THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A Nations! Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Conducted by 
EfcBEllT S. CABMAN, 
seeds sprout in a few days and these 
se r dlings will bloom during the summer 
following, the same as if the plants grew 
from roots. A large proportion will give 
single flowers, some semi-double, and a 
few perfectly double flowets. Gather the 
seeds now. 
ELECT THE RIGHT MAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. SI Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1887. 
TnE Rural has made the carefullest ar¬ 
rangements this year to avoid, in so far as 
possible, all mistakes liable to occur in its 
subscription department and to secure the 
utmost punctuality iu entering names upon 
our lists and forwarding subscriptions to 
othei journals with which wc club. 
If the Rural's poultry investigations 
have determined one thing more valuable 
than others, it is the use of kerosene and 
spraying bellows forexterminating lice in 
the easiest and cheapest way. A poultry 
house 10 feet square can be thoroughly 
kerosened in a minute, the fine spray pen¬ 
etrating every crack and crevice. There 
is no need whatever of whitewash or the 
use of any other material for this purpose. 
The kerosene vapor is effectual. The lice 
cannot stay in a house kerosened every 
two weeks in summer or every month in 
winter. The cost of the kerosene need 
not be considered, since the spray is so 
fine that a gill will serve the same pur¬ 
pose as a quart applied iu the usual way. 
- ~ 
How much of a given fertilizer can you 
profitably use on your crops—potatoes'for 
example ? How many farmers know or 
have taken any pains to find out ? And 
how much, do they lose by not knowing ? 
Experiments of this kind on the impov¬ 
erished soil plots of the Rural Grounds 
prove to be instructive indeed. The in ne 
progressive farmers about us see it and 
will be influenced by it another season. 
Many who have tried partial, or special, 
or cheap fertilizers without any effect, 
see that a high-grade potato fertilizer will 
increase the crop and that there is more 
profit in using a thousand pounds to the 
acre of their run-down land than in using 
less. We cannot help believing that the 
Rural has the advantage of many of the 
experiment stations in having a poor, but 
uniformly poor soil to experiment with. 
The plain story told by the trials re¬ 
ferred to will appear in due time. 
The season for Farmers’ Institutes is 
close at baud. It is a shameful fact that 
in only half-a-dozen States are these meet¬ 
ings conducted as they should be. They 
are genuine “traveling agricultural 
schools.” They ought to aid the agri¬ 
cultural colleges. They ought to fill a 
place in the farm campaign that no other 
organization ever can fill. The Rural 
believes that the Farmers’ Institute is one 
of the most promising movements of mod¬ 
ern times. Next week we shall present 
a history of the movement with a synopsis 
of what is being done in all the States. 
We shall not be satisfied until Farmers’ 
Institutes are held in every State of the 
Union. We propose to 'show farmers 
how these meetings are started and con¬ 
ducted. 
Farmers of Massachusetts arc much 
dissatisfied at the action of the last Legis¬ 
lature of that State regarding “oleo” 
legislation. An effort was made to pre¬ 
vent the manufacturers from coloring the 
stuff yellow ; but it was defeated. The 
hearing before the committee came at a 
season when farmers could not well at¬ 
tend, while manufacturers and dealers 
were out in force. The farmers of Massa¬ 
chusetts propose to see to it that members 
of the next Legislature from country dis¬ 
tricts go to Boston with a full knowledge 
of what their constituents want them to 
do. The Rural will help in the cause 
by contributing thousands of its cartoons 
with appropriate comments. These will 
be posted at all voting places in the 
State under the direction of the State 
Grange. 
It seems a retrograde step to go back to 
single dahlias or to single flowers of any 
kind when for many years “ double ” 
flowers have been looked upon as decided 
evidences of floricultural progress. We 
have now many single kinds of dahlias 
that florists are selling at from two to 
three dollars a dozen, while the best of 
the double varities arc offered at not over 
$1*50 per dozen. Let us again remind 
our readers that it is a very easy thing to 
raise dahlias from seed. Sown in Febru¬ 
ary in boxes or pots in the house, the 
Quinces are always in demand and 
high-priced, probably because, while 
everybody likes their "flavor, few are suc¬ 
cessful iu growing them. Yet no fruit is 
of easier culture, or a surer crop, if its sim¬ 
ple needs are supplied. What is neces¬ 
sary is to set a thrifty young plant in 
fairly good and not too dry soil, and then 
to avoid deep stirring of the soil around 
it. Weeds must be kept down, and that 
is best done by a liberal mulch of any 
sort of coarse litter, which also serves to 
maintain moisture, and to repel both ex¬ 
cessive heat and severe cold from the slen¬ 
der roots which fill the ground near the 
surface. The trees should branch low, 
and a wrapping round the stem is useful 
as an extension of the mulch and to repel 
the borer beetle, which prefers the quince 
to even the tenderest apple stems. Dwarf 
pear trees, being on quince roots,are ben¬ 
efited by the same measures. 
Mr. Lawson Valentine, the proprie¬ 
tor of Houghton Farm, Mountainville, 
Orange Co., N. Y., whose heart is always 
overflowing with benevolent projects, 
now opens a dairy school—the first, in this 
country. It is under the immediate su¬ 
pervision of Mrs. Anderson, who, after 
studying for two years as a pupil, direct¬ 
ed a dairy in Sweden for 10 years, while 
for the past three years her work has been 
confined to American dairies. Mrs. An¬ 
derson, at Houghton Farm, is now ready 
to teach as many boys, girls, women and 
men as choose to place themselves under 
her direction. The exact terms are not 
quite settled, beyond the fact that the 
chief expense will be borne by Mr. Valen¬ 
tine, and pupils may look for the most 
liberal treatment and competent instruc¬ 
tion. Here is a fine opportunity to learn, 
at a trifling expense, how to make the 
best of butter, and we hope our farm con¬ 
temporaries will assist the Rural in giv- 
iug Mr. Valentine’s generous proposition 
all publicity. 
Last season there seemed to be an epi¬ 
demic of railroad disasters. Train after 
train crashed through broken bridges or 
dashed over broken rails. The number 
of passengers killed or injured by the 
smashing of the cars was inconsiderable 
in most cases, but iu almost every acci¬ 
dent the wreck took fire from the over¬ 
turned stove or exploded lamp. Then 
the passengers who were caught under 
the wreck perished amid all the horrors 
of a death at the stake. The universal 
outburst of public indignation which fol¬ 
lowed these accidents forced the Legisla¬ 
tures of many States to prohibit the 
use of railroad cars heated by the ordi¬ 
nary coal stove. Thus far, good. The 
Legislatures should go a step further and 
compel all railroad managers to supply 
locomotives with spark-arresters. In the 
single year 1880, when efforts were made 
to secure statistics on the subject, it was 
estimated that 1,712,348 acres of forest 
were consumed and property to the value 
of $4,244,208 was destroyed by these lo¬ 
comotive fires. There is uothing about 
the employment of spark-arresters that 
would be a hardship for railroad mi n. 
Their use is demanded by public safety. 
ARMSTRONG. 
September 17 we drilled in bushel 
of Armstrong (Landreth) wheat to the 
acre on a field of 4acres. On four 
acres 47 tons of New York stable manure 
were harrowed in after the oat stubble 
had been plowed under, using a disc and 
Acme harrow to do the work. On the 
remaining half acre 400 pounds of com¬ 
plete high-grade fertilizer were sown. 
Our plan is to sow about 000 pounds of 
fertilizer to the acre next spring on the 
four acres which have received the manure, 
that a comparison maybe made between 
this and the half acre upon which 400 
pounds (800 pounds to the acre) have been 
sown. We have great faith iu harrowing 
in fine manure, instead of plowing it 
under for wheat. 
For the purposes of crossing, we have 
raised the Armstrong wheat for many 
years, but only on small plots. Our 
neighbors who have raised it say that it 
makes a better quality of flour than 
Clawson, and that it yields more. The 
kernel is larger (longer) than that of 
Clawson and of a lighter color; that is, 
it is less of an amber, inclining to white. 
In many counties one of the most im¬ 
portant. offices to be filled at the corning 
election is that of county superintendent 
of instruction. There is an ideal super 
intendent just as thcie is an ideal sheriff 
or an ideal treasurer. If it is necessary 
to select men of dignity and integrity to 
look after the legal and business interests 
of the county, it is fully as important that 
the man who is to direct the education of 
our children should come up to the re¬ 
quired standard. Ilow often we see a 
man nominated for this important posi¬ 
tion simply because lie can make a good 
speech or because lie has done something 
for the party. This is entirely wrong. 
Put salary-suckers and party ornaments 
into other offices and give us clean and 
earnest men to conduct our schools. The 
county superintendent ought to be a prac¬ 
tical teacher. Not one teacher in 10 is 
what we call a practical teacher. Grad¬ 
uates of normal schools might to be the 
best of teachers, but iu many cases they 
can do nothing but educate other teach¬ 
ers, much as a carpenter would educate 
other carpenters. A good superintendent 
should be an educated man and a liberal- 
minded man without any pet hobbies to 
ride. He ought to be a worker rather 
than a speaker. In nominating and elect¬ 
ing a county superintendent these points 
should be considered. If there is any 
county nomination that should be viewed 
from an independent standpoint, even by 
hide-bound party men, it. is that for the 
office of superintendent of schools. We 
hope our friends Mill, so far ns possible, 
act up to these suggestions at the coming 
election. 
FARMERS’ DEMANDS. 
Chief among the demands formulated 
at the National Farmers’ Alliance Con¬ 
vention at Minneapolis the other day, are 
that the Government should own and op¬ 
erate one or more transcontinental rail¬ 
roads with connections and feeders; the 
free coinage of silver; the issue of paper 
money by the Government, direct to the 
people; a graded income tax; a radical 
reform in the taxation of laud and real 
estate mortgages; a public school system 
of more practical value; the election of 
United States Senators directly by the 
people; and that in the reduction of 
national taxation, the burden should bo 
removed from the necessaries in com¬ 
mon use, rather than from spirits and to- 
baeco. A resolution to which no just objec¬ 
tions can be made by any class maintained 
that railroads should reduce their charges 
to correspond with the low prices of farm 
produce. This could be done by charg¬ 
ing only in proportion to the amount of 
capital actually invested and the cost, 
of service performed, instead of being 
permitted to lay on the producing class an 
enormous burden of taxation to pay in¬ 
terest on fictitious capital in the form of 
watered stock. The best-authorities calcu¬ 
late that the amount of this false capitali¬ 
zation reaches $2,000,000,000, an d estimate 
that the unearned tax levied on the pub¬ 
lic to pay interest on the bogus stocks 
and bonds representing it, amounts to the 
enormous sum of $120,000,000 a year. Be¬ 
fore labor can secure anything for its own 
subsistence, it must pay this colossal sum 
to stock aud bondholders. Dividends on 
this watered stock area continuous fraud 
on the public which no lapse of time can 
condone. Justice will never be satisfied 
until every drop of “water” is squeezed 
out of railroad securities, and their hold¬ 
ers arc compelled to rest content with a 
fair protit on the capital actually invested. 
A PREDICTED FINANCIAL CRASH. 
A great deal of demoralization pre¬ 
vailed in the Stock Exchange here yester¬ 
day, and nearly all securities fell heavily — 
generally to the lowest figure during the 
year—chiefly owing to the publication of 
an interview by a reporter of a St. Louis 
paper, in which Mr. I)epew, President of 
the Vanderbilt railroad system, was re¬ 
ported to predict the approach, like a 
cyclone, of a worse financial panic and 
crash than that of 1837 or of 1857, growing 
out of overdone real estate speculation in 
the West aud the craze to build railroads 
where there is nothing for railroads to haul. 
The reckless real estate “booms” in so 
many places in the West and the construc¬ 
tion this year of at least 5,000 more miles 
of railways than are necessary to meet the 
requirements of commerce, have, accord¬ 
ing to the report, already absorbed mill¬ 
ions of actual cash. At nearly every one 
of the trading centers the Vanderbilt 
party visited in its recent inspection tour 
through the West, they found the most ex¬ 
travagant views of prospective real es¬ 
tate values. It was a common thing to 
hear men ask, and others pay $1,000 for 
town lots situated in corn fields, or on a 
hill top, and two miles from the center of 
the town, and intrinsically worth only 
from $25 to $50 per acre. The investors 
in these real estate ventures, as a rule, 
pay 25 to 50 per cent, of the purchase 
price iu cash, and the rest by mortgage. 
When the predicted crash comes, the cash * 
payments will be swept away, leaving the 
holders of the mortgages the property as 
their only security, which will lack from 
60 to 00 per cent, of being enough to li¬ 
quidate the claim. The losses by over¬ 
building railroads the report puts at 
$ 100 , 000 , 000 . 
Cablegrams from Mr. Depew this morn¬ 
ing say the report is greatly exaggerated, 
but there is a deep impression that 
there is a strong foundation in truth 
for at least a partial verification of the 
prediction. It must be borne in mind, 
however, that there has been little advance 
in the price of western farm lands of late; 
that speculation in town lots has been 
confined principally to very restricted 
districts, and that almost the entire rail¬ 
road mileage built, consists of lateral lines 
and extensions of old and strong lines 
which can carry them on their "present 
earnings. Still we would strongly advise 
our friends to prepare for any contingen¬ 
cy by curtailing their indebtedness as 
much as possible, and practicing a con¬ 
servative system of economy. It is the 
part of prudence to prepare, not only for 
a certain, but even for a prospective dis¬ 
aster. 
BREVITIES. 
A STINGING White frost on the 12th, which 
quite ended the beauty of bedding plants, ex¬ 
cept such sturdy kinds as petunias, verbenas, 
pansies and chrysanthemums. 
This spring wo inserted cions of the remark- 
aide now pear Idaho in the Kieirer. These 
cions have made a luxuriant growth. It is 
said, however, that in the end tills stock 
proves uncongenial except for Japan pears. 
What a melancholy contrast, in numbers, 
spirit, talent, knowledge of the world, politi¬ 
cal sagacity uud general influence between 
the conventions of the Farmers’ Alliance and 
the Knights of Labor held at the same time 
in Minneapolis during the week! 
The advice given by P. H. Jacobs about 
disposing of the surplus stock of poultry dur¬ 
ing winter, is good. lie proposes to prevent 
the surplus which generally forms a “glut” at 
the holidays, by urging fanners to eat more 
poultry nt that time and buy less beef. 
Ik the keeping quality of a grape is propor- 
iqnate to the thickness of the skin, then the 
Diana should keep from September to Septem¬ 
ber. This is a seedling of the Catawba, raised 
by Mrs. Diana Crchore (now flu years of age) 
of Milton, Mass, iu about 1840. The color is a 
light-red, the quality sweet aud good in some 
places and very poor iu others. 
The market for live poultry at the Jewish 
holidays is excellent. Usually dealers are 
able to make preparations for securing an ex¬ 
tra supply of poultry, but two weeks ago at 
one of those, holidays the demand was so great 
that not a live fowl was to be found, It Ls 
said that this state of affairs bad never been 
known before iu recent years. 
Our cartoon, “Disease Lurks in Filth,” has 
been appropriately placed in the urinals at 
■some of our larger fairs. Sufficient attention 
is not. paid to the sanitary condition of our 
fair grounds. Even if they #re used only a 
few days in the year it is important that they 
lie kept in the best possible condition. The 
sanitary arrangements made at most places 
where crowds uttend at Intervals arc usually 
disgraceful. 
At the Burlington Co., N. J. fair an exhibit 
of second crop potatoes was shown. The Early 
Rose were dug ou the 18th or .July, planted 
again on the 20th and were dug about Oct. 1st. 
They were of large size. The Beauty of He¬ 
bron did not do ho well, but were sufficiently 
large for tabic use. We expected to raise two 
crops of the Rural Blush potato this season. 
The experiment failed as the strong and well 
developed plants of tlio second crop were ac¬ 
cidentally, destroyed before large potatoes 
formed. 
A REMARKABLE curiosity was exhibited at 
tht 4 Mt. Holly lair. It whs a perfect ban's egg 
of about, the usual size inclosed within a larger 
egg. The hen Uus laid five of them so far, 
and Mrs. Collins of Medford, who is the for¬ 
tunate owner, thinks she has struck a novelty 
in egg production. The internal egg is per¬ 
fect, but Is surrounded by a liquid resembling 
the white of uu ordinary egg. They are about 
the size of an ordinary double-yelk i*d egg. 
The R. N.-Y., after its unfavorable reports 
of the Lucretia Dew berry, is much interested 
iu, and a little exercised over, the very favor¬ 
able reports of other people. While wo may 
advise our readers to be guided by these 
favorable reports, we cannot as yet change 
our own opinion, viz.: t hat we should not care 
to raise the Lucretia, while the best of the 
Upright blackberries will thrive in our garden. 
And the Rural has cultivated the Lucretia 
since its introduction. 
Wk give considerable space this week to the 
marketing of poultry. There is as much in¬ 
formation iu the page which we have prepared 
«.s we have ever seen in any book. The holi¬ 
day trade is generally overdone. The mar¬ 
ket is “glutted'’ uud consequently prices are 
very low, III several seasons ul late, Christ¬ 
mas has conic in a warm, wet time. The losses 
to ahinpers who sent carloads of poultry here 
expecting cold weather were enormous. Ex¬ 
cept for turkeys it is doubtful if the holiday 
poultry trade is very profitable as at present 
conducted. 
