MMIWUU’Z^ 
You XLVI. No. 1934 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 19, 1887 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
*2.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by the Rural New-Yorker. In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
in Kentucky and Illinois. The number of 
horses required for military purposes is enor¬ 
mous. If at war Germany would require 
396,000 aud France at least 875,000. The Aus¬ 
trian service calls for 202,000 and Russia ex¬ 
ceeds all by requiring 460,000. These would 
be the requirements to start with, and owiug 
to the large numbers of deaths in battle and 
from hardships on the road, constant re-en¬ 
forcements would be needed. England is 
more destitute of cavalry and artillery horses 
than any of the other Great Powers. In the 
event of war, an English authority says she 
could not put two army corps into the field 
without having at least 20,000 more half-breed 
horses than she now possesses, and if the war 
lasted six months she would need an additiou- 
Portugal, where they are used almost exclu¬ 
sively in the commissariat service, as they 
were here during the civil war; Italy and 
Switzerland have also a few mountain batter¬ 
ies “horsed” by mules. About IS monthsago, 
when war was threatened between England 
and Russia, the English War Office made 
large purchases of mules in this country for 
the commissariat service; but they were not 
satisfactory aud were sold at auction in Lon¬ 
don for less than one-fourth of their cost. This 
morning’s cablegrams tell us that the French 
are buying large numbers of cavalry horses 
in Spain; while Germany is a heavy purchaser 
of horses in England. As both England and 
Spain are rapidly increasing their military 
forces, it is likely they will both soon put an 
end to this trade. Then if w ar breaks out, 
this country alone catf’supply the demand. 
strains of our own which, of course, we are 
not expected or desirous to put forward in 
priut. Therefore I must confine what I have 
to say to New England—aud there, even, there 
would not be entire unanimity of opinion as 
to “best kinds.” 
Beans. —Some of the older sorts are still 
among the best, or at least are so regarded by 
those whose early tastes were formed upon 
them. A good many people have never taken 
kindly to the “wax” snaps. They are often 
“more delicate” only at the expense of the 
“beau taste.” The China, Six Weeks and 
Valentine are sorts still very extensively 
grown and not infrequently returned to af¬ 
ter experimenting with newer kinds. The 
Crystal White Wax appears to me the best of 
• its class. For an early 
i dwarf shell bean many 
|V esteem the dwarf Horti- 
Bfe fr cultural as best, but it 
is surpassed, I think, by 
Low’s Champion and 
by the red and purple- 
seeded flageolets. In 
pole beans, aside from 
Limas, the old speckled 
and the White-seeded 
Horticultural are both 
early and good as shells, 
wuile the new Mont 
d’Or and the Kentucky 
Wonder make a succes¬ 
sion which iu quality 
or productiveness never 
has been surpassed. 
Beets. — Here, too, 
some of _ the older sorts 
are retained in estima¬ 
tion, and ^ while other 
varieties are sown for 
earliness the long Blood 
Beet is still held to be 
the .best in quality. 
Among the early sorts, 
Bassauo cannot yet be 
dispensed w itb, although 
Egyptian has had a 
t great run, but is now 
being crowded by the 
newer Eclipse. With 
me a strain of the 
Dewing has proved 
within a few days as 
early as either, but as it 
grows mostly under 
; -« ground, with heavy tops, 
its '■•ariinesa is not so 
3&-< v ' ' 4 . f quickly observed. Grow- 
beets for greens has 
. received a severe set- 
. back by the small white 
tfni worm which has attacked 
' ‘ '••(/( ,, them, and for which I 
jfi r f‘‘ know no remedy that will 
leave the leaves edible. 
'Cj'hctLt-S Cabbage.—T he Et- 
aaq.es is set down by the 
seedsmen as the earliest, 
and as giving solid heads 
orsoncm 
CLOVIS 5i 
r T Fig. 104 is shown this fine 
imported Percheron stallion. 
He is owned by Messrs. Sav¬ 
age & Farnhara, of Detroit, 
Michigan. Clovis is dark 
gray in color, stauds ltt 1 * 
bands high and weighs 1830 
pounds. He was foaled 
March 10, 1883 and was a prize-winner at the 
Grout Natioual Concourse held at Nogent. Le 
Retrou, France, iu June, l-SSli. The introduc 
tion of the heav}' French and English draft 
horses has been a great 
boon to Western agricul¬ 
ture. The successful 
operating of a good farm 
depends greatly upon the 
horses employed as mo¬ 
tive power. The best 
farm horse is ajstrong, 
patient^ animal * * with 
strength’andjmduranee 
enough to perform; his 
work aud ’intelligence 
enough to properly apply 
his strength. The Per- 
oheronsand their grades 
come as near to the ideal 
farm horse as we are 
likely to get in this gen- A 
eration. Sm 
THE EUROPEAN 
WAR SCARE AND 
THE HORSE TRADE. 
The war scare in Eu¬ 
rope is likely to have con¬ 
siderable effect on the 
horse markets of this 
country. Germany, Rus¬ 
sia and Austria have 
already forbidden the 
exportation of horses, 
and France is likely to 
follow their example. 
Should she do so, an em¬ 
bargo on the exportation 
of Percheron horses 
would strike a serious 
blow to the horse breed¬ 
ing interests of this 
country, especially in 
the West. Although 
Percherons are excellent 
animals for theordinanee 
ami commissariat de¬ 
partments, it is hardly 
likely that the French 
will injure a profitable 
branch of their trade by 
prohibiting the export¬ 
ation of horses to this 
country for breeding 
purposes. To impress 
on the authorities the bad 
policy of such a measure, 
aud to secure an exemp¬ 
tion iu favor of draftjhorses for breeding pur¬ 
poses, Governor Oglesby, of Illinois, hascom- 
missioned Colonel Thompson of Wayne, the 
Secretary of the American Percheron Horse 
Breeders’ Association, as Special Commissioner 
to the French Government, 
In the event, of a Kurojieuu war it is more 
than likely that most of t he belligerents will , 
draw upon this country for a supply of 
horses. Indeed, the cable tells us that the 
English Government has already dispatched a ‘ 
number of officers to purchase cavalry horses J 
IMPORTED PERCHERON STALLION CLOVIS 5340 (6234). From a Photograph. Fig. 
al re-enforcement of at least 10,000 per mouth. 
There are only 2 , 000,000 horses in Great Brit¬ 
ain and nearly all these are draft, hunting and 
race-horses. Russia has more horses than 
any other country in the world, the number 
amounting to over 23,000,000; bnt since expor¬ 
tation is prohibited, the rest of Europe must 
look for fresh supplies to Canada and the 
United States. These two countries have 1,8,- 
000,000 horses, of which 12,000,000 are on this 
side of the border. None of the European ar¬ 
mies employ mules, except those of Spain and 
GARDEN SEEDS* EARLIEST AND 
BEST KINDS. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
The kinds best in oue place are not always 
best iu another. Some of us, (too, who have 
been long in the business, have sorts and 
1 v/*x. » w 
certainly earlier than 
any others, and with skill 
can iu many places no doubt be made successful. 
The old Early York is a flue-llavored cabbage, 
aud in its improved forms gives a sufficiently 
firm head. Next come Wakefield, Low’s Peer¬ 
less and the early summer cabbages, all “good 
to very good,” as the pomologists say. The 
U innigstadt is everywhere popular for its 
sure heading on light soils. I think Stone¬ 
mason lues never been surpassed iu popular es¬ 
timation as a late sort with private gardeners 
iu New England, though in market gardens 
some newer sorts are crowding it badly. Sa- 
