THE RURAL NEW-YORKER? 
THE 
RURAL NLW'YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homes 
Conducted by 
tt. S. CAK1IAK, 
Editor. 
J. S. WOOD WARD, 
Associate. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1885. 
Next issue will be our Special Crop 
Report, containing a multitude of crop 
repoits from a host of trustworthy corres¬ 
pondents in all parts of the country. A 
knowledge of the condition and yield of 
the various crops, not only in this coun¬ 
try, but also in all others (for all others 
are either our customers or competitors), 
is of great importance to farmers, as it 
will help them to market their crops to 
the best advantage. It shall be our hon¬ 
est effort during the rest of the year to 
aid them to acquire such a knowledge. 
Catalpa Bi’nokx (Kaempferi) is a dwarf 
form of the Common Catalpa (bignonioi- 
des or syringicfolia). Of this shrub there 
is a golden variety, known in catalogues 
as C. bignouioides aurea. We have had 
specimens of each growing within 20 feet 
of each other. The Golden Catalpa was 
entirely killed by the past season; the 
other was nearly killed. It is starting 
from the stems near the ground. The 
difference in hardiness between the Com¬ 
mon Catalpa and the C. speciosa is again 
very maikud. The former is severely 
killed back; the latter is uninjured by 
the past Winter. 
On another page will be found an en¬ 
graving of the Scarlet Italian Clover 
(Tritolium incaruatum). Prof. E. M. 
Shelton, of Manhattan, Kansas, sowed a 
small plot to this annual clover in April, 
1884. It germinated freely and early 
and the plants made a fairiy vigorous 
growth. Later, the summer heat checked 
it severely, so that it was unable, to keep 
pace with the growth of weeds which 
came up in the plot. At no time did it 
make an equal growth with the Red 
Clover seeded the same season, which 
grew near by. All of the plants were 
dead before October 1st. 
WATER INDISPENSABLE. 
An abundance of good water is as 
necessary to profit in the dairy as is good 
feed, and, in fact, more so. Stock will 
do much better with an abundance of 
water and short feed, than with good 
pasture and a scarcity of water. We have 
seen the cows in a pasture, up to their 
knees in gruss, wandering anxiously about 
looking and lowing for water, and unable 
to dispose of another mouthful until they 
should obtain a drink. More farms arc 
deficient in good water facilities than are 
short of grass. 
Did you ever get so thirsty that your 
every thought wa3 of water, water? We 
have, and we kuow how to pity the poor 
brutes that are compelled to endure the 
torrid sunshine and the tortures of thirst 
as well. We believe that millions of 
dollars are every year lost to the farmers, 
because of negligence in providing a suf¬ 
ficiency of watwr for the stock. We have 
no desire to start a boom on wind-mills, 
yet we fully believe that, on many farms, 
a good one will pay for itself in a single 
year. But whether you have one or not, 
see to it that the stock arc at all times 
provided with plenty of good water; it 
should be always accessible in the barn¬ 
yard and in the field. The only medium 
through which the wealth of grass can be 
converted into cash in your pocket is 
plenty of water! 
IS IT BUTTER OR CHEESE ? 
There is no gainsaying the fact that 
there is among the people a growing dis¬ 
belief in the accuracy of the tests ou which 
are reported those astonishing butter 
yields. Bf the most liberal allowances 
that can be asked, a cow to make a pound 
of butter from a little over six pounds of 
milk, would be obliged to yield milk con¬ 
taining not less than 14 or 15 per cent, of 
actual fat, while the largest yield obtain¬ 
ed, and that from cows producing abnor¬ 
mally, was a little less than 11 per cent. . 
It is true that under certain conditions, 
milk can be made to part with a large per¬ 
centage of its caseine, and this can be 
made to unite with the fats in forming a 
butter-caseinc compound that may pass 
for butter; and then, when the butter is 
produced in granular form, washed two 
or three times, taken from the churn, 
weighed, salted, and weighed again, all 
in less than 12 minutes, it may easily con¬ 
tain from 25 to 88 per cent, of water. 
These till being well known facts, we 
cannot see how the people can be blamed 
for refusing to believe that all is butter 
that shows in the butter-bowl. 
We heartily sanction the movement 
that is on foot to have some of these fam¬ 
ous cows again tested, this time under 
the supervision of a committee, one at 
least of which shall be a competent chem¬ 
ist. We hope sufficient care will be ex¬ 
ercised in analyzing the milk before, and 
after the tests, in analyzing the butter 
and the butter-milk, and in carefully 
weighing and keeping record of all the 
food consumed, and even of the water 
drank, that there can be no chance for 
error. Let us know just how much milk 
is given ; how much butter fat it contains, 
and how much caseine; bow T much fat 
there is left in the butter-milk, and how 
much caseine taken out; how much water 
there is in the butter, and how much, if 
any, caseine when it is weighed; also 
how much food, in pounds and value, 
was consumed, and how much the butter 
cost per pound. Let us have the matter 
this time settled, and settled beyond a 
question, showing just how much butter 
fat a cow can secrete, and how large an 
amount of that can be placed in good 
shape in the butter-bowl. Let us know 
whether it has been butter, or cheese, or 
a combination of these and water, that 
has formed the basis of the great records. 
Let us have the facts! 
— ■ ■ ■ «<» - 
WHO 8 RIGHT? 
We thought we had learned something 
during 13 years of strawberry culture, 
having, during a part of the time, over 
100 different kinds, and never less than 
40. If, in our various experiments as to 
the best way to cultivate them so ns to 
obtain the most and best berries, there 
is one thing that we fancied we had 
learned, it was that the plants should, on 
no account, be cultivated so as to disturb 
the roots in the Spring or Summer until 
after the fruiting period. For several 
years, our plauts were hoed up to the 
time and during the time of fruitage. 
But the fruit was always small, the vines 
weakly and subject to sunburn, as it is 
called. We were opposed to “mulching” 
also, reasoning that varieties that could 
not stand the climate without such pro¬ 
tection and coddling, should be condemned 
as not worth raising. 
An old strawberry grower visiting the 
Rorai.’s Experiment Grounds and seeing 
the rusted, feeble condition of the plants 
said: 
“Strawberries do not thrive with you, 
and yet you give them good care evi¬ 
dently.” 
“What is the reason, think you?” we 
inquired. 
“Oh, it is hurd to tell. The climate or 
or soil is not adapted to them.” 
During the same time we were try¬ 
ing the frequent-cultivation plan with our 
strawberries, the raspberries were treated 
in the same way. Winter killing and the 
various ills that delicacy invites were the 
discouraging results. Recently, articles 
have appeared from such men as E. P. 
Roe, Charles A. Green and others, whose 
statements are generally entitled to re¬ 
spect, advocating the cultivation of 
strawberries during the entire Spring and 
Summer! Their advocacy is confined to 
‘shallow” cultivation,it is true. But the 
average hired man cannot be trusted to 
hoe or cultivate so near the surface that 
while the weeds are killed, the berry roots 
are not severed. 
We do not presume to set ourselves as 
judges over such good, experienced men 
as Mr. Roe and Mr. Green, We may, 
however, be pardoned for stating that our 
own experience has taught us rather to 
let tne weeds grow, than to disturb the 
roots of raspberry and strawberry plants, 
which exist near the surface, until after 
fruitage; and even then let us give culti¬ 
vation only deep enough to destroy’ the 
weeds and mellow the surface soil. 
The way which we prefer, and which 
has secured us the strongest, plants and 
the finest crop, is to mulch in the Fall 
after the first hard freeze, between the 
rows and, as far as may be, between the 
plants, with old manure and chemical 
fertilizers, and then to leave the patch un¬ 
til the tenth of July without any further 
disturbance than that of pulling, by hand, 
the few weeds that grow. The plants 
themselves are never covered—it has been 
found unnecessary. They arc sufficiently 
protected by their own leaves and by the 
mulch. If then it is desired that the bed 
should remain another season, weeds may 
be destroyed by hoeing the mulch and 
the surface soil, adding additional manure 
late in November, as before. For field 
cultivation or for matted rows, a some¬ 
what different course -will suggest itself, 
while the same principles are kept in view. 
OLEOMARGARINE AHEAD. 
On April 25, 1S84, Governor Cleveland, 
of New York, signed a bill which con¬ 
tained this provision: 
“No person sliall m&UUfaclurO out of any oleagin¬ 
ous substance or substances, or any compound of 
the same, other than Hint produced from unadulter¬ 
ated milk, or of cream from the same, any artlele 
designed to take the plaee of butler or cheese pro 
dueed from pure, unadulterated milk or cream of 
the 6nme, or shall sell or offer for sale the same as an 
article of food. This provision shall not a poly to 
pure skint milk or eheesemade from pure skim in Ilk. 
Whoever violates the provisions of this section shall 
be guilty of u misdemeanor, and be punished by a line 
of not less than *100 nor more than $500, or uot less 
than six months* or more than one year’s Imprison¬ 
ment, or by both such line and imprisonment for 
the tlrst offense, and by Imprisonment for one year 
for each subsequent offense." 
Shortly afterwards, Morris Marx, a 
’ grocer of this citv, was arrested for selling 
oleomargarine under its own name in 
violation of this statute, and fined $100 in 
the Police Court, The case was appealed 
to test the constitutionality of the law. 
A similar case also occurred in Brooklyn, 
and, that together with a large number of 
others brought against dealers in other 
places by the State Dairy Commissioner, 
has been held in suspense awaiting the 
decision of the Marx test case. The 
Supreme Bench, General Term, in this 
city, affirmed the constitutionality of the 
law. The General Term of the Supreme 
Court, Judges Davis, Brady and Daniels, 
sitting in Brooklyn, considered the law 
unconstitutional, but affirmed the sentence 
of the lower court in order that the case 
might be decided finally by the Court 
of Appeals, 
Last Tuesday, the Court of Appeals, 
which overrules all the lower courts, and 
is the court of final resoit in this State, 
declared the law unconstitutional. Judge 
Rapallo wrote the lengthy opinion, in 
which the whole court concurs. The fol¬ 
lowing passage, in speuking of the law, 
gives pithily the grounds of the decision: 
“This prevents competition, ami places a bar upon 
progress and invent Ion, It Invades rights, both of 
person and property, guaranteed by the Constitution. 
The sale of a substitute ror any article of manufac¬ 
ture Is legitimate business, nrnl If effected without 
deception, cannot be arbitrarily suppressed. The 
act Is uot aimed at deception, but goes further, and, 
In effect, creates a monopoly destructive of rights 
protected by the Constitutions alike of the State 
and the United States.” 
Judge Pratt, who dissented from the 
Brooklyn Court, and whose dissent is in¬ 
dorsed by tlie Court of Appeals, put the 
grounds still more forcibly, when lie said: 
“It seems to me a citizen lias a right to make any 
pure and wholesome article of food and sell It for 
what it actually Is, and It is Immaterial whut, lawful 
use shall be made of It afterward. If a man Is too 
poor to buy good butter, I see no objection to his 
using oil, cheese, or honey, or any other substitute 
for butter. A law probiidtlug the making of an Iron 
ruke to be used as a subslllute for one mude entirely 
of wood could bo passed with Just the same le-al 
effect as a law providing that oleomargarine should 
uot be made ns a substit ute for butter.” 
The New York law was modeled upon 
that, of Missouri, which the court of high¬ 
est jurisdiction in that State had declared 
constitutional before the passage of the 
New York law. lu spite of this fact, 
many of the best constitutional lawyers of 
this State were of opinion that it would 
be declared unconstitutional, and the Ru¬ 
ral expressed grave fears in the same di¬ 
rection duriug the discussion of the law 
before the Legislature, and earnestly 
urged our law-makeis to be careful as to 
the substance and formulation of any law 
relatiug to imitation dairy products, be¬ 
cause any measure, however severe, if 
abortive, would lie worse for the dairy in¬ 
terests of the country thun none at all. 
We wished every possible check to be put 
on the manufacture of products so liable 
to deleterious adulteration as oleomarga¬ 
rine, buttcrine. and similar compounds; 
and on their sale under any fictitious 
names; but we did not wish the passage 
of any law merely to appease popular 
clamor temporarily; but which must ulti¬ 
mately be abrogated by the decisions of 
the courts, thus injuring the interests they 
were ostensibly passed to protect. 
The decision of the Court of Appeals 
in this State is likely to have wide-spread 
influence. The Pennsylvania and Illinois 
laws prohibiting the manufacture and 
sale of bogus dairy products, are almost 
exact rescripts of the law which has just 
been declared unconstitutional in New 
York. Indeed, as the latter was an imita¬ 
tion of that of Missouri, which, in its 
turn, was modeled ou that of Iowa, any 
decision affecting adversely the validity 
of the law on constitutional grounds in 
this State, must have an injurious effect 
on the enforcement of similar laws in 
other States. Ilcre the laws against the 
sale of imitation for genuine butter, arc 
still in force; but Dairy Commissioner 
Brown believes the recent decision will 
render it more difficult to prosecute vio¬ 
lators of them. 
That the Legislature has the right, 
under the police power of the State, to 
regulate or prohibit the manufacture or 
sale of anything injurious to the public 
health, morals or safety, no one denies. It 
has the undoubted right to prevent fraud 
or deception, and traffic in harmful or 
fraudulent adulterations. In the course 
of the trial of the Marx case, it 
was demonstrated, first, that in the manu¬ 
facture of oleomargarine and similar com¬ 
pounds, all kinds of filthy, repulsive and 
unwholesome fats can be employed ; and, 
second, that in many cases, these repulsive 
materials had been used. Indeed, the 
more the manufacture flourishes and the 
keener the competition, the greater the 
temptation to use the cheapest materials. 
It Is notorious that the bogus is general¬ 
ly sold as real butter. Laws should be 
promptly passed providing a rigid super¬ 
vision of the manufacture of these pro¬ 
ducts, and heavy penalties for their fraud¬ 
ulent sale; and these, laws should be 
stringently enforced. Hitherto the laws 
against fraudulent adulterations have been 
bright examples of how not to do it. 
BREVITIES. 
The May King is among the earliest of 
strawberries. 
First picking of green peas at the Rural 
Ground, this year, June 10. 
Ltttek and often is the way of many in 
applying nitrogenous fertilizers. 
Reap B. F. Johnson’s articles on the first 
page: “The Grasses and Clovers for Pasture 
and Hay.” 
The present is one of the most interesting 
of Mrs. Mary Wager-Fisher’s fascinating series 
of transcontinental letters. 
The third National Convention of Stock¬ 
men will probably bo held in the Chicago Ex¬ 
position building on Nov. 17tb and 18th. The 
first annual meeting of the National Cattle 
Growers’ Association will be belli the next day. 
Wk applied sulphate of ammonia, nitrate 
of soda and dried blood (mixed',at the rate of 
200 pounds per acre, ou half of each of half-a- 
dozen plots of different varieties of corn. 
This was just prior to cultivation. 
Rosa ruoos a is among the hardiest of roses. 
While most of our plants were seriously in¬ 
jured by the past Wiuter. this escaped un¬ 
harmed. Further than this, in transplanting, 
n plant was overlooked aud remained all 
night aud until nearly uoon the next day 
with its roots exposed to the sun and air. A 
part of it diod, bat the rest is now as thrifty 
aud vigorous as ever. 
About one-tenth of the Hodgtnan Potato, 
with which half of our poor-soil plot was 
planted, sprout badly enough. In fact, about 
one fifth of the pieces have not as yet sprouted 
at all. The other varieties have made a fine 
growth. But should Hodgumn fail us, as it 
threatens to do, this half of the little field 
will not. at harvest, speak well for the Rural’s 
trench-muloh system of raising potutocs. 
This year wo are mixing plaster and Paris- 
green in the proportion of one pound of the 
latter to half a barrel of tiff' tilaster. The 
great thing is to intermix them thoroughly. 
We spread half a barrel of plaster on a 
close floor so that it covers an oval mace of 
25 square feet. The Paris-groon is then 
fluated over the entire surface us evenly as 
possible, and un iron-tooth rake is used to mix. 
It is then hoed into a pile, again leveled and 
again raked and placed in n box. to be used as 
needed. Onr readers should buy the best 
brands of Paris-green, which cost, at retail, 
from M0 to 35 cents per pound. 
Last week, we received from Arthur 
Bryaut, Princeton. Ill,, a box containing fine 
specimens of the Rnlome apple, for which ho 
will please accept our thanks. The apples 
were in good condition, and easily recogniz¬ 
able from the illustrations of this variety 
which appeared In the Rurat, of September 
1, 1883. In this variety, we seem to have 
another handsome, long-keeping apple, in 
quality comparing favorably with the Ben 
Da vs aud Willow Twig. Mr. Bryant writes 
ns that the trees of Salome wintered well, 
coming out better than anything, except 
Duchess and Wealthy. 
The live-stock middlemen (the brokers) of 
Chicago seem perfectly satisfied and happy 
with the system tbev now have of disposing 
of cattle, as it virtually puls the throats and 
purses of the growers within their grasp, and, 
at a meeting held June 10. they resolved that 
they would not sign nnv petition or counten¬ 
ance any movement to change the present 
method of doing business. Any’ movement 
made to benefit the producer, or to render 
him mere independent, is. in their eyas, an 
unpardonable sin. And became Mr Perry, 
the Secretary of the National Cattle Growers’ 
Association, is working in the interests of the 
cattle growers, buth this great monopoly and 
its organ, the Chicago Tribune, are terribly 
down on him. We believe, however, he is in 
a fair way to survive the attack. 
