760 
NOV 47 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Conducted by 
ELBKRT B. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row. New York. 
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1883. 
Several lots of the Ki offer Pear have 
been sent, to us by friends—or enemies— 
we don’t know which. These pears are 
handed to visitors to oat, and notes arc 
taken of what, they say as to the quality of 
this great pear. 
-- 
The Rural New-Yorker from now 
until January 1st, 1885, for $2.00. Post¬ 
ers, premium lists and extra copies sent 
to all applicant s without charge, and with 
the RuraL’h thanks for the interest shown 
by their applications. 
Mu. Charles Downing writes to us— 
his notes should be precious to our readers 
—that Clark’s Prolific Apple has now 
been 20 years in bearing in Iowa, and has 
proved itself an iron-clad, and is worthy 
of propagation for growth, bearing and 
quality. He has eaten it several times, 
and knows if to be good. It originated 
with W. G. Clark, Albia, Iowa. 
-» ♦ ♦- 
Whether oats arc heavy or not depends 
upon the land on which they are grown. 
Oats raised on poor land may weigh only 
28 or 80 pounds to the bushel, while the 
same variety raised on rich land may 
weigh 40 pounds, or more. Did you ever 
raise line apples on trees growing in a 
starved-to-death soil ? Well, oats are just, 
as much the fruit of the oat plant as ap¬ 
ples are of apple trees. 
■ ■ 
We are very glad to receive such letters 
as the following: “ The number of my 
paper is 1,761. As no paper arrived this 
week, 1 suppose you have dropped me. 
This is out of the question, and to prevent 
sueh accidents for some time to come, I 
inclose $10 for four years’ to tin? regular 
address, L. Palleske, Suffema, N. Y., and 
one year to Ilenry Feuner, Hicksville, 
Long Island. lie ought to rend the paper, 
and sending it for one year will make him 
read it forever. I think this is the best 
way to procure the ‘ new subscriber’ I 
owe the paper itself. I wish I had read 
it five years ago. 
“Sufferna, N. Y. “l. palleske.” 
Thai milk readily absorbs odors and 
emanations from substances with which 
it comes in contact, and also atmospheric 
impurities is well known, though the fact 
is often lost, sight of. it is well, there¬ 
fore, to refresh the memory of our read 
ers now and then with regard to this 
matter, winch is important, not only as 
regards profits in the dairy, but also as 
regards health ou the farm and among 
its customers; for the germs of disease 
are absorbed by milk with great readi¬ 
ness. In a case in this city some time 
ago, milk was kept in a loosely covered 
vessel in an ice-box which was connected 
with the sewer, and the connection was 
not properly trapped. The milk ab¬ 
sorbed the sewer gas and caused an out¬ 
break of typhoid fever. A remarkable 
outbreak of the same disease occurred 
lately in one of the most populous dis¬ 
tricts of London, and the epidemic was 
traced by the sanitary inspector to a single 
dairy farm, where the wooden pails used 
to hold the milk were washed in water 
that became contaminated by leakage 
from a cesspool. At Port. Jervis, New 
York, there is now an outbreak of the 
same malady, and 5(5 out of the 75 peo¬ 
ple attacked, have been supplied with 
milk from one farm where there have 
been several cases of the disaese in the 
farmer’s family. A late investigation in 
Dundee, Scotland, proved conclusively 
that scarlet fever was spread among a 
number of families by milk which had 
been kept a few hours in the bouse of 
the milkman some of whose family were 
suffering from the disease. Carelessness 
in regard to this matter is criminal. 
■ - » » » 
ABUSES UNDER THE LAND LAWS. 
In his annual report, telegraphic ex¬ 
tracts of which are before us, Commis¬ 
sioner McFarland, of the General Land 
Office, recommends the repeal of the pre¬ 
emption, timber-culture, and desert-land 
laws, and the amendment of the home¬ 
stead laws so as to require proof of actual 
residence and improvement for a period of 
not less than two years, instead of the six 
months now required, before a homestead 
entry can be commuted by cash payment. 
The investigalions of the special agents of 
the Land Office, for whom the last Con¬ 
gress made an appropriation of $100,000, 
demonstrate what had long been known— 
that the grossest, forms of dishonesty and 
rascality have been fostered by these laws; 
that through them millions of acres of the 
choicest parts of the public domain have 
been fraudulently appropriated by wealthy 
lain! -grabbers,individuals, and companies; 
and that under them opportunities for 
frauds are practically unlimited. The 
reports show that in no part of tin- West 
have these opportunities been neglected 
by scoundrels who are land-sharks by pro¬ 
fession, and who have the assistance of 
United States officials, for “ every land 
office in the country is surrounded by a 
ring of those sharks and ad venturers,” 
who act in collusion with men in the office 
to embarrass and swindle bona-fide settlers. 
Under the pre-emption laws millions of 
acresof the public domain have, been taken 
up and improved by actual settlers, but for 
some time these laws have ceased to protect 
the settlers, and have become the support 
of dishonest attorneys, middlemen and 
agents of capitalists, who either steal the 
land for their employers or hold it on false 
or frivolous pretexts, so that bona-fide sel¬ 
lers cannot get possession of it without pay¬ 
ing them a large price. Honest pre-emptions 
are now rarely made, but millions of acres 
are entered fraudulently by men employed 
by persons who wish to obtain large landed 
estates. The agents of these make entries 
on newly-surveyed land, alleging residence 
long anterior to the survey, and the land 
is patented before an opportunity is had 
to discover the facts and prevent the con¬ 
summation of the illegal entry. As soon 
as the title is secured, it is transferred to 
the land-grabbing capitalist. The reports 
show that valuably lands in whole ranges 
of townships in certain districts have been 
entered in this manner, where the land 
bears no evidence of settlement at any 
time, but is held as portions of large es¬ 
tates. Tn the “ urid regions” in New 
Mexico, Arizona. Colorado, Wyoming, 
Utah and California, by fraudulently pre¬ 
empting in this way the few scattered 
“water holes,” springs and rivulets, or 
arroyas, thousands of adjacent acres of ex¬ 
cellent grazing land have come into the 
control of speculators and plunderers, the 
most, unscrupulous of whom are English 
operators. In Southeastern Arizona and 
Southwestern New Mexico it Is estimated 
that 18,000,000 acres have been stolen in 
this manner; ami though alien monopo¬ 
lists, under llie law, cannot “ hold, occu¬ 
py or possess” the public domain, either 
as farm, grazing, timber or mining lands, 
yet it is estimated that in Southern New 
Mexico alone there are over 8,000,000 
acres of grazing lands, with their “water- 
hole” pre-emptions, under the control of 
two syndicates of English capitalists, who 
feel so secure of their plunder that, they 
have placed large tracts of it on the Lon¬ 
don market. 
The repeal of the pre-emption laws will 
not injure actual settlers, for the home¬ 
stead laws will still remain, amended, it 
is to be hoped, so that it will be difficult 
to use them as a cover for such frauds 
as have made the pre-emption laws a 
curse instead of a blessing. The House 
of Representatives last Winter attached 
to the Sundry Civil Bill an amendment 
providing for the repeal of these laws; 
hut. the amendment was rejected ny the 
Senate, though I he Chairman of (he 
House Committee on Public Lands do. 
dared that nine-tenths of the pre-emption 
entries recently made were fraudulent, 
and involved perjury and corruption. 
The desert-land and timber-culture 
laws have tended to the encouragement 
of monopoly rather than the encourage¬ 
ment of reclamation. The restrictions 
and limitations of both are flagrantly 
violated, in practical operation it has 
been found that they enable land-grab¬ 
bing monopolists to acquire vast areas of 
tile public domain without settlement 
through the medium of entries made by 
persons hired for the purpose. They 
should certainly be either repealed or 
greatly amended. The Government should 
use all efforts to assist and protect the 
actual settlers on the public land; hut 
it should show no mercy to perjurers and 
thieves; yet the evidence of perjury and 
theft in thousands of cases has been 
secured, and in hundreds of cases it has 
been published, yet the guilty rascals go 
scot-free, and their accomplices in office 
are seldom disturbed. In spite of occa¬ 
sional prosecutions, ninety-nine hun¬ 
dredths of them escape punishment, and 
nine-tenths of them retain their plunder. 
WHICH MUST GO—THE DRONES OR 
THE WORKERS ? 
In a letter to the London Times the 
other day, Sir John B. Lawes puts the 
yearly consumption of wheat in the Unit¬ 
ed Kingdom at 202,640,000 bushels, and 
the production lliis year—m which he 
considers there has been a full average of 
28 bushels per acre- -at 70,000,000 bushels 
beyond wlmt is needed for seed for next 
crop. Thus, according to this estimate, 
Great Britain and Ireland’s production of 
wheat, “even m a favorable year, is only 
equal to a little more than one-third of 
the quantity needed for t he people’s food.’ 
In a recent address before one of the Eng¬ 
lish agricultural associations, Mr. Walter, 
proprietor of the London Times, stated 
that during the year 1882 England im 
ported $540,000,000 worth of meat, hut 
ter, eggs, poultry, wheat, and corn; 
$46,000,00(1 worth of live animals to be 
converted into meat, and $1510,000,000 
worth of wheat-flour, and corn meal. 
All this was in addition to the heavy 
shipments made direct to Scotland and 
Ireland. Although the yield of wheat 
per acre in the United Kingdom this year 
may be an average one, the aggregate 
production must be much less, some hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of acres of the best 
land having passed out of cultivation 
during the last twelvemonth, owing to 
the refusal of farmers, impoverished and 
discouraged by a series of bad harvests, to 
pay the rents demanded by the landlords. 
It. is, therefore, quite likely that the 
importation of foodstuffs will he heavier 
this year than it has been of late, and con¬ 
sequently that the outflow of money will 
be greater. Germany and Belgium have 
lately become formidable rivals of Great 
Britain in the manufacture of iron and 
steel, one of Great Britain’s greatest and 
hitherto most profitable industries. Busi¬ 
ness in the blast furnaces, foundries, and 
rolling mills of the “ Black Country,”amt 
the machine shops of the Kingdom is 
comparatively dull, and reductions of the 
hours of work und of wages, and con¬ 
sequent strikes of workmen are threaten¬ 
ed. The woolen mills of Yorkshire and 
the cotton mills of Lancashire are yearly 
encountering fresh competitors in all part’s 
of the world. Even in India, China, and 
Japan the expediency and profits of 
“home manufacture” are becoming ap¬ 
preciated, and experiment - arc under way 
that, are likely ere long to gr. ally curtail 
the enormous trade England has for gene¬ 
rations controlled in those countries. The 
“balance of trudo,” it is true, is Hlill in 
favor of England—she still receives every 
year from the rest of the world more for 
her manufactures than -lie. pays to the rest 
of the world for her raw materials—but 
how lung will this state of things continue 
with energetic rivals springing up at her 
door and progressive competitors under 
selling her in her most distant, markets, 
while the constant increase of population, 
due to natural causes, and the constant 
decrease of cultivated land, due to a per¬ 
nicious system, render a greater outlay for 
imported foodstuffs iudisperisible year 
after year? 
Mr. Walter was quite right in saying 
that the perpetually decreasing production 
of foodstuffs ill the Island reveals an 
alarming statewof things which demands 
a remedy; and the remedy he was unable 
to propose wa,-, put forcibly forward by Mr. 
Labouehe.re in a late issue of his paper, 
Truth. A great reduction of rent he 
considers only a temporary makeshift; he 
advocates the abolition of landlordism in 
England as heartily as Parnell advocates 
the abolition of landlordism in Ireland. 
In many cases where mils have already 
been reduced one-half, it has been found 
impossible to get tenants; hence he lias 
come to the conclusion that land in Eng¬ 
land will not support “a lazy landlord, 
neither toiling nor spinning, a farmer who 
has to obtain interest, on the capital he 
employs, and laborers whose wa.es are 
derived from tlm produce.” He thinks 
there will henceforth be men no rich that 
they can afford to be landowners; “but 
the system of landlord and tenant is 
doomed” in the British Isles, “although 
very probably its disappearance will be 
gradual.” The spendthrift and improvi¬ 
dent farmer “ who lives as a countiy gen¬ 
tleman, who hunts, and whose daughters 
are brought up for ornamental purposes, 
will follow the landlord and the dodo,” ac¬ 
cording to the opinion of this shrewd 
Radical leader. It will be hard for those 
who have to go; but what single general 
advantage has not entailed a thousand in¬ 
dividual hardships ? 
Small farmers, peasant proprietors, will 
ultimately take the places of the departed 
drones, and petite culture —the raising 
of vegetables, poultry, etc.—as practiced 
now on the small farms of France, will 
afford a comfortable and independent 
livelihood to the tillers of the soil, and 
Englishmen will no longer be surprised 
to find “ that in general farmers occupy 
their own farms,” a sight that pleased 
and astonished Lord Chief Justice Cole¬ 
ridge during his recent visit to this coun¬ 
try. The drones, not the workers, 
must go. 
-- 
BREVITIES. 
In F D. F’s article upon the “Benefit, of 
Superphosphate” in our Issue of October 27, 
in the experiment with potatoes, the quantity 
applied should be one tavt('spoonful instead of 
a teaspoon l’ul. 
Chicago Fat Stock Show, Are you, read¬ 
er, going to attend the Fat Stock Show ? Dr. 
Loriug’s Convention of Stockmen ? The Swine 
Breeders ’ Convention ? The meeting of the 
Norman Horse Association i 
Our friend Mrs. Waley writes: “I send yon 
some seeds of Zinnias that measured 151 inches 
from outside to outside, measuring over the 
convex center, and some of them were two 
and even three distinct colors at that.” 
Russia, fair most formidable competitor in 
the wheat markets of the world, has been 
under great disadvantage through inadequate 
transportation and storage facilities Some 
of our enterprising country men. however, 
have just induced the Council of the Empire 
to sanction iu principle n Busko-A merican 
scheme for the erection of elevators and store¬ 
houses throughout the empire. 
The Kansas City Live stock Indicator, 
whose editor is lion. F. D. Coburn, was the 
tirst, to subscribe funds for the support* of the 
National Fat Stock Show at Kansas City. 
Mo., says now the plainsman and Western 
stockmen iu a flay cun see and learn more of 
the differences in breed* and quality, ami the 
real value of improved blood than is possible 
for them to do in a lifetime at home, 
The quality of potatoes depends upon the 
conditions in which they are raised, in a great, 
measure. There me few kinds that will cook 
dry and mealy that have been raised in wet 
soil. Our largest yields have been made in a 
mellow soil, where the crops seldom suffer 
from drought,, ami that is so well drained 
that they seldom suffer from Phi much rain. 
But the quality is never so good ns that, of 
those raised upon a light, leachy. sandy soil. 
True tirst annual fat, stock show was opened 
at Riverside Fork. Kansas City, on November 
1, and dosed on the 8th. Entries were made 
from over a dozen States and from Canada, 
A street parade of animals on the second day 
of the show nttiacted much attention, the 
Aberdeen-Angns polled cattle, which were 
preceded by Scotch pipers playing loudly on 
the bagpipes, being special objects of admira¬ 
tion. A telegram tells us the show was a suc¬ 
cess in all respects. 
As strong drink takes its way through the 
world, darkening the light, on the hearthstone 
and in the household, breaking marriage 
bonds and snapping heart strings, leading the 
Ixjy to the gallows and the girl to the scarlet 
house, covering the grave with shame and the 
bridal hour with infamy, weakening the body, 
destroying the mind, and damning the soul, 
surely evil spirits grin and chuckle as they 
creep through the fires Infernal and angels 
press, with tear-stained faces, nearer the 
throne. 
Like the Legislature of several of the other 
States, the last Connecticut Legislature 
passed a law requiring each dealer in oleo¬ 
margarine to post tn a conspicuous part of his 
store the sign “Oleomargarine for Sale Hero” 
io letters not less than four inehes long. Con¬ 
necticut people are famous for Wing law¬ 
nhiding citizens, hut they are still more 
famous for being the cutest of Yankees, and 
both I hese characteristics have been illustrated 
in the way some Hartford dealers obeyed the 
provisions of the anti-oleomargarine law. 
They put up signs with letters of the required 
length, hut. so thin that they couldn’t be read 
without the a id of u magnifying glass. 
A telegram from Chicago informs us that 
a contagious disease, known by the name of 
“swell-head,’ - has hern discovered among the 
cat,tie in the dockyards there The first,.scien¬ 
tific examination of tin's disease in this conn 
try was made on Wednesday, under the direr 
tion of the United States’ Treasury Cattle 
Commission, who decided that it whs caused 
by microscopic plants which lodged in the 
teeth. If the disease extends to t he jaws, it 
UKUully pr oves fatal. It is claimed that it can 
he communicated to man. These cases will 
bear close watching, and if it be contagious, 
as is claimed, it. will be well for the ( ommis- 
sionors to keep ca refill guard overall cases, and 
spare no efforts to effectually suppress the dis¬ 
ease at the outset. 
No sooner has the International Agricultu¬ 
ral Exhibition at Hamburg closed than ar¬ 
rangements are begun for another Interna¬ 
tional Exhibition to be held at Amsterdam, 
The official programme lias just Wen distrib¬ 
uted to Uie Chambers of Commerce through 
out the country by the Stale Department at 
Washington. The fair will be field by the 
I biited Netherlands Agricultural Associations, 
from August 25 to September 6, 1884. It is to 
include horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, butter 
cheese, preserved milk, bee-keeping, theoreti¬ 
cal and practical agriculture, and ‘ everything 
relating to farming operations in general.” The 
patron of the exhibition is His Majesty, the King 
of the Netherlands. The Representative Com¬ 
mittee of the Netherlands Agricultural Asso¬ 
ciations is composed ol delegates from the 
Holland, tile Friesland, the (ieldorlund, the 
I ireclit, the North Brabant, the Netherlands, 
(lie Zealand, the Graringen, the Limburg, the 
Drontho and the T won to ho agricultural, b< 
tunicul and cattle-breeding associations. 
