establishing as thoroughbred one of the 
best breeds of American swine, and a breed 
which will very soon rival the Poland-Chinas 
and divide the honors and profits with them in 
the great hog districts of the country. They 
have one peculiar characteristic which places 
them ahead of all other breeds and makes 
them specially desirable as market-bogs, viz.: 
more lean meat bi proportion to the fat than 
any other. 
-»♦+- 
A Prolific Sow. 
I have a pure-blooded Jersey Red sow, two 
years old this month, that has had thirty pigs 
from April 1882 to April 1883, viz: 
April 3, 1882. farrrowed 3 pigs. 
Sept. 17, 1882, “ 11 pigs. 
April 10, 1883, “ 10 pigs. 
Total 30 
One of the assertions made by breeders of 
Jersey Reds, in the State of New Jersey, in 
favor of this breed, is, that they are more 
prolific than any other breed. Thirty pigs 
from one sow in 12 months would seem to go a 
jong way towards proving what they claim. 
My sow came from 'New Jersey. 
Davis Co., Kansas. H. S. 
- --- _ ' * 
Poultry parti. 
A LARGE POULTRY EXPERIMENT. 
In the article in the Rural of June 2, en_ 
titled " A Sharp Criticism,” I do not think the 
writer, A. B. C. Salmon, did right to abuse 
Plymouth Rocks, for in my estimation they 
are one of the best breeds of fowls. I know a 
man who raises them very successfully and 
thinks there is no other like them. Besides, 
they are of good size, nice-looking, and when 
sold in market they bring twice as much ns the 
smaller kinds. I myself prefer Light 
Brahmas; they are good layers, make the best 
of mothers, and when six months old will 
weigh five pounds. Last Fall from 17 hens 
I packed 75 dozen eggs in four months, besides 
wbat we used. I also raised over *200 chickens, 
which brought, with the eggs, about £75, in¬ 
cluding the chickens we ate but not the eggs 
we used. During the year the cost of feed 
was about £15. 
This year I have 050 chickens from 50 hens ) 
altogether 700 with which I expect to make, 
from both eggs and chickens, £250, or £5 from 
each hen. Feed about £50. I pack my eggs 
in salt and keep them until Fall, when I get 
from 20 to 25 cents a dozen. 1 can derive most 
profit from soiling chickens early in the Fall, 
when I can get here eight cents a pound; but 
in order to do tins one must have early 
chickens, say in March and April. I give the 
chickens of about three hens to one to keep. 
Then I coop them up and feed them plenty of 
meal. If not, kept warm they are apt to get 
diphtheria and die. 1 also pot. hay around the 
coops to keep the wind out. It takes con¬ 
siderable time, but I think it pays in the end. 
If one has a covered place this will be un_ 
necessary. There is not. much danger of keep¬ 
ing little chickens too warm, but there is great, 
danger of lotting them get chilled. 1 do not 
lose any more chickens with large hens than 
with the small ones, for the reason that largo 
lu ns are more careful when they get on the 
nest and they arc apt to be more taiue. In 
order to raise chickens successfully one must 
take time and trouble. Jennie Rector. 
FairibanltCo., Minn. 
[We trust our friend will give our readers a 
full account of her success with her 700 head 
of poultry. We have, of course, read of iu. 
stances of success with so large a number; but 
we have never read of such cases in the 
Rural, and a detailed account of experience 
with such a flock, whether successful or not ) 
coming from a trustworthy source, would be 
interesting and instructive to Rural readers, 
and indeed, to the poultry-keeping world at 
Fighting tl»e Rose Bugs. 
In “Brief Agricultural Recipes” iu a late 
Rural, 1 came upon this absurd statement: 
“To save grape's from rose bugs, lay the 
viues on the ground among the grass and 
weeds when the bugs come: leave them there 
till the pests depart and then tie up again.” Is 
there any sense or judgment iu such a pro¬ 
ceeding? What are people to do who try to 
keep the ground clean about their vines, who 
have acres that they are striving at every 
spare moment to tie up? The bug comes just 
in flowering time; how about the bloom, 
t,he pollen, etc. Oh. friends, give us some¬ 
thing reasonable! We want to keep the 
vines clear of the rose bug, and make efforts 
to keep them off by picking, but it is useless to 
give remedies that suit one or two vines grown 
in “gmss and weeds,” when there are acres of 
vines suffering from the pest, where untying is 
positively out of the question. Try again, 
please. Give us a remedv for this evil, if there is 
any better than thumb and finger, a. l. j. 
Applying London-purple. 
Aa described in a late Rural, we have tried 
Warren Vree.land’s method with London-pur¬ 
ple and plaster in a coarse bag to combat the 
potato bugs, and found it the most effective. 
It beats any machine nnd goes right to the 
spot. It has been our plan for several years 
A. L. J. 
■ftttsceUftttcoiiis. 
THE AMSTERDAM INTERNATIONAL 
AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITION. 
The International Agricultural Exhibition 
at Amsterdam, Holland, will be held on the 
same grounds now occupied by the Inter-Colo- 
nial Export Trade Exhibition. It w 11 continue 
from .Tilly 2 to August 0. 
It will consist of eight sections. Sec. I.-IV 
will comprise horses, cattle, sheen and hogs; 
Sec. V., butter, cheese, preserved milk. etc. 
VI., implements and machinery; VII, agri¬ 
cultural instruction and accessories; VIII. 
bee culture. 
There will be a large amount of premiums 
in cash, amounting to £38.0(10, divided as fol¬ 
lows:—For horses. £11.000; cattle. *14.000; 
sheep, 12.200; hogs, £1,200; butter, etc.. £4., 
000; mnehinorv, etc.. £5,000; instruction; 
£400; bees, £200. A bronze medal will be 
awarded each winner of a prize, and special 
medals of gold and silver may lie given bv the 
executive committee upon recommendation of 
t.hp jury. 
The scope of the Exhibition maybe extend¬ 
ed. andcouseqneot.lv a higher amount of pre¬ 
miums appropriated if such should be deemed 
desirable. Horses and cattle will be exhibited 
from July 28 to August 2. 1884 only, and all 
exhibits, with the exception of implements, 
should be taken from the grounds on the 11th 
of August. All costs of transportation are to 
be defrayed by the owners, but the Executive 
Committee will endeavor to obtain spe¬ 
cial rates on railroad and steamship lines. 
Exhibitors will have free admission to the 
different buildings. The programmes in 
Euelish. French and German, will soon be 
ready and contain fuller informations. They 
can be obtained free bv applying to 
Mr. P. F. L. Waldeck. 
Secretary' of the Executive Conunitte of the 
Int. Agr. Exhibition, 
Loospuinen. 
(near the Hague.) Holland. 
TOO MUCH GRAFT. 
Mr. Callaghan showed me three valuable 
apple trees a qunrter of a century old, which 
have been killed by trimming them too close¬ 
ly after grafting. Grafts were allowed to 
grow two vears when all the other limbs were 
cut off. Tiki close trimming is always injuri 
ous to trees or vines. I nearly destroyed my 
grape-vines a few vears ago bv cutting off the 
surplus growth, thinking that this would has¬ 
ten the maturity of the fruit by letting in the 
sunshine and increasing the flow of sap. The 
sunshine idea was good enough, but the sap 
theory was all wrong. The leaves arc neces¬ 
sary to elaborate and perfect the sap for mak¬ 
ing growth either of wood or fruit, and the 
destruction of the leaves prevents the perfeot- 
ing of the sap. and, of course, proves iniuri- 
ous. The removal of too many limbs, there¬ 
fore, weakens the vitality of the tree. f. p. c.* 
Wire or Bermuda Grass. Etc. 
By to-day’s mail 1 send the Rural a handful 
of Wire Grass, called Bermuda farther south. 
Like some of the human family, it has very 
warm friends and also verv hitter enemies. Iu 
hoed crops it is a troublesome customer: in 
the pasture the best of grazing; but it. is not. 
suitable for hay in this section, as it rarely gets 
high enough. With regard to the inclosed 
handful of Bird-foot. Clover, called by your 
Aiken friend Japan Clover (I think it the 
same from his description), I have known it 
for over 50 vears. As far as T have heard it 
js a native of this section, but his description 
of it is good, Tt is a very useful early' Sum¬ 
mer grass. [This seems so be Lespedeza capi - 
ata, the Round-headed Bush Clover.—Eos.] 
A Dutch Decision onDutch Cattle. 
It has been resolved by the Friesian Herd, 
book Association (Netherlands), that none but 
descendants of registered animals will be ad¬ 
mitted as members after May 1st, 1884. 
This is a step in the right direction, as a 
strict adherence to “pedigree” with the 
“ Netherland ” cattle, will soon do away with 
the misnomer of “Holsteins” and benefit the 
Holland farmers as well as foreign buyers. 
GRAPE CULTURE ON THE RHINE. 
Terraces—Economy—No Old Wood Per 
mitted—Wire Trellises Unsatisfactory. 
At the Geisenheim School of Horticulture 
there is practiced a very simple method of 
propagating grapes from single buds. Thor¬ 
oughly ripened canes are cut in the Fall, and 
packed in sand until January or February. 
They are then brought to the propagating- 
house and cut for potting—a single bud in 
each pot. The piece is prepared with a slant 
cut through the caue, beginning half an inch 
from the bud on each side, and cutting toward 
it. This gives a blunt, wedge-shaped form, 
the bud being on the longest side. Small 
thumb pots are used, which are filled half with 
sandy soil, and then to the top with clean 
sand. In this the cutting is planted in a slant¬ 
ing position, so that the bed is just on the sur¬ 
face, The pots are then plunged to the tops 
in the sand of the propagation benches, and a 
steady bottom heat of 25 deg. Reaumur [88]^ 
Fahrenheit Eds.] is given them. They are 
watered freely, and soon take root, though in 
this there is great irregularity, some varieties 
rooting much quicker than others. As soon 
as the roots show against the pot they are 
transplanted in a light sandy soil, and taken 
to the hot-house, where they are kept close 
to the glass to insure the most perfect sun¬ 
light. As the subsequent repottings occur, 
the young vines are gradually acclimated 
to a cooler atmosphere, and accustomed to a 
stronger soil, and are finally planted in 
musery-rows and receive careful field culture. 
The vineyards of the Rhine present a strik¬ 
ing picture. The high hills on which they' are 
grown are so steep that it is necessary to terrace 
them by means of stone walls, to prevent the 
surface soil from being washed to the bottom. 
These walls traverse the hill sides in almost 
all directions, each land-owuer building his 
wall for best preservation of his own vineyard. 
This net-work of wall, as seeu from the 
opposite side of the river, forms an agreeable 
part, of the landscape; the irregularly shaped 
fields, rarely more than an acre or two in ex¬ 
tent, looking like the meshes in a tangled web. 
Opposite Bingen is such a picture; terrace above 
terrace the vineyards rise more than 500 feet 
high, while above them, crowning the sum¬ 
mit. of the hill, is the great mom^uent which 
Germany is building to comemorate her vic¬ 
tory over the Third Napoleon. 
One cannot but be struck with the economy 
which these grape growers show iu the use of 
the laud. The vines are planted closely to¬ 
gether—not more than IS inches apart 
in the rows, which are about three feet from 
each other. The cultivation is done entirely 
by* hand; all the manure for the upper-fields, is 
carried from the narrow roadwavs in baskets, 
and iu passing down the Rhine one sees many 
places where ti e fertilizers must be borne 
three or four hundred feet up the mountain 
side. If you had walked with me from 
Asstnanushausen to Rudeusheim, up the hill 
among the Scrub Oaks and Pines, through 
the Beech wood on the summit, anil down 
through the vineyards, you would have seen 
wonderfully cultivated fields—all clean, all 
spaded. There are no weeds among these 
stone fence corners, ami uo grass growing be¬ 
neath t hese v ines; all had been put in splendid 
shape for Winter. And you would have t>een 
struck with the youthful appearance of these 
famous vines. When one hears the vineyards 
of the Rhine mentioned his imagination pic¬ 
ture's to him grand old caul's three or four 
inches thick, each bearing a great quantity of 
fruit spurs; but I saw uo such wonder on the 
Rhine frills; instead, no old wood is permitted 
to remain. As soon as a cane has borne its 
crop it is cut away to make room for its suc¬ 
cessor. Last season the canes which are to 
produce this year’s crop, were allowed to 
grew from old wood eery close to the ground; 
iu the Fall they were pruned back to from six 
to ten buds iu leugth, to be more severe¬ 
ly cut before the 'sap starts in the Spring. 
When they have borne their fruit, they will 
be cut away, and this year’s growth, coining 
from buds nearest the ground, will be pruned 
for the next season. The v inters here, almost 
all, I am told, go over the vines twice, giving 
them a rather rough pruning in the Fall, aud 
in the early Spring cutting back to the right 
length. Just uow the vines are tied to stakes. 
and seem to be ready for the Summer’s 
growth. 
The training of the vines receives careful 
attention, the aim being to allow each cane 
f ull sunlight, and yet to presevere the space 
as much as possible Wire trellises are not 
found satisfactory here; when 1 asked why, 
my informant shrugged his shoulders and 
said “ they were not good.” Great diversity 
exists as to the number of stakes to each vine; 
in many cases there is a stake to each cane. 
All the stakes, however, are short, few being 
more than four feet long, and most of them 
are shorter than that. This is the system of 
pruning and training in the vicinity of Bin¬ 
gen. I am told that in almost all localities 
the methods of treatment differ, and that to 
differences in soil, exposure and cultivation 
is due the superiority of the vines of certain 
regions. 
Quite in contrast with the short canes of the 
Rhineland, was a grape cordon I saw at the 
Botanical Garden in Ghent. It was trained 
along the lower side of the conservatory to the 
south end, up the curved glass to the roof, 
along the eaves to the north end. then down 
and back to the place of beginning. There 
are two vines in the cordon, their combined 
lengths being not less than 200 feet. The 
fruiting spurs were at regular intervals of 
about 18 inches, and were cut to three and 
four buds. The gardener told me it was an 
excellent bearer. Certainly it must make a 
beautiful frame for the glass surface, when 
adorned with foliage and fruit. 
London, England. C. A. Keffer. 
Grapes in the North. 
So many inquiries have come to me about 
grapes lately that it may interest readers to 
know how they have wintered with us. The 
past season was favorable, inasmuch as the 
snow covered the ground from December until 
April: but in January the thermometer went 
down to 26 degrees below zero, which is a se¬ 
vere trial for vines, although protected. 
Among a row of new varieties Prentiss, Poek- 
lington and Yergennes have come out thrifty 
and strong- Salem is quite dead—"Wilder 
weak. Brighton is the most vigorous of all. 
Duchess and Early Dawn are fruiting and 
looking well, A young plant of Lady Wash¬ 
ington was again foimd too delicate to stand 
the Winter; but I intend to get a strong vine 
of this fruit yet, and give it better protection, 
as it is classed as superior. Amber Queen is 
strong, healthy and fruiting, the second year 
from planting, while Moore’s Early has never 
looked so promising. Lady does well, as do 
Arnold’s Seedlings, which are hardy and pro- 
ifie. Our Niagaras have wintered well, and have, 
already started to grow so that we have hopes 
of their future. In regard to grapes ripening, 
our grape culturist, who is practical iu all he 
does aud says, makes this remark: “Wher¬ 
ever corn will ripen , some kinds of grapes 
will ripen too. Annie L. Jack. 
Province of Quebec, Canada. 
The Empire State Grape. 
In regal’d to this dropping from the stem, 
as mentioned in a late Rural, Mr. Ricketts 
says that before it is fully ripe it will drop, 
but afterwards it will not do so. Last Sum¬ 
mer an unripe bunch picked about September 
1, seen on the 15th had hardly a berry remain¬ 
ing on the peduncle, and the flavor was in¬ 
sipid. Iu September last several ripe bunches 
were picked from a vine in Mr. Ricketts's 
grounds, and after being carried in a valise 
without any wrappings, receiving very rough 
usage, were tested by four different persons, 
and did not drop a single berry. The last of 
the bunch I had were eaten October 3. After 
that date I made three other trials with differ¬ 
ent bunches, and Mr. Ricketts's assertion 
seemed to be confirmed. The lust bunch, re¬ 
ceived October 11, was kept by me till Christ¬ 
mas Day, and was then used; though the pe¬ 
duncle was badly withered yet the berries 
held on to it. J. B. Rogers. 
Essex Co.. N. J. 
PISTILLATE STRAAVBERRIES AS THE 
PARENTS OF NEW VARIETIES. 
Persons accustomed to advise respecting 
the hybridization of the strawberry, very 
commonly, if not.'indeed, almost universally, 
mention the fact of the absence of stamens as 
an inducement to the employment of pistillates 
in the process of hybridization. 
So far as the mere convenience of the opera¬ 
tor may be concerned, this may perhaps be 
considered as sapient advice; and it is my con¬ 
viction that it is accepted and acted upon, very 
generally, by originators of new varieties of 
this fi’uit. My attention is drawn to the sub¬ 
ject by the eireumstauces that, among some 
twenty or more new varieties planted by me 
