a 
Die 47 
THE 
RURAL. NEW'YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Home' 
Conducted by 
EJ.BKRT S. CARMAN. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Fark Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1887. 
This year, as in the past, we have 
special club combinations with: 1st, 
the Inter-Ocean of Chicago, III.; 2d, 
the Detroit Free Press of Detroit, Mich., 
and, last, the Weekly World of New 
York. And now we are glad to add the 
Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky. The 
price for either the Rural and Inter- 
Ocean, or Free Press, is $2.50; for the 
Rural and the World (including its 
book premium), the price is $2.60; 
for fhe Rural and Courier-Journal the 
price is $2 75. The publishers of 
these journals will gladly furnish speci¬ 
men copies without charge. We prom¬ 
ise prompt attention in forwarding all 
subscriptions received. Subscribe 
through the R. N.-Y. 
Next week or the week after we shall 
continue a series of experiments which 
have been carried on with a view to an¬ 
swering the question u IIow much potato 
fertilizer cau be profitably used upon 
potatoes?” The answers given seem to be 
forcible and decisive. 
Some days ago the writer visited a 
large rose house, half of which was given 
to Mermet and half to the Bride, which is 
a nearly white sport of Mermet. All were 
of the same age and treated alike. It 
was plainly to be seen that the Bride is the 
freer bloomer, bearing finer and a greater 
number of buds than her sportive mam¬ 
ma. It is altogether a charming variety 
—thanks to our contributor, Mr. .James 
Taplin, with whom it originated. 
How to grow roses from seeds and how 
to cross them are fully explained in this 
issue. It will be seen that there is noth¬ 
ing difficult about seedliug rose culture, 
and that crossing the flowers is a simple 
operation that any of our readers, who 
have “roses in their hearts,” might well 
engage in. Try it, ladies; try it, young 
friends, and see if some of the Rural 
family cannot succeed in originating a 
$5,000 American rose. 
A very artistic full-page illustration 
has been prepared of the Rcrai/s hy¬ 
brid’s between blackberries and raspber¬ 
ries. This, with descriptive matter, will 
be presented in a few weeks. It is 
worthy of remark that one of these nine 
plants retained its leaves fresh and green 
long after the leaves of all other raspber¬ 
ries and blackberries had fallen. Tnis 
plant seems to be a thornless raspberry 
without any characteristic of the black¬ 
berry. ____ 
We have just been looking at a crib of 
yellowish-white corn known as the Rural 
Thoroughbred Flint. It was raised near 
the New Jersey Rural Grounds upon 
about three acres of land, the yield being 
something over 00 bushels of shelled corn 
to the acre. It w T as planted iu hills about 
four feet apart each way, two aud three 
plants to the hill, though two are enough 
if we would provide for a full develop¬ 
ment of its remarkable habit of auckering. 
The ears are beautifully long and regular. 
Those who would plant corn for ensilage, 
should try this. It is our belief that 
there is no other variety of corn whatever 
that will produce a greater weight of 
leaves to the aere and a relatively smaller 
amount of stalks. It requires nearly the 
entire season in this climate to mature, 
and -would not iherefore prove satisfactory 
much further nortb. This has been raised 
in the Rural Family for at least 45 con¬ 
secutive years. Small trial quantities 
were sent to our subscribers four or five, 
years ago. Leading seedsmen offer it for 
about $2 per bushel. 
The practice of thrashing corn in an 
ordinary thrashing machine is at least 10 
years old in some parts of this country. 
The practice is gaining everywhere—not 
only in the West but iu New England as 
well. Now the curious part of it is that 
many manufacturers of thrashers appear 
to know very little about what is being 
done with their own machines. In inves¬ 
tigating the subject we have corresponded 
with several manufacturers. “We should 
as soon think of a machine that could saw 
wood and churn butter as a machine that 
could thrash both corn and wheat,” 
writes one. “We are informed that it has 
been successfully done by several owners 
of our machines, but have as yet given it 
no practical test,” writes another, aud 
this, while farmers in various parts of the 
country are using the machines for this 
very purpose! For hundreds of years 
farmers fully believed that cutting off the 
horns of cattle was a most barbarous op¬ 
eration. Now almost daily evidences are 
given to prove that this belief had really 
little foundation. Which old belief will 
next be proved a shell? 
The agitation for tariff revision, either 
up or down, is not coufiDed to this coun¬ 
try; but, to a greater or less degree, is a 
disturbing factor in all the great nations. 
“Fair Trade” versus “Free Trade”, is 
every day becoming a more important 
point in British politics. Probably a ma¬ 
jority of the Conservatives, and certainly 
a considerable minority of Liberals are 
in favor of it. The support of it is ex¬ 
tending from the country into the cities— 
from the agricultural to the manufactur¬ 
ing classes. Spain, Italy, Austria and 
Belgium have lately increased their du¬ 
ties on a considerable number of foreign 
imports—chiefly those the exclusion of 
which would most benefit farmers and 
stock-raisers. Germany and Russia have 
been steadily increasing their tariffs on 
foreign importations, and are now threat¬ 
ening heavier import duties. France and 
the other European powers show a similar 
tendency, but to a lesser extent, France 
having already gouc as far in this direc¬ 
tion as her artisan classes are likely to 
tolerate. While the desire to increase 
their insufficient revenues and to protect 
their agricultural classes from foreign com¬ 
petition induces other nations to increase 
their duties on foreign importations; the 
desire to decrease our superabundant rev¬ 
enue and a belief that farmers can shift 
for themselves in any eveut, lead to a 
new impetus to an opposite policy in this 
country. 
A WARNING. 
A BOUT midnight, on December 4th, 
Peter Bennett, “an egg merchant and 
farmer,” aged 81, worth from $75,000 to 
$100,000, was found lying senseless and 
severely wounded at his home at East 
Newport, Maine. On recovering con¬ 
sciousness and examining the contents of 
a broken-open trunk at the head of his bed, 
he found that $82,000 iu United States 
bonds and other negotiable securities had 
been stolen. Since the panic of 1873. 
when he lost a good deal of money, he has 
been suspicious of banks and kept his 
surplus cash in the trunk. As protection 
he had a burglar alarm on the door of the 
room, and a loaded revolver under his 
pillow. Tke robbers had entered through 
the window and attacked him before lie 
could defend himself or his property. 
Every week we see accounts of similar 
outrages perpetrated ou farmers, and 
often on their wives in various portions of 
the country. The victims always have 
the reputation, false or real, of having 
temporarily or keeping constantly large 
amounts of money in their houses. Often 
the most atrocious tortures are used to 
extort a confession of the places where 
their treasures arc concealed. Not in¬ 
frequently the poor creatures are left 
maimed for life or dead. In view of the 
isolated position of farm houses, of the 
absence of all police protection, and of the 
comparative immunity of the wretches who 
attack them, isn’t it an extreme folly to 
keep in them any large amounts of money 
as a temptation to robbery, outrage and 
murder? Better a hundred times run the 
slight risk of money loss in a good bank 
or safe deposit company’s vaults than in¬ 
cur the danger to property and life from 
hoarding money at home. 
their disappointment that the President, 
instead of favoring the wool growers of 
the United States, favors their foreign 
competitors. They point to the fact that 
the abolition of the tariff on wool 
would reduce the revenue by only $5,000,- 
000; while the abolition of the old war 
taxes ou domestic products would reduce 
it by $119,000,000, aud do away with that 
dreadful surplus. The annual revenue 
derived from imports of wool under the 
high tariff of 1867 was less than $1,706,- 
000; whereas under the reduced tariff of 
1S83, it amounted to $5,000,000. The 
best way to reduce the revenue from that 
source therefore, is to raise the tariff high 
enough to prevent the importation of 
wool. The number of sheen in the coun¬ 
try in 1884 was 50,620,626'; in 1887, 44,- 
759,314—a decrease of 6,000,000 sheep 
and 35,000,000 pounds of wool. Thus 
the tariff of 1883 has increased the reve¬ 
nue from imported wools and diminished 
the number of sheep and the production 
of wool in the country. The President’s 
policy, it is declared, would destroy this 
industry, and the same policy of re¬ 
duction or abolition of the tariff would 
cause disaster to all the other industrial 
productive enterprises of the country. 
Tariff legislation is a many-sided prob¬ 
lem, and to arrive at the most beneficial 
conclusion it must be studied from all 
sides. It is a thoroughly practical, not a 
political question, and in working out a 
solution of it “the greatest good for the 
greatest number” should be the end 
sought. As nearly all the Republicans 
and a respectable minority of the Demo¬ 
crats favor a reduction of the revenue by 
the entire abolition of taxe9 on tobacco 
and some modification of the tariff, that is 
likely to be the outside extent of taxation 
amendment for the present. All parties 
are sure to try to make political capital of 
the matter against the Presidential elec¬ 
tion next year, and the whole subject is 
certain to be fully discussed before the 
public in the meantime. 
THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE. 
T HE President’s first message to the 
Fiftieth Congress, sent in last Tues¬ 
day, is quite brief and entirelj devoted to 
a consideration of our system of taxation. 
It is the fullest, clearest and strongest 
argument yet made in favor of free trade, 
or a modification of it. There is not much 
new in it, but it is a powerful presenta¬ 
tion of old arguments;— 
At the end of the last fiscal year—June 
30—the excess of revenue in the Treasury 
overall public expenditures was $55,567,- 
849.54, in spite of all expedients to keep 
it down, and as the rapidity of its growth 
is increasing, the surplus in the Treasury 
on June 30, next, is likely to be $140,- 
090,000. The withdrawal of such a vast 
sum from circulation he thinks likely to 
cause great distress in the near future, 
and to prevent such a needless accumula¬ 
tion ho insists that a great reduction must 
be made in taxation. Our scheme of 
taxation consists of a tariff or duty on im¬ 
portations from abroad, and internal re¬ 
venue taxes levied on the consumption of 
tobacco and spirituous and malt liquors. 
As none of the things subject to internal 
taxation are, strictly speaking, necessa¬ 
ries, he would neither lessen nor remove 
the taxes on them; but he would make 
the entire needed curtailment of the re¬ 
venue by reducing the tariff on some 
commodities and entirely repealing it on 
others. Among the latter are mentioned 
“raw materials,” and a lengthy special 
argument is made in favor of putting 
wool on the free list. Wool is substan¬ 
tially the only article of importance in 
which the agriculture of the country is 
“protected” by the tariff, and the Presi¬ 
dent’s argument for the abrogation of 
this protection is of a piece with his gen¬ 
eral line of reasoning;— 
The number of farmers who own sheep 
is small in comparison with the number 
of those who do not; yet the latter are 
obliged,in their purchase of clothing and 
woolen goods, to pay tribute to their fel¬ 
low farmers as well as to the manufactur¬ 
ers and merchants; and even the ordinary 
wool-grower who owns from 25 to 50 
WOOL GROWERS AND DEALERS AND 
THE TARIFF. 
T HE wool growers and wool dealers of 
the country in session at Washing¬ 
ton, “representing a capital of $500,000- 
000, and a constituency of a million grow¬ 
ers and dealers,” issued, last Wednesday, 
a strong protest against the President’s 
special pleading for the abolition of the 
tariff on wool. They insist that the 
policy of protection has made the couu- 
try the most happy, prosperous and con¬ 
tented of any in the world, and express 
wool-grower who owns from 25 to 50 
sheep, has to pay on the goods lie pur¬ 
chases au increase of price more than suf¬ 
ficient to sweep away all the tariff profit 
he received on the wool he produced and 
sold. While the number of farmers en¬ 
gaged in wool growing is small compared 
with all the farmers in the country, the 
proportion they bear to our entire popula¬ 
tion is greatly smaller. Yet for an illus¬ 
ory advantage to this small minority a 
burdensome taxjs fastened on the cloth¬ 
ing of every man, woman and child m the 
land. The consumer pays the duty, 
while the manufacturer is the chief gain¬ 
er. Owing to the present tariff, too, the 
farmer has to pay an increased price on 
every agricultural implement as well as 
upon what he wears, and upon all he uses 
and owns except what he produces. 
These oft-reiterated arguments are well 
marshalled and strongly put; but they are 
hardly likely to have much influence 
on the wool-growing interests of the coun¬ 
try. 
• « • -■ 
NOTICE. 
The Rural New- Yorker will be sent from 
this elate to January 1, 1889—54 weeks — 
for the regular yearly price of $2.00. The 
senders of clubs of f re or over way reset ve 
50 cents for each yearly subscription inpay¬ 
ment for the work involved in securing the 
clubs. Or they may select suitable articles 
from our new premium-list. In this case , 
there is no cash commission allowed. Speci¬ 
mens and premium-lists and our series of 
four cartoons will be cheerf ully and promptly 
sent to all applicants. 
BREVITIES. 
Let those who are interested in incubators 
read the article on page *41. Feeding the 
chicks after incubation, selling, etc., will be 
given next, 
The new, white varieties of fowls. Are 
they move valuable than the colored origi¬ 
nals; See Mr. Hales’s article in the poultry 
department. 
The articles on storing seed potatoes have 
called out some very valuable comments. 
These will be laid before our readers at once. 
Farmers are fully alive to the necessity of ob¬ 
taining strong potato “seed” next year. 
A good many of our readers are this year 
keeping up the good practice of sending some 
frieud a Chris' mas present of a year’s subscrip¬ 
tion to the Rural. This sort, of a present 
gives 52 remembrancers through the year. 
In next week's ItuuAX Mr. Jacobs will fully 
explain a home-made incubator. Rome of our 
best poultry authorities will give opinions on 
interesting topics connected with the winter 
care of poultry. Among others the question 
of selling eggs by weight will be considered. 
One lesson that Western farmers learned 
from the drought was that millet grows quick¬ 
ly aud easily, aud makes a good food for cat¬ 
tle when rightly cured. The day will come 
when some of these Western farmers will 
thank the drought that taugnt them this les¬ 
son. 
Considerable space will be given to poul¬ 
try matters next week. Everybody seems to 
be interested iu poultry except the folks who 
made their bens roost on the trees all summer. 
These gentry are just now sitting up nights 
to try and catch the liens aud put, them iu the 
hen house. 
The Westtown Farm el's’ Club, of Orange 
Co,, N. Y., appointed a committee to experi¬ 
ment with dehorning cattle. The report of 
this committee was so satisfactory that the 
club “resolved” that “horns must go.” Can it 
be that cattle have been wearing horns all this 
time simply because farmers were not sharp 
enough to investigate the matter? 
The demand for restrictions on immigratiou 
is not confined to this country: Canada also is 
becoming alarmed over t he largo undesirable 
immigration—and especially t he immigration 
of pauper children—anti the Domiuiou press 
is calliug on Parliament to take some action 
on the matte*. In England it costs 875 a year 
to support a pauper child; while the authori¬ 
ties can get rid of all responsibility by ship¬ 
ping it to Canada at a cost of $45 at the most. 
Nearly all the applicants lor lu*|p «t the var¬ 
ious charities at, Montreal are, it. is reported, 
pauper immigrants, chiefly from the British 
Isjes; but to a considerable extent also from 
the Continent. Isn't it, about time that the New 
World should cense to be the dumping-ground 
for the pauperism, decrepitude, turbulence 
and crime of the Old? 
The losses by tiro in this country and Can¬ 
ada during November wore the heaviest ever 
reached iu that, month, amounting to $16,000,- 
000 against only $7,520,000 for the correspond¬ 
ing mouth last year. Agriculture contrib¬ 
uted a great deal more than usual to the 
grand totul, the cotton losses by tire amount¬ 
ing to $8,800,000 and those from fires in Ar 
kausos and some of the Cis-Mississippi States 
of the South being put at t he same enormous 
figure. Of course agricultural losses iu other 
parts of the country aud on other objects of 
vuluO added at least as much ns usual to the 
aggregate for the month. The ease with 
which insurance can lie secured is probably 
one of the causes of the recklessness that 
produces flies; but. if they continue to prove 
so disastrous as those wu have bad of late in¬ 
surance companies are very likely to raise 
their rates. 
The American turkey as an article of ex¬ 
port is rapidly acquiring uu importance 
worthy of that most American of all 
birds. It is becoming a prime favorite 
in the IiOndon market, where it is welcome at 
a figure between f3 aud $4 per head. It is 
only about a year since the export business 
began, and so rapid has been its growth that 
the steamer Etruria which leaves this jmrt to¬ 
day, carries 700 cases of selected turkeys which 
will be taken from Liverpool to London by 
lightning express. Other steamers also will 
take a number to arrive in time for the holi¬ 
days. The trade, however, is uot a mere holi 
day affair, for it is expected similar trans¬ 
atlantic shipments will be made by most of 
the steamers leaving this port during the 
winter months. Surely the American tur¬ 
key’s resplendent merits entitle it to a wel¬ 
come place at the table of the most aristo¬ 
cratic of our relatives beyond the water. 
