AUG 2© 
578 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
very large and rich; he will find the old place 
too narrow for his father, his brothers and 
himself. He will be too ambitious to work as 
a hired man, and will surely seek some new 
place, or go into some business that will en¬ 
able him to buy a good farm of his own; so 
that the farmer with an ordinary sized farm 
and family may safely conclude that his sou 
goes away for good—that the college walls 
will hide his “boy” forever. If he ever comes 
back to locate permanently, it will be because 
he fails to support himself. 
Most farmers are ready to give their boys a 
good chance. I have beard many a man 
use these very words,“I had a bard time when 
1 was a boy; I feel the need (though I don’t 
like to own it) of the culture and power that 
a good education could have given me. I am 
bound that my boy shall have the best train¬ 
ing I can give him.” I will venture to say 
that the sons of such men never equal their 
fathers iu moral worth and influence. Tne 
father, in his zsal to help his boy, too often 
overlooks the real elements that worked to 
bring about bis own success. He places too 
littlestress upou the strong, practical, common 
sense that must be gained by rough experience, 
and which no co'lege course can supply. Ex¬ 
perience has convinced me that most boys are 
sent to college before they are old enough to 
know what an education means. A boy under 
20 years of age must play, and do a great 
many foolish things. If be did not do thus, 
he would not be a boy. It is pretty expensive 
sending a boy away from home simply to 
“have a good time,’' and many of our college 
undergraduates have no other perceptible 
ambition in life. No man can tell what he 
can do till he is at least 30 years old. A fact 
gained after one is 25 is worth a dozen gained 
before one is 20. The man who reaches any 
real prominence in any business with un¬ 
whitened hair is a monstrosity. Too many 
country boys are sent into the world with 
what we may call a “running start.” They 
are taught from their earliest childhood to 
believe that farm life is mean and degrading. 
They are trained for some profession as a 
driver of a fish wagon would train a race 
horse. The world knows the result—briefless 
lawyers and murdering doctors, who live on 
the “old folks.” Unless the farmer wants to 
get rid of his son, the young fellow should 
never be allowed to go to college till he knows 
what h6 goes there for. It would be a good 
plan if the boys could be given to under¬ 
stand that they could have all the education 
they are willing to pay for themselves. Any 
smart boy over 15 years old is worth more 
than his board and clothes. Why not pay 
that boy fair wages, and tell him he can have 
that money when he is 20, to put himself 
through college. If there is anything in the 
boy that needs an education, he will work for 
it. If he ha-not enough ambition to make his 
hand 3 develop his head, he never would have 
ambition enough to use his education. If 
every boy could be thus given to understand 
that his education must represent so much of 
his own muscle, there would be fewer colleges 
iu this country, but a great many more really 
educated meu. Now a word to the boys. 
Never give up. If you really feel that a sound 
education will make you stronger and better, 
and not make you feel ashamed of your par¬ 
ents and bringing up, have it, if it takes you 
a life time to earn it. If it is going to make you 
ashamed of your parents or your home, never 
go near it at alL college graduate. 
Calf Feeding.— Prof. Henry, of the Wis¬ 
consin Experiment Station, has been making 
some experiments in calf feeding. His little 
pamphlet contains much practical informa¬ 
tion. Would that more farmers could see 
these reports! These experiments were made 
in view of the fact that dairy goods command 
a lower price than for years past. Farmers 
are giving up exclusive wheat growing and 
starting into dairying. At the outset the 
question is asked, bow can we dispose of our 
skim-milk to best advantage/ With too many 
farmers, skim-milk is regarded as swill, to be 
put out of sight in the easiest way possible. 
A prejudice has always existed in the minds 
of many farmers against a calf raised on skim- 
milk. In many dairy districts it is hard to 
find a good, home-raised, yearling heifer, the 
majority of the calves being killed at less than 
four weeks old. The object of Prof. Henry’s 
tests was to show that calves can be profit¬ 
ably raised on tkim-milk if only proper care 
be taken in feeding it. Six calves were fed 
from six to 11 quarts of sweet skim-milk 
daily. The calves were fed three times per 
day. The milk was warmed to 98 degrees 
Fahrenheit, Besides the milk, the calves were 
supplied with oats, bran, oil meal, hay and 
silage all or a part of the time. Oats were 
the staple grain. Scouring was checked by 
the use of lime-water, a tablespoonful of which 
was put into each feed when the calves were 
young. The calves were kept in basement 
aud barn in about the average farm comfort. 
They gained 1,544 pounds in 21 weeks—an 
average of 12 pounds each per week. Prof. 
Henry deduces a few maxims from his ex¬ 
periment. Feed skim-milk lightly. More 
calves are killed by over-feeding than by under¬ 
feeding. Feed three times a day. Never feed 
milk colder than 9S degrees. Use the ther¬ 
mometer in the milk. Make lime-water by 
putting a lump of lime into a jug of water 
and shaking. Feed it for scours. An egg 
stirred in the milk, and parched flour are fine 
remedies. Teach the calf to eat whole oats 
by slipping a few small handfuls into its 
mouth just after it has finished drinking. 
Let, the horses go without oats rather than de¬ 
prive the calves when young. Keep each 
calf tied by itself. If the flies are bad darken 
the stable. Don’t let the little fellows run out 
into the hot sun. The little grass they get 
will not compensate for the blood sucked by 
the myriads of flies. Old ideas concerning 
calf raising must be put away. There is as 
much of an advancement to be made iu that 
branch of agriculture as in batter or cheese 
making. 
Experiments in Cattle Feeding.— Prof. 
F. A. Gulley, of Mississippi, has beeu con 
ducting a series of experiments in cattle feed¬ 
ing, that ought to be worth thousands of dol¬ 
lars to the farmers of that State. Probably 
no product of the Southern farm has been 
rated as low as cotton seed. Years ago it vi as 
actually thrown away, dumped into the rivers 
to get rid of it. Every farmer and planter in 
the cotton belt knows that cattle will eat cot 
ton seed, yet few appreciate the real value of 
the total seed crop. Prof. Gulley’s experi¬ 
ments were conducted with a view to finding 
out something of the real value of this seed as 
compared with corn and other feeding stuffs 
Two ordinary steers in poor condition were 
housed aud carefully fed all the well boiled 
cotton seed and hay they would eat. No other 
feed, but oat straw, was given. These steers 
were fed for 56 and 49 days respectively. The 
average gain per day was 4.64 and 4.89 
pouuds. Cotton seed was worth 30 cents per 
100 pounds and hay $10 per ton. The average 
daily ration was about 14 pounds of cotton 
seed and 11 pouuds of hay. The gain in 
weight cost two cents per pound. Two other 
lots of steers were fed to determine the com¬ 
parative feeding values of cotton seed aud 
cotton-seed meal. Silage and hay were fed 
with the seed and meal. Five steers fed on 
cotton seed gained 672 pounds at an average 
cost of 3.18 cents per pound. Four steers fed 
on cotton-seed me. l gaiued 635 pouuds at a 
cost of 8.22 cents per pound. The entire pro¬ 
fit of the experiment, allowing manure to 
balance labor, was $76.46. These experiments 
ought to provide much “food for reflection” 
for Southern farmers They certainly show 
that stock growing and feeding, added to the 
cotton planting, will enable the farmer nearly 
to pay the cost of growing his erop from a 
product that is now considered, of small value. 
The introduction of this braucb of husbandry 
will necessitate the building of sheds or 
stables and other comforts for stock. At 
present, during the Winter or rainy season, 
the Southern planter is obliged to remain 
idle, while his expenses go on as usual. Stock 
feeding will provide employment for his 
workmen, and produce a supply of much 
needed manure. It looks as though the real 
value of the cotton plant had not been fully 
discovered yet. It is possible that cotton will 
come nearer the throne than it ever has be¬ 
fore. 
At Memory’s Gate.— Thurlow Weed pos¬ 
sessed a wouderf ul memory. It was a product 
of his own perseverance. He cultivated it 
himself by carefully reviewing his own actions 
and thoughts. It was his custom for a long 
time to run over in his mind every night the 
events of the day or week. In this way he 
became able to locate dates or facts. Memory 
is the most sensitive portion of a man’s make¬ 
up. We want to prick it with a few sharp 
pins, It is too hot for a long essay on psycho¬ 
logy, but see if these few points don’t show 
yon how the memory can be cultivated. Have 
you put that tar on the noses of the sheep? 
Have you got the mower back in the shed 
where the rain cau’t hurt it? Have you got 
that hammock up? Do you wash down the 
horses’ legs? How do you keep the flies away 
from the cows when you milk? Did you kiss 
your wife when you came In to dinner the 
other day and saw bow hot and discouraged 
she looked ? Do you tell the children a story 
before they go to bed? Do you take off your 
coat and vest, and roll up your sleeves when 
you sit down to supper? Have you got a 
clover-patch for the pigs? Have you got 
something picked out to take to the fair? 
Have you cleaned up that back yard? Are 
the turnips in? Will the wood pile last till 
Winter? How often do you salt the cattle? 
These few questions will do for a first lesson? 
Points from the U. S. Dairyman.— We 
are glad to note the fact that no sigu of a 
panic to sell good dairy cows for a song has 
seized on the farmers because butter and 
cheese are cheap.Don’t send mission¬ 
aries to the “ wilds of Africa” while there are 
thousaudsof farmers in the country who plow 
and sow every year on stony hills without 
manure, the sowing of clover seed, or the 
keeping of stock.It is pretty danger¬ 
ous business at the present for the thieving 
farmer to water or skim his milk.The 
modest old cow with her products of milk, but¬ 
ter, cheese, and progeny is still the “sheet 
anchor” of the farmer.The biggest 
falsehood the farmer suffers himself to believe 
is, that it does not pay to keep the cow in good 
heart and flow of milk by feeding her meal, 
cut feed, or something out of which she can 
make milk .Push for either milk or 
beef. You cau’t make anything at raising 
bones or hide’. _ 
Many Different Names for the Same 
Thing, — Mr. W. J. Green, of the Ohio Ex¬ 
perimental Station, says the old Philadelphia 
Extra-early Pea has about as many aliases as 
there are seedsmen. He has twelve Extra- 
Earlies from as many different seedsmen, and 
each with a different name and in no respect 
are they sufficiently unlike to make distinction 
possible. The pods from 25 plants of each 
wore couuted and weighed, and the uniform¬ 
ity was remarkable. The seedsman who sells 
one of these may claim that he is selling a 
good thing, aud hence he does not cheat any¬ 
body; but we think that when a person pays 
a high price for a mere name he feels like 
calling himself a fool, and the seedsman a 
scouadrel, and his feelings are not verv differ¬ 
ent from those of others similarly situated, 
We hope the Stations will go to calling names; 
a little wholesome exposure of such practices 
would do good. By all means give us the 
names. 
Wisdom in Buying Hay. —Waldo F. 
Brown says, in the Indiana Farmer, that 
when he sees a farmer buying hay, he thinks 
there is a screw loose somewhere. We think 
so too, but we always locate the loose screw 
in the head of the farmer so foolish as to sell 
the hay. We know hundreds of farmers who 
are so alraid of buying hay that they will 
scrimp and half starve their cattle for weeks 
before turning out time. We never could 
see any reason for disliking to buy hay, any 
more than bran, oil-meal or other feeding 
stuffs. On the contrary, we never hesitate to 
buy all the hay we can gat at such a price as 
to be able to get back nearly its whole 
cost in feeding, and have the resulting 
manure (which if made from clover hay, is 
worth nearly as much as the hay costs), for 
use on our fields. We have bought hundreds 
of tons of hay, and expect to buy hundreds 
more and think we can make no better invest¬ 
ment than to buy good, green-cut, well-cured 
clover hay at $8 or $10 per ton. Wo can get 
nearly, or quite, that much money out of it 
in feeding, aud then it is worth two-thirds 
that amount as plant food. And then it is a 
hundred times more sensible to buy hay than 
to starve the stock 1 
Prof. A. J. Cook corroborates the experi¬ 
ence of Mrs. Maple with Buhach, which ap¬ 
peared under Domestic Economy two years 
ago and since. He has found pyrethrum very 
excellent to destroy the bouse flies. It is so 
easily done, he says, that his wife for the past 
season has not only killed these pests in her 
house, but has done the same for several of 
her neighbors. To kill the house flies it must 
be thrown into the room iu the form of line 
dust. There are kept in the drug stores all 
over the country, little dust-blowers thatserve 
admirably for this purpose. We have but to 
blow the dust out of the little dust-blower 
four or live times and leave the room, which 
had better be tightly closed. We usually do 
this just as we are about to retire. Iu the 
morning the flies ure all lying on the floor, 
dead or helpless. As this first paralyzes the 
insects, causing them to fall to the floor, and 
as some will after hours recover, it is well to 
sweep them all up and throw them into the 
fire. This need not be done till morning. He 
has fouud that pyrethrum may be used in 
the same way to destroy the annoying mos¬ 
quitos. 
Dr. Crudelli, of Rome, gives the follow¬ 
ing directions for preparing a remedy for 
malaria, which may be worth trying, as it is 
said to have proved efficacious when quinine 
had given no relief. Cut up a lemon, peel and 
pulp, in thin slices, and boil it iu a pint aud a 
half of water until It is reduced to a half pint. 
{Strain through a linen cloth, squeeze the 
remains of the boiled lemon, and set it aside 
until cold. The entire liquid is taken fasting. 
— ■■ HI ■ - — 
FULL AS A TICK. 
Auguste Vitu, the dramatic critic of 
Figaro, who knew Victor Hugo intimately, 
quotes him as saying: “Those who flatter 
themselves that they see God under a certain 
definite figure, aud who confine Him with a 
dogma, are rash; those who deny His existence 
are fools. That is my profession of faith; and 
this God, whom I do not know, I adore with 
all the force of my intelligence aud reason_ 
The English Agricultural Gazette says 
how often do we not hear it said, “I have left 
off eating or drinking that, for I so seldom 
get it good. I can never now get the thiug I 
ask for.” This is especially true of dairy pro¬ 
duce; and it ought to have some weight with 
us to know that, as every failure helps to spoil 
the general market, so every maker of good 
butter aud cheese helps all the others in the 
trade... 
The same journal, in speaking of silage, says 
it is now certaiu that silage—either sweet or 
sour, preferably the former—will be a consid¬ 
erable feature iu tbe farming of the future. 
It may not be going to lift agriculture out of 
its depression, as some of its most enthusiastic 
supporters maintain. It may not be destined 
to take the place enthusiasts declared it 
would—that is to say, it will not supersede 
hay-making to any appreciable exteut, but it 
will be serviceable in districts wholly grass, as 
providing succulent food in Winter. 
Why not give the hens a test, you people 
who have no Jersey cow? See how many eggs 
you can make the hens lay. See what food is 
best for them. See what treatment they like 
best..... 
Speaking of the present method of shoeing 
horses, Mr. S. Stone says suppose that in a 
family made up of father and mother, sons 
aud daughters, and hired men, all should be 
required to wear the same style of thick soled 
shoe. It might do for the men with very 
heavy work, but the lightfooted women would 
be apt to rise in insurrection against cow¬ 
hides, while the boys would sing in Summer, 
“Give us a rest from any shoes at all.” So 
shoes that are suitable for some horses are un¬ 
suitable for others, and are simply clogi for 
them. 
J. B. OlcOtt says: “Show me a dirt-bur¬ 
dened town that has the energy left to cleanse 
its streams and wrest itself from the grip of 
filth, and I will show you a town that may 
double its population aud grand list within 10 
years”....... 
The Rocky Mountain Husbandman is in¬ 
clined to look at the bright side of life. Brains 
are coming to tbe frout, it says. Tne time is 
coming when the brightest boys will be pre¬ 
pared for the farm, while the family fool will 
be educated for a lawyer or sent to Congress, 
Speed the day, say we!. 
Mr. J. M. Smith wants the Ohio State 
Board of Agriculture to offer a premium for 
best “general-purpose cow,” opeu to all pure 
breeds. Tbe award is to be based on milking 
quality, beef qualities, hardiness, docility, 
and general adaptation to farm wants. Mr. 
Smith proposes to enter a Red Foiled cow. 
Why should not such a contest be a good one? 
In breeding horses, says the Rural Califor¬ 
nian, keep the trotter out of your head. Trot¬ 
ters make mortgages. The good, well built 
farm horse is like cash..... 
The Stocktn&u gives the following “sum”’ 
in arithmetic to be worked out by farmers. 
A scrub bull costs $40; a good thoroughbred! 
bull of one of the beef breeds cost $100. Let 
the calves from both animals be handled in 
the same way, and at one year old the half- 
bloods will be worth at least $8 each more 
than the scrubs. Does a farmer with 15 cows 
gain or lose by using a fine bull?. 
The same paper says that American farm 
papers are dirt cheap, a circumstance which 
alone should insure them double the patron¬ 
age they now enjoy. 
The farmer’s wife is the true butter-maker 
of this country. The creamery people do 
most of the talking, but the “Goddess of the 
Farm” does the work.... 
You are morally responsible for the bad 
smells, while carbolic acid and chloride of 
lime ure at present prices. 
Towards his corn the farmer feels as to 
wards no other crop, says the Ploughman. 
There are poetry uud music iu the corn field. 
The light,regular stalks form a pleasant place 
for tbe eye to rest. The wind tears music out 
of the leaves as it sweeps through. 
The same paper says that there would be 
a tremendous rattling, if business men should 
follow many of our farmers, aud rush out of a 
certain line of their work as soon as 
trade gets a little dull. This is something for 
[ sheep meu to think over.... 
