402 
f HI RURAL fJEW-YORKER 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country ami Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
B. S. CARMAN, 
Editor. 
J. 8. WOODWARD, 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 34 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 13, IS85. 
Prof. Shelton, of Kansas, condemns, 
as will be seen, Johnson Grass in toto for 
Kansas. He is good authority. 
A number of communications on 
grasses, from R. N.-Y. writers who have 
kindly respected our request, have reached 
us too late for this special number. 
The present season gives a fine promise 
of the largest crop of grapes ever raised 
at the Rural Experiment Grounds. Many 
new kinds will fruit for the first, among 
them several Rural seedlings. 
♦ • » 
Cultivate the potatoes fully and thor¬ 
oughly before the roots have so extended 
that cultivation will sever them. Never 
run a plow between the plants after they are 
a foot high —and the same may be said of 
corn. 
-- 
Ere this meets the reader’s eye, rho¬ 
dodendrons will be in their gorgeous, in¬ 
comparable bloom. Could we have but one 
hardy variety, it would be the R. graodi- 
florum for this climate, and we have tried 
many varieties. 
- » » 
If there is a brighter, more brilliant 
shrub or little tree than the Red Double¬ 
flowering Craticgus (Paul’s) when in full 
bloom (this year May 31), we should like 
to know what it is. Each umbel is 
of itself a little bouquet of little red roses. 
The great Russian Mulberrv promises 
to fruit with us this season. The R. N.- 
Y. has been reproached because, on the 
authority of such men as Prof. Budd, of 
Iowa, it has rated the fruit as inferior 
and the tree only valuable for its hardi¬ 
ness. Now we hope to speak of the fruit 
from a personal knowledge of it. 
The promised cross between the Ply¬ 
mouth Rocks and Wvandottes was made. 
One chick (a pullet) is a pure Plymouth 
Rock in appearance, except that its legs 
are slightly feathered. Another is a fine 
young cockerel whose feathering seems 
to be between the two. We presume it 
would require ten years at least to estab¬ 
lish a cross. 
We are glad to see, by our English 
exchanges, that our regular correspon¬ 
dent, Prof. J. P. Sheldon,will contest one 
of the Derbyshire, electoral divisions at 
the forthcoming Parliamentary elections, 
and with a first-class prospect of success. 
England cannot do a wiser thing than 
to elect such men to make her laws. We 
wish him abundant, success! 
If a man has just cloth enough for a 
pair of pants, would it not be foily to 
spoil it trying to make a w'hole suit of it? 
Ib it not equal folly for a man who can 
just manage 50 acres well, to try to spread 
himself over 200? Had he not better by 
far content himself in making the 50 
acres deeper, richer and more productive? 
The profits come, not so much from the 
number of acres cultivated, as from the 
yield per acre. “Bigger crops" not 
“more acres, 7 ’ is the best motto! 
The Rural’s good opinion of Wyan- 
dottes is not lessened by this Spring’s 
experience. They have thus far given us 
the largest number of eggs of any of the 
breeds tried. As sitters, they are patient 
and faithful, but easily broken. As 
mothers, they are gentle and attentive. 
The only objection that we can make to 
this almost faultless breed is that the 
eggs are rather small, as we have several 
times before stated. We had intended 
to try the Langshans this year, but two 
sittings having failed us, we are con¬ 
strained to wait until another Spring. 
We believe that the grass Panicum 
clandestinum (Hidden-flowered Panic) 
will one day be cultivated in low, partly- 
drained meadows where few valuable, 
grasses will thrive. We have watched it. 
for years at the Rural Farm. The roots 
are perennial; the stems short and leafy. 
All cattle are exceedingly fond of it, and 
will pick it out from Timothy hay. It 
should be cut early, before the culms be¬ 
come rigid. It grows about two feet 
higb, and unfortunately is inclined rather 
to spread out than to assume an upright 
position. This might be overcome, in a 
measure if the seed were sown thickly 
and the land given to this thrifty grass. 
We rarely find it growing in dry upland 
soil, where the leaves and stalks are so 
dwarfed as to appear like another grass. 
--* 
In the Rural New-Yorker of July 5 
of last year (page 431), an accurate illus¬ 
tration of the Peen-to Peach of China was 
given. In the Rural Fair Number of 
1882. A. J. Downing’s description of this 
peach, given by him in 1845. was fur¬ 
nished with alterations, and an outline 
sketch by his brother, the mucli-loved 
Charles Downing. We were surprised 
one day last week to find this peach for 
sale on some of the fruit stands in the 
city—three for 10 cents; a fact which 
shows they must have been shipped from 
the South in large quantities. The quality 
was very good—decidedly better than 
the first of the earlv peaches, like Alex¬ 
ander or Hale’s Early, 
We are delighted over the promise of 
having made another cross between wheat 
and rye. If so, the plant to which we 
refer is three-quarters rye and one-quarter 
wheat. It will be remembered that one 
head of the rye-wheat hybrids of last year 
was again crossed with rye pollen. But 
the birds attacked the head and so injur¬ 
ed it that some uncertainty was felt as to 
whether the crossed flowers were not 
destroyed. Seven kernels were planted, 
of which six grew. We find that one 
plant is very different from the others in 
vigor, size of leaf and number of stalks, 
and. singular to say, is heading out only 
a day or so later than the rye. while yet 
not one other bead can be found upon 
any of our crosses or varieties of wheat. 
Again, while the mother plant was not 
bearded, this is bearded. 
Hellebore is just, as certain to kill 
the gooseberry and currant worm as Paris- 
green is to kill the potato beetle. With¬ 
in the past ten days we have applied it in 
this way, as being the most effective and 
at the same time economical: One heap¬ 
ing tablespoonful is mixed in two of al¬ 
cohol, which suflices for a pail of water. 
The water is then sprayed upon the bushes 
through a Cyclone Nozzle, projected by 
an Aquapult Pump. One pailful will 
spray 30 bushes in ten minutes. From 
the bushes so sprayed 12 worms upon the 
leaves were picked off and placed in a 
tomato can at ten o’clock a. m. At five 
r. M most of these were dead, and the 
rest, nearly so. Buhach will kill currant 
worms (either powder or liquid), but it is 
not so quick or effective. The bushes 
may be spriukled with a whisk-broom or 
through a watering-pot or spraying bel¬ 
lows, but there is nothing like a Cyclone 
Nozzle for this work. 
GRAND STRAWBERRY SHOW. 
The Amerieau Institute, having moved 
into new quarters at Clinton nail, on 
Eighth Street.between Fourth Avenue and 
Broadway, will dedicate their new hall 
by a grand Free Strawberry Exhibition, 
to be held June 1? and 18. The Judges 
will perform their work on Wednesday, 
June 17th, bet ween 12 and 2 i\ m , when 
it will be open to the public till 10 i*. m. 
On Thursday it will be open from 10 
A. M. to 10 F. M. On Wednesday evening 
and Thursday afternoon there will be 
meetings for the discussion of strawberry- 
subjects, and at the'meeting on Wednes¬ 
day p. m., Rev. E. P. Roe, of Cornwall- 
on-the-Hudson, will deliver an address. 
Very liberal premiums have been offered, 
ranging as high as $25 for strawberries, 
roses and orchids, and as the season of 
each will then be at its hight, it is ex¬ 
pected this will be the finest show of each 
for many years. 
IN PEACE PREPARE FOR WAR. 
The rainy days, while delaying Spring 
work, are giving promise of a heavy 
yield of grass, and are hurrying the 
meadows rapidly forward; and some 
bright morning not far away, the farmer 
will find the haying suffering to be quickly 
done. From the tact that hay cut a week 
too late, is not worth nearly as much as 
that cut a little too early, and that the 
having can’t all be done in a single day, 
it is perfectly safe to commence cutting 
promptly as soon as, if not a little before, 
the earliest meadows are at their best. 
It is awfully bad policy to wait till the 
hay is ready before getting the haying 
tools in order. Far better utilize one of 
these rainy days in looking over and put¬ 
ting in order the mower, tedder, hay-rake 
and even the wagon-racks. The precau¬ 
tion will add wonderfully to peace of 
mind when the hurry comes. It may 
save much hay, and some hard words! 
Try it! 
- » » ♦ - 
CLEANLINESS PAYS. 
Very few people die of old age or acci¬ 
dent; more than DO out of every 100 
deaths are the result of disease, and 
nineteen-twentieths of these diseases arc 
preventible, if we would but observe the. 
laws of life and health. Ignorance and 
carelessness are Death’s ablest generals. 
Decaying matter is the hot-bed from 
which spring the gases that are the ve¬ 
hicles of poison to thesvstem, that causes 
sickness and suffering, if not death. A 
pile of potatoes, a barrel with a few rot¬ 
ting apples, the dirt from the winter 
vegetables or roots, have more than once 
caused the empty chair and the aching 
heart in the household. How important 
therefore that the cellars and waste places 
be carefully cleaned, and the cellar walls 
and ceilings be whitewashed, and now is 
the time to do it. It won’t take as much 
work as to run for the doctor and to care 
tor the sick, and will be much pleasanter. 
r Tis much more comfortable to contem¬ 
plate clean premises than a vacnut'place 
about the hearthstone ; and then how 
much better everything looks when made 
tidy ! Be admonished in time! 
OUR “GRASS SPECIAL.” 
TnKRK is really more grass-wisdom in 
this number of the Rural New-Yorker 
than was ever before got together in a 
single paper, and the best of it is,every line 
is from intelligent, practical men who 
know by experience, “whereof they 
affirm.’’ We take pleasure in calling at¬ 
tention to the writers, their standing as 
agriculturists, writers and teachers, and 
the sections which they represent. Was 
ever before so much practical and scien¬ 
tific talent represented in any one issue of 
any paper? Besides, wehavo several more 
valuable articles from eminent men, which 
came too late for this number, and which 
will appear next week. 
The grass and hay interests of this coun¬ 
try arc immense, far superior to any other 
one interest. Even the extreme West is 
becoming awake to the necessity of grow¬ 
ing more grass if she would maintain the 
fertility of her soil. To the thoughtful 
farmer, these grasB-napers are worth many 
times the cost of the Rural for a whole 
year, and he should not fail to preserve 
them and carefully read every article. 
Grass is a king whose subjects are ever 
prosperous. 
BE VIGILANT. 
TnESE are the days when the worm is 
never idle, and when injurious insects are 
devastating like an army, and when the 
farmer who would not suffer grievous loss 
from their ceaseless depredations must be 
ever on the alert. Although kind Nature 
hath for every poison an antidote, and lor 
every plague a cure, man foolishly allows 
the indiscriminate slaughter of the birds, 
the check Nature designed to keep insects 
within safe bounds. Every lady who 
ornaments her hat with the stuffed skin 
of a bird, becomes the ally of these 
despoilers, and the enemy of the husband¬ 
man; and we Cftnnot understand how a 
being so kind hearted and intelligent as 
womun, can become so cruel and foolish 
as to support such an insane fashion; but 
so long as she does, and this slaughter 
of the birds goes on, there is no way left 
for the farmer and fruit-grower but to de¬ 
pend upon insecticides for tlie protection 
of their crops. Thanks to science, we now 
have iu the various vegetable and mineral 
poisons, effectual agents for the destruc¬ 
tion of each of the insects that prey upon 
our various productions. It should be the 
duty of every man to inform himself as to 
the remedy to bo used, to procure a 
supply und the appliances for the proper 
application in each case, that all may 
work together in the destruction of these 
pests. And while doing what we can In 
fighting the common enemy, we should 
not forget to frown down the senseless 
fashion that causes the killing of our 
friends—the birds! 
THE KANSAS WHEAT OUTLOOK. 
Last week, the telegraph flashed re¬ 
ports all over the country that vast 
numbers of locusts were ravaging the 
crops of Kansas, iuflicnug ruinous losses 
on fMrmcrs. Later information, however, 
demonstrated that this report had no 
other foundation than the desire of spec¬ 
ulators to raise the price of gram, by 
conveying the impression that the next 
harvest would be exceedingly poor. 
Within the last week, another series of 
reports from the same State tell of the 
ruinous ravages of tlie Hessian fly and 
chinch bug among the wheat crop, and 
this news is much better authenticated 
than the other. The Secretary of the 
State Board of Agriculture. says that, 
this year, wheat will be “the worst failure 
that Kansas has ever experienced." Many 
fields which a month ago promised a fair 
yield, now show more chess than wheat, 
and will be plowed up for millet. Of the 
1,613,293 acres sown to wheat last Fall, 
at least 40 per cent, are reported to have, 
been plowed up and seeded to spring crops 
-chiefly sorghum and tnillet-and the work 
of destruction still continues. The loss 
in condition of the growing crop is also 
23 per cent, below the condition on April 
30. The Secretary of the State Board of 
Agriculture estimates that the product of 
the winter wheat cannot exceed 12,000,000 
bushels, slightly more than a quarter 
of last year’s crop, and 35 per cent, 
of the average of the last five years. 
Other estimates van' from this to 
15,000,000 bushels; but all agree that 
the crop will be unprecedentedly short. 
We are very sorry for the hard luck of 
Kansas farmers, who, with low prices, ex¬ 
tensive winter-killing, a late Spring pre¬ 
venting timely seeding. grasshoppers, the 
Hessian fly and chinch bug. and, nearly 
as bad as all the rest, railroad exactions 
eating up all profits, have had a melan¬ 
choly time of it indeed. 
BREVITIES. 
Special Supplement Nurnher. 
Are you afraid your potatoes will suffer 
from too much rain? Then hill-up! 
Housekeepino on Puoet Souno.— Mary 
Wager Fisher begins a serje« of article 5 : under 
the above headine in the Domestic Depart¬ 
ment of this number. Rood them. 
Those who have planted nr mav yet plant 
(there is yet time! the beautiful Canua Ehe- 
manni will be delighted with it* large niaeeu 
ta flowers—as large as those of the gladiolus. 
One of the finest hardy reeds—Arundo do- 
ttex, vav The leaves are like the species, 
except that they nre half white or a straw 
yellow. The plant, is hardy in this climate 
and, though not new, is somewhat rare. 
You who are exercised in regard to the 
cffpct of different pollens in changing the 
shape, size and quality of strawberries, rend 
what Prof Thomas Meehan says on mge 404. 
It will be completed in auotber article. 
The summer meeting of the Michigan Hor¬ 
ticultural Rociety will be held at. Frankfort. 
Renzie County, on June 24th and 25th. A 
fine programme has been arranged and a 
pood time will be had. The Secretary, 
Charles W. Garfield. Grand Rapids, Mich., 
will give further particulars. 
California seems to be overrun the pres¬ 
ent year with insect plagues. Not. only are 
vast swarms of the ganumelocusfc devastating 
the crops iu Placer, Ynba. Nevada. Amador. 
Napa, Sonoma. San Joaquin. Butte. Saere- 
meuto. El Dorado. Tehama and Mercer Coun¬ 
ties, but the wheat, fields in Alameda, Napa, 
Sonoma anil Solano Counties are being very 
seriously injured bv the Hessian fly. an insect 
which has hitherto been supposed not. to oc¬ 
cur on the Pacific Coast., Prof. Riley, the 
United States Entomologist, has received 
sepcimens, Bnd they nrove to be the true Hes¬ 
sian fly. The pest is also doing A world of 
injury among the wheat fields of Maryland, 
that State, Kausns and California berng at 
present the chief sufferers from its depreda¬ 
tions—the East, the Center and the Far West. 
Adversity has beset the British farmers of 
late, but will no doubt prove an eventual ben¬ 
efit. as the hard lessons given by tha* severe 
and dreaded genius always do. The farmers 
there incline to cooperation more and more, 
so as to meet their troubles with a strong, 
united front. If this does uot enable them to 
master them, it will In* likely, at least, to make 
safe escape possible, and to open new lines of 
advance Formers have been so long used to in¬ 
dependence and mastery as to be naturally re¬ 
luctant to yield any of either, even forthesake 
of a common cause. Necessity, however, and 
the obvious advantage of be’iug able to get 
manures and seeds and tools of sounder qual¬ 
ity and all cheaper, und to escape the traps 
set bv tricky dealers and unfair law makers, 
are all powerful incentives to association aud 
union. 
The anti-oleomargarine laws of this State 
have proved disastrous to the Commercial 
Manufacturing Comoanv of this city, until 
lately the largest manufacturer of oleomar¬ 
garine in the United States.and probably in the 
world. The company was incorporated iu 1876 
for the express purpose of turning out imita¬ 
tion dairy products fti unlimited quantity. 
Its consolidated capital stock was * 10,000,000, 
aud its factor or agent, the firm of Thurber 
& Co., of this city, who were said to be the 
largest stock-holders. Lately the concern has 
been doing little or no business, as the laws of 
this State prohibit the manufacture and sale 
of imitation butter, and a large number of 
suits have been brought against the concern 
for violation of these laws. To prevent the 
executions of the judgments, to the detri¬ 
ment of other creditors, the company was 
placed iu the bands of a receiver last Thurs¬ 
day. Roseoe Conkllng figuring among its 
creditors for SI 1,075 for professional services 
in arguing the unconstitutionality of the anti¬ 
oleomargarine laws lief ore the courts. Last 
January the indebtedness of the concern was 
#140,000; now it is supposedj'to *bc double. 
Truly the way of tho trausgressorXbard! 
