e 
returned if not up to a reasonable standard 
of purity or freshness. 
Dairymen and cattle growers are fast learn¬ 
ing that the operation of dehorning is a simple 
one, not requiring the skill of a veterinary 
surgeon, says the Press. We frequently hear 
ot dairymen who without any previous in¬ 
struction whatever have sawed the horns off 
their whole herds, and no more serious results 
are reported than a slight falling off in the 
flow of milk for a day or two. The operation 
probably gives the animal a pretty bad head¬ 
ache for a few hours, but the suffering to the 
whole herd must be slight compared with that 
caused in a single season by the reckless 
flourishing of these useless and dangerous wea¬ 
pons by the masters of the herd. 
Secretary Garfield says of President 
Lyon (both of Michigan) in Green’s Fruit- 
Grower, that he is earnest, thoughtful, true 
and good. He is a walking cyclopedia of the 
nomenclature of fruits and can identify all 
the leading kinds at a glance. Michigan is 
greatly indebted to him and so, we may add, 
are other States. 
President Barry, in the same journal 
quoted above, speaks of having seen a weep¬ 
ing beech in Ireland during his recent visit 
there, which is 74 years old. It measures 300 
feet in circumference. He also alludes to a 
Golden Sequoia 35 feet high. 
The Kansas City Live Stock Indicator says 
that the kind of sheep to keep depends on the 
soil and pasturage. The South Down is the 
best breed to cross with native ewes that are 
made to forage a great portion of the time. 
Merinos do better in large flocks than do the 
heavy mutton sheep. Heavy breeds cannot 
range as easily as the small sheep, and there¬ 
fore require more attention. Using the im¬ 
proved breeds for crossing means that a larger 
allowance of food must be given if success is 
expected.. . . 
Professor Henry, before a late Wisconsin 
Institute, alluded to the dislike some farmers 
have of buying anything to feed on their farm; 
and the mistaken notion they have that all 
they pay out for cattle food, is so much loss. 
They take the ground that if the farm doesn’t 
produce enough to give the animals abundant 
rations, the only two remedies are that 
the animals must be stinted in food, or that 
part of them must be sold, even at half price. 
This is not business; Professor Henry calls it 
ignorance It is acting on good business prin¬ 
ciples to buy all the food that it takes to keep 
animals growing and producing, in health and 
vigor, just as certainly as it is to good econ¬ 
omy to buy sawlogs to make the investment 
in a mill pay. To make money either out of 
the animal or the mill, each must be used up 
to its capacity. 
Prof. Henry further said, according to 
Hoard’s Dairyman, that milch cows would 
drink 75 to 100 pounds of warmed water a 
day, but would not drink so much ice-cold 
water. A cow needs a volume of water m her 
body m proportion to the volume of milk she 
gives. Hence if the water is so cold that she 
wiil not drink it, the natural result comes— 
shrinkage of the volume of milk. It is as 
plain as checking deposits out of a bank. 
The Orange County Farmer, alluding to 
the fact that in some of our agricultural col¬ 
leges there are those who look with greater or 
less contempt on the students who practice 
manual labor, remarks with forcible irony 
that it is plebeian to work, oh, very. Yet 
these same snobs will play baseball aud 
cricket uutil they are utterly exhausted, aud 
break others’ bones at football without a 
thought of demeaning themselves. Useful 
labor is demoralizing in their eyes: ilie hard¬ 
est of labor which they call sport, is elevating. 
It is consoling to think that these upstarts 
generally find their level in the end, and the 
ones who take their ease in their latter days 
are the plebeians who in their youth were 
not ashamed to work. 
Mr. Hoard says that fine butter is the 
product of fine thinking. A correspondent of 
the Live Stock Indicator replies that his wife 
makes flue butter, but when he takes it to the 
country merchant he can get no more for it 
than for grease. Mr. Hoard replies that the 
correspondent seems to have done very little 
good thinking on the butter question. Sound 
thinking would have taught him better than 
to subject fine butter to the disastrous con¬ 
ditions of such a market. The butter was 
not to blame that it did not sell for what it 
was worth; but he was. 
The Boston Globe says that the fashionable 
"’omen of New York, vapid, rapid, stupid, 
immodest, ^'indelicate, irreverent, devoid of 
true maternal instinct, powdered, rouged, 
false, ought to be held up that the young girls 
of the country who long for metropolitan 
mockeries may understand what it is they 
hope to come to, Juay be able to see with their 
as yet uudimmed vision the dirt that lies be¬ 
neath these painted surfaces..... 
At the late convention of farmers, at Hart¬ 
ford, Conn., Professor Alvord remarked that 
the influence of the breed on the constitution 
of butter was of the highest order and that 
food was of comparatively small effect. 
Since the color is pleasing to the eye, Pro¬ 
fessor Alvord saw no objection to adding 
coloring matter directly in the butter. In 
answer to a question as to what breeds gave 
the best milk for infants’ food, he said that 
physicians recommended the milk of Ayr- 
shires and the various Dutch breeds since it 
was not too rich in fats. 
Formerly Dr. Sturtevaut had considered 
breed as inferior to feed; but after six years’ 
work in the experiment station, he has made 
up his mind that the breed was the more im¬ 
portant. He also said that in those six years 
he had never been able to change the quality 
of butter by changing the food. 
ABSTRACTS. 
Country Home: “The sow with a long 
body will make the best breeder.”-“The 
general-purpose cow to end up in a big bunch 
of beef is a fallacy, for a good cow should be 
kept for milk uutil she is past profit to feed 
for beef. It does not pay to try to fatten old 
cows.”-National Stockman: “The win¬ 
ter milker eats but little more than the dry 
cow that carries her calf, and is stripped at 
both ends of the winter.”-Boston Globe: 
“If it were not for the healthful income from 
our rural districts, the metropolis and all 
smaller cities, would be wrecked on the rocks 
of dissipation, dirt and deviltry.”-“As 
the lust for money, generally understood as 
avarice, is certain to lead one into infernal 
paths, making him forget his obligations, so 
is a lust, a desire, for popularity and especially 
for newspaper popularity certain to bring 
public men into merited contempt sooner or 
later.”-Texas Siftings: “Did you ever 
find a man who had a good home that was 
paid for who was an anarchist?”-“Know 
all men by these presents that the holi¬ 
day season is once more upou us.”- - 
Fruit Grower: “An old law} - er said that if 
a stranger should claim his new overcoat he 
would take it oft' and let the stranger have it 
rather than stand a law suit.”-N. Y. 
World: “The Rural New-Yorker is the 
best agricultural paper in the country.”- 
Husbandman: “Bastoral industry can not 
thrive on honeyed words of praise from men 
in power who betray with smiles that mask 
but poorly the cold disdain they feel.”- 
Philadelphia Press: “A young man asks the 
Rural New-Yorker whether he shall buy a 
run-down and worn-out farm, with buildings 
neglected and out of repair, to bring it up 
with artificial fertilizers. He gets the sound 
advice not to buy such a farm at any price. 
There is nothing more delusive than the hope 
of profitably improving land that is infertile 
originally or worn down by over-cropping. 
No land is cheap but good laud. One acre 
that will produce 30 bushels of wheat is worth 
a good deal more than three acres that will 
produce bub ten bushels each. The cost of 
seed and cultivation is three times as much in’ 
the three acres, so that the 30 bushels raised 
on them may yield no profit whatever—may 
be a dead loss—while the first gives a fair 
margin of gain. Many a man who has strug¬ 
gled for a lifetime for a bare living on 100 
acres of thin,hungry land would now be better 
off if he had given his farm away in early 
manhood.” 
VC. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Dakota. 
Hot Springs, Fall River Co.—Correctly 
speaking, this is a stock-raising country, and 
very little attention has been paid to any of 
the products of the dairy. The country was 
opened by miners for god and silver, and all 
other things were neglected, and provisions 
were brought iu from the outside world. Hot 
Springs is known as the great health resort of 
our Northwest, and is located in the foot-hills 
of the Black Hills, about 90 miles south of 
Deadwood and 13 miles from Buffalo Gap, 
which place is on the Freemont, Elkhorn and 
Missouri Valley Railroad. Our town is really 
dependent on our hotels,and there will always 
be a demand for good butter. The past season 
the demand exceeded the supply; but all the 
butter is made iu the old fashioned way, which 
involves too much hard work. My cows are 
not great milkers, nor am I breeding for milk¬ 
ing strains, as stock-raising is more profitable. 
They are American cattle, such as grade Dur- 
hams, Herefords, Jerseys, and most of them I 
milk. I dry up early, however, so they can 
fatten on the Buffalo Grass before cold weath¬ 
er. f. w. M. 
Indiana. 
LaGrange, LaGrange Co.—The past season 
was the driest ever known here. Very wet 
in June, and corn promised to be an extraor¬ 
dinary crop, but the drought following cut it 
short. It was about half a crop in the south¬ 
ern part of the county; some pieces were nearly 
a full crop. Has been a good fall for husking, 
so all is in crib. Wheat, better than last year. 
The fly was not so bad; about two-thirds of 
an average yield. About the usual acreage 
has been sown. It made a very good growth. 
Oats and rye fair crops. A good deal of rye 
was sown for fall pasture. Hay was an im¬ 
mense crop, and was mostly secured in good 
shape. Extra early potatoes were good; late 
potatoes were an entire failure with some, and 
with others a third or half a crop, some very 
late ones forming after some light rains in 
September, but many were frozen in the 
ground by the extreme cold in October. Ap¬ 
ples, a very small yield. Pears, very abund¬ 
ant; no cherries; a few peaches. Grapes so 
plentiful as to glut the market. An immense 
yield of strawberries; prices very low, 
yet choice fruit brought a good price; 
prospect not good for next season; many 
patches were injured by the drought, 
garden truck, early vegetables were extra 
fine and abundant, owing to the very favor¬ 
able spring; but the later truck was pretty 
nearly a “fizzle.” ‘No late cabbage worth 
speaking of; onions about one-foui th of a crop; 
early celery was carried along until fall and 
made a splendid crop for fall use. Many 
hogs have been fed and turned off as soon 
as at all fit, on account of the shoit 
corn crop; good prices have been received in 
general. A good many cattle and sheep are 
being fed for the spring market. c. w. G. 
Nebraska. 
Brownsville, Nemaha Co. — Our crops 
generally this year were short, particularly 
corn, our principal crop. We had hoped that 
the increase of acreage would offset the de¬ 
crease of yield per acre in making the aggre¬ 
gate yield reach a full average; but we are 
short many thousands of bushels. In spite of 
this, however, we have corn to sell. Small 
grains, though short in yield, are of excellent 
quality. All in all, we have no serious reason 
for complaining. r. w. f. 
attisrcUan*ott0 
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