JULY 28 
THE RURJTL 
477 
WEW-YORKER. 
Burfll topics, 
FOOD AND MANURE VALUES. 
SIR J. B. LA WES, BART., LL.D., P. R. S. 
In the Rural New-Yorker of the 16th of 
June, some figures of mine are quoted to prove 
that the manure ingredients of a food are of 
more value than the food itself. Two thou¬ 
sand pounds of decorticated cotton cake con¬ 
tain nitrogen equal to 158 pounds of ammonia. 
The price of ammonia, as quoted in the Uni¬ 
ted States agricultural papers, is 25 cents per 
pound; 2,000 pounds of cake would therefore 
be worth 830 for its ammonia alone. I have 
never myself used cotton cake as a manure, 
but in my permanent barley field I have ap¬ 
plied 1,000 pounds of rape cake to an acre of 
land for 30 years in succession, and the aver¬ 
age yield has been 43 bushels. About 800 
pounds of cotton cake would contain as much 
nitrogen as 1,000 pounds of rape cake. 
The nitrogen in these cakes is, I should say, 
as valuable as the nitrogen contained in salts 
of ammonia; if therefore a manure dealer 
were required to furnish as many pounds of 
ammonia, potash, and soluble phosphoric acid 
as are contained in one ton of cottou cake, the 
price he would charge would exceed the cost 
of the cake; the manure value would there¬ 
fore be higher than the food value. 
But cotton cake has a high food value; in 
England we employ it for the production of 
meat, and after having extracted from it all 
that we can for this purpose, we then get its 
manure ingredients—some of which, of course, 
are retained by the animal—at a lower cost. 
Few people are aware of the very sma ll 
amount of manure ingredients which are re¬ 
moved in the animals we feed. Many years 
ago we published analyses of the various ani¬ 
mals of the farm, young and old, lean and 
fat, and, at the time we gave the total amount 
of mineral matter which they contained, 
though we did not publish the composition of 
the ash. As a matter of fact, however, about 
40 complete analyses of the ash of these ani¬ 
mals, oxen, sheep and pigs, have been lying in 
our drawers for many years. We have now- 
come to the conclusion that these should be 
published, and accordingly they are being 
prepared for the press, and will appear- very 
shortly. One of the animals killed was a fat 
ox which weighed, when alive, 1,400 pounds. 
The whole amount of the potash it contained 
was 2'j pounds. Assuming that this animal 
started as a calf three or four years previous¬ 
ly, we may estimate its mean weight at about 
700 pounds, or rather less. If fed on grass in 
Summer, and on luiy in Winter, it would con¬ 
sume about 80 pounds of dry food weekly. 
This amount of grass or hay would contain 
about 1! 3 ' pound of potash; an animal there¬ 
fore feeding from three to four years would 
not carry from the land more potash than was 
contained in its food in 10 days, while the 
potash contained in the food during the re¬ 
maining 1,000 or 1,400 days would be returned 
to the soil. 
When our soils are full of potash, we can 
grow tobacco and other products which carry 
off large amounts of that substance; but in 
the course of time those soil ingredients be¬ 
come reduced in quantity, and then we are 
compelled to direct our attention to those pro¬ 
ducts which command a high price, aud at the 
same time only remove a small amount of the 
soil compounds. 
Animals and their products remove very 
little fertility from the soil; and fortunately 
as land becomes more impoverished, and pop¬ 
ulation increases, the greater becomes the de¬ 
mand for milk, butter and meat. 
NOTES ON BACK NUMBERS. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
Rural, June 23. —What is the sense of 
establishing arbitrary “ points of excellence ” 
such as color, and especially color of the nose 
in judging live stock (p. 3811) ? The dusky nose 
in Short-horns was tabooed half u century ago 
because it was supposed to indicate a Kyloe 
cross, and yet the same men who still con¬ 
demn the best creature for a tinge of nasal 
smut admit that six crosses on any breed are 
equivalent to full blood. Cun anybody calcu¬ 
late how much Kyloe blood a smutty-nosed, 
Short-horn has to-day • lu my judgment a 
schedule of ‘‘points of excellence” should ex. 
elude all such fancy notions. They are perni¬ 
cious in every way. By the way, who makes 
out these lists, or are they divinely revealed ? 
“W’s” belief (p. 390) that the frost 
sufficiently loosens the soil for plant growth 
precisely corresponds with my observations 
1 have repeatedly got just as good cabbage 
from plants set in the Spring upon uuplowed 
land as upon that which was plowed—in fact 
better. And the old notion that cabbage 
should be “ hoed every morning ” is all non¬ 
sense, at least, on my land. 
The Rural’s Prize Series have all been in. 
structive and practical—redolent of the soil. 
Mr. Earhart’s (p. 391) is very sensible and 
sound, though I am somewhat surprised to 
find a Pennsylvanian saying that Eastern 
fanners no longer hope to make grain-growing 
profitable. I think he is mistaken there. I 
know rich farmers, even in Northern New 
England, who have made their money by 
grain-growing. 
W hat is the use of repeating the stale false¬ 
hood that fairs cannot be made successful 
without horse-racing ? No doubt, as “ Farmer 
(0 ” says, (p. 391) “human nature is human 
nature,” but is that any better argument for a 
horse-race at an agricultural fair than it is for 
a lottery at a church fair { The editor’s reply 
to “ Farmer ” is sound as a nut, and covers all 
the ground. 
Its readers are much indebted to the Rural 
for the series of barn plans it has been publish¬ 
ing. If one is not thinking of building now 
they should be carefully preserved for future 
reference. Without looking back I have an 
impression that they have been all generaL 
purpose barns. Would it not be a good idea 
to give us some horse barns, dairy bams and 
sheep barns 1 
Mr. Richard Goodman may be generally, 
but he is not always right in saying (p. 393) 
that great yields of butter are got only by 
costly feeding and spoiling the cow. Ainasa 
Scott, of Craftsbury, Yt., has got up to nearly 
600 pounds of butter in a year from one cow 
with grass and early (very early) cut hay 
alone. This yield was approximated year 
after year with several cows, which suffered 
no injury whatever. Dea. Clement, of Barton 
Landing, Vt., is" now making 14 to 15 pounds 
of butter a week from one oow ou grass anti a 
very moderate ration of grain feed. Mr 
Scott’s were common cows, the deacon’s a 
Jersey. As it dot's not hurt a fast horse to go 
fast, so it does not hurt an extra butter cow to 
yield a lot of butter. 
The cuts of fruit-gatherers ou (p. 407) are 
timely. I have a simple one of my own de- 
sigu, consisting of a tliree-pint can of heavy 
tin, with a V-shaped notch in one side, the can 
being mounted by n tube below the bottom, 
upon the end of a rake stave. ITpou the edge 
of the notch a shurp steel V-shaped blade i 8 
soldered. A very little practice enables one to 
use this picker very rapidly, a slight turn of 
the wrist taking off the apples one after 
another until the can is full. 
Rural, July 7. —“Better have your hay too 
dry than too wet, says “ Farm Topics ” (p. 422) 
This is the soundest kind of advice. Don’t de¬ 
part from it, if you don’t want to feel cross alj 
Winter over your hay. 
Mr. Parker’s Prize Essay (p. 422) sounds 
genuine and true to nature. His ideas are all 
good, but on saving manure especially so. 
There is where the most of our farmers fail 
worst. Manure, and plenty of it, is the founda¬ 
tion of all success; yet how careless most of 
them are about it. 
Your New York compositors must not put 
“ Brockport” in Maine. My friend, C. G. A. 
of Bucksport, Maine, gives an excellent list of 
hardy apples, (p. 423) but somehow he seems 
to be down on Duchess of Oldenburg, an apple 
that pays me better, twice over, than any 
other kind of its season. It is always large 
and fail', every apple merchantable, aud the 
tree a heavy bearer. The quality is good 
enough for cooking, aud when dead ripe it is a 
very fair eating apple, not inferior to Red 
Astraehan. Allow me to say that Win, P. 
Rupul of Geneva, N. Y., is one of the few 
nurserymen who can supply Yellow Trans¬ 
parent trees that are genuine, in quantity. 
New strawberries keep a-coming (p. 424). 
I have a new seedling myself that “ beats Wil¬ 
son” all out, but don’t you tell anybody. I 
want to say that of all the non-staminates I 
have tried, and they are many, Windsor Chief 
is far the best for a market berry. Man¬ 
chester very promising. Bidwell will not 
ripen over the end in my soil. This is a pity 
it is such a fine berry and so productive. The 
Kentucky is not a very good bearer, and is too 
soft. I think blight ou strawberry foliage is 
increasing everywhere. 
TRAMPS. 
While the vast majority of the hundreds 
of thousands of emigrants of all sorts that flock 
to our shores each year from every country in 
the world scon find employment that gives 
them an honest and honorable livelihood, 
year after year hordes of disreputable old res¬ 
idents filthy iu person, ragged in dress, utterly 
lost to all sense of shame, self-respect, and 
manhood, blot the streets of our cities and 
villages auti render the country roads and by¬ 
ways dangerous to the weak or lonely way¬ 
farer. With most of these laziness, shiftless ' 
ness, sottishness and all the mean, contempti¬ 
ble disreputabilities are chronic and incura¬ 
ble except by a course of compulsory disci¬ 
pline; and then in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred, as soon as compulsion ceases, the old 
habits are sure to resume sway. The reform¬ 
ation of a confirmed tramp is even a more 
hopeless undertaking than the reformation 
of the confirmed drunkard, for, in addition to 
his numerous other vices, the confirmed tramp 
is also a confirmed drunkard, with frequent 
spells of regretted sobriety through lack of 
means to indulge his craving for drink. The 
blear-eyed, truculent rascal, with whisky bot¬ 
tle and cudgel, in the accompanying engrav¬ 
ing, instead of being allowed to change 
hats with the scare-crow, should be com¬ 
pelled to change his whole dress for a striped 
“ outfit” behind prison bare. 
DR. JOHN A. WARDER. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
As I read in a Philadelphia paper last even¬ 
ing, an announcement of the death of Dr. 
Warder, of Ohio, my mind reverted to many 
pleasant memories of that good man. My ac¬ 
quaintance with him was by no means intim¬ 
ate, but it was of a character to reveal his 
extreme kindness and thoughtfulness, which 
in a man whose life was crowded with work as 
was his, was very unusual. Several years ago, 
when I was quite a young girl, and was going 
alone to Kansas, by way of Cincinnati, I found 
upon my arrival at a hotel in that city, that 
Dr. Warder, of whom I had heard Mr. Charles 
D. Bragdon, of the Rural New-Yorker, 
often speak, bad called several times to inquire 
if I had arrived. Mr. Bragdon with his usual 
kindly foresight had written to Dr. Warder, 
asking him to kindly look after my welfare 
during my stay in Cincinnati. It was in the 
month of July, and the weather was so in¬ 
tensely hot that upon the following day, I 
was almost prostrated by the heat, when who 
should call but Dr. Warder, and after the 
first greeting was over, he immediately said 
in his paternal way, * 4 Now my child, I am 
going to take you home with me at once; this 
hot city is no place for you.” The transition 
from the city to his beautiful home at North 
Bend, on the Ohio River, was the most grate¬ 
ful possible, and for several days I was the re¬ 
cipient of a hospitality most cordial, refined, 
and replete with interest. Each day some thing 
was planned for my pleasure, aud I have never 
failed to look back npon that visit with una¬ 
bated surprise that Dr. Warder and his family, 
whose hospitalities and attention must ever 
have been greatly exercised toward a large 
circle of friends, should have accorded to me, 
a stranger, and one to whom they could feel 
under no obligations whatever, such a gener¬ 
ous and altogether exceptional kindness. I 
later renewed my acquaintance with Dr. 
Warder and his daughter.at the World s Fail-, 
at Vienna, to which he was accredited as Com¬ 
missioner. and there his kindness aud thought¬ 
ful help were as generously aud courteously 
extended to me as before—all of which I re¬ 
member with the liveliest gratitude. Dr. War¬ 
der’s home at North Bend, was delight fully 
situated ou an eminence in the midst of a large 
farm. 1 remember w ell one peculiarity of the 
house, its generous amount of room on the 
ground floor, and the unusual number of out¬ 
side doors. His sons, who assisted in the work 
of the farm, had immediate access to their 
rooms from without, which I thought a great 
convenience. There was a large tree near the 
house under which the family sat. and which 
served for the Summer sitting and reception 
boo in—close, c lea u sward under the feet, and a 
charming rauge of landscape for the eyes. 
The walls of the Doctor’s library were lined 
with books, anil in the middle of the room 
stood a large writing table The housekeeping 
was ordered perfectly,with a refined taste and 
quietness, altogether unusual. Dr. Warder 
was devoted to his family of sons and daugh¬ 
ters, then mostly growu; and. to his wife, he 
was passionately attached. However great his 
love may have been for her iu his youth, it 
knew no abatement thereafter, and no one, I 
think could know him without discovering 
the fact that the object of his teuderest care 
and affection, was his wife. 
There was much iu Dr. Warder's nature, 
that was peculiarly delicate and rare. As a 
physician, he instinctively thoughtof, aud ad¬ 
ministered to, the needs of all about him. His 
love for trees aud flowers was thoroughly 
genuine. I think I never saw him without a 
flower in his button-hole. At the time of my 
sojourn at his house, he was interested in a 
locust grove ho had planted for timber to be 
used, I think, for posts. The quick and easy 
growth of locust trees, anil the excellence of 
the wood for certain purposes, iu his estima¬ 
tion made their cultivation very profitable. 
During his stay at Vienna, he especially de¬ 
voted himselt to the methods of forestry in- 
