778 
NOV 24 
ftunxl topics. 
RURAL LIFE NOTES. 
The amount, of ignorance and confusion 
existing among farmers and fruit-growers in 
general inspecting the names and varieties of 
fruits grown, even in their own gardens and 
orchards, is truly surprising. I found a far¬ 
mer in town with a load of very handsome 
Fameuso apples, some time ago. He said they 
were pretty good apples, hut he didn’t know 
what they were. He bad raised them seven 
years, but the labels had been lost. Another 
grower only yesterday showed me what he 
called two kiuds of Northern Spy, aud in 
regard to P ippins 1 find that uine-tenths of 
the farmers are all at sea. They don’t know 
a Newtown Pippin when they see it. As to 
pears, the contusion is still worse, aud down 
through the whole list of fruits there is a 
lamentable and inexcusable amount of guess¬ 
work and carelessness, even among intelligent 
men. .Specimen plates at fail's are wrongly 
marked, and the committee often muddle 
matters still worse iu the effort to set the ex¬ 
hibition right. Now, there are n dozen rea¬ 
sons for all this, most of which are readily 
apparent. An indestructible label is not one 
of them, but a careless disregard for system 
is. Buy only of reliable nurserymen; then 
keep the record accurate either by label or 
map, or both, and all the while keep reading 
up the habits and characteristics of each sort; 
then you will recognize each on sight any¬ 
where. 
Reliable information is wanted m regard 
to the Poeklington Grape. The display made 
by the originator from Washington County, 
N. Y., at the American Institute Fair, was 
certainly very line when I saw it, the second 
week in October. The bunches were immense 
and the berries very large indeed, espe¬ 
cially where they had been slightly 
thinned. Most of the fruit seemed ripe. But 
then- is a very wide diversity of opinion as to 
the value of this much-lauded grape. The 
American Pomological Society came near 
striking it off the list. None on their tables 
was ripe. It is said to mildew badly, drops 
from the stem, ripens late, aud is poor in 
quality at best. Now, if only half of this is 
true of a grape for which printer’s ink has 
promised so much, let us hasten to print the 
fact, and save money and time for hundreds 
of growers. 
Those who have neglected to trim their 
grape-vines up to this time should delay the 
operation no longer. As soon as the leaves 
are off is the proper time. Don’t bn afraid 
to cut away the wood; well ripened grapes of 
good size aud quality are what you want. No 
matter about following anybody's system of 
pruning or training; just take your own ex¬ 
perience, stir iu a little common-sense, to¬ 
gether with a pinch or two ol your own indi¬ 
vidual thought, aud go at it with a sharp 
shears. If, after pruning, you can lay the 
vines on the ground without breaking or 
injury, it may be well to do it, but a respect¬ 
able grape that is worth growing ought to 
stand the Winter without protection. 
A word to thoughtless husbands and others 
to whom the remarks apply: Your wife 
wants that front, sunny window for her 
plants. Don’t object to it, for she is entitled 
to it. Go to work like a man and fit it up for 
her. She wants a capacious shelf or tray se¬ 
cured on a level with the window sill. If you 
can’t make it for her. get some one who can. 
She wants a few earthen flowerpots to replace 
those old tin cans and wooden paint kegs and 
boxes in which she has been obliged to put 
some of her plants. It is your business to buy 
them for her, or give tier the money to do it 
with. Then she needs six or eight flower-pot 
brackets that come for the purpose, to screw 
on the sides of the window casing, having a 
revolving arm. just the thing and very cheap. 
Get them without a word, aud just see how 
surprised she will be. If you see a pretty 
rustic hanging basket, or one of wire, buy 
that also. Take the whole lot home and leave 
the rest to your wife and daughters. If you 
don’t appreciate flowers yourself, keep still 
about it and try to disguise the unfortunate 
fact as best you can You may tie thankful 
to get otl' with such triiliug expenditures: 
you ought iu reality to provide her with a 
bay window for her plants if your house has 
none already. 
The strictures of Brother Green in regard 
to the badly adapted hall provided for the dis¬ 
cussion of the American Pomological Society 
at Philadelphia, by implication, are just and 
well merited. Hearing or understanding a 
speaker in that room above the noisy traffic 
of Broad Street outside, was next to impossi¬ 
ble, and the fact wh» deplored by every mein 
THE RURAP NEW-YORKER. 
ber in attendance. But in view of the court¬ 
esy so generously extended by the enterpris¬ 
ing Pennsylvania Society, it seems a little 
hard to find fault now; and yet it is well to 
profit by the mistakes of the past. Let us ex¬ 
onerate everybody in Philadelphia and say no 
more about it, trusting that our Michigan 
friends will take warning for 1885. It is iu- 
deed a grand thing for the fruit-growers and 
pomologists of this great nation to get to¬ 
gether aud compare notes, grasp each other 
by the hand aud talk over the experiences, the 
successes aud vicissitudes that have been on- 
countered iu this most pleasant and honorable 
pursuit. Each returns to his garden bettor 
equipped for future efforts, and the world is 
benefited thereby, is once in two years often 
enough for such a gathering ? 
A cup holding a third of a quart was filled 
with 01 of the new Marlboro raspberries this 
Summer. It took 180 of the native variety to 
fill the same space, and then the former were 
the heavier. The Marlboro plants are not yet 
offered in the general market Mr. Caywood, 
the originator, reports other new seedling rasp¬ 
berries of promise, but none have been fully 
tested as yet. The list is pretty full already, 
but there is always room for improvement. 
The unreliable and worthless sorts should be 
thrown out, or if kept in stock by propaga¬ 
tors the defects should be clearly indicated in 
their catalogues, that planters may not be 
misled. h. h. 
Shcqi i)nsbaiitinj. 
CHOICE ENGLISH SOUTH DOWNS. 
A. B. ALLEN. 
Soon after his death, in the year 1861, Mr. 
Webb’s estate at Babraham was closed up and 
his stock sold off. As little has been heard of 
his sheep since, or descendants from them, 
the general opinion has beou entertained in 
the United States that they were so widely 
scattered, and that so little attention was t aid 
latterly to t heir special breeding, that no flock 
now remained of them in England which 
equaled their pristine excellence. I am highly 
gratified, therefore, to see an account of a 
flock of them by a Correspondent of the Lon¬ 
don Field, which is kept up by Mr. Henry 
Webb, the eldest son of the late Mr. Jonas 
Webb, at Sfcreetly Hall. Linton, six miles from 
Babraham. his father’s residence when alive. 
The reason why so little is known abroad of 
his flock is that he has never exhibited at the 
annual shows of the Royal Agricultural or 
other Societies, or made any public notice of 
them, because, I suppose, he has had a con¬ 
tinual private demand at high prices for all 
he wished to sell of his breeding. Mr. Henry 
Webb commenced his own flock at Streetly 
Hall four years previous to the death of his 
father, by select,iug some of the choicest speci¬ 
mens from his father's flock. This he was 
enabled to do wit h more certainty, as during 
that time he had the superintendence of the 
sheep, the entry of tlicir pedigrees, and the 
matching of the males and females. The 
London Field says that, at the sale at Babra¬ 
ham in 1861, Mr. Henry Webb bought 80 of 
the aged ewes, the full character of which, 
both in regard to their breeding capacity and 
pedigree, he well knew. He also bought eight, 
rams of suitable relationship to the ewes he 
then purchased and to those lie had pieviously 
possessed at Htreetly Hull. It was in this way 
that his present flock was founded, and it may 
as well be said at once, that not a single sheep 
of other stock has since been introduced to 
tlie Babraham flock. 
I visited Mr. Jonas Webb iu July, 1841, to 
purchase some of his sheep. At that time he 
informed me that, when first beginning to 
breed for the purpose of improving the flock 
then in his possession, Le looked over numer¬ 
ous other flocks in the country, and selected 
such sheep from them as suited his purpose. 
Rarely since had he gone out of his flock for a 
ram or a few ewes, and when he did, it 
was usually to the flock of his landlord, Mr. 
Adeane. or his brother, a short distance from 
him, whose sheep were substantially the same 
as his own. This being the case, Mr. Henry 
Webb’s sheep ha ve been bred in line for about 
thirty to forty years part, 
Ills flock is Htnuli compared with that of his 
father, varying, according to seasons, from 
£10 tei 250 breeding ewes, and eight to 10 rams. 
The pedigree of each of these is registered in 
such a way as to show at a glance which ewes 
and rams are closely related, and which are 
further removed in relationship. He is 
thus uble to avoid too close breeding, and 
keep up the size, constitution, thrift, and 
admirable style and superior form of his 
iheep. His present young animals vary but 
little iu appearance, and are pronounced re. 
markable for their size, uniformity of I'nuPB 
and color. 
All the leading breeders of South Downs in 
England have latterly availed themselves of 
the use of Mr. Henry Webb’s rams, and the flue 
character of their flocks is now due mainly to 
the stock got by those rams. Some of the 
Shropshire and Hampshire breeders also have 
heretofore made use of these males to some 
extent, and perhaps may occasionally still do 
so. But as to this I am not informed. 
The farm of Htreetly Hall embraces 550 
acres, and has been in the Webb family for 
four generations, or upwards of 150 years. It 
is highly cultivated by the present occupant, 
and produces all in abundance that is necessary 
of grass, grain, and roots, to keep up the stock 
in excellent condition. What is called the 
four-course system is generally pursued there, 
which rather adds to than detracts from the 
fertility of the soil. Mr. Jonas Webb’s sys¬ 
tem of farming was something the same, he 
informed me, when I visited him at Babraham. 
Various 
“ ROUGHNESS.” 
PROFESSOR J. W. SANBORN. 
“Roughness” with us is a term to cover 
the coarse animal foods of the farm. Restrict¬ 
ing its use to coni fodder and straw for this 
article, we still find “roughness” to cover 
material wealth of vast proportion, yet sadly 
neglected by your Western readers. The va¬ 
rious causes that have served to restrict the 
margin of profit for Winter fattening here have 
Rerved to lift into view as “roughness” cattle 
food possibly profitable to handle. This State 
still burns some straw in the stack and feeds a 
very heavy proportion of its corn Codder, that 
is fed at all, on the spot of its growth. During 
the past Winter I have seen immense areas of 
standing corn fodder in the process of being 
trampled out or down, after being stripped 
of a few of its leaves, by the stock wandering 
over it. A rough estimate' only can be made. 
On such an estimate I should assume that 60 
per cent., certainly, of the corn fodder of 
Missouri is not utilized as stock food. 1 pre¬ 
sume that the great corn-growing States of 
the West, as a whole, fail to use over 40 j>er 
cent, of their “roughness” as food. I most 
seriously mistake the rapidly maturing move¬ 
ments of this country and the development of 
its live stock interests, unless the period is 
near at hand when the proportion of “rough¬ 
ness ” utilized will be greatly aud profitably in¬ 
creased, rts utilization will admit of a vast 
expansion of the amount of live neat stock 
kept., aud will continue for a longer period 
tliuD some have estimated this country’s 
ability to produce beef at moderate rates. 
With the abandoument, iu part, of the extra¬ 
heavy whole corn fattening rations that have 
led many among us to affirm that Winter fat. 
toning now carries but little profit, for moder¬ 
ate Wiuter feeding, along with consumption of 
“roughness” and clover for early pasture fat¬ 
tening we may hope for greater profits. 
Last year the group of four neighboring 
States, Missouii, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas 
raised ©30,814,100 bushels of coni. If we allow 
80 pounds of stalks per bushel of corn, we have 
27,862,504 tons of fodder. Admitting 60 per 
cent, .loss, we get 16.717,588 terns. When pro- 
peiiy handled, this amount of fodder is capa¬ 
ble of carrying through Winter 12,000,000 
steers weighing 800 pounds each at the start 
and more at the close of Winter. This is for 
four States alone, aud is for more cattle than 
are at present kept (within their borders. In 
this estimate no account is taken of the straw, 
which would swell very much the big figures 
given, as every bushel of wheat grown means 
about 100 pounds of straw. Very likely, to 
many thri will souiid like office calculation 
adapted to amuse amateurs. Many of the 
readers of the Rural well know that I have 
had years of special experience with these 
foods. From this expeiieuce I assert that 
there is value in these foods, and that there is 
a way of obtaining it practically. When it is 
necessary and prominently desirable to obtain 
it, it will lie done. It is iu this direction that 
eyes arc being turned, for the hour is near at 
hand, is at hand, when it should be better 
cured for. It will be observed that its full, or 
nearly full, consumption is estimated. This is 
figuring from experience, not ignorance. Ma¬ 
chinery is now iu the market that makes it all 
available. No one will understand me as 
teaching its immediate, full consumption, but 
it is toward this standard that I would have 
the Western readers of the Rural move 
The ijeculiurities of our cropping, the domi¬ 
nance of coni, the cost of nitrogenous foods 
here, all tend to make clover the most avail¬ 
able food to feed with our “ roughness.” Our 
soils need it tin- clover It is more profitable 
than corn for sale, aud if its growth diminishes 
the area of corn, it need not Its amount. With 
fodder prepared and fed with clover a gum 
can be made without grain. This gain will 
inei’ease, as with other x-ations, when gi'ain is 
given. It is uot on the ranches that the price 
of beef is long to be made, nor can they dap¬ 
ple the beef interests of the corn-growing 
States materially. 
Ag’l College, Columbia, Mo. 
WERE THE VARIETIES TRUE TO NAME ? 
Mr. C. M. Pai-sons, in No. 1,761, wi-iting of 
his expeinments with corn, says of Chester 
County Mammoth: “The ears are not what 
they were the first season. They resemble 
those of the common j'el low corn, but have 
larger kernels, etc., etc. Has the character 
of this variety so changed during three year-, 
and if so, how does be account for it 'f Being 
a 16 to 20-rowed vaiiety, with kernels indent¬ 
ed. it would seem to have lost its identity 
completely if it. l'esembles the common yeliovv 
sort, wliich is a variety having fi'orn 8 to 12 
rows, with smooth, hard kernels. He also 
says: “The Early Canada comes next, but I 
don’t call it early. The stalks grew about 10 
feet high. The yield was good; the ears were 
the largest of all the varieties I raised.” He 
surely could uot have had Early Canada Corn. 
It ripened later than Chester County Maxxi- 
moth (one of the latest kinds), grew 10 feet 
high, and had ears longer than Waushakum!!! 
W ho ever saw Early Canada Cora answering 
this description ? J. m. g. 
Boston, Mass. 
[Evidently there is some mistake here.—E d.] 
THE EYE-OPENER, 
There is a lot of rascals all over the coun- 
try, who seek to swindle the unfortunate. 
These appeal to the credulity of the consump¬ 
tive, the rniseiy of those toi'tured by cancer, 
the hope of the semi-blind and the discomfort 
of the deaf. They px-omise speedy cures in 
glowing terms, often assuming the title of 
clergymen or the name of a “company.’’ 
The Dentaphoue Company of Cincinnati ex¬ 
tensively advertises a device for the relief of 
the deaf. The humbug relieve® them not of 
their “ infirmity,” but of their money. 
Williams <Sr Co..”of Detroit, Mich., advertise 
“The Mystic Language of Spanish Origin,” 
which anybody can leara in an hour, without 
the possibility of ever foi'getting it. It is a 
universal language, and * ‘ the best thing fox' 
secret societies ever invented.” “Price of the 
Illustrated Instructive Edition,” 80 cents. 
The miserable concern is housed in a little 
cottage, which in its advertisement it styles 
the NicholsoD Block. It is a humbug aud a 
fi'aud. _ 
I am glad to see the Rural is still publish¬ 
ing the “Eye-Opener,” and trust it may be 
the means of keeping money in the pockets of 
people who have more need of it than the 
unpi'iucipled swindlers who are sendiug broad¬ 
cast, alluring advertisements in order to get 
the money of honest., ignorant or innocent 
people. 
1 am rejoiced to see these “electrotype” 
swindles exposed. Never was a greater swin¬ 
dle imposed upon poor people in seai'ch of 
honest work If the post-office officials were 
as prompt and officious in this fraudulent use 
of the mails as they have been in some other 
cases, it would be well for the community at 
large. 
J. Rutland & Co., of Boston, stand promi¬ 
nently iu the list of electrotype dealex-s, and 
they “sti’ongly advise you to send to G. Hop¬ 
kins, 81 Exchange Street, Boston, who will 
send you a full and complete outfit of eveiy- 
thing that is required for making our beauti¬ 
ful pictures, upon receipt of 82,” There is 
another concern, at Providence. R. I., who 
advertise under the name of the “Hope Manu¬ 
facturing Company.” A recent advertise¬ 
ment of theirs iu Harper’s Young People was 
of “ a new style of dolls for little girls.” Dolls 
“eight inches long wit h banged hair and blue 
eyes ” “Two of these dolls, with dresses, aud 
nu illustrated book of fifty pages, sent for 15 
cents,” These dolls arc made of heavy paper 
with a half dress of thin paper, and the book 
is an illustrated catalogue of their “good-for- 
nothing” trash, the whole not worth five 
cents, and mailed from the post-office of 
“Pomham," the State being indistinct on the 
stamp. w. V. A. 
REMARKS.— There is no post-office named 
Pomham iu the United States. We beg all 
our readers to send ns full accounts of any 
swindles practised or tried upon them through 
means of advertisements in tin* press or cir- 
eulars through the mails, as well as by glib- 
tongued agents or canvassers. Let each re- 
xnembor that by taking a little trouble iu this 
way he may save many others from loss, and 
also battle the swindlers who tried their tricks 
on him—a very justifiable forai of revenge. 
We will do our share iu exposing six fix rascals, 
but inasmuch us cur doiug so might easily 
subject us to suits for libel, etc., we wish in 
each case to get FULL particulars, and we 
would like to receive copies of the advertise 
ment or circular wherever possible, 
