282 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
APRIL 28 
THE 
RURAL NLW'YORKLR, 
A National Journal for Country anil Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
K. S. CABMAN. 
J. S. WOODWARD, 
Editor. 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1885. 
We should think that the Lister would 
be a good implement for forming the 
trenches for the Rural’s method of po¬ 
tato culture. 
If the number of your address label is 
1840, your subscription term will expire 
next week; if 1841, the week after, and 
so on. Please look to this. 
Two different posters; the full account 
of our Free Seed Distribution; the offer 
of $2,800 in presents to subscribers for the 
largest clubs; our premium list and speci¬ 
men copies will be sent to all, post-paid, 
on application. We will abo gladly send 
specimens to any list of names which our 
readers may send us in order to aid them 
in obtaining new subscribers. 
We are quite persistent in urging all 
our friends to plant a goodly-sized plot 
to small fruits this Spring. Arrange it to 
have the rows as long as convenient, and 
put them so far apart that, they can be 
cultivated with a horse. There should 
be strawberries; raspberries, red and 
black; currants and blackberries. It is 
easy to tell which to plant by consulting 
our small-fruit “elections.” If any are 
so busy that they cannot spend the time, 
it would be a capital plan to furnish the 
land and the plants, and let the boys 
plant and care for them on shares, being 
careful to buy and pay for their half. 
Such a course will both give them a fa¬ 
miliarity with the business and encourage 
them to take an interest in the farm. 
T, B. Miner, one year or thereabouts 
before his death, told the writer of this 
note that he had raised 15,000 seedlings 
from the seed of the Concord. Of these 
about one dozen were saved, which Mr. 
Miner deemed the best varieties in culti¬ 
vation. Those who have tried these 
dozen varieties do not speak very highly 
of them. Victoria (white) is probably 
the best, and even this is condemned by 
many, though at the Rural Grounds it is 
one of the most prolific and hardy of all 
we have ever tried. There is little doubt 
in our minds that after his death his va¬ 
rieties were mixed up, and that those -who 
presume they have the true Victoria have, 
in fact, other and less valuable kinds of 
Mr. Miner’s seedlings. 
We are right glad to see that a move¬ 
ment is being made to consolidate the 
National Norman Horse-Breeders’ and 
American PPrcheron Horse Breeders’ As¬ 
sociations. Leading members of each, we 
understand, actively favor the movement, 
and we heartily wish they may accomplish 
so desirable a thing. We can see no rea¬ 
son why the expenses of maintaining two 
associations and of publishing two stud 
hooks should be borne, when the breed 
is precisely the same and many of the 
horses are recorded in both books, and, 
worse than this, such a course 16 mislead¬ 
ing to the farmers of this country, and 
we all know that it is a bad thing to have 
a “house divided against itself.” Gentle¬ 
men, we bid you good speed in bringing 
about the consolidation. Would that the 
Holstein and Dutch-Friesian Associations 
may show as much good sense! 
The Rural was the first to discover 
that Pyrethrum or Buhach powder will 
kill rose-bugs, and it is no mean discov¬ 
ery either, as we take it. Last year it 
was blown upon them through bellows. 
This year we procured an aquapult force- 
pump and a “cyclone nozzle,” and we 
propose to use a Btihaeh extract made by 
dissolving four ounces of the powder in a 
gill of alcohol and then adding one gal¬ 
lon of water. Liquid forced through this 
nozzle makes a very fine spray—almost a 
vapor, and a small quantity of the extract 
will go a long way. The Buhach is made 
in California from the flowers of Pyreth¬ 
rum cinerarijufolium grown there, and the 
claim 18 made for it that it is pure, while 
the imported Pyrethrum or Dalmatian 
insect powder, is said to be diluted. We 
know nothing as to the purity of either. 
We do know that Buhach will kill cab¬ 
bage worms and the 'dreaded rose-bug. 
At last we are assured one rule is to be 
applied to all trespassers on the Okla¬ 
homa land8. Oklahoma is, or it is not 
Government land. If it is. it should be 
as free for settlement to the homesteader 
with wife and children, who desires to 
establish a permanent home and thus be¬ 
come a part of a community which is sure 
to grow up around him, as to the wealthy 
cattle king, with his lawless cowboys, 
whose only influence is to prevent a de¬ 
velopment of the country. If it is not 
public land but is covered by the treaty 
with the Indians, then neither the home¬ 
steader nor the land grabber should be 
permitted upon it. We believe in a strict 
enforcement of our treaties with the In¬ 
dians. No matter though the red men may 
make no use of the land, though millions 
of acres lie entirely unoccupied and with¬ 
out stock to turn the wealth of grasses into 
meat and thus to gold, it is their land by 
treaty-right, and so long as they do not 
see fit to sell it, no one should be per¬ 
mitted to infringe their rights, and least 
of all the cattle kings—who, to say the 
most, are of very doubtful benefit to the 
country at large. 
One of the most astoundingly disgrace¬ 
ful and saddening methods of restoring 
the popularity of a farm journal is the 
advertisement of the Am. Ag., which we 
find in a late issue of the Farm and Gar¬ 
den. The advertisement states that 
Orange Judd, the late editor of the Agri¬ 
culturist and president of the Orange 
Judd Co., “failed for nearly 200,000, and 
his assets brought but $543 — less the 
auctioneer’s fees.” And this advertise¬ 
ment is authorized by David Judd (Or¬ 
ange Judd’s brother, the present mana¬ 
ger) and probably was written by him! 
Whether Orange Judd’s failure was or 
was not an honorable one is no business 
of ours; nevertheless, we believe him to 
be both morally nud intellectually as far 
superior to his brother David as the A. A. 
during its successful days under Orange 
Judd’s management, was superior to the 
journal now controlled by the unrelenting 
David. It is not our purpose to reproach 
these two brothers for disliking each 
other, or even for fighting each other; 
but we insist that they shall scratch each 
others’ eyes out in private instead of 
openly disgracing the name of farm jour¬ 
nalism by obtruding such cowardly exhi¬ 
bitions of their hatred upon the reading 
public. “This thing must atopj” 
FORECAST OF NEXT WHEAT CROP. 
The crop report of the Department for 
April, a condensation of which was tele¬ 
graphed from Washington on the 11th, 
indicates a reduction of over 10 per cent, 
m last year’s area of winter wheat. The 
aggregate shortage amounts to 3,000,000 
acres. A decrease is reported in every 
State except Oregon. This is 22 percent, 
in Kansas and Virginia; 20 in Mississip¬ 
pi; 15 in California; 14 in Alabama; 12 
m Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri; 11 in 
New York and North Carolina; 10 in 
Maryland and Texas ; 8 in New Jersey, 
West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana; 7 
in Georgia and Ohio; 0 in Pennsylvania 
and Delaware; 5 in Michigan; 3 in Arkan¬ 
sas, and 2 in South Carolina. The pres¬ 
ent condition of wheat is icported to rep¬ 
resent 77 per cent, of a full crop against 
90 at this time last year, and 80 in 1883. 
In 1881, the year of the lowest yield in re¬ 
cent years, the condition was represented 
by 81 in April; but there were serious 
losses alterwards. 
As to the condition of the crop, it is 
too early yet to form a correct opinion; 
but its real status will be better shown a 
month hence, when the vitality of the 
roots has been demonstrated and the 
character of the Spring determined. In 
a good season wheat that has looked 
dead, and fit only for plowing up, has 
frequently displayed a marvelous vitality 
and ultimately yielded a good crop, and 
from some parts of the country news is 
daily coming in of such a resurrection. 
On the present showing, however, the 
reduction of yield, on the basis of last 
year’s production—512,763,900 bushels— 
promises to be nearly 40,000,000 bushels 
on accouut of reduction of area; and more 
than 60,000,000 bushels from winter- 
killing and low vitality. This would 
aggregate a shortage of aoout 100,000,000, 
but whether the total crop will exceed 
400,000,000 bushels will depend on the re¬ 
liability of present appearances of the fall- 
sown wheat; on the future conditions af¬ 
fecting its growth and ripening; and on 
the area under spring wheat. The 
soil was in bad condition at seeding time 
on the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to 
Georgia, and in West Virgina and Ten¬ 
nessee; but it was fair in the Southwest, 
Missouri, Illinois and Michigan. In the 
Ohio Valley it was hardly in a medium 
condition. Injury from the Hessian fly 
was not severe; but most damage was 
done in Missouri and Kansas, where 
the crop was injured in three-fourths of 
the reported territory. 
Reports from the great spring wheat 
section of the Northwest indicate that 
the area will be about the same as last 
year. A good deal of wheat land in 
Iowa, and Minnesota and especially in 
Dakota will be sown to flax this year; 
but it is thought the *‘new breaking” will 
offset the deduction made in this way. 
Seeding was generally finished by the close 
of the first week in April, and, as a rule, 
the ground was in fair condition, though 
generally a good ram would have been 
welcomed. 
UNJUSTIFIABLE CRUELTY TO 
ANIMALS. 
From the tone of our correspondence 
throughout the West we are convinced 
that the loss of cattle the past Winter has 
been Bimply enormous, much worse even 
than at first reported. Many put the fig¬ 
ures as high as 50 per cent.., and few go 
below 10, and in all cases the cause, 
though variously attributed, traces back 
primarily to the want of necessary pro¬ 
tection and provisions for temporary feed¬ 
ing in the seasons of extraordinary cold 
and storm. Even in old settled Missouri, 
the loss is put by Prof. Sanborn, the Sec¬ 
retary of the State Board of Agriculture, 
at $4,000,000, $3,000,000 of which, 
he says, could have been saved by proper 
protection. As significant as are these 
figures, we should remember that they 
include only the actual loss by death, no 
account being taken of the ten times 
greater loss by the falling away,in flesh, of 
those poor brutes which, not so fortunate 
as to be relieved by death, were compell¬ 
ed to endure torture worse than death 
each day, for the whole Winter, and which 
meet the springing grass with little more 
than skin aud bones; and, with the most 
favorable conditions, will not recover 
sufficient flesh to be in fair growing con¬ 
dition before July. Though in many 
places lumber is high and hard to get, 
there is no doubt but the value of the 
dead cattle, alone, would much more 
than have provided ample shelter for 
every head on the ranches, while the 
greater summer growth, of auimals prop¬ 
erly wintered, would add very much to 
the profits of the owners. 
Even when we remember that this loss 
and these deaths come from starvation 
and an exposure to a temperature which, 
accompanied with a terrific wind, will 
pierce the very bones, we can only faintly 
conceive the untold sufferings that these 
unprotected animals are compelled to en¬ 
dure. And when it is claimed, as it now 
frequently is, that with a loss of not over 
25 per cent., the various companies can 
still pay a fair dividend to ttieir share¬ 
holders, it puts them in a still more un¬ 
enviable light. If stock raising is so very 
remunerative that, in spite of a loss of 
one-fourth, a fair profit, can still be made, 
we submit that the owners are under 
moral obligations, and they should be 
legally bound to use a sufficient pait of 
the proceeds to provide shelter and extra 
food, so that the poor animals may be 
comfortable during these blizzards. 
That these are only animals, unreasoning 
and helpless, and ihat these severe storms 
and seasons are only occasional is no pal- 
lation of the criminality, and relieves the 
owners of not one wtut of their duty. 
When they take the animals into a coun¬ 
try so uncongenial, and subject to such 
vicissitudes, tin y should provide for secu¬ 
rity against such intense misery, and if 
they do it not from a sense of humanity, 
they should be, by law,compelled to do so, 
especially when the business is so very 
profitable as they claim it to be. 
CONTAGIOUS PLEURO-PNEUMONIA IN 
MISSOURI. 
Tna most virulent outbreak of contag¬ 
ious pleuro-pneumonia that has ever oc- 
cured west of the Alleghanies, is now 
raging in Gallaway County, Missouri. 
The history of the outbreak is traced back 
by Dr. M. R. Trumbovcr, Goverment In¬ 
spector in charge of the cases,to the herd 
of Mr. C. R. Dye, of Troy, Ohio, who 
brought some infected Jersey cattle from 
Maryland in 1883. From this herd, Mr. 
Eppter of Cass County, Illinois, bought a 
cow which was taken sick, treated for or¬ 
dinary pneumonia and apparently recov¬ 
ered, and wassold with 4U other Jerseys in 
February, 1884. By this sale, contagion 
was spread to various oilier pans of Illin¬ 
ois, as well as to Kentucky aud Tennessee. 
Last July, a Jersey bull bought in Illinois 
was unwittingly exposed to contagion for 
only one night before shipment to the 
State Insane Asylum at Fulton, Gallaway 
Co., Missouri. As soon as the real nature 
of the disease in the Illinois herd was dis¬ 
covered, notice was sent to Fulton, and 
the bull was isolated in a 30-acre lot for 
three mouths; but the herd with which 
he had run became affected, as well as 
neighboring cattle, which broke into the 
Asylum pasture. 
From these the disease spread rapidly 
in spite of the slaughter of 85 affected or 
exposed animals belonging to the Asylum, 
and of a number of others, the property 
of neighboring farmers. From 1,200 to 
1,500 cattle are known to have been ex- * 
posed to contagion, and it is likely every 
one of them will be slaughtered and 
deeply buried with their hides, as it is 
now said that the destruction and 
burial of all infected animals is the only 
way to stamp out the plague. The State 
authorities are fully alive to the impor¬ 
tance of suppressing the outbreak by the 
promptest and roost vigorous means. The 
cattle interestsof Missouri amount to over 
850,000,000, and already the “scare” has 
depreciated the value of these nearly half 
a million dollars. Colorado has already 
quarantined all Missouri cattle. The 
Kausas Live Stock Commission has re¬ 
commended the Governor to quarantine 
for 90 days all cattle from Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, 
Maryland, the District of Columbia, Vir¬ 
ginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Ken¬ 
tucky. and Gallaway, Boone, Audrian 
and Montgomery Counties, Mo., and that 
such cattle be permitted to enter the State 
only at Atchison, Kansas City and Fort 
Scott. 
A number of representative cattle-men 
of Missouri, assembled the other day at 
Jefferson City, and requested Governor 
Marmaduke to call an extra session of the 
Legislature to provide means for the 
prompt suppression of the plague; but 
as this would cost, $30,000, and uboufc 40 
days must elapse before any legislation 
could be effective, and it. is doubtful 
whether the Legislature would make the 
needed appropriations, as it refused 
to take any action in the matter at its last 
session, the Governor suggests that the 
necessary funds shiuld be raised by sub¬ 
scription, and states that he will recom¬ 
mend the refunding of the advance by 
the State at the next regular session of 
the Legislature. Comniisiouer Column 
has been on the ground, and promises the 
hearty and vigorous co-operation of the 
Department of Agriculture. The immedi¬ 
ate outlay of from $50,000 to $100,000 
would doubtless stamp out the disease at 
once; whereas if it spreads to the herds 
of the rest of the State, and of the neigh¬ 
boring States, the loss wilt run up among 
the millions. 
URJCVITIE8. 
Look at the Rural’s Combinations for new 
subscribers on page 286. We give a fair 
warning. 
Last week we made from the sap of the 
Yellow wood (Cladrastis tinctorial a small 
quantity of sugar, lighter iu color than that 
of any maple sugar we have ever seen. 
It matters much less to a man what his 
neighbors think of him than what he honestly 
thinks of himself. He should see to it, there¬ 
fore, tliut he does nothing to make that opin¬ 
ion auythlng but good. 
TnE Chatham Courier says that the Rural 
New-Yorker for March 28 was one of the 
most valuable numbers it has seen; “its 
Question and Answer Department is not 
equaled iu any pnjier of its kind.” 
Mr Radlif Brown, of New Hampshire, 
writes us that the Rural Branching or Ensi¬ 
lage Corn mado the most fodder ot any corn 
be ever raised. There is, in fact, no other 
variety of corn that will approach it in this 
respect. 
It is only by much labor, in study, that 
thought becomes valuable. It is only by 
much thought that labor accomplishes the 
highest results. How importaut that the 
farmer should learn to couple thought with 
his labor! 
What next? We are now assured of the 
strong probability that soou we shall receive 
our telegraphic communications iu the fac¬ 
simile of the hand writing of the sender. This 
invention opens to telegraphy a new and wide 
held of application, as by it., maps, sketches, 
and oven likenesses will be received exactly as 
sent in every distinctive characteristic. This 
is the invention of Mr. P. B. Delanv, who has 
already done much to add to the efficiency of 
the telegraph. 
Few are aware how closely the animals 
that come to this city are worked up. Even 
the bone industry is very important. The feet 
of au ordinary ox will make u pint, ofneat’s- 
foot oil; the sbiu boues are sold to Europe at 
$40 per tou for knife handles; the (high bou*>s 
are worth double the money for tooth brush 
handles; the fore-leg bones go for parasol 
handles and collar buttons at $30 per ton; 
dust which comes from working these bones 
is used as cattle and poultry food. The ordin¬ 
ary boues have t.lie glue extracted, or are used 
fni- auinial Charcoal for refining the sugars 
we eat, while all other parts are manufactured 
into fertilizers to euricb the soil. Of the hog, 
it may well be said that he is worked up so 
close that “nothing is lost but the squeal.” 
