598 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
SEPT 5 
THE 
RURAL NLW'YORKER, 
ANational Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Conducted by 
E. S. CABMAN, 
J. S. WOODWARD, 
Editor. 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 5 1885 
We have just dug two more lots of 
potatoes grown in a rich soil infested with 
wire-worms. The potatoes were entirely 
free from scab. The seed-pieces (covered 
■with soil) received, as did the others, a 
dusting of flowers of sulphur. 
Prk8. Marshall P. Wilder writes us: 
“I was glad to see your description of the 
Russian Mulberry. I have two trees which 
are like yours, but the fruit is not so 
large as the common raspberry and is of 
little use while we have the raspberry and 
the strawberry. I received 6ome Jewell 
Strawberry plants from Mr. Augur, which 
are the finest I ever saw at this season of 
the year. This must prove to be a good 
acquisition.” 
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The New England Homestead is to be 
congratulated on the late accession to its 
editorial staff. It has hitherto been one 
of New England’s most ably edited papers, 
and if, as is said to be the case always, its 
editor has hitherto been only half a man, 
now that he has secured his other half, it 
must be better than ever. Editor Myrick 
is the man to he congratulated, in having 
secured the better half, in the person of Miss 
Elvira L. Kenson of San Francisco,which 
he did in Philadelphia on the loth inst. 
We wish her and him and the paper a 
long life, and a useful one! 
The Rural New-Yorker has dis¬ 
tributed a number of different varieties 
of field orn, all of them valuable in 
many ways—the Blount’s for its produc¬ 
tiveness; the Rural Ensilage for its loDg 
ears and great amount of leaves, etc. 
But we have apparently failed in one re¬ 
spect,viz.,earliness. Among the kinds test¬ 
ed this season is one that we believe will 
really ripen in 80 days, if not plauted too 
early. It was planted May 13, and was 
glazed August 18, and the early season 
was quite unfavorable. Besides earliness, 
it has several other strikingly valuable 
qualities. We propose to make this one 
kind of our next Free Seed Distribution, 
if we can get enough seed, which at this 
time seems probable. 
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We realize that the substantial increase 
in the Rural’s circulation this year, not¬ 
withstanding the close times, has been 
largely due to the individual efforts of our 
very good lriends. We fully believe we 
have more and warmer friends than any 
paper was ever lilessed with, and we can 
not refrain from publicly thanking them 
for what they have already done; and at 
the same time hoping and believing they 
will not forget to push our claims in the 
future. The desire to largely increase 
our circulation is not altogether selfish, 
as we, above all things, wish to have the 
means to greatly improve the Rural for 
next year. Were we able to do so, it 
would work to the good of all and thus 
benefit all. It rests with our old friends 
to say whether we shall have such an in¬ 
crease as will justify the improvement? 
What say they? 
--- 
The Special Fertilizer Number next— 
20 Pages. 
A WORD TO OUR FRIENDS. 
Kind friends, in order to assist you in 
extending the circula'ion and usefulness 
of the Rural New-Yorker; from this 
time till the end of the year, we will, 
for $2.00, send the Rural from the time 
tlie subscription is received to Jan. 1st, 
1887, giving every subscriber who applies 
the Free Seed Distribution, which we 
hope to make more valuable than ever. 
Not to discriminate against our old 
subscribers and friends, any one of them 
may renew from now till Jan. 1st, 1887, 
on the same terms as above, and may send 
the Rural for his unexpired term as a 
present to any friend whom he may name. 
So now, dear friends, let each send us 
along his own renewal, and for several 
months make some friend glad. No 
doubt, many of them will become sub¬ 
scribers, subscribing through you, and 
thus you will receive both their thanks 
and outs, and the name* will count to¬ 
wards a premium also. Please also call 
the attention of your friends to the merits 
of the Rural, and, if possible, get them 
to subscribe. 
Iu order to pay you for your interest 
in our behalf, we are preparing a premi¬ 
um list, that, for liberality and good offers, 
will excel any we have ever before issued, 
and which cannot fail to pay you for the 
work you may do for your favorite paper. 
May we not count on your active aid? 
ENSILAGE IN ENGLAND. 
Sin J. B. Lawes, in a private letter, 
from which we take the liberty to quote, 
says that to oblige an enthusiastic friend 
he* planted three acres of corn, and placed 
a person in charge to keep off the rooks. 
But they came one morning before three 
o’clock and cleared off the whole. “How¬ 
ever,” the letter continues, “corn will 
never be grown much in this country. I 
still think that in corn you have a crop 
more suitable for ensilage purposes than 
any crop which we can grow. We can 
not keep the land free from weeds with¬ 
out roots; but with corn you can smother 
all your weeds. At the present time (July 
30) I am placing into my silo a green oat 
crop standing about five feet high. I 
leave a few acres to ripen, and I shall then 
feed one against the other. We have had 
two dry seasons—this one especially dry 
—and I should think one-half the silos 
are empty. The matter has really been 
taken up by the landowners who have 
been compelled to farm their own land, 
and, as far as I can judge, the tenant 
farmer does not take much interest in the 
question. Mv experiments have been 
carried out with a good deal of care, aod, 
as far as they go, place the matter fairly 
before the public. Next year I shall prob¬ 
ably repeat some of them.’ 7 
Tn another part of the letter he says: 
“You should sow your nitrogen earlier— 
not later ou. Sow while you are prepar¬ 
ing the land for corn, and before you 
plant. I sow my barley manure at the 
end of February,* except with unusual 
quantities of rain. There is but little loss 
from drainage after February, "ion may 
lose the effect of the manure for want of 
sufficient water to carry it down to the 
roots.” 
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THE GRADUAL EXHAUSTION OF OUR 
SOILS A SERIOUS MATTER. 
No country was ever blessed by Nature 
with a more productive soil. She made 
the best possible use of the long ages 
prior to the settlement of this country by 
white men, in forcing the most luxuriant 
growth of vegetation, and by its decay 
and that of the annual crop of foliage, bad 
filled the soil with an amount of fertility 
that seemed exhaustless. So thought our 
fathers, and so think now many of the 
occupiers of the great and fertile West. 
But a continual taking out and putting 
nothing back would exhaust even the 
oceau. It has exhausted the millions of 
acres of the older East, and it will exhaust 
the most fertile fields of the West. A 
study of the census must convince any 
searcher that the production of all our 
crops is y'ear by year growing less and less. 
It cannot be attributed to a ebaoge of sea¬ 
sons for a series of years, but can be only to 
one cause—the gradual exhaustion of plant 
food by our unthinking and unwise 
course. 
This subject of husbanding the re¬ 
sources of our acres, and of returning to 
our starving fields those elements of plant 
growth quite or nearly exhausted, is year¬ 
ly forcing itself more prominently upon 
the attention of the farmers of at least the 
eastern half of our country, aud the line 
is very rapidly extending westward. 
Millions of acres that once produced mag¬ 
nificent crops of the various grains, even 
west of the great lakes, are now lying 
vacant, or barely paying for the most 
shiftless cultivation. This question can¬ 
not be seriously considered too soon, even 
by the farmers on the now rich and pro¬ 
ductive prairies west of the great rivers. 
Every train that, passes eastward is 
loaded with a portion of their fertility, 
much of it in the crude and baiely remu¬ 
nerative state of bran, oil meal and the 
coarser grains and, to the shame of the 
farmers, even in the bones of their 
animals, while the returning trains carry 
back nothing m the nature of plant food. 
Though Western farmers may think 
they have no need of such knowledge, 
they should not fail to thoroughly post 
themselves, and those farmers who do so 
and who take advantage of this knowl 
edge, will by and by be looked upon as 
the “lucky ones” who have the richest 
farms in the vicinity in which they live. 
We say these things because the uext 
Rural New Yorker will be devoted to 
a full and careful consideration of this 
subject, and should not fail to be pre¬ 
served, read, re-read, and carefully stud¬ 
ied by every man and woman who owns 
or cultivates an acre of land, or who sub¬ 
sists upon the products of the soil. It 
will be a veritable storehouse of fertilizer 
knowledge! Should you desire any of 
your friends to have a copy, furnish us 
their names on a postal card and it will 
be gladly sent. 
THE “COLD WAVE” AND THE CROPS. 
TnE weather during the past week has 
been rather peculiar for the season. A 
terrible cyclone ravaged the South At¬ 
lantic coast, venting its utmost fury on 
Charleston, S. C., but doing a world, of 
damage elsewhere also. What with 
“worms” and the injury by this terrible 
storm, sea-bland cotton will, it is report¬ 
ed, not be over half a crop, while a great 
deal of injury has been also done to corn 
and cotton along the coast from Florida 
to North Carolina. Late last week, or 
early this week, most parts of the country 
were visited by heavy rain-storms, often 
accompanied by high winds; while bene¬ 
fiting some crops, these did a good deal of 
damage in places. They were followed 
by a cold wave which rolled over the 
country southward and eastward from 
that notorious weather factory, Man¬ 
itoba, trom which it started last Monday, 
This extended over the whole of Canada 
and the Northern States and south as 
far as Southern Kentucky and Virginia, 
light frosts being reported from several 
places in the Old Dominion, especially 
from the high lands in the southwest. 
Grave apprehensions were at first felt in 
all the great produce markets that frosts 
had done a grpat deal of injury to grow¬ 
ing crops, especially corn; but telegrams 
from all parts of the threatened section, 
received here last evening and this morn¬ 
ing, are of a very reassuring character. 
As was to be expected, the cold was se¬ 
verest in Manitoba; where a temperature 
of 25 degrees is reported from several 
places. In Northern Minnesota the cold 
was also rather severe, the thermometer 
having fallen to 27 degrees at St. Vin¬ 
cent last Mondav morning; a stiff ice was 
formed and vegetation was killed. Far¬ 
ther south the cold wave was, as a rule, un¬ 
attended by frost, and where frost fell it 
was too light to do any injury except 
occasionally to tender garden crops. 
Condensed specimens of this morning’s 
telegrams read thus:—Winnipeg, Mani¬ 
toba:—Heavy frosts early in the week 
throughout the Northwest Territory; 
fears that this year’s yield will suffer 
severely, adding to the miseries and 
troubles of settlers. St. Paul, Minn.:— 
Reports of light frosts in northern part of 
State and Dakota: little injury to crops, 
too far north for corn. Yankton, Dak.:— 
No frosts hereabouts; lowest range of mer¬ 
cury 45 degrees. Oskosh, Wi».:—Only 
very light frosts; no damage whatever. 
Frosts heavier 50 miles north; but 
damage to crops light. Milwaukee, 
Wis.:—No injury from frosts hitherto 
reported from any place in this State. 
Davenport and Keokuk, Iowa.:—No 
frosts yet. Crops excellent. Lincoln, 
Neb.:—No frosts in this State, ex¬ 
cept a little touch on the uplands in the 
northwestern extremity. No damage to 
crops reported. Rock Island. Ilf.: No 
frosts; lowest temperature, 47° last Wed¬ 
nesday. Such is tlie general tenor of tele¬ 
grams from the Northwest. Here are 
specimens of reports not so favorable from 
points much farther south: Huntingdon, 
Pa.: Snow fell last evening in Clearfield 
County; weather now extremely cool. 
Staunton, Va.: Heavy frost last night. 
Gardens and late corn badly damaged. 
GRAPE NOTES CONTINUED. 
Aug. 2ft. Amber (Rommel), foliage 
healthy, Elvira (Rommel), thick leaves. 
Bunches small, rarely shouldered, very 
compact—that is, the berries are crowded. 
Is beginning to ripen. Entirely free from 
rot or mildew. Faith (Rommel), foliage 
healthv; bunches small; berries small; am¬ 
ber color: nearly ripe at this time; juicy, 
vinous, and pure; seeds too large. Pearl 
(Rommel), foliage healthy; leaves thick; 
medium size; bunches small, not shoulder¬ 
ed ;free from rot or mildew. Transparent 
(Rommel), foliage healthy; petioles and 
tendrils reddish; is not yet in fruit, 
Dempsey’s SeedliDg or Burnet, foliage 
healthy. Owosso (?) (Goodhue), foliage 
healthy; not yet in fruit.. 
For comparison at this date, we may 
say that Concord grapes are perfectly 
green and hard. Florence and Cottage 
ripening; the bunches of the latter are 
compact, rarely shouldered. The berries 
are of medium size. Both vine and fruit 
are entirely free of rot or mildew. So far, 
indeed, as vigor aud health are concerned, 
the Cottage is this season perfection. 
Wilder has rotted pretty badly, but there 
are many fine bunches. The berries are 
large, and a very few are showing a little 
color. Brighton has rotted badly. 
Patches of the leaves a r e dried up. 
Moore’s Earlv is ripening about the same 
as Cottage. This also is perfectly healthy 
in vine and fruit. Earlv Dawn has defect¬ 
ive foliage; the bunches and berries are 
small: it ripens with Moore ’9 Early. 
Downing f?) (Ricketts) wag sent, to us by 
Mr. J. G. Burrough as 210 A or 240 A, we 
forget which. The foliage is defective 
with us, and the vine tender. It was 
planted with us in 1880, and now bears 
its first fruit, wbieb is ripening. The 
berries are light-colored, which proves it 
to be some other variety. Niagara is not 
behaving as well this year ns hitherto. 
The young growth is drying up in parts, 
though the earlier growth is healthv. 
Many of the bunches are imperfect from 
rot. Rural New-Yorker (Marvin) has 
made a fair growth, but. the foliage is 
imperfect. Centennial (Marvin) makes a 
feeble growth. Woodruff Red, planted 
last Spring, has grown 2 1-2 feet. Foli¬ 
age healthy. 
Lindley’s leaves are drying up, and the 
bunches are all imperfect from rot. Her¬ 
bert has also rotted considerably, but it 
bears many fine bunches. Lady has been 
permitted to overbear, and the bunches 
and berries are small. Victoria, though 
again bearing an immense crop, is free 
from rot or mildew, while the bunches 
are large and generally perfect. No. 4 
(John Burr) bears large berries, but the 
leaves are dying, and they will scarcely 
ripen. Early Victor (Burr) ripens with 
Moore’s Early; foliage, fair; bunches, 
medium, shouldered; berries medium, 
black. No 1 (Burr) ripens with Moore’s 
Early, Berry and bunches medium, 
black. Poeklineton spems to be free 
from any disability. The hunches are 
large and perfect. El Dorado, leaves 
drying up; bunches imperfect from rot; 
ripens with Moore’s Early or a trifle be¬ 
fore. It is a constant regret that we can 
not raise this delicious white grane. All 
should try it. Vergenties and Jefferson 
are failures. Jt may be that the soil or 
exposure dops not suit these vines, which 
grow upon the same trellis within eight 
feet of each other. 
-»»» 
ofRWVITIEH. 
Clapp’s Favorite Pear began to ripen at 
the R. G. August 19. 
Crapes are rotting badly at the R. G. and 
iu the country about. So are tomatoes. 
Yes, no doubt the Jewell Strawherrv has 
come to stay. We shall Illustrate it ere long. 
The greatest benefactor to agriculture of 
this or any age—Sir J. B. Lawes, of Eng¬ 
land. 
It Is proposed to charter a special car from 
New York for the next, sesrion of the grand 
oUl American Pomnlogienl Society, to be held 
at Grand Rapids, Mich., beginning Sept. 9. 
Now for the Chemical Fertilizer Special. 
Our Western friends will not care for it very 
much, perhaps—but special members neces¬ 
sarily do not address themselves to all classes. 
We gathered onr Alexander Apples (Para¬ 
dise stock) August 15. For five consecutive 
years this little tree (we have but one) has been 
laden with its large, showy apples, which for 
baking are among the best. 
The Cottage grape vine bears the largest 
leaves of any of our 60 varieties. The fruit 
ripens just about, with Moore’s Early. The 
latter is, this vear. bearing an immense crop 
of berries of the largest, size. The bunches 
are very showy, and though the quality is no 
better than that of the Concord, its earliness 
and beauty entitle it to a place in every vine¬ 
yard. 
One of the choicest Evorblocolng Roses we 
have ever raised is Mad Loot) Fnvrier. receiv¬ 
ed from the Dingoe and Conrad Co. The rose 
if of moderate size, and Die petals are so 
arranged as to conceal the pistils ntid stamens. 
The outer petals are recurved, and iu color 
Dearly white. The inner petals are tinted 
with rose, and instead of spreading open, form, 
as it were, a bud over the stamen* and pistils. 
The whole flower looks like wax, and the odor 
is that of the most delicate Tea. 
The White Mexican Sweet, Corn, origina¬ 
ted by George W. Campbell, of Ohio, is in 
quality simply perfection. It ripens a few days 
bofore the Black: the phis ore rather smaller. 
While it, possesses the richness and sweetness 
of the Black, the skin Is more tender. The 
dark color still crops out here and there, and 
it, will need further selection. Tt has the 
fault, as a market variety, thatt.be husks do 
not continue green after the ears are ready 
for use. 
The American Forestry Congress will hold 
its annual session at Boston. Mass . for three 
days, commencing on Tuesday. September 22, 
1885. at 10.80 A.M. The meeting will be held 
in Horticultural Hall, und will be addressed 
on Important topics connected with forestry 
hv prominent persons. On Thursday an ex¬ 
cursion will be taken through the harbor to 
Nantucket and to the Arnold Arboretum. 
Forestry is an important interest, and this 
fact, together with the good time anticipated, 
should secure a very large attendance. Circu¬ 
lars cnn'be : obtained r bv addressing B. E, Fer- 
now,J13’Burling Slip.'.N. Y. 
