348 
THE RURAL HEW-YORKER 
e 
Mammoth and Red Clovers.— The In¬ 
dustrialist of Kansas would like to know in 
what respects the Mammoth or Sapling 
Clover, which the seed catalogues describe 
as a coarse variety growing five or six 
feet high, differs from the common Red 
Clover. For at least three years Prof. Shel¬ 
ton has sown this mammoth sort by the side 
of the ordinary red variety, but, as both have 
grown up, no difference could be distinguished 
between them. Either the seedsmen have im¬ 
posed upon him or else Kansas soil and cli¬ 
mate will make the common clover assume 
“mammoth” proportions 
CORN-AND-COB MEAL 1)8. CORN MEAL.— 
His college has been making Borne interest 
ing r experiments to show the value of corn- 
ami cob meal as compared with corn meal 
alone for pigs. In the experiment under con¬ 
sideration, 10 pigs—almost exact yearlings— 
were employed. Of these, six were pure-bred 
Berkshires and the remainder half and half 
B-rkshire-Essex. They were, as a whole, a 
thrifty lor, and fairly uniform iu all essential 
qualities. The pigs were fed twice daily at, 
as nearly as possible, eight A M. and five 
p. M., and the constant endeavor was to give 
each pig exactly the amount of feed which it 
would eat and uo more. The weight of each 
feed was tukr-n, and a careful record made of 
the same, Each pig received water ad libi¬ 
tum. At the end of each week, a short time 
before the first feeding of the next week, all 
the pigs were weighed and the weights re¬ 
corded opposite the number of each animal 
upon the paper containing the record of the 
feed. The pigs were arranged in two series— 
Nos. 1 to 5 an d Nos. (1 to 10 inclusive—the 
first series receiving as feed the meal obtained 
by grinding the whole ear of corn, including 
cob; while the second was fed exclusively 
upon corn meal. 
The experiment was begun on Nov. 21,1884, 
and ended Feb. 18, 1885, occupying a period 
of 13 weeks. The pigs to which the corn- 
aud-cob meal was fed consumed their 
rations almost, if not quite, as quickly and 
with as great a show uf appetite as those re¬ 
ceiving the clear corn meal. During about 
the third and fourth weeks, when the sameness 
of diet had measurably blunted the appetites 
of the pigs, a disposition to pick out the par¬ 
ticles of corn from the coarse pieces of cob was 
manifest. With feed of more uniform fine¬ 
ness, and with greater care in apportioning 
the feed, this difficulty was not felt. 
For tUtmost part, the pigs received meal in 
the ordinary condition, without admixture 
with wRter; but during the prevalence of the 
greatest cold, the feed in both series was mixed 
in warm water, giving it the consistence of a 
thick mush. % 
Total Feed. 
Total Gaia. 
( 
1-0 |£P5 
o gs 5 f S3 . 
rn '-•S '-*3 
“2 » , 2*5 
e <t'£ ® 
Of 5ft 2.2. 
Bgp - ! -e, 
7 2 S<3 
© 
P 
<r ~ 
a 
c 
!~fc 
Average gain per 
Pig. 
Pigs No. 1, ?, 3, -1 and 5. 
3619 
557 
6.50 
8. fill. 33 
57.7 
111. 
Feed—coru-and-cob 
meal. 
Pigs NO. 6.7,8.9 and 10. 
3332 
572 
6.70 
9.1 1.36 
55.11 
111.4 
Feed—corn meal 
The facts furnished by this experiment 
strongly prove the deductions trade from the 
experiment in feeding steers, previously pub¬ 
lished, Of these steers, Prof. Shelton, in his 
report, said; “in every particular, the advan¬ 
tage is in favor of the steers which were fed 
corn ground with the supporting cob. . . In 
fact, this experiment seems to show quite con¬ 
clusively, that a pound of corn cob , ivhenfed 
to steers with the com with which it grew, is 
ivorth more than an equal amount of meal 
from corn alone.'' 1 
This statement is almost exactly true of 
these experimental pigs; the only exception 
being in the total gaio—an immaterial point, 
which was slightly less with the corn-and-cob- 
fed pigs than with those receiving corn meal. 
The very close analogy between tbe results 
of tbe experiment and those obtained with 
steers fed, under similar circumstances as to 
feed, one year ago, are shown in the following 
parallel statements; Thus with the steers fed, 
one bushel (70 pounds) coru-and cob meal gave 
f).5(5 pounds of increase; while with the pigs, 
one bushel (70 pounds) com-and cobmeal gave 
10.70 pounds of increase; and with the steers 
again, one bushel (56 pounds, corn meal gave 
7.0-1 pounds of increase, while with the pigs, one 
bushel|5G ponnds)of corn-meal gave8.35 pounds 
of increase, The fact that the pigs were fed 
during the Jat-epeyere winter season, while the 
steers were fed during the comparatively 
mild Winter of 1883-4, is a sufficient explan¬ 
ation of tbe near approach of the cost of a 
pound of increase of the pigs to that of the 
steers. That an animal possessing the compar¬ 
atively simple digestive apparatus of the pig 
is able, almost equally with the ox, possessing 
complex and extended digestive machinery, 
to use the cob as feed, would seem to indicate 
that it exerts something more than mere 
mechanical influence in nutrition. 
Hay vs. Grass-Straw. Mr. W S Moore, 
our good friend of Mt. Upton, N Y., says 
farmers should be urged to do three things:— 
Plant more potatoes, s#w more corn for fod¬ 
der, and cut their grass much earlier than 
most of them now do. He wintered 25 sheep 
on hay that was cut just as it was heading out, 
with no grain, and yet they are fatenougb for 
mutton; shorn the first of April, the clip was 
13 pounds per head. He thinks t.‘ at with late- 
cut hay, it would have required at least $35 
worth of grain to have reached the same re¬ 
sults. We are satisfied that the loss to the 
farmers of this country each year by letting 
their grass stand till too ripe, before being cut 
for bay, runs a'*ay up into the millions. 
There is a great difference bttween bay and 
grass-straw which has ripened a crop of seed. 
Rural readers, think of this 1 
Mr. F. D. Coburn, in an address before the 
Short-horn Breeders’ Association, at Topeka, 
Kansas, asks: Is it not probable that- while 
Short-horn breeders have been paying their 
money' for length of pedigree, the breeders of 
other breeds have been pay iDg theirs for thick¬ 
ness of carcass; that while Short horu breed¬ 
ers have been seeking sires high up among tbe 
“nobility,” other breeders have sought those 
low down and well filled out; that while Short¬ 
horn breeders have sought for “blood” thick 
with Bates or Booth, others have worked for 
meat, meat, meat' Short-horn breeders would 
do well to consider these questions. 
The Connecticut Courant says that the 
London Broad Street Pump affair was briefly 
described by Prof. Brewer at the West Win¬ 
stead Annual Meeting, as follows: “A well 
with pump supplied a certain neighborhood. 
Its water was so clear and sparkling that it 
was particularly' popular and considered ex¬ 
ceptionally good. la the outbreak of 1854 
there was a ease of cholera in the neighbor 
hood, then a sudden epidemic, and over 500 
persons who used water from that well died. 
On a full and careful investigation it was 
found that the dejections of the early cholera 
patient had been thrown into a cess-pool near 
the well, and the under ground track was 
found, along which water from this cess-pool 
percolated into the well, not enough to disturb 
the transparency of the water nor even its 
taste, but enough to infect those who used it, 
as shown by its hundreds of victims.” 
PITHS AND SUGGESTIONS. 
Mr. A. W. Cheever’b suggestion to use the 
leaves (needles) of the White, Scotch and 
Austrian Pines as a mulch for strawberries, 
strikes us as a good one, though we have never 
tried it. . 
The Empire State Agriculturist says that 
Prickly Comfrey is, so far as its experience 
goes, and that of all others who have tried it 
in its vicinity, a perfect forage plant that will 
thrive and grow luxuriantly during severest 
droughts. It is true it will thrive well in the 
driest of weather and furnish an immense 
amount of leaves. But it is so far from a “per¬ 
fect forage plant” that cattle will not eat it 
unless half-starved. The Rural has had a 
little patch of this Comfrey growing for the 
past seven years. .. 
Prop. Lazenby, as mentioned iu his report, 
found Early Marblehead tbe earliest sweet 
corn, but Ford’s Early much tbe best. Of the 
second early kinds, the New Triumph is espec¬ 
ially desirable; of the late sorts, Egyptian is 
very good. Livingston’s Evergreen is also 
desirable........ 
The Garden (London) pronounces Clematis 
Jackmannii alba the best white clematis. 
What difference is there between a farmer 
who pays a rent of $300 a year and one who 
pays interest on a mortgage of $5,000( asks 
tbe New York Times. The landlord is the 
lighter incubus to carry, and has more mercy 
than a mortgagee, who sells out the hapless 
debter and loads him up with more debt...... 
Disturbing the order of nature isulways an 
experiment. When barbarous women, says 
J. B. Olcott, demand the heads of insect-eating 
birds by wholesale for their hats, it will take 
a large book to tell the remote consequences 
from the increase of predatory tribes in the 
unnatural history...... 
Josiah Hoopes says, in the Weekly Press, 
that at least two-thirds of the orchards that 
are reported dying from old age are actually 
starving to death, and might be brought back 
to a fair state of health and vigor by a gener¬ 
ous system of feeding the soil... 
Mr. Hoopes mentions a case where the ax 
was about to be laid at the root of the barren 
tree, when the owuer concluded to give his 
orchard one more opportunity to redeem its 
character; and by a vigorous course of bead¬ 
ing iu the branches, scrubbing the bark and 
covering the giouud with a heavy coat of rich, 
old barn-yard manure, he did succeed in im¬ 
parting more life and vigor to the tree. And 
not by a generous growth alone was he re¬ 
warded, hut tbe secoud season gave him the 
finest crop of fruit he ever raised. That man, 
it is needless to add, is now one of the radical 
progressive oreharditbs who believes fully in 
mvesting rnouey where be is certain of having 
it returned with compound interest. 
At the farmers’ meeting reported in the 
Massachusett s Ploughman, M r. W are said there 
was an immense difference between Kentucky 
and New England-raised lambs; the former 
are dry and tasteless, the latter all that an 
epicure could wish. This is uo doubt largely 
due to the fact that the New England lamb is 
used near where raised and the other has to be 
sent six or eight hundred miles before it is 
killed, and ibis should be an inducement for the 
raising of more lambs in New England. 
At the same meeting Mr. Cushmau spoke 
very highly of clover hay as a food for dairy 
stock, saying he had never received better re¬ 
sults with any other food. We believe well- 
cured clover hay is the best forage for every¬ 
thing ever fed on a farm. But then there are 
lots of awfully poor clover hay, hardly fit for 
food; late cuttiug and bad curing the causes.. 
Mr. A. M. Purdy seems positive enough 
that the Early Harvest Blackberry is not 
bardy north of St. Louis or Philadelphia. But 
we have it growing beside the Kittatiuny, 
Early Cluster, and Wilson, Jr., and it is as 
hardy as any ... 
Mr Purdy has grown the Gregg Raspberry 
“for years, and, w ith the exception of a small 
lot on a low, wet place, one Winter, has not 
bad them damaged a particle.” He asks us 
what kind of a climate we have at the Rural 
Grounds?. 
Somebody says that the odor of fresh paint 
may be removed from a room by placing a 
saucer of ground coffee in the apartment. 
Spring is the best time to plautstrawberries 
—better than the Summer, better than the Fall, 
Mr. Parker Earle, our best strawberry author¬ 
ity practically, says that the blossoms from 
how plantations should all be cut off and that 
every berry on a plant tbe same season it is 
planted will be at the sacrifice of six the next 
season ...... 
In setting out cabbage or tomato plants, it 
pays well, even iu field culture, to twist or 
wrap a piece of paper about the stems and fas¬ 
ten it with a stoue or a lump of soil. Plants 
so treated are safe from the cut worm. 
Tobacco dust, in the form of a uniform and 
quite fine powder, the siftings from tobacco 
“clippings” which cost 40 cents per 100 pounds, 
was found by Prof. 8, W. Johnson to be worth 
812.96 per ton; ivory sawdust, sold by B. 
B. Warren & Son, Plainville, (State omitted) 
was valued at $40.10, though the cost was but 
$30.; Acme Fertilizer No. 1, manufactured by 
C. Meyer, Maspetb, N, Y., cost $47, and was 
valued at $38.03 by Prof. Johnson; Cooke’s 
Blood Guano (National Fertilizer Co. Bridge¬ 
port. Ct.) cost $38 an«l it was estimated to be 
worth but $21.65.; Chittenden’s Complete 
Fertilizer for roots (from the same) cost $45, 
aud was analyzed to be worth but $35.16;. ... 
The new grape Woodruff Red is praised for 
its large compact clusters of mammoth ber¬ 
ries. It is not claimed that the quality is 
superior. 
A. G. Chase expresses himself, in the N. Y. 
Tribune, that two vines of tbe Lima bean may 
be grown upon every corn stalk and that a 
quarter acre so pluuted will give any family 
all it can use... 
Prof. Shelton designates seedsmen’s cata- 
talogues as “vehicles of agricultural misinfor¬ 
mation”.......... 
For Kausas, he says, that not less than 20 
pounds of Alfalfa seed should be sown to the 
acre.... 
Ultimately the “town cow” will “go;” 
and when gone people will wonder bow they 
ever endured the wretched creature along 
their highways and in their front yards. 
Something like a dozen States have “Arbor 
Day” appointed by official proclamation of 
the Governor. To make this proclamation of 
real use, the Industrialist says, it should be 
prefaced by another, warning those in author¬ 
ity to look to it that every man takes care 
of his own cow...•... 
The Mark Lane Express (London) says 
that a man who works as farmers work iu 
Manitoba and undergoes tbe privations of 
life in that polar climate, ought to be certain 
pf making a fortune in tpn years, 
Reference is made to two wheat crops 
haviug been frozen just before it was ready 
to be cut. We have a number of subscribers 
in Manitoba and should be glad to bear from 
them... 
Arrange things so that the daughters and 
sous of farmers may sing with a hearty zest: 
“There’s no place like home.”. 
Mr. Chamberlain mentions, iu the Ohio 
Farmer, whilB considering the cultivation of 
Hungarian Grass, that the preparation of the 
soil is the great thing, and this from our own 
experience we have often tried to impress 
upon Rural readers. The seed-bed must be 
fine aud mellow, the seed being small. Sow 
tbe seed broadcast—one bushel to the acre, 
as soon as warm weather is assured and not 
before. Work it in with a good brush or in¬ 
clined-tooth barrow. Mr. C. advises us to 
roll the land after harrowing. Tbe grass will 
he ready to cut the 1st of August if sown 
June 1st. Cub before the seed has formed ... 
Prof. Johnson says, in the report of Con¬ 
necticut Experiment Station, that when ani¬ 
mals are kept on a mere maintenance ration 
the most that there is in tbe food of value, 
either as nourishment or manure, is assimi¬ 
lated and passes off, not through the intes¬ 
tines, but through the kidneys. We can see 
from this the immense necessity of saving and 
returning to the land the liquid portions of the 
excrements, the most of which are wasted ... 
TRANSCONTINENTAL LETTERS. 
XXX. 
MARY WAGER FISHER. 
The Chinese “New Year’s,” which occurs 
February 14, is a great holiday season with 
the Celestials, and their celebration of it lasts 
for several days. It is looked forward to by 
the small Yankee boy of this coast with an 
eagerness and expectation that undoubtedly 
exceed those of the Chinese, as the explosion 
of fire-crackers far surpasses anything the 
average young American sees on the “Glorious 
Fourth.” A Chinaman told me that in China 
tbe people celebrate New Year’s for “15 days,” 
and as for holidays, they have “holiday all the 
time, if money enough.” No Chinese work on 
New Year’s Day, so that tbe households which 
employ them are minus their servauts. But 
in Seattle, the festivities seemed to culminate 
on February 15, which was Sunday, for in 
frontof the leadiog Chinese business house 200,- 
000 fire-crackers were discharged in the after¬ 
noon, and if anyone supposes that the young¬ 
sters of Christian families were able to with¬ 
stand an allurement of such magnitude, his 
supposition is incorrect. Moreover, I was 
as desirous to see “the show” us the laddie, 
and we all accordingly proceeded to China¬ 
town, over which from tbe topmost building, 
the property of one Wa Clioug, floated the 
national flag of the Flowery Kingdom, the 
dragon and the triangular field of yellow 
bordered with green. During a lull in the lire- 
crackerstorm, weentered Wa Chong’s “store,” 
where the social courtesies of the season were 
extended to callers—a cup of tea, cigarettes, a 
multitudinous variety of confections, and 
cakes arranged on a table still further adorned 
wi^h glittering ornaments and “Chinese ’ 
Lilies in bloom. In an out-of-the-way nook, 
tapers were burning before a small deity, 
which was still further glorified with manu¬ 
factured flowers aud real peacock feathers, 
which latter are in great favor with the 
Chinese for decorative purposes. 
Wa Chong is probably the richest China- 
mau in the Territory, his wealth being es¬ 
timated at a million of dollars, more or less. 
He comes probably from the middle class, as 
he is not n man of “quality,’’ and has made his 
money chiefly out of his own country men,being 
an extensive contractot for labor,furnishing so 
many men at given rates, quite tbe same as 
he would furnish so many horses or carts. 
He subscribed $10,000 toward the building of 
a railroad here, aud probably got it all back, 
and more, iu the profits that accrued to him 
from his contracts with the builders of it. 
But so soon as the Chinese Icaru tbe language 
of the country,they straight way act more inde¬ 
pendently, and in order to keep up tbe contract 
system, new recruits from China are required, 
and to introduce them now is a difficult mat¬ 
ter. Choug is thoroughly Americanized so 
far as dress goes; he has even parted with his 
pig-tuil. and perches his felt hat, iu true 
rowdy style, on one side of his head. But in 
bis every-day garb, with his trousers thrust in 
his boot-tops, his short, stout, figure dashes 
about tbe streets with all tbe vigor and energy 
of a small steam euglue, the very incarnation 
of business “go”. He has a half breed (Indian) 
wife, and his two children—a girl of six 
aud a boy younger—were seated on chairs in 
the store in New Year’s array. The girl, a 
pretty child, had her cheeks YPl‘y artistically 
