(Continued from page 785.) 
The lime dressing is considered most servic- 
alde. A heavy dressing of lime is given in 
fall and spring. 
W. M. P„ Bluff Paint, N. Y— I found the 
inclosed cocoon in my young catawba vine¬ 
yard. What is it? 
A ns. —This beautiful green object decked 
with bands and spots of gold is not properly a 
cocoon. It is a chrysalis, and is the pupa or 
resting stage of t he large brown butterfly 
(Danais arehippus) that is so common from 
June until October. The larva is cylindrical 
in shape, striped transversely with narrow 
bands of white, black and yellow, and has two 
rather long black horns near the head end. 
The larva* feed exclusively oti the milkweed 
and so never do any barm. 
J. A. A., Dripping Springs, Tete. —Can the 
RURAL furnish me with seeds of Prickly 
Comfrey? If not, who can? 
Ans.—W e have only a few plants for ex¬ 
periment. Such firms as W. Atlee Burpee & 
Co., of Philadelphia, or Thorburn & Co., of N. 
Y., may furnish the roots. 
G. C. S., Jersey Shore, Pa ,—I am much 
pleased with the Aspinwall potato planter, 
and I want to get. a tobacco planter that will 
do equally good work. Where can I get it? 
Ans.—W o cannot answer this. Can any of 
our readers help us? 
F. W. It., Dayton, Ohio. —How' can Canada 
thistles be extirpated? 
Ans. —The very best way to exterminate 
this pest is to plow it under in June, and plow* 
again as often as a new growth appeal's. 
DISCUSSION. 
DEHORNING. 
R. E. W., Padilla, W. T.—The inquiries 
of Ct. W. K., Staunton, Va., about “dehorn¬ 
ing a bull” and the reply show that, more has 
to be said on the subject. After about seven 
months’ trial 1 can ad(l my testimony to the 
many w ho have already recommended the 
practice. I think the danger to the animals 
amounts to nothing. I have dehorned about 
80 cows and yearlings. 1 have tried I bin IPs 
saw. It is good, but a small butchers spring 
back saw, costing from 5(1 to 75 cents, is good 
enough and the good wife will be glad to have 
it to out beef bones when notin use on the 
horns. Thu bulls and cows are not fastened in 
the same way. If the horn is cut, in tin 1 right 
place there will be very little bleeding. There 
will be no stub horn, but there will be a good- 
looking muley that will be harmless in the 
future. I am quite sure that no one will give 
up the practice who once begins. Do not be 
afraid of cutting too close. If yearlings or 
young stock one must cut half an inch into 
the skin. There is no loss of appetite and but 
little loss of milk for a couple of milkings. 
After that I am satisfied there will be a gain 
in mi k and butter because the cows canuot 
harass each other, and everything that helps 
to make a quiet and gentle herd increases the 
yield of milk and butter. I allow no dogs 
about my cows and they are never struck a 
blow m the stable Larder t* an a little tap 
with the bare hand to make them stand over. 
If that is not enough 1 turn my back 
towards them and, with the hips, give them a 
shove over, i used to think a stable could 
not be managed without more or Jess kicks, 
milkstool whacks, clubs and profanity. A 
year and a half of “total abstinence” and a 
stable as quiet as a parlor have convinced me 
that w hile kindness will not “cure all,” we 
have not one-tenth part of the trouble we did 
have, while we have more milk and butter. 
Let uny who doubt cut off the horns to begin 
with, and theu “reform themselves” and try 
the new plan awhile, and I believe they will 
never allow horns or blows in their barns 
again. 
Ctrf njtoljf rt. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Georgia, 
“SOUTHERN FEVER—GOOD TO CATCH,” 
Augusta, Richmond Co., Nov. 10. —The 
Rural’s suggestion that no one should first 
sell a good Northern home before starting out 
to bunt another in the South, is surely a wise 
one. It isn’t well to set out for any country, 
even into the great Unknown, without first 
“ reading your title clear.” Let any one who 
shrinks from the icy winter of the North 
“ fetch his wife and look over t his section” be¬ 
fore he concludes upon his movements. The 
early cold snaps in t he North and West, to 
which the Rural refers, have not yet touched 
us hero. October was a lovely month—just 
cool enough to be very pleasant—and Novem¬ 
ber opens with our most serene fall weather. 
The forests are showing their brightest colors 
(but. never so bright as at the North) and the 
fields and hills are changing from gi'een to 
brown. On the farms the work is divided be¬ 
tween picking cotton as fast as it opens and 
plowing in the oats for the next June crop. 
Most of ihe cotton is in now, but some little 
“ top crop” of bolls will be opening along till 
the middle of December. 
Usually our fall sown oats are our safest 
and cheapest crop. In this latitude, middle 
Georgia, the temperature very rarelj fails 
below 16° to 20 w above zero—1 may say never 
three days in a whole winter. 
All our winter months are those in which 
the best work of improvement on the farms 
goes on, there is little time lost owing to 
the weather; the ground can be plowed niue- 
teuths of the time (except in wet spells,) 
ditches are cut, hedges set, timber cleared, 
trees set. out, etc. All the operations of the 
farm can go on except the summer work of 
cultivating growing crops. Cotton is the 
staple crop—ttie oue greut crop that is spot 
cash in the hands of every one who holds it, 
the only crop the world uever gets too much 
of it seems; the only crop that is a good pledge 
as collateral, on which cash can be borrowed 
in every or any stage, from the seeding of t he 
soil to the marking of the finished bale as it 
lies by the gin-house. The poorest negro 
laborer can give a lien on his barely sprouted 
cotton, for his rent, or for bacon and corn, or 
for cash, and that is the misfortune of all the 
business, for every one, nearly, does give a 
lien, and spends his crop before he makes it. 
But aside from cotton, we grow. I may 
almost say, “all things.” Ho who lacks noth¬ 
ing may be said to have all things, and no one 
need lack hen*, who has land and health. He 
can grow corn, hay, oats, potatoes and nil the 
known garden products, everything that can 
feed man and beast, with many varieties ol' 
fruits, in addition to the great money crop of 
ttie world—cotton! 
The “Southern fever” is not a bad ailment 
to rntrh. 1 know many good Northern men 
now here who have confirmed cases of it, and 
yet are well and happy—in better health and 
prospects they say. than ever before. Middle 
Georgia and South Carolina are all hill lands, 
high and healthy, with good water, and al¬ 
ready established railroads, schools, churches, 
etc., and laws as well executed ns in any 
Northern city, Aiken, S. C.. 20 miles from 
Augusta. On., and Summerville, Ga., three 
miles, are health resorts for every Northern. 
State, and thousands of invalids from the 
North are here every winter, and remain until 
late iu spring. Here at Augusta next fall (the 
date to ho hereafter fixed) is to tie held a 
great Southern Exposition of agricultural, 
mechanical nud mining and manufacturing 
industries. I^et Rural readers bear this 
in mind as a favorable time for seeing the 
resources of this section. Lands are plenty 
and at reasonable prices (cheap compared to 
lands in Northern States I suppose); the peo¬ 
ple are favorable to every new-comer who 
comes in good faith and purpose. Why should 
one stay to farm where the lurid is frozen one 
to three feet deep for four months or more in 
the year, when he can farm here where 12 
months in t he year ho can work the soil and 
earn his living on the land? This is a good 
section to live in, nud there are no more bad 
conditions than prevail in every place. 
J. H. A. 
Indiana. 
Rockville, J’arko Co., Nov. 9.— We bad a 
quarter of an inch of rain Friday—the first 
for 28 days. Crops are suffering very much 
and stock water is exhausted, and to-night 
the weather is clearing off with little pros¬ 
pect for rain. The ravages of the Hessian fiy 
are worse tbuu iu the recollection of the 
“oldest citizens.” Wheat, early iu the season 
promised well: now it does not. Corn yielded 
al)Out one-third of a crop; oats and garden 
vegetables good. Indiana 40 years ago was 
the finest fruit region anywhere; to-day there 
are no apples for sale except those brought 
from Wisconsin, Michigan and Northwestern 
New York. The failure of our crop is, 1 
think, due to the exhaustion of our virgin 
soil, and what little fruit our old trees do beur 
is destroyed by the codling moth. Our farm¬ 
ers take no cure of their orchards, lienee no 
fruit. One farmer in our region, who takes 
good care of his orchard, harvested 4,000 
bushels of apples, lie cultivates his orchard 
like a “choice onion bed,” and sprays the 
inotli. Does it pay ? Fifty trees to the acre 
and apples $1 a bushel. a. c. b. 
.Missouri. 
Brookfield, Linn Co., Nov. 12.—We had 
a rather dry season, but there was rain enough 
to make good crops. Wheat, 20 bushels to the 
acre; oats, 40 bushels to the acre; corn, 40 
bushels; potatoes a short crop: Timothy a full 
crop; apples half a crop. Oats are worth 20 
cents; Timothy hay, $9; apples, 50 cents; cattle 
are cheap; hogs, four cents. w. n. s. 
i 
M 
jh 
v> 1 ^, r n\ -mmA 
aiffiiBHl 
Swindling With Skeus. —The following 
is written by Prof. E. M. Shelton, of the Kan¬ 
sas Agricultural College at Manhattan, and 
appears in a recent issue of the New York 
Tribune: 
“ In a recent number of the Rural Nkw- 
Yorker we are told that, some eight of our 
most generously boomed varieties of oats are 
one aud the same, and a very ordinary white 
oat ut that. I have before me as L write 
sheaves of three of these sorts, namely, ‘Wel¬ 
come.’ ‘ Racehorse’and ‘Clydesdale,’ giown 
in adjacent plots this season upon the college 
farm. He would be a keen man indeed who 
could distinguish a single important, differ¬ 
ence in them. In general habit, in color and 
form of leaf, straw ami grain us well as in 
time of flowering and ripening they are u unit. 
But the funny thing in all this is the way the 
seed catalogues speak of this much named 
sort. Tims one before me speaks of the ' W ide 
Awake’ sort us a * wonderful variety intro¬ 
duced Ibis season for the first time,’ and offer¬ 
ing seed obtained from the * originator.’ Evi¬ 
dently seedsman and ‘originator’ are wide¬ 
awake to the main chance. Another ' fills tho 
‘ Racehorse’ a 1 foreign oat.’ and on the same 
page figures the ‘White Belgian’—identical 
with the 1 Racehorse’ in our experience—de¬ 
scribing it us tin old and well established sort, 
in other numerous and varied ways the cry¬ 
ing need of reform in the seed buBineas is strik¬ 
ingly shown. What, for instance, shall we 
say of the intelligence to say nothiilgof the 
honesty—of tlio dealer who in a gorgeously 
painted catalogue tells readers that Alfalfa or 
Lucern is one of the recent ‘novelties;’ or of 
that other dealer who advised his patrons to 
sow of Alfalfa seed eight to 10 pounds per 
acre, when all experience shows that at least 
double that quantity should ho used? In yet 
another of these p mooters of agricultural ob- 
fuseatiou we are told that Johnson Grass (Sor- 
ghnm lialapense) is a • Imrdy perennial intro 
duced from the South, but of great value in 
the North.’ llad this writer saul that so far 
south ax Central Kansas Johnson Grass kills 
out completely nine winters out of ten: that 
it is the last cultivated grass to appear in the 
spring, while the first, frost cuts it to a level 
with the ground, and that in consequence it is 
almost totally worthless in the North, he 
would have stated only the truth.” 
It will be seen from the above that Prof. 
Shelton corroborates the Rural’s experience 
which found the oats mentioned nil the same. 
Our respected friend. Prof. Luzeuby, of the 
Ohio station, tells us that, having made the 
statement that he is wrong in reporting them 
as distinct varieties, ami lliut his reports are, 
consequently, misleading, the burden of proof 
that they are the same rests upon the R. N. -Y. 
Following our trials in most cases and simul¬ 
taneously aHto one or two of the later names, 
the New York Experiment Station also pro¬ 
nounced them the same. Now Prof. Shelton 
finds them the same. Does the Ohio Station 
need further proof? This is an important 
question, is it not, gentlemen? Farmers 
should know whether these dozen different 
names stand for one kind or not. Honest seeds¬ 
men should know about it that they may no 
longer offer a dozen names at different prices 
when all are the same. If the Rural is right, 
thousands upon thousands of dollars have 
been thrown away by farmers who have pur¬ 
chased the supposed-to-be “new” kinds at 
double the price of the old. If the Rural is 
wrong, farmers should know it, so that less 
confidence in the future may be placed in its 
judgment and statements. Besides the hydra- 
named Australian oats, we have found, as we 
believe, that the Yankee Prolific and While 
Russian are the same and so stated two years 
ago. Still these oats are experiment* d with 
us if different varieties; they are still cata¬ 
logued ami sold at a difference of oil per cent, 
in price. Likewise has the Rural repeatedly 
called attention to variously named wheats 
wtiieh, in its trial grounds, appear to be the 
same. 
With regard to the hardiness of Johnson 
Grass (Horghum b&lapenee), it may lie said 
that it will stand the winters of some climates 
better than others of •equal severity of cold. 
Wo have a patch that has remained for four 
or five years, which makes a fine growth every 
summer, though the roots are not protected. 
Even in Michigan the roots are not entirely 
killed during the winter. 
American Chestnuts.— One of the editors 
of Orchard and Garden gives some informa¬ 
tion about preserving our native chestnuts, 
that is worth reading and heeding: 
“The common American sweet chestnut is 
far more delicate as well as better flavored 
than any of the foreign varieties, hilt it is 
rarely preserved in a fresh condition for eat 
iug during the winter, probably because few 
persons know how. It is not at all difficult to 
preserve the nuts for months and in us fresh 
a condition as when first gathered in the fall, 
aud simply by packing thorn away in clean 
sand uml storing in a cool place, such as the 
north side of a building or burying iu u dry 
spot in one's garden. When chestnuts are to 
bo preserved either for use during the winter 
or for planting iu the spring, they should lie 
spread out upon a tight floor iu some shady, 
cool place where tney can be turned over 
daily for a week or two, ami at the end of thi 
time noarly all the grubs in the nuts wil 
have crawled out and be found wriggling 
about on the floor underneath. By raking 
the nuts to one side the grubs may be read 
ily swept up and burned. The nuts may 
now be assorted, all the damaged, weevil 
infested and withered ones thrown out, and 
only the sound and plump ones saved. Theee 
should be mixed with no equal bulk of clean 
sharp sand and placed in well drained boxes 
of convenient size for handling. If the nuts 
are desired for eating during the winter, then 
small boxes, or, what, is better, flower pots 
large enough to hold two to four quarts of 
nuts arc preferable to those of larger s ; ze, 
because a few days’ supply of nuts can be 
taken out without disturbing the entire stock. 
The boxes and pots should be stored, as we 
have (aid, whore the nuts will be kept cool, 
and if frozen it will do them no harm, but if 
wanted for use during the winter the storage 
pits should be so arranged and located that 
they can be opened without inconvenience 
during the coldest, weather. An ordinary 
hot-lied I none placed on the north side of a 
building or large evergreen tree will be found 
very convenient for this purpose. For many 
years we Imve kept chestnuts in this way, 
and often surprised our friends with a dish of 
fresh, erisp-meated nuts in early spring ns 
well as at various times during the w inter.” 
Veterinary Selfishness.— According to 
our esteemed London contemporary the 
Agricultural Gazette, the Lincolnshire Vet¬ 
erinary Medical Association have adopted a 
resolution characterising as improper the 
practice of certain “veterinary surgeons” who 
are doing the profession harm by writing to 
the papers and giving plain directions to 
farmers and horse keepers how to proceed 
when their horses or cattle are taken ill, in¬ 
stead of sending for a veterinary surgeon. It, 
is reported that when this resolution was lie- 
lore the meeting,Professor Williams remarked 
that he did not think men who did this should 
hold any public position in the profession. 
Ho had never written for the public papers a 
single word of ibis description, and lie never 
would, aud he did not think the profession 
was elevated by such work us was going on in 
the papers just. now. The Gazette suggests 
that Professor Williams and the members 
who voted with him should remember that 
we are not now living in the Dark Ages. Ac¬ 
tion of this kind is certain to recoil on those 
who take part iu it. 
Tkosinte. —In the N. E. Homestead, a writer 
speaks very enthusiastically of Teosiute 
(Reaua or Euchloena luxurians) he says that 
“cow’s- devour it with avidity and have 
nothing. He believes the plant is going ahead 
of an, ioddercrop that has ever been grown 
m the New England States, nud that, it is ex¬ 
cellent for feed in all stages of its growth. 
One valuable characteristic w hich it possesses 
surpasses com. It rtiukes a very large second 
growth in a few weeks after being cut.” 
About ten years ago, when it was first 
talked of, the Rural tried it, as many of cur 
renders may remember. But according to 
this trial the writer in the Homestead is 
wrong. It does not suffer from drought as 
much as the corn plant. The trouble is that 
in most seasons it, is very slow to start, aud it 
will not, in the most favorable seasons mature 
seeds in this climate, or indeed, considerably 
further south. The leaves are broader than 
those of corn. The plant tillers more than 
any variety of corn and it may he cut to the 
ground and still continue to grow. But the 
growth, in most seasons, begins la to. Accord¬ 
ing to our trials, it will disappoint those who 
plant it largely In the place of corn or even 
sorghum. 
Cotton Oil a Preservative— A wagon- 
maker says iu Farm aud Home that he has 
used cotton seed oil in his business nearly 
three years. He finds it better than either 
coal oil. kerosene or linseed. He oils all his 
stock with it and it keeps away worms abso¬ 
lutely. It also preserves the wood aud brings 
out the grain. Single-trees, spokes and hubs 
arc particularly benefited. Mail carts, village 
carts and wagons that are made in natural 
colors are much handsomer if the wood re¬ 
ceives two CO&ts cotton-seed oil. The oil is 
absorbed rapidly by the pores of the wood 
and does not gum and in hot weather doesn’t 
sweat out. He uses the summer yellow oil 
and has recommended it to many friends who 
like it now as much as be does. 
Protecting the Orchard —Some work 
should be done in tho orchard without delay. 
Mice and rabbits, finding their natural prov¬ 
ender scarce, will attack the tender bark of 
the young trees and girdle them fatally in a 
night. This Is to be attended to at once. 
Then.* are ways recommended, says the Times, 
which are as fatal to the trees as the vermin 
are, if not worse. One of these is to tie strips 
of tarred roofing paper around the trees. This 
paper absorbs the sun’s heat at midday iu the 
coldest weather, thaws the bark aud sap-wood 
and then the sharp freezing of the night bursts 
the hark from the wood and does fatal injury. 
MULTUM IN PARVO. 
Miss Tallin tells us in tho Amerieau Flor 
