%1% 
THI RURAL WIW-YORKER. 
DEC 31 
WIDE-AWAKE ITEMS. 
{Continued from page 871.) 
Judge Miller of Missouri, according to 
Popular Gardening, says tbat while Moore's 
Diamond Grape is equal to Niagara, Pockling- 
ton or Empire State in size of bunch and 
nearly so in berry, the quality is 40 per 
cent better than either, The vine is of the 
hardiest, vigorous and healthy. He deems it 
the coming white grape... 
Secretary Graham in the Industrialist, 
says that the once rich black soil of the 
Western prairies, which has been starved by 
constaut wheat raising and stubble-buining, 
without receiving a particle of food, is now 
taking its revenge. There is but cue way to 
conquer this unruly black beast and tbat is 
with a manure fork. 
The Weekly Press rays that horse-racing 
has been encouraged, Ostensibly for the pur¬ 
pose of improving the horse stock of the 
country, but does it result in this? So far 
breeding for speed has only resulted in pro¬ 
ducing horses remarkable in oue respect and 
in overrunning the country’ with scrubs not 
fitted for anything iu particular.. 
There is a little consolation, continues our 
valued contemporary, in knowing tbat your 
roadster can turn a mile track in 2.30 when it 
takes him20 minutes to walk the same distance 
over a bill some cold day in January. Very 
few men ever drive their trotters more than 
twelve miles an hour on the road, under the 
most favorable circumstances, and even the 
Percheron has done better than this for hours 
together, before a load that would soon anchor 
a trotter. This only serves to show that there 
is little utility in great speed when it comes to 
business. 
What the utility horse wants is endurance, 
and a good, rapid walk, rather than great 
speed at the trot. Then, if the road is rough 
and hilly and his trot won't work, he has an¬ 
other resource and gets there all the same, 
while the slow-walking trotter is left iguomin- 
lously behind. It is to be regretted that in 
the evolution of the American trotting horse 
more attention has not been given to other de¬ 
sirable points beside the mere attainment of a 
high rate of speed. 
A. S. Fuller say’s, in Orchard and 
GardeD, that chestnut, hickory aud butternut 
trees taken up from the woods and fields with 
stems varying from half an inch up to two 
inches or more in diameter are not at all diffi¬ 
cult to make live provided they are severely 
pruned at the time of removal. Long, naked 
tap-roots should he cut away to facilitate 
transplauting as well as the production of 
side or lateral roots the ensuing season. 
It is the same with many’ other trees which 
are thought to be difficult successfully to 
transplant, notably the Yellow-wood and Tu¬ 
lip trees. It is best to cut the entire stem 
away an inch or so above the crown, leaving 
scarcely more than the roots to be planted. 
Strong shoots will start from the Deck, all 
but one of which may in due time be removed. 
WORD FOR WORD. 
Husbandman: “What possible reason can 
any farmer or economist adduce in support of 
wheat raising for export, when the price 
abroad will not return moderate profit on cost 
of production and transportation, and nothing 
better can he expected in the next 50 years.'' 
-Industrialist: “Better is it to have oue 
pair of trousers with money in the pockets, 
than two pairs with empty pockets.”- 
Hon. J. S. Morton: “The Uniti d States con¬ 
sumes every day 25,000 acres of timber. Each 
night we retire with 25,000 acres less of forest 
than the sun gilded with its morning gold.” 
-Orchard and Garden: “To set fruit 
trees in poor soil uuless properly enriched aud 
properly drained, is labor and money thrown 
away. Good corn laud will generally make a 
good orchard.”-Idem; “ The old, worn- 
out grape-vme, that is doing poorly and does 
not yield fruit enough to pay rent for the 
p’aee it occupies, should be cut down below 
the ground. Then apply good manure, and 
plenty of it. Train up one or two new canes, 
and give it another trial.”-Harpers’ 
Monthly: “Does hospitality consist iu aston¬ 
ishing the invited, iu overwhelming him with 
a sense of your own wealth or felicity’, or 
family, or cleverness, even, in trying to ab¬ 
sorb him in your concerns, y’our successes, 
your possessions; iu simply what interests 
you? However delightful all these may be, 
it is an offense to his individuality’ to insist 
tbat he shall admire at the point of the social 
bayonet.”-Chailes Dudley Warner in 
Harpers’: “We can ouly ask the prayers of 
all good people on Christmas Day r for the rich. 
We do not have them with us ulways—they 
are here to-day’, they are gone to Canada to¬ 
morrow.”-A physician in Home and 
Farm; “Cider I believe is the foundation of 
most of the evils that flow from intemperance, 
and should be kept from the young. From 
cider to beer, and then wine, whisky’ and to¬ 
bacco, and tbeu a hasty transit to a drunken 
pauper’s grave, Shun small evils, and the 
greater will he more easily removed,”- 
Pres. Willetts, Michigan Agricultural Col¬ 
lege: “An institution where at stated times 
all work with their bauds, will turn out stu¬ 
dents that believe tbat manual labor is not 
dishonorable, that take pleasure in robust 
work directed by intelligence....We believe 
that this college has the power to make just 
such meu, aud we proclaim to all the world 
tbat we do not want a man that is ashamed 
to work with his hands as well as his brain.” 
-A. B. Allen, in the Live Stock Journal: 
“I believe it is generally’ acknowledged that 
if a cow of the large breeds is allowed to bear 
a calf at two veal’s of age, for the purpose of 
increasing her dairy qualities, it is advisable 
then to give her six to 12 months’ rest, and 
not let. her produce another calf till she is 
three and a half to four years old. This 
method gives her a chance to recuperate aud 
attain as large a size as if she were kept back 
for her first calf till three years old.” 
Cvmjmljcre. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Iowa. 
Campbell, Polk Co., December 12.—The 
weather was so dry in this locality last spriug 
that of the Rural seeds only the Orange 
Squash'amounted to anything. We got seven 
of them; also one watermelon about, six inches 
by eight inches. The squash was an excellent 
oue for the season and came on early. Corn 
is turning out from 10 to 12 bushels per acre. 
More than usual has been cut up. Two men 
husked 20 acres in 2t.y days. A neighbor had 
nearly 500 bushels from 180 acres, and so it 
goes. Oats from 20 to 35 bushels: potatoes 
yielded four for one planted. L f wheat very 
little was sowed and the chinch bugs used 
that up aud then went for the corn aud hurt 
that also. No fall rains to amount to any¬ 
thing for stock. All the large creeks have 
water only in holes, and farmers are driving 
their stock in some cases two to three aud a 
half miles to water in these holes. We are 
short at least. 20 inches of wet so far this year. 
More moisture has fallen since this month 
came in than during the spriug, summer and 
fall. Three snow storms hav e deposited ou an 
average two inches apiece. None of the big 
farmers are feeding in this neighborhood, as 
they lost so heavily last spring and summer. 
Cattle are very cheap and uo sale either; one 
can hardly give them away. Farmers are 
making sales ou a year's time to help them 
through for the losses of the last three years. 
Some would sell out if any would buy, but 
buyers do not come to hand. r. c. s. 
Michigan. 
Three Rivers, St. Joseph Co., ’Dec. 12.— 
We are having a very open winter; so far 
very little snow has fallen; but we have had 
considerable rain, but not any more than we 
need, Streams were very low, and there 
were some complaints about wells. The hay 
crop was good. Wheat light, Potatoes poor 
in yield aud in quality; rotting somewhat. 
Apples a middling fair crop for the off year. 
Corn very poor—the worst we have ever had 
in this county’. Hogs moderately jilenty, but 
they have been sold off close ou account of 
scarcity of feed. s. m. s. 
Penn«Yln>niR. 
Elizabethtown, Lancaster Co., Dec. 17.— 
We have bad very few winter days this sea¬ 
son yet; farmers having been able to do all 
their fall plowing. To-day the first snow be¬ 
gan falling, and the snow is now about 12 
inches in depth; thermometer about freezing 
all day’. Farmers have, to a large extent, 
sowed rye iu place of wheat this fall ou ac¬ 
count of the crop being surer, and also mak¬ 
ing a larger return of straw, which is sold at 
about the same price that hay brings. Tobac¬ 
co is raised largely in this vicinity. The pres¬ 
ent crop is nearly all sold at good figures. 
h. u. c. 
lUtmtan s Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
This is the season to make good resolutions 
—let us hope to keep them too. It is the time 
when so many of us begin a diury; a harmless 
form of amusement, no doubt, whether it is of 
any use or uo. Undoubtedly regular notes 
in a diary do much to encourage methodical 
habits, but there is always the temptation to 
write one’s personal feelings, and this is apt to 
induce a morbid self-analysis. And there is 
always the liability of such a diary falling into 
other hands, and becoming a written record 
of our follies and vanities. If. however, we 
make the diary a record of information and 
experience, it is most certainly of value. 
* * * 
New Year’s Day’ used to be looked upon as 
the day of social calls, and it was a day of 
much friendliness and good feeling, until in¬ 
discriminate hospitality brought the good old 
custom into disrepute. Now fashion says that 
New Year’s rails are vulgar,and they’ are con¬ 
fined to places where genial hospitality and 
regard for old customs take precedence of 
style. Of late years there is no doubt that 
the custom has degenerated. Instead of mere¬ 
ly receiving friends, a good many people have 
tendered hospitality to those who were not 
even acquaintances, merely that they might 
say they had received more guests tliau Mrs. 
A or Mrs. B, aud the pretence of hospitality, 
tendered iu such form, cannot fail to be vul¬ 
gar. 
* + * 
At an early date we shall begin a scries of 
occasional letters, entitled “Aspirations in 
Homespun.” They will be written by a 
country girl who views matters from much 
the same standpoint as our old friend “Char¬ 
ity Sweetheart,” whose trials and successes 
have been felt by many among us. These 
letters will have something to say about cur¬ 
rent thought in the great outside world, as 
well as feminine matters—home decorations, 
home etiquette, and all such items of woman’s 
gear ' 
LITTLE THINGS LEARNED FROM 
OTHERS. 
PALMETTO. 
Although it is many years since I have 
lived on a farm, aud was gladdened weekly 
by the sight of the Rural, which has helped 
me over many weary and hard places, I am 
just as pleased to get it to-day as in the long 
ago. The “Chat By The Way,” is always 
bright and helpful, audits writer finds a ser- 
mou iu “stubbed fingers" as well as in 
“stones," that coutains more real, honest, 
every day philosophy that oue can appreciate 
and practice, than any number of essays by 
Sir John Lubbock on the “Duty of Happi¬ 
ness,” or the “Happiness of Duty.” 
I admire beautiful bauds, almost more 
than a beautiful face, as I think I have be¬ 
fore told the readers of the Rural —that is, 
the aesthetic side of my nature cannot help 
liking to look at any beautiful thing; but 
where I see a hand hardened and roughened 
by honest work, although it has been broad- 
eued and roughened, and the taper finger 
ends flattened by doing the work that has 
made the happiness and comfort of others, 
it. is to me far more lovely than the whitest 
aud most shapely baud of an indolent and 
selfish beauty. 
“Real - ye one another's burdens.” Ah, my 
sisters, if we do this, it must often tie done at 
the sacrifice of personal beauty as well as per¬ 
sonal ease. A writer in Harper’s Bazar, says 
that a woman may run a ranelqor a seed farm, 
work out-of-doors, and take her produce to 
market, without sacrificing any of the attri¬ 
butes of lovely, graceful womanhood. I have 
not the article at hand aud am not quoting 
literally, but from memory. 1 thiuk he even 
insinuated that one might preserve her com¬ 
plexion. We have only to look at the peasant 
women of foreigu countries to upset this the¬ 
ory. I think with Mrs. Heury Ward Beecher 
that a woman can doubtless saw wood, but 
she will never do it as well or as easily as a 
man, and most of us will have quite enough 
to do if we leave the hewing of wood aud the 
drawing of water to those who have been fitted 
by nature for such work. 
I didn’t mean to moralize myself, I only 
meant to tell somewhat of that which I have 
learned from others through the columns of 
the Rural. 
1 have learned from Alice Browu’s account 
of life at the Rural Farm, how beautiful a 
home life may be “where both are faithful.” 
and this brings me to an extract from a ser¬ 
mon preached by the Rev. Amory H. Brad¬ 
ford, of Montclair, New Jersey, which 1 have 
long wished for an excuse to give to your 
readers. 
“The life of the world is founded ou the 
home. There the first relations begin. Those 
relations never cease. More than any other 
power do they influence human action aud 
destiny. If you find a home iu which love, 
and mutual forbearance, and appreciation of 
the weakness, ami the necessity of each indi¬ 
vidual, prevail, you fiud a power whose in- 
iluenoe never ceases. A nation is what its 
homes are. An individual reveals the environ¬ 
ment of his youth all through Ills life. Young 
people even by the look of their eyes, and the 
expression of their countenance, show what is 
the prevailing influence at home. From that 
inspiration or depression they never entirely 
escape. 
And what homes there are! How utterly I 
all principles of manhood are lost by some in 
the home relation! What ought to be most 
beautiful is made most terrible. Those who 
should be the pride and protection of the 
home, become its terrors. This law of Christ 
(the Golden Rule) is remembered elsewhere, 
hut forgotten there. 
There is a house in which there is a lack of 
harmony between husband and wife. How 
it happens we need not inquire. It may be 
the result of a mistaken marriage, and it may 
be the result of mistakes after marriage. The 
fact is not changed by speculation about the 
cause. Those persons have just one chance 
of happiness in this world, and that is by a 
rigid application of the Golden Rule. They 
can allow the breach to grow until love can 
no more cross it, or they can bridge it by 
doing as they would be done by To all the 
divided homes in which husband and wife 
are getting farther and farther apart, I 
wish I could speak so as to be heeded. I 
would speak one wonl, and that should be 
this: Whether you love one another or not, 
whether you are even congeuial or not, do 
not forget this one thing. There is just one 
way in which peace and possibly happiness 
may come to you. Do as you would be done 
by. If you long for companionship, give it; 
if you are huugry for entertainment when 
the day is done, give it whether you get it or 
not. Do as you would have another do by 
you, aud there will come sounds to which 
your ears have long been closed, and hopes 
to which your hearts were dead.” 
Does not this contain the whole philosophy 
of “How to be Happy Though Married?” 
The letters of “Charity Sweetheart” show 
me the “utility of brothers,” for in thattrain- 
ing of the irrepressible “Burt,” she is learn¬ 
ing to practice all tbat is implied by her pret¬ 
ty name; the charity nud patience of a sweet, 
loving heart. 
When a girl really interests herself in the 
pursuits and pleasures of her brother, she is 
very likely to acquire a helpful influence over 
him, as well as to derive benefit herself from 
his boyish, but generally practical and sensi¬ 
ble way of lookiug at things. An exchange 
says: “The girl whose brother is her best 
friend will not make eyes, nor drawl, nor 
give her photograph to an acquaintance of 
yesterday, nor answer advertisements whose 
object is * mutual improvement.’ She will 
understand that there are some sorts of inno¬ 
cent-sounding slang that ought never to be 
used, aud she will remember that the women 
who wish to relain the reverence of men 
should decide how little slang they can get 
along with, aud then use a quarter of that. 
I haven’t any brothers myself, aud don’t wane 
auy of the pattern of some that. 1 know, 
while I have seen brothers who have mademe 
willing to assert that “Heaven’s best gift” 
was a good brother. In the relation of broth¬ 
er and sister, as well as that of husband and 
wife, it is too often a case of take all and give 
nothing on one side or the other, and the 
Golden Rule holds good here as it does iu 
every domestic tie. 
A young lady of my acquaintance with 
seven brothers—delightful fellows, betweeu 
the ages of 15 and 25—to whom I was once ex- 
prea«ing my opinion that she ought to be one 
of the happiest girls in the world, declared 
that other girls' brothers were very well, but 
that her own were nuisances! Why, I know 
some girls who would have had those seven 
brothers at their feet (metaphorically speaking) 
and have been considered queens among 
them, but they wouhiu’t have accomplished it 
by considering them “nuisances.” It is strange, 
and significant of the fact that we are “erring 
mortals,” the persistency with which we pass 
by with closed eyes the many things which 
might make our lives so beautiful. 
Hopeless But Not 1 ost. 
It is folly for any physician to declare that 
he covets hopeless cases, or patients who have 
been “given up'’by other practitioners. Sensible 
meu, with prulo in their art aud reputations 
that they prize, do not seek to imperil their no¬ 
ble profession or their own fame. Insurance 
companies avoid taking risks ou threatened 
lives. Of course every practitioner iv hose heart 
is not stone does take cases that imperil his 
success. He does so because he loves bis fellow- 
man. At the same time disease is most effect¬ 
ively grappled with its earlier stages. Neglect 
of apparently trifling disorders leads to the 
many complicated cases which bailie the high¬ 
est skill, when auy one of the maladies ex¬ 
isting alone could be handled by the physician 
with certainty. When the system has become 
the slave of some over mastering physical 
complications, a complete regeneration alone 
suffices to restore health. Tho blood, the 
nerves and tho digestive and urinary machin¬ 
ery must be thoroughly overhauled. For this 
nothing has ever been found that equals the 
Compound Oxygeu Treatment. The New 
