HO* 24 THE RURAL NEW-YORKER.' 
BUYING YOUNG STOCK. 
* 
Among Western farmers it is a common 
practice to invest considerable money every 
Fall in young stock. Young calves from 
four to eight months old sell for a really high 
price—for considerably more than they are 
worth at the ruling market, prices per pound. 
A young, thrifty steer calf six months old 
will sell readily for $14 to $16, while if 
butchered and sold at the common market 
prices it would not bring more than six or 
eight dollars. Young mules at wouuing time 
readily sell at from 686 to $5U. This, at. first, 
sight, looks like a very high price: but that 
the business is profitable is shown by the fact 
that our richest farmers made their money in 
this way, A young calf that can be bought 
for $15 can be wintered on wheat straw and 
com fodder with a very little corn. If 
properly sheltered and cared for during the 
stormiest weather, next Spriug, as a yearling, 
it will be worth $‘45, and after that its value 
rapidly increases. It can be kept grazing all 
Summer on the pastures and stock fields, and 
will make the owner more money than any¬ 
thing else, if we except mules. It takes, of 
course, more capital to buy any considerable 
number of young mules at $40 or $50 apiece, 
but when these mules are two years old and 
are broken to lead they will sell for $100 
apiece, and if they are broken to work they 
will fetch something more, while when three 
years old, if well broken to work, they will 
briDg from $145 to $175, the amount de¬ 
pending, of course, upon size and form, and 
whether they are well matched. There is, of 
course, very little risk iu this kind of busi¬ 
ness, and the animals can he wintered on 
straw and fodder to a considerable extent, 
though of course some gram is fed during the 
Winter, but during the Summer they can live 
and thrive in the pasture, and iu this case the 
cost is not very great. Young men who want 
to make a start for themselves will invest 
what they have saved up either in calves or 
young mules, and iu this way increase their 
capital easily and rapidly, and at the same 
time learn to judge by the form and looks of 
stock what the probable outcome will be. 
Miller Co , Mo. n. j. shepherd. 
NOTABILITIES AT THE CHICAGO FAT STOCK 
SHOW. 
Mr. Stahl’s conclusions, expressed in an 
editorial note in the issue of October 37, from 
the fact that the Illinois State Board of Agri¬ 
culture has invited distinguished officials to 
deliver addresses during the Fat Stock Show 
at Chicago this month, seem not well founded. 
The previous Fat Stock Shows have certainly 
been fairly successful, without outside attrac¬ 
tions as a rule. I eaunot see anything to be 
ashamed of in invitations to the Commissioner 
of Agriculture and the Governors of States 
contributing to a great, agricultural display, 
to be prasent at the openiug of the exhibition, 
and to say a few words of commendatiou and 
recognition of one of the chief interests of each 
of these States. As the show is to be held in a 
building, occupying at least half the room, it 
would not bo practicable to have horse racing 
except in “circus style,” so I cannot think the 
ommission of races proves much, especially as 
at the late State Fair uuusual attention was 
given to racing. 
The attraction at this show is the display of 
marvelously good stock The Board deserves 
hearty praise for instituting und developing 
the Show. Governors of Western States 
whose chief industry is agriculture, may welj 
attend it and th a National Convention held 
to devise means for the prevention of disease 
amoug our animals. 1 hope also to see the 
Editors of the good Rural personally ex¬ 
pressing the interest I know they feel by be¬ 
ing in attendance. g. e. morrow. 
fbrkitllitrul. 
CARNATIONS. 
These are among the sweetest, prettiest, 
aud most esteemed of garden flowers, and 
have been so for hundreds of years. Shak- 
speare says, by the mouth of Ferdita: 
•' The fairest flowers o’ the sea»ou, 
Are our Carnations and streaked Glllltlowers.” 
Diauthus Caryophyllus is the botanical name 
of the Carnation, and from this species have 
proceeded our Clover Pinks, Pieotees ami Car¬ 
nations. Those are divided into three classes, 
namely—Bizarres, Flakes and Pieotees; but 
they are, nevertheless, all varieties of one an¬ 
other. Indeed, seeds saved from one plant 
may produce Carnations of the three sorts. 
Bizarre* are those in which the ground work 
of the petals is white aud striped with two 
colors, one darker than the other. Flakes are 
striped with only one color—rose, scarlet or 
purple. Pieotees are not striped, but have 
their petals edged with purple, rose, red or 
scarlet. But. from a packet of seeds you may 
get a goodly variety of all, and some so indefi¬ 
nitely penciled, striped and edged, as to be 
disqualified in either of the above sets, and to 
be rather a mixture of all. 
These Carnations are raised from seeds sown 
at any time—but preferably in Spring or early 
Summer—in pots, boxes, cold-frame, declining 
lioUbed, or in a shady, protected plot in the 
open garden. They germinate in two to three 
weeks aud should be pricked off when they 
come up a little and then transplanted to a 
warm, open place in the garden. Any good 
garden soil that is well drained will suit 
them. They will not blossom the first 
Summer from seed, but will be at their best 
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O M. p G± ip 
da 
p p p p p p 
hi o o ltd jMl 
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Ground Plan of Country School-House. 
769.) 
in the next Summer. The young, or first- 
year plants, are hardier than old ones, and 
many, especially Paisley Pinks, are hardy 
enough to survive our Winters out-of- 
doors, A mulching of leaves or sedge 
grass over the ground and some spruce or 
pine branches over the plants afford the Car¬ 
nations a goodly protection. Where the ground 
is low or damp or the situation cold, it would 
be well to winter them to cold-frames. 
They are also propagated from slips taken 
from the sides of the plants and treated as cut' 
Winter flowers, and which can be cultivated 
and flowered so easily in our windows in Win¬ 
ter. There is a numerous variety of them, 
but florists mostly confine themselves to the 
most profuse and profitable, as Pres, de Graw, 
white; Snowdon, white; Peter Henderson, 
white: La Puri to. carmine; King of the Crim¬ 
sons, crimson; Peerless, white striped with 
pink; and Astoria, white, fringed with yellow 
and scarlet.. They are increase 1 from cuttings 
struck any time during WiDter—say between 
October and April—the point being to get 
nice, well-rooted plants to set out in Spring. 
Planted out about the end of April in rich, 
well pulverized soil, and in rows nine by twelve 
inches apart, and the ground about them kept 
clean and well cultiva¬ 
ted duringSuminer they 
should make nice,stocky 
plants for next. Winter’s 
blooming. They will be 
apt to throw up flower- 
spikes during the Sum¬ 
mer time, but these 
should all be pinched off 
till September, when 
they may be allowed to 
grow. Early in October, 
lift and pot the plants 
and insert a firm stake 
to tie flower scapes to, in 
each pot. Keep them 
partially shaded for a 
few days, but let them 
otherwise be to an airy 
place. Florists who grow 
them in quantity plant 
them out on benches as 
they do bouvardias and 
violets. In the Winter 
months keep them in 
light, sunny windows 
where the temperature 
is not very warm or dry. 
and give them lots of 
water. 
Towards Spring, if 
their vigor flags, lay 
them aside to make room 
for bulbous or other 
Spring flowers; but by 
_ judicious care they 
Fig. 681. (See Page S “, blwui ^ceasing- 
y tiJI the hpriog opens. 
Then, if you have se¬ 
cured a good stock of young plants, you can 
throw away the old ones; but if not, you can 
plant them out as before and let them blos¬ 
som to the Summer time as much as they want 
to, as two-year-old plants are not as good for 
Winter blooming as one year-old plants are. 
We present to our readers a group of three 
Carnations in Fig. 6S3. 
tiffin) ijusImnDr 
*11 
- iu 
Carnation Group.—From Nature. Fig. 
tingsare generally, or by layering the grow ths 
say in July or the first fortnight of August. 
By October these layers will have been rooted 
aud may bedetached, planted thickly in n oold- 
frtune or in pots out-of-doors. 
Only the monthly Carnations are of any 
avail for blooming iu Winter. Certainly, the 
Summer sorts can be forced iuto bloom, but 
they do not submit to it kindly or satisfactorily. 
The Monthly or Perpetual-blooming Carna¬ 
tions are those so much grown by florists for 
MILK SETTING. 
ii hen we go to church and murmur 
in tlie usual rnauuer, with much pro¬ 
fessed humility, that we are "misera¬ 
ble offenders,” we don’t look across to 
our neighbors and apply the remark 
to them, or to ourselves, although we 
might, perhaps, do the latter with 
some justice. And when l remarked 
in regard to Mr. Lehtnau's article on 
the subject of milk settiug, that, there 
are no unavoidable odors, taints, etc., 
in the dairy, and that it was to the 
man and not to his dairy that these 
things exist, 1 mentioned two great 
truths, but yet without specially ap¬ 
plying what I said to any lierson. 
The want of perfect cleanliness is the 
great drawback iu the dairy, and per¬ 
haps there is but one other, and that 
is irregularity of temperature. If 
every butter-maker could avoid these 
two faults there would be no laid but¬ 
ter made. Unfortunately cleanliness is 
a sense, and a sentiment as well, and 
some persons have uo conception of it. 
1 have made some enemies by telling 
this to some persons iu the way of 
business, for which 1 was very sorry, 
but the truth had to be told. I have 
been consulted several times by owners 
of costly herds of Jersey cattle, who 
could not dispose of their butter. 1 
well remember how exasperated one 
man was to whom 1 said there should never 
be any ueed to draw a knife through the 
butter to take the hai>*s out. "How should I 
get them out 1 ” said he. “ They should 
uever be iu the butter,” I replied, aud he 
could not comprehend how that could pos¬ 
sibly be, or how it was possible to avoid hav¬ 
ing in the butter black specks of dirt which 
were picked out with a knife during the work¬ 
ing. I was really sorry to point out these de - 
fects because I saw the man really did not 
774 
comprehend, and when, after drawing his 
knife through the butter, he licked off that 
which adhered to the knife to taste it, and at 
once used the knife again to remove more 
hairs, I thought it was a hopeless case to try 
and explain to him what cleanliness was. 
I hope Mr, Lehman will believe me when 
I say that this is not applied to him in the re¬ 
motest way, but is narrated as an illustration 
of my statement that it is in the man and not 
the dairy that the faults exist, for this hap¬ 
pened in the dairy of a wealthy owner who 
spared no expense to get thmgs right. "It is 
in ourselves aud not in our stars that we are 
thus and thus,” was once said by a deep ob¬ 
server of human nature, and it is a great 
truth which may be profitably applied to the 
dauy. 
The poorest cellar may be as clean as a new 
pin. I have traveled a good deal and have 
seen a good deal. I hare seen a cellar on a 
half-bred French-Canadian’s farm in the back- 
woods that was perfectly clean and neat, and 
the milk in the pans was as pure as that to 
Queen Victoria’s Dresden china pans on the 
marble slabs of her dairy. I have seen a milk 
cellar in the rear of a dug-out in Kansas 
beautifully clean and the shelves covered with 
newspapers scalloped at the edge. I have also 
seen milk pans put under the bed in close con¬ 
tiguity to quite a different utensil, in a room 
where the family Sat and dressed themselves, 
and some slept, aud this was in Pennsylvania. 
But it is unnecessary to multiply instances 
further. What I say here, or at any time in 
the Rural, is uot intended as personal affronts 
and sneers, but honestly as an attempt to 
make what 1 have learned, through more for¬ 
tunate opportunity, perhaps, of general bene¬ 
fit and of use to whomsoever it may be. Cer¬ 
tainly there is need for the truth to be told. 
It is true, as Mr. Lehman observes, that 
these things are all about us. but they are all 
of our own making. A farm need be no less 
cleau than a garden. But it is not true, as he 
also observes, that a cellar in which milk is 
set in small pans cannot be kept pure from 
what he calls "these annoyances.” viz., bad 
odors, taints, etc. There we differ, and I ask 
the many good housekeepers who read the 
Rural, and sometimes favor its readers with 
their experiences, if 1 am not right. If Mr. 
Lehman truly believes otherwise, and knows 
of many owners of filthy cellars, let him try 
to get them to read the Rural, and see how 
soon the appearance of the cellar would 
change. Nor does a creamery itself insure 
cleanliness. Generally those who use these 
appliances have learned how to use them, but 
there are people who have used them without 
success because they would not keep them 
clean, and any one who will keep a creamery 
clean will keep pans clean. Any 06 the 
creameries is a great advantage for its con¬ 
venience, but it will uot make a man clean 
who is naturally otherwise. Lastly, I would 
say that whether the milk is kept in small 
paus or iu deep pails, if it L kept quite pure 
and clean, aud the right temperature is main¬ 
tained through all the processes, aud the but¬ 
ter is not over-ehurued, aud is freed from all 
the buttermilk, and is properly salted and 
packed, one man can make as good butter as 
another, aud just because the creameries are 
better able to observe all these points, they 
excel the farm dairy butter in quality. 
H. STEWART. 
£ljc IHnnjanX 
THE POCKLINGTON GRAPE. 
I have had fruit from the Poeklington 
Grape upon two or three young vines the past 
seasou, and have seen no reason to change my 
opinion or estimate of it, except in the one 
point of earliness. I find it is a later ripen- 
iug grape than l expected, and considerably 
later than had been represented, unless * ’about 
with the Concord” means at least (wo weeks 
later, for it was fully that length of time after 
the Concord in maturing. This would be a 
matter of much importance in northern sec¬ 
tions, aud tenders it unsuitable for all places 
where the Concord ripens with difficulty. The 
clusters were of only medium size, the berries 
large, flavor rather better to my taste than 
that of the Concord, although it has some of 
the "native aroma” popularly called foxiness, 
both iu taste tind smell. It is quite attractive 
in color when fully ripe, bei ug a deep sulphur 
yellow; a little firmness in the pulp and 
tenacity of the skin render it, I think, the 
best shipping grape, as well as the longest 
keeper in fair eating condition of any grape 
of the Concord family. Iu general habit, and 
iu the character of both wood and foliage, it 
is much like Concord, but has not been, with 
me, quite as vigorous in growth. For all lo¬ 
calities where it will ripen perfectly, I believe 
it will prove a satisfactory and useful variety, 
1 as it appears to possess the requisites of health, 
